By the time this article hits the presses, Psychatog will stand with Red Deck Wins and The Rock as either one of the three big meal tickets for PTQers, or as their primary targets. And for good reason. These decks are already really well known quantities. They are fresh on everyone’s minds. They were good before, and they didn’t lose anything to the bannings, so we can expect that they will be good again.
Of course, they aren’t going to be the lone decks worthy of consideration in Extended. In fact, a part of the reason that they were so powerful in the latter part of 2003 was that they could face the blistering speed of the other decks that have now been largely dismantled. They all had their reasons for surviving.
Sol Malka’s Rock (or, The Rock and His Millions, as it was initially known) is one of those versatile little decks that has all of the right tools to handle any metagame. It is packed with card advantage, and with powerful disruption in its one-two punch of Duress/Cabal Therapy, and Pernicious Deed to pick up the pieces. Given a known metagame, that basic framework lets it decide what else it wants to beat, from Spike Feeder and Ravenous Baloths against the Red Decks, Phyrexian Plaguelord and Deranged Hermit in creature formats, and silver bullets and tutors against more busted fields. This strategy will continue to be viable as long as the format doesn’t rotate out its key cards.
Red Deck Wins has a similar set of strengths, but from an entirely different angle. Dan Paskins original design was made in a different age, back when Mercadian Masques was just hitting Constructed (I strongly recommend reading his tourney report, which is more than a little fun). I’d always liked this deck, probably because it is, in essence, Ponza.
Ponza creator Brian Kowal and I had a discussion about especially Cato’s build, which does what Ponza does – denies mana, has access to a lot of direct damage (Blistering Firecat isn’t usually a creature, it is usually a burn spell right to the dome), and uses its special land to turn excess mana into resources. For the original deck, this is easy to see, with Avalanche Riders, Pillage, and Rishadan Port holding down opponent land, and a huge abundance of burn. In the current build, Extended was simply to fast to allow so much land destruction. But, in return, Tangle Wire would buy the time needed to get clocks going., with a little help from Rishadan Port. Again, like the Rock, RDW won’t lose relevance until the format radically changes.
So, what makes the Tog deck so powerful? How come it can hang onto life in this format?
While there are an abundance of potential builds to Psychatog, they all share some common traits that make them succeed. One is inevitability, which Zvi Mowshowitz“Who’s the Beatdown, Part II” article on Brainburst Premium describes as a tendency to win a game as it progresses over time. If the game gets to keep going, Psychatog will win. In the old format, it would try to counter the key spells to slow the game down. Then, card drawing would take over, with the odd counterspell here or there to keep the game from getting out of control. Finally, at some point, Dr. Teeth would smack himself onto the table and win in a single brutal turn. Psychatog is so powerful, in fact, it becomes very hard to build a counter-control deck that doesn’t win with him, because he is such an efficient finisher. Chronoscepter was partly my own attempt to not play Psychatog in a control deck. All Tog decks have the Tog, which allows for inevitable wins. They all have countermagic.
And they all draw spells, digging around in their deck.
It’s that digging into the deck that makes specializing your Tog builds so reasonable.
Let’s look at a couple of pre-Banning Tog lists… For this, I choose GP: Anaheim. And further, I choose Paul Rietzl (who stole a win from me a year ago with nearly the same deck) and Gerard Fabiano (who took my little PT Junk deck of his own design to a number of victories)…
Paul Rietzl
GP Anaheim Top 8
Main Deck
4 Psychatog
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Force Spike
3 Cunning Wish
3 Smother
3 Mana Leak
2 Intuition
2 Daze
1 Upheaval
2 Fact or Fiction
12 Island
3 Swamp
1 Lonely Sandbar
4 Underground River
4 Polluted Delta
Sideboard:
4 Duress
3 Annul
2 Powder Keg
1 Shadow Rift
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Smother
1 Mana Short
1 Diabolic Edict
Gerard Fabiano
GP Anaheim Top 8
Main Deck
4 Psychatog
4 Fire / Ice
3 Fact or Fiction
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Rack and Ruin
4 Isochron Scepter
3 Daze
3 Cunning Wish
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
3 Vampiric Tutor
4 Chrome Mox
2 Engineered Plague
1 Shivan Reef
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
1 Mountain
3 Swamp
8 Island
Sideboard:
2 Engineered Plague
3 Duress
1 Shattering Pulse
2 Annul
2 Rack and Ruin
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Ensnare
1 Corpse Dance
1 Back to Basics
They both have a lot going on in the card drawing/selection department. Rietzl runs four Brainstorm, four Accumulated Knowledge, two Intuition (to get the AK or any individual card), two Fact or Fiction, and three Wishes (which can get answers, or just more card drawing). Fabiano runs the Ice of Fire/Ice, three Fact or Fiction, four Brainstorm, three Vampiric Tutor and three Wishes, and can also get Isochron Scepter on Fire / Ice or Brainstorm for more card selection.
