Because it was requested and since Shawn forgot to pick up my list after he asked me to write it down,

GAT 08 PR

4 Quirion Dryad
4 Dark Confidant
1 Tendrils of Agony

2 Daze
4 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Will

1 Regrowth
1 Ancestral
1 Time Walk
1 Yawg Will
1 Gush
1 Fastbond
1 Sensei's Top
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Echoing Truth
1 Cunning Wish
3 Sleight of Hand
3 Dark Ritual

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
3 Moxen
5 Fetchland
3 Island
3 Tropical
4 Underground Sea

SB
1 Berserk
1 Darkblast
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Naturalize
1 Oxidize
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Hideous Laughter
2 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Duress
3 Pithing Needle

The SB wasn't what I wanted it to be because when I was shocked as to how many people showed up playing Grim Long, so I threw out a few things to stick Duresses in.  Interestingly, I didn't play Long all day.  The first round was Bomberman.  I don't know why but there was actually a couple Bomberman decks and I had no idea the deck was getting that popular.  Apparently if you just play Needle naming Salvagers, they can't beat you if you have something with toughness 3 on the board.  Then it was just a couple of the named aggro decks like R/G beats and Deez Noughts, none of which can handle an early dryad. 

The only card I would probably change is Daze.  It wasn't bad during the day, but mid game anything else could have been better.  Joe was telling me that Duress is better than thoughtseize now MD, but I think that deserves some games first. I will say one thing for sure.  Tendrils of Agony is way too good not to play in this build.  Its so much better than Tog, ETW, and pretty much anything else.  In round 2 against RG Beats, I was at 3 from a x2 clamped goyf, when I played ancestral into gush, sleight, scroll holding tendrils and just stormed off for 22 right there.  I don't think any other card would have won that game right there.  There were at least 2-3 other games where my opponents used all their resources to stabilize from my threats, only to be hit by a small tendrils and die.  Its defintely the direction i think the deck should go.

John

The topic of whether the Red was needed or not was always a meta-dependant thing.  I suppose if you have the average 11-12 disruption spells and don't expect stax, UBG is superior.  Stax, I think was always the one deck that warranted red mirror aside. 

As to what's been said, IMO, which is soley based on past experience and not really with 4 gushs, berserk I think is a sideboard thing.  While most believe the same, I offer no arguments to the other side.  I do think that in theory street wraith doesn't seem as good as sleight or opt especially if you tapping out and not caring about drain or counterspell.   

I think the number one thing that most people don't really see at first glance is putting together the right manabase.  Now in three colors its easier, but Steve M ran very few sources back in the day for more spells and more creatures.  Today, with speed and prison being there in its evolved form, you don't have time to say "I just need this topdeck to be a land."  Therefore, a refined manabase is crucial.  Further, this is even more of a complicated issue if you go the red route and creatures these days aren't as abundant as before.  Remember the last builds of GAT before were ending in 4 Tog and 4 Dryad.

Were I to play 3 color,  I'd start with

5 Fetch
2 Island
4 Sea
4 Tropical
5 Moxen
1 Lotus

4 Color, I'd start with

5 Fetch
4 Sea
4 Tropical
2 Volcanic
1 Island
5 Moxen
1 Lotus

After that it goes to meta and utility issues.

My thoughts.

Ultima

But you Forced the Lackey and got beaten by Chalice backed other guys...  (Except the game she drew an extra card from somewhere and got a game loss).

I couldn't make it, but found my deck while on the phone to Simon earlier.  Will bring it along Sunday if you're going....

Pretty much what I think.  Although maybe Avalanche Riders is stupid enough to take the out here to ban it...

Propaganda keeps you alive, while Slow Motion doesn't do much at all vs things like a Witness/Reclamation Engine (None of them do anything for crystal shard either...)

Night's whisper was tested as a draw engine since gush wasn't there anymore, it was tied a a possible replacement.  Gifts was later added because the point of GAT was to play a fast broken yawg will to end the game and make your men huge. Gifts did this as a single spell rather than using cantrips and whispers which could take forever or stall out.

In other words, would you rather spend time playing sleights and whispers or play gifts getting regrowth, demonic tutor, ancestral, mystical tutor or something along those lines.  Additionally, don't forget that a resolved gifts on its own is 4.5 points of damage for tog.

