[OLD] UGw Threshold

Is there a particular reason that none of the post-shards builds this past page seem to be running Qasali Pridemage?

The flexibility it offers is absurd.

Your opponents basically can't play Counterbalance or Standstill as long as you have it on the table. And it blows up Oblivion Rings, Veldalken Shackles and a huge number of other artifacts and enchantments that just about every deck plays.

It beats for 3.

It wins you Goyf stalemates.

And it only costs 2 mana (cheaper than Oblivion Ring). A walking beating Seal of Primoridium, what more could you possibly ask for?

My creaturebase would probably consist of...

4x Qasali Pridemage
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Lorescale Coatl
2x Sower of Temptation

The Coatl could be cut for Mystic Enforcer or Jenara and/or maybe Rhox War Monk or Trygon Predator or Meddling Mage or Nimble Mongoose or Noble Hierach or something. But the Pridemage seems like it should be a staple in the deck.

@ Clark Kant

Quote:

---

Is there a particular reason that none of the post-shards builds this past page seem to be running Qasali Pridemage?

---

While I love the card, I just don't like it in this deck so much. The mana efficiency of Pridemage is excellent, but at 2cc he is too easily answered by opposing Counterbalances (a time when I need his services most). I think Krosan Grip and Trygon Predator are better in this deck just because they usually avoid Counterbalance (and in the case of Grip, all permission in general). I'm an all around K-Grip fanboi.






peace,
4eak

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Clark Kant

Is there a particular reason that none of the post-shards builds this past page seem to be running Qasali Pridemage?

The flexibility it offers is absurd.

Your opponents basically can't play Counterbalance or Standstill as long as you have it on the table. And it blows up Oblivion Rings, Veldalken Shackles and a huge number of other artifacts and enchantments that just about every deck plays.

It beats for 3.

It wins you Goyf stalemates.

And it only costs 2 mana (cheaper than Oblivion Ring). A walking beating Seal of Primoridium, what more could you possibly ask for?

My creaturebase would probably consist of...

4x Qasali Pridemage
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Lorescale Coatl
2x Sower of Temptation

The Coatl could be cut for Mystic Enforcer or Jenara and/or maybe Rhox War Monk or Trygon Predator or Meddling Mage or Nimble Mongoose or Noble Hierach or something. But the Pridemage seems like it should be a staple in the deck.

---

@Qasali Pridemage: Yepp. He is insane. Period. Playing him is nearly equal to playing a Meddling Mage on: Counterbalance, Standstill, Dreadnoughts, Survival of the Fittest, Counterbalance, Shackles, Smokestack, Moat, Trinisphere, Blood Moon, Back to Basics, Counterbalance, Jitte, Aether Vial, Chalice of the Void, Counterbalance and - most important - Counterbalance.

When I tested with Clemens (UGw vs. Nassif NLU) I lost every game where he had an early Qasali Pridemage or 2. He's an proactive answer to all the threats listed above and even more. He is a Watchwolf himself and breaks Goyf stalemates by suppoorting your Goyfs.

@Coatl: Hyped and overestimated. It's like O.K., but the investment of vital cantrips to grow it makes it only slightly better than Quirion Dryad. The only difference would be that it grow 3 times bigger than the Dryad when playing a Brainstorm, but that card already has so many purposes that adding a Giant Growth function makes you play it wrong-timed. Additionally the roles of Brainstorm like improving your hand resources or being a Counterspell with a blind CB out still outweight a simple Giant Growth effect and are like way more gamewinning than growing the Coatl which can still be chumped for ages.

@Sower: Don't. Just don't. I've been running Nassif NLU and Sower sucks terribly, as well as the deck itself. He's only good if you can defend him with Counter-Top. And well, you will have already won the game with Counter-Top. The conclusion is that Sower is a winmore card (and well, clunky and situational and dead in a lot of matchups due to it's clunkyness).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adan

@Qasali Pridemage: Yepp. He is insane. Period. Playing him is nearly equal to playing a Meddling Mage on: Counterbalance, Standstill, Dreadnoughts, Survival of the Fittest, Counterbalance, Shackles, Smokestack, Moat, Trinisphere, Blood Moon, Back to Basics, Counterbalance, Jitte, Aether Vial, Chalice of the Void, Counterbalance and - most important - Counterbalance.

When I tested with Clemens (UGw vs. Nassif NLU) I lost every game where he had an early Qasali Pridemage or 2. He's an proactive answer to all the threats listed above and even more. He is a Watchwolf himself and breaks Goyf stalemates by suppoorting your Goyfs.

