Vault Key Grow-a-Tog

[znoyes]

Hello,

I made a variation on Steven Menendian's Grow-a-Tog list that was posted on the Grow-a-Tog board below by Troy Costik.
I cut the Preordains, Ponder, Misdirection, and Hurkyl's recall for Sensei's Divining Tops, Vault Key, Jace, and Imperial Seal and came up with an innovative sideboard plan involving Grim Lavamancer and Extirpate. Below is my list and reasoning. I am interested reading your in your comments:

1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Tinker
1 Imperial Seal
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
3 Trygon Predator
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Pierce
4 Thoughtseize
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Gush
1 Fastbond
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Brainstorm
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropicla Island
3 Volcanic Island
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn

Sideboard:
1 Island
1 Forest
2 Extirpate
4 Grim Lavamancer
2 Nature's Claim
2 Yixlid Jailer
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Ravenous Trap

Explanations:
1 Jace: I found that hands were piling up with lands and that I was sometimes running out of cantrip gas with a bunch of mana sources in play. I feel that one jace is all that is needed to solve this problem (given the strict mana count, running 2 is cost prohibitive)

Sensei's Divining Top: I found that preordain just doesn't cut it in this deck. Brainstorm was amazing here because it put 2 lands back after a gush, netting you 5 new good cards. Top is similarly the bomb because it allows you to chain tutors and card drawing spells together and puts two good cards on top of your deck so your gush always hits gas. There is nother more disapointing than drawing two lands off a gush. Finally, top makes top-deck tutors like imperial seal into demonic tutors. Top is also more much needed tinker fodder.

Vault/Key: Since menendian was running tinker, and I am also running tops to go with the key, I decided that the best combo in the game would be good here as well.

Imperial Seal: Gush and Top make this card much faster, and vault key and fastbond makes this card much more powerful.

4 Grim Lavamancer: The bane of a 10/10 quirion dryad is a bunch of utility dorks. The bane of any utility dork deck is always the lavamancer. They just can't win through him if played early enough. Perhaps the number is wrong, but they are good in multiples, so maybe 3 is a good compromise.

No black leyliine in sideboard: extirpate instead: This deck has trouble casting leyline and wants to play hate cards that synergize with the cantrips/dryad and tutoring of the deck. That's why a one of trap (maybe mindbreak trap nad hurkyl's recall have a home here as well) is good and why the relic and spellbomb are good. Extirpate isn't played enough in my oppinion, as it is good versus oath and dredge. Maybe pithing needle could be included as well.

Thank you.

--Zach

[personalbackfire]

4 Grim Lavamancer: The bane of a 10/10 quirion dryad is a bunch of utility dorks. The bane of any utility dork deck is always the lavamancer. They just can't win through him if played early enough. Perhaps the number is wrong, but they are good in multiples, so maybe 3 is a good compromise.

Grim: Sorry I am not following your logic here. The bane of a 10/10 dryad are utility dorks and you want to be able to kill the utility dorks with lavamancer? What utility dorks are you thinking of that you want to combat their strategy with Grim? I guess the obvious card you that could be an annoyance to the Dryad is Sower but I am not seeing much more. I guess Grim also picks off Bob as well  but there are other cards that do that better. I personally think that the fact that Dryad can be unsummoned by Jace is more of a problem then people Sowering him just for the fact of how many people are playing Jace right now.

[znoyes]

@ personalbackfire

That's a good question.
I'll make a hypothetical scenerio to explain what I mean.
Let's say you have one 10/10 dryad and your opponent has a kataki, gaddock teeg, pridemage, 3/4 tarmogoyf, and a magus of the moon and you are at 8 life and your opponent is at 16.The abilities of the creatures are basically irrelevant here. Although you have the more powerful creature, you are losing this game because, even if you chump the tarmogoyf, you will take 8. This scenerio isn't rare, because the beats decks are basically all beats and not much else whereas you really just have 7 creatures and tinker, so dryad is sometimes out too late to chump block and prevent the damage, or you get him out and your opponent keeps piling creatures up because that's all they are drawing and they attack with a critical mass. Back to the original scenerio, if you have an active lavamancer on the board, you still lose, but if you were at 10 life instead of 8, your chances are much better (you'll still have to worry about lightning bolt targeting you). Also, having lavamancer makes the development of this scenerio much more rare. An analogy is that Lavamancer is to beats what Trygon Predator is to stax. The jace issue that you bring up is valid as well. Jace is a reason why Lavamancer is very good in this deck's sideboard. Let's say you have a dryad and a lavamancer in play and your opponent casts a Jace. The jace is not long for this world because if he bounces, you lavashock it. If he faitseals or brainstorms, you just attack. I've seen people compare lavamancer to lightning bolt and say that bolt is better because it is faster. That just begs the question of why "slow" cards like Trygon and Jace have become so popular. Lavamancer interacts in ways that vintage decks aren't designed to combat very well. I also found out that he is good against dredge games 2 and 3. When you have grave hate available, dredge slows down alot and tries to create the same critical mass of creatures as I described above. Lavamancer combats that scenerio well. I don't mean to sound self indulging, but I just think that lavamancer is amazing.

Thanks.
--Zach

[Zherbus]

I'd rather have almost any other card option in that deck over Imperial Seal. Ponder, Preordain, another Mox, or even better... another Jace.

I'm Sensei's Top's biggest fan. Really, I am. But the direction that you're taking the deck in seems less like a good Gush deck and more like an awkward Fish deck. Take a look at all of the card slots you've switched around... it's like it just wants to give up and just run Confidants.

Just my 2 cents.

As for Grim Lavamancer... if your deck was a smoother Gush deck, I'd suggest just running Empty the Warrens or something.

[znoyes]

@Zherbus

It is a valid point that the deck seems to be moving in the direction of Tezz. In fact, I still think that dark confidant + jace is probably the best card drawing engine in the format without brainstorm to support gush. Even so, I still think that if a gush deck is your choice, then sensei's divining top belongs there somewhere. I found that I was able to chain gushes more often with top in the deck. This doesn't necessitate playing quirion dryads. For instance, I think that sensei's divining top could play a good role in doomsday lists for the same reason it was very good in legacy ANT lists: you get the card off your top-deck tutors like doomsday one turn earlier. However, for the purpose of this discussion, I am still squarely in the oppinion that top is the best "engine" available to make dryads bigger. The argument about seal is a good one and I could see playing ponder in it's place.

I saw that you wanted to play more Jace in the deck and I am of the same persuasion, but found that the only kind of build that could create the necessary mana was one involving lotus cobras (and if we are playing cobras, why not go to cobra tezz and skip the dryads and gushes?), and that wasn't very consistent either. I think that one jace is necessary in basically any blue control deck because no other card singly breaks a stalemate in a control mirror with as much consistency. I read the comment about Empty the warrens as well. The problem with modern gush builds in my eyes is that, while they are "ok" at chaining spells together, they are nowheres near as consistent (with the exception of doomsday) at doing so as, say ANT or TPS. So the gush engine has to be more of a card advantage engine than a storm builder. Tinker fits into this mentality quite well, as you want more countermagic/cards in hand than your opponent to protect it, but you weren't able to produce the storm necessary to cast a tendrils/empty.

Thanks.

[Hulkwc2]

Although I hate it: Tarmogoyf ?