[Deck] Bg Assault v2.1

[C-Aleric]

I believe it's time to bring out the Bg. Tarmogoyf and discard seem like they were made for eachother. Early came duress, Goyf, some Hymn, maybe a little Deed action.

I was tempted to post this under organic control, however I just did not feel that these were the same decks. Organic control was clearly going for a more late game, bring in the fat, kill everything type of deck. This is more, rape the hand, then smash is with overpowered creatures for their cost. Another card, which I know will be immediately frowned upon is Unearth. I however feel in this list, this card is incredible. Before I explain why, here is the deck:

// :b::g: Assault v2.1

// Lands
2 Swamp
3 Wasteland
2 Barren Moor
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Bayou
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Forest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Wooded Foothills

// Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Phyrexian Negator
4 Dark Confidant

// Spells
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Unearth
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Life from the Loam
3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Smother

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Smother
SB: 4 Engineered Plague
SB: 3 Darkblast
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt

So. My decisions.

4 Tarmogoyf - Craziest green creature ever. Makes Duress golden sometimes.

4 Hypnotic Specter - Disruption all game long. Flying can be important as well.

3 Phyrexian Negator - Fat as shit. Loam can aid him taking damage a little bit - Unearth as well. Idea is clearly to get rid of the damage dealing spells, and beat their asses for 5.

4 Dark Confidant - Card advantage. This deck doesn't run high casting cost spells at all. You can sac him to Therapy late game (Or early game with Unearth Shenanigans) to prevent yourself from losing from him. Deed can also silence him.

4 Hymn to Tourach - Card advantage. Awesome with the other 6 discard spells this baby packs.

4 Unearth - Controversial, for sure. I'll explain why I love this card. First of all, early game, this allows you to abuse Cabal Therapy right away, and try to steal the game with a Goyf/Negator/Specter early. It also cycles for :2: which is wonderful for Life from the loam. Sometimes you just don't need it, but it's never really dead with loam. With Pernicious Deed, this card is awesome as well. Having your threats pop back on the table for :b: is awesome. Negators can steal some fast if you can bring them up after deeds.

4 Pernicious Deed - This is just necessary right now in the format. I need 4. With all the tokens and cheap threats around, I need a way to deal with them. This deck is designed to keep their threats discarded/killed, while bringing yours back, and having better creatures. A sweeper is just necessary sometimes.

3 Life from the Loam - This lets the deck go midgame/lategame against some decks that would otherwise trash black aggro. The Wasteland lock is very important in the metagame right now against lategame decks. Their may not be many, but in my meta, control/multi-color aggro-control are definitely popular choices. This keeps me from getting completely mana screwed, as well as cycles my cycling lands back to my hand, to keep me high on threats through out the game. Milling them isn't so bad with Unearth/Volrath's.

3 Duress - Arguably the best discard spell there is. I definitely need this in my deck.

3 Cabal Therapy - This card is sweet with Unearth. It's sweet with Bob late. If you're a competent player, it's an excellent offensive and defensive tool. Allowing me to hit lackey's on the play is awesome for me as well.

3 Smother - I believe that this is the most useful removal that black has right now. I need to win Goyf/Goyf battles. This kills them, and many other creatures that can cause me serious problems (Piledriver, Warchief, Dark Confidant, Jotun Grunt, Meddling Mage).

1 Volrath's Stronghold - Brings in the theme of recurring my cheap (but large) threats all game. With Loam, I can use Volrath's on my Upkeep, and drop a threat on the same turn. This is very excellent with Specters, and Goyfs, and it means that when you mill them with Loam, it's not such a big deal.

3 Wasteland - Life from the loam couples so nicely. Keeps annoying lands off the board. This card can make people scoop by turn 4. Gotta be in this deck.

4 Bayou - The colors of my deck.
1 Overgrown Tomb - Also, the colors of my deck.
1 Forest - Good to have for Loam sometimes.
4 Polluted Delta - Gets my swamps, and the duals.
2 Wooded Foothills - Gets my forest, and the duals.
2 Barren Moor - Gives me a better chance of winning mid/late game.
1 Tranquil Thicket - Could be a third Moor, but I like variety.
2 Swamp - Basics are needed.

SB: 1 Smother - In the matchups it's good, bring in another one.
SB: 4 Engineered Plague - Goblins aren't fun to deal with, unless you use this card.
SB: 3 Darkblast - Dredging isn't something I mind doing. Blasting 1/1 goblins is something I simply love doing. Using cycling lands with this card mid/late game can be devastating to Fish decks, and again, I don't mind dredging.
SB: 3 Krosan Grip - Best thing Green's removal has ever gotten.
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt - There are too many Ichorid/Threshold/LftL decks now.

I can't give very accurate testing results right now, because most of it has come from MWS, and this kind of deck on MWS is devastating. However, I've played against many of the Tier decks, and I'm winning well over 85% of the matches I'm playing (MWS results are inflated simply because everyone isn't that great of a player online. I'll have tournament results soon, hopefully. I just need to pick up the last few cards). I honestly feel it has potential at the moment. And I really would like to hear what everyone thinks about it. At the very least, this kind of deck seems like it could have potential, and a shell could be derived from this perhaps.

[Alex_Van_R]

How about Eternal Witness? You can recurr your threats with it and you can play Unearth on it as well, returning unearth to your hand again to create a loop.

