[DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)

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Originally Posted by Tombstalker

Ya dropped that notion right after I typed it, I dont want to go below 4 stalker or 4 hymn. I may squeeze 1 clique in place of the 5th removal just to test.

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Right now, I play 4 Goyfs, 4 Stalkers and a Clique (so nine threats, no Jaces) along with 4 Brainstorms, 4 Ponders and a Preordain. Full list on the previous page.

It has been working really well for me, although I kinda hate the Clique's 1UU manacost, since it means I can't cast all my spells with only Underground Sea and Bayou in play, in some games it's a real monster and having another creature, especially a flyer has helped me out a lot. The high number of cantrips also allow me to keep a low threat count and search for answers frequently.

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Originally Posted by DerFern

From the matchups which ramp up on mana, I only played against Hivemind, Bant and Elves so far. In all of those matchups, the LD plan worked out really fine, at least during game1. I only lost to Bant, but that was because I didn´t draw a critter for 14 turns while keeping him only on one mana. That was kind of dusgusting, but such things happen. During game2, I made a crucial missplay and was beaten as I deserved.
Thing is, that even if they do ramp up they still don´t have more lands in their deck. The other ramp (Hierarch, Birds, etc.) can be handled with either your removal or your denial. And Snuff out on Dryad Arbor is just sweet :) I´m willing to pay that four life about every time I have the opportunity.


With the information from my past tournament, I´ll definitely try to squeeze a Sylvan Library into my maindeck. For that, I tanked about -and yeah, I really want to give it a shot- cutting Force of Will. As I already said, the major flaw of my deck is the lack of card advantage. Therefore I thought trading 1-2 is never a good idea and with this tempo strategy, maindecking Spell Pierce might be a good choice.
Maybe I´m going to -4 FoW, +1 Library, +2 Spell Pierce, +1 Preordain or something similar. I´m not that sure abut that right now, but somehow FoW seems to be one of the weakest parts of the deck.

Any thoughts on that? Is cutting Force of Will an option or a no-go?

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I agree that Force is weaker now than it has been in the past because all your other counters get spent in so many matchups. I've had the dead force draw in a few games and it does suck. I'd consider moving one to the sideboard, I don't think I'd cut them all though. I've also considered cutting a wasteland for another colored mana source, as wasteland is now more a surgical tool to get important lands - outright manascrewing people is much more difficult now than it used to be.

I haven't tested with a no FoW list but my gut says its a bad idea since it would make our favorite matchups alot worse. To me FoW remains a MD set that gets boarded out against zoo and similar fast aggro decks. Too many decks can largely ignore MMS/daze making a non FoW TA deck just a bad control deck. FoW also goes well with hymn because the card disadvantage offsets. Still I would love to be proven wrong :)

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Originally Posted by Tombstalker

Still I would love to be proven wrong :)

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no prove yet
I tested a FOWless list today at a local tournament (9 Players, only 4 rounds). This is the 75 I registered:

4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tombstalker
3 Vendilion Clique

4 Stifle
4 Daze
4 Mental Misstep
3 Spell Pierce

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
1 Sylvan Library

4 Sinkhole
2 Snuff Out
2 Go for the throat
1 Dismember

19 Lands

SB
4 Submerge
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
3 Extirpate
2 Beast Within


The thing is that I was quite satisfied with how the deck worked by itself. I didn´t miss FoW except for one little moment (which cost me a game). Here is a little more detailed report:

R1, Canadian Thresh
G1 is a fight of material, as it is supposed to be. He screws me a little, has Mongoose and Goyf down, with UR available. He´s attacking several times and I don´t block because of F/I or Bolt. Finally he burns me out and I can´t do anything about it.
G2 I have Delta, go. He plays Tropical, Ponder. I have Wasteland and Extirpate
G3 I Sinkhole his lone land, counter his cantrips and stick a library. He never has another land.

R2, Rock with Dark Depths
G1 Mulligan 5, only one land for 6 turns. I can prevent his DD some turns with my wasteland. Then he has LftL online, so it´s upt to
G2 where I can´t prevent a Bob (Snuff Out suxx). He has a Vindicate for my Stalker (Mental Misstep suxx) and finally Loam online

R3, ANT (HokusSchmokus)
G1 TA does what it´s supposed to do to combo
G2 I counter his first turn Brainstorm (who plays Brainstorm T1?!), T2 he´s trying Ponder, I respond with Extirpate on BS to see his hand: 2 Chant, 2 Petal, DR, ToA. Ponder gets dazed and the rest is not to be mentioned.

