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

Actually I'm running 9! burn spells :D I just like the sequencing with this build. Sometimes you get a hand with fetch, goose, stifle and chain lightning. You play a fetch, opp fetches and you stifle it. On your next turn you topdeck another land (or brainstorm into one) cast chain lightning, cast goose and you're off to an awfully good start with a good way towards growing the goose. I understand it's totally style dependent but the way I see it is that this deck just demands to be played this way :)

Right, 9 total burn spells. By 5 burn spells, I meant 5 additional, since 4 Bolts is an auto-include for most. I run 7, with 2x Chain and 1x Fire/ice as my "flexburn". 9 is a whole bunch.

The only problems with that sequence you listed is this:

1) You've burned 5 or so cards doing this, and all you have to show for it is a 1/1 Mongoose, with maybe 3 cards in hand (depending on play/draw/brainstorm).
2) Maybe you didn't have a target for Chain Lightning or were better off saving it for something later on. Same could be true for Stifle.
3) You've played out your hand and it's only turn 2. You've burned 2 fetchlands and maybe a Brainstorm to get 5/7ths of the way to Thresh. What if they just Terminus you in a turn or 2?

In general, it's rare that we should play games out this fast in my opinion. Wasting spells is how we lose. Sometimes, this will happen, and it will be the best line. Often though, we are holding back, waiting for our opponent to try something before responding.

While I agree that sometimes you get just enough fetches/cantrips/burn/disruption early on to fill the yard up fast, it doesn't always happen. In the Control and Combo matches, you are most likely to need to hold back on spells and fetch/cantrip carefully. Those are also the matches where Goose needs to get BIG and ASAP. That's why I like Thought Scour. It basically adds 3 cards to your yard at the cost of U. That would normally cost you at least 1 card and 2 fetches, or a number of cards. Not to mention the fact that, after holding up Pierce or Stifle or Burn, you can cycle it EOT to maximize your mana if they don't cast anything relevant. That, combined with the synergy with Brainstorm and Ponder (and Delver blind flips too!), combined with the corner cases such as Milling away Miracles, Tops, and Submerged Fatties, makes me really enjoy playing with Scour.

As you said though, it's preference. You have a slightly more U/R plan, while I'm still favoring a bit more patience and timing. Thought Scour is all about timing. I like having at least 2 in the deck, right now I'm running 3. But I don't feel I need to choose it over anything else personally. If I wanted to fit in Stifles, I easily could.

I will say though, I'm tempted to cut 1 Scour for a singleton Stifle, just to troll people this weekend.

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Originally Posted by wcm8

Against UW decks, you are the beat down. I think Envelop is far too reactive in this matchup. Sulfuric Vortex is pretty much an auto-win card and plays into your aggressive plan, and as a three-drop is more likely to resolve through an established lock.

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There is no doubt that RUG is the beatdown when matched against UWx Stoneblade or UW Miracles. My question for you is as follows, when does being the beatdown not allow us to leave up :u:? I think most of the time this is something we do anyway to make our opponents play around all of our answers. Against U/W Miracles, Envelop is great as it is a hard counter for the scariest things the deck does priced at the same cost of the other counters (Pierce, Snare) in our deck. I know in my build, I don't want my 2 Forked Bolts after board. So I take those out in addition to a few pieces of counter magic. Pending if I am on the Play or Draw, I mitagate my counter package, with Envelop, REB, and Pyroblast. I do also fully endorse Sulfuric Vortex in this match up. The Miracles player is probably going to have to durdle around for a good bit before doing much. So sticking a Vortex is many times game over.

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Originally Posted by wcm8

With the possibility of UW decks adopting Rest in Peace and/or Supreme Verdict once RtR is legal, having a sustainable threat that ignores those cards might be necessarry to close out games.

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Originally Posted by Borealis

(but not RiP! Oh Noes!)

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On the topic of new dangers for this deck are Rest in Peace, Supreme Verdict, and Dryad Militant.

