[Deck] Canadian Thresh (a.k.a. RUG Tempo, Tempo Thresh)

@Cenarius

Glad to see that this deck is putting up results again, 'gratz to the undertaker for the finish.
I gave disfigure a try but didn't find any tribal deck, and I didn't draw them against zoo, but I think they should be ok, especially for the tribal MU. Tests will show if they're worth the slots.

Talking about the 4th copy of each dual land, I must say that my meta is packed of decks using wastelands (madness, merfolks, goblins or other tempo decks, which are played a lot in my area) and sometimes I really need to find the 4th dual. I know it doesn't happen too often, but I prefer to be able to find the land I need. Merfolk in particular is a tough MU because they're hitting your black mana sources (namely undergound sea) pretty hard. Luckily dreadnought completely solves the problem, I really love this solution to this kind of MU.

That said, I have to admit that playing a fetch over a dual has its benefits, especially talking about reaching threshold, playing demise and shuffling after brainstorm, so I do see why you play it and I can't really find anything to disagree.

Confidant is probably the card I love the most in the entire deck. It provides card advantage (totally absent in canadian) and higher treats density: what could you ask more from a single card?

Glad to see the black splash doing well. I might just have to put together this deck over Next Level Threshold because it's looking solid right now. I love the color black as well for providing some great removal spells and BOB is huge.

I wouldn't ever play vendetta over ghastly demise. If you're going to play vendetta why not just play snuff out? That card creates tempo at the cost of 4 life to remove that terravore, knight, goyf, etc. etc. Snuff out is all around better than vendetta IMO. Ghastly demise might get replaced with innocent blood in aggro meta's because if you have a dark confidant you're taking too much damage from you can sack it to innocent blood and kill their creature as well. Although even innocent blood probably doesn't make the cut because of the drawbacks of if you have only a goyf out drawing it is terrible and the sorcery speed makes it even worse against vial decks.

Disfigure intrigues me. It looks really sweet against a lot of decks although there are times when the card is pretty terrible. However it works great at killing steppe lynx and a turn 1 nacatl is answered by it. Against goblins it kills pretty much everything in their deck and answers the turn 1 lackey. Merfolk is hit by it pretty easily assuming they have only one lord effect out two lord effects makes it okayish if you can block their creatures.

The 4th dual land slots are meta dependant like spartan said if you see lots of wastelands pack 4 sea's and 4 trop's if not you can always play more fetches to abuse brainstorm to the limit.

I'm just gonna chime in here.

I had been playing TA extensively, and while it is a very powerful deck in the right meta, it just gets blown over late game.
Goblins, Zoo, and Merfolk had been such a pain when things get into the 5 land zone.
Plus I hated staring at a 'stalker in my hand with like 4 cards in my gy.
I happened to stumble upon these UGB lists myself, ran em, and was freakin blown away.


I'm not into the 12/12 try to win the game thing.
I don't think 2 card combos are where this deck wants to be.
Plus I'm nowhere near ballsy enough to put all my faith in one fatty.

Running EE main is the right call IMO. I can't think of a decent deck that's not hurt by this.

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Originally Posted by Scordata

I'm just gonna chime in here.

I had been playing TA extensively, and while it is a very powerful deck in the right meta, it just gets blown over late game.
Goblins, Zoo, and Merfolk had been such a pain when things get into the 5 land zone.
Plus I hated staring at a 'stalker in my hand with like 4 cards in my gy.
I happened to stumble upon these UGB lists myself, ran em, and was freakin blown away.


I'm not into the 12/12 try to win the game thing.
I don't think 2 card combos are where this deck wants to be.
Plus I'm nowhere near ballsy enough to put all my faith in one fatty.

Running EE main is the right call IMO. I can't think of a decent deck that's not hurt by this.

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I agree with both your assessment of Team America and Dreadnought.

I hear everyone saying "Dreadnought is soooooo awesome against Merfolk." Really? You're talking about Merfolk, the deck with Curscatchers, Daze, Force, and SB Spell Pierce for your Stifles right? Not to mention the fact that you should be boarding out Stifle against Merfolk anyway.

