Nether-go

[caiomarcos]

I've been playing this game for way too long, and one of the fond memories I have from the good ol' days is Undermining whatever the opponent throws at you, drawing a ton with AK and FoF at EOT, then finishing things off with a meager, recurring 2/2.
So, fast forward a few decades, thinking about premodern decks, Nether-go was one of the first that came to my mind, but alas, it was nowhere to be seen. How come Recoil, FoF, Counterspell, Undermine and co. did not make into this underpowered, down to the ground, slow format? I was disappointed.

I am no deckbuilder, always a netdecker from the days of the Dojo, so I concluded that smarter players already tested and dismissed Nether-go lists on the basis that it is completely unplayable, so I kinda gave up on it until I learned about the online leagues that are entry free - nothing to lose if the deck sucks. I persisted and found ONE list (exactly as below) on tcdecks and went with it. Thank you Sergi Herrero for playing this last November and making this available.

UB Nether-go:

2 Underground River
4 Salt Marsh
11 Island
3 Swamp
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Counterspell
4 Innocent Blood
2 Nether Spirit
2 Probe
4 Polluted Delta
2 Tsabo's Web
2 Forbid
2 Smother
1 Funeral Charm
3 Undermine
3 Force Spike
3 Opt
3 Fact or Fiction
1 Capsize

4 Duress
1 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Morphling
2 Deep Analysis
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
2 Engineered Plague
1 Millstone

I didn't give it too much though. I saw the Undermines, the Nether Spirits, the AKs and was convinced. Took it to the online league and went 3-2 (a virtual 4-1, since the first match I lost to the clock due to it being the first time I played the deck) and the deck felt really reliable and surprised me. It didn't feel weak or dead, and it was able to put up a good fight with a complete noob behind it.

A few thoughts about some cards, starting with underperformers:
Probe felt kinda meh. The discard part gets in really late and often the opponent will have dead stuff in hand and gladly discard those. The draw/discard is nice, but the deck has plenty of draw already.
Funeral Charm never did anything. Once I discarded a land on ops draw and that was it. Maybe it was the matchups I faced, but it came out every single game.
Force Spike for being being dead lot of times.

Now, overperformers and surprises:
Force Spike for the nice gotchas it enables.
Capsize is bonkers. Can get you out of so many situations and is a solution for anything, with buyback. With only one in the deck, I valued it very highly, so often I felt compelled to hold it, waiting for the buyback mana.
Tsabo's Web surprised me more than my opponents I think. I had no idea how wide its effect is - manlands, Rishadan Port, Volrath's Stronghold, Thawing Glaciers - and it cantrips! Pretty good.
Fact or Fiction triggered a couple concedes. Not really a surprise, but still amazing.
Morphling. A truly GOAT. Very few decks can handle it.

The one tweak I'd do now is -1 Probe +1 Recoil, the main reason is that I miss playing Recoil. Secondary reasons are that Probe felt a bit weak and I often wanted to cast Capsize early but didn't want to waste it by playing without buyback.

Regarding sideboard - Morphling, as mentioned, is a true bomb and came in quite often and won games just as often. Then some utility stuff are helpful like Tormod's Crypt and Nevinyrral's Disk. Duress definitely has its place. Other than that, I have no clue. Why the Deep Analysis? Why the Millstone? Only one BEB? Why not zero or four? Beats me.

If there's at least two non-spam replies to this, I might go through the 5 matches of the league I played.

[Soldier of Fortune]

Awesome stuff, Caiomarcos!

I too am a big fan of the U/B control decks of that era and this deck is full of some of my favorite cards! I'll have to take it out for a spin one of these days.

I am curious what your match ups were? Hopefully someone else replies to make it two lol

Cheers

[BirdsOfParadise]

I would read your write-up of those five matches ;-)

[Mr. Safety]

This is a very cool approach, but I am dedicated to Psychatog way to much to ever play a different UB control deck. Tog gives an almost combo-like finish.

[andreen]

Depending on the metagame and matchups you faced, Funeral Charm's discard effect may not have been relevant. It's a versatile card, but it's possible that it didn't have many opportunities to shine. You could consider replacing it with another card that provides more consistent value.