[OLD] UGw Threshold

[Skeggi]

I've been using RWM for quite a while in my NQB and other UGw CounterTop builds. I liked the fact that they upped the 3cmc count and the blue card count. But unfortunately he doesn't pack enough power to still make the cut. He's just too small for a 3cmc beater. The lifegaining is cute, but not exactly gamebreaking.

I've been twisting and turning and have come up with the following list:

4 Tarmogoyf
3 Noble Hierarch (!)
3 Qasali Pridemage
3 Lorescale Coatl

4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
2 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Counterbalance

4 Sensei's Divining top
3 Engineered Explosives

4 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
1 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
2 Savannah
2 Volcanic Island

SB:
3 Pyroblast
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Krosan Grip
2 Trygon Predator
2 Hydroblast
2 Oblivion Ring

I've splashed red for the Engineered Explosives and so that I could run Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast in the sideboard, because blue tends to get quite dominant around here. Especially with all the Coatl-NLU builds running about.

The Noble Hierarchs help pay for the Engineered Explosives for either the extra color, activation the same turn, or extra cmc to dodge CB. I'm not entirely sure on her, but as she also wins Goyf wars she's OK at least, still needs some testing though...

Tell me what you think...

[spirit of the wretch]

I usually don't post a lot here, but Skeggi's list reminds me of an issue I wanted to get your opinion on:
Ponder
For me this card is at least a 3-off in every Threshold.dec I build, but more and more people seem to cut it from their list: Clemens runs Spell Snares in that slot and so does Skeggi although he plays Coatl.
Now, I see how Ponder doesn't really DO anything, in fact it's only a cantrip, but in my opinion the ability to dig through ones deck and to draw whatever you need in any given situation is the main strength of Grow. I don't think it's redundant if you play a full set of Tops (what you arguably should do), as at worst it cycles or provides a shuffle effect if needed. It also fixes your mana (I'm talking especially about the quite common "1 land, 2 cantrip"-hands. You're way better off, if one of those cantrips is a Ponder) and helps you to adept to your opponents strategy much better: If you need to be the aggressor, you dig for beef, if you need to assemble CounterTop as fast as possible, it helps you do so, if you desperatly need removal... you get the idea. Especially the ability to dig for your soft lock is something that I consider pretty valuable. It also helps you to grow your Goyf if you need to have a faster clock.
So in my opinion Ponder really is vital to the deck and I'd like to know why some of you see this differently.

[gamegeek2]

Noble Hierarch is bad. This deck has plenty of mana and ways to find it. If you're concerned about Wasteland/Stifle, play more basics, not 1-mana 0/1s.

Lorescale, on the other hand, is an amazing creature, you should play 4. It's the same argument for Counterbalance - when it's useless, you can pitch it to Force or shuffle it away with Brainstorm/fetches.

[klaus]

I usually don't post a lot here, but Skeggi's list reminds me of an issue I wanted to get your opinion on:
Ponder
For me this card is at least a 3-off in every Threshold.dec I build, but more and more people seem to cut it from their list: Clemens runs Spell Snares in that slot and so does Skeggi although he plays Coatl.
Now, I see how Ponder doesn't really DO anything, in fact it's only a cantrip, but in my opinion the ability to dig through ones deck and to draw whatever you need in any given situation is the main strength of Grow. I don't think it's redundant if you play a full set of Tops (what you arguably should do), as at worst it cycles or provides a shuffle effect if needed. It also fixes your mana (I'm talking especially about the quite common "1 land, 2 cantrip"-hands. You're way better off, if one of those cantrips is a Ponder) and helps you to adept to your opponents strategy much better: If you need to be the aggressor, you dig for beef, if you need to assemble CounterTop as fast as possible, it helps you do so, if you desperatly need removal... you get the idea. Especially the ability to dig for your soft lock is something that I consider pretty valuable. It also helps you to grow your Goyf if you need to have a faster clock.
So in my opinion Ponder really is vital to the deck and I'd like to know why some of you see this differently.

