[DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)

[johanessen]

I think it's terrible, so do you apparently if you don't think it's as good as 'goyf. Why are Black and Flying relevant? Do you honestly think those are good reasons to play it instead of 'goyf?

Who said instead? I thought we were searching for another creature to add but nothing was to good as tarmo or stalker.... we tried sea drake, serendib ef, etc

[aTn]

Did anyone test the Aggro Loam match-up ? If so, what were your SB strategy and overall impressions ?

@Poona's Owler:

In testing and tournament play I never found the deck to be too light on threats. Even so, Oona's Prowler... bah... seriously, I don't get it, are we still in "sarcasm mode", cause if so, I'll suggest splashing white for Benalish Hero to solve the ground stall problems that occur when two Goyfs stare each other in the face (EDIT: Oh yeah, Tombstalker already takes care of that, never mind my suggestion).

Seriously, even if I swallowed enough lego blocks to fart in perfect pitch, Oona's Prowler would still die to Mogg Fanatic and half of Fire-Ice, which would be insulting. Enabling an Ichorid or Loam player to discard what he wants would be even more insulting. Should I continue ? Cause I just drank two Red Bulls and I think I could.

[electrolyze]

I've tested against 2 kinds of loam now, rg aggroloam and that new 5c loam that get good results in germany.

Against rg loam, I get it very good managed to get rid of all their threats in time(vore, crusher, goyf, assault) but dreams can be really annoying, assault too btw.

But i won this mu still with 2-0, i boarded:

-4sinkhole
-4stifle

+2blue elemental blast
+2edict
+2reanimate
+2krosan grip

Maybe cut the grip because only assault is that scary and put an extra edict and blue elemental blast in it.

and against 5c loam I won 2-0 too, although it were very close matches. G1 I'm managed to get an early tombstalker and only countered the things that could stop my stalker(confinement, dreams, assault, stp) And that won me the game.

g2 i boarded:

-4 sinkhole
-4 stifle
-1 snuff out(cause he played confidant, dont know if this is any good)

+3 tormod's crypt(he was more relying to loam then rg loam.
+2 krosan grip
+2 reanimate(this thing rocks against loam that its not normal anymore)
+2 diabolic edict

This game was very exciting because i got many threats liek crusher, goyf and dark confidant. crusher and goyf both got a snuff out. The bob stayed alive for the rest of the game, but actually I was happy about that because i speeded up my clock He got the loam thing going on and he had tabernacle and glacial chasm and stuff. Luckily i had 2x tormod's crypt.
It ended up with him having chasm to stall and i had an tombstalker, he was only at 4 so i only needed to finf an wasteland an kill him, I still had an ponder so i founded the wasteland and killed him. This game was very excited becuase i didnt say it, but he played an dreams for 3 in this game with me only having 3 lands, and he had an tabernacle. But i recovered very fast after this dream thanks to the cantrips and i could reanimate an old stalker from me with only 1 land what was enough for tabernalce.

[dahcmai]

Well, I tried this today and I have to say I was impressed. I have played Eva Green, Threshold variants, and similar stuff, but I like how this little deck comes together in an efficient package.

It's very aggressive with the amazing ability to not have a draw you really don't want to see other than multiple Tombstalkers and even sometimes in those cases I wasn't sad to see that. It feels similar to a Vintage deck in the amount of disruption it has.

Thoughtseize, Sinkhole, Wasteland, Stifle, Daze, and FoW make for one hell of a beating on most decks. Any deck I faced today that was of a good build, it tore to peices in nothing flat. It made me smile all day.

We had a small turnout, but at least it was high powered.

First round was a Survival build (good deck, but inexperienced player). Games all ended with nothing in play on his side and no cards in hand one game. No contest. It wasn't even nice. I kind of felt bad since his draws were good, I just trumped him everytime. Survival, Force, Survival, dazed, Waste, waste, sink sink, Tombstalker, commence to beatings was pretty much the scenario.

Second round was a Pikula style deck. It gave me some trouble, but for the most part it was a one sided fight and only got worse after the board. He had no answers for Tombstalker in the first game and didn't topdeck one in the second. The Dazes really got the best of his early hymns.

