[Deck] BUG "Shardless" Control

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Originally Posted by tons of fun

Sideboard:
3 chills
2 brain freeze
3 flusterstorm
2 leyline of the void
1 toxic deluge
1maelstrom pulse
2 golgari charm.
1 jitte

sorry that was the older sideboard and yes 61 was intentinal

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No worries.
I tried your list, but got the feeling the thopter package are often dead cards in hand. But once resolved it wrecks decks like U/r deliver.



I saw those both lists in the top16 at scg philly.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=78481

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=78475

Especially the one list running 2 courser seems interesting. Whats the reason for the coursers? Life gain, Body?
Additionally Ive thought about including garruk relentless, for shooting at delvers etc. and producing bodies to fight pyromancers. What do you think guys.

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Originally Posted by nossirag

No worries.
I tried your list, but got the feeling the thopter package are often dead cards in hand. But once resolved it wrecks decks like U/r deliver.



I saw those both lists in the top16 at scg philly.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=78481

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=78475

Especially the one list running 2 courser seems interesting. Whats the reason for the coursers? Life gain, Body?
Additionally Ive thought about including garruk relentless, for shooting at delvers etc. and producing bodies to fight pyromancers. What do you think guys.

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the thpter package i had great success it works by it self with ur creture base cuz everything s artifacts and i also like having the meek just to make true names 4/3 and if i am a deck its useless which is marick match ups u bored it out

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Originally Posted by tons of fun

the thpter package i had great success it works by it self with ur creture base cuz everything s artifacts and i also like having the meek just to make true names 4/3 and if i am a deck its useless which is marick match ups u bored it out

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Yeah it works. But I had several cases when I was holding the thopter foundry in hand vs U/ R wishing it was a Tarmo because it won't help the board alone.

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Originally Posted by nossirag

Yeah it works. But I had several cases when I was holding the thopter foundry in hand vs U/ R wishing it was a Tarmo because it won't help the board alone.

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Far but with shardless and strix shouldnt of too much troublewit u/r delver pluss if i was gonna change em they be jitte and bitterblossoms

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Originally Posted by tons of fun

Far but with shardless and strix shouldnt of too much troublewit u/r delver pluss if i was gonna change em they be jitte and bitterblossoms

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Idd also been debating on the 2 black kill spell from commander 2014

The primer is long overdue for an update. Here's what I'll be adding (minus descriptions):

- Treasure Cruise (duh)
- Dig Through Time
- Thopter Foundry / Sword of the Meek

Anything else y'all can think of?

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Originally Posted by Kyle

The primer is long overdue for an update. Here's what I'll be adding (minus descriptions):

- Treasure Cruise (duh)
- Dig Through Time
- Thopter Foundry / Sword of the Meek

Anything else y'all can think of?

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cool!
here:
- running discard package or not
- different removal(Deluge, Disfigure, etv.)
- Different creatures bases: Adding Cliques, Tnn, Courser of Kruphix
- Different Mainboard 1ofs: Sylvan Library, Umezawas Jitte
- Landbase: Wasteland or not, Manlands.
- Sideboard: Meddling Mage package
- Planeswalkers or not

That are the questions Im thinking about at the moment. Maybe something for the primer.

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Originally Posted by nossirag

cool!
here:
- running discard package or not
- different removal(Deluge, Disfigure, etv.)
- Different creatures bases: Adding Cliques, Tnn, Courser of Kruphix
- Different Mainboard 1ofs: Sylvan Library, Umezawas Jitte
- Landbase: Wasteland or not, Manlands.
- Sideboard: Meddling Mage packagem
- Planeswalkers or not

That are the questions Im thinking about at the moment. Maybe something for the primer.

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Muderous affliction

Since this deck already splashes White for Meddling Mage in the sideboard, wouldn't Containment Priest be another powerful option? It hurts various combo decks without really negatively effecting our own strategy.

I have a feeling that the next B/R announcement may bring this deck back to Tier 1...

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Originally Posted by wcm8

I have a feeling that the next B/R announcement may bring this deck back to Tier 1...

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Did you just play Preordian or something?

That's a mighty big presumption...

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Originally Posted by wcm8

Since this deck already splashes White for Meddling Mage in the sideboard, wouldn't Containment Priest be another powerful option? It hurts various combo decks without really negatively effecting our own strategy.

I have a feeling that the next B/R announcement may bring this deck back to Tier 1...

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Very good suggestion. I'm going to try 2 in the sideboard and see how that works out.

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Originally Posted by nossirag

Very good suggestion. I'm going to try 2 in the sideboard and see how that works out.

