TnT with White over Blue

[cooberp]

I finally tested my Tubbies build against Vinny Pau and Matt last night a bunch of games.

I found that:

1. The deck applied fat pressure and could get active Welders pretty consistently.
2. Keeper could almost always handle these threats, albeit expending all its resources in the process.
3. If I could follow up with Survival and keep it on board, I won.  If not, I lost.

If Tubbies applies the beats and doesn't draw Survival, it's a suboptimal Stacker deck.  If it draws Survival and not a Workshop, it's a suboptimal Survival deck because it doesn't run the disruption to get Survival into play.

I also saw that:

Sligh's ability to burn Ranger and Birds if you didnt draw a Workshop could slow you down a lot.  Timely Keeper Plows of key utility creatures (Lyrist, SQUEE) hurt a ton.

and

the deck was wrecked by Moat/Abyss when it was attempting to topdeck its lone Lyrist.

Thus I determined that:

1. (most important) You can't rely on drawing one of four Survivals.  You get it in your opening hand 2 out of 5 games, and usually they can counter the first one even if you draw a FoW with a first turn guy.  They can also usually blow up one before you get an insurmountable advantage.  The deck needs better ways to find and recur this card.

2. The non-artifact creatures in the deck, many of which are important, are very vulnerable to removal.

3. Especially after sideboarding, the deck needs more artifact/enchantment removal than just Lyrist/Tang, especially against nonbasic hate.

And decided the solution was to:

Add white.

The following decklist is pretty self explanatory.  

The only thing I think needs clarification is the absence of even a lone Strip Mine.  *This deck does not want to Wasteland.*  It wants to use all of its mana to throw down guys and get its engine going.  In addition, Wastelands can slow you down dramatically by stopping you from Land Granting.  Mana denial is important to the deck, but it achieves this goal primarily through the Winter Orbs, which are many to one mana denial rather than one-to-one.  The deck does of course need to be able to answer Library, but in a version much more capable of finding and resolving Survival (I think) a lone recurrable Avalanche Riders fills this role sufficiently.
Still haven't really gotten to sideboarding yet as I never know what to take out.  Still concerned that this version is more vulnerable to the nonbasic hate and PoP that my R/G version was very resilient too.  Have not tested at all.  All thoughts from Tubbies aficionados welcome.

Mom vs. Glory?

Pretty Fly For A White Guy (60)

Mooks (14)
4 Goblin Welder
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Monk Realist
1 Monk Idealist
1 Mother of Runes
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Avalanche Riders
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Anger
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Phat Beats (11)
4 Juggernaut
4 Su-Chi
1 Triskelion
1 Genesis
1 Masticore

Bitches Ain't Shit but Hoes and Tricks (8)
4 Survival of the Fittest
2 Winter Orb
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Memory Jar

Mana (27)
4 City of Brass
4 Taiga
4 Savannah
4 Land Grant
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire

[Fishhead]

Quote If it draws Survival and not a Workshop, it's a suboptimal Survival deck because it doesn't run the disruption to get Survival into play.

You are headed off in a different direction, so I'm not sure that we are having the same experiences with the deck.

Basically, I see TnT as having 3 different first/second turn threats; 1) a fat creature, 2) a Survival, 3) a Welder.  Keeper just cant have the FoW for all of them (of course, you dont often have all of them in your hand) and doesnt play enough enchantment removal or point removal to reliably deal.  The games that Keeper will win, they will have enough counters/removal to get to Mana Drain mana and then you will have to force your expensive creatures through the counterwall, which is bad bad news if you failed to resolve either Survival or Welder.  But, fortunately, they cant always have the FoW or StP in their opening hand and a Juggy or especially Survival that slips through will force them to expend their resources trying to cope in time while TnT continues to draw cards.  

Quote Timely Keeper Plows of key utility creatures (Lyrist, SQUEE) hurt a ton.

Please dont cast Squee.

Quote the deck was wrecked by Moat/Abyss

The Abyss does almost nothing against this deck.  All of your creatures can be activated at least once before falling in The Abyss (Welder, Lyrist) or have a CiP ability anyway (Orangutan).  The main meat of the deck (Juggy, Su-Chi, Masticore, Trike) is immune automatically.  And if you have Anger, then you can use Welders twice.  Sweet.

