Here I am again. In my previous article, I mentioned how lucky I was to be invited to Invitational. Now, I’m going to tell you how lucky I am to win Invitational. I started to practice about two weeks prior to the event. I knew that the Standard and Extended portion were probably more important than any other format of the tournament, hence I paid more attention to both of those than any other fun formats like Auction Of The People. Slide was my obvious choice of deck for Extended Online from the beginning, as I enjoyed a lot success with it in the past and I knew I could play it well in a field filled with Affinity, Goblins and Rock.
Regarding Standard, I was so clueless and dead. There are so many control decks lying around, each of them with its own way to earn card economy, usually by stealing opponent’s creatures or routinely returning good spells to their hand. Mono-Blue was the first deck I tested. The raw power of Thieving Magpie and Vedalken Shackles is insane and drew my attention. However, it seems that I have a hard time fighting the 5-Color Green deck designed to gain card advantage for nearly every single card in the deck except for lands and Birds Of Paradise. I switched to 5 Color Control for a moment, then switched to Mono Black Control after I had lost almost all my games to Mono-Red Aggro with 5 Color Control. Mono Black Control was the deck that I stayed with for the longest period – I had tested it for almost a week and I was pretty damn sure it would be my deck of choice for Invitational.
Then, one of my countrymen approached me to play his Kiki-Jiki control deck. I was pretty settled on my Mono Black at that point, but I didnt mind giving it a try. He claimed the deck have a good matchup against everything in the field except for Tooth and Nail, but it beats Tooth and Nail anyway after board with 4 Sowing Salt and 4 Plow Under. I tested the deck for a few matches , then I finally met the dreaded Tooth and Nail deck that changed my mind at the last possible moment. He crushed me easily in game 1, and then it was time for the sideboard massacre for game 2. He casts an early Troll Ascetic (I raised my eyebrow) then cast I cast an early Sowing Salt, thinking that it’s game, but it was not to be. I browsed through his deck, and saw some Molder Slugs too! I was so surprised that a Tooth and Nail deck ever played midgame cards like Troll or Slugs, but a few turns later he killed me with Trolls. Then an idea popped into my mind. If every Tooth and Nail opponent thought that they can win games with Sowing Salt, Plow Under or Cranial Extraction easily after board, then they probably going to lose easily just like I did. I asked him to share his list with me, and he happily obliged.
I found out that Tooth and Nail had indeed great matchups against all the decks in the field for game 1, but has a hard time to survive hate cards from the board. Then I started to bring in Troll Ascetics , Molder Slugs and Plow Unders for the Tooth and Nail and its cousins like Reap and Sow and some ramdom mana intensive cards. I started to win even easier than game 1 due to them taking defensive spells for cards that are only reactive towards my lands or library, but not my creatures. My winning streak continues until I’m comfortable with the sideboard plan and the deck itself. I made a few tweaks to the deck, and here’s the list I brought to the Invitational. If I were to play again, I would not change a single card:
Creatures (13)
Lands (22)
Spells (25)
There are a few weird choices in the deck, which I know demand some explanations, so I’m going to tell you why I played certain combinationsof cards.
2 Sundering Titan
The usual Tooth list has 1 Titan and 1 Darksteel Colossus, but I just don’t buy it. Sundering Titan is better than Darksteel Colossus almost all the time, although having both Titan and Colossus gives you flexibility in choices. I prefer 2 Titans because you’re able to cast it as early as turn 4 and it minimizes the chances of your opponent to play their best spells in a short period of time. Most of the time, you still probably Tooth and Nail for a Kiki Jiki and Sundering Titan.
2 Duplicant
Almost the same issue here as with Sundering Titan, people plays with 1 Triskelion and 1 Duplicant. I had it 2 Duplicant because its just plain better most of the time. Duplicant kills threats that single-handedly kill you by themselves, like Arc-Slogger, Kumano, Meloku and so on. It also leaves you with a rather reasonable body, compared to Triskelion, which shrinks every time it has to kill a creature. Poor thing. Because of redundancy and consistency issues, I go with 2 Titans and 2 Duplicants, numbers that worked well for me all weekend.
