If you think Vintage is intimidating or strange, follow along and we’ll bring you up to speed.
In part one (which can be found here and here), I reviewed decks A-F on the SCG gauntlet – tracing through each deck’s game plan, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and describing the relevant matchups. The purpose of this effort is to assist readers trying to figure out what they might want to play and how to shore up archetype weaknesses by describing the decks of Type One in a candid light – free (hopefully) from the distortions you might see from someone promoting their pet deck.
In this article we look at decks that start with the letter G-M. We begin with what is undoubtedly one of the best decks in Type One and yet is the most confounding, irritating, and mystifying:
G@y Red Fish:
Marc Perez, 1st Place, East Coast Champion
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Spiketail Hatchling
2 Voidmage Prodigy
1 Gorilla Shaman
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
2 Daze
1 Stifle
4 Curiosity
4 Standstill
3 Null Rod
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Mishra’s Factory
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Island
4 Volcanic Island
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Mox Sapphire
Sideboard:
2 Maze of Ith
1 Firestorm
1 Energy Flux
1 Null Rod
3 Rack and Ruin
1 Unsummon
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Fire / Ice
1 Stifle
This archetype has evolved into at least three distinct weapons. This is the predominant build. There is also the progenitor, mono-Blue fish which runs Lord of Atlantis, and there is the more recent variant, Jacob Orlove’s”Worse Than Fish” which is U/G to take advantage of River Boa and Oxidize, among other goodies.
So, how does this deck play out?
The deck’s game plan is rather simple. On turn one it either lays a turn 1 Grim Lavamancer or a manland to shed its summoning sickness by turn 2 – barring a restricted card. On turn 2, Spiketail Hatchling, Cloud of Faeries, Null Rod, and Curiosity or Standstill can come down – or any of these cards in combination with Wasteland or each other may come down. Turn 3 and on features more of the same.
This deck, and a number of other decks in this Gauntlet run two-ofs. One of the reasons is that these decks are disruptive-oriented instead of draw-oriented. As such, their game plan is thematic, not a specific interaction of certain cards necessary to advance that game plan (as with dragon: Bazaar + Dragon + Animate, or Intuition -> AK with Tog).
That theme is tempo. These decks are good at putting some solid men into play and dealing enough damage to the opponent that they are unable to answer the vast quantity of threats and deal with the counterspells and mana denial. Specifically, this is facilitated by mana denial such as Wasteland, Stifle, and Null Rod; counterspells such as Force of Will, Daze, Spiketail Hatchlings, Voidmage Prodigy, and some Misdirections; and card drawers like Curiosity and Standstill. A good amount of damage is dealt by turn 4-6 and the opponent’s range of options slowly dwindles until they have no viable options that it is inevitable that Fish will win, even if Fish hasn’t, in fact, won yet.
Difficulty of Play
One of the more frustrating things about someone who just picks up this deck is the combination of two-ofs and random singletons can make this deck appear to have vastly different game plans from game to game. It is not unusual in two consecutive games to draw seven entirely different cards in each opening hand. This can create confusion among the player in sideboarding and in spell decisions if they don’t understand this fact. This is also a deck that while relatively simple, requires perfect decisions at every stage of the game. In other words, this is the type of deck where if you slip up once, you might lose the game. This fact is balanced by the reality that this deck otherwise has a limited number of decisions and no real tutoring or optional draw spells that might increase the number of decisions one has to make.
Around turn 3 to 4 you may have a number of alternatives, and you may not be sure about which play is better. The guiding principle to keep in mind is tempo. Investing in a play that will become stronger next turn is not how this deck functions. It is much better to play the Wasteland now then to play a creature that won’t be functioning until next turn – unless it is Cloud of Faeries or something like Standstill.
Strengths
This deck is one of the strongest strategies and most successful decks in the format. It has morphed from a metagame deck into a metagame defining deck. Granted, the user can always make adjustments to specific metagames, but the underlying theme remains the same and the core set of cards: Force of Will, Wastelands, Null Rod, Curiosity, Standstill, and some small men remains constant throughout those changes. The decks core set of blue cards (Force of Will, Stifle, Daze, Misdirection) are sufficiently powerful that they can stall out any opponent long enough that they can’t recover. Null Rod is well-recognized as a very powerful hoser in the format, and creates a headache for any Workshop or Combo deck. The mana denial dovetails well with the idea of overwhelming a control player. A sign of this deck’s power is that any good Vintage player must consider the Fish matchup and think about how to deal with it.
