[Deck] BUG "Shardless" Control

[1rakete]

Or you could run leyline if the void and 4 wasteland, keeping them for groves.

For me, this is one of the main reasons to run 4 Wastelands. They really improve the Jund matchup.

I made a 4-1-1 finish at a local tournament last weekend with this list:

4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
3 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
4 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Creeping Tar Pit

//Sideboard
SB: 3 Engineered Plague
SB: 3 Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 2 Disfigure
SB: 4 Hymn to Tourach
SB: 3 Nihil Spellbomb

I expected a creature-heavy meta and did right. My matchups:

2-0 vs reanimator
1-0 vs maverick
2-1 vs brw stoneforge (with shamans, lavamancers, dark confidant, hymn, etc.)
2-0 vs goblins
1-2 vs zombardment
id vs goblins

For a bigger tourney or a metagame i dont know i would add some pulses in the sideboard and probably cut plagues. I would also like to play Liliana in my 75 but I dont know what to cut.

[Grand Superior]

How does a Shardless BUG decklist without Baleful Strix look like? I just built this deck (basically by investing in Shardless Agent+Ancestral Vision and converting my Team America list) but Baleful Strix is sold out nearly everywhere. Is it essential to the deck now or are the 12 creatures fine?

[marumari]

How does a Shardless BUG decklist without Baleful Strix look like? I just built this deck (basically by investing in Shardless Agent+Ancestral Vision and converting my Team America list) but Baleful Strix is sold out nearly everywhere. Is it essential to the deck now or are the 12 creatures fine?

Strix is extremely good against pretty much every creature-based deck, and even against combo it pitches to FoW. It also protects your planeswalkers really well. I'd say it's pretty important. It seems readily available at all the usual online suspects.

[Lejay]

Lejay, could you please share your current list, do you still think 2 Leyline is the best GY hate?

How did your fellow players perform with this deck at the GP?

The two I named went 5-0 then 5-3. Tristan just had a different sideboard and Pierre added discard. Two others that never played the deck before started from my list adding discard because they talked much more with Pierre. They had no byes and made 16th (Thiago) and 18th (Shaka1333 whose report is in the tournament report section). Another guy went back from not playing magic at all in a year and made day 2.

Like I said the list hasn't changed much in months and since my last post I've played combo decks for the most part.
1 Badlands
1 Swamp
2 Bayou
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
3 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Ancestral Vision
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 2 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 3 Whipflare

The 2/2 duress/thoughtseize split can be balanced according to the expected metagame. If your metagame has a lot of control decks (with planeswalkers) and not much moon effects/tempo decks you can switch the swamp for the creeping tar pit. If your meta has no batterskull I'd cut the grudge for a whipflare unless something else justifies not doing it. Otherwise I play the very same list in any metagame with <20% combo decks. If it is combo heavy, I just switch to a tempo deck or esper even if my post board game is very good.

[Shaka1333]

Ouais papi !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3

Rule number 1 : always follow grandpa' Lejay advices !

Rule number 2 : always follow grandpa' Lejay advices !!

[marumari]

I have a question of you all concerning Jace TMS:

I played 6-2-1 in Straßbourg and the best thing Jace TMS did was getting pitched into Force. My matchups where UR Delver, Goblins, Jund, U/W Rest in Peace combo, Burn, MUD, UBW Stoneforge, Tin Fins and UWR Tempo. He got boarded out all matches except for U/W, MUD and UBW Stoneforge. When he did something, it was always something like win-more.

If you reconsider your last games with the deck: What experiences with Jace TMS did you do?

Having played with this deck a bunch, I'm really not fond of JtMS in the deck. I board him out in probably 2/3rds of my matches as well. The only deck I really like him against is U/W and MUD; Esper Stoneblade runs Lingering Souls, which hurts his effectiveness a lot. He's even mediocre at the killing Jace plan, since the deck already runs so many creatures that are terrible to bounce, and it has 3/2 unblockable manlands. If the deck ended up with more board stalls, it would probably be a lot better. But it's usually either too little to catch up, or it's win-more. I think he'd probably be a lot better in Lejay's build, which is heavy on the Lilianas.

