[Deck] Team America (Midrange/Control Thread)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rancOr_

I still think the best list for TA(control version) is with 4goyf 4snap 24 land. Its the most consistent and u get to play like 3Jace and a liliana. Backed up with removal/discard/counters its really solid against most decks except Imperial Painter/burn.

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Yo,

I definitely agree with this statement. I've been able to improve my Imperial and my Burn match up by switching up some non-basics for basic lands. Imperial seemed entirely unwinnable to me, based largely on their 6-7 Blood Moon effects that can easily come down on turn 1 or 2. I generally do well against burn decks, but the basic lands have also worked to nerf Price to Progress. The basic lands have also improved my match up for people who side in Back to Basics/Choke or some sort of Wasteland lock using Crucible or Loam.

My maindeck 23 land base is:

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

I added the 1 Forest recently so I'd have access to Pernicious Deed, Tarmogoyf, and Nature's Claim. This still gives you adequate sources for every color:

17 Black
16 Blue
13 Green

Thank you for all this input!
I finally dropped Dark Confidant after seeing that hes medicore in this deck, and I switched something new, or more old, the classic BUG Control, or what I think of what this is. First the list:

22 Lands including 4 Waste 1 Riptide 0 Basics

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Snapcaster Mage

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Liliana of the Veil

4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
1 Counterspell

3 Ghastly Demise
1 Go for the Throat

2 Hymn to Tourach
3 Thoughtseize

3 Pernicious Deed

4 Brainstorm

1 Unearth
1 Life from the Loam

Sideboard:

1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Unearth
1 Life from the Loam
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Extirpate
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Virtue's Ruin
1 Krosan's Grip
1 Nature' Claim
2 Duress


So yeah its a pretty basic BUG Control-List with 3 Deeds mainboard. In my 75 I play 2 Unearth and 2 Life from the Loam - both very very strong cards - each in a 1-1 split between each other and the sideboard - to adjust it the best way to the MUs.
3 Jaces seemed enough, and the Liliana is gold sometimes. The rest is pretty normal I think.

I had some great results on Cockatrice already (9-2) and the first cards are arriving irl :)
So yeah, what do you guys think? Looks like a solid list doesnt it? Time to get used to this deck!

Greetings

@Phillip

My first thought is to cut the 4th Wasteland, the 4th FOW, or the 1 Counterspell for another mana producing land. With control decks, you don't really want to keep hands with less than 2 lands, and you want to hit every land drop you can (which is a reason to suggest 23 lands instead 22). That just might be my personal preference though.

23 lands may be good yes, especially with Life from the Loam. But should I add Basics? One of the Sources who posted his list shortly before was playing 3 Basics... Sweet? I mean this wont win you the Burn-MU and you certainly CANT play off Swamp+Island+Forest - you can hardly play anything the correct way. So youll fetch for Duals in any way, making yourself vulernable to Wasteland once again and only reducing the damage taken from Price of Progress. If you ask me, playing that few Basics isnt really useful - the only argument that might be valid is sitting on 3 Bascis, the enemy has the Crucible+Wastelock and you wait for your out, Natures Claim or Grip. But this will take you quite a while. So the only Basic I would add would be 1 Island, even though Id prefer a Dual/Fetchland here aswell. Or some Creeping Tar Pit.

What do you guys think? 100% Nonbasic Manabase or 95%?

Greetings

Basics hurt the deck a lot.
You have to go for duals anyway and if they have a wasteland they will waste the first dual you fetch anyway...
Also as Philip said starting with basics does not work... besides the obvious hymn to touarch there are many other situations.... i.e.: you start with swamp for thoughtseize... then you have another fetch, a brainstorm and a spell snare... youcannot counter his spell without cracking the fetch for an island loosing your shuffle effect...

or what if you do not have the spell snare but NEED to counter his spell. If you fetch was underground sea instead for swamp.. you can brainstorm still having the shuffle effect and play snare if you find it...

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Concerning your current build now Philip.
I agree a little more colored mana would be better. Unearth without confidant is not strong enough!

4 Goyf and 3 deed are a little antisynergistic (you either dont want to play goyf because you are going to blow up the world or you dont want to blow up the world because there are goyf ins play...);I play currently 3 goyf, 2 deed maindeck.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iron Buddha

Classic creatureless control is not very popular right now. The most controllish decks are those with SFM, SCM, Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf, Clique: That means that board control is quite important in the control matchup. Removal is not as bad in the control-matchup as it used to be.

In regards to fighting control/combo I don't quite see a difference between blue counterspells and black discard.

The problem with Thoughtseize is the life-loss. While this is mostly irrelevant for combo / aggro decks, it's an extreme disadvantage for the control-player.

The third or even the fourth Spell Snare can easily come in to strengthen the control/combo matchup.

What's the benefit of being a bit aggro?

The reason why I think control is naturally favored, is because control automatically makes use of the resource life.

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Just relying on counterspells versus combo is not enough. Discard and a fast glock help against almost any combo matchup. The lifeloss of thoughtseize hurts, but the idea is that you trade with a card that hurts you a lot more. Many people including me also play a 2/2 split with inquisition because of that reason.

