AK Scroll Control (Urb Drain Tendrils) *Codename: Bill Cosby

[zeus-online]

I've been testing varios intuition-AK builds..and...i honestly don't like recoup all that much in T1T (which this deck at the very least, resembles) Doing the whole Will, lotus, recoup pile is rarely necessary... Burning wish is another card i'd shy away from, its waaay too slow, i'd much rather run an EtW or tinker/DSC.

Library is something that goes in and out every time i play the deck, sometimes its awesome, othertimes it seems really pointless as the deck is capable of drawing SO many cards.

The 3-color T1T lists is hardly new, neither is the 4 Merchant scroll thing...i don't think people are playing with 4 intuitions, i usually prefer a Fact or gifts instead of the 4th intuition, this should be even truer if you are playing with recoup...
The main reason that i switched to gifts on occasion is that Gifts ungiven is way more powerfull then intuition, they are not even on the same level, although intuition is still very good.

The lack of bouncespells troubles me a bit, and your mana base seems very fragile, although fetches are good, you still need to have actual lands.

/Zeus

[DuKeLiO]

The Empty the Warrens in Evenpence list are only in the sideboard, and maybe vs. Fish Empty the Warrens is a great card, but vs Stax it isn't so powerful: the Stax version that want to win vs. Gifts plays plenty of lock components like Chalice and Sphere. I've played a lot of Gifts for two years and you can't believe you will win again Stax with a 4cc sorcery card. For this you need play Rebuilds to bounce all the lock and moxen and replay it to put enough goblins to win in 3 or 4 turns or to be very lucky and play a first turn Etw on the play or in the draw if you have FoW for the chalice nad/or the Sphere. Obviously you can do this frecuently against stupid Uba builds without Spheres, but at least here the most successful Stax build plays 4 Chalice of the Void, 3 Sphere of Resistance and Trinisphere. If you have the Rebuild you probably can win easier with traditional Tendrils of Agony or the Tinker-DSC + Time Walks combo.
And another question about EtW is that until now the decks were unprepared for it, but now I believe that Echoing Truth will be more popular and a lot of players will change-back his Wipe Away for Echoing Truth.
EtW is a strogn card without question, but Tinker-Dsc are stronger and diversifies a lot your gameplans if your main plan is the ToA.

[Implacable]

The Empty the Warrens in Evenpence list are only in the sideboard, and maybe vs. Fish Empty the Warrens is a great card, but vs Stax it isn't so powerful: the Stax version that want to win vs. Gifts plays plenty of lock components like Chalice and Sphere. I've played a lot of Gifts for two years and you can't believe you will win again Stax with a 4cc sorcery card. For this you need play Rebuilds to bounce all the lock and moxen and replay it to put enough goblins to win in 3 or 4 turns or to be very lucky and play a first turn Etw on the play or in the draw if you have FoW for the chalice nad/or the Sphere. Obviously you can do this frecuently against stupid Uba builds without Spheres, but at least here the most successful Stax build plays 4 Chalice of the Void, 3 Sphere of Resistance and Trinisphere. If you have the Rebuild you probably can win easier with traditional Tendrils of Agony or the Tinker-DSC + Time Walks combo.
And another question about EtW is that until now the decks were unprepared for it, but now I believe that Echoing Truth will be more popular and a lot of players will change-back his Wipe Away for Echoing Truth.
EtW is a strogn card without question, but Tinker-Dsc are stronger and diversifies a lot your gameplans if your main plan is the ToA.

You have very obviously never actually played Empty the Warrens against Stax.  Because I have been doing so intensively in the past few weeks, I can state with certainty that you are absolutely wrong.  That's really all there is to it.  Empty the Warrens is very, very easy to resolve for 6-8 minimum against Stax (This is using an almost standard MDG list against a normal Uba list, which is more common in my meta and has more lock components than 5C), and Stax is not capable of answering it.  The old canard of 'test it before you diss it' is applicable here.

[Akuma]

He's not playing against Uba decks, he's referring to decks that pack Sphere of Resistance, which makes a huge difference.

[wette]

Empty the Warrens absolutely destroys Stax and Fish...  I'd actually prefer to play against Fish or Stax than any other deck in Type 1.  Even though I have yet to see a well-placed, documented Intuitive list, I'm pretty sure EtW is the defining characteristic that makes Colby's build superior.

