I've been trying to squeze main deck cruicible (1 of) in my URg fish for a while, and where i'm currently putting it is in place of the 3rd main deck null rod.  I'm testing this based on the fact that i'm running 3 moxen now and sometimes, particularly with all the fish running around right now, i dont want to see a nulrod first game when i really could use the cruicible before sideboard. Now this may end up being a mistake, but so far it hasnt bit me in the ass.  and i can always side in the 2 null rods now in the board if i really need them game 2.  I do however think that it's a bit of a metagame decision, but sometimes having CoW just wins outright when in a not-so-favorable position.

i'm saying you CAN if you have to, which is not very often.  I've played TNT for a very long time and in 50% of the games or more you dont get to see a survival before the game is over anyways.  Usualy in a match I would only see a and resolve a survival in one game, which meant from 50% to 66% of games survival never hit the board anyways.

 Survival has been in TNT long before darksteel came out and titan came into use. Survival is good beacuse it fetches what specific creture you need at the time you need it.  Titan + welder made it better true, but it was good long before that.

when you play it, you can easily wish for a creature just to pitch it if you have a need to get survival going, earlier versions i had a sideboard squee (instead of witness) just to wish for if i had a survival.  It plays very much like a 17 man deck.  Many times, as with TNT you dont need to use survival more than once or twice before you have sufficient fat to win.

I played TNT with only 17 men for a long while (4 welder 4 jug 3 suchi 1 squee, anger, triskilion, titan, duplicant, masticore) and found 17 or the equivalent men to be sufficent to warrent survial to find the RIGHT creature at the right time, and with wish, if you cant get the right creature from your SB you can get one to pitch in a pinch if you want, say, the titan.

A new Primer: Living Hell

Introduction

Well, first a small bit about myself.  My name is Justin Mercier and I'm a software engineer in Mass near Worcester (wooshstah).  I've been playing MTG since alpha, and have been playing competitivly in one form or another since 1999.  (before that I was a very large emperor, 5way, and other multiplayer MTG player but didnt focus too much on one on one matches.)  Even while I was playing multiplayer I was always a huge fan of Mishra's Workshop and a great believer that it was hard to get a nicer first turn than "juggernaut, go"  Thus when they unrestricted workshop, and I began to play workshop decks of various types.  I started with Teletubbies and then moved on to playing variants of TNT.

This deck has been in my development and testing for some time now and has already gone through a few different versions as weaknesses cropped up or new strengths were identified. The deck is a hybrid prison / workshop aggro deck, and others should see this deck's similarities to TNT.  The deck is, however, sufficiently differnt from other workshop / prison decks or from TNT that I certainly feel it warents it's own distinction.  I was hoping to use this deck to win or place well in some of the many power tournaments this summer, but I started a new job, moved, and in general, just lost the free time I thought I was going to have to travel to the tournaments.  As a result, I'll share with you my experiences play testing and designing this alternative mono-green workshop deck.

The key enabler of the deck to be as effective as it has been for me is Living Wish.  When I decided to write a primer on this deck, I realized it needed a name.  We all know how mutable deck names are in MTG, particularly in type 1, but I chose this name to represent the enabling card, and the most common expression exclaimed at me while playtesting this deck against others "oh hell" and hence came about the name "Living Hell"


First a look at the cards


Mana Sources (29)
-Land (16)
 8 Forest
 4 Wasteland
 4 Mishra's Workshop
-Artifact (9)
 1 Black Lotus
 1 Mox Emerald
 1 Mox Sapphire
 1 Mox Ruby
 1 Mox Jet
 1 Mox Pearl
 1 Sol Ring
 1 Mana Crypt
 1 Mana Vault
-Other (4)
 4 Elvish Spirit Guide

Creatures (9*)
 4 Juggernaut
 1 Sundering Titan
 1 Razormane Masticore
 1 Duplicant
 1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
 1 Genesis

Draw / Tutor / card advantage (12)
 4 Survival of the Fittest
 4 Living Wish
 1 Memory Jar
 1 Crop Rotation
 1 Fastbond
 1 Regrowth

Disruption / combo (11)
 4 Trinisphere
 4 Crucible of Worlds
 3 Damping Matrix

Sideboard (15)
 1 Strip Mine
 1 Tolarian Academy
 1 Maze of Ith
 3 Tsabo's Web
 2 Tormod's Crypt
 1 Razormane Masticore
 1 Duplicant
 1 Platinum Angel
 1 Elf Replica
 1 Viridian Shaman
 1 Eternal Witness
 1 Xantid Swarm


*in reality there are 13 creatures when counting for pitchables to SoF.


This deck exploits the powerful synergy of Trinisphere-Strip/Waste-CoW for mana denial and can easily obtain a solid tempo lead or lock while it sets up a fat creature or two to beat for the win.

