[Deck] It's the Fear - Control in the new Era

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Originally Posted by Deep6er

Academy Ruins also supports Vedalken Shackles in this deck. That's huge. Also, with Intuition backing it, it takes a great deal less time.

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2U [Intuition] + 2U [Ruins] + 3 [Shackles] + 2 [activation] = 9UU. Sayin'. You could play Sway of the Stars for less mana. :)

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Remember, that while Vorosh-still may approach it with similar cards, It's the Fear approaches it with a completely different mindset. Intuition and Standstill are vastly different cards and allow for vastly different approaches to things.

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I thought about this. Agreed, in my mind almost immediately, and then I went to make some Tomato soup and am now going to disagree.

Both Vorosh are ITF are control decks with quasi-combo elements; CB+Top and Crucible / Wasteland (Vorosh) or Intuition / Ruins / Stronghold (ITF). In other words, I wouldn't confuse tactics with strategy. Standstill is trying to do a similar thing as Intuition: getting what you need to mitigate some problem (some form of menacing permanent [creatures, etc.] or something dangerous coming from your opponent's hand) that Deed/EE/StP or CB, CSpell, Force can provide.

Intuition is gaming to set you up with the tools you need; Standstill is gaming to draw you into a similar set of tools. I do agree that Intuition is much more subtle and has a lot more room for customization, at the cost of being slower.

Anyway, I would argue that Standstill and Intuition are performing similar roles here. Neither specifically do anything on their own or directly have any effect on the game; they're catalysts for other parts of the deck that do have an affect.

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I really don't think that this deck compares well with Landstill. The aims are just different. It's the Fear is significantly more versatile in its approach to controlling and winning the game that it's like talking about apples and oranges.

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Just to continue the thought above, and not wanting to get into some pointless semantical debate, I think Vorosh and ITF are more similar than you realize. Both are -- as I said above -- about controlling the game through some means (Deed, CB) and then winning with Tarmogoyf.

(Don't let the Factories throw you off. Back in the day, I had a 1-of Factory as an alt. win condition with Intuition + LFTL in Tog, before Tarmogoyf was printed. With Standstill being added, it seemed natural to just max the card. Truly though, 4/5 games are won with Mr. Goyf. Factory mainly has some nice synergy with other parts of the deck.)

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Also, you have SEVEN lands that don't tap for colored mana. I have two. You rely on your lands to help you win the game (attacking). I don't. All mine need to do is tap for mana. That's it. I argue that the miniscule amount of damage that they do to your manabase is well worth it.

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I definitely agree here. Supporting four colors with only two lands that tap for colorless is a hell of a lot different than supporting four colors with 6-7 lands that tap for colorless. This is a valid point.

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Vedalken Shackles vs. Diabolic Edict is an entirely different classification. While they both DO fit into the realm of "creature-control" Vedalken Shackles is ALSO card advantage.

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Definitely, I've argued the same point from your side too. Shackles is card advantage for 2.5 the investment as Edict. If it's worth the cost, and you're in a match where you have the time to pull it off, it's definitely worth it, since it totally dominates the board once active. Though it does cost 3+2 instead of 1B.

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I'm reasonably certain that the decks are different enough to warrant a different look as opposed to looking at it through the Landstill players lens. No offense.

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Not to be redundant, but I'm trying to look at these things from the control player's perspective, not as a "Landstill player" or something.

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Also, the Lonely Sandbar trick is bad. THAT DEFINITELY takes too much time. The danger with Intuition is definitely the Danger of Cool Things. I've tried to keep it as focused as possible while still maintaining that versatility.

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Agreed again. It's certainly a fun once it's up and running, but it's slow as hell and not really any better than a Fact or Fiction for a lot less effort.

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2.) The lack of carddraw.

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In Dave's defense, I'd argue that Intuition serves as the deck's draw.

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3.) The name.

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Dude, this is the guy who brought us "Solidarity," a monoblue storm combo decks. It should be no surprise. Though, I totally agree. :)

I am with bardo on this one his Vorosh and ITF are very similiar decks. However playing Tarmogoyf and then playing standstill is one of the most broken plays you can possibly do. I do like both decks and I wouldn't mind taking either deck to a big event.

Spirit of the Wretch: Really like your list... There can't be anything wrong with playing DC ever... I am 100% convinced he is the best black spell in the format. One suggestion though. To further enhance the utility of Volraths Stronghold you cold replace one smother with 1 shriekmaw or have you tried this out before?