Moat is a big stumbling block, thats why I play Wonder.  Moat is difficult to play though, for the same reason it always is: getting WW is hard when your opponent plays 4 Strip Mine effects.  And its rarely maindecked.  Note that you can still win with Trike recursion even if you are Moat'd.

Quote 3. Especially after sideboarding, the deck needs more artifact/enchantment removal than just Lyrist/Tang, especially against nonbasic hate.

I didnt see your original sideboard; but my first draft ran 4 ReB and 2 Blood Moon.  That was back when I feared the Keeper matchup, before I got a chance to play it a lot.  The Blood Moon is a wrecking ball as always against Keeper, and the ReBs provide the "disruption" you need to force through key spells.

[BigChuck]

Might Glory be better then Mom? I can see why you use mom, but glory would do the same thing, over and over. It IS very mana intensive, but I think it would do the job slightly better, by allowing you to give everything that protection.

[Akuma (gio)]

The addition of White is pretty much just a metagame call. I believe the R/G/u version of TNT to be the best I have played with.

White allows you to fix some of the problems you mentioned, such as finding a way to recur Survival and more immediate enchantment destruction. But in the end, what you are doing is changing TNT in response to your experiences playing against Matt and Vinny (by the way, how did you do? Did you get trashed?). I believe the answer does not lie in adding white, but in strengthening your sideboard against the Keeper matchup if you find it difficult.

TnT, by nature, is very effective against Keeper. TnT is never a bad Stacker deck. TnT is NOT a typical Survival deck, it is a BEATDOWN machine.

IMHO, adding white and removing the 4 Strip effects is weakening the deck. The Strips disruptive ability is not to be underestimated, you are not going to land screw your opponent, you are going to take away some of their options. White adds things that you can already find in Green. Removing Blue is nuts, Tinker/Jar is not only ridiculous, it's down right stupid.

NG Keeper should be a favorable match. The key issue here is that I think Matt and Vinny might have a little more practice using their decks than you might have using TnT. I don't think Winter Orb is necessary maindeck, just side in Blood Moon. When I first started playing TnT I got rolled over by decks that I believed to be a good match for me, but after a while I got a little better and things started getting ugly for those same opponents.

[cooberp]

Fishhead--I have found that first-turn Welders don't stick around long enough to make an impact.  They do best when they draw a FoW.
The problem I've had with the deck is that its ONLY card drawing is Survival/Squee, Genesis, Jar, and (if you run blue) Ancestral.  I.e., after the two decks battle to a stalemate (if you can't resolve Survival), Keeper will outdraw you and win.  This, of course, only took place in the games I lost, which was certainly no more than 50% of the time.  But still.
I've never cast Squee.  I just wasn't thinking when I posted that.
The Abyss has hurt me when I am mana screwed and can't use Bird/Queer.
This version might suck.  I haven't tried it at all.  But I think it makes sense logically, no?

Chuck--I couldn't decide, but I thought the deck had enough Incarnations and mana intensive cards as is.  I'm just imagining that Mom's effect would be tremendous in this deck.  But obviously I'll test and post with results.

[cooberp]

Akuma--Actually, I won the first few games, then lost two games when I kept bad hands just to see what would happen, and then lost a few when I think I may have not played optimally.  I find white adds things I couldn't get in green, obviously.  I have just never wanted to see a Wasteland, EVER, except when an opponent had an active LoA. I think the blue doesn't add that much and TinkerJar isn't *that* different than Wheel (which I cut anyway).  I still maintain that NG Keeper *has* no *unfavorable* matchups--MAYBE mono-U and/or Suicide take 55-60%.  And this is coming from someone who has devoted his Magic career to beating it.

[Triple_S]

Has the loss of Wonder (or the ability to use it from the board) impacted you w/the switch from Blue to White?

[cooberp]

I rarely find the need to fly over guys as my guys almost always win in creature combat.  Wonder then becomes just another answer to Moat, and I find that Lyrist (with Genesis recursion) works fine.

[j_orlove]

Cooberp,

Have you tested the new fetch lands in your version of TnT?