As I see it, Rest in peace is likely not that terrible for us. I would say that because we are already running Spell Pierce and some people are still using a few Spell Snares. These spells will make it hard for opponents to realistically stick RiP to make it worthwhile. I mean that by the time an opponent plays around SP and SS, they have likely already taken a few hits from graveyard buffed bro. It appears that it will be a beating though if it manages to resolve.

Supreme Verdict is pretty scary. The only real ways we have to fight this new threat are keeping our opponent off of four mana and playing smart. So that means aggressively Stifling fetches and Wastelanding when possible. This is doable, but there will be hands where our opponents will be able to just play basics and save the duals until they need to Verdict. In these situations you will need to prioritize threats and bait out the board wipes. This brings me back to wcm8's thought about creatures that don't care about Verdict. Did you have any thoughts on that already? What come to my mind are dudes that can regen (Troll Ascetic or Thrun, the Last Troll or come back from the graveyard... are there any of these that are good enough?

Finally, Dryad Militant... not really too scary. As stated it is a Savannah Lions. If you opponent plays this over a Mom or a Hierarch you aren't too bad off. If it gets to be annoying just burn it or fly over for more damage with flipped Delvers.

Borealis, I don't play that aggressive it was just a hypotethical example. I like holding on to my burn spells. Against aggro decks I definitely hold on to them. Against combo and control decks if I'm not applying enough pressure in the early turns, the mongoose isn't flipping etc. I can fire a Chain Lightning so that 3-4 damage a turn would be maintained and the opp will know the pressure is on. Other times if my clock is good and well I hold onto them to finish the game a turn early. Also sometimes if I don't manage to get an early pressure I focus on daggering people's manabases, countering stuff etc. Then when you finally a mange to stick a threat you can come out of the gates really fast with the additional burn and mongoose will already have threshold by then.

My main argument wasn't for playing extra burn but for playing Stifle btw. I don't know how it turned into this :)

So my local meta is mostly mid-range (Nic Fit, Maverick), control (Stoneblade, Lands, Miracles), and jank (Scapeshift, affinity, etc.). There is no combo to speak of and aggro is fairly limited. Any suggestions for a good maindeck configuration for a meta like mine? I play an 18 land/Stifle build and I have a really hard time containing people to the early game to keep my Dazes and Spell Pierces relevant. Many games they will just hit a couple of basic land drops and I am stuck with dead cards in hand or my countermagic just gets overwhelmed with threat after threat (this might be me misplaying however).

Would it be better to become more aggressive and add additional burn to close out the game quickly? Should I add an extra land and some late game cards (Ooze, GSZ, Library) to help me out if the game goes long? Should I just play another deck or is my build fine and I just need to play tighter?

Edit: Here is my current list:

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
3 Spell Pierce
4 Daze
4 Lightning Bolt

4 Ponder
2 Forked Bolt

1 Sylvan Library

8 Fetch
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland

SB:
2 Pyroblast
2 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Pithing Needle
4 Submerge
2 Rough//Tumble
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Surgical Extraction

My current list the loam comes and goes in my board but I only ever really want it for the mirror. I am back to loving 4 goyf 0 Ooze I just really want to be able to function off as little lands as possible.

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Pierce
2 Thought Scour
2 Forked Bolt
1 Dismember
1 Flusterstorm

8 Fetch
3 Volcanic Island
4 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland

SB:
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Null Rod
1 Cursed Totem
1 Sylvan library
1 Flusterstorm
1 Ancient Grudge
4 Submerge
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast

So, Todd Andersson just won SCG Invitational with a RUG list. Well done I guess.
However, right after the final game was over, the idiot commentators go all NUTS over how good the deck is and bla bla bla.

Specifically:
"One of the great innovations that Todd Andersson brought to the deck, is that he is playing 4 stifle and 4 wasteland to completeley shut down his opponents mana..."
/Adrian Sullivan

Really?!
There should be some kind of punishment for saying stupid ignorant shit like that on the interwebs.

Considering most guys in the SCG circuit doesn't play Stifle and benefit from the free tempo wins acquired by mana denial, it could have come as an innovation :)

LOL...Pretty pathetic. Calling it an innovation is just stupid.. but even if an innovation it was Ziveeman who was successful with Stifle 1 week before right? :)

Good Legacy commentators are rare, unfortunately. I always cry when they talk about Brainstorm (fucking stop with the "best kind of brainstorm"-bullshit) or High Tide.

