Long live Dryads!

It sounds like something that just came across my mind these few days (obviously mine is a very very unrefined one at that). My impression of the deck is that it's speedy with a similar feel to the pre-gush-restriction GAT.

(Disclaimer: I've not test the deck quite yet but I promise i'll try testing it asap. )

One question I've, however, is on the lack of  basic Island. While Blood moon is slow and havent seen much play, it would still be a game over for the deck. It also means that the deck would lose to random double wasteland starts. Would the deck have the space to fit at least 1 basic Island or would it compromise the game plan too much?

If it's up to me, I would probably take 1 merchant scroll out for it. But then again, I've not play w/ the deck just yet. I'll test w/ it realy soon.

Ed the socal Gr03r

Pat, you're no match against the mise-ing greatness of me.

That's right bitches, ph34r me. I'm back to pwn some hoes.

Hell, I might even give all you guys a free win against me. (possibly due to my bitch car's door having to be fixed again tomorrow morning, thanks to some shitty job at this body shop)

Using Phid as a complement to Finkel is much more feasible. But yet again, I hate to spend main phase mana when I dont have to when piloting a control deck.

The bottom line is, MtG is a collectable, as long as the game's alive, someone will be willing to pay hundreds for power.

As for proxies, as a poor college kid and a power owner, I see the arguement from both sides. To me, 10 proxies is really optimal number. Full proxy is just ridiculous, however. Sharpie is not acceptable in my view, neither.

His mana base has no swamp. All it takes is for the opponent to take out all black source, and you have no ways to draw extra cards to sustain your strategy (Card for card silver bullet) other than Recall. Why take the chance in an environment where 5 strips exist? Not to mention the occasional random bolt that you mentioned.

Yet another problem of Finkel is that you've to spend main phase mana, nor is it a good mana drain sink.

I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me or not, but what I'm trying to say is I would not count solely on a gold 3CC creature for cards in a 3 color deck in an environment where wastelands exist.

Finkel is a cute card, but counting on it as a draw engine is just a stretch.

I'm speaking here with a perspective of a hermit.

I was playing competitively a year ago. But one reason I think why many "casual" or even hardcore players are disappearing from vintage is because many of us who play vintage are in the 21+ bracket, which means we're in a transition from school to something like work and grad school (I'm personally applying to pharmacy school) (And RIP Team Food is Broken, thanks to work and life). With less time to play test, I simply can't afford to play competitively, since I dont want to lose. For casual players, it's just even harder for them to play when they've more and more responsibility on their shoulders.

Also, keeping powers while having to pay bills is rough. I'm the only one in my team who's still holding powers, as my teammates sold their betas. The allure of selling a collection in return for not having to worry financially for a few months is rather huge.

I do think, however, vacation seasons would bring players back to the table. I've taken a hiatus from magic for the last few months thanks to heavy school work, but I'm going to start playing semi-regularly at least locally. A few competitive players down here asks me to help them play test, I might do just that.

I just might come out from my semi-retirement and play. Dont be surprised if you see me.

Here's my opinions...

1)I wouldn't play AK personally w/o intuitions. And with that many different 2CC+ cards...i would run full power.

2)Deep Analysis is a sideboard card against control. It's too tough to be utilized maindeck.

3)I would like more hard counters than 4....try a couple vanilla counters.

I had MCAT so i couldn't have come.

So what happened?

I echo the sentiment that GAT's a deck that would do well if the player understand how the deck plays. I saw people playing GAT way too conservatively and lost. I've been playing it for the last year and it has been doing well for me. It literally grows on me.

I'm interested in ELD's Ritual GAT, on the other hand. I would love to get my hands on the list and see how it's like.

I gotta run but here's a couple comments from my experience.

1)2 togs is the good number....you can always pitch it away.
2)4 Mis-D will make you cry in so many matchups. 2 is the right number. And its Batman Hernandez that says MisD is underrated.
4)Full power aint bad for the deck.
5)Fastbond really stink w/o 4 Gush.
6)60th card can be Berserk. It gives you some good faster wins.
7)Serum Visions is alright. Sleight of hand is worst in my opinion. NW/AK engine shuold be tried too.

@Morefling: Daze is the 60th card in my deck. It's just that close to being cut. The 59th-60th slots were between that, Mystical Tutor and Vampiric Tutor for me. I decided that I would cut VT because 1)it's not blue 2)all those life loss in the deck adds up. Daze is not a worldbeater. In all those games I've played with daze, it ended up countering twice. The rest of the times it's either dead, ending up as the perfect pitch card(majority of the cases), or the card does not matter anymore at the game state. However, the couple times when it DID counter a spell was really helpful. That is why it stayed.

