[Deck] Next Level Threshold

There are two topics within the RUG delver thread that I think at least warrant some discussion in this one.

1) Counterbalance Top out of the Board
2) Cutting stifle in favor of spell pierce

In regard to #1:
I actually think the idea of counter balance out of the board is one that we could easily support and might actually be worth while given the increase in monoR burn.

Even though it is a reasonable option against burn and storm, I am not sure how much it will actually sure up any of the other match ups. I can see it coming in for the UW matchup as well... but aside from that doesn't seem outstanding, but it is only 5 sideboard slots

I know a lot of lists have already been playing one Sylvan library main. It doesn't seem too far fetched to add 2 tops and 3 CB to the board.

In regard to #2:
I feel like a lot of the discussion in the RUG delver thread is about how most good players will be playing around stifle regardless of its presence in the deck and that a card like spell pierce might just be more effective given the rise of burn. However, I feel that since our game plan does revolve around playing 3 and 4 mana spells we may still need stifle to counteract the effects of wasteland. In fact I find myself saving stifle for that exact reason more and more often.

Anyway, just thought I would bring these questions up for discussion in NLT

About counterbalance, although I havent tested it yet,I know for sure it is not necessary to give up sideboard slots for that. The only matches where I would bring those in eg. Burn and UR burn except for RUG tempo I can handle pretty well without them. Also it seems pretty horrible vs UW as u dont want to tap out there the first few turns.. Im still undefeated against UWx stoneblade so I wont bother about that.

As for stifle vs pierce, I would never ever swap them. Not only does stifle give you the occasional free wins, but more importantly as u mentioned it protects you vs opposing wastes. I think this is quite huge. I can agree that some good players will play around it,but in doing so u alrdy have the same effect(more time) which is good as this is a CONTROL deck and u dont need to tap out alot first turns anyway. I board them out alot G2 vs certain decks but this shouldnt be a reason for cutting them from the MD.
Spell Pierce is certainly good ,thats why I play 2 in the sideboard.

agree with rancor, as cbalance top is not really what the deck wants to be doing. Stifle is a real skill tester in my opinion, as some players bust it on any target they see while others know when it is the most devastating and brainstorm it away when land death won't affect the opponent at all

Double top 8 Weekend: 5th and 4th in Vestal

My February NELC saw me bringing RUG control again to the tournament. I wasn’t sure if the deck would be on everyone’s radar since I came in 2nd last month with it, but there wasn’t much I would change anyways. Here’s the list that I brought:

4 Tarmogoyf
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 force of will
4 Brainstorm
3 Preordain
4 Stifle
2 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Fire/Ice
1 Dismember
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
4 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Mountain
Sideboard:
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Mind Harness
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Nature’s Claim
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Pyroblast
2 Spell Pierce
1 Red elemental blast
1 engineered explosives

The spots in my sideboard that were in flux were the Jace, the clique, the explosives, and the image. I made sure to keep track of how those slots did. The nature’s claim was a hedge against choke. On to the matches!

Round 1 Enchantress

Game 1
He has turn 1 mirri’s guile, but it finds him little action. I counter a couple of his enchantress effects and clique + goyf finish him off.

Sideboard: +1 Vendilion Clique +1 Jace TMS +2 spell pierce +1 Nature’s Claim +2 Relic of Progenitus +1 Engineered explosives
-4 Lightning Bolt -1 Dismember -1 Fire//Ice -2 Grim lavamancer

Game 2
I fight with a couple counterspells, trade an engineered explosives and a goyf for an enchantress, but he eventually lands an enchantress and runs away with it

Game 3
I see a couple of weird sideboard choices in his list, like orim’s chant. He casts a couple of those to protect some irrelevant spells (runed halo) while I let those resolve and counter his enchantress effects. Jace resolves, brainstorms, and I run him over with clique + more counterspells.

Round 2 UWg stoneforge control (green for sylvan library only)

Game 1
I was paired against a really nice guy Sam from NYC. My opening hand on the draw was 2 goyf, stifle, force, cantrip, land, land. He plays fetch, go. I play fetch, go. He plays wasteland, goes to fetch, but I stifle. He forces, I force back. I play two goyfs and beat him down. He dies.

Sideboarding: -4 Force of Will -4 Stifle -1 Dismember +2 Pyroblast +1 REB +1 Clique +1 Jace, TMS, +2 spell pierce, +1 nature’s claim, +1 ancient grudge

Game 2
We play draw go for awhile, and trade some irrelevant spells. Eventually I clique him, and I ship an Elspeth. He kills clique in response to the trigger. I cantrip into another clique and I see a wrath in his hand + some swords to plowshares. He draws a Jace which I REB then I play my own Jace while he’s holding wrath + swords. Jace crushes him under waves of brainstorms. He tells me afterward that sideboarding in wraths was a bad idea, which I agree with. I told him I boarded stifles out.

Round 3 Enchantress.

