ITv2.0

[ErkBek]

I won't be making it to Rochester so I figure its a good time to post my current IT list for everybody to consider:

Land 14
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Island
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
0 Academy

Accel 15
8 Sol-lo-moxen-crypt
1 Lotus Petal
0 Mana Vault
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual

Protection 12
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
2 Mana Drain
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl’s Recall

Business 19
4 Brainstorm
3 Intuition
2 Deep Analysis
2 Grim Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Tendrils of Agony
0 Timetwister
0 Merchant Scroll
1 Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1 Necropotence
1 Ancestral Recall

SB 15 (this is for the midwest oath.meta)
4 Dark Confidant
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Massacre
2 Rebuild
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 E Truth

This build addresses the number 1 concern that I've heard people address, intuition is just a set up spell, so don't bother countering it. The addition of 2 DA's have given the deck a versitle draw engine that can be fueled by mana drain and random extra mana. For the most part, mana drain has been a great addition. I often times find that opponents play right into drain, not expecting me to have counters past remand and FoW. However, I occasionally get random hands like

Grim, drain, sol ring or ritual, mox, 2 land, duress

What do you do with a hand like that? Drain can also put a little more stress on mulligans as well. This is probably the deck's greatest weakness, it can give you some really terrible hands.

From my limited testing (~10 games of each matchup) and previous experience with the deck, the matchups breakdown as follows

CS: Slightly Favorable
Oath: Favorable
Meandeck Gifts: Even to slightly unfavorable
Uba Stax: Even to slightly favorable
URBana Fish: Unfavorable
UW fish/Birdshit: Untested with new build, but was favorable
Ichorid: Untested, prob slightly unfavorable vs. meandeck's new list (plus 0 twister)
5-C Stax: really depends on the build

On paper this looks really strong, but I haven't won anything with this build in my past 2 tourneys with the deck. 2 weeks ago in Chicago I ran this list, started off 2-0 then lost my next 2 rounds to 7 hymn to tourach in 5 games. Last weekend I lost in the semi's due to a judges ruling that didn't go in my favor (my opponent never reminded me I should be RFGing cards for his leyline until I announced a thresholded cabal rit turns after "achieving threshold," prob my fault).

I'll try and go more in depth on sideboarding and playing matchups tomorrow afternoon. Feel free to ask any questions or comment on the new list, I'll add more tomorrow afternoon.

-Eric

[roberts91rom]

This seems to be trading speed and consistancy for protection and more drawing power. It all depends on the meta of course, but I think IT won over so many combo players because it had a good balance and could go off turns 2-3 with strong back-up. How much slower have your goldfishes gotten? No twister, Vault, Academy and only 2 Cabal Rits seem like they bring the deck back at least a turn. This is starting to seem more and more like Gifts except with Rituals and Intuition. Has Mana Drain paid off as much as you would have liked it to? You said yourself that it causes bad mulliganing decisions.

[AJFirst]

From playing against it, I'd say it cuts off about 1.5-2 turns from what I've seen of the deck in action, although I did get totally owned by it. Round one, Game 1, Turn one win. What a way to start the day.

I like the idea of sacrificing a little speed for more consistent disruption/protection, but Drains don't seem like the way to go. They can be pretty savage in the Combo mirror, I'm sure, and they seem good against Fish (but don't you just beat aggro straight up), but seem terrible otherwise. Being a slaver player myself, I rarely play spells during my own turn minus the ones that auto-win the game, in which case I wait for back-up anyway. In the control match-up, wouldn't something like...I don't know, Therepy be stronger? Maybe with Confidants? Ooo, is that a deck already?! Either way, I'm building it!

4 Bob
2 Therepy
4 Duress
4 Dark Rit
3 Cabal Rit
1 Demonic
1 Vampiric
1 Mysical
1 Ancestral
1 Time Walk (the tech with Mr. Mahar!)
2 Grim Tutor
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hyrkal's Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Bargain
1 Potence
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will - 37

4 Underground Sea (Who plays wastelands anyway? Answer: Nobody cool)
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Delta
2 Strand
2 Mire
8 SoLoMoxCrypt
1 Petal - 23

I decided the deck is so broken it needs neither a sideboard nor a win condition. Just Bob beatdown, because Tendrils sucks anyway.
-AJ

Edit :: I also decided 9 other blue cards was WAAYY more than enough for the playset of Force of Wills, so I'm DEFINITLY not cutting them for the extra Therepy, and Grim Tutor along with maybe a Repeal/Rebuild and a win con.

