Time to Gro again?

[mr_rogers]

Well now that Trinisphere is resticted I think GAT can make a comeback.
Here is a list I'm working on with explanations to follow.

4x Quirion Dryad
3x Tog
4x FoW
4x daze
4x Brainstorm
4x Sleight of Hand
4x Duress
2x Misdirection
1x A. Recall
1x Time Walk
3x Impulse
1x D.T.
1x Black Lotus
1x Gush
3x Cunning Wish
3x Underground Sea
3x tropical Island
3x Polltuted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
3x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
2x Island
1x Swamp
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Jet

Sideboard

3x BeB
3x Stifle
1x D. Edict
1x Berzerk
4x Naturalize
3x Tormod's Crypt

  I've decided to run Cunning Wish because I feel GAT needs something to get anwsers for certain decks. FoW and Daze are both great counters for this deck since you will most likely tap out every turn. Four Duress maindeck is needed to battle combo which seems to be on the rise, at least in my area. I'm a little iffy on the Sleights and may replace them with Night's Whisper. Any suggestions there would help. The rest of the list seems pretty selfexplanatory.  The sideboard is mostly set up to deal with combo and control as those are the two matchups I'm most likely going to see.

  Well This is a rough draft of the deck and I would Really appreciate some input from players who play GAT or aggro-control decks.

[pox_reborn]

Problem is that the metagame has too few good matchups for the deck right now.

SLaver makes togs suicide.

Crucible is still around and will kill your manabase

5/3 can try to race you with fat.


for changes to adapt you should add tinker and collosus. It allows you to quickly seal the deal in a way tog or dryad can't.

Is there any sane reason you forgot yawgmoth's will?

[mr_rogers]

I did forget Y. Will that's what I get for building decks at 2am. I would take out one Slieght of Hand for the will. I don't think there is enough artifacts to justify DSC and Tinker which is why I did not include them. As for the slaver matchup game one they have the upper hand but after sideboard I believe the matchup gets better for me. I was thinking about changing some things to add Ground seal in the board with another creature to replace tog for the CS game. Negators were at the top of my list but mabe werebears would fit in the deck better.

  Thanks for the imput.

[AnFgangsta]

I do think grow decks are comming back, but mainly Miracle Grow I think, because Meddling Mage is some key tech. Naturally the deck has bad match ups V. slaver but Mage can help. I just think the Tog build is not as good as the Miracle Gro build.

As I said on the Slaver board, first turn chill can be quite chilling on the deck, almost forcing them to play second or third turn welder which buys you a turn+ and thats crucial to locking them down. Again, just a primitive Idea I had, by no means am I saying that Chill of all cards is best for beating slaver, it just slows it down because its 1. quick and 2. unexpected. You should have it in your sideboard anyways for burn/sligh matchups, which can be gro's weakness at times.

The great thing about Miracle Gro is that it can be molded into Oath (called diamond dallas I belive) via sideboarding, which makes it very VERY versatile, more so than Gro A Tog in my opinion, again due to the control feature provided by white.

Either way you see it, Gro decks definately are going to be showing up a lot more, very strong, and their ability to just shoot you dead in counter wars also further strengthens them...the cheap and sometimes free counters are so beautiful that they make my eyes tear.

[mr_rogers]

I do like the WUG versions but the main reason I went with the old GAT version is it always seemed quicker which is what I want against CS.  The meta in central New York is very controlling so aggro-speed decks set up faster than the control can.  

  The sideboard is by no means settled on either, like I said in my first post this is a rough draft.  I have tested this deck against most control matchups and it seems to do very well, especially the Wishes in the deck.  The tough match up game one seems to be random combo decks and stax.  

p.s. The other reason I didn't go with white is because I'm lacking everthing good in that color for this deck.

[MiRtSoPoUlOs]

you cannot tell me that you have power but not swords to plowshares and disenchants and such those are cards you should have simply lying around but i do agree with you simply on the idea that basic gro-a-tog is better than miracle gro because it is faster because i have played both a against goblins and if you have a high speed aggro meta then you need maze of iths and idk crawlspace or silent arbiter because ur usually only attacking with one creature in grow. good luck with your deck  

[mr_rogers]

I don't own the power but I only play in five proxy tournies.  As for the white stuff I traded most of it because white sucks.... .

