Before you get too far into this article, please keep in mind that this is the sordid history of U/G Threshold, rather than a proper one in the vein of Deck Histories and Concepts or some such. Rather than mentioning such actually successful masters of the Mongoose as David Humpherys or Raphael Levy, this article is going to focus on a series of decks designed by yours truly and Brian David-Marshall since Odyssey Block.
Our first U/G Threshold deck was unveiled the first week of Odyssey Block PTQs. Brian had discovered a Threshold-centric Flashback threat called Grizzly Fate that he thought would lift his U/G deck past the Innocent Bloods and Chainer’s Edicts of the then-dominant Mono-Black Control decks. Brian did pretty well at the first PTQ but failed to crack Top 8 due to a late Swiss error. That first weekend, I didn’t play because I had a high enough Constructed rating to coast into a PT invitation, but went along for the times.
The way home was sort of awful. It got really late and our driver *Cough*Justin*Cough* kept falling asleep. As such, BDM, Tony “Shark” Tsai, and my former writing partner Justin Polin elected to find an out-of-the-way hotel (and I use the term “hotel” loosely) for the evening (which, humorously enough, was about five miles from Tony’s place). In fact it was werewolf central, like exactly the kind of place you see in B horror movies or perhaps rural cow-tipping photographs starring Adrian Sullivan. I think we drove the car into a hay-floored barn posing as a garage and slept in a room that smelled like it hadn’t had a puff of fresh air in three years (possibly that was just wolfsbane, an herb I wouldn’t be able to readily identify). On the good side, I won both our two-on-two drafts that night; on the bad side, in the middle of f***ing werewolf central (I’m telling you I could hear the mating howls of two murderous lycanthropes in the distance), F***ing Justin Left The Door Open All Night because “it was stuffy.” Besides not, you know, getting eaten, I’m just glad I don’t get any fuzzier than usual come full moon.
Anyway, here is BDM’s Odyssey Block Week One deck:
4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
4 Mental Note
3 Wonder
4 Basking Rootwalla
2 Centaur Chieftain
4 Grizzly Fate
4 Roar of the Wurm
4 Werebear
4 Wild Mongrel
11 Forest
11 Island
1 Tarnished Citadel
Sideboard
4 Aether Burst
4 Envelop
4 Upheaval
3 Krosan Reclamation
Justin actually took this version to back-to-back Top 8s the week following, including an unfortunate Top 2 miss.
A few weeks later, I learned that the K value of the last tournament that I had won (actually split in the finals with Tony, who was too miserly to give me the necessary full scoop) had been lowered after ratings calculations to 24K, meaning that I had to go an insurmountable 2-0 in a 32K PTQ to make ratings invite. I’m not sure what is worse, the fact that I could not string together a single 2-0 any time over the course of the next three weeks or… No, that’s about as bad as it gets.
Late in Odyssey Block season, various Wake decks were picking up popularity, so I built a version of U/G with BDM that would be strong against Wake and the mirror. If you remember my article from almost a year ago called “Realizing How Bad You Are“, this is the deck that I played in the initial story where I thought I had played really well.
4 Aquamoeba
2 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
4 Circular Logic
4 Mental Note
4 Wonder
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Phantom Centaur
4 Werebear
4 Wild Mongrel
10 Forest
11 Island
1 Tarnished Citadel
Sideboard
4 Aether Burst
4 Envelop
4 Standstill
3 Squirrel’s Nest
The reason I liked this deck better than the standard U/G was that I could never get stuck with an Arrogant Wurm or Roar of the Wurm in my hand. Instead, I would just cast the vastly superior Phantom Centaur on turn 3 and cover with eight madness outlets and the maximum number of Circular Logics. We had done a lot of mirror testing that summer and no version of U/G was really beating any other version consistently. A deck with Aether Burst would get the advantage only if it drew two copies, and a deck with a ton of madness bombs would overwhelm the other deck about as often as it would lose because it drew the clunky cards that only work when you have a Wild Mongrel (without, you know, the Wild Mongrel in its hand).
Our version was testing very well against Wake because of the combination of extra speed from Werebear, which was not typically paired with permission, and the consistent regularity of our 5/3s. It was obviously better against Braids decks because we had a 5/3 Protection from Black option that could finish in four rather than something that would get easily blocked or Butchered.
