[Deck & Primer] UGB Intuition-Thresh

So, I'm more or less finished with Pernicious Deed MD, instead of casting Pernicious Deed we should be casting Natural Order -> Progenitus. Pernicious Deeds are either hit or miss vs aggro, but Natural Order will GG aggro 100% if resolved. Now that we aren't sweeping the board, Counterbalance/Sensei's Divining Top can be played, so we're improving both the aggro and the control match up.

Something along the lines of,

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Intuition
1 Genesis
1 Life from the Loam
4 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
3 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
1 Island
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Academy Ruins
1 Dryad Arbor

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Breathweapon

but Natural Order will GG aggro 100% if resolved.

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I have been advocating the dropping of deed as well, due to being too slow against aggro, but this statement a little bit of an exaggeration. Even a third turn progenitus takes 2 more turns to kill, which leaves plenty of time for goblins, elves, sligh, etc. to finish off your last life. I'm not saying NO->prog is incorrect to play, but a darkheart sliver is just as good at slowing aggro decks.

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Originally Posted by Solpugid

I have been advocating the dropping of deed as well, due to being too slow against aggro, but this statement a little bit of an exaggeration. Even a third turn progenitus takes 2 more turns to kill, which leaves plenty of time for goblins, elves, sligh, etc. to finish off your last life. I'm not saying NO->prog is incorrect to play, but a darkheart sliver is just as good at slowing aggro decks.

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I didn't mean NO=GG regardless of the situation, what I meant was Pernicious Deed clears the board while NO dominates the board, i.e. Pernicious Deed does nothing left unchecked while NO ends the game by virtue of attacking.

NO is pro-active, which is what makes it good.

I really like that list tho', about all I wonder about is whether or not Daze should be Counterspell (you want your land drops), but Counterspell is so bad vs Daze and Spellsnare :(

Hi guys,

I was working on a Demigod deck but after alot of time I changed to something that might be comparable with this deck... Note that I didn't follow this thread so I might be playing some things that might look weird.

Well here is the list anyway

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4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Windsept Heath
1 Flooded Strand
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp

1 Shriekmaw
1 Eternal Witiness
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant

1 Life from the Loam
3 Daze
3 Intuition
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Raven's Crime
3 Diabolic Edict
4 Spell Snare

// Sideboard
2 Pithing Needle
3 Krosan Grip
3 Blue Elemental BLast
3 Extirpate
4 Engineered Plague

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Allright after screening this thread I didn't see Dark Confidant and I wondered why not. I really needed an additional( next to Goyf) easily playable thread and Confidant was the best choice. I tried Nimble Mongoose and Tombstalker, but it took to much time for Mongoose to grow and Tombstalker was to hard to cast. I do miss another beater though

I didn't like the incarnation, well actually I did like the incarnations, but I didn't like drawing them, so I left them out. With Dark Confidant I couldn't play Snuff Out, so I chose Diabolic Edict and a single Pulse for it. It works quite nice.

No Wastelands, because this deck is to slow to take advantage of it. You probably need Stifles to complement it. Spell Snares instead of Thoughtseize because of a) Dark Confidant and b) Force of Will.

Anyway the deck works quite nice and is very much fun to play.

On a sidenote I did made a deck with Wastelands, it's the above deck with the following changes:

Quote:

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-4 Dark Confidant
-1 Flooded Strand
-1 Underground Sea
-1 Cephalid Coliseaum
-3 Diabolic Edict
-1 Maelstrom Pulse
-4 Spell Snare
-1 Ponder

+4 Nimble Mongoose
+3 Wasteland
+4 Snuff Out
+1 Daze
+4 Stifle

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Any that's about it.

Benie

EDIT: P.S. I want to play this deck in a month in a quite varied metagame without much combo, but lots of Merfolk, Zoo and Loam. So I need to optimalize the deck for that meta

Currently in Paris, will be back late tomorrow. Just going to quickly answer one question:

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Originally Posted by Benie Bederios

Allright after screening this thread I didn't see Dark Confidant and I wondered why not. I really needed an additional( next to Goyf) easily playable thread and Confidant was the best choice.

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1. Check the opening thread: look at your average CMC, your number of fetches, and factor in FoW. It is simply too much life loss to bear.