Third was Vaca Pox. Very back and forth of discarding and LD. Ponder and Brainstorm made sure I was the winner of the topdeck fest both games.

Fourth was Gobbos. No contest oddly enough. I expected to lose this since the deck doesn't exactly have much way to deal with Aether Vial or Lackey coming out quick and there's very little removal short of the Snuffs. Anyway, it turned out he went first and played a first turn Vial. Crap. Luckily, he had a 3 color manabase (We have a ton of combo in the area so it was for Teeg out of the SB) so I went to town on the duals with wastes and Sinks. He ended up having to play off that vial the whole time. I dumped a Goyf, and proceded to topdeck into three stifles and stifle the vial over and over to victory. When he finally drew a land in the middle of that, he ended up finally seeing the Dazes.

Second game was about the same except he didn't get the lacky or Vial. He mulled to 6 and kept a Vial and Lacky free hand for some reason. I mowed over him.

Semis:

ANT - I knew this was fairly 50/50 since we had played a few fun games earlier to see how Team America played out and he was getting used to the combo and still testing the deck.

First game was quick, he went for the nuts and slammed into force right after an Infernal tutor with Lion's eye response. Burn and Gofy cleaned up.

Second game he kind of hurt himself more than I did. He miscal'ed the amount of mana he had and accidentally screwed himself hard. He had hit me with an early Duress and left me with a Force so he knew I had it. (he took a Thoughtseize to preserve his hand). When he tried to play around the Force it ended up being a little short and he stalled.

Finals:

Somehow by this time the two Dreadstill decks were taken out and all that remained was the Pox deck again. I was kind of happy to hear that. I wasn't sure how well this deck did against Dreadstill, but I bet it's not that favorable considering how alike the two are.

Anyway, I split the cash with the pox player since it was really back and forth the first time and I'd rather be sure of some cash. We played for the points. It pretty much went same as before and Ponder and Brainstorm pulled me out when he went into topdeck mode same as me in both games.


So I won and took home some good spending money and a few more points for the record. Not a bad day.


Love the deck. I'll be terrorizing people next week with it in my eternal attempt to catch up to Brian DeMars in points for state. heh, I'm right behind you bud.

[Dr.AgOn]

I tested a bit on MWS and I really like the deck. The only disadvantage are the tons of duals. I understand that you need lots of duals in a 3 color deck and it's better to still have a dual instead of a basic land left if one of your other lands get wasted, but what the heck am I supposed to do, if my opponent resolves a Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon??? Even the crucible wasteland soft lock is pretty harsh. I played against painter a couple of times and always lost 2-1

can someone tell me what to do against decks like painter, red deck wins, dragon stompy and those decks playing magus of the moon/blood moon.

[Tao]

I tested a bit on MWS and I really like the deck. The only disadvantage are the tons of duals. I understand that you need lots of duals in a 3 color deck and it's better to still have a dual instead of a basic land left if one of your other lands get wasted, but what the heck am I supposed to do, if my opponent resolves a Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon??? Even the crucible wasteland soft lock is pretty harsh. I played against painter a couple of times and always lost 2-1

can someone tell me what to do against decks like painter, red deck wins, dragon stompy and those decks playing magus of the moon/blood moon.

You are not the control deck. If they come through your disruption with their key card and you have nothing big on the board so far that kills them, then they deserve the win. Accept it.

But you have 20 early disruption spells (LD, Daze, FoW, Seize - plus Cantrips to find them) to prevent that. Playing random solutions or Basic Lands will just weaken your deck in general.

[klaus]

You are not the control deck. If they come through your disruption with their key card and you have nothing big on the board so far that kills them, then they deserve the win. Accept it.

I enjoy winning, even if my opponent may deserve it more than I do.

Playing random solutions or Basic Lands will just weaken your deck in general.

Adding a basic Island (multiplying by x8/x9) is such a minor change, yet it makes several MUs (read:Moon.dec, B2B.dec, LD.dec) that much better, does not seem like a weak change at all, don't you think?
The drawback of the undesirable case that it is the only land in your starting 7 is tiny compared to the edge it grants you in the MUs mentioned above.

