[OLD] UGw Threshold

[godryk]

I've just come from our monthly event. 42 (I'm not sure) people gathered to play 6 rounds of Legacy. I choosed to play the SPOD list from Annecy, with just a minor change consisting of replacing Snares with Dazes and minor manabase tweaks (Windswepth Heath for basic Forest access which ended being useful to me). Although I didn't get quite impresive results (played most of the day in the lower tables) this was mainly due to my lack of testing for the last months...

However I feel I can post some thoughts about the list and then discuss.

@Qasali Pridemage: I have mixed feeling about this guy. The disenchant ability didn't really shined, as the only real thing I blew up was a Threads of Disloyalty targeting Qasali. However it kept my opponents from playing things, which is quite obvious as they are not going to walk into a Qasali. I found it useful to preemptively get rid of Standstill and Deed. Against the Rock a pair of Qasali kept the opponent of playing a Deed until he reached five mana, giving me time enough to find a cost three to CB it to hell when played. The exalted mechanic was what really shined. It's nice to have a pair of these and walk over 3/3s (mornin' Nacatl, here it comes granpa to beat your ass bitch). I'm not sure about them yet, as I need more testing, which will luckily happen next month, but so far I'm liking them more than what I've ever liked Werebear.

@Trinket Mage: Useful. Didn't get the most out of it, but It rounded the curve pretty nicely and helped me getting Tops and EEs. Veredict: will keep on testing them.

@Jitte: I was quite impressed by it. Two was the right number, always had one when needed. It had multiple purposes, mainly speeding up the deck by allowing weenies grow. Definitely one of my favourite cards today. Nice how you can play around Shackles with an equipped Goyf.

@Rhox War Monk: Kickassing against Goyf Sligh, just ok against everything else, we already know about that, not so hot specially considering its manacost. Veredict: I may try other things in its place if I need the room.

I played this manabase:

4 Flooded
4 Windswepth
3 Tundra
3 Tropical
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest

Access to basics was important and never hurt me too much. I felt the deck got more green intensive and lost some games due to not getting green mana in time. Probably not running the Tropical Island playset was kind of fail, but I'm still quit sold on basic Forest. I'm really considering this:

-1 Island/Tundra
+1 Tropical

However I really liked the list and thought it had the right amount of creatures, permission and lands.

[Clark Kant]

Great report Sasa. But in your meta with no landstill or thresh, dreadstill or TA or Merfolk, all aggro, no artifacts or enchantments, I would atleast replace the MD Selkies for MD Rhox War Monk (such a beating w exalted) and maybe replace Coatl for a Ponder and 2 Mystic Enforcers.

The Hierarchs role isnt just exalted. It also lets you support the higher curve while running fewer lands and being wasteland and blood moon proof. 17 lands should be fine. Play Predict here instead.

If they use up removal on your hierarchs, good. Thats one more goyf or coatl of yours they wont be able to remove.

How was selkie in the merfolk matchup. Getting pumped by their lords, exalted while being unblockable and drawing you cards is awesome, no?

[Aleksandr]

Great report Sasa. But in your meta with no landstill or thresh, dreadstill or TA or Merfolk, all aggro, no artifacts or enchantments, I would atleast replace the MD Selkies for MD Rhox War Monk (such a beating w exalted)

Absolutely.
In such a red meta, the Selkies are totally dead.

The Hierarchs role isnt just exalted. It also lets you support the higher curve while running fewer lands and being wasteland and blood moon proof. 17 lands should be fine.

I fear to play with 17 lands only, because I like to start with a land, have my mana for SDT... etc. But maybe 17 lands are enough..

How was selkie in the merfolk matchup?

Hm.. well...

Getting pumped by their lords, exalted while being unblockable and drawing you cards is awesome, no?

Yes and no.
With their Vials and high creature count, they can play the game in their favor. E.g.: I attack with Selkie, draw one. EOT: Vial out Lord, untap, upkeep, draw, Vial out Lord, go lethal...
And this one even feeds just the opponent's merfolks..