They are 100% superior to land grants, but I like running more than 4. Obviously, your deck wants a lot of green mana for survival, so the thinning may not be what the deck wants, but then again, if you use survival a lot, your chances of drawing land go way up, and these could balance that. They also help you get red for welders more consistently, while keeping your ability to get your off-color if you need it.

they also let you run a bunch of "virtual" forests, so you can almost guarantee you get at least 1 land they can't hose, if necessary, just by including one forest in the deck.

I would recommend 4-8 (I currently run 7, with 4 taigas and 2 trops.)

Thoughts?

[Shyron]

I have playtested TnT (R/G/U) a good bit, and have found that it seems to go less than 50% against keeper.  One of the reasons is, believe it or not, it seems that keeper's strips are more effective against you as yours are against them.  Turn one Juggernaut almost never seems to be a winner against keeper, and the win comes from making some strong moves with survival (Supposing they don't blow it up before you get to use it effectively).  The deck runs a minimal anount of disruption (and without wastelands in this white version you could say EXTREMELY minimal), and basically lets keeper run wild on the other side (Triskelion?  I'll drain that, stroke for 6).  I don't think that TnT is the best deck to play where you will have to play against a lot of keeper, and in the United States that's a lot of places.  It is notable, however, that TnT has a lot of favored matches against decks that are bad matchups for keeper.

As the fetch lands go, I think those are good in here.  A basic forest would probably be worth having, although it could be an annoying card to draw in your opening hand.  Land Grant has a way of kicking you in the balls.  Thinking that a land grant in your hand is actually a land can be wrong... if you go Land, reveal my hand ==> Land grant and get it forced, you might just lose that game.  I think the one life is well worth it in that situation... also fetch lands can be used to search out land in a smart way, if you need to draw land it is not necessary to pop your land immediatly, you can do so when you need it, also if you aren't going to need the mana right away you can wait out and see what your opponent plays... it's bad day when you land granted for Tropical and you just needed Taiga.  Land Grant is a card that often needs played right away, because you can't cast it as an instant and even if you could it wouldn't put the land in play for you. A fetch land on the table is as good as any other land (supposing you have more than one life) while a land grant in hand is nothing.

That's all I got on that.

[CrazyCarl]

I think that adding white is a GREAT idea.  Not only are you able to recur Survival /w the Idealist, you also have Enlightened Tutor which is almost as good as Tinker and it doesn't cost you an artifact(which can be huge when you have a Welder out).

I'll have to add white and fetchlands to my proxied up version to try it out.  I have an odd feeling the deck will miss Wonder(which is great against Morphling and other aggro decks).

[Amosw99]

I don't play TnT really so I don't know how it would affect the deck but why not cut some of the duals or if they really are unesacerry the wastelands for cities of brass and play one or two white spells in the more 'normal' R/G/u? You could play some slightly better enchantement removal and recursion and really not affect the mana very much.
Is this out of the question? It seems like it needs testing but would work out pretty well...
Amos

[j_orlove]

The problem with that is negative synergy with the fetchlands and, more importantly, the incarnations. City of Brass doesn't make anger or wonder work--you need duals that count as actual mountains or islands.

[Fishhead]

Quote I don't think that TnT is the best deck to play where you will have to play against a lot of keeper, and in the United States that's a lot of places.

I felt (and the Germans agreed) that TnT runs about 60-65% against Keeper.  Its not an auto-win, but its a good matchup.  If you are having trouble with Keeper, go ahead and drop 3 Blood Moons in your side.  That and 4 ReBs should fix any remaining problems.    

I do think dropping Wastes from the deck is a big mistake; basically, you are the Aggro deck here, you want your disruption.  Like you say, its rare to have a first turn Juggy go all the way (a deck as flexible as Keeper just cant die to a lone creature!) but I have occassionally backed him up with the multi-Wasteland draw which causes such problems for Keeper.  I've never been sorry to see a Wasteland against Keeper or Academy, while I know for a fact my opponents have been sorry to see them from TnT.  

[cooberp]

And I say that if they were taking 65% of games, they weren't playing against Neutral Ground Keeper players, especially not the ones that now Cunning Wish for Shattering Pulse.  I was originally very optimistic that TnT might finally be the deck that had a favorable matchup against Keeper, but in my experience it's seemed 50/50.