Game 1
Through shuffling he reveals a sterling grove accidentally. I ship a hand that loses to enchantress and keep on 6. I counter a couple enchantress effects, but he has GSZ which increases his threat density and he crushes me.

Sideboarding: -4 Bolt -1 Dismember -1 Fire//ice -2 Grim lavamancer +1 Nature’s claim +1 clique +1 Jace, TMS +2 spell pierce +1 engineered explosives +2 Relic of Progenitus

Game 2
This game is really close. It involves a clique and multiple counterspells, and eventually he lands an enchantress but I have stifle into snapcaster+ stifle on his draw triggers and he eventually dies to beats.

Game 3
Again, a really close game. I counter something like 3 enchantress effects, clique a 4th one away, and he draws a 5th off the clique trigger. I then proceeded to get curb stomped by massive amounts of card advantage.

Round 4 Aggro Loam

Game 1
This match is against the winner of last month’s NELC, David, who beat me in the finals. Great guy, always enjoyable to play against. He starts out mulliganing to 5 while I mull to 6. He has lots of loam into cycle lands action, and is able to beat me to death with some creatures + seismic assault. This matchup is tough.

Sideboarding: -4 Stifle -2 Force +2 Relic +2 mind harness +1 Clique +2 Spell pierce

Game 2
I clique him early and he’s light on action. I trade some spells with him while beating down and eventually bolt him out.

Game 3
This was a great game! We trade some spells and I spell pierce a seismic assault. I have clique beating down, and he plays countryside crusher. I preordain and I see mind harness, counterspell. I keep beating, wait till he grows his crusher to 7, then mind harnessed and killed him the next turn with it. Mind harness rooooooools!!!

Round 5 Aggro Loam

Game 1
I actually got paired against Bryant cook, and we both didn’t want to play each other, and then we got repaired. Whew. Unfortunately, the matchup I got was probably worse. This guy was playing countryside crusher, life from the loam, tarmogoyfs, seismic assault, knight of the reliquary, and punishing fire combo. Game 1 he plays goyf into an empty board and I’m lucky enough to be able to bolt his goyf to death. Unfortunately, he has a kotr and a crusher to follow up, and I can’t deal with both.

Sideboarding: -4 Stifle -2 Force of will, +2 relic, +2 mind harness, +1 Clique, +1 Jace, TMS

Game 2
I keep him off some big guys, and ride a clique to victory. Man, clique + some counterspells and removal really gets there for me. Flying fairy man is awesome.

Game 3
This one reminded me a lot of the last matchup. I clique him and we trade some spells, he lands a crusher while I’m holding mind harness, and at the last possible turn I mind harness his crusher with force backup. The look on his face when I played mind harness was priceless! He said something along the lines of, “well, I didn’t expect that card”. An attack step and a bolt later, he died. These are some tough matchups! I lose so many game 1’s !!

Round 6 T.E.S

Game 1
I get paired against Bryant cook, for reals this time. Game 1 he has a pretty good hand and tendrils the crap outta me.

Sideboarding: -4 Bolt -1 Dismember -2 Grim Lavamancer +2 Pyroblast +1 REB +2 Spell pierce +1 Clique +1 Jace

Game 2
He plays draw go for awhile, I play a goyf when I have enough mana to do it and hold up counterspells. I attack a couple of times, and he’s forced to go for it. He can’t generate enough storm, and tendrils me to 1 exactly!!!! I have two huge goyfs by then and they make short work of him in 2 turns.

Game 3
I have an early goyf, and disrupt him with wastelands. He’s land light and in the end, he knowingly walks a fetch into a stifle and he doesn’t have the resources to go off. Whew, what a match!

Round 7 I am 3rd or 4th in the swiss, so I ID into top 8! My second top 8 in vestal, two months in a row! Yay! I’ve gained some respect from big name players down there, who say I’m Eric English’s protégé. Not a bad way to be known!

Round 1 of Top 8

I get paired in a feature match against Doug Mckay. His deck is white weenie, with 4 maindeck relic of progenitus, blade splicer, stoneforge, squadron hawks, lots of equipment, mother of runes, and mirran crusader.

Game 1
He has some good action while I have a weak hand with force of will. I’m forced to burn it on an Elspeth, and he has good cards to follow up while I run out of gas.

Sideboarding: -3 force of will +1 Engineered explosives +1 Ancient Grudge +1 nature’s claim

Game 2
He has an early relic while my draw involves a grim and a snapcaster. Relic makes things really awkward for me and I spend several cards trading for his multiple hawks, since I didn’t have stifle or snare for it on the stack. Yuck. Eventually he draws some gas and I die. I end up 5th, and I take some cash and scramble to red lobster for delicious food.

My memory might be off on some of these matchups, it was a lot of magic that weekend! Forgive me if some of the fine details are lost…. Anyway, I get word from Greg Komar that there is a legacy GPT the next day, and that first place is a mox emerald. Woopie! I woke up in the morning the next day and made a snap decision to ride my “run good” wave for as long as possible.