[ErkBek]

This seems to be trading speed and consistancy for protection and more drawing power. It all depends on the meta of course, but I think IT won over so many combo players because it had a good balance and could go off turns 2-3 with strong back-up. How much slower have your goldfishes gotten? No twister, Vault, Academy and only 2 Cabal Rits seem like they bring the deck back at least a turn. This is starting to seem more and more like Gifts except with Rituals and Intuition. Has Mana Drain paid off as much as you would have liked it to? You said yourself that it causes bad mulliganing decisions.

There are 2 directions to take the deck in:

1) Pure Combo - Add tinker, jar, another cabal rit, and 1 more Grim tutor then cutting 2 remands, 1 intuition, and 1 scroll. I tested this build and the 2 worst cards were intuition.  Shoulda played grim long.

2) Control Combo -  I've always played IT as a control deck with a combo finish. You would rarely ever find me playing a timetwister with BBB floating and a storm of 4 as I would happily do in grim long. So I decided to make the necessary changes to fit this new role. The first thing I tried was list with 2 merchant scrolls, 4 Fows, 4 duress, and 2 Remands. The list fished really well, but tested poorly.

Some negative comments on IT that I read on these forums got me really frustrated. Then when I read JD's letter, I was feeling a little burnt out on the game at the time so I decided to take a break from IT and play something just for fun, URBana fish (it happened to be really good too). 4 tournaments and 3 mox splits later, I started to miss my broken plays so I returned to IT with some new ideas for improving the deck. I put this list together and have been running it since. I guess I'll address the cards that I cut and there roles in the deck.

Timetwister – It’s an amazing turn 1 play going first vs. every deck. It’s also great vs. fish or all varieties and is the nuts vs. ichorid. With that said, it sucks past turn 1 vs. gifts, slaver, and stax. I've always viewed twist as the emergency button in the deck, but I was finding that I didn’t ever use that button. I only cast it once in Richmond, and the guy was “already bending over” in the words of Brain Fisher.

Mana Vault – It’s pretty good vs. stax, but that’s about it.  Vault also combo’s nicely with bargain and chain of vapor, but other than that, it’s just okay.

Remand – I said it myself, this card was the weakest card in the deck, so I cut it. My buddy Rhyno, who’s played the deck as much as myself was telling me that’s its just not as good when it’s not a surprise anymore, he’s definitely right.

Academy – I’ve wanted to cut this card for ages, but I just couldn’t. Its ability to produce multiple blue mana was easily out weighed the times it produced none due to a chalice, mox monkey, or a 0 artifact hand. The deck doesn’t really play much for card draw, so often times I got stuck with only 0 or 1 artifact. I’ve also lost a few games due not having a black source, when academy was on the table. Its funny, I liked academy best when it acted as a strip mine.

Merchant Scroll – This card is a good 1 of and really helped the draw engine which is lacking in this deck. Finding Hurkyl’s is nice too, but unfortunately that does telegraph the play a turn in advance. Deep analysis would now aid the draw engine.

By cutting all those shitters, 6 spaces were opened up which would be filled with 1 Usea, 2 Drains, 2 DA’s, and the 4th FoW.  The deck is now much more of a control deck with a combo kill than ever.  On my first post I mentioned mana drain complicating mulligan decisions and somewhat hurting consistency by those means.  However, I forgot to mention that this build lets you keep hands that look like this

2 land, petal/duress, intuition, FoW, drain, card

Hands like this, make me feel like I’m playing tog.

-Eric

[Sean Ryan]

Since you first came out with IT, I've always wanted to know the reasoning behind not playing Dark Confidant maindeck. 

Confidant seems that much better when playing control-combo.  You get the added benifit of dodging confidant hate game one, as most people are aware when you bring them in post sideboard. 

You could still have Deep's in the SB for the control match if needed.

The deck could start to look like something between IT and Drain TPS .

Just a thought.

Sean

[Cross]

Confidant slows your gameplan down too much. Confidant rewards long games, and that's not what the deck is trying to do preboard.

Confidant is good against some decks because they are slow (stax) or they can act as an LOA that swings for two damage (good against control decks, though I go back and forth on slowing your strategy down). Confidant also makes you less reliant on will so you can dodge hate.

[AJFirst]

They're not good against stax. IT doesn't even usually bring them in against 5c, and only sometimes against Uba. Confidant is almost strictly there to dodge hate, and match control with CA to eventually utilize resources to resolve a key spell.

Tell me if I'm wrong Becker.
-AJ

[M.Solymossy]

You're wrong.  They are AMAZING versus stax.  They bring in their chalices, and confidant lets you turbo through your deck to find bounce.  I loved playing them.  Hell, at Richmond, Kevin Chron had 2 Spheres out on me, and the confidant helped me find my mana and mana production (moxes) to keep ahead of them long enough to cast intuition and just win.