You address a pretty interesting topic.
I've thought about it quite a bit, too but came to no definite conclusion, tbh.

Your arguments in favor of 3/4 Ponder are reasonable, which is, why I'll try to come up with some cons resp. Spell Snare pros, for the sake of a fruitful discussion, I guess.

Spell Snare is currently viewed as the second best counter spell in the format.
I don't need to explain why. Of course it is necessary to compare the relative value of the two cards to be able to come up with a meaningful conclusion.
The problem in doing so is obvious: both cards are awesome at what they do, but they fulfill completely different tasks - one cantripping you into goodness, the other saving you from your opp's goodness.
Spell Snare is especially powerful in the early game - you pretty much want to see it in every starting hand of almost every U/x archetype today. You all know about Snare being able to turn the tables on turn 2 so I won't go into detail here, either.
Let's, at least for now, boil it down to a mirror match perspective.
As SotW pointed out, Ponder helps you assemble the win (at some point) - but Snare (somewhat) ensures your opp. doesn't succeed in doing so.
Now, I could argue that a large chunk of games is decided between turn 1 and 4 and thus Spell Snare is a vital card to help you in getting there during the early game.
-Ah. dinner's ready -> to be continued.

[Mordel]

You mean Deckcheck for the lose?
And others with less than 33 players that shouldn't be cited. Or should they?

There may be some, but I do not recall...

Oops!

@ SasB

It isn't really a spectacular list or anything, but it has been working for me:

// 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: Ibid. I've addressed why I like them a lot.
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch: Allow me to get set up faster, negate wasteland, sinkhole and daze to an extent, make goyfs punch through cousins etc.
3 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage: Somewhat experimental still. They seems to work as a preventative measure, though their exalted on top of a hate bear body is nice.

// Spells
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [DD2] Daze: Was three originally, but I decided that I was not seeing them enough when I was ramping into turn two RWMs and such.
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [CST] Swords to Plowshares
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [CS] Counterbalance
1 [ALA] Oblivion Ring: Random good singleton. Either is a QP #4 or an STP #5 and contributes to a fairly low number of threes.
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top: I think I actually bumped these up to four because I felt that I was not drawing them frequently enough. My actual list is not on this 'puter.

// Sideboard (Kind of random)
SB: 3 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg: Good against Dutch Stax and combo to an extent.
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 2 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte: shores up matches versus decks with semi to complete aggro plans.
SB: 3 [CS] Jotun Grunt: my gy hate of choice. They are pretty scary when coupled with exalted too.
SB: 1 [LRW] Oblivion Ring: Extra three cc, extra removal. I side it in a fair amount actually.
SB: 3 [DIS] Spell Snare: These may slowly migrate into the MD because I am seeing more and more deadguy and Eva Green.

I recently changed the list up a bit though. I integrated predators into the sideboard to see whether I liked them more than QPs for sure or not mostly.
I am not entirely sure what the exact changes I made were, but I know that I ended up with another top in the main deck and two trygdons in the sideboard. When I get internet back at my place, I'll post the more recent list.

I understand peoples' issue with hierarchs, but I have not had a good time without them. They must be a crutch for terrible players or something because I find them exceedingly helpful.

The low number of three cc cards in the deck is a pain at times and I am looking into changing it around at one point or another in the near future.

[Skeggi]

Ponder

I've been running 4 Ponders, then I cut them to 3, then to 2 and finally I completely cut them. I think in a deck with 4x SDT, 4x Brainstorm and a 7x Fetch you have enough ways to manipulate your library and search for what you need. Also, Qasali Pridemage helps Goyf wars and blows up enchantments, or it can function as a lone beater. With more cards having multiple purposes you're also more likely to find an answer.