GPT Indianapolis (24 people)
I brought the same list, except I cut the engineered explosives for a null rod, which could be wrong, I was just trying out different cards.

Round 1 against Sam UWg
This was the same Sam I played yesterday! Super nice guy, so I was happy to be paired against him.

Game 1
I have a goyf heavy draw, which doesn’t pare well with his triple spell snare, double snapcaster draw, and I die to snapcaster beats.

SB: +2 pyroblast, 2 spell pierce, 1 ancient grudge, 1 nature’s claim, 1 v clique, 1 JTMS -4 FOW 4 goyf 1 dismember
I switch it up this time, taking out goyfs instead of stifle, because tapping out early for goyf is a liability and you only want goyfs after trading a bunch of spells.

Game 2
The day before I told him after the match that I took stifles out, so he’s surprised by my early stifle/waste action and it takes him off of colored sources. Clique gets his beats in, and I counterspell a swords on my clique. A few attack steps later, he’s dead.

Game 3
Between these two games, I put my four goyfs in my deck, look through, and take them back out again to keep him guessing in case he’s paying attention. This game is long and grindy, while we trade a bunch of spells I concentrate on controlling the important spells, which I see to be clique and snapcaster. I am able to squeak out card advantage and eventually push through a Jace, which he can’t answer.

Round 2 against James Rynkiewicz (sorry about the name butchering) on UBW bitterblossom blade

Game 1
He has turn 1 inquisition into turn 2 bitterblossom. He removes my creatures through edicts and spell snares, and I die to faerie tokens holding a jitte.

SB: -4 FOW -2 JTMS -1 Dismember +1 ancient grudge, 1 nature’s claim, 2 spell pierce, 2 pyroblast, 1 REB

Game 2
He again has turn 1 discard turn 2 bitterblossom. The game evolves to a point where he has three lands, bitterblossom, and a couple of tokens, while I have volcanic, fetch, wasteland up. I have spell pierce, spell snare, bolt, bolt. He’s on 12 life and he casts thoughtseize. I’m at a decently healthy life total even though I have no blockers for his tokens. I would be in trouble if he has jitte, but I am in a good position if he doesn’t. I’m not sure what he would take out of my hand, probably a bolt if he doesn’t have jitte. I decide to get risky and go to bolt him twice. He unfortunately goes, land, jitte. I draw for my turn and it’s not a bolt, stifle, fire//ice, or a grudge. Yikes. My play might have been wrong, I could’ve held up countermagic in case he had jitte, so my play was probably a bit greedy. Sigh. I guess it was a punt.

Round 3 against Paul Lake on the same UWB list

Game 1
He has turn 3 bitterblossom, and I pressure him with a goyf. He eventually gets to a low life total, and a couple of bolts finish him off.

SB: -4 FOW -2 JTMS -1 Dismember +1 ancient grudge, 1 nature’s claim, 2 spell pierce,
2 pyroblast, 1 REB

Game 2
I have an early grim + goyf battling his bitterblossom, and he’s on the back foot. He has to use snapcaster defensively a couple of times, and the race is turning out favorably for me. He brainstorms once, snapcaster brainstorms again, and then plays Jace just to brainstorm, and keeps missing on white sources. I swing into his Jace to kill it and go back to working his life total. After I spell snare a couple snapcasters, he finally draws into a white source. I counterspell his swords, and he dies holding a hand of 2 swords, 2 stoneforge mystics.

Round 4 feature match against UWR blade

Game 1
He goes for turn 2 Stoneforge mystic, I snare, he forces, I force back. He proceeds to draw more snapcasters then I do, and I succumb to his mages and a geist.

SB: +2 pyroblast, 1 REB, 2 spell pierce, 1 ancient grudge, 1 phantasmal image, 1 nature’s claim, 1 clique, 1 JTMS -4 FOW -1 dismember -4 Goyf

Game 2
He has turn 2 mystic, I snare, he casts force of will. I pyroblast. YUM! He should definitely board out force of wills in this matchup. From there on in he’s low on cards and I get my mage beats on.

Game 3
We trade a bunch of cards, my hand is stacked, he lands a geist, but I rip phantasmal image for it. I eventually land a Jace and brainstorm the game away while he runs out of cards.

Round 5 ID
Second top 8 secured! Although it was just a 24 man tournament. 5-8th actually gets NOTHING for this tournament so there’s pressure to win round 1 of the top 8.

Round 1 of top 8 vs. Kevin Jones on UWR delver

Game 1
He’s on the play with turn 1 delver. I play around daze and bolt on 2 lands. He gets slightly greedy and forces. He’s stuck on island mishra’s factory while beating down with a flipped delver, and I cantrip into another bolt. From there on in I waste him to 1 land, and he never sees another land until I have a million goyfs beating him to death.

