Coup de France invitation tournament 2nd with GAT/r + top 8 info&meta breakdown

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

-note: t8 info and meta breakdown are in one of my replies-

Ok, I just grabbed myself a shiny new Pearl (which subsequently turned into 300€ cash *g*) taking second in the CdF (Coup de France, a tournament you have to qualify for through your performance during the year before in french T1 tournaments for the 32 best performing players of the year. Thanks for qu'ing me, Gifts *g*).

No pretournament antics and stuff because, honestly, who cares what I had for breakfast. The Who's "Pinball Wizard" sets a great mood though!

I knew I'd soon be playing GAT when I read the restricted announcement. To tune the list I was going to play I reactivated old Gro-Master Maxim Barkmann (CAB member, one of the first players to port Supergro to T1, with whom I also collaborated to create Gifted, the shell Steve added the Merchant Scrolls to to create Meandeck Gifts. Suffice to say, our creations usually work out well ). The list I ended up with is rather different from Steve's and resembles the old GAT builds far more, with the main differences being no Street Wraith and more hardcounters.

CAB My Name Is Nobody

4 Dryad
1 Tog
5

4 Brainstorm
4 Gush
3 Merchant Scroll
2 Opt
13

1 Fastbond
1 Demonic
1 Vamp
1 Mystical
1 Will
1 Ancestral
1 Walk
1 Regrowth
8

1 Echoing Truth
1 Cunning Wish
2

4 FoW
2 MisD
4 Duress
2 Drain
2 Daze
14

1 Lotus
4 Mox
1 Island
1 Volcanic
3 Trop
3 Sea
5 Fetch
18


SB:
4 Leyline of the Void

1 Berserk

2 Oxidize
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Artifact Mutation
1 Energy Flux

1 Fire/Ice
1 Submerge
1 Smother
2 Pyroblast

On the MD differences to builds like Steve's or ELD's
:
I think hardcounters (aka Mana Drain) are really important to not loose your grip on the game once you reach the midgame. With only 4 real counters in FoW random decks will just rip bombs to beat you. They were really good.

Daze was there because I wanted to force even more turn 1 interaction against decks like Flash. In the end the meta was completely different from what I expected (no Ichorid -  a wise decision, pretty much everybody had at least 4 Leylines), no Flash (instead quite some KiTT, the french Tendrils-deck). Daze did suck and I'll most likely cut it from the deck.

Only on-color artifact mana + Lotus: 18 mana sources let you take full advantage of being Gro, I completely agree with ELD here. Even with only one more land I regularly got flooded and Petals don't return for Gush.

Opt over Street Wraith: Two and a half reasons: a) I didn't really have room for the full 4 Street Wraith and honestly didn't like the life-loss. There are ALWAYS random decks around. A single Opt digs for land as well as two Street Wraith. b) Again the land-flood problem. With Opt I have some control over what I cantrip into, with Wraith I don't. Cycling into more land when you have two already sucks. b+1/2) It's not blue, so I can't pitch the damn thing to FoW/MisD. Opt was really good for me all day. Oh, and before someone asks, I hate Sleight of Hand. Sorcery-speed *shudder*

Only 3 Merchant Scroll: A victim of space because I was expecting a lot of good combo -> lots of turn one disruption. This will be changed following Daze's demise.

Echoing Truth MD instead of SB: I agree with ELD on the issue of speed here. Sometimes you just need some cheap MD solution to fetch with Merchant Scroll.

Red: As I wanted to have hate for both Stax and Ichorid SB, REB became simply a necessity to save room. I also think Fire/Ice alone is nearly a reason to want to run red.

On the SB

REB's and Subermerge are still for the mirror, with REB also strengthening Flash, Control and Fish matchups.

Fire/Ice kills Welders and Xantid Swarms and can be fetched by Scroll. Mandatory once you run red, imo .

Smother is something I picked up from the GAT-lists of old and ran in place of the second Submerge because it's good in the mirror while still being active against random decks like Fish. 

Leylines: As I said, I expected Ichorid and Flash to be out in force. I ran Leyline over Crypt/Jailer/whatever because it doubles as turn 0 disruption against flash. Getting two turns is usually all you need to dismantle them with Duress/Counter-superiority.

Berserk: BLA!

The anti-stax package:
I ran so many anti-stax cards simply because it's pretty much the only matchup (aside from the obvious Ichorid) that I don't think is favorable MD. Boarding into 4 Seals and two "bombs" (Sacred Ground) in Super-Gro turned the Stax-matchup into a cake-walk in the old days, so that's what I intended to recreate, adjusted to the new colors/cards.

Oxidize simply because Chalice at two ruins you easily otherwise. The tempo-gain in itself is nice already. Even the old lists sometimes ran Crumble to have this effect.

Hurkyl's Recall: actually a staple in the classic GAT decks, I wanted something to Scroll up. Now, once I Scroll, there's no Chalice @ 2 so no need to run the expensive Rebuild.

1 Mutation & 1 Energy Flux: The "game-enders"  I split this 1/1 because of multiple reasons: a) I didn't want two red bombs because of the single-volcanic issue. Mutation also suffers from the Chalice 2 dilemma (->Energy Flux) b)Artifact Mutation is cheaper and can be found via Cunning Wish game one and gives you a bomb to Mystical for game 2&3. 

