[Deck] Team America (Midrange/Control Thread)

[antesha]

Polluted Delta - 4
Misty Rainforest - 3
Verdant Catacombs - 2
Underground Sea - 4
Tropical Island - 3
Bayou - 1
Wasteland - 4
Creeping Tar Pit - 2

Snapcaster Mage - 4
Tarmogoyf - 4

Force of Will - 4
Brainstorm - 4
Spell Snare - 2
Spell Pierce - 2
Ponder - 1
Go for the Throat - 1
Dismember - 1
Ghastly Demise - 1
Smother - 1
Hymn to Tourach - 4
Inquisition of Kozilek - 2
Thoughtseize - 2
Life from the Loam - 1
Pernicius Deed - 1
Jace, the Mind Sculptor - 2
Liliana of the Veil - 1

please share your thoughts...

ty

[Einherjer]

Okay guys - I have played alot of games with my list posted last page or somewhere... and I went to locals with it. Normally I never end up worse than 2nd - I mostly win due to my hightierdecks+skill. But this time I took BUG Control the first time and ended up last. You know, this kind of hurts. I threw this deck away as soon as I came home and built Canadian.

So what happened? At my locals I faced alot of undertiered budget-decks combined with bad luck. I lost to Poxx, Affinity, MonoB Reanimator and UW Basicland CounteThopter only winning a superior 2-0 vs Maverick ( the only tiered deck )

I mean yes I had bad luck - but this deck just has so much weaknesses in the lowtiersection. Poxx resolved a Crucible twice and GAME. I didnt find a Deed versus Affinity GAME. Okay I had bad luck vs Reanimator ..and again UW Thopter just seemed to be the stronger control-deck.

After all I am pretty disappointed - by this deck and by myself.

Maybe ( and yes its ME whos sayin that ) it is time to go back to one of the two decks this deck emerged from. Say TeamAmerica or BUG Landstill.

What do you think? Has anyone of you been on a tournament lately? I mean my list was great vs tiered decks but its brutal weakness vs budgetshit is just humiliating...

Greetings

[wcm8]

Maybe ( and yes its ME whos sayin that ) it is time to go back to one of the two decks this deck emerged from. Say TeamAmerica or BUG Landstill.

I have pretty much always felt this way. By being a jack of all trades, you also end up being a master of none. Against the decks you listed, both TA and Deedstill probably would have faired better.

Control decks, by their nature, have to have cards that specifically address the metagame they are attacking. If you played against a bunch of "real" tier decks, you probably wouldn't have had as many problems. But I think BUG Control is still including a bunch of cards that aren't really the best for the metagame right now. And as far as implementing a midrange-y Jace control strategy goes, I think UW has better tools to work with. This is all just based on my personal experience/testing of course.

[sumbahdy]

Hi all. We recently just concluded a 107 player Legacy event here in Manila and I played at the event using BUG Control(America or whatever you might call the deck since I believe it is a hybrid of both). For reference this is what I used:

3x Bayou
1x Island
2x Misty Rainforest
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
1x Tropical Island
4x Underground Sea
3x Verdant Catacombs
4x Wasteland
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Vendilion Clique
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
3x Ghastly Demise
1x Go For The Throat
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Liliana of The Veil
1x Pernicious Deed
2x Ponder
3x Spell Snare
2x Thoughtseize

First of all, I bombed during the tournament. We expected the usual stuff (RUG, Gobs, Mav, Blade.dec, Dredge, ANT, Zoo and Affinity) sadly I only played against 1 of them but others are mostly generic hate. Not much details but what I was up against were Dredge, UW Landstill, BW Tokens, Burn and Zoo.

Some explanation on the card choices:
2x Thoughtseize VS. 2x Hymn - first I had Hymns in there but later decided I like targeted rather random discard. Also, the fact that I can Snap back the 1cc discard on the 3rd turn. I don't think I missed Hymn in its place during the tournament.

10x Creatures - During testing I was running only 4 Goyf and Snaps but found it too slow alongside the 3 Jace and 1 Liliana. I just can't seem to close out games faster than I expected leading to draws or being beaten by a top decked bomb.

4x Removal + 1 Deed Main - This is in preparation for the Mav and other creature based match-ups. I think this would be the right mix for now seeing that Mav is rampant along with other 1-2cc creature horde decks.

23 Land Manabase - Was never a fan of Riptide tricks before. I ran 2 basics as opposed to 3 by JimmyC27 to support the 2black or 2u the deck. Also, it means I won't be as prone to wastelands as using all non basics.

Here's the thing. Seeing the results of my tournament experience leads me to ask if this is still the deck for me to play. I've always been a fan or BG+color decks and really believe this deck suits my play style. I want to reassess what happened and went wrong if I were to pick up the deck again. Should the deck's direction go this way (aggro Control with midgame Jace plan) or lean towards the BUG Still decks(lesser crits, more Deeds and Walkers) in the deck?

Hope to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

[JimmyC27]

@sumbahdy

What was your sideboard? Also, why did you feel like you were losing matches? What was your record?

[Einherjer]

As I mentioned before - this deck has some good MUs in the tiered decks - but I dropped it in favor or BUG Landstill (at first - Ill take TA if Landstill fails^^) just in order to not fold to any budget-wannabe-strategie

Greetings

[bruizar]

As I mentioned before - this deck has some good MUs in the tiered decks - but I dropped it in favor or BUG Landstill (at first - Ill take TA if Landstill fails^^) just in order to not fold to any budget-wannabe-strategie

Greetings

I don't think Landstill is a solid deckchoice at the moment. I've tested it a lot but you simply die burn. You can't drop a landstill against burn and your clock is hideously slow so they will just destroy you eventually. Same goes for U/R delver builds and even GW (liliana is poor against gw because they will sack a dryad arbor every time you try to kill something relevant, and the spot removal isn't very good with sylvan safekeeper and mother of ruins on the table either.)

I would rather play ancestral visions or counterbalance than standstill

[wizard_of_gore]

I don't think Landstill is a solid deckchoice at the moment. I've tested it a lot but you simply die burn. You can't drop a landstill against burn and your clock is hideously slow so they will just destroy you eventually. Same goes for U/R delver builds and even GW (liliana is poor against gw because they will sack a dryad arbor every time you try to kill something relevant, and the spot removal isn't very good with sylvan safekeeper and mother of ruins on the table either.)

I would rather play ancestral visions or counterbalance than standstill

First - it's mother of runes

Second -sorry, but landstill against gw decks is almost auto - win. Ok, it's not so easy, but it's supposed to be in our favor, because of pernicious deed. that card eat them alive. Even recuring wasteland, bunch of counterspells and reusable removal (liliana). Mother of runes is never be problem for UBGx landstill - we have plenty of edict effects - and speaking of that, of all control decks in format, UBG landstill have answer for thrun too. Resolved standstill against gw/maverick/company in right time wins you game. They can't race you with such a card advantage.

Against burn you can just pick up your cards and go home, as you said.

[flounce]

Against burn you can just pick up your cards and go home, as you said.

I usually flip the table on the way out aswell.

I do have 2 slots in the Sideboard currently and might put in 2 chills for this matchup.

[catmint]

@Philipp
I had a very similar experience to yours. I took a BUG intuition/loam list from hanni to a local tournament, got some bad pairings, had some bad luck but most importantly: played very poorly.

Reasons for that were mostly: No practice/experience/knowledge about the deck + the wrong mindset to play a full blown control deck like BUG deedstill/intution.

I knew if I want to be successful with a deck (any deck) I need to put a lot of work into it...you can also take Burn, RUG Tempo, Combo, UW, or whatever deck and end up 1:3 if you are not good with it. On the other hand a really good players using NO RUG; Goblins or Merfolk can be very successful in local tourney altough these decks are not very well positioned currently.

So, i decided for me not to switch decks every week like the metagaming "pros" we are listening to, but rather focus to learn 2-3 different decks really well. Same message to you sumbahdy... also your list does not look fine tuned...

Concerning the discussion Deedstill/BUG/TA: I think my list (or lists close to the high finishes from GP Amsterdam) are still the best positioned ones playing BUG, but also TA continues to have success.... Anyway it is much more important that you know exactly what you are doing with your deck.

btw.: thanks for the Input on nic fit Jimmy. I'll give it a shot. I might even have a very good testing partner...

[bruizar]

First - it's mother of runes

Second -sorry, but landstill against gw decks is almost auto - win. Ok, it's not so easy, but it's supposed to be in our favor, because of pernicious deed. that card eat them alive. Even recuring wasteland, bunch of counterspells and reusable removal (liliana). Mother of runes is never be problem for UBGx landstill - we have plenty of edict effects - and speaking of that, of all control decks in format, UBG landstill have answer for thrun too. Resolved standstill against gw/maverick/company in right time wins you game. They can't race you with such a card advantage.

Against burn you can just pick up your cards and go home, as you said.

I'm not sure if GW is that good of a matchup.
1) Edicts are worthless in the face of open fetch -> dryad arbor. GW has too many mana creatures to make edicts relevant.

2) What answers does landstill have for Thrun? It's not edicts and its not spot removal or deed.

3) Pernicious Deed can be destroyed by GSZ for Qasali Pridemage, since Pernicious Deed can't go off the same turn it is being cast. However, the GW player has to get the pridemage so its a good play, but even then its a turn 3 play with a turn 4 activation. That maens, you're well on your way to 0 life with a bit of bad luck. Even if you manage to Deed the board, all you have accomplished is not losing, instead of winning.

[wcm8]

]2) What answers does landstill have for Thrun? It's not edicts and its not spot removal or deed.

Perish and/or Damnation. Edicts DO answer Thrun post Deed.

[catmint]

Thrun is really not the deciding factor! The game is usually decided earlier by cards like KoR, Deed, Choke, Sylvan Library,...

If the Maverick players has nothing but a Thrun, it can easily be outtrumped by Jace & Liliana/Goyf.

[wizard_of_gore]

I'm not sure if GW is that good of a matchup.
1) Edicts are worthless in the face of open fetch -> dryad arbor. GW has too many mana creatures to make edicts relevant.

2) What answers does landstill have for Thrun? It's not edicts and its not spot removal or deed.

3) Pernicious Deed can be destroyed by GSZ for Qasali Pridemage, since Pernicious Deed can't go off the same turn it is being cast. However, the GW player has to get the pridemage so its a good play, but even then its a turn 3 play with a turn 4 activation. That maens, you're well on your way to 0 life with a bit of bad luck. Even if you manage to Deed the board, all you have accomplished is not losing, instead of winning.

You have very situational view. Maverick has hard time against heavy control decks based on board control. I don't want to say it's auto-win, but BUG landstill (and similar decks) are constructed to deal with creature decks in general.

[bruizar]

Thrun is really not the deciding factor! The game is usually decided earlier by cards like KoR, Deed, Choke, Sylvan Library,...

If the Maverick players has nothing but a Thrun, it can easily be outtrumped by Jace & Liliana/Goyf.

QFT. Let's not derail the thread. Thrun isn't really the point, and besides, those are all postboard answers. Maybe you guys are having a field party against GW, but I highly doubt it.

[catmint]

we were talking about deedstill which has a better matchup versus maverick.

If you read the primer and through the thread it is certainly not an easy matchup for BUG control. However, if you adapt your maindeck a little and know which gameplan to implement it is a favourable matchup... They will always put up a fight though!

[antesha]

What do you guys think about new UR delver deck...did anyone played against it?
Since RDW is problematic for us, this one could be very tough...

[catmint]

It is tougher than RUG control which is a positive matchup if played correctly, but not as bad as burn...

[antesha]

Any thoughts about Virtue's Ruin as a SB card, I'm thinking of putting one in and one Perish out since there is a lot of Maverick and UW Blade decks around...?

[sdematt]

Usually, when I refer to Perish, I mean Perish and Virtue's Ruin. I personally prefer Virtue's Ruin, especially if you're running more of a green creature slant (or are not running White at all). Killing Mother of Runes and Mindcensor can be imperative i some situations, whereas nuking their manabase can be more productive in others.

I usually run a split, unless I expect Elves! to show up.

-Matt

[flounce]

I went to a 39 Player BOM trial on Saturday, heres how I got on:

Heres the list I ran:

4 Goyf
4 Snapcaster

3 Jace TMS
1 Liliana

4 Brainstorm
4 Hymn
4 FOW
2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition
1 Life from the Loam
2 Ghastly Demise
2 Dismember
3 Spell Snare

4 Seas
2 Trop
2 Bayou
1 Tar pit
4 Wasteland
1 Swamp
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Detla
2 Verdant Catacombs

Board
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Extirpate
3 Deed
2 Ghastly Demise
3 Spell pierce
2 Thoughtseize
1 Island

Overall the deck felt really good.

But my tournament went like this:

Round 1 - Dredge W 2-1

G1 Scoop to save time when Dredge goes off.
G2 Extract all narcomebas and Extirpate all ichorids.
G3 Extirpate all the bridges, my opponent goes all in on Iona and names black. Which was a bit of a mistake, as my opponent saw a Jace from a cabal therapy, so I untap and bounce Iona.

Round 2 - Burn W 2-1

Probably should of lost this round, my opponent made a few play mistakes which cost him the match.

G1 lose to early GG and hellspark, that I cant answer.
G2 and G3 I run my opponent outs of cards and go to town with a goyf.

Round 3 - Burn L 1-2

G1 Lose (nothing much to say, he dealt me 20 damage)
G2 He keeps a 1 land hand and I turn 1 IoK his turn 1 GG. Hes never really in it as he doesn't draw a mountain till turn 4.
G3 Manage to stabalise with 2 x snapcasters on 6 life and he has no cards in hand, he then rips a pyrostatic pillar off the top, which I have no answer to.

Round 4 - U/R Burn W 2-0
G1- We both land flood in the mid game, but I have a Goyf which takes it down.
G2 - This goes really long, I stabilise at 5 life with a Jace and ultimate Jace for the win.

Round 5 - Dredge L 0-2
G1 - I scoop when he starts to go off.
G2 - I draw my opening seven, which has Exitipate and Snap, but wasteland as the only land. I mulligan to a medocre 6. His hand is really slow and I keep him off dredge long enuf so that Goyf is lethal next turn, he then rips a faithless looting off the top and proceeds to win.

At 3-2 and severly tilted I decide to drop, as 4-2 probably doesn't make it.

[archestraty]

anyone have thoughts on running BUG control at GP indy? i am only wondering due to the amount of dredge / burn that will be running around.

[jdsnider]

Here is the list that I have been running recently and it has been working out pretty well for me. I feel like I want some number of Darkblast either in the main or side but can't quite figure out what to cut or how many to run. Either way, I feel like the only decks that you really have a hard time with here are burn and dredge/reanimator, which the SB helps to shore up quite a bit. Any thoughts?

Planeswalkers:
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

Creatures:
3 Snapcaster Mage

Removal/Disruption:
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Smother
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Repeal

Counter and Filter:
4 Brainstorm
3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
4 Spell Snare

Lands:
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Wasteland

SB: 1 Damnation
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 3 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Nature's Claim
SB: 1 Life from the Loam
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Hydroblast

[JimmyC27]

@jdsnider

3x Finks on my SB have been really good against Burn/Aggro decks.

[catmint]

Nice result flounce...
3:2 having only very bad matchups is a success I think!

[antesha]

I'm on vacation in another city and I connected wit magic people for testing. Run into very expirienced player with deadguy ale deck and it's really bad matchup for me (mothers, hymns, vindicate, crusader...)...won 2 out of 10 games...any suggestions about strategy against WB decks? He came back from heavy discard, sweep..almost everything :mad:

ty

[wcm8]

I'm on vacation in another city and I connected wit magic people for testing. Run into very expirienced player with deadguy ale deck and it's really bad matchup for me (mothers, hymns, vindicate, crusader...)...won 2 out of 10 games...any suggestions about strategy against WB decks? He came back from heavy discard, sweep..almost everything :mad:
ty

For their creatures: Darkblast, Massacre, Virtue's Ruin, and Pernicious Deed can swing the game into your favor. Massacre especially will help deal with their deck if they over-extend.

If you are seeing a lot of Hymn decks, Divert and Misdirection are worth considering in your sideboard. Otherwise, you'll just have to try to strategically hide your bombs with Brainstorm in response to a Hymn/Thoughtseize. Jace, The Mindsculptor, Liliana of the Veil, and Sylvan Library are very helpful tools in a game that will end up going long.

[sdematt]

You're going to have to try to gain value off of Planeswalkers and Deeds. If you can out attrition them, you're fine.

-Matt

[JimmyC27]

You're going to have to try to gain value off of Planeswalkers and Deeds. If you can out attrition them, you're fine.

-Matt


Concur. My wins against Deadguy come from Deeds hitting multiple permanents, and Jace.

Couple of things I've noticed about this match up:

Ghastly Demise is awkward with Dark Confidant. You have to use Spell Snare/FOW normally to keep him off the board.

They can Vindicate your Deed before you get a chance to untap. So I would suggest pre-Deed discard, or holding your FOW to resolve a Deed. You can let most things resolve on board, so long as you wipe them with Deed later.

[Partyplatypus]

Is everyone happy with the creature base of 4 Tarmogoyf (+ 4 snapcaster) and a Creeping Tar Pit? I'm finding in a lot of matchups it is really an asset to have a creature in play. Are 1-2 Tombstalkers or something not worth the slots?

[JimmyC27]

Is everyone happy with the creature base of 4 Tarmogoyf (+ 4 snapcaster) and a Creeping Tar Pit? I'm finding in a lot of matchups it is really an asset to have a creature in play. Are 1-2 Tombstalkers or something not worth the slots?

I'd also consider testing 1-2 Scavenging Ooze if you have a 5th and 6th creature.

[Partyplatypus]

Seems like a good idea. I'm planning on playing this at GP Indy. Is it a good idea to dedicate some SB slots to burn since it has become really popular? What are the best anti-burn cards we have?

[flounce]

I don't know if Kitchen Finks and Chill are options?

I pretty much gave up putting cards in the board just for the burn match up. It seems like it the match will still be unfavourable even with 4+ cards coming in and you have lost slots which are very precious for a legacy sideboard.

[JimmyC27]

I'm playing BUG Control at the GP too. I side 3 Kitchen Finks in for aggro/burn matches. It has been good in testing. Also, Finks plays well with Pernicious Deed.

[catmint]

I'd rather have scavenging ooze than tombstalker. For me it is tough to increase the creature count, since the gamplan usually is about stabalizing first and then playing creatures.

Good luck to anyone at the GP!

[death]

[Beginning of the Planeswalker thread - Primer moved to the OP ~ Nihil Credo]

[Hanni]

All these decks look pretty similar to a deck I built a while back called The Mind Harvester.

I'm not sure why Snapcaster Mage is being run instead of Intuition, when you're already running a singleton Life from the Loam.

I'll just post my list here, for reference:

// Lands
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
1 [R] Bayou
2 [UNH] Island
1 [UNH] Swamp
1 [UNH] Forest
2 [ON] Lonely Sandbar
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [TE] Wasteland
1 [OD] Cabal Pit

// Creatures
1 [ISD] Snapcaster Mage

// Spells
1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
2 [ISD] Liliana of the Veil
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Intuition
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [IA] Counterspell
4 [AL] Force of Will
1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
2 [OD] Innocent Blood
2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
1 [RAV] Darkblast
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 2 [ARB] Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 4 [IA] Zuran Orb
SB: 1 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog

There's alot of room to play with in my list. Darkblast isn't necessary, and neither is the Ruins/EE, which could just as easily make room for more Snapcaster Mage's or Vendilion Clique's.

[death]

Life from the Loam is a great addition to the deck but the number of times you would need it against your matchups is uncertain. Intuition/Lftl engine may be a little too slow. If you can resolve a Jace and protect him, you win within 5 turns.

[dsck]

Scavenging Oozes from SB should do well against burn/dredge.

[Hanni]

If you can resolve a Jace and protect him, you win within 5 turns.

I agree, but if you can resolve an Intuition, you can win within 5 turns from Loam + Harvest too.

[death]

I agree. But the deck is better equipped at protecting your Planeswalkers, requires less resources than going for a graveyard/token combo.


Scavenging Oozes from SB should do well against burn/dredge.

It should do well against Dredge, for Burn however there aren't a lot of creatures around to get value from it's lifegain ability.

[sdematt]

There's a thread for this already, but a new one wouldn't be awful.

-Matt

[death]

There's a thread for this already, but a new one wouldn't be awful.

-Matt

All those decks are aggro-controllish with Tarmogoyfs and Hymn to Tourachs. No Pernicious Deeds and skimping on Liliana of the Veil. In contrast to this which only have 2,3,4 Snapcaster Mages as creatures. Read the first post.

[sdematt]

I could be wrong since I was always posting Planeswalker heavy versions in the BUG control thread, which is essentially what you're talking about.

-Matt

[Scordata]

You actually want to fetch your trops first, in case they've got double waste or something. No need to throw away a usea needlessly.

These manabases are really garbage imo. I'd get behind:
1 Island
3 Usea
3 Trop
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Wastes
4 Factories
8 Fetches

You COULD substitute a Usea/Trop for a Bayou - but why would you ever want to play that land? I've never been in a position where I thought to myself, "Man, it would be so sweet if I could fetch a Bayou here."

Maybe if you run Liliana, but that's a pretty lame excuse for Diabolic Edict.

[Hanni]

You say the manabases are garbage, yet you're trying to run 8 colorless mana sources in a deck that wants UU, BB, and GB. What's the point in Mishra's Factory? You're not running Standstill as a draw engine, and you have plenty of removal to protect your Planeswalker's already.

Factory also opens up your manabase to Swords to Plowshares. You're a control deck that wants to make land drops every turn. Seems like a bad idea, to me.

[death]

Reason why you SHOULD run Bayous is the same reason as why you wouldn't want to run your U Sea into a Wasteland, that is to avoid cutting yourself off a black source. Corner case scenario - either one of your duals get surgically extracted/extirpated, you're basically shut off from playing half of your spells.

[sdematt]

Or you could also run 5-6 basics. What's wrong with:

4 Underground Sea
2 Trop
2 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Cabal Pit
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Forest
2-3 Wasteland

Especially if you're running 1-2 Loams and 1-3 Intuition?

-Matt

[phazonmutant]

Seeing Nick Spagnolo's success in the Baltimore Invitational, I'm thinking about switching. The list that I'm testing currently (still rough, but testing well):

BUG Cartel
// Creatures
2 Snapcaster Mage

// Enchantments
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
2 Pernicious Deed

// Spells
4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
3 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Darkblast
1 Ghastly Demise
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
2 Innocent Blood
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Life from the Loam
1 Maelstrom Pulse

// Planeswalkers
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Garruk Relentless

// Lands
2 Island
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Mishra's Factory
2 Wasteland

// Sideboard:
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Dread of Night
1 Diabolic Edict
3 Extirpate
1 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
1 Hydroblast
1 Nature's Claim
1 Spell Pierce
1 Damnation
1 Perish

Some thoughts about the list:
- I've mostly played ANT in legacy, and that deck really showcases the power of 10+ cantrips. I'm trying out Carsten Kotter's (Mon,Goblin Chief) idea of running 10 cantrips (the cartel) in a control deck in a BUG shell. The deck runs only 21 lands, but the cantrips allow you to find lands or situational cards as needed (sometimes you need removal, sometimes you need counterspells). I've been pretty happy with the manabase so far - not yet been colorscrewed.
- It's a 61-card deck. If I'm going to rip off Carsten, might as well do it all the way. Reasonable cuts are a land, the fourth Jace, or one of the one-ofs.
- Night of Souls' Betrayal is really good against the meta right now
- Garruk has proven to be surprisingly good and Liliana has been mediocre.
- Discard isn't so hot in this deck. Inquisition is not impressive, Duress whiffs too often, but I'm not sure the deck can afford Thoughtseize.
- I have a Force of Will and a Hydroblast in the sideboard? Really?

