[Deck] It's the Fear - Control in the new Era

[mackaber]

You guys should really consider running Confidant. His ability to block and kill annoying Goblins and to give the deck a better aggro alternative should not be overlooked!

I played a list that was very close to yours essentially running counterspells over DCs. While I love DC I'm really not sure he's needed in this dec. Without top he will be dealing close to 2 damage per turn and also I didn't really ever feel the need for carddraw since Intuition for Loam with sandbar was always sufficient. Also Counterspell fills an important hole in the dec, essentially making the Couterbalance soft lock a hard lock.

On a slightly more random note... Has anyone ever considered including Mox Diamonds? I know it requires you to run about 26 mana sources but it would speed the dec up and also make bloodmoon, B2B and all those shenanigans irrelevant plus you can easily support 4 colors. I was thinking of running them in a dec with 4 intuitions 4 bobs and 4 CB so as to best abuse the speed boost.

[spirit of the wretch]

Moxen do sound nice (especially if you play Smother over StoP), but I think the major problem are the slots in this deck. What four cards would you want to cut for them?

[Hanni]

The talk about genesis made me laugh when I first started to read it mainly because hanni's list is incorrect. For general purposes, I'm going to take out the parts that are same for both.and now I will add the rest

Genesis:

Pros:

-Can be hardcast (in-colour fatty)
-Immune to Pithing Needle
Cons:

- You can only use during upkeep.
- It forces you build the deck to have discard outlits to put it in there which forces bad cards in the deck, and leaves many powerful cards out of your list.
- It can not be brought back with life from the loam.
- Doesn't produce mana at all, and is really only good if you have another card to put it in the graveyard.
- Its a dead card in your hand for the first 5 turns.



Volrath's Stronghold:

Pros:

-Produces mana
-Not as vulnerable to temporary graveyard hate
- Has synergy with counterbalance.(awsome trick that surprises anyone who thinks they got around counterbalance)
- Can be used any time it wants.
Cons:

-Vulnerable to mana-hate (Blood Moon effects, Wasteland, Back to Basics, etc.)
-Produces colourless mana in 4c deck
-Vulnerable to Pithing Needle

Thats fine and all... but why didn't you mention card advantage? That is the sole reason I run the card. I also don't get how not being able to recur it with Loam matters... also, how does it force me to run a bad card? I love Cephalid Coliseum. However, I've already explained that Volrath's Stronghold has advantages in the slower control version (Dave's), and that it's terrible in my version. Also, how is my list incorrect? Having a slightly different gameplan doesn't make it incorrect, it makes it different. Play the list before you run your mouth.

[mackaber]

Moxen do sound nice (especially if you play Smother over StoP), but I think the major problem are the slots in this deck. What four cards would you want to cut for them?

Seeing that they synergize poorly with deed and deed synergizes poorly with the dec: uhmm deed. Obviously you'd be playing a completly different dec then.

[BreathWeapon]

I don't believe Genesis or Volrath's Stronghold is a question of either/or, but one of the main advantages of Volrath's Stronghold is that recurring a Tarmogoyf, Psychatog or Shriekmaw puts a 2, 3 or 5cc card on top of your deck for Counterbalance.

[raharu]

So you are saying that Thresh lists with CounterTop and without CounterTop shouldn't be discussed in comparison because they have a "drasticly different" gameplan?

Actually, yes. Yes I am. Also, if you would actually look at ITF and your list, you'd see other large differences in the decks and they way the play and the engines that run (or, in the case of ITF, suplement) them. Seriously, dissimilar decklists are dissimilar, the end.

[Adan]

Since the last 2 suggestions were "Moxen" and "Dark Confidant", together with the old list "Goyf" "StoP" and "CBalance-Engine", I would nearly suggest to forget the Fear and play Germany's good ol' Baseruption:

Dennis "Oddball" Kampelmann's Top8-appearance:

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=10225

and mine:

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=10505

Since you are already including Chrome Moxen, people will continue to include multicolored spells like Finkel and Vindicates anyways.

Ponder was non-existent at that time, replace Portent with Ponder.

[Citrus-God]

Actually, yes. Yes I am. Also, if you would actually look at ITF and your list, you'd see other large differences in the decks and they way the play and the engines that run (or, in the case of ITF, suplement) them. Seriously, dissimilar decklists are dissimilar, the end.

He summed it up about right.

@Hanni: There's a difference between The Rock and Truffle Shuffle. The Rock has more aggro elements designed within the deck and uses early game discard to slow the opposing deck down. Truffle Shuffle uses discard for the early game as well, but because of the way it is designed, against creature decks, it doesnt need it's discard and not very reliant on it. Your deck is like The Rock except you swap discard (Therapies anyway) for free counters where ITF just uses Force of Wills and Counterspells because it's that reliant on using it's counters (depending on MU).

