Growatog in NG, Top 2 of a weekly Type 1

Growatog in NYC T2

Well, I'm on spring break from school so I swung down home to NYC. Well I was home I decided to play in the Sunday Type one at Neutral Ground. I used a copy of Jaydawgs championship winning deck but replaced the consult with a merchant scroll.

I bumped in to Ed (legend) at the tournament and we were talking about random stuff, then all of a sudden he looks at me and says, "you're playing growatog, I can see it in your eyes." I told him that he was right so he put 8 blasts into his sideboard. Even though he didn't play me the blasts served him well as he played against trix (more on this later) and keeper.

For some reason a lot of the usual suspects are away so Lambchop is the only representative of NG Keeper here today.

Match 1.
Elf deck
This is something that sounds really innocent. Oh, its a causal elf deck it should be an easy match. Well, let me tell you, this thing comes out of the gates fast and with the tribal cards in onslaught has some HUGE effects available to it. With abyss or balance or any kind of mass removal it would be easy, sadly GAT has none of these.
I lose die roll
Game 1
He goes first and starts with a first turn mana elf that makes my dazes worthless for the rest of the game. I have s ort of slow start and by the time I stabilize with a bunch of blockers on the table he's knocked me down to single digit life with taunting elves to get by my blockers. Worse, he has a well wisher and a seeker of skybreak. Each turn he gains around 24 life, by the time I find the wish for smother to kill that guy he is at 158 life. I have a bunch of togs and 4 dryads of differing powers. Eventually I find will and wish 2 for berserk. I go nuts draw a zillion cards feed the tog, remove most of my graveyard from the game, berserk it, then yawgwill draw more cards remove the rest from the game and berserk the tog again. The tog is at about a hundred powers. When I attack he takes the hundred and blocks the biggest dryads. Then I take my timewalk turn and swing again, this time I have to hold back so he can't counter attack and kill me. I swing like this for a few turns killing a few blockers each time. I have to counter a few mana elves to prevent him from decking me. In the end I kill him with 2 cards left in the library.
Game 2
We don't get a chance to finish this game so its a draw and I win the match 1-0-1

Match 2.
Burn deck / sligh deck
Its got lots of burn, grim lavas and morph creatures.
I lose die roll.
Game 1.
He directs all his burn at my head but my tog is just faster. I misdirect a few incinerates form me to him to help the clocks favor me.

Game 2
I get an early dryad and swing with it for a while as he goes to the dome. When he realizes the dryad will out race him he throws his whole hand at it then sacks mountains to fireblast it. He manages to kill it even with my counters protecting it, but in the end he as few lands and no hand and I still have several cards. On my turn I brainstorm fetchland slight of hand gush and then find and cast tog. Next turn tog kills him.

Match 3
Blue white controlish thing with land tax and meddling mages as well as the usual counters plows etc.
I lose die roll.
Game 1
I have a threat heavy hand so I figure I'll just cast stuff like crazy and get him to lose card advantage with FOW before he gets UU up. Instead, my first tog and dryad both resolve and get plowed EOT. My 2nd tog sticks though and I am able to protect it until I draw into the gush I need to go lethal.
Game 2
He gets a first turn land tax but never gets to use it since my deck has gush. I get out one dryad before he drops a mage naming dryad. I swing for a while and when the dryad gets large enough he blocks with the mage then untaps and balances the dryad away. We fight over this so he is tapped out. When I untap I drop another dryad. After a few brainstorms I find yet another dryad. He has gained some life from a zorb, so he is still at 16 life at this point. Then I draw yawgmoth's will. My dryads go from being 4 power and 1 power to being 16 power and 13 power in one turn and I swing for the kill.

Match 4
BUW trix , a really well made deck seems to do well against everything. The round before he defeated legend on a 2-1 despite the fact that Ed could side in 8 blasts. One cabal therapy can handle all the blasts since you cast it for red then flash it back for hydro. Before the tournament I lent him a scrubland so he had the last card he needed to play the deck.
I lose die roll.
Game 1
I keep a hand with 2 force, 1 gush, 1 yawgwill and 3 lands.
He opens with the scrubland I lent him then goes ritual sol ring mind twist for 2 with 1 black floating. I decide to let the twist go since I'll lose 2 cards if I force it and the odds of the twist taking away 2 of my blue card is very small. Sure enough the twist hits my force and my gush leaving me with no counter power. He then uses the B to cast ritual necro. He reloads and steam rolls me. Quote, "I'm not going to lie to you, that was a damn good hand."
Game 2
(first and only time I go first the whole tournament)
I cast first turn fast bond and drop a few lands but nothing broken happens. Still, its good that I was able to slip it out early under chouters/discard. Nothing much happens for a few turns, then I draw gush. I go nuts, draw a zillion cards, and cast tog and time walk plus I tutor for yawgwill. Then I untap yawgwill draw even more cards and swing with a lethal tog.
Game 3
He opens with scrubland go. I duress him and see, rector, illusions, mana vault, ritual, ancestral, and something of no consequence. I won't have UU up until my next turn so I realize whatever I let him keep he can cast next turn. I figure that if I let him keep the vault he will cast the rector next turn and I will inevitably lose since if I attack into it he can fetch bargain and just win. So I take the vault and let him keep the ancestral and pray he doesn't draw a blue source next turn. He doesn't.
The next few turns I probably make some strategic mistakes. I cast a slight of hand and take a regrowth over random mana. I decide to hold the regrowth until I have something good in my graveyard, I should have just gotten the slight and cast it again. Then yawgwill and just cast the slight again. As it was I went through my library too slowly. He eventually finds mana and casts the rector, I counter and he responds with ancestral and draws into force. So a rector is on the table. (At some point prior to this I made a dryad and hit a few times for 3 or 4). We stare at each other for a while then he uses a therapy to strips my hand of force and yawgwill and sacs the rector for bargain, finds illusions and casts it, but doesn't donate it. On my turn I regrow the brainstorm and brainstorm (plus other cantrips) into a hand of 2 togs, 1 naturalize, 1 force, and 1 mox emerald. Sadly I have to put back 2 of these cards and I only have 1 mana untapped. If I had dug earlier I would have been deeper in my library so I would have been a card ahead and could have naturalized with force backup. As it was, I need to put the two togs back and can't force. Then I make another mistake. I naturalize before I attack. I should have attacked for 5 giving him potential access to 5 less cards when he dug for an answer to naturalize. As it was it didn't matter, but it could have. I naturalize and he has to bargain down to 9 life to find the force, but find it he does and that's the game. If I had dug earlier and attacked first I would have had counter backup and he would have had only 3 cards to find that second force in. So I quite possibly would have won. Oh well, its a lesson for me to remember to think more in the future and focus more on the strategy of the match.

Thoughts on the metagame. BUW trix from what I hear beats all the pure aggro decks soundly. It fares ok against control (though still not favorably by any means) and rector is an easy to cast game win against groatog. If your area is control light and tog heavy give trix a whirl.

My thoughts on tog. [\B] I didn't really find submerge to pull its weight, I know its a mirror match card (that also hits), but its not that great against other things. I think the SB wants some kind of simple deal 1 (or X) damage to each creature and player type spell. This would be really handy against decks with large numbers of small creatures and would also be good against TNT since it can take out a bouncer welder and ranger in one hit. The other thing I think is that one more duress in the side would be nice. During the tournament daze almost never caught anything. I got 2 burn spells with it, and I stopped a fof from the UW control deck with it, but everyone else just had enough fast mana to ignore it. I am not going to necessarily cut it since it might shine in other matches, like suicide. But I felt like it might be nice to have another scroll and a mystical tutor over 2 of the dazes.