The devil went down to New York

The devil went down to New York
Tog wins in NYC

Setting: I just got out of college and am back in the city for the summer so I am getting ready to play in the Sunday T1 at NG. I have been testing gat, I know every match but the mirror well and am ready to win with it (last time I played GAT I took 2nd to rector trix) but disaster strikes, I see the restriction announcement and think, drat there goes my deck so I take apart tog and throw MUD together and head off to neutral ground. At NG we are discussing the restriction, and someone mentions that it does not go into effect until NEXT month. Back to plan A, I throw together tog in about 2 minutes borrowing Dryads from Raymond (lambchop NYC).

26 people lots of power although some first timers as well.

Round 1
My biggest fear this round is that my deck will crap out on me since I just built it and all the cards were sitting in groups of 4 before I started shuffling.

Game 1
Mulligan a no land hand, then draw into a hand with no threats, no hard counters and 3 misdirections. Oh well, its got land so it is a keeper. Fortunately, he is playing a type two black deck so he comes out slow. I slight storm into a counter, counter one threat. Wish for smother to kill one, then the next one comes out and I misdirect his drain life to kill it. I finally find a dryad and misdirect another 2 removal spells to wipe out his army. Dryad beats.

Game 2
I get to turn three without casting a single spell. Then I drop tog. Next turn I wish for berserk and find another gush with some tutor then double gush and ancestral and kill him from no cards in the grave and only 1 spell having been cast all game before that turn.

Round 2
Raymond with keeper

Game 1
I keep a decent hand. I go turn 1 dryad, but he already has uu from time walk so he drains it and makes a fling. But that taps him out so I get to drop a tog. We stare back and forth for a while with fling chipping away at me with flying. We trade some spells and try to get position. The low land count lets me draw better and I'm able to berserk past the fling for the win.

Game 2
He mulligans and keeps a shaky 6 card hand because it has ancestral. I misdirect a turn one recall and then on my turn start to go nuts with fast bond and multiple gushes and he concedes to the craziness.

Round 3
Jason with Sligh
Both games go basically the same way. He gets an early fanatic that forces me to be careful with my dryads. But I am able to land them and get them past burn range and against sligh that's that. I misdirect some burn to his guys and beat with dryads.

Round 4
Vinny and I are the only 3-0s but there are 2 2-0-1s and we are not sure if this is the last round or if they will play till everybody but one person has a loss. Either way he is playing tog with red and nether of us knows the mirror so we agree to a split so that the loser gets money as well as the winner.

Game 1
Vinny has a great opening that involves time walks, artifact mana and gush and ends with him having 7 cards, and an active library plus 2 blue open. Fortunately my hand is full of bombs as well. I use a fast bond to walk. Then I DT, he has to counter this incase I get strip to kill his library. Then I gush and Ancestral and he forces to win the war over gush but the ancestral resolves finds another gush and that pays for a dryad. He gushes and drops tog. The tog and dryad stare at each other for a while, but I have more cantrips and more scrolls so I find yawgwill first and suddenly I have a tog on the table cast time walk and swing with a 16/16 dryad.

Game 2
I bring in 4 duress and 2 smothers. We throw spells back and forth. The key play is when Vinny casts sylvan and I wish in response he lets the wish resolve and I get naturalize which can not be red blasted. Then he takes advantage of me being tapped out to cast tog which taps him out. I untap hit the library and smother the tog. If he had red blasted the wish and said go with uu open he probably would have won, but I was able to take that tempo to the bank with a dryad that he could not blast.

Round 5
Eric won his match and the other 2-0-1 lost so he and I play in finals. I concede to get money and he gets points, but we play it out for fun to see what would have happened. He is playing 4 color phid. It has removal, counters, borkenness, mana leaks, and unmisdiretable stuff. A great deck.

Game 1
I mulligan. I do not have a force and he gets an early phid and runs me over. I would give more detail, but I really did not put up much of a fight.

Game 2
We fight for a while here with lots of spells flying. I keep phids off the table and eventually get a dryad. To keep it safe I am forced to pitch a force to a force. I draw a wish and decide to hold toto it rather than use it because its blue and I may need it later. After fetch brainstorm I find the 3rd force which is still somewhat of a top deck and some enouph it saves the dryad form his last try to kill it.

Game 3
I come out with a roaring fastbond start and kick the tar out of him. Turn 4 I duress him and he has 3 lands in hand, some lands on the table and nothing else. I have a 5/5 dryad with 2 counters backing it up. Easy win right? No. Erik draws red blast, stp, and mana drain and so is able to kill my dryad. We are both burned out of spells. But he top decks phid first. That finds him another phid and soon he is drawing 3 cards to my one. But since his deck is half mana he only gets 1.5 real cards. Meanwhile, all my early lands were fetch lands so my deck is thinned out of lands so all my cards are real. Add to that the fact that some turns I drew more than one card cause I got gush or scroll or ancestral and I was not being crushed nearly as much as you would expect a guy being outdrawn 3-1 should be. Also, by this point Erik was down to 2 life so everything was a must counter or kill right now so he could not choose to pick his fights. We fight over a dryad and I force to protect it and he drains the force. He mind twists me for 2 to get the rest of my hand (duress and wish) but then is unable to draw into another mana sink so he mana burns to death. I do not think I quite captured how desperate I felt for the whole second half of that game, but it was super intense.

So Final record 5-0 Matches 10-1 Games

If gush were not being restricted the keeper players could all play 4 color phid with only a minor change to their decks and have easily better than 50% matches with tog. Oh well.\n\n