[DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)

[Kanabo]

@ Stu55: I like your list but I am wondering why you have a single thoughtseize. wouldnt it be better to use another stifle/spell snare/snuff out?

btw here is a reference to my most recent list:

Mana:
4 wasteland
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Polluted delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs

Creatures:
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker

Spells:
4 Stifle
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
2 Snuff Out
2 Smother
4 Thoughtsieze
2 Pernicious Deed

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

[gamegeek2]

I would play Putrefy or Pulse over Deed.

Also, why no sinkhole?

[stu55]

Kanabo: The singleton is basically there to make room in the SB with thoughtseizes. It will probably turn into a creature because 8 is just not enough I think.

Gamegeek: Deed > putrefy and pulse. With enchantress and stax becoming bigger, mass removal is 10x better. It is also a lot better against Goblins and threshold. It can easily 3 for 1 or more at times.

[Kanabo]

@gamegeek2, as stu55 said, mass removal is a must because if all the Aggro and stax/enchantress flooding the meta. It also cant hit tombstalker.
also, I decided to remove sinkholes because i was tired of them sucking in the late game. I switched them in for 2 snares and 2 deeds. deeds helps against everything, and with so many 2 drops and goyfs spell snare is a good card. i also was tired of only having only 8 counterspells. having 10 has helped me alot recently.

[stu55]

@gamegeek2, as stu55 said, mass removal is a must because if all the Aggro and stax/enchantress flooding the meta. It also cant hit tombstalker.
also, I decided to remove sinkholes because i was tired of them sucking in the late game. I switched them in for 2 snares and 2 deeds. deeds helps against everything, and with so many 2 drops and goyfs spell snare is a good card. i also was tired of only having only 8 counterspells. having 10 has helped me alot recently.

I think that thinking that sinkholes suck in the late game is the wrong way to go about it, it is better to say they are better in the early game is why you want them. You should be in control late game, and with bstorm and ponders, i never really have a problem with getting sinkholes when i dont want them

[Kanabo]

true, but wouldnt you want something that can solve serious issues such as staring down a bunch of aggro? sinkhole just doesnt seem to impact those decks as much as a pernicious deed or other mass removal.

[Rallye]

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker
2 Vampire Nighthawk

instant [19]
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Snuff Out
4 Stifle

sorcery [11]
3 Ponder
4 Sinkhole
4 Thoughtseize

enchantment [2]
2 Pernicious Deed

land [19]
2 Bayou
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
61 cards

This was the latest list i was running.I wanted to put in more creature, cause sometimes it too long before i run into one.Pondering, and brainstorming into nothing.
De nighthawk was the best option, in my opinion. Ok it's the most expensive creature in this deck (cc),but the lifelink and deathtouch ability safes my ass multiple times.It also lets me run 1 less snuff out.
I chose for deeds over explosives main. I know, it's slower, but takes away a lot more than explosives.And in the aggro meta down here, deeds seems for me the right board sweeper.

About the sinkhole's, i like them a lot.And they won me a lot of games.Late-game they suck, but early-game they can win you the match! It's also a card i board out a lot, for pierce, for example against zoo.But i wouldn't cut them.

[stu55]

dont run 61 cards, dont run nighthawk...cut a stifle imo

Proper capitalization is required when posting on these boards. Please use it in the future. Thank you. -zilla

[Rallye]

I don't mind if you have comments on my deck choices, but if have at least explain youre opinion.Giving comments it's not hard at all....

[DerFern]

2 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Thoughtseize

This was the latest list i was running.I wanted to put in more creature, cause sometimes it too long before i run into one.Pondering, and brainstorming into nothing.

Did you consider Vendilion Clique? I had the same feeling about only 8 Critters and Thoughtseize never seemed to help me a lot so I chose to play 2 Vendilion Clique instead of TS. It fits the tempo gameplan quite good and is an EOT Thoughtseize to remove our opponents Removal.

Even though I do like Nighthawk in certain decks I´m not sure about him in TA bescause his impact on the board is just to small for 1BB.... but any StP on Nighthawk will help Stalker survive so he could be worth testing...

Since a lot of people in this thread think that 8 critters are not enough - which could be a good choice? Right now I could only think of
-Clique
-Predator (slooooow)
-Nighthawk
-Terravore (as stu mentioned)

[Joon]

While I agree, that eight critters are not enough to immediately start the beatings when you've successfully disrupted the opponent, the question is as always in deckbuilding: Is there anything we can cut? In Team America this problem gets even worse. Nearly all cards are auto 4-offs. While you can get away with playing only three Snuff Out or three Thoughtseize, these changes are not vital for the deck as a whole. Nitewolf tries to get slots for new cards by cutting entire playsets from the deck (in his version Sinkholes for Spell Pierce). I'm not sure if that is the correct way to go, but it seems to work out for him.

I for my part have decided that I want more critters. Even Canadian Threshold plays often creature #9 and #10 and they have Mungos which grant immunity to most spot removal.

I've tested Predator, he was way to slow in killing the opponent, more often than not he got just pitched to Force of Will.
Then I tried the Vampire Nighthawk from the new set, but that guy was also slow. While guaranteeing a life swing of four points in every attack phase the option of not attacking and keep the opponents Goyf from attacking you is often too appealing. And that is not what this deck wants to achieve, so Nighthawk wasn't the right choice, too.

