[Deck] BUG "Shardless" Control

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Originally Posted by Julian23

Notion Thief doesn't die to Abrupt Decay. It's the uncontested king of all mirror matches and a great card to drop off Show and Tell. I agree that 4 mana is a bit rough at times but it's got Flash for a reason. You never want to, but having access to a single one is incredibly good.

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I would have to contend that it does not in fact win mirror matches. I have had multiple mirrors where an opponent has dropped Thief in response to a Jace brainstorm, or a resolving Vision. I have won all of these matches. The simple fact that cards in hand do not directly equate to board state is the key concept here. In both situations, I had a superior board state, and the opponent was quickly forced to block with their thief in order to remain alive. If you are in a behind position, Thief does little to bring you forward. It's itty-bitty butt does nothing for blocking, and it's a bad attacker (no evasion). Drawing all of the cards is amazing, but if you can't bring them onto the table before you die, it's irreverent.

That said, the situations where I would want to draw all these cards, are ones where I already had a good board state, or was at least in parity with the other side. In these situations, you want to be expanding your board state consistently. Holding up 4 mana for durdly 3/1 when you could be playing Agent, or attacking with Tar Pit is just bad...

On the other hand, having a Strix on board, and dropping Thief from a Reanimator opponent's Show and Tell (to the opponent's Griselbrand) was enough to buy me time to take over the game with Planeswalkers. Narrow case, but happened this past weekend.

I agree Notion Thief is kinda narrow, but isn't that what sideboard cards are there for? It seems to provide an elegant answer to Jace and any deck that abuses draw mechanics.

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Originally Posted by wcm8

On the other hand, having a Strix on board, and dropping Thief from a Reanimator opponent's Show and Tell (to the opponent's Griselbrand) was enough to buy me time to take over the game with Planeswalkers. Narrow case, but happened this past weekend.

I agree Notion Thief is kinda narrow, but isn't that what sideboard cards are there for? It seems to provide an elegant answer to Jace and any deck that abuses draw mechanics.

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I normally build my sideboard with the exact opposite mindset. I want cards that will shore up my worst match-ups, but still be applicable for other situations. Having a card that only affects fringe situations to me is a waste, because those situations aren't going to come up often enough for the card to prove itself. Cards like Disfigure, Golgari Charm, Thoughtseize, and so on, that often show up in my board, have numerous uses in addition to being very good in particularly tough match-ups.

It may be that we have different sideboard philosophy. You are looking for cards that specifically fix a narrow set of problems, while I'm looking for generalized answer that increase the odds of fixing a variety of situations. It's hard to say which strategy is ultimately correct, and it probably just comes down to play style.

Been working a new build of Shardless for awhile now, and I've been pretty happy with the results (finished 10th at Legacy Champs today). I cut Hymns completely, which freed up the mana base enough to run basics (seriously, who else is sick of losing to blood moon?), and allowed me to run Scavenging Ooze in the board for RUG Delver and graveyard decks. In addition to freeing up the mana base, cutting hymn to run the full 4 Thoughtseize main makes you more mana efficient, gives you information on their hand, and guarantees you will take the card you want. The loss of card advantage is more than compensated by the rest of the deck. Here's the list I ran today:

Main deck:
Creatures:
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Baleful Strix
4x Shardless Agent

Sorceries:
4x Ancestral Vision
4x Thoughtseize
1x Maelstrom Pulse

Instants:
4x Brainstorm
4x Abrupt Decay
3x Force of Will

Planeswalkers:
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Lands:
4x Verdant Catacomb
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
3x Tropical Island
2x Underground Sea
2x Bayou
1x Island
1x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Wasteland
2x Creeping Tar Pit

Sideboard;
2x Flusterstorm
2x Disfigure
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Scavenging Ooze
1x Baleful Strix
2x Golgari Charm
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Dismember
1x Force of Will