I'm still testing the 2 Spell Snares, I'm not solid on them yet. The strength of them is obvious, but once you've assembled CounterTop they're in most cases only useful as FoW-pitch.

Noble Hierarch is bad. This deck has plenty of mana and ways to find it. If you're concerned about Wasteland/Stifle, play more basics, not 1-mana 0/1s.

Noble Hierarch helps build mana which I need, for EE or Top. It's nice to have 3 mana turn 2 so you can drop a Counterbalance and not fear Dazes. It's also nice that Tarmogoyf is bigger than your opponent's Tarmogoyf. I think this list has plenty of reasons to run Noble Hierarch. I must admit, I'm still not sure, but everytime she's in my opening seven I can keep, even if I only have 1 Fetchland or 1 Trop and no cantrips. Which is more likely because I've cut the Ponders and still am only playing 18 lands. Also, I can't afford to play basics in what essentially is a 4c build.

So far I like her, she smoothes things out.

I understand peoples' issue with hierarchs, but I have not had a good time without them. They must be a crutch for terrible players or something because I find them exceedingly helpful.

This.

[chokin]

So I tried my hand at the newer version of UGw Thresh tonight. I did fairly well. 3rd out of 18.

Here's my list:

4 Windswept Heath
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
3 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Lorescale Coatl

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Spell Snare
4 Counterbalance
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Oblivion Ring

SB (I forgot a huge stack of cards at home so I had to make due)
3 Krosan Grip
3 Pithing Needle
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Meddling Mage
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Oblivion Ring

Note that I would have subbed Mages for at least one Explosive, possibly some Diverts or Blue Blasts.

Match 1 vs Esper Artifacts
G1 - I dominated his every turn until he died. Between counters and Qasali owning his artifact land (only access to blue at the time) I demolished him with a Coatl.
G2 - I pushed him to ~11, he plays Scourglass off the topdeck to wipe my board clean, but I saved 2 Goyf to push the last bit of damage through.

Match 2 vs Burn
G1 - I got a terrible start. Forest was my only land with a Top for like 4 turns. He has Fanatics beating me down for a while before I play QP. I chump one, he finishes it, deals me 1 with the other guy, sacs and Fireblasts.
G2 - First turn Top, second turn CB. An easy win from here. He gets stuck on one land. I play Coatl, he attempts to Bolt it, but I Brainstorm saving the snake.
G3 - Same as G2.

Match 3 vs Angel Stax
G1 - He got stuck on Wasteland and City. I countered everything but Crucible. I nab basics to play around Wasteland. He lands a Geddon eventually, I Daze even though he has land open to pay just to save the land. We both play out lands and I roll out creatures while he runs into CB revealing 3cc cards to stop Prison and other shenanigans. Goyfs end up coming down after I get a Trop on the table and his answers are too little too late.
G2 - First turn Crucible then nothing. Draw go on both sides for a long time. He deals himself a ton of damage trying to get stuff out, only to meet a bunch of counters. I land a Coatl, but he has Maze of Ith, nulling it. He drops face down Angel, and I go defense mode until I draw double STPs and then a couple Qasali ripping away his Crucible and pushing a little damage through every turn til the games over.

Match 4 vs The Mighty Quinn/MWC
G1 - Painfully slow. Goes back and forth. Midgame, my Coatl grows to a 12/12, but I can't manage to counter his Pulse of the Fields, so he sits around 18 before my Coatl meets an STP. Board pretty much resets, and play Coatl and QP which runs into his Decree of Justice tokens. He ends up winning via Eternal Dragon.
G2 - He SBs in a couple Ajani and gets to almost 30 life before I ORing it. He ORings back and keeps applying pressure. It goes back to answering answers with answers until I lose the game to a 60/60+ token.