Individual Card Discussion


Main Deck

With the huge number of decks out there now running a full compliment of wastelands I discovered that the manabase in TNT was getting more and more fragile.  Many times if an opponent just kept destroying my sources of green when he was able, I fell to an extreme disadvantage by not being able to use cast or use SoF when I needed to and became relegated to trying to top deck more threats.  The increased use of sundering titans as well made using dual lands a riskier venture.  For this reason I run a total of 13 green mana sources (as opposed to a typical TNT's average of 6)


Lands:

-Forest
For the above mentioned reasons, being both mono color, and using a large number of basic lands makes the mana base of this deck extremely stable and resiliant to wastes / bloodmoon / back to basics and other non-basic hate.

-Mishra's Workshop
This card doesnt need any justification, it is much of the power behind this deck as it is in any workshop deck.

-Wasteland
The amount of non basic land in the format makes this card shine in any deck. In a deck running four Crucible of Worlds, wasteland is a potent force and in conjunction with CoW can win many games outright and adding the synergy with trinisphere is a proven tempo controller with few parallels.  Noteably missing is the stripmine, but we will get to that in a bit.


Artifact mana:

-SoLoMoxen
These cards are a given, enabling first turn Juggs, trinispheres, CoW's and Damping Matricies with ease even without a workshop in hand.

-Mana Valut and Mana Crypt
The "ghetto mox" and mana vault both provide a boost of 2 mana at the risk / cost of some damage.  Again early fast mana powers this deck to early threats / controll.  Noteably missing is Grim Monolith.  Monolith was in the deck for a while but eventually I determined that the bonus of one mana just wasnt good enough to make the cut when i was not running any su-chi or welders for mana-dumps and easy untapping.


Other mana:

-Elvish Spirit Guide
This card is amazing in this deck. It is an aditional source of fast mana, it is Green mana, and the ability to pitch it for mana while behind a trinisphere many times provides exactly the needed acceleration while trying to get non-workshop mana to resolve a living wish or survival.  When the mana acceleration is not needed, ESG provides more bodies to throw at SoF to find the fat creatures, and in a real emergency can be cast and beat for 2 ! (well ok, you dont want to be casting esg's very often but it can be done)


Disruption:

-Trinisphere
This card is key in gaining tempo advantage and shutting down some of the viable but less common combo decks and GAT builds running around the format.  With strip effects trinisphere can turn into a soft lock or an arcane laboratory that is hard to get around.

-Cruicible of Worlds
This card is great not only in keeping your oponents land off the board but keeping yours on.  A wasteland + CoW can turn into almost unbeatable tempo, and a stripland + CoW can be game over.  In addition it makes the workshops increadibly hard to deal with.

-Damping Matrix
An increadibly powerful card that typically does not see play in workshop decks because of one reason, Goblin Welder.  This deck, lacking red (and as a result welders) can exploit damping matrix to the fullest.  This card shuts down opposing welders, mox monkeys, lavamancers, spiketail hatchlings, voidmages, ravagers, pentavus, and mindslavers, as well as a whole slew of other cards, while at the same time not affecting the artifact heavy mana base in this deck.  It does have the disadvantage of not helping stop an opponents moxen as a null rod would, but being able to stop cold many of the weapons in other workshop dekcs and fish make this a very powerful inclusion. The only disadvantage is it prevents the sideboard elf replica from being able to activate as well.  This was a 4-of card for some time, but i got tired of getting multiples at times, and determined 3 to be sufficient to be able to see it or mulligan to it when I absolutely needed it.


Creatures:

-Juggernaut
What needs to be said? It comes out on turn 1 with ease, and it hits for 5, it's also still got a large enough butt that the most common forms of removal in the format right now dont do it in, Fire/Ice only does 2 and Grim Lavamancer only does 2 as well and can only take out a jug by stacking damage and sacrificing itself.  Damping Matrix really throws a monkey wrench at lavamancers anyways.

-Squee, Goblin Nabob
Squeecursion !  Squee is increadible in any deck with SoF, turning tutor into card advantage.  The inclusion of Razormane Masticore gives Squee a secondary roll as well in allowing you to keep your masticore around easily.

-Razormane Masticore
This card, while not having the regeneration of the original masticore, is in this deck far superior.  Squee helps keep him out, first strike makes it increadibly resiliant against other creatures, and the triggered damage has great synergy with damping matrix and ignores null-rods.  This creature can sometimes singlehandly hose other aggro decks.

-Duplicant
Direct creature removal that can be cast with workshop mana.  A great utility creature that's not affected by damping matrix or null-rods

-Sundering Titan
This creature's inclusion in the main deck has been an on and off debate.  Without welders it can be hard to cast with its unwieldly cost of 8, but the times when a second workshop comes out it becomes suddenly very easy to drop, and I feel worth the inclusion of one spot in the deck.  It has great synergy with the manadenail theme, and hits like a ton of bricks.

