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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by landstill101

You can't change your post just to bash mine, you went from saying that kotr is bad(which I completly agree) to talking about how a singleton of a card is not powerful in a deck. I was commenting on the powerful and usefulness of the card in the deck as a one of, not how it works with KOTR, Don't put words in my mouth.

KOTR is horrible for this deck(I already explained this to you)

---

Um... I never changed anything about my posts. My posts were always a refutation of KotR's usefulness in ITF. If any switcheroo has been pulled, it seems to be coming from you. Witness the contradiction above: you seem to start by saying that KotR is bad to saying that as a one-of, it's worth including here. I'm not sure which position you're advocating, and I have no idea what you mean when you say that my two-pronged attack on KotR is irrelevant.

My attack on KotR followed two separate lines: the card as a one-of, and the card in multiples. I argued that in neither case does it seem to give you any advantages that you can't obtain more easily from cards already in the deck.

I'm not attacking you, just presenting my reasons for disagreeing with what seems to be your assessment of the card. I have consistently made the same arguments in each of my previous two posts. Consequently, I'm not sure what your beef with my posts is. Is it that I used your latest list as a reference point?

While I am usually quite reluctant towards 4 colored decks ,I yesterday took It's the Fear to our local tournament and eventually won it. I changed the list only a little bit by taking out the Vedalken Shackles as I simply found the card lacking and very slow in this already clunky deck. I added the 4th Top for increased consistency and because I expected a quite controlish and low metagame. I got first despite having to face Back to Basics in a Threshold shell twice and Blood Moon in Dreadstill post board as well. (my other matchups were Stax and Goyfsligh.
I was really impressed because the deck performed so well and didn't crap out on me but once in the whole tournament. The 4th Top was a good fit for my metagame, but my sideboard was not really well tweaked as I simply took the one recommended in this thread without further consideration.

The only cards that proved to be useful were
4 Blue Elemental blast
4 Krosan Grip

My only point of criticism concerning this deck is, that I somehow feel that Spell Snare definitely belongs into it. It is just awesome in control decks all over the formats because it takes so much pressure away by countering very relevant spells like Tarmogoyf, Counterbalance, Dark confidant, Standstill.....

What do you think of removing the 2 Counterspells and the Vedalken Shackles from the maindeck to find room for 3 Spell Snares?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Muradin

..

---

How many players were in tournament you play and how you managed to play under Blood Moon and B2B? Or did you always have counter or/and Krosan grip hand waiting for them? Just looking that manabase with couple basics.. That looks quite juicy target for each other cards.

That spell snare question, i like them more when i used to play this deck. Just because counterspell double UU is sometimes hard to reach turn to. And that snare just owns CotV@1, tarmogoyfs and counterbalance wars. There isn't much you need counterspell if you just manage to get countertop online. Volrath's Stronghold + Eternal witness + deed or stop handle creatures and else you can save counters.

Against Back to Basics I managed to drop a Tarmogoyf before my opponent reslved it but was fully tapped out because of that. The goyf was 3/4 at that moment and while my opponent was digging for Swords to Plowshares in order to get rid of my goyf I drew quite some Force of Wills for them while failing to find green mana for my Krosan Grip waiting in hand.

At one point my lone goyf was holding of an army of 2 Nimble Mongoose and 1 Tarmogoyf who simply couldn't attack because of him. Eventually I drew my mana for Grip after 10 turns or so, destroyed B2B in his eot and blew up the whole board with deed soon thereafter.

Concerning Blood Moon the situation was the following:
My opponent had dropped a 2nd turn Standstill while I had a top in play. After a while he started hitting me with one, then two Mishra's Factories. However he failed to draw more than 4 lands under Standstill and when I was at 4 life and decided to break standstill I was at 9 lands while he had 4 of them in play.

I dropped countertop and had another 2 swords waiting for his Mishras. When he played Blood Moon I knew I had won because there is no way Dreadstill can win when Blood Moon resolves, all Engineered Explosives are gone and the opponent has countertop with cc1 and cc3 on top in play.

I won after 30 Turns with 3/3 Etched Oracle beatdown when I had assembled the perfect CC ranged on countertop for all eventualities with some Force of Wills in my hand to protect it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Muradin

...
I won after 30 Turns with 3/3 Etched Oracle beatdown when I had assembled the perfect CC ranged on countertop for all eventualities with some Force of Wills in my hand to protect it.

