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

I haven't tested Envelop, but I tend to think Mark is right. In general, I'd rather just have REB or Flusterstorm in that slot, unless my meta is truly infested with U/W. Even then, I think I'd start adding Spell Snares to the maindeck first.

I think Sulfuric Vortex is still the bees' knees in that match. I've also been trying out 1-2 Surgicals to try and tag their Termini, but I can't say that plan is the greatest. It's nice when you get it early, but bad otherwise.

As for the Black Splash, I think at that point you just go straight BUG. 4 colors is asking for trouble, and if you cut Wasteland it will have a bigger impact on the deck's functionality that gaining a couple answers to Control. BUG Thresh could definitely be a viable deck in the right meta though, and I'm considering giving it a whirl.

I don't think we care about Abrupt Decay enough to run it as a 4x. It's a great way to deal with counterbalance, or a really large knight of the Relequary, but for almost every other threat, I think we just want Ghastly demise in black.

I also feel like we don't nessacarilly want to straight port the creatures from RUG. Loosing red means losing burn, which means losing speed. I think BUG needs to be grindier than RUG to be successful.

This is what I was thinking:BUG Delver

4 Delver
4 Goyf
4 Dark Condifant
2 Tombstalker

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 FoW
4 Daze
4 Hymn
3 IoK/Duress/Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Gastly Demise
1 Pernicious deed

4 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
7 fetch

Tombstalker + Bob seems a bit risky, but I think Tombstalker is what the deck really needs as a finisher. But you also have a couple ways to manipulate the library. Tombstalker means no Mongoose, I think you are probably removing too high of a volume of cards. Bob is better for gridier games, and should need to be answered immediately by RUG/Miracles.

I think overall, without Red the deck is a completely different deck though, and probably would be better in the other BUG threads.

Before things get weird I suggest we discuss Team America in the Team America tempo thread.

Yeah, I didn't mean to start a discussion about BUG. I probably shouldn't have posted that list, so apologies there, but it was more for my own reference than anything else. The reason I like it is because it's nearly identical to my current RUG build, but with Discard/Decay over Burn. Yes I realize that's not necessarily a good thing.

EDIT: I cut the list from my above post. No more confusion here!

I guess the real point is, we aren't splashing a 4th color in an 18-land deck. It's hard enough not running out of duals to fetch as it is.

I'll go jabber on the BUG thread for a while now to get those dirty (UNDERGROUND SEA!) mana base thoughts out of my head. :tongue:

About 6 weeks ago, someone brought fit two copies of Punishing Fire and two copies of Grove of the Burnwillows into this deck. As someone who has had occasional trouble with tribal decks and has a lot of experience playing Rubin Zoo, I tried it out. It was okay, but not great. I went back to Forked Bolts and occasionally Grim Lavamancers.

At the most recent SCG Open, the 3rd place finisher fit 4 Punishing Fire and 3 Grove of the Burnwillows into his deck. This seems pretty nice given the rise of Goblins, Merfolk, and Death and Taxes (and obviously, Maverick being ever present). Plus it's nice gas against Miracles. However, he also took essentially the worst manabase in Legacy and made it worse: 13 "blue" sources, 3 Groves, 3 Wasteland. Inconveniently, in matches against the aforementioned decks where you would want to use Punishing Fire as a control element, you will likely be running into Wastelands, Ports, and even Mangara shenanigans.

Opinions?

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

Opinions?

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3-4 Grim Lavamancer (either main or in SB) and possibly some number of Thought Scour for fuel will help you generate long-term card advantage against tribal decks. I would go with this configuration before considering trying to fit Punishing Fire into RUG.

Regarding the black 'splash': I am NOT suggesting the deck become a true 4-color mashup. I am merely considering the possibility of having one or two Underground Seas to help support a few sideboard options to bring in against some troublesome matchups (especially since said matchups don't typically run Wasteland). Abrupt Decay and Thoughtseize could give the deck a bit more resiliency against various control and combo strategies. Thoughtseize in particular may help against the recent spat of combo decks that have figured out ways of beating RUG's taxing counters (e.g. Sol Lands, Overmaster, Flusterstorms of their own, etc.)

