[Deck] Team America (Midrange/Control Thread)

[death]

Frankly in UX(w) control vs UX(g) control matchups, I'd rather be the one playing "green" than the one playing across it. FWIW if the printing of Terminus should push more players into the Uw-control archetypes, that just mean more decks to prey upon for us. I'm not worried, in fact I'm anticipating this deck to be in good position in the new meta.

[HPB_Eggo]

One of my friends has been playing an odd UB control list. It does not have a whole lot in common with this deck, but it runs an interesting card about which there has been no discussion here: Volrath's Stronghold.

It runs very well in his deck with Snapcaster Mage and Vendilion Clique.

Here, it would remove problems with Innocent Blood and Deed. In fact, it allows great recursion of additional spells with Snapcaster.

Not sure how useful it will be overall, since that plus Loam starts making graveyard hate hurt pretty bad, but testing a slightly more aggressive list with three Snapcaster, a Clique, and one Eternal Witness with 3/4 man lands, Worm Harvest, and Garruk Relentless might be worthwhile.

[kiblast]

Volrath's Stronghold.
Not sure how useful it will be overall, since that plus Loam starts making graveyard hate hurt pretty bad, but testing a slightly more aggressive list with three Snapcaster, a Clique, and one Eternal Witness with 3/4 man lands, Worm Harvest, and Garruk Relentless might be worthwhile.

Volrath also makes Intuition piles stronger (Snapcaster or Witness, Loam, Stronghold first, then once you have Stronghold online you can pretty much tutor any card) I also saw this pile yesterday while playing in a local shop: Gigapede, Iona, Unburial Rites. Cool.

[sdematt]

I was running Stronghold for a while and it was fine. Slow, but we're good at slow.

-Matt

[HPB_Eggo]

I was running Stronghold for a while and it was fine. Slow, but we're good at slow.

-Matt

That's more or less what I was thinking. What do you guys think of a list kind of like this?

BUG Control
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Garruk Relentless

3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Eternal Witness

1 Life from the Loam
1 Worm Harvest
1 Intuition

2 Pernicious Deed
1 Maelstrom Pulse

3 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Snare
1 Forbid

3 Innocent Blood
2 Dismember

4 Inquisition of Kozilek

4 Brainstorm

2 Mishra's Factory
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Nephalia Drownyard
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Wasteland
3 Polluted Mire
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
3 Island
2 Swamp

For my own thoughts, I think the inevitability in the list is kind of extreme, and dumping Worm Harvest for another Counterspell, Life from the Loam, or removal might be in order. Beyond that, though, I kind of like it. Looks like it would play like a combination of Rock and Landstill, two of my favorite decks from long ago. Might have to actually put this together and try it.

Not at all certain on a sideboard, though. Just perusing, I would expect the worst match-ups to be Dredge, Burn, and certain sorts of Combo.

Anyways. Thoughts of any sort would be appreciated. I might end up running this soon and I don't have infinite testing time, so be harsh. I won't mind. The closer it is to good before I begin actual testing, the better.

[The Treefolk Master]

I really love this deck (the disgustingly slow version with a bazillion tricks and Intuition), but, is there a real way to beat Burn?

Countertop out of the board does not work.

Random dudes which gain life don't do enough.

My guesses are, out of the board:

4 Chill (it can get Pyroblasted, oh well)

4 Warmth (Splashing a tundra, drop 1 onto the board to slow them down, 2 to win and win. No one plays Anarchy, plus we should be able to stop that someway or another...)

I'm not sure whether we want said Tundra MD, SB, or if we need 1 or 2... It can also be used to kill Jaces & Elspeths via EE.

Thoughts on Cabal Pit??? My removal suite is something along the lines of:

3 Pernicious Deed
1 EE
3/2 Innocent Blood
1 Ghastly Demise
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Darkblast
1 Maze of Ith (not actual removal per se)

MAYBE 1 Damnation...MAYBE 1 Night of Soul's Betrayal...

I seems kind of clunky, Maze was better during testing.

I'm also not completely sure on Volrath's Stronghold. Maybe we could swap Ruins for Stronghold, and include E. Witness MD and Shriekmaw out of the board. I'm not sure the manabase can support so many colourless lands. We'd be looking at something along the lines of:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins/Volrath's Stronghold
1 Nephalia Drownyard//Creeping Tar Pit (Tar Pit kills Walkers, but it eats a Swords likes there's no tomorrow... Maybe both...)
1 Tundra (?)

That's 24 lands. Other things that could be included are:

Cabal Pit
Lonely Sandbar
2nd Tundra

They might be clunky though...