SB: +2 pyroblast 1 REB 2 spell pierce 1 phantasmal image 1 clique 1 Jace -4 FOW -4 stifle

Game 2
He again has turn 1 delver on the play and spell pierces my turn 2 bolt. He’s stuck on volcanic island and island while beating down with his delver. I hit land drops, take some damage, and then fire his delver on his upkeep. I waste him down to one land, then I REB a brainstorm, and he can’t recover while he dies to goyfs.

Round 2 of top 8 Feature match against Dan Rae on W/G maverick
Although he’s not playing stoneforge mystics, this matchup is horrible.

Game 1
We trade some early spells, and he lands an unanswered fauna shaman while I play a grim in response. He passes one turn without an activation. I go to fetch, and he pitches KOTR to flash in mindscensor at the end of his turn. I brainstorm in response, and I have to force of will to hit my fetchland activation. He kills grim, I kill his shaman, and we race my clique vs. his thalia. He plays mother of runes, and I dismember thalia. On his last possible turn, he plays scavenging ooze. The board his: him: ooze, mom, hierarch, heath, savannah, tundra, some tapped lands at 4 life. Me: lands, clique. My hand is stifle. I draw for the turn, it’s a fire//ice. I survey the board, and attack him to 1, and point fire at his face. He goes, activate ooze to gain one life, then activate again to gain one life. I stifle the second one!!!!!! Ok, fine, I’m a lucksack.

SB: +2 mind harness +2 relic of progenitus +1 nature’s claim +1 clique +1 JTMS +2 spell pierce -4 Stifle -1 FOW -4 Goyf

Game 2
He plays choke when I tap out to answer his KOTR. Then he plays garruk relentless. I die.

Game 3
He has a geist, I go to clique his combat step to block, and he mazes his geist so that his angel still hits me. I waste his maze, then while at 4 life I’m forced to trade clique with geist, then nature’s claim my own relic to stay alive. Then he plays KOTR and I concede.

A good tournament, I end up with 75$ in credit. I trade in a bunch of cards, and buy all the cards needed to build T.E.S, a deck I wanted to learn for fun. The maindeck is very tight, and I wouldn’t change anything there right now. My sideboard is still evolving, and after the tournament I trimmed some things. Right now it’s:
2 Pyroblast 2 REB 2 spell pierce 1 Clique 2 Mind harness 2 relic of progenitus 1 Ancient Grudge 1 Nature’s claim 2 Engineered explosives
This deck is very difficult to play, as there are lots of decisions and a lot of your cards vary greatly in how good they are in each matchup. That said, it’s powerful and flexible, and a great choice for any brainstorm lover!
That’s my tournament report! Thanks for reading everyone and keep playing tight!

Nice report(s).

You side out goyfs against maverick? No sb submerges, did you expect not to face any kotrs?

yeah, i'm not sure if it's right or not. Between kotrs and mother of runes and ooze, they have a lot of ways to blank your goyfs. In my matches against maverick, it seems as if goyfs always just get stalled on the ground. I wanted to play a more attritionish game with them and try to win with either clique beats or jace, or try and steal a kotr. I'm not sure if it's right or not.

I had a dismal experience at Cinci over the weekend with a very similar list (59/60 maindeck, some changes in the sideboard). I wasn't feeling well from lack of sleep already and decided to drop at 1-2, with losses against RUG Delver (Justin Uppal who Top 4'ed, who played very well) and against GWu Maverick. When your opponents know to play around Submerge, the card gets so much worse.

I'd like to take some time and discuss the merits of Mind Harness vs. Submerge here if we can. It seems like against people with more experience I'd rather have the Mind Harness blowout instead of an actual shitty Time Walk effect.

Btw, congrats on your finishes this weekend. I'm sad Eric has a new asian protege :cry:

thanks dude, it's ok we can both be his proteges. anyone going to charlotte? btw, mind harness is insane. i haven't hardcore slammed it on a kotr yet, but mostly countryside crushers

Submerge is good against bad players. Stick with Mind Harness aka do what the Europeans do.

It's ok, I can help you both, I'm an equal opportunity mentor with this deck. I can't say no if someone wants help piloting NLT.

As for the sb option of "hate on green creatures" I think mind harness is the best thing for the slot. I had some games way back at GP Austin where I played against a bant deck in the first round of an 8 man, and mind harness single handedly crushed him both games. If it was any other card I would have lost the match easily. Since the deck is set up with plenty of mana, the upkeep cost isn't as hefty as, say, it would be in RUG delver. Waiting for the right time to take a KotR or other monstrous threat is usually game ending. Otherwise, we'll have to see what the other sideboard slots should be moving forward. I too have thought a bit about EE in the deck, since I used to run it in the much older version of the deck (and hey, it's me, so how could I not run it?). More testing for that is necessary. The sb will definitely be the most important point of the deck going into the GP in a month.

Hello,
As I bought nearly the whole BUGR pool this deck fits exactly the cards I have. So I was building this deck and I really liked it so far versus various archetypes. But, how is this deck playing properly versus Maverick. As we do not have any Delvers available wed have to fight our way trough on the ground, which is, even with 2 Lavamancer mainboard quite a problem.