On the other hand, I have been very impressed by Whipflare. I admit that I was a skeptic, but it has done a heck of a lot of work. I have killed a lot of Delvers, Mystics, Goblins, and Deathrites with it.

[Darkness]

I'm planning on trying the Whip flare if my meta becomes more creature oriented. I do not doubt the power of it, aside from our own DRS it doesn't hit any of our dudes and improves our Lingering Souls matchup. I was wondering everyones thoughts on bringing in or keeping Baleful Strix against Sneak and Show. I haven't had a chance to test against it and was wondering everyones thoughts.

[baptist]

I'm planning on trying the Whip flare if my meta becomes more creature oriented. I do not doubt the power of it, aside from our own DRS it doesn't hit any of our dudes and improves our Lingering Souls matchup. I was wondering everyones thoughts on bringing in or keeping Baleful Strix against Sneak and Show. I haven't had a chance to test against it and was wondering everyones thoughts.

Strix is not so good against Sneaky Show, I would board him out if your blue count is high enough after sb, this means at least 18 blue cards. Don't forget you want to take Ancestral Vision out for sure.

[Darkness]

Go in this Saturday to my LGS with the deck again. Won it three weeks ago, hoping to do well with it again. Some minor changes to the deck from last week

Lands 22
4x Underground Sea
4x Polluted Delta
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Bayou
2x Tropical Island
2x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Wasteland
2x Misty Rainforest

Creatures 14
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Shardless Agent
2x Baleful Strix

Spells
4x Brainstorm
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Ancestral Visions
3x Force of Will
3x Hymn to Tourach
2x Thoughtseize
1x Maelstrom Pulse

Planeswalkers 3
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard 15
3x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Baleful Strix
2x Sower of Temptation
2x Chill
2x Liliana, of the Veil
2x Thoughtseize
1x Force of Will
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Umezawa's Jitte

Basically +1 Jitte -1 Strix, doing this for information gathering. I don't know how well it will actually work. Report to follow in the week.

[Darkness]

If you have SCG Premium, AJ Sacher made a really awesome video explaining game Five of the Semi Finals for the last SCG Invitational, BBD vs GT Esper Deathblade vs Shardless BUG. He explains the roles both decks want to play and what role Jace plays in the match. Valuable information check it out.

[marumari]

I've been going on an absolute tear at my weekly legacy tournaments, going 4-0, 3-1, 4-0 over the last three weeks (and probably 10-3 in random additional matchups). The deck is very solid, it rarely mulligans, resists Wasteland, and draws a ton of cards. I love it, despite its absurd cost. Here's the exact build I've been running:


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

Planeswalker (3)
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sorcery (10)
4x Ancestral Vision
3x Hymn to Tourach
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Thoughtseize

Creature (14)
2x Baleful Strix
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Shardless Agent
4x Tarmogoyf

Instant (11)
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Brainstorm
3x Force of Will

Sideboard (15)
1x Ancient Grudge
2x Baleful Strix
1x Force of Will
1x Hymn to Tourach
3x Liliana of the Veil
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Thoughtseize
1x Vendilion Clique
3x Whipflare

I don't run Chill because nobody at my LGS (roughly 15-40 players) plays Burn. And Whipflare works fine against Goblins. I'm not certain if it's even worthwhile to run Chill, since the Burn matchup is so absurdly bad anyways. I think just running a couple Jittes in the sideboard is probably the better plan anyways.

[Darkness]

Went 3-2 at my LGS. Changing sideboard after this. 3-1 in swiss lost in top 4. Smaller Report coming this week stay tuned.

