Gravestorm Aggro

[MaximumCDawg]

In my continuing efforts to make Bitter Ordeal playable, I happened upon the following cute synergies:

Cosi's Trickster + Bitter Ordeal (bitter makes one shuffle effect per gravestorm, pumping trickster)
Cosi's Trickster + Stifle (both discourage fetchlands)
Vinelasher Kudza + Bitter Ordeal (both love to see fetches and crop rotation)
Tombstalker + Bitter Ordeal (both love to send lots of cards to the yard)

So, in that vein, here's something I came up with.  It's a BUG fish build that gives up disruption for raw aggro.  (This is probably a bad move.)  It is unpowered for now, since I play in a sanctioned meta:

Gravestorm Aggro

Creatures (9)
4 Cosi’s Trickster
3 Vinelasher Kudzu
2 Tombstalker

Disruption (21)
1 Darkblast
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize
3 Spell Pierce
2 Stifle
3 Nature’s Claim
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Other Spells (11)
3 Bitter Ordeal
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Brainstorm
2 Crop Rotation
1 Living Wish
1 Life from the Loam
1 Fastbond

Mana (19)
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Kamigawa blue bouncy land.  You know the one.
1 Bojuku Bog
1 Lotus Petal

Sideboard
(Wishboard)
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
1 Maze of Ith
(Anti-Aggro, Tinker)
2 Diabolic Edict
(Anti-Storm)
2 Mindbreak Trap
(Anti-Oath)
2 Reverent Silence
(Anti-Dredge)
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Ylixid Jailer

The idea here is to slow down the opponent by punishing fetchlands, use the blue permission suite to stay in the game, then use one of the many interactions in the deck to take control or win early.  Some interactions include:

Fastbond+Bouncyland+Kudzu = infinite p/t
LftL+Strip = recurring ld
Stifle+Living Wish = go get a dreadnought
Bitter Ordeal with GS at 2 = potentially gg against tezz, oath, or storm if it resolves.

Other than that, alot of other cards just compliment each other.  Yes, Null Rod is probably a consideration.  Yes, this list probably rolls over to MUD.  I fully admit that the aggro plan is probably not ideal, but the interactions are so cute I'm interested to see if something can be built here. 

[Delha]

How often would you expect Kudzu to be bigger than Goyf in the same gamestate? Not being facetious here, I'm honestly curious. Even if it's just an even split on which would be bigger at a given point, dodging collateral damage from dredge hate makes it potentially attractive, not to mention the price tag.

[AmbivalentDuck]

At a glance, Cosi's Trickster seems terrible.  Do you have a compelling reason not to run Hexmage-Depths?  It seems like you can trivially support it, and it increases the power of Living Wish dramatically.

[MaximumCDawg]

How often would you expect Kudzu to be bigger than Goyf in the same gamestate? Not being facetious here, I'm honestly curious. Even if it's just an even split on which would be bigger at a given point, dodging collateral damage from dredge hate makes it potentially attractive, not to mention the price tag.

Connelly (and a friend of his) ran a Noble Fish deck with a Kudzu - Crop Rotation sub theme right after rotation got off the restricted list at a proxy tournament I went to.  Kudzu was typically a reliable 3/3 growing to absurd proportions in a few turns.  So, my sense is that he's smaller than Goyf initially, but ends up much larger if he sticks around for three or four turns.  Plus, he has the potential to go infinite that Goyf does not have.

At a glance, Cosi's Trickster seems terrible.  Do you have a compelling reason not to run Hexmage-Depths?  It seems like you can trivially support it, and it increases the power of Living Wish dramatically.

That might well be true.  But no one (including me) has played much with Cosi yet, so I'm not sure we really have a sense about her.  Does her presence interfere with an opponents development vis-a-vis discouraging fetchlands?  For combo, probably not, but Fish builds may have trouble if she grows to 3/3.  And she comes down turn 1 without power, which is critical if you're aiming for fetchlands.  And, finally, she interacts strongly with Bitter Ordeal.  Is she good enough?  No idea, probably not, but I'd like to work up a list and try it out to see.

As for Hexmage-Depths; yes, one could run BUG Dark Times, which is interesting.  Crop Rotation and Wish get good.  But, that'd require at least four to six more slots in the main and SB, so you'd probably have to abandon alot of the other tricks in the suggested list.  Not that that's bad; just would be more like Dark Times and less like something new.