Any tips on that MU?
Thanks

As a starting point I copied Endures list - but I will change it for sure once my experience grows.

Greetings

Maverick is a difficult matchup for most blue decks because almost every card can become a must answer if it's not already. Gaining card advantage is the key, so using sweeper effects at the right time can really give their deck trouble. In red, you have Fire/Ice, Grim Lavamancer, (Punishing Fire), Pyroclasm, Firespout (kind of overkill for their deck), and of course you have access to Jitte and engineered explosives. Blue has Hibernation as a way to slow them down but it doesn't completely solve the problem.

Obviously some of the best cards in this matchup are Massacre, Perish, Virtue's Ruin, Pernicious Deed, Wrath of God/Damnation, but these aren't accessible to a RUG deck.

Even with all of these spells, sometimes the Maverick player can just follow up with a Choke or Thrun and crush you anyways. The deck is after all designed to beat blue decks.

Yes, the maverick matchup is difficult. I have tested it a decent amount with my playtest group, and you have to play super tight, and get slightly lucky. Right now my board is:

2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Spell Pierce
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Nature's Claim
1 Surgical Extraction
3 Mind Harness

The important cards out of their deck that you have to be aware of include:
mother of runes
scavenging ooze
stoneforge / equipment
knight of the reliquary
elspeth
choke

Going on from here I would bring in 2 ancient grudge, 1 nature's claim, 3 mind harness against them for sure. The spell pierces and the clique are debatable. As for taking things out, you definitely take out stifles, and probably 2 force of wills. The value of tarmogoyf is debatable, but for now i would leave him in. Your goal is to control the board, killing their random 1/1's with fire/ice and lavaman, have an ancient grudge for their equipment, and win through clique beats, jace, or mind harness. It is very tough, but the best you can do is play perfectly and hope to get lucky. The matchup is definitely tough, but not unwinnable.

another tournament report for you guys, shorter this time
This was a 26 man tourny in El mira, NY at mythic games. You guys know my list by now, so i'll dive right into the games.

Round 1 against RUG delver

Game 1
He has turn 1 delver on the play, Force of wills by turn 2 bolt (playing around daze). I can trip into another removal spell while taking a bunch of damage, go to fire/ice his delver, and he has another force of will. Suddenly I'm dead.

Game 2
We play a bunch of draw go, he leaves forces in, i'm able to push through goyfs, he loses.

Game 3
We play draw go, he surgicals my bolts, i bolt him in response to get it out of my hand. Then I clique him, see him holding more surgicals, and proceed to clock him to death.

Round 2 against 4 color counterbalance Natural order

Game 1
His mana base is messy, and after i waste him, he's at island with a top in play to my grim. I eventually land goyfs and he can't find more lands in time.

Game 2
I kill 2 rox war monks, beat with clique in the air, punish him with wasteland, and I get there.

Round 3 against Ryan McKinney on reanimator

Game 1
I mull to five he keeps on seven. My hand is land land stifle stifle counterspell. On turn 4 or so he fetches, looking at me. I let it resolve. No point in stifling fetches when he's got all the lands he needs. He casts animate dead. I stifle. He forces, I stifle again. The following turn, he reanimates. I counterspell. Yup, I'm a lucksack. I beat down with goyfs.

Game 2
We play draw go, I have a relic working his yard. I think I mulled to 6. He plays a tombstalker, I let it resolve and i take a hit. I clique him, see daze, and some other stuff. I let him keep. I dismember tombstalker, he dazes. I untap and slam Jace, bounce tombstalker. From there on in I brainstorm a million times and its over.

Rounds 4 and 5 ID

Top 8 Round 1

against Bant stoneblade

Game 1
Dont remember all that much, cept that he smashes me, i think with KOTR

Game 2
We trade spells, I clique him late in the game, attack with it a bunch of times, and bolt him to death.

Game 3
This one was a doozy. We trade some spells, and he lands a KOTR which i can't counter. Shit. End step brainstorm, untap, fetch, brainstorm, see a mind harness. GET OVER HERE! i say to KOTR, ala scorpion from mortal kombat. He has maze, so I sac my trop to go waste his maze, and then attack with KOTR. He's low on life, and ends up swordsing his own KOTR. We're both empty handed, he has a jitte on board with 2 counters. I rip goyf. He rips noble hierarch. I survey the board, its my goyf to his hierarch equipped with jitte with 2 counters. I'm holding spell pierce and 2 fetchlands. he has no cards in hand. goyf is a 6/7 (mind harness and JTMS in my yard). On his turn, he attacks, and I snap block. He immediately pumps twice with jitte, realizes that his hierarch still dies, tilts, and passes the turn without killing my goyf with the new jitte counters. I attack him to 1. He draws, rips GOYF!!! he plays goyf equips. I draw, and its FIRE/ICE!!!! Ice your goyf, attack for 6. Just barely enough. What a game.

round 2 of top 8 against red sneak attack / into the breach

This was against my good friend and playtest partner Henry, congrats to him on the top 8!

