Did you not read McGyver's posts?

I rather enjoyed the article - but then, I did just help make a team less than a month ago. The subject was very relevant to me, so obviously I liked it.

Three Wishes 1UU
Instant
Remove the top three cards of your library from the game face down. You may look at those cards as long as they remain removed from the game. Until your next upkeep, you may play those cards as though they were in your hand. At the beginning of your next upkeep, put any of those cards not played into your graveyard.

The card looks so damn good on paper, but is less than thrilling in performance. In combo, it is relatively slow and janky and has a moderately tough cost with the double Blue. In control, it simply sucks. Casting it EoT is generally a bad idea, since you lose those cards almost immediately, and tying up 3 mana to draw into either more card draw or counters is a bad idea.

The closest I've come to making it playable is in Gro variants with lots of cheap cantrips, but I ended up dropping them for less narrow cards.

I agree, but, many times there's nothing to do on turn 1. Except stablize your mana situation.


Er, sure. I test all of the time.  



See the old one, + any additions I may have made since then.

Thinking about either of those getting Drained when hardcast is enough to make me want to quit Magic.

The only problem with those is that they cost 2 mana, which should put me well on my way to building resources.

I've been thinking of playing Lay of the Land. Thoughts?

You would think this to be true, but, no.

Gay/r's free counters combined with Grim Lavamancer make the matchup actually fairly difficult. It can easily out-tempo you if it counters your Lackey and starts 'Mancing your troops. If you can resolve a Sharpshooter, things are looking up, but otherwise you had better not be falling asleep at the wheel.

You've probably been facing bad Fish players. I'm not saying that the Fish has the favor, nor am I saying that it's an extremely tough matchup. I'm just saying it's not as easy as you say it is.

Otherwise, you're correct. Blue in FCG is like adding Workshops in Fish.

It's not the counters, its the lack of being able to deal with their creatures in Red and Green. If they poop out an Akroma, I'm practically done for.


Good point. But what about Game 3? They side stuff back in, and I get screwed. The Mazes seem good, though, so I'll keep 4 SB. REB goes in for their counters. To be honest, I'm not worried about counters, since I've learned to play around them.


You are correct, sir.


Again, hammer is connecting to nail.


I know it's good, but I'm hesitant to run counterable mana sources. If they FoW my opening Grant with me stuck on one mana, I am screwed. It's still better than fetches, though, so, in go the Grants.

The thing is, not only are fetches deck thinners, they're mana fixers. But, then again, counterable fetches aren't exactly tech either.

Any other choices?

Tim has a point about BM in the SB, but I still don't think I'd bring it in against Workshop, since I'm pretty set in that matchup.

Pillar SB is great. Root Maze can only do so much, and Pillar helps seal the deal against combo.

Speaking of Root Maze MD, I'm going to drop fetches, since they are ++ bad with Maze. I'm replacing them with Land Grants.

I'm not running any Rancors currently, though, after reading a few reports, they sound like they could be useful. As Control is probably one of the weaker matchups right now, I'd like to keep Troll in as a way to balance it out. Also, Troll > Fish.


Root Maze makes this difficult. They have to wait a turn before they Slaverize me, which would easily allow me to ArtiMute it. You're also correct about removing Welder.


Hm. This is true.


It's possible, but probable it isn't. Turn 2 is very real, though. BM is certainly worth testing, as it turns Shops and Wastes into crap. If anything, it's SB.


/groan

@ Tim: You also have to remember that Troll is a pain in the ass for Control to remove. Even stuff like Starstorm won't do much against him. I agree that it may be too slow, but I like its game against Control. It'll be looked at during more testing.

Lyrist could work, but I dislike the fact that it is useless against Workshops or Slaver.

That spot is up for debate right now.

Blood Moon is seemingly nice, but the 3cc really works against it when its something you want to cast on turn 1. Root Maze does a similar job (stalling) while at the same time has more functions against a wider range of decks. This will be another spot I check during testing.

