[deck] 4c Gro

[mistervanni]

wow, my first topic!
i want to talk about the deck played by Becker, Klep and others at Roanoke, slightly modified by me to play in a tournament here in italy, obv. with a different meta.
i have no intentions to steal any of the merit about the designing of this deck, i waited for some time to see if the mentioned people would have posted, but i wanted to talk about what i found to be a funny to play and powerful deck. for the above persons, feel free to intervene and anything.

first the original list for not having to go back to the report by JD:

    Gro-A-Thing
4x Dark Confidant
4x Quirion Dryad
2x Jotun Grunt

4x Force Of Will
3x Misdirection
1x Gush
1x Ancestral
1x Time Walk
1x Mystical
1x DT
2x Orim's Chant
4x Duress
3x Merchant Scroll
1x Wipe Away
1x Yawgmoth's Will
4x Brainstorm
1x Regrowth

4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
2x Tropical Island
2x Underground Sea
2x Tundra
1x Scrubland
2x City OF Brass
4x On color Mox
1x Black Lotus

SB:
4x Seal OF Cleansing
3x Sacred Ground
2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Trygon Predator
2x Threads Of Disloyalty
1x STP
1x Darkblast

you can see the pretty interactions between jotun and merchant+ancestral or gush, the confidant providing a constant flux of cards to keep the dryad growing and the general look of the old Gro.

before playing it i adapted it to my meta and p9 availability (sapphire ancestral walk).
here the deck choices with a few motivations and comments

      4c Gro
4x Dark Confidant
4x Quirion Dryad
3x Jotun Grunt

i wanted another grunt expecting to use it sometimes as a 2 turn wall vs aggressive decks when i hadn't a dryad out or enough cards in the graveyard

4x Force Of Will
3x Daze
3x Misdirection
3x Duress

i cutted 1Duress and the Chants because i was aware of the small presence of gifts and combo and 'cause i founded it to be an awful topdeck in 4x. i added the daze but i found it to be suboptimal without mana denial. in the future and in more powerful contest i might want to revert to the original or try something else

4x Brainstorm
3x Opt
1x DT
3x Merchant Scroll
1x Gush
1x Ancestral
1x Time Walk

i cutted the card disvantage tutors and the YWill for not having access to Lotus and for presaging short and  intense matches. i added 3 opt to help hit land drop (my mana base is more terrible than the original, you'll see it soon) at instant speed and cycle through the deck. i considered serum visions but it was sorcery and also intuition/ak like the old GroATog but was too mana intensive for my manabase (again on this...)

1x Wipe Away
1x Rushing River

i added another tutorable bounce that worked well with its double target option: i founded useful to bounce oath+angel at the same time or to remove 2 blockers while growing my dryad, and it was another tool to escape chalice at 2

4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
3x Tropical Island
3x Underground Sea
2x Tundra
1x Island
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Diamond
1x Lotus Petal

the bad part: i played the poor's man accelleration and cutted the CoB in favour of 2 duals for not wanting to damage myself more with already 8 fetches. i added the basic island for mana stability (sounds funny!) and cutted the scrubland for running the daze.

SB:
3x Oxidize
3x Sacred Ground
3x STP
1x Darkblast
2x Ray of Revelation
3x Meddling Mage

here there are the majour changes: i cutted the 4Seal fearing an unanswerable chalice at 2 where i couldn't even scroll for bounce, so i diversified (does it exists?) to oxidize for artifact and, having access to both G and W, to Ray for oath. i kept the sacred ground for stax if it showed and more probably for post side crucible out of fish and hate decks. i dropped the crypt as i upped the grunts main. i went with 3+1 removal for the various creatures i was foreseeing to met and lastly i added 3 meddling mage versus the less traditional combo i saw at the tournament

---thoughts about the deck (put down in disorder)---

-trickbind, that is tutorable, in the side versus combo and gift? versus the latter you can usually race the TPC if it's not very fast so trickbind or stifle could make the day

-post side we have a lot of white, so maybe we can cut the island for the 3rd tundra?

-i never felt like losing to manascrew or wastes was a concern. i kept my fetchlands alive until the last moment i needed to cast something and saved them with plays like these: he fetches, i fetch in responses, he stifles i misdirect the stifle on his fetch's triggered GG

-the opt are not very powerful but they are instants,help find more fuel for the dryad, are blue cards and help hit land drop. what can we have in their place?

-how can we improve the manabase? more basic? gemstone or cities again?

-i understand that renouncing to YWill it's a huge handicap, but with grunt and scroll i casted my ancestral like more than once per game on average, sometime even thrice plus two gushes in the same game.

-i tried fastbond and founded it to be controversial, broken sometimes esp with gush, crappy with a light manabase. the daze made him more useful than normal, but what do you think?

thank you for the attention, props again for klep, becker and sonataotc and i'm eager to hear your thoughts
for everyone, feel free to comment also about the structure of my post, i'm not touchy...

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

Firstly, I was the only one who played the deck at Roanoke. Becker, Klep, and me all basically threw ideas around and I basically put them to test. I don't  even think Klep really remembers or knows too much about the deck itself, except the cool cards in it (hes a Belcher guy).

Going up to a third Grunt is something I strongly endorse, I would cut a Dark Confidant probably since the deck is just a pile of card advantage, drawing multiple Confidants isn't so great.

Cutting Orim's Chant is probably wrong. My basic philosophy behind playing the card is that Gro decks REALLY like Time Walk. A 3/3 Dryad swininging and then Orim's Chanting someone on their upkeep is huge tempo and allows you to play more silly cards like Merchant Scroll, Gush etc.

I wouldn't even think of cutting Trygon Predator, it is insane vs Fish and Workshop, it's a gamble vs Oath but it can pay off. Against fish it's a 2/3 that can only be trumped by Grunt, and it pops Null Rods. I had one down against Workshop with zero other permanents and still won the game. Resolving Predator and having it get in is such a huge set back vs Stax.

And lastly, I don't think the deck is viable without Black Lotus, Lotus Petal is a good call but I found myself Demonic Tutoring for Lotus sometimes and just setting up a ridiculous following turn with Yawgmoth's Will.

-Elias