Tried this deck online for a few hours and it works just great. It hurts me a lot cause I can hardly recognize the DGA in it. Good list.Originally Posted by sdematt
If there's anything you think it needs, PM me or post in the Team Italia thread :)
-Matt
I think Hero is seriously underrated. I'm not sold on souls (say that 10x fast). Forked bolt and burn are big red flags in the meta.
Forked bolt still only trades with half of souls. And that is one less forked bolt going to your spirit/Bob/stoneforge.
For sure. I still like Souls.
Did some testing at a mini-legacy tournament. Storm, UB Tezzeret, death and taxes and RUW Delver. Only loss was to D&T in a close 3 games.
LOL. I want to test against Treasure Cruise and only one deck could have had it (he has Dig Through Time). Relic was very good against one of the Delve cards. Had Relic early and had him on no cards in the yard for a long time. Beat Storm even when he makes 10 goblins turn 1...although he did make a big play mistake...
So he cast duress and takes the only card, sword of fire and ice he's also able to empty for 10, also emptying his hand (had to use LED). I have Deathrite, Spirit of the Labyrinth and 2 Mystics. So he makes his dudes. I draw a land and play Deathrite. He attacks, I block 1 Goblin and he cast another Duress. Strange. He whiffs. I cast Stoneforge and get Batterskull, and I am able to stabilize. If he had kept the duress for the tutored Batterskull, I would have lost.
Beat UB Tezzeret in 3. Leyline of the Void main. I really like Tezzeret the Seeker for the tutor for Helm and win, which he does game 1. Game 2 he tutors into play an Ensnaring Bridge with Tezzeret the Seeker. I have a Revoker out naming the other Tezzeret lol. But I have Vindicate, killing the Bridge and enables me to attack and kill Tezzeret. Oh, Vindicate I can't quit you.
Tried out a Spirit. Meh. My RUW opponent did make the uber mistake of brainstorming with Spirit already out. Oops. Yeah, he didn't win that game. I'd really like to add another Gaddock Teeg to the sideboard but I like my manabase the way it is right now. 4 Basics is awesome. My Delver opponent didn't play any and I was able to waste him out. Even cutting another Swamp for a 2nd Bayou....I don't know. Being fairly immune to wasteland is appealing to me.
Bile Blight experiment may be over. Either I don't see it or it's just a 1 for 1 removal spell. I'm afraid it would be the same if I get my hands on a Malicious Affliction.
And Hero won me a couple of games. One vs Storm and the other vs. UB Tezzeret.
Are you guys more fond of Council's Judgment, Vindicate, or Maelstrom Pulse in the current metagame? My meta has had tin fins, miracles, bant, and UR delver in it.
I play with 2 Vindicate and a Council's Judgment. I don't play Pulse since my manabase can't handle green that well.
As far as playability is concerned, they are all fairly similar. If that is your meta, I'd give a slight edge to Pulse since you can possibly 2 for 1, taking out 2 Delvers or wiping out a bunch of Elemental tokens. Against Tin Fins, I'd say Vindicate is probably the best, since you can take out a land.
I have been playing team Italia so splash red for bolt and reb and lavamancer and I switched my bile blights for scouring sands and damn has it been a blow out
Given the prevalence of Treasure Cruise and Young Pyromancer, I feel like Liliana of the Veil and Lingering Souls have lost a lot of value. Cutting them has opened up a lot of slots and a lot of design space in the deck.
My only real conundrum now revolves around equipment: has anyone been playing against U/R Delver without Lingering Souls? I can't tell if Sword of Fire and Ice is worthwhile without Lingering Souls. Can anyone weight in?
Referring to the art on Stasis:
I think Lingering Souls is still great against the YP/TC decks. It evades their attackers, blocks their Delver, gives you 4 bodies off one card to keep up with Pyromancer.
The other card besides Liliana that I find lackluster at the moment is Dark Confidant. It's 1 toughness and even if it does live it does damage to you. However it is the best card advantage engine we have in these colors.
Zealous Persecution is a solid replacement for Liliana IMO.
Given this shell:
15-16 creatures (4 DRS, 4 SFM, 4 Bob, 3-4 Souls)
15 other (4 Seize, 4 STP, 3 equips, 0-2 Vindicate/other removal, 0-2 IoK)
gives you about 7 cards to play with. What we need are value cards that do more than one thing since we can't keep up with the raw advantage of TC.
My thought right now is at maindecking a couple of Chains of Mephistopheles. Ponder, Brainstorm, cruise and Probe is a mainstay in so many blue shells now, chains and spirit cuts of about 1/4 of opponents deck. Many of them dont have a way to get the chain of the board once it has landed on the board.
Delver decks run pretty much only 12 threats atm, cards like extirpate and surgical get alot of power against such decks just like it did against old 8-threats teamamerica. Where you could remove all their killing condition with extracting, Tarmo, Tombstalker or Underground Sea.
Maindeck zealous is pretty solid right now.
