[DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)

[JMLL]

I'd love to hear Dan's thoughts on the matter, but Sinkhole's inclusion seems so obvious.

I'm sorry but, this isn't that obvious for me.

Without Stifles like the "old times" Team America I don't see when the mana denial plan would be a good option for G2 instead of some other sort of disruption or more specific answers.

Maybe I'd use this when facing decks that don't require you to use FoW (2x1 yourself) when you convert Team America into a Destruction Deck with some blue cards, am I right?

[wcm8]

I'm sorry but, this isn't that obvious for me.

Without Stifles like the "old times" Team America I don't see when the mana denial plan would be a good option for G2 instead of some other sort of disruption or more specific answers.

Maybe I'd use this when facing decks that don't require you to use FoW (2x1 yourself) when you convert Team America into a Destruction Deck with some blue cards, am I right?

Obvious in that it was a card in the original list wayyyyy back on page 1. It's literally been sitting there in plain view, not as some sort of obscure card that's never been utilized before. Sinkhole, unlike Stifle, is not situational in terms of being land destruction. My assumption is that it's at its most useful against midrange decks like Esper. With Sinkhole, you can prevent them from casting spells like Jace or Supreme Verdict, and along with Wasteland, perhaps even prevent them from playing Lingering Souls, Perish, or flashback spells with Snapcaster. If they opt to fetch basic lands, they are just opening themselves further to mana screw. Hymn also facilitates this approach: either you're hitting the cards that they hoped to cast, or you're discarding lands. They are then forced to play into Daze, or if they want to play around it, lose tempo while you beat their face with Tarmogoyfs.

The thing is, Esper has a much better lategame than TA. Taking the 'if you can't beat them, join them' approach of playing Jaces of your own just doesn't really work that well in a tempo build. Hence, Sinkhole can force the opponent into staying in the early game where your cards are stronger. Besides midrange, it's also pretty good against combo decks: you can still interact with those decks on the stack via Daze and FoW, but you're also screwing with their hand AND mana AND putting them on a fast clock: a four-prong attack that many decks are just simply not equipped to deal with.

[KobeBryan]

Obvious in that it was a card in the original list wayyyyy back on page 1. It's literally been sitting there in plain view, not as some sort of obscure card that's never been utilized before. Sinkhole, unlike Stifle, is not situational in terms of being land destruction. My assumption is that it's at its most useful against midrange decks like Esper. With Sinkhole, you can prevent them from casting spells like Jace or Supreme Verdict, and along with Wasteland, perhaps even prevent them from playing Lingering Souls, Perish, or flashback spells with Snapcaster. If they opt to fetch basic lands, they are just opening themselves further to mana screw. Hymn also facilitates this approach: either you're hitting the cards that they hoped to cast, or you're discarding lands. They are then forced to play into Daze, or if they want to play around it, lose tempo while you beat their face with Tarmogoyfs.

The thing is, Esper has a much better lategame than TA. Taking the 'if you can't beat them, join them' approach of playing Jaces of your own just doesn't really work that well in a tempo build. Hence, Sinkhole can force the opponent into staying in the early game where your cards are stronger. Besides midrange, it's also pretty good against combo decks: you can still interact with those decks on the stack via Daze and FoW, but you're also screwing with their hand AND mana AND putting them on a fast clock: a four-prong attack that many decks are just simply not equipped to deal with.

I really like sinkhole too, but there is absolutely no room to use it as a 4 of. And its a horrible draw, much like hymns and thoughtseizes.

[nitewolf9]

GP Report is up:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...764#post697764

[Koby]

GP Report is up:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...764#post697764

Nice read, Dan. And congrats again!

What are your typical board-out cards when you're bringing in the Sinkholes against Stoneblade?

[nitewolf9]

Nice read, Dan. And congrats again!

What are your typical board-out cards when you're bringing in the Sinkholes against Stoneblade?

Thanks! This was my typical board plan against Esper:

+1 Tarpit, +4 Sinkhole, +2 K Grip, +1 Loam, +1 Umezawa's Jitte
-2 Abrupt Decay, -1 Dismember, -4 Force of Will, -2 Delver of Secrets

Delver is your weakest threat in the matchup as they can blank him with one part of lingering souls. He still lets you nut draw them, but with more disruption you become more consistently able to focus on that early as opposed to aggression. Force of Will is just worse than Daze when you have so much LD, and you still want to leave in a couple of abrupt decays to deal with SoFF or kill an early mystic/germ token. I've had games where my opponent got batterskull into play and I just ignored it, taking a couple of hits just to kill his last lands, then decaying the germ or sticking a goyf. This plan is really hard for them to beat as they rely on stabalizing on 4 or 5 lands. Daze just wrecks them because they always have to play into it, especially with Jace.

