[Deck] Canadian Thresh (a.k.a. RUG Tempo, Tempo Thresh)

Even though I still play Stifle our lists are pretty similar. Funny thing is, that I got mocked and kind of harrased in the german forums for being an idiot playing Counterbalance out of the side in RUG Tempo. They said it wouldnt help in any MU significantly and calling me a dumbass trieng so.... HIllarious.

My list would be something like this:

4 Wasteland
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Snapcaster Mage

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Snare
2 Fire//Ice

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3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Mind Harness
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Submerge
1 Pyroblast


Is this really so bad?^^

Greetings

I don't like Counterbalance. I think it's poor a choice, and you can make certain matchups MUCH better without it.

Example. You can't beat Maverick without a fair bit of hate. Counterbalance does NOTHING against that deck, as they cast unorthodox Zenith's, and 4 drops (Thrun/Elspeth) and usually putting them on a soft lock is usually too slow. Say you drop a Top on turn 1, with Counterbalance in hand... pretty sweet, except when they cast Mother of Runes, and you're Forced to Bolt or Fire/Ice. if you just drop Counterbalance, you need to blind flip their 2 drop, which is either Tarmogoyf, Stoneforge Mystic, Sylvan Library, Pridemage, Umezawa's Jitte or Scavenging Ooze. If they drop Pridemage, you're hosed anyways.

Basically the deck needs 4 Submerge to remove the Knights.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CookedChestnuts

I don't like Counterbalance. I think it's poor a choice, and you can make certain matchups MUCH better without it.

Example. You can't beat Maverick without a fair bit of hate. Counterbalance does NOTHING against that deck, as they cast unorthodox Zenith's, and 4 drops (Thrun/Elspeth) and usually putting them on a soft lock is usually too slow. Say you drop a Top on turn 1, with Counterbalance in hand... pretty sweet, except when they cast Mother of Runes, and you're Forced to Bolt or Fire/Ice. if you just drop Counterbalance, you need to blind flip their 2 drop, which is either Tarmogoyf, Stoneforge Mystic, Sylvan Library, Pridemage, Umezawa's Jitte or Scavenging Ooze. If they drop Pridemage, you're hosed anyways.

Basically the deck needs 4 Submerge to remove the Knights.

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You don't bring in the CB Lock from the sideboard against Maverick typically. Actually having access to spell pierce game 1 gives you a better advantage against maverick, helping you fend off GSZ. From the board you bring in Submerges, harness and grudge. We all know you have to find Delver to have a chance and that plan doesn't change pre or post board.

Also, pierce helps vs. their 4 drops with the exception of Thrun and by that point you should be flying over them anyways.

I've tried out CB and I decided it was largely extraneous. Sure, it gives you a near 100% win vs Burn and boosts your game vs ANT and Zoo... but those are good matchups anyways. My personal tech on the sb is Grim Lavamancer and Basilisk Collar. Does wonders in the Maverick MU. I'm testing out a Trinket Mage package too.

Here's my current list:


4 Wasteland
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
4 Tropical Island

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Snare
3 Dismember

///
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Basilisk Collar
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Mind Harness
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Krosan Grip

Trinket package is being tested right now as 3 Trinkets, 1 Collar, 1 Pithing Needle, 1 EE. I wish I had more sb room :/

EDIT: Hey guys, I'm kinda new to the site (made an account a while ago, never really did much). I'm very much surprised to see so few Dismembers. I used to have Fire/Ice in that slot like most of you seem to have, but my meta moved away from x/1s in general, little Affinity, Dark Confidant, Vendillion Clique, etc, so I found dismember to be a great spell when facing down goyf and tombstalker

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raggedjoe

I've tried out CB and I decided it was largely extraneous. Sure, it gives you a near 100% win vs Burn and boosts your game vs ANT and Zoo... but those are good matchups anyways. My personal tech on the sb is Grim Lavamancer and Basilisk Collar. Does wonders in the Maverick MU. I'm testing out a Trinket Mage package too.