2. In addition to killing you faster, Confidant is a pitiful threat.


I look forward to returning to this thread full time. Thanks for all of your comments.

Agh, I just spent almost an hour typing out a long reply, then lost it. This is the gist of it, however:


I'm not sold on the Progenitus model for a number of reasons:

1.) Even if it's better, it's a totally different deck. For reasons that I think are obvious, I'd prefer to continue to develop this concept as much as possible.

2.) Even if incorporating the Progenitus combo is the way to go, I'm unconvinced about changing the deck's base so radically. From what I've seen (and I readily admit that I'd need much more Prog-testing experience to affirm this confidently), the combo commits you to all-or-nothing attack plans. Once Progenitus hits, it becomes very difficult for the deck to win if it can't be made to attack every turn. Once you have to hold it back defensively, you're in trouble. I see this being especially relevant against Affinity, Goblins, Merfolk, Zoo, and Team America (or Tombstalker-based decks). By contrast, Deed forces the opponent to develop his or her position more slowly, especially when coupled with significant amounts of spot removal. In this way, Deed allows for easy transitions between aggressive and defensive attack phases, as well as one-critter swings. I have a hard time seeing the NO-PROG combo working out the same way. Deed-recovery is fairly easy; recovering from a lagging Progenitus-position, on the other hand, seems much more difficult to me--but to be fair, I need more experience with it.

3.) So much board development goes into the combo, whereas comparatively little goes into Deed. What I am getting at here is that even if Progenitus is more pro-active than Deed (I rather like that argument, actually), the situations in which each is desirable are fundamentally different. With Progenitus, my understanding is that you want to land it as often as possible, in order to win by your sixth or seventh turn. Deed, however, can appear at just about any time, and it seems to me that it still turns the tide of battle more permanently, if (on occasion) less immediately decisively. I use Deed as a deterrant, an exit strategy; Progenitus, however, I would use as my hammer and forget about exit strategies entirely. The consequence of that move, however, is that Progenitus is much less useful if, for some reason, you're on the defensive, whereas Deed is less useful when you're on the offensive. But consider this: if you're already on the offensive, then don't additions to that campaign smack of win-more?


Basically, I'm a cautious player, and so am not convinced that this is the direction to go. At least, certainly not all-in. Using Deed's slots for other purposes is just fine, but I just don't think that NO-PROG is a much better way to go.

Benie: I'm overjoyed that you're considering running a version of the deck at your tournament. I'd be more than happy to load it up and see if I can leave you with any ideas or comments over the course of this week, useless or wrongheaded as they may prove to be. Good luck!

Thank you all for your continued interest, posts, and patience with me. I'll be testing Progenitus out over the next few weeks to see if my concerns are valid, and I hope that you'll do the same and report here on that deck's various pros and cons, as well as on whether or not UGB I-T's fundamental principles can somehow be conserved in such a version.

Thanks,
-Goas

So, I've been mulling over some of the "secondary threat" options we have, and I came up with Putrid Leech. The obvious advantage is that it's a cost effective, non graveyard reliant beater that stands above Goblins, Nacatls and goes toe to toe with anything but MoE in Affinity. Obviously, we have to drop Snuff Out and Thought Seize, but we can just sub those for Shriekmaw and Spellsnare. I've also been looking at Bitterblossom pretty hard, a non symmetric, evasive threat that can swarm the opponent if left unchecked seems really damn good. Obviously it has little to no synergy with our recursion engine and sweepers, but the card may be so powerful by itself it warrants inclusion regardless.

I definitely feel we need to find our second threat in this deck, because as it stands we're just kind of a janky "It's The Fear."

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

So, I've been mulling over some of the "secondary threat" options we have, and I came up with Putrid Leech. The obvious advantage is that it's a cost effective, non graveyard reliant beater that stands above Goblins, Nacatls and goes toe to toe with anything but MoE in Affinity. Obviously, we have to drop Snuff Out and Thought Seize, but we can just sub those for Shriekmaw and Spellsnare. I've also been looking at Bitterblossom pretty hard, a non symmetric, evasive threat that can swarm the opponent if left unchecked seems really damn good. Obviously it has little to no synergy with our recursion engine and sweepers, but the card may be so powerful by itself it warrants inclusion regardless.