[AmbivalentDuck]

I was thinking of more black tutoring, the green tutoring you mentioned, and only 1 Depths main.  You'd pull 4x Cosi's for Hexmage and 2x Tombstalker for Depths and Living Wish.  I'd definitely say Demonic >> Mystical since you don't have Ancestral in there.

Also, Gilded Drake/Sower could be huge in the WIshboard.

Edit: And don't forget that Hexmage can kill an arbitrarily large Quirion Dryad.

[MaximumCDawg]

I was thinking of more black tutoring, the green tutoring you mentioned, and only 1 Depths main.  You'd pull 4x Cosi's for Hexmage and 2x Tombstalker for Depths and Living Wish.  I'd definitely say Demonic >> Mystical since you don't have Ancestral in there.

Also, Gilded Drake/Sower could be huge in the WIshboard.

Edit: And don't forget that Hexmage can kill an arbitrarily large Quirion Dryad.

Something like this?  I made some of your suggested changes, but they lowered the blue count so much that I replaced the Thoughtseizes with more blue permission so that I can afford FoW. At 12 blue, it's just barely playable.  I also upped the land count to satisfy Vinelasher.

Creatures (10)
3 Dark Confidant
2 Vampire Hexmage
3 Vinelasher Kudzu
2 Tombstalker

Disruption (19)
4 Force of Will
2 Mana Drain
3 Spell Pierce
2 Stifle
3 Nature’s Claim
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Maze of Ith

Other Spells (12)
2 Bitter Ordeal
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
2 Crop Rotation
1 Living Wish
1 Life from the Loam
1 Fastbond

Mana (21)
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Kamigawa blue bouncy land.  You know the one.
1 Dark Depths
1 Lotus Petal
1 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard
(Wishboard)
1 Dark Depths
1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
1 Vampire Hexmage
(Anti-Aggro, Tinker)
2 Diabolic Edict
(Anti-Storm)
2 Mindbreak Trap
(Anti-Oath)
2 Reverent Silence
(Anti-Dredge)
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Ylixid Jailer

[AmbivalentDuck]

I'm still not sold on Tombstalker over Tarmogoyf, Kudzu, or Living Wish.  I'd cut the 2 Tombstalker for another Hexmage and Living Wish main.  I'm also thinking very seriously about Lake of the Dead as a Living Wish target since it both enables and casts Bitter Ordeal.  A "fixed" Lotus Vale would be considerably better, but that's a topic for a different thread.

I'm also not sold at all on Reverent Silence.  Oath is pretty flexible nowadays and boarding in one-shot enchantment hate seems worse than putting sideboard slots into more general answers like Trygon Predator that can be used against multiple archetypes.

[serracollector]

I agree that tombstalker does not belong there.  Its just a vanilla beater (albeit cheap), and you should be able to grow kudzu, get a 20/20 token, or have won with ordeal by then I would think.

I would drop the 2 Tombstalkers and add 1 Intuition and 1 Realms uncharted.  This would up your blue count one more, and realms just seems sick in this deck.  Its a 3 for 1 for Ordeal with either.  They are both instants and easily castable at 3. 

Intuition can get you so many ridiculous sets of cards, or when u need it, 3 claims, 3 Force, or combo of w/e 3 counters, Or lands/loam, and ups blue count.

Realms sets up a lot.  Waste, Strip, Depths, Maze is not too shabby. 

Personally I would also drop 1 natures claim for 1 more mana drain, and the 2 stifles, (I personally have just never been a fan of stifle in t1),  for a 2nd Intuition, and Mystical Tutor. 

You still need to fit in Demonic Tutor, and, if it is an unpowered area, then maybe a Wonder?  So Kudzu has some evasion.  Just a thought.


so:
-1 Claim
-2 Stifle
-2 Tombstalker

+2 Intuition
+1 Realms Uncharted
+1 Mystical Tutor/+1 Demonic Tutor
+1 Mana Drain

And somehow fit in demonic tutor, and maybe Wonder.

This would up your blue count 2, and give you 5 new tutors to get what you need now (if you include demonic tutor).  I think this will help out a lot.  With it being unpowered, then mana drains should help you power thru spells like Intuition, very quickly.