Here's a hypothetical list:

19 Lands (3 Tropical, 3 Volcanic, 8 Fetch, 4 Wasteland, 1 Underground)
4 Delver
4 Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
4 FoW
4 Daze
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 L. Bolt
2 F. Bolt
1 Fire//Ice
3 Spell Pierce
3 Thought Scour

SB:
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Thoughtseize
3 Grim Lavamancer
6 Open Slots

I am not suggesting that this is 'the next evolution of RUG' or anything like that, but if you are finding yourself losing to the same strategies over and over that the black splash might help remedy, it's something worth testing. The main deck I posted helps support the Grim Lavamancer plan, although without Stifle it might not be the best against other strategies. Adjust as needed (e.g. cut Thought Scour and 1 of the fetchlands for 4 Stifle, or consider making adjustments to fit in some Spells Snares, a Dismember, Sylvan Library, etc.)

I do think that to beat Goblins and some of the other tribal decks, RUG needs a method of generating card advantage. This can be achieved either through Lavaman or sweepers like Rough//Tumble. The 'trading one-for-one' approach of RUG tends to break down against most tribal decks.

I think that a combination of forked bolts, lightning bolts, and rough tumbles should be plenty to take on those decks in addition to crushing elves. Just add rough tumbles and/or go to three forked bolts if your meta has a ton of tribal.

Not only is punishing fire mana intensive it also puts a bigger target on our graveyard which is something that already gets attacked semi regularly.

Edit: On lavamancer I've tried him a few times and every single time I was disappointed in him. If you run him you have to run thought scour and even then he will shrink mongooses and goyfs to the size that they can't do anything in the game anymore and your completely reliant on lavamancer.

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Originally Posted by wcm8

Regarding the black 'splash': I am NOT suggesting the deck become a true 4-color mashup. I am merely considering the possibility of having one or two Underground Seas to help support a few sideboard options to bring in against some troublesome matchups (especially since said matchups don't typically run Wasteland). Abrupt Decay and Thoughtseize could give the deck a bit more resiliency against various control and combo strategies. Thoughtseize in particular may help against the recent spat of combo decks that have figured out ways of beating RUG's taxing counters (e.g. Sol Lands, Overmaster, Flusterstorms of their own, etc.)

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I don't think that the black splash is worthwhile because it hamstrings your mana. What happens if you open a hand with REB, Thoughtseize, Goose, and a single fetch against Miracles? Hitting all three colors can be challenging enough as it is.

Miracles is a deck that is designed to beat decks like RUG that have curve that is almost entirely one. You can do some sideboarding to improve the MU but at the end of the day you just hope that you don't see the deck too much. Or you can go Todd Anderson's route and run ~9 cards in your SB to beat the deck. However, I don't think it is worth giving up the edge in other MU's just to beat one deck. I think the real trick is trying to find the just the number of sideboard slots to dedicate so that you can maybe push Miracles to a coin-flip and not lose too much ground in other MUs.

As for splashing black to beat Show and Tell variants that doesn't seem necessary to me. We can just run more Flusterstorms/REB/Envelop if they are prevalent in the meta. The problem with those decks is that they lose to themselves enough that you can just beat them on consistency. Sometimes they will get the Show and Tell into Griselbrand/Emmy with triple counter back-up, but they can also drop Omniscience and blank on gas for three turns while you kill them with a Goyf. I just don't think that splashing a 4th color gives the deck significantly better sideboard options especially given the damage it will do to an already fragile manabase.

I want BUG to be good, I really do, but over in the BUG control thread you already summarized why it isn't a very great color combination at the moment (RUG is better for tempo, Mav is better mid-range, UW is better pure control). One of the strongest reasons to go B/G, Pernicious Deed, means that you can't effectively run Countertop or good beaters because you always risk blowing up your own stuff to clear the board. That leaves you winning with Jace/man-lands every game which gives your opponents a ton of time to draw out of whatever hole you put them in. Unless the deck gets some sort of new threat to push it over the top I just don't see it dominating. Entreat is what really brought Countertop back, Terminus is good but without an efficient win-con it is still going to time far too often to make it in a long tournament. As for BUG tempo, which would you rather have if you are trying to close out the game quickly: Lightning Bolt or Thoughtseize? Grixis Delver is almost a deck but it is missing the creatures necessary to make it really good.