---

I really like the idea of Pridemage, but I am unsure what to remove for him. What is the creature base that you and Clemens have been running?

Creature wise, at the moment I am running 4 goyf, 4 werebear, 2 RWM, 2 Trygon, and 1 enforcer. My guess would be that getting rid of werebear for 4 pridemage is the best idea, but I am not totally sure. Lately though, werebear has been really crappy as the deck takes so long to get thresh (usually he is just a chump blocker), makes the deck more vulnerable to Relic, and hasn't really helped in the mana department because I am running 18 lands now.

Also, what is your opinion of spell snare? I have noticed that a bunch of decks have started running 3 daze and 3 snares. Sounds interesting, but I am so afraid of running the card because it is so narrow.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Damnosus

I really like the idea of Pridemage, but I am unsure what to remove for him. What is the creature base that you and Clemens have been running?

Creature wise, at the moment I am running 4 goyf, 4 werebear, 2 RWM, 2 Trygon, and 1 enforcer. My guess would be that getting rid of werebear for 4 pridemage is the best idea, but I am not totally sure. Lately though, werebear has been really crappy as the deck takes so long to get thresh (usually he is just a chump blocker), makes the deck more vulnerable to Relic, and hasn't really helped in the mana department because I am running 18 lands now.

Also, what is your opinion of spell snare? I have noticed that a bunch of decks have started running 3 daze and 3 snares. Sounds interesting, but I am so afraid of running the card because it is so narrow.

---

-4 Werebear. -2 Rhox War Monk, -1 Enforcer

Then you can add Qasali Pride Mage, or Lorescale Coatl, or Sower of Temptation, or whatever.

Why cut Enforcer? Enforcer is quite good. It's honestly just as good as Sower in most situations that Sower is good in but always useful, even against combo or pure control.

RWM isn't bad either.

But, yes absolutely 100% replace the 4 Werebear with Pridemage.

To complement what my inarticulate Team-mate just said:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adan

@Coatl: Hyped and overestimated.

---

Also, see here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adan

@Qasali Pridemage: Yepp.

---

Qasali Pridemage is good. Very good. Like that good. I've been playing him since he first appeared on the spoiler and every single one of my testing partners has been amazed by him, as have I.
He mainly fills the same role as Trygon Predator, but with some significant advantages:

• He's a better beater due to coming down earlier and due to swinging for more. Watchwolf stats are still pretty good and win games, even with all those ridiculous guys in the format.
• Him costing two also allows you cut down on those fillers you only play because they costs two (Daze, Predict, Werebear, Hoofprints of the Stag, I'm looking at you!) - you do have to have a significant amount of two-cost stuff (like 14 absolute minimum, better numbers being 16 or even 18) for Counterbalance to work on any level, after all. Qasali Pridemage greatly helps reaching that number without having to turn to sub-par cards.
• Also, Exalted is pretty good at improving your Aggro-plan (Tarmogoyf) because it helps you to dodge the most prominent removal spell in the Format (Tarmogoyf).
  
  • Also, note the Type2 (?) synergy of Exalted + Rhox War Monk. It wins games (especially against your worse matchups like Tribal Aggro and Goyf Sligh).
• Furthermore, he's not really that much worse against Counterbalance than Trygon Predator is, mainly because three mana spells are far from guaranteed to resolve with more and more builds packing 5+ three-costed spells like they should. Additionally improving Qasali's relative strength against Counterbalance is the fact that the later costs at least three mana in the mirror (you always want to at least be Daze-proof, if not FoW backed-up when dropping Counterbalance) which gives you the time to drop the former proactively more often than not. For sure your opponent can then just play a removal on your guy and pay you a visit while you're in Frown-Town, however, Trygon Predator suffers from this problem too. For this very same reason, Qasali Pridemage is also much better against any non-Counterbalance Artefacts/Enchantments out there (or against all, actually, at least if he resolves): you don't give your opponent a full turn to find a removal and therewith counteract your solution which is huge, especially against your favourite newcomer in the format i.e. Vedalken Shackles.

Conclusion: don't play him. He's horrible. I want all the tech-advantage on my side, after all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adan

@Sower: Don't. Just don't.

