[DTB] Team America (Aggro/Tempo Thread)

[Goddik]

Miracles with stifle in the main and Jace in the board is a completely different matchup. So if that is what worries you guys then stifle is the answer.

[aznepyon7]

....Fact is that if jund curves out pretty well and if it is on the play starting with deathrite you are always behind and playing sinkhole after they made their T2/T3 play is a lot less effective. Good jund players will also have a loam in their 75 and board out/reduce their elfs since they don't need them to win and they know having cards in hand without enough lands is one way to loose. As I said soemtimes (especially on the play) you can also get very much ahead if you have the deathrite/removal/daze/Sinkhole/Wasteland hand. Overall a very swingy matchups where T1 to T3 are pretty much deciding but I think they have more ability to get back from behind than we do.

Have you considered having Snapcaster Mage on sideboard and siding them in Games 2 and 3? It may not be BBE but it's pretty darn good from the few times I've tried it.

[Barbed Blightning]

Have you considered having Snapcaster Mage on sideboard and siding them in Games 2 and 3? It may not be BBE but it's pretty darn good from the few times I've tried it.

My issue would be that he's only able to grab brainstorm most of the time (still good, but not StP or lightning bolt), since abrupt decay and sinkhole are so much more mana intensive

[aznepyon7]

My issue would be that he's only able to grab brainstorm most of the time (still good, but not StP or lightning bolt), since abrupt decay and sinkhole are so much more mana intensive

In G2 and G3 he can also grab Disfigure and Surgical Extraction and that's pretty important. PF Jund is everywhere so removing a PF is big as well as disfiguring a Confidant/BBE/Lavamancer/DRS. Not to mention he can also chump-block or kill a Liliana (possibly) if the opponent is careless.

EDIT: Grammar

[Barbed Blightning]

In G2 and G3 he can also grab Disfigure and Surgical Extraction and that's pretty important. PF Jund is everywhere so removing a PF is big as well as disfiguring a Confidant/BBE/Lavamancer/DRS. Not to mention he can also chump-block or kill a Liliana (possibly) if the opponent is careless.

EDIT: Grammar

Fair enough, but he'd either compete with tombstalker in the main or crowd the sideboard. Also not too crazy about putting him in the side. He's a main deck inclusion or not at all. Also, his home for BUG is over in the midrange/control forum.

[aznepyon7]

Fair enough, but he'd either compete with tombstalker in the main or crowd the sideboard. Also not too crazy about putting him in the side. He's a main deck inclusion or not at all. Also, his home for BUG is over in the midrange/control forum.

You only need 2 spots for him. With the way Jund decks are made these days, the land disruption package doesn't seem sufficient. I realize that it conflicts but you should try it unless you have a better idea. It seems to work for me.

[catmint]

Snapcaster sounds like a reasonable idea to support the jund matchup, but there are certain issues:
1) Dismember is next to disfigure the 2nd best removal option - ouch
2) There will be the situations where an opposing deathrite stops snapcaster or we are 1 gy-card short of casting stalker
3) It’s offensive qualities are almost not existing and it is yet another punishing fire target.

Still - surely worth testing since if you run thoughtseize, snapcaster is worth gold in combo matchups and is of course also superstrong against UW.

Some other collective thoughts on Jund:

I don’t think surgical extraction is a good idea because it is a pretty bad card if not used for Punishing and slots are tight – not sure though. You also cannot rely on Wasteland to deal with Grove, so I think you have to accept that the punishing fire will be there and play a different game.

In general I feel delver is such a weak, almost not relevant card that I already considered siding it out.

Besides finding an alternative plan for land destruction (as I already discussed in earlier posts), I also have the problem that Submerge is too often not castable due to them playing around it with Grove and deathrite.

So what I would like to test next is

1. Attacking their hand more and not worrying about the lands playing with 0 countermagic postboard
I’ve been talking about version with 4 thoughtseize maindeck which could be joined by 3-4 Hymn to tourach from the sideboard
In this way you also don’t have to panic about killing every deathrite on sight, but rather focus on killing library, goyf, confidant and making sure that liliana & bloodbraid don’t hit the board with discard.

