[DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)

Ran this to a 4-0 result at a local legacy tournament.

Creatures/Walkers (12)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Tombstalker
1 Liliana of the Veil

Spells (28)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Dismember
2 Go for the Throat
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize

Land (20)
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
4 Wasteland
8 Fetches

Sideboard (15)
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Extirpate
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Consuming Vapors
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Ghastly Demise
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Dispel
1 Spell Pierce


I played against Esper Team America, some sort of Past in Flames storm deck, Combo Elves, and Canadian Threshold (with Delvers)

Delver was interesting. I won a game against an esper america build because I dropped two Delvers turns one and two, he wasted my lands, I flipped them, and just bashed for 6 in the air 3 times. He was great against the storm deck as he provided me a clock while I disrupted them.

Liliana was also pretty awesome. She was a little awkward against elves, but was good against Storm and Team America, and I never drew her against Threshold.

Engineered Explosives was awkward, but I think it may be necessary, however it may just be a board card. I'll have to give that some more consideration.

@ jeff: your build is probably the one that could my attention the most as i really liked the tempobuild, but had sometimes problems sticking or finding a threat, in your version, this is appearentely not that much of a problem, with 11 creatures instead of 8

and i have read a lot of positive feedback on delvers, i might try them as well

The testing results that I am finding is that Delver is great in this deck *in addition to* Tarmogoyf and Tombstalker. Any "tempo" gained by countering spells/killing creatures is completely irrelevant if you can't back it up with a threat. I have lost games with the classic list when I wittled the opponent down to single-digit life and they finally top-decked a Swords to Plowshares.

Upping the threat count to 11-12 (With a mixture of Goyfs, Tombstalkers, Delvers, and possibly a few Snapcasters and/or Cliques) makes this deck pretty well-positioned against everything that doesn't revolve around Blood Moon.

Thoughtseize is also a great maindeck card to be playing right now.

I am back and forth on Stifle. I think the card is the nuts in certain matchups, but other ones don't call for it and it just becomes FoW fodder. Especially with playing Delver, Thoughtseize, or Ponder on Turn 1, and tapping out on T2 for a Goyf or Hymn, I am finding myself less willing to want to hold up Stifle mana. The card is also rather mediocre in the mid-to-late game.

There are three approaches I would take with this style of deck with the new cards available to us:
1. Going for pure speed/efficiency, essentially a BUG Tempo Thresh Deck. This version would run Stifle, possibly Spell Snare, and *maybe* Dark Confidant.
2. Middle-of-the-road TA, with mostly the classic list but with the addition of Delvers and *perhaps* cutting Stifle entirely.
3. More control-oriented BUG, with 2-3 Jace TMS maindeck, a few more lands, Thoughtseize, but still using the 11-12 creature suite. The advantage of this deck over pure control like Deedstill is that you are still playing fast threats and not loading up on conditional removal spells -- giving you a better matchup against a wider swath of decks.

Each approach has its own merits, and I don't think any one particular direction is "best", but instead tries to address certain metagame expectations.

I understand that 18 blue cards is the minimum including FoW.
Ancestral Visions on turn one might mess up the plan and make a topdecked FoW bad, though.

Marius' list is not really Team America btw, it plays a bit more controllish.
In NL we had a discussion about it which actually ended in flaming, but we can probably agree on it being an in between thing of Team America and BUGstill.

wcm8 I'm confused why you would consider Dark Confidant to be part of the "blazingly fast tempo oriented" strategy and Delver to be "middle of the road". That seems quite backwards to me.

Tempo uses beats to finish the game off. Dark Confidant is not beats, it's card advantage.

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Originally Posted by naarou

wcm8 I'm confused why you would consider Dark Confidant to be part of the "blazingly fast tempo oriented" strategy and Delver to be "middle of the road". That seems quite backwards to me.

Tempo uses beats to finish the game off. Dark Confidant is not beats, it's card advantage.

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I am ambivalent about the use of Confidant and personally don't like the card.

Delver could see use in all three potential build directions.