However, I've my doubts about running 2, much less 3 (3 is basically a NEVER personally). There are situations where you don't have a pitch counter in hand but then got a daze in hand and turn totally dead. It's one of the lousiest topdeck you can have.Thus, I would avoid drawing into 2 of them by all means, and playing only 1 is the best way to do it. But I would take the word and try out 2 at the time being.

My answer to Fish is GAT. Fish usually can't deal with a 5/5 dryad unless they waste a lot of resources.

Also, once people are ready to accept Fish as a threat (as I've for the last year) and sideboard for it, it's going to subside.

Eastman: The Night's Whisper/AK plan was championed by me a month ago. It doesn's suck, but it does generate the pointed problem of the 2CC blob. From my testing, if you are planning to play them, I truely suggest Mana Drain. The deck would lean more to the control side and should be played as such. I played red in that version and also ran Mana Crypt.

Daze is a perfect card as a 1-of and it did well for me last week. It at worst can be pitched late game. I'm having doubts about 2 but I'll test it out. 2 Misd is probably the right number but I can see it going down to 1.

And I truely believe that fastbond does not belong to the deck. It never helped me enough early game and it doesn't matter mid to late game. If the deck were to run fastbond, the 3rd cunning wish would be crucial as a way to replenish the hand w/ FoF early on.

JP now its your time to bust out your UG madness and start to own those curious fishies!

I would so laugh if people start packing caltrops in their sideboard.....

There will be no way wizard would support proxies of any sort, even if it is "official" (read: CE) Afterall, magic is a CCG, keeping the rare cards rare is crucial to the game's health. It's not of any power-owners or prospective power-owners' interest to have reprints like this because such reprints always decreases the incentive to invest in power.

Here's the Announcement part. Everyone in So Cal, if you don't already know, we have a weekly tournament here in Balboa Park C_hess (DAM FILTERS) Club. We generally starts at 7 unless wenches like Pat comes down from LA and is late that we've to wait. Here's the detail:

Every Monday, 7:00 PM

Address:

2225 6th Ave.
San Diego, CA 92101

You would see a sign of "The Balboa Club/Balboa Park Horseshoe Club" right in front of it.

Here's the report part.

The usual Monday tournament at Don's didn't draw as much people as last week. We got a total of 11 players. I was playing a personally modified version of Eastman's suicide GAT. The main reason I switched from control GAT to suicide GAT is that the local meta starts to shift away from control and more to combo and aggro. I play tested with Brokennut against belcher before going to the tournament and I found the deck quite potent. Here is my list.

Mana (23)
4x Tropical Island
4x Underground Sea
3x Island
4x Fetches
6x Lomoxen
Rx Strip Mine
Rx Library of Alexandria

Creature (6)
4 Quirion Dryad
2 Psychatog

Disruption (10)
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
2 Misdirection
1 Daze

Draw/Cantrips (14)
4x Night's Whisper
4x Serum Visions
4x Brainstorm
Rx Ancestral Recall
Rx Gush

Tutors (4)
Rx Demonic Tutor
Rx Mystical Tutor
2x Cunning Wish

Baroken (3)
Rx Yawgmoth's Will
Rx Time Walk
1x Berserk

Sideboard (15)
2x Naturalize
1x Oxidize
1x Tranquil Domain (got a void player here)
2x Deep Analysis
2x BEB
2x Energy Flux
1x Smother
1x Diabolic Edict
Rx Fact of Fiction
1x Stifle
1x Berserk

1st Round: Nick Playing Belcher

I didn't expect 2 belchers to be present tonight (Brokennut's playing that too) but I'm not too scared because that deck is quite inconsistent in my opinion.

1st game he got belcher online 2nd turn.

I sided in Naturalizes Oxidize and stifle.

2nd game naturalize and oxidize played LD on him. He didn't draw into his land grant or land and I killed the mox and mana vault that he dropped, bought me enough time to kill with a 3/3 dryad.

3rd game came down to the line. I got him down to 3, w/ a dryad on board. He got a tapped welder and crypt on board. He tap for mana and put crypt trigger on stack and welded the crypt out for belcher and activate it. It misbelched into a ancient tomb (!!!) for only 5 damage. Coin flip killed him right afterwards.