Well, so much for my reasoning. The report is rather QnD, with a few more detailed highlight games. As said, the meta was very different from what I expected and probably not very typical for the US at all with tons of Fish, some combo (UB GrimLong, Doomsday, KiTT) and some Bomberman but NO Flash and NO Ichorid (everybody planned to have at least 4 Leylines, Ichorid players wisely changed plans) only a single other GAT player and a single Gush-Tendrils deck as well as a few Stax/aggro workshop decks (MonoBrown is especially well-liked in France and is crazy-explosive with Workshops, Metalworkers, Ancient Tombs and City of Traitors). On to the games: 

Round 1 KiTT
Game 1 He Land Grants, so I know what to Force/when to Duress.
Game 2 See game 1. Without the information provided by Land Grand I'd have actually died here to Tendrils around turn 5 but could FoW his Cabal Ritual thanks to this and then rape his hand with Duress.
1:0 2:0


Round 2 UWb Vial-Fish
He doesn't run MisD (I found out in the Semifinals where I played him again). This Matchup is a joke, honestly.
Game 1 He gets me low on life but I Vamp for Tog, drop it and eat enough of my yard to kill his Jotün Grunt. His Jailer/MMage duo don't kill me and I win two turns later on 3 life thanks to double Gush. That card is so sick!
Game 2 Did I mention this matchuo is sooo easy?
2:0 4:0

Round 3 Bomberman
Game 1 I have a ridiculous hand with turn 1 Lotus, Scroll->Ancest, turn 2 Regrowth, turn 3 Will.
Game 2 This was crazy. He starts with Land, double Mox, Tinker, I Fow, he FoWs and gets DSC and has 1 card in hand. I have 3 of my 4 Moxen, Duress him  (his last card is/was Ancestral!!!) Brainstorm into Ancestral + Fetch and draw Will of Ancestral then have to say go. He attacks. I draw Time Walk. I Walk& drop a land, drop another Land and Will for Ancestral, BS and Walk and finally find Mystical Tutor. But I boarded out the Echoing Truth... Luckily have enough mana to run upkeep Mystical into Wish into Truth. Drawing three Moxes is some good. Type 1: There's always a better hand!
3:0 6:0

Round 4 UB GrimLong
Game 1 I don't find B-mana for my Duress's while he Duresses twice, getting my FoW, then plays Grim Tutor , Mox, Sol Ring, Lotus (one Mox in play already), sacs Lotus for UUU CoV, bounces all his artifacts to set up a huge Desire, replays Mox, Mox, Sol Ring and realizes he forgot to tap Sol Ring before bouncing it. Thanx man!
Game 2 I'm afraid of mana-issues and mulligan a hand with Tropical, Fow, Blue card, double-Duress,+ random stuff (top card was Sea, obv :/ ) all the way down to five with a MisD (I thought he'd be UBr with REBs so I kept them, but he wasn't). He turn 1 Ancestrals *woot* sadly, still no Force and he follows with Ritual Necro. I again don't find B-mana for my Duress. *sigh*
Game 3 I don'thave Duress, turn two he plays Ritual -> Demonic (I use my only FoW because of Desire, he still held 5 cards) he continues with Ritual, RItual, Cabl Ritual, Bargain. GG. Not that I'd have beaten Demonic->Desire or Demonic->Will. ouch.

Round 5 ControlSlaver (beat me in the finals)
he is 3:0:1 and I have 75% opponent score. We draw.

Quarterfinals Uwb Fish.
Game 1 He wastes my first land, I draw a fetch and get Gush online. He drops Null Rod, then topdecks Mox Pearl, Null Rod, Null Rod. I grow win with a huge Tog + Will after bouncing Null Rod with Truth eot.
Game 2 I mulligan to five to find mana. I nearly pull this out but get beaten up by Mindcesor + MMage one turn to fast.
Game 3 This is a timed top 8. After time-out, it's 5 extra-turns then sudden death mode. We new there wasn't much time left so I kept 2 Mox, land, Tog, Gush, Merchant Scroll, FoW and just drop Tog turn 1 and when he StPs it, I ask how much time is left. At this point time is called, so I force (with Gush). I topdeck Island, Scroll for Gush and attack my opponent to 12, dumping everything into Tog. Fish can't deal 8 in 2 turns without a creature already on the board, so I win. This was just sad, but at least I won.

Semifinals Uwb Vial-Fish (Round 2 opponent)
Game 1: I drop Dryad, he StPs it. I drop another and this time I MisD his StP to his Grunt. God this is such a nice matchup.
Game 2: I go crazy with Gush&Fastbond on turn 2. I actually dealt 17 damage to myself in the process.

Finals Control-Slaver
We both get a Mox, so we play it out for the crown, but I'm somewhat distracted.
Game 1: I loose to turn 2 Tinker + FoW backup for Titan that leads into Will two turns later.
Game 2: Turn 1 LoA on the draw while I have a very controling draw with Duress and stuff. LoA kills me, though I nearly manage to win with a Dryad underneath it (that was 1/1 for three turns...) when I Mystical up Time Walk with double counterbackup, but he finds his FoW as the last card of a Brainstorm.
I sell my Mox directly and help cleaning up some.

I don't remember when but in one of the games against Fish or Bomberman I kept a hand with only lotus for mana but an Opt and Brainstorm, ending up finding Fetch, Saphire, Ancestral in my Brainstorm...