Edit: after seeing my friends TA build with 4 snapcasters own all night, flashing back stifle, hymn, thoughtseize, and assorted removal, I retract my statements about Delver being essential... Snapcaster just might be better with the appropriate targets.

Very nice concept Jeff.

My questions are:
- How did it feel to support 4 Mana spells with 20 lands Postboard?
- Why did you not include deed?

I think maybe he didn't play Deed because Delvers make it much worse?

I actually didn't have any trouble fielding the 4th mana postboard for Jace, but the 5th was a little rough when I was trying to play Jace around Daze. With 8 cantrips, finding 4 mana really isn't that hard, although you do have to be substantially less aggressive with wastelands if you've brought Jace in. That isn't really that big of a deal though, since you aren't on the Stifle plan you're probably not going to manascrew them much.

Like Esper suggests, EE is simply better than deed when you don't want to straight kill your own guys too. Deed is better when Goyf is the only thing in your deck that it can kill, but with Delver I've now doubled the number of threats that could die to it. An important part of that equation is that I'm currently leaving Delver in even against aggro (zoo), because I want to cut all 4 Forces and all 4 Dazes, and I don't have 12 cards to bring in so I have to keep the Delvers, even in matchups where Deed is great.

Re: Delver vs. Snapcaster: I think Delver is better than Snapcaster in Team America, which I define as a 20 land tempo oriented strategy that preys on combo and always gets the most of it's mana, and Snapcaster is better in BUG Control, which is a 22-24 land control deck that runs a wide range of answers to the field, and uses Snapcaster to double up on whatever the best answer is for that matchup, then lands Jace. I may try BUG Control next week, but my Snapcasters hadn't come in the mail, and my Lilianas had, so the decision this week was easy.

I'm not sure which of those two decks is better, although I'm pretty sure the Delver build is better against High Tide, and since there are 4 sets of Candelabras at my LGS . . . . I have to be prepared to face it.

@Jeff: I really like the direction your build is going! A few questions:

1) Is your removal package so full of 1-ofs because you didn't quite know what you wanted to play or did you just want the variety?

2) Did you ever miss the Stifles? It looks like you're playing 1 CMC hand disruption instead of them. Just asking since Stifles would really increase the blue card count for FoW.

3) Thoughts on EE vs Maelstrom Pulse, since they fulfill similar roles?

1) I've always played an assortment of one-ofs in this deck whenever 4 Snuff Outs isn't a good call, because the deck runs enough draw that you can often find just the right spell for the job. Also, other than Affinity, every removal spell is decent against most decks that run creatures, since the only time Edict is bad against merfolk is when they have a LoA and multiple other creatures. I was very intentional about the removal package, and while I'm trying to move the EE to the board, I was very happy with the rest of it all night.

2) I did miss the stifles a little, but not much. I'm actually playing Delver in place of the stifles. Essentially, playing Delver makes me a proactive "play spells on mainphase turn 1" kind of deck. I don't want to hold up Stifle mana turn 1, then play Delver turn 2, and by Hymning on turn 3, I want to Hymn on turn 2. I also don't want to hold up stifle mana, hymn, and then wait until turn 3 to play Delver. As a result, IMO Delver and Stifle really don't fit in the same deck. Given that decision, I found the additional hand disruption fit the gameplan Delver gave the deck better than Stifle would have.
If you want to play Stifle and Delver, I'd recommend cutting Hymn for the Stifles, going to 3 Delvers, 4 stifles, and 4 1 mana discard spells, because then you're set up for two 1 mana spells on turn 2, instead of Hymn. I don't necessarily think that's the right call, but it's really the only way I think I'd play Delver and Stifle together.

