Yeah, that seems pretty good. Finding 5 sideboard slots for 4 Dreadnought and 1 Vision Charm shouldn't be hard.Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn
This could also be used to fight RIP, as Mongoose and Goyf are sucky against it.
Printable View
Yeah, that seems pretty good. Finding 5 sideboard slots for 4 Dreadnought and 1 Vision Charm shouldn't be hard.Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn
This could also be used to fight RIP, as Mongoose and Goyf are sucky against it.
Don't forget you get to announce your attack phase as, "Murder you with a 12/12?"Quote:
Originally Posted by Vandalize
-Matt
I haven't been able to play since TC became legal, but I figured I would throw a couple of theory crafting ideas out there on how to deal with it:
To me, what makes RUG, RUG, more than anything else is the way it abuses the BS/Ponder/FoW/Daze/Stifle/Waste engine. Even the colors don't really matter all that much compared to the fact that it just happens to be the best colors at utilizing that engine. I think if you start to slow down and add lands for more expensive threats, Lighting bolt starts to lose its luster as a removal spell that doubles as speeding up your clock that you just slowed down adding lands and a higher curve. If Lightning bolt starts to become mediocre as removal, why not switch into BUG for something like decay. I think this is why TNN never really seemed to stick around int he maindeck of RUG in high numbers, what you lose slowing down in most match ups was not made up for by improving your grindy MUs in a way that boarding them in just for grindy MUs could.
If you want to build a 4 TC deck, I think by far the best list I have seen for it has been the UR cruise lists. It has cheap threats, that do not utilize the GY, and a massive cantrip engine, but it comes at the expense of loosing stifle/waste and some very fragile creatures. You could very easily turn that list into RUG dropping the Pyromancer for Goyf, and brining in a few more SB bombs that UR doesn't have access to, and in some metas that might be a very solid strategy, but I would still probably argue that isn't really tempo RUG. I think its probably just a better deck as straight UR right now though.
So if I were looking to make Stifle RUG for a post cruise metagame, I think the only changes I would really consider making would be to drop down on some of the flex spots (Usually reserved for burn 5-6) for 1-2 Cruise, and adapt the SB. My logic would be that Cruise is just an extremely powerful card late game for us, even if we don't want to plan on casting it on turn 3. It breaks the 1 card for 1 card rule in a cheap way. Even casting it for 3-4 mana late game to preserve a mongoose or a goyf is still not awful. As a singleton, it would still probably be one of he most powerful situational bombs we could play in the MD, similar to something like Sylvan Library or Temporal Spring from years ago.
From there we would need to look at how do we beat the more dedicated TC decks, and I really don't think the strategy should be all the different from the way we would approach the mirror: stop their threats, and slowly gain an advantage. They have 0 ways to kill a nimble Mongoose, except for double/triple blocks. Do we really want to cut the goose? They are extremely weak to Pyroclasm. We are also going to need a mana advantage on them if they end up successfully firing off a TC to fight their Dazes and spell pierce, so I would say something like Loam might be a good card to bring back into the board.
Nice minianalysis, 1guy. I'd love to test RUG with nd without some number of TCs a bit more, yett my time is limited; but I got a gut feeling that you're right. At least the first part should be undisputed, RUG is The Tempo Deck and it gains very little from any "improvements" that try to turn it into tempo-midrange pile similar to say BUG.
I still play spellsnare today in my list, it can single handily beat BUG game 1 against a tarmogoyf. On another note what is everyone playing in their sideboards? Anyone playing Blue Elemental Blasts to stop u/r lists? Also does anyone think Pithing needle is needed or a tormod's crypt for reanimater?
I love Needle, it stops so many annoying things. Otoh, I never sleeved BEB since I sold Fae Stompy years back...Quote:
Originally Posted by ShiftyKapree
Went 3-1 last night with my RUG Mandrills list again, beating Maverick, Mono Red Sneak Attack, and ANT and narrowly losing to Infect since I never drew a red source to remove his guy (fought the counterwar and lost). Deck felt really good as always. There are times you open multiple Mandrills hands and those are awkward, but Trample and 1 mana is really good. I find myself boarding out Goyfs moreso than Mandrills, since I can always cast the Mandrills for G, but Goyf lets me keep less mana open.