Gush is soooooo sick. The metagame was pretty much pre-June with lots of Fish (obsoleted by GAT imo) so my anti-combo build and SB ran somewhat empty. I won't complain about the Mox, though. Who needs a SB when he has 4 Gush anyway

[breed]

Good report! Anyway, i have seen that there was a player with a Gush Tendrils deck, it had some succes too?

Gush rox!

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Add on: What I know about the t8 so far is that there was 1 Slaver (MD Duress), 1 GAT, 2 Fish, 1 Workshop-deck and some combo-deck, possibly my 4th round opponent. I think the Gush-Tendrils went 3:2.
Thanks to the solomoxen.com people, I have some better information (T8 decklists on Solomoxen.com) :

quarterfinals:
grim long vs kiTT ->  grim
stacker vs fish -> fish
fish vs GAT -> GAT
bomberman vs control-slaver -> control-slaver

semifinals:
grim vs controle slav er -->controle slaver
GAT vs fish --> GAT

finals:
GATvs control-slaver -> Slaver

nearly just copy/paste:

7 control
  2 slaver
  2 ki.merchant (the Merchant-Scroll-TfK-Gifts control deck a lot of Frenchies played before instead of Gifts, for whatever reason)
  3 bomberman

5 fish
   3 fish Ubw
   2 UB sulivan solution

4 shop aggro
  1 ravager combo
  3 black ravager

2 GaT

1 controle combo one of those "easy storm" (no I don't what that is either)

8 tendrils combo
  2 grim long
  1 "-2.deck" ( no idea here either)
  3 Ki.TT
  1 doomsday
  1 gush tendrils

3 stax dont:
  1 RUbaStax
  2 MUD

[Akuma]

Congratulations on your performance. I agree with taking GAT in this direction. Stealing Team CAB lists is so tech

[zeus-online]

CAB My Name Is Nobody

4 Dryad
1 Tog
5

4 Brainstorm
4 Gush
3 Merchant Scroll
2 Opt
13

1 Fastbond
1 Demonic
1 Vamp
1 Mystical
1 Will
1 Ancestral
1 Walk
1 Regrowth
8

1 Echoing Truth
1 Cunning Wish
2

4 FoW
2 MisD
4 Duress
2 Drain
2 Daze
14

1 Lotus
4 Mox
1 Island
1 Volcanic
3 Trop
3 Sea
5 Fetch
18


SB:
4 Leyline of the Void

1 Berserk

2 Oxidize
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Artifact Mutation
1 Energy Flux

1 Fire/Ice
1 Submerge
1 Smother
2 Pyroblast

About your list...i think 4 merchant scrolls is an absolute must, it's definetly better then opt.
I used smother for a while aswell, until i ran into auriok salvagers and smother was unable to remove him, so i've switched to diabolic edict which does just about the same thing, since it's pretty rare in T1 to run into multiple creatures.
I think you should switch to 1 Pyro/1 REB instead of 2 pyro's, i know it might seem like it dosn't matter, but...there's always a small chance that it will.

How come you're running 4 leylines instead of something like 3 jailers and 2 crypts? You said you ran it to get more turn 0 disruption, but i feel that it just weakens your deck too much to run 4 dead cards.

oh yeah, and Grats

/Zeus

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Thanks for the props

@zeus: Scroll is great and yes, the 4th one wil be in the deck. But definitly not in the place of Opt. Scroll doesn't dig for my second land, so it can't take Opts place. Luckily without the Dazes I'll have room

As for Leyline, well Jailer + Crypt is really only for Ichorid while Leyline also hit's Flash - I always prefer multiple-purpose SB cards. As for the dead card issue, I pretty much have to mulligan into some kind of GY-hate against Ichorid anyway and against Flash the two Dryads I SB out at least are "dead", too, so not much of a change in dead card count. Once the GY-hate is in play against Ichorid, I could honestly care less if the rest is dead. Extra Jailers/Crypts are pretty much as dead. It's not like I'll be winning with a 2/1 in this deck. Well, that's pretty much my reasoning at least. That said, the last SB card I cut was a single Tormod's Crypt (planned to allow for an easy to cast Tutor-target in case I have a great hand without GY-hate against Ichorid). When it looked like everybody was going to have 4 Leyline, I decided Ichorid would be rare enough after the first rounds to at least go down to Leyline only.

Edict definitly is an option in place of Smother, I took Smother simply because a)it's harder to Misdirect and b) it will kill the Big Dryad, not the little brother, the Bob not the Kataki, etc. I think I undervalue Bomberman in comparison to North american players because the few times I played against it with Gifts (and now GAT) I usually won rather easily. It's a deck I think is cool but which I wouldn't play - not enough inherent brokeness. In the worst case I can just play multiple Dryads before going Will-crazy or Truth the Salvagers. Still, Edict is definitly a good choice, too.

[The Atog Lord]

Thanks for the report. I'm always glad to see new CAB lists, and this is no exception. I also had a couple of questions if you don't mind.

Is the lack of Imperial Seal in your list because of not having the card, or because you don't think it is worth including? Seal helps the deck to find the required combo pieces, but adds to the cards in the deck which cost life, don't pitch to Force, cost you a card, and are bad against Aven Mindcensor.

Aven Mindcensor sees a lot of play here in New England. He's really powerful against this deck, and Bomberman can use him to just shut GAT down. Moreover, the usual solution to such cards, that of just tutoring up a solution, doesn't work very well against him. Have you found him to be a problem in your testing?

As for the Bomberman matchup, when I played GAT at Myriad Games using ELD's list, Bomberman beat me twice in the Swiss rounds. It's a much more powerful deck than I first realized.

