[DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ThomasDowd

And I don't think the burn match is that great for RUG either, since it is pretty much the same shell, it is just really tight.

---

I fundamentally disagree with this statement. Burn is a deck with one goal, to point 6-7 spells at your face. Decks with Delver and counters (really as long as it is a blue control/tempo shell, color specifics don't matter) make it really hard for them to effectively do this. A flipped Delver offers a similar clock to the one that they are posting (maybe a turn or so slower), with the caveat that you can counter key spells in their plan. Furthermore, if they want to stop the Delver, they detract from the damage they can deal to you to win. As they don't run cantrips or any form of card advantage they are left to the mercy of the top of their deck. You do have to watch out for Price of Progress, if you are playing a three color build. But then again, Wastelands are good here because you can potentially Waste yourself if you need to. It is all about knowing your role. In this matchup RUG (and probably most Delver decks) goes bigger or have better long game, so it is okay to take some damage early as your mid game should stall their board and/or soak up cards in their hand. As long as you play it smart, you should win.

ThomasDowd - I probably wouldn't play snuff out if you are concerned about decks with burn. Why not play dismember instead? Its still cheap - and it doesn't have to hurt you. Also, you probably want at least a 4th removal spell - 3 doesn't seem like quite enough. Maybe disfigure? I think in a deck like yours, as in traditional TA, 1 mana removal is a lot better. If you want to be a real badass :) you can pllay gatekeeper of malakir like the BW Stoneblade lists were about a year ago. You can probably consitsently play 3 black if you build your mana base right - and he is an extra critter, so you wouldn't have to do potentially awkward things like maxing out on 4 V-cliques. Also, Gatekeeper will kill a show and tell'd Emrakul, a nimble mongoose, and even a mother of runes. seems pretty relevant in this meta, and the awkwardness of the sacrifice-effect-removal, against decks where its not optimal, should be made up for by the fact that he also gives you a creature. I sort o wanted to run Gatekeeper in Team America, but it felt too awkward. What about something like 2 dismember/snuff out, 2 disfigure, or maybe 3/1, along with a some number of gatekeepers?

Also, if you can fit them, a couple thought scours can work really well with tombstalker. Some number of thought scours may make it feasible to run 4 tombstalkers without it being awkward, which could be nice since you don't have goyf.

DragoFireart- as posted above the main drawback of grixis if the creature suite. UB tempo is doable with a more stable mana base and stiflenought package but it gets hasted bad games 2-3. Lastly no Lastly tempo is not possible without wasteland. In fact legacy is not possible without wasteland Lol.
That was semi serious but you really need a very good reason not to play wasteland in this format, i.e. you win by combo or must hit colored land drops at higher curves than 3.

Regarding goose- I wonder if the value of goose will decrease with the rise of terminus in control? Also regarding grixis I have considered reanimate in place of some number of goyfs in the psst but never tested it much. Thoughts on this?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tombstalker

Regarding goose- I wonder if the value of goose will decrease with the rise of terminus in control? Also regarding grixis I have considered reanimate in place of some number of goyfs in the psst but never tested it much. Thoughts on this?

---

@ Goose - I think the opposite is true - the value of Terminus decreases (against the RUG M/U) with a decrease of Goose in RUG. If RUG didn't run Goose, UW would just run more targeted removal + SCM. Terminus has applications in other M/Us, but shroud and swarm creatures are what gives Terminus its value.

@ Reanimate - the idea being, you would reanimate your opponent's creatures or your fallen Delvers? For hitting your own stuff, I think Unearth might be better (although Unearth rules out Tombstalker - you could still build with Delver, SCM, and Clique). For hitting your opponent's creatures, I could see Reanimate being really good or really bad. Obviously, against a Reanimator deck, Reanimate could just flat shine and catch them by surprise. Versus other creature decks, it relies on a creature actually hitting their graveyard (so you either have to counter or kill it) and against certain decks (Storm, Enchantress, creature-less combo, etc.) Reanimate would be totally dead. At lease Unearth you can cycle and play some cool SCM tricks. I'm not sold on Reanimate main deck, but maybe as an experimental sideboard card? I'm not completely certain how you plan to use it...