Spell Snare was pretty great all night. Got to tag SFM's, GSZ on 1, Sylvan, Thalia, Chalice at 1, Infernal Tutor, etc.
-Matt
I am compelled to believe that 3x is the correct number for Mandrills. 4x is too many primarily for the reason you have already articulated above. As already alluded to recently herein, the original deck which had ample success in this format only ran 8-10 threats. Therefore, going down to 11 creatures from 12 is not going to be significant enough to weaken the deck at all. Furthermore, you can increase flipping delver more consistently and you can also mitigate this by playing slightly more burn spells to make up for any lost damage.Quote:
Originally Posted by sdematt
The original 8-10 threats deck was played long before Decay. Although people very often argue that Decay changed nothing, it's still fundamentally different from StP, Bolt or Dark Banishing as the creatures cannot be protected from it in any way, barring some obscure sb material like Mizzium Skin or Divert.
INB4 "but Mandrills are unaffected by AD": yes, of course. But Goyf and Delver are affected, and Mandrills still die to StP/Submerge, so I'm not sure if the "mere" 11 targetable threats are enough. But ymmv.
Well in fairness, Mandrills doesn't "die" to submerge. Yes, it is not healthy and is a huge buzz kill; however, with no Mongoose or Treasure Cruise is is not too difficult to recast. Also, the threat of Mandrills is technically targetable; however, in a limited capacity (doesn't die to Abrupt Decay, Lighting Bolt, Chain Lightning, Disfigure, or pretty much Pernicious Deed, Engineered Explosives or Counter Balance). Submerge is a sideboard card that limited decks in the format play and Swords to Plowshares affects most creatures in the format and spell pierce can be a good answer to it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bed Decks Palyer
In any event, if play testing Mandrills has proven one thing it is that having a 4/4 trampler that is almost only ever a single mana to cast, it is substantially better then a sometimes 3/3 (more gy hate then ever ought there now mid-late game) that is most times a 1/1 with shroud and hardly constitutes as a tangible "threat". Mandrills only requires five cards in the yard temporarily whereas Mongoose needs seven all the time. Play testing has shown me how much easier and more consistent it is in getting five (5) cards in the yard as oppose to seven (7) in the early game to get those much needed quick and explosive starts. Furthermore, by the time mass gy hate resolves, you already have used the required five (5) cards to delve in any event. The same cannot be said about mongoose. I concur with sdematt that play testing thus far has proven that Mandrills has shown to be a more viable creature and thus a better threat than Mongoose in this deck right now.
tested too with 3 mandrils last night coz i was missing my last foil still haha..and it was better than my other test with monasteryswiftspear...agree with demonic attorney..never had problem casting it with 1g..i loaded up too on burn with 3 tarfires so i could always react and have something different in the gy for goyfs...in case i delve..im ok with 3 so far...i did put 2tnns too main..might replace the other one for vcliq..the swiftspear test wherein i replace geese with mss and carried cruises tends to really rely on tc for reload..otherwise its just a plain 1/2..i like the trample so far and 4toughness..i tested vs ur burn and everytime i landed any green beast..itll favor me..i might change the 3rd tar for a fice or forked...will test sdematts list further...
My current list, which I've been EXTREMELY happy with, is:
4x Delver
3x Tarmogoy
3x Pyroman
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
3x Treasure Cruise
2x Git. Probe
3x Stifle
2x Spell Pierce
4x Daze
4x FoW
4x L Bolts
2x C Lightning
4x waste
3x Trop
3x Volc
8x Fetch
Sideboard is in a large flux, but something like this, depending on meta:
2x Jitte
2x REB
2x Flusterstorm
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Krosan Grip
1x Null Rod
1x Pithing Needle
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Grafdiggers Cage
1x Vendilion Clique
I've REALLY been enjoying this list recently. I'm something like 15-3 in local tournaments with it (beating everything from classic rug mirror to miracles, mono-red painter and omnitell etc).
