[OLD] UGw Threshold

[Mordel]

With that creature base, your running a completely different list. Enough to deserve its own thead. The whole concept of those cards don't work all that well in a threshold shell. That being said, I think a deck running exhalted creatures could be good because it breaks the goyf symmetry.

It's more of a CB bant deck, I suppose. In all honesty though, the actual base strikes me as pretty uwg thresh as:

4 [CST] Brainstorm
3 [DD2] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [CST] Swords to Plowshares
3 [LRW] Ponder
4 [CS] Counterbalance
2 [ALA] Oblivion Ring
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top

There's no predict and no back to basics main like my older builds have, but seems pretty threshish still, it's just I am not bothering with wisescale coatl yet and am not bothering with mongoose at the moment for the sake of including hierarchs.

[ReAnimator]

And what decks don't have things to naturalize once a turn?

ANT, Gobo's, Canadian Thresh, Bg, Zoo, Rg.

[rsaunder]

ReAnimator, do I know you from elsewhere? SCGGD?

I disagree: against ANT and gobbos, blowing up artifacts can be very helpful (and against gobbos, another creature never hurts.) It's a little clunky but it helps out the late game.

Can Thresh, I agree with whole heartedly. It's something they should probably bring in against you.

[ReAnimator]

ReAnimator, do I know you from elsewhere? SCGGD?

I disagree: against ANT and gobbos, blowing up artifacts can be very helpful (and against gobbos, another creature never hurts.) It's a little clunky but it helps out the late game.

Can Thresh, I agree with whole heartedly. It's something they should probably bring in against you.

Yeah that's me, i'm ReAnimator most places. =)

I guess trygon is ok vs goblins, but they only have 4 artifacts, and wouldnt' coatl be better since it is bigger?
Also if you are swinging with trygon (turn 4) and Ant has a bunch of artifacts in play for you to blow up, haven't you already won?

[rsaunder]

The idea with ANT is that it seals the game if they're in that position. It's not great as a preventitive measure, but cuts down on the "oops I win" chant+IT shannanagins. But yeah, coatl would be better in that case. I'm not sure against goblins because he's so easy to remove the first turn he comes down and if you're just planning on growing him, he's basically a time walk for them.

[ReAnimator]

The idea with ANT is that it seals the game if they're in that position. It's not great as a preventitive measure, but cuts down on the "oops I win" chant+IT shannanagins. But yeah, coatl would be better in that case. I'm not sure against goblins because he's so easy to remove the first turn he comes down and if you're just planning on growing him, he's basically a time walk for them.

In your goblin example, that 1 toughness is only relevant if you don't have a top in play, if you do coatl is just straight up better, same with it being turn 4+ as you can play a ponder or brainstorm, and again if you have top in play, then they are looking at a 4/4+, trygon will never do that. Also if it doesn't die that turn it is going to just become a bigger and bigger problem, again trygon will always be a 2/3, it just doesn't seem close to me which i would rather have for that matchup.

[rsaunder]

I'm not saying he's better, just not... good. In most matchups, especially those listed, I'd straight up rather have rhox war monk.

EDIT: wasn't my original arguement something along the lines of "trygon isn't dead really ever" as opposed to "trygon is better than lorescale"?

[DragoFireheart]

Is Path to Exile going to see any play? Considering that most decks use very little basic land, it could be somewhat superior to Swords.

[Jak]

Is Path to Exile going to see any play? Considering that most decks use very little basic land, it could be somewhat superior to Swords.

Even if they have one, that Path still gave them a boost. I think it would be good in SBs if you want some more removal but Swords is just better.