[sdematt]

My list:

1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Cabal Pit
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
3 Wasteland

3 Snapcaster Mage

3 Jace, TMS
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Ghastly Demise
3 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
3 Spell Snare
2 Mana Leak
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Life from the Loam
1 Darkblast
2 Intuition
1 Maelstorm Pulse
1 Noxious Revival
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Innocent Blood

--BOARD--

2 Krosan Grip
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Extirpate
2 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm
2 Krosan Grip
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Virtue's Ruin
2 Chill
2 Dread of Night
1 Raven's Crime


Thoughts?

-Matt

[Koby]

EE is sometimes faster than Deed against a lot of decks. It also lends itself to recursion with Academy Ruins/Loam/Intuition.

[phazonmutant]

Matt -
I really don't like Intuition in the deck. It does allow you to find Loam + value, but at the end of the day, it's a 3 mana spell that doesn't even come close to winning the game and finding anything other than Loam is miserable. Realistically, you're spending 3 + 2 (+ possibly a draw step) just to draw 3 lands - good but not really backbreaking. It also forces you to run Noxious Revival. I'm imagining drawing that card and immediately reaching for my gun.

When would you ever want to fetch more than one Bayou? Having so many non-U sources prompts you to use the inferior Mana Leak - good in an aggro-control deck like UW, but less good in a control deck like BUG that expects to go long.

[Hanni]

I really don't like Intuition in the deck. It does allow you to find Loam + value, but at the end of the day, it's a 3 mana spell that doesn't even come close to winning the game and finding anything other than Loam is miserable. Realistically, you're spending 3 + 2 (+ possibly a draw step) just to draw 3 lands - good but not really backbreaking. It also forces you to run Noxious Revival. I'm imagining drawing that card and immediately reaching for my gun.

If he ran Worm Harvest, Intuition would win the game.

Intuition is also pretty cool with Snapcaster Mage, since it let's you tutor for countermagic or removal in the midgame.


When would you ever want to fetch more than one Bayou? Having so many non-U sources prompts you to use the inferior Mana Leak - good in an aggro-control deck like UW, but less good in a control deck like BUG that expects to go long.

I agree, I think his Mana Leak should be Counterspell.

[Misplayer]

@sdematt

How have the basics been? It seems like in a deck that wants U and/or B on turn 1, Ux on turn 2, BG or BB on turn 3 and UU on turn 4, basics could really hurt. Yes, basics make it harder for them to Wasteland you out of the game. However, with only 6 fetches it's unlikely that you'll be able to play basics for your first 4 land drops while you set up your manabase, so Wasteland will still delay the development of your gameplan AND if you have basics in play there's a better chance they'll be able to color-screw you. I think maybe 1 Island and 1 Swamp would be good enough to keep you from getting Wastelanded out of a game. 5 basics seems like it could hurt more than it could help.

Also, a lot of lists play Mana Leak for Snapcaster to ease the color requirements. I feel that Negate is better in this spot. Your whole deck is answers to creatures and in the late game Negate is still a hard counter against bombs.

Agreed that Counterspell is the probably optimal. Green is really a splash color that you will often use the turn you fetch for it, and then if they want to waste you off green that's fine because U and B are so much more important and you've already gotten the value out of that mana source. It's really a UB control deck with a green splash.

[wcm8]

What does everyone think about possibly running Darkslick Shores and/or Sunken Ruins?

The main argument against them is the synergy between Brainstorm/Jacestorm, the resiliency to Wasteland, and easy access to all colors that a glut of fetchlands provide. However, playing these in some number will actually provide a bit of protection against the near-ubiquitous Choke. Additionally, they reduce the likelihood of getting blown out by an early Stifle from tempo decks.

With these sorts of lands, we still gain access to multiple colors but can untap and activate a Pernicious Deed with little trouble. If the main incentive to play BUG Control is to whip on Maverick, why not further take the sails out of their game?

FWIW, I have tested a list similar to the one in the opening post, just dropping 4 fetchlands for 4 Shores, and I did not have problems with mana. I think these are stronger than trying to play basics in a tri-color deck, where it is much more likely to lose to your own color-screw than to Wasteland.

Back to Basics/Blood Moon/Price of Progress are going to kill you regardless of whether or not you run a handful of basics.

I have been a proponent of Darkslick Shores in Reanimator, and I think any U/B deck in Legacy should strongly consider it as a possible card for Underground Sea 5-8.

My proposed manabase:
4 Underground Sea
3-4 Darkslick Shores
2 Tropical Island
1-2 Bayou
3-4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
3-6 Open Slots -- more fetchlands, maybe 1-2 basics, 3rd Tropical, 1 Creeping Tarpit, or a Sunken Ruins -- really depends on the exact configuration of the build.

[phazonmutant]

If he ran Worm Harvest, Intuition would win the game.

Intuition is also pretty cool with Snapcaster Mage, since it let's you tutor for countermagic or removal in the midgame.
I'm not saying Intuition isn't cool, I'm saying it isn't worth the time invested in it. Sure, you can spend a turn to tutor for countermagic or removal, but what good is that going to do you when you need to kill that Wild Nacatl or Delver ASAP? If you're in a position to Intuition and Snapcaster something in the same turn, you've already won. And the idea of trying to resolve a 3-mana spell to stop the Delver beats against a deck with Daze, Stifle, and Wasteland just doesn't seem promising.

It seems far better to just run more cantrips. They reduce variance by allowing you to find the lands you need and the spells you need. Don't think that just because you run 24 lands you're immune to mana / color screw!

[Hanni]

I'm not saying Intuition isn't cool, I'm saying it isn't worth the time invested in it. Sure, you can spend a turn to tutor for countermagic or removal, but what good is that going to do you when you need to kill that Wild Nacatl or Delver ASAP? If you're in a position to Intuition and Snapcaster something in the same turn, you've already won.

The Snapcaster thing I was referring to was corner case, but here is an example. You have a Jace in play, Snapcaster in hand, and no spot removal in the yard. The opponent resolves a SFM, KotR, whatever. EOT you Intution for Loam + whatever (probably Worm Harvest), along with a Ghastly Demise in the pile. Next turn, cast Snapcaster, flashback Demise.

The Snapcaster thing doesn't need done all in the same turn. Tutoring up a countermagic spell to put in the graveyard can be done proactively; if you've got a Snapcaster in hand and a strong position, you can EOT Intuition for Loam + whatever, including a Counterspell.

More often than not, Intuition is going for Loam + Harvest anyway, with the third card being a cycle land, Wasteland, Cabal Pit, etc... whatever you need really. I don't think you guys quite understand just how powerful Intuition -> Loam/Harvest really is. The whole "slow" argument is pointless when you make the counter-argument that Jace can win you the game in 5 turns (if you can keep the board clear). Fact is, you get to Loam the following turn to insure you can make consistent lands drops, and at 5 lands you cast Worm Harvest for like 5+ 1/1 tokens, which stabilizes the board against groundbound aggro, or gives you a clock. A few more turns of spamming 1/1 tokens, and the game is over. Loam/Harvest is incredibly powerful. Why in the world you would play a BUG Control deck with 2 Loam's, no Intuitions, and no Worm Harvest's is beyond me.

[sdematt]

The Intuition is there exactly for what Hanni was talking about: you fetch some cards, and later in the game, you're flashing them back.

As much as you might think, Noxious is a decent card, allowing you to recur Deeds, dodge Surgicals (if they're bringing them in, this is a corner case, I'll admit), bring back dead Jaces, etc. It's *essentially* Snapcaster #4 for my permanents, if that makes sense.

I can probably agree with the Bayou, so that could probably be a Sunken Ruins or something.

Regarding all the basics, the main aim of what I'm trying to go for is to create a stable enough manabase to run up to 4 mana on turn 4 or 5, if possible. Running 24 lands helps me do this, and running basics makes sure that even if they untap with a Knight of the Reliquary, I don't get totally blown out. I agree more Fetches would be nice, so I'll have to tweak the manabase. I agree Mana Leak is a bit weak later in the game, so I'll have to adjust the manabase to take that into account for adding Counterspell, or Negate. I really like Negate :P

Regarding Worm Harvest, I found it to be a tad slow (which isn't necessarily a problem, but my meta is usually all about the aggro). I was actually running it in the board for the control decks, but it randomly got cut for something else, so I'll add it back into the main or board for sure, Hanni.

Intuition also lets you find Darkblast, Loam, and importantly, as crazy as this sounds, Cabal Pit. Cabal Pit has been bonkers everytime I've had it. Mucking Stoneforges, Snapcasters, Moms, Qasalis, Nobles, and such has been very good. Couple it with any other -1/-1 things (Darkblast, Night, etc.) and it's been really awesome. Plus, it's a land, so no protection!

Back to the basics thing. Being a control deck, I want to be able to run the entire deck off of basics if I have to. Obviously, I'd prefer to run all duals, but in this meta of Maverick everywhere, Price of Progress, and Wasteland, I'd much rather have some stability. I agree 5 basics may be a bit much, but they've been very good. I wouldn't cut it below one of each, to be perfectly honest. I want to have access to all my answers.

After having read the post regarding Darkslick shores, I'm intrigued. I may have to give this a try, at least to comment on whether or not I did or did not like it.

-Matt

[hofzge]

I'd go in a rather different direction and play something like Marco Cammiluzzi played (see the first post) with less land, more discard and cheaper spells:

4 Underground Sea
3 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Innocent Blood
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Counterspell
1 Life from the Loam
1 Dismember
2 Ghastly Demise
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Spell Snare
SB: 1 Hymn to Tourach
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Extirpate
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Tarmogoyf
SB: 3 Spell Pierce
SB: 3 Nihil Spellbomb


Maybe the manabase could use an overhaul and 1 Creeping Tar Pit or Darkslick Shores would be great instead of a random 3rd Bayou. I think running too many basics can really screw you over, but I could see playing an Island (or even a swamp if you are desperate).
Think about the worst case scenarios: 1st turn: U/B, 2nd turn: Gx/BB, 3rd turn BBx, 4th turn: UUxx with 4 colorless lands.

Other than that this deck is very good against combo and has more maindeck creatures that double as discard.

[wcm8]

Regarding Night of Souls' Betrayal -- is the reason for playing this instead of Engineered Plague due to its universal application, resistance to Deed on 3, or a combination of the two? It definitely gets style points, but I think Plague is generally better simply due to costing less and also not killing your own Cliques/Snapcasters. I do like that once you have it onboard and a Darkblast accessible, the majority of Legacy creatures are dead on arrival.

As far as the manabase goes, here's what I've been testing lately:

4 Underground Sea
3 Darkslick Shores
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland

It may seem a bit random, but it's been working out well. The deck is primarily U/B, so I don't see the need for having too many green sources except for on the turns that you're actually casting Deed or Loam. Darkslick Shores coming into play tapped has not been an issue (yet), and I like the fact that it gives us U/B early on without having to break a fetchland. I also like it as a way to help mitigate a Choke blow-out.

Creeping Tar Pit is the best man land finisher for this deck, but having one Factory is good since you can use it in conjunction with Loam to chump block indefinitely. I don't see any reason to load up on man lands though since we aren't using Standstill and they are really only useful after you've stablized.

Even though it doesn't really function as a land, I could see Maze of Ith making its way into the 75.

[Zalren]

I am trying to build my own BUG Planeswalker deck and have taken some great ideas from this thread. I would like some help to optimize my decklist please.

Land - 25
1 Maze of Ith
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Cabal Pit
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Academy Ruins
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs


Planeswalkers - 6
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor


Enchantments - 4
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
3 Pernicious Deed


Artifacts - 1
1 Engineered Explosives


Spells - 24
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Worm Harvest
2 Ghastly Demise
2 Innocent Blood
1 Darkblast
2 Life from the Loam
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Raven's Crime


I was thinking I should cut Ponder for some counters. I do have a playset of Force of Will but they are in another blue deck. Trying to get the Intuition to replace the Gifts Ungiven

Thanks in advance for any advice

[sdematt]

Night of Souls hits Spirits, humans, Clerics, Goblins, etc. E. Plague just doesn't have the same amount of reach, in a sense.

I was thinking something more like this, now that I've adjusted the manabase and such:

4 Underground Sea
2 Drowned Catacomb/Shores
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wasteland
1 Cabal Pit
1 Creeping Tar Pit
23

3 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
2 Negate
1 Intuition
2 Ponder
15

2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
3

3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil
5

1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Virtue's Ruin
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Ghastly Demise
1 Innocent Blood
1 Darkblast
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Life from the Loam
12

3 Snapcaster Mage
3

I'll be trying this out against Maverick, Stoneblade, and RUG and seeing how it goes.

-Matt

[Hanni]

Matt, you should really find a way to fit in a Worm Harvest, even with just 1 Intuition. You'd be suprised just how powerful that card really is in a slow control deck like this. Hitting 5 mana should not be an issue for you, and even a single cast of Harvest for like five 1/1 tokens can turn the game around. Think of it as a Lingering Souls on crack in the midgame. If you have an exess land to pitch to it the following turn, you get another six 1/1 tokens. Not many decks can handle eleven 1/1's that seemingly come out of nowhere.

Worm Harvest seems infinitely better than Night of Souls Betrayal against a deck like Maverick. Against RUG, you're rarely dropping Betrayal before Goose gets Thresh anyway, and it's not an answer to flipped Delver's.

[Sandwich]

Any ideas for shoring up the Burn matchup?

I'm currently building this deck but I know at least one person at my LGS is likely to play Burn. Are Chill and Blue Elemental Blast/Hydroblast the best sideboard options? Like 2 Chill/1 BEB/1 Hydroblast or maybe 3 Chill/3 combination of BEB/Hydroblast.

[Hanni]

I have a playset of Zuran Orb in my sideboard for the Burn and Sligh matchups. Sac'ing land against Burn can help reduce damage against Price of Progress, and the lifegain goes a long way.

Although, I'm running 4 Intuition and 1 Loam to mitigate the drawback of sac'ing lands. In builds with no Intuition and only 1 or 2 Loam's, Zuran Orb is probably a bad idea.

[Vacrix]

I've been playing the Spagnolo list on Cockatrice for like 10 matches or so, only I played 3 Surgical Extraction in place of the Nihil Spellbombs and one additional Blue Elemental Blast in place of the Diabolic Edict. Excellent list I must say and quite a lot of fun to play.

In regards to NoSB vs. Plague.. I feel like Plague doesn't get there against Zoo and Maverick while NoSB and an active Dark Blast make for quite a combination against just about anything.

I do have a question though regarding Sensei's Diving Top. Why don't I see it in any lists? I'd think it would be pretty good as a 2'of in place of some of the Ponders. I missed being able to manipulate the deck every turn, especially when I played the mirror and we were both in topdeck mode (though I had a Factory). Also, SDT is pretty dam good with an active Dredger, either Loam or Darkblast.

[Hanni]

I don't run Top in my build because it's not needed, since Intuition essentially helps me make my land drops, and it increases my consistency of having the spells I need (win-con, removal, recurring discard, etc). In the builds without Intuition, I'd find a way to run some Top's for sure. Maindeck Top also opens up the option to sideboard Counterbalance, which would be a big improvement in the Burn and Combo matchups.

[The Treefolk Master]

I'm testing this MD list:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Cabal Pit
1 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins

1 Snapcaster Mage (probably going to add a 2nd one, don't know what to cut yet)

4 Force of Will (it might be suboptimal, but I can't get myself to go below 4. It has saved my ass more times that I can count. Plus, it's Force of Will)
4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell (was running 4 like Hanni, but they were a bit too clunky. I have waited a long time to be able to play 4 Counterspells in 1 deck, since I now own FOILS, so I could see myself going back to 4)
2 Spell Pierce (2 Counterspell)
2 Innocent Blood
1 Ghastly Demise
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Darkblast
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Intuition
2 Life from the Loam (was running 1, 2 allow me to build my game much easily, and make the deck less Intuition-dependent)
1 Worm Harvest
1 Raven's Crime
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Curse of Death's Hold (Night + Worm Harvest = Sad panda)

I'm considering the idea of cutting the Curse of Death's Hold, it has been quite underwhelming. I might need to run it a bit more, but I'd rather have Worm Harvest in most situations.

Should I cut the Curse, candidates are:

+1 Snapcaster Mage (now better with 2 Spell Pierces)
+1 Maze of Ith (Nice card, but not sure if it is good enough).

On Spell Pierce: I tried Spell Snare, but it was for some reason not good enough, I was never happy to draw it. I need to see how Spell Pierce goes, it might actually do better in this meta. 4 Counterspell answer anything, but drawing 2 in your initial hand is a killer, and you cannot tap out as effectively as you can with pierce (Loam/Jace/Liliana => leave U open). I'm not 100% sure though. As I said before, Pierce plays better with Snapcaster, should I up these to 2.

Any thoughts?

The SB probably contains:

3 Nihil Spell Bomb
4 Zuran Orb/Chill (tons of Burn here)
2 Noxious Revival
2 Inquisition
2 Vendilion
1 Dread of Night
1 Perish
etc

[sdematt]

Why would you run Perish instead of Virtue's Ruin? You're creating Green Worms. Also, I don't like the Night/Worm interaction, but if you've got one or the other you're in good shape, so whatev's.

I added the Harvest back in Hanni :tongue:

-Matt

[The Treefolk Master]

Yeah, you're right about Perish vs. Virtue's Ruin. Didn't see that.

[sdematt]

No worries, champ. :smile:

-Matt

[bruizar]

I would play The Abyss over Curse tbh. That, or Engineered Plague.

[sdematt]

I've want to play the Abyss in this deck forever, but there's a problem for two reasons:

1) It costs 4, so if we're adding it, it's another 4-drop.

2) If they have a ton of creatures out already, it doesn't kill anything on board immediately.

They are two different cards, but I think they're also for two different matchups. I think the Abyss is better in cases where you're killing creatures that aren't 1/1's, whereas Curse/Night is blowing out a different subset of creatures. The Abyss would most likely be better against Stoneblade (Traditional UW, no tokens), but against Esper, I'd rather have Night. With MAverick, it's a bit of both. Again Delver, probably Abyss since they play so few creatures (only Goose would be unaffected).

-Matt

[bruizar]

I've want to play the Abyss in this deck forever, but there's a problem for two reasons:

1) It costs 4, so if we're adding it, it's another 4-drop.

2) If they have a ton of creatures out already, it doesn't kill anything on board immediately.

They are two different cards, but I think they're also for two different matchups. I think the Abyss is better in cases where you're killing creatures that aren't 1/1's, whereas Curse/Night is blowing out a different subset of creatures. The Abyss would most likely be better against Stoneblade (Traditional UW, no tokens), but against Esper, I'd rather have Night. With MAverick, it's a bit of both. Again Delver, probably Abyss since they play so few creatures (only Goose would be unaffected).

-Matt

Curse of Death's Hold costs 5, which I think is really a bit too much. For that mana there are better cards. If you want to sweep x/1's, Engineered Plague does the same against a whole league of decks and comes down 2 turns earlier. That's a lot sooner.

Human, Spirit and Wizard are the main targets for E.Plague. It hits so much that you are better of playing E. Plague because your deck has a bunch of edicts in the form of Liliana / spot removal like Innocent Blood. If that's not good enough for you, I'd just cut the Wurm Harvest plan and go for Night of Souls' Betrayal or The Abyss.

Minor corrections on your points against The Abyss:
1) It is a 4-drop, but curse is a 5-drop! That's even worst isn't it?
2) It does actually deal with a creature before the next attack step against you.

[sdematt]

That's assuming they have only one creature. I mean, you can't assume we've countered 3-4 consecutive turns of threats, are we? Must be nice to live in magical Candy Land, where I get to have all the good things :tongue:

I never said Curse wasn't five, I just said Abyss was 4. 4's still a lot. I agree, Curse is awful.

-Matt

[Lim-Dul]

Hello

I was playing at a small event at our LGS with my BUG-control-list (see below) and dropped at 1-1-1 because i was frustrated after i got crushed by a sneak-and-show deck… this BUG-deck is a house against creature-decks (Maverick) and quite good against control-decks (EsperBlade) but it sucks against combo…what can be done to improve the general Combo-MU? Did anyone made comparable experience?

4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Island

4 FoW
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
3 IoK
2 Life from the Loam
3 Deed
2 Innocent Blood
1 Dark Blast
1 Ghastly Demise
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

SB
3 Vendilion
2 Hydroblast
1 Ghastly demise
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Perish
1 Damnation
2 Flusterstorm
4 Leyline of the Void


I assume it would be good to add some more discard to improve to combo MU. But what to cut? Do I put them in the main or in the SB? Suggestions?

excuse my english..:-)

[catmint]

Best thing against combo is Hymn and Goyf see:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?22551-Deck-BUG-Control-Team-America-control-style/page15

I am thinking going more into the direction of playing basic lands wihout Hymn to tourach and 2 SD.top in the main to suppor the new Timewalk best. In that case you can easily run the counterbalance package in the side for the combo matchup. It would also bring the Burn matchup to acceptable which is always tough for BUG.

How do you guys feel about "cleaning up" a bit and merging the threads BUG planeswalker control with BUG control and maybe also the Mind harvester. They differ only in some specific card/package choices which also affect manabase and other cards, but the decks are very similar (Deed/Jace control decks). Since it is so hard to maintain threads on thesource I think it would be nice. Merging the Primers can also be helpful to get a bigger overview about the options. (Hymn/Goyf/Intution/Counterbalance)

[Einherjer]

Yes please combine those threads under one banner :"BUG Control" and do not forget to include Landstill, which I think is the strongest version of BUG.

On question: Yeah youre right, combo is tough - Counterbalance can help but it wont make this MU easy - therefore: Only sleeve this deck up in a metagame thats good for it. Thats what I do.

Greetings

[death]

I assume it would be good to add some more discard to improve to combo MU. But what to cut? Do I put them in the main or in the SB? Suggestions?

I see your maindeck has a handful of dead cards against them and 3 Inquisitions doesn't really help against the card Sneak Attack, I suggest investing on a pair of Thoughtseize and a 3rd Liliana to help in that matchup. Something like in the opening post

1 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Liliana of the Veil

Surgical Extraction/Extirpate are big against them since they only have 2 threats (Show and Tell/Sneak Attack), removing either would cripple them. Also, these spells are non-targetable by REBs. Boarding into Hydroblasts can be situationally good against Sneak Attack and Blood Moon, if they go for Show and Tell + Emrakul they would need to face a barrage of Innocent Bloods, Liliana, and Jace activations.

Hymn to Tourach is randomly good because it's not 100% to hit key spells, its main role in TA style decks is to power up Goyfs, which this particular deck doesn't play. I still prefer pointed discard over random discard in a dedicated control shell.


Standstill is generally bad in the current meta for these reasons:
Opponents fetching Dryad Arbor
Turn 1 Aether Vial, Delver, Hierarch, etc.
Opposing Wastelands (against your manlands)
Opposing manlands (Mutavault, Creeping Tar Pit, etc.)
Tons of Spell Snare and Stifle (on the trigger—doesn't work)
Snapcaster Mage, Vendlion Clique, Scryb Ranger in response

I've seen Sneak Attack/Show and Tell decks board into Vendilion Cliques.

[Goddik]

reread the interaction between standstill and stifle.....

Standstill is currently the nuts against the top decks, Maverick esper and RUG all scoop to a standstill on an empty board and it is unreal easy to do if you play enough spot removal. Problem is that playing standstill pretty much guarantees you become a dead fish against combo. I still havent found a satisfactory solution to it but if I do they are getting resleeved.

[mordraid]

reread the interaction between standstill and stifle.....

Standstill is currently the nuts against the top decks, Maverick esper and RUG all scoop to a standstill on an empty board and it is unreal easy to do if you play enough spot removal. Problem is that playing standstill pretty much guarantees you become a dead fish against combo. I still havent found a satisfactory solution to it but if I do they are getting resleeved.