And once they Standstill a Vial and/or three Merfolks..

Otoh, I enjoyed nice game when my Selkie brought me number of cards and than a Coatl finished my opponent in two attacks.. But with all their Islandwalkers, Vials and Lords, I think that they are favored in this match..

[johanessen]

Okay I ended up with this list... open to 3 metagame slots.

Lands - 19
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
4 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains

Creatures - 10
3 Qasali Pridemage
3 Lorescale Coatl
4 Tarmogoyf

Spells - 28
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
2 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
2 Vedalken Shackles
4 Swords to Plowshares

3 Metagame slots - Can be Rhox War Monk, any cc4 (Sower/Elspeth), Predict, Spell Snare, another beater... I Think i'd go for 2 Rhox and 1 Elspeth.

Sideboard could be...

3 Meddling Mage
3 Hydroblast
1 Krosan Grip
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Path to Exile
2 Metagame..

What do u think?

Basic forest is necessary? It messes up with shackles..

[Aleksandr]

Access to basics was important and never hurt me too much. I felt the deck got more green intensive and lost some games due to not getting green mana in time. Probably not running the Tropical Island playset was kind of fail, but I'm still quit sold on basic Forest. I'm really considering this:

-1 Island/Tundra
+1 Tropical

However I really liked the list and thought it was the right amount of creatures, permission and lands.

I'd cut Tundra before Island. I like my basics...

Basic forest is necessary? It messes up with shackles..

Same story here. I like when my Forests last.. and Trops have very short durability when Wasteland shows up.

[godryk]

Yeah, I agree, you don't rely very much on white, so 2 Tundra and 1 Plains is more than enough, at least on paper. I also agree about the basic Forest issue. Unless you're facing a very competitive metagame (i.e. a Gran Prix where such shit doesn't happen), you can't afford to loose to stupid Wasteland locks. Crucible/Loam + Wasteland happens more often than what we'd like.

[johanessen]

Yes i'm preparing a middle-high lvl tournament with 80 ppl average. Anyway I'll go to basic forest with 19 lands total like the list i posted. In every tournament there is a guy extirpating tropicals.

About Elspeth slot.. do you like it? 2WW may be a problem to cast. Anyone tried Jace? Draw habilitie seems to work good together with Coatl. Or going for the 20th land is the best way.

[Berzerked]

I've been testing singletons of Elspeth/Rafiq/Enforcer alongside a full set of Noble Hierarchs. Hierarch makes all of them easier to cast, but Elspeth specific, 4/5 attacking BoPs are awesome.

I'm used to playing Elspeth in Landstill, where very often she will be struggling to make tokens to even protect herself, but in a deck with other cheap creatures, where Elspeth can hit play and immediately pump something for big damage and not have to worry about protecting herself, she's a beating.

Rafiq is also great. 8 damage attacking by himself is pretty cool, but he's boltable and has no evasion. He's really better with RWMs in play. Pitching to FoW is also cool.

Enforcer is alright. I like bringing in Relics from the board, though, and it's definitely the weakest of the 3 with no Thresh.

Oh, which reminds me, bringing in Relics with this deck is awesome. My build currently has no reliance on the yard (except Goyf, but at least he remains 0/1 for Exalted and Rafiq/Elspeth), so replacing Ponder with Relic game 2 is usually no big deal.

Edit: I agree with basic Forest and Plains with 3 Trops and 2 Tundra, with 2 basic Island.

[johanessen]

Okay Rafiq could be a viable option. Bant is more a mid-range deck than a long-range (daze is the main reason), and Elspeth do it's betters in a more controlish decks (landstill mainly). Should I give a try to a singleton Rafiq or there are other good options? Sower maybe as asked before? I personally don't like Sower, it's like bread for today hunger for tomorrow, and also we play a couple of shackles doing same job which i think they are far better (not that hateable).
Another option is adding 2x Spell Snare to avoid the 2nd turn cb/goyf/confidant, but i'm not very fan of this idea.
How about Bant charm?


