Hmm I guess you have a good point there. Leyline does seem better than Jailer because it hoses both Ichorid and Flash. I'm not sure if cutting Street Wraith is the right answer, but maindeck Leyline does seem more juicy. Aside from Leyline, what are some other cards that are often sided in against both Ichorid and Flash? Crypt, Needle...

Any opinion on maindeck Yixlid Jailer? I think it makes more sense than maindeck Leyline because you don't need 4 slots, and because GAT can utilize the advantage of running lots of cantrips and finding Yixlid. Yixlid beats just as well as Dark Confidant does, and has a better special ability than Bob is this metagame. Also, maindecking Yixlid forces us to make the deck tigher by cutting the 3 worst cards previously - I made room by cutting a Street Wraith, the Regrowth, and a Polluted Delta (I was happier with 20 mana sources than 21 even before I included Yixlid, and used the extra slot for a 3rd Misdirection) from Steve's build. And in bringing perhaps the most universal and flexible sideboard card into the maindeck, we have 3 more slots in the sideboard to work with.

MAINDECK:
4 Quirion Dryad
3 Yixlid Jailer
1 Psychatog

4 Duress
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection

4 Brainstorm
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Gush
2 Street Wraith
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Cunning Wish
1 Time Walk
1 Fastbond
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor

2 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crypt

SIDEBOARD:
3 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Pithing Needle
2 Artifact Mutation
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Berserk
1 Strip Mine
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Naturalize
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Echoing Truth

Dropping back down to 2 Misdirection has allowed me to drop the Sleights for Street Wraiths since there isn't such a heavy need for blue cards early on. I'm also thinking of cutting the Island for a second Volcanic because the single basic land has never made a difference in my testing against Wasteland. Running two Volcs pretty much solves the little Regrowth issue mentioned above. EDIT: Yeah I went and dropped the Island for Volc.

Anyway, these are small changes here and there that may make a difference once in a while. But these tweaks all pale in comparison to the massive percentage shifts provided by Yixlid against Flash and Dredge. If I were to bring this list, Yixlid Jailers included, to a tournament today, I'd feel good about my chances of winning the match against every single Vintage deck.

EDIT: Sorry, wrong thread.

Its pretty irrelevant to debate whether GAT and Flash are similar. The real question is whether GAT can beat Flash.

Compare the disruption:

GAT
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection

FLASH
4 Force of Will
4 Pact of Negation
3 Misdirection

GAT runs a tiny bit more draw. However, here's what I'm worried about. If Flash decks evolve and start maindecking Xantid Swarm, their Summoning Pacts will act like counters as well, making them incredibly tough to beat.

EDIT: Swarm has summoning sickness though, so it may not happen. But if some green creature of that sort is found, there could be trouble.
EDIT 2: diopter, you read my mind !

Xman, I know it depends on a lot of in-game factors, but generally, what role does GAT play in the Stax matchup? I always felt the control-combo role was the best to take, but that seems to require Mana Drain. Meanwhile, PurpleHat implied the aggro role in his last post (or atleast that's how I took his argument).

Second, I don't think the problem we should look at is so much Stax as it is Flash and Ichorid. Flash with 11 maindeck pitch/free counters has been tough for me to beat, unless I run a full 4 MisD, 4 FoW, 4 Duress, 4 Scroll. And Ichorid is...you know.

Steve: Did something come up in testing that caused you to drop LoA?

Gat runs 2 less than the maximum number of artifact mana - the two missing are Mox Pearl and Sol Ring. Actually, some people advocate running Pearl as well. Either way, GAT makes up for it with lots of cantrips, so it'll run into a Mox before Tinker 98% of the time. As for mana, it seems that GAT nowadays has 20-21 slots for mana rather than the 18 of 2003 builds, so it's not too bad. If the fat is good enough such that Tinker is worth it in the first place, I'm sure we'd be able to make it work. The main problem, I feel, is that decks are maindecking more bounce now, so Darksteel Colossus is pretty easy to "kill".

You're probably right about Storm vs. Stax, but I distinctly remember Smemmen write in one of his GAT articles that against Stax you try to play the combo-control role. Rather than play out an early Dryad, you hold back Mana Drain and use the mana to launch directly into combo mode. In this case Tendrils would be better than Dryad or Tog. Of course this implies the inclusion of Mana Drain, which is another topic altogether.

Why not run a semi-transformational sideboard, bringing in EtW and/or Tendrils from the side against Stax and whatnot? They won't be expecting us to turn into a combo deck, and will be unprepared. If you compare our GAT lists to the GushTendrils lists on the other thread, you'll see that we only defer by 5 or so cards. With Steves build including Crypt and Lotus Petal, that shrinks even more.

Or we could run the Tinker + fatty combo, though I'm not sure if there are good fatties out there for Tinker.

Steve, how are your deck's matchups against Flash? I tested against a version with 4 FoW, 4 Pact, 3 MisD, and it was hard to beat them even with full sets of my own FOWs, Misdirections, and Duresses. I don't think it wise to go under 3 Misdirection in this metagame, because Stax just isn't that heavily played, whereas I see Flash being perhaps THE combo deck to beat.

I still disagree with Street Wraith, though perhaps it's because I run more pitch counters than you. Looking forward to your article .

21-22 mana bases? I don't think that's necessary with Gush back. 18 is probably on the light side, though it really depends on how many cantrips you run. I'd say 19 is the right number, and 20 is max. I agree with ELD that you don't need the full Mox set. For UBG, Sapphire, Jet, and Emerald are enough. The other two should just be more spells. It's not like we're accelerating into anything with this deck.

I love LoA, but I actually don't think it's an absolute must. To me, any non-Dryad card that doesn't have an immediate effect is cuttable just for that reason. I'm not saying is should be cut, but it's not an auto-inclusion either. In fact, Strip Mine might be a better choice just because tutor --> Strip Mine could be huge against Friggorid or Stax if you hit a Bazaar or Worshop.