Maverick and RUG tempo rarely have an empty board, even after the 1st turn. They got a handful of one-drop. Being either, mongoose, delver, hierarch, mother of runes. Assuming you are on the draw, that means the maverick player will certaintly have a 2-drop on board or even a KOTR before you even get the standstill on the battlefield.

I'm a long time maverick player and standstill isn't very good in the current meta of good 1-drop. Pernicious deed, on the other hand, is the nuts against maverick if you managed to get it through qasali pridemage.

[Goddik]

you generally need to interact with 1-2 threats depending on whether you are on the play or draw, With 6 spot removals main and 4 force +manlands (i run a 5-2 split with wasteland so noble hierarch often isnt threathening). it is much easier then i immediately thought to land t2 standstill. It happens very often in testing. The draw 3 effect is pretty crippling.t

RUG has so few creatures it is pretty easy to run them out and create the board state you want to drop standstill on.

Still not sure standstill is the way to go given that you have to run the entire support cast, but it is a very powerfull effect that shouldn't be underestimated.

As far as general anti combo plans, here is the list i have considered

Intuition =>Ravens crime+loam (unbeliavably slow, you are likely to be dead)

Confidant/Vendillion Clique => Doesnt interact as much as i would like to

Counterbalance => Doesn's solve Sneak and show + Hive mind, only the storm based decks

Tundra + Meddling mage and canonist => Difficult to support in the manabase, may ultimately be the best solution

If anyone finds the nuts anti combo plan i am listening ;) I feel like it is the one thing holding the deck back since we lost misstep, there are no vials around anymore.

Of course if you run the marijin lybaer'ish list with seize+hymn+snapcaster that should crush combo. You can crush anything with BUG (that is not burn) but it is difficult to beat everything

[Einherjer]

Ive been playing a lot with my pet-deck Deedstill lately and it really crushes Maverick and preboard RUG if they dont play Sulfuric Vortex. Standstill is a very good card in the actual meta as there is NO Aether Vial and all the "threatening" T1 cards are easily removable... Try Standstill out - its great vs everything but Combo.

Vs Combo..I was trying out 4 Hymn + 4 Extirpate sideboard which worked well against HighTide and Show+Tell but was awful vs Stormcombo..still not sure how to approach this correctly..

[death]

Hymn forces you to tap out on turn 2, which is bad against a competent combo pilot. I'd rather cast Duress/IoK/Thoughtseize and have mana up for Spell Snare/Brainstorm (into Force/blue card/land for Liliana).

Standstill can be played around, I haven't dropped a game when an opponent played it against me. I take beats from Factory (or Wasteland it), Brainstorm during his turn, sculpt a hand of 7, and force him to discard after drawing cards from Standstill.

[MGB]

Ancestral Vision >>>>>> Standstill

Why do people continue to insist on running inferior draw spells in control decks?

[Hanni]

Why do people still insist on running draw spells in control decks? This isn't 2004. There are tons of ways of generating card advantage these days without drawing random cards off the top.

Intuition/Loam may be slow, but this is a slow control deck, and you don't need the card advantage until the midgame anyway. At which point, the Loam/Harvest engine destroys people.

Also, I'd rather hold open UU for Counterspell against combo decks (hopefully along with FoW backup). If I get to 3 mana, I can EOT with Clique or Intuition. Intuition into Loam/Crime will do damage to the opponent's hand the following turn, and will completely lock them out of the game the turn after that.

[Goddik]

Drawing cards is so disgustingly powerfull in this format.

Intuition after Tabernacle seems dirty ;)

[death]

Drawing more cards is disgustingly powerful in any format. But Standstill is not that great on its own. You need to satisfy certain conditions in order to benefit from casting it
- board must be empty (and opponent doesn't play Flash creatures)
- you must have a Factory (and opponent doesn't have Wastelands)
- opponent who doesn't know how to draw advantage from Standstill

Drawing random cards off Standstill is card advantage, but it doesn't guarantee card quality. Snapcaster Mage changed the way control decks operate and every answer in the deck are now recyclable. SCM gives you options and precise response to each situation. At the very least you Brainstorm again but you have a 2-power creature permanently. SCM + removal can take out 3 creatures on a single turn, hard to achieve with Standstill + Factory. Having no Standstill in the deck frees up space where you can jam a fourth Jace, third Liliana and Loam. All three generate card advantage by the way and are great on their own.

Intuition is worth a try, possibly in the sideboard against slower decks. Intuition + Worm Harvest is unimpressive. They are blank cards and do nothing from early to mid-game. A 5-card Intuition package makes you prone to dead draws, cards which have no direct impact when drawn off the top. They don't stop fast-paced decks from getting ahead. It's better in my opinion to just draw answers and stall the opponent until you stabilize with a Planeswalker on the board. At which point, you are already winning. 1-2 Life from the Loam is already enough for those long games.

[sdematt]

I found a nice banner we might be able to use:


http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh58/pokemonuserbarsproject/bugbanner-1.png

[xfxf]

Can't beat combo, can't beat burn. Is it worth picking up BUG only for its Maverick match-up?

[sdematt]

Um, what kind of combo? Tons of discard + counterspells can beat combo. Not beating Burn is the only issue.

-Matt

[death]

I think you are mistaking this deck for BUG Landstill because you know playing Standstill on a slow clock against combo is dumb. We have more of Jace/Liliana/discard/SCM/Clique here than in Landstill. To recap,

8 counter spells + 5 discard spells + 4 Jace + 3 Liliana + 3 Snapcaster Mage + 1 V. Clique

There's only 6 dead cards against combo and those are the creature removal spells, not counting Pernicious Deed because it blows up artifacts (and enchantments) that power most combo decks. Post sideboarding you take out ~6 cards for more disruption.

This deck does not autolose to combo, however playing against existing combo decks requires understanding of how their combo works. Playtesting develops skills necessary to respond to a threat appropriately and is required.

Maverick and Stoneblade are favorable, the only matchups I'm worried about are Dredge/Loam and RUG Tempo. On the flipside, Nick Spagnolo went 4-0 against RUG Tempo and 0-3 against Maverick. Report can be found here: Invitational In Baltimore *2nd* (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/23848_Invitational_In_Baltimore_2nd.html)

[death]

Sam Roukas finished 2nd yesterday in Jupiter Games' NELC Qualifier, lost 0-2 in the finals against Dredge.

Semis 2-0 versus Esperblade

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21850772

Round 5 2-0 versus Esperblade

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21844888

Round 4 2-0 versus RUG Tempo

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21843521

[sdematt]

Decklist?

-Matt

[Mark Sun]

Decklist?

-Matt

You can find the Top 8 Decklists here: http://jupitergamesonline.com/2012/4185/jupiter-games-northeast-legacy-championship-april-2012-top-8-legacy-decks

[sdematt]

Thanks Mark!

-Matt

[wweenieking]

I also played at Jupiter this weekend and got 12th going x-2 running the following list that was inspired by Spagnolo's list but I changed up a few things:

1 Snapcaster Mage
3 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Snare
3 Jace the Mind Sculpter
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
2 Life of the Loam
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Pernicous Deed
3 Lilianna of the Veil
3 Innocent Blood
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Night of Soul Betrayal
1 Darkblast
4 Inquistion of Kozilek
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Wasteland

2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
3 Force of Will
2 Vendillion Clique
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Perish
1 Damnation
2 Massacre
1 Wasteland

I played vs:
Rd 1 Goblins-lost 0-2
Rd 2 BUG mirror-won 2-0
Rd 3 BUG tempo-won 2-0
Rd 4 BW tokens-lost 0-2
Rd 5 Sam Blacks Zombie deck-won 2-1
Rd 6 UW Stoneforge-won-2-0
Rd 7 Elves-won 2-0

If you have any questions on the list feel free to ask. I'll most likely be playing something close to this at SCG Providence. I was thinking of trying to add standstill, but then I'd need to add Force maindeck and I don't like Force vs most decks right now. Its obviously never awful, but its also not needed.

[mordraid]

Without force of will i often find myself racing to get an awnser to an early treat.

[Viridia]

My teammate and i are currently testing this build:

1 Engineered Explosives
2 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Pierce
3 Counterspell
1 Mana Leak
4 Force of Will

2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Noxious Revival
2 Gifts Ungiven

1 Innocent Blood
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Night of Soul's Betrayal
1 Damnation

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Liliana of the Veil

1 Life from the Loam
1 Worm Harvest

2 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
1 Tolaria West
2 Nephalia Drownyard
4 Polluted Delta
3 U-Fetch
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Island
1 Swamp

So far it's been pretty good, the ability to Gifts for any answer you need, wether it be another counter in the late-game, a killcon when you need it, or just something to lock the board, you always get what you want and due to the nature of the deck you'll easily stretch the game to the point where you can Gift + Counterspell or Gift + Snapcaster/Noxious Revival and drop it during your own turn.

We came to making this deck after playing BUGLandstill for a while, and finding Standstills to not be amazing in this Metagame, and thus needing another way to generate Card Advantage.

[JeroenC]

Have you considered adding in a Gifts-Rites combo? Or is that in sideboard (speaking of which, could you show us your sideboard?)

[lavafrogg]

Gifts/Rites is not needed due to the gifts/loam package it runs. 1 worms harvest and 1 ravens crime can give decks hell without having to devote dead slots to the combo.

[wweenieking]

Mordraid, I'm curious to what early threat you need to two for one yourself for. I have 2 ghastly, 3 innocent blood, 1 darkblast to answer any one drop, and on the play add 4 inquisition to that list. Along with that, not many one drops will kill you before you can drop deed, or maelstrom pulse, or liliana.

[kiblast]

2 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
1 Tolaria West
2 Nephalia Drownyard

That's plenty of colorless/ awkward lands. Why do you actually need 2 Nephalia? Isn't one enough considering that you'll start using it late game and you have time to tutor it with Gifts piles?
For the same reason I'd cut Tolaria West. Seeing it in the opening is almost an auto mull if you don't have Bs+ fetch or at least 2 other lands. Just stick with Gifts to find your lands+ loam, should be enough.

[IsThisACatInAHat?]

If you have any questions on the list feel free to ask. I'll most likely be playing something close to this at SCG Providence. I was thinking of trying to add standstill, but then I'd need to add Force maindeck and I don't like Force vs most decks right now. Its obviously never awful, but its also not needed.
What do you think about Massacre over Dread of Night? Several people have asked me about it and the most convincing argument I've heard is that it plays better with Pernicious Deed and you want both against the same decks. My opinion thus far has been that Massacre is worse than Perish and Deed, which they're playing around anyway. Therefore, they don't lose anything by playing around Massacre as well. In most common scenarios (this assumes a Maverick opponent, since vs. Esper you likely wouldn't board in Massacres but would Dread of Night), playing around your sweepers means getting slightly ahead on board and then holding extra creatures. The problem is what happens after that.

If you Massacre'd, you presumably drop a planeswalker and bounce/ edict their surviving Knight. Next turn, you will probably need to deal with multiple creatures. In this case, I'd rather have had Perish or Deed so as not to have to waste additional removal or planeswalker activations on creatures that survive.

If you Dread of Night'd, you drop a planeswalker and bounce/ edict their surviving Knight, but next turn any mono-white dorks they held for post-sweeper are stranded in their hand since they're all X/1 except SFM, which many lists are moving away from. Until they draw pridemage or zenith for one, they're SOL. Obviously this doesn't do much if they have a bunch of green idiots in play.

The point is, I've been playing Dread of Night as a post-Deed play or as a with-Perish plan because it punishes them for playing around sweepers (as opposed to just being one) and because it does something enough different that they can't just play around everything.

Also, how do you like Ghastly Demise? I kept wishing mine was a 4th Innocent Blood, but I can think of theoretically common scenarios where Demise is better, so I'm loathe to change it.

[death]

Also, how do you like Ghastly Demise? I kept wishing mine was a 4th Innocent Blood, but I can think of theoretically common scenarios where Demise is better, so I'm loathe to change it.

Oftentimes with Ghastly Demise, you kill the fatty. While with Innocent Blood you're giving them a choice. Snapcaster + IB doesn't go very well and believe it or not Snapcaster Mage beatdown plan often gets there.

Maverick can play around Innocent Blood if they want a fatty to survive by fetching Dryad Arbor or flashing Scryb Ranger. 2 Ghastly Demise is optimum since you'd need to fill your yard to take out bigger targets.

[wweenieking]

For starters I was playing Dread of Night until right before the tournament and Eli told me to play Massacre. The reason, which made sense to me, was vs GW Massare is usually a wrath. It kills Noble, Mom, Pridemage, Arbor, Thalia and other creatures in certain situations. That reason alone made it seem worth it. Also like you said it doesn't play well with Deed. Also, on my way home from Jupiter (I live 4 hrs away in Mass) I was watching Jon play Rion in top 8 on my phone and from what I could tell (small screen and bad internet connection) Jon cast Massacre to wipe all 5 creatures from Rion's board. That was awesome. It gave me faith in the card since I didn't play vs GW once, that and I think there's a rule printed somewhere that says trust Eli when it comes to anything Legacy.

As for ghastly, I was thinking about the 4th blood or the 2nd darkblast, but ultimately chose the ghastly just to have a second targeted removal spell. With darkblast one is enough, that's a card I don't want to draw in multiples. I was very happy with my removal package all day.

As for the wasteland in the board, that was supposed to be the 24th land post board, but before the tourny I added a 24th main deck (2nd Bayou) over the 3rd loam to have another land to play around choke, and also a lot did the games I lost vs RUG in testing (I grinded vs it a lot) were due to mana screw. Just not consistently hitting land drops to put the game away was frustrating, and leaning on loam too much hurt since they have many many ways to counter it. So ill be changing that sb slot to something, I know I don't want or need a 25th land.

[robojim]

Grats on the finish. Seal of Primordium or Nature's Claim both seem like a good 15th card to round out your board.

I've been trying to force a Bob-based BUG list with FoW in the side but there's too much spot removal right now for it to be viable. I'll probably run something similar to your list at Providence.

Has Lingering Souls been a problem for you at all?

[xfxf]

How are the sideboarding strategieis with this deck, I'm seeing 2-3 Vendilion Cliques and multiple 1 ofs. When do you board in the Cliques, how do you hate out graveyard strategies, why stick to 1ofs?

[Chimera87]

Have you considered adding in a Gifts-Rites combo? Or is that in sideboard (speaking of which, could you show us your sideboard?)

Current sideboard is:
2x Thoughtseize, 2x Flusterstorm, 2x Counterbalance, 1x Diabolic Edict, 1x Vendilion Clique, 1x Engineered Plague, 1x Iona, Shield of Emeria, 1x Unburial Rites, 4x Leyline of the Void.

Yes, Counterbalance is slightly awkward, but it does give us a good chance against burn (besides the Iona awesomeness) and it's also properly good against combo, even with only 2x Top in the deck.
Currently looking at playing Raven's Crime and Ensnaring Bridge (with extra Liliana, of course). Bridge is proving to be tricky, but the Raven's Crime is awesome.

I might look into cutting the Tolaria West (even though it finds both Academy Ruins and Engineered Explosives) for another Island or so, but cutting a Drownyard reduces the clock even further.

[catmint]

how did you guys feel about liliana lately concerning lingering souls?
Not only is she terrible against tokens, but they get value out of her +1 ability.

I was excited to play BUG again since deed got a lot better, however with the new spoiled white "wrath" for 1 mana it seems that UW control got a big boost against creature based strategies. White also fits better to SD.top (and counterbalance) because of enlightened tutor and/or SFM to support thopters. Somehow I cannot find an excuse to play BUG again...

[death]

Frankly in UX(w) control vs UX(g) control matchups, I'd rather be the one playing "green" than the one playing across it. FWIW if the printing of Terminus should push more players into the Uw-control archetypes, that just mean more decks to prey upon for us. I'm not worried, in fact I'm anticipating this deck to be in good position in the new meta.

[HPB_Eggo]

One of my friends has been playing an odd UB control list. It does not have a whole lot in common with this deck, but it runs an interesting card about which there has been no discussion here: Volrath's Stronghold.

It runs very well in his deck with Snapcaster Mage and Vendilion Clique.

Here, it would remove problems with Innocent Blood and Deed. In fact, it allows great recursion of additional spells with Snapcaster.

Not sure how useful it will be overall, since that plus Loam starts making graveyard hate hurt pretty bad, but testing a slightly more aggressive list with three Snapcaster, a Clique, and one Eternal Witness with 3/4 man lands, Worm Harvest, and Garruk Relentless might be worthwhile.

[kiblast]

Volrath's Stronghold.
Not sure how useful it will be overall, since that plus Loam starts making graveyard hate hurt pretty bad, but testing a slightly more aggressive list with three Snapcaster, a Clique, and one Eternal Witness with 3/4 man lands, Worm Harvest, and Garruk Relentless might be worthwhile.

Volrath also makes Intuition piles stronger (Snapcaster or Witness, Loam, Stronghold first, then once you have Stronghold online you can pretty much tutor any card) I also saw this pile yesterday while playing in a local shop: Gigapede, Iona, Unburial Rites. Cool.

[sdematt]

I was running Stronghold for a while and it was fine. Slow, but we're good at slow.

-Matt

[HPB_Eggo]

I was running Stronghold for a while and it was fine. Slow, but we're good at slow.

-Matt

That's more or less what I was thinking. What do you guys think of a list kind of like this?

BUG Control
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Garruk Relentless

3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Eternal Witness

1 Life from the Loam
1 Worm Harvest
1 Intuition

2 Pernicious Deed
1 Maelstrom Pulse

3 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Snare
1 Forbid

3 Innocent Blood
2 Dismember

4 Inquisition of Kozilek

4 Brainstorm

2 Mishra's Factory
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Nephalia Drownyard
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Wasteland
3 Polluted Mire
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
3 Island
2 Swamp

For my own thoughts, I think the inevitability in the list is kind of extreme, and dumping Worm Harvest for another Counterspell, Life from the Loam, or removal might be in order. Beyond that, though, I kind of like it. Looks like it would play like a combination of Rock and Landstill, two of my favorite decks from long ago. Might have to actually put this together and try it.

Not at all certain on a sideboard, though. Just perusing, I would expect the worst match-ups to be Dredge, Burn, and certain sorts of Combo.

Anyways. Thoughts of any sort would be appreciated. I might end up running this soon and I don't have infinite testing time, so be harsh. I won't mind. The closer it is to good before I begin actual testing, the better.

[The Treefolk Master]

I really love this deck (the disgustingly slow version with a bazillion tricks and Intuition), but, is there a real way to beat Burn?

Countertop out of the board does not work.

Random dudes which gain life don't do enough.

My guesses are, out of the board:

4 Chill (it can get Pyroblasted, oh well)

4 Warmth (Splashing a tundra, drop 1 onto the board to slow them down, 2 to win and win. No one plays Anarchy, plus we should be able to stop that someway or another...)

I'm not sure whether we want said Tundra MD, SB, or if we need 1 or 2... It can also be used to kill Jaces & Elspeths via EE.

Thoughts on Cabal Pit??? My removal suite is something along the lines of:

3 Pernicious Deed
1 EE
3/2 Innocent Blood
1 Ghastly Demise
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Darkblast
1 Maze of Ith (not actual removal per se)

MAYBE 1 Damnation...MAYBE 1 Night of Soul's Betrayal...

I seems kind of clunky, Maze was better during testing.

I'm also not completely sure on Volrath's Stronghold. Maybe we could swap Ruins for Stronghold, and include E. Witness MD and Shriekmaw out of the board. I'm not sure the manabase can support so many colourless lands. We'd be looking at something along the lines of:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins/Volrath's Stronghold
1 Nephalia Drownyard//Creeping Tar Pit (Tar Pit kills Walkers, but it eats a Swords likes there's no tomorrow... Maybe both...)
1 Tundra (?)

That's 24 lands. Other things that could be included are:

Cabal Pit
Lonely Sandbar
2nd Tundra

They might be clunky though...

To make room, we could cut 1 Island or 1 Fetchland, maybe the Bayou, I'm not sure...

1 Maze of Ith (counting it as a spell)

Any thoughts?

[Vacrix]

I really love this deck (the disgustingly slow version with a bazillion tricks and Intuition), but, is there a real way to beat Burn?
You can play SDT as like a 2'of and run Counterbalance post-board. Thats your best bet. Jace helps you maintain the lock sometimes via the BS option.

I played against this version with PSI probably like 20 games testing with a friend and it was seriously ridiculous. It also improves the storm combo matchup significantly.

[Whippoorwill]

You can find the Top 8 Decklists here: http://jupitergamesonline.com/2012/4185/jupiter-games-northeast-legacy-championship-april-2012-top-8-legacy-decks

I've been playing a version of his deck off and on since that weekend (watching him play the deck made it look fun) and I've been quite happy with the overall results (2-2, 3-1, 3-1). I decided to change it up a bit this week though and add more removal over counters since combo isn't really played aside from a couple people (me being one of them) and creatures show up in large amounts.

Version from May 6th:
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wasteland
1 Nephalia Drownyard

2 Snapcaster Mage

3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Innocent Blood
3 Spell Pierce
2 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Repeal
2 Predict
2 Counterspell
1 Life from the Loam
2 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Devastation Tide

1 Sylvan Library
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Night of Soul's Betrayal

1 Engineered Explosives

3 Jace, the Mindsculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

Sideboard:
2 Dread of Night
2 Perish
3 Force of Will
2 Mind Funeral
1 Worm Harvest
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
3 Extirpate
1 Nihil Spellbomb

The biggest change is the removal of the man-lands. I made this change so getting the color(s) I need will be easier and because the lands were win-more. Whenever I won with them I had Jace (and sometimes Lily) active which wins on his own. I include 1x each basic by default due to the amount of non-basic hate in my meta. Drowned Catacomb was nice as well since we have multiple Maverick players. I'll likely fit a Hinterland Harbor into the build when I make the next changes.

Devastating Tide was a last minute addition to test out. Mind Funeral was another card I was testing due to quite a few decks playing low amounts of lands.

Tournament Report/Notes

Round 1 vs WW
Game 1: We both mulligan but he keeps a risky hand that doesn't pay off while I eventually keep the board clear.

-2 Spell Pierce, -1 ???
+2 Dread of Night, +2 Mind Funeral

Game 2: Mind Funeral hits him hard taking about 20 cards including all of his O.Rings except the one on my Library. Hitting him with a 2nd one puts him down to single digit cards in library. I have active Jace and he can't do anything. Devastation Tide made a showing twice in this game as a psuedo-fog. Hard cast it once then Snapcastered it back the following turn.

1-0; 2-0

Round 2 vs Budget Reanimator
No Seas, but he had Fetches and I think some amount of FoWs.

Game 1: I manage to keep the board clear with removal then get Jace online to prevent him from doing anything else really. Main thing that happaned was he got Jin out and passed the turn forgetting to draw 7. I had Innocent Blood on my turn but him forgetting the trigger prevented him from getting an answer for it. Snapcaster pulls out the beatings for the win.

-3 Deed, -2 Predict, -1 EE, -1 NoSB
+3 FoW, +3 Extirpate, +1 Spellbomb

Game 2: My hand has no graveyard hate, but plenty of land and removal including 2x BSZ. We play Draw-Go while he Entombs stuff. I eventually get Jace out and he gets an Inkwell out with Animate Dead. I can't bounce it but Zenith knocks it down to 1 Power. He gets out an Empyrial Archangel but Zenith #2 makes that a joke and poor little Inkwell becomes a 0/1. Nice Shroud creatures you got there. Jace Fateseals his doom.

2-0; 4-0

Round 3 vs Junk Blade (with Deeds and Vindicates)

Both games involved me having a ton of removal and Jace locking him down.

3-0; 6-0

Round 4 vs Maverick

Game 1: I get mana flooded. I think I cast 2 spells, 1 of which was a Counterspell.