[Wargoos]

I actually played around with that deck and came up with this experimental list:

UGw Qasali Beta 1.0 Testtest no-ThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh

creature [10]
1 Mystic Enforcer
3 Qasali Pridemage
2 Rhox War Monk
4 Tarmogoyf

instant [19]
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares

sorcery [4]
4 Ponder

enchantment [5]
4 Counterbalance
1 Oblivion Ring

artifact [5]
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Vedalken Shackles

land [17]
4 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Plains
3 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
3 Windswept Heath
60 cards


Side:
3 Gaddock Teeg
2 Pithing Needle
3 Krosan Grip
2 Path to Exile
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Dueling Grounds
2 Jotung Grunt
15 cards

Well, I'm a bit low on landcount. But with 8 cantrips and 4 top's, which i even can tutor for, I don't think there will be to much a problem.
Pridemage and RWM are played for obvious synergestic reasons, and I followed Clemen's tip playing a one-off Shackles and a Oblivion Ring as awesome Tutor targets.
The tutor himself is just hilarious, helping to get cc1-3 spells on top if you have a blind balance and virtually serving as Brainstorm no.5 in those situations.
Hope u folks, like the build.

[rsaunder]

17 isn't all that low; I know DEF ran 16 at least for a time, with 9 cantrip and 3 top. The list I've been fooling around with is 4 cards off from yours, (swap tundra for an island, enforcer and e. tutor for lorescale coatl and one ponder for another Rhox) and it's worked fairly well. Is the e. tutor really worthwhile in a build like this? I haven't run it since "Nonbasic Inquisition"

[Mordel]

The list that I posted is making me want to do some gauntlets now to be honest.
It has about four more creatures than most UGw thresh decks, but honestly...it doesn't seem that different in strategy to me and making a new thread like what happened with geddon and dutch stax seems retarded to me. They continue to cross-polinate regardless and eventually people continue to dwell on the oldest.

Going forward; this is the list that I am working with right now. I made a few slight alterations, like moar daze because I was not starting the game with one often enough and one less top because I was getting them too fucking much. I frequently find myself wishing there was a savannah, but I don't feel like switching anything around now because the deck operates swimmingly under b2b and moons even when there are no hierarchs in play...so long as I have gotten the chance to get a forest and island out...so maybe that isn't so great? Any way, here is the list:

// NAME: PingasBantCBThreshtrehshstre

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [ALA] Forest (1)
2 [DD2] Island (1)
1 [ALA] Plains (1)
4 [R] Tropical Island
2 [R] Tundra
3 [ON] Windswept Heath

// Creatures
3 [ALA] Rhox War Monk
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
3 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage

// Spells
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [DD2] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [CST] Swords to Plowshares
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [CS] Counterbalance
1 [ALA] Oblivion Ring
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 2 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 3 [CS] Jotun Grunt
SB: 1 [LRW] Oblivion Ring
SB: 3 [DIS] Spell Snare

I ditched an O-ring and the shackles from the sb for snares, which I felt would be more usefull in the land of mws. I rarely found myself having the vaguest desir to bring in shackles and with swords, pridemages and grips, more than two o-rings in the 75 seemed excessive to me.

It has just dawned on me that with the presence of pridemages in the place of predators, I may need to fit a savannah into the mix.

Something very gratifying happened with RWMs and exalted today that I want to share because it made me grin in such an evil way: I was in a third game against a berzerk/fling affinity deck and I got a first turn hierarch, a second turn RMW and a third turn pridemage and another hierarch that I stacked with a BS. All while being backed by a daze, FoW, swords, CB(that I had chosen to not drop early and would thus become FoW fodder probably) and an o-ring. Maybe there wasn't an O-ring and I remember a top somewhere, but either way, it was awesome.

[Wargoos]

Well, I just realize that Shackles + nonblue Basics is pretty much the suck.
I don't know if the Shacks are worth the effort but the tutor seems decent, since he helps you to establish the cbtop-lock faster, searching for the missing piece and isn't death when you have both in hand, since u can just go for shackles or O-Ring.

[Clark Kant]

I originally posted this list in the Gro thread, but honestly, the lines between gro and thresh are so blurred by this point that I don't think it's worth it to differentiate the two. Practically no thresh lists play any threshold creatures at this point...

