Thoughtseize helps deal with the blades. Other than that, I would go HymnOriginally Posted by Manipulato
I think I'll be writing something up for SCG so stay tuned!
It was really cool meeting three or four people who picked up the deck because of my CFB article. Jeremy was one who was converted
Same. Congrats to Bob and Jeremy. Glad to see Team's starting put up the results it deserves. Seems like enough people are playing in the States for it to Top 8 SCG tournaments consistently now. I know the commentators mentioned how the deck's popularity has increased a lot in recent weeks.
In regards to Legacy:
I like Thoughtseize because:
(1) it is cheaper and easier to cast
(2) it targeted discard
(3) it provides valuable information about the opponents hand
These are all pretty obvious. In fact in many match ups, Thoughtseize is my preferred turn one play. It give you so much information for how to proceed with the game. The two cards are so incredible different I think they completely change how the deck is played.
But clearly lots of people are having HUGE success with Hymn.
Hi,I think I'll be writing something up for SCG so stay tuned!
It was really cool meeting three or four people who picked up the deck because of my CFB article. Jeremy was one who was converted
gratz to your finishing!
Where can I read that CFB article?
Greetings
Currently playingEldrazi
http://www.channelfireball.com/home/...-in-dc-top-16/
I'm also happy about the good showings of TA. I couldn't watch the stream because my GF was at home and hates Magic, but I was still able to peek at the round 7 standings and was happy to see you near the top with 18 points :)
Congrats to all the Team America players who have been doing well with the archetype! I played in a 6-round side event at GP Vancouver and went 4-2. I definitely have some bad beat stories from those two losses, but other than getting unlucky I felt like my play, the list, and the decks metagame positioning were all very good.
Before I start, I want to talk about something a ton of people having been debating - Hymn vs. Thoughtseize. This reflects a lack of understanding about this deck's role - what battle it's trying to fight. I would never play fewer than 3 in the main. This deck has tempo draws where you ride one or two creatures to victory, but it's more often that you simply trade resources more efficiently than your opponent and then can ride your low curve and cheap threats to victory. What does that have to do with Hymn? Thoughtseize is good if one spell is key to their hand - combo is obvious, but equipment and a disrupting a curve are also considerations. However, it comes at the cost of 2 life and a mana. Hymn is good at breaking up resilient strategies - if you can get them topdecking, your low land count, cantrips, and cheap answers and threats will carry the day. Strategically, Team America is not excellent at ending the game by turn 5, it's excellent at forcing the opponent to be topdecking answers while on the back foot for 10 turns. Another consideration - we have Force of Will for pinpoint disruption against a combo deck for example. However, even decks that rely on a single spell are resilient given sufficient resources to rebuild. Hymn and Force work well together in that regard. Now on to the report.
My list looks a little different from the stock (akatsuki) list (belated shout outs for your great article about GP DC), but it's basically just preboarded.
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tombstalker
2 Disfigure
2 Thoughtseize
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Liliana of the Veil
3 Force of Will
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
// Sideboard
1 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Disfigure
1 Abrupt Decay
3 Golgari Charm
1 Krosan Grip
1 Submerge
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Winter Orb
I know, I just spent a paragraph explaining why Hymn is better, but I'm preboarding Thoughtseize? To be fair, the argument for Thoughtseize has some merit - the deck's curve is a little high and clunky with 8 critical 2-drops (Decay, Goyf, Hymn). At least where I'm at, Force of Will is not very good and there's a ton of Stoneblade and Elves decks - perfect for Disfigure + Thoughtseize.
Winter Orb used to be the hot tech against Stoneblade, Miracles, and Jund, not sure why it dropped off the radar. I'm trying it out. So far I either haven't drawn it or it drew a Thoughtseize / counterspell and would have been backbreaking.
Round 1 - Sneak & Show
G1 - he struggles to have 2 lands in play after I Waste a Volcanic, and a couple of Hymns put the game away.
-2 Disfigure, -3 Abrupt Decay, -1 Liliana, -2 Tombstalker, -1 Bayou; +3 Spell Pierce, +1 Force, +1 Clique, +3 Golgari Charm, +1 Krosan Grip
If I destroy his Leyline of Sanctity, my discard will be live, and sometimes I'll be able to snipe a Sneak Attack.
G2 - He cantrips, I drop Sea and pass with only Brainstorm and Daze as protection. He pushes with City into Show and Tell, and I Brainstorm (finding Deathrite, a second Daze, and a Force), then Daze. I drop Deathrite, then Force his next Show and Tell and Daze his Sneak Attack. He life tilts.