Splashing a 4th color is just too greedy. You're not casting 6 SB cards off of 1 Underground Sea unless your opponent literally runs no Land Destruction. Most U/W Pilots will still have a Wasteland or 2. Even if they don't, you're still trying to get 3 duals into play to cast everything, which is a challange. Not to mention, fighting Counterbalance (with Abrupt Decay) is only half the battle. You still need to get through Terminus, stop Jace and Batterskull, and avoid Angel Tokens. I don't adding a few black spells is going to change much. I do however, think that BUG is still a fine Shard for Tempo, as well as Grixis, but those are metagame calls.

@ Borealist

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I think Sulfuric Vortex is still the bees' knees in that match.

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I think you've spent too much time in the Junk thread and my says have started to rub off on you :P

-Matt

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Originally Posted by Borealis

Splashing a 4th color is just too greedy. You're not casting 6 SB cards off of 1 Underground Sea unless your opponent literally runs no Land Destruction.

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Exactly. The top-tier combo decks and overwhelming majority of UWx Control decks run literally 0 Wastelands. That's what these sideboard cards would be brought in for. You're not trying to mise them against the mirror or Maverick or anything like that.

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Even if they don't, you're still trying to get 3 duals into play to cast everything, which is a challange.

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Is it? UWx matchups are typically going to go long, giving you plenty of time to fetch the appropriate colors. You would probably prioritize getting a Tropical first to deploy your creatures, and then go for Volcanic or Underground next based on which disruption you draw into. However, a turn 1 Thoughtseize with Daze can be game breaking. Aside from Red Elemental/Pyroblast, there is really no need to get a red source early on against UWx Control.

Thoughtseize remains relevant longer into the game, past the point where the opponent can pay for Daze and Spell Pierce, allowing you to nab their sand-bagged StP before laying down another threat, or getting rid of the Omniscience/Griselbrand in hand while they try to dig for Show and Tell or vice-versa.

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Not to mention, fighting Counterbalance (with Abrupt Decay) is only half the battle. You still need to get through Terminus, stop Jace and Batterskull, and avoid Angel Tokens. I don't adding a few black spells is going to change much.

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You are right. Krosan Grip is probably just fine, but the thing Decay does is let you fight through an established Ctop lock and can also be used against other annoying cards (e.g. Ensnaring Bridge, Meekstone, etc.) If UWx Control is the main concern, I think Sulfuric Vortex is really the card you want to be siding in.

This is purely a metagame consideration, and not something I would consider doing unless you think you're going to face off against a fair amount of Miracles/Show and Tell. However, you need to remember that those decks are already adjusting their 75 to beat RUG, and if RUG wants to remain competitive against them it needs to do the same. Splashing for black is just one idea/method, I'm sure there are plenty of other ways within color.

OK, a couple responses. First of all, I don't think we need help against most combo decks. If you want to beat combo, just add in more REBs and Flusterstorms, end of story. Discard is another angle of attack, but it's not necessary.

As for U/W, which is the reason I think we even got into the Black splash discussion (Abrupt Decay), I wouldn't assume that they don't run Wastelands. Sure, some of them won't, but saying "the overwhelming majority" don't have Wasteland is asking for trouble.

Now, say U/W doesn't run Wastelands, and your 1 Underground is relatively safe. You're still looking at the possibility of drawing multiple black spells in your opener and not being able to cast them. Or only hitting 1 fetch and 1 waste early on. Do you just fetch Underground for the turn 1 Thoughtseize and then hope to catch a 2nd colored source in time for your other spells, or do you fetch Trop and have a dead discard spell in hand? Are you still trying to cast Vortex? Do you cut all your burn for the black spells? And what cards are you sacrificing in your board to accommodate the Decays and Discard?

Against decks that you don't need black for, Underground becomes a nonbasic Island.

I don't really think Discard is any better than the tools we already have. Sure, it's great turn 1, but late game against control they have plenty of library manipulation to not care about Thoughtseize. As for the Countertop lock, you are better off never letting them resolve it than having to fight it once it's in play. Unless you are holding Abrupt Decay the turn after they assemble the lock, you're likely losing ground anyway. And my point was that Counterbalance isn't the only thing you need to fight in that matchup. They can still just Terminus the shit out of you until you run out of gas, especially when you're cutting burn for discard.

