Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
TA definitely has a better Storm combo matchup than RUG. Discard and Shaman both make a significant difference. I think if you paired a competent Thresh player (rug or bug) against a competent Storm player, the thresh player is going to come out on top the great majority of the time. However, there seems to be far more, shall we say, less than competent Thresh players out there that make poor mulligan and sideboarding decisions.
I think until/unless a better creature comes around, Delver is our best option at the 1cmc slot alongside Shaman. Starting with a Clique in the opener or topdecking a Thoughtseize late game are miserable experiences.
A card I'm curious about incorporating to help beat the mirror and RUG is Baleful Strix. I'm also considering a transformative sideboard that includes Shardless Agent to generate some card advantage in the attrition-y matchups. Consider the following:
3 baleful Strix
3 Shardless Agent
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Life from the Loam
2 Winter Orb
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Spell Pierce / Thoughtseize
1 Maelstrom pulse
(With Agent, you'd obviously be sideboarding out your Daze and not bringing in Spell Pierce)
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Barbed Blightning
Delver does disrupt the opponent, however, with faster damage. If it's an ad nauseam deck especially, the pressure delver applies can dwindle that resource quickly. Furthermore, it's not like tarmogoyf or tombstalker outright kill your opponent; they needs a few turns to swing as well. Delver gets them to a point where tarmogoyf or tombstalker do outright kill your opponent in a swing. Unlike RUG, we aren't trying to ride out a single threat to victory.
See, and that's what I'm not sure about. Why aren't we trying to ride out a single threat to victory? And why would it work for rug and not this deck when we have the more threatening tombstalker and discard (the 2 reasons to play this deck over rug really)?
Delver does not disrupt the opponent. As long as your opponent has a life total > 0, Delver does not stop him/her from playing cards in a general way, none of our current threats do except our new Birds of Surgical Extraction, which is still more disruptive than it looks... and of course Vendilion Clique if you play it. Tarmogoyf, Tombstalker, and Delver are there to turn sideways until your opponent scoops, and Delver is less capable of it than the other 2 are, at least from what I've played of it. Not by too much, but <insert token marginal utility argument here>.
Quote:
@4. We only run two more creatures and two more lands than RUG. That's a six percent difference between the decks in terms of flippable cards. I don't see this as a large enough variance to not run it.
@5. Just to be clear, I'm not dissing ponder; it's great and here for the exact reason you gave. I'm saying, however, that a turn one Delver or DRS is far more preferable than digging with ponder, especially without stifle.
I just can't see a delver-less list being quite as good. What are you running, exactly?
The standard rug lists as I've seen them as 12 creatures, 18 land, and usually 30 cards that will flip delver. In my very flawed math, a random card will flip delver about half of the time. Obviously this changes depending on what cards you've seen so far in the game, but you get the idea. Older Team America lists pre-shaman were packing 11 creatures, 20 land, and maybe a liliana or a sylvan library or something, so we're still in the 28-29 range of cards that flip delver. I personally loved the library so I was on 28, so about 47% of cards flipped the delver, give or take whatever has been played to that point. The updated Team America lists are on 14-15 creatures, 20 land, and X number of cards that also do not flip delver, such as library, liliana, jitte, etc. So the newer lists run 24-25 cards that flip delver, pushing us down closer to the 40% mark on flips. Unlike 50% where it's still a coin flip as to how dangerous it is, at the 40% mark, you start to expect delver to not be a potent threat more often than it is potent. You're not going to swing your mostly unflipped delver into an opposing deathrite shaman either. Before that card, swinging an unflipped delver into another one from your opponent, a non-thresh mongoose, a sick mom, a bob, etc are reasonable or favorable trades so not flipping immediately was less of a liability. As it is in the deck now, delver is more of a liability, and more often. You can start using Ponder/Brainstorm to fix those problems, but when you're using them to flip delvers more than a small percentage of fringe cases, you're forfeiting a ton of utility on your draw spells to fix the lack of utility on the threat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
phazonmuant
Maybe it's just because I mostly play fast combo so I have experience from the other side, but I think your dismissal of combo is predicated on lack of testing against some combination of competent pilots and good decklists. For example, in testing before SCG Atlanta, I went something like 4-1 against Thresh thanks to Silence. Against BUG Delver, I have less playtesting but I've played the other side of the matchup more. Generally BUG has a hard time dealing with a turn 2 Ad Nauseam on the play or a quick Empty. If you think I'm exaggerating how consistent that can be, find a good local TES player. If Sneak and Show drops Leyline, you're riding hard on Force of Will and unfortunately none of our threats or answers are powerful enough to stand up to Griselbrand. Generally tempo can't recover from a Show and Tell player resolving their key spell - one of the reasons I feel S&S is slightly favored against even Thresh with all its counterspells.
