Under the Radar decks, Summer 2011 Edition

[dontbiteitholmes]

Okay, so with the last SCG event we saw some serious under the radar action come in with Manaless Dredge, Blue Zoo, GBw Depths, and Burn in the top 16. I've been saying Burn has been a dark horse for a while now as it's finally a valid deck again with strong game against Control and Tribal decks that define the format right now.

What decks are Under the Radar right now in your opinion? Strong contenders that no one is playing or running the gauntlet against that have the potential to top 16 a large event like Legacy Nats or some SCG Open.

[troopatroop]

Tropical Island -> Nacatl is under the radar, imo. Caleb's build is very good, and you should test against it, but there are numerous other builds that can be sucessful. Daze and Force aren't in "that" deck, but they could be, and they're more likely to be played into if they expect the Jace list.

Noble Hierarch/GSZ enabling Jace in a BigZoo shell, is seriously brilliant. I'm jealous I didn't think of it before.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I'd say right now Dragon Stompy is under the radar. They have 8 Moon effect MD that can easily be dropped on the first turn and completely bury a deck that isn't able to fetch out a basic in time. I see a lot of lists that I don't like but I think the right one is out there somewhere and absolutely no one seems to be playing the deck right now.

[menace13]

Aluren isn't seeing as much play as I think it should. Laregly Misstep proof, plays Therapy+FoW and for the low cost of 2k can be yours:tongue:! I don't play the deck(have the cards), so not sure if it is good in the current meta, but I think the format being slowed would only help it?

[NecroYawgmoth]

I'd say right now Dragon Stompy is under the radar. They have 8 Moon effect MD that can easily be dropped on the first turn and completely bury a deck that isn't able to fetch out a basic in time. I see a lot of lists that I don't like but I think the right one is out there somewhere and absolutely no one seems to be playing the deck right now.

Dragon Stompy is always under the radar... People just fear playing with it because it still has the same inconstance issues as it has 3 years ago. Also It is full of bad creatures. No creature is a really fat beater or anything similar to the other creatures in the format. The 8 Moons & 4 Chalice / Trini [and maybe Revoker] is all this deck has. That's the reason no one plays it. :eek:

[ivanpei]

Dragon stompy is really really under the radar. With people stretching it by skipping forces/playing less than 4, and hymns instead of thoughtseize, decks like these get destroyed by a moon effect. Misstep has replaced daze in many lists, making landing the t1 moon all that easier. Dragon stompy has crappy dudes. That has always been the problem. I'm currently playing a 6 equipment (3 jitte's and 3 sobm) + utility weenies version. Once red starts getting efficient beefcakes, we can start looking back at dragon stompy.

For now, it is just not powerful enough to warrant the inconsistencies.

[DrHealex]

Playing NO rug undefeated until round 4 where I faced against some deck that I can only assume would be called MONO RED PAINTER. first game he goes first and plays great furnace -> top, i misstep and assume its a painter deck, i play a trop and green sun for 0 to get dryad arbor, next turn he plays a mountain and plays grindstone and passes, next turn i fetch a volcanic and pass the turn. On his draw I clique and see 3x magus of the moon, jaya balard, mountain..yea i lost that game. g2 he gets painter combo and wins.

[Shawon]

Also, if Dragon Stompy fails to resolve a turn 1 Moon effect, its win percentages drastically fall. Any deck with Show and Tell in it just needs ONE island to ruin you. And that's just one deck or more precisely, one subset of a metagame that can beat you. And +1 to ivanpei's last sentence.

[CorpT]

Is this the I-call-my-favorite-deck-under-the-radar-to-make-myself-feel-better-even-though-it-is-actually-not-good thread?

[kiblast]

Is this the I-call-my-favorite-deck-under-the-radar-to-make-myself-feel-better-even-though-it-is-actually-not-good thread?