Game 2: More mana flooding but Zenith knocked Thrun down to a lowly 1/1. Choke hit play but wasn't an issue thanks to Catacombs and non-blue duals.

This should have been a favorable match for me but my deck didn't want to give me anything other than lands.

3-1; 6-2

Afterthoughts:

I like Predict, but it wasn't really worth the slot unless I had Jace on the board or if I was using it on myself. I'll likely cut it for more Ponders.

Black Sun's Zenith was great, it was much better than Damnation would have beenin the Reanimator match since his creatures still lived with 0 power.

Repeal was ok. I liked having the maindeck bounce.

Devastation Tide was ok but I only got to play it in Round 1. Not sure if I run it again, but I wouldn't run more than 2 in any deck.

Worm Harvest never got boarded in so I can't say how good it was.

Mind Funeral I liked, but its really more of a cute trick.

I've been giving thought to adding the Thopter/Sword combo into the deck since that would give me more creatures and an option against burn but at that point why not just play the Counter Balance deck?

[Watanabe]

Love to see a thread on BUGwalker. I'm a big fan of this deck so that's cool :p
Just have a general question about the deck. I tried to get prepared for BoM6 (big LEgacy tournament in France), and during my tests I have a huge problem to beat UR Delver decks.
It played to many blasts and too many small and aggro creatures to handle easily with it. For example, after 20 games against UR Delver (5 Preside OTP / 5 pre OTD / 5 Post OTP / 5 post OTD) I won just 4 or all :o

Do you have a good SB plan against it ?

[Piceli89]

As fancy as it sounds, this may actually be the card you're looking for, especially in the 3- Snapcaster builds.

http://static.manatalks.com/images/mtg/cards/dst/gatherer/dst-nourish.jpg

[Watanabe]

Yes I tried this card in SB, but after testing kitchen finks was a bit better.

[csy]

is kitchen finks enough vs burn and UR delver? I've been having a horrible time vs it using a very similar list to the one from the jupiter games top 8 list.

[catmint]

I think you can either accept a bad burn matchup or play a different deck. :) Even if you play with tops main to support some miracles and Counterbalance in the SB the deck will have a bad burn matchup.

Also the reason i don't bring BUG to my local tourney becaus I hate loosing my 1st round matchup against the burn-guy wihout a SB.

[csy]

I dont really think that chill is that bad of an option in the SB. I mean sure it COULD get blasted.. but it could also save our asses. Im taking BUGwalker to the legacy side events at GPanaheim. Ill report back with how it does.

[catmint]

The card itself is a significant speed bumb. However it only helps if you run 3-4 and since it's useless in most matchups its not a good sideboard choice. Still, even if you run 3-4 chill, you are a big dog G1 and you will be probably just even postbard, so still bad overall. Wasting 3-4 slots to make a very bad matchup only a bad matchup is only worth it, if there is a lot of burn out there... but then why play BUG at all...:rolleyes:

It's like if Burn would discuss how to get a better soul sister matchup. :really:

[death]

I dont really think that chill is that bad of an option in the SB. I mean sure it COULD get blasted.. but it could also save our asses. Im taking BUGwalker to the legacy side events at GPanaheim. Ill report back with how it does.

If Burn is top concern because the meta is swarming with it, it wouldn't hurt to run a more aggressive sb against it: something like 4x white Leyline + 3 BEB/Hydroblast. As long as your main deck is balanced and you don't waste Brainstorms, it's strong enough to beat most decks without sideboarding even combo (except Burn and Dredge).

Good luck to the event.

[Goddik]

cited from the tempo page, go there and read the last couple of posts.

Originally Posted by Goddik
Here you go. We call this "the scalpel" ;)

3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Ghastly Demise
2 Dismember
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Ponder
3 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
1 Life from the Loam
2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
SB: 2 Massacre
SB: 2 Diabolic Edict
SB: 2 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Duress
SB: 2 Thrun, the Last Troll
SB: 2 Perish
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Pernicious Deed
*** If this needs to be in the BUG Control list, then we'll move it, I think Goddik started with a Tempo list and modified it to its current list, hence its inclusion here. That being said, I am going to reply here, since the post I am replying to is in this thread. ***

Goddik,
Nice deck. I made a few personal changes to it, but nothing major. I was working with your sideboard, and I felt you had too many slots against creature-based decks and not enough slots against combo decks.

For example, against Maverick, I would sideboard:
-2 Counterspell
-1 Force of Will
-2 Spell Pierce
-1 Jace
-1 Thoughtseize
+2 Massacre
+2 Diabolic Edict
+2 Perish
+1 Deed

I like to leave some FOW in against Choke/GSZ. What is your plan against Choke?

However, versus combo decks, like Storm, Sneak and Show, etc., I have to leave dead cards in the deck. I want to sideboard:

-2 Ghastly Demise
-2 Dismember
-2 Pernicious Deed
-2 Engineered Explosives

But, what am I going to add?

+1 Duress
+2 Diabolic Edict vs. Sneak and Show
+1 Krosan Grip (not ideal, maybe good vs. Sneak Attack)
+2 Surgical Extraction

Do you see what I'm saying? With the current main deck / sideboard configuration, we have to leave some number of creature removal spells in our deck (i.e. dead draws).

I think the Massacres should be Flusterstorms and some other small changes need to be made to the deck.

Yes, it dominates creature-based strategies, but it has too many wasted slots against combo decks.

Also, how do you fair against Burn? It seems this deck would really get hurt against Burn (most BUG decks usually die horrible deaths to Burn decks).

To Goddik and everyone else in this thread, how do we make this better? Scavenging Ooze? Blue Elemental Blast? Counterbalance?...


End citation:

Stop trying to fix the burn matchup. It should be almost impossible to meet at the big tables in the later round and it is nearly unfixable. Take the occasional loss to burn as a part of playing the deck.

Also the plan against maverick is to kill everything that moves, then play Jace. Board accordingly. Goyf does nothing against maverick and is the first to go. Counterspell is actually good as it answers all of the random planeswalkers, chokes, libraries etc. Force is unnecessary when you have deeds, explosives, basics etc. Pulse is a card i like in this role as well but could not find room for.

if you want more slots against combo, cut the thrunns and run some more spot discard. Be warned though that canadian is a much bigger threat for this deck

[Valarne]

Let's see if there are still some of you out there that are interested in tweaking BUG. I present my current list. Everything but the Oozes has been tested somewhat, and has been working very fluantly. However, the deck (before Ooze) had trouble with red decks, so some solution is needed.


4 Jace TMS
3 Goyf
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique

2 Ghastly Demise
2 Dismember
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Explosives

4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder

2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition
2 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will

23 land: 2 Island, 1 Swamp, 1 Forest, 3 U Sea, 2 Trop, 1 Bayou, 1 Creeping Tar Pit, 3 Wasteland, 3 Misty, 3 Polluted, 3 Verdant.

SB:
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Massacre
2 Engineered Plague
1 Spell Pierce
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Duress


Questionmarks:

Wondering if it is too greedy to add the fourth Wasteland instead of one of the fetches.

The Oozes are a new idea both main and sb – untested completely. They are in place to help with the following problems: UR Delver, RUG Delver, Burn. And they should deliver splash damage against stuff like Goblins and all graveyard-strategies of course.

Maybe the main/sb configuration is slanted to much towards creature-based strategies, but I think that is wisest. Snapcaster + discard and countermagic goes a really long way against unfair decks. The 2 Plagues are there to have a decent shot against Elves and Goblins. Also ok against Maverick and random stuff I guess. They seem a bit odd, but I feel that it is worth it to use some slots, to drastically up the percentages against linear decks like that.

What do you think?

-Tue

[Water_Wizard]

No love for Liliana?

I think Life from the Loam deserves a place somewhere in the maindeck. It's good with Wasteland recursion and can also clear away a bad Brainstorm/Jace +0.

I like Darkblast. I'd probably go +1 Darkblast/-1 Dismember

The ongoing question with this deck is how to beat Burn and it's just really difficult. You could run Hydroblasts in the board or take the Countertop route, but Countertop would require a reconfig of the maindeck to include SDT and would also take up more sideboard slots.

Why Massacre over Perish?

[Valarne]

No love for Liliana?

I think Life from the Loam deserves a place somewhere in the maindeck. It's good with Wasteland recursion and can also clear away a bad Brainstorm/Jace +0.

I like Darkblast. I'd probably go +1 Darkblast/-1 Dismember

The ongoing question with this deck is how to beat Burn and it's just really difficult. You could run Hydroblasts in the board or take the Countertop route, but Countertop would require a reconfig of the maindeck to include SDT and would also take up more sideboard slots.

Why Massacre over Perish?

Massacre over Perish: Because it's free, and it kills their best creatures: Mother of Runes, Noble Hierarch and Thalia especially. I want my sweeper when I'm under pressure, which is most most prominently done by Thalia. When Mother is gone, it is pretty easy to deal with Knight some other way. Fetching basics by the way.

I like Darkblast too... Maybe I should go back to one main. A reason for why I haven't right now, is Tarmogoyf out of RUG Delver.

Actually, dedicated Burn doesn't stress me too much, especially now with the Oozes. Discard is quite good against them, and they tend to die to themselves. Fetching basics, btw ;). It is the different blue zoo variants that stress me - is Ooze good enough? Hydroblast is ok, but I think that lifegain is needed. Counter Top is UW control for me, BUG is Deed etc.

Both Liliana and Loam have been in my lists before, but I felt that they both underperformed. Liliana needs several Loams to start shining, and Loam is too slow and durdly. That Liliana is pretty clunky and vulnerable as it is, makes me rather play neither. In a different list, I would go 4 Jace, 3 Liliana, 3 Loam, 4 Fow, infi removal etc. But I don't trust that decktype. Tarmogoyf solves problems all day.

Thanks for the reply!

[rchinnock]

Has anyone found it awkward to play both Liliana and countermagic in the same deck? I've wanted to put Liliana in the aggro-control version Team America and, aside from mana requirements, I found that she seemed to awkward with the counters to work well. That makes me think it would be even more so, in an actual control list. Have other people found this to be the case? When she's not mixing badly with counterspells I've found her nice to have, since a repeatable sack effect is powerful, and sometimes she can take over a game.

[flounce]

Are you playing any Life from the Loams? Its probably too slow for the tempo build, but 2 Life from the loam go pretty nicely with lilly.

[wcm8]

I've been loving this list lately:

23 lands (8 duals, 8 fetch, 1 swamp, 1 island, 4 wastes, 1 creeping tarpit)
4 goyf
4 snapcaster
3 jace
2 liliana
4 fow
4 inquisition of kozilek
3 spell snare
4 bstorm
1 ponder
4 ghastly demise
3 diabolic edict
1 life from the loam

SB:
4 leyline of the void // surgical extraction/tormod's
4 pernicious deed
4 flusterstorm // spell pierce
2 engineered plague
1 jace // thrun

The list is incredibly consistent in executing its gameplan, and forgoes some of the cutesy tricks for more consistency. The SB seems a bit narrow, but the cards there can be utter blow-outs against the decks you are bringing them in for. Combo decks can still be a struggle since it doesn't have Daze/Delver, and Burn/UR Delver is and always will be difficult for BUG. Otherwise, I'd say this list has even-to-favorable matchups across the board. The main slot I would contend with is running Inquisition over Thoughtseize -- Inquisition is better against aggro decks especially since we don't have Batterskull to recoup the life loss, however Thoughtseize is just so much better against control and combo right now.

Also, the last SB card -- not sure if Jace, Thrun, or perhaps something else would be a better fit here.

[Chikenbok]

@Wcm - I like the list a lot, although I'm not sure how the 4 deeds in the board play nicely with the 8 2cmc creatures MD. Also, have you considered perhaps adding some cliques into the MD? I run them in my list almost exclusively for 2 reasons: 1. Killing Delvers, 2. Ruining combo players lives.

Also, perhaps you might want to reconsider the snares/replace them with pierces. The deck has answers to almost all 2cmc spells but definitely needs more taxing early game counters on the stack to either keep a threat alive, or prevent a spell from resolving in essential early game -- as the format is speeding up, pierce becomes much more relevant.

Just some food for thought.

Edit: Regarding the last spot in the board, neither thrun nor jace seem like they would shore up any matches, and if you're running 4 snapcasters, surgical is definitely the best bet for yard hate.

[wcm8]

I agree with your suggestions. I played the list yesterday and went 3-3. I beat 2 RUG players (this is a good matchup), Esper Blade (another pretty good matchup). My losses were to UR Delver (expected, though I probably could have played less noobly), Reanimator (totally agree that Surgical would have been 100% better here), and combo elves (lost in a very close game 3, which probably would have been won if I had sequenced a Snapcaster play earlier in the game correctly).

So changes I would likely make:

Maindeck
-1 Snapcaster
-1 Land
-1 Diabolical Edict
+1 Clique
+1 Ponder
+1 Maelstrom Pulse // Pernicious Deed

SB:
-4 Leyline of the Void
+4 Surgical Extraction (maybe extirpate for reanimator)
-2 Pernicious Deed
+2 Engineered Explosives

Maybe some more modifications as well. I am ambivalent about Spell Snare, it seems to be pretty incredible a lot of the time, but Spell Pierce might just be better maindeck material. If so, the SB slots can be adjusted with the new extra slots.

edit:
-3 Spell Snare
+3 Spell Pierce

SB
-4 Spell Pierce
+2 Gilded Drake
+1 Perish
+1 Darkblast

Maybe also dump the maindeck Inquisitions for Thoughtseize. There were at least several times where I wish I could have pulled a FoW and other higher cmc stuff during the tournament.

[jparula]

@Wcm - I like the list a lot, although I'm not sure how the 4 deeds in the board play nicely with the 8 2cmc creatures MD. Also, have you considered perhaps adding some cliques into the MD? I run them in my list almost exclusively for 2 reasons: 1. Killing Delvers, 2. Ruining combo players lives.

Also, perhaps you might want to reconsider the snares/replace them with pierces. The deck has answers to almost all 2cmc spells but definitely needs more taxing early game counters on the stack to either keep a threat alive, or prevent a spell from resolving in essential early game -- as the format is speeding up, pierce becomes much more relevant.

Just some food for thought.

Edit: Regarding the last spot in the board, neither thrun nor jace seem like they would shore up any matches, and if you're running 4 snapcasters, surgical is definitely the best bet for yard hate.

In some of the matches the deeds go in, the goyfs come out (for instance maverick and nic fit). Although against delver and merfolk i usually keep them both in and take out FoW. Clique has lost some value due to the rise of Esper Blade (they're awful against lingering souls), though i think they might have a slot in the SB depending on the expected meta.

Spell Snare vs Spell Pierce is very debatable i have not yet come to a conclusion, it really depends on your expected meta i guess.

The thing with surgical is that against dredge you really need 1 Leyline or multiple extractions, bloodghast and ichorid will also kill you, your problem is not just the zombie tokens, you are not fast enough to just ignore those and you don't have StP to exile them. Furthermore, you might get unlucky and they dredge into a bunch of moebas and therapies and strip your extractions before you can use them in anything really crucial.

I think that with so much reanimator and show and tell running around Flusterstorm is in general a better option than spell pierce, plus you are looking to go to a long game even against combo decks, and spell pierce will lose some of its value in time. I sometimes use a couple of negates in the sideboard instead of the spell pierces.

The list wcm8 posted is my list from BoM 6. It was pretty much teched main deck against RUG Delver and Maverick. The sideboard was targeted at show & tell and reanimator, and also Esper Blade (Plague for Lingering Souls).

I've been liking liliana a lot less recently, i might cut her for something else (not sure what exactly), she's only really good against maverick, in the rest of the match-ups she goes from reasonable to just plain bad.

Regards

[wcm8]

The list wcm8 posted is my list from BoM 6. It was pretty much teched main deck against RUG Delver and Maverick. The sideboard was targeted at show & tell and reanimator, and also Esper Blade (Plague for Lingering Souls).

Apologies for not giving you credit, I would have linked to the TCDeck's list, but I was posting it from my phone.

I do love the list, and I think it really smashes RUG quite soundly. Having Tarmogoyfs of your own is such an important thing in that matchup for two reasons: 1) you need to be able to fend off Mongeese/opposing Goyfs to buy time to get your planeswalkers online, and 2) you need an actual clock to finish them off in time before they start finding burn to kill you despite your superior board position. This is a big reason why I think playing the 'Deedstill' decks (the ones with no creatures aside from a few Snapcasters and some manlands) is a poor decision in this metagame.

I think I would do a split of 2/2 Pernicious Deed and Engineered Explosives. Explosives is ever so slightly faster at killing tokens and 1cmc creatures. It's also more likely to resolve through Daze/Spell Pierce against RUG. Also, in my matchup against combo Elves, my opponent brought in Pithing Needles and Quasali Pridemages. By doing a split, you will be more likely to be able to do a board whipe despite their disruption (this is admittedly a corner-case reason, but it is something that can come up).

I also don't think I'd want to resort to the Leyline plan in the SB. I think with 4 Brainstorm, 2 Ponders (and then eventually Jace), you might be better off playing GY hate that you can cantrip into. So I was suggesting 4 Surgical Extraction, but a split of 2/2 with Nihil Spellbomb or something else similar might be fine. I would say Grafdigger's Cage, unfortunately we need the GY for our Snapcasters.

Finally, Gilded Drake is one of the best cards against Show and Tell decks and Reanimator. It's also hilarious if you can get an active Jace -- you can bounce it, returning it your hand, and have repeatable, permanent creature stealing.

[Chikenbok]

Well, here's the list I've been tuning so far. Tested today against UW Miracles, BUG Aggro (Goyf/Snap/Ooze), and Merfolk - Went 12-3, 13-2, 10-5 against the three decks respectively. I only had a chance to play 15 matches with each opponent so the samples we're fairly small. I got in one quick round against RUG and went 2-1.

//The Sick Beats -- 2
2 x Snapcaster Mage

//For the Stack -- 17
4 x Force of Will
4 x Brainstorm
3 x Counterspell
2 x Ghastly Demise
1 x Diabolic Edict
3 x Spell Pierce

//The Slower Stack -- 13
1 x Maelstrom Pulse
2 x Life from the Loam
2 x Inquisition of Kozilek
2 x Thoughtseize
3 x Innocent Blood
3 x Pernicious Deed

//Win Conditions/P.Walkers -- 5
3 x Jace
2 x Lili

23 Lands Incl. 2 Factories, and 1 Tar Pit.

Gotta say, I'm not missing tarmogoyfs at all.

[jparula]

Well, here's the list I've been tuning so far. Tested today against UW Miracles, BUG Aggro (Goyf/Snap/Ooze), and Merfolk - Went 12-3, 13-2, 10-5 against the three decks respectively. I only had a chance to play 15 matches with each opponent so the samples we're fairly small. I got in one quick round against RUG and went 2-1.

//The Sick Beats -- 2
2 x Snapcaster Mage

//For the Stack -- 17
4 x Force of Will
4 x Brainstorm
3 x Counterspell
2 x Ghastly Demise
1 x Diabolic Edict
3 x Spell Pierce

//The Slower Stack -- 13
1 x Maelstrom Pulse
2 x Life from the Loam
2 x Inquisition of Kozilek
2 x Thoughtseize
3 x Innocent Blood
3 x Pernicious Deed

//Win Conditions/P.Walkers -- 5
3 x Jace
2 x Lili

23 Lands Incl. 2 Factories, and 1 Tar Pit.

Gotta say, I'm not missing tarmogoyfs at all.

From my testing the goyfs are crucial against Burn, U/R Burn and Combo Decks with disruption (Cabal Therapy, Duress, Thoughtseize). They are also important against Goblins, RUG Delver and Merfolk. I take them out post side in most other match-ups.

[wcm8]

From my testing the goyfs are crucial against Burn, U/R Burn and Combo Decks with disruption (Cabal Therapy, Duress, Thoughtseize). They are also important against Goblins, RUG Delver and Merfolk. I take them out post side in most other match-ups.

I agree. At a certain point, you need to actually go kill your opponent. The cost/benefit of having your opponent's removal be live is worth it in the majority of matchups. RUG can't even reliably kill Tarmogoyf without 2-for-1'ing themselves -- and then they'll be forced to consider siding in Submerges, which are otherwise terrible against BUG Control. There are very few matchups where having a huge wall/clock isn't advantageous.

[rchinnock]

I;ve been playing the following list for a bit, and it seems good to me. Its moire on the aggro-control side than straight control, but I stil think it fits better here than in the aggro-tempo thread.


4 tarmogoyf
4 dark confidant
2 snapcaster mage
4 force of will
4 spell pierce
2 thoughtseize
2 inquisition of kozilek
4 ghastly demise
4 brainstorm
3 ponder
4 jace, the mindsculptor
1 liliana of the veil
1 sylvan library

3 wasteland
4 underground sea
3 tropical island
1 bayou
1 island
1 swamp
4 polluted delta
4 misty rainforest
1 verdant catacombs

[bradstone]

I ran this list this past sunday to a 4-0 finish (going 8-0 in games). Sadly I lost to goblins in top4 in 2 reallyyy close games. During rounds I beat reanimator, maverick, UW stoneforge w/ standstill, and some UW energy field/wheel of sun and moon. Here is my list:

3 Tarmogoyf
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Jace, The Mind Sculptar
2 Liliana, of The Veil
3 Spell Pierce
3 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
2 Innocent Blood
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Thoughtsieze
2 Life From the Loam
1 Sensei's Top
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacomb

Sideboard:
1 Force of Will
1 Flusterstorm
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Perish
2 Innocent Blood
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Damnation
1 Krosan Grip
1 Haunting Echoes

I'm debating right now if I should drop goyf from the mainboard and add 4 to the sideboard. I didn't see goyf once the entire day until top 4 when I raced goblins on a mull to 5. Clique and snapcaster went the distance basically the whole day (and jace) and across the field, clique seems relevant in more matches then goyf.

The sideboard is also a little all over the place, but it worked out fine for the matches that I played, and my only real thought on board is playing surgical or extripate. I just don't know if the speed of surgical is better than the split second on extripate.


Also, on another note, I'm thinking of dropping creatures all together and playing a landstill variation with The Abyss because I just got one. Only problem being that deck takes forever to win, and snapcaster mage is amazing.

[Chikenbok]

@Brad -- I've been running "creatureless" for some time now and I've been finding myself rolling through most of the field (mind you, I consider a 2 snapcaster mage build to be creatureless). Although I would be interested in working on an oldschool landstill version too!

Tarmogoyf is a great wall against aggro decks and a great clock against combo decks, but so is ripping their hand apart and beating in with cliques and animated factories. Perhaps its just how one chooses to play the deck but I'd much prefer to take some hits, 3 for 1 my opponent with a forced through deed after peeking at their hand a few times and taking relevant spells, then landing a jace and winning the game. If you play tight and aggressively, you rarely run into time problems regarding, actually winning the game.

I mean, what kind of ass doesn't pick up their cards after you have a Liliana, a Jace, and a Loam running?

[Mr. Safety]

Well, here's the list I've been tuning so far. Tested today against UW Miracles, BUG Aggro (Goyf/Snap/Ooze), and Merfolk - Went 12-3, 13-2, 10-5 against the three decks respectively. I only had a chance to play 15 matches with each opponent so the samples we're fairly small. I got in one quick round against RUG and went 2-1.

//The Sick Beats -- 2
2 x Snapcaster Mage

//For the Stack -- 17
4 x Force of Will
4 x Brainstorm
3 x Counterspell
2 x Ghastly Demise
1 x Diabolic Edict
3 x Spell Pierce

//The Slower Stack -- 13
1 x Maelstrom Pulse
2 x Life from the Loam
2 x Inquisition of Kozilek
2 x Thoughtseize
3 x Innocent Blood
3 x Pernicious Deed

//Win Conditions/P.Walkers -- 5
3 x Jace
2 x Lili

23 Lands Incl. 2 Factories, and 1 Tar Pit.

Gotta say, I'm not missing tarmogoyfs at all.

