[Deck] BUG "Shardless" Control

[tescrin]

Thoughtseize and toxic deluge already drain your life and dark confidant plus jace and force and several 3 drops seems bad. Furthermore ancestral visions and jace out CA most other decks.

Agreed.

-You could drop Shardless and/or visions for Bob, but you'll actually lose card draw and/or tempo doing it.
-Bob is best with low CMC cards
-Bob is best in non-blue decks; because he improves consistency by card draw (rather than manipulation.) You can combine both, but you may even lose consistency by filling a deck with easy to find 2/1s.
-Bob is best if you have a way to gain some of that life back (or push their life total directly.) I.E. Red or White compliment him excellently via BSK, Jitte, or Bolts/BBE.

[TheHeff]

After reading a lot of the comments on here I think I know the responses I'll get, but any thoughts on Byron King's list (found here)? 3 Lili, 4 FoW, 1 Clique, 1 Pulse, no hymn main? I know a lot of people are moving more Hymns to the SB now that combo is taking a backseat to more "fair" decks. I'm thinking about making my list for my upcoming legacy night the same but with 2 Strix/no Clique. List is in the sig, thoughts? I'm thinking about making the 2 Pierce into Hymn + TS, but need more games.

Also, has anyone else had experience with Night of Souls' Betrayal in the SB? I've been running 2 Deluge/2 Charm to good effect and never really felt like I needed a persistent effect. Same with Notion Thief, anyone have any experience with it? Seems like a nice trick, but not always viable. Also, anyone have any SB experience with Jitte? Seems like it could be good, and help with Burn/Elves/Gobs matchups.

[btm10]

As a matter of personal preference I'd do something like -1 Maelstrom Pulse, +1 Thoughtseize, but I like that list otherwise. I I don't like being too board focused in unsideboarded games - we're already really strong there, and fewer than 6 slots of discard + countermagic seems like too little.

Sylvan Library should really be in there somewhere, that card is insane in Shardless. Maybe drop a Liliana for it?

[litenkatt]

I believe hymn is even better against fair decks than combo decks. Against combo decks you need to discard certain cards that actually wins them the game. Fair decks, you'd be happy to discard almost anything (well, ofc if you had the choice you probably rather want them to discard spells when they are mana flooded etc) but still, 2 random cards for 2 mana, 1 card. Idk, card seems and have always seemed very strong to me

[Razorwynd]

If Dig through Time and/or Treasure Cruise end up being 'real' cards, I think BUG Control should reconsider if the Agent/Visions 'engine' is still worth running. That's 8 slots of clunky midrange that also forces the deck to be built around it (e.g. no reactive counter-magic that isn't FoW due to cmc concerns).

Instead, if DTT or TC become the card advantage slots, we can then consider running Snapcaster + low cmc disruption and also be able to function at instant speed instead of running a purely tap-out strategy. I also wonder if the old Deedstill cards could make a comeback: Life from the Loam + Smallpox seem a lot better if you're running 'Ancestral Recall' to restock your hand. Perhaps Intuition or Entomb could serve as tutor effects. Anyways, just something to consider.

Do really think a deck can support any reasonable number of those card... I would say Two copies at most. I assume that between Deathrite Shaman and Snapcaster Mage your list would have a challenging time getting those spells to cost significantly less that cc 4.

[barcode]

If Dig through Time and/or Treasure Cruise end up being 'real' cards, I think BUG Control should reconsider if the Agent/Visions 'engine' is still worth running. That's 8 slots of clunky midrange that also forces the deck to be built around it (e.g. no reactive counter-magic that isn't FoW due to cmc concerns).

Instead, if DTT or TC become the card advantage slots, we can then consider running Snapcaster + low cmc disruption and also be able to function at instant speed instead of running a purely tap-out strategy. I also wonder if the old Deedstill cards could make a comeback: Life from the Loam + Smallpox seem a lot better if you're running 'Ancestral Recall' to restock your hand. Perhaps Intuition or Entomb could serve as tutor effects. Anyways, just something to consider.

I did some testing yesterday with some mates and Treasure Cruise on the opposing side is really a pain to deal with. Tarmogoyf decks don't get all the value from their own graveyard so when the opponent delves everything away to draw three cards it's a real beating.

[Dragonslayer_90]

I did some testing yesterday with some mates and Treasure Cruise on the opposing side is really a pain to deal with. Tarmogoyf decks don't get all the value from their own graveyard so when the opponent delves everything away to draw three cards it's a real beating.