-Genesis
This creature is great with SoF and a lot of green sources.  It helps make up for the lack fo welders and gets your juggs and other creatures back in play after they've been discarded to SoF or killed in play.  This card is used in much the same way as Anger did in TNT, by being a card you want to SoF for and pitch as fast as possible when able.  Unlike anger, it can do some damage if you have to cast it as well.


Draw / Tutor:

-Survial of the Fittest
This card is the enabler that allows so few creatures main deck to remain effective, give card advantage, and remains unaffected by draw-hosers such as chains.  Plays the same roll here as it does in TNT.  The first incarnation of this deck actually used Sylvan Library due to the low creature count, but proved too slow and janky.

-Living Wish
The key card of the deck that lets it survive.  Green has many great creature answers, and artifacts have provided many as well now.  Living wish allows for fetching of many answer cards from the sideboard in much the way cunning wish does in decks using blue, albiet slower.  Many times, particularly int he first game, Living wish becomes "pay G1, fetch target strip mine"  An opening hand with a CoW and a living wish can very easily turn into a turn 2 hard lock of your oponent while you casually search for a card to win the game.  In conjunction with the amount of artifacts in the deck, casting living wish and fetching Tolarian Accademy can turn into a quick mana advantage to power out a titan or other threat.  This card truly shines in this deck.

-Crop Rotation
This card is often overlooked when people are building decks.  In this deck it can be easily treated as a 5th workshop or a quick tutor for a strip effect when needed.  This card is a definate powerhouse with crucible of world allowing you to play back whatever land you sacrificed the next turn as well.

-Fastbond
At first fastbond doesnt seem like it would be that explosive in a deck with only 16 land, but the potential combination of fastbond + strip effect + cow to give a permanant lock is well worth it's inclusion.  At first there was a slight concern of a slaver player being able to combo this deck out with fastbond to kill itself, but with the damping matricies and other weapons against slaver it became a very rare non-issue.

-Memory jar
This card can be extremely explosive, particularly when a CoW allows any land that was discarded to turn into direct card advantage.  Who doesnt like draw 7's that you can play with workshop mana?

-Regrowth
This was orignally the 4th damping matrix but has turned out to be a very usefull addition.


The Sideboard

-Stripmine
Running the stripmine in the sideboard and the living wish in the main deck makes the deck play like it's running 8 strip effects with 4 of them being stripmine.  The original incarnation ran the strip mine main deck and started by using 4 sylvan scrying to play as if there were 9 strip effects.  This was vastly inferior to the versitility and flexibility afforded by living wish.

-Maze of Ith
A non counterable answer to many creature decks, particularly those hulk players you still run into.  It's amazing how often a controll player is so used to allowing all wish spells to resolve waiting to counter the card they retrieve, and then exclaiming "oh hell" when you fetch a land and they realize they just made a fatal mistake.

-Tolarian Accademy
This card is included for the primary reason that it can turn into instant mana advantage when wished for with a large number of artifacts on the board.  Only once in my play testing did i ever wish for it with the intent of using it only so my opponent couldnt play their own accademy, but that is an option available as well.

-Tsabo's Web
An excelent hoser for landstill and fish decks and castable from workshop mana.  it cantrips too !  Dissalows using of your own maze of ith, but against the decks you want it, maze is not that great anyways, and fish will many times board in maze against a workshop aggro deck as well.

-Tormod's Crypt
Anti-combo / dragon  

-Razormane Masticore
This card is good enough that it warented a slot in the sideboard to be wishable for as well for those times when you dont see survival but need some good fat.

-Duplicant
Wishable creture removal that uses workshop mana.  Running one main deck and one sideboard allowed for much more consistancy in removing cretures when it was needed.

-Platinum Angel
A decent wish target for a large flier with the added perk of making yourself invincible untill your opponent finds an answer.  I have toggled back and forth with running this card main deck over the titan and moving the titan to sideboard, but i think the titan belongs main.

-Elf Replica
Wishable enchantment removal.  The only real disadvantage is that it can not be used with a damping matrix in play.

-Viridian Shaman
Wishable artifact removal.  It isnt rack and ruin, but it works well enough.

-Eternal Witness
wishable regrowth.  Sometimes the one regrowth in the main deck just isnt enough... so wish for another.

-Xantid Swarm
Oh how i love first turn lotus-> wish -> swarm vs controll.  While that doesnt always happen, it's the perfect card to wish for against most controll decks early on, and a turn one or two xantid swarm can be game vs many controll decks.