Would you ever consider Ensnaring Bridge? It's nuts with Lili's against anything aggro oriented.

[Chikenbok]

Would you ever consider Ensnaring Bridge? It's nuts with Lili's against anything aggro oriented.

Any deck that's trying to attack my life total with creatures as an efficient means of ending the game is already going to lose to targeted removal and sweepers. I usually don't want to be staring at a board full of critters with no cards in hand and lili ticking up, I'd much rather her, along with other cards, deal with the creatures before I can further develop the game state.

Also, even when Lili is ticking up, I usually have 3-4 cards in hand.

I guess it just seems a bit redundant in the effects of the BUg gameplan, albeit, it could possibly be a good out to a resolved big boy (although, I usually win that war anyways).

[Mr. Safety]

Any deck that's trying to attack my life total with creatures as an efficient means of ending the game is already going to lose to targeted removal and sweepers. I usually don't want to be staring at a board full of critters with no cards in hand and lili ticking up, I'd much rather her, along with other cards, deal with the creatures before I can further develop the game state.

Also, even when Lili is ticking up, I usually have 3-4 cards in hand.

I guess it just seems a bit redundant in the effects of the BUg gameplan, albeit, it could possibly be a good out to a resolved big boy (although, I usually win that war anyways).

Is redundant not another way of saying 'consistent'? It was just an idea...you're playing a hard-control game with *zero* creatures. Ensnaring Bridge seemed like dirty tech, honestly.

[Chikenbok]

Is redundant not another way of saying 'consistent'? It was just an idea...you're playing a hard-control game with *zero* creatures. Ensnaring Bridge seemed like dirty tech, honestly.

I'm not arguing against the value that can come along with a resolved Ensnaring bridge against an aggro deck, nor am I trying to play an exciting game of semantics (but if you wanna talk index I'm totally down).

IMO -- The list is too tight to cut anything really for bridge, let alone - I generally don't want to have 1 or 0 cards in my hand. I'd rather have n+1 cards in my hand where n is the number of cards in my opponents hand, even if that means 6 vs. 7, I'll take it. It might be a great addition to the sideboard against 'biggins but I don't think that the main deck has any room for it (especially without tops/e-tutors).

[Mr. Safety]

I'm not arguing against the value that can come along with a resolved Ensnaring bridge against an aggro deck, nor am I trying to play an exciting game of semantics (but if you wanna talk index I'm totally down).

IMO -- The list is too tight to cut anything really for bridge, let alone - I generally don't want to have 1 or 0 cards in my hand. I'd rather have n+1 cards in my hand where n is the number of cards in my opponents hand, even if that means 6 vs. 7, I'll take it. It might be a great addition to the sideboard against 'biggins but I don't think that the main deck has any room for it (especially without tops/e-tutors).

Fair enough...I've been using a playset of Bridge in my U/B faeries deck and I love how it can take a tempo deck and turn it into a fairly decent hard-control deck. I take out 3 Tombstalkers and 4 Delvers for 4 Bridges and some mix of Perish, Deathmark, and Engineered Explosives. It's basically a gameplan of stall, disrupt, then relax...ahhh, Ensnaring Bridge and Bitterblossom (or Jace) getting there.

[Chikenbok]

Fair enough...I've been using a playset of Bridge in my U/B faeries deck and I love how it can take a tempo deck and turn it into a fairly decent hard-control deck. I take out 3 Tombstalkers and 4 Delvers for 4 Bridges and some mix of Perish, Deathmark, and Engineered Explosives. It's basically a gameplan of stall, disrupt, then relax...ahhh, Ensnaring Bridge and Bitterblossom (or Jace) getting there.

Oh trust me, in something like faeries that has access to BB and doesn't necessarily win the game at 3-5 life, boarding out your stalkers for bridges is CRUSHING to opponents who don't know what's happening. Of course, the main difference here is that I'm going into game one as the dedicated control deck - adapting game 2 to deal with, well, you know the deal.

[Chikenbok]

Tuned list -- Its good:



//Creatures - 2
2 Snapcaster Mage

//Enchantments - 3
3 Pernicious Deed

//Instants - 16
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
3 Spell Pierce
1 Darkblast
2 Ghastly Demise

//Sorceries - 10
3 Innocent Blood
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Life From the Loam

//Planeswalkers - 6
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Liliana of the Veil

//Land - 23
1 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Island
1 Swamp

//SB
2 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Engineered Plague
2 Hydroblast
1 Krosan Grip
1 Nature's Claim
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Perish



So far I have 1 super bad matchup - goblins. Hence the blasts and plagues in the board - brings post-board to favor at about 60%, but its nothing I'm too worried about.

Always love input (and I know, Goyf would help in my goblins matchup)

[Bzka]

@Chikenbok

Nice list, even though im missing Wastelands in there, you prolly just forgot them.

Would you play 3 Lilis without the second LftL?
I recently went up to 4 Jace and 2 Lilis and never looked back. With the full set you can often throw the first one out for bait or, which matters more, dropping a jace on an empty board without brainstorming/digging for it gives your enemy less time to recover.
Finally, i find your bluecount preboard dangerously low. How do your FoW's work out for you?

[Chikenbok]

@Chikenbok

Nice list, even though im missing Wastelands in there, you prolly just forgot them.

Would you play 3 Lilis without the second LftL?
I recently went up to 4 Jace and 2 Lilis and never looked back. With the full set you can often throw the first one out for bait or, which matters more, dropping a jace on an empty board without brainstorming/digging for it gives your enemy less time to recover.
Finally, i find your bluecount preboard dangerously low. How do your FoW's work out for you?

There should be 3 wasteland in the list, thanks for pointing that out. The only deck I'm actively trying to ruin with waste/loam is RUG who simply cannot beat the two cards, its always fun watching them force a will a life from the loam to see you dredge it back and hit waste, factory, fetch. Waste is usually spent producing colorless mana and/or dealing with obnoxious utility/Sol lands.

The decision to go up to three lili's actually happened yesterday after hours and hours of play-testing and the truth is, while some people will argue that Jace wins the game on his own and lili helps, this isn't necessarily true.

Generally once lili ticks past 6 your opponent will scoop up the cards. Yes, with loam its incredible and essentially a GG on the spot but even without loam (I mean, you'll find it, right?) you should never cast her until you can guarantee card parity with your opponent at which point our deck pulls better answers off the top, our win conditions are LANDS, and we can deal with any threats they play at any given time.

She also completely hoses any combo deck that is trying to assemble critical mass in a single turn. You should try the 3/3 split, you might dig it.

[sdematt]

Your list looks super similar to a list I was playing a while ago, but I was running 1 Intuition as the 61st card and more basic lands.

Do you ever find Pernicious Deed and Cage clashing ever against Dredge? I mean, I guess you're really only ever Deeding on zero anyway.

-Matt

[Chikenbok]

Your list looks super similar to a list I was playing a while ago, but I was running 1 Intuition as the 61st card and more basic lands.

Do you ever find Pernicious Deed and Cage clashing ever against Dredge? I mean, I guess you're really only ever Deeding on zero anyway.

-Matt

A buddy of mine runs a single intuition in his 60 plus an unearth to reuse his snapcasters or some silly stuff like that (he runs 2 goyfs and a clique in there too). Its a really powerful engine but I don't necessarily think there's anything at this moment I'd want to cut from the deck. If it were to be anything it'd be the Maelstrom Pulse but then I'd start losing to Elspeth again, and - that's just no good. Even with the current configuration I'm not sure I'd ever really need to intuition for anything, the deck just rips so hot, all the time.

Yeah deed against dredge is always on 0, hell snapcaster innocent blood nukes their bridges, and generally buys time with a cage out for them to be unable to make it back in the game.

[Angels]

If I play 4 goyfs and 4 snappys, should I run 2 Mishra's Factory? And do I play Daze over Spell Pierce because it's more aggro-ish?

[wcm8]

I'm testing the following:

23 Lands:
4 Underground
4 Tropical
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
8 Fetch
2 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tarpit
1 Bojuka Bog

10 Creatures:
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Vendilion Clique

10 Removal:
4 Ghastly Demise
4 Diabolic Edict
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Maelstrom Pulse

7 Control:
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Force of Will

10 Utility:
4 Brainstorm
2 Jace, TMS
1 Life from the Loam
2 Ponder
1 Sensei's Divining Top

SB:
4 Counterbalance
2 SDT
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Massacre
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Force of Will (should maybe be the 4th SDT)

The idea with this build is to take essentially the same configuration that is winning from the Esper Blade lists and give it the BUG control spin to gain an advantage in other matchups. With Esper, you gain the equipment package + Lingering Souls, and the best 1-mana removal spell in the game. As good as Esper is, I've occasionally had issues with the deck getting equipment stranded in hand/on board without a body to equip it to, and opening with a Batterskull is practically like a mulligan.

You sacrifice that for a different type of utility: a sturdier, 1-card win condition [Tarmogoyf -- SFM is typically more fragile], a method of grinding out long games [Loam, Liliana, Wasteland], and a higher likelihood of crushing the RUG matchup [Diabolic Edict, Counterbalance SB plan]. We also gain access to the best board wipe card in Legacy, Pernicious Deed (Massacre is also fantastic as well, even against some decks where you have to hardcast it as a mini-Damnation).

This build is obviously focused more on fighting random aggro decks in game 1, and some of the card choices are obviously based around that decision [Inquisition over Thoughtseize, only 3 FoW and no other counterspells, a higher density of removal]. I wouldn't play this configuration if you're expecting a ton of combo decks all day.

Counterbalance is choice that I think is underutilized by BUG these days, and as seen by the success of Miracle lists, it's still powerful. It gives us a chance against our traditionally worst match-up, Burn. It's also no slouch against certain other types of combo decks like Storm and Reanimator.

Because graveyard-based strategies are often tough to deal with, I have a couple cards in the maindeck to go along with the SB surgicals. Scavenging Ooze is often good against aggro, and Bojuka Bog is fine as a pseudo-spell against opposing Snapcaster decks and Mongeese.

I would like to hear any suggestions, but so far it's been fairing decently.

[Angels]

I'm testing the following:

23 Lands:
4 Underground
4 Tropical
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
8 Fetch
2 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tarpit
1 Bojuka Bog

10 Creatures:
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Vendilion Clique

10 Removal:
4 Ghastly Demise
4 Diabolic Edict
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Maelstrom Pulse

7 Control:
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Force of Will

10 Utility:
4 Brainstorm
2 Jace, TMS
1 Life from the Loam
2 Ponder
1 Sensei's Divining Top

SB:
4 Counterbalance
2 SDT
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Massacre
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Force of Will (should maybe be the 4th SDT)

The idea with this build is to take essentially the same configuration that is winning from the Esper Blade lists and give it the BUG control spin to gain an advantage in other matchups. With Esper, you gain the equipment package + Lingering Souls, and the best 1-mana removal spell in the game. As good as Esper is, I've occasionally had issues with the deck getting equipment stranded in hand/on board without a body to equip it to, and opening with a Batterskull is practically like a mulligan.

You sacrifice that for a different type of utility: a sturdier, 1-card win condition [Tarmogoyf -- SFM is typically more fragile], a method of grinding out long games [Loam, Liliana, Wasteland], and a higher likelihood of crushing the RUG matchup [Diabolic Edict, Counterbalance SB plan]. We also gain access to the best board wipe card in Legacy, Pernicious Deed (Massacre is also fantastic as well, even against some decks where you have to hardcast it as a mini-Damnation).

This build is obviously focused more on fighting random aggro decks in game 1, and some of the card choices are obviously based around that decision [Inquisition over Thoughtseize, only 3 FoW and no other counterspells, a higher density of removal]. I wouldn't play this configuration if you're expecting a ton of combo decks all day.

Counterbalance is choice that I think is underutilized by BUG these days, and as seen by the success of Miracle lists, it's still powerful. It gives us a chance against our traditionally worst match-up, Burn. It's also no slouch against certain other types of combo decks like Storm and Reanimator.

Because graveyard-based strategies are often tough to deal with, I have a couple cards in the maindeck to go along with the SB surgicals. Scavenging Ooze is often good against aggro, and Bojuka Bog is fine as a pseudo-spell against opposing Snapcaster decks and Mongeese.

I would like to hear any suggestions, but so far it's been fairing decently.
I wouldn't run more than 2 Ghastly Demise because of reanimator or other black-based creature decks. Replace it with a Go For The Throat or Diabolic Edict.

[wcm8]

I wouldn't run more than 2 Ghastly Demise because of reanimator or other black-based creature decks. Replace it with a Go For The Throat or Diabolic Edict.

I could see maybe GftT, but obviously I already am running 4 Edicts. I like Demise since it costs just one mana and kills just about everything commonly played in Legacy at the moment.

[Kyle]

I'm really digging this deck and have so far played against RUG Thresh (good matchup), Team America Aggro (bad matchup), Esper Stoneblade (okay matchup), Zombies (bad matchup), Maverick (good matchup). I'm running Chikenbok's decklist but with more basics and the following sideboard modifications:

-2 Perish
+2 Damnation

RUG has a tough time with this deck due to great sacrifice effects and this deck just EATS MAVERICK ALIVE.

I think the Team America Aggro matchup is pretty bad due to consistent beaters and a decent control element as backup, but it could have been a bad draw. I wasn't able to kill a Tombstalker due to redundant blue protection. Oh well, I don't think I'm going to see it much in my meta.

The matchup I see as being particularly bad is Sam Black's zombies deck - because there's so much GOOD graveyard creature recursion, sweepers such as Pernicious Deed and Damnation don't help much unless you back it up with a Nihil Spellbomb. I know that Night of Souls' Betrayal is a common card played in this deck archetype, has anyone had good experiences with it? It looks like a real hoser, but works against your Snapcasters (though the comes into play trigger still happens). I guess that's not a big deal. I might pull out the Plagues and replace them NoSB. Thoughts?

[Chikenbok]

First off, glad you're enjoying the deck - it really is a blast to play.

Now, in all of my testing, when you have two similar decks under the same archetype, the control-ier version of the deck tends to win. This is true of old school land-still decks, is generally true in most UW matchups, and in my testing with BUG, I don't think I've ever lost a game against BUG aggro (goyf/snap/stalker).

Pernicious deed takes care of 75% of their creature base and innocent bloods need to be held for stalkers as Ghastly demise won't exactly cut it. Try a few more matches with your opponents deck list in your head and with every play think of how many outs you have to a given spell, the deck rips like a champ off the top with answers -- Jace to a stalker generally means you have 3-4 turns to figure out how to deal with it again.

Regarding NosB, its amazing in a meta infested with Lingering Souls, since they're not really the flavor of the month, the card's effect has 'dwindled' a bit, albeit, its still a hell of card against some of the field (more fringe deck's than tier decks).

I think most of the reason that I enjoy playing e-plague so much is because it can come in against almost 'ANYTHING' -- maverick naming humans, goblins naming elephants, elves naming ponies, etc. Well, the real reason its in my board at all is because Goblins is a deck again that I'd been having trouble with, If you have any testing success with NosB, please let me know,

Keep testing against BUG aggro, the matchup should be heavily (mind the variance) in your favor.

--Alex

Edit: Also, Flusterstorm. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.

[Kyle]

I just went 3-0 and split for first place in a small local weekly Legacy tournament. Forgive my hyper-verbosity, but I was super happy with deck and the result. Here's my list:

//Awesomesauce
4x Brainstorm
3x Force of Will
3x Spell Pierce
2x Counterspell
2x Ponder
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Thoughtseize
2x Life from the Loam

//Death
3x Innocent Blood
3x Pernicious Deed
1x Ghastly Demise
1x Darkblast
1x Damnation
1x Maelstrom Pulse

//Backup bitches
2x Snapcaster Mage

//Lovers n' Fighters
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2x Liliana of the Veil

//Laaaands!
4x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
1x Bayou
2x Island
1x Swamp
4x Polluted Delta
4x Misty Rainforest
3x Wasteland
2x Mishra's Factory
1x Creeping Tar Pit

//Sideboard
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Scavenging Ooze
2x Vendilion Clique
1x Diabolic Edict
2x Hydroblast
1x Force of Will
1x Krosan Grip
1x Damnation
1x Night of Souls' Betrayal
1x Go for the Throat

------------------

Round 1: "E" with Enchantress

Game 1: "E" is new to the deck and I knew he was playing it so I had a bit of an edge, and Enchantress is pretty weak to control. Due to few creatures in Enchantress I kept a hand with Force of Will, Spell Pierce, 3 lands, and a Jace. I counter his spells, Deed away his board of enchantments twice, and land a Jace who gets me there with his ultimate.

OUT: 3x Innocent Blood, 1x Ghastly Demise, 1x Darkblast, 1x Damnation
IN: 1x Force of Will, 1x Krosan Grip, 2x Vendilion Clique, 2x Surgical Extraction

Game 2: I know he's going to bring in Chokes post-board so I keep a hand with a FoW and a Spell Pierce (I know, lucky starts). I keep one mana open for Spell Pierce for his attempted Choke on Turn 6. I land a Jace and Fateseal him away.

2-0-0
1-0-0

Round 2: "K" with Mono-black Pox Control

Game 1: I think he's playing monowhite weenies (which he played last week) so I keep a hand with Innocent Blood, Spell Pierce, and a Pernicious Deed. I'm on the play and play first turn Island, Go. "K" keeps a loose one-lander hand (which I find out through several rounds of him not geting any lands) and plays on his first turn Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth-->Dark Ritual-->Liliana of the Veil, which I Spell Pierce. On my turn I play a Wasteland and take out his single land, then man-land him throughout the game down to 2 life. He stabilizes with two Mishra's factories of his own and I land a Jace to Fateseal him a bit, then we stall out for a bit until I Life from the Loam Wasteland him out and swing for the kill with a Mishra's (finally).

OUT: 3x Innocent Blood, 1x Ghastly Demise, 1x Darkblast, 1x Damnation
IN: 1x Force of Will, 2x Vendilion Clique, 1x Scavenging Ooze, 2x Surgical Extraction

Game 2: In Game 1 I Fatesealed a Bloodghast and since he has a lot of hate and discard I brought in the Surgicals. Also since we stalled out a bit mid-game I figured the Cliques would help present a quicker clock. Turn 1 he drops a Swamp, Go. I'm surprised he doesn't Inquisition me first turn. I keep a hand with a Life from the Loam, Underground Sea, Misty Rainforest, Surgical Extraction, Scavenging Ooze, and Vendilion Clique, which might be considered a loose keep since I didn't draw any control. I drop the Underground Sea and say Go. He plays on his second turn a Swamp and Nukes my Underground Sea with a Sinkhole. Shit. Then, I play the Misty Rainforest and say Go. Next, he Inquisitions me, I respond by Surgical Extracting his Sinkhole (which saved by ass, as he had two Smallpoxes in hand he was afraid of using because he didn't want to nuke his own lands and it doesn't hurt me too much because I'm so creature light), he makes me discard my Ooze and passes. VERY luckily I peel a land off the top, crack the Rainforest and play Life From the Loam. He Extirpates my Loam but I continue to get lucky with lands and cantrips until we stall again mid-game and Jace ends up getting me there.

I was originally very hesitant to play a Jace-dependent deck, but holy shit it is amazing. His utility abilities rock my socks.

2-0-0
2-0-0

Round 3: "J" with Mono-red Goblins

Game 1: "J" and I have a history of getting (randomly) paired up the first round of several tournaments and he always beats the tar out of me. His Goblins deck has so much synergy, speed, and decent control such as Gempalm Incinerator, Sharpshooter, Siege-Gang Commander, and he places very high in these tournaments regularly. He stars with Turn 1 Mountain --> Goblin Lackey. I know he doesn't play Wastelands, so I start with Turn 2 Underground Sea, Innocent Blood. From there he makes every land drop, many being Cavern of Souls, so my counters get significantly weaker. Then, we stall for nearly 40 minutes - I have a resolved Jace and a Liliana and continuously Fateseal him while he resolves Goblins and Goblin tokens and keeps attacking, bringing Jace down 2-3 points per turn. I do a decent job of holding off his wave with Innocent Blood, Ghastly Demise, Manlands, and Pernicious Deed (twice) and preventing him from getting Ringleaders. Eventually I cantrip into a Maelstrom Pulse which takes out his tokens and a Damnation to clear the board, then I Jace Ultimate (winning) as the game goes to time.

Game 2: With only 5 turns to play since the game goes to time I bring in more hate and he mulligans to 4 hoping to get a God-draw and kill me in 3 turns. I mulligan and keep a hand full of creature hate and we Draw.

"J" was pretty upset, probably because my deck looked like it was tailor-made to kill his deck, which in a sense is true, but it's because last week we had 3 Goblins players, no combo, and mostly Aggro or Aggro-Control. Also, Game 1 drew out FOREVER and I ended up getting there with a Win-con that he thinks maybe I shouldn't have had. In any case, we agreed it was a great game albeit frustrating and nerve-wracking at times. Later, one of my other MTG-buddies asked why I wasn't bouncing his Goblin tokens. I don't think this was a good idea because I was trying I have so much hate I was trying draw into with cantrips and reshuffles and by Fatesealing him I made sure he wasn't able to improve his army enough to really do major damage.

1-1-0
3-0-0

Top 4: "I" with Esper Stoneblade

"I" and I decided to split the top and play for fun since the difference in prizes between first and second were pretty low and a loss could mean 3rd place.

Game 1: Jace gets me there and I control the board with lots of hate, Manlands, and counters. Fatesealing obviously makes it happen, but every now and then his Brainstorm is friggin' perfect.


-------------------

Again, sorry for the lengthy post, but it was a great small tournament and I was really impressed with the deck. I didn't mention it earlier, but the all-star (other than Jace and Deed) for the night was Ponder. I found this deck having major problems getting the cards it needs and having those two extra cantrips is incredibly valuable. I highly suggest using them - if you're running a 4th FoW and/or Thoughtseize/Inquisition, drop them for a Ponder or two, it really works. I'm probably going to take out the Night of Souls' Betrayal in the Side as I didn't feel like it would help all night and because when it hits it often doesn't do much. I'll replace it with another Diabolic Edict or Go for the Throat.

Edit: Also, I love how this deck can transform quite nicely post-board to get more Creature Hate or more Control. Boarding out 6-7 cards can work quite well and you don't feel like you're really missing much.

[Chikenbok]

Glad to see someone else here aside from myself is still running hot with the deck. I spent almost the entire day today testing it extensively against RUG, Esper Blade, UW Miracles, and Maverick going 7-3, 8-2, 9-1, and 7-3 respectively.

I've changed my list a bit to add a bit more redundancy to my threats, I've cut the pulse from the MD and added a third Counterspell and a third Snapcaster Mage, both cards have been pulling their weight extremely well 3 pierce and 3 c-spell + 3 snapcaster has been a blast. Adding the third Snap has also allowed me to drop the MD 6th piece of spot removal so I'm currently down to 3 Innocent Blood 2 Ghastly Demise MD with 1 Darkblast in the board.

I'm also back on the 3 Jace 3 Lili plan since she's a complete house against anything except a resolved top, in which case she's only *mediocre* but still quite a house.

@Kyle -- How did you like the damnation main? I tested it for a while but found it to be overkill in the list with 3 deeds, but I guess if you're playing against goblins its probably quite a nice card to have handy. Also, I was completely underwhelmed with Ponder in the deck. It might just be how I play but I'm almost always controlling my draws through either braintorms, dredges, or jaces and when none of those are relevant, I'm usually content just ripping off the top into something that's probably legitimate. The reason being that even our lands are threats in this deck, there's just nothing it doesn't want to see off the top.


One one last note I'd just like to say that flusterstorm has been a house for me in the sideboard, especially dealing with Mr. Grizzlybear and his enablers on the stack.