They also freaked out, when Todd wasted his own land in order to achieve threshold and get a faster clock. I mean he really played super tight in the first game, but in the second (or was it the third?) game it was just something you should have seen (or even done yourself) from time to time.

The only thing you can trust on the stream are Adrian Sullivan's calculations on tie breakers.

I'm just feeling provoked I guess.
I've played the deck for so many years, and seeing these guys getting credits for adding freakin' stifle to this "relatively new deck" rubs me the wrong way. Just because 4 delver of secrets have been added, it's not a new deck. It's just not.

Credits should be given where credits are due. And that does not include Todd Andersson.

Goobafish and friends; I know what you did. You are not forgotten. Cheers.

Anywho, where were we...

Adrian Sullivan didn't say it like that. He simply said that Todd Anderson was playing 4 stifle, and that wasn't the always the status quo and then he elaborates on how there is an ongoing debate amongst players of whether to play stifle or not. What I don't like is the names SCG names of decks. This deck will always be Canadian Threshold to me.

What I did find interesting was that Todd ran only 2 main deck spell pierce

Was at Atlanta this weekend so obviously didn't see any commentary, but I wouldn't doubt Adrian's knowledge on the subject, Unsummon's account seems more likely. Stifle is pretty good right now, though.

I tried some cute tricks for the Invitational this weekend and hated it (1-3 record to start in Legacy...). Went back to the basics and played something similar to the Gen Con 75.

List here: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=49690

I tried a Cephalid Coliseum in the Fire//Ice slot for the Legacy Challenge and I never drew it, but didn't want to risk that in the main event Sunday. Went 3-1 in the Challenge despite that with my only loss a hilarious one against Esperblade.


Overall finished 6-2-1 in the main event (ID'ing last round for T32, no reason to be playing it out as we both couldn't make it and everyone likes $100).

R1) 2-1 Win, High Tide. Match was crazy good, I thought he was going off t4 so I held back a Delver in my hand in case he goes for it so if I lose the counter war I can still float the mana. It backfires when he passes the turn back and he wins at 1 life. g2/g3, I board in the 4 extra counters and it all came down to huge counter wars on the turn he goes off.

R2) 2-1 Win, Mirror. Mana denial and Geese, pretty much. He out-Goyfs me in g2 (my list only plays 3) and has the 1-of Dismember for mine, so that wasn't a fun fight. g3 he goes for t1 Wasteland after I play Mongoose, well I have 2 more lands in hand and I develop a lot faster than he does.

R3) 2-0 Win, Maverick. Kept a bad hand (put him on Miracles) with double Spell Pierce FoW. He doesn't have any early plays and is stuck on two lands, so the Pierces protect my Goyf and I have another by the time he lands Knight. I Ponder into a second burn spell to finish him off... like a boss. G2 he plays Mom instead of Zenith, and I have to burn a Submerge on it. It winds up being his only land, so that changes a lot. I ride a Delver to victory.

R4) 2-0 Win, Miracles (hukstor). t1 Mongoose into devoting all my resources to protect it. Drew terribly but a Brainstorm off the top turns it into an insane hand. I have the burn to finish it off. g2 I follow a similar plan, sealing the deal with Vortex at the end. Adam didn't draw particularly well, as funny as it was next round he crushed RUG and I got crushed by Miracles...

R5) 0-2 Loss, Miracles (Hetrick). Yeah. I lose the roll and he leads off with an Island. I draw and the hand is skeptical, and needs to develop. I opt to go for Volcanic, Ponder instead of Tropical, Mongoose, to hit what I'm playing. He jams the Counterbalance on t2 and I don't have an answer. g2 I'm stuck on no red sources and by the time I draw my second land on turn 10+, it's too late.

R6) 2-0 Win, Maverick. Super nice guy, was a local I believe. Game was pretty intense in g1 when I had to Stifle a Knight activation for Maze and then peel a Wasteland two turns later to seal the deal. We both had dueling Sylvan Libraries in g2 and I got to take advantage of that + all the cantrips to end the game casting all 4 Submerges and a Rough/Tumble. Sideboard cards are excellent.