So true. I mean, how can you call DS an ''under the radar deck'' ?

edit: unless by ''under the radar'' you mean: correctly ignored by the meta.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Is this the I-call-my-favorite-deck-under-the-radar-to-make-myself-feel-better-even-though-it-is-actually-not-good thread?

No, I don't play DS. I did play Burn at the last SCG because I thought it was a good call, not because it's my deck or because I can't afford to play anything else (I can pretty much afford to play everything else). I went 6-3 losing to 2 UW Stoneforge decks (one of which ended with him @ 1 life on game 3) and a Lands player who obviously got extremely lucky (first turn Zuran Orb, Exploration, Mox Diamond, Life from the Loam, which dredged into his Glacial Chasm game 1, Game 2 I start out with a 3x Price of Progress hand and he once again manages to drop a turn 1 Orb and turn 3 Chasm and I never found a Relic which would have won me the game at multiple points).

[SurFitOfTheVine]

Tropical Island -> Nacatl is under the radar, imo. Caleb's build is very good, and you should test against it, but there are numerous other builds that can be sucessful. Daze and Force aren't in "that" deck, but they could be, and they're more likely to be played into if they expect the Jace list.

Noble Hierarch/GSZ enabling Jace in a BigZoo shell, is seriously brilliant. I'm jealous I didn't think of it before.

Caleb's deck is nothing new.

[(nameless one)]

I think in general, Chalice decks are under the radar.

Also, is CounterTop that horrible now because of Mental Misstep? It's not that they can't run their own set.

[ESG]

CounterTop took a big hit with the printing of Green Sun's Zenith. The printing of Mox Opal and the unbanning of Grim Monolith didn't help either. Mental Misstep and Batterskull were two more problems the deck didn't want to see.

[Malchar]

The deck I'm currently playing is under the radar, but if I told you what it was then it wouldn't be anymore.

[Amon Amarth]

I really like Aggro Loam because it is the best deck that dodges MM and doesn't have to do any distorting. It has a solid game plan against aggro decks and tons of CA against dedicated control decks. Plus being RBG gives it a ton of excellent SB options. I'd seriously consider looking into it.

[Hopo]

I really like Aggro Loam because it is the best deck that dodges MM and doesn't have to do any distorting. It has a solid game plan against aggro decks and tons of CA against dedicated control decks. Plus being RBG gives it a ton of excellent SB options. I'd seriously consider looking into it.

But you wouldn't say a deck that just recently won a high profile tournament is flying "under the radar", would you?

[catmint]

Playing NO rug undefeated until round 4 where I faced against some deck that I can only assume would be called MONO RED PAINTER. first game he goes first and plays great furnace -> top, i misstep and assume its a painter deck, i play a trop and green sun for 0 to get dryad arbor, next turn he plays a mountain and plays grindstone and passes, next turn i fetch a volcanic and pass the turn. On his draw I clique and see 3x magus of the moon, jaya balard, mountain..yea i lost that game. g2 he gets painter combo and wins.

You probably mean Imperial Painter. It might be underplayed, because of the price for imperial recruiter...

[kiblast]

But you wouldn't say a deck that just recently won a high profile tournament is flying "under the radar", would you?

It is underplayed anyway. Problem is that you don't learn how to play AggroLoam in a week... probably very few players play it because is a bit difficult to pilot properly ?

[Finn]

What a letdown. I thought this was a link to an actual article rather than a cheerleader convention.

Ooh, and anything that plays aggro and discard should be good right now, but not for long. Blue is somehow losing its footing.

[Amon Amarth]

But you wouldn't say a deck that just recently won a high profile tournament is flying "under the radar", would you?

People, most anyways, are very slow to adjust. It's not like any of these decks are unknown quantities. Besides that was the 4 color version which I would never, ever play. Such a terrible manabase.

[Octopusman]

There is some subjectivity when calling something under the radar. Unless something is defined, people will always have differing viewpoints.


