[Deck] UGB Braids control

[thefreakaccident]

This is the deck that got second place at the Pro Tour Legacy side event:

2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Swamp
2 Forest
2 Island
1 Polluted Delta
1 Windswept Heath
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Flooded Strand
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Pendelhaven
1 Academy Ruins
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Dust Bowl
1 Yavimaya Hollow

4 Force of Will
2 Brainstorm
1 Smother
2 Intuition

2 Thoughtseize
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Life from the Loam

3 Tarmogoyf
2 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Eternal Witness
2 Braids, Cabal Minion
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Shriekmaw

2 Engineered Explosives
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Mask of Memory

4 Bitterblossom
1 Engineered Plague
1 Propaganda

2 Garruk Wildspeaker

SB
3 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Duress
2 Energy Flux
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Engineered Plague
3 Krosan Grip
2 Divert


It did well in a meta full of great decks, and a tourney as large as 98 people.

The deck seems to be a little all over the place to me, however, it must have some sort of merit to it, doing as well as it did.


I don't know much about the deck, but maybe as a community we can figure it out together...


DISCUSS!

[Mental]

Yeah, I'm confused by the deck also. 3 Tarmogoyf? Spellstutter Sprite? Sower? Lots of random one ofs, like Dust Bowl/EPlauge? It looks like a joke...I can barely figure out a coherant strategy for the deck. It's definitely aggro control...but on the controlling side. Weird.

[ssilver]

It looks like it was thrown together last minute in the style of "What do I have laying around that I can build a deck out of?" If I had to guess, I would say that the reason this guy did so well was #1 He is a good player, he can take a lot decent stuff and make it perform great, or #2 4 Fow, 2 Garruk, 3 Goyf, 4 BB = great, lets see what else to throw in...
Did this guy ever come up against D-stompy or other decks that destroy horrible manabases like this? He's running 6 basics out of his 25 land, which makes me think that blood moon = gg unless Forced. Spellstutter sprite looks random, 1 Jitte looks random, 2 intuition defeats the purpose of his cool intuition stacks, unless he plans never to use them. I'm really tempted to go with #1 and #2 rather than the missing #3 (Wow this deck is amazing lets all go build it). He's got some interesting ideas going on, but nothing concrete or a dedicated strategy. I don't know, anyone want to enlighten me?

[Internet Hate Machine]

This seems ... insane?

EDIT: The only real way I can figure out that this could do so well is people mis-boarding in games two and three, or just plain miss-playing. Its "strategy" is so all over the place that people may have tried to board in things to fight it but they just ended up with dead cards because it was doing something totally different the next game, or were just totally thrown off strategy wise by the randomness of it and couldnt get themselves together while playing... Oh, and one hell of a player piloting it.

[Jak]

It looked likeit was thrown together, but since it did so well I think we should look closely at it. Some stuff does seem bad, but maybe if some tested it and figured out its strengths, we can fix this deck up. Maybe focus on the UBG Intuition style control. Like Bayou Billy. It is interesting.

[cloudstrife7]

are you sure there were only 2 intuition?

His 1-ofs actually look like a legitimate toolbox. He also has a lot of recursion to fit with braids and his tutor. He probably used life from the loam, eternal witness, and Volrath's Stronghold to force the issue with Intuition and bring in whatever he wanted.

However, this only seems like it would work if he had 4 Intuition, It seems like a bit of a crapshoot with only 2

edit
beaten to the punch.
Also, his endgame of braids plus recursion looks pretty devastating.

[Team-Hero]

It's actually a TRUE version of a BUG control deck. The original BUG deck WAYYYY back in the day when Legacy was just being played was "let me take the current best B,U,G cards in Legacy and smash them together". It doesn't matter if they don't go well together (ie: Deed and Tarmogoyf), all that matters is that you technically have an answer to 'anything' your playing against... even if it is just a 1of.

The opponent really has a hard time sideboarding against this deck because of the fact that it is so random. The deck can actually choose to play the defence or the offence. In return, Extirpate and Haunting Echoes against this deck is a joke.

I do think that the deck takes a heavy advantage off Bitterblossom and Braids together.