Weaknesses
One of the most mystifying things about this deck is how underpowered it appears to be. If you put a decklist like Draw7 next to this, you will find it striking how cards like Cloud of Faeries appear next to Mind’s Desire or Wheel of Fortune. This deck doesn’t even have Brainstorm in it – a signal that redundancy does not necessarily equal consistency (or that Brainstorm just lacks synergy with the deck, which it does). The lack of inherent power is compensated for by the strength of the strategy. This is why this deck couldn’t trade cards one for one and hope to win. When fighting this deck against Tog, every card in the Tog deck appeared to be worth about 1.2 times the value of each card in the Fish deck. As such, Fish needs to compensate through careful use of its spells and through tempo.
This deck’s main weakness is that the opponent has a turn to act free of practically any threat except Force of Will (turn 1), and if you went first, two full turns relatively unmolested. You can anticipate correctly that this deck’s metagame weakness is against decks like Draw7 and Belcher, and high powered aggro decks. Despite being able to drop turn 2 Null Rod, Draw7 runs Force of Will and can win in the one or two turn window before Null Rod becomes active. Belcher isn’t phased by Wastelands, and despite a dislike for Null Rod, it can and does win before Null Rod hits. But more importantly, in testing, a pre-emptive Living Wish for Scavenger Folk tends to do the trick just as well. On the other side of the metagame spectrum, this deck has problems with decks like Tools ‘N Tubbies – a Workshop deck that pumps out men like Juggernaut on turn 1. This deck doesn’t want to run into decks with such large men. Fortunately for Fish, unlike the Combo matchups, such aggro matchups are very easy to shore up with cards like Rack and Ruin and Goblin Vandal.
Finally, there is some question about this decks potency if it has truly adopted the role of a metagame-defining deck. If people are testing for it and preparing for it, is this deck going to remain as strong? Time will tell.
Concluding Thoughts
A sign that the format is healthy is that this is a competitive deck. It signals that non-purely power-based strategies can compete. Part of that is a function of the enormous strength of Null Rod, but most of it is the result of a synergistic design focused on achieving a tempo advantage that is difficult to beat.
It is difficult to tell, but there is a real possibility that this deck is misbuilt. The deck’s success may have reinforced design errors that might have been caught had the deck not been so successful. In other words, when a deck works, why fix it? While that saying is mostly true, in that there may be nothing to”fix” per se, there is nothing wrong with trying to make something great even better.
In testing, the best reason I could come up with for why the deck might be justified in running so many conspicuous two-ofs is this: The deck’s game plan is essentially to play small men and protect the board with draw and counterspells doing only enough damage to kill the opponent. The deck doesn’t want dominance over the game – far from it, it just wants to have enough damage in that the opposing deck won’t be able to enter the final phase of its late game and execute its plan. As such, while Fish often has more than enough answers to opposing decks, ideally, it will be stringing along in the midgame with a threadbare advantage over the game. (I’m saying this based upon the same principle that Brian Weissman used to talk about only needing one life to win, the point is that you don’t have to do more than it takes to win.)
As such, the two-ofs show up in the midgame at about the right time you need them to stop their last gasp effort to stop you – i.e. Stifling their Pernicious Deed or countering their Counterspell with Misdirection when you are both in topdeck mode, but Fish has the board advantage. Nonetheless, the cards that are put in as two-ofs appear to me to be cards that are generally better in the opening game: cards like Daze, Stifle, and Misdirection. All three of those cards are sufficiently narrow that they appear to be strongest in the opening game, which would suggest to me that you would want to run three if you were to run any at all.
Therefore, I am left with two alternative explanations which are not mutually exclusive with the first. It is possible that these cards should be viewed as a group instead of individually. While they appear to answer different threats, it may be that the point is that most decks can be stunted in one way or another by any of these cards and the diversity simply works to maximize the options that Fish has when none of these cards is clearly superior. Additionally, it could just be that this was a metagame call and every time this deck is considered, these ratios change to suit the prevailing winds. While these are all possibilities, the alternative hypothesis remains real: that this deck is simply misbuilt.