I wish they made some better 1 mana removal for black. Getting 2/3 of your creatures and your removal raped by Tormod's Crypt sucks =(

I kind of had the same problems with Team America. The things I disliked the most about it were playing Tombstalker and Tarmogoyf in the same deck at first and how weak it tends to be in the lategame. It might be able to play the tempo-role nicely but it also runs out of gas quite easily. I think the new UBG-Threshold variant is the future of both Team America and Canadian. Still I have to say I'm not quite sure about the Phyrexian Dreadnought plan from the board. Seriously, I don't see it being that good, all the decks were you would want it have. All the decks against which you would want it have removal for it, and especially Threads Of Disloyalty from Merfolk can ruin your day.
Anyway, I like the idea of playing Dark Confidant and Ghastly Demise, Smother and black removal in general, I think it really benefits the deck since it makes up for most of both decks weaknesses e.g. not drawing enough creatures and lack of cardadvantage and proper removal. I'd love to see Snuff Out working in here, but the lifeloss will be too much I guess.

About Dreadnoughts. The one's that DID test with the card are very fund of it. The one's that DID NOT test with the card are in doubt. Maybe you guys should test it. You'll get fund of the card.
Running either EE or Innocent blood or Snuff Out, is just wrong in my opinion. I don't get why you would like to possibly kill your own creature or lose 8 life (possibly) in order to kill theirs. It will happen a lot, and I'm sure its bad. Black offers real removal, why not just play those?

Dreadnought wins against Merfolk because it has its suprise effect. Same goes against Goblins (let them matron first f.e.), same goes against any other matchup that does not suspect the card in this deck. This is why I hesitated on sharing my list. If people get more and more aware of possible Dreadnoughts in my sideboard, my suprise effect is gone and therefore maybe even games will be lost.

Anyway, it's hard to defend cards or card choices if people never test these cards or never test the list on their own. Just get a feeling with the deck, before sending posts about card choices that are made during years of testing (of my and my teams test-results).

Well, to be honest the last time I played Dreadnoughts was in like 2006 so I don't know how good they are right now though I have to say that I never lost to one. That might be the reason why I'm not able to see how good they actually are. I'll test them soon. But you are right about people not testing cards. People usually rather tend to replace cards they find odd than to actually test them. Sometimes stuff is really not worth testing but most of the time it's basically better to test everything.
Anyway, what I don't understand is why you dislike Engineered Explosives. Innocent Blood and Snuff Out might not be good here, but Explosives is definitely a good card since it's really versatile. They might be worse than additional spotremoval mainboard but they're definitely a really good sideboard card.

Adan did well with 2 EE list with UGb thresh I believe.

I always thought that TA > UGb Bobthresh until more results with Bobthresh proves its point. Also, drawing tons of cards wins games, Bob's popularity in Vintage is simply due to this fact. Bob actually fits well in this deck since you have way too many disruption/counter to protect and ride him to victory.

Just curious, why no Vendilion Cliques? I'm always a fan of Cliques in tempo deck, everything about her reads tempo:
- Flash at 3cmc fits into the untapped lands bluff-> Stifle/counter, EOT clique or draw-phase clique depending on the situation
- 3/1 flyer evasive and ends game fast, allows you to even ignore opposing creatures and race with an evasive 3/1 while disrupting
- Her ability is very good in tempo decks, taking the best card and having future knowledge.

In addition, I'm a fan of Jace in tempo decks, he's not true tempo, but he fits the tempo role with all his abilities: bounce, fateseal, brainstorm. The reason why I think the UGb Bobthresh is strong is because Bob basically acts like a mini-Jace early game, and provides beats too.

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Originally Posted by Cenarius

About Dreadnoughts. The one's that DID test with the card are very fund of it. The one's that DID NOT test with the card are in doubt. Maybe you guys should test it. You'll get fund of the card.
Running either EE or Innocent blood or Snuff Out, is just wrong in my opinion. I don't get why you would like to possibly kill your own creature or lose 8 life (possibly) in order to kill theirs. It will happen a lot, and I'm sure its bad. Black offers real removal, why not just play those?