To make room, we could cut 1 Island or 1 Fetchland, maybe the Bayou, I'm not sure...

1 Maze of Ith (counting it as a spell)

Any thoughts?

[Vacrix]

I really love this deck (the disgustingly slow version with a bazillion tricks and Intuition), but, is there a real way to beat Burn?

You can play SDT as like a 2'of and run Counterbalance post-board. Thats your best bet. Jace helps you maintain the lock sometimes via the BS option.

I played against this version with PSI probably like 20 games testing with a friend and it was seriously ridiculous. It also improves the storm combo matchup significantly.

[Whippoorwill]

You can find the Top 8 Decklists here: http://jupitergamesonline.com/2012/4...8-legacy-decks

I've been playing a version of his deck off and on since that weekend (watching him play the deck made it look fun) and I've been quite happy with the overall results (2-2, 3-1, 3-1). I decided to change it up a bit this week though and add more removal over counters since combo isn't really played aside from a couple people (me being one of them) and creatures show up in large amounts.

Version from May 6th:
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wasteland
1 Nephalia Drownyard

2 Snapcaster Mage

3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Innocent Blood
3 Spell Pierce
2 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Repeal
2 Predict
2 Counterspell
1 Life from the Loam
2 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Devastation Tide

1 Sylvan Library
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Night of Soul's Betrayal

1 Engineered Explosives

3 Jace, the Mindsculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

Sideboard:
2 Dread of Night
2 Perish
3 Force of Will
2 Mind Funeral
1 Worm Harvest
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
3 Extirpate
1 Nihil Spellbomb

The biggest change is the removal of the man-lands. I made this change so getting the color(s) I need will be easier and because the lands were win-more. Whenever I won with them I had Jace (and sometimes Lily) active which wins on his own. I include 1x each basic by default due to the amount of non-basic hate in my meta. Drowned Catacomb was nice as well since we have multiple Maverick players. I'll likely fit a Hinterland Harbor into the build when I make the next changes.

Devastating Tide was a last minute addition to test out. Mind Funeral was another card I was testing due to quite a few decks playing low amounts of lands.

Tournament Report/Notes

Round 1 vs WW
Game 1: We both mulligan but he keeps a risky hand that doesn't pay off while I eventually keep the board clear.

-2 Spell Pierce, -1 ???
+2 Dread of Night, +2 Mind Funeral

Game 2: Mind Funeral hits him hard taking about 20 cards including all of his O.Rings except the one on my Library. Hitting him with a 2nd one puts him down to single digit cards in library. I have active Jace and he can't do anything. Devastation Tide made a showing twice in this game as a psuedo-fog. Hard cast it once then Snapcastered it back the following turn.

1-0; 2-0

Round 2 vs Budget Reanimator
No Seas, but he had Fetches and I think some amount of FoWs.

Game 1: I manage to keep the board clear with removal then get Jace online to prevent him from doing anything else really. Main thing that happaned was he got Jin out and passed the turn forgetting to draw 7. I had Innocent Blood on my turn but him forgetting the trigger prevented him from getting an answer for it. Snapcaster pulls out the beatings for the win.

-3 Deed, -2 Predict, -1 EE, -1 NoSB
+3 FoW, +3 Extirpate, +1 Spellbomb

Game 2: My hand has no graveyard hate, but plenty of land and removal including 2x BSZ. We play Draw-Go while he Entombs stuff. I eventually get Jace out and he gets an Inkwell out with Animate Dead. I can't bounce it but Zenith knocks it down to 1 Power. He gets out an Empyrial Archangel but Zenith #2 makes that a joke and poor little Inkwell becomes a 0/1. Nice Shroud creatures you got there. Jace Fateseals his doom.

2-0; 4-0

Round 3 vs Junk Blade (with Deeds and Vindicates)

Both games involved me having a ton of removal and Jace locking him down.

3-0; 6-0

Round 4 vs Maverick

Game 1: I get mana flooded. I think I cast 2 spells, 1 of which was a Counterspell.

Game 2: More mana flooding but Zenith knocked Thrun down to a lowly 1/1. Choke hit play but wasn't an issue thanks to Catacombs and non-blue duals.

This should have been a favorable match for me but my deck didn't want to give me anything other than lands.

3-1; 6-2

Afterthoughts:

I like Predict, but it wasn't really worth the slot unless I had Jace on the board or if I was using it on myself. I'll likely cut it for more Ponders.

Black Sun's Zenith was great, it was much better than Damnation would have beenin the Reanimator match since his creatures still lived with 0 power.

Repeal was ok. I liked having the maindeck bounce.

