[DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)

I'm Really not liking Snapcaster in this deck. It depends on the build, I know, I just would prefer more solid win cons in the creature slots:

Here is my latest Build:
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Delver of Secrets
3x Tombstalker

4x Force of Will
3x Daze
2x Spell Pierce
3x Stifle
4x Brainstorm
2 Dismember
1 Go For The Throat

4x Hymn
3x Thoughtseize

1x Pernicious Deed

4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
2 Trops
2 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Delta
4 Misty Rainforest

board:
4 Leyline
3 Deed
3 K-Grip
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Diabolic Edict

Snapcaster is a house, but i don't wan't to play him, i also play delver, here is my List:

3 Tombstalker
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Dismember
1 Go for the Throat
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
4 verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Stifle
1 Sylvan Library
4 Hymn to Tourach

I'm new to Team America and went 5-1 last Saturday and got second.
Played the Deck the first Time and played against
BigZoo 2 - 0
Maverick 0 - 2
Goblins 2 - 1
Canadian with Delver, Mungo , Goyf 2 - 0
U/W Tempo/Stoneblade Brew
Nic Fit ( Explorer Rock): 2 - 1
Didn't make notes and can't remember of anything (didn't expect to be so lucky:) with a new deck, hope everything is right)
I don't post my Sideboard, i contains shitty cards and is metagamed.


Is Pernicious Deed that good with Delver + Goyf?
Were two Bayou too many nonblue sources?
Also, 4 Ponder are a great addition to Brainstorm, i think.

Also i wonder how the basics are?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Squirrel

Is Pernicious Deed that good with Delver + Goyf?

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Pernicious or Perish is the card that you need to win the maverick matchup if you have this cards in your side you could make a 6-0

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Al-ucard

Pernicious or Perish is the card that you need to win the maverick matchup if you have this cards in your side you could make a 6-0

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I agree. Deed is really strong. I was able to beat a White Stax player because I was able to board into 3 more Deeds. Sometimes It's worth "deeding" esp. against Manlands, Fish Type decks, and counterbalance/stax variants.

So, here we go again, played again this Week, same List as last week, but with nearly the same List ( Maindeck: -2 Stifle +2 Inquisition of Kozilek), went 5-1 again (:smile:):


Glimpse Elves 2-1
Glimpse Elves 2-0
Aluren 2-0
Dredge 0-2
Snapcaster UB (kind of Mirror) 2-0
TES 2-0

1st Place (out of 35) because of best opponent score. (Tropical yeaah)

Here's my sideboard:

2 Thrun, the last Troll
2 Extirpate
3 Spell Pierce
2 Perish
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Darkblast
1 Disfigure
1 Go for the Throat
1 Smother

Some thoughts about it?
I know i don't had hate( tried to ignore Dredge xD), the Extirpates are vor Loam, Reanimator, don't know what else to play, actually thinking about cutting the Removal i have to much, never needed to board in smother for Example... Deck is still great. (as a side note, my delver never flipped only once without ponder/brainstorm/library..)

Greetz

I would like to talk about the differentation between TA and BUG control, because TCdecks and many others do not.

I wrote a primer for BUG control (can be found here):

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l-%28Primer%29

What I consider as BUG control:
23+ Lands
3+ Snapcaster mage
No Stifle/Daze

This deck has a totally different gameplan than a tempo deck and since the best tempo Deck is RUG, I think a BUG control deck built around snapcaster mage is the way to go for BUG colors (it has a better matchup versus RUG Tempo and creature based decks while still crushing combo)

To support that I looked at all the top16s from TC decks of October

41 in total
21 are CLEARLY BUG control
another 7-10 of those 41 are a mixture running some daze and 2 jace and some amout of tombstalker. I think those decks have more in common with BUG control than TA.

Of course for the deck/strategy to develop it needs to show good results, so everyone interested in cutting Stifle and adding lands and snapcaster join the BUG control thread until TCdecks and the thesource mods change something.