Land:
4 Flooded Strand
3 Windswept Heath
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Island
1 Forest

Creatures:
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Qasali Pridmage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Lorescale Coatl
4 Cold-Eyed Selkie

Goodstuff:
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares

Simple, straight forward, but damn if it isn't effective. Every creature is a bomb. Hierarach provides both Exalted and mana to accelerate into your threats while fueling Balance + Top. Pridemage, Goyf and Coatl need no explanation. Selkie is ridiculous with 8 Exalted Guys and 4 Coatl. An ancestral recall every turn that has built in evasion, and beats for three is more than you could ever ask for from a creature. You draw an absurd number of cards because of it. Top + Counterbalance is honestly the weakest part of the whole deck, and even that's downright broken.

Before you scoff at Cold-eyed Selkie, compare it to Dark Confidant.

For just one more mana than Confidant, you get...

No need to splash an entire another color
No Lifeloss at all, so you can keep it around for as long as you want
Built in evasion against 75% of the decks in the format
Pitchability to FoW
Automatically pumps Coatl to absurd sizes
The ability to draw a hell of a LOT more than just one card a turn thanks to Exalted. Selkie very often ends up being an Ancestral Recall every turn.

After playing with Selkie, I am convinced that all of those advantages are well worth spending one more mana to play Selkie.

You don't care if your creatures get killed because you play 20 of them, 12 of which are absurdly broken in the deck. Both the Exalted and the Coatls easily help you outclass/answer your opponent's Goyfs. Yes Rhox War Monk works great with 8 Exalted guys too but with all the huge blockers you play (only one guy needs to attack a turn thanks to Exalted), not to mention the ridiculous amount of card draw, and CB+Top to hate on burn and fast aggro and you honestly couldn't care less about lifegain. If you're ever that desperate, you can always StP your own Goyf or Coatl post-combat for a solid 7-10 additional life and not even care much that one of your creatures is dead because you have many others.

Oddly enough, Rancor would be really really strong in this list. A Rancor on Selkie, Coatl, or Goyf would just be broken. And if you play smart, Rancor will never get 2 for 1ed.

[sauce]

i played my baseruption (very similar to nassif's list, maybe 5 card diff main) vs qasali + coatl ugw thresh yesterday w/o orings or predicts or mongoose.
it came down to the draw, first i lost game 1 because i didn't know what the opponent was playing and kept a marginal hand and drew 5 lands in a row even after i fetched 3 times. game2 he had nutty draws.

then i won 2 in a row via sower + shackles and the second via cb + bobby.

here is what i got to say about pridemage...
he is absolutely devastating vs baseruption.. you have to sword him.
cant play shackles or cb w/ him in play.. so they usually play him turn2 to prevent your cb if they don't have counters in hand, he is great.

coatl i did not like, i even shackled one and it grew +1/+1 per turn as i did not want to waste brainstorm on it just to grow it, seemed like a suboptimal play to me.

i am not sure whether pridemage is > mongoose, i would probably say no because he wont help u vs t1lackey and he will get cb'd just as well as mongoose but he is really good vs anything that plays enchantments or artifacts.

i couldn't even draw cards off top w/ him in play if opponent had mana untapped. its that fierce :)

[Mordel]

I have honestly given testing the coatl thought, but I guess I am a scrub and have grown attached to playing RMWs which have dug me out of several holes.

I like how UGw thresh/topbant/whatever plays right now and if I threw a coatl in the mix, it would fuck with how I play my cantrips and me waiting to play them later may not always be a bad plan, but it is an avenue which leads up to play errors that I just don't want to approach yet.

Without two tops in play or a brainstorm, coatl is pretty unimpressive. Even with a ponder and a turn under him, he's a 4/4. I understand coatl's potential, but I prefer something that translates into solid effect the turn it swings a card that is essentially a terravore does not really float my boat right now.

Coatl doesn't strike me as a card that you can just sort of slip into e to basic UGw thresh build. I don't think one would have to change a lot necessarily, but ponder, BS and tops don't really strike me as enough to make coatl scary consistantly.

[HBspulse]

I originally posted this list in the Gro thread, but honestly, the lines between gro and thresh are so blurred by this point that I don't think it's worth it to differentiate the two. Practically no thresh lists play any threshold creatures at this point...