Rancor is quite good, but, with the testing I did, I found it to be either a dead card, or win-more. I think its more fitting in a really fast aggro deck like Oshawa, not in a slower, more destructive deck like this.

(Speaking of Oshawa, the reason to run this deck over Oshawa is because of the superior artifact hate and combo hate, as well as being able to handle a wider array of decks.)

@ Covetous: That turns the deck into more of a RG Madness build, which, to be fair, could work out better than my current set-up. Of course, then I'm just 1 step away from adding in 4 Survivals and calling it Oshawa/r.

I had thought 'Tog and 4cC were dead. I kept 'Slaver in consideration for building this deck, and thought the massive artifact hate would help it tremendously.

My only problem with Claws of Gix is trying to win afterwards. It's going to be hard to kill my opponent when I'm always sacrificing my own creatures to that to prevent them from Oathing. I've seen people use their own Forbidden Orchards against Oath, which seems interesting, although probably not useful at all.

'Mancer goes in for F/I, Baloth leaves for River Boa.

Birds is an interesting idea, even if I take out the Baloths. It's also a mana fixer, which could streamline the deck. I guess I'll cut CoWs to the SB, although I want two somewhere in the deck.

Mask of Memory only triggers off combat damage to a player, so 'Mancerand Birds aren't the best targets. However, Mask is still a great addition to the deck.

My only complaint about a manland is that it's nonbasic, which opens me up the the nonbasic hate that snuffed URG Fish out of existence. They are great under a 3Sphere, and allow me to use random SSAOT like Goblin Bombardment, so they're up for consideration at the very least.

Maks is going in. I'm not a fan of SoFI; I think it's too slow and clunky (this coming from the Baloth guy, I know). The Shock each turn is useful, but I'd rather just draw cards with Mask.

Root Maze MD is good. But, what to cut?

Zealot is expensive to use, I'll give you that, but I've always loved the versatility of the card. What would you suggest I trade it out with? More artifact hate (going with both Shaman and Heretic) or Call of the Herd? Maybe something else?

Combo is being fought to the best of my ablities in the SB.

EDIT:

I agree with Tobi; fighting their creatures is a lost cause.

Maze of Ith is an interesting idea, but, Oath runs Wastelands, and Maze itself doesn't produce any mana. It could be worth testing.

Kird Ape is okay, but doesn't do anything other than hit. It's easily dealt with and can't take out a Juggs. Factories are something I'm really wanting to run, but I'm afraid of having the deck's manabase completely wrecked by nonbasic hate.

Your list is similar to the one I played in the meta about 6 or so months ago. Then again, I chose it over Fish because I had to deal with scrubby aggro as well as competitive decks. One thing I can see about your deck is that, like mine, it folded to a CoW/Waste. Looks pretty good for that meta, though.

Here comes a new decklist...:

[RG Tempo]
[t1 RG Aggro/Control]
[Cards: 60]

[Manabase: 24]
Production: 12
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Taiga
4 Forest
2 Mountain
Disruption: 5
4 Wasteland
R Strip Mine
Accel: 7
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
R Mox Ruby
R Mox Emerald
R Black Lotus

[Creatures: 20]
Beats: 12
4 River Boa
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Call of the Herd
Utility: 8
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Gorilla Shaman // Viashino Heretic

[Other Spells: 16]
Draw: 4
4 Mask of Memory
Disruption: 8
4 Artifact Mutation
4 Root Maze
Burn: 4
4 Fire/Ice (it's more versatile than Bolt)

[Sideboard: 15]
4 Naturalize
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Rack and Ruin

Birds would be great, but, where do I fit them in? I believe Root Maze is a much more versatile tool, and I already pack a lot of acceleration.

Effective hate decks have been some of the more influential decks in t1. Earliest among these was probably Suicide Black, which preyed on the clunky devices control decks utilized and easily disrupted slow combo. In more recent times, we saw the rise and fall of the thriftymancer's best friend, Fish. Great meta shifts has caused these decks to fall in favor, but the general ideas they contained live on in budget hate decks: disrupt a pattern, destroy.

