TNT 2k7

[Negator13]

So I was looking through the Jaws III thread in the Improvement forum and someone suggested Survival of the Fittest for the deck. This got me thinking about whether or not a revamped TNT build could be any good in this creature-heavy meta. It certainly seems like having a deck full of huge artifact monsters and a way to tutor them up at will would be pretty good in a field of Goyfs and Dryads. But would it be able to keep up with combo, and Gush? As it turns out, it seems TNT has gotten alot of nice new toys lately- such as a 2Sphere that doesnt affect its creatures, and a Blood Moon on legs. Hmm...

Here is a list that M.E.T.H.O.D. won a tourney with way back in February 04:

Cool Stuff
4 Survial of the Fittest
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Bloodmoon
1 Memory jar

Utility
4 Goblin Welder
1 Anger
1 Squee
2 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Duplicant

Phat
4 Juggernaut
4 Su-Chi
1 Masticore
1 Platinum Angel
1 Triskellion

Mana
4 Workshop
4 Foothills
3 Taiga
3 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
7 Solomoxen
1 Mana Crypt


What we have here is basically the Survival Engine of SotF and Squee, along with Anger, Welders, and various artifact fat to search up and Weld in. We have 8 solid beaters in the form of Juggs and Su-Chi that come down turn 1 or 2 off a Workshop and start putting pressure on. Finally we have some disruption in Blood Moon and Pyrostatic Pillar to try to hold off faster opponents long enough to bash their faces in with Juggs and co.

Based on this list, here is my preliminary attempt at a TNT deck for the late 2007 metagame:

4 Goblin Welder
1 Squee
1 Anger
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Juggernaut
1 Razormane Masticore
1 Duplicant
1 Triskelion
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan

4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere

3 Forest
3 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
7 SoLoMoxen
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault



Magus of the Moon is a Blood Moon that beats for 2 and is searchable/pitchable to Survival. In theory the combination of Magus/Chalice/Thorn/Wasteland should be enough to slow down decks like GAT and SuperLong long enough for Juggs and Angry Titans to dome them for 20. Thorn is highly synergistic with the large creature count and is an artifact that can be cast off Workshop and Welded out/in when needed. Su-Chi isn't going to cut it anymore with things like Tarmogoyf and Quirion Dryads running around all over the place. Instead we have a wider array of artifact fatties to choose from, each fulfilling different jobs.

As this is a pretty early list I'm not sure on some of the specific card choices/numbers. Chalice might not be as good as 2Sphere or Tangle Wire, for example, and 2nd copies of key fatties like Razormane and Titan might be warranted over some of the more situational ones like Plats. Duplicant seems really good in a field of Goyfs. I'd say the order of effectiveness for the artifact guys is probably something like: Titan, Razormane, Plats, Duplicant, Triskelion. However, each do different things and it might be better to have the option of fetching them with SotF when the need arises.

I think the deck should try to keep reliance on SotF to a minimum and try to maximize the effectiveness of Workshop; that's why I'm running alot of artifact dudes and not alot of situational utility creatures like Viridian Shaman or FTK. Other possible inclusions might be Gorilla Shaman, or of course, Tarmogoyf, who was originally in here but was cut to make room for more mana sources.

Speaking of mana sources, the somewhat shaky manabase of TNT was always the weakest point of the deck. One one hand, it wants to drop early Juggs, etc. off workshops while on the other hand it wants alot of green mana for Survival. Plus, it has Blood Moon effects to worry about. With that in mind, I'm using the full suite of fast artifact mana, including Vault, and using the same 3/3/4 split of Forest/Taiga/Foothills that METHOD did to maximize green mana under a Magus.  Crucible of Worlds is another option to think about which would allow for Strip recursion as well as an infinite supply of fetches.

The sideboard would probably include Pyrostatic Pillar to shore up the combo matchup, additional Duplicant/Triskelion/Titan for certain matchups, some REBs, and some graveyard hate in the form of Tormods or LotV.

So that's all I have for now, as I said this list is as of yet untested but the synergy of Thorn, Magus, Welders and the Survival Engine excited me and it seems like having easy access to things like Duplicant and Sundering Titan would be a great asset to have in this metagame. Thoughts?

[LordHomerCat]

Your decklist appears to be missing Survival.

[Negator13]

Indeed. That'll be fixed.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

This is amazing, after the success of Stacker-style Aggro here in France lately I tested it quite q bit and reqlized, though SoFI is quite amazing, it tends not to do enough vs big threats (Tarmogoyf in Particular) without a Juggernaut. This led me to wonder about exactly the same thing, TNT and its SotF engine, and I made a preliminary list. My list actually ended up very similar to yours, with minor differences in creature choices and one very important one in disruption-choices.

First the minor differences:
A singleton Solemn Simulacrum: Survivaling for this before (and dumping it into the GY to search for) Magus allows you to reactivate your Survival simply with a Welder even if it's necessary to run out Magus when you only have Taigas for green mana.
an additional Fetch in place of the third Forest: I believe with 5 Fetches, 2 Forests and Simulacrum you should be able to find a basic Forest before dropping Magus. With a full three Forests, it appears to me that you might not be able to cast your Welders and Magi consistently enough. That is to say, three Forests seem somewhat excessive, even though you modeled it after a previous deck.

