Neo-TnT

[Vegeta2711]

Quote Even in the more 'tool-boxy' builds, like mine, you still have SEVEN easily hardcastalbe threats (2 Trike, 2 Pentavus, 1 Karn, and 2 Juggs)

Haha, ok you have a whole 7 threats, none of which is even that scary. Trike and Pentavus you couldn't conciveably argue as 'easily' castable as any sort of mana disruption kills that plan and sometimes it's hard to get 6 or more mana anyways.

Quote With 9 fat slots, and utility critters to beat down with, you can still win even if SOTF gets coutered. Because if they keep countering Survival, they aren't countering threats

Keep countering? They have to counter SOTF once, maybe twice at most. Your critters can all be plowed/destroyed so it's not as if you need to counter every single threat. Not that 9 is a lot to write home about to begin with.

Diceman summed up what I was basically saying this whole time except in a more direct form.

[BreathWeapon]

Just try running these "Tool Box" TnT decks against Nick's Chronic, that should settle the argument right then and there.

What does everyone think about Tangle Wire in general? Granted, it has always been a sort of an Aggro hoser, but how useful is it in the control match up? Thoughts?

[haro]

Quote (Grand Inquisitor @ Dec. 04 2003,14:44)My main question is: besides the fun factor, how is TnT not completely outdone by other decks.

For getting out big fatties fast, both Spoils Mask and Madness are better.

For abusing survival, Ninja Mask is simply better in that it can put out a creature that wins the game in one swing (with comprable acceleration).

For using things like lock parts or pillars to disrupt an opponent, it seems both WMUD and STAX are superior.


What does TnT do that isn't done with more speed, synergy, consistency elsewhere?  This is not a rhetorical question.  I haven't played against TnT since Gencon, but it seems that the metagame has evolved beyond it.  I know its been putting up some good results lately, but I want to know how and why.

Exactly, GI.

My limited testing with TnT in its current form has led me to two conclusions.  Stacker3 is the superior Artifact Beatdown and deck and Ninja Mask is the better Survival deck.  There is almost no doubt in my mind now that the metagame has grown well beyond what TnT was/is capable of doing.  It's a great deck for beating up on a metagame full of blue based control decks that use Morphling and Factories to swing for the win, but since almost everything can now "combo out" in one way, shape or form, TnT lacks the creatures and the disruption to take on what's out there.   It's sad, but I'm afraid that's likely the truth.  Sure it's going to win here and there, but R/G Beats won at Duelmen.  Surprise and good playing skills can go a long way.   I don't think that one can interpret wins here and there as a sign of the decks viability against the broader metagame.

[Grand Inquisitor]

Quote Just try running these "Tool Box" TnT decks against Nick's Chronic, that should settle the argument right then and there

What are you saying here?  Is the matchup really good, or really bad?

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

oye...lots to respond to...First, the number of fat in TnT. While I would IDEALLY like to pack 12 or more fat in the deck, I find myself cutting some very important cards, such as pillars or caps. I've already cut brawn and quirion ranger, but that still only leaves me with like 10 beatdown creatures. While this hurts vs. aggro decks, it's tolerable against Control. Control has a total of 2, thats right 2 swords to plowshares for my 20 creatures (assuming they used counters for my other important spells like survival, pillar, and caps). They also have 2-3 cunning wishes(assuming they don't use it to get disenchant for survival), so that leaves 4-5 creature removal spells (unless imprinted on a scepter, which truley is game over, unless you TD a shaman or have anger in yard, welder in hand and they have another artifact in GY). YES countering a survival can be crippling, but it's by no means game over. From my testing, TnT has a slightly favourable pre-board game vs. keeper. The deck has been working for me up to this point, so I won't bother to keep bickering with people about the threat density in the deck (although I will take into consideration comments).

So that leaves us with the question:

Why play TnT?

Well, I think it's still a very strong deck in most environments. Don't take this the wrong way, but TMD is VERY distorting of metagames. If I got ALL my info from TMD, I'd think that everyone and their mothers were playing dragon and/or long (pre-january). This view only holds for few metagames. In most places you go (around here atleast), people still play with old-school decks. Sligh hasn't died down a bit here even after the release of mirrodin. I know damn well in my metagame, TnT is A MILLION times better than stax or welderMUD or stacker.

[nachtfrost]

I just want to share some of my expieriences with the new TNT.
I played and built the TNT version, that won the Heidelberg tournament.

Yes, Jacob Orlove is right, the Duplicants and Uktabis are a metagame choice.
In Heidelberg a lot of Aggro-Decks are played. Out of 20-25 players there are often 4 Workshop Decks, 2 Hulk, 2 Sligh, some Mono Black, 2-3 Elves, 2 Keeper, 1-2 Combo, 1 "Green-white-Anti-Artifact-Deck" (Serenity), 1 Bazaar Animator, 1 Vengeur Masque and sometimes 1 White Weenie and some random Decks.