R4, UB Stiflenought (Garthman)
G1 he has a fast Bob and can kill two of my Goyfs. I shut down some lands and when he finally has a Nought it gets snuffed out. Goyf gets there.
G2 he has a fast Bob, I don´t get my second land and when I have it, it gets wasted.
G3 is a tough one. I screw the hell out of him, but unfortunately don´t find a single critter to use this tempo advantage. When Tombstalker finally comes down, he´s gone to the throat. I resolve a library which only finds crap. I take two cards and go down to 3 life with only Spell Pierce in hand to prevent some bad things from happening. I had the choice between Spell Pierce and Snuff Out. Bad things means EOT Vendilion Clique... shit, bad decision...

Such a small tournament will not get a decent information about whether FoW has to be in there, so I´ll try to gather some more information. Both losses were quite bad beats with the first loss being only to my deck fucking up. However, it felt good but that´s not a solid base for the future. I´ll keep you up to date...

DerFern - Were you happy with the Sinkholes over Hymn? Also I currently have 2 libraries in my list which hasn't been an issue did you find 1 was enough?

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Originally Posted by Wereodile

DerFern - Were you happy with the Sinkholes over Hymn? Also I currently have 2 libraries in my list which hasn't been an issue did you find 1 was enough?

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Yeah, Sinkhole was quite good as it always is. Except for R2 against that loam guy (and Mox Diamond obv) they were great all day. As I said: the tempo plan woul´ve worked if I had found a critter to smash some faces.

Strangely, I found my lonely library quite often, so right now my impression is that it is enough. However, 4 rounds of magic are not a solid base for any conclusions...

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Originally Posted by DerFern

Yeah, Sinkhole was quite good as it always is. Except for R2 against that loam guy (and Mox Diamond obv) they were great all day. As I said: the tempo plan woul´ve worked if I had found a critter to smash some faces.

Strangely, I found my lonely library quite often, so right now my impression is that it is enough. However, 4 rounds of magic are not a solid base for any conclusions...

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Sorry another couple of questions, when Snuff out wasn't working for you what did you board in instead Edicts? How was Beast Within?

Thank you for the response I appreciate it!

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Originally Posted by Wereodile

Sorry another couple of questions, when Snuff out wasn't working for you what did you board in instead Edicts? How was Beast Within?

Thank you for the response I appreciate it!

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I didn´t board those edicts. They were primary meant to help me out against SneakShow or similar decks. Beast Within only saw play against Stiflenought as an answer to his Counterbalance. I did not draw them. However, he never resolved a balance, so it´s quite fair.

DerFern: thanks for the report, your list is definitely different from current lists. Also sinkhole and pierce have good synergy in your deck which helps bring it closer to FoW.
have you really found you prefer the 3rd clique as opposed to the 3rd tombstalker? Our is this more of a test run?
Lastly how did you daze ponder after casting extirpate? Or am I misunderstanding something?

Have you guys tried to cut green and make a UB list? Or that would make a totally different deck. Haven't missed Goyfs and Deeds in my testing, but the list is somewhat very focused on control.

// Lands
2 [UNH] Swamp
2 [UNH] Island
4 [R] Underground Sea
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tombstalker
3 [MOR] Vendilion Clique

// Spells
3 [NE] Daze
2 [MBS] Go for the Throat
3 [MOR] Bitterblossom
4 [SC] Stifle
2 [MM] Snuff Out
4 [AT] Hymn to Tourach
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NPH] Mental Misstep
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [M12] Ponder

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [TO] Llawan, Cephalid Empress
SB: 4 [M11] Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 [RAV] Darkblast
SB: 2 [TE] Diabolic Edict
SB: 1 [MBS] Go for the Throat
SB: 3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
SB: 2 [MM] Energy Flux

Bitterblossom is really, really good. It can stall KotR and other non-trample fatties like a boss, and offer a good quality offense if dropped early. The list is very solid, but still, the lack of green makes the deck more vulnerable to artifact/enchantment stuff.

Cliques upped to 3 because it's freaking good. Stalker as the main fatty, and Jace 2.0 post-board to help the kill.

Sorry if this have been discussed before.

I ran a u/b list very similar to yours before Moving on to dreadstalker and then eventually coming back to traditional TA. iirc I tried fewer cantrips and two jittes main. I really enjoyed the list and the more stable manabase. I think you have touched on the main drawbacks of losing green, namely no goyf, deed, library, pulse, ee, loam etc. which are all reasons I returned to TA. Still the deck is solid without G so roll with it and give us some reports!
Edit: the deck is also very susceptible to tribal hate like e.plague

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Originally Posted by Tombstalker

have you really found you prefer the 3rd clique as opposed to the 3rd tombstalker? Our is this more of a test run?