I do play Dragon Stompy. I also feel that it is well positioned right now. I am going to continue to play it until I feel that it is once again in bad shape. However, I do feel that it will only get better. I feel that it's only a matter of time before they print a fantastic hoser (likely against tribal or mono colored decks with basics in my dreams) at 2R. A fantastic creature at 2R or 3CMC wouldn't hurt either.

Typically, I would keep my trap shut since forums influence peoples' decisions about what to play. However, I feel that you don't care about Dragon Stompy if you never play against it. For the time being, it is played by an extremely small number of players (likely due to no exciting finishes). Therefore, it's just going to be a deck certain decks fold to.

It already has a great game one and with misstep, that's up to 4 more dead cards for them as others have mentioned. People are very greedy with their manabases right now which is why I'm surprised I don't see more stifle (if I'm missing something, I would love someone to explain why tempo decks aren't running stifle - wasteland stifle has traditionally been on a roller coaster coming in and our of favor as people tune their decks back and forth against this package).
It's true that SnT has been hard on Dragon Stompy but if you think you might face SnT at least DS has metamorph now.
Anarchy has already been a great out versus prog, moat, peacekeeper, etc.

I'm hopeful that there will be some top finishes with it sooner or later.

[ivanpei]

I think countertop is playable but only in the form of countertop thopther. In other builds, as mentioned before, counterbalance is just too easy to play around/through. In countertop thopther, the combo is more efficient because you have etutor to assemble it quickly. Also, it is the protection piece of choice once you have bridge down. You can't sandbag counterspells to protect bridge because that allows creatures through. Jace/counterbalance top are permanent based protection which do an excellent job of protecting your lock piece.

I also think countertop thopther is extremely underplayed. People are dropping grips from the board. I see stuff like needle/natures claim/ancient grudge replacing the grip spots. This is a good time for countertop thopthers. Countertop thopthers also mds 4 missteps (well at least I do) so it's a fair fight. Being able to run peacekeeper optimally G2 is also extremely awesome.

[bruizar]

Not so much a deck as it is a completely nuts card at the moment: Misdirection is underplayed.

[nayon]

Not so much a deck as it is a completely nuts card at the moment: Misdirection is underplayed.

Nowadays some people aren't playing 4 forces, and against Natural Order and Show and Tell decks, most people would rather have Forces than Misdirection. It's true that sometimes you can get insane value by misdirecting a Hymn or a Visions, but statistically it's probably not worth running more than 1.

[Shawon]

I think Elves Combo is underplayed. It was going uphill in popularity until Mental Mistep became legal, but then again Mistep makes going off with Glimpse a little harder. Still, the aggroish Elves combo decks could conceivably see more play.

[(nameless one)]

I think Elves Combo is underplayed. It was going uphill in popularity until Mental Mistep became legal, but then again Mistep makes going off with Glimpse a little harder. Still, the aggroish Elves combo decks could conceivably see more play.

I think you just explained why Elves Combo is underplayed.

I still think any Chalice based deck are underplayed. There are a lot of important spells out there that has a converted mana cost of 1.

I remember reading an article on how at the advent of Mental Misstep, decks are running more 1CC spells. Chalice based decks not only shuts down these spells it also shuts down Mental Misstep. I think its really good for Chalice decks right now that Force of Wills are getting switched with Mental Missteps.

[troopatroop]

I think you just explained why Elves Combo is underplayed.

I still think any Chalice based deck are underplayed. There are a lot of important spells out there that has a converted mana cost of 1.

I remember reading an article on how at the advent of Mental Misstep, decks are running more 1CC spells. Chalice based decks not only shuts down these spells it also shuts down Mental Misstep. I think its really good for Chalice decks right now that Force of Wills are getting switched with Mental Missteps.

Both these decks are inconsistant. Why? Because they don't/can't play Brainstorm. You can say that these decks are underplayed, and it appears that way because they have very high power levels, but the reason they're not getting played is because they lose to themselves 1/7 times. Chalice decks are infamous for this, and people are tired of it. Also, Combo taking a back seat was not what Chalice wanted to see.

