[DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)

Play the deck as you have it and you will see what I mean about the manabase and some of the other choices. Snuff out is every bit as good as it seems but 4 is painful while Liliana is reoccurring removal and discard. She's good against combo and on a clear board nearly wins games by herself. Plus she diversifies your hate and gives late game power.

Library is a bomb, you don't have to pay life because the card filtering alone wins games. It also really punishes StP on our creatures. If someone swords my stalker/goyf ill draw 2-3 for little drawback. If it gets destroyed goyf just got bigger same with Liliana.

Regarding tombstalker- I've made hasty posts here before about adding the 4th stalker but Ive always immediately reconsidered right after saying it. 4 is greedy and will clog hands, we may as well consider them legends. The original build ran 4 but with delver that is no longer a necessary evil.

What I meant by "all in" was that your deck seems to revolve around feeding stalkers and is a little heavy, IMO, on cantrips and discard. Some people play a 9th Cantrip some play 8 and 8 discard but I think you will find 10 and 8 too much when some if these could be more 'business'.

Anyway just some thoughts.

I think that the current 'base' main-deck list going forward should be this:

20 Lands*
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Tombstalker
1 Sylvan Library
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
2 Liliana of the Veil (I feel that she is a given, but feel free to disagree)
4-6 Discard**
4-6 Removal/Utility***

*9 Fetchlands, 4 Underground Sea, 1-2 Tropical Island, 1-2 Bayou, 3-4 Wasteland

I think if you are not running Hymn to Tourach, I would opt for the 2nd Tropical instead of the 2nd Bayou. These differences are minute however. Despite its similarity to RUG, I would not drop below 20 lands in TA -- as others have pointed out, this deck really wants to have 3 lands out most of the time.

**1 mana discard seems better in a well-developed metagame. No, seriously, it is. Against RUG, Stoneblade, and tier 1/2 combo decks, you want immediate pin-point discard. Hymn is better if you are playing in an area with less tier 1 presence -- e.g. against decks like Burn, Rock-esque midrange aggro decks, Zoo, etc. Hymn's card advantage is stronger since these decks often rely more on redundancy than specific interaction. You can of course run any combination of Inquisition, Thoughtseize, and Hymn, but I do truly believe that the main incentive for running black is discard and would not run less than 4 slots.

***I am seriously liking the singleton Darkblast in the maindeck, as there seems to be enough decks that get completely screwed by it to justify running it. To round out the removal, I'm running 2 Maelstrom Pulse, 2 Ghastly Demise, and 1 Snuff Out. That said, I can understand if people opt to run a Preordain, some Spell Pierces, etc. depending on the types of decks in their area somewhere in these slots.

Quick resume of my BOM experience.

7-2-1 in the friday trial event (21 out of 400-500 i think) playing Team America, draw with aggro loam and loss to countertop and maverick
6-2-1 in the main event (62 out of 766) playing BUG Midrange, losses to canadian and a pox-loam deck (final round). Draw with U/W countertop.

I will write up some more detailed notes about where i see BUG in the current meta at some later point. Some quick bullet points:

-Dont drop the wastelands!!!
-Snuff out is one of the main reasons i would play the snapcaster-less aggro list
-Liliana is not essential, it is marginal against most non-tempo decks, i did not run liliana on the friday and wish i had cut her on the saturday. Note that other smart players disagree with me on this one (shoutout to Spike here)
-U/W miracle/countertop is a very real deck and traditional Team America gets wrecked by Sensei's divining top. I think my opponent had top in 80% of the games i lost over the weekend, not kidding. I am now 90% certain that you should always seize/force top when given the chance.
-Corrospondingly Deed is very good in the control mirrors as it blanks most of that deck -Jace
-The play a creature and hope it survives plan sucks against top big time. The best cards in my deck on the friday were the two Jaces i boarded in in every matchup. I feel like that is somehow a general statement about where the deck should be going forward.
-Canadian Threshold is a beast if you play the more midrangy decks. Very uphill if you are not prepared for it, both in card choices and in having done the testing to let you play around all of their disruption.
-You guys should be looking into BUG control lists with basics and Tarmogoyf to beat up on the current metagame. Currently working on a list that seems promising.

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Originally Posted by Goddik

-You guys should be looking into BUG control lists with basics and Tarmogoyf to beat up on the current metagame. Currently working on a list that seems promising.

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Nicely done. Please keep me/us posted on your new list, with work I haven't really been able to do much real testing at all lately.

Goddik- great showing brother I look forward to a report. I've recently put deed in my board as well as loam main. Mind sharing your lists with us? I'm curious because I kinda look at my current build as a mesh of traditional TA and midrange BUG. I'm more of the opinion that this is the stronger build, due mostly to the prevalence of tempo thresh and stoneblade while still maintaining a slightly favorable matchup against maverick. As you said midrange suffers against thresh which is probably the most dominant deck in the format, arguably.
Edit forgot to add burn to that list.

Anyway strong showing so congrats again.

Will write up something if i get time. Probably more a report on the testing and the subtleties of the lists then the actual event as I can't recall the rounds.