2-1 1-0

2nd round SpikeMikey R/G Beatz

Mikey's presence is one of the reason I switch to a more aggroish GAT build

1st game he got me down to one life. I desperately needed to yawg will but I didn't have the black mana. I pulled it off the top and went off on him. Love 2 biljillion cantrips in grave and berserk in hand w/o wishing.

Sided in Smother and 1 BEB

2nd game he got me down to 4 but i stablized w/ tog and dryad. I DTed for Berserk and killed him.

2-0 2-0

3rd Round Nemo Rector Trix/Agony hybrid

3 combos in 11 players is one of the highest combo ratio ever for Don's

1st game I've the beats going on but he eventually wear thru my disruption and got a bargain down. He drew about 10 cards and got nothing.

2nd game He had a very slow start. I yawg willed into a huge dryad but somehow I got no forces or time walk w/ all the cantripping action. He casted illusions the turn after I yawg will. I attacked he's down to 13. He got a rector! and he therapy =( he went trigger happy and got bargain, another rector and therapy again and....he doesn't have another illusions(he sided it out for some reason)! he tried desperately for the tendrils but he couldn't find it.

2-0 3-0

4th round Chris w/ wMUD

Good thing its last round we split. We played for fun but obviously I've no chance first game. He stablized the turn before I can yawg will w/ a sphere of resistence and everything went downhill from that point. We didn't play 2nd game because team Food is Broken (aka my ride) wants to leave and go to TGI Fridays for food.

Other Notables: Jeff drew w/ Barbara and Nick drew w/ Brokennut all 2-1-1, JACO got faded finished 1-3 or 2-2

Props: Berserk, wins me games earlier.
          Nemo, for sucking against me
          Nick, for siding in the ancient tomb

Slops: Me, for any misplays I have

Now the explaination of unconventional choices.

2 Togs: I win 80% of the games w/ Dryad anyway. Tog is just a emergency button to me, true to the old GAT style.

3 Drains 1 Daze no Duress: Hard counters > Duress. Duress can be dead weight in certain matchups (aka anything that uses welder). Drain is just so much more versatile and at the worst can be pitched. Duress also uses mana that could've been used for Serum Visions.

Daze is pretty nice as a 1 of. Solid gold early game, late game it's nice and pitchable and won't draw excessive of them anyway.

No VT, No Fastbond: Fastbond is a win more card. Yes I said it it's a win more card. If you can actually abuse fastbond early game that means your hand doesn't have much juice. Late game you don't need it and it doesn't even grow dryad. Since fetching fastbond is not necessary the VT is not needed either.

Maindeck Berserk: Since the deck's Trying to go aggro, I personally think it's quite natural to put in that maindeck berserk and it is proven to be solid gold. It can easily put you in a position to win in situations where normally you would need more setup.

GI:I honestly think we're almost always on the same frequency.

I absolutely see where you are coming from in terms of Ground Seal/Coffin Purge. I've personally not touched them for at least 2 months considering that I've played against exactly one Dragon deck during that period(and still beating it)

Null Rod I personally play Damping matrix over it, siding out Tog. But they've went out recently too due to declining numbers of slavers in my meta. I also found the red splash usually does the job well enough.

The current creature removal of choice for me are Fire/Ice and Diabolic Edict. I h8 angels/morphlings with a passion. I took smother out of the board because usually Fire/Ice does the job anyway. I do think smother is a superior option over vendetta or snuff out, simply because I just can't stand losing more life myself w/ the myriad of Fetch/NW/(crypt)/occasional Drain mana burn.

An issue on the sideboarding plan that I'm interested about is the right number of REBs and BEBs. I'm seeing morefling's sentiment about REBs and I'm currently running 2. BEBs are just so useful nowadays that i'm runnning 2. The strategy I take w/ REB/BEB is usually side in 1 in matchups where they're useful and leave the other one as a wish target. How many do you guys think is the right number?

If daze's purpose is to win early counter wars, wouldn't misdirection do the same job? Daze's early game tempo drawback is too much to handle at a lot of times unless you are having an early time walk. And obviously daze is absolutely horrible mid to late game. Misdirection is just superior to daze in most situations. Personally, before running 2 dazes main deck, I'll run 3 misdirecitons first. Duress is always an option but I usually prefer blue instants over black sorceries in the disruption department.

I don't understand why is there even a debate between Serum Visions and Sleight of Hands. Serum Visions is superior because it fundametally digs deeper. And if you have a fetch in hand, you would usually play Brainstorm over Serum/Sleight anyway.