3 Moxen
1 Lotus
1 LoA/Strip
5 Fetch
4 Sea
3 Tropical
2 Island

or

4 Moxen
1 Lotus
1 LoA/Strip
5 Fetch
4 Sea
3 Tropical
1 Volcanic
1 Island

Question: From a Stax player's point of view, exactly how harmful is Energy Flux? I don't see that much Stax in my area, and I've never actually played Stax enough to run into Energy Flux in a tournament. Is it really bad for the deck? Is it easily played around? Does it stick? It seems from my limited perspective that Energy Flux would be back-breaking, and that for this reason red would not seem necessary, but I'd like a more informed opinion.

I spent a few hours testing over the weekend, and have independently come to the same conclusions as ELD, Dxfiler, and Steve:

1) One Tog is enough; there's no such thing as Sligh or Sui-black to deal with anymore, so we don't need as many creatures. Vs. Flash and Long, Tog is nearly irrelevant as we are the control deck and the longer the game goes, the better off we are (we run more draw). 4 Dryads are more than enough.

2) Sideboard Beserk. Again, there's not as big a need to trample over blockers. Maindecking Berserk is moronic when we only run 1 Tog.

3) 4 Duress, 4 Merchant Scroll.

4) Maindeck Echoing Truth. It's necessary against Chalice-1 and Bridge tokens.

However, and perhaps more importantly, I've also reached some conclusions that are different. First, I tested Street Wraith and hated it. In that slot I much prefer Sleight of Hand because it's blue. This is unbelievably important. I run 4 FoW and 4 Misdirection. With 8 slots taken up by Dryads and Duress, along with other necessary non-blue cards like Will, Tutors, and Fastbond, you need to squeeze in as many blue cards as mathematically possible with the rest of the deck space. Street Wraith's non-blue-ness cost me a number of games against Flash, which runs an insane disruption package (4 FoW, 4 Pact, 3 MisD, and 4 Merchant Scrolls to make it seem like even more). If you want a chance in hell of winning a counter war against them, you need blue cards.

Also, I don't run Regrowth. I had 61 cards, and it was the first one to go. Xman hits the spot about Regrowth. In all my testing, it has pretty much sucked. Mana Drain, on the other hand, is strong against Flash and Stax, which are the two decks I'm focusing on (one because it's arguably the best deck in the format, and the other because it's our weakness). In both matchups, I'd much rather keep UU open for Drain than cast a Dryad.

MAINDECK:
4 Quirion Dryad
1 Psychatog

4 Brainstorm
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Gush
2 Sleight of Hand
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Echoing Truth
1 Cunning Wish
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Fastbond

4 Misdirection
4 Force of Will
4 Duress
2 Mana Drain

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby

2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Island

SIDEBOARD:
3 Yixlid Jailer
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pithing Needle
3 Artifact Mutation
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Berserk
1 Naturalize

By the way, the Yixlid + Crypt is MUCH better than Leyline in our deck because Leyline can't take advantage of all our draw and tutoring. As for red splash or no, I touched on this in my last post, but in the end it comes down to: Against Stax, how good much better is Artifact Mutation than Energy Flux?

First, to answer Vegeta's question about GushStorm: I tested GushStorm when I read Steve's post on TMD, thinking it would be absolutely brutal. It turns out (and Steve has expressed the same feeling) that the deck doesn't function as smoothly as expected.

In retrospect, this probably shouldn't have been surprising. To quote several people on TMD:



In my testing I ran into the same problem with Storm. Gush helped me win a few combo wars when I wanted to go for an early Ancestral Recall, but other than that it doesn't didn't fit that well. I just don't need Gush until my Fastbond turn, and until then I'm sitting there doing nothing. Like Steve, the more I test GushStorm, the more I want Dryads.

Ok, now that that's out of the way, onto the deck itself:

The mana base is stretched to the absolute limit in GAT, but Gush allows us to do that. I run 3 Merchant Scrolls instead of 2, and a big reason is because I can Scroll for Gush on turn 1 if I have a nonbasic-heavy hand. Gush is just sick against Wasteland. Here's my mana base:

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Library of Alexandria

2 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Island

I run GATr, but that lowercase "r" is very very small. It's basically for some sideboard Ancient Grudges and a REB. Getting my Volc Island wasted doesn't slow me down at all. I usually go for Island first if possible, and then either Trop or Sea depending on my hand, followed by the other dual. I get Volcanic Island if and when the chance arises, but never really push to find a red source because my red splash is only in the sideboard, and even there it's miniscule. As for how much accel to run, I like 4 in GATr. I'm not so sure about GAT though - its either 3 or 4, depending on the build - the more Scrolls and Wishes, the more Moxen.

Disruption: I like a 4 Force of Will, 3 Misdirection, 3 Duress, 2 Mana Drain configuration. I can see cutting the Drains for a 4th Misdirection and another card, but I never understood why people ran a full set of Drains in 4-Gush GAT. 2 Drains lets me switch over to a control-combo role against Stax - I sit on Drain, wait for them to play something beefy, Drain it, and go off the next turn. Whether or not you want to run Drains really depends on how much you are willing to compromise the "purity" of the "Gro concept" to beat Stax, and how brutal the Wish targets happens to be against the top decks of the format; the more Drains you run, the more Wishes you run, and you only run more Wishes if the Wish targets are good.

Another idea I had was running a single Empty the Warrens maindeck. It's janky, but there are several advantages. First, it can take the spot of both the maindeck Berserk and a Tog: with EtW, you can lay a few Moxen or Lotus, Gush, and EtW for 6-8 tokens real quickly...the play is especially brutal against Stax because it gives you a hard-to-kill clock, can be thrown at Smokestacks, and be bait for Tangle Wire, etc. Second, it can mimic Tog as a post-Yawg's Will finisher.