[Adryan]

The people at my LGS keep telling me that BUG Midrange is better than Team America.

What do you guys and especially Dan think about this?

I would say that Team America (and BUG Control of course) is better than Midrange because of the following facts:

1. More pressure because we play a Tempo game.
2. Better against Combo because we have a faster clock
3. Higher Blue Count so we have Force of Will against random decks (Combo, MUD, Painter, Lands)
4. Tombstalker is awesome against Maverick and RUG
5. We can play Sinkhole in our Sideboards which push our gameplan against UW Control/Esper. And Sinkhole is very good against Lands and against 12 Post (soon 16 Post xD )
6. Better Matchup against Jund with a dedicated Sideboard with for exemple 4 Submerges etc.

I think that there is no reason to play BUG Midrange, because you can play Jund which is a much better midrange Deck.

[KobeBryan]

When playing sinkhole, do you also use stifle?

[Amazing Larry]

When playing sinkhole, do you also use stifle?

I was actually wondering if 4x Stifle in the board might be better than 4x Sinkhole.

[Spike]

The people at my LGS keep telling me that BUG Midrange is better than Team America.

What do you guys and especially Dan think about this?

I would say that Team America (and BUG Control of course) is better than Midrange because of the following facts:

1. More pressure because we play a Tempo game.
2. Better against Combo because we have a faster clock
3. Higher Blue Count so we have Force of Will against random decks (Combo, MUD, Painter, Lands)
4. Tombstalker is awesome against Maverick and RUG
5. We can play Sinkhole in our Sideboards which push our gameplan against UW Control/Esper. And Sinkhole is very good against Lands and against 12 Post (soon 16 Post xD )
6. Better Matchup against Jund with a dedicated Sideboard with for exemple 4 Submerges etc.

I think that there is no reason to play BUG Midrange, because you can play Jund which is a much better midrange Deck.

I don´t think you can say that deck A is better than deck B or C. It all comes down to personal preferences and playstyle in my opinion. I myself enjoy playing tempo decks with a playset of Ponders and Dazes, and a fast clock to end games quickly so that I have more time to elaborate the perfect game plan in complicated situations and still having some spare time between rounds.

I´ve also played BUG Midrange a couple of times but games tend to go long with these decks unless you have the nuts draw. If thats your thing Bug Midrange also is and has always been a good deck.

I wouldn´t count being able to play sinkhole an advantage of the tempo version. Its definitely a possible choice but I myself am not the biggest fan of that card. But as always if it works for you thats fine. There´s no such thing as the perfect list, thats why we´re here :)

[jarvisyu]

I don´t think you can say that deck A is better than deck B or C. It all comes down to personal preferences and playstyle in my opinion. I myself enjoy playing tempo decks with a playset of Ponders and Dazes, and a fast clock to end games quickly so that I have more time to elaborate the perfect game plan in complicated situations and still having some spare time between rounds.

I´ve also played BUG Midrange a couple of times but games tend to go long with these decks unless you have the nuts draw. If thats your thing Bug Midrange also is and has always been a good deck.

I wouldn´t count being able to play sinkhole an advantage of the tempo version. Its definitely a possible choice but I myself am not the biggest fan of that card. But as always if it works for you thats fine. There´s no such thing as the perfect list, thats why we´re here :)

I agree with Spike here.

[nitewolf9]

I definitely think the "tempo" build is the better of the 2 as I have had more success with it, but that might be a bit biased. There are so many different directions you can go with BUG that are all viable, I'm not really sure how to answer that. I will say this though, you really need to compare yourself to esper stoneblade if you are building a more controlling bug list. That deck seems to be able to switch gears more effectively from control to aggro, but then again BUG will have certain matchup advantages as well. In short, who knows.

I tried stifle and sinkhole last night, wasn't impressed with stifle. It can rob tempo from you if you leave it up and they don't play into it. It's better in RUG where they have more countermagic to leave up.

[wcm8]

What is the plan to be with Jund as a DTB? Would Divert be worthwhile to fling discard and removal back at them? Should we try to Sinkhole/Submerge them back to turn 1? I think they will be a very difficult deck for TA to deal with: tons of removal and raw card advantage, backed by decent threats.