If you want, take the Oliver Satizabal list posted by Wildthing as an Intuitive reference. With some minor changes (MD twist before wipe away was printed or some other SB changes) it has top 8ed 14 times this year in our Catalonian Vintage League, 11 tournaments with an average of 77 players attendance. The 3 top players of the league won 80% of its points with this deck.

Ok, resolving EtW for 5-6 storm account can just be= to win. But I cannot see how are you going to do this without any bounce (AKA rebuild), and this SO fragile manabase when facing chalice, waste/crucible, tangle wire/sphere of resistance and maybe null rod.

A part from that, I completely agree with Evenpece about the Gifts match, Intuition/AKK is faster than gifts and helps you play the control role (that is what you should be playing in this match), this is just what we thought when start playing intuitive in catalonia (developed by changing some minor T1T card choices).

[DuKeLiO]

You have very obviously never actually played Empty the Warrens against Stax.  Because I have been doing so intensively in the past few weeks, I can state with certainty that you are absolutely wrong.  That's really all there is to it.  Empty the Warrens is very, very easy to resolve for 6-8 minimum against Stax (This is using an almost standard MDG list against a normal Uba list, which is more common in my meta and has more lock components than 5C), and Stax is not capable of answering it.  The old canard of 'test it before you diss it' is applicable here.

Past Saturday I win power with a Gifts deck with Empty the Warrens in the sideboard and Tinker-DSC and ToA in the maindeck. I won some games with EtW but no vs. Stax. I won vs. Stax with Colossus the two games in the final. It were a 5 Color list without welders but with 3 Spheres, 4 Wires, 4 Chalice, 4 Smokestack, 1 In the eye of Chaos, Trinisphere and 2 Shamans maindeck and th 4th Sphere and +1 In the eye of chaos in the sideboard. When you play this kind of deck against a list with this disruption you cannot trust ypur  game plan to resolve a 4cc sorcery. Obviously the UBA list that you faces are stronger vs DSC but a lot of weaker vs EtW.

[Neonico]

As long as your list is prepared to play with EtW as a kill, Echoing thruth is not a problem. Repeal Gifts lists can include EtW as the lone kill because repeal is your main weapon against Echoing Thrutn. The main problem is more the pyroclams like effects, such as Massacre and Explosives mainly.

I played a 101 tournament last week end in paris, with a Repeal Gifts list (2 repeal, CoV and Rebuild MD) with EtW + Tinkolossus to kill, and faced 2 stax deck. My strategy has allways been to tinkolossus against stax, Simply because its the faster and easier way to get the game. As stated, its really hard to have a lethal EtW without burning too much ressource and you cant open a window in the controle road against stax, It would definatly be lethal.

[BreathWeapon]

How is Repeal an answer to Echoing Truth?

[diopter]

How is Repeal an answer to Echoing Truth?

Repeal the token that your opponent targets with Echoing Truth - it will have no legal targets and will be countered.

[keratinx]

On the issue on 4 Intuition vs 3 Intuitions:

In Smmenen's article "Psychaotg 2005", it clearly states why 3 is the optimun number rather than 4. Basically, you will want more than 2 Intuitions, in this case 3, because it is you primary draw engine. Back than, people were already playing with 4 AKs main with 2/3 Deep Analysis, hence the difference between 2-3 Intuitons is paramount. Granted, drawing an Intuiton, after one has drawed 3/4-7 cards from the Intu/AK engine, is rather redundent. Hence, people don't normally play with 4 Intuiton. However, using Intuiton as a combo sercher/enabler like Gifts Ungiven is possible and has been done before, with or without Recoup. Just take for instance what Mystical Tutor and Intuition can do: Intuition for Lotus, Time Walk, Tinker and Mystical for Yawg Win.

I think the sole Tendrils of Agony is rather risky and like what TheAtogLord said, it can be easily trumped by Trickbind. Playing main deck Duress is one way around hate. BUT, since you are already playing with so much card advantage, why don't just add in Tinker/DSC. It's just good against Aggro even with their hate playing around. With Intu/AK engine, you can either go the Aggro route (aggresively Tinker/DSC) or go the control route (AK for 3 and 4), without having to be aggro-control.