About Hierarch... i don't like em too much. This deck is not especially mana-hungry and is bad at topdeck. I'm sure to not using these ones.

[Mordel]

I probably don't have as many hours as some with this deck, but I do like hierarchs thus far. They are a less than impressive late game play, but they are absolutely awesome against choke/b2b/non-basic hate and they are absolutely awesome in concert with my RWM, which I have found to be awesome in testing.

I don't blame people for being unimpressed by them when they are being used with goyfs almost exclusively, but I find them to be great thus far when they are being used with utility dorks such as trygdon or pridemage. Mongoose are nice, but the fact that they require cantrips and fetches to go off in a timely fashion was something that always rubbed me the wrong way. They are a great card, but right now with what I am doing with this deck is that I am tyring to seal off avenues of losing the game by stupid shit such as a relic or crypt being popped and such.

In the long run, though hierarch may not have shroud, it does allow you to accelerate into faster shackles/CB+SDT shenanigans and also contributes to damage the second a creature starts swinging without actually risking itself in combat. I also have won games based off of exalted shit punching through opposing goyfs and not even a goyf standstill...pridemages and even hierarchs themselves because I didn't want to risk a pridemage.

On a somewhat objective note, I think mongoose and hierarch have very distinct advantages, though mongoose's effectiveness is almost entirely focused on the swing aspect. Hierarch affords acceleration and a minor augmentation in damage simultaneously, while also acting as an unwasteable tropical island or savannah. Mongoose is pound for pound, a better creature in my opinion, but the flexibility of hierarch is why I find myself running them when I would not even bother to run mongoose at all.

In the future, I may grow to dislike hierarchs, but at the moment, I have not had any bad experiences because of them.

[diffy]

What is it with all these people starting to stuff their builds with bad cards?

• Noble Hierarch:
  
  • He (or other acceleration for that matter) is a bad draw after the very early game, and NQG, a deck without any form of card advantage, can't afford even more bad topdecks... you know, the game does go longer than it takes to play your opening hand, especially with this archetype not really having the right tools to end the game quickly: let's face it, Tarmogoyf isn't a reliable/good aggro plan when every deck has at the very least 4 outs to him (their own Tarmogoyfs) and you give them at least five turns to hit these outs. This deck morphed into a bastardized version of control quite some time ago, so start playing it as such: playing the control role is the correct call in almost all matchups but against Tribal Aggro.
  • Also, even if you get him early, he's not terribly impressive:
    
    • The argument that he helps against manabase disruption is plain and simply lazy: Blood Moon, Choke, Stifle and recursive Wastelands are all easy to play around if you build your manabase reasonably and then play carefully, knowing what you're doing. This sure takes some practice and experience, but it also is an essential part of being able to play this deck correctly. The only mana-disruption that can really hurt you on a consistent basis is Sinkhole - and against that you already have Daze and/or Spell Snare plus the ability to just ignore any manabase disruption via Counterbalance or an aggressive (as in cantrip- or creature-heavy) draw to not make it worth dedicating any further slots to it.
    • You don't need the acceleration: you aren't mana-hungry on any level (this is also the reason why the argument that Noble Hierarch works against the tempo-setback that is Daze is close to irrelevant) and all your 2 and 3 drops are still good even if they come down a turn later - a land is going to be better than Hierarch in most cases because it is less vulnerable and doesn't set you back a turn before accelerating you. Decks like Dragon Stompy need acceleration because stuff like Blood Moon is only good if it comes down in the first few turns of the game. NQG doesn't need acceleration because a Vedalken Shackles, Rhox War Monk or Trinket Mage still is good on turn 10.
  • Exalted is cute but not enough to warrant an otherwise weak card as it is only good in conjunction with other cards (Tarmogoyf, Rhox War Monk etc.) - and even then it's not the exalted that is good but the other card. Exalted is a bonus, not a reason to include something. For instance, you'd probably still play Qasali Pridemage if it were a 3/3 without Exalted.
  • Alternatively, have a look at it under this perspective: what did you cut for Noble Hierarch? Ponder? Permission? Rhox War Monk? Jitte? Now, in the following matchups, what would you rather have:
    