In hindsight, I don’t know if the above version was all that special; it was in a sense much less draw dependent than other U/G decks but also lacked the punch of U/G’s best draws. BDM and I like to joke that the main was stains but we had an awesome sideboard. We would just double up our counters against Wake; even though Envelop doesn’t stop the bomb Mirari([‘s Wake]) cards specifically, it stopped Kirtar’s Wrath, Time Stretch, Concentrate, and other cards that helped Wake from not losing to U/G’s steady offense. We would side in the Standstills and Aether Bursts on the play in the mirror and side out Basking Rootwalla on the draw; one embarrassing match, I managed to side in Standstill and Envelop for Rootwalla, which made no sense.
In sum, this deck was pretty good, but didn’t do any qualifying. BDM suggested Nimble Mongoose, but I hadn’t really fallen in love with the little guy yet (or tried him, actually). I thought of the Mongoose as a “win more” card in the Werebear camp and didn’t give him the chance he deserved; he would have been awesome.
Though Brian would have taken Werebear as his gay cardboard lover for some time prior to [author name="Rob Dougherty"]Rob Dougherty’s[/author] Boston Open, it wasn’t until that era that we really got into the U/G Threshold groove. If you don’t know the story already, BDM mis-registered all our decks, which kept me out of the Boston Open finals. I could have checked my own deck list, but it was just easier to slap all of our names onto one piece of paper given our three-way 75 card clones, so it was my own fault ultimately.
This deck was previously discussed in Single Forest, Double Island at my former writing home, the long forgotten Sideboard, and was eventually appropriated by Andreas Kruschel to win German Regionals after I published that piece. It was a strong deck that performed very well against many of the best decks of the era, notably due to Nimble Mongoose and Roar of the Wurm.
Last year, predicting a metagame full of U/G Madness and Psychatog, I dusted off my Threshold cards and modified the deck to Extended. From my perspective, it was never really clear cut that U/G Madness was the best deck in Odyssey Block… I always thought U/G Threshold was peer. While U/G Madness got Intuition and Yavimaya Coast, Threshold added the awesome power of the Onslaught lands as well; I figured that pushed Threshold over the top. If Madness was Tier One, Threshold should have been, too.
4 Careful Study
4 Deep Analysis
3 Intuition
4 Mental Note
1 Rushing River
2 Wonder
2 Genesis
1 Krosan Reclamation
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Roar of the Wurm
4 Werebear
4 Wild Mongrel
3 Flooded Strand
4 Forest
7 Island
1 Polluted Delta
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Yavimaya Coast
Sideboard
3 Chill
4 Submerge
3 Stifle
4 Naturalize
1 Forest
This brings us to my first article as a Star City Games Featured Writer. You can recount that adventure here.
That deck is kind of the opposite of the second one… great main, utterly useless sideboard. I lost to the mirror (Madness) and Enchantress. The mirror is a good matchup, but they can blow you out, and you can’t really blow them out. Like over the course of 100 games, you’ll win 70, but the 30 that Madness wins will usually be one-sided whereas most of the ones Threshold wins will be favorable exhaustion wars based on Wonder control or Genesis recursion.
Last week, I had the opportunity to play in a GP Trial. It was Sunday morning.
Ring Ring.
[ me ] You coming?
[ Rabbit ] Huh?
[ me ] GPT @ NG.
[ Rabbit ] No. Didn’t know. No deck.
[ me ] Okay.
[ Rabbit ] What are you playing?
[ me ] I only own one deck.
(Two hours later)
Ring Ring.
[ Rabbit ] Bring me Pulverizes.
[ me ] Huh?
[ Rabbit ] I’m playing your deck.
[ me ] God. Why didn’t you call me three minutes ago? I already left. Please don’t play my deck. I’m saving it for the GP.
[ Rabbit ] You maybe should have thought about that before you gave it to me.
(Seven hours later)
[ Rabbit ] Your deck is terrible.
[ me ] You Won The Tournament.
[ Rabbit ] Still terrible.
[ Clair ] Maybe Meltdown is better. It looked better than Pulverize would have been if he could have gotten them.
[ Rabbit ] Shut up.
[ me ] He drew two.
[ Rabbit ] But I didn’t need two. I bashed him anyway.
