I was playing Steve Sadin Gruul deck in an eight-man queue online right after Regionals, and in the first round I did exactly what Sadin’s deck was designed to do: crush one of those Llanowar Elves plus Giant Solifuge Gruul decks. As my Tarmogoyf and Greater Gargadon were staring down his whole lotta nothin’, I realized something: Tarmogoyf needs a nickname. He’s got the perfect confluence of “awesome card” and “nonsensical name”.
Writers love to give cards goofy nicknames; it makes the articles more interesting. I would make fun of this practice, except for the fact that Fearless Leader would fire me if I mentioned the nickname I commonly used for Deep Analysis. Mike Flores referred to Skred as “Snow Plow,” Tim Aten has thrown out such goofy turns of phrase as “Toshiro U-Me” and “Megan J. Tog,” and Evan Erwin calls Giant Solifuge “Cap’n Tickles” for some reason. Jeff Powelson liked to refer to Unliving Psychopath as “Unreal Psychopath” during team drafts, until it became clear that guy was decidedly un-unreal real.
So, before I take a look at Tarmogoyf’s breakout performance at Grand Prix: Montreal, I shall take it upon myself to nickname the card. I considered such names as…
* The Inventor of Scrabble (bonus geek points if you know what movie I’m referencing).
* Tar Baby (Um, no. Even if you ignore the racial undertones, I don’t call people “baby”).
* Jerry (I dunno, he just looks like a Jerry).
As this article’s title suggests, there was really only one option. Tarmogoyf needs to follow the lead of professional bodyguard Laurence Tureaud, who signaled his entry into acting by legally removing every letter in his last name, except the first one:
Tarmogoyf, like Mr. T, is pretty ridiculous. However, also like Mr. T, he needs pretty specific conditions in order to be ridiculous. It’s not every deck that can fill up the graveyard with creatures, lands, and all types of spells; it’s not even every matchup that will see both graveyards filled up with all of those card types. So let’s look at some of the ways that you get the most out of Mr. T.
First, Mr. T needs consistency around him. Check out the Brazilian deck that took the championship itself:
Creatures (19)
Lands (23)
Spells (18)
Sideboard
I had seen this deck on Magic Online during the week leading up to Grand Prix: Montreal. Alex Majlaton had sworn me to secrecy about his version, but I had even seen the Brazilian deck as well, both in a Premiere Event replay and in test games in the Tournament Practice room against people who had somehow barned it off of the Brazilians. To be honest, I didn’t think much of it, because I beat it pretty handily with the Red deck that I gave you last week. However, my opponents in those games were not of the same caliber as Senor Zampere, and I can see now that it was dodgy play on their part that made me think the deck was subpar.
Just about every keepable hand by this deck will play a problematic creature on turn 2 or 3, and by “problematic” I mean “this creature gains card advantage whether it dies or not.” Call of the Herd tokens, the pro-Black Mystic Enforcer, the Gargadon- and Cloudskate-wrecking Riftsweeper… all of them bust your opponent’s game up just by coming into play.
It’s a little like Rocky III, Mr. T’s debut film. You’re not watching a Rocky movie to see Mr. T act; hell, by that point you weren’t watching a Rocky movie to see anybody act. You want to see Stallone do all his unintentionally hilarious Stallone things, and for Sly and Mr. T to beat the crap out of each other. I saw the movie on cable recently, and that’s pretty much what you get. Thus, the film’s various shortcomings can be ignored. The deck is similar; all you do is beat the crap out of your opponent. Every card in the deck does that, and allows you to keep doing it in the face of Damnation or other removal. Thus, the shortcomings that G/W decks have historically had (no “reach,” for instance, because of a lack of burn spells) can be ignored.
Interlude: I Hate to Say “I Told You So,” But…
From my article A Chilling Look Into the Future: “[the ‘Pact’ mechanic] is atrocious design. Just awful. It takes the worst part of the echo mechanic (you have to remember to pay something in the future), and tacks onto it an even stronger penalty; in fact, the worst penalty you can have! No one should ever lose the game outright for being forgetful.”
From Noah Weil coverage of the Mark Herberholz – Gadiel Szleifer match at Grand Prix Montreal: “it looked like there was only one way Mark could win the game. Unfortunately for Gadiel, Gadiel found it. Gadiel’s second Slaughter Pact killed another morph and Shadowmage Infiltrator hit. Mark just drew a card and said go; an exciting chance to strike with Finkel again. Gadiel raced his untap and draw, to which Mark gently told his opponent he had just lost the game. It was true, Slaughter Pact had not been paid for.”