Game 1
He uses some rituals to go chalice on 2, my hand involves counterspells and goyfs, so i have to force. He uses another ritual to try it again, I force again. I wasted him once and play goyf. I goes for pyromancy, and i have yet another force.

Game 2
I spell pierce a chalice. I think i have goyfs and a small amount of disruption, and it gets there.

Finals against WW Doug Mckay

Doug crushed me in the top 8 at jupiter, yowza!

Game 1
He has a couple blade splicers, i remove the golem tokens, he ends up landing some equipment that gets there.

Game 2
he has an early stoneforge, i remove it and untap into Jace on an empty board. he resolves squadron hawk. I play 3 goyfs, and tempo him out with bolt, dismember, and bouncing hawks with jace (never thought I'd bounce hawks with jace)

Game 3
We trade some spells, I'm able to deal with everything he played, and then he plays elspeth. I die.

So I ended up 2nd, got some foils for this deck. Engineered Explosives underperformed, so I took it out. See my previous post for my current sideboard. Keep playing tight everyone!

Eric, Ning and I (Timur) were talking about the sideboard today, in particular swarmy G/W decks, and I thought that a second Fire//Ice would be better than Surgical Extraction. Surgical, while good for decks like Stoneblade which have limited strong Snapcaster targets and have a horrible Dredge and an okay Reanimator match up, is much worse in NLT. Dredge is realistically the only match up where you want Surgical since Pyroblast does tremendous amounts of work against Reanimator combined with the fact that your removal is much better. Otherwise, Surgical is too narrow to be useful against many other decks since your colors gives you more angles of attack.

From testing Maverick with Ning and watching him get crushed by Doug, a sweeper or some sort of clean up spell is really necessary. All of our games devolved to me equipping Dryad Arbor or Hierarch with a sword and killing him in a few turns. This indicates to me that the sweeper needs to be instant speed to get around play -> equip. It also needs to be cheap, since those decks will Waste you back when you sit on lands since they have more mana than you. Fire/Ice is much faster and more flexible than almost any other alternative, which is essentially Forked Bolt, Engineered Explosives, Firespout, Volcanic Fallout, Pyroclasm (I only listed ones that I thought would actually be relevant sweepers). A 3rd Grim is another option but my issue is that Grim eats a lot of resources, is vulnerable to spot removal and is easier to play around. Fire or Snap->Fire is harder to answer with the exception of Spell Snare. No deck where you want the second Fire//Ice will be playing Spell Snare, with the possible exception of Bant.

I thought I'd just throw my 2 cents up here in case anyone else had some thoughts.

Hi

Since I'm new, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Jørgen, and I'm 32 and from Norway. I used to play magic a long time ago, the quit during Odyssey, then started about a year ago again. I'm lucky enough to have a good job and I therefor have "all the cards" needed for almost every deck in Legacy.
I'm looking forward to posting on this forum. I love discussing, and I love Legacy.

Concerning NTL:
I got a tournament on Sunday, and I'm thinking about playing NTL (or Bant). The metagame is quite random, all depending on who shows up. It's everything from Dredge to Tempo Rug, Reanimator to Merfolk. It's hard to predict what's a good meta call or not.

I really like NTL. It has a lot of play, includes blue and has great options in the sideboard.
I have some questions though. I hope some of you have some thoughts.

This is my current list:

4 Brainstorm
2 Preordain
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Counterspell
1 Life from the Loam
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Punishing Fire
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendillion Clique
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Jace, the Mindsculptor

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland
4 Grove of the Burnwillows

Sideboard:

2 Ancient Grudge
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Krosan Grip
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Gilded Drake
2 Mind Harness
1 Firespout
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Scavenging Ooze

Obviously, Punishing Fire & Grove of the Burnwillows. Have anyone tested it out? Is it redundant? It does mess up the mana base a bit, and it is perhaps a bit slow. But combined with Life from the Loam it makes for one great late game.
It's also good (obviously) against Mother of Runes, and winning the Goyf-wars against Tempo RUG.

Stilfe vs Spell Pierce. My thought is that since I'm RUG I will get a lot of respect for playing Stifle (as in RUG Tempo). Probably goes for Daze as well. Anyone cut Stifle for Spell Pierce? Any learnings?

I've replaced one Vendillion Clique for a Thrun, the Last Troll. Feels like Hexproof is the real deal, and it feels like a nice top deck in the blue match ups. Might not be correct though.

Also, 1 Spell Snare has turned into 1 Counterspell. With 3 Punishing Fire it feels like two drops aren't that big of a problem to deal with. Three drops on the other hand. Knight of the Reliquary and Geist of St Traft have been a handfull in testing (as you probably all know).

By the way: Have anyone tested more basics main and Blood Moon in the sideboard?

Really looking forward to hearing from all of you, and especially Eric (since he seems to be the Grand Master of NTL).