Dreadnought wins against Merfolk because it has its suprise effect. Same goes against Goblins (let them matron first f.e.), same goes against any other matchup that does not suspect the card in this deck. This is why I hesitated on sharing my list. If people get more and more aware of possible Dreadnoughts in my sideboard, my suprise effect is gone and therefore maybe even games will be lost.

Anyway, it's hard to defend cards or card choices if people never test these cards or never test the list on their own. Just get a feeling with the deck, before sending posts about card choices that are made during years of testing (of my and my teams test-results).

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I actually have tested Dreadnoughts and no it's not as good as you say. What surprise factor? Sure, the fact that youre running Dreadnought in particular might be surprising, but they always board in boatloads of removal for games 2 and 3, so the creature being a Dreadnought doesnt make much of a difference.

Wouldn't it be better to go game 1 UGb Tempo Thresh with Dreadnoughts in it take the game by surprise then board them out after they dilute their decks with artifact hate?

Seems that this is a better strategy since you're improving game 1 matchups against random jank/unknown decks, and diluting your opponent's game 2/3s when they board in grips etc. And you can even bluff in games 2/3 pretending you still have dreadnoughts lol.

@metalwalker

If this deck is going to run dreadnoughts, I would have to agree with you.
That having been said however, I would then cut the geese for 3 dreadnoughts and 1 trickbind.

Maybe 3-4 geese in sb?

This deck rocks because of the threat density, and oftentimes the shroud is what gets you there.

Mongoose was "bad" in UGr Thresh because it wasn't big enough to get through opposing creatures and Bolt isn't enough to kill relevant creatures anymore. Mongoose is now "good" in Black Thresh because you can simply Smother the opposing creature now.

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Originally Posted by Metalwalker

Wouldn't it be better to go game 1 UGb Tempo Thresh with Dreadnoughts in it take the game by surprise then board them out after they dilute their decks with artifact hate?

Seems that this is a better strategy since you're improving game 1 matchups against random jank/unknown decks, and diluting your opponent's game 2/3s when they board in grips etc. And you can even bluff in games 2/3 pretending you still have dreadnoughts lol.

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Exactly. I dont understand the thought process of people sometimes.

Game 1: You win/lose.
Opponent brings in creature hate.
You bring in...creatures? What?

The only time Dreadnought is a "surprise" is

1) In game 1 where they expect to see cute critters like Goyf and Mongoose after seeing your first Confidant, and instead meet a giant Dreadnought.

2) Or when you bring them in game 2 for a deck that normally doesnt run creatures (ex. a storm combo player busting out the stiflenought plan after game 1. not that storm combos do this or should, but it's just an example).

As metalwalker said, if youre going to run Dreadnoughts, they would be better suited for game 1 to bait out the Krosan Grips for game 2 (aka what Dreadstill does when they board out Noughts and go for the Jace plan in game 2). If you want to get 2-for-1'd all day in the removal-heavy game 2, be my guest. Sounds like a lot of tempo.

Stiflenought is a dangerously deceptive combo. It's easy to become "fond" of it because of those random Stiflenought + Force backup wins. But you have to really weigh the pros and cons of it. You dont see SB Dreadnoughts in all stifle/tempo lists. There is a reason.

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Originally Posted by Cenarius

About Dreadnoughts. The one's that DID test with the card are very fund of it. The one's that DID NOT test with the card are in doubt. Maybe you guys should test it. You'll get fund of the card.

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Well,you're right! But same is true for Engineered Explosives.
I only know current German results. I did a total of 17 : 3 : 0 in tournament plays (3 TOs) over the last 2 months with my list playing 2 Smother, 2 Edict, 1 Demise and 2 EE as maindeck removal and another EE + 3 disfigure to have 7 maindeck removal and 11 post board. Adan tested it once at the same time and did 5:1 as well afaik.