Also, Genesis has major a susceptibility to Tormod's Crypt... With Stronghold, you could just activate in response.

[bigbear102]

He summed it up about right.
Also, Genesis has major a susceptibility to Tormod's Crypt... With Stronghold, you could just activate in response.

If you have Stronghold out, wouldn't a good player wait to activate Crypt until you are tapped out or have already activated Stronghold? Stronghold also dies to Wasteland and nonbasic hate, which Genesis gets around, assuming you have a green source available.

[BreathWeapon]

If you have Stronghold out, wouldn't a good player wait to activate Crypt until you are tapped out or have already activated Stronghold? Stronghold also dies to Wasteland and nonbasic hate, which Genesis gets around, assuming you have a green source available.

I'll give you Blood Moon and Back to Basics, but Wasteland on Volrath's Stronghold in a Intuition/Life from the Loam control deck is the misplay of the century.

[Yawgmoth]

One card you might want to consider for the deck is Gigapede. He's a lot stronger in the deck then you might think. Very sexy target and not a bad topdeck. The only dis-synergy is keep open mana for counterTop & CS because Gigapede is mana intensive. Though I have greatly enjoyed playing him in my Intuition based control decks.

Btw I really don't understand anyone that's been advocating Genesis w/o Gigapede. I know the majority of players here are not running Genesis (myself included) but you have no way to to get it into the graveyard with an Intuition. That means you have to cast it, not have it swords, and then have it block something before it can be used. I would suggest skipping some of those steps.

[Citrus-God]

If you have Stronghold out, wouldn't a good player wait to activate Crypt until you are tapped out or have already activated Stronghold? Stronghold also dies to Wasteland and nonbasic hate, which Genesis gets around, assuming you have a green source available.

Well, you also run EE + Deed in this deck. You can just activate some shuffle effects here and there and find those cards; this should force the player with Crypt to activate in response in which you activate Stronghold in response getting that dead Goyf back on top well protected from Crypt.

[landstill101]

If you have Stronghold out, wouldn't a good player wait to activate Crypt until you are tapped out or have already activated Stronghold? Stronghold also dies to Wasteland and nonbasic hate, which Genesis gets around, assuming you have a green source available.

When you talk about this situation, if you want to compare it to Genesis, then pls say what would happen to Genesis, like this...

Stronghold in play,
Tap stronghold to put goyf on top of deck,
In response use Crypt to remove graveyard,
ability fizzles.

Genesis in graveyard,
Crypt used at any time,
no genesis,

Great they removed 1 tarmogoyf from the game, you play another, and then you can recur that one, or a tog, but if you use the Genesis, oh dam there is no recursion. If they use wasteland then crypt, you just made card advantage, because you still have your colored mana and they just used 2 cards to stop 1.


Hanni, being able to recur with loam is the whole point, a wasteland doesn't stop stronghold, a crypt will instantly stop genesis, and you can't even respond by putting something on top, they would have complete control. This deck is not a tog deck, its not a threshold deck, its not made to force yourself to throw things in the graveyard, it just works out that is your graveyard is full you have more options, by putting in genesis your taking the deck and forcing to make you discard your own cards, at a risk that is not worth it in this deck, as I said before you have to put cards that don't fit in the deck to make 1 card work when that card can be substituted for a land which has better pros to it. Great you have card advantage, but how much card advantage will you lose to put in the graveyard, how much damage do you have to take before you get card advantage? Your theory for this deck is like telling a combo player that they should use a combo that has more pieces to it but you might have card advantage. This deck doesn't need to have a full hand to win, that is why the deck has countertop lock, and shackles, because it can win with the quality of permanents not the quantity. Hanni, I know we are not sopposed to bash people, but when almost everyone is telling you that your are talking about a different style of deck, it could mean we are right. This thread is for ITF, pls either talk about this deck or take your rogue deck to a huge tourny and win with like this person did and then we can make a thread for your deck.


Now back to the Normal talk, I think Adan's right, adding those would just repeat what someone did. Moxen is a hard choice because as someone already pointed out, we would need to raise the land count, usually this is fine to play moxen in a very fast deck, but this is a control deck, it is not needed. It also has very bad synergy with deed since if a deed is played your moxen's always die, now if you take out deed then you could choose moxen but then you would also be taking out the best mass sweeper in the game for 1 turn faster.