Here's my current list:


4 Wasteland
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
4 Tropical Island

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Snare
3 Dismember

///
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Basilisk Collar
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Mind Harness
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Krosan Grip

Trinket package is being tested right now as 3 Trinkets, 1 Collar, 1 Pithing Needle, 1 EE. I wish I had more sb room :/

EDIT: Hey guys, I'm kinda new to the site (made an account a while ago, never really did much). I'm very much surprised to see so few Dismembers. I used to have Fire/Ice in that slot like most of you seem to have, but my meta moved away from x/1s in general, little Affinity, Dark Confidant, Vendillion Clique, etc, so I found dismember to be a great spell when facing down goyf and tombstalker

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16 Lands is pretty ballsy, esp when you are trying to shove in Trinket Mages. I love the collar grim combo, but that is more like Next Level Thresh territory imo and it really should be maindeck.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ImpinAintEasy

16 Lands is pretty ballsy, esp when you are trying to shove in Trinket Mages. I love the collar grim combo, but that is more like Next Level Thresh territory imo and it really should be maindeck.

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Yea, I've been thinking about the lands. It's been mostly good but I'll likely up it to 17 or 18. My problem there (like the sb) is the list is so tight I don't know what to cut. Right now I'm thinking of dropping the Snaps for a Volcanic, a fetch and something.

I made a point about NOT bringing in Counterbalance versus Maverick. You need the Submerges to beat them. Hell, it's a terrible matchup.

Regardless, you should be beating Storm anyways. The deck plays Spell Snare, Stifle, Daze, Force of Will, a quick clock, and Wasteland. Post board, access to Flusterstorm/Spell Pierce is also available, and highly recommended.

Burn is the ONLY reason for Counterbalance in my opinion. Everything else, you just have in the bag.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CookedChestnuts

I made a point about NOT bringing in Counterbalance versus Maverick. You need the Submerges to beat them. Hell, it's a terrible matchup.

Regardless, you should be beating Storm anyways. The deck plays Spell Snare, Stifle, Daze, Force of Will, a quick clock, and Wasteland. Post board, access to Flusterstorm/Spell Pierce is also available, and highly recommended.

Burn is the ONLY reason for Counterbalance in my opinion. Everything else, you just have in the bag.

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You can pull ahead fairly quickly in the mirror with the Counterbalance package. If you aren't playing Counterbalance, let me know on how you plan on beating one. You also need it against some matchups like Stoneblade where they're overloading on Swords to Plowshares/Path to Exile post-board, buying them plenty of time to get a finisher into play.

I think you're underestimating how this deck matches up against the rest of the metagame. In fact, it doesn't sound like you've played too many games with RUG Delver. Personally I don't think any deck is an auto-win, as you seem to think.

In Magical Christmasland, we can Wasteland storm out of the game and hit every spell in their deck with our conditional countermagic. Or, they can fetch their basics while we're tapping out to cantrip/play threats. We might get our only piece of disruption taken by a Duress, since our deck does have 6 removal spells and 14 creatures (roughly), and we may not always draw perfectly. Against TES, we need to worry about Chant effects in this mix as well.

Totally agreed on this one Morbid,
Storm is no Auto-Win. Its a positive MU- which means you are more likely to win - which includes the possibility to lose.
Nontheless I want to bring back Stifle vs Pierce once again, as long as you guys are not yet tired of it.

Ill just list some (personal) ideas of pros of them:

Stifle:
1)Destroys Fetchlands ( good against every single hightiered deck )
2)Stifles Deed ( good versus Landstill and other BUG Control decks )
3)Stifles Planeswalkers-abilities ( in order to shoot a Jace you need to stifle the Fateseal - good against Stoneblade )-wrong
4)Stifles the Stoneforge's Comes-Into-Play effect making him a Squire ( good versus Stoneblade )
5)Stifles the Strom-trigger ( occasional blow-out vs Stormdecks )
6)Stifles some random SDT/KotR abilities once to allow an alpha strike ( good against evrything )
7)Stifles Wastelands ( good against Legacy - and good for our 6/8 Duals)

Spell Pierce
1)Piercing Discard ( good against any sort of black tempo/control or combo )
2)Piercing a lategame-bomb like Deed, Elspeth, Jace ( good against all midrange-control-decks)
3)Piercing Removal ( good against all decks with removal )
4)Piercing a GSZ ( good against Maverick - but doesnt make this MU better than horrendous preboard... )
5)Piercing a Cantrip which could find answers to your threats ( good against blue decks )

Okay thats what I could think of, right now. I personally dont want to cut on Stifles due to the reason that I like the total blowouts with Stifle and Waste, combined with Daze. Im not sure yet if i spend 6 slots in the Side for Counterbalance or if I play 3-4 Spell Pierces because this card is simply very good. More testing will tell.