EDIT: Thanks for the link Steve.

So they decided to unban Gush.........

Here's Stephen Menendian's 4-Gush GroATog decklist from his February 2003 article:

MAINDECK:
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
4 Brainstorm
3 Sleight of Hand
3 Merchant Scroll
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection
3 Counterspell
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Gush
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Fastbond
1 Regrowth
1 Berserk
4 Qurion Dryad
3 Psychatog

SIDEBOARD:
3 Naturalize
1 Emerald Charm
1 Ebony Charm
3 Smother
2 Submerge
2 Compost
3 Duress

Lots of people I've talked to believe that GAT as a concept is outdated in the modern Vintage, even with 4 Gushes. I disagree. First, Stax doesn't even have 4 Trinispheres, and 4-Gush GAT was able to hold its own against that. More importantly, they freaking restricted Gifts Ungiven, which would have been GAT's biggest counterspell-based competitor.

GAT will fight toe-to-toe with combo (TPS, Pitch Long, Grim Long) and come out on top thanks to the extra cheap draw, will stomp the every form of Fish because it has size. That leaves Stax...but a simple red splash for 4 sideboard Ancient Grudges backed with countermagic seems to be a solid plan (if red is even needed).

Meanwhile, what does GAT gain in these four years worth of new Magic cards? The biggest candidate is Dark Confidant, though the only cards I could see it replacing in Steve's deck are the Merchant Scrolls - and Scrolls are just better (you don't see Pitch Long running Bob, and GAT is 33% combo). Or perhaps Bob forces the question of whether Quirion Dryad is even needed in GAT. A creature base of 4 Dark Confidant, 4 Psychatog looks brutal. But in my mind, biggest question about GAT is, strangely, Oath of Druids. As a 2cc green permanent, Oath must be compared to Quirion Dryad, and Oath seems more powerful in many ways. Perhaps GAT will prove conceptually less-evolved than an Oath deck with 4 Gushes?

Other less splashy additions mostly involve new disruption spells and sideboard options. Stifle and Echoing Truth were printed after 2003. Extirpate, Leyline, Repeal, a singleton Gifts, Counterbalance + Top, etc. Personally, I've been advocating Engineered Explosives in many decks for a while now. It's just a fantastic all-around answer to many things, like Moxen, Chalices (which are a huge pain for GAT), Pithing Needle, Fish's entire board, etc.

I know there are lots of GAT fans on TMD, so hopefully we'll have some lively discussions. Lets just hope its not about Sleight of Hand vs. Serum Visions .

I think Chalice + Impulse is the way to go. I play the deck as aggro-control, almost like a Gro deck with 4 super Quirion Dryads. I want play a Chalice 0 and/or a Wasteland to make my opponent scramble for mana. Maybe throw a Duress in there if my hand is extra good, just to be sure I win the counterwar or maybe pull out a Thirst for Knowledge if I'm lucky. While he's trying to repuzzle his game, I use the window of time to cast the Oath. Impulse is much better for this, as it hits earlier and digs deeper. I'm not afraid of dead Chalices, as Brainstorm, Impulse, and Top clear them away consistently enough.

4 Oath of Druids
1 Akroma
1 Spirit of Night

4 Chalice of the Void

4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
2 Sensei's Top
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Crop Rotation
1 Gaea's Blessing

4 Duress
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Leak

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sappire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Forbidden Orchard
3 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 City of Brass
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
2 Island

I have 61 cards listed here because I'm testing all sorts of things right now. But if I were to bring it to a tournament, I'd definately find room for the 4th Mana Leak and cut down to 60 cards.

As for the sideboard, I don't like Triskelion or Spawning Pit. Spawning Pit needs to resolve, and Triskelion you've either already activated Oath (meaning you're ahead of the Orchard war alread making Trisk pointless), or you somehow managed to hardcast and resolve it.

I prefer Darkblast by a mile; it's huge in the Orchard war, for one thing. I really don't care about losing a draw each turn, as the cards that win the Oath matchup are all uncounterable. They can have ten million more cards in hand than I do, but they still won't be able to deal with my active Orchard combined with a recurring Darkblast.

Darkblast also deals with Goblin Welder and Gorilla Shaman.

Lastly, DEFINATELY DO NOT CUT CROP ROTATION, especially in a Chalice build. Mana denial is a huge theme in my decklist, and Crop Rotation finds Strip Mine whenever I don't need to grow an Orchard.

I think Bouncing Witness is a bit overkill. Witness an Ancestral is game winning on it's own. I still think Relearn is better. Too many decks have been keeping me off double Green. I can never cast Witness.

Ground Seal is bad. It kills our main draw engine. Crypt or Furnace are better choices. AEther Vial is interesting with Witness, but I don't think it's worth the 4 slots in ReGAT.

I did check out Sex.dec as soon as EnialisLiadon mentioned it. I even playtested a few games with it to see what I could learn. As always, there are advantages and disadvantages in both Sex.dec and ReGAT.

Advantages of Sex.dec:
-more access to green allows the deck to run the superior Eternal Witness, who is more flexible and can beat for two.
-Birds of Paradise alleviates Wastelands
-Accumulated Knowledge engine doesn't care about Chalice 1.
-Runs Chalice
-Seeds of Innocence, something ReGAT can't run due to the double-green, is insane.