In my opinion, there is nothing different between the Intuitive lists and the T1T lists piloted by Lorenzo Fedeli, the original creator of the deck). I think the only change, IMHO, is -1 Tog +1 Recoup. Some lists play Cunning Wish (Marco Ardoino's list) while some do not play Cunning Wish at all.

my 2 cents

[meadbert]

You bring up an interesting point.  If 4 Intuitions is too high unless you are going for a Recoup->Yawgmoth's Will combo then perhaps the 4th Intuition could be Gifts.  This makes the Merchant Scrolls more powerful since in the late game you can Scroll for Gifts and get Black Lotus, Cabal Ritual, Recoup, Yawgmoth's Will.

In the mid game Intuition is better.  What I mean is your first Intuition is better than Gifts.  For this reason maybe Gifts is wrong.  Still, with 4 Merchant Scrolls and 3 Intuitions you should have little trouble finding your first Intuition.

[emidln]

I was playing with 3 Intuitions, 1 Gifts since we switched to being an Intuition deck and have recently cut the Intuition with nothing to replace it. That put me at 59 cards, and I then added back Rebuild and the 61st card as a basic Island. I really like this configuration as it gives me access to 2 win conditions, 2 ways to work around Crypt MD/win without Will, and I haven't really wanted the gifts back. The only thing that losing gifts does is take away from the goldfish speed of the deck when you scroll for gifts to setup yawg win turn 3, but you can normally do this via rebuild anyway in a goldfish so it's not that big of a deal. The additional bounce spell and the extra land are huge deals though, and I was getting mana screwed pretty hard on 14 lands by myself, not including the disruption from Stax.

[keratinx]

You bring up an interesting point.  If 4 Intuitions is too high unless you are going for a Recoup->Yawgmoth's Will combo then perhaps the 4th Intuition could be Gifts.  This makes the Merchant Scrolls more powerful since in the late game you can Scroll for Gifts and get Black Lotus, Cabal Ritual, Recoup, Yawgmoth's Will.

In the mid game Intuition is better.  What I mean is your first Intuition is better than Gifts.  For this reason maybe Gifts is wrong.  Still, with 4 Merchant Scrolls and 3 Intuitions you should have little trouble finding your first Intuition.

Exactly. I play with 2 Merchant Scrolls myself and with 3 Intuitions, it will be likely that it is in your opening hand, or you'll draw into 1 with Brainstorm or tutor for it with Merchant Scroll. I'd rather Scroll -> A Call rather than tutoring for Intuition. My scrolls acts as a "Duress" as it can fetch FoW and reactively "Duress" away your opponent's threats, by countering it. I think 2 Duress/2 Merchant Scroll is just fine since my meta is pretty diverse.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I played a similar list to the first one in the thread last Winter/Spring and had some success with it locally.  I found Recoup wasn't usually necessary to use in Intuition piles, since you usually draw so many cards you find Will anyway, or you can simply cast Merchant Scroll for Mystical Tutor.  It's nice, however, when Will gets randomly Duressed or discarded to Memory Jar, etc, to be able to still use it.  It can also help by flashing back Merchant Scrolls in mid-lategame when you run out of gas after a counter war or something but have plenty of mana to use.

I don't like the Lotus Petal.  First turn Mana Drain is nice, but I find this deck really mana hungry and in need of permanent mana sources.  Most of the time when I tested Petal I just wished it was another land.

I really like the 4 Intuitions, however.  They are very versatile, and I want one in almost every opening hand.  They make all of your Accumulated Knowledges stronger (since you rarely want to draw them without also drawing an Inuition), and after AKing can set up Will and even tutor for counters at instant speed to save your ass.

I also ran Tinker/Colossus, and loved it.  I mean sure, I won most of my games off Will+Tendrils, but I liken not running Tinker/Colossus as not running a 2nd Tendrils of Agony in Pitch Long, for example.  I mean, sure, you can get away with it, but it will also cost you random games that you would not have lost had you been running it.  Tinker/Colossus is stupid good in this deck; it trumps all of the hate against your main strategy and you have all the draw and counters you need to protect it.  Tinker is also good for getting Lotus, etc.  I've won games where Tinker got me the coloured mana I needed when going off with Will.

[Evenpence]

While I have a good bit to say on the posts here, I will start off by answering a common objection:

No bounce.

1)  I run a single Chain of Vapor which is an answer as well as being a combo piece.  Please re-read this list.
2)  I stated in the opening post that this deck is extremely versatile.  You don't have to play my exact decklist.  Feel free to add in a singleton rebuild if you so choose.  Please do not act as though because my build is somehow suboptimal (which I do not believe it to be so, particularly in my metagame, but in a national metagame as well) that the deck itself is not utterly insane.