I have a very strong suspicion that this is true when Black Lotus is not included. This deck runs Mox Sapphire for obvious reasons despite being reliant in many matchups upon Null Rod. While the deck may be mana hungry enough that once in a while it would prefer a more stable mana supply, the fact of the matter is that Black Lotus is the ultimate tempo card in a strongly tempo-based deck.
Black Lotus, in my opinion, is the best card in Magic because it functions in every deck. Every deck can use Black Lotus because it is not color specific. Not every deck uses Ancestral Recall, but every deck can use Black Lotus. While this deck is certainly not power-based, the functionality of Black Lotus is too compelling in this deck to pass up. Turn 1 Black Lotus, Mishra’s Factory, Tap Factory, Cloud of Fairies, Tap Factory again, Curiosity, Null Rod or Standstill is simply too good to pass up. There are numerous other possibly excellent turn 1 plays with Black Lotus.
The primary arguments against Black Lotus appear to be that success without it suggests that it is not needed, that there is a premium on reusable mana, and finally, that it negates Null Rod against Goblin Welder. The first two arguments I have addressed already, and the third is simply to address. If you anticipate facing Goblin Welder at all, the obvious solution is to metagame and not use Black Lotus, or, if you expect enough Welders, to simply sideboard out Black Lotus. Either scenario is perfectly reasonable. In my experience, potential deck building errors such as this may only be resolved through very careful analysis of the deck – an analysis I admittedly, as of yet, would be ill-equipped to conduct.
Regardless of the relatively minor quibbles I may have with a few design features, I obviously believe that this deck is something to be admired and feared, and hopefully with time, better understood.
Here is an old favorite from the past returned to haunt the present:
Gro-A-Tog
by Scott Limoges
1st Place, 2004-01-18 Waterbury
2 Psychatog
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Accumulated Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
2 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
1 Gush
4 Mana Drain
1 Merchant Scroll
2 Misdirection
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Duress
1 Mind Twist
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Strip Mine
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Island
Sideboard
2 Diabolic Edict
3 Naturalize
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Berserk
4 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Fact or Fiction
The original incarnation of GroAtog had its roots in the Turbo-Xerox decks that evidentially splashed Green using Land Grant for Quirion Dryad. The signifier of these decks was the very low land count. When the archetype added Black for Tog, made possible by the addition of Fetchlands into the format, I jumped on the bandwagon wrote a primer about my tournament experiences with it in early February of last year.
The restriction of Gush stunted this deck almost beyond repair. Nevertheless, this deck has enjoyed success in New England. The tournament this particular build of the deck won was very heavy Aggro and Control – and it is not surprising that the deck which beats both those archetypes emerged successful from the swiss and beat out decks which repeated the same pattern in the top 8 to emerge victorious
How does this deck play out?
It wants to get a Dryad into play as soon as possible and then play counters and control as it builds up the Dryad. The Dryad swings in over the course of a few turns, creating a situation where the opposing deck cannot risk continuing on the offense, and then, too late, it tries to play defense because the Dryads have grown out of control or a Berserking Tog enters the fray to finish you off. In other words, it is in many respects a tempo deck – attempting to buy time with cards like Duress and take as much life as it can from the opponent until the opponent is simply too constrained in the potential range of decisions it might make that GAT becomes the inevitable winner.
Rather than give this particular variant of GroAtog a full analysis, let me describe a bit of the theoretical problems that underlie this version of the deck.
As a caveat, I want to be clear that my opinion of Qurion Dryad as a card is very high.
As good as I think Dryad is, there seems to be a shortsightedness in the view of people who constantly promote Dryad that only those with long memories like myself would care to rebut. An additional problem is that many of the people who play competitive Type One didn’t at the time GAT was big – so I’ll try and address some of that history as a way of advancing my point.
1) Four Gush GAT
Scroll down to the very bottom and check out the last match in the tournament that I played.