Original Masticore over Razormane: My reasoning here is that you already cut Su-Chi's, another 4-drop seems better than a 5-drop. In addition it handles big creatures better (Tarmogoyf should be 5/6 in this matchup) and can kill an opposing Welder, which Razormane only very rarely will be able to do. Masticore in play also ruins Sliver-Flash all by his lonesome (once you have 2 mana up again to shoot Hasty).

Mogg Fanatic over Plats: I know Platz does good things, in general though I suppose the deck shouldn't be to hard pressed to answer most slow threats once Survival gets running. The presence of Fanatic gives you a way to make sure turn 1 Survival means you'll see a turn 3 vs Ichorid where having to get Angel + Welder + Anger will probably be too costly to manage. Once in turn 3, again with Survival out, Welder + Trike should be able to start to take over the game. Considering the deck isn't running Black, a better than usual MD matchup against Ichorid seems in order. Not to mention Fanatic cheaply kills opposing annnoyances like Bob and, especially, Welders. I would probably still probably run an Angel SB vs actual combo, but for most matchups it's ability doesn't seem relevant enough to run a 7 mana creature MD. We already raised the decks curve enough but removing Su-Chi's, imo.

Gorilla Shaman: To compliment Magus.

I'm at university atm, so I'm not exactly sure what I run less to fit in the other creatures. I think I run 1 each less of Wasteland and the 2ndary disruption-artifact.

And now for the one very important change: Tangle Wire over Chalice for disruption.
Chalice in my testing with Stacker seemed pretty weak (at least vs GAT, and I expected a lot of impact there because of all the cantrips).
Having tested with and against Stacker (vs GAT) quite extensively, I found a lot of new respect for Tangle Wire on the other hand. I usually rather disregarded Wire as it was the weakest lock-part in Stax in my experience. This changes a lot if your deck drops turn 1 Juggernauts! Especially considering how well TnT accesses its Welders to create something resembling a pemanent Wire for 4 that effects only the opponent seems far too good to pass up.

As for the SB, one idea I was playing with was running a singleton Bayou and four Yixlid Jailers to adress Ichorid because most other options seem rather weak on their own. Maybe testing will show that Crypts + Fanatics or Needle are enough to buy the time to go into Trike recursion, in that case all the better. I like that you can Survival out your ultimate solution to Ichorid, though.

[Anusien]

So one of the fundamental flaws with TNT is that you had a tendency to draw all-artifact Forest hands, or all-Survival/Welder + Shop hands.  I don't see any extra elements in here to help adjust that inconsistency.

[ErkBek]

So one of the fundamental flaws with TNT is that you had a tendency to draw all-artifact Forest hands, or all-Survival/Welder + Shop hands.  I don't see any extra elements in here to help adjust that inconsistency.

I agree, this deck looks really clunky and that's b/c of the inclusion of MWS and Magus of the Moon. Magus of the Moon isn't even that good and he screws you over too. Why not just cut 4 Juggernauts for 4 Tarmogoyfs since they are easier to cast and allow you not to run shop. You can still cast Chalice and Thorn off non-shop lands pretty easily.

Either way, don't run Bazaar in here as tempting as it may sound.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Well, Magus + Shop seems to work fine for at least some of the MonoR Stacker-style decks here in Europe. The problem with Magus is rather to have G for Survival with Magus in play. Testing might show that it's better to just run a single Magus as a SotF target MD and play more artifact-based disruption.

You also have about the same chance to draw all Mountain + Artifacts hands with the monoR decks, which doesn't seem much better than drawing Forests for your artifacts. As long as you have a single green source and a Mox (or other land) by turn 3, Survival+Shop hands shouldn't pose much of a problem. On the contrary. TnT's main consistency failure, like for most artifact-decks, was drawing all-mana or 0 accelleration hands to often. Yes, this problem isn't addressed in this build. It hasn't really been adressed for MonoR-builds like the one from Chicago or the one winning the last big tourney in Paris, either. They still place well. So I think the concept might very well prove to have merit, especially for those players that like to play MonoR at the moment.

I thought about replacing Juggies with Tarmogoyf - kind of obviously, with all the hype around Goofy. The reason to play Juggernaut (plus other artifact fat) and Workshops instead of Tarmogoyf is basically Welder. If you get down a Survival, getting Anger and then dropping a hasty Welder a turn is usually GG. And to be able to actually cast your artifacts if you don't get to Survival for them (and keeping Welder relevant if you don't have a Survival), Workshop is somewhat of a necessity.

This deck should be looked at as Stacker with an actual lategame in the current environment. Because, in my testing, this was Stackers main problem: if the opponent managed to stop the first assault, your lategame was usually pretty horrendous, draws with a ton of Welders aside. What lead me to think of the TnT archetype again, was the fact that it can play the same early game but has the incredible mid-lategame punch of Survival->Welder to shore up that weakness. I concede that in the end it might turn out to have too many issues to prove viable, but I think it is something that definitly merits careful testing and development first, considering R-aggro-shop posting results lately.

/edit: Just to make this clear, this is not a pet-deck of mine I'm defending just because I think it's cool. I'll probably never touch a real aggro-deck to play in a (vintage-)tournament again and haven't since 2003. I'm a firm believer in drawing cards and countering spells. But considering the results of my testing other shop-decks - particularly against GAT -, returning to the concept of TnT may in my opinion lead to convincing results in the current meta because Survival adresses their flaws quite well.