[Deck] BUG "Shardless" Control

Hey Guys, new to the Source and the thread. I spent the last few days reading up on the thread to get up to speed with what you guys have been talking about so as not to rehash recent topics. Ironclad thanks a lot for the deck list and side boarding tips it really helped me get my head around it. side boarding being my weakest aspect of magic imo.

Tomorrow I am taking the deck to a local turny, I will post my results. Planning on taking a version pretty close to the ironclad talked about in his post. With a few changes that I want to try out

Main
-1 tar pit
+1 waste

Side Board
-1 submerge
-1 medding mage

+1 edict
+1 garruk relentless

As I am expecting more eldrazi/fair decks and less control, and I think that garruk relentless is just a bomb card.

The more creature decks (especially Eldrazi) you expect, the better Tombstalker becomes. I'd make room for a singleton.

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Originally Posted by nantukoavatar

Hey Guys, new to the Source and the thread. I spent the last few days reading up on the thread to get up to speed with what you guys have been talking about so as not to rehash recent topics. Ironclad thanks a lot for the deck list and side boarding tips it really helped me get my head around it. side boarding being my weakest aspect of magic imo.

Tomorrow I am taking the deck to a local turny, I will post my results. Planning on taking a version pretty close to the ironclad talked about in his post. With a few changes that I want to try out

Main
-1 tar pit
+1 waste

Side Board
-1 submerge
-1 medding mage

+1 edict
+1 garruk relentless

As I am expecting more eldrazi/fair decks and less control, and I think that garruk relentless is just a bomb card.

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No problem! I love riffing about magic, and I have come to love this deck.

I play a slightly different version which is a cross between Lejay's list and the BoM list.

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Originally Posted by grahilah

Running Watery Grave solely due to card availability issues. I used Tyler Bailey's manabase, his deck from the last SCG Legacy Classic : http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...?DeckID=100743

I have run a fetch in that slot before, but was trying another real land, since I felt like I found fetches too often. Maybe it should be a fetch!

Garruk is the real deal. I split the finals of a Legacy GPT this weekend running the exact 75 above, and again Garruk was key in several matches. Against Miracles he's a very difficult to deal with threat. Very good against Eldrazi, stopping anything short of Reality Smasher. And won me a game against R/G Lands, getting around his Maze of Ith.

I like Engineered Plague much more against Elves and Goblins, which is why I have it in there, since there are several players in the local meta on those decks. It's also great against Death and Taxes naming Humans, solves the Mother of Runes problem definitively.

Deluge is better against Grixis and the mirror, letting you walk them into a board state where they are getting ahead, and then you can catch them getting greedy in a 3-for-1. I won a game against Grixis by casting Toxic Deluge on the third turn, killing my own Deathrite Shaman, but getting his Shaman and Delver, plus Wastelanding his only land. He wasn't able to recover, and I won the game, and the match.

So, both cards are good in different circumstances.

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Thanks for the Reply, I will try Garruk definitely and maybe Plague. I have not been to happy with my 1 Deluge MB and 1 Sb + NoSB, it seems to be kind of overkill and not needed in the current meta.

As for the Grave:

I honestly think it doesn't matter if you play 4th Sea or 9th Fetch. I never wished for a Fetch to be a Sea but sometimes a Sea would have been worse than a fetch because you want to have green mana or want to get a Basic. So I think running 9-10 Fetches is better but that is only my opinion and if you want to run Tylers Mana base its fine.

But, Watery Grave vs 9th Fetch I would definitely go with the Fetch as I don"t want to loose an additional life. Seems to me like fetch is strictly better here.

I took a hiatus from this deck for a while, but I've been playing some pickup games online and I must say that I still like Volrath's Stronghold. Everyone should give it a try. With Shardless and Strix, the card should just be called Value Town. Seems good with Garruk too.

Report from the first turny with the deck. Ended up 0-3 :( I still have a lot to learn with this deck for sure as I made many mistakes, and a few that cost me the game.

Round 1 - Grixis delver, mulled every game
Game 1 it was close and grindy, he was a head on board most of the game and I started to stabilize, but I scoped when I was at 3 life and he had two death rites, but only one black. (I thought he had two black) I was dead to about half his deck, and he had a ponder. So I was likely dead but I need to make him show it.
Game 2 - Charm was a champ and killed 5 of his creatures
Game 3 - very grindy after a mull to 5 but a turn two hymm helped me stay close. The critical turn I went for Jace he dazed it which was his only card in hand and top decked his last turn.