2. Siding out delver finding alternative slower wincons which they have a tougher time dealing with: Something like Thrun or Phyrexian Obliterator along the 2-3 Tombstalker.

3. Playing a lot of black cards which are dead at some point I want to try if 2 contagion are playable as a replacement of submerge.

[wcm8]

If you really want to beat Jund, there are two cards I'd look at to supplement the rest of the SB:

Misdirection
-slings back discard and removal.
-can't be paid for unlike Divert
-still useful against other matchups

Obstinate Baloth
-'answer' to discard and Liliana (without this, Thrun is the better option hands down)
-outsizes most creatures on their side, and ignores graveyard hate
-immune to most of their removal (survives bolts, fires, and can't be decay'd)
-life gain is very relevant
-still able to be hardcast in the mid-game
-more narrow, but still can be brought in against some other matchups

However, I look at Jund similarly to how I look at Dredge. You can take measures to beat them, but they are just one deck in the huge pool of variety that is Legacy. Neither is dominant or prevalent enough that I would feel the need to warp a tempo deck to account for it, at least right now. Remember, Jund's 75 is designed to beat our 60. You're fighting a bit of an uphill battle here. If Jund is the clear and obvious DTB in your metagame, I'm not sure Team America is the deck to be playing. Fast combo and midrange control is going to have an easier time dealing with Jund.

[aznepyon7]

If you really want to beat Jund, there are two cards I'd look at to supplement the rest of the SB:

Misdirection
-slings back discard and removal.
-can't be paid for unlike Divert
-still useful against other matchups

Obstinate Baloth
-'answer' to discard and Liliana (without this, Thrun is the better option hands down)
-outsizes most creatures on their side, and ignores graveyard hate
-immune to most of their removal (survives bolts, fires, and can't be decay'd)
-life gain is very relevant
-still able to be hardcast in the mid-game
-more narrow, but still can be brought in against some other matchups

However, I look at Jund similarly to how I look at Dredge. You can take measures to beat them, but they are just one deck in the huge pool of variety that is Legacy. Neither is dominant or prevalent enough that I would feel the need to warp a tempo deck to account for it, at least right now. Remember, Jund's 75 is designed to beat our 60. You're fighting a bit of an uphill battle here. If Jund is the clear and obvious DTB in your metagame, I'm not sure Team America is the deck to be playing. Fast combo and midrange control is going to have an easier time dealing with Jund.

When you side-out all those FoW and probably Dazes, your blue count is going straight to hell. I'm not sure if Misdirection is going to be the best option here. I will say that it's better than Divert; I was not happy when I was running that card.

I've never tried Baloth but it seems like it can be really good. Removing it is pretty difficult for Jund. Maybe I'll try that.

[catmint]

Baloth sounds like a lot of fun against Jund . They still can kill it with double punishing in the long game, but the discard is a funny feature.

Still, Baloth is embarrassing in UW matchups whereas Thrun is really good, so if I really want to consider playing a 4 mana creature in legacy I would go for Thrun.

[Cellar Door]

Sinkhole is still the plan for me vs Miracles and Jund players.

At the GP, I was crushing miracles players in win-a-box events using Sinkholes.

Miracle players are trying to amass 6+ lands on their side of the board. I had multiple games where sinkhole allowed me to keep them below 4, making my dazes more potent and able to stave off Jace. I basically forced my opponent to use his tops, brainstorms, ponders, and jace activations to try and find more lands, and was even able to completely lock them off of U or W.

As for Jund, yes, they do run LftL, but you also run DRS. I've had quite a few games where I was able to keep my opponents at 2 of fewer lands, using my own DRS to eat their lands as I destroyed them, making loam a non-issue.

Sometimes, Jund is just going to curve out and have all the answers, that's just the nature of the deck. There's very little that you can do to stop them if they have the nuts. That said, they are very mana hungry and run a very greedy mana base. As a past Jund player myself, having your mana base aggressively attacked is one of the easiest ways to get locked out of a game.