Thanks!


Jørgen

Hey Jørgen, let's see if I can answer some of those questions you asked.

The punishing fires idea has been kicked around a bit, but the biggest issue, as you said yourself, is the mana constraints. One of the biggest strengths of this deck, is that unlike some other versions of blue control, you can always get your blue sources early, and protect them easily. You either can use stifle to protect yourself from opposing wastes, or you can just fetch a basic island and still easily cast a ton of your spells. Having a bunch of groves reduces the number of blue producing lands, but maybe it is worth it. I'm not really sure. It also does keep you from running a basic mountain, which has actually won me games in the past. I'd suggest estimating the number of opposing creature based decks in your meta, and basing the P fires decision on that. If you know you'll face a bunch of creatures, give it a shot.

As to spell pierce vs stifle, a lot of talk is going on in the RUG delver thread about it (Razorwynd brought it up) but I still really like stifle. Call me old fashioned or whatever, but I still like the utility that stifle brings to the table. Also, if all the RUG delver players start adapting spell pierce en masse, that actually makes stifle stronger. Players preparing for the GP will see the shift, and thus not worry so much about stifle out of delver. Thing is, this deck isn't delver, and plays way differently. Being able to make your opponent play around daze when you don't have it, and then walk into stifle cuz they think you don't have it, is a pretty sweet feeling. I will say though that stifle is much weaker in an underdeveloped metagame. If that's the case for you, run spell pierce and more copies of counterspell. Random decks might not be good targets for stifle, but they are quite likely weak to good old UU counter target spell. Especially when you snapcaster it back, then play Jace to crush them with card advantage.

Thrun is something I had in my sideboard for the longest time, but stopped running because double green was such a pain to get out. Your list runs a lot more green sources due to groves though, so it actually works really well for you. A lot of Ux control decks really have issues with Thrun, so if your mana base can easily support him, he can be very powerful.

The spell snare/counterspell count is actually smaller than I run (which is 3 and 2) but you definitely want at least some copies of each. I usually recommend at least 3 spell snare, cuz that card is the bees knees, but you can get by with 2. You definitely need counterspell for dealing with KotR in reasonable fashion, so make sure you have some number of counterspell maindeck.

Funny you ask about the blood moon plan, but I used to have a friend who played a thresh deck ages ago that ran magus of the moon sideboard. He had several basics and sometimes just crushed decks out of nowhere by playing a moon and riding it to victory. I wouldn't suggest that line in the current meta though, because both UW and maverick run plenty of fetchable basics, and delver can work off of mountains very easily. It could work for small metas that are high in non basic lands, but I wouldn't suggest it at larger tournaments.

I hoped that helped answer your questions a bit!

Hi Eric, and everyone else.

Thanks for the quick reply. Really helpful to read your thoughts. I feel enlightened.

First of all: could I ask you for an updated deck list? The version you are running at the moment? (I understand if it’s to close to the GP to make it public). Is it the one in the primer on page 1?

I’ve tested a bit against Bant and Maverick, and if Geist of St Traft, Sword of Feast and Famine or Knight of the Reliquary hit the table…it was almost game over on the spot. I’ve been thinking about Firespout. Could it replace Fire/Ice? With the Snapcaster+Lightning Bolt package it seems like we got enough spot removal to deal with Mother of Runes, Stoneforge, “Goyf Wars”, etc. But Firespout would really help against the double Delver start, Nimble Mongoose, Geist of St Traft, etc. Thoughts?

Also, are you playing control or aggro versus UW Blade. Both seems like an option. Is it only dependent on the draw? Does it change after side boarding?
Would be nice to hear your thoughts about the sideboard in general as well. 2 or 3 Mind Harness? Up the number of grave hate after the printing of Faithless Looting?

Cutting Punishing Fire calls for more Spell Snares. Absolutely. And good mana is vital. After all, it is a big part of makes UW Blade good, and BUG not so good at the moment.

Have you tried out Sylvan Library? Or replacing Preordain with Sensei’s Divining Top? What about replacing a Tarmogoyf for a Scavenging Ooze? I also fooled around a couple of hours with 3 Gitaxian Probes. It was nice, but a bit to cute.

Good point about the Blood Moon / Magus of the Moon option. I don’t think Maverick (without a resolved Noble Hierarch) have enough basics to deal with it (The Punishing Fire version runs only 1 basic Forest if I recall correctly), but against both UW Blade and RUG Delver it seems like a dead card. “Problem” solved. Thanks.

The meta isn’t really underdeveloped, if that means random decks. There are a lot of the “normal decks”, it’s just that it’s constantly changing. Which is good I guess. And I do see the versatility in Stifle. It's just a really bad top deck… Then again, I should probably listen to you since you do have experience with the deck, and the Stifle or not question.