[dahcmai]

Stifle the Painter's cip effect, it helps immensely. There's not much they can do after that. Board in the Grips and have a heyday. Just try and keep mana open so you can stop things before they fall into place.

As for blood Moon, you literally just have to try and have the counter handy or mana open to grip it and float the mana. It's not fun, but winnable. Luckily Dragon Stompy is not fond of Snuff out at all.

[frogboy]

You can't Stifle a Painter. "As this comes into play" is not a triggered ability. "When this comes into play" is.

[Tao]

Adding a basic Island (multiplying by x8/x9) is such a minor change, yet it makes several MUs (read:Moon.dec, B2B.dec, LD.dec) that much better, does not seem like a weak change at all, don't you think?
The drawback of the undesirable case that it is the only land in your starting 7 is tiny compared to the edge it grants you in the MUs mentioned above.

What are you afraif of LD? You have Daze, Thoughtseize, Fow against Spell LD and Stifle against Wastelands.

And what kind of threat do you want to play with one basic land into a Blood Moon?

What makes you think that you are even remotely able to beat MUC if they already have B2B out and you are not killing them, only because you can untap a Basic Land each turn?

If your Meta is full of Magus of the Moon a single Swamp may be justified to Snuff it out but that's it. A basic Island will not get you anywhere because with it you can't play Sinkhole or Stalker.

[NQN]

It´s just a really good fetch-target against Wasteland and Price of Progress.decs.

[electrolyze]

Hey people, i just come back from the dutch legacy champs and i made it to the t4 with the deck There were about 140 people there so im happy with the result.

these were my mu's:

1, gbwr survival 2-0
2, gbw the rock 2-0
3, 4cstill 2-1
4, goyfsligh 2-1
5, tes 1-2
6, eva green 2-0
7, deadguy rock 2-0
8, id

t8:

painterstone combo deck, 2-0

t4:

fahad muc(with sower and kira and stuff, really bad mu cause they steal everything) 0-2

I am really, really impressed by the deck and this was the first time i played it in real life so im really happy about it Thank you Dan, Dave, Anwar and the rest for making again such an insane deck after eva green.

I will write an bigger report for the tournament section later, im too tired now(10 hour non stop magic is killing me)

greets, bas

[Illissius]

Congrats.

t4:

fahad muc(with sower and kira and stuff, really bad mu cause they steal everything) 0-2

Was it this guy?

[dahcmai]

You can't Stifle a Painter. "As this comes into play" is not a triggered ability. "When this comes into play" is.

Ah nice to know, I don't own any so I haven't had the chance to really read it. Good thing I knew that before I had to play it and had a sad face for it.

I guess that means you really have to rely on Daze, Thoughtseize, and FoW all of a sudden. That still doesn't sound too bad at least.

[Happy Gilmore]

Just a thought, but you could try specter, god knows you have enough black sources to support it.

[nitewolf9]

We kicked that idea around for a bit, but I'm not really sure what to cut for more threats. I think specter would be good here even without ritual since there is so much the deck wants to do on the first two turns anyway. But the problem is where to put him. I don't like the idea of cutting a sinkhole because I generally want to see that card in multiples, and that's the only card I could see cutting (maybe along with a stifle, but that's also a card you want to see as early as you can).

Maybe in the board, instead of the reanimates, but I think reanimate is a solid card to bring in against aggro decks and versatile against control. Specter would definitely make the TES matchup a bit easier. You're ahead but not by as much as if you played counterbalance. Still probably bad to board for a deck that you are significantly favored against, and the only other deck hyppie is going to be better than reanimate against is control (also not an archetype that gives TA too much of a problem).

[Loxodon Baileyarch]

I ran this deck at the Grand Prix Atlanta event yesterday to an ok 3-2 finish. The night before i tested against Epic Painter, Counter Slivers, Survival, URW Dreadstill, and Dragon Stompy, only losing 2 games to Epic Painter and a game to survival.

My list:
4 Tombstalker
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Thoughtseize
4 Snuff Out
4 Sinkhole

4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou

Sideboard:
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Krosan Grip
3 Diabolic Edict

Just standard Team America list.