Since you probably won’t do that, I’ll quote it here:
Semi-Finals:
After beating the Super Grow deck in the semi-finals, I had to play against the”Hulk Smash” Meyer-Battista Tog. I was confident that I could win if I stuck to the game plan of being the Aggro-control deck. Ironically, in light of Paul’s game, I played an Ancestral on his upkeep that resolved. In one of the games, I think it was this one, he had a turn 1 Time Walk. On turn 2, I played a Dryad which resolved. This is very good. I had multiple backup counterspells, which I hadn’t used at this point.
He laid a land, putting him to potential Mana Drain mana. I said that I hated walking into Mana Drains: but I played a tog anyway. He Mana Drained, and I Misdirected the drain to my Misdirection. I passed the turn. I think he played an Intuition, and then I untapped and Double Gushed on turn four for lethal damage with my Tog and Dryad. Everything went according to plan.
I sided in three Duresses, and decided in the end not to side in the Divert. I also sided in a Multani’s Presence. I sided out a Demonic Consultation, a Berserk, a Tog, and something else. My opening hand was a Mox Sapphire, a Mox Emerald, an Underground Sea, a Duress, a Counterspell, a Sleight of Hand, and a Merchant Scroll. He laid a land and passed the turn. I played a turn 1 Duress, which saw a Powder Keg, Cunning Wish, Gush, Yawgmoth’s Will, Intuition, and a land. Thinking long game, I thought how nice it would be to deprive him of his Will, I almost took it. I wasn’t scared of him Kegging away my Moxen, because that would mean one less keg for my Dryad. However, the Keg interfered with my game plan and I figured I would just have to stop the will before it happened. I laid the Sapphire and Sleighted, not using the Emerald in case he played another Keg. He played a land and passed the turn. I laid the Mox and another land. Then I tapped the Moxen for the Dryad.
He had two blue up, but no Drain. Evidently he just drew a Force of Will, because he pitched Cunning Wish… And I simply counterspelled and the Dryad resolved. Next turn, I played a second Dryad a Merchant Scroll for Ancestral. I can’t remember what he did – I think he laid a land and played Intuition.
On my fourth turn, I played tog. A few turns went by and the turn before I could do lethal damage because my Dryads were 2/2s and I only had 1 Misdirection, a Force of Will, and a Fastbond. I calculated damage and I could kill him next turn with the cards in hand. He had six mana by now and I had written down that he still had Yawgmoth’s Will. If he got that to resolve, my game would be over. He played a Tog, which I countered. He countered and I Misdirected, leaving me with only Fastbond in hand. Since he only had three mana up, I knew that if he played Yawgmoth’s Will this turn he wouldn’t be able to use it – but if he survived to the next turn, I would lose. If I Forced, I wouldn’t have lethal damage… Or would I?
But even better, I topdecked Gush. More than enough.
The point is that even at the peak of its power, and even against a terrible Hulk deck with no Duress or even Brainstorms, it was still a threat to GAT. I bring this up to make two sub-points. One is to compare GAT to Hulk, and to compare Tog to Dryad.
People seem to forget that GAT stands for Gro-a-TOG. When people think of GAT for some reason they default to thinking about Dryad when one of the most broken cards in the deck was the Tog. Four Gush plus Tog is quite disgusting. Rudy in fact ran four Togs and three Dryads. I ran 4/4 but there was a good argument to be made for preferring Tog over Dryad. Dryad was awesome on turn 1/2, but after that you really didn’t want to draw a creature unless it was a Tog. I liked four Dryads because two Dryads in your opening hand made every cantrip a +2/+2.
As for how the matchup played out, GAT was a full turn faster, but make no mistake, it could lose even though Hulk was an inferior deck to GAT. The primary advantage, besides speed, for GAT was that GAT didn’t just apply pressure like GAT decks try to do today, it literally comboed out by drawing its entire deck and making a number of massive men and then took more than a few turns in a row. Therefore, anyone who plays GAT today has an additional hurdle of convincing me that it is not just half as good as old GAT, but somewhere in the range of 70-80% as good as the old GAT decks – a difficult feat.
2) Free Spells
I don’t need to mention the synergy of free spells and Dryad.
