Hand disruption doesn't protect your game plan as well as counterspells do. And hand disruption decks just don't get there.
Originally Posted by Tacosnape
Referring to the art on Stasis:
I've tested the deck a bit and I like it.
Partly motivated by the fact that my meta has quite a bit of CB-Top (in particular in Threshold), I'm currently testing the following alternatives in the Sinkhole slots:
1. Spell Snare ;
2. Engineered Explosives (answers both aggro decks, EtW and thresholdesque decks in my meta) ;
3. Hymn to Tourach.
Since I don't have infinite playtest time (yet), I'd like to complement my testing experience by your opinions (preferably based on testing rather than mental masturbation).
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Aside
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There is an obvious synergy between Stifle, Wasteland and Sinkhole, but that is not an argument for or against swapping Sinkhole with Hymn, since you only talk about one side of the argument (one other side would be the benefits of Hymn).As far as Sinkhole versus Hymn to Tourach. I really have to side with Nightwolf. Sinkhole complements Stifle and Wasteland far to well. Fetches, Basics, and Non Basics all get hit by this deck.
My two cents based on very little testing of Team America (about 15 matches):Replacing it with Hymn allows basic lands to be a factor.
I think the principal merit of having Sinkhole (instead of Hymn) is to increase the probability (and frequency) of land disruption you send your opponent's way - it has very little to do with the fact that you can hit basics with it, a very situational play anyhow (from my experience).
In my meta there's quite a bit of P. Deed going on (It's the Fear, Landstill, etc.), so Stifle is useful in that regard. Of course that makes you play a more reactive game for those match-ups...
Last edited by T is for TOOL; 10-22-2008 at 10:11 PM. Reason: Merged double-post.
People were mentioning Sea Drake earlier in the thread, but it was dismissed due to lack of brokenness. What about the other blue flier, Serendeb Efritti? He pitches to FOW, dodges bolts all day and doesn't have MUCH of a drawback.
He's nowhere near as good as goyf or stalker, but for creatures 9 and 10 for people who feel the deck is light on threats, he could be an option.
EDIT: @The Burn Matchup: Hold forces for his Price of Progresses. Other than that, destroy lands and you should win games. It's the same as thresh and deadguy always played against burn, except you get the best of both worlds to combat the damage.
I'm here to kick ass and play card games.
BZK
Simple. You trade out some of the creatures in Eva Green for more disruptive elements. There's far more disruption in Team America than there is in Eva Green. The thought processes are similar though. However, one huge mark in Team America's favor is the fact that counter magic is insanely strong in the format today. Team America, hands down, has a better combo match than Eva Green, which is important. Additionally, it has a better match against control because disruption is better than creatures against control decks.
Eva Green needs blue to stop the top decks and early plays that get in through discard. Especially because Hymn doesn't choose the cards that damage your opponent the most. Sometimes random is good, sometimes random is bad. It's the nature of random things. Counter magic and it's selectivity is more reliable.
As it turns out, Eva Green can definitely get screwed by bad draws as well. That's why Brainstorm and Ponder are so amazing. They can help you dig for answers, or find you threats. They excel at helping your game plan be malleable enough to adapt to the situation and kill your opponent.
@ATN: Don't play Spell Snare, it's pretty awful. Explosives too. It's too mana intensive and you'll lose quite a bit of tempo every time you use it to destroy something that isn't Counterbalance. Even then, destroying Counterbalance is going to cost around five mana (because you want to set Explosives for two, but pay more to get around Counterbalance), which is already more than double what they paid for Counterbalance.
Personally, I don't like Hymn in this deck. It's not going to be of much use against Counterbalance decks because it only has a random chance of taking out Counterbalance (as long as you're on the play), and on the draw it can't.
For the foreseeable future, expect to see less of me. I've lost my internet connection, and so I'll only be able to get on by siphoning free Wi-Fi from the surrounding areas. Which isn't always consistent.
Plus, the guy that I used to leech off of has now instituted password protection. This means that I effectively do not have internet at home. :(
As said before, in a heavy threshold metagame hymn might be very strong in the sinkhole spot. I would not run engineered explosives in the board, let alone in the maindeck. Spell snare is another option, but it was kinda weak in the testing that was done with it. It is another good card against aggro control, though. It's just not hymn good.