3 Tooth and Nail
No one has ever played fewer than four copies of this spell . I disagree. I know the importance of drawing it every time when you have 9 mana, but I prefer to keep the number to 3 because of redundancy issues. Drawing 2 Tooth and Nail is a mulligan, so is any Leonin Abunas, Mephidross Vampire or Kiki- Jiki, and too many dead cards hurt your chances of winning. Plow Under and Cranial Extraction mean you often can’t play your Tooth as well. I think that being aware of the redundancy issues of the Tooth and Nail deck is probably the most important factor you have to consider, since people were not aware that most of the loses for Tooth and Nail happen because of redundancy issues. When you got to hit the Tron mana, casting a Tooth and Nail or a Sundering Titan or a Mindslaver make little difference. You still probably win those games. Most people don’t understand that a Tooth and Nail deck doesn’t just win with Tooth and Nail itself. It has plenty of other ways to achieve victory, perhaps better expressed by the fact that you will likely play without a single copy of Tooth and Nail after sideboard.
4 Kodama’s Reach
I always want one of these in my opening hand and a Sensei’s Diving Top (which I’ll explain later). The Reach is so good in the deck because it allows you to reach critical mana without a complete UrzaTron (believe me, sometimes you just don’t get to assemble it), and it helps to recover from Plow Under much faster. Kodama’s Reach supports the sideboard plan perfectly, since you want some land searchers, but you don’t need to reach nine mana anymore with the clumsy UrzaTron, not to mention the fact that Reach nets you card advantage and provides more shuffling effects for Sensei’s Divining Top. If you watch my replays, you can see how much more helpful the Kodama’s Reaches then any Talismans/Vine Trellis in the usual Tooth deck, and it just gets better when you have a Top in play.
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
I had only three of these in the original list, and soon I found that I want to have this in my opening grip every time, regardless of matchup! When you want to have a card in your opening grip, you obviously have to increase it to the maximum number. This card gives you basically everything. It helps reduce mulligans, it searches for the UrzaTron faster, it finds gas when you’re in the midgame, it gets much better when you have about twenty ways to shuffle your deck to see three fresh cards – and all of this card manipulation comes for just one colorless mana! You might not be happy drawing two of it, but you can still use one of them to draw a card, then utilize one of your many shufflers cards to shuffle it away for some fresh cards on top of your library. It feels like a permanent Brainstorm and when you play Brainstorm, you always play with four of ’em. My list and Remie’s list have some differences, but we both share the same thought on the Divining Top.
3 Mindslaver
I felt that 3 Mindslavers was the correct number in the deck. Sure, you can take out one copy and put in the fourth Tooth and Nail, but I just feel better in the control matchups with more Mindslavers than Tooth and Nail. I once played a mirror match in MODO; my opponent was struggling to find his Trons, as I Plowed his twice and I had my Tron in play. I cast a Tooth and Nail shortly, hit him once, then he was able to Mindslaver me. I ended up losing off that almighty Mindslaver, because I have such a powerful grip that demolished myself. I always want to draw Mindslavers then Tooth and Nail, as I will feel more secure after toying with my opponent’s turn. Often after a Mindslaver, either a Oblivion Stone blows up the world or a Tooth and Nail seals the deal completely without any worries.
3 Oblivion Stone
This is like a Wrath of God in the deck, and control decks need Wrath of God. You still need these to win against creature decks, though it is extremely useless in the mirror or 5 Color Control matchup. You can cut a piece for something you like if you want to make some changes in this deck, since this is the least important card in the deck by far.
1 Plow Under
This might seems odd, but the main reason why 1 Plow Under is in the maindeck is due to the limited space in the sideboard. I want every of those creatures, but I want the 4th Plow Under badly as well. I can’t play like 1 Troll Ascetic maindeck, so I went with a single Plow, since it turns games around should you able to draw it and cast it on your opponent on turn 4.
As for the rest (Eternal Witness, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Sylvan Scrying, Reap and Sow, Kiki-Jiki), they are all pretty much no brainers and I feel it is not necessary to explain those goodies anymore here.
Sideboard
4 Troll Ascetic
The 3/2 regenerating beatstick that makes the beatdown plan efficient. At first, the guy who gave me the list told me that he switched to beatdown plan against any Red Aggro deck, since they probably have land control cards. By adding Trolls to block Slith Firewalkers and Arc-Sloggers all day, he seems to be correcting the flaws of the deck. I playtested more and more to further convince myself about the bad matchups. It turns out Troll is not only good at blocking the whole day, I mean, he doesn’t have a power of 3 for nothing! I started to side him in against Mono-Blue, Mono-Black and soon, almost every other deck too. Then I come to realize that it’s not a bad idea at all to take away Tooth and friends for a package of good midrange utility creatures, and Troll Ascetic is where it all starts.