I may be going completely off track here, but with Canadian thresh being a DTB I'm tempted to go back to using Sinkhole... Against a deck with only 18 lands, mana denial is pretty strong. I'll have to give it some testing to decide if it's worth it though.

Edit: I'm also considering going back to snuff out and thoughtseize. It almost seems like the metagame has come back full circle in some ways. This theory is currently untested, but I'll return with findings once I get some play testing in this weekend

I would say that with CanThresh being the top dog again, Life from the Loam and 2 basics (1 Island, 1 Swamp) might be the better way to run the deck. The SB options this deck has make it really attractive against Thresh - SCM + Surgical Extraction literally run the daggers on RUG.

Sinkhole ... not that good overall and does not bring a big advantage vs. RUG. You still have to tap out early to make sure you destroy lands before they play threats, which makes you vulnerable to Stifle and DAze. Hymn on the other hand has a lot of value if you cast it late versus RUG since they usually have a ton of cards in hand.

Thoughtseize -> very good idea. Problem: does not play very well with Stifle. No Problem if you playing BUG control.

Running 2 Basics in TA makes the deck overall a lot worse and wont bring an edge versus RUG. Life from the loam is of course very good!

Snapcastermage and Surgical: Also nice!
I suggest you gut Daze and play more lands to support that...
Welcome to BUG control. :laugh:

Awesome initiative Catmint, it has been needed for awhile

Quote:

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Originally Posted by catmint

Sinkhole ... not that good overall and does not bring a big advantage vs. RUG. You still have to tap out early to make sure you destroy lands before they play threats, which makes you vulnerable to Stifle and DAze. Hymn on the other hand has a lot of value if you cast it late versus RUG since they usually have a ton of cards in hand.

Thoughtseize -> very good idea. Problem: does not play very well with Stifle. No Problem if you playing BUG control.

Running 2 Basics in TA makes the deck overall a lot worse and wont bring an edge versus RUG. Life from the loam is of course very good!

Snapcastermage and Surgical: Also nice!
I suggest you gut Daze and play more lands to support that...
Welcome to BUG control. :laugh:

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In TA, yes I would agree. However, I think BUG-caster would be better suited.

Sinkhole has value by keeping games in the early-phase. I really think it would be hard for RUG to make use of Snapcaster when you're keeping them off of lands, and you can occasionally just completely mana screw them. Like stifle, it has highly variable quality, but on occasion it just wrecks opponents. Needs testing in the modern meta though.

Basic lands suck in this deck, refer to discussion on pg 1-3 of this threa if you really need explanation as to why.

The transition from Mongoose to Delver actually makes that matchup easier since you can more easily kill their one-drop threat. Snuff Out achieves this without any mana investment and let's you more effectively play around their dazes.

Like I said, going back to the classic list needs testing, but it's not as if those cards suddenly started sucking. If anything, I think the modern meta may be more susceptible to them.

I don't think you need Stifle or Sinkhole to keep them from casting a snapcaster mage.
They keep themselves from casting it very often. What I found most effective is thoughtseize and spell snare. Running spell snare versus the Snapcaster RUG lists targets only goyf and snapcaster, so if they have mongoose snare has to come out.

But again - I don't get how people can run Stifle and Thoughtseize in TA. These cards have a very bad synergy! (This is why classic TA did not run it). Now Thoughtseize is sooo good right now. And with snapcaster mage even more. But only if you run enough lands, so you don't have to waste your cantrips to find lands.

I know it is very tempting to run Stifle, because - yes - MM got banned and also RUG is very successful with Stifle and I also love to occassionally completely screw opponents. But if you look at the overall picture it is just not the way to go for the BUG colors. On the other hand look at RUG. RUG control has punishing fire and ... not a real synergy with snapcaster mage, because snapping back a bolt is not as good as snapping back a hymn or a thoughtseize. So the best RUG deck is the tempo version.

Besides the RUG matchup I spent a lot of thinking and testing on the maverick and merfolk matchup which I found very very hard to beat during all the time I played Team America. Since Snapcaster BUG can become a better version of deedstill postboard, I show up very reasonable results against those two very popular "Prey on BUG" decks.