[Zherbus]

I agree with CooberP here. Initially the matchup was in TnT's favor. Of course this was before Keeper bothered with any graveyard hate, shattering pulse, and any critter removal outside of abyss. Keeper has adapted to aggro in general and the matchup is now more balanced.

In my testing against many TnT players, and as the TnT player against Keeper I generally do a small bit better than splitting so 50/50 sounds right. Of course that isnt counting TnT cutting blue and going with 3-4 maindeck blood moons, which can really suck.

[cooberp]

Maindeck Blood Moons are fucktarded.

[Fishhead]

Quote . Keeper has adapted to aggro in general and the matchup is now more balanced.

Well, OK, the Keepers I am talking about aren't metagamed against TnT; they're the old-school Fire/Ice NG Keepers.  I wouldnt be surprised if you could metagame back down from 60-65% to 55% or so; though I felt that TnT has stronger sideboard options than Keeper (mainly Blood Moon.)  Is your testing in tournament mode; ie, how many of your test games are post-sideboard?  

Also, can you post the sort of "new" Keeper that you are thinking of?  I'd be curious what changes people are making these days.  

Quote , they weren't playing against Neutral Ground Keeper players, especially not the ones that now Cunning Wish for Shattering Pulse.  

Why would I Wish for Shattering Pulse on turn 4 to try and get back in the game when I can just drop Oath and combo you out on turn 3?  The German Keeper tech is stronger here against TnT.  

Anyway, like I've said before, I just giggle at people who show me a handful of Shattering Pulses or whatever and say something about how they should slaughter me.  5CC with buyback and its useless if I've resolved a 1CC Welder.  Like the Serra Angel in the classic The Deck, the artifacts here are just the kill card.  The real fight is over Welders and Survival.

[Zherbus]

Quote Well, OK, the Keepers I am talking about aren't metagamed against TnT; they're the old-school Fire/Ice NG Keepers.  I wouldnt be surprised if you could metagame back down from 60-65% to 55% or so; though I felt that TnT has stronger sideboard options than Keeper (mainly Blood Moon.)  Is your testing in tournament mode; ie, how many of your test games are post-sideboard?  

Also, can you post the sort of "new" Keeper that you are thinking of?  I'd be curious what changes people are making these days.  

Actually, Ill take this opportunity to dispel the whole NG keeper misconception. Since the main voice of the NG crew, Matt D'Avanzo, hasnt been in the public eye, people assume his last posted  Keeper is the undisputed standard. D'Avanzo has actually been swapping his Keeper around with all sorts of neat things. At one point in fact, he even ran multiple swords maindeck. Just because his last posted list seemed overly metagamed does not mean it stayed that way.

Now that that is out of the way, my testing is full matchups. I, of course, side in Aura Fracture among other things if I expect Blood Moon. Mainly the inclusion of Cunning Wish with a graveyard attacking card, some solid spot removal, and a hoser like Pulse makes the matchup dealable.

As far as the German tech goes: I feel it is unnessecary. I think that while the combo is good, it really only improves the matchup of TnT while making your sideboarding options for the Mirror slightly weaker. We arent playing in germany and only face maybe 1 TnT deck a tournament.

My opinion is while I respect the combo sideboard option, why not play Academy? You still do decently against a control mirror (sans mono blue), obliterate aggro, and slower combo decks (read: every non-academy combo deck). In a control mirror, green is inferior to red and your left trying to patch up the holes with black cards. This makes your matchup against mono-blue worse as well as slightly worse against Keeper.

Im certainly not scoffing at the ideas presented in the german metagame, but I dont feel that they are for me as interesting as they may be.

Oh, yeah...Shattering Pulse owns more than just TnT. Its a gorilla shaman in a pinch! It kills Null Rods when Dismantling blow is gone, it kills Cursed Scrolls, it kills Moxen, it kills Winter Orb, and lots of other things.

[CrazyCarl]

And I in turn will have to agree with Steve.  TnT really doesn't take more than 50% away from Keeper, though I have yet to encounter a -really- good TnT player(say, on par with NG Keeper players with, well, Keeper, or Chapin with Gro etc), so who knows, maybe TnT -can- take more than 50% from Keeper, though I haven't seen it yet.