Just some food for though

[Plague Sliver]

Glad to see someone else here aside from myself is still running hot with the deck. I spent almost the entire day today testing it extensively against RUG, Esper Blade, UW Miracles, and Maverick going 7-3, 8-2, 9-1, and 7-3 respectively.

What's your current list?

[Chikenbok]

What's your current list?


//Win Cons.. I guess?

3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Snapcaster Mage

//Spells for Preventing my Opponents from Having Fun

2 Life from the Loam
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Pierce
3 Counterspell
3 Innocent Blood
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Ghastly Demise
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Thoughtseize

//Lands -- Win Cons?

4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
3 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Island
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Swamp


SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Nature's Claim
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Darkblast
SB: 1 Damnation
SB: 1 Virtue's Ruin
SB: 1 Raven's Crime

[SirTylerGalt]

What do you think of Brian DeMars' Shardless BUG?

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/24636-Legacy-Avant-Garde-BUG-Is-Not-A-Shard-Its-Shardless.html

I've fallen in love with the deck. Awesome card advantage, and I'd love to play Tarmogoyf alongside Jace, Clique, and Hymn.

I don't like the Snapcaster, though. I'd rather play a third Clique and top. Maybe add counterbalance in the SB for the combo matchups.

[Kyle]

The deck's great and a lot of fun to play. Based on my rather new experience with it, it's incredibly strong against some of the best decks in the format right now. I have had similar results against RUG, Esperblade, Miracles, and Maverick (playing online).



@Kyle -- How did you like the damnation main? I tested it for a while but found it to be overkill in the list with 3 deeds, but I guess if you're playing against goblins its probably quite a nice card to have handy. Also, I was completely underwhelmed with Ponder in the deck. It might just be how I play but I'm almost always controlling my draws through either braintorms, dredges, or jaces and when none of those are relevant, I'm usually content just ripping off the top into something that's probably legitimate. The reason being that even our lands are threats in this deck, there's just nothing it doesn't want to see off the top.

Damnation main (and the Ponders) is a necessity in my aggro-heavy meta and absolutely allowed me to win the game against Goblins this last time (a deck which there is sometimes 3 of at any given weekly tournament). This is of course a small sample size, but I'm pretty happy to see a Damnation mid-game more than 90% of the time. I will definitely say it's not good MD in every meta, but I feel it's right for mine. In my opinion, because Jace is your primary Win Condition, if you are being assaulted turn after turn with aggro and you're having trouble controlling it, Jace's Fateseal is the most important thing to be doing every turn as it prevents the assault from growing larger. Those extra filter/cantrips and extra MD sweeper can help keep Jace doing his job while you look for an answer. Oftentimes a topdecked Spell Pierce or Counterspell isn't what you're looking for, whereas what you really need is more creature kill.

Now, I may be playing Jace wrong, not taking full advantage of his Brainstorm or Bounce, but when you want to win a game, I think you've gotta keep the pressure on with Fatesealing. And of course I'd love to have advice on how best to play the Blue Planeswalker Badass. Also, Pernicious Deed for me has swept (no pun intended) to the top of the charts of best card ever printed.

[Chikenbok]

Now, I may be playing Jace wrong, not taking full advantage of his Brainstorm or Bounce, but when you want to win a game, I think you've gotta keep the pressure on with Fatesealing. And of course I'd love to have advice on how best to play the Blue Planeswalker Badass. Also, Pernicious Deed for me has swept (no pun intended) to the top of the charts of best card ever printed.

Its almost always the right choice to immediately begin fatesealing with jace because, once you resolve him you're generally at, or above card parity with your opponent. However, in the control matchups (UW/CBtop) you generally want to be at a point of +1/+2 cards before you begin fatesealing as you MUST have generally 1/2 counterspells in hand to deal with the jace that your opponent is so heavily digging for. Remember that brainstorming is arguably the most powerful thing that can be done in MTG, and jace can provide that every single term. But yes, most games are won off of his *bam you're dead* factor.

[Holden1669]

What are everyone's thoughts about Brian DeMar's article (and decklist) on SCG: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/24636-Legacy-Avant-Garde-BUG-Is-Not-A-Shard-Its-Shardless.html

He basically adds Shardless Agent and Ancestral Vision to a Team America-ish base. This appeals to me but I haven't gotten the chance to try it out it.

Because clicking is hard, here's the list:

Artifacts
2 Sensei's Divining Top

Artifact Creatures
4 Shardless Agent

Creatures
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Tarmogoyf

Enchantments
3 Pernicious Deed

Instants
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Ghastly Demise

Legendary Creatures
2 Vendilion Clique

Planeswalkers
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sorceries
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Hymn to Tourach

Basic Lands
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp

Lands
2 Bayou
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland


Sideboard:
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Ghastly Demise
1 Go for the Throat
2 Krosan Grip
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Thoughtseize

[Chikenbok]

Never been a fan of cascade and being forced to brainstorm when you're trying to do... something else (not die?) doesn't seem that appealing to me. I think the deck definitely looks interesting and I'll give it a few runs before I make any conclusive statements about it but building a deck around cascading is a lot more difficult than jamming in 4 creatures that can hit almost all of your deck.

Realistically there are 10 targets you want to be cascading into, and that's on an empty board, Vision, Hymn, and Snapcaster (maybe goyf is in there too) but I don't see the deck consistently cascading into spells that you want to cast at a specific time.

The thing that BUG control does amazingly well is provide answers on a 1 to 1 basis until establishing itself in a position in which it simply cannot lose -- Cascade randomizes the chance of hitting the spell you need. Albeit, sometimes cascading into a bomb feels amazing, but it takes away from the general consistency that real BUG control provides.

On that note, I'll go test it for a few hours.

[Holden1669]

Never been a fan of cascade and being forced to brainstorm when you're trying to do... something else (not die?) doesn't seem that appealing to me. I think the deck definitely looks interesting and I'll give it a few runs before I make any conclusive statements about it but building a deck around cascading is a lot more difficult than jamming in 4 creatures that can hit almost all of your deck.

Realistically there are 10 targets you want to be cascading into, and that's on an empty board, Vision, Hymn, and Snapcaster (maybe goyf is in there too) but I don't see the deck consistently cascading into spells that you want to cast at a specific time.

The thing that BUG control does amazingly well is provide answers on a 1 to 1 basis until establishing itself in a position in which it simply cannot lose -- Cascade randomizes the chance of hitting the spell you need. Albeit, sometimes cascading into a bomb feels amazing, but it takes away from the general consistency that real BUG control provides.

On that note, I'll go test it for a few hours.

How did your testing go?

You have some good points for sure. I wonder if the cascading is a little too cute to actually be good. But I do think that brainstorming when you otherwise wouldn't brainstorm isn't the worst thing ever, especially since the brainstorm isn't coming from your hand. Maybe it was on top of your deck and you would have drawn it next turn and held onto it for a while, but maybe it was beneath three lands and would have come too late anyway. And now you've gotten rid of the lands as well.

The worst case scenarios for cascading are:

1. hit snapcaster with nothing in the graveyard or with no open mana. In this case you get a 2/2 and 2/1 for three mana. Not great but not the worst thing ever.

2. Hit ghastly demise with no creatures to kill. Many of these times you would rather not draw ghastly demise as there is nothing to kill (there are exceptions to this, obviously, where you'd want to save it for later) so at least you got it out of the way and will be more likely to draw live.

3. Hit hymn when they have no cards in hand. Similar logic to above but in addition you're probably winning already if this is the situation.

4. Hit top when the other top is already in play. With a shuffle effect this turns into draw a card. Not the best thing, but not terrible.

5. Hit tarmogoyf or anything else that won't save you when you're about to die. If you had a way to save yourself already you wouldn't cast shardless agent so this is kind of desperation time anyway.

Other than that, a free brainstorm never seems bad and a free ancestral is pretty much always awesome. Also, this is minor but the cascade also gives you another way to get rid of lands and cards with CMC >= 3 that you put back after brainstorm, which is something that could come up from time to time.

But this is legacy and while value is awesome, hypergenesis seldom gets played and it cascades into giant fatties. So I don't know. I'd love to get a chance to try it out but it's going to be a week or so before I do.

I'm definitely interested in anyone's thoughts.

[Chikenbok]

From my initial testing my original thoughts were pretty accurate.

Most games went something like this:

Me: *cast cascade dude* "Alright, I hit a brainstorm.. I really don't want to ______(Insert Random Niche Spell Here) right now, my grip is solid and I don't want to play this spell, but I guess I have a 2/2 now and I'm tapped out."
--appx. 75% of the time
or

Me: *cast cascade dude* "Fuck yeah, free recall."
--appx. 20% of the time

The other 5% I was 'satisfied' cascading into a goyf or a snapcaster. However, I felt like the deck spent too much time trying to set up a cascade which could have otherwise been a relevant spell. I also found myself just wishing the Agent was a different card, like the one I could theoretically cascade into.

Hymn never won me a game, cascading into ghastly demise while staring at a nimble mongoose is the worst feeling in the entire world, cascading into tarmogoyf and turning on my opponents remval, second worst feeling in the world, cascading through a Jace, third worst feeling in the world.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I don't think I am. If you spend the time setting up the cascade then you lose the game. If you randomly jam cascaders on to the field, you probably get a durdly 2 for 1 that you didn't want or need.

I think at this point, for three mana against 95% of the field, I'd rather just play a freaking Pernicious Deed and relax for a turn or two while my opponent stares at a card that reads, "You can't play permanents".

tl;dr -- Seems too cute, as you said. The time invested in setting up a relevant cascade when your deck runs hotter than most others off the top is painful. Also, don't really think this deck needs/wants top.... Just run ponder if you want more cantrips/shuffles/library manipulation.

[Kyle]

I tested the deck out a bit on MWS and went up against Goblins x2, Merfolk, UW Miracles, and Team America Aggro.

First match against Goblins was amazing but I got a ridiculous draw: a 3-lander, 2 Hymns, a Snapcaster, and a Shardless Agent. Turn 4 (after using both Hymns), I land Shardless and cascade into a Goyf. Then, "Player Lost."

Next, against UW Miracles I control the board nicely and cascade into a Vision, clean out their hand and sweep up the board. Again, "Player Lost."

It all goes to hell after those matches - cascade getting stifled, Jace getting FoWed, cascading into Visions getting Countered, or simply being out aggroed.

I do like the filter effect you get from the Cascade and it's a lot of fun when it works (mostly against non-control decks), but yes, unless you lock the board down early with Ghastly Demise, Hymn, and Deed, you're going to get overrun. And after playing and enjoying normal BUG Control the Shardless version seems to be missing a lot of utility. Also, "drawing 3 cards" isn't a win condition.

[Chikenbok]

I think when it comes down to it -- if you've played real BUG control then there isn't much that adding Shardless gives the deck that it doesn't already have.

It definitely does some need things here and there - but overall seems like a cute trick.

Now, on to more relevant matters, what are people's sideboards looking like these days?

[Iron Buddha]

What's better against Goblins and Merfolk? Engineered Plague or spot-removal like Go for the Throat?

[kiblast]

What's better against Goblins and Merfolk? Engineered Plague or spot-removal like Go for the Throat?

In my experience with Ubx control decks, I think that you can't generally apply the same criteria for both Goblins and Folks. Normally E-Plague shines versus Goblins, and sticking one (even if then it gets K Gripped against RG and RGB versions) buys enough time to stick/setup something else ( Pernicious Deed for example, or a Moat, or a Top with a Terminus, or a second Plague). For Merfolks I think that most of the times a single Plague is not enough, either because they play lots of pump effects (while Goblins maybe play only 1 or 2 maindeck) and also because they play Daze and Pierce. So against Merfolks I think is better packing lots of spot removals and Snapcasters, while against Goblins Engineered Plague is better.
In case you decide to play the full playset of Engineered Plagues in the sideboard, you may hope to win the early game attrition against Merfolk, packing a decent number of cheap spot removals maindeck for the early stage of the game, and then try to stick two Plagues (is not that difficult, the difficult stage is to survive the first 4 turns) mid game playing around Daze.

I hope I explained my point of view:smile:

[Chikenbok]

Plague against gobos is almost certainly GG in our favor, it kills half of their deck and allows us to set up the blowout: deed into win.

Plague against fishies is completely useless, the deck is running 1,000,000 lords now and doesn't care if its 5/5 becomes a 4/4, by the time it comes down you've probably lost the game. You're much better off here with more targeted removal, more deeds, damnation, etc. If their is tons of fish in yer meta you should consider Llawan, she used to be a house.

[DerFern]

//Win Cons.. I guess?

3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Snapcaster Mage

//Spells for Preventing my Opponents from Having Fun

2 Life from the Loam
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Pierce
3 Counterspell
3 Innocent Blood
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Ghastly Demise
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Thoughtseize

//Lands -- Win Cons?

4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
3 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Island
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Swamp


SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Nature's Claim
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Darkblast
SB: 1 Damnation
SB: 1 Virtue's Ruin
SB: 1 Raven's Crime



so after I tried the aggro version of TA for some weeks I gave this controllish approach a chance in our local tournament. I played the above list with only some minor changes to my sideboard (Consuming Vapors instead of Damnation, Krosan Grip over Nature's Claim) and went 2-1-1. Even though the result is a little disappointing, the loss was a VERY close game against Uwr Miracle. A well-timed Terminus cleared my board and Liliana just loses against an opposing JTMS. Well, the match went to time and on his last turn, 4 Entreat Tokens just killed me. Really close one...
The draw was against an Elves player who was soooooooooooo slow. G1 took 30 minutes and I only lost because I did not find a single green mana source with 2xDeed in hand. Stuff like that happens...

Not a whole lot of content right now, but it needs to be said that this deck is awesome and a whole lot of fun to play. Its 75cards full of solutions and answers, which I really like. BUG control does not give you clunky hands with virtual mulligans as the TA version does (2xStalker, 1xMastery ftw) and each and every card drawn is a bullet. I really like this built, good job on constructing!

[Chikenbok]

so after I tried the aggro version of TA for some weeks I gave this controllish approach a chance in our local tournament. I played the above list with only some minor changes to my sideboard (Consuming Vapors instead of Damnation, Krosan Grip over Nature's Claim) and went 2-1-1. Even though the result is a little disappointing, the loss was a VERY close game against Uwr Miracle. A well-timed Terminus cleared my board and Liliana just loses against an opposing JTMS. Well, the match went to time and on his last turn, 4 Entreat Tokens just killed me. Really close one...
The draw was against an Elves player who was soooooooooooo slow. G1 took 30 minutes and I only lost because I did not find a single green mana source with 2xDeed in hand. Stuff like that happens...

Not a whole lot of content right now, but it needs to be said that this deck is awesome and a whole lot of fun to play. Its 75cards full of solutions and answers, which I really like. BUG control does not give you clunky hands with virtual mulligans as the TA version does (2xStalker, 1xMastery ftw) and each and every card drawn is a bullet. I really like this built, good job on constructing!

I've spent about.. 2 weeks now testing against Miracles and let me just say, the ONLY things worth fighting about are resolving your pernicious deed (they literally cannot win with a deed on the table) and Jace fights. It's a GRINDY matchup to say the least but with a few *hundred* games of practice you learn exactly how to play out each hand. I'd say that when I'm playing well I'm generally running 65% against most miracle builds. Liliana can generally come out against decks that are running tops, unless you wanna be a boss and bring in k-grips for magical christmas party land plays.

There is a small chance that the third counterspell might be something different, I don't know what because I really love that card, but there is a *small* chance it will change (perhaps back to the catch-all maelstrom pulse). -- note, it probably won't change.

So, Engineered plague has squeaked its way back into my sideboard... I don't know if I'm thrilled about it but with people playing goblins its kind of awesome (also, naming humans against Maverick shuts down 80% of their deck).

Lastly, I'm almost done with the pimp project on the deck... Just waiting on 2 foil Thoughtseizes and 1 more wasteland, sigh.

[MattiasNL]

I like your list Chikenbok, this is one of the decks i'm considering to play in the mtgo legacy mocs tomorrow.
2 questions:
No spell snares? Being able to counter thalia/counterbalance/stoneforge on the draw seems very powerful to me (I know pierce gets balance too but snare is live in the midgame as well).

How does this deck perform against the show and tell omniscience decks? That deck is seeing play quite a bit now. They are playing a similar number of counterspells but they have overmaster to gain an advantage. More discard spells in the sideboard might be a way to solve this.

[Chikenbok]

I like your list Chikenbok, this is one of the decks i'm considering to play in the mtgo legacy mocs tomorrow.
2 questions:
No spell snares? Being able to counter thalia/counterbalance/stoneforge on the draw seems very powerful to me (I know pierce gets balance too but snare is live in the midgame as well).

How does this deck perform against the show and tell omniscience decks? That deck is seeing play quite a bit now. They are playing a similar number of counterspells but they have overmaster to gain an advantage. More discard spells in the sideboard might be a way to solve this.

I've never been too big on conditional counterspells, although I did try out Spell Snare. I don't care about a SFM resolving as I have enough removal to kill it, Thalia is a pain in the ass but once again, 1cmc removal + deed deals with her pretty well, and I never fight over a counterbalance (unless I have a pierce in my hand and my opponent tapped out). I mean, What 2 cmc spell does your opponent have that you want to 1 for 1 that you cannot deal with via another method?

The trick with dealing with any decks playing permanents, is that our deck plays better ones. I almost never fight over CB/Top lock as my win conditions are lands and 4 drops and hell, if you resolve a deed, a miracle player, as I've stated, simply cannot win the game.

In regard to the omnigarbage decks, if you're expecting a ton of em fill yer board with Cliques, Flusterstorms, and more discard. I'm currently running 3 clique 2 F.storm in the board and can constantly fight any show and tell deck on the stack (for example, Show and tell, spell pierce, daze, force, misdirection, flusterstorm.... gg?), usually leaving them with 1-3 cards in hand, which is almost always when I like to play my Liliana or Jace for the game. Mull into a hand with at least 1 piece of discard and the rest should be blue.

If you've got any more questions about boarding, etc. lemme know

[Chikenbok]

Is anyone else feeling horribly underwhelmed with IoK/Thoughtseize against most of the field?

I'm considering swapping them out and throwing in some more factories and a set of standstills and going back to the old brew, putting the discard in the board.

[Koby]

How does a typical game with the Snap-Deed build go against Stoneblade variants? It seems like if SFM resolves for Batterskull the deck might have a difficult time controlling the board.

[kiblast]

How does a typical game with the Snap-Deed build go against Stoneblade variants? It seems like if SFM resolves for Batterskull the deck might have a difficult time controlling the board.

Most of the BUG control lists play 2 Counterspell and some Spell Snare, to prevent SfM from resolving (and in general you play more counters than UWx Blade or any other SfM.deck); in case SfM resolves, you have 4-5 spot removals (6-7 if you count LotV) and finally 1-2 Thoughtseize for the Batterskull. You should be able to fight SfM pretty easily.

[Chikenbok]

Most of the BUG control lists play 2 Counterspell and some Spell Snare, to prevent SfM from resolving (and in general you play more counters than UWx Blade or any other SfM.deck); in case SfM resolves, you have 4-5 spot removals (6-7 if you count LotV) and finally 1-2 Thoughtseize for the Batterskull. You should be able to fight SfM pretty easily.

Pretty much this. Even saving a turn by blowing deed on 2 during combat to hit the SFM and the Germ Token, then nabbing the skull on its way back down. The deck does nothing better than stalling when your opponent is in on the one creature to rule the board kind of plan. I used to run a single pulse in the board to deal with the skull but as my play got better I realized it was absolutely unnecessary.

Also, regarding my last post. I cut 2 thoughtseize from the deck and am currently testing with +1 factory + 2 Standstill.

[jparula]

Pretty much this. Even saving a turn by blowing deed on 2 during combat to hit the SFM and the Germ Token, then nabbing the skull on its way back down. The deck does nothing better than stalling when your opponent is in on the one creature to rule the board kind of plan. I used to run a single pulse in the board to deal with the skull but as my play got better I realized it was absolutely unnecessary.

Also, regarding my last post. I cut 2 thoughtseize from the deck and am currently testing with +1 factory + 2 Standstill.

Thoughtseize/Inquisition shines against threshold, just knowing what you have to play around (stifle, daze, pierce, reb/pyro, snare) is halfway to winning the match-up. Imo, Standstill is unplayable in the current metagame where the most popular deck is playing a flying 3/2 on turn1 and backing it up with free/cheap countermagic. In addition, you have a bunch of decks playing creatures with flash (Snapcaster Mage, Vendillion Clique, Scrib Ranger, Sulfur Elemental). Maverick and RUG also pack a playset of wastelands so you can't really rely on factories to block under the standstill.

[Chikenbok]

Thoughtseize/Inquisition shines against threshold, just knowing what you have to play around (stifle, daze, pierce, reb/pyro, snare) is halfway to winning the match-up. Imo, Standstill is unplayable in the current metagame where the most popular deck is playing a flying 3/2 on turn1 and backing it up with free/cheap countermagic. In addition, you have a bunch of decks playing creatures with flash (Snapcaster Mage, Vendillion Clique, Scrib Ranger, Sulfur Elemental). Maverick and RUG also pack a playset of wastelands so you can't really rely on factories to block under the standstill.

I'm pretty sure what really shines against RUG is our entire deck... Yes, information is sometimes amazing, but so is the ability to trade cards with an opponent and while having a CA engine that allows up to win the game on its own. I hadn't had a problem testing against RUG before I tried out Standstill and, after putting in 3 the game has become even better in my favor.

I realize that the format plays wasteland and creatures with flash, it always has. Perhaps not as ubiquitously as it does now (I'm looking at your snapcaster) but they've always been there. Life from the Loam on top of endless counterspells on top of not playing your standstill out on to a foolish board state, generally end well.

..Are people really bringing in Sulfer Elemental against you playing BUG? (You might want to tell them you forgot to board in your lingering souls.) Snapcaster mage exists in one tier deck, which I like to refer to as UW.Cannot.Beat.Pernicious.Deed.Dec (which is generally the deck also playing vendilion clique) and scryb ranger is.... a 1/1.

You might want to consider trying it out before dismissing it in "this format full of flash and wasteland", just don't play it into an opponent whose aggressively sitting on 1UU open.

[jparula]

I'm pretty sure what really shines against RUG is our entire deck... Yes, information is sometimes amazing, but so is the ability to trade cards with an opponent and while having a CA engine that allows up to win the game on its own. I hadn't had a problem testing against RUG before I tried out Standstill and, after putting in 3 the game has become even better in my favor.

I realize that the format plays wasteland and creatures with flash, it always has. Perhaps not as ubiquitously as it does now (I'm looking at your snapcaster) but they've always been there. Life from the Loam on top of endless counterspells on top of not playing your standstill out on to a foolish board state, generally end well.

..Are people really bringing in Sulfer Elemental against you playing BUG? (You might want to tell them you forgot to board in your lingering souls.) Snapcaster mage exists in one tier deck, which I like to refer to as UW.Cannot.Beat.Pernicious.Deed.Dec (which is generally the deck also playing vendilion clique) and scryb ranger is.... a 1/1.

You might want to consider trying it out before dismissing it in "this format full of flash and wasteland", just don't play it into an opponent whose aggressively sitting on 1UU open.

I think you're overestimating how good the matchup against RUG is. Yes, i agree it's favorable, but not by a whole lot, and by adding cards like standstill i believe it is going to make it worse. The problem with standstill lies not in realizing what constitutes a good board state to play it but in being able to create a favourable board state. If/when the metagame was filled with zoo and other non-blue decks it was much easier. Nowadays, with RUG being such a popular deck it is not that easy to create that favourable board state.

I'm not discussing if people are bringing in sulfur elementals against BUG or not (though if they know you are playing standstill, they might), the problem is that the only flash creatures used to be Vendillion Clique and now there are a few more, making it even more difficult to safely play a standstill.