Greetings

I don't think anyone has been saying stifle is a bad card, by all means if you feel more comfortable with stifle, then just play the dang card. If you feel more innovative and want to have the "surprise" factor, then play pierce. Both cards are good, stifle has been proven over and over.

There isn't any dispute over the merits of running stifle, those of us in the pierce camp feel the meta is shifting in our area and thus warrants md pierces. Each to their own in this case, don't think you can go terribly wrong playing either.

Regarding CB - Agreed with Morbid's post up above 100%

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Philipp802

Stifle:
3)Stifles Planeswalkers-abilities ( in order to shoot a Jace you need to stifle the Fateseal - good against Stoneblade )

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Wrong. Jace will still get +2 to his Loyalty despite the ability not triggering. Adding Loyalty counters is part of the cost.

Stifling a Planeswalker trigger can still be relevant though, e.g. stifling the BOUNCE ability, letting you swing in and kill Jace on your turn.

Oh okay thank you. As told Im pretty now to the tempo-plan^^

But honestly - what MUs are significantly getting better with Pierce? Storm already is a positive MU.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Philipp802

Oh okay thank you. As told Im pretty now to the tempo-plan^^

But honestly - what MUs are significantly getting better with Pierce? Storm already is a positive MU.

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There are some, but in every one REB is better. I find it interesting noone has brought this up. How many non blue decks would we want Pierce vs? I think we can safely say the answer to that is 0. Personally, I prefer to bring in REB over Snare and Surgical Extraction over Dismember vs Storm.

Preliminary testing with Trinket Mage has been interesting. I took out 1 Dismember, Snap, 2 Ponder, and 2 Nimbles from my list above for 2 Grims, 2 Trinkets, Basilisk Collar, Pithing Needle, EE, and one Island. It's been pretty badass

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raggedjoe

There are some, but in every one REB is better. I find it interesting noone has brought this up. How many non blue decks would we want Pierce vs? I think we can safely say the answer to that is 0. Personally, I prefer to bring in REB over Snare and Surgical Extraction over Dismember vs Storm.

Preliminary testing with Trinket Mage has been interesting. I took out 1 Dismember, Snap, 2 Ponder, and 2 Nimbles from my list above for 2 Grims, 2 Trinkets, Basilisk Collar, Pithing Needle, EE, and one Island. It's been pretty badass

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So you don't want Pierce over REB against Pox? Pierce is worse against AggroLoam than REB? What about against burn?

Seriously, how can you even make this statement. This is not only inaccurate, it is down right silly. Pierce is actually pretty good against Blue and Non-Blue Decks. It slows down removal, it slows down hard cast equipment, it slows down planeswalkers, shall I go on?

Regarding your deck, so you went up to 17 lands? Still pretty risky considering typical RUG builds are running 18-19 without 3 drops. Next Level thresh decks similar to what you are describing usually run 20 lands and fit jace in there somewhere. There is an entire thread designated to that type of deck design, maybe your discussion would be better suited in that environment.

Your right, I did not concider that thought too well.

Thanks, I'll check out the NLT thread

Greetings, Im usually a TA player but recently ive been really intrigued by RUG tempo lists because ive always been a fan of tempo thresh and im glad delver has given RUG tempo decks a return to power.
I have a few questions about my decklist below and this deck in general. Also is this deck so much different that it cannot be called tempo thresh? Or is TT just such an iconic archtype that it would be offensive to label this 'upstart' by the same name? The two seem very similar except with a few new additions to my eyes but looks can be deceiving which is why I ask. Anyway heres my list up for suggestions:


Creatures
4 delver of secrets
4 tarmogoyf
3 nimble mongoose
2 snapcaster mage

Enchantments
1 sylvan library

Permission
4 force of will
3 daze
4 stifle
3 spell snare

Burn/Removal
4 lightning bolt
2 fire/ice
2 dismember

Cantrips
4 brainstorm
2 ponder

Lands
4 wasteland
3 volcanic island
3 tropical island
4 scalding tarn
4 misty rainforest


Side Board
3 surgical extraction
2 firespout
4 red elemental blast
3 smash to smithereens
3 spell pierce


Ive grown very fond of library so its in the value slot over the 3rd ponder. Im really looking forward to playing with geese and fire / ice and bolts but not sure if they are enough so ive included a pair of dismembers which I know and love.

