[Deck] Next Level Threshold

[chinEsE girl]

After sleeping on the results of the weekend, a few things I noticed, in no particular order;

Ancient Grudge might be good enough to side board again: With all the affinity as well as the increased popularity of stoneforge mystic (as well as things like jitte in some rock lists) ancient grudge might find its way back into the sideboard. My original list almost a year ago ran one in the sideboard, and it was pretty cool, but after a while I was just like "I would rather have null rod" and so I made that change. Only problem is with collar and explosives, you don't want null rod out at the same time as those. So ancient grudge will work it's way into my sideboard somehow. Probably in place of a grip, which recently has been very underwhelming with the lack of counterbalance. Also, ancient grudge is good at getting rid of pithing needles and chalice of the voids, while null rod doesn't quite do the trick.

Life from the Loam most likely deserves a spot in the sideboard: As wweenieking attested, the card is sweet against deck where wasteland can take them out of the game. As well, it gets around discard and permanent destruction, which was the problem with crucible. I really wish that I could of had one in my top 8 match saturday when I played against 12 post, although I sadly wouldn't of even gotten a chance to use it since I had a deck reg error and got a game loss, followed by losing game "2" and not getting a chance to sideboard ever. LftL is also good against midrange decks like junk where a loam and wasteland can keep them off mana so long as you save stifles to deal with their fetches.

Pithing Needle is very solid out of the sideboard: When I gave my 75 to friendly Phil Stolze on sunday, I made the change of 1 null rod for 1 pithing needle to see how it would work out (all the affinity and countertop thopters from the previous day weren't there). I just wanted to see how effective needle would be, and Phil said it worked well in many situations. There was one game in particular where he was pretty much dead on board to a dark confidant equiped with jitte, as well as TWO active moms on the board, but worked his way out of the situation by using EE to get rid of bob and the jitte, then seaching for needle and keeping the moms from losing him the game. I'm not sure if needle should find it's way into the maindeck, since there are plenty of times where I don't really need it, but I would really like to have it in the sideboard from now on. It would be especially nice to be able to have it against vial decks to give yourself a quick and easy answer to goblins and merfolk, and to a shorter extant death/green and taxes.

So with these findings in mind, this is what I'm going to have in my sideboard for the time being

3 Spell Pierce
2 REB/pyroblast
1 Krosan Grip
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Mind Harness
2 Gilded Drake
1 Life from the Loam
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt

The flexible slots would be some of the REBs, the drakes, and the crypt. It pretty much depends on if you're confident there aren't many graveyard based strategies (better for smaller tournaments), if there is alot or only a little KotR in the room, and how much blue is being played. In all honesty, I really wish I could sideboard 16, since that would make things so much easier with the REB count moving back up to 3. For the time being though I'm going to try this configuation out and see how it works.

Also, one last side note; sorry greater_maro to hear about dragon stompy being the only deck you lost to in your tournament. For those of you who don't know, dragon stompy is actually one of your best possibly matchups, about as good as the belcher matchup. You removal kills all their dudes, their blood moons are really shitty against you (you can't play goyf but you can play every other spell in your deck, seems fine to me), and they have no answer to vendillion clique. All in all every card in your deck is fantastic against them, and after sideboard things just get more awesome. I've played the match IRL about 6 times or so, and every time it's been a 2-0 blowout, with none of the games being close. It's too bad magic is a game of variance, and even you can still lose to your 80-20 matchups once in a while

[Tammit67]

Got a tournament Saturday, so I was testing a stock list with 6ish cards different. The trinketmages became terravores, and without mages, I subbed the EE and collar for dazes. I dropped the lavamancer count to 2 and upped clique to a three of. The testing went pretty well, the goblins matchup was not affected much by these changes, except vore can't be chumped so well.

Terravore is a great beater that is supplemented by the land denial strategy. I'm just worried he is a little too mana (color or total cost) intensive for this deck. I was testing 1 of each basic to try to mitigate the need for double trop to cast him, and haven't had that much of a problem.

[chinEsE girl]

Be sure to let us know how the deck runs in your saturday tournament. Terravore was something I considered a long time ago as another green beater to hang out alongside goyf, but the double green really turned me off to it, since otherwise the manabase is solid as a rock. He does seem like a good way go big, and will almost certainly be bigger than any KotR on the table (so long as you don't attack into an active knight and then they get bojuka bog for the blowout; seriously make sure you don't for that).

