BUG Thopters

[SpikeyMikey]

I took this deck to the GP in Indy this weekend and while I missed my shot at back-to-back day 2's at 6-3 (round 9 dreamcrushed!), I feel like the deck has a lot of potential. Especially in the hands of a skilled player where you can really maximize the value of the deck's search capabilities.

I had heard a lot of buzz here and elsewhere about storm and because the top decks at the most recent SCG's had been almost entirely fair (except for the occasional Belcher or Dredge showing up), I was expecting a kind of backlash. I expected storm but I also expected Show and Tell and possibly Painter. I wanted to be running something with a very solid counter base and I did not want to be running Spell Snare, as I didn't feel it would be strong enough against combo. This turned out to be a pretty solid call; I didn't face any storm day 1, but I did face 2 Sneak and Show's and a NO Show.

BUG Thopters

2 Thopter Foundry
2 Sword of the Meek

4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce

4 Pernicious Deed
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Smother
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Damnation

4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Jace, the Mindsculptor
2 Gifts Ungiven
1 Life from the Loam

4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
1 Maze of Ith

Sideboard

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Counterbalance
3 Innocent Blood
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sensei's Divining Top


My originally planned configuration was slightly different; I borrowed the cards from Jaco and he made a few modifications to the list when he handed it to me. Originally, I was looking at a 3/3 CB/Top split in the board and wasn't running Relic. In those slots, I had 2 Inquisition of Kozilek and 2 Flusterstorm. It's hard to say whether the change was good or bad; I had a loss round 2 against the first Sneak 'n' Show that probably could've been avoided if I'd have had Inquisition and Flusterstorm in. I also had a G3 vs. Burn that I won because I had Top and CB in my opening grip, so who knows. I do think packing that much GY hate was wrong.

As far as the deck goes, it's pretty standard fare. You're playing basically a Landstill role; you've got a lot of gas late game, but not much early. You're going to lean pretty heavily on the counters to fend off combo early and the Deeds to handle faster decks. Eventually, you're either going to raw dog your combo or you're going to find a Gifts and Gifts for Loam/Ruins/Foundry/Sword and put the game away that way. The main was configured more to deal with combo and other control decks, with additional spot removal in board. Right now, I think that's the way to go, as Zoo/Goblins/Fish/etc. is at an all-time low and the format is midrange decks vs. control decks vs. combo decks.

I played pretty piss poor early in the day, which accounted for my two early losses. After that, I straightened up and started playing tighter games but the damage was done and I missed day 2. I'm pretty sure that this deck could be a serious performer in the hands of a better technical player. It's got a lot of raw power. Gifts Ungiven is just amazing.

[Anusien]

Gifts for Loam, Academy Ruins, Thopter Foundry, Sword of the Meek seems unbearably slow. Part of the issue is that you have only 4 other artifacts, so most of the time you need the Sword. So you'll have to waste an entire draw step and maybe more. Makes me wonder if those 3 slots should go somewhere else.

You seem very soft to an aggressive draw from your opponent. 3 Counterspell 2 Pierce 4 Deed 2 Liliana 1 Damnation 1 Vedalken Shackles 2 Jace is an incredible ton of lategame cards. Part of the appeal of the Thopters plan is that you can just stall with spot removal and go over the top of whatever they're doing with Thopters.

[SpikeyMikey]

It's definitely slow. It's not the way I'd build it if I expected a field full of Zoo or other aggressive decks. There'd be a full 4 Bloods in the main and perhaps some other tools. But because you have so many late game cards, if you hit turn 4+, you're probably going to win. Your effects are a little bit bigger than the midrange decks like Maverick or Deadguy, making you the +1 deck in the matchup. You've got a more effective late game counter suite than UW, since their Spell Snares are only useful for your Counterspells (seriously, are they going to counter Loam? Buy a turn by stopping a Foundry?). Depending on what you're facing, you're either digging for A)sweeper B)counters or C)value. Against something like Maverick, I'm using my Brainstorms/Ponders/Tops to get Deed for a 3-4 for 1 advantage. Against combo, I'm digging for the counterspells. Against something that's not putting serious pressure on the board, I'm just looking to generate some card advantage with Loam or a PWer.