Round 2 -High Tide
Both Game 1 and 2 didn't see a single hymm and only one thought seize game 2. Lost both games a turn short of lethal

Round 3 - Eldrazi
Game 1 - made a huge misplay by blocking bad lossing my 4/5 goyf rather than taking the hit. I also had a shardless agent which died blocking a 7/7 endless one. It dieing would have made my goyf a 5/6. Lesson learned Eldrazi has no reach being at 2 life is fine
Game 2 - garruk relentless closed out the game in quick order
Game 3 - This was really interesting early game. I was on the draw kept a of 2 waste, fetch, bayou, library, goyf, toxic. He goes tomb pass. I waste it. He goes tomb pass. My draw for turn 2 was a third waste. First was it right to waste on turn 1 and should I have wasted on turn 2?
I went bayou, pass. He went eye, 2 matter reshapers. I went waste library. This was a very greedy line looking back but my plan was to toxic away the board on my next turn. He went temple, mimic and 2 TKS. taking my toxic and the game

Thoughts on High Tide, it seems like a way much match up than ANT as we have no great interaction other than FoW and discard. Against ANT we can use things like null rod and attack their mana with waste. Or is it just such a small % of something like a GP that it is not worth planning for?

Thoughts with the changes I made to the list ironclad posted
I used a piece of paper to track the extra wastes vs a tar pit. In the 8 games I played it only came up once and I was happy it came into play untapped. It was game 2 round 1 and I had been wasted 3 times so I only had a bayou in play. So being able to cast goyf off of the untapped land was a big deal. I will continue to track in my testing.

Garruk Relentless is real and I really like having him in the side. However not sure if lossing the meddling mage is worth it as he may just make good matchups better.

Edict was sided in rounds 1 and 3 but never came up.

Overall I learned a lot with the deck and had a good time. I am excited to get better as I prepare for GP Columbus.

After another mediocre 2-3 finish losing to deathblade, miracles and I cant even remember what else, I am moving to jund for a while. Better blade and miracles matchup and combo isn't much worse. I will continue playing this in paper though, be back after a while.

Is the reason we don't run stronghold because it makes colorless mana? Would you have to take out a wasteland for it?

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Originally Posted by ironclad8690

After another mediocre 2-3 finish losing to deathblade, miracles and I cant even remember what else, I am moving to jund for a while. Better blade and miracles matchup and combo isn't much worse. I will continue playing this in paper though, be back after a while.

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Can I recommend this list, and see how you fare with it? A lot of similarities to a Lejay list, preboarded for fair decks and vs combo you bring in 13-15 cards. It's treated me very well.

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Baleful Strix
4 Shardless Agent

4 Ancestral Vision
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Life from the Loam

4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Force of Will

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Flooded Strand
4 Wasteland

SB:
1 Scrubland
4 Meddling Made
1 Containment Priest
2 Leyline of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
1 Null Road
2 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
X – I’ve always had a 15th slot in flux, usually an E Plague or Notion Thief.

Liliana is meta depentant. She’s good vs Eldrazi and other fair decks, but not vs Miracles or swarms (elves etc). Could be switched to a third Deluge and Jace. These cards have such high impact in the matchups they’re good in you generally just need to find one on time.

The Loam is slightly unorthodox, but has outperformed again and again. I really urge people to try it. It takes the slot of the Ponder that Lejay was playing as land 21.5.

Typically vs combo decks you have an easy switch of Goyfs (replaced on curve my MM), Decay, Pulse, Deluges, Loam, Swamp (replaced by Scrubland) vs 13 relevant SB options. Can shave Visions or Strix too, depending on the matchup if you want 14 or 15.

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Originally Posted by nantukoavatar

Edict was sided in rounds 1 and 3 but never came up.

Overall I learned a lot with the deck and had a good time. I am excited to get better as I prepare for GP Columbus.

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The deck does require some practice (more than most people admit), but you've got plenty of time to learn it before the GP. Of the two High Tide decks (Solidarity and Spiral Tide), Solidarity is pretty easy to beat since they have to go off like a normal Storm deck (which they essentially are) and are vulnerable to the same sort of disruption as ANT, TNT, or TES while being about 2 full turns slower. Spiral Tide can go off from very little, runs Top to fight discard, and gets to use offensive countermagic to fight Force while being a turn faster than Solidarity, so it's not a great matchup (I'd say it's about as hard as ANT, maybe a little harder). Neither deck is particularly common though, and people who play either well are even rarer.

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Originally Posted by James718

Is the reason we don't run stronghold because it makes colorless mana? Would you have to take out a wasteland for it?