Yeah, sad to say but I think this deck might be on its way out for good with these new draw spells about to enter the meta. Why spend two cards to draw three when you can get it in one card? I think for those looking to play a more controlling version of BUG it might be fruitful to look into incorporating either new delve spells in something like BUG Landstill or BUG TNN Control. RIP Shardless

[Dragonslayer_90]

i really don't agree with this at all. I think at first you may see some cute brews, but none of these cards are worth playing in my opinion. Ponder, Brainstorm, Ancestral Visions, and Gitaxian Probe are all much better cards than these and honestly I don't see any reason to play anything else. How many copies of a card do you really want to have in a deck that has Delve 6 or Delve 7 when your opponent is bringing the beats? Sure you may get to cast 1 in a more midrange/long game but that's only cute, not effective. How many slots are you willing to use to support running these cards? This card will look really dumb coming off the top of your deck when they put a RIP in against you. Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are terrible in the legacy format. I don't think Shardless BUG is dead. in fact...

I wouldn't mind some help on how to readjust the deck to be better suited for this weekend. The decks I expect to see are Infect, DnT, Shardless BUG, RUG Delver, Miracles, and Elves.

I don't think I'm entirely done tweaking this list yet. But I certainly would appreciate some suggestions to help mitigate this deck a little bit. I'm even considering playing 61 cards and bringing the maelstrom pulse back in to the list.

Is your statement that these cards aren't worth playing backed up by some amount of testing? Making that claim you're going to have much of the community disagreeing with you, many of which have actually tested the cards. I can't vouch for Dig through Time because I haven't tested it much, but Treasure Cruise is the real deal.

As for your list, I think it's fine for the decks you expect except Elves. You'll probably still need a good amount of cards out of the sideboard to make that matchup at least even. Do you have a sideboard built? My sideboard plan against Elves with Shardless last time I play the deck was siding in Toxic Deluge and hateful permanents like Meddling Mage, Night of Soul's Betrayal, and Grafdigger's Cage. I sided out much of the grindy CA stuff since you need cards that stop their combo plan and/or affect the board in a significant way (i.e. not just three mana edict as Liliana usually is). The only Card Advantage I kept in was Shardless Agent and sometimes my sylvan library if I had enough cards to take out for what I wanted to side in. So all and all what you want against Elves is pretty much hateful permanents and more removal to get them to stumble, at which point you just kill them before they draw back into the game.

[drocker23]

Is your statement that these cards aren't worth playing backed up by some amount of testing? Making that claim you're going to have much of the community disagreeing with you, many of which have actually tested the cards. I can't vouch for Dig through Time because I haven't tested it much, but Treasure Cruise is the real deal.

As for your list, I think it's fine for the decks you expect except Elves. You'll probably still need a good amount of cards out of the sideboard to make that matchup at least even. Do you have a sideboard built? My sideboard plan against Elves with Shardless last time I play the deck was siding in Toxic Deluge and hateful permanents like Meddling Mage, Night of Soul's Betrayal, and Grafdigger's Cage. I sided out much of the grindy CA stuff since you need cards that stop their combo plan and/or affect the board in a significant way (i.e. not just three mana edict as Liliana usually is). The only Card Advantage I kept in was Shardless Agent and sometimes my sylvan library if I had enough cards to take out for what I wanted to side in. So all and all what you want against Elves is pretty much hateful permanents and more removal to get them to stumble, at which point you just kill them before they draw back into the game.

No my statements are not backed up by testing. My statements are backed up by knowing the Legacy format. You say Treasure Cruise is the real deal? Let's evaluate all the blue decks in Legacy shall we?

1. RUG Delver - Can't remove it's gy because it needs threshold for Nimble Mongoose. Can even have trouble doing that in the face of Deathrite Shaman from time to time.
2. BUG Delver - Doesn't need it's GY except to utilize Deathrite Shaman. Ponder and Brainstorm are still better. They've even cut Tombstalker in order to make their threats cheaper.
3. UWR Delver - Plays Rest in Peace in the board. Could possibly replace Gitaxian Probe since this deck doesn't utilize it's graveyard. Still information in delver decks is so important in the early turns that it isn't worth giving up a fast card for a slow card.
4. Sneak and Show - A combo deck that doesn't need it's graveyard, but when sculpting a hand, Ponder, Brainstorm, Preordain are much better. Slots are pretty tight, not a lot of room to be adding in even more cards that are difficult to cast.
5. Omni-Tell - They play Enter the Infinite, so who cares about drawing 3 cards when you can draw your entire library?
6. Shardless BUG - It is a worse version of Ancestral Vision. Does the same thing but cannot be cascaded into. GY needed to manipulate deathrite shaman.
7. UW Miracles - This deck doesn't want this card, because it doesn't want to draw extra cards except when casting Miracle spells. Counterbalance is another reason for this deck to not want to draw 3.
8. Infect - Are you kidding? They're dead before you could even hope to delve enough. Tom Ross said he wouldn't even play the Delve pump spell so that should tell you something.
9. Reanimator - Needs it's GY to facilitate it's game plan. No delving here.
10. Esper Deathblade - This deck is already tight on space trying to shove every single good card in the format into 1 deck. Again, not useful here.
11. High Tide - This was a deck I thought perhaps could use it, but since they're trying to cast Time Spiral to keep shuffling their High Tides and junk back into the deck to redraw and recast them all again, it would not do them any good to be removing these cards from the game. Nonbo.
12. Merfolk - Doesn't have any use for the GY. Could potentiall see running this card in some few numbers to draw more gas, but the whole deck is permanant based and would have trouble casting this card for a reasonable amount since very few of your cards should be going to the graveyard.


