[Deck] Team America (Midrange/Control Thread)

[Watanabe]

Hi everybody,
This is the list I'm currently playing. It is very control oriented and I'm pretty happy with my choices :

// FORMAT : Legacy
1 [UNH] Forest
1 [UNH] Island
1 [UNH] Swamp
2 [R] Bayou
2 [WWK] Creeping Tar Pit
2 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
3 [R] Tropical Island
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [R] Underground Sea
1 [MBS] Thrun, the Last Troll
3 [ISD] Snapcaster Mage
4 [] Deathrite Shaman
1 [ISD] Garruk Relentless/Garruk, the Veil-Cursed
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 [5E] Sylvan Library
1 [TE] Diabolic Edict
2 [7E] Counterspell
3 [ZEN] Disfigure
3 [AL] Force of Will
3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
4 [] Abrupt Decay
4 [CMD] Brainstorm
1 [PLC] Damnation
2 [M11] Preordain
SB: 2 [ALA] Infest
SB: 2 [5E] Hydroblast
SB: 2 [OD] Divert
SB: 3 [7E] Engineered Plague
SB: 3 [M13] Duress
SB: 1 [PLC] Damnation
SB: 2 [M11] Jace Beleren

In the French metagame, we have a lot of Shardless BUG decks so Divert is very nice
I play 3 Disfigure with which I'm very confidant to manage all of my opponent's Shamane and is very easy to flashback with SCM.

Jace Beleren is a metagame call for a tournament with a lot of UW Miracles and Infest can be easily replaced by Dread of Night or some gravehates.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Can you explain your preference for Preordain over Ponder? Are the 3 Spell Pierces good enough in a slow deck with no Wasteland? Have you considered Spell Snare for this metagame? Is it sometimes difficult to cast Counterspell early with the basics and Bayous in the deck? Do you ever feel like 7 4-drops is too much? Thanks.

[Adryan]

From a discussion in the Jund thread:

Maverick, Punishing Maverick and Junk are bad matchups for Jund. I don't know why it's so extraordinary that BUG Control/Midrange can have a positive matchup against Jund. Play sweepers, play manlands with life from the loam. Just generate Card Advantage and reach the lategame. Hymn to tourach and BBE CA engine is worse than:

1. Sweepers
2. Manlands with life from the loam (making also CA) and make sure that Liliana trades 1:1 after a sacrifice.
3. Snapcaster Mage, flashback Abrupt decay while blocking Bloodbraid Elf.

BUT Jund with Punishing Fire is completely different. It's a tough matchup and a lot harder to beat than normal Jund.

I would also count UR Delver as a fair deck. PoP and stuff just destroy Jund.

Against Punishing Fire Jund i would play something like that. I have not tested it yet.

Creatures

3Snapcaster Mage
1Vendilion Clique

Removal

3Abrupt decay
2Innocent Blood
2Pernicious Deed
1 Disfigure
2 Damnation
2 Dismember

Counter
2 Counterspell

"Draw"
4Brainstorm
3Standstill
2Life from the Loam

Discard
3Thoughtseize

Walkerz

2Liliana of the Veil
4Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Lands
2Tropical Island
4Underground Sea
3Mishra's Factory
4Verdant Catacombs
4Misty Rainforest
1Polluted Delta
2Bayou
3Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit

Like already mentioned it's a more control version from the build i run now. On paper it looks like it has a good Jund Matchup. I haven't done any testing with this list, because i'm still testing BUG Midrange (Control Splash to improve Creature and Jund matchups) and Tempo, but when i have more time i will test it. Needless to say that the Sideboard will have a clock against Combo (Tarmogoyf or Clique) and Counterspells and more Discard.

[Arsenal]

For Shardless BUG, why Baleful Strix over Dark Confidant? The upside to Dark Confidant seems greater than the upside to Baleful Strix.

[Adryan]

For Shardless BUG, why Baleful Strix over Dark Confidant? The upside to Dark Confidant seems greater than the upside to Baleful Strix.

Dark Confidant is bad in the current Meta. Baleful Strix is awesome.

[Barbed Blightning]

Dark Confidant is bad in the current Meta. Baleful Strix is awesome.

In what way is Bob ever bad?

[sdematt]

This was my question as well. I think in a control deck though, you don't want Bob because you're losing a ton of life. If that's your reasoning, then cool. Otherwise, I'd like to know what you're thinking.

-Matt

[Patrunkenphat7]

I just won a Legacy SCG IQ with this list on Sunday:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Brainstorm
1 Preordain
4 Force of Will
2 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Disfigure
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Wasteland
SB
2 Engineered Plague
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Disfigure
1 Deathmark
1 Divert
4 Thoughtseize
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Krosan Grip

Luckily, I did not play against Jund. I don't really know what to do about Punishing Jund, because the matchup is simply terrible. We can tweak our lists to be good against normal Jund, but I don't think there's much we can do to tilt that matchup even close to being even. Snapcaster + removal is one of the best things you can do, but it's only just as good as their BBE's.