2 Iwamori of the Open Fist
Four mana for a 5/5 trampler with an almost harmless drawback, should you know your opponent’s deck well enough. Almost every deck that plays a legend has about 1-2 legends in the deck. People tends to play only 1 Meloku in the 5 Color Green deck, so chances are low they can drop it from your Iwamori. Mono-Blue Control, Mono-Red aggro have about 2 Meloku, the Clouded Mirror and 2 Kumano, Master Yamabushi respectively. Sure, there will be times when your opponent will have it, and you’ll mise over it, but I won many more games than I lost with it. Magic is a game about overall pros and cons, there’s nothing is good all the time, but Iwamori is clearly good enough.
2 Molder Slug
The 4/6 bad boy that prevents any Sword of Fire and Ice or Umezawa’s Jitte from harming you. 4/6 is a huge body too – he can give you enough time to stabilize the board and play out whatever way you want it to be in your favor. He’s not bad at attacking and excels at blocking. He supports part of the plan as a good beatdown creature with some utility attached, since it has a higher casting cost so that’s reasonable. 2 should be the right number, as I want to play another utility creature that doesn’t interacts well with Molder Slug – Razormane Masticore
2 Razormane Masticore
5/5 first striker that is also good in both attacking or blocking. The best part of Razormane Masticore is that he handles some troublesome dudes that Green decks can’t deal with. Ever been pinged to death by 2 Vulshok Sorcerers? He requires you to discard a card every turn, but that’s a fine drawback. The only problem is that he doesn’t interact well with Molder Slug, but I guess I have to accept it. First, I only play two copies of each and therefore, I should not be drawing both at the same time regularly. Second, I want to have a different variations of utility creatures in my deck to avoid losing random games to a Vulshock Sorcerer or a Umezawa’s Jitte. At least, my creatures offer some fine choices for killing different threats from my opponent.
2 Vine Trellis
It would be better if I could find space for 3 instead of 2, but I can’t since the sideboard is already filled with better ones. It is great versus Red decks, holding early Slith or Hearth Kamis while preserving your life .It helps accelerate into turn 3 Iwamori and turn 4 Slug or Masticore too. Other then that, nothing is great about it, but you definitely needs it to combat your worst possible matchup; Red decks.
3 Plow Under
If you have ever cast a turn 3 Troll / Iwamori and followed it up with a turn 4 Plow Under against a opponent that was fully prepared to beat your “Tooth and Nail” deck, you know what it’s like to have fun while playing Magic. Plow is great against the mirror, and it supports the beatdown plan as well. You casts some creatures, attack with them, then Plow Under to gain further tempo and card advantage, that’s your game plan if you decided to switch to beatdown. Imagine your opponent had been holding virtually dead cards against you, under the pressure of your creatures, and suddenly, he loses two lands on the side of his table and gets two draw steps of nothing useful against your creatures. You’re still going to win, regardless it’s a Troll or Tooth which wins you the game. Here’s a small tip when you have Plow Under in hand: try to keep it if you knew your opponent has a shuffle effect, like if he has a Sakura-Tribe Elder in land, or just cast a Eternal Witness returning a Kodama’s Reach. The most important aspect of Plow Under is not denying opponent mana, but to create more dead draws for him, since this format now is filled with so much acceleration and its least painful if they have a shuffle effect. Cast your big creatures instead. They will have to use those cards to accelerate, so wait patiently for a turn or two.
Tooth and Nail is not a difficult deck to play. It starts out with searching lands, manipulating your draws with Divining Top. As the game goes on, you assemble your Tron or tons of mana, it’s all yours to play out the way you want it to be. Oblivion Stone, Mindslaver, Tooth and Nail or Sundering Titan start to pop up. Usually, this is how I played it out. I blow up my artifacts to further gain control of the game (Oblivion Stone, Mindslaver). Then, after I’m sure that the road is clear for me, I cast Tooth and Nail or Sundering Titan. You don’t face many tough decisions throughout the whole game. Just keep in mind that whenever there’s a choice between putting pressure or controlling the game, always prioritize control first. Why? Because your deck has more of the best cards available in the format than any other decks and you’re happy to play out the long games.
