[OLD] UGw Threshold

I want to see the first person who plays Powder Keg, ramping it up to 3 while he's getting beaten by hellbent Gathan Riders, saccing it afterwards with solutions in the hand and 2 seconds later he just screams "OMFG, it doesn't destroy enchantments!!!". And then Blood Moon still wins. I think it's a fact that Dragon Stompy will pack in as much Moon-Effects as they can. But Powder Keg needs 3 turns to handle that shit. You might as well just get defeated within these 3 turns by some fatties or whatsoever. Bad idea.

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Originally Posted by nastynate

That's basically what everyone else has been saying already. It doesn't make the match-up favorable (nothing really will), but it does make the match-up win-able.

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It should be a 50/50... if you're running the CB/Top builds, because SDT is just so good against it. Also, they'll most likely be dropping 1 threat per turn, so that should buy you time (even more time if they're topdecking). Also, have you all been playing a rediculous amount of BEB effects? I have 6 in the board right now.

Also, running more cantrips help. If you can fetch out that basic Island, you should be digging for more answers, threats, and cantrips.

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Originally Posted by Anti~American4621

It should be a 50/50... if you're running the CB/Top builds, because SDT is just so good against it. Also, they'll most likely be dropping 1 threat per turn, so that should buy you time (even more time if they're topdecking). Also, have you all been playing a rediculous amount of BEB effects? I have 6 in the board right now.

Also, running more cantrips help. If you can fetch out that basic Island, you should be digging for more answers, threats, and cantrips.

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I'm running CB/Top main and 4-7 blasts in the board. The number of blasts I run fluctuates a bit, depending upon the number of goyf sligh, burn, goblin, and dragon stompy decks I expect in the metagame, but I never run less than 4. Running 7 blasts tends to eat into the number of tormod's crypts and krosan grips in the side-board which sometimes hurts.

I don't feel it's 50/50. When you're on the play and able to fetch a basic island you've got a good chance, because that gives you FoW, daze, and blasts to stop their first disruption spell. On the draw all you have is FoW and you have to cross your fingers that you'll have one or that they don't play a turn one blood moon (in which case you might as well just scoop).

After reviewing worlds top 8, I believe that u/w/g/b Threshold would best suit the format for these reasons:
Threshold Variants, Landstill, Goblins, and Breakfast are the top 4 DTB in legacy at this point in time according to the latest worlds review. The black splash increases your win percentage against all of these decks.

The Breakdown

Thoughtseize: Very powerful in the combo/control match. It allows you to view you opponents hand and take a threat(Tarmogoyf,Fow). Also gives you the advantage in the mirror. Not as powerful in the Goblin match as opposed to landstill/breakfast but still solid all around.

Ghastly Demise: Another Swords to Plowshares basically. Another form of removal that does rely on the graveyard, then again this is Threshold! Removal is vital in the essence Threshold is ultimatly an aggro deck, however most play it as a control deck and it shouldn't be. But 5-6 1 mana casting remove target creature from play is pretty good.

Dark Confidant: Voted one of the best creatures ever printed. Card Advantage in a 2 drop 2/1 guy sounds like cheating? I doubt i need 2 finish explaining why he is in there!

Engineered Plague: Goblins has always been the feature match against Threshold. Pl;ague has always been the best way, all-star, against goblins. Now this so called feature match is not a 50%/50% win ratio anymore, now its about a 74%/26%. Plague is one of the best single solutions to goblins.

U/B/G/w Threshold

Land
4 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island

Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Meddling Mage

Instants
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Ghastly Demise
3 Stifle

Sorceries
2 Thoughtseize
4 Ponder
1 Serum Visions

Artifacts
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard
3 Counterbalance
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Engineered Plague
2 Krosan Grip
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Engineered Explosives

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After reviewing worlds top 8, I believe that u/w/g/b Threshold would best suit the format for these reasons: Threshold Variants, Landstill, Goblins, and Breakfast are the top 4 DTB in legacy at this point in time according to the latest worlds review. The black splash increases your win percentage against all of these decks.