After that I tried Vendilion Clique. I don't know why nobody plays this nasty little faerie in Team America, but I highly recommend to do so. It is potential disruption, or as it is sometimes called a "Thoughtseize combined with a recurring Lightning Bolt". Clique has flash to either come into play on the end of an opponent's turn or to play it right after the draw step. It can handle annoying recursive strategies like life from the loam or just be a 3/1 with flying if you want to. It can also cantrip useless spells on your hand away as you can target any player.
It can also be used as a pseudo removal spell by flashing into play after the attackers have been declared, killing smaller guys that aren't snuff-able (Confidant for example) or have Shroud (Mongoose comes to mind) or creatures you don't want to waste a snuff on (Pridemage/Witness). I'm really in love with this card.

In my current list I cut one Thoughtseize and one Snuff Out for it. While it sounds contradictorily to the first part of my post it worked out great for me due two reasons:
1. Clique somehow replaces the missed Thoughtseize by having a similar effect.
2. Because of the aggressive strategies in Legacy you usually want to cast only one Snuff Out over a match.

Maybe one could also get away with cutting one Stifle, as you usually only mindgame the opponent about having it than really use it to stop fetchlands. Then you could play the full set of Thoughtseize again, maximizing your chance of getting one on the first turn.

To sum up what I said here is my current list:

04 Underground Sea
01 Tropical Island
01 Bayou
04 Verdant Catacombs
03 Misty Rainforest
03 Polluted Delta
04 Wasteland

04 Tarmogoyf
04 Tombstalker
02 Vendilion Clique

04 Force of Will
04 Daze
04 Brainstorm
04 Ponder
04 Stifle
04 Sinkhole
03 Snuff Out
03 Thoughtseize

SB
04 Spell Pierce
03 Engineered Explosives
03 Tormod's Crypt
03 Hydroblast
02 Krosan Grip

Please share your thoughts.

[GtF]

You definitely can NOT use clique to get rid of extra lands. Read the card again.

I like to run a single reanimate in unknown fields because I know a lot of decks will be running tarmogoyf and you usually want to kill counter or discard their goyfs. Paying B and 2 life for a goyf is actually better than paying 2 mana in this deck. However even when I do this I admit that it is a little loose. You shouldn't really need to run more than 8 creatures. Every once in a while you will lose a game because you never draw a creature even after brainstorming/pondering a bunch and that is just the price of playing a deck with such few but powerful threats where the rest of the cards are devoted to disruption.
Out of the actual creature options, Clique seems like the best one. It is blue so you can pitch it to force, it does all those other things you said so it seems reasonable, especially as a way to get rid of bob who can be a huge problem for the deck.
I personally am convinced that spell pierce is just straight up better in the deck than sinkhole and it is good in just about every matchup, so I see no point in having it in the SB. If they are drawing enough lands to make pierce bad, they are drawing enough to make sinkhole bad too. So for that reason I feel it is a waste of space to have it in the SB when those spots could be devoted to cards to other matchups. Other than that it looks fine.

I think the spell pierce vs. Spell snare comparison chart is a good idea. I'll probably work up something like that when I have more time.

[Joon]

I somehow linked "dead cards in hand" automatically to "lands". I know that Clique can only pick non-land spells. If you prefer playing with eight threats nitewolf's list seems like the best, as Engineered Explosives can solve a lot of problems.

[Kanabo]

Has anyone ever tried to put the Hexmage Depths combo in this deck? It seems like the deck has the perfect shell to protect the combo, and still have a strong disruption package.

thoughts?

[pandabaer]

Hi,
i played Team America in a 56 man GPT today. It was the first time i played the deck and sadly i didn't look through this thread before. So i started with the list Mendian posted some weeks ago (GtFs list) and after some chatter with my friends my Maindeck looked exactly like the one nitewolf9 posted(the one with 2 explosives etc...).
But my sideboard was a bunch of thrown together cards and after the tournament i can say i only liked 4 cards of those.
SB:
3 Tormods Crypt
1 Extirpate
(so these are the only 4 slots i liked ^^t)
2 Divert
3 Diabolic Edict
3 Engineered Plague
1 Hdyroblast
2 Blue Elemental Blast

In the end i went 4 - 2. Loosing 2 times to Zoo. Winning Against Loam, Canadian, Combo, RB Burn/Discard
I have to say i like the deck alot and i will make more commands after i learned to play the deck better and tested with a real sideboard(and sideboarded right...) ;) (will try the one nitewolf9 posted first). Since i really liked how it played and my god tombstalker is so good ;).
But from a theoretical view i think it still is a really strong deck if you can handle the aggro matchup someway.
And im not sure about the Krosan Grips in the sb since Explosives takes care of most targets and spellpierce prevends them from even hitting the table. I know the power of the card but im not that sure if it is really needed.

[GtF]

Cool, glad you like the deck. You will probably realize this from reading some of the more recent posts, but trygon predator is a reasonable inclusion in the SB as a way to handle artifacts/enchantments if you don't like grip. I've found them to be pretty good but if you're running explosives and predators too then i could see maybe not needing them. As for handling aggro, some mix of EE, smother, or ghastly demise seems best.

[pandabaer]

Yes thats the reason i asked if they are still necessary because nitewolfs last posted Sideboard and Maindeck alltogether included:
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Trygon Predator
4 spellpierce
and hydroblast (if its about moons or so ... )

In addition he also had 2 Krosan Grip.
Maybe i am wrong and i underestimate some artifacts and / or enchantments who make it necessary to have even more answers because i do not have that much expierence with the deck right now.
But as far as i can tell i would think it is necessary to add 2 more cards for worse matchups like zoo and meerfolk.

[Kanabo]

would it make sense to play extirpate in the sb now that the meta has changed to lands, aggro, and combo?

[BreathWeapon]

Considering Zoo, is replacing Snuff Out with Shriekmaw possible for decreasing the damage and increasing the threats at the same time?

[Kanabo]

no, the usual replacement for snuff out in this deck is smother. I play a split of 2 snuff out and 2 smother, and love it.