---

I often hear people argue for Sower's strength (and ensuing inclusion) stress the fact that he's awesome because he fills double duty, being a beater and a removal, often warping unfavourable board positions out of nowhere etc.. This supposed strength of Sower is the single largest thing that bugs me about him, because, in my opinion, this advantage of his only adds inconsistency to a deck that wins solely on the back of consistency:

• Sower of Temptation isn't reliably a beater/wincondition because your opponent doesn't always have a guy on the table.
• And, more importantly, Sower of Temptation isn't reliably a removal because your opponent just has to find a single removal in N turns (where N is his lifetotal/your clock) to reset the board-state to the situation it was pre-Sower (i.e. positive for him and Welcome to Frown-Town for you).

Also, if you manage to refute this first point of critique, or if the exposed faultinesses are something you can live with, there is still the fact that, in my opinion, Sower of Temptation is just straight up worse than Vedalken Shackles (and no-one plays 4 of them to date, making Sower not needed):

• Vedalken Shackles are much, much harder to kill.
• Vedalken Shackles act as recursive removal which especially is excellent in your worse matchups (i.e. against anything aggressive) and not bad in a single one.
• Vedalken Shackles isn't really any slower than Sower of Temptation:
  
  • Against "I have only Goyf as clock".deck, you can always shackle their Goyf because you have enough time to hit your Island-drops due to their clock being atrocious.
  • Against everything else (i.e. aggressive decks), you don't have to hit as many Island-drops because their guys aren't that big: you can fetch a non-Island basic early and miss a land drop and still be able to steal their guys.

The two decks against which Vedalken Shackles are inferior to Sower of Temptation are Aggro Loam and anything with Dreadnought - and against those, Sower of Temptation isn't huge either because of Stifle and (recurring) Wastelands making 4 mana and a resolved trigger something not overly probable.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Damnosus

Also, what is your opinion of spell snare?

---

Spell Snare is awesome: at the top tables* you'll mainly face competent players, and against those Daze most of the time does no more than reveal for 2 with Counterbalance and pitch to Force of Will whereas Spell Snare counters every spell you'd want to counter in the first place (especially Counterbalance). Therefore a 3/3 split is totally fine, and playing a full set of Spell Snares is also reasonable.

*: This is the location for which you should build your decks: a 3-3 or 4-2 is just as good/bad as a 0-6 - it's not top8/in prize range and therewith an irrelevant result.

Lists will be posted after this weekend's huge-ah Event in Annécy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Der_imaginäre_Freund

bla bla

---

I like your point of view, also think that shackles are far better than sower.

About Qasali Pridemage... i'm not decided. Trygon wins games against Staxx, Affinitys, Enchantress, ... Qasali not. But Qasali wins to ****Humility landstills NOT - Jaiminho has it****, white aggroloams, and counterbalance. That's true nowadays 30% of decks runs counterbalance. Can make a try.

About Lorescale Coatl... i first had the same impression than you. It's like an upgrade of Dryad. But if you don't get angry with counters and play carefully, i think it's way better, non-graveyard dependant that 3 copies call me to try.

Spell snare wise... i think a split of 3-3 along with daze is the best option. But four spell snares i think it's too much

Let's see how Annecy goes

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by johanessen

But Qasali wins to Humility

---

No way it kills Humility.

At this stage in the game, I am just fooling around with the deck and am not really looking for optimal builds etc. With that said, I have been fooling with a build that has a creature setup that looks something like this:

4x Tarmogoyf
4x Noble Hierarch
3x Rhox War Monk
3X Qasali Pridemage

I know that the hierarchs are likely to create a great deal of contention and unless you're qrguing their exclusion or inclusion for someone else's benefit, don't worry about it. I'll probably end up cutting them if I end up taking a really hard run at the archetype.

In the mean time though, the seven exalted sources with the RWM create some fucking scary life swing situations. Five spiritlinked damage on turn three is pretty wild with a daze or FoW backing it up along with a CB a turn or so later. Having a lot of fun with that right now.

While I am posting, this is the sideboard that I am working with right now...

3x Gaddock Teeg
3x Krosan Grip
2X Pithing Needle
2X Umezawa's Jitte
2x Vedalken Shackles
2x Umezawa's Jitte
3x Relic of Progenitus

I just sort of threw some good stuff together for the sb randomly and I have only been playing on mws against playtest buddies and stuff, so I am not targetting a meta or anything.

I figured that grips are always good, especially against other CB's. Teegs are for Dutch Stax. Needles are for...stuff...vials etc? Jittes are for mirrors and matches versus aggro-type strategies. Shackles are for aggro strategies and strategies with few clocks...I don't really like sowers too much thus far, so they got ditched. The relics are for Loam decks and such. As someone that spent a bit playing loam, I found grunts to be a very easy hate piece to overcome.