1-0
Round 2 - D@n with TinFins
G1 - I know the matchup and keep Deathrite, Daze, Waste, and some junk. He plays Island into cantrip, I drop Deathrite. He plays Lotus Petal and Brainstorms. I Daze. He pays. He finds a land and the other pieces and wins.
-2 Disfigure, -1 Abrupt Decay, -2 Tombstalker; +1 Force, +3 Pierce, +1 Clique. He might be on the Show and Tell sideboard so Lili isn't the stone worst, and Decay usually has some targets (Needle). I wish I had more cards to bring in, but didn't play a Cage today.
G2 - He has an awkward draw with a land into a cantrip, but no Entomb or discard spell to pair with the Griselbrand in hand. I had mulliganed to 5 looking for lands. He Needled Deathrite, I Decayed it, then he Needled it again and finally found the Entomb at 2 life. He permanented and 15'd me with Emrakul, but a land I had Dazed and the Deathrite on top carried the day.
G3 - My 7 on the draw: Deathrite, Decay, Daze, Sea, Waste, 2x fetches. I think it's a keep - if I get a turn, I can probably get a second turn with Daze, and then Deathrite + Decay should be good. He killed me on turn 1.
1-1
Round 3 - Jund
All these games are extremely grindy. It's not really worth doing a blow-by-blow. He wins G1, then I win G2-3 because I turn into a better Jund deck than him postboard. Lower curve and cantrips help make topdecking fall in my favor. I win in 3 games.
-3 Force, -3 Daze (draw) / -2 Daze (play), -2 Thoughtseize; +1 Decay, +1 Disfigure, +1 Lili, +1 Clique, +1 Creeping Tar Pit, +1 Winter Orb, +2 Pierce (draw)
Thoughtseize is not good against the top-deck-war'ing redundant deck. Daze sets you too far behind on the draw, but is fine on the play.
2-1
Round 4 - Bg Pox
G1 - He drops a t1 Sylvan Library off 2 Mox Diamonds and leverages that to Smallpox and Decay the first 4 or 5 creatures I play, paying life a couple times. I finally stick a Goyf and ride it all the way.
-1 Force, -3 Hymn, -2 Disfigure, -1 Liliana; +3 Spell Pierce, +1 Decay, +1 Krosan Grip, +1 Creeping Tar Pit, +1 Clique
(I think. He's reliant on artifacts, but he's a graveyard deck that capitalizes on Smallpox. Hymn and Lili are bad, he has no creatures so Disfigure is bad. The rest is just the least bad.)
G2 - He decides to play around Daze by not casting Lili, so he kills a guy with Smallpox, but he's on Swamp, Mox Diamond. I drop Deathrite, Delver, and then Decay his Diamond next turn. I make an army and he can't recover fast enough.
3-1
Round 5 - BUG Delver (with True Name)
Another Jund mirror. Again it's pretty grindy, although I have to play tight and sequence correctly to win. True Name does just about nothing except force me to board in 2 of the rather marginal Golgari Charms. He also boarded in Charm, although I have no clue why. Boarding was like Jund, except all the Dazes come out on the play, no Winter Orb, and 2 Charms come in. I win in 2 games (I think...).
4-1
Round 6 - Elves
G1 - I Disfigure an elf, Waste an Arbor, kill another couple elves, then beat down.
-3 Force, -4 Daze, -3 Hymn; +3 Pierce, +1 Decay, +1 Disfigure, +3 Charm, +1 Submerge, +1 Clique
They rely on spells like GSZ, Glimpse, and NO, so Pierce is fine. Daze is awful because they can so easily play around it t3+ and before that you can't afford to pick up lands given how important our 2-drop spells are. Hymn is too slow - they quickly dump their hand and you can't afford to not kill something on turn 2. Lili sucks, but don't have more cards to bring in.
G2 - He floods the board and I can only kill a guy or two. My Daze does nothing against his Cradle into Natural Order.
G3 - I mulligan to 4 looking for lands and still don't find any. Mathematically I think that 3 is not better than hoping to spike my first draw step or two. With a win, I'm locked for t4, and I feel confident in this matchup (lots of experience) and against my opponent (little experience). Needless to say, I'm pretty tilted that all of my losses were basically out of my control.
4-2
So that was my experience at GP Vancouver. Shout outs to sdematt for being a gent, and the Canadians for making hilarious money.
