Sideboarding for 'Tog

[Draven]

Tog
Win
3 Psychatog
3 Cunning Wish

Draw:
3 Intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Deep Analysis
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

Protection:
2 Duress
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

Bombs:
1 Mind Twist
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Utility
1 Pernicious Deeds/ Engineered Explosives

Mana:
5 Fetchlands
4 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring

Sideboard to follow

This thread is mainly to discuss how to sideboard properly for ’Tog. I am not going to go into each of maindeck selections because they are mostly self-explainitory. The meta I play in is highly powered with 10-proxys. Currently Oath, Ninja-Fish-Still and Food Chain are the most played decks. There is a smattering of Gifts combo, Belcher, 3 and 4 cc. Tog does show his dirty little head every once in a while.

First of all, there is one maindeck card I would other’s opinion on. That is Pernicious Deeds verse Engineered Explosives. The Explosives have “pin-point� accuracy, but the Deeds has the ability to destroy a whole mess of goblins/fish etc. I am leaning towards the Deeds, but I was just wondering if someone could convince me other wise.

Now on to the board options:

Sideboard

1 Berserk -This is the win card.

1 Fact or Fiction- Fact or Fiction is a great wish for cards card. It turns into a spendy drawer, but it is hot.

3 Red Elemental Blasts- REBs really help the control match-up and if you are going to play red, you should use one of the best red cards.

2 Arcane Laboratory- We have strom and Salvagers show up every once in a while

2 Claws of Gix- Oath, eat dudes for life

2 Fire/Ice- Fishy guys and Goblins (Welder and Food Chain.)

1 Echoing Truth- My only answer to the dreaded 11/11 beat stick

1 Naturalize- Oath

1 Rack and Ruin- Crucible and other stupid artifacts

1 Misdirection- Surprise factor, MisD an Ancestral or someother good thing, counter in a counter war in a pinch.

Okay, I have gone into the cards I have selected for the board based on my meta. The hard part comes from the main deck being so tight. What do you take out for the board? Really you only have draw and tutors. My only thought is the Deeps are the “replaceable� cards. Are the three cards you are bringing in going to be better than what you are losing in the draw? Obviously against some match-ups, the Duress can come out

Lets use a deck such as Control Slaver or Oath. They both have a similar game plan: counter/control until they get the win pieces.

You defiantly want the REB’s in against both and the Claws against Oath and Fire/Ice against Control Slaver, so that is 5 cards coming in for each of them, but what do you take out?

Oath
+3 REB
+2 Claws of Gix
-3 Deep Analysis
-1 Prenicious Deeds/EE
-1 Cunning Wish

Control Slaver
+ 3 REB
+2 Fire/Ice
-1 Mind Twist
-3 Deep Analysis
-1 Prenicious Deeds/EE

Let’s try FCG:

Food Chain
+2 Fire/Ice
+1 Arcane Lab
-2 Duress
-1 Mind Twist

These are just my ideas. I am hoping all the great Magic players out there will help me. Are there things I am missing? Are there better sideboarding strategies? If there are other decks you want to talk about boarding, please talk about those too.

[Mufflon]

Coffin Purge in wish SB is never wrong, because it answers to reanimation such as the dragon combo. Play one.

EDIT:  You really should play Gush in maindeck.

[Ender]

In the oath matchup, I would assume you would want to keep deed/EE in the deck. Its an answer to oath and can be cast really any time your opponent doesn't have drain mana up. Instead, I would take out the mind twist. My reasons behind this is depending on what version of oath, oath decks usually run a misdirection and sometimes even 2 and getting mind twist misdirected back sucks.

 

[Lord of the Goats]

in all honesty this list looks very outdated. i don't intend that as a flame, but it looks like a tog list from about a year ago.

the Italians have done some major innovation on tog recently by adding a tinker in the main deck, a 4th cunning wish, and a darksteel colossus. those changes allow you to play much more aggressively and not worry about drawing enough cards to make tog lethal. at the most recent star city tournament i did not cast intuition, AK, or deep anal until round 4. i simply wished for mystical tutor, got tinker and cast it for the win.... it's infinitely easier than having to get tog lethal.

the addition of darksteel also makes green irrelevant because darksteel is big and tramples.  the only cards tog really needed green for was artifact mutation (which is not better than rack and ruin if you see wastes), berserk (which is replaced by colossus and/or fling), and deed (because explosives was not printed yet).

on explosives vs deed, deed was really great against decks like TNT where you needed to hit 4 cc fat and also take survival of the fittest down. this is much less the case now that there's no workshop aggro. explosives set on 1 or 2 is  certainly adequate and also much easier to cast than deed. basically explosives is easier to cast, cheaper, and kills what you need it too.

I've done a fair amount of testing with tog and there's really a lot more you could be doing with the deck.

also, the following cards are really great in the Sb: firestorm, mystical tutor, skeletal scrying,  and lava dart if you see welders, or certain versions of fish.

[duracel]

First of all I'm not a big fan of 4c tog (anymore) so I would drop Deed and use the EE (it can also be used as a good mana sink if your Mana Drains give you too much mana: for example play it with X=5, but use only two colored mana or whatever).

I wouldn't even consider siding out any Deep Analysis especially in control matchups as Intuition for 3 is just nuts. And IMO you can just as well fight against Oath with bounce spells in your sideboard and you can free up Claws/Naturalize slots for more useful spells. And I would prefer Lava Dart over Fire//Ice as it can be used twice and then Wished for again for another run.

Last Sunday I used Tog to win a 41 player tournament (Finnish Vintage Champs), I'll try to find time to write a short report of the event.

~jari

[Ultima]

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.

[Smmenen]

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.

John is right.

We sent our resident Tog player, Bushman to Rochester and he got 17th place with a list that uses Tinker Collossus and one Tog - I'm not sure he killed with the Tog all day. 

I would consider just not using Tog at all and playing Tinker Collossus, Old Man and Shaman instead. 

[Revvik]

Tried something like that before, only it used two maindeck Fire/Ice (at the time, the best Welder removal I had knowledge of) and the Skeletal Scrying draw engine.  Plus some artifact mana I would never consider using, like Mana Vault.

And since the lone Colossus was way too random, I chickened out and played a Morphling alongside it.  Maybe I'll revisit it, that thing was fun as hell.

Draven: I was a huge proponent of Pernicous Deed last year, and ever since I was convinced to give Explosives a try, I've never looked back.

[Lord of the Goats]

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.

John is right.

We sent our resident Tog player, Bushman to Rochester and he got 17th place with a list that uses Tinker Collossus and one Tog - I'm not sure he killed with the Tog all day. 

I would consider just not using Tog at all and playing Tinker Collossus, Old Man and Shaman instead. 

me=alex for anyone who didn't know that

i played it at rochester as well and went 5-3 which while not as good as bushman is certianly respectable. i actually cut the lone tog for a triskillion (correctly anticipating a field of aggro). i never missed tog once and i loved the free sb slot that i gained from not needing fling. trisk was ok, and i'm pretty sure it could be something better.... but i think it does need to be something that can actually win as opposed to just being a utility creature