About the question of why play this over Eva Green, it's pretty much because force of will and daze are retarded tempo cards and having a cantrip engine makes the deck more consistent. Eva Green is still a great deck, you will get explosive starts with ritual and you don't lose to moon effects, but Team America is a better choice against combo and has an even more ridiculous LD package to keep control/survival down.
Edit: Damn you, Dave.
they haunt minds...
LOL, haha
To my knowledge, and also preferably by testing rather than mental masterbation... I lost countless matches vs my buddy because of the power of hymn de tourach and its ability to disrupt your hand. In the end, I would play hymn de tourach before sinkhole. The question is main hand disruption vs LD... If your lucky Hymn can do both.
That's why some (winning) UGb-Threshold lists ran 2x Sea Drake back in the day ? In that deck, Drake was often played as a finisher (for example, when you'd have sufficiently disrupted your opponent/ had enough back-up for Drake and the game-state was right, you'd cast Drake for the quasi-win).
That being said, I agree Sea Drake is kind of counter-tempoish in Team America. I've tested two copies (-1 Stifle, -1 Sinkhole , + 2 Drake) and for now I'm not impressed. (EDIT: And I don't think cutting one copy of Stifle and Sinkhole was a good idea to begin with).
Again, thanks for the tip(s).@ATN: Don't play Spell Snare, it's pretty awful. Explosives too. It's too mana intensive and you'll lose quite a bit of tempo every time you use it to destroy something that isn't Counterbalance.
You are probably right, but I'll test it just to convince myself.
I agree that paying 3 to drop EE through Counterbalance (or sometimes 4 - in particular, against decks that can CB@3 like UGR-Threshold featuring Magus of the Moon or It's the Fear) slows you down.
The only other reason I wanted to add EE was to deal with certain aggro decks (a la WW or CounterSlivers). And there's the fact that I'm switching from Vorosh-Still to Team America, so I'm still a bit nervous about the small amount of removal in the deck.
WHAT.
Such as, I mean serious dude, if you are going to say something like this at least validate your point. What -are- the benefits of Hymn over Sinkhole in this shell? I am curious as to your thoughts.
WHAT.
Really? Im not even sure where to start with this. Your buddy or if you're lucky. Neither of which are really strong arguments for Hymn -TO- Tourach.
If you have some quality input Id suggest you post it. I am also curious to your thoughts as well as possible encounters for each card during your "testing". Why did you find Hymn to Tourach to be better?
I have found it to be much more productive to focus on land destruction then hand destruction in this deck. Without the ability to power out a Hymn via Dark Ritual its power decreases ten fold. On top of that I found that Hymn often hits cards that would otherwise be unplayable due to your initial LD components. What is the point of Hymn if they cannot play their spells to begin with not to mention the majority of the decks that either:
1. Want cards in the graveyard.
Or
2. Dump their hands on turn 1. (See lack of Dark Ritual and the inability of this deck to drop a Hymn on turn 1).
In my opinion blind hand destruction really has no place in this format. Yes Hymn is a good card, yes sometimes it can hit 2 lands and be stupid good, but its -random-.
I am absolutely loving this deck. I had some tries of crossing Thresh with a black based deck like Eva green before, but with not much success.
I'm playing the original list with -4 sinkhole +4 hymn, personal preference. I really like Hymn and I feel that Sinkhole is a bad topdeck later on
That's retarded. Hymn is just as situationally bad as Sinkhole. If it's a bad top deck, it's because one of two things happened.
1) Your opponent has no lands in play. Seems good already.
2) Your opponent has a ton of lands in play and you've lost (or are losing) already.
Similarly, there are two scenarios where Hymn is bad.
1) Your opponent has no cards in hand, which makes Hymn functionally worse.
2) Your opponent has a ton of cards in hand.
There are additional factors to remember with Hymn though.
If your opponent has no cards in hand, then Sinkhole is a better play because you help to shut down dangerous top decks.
If your opponent has a ton of cards in play, either you're losing, or he can't play spells. At which point Hymn is terrible because you're making them discard spells they can't cast.
Sinkhole is better because it fits better into the deck's game plan. Denial. By destroying lands, you maintain the strength of a good Land Disruption package that also makes Daze relevant throughout the entire game. It also lessens the ability of your opponent to respond to certain actions, or to make multiple plays in a turn. Hymn only does some of that. However, it's less powerful in this deck than in Eva Green because you don't have Hypnotic Specter to complement the discard strategy.
Think things through. It's important. It's not a question of personal preference. Never was. It's a case of the functionally superior card. In this case, it's Sinkhole. Stop thinking it's personal preference.