[randomly.anonymous]

Unless I missed something, it seems you only need the Volcanic Island to be able to EE for 4. Wouldn't it make more sense to switch to Tundra? It'll help you cast Foundry in those rare cases its relevant.

[SpikeyMikey]

Unless I missed something, it seems you only need the Volcanic Island to be able to EE for 4. Wouldn't it make more sense to switch to Tundra? It'll help you cast Foundry in those rare cases its relevant.

Quite possibly. I went with Volc on the off chance that I snagged a Lavamancer with Shackles and the little bit of JMT you get from your opponent putting you on a possible REB. In either case, I think the percentage is pretty small that it'll have an effect, but Tundra could be better.

[JACO]

Quite possibly. I went with Volc on the off chance that I snagged a Lavamancer with Shackles and the little bit of JMT you get from your opponent putting you on a possible REB. In either case, I think the percentage is pretty small that it'll have an effect, but Tundra could be better.

I think the only reason Volcanic would be better is that it could be fetched to pay for the Red Pact trigger if need be. Otherwise Tundra would probably be better just for the Thopter part, but there's enough Black mana that it generally wouldn't be an issue.

How could was Jace in this deck for you? It seems like it's not really an integral part of the deck, so would you be better off with something like:
-1 Thopter Foundry
-1 Sword of the Meek
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+2 creature removal (Innocent Blood, Repeal, Liliana of the Veil)
+2 Gifts Ungiven

That would give you more copies of Gifts, which you're generally hoping will either pull you ahead on the value train, or just end the game outright.

[SpikeyMikey]

I won one game where I had my Sword Extirpated by Jacing my opponent out. I locked up another one by fatesealing my opponent a few times to buy myself enough time to dig up my combo. Integral? No. But some sort of alternate win con is necessary; there's a fair bit of yard hate out there right now.

Gifts is really, really good, but 1 is generally all I need to end the game. Additional Gifts are basically just FoW fodder. It's also a bit more mana intensive than Jace, since I really want 6-7 mana on board so I can play a combo piece, Ruins the other one and still have counter mana up (Deed gets a lot worse once you stick a combo piece).

[Hanni]

Mikey, I somewhat agree with Anusien about the slowness of Gifts -> Thopter combo. If you pay 4 for Gifts, and they let you keep Loam and Ruins, you're still looking at two turns of casting Ruins for 1U (3 mana twice) and putting a combo piece on top of you're library. Then you need to pay an additional 2 mana each to get the pieces into play, before you can even start making tokens.

I'd really consider running some artifact lands or something. But even then, I question how much better the lifegain is on the Thopters, versus running Intuition instead of Gifts, and grabbing a pile of Worm Harvest, Loam, and whatever 3rd card you need for the given situation. Once you ramp to 5 lands with Loam, you can pretty much start spamming out Worm Harvest tokens... seems alot faster than Gifts -> Thopter's, at any rate. No lifegain, but only takes a few turns to make a swarm of lethal tokens, which are capable of blocking in the meantime.

Also, you really need more efficient spot removal to help you survive to the midgame. Aggro decks are still a large player in the format right now. Canadian Threshold, for example, looks like a brutal matchup for you. A few Innocent Blood and Ghastly Demise would help you out alot.

I'm not sure if you've seen my deck in N&D called The Mind Harvester, but here's my list for reference:

// Lands
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
1 [R] Bayou
2 [UNH] Island
1 [UNH] Swamp
1 [UNH] Forest
2 [ON] Lonely Sandbar
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [TE] Wasteland
1 [OD] Cabal Pit

// Creatures
1 [ISD] Snapcaster Mage

// Spells
1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
2 [ISD] Liliana of the Veil
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Intuition
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [IA] Counterspell
4 [AL] Force of Will
1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
2 [OD] Innocent Blood
2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
1 [RAV] Darkblast
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 2 [ARB] Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 4 [IA] Zuran Orb
SB: 1 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog

The singleton Snapcaster Mage is just there for testing purposes right now. I'm not sure if it should be the third Liliana, or if I should run a few more Snapcasters. The rest of the shell, though, is pretty rock solid.

[n3m0n1c]

Spikey mikey is an amazing deck builder!