[1rakete]

FYI: Pierre Sommen made T8 with BUG Shardless at BoM 2013: http://www.watchdamatch.com/tournois...age/bom-day-4/

This is his list:

22 LANDS
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
3 Bayou
4 Wasteland
1 Tropical Island
1 Swamp
13 CREATURES
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Baleful Strix

25 Other Spells :
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
4 Ancestral Vision
1 Hymn to Tourach
4 Force of Will
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Thoughtseize
4 Liliana of the Veil

SIDEBOARD
2 Thoughtseize
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Dreed of Night
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Baleful Strix
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Nihil’s Spellbomb

[JMLL]

Hi all,

Posting this after the T8 that Pierre Sommen did at the BoM seemk weird. First, then, congrats to Pierre.

After this said, I'll just post my smaller success in repeating T8 in a local tournament (37 players, 6 rounds). My deck is more oriented to destroy the board than to get hand advantage, but it's pretty similar to the one posted in here. The reasoning is that , with a <10% Control field, there is no point in trying to win the hand fight if I'm dead when I could get that advantage.

I did Top8 1 month ago and I lost to a Control Deck (UWr Miracle Helm). I did some changes that were awesome. Let me post the deck directly and then the results.

// Creatures (16)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
3 Baleful Strix
1 Vendilion Clique

// Spells (23)
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Disfigure
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will

4 Thoughtseize

// Lands (22)
3 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Sunken Ruins - Not that great. I didn't have a 2nd Tar pit, so it was the best solution to avoid Choke.
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs

// Sideboard
1 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 FlusterStorm
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Pernicious Deed
4 Sinkhole
1 Vendilion Clique

I didn't take notes, so it's entirely out of my memory. Sorry if something is wrong. Also, I only explain the most interesting situations, so keep calm and read if you please.

R1: Uw Miracle Helm Win: 2-0
Destiny made me play against the only deck that won me the last tournament. He ended 2nd then.
- G1: I have pression on the board although there's a RiP. The lone Vendilion is doing wonders. The Tarmogoyf gets bigger after an Abrupt that destroys the Enchantment and lets me kill him.
- G2 I slow him down with Sinkholes but a well played Terminus stops me cold. I have a Liliana and he's got a Jace and we get to this situation:
> Me: Liliana (7), 4 Lands, Sinkhole in hand, 17 life
> Him: 2 Sensei's Divining Top, 1 Jace (3), 1 Plains, 3 island, 1 card in hand, 4 life
I decide to Ulti him with Liliana, and he responds by activating both Tops to draw (error imho) and tapping out to get mana (UUW in pool). I split: 3 Islands Vs Jace + Plains. He sacrifices the Islands and I announce that I'll change phase. He plays Vendilion in Response targeting himself (so he thows a Top at the bottom of the deck). Inthe 2nd phase I play Sinkhole to his plains and he's landless, with a Jace and a Vendilion Clique, and I have lands and a Liliana (1).
We keep playing, he kills the Liliana and I don't draw anything important. Another error here is that he was brainstorming with Jace instead of controlling my top.
We arrive at a point where I play a Shaman + Tarmo and he bounces the tarmo. I use Shaman and he counters the tarmo afterwards. He goes down to 1 life, landless (fetch that can't be activated) and Jace with 1 counter. I'm at 5, a Shaman that's sick and it's his turn. If he attacks and bounces the Shaman, I have exactly one turn to get a solution. Instead, he plays brainstorm with Jace and surrenders. After telling him this, he accepts he lost focus during the game. (to his credit, he ended 1st of the Magic League, out of 70 players, so he's quite a good player :P)


R2: GWb Junk Win 2-1
A really kind guy and one of the great collegues of the League.
G1: I win with Tarmo preassure
G2: I'm short on lands, he kills the Shaman early and I lose to the combination of Ooze + Shaman
G3: I win with a Vendilion that wins over a crowded ground

R3: BUG Control Win: 2-0
He's been getting more and more implications as to become the co-organizer of the league.
G1: I put preassure on the board and I win thanks to controlling the table better, eventhough he resolved 2 Ancestral Visions that brought him too many lands. When the 1st one was resolves, I already had Shardless + Tarmo + Liliana on board.
G2: I put preassure again and I play my cards better, imho. I win easily.