And, my final question is, of course, about the Control Slaver deck that won. I'd love to know if it was a typical list, or if it had anything for the new metagame.

Thanks.

[zeus-online]

I'm not american, it's just that in my testing bomberman was hardly a "good" match-up, roughly 50/50, although with a little practice my win percent went up by alot.
T. Crypt is slightly better against flash then Leyline imo, since they both do the same harm, and require the same answer, while one has to be in your opener while the other one can be searched for or drawn. Jailer is strictly anti-Ichorid though.

Smother can be misdirected to any gro-creature anyways, so i think edict is all-over slightly better - It even deals with artifact creatures (Juggernaut, Triskelion, Sundering titan, DSC, Platinum angel)...Although smother is definetly better vs. fish.

I know this question was not directed at me, but here's my take on imperial seal in GAT: I started out with imperial seal in my GAT deck, but quickly found out that it was rather weak and unnecessary, although in theori its really great. Thing is: There's really no need for it, most victories comes without fastbond and will in my experience.

/Zeus

[astre]

list of this event t8

http://www.solomoxen.com/?page=7&id=105

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Thanks for the report. I'm always glad to see new CAB lists, and this is no exception. I also had a couple of questions if you don't mind.

Happy we're still popular *g*. And no, I don't mind at all

On to the questions:

Imperial Seal: I do have one, I just don't think it makes the cut. First and foremost, I don't see this as a combo-deck. It just happens to randomly win out of nowhere once in a while. I play GAT pretty much like a control deck if I have choices to make. Most of my Dryads come down rather late in the game (obviously I'll use leftover mana early to drop one, though) and the creatures are usually the first cards aside from land I reshuffle with Brainstorm. I also very rarely protect my threats (the complete contrary of what Steve used to cite as GAT's playstyle. I just assume I'll find another and I'm happy they wasted resources on dealing with something of such a low priority (this obviously changes somewhat once they'll die to it next turn, though. And even then I usually will just let them kill it if they might have a strong follow-up play I can stop instead). I assimilated that playstyle from Maxim back in 2003 who would always be telling me I was playing far to aggressively with SuperGro. The funny thing is that even though you always are in a mana-disadvantage, the deck is incredible at taking the control-role. 
Actually, I very rarely tutor up fastbond any more, pretty much only when I already have two Gush/Scroll in hand and a counter. Most of my wins have come from just chaining Gushes and Cantrips (and early Scroll-Ancest), rarely from the actual combo-kill of GushBond (or it turned up when I was too far ahead to ever loose anyway and 'bond just ended it on the spot).
Most of the time my gameplan is:
1) get counter-advantage on my opponent - I literally just stockpile any kind of disruption I can find
2) drop a Dryad without sacrificing defense (e.g. I usually don't drop Dryad before I can also keep Drain open or have Duressed already, even with FoW in hand). I cast pretty much everything I can before Dryad and usually Gush without having played the Dryad in my hand floating mana, hoping to draw into cantrips, Scrolls or Duress.
3) just make the fortress even stronger while Dryad grows incidentely

or alternatively step 2) changes when I draw into Will or Fastbond
2) combo out now and hope to find a Dryad/Tog in the middle of it

My points against Seal:
- The main thing is that I hate its sorcery speed (tutoring eot is so much better as you know what to react to - i guess you know that, though ), especially because I regularly tutor during my upkeep, having tapped out for Cantrips the eot before. Not to mention I like to keep mana open, same reason I dislike Sleight.

- most of my tutors go for Ancest or Gush (ok, sometimes Will) and getting them into my hand is somewhat better Actually I have been contemplating running Demonic Consultation and I'd easily play it before I play I.Seal. 

- black cards don't pitch, that sucks

- I'm not convinced I'd even run a second Vampiric if I could, the deck simply has an easy enough time finding what it's searching for thanks to all the draw and the Scrolls, so I don't want to run a weaker version of it. Top-of-library tutors slow down the natural flow of the deck. I think Cantrips are just stronger than more of them. Actually, if it wasn't for M. Scroll, I wouldn't even be running Mystical, but the Tutor-chain is just to powerful. Vampiric stays because two ways to get fastbond and Tog seem about right.

I haven't been testing against Mindcensor much, to be honest, but the Fish I played against in the Quarterfinals had it. My experience was not that of being "shut down" by it (it got into play during both real games), though it was annoying (The mulligan to five I lost was in part due to the Mindcensor on the table, as I could otherwise have scrolled up F/I to kill said Mindcensor which was beating me down). My basic experience so far was that Mindcensor after turn two (when you have fetched for your primary mana already) is usually compensated for by the cantrip-engine (especially Brainstorming things on top of your library and then fetching/tutoring for them to get the shuffle and definite C.A.), as I said I was one turn from stabilizing when I died even in the mull to 5 game. As I said, this is more from the way it felt than conclusive playtesting. But the idea of actually being shut down by it seems somewhat out of proportion to me.

I might very well be undervaluing Bomberman, my main impression is from seeing Carl Devos playing it at Clichy's all the time plus a few random matches I played against it with Gifts and now GAT. It just never impressed me and Carl was successful with it exactly once. I would presume, though, that ELD's list is weaker against a deck like Bomberman because he's not running Mana Drain (if I remember correctly). The missing hardcounters really hurt against control once you reach the midgame because you don't get to Duress their bombs any more, just their counters. GAT topdecks better than other decks, but as long as those topdecks don't counter Will/Salvager/Tinker/etc you're still gonna loose once they draw their one threat after those lands you don't play.