The current meta (as far as I know) consists of Stax, Slaver, Stax, Oath, Stax, DLong, Stax, Doomsday, Stacker, Oath, and Stax. With the abundance of artifacts running around, artifact destruction seems to spring to mind as a way to combat these elements. But, URG Fish already did this. The real problem with these decks is the power of CoW + Wastes versus non-basics. But what about combo? Combo will always be a bad matchup for aggro, but that doesn't mean we have to roll over and die to it. Oath is also going to be a problem for aggro decks, but with sufficient Enchantment destruction and/or tech, the matchup may not be a lost cause. In order to create a successful hate deck for this meta, we need a) an abundance of artifact hate, b) a stable manabase, c) an effective anti-combo fight, and d) be able to beat Oath-based control.

A return to RG Tempo, anyone?

Killing the Artifacts

Workshop has its ugly hands gripped tightly around the t1 metagame. There's just no denying the effectiveness of a MWS -> 3Sphere. Thankfully, the colors Red and Green are abundant in massive artifact hate. We get: Rack and Ruin, Artifact Mutation, Shattering Pulse, Viridian Shaman/Sex Monkeys, Viridian Zealot, Oxidize, Naturalize, and, of course, Mox Monkey. I've probably even forgotten some other good cards. But with this many good hate cards, the problem comes down to choosing the best ones for the job.

Immediately, we can eliminate Oxidize and Shattering Pulse. They're good, they just don't have much bang for their buck. You could say the same about Sex/Shaman, but at least they come with a 2/2 body.

Rack and Ruin is a fantastic card. It can be cast on turn 2 easily (even under 3Sphere with help from our friend ESG), taking out two of their most potent go-spells.

Artifact Mutation is equally awesome, since it not only takes out a random bad card, but creates more tokens for the win or additional Wire tap targets.

Naturalize is great because of its versaility. The Enchantment hate will come in handy against both Oath and occasionally TPS variants reliant on getting out Necro or Bargain, but we'll get into that later.

I love Gorilla Shaman so very much. Wiping out someone's manabase for 2 or 3 always fills me with a sense of sadistic glee. But you have to step back and really analyze its effectiveness. It doesn't do much against Workshop Aggro, nor does it do much against Stax once it gets going. I've thought about Viashino Heretic, but it's slow and clunky.

Viridian Zealot is just plain awesome. He's an efficient beater and can activate the turn he comes out. Tech? Yessir.

Artifact Mutation and RnR are probably the two best of this category, and Zealot performs double (triple sometimes) duty in the deck. Naturalize is also a fit.

What doesn't belong here? In my oh so humble opinion, Null Rod. Null Rod doesn't stop 3Sphere from eating your tempo, doesn't stop Smokestack from destroying your board position, doesn't stop Welder from trading those Moxen for fatties, and doesn't stop Jugs from eating your face. Therefore, it is not needed.

To a lesser extent, we need to be able to deal with Welders. Fire/Ice, Lightning Bolt, Lava Dart... removing the pipsqueak won't be much of an effort.

Secure Manabases for Every Family

At the very least, Red and Green are "allies," so it becomes easier to run basics in conjunction with Wooded Foothills. But since the deck will require a lot of manafixing, in spite of all the non-basic hate, 2 Taiga are required to help fix and set up in the early game. Afterwards, though, the deck can rely on basics.

Lest we forget about accel, though. Since most metas allow for 5 proxies, we can Proxy up on color Moxen and Lotus. ESG brings some on color accel, and Sol Ring brings up the rear for accel.

As with any hate deck, RG Tempo is going to try to attack a deck's manabase early and hard. A full set of 5 Strips will be played.

Crucible of Worlds will also be run MD to help fight the land hate, as well as recurring Strips of its own.

As good as Blood Moon looks, it doesn't hurt as many decks as you'd like to think. Unfortunate, too, as I mised a foil Moon from a scrub not too long ago and the art is amazing.

I hate Combo

As much as I love to see the look on a Sligh player's face after getting Tendril'd for 24 on turn 2, I can sympathize with their emotions. In order to prevent this from happening to our deck, we're going to look at 3 major anti-combo cards: Root Maze, Pyrostatic Pillar, and Chalice of the Void.