The true debate in my eye is really between Opt and Serum Visions. I believe everyone is putting too much focus on the first turn cantripping issue. It's quite important to look at the midgame and the late game also. Options are very important. Opt gives us the most options in the long run as it allows us not to tap in main phase. It's digging ability might be the worst among all three, but it's just so much better in place of EOT tricks and counterwars because it gives your the OPTION to dig at instant speed. The biggest problem of running serum visions is that when used along with night's whisper, it might be hard to keep mana open to use hard counters. Opt alleviates the problem a little. I would hate to be the one who's tapped out in a control mirror. Options win games.

If i'm to play with 4 Night's Whisper/4 Serum Visions, there would be no question that I'll play at least 3 misdirection, if not 4. But the question would come down to if I can replenish my hand enought to support 7 pitch counters.

GAT is a colored mana hungry deck. Running anything more than Library+Strip Mine is going to screw up your game because you will be drawing into more colorless mana sources than you would like.

Nice job Jin, kinda lucky that I didn't face you or Batman Hernandez =P

I went 3-1-1, 10th place with GAT, barely missing top 8 due to tiebreakers =(

1st 2 rounds are mono black weirdness. Highlight was 1st round opponent playing Underworld Dreams/Anvil of Bogardan and I almost died despite pulling off a yawg will and dominant Board Position. I love cunning wish->Berserk, however.

The 3rd round comes my only loss, to Pat's Germbux, the eventual winner of the event. (and his own Mox Jet) 1st game he dropped a library =( 2nd game I got totally outplayed. I intuitioned with an AK in hand, I won the counter war w/ 2 forces back up. I AKed, he has the force. And the last AK got countered too. I scooped.

4th round I was playing Judge #2 (Pat's head judge, and man 2 judges in a roll) Brian. He's playing B/U D4rg0n. 1st game I went combo tog 4th turn win. 2nd game he went off 3rd turn if I wasn't mistaken despite me having a robust start and could've stopped it if I could untap. 3rd turn my dryad went for beats, DTed for a Damping Matrix and I stripped his Intuitioned-Bazaar. He came back to life with a Danced Sliver Queen. He eventually Deed the whole board away with the help of Xantid. But my card drawing caught up to him and a yawg will/tog sealed it.

In 5th round I was playing against a Phid deck and we totally ran out of time (1 minute left for 3rd game, he was kinda stubborn about the 2nd game that totally went out of hand for him to come back), and opponent neither offer to make me concede nor accept my offer to concede to me despite knowing of the grim possibility of neither of us making top 8 with the draw =(

Btw, Nick was playing GAT, not Tog. And the unknown person should be Ben playing Hulk.

Ultima: I'm interested in what you think the optimal disruption base would be.

For me, It is really dependent on the draw base.

I've goldfished with night's whisper/opt and it feels pretty good. But the obvious problem is if I should be running mana drain or just vanilla counterspell.

Misdirection is such a tweener card these days....there are enough FoWs and mind twist flying around to warrent its use but I just so don't want to see it when I'm seeing any kind of aggro, which is a safe bet to appear in any big tournament. I'm leaning on 1, looking at PTW's fish as a cue. I might run 2 if i'm running opt considering the fact that the deck can dig for answer faster, less controlling and opt is a better remove target.

Stifle, however, is something I'm looking strongly at once again. It does silly things like stifling random jars, slaver and charbelcher when you just don't have the time to react. It also protects the mana base. It also deals with fish's "man-counters." I'm leaning towards 1 in the post 5D GAT. I won't be surprised if i've somehow decided to run 2, however.

Duress runs into Night's Whisper's realm of mana use, unfortunately.

I hate singletons as much as anyone else, but I'm believing that this is the proper disruption base post 5D:

4 FoW
4 Mana Drain/Counterspell (for Night's Whisper/AK and Night's Whisper/Opt respectively)
1 Misdirection
1 Stifle (maybe 2)

ccsamerican: Night's Whisper and AK in the same deck is exactly the brainchild I've since Night's whisper's existence was confirmed (check a few pages back on this thread)

I've personally tested night's whisper and serum visions last couple days both goldfishing and against Germbus, TnT, and Tog.

I'm always under the impression that the Night's Whisper/Serum Visions engine would run out of gas fast. My goldfishing shows me that it's actually not the case. It's resembling 70% of old-GAT.