Give it a try though, maybe you'll get some decent results. But you never know who is packing wastelands, and the last thing you want in Legacy is to get caught with your pants down. The whole reason I'm considering trying out BUG Delver is for the strengths you listed, but I can't see myself wanting to cast 6 off-color spells off of 1 extra dual in a 19-land deck. RUG is too consistent for that kind of mess in my opinion. And I do think Sulfuric Vortex is perfectly fine against control anyway. I'd rather just run more of those.

I think if you really want/need to beat counterbalance or combo, BUG is the way to go, probably at the expense of some of the tribal decks, and I suspect that RUG beats BUG, since it is able to out tempo the BUG decks and send excess removal to the face for value.

I think BUG will start to see some more play in the metagame with the rise of miracles, but I think it will be pretty meta dependant. That would be an interesting match to test.

RUG is probably the better overall deck, but BUG could be a metagame scalpel

Todd Anderson did a write up on his SCG Invitational win. His conclusions:

- Sylvan Library is really good and gives you the edge against control.
- Envelop was good but narrow.
- Krosan Grip sucked and he got to the point where he didn't side it in even against the decks it was there for.
- Sulfuric Vortex interacts poorly with Sylvan Library and you are typically siding out burn in the MUs where you want to bring it in.

His experience with Sulfuric Vortex mirrors my own. Sometimes it can win the game and others it just kills you. I always get the feeling that if one or two things go wrong once I have Vortex out, I lose. Granted, I might not be beating that Lingering Souls/Batterskull anyway, but the Vortex really puts the nail in the coffin. It is a clock, but given how few match-ups you actually want it in, I don't know if it is worth the SB space.

What are people's experiences with the singleton maindeck Library? I know some folks were cutting a Goyf for it which is good against control (Goyf just eats a Swords) but is not as great against a random field as a Goyf or two just trumps many random/scrubby decks. I liked Library at times but I found that I would rather just have the 4th Spell Pierce main so I moved it to the board.

I tried SL main for a few weeks, but never liked it. It's only good when the games go long, or you are willing to draw 2+ cards off it.

Otherwise it seems like a big tempo sink.

I never really liked the idea of Vortex against control. It costs 3, so we are tapping out for it. And it might not even win the game, but we are massively warping our gameplan around it.

Playing around terminus isn't difficult: just play 1 creature at a time - they are all decent clocks on their own. From there the main thing is to not lose to a batterskull or a counterbalance lock.

I think the other better options for the deck if you are fightning a lot of counterbalance would be:
- Go back to NO RUG, with a more varied curve and a few more lands- it worked against MM. With more lands and mana dorks, Krosan Grip starts to look much better.
- Go to BUG with abrupt decay and Tombstalker

Personally, I don't think the MU is terrible enough to go to the extremes of boarding in SV, but if you really want to crush counterbalance - I think those are the way to do it, vs jamming 3 drops into an 18-19 land deck.

I'll weigh in on Sylvan Library and Sulfuric Vortex here: I like them both.

I just recently added in a singleton Library in the main, and it's performed well so far. It's one of my favorite magic cards in creation, so that helps my opinion a bit (as does my friend lending me an FBB Korean one), but in general I don't think Sylvan is ever a bad card. Sure, sometimes it's really slow against certain (combo) decks, and sometimes it's just a Mirri's Guile, but is that bad? Not really. In the time that I've been playing with it, I've only Brainstormed it away once. You don't have to cast it, but usually when you do it's pretty baller. The only downside in my eyes is that it's one less spell to flip Delver. I was rockin' 30 for awhile there.

As for Vortex, actual mileage may vary. I've had times where it locked me into a solid win out of a bad position, but I've also had times where it killed me or didn't win the game in time. I've also had hands that involve Vortex + REB as my only counter against a U/W deck sporting a pair of Wastelands. That was awkward. Still, with early pressure and enough disruption, I think a timely Vortex is the best way to crush a control deck. You can play around their sweepers all day, but what if your Mongoose stays 1/1 or your Delver never flips? Sometimes you just need to pressure them constantly, and Vortex does that better than any creature we have access too.