3) I like having 'em both. Pulse is great because it can come in against the aggro decks and against Jace decks, while EE can only really come in against the aggro decks. Pulse's card advantage is much more heavily dependent upon how my opponent draws than EE (although obviously they both are, because EE could suck if they have a 1 drop, 2 drop, and 3 drop), so I'd prefer the EE against the aggro decks. Again, run 8 cantrips, run cards that have utility in a lot of matchups, and increase the odds that you'll find the right card when you need it. In the Jace matchups, Pulse and the 2 Jaces funtion as my answers to Jace. In the aggro matchups, Pulse and the 2 EE's function as my sweepers. Doing it this way decreases the number of sideboard slots I'm using for each matchup.

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Originally Posted by Jeff

1)
2) I did miss the stifles a little, but not much. I'm actually playing Delver in place of the stifles. Essentially, playing Delver makes me a proactive "play spells on mainphase turn 1" kind of deck. I don't want to hold up Stifle mana turn 1, then play Delver turn 2, and by Hymning on turn 3, I want to Hymn on turn 2. I also don't want to hold up stifle mana, hymn, and then wait until turn 3 to play Delver. As a result, IMO Delver and Stifle really don't fit in the same deck. Given that decision, I found the additional hand disruption fit the gameplan Delver gave the deck better than Stifle would have.

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Thanks for your insight. That were the biggest problems I had in testing Delver and your conclusion makes sense. I thought it makes sense to wait for Turn 2 to play delver, but it was often very awkward...

Did you feel that the daze was much worse without Stifle?

Did you test against Merfolk? Would be intersting to see if we can just outrace them easier now....

Typically Daze is good because with Stifle, they're forced into play stuff as soon as they can because they don't necessarily have the ability to wait until they have more mana. In this deck, they're forced to play those cards early because of all the discard, so they can't necessarily be patient and hold on to cards, or they might lose them.

I'd agree, Stifle is better at making Daze great than discard is, but I'm kinda making do. I feel like I really need the countermagic, and there isn't really another counterspell as good for that slot.

I have not been able to test against a good merfolk player, but I do think this is gonna be better against merfolk than any stifle based build has ever been. Now, the BUG control lists are probably much better against merfolk than this, but if you want to play a tempo oriented Team America list, this probably has the best merfolk matchup. My girlfriend is a good aggro player and a good prison player (she mostly plays enchantress), but she really doesn't do control very well, so even though I got a few games in against merfolk, I wouldn't count them as much in the way of results. My typical merfolk testing partner was sick this week but hopefully I can get some games in with him soon.

J

Played in two smaller local events this weekend, T8'd both of them using this list:


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

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Tombstalker

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Stifle
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Ghastly Demise
2 Dismember
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Side:
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Spell Pierce
3 Submerge
2 Darkblast
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Extirpate
1 Tormod's Crypt


The first was a 20-people qualifying tournament to a bigger Legacy event at a convention this halloween. I went 3-0 in the first three rounds of the swiss, beating Dredge, BUG-Nought (team mate) and Next-Level Thresh before ID'ing the last two rounds for the T8, ending up first-seeded in the swiss with awesome tiebreakers. Sadly, I lost in the quarterfinals to Goblins of all things, piloted by a player who I'm usually able to beat.

I lost the first match after we both topdecked awesomely late in the match - I was able to topdeck a second Tombstalker after he Warren Weirding'd my first one, which would have ended the match if it wasn't for the Weirding on top of his library. Second game I get a bit greedy with my lands and keep a hand of Stifle, Waste, UGSea, Brainstorm, Ponder and removals. I fail to find any lands with my cantrips and he double-wastes me. I can't recover and he beats in with Lackeys for lots of brokeness. After the game, he revealed a grip of double-REB.


After the tournament I thought it'd be an excellent idea to drown the bitterness of losing in the quarters with alcohol, and as such I went out to the pub with a couple of my non-magic friends, and they fail to understand why I'm initially a bit upset over losing while "playing with those silly cards". In any case, the night went on longer than expected, and I ended up at an after-party and slept for about two hours. Still drunk, I made my way to the bus in order to play in a GPT, to get some revenge from yesterday.

We made it to the site about an hour and a half too early and I have to sit around and feel like crap for way longer than expected and when we finally see pairings posted, a friend of mine says something along the lines of "I don't want to play against you", so of course we're paired against each other.

