[Deck] Next Level Threshold

I played chinese girl list ( witha few changes because I didn't have 4 scalding tarn) and I made top 8 loosing to Solidarity.

It felt very well the list but sometimes I miss some more creatures, one or two more. Grim lavamancer is not a real clock. It controls the board but nothing else I think.

My matchups where:

0-2 to Naya Zoo with shocklands and wholly thoctcar. I made two mistakes at game 2 and 3 that made my opponent go ahead on me.
2-0 to Merfolks. Grim lavamancer with a mountain is the real winner here.
2-0 to bant aggro with NO.
2-0 to Mighty Queen. The first game had nearly nothing, he played enlightened tutor for a runed halo the turn I was going to clique him. I saw 5 lands the halo and a top ( he had one already at play ) I take the halo and then in my turn played another tarmo. The second game was more fighted but krosan and pierce are really awsome versus this macth up.
1-1 to Bant Agrro with Natural order and zenit. My opponent who is a friend plays really wel but slow aswell so I the third game we ended up drawing. I think I could win because I had mind harness and a fow with a blue card in hand and a tarmo and a grim at play.
2-0 to bant counter top. I mulligan to 5 and him to 6. He played me a third turn countertop backe up with a fow to my snare. No more late I playe a jace because his only card in hand was a fow. He scoops.

0-2 to solidarity. I think first game we have lots of dead cards or small pressure like grims... In the second game I mulligan to 5 because of realluy bad hands.

I dindn't know what to take out in this match up. How would anyone sideboard vs solidarity??

I would probally board out the burn spells. Jace is also pretty skeptical in this matchup.

I finished 1st today going 5-0 playing in a small local tournament with chinese girls list (with some minor changes: +1 Grim lavamancer -1 fire/ice and sideboard: +1 MB trap -1 Firespout).
My matchups were:
Green and taxes: 2-0
NO bant: 2-0
AnT (Ari Lax): 2-1
Turbo Eldrazi: 2-0
NO show:2-0
The deck ran very smoothly throughout the day.

3-0-1 and 2nd on tie breakers in a small local tournament.

I was a bit lucky so I can't really say how awesome I am but I can say that while the deck looked like a real pile on paper it was incredibly consistent and just got it done. I salute you ChineseGirl, this deck may look janky on paper but it definitely has what it takes.

I did a weekend of testing with the deck. This is exactly the type of deck I love playing, so kudos to all the contributors on this thread. I've enjoyed reading all the discussion.

I started with Eric's list of 75, and made a few modifications:

Pithing Needle maindeck and Collar in the board. What I found was that in a lot of Game 1's against random decks, I wanted to have tutor for the Needle rather than the Collar. The Collar murdered the opponent in tribal/Rock matchups if it came online, but was not always great in other matchups where the deck was already favored. Needle is almost always relevant, I would argue more relevant than Collar because I could often not find a good time to pay 2 in order to equip the Collar.

Playing a 3rd Vendilion Clique. I keep going back and forth between the 3rd Clique and 2 Clique / 1 Kira, but I really want to have 3 flyers in the deck. I went -1 Fire/Ice to fit this in.

Questions I have now:

What is the value of Firespout at the moment? It feels like I want to either maindeck it, or not at all. And if I go with the Trinket Mage configuration, there wasn't really a matchup I wanted to board these in. If anything, I would prefer to play +1 Explosives in the board so that I can tutor for 2x EE anytime I wanted to.

What's the best way to deal with bigger threats? We have the following at our disposal: Mind Harness, Sower, Gilded Drake, Submerge. Submerge is a fantastic tempo card and doesn't seem to get mentioned in this thread. I know I asked about it earlier, I'm just wondering if anyone's tried it yet. Seems like a blowout in response to a fetchland activation.

Jace in the sideboard instead of main? This is taking a page from nitewolf's Team America list. Oftentimes Jace can feel clunky and I find it difficult to tap out for him. Now this might be due to my own inexperience with the card, but he seems better coming in vs. control opponents. I usually want to Clique on my opponent's turn and leave mana open for Bolt/Snare/Pierce, rather than tap out for Jace.

So for the points you mentioned:

Pithing needle seems like a fine card, I just like all the value I got from collar when I played it before. I could certainly see it move to the board though, especially now that it's a bit more known.

I've also put in the 3rd clique for a fire/ice in my current 75. Since clique is my most favorite blue creature evar, I moved the count up, so one fire/ice got the ax.