That was also my reaction. Shriekmaw seems like a natural fit with Stronghold, and allows for Intuition piles like Loam/Stronghold/Shriekmaw.

Tombstalker also seems like a good fit for the deck, as Hanni mentioned. Was it ever considered, perhaps as a replacement for Tog?

How much thought has gone into the creature base? I'm fully aware of the power of Goyf, Tog, etc. But I'm curious as to how much, is too much, or too little. I'm playing a deck somewhat similar - by similar I mean Ubg Control that isn't Landstill - and found that 4 Goyf wasn't enough. I'm running 4 Goyf, 3 Stalker and to say the least Stalker is busted good. Getting around EE, Deed and all the other mass removal is great, and along with BalanceTop you can basically play around STP or other removal like Edict.

As for the Sideboard, you almost definitely, without a doubt, want BEBs, in some of your worst matchups; Burn, Goblins, DStompy, Beb is amazing.

Confidant with EE and Deed seems iffy at best, like Clemens I opted for AK with Intuition and It's worked out "decent" I'm not exactly comfortable with it, but I can't find anything else thats better.

If someone wants the list, say so, I don't want to spam the thread with a list.

This is definitely an interesting deck, and if you finally found a way to make Intuition.dec competitive, I commend you for it.

My initial reactions are:

- This seems very top-heavy. You have a whole ton of late game card advantage engines which require a pretty big mana investment and don't help you much in the early game: Intuition, CounterTop, and Shackles (and Deed). Any one of these is often enough to lock up the game after you've stabilized early. Accordingly, I would expect the deck to have an amazing late game (meaning it smashes Threshold and most other control), and to have trouble against an early offense; but your testing doesn't seem to bear this second part out. 65% against Goblins? Seriously? Does Goblins autolose to any deck with both Tarmogoyf and Swords to Plowshares in it?

- I counted the lands. There's 21 of them. Is that remotely enough? (Especially with all the mana intensive late game cards, as above). This also ties in to the three versus four colors discussion you're having with Bardo: his deck has 6-7 colorless lands to your 2, but it has them with 24-25 lands total. Doing the math, you're only ahead 19 colored mana sources to his 18.

Being a sucker for Intuition/Gifts engines myself, here's some cards the deck doesn't include but could: Dust Bowl, Maze of Ith, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Cephalid Coliseum, Shriekmaw, Tormod's Crypt, Nevinyrral's Disk, Mindslaver, Darkblast, Moment's Peace. In fact, it shouldn't include most of those, but it's a list to look at if you wanted one.

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This seems very top-heavy. You have a whole ton of late game card advantage engines which require a pretty big mana investment and don't help you much in the early game: Intuition, CounterTop, and Shackles (and Deed). Any one of these is often enough to lock up the game after you've stabilized early.

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When I originally saw this thread, I thought the exact same thing. I've been working off and on with my decklist ever since Lorwyn was released (sooner than that really, since I used to run Wild Mongrel in the Goyf spots, almost 2 years ago). The biggest issue the deck always had was that it was way too slow. That's the reason why I'm so biased towards my decklist... it takes all the tempo elements of Threshold and blends in mid-late game control engines. Personally, I think running Intuition + Loam, Deed, CounterTop, and Shackles in the same deck is overkill. Dave's deck has performed well at tournaments though, so the deck is obviously strong. It's been my personal opinion ever since I started posting in the TarmoTog thread that this archtype is easily the best deck in the format. Intuition Thresh, basically.

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Originally Posted by mackaber

Spirit of the Wretch: Really like your list... There can't be anything wrong with playing DC ever... I am 100% convinced he is the best black spell in the format. One suggestion though. To further enhance the utility of Volraths Stronghold you cold replace one smother with 1 shriekmaw or have you tried this out before?

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I also thought of Shriekmaw but hesitatet, because this deck is already pretty mana hungry (so you won't be hardcasting that guy very often) and he neither synergie with CB nor with DC. But being able to kill a creature each turn sure seems tempting. Maybe I'll give it a try at our local tourney this WE.

Btw you aren't Alex Mack by any chance, are you?

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Originally Posted by spirit of the wretch

Btw you aren't Alex Mack by any chance, are you?

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In fact I am. Servuz.

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Originally Posted by Deep6er

Pray to whatever gods you hold dear. Also, don't forget about Shackles. Stealing their Ichorid and then removing their Bridges at the end of the turn is KEY.

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I've read this a couple of times now but I fail to see how this would work. When Ichorid is sacrificed at the end of the turn, it goes to its owner's graveyard and never even looks in the direction of yours, and creates tokens like it always does.