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The 4-color lists do not improve your landstill and goblins match-ups; in fact it usually makes you more vulnerable to their mana disruption. I will concede that it usually improves your match-up against threshold and breakfast though. Thoughtseize and leyline of the void are a beating against breakfast, and dark confidant really shines in a threshold mirror (except for UG running stifle and wasteland, which won't let you have black mana).

The only cards black actually brings to the table (if you keep a white splash for StP) are dark confidant, thoughtseize, and leyline of the void (out of the side-board). Ghastly demise is terrible when compared to StP, and you don't have room for both. Getting double black mana for engineered plague against goblins (or against breakfast) is not as easy as it sounds when you run only three underground seas. (Engineered Plague only costs 2B, FWIW. - Bardo)

EDIT: oops my bad on engineered plague

The multitude of 1-ofs and 2-ofs really turn me off your list. Consistency is key to threshold, and you have a really random deck. Try something with a little more redundancy. (I'll PM you a deck list.)

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Originally Posted by JDunkin00

Thats what I was saying. I also agree with you, 50/50 is extremely generous. Blast gets owned by 3sphere and chal 1 which are the other most common turn 1 play beside a moon effect.

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They mulligan. There's a high chance that you would have an edge in this MU.

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Originally Posted by Anti~American4621

They mulligan. There's a high chance that you would have an edge in this MU.

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Yes they mulligan quite a bit, but dragon stompy's inconsistency isn't so terrible that you can rely on it to even the odds.

I can win the first game only if I'm really lucky.

On the play I have a good chance.

On the draw I have to hope their deck craps on them. 50/50 chance of them crapping on themselves? Dragon stompy's consistency isn't that bad.

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Originally Posted by EternalDragon09

After reviewing worlds top 8, I believe that u/w/g/b Threshold would best suit the format for these reasons:

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My goodness... The way you are thinking is just ludicrous. You have this strange way of thinking... some kind of modular concept. Your arguments for splashing black just rely on a list of... 3 good cards black has to offer. Your idea is way to simple, it's just about adding good cards. It may work with Highlanders, but not with established DtB Legacydecks. Why do you run Stifle? Why do you just run 2 Thoughtseize? Why do you... run Dark Confidant when it's already clear that you can generate CA even without Black (Counterbalance and Predict any1?)? Why are you running random 1of's?

The reason why you are believing in a wrong thing is, that Oddball's, Windux' and Lukas Preuss' Baseruption can do everything better than the build you have posted. It has got a stronger CA-engine, covered by Counterbalance and due to Chrome Mox even a more stable manabase, because every lamer is playing B2B, Blood Moon/Magus, Wastelands and so on. The disadvantage can be compensated with Confidant and Shadowmage and the speed it provides in the earlygame in exchange is just amazing.

But I'm still convinced that you can only splash a 4th color for 2-3 cards maximum, everything else wrecks your manabase and makes it vulnerable to...everything.

Here's the build as reference:

// Lands
3 [A] Underground Sea
3 [A] Tundra
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [B] Tropical Island
1 [RAV] Island (2)

// Creatures
3 [PS] Meddling Mage
3 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
1 [FUT] Tombstalker
3 [TSB] Shadowmage Infiltrator

// Spells
4 [IA] Portent
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NE] Daze
3 [MR] Chrome Mox
2 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
3 [CS] Counterbalance
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [A] Swords to Plowshares
1 [OD] Ghastly Demise

Ghastly Demise makes sense here, because we are running 6 removals and we can set Meddling Mage on Swords to Plowshares against some matchups, having still 3 removals remaining. But this deck is not Thresh.