It looks really great! Quite similar to this list that won a 82 player tournament from mtgdecks.netQuote:
Originally Posted by Quasim0ff
Maindeck
Creature [10]
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Young Pyromancer
4 Delver of Secrets
Instant [22]
3 Spell Pierce
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
3 Stifle
4 Force of Will
Sorcery [9]
3 Treasure Cruise
4 Ponder
2 Chain Lightning
Enchantment [1]
1 Sylvan Library
Land [18]
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
Your two Gitaxians over sylvan library and a pierce seems like a great choice. For me phyromancers as felt really slow. What do you think? Im running Swift Spears and they have been insane. I guess that they work better without Wasteland. You need a flow of cantrips for them to work so some of the control is hard to fitt. In my meta decks run really solid mana bases so the cost for cutting them is not that high.
I got a chance to play in some daily's over the weekend on MODO. In my first tournament, I went with a sdematt inspired list, replacing Nimble Mongoose with Hooting Mandrills, but running Probes over Spell Snare. My impression was that Hooting Mandrills isn't very good. The matches I played against were RG Lands and Miracles in the first tournament, losing to both. Mandrills was poor against Maze of Ith from RG Lands where Nimble Mongoose would have been great. Against Miracles, Mandrills was better against Counterbalance than Mongoose, but was bad against Jace and Swords to Plowshares. The problems weren't just these matches though, just goldfishing they don't seem very good. I find it an issue that while Mandrills can cost 1, they typically don't come down before turn 3. What you really want to be doing is playing a creature as soon as possible and than backing it up with interaction and more threats, Mandrills has limitations (you need cards in your graveyard, aren't good in multiples) that Nimble Mongoose does not (to just get into play at least). I think Hooting Mandrills fits in the Tarmogoyf mid-game threat slot, but Mandrills and Mongoose obviously can't be run together, so I am passing on them for now. I wouldn't write off Hooting Mandrills completely, there are definitely times when it could be a good threat. I would definitely suggest a 4 Probe and 3 Mandrills build for anyone who wants to experiment with them.
So far the magic online metagame doesn't seem to be too dominated by Treasure Cruise, U/R Delver is just played a lot more, but otherwise people are playing the same decks. So I switched back to a Nimble Mongoose build but I have been experimenting with replacing Rough/Tumble with Blue Elemental Blast and 3-1'd two tournaments that way. I was basically running this:
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Forked Bolt
3 Stifle
3 Spell Pierce
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
SB
4 Submerge
4 Red Elemental Blast
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Destructive Revelry
1 Sulfuric Vortex
I lost to Elves, beat Slivers, Goblins and U/R Delver in one Daily. I beat Elves and Miracles, lost to Urw Delver, beat Urgb Delver in the other. The match up against U/R Delver doesn't seem too bad. My opponent was on the play and eventually I just got Cruised out. In games 2 and 3, I just got some large green creatures into play and there wasn't too much my opponent was able to do about it. Blue Elemental Blast was good, I used it to counter Young Pyromancer and it did some work against the Goblins match up, but I'm not sure if it will stay forever. If I switch back to a more traditional SB, I would probably run this:
SB
3 Submerge
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Flusterstorm
2 Rough/Tumble
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Destructive Revelry
1 Sulfuric Vortex
I'll be thinking about whether I want Blue Elemental Blast in the SB for SCG Worcester this weekend, where I will almost certainly be jamming Nimble Mongoose.
Why exactly do we want Blue blasts? I remember a time I had one side and pretty much decided never to put it side again lol.
Anywho, I have tucked away my geese and goyfs for now. I enjoy drawing cards too much :)
I want to underline something discussed here though.
Adding TC and Probes, one must be careful for "the cantrip into cantrip into cantrip oh hi it's turn 4 still doing nothing"- scenario's. I am more fan of Young Pyro atm, as TC desires proactive play and YP can take advantage of that aswell.
Anyways, still cool too see some RUG still performing in a TC world, but it seems that either people aren't realizing it's strentgh or we(the boatcruise I'm on) are overestimating the card.