22 people at the tournament meant 5 rounds of swiss, and I planned another 3-0-2 day. I win against my friend 2-0 and then get paired against my other friend at the tournament, winning against him too. They were playing MUD and Dark Thresh respectively, and it's a shame that, while I'm 2-0 when we leave for food after round two, they are both 1-1 and it's my fault. The MUD player made T8 anyway, so all is well with him at least.

I win round three against Combo Elves, losing game two when he drops NO for Prog and I can't find another creature to race it. Round four, I'm set to draw, but my opponent wants to play, saying that a) we're both safe at 3-1-1 as well as 3-0-2 and b) he wants some real testing with his deck for Amsterdam. I agree to play him, since I didn't pay 30 bucks to go to the site and pay entrance fee to sit around and accept draws either. He's playing CounterBlade with Snapcasters and we play three tight duels with him coming out on top 2-1 after barely surviving game three. We both mulled to five, I in game one and he in game two.

I draw the last round for 3-1-1 and a thrid place in the swiss, with the best tiebreakers at 10 points. I'm paired against Patriot for the quarterfinals, again with Snapcaster Mage, and I get behind after he wastes me out of mana, with me finding no fetches and having to put back Waste, Goyf on top in response to his Waste. I almost pull through, but protecting Tombstalker or Delver against 4 Swords and 4 Snapcasters is difficult, and we're off to game two.

I take control early in game two, but fail to establish any real pressure, due to him finding answers to all my threats. He steals a Goyf with Mind Harness, slaps a Jitte on it and swings for the win. I drew like 12 lands over the course of the game, and we both had quite a laugh about it.

Not nearly as bitter as I thought I'd be after getting stabbed by my manabase two quarterfinals in a row, I'm still happy I made T8 with the deck two days in a row. I've also found that I play the best magic while hung over, something to note for the future.

Regarding the list, Delver was pretty awesome, and there were never really any conflicts in between Delver, Stifle and Hymn. Sure, Delver turn 1 means one can't fake Stifle all the time anymore, but I think swinging with a 3/2 flyer on turn two is worth that sacrifice. Jace was less-than-stellar for most of the two tournaments, but won me a couple of games with his Boomerang ability and his ability to fate-seal away answers to my Tombstalker against for example NLT on Saturday.

Overall, I'm quite happy with the list, and I'm currently debating with myself over which money rare to get from Innistrad, either I go back to playing StoneBlade again for some time, meaning I have to get a couple of Snapcasters, or I'll stick to TA and that means getting Liliana.

Just wondering - why are you guys playing Surgical Extraction over Extirpate? Do you find the difference in cost actually mattering that much over the Split Second benefit of Extirpate?

The real reason you should be playing Surgical Extraction over Extirpate is Snapcaster Mage.

Beyond that, I've always preferred Extirpate. One black is easy enough to find, especially in matchups like Reanimator where counterspells exist.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by metamet

The real reason you should be playing Surgical Extraction over Extirpate is Snapcaster Mage.

Beyond that, I've always preferred Extirpate. One black is easy enough to find, especially in matchups like Reanimator where counterspells exist.

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I can understand it if you're playing Snapcaster Mage yourself and want to flash it back for 0 mana cost, but otherwise, I don't see too much reason to play it over Extirpate in a black deck.

The art on Surgical Extraction is better.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Esper3k

Just wondering - why are you guys playing Surgical Extraction over Extirpate? Do you find the difference in cost actually mattering that much over the Split Second benefit of Extirpate?

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Well, isn't it quite obvious? Only against Reanimator does the Split Second thing matter, against other decks I board it in (Loam, Lands, Dredge etc.) Extraction does the exact same thing as Extirpate, and Extraction costs 0, while Extirpate costs 1.

I would argue that against decks like Aggro Loam / Lands, the Split Second of Extirpate is significant due to their ability to get Loam back with their cycling lands. Sure you can try and play around it, but they can also play around Extraction as well.

I was just asking to see if there was any reason I had missed.