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Yes, the White splash goes a long way towards helping defeat combo. Containment Priest comes in against some of the most difficult problems for this deck: Sneak and Show, Dredge, GSZ/Natural Order, Reanimator, Aether Vial... The fact that it is cascade-able *and* functions as a clock makes it even better.

The way I see it, the Lejay approach to building the deck is correct: the maindeck is constructed to beat every 'fair' strategy pre-side, and the sideboard goes a bit overboard with dealing with combo via Meddling Mage, targeted Discard, Containment Priest, and various bomb singletons (e.g. Null Rod) to win games 2 and 3. Sometimes you can steal game 1 here and there against combo due to them fizzling and/or a timely FoW + Liliana or whatever.

Regarding the current format: Rest in Peace is at an all-time low right now due to people wanting to abuse Treasure Cruise, making BUG strategies better than they formerly were. While I think Ancestral Visions is the better card for this deck over Treasure Cruise, 1-2 Dig Through Time are a possibility here. Popular token-generating creatures like Young Pyromancer and the soon-to-be-released Monastery Mentor aren't too problematic as Black has plenty of ways with dealing with X/1 creatures: Toxic Deluge, Golgari Charm, and various Enchantments (e.g. Night of Souls' Betrayal, Illness in the Ranks, Engineered Plague, etc.). Sure, Liliana isn't quite the bomb she used to be, but she's still fantastic against UW(r) Miracles and certain Delver strategies which remain popular.

The reason BUG hasn't been as popular is likely due to the common perception that other decks can slot in 4 TCruise and have virtually the same sort of card advantage without having to play clunky cards like Shardless Agent and Ancestral Visions. The flaw in this view is that playing a lot of filler cards like Gitaxian Probe to fuel TC and refill your hand isn't necessarily as powerful as working towards the endgame board-state that BUG permits. Drawing 3 cards is powerful, but not that amazing if you're only getting more cantrips or Daze in the late-game.

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Originally Posted by wcm8

Yes, the White splash goes a long way towards helping defeat combo. Containment Priest comes in against some of the most difficult problems for this deck: Sneak and Show, Dredge, GSZ/Natural Order, Reanimator, Aether Vial... The fact that it is cascade-able *and* functions as a clock makes it even better.

The way I see it, the Lejay approach to building the deck is correct: the maindeck is constructed to beat every 'fair' strategy pre-side, and the sideboard goes a bit overboard with dealing with combo via Meddling Mage, targeted Discard, Containment Priest, and various bomb singletons (e.g. Null Rod) to win games 2 and 3. Sometimes you can steal game 1 here and there against combo due to them fizzling and/or a timely FoW + Liliana or whatever.

Regarding the current format: Rest in Peace is at an all-time low right now due to people wanting to abuse Treasure Cruise, making BUG strategies better than they formerly were. While I think Ancestral Visions is the better card for this deck over Treasure Cruise, 1-2 Dig Through Time are a possibility here. Popular token-generating creatures like Young Pyromancer and the soon-to-be-released Monastery Mentor aren't too problematic as Black has plenty of ways with dealing with X/1 creatures: Toxic Deluge, Golgari Charm, and various Enchantments (e.g. Night of Souls' Betrayal, Illness in the Ranks, Engineered Plague, etc.). Sure, Liliana isn't quite the bomb she used to be, but she's still fantastic against UW(r) Miracles and certain Delver strategies which remain popular.

The reason BUG hasn't been as popular is likely due to the common perception that other decks can slot in 4 TCruise and have virtually the same sort of card advantage without having to play clunky cards like Shardless Agent and Ancestral Visions. The flaw in this view is that playing a lot of filler cards like Gitaxian Probe to fuel TC and refill your hand isn't necessarily as powerful as working towards the endgame board-state that BUG permits. Drawing 3 cards is powerful, but not that amazing if you're only getting more cantrips or Daze in the late-game.

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Very true words my friend, I can agree with everything you wrote. Ive been building my sideboard like this for quite some time now and I couldnt be happier with it.
Also I can absolutely agree on why BUG has been on the decline; drawing helps you to win the game, but it doesnt win the game alone. I feel there is still a lot of room in magic in terms of raw card quality vs drawing quantity and how to balance that and Ive always felt, even with Visions not being the best draw card anymore, that shardless got this balance quite right.

Edit: I saw someone on reddit posting how shardless did at the last scg legacy in philly, might be interesting for some:
"Shardless Sultai was involved in 12 matches, going 7-5 overall. It beat Elves, Grixis Control, Jeskai Stoneblade, Maverick, Miracles, Sneak and Show, and U/R Delver once each. It lost to Bant Deathblade, Elves, Grixis Control, Lands, and Storm once each."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wcm8

Yes, the White splash goes a long way towards helping defeat combo. Containment Priest comes in against some of the most difficult problems for this deck: Sneak and Show, Dredge, GSZ/Natural Order, Reanimator, Aether Vial... The fact that it is cascade-able *and* functions as a clock makes it even better.