Hope this helps. 

[Delha]

I would drop the 2 Tombstalkers and add 1 Intuition and 1 Realms uncharted.  This would up your blue count one more, and realms just seems sick in this deck.  Its a 3 for 1 for Ordeal with either.  They are both instants and easily castable at 3.

I don't think Gravestorm works the way you think it does. Also, Realms is a really crappy card. This has been disccussed.

[AmbivalentDuck]

I would drop the 2 Tombstalkers and add 1 Intuition and 1 Realms uncharted.  This would up your blue count one more, and realms just seems sick in this deck.  Its a 3 for 1 for Ordeal with either.  They are both instants and easily castable at 3.

I don't think Gravestorm works the way you think it does. Also, Realms is a really crappy card. This has been disccussed.

For clarity, gravestorm only counts permanents going from the battlefield to the graveyard.

While I wouldn't say that Realms is crappy, it certainly has no place in Vintage barring a wildly unforeseen combo.  Sylvan Scrying or Living Wish will almost always be strictly better.  I'm fairly certain that Demonic and Vampiric Tutor are simply strictly better (again barring a wildly unforeseen combo).

[MaximumCDawg]

I don't like Demonic Tutor in unpowered decks.  I typically use tutors (and quasi-tutors like brainstorm) to find answers to problems RIGHT NOW.  Because Demonic costs 2, you're unlikley to be able to cast that Natures' Claim you just grabbed.  At least the other ones, like Vampiric, can be cast during the end step.  Living Wish suffers from the same defect, true, but I'm interested to know whether the benefit of unloading certain hate to the SB balances that out.  Not sure.

I'll try out this deck Thursday this week and post a report.

Btw, @Duck: I'm not ignoring you, I just don't have MWS.

I would drop the 2 Tombstalkers and add 1 Intuition and 1 Realms uncharted.  This would up your blue count one more, and realms just seems sick in this deck.  Its a 3 for 1 for Ordeal with either.  They are both instants and easily castable at 3.

I don't think Gravestorm works the way you think it does. Also, Realms is a really crappy card. This has been disccussed.

Oh god, can you imagine Bitter Ordeal Dredge if that was the case?

[AmbivalentDuck]

Creative forum or otherwise, I see no compelling reason for those with access to proxies to build this without power.  Demonic is easily stronger than Sylvan Scrying which is probably stronger than Realms Uncharted.  If, for some reason, you wanted to run Realms, you would first include Demonic Tutor.

Btw, @Duck: I'm not ignoring you, I just don't have MWS.

No problem.

Oh god, can you imagine Bitter Ordeal Dredge if that was the case?

Which is stronger than other forms of combo Dredge because?  In order to cast the modified Ordeal, Dredge would have to include additional mana or otherwise dead enablers.

[MaximumCDawg]

Duck, I play sanctioned, so generally I have no access to proxies.

So I just took top place at a sanctioned vintage event (only 10-15 people or so) with this deck.  Here is what I ran (technically there were a few shocklands in there, since the duals were in EDH decks, but same diff):

Land (23)

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Orboro
3  Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
2 Maze of Ith

Creatures (11)

4 Vinelasher Kudzu
3 Dark Confidant
2 Trygon Predator
2 Sower of Temptation

Spells (26)

4 Force of Will
4 Spell Pierce
3 Thoughtseize
3 Crop Rotation
1 Life from the Loam
2 Bitter Ordeal
1 Intuition
2 Stifle
2 Nature's Claim
1 Fastbond
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Brainstorm
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Sensei's Top

SB:
3 Null ROd
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Pithing Needle
2 Nature's Claim
3 Mindbreak Trap
1 Bitter Ordeal

Here's how the matches went down:

Match 1 - Dredge (win)

Game 1: It's game one against Dredge.  We're quickly on to game 2.
Game 2: I mull to 3 to find a Leyline, but he cannot find an answer before I fill my hand again.  He finally answers Leyline, but not until I have Loam + Wasteland going.  His hand is depleted and he is not able to recover before I beat down.
Game 3: We wrestle over the hate, and then I Bitter Ordeal with Gravestorm 4.  This takes out his remaining hate, and I ride my Leyline to victory.