So...any ideas how to deal with the new Goblin Edict ? Previously, Goblin was made a lot more easy by the fact that the second turn Goyf just stood in their way for a long time, and they could only kill it when they had three or more Goblins in play (notwithstanding Pyrokinesis). Now, it seems a lot harder. Sure, Mongoose can be sacced in its place some of the time, but still...and waiting for
third turn to play Goyf with Snare backup doesn't sound so good against Goblins as well.

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Originally Posted by georgjorge

So...any ideas how to deal with the new Goblin Edict ? Previously, Goblin was made a lot more easy by the fact that the second turn Goyf just stood in their way for a long time, and they could only kill it when they had three or more Goblins in play (notwithstanding Pyrokinesis). Now, it seems a lot harder. Sure, Mongoose can be sacced in its place some of the time, but still...and waiting for third turn to play Goyf with Snare backup doesn't sound so good against Goblins as well.

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Counterbalance + top is probably your best bet, but it sure could get annoying if they slip Wort Boggart Auntie into play.

Or you could go back to running 2-3 Spell Snares. The fact that everyone is trying to minimize their 2cc slot out of fear of Counterbalance is compensated by the fact that, well, everyone else runs Counterbalance and 2cc spells for Snare to counter.

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Originally Posted by Nihil

Or you could go back to running 2-3 Spell Snares. The fact that everyone is trying to minimize their 2cc slot out of fear of Counterbalance is compensated by the fact that, well, everyone else runs Counterbalance and 2cc spells for Snare to counter.

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You may run Spell Snare over CB, but then you have to re-structure the deck...like...cutting a lot of permanents to make Mongoose more aggressive again (because you can reach Threshold more efficiently then). But I don't see why we should replace a CA-generating Engine.

I certainly am not advocating cutting Counterbalance. In fact, Cbalance itself is pretty good at stopping Weirding, since it's the one threat from Goblins' arsenal that can't be Vialed out.

Spell Snare was always one of the top contenders for those 3-4 customizable slots in most Threshold builds, along with Stifle, Engineered Explosives, Pithing Needle, and so on. What I'm saying is that the existence of Weirding is now an extra point in favour of Snare, especially since the main strike against it used to be its suckiness in the Goblins matchup.

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Originally Posted by Nihil

I certainly am not advocating cutting Counterbalance. In fact, Cbalance itself is pretty good at stopping Weirding, since it's the one threat from Goblins' arsenal that can't be Vialed out.

Spell Snare was always one of the top contenders for those 3-4 customizable slots in most Threshold builds, along with Stifle, Engineered Explosives, Pithing Needle, and so on. What I'm saying is that the existence of Weirding is now an extra point in favour of Snare, especially since the main strike against it used to be its suckiness in the Goblins matchup.

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What card are you talking about? Counterbalance still sucks against Goblins. I would even prefer Meddling Mages instead of CBalance in this MU.

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Originally Posted by Adan

What card are you talking about? Counterbalance still sucks against Goblins. I would even prefer Meddling Mages instead of CBalance in this MU.

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Actually, some time ago, I tested CB in this match-up. It truly is better than Meddling Mage in this MU. It gets rid of Mogg Fanatics, late game Vials, Lackeys, Piledrivers, Tinkerers/Hooligans, Ringleaders, and SCGs. It truly did limit most of their outs to easy to handle crappy creatures that need to aid of others. I mean Warchiefs are kinda crappier now, Matrons cant fetch things that can be CBed, and Gempalms are forced to be played.

It's alright, but it is still better off being sided out.

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Originally Posted by Anti~American4621

Actually, some time ago, I tested CB in this match-up. It truly is better than Meddling Mage in this MU. It gets rid of Mogg Fanatics, late game Vials, Lackeys, Piledrivers, Tinkerers/Hooligans, Ringleaders, and SCGs. It truly did limit most of their outs to easy to handle crappy creatures that need to aid of others. I mean Warchiefs are kinda crappier now, Matrons cant fetch things that can be CBed, and Gempalms are forced to be played.

It's alright, but it is still better off being sided out.