There is a lot of flexibility allowed both within the sideboard and the main deck, but right now i feel that there is just the right amount of disruption and tutor.  What gives this deck strength right now is it's flexibility.  It is very easy to go with the mana denial prison route and tempo your oponent to death, yet just as easy to go for fat artifact creatures and beat on the ground for the win.

On to some of the matchups and how they've turned out with my play testing.

Matchups

Hulk/GrowAtog
While these are not the same deck by any means, the way in which this deck plays against them is very similar.  Both decks run a very large number of non basic lands, and have a very fragile mana base.  While Tog tries to controll the game untill it can drop a tog and swing once for lethal, it is very suceptable to a first turn trinisphere, and a dampening matrix can be just as harmfull, shutting off the psychatog's deadly ability untill they fetch an answer.  Duplicant removing a tog or dryad in play hurts their game plan increadibly with how few actual threats are run in these two decks.  Trinisphere is even more effective against GAT than hulk in general.  For the most part these two decks are a prety easy match.

Slaver (control and workshop)
Both of these decks rely heavily on their welders, if you can resolve an early damping matrix, even muliganing aggressivly to finding one, these matches become very easy.  Controll slaver's mana base is very vulnerable to non basic hate.  The nature of this deck's manabase cause workshop slaver builds running bloodmoon to not be able to use it very effectivly, and there, if a dampening matrix hits the board, they are relegated to trying to beatdown with memnarch or a pentavus or the like to which you should be able to find an easy answer with a duplicant or varidian shaman.  While bloodmoon can shut down your strip recursion, it usualy is not that much of a problem.

Fish
Fish has grown enormously in it's popularity and in it's level of success.  Fish is again very susceptable to non-basic hate.  Damping matrix hits fish especially hard, and after sideboard bringing in some tsabo's web, your creatures are just bigger than fish can handle.  If fish has a good start with lots of good FoW backup it can be a little hard to gain the tempo back.  One disadvantage this deck has vs fish is the lack of instants with which to break a standstill during an opponents turn to force them to discard.

Landstill
Again against landstill if you muligan aggressivly into a CoW + strip effect the game is already effectivly over.  Tsabo's web in side is even more effective against landstill than against fish.  The nevinyral's disks in standstill can be troublesome however. The best bet is to try to keep landstill from being able to get to 4 mana in the first place.  While not an easy match up, this isnt a hard matchup either.

The other workshop aggro decks

These matches can be some of the hardest matchups, mostly because they are running more maindeck fat than you are.  The best bet here is to try to shut down their welders to prevent them from using their graveyard as a resource and then just for for a fat war backed up by mana denial.  7/10 and other titan decks are not nearly as threatening with the stable mono-green basic land mana base.

Controll (4cC K.eeper etc)
Many times the strongest move against these decks is to get a turn 1 (or 2) xantid swarm and use it to force a cow + strip effect  or other mana disruption.  This is not a strong match up, but on the same hand it wasnt too weak either.  I was 50/50 before sideboard.  Unfortunately post sideboard there isnt a whole lot different to do in this matchup.  This is one place in which this deck could perhaps use some work, but all in all it's not too horrid, early mana denial is always effective agasint controll, and 4cC is partiularly non-basic land heavy.


Random aggro / FCG
Razormane Masticore is worth it's weight in gold against many of these decks. First strike + the mana free ping help alot.  I dont have any really good testing against a compotent FCG player, and this is a place i want to test some more.

Dragon
being able to take out the bazaars right off the bat, or first turn trinisphere is the best strategy against dragon.  This is a matchup i again havent been able to test much at all.

TPS/Draw 7
one word, Trinisphere.  If it resolves they're toast.


All in all i've had very good results with this mono-green workshop deck.  It feels very synergystic and it's multiple avenus of victory seem to make it flexible enough to compete with the best decks.  As i mentioned at the top i have not been able to test it in tournament environments as i would have liked to, but maybe if someone feels inclined they can throw it together and hopefully get some tourny placment results for this deck posted in places.

The deck muligans very well due to the large amount of redundancy and the fact that there are 29 mana sources.

Please post comments, critiques, and if you chose to play test it, your results below.  There are certainly some deck archtypes that although they ahve not been apearing at the tops of tournaments, should probably be tested such as O-stompy and the random sui black deck.  

Anyways, thanks to the many random people who i've played against, and thanks to some of the people down at Your Move Games in davis square and a few people at TJ's collectables in Millford for play testing decks against it while i was building it.  I'm pretty happy with the results so far, but it isnt a finished product just yet. (i keep thinking about putting that 4th damping matrix back in amongst other things)


I know this is a lot for what ammounts to my first post on TMD, but please, comments suggestions etc all are welcome.

(P.S. I'm hoping to be able to organize some T1 tourny's at TJ's collectables down the street from me in Millford in comming months if i get the time and the owner of TJ's agrees)