[nitewolf9]

I need to test the Jund matchup now that it is a deck, have no idea how to approach it really. Doesn't seem like it's too bad though. You want removal and the ability to force guys through liliana, and you also have cantrips where they don't. Seems like it's going to be close regardless unless there is some way to hose the deck.

Bitterblossom could be worth a look as a card against them and control decks, as it makes liliana kind of suck and that's their out to Tombstalker.

[Maximus]

I don´t think you can say that deck A is better than deck B or C. It all comes down to personal preferences and playstyle in my opinion.

In a competitive setting, one choice is almost certainly better than another. You may not understand why, or the why may change in 5 minutes, or every 5 minutes. In any given competitive scenario, it's highly unlikely that any two options are exactly equal.

The same can be said about "play style", which is a dangerous justification to choose some line of play that is anything other than the optimal one. If you don't understand why one is better, that's fine and we can post here and try to figure it out and learn from each other. But to embrace any preferences that are not the optimal decision is certainly going to cost you win percentages left and right.

Dan, I considered adding Bitterblossom to my sideboard, as most white decks can't ever beat one if it sticks. However, I'm not sure it adds enough to the clock to be viable. Even though Bitterblossom will kill them (it is going to kill them) it still takes something like seven turns, which is a significant number of turns that you have to sit behind it and keep the opponent off of any meaningful spells. It can be like Delver where you sit on that and have your opponent play into your disruption to make favorable trades, but I usually don't find that a single Delver gets there anyway without some help. Either way, I think if you're going to go the Bitterblossom route, you'll still want an increased number of Spell Pierce backing it. It is a very nice bonus that it can deal with troublesome planeswalkers that are otherwise difficult to beat. Forcing a white deck to bring in Disenchants for game 3 is also sweet. Let me know what you think?

[wcm8]

I'll posit Obstinate Baloth as an option against Jund. It can negate their various forms of discard, dodges the majority of their removal, outsizes most of their creatures, and the life gain is relevant against such an aggressive deck.

[AngryTroll]

Baloth seems extremely narrow. It seems to me that Vendilion Clique, Divert, and Submerge are better sideboard options in general and better in the Jund matchup in particular.

With that said, how do you beat Jund? The Forces come out, and the Dazes might come out on the draw; that's 4 slots if you lose game one and 8 slots if you win game one. What do you board in in each of these cases?

[aznepyon7]

Baloth seems extremely narrow. It seems to me that Vendilion Clique, Divert, and Submerge are better sideboard options in general and better in the Jund matchup in particular.

With that said, how do you beat Jund? The Forces come out, and the Dazes might come out on the draw; that's 4 slots if you lose game one and 8 slots if you win game one. What do you board in in each of these cases?

Divert seems to be a good choice against Jund. It's great against Abrupt Decay, Hymn to Tourach (Diverting Hymn is so epic), Bolt, Thoughtseize and their mana base is pretty low. In addition you can also be sure that they will be bringing in more removal anyway. Misdirection is another option but I haven't tried that out extensively. I just like to pretend to place a FoW out on the table on an Abrupt Decay, have the opponent say you can't do that, then pull out the misdirection from my hand and fry their Goyf.

Disfigure is also a pretty good choice over Dismember. It can deal with most things Jund has except Goyf.

I'm not sure if Clique is what we want against Jund.

What are the thought of 3 DSG and 3 Tombstalker over 4 DSG and 2 Tombstalker?

[wcm8]

What are the thought of 3 DSG and 3 Tombstalker over 4 DSG and 2 Tombstalker?

I think 4/2 is correct. You don't want to get stuck with multiple tombstalkers in hand, whereas Deathrite is the best one drop and a must-answer for a lot of decks.

If you want to play the 3rd Tombstalker, I would probably consider dropping a delver or a Goyf before cutting a shaman.

Current SB I'm testing:
4 sinkhole
1 loam
1 dblast
2 disfigure
2 submerge
2 k grip
1 jitte
2 bitterblossom

Blossom serves a similar function as creeping tarpit against Control decks, and it was actually quite strong against my jund opponents when I managed to land it early. I could see cutting one for something else though.

[AngryTroll]

I'm not sure if Clique is what we want against Jund.

Clique's a great way to kill Liliana after it's resolved. It's also possible to nab Punishing Fires if your opponent isn't careful. Of course, once you get behind, Clique isn't enough to put you back into the game by itself.