So there are all the blue decks in Legacy. So tell me, what decks could possibly use this card? The answer is NONE. it's a bad card for the legacy format. It's bad. don't play it. It's bad. AGAIN? it's bad.

[hobart]

16 Creatures

3 Baleful Strix
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Vendilion Clique


17 Spells

4 Ancestral Visions
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sylvan Library

4 Planeswalkers

2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor


23 Lands


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

I can see you're not expecting much if any combo, which seems optimistic for a big event, but it might be correct. With only 3 maindeck Forces and no targeted discard, however, you're going to have a bad time if you run into any. Also, if fair (creatures) is what you expect, I think you need to fit a toxic deluge in the main. It will save your ass against DnT and Elves, it's pretty damn good against infect, and just ok but occasionally very effective against the delver decks.

[Ocean]

How old are you?

[drocker23]

I can see you're not expecting much if any combo, which seems optimistic for a big event, but it might be correct. With only 3 maindeck Forces and no targeted discard, however, you're going to have a bad time if you run into any. Also, if fair (creatures) is what you expect, I think you need to fit a toxic deluge in the main. It will save your ass against DnT and Elves, it's pretty damn good against infect, and just ok but occasionally very effective against the delver decks.

that's what i'm trying to figure out. if people jump on the infect bandwagon, i want to be ready, rather than playing something more traditional and having a lousy matchup. i think i'm trying to change too many cards though.

[drocker23]

how old are you?

i'm over 9000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TheHeff]

RIP Shardless

I think this might be a bit of an overreaction

Note: Theorycrafting ahead, I haven't played nearly enough games with Shardless against TC decks so this could be totally wrong.

I don't think things are nearly that bad, honestly it seems like TC is probably the best in decks without DRS and Goyf, if only because of graveyard hate. Being susceptible to Rest in Peace with two of our major pieces (DRS and Goyf) means that in SB games against white, TC will get much worse, when we're already guaranteed to see RiP boarded in. Every deck containing white will go long, and I'd rather not leave my main piece of sustain so susceptible to a common SB card. Yes, Jace will still do his thing, but our CA engine is already strong so I see no need to change it. It will most likely get picked up by decks like Deathblade/Esperblade, UWR Delver, and maybe even Miracles.

If you look at it another way, Shardless is probably one of the best shells to be playing against a meta that adopts more grindy, midrange cards and uses the Delve mechanic to selectively shrink goyfs. We have planeswalkers and artifacts that can quickly grow goyf, regardless of what our opponents delve away. Just my 2c!

[LarsLeif]

I think this might be a bit of an overreaction

Note: Theorycrafting ahead, I haven't played nearly enough games with Shardless against TC decks so this could be totally wrong.

I don't think things are nearly that bad, honestly it seems like TC is probably the best in decks without DRS and Goyf, if only because of graveyard hate. Being susceptible to Rest in Peace with two of our major pieces (DRS and Goyf) means that in SB games against white, TC will get much worse, when we're already guaranteed to see RiP boarded in. Every deck containing white will go long, and I'd rather not leave my main piece of sustain so susceptible to a common SB card. Yes, Jace will still do his thing, but our CA engine is already strong so I see no need to change it. It will most likely get picked up by decks like Deathblade/Esperblade, UWR Delver, and maybe even Miracles.

If you look at it another way, Shardless is probably one of the best shells to be playing against a meta that adopts more grindy, midrange cards and uses the Delve mechanic to selectively shrink goyfs. We have planeswalkers and artifacts that can quickly grow goyf, regardless of what our opponents delve away. Just my 2c!

I totally agree, Although I believe that the meta-game will swing a bit with these cards. Firstly I guess we will see them jammed into everything with the colour blue, then people will realize that Rest In Peace becomes totally broken against these decks, and then TC/DTT will probably find a home in some decks, but I think people overvalue the cards because they are very good when they are good.