Josh,

I'm so suprised that you didn't give me and seth props for helping you with your GAT deck.  You remember well when we were playing GAT with gifts back before May of 2005 and we had many a conversation that you should play it in GAT before you finally did.  Remember when we were playing the mirror at one of the PTQ's in NJ (i think it was an extended) and i was playing a similar gifts build and you were playing intuition for DA's GAT.

Regardless, well done.

-John

We had a good mix from Philly and New York areas, and plenty of people drafting too.

Unusually, this actually got played out between The METHOD (again...  [Stax]) and John Blake (Ultima - Control Tendrils) who was "ultimately" (sorry) victorius, and they both opted for cash alternatives to cards.  In other action, Elias (EBA) beat Joe Davis out of 3rd place.

Well done and thanks for coming everyone.  I think we can do this again.

See y'all at Waterbury.

You can usually get Social Security or other federal offices to contact the hospital where it was issued to get a copy.  They did that in spite of Harriet having her copy fairly recently, as they didn't seem to like her original birth certificate...

Probably want to put where this place is and what time it is.









John

I am very impressed with creativity and possibilites that this deck holds.  I have a few questions.

1. How has the lone defense grid been?  It seems like it might be too random and are there other cards that seem more better as a 1 of such as another tutor?

2. How does the game against Stax measure up?  It seems that it could still be pretty tough since the manabase is so unstable, welders take down colossus, and they play multiple duplicants.

3. To which strategy does the deck generally lend to itself, are you killing more often with tendrils or oath?

These are some of my initial thoughts but overall I'm very impressed.

John

    ( then shakes his head)

It seems like you roll over to chalice for 2 considering you have no way of removing it once it hits.

Also, you should consider echoing decay to kill multiple welders, not multiple BEBs.

It seems that the impulse idea just comes down to play style.  If your more of a control player, then impulse sounds like a better idea than 4 scroll.  Of course, if your very aggressive with the deck like me, then scrolls are a bit better since your just cutting the crap right into the recall then combo.

I suppose its a step forward in that it further illustrates variable deck choices based on your playstyle as well as showing that this deck isn't compromised by a few card differences exhibiting a very flexible MD and not being as rigid as most think.

I find this very interesting.  Some things I think I should share.

1. Relearn is a great card, but remember that it costs 3 mana to use therefore it doesn't actually allow you to "combo" by recurring gush since you can't keep going after the first relearn without drawing more mana.  So those who are trying to base this list off Steve's old articles will see that there really isn't any way to simulate the power of the old gat lists.

2. The Metagame.  This is the thing that I thik nobody has really considered.  Stax and workshop is doing so well right now along with Slaver and Gifts that GAT is going to have a tough time climbing to the top 8.  If your planning on bringing this to a big tourny, then be prepared to face alot of bad matchs from the start.

3. Oath.  This something that me and many others who are passionate about GAT came to a census about a while ago when I wanted to stat playing this again.  To really make GAT at least somewhat viable, you have to be sure that whatever vewrsion you play, you can beat oath well enough whereby you can still play your hand aggressively and don't just lose if oath hits the table.  In other words, if you go first turn dryad and your opponent retorts with second or third turn oath, can you still win?

These are my primary concerns that I think anybody who wants to play GAT must consider.

-John

If they decide to have one, me and my guys will defintely go and i'll get the other guys from South Jersey as well.

Especially with Gifts and green, why are you not playing Regrowth?

There seems to be alot of curiousity about the SB. 

This is what I've been using in testing;

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Mind Twist - This ended up actually being much better in the board as a wish target after my testing
1 Deep Analysis- This is what i have been using as wishable draw and its been really good thus far since you can side it in and it has decent synergy with gifts against control.
1 Pyroblast
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Rushing River
1 Fire/Ice
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Pyroclasm
3 Rack and Ruin

What do your SBs look like?

Edit :  Also, I have been testing Builder's Bane in the SB as well against Stax and Wokshop and it has been doing pretty well, has anyone else tried this out.