I also think you're overestimating the UW matchup. It is not at all about creatures/counterbalance and pernicious deed, it's all about Jace TMS. And you have to be answering their threats (stoneforge mystic, counterbalance,clique,...) while also preventing them from playing their Jace. Imo, the advantage for UW lies in the fact that their threats are cheaper than your pernicious deed, so they have a certain tempo advantage in that regard. It is basically the matchup between a more proactive Jace deck and a more reactive Jace deck which usually benefits the proactive strategy.

I have played BUG (and landstill BUG) for the past 2 years and have top32 the last GP Ghent with BUG so i have tryed most of the options you mention, i am merely stating my opinion based on the experience i have with the deck. Anyways, i appreciate that people try different stuff as this deck is not very popular nowadays and it is nice to have people to discuss options with.

[catmint]

100% agree jparula.

You have to work hard for your wins vs. UW and RUG (RUG beeing the easier matchup if the deck is tuned for it). Vs. UW I also think them playing SD.top is a significant advantage.

[Chikenbok]

Well, let me start by saying that my comment about winning vs UW was directed towards the non-SFM CbTop rearing its head Jace/Entreat the Angels deck (that has been dropping SFM) not the list packing SFM and a few Miracles. Perhaps its the ways around which we fight the deck but I'm not too worried about cbtop, the worry comes in Jace and Entreat (one of which can be dealt with through a deed, the other through counter magic which yes, is harder to do through an active cb lock). But yes, I understand the matchup against UW can be very rough, but I'd much rather talk about the latter issue that is standstill.

My problem with IoK/Thoughtseize were the games that had me fighting early over some relevant spells, and then being stranded without a Jace, and a hand like Land, Land, IoK. At this point in the game we generally want to have A. cleared the board with Deed and resolve a jace, B. get lili and loam running, C. sit on a nice full grip and relax with the understanding that our opponent can no longer resolve spells fruitfully until either condition A or B have been met.

So what Standstill had done for me in my *limited* testing over the last 2-3 days, is act as the buffer the deck needed when none of above conditions were met and would wind up generally drawing me into one of the above scenarios. The feeling of peeling a thoughtseize in the late game when trying to stabilize is really miserable and I found myself regretting them being in my deck.

I understanding the idea of creating a favorable board state, but isn't that what BUG does? With 7+ Edict effects, 3 pieces of targeted removal, and 3 board sweepers aren't we necessarily creating favorable board states (half of the deck is dedicated to creating said states)?

Ideally you want the game to go something like:

Opp: land dork, go
Me: Innocent blood, go
Opp: land bigger threat/spell, go
Me: Land, go
etc. etc. Until
Me: eot, deed for 3 untap play *big monster spell* and standstill for me has been fitting that role quite well.

Just some ideas.

[death]

I agree in the scenario above Standstill shines but would you recommend the card in a meta where you encounter turn 1 dork/Vial/Wasteland/Mutavault or turn 2 fatty round after round. I guess not because most of the time it would be a FoW fodder until the board is wiped clean. This is why I think it is wiser to max out on Jace, tMS and run a 3rd Liliana than play Standstill. In turns 3-4 when there's a dork/monster on the table, you get value from either Planeswalker. Wherein if they were Standstill, you would have to wait to draw your answers. In the scenario above after Deed, a Jace/Lili/Snappy would seem fine as well.

[catmint]

I dont think it's a good time to play standstill with merfolk and goblins coming back in some numbers.

Against UW it sucks if they have an SD.top to just draw a lot more lands and then fire off a brainstorm EOT, so they can play perfectly.

Did anyone think about playing 4 ancestral visions in the SB for UW, Esper and any other control deck? Might even be a thing versus Maverick?

[Stifle]

I managed to place 3rd out of 55 players at a local tournament with Chris Funk's SCG list. I made a few small tweaks to the sideboard and it's been running well so far.

I may write up a report if people are interested or if I'm bored.

[Esper3k]

I dont think it's a good time to play standstill with merfolk and goblins coming back in some numbers.

Against UW it sucks if they have an SD.top to just draw a lot more lands and then fire off a brainstorm EOT, so they can play perfectly.

Did anyone think about playing 4 ancestral visions in the SB for UW, Esper and any other control deck? Might even be a thing versus Maverick?

Speaking of Ancestral Visions, have any of you guys given Brian DeMars' Shardless Agent control deck a spin?

I've been playing with it and it's been a blast! I'm not sure if it's different enough from this deck to start a new thread on?

[SirTylerGalt]

It was discussed a little a few pages ago (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23429-Deck-Team-America-(Control-Thread)/page21), but there was more discussion on the BUG control thread on MTG Salvation (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=406385&page=18).

I tried it on Cockatrice for a few games, and it seemed too slow. My cards were more powerful, but I often didn't have the time to cast them... I need to test it some more, but I think it needs more early game disruption. Maybe a 1-2 dismember.

[Esper3k]

It was discussed a little a few pages ago (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23429-Deck-Team-America-(Control-Thread)/page21), but there was more discussion on the BUG control thread on MTG Salvation (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=406385&page=18).

I tried it on Cockatrice for a few games, and it seemed too slow. My cards were more powerful, but I often didn't have the time to cast them... I need to test it some more, but I think it needs more early game disruption. Maybe a 1-2 dismember.

Thanks for the link! I'll go back and read those pages.

[Chikenbok]

So after some testing with standstill in space of the discard, it was about a 60/40 split against standstill. In the corner cases that it worked it was incredible, but most of the time I found myself brainstorming it away to look for a deed/removal spell. Hell, it was worth a shot.

Visions does seem like it might be an interesting card to play with. Deal with early threats, by the time visions triggers, draw back up to X+3 cards in hand, doesn't seem too bad, anyone tried with it?

I think I've just been rather disappointed with hand disruption these days in the MD, I feel like against most aggro decks it does almost nothing and against control its semi-decent. Yes, it shines against RUG but that's not 100% of the field. So I've been looking for things to replace the MD discard with, but for now I'll stick with 2/2 IoK/Ts

[Stifle]

Report up for those interested! (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24578-Report-Insectile-Aberration-is-not-the-best-BUG-3rd-MTG-Deals-%288-26-2012%29&p=669183#post669183)

[whiley85]

It was discussed a little a few pages ago (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23429-Deck-Team-America-(Control-Thread)/page21), but there was more discussion on the BUG control thread on MTG Salvation (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=406385&page=18).

I tried it on Cockatrice for a few games, and it seemed too slow. My cards were more powerful, but I often didn't have the time to cast them... I need to test it some more, but I think it needs more early game disruption. Maybe a 1-2 dismember.

I also think this build has potential. The first thing though I cascaded into was ghastly demise with just my agent and an opponent's mongoose on the table...
The need of tempo in early game is a fact, so you need ramp. But you don't want to cascade into ramp: Play Elvish Spirit Guide !?

[wcm8]

The sad fact is that right now, the BUG archetypes are poorly positioned.

Tempo? RUG does it better.
Midrange? Esper Blade often has a better early, mid, and end game.
Control? UWx Counterbalance seems stronger against the current field

Now, don't get me wrong, I am a big proponent of this color combination, and Team America was my favorite deck to play up until the banning of Mental Misstep/printing of Delver of Secrets. But right now, I don't think Loam/Liliana/Deed offer enough utility or efficiency to push a tier-1 deck towards those colors.

Here are my reasonings:

For tempo, you want to disrupt the opponent just enough to get your guys through and kill them. During the Mental Misstep era, Black seemed superior over Red because Tombstalker and discard were so beastly and you could protect your minimal threats with Misstep on their StPs. Since Misstep's been banned, it is harder to protect your threats, especially since control decks now play '8' StPs via Snapcaster Mage recursion. Discard in general is a bit weaker for tempo because of the aforementioned Snapcaster Mage, and also the combo decks of today rely on just resolving ONE spell moreso than generating a mass amount of resources (Reanimator/Show and Tell vs. Storm-decks). With RUG, you really only need to punch through for about 12 damage with your threats, at which point you can start aiming burn at your opponent's head, something that black removal can't do. Nimble Mongoose is also fantastic right now since it can't be easily killed, and REB's are always among the best SB cards. Combo decks often need to be fought on the stack since they can Ponder/Brainstorm into their win-condition, and RUG has access to Flusterstorm. Tombstalker just isn't the threat a tempo deck wants right now, unless you significantly warp the deck to take advantage of Temporal Mastery.

For midrange, Esper has the same advantage of splashing black for discard as BUG, but SFM is a stronger long-term threat than Tarmogoyf, and White removal is generally just better than black options. Engineered Explosives allows the deck access to a Deed-like removal option, so aside from Loam (which could be replaced by Crucible if really necessary), green is not offering much to this sort of archetype.

For the long-term control game, SDT/Counterbalance are both amazing at taking over the game, and Terminus does what Deed does for the cost of 1 mana and a bit of setup (and also doesn't remove your Countertop lock). Entreat the Angels is also a great late-game win-out-of-nowhere card, and doesn't require you to use clunky manlands or Snapcaster beats.

As far as the Shardless Agent deck goes, it's fun but clunky, and definitely nowhere near being a tier 1 deck. Perhaps if the Simic/Dimir/Golgari charms are good enough this archetype might be worth looking at again.

I think until more cards are printed to justify running this color combination, BUG decks will be tier 2 versions of their respective tier 1 cousins. Feel free to disagree.

[Esper3k]

I also think this build has potential. The first thing though I cascaded into was ghastly demise with just my agent and an opponent's mongoose on the table...
The need of tempo in early game is a fact, so you need ramp. But you don't want to cascade into ramp: Play Elvish Spirit Guide !?

I played Brian DeMars' list again last night, going 3-1 (beating Burn, RGb Aggro Loam, UR Delver, lost to RUG).

I'm still fairly inexperienced at side boarding for control decks and was wondering how you guys board against RUG and Aggro decks?

I found myself boarding out hand disruption and Jace fairly often and wasn't sure how correct that was.

[wcm8]

I played Brian DeMars' list again last night, going 3-1 (beating Burn, RGb Aggro Loam, UR Delver, lost to RUG).

I'm still fairly inexperienced at side boarding for control decks and was wondering how you guys board against RUG and Aggro decks?

I found myself boarding out hand disruption and Jace fairly often and wasn't sure how correct that was.

For the Shardless variant, I would implement Counterbalance into the deck somehow. I was testing it with 3 SDT in the maindeck with 4 Counterbalance in the SB and it worked pretty well since you can cascade into the lock with Agent, and it's just a strong control element in general. Completely wrecks RUG if you establish it. And in all actuality, the deck should probably be playing it main deck.

[whiley85]

For the Shardless variant, I would implement Counterbalance into the deck somehow. I was testing it with 3 SDT in the maindeck with 4 Counterbalance in the SB and it worked pretty well since you can cascade into the lock with Agent, and it's just a strong control element in general. Completely wrecks RUG if you establish it. And in all actuality, the deck should probably be playing it main deck.

I had the same feeling for CB. IMO you have to maximize the 2cc game breakers to have max support from agent and cut all removal that could kill your own creatures. I suggest replacements like Snuff Out or Geth's Verdict

[wcm8]

I had the same feeling for CB. IMO you have to maximize the 2cc game breakers to have max support from agent and cut all removal that could kill your own creatures. I suggest replacements like Snuff Out or Geth's Verdict

When you cascade, you don't *have* to cast the revealed card if you don't want to. It's optional. So there's no need to modify the removal suite.

[whiley85]

That's correct but I don't like 2/2 vanillas for cc3 ;-)

[SirTylerGalt]

I replaced the two Snapcaster Mages and one ghastly demise for a 3rd Sensei's Top and 2 dismembers. Dismember is great, since you won't cascade into it, but you can still play it for 1 mana if needed.
I also added 3 CBs to the SB.

[catmint]

Vraska will probalby make me play BUG again.

Here my thoughts to what direction to take the deck.

Cascading into spells is not what I want to do, because it suffers a little bit from the fancy play syndrom - high power level/low - consistency issue. Beeing forced to play Dismember in a meta full of reach to the face is also not optimal!

Also I will leave all the Intuition/Loam/Witness/Academy Ruins/Cabal Pit/Worm Harvest/Ravens Crim - recursion shinanigans aside.

Goyfs wont make it, so I can get full value out of innocent blood. Only creatures that I have right now is snapcaster for utility and vendilion clique (SB) for control & a faster combo kill.

I think the best plan is to straight up stopping the opponent from having fun and taking over with deed/plainswalkers.

I am thinking about a 3/2 split from Jace & Vraska supported by 2-3 Liliana of the Veil.
Going to test with 4 Ancestral Visions & in the SB for all control matchups. I will have a stronger emphasis on stable mana (basics) dropping some utility lands with 23-24 lands overall to ensure I get to 5 on time.

[xfxf]

It's certainly a very strong card and a very good win condition. I think definitely Legacy playable. It looks like when Vreska hits the board the race is on, it's a 3 turn clock. So trying to survive until the 5th land drop, dropping Vreska and then forcing the opposing ground forces to try to race her seem like a decent plan. Dodging her to smash face isn't the best option either since she has removal. I like her.

[catmint]

I will just play her for the moments when my UW opponent topdecks a Jace and I have her in play. :cool:
After Batterskull, Terminus & Lingering Souls, I feel this walker could bring a little bit more balance between UWx vs. BUG based control.

[wcm8]

Guys, guys, guys... She costs 5 mana. Think about the reasons why BUG is not doing so well, and consider whether a 5-mana win condition actually resolves those issues.

Before I would start going full-on noob-mode and slotting in Standard Timmy cards, I would first fix the rest of the deck to tackle the current DTBs and THEN see if a slower win condition like this actually has room.

The good thing is that she is a trump card to put BUG over-the-top against Esper and UWx Miracle decks. And with enough removal, the aggressive strategies aren't so problematic. With enough SB devotion, combo decks can also be handled. I said a while ago in the Team America thread that TA should be the deck that a BUG control deck sideboards into, instead of the other way around -- so it may be completely reasonable to consider stuff like Tarmogoyf in the sideboard. I also like the suggestion of running Ancestral Vision for control matchups. It might also be worth considering running some form of ramp, maybe even taking a page from Nic Fit's book and running Veteran Explorer to get you closer to the end game.

I am excited by this card, but I think it's really only going to be played as 1 or 2 copies. It does sound fun to play a BUG Super Friends deck with Pernicious Deed clearing the way, but I don't think Vraska alone is going to push BUG back into DTB status.

[xfxf]

wcm8, you are right. But I think this card may allow the way BUG control is structured, to not mitigate but overcome its shortcomigs. First of all having a decent trump card against UWx decks is a nice starting point. Against ohter DTBs I think RUG was already a not bad matchup for BUG and combo could be remediated with good sideboarding. This deck has issues with fast aggro rushes and burn. So by having a strong finisher you can build the deck to load up on removal and counter to just reach the late game, try to drop the bomb and take over.

I'm not saying this is the card and not overhyped about BUG being a DTB again. I'm just excited because now the deck has space to be explored again and I'll be happy to de-sleeve the Esper blade I pieced together and test the BUG variations.

[catmint]

In my opinion BUG is not a DTB because it is much harder to get the win's than for other decks. There are no "free win's" like with some RUG, Esper, UW, Maverick draws. Even Miracles can just generate 3 4/4 flyers and seal the game without doing something special. BUG has to fight very hard for most of the games and games going long certainly hurts in tournaments.

Also it will remain somehow a meta deck, since it cannot combat all strategies as effectively as control decks running white. Problems with RDW-like strategies hurts the overall decks strength.

I don't like playing BUG in my local tounament where I regularly will face some random Burn guy in the first rounds. However against the top DTB I like playing the deck.

[Chikenbok]

In my opinion BUG is not a DTB because it is much harder to get the win's than for other decks. There are no "free win's" like with some RUG, Esper, UW, Maverick draws. Even Miracles can just generate 3 4/4 flyers and seal the game without doing something special. BUG has to fight very hard for most of the games and games going long certainly hurts in tournaments.

Also it will remain somehow a meta deck, since it cannot combat all strategies as effectively as control decks running white. Problems with RDW-like strategies hurts the overall decks strength.

I don't like playing BUG in my local tounament where I regularly will face some random Burn guy in the first rounds. However against the top DTB I like playing the deck.

I would like to buy you a beer sir.

I think that the new girl will be great for this deck, albeit not in the MD - the 5cc is simply a bit too high and at the point where she would become relevant against the majority of the field, Jace and Lili can clean up just as well.

However, against control, I do believe she is a complete and total house. I've added a pulse back into my MD to deal with an Entreat the Angels, but I still think that throwing in Vraska will push the control match heavily in the BUG players favor.

I've done a few matches of testing with recall in the board and I will be the first to say that it feels so good when that spell triggers. So good. The only issue is, adding 3 of them to the board made the rest of my decisions much more difficult to work with. The BUG board is always a meta call, and always will be, that's one of the reason the deck is so hard to work with and adding something for one match *always* makes the game harder for another.

But hell, if we didn't want to work for our wins, we wouldn't play BUG.

[Koby]

//Win Cons.. I guess?

3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Snapcaster Mage

//Spells for Preventing my Opponents from Having Fun

2 Life from the Loam
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Pierce
3 Counterspell
3 Innocent Blood
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Ghastly Demise
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Thoughtseize

//Lands -- Win Cons?

4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
3 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Island
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Swamp


SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Nature's Claim
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Darkblast
SB: 1 Damnation
SB: 1 Virtue's Ruin



I took this list to a local event (17 people) and did pretty well with it for the first time.
Round 1 - (W) Elves (Deed/Perish ftw)
Round 2 - (L) Affinity - boarded out counters, then lost to Tezzeret
Round 3 - (W) Hive Mind, Liliana is a house.
Round 4 - (L) Goblins... Really wish I had Goyfs here.
Round 5 - (W) UW miracle - like you said, resolve Deed, win the game.

Feel pretty good about the list, but not liking my chances against Vial decks with the current build. The discard is very strong right now (just like it is in Esper), but the deck lacks against Burn and Tribal. Loam seems like win more as a 2-of however.

[menace13]

I took this list to a local event (17 people) and did pretty well with it for the first time.
Round 1 - (W) Elves (Deed/Perish ftw)
Round 2 - (L) Affinity - boarded out counters, then lost to Tezzeret
Round 3 - (W) Hive Mind, Liliana is a house.
Round 4 - (L) Goblins... Really wish I had Goyfs here.
Round 5 - (W) UW miracle - like you said, resolve Deed, win the game.


What did you board against Affinity? I assume both Claims, Darkblast, Damnation for Pierces and FoWs? I would have either went with Loams/Thoughtsieze, and both basic lands. And as for Goblins side out Pierces bring in Blast, Damnation, 1 Claim?

[Koby]

What did you board against Affinity? I assume both Claims, Darkblast, Damnation for Pierces and FoWs? I would have either went with Loams/Thoughtsieze, and both basic lands. And as for Goblins side out Pierces bring in Blast, Damnation, 1 Claim?

That looks about right.
Against Affinity, I won G1 with Deed, then lost G2 to Tezzeret, then G3 I was on the backpedal with only 2-3 lands the whole time and playing for a draw. Turn 4 of time, he attacks for lethal -1, and I just give it to him. Not worth being a dick over 1 game. I was going to lose it anyway.

I think I got extremely unlucky against Goblins - turn 1 FOW vial, thoughtseize taking Ringleader, turn 2 he topdecks another vial, and I lose from there. Game 2 - thoughtseize vial, he topdecks another one anyway, I lose from there.

[Chikenbok]

The plagues in my SB have become Night of Souls' Betrayal. Plague is miserable, NOSB shines in all matchups when you go creatureless. The combination of NOSB + Darkblast post-board going creatureless wins games against gobos or really any deck trying to use creatures.

@Koby, glad you enjoyed the list. I've gone down to 1 MD loam due to the recent decline in RUG and drawing them in multiples is horrible. Also, perhaps consider adding a fourth deed to the board might help against swarms.

[Chikenbok]

Current list:



3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Snapcaster Mage

2 Spell Snare
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Pierce
3 Counterspell

3 Innocent Blood
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Life from the Loam
1 Maelstrom Pulse

3 Pernicious Deed

4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Swamp
1 Island



//Sideboard
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Perish
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Nature's Claim
2 Flusterstorm
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Darkblast



Major changes.. uhm... Went down to two snappies cause I was sick of having my target pierced, added 2 snare to the main deck because, well, its good again, cut 1 MD loam for a MD Pulse for catch alls, etc. Thoughtseize turned into 3 IoK because the lifeloss was frequently relevant.

Board can xform into creatureless with NOSB + Darkblast, against swarm strategies/vial decks.

[RJM]

UBg control is my one true love. I play other variants of UBx in all formats, but this is always where I'm happiest.

I've also been testing a UBr control list, and even though it's off-color here, Gut Shot in the SB has been freaking awesome in the deck. It might be worth trying. It's effectively become my Mental Misstep for creatures. Hit's almost everything relevant, Mom, Thalia, Snapcaster, Clique.

It's been so good, I even feel compelled to try Standstill again, since the biggest annoyance with that has been all the flash dudes, or T1 Lackey/Mom/Etc.

Another thing that might seem durdly that I've been playing around with is Teferi's Response. Just as a lone miser copy, but plus Snapcaster obviously. Nothing sucks worse then having your manlands StP'd. Or getting Wasted to keep you off Jace mana.

Conversely nothing feels better than countering those abilities and also going up in CA.

Finally, I think I'd like to see the 3x/2x numbers on your Wastelands/Mishra's reversed in your list, Chikenbok. We're not tempo-ing anyone out of the game, so it's really only there to stop utility lands that are giving us trouble later. I'd probably rather have the extra blocker or slightly faster clock. Otherwise, I really dig where your list is at.

Also: Obvious statement, but I think Rapid Decay is going to be an auto-include in the 75.

[catmint]

Abrupt Decay sounds very promising.
I think it can replace Maelstrom Pulse for sure. Especially if you plan to include some number of Vraska in the 75, which can take care of everything else. Question is what number of removal slots you want to replace by Abrupt Decay. 2 mana instead of 1 is a big deal if you are on the draw against Mother or Lackey. That it is 2 mana in all other situations is not that bad I think (except for snapping it back is a 4 Mana spell), but not worring about daze, pierce, cursecatcher,FoW or in other words .. you make sure that you can trade makes it easier to invest 2 mana.

Looking forward to see your updated builds.

[wcm8]

Man, I almost want to play 4 copies of abrupt decay. It is for most intents and purposes an instant speed, uncounterable Maelstrom Pulse. I think BUG got a very powerful new tool here.

[catmint]

Cutting what?

[Esper3k]

Yeah Abrupt Decay looks really sweet - we just have to find some room for it!

The question is though - is Ghastly Demise really that necessary now? Sure, having an answer to Mom & Lackey on the draw is important, but combined with FoW, I think we could shave on the Ghastlys? Damnit and I just bought my foil ones yesterday!

[wcm8]

Mom on the draw isn't as big of an issue since Maverick gets bent over by Pernicious Deed.

Goblins is still a tough matchup, so I think the SB should be geared towards helping against it.

I would start with this removal configuration:
4 Innocent Blood
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Liliana of the Veil

Maybe also cut Snapcasters entirely and run Standstill. AD has a TON of utility and will prove incredibly useful in helping solve the problematic RUG/Merfolk matchups, allowing us to devote more SB slots for other decks.

[catmint]

Interesting....concerning Lackey & mother
Lackey is of course a big Problem in a Goblin heavy meta and I would discount FoW as an anser with Cavern. But if you devote SB space its ok .. then again you can put some number of Decay in the SB....

And if mother lives she will protect Knight, thalia and pridemage, making your 4cmc deed vulnerable. Do you have good experiences laying all your eggs in the first deed and letting maverick develop their board? I am still a fan of the "kill everything problematic in sight and/or trade your spells - play a deed - relax - blow it up - play Jace route".

where are you at with Vraska?
Reason i stopped playing BUG since the version I loved to play where you beat down with Goyfs and snapping back hymns is not good anymore, is that now I do not have the guts & patience to play the long game all the time and to end every game with Jace ultimate. With vraska in the deck I feel I can just brainstorm as much as I want and then win with Vraska, while at the same time Vraska is a decent PW without beeing in "jace-mode" already.