I am thinking that a B2B belongs in the sideboard if I want to play in an established meta etc. Mages might be better than Teegs too. Yeah.

Edit: I have a question about Shackles: Can I in fact be techy and activate my shackles in response to an o-ring to permanently gain control of a creature a la D&T hijinks or no and if so why? I googled and I found a million different situations that did not involve remotely similar scenarios or I didn't look hard enough. I don't think that it's possible, but I though that I would check.

This maybe abit off topic but, based on what ive been reading the UGw Threshold thread is slowly becoming more of Legacy Bant (MidrangeFatties.dec)

With all the creatures coming from different expansions are there reasons why one must play thresh ??

Before the Alara Reborn came the only consistent thresh cards in the deck where:
1. Nimble Mongoose
2. Mystic Enforecer
3. Werebear

But with the advent of alara reborn new cards seems to be more useful and powerful compared to the old thresh creatures.

As far as I am concerned, the deck has been UGw CB for a long time, but I will call it thresh so people know what I am talking about or out of mere habit. One card with thresh isn't good enough to justify naming the deck after the mechanic imho. Names stick though. Look how everything with black and green is considered "Rock".

Nice trick there DiF ;) I was a bit baffled and only noticed your pink text when I tried to quote your post. I can only confirm, the Pridemage is really good. Maindeck answers to Pernicious Deed are awesome. It also helped me rape Stax and not the other way around. I actually dropped the Grips now, and keep 2-3 Trygons in the board and 4 Pridemages in main.

A minor point of Qasali Pridmage is fitting it into the manabase. I think however this point can be crucial, fetching basics is not that easy if you play the pridemage.

Your mana base will probably look something like this : (e.g. 18 land config)
1 Forest
1 Plains
3 Island
4 Flooded strand
4 Windswept heath
3 Tropical island
2 Tundra

- If you fetch a basic island on turn 1 (to ponder e.g.), you won't be able to play qasali on turn 2.
- If you have daze and you want to play qasali on turn 2, you are obliged to play a dual.

Qasali can get you in trouble if your openingshand is light on mana and you play against wastelands.

The biggest weaknesses I see in choosing Pridemage over Predator are:

1. Trygon Predator pitches to Force of Will
2. Trygon Predator can be both a proactive and reactive answer to opposing Counterbalances. A 3cc is much more likely to resolve through the CB/Top soft-lock than a 2cc. When you factor in cards like Spell Snare and the fact that you probably want to run 3-4 Pridemage to improve your chances of playing him proactively (Trygon usually only occupies 2 slots), I'd lean towards Trygon.

That's not to say that I haven't been convinced of the strength of this card, because it looks really good and there have been many good points made here backed up by testing to demonstrate that. I'm just hesistant to cut Trygon for it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mordel

4x Tarmogoyf
4x Noble Hierarch
3x Rhox War Monk
3X Qasali Pridemage

3x Gaddock Teeg
3x Krosan Grip
2X Pithing Needle
2X Umezawa's Jitte
2x Vedalken Shackles
2x Umezawa's Jitte
3x Relic of Progenitus

---

With that creature base, your running a completely different list. Enough to deserve its own thread. The whole concept of those cards don't work all that well in a threshold shell. That being said, I think a deck running exhalted creatures could be good because it breaks the goyf symmetry.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HBspulse

- If you fetch a basic island on turn 1 (to ponder e.g.), you won't be able to play qasali on turn 2.
- If you have daze and you want to play qasali on turn 2, you are obliged to play a dual.

Qasali can get you in trouble if your openingshand is light on mana and you play against wastelands.

---

Yep,that happens to me too, you can't fetch an Island in turn one to waste-proof drop a turn 2 creature, and sometimes that sucks. Noble Hierarch is great in those situations, but probably it has more disadvantages than benefits.

On the other hand: a pacakge of exalted creatures = guaranteed fun.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Misplayer

The biggest weaknesses I see in choosing Pridemage over Predator are:

1. Trygon Predator pitches to Force of Will
(...)

---

Seriously, people... STOP! There are already too many cards to pitch to Force of Will in this deck, so shush! It only matters when the card is completely dead otherwise, which it's not.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jaiminho

Seriously, people... STOP! There are already too many cards to pitch to Force of Will in this deck, so shush! It only matters when the card is completely dead otherwise, which it's not.

---

Predator is sometimes dead, and yes, it does matter.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jujuhawk

Predator is sometimes dead, and yes, it does matter.

---

When is a flying beater dead? And what decks don't have things to naturalize once a turn?