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I do agree that finding an appropriate secondary beater is a defining issue, but I'm unconvinced by Putrid Leech. Mostly, that's because the changes required to accommodate the lifeloss don't seem particularly beneficial. I'd rather run Lorescale Coatl instead, since it allows us to run Top instead of Ponder (although you sometimes end up losing a beater to FoW, which is unfortunate).

I've currently been testing Ravenous Baloth, with surprisingly positive results. The downside has been its high converted mana cost. What this suggests to me, however, is that perhaps Kitchen Finks is a better compromise, since you gain the life anyway and it will survive a Deed activation/combat while beating for a fairly significant amount.


One way to go about it, however, would be just to compile a list of options. For example, I can think of these options as plausible (some obviously being better than others):


Bitterblossom - Harsh on the life total, tokens are not synergistic with board-clearing strategies, vulnerable to Counterbalance, minimal late-game effect (notably: doesn't net a token immediately). Early castings enable significant swarms, however.

Boggart Ram-Gang - Significant threat, lasting effect on the board, haste. Downside: difficult colour requirements.

Ebony Treefolk - Significant threat, cheap, and pumpable. Downside: colour requirements.

Golgari Brownscale - Provides life and recursion, but a small enough threat that dredging it would prove questionable.

Graveshell Scarab - Evades control magic effects, large body, easy recursion. Downside: high mana cost and colour requirements make it implausible as a secondary beater.

Kitchen Finks - Low cost that evades Counterbalance, strong beater, mild recursion, life gain.

Lorescale Coatl - See my discussion in previous posts.

Nyxathid - Excellent beater, but less effective vs. Standstill, combo, and company, and difficult colour requirements.

Putrid Leech - See my discussion in previous posts.

Ravenous Baloth - Strong beater, evades control magic and gains life. Downside: fairly high cost.

Restless Apparition - Low cost, pump, mild recursion. Downside: difficult colour requirements, even with Hierarch.

River Boa - See my discussion in previous posts.

Selkie Hedge-Mage - Not much of a threat, but it's easy to cast and recur, can affect board position, can gain you some life, and pitches to FoW (making a return to Top over Ponder possible). Benefits from enemy LOA.

Shambling Shell - Avoids control magic effects, easy recursion, fair threat, and can be used to pump a creature.

Spike Feeder - Gains life and avoids control magic, but little else. Can transfer counters, but that requires another creature and makes us more vulnerable to control magic effects.

Stalker Hag - Significant threat, useful evasion, decent mana requirements.

Sturdy Hatchling - Shroud, large body, evades Counterbalance, easy mana requirements, pitches to FoW (making a return to Top over Ponder possible but perhaps unwanted, given its downside). Downside: fairly small immediate effect on the board, but that can grow fairly quickly.

Terravore - Excellent beater, but graveyard dependent. Will it be large enough to make a difference?

Tombstalker - See my discussion in previous posts.

Troll Ascetic - See my discussion in previous posts.

Trygon Predator - Handy mana cost, evasion, destroys enemy resources, pitches to FoW (making a return to Top over Ponder possible).

Undead Gladiator - A fair threat, but double-black is more difficult, and its recursion would compete with Stronghold activations in particular. Cycling is a boon, however.

Wanderbrine Rootcutters - Minor evasion, immunity to black removal, strong threat, acceptable mana cost, benefits from enemy LOA. Pitches to FoW, enabling a return to Top over Ponder.

Wasp Lancer - Good threat, evasion, pitches to FoW (making a return to Top over Ponder possible).

Wild Mongrel - See my discussion in previous posts.


I put my preferred options in bold. Feel free to point out when I'm just being a moron. There are a few factors that I really like/am looking for when it comes to the cards above:

-Impact on the board. That's a must.
-Pitching to FoW, which enables a return to the stability offered by Top.
-Life gain, which this deck certainly won't object to.
-Recursion, a mainstay of this deck.
-Evading control magic effects, which is a huge plus for the deck's recursion engines.
-Resilience to removal.
-A casting cost that generally evades Counterbalance/Spell Snare, but which nonetheless is still easy to cast.


According to these criteria, I'm particularly excited by Kitchen Finks, Selkie Hedge-Mage (lol! I know it doesn't really fulfill the beatstick role that we're looking for--I just enjoy the thought of lategame recursion. I doubt it's actually playable.), Shambling Shell, Trygon Predator, and Wanderbrine Rootcutters, which are options that I hadn't really considered earlier. Any thoughts? Better options?

