As my assignment for Team Diaspora, the Star City writers’ effort to take a long hard look at OBC tech, I was asked to look at threshold decks. More specifically I was asked to look at UG threshold decks.
Threshold is an interesting mechanic in and of itself – but really, I’ve found the Odyssey block’s mixture of threshold, flashback, and madness to be probably the most complex set of block mechanics ever. Easily apparent is that threshold and flashback are significantly at odds. Madness increases the complexity of the interactions, along with cards that give significant bonus when discarding like Wild Mongrel, Aquamoeba, or even Cephalid Looter. These types of cards with discard abilities can help a player reach threshold faster than if they were simply to play cards from their hand to either the board or the grave – namely, those with one-shot effects.
Now the threshold cards of note are most conspicuously Nimble Mongoose, Werebear, and Mystic Enforcer, along with the more popular threshold lands… Cards that gain considerably in relation to their casting cost if you have the seven cards in your graveyard to achieve the threshold status.
The first thing that I did upon receiving this assignment was to pore over the results from PT: Osaka to see how the more dedicated threshold decks did.
The results weren’t particularly inspiring. Let’s have a look.
Only four people played what I would really call a dedicated UG threshold deck at Osaka. These three…
Baberowski: 196th place
Blume: 245th
Felix Schneiders: 167th
All played this deck…
Main Deck
12 Forest
12 Island
4 Basking Rootwalla
1 Krosan Beast
4 Werebear
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Aether Burst
4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
4 Circular Logic
4 Roar of the Wurm
3 Upheaval
Now the cards that we are looking at in relation to threshold are Werebear, Krosan Beast, Breakthrough, and Careful Study. One would still note that the deck still used Mongrel, Rootwalla, Roar of the Wurm, and Circular Logic – cards that facilitate using both madness and flashback, despite this deck’s more avid concern with threshold.
I also noticed this player and his deck:
Martin, 173rd Place
Main Deck
2 Centaur Garden
8 Forest
12 Island
4 Aquamoeba
3 Arrogant Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla
2 Krosan Beast
3 Werebear
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Aether Burst
2 Breakthrough
3 Careful Study
4 Circular Logic
3 Obsessive Search
2 Upheaval
Again, a similar sort of idea as above with similar results.
I noticed along the way that the Enforcer decks came in two forms – one of
which was more interested in getting to threshold with cards like Careful
Study and Breakthrough, and one of which that wasn’t.
Blue/Green/White
By Shin Gill-Won, 224th place, and Gerardo Godinez-Estrada, 162nd
Main Deck
10 Forest
9 Island
1 Skycloud Expanse
3 Sungrass Prairie
2 Arrogant Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla
2 Gurzigost
2 Mystic Enforcer
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Werebear
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Aether Burst
4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
3 Roar of the Wurm
As you can see, these guys didn’t fare much better.
My feelings at this point would be that any deck looking to make a quick run out to threshold at the time of this tourney wasn’t a good idea. Generally, you are looking at card disadvantage situations – or at least possible card disadvantage like Careful Study and probably most early Breakthroughs. From what little I know at this point, I’d guess Black just owns these decks and I’d say that generally they are far worse than the more madness-oriented versions that many played.
Now the tricky part is that there were just a complete gamut of U/G decks that were focused on the tempo in a variety of ways, all using the block mechanics.
For instance, here is Sylvain Lauriol’s third-place U/G”threshold” deck:
Main Deck
2 Centaur Garden
9 Forest
11 Island
4 Basking Rootwalla
1 Nimble Mongoose
2 Seton’s Scout
2 Spellbane Centaur
2 Thought Eater
4 Werebear
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
3 Circular Logic
1 Compulsion
4 Roar of the Wurm
2 Stupefying Touch
1 Upheaval
What I find interesting is whether we can find that a deck only five creature cards and two lands that gain particularly from threshold can be considered a dedicated threshold strategy. The appearance to me is more of a deck that gains with the appearance of threshold, but can play without it. This is similarly true for Christophe Haim’s U/G”Madness” deck, which came in 7th:
Main Deck
2 Centaur Garden
9 Forest
9 Island
2 Aquamoeba
3 Arrogant Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Werebear
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Aether Burst
4 Breakthrough
3 Careful Study
3 Circular Logic
3 Deep Analysis
2 Standstill
This is probably the most dedicated threshold deck that did well at Osaka. The decks that packed a fairly full compliment of Careful Study and Breakthrough didn’t do very well – as we saw. This was generally true up and down the final results. What I did notice was the most of those lower in the standings bypassed on Nimble Mongoose, where Haim used the full four. I have to think that this made a difference in the mirror, where it was very much about Aether Burst. Achieving threshold and having a 3/3 untargetable was probably a nice advantage, and one Haim apparently rode to a top finish.
What I’ve found is that U/G or U/G/x decks that are overly focused on threshold seem to possibly be prone to falling into card disadvantage traps, spending their effort to get to threshold at the cost of a positive beatdown position. Black is obviously playing a big role in this putting the deck in the pincer of Mind Sludge and Mutilate, which is that deck’s main strategy. Flashback and Madness seem to be a better fit to fight that fight. Also, dumping a bunch of cards into your graveyard and then getting Haunting Echoes cast on you isn’t a real treat.
Black, in both block and standard, has basically killed what was perhaps the best threshold strategy: Counter Enforcer. Now the Enforcer player is put in the pinch of not being able to do enough to protect the one big finishing creature from being dealt with by the”sacrifice a creature” cards or a Mutilate that often will still wither a 6/6 pro black creature into nothingness.
This all points to threshold being the block’s weakest mechanic… But you can’t quite ignore it yet. I would say the future will continue to see a preponderance of U/G decks that”splash” some threshold cards, as they also look to take advantage of madness and flashback. Of obvious note is Judgement’s Quiet Speculation, which on everyone’s mind because it may be able to create threshold with the flashback mechanic. It may be some time before the question is answered as to how successful that idea will be when there are other options – namely, just more or less disregarding threshold in a Quiet Speculation deck altogether, or splashing in a few cards to take advantage of the occasional times you do have threshold.
Personally, I am rather skeptical that a real focus on threshold will yield significant results – but I know that we’ll still continue to see the odd Werebears, Nimble Mongooses, plus the splashed Coliseums and Gardens.
Will
Team Diaspora
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