[DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)

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Originally Posted by KobeBryan

The sneak attack matchup is a hard one. You don't counter the pantries. You need to counter their business spells. Hopefully you run extirpate and take their show and tell.

esper and this match up is the hardest. Even harder than elves

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Don't think these are blow out match ups. I think Esper and Sneak are both 50-50 to be honest. I've had plenty of times of beating both decks pre and post board. The Sneak and Show player today just had the absolute nuts game one since he got turn 1 griselbrand and I didn't have force of will to stop him (he knew that too since he played probe before show and telling). G2 I may have misplayed in spell piercing his ponder. I can understand saving counters for business spells though it probably just depends on how they play their turns (like if they are looking for land it's probably good to counter a cantrip). I still think Elves is worse than both of these matchups since our removal suite preboard is usually not adequate enough to control the board in that matchup.

I think there is no "correct" way to use pierce/daze/force against SnT.
It depends on their hand, your hand, their lands your lands your clock how did they play earlier etc.


Having 2 pierces when they go off does nothing if you've let them cantrip into sol lands at their leisure.
This should be obvious, really.
Pay close attention to the order they play their cantrips (this lets you sometimes make educated guesses as to how many they may have left.)
How aggressively they top/bottom with them. If they bottom aggressively they need something specific / run horribly.
Does their cantripping change dramatically after hymn hits something specific? They probably don't have a spare.
What is your clock and disruption output on their expected comboturn?
Not much use to bag more counters than you can play. (Bayous suck sometimes, but maybe you needed to hymn early and get green mana)
Also, thoughtseizes are nice here :)

Sometimes they did for protection, sometimes they dig for land, sometimes they did for business.

There's no real way to play the matchup as you think fits your play style/amount of pressure you can put on him.

SnT is the primary reason I dropped Thoughtseize in the board for Envelop. (Secondary reason was for Blue Control). It's not fun having 6 cards in your deck that they can pre-empt by siding in a Leyline of Sanctity. I've even considered splashing Red for some REBs, but I think Envelop fulfills a similar function without having to dip into the fourth color.

It's what I consider to be the most challenging combo deck to play against: a solid manabase, cantrips for consistency, counterspells of their own, and a strategy that is often hard to disrupt with discard (unlike Storm for example), and a solid sideboard plan (Blood Moon, Leyline, etc.). The same could be said of Elves, except that Elves gets hit pretty hard by Golgari Charm.

Testing this matchup against a good pilot is the best thing you can do. Even still, I wouldn't expect to get your win percentage that much farther above 50% -- this deck is tier for a reason.

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Originally Posted by wcm8

SnT is the primary reason I dropped Thoughtseize in the board for Envelop. (Secondary reason was for Blue Control). It's not fun having 6 cards in your deck that they can pre-empt by siding in a Leyline of Sanctity. I've even considered splashing Red for some REBs, but I think Envelop fulfills a similar function without having to dip into the fourth color.

It's what I consider to be the most challenging combo deck to play against: a solid manabase, cantrips for consistency, counterspells of their own, and a strategy that is often hard to disrupt with discard (unlike Storm for example), and a solid sideboard plan (Blood Moon, Leyline, etc.). The same could be said of Elves, except that Elves gets hit pretty hard by Golgari Charm.

Testing this matchup against a good pilot is the best thing you can do. Even still, I wouldn't expect to get your win percentage that much farther above 50% -- this deck is tier for a reason.

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Yeah, I don't like having more discard postboard against a deck that usually has Leyline of Sanctity to answer our Hymns. How many Envelops did you add to your board? 1 or 2?

I'm going to prioritize testing this matchup in addition to Elves going forward. Problem is I don't have anyone to test against either deck with. I may just end up playing the decks myself on Cockatrice or something until I can find someone to fill that void. I think all other things equal though the matchup is 50-50 and I probably would have to dedicate more sb space than I'm comfortable with to take it beyond that. Will just have to lean on playskill and not getting too unlucky.

This list finished 6th out of 342 at SCG Colombus:

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=62695

It plays only 18 lands, and replaces the 2 Tombstalker / 4 Hymn with 4 Confidant / 4 Stifle. It also plays 3 Ponder / 3 Spell Pierce instead of 4 Ponder / 2 flex slots.

It's funny to see a Stifle version of Team America top-8-ing a few days after this discussion about Stifle: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post781811 :p

I went 7-0 then double draw into the top 8 in Columbus. I won't try to argue that stifle is better than hymn because its a personal preference. I will tell you that stifle single handedly won me probably 4 matches and bob won me many games. If you guys want a report I will do my best. I was extremely sick for the tournament. I lost to sneak and show in the top 8. My opponent had pretty much the nut draws against me.

