RUG Control

[Tao]

RUG Control

This is my version of a RUG control deck. It has some nice synergies, can create a lot of card advantage and control the board well while playing a decent amount of disruption.

Strengths:
- Punishing Fire / Grove Combo is great at the moment (Delver, DR Shaman)
- you gain a lot of value out of your lands (Lonely Sandbar/Wasteland/Academy Ruins, Grove)
- you get to play a lot of disruption, especially post board
- many synergies

Weaknesses:
- the burn matchup is pretty much unwinnable without giving up too much on other matchups.
- I like all the spells but I am not fully satisfied with the win conditions besides Jace and Punishing Fire yet. ATM I play 2 Thrun, 2 Tamiyo and 2 Wurmcoil but that might not be ideal. Still figuring out the ideal configuration for that.


// Lands

4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
2 [B] Tropical Island
3 [B] Volcanic Island
2 [TE] Wasteland
1 [B] Mountain
2 [B] Island
4 [FUT] Grove of the Burnwillows
4 [CMD] Lonely Sandbar
2 [TSP] Academy Ruins

// Creatures
2 [SOM] Wurmcoil Engine
2 [MBS] Thrun, the Last Troll

// Spells
3 [ZEN] Punishing Fire
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [RTR] Izzet Charm
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [FD] Engineered Explosives
2 [AVR] Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [NPH] Surgical Extraction
SB: 4 [B] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [B] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [NE] Submerge
SB: 2 [MOR] Vendilion Clique



Card Choices


4 Izzet Charm
The card's strength is how versatile it is. All three modes are useful in this list. The Shock kills problematic creatures like Delver of Secrets, DR Shaman, Dark Confidant and all kinds of Goblins and other stuff. The Spell Pierce is useful in general to have around. The looting part has nice synergy here. With Life from the Loam and Punishing Fire you have recurring cards that the Charm can convert into new ones. Last but not least it is a blue card and can be pitched to FoW.

4 Life from the Loam
It is important to hit your land drops. Dredging is quite benefitial, too, because it can hit the missing piece of the Grove/Fire combo, Lonely Sandbars, Wastelands, Academy Ruins and Artifacts to regrow with Ruins. It is also great to get extra cards to discard into Izzet Charm or helps to dredge away bad cards from Brainstorm.

4 Force of Will
Auto 4-off. Some BUG decks rightfully don't play them in the maindeck anymore but decks like this need FoW, especially when they don't have black for Discard.

3 Punishing Fire
Fire is really good right now. Many decks have a hard time beating it especially if you have the Grove protected from their Wastelands by Loam.

4 Engineered Explosives
You need four because burn spells won't kill Tarmogoyfs. Can be recurred with Academy Ruins.

4 Brainstorm
duh

4 Jace TMS
He is pretty good. You always want one, you don't want your opponent to have it, and it pitches to FoW. Clear 4-off.

2 Wurmcoil Engine
A win condition that can be recurred with Ruins. It is bad against decks with Swords to Plowshares but against UW decks it is usually a Jace war anyway and against Maverick it is more about reaching the late game in a halfway intact structure. Great against Jund and BUG.

2 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
Like I said Burn spells don't kill the big guys and the deck needs some more help for that. Tamiyo locks down Goyfs and Tombstalkers nicely and as a Planeswalker she is good against Control decks, too.

2 Thrun, the Last Troll
Great against control decks and a good blocker for Goyfs and annoying Mongeese.

4 Grove of the Burnwillows
Taps for R/G and recurs Punishing Fire.

4 Lonely Sandbar
Value for Loam and in the complementary color to Grove so you always have enough sources of each color. 90% of the time it gets cycled but it is nice to have the backup.