Spell snare maindeck is also new to me but 3 feels right but im missing the 4th daze like im used to playing with.

Lastly I considered a single grim lavamancer main, thoughts on this or would he be better off in the board? (or not at all?)

Oh and how does my SB look? Red brings soo many good options im spoiled for choices now! I choose smithereens for the burn attached figuring snapcasting will make it similar to ancient grudge. Still feels like im missing something though.

Thanks for the help.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tombstalker

Side Board
3 surgical extraction
2 firespout
4 red elemental blast
3 smash to smithereens
3 spell pierce


Lastly I considered a single grim lavamancer main, thoughts on this or would he be better off in the board? (or not at all?)

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-3 Smash, +2 Ancient Grudge, +1 Submerge, -2 Firespout, +2 Submerge

Ok I still havent played a game with this yet but after some deliberation here is my revised list I could use a little help with:


Creatures 12
4 delver of secrets
4 tarmogoyf
3 nimble mongoose
1 snapcaster mage

Enchantments 1
1 sylvan library

Permission 14
4 force of will
3 daze
4 stifle
3 spell snare

Burn/Removal 7
4 lightning bolt
3 fire/ice

Cantrips 8
4 brainstorm
4 ponder

Lands 18
4 wasteland
3 volcanic island
1 steam vents
2 tropical island
1 breeding pool
3 scalding tarn
4 misty rainforest

Side Board 15
3 surgical extraction
3 submerge
2 red elemental blast
1 pyroblast
2 ancient grudge
2 spell pierce
2 grim lavamancer


Im starting to think snapcaster wont be that good in RUG so I reduced the count to 1. I think Id actually prefer another cheap beater but not sure if 4 geese is too many. Does anyone that uses 4 mongeese find this to be true? Should I just drop SCM altogether? I do like his synergy with bolts, extractions REBs etc though.

Ive gone with 3 F/I since it can win goyf wars, kills mana dudes and ices bigger threats. Is this overkill?

Hows my manabase look? Im trying this config to dodge opposing extractions but id also like to fit at least one basic land without going up to 19. Any suggestions on how to do this?

Lastly my SB has been changed to reflect some suggestions and some ideas from this thread. I went all submerge over mind harness since submerge has a broader application and isnt as mana intensive. The rest is pretty stock except for lavaman which would be boarded in place of mongeese vs. aggro strategies like maverick or merfolk.

From my experience, stifle is the worst card in the deck. I would play it as a 3 of so you won't see it continuously in the mid to late game.

I'd drop the library since you already have 4 ponders 4 brainstorms. Then up the snap caster count.

Cutting Stifle to 3? Honestly, youre aiming to have Stifle in your OPENING hand - which means you want to play as many as possible - and Stifle loses his strength later in the game so Id play 4 or cut them all together and switch to Spell Pierces as some people would advice you to do - not me.

Ive been making a few postboard games with my Counterbalance-Sideboard. 3 CB and 3 SDT from the Sideboard.

My list is, from the one above : +1 Daze, +1 Mungo - 1 Lib -1 Fire//Ice plus a normal Manabase from 3/3 Duals 4/4 Fetchlands 4 Wastelands
My boarding plan was: -4 Stifle - 1 Snapcaster - 1 Daze + 3 CB + 3 SDC

It worked out well shutting off the Swords and Brainstorms and Spell Snares/Pierces - Sometimes I was able to counter a SFM - but I didnt have a CC2 in the Balance all the time.One single time I revealed Force in order to counter Batterskull.

What do you guys think about the CB-SB? At least for the Stoneblade-MU its great.

Greetings