That being said, this deck is very good if you play tight and know how to play against a variety of decks.

[.:saturno:.]

regards for the result.
i think that daze and snapcaster do not get along, you can swap it with 1 more pierce and snare.
i'm playing clique on snapcaster, but it depends against which deck you want to set. clique is great vs combo, control and stoneforge deck, but snapcaster is great vs aggro and jund.
i think clique is necessary in SB.
Engineered Plague is bad, in my test I have never been useful.

[Arsenal]

Dark Confidant is bad in the current Meta. Baleful Strix is awesome.

I'm not quite sure why you think he's "bad" in the meta. He sees play in a wide range of decks (Jund, The Rock, UGx decks, Deadguy Ale, etc) whereas Baleful Strix only sees play in Shardless Bug and maybe some janky Tezzeret deck. If Baleful Strix is so "awesome" and Dark Confidant is so "bad", why haven't people been playing Baleful Strix?

[Adryan]

I'm not quite sure why you think he's "bad" in the meta. He sees play in a wide range of decks (Jund, The Rock, UGx decks, Deadguy Ale, etc) whereas Baleful Strix only sees play in Shardless Bug and maybe some janky Tezzeret deck. If Baleful Strix is so "awesome" and Dark Confidant is so "bad", why haven't people been playing Baleful Strix?

Yeah he's fine for those decks, but not for BUG, because we have better cards in the current meta to play: Snapcaster Mage, Baleful Strix, Shardless and Ancestral Vision. Jund, the biggest enemy of BUG plays many Removalspells, so Dark Confidant will almost never stick for more than one turn.

So in the current meta it is better to play something else and not Dark Confidant. Ancestral Vision or Shardless Agent or Baleful Strix are all better against Jund then Dark Confidant, and guess what's going to happen when you combine them.

This conclusion came from serious testing and before you make a negative comment you should do the same.

[Patrunkenphat7]

regards for the result.
i think that daze and snapcaster do not get along, you can swap it with 1 more pierce and snare.
i'm playing clique on snapcaster, but it depends against which deck you want to set. clique is great vs combo, control and stoneforge deck, but snapcaster is great vs aggro and jund.
i think clique is necessary in SB.
Engineered Plague is bad, in my test I have never been useful.

Engineered Plague is the only reason I beat Goblins and is the best tool against Esper decks running 3 Lingering Souls other than Dread of Night which is too linear right now. I played against both Souls Esper and Goblins at this tournament and would not have won the tournament without it. It also does work against Elves and Empty the Warrens decks, so it certainly has its uses.

Daze is very good at protecting your Bob, and Snappy has enough targets as it is; you don't need every instant or sorcery to be insane with Snapcaster Mage flashback. Daze is also good against other Jace decks, and I won a game in the semi's after protecting my own Jace with a Daze. Spell Snare and Spell Pierce aren't really cards you want to flood on, especially when you have access to a 2nd with Snapcaster if you really need it. I wouldn't play more than 2 of those cards.

I think Snapcaster is also very good against combo and control when you board into discard. I always bring in the 3rd when I bring in my set of Thoughtseizes. I agree that Clique is good, and there would be nothing wrong with finding room for him.

The most prominent disagreements I have with other BUG players are probably over Bob. Bob with Force protection and turn 3 Jace are the 2 best reasons to play BUG. Bob is arguably one of the best cards against Jund - you just have to know how to protect him. If your Bob is always dying, reassess how you are using your countermagic and discard. If you can get a Bob to stick against Jund, you have a pretty good shot at getting there. I can see why Adryan doesn't like Bob if he is just playing Shardless BUG which is essentially a blue Jund deck that has a lot more trouble protecting its permanents than regular BUG midrange.

[Kich867]

Engineered Plague is the only reason I beat Goblins and is the best tool against Esper decks running 3 Lingering Souls other than Dread of Night which is too linear right now. I played against both Souls Esper and Goblins at this tournament and would not have won the tournament without it. It also does work against Elves and Empty the Warrens decks, so it certainly has its uses.

Daze is very good at protecting your Bob, and Snappy has enough targets as it is; you don't need every instant or sorcery to be insane with Snapcaster Mage flashback. Daze is also good against other Jace decks, and I won a game in the semi's after protecting my own Jace with a Daze. Spell Snare and Spell Pierce aren't really cards you want to flood on, especially when you have access to a 2nd with Snapcaster if you really need it. I wouldn't play more than 2 of those cards.

I think Snapcaster is also very good against combo and control when you board into discard. I always bring in the 3rd when I bring in my set of Thoughtseizes. I agree that Clique is good, and there would be nothing wrong with finding room for him.