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
Glad you enjoyed it. BTW, there are some Russian Deathrites calling your name ;)
-Matt
Um… is this a subtle way of saying that uninformed people should stop bringing up the debate? Or, are you trying to say that the two cards change what role the deck takes in any given game?
That is because the stock list (I am assuming that is what you are referring to here) is playing 4 more two drops and 4 less one drops. Making the swap to Thoughtseize allows you to actually play the tempo game.
A common situation in the tempo mirror would be to cast Thoughtseize with only two mana (playing around daze) and take removal (Abrupt decay or Swords to Plowshare) or a Goyf/Stoneforge. Thoughseize confirms that they have daze. Play around daze and land threat which you can uses to try to take over the game.
It is situations like these where the difference between the tempo of thought seize and the value of Hymn are very apparent. Currently, I tend to prefer the tempo.
Now, I am not saying one is better than the other. They are both conditionally good, and I feel like the time is ripe for Thoughtseizes.
Every time my opponent plays thoughtseize in TA mirror I do this "self five" thing as he just used a mana, card and 2 life to end up taking my hymn most likely. I would rather resolve probe there.
Started keeping track of my matches online. Last 50 I'm having a 72,5 win%
The deck being more known and actually represented in the online meta makes it harder to win as much as before.
There you have it… the debate is over.
Hymn to Tourach is our only real way of generating card advantage over our opponent. RUG delver generates card advantage by playing stifle and stranding uncastable cards in their opponents hands. UWR Delver blade generates card advantage via stoneforge mystic. Hymn and Liliana is how we do it. At the end of the day, Thoughtseize is still just a one for one. I believe Thoughtseize is much better in a Jund type of deck where you can afford to one for one them out of the game because you have card advantage engines like Dark Confidant and Punishing Fire.
If the name of the game is card advantage, Hymn is the way to go in Team america.
2 disfigures and 3 abrupt decay make no sense at all. You're reducing your chances of destroying lots of things, with something that is not so important. I would run morethan 4 decays if I could.
Thoughtseize vs Hymn: Hymn is unfair, and thoughtseize is not. "T1 thoughtseize, T2 tarmogoyf" : I rather do T1 delver / shaman. You win much more games starting with a creature than with an spell.
hey
do u guys play usually delver over DRS first turn i think there are several thinks that matters if yes or no could u give me a help
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99 times out of 100 I'll play shaman over delver. The only time I play delver first is if I have no turn two plays or something like a double delver hand. But Deathrite is almost always the correct T1 play since it leads to turn two shenanigans like Wasteland/Hymn to Tourach, Hymn to Tourach/Delver, Tarmogoyf protected from daze, Liliana of the Veil, Delver/brainstorm/fetch/wasteland etc.
99% of the time I lead with drs.
It provides more possibilities of broken openings and hedges against waste etc.
The corner cases where I lead with delver involve: drs not helping me with pressure (need to keep up pierce w/mana to pay for daze) and not having hymn in hand. In other words - when setting clock up is of utmost importance and the hand+mu make this decision, you just obey.
If you do not have a fetch in hand and are up f.e. omnitell -> delver seems more appealing than usual.
Remember children, we are a terrible delver deck - try to not play the deck like you would play rug or even uwr.
Sent from phone, while drunk. Cheers.
You can't say that. Thoughtseize is pretty critical against sfm decks when you need to get rid of batterskull or a jitte before it goes out of control.
thanks alot guys
after a long legacy break i have to test for GP paris i started things off with uwr delver but i dont like it bug seems better and i like abrupt decay so yesterday i went 3-1 in an 14 man event only loss to a strange tezzeret deck but the deck is alot of fun to play and really strong
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i won 2-0 each against punisching jund esper stoneblade and merfolk
the sideboard advices from bob huang helped me alot i had 2/2 split between charms and kgrip bit changed to 3 charms i dont know if a second clique is better then creeping tar pit
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There are some matchups where Decay is excellent, like against Countertop or Pox. There are some matchups where it's about on par with Disfigure - it can't be countered and hits Jitte from the Stoneblade decks, but Disfigure helps the curve and allows you to save your Decays for the equipment / bigger threats. Then there are some matchups where Decay is actively worse than Disfigure - Elves and UWR Delver for example, it's imperative to be mana-efficient.
Obviously a creature is better on the play against most decks, but Daze, Wasteland, and Thoughtseize play well together. Also, I clearly agree that Thoughtseize is not better than Hymn. But if you read my argument above, the reason I preboarded these 4 one-drops is because of metagame and curve considerations.
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
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