Taigo Drums!

[Stormanimagus]

Hey community,

So ever since I posted a list called "Tiago Drums" in the Noble Fish thread I've been refining the list and am confidant that I am on good standing with where the list is at now. I also think it deserves its own new thread because the deck is vastly different from Noble Fish in tactics and card choices. Let me begin by unveiling the list and then I will be offering specific match-up break-downs and card choice explanations over the coming weeks (sorry if I am slow on this but I have a life as a graduate student that consumes a lot of my time). I give you:

Tiago Drums!

Land (17):
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Heath
4 Tropical Island
1 Forest
2 Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Land Creatures (3):
3 Dryad Arbor

Artifacts (7):
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Null Rod

Legendary Creatures (2):
2 Edric, Spymaster of Trest

Creatures (9):
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Tarmogoyf
3 Trygon Predator

Instants (18):
4 Force Of Will
3 Flusterstorm
3 Mental Misstep
2 Mana Drain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Nature's Claim
1 Steel Sabotage
1 Dismember

Sorceries (4):
3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Time Walk

Sideboard

2 Tarmogoyf
1 Dismember
1 Trygon Predator
1 Nature's Claim
2 Steel Sabotage
1 Island
1 Flusterstorm
4 Surgical Extraction
2 Ravenous Trap

[Stormanimagus]

39 views and no one has a single thought on this deck? I find that hard to believe . C'mon guys! Don't be shy!

-Storm

[xouman]

It is in fact a new fish deck. Interesting cards, but I don't find strong synergies from a first sight:

3 GSZ, but only 7+3 green creatures, 5 of them 3CC. GSZ fetching an arbor is countered by misstep, looking for a trygon is hard to cast under spheres, and in general is countered with flusterstorm, while hardcasting creatures it's not. It seems that often you would prefer a creature in hand than GSZ.

Snapcaster (isn't it Tiago instead Taigo?) it's being massive, and I like the suite of sorceries and instants available. But I'd prefer to make this deck more oriented to flash, with Vendillions and so. Being this a fish deck with null rods, stifle could be a nice add-in in order to cut fetchlands

Edric is a great creature, but this deck has only 10 creatures, and any has flying or another kind of evasion. While Edric makes them a must block, Edric alone it's a bit slow. I'd like him with delvers or sages of epityr, in a tempo style.

Is Dryad Arbor better than Noble Hierarch in this deck? With GSZ it gets better, but against fish and mud you usually would prefer noble. Arbor isn't counterable, but GSZ -> Arbor it is.


Nevertheless, I find interesting the deck and I would look for match-up explanations

[Troy_Costisick]

39 views and no one has a single thought on this deck? I find that hard to believe . C'mon guys! Don't be shy!

-Storm

What's there to say?  You wrote four lines of text then posted a decklist.  No matchup analysis?  No sideboarding advice?  No actual play results?  For thoughtful replies, we need more to go on than just this.

[Stormanimagus]

39 views and no one has a single thought on this deck? I find that hard to believe . C'mon guys! Don't be shy!

-Storm

What's there to say?  You wrote four lines of text then posted a decklist.  No matchup analysis?  No sideboarding advice?  No actual play results?  For thoughtful replies, we need more to go on than just this.

Fair enough. I will be following up with those soon.

[MaximumCDawg]

I'll bite.

(1) Why three Dryad Arbors?  I can see one, since it gives you the option of turning GSZ into a Llanowar Elf.  But three seems like you're just slowing down your mana unnecessarily.  God save you from a grip with a fetchland, arbor, arbor.  I propose going down to 1 Arbor.

(2) I can get behind Trygon and Ooze as cool metagame choices against Shop and Dredge / Snapcaster / Yawgwill hijinks.  I can also appreciate multiple Trygons, since they fly and are awesome.  But, with GSZ, you've already got effectively six (6) Trygons anyway.  Why not just run one or two Trygons?  Your three slot is heavy with Edric anyway.  I propose one of each maindeck.

(3) Mana Drain is interesting as a way to fuel GSZ, but it looks like it doesn't do much else.  Is that enough?  Might be.  I kind of like this interaction.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Multiple Dryad Arbor seems interesting in the context of Edric where they become an interesting variation on Library of Alexandria.  That said, they're something like a Library variant that comes into play tapped.  Can you comment on the value of 3x Arbor vs 1 Arbor, 2x mana Elf?