[Equinozio]

This sunday I'll play the sideevent at the Gp at barna.

I like your sideboard except for the life from the loam. I don't know if I'll play the crucible, loam or the second grip that seems fine to me.

[Tammit67]

Be sure to let us know how the deck runs in your saturday tournament. Terravore was something I considered a long time ago as another green beater to hang out alongside goyf, but the double green really turned me off to it, since otherwise the manabase is solid as a rock. He does seem like a good way go big, and will almost certainly be bigger than any KotR on the table (so long as you don't attack into an active knight and then they get bojuka bog for the blowout; seriously make sure you don't for that).

I've watched my friend Allen blow out others with B. Bog, I'll be sure to at least have a stifle.

If a lot of people end up with rock, though, I'm liable to just switch back to combo.

[mchainmail]

This sunday I'll play the sideevent at the Gp at barna.

I like your sideboard except for the life from the loam. I don't know if I'll play the crucible, loam or the second grip that seems fine to me.

Loam is amazing. Seriously. It's a recurrable draw 3 for 2. And insane with Jace.

[Tammit67]

Loam is amazing. Seriously. It's a recurrable draw 3 for 2. And insane with Jace.

I really like crucible though. Without a way to get non lands out of the yard, loam just seems awkward as a constant mana investment. I wouldn't be happy to see one of my 12 threats get dredged, unless you are still running manlands.

And everything is good with Jace.

[mchainmail]

I really like crucible though. Without a way to get non lands out of the yard, loam just seems awkward as a constant mana investment. I wouldn't be happy to see one of my 12 threats get dredged, unless you are still running manlands.

And everything is good with Jace.

You only need to resolve Loam like twice for it to matter, really. Crucible getting countered is a pretty big tempo swing for the deck too, while Loam is one less mana and allows other spells to be cast alongside it.

Also, milling relevant cards is a logical fallacy; your deck is so big (relatively) that you aren't going to mill every win condition; you'll just draw more at some point in the game.

[Tammit67]

You only need to resolve Loam like twice for it to matter, really. Crucible getting countered is a pretty big tempo swing for the deck too, while Loam is one less mana and allows other spells to be cast alongside it.

One fewer mana, you mean ;)
I really want recurring lands against other tempo decks, landstill, and CB. Tapping mana each turn/playing a spell each turn is bad against UGx tempo and CB respectively, ie the only situation I really want loam is against landstill. Crucible's CMC 3 is nice against CB, it only having to be cast once means I can set up a turn to play it safely against the other two.

And I really don't want another card that gets hosed by tormod's crypt. At least with crucible, I don't have to play around it getting crypted.

Also, milling relevant cards is a logical fallacy; your deck is so big (relatively) that you aren't going to mill every win condition; you'll just draw more at some point in the game.

Oh, so you picked up on that? The problem is that that is one fewer in your deck, which is a problem since we a creature light. But it really an issue since that is one fewer answer my opponent has to have for my threats. It is not that much of a concern, just irks me.

[Koby]

RE: recursion
Play Academy Ruins, and throw in a few utility artifacts (replacing Collar and/or Top for instance). Recurring EE also allows you gives you inevitability, especially with Jace. The only problem is that playing a 3 color deck you're limited to only destroying 3CC or below permanents. This means you can't snipe opposing Jaces, Elspeth, Moat, etc

I made a note of this strategy in the previous page, and that gave me a lot of utility vs Painter/Welder, and in the mirror vs other Tempo decks. Being able to make land drops every turn, or getting 3 Wastelands is very useful in the last tournament I attended.

I threw in 1 Intuition to the deck as well, to provide added setup, or the ability to tutor for FoW in clutch situations.

[talon7331]

mchainmail's algorithm for what to post on any particular deck:

Does it run green? -no?-> Post something really stupid. yes? -> Proceed to next step.
Does it run loam md? yes? -> Suggest more copies of loam. repeat step 2 until 4 copies in MD -no? -> proceed to next step.
Does it run loam in the board? Yes? ->Suggest moving loam to MD then go to step 2. No? -> Suggest adding loam to the sb then repeat step three.