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That's part of it, but the bigger issue is that it's just very slow and win more. It effectively costs 2B to draw a specific card or set up a Cascade, and that's just not a good enough rate. If I wanted a card that cost at least 4 mana and took two turns to accomplish anything, I'd run Jitte.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dissection

Can I recommend this list, and see how you fare with it? A lot of similarities to a Lejay list, preboarded for fair decks and vs combo you bring in 13-15 cards. It's treated me very well.

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Baleful Strix
4 Shardless Agent

4 Ancestral Vision
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Life from the Loam

4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Force of Will

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Flooded Strand
4 Wasteland

SB:
1 Scrubland
4 Meddling Made
1 Containment Priest
2 Leyline of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
1 Null Road
2 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
X – I’ve always had a 15th slot in flux, usually an E Plague or Notion Thief.

Liliana is meta depentant. She’s good vs Eldrazi and other fair decks, but not vs Miracles or swarms (elves etc). Could be switched to a third Deluge and Jace. These cards have such high impact in the matchups they’re good in you generally just need to find one on time.

The Loam is slightly unorthodox, but has outperformed again and again. I really urge people to try it. It takes the slot of the Ponder that Lejay was playing as land 21.5.

Typically vs combo decks you have an easy switch of Goyfs (replaced on curve my MM), Decay, Pulse, Deluges, Loam, Swamp (replaced by Scrubland) vs 13 relevant SB options. Can shave Visions or Strix too, depending on the matchup if you want 14 or 15.

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I've tried Loam SB and found that while it's great in some matchups it's decidedly less than great in others. There are absolutely metagames where it seems like a maindeckable card, though I'm skeptical of it for the large summer tournaments (GPs, Eternal Extravaganza, etc.) since the matchups where I want it won't be a large enough chunk of the meta for me to give it a maindeck slot. I've been harping on Tombstalker lately, but that slot was a third Strix before it was Tombstalker and Stalker was just better. Not being Bolt- or Decay-able is huge against Delver and it dominates the board in any matchup as soon as it resolves. I've commented in detail on Meddling Mage before, but but briefly: with the decline in Storm combo as a result of Chalice decks becoming more popular, Meddling Mage has lost a lot of utility. He's marginal at best against Sneak and Show while being much too slow against the glass cannon decks and Reanimator. He's useful against Lands, but so are Vendilion Clique, Loam, Pithing Needle, and additional graveyard hate.

Had a small FNM last night, went 3-0, beating UWr Blade, Miracles, and the mirror. I dropped game one against the mirror to being on the draw (we mirrored each others plays turns 1 and 2, but his turn 1 Visions came off first and he got too far ahead as a result), but that was the only game loss I took. I got some games in against Wg Eldrazi after the event and that seemed fine too. I ran 74/75 from the last list I posted and moved the second Deluge back to the board for an MD Sylvan Library. I didn't find Library in any game 1s, so it didn't make a difference. Deck still felt great.

The switch to Jund didn't go at all how I had hoped it would. I beat miracles and blade decks, but couldn't really beat anything else so I am back to Shardless.

I went 1-4 in a league using the Bazaar of Moxen winning decklist:

Manaless Dredge: 1-2
ANT: 1-2
Deathblade: 1-2
Miracles: 0-2
BUG Delver: 2-0

I revised my list to be better again miracles (list in sig), and took it into another league and went 2-0 vs Death and Taxes.

Match win % at 56.48 after 301 matches, so not too shabby I guess. Really trying to improve vs Sneak and Show, Reanimator, Grixis Delver, Deathblade/Esper Stoneblade/Bant Stoneblade, Miracles, and Lands.

Went 3-1 at today's weekly & placed 4th. Split top 4

Round 1: 1-2 v. Burning Reanimator
This match up is miserable. I answered his reanimation spells but the deck is so redundant it just draws more the next turn

Round 2: 2-0 v. Goblins
Game 1 I turn hit 2 Aether Vials with a Maelstrom Pulse on turn 2 and drew 3/4 abrupt decays to take care of everything while having Gofys for blockers. Game 2 I played Null Rod on turn 2 to shut off his Aether Vial and drew Golgari Charm to wipe most of his board. Goyfs took over

Round 3: 2-0 v. BUG Walkers?
He has planeswalkers and Intuitions in his deck along with Loam and Raven's Crime. It was sort of like the modern Gifts deck. I didn't see much of it since he got Brainstorm locked both games early on.

Round 4: 2-0 v. Reanimator
Game 1 I had a turn 1 Deathrite Shaman and game 2 a turn one Nihil Spellbomb and kept on stacking sideboard hate on the board as the game went on.