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Originally Posted by Deep6er

I've never been happy with Extirpate. That card does so little. I really don't think that this deck compares well with Landstill. The aims are just different. It's the Fear is significantly more versatile in its approach to controlling and winning the game that it's like talking about apples and oranges.

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Really? Extirpate either ruins or severely hapmers any deck you would want to board it in against.

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Originally Posted by spirit of the wretch

Shriekmaw : being able to kill a creature each turn sure seems tempting.

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Doesn't Ruins + EE do exactly the same thing but without taking up a slot? For sure it's slightly more mana hungry (most of the time costing :2: more) but by the time you're going for recursion engines, you should already be in the late mid- to early lategame where the more powerful effect will surely make up for the extra mana you have to pay.

Also, here's my list:

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/// Maindeck (60 cards)

// Lands (23)
    1 Academy Ruins
    1 Volrath's Stronghold
    1 Wasteland
    1 Lonely Sandbar
    4 Polluted Delta
    3 Flooded Strand
    4 Tropical Island
    1 Breeding Pool
    3 Underground Sea
    3 Island
    1 Swamp

// Creatures (5)
    1 Psychatog
    4 Tarmogoyf

// Removal (8)
    2 Smother
    1 Chainer's Edict
    1 Vedalken Shackles
    3 Pernicious Deed
    1 Engineered Explosives

// Card Advantage (16)
    3 Sensei's Divining Top
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Accumulated Knowledge
    1 Life from the Loam
    1 Eternal Witness
    3 Intuition

// Permission (8)
    4 Counterbalance
    4 Force of Will

/// Sideboard (15 cards)
    2 Duress
    1 Stinkweed Imp
    1 Yixlid Jailer
    1 Tormod's Crypt
    3 Extirpate
    2 Trygon Predator
    2 Hydroblast
    3 Blue Elemental Blast

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Curve:
cmc :1: - ||||||| - 7
cmc :2: - |||||||||||||||| - 16
cmc :3: - ||||||||| - 9

Blue Card Count: 20
Average Converted Mana Cost: 2.32

Let me explain some choices:

• No White Splash and 23 Lands - I always felt that the 20-21 landcount of the original version is way too low, especially since some of your lands are utility lands and because this deck thrives if it has more mana as the recursion engines and your removal package (Deed) are all pretty mana intensive.
• Lonely Sandbar over Cephalid Coliseum - while Coliseum is the stronger effect when you have a Loam-Engine going, I was told by Stefan that the deck in practice only has two ways towards victory: Waste-Lock and Balance-Lock. Now Lonely Sandbar doesn't eat your landdrop every time you want to draw cards which is especially important when you want to Waste-Lock your opponent as without Sandbar you'll be missing your draw every turn to Dredge Loam giving your opponent time to draw into stuff to recover while you stay with the same board state (no more lands, no more cards than before starting the lock) which is bad. Also, Sandbar fits in rather nicely into the Waste-Lock Intuition pile (Lonely Sandbar, Wasteland, Life from the Loam) and is pretty nutty in conjunction with Tog in the lategame where you can just Cycle+Dredge 'n' times to get your Tog up to lethal Grave+Hand count more quickly than with Coliseum (or at least more quickly in one turn).
• Only one Vedalken Shackles - while Shackles is a busted effect and very potent, it is just too slow especially since this deck already has a formidable lategame. I'll rather take some hard removal over it (Smother, Edict) and see what's next than have the opportunity to go nuts two turns later. Also, with 5 non-Island lands (21.7% of total manabase) you won't be able to consistently stop that Tarmogoyf on turn4. I've kept one in for more lategame brokenness and Intuition piles.
• Accumulated Knowledge over Dark Confidant - first of all, Accumulated Knowledge is a Blue Card giving a necessary boost to your blue card count... although you don't need to counter a lot because you play Pernicious Deed (aka. answer to everything), you still want to be able to to so consistently and all the time throughout the game. This obviously isn't the main reason to play Accumulated Knowledge, but it's a point that shouldn't be overlooked. Also, I've tested Dark Confidant, he's broken and all, but the aggro matchup already is bad enough as it is so that we should avoid making it even worse. I've often found myself in midgame situations where I didn't want to cast Dark Confidant because I was on quite low life despite desperately needing cards. Now Accumulated Knowledge fixes this. Also, Dark Confidant isn't that good in the lategame in general: as mentioned above you tend to be quite low on life making him slightly shacky but also Dark Confidant is slower than Accumulated Knowledge in the lategame. In addition to this, Dark Confidant does also have a gigantic 'target' sign on his front meaning that your opponent's removal now isn't semi-dead any more which isn't exactly what you want (you normally only drop a beater when you have Balance + Top down to protect them due to you not playing infinite of them). Lastly, Dark Confidant isn't exactly synergistic with neither Pernicious Deed nor Engineered Explosives. Now I know that this won't happen often as if you're popping a Deed/Explo while blowing up some of your own stuff you're still making a profit out of it, but I don't want to make such a vital part like my Card Advantage Engine more vulnerable than you absolutely need.
• The sideboard is pretty random, but I really like both the Blue Blasts and the Trygon Predators, at least for the South West Germany Meta. The lone Stinkweed Imp is additional removal that can be thrown into an Intuition pile and has its merits.