Disadvantages of Sex.dec
-It runs only 4 Force of Will for protection. This is big because MisD and Drain help ReGAT fight against opposing brokenness a lot better. Also, with Meandeck Gifts around, Misdirection an early Ancestral Recall is a lot more common. Mana Drain is insane against Workshop decks if you can get UU.
-Runs only one Island and one Forest. BOP helps the color problems, but the deck still struggled against Fish when Fish drew the heavy LD hand. ReGAT runs more islands (3 in my list above, 4 in my current list) and can live off just blue mana for a very long time. In fact, depending on the situation, I often Brainstorm away Dryads and play a Gifts-esque game of draw, draw, draw, set up Yawg's Will, win with Tog off Time Walk.
-I find Sex relies a bit too much on its Regrowth effects. It struggles against Tormod's Crypt more than GAT does because GAT can still Brainstorm and Opt/Sleight effectively.
-Werebear is only a 4/4, a 5 turn clock that trades with Juggernaut. ReGAT can laugh of Juggies if it has a Dryad or Tog out. It can even laugh off a Darksteel Colossus once in a while.

BTW, if you disagree on these points, please tell me. I haven't been playing Sex for more than two days, whereas I've played GAT since it had 4-Gushes, and popularized it in Extended last season, then tried my hand at in Legacy for a while....anyway I'm much better with GAT than with Sex, so it's a bit unfair for me to compare my experiences with the two decks.

What I do like about Sex.dec are the AKs. I especially think they could be great in ReGAT if we can find room. Intuition is good with Regrowth effects, and Regrowing large AKs gets around the Chalice 1 problem. But the deck is insanely tight. We'd have to cut Gifts for Intuition, some Opts/Sleights for AKs, and maybe go down to 3 Drains. I suppose we could squeeze it in we we wanted to, but I'm not sure if we do. Too many weird draw engines could end up bogging the deck down instead of helping it, and in our case making Dryad puny. Sometimes removing something tightens the deck and gives it breathing room and speed. Just look at what removing AK did to the Gifts archetype.

The sorceries are a problem. I'm thinking of cutting a Drain, which I don't cast too often, for a 4th Misdirection, which have been golden against Slaver, Oath, and Meandeck Gifts. Maybe even 1 Disrupting Shoal to freak people out . In addition, I think Opt is better than Sleight. Revvik is doing research on that, but between Sleight, Serum Visions, and Opt, I think I'm going to switch to Opt. Another way to alleviate the sorcery problem is to replace one Relearn with a Mystical Tutor. Mystical Tutor gets Relearn later on, Ancestral early on, Yawgmoth's Will even later on, etc. If we run AKs, I'd make that switch. Right now I'm not sure.

Chalice 1: Chalice 1 is an ass-pain, even more that Chalice-0 is. OMG I hate Chalice 1. Right now ReGAT has to Scroll for Wish --> answer to deal with it. It sucks to spend 7 mana to deal with a 2 mana card IN A TEMPO DECK! I want to run an Echoing Truth in the maindeck to deal with stuff like that, Akroma, and Darksteel Colossus, but I don't want to run conditional cards, especially not if we manage to fit in the AK engine. A second Cunning Wish could be an answer, but thats's still a clunky way to deal with the problem. Nevertheless, Chalice 1 is one of the primary reasons AK looks inviting at all, since it's a two mana engine as opposed to the one mana Cantrip/Ancestral engine we've got going. That, and if we do run AK, we can boast having more draw engines than any other deck in Type 1: AK/Intuition, Relearn/Ancestral/Gush, Brainstorm/Opt, Fastbond/Gush/Will.

Sideboard: I think we should make as much of the sideboard to be instants/sorceries as possible to abuse Relearn. Finding cheap, brutal, onee-shot cards and recurring them is a nice way to hate a deck out if it comes down to that. One reason the red splash is appealing is that we can amplify the more powerful hate by reusing it. Recurring Oxidize against Stax is great, but recurring ARTIFACT MUTATION is brutal. Same goes for Pyroclasm/Firestorm/FireIce against Fish, REB against anything with blu, etc. For now, though, we still have great cards without red.

UBG Sideboard:
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Echoing Truth
1 Snuff Out
1 Berserk
1 Blue Blast
1 Coffin Purge
1 Oxidize
3 Naturalize

How good is Energy Flux? I keep hearing Stax players saying that it's not devastating, just an annoyance.

One last tech: What about running 1 or 2 Snow-Covered Islands in the deck? We could confuse people into thinking we're playing Meandeck Gifts. Not much of a gain, but there's absolutely no harm in it, so why not, right?

EDIT - Changes to the mana base: Looking at Oath and WTF lists, I think we need atleast 3 Islands, preferrably four. We need 11-12 sources of green and 10-11 sources of black. It's tough because we have to fit this in such a tight space of 15 lands. I tinkered around with the mana base for like an hour and came up with this:

1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen
0 Mana Crypt

3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta

3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea

4 Island (1-2 Snow-Covered)

I cut Mana Crypt because we have very few colorless outlets, while we have a large need for the right colored mana. I'm the most proud of the 4 Islands. They give GREAT stability against Workshop. I'm really gong-ho about running basics. If we're gonna convince people to try this over Oath, we need atleast as stable a mana base as they do.

3 Delta and 3 Flooded Strand (maybe 4 Strand, 2 Delta) is really important to stop Pithing Needle. Most people will set a Needle onto Tog, then a second onto Polluted Delta, assuming we run four. So, running equal or more Flooded Strands may decide a game here and there.

I'm not sure about Snow-Covered Island. It'll make people think we're Gifts.dec, but is that a good thing? Gifts.dec is susceptible to discard and graveyard hate. We're not as susceptible to either as they are because we can go beatdown just as easily, but it's still annoying. Then again, it might still be worth it in case we cast a mana Gifts for some reason. Besides, tricking Fish or EBA into naming Gifts Ungiven with Meddling Mage would be really funny. Imagine coming home screaming how Snow-Covered Island saved the day!

Ground Seal isn't supposed to be in there. I run it in Legacy, so I typed it without thinking. Oops . I have Tormod's Crypt in its place. I think Crypt is better than Phrexian Furnace, mostly because it's cheaper.

I indeed think Snuff Out > Ghastly Demise. Free spells are always good, and that one mana is almost always more important in Type 1 than the life.