R4: RUG Tempo Win: 2-0
He's one of the best players in the league. He's won me several times and he outplays the enemies.
G1: I win G1thanks to all the removal I have maindeck. I'm landless but with 2 Shamans (error to let them live, imho). If he'd drawn a red source before, i'd be dead.
G2: He kills the Shamans as they appear, but I put preassure with 2 consecutive Shardless.

R5: ID Vs BUG Draw

R6: BG Rock Draw: 1-1
Although I'm Top8 already, I decide to try my best to get more points and try to get classified for the League Finals (as I went only to the 60% of the tournaments, I need a miracle). If not, by winning (if I do) to a player with 12 points, a friend of mine who's also 12 may get in. 2 reasons are enough to try it. I expose the reasons to the opponent, who was surprised, and he surprised me more when he laughed and was friendly eventhough I could let him out of the Top. Really nice.
G1: He has a Top and lands, nothing else, I have controlled the board and his hand, but I only have a Tarmo, that gets killed, and I get to draw 5 consecutive lands. I lose, ofc. I end with 5 lands on the table and 4 in my hand. I just wnated a Brainstorm (I had a fetch ready!)
G2: I stomp him. Jace + Liliana on board, he surrenders fast.
G3: After a long G1, we get on turns. I have the board controlled, I only need 2 more turns to finish him off. We end like with an ID.

TOP8: LoamPox Loss: 1-2
So here we are again, losing to Top8. He's a common player in the League, Top8'd several times. Not bad at all.
Being extremely brief, all the games are won by the one who starts. He starts G1 (ouch) and wins after a long game.
G2: I make him surrender on Turn 4.
G3: He starts and I can't survive. Maybe I did some mistakes in the way of playing against a deck like this.
> He: T1 land go >> Me: Land Shaman
> He: Land Innocent Blood >> Me: Land Tarmo
> He: Land Smallpox >> Me: Land Shaman. All this was to get either liliana or Shardless on the board. And my Jace was also staring at me praying for a Shaman to live.
> He: Land Smallpox #2. >> Me: Land Go. I have Liliana in hand, just let me cast it.
> He: Land Liliana, discard >> Me: WTF!!!
I can't find the hate in the Side and I die (yeah, then I draw the other jace, with 3 lands....) . Maybe I should have expected that, but I wanted to put a T2 CMC 3 card on the board. I was wrong, as playing around Smallpox would have been better. Anyway, I cound fail anyway thanks to a smallpox+Innocent blood he could cast anytime.

I was happy afterwards, 2 Tops with the deck and improving the matchups in each tournament seems really good. If you have any tips in how to face LoamPox, I'd love to hear that.

Thanks for reading.

[Darkness]

Within two Saturdays I've gone 9-2 at my LGS making top 4 both times, winning the tournament once. My loses were to RuG Delver and Death and Taxes, both decks were the same day I decided to remove a strix from the board and test a Jitte. Though the Jitte was awesome, I would have liked to have seen the 4th strix in their as well. I've come up with some changes to the list I would like to try out for this week. Mainly influenced by other people and the fact that I'm just not sold on hymn. The only deck where I really want is are the non GY combo, which is lackluster in our meta. I will highlight in bold, the new cards added since Saturday and what I removed at the bottom.

Creatures 14
2x Baleful Strix
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Shardless Agent
4x Tarmogoyf

Planeswalkers 5
2x Liliana of the Veil +2
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Spells 19
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Thoughtseize
4x Ancestral Visions
4x Brainstorm
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Force of Will +1

Lands 22
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Polluted Delta
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Wasteland
2x Creeping Tar Pit
4x Underground Sea
2x Bayou
2x Tropical Island

MD changes
-3 Hymn to Tourach
+1 Force of Will +2 Liliana of the Veil

In my testing the only decks I want Hymn for are the multi card combo. Sure against the fair decks it's a two for one, but Liliana gives you more options to hate them. The added Force from the Hymn increases your blue count and makes trying to dig for Force with Brainstorm so much better. Even against decks like Goblins where Liliana isn't amazing, the extra force can be used to stop their advantage till you pull ahead. Force is better at the more resilient combo decks which is what the decks wants imo.