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in theory, I thought a third Clique would be stronger since I had several Stalkers in hand which I could not always cast. However, I had a situation yesterday where I had all 3 Cliques in hand and was stuck on 2 lands. So this sucks, either way. Needs more testing, obv. But being able to EOT Clique to deliver three to the dome is just plain strong. And, in times of a Stoneblade flood, Clique seems to be even stronger right now...

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Originally Posted by Tombstalker

Lastly how did you daze ponder after casting extirpate? Or am I misunderstanding something?

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Ponder on Stack
response Extirpate
Extirpate resolves
Ponder still on stack
Daze
profit!?

I would never ever ever ever run this deck w/o 3-4 FoWs.
Its a core card.There are plenty of other cards to manage(dazes/stifles/lands/ponders/removal).
The point of the deck is to rape combos, and force is main card vs them.If you want to play a FoWless list, just play maverick?
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I wouldnt play TA at all in current meta:>.At least my metagame(modo) consists of UW blades.Like 50%+ of decks in dailes are UWs.And its superbad match up for team america, especialy after SB.
I realy like this deck and played it prety long, but had to rerol to NO RUG, just because it fails miserably in today's meta.

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Ponder on Stack
response Extirpate
Extirpate resolves
Ponder still on stack
Daze
profit!?

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Oh ya, long day at work whoops.

Edit: the recent talk of sinkhole has me thinking, has anyone considered a 3/3 split of hymn/sinkhole? Its been a point of constant debate of which is currently superior so why not run both and overload on disruption?

Right now, I'm running:

8 Fetches
3 Underground
3 Bayou
1 Trop
4 Wasteland
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest

4 Dark Confidant (I know everyone hates on Confidant, but CA is great)
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Tombstalker

3 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Stifle
3 Hymn
4 Brainstorm
2 Sylvan Library
3 Smother
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Loam
1 Maelstrom Pulse

Board (my beta has tons of Aggro Loam, Stoneblade, RUG, etc.)

2 Thrun
3 Perish
3 Grip
3 Pierce
3 Extirpate
1 MetaMorph

No Jace, true, but I'm beating face and disrupting. Sinkhole seems decent, since we have no access to Vindicate for basic land destruction and helps slow them down. But, I'm not sure how much more we want to go into double black.

-Matt

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Originally Posted by sdematt

(my beta has tons of Aggro Loam, Stoneblade, RUG, etc.)

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Freudian Slip? :P

How about a more extreme list then, something like this that almost completely maximizes disruption:

Creatures 8
4 Tombstalker
4 Vendilion Clique

Permission 16
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
4 Stifle
4 Daze

Disruption 6
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Stinkhole

Cantrips 7
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder

Removal 4
2 Snuff Out
2 Go for the Throat

Lands 19
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
1 Watery Grave
1 Swamp
1 Island

A more stable manabase, 30 cards hell-bent on hand/manabase disruption, and all threats have evasion!

Most def a slip there :P.

-Matt

After testing Jace and Vendilion Clique as 2 ofs in my list I'm unsatisfied with them both in the MD.

I'm using the vanilla tempo core currently.

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker

4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Daze
3 Stifle

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

2 Diabolic Edict
2 Dismember

4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou

Which leaves me with 2 slots. Jace for 4 mana with 20 lands is unsustainable. Clique, I don't know how to put it.. I don't cast it sorcery speed cause I can cast Hymn, Tarmo, Stalker, Ponder...I don't cast it eot because I probably Brainstormed, Dismembered etc. Maybe I don't know how to use the card propery but appereantly not good for my style.
I tried Sylvan Libraries but the most use you can get out of the card is when you are down on cards or on top deck mode, in which case life loss is already a problem and library can't swing the game at that point.
I'll lastly test 2 more removals (go for the throat/maelstorm pulse/deed don't know yet) to increase my aggro mathcup a slightly but I'm open to suggestions.

No reason not to run Darkblast. It helps a lot against all the manacreatures running around in Legacy and helps turning on Daze against decks packing these. Apart from that, Sylvan Library is also a reasonable one-off. This is practically what I've been trying out again, only with two Jaces and two more fetches instead of the Ponders.
But to be honest, the old tempo-plan doesn't seem to be too strong right now. You're devoting too many slots for cards that interact with your opponent's manabase while not having the strongest manabase yourself. I also noticed in testing that it's really hard to win against NO RUG if you don't draw an insanely strong hand (i.e. some good business paired up with Darkblast).
How are your results with that list so far? Also, what does your board look like? Did you try running the white splash over green? Definitely seems reasonable right now.