Playing some manlands seems techy - better Landstill Matchup and more critters is always nice, I don't have a clue how to include them currently as the manabase is bad enough as it is already.
I still don't know if Eternal Witness is worth it... for sure the 'recur everything' trick is pretty nice, but Witness is on the high side of the curve and on the bad side colour wise making it always rather clunky.

Isn't Dust Bowl preferable to Wasteland for Intuition/Loam piles, if you only run a singleton? Admittedly Lonely Sandbar is a workaround for this issue, but otherwise Loaming Wasteland forces you to skip your draw every turn, whereas with Dust Bowl you only have to skip every third draw to recoup the lost lands.

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Originally Posted by Deep6er

Not true. The Ichorid touches your graveyard (triggering their Bridges) and then immediately checks state based effects and transfers it to your opponent's graveyard.

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I think you're wrong.

217.1a If an object would go to any library, graveyard, or hand other than its owner's, it goes to its owner's corresponding zone. If an instant or sorcery card would come into play, it remains in its previous zone.

I'm pretty sure cards you didn't own never hit your graveyard, your hand, or your library (I think Wizard's reasoning for this is to avoid people accidently walking off with other people's cards). I think you're thinking of "goes to the graveyard from play" triggers, for instance if you Shackle'd an Academy Rector, you'd control the trigger since it triggers from in play instead of in the graveyard.

I think people are very much underestimating the white splash in this deck, or swords to plowshares I should say. Having practically unconditional efficient removal is invaluable in a control deck like this. You have plenty of power in the mid/late game, it's getting there that's the problem. You can't just hope your opponent isn't playing black creatures, or things like mystic enforcer/tombstalker (also black but more importantly immune to deed/smother). There is no effective substitute for swords to plowshares. No other removal spell comes close.

Life from the loam also does a very good job of fixing your manabase, trust me. I've playtested eva green against this deck and it's much closer than I thought it would be (probably right at 50%). The only real issue is an early blood moon, and that resolving would be a big problem for the 3 color builds as well. Like Dave said, you have to make some compromises if you want to play all of the best spells. Is it worth it? If your meta is over 40% or so Dragon Stompy, maybe not. Otherwise, I think so.

Additionally I think more people should test their decks against good threshold lists/pilots. You'll be surprised.

On a side note: two questions

1) Why wouldn't you want to run a evasive finisher like Mystic Enforcer? I understand the aversion to Psychatog (lackluster win-con is lackluster, and it doesn't do anything until it swings for lethal), but considering that Enforcer is hard to remove and omnoms face in a rapid fashion when you need it to, I don't see why you wouldn't want to run it.

2) More LtfL in the SB? I understand the reasoning, but with Intuition you have 5 copies in the MD. Is it because you don't think you could/ havn't been able to reach 3 lands on a consistant basis?

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Originally Posted by Deep6er

It's the Fear is a bit of a difficult deck to describe. It's capable of controlling the game in a similar manner to Landstill, but it's also capable of winning the game with counter backup in a quick manner similar to Threshold. It's capable of answering a wide variety of threats and it's also capable of drawing a tremendous amount of cards. In addition to all this, the deck is rather versatile about how to approach matchups.

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It just came to me that perhaps the words you are looking for are "Good-Stuff Deck".

I actually like Clemens build considering you have more options to choose from with intuition. I will just name a few of those options.

-Accumulated Knowledge: I always liked accumulated knowledge with intuition. I think it's still a powerful draw engine as a whole in the current environment in my opinion. The ability to filter out cards and still draw several cards gives any control deck advantages. Considering you can draw what you need in a consistent and a reasonable time frame. Also accumulated knowledge has multiple use in this deck besides drawing a good chunk of cards.