[aznepyon7]

Snapcaster sounds like a reasonable idea to support the jund matchup, but there are certain issues:
1) Dismember is next to disfigure the 2nd best removal option - ouch
2) There will be the situations where an opposing deathrite stops snapcaster or we are 1 gy-card short of casting stalker
3) It’s offensive qualities are almost not existing and it is yet another punishing fire target.

Still - surely worth testing since if you run thoughtseize, snapcaster is worth gold in combo matchups and is of course also superstrong against UW.

Some other collective thoughts on Jund:

I don’t think surgical extraction is a good idea because it is a pretty bad card if not used for Punishing and slots are tight – not sure though. You also cannot rely on Wasteland to deal with Grove, so I think you have to accept that the punishing fire will be there and play a different game.

In general I feel delver is such a weak, almost not relevant card that I already considered siding it out.

Besides finding an alternative plan for land destruction (as I already discussed in earlier posts), I also have the problem that Submerge is too often not castable due to them playing around it with Grove and deathrite.

So what I would like to test next is

1. Attacking their hand more and not worrying about the lands playing with 0 countermagic postboard
I’ve been talking about version with 4 thoughtseize maindeck which could be joined by 3-4 Hymn to tourach from the sideboard
In this way you also don’t have to panic about killing every deathrite on sight, but rather focus on killing library, goyf, confidant and making sure that liliana & bloodbraid don’t hit the board with discard.

2. Siding out delver finding alternative slower wincons which they have a tougher time dealing with: Something like Thrun or Phyrexian Obliterator along the 2-3 Tombstalker.

3. Playing a lot of black cards which are dead at some point I want to try if 2 contagion are playable as a replacement of submerge.

As a response as I forgot to respond earlier:

1. Well I'm hoping you'll be running at least 2-3 copies of disfigure so it won't be much of an issue. Besides I'm sure every once in a while an Abrupt Decay will come in handy?

2. If you're short for TS then there's not much you can do unfortunately. You can't have all the answers because the matchup isn't going to be a great one against Jund. That being said, it's only two and hopefully you won't be that unlucky. Also for DRS, it can easily work the other way if you do it in response to them.

3. Snapcaster can still kill a BBE or smack Liliana. We don't run cliques so we have to do something against Lilly or we're screwed.


As for Surgical Extraction. It's become much nice because the better Jund variant is the PF version which I suspect is more heavily played. With the Snapcaster, you can cast it a second time anyway, furthering its use.

As for submerge: I understand that scenario completely but you should be cutting the mana base off (Grove is usually the 1st target anyway) somewhat by now so they have to rely on DRS which you have the 2-3 Disfigures for. I think the problem with Submerge also stems from the fact that it can't be used in a long term game scenario as the card can then be recasted. However at that point, Jund is going to win.

I haven't tried Obliterator. Sounds like fun. Thrun seems a little too slow for me.

[codegoblin]

Sinkhole is still the plan for me vs Miracles and Jund players.

At the GP, I was crushing miracles players in win-a-box events using Sinkholes.

Miracle players are trying to amass 6+ lands on their side of the board. I had multiple games where sinkhole allowed me to keep them below 4, making my dazes more potent and able to stave off Jace. I basically forced my opponent to use his tops, brainstorms, ponders, and jace activations to try and find more lands, and was even able to completely lock them off of U or W.

As for Jund, yes, they do run LftL, but you also run DRS. I've had quite a few games where I was able to keep my opponents at 2 of fewer lands, using my own DRS to eat their lands as I destroyed them, making loam a non-issue.

Sometimes, Jund is just going to curve out and have all the answers, that's just the nature of the deck. There's very little that you can do to stop them if they have the nuts. That said, they are very mana hungry and run a very greedy mana base. As a past Jund player myself, having your mana base aggressively attacked is one of the easiest ways to get locked out of a game.