I'm not sure about the 2nd Deed though. I agree that Smother is probably suboptimal. Smother and Stifle are two cards I don't mind cutting, preferrably against some anti-Workshop tech. What would be best against UbaStaX, ChronoStaX, and AggroWorkshop? I've seen Energy Flux, Deeds (like you said), Pithing Needle, Null Rod, Magus of the Unseen, and even March of Machines!, but almost every deck runs red right now, and red gets huge cards like Rack and Ruin, Viashino Heretic, etc. They also get Pyroclasm, REB, and Fire/Ice.

Its really tempting to splash this color and that color in Type 1 decks because its so easy, but I'm trying to hold off on doing so until I test against Stax more.

Anyway, don't mind my sideboard too much. It's about 3 months and doesn't even know Gifts exists. We'd probably get better results if we started the board from scratch rather than trying to mess with that pile of fifteen. So, right now the top contenders are: Workshop (Aggro and Stax), CS, Fish/WTF, Gifts, Oath. Those are the main decks to deal with. I'm not a Type 1 Expert, so I don't know which cards are the best hosers against which. I know Old Man is outdated thanks to Kira, that Workshop doesn't fear Energy Flux that much, that Ben Kowal (or was it Hi-Val) doesn't fear Swords to Plowshares or graveyard removal when he's playing Gifts, and that Oath does. But aside from what I read, I've got no clue. Hence Ground Seal .

Revvik, the problem with recurring a Black Lotus with Witness is that you gain 3 mana, but it costs 3 to cast the Witness. They cancel out, unless I'm forgetting something tricky with Time Walk. I'm glad the deck is interesting - I personally find all forms of Gro, especially GAT, fascinating.

Dralock, I'm not sure about the Wastelands and the 29 mana sources. Dryad decks are supposed to be land light, after all. I understand that Witness acts like a Crucible of Worlds if you have Wastes/Strip Mines in your graveyard, but between regenerating a Recall and regenerating a Strip, I'd still go with Recall most of the time. That, and I thnk Relearn is superior because it's blue: Pitchable, castable under Wasteland harrassment, grows Dryad, Mystical Tutor-able, etc.

The way I'm approaching the deck is to make it as similar to 4-Gush GAT has humanly possible with the current card pool. Hence, I'm going to base my decklist on Smemmen's from his article Gardening In Vintage: How To Gro-A-Tog And Clip A Lotus. I don't want to overload the thread with decklists because it tends to attract mods, but whatever:

ReGrow-A-Tog

MAINDECK:
4 Quirion Dryad
2 Psychatog

4 Brainstorm
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Merchant Scroll
3 Relearn
1 Regrowth
1 Time Walk
1 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Cunning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Fastbond

4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
1 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Island

SIDEBOARD:
3 Naturalize
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Oxidize
1 Stifle
1 Berserk
1 Snuff Out
1 Echoing Truth
1 Misdirection
1 Blue Blast

The maindeck is both strikingly similar to Menendian's list and to Meandeck Gifts. Merchant Scroll is as central here as it is in those two decks because getting Ancestral Recall or Gush is you primary plan of attack. The deck kicks off after you find that first piece of brokenness; whether it resolves or not isn't important because you have Relearns waiting to let you try again...and again.

I can't decide which is the elusive 61st card. It'll probably be Sleight of Hand number 4, but I don't know yet.

EDIT: I really want to test this deck out against Meandeck Gifts and see what happens, but I don't personally know anyone whose good at the deck. If anyone has MWS or Apprentice, maybe we good get a game or two in?

Dang. Relearn is awesome. The only things ReGAT ever gets with Witness is Recall/TimeWalk/Gush anyway. I think Relearn will repace Eternal Witness. Thank you Metman. With that change, black will be an auto include, as will 2 Togs. Sweetness.

6 creatures
20-21 draw
1 Fastbond
11-12 Counters
7 CryptLoMoxen
14 Lands

Looks broken.


Agreed. I tested U/G, and while its exactly underpowered, it misses Yawg's Will too much.



I was thinking of cutting the Wish for a third Merchant Scroll. Maybe I should try two Gifts, but I've yet to see a GAT list (or Slaver list, which generally runs a lot more mana sources than GAT does) run more than one. I'm not sure if the deck needs more midgame draw, especially now that Relearn is in the picture.

As for Daze: I'd run MisDs before Daze, but if we find that we have extra room for more than 11 counters, Daze follows right after. Or maybe Duress, now that we don't need double-green.

Thanks for the replies. I'm glad we've got a discussion going. I tested this a bit more against Slaver and UbaStacks, and I really think it's stronger than old GAT. We simply draw more cards; while old GAT runs out of steam around turn 3, this deck picks up more steam the later the game goes. Anyway...

EnialisLiadon: I'm glad you brought up Sex.dec. I never even knew what it was (just heard of Mark Perez talking about it). I googled for a decklist, and found them running 4 Bop,  Werebear, 3 Witness. Weird. For some reason I'd always thought that Sex ran Forgotten Ancient. Bop is certainly interesting, though I think Werebear is too small in a field of Wild Mongrels. Also, the Sex deck I found ran 4 colors (UGRB) and had the scariest mana base ever.

Revnik: I don't like Daze. Too often, a deck with an explosive start will have mana sitting around. Playing around Daze is too easy without mana denial like Wasteland, Strip, Null Rod, Chalice, etc. Gifts indeed is very strong in the deck. Intuition is something I'll have to try, though if I run it I'll be tempted to use AKs  .

Yes, I cut the Cunning Wishes. I don't need them if I get my game going. If I end up missing them, I'll add one to Scroll up in desperate and/or weird situations.

Dozer: I'm taking into account what you said about the cantrips. I do miss Sleight of Hand a lot. I ran DA as a Gifts target (I do the same in extended). But, I never Gifted for it, because Regrowth/Witness/brokenness always took priority. That and the Wishes are some of the cards I'm taking out for cheaper cantrips.