Match 2 & 3 - Oath (tie and win)

My memory of the Oath matchups was fuzzy, but basically mana denial and Bitter Ordeal were killer in these.  Games 2 and 3 the enemy brought in a full four oath creatures to stay ahead of the Ordeal, and the thing was, they needed the buffer every game.  My little mana denial package was astounding each match.  To be fair, the match I tied was destined to be a loss for me if it continued, but I don't feel too bad about that.  Losing to Adam Ramsey is like saying you're not quite as smart as Albert Einstein.

Match 4 - Belcher Combo (win)

Game 1, I thoughtseize away the belcher player's card draw, which prevents him from getting going.  Game 2, he mulls into oblivion and I easily establish control before he gets back in the game.

I wish I had taken better notes on the Oath matchups, because they were alot of fun.  This deck has tons of tricks to give Oath fits.  The suggestion came up to run a singleton Bojuku Bog, and I sort of like the idea, since it gives me some reach against Drain Tendrils or other builds that want to use Yawg Will.  When he stuck, Vinelasher tended to attack as a 4/4 or 6/6, so he filled his aggro role nicely.  I never did find myself wanting Tombstalker.

Another key point: decks that care about Ordeal over-reacted to the card in a big way.  Ordeal is basically an uncountable, small Jester's Cap. The Oath decks had to really sacrifice draw quality to survive against it.  I would imagine Tezz would need to do likewise.  I'm starting to have confidence in the idea that capping your opponent for 2B, basically uncounterable, is really, really good.  Also, it was usually trivial to get Gravestorm 3 or 4 for this deck.

But, of course, I lost horribly to legacy Naya Zoo when I playtested, so these results might be more about the decks than anything else.

[Daenyth]

Really interesting report. Thanks!

[Killane]

Nice report.

Duck, I play sanctioned, so generally I have no access to proxies.

So I just took top place at a sanctioned vintage event (only 10-15 people or so) with this deck.  Here is what I ran (technically there were a few shocklands in there, since the duals were in EDH decks, but same diff):

Why wouldn't you switch them out during the tournament? It doesn't seem like it came up here, but it would really suck to loose a game due to not switch out shocklands. It might be a marginal difference, but if it's sufficiently non-marginal to spend an extra $30-$70(sea)/land for a casual format, surely it's sufficiently non-margianl to switch some sleaves for a tournament.

[MaximumCDawg]

Nice report.

Duck, I play sanctioned, so generally I have no access to proxies.

So I just took top place at a sanctioned vintage event (only 10-15 people or so) with this deck.  Here is what I ran (technically there were a few shocklands in there, since the duals were in EDH decks, but same diff):

Why wouldn't you switch them out during the tournament? It doesn't seem like it came up here, but it would really suck to loose a game due to not switch out shocklands. It might be a marginal difference, but if it's sufficiently non-marginal to spend an extra $30-$70(sea)/land for a casual format, surely it's sufficiently non-margianl to switch some sleaves for a tournament.

All true, but then how would I quickly switch to playing EDH with my opponent at the end of each round?  Each minute counts when you've only got 14 minutes to get a game in.

I'm also thinking a better name for this deck would be "Bitter Croplasher."

Some other thoughts, on reflection:

I found the blue count to be a little lean for Force of Will.  I never was truly up a creek with it, but I usually had to pitch another counterspell to Force. 

I also found the deck very controllish, especially when I boarded out Lashers against Oath, except without Tezz or Oath's explosive win.  Bob did me in once, and concerned me several other times.  I could see this coming up again, in a situation where I capp the enemy's win condition but cannot seal the deal myself.  Perhaps some bounce is in order to give me an out to my own Bob. 

[Daenyth]

Big Jace would give you bounce, up the blue count, and give you more ways to abuse your fetchland shuffles.

[MaximumCDawg]

Big Jace would give you bounce, up the blue count, and give you more ways to abuse your fetchland shuffles.

You are right.  There is no compelling reason not to put Jace in this deck except that you could almost buy a Nether Void or Moat for the same price.  What the hell, Standard.

[AmbivalentDuck]

So...we seem to have similar beliefs about the appropriateness of dumping money into cardboard.  That said, not everyone will have the same budgetary constraints or lack of access to the same cardboard.  For instance, I happen to own 8 Force of Will because I bought them at $1 a pop back when I was cloning Ped Bun Oath.