I have been doing *very* well playing a modified version of your GP list (sb mainly ... I like chill more than BEB honestly, and I put a spell pierce in the sb as well cause there's a crazy amount of combo in socal) at legacy events since you placed with it and I agree in the case of UW, where I've found that if I board in denial/grips/sinks, slow tempo (control their control ... snipe their business with counters), and make sure I hold reserve creatures in my hand to avoid getting totally blown out by terminus, the matchup actually looks pretty good. Jund is much more of a problem IMHO. Slowing down is totally wrong, and I just can't go fast enough. While I think land denial is the best suggestion I've heard so far, I'm also looking for something even more competitive. A single bob stuck for 1-2 turns can really make a hand with sinkhole and hymn look like crap. A stuck Phyrexian Obliterator however, ahhh that would own them if it were realistic ...

[aznepyon7]

I have been doing *very* well playing a modified version of your GP list (sb mainly ... I like chill more than BEB honestly, and I put a spell pierce in the sb as well cause there's a crazy amount of combo in socal) at legacy events since you placed with it and I agree in the case of UW, where I've found that if I board in denial/grips/sinks, slow tempo (control their control ... snipe their business with counters), and make sure I hold reserve creatures in my hand to avoid getting totally blown out by terminus, the matchup actually looks pretty good. Jund is much more of a problem IMHO. Slowing down is totally wrong, and I just can't go fast enough. While I think land denial is the best suggestion I've heard so far, I'm also looking for something even more competitive. A single bob stuck for 1-2 turns can really make a hand with sinkhole and hymn look like crap. A stuck Phyrexian Obliterator however, ahhh that would own them if it were realistic ...

I'm not sure if Obliterator is totally unreasonable. I'm starting to think it's becoming more reasonable than protecting a Delver that kicks the bucket to every removal spell they run which is like 9-11. Besides it's immune to Abrupt and I don't see Bolts or PF going to want to hit it often.

It's not that much slower than TS, especially with GY removal.

[nitewolf9]

If you're going to run something as ridiculously narrow as Obliterator, which I don't even feel would be any good considering it gets hit by liliana and costs 4B against a deck with 4 wastelands, why not just run bitterblossoms and bolster the control matchups in the process. Bitterblossom shuts down their best threat against you (liliana) and is just more resilient overall to discard as it comes down early.

Bitterblossom would compete with Sinkhole though, and I don't think it's nearly as good against control decks. It's fine there, but Sinkhole is much more of a dagger for esperblade.

Has anyone actually taken the time to test the Jund matchup? I haven't really had a chance to but it doesn't really seem as bad as people think. I have a feeling alot of this is theory combined with fear of the latest thing. That deck doesn't run Brainstorm and Ponder, which are going to win you more games than you think. If they get even a little bit flooded they can't cash anything back in, and they have much less ability to dig for lands. Which means they have to run more. Which means they will get flooded more. Which means when they get mana screwed, they REALLY get mana screwed because they run a bunch of 3 and 4 drops, because "hey, why not, we run 24+ lands".

The only cards I want to cut are Force of Wills, which get replaced by 4 removal spells in my board, and possibly Hymn if I go the LD route of Sinkhole + LftL. In which case you kind of have to cut a Daze I think. Not sure where else you want to change post board.

[sdematt]

If you're going to run something as ridiculously narrow as Obliterator, which I don't even feel would be any good considering it gets hit by liliana and costs 4B against a deck with 4 wastelands, why not just run bitterblossoms and bolster the control matchups in the process. Bitterblossom shuts down their best threat against you (liliana) and is just more resilient overall to discard as it comes down early.

Bitterblossom would compete with Sinkhole though, and I don't think it's nearly as good against control decks. It's fine there, but Sinkhole is much more of a dagger for esperblade.

Has anyone actually taken the time to test the Jund matchup? I haven't really had a chance to but it doesn't really seem as bad as people think. I have a feeling alot of this is theory combined with fear of the latest thing. That deck doesn't run Brainstorm and Ponder, which are going to win you more games than you think. If they get even a little bit flooded they can't cash anything back in, and they have much less ability to dig for lands. Which means they have to run more. Which means they will get flooded more. Which means when they get mana screwed, they REALLY get mana screwed because they run a bunch of 3 and 4 drops, because "hey, why not, we run 24+ lands".

The only cards I want to cut are Force of Wills, which get replaced by 4 removal spells in my board, and possibly Hymn if I go the LD route of Sinkhole + LftL. In which case you kind of have to cut a Daze I think. Not sure where else you want to change post board.