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Running either EE or Innocent blood or Snuff Out, is just wrong in my opinion. I don't get why you would like to possibly kill your own creature or lose 8 life (possibly) in order to kill theirs. It will happen a lot, and I'm sure its bad. Black offers real removal, why not just play those?

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Over the last 3 TOs Engineered Explosives won 1st games against Belcher, Goblins, Merfolk, CT, 43.Land, Dredge, Bant.....not quiet sure if there were more.
But those are some of the matchups where you absolutly want to win g1 to get another of the remaining 2 games on the play.

I like the 3 Spell Pierce Maindeck and actually I board them in nearly every matchup, but at the moment I don't want to get rid of those Maindeck EEs

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Dreadnought wins against Merfolk because it has its suprise effect. Same goes against Goblins (let them matron first f.e.), same goes against any other matchup that does not suspect the card in this deck. This is why I hesitated on sharing my list. If people get more and more aware of possible Dreadnoughts in my sideboard, my suprise effect is gone and therefore maybe even games will be lost.

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That's why I hate posting in forums. You're totally right that Dreadnought has a nice surprice effect, but that won't change the opponents' way of boarding against you. It will just change the way your opponents play against you and that's just g2.

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Anyway, it's hard to defend cards or card choices if people never test these cards or never test the list on their own. Just get a feeling with the deck, before sending posts about card choices that are made during years of testing (of my and my teams test-results).

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And again: same is true for EE :-)
You talk about your good results and testings and you congratulate people who perform well at random 4 round events with Dreadnought, but you can't neither negate the results of those who did well without dreadnought, nor that dreadnought:
- creates carddisadvantage
- is a non-tutorable 2 card combo
- make your stifles dead handcards until you draw dreadnought (or do you really wait until you brainstorm/ponder/mulligan randomly into both at once?!)

I don't think running Dreadnought mainboard is that much of a good idea either. There's not much room for it and I don't think that I'd want to run a card I board out against basically everything except stormcombo since basically every deck in the format has a way to deal with Dreadnought. There are Swords, Pathes, Bounce, Engineered Explosives, Qasali Pridemages and a lot more. Most decks have something to deal with it mainboard. In general you want to use your Stifles to create tempo and not to hold them back until you draw a Dreadnought. If you draw Dreadnought and already used your Stifle, you're drawing a blank basically. Against Merfolk, where Dreadnought shines the most, you usually would board out Stifle, at least that's what I do most of the times, though I have to say that the number of Merfolk decks splashing a color increases and therefore Stifle gets better here. If you're looking for something against Merfolk, I'd look at Engineered Explosives again. The card is so powerful, seriously. And it's good against basically everything. I really like Oddball's removal suite a lot, but personally I'd cut one of them for another land and play a slightly different manabase with basics,but that's a metagame call.

[B]I agree with a lot of things you say, Jona. The suggestion of playing Dreadnought in the Mainboard is like shooting me in the leg. No really.
The dreadnought option is against decks that, indeed, do not play:

Swords to Plowshares
Path to Exile
Pridemage
Easy removal, like Innocent blood.

To be honest this is arround half of the metagame. Right?

Dreadnought has the suprise effect. Your opponents doesn't suspect the card or either does not have a counter left. Dark Confidant is a must-counter, even sometimes Tarmogoyf is a must-counter for your opponent. They don't expect a follow-up play of Dreadnought-Stifle. They just expect me to cantrip or maybe play Mongoose or something else. Something random, but not Dreadnought!
About Dreadnought being not good against Merfolk. It won me in total 3 matches in the past three tournaments, which is a lot. The matchup is 50/50, yet I do have a result that's staggering. I'm in total 5-1-1 or something like that. If you tell me, it's a bad strategy, you must be insane. Either test the card or don't. But stop saying it's a bad strategy, if you have 3 test games as a results (or even less, I really don't know).

About Engineered Explosives. I tested the card. I really did. I didn't like the fact that it's either a dead card in my hand (which means it also removes a creature of mine), or that I would have to tap out in order to remove something. Tempo Threshold doesn't have many mana sources, tapping two mana (on sorcery speed) is a lot. You're two turns busy to remove a single Goyf on turns 2/3/4. These and a lot of other arguments I could post, give me enough reason to not play Engineered Explosives.