Old GAT had twelve free spells: 4 Gush, 4 Misdirection, 4 FoW. Gush is restricted and Misd is simply not the powerhouse it once was. Misd was so good because the old Keeper decks were running Stroke and Braingeyser, and were often used to going ASAP for Ancestral and then Regrowing it and then using Yawgmoth’s Will to replay it. Darren’s old Keeper with Gaea’s Blessing just wanted to play a million Ancestrals. The point I’m making is that Misd is not the card that it once was. Both of these factors weigh against making Dryad good.
3) This is the big one: As good as Dryad is, you can only run 4.
In order to be maximize the deck’s effectiveness, you basically want to get one in your opening hand, but that is impossible in a sixty-card deck, which leads to the next conclusion: you need another creature. Chapin Gro used Ophidian (which was awesome at the time). GAT used Tog. New Dryad decks use… Tog. So what does that say? If you are using Tog in the deck, then the next logical question is: if I am forced into using Tog, then is this deck with Tog better than the Tog that is built around Tog and the answer invariable is: no.
It might be more accurate to say that GAT was intended to be a Dryad deck with Togs, but it morphed into a Tog deck with Dryads. The neutering of Gush left most people convinced that as long as Tog exists, Dryad is simply fundamentally flawed – that is, until this January when they started popping up again (and notice how GAT hasn’t done anything outside the Northeast? The old TMDinvitational had GAT win, but it hasn’t made a blip anywhere else.). I’m not saying that its bad – I’m just saying that Tog is amazing anytime anywhere whereas Dryad requires a sequence of events that is conditional in order to be most effective. This wouldn’t be a big deal except that Tog costs one more mana than Dryad. Think about that.
Therefore, it is my view that this deck offers very little over a very aggressive Tog build. The old Tog used to be an Aggro-Control-Combo deck that could draw its entire deck with Gush and combo out with Fastbond, Gushes, and Yawgmoth’s Will.
Let me show you the more recent builds of GroAtog floating around:
By Ultima on the Mana Drain
3 Psychatog
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Fastbond
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Gush
2 Cunning Wish
2 Deep Analysis
3 Thirst For Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
5 Moxen
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
1 Island
Sideboard:
1 Berserk
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Oxidize
1 Naturalize
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Smother
1 Fire / Ice
1 Coffin Purge
1 Rack and Ruin
2 Ground Seal
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
Ultima has done some amazing things with this deck. There is no doubt that in terms of tempo and game plan this is much closer to the original GroAtog than anything we have seen yet. However, and this is a key qualification – it is still only halfway between the old GAT and the build that Scott was running – and that is still a gulf of distance in power.
There are a few things to point out about this deck that will hopefully make some of its failings clear. First is the Dryad problem. This deck needs to play extremely aggressively. Fastbond was reincluded because with Thirst for Knowledge and Deep Analysis it can actually get into a position to combo out with Yawgmoth’s Will relatively quickly. The problem is that you really want a Dryad to come down quickly. The problem is that, unlike the Gro engine with Gush, you can’t just do insane things for free – they cost. As a result, your deck is more top heavy, slightly slower, and is also more likely to run out of steam in the process of comboing out – which makes taking advantage of a growing Dryad all the more critical. This deck can’t just drop a Dryad and protect it – it has to go slightly more offensive, because it doesn’t have the drawing in Gush to keep its hand size at a high enough level to compete.
This is related to the second problem: Dryad in relation to Tog. You have to work very hard to make Dryad look strong on the board across from a Tog. Psychatog is such an amazing creature that the deck which focuses entirely on Tog (regular Hulk), may have an inherent competitive advantage over any Dryad based concept without Gush (as I described above). Dryad requires a certain sequence of events to be good. It’s not as strict as just requiring a turn 1 Dryad, but its nowhere near as free all as Tog. In other words, it is conditional. But the conditions which make it good may not be that difficult to create.
In other words, while this deck may be faster in some respects than Tog and can win the turn before Tog could – much like old GAT – it may have such a small advantage over Tog (despite running two) that there is no real compelling reason to run this deck over Hulk – given that Hulk is an overall more powerful deck and can win games that aren’t simply tempo-based. Dryad is an amazing creature, but as long as Psychatog is around, it will pale in comparison.