I've been thinking about something like the following list as a mix between the more aggro version of TA, and the more controlling version. It still can put on a clock, with V-Clique and Goyf, and some help from snapcaster. But it has a more robust counter suite, and more late game. Its not really a control deck proper, in my opinion, since it doesn't play pernicious deed, innocent blood, or many of the other things that the BUG control lists play. But it is not a tempo deck either. I guess its more aggro-control proper, like a more aggressive version of the UW stoneblade lists. Its removal suite could change a bit - I'm not sure how though, since I haven't played the deck yet.


4 tarmogoyf
4 snapcaster mage
3 vendillion clique
4 force of will
4 spell pierce
2 counterspell
3 ghastly demise
1 dismember
2 thoughtseize
1 inquisition of kozilek
4 brainstorm
2 sensei's divining top
1 sylvan library
1 life from the loam
2 jace, the mindsculptor

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

What do people think of this list?

Did I count wrong or is that list 59 cards?

If so, I would add Creeping Tar Pit as the 60th card.

I think Tops could/should be Ponders. Other than that, looks good.

Your list is probably bordering on BUG Control (I guess it's right in the middle), it depends on what you want to do with the sideboard.

Also, 3 SCM and 2 VC? Maybe adding an IoK and a Jace? Seems like 4 SCM could clog your hand and 2 VC is probably enough.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tombstalker

DragoFireart- as posted above the main drawback of grixis if the creature suite. UB tempo is doable with a more stable mana base and stiflenought package but it gets hasted bad games 2-3. Lastly no Lastly tempo is not possible without wasteland. In fact legacy is not possible without wasteland Lol.
That was semi serious but you really need a very good reason not to play wasteland in this format, i.e. you win by combo or must hit colored land drops at higher curves than 3.

Regarding goose- I wonder if the value of goose will decrease with the rise of terminus in control? Also regarding grixis I have considered reanimate in place of some number of goyfs in the psst but never tested it much. Thoughts on this?

---

Seems like we're all in the same situation, trying desperately to fit B and R in the same Tempo deck. Reanimate in Grixis can be ok, but it's just an empty sleeve in quite a lot of MU. The "best" beaters I found so far to complete the Grixis creature package are Clique and (don't laugh) Coralhelm Commander, which is quite awful because it requires a lot of mana ressources. And I dislike them both: Clique is fragile and comes too late (turn 3 at best, which prevents you from wastelanding sometimes, etc), and Commander comes in earlier but is way too risky with all the bolts around (play it, pump it next turn and attack: bolt -> nice you've just spent 2 turns doing nothing). Also, Goyf is too good, it's cheap, big, attack and block properly. That's why I'm still playing Team America and not Grixis.

The way I see it for Grixis, we can either try to fit a "combo" in it (like Dreadnought, Dark depths, etc - not sure it works) or replace Goyf by a non-creature threat (no idea - Bitterblossom is cute but damn slow for a Tempo deck). Or we wait until they print another decent beater in UBR.

Water_Wizard - Yes! I tested and I realized that the tops should be ponders too - to feed ghastly demise. And I realized that, in the same way that the esper stoneblade lists don't run wastelands, neither do we necessarily want to. If you do you can't run counterspell as easily, and you have to run more lands. So I've decided to test without wasteland for now. I think this makes sense: this deck is really very similar to esper stoneblade, and for similar reasons, I think wasteland, while awesome, may (may) be more awkward than its worth for the slightly indulgent mana base. I also only wanted to run 21 lands, so ... can't be too greedy. It may want a 4th Jace, in which case you'd probably have to add a land.