Cunning Wish is just a sneaky way to run one-ofs without actually doing it. Rietzl did run one bona fida one-of in Upheaval. Clearly it worked out for him to have access to it. Fabiano’s deck, on the other hand, is ready with two one-ofs right off the bat, and access to Back to Basics to do it again. Sure, it got away with it by running Vampirics, but it really needed that full complement to make it work. Right?
Or maybe not.
One of the most potent things about the weapons available to Psychatog and other Blue-based control decks is the incredible amount of library manipulation they contain. Depending on the build, you can find any card in the deck quite fast. Take a deck that runs a high amount of library manipulation (say four Fire/Ice, four Brainstorm, four AK, one Intuition, one Mystical Tutor, three Fact or Fiction, four fetchlands and Moxen, and four Isochron Scepter).
I marked a single card in the deck with a piece of paper and over the course of forty trials (including mulliganing and play/draw) got to that marked card on average before turn 6. I wasn’t using the counterspells. I was just searching with a Goldfish as an opponent. In the real world, it certainly would have been slower because I’d have to take the time to stop my opponent from winning. But, what it does show is the incredible selection ability of modern Blue.
For a Psychatog deck, this is much, much more relevant. Cutting down on the numbers of copies of cards you’re playing doesn’t have the same kind of cost for this deck as it does for other ones. As Zvi wrote, in most match-ups, Psychatog has inevitability. If the game goes long, it is inevitable that the Tog deck will win. For a deck with this kind of card selection, that means even without effects like Wishes or Tutors, the rest of the deck can act as a kind of multiplier effect on the card numbers you are running. Rietzl took advantage of this in Anaheim by playing the lone copy of Upheaval (much like people used to do), knowing that if he needed it, he could get to it. Tomohiro Yokosuka did something very similar at PT: New Orleans with his Psychatog deck, jampacked full of two-ofs, including, perhaps surprisingly, the Psychatog itself. Vampiric Tutor costs you a card, but it almost puts a +1 on your decklist next to every card you are already running. Against some opponents, Fabiano knew his artifact hate would be completely dead. But he also knew that he could use the powerful library manipulation to get rid of those few dead cards in game 1. Game 2, it would be all about that +1 effect.
Let’s glance at the Tomohiro build for some ideas…
Pro Tour New Orleans: Psychatog
Tomohiro Yokosuka
Main Deck
2 Psychatog
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Boomerang
2 Brainstorm
4 Chrome Mox
4 Counterspell
3 Cunning Wish
3 Fact or Fiction
4 Fire / Ice
2 Intuition
4 Isochron Scepter
4 Mana Leak
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Darkwater Catacombs
8 Island
1 Mountain
4 Polluted Delta
4 Shivan Reef
1 Sulfurous Springs
1 Swamp
1 Underground River
Sideboard
1 Corpse Dance
1 Diabolic Edict
3 Duress
3 Engineered Plague
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Orim’s Chant
2 Rack and Ruin
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Stifle
1 Tsabo’s Decree
It almost flies in the face of the common logic to do something like this. The New Orleans deck doesn’t run Vampiric or Mystical, but still it cut numbers on cards that are somewhat surprising.
Welcome to the world that is made possible by Brainstorm and fetchlands. Paired with potent, almost-as-an-afterthought finishers of inevitability like Psychatog or Isochron Scepter, these decks are now ready for the mainstream.
The card drawing has been there for some time. Even fetchlands and other shufflers have existed in the past in different forms. The counter-control decks that did run the rare one-ofs, historically also ran some kind of graveyard recursion to keep getting manipulation spells and one-ofs back. The shufflers of old were generally slow to give any kind of satisfaction. Saclands and Thawing Glaciers both came into play tapped. You could certainly run them with Brainstorm, but not with the kind of immediate gratification that made it truly dangerous.
What we have now is a new animal.
Tomohiro knew that if he wanted access to Isochron Scepter with a Boomerang, he could get it. He didn’t have to run four copies of the Boomerang to make it happen. The deck would naturally let him have it if that’s what he wanted to get. Similarly, he knew that if he wanted to get the Psychatog to win the game, he could just get it over the course of time, and it wouldn’t take long at all. If he wasn’t ready for it yet, all it would take was a Brainstorm to get rid of it. Then a Fact or Fiction or a fetchland would allow his next draw to be brand-spanking new.
Let’s look at the differences sparked in card selection by turn 3 now, with the three most relevant examples.
Case 1 – No fetchland, no Brainstorm
By turn 3, you have seen nine cards of your library.
Case 2 – Brainstorm, no fetchland
By turn 3, you will have seen between ten and twelve cards of your library, depending on what turn you Brainstorm.