2 Wasteland
Helpful in the control mirror but also against Ancient Tombs or for the random mise win.

2 Academy Ruins
For the Explosives soft lock and later for Wurmcoil Engine.

[The Treefolk Master]

I'm surprised this thread had absolutely 0 responses. I've always like the idea of RUG Control, although I'm not convinced by your list. I do like P. Fire in the current metagame, but some stuff seems excessive as 4-offs (Loam for example). I'd look into getting Intuition into the deck. Maybe something along these lines (off the top of my head, completely untested):

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Academy Ruins
2 Lonely Sandbar
1 Karakas (random value, plus to get EE to kill Jace/Elspeth, although it could me overkill with P. Fire in here. It also gives an out to Thrun)
1 Tolaria West
1 Wasteland
2 Maze of Ith (maybe 3?)

1 Gigapede


4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Punishing Fire
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Intuition
3 Izzet Charm
2 Life from the Loam
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Open Slots (could be Tamiyo, Vendilion Clique, some random 1 offs to search up via Intuition. Forbid also sounds nice, but might be too slow)

You probably want a ton of hate vs. combo post board, some combination of Spell Pierce/Flusterstorm/Surgical Extraction/Vendilion Clique/Tormod's Crypt (can be tutored and lock them out) etc. Ancient Grudge as a 1 off sounds nice, and some utility lands (Tabernacle? Karakas?).

Another option is a Trinket Mage package instead of Intuition. This allows us to play Top as a 1 off, gives a blocker for the early game, and a small tool box with solutions ala Pithing Needle, Relic/Crypt.

Any thoughts?

[lost_ronin_soul]

I would reccomend running living wish and a small wish board list grove of the burn williows (when you have punishing fire) sulfur elemental against maverick, thrun against control , venser for show and tell and a decent tool, and maybe a scavening ooze/ faaree macabre

[Kich867]

Too many loams, if you're running that many loams, I would rather see 1-2 Seismic Assault in there. Just kill people. RUG Loam is something I've definitely thought a lot about.

[Tao]

@Intuition: sounds really good. I like it a lot.

@Loam number: I ran 4 because I always want it. And drawing 2 Loam isn't bad in this version, it saves you the dredge. But if Intuition is good enough this obviously changes.

@Gigapede: I considered it not good enough because it is too small to kill Goyfs. Opposing Goyfs are usually 6/7 when you would Gigapede because of Explosives and Planeswalkers. The Intuition synergy is nice though and I will try it out.

@Trinket Mage: I put Trinket Mage in ALL of my decks, then remove it again because it is barely not good enough.Tried it and it didn't make the cut.

[The Treefolk Master]

Built an experimental list, will try to get a few games this afternoon, probably vs. Stoneblade. The list is as follows:

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Forest
2 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
2 Lonely Sandbar
1 Tolaria West
3 Maze of Ith

1 Gigapede

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Punishing Fire
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Intuition
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Forbid
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Life from the Loam

Some choices explained:

I took out Izzet Charm to make room for a small counter suite, namely Spell pierce and Snare. My reasoning was that me REALLY want to stop t1-t2 discard, in addition to Tarmogoyf (and to a lesser extent, Scavenging Ooze). It is of paramount importance to survive the early game. Once this happens, the deck can destroy anything, as creatures and walkers both die to Punishing Fire/Explosives. Izzet charm can also accomplish this, but can't stop 'Goyf, and (specially important), is 1 turn slower. Stopping t1 Thoughtseize/Inquistion/Duress on the play or t2 Hymn on the draw is far more important than the added versatility Charm offers, imho.

The other change not previously discussed is the singleton Forbid. While we destroy anything creature based in the late game, I noticed that we did not have a reliable, definite way of stopping combo decks (or the stack in general, some random Jace can set our gameplan back many turns) once we have developed our game plan. I therefore took a page out of CAB Jace and added a singleton Forbid. Storm based decks might try to scultp the perfect hand against us, but that will result in their death to Forbid. Plus, while it may seem really clunky (Note: it may be, its an experimental choice), its not that hard to accomplish. Finding the singleton Forbid may be hard, but once you get in your hand, locking people out is simply a question of getting 2 Punishing Fires together, which isn't very difficult. Loam also supports the lock, albeit to a harder to maintain degree.