    • Against Aggro: the Noble Hierarch or the Ponder looking for your next Swords to Plowshares/Tarmogoyf/Counterbalance? The Noble Hierarch facilitating your anti-aggro cards coming into play, or the actual solution (as in Rhox War Monk & Co.)? The Noble Hierarch or the counter for their Tarmogoyf/Survival of the Fittest/four-mana-spoiler?
    • Against Control: the Noble Hierarch or the Ponder looking for your next actual card? The Noble Hierarch or an actual threat they have to address?
    • In the mirror: the Noble Hierarch or the counter for their Counterbalance? The Noble Hierarch or the Ponder looking for your own Counterbalance?
• Lorescale Coatl
  
  • See here.
    
    • Another bad topdeck (and as stated previously, you can't afford these)
    • Only good if played early (again, the game does go longer than it takes for you to play your opening hand, especially since this deck is a control deck at heart), and even then it's not terribly impressive because it doesn't help any bad matchups (unlike the card people are cutting for him: Rhox War Monk). Actually, he doesn't help improve any matchup: against control, he or any other threat is going to be handled anyway (no, this is not a lazy argument: a Trygon Predator or Rhox War Monk is still a solid threat against control), against Aggro, he's not relevant due to not having any impact on the board (not in the long run [if you live long enough for him to grow to decent sizes, you've won anyway - any threat will do] and, more importantly, not directly) and in the mirror nothing but Counterbalance is relevant anyway - don't kid yourself.
  • And yes, I have played with him enough to make this judgement based on my knowledge of the archetype as well as on empirical data.
• Cold-Eyed Selkie
  
  • So the guy is only relevant in matchps that are already in your favour and even then not terribly impressive (slow, totally irrelevant clock, narrow)? Good job.
  • "But, he's terrific with Lorescale Coatl." Yeah, you shouldn't be playing the later anyway. Also, see below.
• Sower of Temptation:
  
  • See here.

I see a general trend in people liking cards that are oh-so-good-if-this-and-this-and-this-happens i.e. cards that are only potentially strong. In my opinion, these don't have a place in NQG as you have to few cards to interact with each-other (e.g.: even with 6-8 Exalted dudes, having a relevant Selkie is still a rare happening) and because the relative gain in power due to the synergies is not high enough to make up for the relative loss of power of the cards if drawn individually. This is all the more relevant since you don't have access to any form of card advantage and therewith can't neglect a bad draw as easily as other decks.
Furthermore, you don't need to improve your Control/Combo/Mirror/Randomness matchups - you already have all the tools you need to win these consistently if you know what you're doing. What needs work are your Aggro matchups: improving these is what is going to make you perform better on the long run.


Overall, I don't think that it currently gets much better than this list:

/// Maindeck (60 cards)

// Lands (18)
    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Windswept Heath
    3 Tropical Island
    3 Tundra
    2 Island
    1 Forest
    1 Plains

// Creatures (13)
    4 Tarmogoyf
    4 Qasali Pridemage
    2 Trinket Mage
    3 Rhox War Monk

// Spells (29)
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Sensei's Divining Top
    4 Counterbalance
    3 { Spell Snare / Daze / Ponder }
    3 { Spell Snare / Daze / Ponder }
    4 Force of Will
    4 Swords to Plowshares
    2 Umezawa's Jitte
    1 Engineered Explosives

/// Sideboard (15 cards)
    2-3 Path to Exile
    2-3 Krosan Grip
    1-2 Engineered Explosives
    1-2 Pithing Needle
    1 Relic of Progenitus
    3 Gaddock Teeg
    2 Hydroblast
    1 Blue Elemental Blast

I personally play the list like this, but the combination of the two 'Spell Snare, Daze, Ponder' slots as well as the numbers in the sideboard really come down to no more than personal preference - any combination will do just fine.