Case 3 – Brainstorm and one fetchland
By turn 3, you will have seen between eleven and thirteen cards. Moreover, with a good shuffle away, your next draws can be new as well, so that by turn 5, say, you might have seen up to three more cards than you would have without the fetchland.
None of these plays have gained you card advantage. The massaging of your library has just made your hand better.
I’ve long been a huge fan of library manipulation. My favorite cards tend to involve it. Sylvan Library and Thawing Glaciers were an old classic for me. Gaea’s Blessing. Impulse. When I go to build decks, the library manipulation cards tend to stick out to me. So it was a year ago when I first noticed this phenomena, and I put together my own Psychatog deck, reviving my languishing DCI rating from mid 1800s to high 1900s. I jokingly called the deck Atogatog, referring to its uncanny ability to eat other Tog decks. Like Tomohiro, Reitzl, and Fabiano, it made use of the new world made possible by modern library manipulation.
Main Deck
3 Psychatog
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Fact or Fiction
1 Mystical Tutor
3 Burning Wish
1 Pyroclasm
4 Fire / Ice
4 Counterspell
3 Mana Leak
1 Circular Logic
1 Misdirection
1 Interdict
2 Force Spike
1 Intuition
1 Tsabo’s Web
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Swamp
4 Shivan Reef
3 Mountain
9 Island
Sideboard:
2 Powder Keg
1 Dirge of Dread
2 Perish
1 Chainer’s Edict
1 Deep Analysis
1 Upheaval
1 Pyroclasm
1 Ruination
1 Threaten
3 Duress
1 Dustbowl
(As an aside, the deck didn’t beat other Tog decks from the library manipulation so much as it did with Burning Wishing for Duress and especially Deep Analysis. And I don’t recommend this build for today’s metagame, it is included only to exemplify the concept of Singletons in Blue.)
The Mystical Tutor in this deck (like in Chronoscepter) serves the same purpose as Fabiano’s Vampirics. I just want that +1 effect. The rest of the one-ofs were all there to serve some kind of purpose.
The Pyroclasm seemed necessary in the metagame I played in at the time. Combined with copies of Fire/Ice, it made it a lot easier to deal with quick Goblins and Elves and other assorted little guys, oh my! The Circular Logic and Misdirection both helped support the other counterspells, just adding to their numbers, but also occasionally have match-up specific effects. In the control game, Logic and Misdirection were both hard counters. In other match-ups, redirecting key burn made Misdirection awesome.
The Interdict was most specifically against Pernicious Deed, allowing you to bait out a Deed player for the late game. They wouldn’t commit a Deed usually unless you really had a significant attack coming in from the Tog. Now, when they tried, nearly every time you’d be able to trump their play and win right there. The mana base could be attacked pretty easily with Dustbowl and Rishadan Port and Treetop Village was a problem as well. Tsabo’s Web neatly answered these by the midgame when you’d draw them.
In match after match and game after game, the cards would come up to serve their purpose when they were needed, and they’d be neatly left in the dust when they didn’t. Here is every mention of those cards from an internal tournament report to Cabal Rogue
[…] In game 2, I Mystical for a Perish, and follow up with Wish for a Perish […] I Interdict him on Turn 2 when he sacks a land and he never really recovers. […]He goes for combo, I Misdirect it back to him (for the win)[…] He goes for Treetop win (tutoring for a Treetop), and I lock him out of the game with Tsabo’s Web. Three of his land (1 Bowl + 2 Trees) are held down, and I mop him up afterwards with ease (he didn’t try to cast any threats, he just worked his Villages while I manipulated my library until I got a Web) […] He doesn’t think I can kill him because of Baloth, but Interdict gets him. […] I just out counter his actual threats, using an Interdict to stop him from surviving (he sided into a Baloth plan) […]I’m flooded. I draw exactly 3 spells (Tog, Fire/Ice, and Intuition – which gets Duresses on turn 1) […]
What this means for the deckbuilder is simple.
If you have an effect that you want to play with based on your metagame, you can play it as a one-of. You need to make sure that any one-of you play fits the other rules of card choices in a deck, of course. It still has to be powerful enough. It has to fit what the deck does in some way. In other words, it has to have a purpose. But you can do it. And it won’t hurt you.
So play that one Wonder, one or two Deep Analysis build if you think your metagame calls for it. Run the Stifle or Interdict maindeck. Run an Upheaval. Run a pair of Boomerangs. Run some true hate like Shattering Pulse.
If you’ve got a good reason for wanting to draw a spell, you have the freedom to put it in the deck with minimal punishment for having it there in the dead matchups. As long as you exercise discretion, there’s no reason to be ashamed for having the”random” cards.
Adrian Sullivan
Cabal Rogue
[email protected]