To answer question 1: I find 1 enough. I scroll for it if I'm finally out of Ancestrals/Gush to recur, or out of cantrips. Functionally, Gifts acts as a sort of scrollable Eternal Witness - a midgame rejuvenator. It's a juicy target for games that call for it, but it's expensive, as you said, so I'm sticking to one. I am going to test Intuition and see how well to does.

The Tog question is tough. If I run black, I might as well run one Tog incase Dryad doesn't get through. But the real question is the effectiveness of black. Black gives Will, Tog, Demonic Tutor. That's about it. This deck can't support Duress, so that's out the window. Demonic Tutor is easy to replace, and Tog is just a finisher - not too important. Yawgmoth's Will, on the other hand, is obviously huge, especially in this deck. So the question is: Is it worth splashing black for just Will? If so, then we keep all three cards in. If not, we take all three out for more disruption.

Heh. Reminds me of Chapin Gro, except Witness >>>> Ophidian.

It loses the Will/Fastbond combo, but theoretically the deck has enough midgame gas that it won't need it too much. Running two colors opens the possibility for Chalice, Null Rod, and Wasteland between MD and side, while UGB will probably have a partial Wishboard. Also, UG makes casting Witness on turn 2 or 3 a MUCH more consistent play.

Changes I'd make to UGB:
-1 Wish
-1 Deep Analysis
-1 Mana Drain
+3 Sleight of Hand
and make a Gifts/Intuition split card to see which one is used more

So, two colors or three?

EDIT: Replace all instances of the word Eternal Witness with the word Relearn, and ignore anything I said about having a bad mana base. All that has changed.

Posted on starcitygames.com:


Hmmm.....


HMMMM.....

Anyway, Smemmen's comment stuck with me. I had secretly advocated the unrestriction of Regrowth, but never thought of it's potential brokeness in GAT should such an unrestriction happen. Now of course its replacement lies a notch below on the efficiency chart, but it nevertheless is still a good card.

Of course I'm talking about the 1GG Regrowth, Eternal Witness. Even I shudder at the thought of Witness in Type 1, but think about it. If you can get the mana base to work - and that's quite an if - you've got a deck that runs four Regrowths. GAT also happens to like beating, so Regrowths that win games via card advantage and damage isn't bad.

But what can Eternal Witness do for GAT?
1. Reuse Gush
2. Reuse Ancestral Recall
3. Reuse Time Walk
4. Gifts Ungiven

Not a bad list. Right now GAT decks rely on weak cards like AK w/o Intuition and Night's Whisper to draw cards. That is, quite frankly, sad, especially when you compare it to the card draw that goes on in Meandeck Gifts and Control Slaver. Heck, even Fish has a better draw engine than freaking Night's Whisper.

But wouldn't it be nice to force the other guy to deal with stuff like Recall, Will, Gush, or Time Walk twice? Wouldn't it be nice if you could tutor for brokenness, play it out, exhaust both sides in an exhaustion war, then cast this thing and second in a second wave of assaults? If you can get the mana going, the card advantage generated by casting a Recall that got countered last turn is overwhelming.

Now imagine if they don't have Force, or if you had a Force as well.

[updated decklist at the end]

Even I feel scared when I look at that decklist, but it does seem, for some reason, to work. Last week, I played a typical GAT list against our Type 1 team leader, who used Ugo Rivard's Control Slaver, card-by-card. Final score: Slaver 10, GAT 2. That's sad. This week, I played this deck against the same guy running the same Slaver list. Final score: Slaver 5, GAT 5. That's a pretty good turn-around, considering that he's a much more experienced Type 1 player than I am, and that he started playing Slaver back when they used Workshops.

I'll try to explain the reason for the turn-around without being boring or snobbish. What happened before with normal GAT was this: GAT would cast a Dryad, the two deck's would get into a counter war (unless Slaver had the Welder/fatty engine active already, in which case Dryad didn't matter). GAT would usually win the counter war thanks to Misdirections. Both sides would be exhausted of a hand, but Slaver would topdeck Intuition or TfK or Fact or Fiction or Gifts Ungiven, while GAT was drawing Sleight of Hand and AK for 1. Dryad would bring Slaver down to 10, but it never mattered. Life matters really little in Magic, and even less so in Type 1.

New GAT would do this: Cast early Dryad if it has one. Merchant Scroll for Ancestral Recall or Gush. A counter war would be fought over one of the two plays, or possibly an opposing threat. GAT would win half of them, and lose the other half. Either way, next turn GAT would either tutor another restricted drawer or cast Witness to return the Ancestral/Gush to hand. Due to the counter war last turn, Slaver would not have another counter in hand. The Ancestral Recall would resolve (either for the first time netting 3 cards, or for the second time that game, netting 6 cards). As Type 1 players know, a resolved Ancestral Recall is usually the beginning of the chain reaction that leaves the opponent forever behind on cards. Because GAT now had many more ways to find Recall/Gush and many more ways to reuse them, it would be able to win the CA war against opposing Drain decks.

In the 10 games I played with this new GAT, I often did do just what Smemmen described: cast many Ancestrals/Time Walks in a row.

Cards I really want to add but can't: A complementary draw suite (AK, TfK, etc); Duress/Stifle; more Merchant Scrolls.

As for the mana base: GG is annoying in the face of Wasteland. However, opposing decks often have to make a choice between successfully countering a threat the first time GAT casts it, or preventing Eternal Witness from recurring the threat via Wasteland. Often, if they Wasteland early on, they won't be winning the counter war because Drain is temporarily turned off. They also have a smaller chance of stopping the Merchant Scroll that is looking for Gush. Also, many opponents don't know that the deck needs double-green, so they go for the black source instead of the second green one.