[Hanni]

I've been working with UGB Intuition aggro/control since 2006... but as of late, it has exploded into a million and one different decklists. UGB Intuition was the future, and now is the present, of the format. Get used to seeing more and more UGBx Intuition designs making Top 8's. I've been preaching this for months and months in the TarmoTog thread in the Established Decks forum.

This deck is really no different, except this guys list is far more spread out, far less focused, and toolboxed way too much. There are some really strong interactions in the deck, which I think would be better if the strongest interactions were focused on and the weaker ones were dropped. In the mentality of Thresh, there are certain cards that are just better than other cards at achieving the same goals. His decklist DEFINITELY needs 2 more Intuitions too, nuff said.

[Illissius]

Seeing that Bitterblossom is one of only two spells he played four of (P.S. two Brainstorms cannot be right), and other decks don't play the card, it might've had something to do with his success.

[zefhek]

i really dont get the spellstutter sprites, if he wanted to up the blue and creature count then there are a lot of better options imo. if he would play 4 mutavaults instead of the mishras there could be a reason but with 3 mishras i would have taken sth else. sth like seadrakes or dont know~ then on the other hand maybe he wanted to snap some led's or swords with it.

2 seize 4 force, he must have met the slower portion of the meta or there was little to zero combo there ~

i would add wastelands and cut that ugly dustbowl, more intuition, more seize, more brainstorm und cutting down on the flood of 1-ofs.

at least it looks like much fun to play with all that randomness.


after counting i realized that there are only 12 blue cards including the 4 forces main... so wrong, crazy

[Apex]

I think the Spellstutter Sprites are for quick counters in case he draws them early (anything from Brainstorm to StP will do), and hard counter when he has Bitterblossom in play. He can also recur them through Volrath's Stronghold. Seems pretty strong actually (Bitterblossom tokens + Spellstutter Sprite all sacs to Braids, and with Stronghold, you have almost a permanent lock).

As for the card choices, the most common explanation is probably card availability. Often I had to play my decklists differently because I lent out a set duals, and so now I only have 2 on hand. It's better than nothing, so I stick it in the deck and play some shocklands along with it. Maybe he just didn't bring the cards with him to the PT?

As for the deck getting 2nd place, he could just be a really good player. I mean, if you think about it, with that many different cards, the decision making tree is humungous. If he just made alot of right plays, coupled with the fact that his opponent will have no idea how to play or side against it (Meddling Mage on....what the hell?), then that would usually mean a win for him.

I think a similar thing happened in PT:Hollywood, where Wafo-Tapa had his weird looking pile of a T2 deck (Cryptic Command you, untap, Cloudthresher? UUU into GGGG off a 5 colour type 2 deck?), and wrecked people left and right.

Though I don't know why there hasn't been more developements with Bitterblossom in legacy yet. 1 life for a 1/1 flier a turn seems to be a pretty good deal, even in legacy. Maybe this is the deck archetype that can abuse it?

Edit: Just read the tournament thread. Crazy! All the cards were intended! Man, what a crazy deck! I know I would never be able to play something like that successfully.

[Adan]

I think that fact that this deck did well may have just been a fluke, I mean it has some neat little interactions, but doesnt seem to be anything format changing. Kind of seems like a version of "Its the Fear" actually :wink:

You have to be more creative with your nickname when you are registering a new account, Bovinious.

[spirit of the wretch]

2 Brainstorm
1 Smother
2 Thoughtseize
3 Tarmogoyf
2 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Mask of Memory
1 Engineered Plague


That just can't be right... These choices seem completly weird! Not to mention the manabase which is REALLY horrific. It looks as if somone took a Typ 2.dec and added randomly some eternal cards. So my best guess to the decks success:
- Good draws (there are a lot of solutions in the deck, if you rip them good)
- Good pilot

[Shtriga]

Edit: Just read the tournament thread. Crazy! All the cards were intended! Man, what a crazy deck! I know I would never be able to play something like that successfully.

where can we find that tournament thread?

[Aggro_zombies]

You know, that list would be a million times better if you cut some of the crap, went up to four-ofs on the good things, and added more Intuition and Regrowth or Reito Lantern or some other recursive thing.

Hooray on playing Bitterblossom in Legacy, though. I've been trying to come up with a good use for that card since it was spoiled.