We should discuss the deck outside of the context of any one person's cardboard collection.

[Delha]

We should discuss the deck outside of the context of any one person's cardboard collection.

I've always considered this particular subforum to allow for much different deckbuilding constraints. As a general rule, I expect any deck that belongs in this forum to be suboptimal. With that in mind, I figure the construction process deserves a bit more wiggle room than usual.

[MaximumCDawg]

We should discuss the deck outside of the context of any one person's cardboard collection.

I've always considered this particular subforum to allow for much different deckbuilding constraints. As a general rule, I expect any deck that belongs in this forum to be suboptimal. With that in mind, I figure the construction process deserves a bit more wiggle room than usual.

Not exactly suboptimal as such; more like, we're willing to tinker with POTENTIALLY suboptimal builds in order to discover new and useful interactions.  Gravestorm Aggro easily scales to a powered BUG fish type build.

Anyway, I ran this deck again this week, but subbed out the Fastbond/Oboro combo in favor of a Maelstrom Pulse and a Echoing Truth.  I replaced one Vinelasher for a Bojuku Bog.  That seemed like a good idea.  Now, sadly, we only had three rounds and I byed one of them, but I did come in second out of ten anyway.

Match 1 - Five Color Control (Keeper)

Game one, thoughtseize shows me S.Scrying, Sower, and Balance.  I have a Vinelasher and a Confidant in hand.  I take the scrying, then follow up next turn with another seize for the sower, and play the Lasher to try to bait out the Balance.  It works, so I run out bob... into ANOTHER sower.  Nice. Topdeck. Things go downhill pretty badly from there.

Game two, I stupidly keep a one land hand on the force of alot of one-mana spells, including stifle.  But I lead with thoughtseize again and find myself facing a hand with a Waste and a Strip.  I manage to claw back into the game with mana later, and keep him off the win by stifling tezz long enough to get a null rod out... but he outdraws me and eventually gets his Ancient Grudge out of the board using a Cunning Wish, allowing him to assemble vault-key.

Match 2 - Oath

I love oath so much with this deck.  

Game 1 - He has oath in his first hand, but I tutor up a naturalize with FOW support.  Two Vinelashers beat him down before he can do much else.

Game 2 - Except for my blind-calling Akroma when using Cabal Therapy in EDH against him later - and HITTING Akroma! - this game was the most insane series of luckouts all night.  We struggle back and forth, him trying to keep Oath on the table, me trying to find a win condition while I kept him off Oath.  Eventually I have Predator ready to go, but not before he gets THREE OATHS in play.  He manages to Oath out Iona naming blue.  I have one out... and I topdeck it.  Maelstrom Pulse eats Iona.  Great! So he oaths again, and gets Emrakul.  I am pleased; the Sower in my hand rushes out to introduce itself to Emrakul.  But, horror of horrors, he has a Chain of Vapor in his hand for the Sower, which he wisely uses on my end step.  Emrakul gets to attack, and murders my permanents.  DAMN.

Game 3 - Just like game 2, we get into a tug of war starting round 1; I believe he leads with duress, I respond with countermagic as he tries to oath, naturalize some stuff, strip an orachard, etc.  However, this time I manage to resolve Bitter Ordeal for Gravestorm 2, take the oath bombs I cannot deal with (he had boarded in all four, again) and mop up with some Trygons.  Since I beat him last week too, he promises next week he will come with White Weenie and defeat me.  If he does, he will

I really like this deck.  The fact that it hits Oath hard is nice, since I'm used to playing Noble Fish, where the opposite is true.  I still need to try it against Shop (I expect not so good).  What I am especially noticing is that I do not really miss the artifact mana.  This deck plays control; it does not really want an explosive start.  With one mana, you're threatening pierce, force, stifle, seize, and rotation (bojuku bog, strip mine, and maze of ith being the popular targets).  That's not enough to stop a dedicated combo-control deck like Tezz, I don't think, but it seems to be enough to deal with the medium-powered field I'm seeing locally.

[MaximumCDawg]

Quote != Edit

Sorry mods, you can delete this post

[Delha]

We should discuss the deck outside of the context of any one person's cardboard collection.