Land:
4 Flooded Strand
3 Windswept Heath
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Island
1 Forest

Creatures:
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Qasali Pridmage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Lorescale Coatl
4 Cold-Eyed Selkie

Goodstuff:
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares

I like your idea. Things I doubt :

- does it reallly fit in this topic? Hell, what is UGW thres these days...
- no daze or spell snare? You are low on counters.
- your land count is quite low. 16. If you haven't got a hierarch, i guess you'll have to mull frequently and even sometimes into oblivion.
- the mana combination. In testing, the colors don't match very well. Pridemage GW, counterbalance UU, fetching basic forest or island isn't obvious.

[soulrack]

Well in Chicago I played this list:

Lands (19):
4x Flooded Strand
3x Windswept Heath
2x Tundra
2x Tropical Island
1x Savannah
3x Island
1x Forest
1x Plains
2x Wasteland

Dudes (11):
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Trygon Predator
1x Mystic enforcer
4x Nimble mongoose (all-star)

Spells (30):
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
3x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
2x Spell snare
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Counterbalance
2x Predict

Sideboard (15):
3x Null Rod
2x Mystic Enforcer
4x Meddling Mage
3x Krosan Grip
3x Tormod's Crypt

Only real disappointments I had was my sideboard and predict. I ran into 2 or 3 other thresh builds and beat them without problems. I do feel like I needed more testing though. I was not familiar with how it played against Standstill or Survival which were big punts on my part. I felt trygon predator and Nimble mongoose were too necessary and too good. Trygon blows up Jittes all day long which is a good thing b/c ocassionally countering a jitte just cant happen and active jitte generally wrecks thresh.

[Clark Kant]

I originally posted this list in the Gro thread, but honestly, the lines between gro and thresh are so blurred by this point that I don't think it's worth it to differentiate the two. Practically no thresh lists play any threshold creatures at this point...

Land:
4 Flooded Strand
3 Windswept Heath
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Island
1 Forest

Creatures:
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Qasali Pridmage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Lorescale Coatl
4 Cold-Eyed Selkie

Goodstuff:
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares

I like your idea. Things I doubt :

- does it reallly fit in this topic? Hell, what is UGW thres these days...
- no daze or spell snare? You are low on counters.
- your land count is quite low. 16. If you haven't got a hierarch, i guess you'll have to mull frequently and even sometimes into oblivion.
- the mana combination. In testing, the colors don't match very well. Pridemage GW, counterbalance UU, fetching basic forest or island isn't obvious.

- I think so. it's still UGW. it has the same gameplan. most recent thresh lists don't run any thresh guys anyways.

- Yeah, i play fewer counters. daze while fantastic early game starts sucking by the midgame. i am open to making room for 2x spell snare by maybe cutting a lorescale and selkie, but maybe i should just cut ponder instead. i can make due with fewer counters since i draw a lot more cards, and don't have to worry as much about protecting my threats because i play so many of them. and i don't have to worry as much about countering my opponent's goyf since i play 4 goyfs and 4 lorescale that are bigger than their goyfs (thanks to exalted).

- The land count is fine for me. you're playing 4 noble hierach which is pretty much lands 17-20. if you want, you can cut a noble hierach for the 17th land and the would function similarly.

- I agree that the manabase could use some more tweaking. i went
+1 Windswept Heath
-1 Tundra
to the list so that i can always cast the hierach turn one which makes turn 2 daze proof counterbalance easy.

[Aleksandr]

list, etc.

Man, I like that list sooo much that without any testing, I just ordered the Noble Hierarchs and stuff.
If only you can work some Dazes into it...

EDIT:

SB?

I think about something like:

Needle (Deed, Vial, Port, Waste)
Stifle (Deed, storm)
Meddling Mage (Deed, Ad Nauseam, Infernal Tutor)
Krosan Grip (Vial, CB, 'Nought, CoW, random stuff)
Trygon Predator (see above)
Crypt (Loam, Ichorid)
Worship/Propaganda (Goblins, Icho)
EE (anything)
CoP: Red / Rhox W. M. (Burn..)