I've tested the Jund matchup using Chills as my hate card (2-3 Chill in the board, also there for the 2-3 Burn players in my meta) and it's been stellar when it stays. They don't always have Abrupt Decay, and paying 3 for Bolt, 4 for PF, and 6 for BBE is not where they want to be. It at least buys you a bit of time.

-Matt

[Adryan]

If you're going to run something as ridiculously narrow as Obliterator, which I don't even feel would be any good considering it gets hit by liliana and costs 4B against a deck with 4 wastelands, why not just run bitterblossoms and bolster the control matchups in the process. Bitterblossom shuts down their best threat against you (liliana) and is just more resilient overall to discard as it comes down early.

Bitterblossom would compete with Sinkhole though, and I don't think it's nearly as good against control decks. It's fine there, but Sinkhole is much more of a dagger for esperblade.

Has anyone actually taken the time to test the Jund matchup? I haven't really had a chance to but it doesn't really seem as bad as people think. I have a feeling alot of this is theory combined with fear of the latest thing. That deck doesn't run Brainstorm and Ponder, which are going to win you more games than you think. If they get even a little bit flooded they can't cash anything back in, and they have much less ability to dig for lands. Which means they have to run more. Which means they will get flooded more. Which means when they get mana screwed, they REALLY get mana screwed because they run a bunch of 3 and 4 drops, because "hey, why not, we run 24+ lands".

The only cards I want to cut are Force of Wills, which get replaced by 4 removal spells in my board, and possibly Hymn if I go the LD route of Sinkhole + LftL. In which case you kind of have to cut a Daze I think. Not sure where else you want to change post board.

I have tested it a lot with BUG Midrange and BUG Control (MTGO &Cockatrice& Real life) . I would say that Punishing Fire Jund is easier for Team America than normal Jund because the manabase is the worst manabase in Legacy (except 4 color). On paper Punishing Fire looks quite good against us, but i don't think that with 4 Wasteland and 4 Sinkhole, Punishing Fire will ever be more than a bad shock. I would also like to test 2-3 stifle with 4 Sinkhole and Life from the loam because it hurts their major weakness even more and you can stifle Liliana. Force of Will is really horrible against Jund, trading 2 for 1 is the beginning of the end. Therefore Force of Will --> Sideboard

As you said Bitterblossom is not good in Team America, we don't have any planeswalker worth protecting. In BUG control it is quite decent against other Control decks. By the way are you going to GP Strassbourg?

I've tested the Jund matchup using Chills as my hate card (2-3 Chill in the board, also there for the 2-3 Burn players in my meta) and it's been stellar when it stays. They don't always have Abrupt Decay, and paying 3 for Bolt, 4 for PF, and 6 for BBE is not where they want to be. It at least buys you a bit of time.

-Matt

What else is in your Sideboard? Do you play 4 Sinkholes? In theory Chill doesn`t look good because they only need Abrupt Decay for Tarmogoyf in this matchup and I'd rather play Submerge. But it's worth testing.



I still don't know what to play at GP Strassbourg. Team America, Shardless Agent BUG or BUG Midrange with many Control Elements or Hard Control.

[codegoblin]

If you're going to run something as ridiculously narrow as Obliterator, which I don't even feel would be any good considering it gets hit by liliana and costs 4B against a deck with 4 wastelands, why not just run bitterblossoms and bolster the control matchups in the process. Bitterblossom shuts down their best threat against you (liliana) and is just more resilient overall to discard as it comes down early.

Bitterblossom would compete with Sinkhole though, and I don't think it's nearly as good against control decks. It's fine there, but Sinkhole is much more of a dagger for esperblade.

Has anyone actually taken the time to test the Jund matchup? I haven't really had a chance to but it doesn't really seem as bad as people think. I have a feeling alot of this is theory combined with fear of the latest thing. That deck doesn't run Brainstorm and Ponder, which are going to win you more games than you think. If they get even a little bit flooded they can't cash anything back in, and they have much less ability to dig for lands. Which means they have to run more. Which means they will get flooded more. Which means when they get mana screwed, they REALLY get mana screwed because they run a bunch of 3 and 4 drops, because "hey, why not, we run 24+ lands".