---

Whos list did you play btw? and what your side look like? Krosan grips, BEBS, t.crypts and what else?

I played Deep6er's standard list and had 3 Engineered Plagues in my open sideboard slots. There had been some people testing goblin decks before the tournament and I still hadn't thought about my sideboard so I put these in. But as already mentioned I do not think they are necessary or very good in most metagames.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Muradin

I played Deep6er's standard list and had 3 Engineered Plagues in my open sideboard slots. There had been some people testing goblin decks before the tournament and I still hadn't thought about my sideboard so I put these in. But as already mentioned I do not think they are necessary or very good in most metagames.

---

Indeed, in most metagames, they're pretty much useless, I know in my meta very rarely do people play goblins, but on occasion it happens. I did encounter goblins one week with It's The Fear, I had 4 Engineered Plagues in my sideboard and I must say that I am very thankfull that I did. Although BEB's and Shackle's can most of the time win, when I got the first down and then Intuitioned for the second and got it down, he just scooped it up. But I do agree that Plagues are most of the time useless. I need to find 3 other usefull cards to fill up my sideboard slots. I have:


Krosan Grip x4
Blue Elemental Blast x4
Tormod's Crypt x3
Empty Slotx3

Any ideas?:laugh:
Oh, and by the way, this deck needs to see way more play than it does! It's insane!

I would keep the plagues in, seeing how elves and merfolk are becoming grown up legacy decks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lavafrogg

I would keep the plagues in, seeing how elves and merfolk are becoming grown up legacy decks.

---

Agreed. Ichorid gets splash damage from them, too.

I like Duress out of the board, personally, so you have more combo hate than just Counterbalance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zer0style

Oh, and by the way, this deck needs to see way more play than it does! It's insane!

---

This deck is amazingly unforgiving and takes a long time to learn. Even with a strong background in control decks it still took me 2 months of solid testing to feel comfortable bringing it to a tournament. The flip side is, that this deck does not auto scoop to almost anything, and brilliant play pays off in spades.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jazzykat

This deck is amazingly unforgiving and takes a long time to learn. Even with a strong background in control decks it still took me 2 months of solid testing to feel comfortable bringing it to a tournament. The flip side is, that this deck does not auto scoop to almost anything, and brilliant play pays off in spades.

---

Agreed. One of the hardest parts other then knowing what to Intuition for and when is knowing when to use your recursion. This is a deck of limited resources (mana/draws) and limitless play avenues. I play Dark Confidant to help combat the limited draws aspect, however this makes it difficult to stablize against aggro. I've been considering Rhox War Monk but I'm unsure about what to cut. I know this is sacrelige but I'm thinking about cutting FoW (not necessarily for War Monk). I've already cut Counterspell and with only 4 Brainstorm, 4 Intuition and 4 Counterbalance my blue card count is way too low. This would definitely turn the deck into kind of a Counterbalance-Rock hybrid with an Inuition engine, but I think it's worth looking into. You sacrifice the threat density of The Rock for the ability to run Counter-Top and pseudo-tutor with Intuition, not to mention Brainstorm. Cutting Force may seem very wrong, but what resolved spell can this deck not answer? The inability to Force out a Counterbalance or something of that nature is the biggest drawback I see. Thoughts?

I don't think you can cut FoW because it is the early combo protection. I have tried to sneak in another counterspell and/or a spellsnare or 2, but when this deck is played correctly I honestly can't tell what to cut. Given the fact that, counterspell is probably the worst card in the deck, I should look at playing landstill at the point where I want to play more counters.

That's why I went -3 Counterspell and +3 Dark Confidant. At the very worst Confidant eats the Swords that would otherwise be slung at your Goyf, and it helps you draw/recur during the same turn.

On FoW, maybe cutting it for Thoughtseize/Duress would be a satisfactory replacement that could provide early protection against combo and help resolve important spells. I'd lean towards Duress as creatures aren't usually a big concern. Also, in my build flipping FoW to Bob is not something I ever want to see.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lavafrogg

I would keep the plagues in, seeing how elves and merfolk are becoming grown up legacy decks.