That being said, Deathrite + Hymn + a quick clock make ANT relatively easy assuming they don't have an excellent hand.
If you're playing Cliques and Thoughtseize instead of Delver you're going to have a good disruptive threat and I could see that being quite powerful. But if you don't have that t1 Thoughtseize, Delver is by far the best start. So I'm not saying that BUG Delver has a bad combo matchup, but it's not 80% favored either.
After reading your post, though, I can see the argument for Stifle and Clique. I don't know if I agree with it, but it reminds me of old Team America but with a Birds / Lavamancer hybrid - nothing to sneeze at. Clique is very good against UW decks, but then again so is Delver. If I were to warp my deck for UW I'd cut Tombstalker, but Tombstalker is so insane against creature decks and R decks.
Your opening is a little too ad hominem by assuming my experience against combo. That said, I actually agree with you and I think your assumption might be correct, I would like more personal experience against those decks. However, I think your post says more about the potency of specific types of combo more than it makes a statement backing delver. If Team America/RUG are ineffective against combo and merfolk is dead, there's really no reason not to just play combo. I agree with pretty much everything you said here, except I actually kinda hate Clique against Lingering Souls tokens in the tundra match-up.
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
wcm8
TA definitely has a better Storm combo matchup than RUG. Discard and Shaman both make a significant difference. I think if you paired a competent Thresh player (rug or bug) against a competent Storm player, the thresh player is going to come out on top the great majority of the time. However, there seems to be far more, shall we say, less than competent Thresh players out there that make poor mulligan and sideboarding decisions.
I think until/unless a better creature comes around, Delver is our best option at the 1cmc slot alongside Shaman. Starting with a Clique in the opener or topdecking a Thoughtseize late game are miserable experiences.
A card I'm curious about incorporating to help beat the mirror and RUG is Baleful Strix. I'm also considering a transformative sideboard that includes Shardless Agent to generate some card advantage in the attrition-y matchups. Consider the following:
3 baleful Strix
3 Shardless Agent
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Life from the Loam
2 Winter Orb
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Spell Pierce / Thoughtseize
1 Maelstrom pulse
(With Agent, you'd obviously be sideboarding out your Daze and not bringing in Spell Pierce)
I'm not sold on the idea of a transformative board, mostly because we are neither Combo nor a deck like Death & Taxes, looking to mold ourselves around our opponent. I also feel like skimping on our grave hate is just asking for trouble.
I am very interested in Strix, as it is also quite nice vs Jund and tribal, and its death will pump our goofs. Have you had a chance to test it yet? I may tonight.
@Maximus: By playing Deathrite, we are already not riding a single threat to victory. By implementing its drain 2, we are virtually augmenting our real attackers in Delver, Goyf and Tombstalker (unless you've been using DRS to drain your opponent for 10 turns, which seems unconventional to me).
The "ride a single dude to victory" theory works for RUG because they have an average cmc of 1 and use stifle, cheap counters, burn and wasteland to end the game without their opponent being able to interact. Goyf is their most expensive spell they actually cast and he's usually used to close up games or apply even more pressure against a combo deck.
Team America, by contrast, is heavier in mana cost (around twoish), but has more raw power in Hymn, Decay and Stalker. That's where you win most of your RUG games--through the use of our powerful spells.
Again, I'm interested in seeing a Delverless list because the concept to me is rather baffling; Delver's flips have never been inconsistent enough for me to even consider dropping him below four, and I rarely bother Brainstorming or Pondering with the intent of setting it up. That's where I think you are very right: doing something like brainstorming on your upkeep to make sure Delver flips--with no other motivation or reason--is a terrible play. Unless of course you have three unflipped in play and your opponent is at 9; in which case, it is the obvious choice to do so.
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Maximus
Your opening is a little too ad hominem by assuming my experience against combo. That said, I actually agree with you and I think your assumption might be correct, I would like more personal experience against those decks. However, I think your post says more about the potency of specific types of combo more than it makes a statement backing delver. If Team America/RUG are ineffective against combo and merfolk is dead, there's really no reason not to just play combo. I agree with pretty much everything you said here, except I actually kinda hate Clique against Lingering Souls tokens in the tundra match-up.