For the foreseeable future, expect to see less of me. I've lost my internet connection, and so I'll only be able to get on by siphoning free Wi-Fi from the surrounding areas. Which isn't always consistent.
Plus, the guy that I used to leech off of has now instituted password protection. This means that I effectively do not have internet at home. :(
Thanks for Hymn -to- Tourach. But if all is well, and you would brush up on your french you would realize that i'd still prefer to call it Hymn de Tourach.
Correct. I agree 100%. That's why i was saying this version is a dilluted Eva Green. Then I asked why you would play this list over Eva. Then someone asked whether to replace hymn or sinkhole. To which i said, i'd rather play Hymn. Because without DR, your not going to cast turn one sink or hymn and both are pretty even in a vacumm i think. But I would honnestly lean towards Hymn. Because that random discard might actually get land in his hand and maybe remove some business spells. You gotta have a little hand disruption...It was all removed to fit all that blue.
Again you make a somewhat of a valid point but I think that's what AtN asked you, what are the pro's and con's of both cards.
@Deep6er
"Sinkhole is better because it fits better into the deck's game plan. Denial. By destroying lands, you maintain the strength of a good Land Disruption package that also makes Daze relevant throughout the entire game. It also lessens the ability of your opponent to respond to certain actions, or to make multiple plays in a turn. Hymn only does some of that. However, it's less powerful in this deck than in Eva Green because you don't have Hypnotic Specter to complement the discard strategy."
I agree, but what is this new crossbreed thresh meet eva green want to be? Cause it could go both ways. You could add the discard elements or the LD elements. Or, try to fit the core of both. I think we could fit the core of both. Although, like we mentioned above, there will be no turn 1 plays.
Maybe - 4 Snuff Out and + 4 Hymn
then we have 8 hand disruption elements:
Thoughtseize
Hymn de Tourach
and 12 LD elements:
Stifle
Wasteland
Sinkhole
+ all the counters from thresh.
Merged triple post. Your multiple consecutive posts and inability to use correct capitalization are starting to become tiresome. Next time you'll be getting a warning.
-TOOL
Last edited by T is for TOOL; 10-22-2008 at 10:18 PM.
I think snuff out is one of the last cards I'd cut from the deck. It's simply absurd. Free spells are amazing, and rolling without removal seems very dangerous. One of the most appealing things about Team America is playing with force of will, daze, and snuff out all in the same deck.
they haunt minds...
Ok, Ill roll with this. Alright so settling upon what you have said lets replace the free removal in the form of Snuff Out with Hymn de Tourach.
How then do you propose we deal with win conditions that do get through the screen of disruption this deck cranks out? You aren't always going to have games where you see or resolve every piece of disruption wether it be discard or land destruction in a given game.
Last edited by Peter_Rotten; 10-22-2008 at 04:18 PM. Reason: Cute pic; however, unnecessary.
What kind of win conditions? Win conditions that snuff out takes care of? Why wouldn't a timely daze, counter or force of will stop the one or two creatures they might cast after you've decimated their hand/manabase or both? I'm not sure i understand your question.
Removing Snuff Out is counterproductive. If you see a single Snuff Out, I want them to play Tarmogoyf. You know why? Because they spent that two mana for nothing. That's huge. Every single scenario where you can steal tempo from your opponent is great.
It's not about taking one deck's core and shoving it into another deck. It's about using strategies that those decks have done, and taking it in a different direction. This deck is the most tempo oriented deck I've seen in the entire format. Not even Eva Green comes close. Don't confuse them. Even though some cards look similar, the application of the strategies that this deck employs is different.
This deck is built around tempo. To a lesser extent, it includes the ideas about velocity as well. The idea that the more things you play, the more momentum you can build up (obvious paraphrase). Playing more things is generally a good call. That's why the free spells are so fantastic in this deck. It allows you to have the ability to play spells when you would not be able to do so otherwise.
The free spells that have been included are the best of the lot available to us. I would be strongly against taking out any of them.
@Jericohs@Cottage: This deck aims to be an extremely aggressive aggro control deck. It aims to use it's disruption proactively instead of the reactive and defensive nature that Threshold takes with it's counter magic. The point of the deck is to finish the game in six or seven turns, with your opponent having few lands in play, and all of his relevant spells that he cast that game either killed or countered. Very simple, straightforward. It's not really a "crossbreed" because those decks are designed to be good against different things. Eva Green's threat density and Threshold's counter magic are designed to work within that deck's core in order to defeat certain strategies.