Devastation Tide was ok but I only got to play it in Round 1. Not sure if I run it again, but I wouldn't run more than 2 in any deck.

Worm Harvest never got boarded in so I can't say how good it was.

Mind Funeral I liked, but its really more of a cute trick.

I've been giving thought to adding the Thopter/Sword combo into the deck since that would give me more creatures and an option against burn but at that point why not just play the Counter Balance deck?

[Watanabe]

Love to see a thread on BUGwalker. I'm a big fan of this deck so that's cool :p
Just have a general question about the deck. I tried to get prepared for BoM6 (big LEgacy tournament in France), and during my tests I have a huge problem to beat UR Delver decks.
It played to many blasts and too many small and aggro creatures to handle easily with it. For example, after 20 games against UR Delver (5 Preside OTP / 5 pre OTD / 5 Post OTP / 5 post OTD) I won just 4 or all :o

Do you have a good SB plan against it ?

[Piceli89]

As fancy as it sounds, this may actually be the card you're looking for, especially in the 3- Snapcaster builds.

[Watanabe]

Yes I tried this card in SB, but after testing kitchen finks was a bit better.

[csy]

is kitchen finks enough vs burn and UR delver? I've been having a horrible time vs it using a very similar list to the one from the jupiter games top 8 list.

[catmint]

I think you can either accept a bad burn matchup or play a different deck. :) Even if you play with tops main to support some miracles and Counterbalance in the SB the deck will have a bad burn matchup.

Also the reason i don't bring BUG to my local tourney becaus I hate loosing my 1st round matchup against the burn-guy wihout a SB.

[csy]

I dont really think that chill is that bad of an option in the SB. I mean sure it COULD get blasted.. but it could also save our asses. Im taking BUGwalker to the legacy side events at GPanaheim. Ill report back with how it does.

[catmint]

The card itself is a significant speed bumb. However it only helps if you run 3-4 and since it's useless in most matchups its not a good sideboard choice. Still, even if you run 3-4 chill, you are a big dog G1 and you will be probably just even postbard, so still bad overall. Wasting 3-4 slots to make a very bad matchup only a bad matchup is only worth it, if there is a lot of burn out there... but then why play BUG at all...

It's like if Burn would discuss how to get a better soul sister matchup.

[death]

I dont really think that chill is that bad of an option in the SB. I mean sure it COULD get blasted.. but it could also save our asses. Im taking BUGwalker to the legacy side events at GPanaheim. Ill report back with how it does.

If Burn is top concern because the meta is swarming with it, it wouldn't hurt to run a more aggressive sb against it: something like 4x white Leyline + 3 BEB/Hydroblast. As long as your main deck is balanced and you don't waste Brainstorms, it's strong enough to beat most decks without sideboarding even combo (except Burn and Dredge).

Good luck to the event.

[Goddik]

cited from the tempo page, go there and read the last couple of posts.

Originally Posted by Goddik
Here you go. We call this "the scalpel" ;)

3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Ghastly Demise
2 Dismember
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Ponder
3 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
1 Life from the Loam
2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
SB: 2 Massacre
SB: 2 Diabolic Edict
SB: 2 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Duress
SB: 2 Thrun, the Last Troll
SB: 2 Perish
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Pernicious Deed
*** If this needs to be in the BUG Control list, then we'll move it, I think Goddik started with a Tempo list and modified it to its current list, hence its inclusion here. That being said, I am going to reply here, since the post I am replying to is in this thread. ***

Goddik,
Nice deck. I made a few personal changes to it, but nothing major. I was working with your sideboard, and I felt you had too many slots against creature-based decks and not enough slots against combo decks.

For example, against Maverick, I would sideboard:
-2 Counterspell
-1 Force of Will
-2 Spell Pierce
-1 Jace
-1 Thoughtseize
+2 Massacre
+2 Diabolic Edict
+2 Perish
+1 Deed

I like to leave some FOW in against Choke/GSZ. What is your plan against Choke?

However, versus combo decks, like Storm, Sneak and Show, etc., I have to leave dead cards in the deck. I want to sideboard:

-2 Ghastly Demise
-2 Dismember
-2 Pernicious Deed
-2 Engineered Explosives

But, what am I going to add?

+1 Duress
+2 Diabolic Edict vs. Sneak and Show
+1 Krosan Grip (not ideal, maybe good vs. Sneak Attack)
+2 Surgical Extraction

Do you see what I'm saying? With the current main deck / sideboard configuration, we have to leave some number of creature removal spells in our deck (i.e. dead draws).

I think the Massacres should be Flusterstorms and some other small changes need to be made to the deck.