The combo does help against aggro, watching kl0wn play with it, it really didn't go off against aggro all the time.  Normally, the deck would just win like normal Keeper.

Fishhead: As much as I'd like to just combo and win, i'd also like to have a better chance against the control mirror, which is much more prevalent than the TnT matchup.  And anyways, without Cunning Wish, Keeper plays about 6 removal spells(STP, D-Blow, Edict, Fire/Ice, Balance, The Abyss).  These removal spells help you survive the early game, the Abyss takes care of any Welders that happen to stick on the table(That the other Removal doesn't take care of), then the Wish will either: Go for Plow to aid in early game survival, or late game, gets Shattering Pulse to act as an Abyss for artifact creatures.  After board, Keeper gets to take out it's dead cards for even more removal(Fracture, Plow, Kegs etc).  So it's a much easier matchup for Keeper than you give it credit(Though it can always pull the nutty Workshop plays and catch Keeper without it's removal, which happens enough to make Keeper worry).

Carl

[Fishhead]

Quote So it's a much easier matchup for Keeper than you give it credit

Ah, well, I've played a ton of live games from both sides of this matchup, so I feel like I've got a pretty good grip on it.  And, I suppose we'd have to play a lot more games to tell mathematically the difference between a 5/10 and a 6/10 matchup.  But, I think we can all agree that, even against a good Keeper player, the matchup is no worse than 50/50.  My own testing is right at 65%, but some of that is padded by people seeing TnT for the first time in tournaments and misplaying it.  I personally think 60% is the right number.

Quote As far as the German tech goes: I feel it is unnessecary. I think that while the combo is good, it really only improves the matchup of TnT...

I somewhat agree, but my original comments on this were in response to cooberp, who said that he didnt believe the German win numbers because the Germans either didnt play at NGNY or didnt play Cunning Wish.  My point was that the German tech is better against TnT, so their TnT v. Keeper numbers cant be accused of favoring TnT.  

One sidenote about the Combo is that it improves your matchup against pretty much any Aggro deck, not just TnT.  That is a very cool thing in a wide-open metagame.

Quote Just because his last posted list seemed overly metagamed does not mean it stayed that way.

True, true.  I tried to make it clear I understood that by calling it "old-school Fire/Ice NG Keeper".  Actually though, this brings up a good point; the best way to dispell the idea the NGNY has died in terms of play and innovation is to post a Keeper deck tuned to the current metagame.

-edit-

So as soon as I post, I realize I can go look at Vinnie Pau's deck from late September in the NJ thread.  I dont see much significant changed there.  One StP, Chainers instead of Diabolic, a Masticore (which I think was always was his preference?) and a Cunning Wish.  Not atypical far from what I would expect considering the beginning of summer NGNY decklist.  I dont see any great plan against TnT in there.

[-CF-]

If you first add white, I think Glory is definitely a good idea. Counters their shattering pulse, screws up Abyss and can be dished out by complete surprise via Survival.

I have very limited experience with this deck, but I can't see any drawbacks with Glory other than mana commitment - which seems heavily outweighed by the benefits.

--
CF

[Zherbus]

Quote Ah, well, I've played a ton of live games from both sides of this matchup, so I feel like I've got a pretty good grip on it.  And, I suppose we'd have to play a lot more games to tell mathematically the difference between a 5/10 and a 6/10 matchup.  But, I think we can all agree that, even against a good Keeper player, the matchup is no worse than 50/50.  My own testing is right at 65%, but some of that is padded by people seeing TnT for the first time in tournaments and misplaying it.  I personally think 60% is the right number.

I would definetly not discount your experience, Fishhead. I would say you are definitely a competent and capable player. I would argue that I am skilled as well. I personally have close to a 60% win ratio against TnT. However, I think that 60% is too high, and conversely 40% is too low. This is because the matchup is largely based on skill and experience WITH the matchup.

TnT is a skill intensive deck to play. Sometime it can be a Rosewater puzzle like Keeper and sometimes its just a beatdown machine. A Keeper player not use to the deck needs to know how to play against it, what is effective and what is not. I think that on a long enough timeline against a balance range of players we would all eventually agree that the matchup is close to 50/50.