Truly I didn't have to say any of this because most of it has been said one way or another, I just think that a couple of people are taking their blue control rogue decks and try to make it sound like this deck. Being a Landstill/theshold player this deck is alot of fun, I've had friends try it out and each side makes little mistakes because they have played threshold but not landstill or the other way around,soo I think that this deck does very well on using the thinking of both decks. This deck has alot of potential but this deck isn't like goblins, you can't just play and tap to win games, its very hard to pilot. Many pf the suggestions I feel are just people who have played alot of threshold but are making mistakes that landstill players aren't and vicaversa. Who ever is the creator, I wish I knew you personally, this deck is my style of magic.



On to talk about a new topic, what do people think of sideboard for this deck, right now Until I play this more in tournies, I am playing with this list for side:

Sideboard:
3 extirpate
3 meddling mage
3 krosan grip
3 engineered plague
3 thoughtseize

[raharu]

I know it's not exactly phenomanal, but I've always liked the whole recuring Krosan Tuskers bit. Perhaps it would be stronger with Genesis, which doesn't go here in the slightest, but would Krosan Tusker be unwieldly or could it help fix mana early game and be a dumb source of late game consistancy while being a threat when needed, like it was in Truffle Shuffle and Wg Quinn?

[Spare Parts]

raharu: there is no more than 1 basic land in the whole deck, I'm afraid Tusker wouldn't do that much. Even in 3c builds there is no time for such cute tricks. I love Tusker, but this is a no-no deck for him.


I would like to ask for some sideboard ideas. I'm putting together SB for tournament this very weekend, and 4 colors of possibilities are giving me a headache. So far I have settled on:

3x Krosan Grip - to fight opposing CB & moat & whatsoever
4x Hydroblast - against goblins, burn, but mostly against Dragon Stompy which is a troubling matchup at best
3x Leyline of the Void - i live in a fear of Ichorid (hate losing to decks that "dont play magic"), but wouldn't Extirpate be better? Or Tormods Crypt? - I want those cards to have broader usage than just against one specific deck.

and 5 free places (possibly 8 without those 3 Leylines)

Any ideas / suggestions please? :]

[landstill101]

After talking to a couple of good friends and play testing some more, I changed my sideboard that I posted 3 posts ago from:

Sideboard:
3 extirpate
3 meddling mage
3 krosan grip
3 engineered plague
3 thoughtseize

To:
Sideboard:
3 Leyline of the void
4 Hydroblast
2 engineered explosives
3 krosan grip
3 thoughtsieze

Sadly When I tested this, My worst matchup is against TES, which is sad since I'm playing blue.

[Lego]

To:
Sideboard:
3 Leyline of the void
4 Hydroblast
2 engineered explosives
3 krosan grip
3 thoughtsieze

Sadly When I tested this, My worst matchup is against TES, which is sad since I'm playing blue.

First of all, I feel like Leyline is a 4 or 0 card. Second, how is your MAINDECK not beating TES? Are you not playing the same maindeck as everyone else? Bring in Hydroblast and Thoughtseize from the board, and I can't imagine you losing.

[raharu]

Ohes. Duh. I knew that. I love Piggy so much though :\

Back on topic, Extirpates are just stupidly strong across the entire spectrum. I can't think of any arguments against it, outside of the fact that it isn't great against Stax, but I don't think you really want graveyard hate that much against them (meaning that you would want Extirpate over Krosan Grip in that match ). As for the other slots, I presume they would all be metagame depepdant. Needles are either crap or amazing, but it depends on what you expect to see.

Do you really need Hydroblast? Wouldn't CB be enough against burn and recuring Tarmogoyf be a suitable solution for Goblins? Burn shouldn't be a problem, but I'm not entirely sure about the Goblins mu, and Dragon Stompy is only going to be helped by a stronger manabase and a healthy portion of disenchant effects.

[diffy]

Do you really need Hydroblast?

Hellyeah! - Goblins is like one of your worst matchups because they are simply too fast: Tarmogoyf is only a small speed bump for them (Matron -> Warren Weirding or simply ignore -> charge), Counterbalance does hardly affect them especially since they can just out-tempo you even if you have a Top down and all your engines are way too clunky to handle their assault and their card advantage + tutoring power... and I didn't even start talking about what happens when they attack your horrible manabase.
Blue Blasts are played over Engineered Plague because they're better in the Goblins matchup if you have a clock (here Tarmogoyf + Tog) because you can use them as tempo tools whereas Engineered Plague is rather clunky and doesn't affect them as much. Blasts being good in other matchups (TES, Burn, Dragon Stompy, Aggro Loam etc.) is just an additional bonus.

[Bryant Cook]

How is your MAINDECK not beating TES? Are you not playing the same maindeck as everyone else? Bring in Hydroblast and Thoughtseize from the board, and I can't imagine you losing.

I beat Landstill in my metagame playing tons of hate all the time. I don't mean to de-rail the thread, however, assuming you beat combo because you play Force of Will is ridiculous.