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You're right, I was too affixed on the CC0-2 slots, but that's alright since we only have 2 CC4 cards and 4 CC5 cards and no CC3 card and it requires incredible luck and/or timing/setup/whatsoever to hit a Ringleader with the Enforcer from the Top (because the odds of having Enforcer in general is little. Even if, we need Brianstorm if he stucks in our hand and so on). And Warchief is quite dangerous since he accelerates goblins in 2 ways: Making them cheaper and giving them haste (Haste being the worse thing for us because we can suddenly get overran by a surprising overextend then...IMO!).

In theory, I really can't complain about your argument, but some scenarios still appear nearly impossible for me, because Goblins have a very wide-spread manacurve between 1 and 4. Aether Vials are also a big factor whether Counterbalance is "quite o.k." or "crap". But we have at least the same opinion if we say: board it out.

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Originally Posted by Adan

What card are you talking about?

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Warren Weirding, a Goblin Edict for 1B (look it up on the Morningtide spoiler). Goblins now has a better curve and can deal with Tarmogoyf or Mongoose. Counterbalance is pretty good at stopping that.

I don't know if, because of this, you may want to leave Counterbalance in post-side. Certainly not if you have Plagues in the board, though.

CBalance + Top is an answer, although not a very good one, for the aforementioned reason that is it generally weak against the other best threats of Goblins, but also for the reason that you won't assemble it on turn two often, meaning you still need other cards to protect that Goyf that is protecting you from being overrun early game. Spell Snare, as I said, is pretty good here, but still the need to keep U open slows you down for one turn, which might be too much.

Maybe Meddling Mage really is the best option here, as it can block Lackey while protecting from Edict...and since most people are cutting down on Incinerators to play the Edict, he might actually stay in play longer than before.

Ah, now I'm getting it, it's just about a new removal. The question is whether Goblins will really run this kind of removal since we already have a lot of good removals in the past. The advantage is that it's also seized by Ringleader and tutorable...But it COULD possibly get a slot. Together with Wort, it can also prosuce tokens, tokens, tokens which will block Goyf entirely. Or they will simply let you sac him.

And it's not red and can't be stifled... Ok, now I see the problems you guys have. Yes, I think I agree with Nihil then. Spell Snare seems to be very fine, since it's a hardcounter for 1 Mana and can also "handle" the dangerous Piledriver. But I think we might as well run Meddling Mages again, because he's at least a 2/2 body (can't block Piledriver, but...meh...Ok, that's really stupid).

Hm, Spell Snare or Meddling Mage, anything else but counters is inefficient.

But I still have some doubt about whether the card's going to be played in Goblins, especially since people stopped to play Swords and Pyrokinesis, also very excellent removal spells, superior to the Edict. They just can't get grabbed by Ringleader/Matron. And...No matter, I would still tutor the Incinerator, because he cantrips (generating CA).

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But I still have some doubt about whether the card's going to be played in Goblins, especially since people stopped to play Swords and Pyrokinesis, also very excellent removal spells, superior to the Edict. They just can't get grabbed by Ringleader/Matron. And...No matter, I would still tutor the Incinerator, because he cantrips (generating CA).

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I think it's far superior to StP or pyrokinesis in a tribal goblin deck, and I have little doubt that it'll become a staple in legacy goblins. It can be tutored with matron, drawn with ringleader, and recurred with wort. It costs 1B (which fits perfectly into the goblins mana curve), and it is never truly dead because it can generate absurd numbers of hasty goblin tokens over the course of game. It just might be the best edict style spell ever printed, and its the perfect answer goblins was looking for to solve the goyf/mongoose problem.

Since you're talking about card advantage, this card generates it in spades thanks to Wort recursion (though admittedly incinerator can do the same). I feel however, that a recurring edict is more problematic than a recurring gempalm incinerator which doesn't always do enough damage to kill our goyfs and can't hit our mongeese at all.