R7) 1-2 Loss, Omni-Tell. Win g1, see the mana base and know what it is. He doesn't cast anything. g2 we had an awkward judge call that I should have appealed, but I didn't and the ruling (and resulting game state) basically cost me the game. I won't go into detail about it much beyond that. Not happy about it, and in g3 I open with a weak soft-counter hand that doesn't do anything, and he draws some Sol Lands, so that's the end of it there. Needed to go outside after that one.

R8) 2-0 Win, Goblins (Andrew Cavanaugh). Revenge for Friday's beatings, sorta. He rolls an 11 to start the game, so instead of just conceding the roll, I go for it and hit... 12! g1 we both have slow starts with Nimble Mongoose on my side and slow development on his side. I get a bunch of filler in my hand (extra lands, Spell Pierces), but somehow manage to draw the big guy just in time to stave off an attack, and a Delver goes under the bus so the 4/5 and 3/3 can get the dirty work done. g2 I open on a hand without an answer to t1 Lackey, but everything including a Rough/Tumble. He does have the Lackey opener, and t2 he plays a fetchland main phase. I gamble on him not having a Ringleader and Stifle the fetchland. He lays a Chieftain, to which I fetch on my turn and show him the Rough/Tumble, up on lands with the 2 for 1. That advantage allows me to get ahead enough to win.

R9) ID, Esper. Another local and we ID but play anyways, which was good entertainment for everyone since we got to play loose and have some real fun on the day. Great way to end things, especially taking hope $100 each.


I think the Miracles matchup needs a lot of help still, just not sure if it's more Vortexes, more creatures, or a different approach altogether. Open to ideas.

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Originally Posted by Mark Sun

I think the Miracles matchup needs a lot of help still, just not sure if it's more Vortexes, more creatures, or a different approach altogether. Open to ideas.

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Trygon Predator.

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Originally Posted by Grizzly_Bear

Specifically:
"One of the great innovations that Todd Andersson brought to the deck, is that he is playing 4 stifle and 4 wasteland to completeley shut down his opponents mana..."
/Adrian Sullivan

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Originally Posted by H3llsp4wn

Good Legacy commentators are rare, unfortunately. I always cry when they talk about Brainstorm (fucking stop with the "best kind of brainstorm"-bullshit)

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I generally find that Adrian's analysis of lines of play during games is pretty decent. However, Legacy is such a tough format that many times the commentators don't really know what is going on... let's be real about this, many of them rarely play the format. I agree with the "Best Brainstorm" comment. I think it can be extended to the "If you are just joining us, I am X and this is Y, and we are at the SCG Z event." They would say that tagline multiple times during the same game of a match even. It always seemed this weekend like that was all they were talking about. When that type of stuff starts to happen, I just turn the sound off and put some music on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mark Sun

I think the Miracles matchup needs a lot of help still, just not sure if it's more Vortexes, more creatures, or a different approach altogether. Open to ideas.

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It's going to sound incredibly loose, and maybe it is, but what about fitting in an Underground Sea (or two) and adding some number of Abrupt Decay into the sideboard? You'd also get access to discard to go along with your taxing counters. These UWx control decks don't tend to play Wasteland either, making your Sea a safe target. Abrupt Decay has utility in other matchups as well.

Edit: To make room, you could try running Underground Sea as your 19th land and/or have it take the place of a Wasteland for up to 2 seas. The majority of combo and control decks have some resiliency to Wasteland anyways, and against some decks you'd rather have an additional Blue source instead of Wasteland -- so you're not giving up too much power for the additional utility options. Alternatively, you could just burn a sideboard slot for the Sea if you wanted the main deck to remain more consistent. Abrupt Decay, Thoughtseize, and possibly some other black cards (e.g. Dread of Night/Massacre, Diabolic Edict, Dark Confidant, etc.) could make an appearance to strengthen the deck even further against certain strategies.

I think that's a possibility, but I'm not sure it's the way to go.

