[DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)

Personally I find 5 removal to be optimal, although there isnt much TA can do to improve its G1 against aggro. Just load up on hate from the board and if you play in a very aggro heavy environment you may even consider a different deck.

Re: sylvan library, your right, when in topdeck library cant always bring you back (unlike jace). However, this deck owns the early game against most opponents, and I feel library fits here better than jace due to 2cc.
Not sure how you were using library (I used to shuffle mine away for later) but if you get the opportunity to drop it early do it, its like a 5th hymn. This is also why I run 2 library's so I can find them (relatively) easily.
Dropping an early library can be just as devastating as a t2 hymn. I love getting into a counter war over library because its soo pivotal to the match. Force one through and next turn draw 3 and from there you will usually win with CA. It also makes every StP into a draw spell for us which is nice.

I'm playing Legacy casualy so I like to stick with TA but I'm trying to increase my aggro matchup to about 50% so that I'm not forced to metagame with different decks just because I'm getting steam rolled most of the time :)

My rough-new list I'm testing:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Spell-stutter sprite
2 Vendilion Clique

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Mental Misstep

2 Hymn to Tourach
1 Thoughtseize
2 Smother
1 Go for the Throat

2 Jace the Mindsculptor

4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Mutavault
1 Riptide Laboratory
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs

bilb_o, if your meta is truly aggro heavy and you want to continue to play TA you could try maindecking 2 engineered explosives and also squeeze in a Darkblast or 2 in place of other removal. EE used to be MD material in TA anyway.
Also im sure you do this already, but its worth practicing mulliganing and goldfishing vs. aggro to make your game 1 as good as possible. After boarding the matchup becomes a little better.

x_K- that list looks like bug faeries more than TA, not saying its wrong to post here, just saying..ive tested lists like this in the past and honestly I think you need equipment to make it work, and more disruption, and a clock. You have a ton of situational counterspells, no stifle or wasteland to make daze any good and no real clock other than goyf. Also the deck folds to e.plague on wizards.
If you want to play this style my suggestion would be to go b/u/w and bring in a stoneforge mystic package along with bitterblossom. for a more control oriented deck.

I think you kids need more Darkblast:

20 Land
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Wasteland

8 Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Tombstalker
1 Vendilion Clique

32 Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Mental Misstep
3 Spell Snare
3 Daze
3 Ponder
2 Darkblast
2 Snuff Out
1 Dismember
1 Maelstrom Pusle
1 Sylvan Library

15 Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Spell Pierce
3 Submerge
2 Pithing Needle
2 Null Rod
1 Krosan Grip

With all the NO RUG decks, Tarmogoyfs and x/1 creatures flying around, maindeck Darkblast has been epic.

I'm going to test Darkblast, too. It's not only strong against RUG but against all that GW Zenith lists, too.

@ RaNDoMxGeSTuReS: just a question on a specific cardchoice in your maindeck..... why spell snare over stifle?

@ darkblast: tested it before, often found it awesome, often found it terrible as well, i think darkblast is more suited to be a sideboard-card than for MD, well obviously it would greatly depend on your meta, if yours is full of manadorks, darkblast is a blast^^

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@ RaNDoMxGeSTuReS: just a question on a specific cardchoice in your maindeck..... why spell snare over stifle?

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Seconded. Maindeck Stifle is one of the reasons to play this deck, although I admit it does come up short against a fair amount of the field lately. Not sure if Snare is any better though so im also interested in your experiences.

Hello there, I've been testing different versions of team america in France for 2 months ago but abandoned the idea of playing that deck because of a metagame full of cawblade decks in my local tournament.
Is it still very unfavorable against that deck since they're not playing much counters anymore? What are the key cards against them?
Thanx

@Spell Snare: It's strictly a meta choice. I play Team America a pretty defined meta. Most of the time Stifle is FoW fodder, or is never in my hand when I want it. Spell Snare double as pseudo-removal because it hits Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Lord of Atlantis, Stoneforge Mystic, Standstill and more awesome stuff. Aside from fetchlands and Wasteland, Stoneforge Mystic is the main thing I'm casting Stifle against. For my meta, Spell Snare is more practical across the board.

@ RaNDoMxGeSTuReS: i have to admit i have been thinking the same thing lately, that stifle is not what i need in my meta anymore, since a lot of monocolored decks are now starting to show up, or 2-colordecks, and in that case stifle is not that good anymore, simply because they run less fetches (at least here) and less duals for wasteland, so it often happened to me that they got to the midgame or even lategame where we (tempobuild) suck

i tested spell snare before, in the daze slot, and at first i kinda liked it, but after a while i saw that spell snare is to conditional IMO (at least in the daze slot) and i wanted daze back, becase 2nd turn hymn + daze support is awesome, otherwise you might be holding the spell snare and not being able to cast it.

but i could see spell snare working well in the stifle slot, specially since it adds more outs if we are on the draw, and being able to counter his 2-drop on "virtual" turn 1 is very nice, otherwise we would hope he would use a fetch and run into stifle, so we could catch up a bit

i definitely have to test spell snare in the stifle slot, i will tell you if i liked it or not

Okay I wanted to write about my experience playing the version with white instead of green.
I put the list that I had played on the esperblade forum, though this is probably the better place for the deck like this.
looks something like:
4 stoneforge mystic
3 tombstalker
2 batterskull
4 force of will
4 mental misstep
3 daze
3 stifle
4 hymn to tourach
3 swords to plowshares
1 darkblast
1 dismember
4 brainstorm
3 ponder
4 underground sea
2 tundra
2 scrubland
4 wasteland
3 polluted delta
3 flooded strand
3 marsh flats

I was playing against sam swisher, who is a friend and the guy that got second in lexington not too long ago. We played against NO-RUG and the deck he played at lexington, traditional TA, actually playing something like the deck Gerry T played and won with.