---

Yeah, that does seem like a good idea now that I think about it. Even though no one in my meta really plays competetive versions of those decks. I have kept them in because there really isn't anything else I need in from the board ever, and the Plagues do come in handy a lot of the time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jazzykat

This deck is amazingly unforgiving and takes a long time to learn. Even with a strong background in control decks it still took me 2 months of solid testing to feel comfortable bringing it to a tournament. The flip side is, that this deck does not auto scoop to almost anything, and brilliant play pays off in spades.

---

Indeed, it took me as well a hell of a long time to really get a decent hand of the deck and how to play it and the many different interactions that go on in it. But yes, my favorite thing about this deck is I know I have a chance of beating everything. I have never scooped to anything or any one card, there's always a way around it.

Soo I decided to test against merfolk yesterday and found out(with help from bobby and pj) that this deck has a horrible, HORRIBLE matchup against merfolk. The matchup was something like 20-2 in his favor. I did testing on a couple of sideboard options as well and the first one(e.plague) did not help at all, all it did was stall for 1 turn which was able to get me a deed down to blow, but I had to blow it for 3 to get rid of everything which also hit my e plague. Does anyone have any side options at all which might help?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by landstill101

Soo I decided to test against merfolk yesterday and found out(with help from bobby and pj) that this deck has a horrible, HORRIBLE matchup against merfolk. The matchup was something like 20-2 in his favor. I did testing on a couple of sideboard options as well and the first one(e.plague) did not help at all, all it did was stall for 1 turn which was able to get me a deed down to blow, but I had to blow it for 3 to get rid of everything which also hit my e plague. Does anyone have any side options at all which might help?

---

Tsabo's Decree, Llawan, Cephalid Empress, Story Circle, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale.. There really isn't anything good, Tab gets wasted Tsabo's is slow.. llawan is pretty amazing but would only be there for that match up, Story Circle is probably to slow. I cant really think of anything else I always expected Deed, swords, & EE combined would be enough. (haven't gotten to test the actual match up yet even though I really want to..)

Edit-

Possibly Infest?..

Pretty sure that you should not be keeping Deed in against Merfolk. Yes, it's good, but what is your long term game plan? Like, they aren't going to overextend into your Deed, so you Deed as a 2 for 2 or something similar. It's really bad post board, where you set up a permanent-based lock with multiple Engineered Plagues and Counterbalance/Top. Your long-term strategy is Counter/Top and them having no Vial, and Deed seems incredibly antithetical to that plan. That, and you can of course just randomly get blown out by Stifle on Deed when you were relying on that to stabilize. Whatever you were taking out for the 4 E. Plague, take out 3 Deed and something else instead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ansset

Pretty sure that you should not be keeping Deed in against Merfolk. Yes, it's good, but what is your long term game plan? Like, they aren't going to overextend into your Deed, so you Deed as a 2 for 2 or something similar. It's really bad post board, where you set up a permanent-based lock with multiple Engineered Plagues and Counterbalance/Top. Your long-term strategy is Counter/Top and them having no Vial, and Deed seems incredibly antithetical to that plan. That, and you can of course just randomly get blown out by Stifle on Deed when you were relying on that to stabilize. Whatever you were taking out for the 4 E. Plague, take out 3 Deed and something else instead.

---

When I think of merfolk, I think of a blue goblins, and against goblins, with swords, E.E. and tarmogoyf, I can stabalize no prob and then if it gets to bad I have deed. I do not fear goblins at all. But with merfolk tarmogoyf can not block nor can it race, E. E. and Deed need to be protected from counters AND stifle which dramatically slows it down. and when it comes down to it, merfolk can actually be faster than goblins. This matchup is really bad for this deck.

First of sorry if i make wrong assumptions, i am not that familiar with the deck.

My question is, why do people like EE more / as much as Deed in the Merfolk matchup?
A Deed for 3 kills everything they have, with EE you can consider yourself lucky if you hit 2 of their guys.
Lord ofAtlantis is a big problem, which is one of the reasons i would follow Muradin's suggestion and play 3 Spell Snare main with two Vedalken Shackles in the board.
They are quite good against them in my opinion. Additionally i suggest 2 Tombstalker as additional meat to block their swarm.
They do work nicely with Deed and give you more time to setup Counterbalance.
I may appear that they dont work well with your recursion theme, but in practice i dont think its a problem (just remove the 'uninteresting' spells).
A drawback is that they make their Relics more potent, but for these Grip could be used (helps also against Vial and B2B).

Thoughts?