As for the ControlSlaver list, it was fairly typical for european standards, I think. Afaik most of the few CS players here run MD Merchant Scrolls (=more possible FoW and Mystical->Tinker). The one big thing were MD Duress, which the player told me were really strong all day. Well, there's a link for the lists further up if you want to see the exact list

Smother&MisD: Yes, but as long as I don't have a creature, it at least always kills one of my opponents creatures. Edict doesn't necessarily kill anything. The examples with the multiple creatures were not meant in MisD-context but just to illustrate how much better Smother is when the opponent has multiple creatures. Most of the time, you only care about one of them anyway, so Edict is useless. As for the artifact-creatures, against decks running those I honestly have enough removal thanks to the anti-stax package.

Crypt vs Leyline: Crypt doesn't come down before their turn 1 on the draw, which is pretty much the only reason I'm so attracted by Leylines. They really force the turn 1&2 interaction and are something else to mulligan into on the draw. I'm honestly a lot less worried about on the play games, simply thanks to Duress. Crypt also and doesn't protect me from random SB-swaps into the Sliver-kill. As I said I'd like one crypt to tutor up, but not maxing Leylines seems somewhat suboptimal once you run them at all. And I still stand firm in the believe that running cards solely against Ichorid is just wrong (Jailer).

[turqoisehex]

1) get counter-advantage on my opponent - I literally just stockpile any kind of disruption I can find
2) drop a Dryad without sacrificing defense (e.g. I usually don't drop Dryad before I can also keep Drain open or have Duressed already, even with FoW in hand). I cast pretty much everything I can before Dryad and usually Gush without having played the Dryad in my hand floating mana, hoping to draw into cantrips, Scrolls or Duress.
3) just make the fortress even stronger while Dryad grows incidentally
or alternatively step 2) changes when I draw into Will or Fastbond
2) combo out now and hope to find a Dryad/Tog in the middle of it

This is a really different and interesting way of playing the deck (compared to how most people I know play it) and obviously worked for you. Has anyone else tried playing it this way? Has it worked for you? I can see how your MB has been molded to better fit the control role, I'd definitely like to learn more about this. Grats on the great finish. What was the total # of players?

EDIT: Also, what would you remove for daze? What do you think of +1 Drain +1 Scroll?

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

On the playstyle, it's obviously not dgmatically like that. If I don't have anything else to do, I'll drop a Dryad turn 2. And the playstyle presumes you don't play against aggro (no counters)/stax. Against those decks aggression is key. Stax often just has to many things you need to stop to try to be truely control (pre SB, post SB with all the removal this changes a lot) and against aggro it's better to just play combo. You already have counter-advantage
This playstyle originates with Maxim in 2003 and he rarely ever lost a match with Gro at the time, so I guess, yes, it works

30 players, invitation tournament for the 32 best french players from the 2006 season (well players in france, as i'm not french).

As for Daze replacements, Merchant Scroll is a given, not sure yet for the other slot. Drain, Opt, F/I, Consultation or LoA are all still on the shortlist. Heck I even wonder if I should play Foil because of combo...

[Grand Inquisitor]

Has anyone else tried playing it this way?

I used to play a lot of GAT both before and after Gush's restriction (yeah, it was actually even good with only a single gush).  My playstyle was similar to Mon's's, where I'd use cheap card advantage early and good disruption to push through ancestral.  If I had dryad but no drain, I'd drop it as bait.  The real kill was Yawgwill.

[The Atog Lord]

Mon, thanks for the insights. I'm going to try playing GAT as you describe and see how the results are.

I had a few ideas about the build. First, I've loved Library in GAT. Everyone knows that I think Library is one of the most powerful cards Wizards has printed, but it gets even better when paired with Gush. It might be better than Ruby in your build.

Another thought is that, with the number of decks using full power, would Null Rod be a valid option? It stops a number of decks from functioning -- though of course, this is a metagame call.

Finally, I'd probably try boarding a second Volcanic Island. Your red spells are especially crucial against those decks which can destroy your Volcanic Island, and Gush isn't always there to save it. Moreover, going to 19 mana sources against Stax sounds fun.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Mon, thanks for the insights. I'm going to try playing GAT as you describe and see how the results are.

I had a few ideas about the build. First, I've loved Library in GAT. Everyone knows that I think Library is one of the most powerful cards Wizards has printed, but it gets even better when paired with Gush. It might be better than Ruby in your build.

Another thought is that, with the number of decks using full power, would Null Rod be a valid option? It stops a number of decks from functioning -- though of course, this is a metagame call.

Finally, I'd probably try boarding a second Volcanic Island. Your red spells are especially crucial against those decks which can destroy your Volcanic Island, and Gush isn't always there to save it. Moreover, going to 19 mana sources against Stax sounds fun.

You're welcome!
As for LoA, in some matchups it's insane (especially the mirror) and in some often utterly useless (Stax and true combo). I actually had it in one of the Daze slots for quite some time. And in the SB for the mirror. It just got cut due to space-considerations. I prefer having the ruby as another stable colored source for the splash-color MD though. Considering 3C GAT does run only three moxen, that would be definitly a defensible choice though.