[Barook]

Is it just me or does the deck basically beg for Dark Ritual? It gives you explosive openings with your discard spells/black critters and is an Instant for Goyf to boot.

[C-Aleric]

The deck started with Dark Ritual in it. Instead of running Dark ritual, I chose to play into the midgame a little bit. Basically I have the option of running Life from the Loam, or Dark Ritual. I chose Life, because a) It's much more my style of play and b) I don't see an overwhelming amount of combo in my meta. So playing to the early game isn't what I want to do.

I've considered Eternal Witness as well. My only beef with her, is that she'll be recurring Discard, and I run 10 discard spells. 3 of which I can happily flash back. I'm sure I'd get the occasional Smother, but I don't think it's worth it. And looping Unearth/Eternal Witnesses for 2/1 bodies isn't exactly spectacular. I'd rather have access to a bigger creature. Like Negator. His slot is the only one I'd consider removing right now, and I don't think this deck will become stronger with Eternal Witness instead of Negator.

[rockSTAR]

Some time ago I started to built up something quite similiar to your list.

here is what I threw together:

1 [PT] Swamp
2 [ON] Barren Moor
2 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
1 [A] Scrubland
2 [7E] Forest
1 [OD] Cabal Pit
1 [A] Savannah
4 [R] Bayou
2 [JU] Nantuko Monastery
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
2 [TE] Wasteland

3 [U] Hypnotic Specter
2 [FD] Eternal Witness
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
1 [JU] Genesis

4 [TSP] Smallpox
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
3 [JU] Solitary Confinement
4 [4E] Swords to Plowshares
3 [RAV] Life from the Loam
3 [OD] Zombie Infestation
3 [UL] Unearth

I played this before tarmogoyf was released and he is definetly an autoinclude if i had to update my list.

I played ZI to have an answer to goblins, as well as confinement which is simply the I win card g1 with genesis against many decks.

[C.P.]

Dark ritual seems unfit for the deck, but I think the deck wants an acceleration.

This deck plays aggro, so I'm dead against playing the witness. It is good, but it is mere 2/1 for 1GG. Not very impressive offensive creature. I'd consider inclusion of 4th Duress/Smother/ and something like jitte or something instead of unearth. I would also up the Stronghold count, as well.

EDIT: Genesis seems really interesting, as well.

[Jak]

Yes, genesis should be in there since you dredge so much.

[Nydaeli]

You should definitely run Mox Diamond. It's permanent acceleration that synergizes with LftL.

[C-Aleric]

The problem with running Mox Diamond is that I don't feel it's a worthy inclusion when I just run 3 Life from the Loam's, as well as 21 land. If I were to include Mox Diamond, this deck would need to add at least 2 more lands, and drop 4 more cards for the Diamonds. This is significantly reducing either threats or disruption.

Aside from Cycling, Duress and C-Therapy, I realize that there isn't much to do on turn 1. However, Turn 2 you have several options. Turn 3, things really open up to neat plays. Alternative to the neat plays (with Therapy's and Unearths, etc...) you can have stripped their hand of their important spells, and are now ready to start the beatdown with Negators/Goyf's. Set up your Deed's for the late game if you get overwhelmed, and continue to aggressively dominate the board.

@rockSTAR

I've tried many 3 color Loam variants, and clearly Solitary Confinement is awesome with Loam. I don't like seeing less than 3 Wastelands. Their are too may duals running around (not to mention other pesky non-basics) that need to be dealt with (occasionally one per turn). If I were to slow my deck down, it would start to look more like yours, for sure.

[C-Aleric]

Sorry for the double post. There have been some very interesting updates to this deck. Recently due to some fantastic inspiration from a new friend met at a recent tournament, this is now the direction this deck is taking:

:b::g: Assault v2.2

// Lands
2 Swamp
3 Wasteland
2 Barren Moor
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Bayou
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Forest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Wooded Foothills

// Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Nimble Mongoose
3 Eternal Witness

// Spells
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Unearth
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Life from the Loam
3 Duress
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Darkblast
3 Sensei's Divining Top

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Duress
SB: 2 Cabal Therapy
SB: 4 Engineered Plague
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Diabolic Edict

Changes to the main deck

In:

Nimble Mongoose
Eternal Witness
Sensei's Divining Top
Darkblast


Out:

Smother
Phyrexian Negator
Hypnotic Specter


With the changes made to this deck, attaining Threshold at :u:Thresh speeds is very possible. Darkblast, Loam, Sensei's, and Cyclers get you Thresh, and big 'Goyfs. Darkblast can be recurred 3 times in a turn easily with Top + cycler. Volrath's + Eternal Witness is hot. Unearth + Witness is also hot. Therapy was dropped down to 2x maindeck, however the other 2 are in the board. Doing lots of Therapy shenanigans on turn 3-4 is very nice occasionally. There are a lot more synergies amongst the cards in the deck. Having an untargetable Mongoose is very important in some games. A couple Edicts were added to the board for recursion with Witness against certain decks. Unearth now has a much more broken feel to it, when you can dredge freely into Witnesses and fantastic spells. You spend all your mana every turn with Top/Discard/Creatures/Recursion. Six fetch lands could be more, but I don't run many fetchable lands, and need to keep the cyclers in. Top gets used for dredging/Darkblast nonsense as much as card selection. It having two roles gives it a comfortable position in this list.

Let me know what you think of the changes please. It seems from my perspective to have gotten a lot stronger.