So... after a fair bit of testing, I have to report that Kitchen Finks is my favourite of the "new" options. At three mana, it still dodges Counterbalance, and it directly complements three of the deck's strategies/needs: helps to stabilize the life total, it's a significant beater (made even better by Noble Hierarch), and has built-in recursion. And even if it's stolen by Threads or Sower, at least it returns to you (and gives you the life) when it dies.

Boa, Ascetic, and Coatl all work pretty well too, but losing Boas and Coatls to control magic effects is pretty disastrous. Ascetic is also very strong, although its regeneration sees less use.

There are still two options that I have not tested adequately: Shambling Shell and Great Sable Stag. I hadn't even considered the Stag before, but it's got some very good properties:

-Immunity to control magic effects (which are blue, minus Shackles)
-Immunity to half the removal in the format (which is black)
-Guaranteed drop (no counterspells or counterbalance will affect it)
-Significant threat with adequate defense
-Blocks merfolk and random black critters all day


So that's the state of the contest for me now: it's a race between Kitchen Finks, Troll Ascetic, Shambling Shell, and Great Sable Stag. I'd be happy with any of the three, however. Three mana is the sweet spot, the perfect balance between speed (turns 2-3), Counterbalance immunity, effect on board position, and castability.

The problem tho' is our 2cc slot is seriously underutilized, and if you play Coatl, you may as well play Top, and if you play Top you may as well play CB etc. I'm a big fan of Boa, because it goes toe to toe with Tarmogoyf, Island Walks for 2 and regenerates thru' Deed while being 2cc. Anything more than Intuition and Deed just make the deck top heavy, and I doubt any of those 3cc threats are better than Tombstalker at that rate.

I've been following this discussion from the beginning and I finally got around to sleeving up the deck. I used BreathWeapon's list because I think he made some very valid points when he said not to play to many one-offs.

I've been liking the deck so far but I have 2 issues with the deck:
1. Beaters: this list only plays Goyf and Werebear and I really think an additional threath is necessary. Tombstalker seems like a good option to me (as mentioned here a couple of times); has anybody tested him?
2. Spot removal: I've played Eva Green in the past and Snuff Out is perfect for that deck because it is a tempo deck. However I don't really like Snuff Out in this deck. This is not a fast tempo (suicide-style) deck like Eva Green and therefore the life loss is often relevant. I'm currently trying Smother and a single Shriekmaw in that slot but I'm not convinced yet.
My question: do you guys think it would be possible to splash white for StP. I would minimize the black in such a list (only Deed and Thoughtseize) and probably play Hierarch instead of Werebear (obviously with an additional beater - Knight o/t Reliquary comes to mind)???

One more thing: has anybody tried to run a single manland (Factory)? You can get it with an Intuition pile with Loam before you blow up a Deed...

Thanks

I really, really like Tombstalker, altho' being graveyard reliant and being +2cc is the opposite direction I'd like to go in. Regardless, he's just a stupidly good threat who avoids Tarmogoyf, Balance and Deed, so it may very well be inevitable.

As far as Mandlands, Gargoyle Castle seems really cool, if not very practical.

Right now I'm running,

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Thoughtseize
1 Raven's Crime
4 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Tombstalker
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Genesis
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Shriekmaw
1 Life from the Loam
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Wasteland

Basically, I just head straight for the resource war with Balanced Thresh and hope Deed, Intuition and Tombstalker mitigate their Balance/Top (you're also more or less Snare proof). It's sort of like Team America meets It's The Fear, except of instead of Team America's early mana disruption you swap it for It's The Fear's middle/late game staying power.

I really like that list. How has it been for you so far?
I agree with you on Tombstalker. The last tournament I was in, I played a AggroRock style deck (basically Eva Green with white splash and confidant, top which can become more of a Rock deck post board) and I found out once again how absolutely ridiculous Tombstalker can be.

I'm currently testing this list:
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Thoughtseize
1 Raven's Crime
4 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Genesis

3 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Island
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Mishra’s Factory
1 Wasteland

It runs over control and aggro-control, but it has issues with mana disruption based aggro-control decks and swarm aggro like Goblins. Surprisingly, it rapes Merfolk pretty hard, I usually win unless Relic hits ... which obviously sucks.