You are right that removal/deed has applications versus sonteblade control builds, but you can't deny it hurts them much more if you inquision/hymn them as oppose to deed them

Another matchup that we unfortunately might have to face more often is burn. The only way i see me winning against burn is a hand with Goyf/Hymn and some counterspells. Just having counterspells and removal but giving them a lot of time to draw to 20 damage has much less of a chance.

Ill add one more land.

But concerning the play Goyf+Deed: I think its not too bad when playing both of them - because sometimes a Goyf is win cause you need a fast clock or a blocker and you simply dont have Deed. In other Situations you can just deed and play the Goyf later on - so I dont see the problem here.

I was thinking about playing something that would remove an Elspeth or an Jace. We have 2 options as far as I know. a) add a Volcanic or something in order to cast Explosives at 4 (hard to accompliesh though) or we play some Malestrom Pulse, which would be fine to be honest.

Even though Unearth might not seem to be that hot without Dark Confidant it actually is. I play the MB-SB 1-1 split because its pretty bad against W/x decks with their damn exiling. But having more Goyfs is always good. Ill keep it in 1-1.

Life from the Loam (in 1-1 split aswell) was the nuts everytime I drew it. Once it worked as CA in symbiosis with Liliana the other time it provided me with the right amount of Wastelands to push my opponent out of the game.

There is another card a friend brought me to think about. Its Eternal Witness. Dont we wish to bring back Deed or Jace sometimes? What do you think about this one? Casting GG isnt too hard for me as I dont play any basics (only girlies do so^^), and it could mean some critical advantage - even though it is a little slow indeed.

Thanks for your good advice. Greetings

Have either of you actually tested a basic list, or are you just making theoretical assumptions? :)

I run 3 basics, and it works just fine. I've played the deck for 4-5 months.

Sorry for the sidekick.

No I did not test it - but how do you cast Hymn and Goyf and Liliana and Jace and and and at the same time of basics. What if your Lands in hand are Waste, Fetch and Forest and your spells are Lilly and Hymn? Good fight or what? I hardly see an advantage in playing 3 bascis. this wont save you from getting Priced of progress - honestly.

So any thoughts on Witness?

Waste - Fetch - Forest - Liliana - Hymn - x - y

What are X and Y? What are you playing against?

Self invented scenarios help nobody. This was only meant to clarify that it is NOT possible to use the maximum of the spells when playing Basics - or even fetching for basics. But I do not want our argument to take place in this thread - so lets stop it and lets do it in PM if you want.

Greetings and sorry for the "spam".

Didn't you self-invent that scenario? I think you have to consider the full hand and what deck you're playing against whenever deciding to keep/mulligan. You'll have that exact 5 you conjured up less than 0.xxx% of the time--of which one other card may make that hand keepable, pending your opponent's deck choice. I don't understand your untested fear of a basic land. You're only going to have 1 Forest in your opening hand roughly 10% of the time. If this 1 Forest were suddenly your 4th Wasteland, would it make any difference on you keeping the hand?

Additionally, playing the 1 Forest comes down to how much you have silver bullets like Blood Moon in your metagame. I think 1 Swamp and 1 Island are definitely correct, but the 1 Forest comes from needing outs to strong nonbasic hate that I frequently see.

This individual seems to perform quite well using 1 Swamp, 1 Island:

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/bus...i%20Villagrasa

Finally, this isn't an argument. We're just discussing mechanics of the deck. That's what you do on the thread. If you disagree with the use of basics in this deck, tell us why--based on what you've tested, hopefully.

Regarding the basics, have tried running all 3 right now (B,U,G) but am not really sold on the Forest. I think it would be better if it was another dual land. Running basics doesn't mean that would be the 1st thing you'd fetch in every match-up. There will be scenarios that basics would help and sometimes you'll get screwed because of them. The basic lists hardly uses Green mana (with the rise of MD deeds I think this would merit inclusion) but with only Goyf (now I see them as 2-3 MD) and possibly 3 deeds, wouldn't Bayou or Trops be more practical?

@JimmyC27
Did you post your most recent decklist?

Here's what I am testing:
4 Force of Will
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brainstorm
3 Jace TMS
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Go For The Throat
1 Life From The Loam
4 Thoughtseize
3 Spell Snare
2 Ponder
2 Spell Pierce
1 Raven's Crime
24 lands (3 basics w/o Riptide Lab - Never was a fan)

Raven's Crime - This was supposedly the slot for Creeping Tarpit as the 25th land or Pulse as a catch all option. It is nuts with Loam once it goes online and would complement Liliana's discard ability also. Certainly good for control match-ups but I think will suck against aggro.

Only 3 Targeted removal - Between the 3 deeds and 2 Liliana and sometimes Jace, creatures are hardly a problem.The only thing that I am concerned about are opposing Walkers that cannot be hit by deed.

I am torn on using this list rather than the 4 Snaps + 4 Goyf build that also uses Deeds MD. I strongly believe it is anti synergistic as you will blow-up everything eventually and have no way of getting back the crits. The old one w/o deeds and Liliana I will be testing next.

