Goat TNT

[Lord of the Goats]

as most of you know i've been playing tnt for as long as it's been around and i've done my fair share of innovation with it. here's my latest list that i played a gamemasters, and although i missed top 8, Ashok (M.E.O.T.H.O.D) did with the same list. hopefully he'll post his tourney report.  

creatures
4 juggernaut
3 su-chi
1 masticore
3 solem simulacrum
4 goblin welder
1 squee
1 anger
1 triskellion
1 duplicant
1 platinum angel
1 sundering titan

spells
4 survival of the fittest
1 memory jar
4 trinisphere
3 bloodmoon

mana- 28
5 moxen
1 lotus
1 sol ring
1 mana crypt
4 wooded foothills
1 taiga
2 karpulsan forest
1 mountian
3 forest
5 strips
4 mishra's workshop

sb
3 reb
3 damping matrix
2 keldon vandals
2 naturalize
4 tormod's crypt

the creature base:

3 simulacrums i find is the perfect number.  i find simulacrums to be very key in reaching 3 mana to cast non artifact spells, this is especiallly important given that i've included trinispere. in addition, solems help you to recover from sweepers such as deed, disk, and balance because they cantrip... more on this later

masticore is mostly there as a non survival discard outlet because i run too many high cc situational cards like duplicant, trisk, angel, anger, squee etc. the regeneration is also very nice when combating deed and disk, and pinging is never a bad thing, the lone core has treated me very welll.

platinum angel... dragon. if you don't see dragon, don't use it. i'll be moving mine to the sb

duplicant is basically the reincarnation of my old waterfront bouncer/gilded drake tech... except that it's one card and it's weldable. unfortunatly it's 6 cc so it will generally be pitched to survival and welded in. it's very solid but i'm not sure that i'll keep it main deck. it was originally there to hit togs mostly, but it hasn't been spectacular.

trisk less effective aganst tog than i'd like but still very good despite the high cc

sundering titan is clearly the best welder target ever. this card is what make tnt good. without it i don't thing it's playable. also this guy has huge synergy with trinispere. he's good.

spells.

4 trinisphere. these are really good. tnt is more of a tempo deck now that it ever was.  it also has a much better land destruction component (5 strips, 3 bloodmoon, and titan) so trinisperes are huge tempo and can actually lock an opponent out in mid to late game. even without the ld aspect, trinispere functions as an arcane lab until your oponent reaches 6 mana. durin that time you're still playing the same number of spells... which means they're going to have one hell of a time dealing.

3 bloodmoon. insane against dragon, and 4-5 color decks. other than that they come out most of the time, so dependng on the metagame (3 or 4 color hulk)  i'll either keep or drop these.

mana.

the only thing of any real interest here is that i'm running pain lands over more duals. this is so i can keep red and green mana even though titan is flipping out.


the sb needs work and i'm not entirely happy with it so i'll try not to discuss it that much.

matchups

tog- tnt owns game 1. basically we slow the game down with strips and trinisperes, and keep droping fat. they generally need to expecd a lot of resources dealing with the first onslaught of disruption so it's not uncommon for them to drain fat later and burn for 4. that's not to say that letting them drain your fat is ok... but often enough it's not devestating to you. if they drop deed you want to get sundering tian and as many simulacrums into play as possible. by getting the titan in play it makes it almost impossible for them to deed it away because it costs 8 and you just killed half of their lands. which means they'll have to settle for deeding at 4 or so which means they'll hit survival (which has done it's damage), simulacrum (cantrips), moxen (which are probably welded out), welders, and trinispheres....  basically tnt has to make deed as ineffective as possible. games 2 and 3 as in their favor... i'm working on that

landstill- the only thing they really have that you care about is disk. treat it like deed. you can ignore standstill just don't break it with moxen because that's dumb

keeper- they have a tough time dealling to begin with.. their only threats to you are balance (treat like deed) and isochon scepter. bring in keldon vandals to deal with the scepter. generally a favorable matchup... but watch out for humility.

dragon- 3sphere slows them down signifigantly since bazzar doesn't produce mana. use that opening to drop bloodmoon. also welder will keel them from killing you if you run platuinum angel so first turn welder, mox is a strong opening. it's combo, so as ever, it's a tough matchup.... but i don't think i've ever been this comfortable against combo.  