What I've learned: QP is amazing in Thresh. Sometime in M4G1, I got to nuke a Runed Halo, which would have ended the game if he weren't in the deck. I didn't like seeing too much Coatl because the games where I had him, I wanted more mana open. But there were a few times where it totally outclassed Goyf (like beating for 10+ a turn). Spell Snare proved to be really lackluster. I might stick it in the board. Every time I saw it, I wished it was anything else. I think I used them 2 times in my 4 matches. I'd like to get some EEs back in the deck. ORing, but it usually was QP #5.

EDIT: (more like adding) Noble Heirarch is terrible imo. I've always felt that Thresh plays high quality creatures for cheap. Tarmogoyf is an undercosted beater. Coatl has some serious grow potential. QP is an amazing utility creature. Noble Heirarch is pretty much BoP with Exalted every time I tested it. RWM is probably better than NH. It just sucks that RWM requires you to have all of your colors out. One mana disrupt and he could be delayed many turns. Coatl suffers from similar issues, but requies one less color. RWM is just out of Bolt range while Coatl takes two draws to stay alive, but Coatl feels more like a finisher that you save until you have CB Top or strong protection to back him up. I'm not ruling RWM out, just don't think he's right for Thresh until further testing proves that he's reliable and valuable.

[Clark Kant]

Hierarch acclerates you, speeds up your whole game by a full turn. It only takes up slots that should go to land, so stop thinking its taking the place of a creature. 17 lands is the absolute max w hierarch, I do well w 16. You have cantrips to not miss early land drops. Exalted (esp w RWM) and waste/moon immunity is awesome too. You should play it.

[memnarch]

I'm still testing the 2 Spell Snares, I'm not solid on them yet. The strength of them is obvious, but once you've assembled CounterTop they're in most cases only useful as FoW-pitch.

This is why i like to run daze over snare. because daze doubles as a CC2 for counterbalance while cheating and only being a 0CC, isn't that sneaky?

[Jaiminho]

Hierarch acclerates you, speeds up your whole game by a full turn. It only takes up slots that should go to land, so stop thinking its taking the place of a creature. 17 lands is the absolute max w hierarch, I do well w 16. You have cantrips to not miss early land drops. Exalted (esp w RWM) and waste/moon immunity is awesome too. You should play it.

So it's either 16/17 lands + 4 Hierarchs or 20/21 lands? Plain wrong -- that thing does take other slots.

[memnarch]

So it's either 16/17 lands + 4 Hierarchs or 20/21 lands? Plain wrong -- that thing does take other slots.

And it also dies to devastating dreams along with all your other lands. Then your up LD creek without a paddle. Not saying he isn't worth it. But you can still run 16/17 lands with no Hierarch if your running top cantrips etc. But he may be worth running.

[Kyachi]

Granted that I haven't actually play a deck with Hierarch IRL, but when I've played against him in tournaments and on MWS, or when I've used him on MWS, I've always wanted to make him something else. Hierarch is a horrible top-deck when you want something with gas. One of my favorite things about counterbalance decks these days is that almost all the cards (sans counters and periodically StP) are relevant no matter when you draw them. If you're looking at an open board, or a board where you're losing, and both you and your opponent are sitting on relatively equal lands, it's a total dead-draw.

Personally, I feel like the dynamic of threshold has shifted away from incremental gains (which you get from Hierarch in the way of mana boost and exalted) toward just bomb-y cards like Tarmogoyf and Counterbalance (which is the reason that so many people are dropping most cantrips -- why dig for your good cards when you can just have the good cards in the first place, and more of them?). Obviously, your mileage may vary, but my list is so tight right now that I couldn't conceive of dropping anything especially land, for a 0/1, unless he won the game.

Really, if you want to win tarmogoyf wars, don't screw around with exalted. Just play shackles, sower, or mind harness. Both of those former are win conditions on their own, whereas Hierarch certainly is not.

[Citrus-God]

The point of cantrips is to find mana early game, then reject mana midgame in favor of actual cards. This was how you played Turbo Xerox and this is how you played Thresh back then. Noble Hierarch is a good card, but it should not be replacing cantrips.