The only cards I want to cut are Force of Wills, which get replaced by 4 removal spells in my board, and possibly Hymn if I go the LD route of Sinkhole + LftL. In which case you kind of have to cut a Daze I think. Not sure where else you want to change post board.

I'm not saying PO is a good sb choice for mana/tempo reasons, but i do think it's something close to what is needed to really hurt jund. Bitterblossom ... ehh ... I want to be as fast as possible against jund because of TA's relative lack of card advantage ... that feels too much like a BUG control card. I've played vs jund (including punishing) lots in actual tournaments and on cockatrice (R.I.P.). Generally speaking, Brainstorm/Ponder < bob + BBE in the aggro race, but I did CRUSH a jund deck during SCG San Diego w/ 2 sinks, 2 stifles sb ... so like I should have mentioned, the matchup is far from hopeless, but more often than not (60% in their favor I'd say) I've noticed decent tempo-ing for 1-3 turns before they just TAKE OFF and then I have no hope. Also, somebody said something along the lines of "punishing fire is just a shock" ... shock kills more than half our creatures seeing as we run < 4 TS, so not something to scoff at ... it can hurt, esp cause I've noticed them kill my DRS on sight so I can't remove the fire from the yard. Not sure if this is even worth mentioning, but I've also noticed that when sniping jund lands, the color priority that seems to be best is red > black > green

[codegoblin]

I've tested the Jund matchup using Chills as my hate card (2-3 Chill in the board, also there for the 2-3 Burn players in my meta) and it's been stellar when it stays. They don't always have Abrupt Decay, and paying 3 for Bolt, 4 for PF, and 6 for BBE is not where they want to be. It at least buys you a bit of time.

-Matt

This appeals to me. I also have a lot of burn/burning wish/Empty The Warrens players in my meta. May test 1-2 this weekend @ SCG vegas.

[catmint]

Funny, I was also thinking about chill against Jund since the card has other narrow applications (sneak attack, empty the warrens, burning wish, burn, UR burn, Goblins), but wanted to test it first before suggesting. Good to hear it works to some extent.

Coming back to land destruction: if this strategy is really the nuts (which is not the case), maybe they just add 2-3 life from the loam to their 75. It has a good synergy with liliana, punishing-grove and our hymns anyway and suddenly they get to 2 mana and boom your gameplan goes to hell. Also as I stated before land destruction is horrible if you are behind in tempo and/or are able to develop a board while you crush their lands. They have a good curve on 1,2,3 and it's not like esperblade/mircales, where they are just reacting/controlling the game to get to 4+ mana to do win the game (of course exaggerated).

Claiming punishing fire does not work because of land destruction shows also not enough testing to me. First you want to waste and sinkhole asap so it has an impact and can’t wait for Grove. They play their bad 2 mana shocks killing your delver/deathrite. Then their fires sit in their graveyard until they draw (another) grove (please don't tell me you want to use deathrite to remove fire because this will be really really rare). Once grove hits they get their fires back gaining an advantage even if you are killing their land immediately.

The statement “going slow is wrong I want to go as fast as possible” sounds pretty dull to me. With what do you want to kill them fast? Delver? (lol), Tarmogoyf? (they play them as well + have burn to break stalls). Tombstalker is the only reliable win-con so far but unfortunately is not really fast and they also run 4 liliana’s. True liliana is a problem for every other “non-removable” creature you might try to replace Delver with, so thinking tokens is a good direction. Bitterblossom is unfortunately so much worse than lingering souls which is the legacy standard for token playability.

I also heard “they will draw bad because no cantrips and 22-24 lands”. This is where I see the most potential, which is why I would like test the following: Attack their hand with Thoughtseize and Hymn and keep the board clean first and then play creatures they have a harder time dealing with. You can argue with “they will do the same and have card advantage” which is true, but I would like to try if card quality (cantrips) + “strong threat’s” and hate like “chill” can keep up better than the tempo plan.