Because it is.

[Liam-K]

I tested a list a lot like this a long long time ago.  Try out imperial seal, probably -1 scroll.

[Ufactor]

General Questions:

1) Concerning Tog vs. Tendrils, wasn't Tog hated out of the fomat by a plethora of removal cards?  REB, Pyroblast, StP, Pithing Needle, Sudden Shock and, to a lesser extent, Tormod's Crypt and Leyline come to mind.

2)Smmenen&Co. thoroughly tested AK variant before they came up with the current MDG.  What were his conclusions? Does anybody know?  What were his arguements AGAinst this sort of deck?

[emidln]

From reading the articles on MDG and comments posted by some of the Meandeckers about Intuitive from a year or so ago, Intuition/AK was tested but Intuition/AK/Merchant Scroll was not.

[keratinx]

General Questions:

1) Concerning Tog vs. Tendrils, wasn't Tog hated out of the fomat by a plethora of removal cards?  REB, Pyroblast, StP, Pithing Needle, Sudden Shock and, to a lesser extent, Tormod's Crypt and Leyline come to mind.

2)Smmenen&Co. thoroughly tested AK variant before they came up with the current MDG.  What were his conclusions? Does anybody know?  What were his arguements AGAinst this sort of deck?

Psychatog wasn't exactly hated out because of the GY hate cards. It was because there was a better kill condition called Darksteel Colossus, which is indestructable. I don't really see sudden shock in Vintage, but a lot in the Extended format. I would say Tormod's Crypt and Leyline generally cripple most of the Drain.decks in competitive Vintage nowadays.

Smmenen and Co. did test the AK variant in this post about Meandeck Gifts: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=23618.0

More importantly, he didn't test with the Intu/AK variant but with other different draw engines from his first article about MDG, which can be found here: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9963.html. It discussed about the different draw engines he tried and why he came up with the Merchant Scroll/Gifts Ungiven engine.

@emidin

Intuition/AK/Merchant Scroll was already being played by the Italians about a year and a half ago in the deck called T1T aka Type 1 Tog. Its a Tog variant commonly played in the European metagame with 3-4 Cunning Wishes and the Intu/AK/DA engine. Merchant Scroll soon found their way into the deck and some players took out Psychatog for Recoup to do the Intuition -> Recoup/Will/Lotus play.

[emidln]

General Questions:

1) Concerning Tog vs. Tendrils, wasn't Tog hated out of the fomat by a plethora of removal cards?  REB, Pyroblast, StP, Pithing Needle, Sudden Shock and, to a lesser extent, Tormod's Crypt and Leyline come to mind.

2)Smmenen&Co. thoroughly tested AK variant before they came up with the current MDG.  What were his conclusions? Does anybody know?  What were his arguements AGAinst this sort of deck?

Psychatog wasn't exactly hated out because of the GY hate cards. It was because there was a better kill condition called Darksteel Colossus, which is indestructable. I don't really see sudden shock in Vintage, but a lot in the Extended format. I would say Tormod's Crypt and Leyline generally cripple most of the Drain.decks in competitive Vintage nowadays.

Smmenen and Co. did test the AK variant in this post about Meandeck Gifts: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=23618.0

More importantly, he didn't test with the Intu/AK variant but with other different draw engines from his first article about MDG, which can be found here: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9963.html. It discussed about the different draw engines he tried and why he came up with the Merchant Scroll/Gifts Ungiven engine.

@emidin

Intuition/AK/Merchant Scroll was already being played by the Italians about a year and a half ago in the deck called T1T aka Type 1 Tog. Its a Tog variant commonly played in the European metagame with 3-4 Cunning Wishes and the Intu/AK/DA engine. Merchant Scroll soon found their way into the deck and some players took out Psychatog for Recoup to do the Intuition -> Recoup/Will/Lotus play.

Intuition/AK/Scrollx4 was being played in 2005 in America in Tog. Search up the 2005 Vintage World Champs top8. My point, as Smmenen admited to in the Intuitive/T1T thread by Negator13, was that Intuition/AK/Scroll wasn't tested early in on MDG. Intuition/AK was tested and then discard for what eventually became Merchant Scroll. Intuition/AK wasn't then evaluated in that same shell. Anyway, we've already gone over this on the first page.

[Godder]

Once again, statements and discussions on how this deck is an updated version of T1T, Tog or whatever are not relevant in this thread. Further discussion on the matter will result in Warnings.