[Discussion] Creating the Ideal Aggro-Control Deck

[DuCK]

Blood moon, tangle wire, and a bunch of maindeck creature and artifact control

[E Face]

I have been playing around with Bird Shit since the T8 from Syracuse was released, and I still love it. I made some changes and tweaked it a little, removing Rushing River and one of each Stifle, MisD, and StP. In place of those I added 2 Seal of Cleansing, 1 Nimble Mongoose, and I changed the manabase around a little adding an 18th source to his 17.

However, I do have an experimental build in the woodworks that I would like some comments on. It fits this thread decently enough I guess, without starting a new one. It's a W/U/G list that battles some of Bird Shit's biggest problems I've had through testing. Chalice for 2 bones me, and so does graveyard hate, mostly Tormod's Crypt, a card that is in all SB's everywhere right now it seems like.

Goose Droppings v.1

4 Meddling Mage
4 Nimble Mongoose
3 Quirion Dryad (perhaps Serendib Efreet?)
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Standstill
3 Null Rod
3 Daze
2 Stifle
2 Misdirection
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Regrowth
1 Gush

5 Fetches
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
2 Mishra's Factory
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Strip Mine

SB:
3 Serenity
3 Sacred Ground
3 Ray of Revelation
3 Arcane Laboratory
3 Tormod's Crypt

I guess the SB is just generalized for now, but whatever. I dont play the wastes because I dont have any, but I proxied them and got boned for colors too often, so I cut them. The mana denial is still strong with Null Rods and Stifles for fetches and opposing Wastelands. I'm not sure if Quirion Dryad is good with Standstill, he seems very non-synergenic while I'm playing passively, so I think Serendib Efreets might go in his spot. The Standstills replaced what was 3 Mental Note, but without Werebear, threshold is not so important, and it minimizes the threat of Tormod's Crypt. Mishra's Factory helps apply pressure, especially under a Standstill. The deck really really misses the 4/4 Werebears though, as he gets out and wins games quickly.

So after all that, I still think that the Bird Shit style deck is the best aggro control out there.

[Klep]

I would say that even with Null Rod, your lack of appropriate Moxes is a mistake.  Even Fish ran at least Sapphire.  My suggestion would be to replace those factories with a Sapphire and either a Pearl or an Emerald, depending on what testing says.  You have enough threats that you really shouldn't need the factories,  and the fact that they don't make colored mana is quite capable of causing your 3-color manabase problems.

Incidentally, now that I count it, your manabase only has 18 sources, 3 of which are colorless.  You need to up that to at least 21.  I'm still in a waking haze at the moment, so I can't tell you what you should cut, but 18 sources is definitely far too low.

[the boogie man]

I have some questions for you. what are the stifles for? I thought they would be a maindeck way to kill fetches, but without the wastelands, they really are only part of the disruption, but they kind of are weak links right now. at least that is what I think.

And i believe that dryads are really crappy with the standstills. the mental notes gave you virtual card advantage with the werebears and the mongeese, allowing you to easily overrun the oponent after 2, minus whatever else you played. the dryads just don't do this with them. what the dryads need is a cantrip engine, or at the very least, a draw egine that is proactive, to grow at all. otherwise, you get a two/two for two mana.

another reason that the werebears might have been put in would be for additional mana sources.

[Vegeta2711]

Ugh, seriously I hope everyone on this thread read both my articles on aggro. I see some of the same mistakes being made on this thread.

As for the Bird Shit deck posted here, you need to ask yourself a few things.
1. Is Standstill really worth it?
2. With only 11 threats, do you think you have enough resiliance if one or two get killed off?
3. Cutting Wastes HEAVILY weakens how much LD you actually have. You drop from 10 to 6, which is a pretty big fall. Stifle and the Strip Mine probably aren't even worth it the way you have the deck set-up.

Also no Lotus or Sapphire? wtf.

You can certainly change the BS base, but the way you've done it seems to weaken the deck moreso than 'fixing' any problems it had.

[Engine_number_9]

Hmm thats easy, the traditional way obviously (discard=no good in fish -trust me I tried)

I dont think that the fish sort of disruption is neccesarely the way to go. The reason for this is that fish's disruption is concentrated around some heavy mana denial with cards like stifle, 5 strip effects and null rod. The land destruction strategy makes cards like Daze and Spiketail Hatchling very viable b/c they will act with out the downside of being highly situational.
But the mana denial strategy is not what it used to be. Most decks run 3 to 5 basic lands making the the wastelands easy to dodge. Since one of the cornerstones in fish is the mana denial aspect, loosing some of the power of wastelands will not only affect the 4 wastelands but also cards like Daze and Spiketail so that they become less powerful. The loss of wasteland power could make the entire deck tilt.  
I think that this is a reason why the fish sort of disruption is not as viable as we make it.