I dislike the idea of running Null Rod (MD, it's a great tool to SB against long-style combo). The main thing I dislike about it is that it's not inherently powerful (as in letting you do broken things) and you have to tap down on your own turn to play it - like Dryads I won't like playing it on my turn. It also has bad synergie with the crazy turns you can pull with this deck when you Gush into artifact mana. In contrast to Fish which is pretty much unaffected by it, you actually lose some power to your own Null Rod in GAT as you abuse true powercards, and Null Rod shuts this ability off, somewhat. This is especially annoying as you neuter your own Will as long as you haven't found Fastbond. Fish is always the weak deck forcing others to play on its field. GAT doesn't need to, it's at least as strong as pretty much anything else. I'd still be interested in any results you have should you test it, maybe my assesment is wrong. You very definitly function quite decently under Null Rod as I realized against Fish. It's just that I don't like playing cards I find annoying me already when my opponent invests into them.

/edit: The more I think about Null Rod, though, the more I like the idea. Pretty much the only way opposing control- or combo-decks can even win against you is high-acceleration draws (barring LoA). I any other situation you usually outpower them easily because of your smaller mana-needs. Now with Null Rod in play, they can't do this. I think Null Rod might be a great SB card for GAT (especially 3color) not only against Long-style combo but also against control like Slaver or Bomberman. I think I might not think highly enough of Null Rod itself because it was always backed by weak cards when I played against it so that it never was too hard winning even cripled. If GAT makes the opponent crawl, though, it should be a slugfest. Props for great outside the box thinking!

The SB Volcanic sounds like a solid idea against Stax, especially if you plan on addig red cards to the sb. Finding room for it should be tough, though. You might just want to try running a manabase of

2 Trop
2 Volc
3 Sea
5 Fetch
1 Island

in the MD already.

PS: Thanks for realizing it's "Mon" without the "s" *grin*

PPS: Thinking about the phrase "19 manasources against Stax sounds fun" in the abstract sure seems ridiculous

[Purple Hat]

I haven't been testing against Mindcensor much, to be honest, but the Fish I played against in the Quarterfinals had it. My experience was not that of being "shut down" by it (it got into play during both real games), though it was annoying (The mulligan to five I lost was in part due to the Mindcensor on the table, as I could otherwise have scrolled up F/I to kill said Mindcensor which was beating me down). My basic experience so far was that Mindcensor after turn two (when you have fetched for your primary mana already) is usually compensated for by the cantrip-engine (especially Brainstorming things on top of your library and then fetching/tutoring for them to get the shuffle and definite C.A.), as I said I was one turn from stabilizing when I died even in the mull to 5 game. As I said, this is more from the way it felt than conclusive playtesting. But the idea of actually being shut down by it seems somewhat out of proportion to me.

how does scrolling up F/I to kill mindcensor work?  you run 1 copy of fire ice.  with mindcensor in play scroll is a sorcery speed impulse.  if you find it, sure it wins, but odds are you don't.  if I know I'm playing against mindcensor I'm tempted to go get f/i before anything else just to prevent it from sticking. 

[DuKeLiO]

What about Ancient Grudge like anti-stax sideboad option? I believe the RG cost of Artifact Mutation can be very painful, also with Grudge you can destroy 2 artifacts, sure, I will not have some 1/1s but the real painful artifacts are Chalice of the Void and Sphere of Resistance.
About Daze, I tryed you exact list yesterday and I saw it OK. I believe the Daze are a very good card against a lot of combo and control combo decks. Also in the mirror I see it very useful beacuse the GroATog Efficiency.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

I haven't been testing against Mindcensor much, to be honest, but the Fish I played against in the Quarterfinals had it. My experience was not that of being "shut down" by it (it got into play during both real games), though it was annoying (The mulligan to five I lost was in part due to the Mindcensor on the table, as I could otherwise have scrolled up F/I to kill said Mindcensor which was beating me down). My basic experience so far was that Mindcensor after turn two (when you have fetched for your primary mana already) is usually compensated for by the cantrip-engine (especially Brainstorming things on top of your library and then fetching/tutoring for them to get the shuffle and definite C.A.), as I said I was one turn from stabilizing when I died even in the mull to 5 game. As I said, this is more from the way it felt than conclusive playtesting. But the idea of actually being shut down by it seems somewhat out of proportion to me.

how does scrolling up F/I to kill mindcensor work?  you run 1 copy of fire ice.  with mindcensor in play scroll is a sorcery speed impulse.  if you find it, sure it wins, but odds are you don't.  if I know I'm playing against mindcensor I'm tempted to go get f/i before anything else just to prevent it from sticking. 

That's why I said OTHERWISE I could have scrolled it up.

Ancient Grudge: I thought about this, too, as a suitable replacement for Mutation. I won't run both because of Chalice and the red mana issue, though. Considering how late I'll usually find the singleton, I'm actually more afraid of Smokestack/Crucible than of the Sphere's, though. If they don't really lock you once you can cast 2 mana spells, the game will be hard on them. That being said, only testing will tell which is really better in the long run and I haven't done enough testing yet to have a final opinion. I definitly wouldn't fault anyone for using Grudge over Mutation.