Anyway, Rabbit played my version of RDW (with Meltdown instead of Pulverize only because he called me three minutes too late), Clair slept in and showed at about six, and I played Threshold (i.e. the only cards I own but a good deck anyway). Josh took home the byes; here was my path to !byes:
Deck:
4 Careful Study
4 Daze
3 Deep Analysis
3 Intuition
4 Mental Note
2 Wonder
1 Genesis
1 Krosan Reclamation
4 Nimble Mongoose
3 Roar of the Wurm
4 Werebear
4 Wild Mongrel
3 Flooded Strand
5 Forest
6 Island
1 Polluted Delta
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Yavimaya Coast
Sideboard
1 Deep Analysis
4 Energy Flux
1 Quiet Speculation
2 Seal of Removal
3 Waterfront Bouncer
4 Oxidize
This version is essentially last year’s deck with Daze added and a near-perfect sideboard. I must say that Daze is spectacular in this deck. It turns a lot of the hard matchups into easy ones and really puts Threshold over the top in the quasi-mirror. The only thing I don’t like is having only one Genesis. Genesis is so important in the U/G, Rock, and Psychatog matchups… but I guess only one of those matchups is particularly relevant. I was temporarily worried about having only three Deep Analysis for The Rock matchup, but when I didn’t lose any games in testing I put it out of my mind. That said, the extra Deep Analysis in the sideboard is only there because MikeyP walked into the tournament before I handed in my registration sheet (would have been a third Seal of Removal instead). I assumed he would be The Rock, but he tricked me and hybridized both his GP Champion decks, playing a Rock with Opposition oddball that nevertheless took him to Top 4 before he bit it to Rabbit and RDW. The only weird card is Quiet Speculation (for RDW or any aggro… much better than the fourth Roar, which you might actually draw); it used to be a Spike Feeder until I realized my deck only had four Forests and one Genesis. After I cut it, I realized I was playing 12 Green cards that have to show up in the first two turns and cut an Island for the fifth.
The weird thing about U/G Threshold is that its matchups are eerily similar to my other favorite deck (RDW if you haven’t noticed over the past month or so, including this article). They are both good v. typical RDW and U/G decks, both atrocious v. Life (U/G is probably worse because it can’t exacerbate manascrew or burn Life out), both blow out The Rock, both lose game one against Affinity but take it in three on the numbers. By my own rules, I should just play RDW… RDW is like the U/G Threshold that can’t get caught with Wonder and Roar of the Wurm in grip… that can’t get color-screwed… but I Just Love Threshold!
Like I only like beatdown decks (like Dan only likes Red Decks), and Threshold has a turn 4 goldfish… but it also has a ton of tutoring. I Love Tutoring! Threshold might not be Napster, but it has Careful Study, Mental Note, Intuition, and Genesis. I love cards. I love attacking. Unfortunately it is good against just enough decks on the numbers that I can justify playing it. I know Affinity is a better deck, but in testing, Tim pointed out that my game one is quite acceptable v. the best aggro deck in the field, and I win almost all the sideboard games. See the reinforcement?
Round-by-Round:
1: Pirates
He won the flip. He smashed me with Rishadan Port into Rishadan Cutpurse with Rishadan Footpad just there to insult me. All my land went away.
Game two I drew some Oxidizes for his Ankh, Ankh, and Shackles, prompting a “Sometimes when you play a bad deck, you lose to Oxidize” from my opponent.
Game three he drew all these Stifles. One for my land, one for his Parallax Tide (for five lands, obviously), one for his Gilded Drake. You see even with no land, I had a Wild Mongrel and two Nimbles with Threshold, but he Gilded Draked my Mongrel and had the Seal, so it was pointless to attack because I wouldn’t be able to recoup at all. So we just sat there while I tried to find land. Eventually he just played Drake + Stifle and got me to eight. I eventually had an Oxidize for his Ankh of Mishra and an Intuition; I was going to set up Wonder for the kill, but he Boomeranged my Forest. So I drew a Wooded Foothills, played it… and died to the Drake. I didn’t realize I would take five by playing Wooded Foothills instead of Forest for the Oxidize, giving him exactly the kill. If I re-played the Forest instead, I could Oxidize the Ankh and Intuition for double Wonder and the kill the next turn, but I was just not up on my anti-Pirates play.
How awful.
On one hand, it sucked to lose to Pirates. On the other hand, everyone else lost to him too, and Pirates stormed all the way to the finals, where its master Elias finally scooped the byes over to the Rabbit.
0-1
2: RDW
Game one he attempts to Volcanic Hammer Nimble Mongoose. WHAT? I gladly traded with Jackal Pup. No Pup means they can’t race Roar.
Game two he mulliganed to four and crushed me. He had active Cursed Scroll on turn 3 with Grim Lavamancer in play, showing me Flametongue Kavu. I had an awesome draw with turn two 3/3 but couldn’t play out my Mongrels because of his shown Flametongue. So of course I did, allowing him to play his two Kavu on my Mongrels and race me (only it wasn’t much of a race).