Sorry, maybe I got a bit aggressive. Rainy weather makes me grumpy :rolleyes: I'm actually not implying you're a bad player, in fact pretty much the opposite. Most combo players you'll see at a tournament are just atrocious. So it's easy to form an opinion based on incorrect data.
I mean, there's a reason I played TES instead of Team America at Atlanta. But I admit that I have a bias to overestimate combo's percentages against disruptive decks and underestimate TA's percentages against non-blue midrangey decks (like Nic Fit, what a nightmare).
Clique is bad against Souls, you're right. But I think we lose pretty hard to that card with Delver or Clique, so that's not unique. Clique is sweet against Stoneforge, Jace, and Miracles. Again, not saying Clique is what the deck wants main, but if I wanted to board into midrange to beat UW, I'd include a couple of Cliques. I think Sinkhole is just better against them though.
Re: Delver percentages, it might be useful to actually calculate to get a feel for percentages. So a "stock" TA list has 25 flips vs. 30 flips for RUG. I calculated the probability that Delver will flip in that many looks. Here's a screenshot of my workbook and the formula so you can double check.
http://i.imgur.com/v4dLdKa.png
The way I analyze that chart, there's an 8% difference for the first few looks but then it's all about the same. To me, 8% is not a huge difference - you're going to have to play 13 games where you're blind flipping before that difference in percentages would manifest itself in a flip for Thresh just once. That percentage is far more likely to be dependent on the particular configuration of cards you've drawn that game.
@wcm8 - Strix is sweet. I love that guy in Goyf mirrors. It's not good if we're trying to be aggressive, but your transform has a solid plan. I don't know if it's good, but it looks sweet.
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
That's a good start to making the analysis more objective. Perhaps with more testing and a solid model we could get the delver flips rate down to a general rule of thumb. For example, I read somewhere that you want 20 blue cards in your deck if you want to play Force of Will. There's surely more to that statement in terms of objective depth that I have access to, but I don't necessarily need the base theory when I can sidestep it. Maybe we can do something like that for Delver flips, where "you want X cards that flip delver to reasonably play it". Or something like that.
According to your table if I'm reading it correctly, you'll have the opportunity for 3 reveal triggers and still have a ~ 7-9% difference for each trigger until the third between the decks as a comparison. That's actually more of a disparity than I thought it was. With either deck, at some point after missing so many triggers you say ok this is just lucky and it sucks, but honestly only having it flip barely over 2/3rds of the time after 2 triggers feels really terrible to actually sit behind. To forego a lighting bolt or a shock 8% of the time for each iteration of the trigger is going to add up in a deck that wants to close out a game before turn 8 every time. I agree that after a set number of looks, the mathematical difference becomes negligible, but it's the first few observations with the largest margin that are the most important.
@wcm8: when I was learning this deck, I structured it into threats, disruption, colored land, and draw (ponder/brainstorm really). I found myself rarely siding out threats, the draw, or colored land. It was almost always that the disruption package that would change between games, so my sideboards are usually 15 different disruption cards of some kind or another. I think your strixes and the complimentary 2nd jitte allow the deck to fluctuate in a broad but powerful way. In short, I like it. The only thing I'm uncertain about is the shardless agent, as it doesn't particularly play into our standard game role very well. That said, it could be surprisingly good for unseen reasons. Let us know how it goes?
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Maximus
According to your table if I'm reading it correctly, you'll have the opportunity for 3 reveal triggers and still have a ~ 7-9% difference for each trigger until the third between the decks as a comparison. That's actually more of a disparity than I thought it was. With either deck, at some point after missing so many triggers you say ok this is just lucky and it sucks, but honestly only having it flip barely over 2/3rds of the time after 2 triggers feels really terrible to actually sit behind.
The biggest problem with providing numbers as compared to intuition or feel is that it's really tricky to actually turn data into knowledge. So there's a ~8% difference, but in one sense, it's not cumulative, and in another, it is. If you're sitting there with Delver in play and you want to know how likely it is to flip, the answer will always be 40%ish percent for TA and 50ish% for Thresh, period (obviously adjusting for cards drawn). So in that sense, yes, every time there is a 8% deficit.