One thing that prompted this deck idea is a UW stoneblade list that did well in the most recent 5K on magic.tcgplayer.com, which played 4 FOW, 3 mana leaks, and 4 spell pierces, and 4 snapcasters. I thought: all those counters must be awesome against combo and the control mirror! So I think it would be cool to try, but with Goyf instead of stoneforge, since it can be better against RUG (they can't burn it out like they can SFM), and it can be more aggressive, which makes us a little more aggro than them. If you expect more aggro than combo and control you would probably want to swap the third counterspell out for either a maelstrom pulse, a liliana, a darkblast, an engineered explosives, or something of the like. Maelstrom pulse would be my choice, unless I was extra scared of mongooses.

The current list (with 60 cards) is:

4 tarmogoyf
4 snapcaster mage
3 vendillion clique
4 force of will
4 spell pierce
3 counterspell
3 ghastly demise
1 dismember
2 maelstrom pulse/thoughtseize
4 brainstorm
3 ponder
1 sylvan library
3 jace, the mindsculptor

4 underground sea
3 tropical island
1 bayou
3 island
1 swamp
4 polluted delta
4 misty rainforest
1 scalding tarn

Ok back on my PC instead of my phone and I just wanted to clarify my earlier post. Im not currently searching for alternatives to goyf or green, just played around with the red splash a few months back and threw it out there for others who do seem to be searching for alternatives. I still feel green is best and my list has been great so Im not in any hurry to go changing much of anything in the main.

Regarding recent activity, many of the latest suggestions really dont fit into the tempo archtype but I guess they do still fall under aggro, most more in the realm of BUG control if anything though. Not that theres anything wrong with testing or suggesting alternatives but I gotta say things like gatekeeper have no place in this deck man.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rchinnock

The current list (with 60 cards) is:

4 tarmogoyf
4 snapcaster mage
3 vendillion clique
4 force of will
4 spell pierce
3 counterspell
3 ghastly demise
1 dismember
2 maelstrom pulse/thoughtseize
4 brainstorm
3 ponder
1 sylvan library
3 jace, the mindsculptor

4 underground sea
3 tropical island
1 bayou
3 island
1 swamp
4 polluted delta
4 misty rainforest
1 scalding tarn

---

I think this list looks pretty awesome. Although I think I would want to be a bit more aggro/tempo oriented. I guess that is just more my play style though. I might try running this list based off of what you have posted above.


4 delver of secrets
4 tarmogoyf
4 snapcaster mage
4 force of will
4 daze
3 spell pierce
2 counterspell
3 ghastly demise
1 dismember
2 maelstrom pulse
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
1 sylvan library
3 underground sea
3 tropical island
1 bayou
3 island
2 swamp
4 polluted delta
4 misty rainforest

Sturtzilla - These are my first thoughts on your list (take with a grain of salt):

One thing I wanted was to stay away from daze. I think that, against combo, V-Clique, another counterspell, and the ability to consistently reach 4 mana by turn 4 to snapcaster back the counterspells, may be even better than delver/daze. Delver is good, but V-Clique is both a clock and disruption, which makes me like him more, since you're not really an aggro deck, you're aggro control. In general, I think snapcaster+daze isn't really that great. Your list is a little faster than mine (you play delver, I play V-clique) and daze (which is good, but is "soft" disruption), and mine has a little more hard disruption (in the form of V-Clique, another counterspell, more reliably making it to snapcaster+counterspell mana). I like your list too, but the reason I wanted to make mine the way it is, and I think what should give it its power, is that it should be very consistent, have a lot of disruption, and have late game. The combination of these makes it, like I said, like a more aggresesive version of stoneblade. A list with delver and daze sacrifices consistency, late game, and at times disruption (since after a certain point daze stops doing anything) in order to be aggro. For this reason, if I was going to play delver at all, I think I'd play an actual tempo list, with either nimble mongoose or tombstalker.