Some particularly interesting replacements for Arbor (that unlike Arbor boost your turn 1 permanent count) include:
Arbor Elf -- effectively produces U/G
Elvish Scrapper -- can foil Time Vault and adds to anti-shop strategy

Having added Edric to my GSZ Zoo deck in Legacy, I understand its tremendous capacity to provide overwhelming card advantage on short notice.   I'm still not sold on 2+ Arbor, though.  Please make me a believer

[policehq]

39 views and no one has a single thought on this deck? I find that hard to believe . C'mon guys! Don't be shy!

-Storm

What's there to say?  You wrote four lines of text then posted a decklist.  No matchup analysis?  No sideboarding advice?  No actual play results?  For thoughtful replies, we need more to go on than just this.

Stormanimagus, you are infamous for bombing various threads with a decklist, especially when new cards are released. This is one of your less intuitive builds (even Human Fish and the Ob Nixus the Fallen or whatever his name is decks were easier to figure out). A lot more thought went into naming the deck than building it.

[Joblin Velder]

39 views and no one has a single thought on this deck? I find that hard to believe . C'mon guys! Don't be shy!

-Storm

I don't understand this deck. I don't understand all the images. I don't understand the special fonts.

However, I do like the Ooze. He's definitely underplayed, especially as a GSZ target (I guess? I don't fucking know. Does GSZ see play?). I, too, question the necessity of 3(!) Dryad Arbors.

[Stormanimagus]

39 views and no one has a single thought on this deck? I find that hard to believe . C'mon guys! Don't be shy!

-Storm

What's there to say?  You wrote four lines of text then posted a decklist.  No matchup analysis?  No sideboarding advice?  No actual play results?  For thoughtful replies, we need more to go on than just this.

Stormanimagus, you are infamous for bombing various threads with a decklist, especially when new cards are released. This is one of your less intuitive builds (even Human Fish and the Ob Nixus the Fallen or whatever his name is decks were easier to figure out). A lot more thought went into naming the deck than building it.

Really? Infamous? Wow, I'm honored. But, in all seriousness, I haven't provided a thorough match-up analysis cause I haven't been able to get thorough testing on Cockatrice yet. Players on that site who play the most are mostly terrible and play bad decks so I don't think they are a good measuring stick for this deck (though it has done well). I admit that this deck has no where near the elegance of something like Noble Fish but it can be remarkably efficient. The deck really revolves around the synergy between Snapcaster and Edric. It is a bad assumption that people make that you need tons of creatures in your deck to make Edric good. That is simply not true. All you need is for 2-3 creatures a turn to connect. GSZ into Arbor is the most easy and fast way I've found to achieve this. I was running 2 for a while and perhaps I'll go back to 2, but I love the synergy and tool-box nature of the deck. you can tutor up almost anything TWICE with Mystical Tutor and find your Ancestral faster that way too. The benefits from the 2-color mana base in my view and also the simple REACTIVE game it can play vs. Control decks. Really this deck is designed to beat control better than Noble Fish can by not having to commit so much on its own turn. It is able to lay in wait with disruption and then begin to beat down with a bunch of 2/1's and 1/1s. Edric is simply there to make sure they never break out of the lock. This is a control deck where I see Noble Fish as being more of a Prison deck that just so happens to be Blue. I prefer the way that Noble Fish handles and feels, but I simply propose this deck another solid way to abuse Snapcaster Mage that hasn't been tried. And yes, Mana Drain is the card most on the chopping block. I do love the hard counter though and the synergy with Green Sun's Zenith is pretty obvious if you ask me. I think running 2 is great because then you have access to it later as well with Snapcaster when you really need that hard counter. I think deck is definitely soft to Wasteland, but at the same time it isn't with the 3 basics. I will need to test vs. Shops to see if this deck can keep up vs. them, but my instincts tell me that it probably cannot. Only testing will tell I suppose.

-Storm

[Troy_Costisick]

I haven't provided a thorough match-up analysis cause I haven't been able to get thorough testing on Cockatrice yet.

Ain't that the truth.  I've been on there the last couple nights and haven't gotten a single match!  Everyone seems more interested in Standard right now

[arj]

Could you touch upon how this deck deals with Jace? Other than countering and hoping to beat him to death as fast as possible. I find that a lot of aggro decks really has trouble with jace because he can bounce. So any ideas you'd like to share?