Do you think running a 5cmc walker requires a different manbase?
I surely don't want to wasteland that much and is mishra that good in a non-standstill version?

[wcm8]

I will start with a list like this and make adjustments to it as the meta settles:

24 Lands (8 fetch, 3 of each basic, 3 factories, 2 wastelands, rest are duals)
[going up to 4 factories might be correct, and maybe cutting a land for a SDT is valid]
3 Jace TMS
2 Liliana otV
1 Vraska
4 Innocent Blood
4 AD
3 Pernicious Deed
4 FoW
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Counterspell
3 Discard (either IoK or Thoughtseize)
1 Loam

SB will need adjusting, but I will try starting with:
3-4 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Flusterstorm / Spell Pierce
4 GY hate (maybe a 2/2 split of Grafdigger's Cage and Extirpate)
3-4 Open slots

The hypothetical goal with this deck is to kill everything as it resolves, using Standstill to refill your hand once you're on an empty board, and eventually riding one of the planeswalkers to victory. I'm not sure how it will hold up in the real world, but it seems strong in the abstract.

[Esper3k]

I've still been playing around with the Shardless Agent version and been having a lot of fun with it.

I've enjoyed how the list has the options to just throw roadblocks in the path of your opponents until you land a Deed / Walker / let Ancestral Visions unsuspend, etc. and you just wreck them with card advantage.

The ability to just conceivably go aggro on someone (cascading Agent into Goyf into an empty board) is pretty awesome as well.

As I play the deck more, a lot of times I don't mind blowing a FoW early and eating the card disadvantage since I know most of my other spells (Visions, Agent, Hymn, Snapcaster) are going to generate me that card advantage back.

[catmint]

I am also thinking about lowering snapcster mage and maxing out on innocent blood. Snapcaster for innocent blood is less exciting. But then I agree that you cannot rely on Jace & deed for card advantage. Maybe with 4 AD Standstill is good enough if you are able to kill vials.

I like Goyfs and Cliques in the SB. Versus combo & RDW.

[bartmanqc]

Does Scavenging Ooze fills a better role in the board instead of the goyf.. ? With so much creature removal, ooze can grow fast and gain crucial life point... We might need to ajust the mana base for more green source though. Well, maybe its because i don't own a playset of goyf, but I feel like ooze might be better in the side so you dont have to spend 4 spots on goyf + 4 spot on grav hate.

[catmint]

Goyf comes in agains RDW (Red deck wins) and combo to provide a burn proof & fast win condition and not in creature matchups. Ooze cannot fulfill this role.
For combo Vendilion Clique is even better than Goyf, but against red decks the 2nd best option i can think of is tombstalker.

[wcm8]

Does Scavenging Ooze fills a better role in the board instead of the goyf.. ? With so much creature removal, ooze can grow fast and gain crucial life point... We might need to ajust the mana base for more green source though. Well, maybe its because i don't own a playset of goyf, but I feel like ooze might be better in the side so you dont have to spend 4 spots on goyf + 4 spot on grav hate.

Against Reanimator and Dredge, Ooze is just wayyyy too slow to rely on as your sole source of graveyard hate. And as catmint explained, Goyf is there to beat on RDW and combo decks as a fast and resiliant clock.

I would consider bringing in Goyf against some aggro strategies like Merfolk, Goblins and possibly even RUG. He acts as a brickwall against their creatures and provides a win condition as well. They're also likely to board out most of their removal after game 1, making it more likely for Goyf to go the distance.

[Chikenbok]

After previously suggesting testing with standstill, and then going ahead and doing so for several days exclusively, I do not believe the addition of a 2cmc pulse is going to allow us to play the factory creatureless role. That is, I don't think the one card will allow standstill to be a viable option for a long while, especially if the set continues to develop with aggressive 1/2 drops + abilities.

That is not to say I won't be playing 2/3 AD between the 75, but I really don't think that standstill is going to cut right now, at least definitely not as a 4 of.

Chances are I will staying with 3 IB, with 2 Snaps, and using AB/Demise split, although I might up the factory count to 3. I don't think going down to 2 wastelands is a good idea however, as Cavern of souls can still give gobos/folk enough steam out of the gates to run rampant on a turn 3 deed.

The list will probably be 23 lands, 3 waste, 3 factory (cutting a fetch for the factory)
4 BS
4 Force
3 Pierce
2 Snare
2 Snap
3 IB
3 Jace
3 Lili
2 Ghastly Demise
2 AB
3 Deed
2 Counterspell
3 Inquisition
1 Loam

If I were going to add Standstill I'd play this list:



3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
3 Innocent Blood
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Life from the Loam
2 Spell Snare

2 Standstill
3 Pernicious Deed

4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Ghastly Demise
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Swamp
1 Island


//Sideboard
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Perish
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Nature's Claim
2 Flusterstorm
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Darkblast

[DerFern]

If I were going to add Standstill I'd play this list:



3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
3 Innocent Blood
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Life from the Loam
2 Spell Snare

2 Standstill
3 Pernicious Deed

4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Ghastly Demise
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Swamp
1 Island


//Sideboard
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Perish
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Nature's Claim
2 Flusterstorm
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Darkblast


On our local tournament this past wednesday, I played a quite similar list and Standstill was awesome! However, I chose to maximize the number of Innocent Bloods and cut the Loam off the list. As we only need it against some utility lands, I went down to 2 Wastelands and never missed some. Here is the whole list:

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
3 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm

4 Innocent Blood
2 Ghastly Demise
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
3 Pernicious Deed

1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Mishra's Factory
2 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
3 Standstill
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Meekstone
SB: 1 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Darkblast
SB: 1 Nature's Ruin
SB: 1 Virtue's Ruin

Meekstone is my superduperawesomesecretsideboardtech. However, it did nothing this wednesday, but so did all this gravehate stuff.

[Esper3k]

So I've been playing Brian DeMars' Shardless BUG Control deck during the last 3 tournaments at LGS' in the area and have a total record of 8-1-3 (one ID). Each time I play, I'm still learning more about the deck and it's been a blast playing it.

Since I'm not as experienced at playing BUG Control (or control in general), I still feel like I've been sideboarding incorrectly and would like to ask you guys for your thoughts on sideboarding with this deck.

For reference, here's the list:

// Lands
2 [B] Bayou
1 [P2] Forest (1)
2 [A] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [MPR] Wasteland
1 [DDE] Swamp (1)
1 [8E] Island (4)

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
2 [ISD] Snapcaster Mage
2 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
4 [P12] Shardless Agent

// Spells
4 [DD2] Ancestral Vision
3 [JGC] Pernicious Deed
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (4)
3 [OD] Ghastly Demise
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [FNM] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [OD] Ghastly Demise
SB: 1 [MBS] Go for the Throat
SB: 2 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 2 [COM] Scavenging Ooze
SB: 2 [GPX] Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 1 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
SB: 3 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 1 [CH] Tormod's Crypt

=====================================

So far, the most popular deck I've played against is Maverick. Sometimes yeah, you get blown out by them double Wastelanding you with Thalia in play and you never see a land again, but I feel the matchup is generally favorable.

I know it's commonly accepted strategy for blue decks to board out Force of Will against Maverick, but I feel that at least with this deck, when you're on the draw, you really have to have an answer to some of their early threats / bombs while you're developing your manabase and gearing up for wiping their board with a Deed.

On the draw, here's what I've been currently boarding vs Maverick:
-4 Hymn to Tourach
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-2 Vendilion Clique
+1 Ghastly Demise
+1 Go for the Throat
+2 Scavenging Ooze
+2 Umezawa's Jitte
+2 Krosan Grip (I'm torn here between Grip and Nihil Spellbomb. Grip gives you answers to their Sylvan Library and more importantly Choke. It also kills their Jitte and allows you to drop your own. Spellbomb is just great at keeping their Knights in check while giving you a card back).

On the play, I think you can take the Forces out and bring in the Hymns.

I've also been finding myself boarding out Hymns in a lot of matchups (burn, aggro decks) because they dump their hand so quickly. DeMars mentions keeping Hymn in against RUG and bringing in Ooze / Jitte / Spellbomb, but I'm not really certain what cards to cut for those?

Here's my thoughts vs RUG:
-4 Force of Will / Hymn to Tourach (on play, on draw)
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor (between their taxing counterspells, REBs, and Wastelands you might not ever get to play him)
-2 Vendilion Clique
+1 Ghastly Demise
+1 Go for the Throat
+2 Scavenging Ooze
+2 Nihil Spellbomb
+2 Umezawa's Jitte

Any suggestions or advice is appreciated!

[catmint]

Well I never played the cascade version so I can just only give my thoughts.

Against maverick:
I would lower the creature count and try to win with deed & Jace. Ooze could come in, because it can beat a knight but tarmogoyf is to weak imo. Since Maverick will try to play around deed, Hymn is good I think. Krosan Grip is pretty narrow (in the future you have Decay anyway). The cards you mention should be handled with discard or counterspells. Force of Will is still decent in some number to support the "crucual" turns.

AGainst RUG:
Deed is weaker and the creature + jitte plan is very strong. Some number of Hymn is alwys good i think... I often did not play them turn 2, but often later. RUG tends to always have cards in hand. Jace and Clique qre weaker options altough clique beeing better to act as a desperate removal for delver/mongoose while carrying jitte in the air.

[Esper3k]

Yeah I'm really excited for Decay. I think it can replace 1 Ghastly Demise main and probably he GFTT, 1-2 Grips in the side.

[xfxf]

I played against the BUG Shardless Agent yesterday with RUG. When he led with an Ancestral Vision I didn't think much of it but I didn't have good clock. So after turn 4 when he started landing Goyf after Goyf and having counters for my own Goyfs it didn't go well for my RUG deck. One match doesn't say a lot but it seems that unless RUG can get a nice tempo really early on BUG can start burying RUG in card advantage and it has stronger cards for the lategame. I tested the regular BUG control matchup as well but without creatures, regular BUG can't press hard enough after a certain threshold and unless it can mana lock RUG the game is around 50-50.

[Esper3k]

Yeah one thing I've liked about the Shardless version is that while it's not as controlling as the regular version, it's nice to have the option to aggro out if necessary.

Also, I've found that having Tarmogoyf & Shardless Agent (Agent is a fine chump blocker if needed since you're already gaining card advantage off the Cascade anyways) around makes it much easier to survive those early turns when you're being overrun with creatures.

[whiley85]

I played the shardless version today on a 60 man tourney. It was a pleasure to play! I give a short report tomorrow, wheather's too nice atm.

[catmint]

Problem I have with Shardles... Cascading intyo Hymn (given opponent has cards) or into Ancestral visions is nuts. But if you cascase into a normal 2 for 1. like getting an additional goyf out of the deal or hit a removal spell for an opponents creature, the 2/2 is actually only relevant if you have a gameplan that requires a bunch of creatures on the board. If you just chumpblock with the 2/2 or have it do nothing until it dies to your own deed, you did not really get a ton of value.

Most of the fair decks will just trump your board presence and you have to deed anyway. Back those days I played the Hymn, Goyf BUG control version, I boarded out goyfs for deed (or played somehow a split). But even if i played with goyf & deed the gamplan was clear of running out deed & discard first and then play the goyf once the coast is clear. I imagine with shardless your are often not able to do that.

The "creatureless" or "deedstill" approach (don't know how to call it best) has a very linear gameplan. Trade/disrupt/[Card advantage] -> Plainswalker takeover. So, want I meant with Shardless suffering the "fancy play syndrome". You play something potentially very powerful suffering from either some setup-costs or low consistency (having a bad/mediocre effect) and at the same time dilluting your game plan creating antisynergies.

Now as you said it is an advantage be flexible in going aggro. I totally agree, but I would achieve that with a sideboard transformation. But still looking forward to hear your experiences. Maybe you just have to play the deck in a different way...

[Esper3k]

Went 3-0-1 in our local tournament today. Beat Affinity, Uw Miracles (w/ Land Tax), MUC, and drew with Uw Miracle.

My thoughts on the Shardless version is that it plays significantly differently from the more controlling "pure" BUG versions. A lot of your early 1 for 1's are based off of playing Tarmogoyf / Clique / Shardless Agents as roadblocks while generating card advantage through Hymn/Agent early on, then Deed/Jace as the game progresses.

While my opponents will oftentimes have creatures that trump the Agent, they tend to be 1-2 CMC due to the way Legacy just works.

I also often rarely play Shardless Agent on T3, usually waiting until I can control what I'm Cascading into. I think the way Brian DeMars describes it in his article is correct: Don't see it as a generic 2/2, look at it as a 2/2 that gets you <insert card> that also takes 2 spells to fully deal with.

Oftentimes, I'm usually pretty happy just Cascading into a Tarmogoyf. Goyf in this deck actually gets surprisingly large. I fairly commonly get him to 5+ power and I've actually had about 3 games now where I've gotten him up to 7/8.

Sideboarding against control seemed fairly straightforward today:

I went:
-3 Tarmogoyf
-3 Ghastly Demise
+3 Thoughtseize
+1 Vendilion Clique
+2 Krosan Grip

Against UW, with this deck the "sit on Deed, then play a Planeswalker" plan is tougher due to only having 2 Jaces. I tended to focus more on keeping their Tops from being effective while tearing their hands apart with Hymn + Thoughtseize then sticking a creature/Jace to finish them. Also, I did finally get to live the dream of T2 Hymn to Tourach, T4 Snapcaster flashback Hymn to Tourach :)

[whiley85]

I went 2-2-0 drop yesterday due to heavy misplays and playing BUG Control the first time. The only BUG I piloted in the Top 8 was TA in the early days. Like Esper said it plays way different with Agents.

First my list with slightly changes:


2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Bayou
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Snuff Out
2 Garruk Relentless
3 Baleful Strix
2 Dismember
1 Sinkhole
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Inquisition of Kozilek
SB: 2 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Cursed Totem
SB: 3 Massacre
SB: 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction


First game I beat UW Stoneblade.
Batterskull never was a problem. I stalled with strix and a big goyf (in average power 5 in this deck!) until deed took the token and my guys went for lethal. I didn't even touch the sb.

Second game I lost to GW aggro:
First round I didn't find the deed in time and an early dismender made me bleed in the late game.

SB: +2 totem, +3 massacre, -2 Garruk, -3 snuff out/dismember

Second round I held a risky hand which a wasteland destroyed. Although I had top I never find land and die.

Third game against UW miracle:
First round I beat him down to seven until he stabilizes with terminus and CB/top.
SB: -3 snuffout/dismember,-2 baleful strix, +2 jace, +3 IoK
Second and third round I went the aggro plan disrupting hard, wasting hard, and beat him hard before he knows what happend.

Fourth game against punishing GWr Aggro:
First round I made the mistake to tap out for 3rd turn deed.
He has the GSZ for 2 and one mana left for blowing up my deed with his kitty.
SB: +2 totem, +3 massacre, -2 Garruk, -3 snuff out/dismember
Second round I keep a hand with massacre ftw.
After he tried to control the board and I could trade 4 to 1 I slam down massacre realizing one second later that he had just a karakas and a canopy for W... :eyebrow:
Of course he never fetches for a plains from now on and beats me with elspeth and huntmaster.

After four games I decided to drop cause sunny days like yesterday aren't that often in Germany.

The deck felt great and I surly bring it to a tourney once again with a little bit more testing.

To some of my card choices:
strix was great all day. It gives you the time you need against aggro to stabilize. In worst case it cantrips against control.
The removal package was pure tempo intention for first turn threads like goblins or folks. Abrupt decay could be a great improvement in this slots.
Without snapcaster and demise you don't really have to control what you cascade into cause every possible card is strong and often gamebreaking. My goal in every matchup was a 3rd turn agent.
The sinkhole was the 5th hymn, could be something else imo.
I cut all cards with double U in the main to stabilize the manabase. Wasteland is all around and I don't want to have half my hand uncastable due to a single one.
That was the reason I exchanged jace with garruk. I never really came to cast him cause at the time I could I already won or lost. In this slots I can imagine 2 Tombstalker for more mid game pressure or the new BG planeswalker for the control matchup which is great anyway.

[Kyle]

I've found with the Shardless version that it's more heavily dependent on Brainstorm than "normal" BUG. It's a blast to play because of the cascade mechanic, but it requires a bit more setup before just dropping a Shardless, especially because of Ghastly Demise.

Yeah, it's amazing to cascade into a 'goyf, Ancestral, or Hymn, but cascading into a Snapcaster, Brainstorm, Ghastly, or Top can be downright worthless or completely harmful. It doesn't mean I won't play this deck just for the fun aspect, but I think if you really want to win regularly, play the "normal" version of BUG.

Also, Jace is always cool, but cascading through one feels like a gut punch. I have yet to actually land a Jace in my Shardless matches because my first goal is to land the Shardless Agent. I think a 2-of something more cascade-able might be better in that spot. It's definitely a deck worth tweaking more.

Edit: Baleful Strix would be pretty nifty in this deck, and possibly fewer creature-kills.

[Esper3k]

Most of the time, I don't mind Cascading into Brainstorm or Top since both cards are so powerful (I actually typically love Cascading into Top since you have so many ways to shuffle/filter cards away).

Cascading into Snapcaster isn't terrible as long as you do it with 4 lands - you'll typically at least have a Brainstorm or Ghastly Demise in the yard to flash back.

Again, keep in mind this is also with our worst case scenerio of blind cascading. If you can actually set up and control what you're cascading into, then things start getting really nuts.

[Zalren]

I played at home with my friends this past weekend. I never lost a game with the Shardless BUG deck. I tweaked mine from the classic build.

Lands - 23
1 x Island
1 x Forest
1 x Swamp
1 x Academy Ruins
4 x Misty Rainforest
4 x Polluted Delta
4 x Verdant Catacombs
2 x Bayou
2 x Tropical Island
3 x Underground Sea

Enchantments - 3
3 x Pernicious Deed

Creatures - 9
4 x Shardless Agent
4 x Tarmogoyf
1 x Scavenging Ooze

Artifacts - 1
1 x Engineered Explosives

Planeswalkers - 6
2 x Lilianna of the Veil
3 x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 x Vraska the Unseen

Spells - 18
4 x Abrupt Decay (proxy to try them out)
4 x Ancestral Visions
4 x Brainstorm
4 x Hymn to Tourach
2 x Maelstrom Pulse

Abrupt Decay is freaking amazing. It hits everything but Jace and I pack my own Jaces. Cascading into Ancestral Visions, Hymn, Abrupt Decay, Tarmo, or even Brainstorm was a great play all day long. Once I did Cascade into Engineered Explosives but I had Academy Ruins in play so I cast it for free, blew it up, then started recurring.

Every single game, I ripped through my library finding answers whenever I needed them. This deck has so much card advantage, it is crazy. Unfortunately, I never did get to try out Vraska, so no verdict on her yet. Everytime I played Tarmogoyf, he was minimum 5/6. He maxed out at 7/8 because I don't play an Tribal spells.

I am going to try out Baleful Strix. I saw whiley85's list and thought that was an awesome include. Cascading into a Strix would be awesome.

[catmint]

@Zarlen. I think you cannot get away in legacy without a critical amount of cheap removal.

If the cascade plan has so much potential, why not run some kind of midrange deck cutting the deeds and going full blown on the "board presence & card advantag plan" tapping out most of the time. I actually would like to cascade into a baleful strix as well. Deeds could go to the SB. Question is if that is not just a worse Nic Fit.

[Zalren]

@Zarlen. I think you cannot get away in legacy without a critical amount of cheap removal.

If the cascade plan has so much potential, why not run some kind of midrange deck cutting the deeds and going full blown on the "board presence & card advantag plan" tapping out most of the time. I actually would like to cascade into a baleful strix as well. Deeds could go to the SB. Question is if that is not just a worse Nic Fit.

What is considered a critical amount of cheap removal? In the original list:

// Lands
2 [B] Bayou
1 [P2] Forest (1)
2 [A] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [MPR] Wasteland
1 [DDE] Swamp (1)
1 [8E] Island (4)

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
2 [ISD] Snapcaster Mage
2 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
4 [P12] Shardless Agent

// Spells
4 [DD2] Ancestral Vision
3 [JGC] Pernicious Deed
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (4)
3 [OD] Ghastly Demise
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [FNM] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will

There are only 3 removal spells, Ghastly Demise, which depend on your graveyard size and nonblack targets. Also 2 Snapcasters, if you want to recur them.

My list runs 4 Abrupt Decay (which I believe is better than Ghastly Demise). Should I be running other 1 CC removal? I don't know if I should because if I cascade into it without an opponent's creature on the board, it is a loss. Much better to cascade into Abrupt Decay because it can hit more than just creatures (higher chance the opponent has something I can target).

[Esper3k]

Regarding Baleful Strix vs Snapcaster Mage: I actually saw this in the comments, but DeMars responds to the same question and I came to the same conclusion. Strix is better when you're blind cascading on T3 and flip it. It also doubles as a deterrent against attackers.

Snapcaster is a better attacker because the 2 power vs 1 is significantly more damage and for me, it's much more powerful late game. Against Control, SCM's flash has been very relevant for me in EOT flashing in then attacking opposing Jaces.

In short, the only time I really wanted Strix was during the T3 blind Cascade.

===========================

Re: Ghastly Demise - Most of the time, I'd say Abrupt Decay is better. The main reason I think Ghastly is needed is against T1 Mom/Lackey and we're on the play. Moms we can even ignore if we have a Deed, but the Lackey really requires an answer.

That being said, I would like to try -1 Ghastly, +1 Abrupt Decay from the main and -1 GFTT, -1 or -2 Krosan Grip from the side for Abrupt Decay.

I'm really torn right now on Grip vs Decay in the board since while Decay kills creatures too, I'm not certain the deck needs more post-board creature removal (since it's already running +1 Ghastly, +1 GFTT, 2 Jitte). Grip's selling points are that it deals with Humility/Moat and just kills Batterskulls.

Thoughts?

[whiley85]

The matches I had with shardless BUG I actually didn't have time to wait until T4 for casting agent or do some setup to make him good. You weaken your cascading action with snapcaster and demise. Every turn you wait Hymn becomes much less powerful it's one of your keyspells.
Due to cutting a lot cc1 spells you are obviously slower than other builds. Therefore my try to compensate with free removal that doesn't trigger by cascading.

Strix is a fast answer for so many threads i.e. Batterskull.
It felt so great yesterday against RUG when he had 2 mongoose and goyf facing my strix and goyf.
Strix is a bit weaker against control but see my other post control is not the biggest problem you have even with strix.




In short, the only time I really wanted Strix was during the T3 blind Cascade.



Really no offense but your only time is my every time. You need to be faster against aggro, control is much better naturally with all your CA.

I think lackey is not a reason to play demise since you only play 3 and also need a fetch to handle him. Side in some BEBs if you fear Goblins in your meta.

[catmint]

If you ignore a mother because you have deed, than you accept all the other creatures coming into play: Thalia, Knight, Pridemage. Everything will live - your deed plan might fail and you loose the game. I don't think you should ignore a mother.

Blue elemental blast while beeing good versus goblins and burning wish decks is too
narrow. playing control you need answers agains all tribes and all strategies.

My conclusion: If you want to win a fair fight, you cannot ignore a mother or a lakey.

-> Therefore a significant amout of 1cc removal is critical. Also it is also important for snapcaster. You are able generate a tempo advantage by playing more efficient spells...
Decay will be a staple, but you cannot just replace all 1cc removal with it.

[whiley85]

This is correct but was not my suggestion. Cc1 removal is replaced by snuff out atm which is 100% faster than demise. Also strix is 30% faster than scm and agent takes profit from it while being 25% faster.