Nevertheless, the mana base is tricky. You want GG, you want black, but only very little of it. You want basics too. Forests are stable, but unfetchable. Nonbasics are better for color-consistency, but Waste-able. I can't run Duress in the sideboard without running more Underground Seas, so I have to find something else answer REB. Ideas?

In order to support the ability to cast a 3cc Regrowth effect and still cast the Regrowthed card, I needed to increase the mana count. Drain helps, but I run Mana Crypt as well. 23 mana sources, including 7 accelerants, lets us run off our higher curve. The higher mana count combined with more tutor effects lets this GAT deck play the Yawgmoth's Will game a lot more often than normal versions could, and makes the deck a little more like it's 4-Gush grandfather.

Atleast for the Slaver matchup, Witness was worth what ever weird things it did to the deck. The deck can use a ton of tuning and fixing, but I'm posting this to suggest an idea, is all. Anyone have any thoughts on this new draw engine?

U/G/b GroATog (updated 8/04/05)

4 Quirion Dryad
2 Psychatog

4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Merchant Scroll
2 Relearn
1 Regrowth
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Gush
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Cunning Wish
1 Intuition
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Fastbond

4 Misdirection
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl

3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Island

3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Echoing Truth
1 Snuff Out
1 Berserk
1 Blue Blast
1 Coffin Purge
1 Oxidize
3 Naturalize

Smemmen, could you post you posr your list? I don't have premium, but I don't want to miss out. Thanks.

Well, Trinisphere just got banned - does that bring GAT back into contention? Thing about this is - Kevin Cron just decided that Sphere of Resistance was actually more effective than Trinisphere, and GAT hates both with a passion.

I still think GAT should be played as aggressively as possible, and go for the Yawgmoth's Will plan ASAP. In one of Smemmen's articles, he said that the goal of GAT players now is to bring it to 70-80% of original GAT's power. The only way to do that is to replicate what 4-Gush GAT did as closely as possible.

If you want to play a controlling version, you might a well play Oath or Hulk, because Dryad isn't that great in a deck that has to hold back because of its 4x Mana Drain.

I like the City of Brass plan, though I wouldn't go overboard. More basics is always a good thing. I don't like Strip Mine too much. It's kind of random, and GAT isn't always fast enough with the beats. However, in a deck with Daze or Fire/Ice, it looks useful. By the way, have any of you tested multiple Fire/Ice in 4C GAT? You can use consecutive Fire/Ices to buy MAJOR tempo. Fire deals with Goblin Welder, and Ice taps Mishra's Workshop for a turn, or taps down a key land against combo, or taps down an Akroma once or twice to help the race.

This is that took 4th place at a local tournament (NJ) over the weekend:

4 Quirion Dryad
2 Psychatog

4 Brainstorm
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Night's Whisper
2 Merchant Scroll
2 Cunning Wish
1 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Regrowth
1 Fastbond
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Duress
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crypt

2 City of Brass
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
3 Island
1 Strip Mine

SB: Don't know

The goal is to replay Gush as mana times as possible with Fastbond out. You can Merchant Scroll and cast it once, the Regrowth it and cast it, then do it again with Yawgmoth's Will, then Cunning Wish for it afterwards (or with a Tog out). Without Fastbond, this isn't too great, and you just go with the normal GAT plan. But with Fastbond out, you can generate most of the used mana back.

I try to play GAT very aggressively; I'm trying to preserve as much of GAT's raw power as possible. I don't like the builds that maindeck Deeds and 3 Cunning Wish and tons of land. It's just not GAT.

However, I like my Fastbond. If I don't draw it, I don't draw it. If I do draw it, I Merchant Scroll for Gush, or find Ancestral Recall, or better yet, I grab a Yawgmoth's Will. But it is one of the last cards I added to the deck, and one of the first that can be cut.

I tested against Oath today pre-sideboard only, and came up 6-4. This is how it worked out, atleast for me today: If they are playing, and find a god start with turn 1 Oath backed by a Force of Will, the only chance I have is

a) Force of Will and Disrupting Shoal
b) Black Lotus and Cunning Wish
c) a combo draw

If I can combo and resolve a Tog within two turns of a resolved Oath, I can Berserk over their head. If I have a god, but non-combo, draw to match their god combo draw, I can Force their Force and run them out of steam for a while. If I have Black Lotus and Cunning Wish, I can get Naturalize. That last option is a stretch.

Games against Oath usually end in wars of attrition based around both sides resolving a key draw spell. If they get AK for 3 and 4 going, I'm done. If I get Yawgmoth's Will or Gush, they're done. 6-4 points to a relatively even matchup.

-----------------------------------------------

In Extended, I'm used to running GAT on 16-17 mana sources. I hate drawing into mana clumps. It's the worst thing in the world to fight hard and win a counter war over turn 1 Dryad, with both sides depleted, just to have you draw into Mox, Mox, Island.

So, I made some changes to the decklist:

-2 Island, -1 Tropical Island, -3 Serum Visions, -1 Disrupting Shoal,
+1 Flooded Strand, +1 Night's Whisper, + 1 Merchant Scroll, +4 Sleight of Hand

The extra Merchant Scroll is there because of Fastbond.

Men - 7
4 Quirion Dryad
3 Psychatog

Dig - 22
4 Brainstorm
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Night's Whisper
1 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
2 Cunning Wish

Disrupt - 10
4 Force of Will
3 Disrupting Shoal
3 Mana Drain

Broken - 7
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt

That Other Stuff - 14
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Island

Bob, good call on the Sleights. I should have seen that. Again, it's that Extended mindset taking over...

-Alvin[/b]

I'm a GroATog lover. I played GAT back in the days of unrestricted Gush, played in the days after Gush and before Trinisphere, and I now play it in Extended - see

http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=209287&sid=b83b4f8a2224b1547e10d170a6a3daa5.