Sideboard 15
2x Baleful Strix
1x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Inquistion of Kozelik
1x Liliana of the Veil
2x Nihil Spellbombs
1x Pernicious Deed
2x Sower of Temptation
2x Thoughtseize
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Vendilion Clique

SB changes:
-2 Chill -1 Nihil Spellbomb -1 Force of Will -1 Maelstrom Pulse -1 Liliana of the Veil
+1 Vendilion Clique +1 Pernious Deed +2 Inquisition of Kozelik +1 Grafdigger's Cage +1 Baleful Strix

I wanted the fourth Baleful Strix against the decks that attacked my mana via wasteland. I lost my only two matches last Saturday due to RUG and DnT and would have loved to have had that extra blocker and extra chance to find lands. The I changed 1 Nihil Spellbomb for 1 Grafdigger's Cage. I wanted something to bomb stop Dredge and Reanimator. The Deed though hitting my creatures, will allow me to play more of the controlling deck against creatures decks as well as stop mass permanents that I cannot normally hit, Moat, Humility, esc. The Clique and Inquisitions were just things I wanted for the combo decks. I'm pretty sure Inquisition is better than Hymns in the board, I want to hit specific things against the combo decks not hope I get lucky with a two for one and it's much easier to cast, makes keeping a wasteland or a tar pit hand better. The clique is just to provide the "discard effect" and put a decent clock on them.
Changes pre and post board are subject to changes, however I do think that the Main deck changes are correct, 80% of games the inquisitions came out for other cards so I'm pretty happy about that.

[learntolove6]

how do you guys feel about the esper stoneblade matchup? a lot of the players in the esper thread were touting how good it is for shardless, but i'm not so sure. am i wrong in saying i think it's close to even, both pre and post board?

[Darkness]

how do you guys feel about the esper stoneblade matchup? a lot of the players in the esper thread were touting how good it is for shardless, but i'm not so sure. am i wrong in saying i think it's close to even, both pre and post board?

My testing friend has been playing with Esper Stoneblade for a long time about a year now. I've come to the conclusion after hours of testing that the matchup is definitely in your favor. The only threats that they have are Jace, Batterskull, and Linger Souls. The A. Visions is a huge problem for them and they need to use a lot of resources to stop you. Realistically the only time I've had a problem pre or post board is when you have a lack of visions and they can land many chump blockers. I feel a lot has to go wrong for you to have the disadvantage. Overall, I wouldn't say that it's heavily in our favor, the knowledge of the Esper pilot will change that, but I'd say it's about 55/45 with strong pilots.

[learntolove6]

My testing friend has been playing with Esper Stoneblade for a long time about a year now. I've come to the conclusion after hours of testing that the matchup is definitely in your favor. The only threats that they have are Jace, Batterskull, and Linger Souls. The A. Visions is a huge problem for them and they need to use a lot of resources to stop you. Realistically the only time I've had a problem pre or post board is when you have a lack of visions and they can land many chump blockers. I feel a lot has to go wrong for you to have the disadvantage. Overall, I wouldn't say that it's heavily in our favor, the knowledge of the Esper pilot will change that, but I'd say it's about 55/45 with strong pilots.

ok that's reasonable. both decks have ways to generate a lot of 2 for 1s, but what you say makes sense.

[wcm8]

What is the 61st card in Lejay's list? Unless I'm somehow miscounting somehow? And what would be the first cut? I know that having 61 cards is mathematically unlikely to change much, but I still somehow feel that it's inferior to just making the cut and going down to 60.

[Lejay]

I play 61 cards to adjust the lands to spells ratio.