So where does that put this deck? Before having tested Ultima’s list, I would not have seriously considered GAT a strong deck except in particular metagames – Ultima’s list solidly establishes GAT as a contender. It is capable of doing well, especially in smaller local tournaments, but I do not foresee it being able to compete for the top spot at Gencon. This deck has a nontrivially weaker game than Hulk against Prison, Slaver, and most importantly Combo: Rector and Draw7. GroAtog thrives in a five proxy tournament where budget decks with moderate power essentially limit the field to aggro (Food Chain Goblins, Oshawa Stompy), Control decks, and Aggro control. Prison and Combo will be far more powerful presences at Gencon.
Hulk Smash
Sample Decklist:
by Andrea Garella
1st place, 2004-03-07 Turin
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Duress
1 Mind Twist
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
4 Accumulated Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
1 Gush
1 Intuition
4 Mana Drain
1 Misdirection
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Psychatog
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
2 Island
Sideboard
1 Berserk
1 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Coffin Purge
1 Echoing Decay
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Ground Seal
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Naturalize
1 Oxidize
1 Rushing River
1 Smother
(Check out Dr. Sylvan’s Article on an optimal Tog list).
Psychatog is the most successful deck in Vintage and not without just cause. I have already written an entire article exploring the critical role that this deck (and card) plays in the Vintage metagame, and I could probably spend another article expounding on the basis precepts brought to light there – although my intentions are more limited for the purposes of this article. First, I briefly explain the deck’s game plan. Then I will explain some factors which together explain Tog’s success and in the process be clear about the deck’s strengths. Then I will list a few of the deck’s weaknesses and then conclude with some observations about the decks potential to address revealed weaknesses.
How Does this Deck Play Out?
The deck plays out relatively straightforwardly. The first amazing thing about Hulk is that it is very consistent. In terms of needing to mulligan against most decks in an average tournament, you will have to do so very infrequently – as in once or twice a tournament. This obviously varies with the number of mana sources. If you run twenty-two, you will have to mulligan more frequently than if you have twenty-three or -four (I’m leaning toward the later as the way to go). The deck essentially sets its self up with Duress or Brainstorm on turn one (Brainstorm + Fetchland is an amazing card quality optimizing combo). It then steadies itself for Mox and a second land on turn 2 to cast Mana Drain. This deck has a voracious appetite for mana and will likely Drain a spell not because it is particularly afraid of the spell, but as a tempo boost (denying a spell to the opponent and thus a turn) at the same time that it gets mana to power out draw spells such as Deep Analysis or Intuition for AKs on turn 2-4.
Kevin Cron has written about how one might play around this in a way to make it at least awkward for the Tog deck to maximize its Mana Drain usage. Nonetheless, Tog is adept at finding ways to draw more cards. The general plan is to, simply put, draw cards, play Tog, then Cunning Wish -> Berserk. In my analysis of the Tog versus TnT matchup, I described in detail how Tog has what Zvi has called”inevitability.” In other formats this stems from being able to play Upheaval and then Tog. In Type One, Cunning Wish enables a very simple and cost effective way to create lethal damage quickly with Berserk in the sideboard. This inevitability is singlehandedly responsible (in combination with the inherent power of the card itself) redefining Type One. It has meant that Aggro cannot peck away at you because the first nineteen points of life are just a resource to build up enough cards to make a Berserking Tog lethal and combo out. Tog is also a Moat in a very real sense and often beats Phyrexian Dreadnoughts. In the finals of the Gencon Championship, Carl finished off his Masknought opponent with a high double digit lethal Tog.
There are other ways that the match might play out, but I will describe more of this in the section on its strengths. One of the strengths already discussed is the bizarre way in which the control deck can almost ignore the opponent, counter for Tempo, and then Berserk over in a very hybrid Combo-Control manner. But the deck is also a very full control deck in being able to run a host of real control cards including Duress in the maindeck and Red Elemental Blasts in the sideboard. Additionally, it has a very nice selection of very broken singletons such as Mind Twist, Pernicious Deed, and Gorilla Shaman. All of these singletons create the potential for game breaking plays in the maindeck even though in a strict sense, none are necessary – they are included because they win games in a way that makes a difference. Apart from Wish and Tog, it is these cards which set this deck apart from more single-minded control decks such as Landstill.