Yes, it dominates creature-based strategies, but it has too many wasted slots against combo decks.

Also, how do you fair against Burn? It seems this deck would really get hurt against Burn (most BUG decks usually die horrible deaths to Burn decks).

To Goddik and everyone else in this thread, how do we make this better? Scavenging Ooze? Blue Elemental Blast? Counterbalance?...


End citation:

Stop trying to fix the burn matchup. It should be almost impossible to meet at the big tables in the later round and it is nearly unfixable. Take the occasional loss to burn as a part of playing the deck.

Also the plan against maverick is to kill everything that moves, then play Jace. Board accordingly. Goyf does nothing against maverick and is the first to go. Counterspell is actually good as it answers all of the random planeswalkers, chokes, libraries etc. Force is unnecessary when you have deeds, explosives, basics etc. Pulse is a card i like in this role as well but could not find room for.

if you want more slots against combo, cut the thrunns and run some more spot discard. Be warned though that canadian is a much bigger threat for this deck

[Valarne]

Let's see if there are still some of you out there that are interested in tweaking BUG. I present my current list. Everything but the Oozes has been tested somewhat, and has been working very fluantly. However, the deck (before Ooze) had trouble with red decks, so some solution is needed.


4 Jace TMS
3 Goyf
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique

2 Ghastly Demise
2 Dismember
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Explosives

4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder

2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition
2 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will

23 land: 2 Island, 1 Swamp, 1 Forest, 3 U Sea, 2 Trop, 1 Bayou, 1 Creeping Tar Pit, 3 Wasteland, 3 Misty, 3 Polluted, 3 Verdant.

SB:
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Massacre
2 Engineered Plague
1 Spell Pierce
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Duress


Questionmarks:

Wondering if it is too greedy to add the fourth Wasteland instead of one of the fetches.

The Oozes are a new idea both main and sb – untested completely. They are in place to help with the following problems: UR Delver, RUG Delver, Burn. And they should deliver splash damage against stuff like Goblins and all graveyard-strategies of course.

Maybe the main/sb configuration is slanted to much towards creature-based strategies, but I think that is wisest. Snapcaster + discard and countermagic goes a really long way against unfair decks. The 2 Plagues are there to have a decent shot against Elves and Goblins. Also ok against Maverick and random stuff I guess. They seem a bit odd, but I feel that it is worth it to use some slots, to drastically up the percentages against linear decks like that.

What do you think?

-Tue

[Water_Wizard]

No love for Liliana?

I think Life from the Loam deserves a place somewhere in the maindeck. It's good with Wasteland recursion and can also clear away a bad Brainstorm/Jace +0.

I like Darkblast. I'd probably go +1 Darkblast/-1 Dismember

The ongoing question with this deck is how to beat Burn and it's just really difficult. You could run Hydroblasts in the board or take the Countertop route, but Countertop would require a reconfig of the maindeck to include SDT and would also take up more sideboard slots.

Why Massacre over Perish?

[Valarne]

No love for Liliana?

I think Life from the Loam deserves a place somewhere in the maindeck. It's good with Wasteland recursion and can also clear away a bad Brainstorm/Jace +0.

I like Darkblast. I'd probably go +1 Darkblast/-1 Dismember

The ongoing question with this deck is how to beat Burn and it's just really difficult. You could run Hydroblasts in the board or take the Countertop route, but Countertop would require a reconfig of the maindeck to include SDT and would also take up more sideboard slots.

Why Massacre over Perish?

Massacre over Perish: Because it's free, and it kills their best creatures: Mother of Runes, Noble Hierarch and Thalia especially. I want my sweeper when I'm under pressure, which is most most prominently done by Thalia. When Mother is gone, it is pretty easy to deal with Knight some other way. Fetching basics by the way.

I like Darkblast too... Maybe I should go back to one main. A reason for why I haven't right now, is Tarmogoyf out of RUG Delver.

Actually, dedicated Burn doesn't stress me too much, especially now with the Oozes. Discard is quite good against them, and they tend to die to themselves. Fetching basics, btw ;). It is the different blue zoo variants that stress me - is Ooze good enough? Hydroblast is ok, but I think that lifegain is needed. Counter Top is UW control for me, BUG is Deed etc.

Both Liliana and Loam have been in my lists before, but I felt that they both underperformed. Liliana needs several Loams to start shining, and Loam is too slow and durdly. That Liliana is pretty clunky and vulnerable as it is, makes me rather play neither. In a different list, I would go 4 Jace, 3 Liliana, 3 Loam, 4 Fow, infi removal etc. But I don't trust that decktype. Tarmogoyf solves problems all day.

Thanks for the reply!