[Amon Amarth]

I'd hardly say Elves loses to itself. Even if you fizzle while comboing off you still have a bunch of dudes in lay and I've won more than my fair share of games just bashing in with mana dorks and Lords. You don't need Brainstorm because Green has a ton of playable tutors.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

I'd hardly say Elves loses to itself. Even if you fizzle while comboing off you still have a bunch of dudes in lay and I've won more than my fair share of games just bashing in with mana dorks and Lords. You don't need Brainstorm because Green has a ton of playable tutors.

This. Elves isn't top tier right now, obviously, but it's still a very respectable deck. It's also annoyingly good at playing defense against most aggro decks with a massive wall of dorks while it sets up again.

I'm pretty sure this qualifies as an Under the Radar deck, although I haven't tested it enough to know how good it is (I'm betting it's a little too reliant on sticking its setup.) ...But I played against this kid who used Fluctuator to cycle about a bazillion large vanilla creatures into his graveyard for free (often using landcycling dudes, which was pretty sweet), then... You guessed it, Cascade into Living End. It was worth a few chuckles, if nothing else. But IMO, Living End is much more of a card to watch than Hypergenesis ever will be. (I mean, FFS, Eureka exists if you really want that effect-- break out the wallet people :tongue: )

EDIT: Speaking of Eureka, why has no one jammed that in a deck with Show and Tell yet to see what hilarity ensues? Seems like Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker would be pretty spicy, since Eureka works with any permanents.

[evanmartyr]

Given how easy it is to play, cheap to build, and inherently powerful, I'm surprised more people don't play belcher or some other similar combo. It gets wrecked by some things, sure (frequently itself, even), but it's good, cheap, and simple. Merfolk is the same, really, and it's all over the damn place.

[Julian23]

To be fair, Merfolk is way more expensive than Belcher.

I guess Belcher is played so little because most people just don't want to be "that Belcher guy...".

[Beatusnox]

Given how easy it is to play, cheap to build, and inherently powerful, I'm surprised more people don't play belcher or some other similar combo. It gets wrecked by some things, sure (frequently itself, even), but it's good, cheap, and simple. Merfolk is the same, really, and it's all over the damn place.

One land Blecher costs 270 dollars(or did when I priced it out). And while it is a good deck, in the current formant where the most common decks are blue I cannot advocate running it, nor advising people to run it. Beyond that, if you try two land belcher which has more protection and less explosiveness, It is less consistent and not as good of a deck, and cannot advocate running it. Right now, none of the combo decks out there are 'cheap', not for one with any consistency.

[Gheizen64]

This. Elves isn't top tier right now, obviously, but it's still a very respectable deck. It's also annoyingly good at playing defense against most aggro decks with a massive wall of dorks while it sets up again.

I'm pretty sure this qualifies as an Under the Radar deck, although I haven't tested it enough to know how good it is (I'm betting it's a little too reliant on sticking its setup.) ...But I played against this kid who used Fluctuator to cycle about a bazillion large vanilla creatures into his graveyard for free (often using landcycling dudes, which was pretty sweet), then... You guessed it, Cascade into Living End. It was worth a few chuckles, if nothing else. But IMO, Living End is much more of a card to watch than Hypergenesis ever will be. (I mean, FFS, Eureka exists if you really want that effect-- break out the wallet people :tongue: )

EDIT: Speaking of Eureka, why has no one jammed that in a deck with Show and Tell yet to see what hilarity ensues? Seems like Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker would be pretty spicy, since Eureka works with any permanents.

Fluctuator + Cascade = gigafail

If you use fluctuator, your win condition should be something on the lines of Songs of the damned + drain effect.

Living end as a deck is just a worse Hypergenesis, especially after the printing of the chancellor that allow you to go off T1 stupidly often.

[(nameless one)]

It would be hilarious to see someone cascade into a Fluctuator though.