Lands (20) Creatures (8) Other Spells (32) | Sideboard (15) |
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In the recent past, Counterbalance/Senseis Divining Top combo was a major force in Classic. A year or so ago you could expect to face CounterTop multiple times per tournament – but those days are gone. While the strategy remains seriously powerful in Legacy, Classic’s metagame shift has taken CounterTop down a notch or two.
stabel is running maindeck Extirpate and sideboarded Leyline of the Void/Tormods Crypt in order to help improve the Dredge matchup – which isn’t particularly susceptible to CounterTop’s fundamental strategy. Echoing Truth and Ravenous Trap are additional sideboard options if you’re interested in this deck and the matchup seems difficult. Echoing Truth has the additional benefit of also fighting Oath, which is generally a better matchup with early counter-magic, Thoughtseize, Wasteland, and Krosan Grip out of the sideboard – even though Smother is a dead card unless you’re killing your own creatures.
If you want to give Oath a real kick in the neck, then Krosan Grip an Oath of Druids and then nail it with Extirpate!
Lands (19) Creatures (8) Other Spells (29) | Sideboard (15) |
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Threshold has been a powerful deck in Legacy and Classic for quite some time, and through many different iterations, implementations, and colors mixes. eggraid’s Threshold list is a pretty standard UGr deck with Tarmogoyf and Nimble Mongoose as threats, Force of Will, Daze, and Spell Snare as counter-magic, Brainstorm and Ponder to sift through cards, and Lightning Bolt for board control/reach.
eggraid’s sideboard is obviously aimed towards defeating both Oath and Dredge. Krosan Grip takes out Oath, and Ravenous Trap clears away graveyards. Pithing Needle shuts down Bazaar of Baghdad and Pyroclasm kills any number of 2/2 zombies – assuming that you get a chance to resolve the sorcery. Against Oath, Extract can be devastating if you catch your opponent packing a small number of reanimation targets.
Lands (23) Creatures (21) | Other Spell (16) Sideboard (15) |
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Merfolk is my personal favorite tribal deck, and Smang comes through with a strong list here. Instead of a manabase filled with basics and additional copies of Merfolk Sovereign/Wake Thrasher, Smang runs the two-mana all-star: Tarmogoyf. One of the major criticisms of Merfolk in the past is the deck’s difficulty in dealing with a resolved Tarmogoyf. If you can’t beat ‘em, then why not join ‘em? While Tarmogoyf doesn’t benefit at all from any of the Merfolk lords, he sure rocks hard coming down at the end of your opponent’s turn via Aether Vial set at two.
The major downside of splashing Tarmogoyf is the instability it adds to your manabase. One of the highlights of traditional Merfolk is the ability to run twelve or so basic Islands. In a format packed to the brim with Wasteland, this type of mana consistency shouldn’t be undervalued.
Mox Aggro by whiffy penguin is just the type of deck I was trying to build! But I was doing it wrong, because I don’t have any Mox Diamonds. Doh. About that same deck, what are the Null Rods in the sidebaord for? I noticed that the smallpox deck had them too.
Thanks for the decklists and summaries!
Null Rod can shut down Painters Servant/Grindstone, Helm of Obedience, Skullclamp/Cranial Plating/Umezawas Jitte, Lotus Petal/Mana Crypt/Lion’s Eye Diamond, Goblin Charbelcher, and others. Sure it isn’t the powerhouse that it is in Vintage (just yet), since it can’t prey on Black Lotus or Moxes – but it still has its uses.
Although it does shut down the deck’s own Mox Diamonds, Jittes, and Tormods Crypts – so be careful about that.
Null Rods were a hold over from the original vintage deck. in classic they function as a further way to beat up on combo decks. The uses are exactly as spg said. They do turn off your own Mox Diamonds, however turning off every win condition in painter/stone and helm line, while also slowing belcher and storm to a crawl from turn 1 make it worth it.
@Katastrophe – Mox Diamond is essential to the decks performance. In vintage these four slots are 3 moxen and a Lotus, obviously better then Diamond but i work with what i have. They with the help of Elvish Spirit Guide it allows you to be fast enough to actually disrupt decks that don’t play “fair”. In addition to this they turn off Wasteland and Strip Mine in the decks that do play “fair”. In essence they give you the speed that “fair” decks lack to actually compete against dredge oath and combo.
Also you side out the Jittes if u side in the Null Rods, but anyone who follows “Decks of the Week” or mtgonline will notice that I dropped them from the sideboard for the 1st event of the new year.