Maybe I was just unlucky, but the combo-decks almost always had leftover mana when I had Daze, which is why they felt so crappy. It still is a very good card if you expect a ton of fast combo (especially the mana light Flash), which i why I ran it. There just seems to be far less combo around than I actually expected.
A good combo-control player should usually take the time to set up around it.Those decks run enough mana to compensate for a mini-2Sphere that only effects their last spell. In the mirror, leaving up one mana is usually not that hard and is only a minor setback, as the decks manaflow is surprisingly fast in my experience, if there's no manadenial involved.
You will catch someone with Daze exactly one time a match usually (if you don't warn them by pitching it somewhen earlier) and if you have a dead Daze in your hand at that point, it makes up for an opponent playing on a slightly slower than usual rate. If they screw up and go all out aggro on you, Daze is great, but you should be able to win in that case regardless, letting them fight over Dryads while you just draw cards and find Tog/a faster-growing Dryad. That said, in a metagame geared all towards winning turn 1-2 Daze is still a great card.
Basically what I'm saying is that against anything but turn 1/2 combo, other cards (like Scroll no4) are far more likely to win you the match than Daze.

[DuKeLiO]

Yesterday I played a lot of games with the deck against a Tyrant Oath-deck and some games Daze was and absolute crap and some were gold. Some games my oponent locked himself with his Chalice of the void and my Dazes, but when he draws some moxen they were crap. Tyrant Oath also plays a some light manabase, so maybe when facing another control-combo decks like Intuitive-Gifts or Slaver the card will be little useful. On this matchup I also wanted some form of enchantment removal, but I think that it only matters against Oath, or maybe 5color Stax with his In the Eye of Chaos o Choke.
I really like the controlish style of the deck and playing it slowly, going for the card advantage and the board position seems very powerful. I like it a lot. Really the cards I dislike more in the deck are the critters. Possibly I will try it without Dryads to see how it damages the deck or not, but I'm not sure which win condition use instead (maybe the two Psychatog? I don't know).

[wierdmtg13]

the dryads are the stone cold nuts in the deck.  They get huge my you just playing your game by drawing, searching, and countering opponents spells.  It is always a threat to an opponent becuase if they dont deal with it, eventualy it will smash through all defenses and win.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

@Dukelio: That pretty much sums up my general experience with Daze and a card that is this situational is simply not good enough in my book for a deck with as much raw power as GAT. If Flash becomes as big as I feared before the tournament, I'll remember it, though

On Dryads: Dryads are surely not "the stone cold nuts" against most decks, actually they're by far the weakest card to have in your starting 7 in most matchups. But they're the best finisher available imo and cutting them would be a mistake. First and foremost, they don't require you to take care of them at all, they just get big as wierdmtg13 stated. This is such a huge issue in this deck, it's hard to stress enough. Even Tog requires that you feed him. (historical argument: the Meandeckers' first HulkSmash lists in 2003 appeared during GAT time and the deck was just worse than GAT with four Gush).

Some points against the no-Dryad version of GAT:

a) One of the biggest problems with the Tog-list is that you weaken yourself so much in the quasi mirror of GAT. The only way to win is usually (barring nutty draws) to take the game long and setting up Will (or a Tog with 20+ cards already in the GY). If you want to take the game this long, though, suddenly every early to mid-game Dryad the other player presents is a lethal threat as it will get time to swing. It usually grows fast enough to be hard to contain with Tog (if your 'yard isn't huge yet, you usually will have to discard stuff to Tog, not to mention you otherwise neuter your Will which you're basically playing to set up for the win) so you better take care of it aka counter it. But if you do so, you spend counterspells on something the GAT-player doesn't care about at all*, which suddenly makes Dryad a great card for them. The whole matchup is usually a long jockeying for position to get your own draw-spells to resolve while stopping the opponents, ending in you going nuts. This makes Counterspells into one of the two most relevant resources you can have, possibly the single most important one (if you have only draw, the opponent out-tempos you with his carddraw while countering yours, which ends in him going nuts first).

*I see the paradoxon between "lethal threat" and "doesn't care at all". If it's such a lethal threat, why shouldn't he care? The reason lies hidden in what makes Dryad this great in the first place. You don't have to care about it and it still gets huge. Dryad is good exactly because you don't have to take care of it at all. Once you start wasting your counters protecting it, it looses almost all its appeal. Instead remember that there are more where that one came from and keep jokeying for CA.

b) Dryad is what allows this deck to suddenly change gears and throw the opponent of. If you feel your control of the game threatens to slip from your hands soon, an in-play Dryad will pose a completely different angle of attack the opponent now also has to defend against (or at least sets a time-limit for him to punch through your control). Considering you often spend pretty much all your hand defending yourself, Tog can't fill this roll well. Similarly, against other aggro-control decks, Dryad allows you to change the field of battle radically when appropriate. If they draw into all of their anti-control elements or you realize they SBed into their configuration to beat control - which you usually seem to be in the first game - you can randomly decide to be a turbo-dryad beatdown deck instead, outclassing all their creatures, countering their few removal-spells (remember, they've boarded into an anti-control-deck for our example) and making Bob a liability. Without the Dryads, they can safely remove all their creature-removal presenting them with a far easier target.

c) This change of gears happens during many games once you have achieved counter-superiority due to your carddraw focussed early game, by the way. Once again, you often don't have enough cards in hand to kill in a turn or two with Tog (if you didn't go crazy, at which point you can either easily find your single Tog or don't care what exactly you win with). More importantly, though, Tog will often demand you to give up your counter-superiority for winning now. If the opponent topdecked well (bounce + counter, for example), this could very well cost you the game - which you don't want to risk, further slowing down little Toggy. Once you have counter-superiority, you tend to chain tons of cantrips, Gush and Merchant Scrolls anyway, though, so Dryad usually becomes lethal as fast as Tog without forcing you to open up your defenses. If your opponent than tries to break out, the counters you play actually increase your damage-potential while Tog's would be decreased.
As a corollary, you sometimes stall out - somewhat - during the game for a few turns, getting into a topdecking war. If Dryad was already in play because you had an easy opportunity to drop it, it might just be enough now to smash with it a few times while your also exhausted opponent scrambles to both draw out faster and solve the Dryad before it kills him.