I will test the deck.  These are only my initial thoughts.  Incidentally, why the rebuild over hurkyl's recall.  Is there a tendrils in the board?  Or is the cycling that important?

Actually, this is not true.  Intuition/ak makes your deck much more potent overall because it greatly increases the likelyhood of drawing your bombs and answers.  The less crap in the way of you drawing your broken spells the better therefore meaning that resolving intuition/ak makes your deck better overall.

In regards to Library, like it was said, its not blue and the 5th waste is more important.  Plus Boseiju has more application to this metagame then library.

Just to point this out because it was said above, Merchant Scroll DOESN'T fetch tinker, only blue instants.

Thoughts:

- While I can appreciate mis-d, the fact of the matter is that the format couldn't be further from it right now.  Duress at least does something against workshop but drawing 2-3 mis-d against stax and aggro can backbreaking.  Bob says duress sucks against stax and fish but I have to say that mis-d is arguably worse.  There is an argument for Fish but against Stax, mis-d couldn't be more dead.

-I understand the concept but the deck seems like it will get too many stall hands.  Meaning that there will be lots of times when you'll get hands like 1-2 gifts, 1-2 lands, brainstorm, and scrolls or counters.  In other words, if don't draw any acceleration, you'll just keel over to hands that drop chalice for 0 and workshop, lock/creature.

-Is the truth, rebuild, and burning wish enough to stop active welders because it looks like they can only buy you 1-2 turns meaning you need alot of set-up time to get the win in that window.

-I see where the deck is going in terms of combo but it also seems that the deck doesn't have alot in the way of the mid-game. If they hit you with a duress and win the firs4 t counterwar then it looks like you'll lose in the mid-game due to lack of card advantage spells while they're playing things like TFK, scrying, or ak.  There is also where mis-d loses alot of its worth as well.

-Are you certain that there has to be 4 of both scroll and gifts, because like drawing too many multiples of these can be bad since both spells become less good after their predecessors.

-John

@Alex

Alex, I see what your saying.  The thing is that this deck is based on the idea that mana denial creates the deck's inevitability to win.  Therefore, its gameplan naturaly carries it into the mid and late game.  Since this occurs, I prefer Tog since by that time, tog is a one-turn clock (DSC is 2) and since your always going far into the game, the likelyhood that you'll draw DSC is alot bigger.  Again, Fish's chalices eliminate the CONSISTENT possibility that DSC is an early game win and the deck brings itself into the late game on purpose, therefore making Tog more consistent to me.  Plus there are other decks where playing tinker for DSC is not always the best way to go like Combo and Salvager Oath.   

@ Brad

I don't think that intuition/ak is too slow because the only other draw spell/engine that comes online at 3 is thirst.  Inuition/ak does alot more then thirst, meaning to me that in fact its probably the fastest engine a control deck can ask for right now.

Well I have to say thanks for all the replies.  I'm happpy to see alot of people interested in tog.  My thoughts on what has been said.

A.  As far as the mana denial route goes, I tested 4 strips and it really wasn't enough.  Playing all 5 seemed to be the only way to ensure hitting them with wastes early which is the most important time and relevant time to play them at all.

B. I understand everybodys notion of playing DSC and tinker, but like I said it wasn't consistent enough for me.  Particularly because of the Fish match-up, because the key spell to counter or stop when playing Fish is vial.  If you stop the vial before it becomes active, then you can take the game relatively easily after that meaning you have to not care about chalice for 0.  Plus, drawing the colossus sometimes can be backbreaking.  The bottom line is that I don't like colossus because I don't feel it be a consistent enough EARLY GAME win condition because of chalice, therefore since its mid to late game, I'd rather have a tog which doesn't have any real conditions like needing an artifact or not drawing it.

C.  As far as intuition/ak, i really don't see how people can compare to gifts, thirts, and scrying.  Intuition/ak gives you far more draw and better odds for a lesser cost.  Each one of the other engines are conditional one way or another.

1. Thirst means you have to have an artifact and your deck needs to be designed to house it for it to actually give you card advantage.

2. Scrying is better but is color sensitive in a metagame where you probably want to fetch islands first, not seas and scrying is almost never active in the early game, and is more mana intensive for it to be worth it.