The way I see it, the Lejay approach to building the deck is correct: the maindeck is constructed to beat every 'fair' strategy pre-side, and the sideboard goes a bit overboard with dealing with combo via Meddling Mage, targeted Discard, Containment Priest, and various bomb singletons (e.g. Null Rod) to win games 2 and 3. Sometimes you can steal game 1 here and there against combo due to them fizzling and/or a timely FoW + Liliana or whatever.

Regarding the current format: Rest in Peace is at an all-time low right now due to people wanting to abuse Treasure Cruise, making BUG strategies better than they formerly were. While I think Ancestral Visions is the better card for this deck over Treasure Cruise, 1-2 Dig Through Time are a possibility here. Popular token-generating creatures like Young Pyromancer and the soon-to-be-released Monastery Mentor aren't too problematic as Black has plenty of ways with dealing with X/1 creatures: Toxic Deluge, Golgari Charm, and various Enchantments (e.g. Night of Souls' Betrayal, Illness in the Ranks, Engineered Plague, etc.). Sure, Liliana isn't quite the bomb she used to be, but she's still fantastic against UW(r) Miracles and certain Delver strategies which remain popular.

The reason BUG hasn't been as popular is likely due to the common perception that other decks can slot in 4 TCruise and have virtually the same sort of card advantage without having to play clunky cards like Shardless Agent and Ancestral Visions. The flaw in this view is that playing a lot of filler cards like Gitaxian Probe to fuel TC and refill your hand isn't necessarily as powerful as working towards the endgame board-state that BUG permits. Drawing 3 cards is powerful, but not that amazing if you're only getting more cantrips or Daze in the late-game.

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I haven't tried Priest (I've actually dumped the White splash), but I'll definitely give it a shot. I was going to say that I've done some testing with Nourish as a sideboard option against Burn and UR, and it's been very good, especially against Burn. I've also been running 2 Dig Through Time and it's been incredible.

Also, I ran Quirion Dryad a long time ago (before I got Goyfs), and they were frequently just as good. They're definitely better in the early game than they are late, but they're pretty good whenever you draw them, and they also are nearly impossible to burn out if you get to untap with one in play. I might run one (or even two) as a thirteenth creature in my next event.

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Originally Posted by nossirag

Very true words my friend, I can agree with everything you wrote. Ive been building my sideboard like this for quite some time now and I couldnt be happier with it.
Also I can absolutely agree on why BUG has been on the decline; drawing helps you to win the game, but it doesnt win the game alone. I feel there is still a lot of room in magic in terms of raw card quality vs drawing quantity and how to balance that and Ive always felt, even with Visions not being the best draw card anymore, that shardless got this balance quite right.

Edit: I saw someone on reddit posting how shardless did at the last scg legacy in philly, might be interesting for some:
"Shardless Sultai was involved in 12 matches, going 7-5 overall. It beat Elves, Grixis Control, Jeskai Stoneblade, Maverick, Miracles, Sneak and Show, and U/R Delver once each. It lost to Bant Deathblade, Elves, Grixis Control, Lands, and Storm once each."

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I didn't see any of the webcast of the tournament, but there were two copies of Shardless in the top 16. Very different lists; my current configuration is close to Rudy Briksza's, but Joseph Herrera seemed to do pretty well with two MD Courser of Kruphix as well.

Good news everyone! I have almost completed this deck (plus BUG Delver) as I only need to wait for my Force of Wills and Underground Seas to arrive.

In the meantime I have been practising on Cockatrice. I used a pretty standard list and modified it as I seen fit. One of the newest changes was adding a singleton Treasure Cruise instead of the 4th Ancestral Vision. Understandably, the singleton Treasure Cruise was rather awful because this deck does not play a ton of non-creature spells and various Death and Taxes taxations as well as post-board graveyard hate made it even worse, thus I have replaced TC with Sylvan Library which has been great so far. And how do you fare with Dig Through Time?

My metagame is full of fair (Tempo, Aggro, Midrange, Control) decks and features a very little amount of Combo (I am excluding Dredge which is fairly common because I pack a legitimate amount of graveyard hate in sideboards of all my decks, thus Dredge has always been "lose the first game and win two others" thing for me). Though there is a chance to bump into Jund, which is not a good matchup for Shardless and the currently low amount of Burn decks can increase, though the "Burn era" has ended for quite some time due to the growth of the metagame. Another important factor is the high likelihood of meeting Death and Taxes, which can sometimes be troublesome (although testing proved this matchup to be in my favour). All in all, Shardless BUG seems suitable for my metagame as long as I am able to improve my chances against less favourable matchups post sideboard.