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Originally Posted by CroSS.24

I went 7-0 then double draw into the top 8 in Columbus. I won't try to argue that stifle is better than hymn because its a personal preference. I will tell you that stifle single handedly won me probably 4 matches and bob won me many games. If you guys want a report I will do my best. I was extremely sick for the tournament. I lost to sneak and show in the top 8. My opponent had pretty much the nut draws against me.

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A report would be nice to illustrate your preference for Stifle if you can make it detailed enough. I'd be interested in reading whatever you can muster up though.

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Originally Posted by Dragonslayer_90

A report would be nice to illustrate your preference for Stifle if you can make it detailed enough. I'd be interested in reading whatever you can muster up though.

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Seconded. Interesting list.

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Originally Posted by CroSS.24

I went 7-0 then double draw into the top 8 in Columbus. I won't try to argue that stifle is better than hymn because its a personal preference. I will tell you that stifle single handedly won me probably 4 matches and bob won me many games. If you guys want a report I will do my best. I was extremely sick for the tournament. I lost to sneak and show in the top 8. My opponent had pretty much the nut draws against me.

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Congrats!
You were a RUG player aren't you :wink: ?
I would be pretty happy to see a report!

- L

No discard anywhere in the list. It's interesting. I like the list. I may give it a spin when I get time.

Hey guys,

I was just wondering... how are we dealing with Jace? I've lost several games against control when they resolve it... we don't have anything against it.

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Originally Posted by MoonDark

Hey guys,

I was just wondering... how are we dealing with Jace? I've lost several games against control when they resolve it... we don't have anything against it.

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Maelstrom Pulse SB is what I tend to go for if disruption and counters are not enough.

Pithing Needle is also good against Jace. Many of the Jace decks have little to no answers to a resolved pithing needle. Jace is th reason I have had pithing needle in many of my sb's for this deck.

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Originally Posted by Dragonslayer_90

Pithing Needle is also good against Jace. Many of the Jace decks have little to no answers to a resolved pithing needle. Jace is th reason I have had pithing needle in many of my sb's for this deck.

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That makes a lot of sense... the problem with hand-disruption is that Jace decks often pack brainstorm and that doesn't help us very much when resolving hymn.

Will include a Needle in the SB, can totally define a game.

Needle is also very good against Sensei's Diving Top. Against UW Miracles, I would name SDT over Jace.

EDIT: V. Clique is also a pseudo answer to Jace.

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Originally Posted by Water_Wizard

Needle is also very good against Sensei's Diving Top. Against UW Miracles, I would name SDT over Jace.

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Definitely...who would name jace unless you are about to win the game and the only thing stopping you is a jace bounce.

1-8 Shai Shaham [Esper Stoneblade] got $42.50 Store Credit
1-8 Daniel Rassiner [4 Color Loam] got $42.50 Store Credit
1-8 William Kang [Death and Taxes] got $42.50 Store Credit
1-8 Charles Scourbys [UW Delver Blade] got $42.50 Store Credit
1-8 Joseph Moreno [Dredge] got $42.50 Store Credit
1-8 Caleb Neufeld [TES] got $42.50 Store Credit
1-8 Thomas Kainz [ANT] got $42.50 Store Credit
1-8 Matt Sarradet [UR Delver Pyromancer] got $42.50 Store Credit

The Rest:
9th Sneak and Show
10th Miracles
11th Shardless BUG
12th Merfolk
13th Sneak and Show
14th Elves!
15th Red Painter
16th Dredge
17th Maverick
18th Delver Blade
19th Team America
20th UB Landstill
21st Madness UG
22nd Elves!
23rd BG Junk
24th Punishing Jund
25th Pox
26th Delver Blade
27th Punishing Jund
28th Punishing Jund
29th Bant Aggro
30th Reanimator
31st Punishing Jund
32nd UBR Delver Pyromancer
33rd Miracle Blade
34th Esper Blade


check out my meta. It looks like I'll be playing thoughtseize over hymn and take out graf to add another surgical.

Lol@ UG Madness

Intuition + Vengevine would be so sweet if there were no DRS...

I'd play 2-3 GY hate spells SB in that meta.

I fully support the removal of your Graffdiggers and defy the inclusion of more grave hate as akatsuki has suggested. ;p

- Local boogeyman