I hadn't played at this LGS in a couple weeks-months and I had no idea what to expect for the meta. I went in blind with this as my list:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
2 Baleful Strix

4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Force of Will
3 Ancestral Vision
2 Thoughtseize
2 Hymn to Tourach
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
2 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Wasteland

SB
2 Disfigure
1 Null Rod
1 Grafdiffer's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Thoughtseize
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Golgari Charm
1 Sylvan Library
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Force of Will
1 Notion Thief
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Toxic Deluge

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Originally Posted by alasfrica

Went 3-1 at today's weekly & placed 4th. Split top 4

Round 1: 1-2 v. Burning Reanimator
This match up is miserable. I answered his reanimation spells but the deck is so redundant it just draws more the next turn

Round 2: 2-0 v. Goblins
Game 1 I turn hit 2 Aether Vials with a Maelstrom Pulse on turn 2 and drew 3/4 abrupt decays to take care of everything while having Gofys for blockers. Game 2 I played Null Rod on turn 2 to shut off his Aether Vial and drew Golgari Charm to wipe most of his board. Goyfs took over

Round 3: 2-0 v. BUG Walkers?
He has planeswalkers and Intuitions in his deck along with Loam and Raven's Crime. It was sort of like the modern Gifts deck. I didn't see much of it since he got Brainstorm locked both games early on.

Round 4: 2-0 v. Reanimator
Game 1 I had a turn 1 Deathrite Shaman and game 2 a turn one Nihil Spellbomb and kept on stacking sideboard hate on the board as the game went on.


I hadn't played at this LGS in a couple weeks-months and I had no idea what to expect for the meta. I went in blind with this as my list:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
2 Baleful Strix

4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Force of Will
3 Ancestral Vision
2 Thoughtseize
2 Hymn to Tourach
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
2 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Wasteland

SB
2 Disfigure
1 Null Rod
1 Grafdiffer's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Thoughtseize
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Golgari Charm
1 Sylvan Library
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Force of Will
1 Notion Thief
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Toxic Deluge

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Going to change your list or sideboard now that you know what to expect? Maybe more grave hate?

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Originally Posted by ironclad8690

Going to change your list or sideboard now that you know what to expect? Maybe more grave hate?

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Yeah, I'll have to give it some thought. I think I might drop the Hymns from the 75, but I never know if that's correct.

I think the sideboard needs some changes for sure. I'm thinking of running a second Nihil Spellbomb over the True-Name and maybe a second Surgical Extraction? Surgical seems worse as it isn't a permanent and every time I'm holding onto it I get Duressed/Thoughtseized/Unmasked before they bin their targets.

I definitely prefer permanent-based Graveyard hate in the current meta. As for Hymn, how much Reanimator is normal for you? If you're seeing 2 people out of 10 or so week in, week out, then I'd definitely cut them for Thoughtseize and Duress.

1-4 in another league.

UWR Vial (Meddling Mage, Mother of Runes, TNN, Clique, Stoneforge, Grim Lavamancer, etc): 0-2
UR Delver: 2-1
Zombardment: 0-2
ANT: 0-2
BW Pox: 0-2

Previous league was 3-2

Grixis Control: 2-1
Miracles: 2-0
Death and Taxes: 1-2
Grixis Delver: 1-2
Death and Taxes: 2-0

I continue to be on one of the worst league-streaks of my life, with the last 7 leagues yielding either break even or less in terms of value.

The 1-4 has to be at least somewhat attributable to dropping games to decks that I have to assume you've never seen before, so your opponent's had at least some edge in being able to recognize what you were doing while you quite possibly misassigned them as something else and couldn't play optimally since you didn't know what to play around. As for the 3-2, it doesn't seem that bad (though I get that it's not great in terms of value), but splitting in games with Grixis isn't far from the overall matchup % (I think it's maybe slightly better than 55-45 in out favor, but I'd have to look at my notes when I get home) and D&T isn't exactly a great matchup. So while having bad runs sucks, I suspect it's more about vairance than it is about you or the deck.

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Originally Posted by btm10

I definitely prefer permanent-based Graveyard hate in the current meta. As for Hymn, how much Reanimator is normal for you? If you're seeing 2 people out of 10 or so week in, week out, then I'd definitely cut them for Thoughtseize and Duress.

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It was a small event this week, I believe 13 people. In the 13 there were 2 Reanimator and 1 Lands. Hymn doesn't seem great, but I already have 2 Thoughtseize main. I don't know what I would put in the slot.

Looking to switch to Shardless for a bit, because my local meta is pretty bad for Delver.

This is what I'm starting with: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/391110#paper

I don't have a 4th visions handy, but I think that maybe 4 hymns is a bit too much? Any suggestions for the main/sb to start with?