But going into Syracuse, I think GAT has a chance to peek its head out and challenge the assumed metagame, once again. With Workshop decks going down in both number and effectiveness, and Mana Drain decks on the rise, GAT no longer has to fight its way through Trinisphere after Trinishpere in every tournament it goes to. And even if it does have to, I think it can:

Maindeck
4 Quirion Dryad
3 Psychatog
4 Brainstorm
3 Serum Visions
3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Fastbond
2 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
4 Disrupting Shoal
3 Mana Drain
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Basic Island (1 Flooded Strand?)

Sideboard
3 Duress
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Naturalize
1 Oxidize
1 Stifle
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Berserk
1 Ebony Charm

With the projected field to have Control Slaver, TPS, and Workshop (5/3 or Stax) as the top three decks, I geared the sideboard to fit that metagame.

So, what's different about this build that you might not expect? First, after testing Disrupting Shoal, I can confidently say that if built around, this card is Force of Will 5-8. Remember Misdirection in old GAT? This is it - a somewhat conditional back-up pitch counter that stops the most feared threats in modern Type 1. Let's take a look:

1cc:
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall - is it worth it to counter Welder?
(Sideboard: BEB, Stifle, Chain of Vapor)

counters...
Goblin Welder!
Dark Ritual!
Red Elemental Blast!
Ancestral Recall

2cc:
4 Disrupting Shoal
3 Mana Drain
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
(Sideboard: Hurkyl's Recall)

counters...
Mana Drain!
Oath of Druids!
Accumulated Knowledge!
Survival of the Fittest
Ground Seal
Pyrostatic Pillar
Mana Leak
Sphere of Resistance!
Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead
Cabal Ritual
All of Fish

3cc:
3 Psychatog
3 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Cunning Wish

counters...
Trinisphere!
Crucible of Worlds!
Tangle Wire!
Doomsday
Yawgmoth's Will!
Thirst for Knowledge!
Intuition!
Draw Sevens!
Cunning Wish!
Necromancy
Death Wish
Back to Basics
Psychatog

With Shoal, you now have 8 ways of dealing with Turn 1 Trinisphere, Turn 1 Oath, Turn 1 Dark Ritual, or even Turn 1 Welder.

Other card choices:

I chose Thirst for Knowledge over Night's Whisper because I wanted to max out on blue spells, especially blue spells or 3cc. Also, Thirst for Knowledge makes the deck more aggressive, is an instant and so is good with Mana Drain, and can allow me to combo out with more ease. This list is similar to the ones Ultima had so much success with a year ago.

Three Psychatogs because TfK makes them so much better, because they are 3cc, and because they are better when you combo, which you do very often.

I chose Mystical Tutor over Vampiric Tutor because blue cards are so important in this deck. Vamp Tutor is nice, though, because it finds that Fastbond.

If you look at my mana base, you'll see "4 Basic Island", which is a great relief in a metagame where nonbasics last about a turn before being blown up. "4 Basic Island" is the attribute that I'm most proud of in this deck.

The other possibility for the deck is 4C GATr - splashing red for powerful sideboard options and Fire/Ice:

Maindeck
4 Quirion Dryad
3 Psychatog
4 Brainstorm
2 Serum Visions
3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Fire/Ice
1 Fastbond
2 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
4 Disrupting Shoal
3 Mana Drain
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island (1 Flooded Strand?)
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Basic Island

Sideboard
2 Energy Flux
2 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Berserk
1 Oxidize
1 Naturalize
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Fire/Ice
1 Coffin Purge
1 Rack and Ruin

Red offers GATr an awesome sideboard, at the cost of that precious "4 Basic Island". I'm still not sure if it's worth it. Maybe cut a spell for one more Island?

Ultima, in which matchups do you side out Duress (or in other words, which matchups is Duress not so great in)?

The problem I have with Duress is that it doesn't make your opponent lose a turn of mana. If you Daze or MisD something, you just bought an extra attack phase. With Duress, you nab something, and they still get to cast another threat/answer on their next turn, which you have to deal with. Do you find this a problem?

So, Smmenen, when will we get to see which is the 'bannedest' deck of all time?

Has anyone tried Sigil of Sleep in Sideboards? I know they're really fragile and can't replace themselves like Curiosity, but it does slow aggro down a bit. Note that it doesn't say combat damage.

What exactly is Duress's role in GAT, besides against combo? Is it used to force through Dryads? It provides no real tempo in that, unlike countermagic, it doesn't force the opponent to use mana to cast the spell first.

Additionally, what are advantages and disadvantages between the two different styles of GAT (mainly sorcery-filled GAT with free counters, and instant card-draw GAT with Mana Drain)? In what type of metagame (control dominated, combo dominated, etc) would you use which GAT build?

Finally, a card that has recieved little mentioning is Cunning Wish. Back in old GAT's days, people (Smemmen, specifically) encouraged the use of only 1 Cunning Wish, assessing it as a "necessary evil". Most old GAT builds used 1 or 2 Wishes. Nowadays, most decklists have 2 or even 3 Cunning Wishes in them. How can a deck that is running on 20-21 (or sometimes even less) mana sources consistently cast Cunning Wish? Add to the fact that so many decks are using mana denial (Wasteland, Shaman, etc), and Cunning Wish just seems clunky many times.

For example, if an opponent successfully resolves a turn 1 Welder, and the only way to remove it is Cunning Wish --> something, how can you expect to be able to deal with that Welder in time, without either losing lots of early game beatdown opportunity or losing outright to Mindslaver or 7/10's fat? Against decks like Fish, how can you expect to resolve a Cunning Wish through barrages of land-kill and Daze and Spiketail Hatchling? Finally, what if you don't run Mana Drain?

My question is, at three mana, is Cunning Wish a great card, a necessary evil, or a crutch? And if it's one the last two, then why run 2-3 copies of it?