Team America's concern is primarily with decks that try to "play fair". With the obvious exception of Ichorid, most decks in Legacy operate according to rules already laid down and ideas strictly adhered to. What you're trying to do with this deck is to disrupt every strategy that their decks are built upon, in order to throw off any ability to recover in a meaningful time frame and then kill them with some huge, under costed threat. Simple.
For the foreseeable future, expect to see less of me. I've lost my internet connection, and so I'll only be able to get on by siphoning free Wi-Fi from the surrounding areas. Which isn't always consistent.
Plus, the guy that I used to leech off of has now instituted password protection. This means that I effectively do not have internet at home. :(
Wait are you telling me that its completely wrong to compare Thresh concepts and Eva Green concepts with the ones expressed in this so-called "extremely aggressive tempo aggro control deck" why don't you add combo in there while your at it...
Originally Posted by Deep6er I think you're a dick, and I will endeavor to let you know that I think you're a dick.
...listen for a second. People want to play Sinkhole and others want to play Hymn. We are not arguing with you. You are not a inovator of any kind and i don't claim to be either. If what simply works best for you is your free spells...Ok then. I'll playtest with and without snuff out. To me they just look out of place. Why would you ever let creatures hit the table with all that control?
I think it is horrible to compare this deck to Thresh or Eva Green. It may be a combination of both, but adding 1+2=3. It is really hard to say that 1 is 3 now, correct? Please, stop thinking this deck is Eva Green Jericoh.
Sinkhole makes the land denial strategy much, much stronger, where Hymn compliments it. I think you could go either way, but Sinkhole goes along with the plan a lot better. Sinkhole is the better call, IMO.
Congratulations, you pointed out my signature. The point of my signature is to let people know that I won't hold back when I'm discussing things. If I think you're a dick, I'll tell you. If I think you're a retarded asshat, you'll know. It's in my signature, because it's something that is associated with me. You know, almost like a signature. Do you think I'm calling you a dick? Because I'm not. I'm rather confused as to why you would even bring that up.
Also, what's with the "I'm not an innovator" claim? Do the decks I've built up to now not count? Solidarity, It's the Fear, and Team America all of a sudden don't count for decks? What about all the stuff I've won with these decks? Does that not count now too?
So, how about all the testing that Dan and I have done? What about the logical arguments I made? What about the points I made where I pointed out why I think Sinkhole is the better card?
Are you trying to say that the deck isn't an "extremely aggressive tempo based aggro control deck?" Because I'd like to know what you would classify it then. Because that's what it is. Do you not understand those concepts? A deck can have more than one role. Hybridized builds aren't uncommon. Threshold is an aggro control deck. Solidarity was a combo control deck. Affinity (in Standard) was an aggro combo deck. Dirty Kitty was an aggro combo deck as well.
It's not a question of people wanting to play a card. It's a question of which card is functionally superior. If somebody wanted to play Grizzly Bears instead of Tarmgoyf, you'd stop them, right? Because Grizzly Bears is functionally worse than Tarmogoyf. I'm completely serious, it's not a question of personal preference here. It's a question of the best choice for the deck. In this case, the answer is Sinkhole.
For the foreseeable future, expect to see less of me. I've lost my internet connection, and so I'll only be able to get on by siphoning free Wi-Fi from the surrounding areas. Which isn't always consistent.
Plus, the guy that I used to leech off of has now instituted password protection. This means that I effectively do not have internet at home. :(
oh brother... i can't compare it to thresh nor eva green although half of both decks are re-hashed into this Team America list??? I like it, I never said i didn't.
You gave me clear signals not to play hymn over sinkhole, thx.
I disagree with Dave about a lot of things, but to say he's not innovative is just completely incorrect.You are not a inovator of any kind and i don't claim to be either.
The reason Thoughtseize is insane is because it costs one and gets their best card or lets you get their two and then spend the next turn Sinkholing them and from there if you have basically anything they are way behind. Hymn doesn't actively do anything for your game plan unless you get lucky and get their lands or their relevant drops and lets them play a land and get to the point where they can begin executing their game plan. Sure you get up a card, but that's not worth letting them play their spells. Snuff Out is particularly nuts because if they get a guy into play in the middle of all this, you can kill it while going on about your business.
Plus, they like, actually tested and stuff.
When in doubt, mumble.
When in trouble, delegate.
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