I still think firespout should be played in the sideboard. The games you lose against tribal and other types of aggro are the ones where you get overrun a little too fast for point removal to handle. Things like trinket mage getting EE is just way to slow to deal with some aggro draws.

Submerge has been suggested a lot before, but I still think it's inferior to the other options. Basically, against stuff like junk with their own goyfs and KotR, getting their creature is sooo much more backbreaking then just a simple removal spell. If you submerge it in response to a fetch, sure you get rid of it for the time being, but the next one is just going to be beating to down. With gilded drake or mind harness, they have to either have an answer, or waste a valuable removal spell to make sure they don't die to their own creature. Also, if they know your running submerge, good players will just apply pressure and never fetch for anything. I've had matches were a stupid goyf was beating me down, and the submerge in my hand just sat there as my opponent never fetched for the rest of the game. Bottom line, submerge is good, a resolved gilded drake (especially with jace) is a blowout.

If you really feel too awkward about jace, then sure stick him in the sideboard. The difference between this deck and team america IMO is that our deck can deploy a few more ways to control the board against aggro (mostly lavamancer), and that lets us play better defense and set up a jace to take over the game. Also, jace has always been so insane for me whenever I cast it, so I don't think I'd ever move him to the sideboard.

My 2 cents

Went 0-3 drop this past weekend in a local tournament of about 25 people.

The first match I lost to UB Faeries. Game 1 he was able to resolve a turn 2 bitterblossom with force backup which quickly took over the game. Game 2 he cast two suspended ancestral recalls (the one with suspend 4). I was able to pyroblast one. I eventually had a trinket Mage with a collar out that was exerting pressure and gaining more life than his tokens were.. Eventually though he got a riptide laboratory and was able to infinitely block my dude with a spellstutter sprite.

Second match was vs. Gbw rock. Game 1 I just demolished him, no problems there. Game 2 I keep what I thought was a very good hand: 2 lands, daze, spell snare, lightning bolt, goyf, ponder. He goes swamp mix diamond hymn. What does the hymn hit? My two lands of course! I miss like two land drops, and by the point I'm actually in the game, he had so much board pressure I can't recover. Game 3 is pretty close, but he eventually resolves a mother of runes and a knight of the reliquary, which my gilded drake can't steal.

Third round I was paired vs Dreadstill. I am able to maintain board control and wittle his life total down to 4. Eventually though he is able to resolve a dreadnought and my grim lavamancer can't do anything because my basilisk collar was destroyed by an earlier engineered explosive. G2 is pretty back and forth but I eventually can't counter his top/counterbalance. Dreadnought follows after I am forced to break a standstill.

My results were very discouraging, but a few things: losing to Faeries is kind of expected, as I think they are the better tempo deck in this matchup. G2 getting blown out by a t1 hymn is just dumb luck. And Dreadstill is a deck made to take advantage of other blue decks, making it a potentially very rough matchup.

There were a bunch of aggro decks, including like 4 Merfolk players that day. I think if I got better matchups, I would have broken top 8, but a combination of bad luck and mediocre-at-best matchups made me lose.

Ironically, team America, the other deck i was considering for this tournament, ended up doing very well in the tournament. I left before seeing the finals, but it made it into the to 4.

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Originally Posted by chinEsE girl

So for the points you mentioned:

Pithing needle seems like a fine card, I just like all the value I got from collar when I played it before. I could certainly see it move to the board though, especially now that it's a bit more known.

I've also put in the 3rd clique for a fire/ice in my current 75. Since clique is my most favorite blue creature evar, I moved the count up, so one fire/ice got the ax.

I still think firespout should be played in the sideboard. The games you lose against tribal and other types of aggro are the ones where you get overrun a little too fast for point removal to handle. Things like trinket mage getting EE is just way to slow to deal with some aggro draws.

Submerge has been suggested a lot before, but I still think it's inferior to the other options. Basically, against stuff like junk with their own goyfs and KotR, getting their creature is sooo much more backbreaking then just a simple removal spell. If you submerge it in response to a fetch, sure you get rid of it for the time being, but the next one is just going to be beating to down. With gilded drake or mind harness, they have to either have an answer, or waste a valuable removal spell to make sure they don't die to their own creature. Also, if they know your running submerge, good players will just apply pressure and never fetch for anything. I've had matches were a stupid goyf was beating me down, and the submerge in my hand just sat there as my opponent never fetched for the rest of the game. Bottom line, submerge is good, a resolved gilded drake (especially with jace) is a blowout.