Root Maze is probably the most generic, broad-sweeping card of all. It also has some non-combo applications. Mainly, however, it will be used to delay combo either for you to kill them and disrupt them even more with artifact destruction. It's also used to stop Dragon dead in its tracks. It can also really hurt Belcher.

Pyrostatic Pillar looks at Storm combo and tells it to go to hell. Of course, the only problem is, Storm only needs a spell count of 9 to kill you, and 9 x2 = 18. Filling in those 2 extra points of damage can be fairly easy with the random burn you'll run, not to mention DeathLong's suicidal tendencies.

Chalice of the Void is another one of those general cards, but it is probably the worst choice. It stops acceleration from coming down, and can easily prevent lethal storm counts from building, but is also easily played around. I'd suggest Maze or Pillar over this easily.

Dodging the Fatty Bullet

Oath > aggro, or so I'm told. It will be a very, very difficult matchup, not unwinnable, but close to being so. The only tech I can think of here is Goblin Bombardment, but that's just crap. Your only real hope here is to draw into that Naturalize or Zealot and be able to play them without getting them countered.

Hate decks are never perfect. Hell, Fish rolled over to Workshops before the Green splash...

But, moving on to greener pastures, we get to the fun part: beats!

Choosing the Right Beats

We need efficient beaters that either a) kick ass and are hard to kill or b) perform a niftily helpful utility function. I've already mentioned my baby's daddy called Viridian Zealot, but there are other fantastic choices like Troll Ascetic, Ravenous Baloth, and River Boa.

Troll Ascetic is a control player's nightmare. Once Yoda gets out with regeneration mana, he's probably not going anywhere. Although he can't do anything other than beat, his skill at doing so makes him worthy of inclusion.

Ravenous Baloth is a surprisingly effective card. He's an efficient beater, but the surprise goodness comes in the fact that he can gain 4 life at the drop of a hat. Would you be surprised if I told you this actually won me a few games against DLong that could only manage a storm count of 10?

Boa is a great card, but as you see fewer and fewer Islands in today's meta, this card falls in favor. Of course, there's Oath and everything, but this card is too tiny for Oath to notice. Oath will rarely block (unless they get Her Lady of Mechanics), so Yoda does the same job, but hits harder and is harder to remove.

Flametongue Kavu is a good choice, but since aggro is pretty dead in today's meta, this will be run only if there is an overabundance of aggro in your meta.

Now that we've got a clear idea of what we want, how about a first decklist?

[RG Tempo v1.0 by ShadyPhoenix, 12/19/04]
[t1 RG Aggro/Control]
[Cards: 60]

[Manabase: 28]
Production: 15
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Taiga
6 Forest
3 Mountain
Disruption: 5
4 Wasteland
R Strip Mine
Accel: 8
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
R Mox Ruby
R Mox Emerald
R Black Lotus
R Sol Ring

[Creatures: 15]
Beats: 8
4 Troll Ascetic // River Boa
4 Ravenous Baloth
Utility: 7
4 Viridian Zealot
3 Gorilla Shaman // Viashino Heretic

[Other Spells: 17]
Disruption: 7
3 Artifact Mutation
4 Naturalize
Advantage: 2
2 Crucible of Worlds
Burn: 8
4 Lightning Bolt // Lava Dart
4 Fire/Ice

[Sideboard: 15]
1 Artifact Mutation
4 Rack and Ruin
4 Root Maze // Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Red Elemental Blast
2 [random choice]

It's a bit rough, but, it should have enough ammo to deal with the Workshop laden meta. What really bugs me is a lack of card draw, but I guess that's to be expected in RG.

Whew, this was longer than I thought it'd be... thoughts?

Good, helpful article. I've already streamlined some of my goldfishing after reading it. It also deepened my overall knowledge about the intracacies of all Storm combo in t1.

One question, though:

Why would you wait for the second turn's upkeep, instead of doing it at your opponent's EoT?