I know Adan played Engineered Explosives. He's the reason I started playing this deck. He gave me the idea of Phyrexian Dreadnought. I was searching for a way to beat tribal decks. If I didn't find the answer, I would not have played this deck. For real.

Btw, who says Nimble Mongoose is the worst creature of this list? Nimble Mongoose became so much better with 'real' removal. In my opinion (which is a bit weird), Nimble Mongoose > Tarmogoyf (in this list).
I never liked tapping out two mana (sorcery speed), for a creature that gets destroyed so easily. I just play the card because it's an answer against an opposing goyf (and well, it's still pretty good XD).

Anyway,

I think we can conclude some things about the last two pages.

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Dark Confidant

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle
3 Spell Snare
0/1/2 Spell Pierce (I play 2 now, can be 3 in some metagame's)

5/6/7 Removal (my current list plays: 4 Ghastly Demise/1 Smother)
This can be a mix of EE, Smother, Edict, Demise. The reason I play my package, is explained above (vaguely).

4 Ponder

Either,

8 fetch, 6 duals, 4 wasteland (<----- I definately prefer this one, I've never needed the 4th copy. And I have a metagame full or Tempo decks, Goblins, Merfolk, Agro-loam etc.)
or
6 fetch, 8 duals, 4 wasteland

Second,

Can we guys mutually share test results? It will lead to a more constructive discussion about the deck, instead of me defending some card choices.
I would like to know how good disfigure is against Merfolk/Goblins/Zoo. Haven't tested this myself yet.
The guys that did not test Dreadnought, or did not test it properly. Test it.

Think I forgot something, well who cares. Today is another chance.

Agreed that Mongoose > Goyf. Tapping out for Goyf on turn 2 is always a dilema for the deck. You want to pressure beats in, yet you want to disrupt. Depending on the matchup and your hand and future turns, this decision will cost or win you the game. Mongoose allows you to start the pressure AND play the tempo game on turn 2.

When playing UGr, Mongoose > Goyf until a big creature appears. Since UGr cannot deal with big creatures outside of a bounce spell, you have lost the tempo race once they get a Warmonk out against your 3/3. With UGb, you can now continue to push through with Bob drawing you more cards and keeping you in the game.

Piecing this up for the weekend, I'm a fan of the 2EE catch all in game 1. Jank exists, and Tempo doesn't really do well against Jank. I'll miss the burn reach of UGr, but Bob himself is kind of a 'reach' in that he keeps you way ahead in the game.

So a forum-mate believes that Tempo-thresh is inherently a beatdown deck. But I think the definition of beatdown in his context is too general to have value aka, every deck is a beatdown deck if it ultimately want's to beat and win the game. I think the crux of the debate was if Tempo Thresh plays more proactively or reactively. As far as I know, Tempo Thresh's success is a function of reacting to your opponents, and because of this reactive-play, you can capitalize on tempo advantage. And a good example to emphasize this is decks playing around Daze/Stifle/Waste have a better chance to survive against Tempo Thresh than decks blindy running into Daze/Stifle/Waste, which emphasizes the huge tempo gain from playing reactively.

Granted that dropping Geese/Bobs are all pro-active plays, but the true tempo is STILL inevitably gained from reactive plays, i.e. you drop a Goose/Bob with mana open. Your opponent has to deal with them or lose, to which you react and gain a tempo advantage via disruption. This forum-mate claims that a lot of people don't understand tempo, I probably don't, this is my gut feeling and logical reasoning on what tempo is (I myself have a deep interest in Magic Theory) but at the same time, not recognizing the strengths of reactive plays in Tempo Thresh makes me wonder if he even understands the core of the deck itself? Or am I entirely misled and wrong?

And sorry, no replies from noob Thresh players because this thread on Tempo Thresh has a ton of forum-mates who don't understand the meaning of Tempo, so I'm only taking replies for vets!