Some notes about the list:
The list should probably have more Polluted Deltas, but I only own one so that's how I ran it :)
The third Tropical Island is to help support Scavenging Ooze in the board. The third Underground Sea isn't necessary without Hymn or Liliana.
I cut down to 1 Wasteland because whenever I would open with one in my opening (before and after cutting hymn), it seriously disrupted my development. I like having one to dig into for problem lands, but rarely want to see more.
The Toxic Deluge was very underwhelming. For the time being will be replaced by the 3rd Golgari Charm


As for the rounds, a more detailed description of the rounds can be found in my tournament report here):

Round 1 - Esper Stoneblade 2-0
Round 2 - Reanimator 2-0
Round 3 - Sneak and Show 2-1
Round 4 - Bant 1-1-1
Round 5 - Merfolk w/ True Name Nemesis 1-2
Round 6 - Esper Stoneblade 2-0
Round 7 - Rug Delver 2-0
Round 8 - Jund Nic Fit Scapeshift 2-0
Round 9 - Rug Delver 2-1

End result - 7-1-1 in matches, 16-5-1 in games (Bad breakers put me in 10th)


Interested to hear what you guys think of the build, as well as any feedback on what could be done with it!

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Originally Posted by Topazwarrior

Interested to hear what you guys think of the build, as well as any feedback on what could be done with it!

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Did you ever miss the Hymns/Lilly?

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Originally Posted by DragoFireheart

Did you ever miss the Hymns/Lilly?

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Honestly, I cannot think of a time where I wanted either of them. I was always happy with being able to choose with Thoughtseize, and the 2 life never mattered. As far as Liliana, against combo I never had spare cards that I wanted to pitch; everything was either a threat or reactive cards that I wanted to hold. Against fair decks, the boards were either too cluttered (Bant, Nic Fit), or I never had the chance to safely cast it (RUG Delver). The only matchups it may have helped were Reanimator and Sneak and Show, but even in these matchups it would have been a glorified 3 mana Cruel Edict.

There were a number of times, though, where if my Thoughtseize had been a hymn I could have lost, especially against Reanimator and Sneak and Show. The information and the choice helps the matchups a lot.

My buddy played this deck at the only grinder for the Legacy Champs at Eternal Weekend and took the whole thing down (the grinder, not the main event). He was on a Lejay-esque version (quad Lilys), but he replaced 2 goyfs and 2 something else with 4 True Name Nemesis and loved it. Said he might consider cutting the goyfs all together, though I don't think it's correct to not have a sweet beater that you can cascade into. In the finals of the grinder, I believe he was playing against a blade deck, and Nemesis blocked all day until he could find action and kept opposing Jaces off the board. I think if you really want to play 4, 2/2 md/sb split seems better than all 4 in the main, but I don't really play this deck, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

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Originally Posted by ziggy_stardust

My buddy played this deck at the only grinder for the Legacy Champs at Eternal Weekend and took the whole thing down (the grinder, not the main event). He was on a Lejay-esque version (quad Lilys), but he replaced 2 goyfs and 2 something else with 4 True Name Nemesis and loved it. Said he might consider cutting the goyfs all together, though I don't think it's correct to not have a sweet beater that you can cascade into. In the finals of the grinder, I believe he was playing against a blade deck, and Nemesis blocked all day until he could find action and kept opposing Jaces off the board. I think if you really want to play 4, 2/2 md/sb split seems better than all 4 in the main, but I don't really play this deck, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

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I think going less than 4 Goyfs is a mistake. He's a dirt cheap beater that plays nice with all of the discard and hit-anything removal that is AD. Getting multiple card types is easy and I find he's almost always a 4/5 in this deck.

2 TNN in the main and 2 in the side seems like the correct choice. We don't want to drop Shardless Agent either.

I've been playing this deck for about six months now and last weekend I've been to the Bazaar of Moxen in Paris with 690 players in the main event.
This is the list I played.