The most prominent disagreements I have with other BUG players are probably over Bob. Bob with Force protection and turn 3 Jace are the 2 best reasons to play BUG. Bob is arguably one of the best cards against Jund - you just have to know how to protect him. If your Bob is always dying, reassess how you are using your countermagic and discard. If you can get a Bob to stick against Jund, you have a pretty good shot at getting there. I can see why Adryan doesn't like Bob if he is just playing Shardless BUG which is essentially a blue Jund deck that has a lot more trouble protecting its permanents than regular BUG midrange.

Daze is poor with Snapcaster because you tend to use Daze early, which limits your land drops and delays Snapcaster's ability to be a relevant creature. It has nothing to do with being a target while it's in the graveyard, you would almost never do this.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Daze is poor with Snapcaster because you tend to use Daze early, which limits your land drops and delays Snapcaster's ability to be a relevant creature. It has nothing to do with being a target while it's in the graveyard, you would almost never do this.

If that is the case, a much better argument would be that you shouldn't play Jace and Daze in the same deck. I wouldn't play a playset of Daze in a Jace deck, but some number of Daze and 2-3 Jace has stood the test of time in BUG midrange. Only recently have BUG decks not run any Dazes which leads people to make arguments like this if they have never played the card. I understand the logic, but additional free countermagic is very good in this type of deck.

I am only basing this argument off the fact that I won an Invitational Qualifier with my list, and Daze seemed to play well in my deck.

[Arsenal]

Yeah he's fine for those decks, but not for BUG, because we have better cards in the current meta to play: Snapcaster Mage, Baleful Strix, Shardless and Ancestral Vision. Jund, the biggest enemy of BUG plays many Removalspells, so Dark Confidant will almost never stick for more than one turn.

So in the current meta it is better to play something else and not Dark Confidant. Ancestral Vision or Shardless Agent or Baleful Strix are all better against Jund then Dark Confidant, and guess what's going to happen when you combine them.

This conclusion came from serious testing and before you make a negative comment you should do the same.

I never said anything about replacing Snapcaster, Shardless Agent, or Ancestral Vision with Bob. Not sure where you're getting that from, but I never said that. Also, the "it dies to removal" argument is a poor one as many creatures will die to removal, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be played.

Shardless BUG, game 1 anyway, shares more in common with Jund and even Junk than it does with other BUG iterations like Bug Delver/Team America aggro. As such, I'm still unclear as to why Baleful Strix automatically gets the nod over Bob. Shardless BUG's average cmc doesn't seem to be that much higher than Jund or Junk's, and all three decks have similar game plans game 1.

EDIT: I take that back.

[Patrunkenphat7]

I agree with what Arsenal said about Shardless BUG being more similar to Jund than most other BUG decks. This is a difficult thread to manage - just look at the lists above. Compare Watanabe's list with mine and Shardless BUG. The only thing these 3 decks share is that they are BUG-colored and are not aggro decks. Maybe it would be nice if Shardless BUG had its own thread?? I'm sure this has been discussed before.

[Lans89]

I agree with what Arsenal said about Shardless BUG being more similar to Jund than most other BUG decks. This is a difficult thread to manage - just look at the lists above. Compare Watanabe's list with mine and Shardless BUG. The only thing these 3 decks share is that they are BUG-colored and are not aggro decks. Maybe it would be nice if Shardless BUG had its own thread?? I'm sure this has been discussed before.

Shardless BUG has its own thread.. And the people that follow it would like to see more posts!

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...s-quot-Control

[Patrunkenphat7]

Shardless BUG has its own thread.. And the people that follow it would like to see more posts!

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...s-quot-Control

Wow, awesome! Seems like it could be in established by now. Shardless BUG people, go there!

[aznepyon7]

In what way is Bob ever bad?

It's not that Bob is bad, it's just whether or not he's the best card for the spot. I can definitely see him in BUG but it's going to be meta dependent. I wouldn't want him around where there is too much Jund or Burn going around.

[Amazing Larry]

I've been having fun playing BUG Delver for the last few months. I've decided to try and run a control-ish list. This is what I've come up with, and I've not been disappointed so far. I originally tried out Shardless BUG, but was not too impressed. A lot of the previous builds cut Force from their main-deck, but with combo everywhere, it's not such a great plan right now. Nothing feels better than a turn 3 Jace with FoW protection. One of the big problems was finding the right mix of removal. I love Snapcaster Mage in this build, but Decay + Snappy is expensive and mana intensive. I tried different mixes of Disfigure, Dismember, and Decay, but settled on 3 Decay and 2 Disfigure. Dismember just hurts too much in a control deck (especially to snap back), it's really better in a tempo build.

4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Disfigure
3 Spell Pierce
1 Counterspell
3 Jace the Mind Sculptor

Land (22)
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit

SB
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Spell Snare
3 Duress
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Damnation