Btw, I don't think that it is universally true that a BUG midrange deck looses to Canadian, merely that a BUG midrange deck that isn't build with a very close eye to the matchup does. I am confident that there is a build that beats it.

The beauty of BUG is that you can beat almost anything with it, provided that your build and play is tight.

It seems to me like running eight discard spells goes well with running a lot of cantrips - as you can go all-in early, discarding spells, countering shit, playing snuff out, and casting your creatures, and then when you use up your initially pool of resources, you can cantrip into more. So that's sort of my rational for running 1-2 preordain, in addition to: you need blue spells for force of will, and: I don't really like the idea of running non-free counters since you tend to tap out almost every turn for the first 3 turns or so, playing discard spells, cantriping when you need to for delver, and casting creatures --- so what other blue spells are there to run, besides a couple more cantrips? They usually don't seem awkward to me, so long as I start the game with some number of counters/discard spells so that I just don't cantrip all day before getting started on actually interacting with my opponent.

If I were to play any amount of liliana's, I definitely wouldn't play many counters beyond force of will and daze, since I don't like the idea of having to discard my counters when if I had a creature I could have just cast it. Also, the card-disadvantage of force of will seems awkward with Liliana, in my opinion.

Finally, 4 snuff out seems fine, since even if you lose 8 life that's not the end of the world if they have no creatures out. Against Zoo or RU delver, this might not be true, however. Against RUG I haven't had too much of a problem with the life loss since they really don't run all that much burn most of the time, unless they have snapcaster or do the chain-lightning plan instead of forked bolt. Liliana does seem like a good supplement if you want more removal. Or maelstrom pulse, which seems nice to have against batterskull, lingering souls, Jace, etc.

This is what I have right now:

4 delver of secrets
4 tarmogoyf
3 tombstalker
4 force of will
3-4 daze
2 thoughtseize
2 inquisition of kozilek
4 hymn to taurach
4 snuff out
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
1-2 preordain

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

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

This is basically based on theorycrafting, 2 months of gaming with midrange BUG and a bunch of testing against Canadian thresh in the airport on the way home. I personally won't have time to run it much before July and was hoping some of you guys would take it for a spin in the meantime to get some data before Ghent. Testing seems very promising though and I would snap play it at a GP tomorrow.

Notes:

Basics: The games i loose are often to wastelands, being able to play around these eliminates a whole bunch of losses to both Canadian and Maverick. Thalia, waste is much less scary when you go basic, basic,basic. It makes it much easier to assemble the deed that is often your one card combo in many matchups.

Hymn: Quite frankly, it is not good in the current meta. Loosing it means you get less brute force wins, but I don't actually feel like you need it. The deck is quite the beast already. I would also rather run basics then Hymn. It makes our long game much better because we can lock it up with counterspell and top instead of top-decking useless cards.

Liliana: Insane against RUG, mediocre against most other decks including maverick. Liliana is good at locking up games you have already won. I am tired of boarding her out in 70% of my matches because my opponent plays entreat the angels, lingering souls or no creatures (and is not a combo deck). I am strongly considering it in the board. The engineered explosives fullfill the same role against mongoose but can also stop tokens, vials, counterbalances etc

Tarmogoyf: We tried removing these and had a 10-0 set against RUG (wrong side of that result). Then we put them back in. Goyf is crucial unless you go with the truckload of lilianas and innocent blood plan.

RUG Matchup: This one is a tightrope, a bit like playing against standard faeries. You NEED to play around their dazes, stifles, pierces etc. while you use your life total as a precious resource. I think the matchup is quite decent with this deck but it does require you to play very competently. Stifles often need to be baited with fetches so you can get your deeds and explosives to resolve. Deed or goyf is your desired board state and the discard, forces etc exist to make that happen. We are still in the process of ironing out the sideboard plan but I am convinced that the matchup should get much better after board. God have mercy on their souls if they left home without stifle ;)

Tops: This deck loves to durdle in long games and has lots of sweet 2-3 offs that break games open. Top helps you find lands, deeds, Jaces and discard/counterspells depending on the situation. It is also much better with basics. I quite like it.

Thrunn in the board: This is a Valaerna speciel. We felt like we lacked a late game trump against RUG that was also good against U/W. Liliana is the alternative in this slot, but i like the way Thrunn locks games and get them dead fast. This one definitely deserves testing though as it is still a bit of an experiment.

2 Massacre, 2 Perish, 1 Deed:
I don't like loosing to Maverick, neither should you! Prudent planning prevents piss poor performance. The pre-board matchup is about 50-50 but the post-board match up should feel like a slaughter if you play around their chokes (forest and swamp are pro lands).

In general it feels like the deck is a fair ammount more robust and stable, but you have to play around more stuff when you don't have hymn to vacuum clean their hand. The deck is awesome at grinding out anything the format has to offer and it win Jace wars like a boss.

Try it out and let me know ;). I kindda wish I could come to Atlanta and grind with it.