If im rigth, this leaves us with the same question as I stated above. What kind of disruption do we want to run?
Here is my take on some vital points:
Wasteland: The ideal of a aggro control deck must be slowing your opponent down just enough to take a small win. Wasteland in fish helped  a lot by contributing to the whole strategy of the the deck. I dont think that this strategy is viable anymore. Therefore I'm not a fan of running 4 wastelands unless dragon and cerebral assasin become huge.

Permission: FoW is one of the best cards in vintage. Its level of power is very high. It doesnt cost anything to play except the pitch and life loss, so I think that this a natural inclussion for the deck.
Voidmage this card is a counterspell that beats which is pretty cool. I've been playing a U/W weenie deck that used Aether Vial. If one uses Aether Vial Voidmage is really good.
I dont know if Meddling Mage fits into this categori, but anyway i'm a big fan of this card in aggro control since, as E Face stated above, Meddling Mage is a 2/2 with huge disruption potential.

Discard: the only discard card I think worth of considering is Duress and since black doesnt offer much else for a aggro control  deck (tutors = tempo loss)discard is ruled out.

I dont know what to name the next category. Anyways this is the category where True Believer, Kami, Icatian Javelineer, Samurai of the Pale Curtian fit, Rootwater Thief fit in:
I'm very fond of these cards, since they are creatures. This means that they can both beat and disrupt your opponents game plan. The Samurai is very good in vital matches such as slaver and dragon. Kami is good in the Oath match. True Believer is a house against combo and slaver. Rootwater Thief is good at keeping an opening lead. If it attacks 2 and your are able to use its ability it generally means game for a lot of decks.

The types of disruption I think that we should run is permission and then the last category that I dont know what to call. A base structure of the deck could be:
4 FoW
4 Meddling Mage
2-4 True Believer (depending on how much combo hate we want)
2-4 Samurai of the Pale Curtain (depending on how much slaver, dragon, crucible hate we want)
2-3 Voidmage (I simply havent done enough testing to put numbers on these. However the testing I have done show that 3 is probably the right number)
2-4 Javelineers (depending on how much we hate welders)

As for draw in a deck like this I think that keeping the high number of damage threats the disruption part alone could produce, standstill is viable draw card (especially if Aether Vial and Manlands are included) . I'm not fond of brainstorm in a deck like this, since this deck wont be able to use a quality card filter to an advantage since the power level of many of the cards simply is too low to compete with Yawgmoths Will, Manadrain and all the other goodies that other decks run. Quantity is what ths deck needs.

Søren

[E Face]

Yeah, the decklist I posted was just something to throw up here to see what people's general opinions on card choices I had in mind. The decklist was simply a pile that I threw together, so in retrospect, posting 60 cards together and calling it a decklist with no testing was probably a horrible idea. Hang me by my toes and lash me with wet noodles til I bleed... I deserve it........

The Dryads are less than average with the Standstills because playing Gro requires you to be proactive and Standstill forces you to play reactively, and that alone should have been enough for me to not post the "decklist".  I suppose I should have told everyone that I do play the Bird Shit deck, with the only problems being Chalice for 2 mostly. Does anybody else have a solution to CotV? Tormod's Crypt isn't so horrible if I drop a Null Rod early enough.

[Nastaboi]

This post is all about Bird Sh*t builds.

You should add Lotus as 18th mana source. Other than that, 16 lands and a Mox are fine. Budget players may run Petal as 18th source, it is good but nothing spectacular. Why is this enough? First, the curve of this deck tops on 2. You basically want only a colored land and a cantrip in your opening hand. Second, there are three Stifles, which should protect your lands from all evil. Stifles are so good in the deck, because you don't have nor want to tap out for early threats. Because you only need two lands in play, you can also Daze at will without losing valuable tempo.

As for Chalice, I have two Seals main and couple of Oxidizes and Energy Fluxes in sideboard. This way I have ansvers with variable casting costs. I haven't really seen Chalice here for some time, but I always take it into account.

One thing I want to address is Tormod's Crypt. I would LOVE to play Tormod's in side. However, against most decks I want to bring it in (CA, CS, Salvagers, SSB), I already have Null Rod, which is more or less efective, but something I am not going to side out. Dragon is exception, but I have already Seals, StPs, Stifles and SB Ray of Revelation. So I have stuck with Ground Seal. Unfortunately, I have total two decks in my meta which are not affected by Ground Seal but would have been by Tormod's: Rector Trix and a Sutured Ghoul deck which uses Shallow Grave. Other that that, I find siding out Null Rods very counter-productive.

Engineeded Explosives is a nice SB card agains random aggro where you do side your Null Rods out.