-Chainer's Edict: I like this edict better then diabolic edict considering it's flashback cost can be a invalueble asset via intuition.

-Eternal witness:I'd say the more options you can grab with intuition the better eternal witness becomes in a direct proportional way. I mean since witness costs double green you should make the most out of it since it can be stressful on your manabase.

-Life from the loam: Now with Ak you can actually bring back your loam much more rapidly which is a great asset. Sometimes it's just better to do it now then later.

OK, well Freakish was right. I saw two conflicting rules for this from a long time ago, and upon confirmation (of a sort, with Star City), it seems I'm wrong. Sorry about that. Anyway, on to the other replies.

@Bardo: Counterbalance + Top is NOT a combo. It's a soft lock. That's vastly different. If we were racing to combo those cards, we would both be playing things like Ponder and things of that nature. Looking at Counterbalance + Top as a combo is overemphasizing one aspect of the deck. Yeah, it's good, don't get me wrong, but it should not be the sole aspect of the deck. Also, since it doesn't outright win you the game right there, it's not nor can it be considered the end-all of a game.

I really don't think that you can call Intuition slower than Standstill. Sure, Standstill costs one less, but it's never been my experience that they break it immediately. More often than not, they wait 2+ turns before breaking it. Which actually puts it as slower than Intuition.

While I can grant that they are similar, I think Intuition is a better card than Standstill. It doesn't force you into slowing the game down, and is a dead topdeck in fewer situations than Standstill is. Additionally, it means that you're probably going to run Mishra's Factory which I think is a poor land/creature. Intuition doesn't put constraints on deckbuilding. In fact, it does the opposite. It's so versatile as to almost embody the principles of the Dangers of Cool Things. Standstill cannot do that.

Also, thank you. Intuition DOES serve as the deck's source of card advantage and this IS the guy who brought you Solidarity. What's wrong with the name? I like it a lot. As do two of my other friends who've helped me with the deck from the beginning. Isn't that the important part?

@b4ron: Tombstalker was originally considered in what came to be Tarmogoyf/Psychatog's spot. I was unhappy with him because of the EXTREME lack of synergy between Delve and recurring cards. However, originally there was a Regrowth (which was terrible), so I might consider looking into him now. I don't know what I'd cut for him, or even if I need him, but I'll look into it.

@Raharu: Why do I need an evasive beater? Shackles answers everything except for Nimble Mongoose and for that I have Deed/Explosives. Honestly, the best evasive finisher I can run is Shackles.

Life from the Loam in the sideboard means that I DON'T have to Intuition for it. It means that I'm free to get other cards that I boarded in and have them be just as powerful. Or, it allows me to reduce the number of maindeck cards in certain matchups because it allows me to not be forced into getting Life from the Loam to set up engines. Also, it's a great card. Fantastic for fighting mana denial strategies.

@DIF: I'm going to have to post replies to you and Spirit of the Wretch's build later. I gotta go. Sorry.

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Originally Posted by Deep6er

@Raharu: Why do I need an evasive beater? Shackles answers everything except for Nimble Mongoose and for that I have Deed/Explosives. Honestly, the best evasive finisher I can run is Shackles.

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A valid question, but I'll answer this question instead and hope the answers overlap: Why would you want to play Mystic Enforcer, specifically in this deck?

It synergizes with your Intuition/ Life from the Loam stacks/ engine. It has evasion on a 6/6 body. While Tarmogoyf is generally a 4/5 in most circimstances, Mystic Enforce has merit in comparison because you can lay it turn four or five, throw your opponent on a 3 turn clock (in most cases) that is immune to any and all spot-removal not named Swords to Plowshares. Basicly, it's a threat that doesn't have to be babysitted, doesn't need to have it's path cleared for it, and doesn't leave much time for a solution to be found. Most decks have played 2 fetchlands by turn 4 or 5. So, that means Mystic Enforcer is a 3 turn clock after it hits the table. 3 natural draws to, in short, find a Swords to Plowshares. Deed generally can't touch it (another reason that it's good in the deck), if it takes a Wrath of God you're most likely going to be happy because it's a 1-1 trade that you're most likely to get back (Voltath's Stronghold), and not much else answers it after it comes down. As a one-of, I can't see why it wouldn't make the deck that much better by giving the deck a threat and a finisher that does something before it swings for lethal (i.e. not Psychatog).

Well, I'm done :]