Goddik - I really like that list ALOT.
Been playing NLT but gonna give this a spin in some upcomming trials to see how it goes. The basics really help out alot in that list.
Few questions : How did the EE's play out for you? Have u tried with spell snares MD- and I would kinda like to fit a Darkblast MD,as its so good and combos with loam/bs/jace too.

Grtz

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God have mercy on their souls if they left home without stifle ;)

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This made me Lol.

Goddik- I like what you got, few questions though. Has all your testing been preboard? tempo thresh still looks pretty rough even postboard since they can race goyf with delver.

RancOr beat me to it but why no darkblast? That card is an 'I win' button vs maverick if found early. Just curious on your thoughts here because it could replace 1 dismember.

I know you have more in mind for massacre than just maverick. Right? I was running this but I got tired of wiping the board only to see mom/thalia/SFM drop the next turn so I jumped on dread of nights bandwagon instead. I still roll snuff out too though so teeg is a bigger consideration.
Anyway why did you switch back to massacre and what does massacre hit once that dread doesnt continuously stop besides scryb ranger and mana dudes? Something im not thinking of perhaps?

Im also liking the idea of EE main, surprised I havent seen more of this to combat geese.

Whats your plan against sneak and show? I think lilianas should replace edicts actually, better against combo and reanimator too.

Anyway nice list man.

I think spell snares in this deck are a crutch, they don't really counter anything that can't be solved with other means and they take up space in the deck that you could fill with good cards. I haven't really missed them since I cut them for ponders.

That being said they are awesome with snapcaster

The edicts in the boar also act as snapcaster removals 5-6 against maverick, so I would be carefull with cutting them. If you want room for liliana to combat the American meta (which admittedly seems very RUG dominated at the moment), cut some combination of counterspell, pierce and 1 top and the loam to make room for 2 lilianas in the main. You could also cut the grip in the board for a third liliana.

On explosives: I love these, they are primarily for goose, but they handle a ton of other stuff as well. My only concern currently is that the deck currently has a weakness against planeswalkers as the maelstrom pulses have been cut to make the RUG matchup better.

On postboard RUG: Note that i board out most of my snapcasters, forces and counterspells to make the deck less clunky. I have also been known to shave a Jace though I am currently on the plan of keeping them in.

On Massacre: It sounds like you blow this too early, if they have Mom and Thalia on the board i will gladly sit on it while they hit me for 2 a turn to gain more value. That is not a scary board state. Problem is you can easily loose to hierarchs and other mana-dudes as they still kill your jace. You are on the kill everything plan. Ideally you play massacre and Jace or Liliana in the same turn. I also consistently board out goyf against maverick.

Lingering souls also don't trump Jace if you slowroll your sweepers right. I will gladly sit with a deed in play and take 2 for a couple of turns so i can land a Jace. Getting a little bit outvalued is ok if you brainstorm every turn. Plague and dread are very narrow cards that i would rather not have in my 75. Massacre does a ton of incidental splash damage to random bad decks

Glad to see there's some discussion going on here. I stopped playing my Team America deck ever since few months ago when I went 0-3 dropped in a local tournament. Round 1, I got crushed by a kid who brought a STANDARD R/G aggro deck to a legacy tournament. Round 2, lost to a Burn deck. Round 3, lost to combo Elves. Still kind of traumatized from losing to a kid and his standard deck. :laugh:

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Originally Posted by Goddik

Here you go. We call this "the scalpel" ;)

List...

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I believe this list and the following discussion is better suited for this thread Team America (Control Thread) Mods are doing some work to keep different versions of BUG lists organized.

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I believe this list and the following discussion is better suited for this thread Team America (Control Thread) Mods are doing some work to keep different versions of BUG lists organized.

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I think this is why you (Goddik) may be getting some seemingly odd questions/approach to certain cards, since we (I) are examining your build primarily from a tempo mindset. I would be happy to continue the discussion in the BUG control thread though since I do like what you have created.

Quote:

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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

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*** 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?...

response posted in the control thread. Lets invade that one and make the mods happy:smile:

Why is played Flusterstorm over Mindbreak Trap against Combo???

they duress you a couple of times and the game often goes long. Ritual -> Adnauseam beats mindbreak trap

Here's my current list (6/10/12):

20 Lands
4 Tarmo
4 Delver
3 Tombstalker
1 Sylvan Library
4 FoW
4 Daze
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Thoughtseize
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 E Explosives
2 Ghastly Demise (could be Diabolic Edict)
2 Lili otV

SB:
2 Jace
1 Loam
1 Thrun
2 M Pulse
2 N Spell Bomb
2 Extirpate
1 Darkblast
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Gilded Drake
1 Cursed Scroll

The key is with the SB -- knowing when and how to transform into a board control deck. There are some matchups where you should drop the aggro angle and go for the long game.

You aren't going to have a good game against certain decks with this configuration, but against the current onslaught of RUG and SnT decks, this does pretty well in my testing.

Wcm8- man I like you're list. I can't really fault any of your choices except demise. Why not snuff out its so much better in this deck. I am curious what scroll is for though and the absence of spell pierce in your board but otherwise I like the transformational aspect.