[Pomaxx]

What needs work are your Aggro matchups: improving these is what is going to make you perform better on the long run.

actually bringing a Hierarch down on your first turn and accelerating into a second turn RWM that gets an exalted trigger on your turn 3 attack step puts you into a very good position against aggro.

aggro has to get rid of RWM asap and bringing him down a turn faster makes a huge difference (as does the exalted he gets).

[johanessen]

@Der_imaginäre_Freund

I differ some aspects about the proposed deck.
Qasali Pridemage 4x? 3x Should be enough. for a disechant-guy.
No space for two copies of vedalken shackes? They are huge against creature based decks. But that also involves the next question.
Why play basic forest? It's really important to set up counterbalance at turn 2, playing basic forest and plains and windswepts instead of polluted doesnt let you do with basic islands. And 18 lands have been not enough for me.
Ponderwise. I suggest 2x. with 4 brainstorms and 4 tops you should get what you want.

I suggest that list.

4 Polluted
4 Flooded
4 Tropical
4 Tundra
2 Islands
1 Plains
Total Lands.. 19

4 Tarmogoyf
3 Pridemage
3 Rhox
Total Creatures.. 10

4 Top
4 CB
4 FoW
4 BS
3 Spell Snare
3 Daze
2 Ponder
4 StP
2 Shackles
1 Jitte
Total Spells.. 31

2 PtE
2 Hydro
1 REB
2 Pithing
2 Relics
3 Gaddoks/Meddling (not sure about em)
2 Krosan
1 Jitte
SideBoard.. 15

I'm not sure about running meddlings or Gaddoks but since i'm runing blue-based manabase i'd go for meddling magis.

Sumarizing,
1-i'd prefer a mana base oriented to set CB asap.
2-Liked the idea of adding Spell Snare since meta is high lvl.
3-Trinket mage didn't get the cut. Maybe need more creatures instead of the solitaire Jitte?
4-Agree on Lorescale, ill try em another day

PostData: If we play Meddlings on side, we could play with 3Pte+1StP MD and 1Pte+1Stp on side being able to name Swords in mirror or against Baseruption which I think is a bad match-up.

[sauce]

rhox seems so hard to cast w/ wasteland being prevalent... why run a 3/4 lifelink guy thats so hard to cast? is life gain so important in your meta game?

why? is there so much aggro? if so why is it not being shut down via stp/cb?
is it that good vs mirror? how can he compete w/ tarmogoyf?

please explain.

[lordofthepit]

[*]Lorescale Coatl: Another bad topdeck (and as stated previously, you can't afford these)

I disagree. Only Tarmogoyf in your build is a better topdeck. Coatl comes down at a 2/2 blocker at the very least and will swing for 3 the very next turn, which is already as good as the Pridemage without the benefit of more draws or considering that the Coatl will continue to grow naturally. By the time you're in topdeck mode, the Coatl's cost should be irrelevant, plus given that you often want to fetch basic Islands early, he isn't necessarily more difficult to cast than the Pridemage at with two off-colors.

He's not as good a blocker as the War Monk the turn he hits, but he swings for at least 3 the very next turn and continues to grow from there. Plus your criticism of not being to afford the Coatl applies even more so with the Warmonk costing .

He's a better topdeck than Nimble Mongoose. Better than Trygon Predator. Better than Vendilion Clique. Better than Noble Hierarch, which you dislike. Depending on board situation, better or worse than Sower of Temptation. Worse than Mystic Enforcer, to be sure, but that has other issues.

Earlier in the game he at least pitches to Force of Will in a pinch, an option which occasionally proves useful. You can cast him early to bait out counters or removal to cast a Tarmogoyf, or reverse the order if you have the cantrips in hand to make the Coatl bigger. You can keep him at the top of your library to fill the 3 cc niche for Counterbalance.

Consider that these are worst case scenarios, as you can easily draw into a cantrip to make the Coatl huge (he gets +2/+2 per turn at worst if a Top is active), and he can easily swing the game in topdeck mode. I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to call him an auto-include, but I have to seriously question your characterization of him as a "bad card".