  Anyway I'm a little worried about the Oath matchup and still need ideas for sb cards or maindeck cards to beat that deck. I was thinking maybe more edicts or even one Ray of Revelation though I'm iffy on the Ray with only 'Tog as a dicard outlet. The CS match should be okay as my deck is faster and the sideboard is set up for that match.

[mogote]

I do like the WUG versions but the main reason I went with the old GAT version is it always seemed quicker which is what I want against CS.

White would give you access to Meddling Mage and Swords to Plowshares. These might be good in the Control Slaver matchup.
StP and the Mage might be helpful against Oath as well.

Anyway, did you consider Disrupting Shoal? It seems you have a decent amount of cards in the 1-3cc range.

[mr_rogers]

I was thinking of running the Shoal over the misdirections but wasn't sure I had enough blue cards with verying costs to include it.  As for the gat deck in general I think I'm going with a differnt deck that will be better suited to todays metagame.

  Thanks for all the help tho guys.

[E Face]

The WUG MiracleGro deck is in my opinion better against control slaver than GAT. Meddling Mages (the only non P9 magic card that gives me hard-ons) are simply retarded if they resolve against CS when you name Welder or TFK. I personally like calling TFK first, shutting down their main card draw giving you a tempo advantage allowing you to fight the Welders with counters and StP's.

Again Slim Shady's (Meddling Mages pet name from me) and StP's become your best friends in the Oath matchup, another tough but winnable matchup. Countless numbers of games were won simple by having a Mage on Oath and protecting it long enough to win with very efficient beats. White also gives you my favorite utility enchantment in Seal of Cleansing, and adds Ray of Revelation to your board in the Dragon matchup. Balance can also be added to stop the aggresivenes of Food Chain or Madness, two decks with much upside now that Trini is restricted.

Certainly the power of Duress, Demonic Tutor and Yawg's Win is something the deck could miss, but the utility it gains might just far outweigh those losses enough to put WUG above GAT.

[the boogie man]

I think that Gat has enough tools to compeete in themete today.
first ill givse you a deck:

4 quirion dad
3 psychotog

4 force of will
4 duress
2 misdirection
( I kept the misdirections over things like daze because I do not have any complimenting mana denial like null rod.)

4 brianstorm
4 nights whispers
4 sleight of hand
22 cunning wish
1 demonic tutor
1 vampiric tutor
1 mystical tutor
1 ancestral recall
1 time wlk
1 gush

4 polluted delta
1 flooded strand
4 tropical island
3 underground sea
3 island
1 strip mine
1 swamp

(could possibly cut 1 tropical island, 1 mox r, and 1 island for wastelands, but this is a very mana hugry deck, and there is no other card abusable in this deck that is also mana denial.)

1 black lotus
1 mox s
1 mox e
1 mox j
1 mox r

side:
2 ghastly demiiise // creature control
1 coffin purge // dragon//ca//cs
1 skeletal skrying // control w/ non lethal berserk
1 berserk // win condition
1 naturalize // oath // randomn artifact
3 ground seal // cs//ca//dragon
1 stifle//dragon //storm// wasteland//fetches//welders// other cool stuff
1 annul// oath // workshops
1 hurkyls recall //workshops
1 rushing river //aggro//workshops//oath//randomn
2 energy flux // workshops


I like this build very much, because the large amount of duress allows you a good chance to grab an oath, counter spell, blahh to force a turn 2-3 creature out . The skeletal skrying is useful when you topdeck cunning wish and you dont have much to do, or you can side it in game2-3.

one thing that I might like to do is replace the vamp tutor with another cunning wish and put the vamp in the side, but that would force me to move something in the side, and the closest thing that I can find is one of the ghastly demises.One reason that I seem to flinch from this is because cunning wish is really expensive(without drains).

but all the disruption allows you to create a hole in the counter wall and just forfce a creature through, which is nice.

and about the nimble mongoose/werebear vs. dryad:  I think that people have the misconception that mongoose is just automatically a 3/3 one drop that you can't target, when in actuality it is very similar to dryad. when a dryad could be a 4/4 or 5/5 easy, you still have a 3/3. granted, you don't need to have the mongoose out when playing the spells, it still also cannot grow past that. and the dryad is absolutely insane when followed by will.
   