4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
1 Swamp
3 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Baleful Strix
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrum Pulse
2 Force of Will
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Thoughtseize
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Liliana of the Veil

SB:
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Disfigure
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Golgari Charm
1 Force of Will
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Life from the Loam
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Baleful Strix

The Venser is in the SB, because I saw a lot of Show and Tell decks during the trials. Life from the Loam has been very impressive for me in earlier tournaments. It wasn't during this weekend.

R1-3: byes (3-0)
R4: Mirror 1-1-1 (3-0-1)
R5: Cloudpost 2-0 (4-0-1)
R6: UWR Delver 2-0 (5-0-1)
R7: UW Miracles 0-2 (5-1-1)
R8: Elves 2-1 (6-1-1)
R9: Esper 2-1 (7-1-1)
R10: BUG Delver 2-0 (8-1-1)
R11: ANT 1-2 (8-2-1)
R12: Death's Shadow 0-2 (8-3-1)
R13: BUG 2-0 (9-3-1)
R14: RUG Delver 1-2 (9-4-1)
R15: Reanimator 2-0 (10-4-1)

My final ranking was 28.
The great performers were Deathrite Shaman, Abrupt Decay, Liliana of the Veil and Golgari Charm. The underperformers were Force of Will (though ofcourse sometimes amazing) and Life from the Loam.
The one thing that I'm certain about is that I want a second Liliana in the main.

About True-Name Nemesis: I was never really impressed when my opponent played it. I won every single round against a Nemesis deck during the weekend. Liliana and Charm are hammering them.

Congrats on the finish! How were the Phyrexian Revokers in the sideboard? I'm guessing they were there to help out with the Sneak and Show matchup, but are there any other times you brought them in? How did they perform? I'm curious because I've ran 1 in the past to moderate success, and am debating bringing one back

The Revokers are indeed mainly for the Sneak and Show matchup though there are other decks against which it does some work. I decided to bring them in against the following decks:
1. ANT - Name Lion's Eye Diamond with them and it gets much harder to go hellbent.
2. Elves - depending on the board you can name Wirewood Symbiote, Quirion Ranger and Heritage Druid.
3. UW Miracles - Mainly for Sensei's Divining Top, but it would be good to name Jace or Elspeth as well.
4. Reanimator - this was just because there are a lot of dead cards against reanimator in the board. I brought them in to name Griselbrand and have two little extra beaters.

I would probably board them in against a few other decks as well though they are not seen very much, such as high tide with candelabra's.

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Originally Posted by martijnend

The Revokers are indeed mainly for the Sneak and Show matchup though there are other decks against which it does some work. I decided to bring them in against the following decks:
1. ANT - Name Lion's Eye Diamond with them and it gets much harder to go hellbent.
2. Elves - depending on the board you can name Wirewood Symbiote, Quirion Ranger and Heritage Druid.
3. UW Miracles - Mainly for Sensei's Divining Top, but it would be good to name Jace or Elspeth as well.
4. Reanimator - this was just because there are a lot of dead cards against reanimator in the board. I brought them in to name Griselbrand and have two little extra beaters.

I would probably board them in against a few other decks as well though they are not seen very much, such as high tide with candelabra's.

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Very cool. I'll have to see if I can find room for 1-2. The other card I've been debating is Pernicious Deed, but it seems to do as much damage to us as it may an opponent. My concern is Merfolk. In my testing, it is a very tough matchup. The addition of TNN gives them a way to beat us even if we kill all their lords. Maybe Engineed Plague is good? Anyone have any thoughts/experience with Deed?

Yeah, Merfolk might become a problem now they have the Nemesis as well. I haven't tested much against the deck much but I assume that we have to go as much BG boardcontrol as possible. With 4 Decay, 2 Pulse, 2 Disfigure, 3 Liliana, 2 Golgari Charm and 3 Strix (yes, blue, I know, but we have ways of making blue mana without giving them islandwalk) we might have a good chance against them.
I've tried Deed in the past, but it didn't work out. It is just too mana intensive and the deck against which you want it are better are rebuilding their boards then we are.