[Moxlotus]

They're not good against stax. IT doesn't even usually bring them in against 5c, and only sometimes against Uba. Confidant is almost strictly there to dodge hate, and match control with CA to eventually utilize resources to resolve a key spell.

Tell me if I'm wrong Becker.
-AJ

You're wrong.  Confidants are TEH FING NUTZ against Stax of all sorts.  Constant source of damage that can win on its own, beat a few times to make it easier to combo through hate (only storming for like 5 or 6), AND more card draw to make it even easier to combo through hate.  Against Stax, turn 1 Confidant is one of the best things you can do besides the randomly drawing the turn 1 kill.

[AJFirst]

I've never tested the match-up post-board, so I figure you guys know more than I do. They just seem like they'd be bad with Tangle Wire and stuff clogging up the board. So do you bring in therepies and that package too, or is it just the Wizards to get through some damage and Combo Light*? I've played Grim Long against Stax and I get my ass handed to me post board (4 Spheres, 4 Chalice, 3 Rods, and Trinisphere) 70% of the time. On paper Bobs seem pretty bad, but I guess the extra draw power to find Rebuild/Hyrkls and the 2/1 feet would be the nutz.
-AJ

*Combo Light now with 30% less calories, and 3-4 less spells.

[Hydra]

I've never tested the match-up post-board, so I figure you guys know more than I do. They just seem like they'd be bad with Tangle Wire and stuff clogging up the board. So do you bring in therepies and that package too, or is it just the Wizards to get through some damage and Combo Light*? I've played Grim Long against Stax and I get my ass handed to me post board (4 Spheres, 4 Chalice, 3 Rods, and Trinisphere) 70% of the time. On paper Bobs seem pretty bad, but I guess the extra draw power to find Rebuild/Hyrkls and the 2/1 feet would be the nutz.
-AJ

*Combo Light now with 30% less calories, and 3-4 less spells.

Yes, but that's Grim Long.  IT was designed to have a good game against Stax both pre and post-board.  Phil neglected to mention that worst case scenerio Bob is a permanent, and can thus be used to preserve your mana base in the face of Wire/Smokestack if necessary.

[ErkBek]

I've never tested the match-up post-board, so I figure you guys know more than I do. They just seem like they'd be bad with Tangle Wire and stuff clogging up the board. So do you bring in therepies and that package too, or is it just the Wizards to get through some damage and Combo Light*? I've played Grim Long against Stax and I get my ass handed to me post board (4 Spheres, 4 Chalice, 3 Rods, and Trinisphere) 70% of the time. On paper Bobs seem pretty bad, but I guess the extra draw power to find Rebuild/Hyrkls and the 2/1 feet would be the nutz.
-AJ

*Combo Light now with 30% less calories, and 3-4 less spells.

Endress insisted on putting his shitty sideboard plan vs. stax in the IT primer, ignore it. My sideboarding strategy vs. stax could be found here for the old list (4th post down).

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=27896.0

Here's how I SB with this list on the play vs. stax
-4 FoW
-1 Bargain
-2 DA
-1 Duress
-2 Mana Drain
+2 land
+4 Bob
+1 Tendrils
+2 Rebuild
+1 Echoing Truth

On the Draw
-4 Duress
-1 Bargain
-2 Drain
-2 DA
-1 BS
+4 Bob
+2 Land
+3 Bounce
+1 Tendrils

To find the logic behind this sideboarding, read my old post. The plan is the same, just a few different cards.

@ slowing the deck down: I don't think the deck lost any speed at all. Mana Vault was the only accelerant that I lost in my eyes, since academy was randomly good or bad. Twister didn't really aid the deck in terms of speed all that much. Mana drain helps power out kills from seemingly nowhere (drain into bargain or intuition). Also it is important to note that intuition could be considered acceleration since it usually finds your rituals. 

[AJFirst]

Thanks for the boards Eric, that makes a lot more sense to me then Endress' gameplan. I was casual playtesting the other day against my friend who plays stax, and I could really see how good Confidant could be. I've also come to the realization that Rebuild is insane.