Another concern is that, if you're going to go tempo at all, you absolutely must play wasteland. My version doesn't play wasteland, because its not a tempo deck - in the same way that Esper stoneblade doesn't. A list with daze, however, should play wasteland. Yet that's going to make it too hard to play counterspell, since you'll be losing lands, and often won't get double blue. So you'll have to either play mana leak and have it work only sometimes (when you have two lands out and neither are tapped) or you should go a more properly aggro-control route, play more lands, and, if you want to play counterspell instead of mana leak, not play wasteland. This could work, since mana leak is also good with wasteland, if you have lands untapped. You might end up being half-way between tempo and aggro-control proper, however, and I'm not sure that this is where you want to be. I tried this with an esper-delver-blade kind of thing a while ago, and it felt lackluster: delver felt too weak in a list that wanted to have late-game, yet the deck didn't feel quite fast enough to really be tempo or true aggro. Then again, maybe I just didn't find the right balance in that esper deck, and it also is the case that goyf is better for a deck like what you're trying to do than stoneforge is (I think - stoneforge can be a bit slow, and if they kill it you often can't cast the equipment quickly enough for a tempo/aggro deck).

-------------------------------

And Tombstalker - I was just suggesting gatekeeper in a UB deck, not in BUG. SOmeone posted a UB deck - and I think it could work there, since you can swing the mana, probably (BW stoneblade did, why not UB aggro-control?). They could use more good creature removal if they aren't playing ghastly demise, and its another critter (there are also a shortage of good creatures in straight UB). Gatekeeper can also be very good tempo, which goes with a UB tempo kind of theme. It would be excellent against RUG delver and Maverick (no one plays spell snare, its removal that gets around spell pierce, it dodges thalia, it blocks, kills mongooses, is card advantage, etc.) for what its worth. I know that it doesn't fit in TA proper (BUG) though, since the mana base can't support it and we have enough good creatures anyways.

@rchinnock

You do make valid points. I missed Wasteland... definitely needed in a tempo deck. Mana Leak vs. Counterspell for the appropriate build. Clique vs. Delver for the appropriate build as well. They both seem like they could each be pretty awesome.

@Sturtzilla - One thing, however, that I think is wrong with my list: for being a little bit on the controlling side of aggro control, it lacks gas. Sometimes you one-for-one them for a while, and then they get one too many creatures out and you can't handle it because all you draw is spell pierces. Either Dark Confidant or another Jace may be necessary to give the deck more late-game. Or the deck could play life from the loam, crucible of worlds, and wasteland. Some kind of engine to keep it going.

Interesting list here:

Jesse Hatfield #13
Grand Prix Atlanta - Top 32

1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Tombstalker
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Ponder
2 Portent
1 Sylvan Library
4 Temporal Mastery
3 Thoughtseize
1 Liliana of the Veil

Sideboard
1 Darkblast
2 Deathmark
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Sower of Temptation
2 Spell Pierce
1 Thoughtseize
2 Tormod's Crypt

I wonder how relevant Temporal Mastery was during the tournament, and whether Spell Pierce might have just been a better use of the slot. I like the old tech with Portent though.

edit: I got to test the list some on Cockatrice, and it seems pretty powerful. With all of the filter the deck runs, it's pretty consistent with triggering TM and I rarely seemed to get it stranded in hand. This might be the tempo deck that can actually make use of the card. I would maybe make some minor adjustments to the SB (-1 Nihil, +1 Grafdigger's, -1 Sower, +1 Gilded Drake, possibly a few other changes) but otherwise the list is great.

Played the Nimble Mongoose variant in a small sanctioned tournment (20-ish people) to a T8 spot with a 3-1-1 record, here's my list:

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
2 Thought Scour
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
3 Ghastly Demise
1 Dismember

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou

SB:
1 Spell Pierce
4 Submerge
2 Darkblast
1 Thoughtseize
1 Extirpate
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Life from the Loam
2 Krosan Grip
1 Pernicious Deed

The metagame was crazy, apparently the locals in that town were very fond of their Tops, because I counted no less than four (!) Counterbalance decks in total, of a few different spices, two Burn decks, two Nic Fit only one RUG and a number of random decks, MUD, Helm of Awakening Storm, Hive Mind etc.