slavery- you could very easily devote 15 cards to this matchup. game 1 blows. i haven't tested much for games 2 and 3... i just threw a bunch of slaver hate in there because i had room. tnt has a lot of dead cards here (3spheres, bloodmoons, all of the utility creatures)

that's where my tnt is right now. a few things that i'm working on :

removing the dead cards. i ran too many utility creatures and i'd like to cut down. platinum angel, trisk,  and duplicant could all be removed fairly easily.

i may also add blue. thirst for knowlwdge is clearly amazing, and it both solves my dead card problem and gives me more consistancy. the only problem is the mana base... it's easy to incorperate a 3rd color without strips, but if i want to keep my strips it'a a lot harder.

i also need to work on thesb quite a bit. i'm pretty happy with my game 1 matchups in most cases, but there's room for improvement games 2 and 3

[Mith]

Nice build...I'm getting to be a big fan of Sundering Titan...he can be amazing in the right situation.

As far as the SB goes...you don't like Elf Replica? Being able to survival for him has always been to my advantage. Keldon Vandal is an interesting choice...but why play an echo creature without any recursion? Viashino Heretic has been decent...especially if I have an Anger in the graveyard to speed him up.

Trinisphere is a great addition to this deck...heck, its a great addition to any deck with Workshops...much better than Pyrostatic Pillar for today's gauntlet. Nice choice for the maindeck

I moved the angel to the SB...not enough dragon to warrant the space.

Where are you bringing in Damping Matrix?

[Lord of the Goats]

damping matrix is mainly against slaver because it cuts off their slavers and welders. i'm not sure it will stay since the only other matchup i'd bring it in is belcher. it's solid, but limited in it's uses since it cuts off your welders.

i do run elf replica... i forgot to list it (probably because i'm revamping the sb anyway). it's not very useful at the moment except against dragon so it's not an auto include or anything... but if you need enchantment removal it is much better than a regular lyrist.

keldon vandals are actually really amazing. that's one of the few sb slots i'm really happy with.  against control running scepter or disks you bring them in to deal with their artifact threats, but they are also 4/1 sticks. it's not uncommon to pick off one of their moxen just to get some more beats in. it's very difficult for it to be a dead draw. in addition it does sidestep artifact hate  so it's harder to be caught without any fat.  finally in the mirror you get 2 for one if they have a jugg in play... and you won't need to pay the echo.  

i've tried heretic, but  in my experience you really need something that works right away.  summoning sickness is unacceptable when dealing with disk or midslaver.

anyway, glad you like it

[Smmenen]

Very interesting deck.  Well thought out, as usual.  Isn't Thirst a bit cost prohibitive?  I consider your maindeck, with adjustments, the TnT deck to play (Hint Hint Kerz for your Guantlet).  

Steve

[MuzzonoAmi]

This is almost identical to the list I'm playing now, except that I'm running a second Trisk over the MD Angel and a Pentavus over Masticore. Along with all the budgety stuff, of course.

[bebe]

I like the deck as well. I've always been a fan of TnT and your builds have always been very solid dealing with the current meta well. I also look at the sideboard though and have questions though.
you've explained the Matrix but as you say, they are more versatile choices. I've also been dropping Crypts from my sideboards for awhile. Again, I feel there are other more versatile cards that can deal with the decks that Crypt is meant to cripple. I know its advantage is speed but I'm not sold on it.

[rvs]

Very interesting deck.  Well thought out, as usual.  Isn't Thirst a bit cost prohibitive?  I consider your maindeck, with adjustments, the TnT deck to play (Hint Hint Kerz for your Guantlet).  

Steve

I agree with Steve on this one. I personally think it's just too slow as well. When you're playing thirst you could've also played an actual threath. It just doesn't seem too great to me.

[Grand Inquisitor]

4 trinisphere. these are really good. tnt is more of a tempo deck now that it ever was. it also has a much better land destruction component (5 strips, 3 bloodmoon, and titan) so trinisperes are huge tempo and can actually lock an opponent out in mid to late game. even without the ld aspect, trinispere functions as an arcane lab until your oponent reaches 6 mana. durin that time you're still playing the same number of spells... which means they're going to have one hell of a time dealing.

Can you elaborate more on this decision?