d) With certain draws or matchups, the ability to just throw out a Dryad turn 1/2 and forcing the opponent to deal with that while both of you jockey for CA is invaluable. Most non-combo Type 1 decks are not set up to fight huge creature threats out of a deck that plays control as well as they do, giving you a huge edge.

e) One of the most frightening things about playing against GAT is the fact that you can never be sure what you are up against. It is the only true aggro-combo-control hybrid deck (I don't count Bomberman because it tends to play horrible if it's truely played in combo-deck-mode and the aggro-side of the aggro-control package isn't very good, consisting of 2/x beatdown. Bomberman is a control-deck that manages to mimic combo or aggro-control in an acceptable way. It usually still wins as a control-deck). When you evaluate your hand against GAT, you are never sure what you really need. Will GAT have the control-draw (your hand should be stable mana, carddrawing you can cast turn 2-3 and a mana drain)? Will it have the aggro draw (you better have some kind of actual business plus a way to protect it or redundant business in hand, otherwise Dryad is gonna eat you alive while they trade pitch-counters and Duress for your carddrawing)? Or do you need the Force of Will because they have drawn the dreaded turn 1 Fastbond and go combo on you (most games that start with a natural Fastbond and Gush on turn 1 end effectively on turn 2)? This triplicity makes it incredibly hard to evaluate your starting hand against GAT. Just imagine the control-draw (that has a good chance of beating a GAT control-hand) against a turn 1 Dryad draw with active FoW and a Gush in hand (yes, if you don't have anything better to do turn 1/2 you do drop a Dryad, "standard"-playstyle be damned. Also never forget that, if you Duress a hand that you probably won't be able to out-control because it is full of card-drawing, shifting into aggro-mode to make the game about tempo not CA can be a great plan).
Against a normal deck, you know what to mulligan for (combo = FoW and Duress, control see above). Against GAT and its Dryads, a mulligan into the wrong kind of hand depending solely on what type of draw GAT has this time is the same thing as a loss. These freebie games for GAT add up in the long run.

And this incertitude influences not only your mulligan-decisions but also your correct line of play in the early game. Imagine a servicable hand where you can Scroll on turn 1 without FoW in hand. Against combo you'd obviously go for a FoW here. Against GAT? FoW might be a horrible choice because they have a pure control-draw where Mana Drain or Ancestral would have been the order of the day and FoWs two for one nature might cost you dearly. But if they have the Fastbond + Gush and Scroll, you might as well be dead if you don't take FoW.
Or imagine GAT starts with turn 1 Fastbond while you have FoW. If they have the necessary Gushes to go crazy, not countering it will kill you, so you have to stop it. But if their draw is actually control heavy with lots of cantrips, a counter and maybe a Merchant Scroll but no Gush, you just gave them a free 2 for 1 that included one of the most important cards in the control-fight that will now follow, a counter (If I have a turn 1 Fastbond, I'll almost always play it ASAP. I'll only defend it if my hand actually allows me to go crazy on the spot. Otherwise I either have a nice 2 for 1 or I'm all set to go crazy later on at no cost).
And once you start thinking about SBing, this gets even more insane. Do you SB creature-removal in (against aggressive Dryad-draws)? Do you SB it out (because they're dead in the control fights and the dead draw is what might allow them to draw away in the CA fight)? Do you bring in (or keep) Tormod's Crypt because GAT's Will can become lethal so incredibly fast - again depending on their draw? The correct SBing strategy will be a balancing act between multiple contradictory elements and if you draw SB-cards that don't match the kind of draw GAT has, you might as well have boarded blanks, being actually weaker due to having SBed.
The problem is that you have no way to actually know what the right play (or deck-configuration) is in these situations before you actually play the game out and you might end up giving them the win by deciding wrongly. That is the reason why Duress is probably the best (non-broken) turn 1 play against GAT. It defends against all three strategies and, most importantly, it shows you what their gameplan will be this game and what is actually worth fighting about (note that GATs plan might change at a moments notice just because their cantrips dug them into a different plan, though).

Now, if you cut the Dryads it's pretty clear that almost all games (those without natural turn 1 Fastbonds) will end up being battles for card-advantage ending through a resolved Will or Fastbond, so the opponent pretty much knows what to do, what to mulligan for and how to SB. The few games you win because you don't have a useless Dryad early will never make up for all the games you would win because your opponent didn't figure out fast enough what this special game was about.

I think Flores put it as "presenting a bag of oranges" to your opponents hate/angle of attack in context with metagaming and transformational SBing lately. The beauty of GAT is that it doesn't need any fancy SB or metagaming for this but can always randomly do this simply through being three decks in one: An insane control deck with a possible combo endgame in Will/Fastbond, a great aggro-control deck with creatures that outclass any creatures the actual aggro-decks run and a good, if limited (because of the early Fastbond-bottle neck), combo-deck.
 
All that being said, I still wish Dryad would cost UG instead of 1G so that I could dump them into Force during the early game when I'm following standard procedure in total CA mode.