[sauce]

also, i think trygon is not worse than pridemage because it is blue (fow) and cmc 3.
other than that, i like qasali pridemage better than trygon. i just wish he was blue white or blue green instead of green white.

[rsaunder]

I disagree. Only Tarmogoyf in your build is a better topdeck. Coatl comes down at a 2/2 blocker at the very least and will swing for 3 the very next turn, which is already as good as the Pridemage without the benefit of more draws or considering that the Coatl will continue to grow naturally. By the time you're in topdeck mode, the Coatl's cost should be irrelevant, plus given that you often want to fetch basic Islands early, he isn't necessarily more difficult to cast than the Pridemage at with two off-colors.

He's not as good a blocker as the War Monk the turn he hits, but he swings for at least 3 the very next turn and continues to grow from there. Plus your criticism of not being to afford the Coatl applies even more so with the Warmonk costing .

He's a better topdeck than Nimble Mongoose. Better than Trygon Predator. Better than Vendilion Clique. Better than Noble Hierarch, which you dislike. Depending on board situation, better or worse than Sower of Temptation. Worse than Mystic Enforcer, to be sure, but that has other issues.

Earlier in the game he at least pitches to Force of Will in a pinch, an option which occasionally proves useful. You can cast him early to bait out counters or removal to cast a Tarmogoyf, or reverse the order if you have the cantrips in hand to make the Coatl bigger. You can keep him at the top of your library to fill the 3 cc niche for Counterbalance.

Consider that these are worst case scenarios, as you can easily draw into a cantrip to make the Coatl huge (he gets +2/+2 per turn at worst if a Top is active), and he can easily swing the game in topdeck mode. I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to call him an auto-include, but I have to seriously question your characterization of him as a "bad card".

I think "afford" was referring to "the bad topdeck" as opposed to "difficult to cast due to CMC." And Coatl is certainly a lesser topdeck against decks where another creature matters as compared to RWM. Really, it's only a "better" topdeck than pridemage which doesn't necessarily serve the same role as the "big beater," it's really the "disenchant met watchwolf? cool, we needed disenchant."

[lordofthepit]

I think "afford" was referring to "the bad topdeck" as opposed to "difficult to cast due to CMC." And Coatl is certainly a lesser topdeck against decks where another creature matters as compared to RWM. Really, it's only a "better" topdeck than pridemage which doesn't necessarily serve the same role as the "big beater," it's really the "disenchant met watchwolf? cool, we needed disenchant."

It is true that there are situations in which you'd prefer the War Monk (you're on the defensive) or the Pridemage (you need a Disenchant, but not under Humility or likely Counterbalance). But there are also many situations where a Coatl topdeck will put more pressure on your opponent than even Tarmogoyf can, especially with a Top on the board.

I'm not disagreeing that there are uses for the War Monk or the Pridemage, just that Coatl isn't a bad card. I personally run him in conjunction with the Pridemage (and instead of the War Monk).

[Tacosnape]

Lorescale Coatl is only a bad topdeck if:

1. You don't have a cantrip in your hand.
2. You don't have a top in play.
3. You can't topdeck either of those before your next combat step.

And that said, if none of those things happen, he's still 3/3 on his first swing.

That said, Cold-Eyed Selkie and Noble Hierarch both suck. Period.

[Mordel]

So have people..."empirically" determined that snake is better than RWM or is it almost purely a metagame call?

So far it seems to be largely conjecture. I don't really care who's on what side of the fence and I am personally not necessarily married to RWM, but I get pretty good results with him, so I don't really see why I would want to risk switching things up. RWM also has put up fairly tangible results.

I know that it doesn't seem like I am impartial, but it just seems that way because I am a fan of empirical data. Lack of evidence isn't evidence. Let's see some reports and such fuckers! Theory is often pretty difficult to refute, but seeing that theory get supported by results on deckcheck and such lends a great deal of credibility.