Now he is a better player than me for sure, so I can attribute me not knowing what I am doing, to losses, but if you look back he was playing JTMS in the deck, and actually has 3 in the deck now.
Many people say it shouldn't be in the deck, but I tell you he loves it and it was pretty bad beats when I saw it against me.

So he was advocating I need to play jace. What I know about this deck and what I read, says to not play it, but the decks that I have seen win or place high have jace in the deck. Maybe its by chance this has happened, but is it actually good in the deck?
As for the NO-RUG games we played, I won the games where I had the turn 2 hymn and lost the ones I did not.

I posted almost that exact 60 a few pages back, out of respect for the BUG nature of this deck, i decided to try my hat at esperblade as well, and got no reception. I personally feel like Esper is the natural evolution of Team America, but to prevent pointless arguements in this thread, I've come to the conclusion it should be considered a different deck. I was hoping to do get some more top 8s before posting a primer, but I think i'll put one up before the night is out

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Originally Posted by oldbsturgeon

Okay I wanted to write about my experience playing the version with white instead of green.

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I think the best place to start is with Gerry T's winning TA list from SCG Pittsburgh. I love it because it has enough lands to consistently play Jace, and it still has a respectable disruption package.

Then I made these changes:

-4 Tarmogoyf
-2 Dismember
-2 Diabolic Edict
-1 Pernicious Deed
-1 Daze
+4 Stoneforge Mystic
+4 Swords to Plowshares
+1 Batterskull
+1 Sword of Feast and Famine

Of course, I switched the manabase for UBW duals and fetches.

Lastly, I made these changes to the SB:

-3 Ghastly Demise
-1 Pernicious Deed
-1 Life from the Loam
+2 Diabolic Edict
+1 Perish
+1 Darkblast (Lavamancer, Hierarch, Clique, Mom, Arbor, etc.)
+1 Vendilion Clique

The final decklist looks like this:

4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Tombstalker
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
4 Brainstorm
4 Mental Misstep
4 Force of Will
3 Stifle
2 Daze
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Ponder
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Marsh Flats
4 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
2 Scrubland

Sideboard:
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Perish
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Darkblast
2 Thoughtseize
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Vendilion Clique

Better removal, arguably better creatures, and immunity to Perish. The only thing this gives up is Deed and Loam. Deed isn't as important with Tribal losing popularity, and Loam can be substituted with Crucible, but I wanted a third Clique someone in the 75 and this looked like a good spot.

Dbl post

All the recent talk about SFM over goyf has me intrigued. Splashing white instead of green also opens up some cool SB options like retribution of the meek among others. My question to those who have tested this change is, how have you found SFM to be in aggro match ups and vs NO RUG?
It seems better than goyf vs. merfolk but worse against zoo, maverick, NO RUG and mirror esque match ups like TA. I am going to test this eventually but id like some feedback first. Do you find mystic too easily disrupted? Also has the slower speed of mystic been a problem as opposed to goyf?
This new direction seems to warrant more testing but if it makes our combo m atch up worse without improving our aggro match up significantly then I dont see the point.

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Originally Posted by Tombstalker

All the recent talk about SFM over goyf has me intrigued. Splashing white instead of green also opens up some cool SB options like retribution of the meek among others. My question to those who have tested this change is, how have you found SFM to be in aggro match ups and vs NO RUG?
It seems better than goyf vs. merfolk but worse against zoo, maverick, NO RUG and mirror esque match ups like TA. I am going to test this eventually but id like some feedback first. Do you find mystic too easily disrupted? Also has the slower speed of mystic been a problem as opposed to goyf?
This new direction seems to warrant more testing but if it makes our combo m atch up worse without improving our aggro match up significantly then I dont see the point.

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I was pretty excited about this when SpeakingofJager posted it a few weeks ago. I haven't done any testing on it, but Perish is great right now.

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Originally Posted by Tombstalker

retribution of the meek

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Why would you ever play this over Perish? There are a million better ways to deal with Emrakul.

@ Tombstalker: Play SFM. Goyf is powerful, but all he is is a vanilla creature. SFM gives you access to the best answers to aggro: Batterskull. The addition of batterskull makes aggro a much easier match up than you would think. You lose nothing against combo. My list has had 2 top 8's in 70+ person events (both Jupiter NELC Qualifiers) in a row and a top 32 at SCG Boston. PM me, bro.

@ the rest of the Thread: I feel like the Esper America (what i'm calling it right now) is different enough from traditional Team America that I'm willin to put together and post a primer. I'm afraid posting esper in here would clutter the thread, but if the consensus is post in here, I will.

I didn't test the deck but I think I can see a few issues. SFM is slower than Goyf, is in burn range, dependent on colored mana more. I mean you only need green mana once for Goyf but for mystic to operate you are more vulnerable to wastelands on Tundra.

Though I agree that SFM is solid with a counter backup, why not drop the Hymns altogether and replace them with Standstills. Looking at those lists I see 2-3 Stalkers + 4 Hymns as only black splash. Are they really that crucial so as to pick this deck up rather than a U/W Blade control?

I think a primer would be really good especially if you could include matchup analysis as well.