That is the reason for the Duplicants, Uktabis, Solemn Simulacrums and Artifact Mutations.

Duplicant:
Against Psychatog, Acroma, Dreadnaughts, Nantuku Shades, flying Arrogant Wurms and other Threats the Duplicants are golden.
And with workshops and/or the extra lands from Simulacrum I am able to hardcast it very early.

In most cases Duplicant (as well as Triskelion) is faster than Masticore, because you don't have enough mana to deal enough damage to bigger creatures.

Solemn Simulacrum:
The Solemn Simulacrums stabilize the Mana Base of the Deck.
Even with 29 mana Sources in my TNT some Wastelands, Sinkholes and Powder Kegs of an opponents Suicide Deck cause Mana screw.

Most Decks are able to kill your first creature, so a first turn Su-Chi will resultin 4 Mana burn damage. Followed by wasteland you will only have 2 Mana in your next turn. one Mox and a land you play in that next turn.

It is also better suited to sacrifice for an opponents Smokestack than a Su-Chi.
And when your opponent has an active welder you don't want to have a Su-Chi in your grave...

Solemn Simulacrum gives you an early Chumb Blocker with card advantage in an Aggro metagame.

And with Welders you can use it as a draw engine as an option.
(that also produces mana and thins out the library)

After welding the Simulacrum it is quite easy to hardcast Duplicant or Triskelion without a Workshop on the table.

With a first turn Simulacrum you have most of the time 6 Mana in your next turn.

I want to play a Simulacrum as early as posible, that is why I am playing 4.

Often I was able to play an other threat after the Simulacrum got blocked to death, welded or otherwise killed because of the carddrawing effect.

In the tournament before I was playing against:
1. round: Ductape
2: round: Ductape
3. round: TNT
...
(myself also playing TNT)

So, I can say that the Heidelberg metagame is Workshop and Aggro infested.

Uktabi Orangutan:
Shaman kills no Dreadnaughts Smokestaks, Su-Chis, Triskelions and Juggernauts and is often to slow to kill a Mask.

Blood Moon:
Against some decks Blood Moon just wins the game alone.
Hulk, Keeper and other decks playing fetch- and dual-lands
This deck is so strong against aggro, that it can afford these 4 situational slots.

I didn't maindeck Chalice of the void because it is not effective in the matchup and against Sligh I don't really need it. But it is nice to side them in for the Blood Moons  

Price of Progress and Wasteland is the reason why I am playing the Deck with only 2 colors.

So much for the Heidelberg metagame.
I think I would change the deck and sideboard, when playing in the combo-infested Dülmen metagame.
(Perhaps I would play maindeck Tormods Crypt.

TNT is consistent and flexible.
It is not as easily hatet as other decks
(Blood Moon, Planar Void, Tormods, Crypt, Stifle, Swords, Disenchant/Naturalize, Wastelands...)

Other workshop decks (charbelcher welder mud) have problems with Serenity and other artifacthate, which is played in Heidelberg.

Madness has problems against an early Blood Moon and Pernicious Deed (which is played in a lot of Suicide decks).
And Madness has lost Lion's Eye Diamond.

Dragon is very strong, but also heavily played, so a lot of people are prepared for it.

My little experience with Mask decks is, that the mana base is quite weak. Most decks I am playing against have 5 Strips and Shamans, Sinkholes or Stifles.

Mask decks are not so strong without the mask, but TNT does not depend so much ob Survival or Workshop.


Sorry for my english, I hope this post was understandable.

Marcus

[ctthespian]

Well put Marcus.  TNT may not be as good at locking down as MUD or Stax and may not deal damage as fast as Mask.  However I don't really think TNT should be trying to lock down it's opponent rather deal damage and insure a route of victory.  As far as the speed of it's damgae dealing, Mask is far more reliant on it's Masks and Survivals than TNT is.

I see TNT, with more adaptation, becoming a good choice for the New England metagame.  The top contenders have been a control variant or Dragon.  TNT's matchup vs control should be a favorable one.  With some adaptation to deal with Dragon TNT could become a contender in that type of metagame.

-Keith

[wuaffiliate]

Quote (Rico Suave @ Dec. 04 2003,14:01)Welders win without Solemn, but Solemn does not win without Welders.  Solemn can easily be compared to a "win more" card.

it can be seen as a win more card, but its a 2nd draw engine, it helps tonnes with the mana base, and can just attack, if it dies in combat, meh it replaces itself.

i guess its really up to your own testing, i love the thing right now, although i may go to 3 su-chi and 2 solemn just to get my aggro up.

what does everyone think of sylvan in the deck, i wasnt impressed, but i ran 1 and did not draw it all that often.\n\n

[Toast]

@ clown....most of what you hear about the meta holds true for NE and/or europe since we have huge pockets of members located in these areas (plus 5 proxy tourneys really help out in NE)

@wu

sylvan is really a subpar card choice and always has been...its use has mainly been because TnT needs more card draw and there aren't many optimal cards.