Alright,

I'm back from holiday without Magic, but quite some time to ponder and the Tournament is Sunday. I already tested Tombstalker without succes, zo I'm back on Nimble Mongoose. Wasteland Stifle isn't that strong in my meta so I removed Stifle and cut down Wasteland to one. Here is my current list.

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// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [R] Tropical Island
3 [R] Underground Sea
2 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [R] Bayou
1 [GUR] Forest
1 [GUR] Island
1 [GUR] Swamp
1 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
1 [ON] Wooded Foothills
1 [TE] Wasteland

// Creatures
1 [LRW] Shriekmaw
1 [FD] Eternal Witness
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose
1 [JU] Genesis

// Spells
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
3 [NE] Daze
4 [TE] Intuition
3 [AP] Pernicious Deed
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [LRW] Ponder
1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
3 [MM] Snuff Out
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [R] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 4 [UL] Engineered Plague

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I'm testing Genisis now, because it actually gives cardadvantage. funny enough I don't have a Volrath's Stronghold, so it's not in the list yet. I upped Intuition to four, because I found I drew them not often enough and because a second is rarely dead.

Noble Hierarch although nice isn't a beater.

Any comment?

Benie

Goose isn't a bad bet, he's become more useful in the face of Zoo since he stands toe to toe with every non-Goyf threat and is immune to burn, however he's still a liability in the aggro-control mirror.

Any thoughts on Wild Mongrel?

@Benie: Mongoose is still really, really good. I abandoned it in favour of Hierarch solely to help stabilise the manabase in the face of a hateful general environment. Hell, it may still turn out that Mongoose is the best option for a secondary beatstick, Counterbalance be damned. In any case, there's nothing wrong with opting for the pro-Mongoose/non-Hierarch route. I'm just glad you're picking the deck up for testing. =)

As far as Stronghold goes, it's clearly inferior to Genesis. I like its inclusion because it complements Genesis, and helps to negate graveyard hate's effects. In that way, it adds redundancy (a good thing) and inevitability. In your list, I think it would do best replacing Coliseum, should you decide to include it (to get around potential/probable mana and life issues--Coliseum's great, but not necessary).

My only other comment would be that 4 Thoughtseize is probably too many, especially with Snuff Out (and Coliseum, 7 Fetches, and 4 FoW). I'd say that three is the absolute maximum (since they're less useful later on than Raven's Crime, which we run anyway).


@Breathweapon: Mongrel's a possibility, and a good contendor. It can easily dodge most black removal, and can occasionally dodge control-magic effects like Shackles. When we ran it originally, it pulled its own weight primarily as a defender, dissuading opposing Tarmogoyfs. With Wonder in the main deck, of course, it's much more attractive. ;)

I haven't tested Mongrel in the current version of the deck that I'm running (with Hierarch and Pulse), but I will, and I'll report. That's really all I can say, myself, without having tested it in my current version. Everything that I said about it in earlier versions of the deck still stands, I think.

Just wanted to mention that although I'm still more or less undecided about the secondary beater, I've started work on a new primer, since the deck that I'm advocating is now radically different from what it was. I won't be posting it until after Zendikar is completely spoiled, however. That's for two reasons:

1.) My upcoming MA thesis defence puts some constraints on the time that I can devote to it for now.
2.) Zendikar might have a useable goody or two, or might have an impact on the format in general. Best to know as much as possible before publishing the primer, rather than having to amend it.

So. Looks like this deck got it's secondary beater all right. I think I'm'a cook something like this up soon enough.

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Originally Posted by Infinitium

So. Looks like this deck got it's secondary beater all right. I think I'm'a cook something like this up soon enough.

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Yeah, Kitchen Finks has been nothing but good to me. It does everything and anything that you could hope to ask it to: it regenerates, it swings for a significant amount (more, with Hierarchs), and it mitigates life loss from Snuff Out and company. I couldn't really ask for more.


I'd say that I'm about 20% done re-writing the primer. But I was wondering a couple of things, and I'd value everyone's input.

1.) Should I start a new post, or is everyone tired of seeing new posts for an expensive deck that few people play?

2.) Is there a way that I can maybe upload a PDF somewhere and then use that for the primer, rather than copy/pasting huge blocks of text into 5+ posts?