Game three I made no such awful play and won. RDW is a hard matchup for Siron-style Madness, but it is really easy for Threshold due to Nimble Mongoose preventing a ton of early damage, easy access to multiple 6/6s, and Werebear forcing a lot of one-for-two Magic and soaking up a lot of burn in the midgame. Unless you start throwing your Wild Mongrels in front of their Flametongue Kavus, the matchup is so good I’m going to cut my Quiet Speculation; the Oxidizes are enough to consistently win this fight, I think.
1-1
3: Mind’s Desire
Game one he had a very good draw with next to no lands, so I was able to wreck him with Daze after his Vamp with Underground River. I let him have the Vamp and Dazed his Nightscape Familiar once I already had a beater out (I was pretty sure he was going for land, Sol Malka style). This gave me four free points and I killed him on my fourth turn. I didn’t actually remember that my deck could do that, but I got a hot Deep Analysis draw with a Werebear and a Mongrel and that was all she wrote. Josh gave me the Dave Price stare waiting for me to pitch my second-to-last card with my opponent tapped out but I almost didn’t do it; I didn’t want to show him the Krosan Reclamation.
Game two I sided out four slow cards (Deep Analysis, 2 Wonder, Genesis) for Oxidizes. He got to six and fizzled, putting my Werebears back in my hand and Vamping for what I think would have been a kill the next turn. So I Intuitioned for Oxidizes and killed his Mox, putting him back on five mana, and attacked him to one with my remaining Werebear. He ripped Polluted Delta and had to pass into my on-table kill.
2-1
4: West
Game one I wrecked him with Daze. It was pretty easy with a strong creature draw. He was all worried about board control so he lost when I just set up Wonder and 10 in the sky, flying over his face down Exalted Angel and stuff.
Game two he had a Force Spike and locked me before I did anything worthwhile. He was seriously awful. After I spent my first Oxidize, he set his Meddling Mage on Naturalize. Then he forgot to attack me four times while down a game. It wasn’t until he played Exalted Angel that he remembered to attack. Of course the game didn’t last much longer at that point.
Now on full blown tilt, I elected to side out 2 Mental Notes, a Roar, and a Deep Analysis for my Energy Fluxes. Suffice it to say I lost game three with three Energy Fluxes in play with him never drawing an artifact. My 1/1 Nimble Mongoose sat by as three Meddling Mages waltzed past my six card graveyard and attacked me to death. Loss by actual 2/2 creatures for two set on irrelevant cards Oxidize, Naturalize, and Roar of the Wurm is fairly humiliating when you have the most efficient creature deck in the room. Too bad I didn’t draw that Wooded Foothills one turn earlier. Or not side in Energy Flux. I might have drawn, I dunno, a second guy or a Threshold enabler. Instead of Energy Flux. Either one would have probably been enough to make Top 8.
I think West is a pretty easy matchup if you don’t destroy your own deck voluntarily. On the play especially you can burn them with Daze and your Oxidizes should be money after board. West has to play fast defense because you have a steady turn 4-5 goldfish and reasonable resistance with Daze and Oxidize. If they didn’t have Isochron Scepter + Orim’s Chant, you would win like every game (unless you are awful and side in Energy Flux for essential cards and/or threats). Too bad they have those cards.
2-2
5: Madness
Game one I had Mongoose + Werebear on the play and burned his madness outlet with Daze. He got Wonder first with Aquamoeba and double Roar and went for the giant turn. I showed him an Intuition for Wonder, Roar, and Krosan Reclamation with Wild Mongrel and Werebear out and he scooped.
Game two my turns 1-4 were Mental Note, Werebear, Werebear + Waterfront Bouncer, Intuition + Bouncer the Arrogant Wurm with Roar of the Wurm. Madness might actually be the best matchup for this deck.
3-2
In sum, going 3-2 with U/G Threshold just made me want to play it more. BDM and I love this deck to what can only be considered an unhealthy degree. I gather this must be how a battered wife feels. It’s not Threshy’s fault we didn’t make Top 8. I could have played better. Good Threshy, pretty Mongoose. I fell. I love you baby.
If not for the fact that yesterday was my wife’s birthday, I would probably spent it in Deepest Darkest Brooklyn, failing to make Top 8 at Alex Shvartsman GP Trial at Kings Games. Instead, my protege scooped at 5-0 because he “already had two byes”… but I assume he’ll have told you about it already by the time this article sees print.
May all your opening draws contain a Forest, an Island, and a Flooded Strand.
LOVE
MIKE