I lost round 1 to UGr Countertop when he got the softlock in games two and three and I couldn't play any more spells. Had I found a removal for his lone Goyf in my Brainstorm -> Fetch -> Ponder -> shuffle series in the penultimate turn in game three I would've probably gotten there, with all of my spotremoval left in the deck, he is able to stabilize on one life and then Jace me out. Oh well.

I won round two easily against Burn and round three as well against MUD, not dropping a game in either. I won round four against UW Miracle Control 2-1 after three tight games and an especially close third game. Great Magic. ID into T8 and then I lost to D&T (Mono-W) in the quarters, piloted by one of the lads from our car. Thalia is a douche.

Overall I was happy with how the list performed. Not playing Snapcaster made me confident enough to drop to 19 lands, which was probably the right call. I could probably drop another one to 18, there were some land-heavy draws during the day. The list is sweet, I like how it plays alike to RUG but in a more pro-active way. In the meta, Nimble Mongoose was easily the right call, closing many games where both Tiago and Bob would've been sub-par at best and dead draws at worst. Not sure if the list is better than RUG, but for the day maybe it was. There were many slow control decks where I'd rather have the discard and the dedicated Tarmogoyf-killing instant than the reach from Bolts.

As a closing note, the sideboard was a mess, tossed together on the evening before the tournament. Submerge was awesome against the other green decks, aside from that I only boarded Spell Pierce #4 and Thoughtseize #3 all day.

I've been thinking of a sort of wacky list that doesn't play force of will, but instead relies on discard and V-Clique for its disruption. The logic that prompted the shift is that Force is a 1/2, hymn to taurach is a 2/1. While FOW is more powerful in many ways, the insane divergency in their card-advantage/card-disadvantage suggests that hymn may be worth trying out. Also, countermagic doesn't work with Liliana of the Veil, but I think that she could be really good in this deck. On the one hand, she couples as extra removal against creature heavy decks, and on the other as disruption against combo and control (that provides a certain amount of inevitability).

Ultimately, the list ends up playing like a BG rock deck (sort of like "Eva Green") but with 4 spell pierces, and 8 cantrips (to set up nimble mongoose and to make it more consistent). The cantrips were important because I think that nimble mongoose is the best answer to nimble mongoose - its a 1-mana answer that can't be easily answered itself, and its also a really good creature, instead of a bad removal spell (Engineered explosives, I'm looking at you). The deck also has answers to Nimble Mongoose and a Show-and-Tell'd Emrakul in Liliana, a thing that most TA lists don't have.The list is much less all-in than RUG or any BUG list approximating the play-style of RUG, enjoying getting to 3 lands, etc., and on the other hand more controlling than Eva Green was.

I'm not sure how good the deck will actually be, but I think it might hold promise. The loss of FOW may seem unfeasible, but I would present all aggro decks that don't play it as a counter-argument. The disruption suite in this deck is very similar to the BWx stoneblade lists (one of which just top 8'd in the Starcity in Seattle) and is more robust than Maverick's, both of which do fine without FOW. So maybe this is another promising way to make TA.

The list is:

4 nimble mongoose
4 tarmogoyf
3 vendillion clique
3 ghastly demise
1 dismember
4 spell pierce
2 thoughtseize
2 inquisition of kozilek
4 hymn to taurach
3 liliana of the veil
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
1 sylvan library
1 sensei's divining top

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


Possible inclusions which are not in this list are Dark Confidant, Delver of Secrets, Jitte (if you run more creatures), Maelstrom Pulse, Darkblast, Jace, and a ton of other stuff obviously.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wcm8

Interesting list here:

Jesse Hatfield #13
Grand Prix Atlanta - Top 32


edit: I got to test the list some on Cockatrice, and it seems pretty powerful. With all of the filter the deck runs, it's pretty consistent with triggering TM and I rarely seemed to get it stranded in hand. This might be the tempo deck that can actually make use of the card. I would maybe make some minor adjustments to the SB (-1 Nihil, +1 Grafdigger's, -1 Sower, +1 Gilded Drake, possibly a few other changes) but otherwise the list is great.