I like trinisphere as much as the next person, but pyrostatic pillar seems like even more of a threat against control based decks.  Against slaver, stax, etc, its them on the clock, not you, so it should be better than sphere here as well.

I'm guessing the synergy with the other LD is overwhelming, but is that the main reason?  Pillar seems so much more in flavor with the decks mission to drop life totals fast.

[Hyperion]

I had a couple questions about this build.

Unless I counted wrong it's 61 cards (21 creatures, 12 spells, 28 mana sources)...was this intentional?

I appreciated the commentary on your creature base but noticed that this build doesn't run Karn and doesn't explain why. If you wouldn't mind going over the reasoning behind this change that would be appreciated... if anything I would think it would be even better in this build of TNT because you are running Trinispheres. Obviously this is only a side benefit, but still one worth mentioning in my opinion.

Is it because Sundering Titan fills the mana denial role that Karn used to, but does a better job of it? If that's the case, Karn is still easily castable without the aid of Survival and I'd think that it being able to nuke their Moxen that Titan doesn't hit would make them complement each other nicely. Or, is there some other reason?

[Lord of the Goats]

bebe, honestly i haven't had the time to test and tune the sb as much  as i would like so take it with a grain of salt. if you have more versitile/efficient means of dealing with decks, i'll certianly willing to listen.

morefling & steve, i'm still testing thirst so i don't have any hard results. however, 3 cc isn't bad at all. simulacrum clearly speeds your non-shop mana to 3, and under trinisphere 3 is the magic number anyway so the deck is very good at getting to non-shop 3 mana. as for casting it instead of a threat, remember that it is tradeing your dead cards in hand (lands, moxen,  high cc fat, extra spheres/survivals, anger/squee) for fresh cards. while it could be argued that thirst itself is better off as a threat, i don't think that there are any really good threats to add to tnt. i'm pretty sure that i'd rather draw 3 and pitch dead cards than play a mediocre threat.  also, i can't imagine someone playing it when they had a better threat in hand... it serves to keep tnt going when it starts to run out of cards...


GI, i never liked pillar. it was good early, but it got a lot worse as the game progressed it was a fine threat as long as you forced your opponent to play spells, but if you were short on threats your oponent could counter/remover them, such up the damage and not meaningfully worry about pillar because they dealt with your threat and now had time.

with trinisphere it actually stops them from playing spells early so when they "start" the game they're starting it looking at a pair of fat creatures, and need to counter 2 spells next turn which they can't do. as the game progresses shpere becomes less powerful just like pillar does, but because of my ld element the game stays in the early stages longer (something which pillar doesn't take as much advantage of). and of course there's always the threat of me droping titan and relocking them.

pillar is good... but if they need to counter your bloodmoon at the cost of an additional 2 life they're happy with that. with sphere they scoop. besides, tnt's goal isn't quite to drop their life fast... it's a lot more tempo based now: simulacrums, 3sphere, wastes, shops... all it needs now is stifle

hyperion, yes it's 61. yes it's on purpose. idk if i'll chop it down to 60. the mana base is too big as it is so i figured running an extra spell doesn't hurt.

i cut karn because i never used him. he was pretty hard to let go of because "hey, i got the whole mana denial thing going.. karn's perfect". he looks really good on paper but in practice he's just not very good. his cc is too high, he's too slow to meaningfully eat moxen, and you can just get titan and kill their lands anyway which is clearly more powerful.  titan wins the game there... and if he doesn't karn isn't going to either.

[rvs]

Hmm, I'll admit that does make some sense to at least try out thirst. Let me know how it works out for you.

[Fishhead]

GI, i never liked pillar. it was good early, but it got a lot worse as the game progressed it was a fine threat as long as you forced your opponent to play spells, but if you were short on threats your oponent could counter/remover them, such up the damage and not meaningfully worry about pillar because they dealt with your threat and now had time.

I agree with LotG that Trinisphere goes into the Pillar slot.  I also agree with him that I never was that fond of Pillar.  Pillar is great in the Control matchup; it used to be great against Combo but not so much any more.  It always was slightly problematical too, not being an artifact that costs 3 or less.  Land-land-Pillar was never an exciting opening hand.