I've always considered this particular subforum to allow for much different deckbuilding constraints. As a general rule, I expect any deck that belongs in this forum to be suboptimal. With that in mind, I figure the construction process deserves a bit more wiggle room than usual.

Not exactly suboptimal as such; more like, we're willing to tinker with POTENTIALLY suboptimal builds in order to discover new and useful interactions.

That's not quite how I see it, but I'll just file this under "agree to disagree". If you want to discuss it further in another thread or via PM, that's totally cool by me.

[AmbivalentDuck]

In the context of this deck, I think we can all agree that leaving out Ancestral Recall is strictly suboptimal and I don't think it could be called "tinkering" to "discover new and useful interactions."

[MaximumCDawg]

That and Jace both, sure.  But I cannot test builds I cannot construct.  It's a mistake to confuse the purpose of the creative forum with the particular build I am able to run in sanctioned events and report test results.  My limitations are not everyone's.  But hopefully I'm generating a little nugget of useful data anyway.

[AmbivalentDuck]

The data is certainly interesting, but it's unclear whether it's generally applicable.  Ie. Placing a Mox into a land slot may well lower the utility of Kudzu and raise the utility of Dark Confidant, but if I cut 4 land slots for 3 on-color Moxen and Lotus, how much of this deck simply goes out the window?

While I in no way want to discourage threads like this, it can be hard to find a "lesson" of sorts to extract from them.

[NicolaeAlmighty]

Haven't seen this really mentioned... Have you had issues casting Bitter Ordeal? Could always give Lotus Cobra a go... Not to mention having the potential to do some nutty things in general...

[MaximumCDawg]

Haven't seen this really mentioned... Have you had issues casting Bitter Ordeal? Could always give Lotus Cobra a go... Not to mention having the potential to do some nutty things in general...

Actually, no, I havn't had a problem with Bitter Ordeal's casting cost.  Since I only run 2 maindeck, 3 after board, you very rarely see one immediately anyway.  This is a control deck, and Bitter Ordeal is basically the "win condition" against a large chunk of the metagame.

Lotus Cobra might be good in a fetch-heavy deck like this, but then again, this deck is not looking to combo out with a bunch of mana in one go.  Rather, it plays a reactive game initially until it can control the opponent's mana, field a big Vinelasher, or Ordeal away threats.  What I really like is that in my semi-powered meta (half the people are powered, roughly) I actually do not find myself too far behind.  One fetchland and I'm threatening Crop Rot, Pierce, FoW, Stifle, and Claim.  That's a pretty wide variety of answers.  

So, my gut reaction would be that Cobra does not have much to offer unless I wanted to include combos that require alot of mana in the early game.  I mean, what does resolving Cobra do?  If it sticks, I suppose the typical fetch->land->rotation->fetch->land provides 4 mana in addition to making Vinelasher really big... but what do I do with the mana?  My expensive cards are all reactive answers, not threats.  I suppose it does let me cast Bitter Ordeal using only a single land, but... I dunno.  I think Cobra requires a very different list than I'm experimenting with.

The data is certainly interesting, but it's unclear whether it's generally applicable.  Ie. Placing a Mox into a land slot may well lower the utility of Kudzu and raise the utility of Dark Confidant, but if I cut 4 land slots for 3 on-color Moxen and Lotus, how much of this deck simply goes out the window?

That's all very true.  I'm sure that the utility of adding moxen probably offsets the added risk of getting nailed by Null Rod, Mox Monkey, and all of those sorts of threats, or else people wouldn't run them.  But, as you say, when you start adding the typical power cards, you find that you want to run the OTHER typical cards (i.e. goyf instead of Kudzu) and the deck starts to look like every other BUG Fish build.  So far, the combination of cheap answers and a focus on Bitter Ordeal as a win condition is working pretty well.  I'm more or less immune to alot of hate people run (Blood Moon effects aside). 

I do think there is something to be learned from off-the-path builds like these.  Specifically, given the amount of hate directed at power, are there other ways to build a deck that dodge the hate but are still effective?  Dredge manages to do this.  I'm not saying that fetches-kudzu-ordeal is anywhere near the power level of dredge - obviously it is not.  But, we'll never discover other focii for new deck archetypes unless people put the time into exploring them and generating data about the results.  Frankly, I wish TheManaDrain had alot more rogue decks with reports for exactly this reason.