Here's my current sideboard:

1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Dread of Night
1x Duress
1x Pithing Needle
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Chill
1x Null Rod
1x Hymn to Tourach
1x Baleful Strix
1x Golgari Charm
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Engineered Plague
1x Force of Will

I do not think that Meddling Mage package is necessary due to the low amount of Combo, but I could add it as long as you find enough room for 4-7 cards (if I add Containment Priests the white splash demands more slots) if you think I should do so. Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated!

And here's my 60 (for the full view of current 75):

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

4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Baleful Strix
4x Shardless Agent

3x Ancestral Vision
3x Thoughtseize
4x Brainstorm
4x Abrupt Decay
1x Sylvan Library
1x Hymn to Tourach
1x Toxic Deluge
2x Liliana of the Veil
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3x Force of Will

I will be having TNNs, Vendilion Clique and whatnot at my disposal, so feel free to suggest anything that is worth inclusion.

Thank you for your time.

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Originally Posted by wcm8

While I think Ancestral Visions is the better card for this deck over Treasure Cruise, 1-2 Dig Through Time are a possibility here.

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First note: I am running a Thopter Foundry list and have been loving it. I have dropped 'Goyfs in favor of Strixes and TNNs and until this delve fiasco goes by the wayside (which it probably won't) and I will not be returning to 'Goyfs for a while.

Getting that out of the way, adding 2 Dig Through Times has been absolutely wonderful and is very often a game-changer (hurray repetition of information). It is a perfect compliment to the other CA engines in this list, as well as a great mid- to late-game filter. I think Shardless BUG needs good quality filtering over an un-cascadable Sorcery-speed draw 3. I absolutely love Digging mid-game EOT on my opponent's turn and grabbing another Shardless and a Jace, and putting the rest of the crap underneath to help "clear the way" for Shardless (this happens 80% of the time and I guess it's just my luck).

For Shardless BUG, bringing on 2 more TRULY excellent ways to interact with the stack is important. Dig fits the bill for me. I'm not saying Treasure Cruise ain't good in this deck, because it certainly can be. I just find Dig to be better, faster, and stronger.

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Originally Posted by Kyle

First note: I am running a Thopter Foundry list and have been loving it. I have dropped 'Goyfs in favor of Strixes and TNNs and until this delve fiasco goes by the wayside (which it probably won't) and I will not be returning to 'Goyfs for a while.

Getting that out of the way, adding 2 Dig Through Times has been absolutely wonderful and is very often a game-changer (hurray repetition of information). It is a perfect compliment to the other CA engines in this list, as well as a great mid- to late-game filter. I think Shardless BUG needs good quality filtering over an un-cascadable Sorcery-speed draw 3. I absolutely love Digging mid-game EOT on my opponent's turn and grabbing another Shardless and a Jace, and putting the rest of the crap underneath to help "clear the way" for Shardless (this happens 80% of the time and I guess it's just my luck).

For Shardless BUG, bringing on 2 more TRULY excellent ways to interact with the stack is important. Dig fits the bill for me. I'm not saying Treasure Cruise ain't good in this deck, because it certainly can be. I just find Dig to be better, faster, and stronger.

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makes me happy to see my point of veiw on the digs and the thopter combo peices

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Originally Posted by tons of fun

makes me happy to see my point of veiw on the digs and the thopter combo peices

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People I play against actually get annoyed with the amount of targets they have to counter or destroy. It's kinda like Maverick back in the day.

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Originally Posted by Kyle

People I play against actually get annoyed with the amount of targets they have to counter or destroy. It's kinda like Maverick back in the day.

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its great

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Originally Posted by Kyle

First note: I am running a Thopter Foundry list and have been loving it. I have dropped 'Goyfs in favor of Strixes and TNNs and until this delve fiasco goes by the wayside (which it probably won't) and I will not be returning to 'Goyfs for a while.

Getting that out of the way, adding 2 Dig Through Times has been absolutely wonderful and is very often a game-changer (hurray repetition of information). It is a perfect compliment to the other CA engines in this list, as well as a great mid- to late-game filter. I think Shardless BUG needs good quality filtering over an un-cascadable Sorcery-speed draw 3. I absolutely love Digging mid-game EOT on my opponent's turn and grabbing another Shardless and a Jace, and putting the rest of the crap underneath to help "clear the way" for Shardless (this happens 80% of the time and I guess it's just my luck).

For Shardless BUG, bringing on 2 more TRULY excellent ways to interact with the stack is important. Dig fits the bill for me. I'm not saying Treasure Cruise ain't good in this deck, because it certainly can be. I just find Dig to be better, faster, and stronger.

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Thopter list sounds fun, would you mind posting a deck list?