So I have been a quite member of the mandarin since 2000, and every once in a while I post. I always really get really great feedback on deck ideas from the professionals (Soly, Brassman, etc). I have been working on a deck idea, and I need others help. I recently saw Brassman's Serious Vintage post and VSL tournament round playing classical Leovold Control with decklist reposted below from his latest podcast show notes (reproduced below for ease of reference).
BUG Control by Andy Probasco
Creature (16)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Baleful Strix
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Vendilion Clique
Sorcery (9)
2 Painful Truths
1 Ponder
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
3 Thought seize
Instant (13)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
1 Fluster storm
2 Abrupt Decay
Artifact (4)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
Land (18)
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
Sideboard (15)
1 Forest
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Trygon Predator
2 Dismember
3 Nature’s Claim
3 Null Rod
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Dread of Night
I like this list a lot. I think Leovold is great against mentor as it shuts down something like 15 draw spells at once in the average mentor list (Git probe, cantrips etc.). It has more creatures, which help against thorn of amethyst and land denial is a great way to attack so many decks in the current meta with relatively weak manabase (i.e. 14 lands, eldrazi temple in shops, etc). I noticed in the podcast there were differences in play style with the deck with some people playing more control while others were playing the deck more aggressively. I have always loved control, and I wanted to change the deck in that direction. I provide the list below and the reason for the changes (* marks cards different from Andy's original list).
Super BUG Control by Marc
Creature (10)
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy *
Sorcery (9)
1 Life from the Loam *
2 Murderous Cut *
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
3 Thought seize
Instant (14)
1 Intuition *
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
1 Mindbreak Trap * (over fluster storm I prefer it with Leovold as you can draw from storm targeting opponent to find it before the tendrils copies resolve)
2 Abrupt Decay
Artifact (6)
2 Null Rod *
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
Planeswalkers (3)
2 Dack Fayden *
1 Jace, the Minsculptor *
Land (18)
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
1 Badlands * (over Bayou for Dack Fayden)
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
These slight changes (maybe 10 cards in total really) don't seem like much at first, but they add a strong draw engine that most people have come to expect from modern control decks, allowing one to dig for answers. I will discuss the new cards added below
Life from the Loam: Although there is a single copy in the deck and a rarely used card in vintage, it is a very strong card in this deck. For example, it can be used early with intuition to start a strip lock. With a flipped Jace, Telepath unbound, dredging back life from the loam puts three cards in the graveyard with 23/60 instant or sorceries in the deck, this creates virtual card advantage as every uptake gives you 1-2 new instants or sorceries that you can play from your graveyard, while allowing you to cast loam to recur wastelands or even aid with color fixing. Loam allows you to feed delve spells faster than everyone else who plays them allowing treasure cruise, dig, and murderous cuts to be even better draws in the early game. Finally, with Dack Fayden, the card works like a CA engine allowing you to fill your hand with lands to discard to Dack Fayden for nearly pure card advantage.
Jace, Vryn's prodigy: In addition to the interaction with life from the loam, as a control deck the repeated ability to decrease the power of enemy creatures and potential for long game repeated use of the (-) ability to replay instants and sorceries is much more important than the 2/1 body on snapcaster.
Dack Fayden: allows for a draw engine with Life from the Loam as mentioned earlier. Is a great card against Shops, and with Leovold can force your opponent to draw one and discard 2, which is sometimes useful when you've destroyed their manabase and you want them to discard before they draw the land needed to play what's in their hand.
Murderous cut, intuition, and null rods are all metagame slots that don't warrant that much discussion, although it is much easier to fire off murderous cut with dredge 3. Intuition is great for getting life from the loam and strip and sometimes just tutors for exactly what you need. Three instants/sorceries with flipped Jace can all go live, which is also nice.
Playing other decks:
I don't have much time to playtest, but I've been starting to online a bit. The deck is definitely on the control side with heavy durdling. It usually wins through Deathrite shaman's 2 damage ability after removing all of the opponents lands.
Bonus for those not already sleeping
SB:
The deck plays best against slower control decks and has a harder time playing against paradoxical storm (unless leovold comes down on turn 2) and fast ago draws from shops and eldrazi. I thought about trying the usual SB slots (Nature's claim, more murderous cuts, etc), but recently I have been playing with a transformational SB to Saheeli Oath with
2 Forbidden Orchard
2 Sun Titan
2 Saheeli Oath
4 Oath of druids
and removing all the other creatures in the deck. I'm sure this is not the best idea but there are some great interactions with the strip mine effects and Sun Titan. Firstly, the deck has lot's of ways to find oath (Demonic Tutor, Intuition, card draw, etc) and protect it (3 Thoughtseize, lot's of counter spells, and the element of surprise in G2). If you're lucky, the first oath activation goes infinite for the win, but if only one Saheeli is found then you can copy the Sun Titan with the single Saheeli and use the copy to get Strip Mine and then since the copy has haste you can attack and find another wasteland that has been binned by the oath trigger. This way you attack for 6 the turn you oath and get two strip effects in before passing the turn. If this is done early enough, the opponent likely has no land left and they die to infinite Sun Titans on the next turn. If they manage to get rid of oath before you can oath into the second Saheeli to go infinite, then Sun Titan acts like a recursive strip lock each time he attacks, and the opponent usually can't recover.
The rest of my SB is typically anti Dredge cards.
Anyway, this was really long winded, but the deck feels powerful in the current metagame and feels like Andy's BUG control list taken to a more extreme control route. It is also a blast to play and clearly capitalizes on trying to attack weak manabases in the metagame. If anyone has any advice on how to make the main deck or SB better or just wants to tell me that I'm thinking about this all wrong, I would love the feedback. Thanks for anyone who's out there reading.
Sincerely,
Marc