I'm just running spirit. And SOFAI is insane against the UR decks. You get to walk right past their men while protecting your man from bolt.
Went 3-1 at my local. Weird match ups. Beat kid on his all common deck in his first tournament, lost to punishing nic fit, Beat burn (3x Gerard Verdict in the board lol), then beat UR Delverstill. Played no Sorin, 3 Spirit of the Lab, 2 Restoration Angel and a stillmoon. Probably terrible.
I'm thinking of trying out a Bob-less version. Blasphemy I know. Wanna try out some delve stuff like Tombstalker and Murderous Cuts or something. It's probably completely awful. My confidence in the deck has been restored though.
Played at the Syracuse weekly last night and managed to go 3-1 with my only loss to Belcher in 3(seriously?) with this brew that I threw together in 5 minutes. Until I trade my Lotus for blue duals, this is basically my only deck haha. Deck felt good 2-0' ing reanimator, D&T and LED Dredge. Missed top 4 playoffs on a bad tie breaker.
2 Dark Confidant
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
2 Vampire Nighthawk
2 Mirran Crusader
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Vindicate
2 Council's Judgment
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Hymn to Tourach
3 Lingering Souls
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Zealous Persecution
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Wasteland
4 Scrubland
4 Marsh Flats
2 Isolated Chapel
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Plains
3 Swamp
The list actually felt quite strong, and I loved the maindeck Relics. Definitely the reason I was able to 2-0 dredge and Reanimator. Zealous won me a game against Belcher, and wrecked D&T. Vampire Nighthawk is actually pretty ridiculous against a non red deck as is the Crusader, but I was lucky enough to dodge the U/R Delver lists floating around. Obviously this is a pile, but it felt pretty strong!
Today I am become death. The destroyer of worlds. -Oppenheimer
Sticking an equipment can, on its own, really beat a lot of the top decks. As a result, they often attack that part of the deck. I'm considering Argivian Find (http://magiccards.info/wl/en/122.html) out of the sideboard for Burn based or Delver based matchups. Yes, it's silly, but those Smash to Smithereens, Wear/Tears, etc are everywhere. Thoughts?
Referring to the art on Stasis:
That's some serious old-school Parfait-esque tech. I like it. It's bank against Thoughtseize the turn after you SFM. Bob is getting worse, Electrickery is a card played in UR Delver for the mirror, D&T, and Affinity among others, and can really just wipe the board here. It devalues Lingering Souls as well, killing 1/2 the card for 1R, + any additional value, all at instant speed. Yes, Zealous Persecution. They just do it when you are tapped out, so that's fairly useless, plus Countermagic is a thing. Burn is popular enough in general that Wear/Tear and Smash to Smithereens become very valuable games 2 and 3, and UR Delver has no outs to Batterskull or Sword of Fire and Ice other than this as well. Paired with the decrease in SCM due to the Delve mechanic in general, I feel that if you can "Find" either/or back to relevancy, I believe you will have a really good chance at winning. Souls is still good, but no one can argue it's losing ground. I also like Hero, but 4 is steep in some matchups, and then it will occasionally just eat a StP. It's good, and I like what (is it Wilkin?) does, with the Chrome Moxen. I think the ability to drop it on turn 3 is awesome and should be considered, especially if debating Hero's inclusion as more than just a one-of.
-ABC
I don't hate it? I mean it's not unreasonable, just not amazing. The problem is it is fairly situational. I have admittedly given some thought to buried ruin. Against burn, trying to play and equip a weapon, getting it destroyed, then trying it again is probably way too slow. Especially if you are on the Thalia plan. I think BUG is the deck I'm most worried about since they can hit our weapons in game one with decay. I think a better plan is to simply run more weapons. That's why I liked running a second sword of X&Y in the board.
Ugh I'm terrified of BUG. I honestly had 2 Mirran Crusader in the Argivian Find slot at one point. Still didn't win me jack shit. Spirit of the Labyrinth hurts them, but they're full of Golgari Charm and Toxic Deluge anyways. Did you have anything in particular you use against BUG?
Referring to the art on Stasis:
I feel there are more null rods out there than before... I don't run another sword in the board. Can't find the room and running a jitte or SOFI with no dudes already sucks....no need to have a third card with nothing to equip to. IMHO
I used to run 2 Hero but I found it too clunky. I had the uncanny knack of having both in hand too early. I find one is ok.
Tested last Friday. 4-0. Beat Grixis Delver. UR Delver. BUG Delver. Maverick. Highlight was he had a Swiftspear and a Young Pyromancer on board (UR Delver). I had 4 Lingering Soul tokens and a Hero of Bladehold. Cast Zealous Persecution pre-combat to stop the potential token shenanigans. Swing for 20 damage via 4 Spirits at 3/2, 1 Hero at 4/5, 2 Soldiers at 2/1. lol. That's about as close to a Delver as you are going to see me play.
TELL US ABOUT BEATING BUG. I can't beat the deck to save my life.
Also, are you guys playing any dedicated graveyard hate in your sideboards?
Referring to the art on Stasis:
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