If you really feel too awkward about jace, then sure stick him in the sideboard. The difference between this deck and team america IMO is that our deck can deploy a few more ways to control the board against aggro (mostly lavamancer), and that lets us play better defense and set up a jace to take over the game. Also, jace has always been so insane for me whenever I cast it, so I don't think I'd ever move him to the sideboard.

My 2 cents

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I also think Clique is a fine creature and I'm never disappointed to draw him. It's always good to have the 3 power evasion. I've tried convincing nitewolf (Dan) to run Cliques, but he just plain does not believe in the card. Even in his build of Countertop he runs Knight over Clique. I think it's because Team America runs more disruption in the form of Hymn-Hymn-I-Win, or because it used to run Thoughtseize, I don't know. I think TA is just spoiled by having a 5/5 flyer for BB :)

Digression aside, I think I understand what you mean about still keeping the Firespouts in as an option. I am finding in my testing against Zoo that I do have those games where Zoo gets a good start and I find it hard to recover. Especially when they have their own Lavamancers to push damage through those Goyf vs. Goyf standoffs. I suppose this means that I can sideboard out the Trinket Mage/Explosives package against them and just sub in 3 Firespouts or something to swing it in my favor.

Do you tend to side out the same cards out vs. Zoo? Do you side out Cliques and/or Jace?

I'm just curious how you would sideboard vs. the aggro decks of the format.

The current way the deck is set up, I end up siding out my cliques and putting in the firespouts and the one mind harness. Obviously gilded drake isn't very good when you trade a KotR then get beat for 3 in the air and die to rando burn spells. The jaces I found are too awesome against zoo to take out, they really do a great job closing out the game. Without something like counterbalance lock or a way to gain life (outside of collar), jace is great because, with the way I play, I always find a point to resolve him while my opponent has nothing on board, plus 2 him on them, keep em off burn, and just win the game from there. And if they do have the burn spell(s) to kill him, that's 5 or 6 life you gain that turn. And at that point in the game, you have things like ponder and brainstorm to get to your business, while they have the top of their deck only. Idk, the only times I find myself losing to zoo is when I get run over really fast and don't get to turn 5 or 6. The games that I do get to the mid-late game I win about 90-95% of them.

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Originally Posted by chinEsE girl

Without something like counterbalance lock or a way to gain life (outside of collar), jace is great because, with the way I play, I always find a point to resolve him while my opponent has nothing on board, plus 2 him on them, keep em off burn, and just win the game from there. .

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Interesting thoughts, in my very limited experience I find myself winning with an expended hand and have never cast Jace TM. This deck felt much more like a tempo deck wtih less "tempo(ey)" cards that I ever would have thought.

Small 8 man tourney today. I went 3-0 with the same list I posted a few days ago.

Round 1 vs Mark with Mono Red Sligh 2-1
I lost game 1 badly to 2 PoP and no counterspells left. Games 2 and 3 were nail biters with me being at 2 and 7 life respectively.

Round 2 vs Dredge 2-1. (Forgot the Guy's name)
He smashes me on his second turn for 18 and I scoop. Game 2 I get Relic going as he tries to slow dredge and beat him down with Clique and Goyf. Game 3 he Therapys my relic away after he dredges away half of his deck with no Narcomoebas showing up. All 4 Bridges and 3 Dread Returns were in his yard when I topdeck Trinket Mage to fetch Tormod's Crypt and win.

Round 3 vs ANT 2-0
Game 1 we both mull to 6 and he can't get anything going after I Clique away his Burning Wish and proceed to bash with an equipped Collar. Game 2 he plays a turn 1 Xantid Swarm and I stifle his turn 2 fetchland. I drop an EE at 0 so he can't lay down his artifact mana with out risk. I waste his last land and we play draw go for a few turns until he plays 2 Petals. I blow EE and he cracks the Petals in response but enters combat and loses the mana. When he realizes what he did, he concedes.

This was a decent warm up for the 5K tomorrow so hopefully the deck won't crap out on me when it counts. I will be switching the SB around to better suit the occasion.
SB-
2 Firespout
2 Spell Pierce
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Mind Harness
2 Krosan Grip
1 Pyroblast
1 Gilded Drake
1 Null Rod
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus

In case anybody had any concerns about this deck being real, I think the Jupiter games tournament was proof that the deck is some sick shit. Both myself and wweenieking top 8'd on Saturday in the 100 person 40 & 40 tournament, and today wwking, his friend, and my friend who I lent my whole 75 to blind all top 8'd. They were also the only 3 people in the room playing the deck (only 34 people in the tourney today though). The only NLT player to lose in the quarters was my friend, who was in fact playing the 72ish card mirror. I didn't get to see what happened to both NLT players in the semis though.