But if you're analyzing deck construction, it's more useful to see how long you would expect it to take for Delver to flip, for some defined threshold of "reasonably certain" that it will have flipped. In that sense, there's an 8% deficit, but not cumulatively for each look. You have to compare apples-to-apples: within rows and within columns, not across both.
As far as "feels" go, I've felt miserable in playtesting Thresh where it hasn't flipped too, but almost all of the time I have some capacity to set it up in both decks. The blind flips are just so high-variance that I've never been able to detect a difference between the two.. If you want to get into statistical tests for how many games it would take to be 95% confident even of the fact that TA is worse at blind-flipping than Thresh, we can do that, but it's going to be hairy, a large number, and not actually useful.
The problem with models for Delver vs. Force of Will is that you have plenty of cards that can influence what the top of your library is whereas all of those cards for Force tend to be blue themselves, so it's much more similar to just drawing off the top and checking the existence of Force + another blue card in hand. That being said, I'm actually pretty comfortable with as few as 20 instants or sorceries given that we have Brainstorm and Ponder to set up, drawing from experience from Standard UW Delver (which played about that number).
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
phazonmuant
As far as "feels" go, I've felt miserable in playtesting Thresh where it hasn't flipped too, but almost all of the time I have some capacity to set it up in both decks. The blind flips are just so high-variance that I've never been able to detect a difference between the two.. If you want to get into statistical tests for how many games it would take to be 95% confident even of the fact that TA is worse at blind-flipping than Thresh, we can do that, but it's going to be hairy, a large number, and not actually useful.
Ok, if you don't like delver then don't play it. Not to be rude but if delver does not work for you change your deck. This is a development forum and you seem to be complaining that a one mana common that can become a 3/2 flier does not flip enough for you. It seems it has flipped enough for other people to win with. I check this forum regularly for ideas and new ways to play. If you don't like delver, post a list and explain it. Please do not just complain about delver. /end rant
anyways: Tested against Canadian Thresh last night with the following
4 goyf
4 deathrite
4 delver
2 tombstalker
4 Force
4 B-storm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Hymn
2 Disfigure
4 Abrupt decay
4 wasteland
4 verdant catacombs
4 misty rainforest
1 polluted Delta
4 underground sea
2 bayou
1 tropical island
Board:
4 spell pierce
3 surgical
2 golgari charm
2 pithing needle
2 winter orb
1 darkblast
1 sylvan library
list seemed solid all night going 4-2. Only played pre-board games. Partner forgot sideboard.
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
I went 4-1 in my local 18-man weekly last night with TA. Pretty stock maindeck, but I opted for the 3rd Tombstalker (instead of the 6th removal or Sylvan) since there's a fair amount of RUG and Jund locally. I beat UW Blade, Goblins, Jund, and Dredge.
My only loss was 1-2 to Sneak and Show. Game 3 I was on the play and saw this opener:
Fetch, Underground, Daze, Delver, Hymn, Thoughtseize, FoW
Unbeatable, right? Nope. He opens with a Leyline of Sancity.
If that Thoughtseize were Spell Pierce instead, I probably would have won by preventing his *third* combo attempt.
I think we need to have more stack control to fight combo like this. Aside from Leyline, I also had a Hymn misdirected at me in the previous game I lost. I'm not sure if I will just play additional Spell Pierces or if I'll try Flusterstorm. There's a number of High Tide and Storm players in my meta.
I didn't get a chance to test Baleful Strix yet, as I had opted for Submerge in its place last night instead. However I think Strix would be a great option, maybe as a 2-of. I actually don't think Shardless is a good idea now; you really need the slots to be *hate*, not just potential card advantage.
So here's a revised sideboard:
2 Spell Pierce (excellent on the draw against Jund btw)
2 Winter Orb
2 Surgical Extraction (the GY hate option that's also good vs. combo)
2 Engineered Plague (was awesome for me vs. Goblins and Dredge, better than Golgari Charm IMO)
1 Flusterstorm
1 Sylvan Library (since I dropped it MD for the 3rd Tombstalker, otherwise this is Maelstrom Pulse)
1 Life from the Loam
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Baleful Strix
1 Umezawa's Jitte
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
lambert101
Ok, if you don't like delver then don't play it. Not to be rude but if delver does not work for you change your deck. This is a development forum and you seem to be complaining that a one mana common that can become a 3/2 flier does not flip enough for you. It seems it has flipped enough for other people to win with. I check this forum regularly for ideas and new ways to play. If you don't like delver, post a list and explain it. Please do not just complain about delver. /end rant
Are you dumb or just blind? I've been arguing for Delver over the past page or two. People had been negging my little insect buddy so I wanted to throw some numbers to show them the errors of their ways.