A lot of questions, and I even held some back, haha. I’ve read the entire tread, but since Legacy is constantly changing some old truths might not be true any longer. I’m sorry if the questions been answered before.
This deck really fascinates me, and I would love to master it, play around with it and talk about it. Perhaps NLT could be described as “the good players version of RUG”? Or “the grown up RUG”? I don’t know ☺

Finally: Chaos Warp? Really? Is that the best option? What's the reasoning behind it? Is it just a tech?

Again, thanks for answering! Looking forward to your next reply.

Best wishes from cold and snowy Norway


Jørgen

Keep in mind that Punishing Fire directly competes with Grim Lavamancer; you have to cut cards that can go in your graveyard (in your case, you've cut a spell, a mountain and a wasteland) and add cards that you never want Grim eating to power Punishing Fire. You are also opening yourself up to Wasteland, which will probably make you want Life from the Loam to keep the engine strong against decks that can spare their Wastes for Grove.

With Grove, you get a lot more green support, but normally, NLT only runs 3 green sources, so you're pretty thin on green. This makes Goyf better than almost all other green creatures since you will only want to fetch up a Trop.

From watching this deck played, Firespout is really slow and clunky.

Blood Moon is the strongest when it is played on turn 1-2. After that, it loses a lot of it potency because people will have found basics for Wasteland.

Stifle has a lot of applications game 1, but loses it's power in the second game due to people playing around it. There many abilities worth stopping with it but you will expect to board it out a lot.

As far as other draw engines go, the deck is highly reactive. The only time you want to cast something during your main phase is because you are way ahead (stuck a Jace), you are trying to sculpt your hand (Preordain, Brainstorm) or you can protect your drop (Goyf/Jace holding permission/removal). This deck doesn't usually want to stick a turn 2 Goyf because you aren't holding Daze and burning FoW to answer a Knight sucks. Since two of your primary creatures have flash, you can play Draw-Go for quite a while before needing to drop something substantial. Library was really good in NO RUG, where you had Daze and MM in addition to FoW and you had a ton of mana; I don't see it being as strong here from a theorycraft perspective.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zirath

Keep in mind that Punishing Fire directly competes with Grim Lavamancer; you have to cut cards that can go in your graveyard (in your case, you've cut a spell, a mountain and a wasteland) and add cards that you never want Grim eating to power Punishing Fire. You are also opening yourself up to Wasteland, which will probably make you want Life from the Loam to keep the engine strong against decks that can spare their Wastes for Grove.

With Grove, you get a lot more green support, but normally, NLT only runs 3 green sources, so you're pretty thin on green. This makes Goyf better than almost all other green creatures since you will only want to fetch up a Trop.

From watching this deck played, Firespout is really slow and clunky.

Blood Moon is the strongest when it is played on turn 1-2. After that, it loses a lot of it potency because people will have found basics for Wasteland.

Stifle has a lot of applications game 1, but loses it's power in the second game due to people playing around it. There many abilities worth stopping with it but you will expect to board it out a lot.

As far as other draw engines go, the deck is highly reactive. The only time you want to cast something during your main phase is because you are way ahead (stuck a Jace), you are trying to sculpt your hand (Preordain, Brainstorm) or you can protect your drop (Goyf/Jace holding permission/removal). This deck doesn't usually want to stick a turn 2 Goyf because you aren't holding Daze and burning FoW to answer a Knight sucks. Since two of your primary creatures have flash, you can play Draw-Go for quite a while before needing to drop something substantial. Library was really good in NO RUG, where you had Daze and MM in addition to FoW and you had a ton of mana; I don't see it being as strong here from a theorycraft perspective.

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Hi

More valid points for dropping the Punishing Fire + Grove combo. Grim Lavamancer already has enough dyssynergy with Snapcaster and Goyf, so it seems fair not included yet another plan that makes it bad. Switching Lavamancers for Punishing Fires doesn't seem good either since we create mana problems and makes ourselves weak to Wasteland.

Your thoughts about Goyf and three sources also makes sense. We really don't care about getting our Trops wasted if we got a Goyf in play.

Firespout: Could you elaborate a bit? I fully agree that tapping out for 3 mana at sorcery speed is not optimal... but it does solve at lot of problems, aka Hexproof and if we get swarmed.

I think Blood Moon is to narrow. I believe it's good after turn 1-2 as well, but only against certain decks at certain times. Perhaps in the future.

I think the point about Sylvan is really spot on. Have you tested to swap Preordain for Top? Or Ponder?

Stifle: I agree, and disagree. I mean, if Stifle is good game 1, which I think it is, isn't is almost just as good having people play around it? Having Spell Pierce instead gives us more reach, can protect us from opposing Stifles, STPS and gives us a way to force trough Jace on turn 5, but makes ut a bit weaker against Wasteland.
I think they are both valiable options. Could we run both? A 3-3 split perhaps? Perhaps not? Hmmm...

How do you feel about our matchup against Dredge now? I really hate that deck, and I really don't want to loose to it. How many sideboard slots do you dedicate to graveyard hate?

Thanks!


Jørgen