The fact that I run only 1 Library and 1 Vortex makes me laugh at the thought of worrying about their "poor" Synergy together. Silly Todd, tricks are for Kids! Against U/W (which is the reason to run these cards), if I have both in play, I am most likely way ahead. In the rare instance that I can't pay life for cards, I'm still getting card quality for free.

I would say that being a Mirri's guile is awful for this deck.

We are a deck based on trading one card for card. The way that we often break parity is by drawing more spells by playing fewer lands. Mirri's guile doesn't replace itself, and requires several turns to make it's self worthwhile. Sylvan's redeeming feature is that you get pay 4 life to draw a card. In matches where you can't afford to pay 4-8 life its a bad draw - even though it technically does something. I really like Sylvan against slower UW decks, but it is so bad in a diverse meta. It is even pretty good against decks like Show and tell if you draw it late, and then pay 12 life over the next 2 cards

In the case of vortex:
If something has a 50/50 shot at helping or harming you, then you lose the opportunity of what you could be running in it's place.

For me at least, it would likely be cutting a submerge or a mind harness that could be used in the Mav/junk match up.

I just don't think it justifies its spot when it could be potentially uncastable, or worse yet it could kill us. All that for a MU that I don't think is that bad without it.

If the meta is going to be filled with UW control, I think Jace, NO, or a different color combination are stronger ways to crush against UW.

The thing that everyone is scared of is the countertop lock right?

Personally, when evaluating card decisions I like the think of the core deck principles: (1) Tempo, (2) Efficiency, (3) Card Quality. So, regarding the two enchantments we have in question:


Regarding Library: (1) None, (2) Sometimes, (3) Always

I do agree that it's not a tempo play, but the point is to not try to make it a priority to stick it when you don't have the tempo advantage. The efficiency of the card itself is tied in to what you can get with it. So if you take the non-tempo role (loosely speaking the control role), you are not going to see the card in its optimal context. If you take a low-to-high gear aggressor approach (the aggro control role), the card will shine. That said, in a deck with 8 cantrips and 8 1cc threats, ideally we should have a threat out when we think about playing this card.


Regarding Vortex: (1) Sometimes, (2) Sometimes, (3) None

Seems odd to include this enchantment with a score like that, but it's basically our situational finisher. As the aggressor in a almost all of our matchups, this is the last creature that comes in to finish the job. It has the ability to (still) negate all of their creature removal, and continues the job that Mongoose started doing against UW when Mongoose is compromised (for example when a Terminus gets pushed through). What would push me to cut this card is if we had another potent early threat that doesn't get completely shut off by the multiple-StP plan.

Also, I played 2 Forked Bolt, 1 Fire//Ice last weekend and it was okay against the Souls plan. I'm not saying we don't completely need Sulfur Elemental anymore, but it's needed to compensate when we lean on Vortex, I think.

Todd says the card worked for him great against blue control and combo. So to me it sound like a great sideboard card but not a maindeck card as a 1-of. Am I misinterpreting this?

I don't get how it helps against combo. Rule number 1 against combo - don't tap out. I often bring a couple goyf's out against combo for being too mana intensive, and I never want to see more than 1 against them.

My point on vortex is: Is Miracles that bad of a match up that we need to devote a narrow sideboard card against them? What are we giving up out of the sideboard to play that narrow card? And does it slam dunk the match up if we get it?

I guess if you are walking into a very known meta, I could see vortex, but it seems really weak in an unknown meta where i want my SB slots to be as flexible in multiple match ups as possible.

On Sylvan: Through Ponder, Brainstorm, Delver triggers, and fetch lands - we can already almost control most draws throughout the game. I think the filtering is very nominal when compared to giving up a card.

If we were really looking for a singleton to fill that spot to give us a bit of CA and deck manipulation, [card]predict[/card] seems like it would be better in many scenarios. We often know our top card and you do not need to tap out. I still don't think I would run predict either, but I just want to point out how mediocre I think the library is for us.

I grindy decks like Maverick, its an all star. But I think in a tempo deck its a loser.