Seriously, nice design.
Back to Work
Another thing about Mr. T is that He needs the right role to do his magic. It would be pretty stupid to imagine Mr. T as, say, a Wall Street lawyer. Hell, I didn’t really buy him as the leader of a team of crimefighting gymnasts when I was six years old. The man never finished college and never took an acting class; he needs something a little closer to his range. Similarly, Tarmogoyf ought not show up in a deck that will be fighting to get him bigger than 2/3. Observe this Montreal deck from Olivier Ruel:
Creatures (4)
Lands (26)
Spells (30)
- 4 Careful Consideration
- 1 Haunting Hymn
- 2 Mystical Teachings
- 4 Prismatic Lens
- 2 Tendrils of Corruption
- 4 Damnation
- 1 Imp's Mischief
- 4 Coalition Relic
- 2 Foresee
- 3 Slaughter Pact
- 3 Take Possession
Sideboard
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea. Tarmogoyf is an innovative finisher for the U/B Teachings decks, and it encourages Ruel to keep his count of Prismatic Lens and Coalition Relic high (both of which are very important cards in the multi-color U/B deck). However, it seems that this deck requires a lot of things to go exactly perfectly in order for Mr. T to get strong; most of the time it seems that your ‘Goyfs would be 2/3 from a Terramorphic Expanse and various instants.
As it turns out, this deck may be a spectacular case of metagaming by the French master. Ruel seems to have anticipated that the tournament would be flooded with Tarmogoyfs, because the only times that his Tarmogoyfs are at their best are when his opponent has filled the graveyard with permanents for their copies. This deck might gain in power during the PTQ season for that same reason.
Finally, Mr. T has to be parceled out in small packages. If there were 50 actors in Hollywood with the same image as Mr. T, that would get really tired really fast. If Conan O’Brien had Mr. T on his show every night, his schtick would again get tired in a hurry.
Tarmogoyf is similar: once everyone is playing it, some problems develop. For one thing, the mirror can be quite awkward. From testing Gruul for Regionals and talking to people who had done the same, it basically comes down to whomever draws more copies of Mr. T. Sadin’s deck breaks that symmetry with Mogg War Marshal and Greater Gargadon, but if people catch on to that deck – and they likely will, since Flores, myself, and others have been pimping it – then again it just boils down to who draws more copies of certain giant creatures.
Another problem is that if Tarmogoyf beatdown decks flood the format, certain other decks become good that we would rather not have to metagame against. The prime example comes from Resident Genius-elect Guillaume Wafo-Tapa:
Creatures (24)
- 1 Mystic Snake
- 4 Wall of Roots
- 4 Gemhide Sliver
- 1 Might Sliver
- 3 Telekinetic Sliver
- 1 Darkheart Sliver
- 4 Dormant Sliver
- 3 Frenetic Sliver
- 1 Reflex Sliver
- 1 Whitemane Lion
- 1 Venser, Shaper Savant
Lands (22)
Spells (14)
As I mentioned in Grow a Pair, the Slivers can beat the U/B decks, but they can also have lots of problems with Draining Whelk. Wafo found out as much in his Top 4 match with Paul “Seven Bells” Cheon. However, as just about every other match in the Top 8 showed, it’s very tough for those base-Blue decks to beat a Tarmogoyf, Draining Whelk or no. So the Sliver deck becomes a player in the format again.
Standard is a different animal, because of the existence of dual lands that count as swamps. Thus Urborg is not as necessary for a giant Tendrils of Corruption as it is in Block. Also, there are more Extirpates than in Block, so Tarmogoyf can more easily be removed from the equation. However, Mr. T may still be a player in the format, as illustrated by this deck:
Creatures (18)
Lands (22)
Spells (20)
I would actually make some changes to this deck, but I haven’t had a chance to give them a spin on MTGO yet, so I’ll spare you. I haven’t seen another deck in Standard which exploits Mr. T so well – if some poor fellow has his hand emptied by this deck and then sees a Tarmogoyf hit across the board… well, I guess I would pity the fool.
This article written in between chapters of “Iron Man: Extremis,” written by Warren Ellis and penciled by Adi Granov. Ellis gives Tony Stark’s origin a long-needed reboot, and the only problem with the resulting book is that it’s too short. Flores has raved about Ellis on the podcasts, but this is actually the first book of his I’ve read; I’m going to have to rectify that mistake in a hurry.
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