However, once force of will/real opponent sets in, I found myself in some trouble. Having no pure instant speed drawer/cantrip other than brainstorm leaves me short-handed against control, be it germbus or Hulk.
I'm often reluctant to cast Visions/Night's Whisper in turn 1/2 respectively because that would leave myself absolutely vunlerable unless I got a force in hand. That relegates visions as a turn 3 play, which is horrible.

Whisper's still fantastic but obviously it can be a problem against random aggro (there's a game where I was down to 2 and brainstorm into whisper/random/random), but is functioning just fine other than that.

My stance on the draw engine post 5D at the moment is Whisper/AK. Having an instant component of the engine is crucial in my opinion. However, Opt also deserves a strong look in place of serum visions (I've never ever run sleigh of hand over that in old GAT, ever.)

I believe that Daze and Duress are just awful in this meta. Daze's too situational in the first place to be utilized, and Fastbond is not an excuse to play it.

Duress is just so awful against slaver.

I'll never forsake the off-color moxens. They're so crucial against wasteland, the single biggest enemy of GAT.

While I admit that night's whisper's nice, I just don't see why people are still so scared to play AK. Hulk players have to face the same dilemma.

It's getting better these days, but I've to agree with origamist that it's too much distraction to look at the URLs to "counting shadow price" 3000 times =/

not a bad read rakso, keep up.

Morefling: I do agree that drawing tog late game is infinitely better than drawing deed, but deed late game usually seal the deal as you can establish total board control with it. My sentiment is pretty much smmenen's argument where it gives you the pilot seat of how the course of the game is going to be.

Cunning wish while can still do some good late game, doesn't have the the magnitude of "0 $h17" power that deed can offer.

The question really comes down to is the 1 deed that much of a deadweight in a general metagame. I personally believe that it's a good scarecrow at worst, and thus 1 will stay in my deck for a while.

Deed is a card that you would be grateful when you draw it randomly late game in almost every matchup. Deed in my opinion plays the hay scarecrow role: It's there to scare people, It doesn't really really serve a major purpose in some matches but it does a little bit of something that you would be grateful it's there so that your opponent would play around it, be it in play or not. 1 is exactly the correct number for this purpose.

Maybe because of the fact that I play GAT, deed also grows my dryad so it wouldn't be as dead as it can be in tog in some matchups. But in a big tournament where randomness happen (imagine WW caught some stupid brokeness or something   ), Deed is THE best card that can pull you out of the hole. Never hestitate to drop deed on board even when it looks like it does nothing, it DOES make your opponent to play around it and buy you time to pull tog out of your @$$.

I'm seeing more and more need to have the 4th cunning wish to intuition for in case I burnt the first one and needing to get the 2nd one immediately for the kill. However, I would pull duress out for the wish first before deed because duress is so ass when the lone card in your opponent's hand is a slaver w/ welder in play.

Honestly, trying to say this deck is tier 1 is a stretch when people are considering FCG, GAT and Fish as tier 2.

But anyways, if you consider the fact that:

1) Dreadnaught takes 2 combat phase to win when tog takes only 1

2) The only thing i need to counter is the mask.

3) Your life loss off spoils/plunge is giving aggro/tog an easier time as they can now just smash you for a LOT less to win, even if you do have the dreadnaught on board.

Comparing to dragon where they can overwhelm you with an uncounterable threat (Bazaar) and more than 12 must counters (Intuition, reanimation spells) WITH forces back up but yet no one consider D@rg0n as tier 1, and that FCG and charbelcher can KILL YOU, guranteed by turn 2 undisrupted as compared to mask takes at the least turn 3 to kill, you know you are in trouble.

More, the splash damage from artifact hate against slaver is just too huge. One random damping matrix can spell game. Cunning wish -> Rack and ruin/oxidize is flying everywhere, and germbus got swords MAIN.

To be honest, discard suck these days. I personally pulled off a match with GAT last night against Void with their god hands: 1st game 1st turn necro (countered) 2nd turn hyppie, 2nd game ritual/duress/hymn. They are traditionally impossible to get out of but w/ the raw power of GAT I still win. The lesson is, discard is just not that potent anymore.

What I would really consider if i were to play this deck is to run blue for forces, brainstorm and draw and cunning wish, splash green for berserk (3 main 1 board, hell yea) and artifact hate for the midgame. It's pretty much hulk taking out the togs and put in the dreadnaught/mask. Sounds like a bad idea but if your objective is to play mask and test out a build that might work, try it.