Quote So as soon as I post, I realize I can go look at Vinnie Pau's deck from late September in the NJ thread.  I dont see much significant changed there.  One StP, Chainers instead of Diabolic, a Masticore (which I think was always was his preference?) and a Cunning Wish.  Not atypical far from what I would expect considering the beginning of summer NGNY decklist.  I dont see any great plan against TnT in there

Vinnies deck is different from D'Avanzo's which is different from Erics which is different from Sadins which is different from Mikey P's. Im pretty sure Vinny is the only one with maindeck masticore, while Mikey P's is the only one running no CoB (last I heard, I could be wrong).

That aside, you are right in that the NG players generally dont have to worry about TnT as its almost completely absent from NY, but they are all aware of it and know enough that they could make the proper alterations should they expect to face it.

My original point is to dispel any misconception that they A) All run the same Keeper version, and B) virtually ignore aggro as a whole still.

Quote I somewhat agree, but my original comments on this were in response to cooberp, who said that he didnt believe the German win numbers because the Germans either didnt play at NGNY or didnt play Cunning Wish.  My point was that the German tech is better against TnT, so their TnT v. Keeper numbers cant be accused of favoring TnT.  

One sidenote about the Combo is that it improves your matchup against pretty much any Aggro deck, not just TnT.  That is a very cool thing in a wide-open metagame.

I think you are 100% right on everything you said in the first paragraph. However, in the second I have to disagree. Mono-black is more in force in the states than I would wager in germany. I would rather face someone trying to combo me out with the Oath engine with Nether Void or Sucide than to actually side anti-black cards like Compost, COP: Black, etc.

I feel that other decks can work around it better. I would tend to lend a Sligh player the benefit of the doubt of being able to side out critters for Rebs/pyros/etc if expecting the Oath engine to combo him out. Without siding in bombs like COP:Red, the sligh players burn just became that much more potent.

My feeling is that TnT and Stompy would both need naturalize to deal with the Oath, which would prove to slow the decks down enough to let Keeper establish itself. However against many other aggro, the combo is mainly good for the suprise factor unless the aggro player isnt smart enough to adapt.

Quote If you first add white, I think Glory is definitely a good idea. Counters their shattering pulse, screws up Abyss and can be dished out by complete surprise via Survival.

I think this is a great idea, CF. The only problem is using the mana. I think that if you can get Genesis working, you can certainly get Glory to work, but 3 NON-workshop mana a turn can sometimes be a tall order for TnT.

[cooberp]

My TnT is unusual in the amount of non-workshop colored mana it has access to.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Quote However, in the second I have to disagree. Mono- black is more in force in the states than I would wager in germany. I would rather face someone trying to combo me out with the Oath engine with Nether Void or Sucide than to actually side anti-black cards like Compost, COP: Black, etc.

After the Meta adapts and they play Planar Void after boarding, this is true. If they neither have Planar Void nor Crypts, it's pretty simple to win by comboing. Aggro-Black was never a problem. Don't know if this is true for Void, too, as I never encountered it while playing Trinity.

[bebe]

Just out of curiosity has anyone tried Helm of Obedience in TnT? I find that it is useful to mill away cards, steal Morphlings and othe r critters and a mana sink when your Sui Chis go to the graveyard. Helm was used in the original Blue Mask decks and I became fond of the bugger.

[teletubby]

Quote (bebe @ Nov. 02 2002,08:44)Just out of curiosity has anyone tried Helm of Obedience in TnT? I find that it is useful to mill away cards, steal Morphlings and othe r critters and a mana sink when your Sui Chis go to the graveyard. Helm was used in the original Blue Mask decks and I became fond of the bugger.

I don´t think, that Helm of Obedience is a good choice for TnT.
The card cannot damage the opponent by itself and costs a lot mana to activate.
In TnT you don´t have spare mana to activate this wanna be Millstone at the end of turn. If you didn´t use your mana in your turn (to cast anything) then you want to survival eot.

OK, the Helm could be good, if you steal Morphling with it, but otherwise (if you catch Shaman or Miner or against non-Keeper decks) it isn´t good. TnT doesn´t want to win via milling, it wants to deal 20 to the head. So forget about the Helm.