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
After my last GP where I played Punishing Jund I got trashed by 3 combo decks. Because of that I decided to go back to a deck I used to play which is BUG. I played a control list but I noticed I like the aggro/tempo approach much better even if this means not being able to fit Jace in.
Since I am fairly new to this thread I have some questions. I looked through the pages so I apologize if I missed the answer already.
I am looking at the different versions of BUG Delver/Team America and even BRUG:
Tombstalker: very powerfull but often I pay the cost and it gets Plowed or countered which means I always need back up to protect. Is the deck still good without it?
Removal: besides our decays and possibly dismember I wondered if Liliana has a spot for discard and removal?
In a stifleless list with the usual spells I wondered if the following could work. While testing it seems OK but on this forum there is so much more experience.
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Delver
3 Mongoose
4 Tarmagoyf
2 Liliana of the Veil
I like the Mongoose a lot but I am not sure if trying to play everything weakens the deck to much?
Maybe I should play the deck lots more before I start trying to adjust a perfect list :smile: The problem is when I look at the deck there seem to be so many versions out there.
I am looking forward to your comments.
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Cire_dk
After my last GP where I played Punishing Jund I got trashed by 3 combo decks. Because of that I decided to go back to a deck I used to play which is BUG. I played a control list but I noticed I like the aggro/tempo approach much better even if this means not being able to fit Jace in.
Since I am fairly new to this thread I have some questions. I looked through the pages so I apologize if I missed the answer already.
I am looking at the different versions of BUG Delver/Team America and even BRUG:
Tombstalker: very powerfull but often I pay the cost and it gets Plowed or countered which means I always need back up to protect. Is the deck still good without it?
Removal: besides our decays and possibly dismember I wondered if Liliana has a spot for discard and removal?
In a stifleless list with the usual spells I wondered if the following could work. While testing it seems OK but on this forum there is so much more experience.
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Delver
3 Mongoose
4 Tarmagoyf
2 Liliana of the Veil
I like the Mongoose a lot but I am not sure if trying to play everything weakens the deck to much?
Maybe I should play the deck lots more before I start trying to adjust a perfect list :smile: The problem is when I look at the deck there seem to be so many versions out there.
I am looking forward to your comments.
Do u have already a list for your BRUG Version ?
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
@exe In case you missed the post of Barbed Blightning. Here is a nice article about the deck:
http://www.channelfireball.com/home/...-color-thresh/
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
Thanks
I am also in playtesting a list and will post it later.
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
phazonmuant
The biggest problem with providing numbers as compared to intuition or feel is that it's really tricky to actually turn data into knowledge. So there's a ~8% difference, but in one sense, it's not cumulative, and in another, it is. If you're sitting there with Delver in play and you want to know how likely it is to flip, the answer will always be 40%ish percent for TA and 50ish% for Thresh, period (obviously adjusting for cards drawn). So in that sense, yes, every time there is a 8% deficit.
But if you're analyzing deck construction, it's more useful to see how long you would expect it to take for Delver to flip, for some defined threshold of "reasonably certain" that it will have flipped. In that sense, there's an 8% deficit, but not cumulatively for each look. You have to compare apples-to-apples: within rows and within columns, not across both.
As far as "feels" go, I've felt miserable in playtesting Thresh where it hasn't flipped too, but almost all of the time I have some capacity to set it up in both decks. The blind flips are just so high-variance that I've never been able to detect a difference between the two. If you want to get into statistical tests for how many games it would take to be 95% confident even of the fact that TA is worse at blind-flipping than Thresh, we can do that, but it's going to be hairy, a large number, and not actually useful.
The problem with models for Delver vs. Force of Will is that you have plenty of cards that can influence what the top of your library is whereas all of those cards for Force tend to be blue themselves, so it's much more similar to just drawing off the top and checking the existence of Force + another blue card in hand. That being said, I'm actually pretty comfortable with as few as 20 instants or sorceries given that we have Brainstorm and Ponder to set up, drawing from experience from Standard UW Delver (which played about that number).