Trinisphere, OTOH, is great against Aggro and it is strong enough that the Control players must consider FoW'ing it.  (Which is really all you can ask from a card in the Control matchup.)  It is weldable and it can be cast off Workshop.  It also messes up many of the Combo decks that Pillar used to work against.  So the Trinisphere is just generally more useful.

-- edit --
And I am not playing Sundering Guy, so it's not just about the synergy with LD.
--end edit --

Tangent: My own current build is very heavy on the Tempo; I play Tangles in the Blood Moon slot since I feel Tangle is more generally useful than Blood Moon.  (If I could consistently cast Moon before Dragon went off or before Keeper or Tog got to UU mana I might feel different.)

[Lord of the Goats]

Tangent: My own current build is very heavy on the Tempo; I play Tangles in the Blood Moon slot since I feel Tangle is more generally useful than Blood Moon.  (If I could consistently cast Moon before Dragon went off or before Keeper or Tog got to UU mana I might feel different.)

are you running simulacrums? i find that  in a lot of matchups (or just depending on your opening hand) that  making the "weaker" first play of simulacrum over actual fat does ramp you up to 3 mana on turn 2. that slows down by a turn if you drop trinishpere.. but they also can't stop you. that's a large part of the reason i run 3 simulacrums rather than the standard 2.  

also, sundering titan fills the same role as moon aganst both dragon and keeper. if you can get a sphere on either of them you buy enough time to get survival active... which means titan... which means they stay locked.

[Fishhead]

Random commentary about TNT:

are you running simulacrums?

No, I never got on the Simulacrum bandwagon.  I got to face off against a Simulacrum TnT a couple weeks ago and I giggled at his little 2/2 guys with lots of special abilities as I crushed him.  I was with Madness that week and I may have just gone to the air with Wonder leaving his expensive Grey Ogres to hit me for 2 each.

It's not exactly a fair comparision, as TnT always has problems with flying creatures.  But there's this weird implicit assumption in the Simulacrum -- "I will be good because I will chump and give you cards!" -- and if there is no chumping then they are not so hot.

also, sundering titan fills the same role as moon aganst both dragon ...

Damn, I lost to Dragon in the finals last night after making a last minute change to the SB: 3x Blood Moon instead of 3x Crypt.  Boy was that a mistake; I resolved the Moon but he TD'd his one Swamp and went to town.  In the fun games afterwards he just fetched Swamp ASAP.  Sad face for me.  Anyway, my tangential point is that Blood Moon just isnt enough against a prepared Dragon player.  (Since you play it maindeck Moon we are in different situations here: for you the Moon is automatically included, for me it is fighting for space in the SB.)

The Sundering Titan was fun, though I can see you really have to change the manabase (as you have) in order not to hose yourself.  I wondered if it might be a "win more" card as I generally am welding him when I have Survival + Welder + random Artifact already in play.  Hasted 7/10s are something though as well as the mini-Armageddon effect.

As for changing the manabase, I finished the 3rd game of round 1 at 4 life against Sligh.  I'm not sure if I can run painlands in my environment without also running Bottle Gnomes or something in the 'board.  Repercussions rippling through the deck....

[Lord of the Goats]

fishhead, i wouldn't say that simulacrum is good because it chumps and gives you cards... it's good because of 2 things. first because it provides mana acceleration that's not a shop. secomd because of how it lets you recover from deed. personally i'd sb out most of my simulacrums against anything with creatures bigger than 2/2.

as for bloodmoon, people have always had to do very little preperation to deal with it (once fetchlands came out at least). that's one of the reasons i'm considering adding blue... moons aren't that good most of the time and there's no cards in my existing colors that i'd want to include. anyway, i don't see moon as a bloodmoon replacement either... without simularcrums it's not fast enough and as you saw there's no garuntee that they can't win through it anyway.

titan can be a win more card at times, but a lot of the time it will bring you back into a game much like welding in a memory jar would. at this point it does require survival as a discard outlet (another + for thirst). however, there are plenty of games, especially against hulk, where if you can't cut their mana off they will just drop deed/tog/will, play a billion spells and win. both trinisphere and titan serve to prevent that, and while at the time you drop titan you should be winning... it's not just a fun card that you would be better of without.