3. Gifts is probably the best between them and is the only one that thins your deck and makes it better but is really only comparable to intuition itself. Gifts is more of a big tutor than a draw spell.  Its also the most mana intensive and most conditional of the others because you need to play the recusion cards like recoup for it to be worth it. 

Intuition/ak has no conditons other than you should run either 4 aks and or 2-3 deep analysis for it to be a draw engine.  Its not as mana intenisve as its made out to be because it doens't need five mana immediately, only 3.  Your commitment to it is spread out over a series of turns, meaning it comes online faster and isn't as restrictive as others. You gotta remember that everytime you use intution your deck gets better before you even use the ak.   I would take intution/ak over another engine overall unless I was playing a welder deck. 

The thing is that this version of Smash isn't designed for a control metagame, its designed for an aggro meta.  All the clunky stuff like deep analysis has been dumped and the MD has access to way more answers.  Fish is not always an automatic bad match-up for Tog, rather i would even go so far as to say that this version of Tog almost has a favorable match-up against Fish game 1 because of wasteland and wish then more so game 2 when you side in some of the removal and blasts.  Again, test the match-up first and you might be pleasantly suprised.

@ Bob and others

As far as the manabase, it has been performing very well for me.  I know your worried about them hitting you with wastes but the way the match up really plays out is that they tend to get more screwed by your wastelands then you theirs.  Aganist Stax, you just wanna counter the COW and they get screwed under their own sphere and in most cases now, tangle wire.

Where fish is concerned, the only thing that you really need to counter early is probably aether vial because it gets around drain.  Other than that, your wastes can literally hose them most games because of their low mana count as well.  When it comes to mana disruption, your the aggressor which is why the manabase has been working I'm sure.

As far as the green, there have been too many games where berserk was that important.  Beserk steals games that you sometimes have no business winning and playing 4 wishes compounds that threat.  Additionally, because its an aggro environment here, i think berserk is that much more important.  You gotta remember that Fling is aweful in aggro metas and Italy and other foreign metas are mostly control and combo.

As far as tinker-colossus, again, its a metagame call.  Yes, it can just win early but that's not really a good enough reason to me since chalice for 0 makes tinker a late game plan thus meaning tog is better since you can play him mid-game, its one more free slot and drawing colossus is really bad.  Yes you have shaman and 4 wish but that really just means that you have expend extra resources to kill something that could be easier solved just by playing another tog.  Its more effort for the same goal and extra expenditure can mean the difference in winning and losing.

Again the testing will speak for itself.

Its a funny thing to me really how tog is today.  It posts good results around the world, especially in Italy but for some reason can't do well for the life of it in the US.  Actually, I should say that it only doesn't do well on the eastern coast, as I understand that some do pretty well with it on the West Coast.  Incidentally, why is that?  Personally, I think Tog is good, but I don't think people really give it chance around here except Joe Bushman. (God bless him,  ) Also, I think that people really don't think outside the box about Tog and how applicable it really can be to the metagame.  More to the point though I think Tog is an excellant choice for the current metagame here, because it can house all the necassary components for defeating the popular decks and still pack the same punch it used to have.  Tog, in a sense, has a perfect chance to perform well now and here because as another T1 player said once, "it has strategic superiority."

Now, let's get down to what I rapping about:

Hulk Smash 05

Kill///

2 Psychatog
2 Gorilla Shaman

Disruption///

1 Mind Twist
2 Duress
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

Draw and Search///

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
4 Cunning Wish

Broken///

1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Manabase///

1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Stripmine

SB

1 Berserk
1 Gush
1 Lava Dart/Artifact Mutation
1 Firestorm
1 Rushing River
1 Naturalize
1 Fire/Ice
2 Coffin Purge
2 Arcane Laboratory
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Red Elemental Blast

As you can see the primary strategy of this deck is mana denial.  The deck was done this way because mana denial seems to be best and only way for Tog to get a grip on the game and create its virtual "inevitability."  Tog needs time to facilitate its gameplan and mana denial seems to be the best way to do that by buying a few extra turns to answer threats and cast intuition thus beginnign the card drawing.  I have tried many other routes wtih Tog and this by far seems to be the best way to about since just about every popular or top tier deck is dependent on its acceleration.  Fish isn't but that really just means it switches the role to being dependent on its own stopping tools meaning that hitting their lands and destroying their artifacts creates the same window.
 