Ok, so I'm driving home and just wrote a whole report and it got deleted when I hit a bump and somehow hit next thread instead of post. So in frustration I'm going to make this quick. My board change was -1 grip for +1 loam which is really good in the bad matchups. Sat I went 6-1 in the swiss only losing 3 games but lost in the top 8 vs food chain elves. Sunday I WON the scg invitational with my friend scooping to me in the finals. My record in the swiss was 4-1-1 but faced the 2 rock decks in the room. This deck is very solid right now, good job designing it guys.

Also, that sucks you didn't watch top 4 vs higginbottom today eric because it was the closest and sickest games. I don't believe he made one mistake and I had to play insane here to pull it out, which I did.

And 1 more thing, thank you to my round 6 opponent today (not sure if your on the source) but we would have drawn, but he scooped to me as his car wanted to leave after a long weekend and my car was in the top 8 so I had to stay anyways. And the 3 of us in my car (one playing this deck) all made top 4 so it was awesome. But once again thank you.

It was a pleasure meeting you Eric.

I'm not entirely sold on collar, but with all the BS running amok I do think it is necessary. Congrats on top 8'ing, both of you!

Alright make that two top 8's saturday, and three top 8's on sunday WITH the win as well!

So yeah I'm pretty excited to see this deck get some more play, seems that everyone who runs it really likes the list.

I have had minor success with EE/Loam/Intuition as a recurring late-game control setup. It also allowed me to board into Shackles vs Zoo and the like. I run this in my tempo builds:

(main)
1 Life from the Loam
1 Intuition
1 Academy Ruins
2 EE

(side)
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Tormod's Crypt

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chinEsE girl

Alright make that two top 8's saturday, and three top 8's on sunday WITH the win as well!

So yeah I'm pretty excited to see this deck get some more play, seems that everyone who runs it really likes the list.

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The list is so sick and the meta is just the right. And no-auto loosing with a blue deck to merfolks is just sick.

I think that it was love at first sight when I first glanced at this deck when Eric English piloted it to 3rd place @ SCG Legacy Open Edison. After that I started acquiring remaining cards to list, but keycomponents were missing (2 Tropical and 4 Tarmogoyfs). Until saturday morning before tournament I was picking my mate from bus station and we went to a coffeeshop to fine tune our lists for days Legacy tournament. I was planning playing with Dreadstill, but then my friend asked that can he borrow my tezzerets for tournament and I was pretty sure then that I could have his Tarmogoyfs and Tropicals for the tournament and here is the list, basically same as English list but few sideboard changes:

2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Basilisk Collar
1x Engineered Explosives
4x Stifle
3x Spell Snare
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Fire /// Ice
4x Force of Will
3x Grim Lavamancer
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Vendilion Clique
2x Trinket Mage
2x Ponder
4x Brainstorm

4x Wasteland
3x Volcanic Island
3x Tropical Island
1x Mountain
2x Island
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Misty Rainforest

Sideboard:
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Krosan Grip
2x Pyroblast
2x Firespout
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Tormod's Crypt
3x Spell Pierce
1x Pithing Needle
1x Mind Harness
1x Echoing Truth

I went 4-1 with this list. Winning Belcher 2-0, Dredge 2-0, Mirror 2-0 and GW aggro 2-0, losing only to Dragonstompy which I would have won if I wouldn't been so sleepy. Chalice@1, in my turn I play Engineered Explosives@1. Goshh.
Although I'm pretty happy with the list, Fire/Ice is good as 3-of, and IMO Clique is fine as 2-of. Sideboard was quickly made and I didn't have Null Rod's or Gilded Drake so I added EE and ETruth, Mind harness is waste of slot imo. What comes to Lavamancer and Basilisk Collar, once I had Lavamancer equiped with collar and it was insane. Twice I had Tarmogoyf with Collar and it was even more sicker than Lavamancer with collar. In Legacy Lavamancer kills almost everything so I think basilisk collar isn't needed but it is good to be there. Never regreted to draw it.

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Originally Posted by greater_maro

Twice I had Tarmogoyf with Collar and it was even more sicker than Lavamancer with collar. In Legacy Lavamancer kills almost everything so I think basilisk collar isn't needed but it is good to be there. Never regreted to draw it.

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You're still going to have issues with Knight of the Reliquary though...

I always played in the sideboard an ancient grudge. And now I think is more needed. Lots of stoneforge mystics, kuldotha MUD and the news affinity.

I think I'll make space for one ancient grudge and one more mind harness.