Because of this development (that was not of course done by me: I was just netdecking som Snapcaster BUG lists and slowly learning it's potential), I started a new thread, to take a more visible step away from the "TA tempo deck" thinking.

Sorry for bringing this up a lot now here, but since the community is ignoring my thread, I am trying to convince...:smile:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...rimer%29/page2

Sinkhole was terrible in recent testing, back to the binder to rot it goes. Hymn is just much stronger overall.

Whoops, wish I had checked this thread more recently. I would have said that even in the original version I found sinkhole to be pretty bad (especially vs deck with daze) and only ran it briefly because there was no better alternative. Then they printed spell pierce and I ran that except for when mental misstep was legal. Currently I see no reason not to just go back to spell pierce - seems like it would give you an edge in those tempo matchups where you get into stifle/daze/bolt battles. Spell snare is nice vs. snapcaster but overall they really don't have many targets for it. I have always felt like snare just isn't good against cards that are problematic for team america, even if it is a good card in general.

I agree with catmint about the difference between BUG control and Team america, though not about which one is better ;]
Snapcaster is a huge incentive to move towards more lands and spells. I still haven't gotten to play with this card in legacy but if anything could get me to move towards bug control it's this card.
Ghastly demise also might be maindeckable in the current meta.
I sort of agree with the idea of going back to snuff out. The main reasons for dismember were dark confidant and tombstalker, both of which seem to be on the decline now.

Finally I don't really see how thoughtseize and stifle conflict. You don't have to thoughtseize turn 1, so you can still leave some mana open for stifle. In fact seize is often better turn 2-4.

i would really prefer inquisition over thoughtseize, at least in this deck, since we allready got a lot of lifeloss with snuff out/ dismember, and we can handle 4cmc with counter as well, so i think thoughtseize is not that needed

I too don't see the problem with Stifle + TS.

And people who say running basics and/or loam is not good against RUG Tempo should play some RUG Tempo against loam... I don't know if basics is good in TA, per say, but it's good vs RUG.

Ran a build with delver this past Sunday and it was amazing. Sadly I went 3-2, losing by one point of damage to a snapcaster/delver burn deck in game 3, and lost to UW Visions in game 3 from mulling to 5 and getting only 1 land the entire game :frown:

3 Tombstalker
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Hymm to Tourach
2 Thoughtsieze
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Daze
3 Spell Snare
2 Dismember
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Liliana of the Viel
2 Ponder
4 Stifle
4 Underground Sea
3 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland

Sideboard:
3 Perish
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Spell Pierce
2 Tormods Crypt
2 Vendillion Clique
2 Krosan Grip

Its off the top of my head but I'm pretty sure that was the exact build. Every game I won I absolutely stomped them and the games I did lose were always super close.

On a sidenote, does anyone have a link to that UB tempo deck with snapcaster, tombstalker, and mental note that won a GP (I think) a little while ago?

@ bradstone

i am very interested in your build, but i have one question: i was wondering why spell snare over spell pierce in the main, and why only 3 daze, and why only 3 hymn to tourach?

rest of the deck is pretty clear, and i love it^^

Use capitalization please. Thanks. -zilla

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AggroSteve

@ bradstone

i am very interested in your build, but i have one question: i was wondering why spell snare over spell pierce in the main, and why only 3 daze, and why only 3 hymn to tourach?

rest of the deck is pretty clear, and i love it^^

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Hymm definitely should have been a 4 of, and I'm really not sure why it wasn't. I think at the time I wanted more discard that showed me their hand, but the singleton IoK should be hymm #4. As for spell snare, it was just a card I really wanted to try out, but it actually worked amazingly. Keeping kids off lands with stifle/wasteland almost always forced them into my dazes/snares while delver produced a steady clock.
Personally, I don't believe 4 daze is always necessary, as long as you're able to dig them up with ponder/brainstorm. On that note however, the deck needs another ponder.