[GrAsH]

I'm trying to build this deck, and I currently I'm building this version:

4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
2 Windswepth Heath
2 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland

4 Tarmogoyf
3 Lorescare Coatl
3 Qasali Pridemage

3 Counterbalance
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Spell Snare
4 Daze
1 Krosan Grip
4 Force of Will
4 Sensei's Divining Top

Can it be optimized? I'm going to test this build now. I can also take 1 ponder and 1 daze and put 2 shackles to win goyf wars.

[Jaiminho]

And it also dies to devastating dreams along with all your other lands. Then your up LD creek without a paddle. Not saying he isn't worth it. But you can still run 16/17 lands with no Hierarch if your running top cantrips etc. But he may be worth running.

I've played DIF's 16 lands version, but I'm talking about more recent lists, which shifted up the mana curve a little bit to include Trygon/Rhox/Trinket or whatever. In these lists, playing 16 lands is not good.

[Goblin Snowman]

I'm trying to build this deck, and I currently I'm building this version:

4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
2 Windswepth Heath
2 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland

I guess Wasteland seems kind of random. I hate having non-Islands in this deck, but the increased land count seems good. Personally, I'd rather have just blue lands, or lands and spells, than Wasteland. Threshold is no longer the sort of deck that capitalizes on tempo gains (this is less true for some UGr lists) which is what Wasteland gives you.

Edit: I should have mentioned earlier that you will want basics. I run two Islands and a Forest, though I'm considering just making it Islands as Blood Moon isn't as relevant as it once was. If you don't have a basic Forest, there isn't any reason to run Windswept Heath over Polluted Delta, unless you are limited in your card pool.

4 Tarmogoyf
3 Lorescare Coatl
3 Qasali Pridemage

Both of your beaters are just undercosted vanilla guys, which fold to swords. You're kind of threat light, so you really pick up your cards to a Humility (excluding drawing your one-of Krosan Grip) or Wrath of God.

3 Counterbalance

This is wrong. I hope it's obvious why.

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Spell Snare
4 Daze
1 Krosan Grip
4 Force of Will
4 Sensei's Divining Top

I would personally get rid of one spell snare and one Daze (they serve a really similar purpose and seven is just redundant). This may be a good drop for Shackles, as Shackles is house against just about everything.

Can it be optimized? I'm going to test this build now. I can also take 1 ponder and 1 daze and put 2 shackles to win goyf wars.

See above, I suppose. Shackles is amazing, as is Sower, but if you want, additional K-Grips may help here too, as they help you get around other Shackles (and conveniently cost three). If you do put in Shackles, certainly reconsider using Wastelands and just put in more Islands.

[Nihil Credo]

From the last DTBF update:

A second important change involves how Threshold decks are counted; in the last year the archetype has evolved to the point that the old categorisation by their splash colour (or lack thereof) makes little sense.

Today, the one clear split is between decks packing the maindeck Counterbalance/Top combination and those favouring an aggressive, tempo-driver approach with Daze, Stifle, and Wasteland. The latter decks are quite well established, with only a few secondary choices being discussed (mostly additional threats such as Dreadnought or Alara Reborn creatures) and splashing exclusively either Red or Black.

Counterbalance decks, on the other side, exist in a continuum, from the classic Mongoose builds to the Chicago lists to those incorporating additional tricks (Survival, Natural Order, etc.); they also exist in pretty much every possible colour combination that includes Blue and Green, from two to four colours.
If some clear division in approaches emerges, this will eventually be adopted in both thread organisation and tournament tallies. For the time being, all CounterTop decks that do not fall into any established category, i.e. that follow the game plan of "establish the Balance soft-lock and play good creatures", will get dumped into one format-leading cauldron.

In accordance with the above, this thread is being locked and will eventually be archived. You may continue your discussion in either the CounterTop thread or the Tempo Thresh thread, as appropriate.