[Shtriga]

I've been playing with bitterblossom+braids on a mono black deck, with contamination, but it feels kinda clunky. although it's good as locking the opponent out of the game sometimes, while losing horribly others. it probably works better here

[Mister Agent]

Well San Diego has quite a few compotent players that know what they are doing. I mean look at Nick Trudeau, Mike anderson, and Rodrigo all of them have done well on the east coast. I am pretty sure there are more good players from San diego.

[revenge_inc]

Does anybody else think Gifts Ungiven has a home in this deck?

[Team-Hero]

Does anybody else think Gifts Ungiven has a home in this deck?

I thought of that card as soon as I saw the decklist. I think it would go perfect. But isn't Intuition better?

[Apex]

where can we find that tournament thread?

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9217&page=5

To the question: Would you change anything based on your experience at the tournament?


After the tournament I think I would take out the single engineered plague and propaganda and add 2 stifles instead. They help with dealing with certain cards and they can still be used for force of will if they aren't being useful. On the sideboard I would add 2 Nourish to help against burn taking out the 2 Diverts. There are also a few other things I might change with the deck, but I need to test those out.

Notice he didn't say: "I wished my friend returned my 4th goyf", or "I wish I could find my Brainstorms", which leads me to believe he intended to run that list.

I see potential in this archetype, now it's just a matter of tuning, which is often the hardest part of deckbuilding.

Edit: I really like this deck, so I spent the morning testing it out. I ran the following, a list with less 2 ofs, and more 4 ofs.

3 Island
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Forest
1 Academy Ruins
3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
1 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island

4 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Eternal Witness
2 Braids, Cabal Minion
1 Gilded Drake
1 Shriekmaw

2 Engineered Explosives
4 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
2 Chainer's Edict
4 Bitterblossom
1 Life from the Loam
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Intuition
4 Force of Will

I had one big major problem with this deck: I kept losing to myself. Between Fetches, Thoughtseize, Bitterblossom, and the fact that guys in Legacy often comes as a 5/6 with FoW backup, I was getting killed left and right by my own spells. I think I died 3 times today to my own Bitterblossom. It's not even like Faeries in standard, where you can just champion away the enchantment with a Mistbind Clique. I think some life gain is probably needed (Kitchen Finks, Ravenous Baloth or up the Jitte number).

Also, even though I was testing without a board, the deck has problems with combo decks game 2. Game one you can often surprise your opponent with a Spellstutter Sprite, and backed by FoW, it's not incredibly lopsided. But after board, they bring hate, and without backup hate, this deck seems very slow (but I guess that's just the nature of this deck).

Braids also performed very subpar in most of the matches I played. BB + Braids sounds very good, but often BB + Jitte is just as game ending. Though Braids also locks down with Academy Ruins/Volrath's Stronghold, it takes a while to get that going. The way things are going, Braids might be too slow for Legacy (or maybe just this deck).

[ReverentChastity]

As a good friend of the pilot of this deck, I can shed some light on it. It is kind of a random last minute combination of decks both he and I have played the last few months, I've been playing a lot of decks with the intuition + land toolbox, and we both play a lot of various control and aggro control decks. We are both fond of bitterblossom, and he likes option of braids with it, while I usually just run a full set of Jitte.

The reasoning behind the 3 goyfs and 2 intuitions are he only owns 3 goyfs and he lent a friend of ours his other 2 intuitions. As for the other 2 and 1 ofs they are truly just kind of randomly picked from a pile of "good cards" :tongue:

He is notorious locally for playing with some "jank" and being incredibly lucky with it. He is a very good pilot, and has amazing luck, so the combination is deadly even with jank.

As far as I know he got very favorable match ups most of the day playing against no Dragon Stompy and only 1 combo deck (belcher) which was his only loss.

[DalkonCledwin]

As far as I know he got very favorable match ups most of the day playing against no Dragon Stompy and only 1 combo deck (belcher) which was his only loss.

I would personally love to know how he did in testing, if he did any testing, with the deck against Dragon Stompy?

[ReverentChastity]

I would personally love to know how he did in testing, if he did any testing, with the deck against Dragon Stompy?

Considering he was putting the "finishing touches" on the deck in the car ride over he didn't get any testing against anything done with that specific list.

I'm going to go ahead and assume it's not the most favorable.

That's why he lucked out not having to face any at PT Hollywood.