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Originally Posted by martijnend

Yeah, Merfolk might become a problem now they have the Nemesis as well. I haven't tested much against the deck much but I assume that we have to go as much BG boardcontrol as possible. With 4 Decay, 2 Pulse, 2 Disfigure, 3 Liliana, 2 Golgari Charm and 3 Strix (yes, blue, I know, but we have ways of making blue mana without giving them islandwalk) we might have a good chance against them.
I've tried Deed in the past, but it didn't work out. It is just too mana intensive and the deck against which you want it are better are rebuilding their boards then we are.

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Yea I always board into the BG Rock deck with tons of removal against Merfolk. It looks like I may have to put a Liliana or 2 in my sideboard to help with this matchup. Just kill everything then edict TNN. Not the best, but its a shot

Yeah, we'll just have to try a few games against the deck and see how it goes. I see Liliana as pretty much an auto-include. Try her out.
By the way, I only just noticed the Jitte in your sideboard. How does it work for you? I've been thinking of creating a spot for it.

Jitte is very good against pretty much every fair deck. If you can resolve it against RUG Delver, Death and Taxes, Merfolk, etc and not just die the next turn, you usually end up winning. It buys you time while shredding their board. I definitely recommend one, as its usually ends the game against those decks.

So, if True-Name Nemesis becomes extremely popular, I'm guessing Liliana will go up in numbers? Iirc, this deck has a pretty good matchup against Esperblade. Why is that? Just more card advantage? How would Esperblade go about beating you? Sorry, just looking for matchup analyses and discussion.

-ABC

I've noticed that this deck has gone way down in popularity. Is that because of the Death and Taxes + Show and Tell combo surge?

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee

So, if True-Name Nemesis becomes extremely popular, I'm guessing Liliana will go up in numbers? Iirc, this deck has a pretty good matchup against Esperblade. Why is that? Just more card advantage? How would Esperblade go about beating you? Sorry, just looking for matchup analyses and discussion.

-ABC

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It's possible that Liliana goes up in numbers, but if they're a heavy creature deck it's not even a guarantee solution. As long as they aren't Merfolk with a lord in play, Golgari Charm is a pretty good answer that has other uses.

As far as Esperblade, essentially we are trying to do the same thing; make the game go long and win with card advantage. On the whole, though, we can draw more cards and impact the board better. Also, our cards randomly just are better than theirs (DRS vs Snapcaster, Goyf/Strix against Batterskull, Tar Pit against Jace, etc.). The way we lose is if they are sideboarding a card we have trouble dealing with, like Elspeth Knight Errant, or we draw poor (hit lots/few lands, don't draw decay for Jitte).

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Originally Posted by Patrunkenphat7

I've noticed that this deck has gone way down in popularity. Is that because of the Death and Taxes + Show and Tell combo surge?

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I'm not sure why the deck has dropped off in popularity, but I think it may be a combination of factors. I first noticed the decline when Painted Stone, and other blood moon decks, won some tournaments. Around the same time, a lot of the other fair decks (Miracles, Maverick, Stoneblade, Jund) which we have decent/good matchups against disappeared. I don't think Show and Tell is a horrible match up, as long as you come prepared. Same with Death and Taxes, although it is an uphill battle. Golgari Charm helps out a lot in both these match ups, as well as others. I think somewhere between 2-3 is the sweet spot for charm, because it just does so much in so many matchups.

I don't think U/g/b aggro-control or control decks want True Name Nemesis because it has G, which gives it access to Tarmogoyf, and B which gives it access to Golgari Charm and perhaps more importantly Engineered Plague so the deck can essentially establish a beater bigger than Batterskull and keep the board cleared of Spirit Tokens or mini Progenitus.