     And whoever said that they saw togs getting slower an dryads getting smaller, thank you. I think that the deck needs small plays that add up and eventually cause the oponent to lose, much like fish, except without the mana denial, but with card advantage, board position, and broken ness. first turn dryad followed by a second turn anything is really good, especially time walk. oh boy.

and the drains. I really and honestly do not believe that they do it for this deck.

also, what do you guys think about old man of the sea to steal welders and tokens and stuff? ehh...

[serracollector]

Just some advice from some testing I have done:

Night's Whisper over AK
Serum Visions over Slieght of Hand
4 Dryad 2 Tog
Fastbond/Gush
Shoal over Misdirection (if Oath is a problem, you can shoal AK or Daze or Mana Drain or Daze to stop it)
Rushing River (its like rack and ruin and it gives you an extra card in grave to eat with Tog)


And I personally run 2 Wishes and 1 maindeck Berserk, just cause I like it that way.  Well, good luck.

SC

[Hide]

What about y. will and D. Edict?? don't you need those in main??

[LessThanRight]

Here's my two bits:

Yawg will is good, use it.

Night's whisper is ok.  I would use over AK solely because you're not gonna run Intuition/AK, so why risk feeding someone else's AK's.  I'd only run 2-3 Whisper's, however.  Doing 4-6 points to yourself, plus Fetches and FoW's is just asking for a loss.

I'm torn with regard to Sleight of Hand vs. Serum Visions:  First, they're both sorcery's, which is a real pain for this deck.  Scry is great, however with the number of tutors and fetch's, you'll sometimes find yourself having to make a decision between the scryed cards and something better.  I'd amlost choose Opt over the two of them.  Although it doesn't give you much control over the cards, it's quicker.  In this slot I'm just looking to pump the dryad and find more stuff to pump him with.  This slot, however, is really up to taste and play style, use whatever works for you.

3rd Tog - It does pitch to FoW and MisD.  Even though I see the Tog as a finisher, I want to be finishing turn 4-5, not turn 6-7.  I especially don't want to have to tutor for him.  I'd play 3.

I disagree with using Shoal.  I was excited as the next Blue Mage when I saw this card, however I think it needs to be designed for not just added in.  When you have this card in hand, you need to know what you're going to counter with it before hand.  This requires holding back that Serum Visions to counter the Welder or holding the Mystical Tutor or AK for Oath.  Doing this puts you on the defensive waiting for something to happen.  GAT wants to be the aggressor.  It's a lot easier to hold onto a MisD and a blue card, than a Shoal and one specific blue card.  MisD is one of those fun ins supprising ways kind of cards.  Plus a MisD on Ancestral is the total nuts.

Mana Drain - Ok, so most of the stuff costs U or U1, there's no Intuition/AK engine to fuel.  I still run two.  Mana Drain in this deck is not like in others.  Decks that run 4 will often counter whatever the opponent plays just for the tempo boost (given that the mana is likely to be used).  Mana Drain in GAT is a conditional counter.  Not as bad as Shoal, because you can always just counter and take some burn.  More likely as a 2-of, this can be used to fuel a game ending Cunning Wish, or Yawg Will.

Tinker/Collosus - If you can find the room for this I would use it.  

GAT is one of my favorite decks.  Countering stuff, attacking with 7/7's on turn 3, sounds good to me.  Just the look on your opponents face when you win a heated counter war with a Dryad on the table, as they realize that you just got a bunch of counter's on her as well as stopping their spell.   Happy Growing.

[the boogie man]

I know that this thread was having a peaceful death, but I just didn't want to make another one.

   One thing that I do have to say about serum visions vs. sleight is that sleight does not draw you cards. I know that this seems like a crappy point, but a lot of decks do seem to be running chains of m.(I'm really not going to try and spell that) and they are infinitely better than visions under one of those.
   Another problem that I've seen is that a lot of the declists I've seen have sideboards filled with 1-ofs . I think that cards could be cut to have multiples of things like hurkyl's recall, or whatever. It seems that the utility is really good game1, but the consisstency drags games 2 and 3.
   The last point that I am going to male is that I wanted to know everyones thoughts on an engineered explosives in the side. I know that that is not a point, but whatever. They can be used to kill moxen and tokens, welders, chains of m., sphere of r., and other randomly abbreviated cards, without taking out your own stuff. And since oath is really hard for this deck, maybe some claws of gix.

but anyway, I got to go, but I will post a decklist soon.