---

I'm really surprised more people in this thread haven't commented on this. This list is worth testing with/against

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tammit67

I'm really surprised more people in this thread haven't commented on this. This list is worth testing with/against

---

Assuming my copies of TM arrive in the mail this afternoon, I'll give the deck a real life spin tomorrow in my local store's Legacy 8-mans and let you know how it goes. I've done a handful of test runs on Cockatrice and it seems okay, but player quality on Cockatrice tends to be hit-and-miss.

Dan mentioned in the Menendian TM thread in Format & Article Discussion that he would drop the Deathmarks for Massacre, and also that his deck tech explaining the card choices should be up on gatheringmagic.com sometime tomorrow.

I got the feeling that the card tended to be mediocre at best against RUG, but was nuts-awesome against decks without a ton of counter magic. I also think that as techy as Portent is, that slot might be better as Preordain for those times when you *need* to get some action going on your own turn -- I could be completely wrong here though, and I haven't done enough testing to really say, and I can only assume that Dan and the Hatfields chose each card pretty carefully.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wcm8

I got the feeling that the card tended to be mediocre at best against RUG, but was nuts-awesome against decks without a ton of counter magic. I also think that as techy as Portent is, that slot might be better as Preordain for those times when you *need* to get some action going on your own turn -- I could be completely wrong here though, and I haven't done enough testing to really say, and I can only assume that Dan and the Hatfields chose each card pretty carefully.

---

Your thoguhts on T.Mastery coincide with my testing results. They're great here, but against Tempo decks they seem lackuster.

Portent, on the other hand, has been nothing but awesome. Activating T.M. on your opponents turn is backbreacking. And I even got to use twice against a manascrewed goblin player to prevent him from drawing lands. Super cool card.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wcm8

Assuming my copies of TM arrive in the mail this afternoon, I'll give the deck a real life spin tomorrow in my local store's Legacy 8-mans and let you know how it goes. I've done a handful of test runs on Cockatrice and it seems okay, but player quality on Cockatrice tends to be hit-and-miss.

Dan mentioned in the Menendian TM thread in Format & Article Discussion that he would drop the Deathmarks for Massacre, and also that his deck tech explaining the card choices should be up on gatheringmagic.com sometime tomorrow.

I got the feeling that the card tended to be mediocre at best against RUG, but was nuts-awesome against decks without a ton of counter magic. I also think that as techy as Portent is, that slot might be better as Preordain for those times when you *need* to get some action going on your own turn -- I could be completely wrong here though, and I haven't done enough testing to really say, and I can only assume that Dan and the Hatfields chose each card pretty carefully.

---

Testing the deck past few days. Nothing heavy maybe 3 to 4 matches a night. TM does some amazing things against most decks without countermagic. It completely screws combat math for aggro decks when Delver/Stalker swing for 6 to 10.

It can simply out race most threats even when low on life points. Control and Combo cant afford to really counter it. If they do they are down against the deck having Hard discard, fast clocks and 10 counters. The hand or board states needed to make TM broken requires some set up, but what I'm setting up is another turn to swing and/or cripple with disruption.

And Got to live the dream too. :wink: Had a game where the deck went turn 1 Play ThoughtSeize, t2 Play Delver + Bstorm. Turn 3 Flip Delver on TM, Cast TM, play Wasteland, swing. Turn 4 Miracle for TM#2 , Wasteland #2, swing. Turn 5 blind TM#3. Doesn't even matter what deck it was against at that point.