Regardless of steps 1-3, post something about a recurrable draw 3 for 2 mana with no regard for what other things the deck might want to spend its mana on, and suggest insane synergy with other cards (jace, brainstorm, exploration, manabond, blah)

[mchainmail]

mchainmail's algorithm for what to post on any particular deck:

Does it run green? -no?-> Post something really stupid. yes? -> Proceed to next step.
Does it run loam md? yes? -> Suggest more copies of loam. repeat step 2 until 4 copies in MD -no? -> proceed to next step.
Does it run loam in the board? Yes? ->Suggest moving loam to MD then go to step 2. No? -> Suggest adding loam to the sb then repeat step three.

Regardless of steps 1-3, post something about a recurrable draw 3 for 2 mana with no regard for what other things the deck might want to spend its mana on, and suggest insane synergy with other cards (jace, brainstorm, exploration, manabond, blah)

I'm not saying Loam is generically good. Also, the second copy seems abysmal; I haven't suggested anything in that vein. However, in some matchups (Junk, Thresh, etc) it can be extremely powerful. It also doesn't get hit by discard or permanent-based removal that Junk plays a lot of. Let's be honest, even though the deck is called "Threshold" people aren't bringing in graveyard hate against it.

Bottom Line: If you're looking for a way to shore up the Knight of the Reliquary matchups, this seems like a perfectly fine way of doing so.

[Tammit67]

I'm not saying Loam is generically good. Also, the second copy seems abysmal; I haven't suggested anything in that vein. However, in some matchups (Junk, Thresh, etc) it can be extremely powerful. It also doesn't get hit by discard or permanent-based removal that Junk plays a lot of. Let's be honest, even though the deck is called "Threshold" people aren't bringing in graveyard hate against it.

Bottom Line: If you're looking for a way to shore up the Knight of the Reliquary matchups, this seems like a perfectly fine way of doing so.

If mana disruption were a good way of shutting down someone focusing on KotR, than Lands would have a good New Horizons matchup without having to rely on them fucking up or cursed totem.

[wweenieking]

Loam is much better than crucible in the matchups we want it. What happens if the hymm us? Or thoughtsieze us? Or counter it? Or vindicate it? Loam isn't affected by any of those cards. Plus loam with brainstorm or jace is amazing.

[Zamussels]

Bottom Line: If you're looking for a way to shore up the Knight of the Reliquary matchups, this seems like a perfectly fine way of doing so.

A lot of KotR decks are playing Bojuka Bog main... won't this just make it a bigger blowout for them?

[wweenieking]

You can always stifle the bog trigger and if they have knight in play there's bigger issues to deal with than are they going to bog you. Every deck has an answer one way or another for crucible, where as its not the same for loam.

[Chikenbok]

Well, I finally came to what I consider to be (speaking so far) my perfect 75. It's been unbelievably consistent so, yeah.. here she is:

Maindeck: 60

// Creatures - 13
3 x Grim Lavamancer
4 x Tarmogoyf
2 x Terravore
2 x Trinket Mage
2 x Vendillion Clique

// Artifact - 2
1 x Basilisk Collar
1 x Engineered Explosives

// Instant - 23
4 x Brainstorm
3 x Fire // Ice
4 x Lightning Bolt
4 x Force of Will
4 x Spell Snare
4 x Stifle

// Land - 19
2 x Flooded Strand
1 x Island
2 x Misty Rainforest
1 x Mountain
3 x Scalding Tarn
3 x Tropical Island
3 x Volcanic Island
4 x Wasteland

// Sorcery - 3
3 x Ponder

// Sideboard - 15
2 x Pithing Needle
1 x Relic of Progenitus
1 x Tormod's Crypt
2 x Mind Harness
1 x Ancient Grudge
1 x Krosan grip
2 x Pryoblast
2 x Red Elemental Blast
3 x Spell Pierce

Thats right folks.. I don't run Jace.

[mchainmail]

If mana disruption were a good way of shutting down someone focusing on KotR, than Lands would have a good New Horizons matchup without having to rely on them fucking up or cursed totem.

It's not man's disruption, although stifle, waste, countering diamonds can win it. Instead you have resiliency against their wasteland effects.

[wweenieking]

It's not man's disruption, although stifle, waste, countering diamonds can win it. Instead you have resiliency against their wasteland effects.

Exactly!

[Tammit67]

Thats right folks.. I don't run Jace.

I think you are crazy, but I like the list.

It's not man's(what are you saying here?) disruption, although stifle, waste, countering diamonds can win it. Instead you have resiliency against their wasteland effects.

Crucible does the same thing. And I don't have to pay for it all the damn time.

If I cannot land a 3 mana artifact against wastelands, I don't deserve to play this deck.