Secondly even if some decks will now be able to play some Ancestrals, we already play 4 of them for free. :)

[Dragonslayer_90]

I concur that I may have overreacted but it was a heartfelt overreaction. I really love this deck. Shardless BUG is one my favorite legacy decks of all time ever

As for what you said Heff, I somewhat agree with what your saying and think your prediction is totally reasonabe. However, I think you and many others are overvaluing how good Rest in Peace is against Team America. It is certainly good against a threat base with deathrite and goyf, but it is not back breaking. I have won many games against decks like UWR that bring in Rest In Peace in attempt to make a lot of our cards bad only to get screwed by either abrupt decay or the 2-3 Golgari Charms I sided in. Many times all Rest in Peace does is slow BUG Delver down. I have killed a good amount of opponents with deathrite squire beats because they still didn't actually deal with my board Now, you are correct that running TC in BUG Delver makes stuff like Rest In Peace more of a problem, but in that case BUG Delver players will adapt and bring in other cards from the board to minimize the effect of Rest In Peace and probably just side out treasure cruises in games two and three. I think Treasure Cruise provides too much upside to not run main deck, especially in a deck like BUG Delver where you're going to have a lot of cards in the gy by Turn 3/4, the point at which you want a card like Treasure Cruise.

[LarsLeif]

Depending on how much play TC/DTT sees, I would be surprised if people kept RIP in their sideboards. I'm no miracles expert, but if I wanted to metagame against the field in the first few week of TC/DTT being legal, RIP-Miracles seems like a solid choice.

Edit: It should be noted that RIP historically has been pretty bad against BUG as above stated, but it's ETB-effect becomes highly effective as even if people playing goyf/drs can refill their graveyard quite quickly, the exiling of your graveyard really slows TC/DTT down substantially.

[barcode]

I think this might be a bit of an overreaction

Note: Theorycrafting ahead, I haven't played nearly enough games with Shardless against TC decks so this could be totally wrong.

I don't think things are nearly that bad, honestly it seems like TC is probably the best in decks without DRS and Goyf, if only because of graveyard hate. Being susceptible to Rest in Peace with two of our major pieces (DRS and Goyf) means that in SB games against white, TC will get much worse, when we're already guaranteed to see RiP boarded in. Every deck containing white will go long, and I'd rather not leave my main piece of sustain so susceptible to a common SB card. Yes, Jace will still do his thing, but our CA engine is already strong so I see no need to change it. It will most likely get picked up by decks like Deathblade/Esperblade, UWR Delver, and maybe even Miracles.

If you look at it another way, Shardless is probably one of the best shells to be playing against a meta that adopts more grindy, midrange cards and uses the Delve mechanic to selectively shrink goyfs. We have planeswalkers and artifacts that can quickly grow goyf, regardless of what our opponents delve away. Just my 2c!

Treasure Cruise is good against Shardless because the card defeats Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach while having the side effect of removing up to seven cards from the graveyard to keep Tarmogoyf and Deathrite Shaman in check.

Goyf decks aren't going to play Treasure Cruise, not by a long shot. UWR delver (or midrange) decks will begin to play it because they don't care about their graveyard but they sure care about three cards. No one is saying that for game two these UWR players must play Rest in Peace alongside Treasure Cruise (and they probably won't).

My experience following an afternoon of testing Shardless vs a UWR midrange deck is that it's Treasure Cruise that pushes it past the post. Pre-KTK their hand was shredded after Hymns and Thoughtseizes which fed our Goyfs and deathrites. Now they can undo our discard, steal Deathrite fuel and shrink Goyfs. That's a big game for one blue mana.

In the upcoming weeks I'm going to be looking more closely at Treasure Cruise vs Shardless (and how Treasure Cruise may fit into UWR Miracles) in advance of Eternal Weekend and GP NJ.


edit: I don't mean to say that Treasure Cruise kills Shardless. That isn't true. However, the card certainly makes certain matchups worse.

[tescrin]

Why can't a Goyf deck play it..?
You select the cards that go in.
It doesn't touch your opponent's graveyard.

Whenever I hit a Goyf deck with a Bojuka Bog (when I'm KotR-Junk) or a Nihil Spellbomb (sometimes comes in out of the side for discard since it cantrips) it barely touches the size. Honestly, if both decks are blue decks and actively delving; goyf will still be a 3/4 by your attack step, guaranteed, basically all the time. Running any tricks, such as artifact creatures, enchantment creatures, dryad arbor, or other such multi-type perms are enough to get him full size again in no time, let alone just efficient sized.

A 2/3 goyf is still often an OK enough deal. Yeah, a 2/3 bear isn't legacy playable, but a scaling bear is. If Rip didn't kill Goyf, neither will Delve, and vice versa.

[kryllex]

Yeah, it sucks with Tarmogoyf, better play Tombstalker instead. Uhm, wait...