I would be remiss without saying more about Cunning Wish. In my view, Wish is the card that should be most carefully watched for restriction. It is Wish which really makes Tog have such few weaknesses, because it fully integrates a sideboard with the maindeck in a similar way to Long. Wish gives the deck a very nice range of answers to potential threats being able to play Wish under a Trinisphere to find Rack and Ruin or Artifact Mutation – or being able to find Red Elemental Blast or Fact or Fiction against Control can give you a nice advantage when cast on the endstep of your opponent’s turn. Wish is the reason that Tog can beat Dragon using Coffin Purge and helps enormously with Fish using Firestorm.
JP Meyer is correct in his assertion that Tog is one of the strategically misunderstood decks. The fact of the matter is: against Aggro you need to play Combo. Players who don’t understand this fact are simply used to the inevitability of Tog, and don’t push Tog to it’s extreme of being able to win much more quickly than one might suppose. People are too controlish when they play this deck in many matchups, and it costs games. This is one reason you see people adding a second or even a third Pernicious Deed – because they think they need it to beat some aggro decks. This is not the case. The Deed is there as a nice failsafe that can help you slide into the control role against aggro or prison even though the Tog role would be equally effective in accomplishing the goal: winning the game. Deed in the maindeck is basically an”oh shit” slot that can save your hide – but it is certainly not necessary.
Difficulty of Play
One of the biggest hurdles to this decks success if the fact that it actually does require a good player and good play. Many decks are aiming at Tog, and as a consequence your deck may not be able to forgive you if you make a critical error. One of the most common mistakes that a Tog player can make is screw up mana decisions such as which land to fetch out. This decision changes from matchup to matchup with due recognition for the opposing deck’s strategy against Tog. Another key understanding is figuring out who the beatdown is. As always, misassignment of role = game loss.
Weaknesses?
There are three major weaknesses with this deck. The first is the randomness of the mirror match. Playing this deck opens you up the possibility of needing to play the mirror – in which complicated sideboard rules become a question of whether the opponent knows the”rule” – such as whether you sideboard out AKs. Another is the need to play with Deep Analysis as an Intuition target for the mirror. This is a key way to beat the symmetry and avoid the AK wars. Duress also helps enormously. But additions to fight the mirror open you up to other match weaknesses and tie up maindeck and sideboard space.
Second, one weakness is combo. Rector, Dragon and Draw7 are all very real threats to this deck. Draw 7 is something you can’t really prepare for, beyond running Duress except to use the extreme answer of Chalice. Draw7 can simply run you over before you can do anything about it and in games two and three you will assuredly be seeing Xantid Swarms as well. For Rector and Dragon, Coffin Purge are the standard answer and the most effective. Nonetheless, because of sideboard space, they are slowly being whittled out of the board. Despite the fact that Combo and the mirror are soft spots, Tog is by no means out of contention in these matches – they are very close matchups with a margin of error that is basically greater than the win percentage margin.
Third, because Tog is considered so successful, it is widely aimed at. Slavery has become popular in part because Tog is such a good deck to Slave, because it has such an efficient drawing engine and so many ways to manipulate the deck. Chalice for two on turn 1 with Force back up is something that Tog may have serious trouble answering – not to mention Goblin Welders that sit out for too long.
What explains this deck’s extraordinary success? A few things. First, the deck is inherently very powerful as I have already described. Second, it is heavily played. While Tog often ends up in the top spots of a tournament – you will also find Togs littered throughout the tournament. This kind of numbers help its success – winning Gencon made it very high profile, and the build played then is essentially a modern list (sans Mana Crypt). Third, many players have a preference for control decks and Tog fits that need while also meeting the need to win games. Fourth, in smaller environments, almost any Tog list you play is going to advance you to the top levels of the tournament – even if it is three colors or outdated.