I'd like to get some opinions on Repeal. Being very good in Meandeck Tendrils being able to draw cards and up storm count, and also hit Chalice for 0, and apparantly being the nut high for some slaver builds too, how do you think it fits in here? Do you think it could maybe replace Drains in a control spot, or is the hard counter just stronger? Would it muck up mulligan decisions since all it is is an expendable cantrip (like Walk), or would the ability to hit Chalice (at anything but 1) and cantrip would be worth the slots, not to mention the tricks it can do with a Sapphire or Vault/Crypt? I'd like to hear what you think, as I once had Meddling Mage on Chain of Vapor and Echoing Truth with a True Beleiver in play and wondering what other outs could be played....
-AJ

(Obviously that situation doens't come up too often, but I totally won because he attacked with the Chain of Vapor on directly into Confidant because he wasn't paying too much attention to the playtesting)

[MafiaKingpin]

Althought I lack a lot of tournament experience (did play in the last T1 w/ it in Indy and got to watch Becker play IT there) with this deck I have found that in my goldfishes that I really like Timetwister in to be included in it.  As Becker said it's either that turn 1 acceleration into the kill or it's that restart button.  In games where I found myself floating a bunch of mana only to cast Will and it gets countered if you have this backup it can immensely help you to just shuffle it all back in.  Most likely if you have them in your discard you'll get your rits back and most likely a tutor to help pull off the rest of the combo that you need to get your opponent out.  It basically got taken out for a draw 2 card.  I don't see how that draw two card will help you when your Will got Duressed, FoW'd, or Mana Drained.  Granted you can still go off when you don't have Will, but with it almost always turns into an automatic win.  It may be turning into play preference, but I always like that last ditch Reset button to have in games.

[ErkBek]

In games where I found myself floating a bunch of mana only to cast Will and it gets countered if you have this backup it can immensely help you to just shuffle it all back in.  Most likely if you have them in your discard you'll get your rits back and most likely a tutor to help pull off the rest of the combo that you need to get your opponent out.

Timetwiser's main function in the deck is the shuffle back your kill, not to draw 7 new cards. In fact, I worry about drawing a hand that doesn't do anything as much as giving my opponent a fresh 7. Unless my storm is already fairly large and I've got a lot of mana, chances are I'm not going to win that turn.

Now here's the problem. If I've got a hand with twist, its fairly likely that I tutored it up since my will is gone. If I've got the mana and spells to make it probable that I'm gonna win that turn, I problably would have been better off finding a tendrils or ancestral try to storm combo them out right there.

It basically got taken out for a draw 2 card.  I don't see how that draw two card will help you when your Will got Duressed, FoW'd, or Mana Drained.  Granted you can still go off when you don't have Will, but with it almost always turns into an automatic win.  It may be turning into play preference, but I always like that last ditch Reset button to have in games.

Your looking at DA all wrong. Its not a draw 2. It actually makes all your Intuitions a draw6. DA is one of my favorite cards to draw when in topdeck mode.

Learning to play without your will takes time in a deck that's built around it. Doing so will come with experience and practice.

[Dominik]

Just did an analysis of IT 2.0 compared to a random gifts list (SCGP9, 10th place- Tom LaPille), and thought I'd share:

Gifts Draw (Total: 6 + tutors/merchant scrolls)
1x Ancestral Recall
4x Brainstorm
1x Fact or Fiction

IT 2.0 Draw (pre-SB: 7, post-SB: 11)
1x Ancestral Recall
4x Brainstorm
2x Deep Analysis
Sideboard: 4x Dark Confidant
+Broken cards (Necropotence, Bargain)

Gifts Control (pre-SB: 8, post-SB: 11)
4x Force of Will
4x Mana Drain
Sideboard: 3x Duress

IT 2.0 Control (pre-SB: 10, post-SB: 13)
4x Duress
4x Force of Will
2x Mana Drain
Sideboard: 3x Cabal Therapy

After some testing, I have found that I really like the drains in this deck, as they help boost its consistency while providing a nice control package. It's just so much easier to play Intuition+Will, Bargain, or the Deep Anals to win when you can just use your extra drain mana. The Deep Anals make this deck less reliant on will, and that helps out a lot. IT 2.0 is very similar to gifts, however, it is more resilient to hate and more broken in terms of raw power (and it even runs around the same amount of control/protection). Eric's view on twister is very correct. I have always felt that it wasted a slot in the deck, and isn't usually needed, for the same reasons as posted above.

I'm currently testing 2x Cranial Extraction in my SB, because of its ability to randomly win against oath and other combo decks. It is very easy to cast, considering that IT runs the full set of SoLoMoxenPetalCrypt, as well as Rituals and Drains. The only possible problem with it would be if the Oath player already cast oath and is just waiting for orchard. I thought I'd just ask for some feedback about this SB choice. This is my current SB: 4x Confidant, 3x Therapy, 1x Tendrils, 1x Massacre, 2x Cranial Extraction, 1x Swamp, 2x Rebuild, 1x Echoing Truth. I took out a basic Island and the Hymn to Tourach because Hymn merely gives me a 2 for 1 over my opponent, whereas Extraction just wins on its own.

Thanks!