Another thing that struck my mind: seeing as how we are probably dead to combo & Burn decks, we might aswell devout most of our sideboard to fighting them, excluding some Diverts to stop the midrange decks who's tarmogoyfs might give us trouble. I'm considering getting countertop into the side, maybe 3 Counterbalance 3 Tops, which kills Burn AND Storm based combo. We can then add Flusterstorm, Clique, and some Graveyard hate (a singleton Tormod's Crypt is mandatory, as it can be tutored with Tolaria West). A singleton Ensnaring Bridge also probably deserves a spot in the sideboard.

EDIT: I almost forgot, I want 1 Cascade Bluffs somewhere in there (maybe in place of the 7th fetchland?), to allow Grove to generate UU.

UPDATE: Everyone that was suposed to bring a Legacy deck to our local standard tournament (such a lame format, God) decided to text me 15 minutes before arriving to the store that they weren't going to make it, so instead of playing vs. Stoneblade, I ended up crushing a really crappy White Weenie deck. P. Fire ruined his day, I EEd away some random 2/2 which had pro-red, and even got Forbid with 2 Fires going one game. While this is in no way serious testing, I'd like to highlight the role Gigapede played today. Having a million lands, Punishing + Grove and even EE but absolutely no pressure (Punishing Fire is a 20 turn clock) should be a common scenario playing this deck vs. aggro decks (although it should be harder to get to this point against a competent deck than it was today for me), and it can be a problem if they somehow beat us G2, as it can be hard to close out 3 games in 50 minutes. I was able to Intuition for Gigapede (in addition to Fire, Grove, Loam, Ruins, or whatever was needed), kill his stuff, and then destroy him with the mighty insect. A 6/1 is nothing to be scoffed at, and can close out games REALLY fast. I even found myself using Forces to stop some random dudes in order to kill him with Gigapede, in a Threshold-esque kind of game. It requires more testing vs. real decks (and oponents...), but I think he might be a real thing (plus I'll finally be able to play my FOIL copy).

[The Treefolk Master]

Did this thread die?

I'm thinking about possible candidates for our sideboard, using my list as a starting MD, and bearing in mind that combo is probably our worst MU. I'm thinking something along these lines:

3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Flusterstorm
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Zuran Orb

Thoughts?

[Tao]

After trying I have to say that the problem with intuition is that the effect is not needed enough to make up for the slownesss. With 4 Lonely Sandbar, 4 Izzet Charm (I run 4 now), 4 Brainstorm and 4 Jace you can already find whatever you want. Izzet Charm is great in all three modes, Spell Pierce and Shock both help a lot in the early game and the digging gives you new gas later on.

I don't know if that makes much sense but with Intuition I think the deck becomes both too clunky and too fragile. I'd rather have the deck be a bit more dynamic. If the Loam plan doesn't work, you can still just kill them with Thrun or Wurmcoil, I like that.

I have been toying a bit with Exploration but have no made up my mind yet. It should be good, though, because the deck lacks 1-drops and plays Loam. One thing I know though is that I will not play Maze of Ith without Exploration (and if I play Exploration I want 2 Maze of Ith.)

[Megadeus]

How is it in testing? This looks like a very sweet deck. I do love durdling with Izzet Charm and Faithless Looting in Standard...

[Tao]

Updated my list in the OP (+ 1 Charm, - 1 Fire, a few changes in the SB).

I think it does fairly well in testing. Playing against Burn is tough but aside from that there is no really bad matchup.

[Megadeus]

When I played Nic Fit Thrun was awesome sometimes, but he got out classed a lot. Do you ever have that problem?

[Tao]

Nic Fit is different. It wants one big threat to stick and impact the board heavily. So it is bad when that threat gets outclassed by a Goyf. This deck usually outdraws the opponent so it is okay if Thrun and Goyf stare at each other for a while. He is also good against control and present at least a bit of a clock against Combo (if you have enough force backup to tap out). I liked him a lot so far.