So where does that leave Tog? The best players will tune a Tog list to beat the decks that people are tuning to beat Tog. It is in those situations that Tog will tend to win the most competitive tournaments. For instance, Ground Seal might be a sufficient answer to Goblin Welder and Shamans present real ways around Chalice. Furthermore, a second BEB in the sideboard and second Island maindeck may provide another barrier to getting hosed by Blood Moon. Whatever the case may be, Tog has access to the best colors in the game and is poised to be able to run whatever it may require to beat the circumstances of the day. A careful understand of the metagame and experience and testing of various sideboard options will make the difference between a Tog player winning a tournament and missing top 8.
Keeper/ Germbus/4c Control:
Steve O'Connell
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
2 City of Brass
2 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction
3 Skeletal Scrying
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Mind Twist
1 Time Walk
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Fire / Ice
1 Balance
2 Gorilla Shaman
3 Exalted Angel
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Flametongue Kavu
2 Rack and Ruin
1 Damping Matrix
1 Disenchant
1 Gush
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Blue Elemental Blast
It basically doesn’t matter what Steve is playing, whatever he is playing is”Keeper” which is ironic since Steve strongly dislikes that name. As soon as he promotes one build, you suddenly see the deck pop up in European top 8’s in surprising numbers. It may be that Steve is simply revered as the owner of the Mana Drain, but more likely he really knows the archetype.
Despite repeatedly unimpressive showings in the United States, Keeper has continued to win tournaments and similarly strong results in Europe over the last six months. The deck has finally come to fulfill its promise as a metagame deck instead of a metagame defining deck. Keeper simply doesn’t work as an established archetype. It needs a metagame to react to in order to be most powerful. Hard to imagine that merely three years ago, this was by far the most dominant deck in the metagame.
For an informed view of how this deck plays out, check out Steve’s brilliant primer:
http://www.themanadrain.com/primers/keeper.htm
How Does this Deck play out?
Here is my view: this deck combines mana denial, spot removal, and some decent draw with powerful Angels to create overwhelming board dominance.
Difficulty of Play
This deck is one of those decks that requires more than intimate knowledge, it requires that you make no mistake at all. Because the strategy is often very reactive, a single mistake can cost you the game because, as the old axiom goes, there are no bad threats, only bad answers. If you didn’t answer properly, you don’t have much to say about it. At least with Fish, if you flub up, you board advantage will give you something to lean on.
Strengths
If you are in the upper tables of a tournament, and you are sitting across from someone who is playing Keeper, you must realize the inevitable fact that your opponent is a Keeper master. People love their Keeper and the Steve has done amazing things with this deck despite the limits inherent in design. The deck’s strength’s is that it may be tuned to beat many different sets of decks. If you metagame correctly, you may find yourself doing as well as Carl Winter.
Because this deck hasn’t had to have as much hate such as Back to Basics and Blood Moon aimed at it, or entire archetypes such as Suicide Black aimed at it, it has the benefit of being able to enjoy a metagame that it can adjust to instead of vice versa. As such, archetypes that Tog may struggle to fight (such as Food Chain Goblins and possibly Fish), this deck may have an excellent matchup against.
Weaknesses
Psychatog and Belcher – in other words, the inherent flaw in this sort of deck is that you can’t possibly deal with every deck in the format. Instead, you pick the decks you are likely to face and roll the dice hoping that your answers will be effective and your threats good enough. Tog has more powerful draw and more efficient control answers such as Duress. Keeper needs to play something extremely powerful such as Mind Twist, and have it resolve or do some significant damage and then maintain a foothold on the game that it can retain through the last Angel swing.
My problem with this sort of deck is that it will never be the most powerful deck in the format, and likely never be the best strategy in the format. Riding a deck like this is requires all the knowledge and expertise that it takes to win with most of the other decks, but you get a mostly inferior card pool. Unless you have a passion for this archetype, I’d leave it to people who do.
Concluding Thoughts
People like control in Type One and as such you are going to have to be prepared to face it. If you happen to face a notable Type One player wielding Keeper, the best you can hope for is that you are playing a deck that Germbus has a disadvantage against and not let them outplay you. While Keeper had twenty-five players representing the archetype at Gencon last year, not a single one made top 8. This year, there will likely be no more than half that many, but those that do play it will be sporting a vastly improved deck.
[This article continues in Part II.]