Round one i was paired against agro loam, which in my opinion is already a terrible matchup due to the fact that they recur land and run 26. Game one he resolved a Terravore midgame and i had no answers of any kind so i scooped when he attacked for 17 twice. Game two, i got lucky and he got land screwed, i wasted his green source after i had thoughtseized revealing two loams. He burning wished for a chainers edict and got my tombstalker. I untap and play another tombstalker and pass. He freaking devastating dreams for five destroying all of his lands and every land that produces mana in my deck except my last bayou, and my Tombstalker as well. I untap, draw a bloodstained mire, fetch bayou, and goyf him to death. Game three he gets chalice at one, double goyf and seismic assault and i proceed to scoop when he is loaming twice a turn.

Round two i play against affinity. Nothing too special here. Game one i either wasteland or sinkhole his relevant colored lands. Tombstalker and goyf take it home. Game two he gets like 4 frogmite, myr enforcer. I start to stabilize with triple goyf and get lightning bolted for the loss. Game three i force anything relevant, and draw double goyf through cantrips, and win.

Round three i play against some weird mono green stompy deck. He plays a bunch of shroud creatures game one but i still overpower with triple goyf. I have to stifle a rancor this game too haha. I board in edicts here and take out his two creatures he gets all game, which consist of kavu predator times two. Double tombstalker takes it home.

Round four i play against UGR Dreadstill. Epic games those were. Game one we were both in topdeck mode and he gets me with stiflenought. Game two it goes back and forth for a while until i have out every land in my deck. I play dudes and attack through his hand of nothing. Game three he stifles my fetch, plays goyf, i am down a green source but have two goyf in hand. I topdeck bayou, play goyf, he spell snares. Then drops another goyf. I get nothing relevant and then on his next turn stiflenought comes down to join his team of double goyf. I lose.

Round five i play against some random burn/sligh deck. Game one i stabilize at 7 life with tombstalker and goyf. Game two he plays magus of the moon on his turn three, and i dont have an answer. Game three, i waste his taiga and keep him on 2 land. He apparently has a hand of three drops, and i win with dudes. He reveals boil in his hand after the game and i laughed so hard. I love boil vs blue.

This deck is amazing, and i dont care how many games i lose i still love it.

On a side note, quirion ranger is a bitch to deal with when your hand consists of land destruction. I pretty much scooped against survival the night before when he got that loop going. Masticore, rofellos, and a million mana kills goyfs or so i've heard.

[Happy Gilmore]

I wouldn't be too unhappy about that performance. The only matchup that was truely difficult was agro loam. Although a relsolved Stalker might just destroy that deck, not sure. The dreadstill matchup is still probably 50-50. Did 4-1 make it in?

[Loxodon Baileyarch]

I wouldn't be too unhappy about that performance. The only matchup that was truely difficult was agro loam. Although a relsolved Stalker might just destroy that deck, not sure. The dreadstill matchup is still probably 50-50. Did 4-1 make it in?

Yeah i'm not too dissapointed. I mean i lost to aggro loam fair and square, and the Dreadstill guy i lost to, i rode down with, and he made top 8, so it's all good.

And in the Dreadstill game he had like the perfect hand game 3. I completely got demolished. He ran divert in the MAINBOARD!! It was his secret tech and it did well for him haha.

[dahcmai]

Quick question, what does this deck do against Dredge? I noticed today that it doesn't have much of a plan really. Stifle isn't useful against much of anything, Sinkhole is limited, Discard doesn't matter too much, and it barely plays any spells to counter while on top of that your clock is a lot slower.

So is it just an insta lose? I haven't had the chance to play against Dredge with this yet, but I saw one today in the tournament and couldn't think of much you could do to stop them. About the best you have is Snuffing your own Goyfs to remove some bridges. Am I missing something?

I take it you're literally relying on those Crypts?



I also found out today this deck absolutely hates mono-black control style decks. I managed to run into two of them and they tore me to pieces since I couldn't cast a creature and keep it on the board through all the mass removal. They would just slowly get out of Daze and Sinkhole range and kill everything that hit the table. I'm going to be running 4 Compost to deal with this since it was so obvious I wouldn't be able to get through the removal without a huge edge.