[jpmeyer]

I was playing Tog against TnT at the NJ tourney last week and I let Blood Moon resolve twice simply because I already fetched out all the basics I would need.  Blood Moon is a really good card against unprepared decks but if the deck is ready for it it's wasted.

[Fishhead]

On Simulacrum:

first because it provides mana acceleration that's not a shop. secomd because of how it lets you recover from deed

I'm sure this was debated heavily while I was elsewhere earlier this year, but my thoughts are:

1) Solemn seemed an oddly controllish card; he's certainly not a real "threat", as in he isn't going to beat anyones face in.  He does like a 100 vaguely useful things like a) mana acceleration, b) mana fixing, c) random chumping, d) potential card drawing.  The problem is that he costs 4 and, at that cost, I felt he needed to kick the opponent hard, which he just doesn't do.  He gives you advantages which you may be able to make into something but so do other cards.  So is he best for the slot; does he have the most synergy with the rest of the deck?

2) I can see the Simulacrum being better and better the more Deeds/Balances/etc you are facing.  However, I am personally seeing fewer Deeds these days, so I don't prepare for them as much.  

... that's one of the reasons i'm considering adding blue...

You know what I miss most about blue?  The ability to mull to 6 and draw Ancestral or Time Walk to just jump right back in the game.  The RG version of TnT is much more predictable, but it's so nerve-wracking to mull away those 3 land + 3 Juggy + Trinisphere types of hands; the ones that are just too slow to keep in T1.  Because you know each successive hand is just going to be weaker and weaker.  Not so much so when you have the blue.

[Dante]

You know what I miss most about blue?  The ability to mull to 6 and draw Ancestral or Time Walk to just jump right back in the game.  The RG version of TnT is much more predictable, but it's so nerve-wracking to mull away those 3 land + 3 Juggy + Trinisphere types of hands; the ones that are just too slow to keep in T1.  Because you know each successive hand is just going to be weaker and weaker.  Not so much so when you have the blue.

I've always found TnT to be very forgiving in mulliganing to 6 or even 5 (workshop will do that).  In my testing and tournaments, I've also found the RG version was very forgiving in its mulligans, even without Ancestral/Walk.

[Lord of the Goats]

jp, yes against 3 color tog bloodmoon isn't a good threat. however, against 4 color tog it's a kick in the head. like i said on my original post, bloodmooon's only good against dragon and 4 color control ( i lump tog here because to tnt, tog is control).  so if i was going to play in a field like the gm again, i would not run md bloodmoons.

fishhead, i'd like something that beat rather than a simulacrum too... however, imo even a 4/4 for 4 isn't good enough a lot of the time, thus you need to fight on a different front and add some more controling elements.  if you can find a real solid threat, please lmk... but fat can only do so much, and tnt can't always afford to play the fat game. somtimes it needs to drop moon asap, simulacrum helps there.  sometimes it needs to buy time to find survival to get a bullet, sometimes it just needs more green mana or a mopuntian to haste stuff up. it's a really good addition.. just don't think of it as a threat, it's not.

and i also really do miss blue... i'll get some testing in once i sort of some personal shit.

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

I have spent the last two weeks or so testing the possibility of adding blue again to the TNT builds.

Adding blue gives us strong draw cards like ancestral and thirst, and other great cards like tinker, timewalk, and wonder

In my testing i have realized that there are many problems with adding blue because:

1.  It destroys your mana base.  It makes finding the exact color sources you need very difficult.  It also makes you open to all the usual hate like wasteland, stripmine, and others.  It also makes simulacrum a lot worse.  I tried many different mana configurations and Ive found that no 3color configuration ever worked. The huge stress on your mana base also lets your opponent cut you off from survival mana, anger, wonder. etc.

2.  The decklist is already very tight and there is just simply no room for these extra blue cards.  I really didnt find thirst for knowledge to be that good in this deck anyway.  When we try to cram some of these blue powerhouse cards into the deck, we compromised the already inherent strengths of the deck, and it also messed up the repetitiveness of the deck.

These are the reasons I feel that blue isn't needed in TnT.  Blue brings some nice sideboarding options as well as some nice MD tech, buts its just not worth it.  

However I do feel that thirst can be a decent engine for aggro if the deck was specifically built for it.  I found that Rico's U/R aggro deck runs very well, though its strong blue cards have no synergy in TnT.