It is the intuitive feel that led me to consider dropping it in the first place. The running joke in our play group for a while was that Delver was so good in my deck because I would never lose to wasteland (all the reveal triggers are lands, har har).
There may still be a some model that can be developed to describe when Delver is meeting its desired average utility even if it's more complex. For Team America, before Pondering I usually tell myself "okay I'm looking for <card type>" where that can mean a threat, a colored mana source, or some particular type of disruption. Knowing what you need before using it has made the card substantially better before blowing it. If I don't need anything, I simply hold it. The utility for this use of the card is high enough that I generally don't ever want to use them to set up delver triggers unless the turn math indicates that I'll want the extra damage a few turns later from that point. So my personal model for playing delver would be "play delver with 28 cards that flip delver, 14 or more blue sources (fetches count), you're playing the full 8 ponder and brainstorm, you're playing a sylvan library, and you're trying to win by about turn 8". This may seem unnecessarily complicated, but the tempo aspect, use of cantrips, and minimum count of blue sources are implicit to this deck's design. I think that the number of cards that flip the delver itself is up for dispute, as is the inclusion of the tempo-negative sylvan library, but this is just my personal baseline based on familiarity.
It's entirely possible that I'm dead wrong and that Delver is an auto-include to this deck. That's fine, I'm okay with being wrong here. If that's the case, I would still like to know why I'm wrong and to at least try to rationalize it to the best of our collective limited ability.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
lambert101
Ok, if you don't like delver then don't play it. Not to be rude but if delver does not work for you change your deck. This is a development forum and you seem to be complaining that a one mana common that can become a 3/2 flier does not flip enough for you. It seems it has flipped enough for other people to win with. I check this forum regularly for ideas and new ways to play. If you don't like delver, post a list and explain it. Please do not just complain about delver. /end rant
You acknowledge that this is a development forum, and then chastise those that are testing permutations of the development? Your stance lacks congruence. I did post a list, and I did explain it, however briefly. It is not a complaint, but rather an exercise in the name of optimization.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
phazonmuant
I've been arguing for Delver over the past page or two. People had been negging my little insect buddy so I wanted to throw some numbers to show them the errors of their ways.
Which is really cool of you by the way for actually trying to help me figure out which is better past base speculation. +Respect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Barbed Blightning
Tombstalker is too good not to play in this deck, precisely because it needs to be killed or it runs away with the game.
Lilly, though very powerful, isn't a great fit for this deck simply because she's a 3 drop. Team America should be curving out at 2 virtually.
I agree about Tombstalker, but I'm not so sure about Liliana. When she's good, she's really good. I've had 1 or 2 of her in my board for some time now. Generally though yeah you don't want to play spells over 2 mana.
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Barbed Blightning
Goose and DRS don't like each other very much, plus it creates even more yard dependency than tombstalker.
Tombstalker is too good not to play in this deck, precisely because it needs to be killed or it runs away with the game.
Lilly, though very powerful, isn't a great fit for this deck simply because she's a 3 drop. Team America should be curving out at 2 virtually.
I run a pretty stock list (I think):
4 Delver
4 DRS
4 Goyf
2 Tombstalker
4 Decay
2 Disfigure
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 Force
4 daze
4 hymn
4 underground sea
2 bayou
1 tropical island
4 wasteland
9 fetches
How are the Disfigures working for you maindeck? Do you ever wish they were spell pierce?
Re: [DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)
Her cost is why I kept her out of the main deck, although I could see her inclusion into the main deck too depending on what you expect to play against. The tempo aspect of the deck simply means that you control the flow of the match and get to play your spells while the opponent cannot in that time. It doesn't necessarily mean killing your opponent before they can play spells, although they are the same so frequently I could see the association.
Liliana can play the tempo role somewhat despite costing 3 and not killing your opponent because she's very good at preserving the game state. In the matches where you and your opponent stall out from heavy amounts of disruption, Liliana will act as a continual source of disruption until you draw out of it. This really only works though because our deck has a low curve, so we don't need as many lands as most opponents and we're more likely to draw into business than the opponent is. This kind of play is basically you accepting before that match starts that you need to play the control for the match, so she's been particularly good against lightning bolt decks for the same reason Hymn is, but being able to convert your excess discard into removal after turn 3 is invaluable.
The real reason I keep her in the board is because she doesn't fill that role across a range of match-ups like I would like her to, so I don't want to see her in every match. Her role for this deck is definitely different than it is in a 23-land Jace deck though.