@Philipp802
I won't recommend adding a 4th color just to make explosives playable. The manabase itself is already fragile that adding more duals will make you more prone to hate. Go with Pulse instead as it can hit almost any permanent especiallt Walkers.

@sumbahdy

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

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Snapcaster Mage

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

3 Ghastly Demise
1 Go for the Throat
2 Pernicious Deed

3 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
1 Ponder

1 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach

Sideboard:

2 Pernicious Deed
2 Nature's Claim
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Spell Pierce
1 Force of Will
1 Ghastly Demise
2 Diabolic Edict


My list on modo is a little different
-1 Tarmogoyf, +1 Inquisition of Kozilek maindeck
-1 Pernicious Deed, +1 Nature's Claim sideboard

However slight, these differences haven't really been noticeable.

@JimmyC27
Thanks for the list. Did the 4th Force got replaced with 7th Discard spell? I know if Aggro match-ups (Maverick to be exact) you will take out all the FOW in place of other removal but using 3 FOW MD will it matter? Also, how impressive has Creeping Tarpit been for you?

@sumbahdy

I cut the 4th FOW for a number of reasons. Ultimately, I was trying to make room for Pernicious Deed--I wanted a board sweeper to improve match ups like Maverick and Goblins (meta decision). I also have a love-hate relationship with FOW. I like preventing my opponent from dropping major cards; I hate hymning myself to do it. My blue count isn't terribly high (18), so cutting one FOW seemed okay. I also saw some other BUG lists popping up on the internet having success with only 3 FOW.

Against Maverick, I normally go something like -2 Liliana, -1 Jace, +2 Deed, +1 Ghastly Demise. I tend to leave FOW in to keep Choke off the board. I could see an argument going either way though, since I have Nature's Claims in the board I could bring in over FOW.

Creeping Tar Pit has been pretty good or at least I'm a fan. Essentially, he's an unblockable Underground Sea. There have been a couple of times where its unblockable effect has allowed me to get lethal through. He can also block stuff to protect Jace--since you're somewhat short on blockers. His downfalls would probably be that on his own though he's not enough to get you there. Sometimes he eats Wasteland or removal, but I think that's to be expected. Overall, he adds an extra body to your deck and that seems to give you a little more flexibility throughout the game. I think 1 seems about right.

my 2c to the basics discussion:
I think it hurts much more on a regular basis than giving value in some specific rare occasions.

Against Maverick Liliana is decent (except if its punishing maverick)
FoW has to come out IMO. Choke is a pain, but just for that it is too narrow and I still play 4 discard and 3 Spell Pierce to protect myself.

Spell Pierce is very good against Maverick!
Hymn is decend but cutable.
Darkblast is nuts!
I do not play with more than 2 goyf in a "4 deed matchup"

The 1 Creeping tar pit is very good! Good against plainswalkers and a decent colored mana wincondition that you can "loam" for.

How about the mana base? With tarpit and wastes should you be running 23 lands? I run 2 basics and 24 in a deck with lftl. At 1st I tried 25 but tended to be flooded most of the time. I think 24 is ideal to keep getting consistent land drops and land the double mana requirement of your bombs.

@catmint

I have really liked having the 1 Swamp and 1 Island. You can fetch for these early and still hit your normal mana requirements of BB, UU, or BG later. If I was seeing more UW Stoneblade or RUG Tempo, and less Choke/Back to Basics, I would most likely cut the 1 Forest for another dual or fetchland. However, I have not run into problems where using 3 basics hoses me for these requirements either.

@sumbahdy

23 lands seems find to me--4 Brainstorm and 1 Ponder also help fix mana. Just don't keep any 1 land hands.

@catmint

How would you sideboard with my list for Maverick and UW Stoneblade?

i'll probably give the basics some test run and keep count of good/bad situations.

Jimmy:
my sb plan with your list:

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

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Snapcaster Mage

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

3 Ghastly Demise
1 Go for the Throat
2 Pernicious Deed

3 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
1 Ponder

1 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach

Sideboard:
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Nature's Claim
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Spell Pierce
1 Force of Will
1 Ghastly Demise
2 Diabolic Edict

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vs GW Maverick
-3 FoW
-3 Spell Snare
-3 Tarmogoyf (...you have clique)
-1 Hymn to Tourach

+ 1 ghastly demise
+ 2 Spell Pierce
+ 2 Edict
+ 2 deed
+ 1 Natures claim (more answers to sylvan libary, choke or equipment)
+ 2 Vendilion Clique

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vs GWR Maverick
-3 FoW
-3 Spell Snare
-2 Tarmogoyf
-1 Hymn to Tourach
-1 Liliana of the Veil

+ 1 ghastly demise
+ 2 Spell Pierce
+ 2 Edict
+ 2 deed
+ 1 Natures claim
+ 2 surgical extraction

..not sure if Liliana or hymn is better in the GWR matchup but spell snare is always too narrow

________________

versus UW Stoneblade i guess something like this:

- 3 Tarmogoyf
- 2 Liliana
- 1 Go for the Throat
- 1 Deed

+ 2 Spell Pierce
+ 2 Vendilion Clique
+ 1 Natures Claim
+ 2 surgical extraction