(just kidding on the last paragraph but quoting my good friend who thinks bulk of us are oblivious what tempo really is.)

Two things:

1)
I believe it is really really important to keep some kind of catch all spell, aslo when using the black splash. If any random attack-hoser, such as moat, ensnaring bridge, humility or what-not would catch you off guard (i.e you don't have the fow), then you're just done for, which is somewhat embarrassing and unnecessary. The red splash could solve this problem by a) using a bounce, or b) burn the opponent out, even from 10+ life, if played correctly. Some of you would probably argue that the game-state should never come to where your opponent can play moat safely, or we would have played poorly. And yeah I would probably have to agree with that, but we all know this kind of shit happens. Therefore, if you have a removal suit of 5-7 spells, I'd say you can afford keeping at least a bounce from the red list, or an EE, as suggested. Rushing river has always treated me nicely in all kinds of situations.

2)
If you do play this much removal, why are you still so heavy on the spell snares? There should not be as much focus on hitting random goyfs with those anymore, right? Why not play the full set spell pierce maindeck, to further strengthen your catch-all ability discussed above?

Do you know what happens if a Dark Confidant resolves? You bleed to death.
You play spell snare because it hits the most important spells in Legacy. I'm not talking about Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Lord of Atlantis or any other CC2 creature. Standstill, Counterbalance, EE#2, Bwish/IT, etc.
You can't just ignore this.

About the bounce. I was never satisfied about the Bounce. I used to play 2/3 Force Spike in the UGr builds, and was very pleased. If your opponent can resolve a moat, he has about 5/6 lands. If he can resolve such thing, you would have lost anyway. Their lategame is far superior that yours. You either should have mulliganned, or brainstorm'd in another way, Ponder'd in another way, or this or that. It may seem harsh, but you (any of us) probably made a mistake that game that costed you the game.

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Originally Posted by Metalwalker

So a forum-mate believes that Tempo-thresh is inherently a beatdown deck. But I think the definition of beatdown in his context is too general to have value aka, every deck is a beatdown deck if it ultimately want's to beat and win the game. I think the crux of the debate was if Tempo Thresh plays more proactively or reactively. As far as I know, Tempo Thresh's success is a function of reacting to your opponents, and because of this reactive-play, you can capitalize on tempo advantage. And a good example to emphasize this is decks playing around Daze/Stifle/Waste have a better chance to survive against Tempo Thresh than decks blindy running into Daze/Stifle/Waste, which emphasizes the huge tempo gain from playing reactively.

Granted that dropping Geese/Bobs are all pro-active plays, but the true tempo is STILL inevitably gained from reactive plays, i.e. you drop a Goose/Bob with mana open. Your opponent has to deal with them or lose, to which you react and gain a tempo advantage via disruption. This forum-mate claims that a lot of people don't understand tempo, I probably don't, this is my gut feeling and logical reasoning on what tempo is (I myself have a deep interest in Magic Theory) but at the same time, not recognizing the strengths of reactive plays in Tempo Thresh makes me wonder if he even understands the core of the deck itself? Or am I entirely misled and wrong?

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Tempo is not nessecairly reactive. Tempo is a something that is inheritly relative and it always has to be looked at that way. I think tempo is best described as being able to develop your board position faster than the opponent. Yet it's relative, which means you can achieve this by slowing the opponent down. Playing an aggro deck that has an optimal curve will net you tempo and might give you the win. This deck nets you tempo by slowing the opponent down and gaining a board advantage because of that. You can do this with proactive or reactive cards. Your deck runs 4 Wasteland, which are very proactive cards. It just so happens that the rest of the most efficient cards to utilize when trying to gain tempo in this deck are reactive. Dark Tempo Thresh could quite easily run Thoughtseize, which is also a good example of a proactive tempo card.

I've seen some discussion as to wether Confidant is a 'tempo card' or not. The truth is that the card does not generate tempo on it's own. It is, however, very good at exploiting that tempo. If you're able to make your opponent have a substantially worse position in the game, he's going to have a much harder time dealing with Confidant (which he can do by either removal or by beating through it).