Give it some time I guess :)
I played your MD list (with -2 chain +2 forked bolt) with the following sideboard :Quote:
Originally Posted by Quasim0ff
1 Sylvan library
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Krosan grip
1 Ancient grudge
1 Envelop
1 Pithing needle
1 Graffdigger's cage
2 Surgical extraction
3 Reb
2 Fluster
1 Jitte
and went 3-1 at my local, loosing to Dark depth (He got lucky G1 and I missplayed G2). Very pleasant to play, very powerful :).
Warning! Incoming MWS story!
I played against (a really solid) BUG pilot on MWS and got him with three consecutive Mongooses on turn 1-3. I had a reasonable hand with two of them, and I drawn the third; it's not like three NMs are extremely good opening or w/e.
Thing to consider: If this would be YPs, would it be better or worse? Because, and brace yourselves, the guy nearly got out of mana troubles and then he played Golgari Charm with my eot BS on stack; luckily I had my Snare at ready. The thing I'm still considering is this: while there is hardly any reason to overextend with triple NM - I did it because I lacked any other plays and also because I needed to do at least something -, the YP plan is kinda no-brainer and you naturally "overextend" by simply playing Magic.
This means that any FB or Golgari Charm owns you pretty and especially the Charm is annoying as it leaves no survivors. Does anybody has any experiences on this phenomenon, one that might be quite usual in TNN/YP/DnT meta?
I'm not saying that YP is bad, and in fact I like how it gets past the blockers, etc. It's also similar to DRS in that it makes use of the countered spells. (That's why Grim Lavamancer might occupy one slot in non-NM builds, esp. the ones that do not overload on TCs.) For that matter I'd be interested in people's opinion on Niv-Magus Elemental based aggro-combo-control decks, but yeah, this is up to another thread...
Golgaricharm vs YP is a one for one. That should be kept in mind.
The entire point of YP is you don't overextend. One YP is enough to pressure him. You'd never play 3 YP on the board.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bed Decks Palyer
Also, the point of YP is you are playing TC. TC is a house vs BUG, as it's a very grindy MU.
I'm trying to think of a good sweep effect to replace Rough // Tumble in my current RUG build (which is the same 60 as JosephK/Quasim0ff's with Forked Bolts, although I am unsure about the Probes).
Ideally, the card I'm looking for would be able to deal with U/R Delver creatures (Delver, Swiftspear, Young P), tribal creature (especially elves, goblins, merfolk), and Dredge/Empty the Warrens tokens, with the least amount of collateral damage to my own Delver, Goyf, and Pyro/tokens.
Some of the options I've considered for the new metagame:
- Firepout - With the removal of Goose, Firespout looks like a good option. Swiftspear would need to pump twice to avoid death. You can aim it at flying and/or nonflying creatures depending on the board state, which I really like. The problem is the casting cost-- 3cc is prohibitive with so many Daze/Pierce and tax effects going around.
- Electrickery - Very efficient little spell that clears the board of Pyro, pyro tokens, and possibly an unflipped delver. Also very efficient against Empty the Warrens. Doesn't kill Swiftspear, dredge tokens, and one tribal lord negates the whole effect.
- Engineered Explosives - Could this see a revival? Removes Swiftspear, delver, and pyro tokens (although perhaps not all at once). Great against tribal, removing Vial, or multiple lords. Very efficient against Dredge and goblin tokens. Provides additional utility against Chalice and Counterbalance.
- Forked Bolt or Fire // Ice - Still card advantage in many cases, but doesn't work as well in emergencies (notably goblin and dredge tokens).
- Pyrokinesis - Suggested by Hollywood in the U/R Delver thread. I don't know if there are enough red cards in this deck to support it, but it could be good.
Another option is to eschew sweep effects and go with equipment a la Jitte (with possibly a TNN in the SB), but this always felt too slow to me...
I've been going with 1 Engineered Explosives and 1 Forked bolt in addition to 1 Jitte and 1 TNN:
Full SB
3 Pyroblast
2 Flusterstorm
1 Forked Bolt
1 Krosan Grip
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 True-Name Nemesis
I'm curious to know what everyone else's experience with RUG against U/R Delver has been like. Swiftspear is just so aggressive (often bigger than Goyf in the early game), and Blood Moon or Price of Progress out of the board hurts. I'm considering replacing Flusterstorms with Hydroblasts to deal with these...