Card Choices

No Deep Analysis- DA is such a bad card for Tog right now because the metagame is aggro based.  Further, nobody is playing ak.  I don't really understand why people feel the need to run this card since it really doesn't help you in this metagame. There really isn't any reason to play DA unless your in a control heavy metagame since its slow, clunky, and has no real value.

No Tinker-Colossus- I had this here originally but it was cut ultimately because Fish loves to go chalice for 0 first turn and that means that tinker loses alot of its appilcation.  Yes, there are shamans here but tinker was really put into tog to give it a better early game, so if chalice makes it a mid-game to late game win condition, then there isn't any real reason to play colossus over another tog.

2 Intuition- After alot of testing, 2 intuition seems to be better here than the norm of 3.  The reason being that since the only thing you can intuition for now is ak, then it loses alot of its application because there are too many siutations where intuition is dead later or if your forced to play early aks on their own.  Therefore, I replaced the 3rd for a merchant scroll since the scroll can essentailly do the same thing as the intution only you'd much rather see or topdeck a scroll after the first intuition or late game as well.

4 Cunning Wish-  This is more of a metagame call but as I see it generally becoming a norm now to most avid present Tog players.  The fact that Tog can effectively run and use 4 wishes is honestly one of its greatest strengths.  4 wishes means that you always have access to the right answers and the 2 for 1's that are so key in this metagame right now, like lava dart, fire/ice, and rack and ruin.  If control comes back then I could see going to 3 for da or something but for now wish is way better for this metagame and in general.

Gorilla Shaman- Simply put, this guy is the nuts right now.  He has so much widespread application to this metagame, its not funny.  Hitting the usual moxen and such is crucial now with the speed of workshop and stax as well as the apparent return to welders. He completes the mana denial plan with the wastes and he's even a house against Fish since he hits the most problamatic cards in aether vial and chalice.  I can't describe how good shaman is right now.   

Wasteland- Wasteland is everywhere right now.  Its perhaps the most widely played land in the metagame.  But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be here also.  In fact, I would have to go further to say that wasteland is a must in Tog right now for a couple reasons.  The main reason being that Tog is one of the slowest control decks in the format and as such needs more time to carry out its game plan.  Wasteland helps this out in that it slows the game down to allow Tog to play out its draw and win as well as serve as an answer to problamatc lands like workshop, factory, bazaar and boseiju.  Wasteland and Shaman together accomplish the primary goal, especially in light of the "i can play all the non-bascis I want now" attitude following the restriction of trinisphere.  The last reason is because wasteland along with the other MD answers like 4 wish make Fish a favorable match game 1.  I shit you not, wasteland goes along way here to improving the fish match and pair that up with easy access to artifact destruction and firestorm, and you've got fish beat game 1.  Without wasteland, tog is usually outraced and outbrokened by the top decks and as such I believe is a must.

So this is where I see Tog right now.  I honestly believe that this deck a house in the current metagame and think that you should really take some time and test it before writing it off.  You really don't have anything to lose while if you were looking for control deck that doesn't lose to Fish and can kick the crap out of workshop, you have everything to gain.

Thoughts?

-John

actually, one of my guys came up with a UG Stasis idea that I thought had alot of merit.  Basically the green was there so you can play first turn root maze alleviating the land problem Steve was talking about.  Additionally, the win condition which was used was Chronotog.  Chronotog was the simplest because it meant that after he hit with stasis and root maze in play, you auto win since its no longer your turn and and they can't play reallly play any new mana from the mze, they basically deck themselves.

I know that you didn't want to discuss MD choices as much, but I have to add to what Alex is saying about what Italy has done.  Additionally, you should really try to think outside the box here about Tog.

Deep Analysis is a terrible card for Tog right now because the metagame is so aggro based and nobody is using Aks.  Remember that DA was implemented for the ak mirror and since there aren't any ak mirrors anymore, you don't need to run any at all.  There are many more things that you should be looking at.

Actually, in point to fact, GAT (when done correctly) does have a good game against control, but again it must be done correctly and played aggressively.