As for the Snare/Pierce split that Todd was running, I think this was due to wanting to be able to hard-counter a Counterbalance, even if it was on turn 5+ when it would have been out of Spell Pierce range.

-Matt

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Originally Posted by Sturtzilla

I generally find that Adrian's analysis of lines of play during games is pretty decent. However, Legacy is such a tough format that many times the commentators don't really know what is going on... let's be real about this, many of them rarely play the format. I agree with the "Best Brainstorm" comment. I think it can be extended to the "If you are just joining us, I am X and this is Y, and we are at the SCG Z event." They would say that tagline multiple times during the same game of a match even. It always seemed this weekend like that was all they were talking about. When that type of stuff starts to happen, I just turn the sound off and put some music on.

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So true. When they go "If you are just joining us, I am X and this is Y, and we are at the SCG Z event." I am like "I CAN READ ALL OF THIS SHIT ON THE SCREEN!".
As long as JVL's and Glenn Jones' fake laughter isn't on the stream, I don't mute them, because I want to know what happens when there are judge calls etc.

Back to Canadian though:

@Mark
How has Envelop performed?

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Originally Posted by RaNDoMxGeSTuReS

Trygon Predator.

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I've thought about it before, but I don't think it should be an StP target. They will overload on StP effects postboard, you want a bomb that you theoretically can resolve that they would be unprepared for. Thrun has come up a few times, if they exhaust their Termini on your Mongeese, for example. Trygon would be ideal if we could protect it as well, but takes too long to set up.

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Originally Posted by wcm8

It's going to sound incredibly loose, and maybe it is, but what about fitting in an Underground Sea (or two) and adding some number of Abrupt Decay into the sideboard? You'd also get access to discard to go along with your taxing counters. These UWx control decks don't tend to play Wasteland either, making your Sea a safe target. Abrupt Decay has utility in other matchups as well.

Edit: To make room, you could try running Underground Sea as your 19th land and/or have it take the place of a Wasteland for up to 2 seas. The majority of combo and control decks have some resiliency to Wasteland anyways, and against some decks you'd rather have an additional Blue source instead of Wasteland -- so you're not giving up too much power for the additional utility options. Alternatively, you could just burn a sideboard slot for the Sea if you wanted the main deck to remain more consistent. Abrupt Decay, Thoughtseize, and possibly some other black cards (e.g. Dread of Night/Massacre, Diabolic Edict, Dark Confidant, etc.) could make an appearance to strengthen the deck even further against certain strategies.

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For me if I were to add a fourth color it would have to mean taking Wasteland out. That said, the question here really becomes would I trade 4 Wasteland and some amount of Daze for discard and better disruption? Possibly. More (color producing) lands would be useful in the mirror and a matchup like this. But you still want to slow down opponent board development. It's an interesting idea. I would play 4 City of Brass in that case with the necessary fetchlands/duals.

That said, rotation might solve the issue itself because of Abrupt Decay, since it removes the Counterbalance engine and can answer an early Delver. That power level might change some things.

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Originally Posted by H3llsp4wn

@Mark
How has Envelop performed?

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It's still a good option that I don't mind bringing in for a couple of matches beyond just Miracles/Combo. I would still want it going forward if the metagame stays similar to what it was this weekend. It's also a good option against Elves (counters GSZ/Glimpse) and B/x type decks. I even boarded it against B/R Goblins when I knew he had multiples of Perish in the SB. Instead, I'd like a 3rd REB/Pyroblast in the sideboard where the Flusterstorm was. That card was fairly underwhelming the entire weekend.

Mark, I agree that a third REB in the board would be good against Miracles but in that match-up I don't what more we can do other than playing threats one by one, Stifling their Miracle triggers and hoping to ride Mongoose to victory. With RtR I'm still worried that the widespread maindeck gy hate (not to hate on us specifically but due to their utilities and popularity. I mean cards like Dryad Militant, RiP and Deathrite Shaman) can negatively effect this deck going forward. Abrupt Decay will affect Miracles to an extent yes, but we will also be affected. Currently I'm considering tempo options in other colors to ride that wave of increased gy hate period smoothly. Both Death's Shadow decks and UW Delver decks seem like strong options.