Mulligan decisions are tougher than the actual gameplay. The general rule of thumb never changes. If your hand doesn’t have the potential or capability to win the game, mulligan it. Never hesitate to mulligan hands containing Kiki-Jiki or any Leonin Abunas/ Mephidross Vampire if your list have it, because it’s a mulligan in your hand already. I usually kept hands without a Green mana source if it has two different Urza lands and a Sensei’s Divining Top. Without the Top, it’s a mulligan for sure. Also, I kept hands with a couple of Forests and Kodama’s Reach if again, I have a Sensei’s Divining Top in my hand. I can’t deny the importance of Sensei’s Divining Top in your opening grip. If you have it, you probably have a fine draw to follow up, given so many shuffle effects to turn new cards on top of your library. Hands without any Sylvan Scrying, Sakura-Tribe Elder or Kodama’s Reach always deserve a mulligan, unless you have the three pieces of UrzaTron and Mindslaver and/or Oblivion Stone (both of these make a great combo to demolish your opponent’s hand and board). Obviously, it will get better the more you play with it, then you can decide for yourself confidently whether is the hand a keeper or a mulligan for sure.
About the sideboard, things get a little tricky here. I won’t be providing you information on how to sideboard , because it will not work the way it used to anymore. Imagine I give you a list on how to sideboard. If you’re playing my deck, congrats, you get a great deal of knowledge of utilizing the sideboard appropriately. But on the flip side, if you’re not playing it and you get to know how other Tooth player sideboard, then the deck simply gets worse for the other Tooth player playing this deck. The sideboard is nothing great if it doesn’t brings any surprise or misdirection. The whole idea behind the transformation into beatdown is about the bluff factor. You want to bluff your opponent into keeping dead cards. You see, you have two ways of victory. Either you go the Tooth route, or you go the Troll route. They have to decide which way you are sideboarding in order to figure out how they are sideboarding themselves – they can’t keep everything in! Sometimes, you can even shake things up a little, like keeping 1 or 2 copy of Tooth and Nail to make them double, or even triple guess on what the hell are you playing. Bluffing is most fun part of this game for me. If I provide you the sideboarding strategy, there will be no more bluff factor. I can provides you the list here, but you are the one responsible to figure out the right way to go against your opponent. There will be nothing extraordinary if you play the normal Tooth list -just a Tooth and Nail deck. This is Troll and Nail and it gives you that extra chance to win matches not just through gameplay but through the sideboard war as well.
In the Invitational, I played a total of 4 matches, including the finals. I went 4-0 with the deck, and each match was a 2-0 victory. As I mentioned above, game 1 usually is a good matchup for Tooth and Nail against almost every single deck in the format ( with the exception of land destruction decks). I defeated two 5 Color Control (piloted by Antoine Ruel and Kai Budde), W/R Salvagers (Bob Maher) and of course the no-rare Rat deck (Tsuyoshi Fujita ) These are all excellent players, I’m sure it provides you better results rather then posting some 10 random games against random players and claiming that this is the best deck. They are all so good that they Cranialed me for the right card despite the fact that I sided out my Tooths against them. Ruel Cranialed for Sundering Titan, but still got crushed by Trolls. Budde named Plow Under, which was in my hand, but received the same fate as Ruel. You see, despite the fact that they hit the right cards, they are not doing anything to the board. They are doing harm to your library, hand or lands but they can never handle your creatures, especially Troll Ascetic.
In the Finals, I fought an uphill battle against Fujita in game 1, as I managed to topdeck a Tooth and Nail to seal the game. Now, it was sideboarding time. In my opinion, the Tooth probably has a better chance then the Troll if Fujita chooses to sideboard in the anti-creature cards in his board, since he knew I have plenty of creatures in board which I probably bring in. But, again, with that thought in Fujita’s mind, he also knows I’m a tricky player, so there might be a chance I’m going to sideboard nothing in and play the Tooth for a better chance against him after he boarded heavily to fight creatures.
With that mindset (this is only my personal assumption here), Fujita would once again stick to his maindeck for an obvious better percentage of winning. Because of this factor, I’m going to take out the Tooth for Troll to overwhelm his strategy. It worked out well for me! He did indeed keep the deck without sideboarding, and I saw he was keeping one Blue mana up all the time (for Annul), so I didnt even bother to keep the key Oblivion Stone in hand (that won me game 1) when he casts his Ravenous Rats. Instead, I cast wave after wave of creatures, discarding non-threats cards like Kodama’s Reach and. Troll once again rode to victory shortly afterwards. This game illustrates the importance of bluffing, and double bluffing to win the bluff. I this article has provided you with an idea of what’s going on in this game, so that you are now able to create such scenarios in your own game play too. I’m very happy to be the first Asian who won the Invitational after 8 Americans/ Europeans had won the right to create their own card. Maybe this is starting to show the dominance our side of the globe has on the game today.
Once again, good luck and happy bluffing.