@people who are running small amounts of fat....I would really rethink your strategy, this might work temporarily but if people are actually prepared for TnT I think cutting fat is the absolute worst thing you could do. A four or five turn clock is slow enough but honestly.....a 10 turn clock? that is just dumb. Sure you can drop more stuff but the other player is bound to stall your development...it is rare to have more than 2 fatties on the board...something is wrong when 2/2 = fatty

[BreathWeapon]

Quote (Grand Inquisitor @ Dec. 04 2003,12:52)

Quote Just try running these "Tool Box" TnT decks against Nick's Chronic, that should settle the argument right then and there

What are you saying here?  Is the matchup really good, or really bad?

Well, my suggestion is to try it for yourself, but Survival Workshop has serious issues vs Scepter based control. Putting Plow on a Stick and countering Survival is rough for TnT to handle. You just can't expect to win the resources war anymore against Control, even in the face of an active Survival.

Ofcourse, that was just game 1. With 4 Rack and Ruin, Artifact Mutation or Naturalize SB things might change. Tho', Chronic gets its hate to.

Scepter based Keeper just isn't the "push over" against TnT and Fish/Suicide that its predecessors were.

[Goos]

I have been observing most TNT decks run phyrexian colossus. Why not bosh as its a faster clock? it also helps out against swords. And the bosh can double as creature removal.

[teletubby]

Quote (Goos @ Dec. 05 2003,01:01)I have been observing most TNT decks run phyrexian colossus. Why not bosh as its a faster clock? it also helps out against swords. And the bosh can double as creature removal.

Why is Bosh a faster clock?

Both creatures (Bosh and the Colossos) need to be welded in to enter play in the early game. While Colossos is (as good as) unblockable, which means 8 damage to the head against creature decks, the Golem can be blocked, which means that he doesn't even deal 6 damage for sure. So in the first 3-4 turns the Colossos is in my opinion far better to finish the opponent.

In the mid to late game the Golem may have its advantage. But don't forget that 4 (non-Artifact-)mana is a lot for TnT.

[Rico Suave]

I will concede that Simulacrum is a consideration if you have trouble with weenie aggro.

But it is not a draw engine unless you have an active Welder out and your opponent doesn't do anything about it, which is already a winning state.  

Additionally, there is so much less of a need to remove the Simulacrum because he is half the size of other creatures his cc.  By the time your opponent feels pressure from him, they will most likely either have won or be in a position to win.  

It's a cute trick, but I would be happy to see my opponent play it first turn instead of a Su-Chi.

[jpmeyer]

The point of Simulacrum is that it lets you dump huge numbers of cards onto the table at once.  Casting the Simulacrum gives you a Forest which lets you Survival which lets you Weld Simulacrum into something which gives you another card.  This adds up really really fast.

[BreathWeapon]

Heh, as much as I hate saying it, Simulacrum definately seems like it should have a place in TnT. I don't think effective FAT like Su-Chi should be cut for it, but I do think you could stand to get rid of the Triskelions, Masticores and Colossus for them.

Maybe TnT should simply concentrate on replacing its larger FAT pieces with Simulacrum altogether? We would cut any Waste/Strips for Basic Lands and ditch the Tangle Wires for  MD  Bloodmoons.

Bosh has been ok for me, and I like him a lot more than the Colossus. He also has good synergy with Simulacrum and is spot removal, albeit expensive, plus he is a win condition that ignores the combat phase.

Sorry for ranting.

[Razor]

I have never played TnT.  It cannot run any of the red, green, or brown hosers namely, Blood Moon and Smokestack; however, it can run Winter Orb, Ankh of Mishra and Tangle Wire.  Are these worthy of reviewing again?

@ toast: "sylvan [learning centre-Razor] is really a subpar card choice and always has been...its use has mainly been because TnT needs more card draw and there aren't many optimal cards."

Since the deck already runs Survival of the Fittest including 1 to 2 Squee can 3 to 4 Bazaar of Baghdad be squeezed in?  It is of note that it would increase the deck's vulnerability to nonbasic hate.

Nifty cards like: Sentinel, and Duplicant are quite likely too narrow in versatility to warrant a slot anywhere in TnT.  However, Simulacrum seems quite viable.

[Lord of the Goats]

Quote (Razor @ Dec. 05 2003,18:44)I have never played TnT.  It cannot run any of the red, green, or brown hosers namely, Blood Moon and Smokestack; however, it can run Winter Orb, Ankh of Mishra and Tangle Wire.  Are these worthy of reviewing again?

@ toast: "sylvan [learning centre-Razor] is really a subpar card choice and always has been...its use has mainly been because TnT needs more card draw and there aren't many optimal cards."

Since the deck already runs Survival of the Fittest including 1 to 2 Squee can 3 to 4 Bazaar of Baghdad be squeezed in?  It is of note that it would increase the deck's vulnerability to nonbasic hate.

Nifty cards like: Sentinel, and Duplicant are quite likely too narrow in versatility to warrant a slot anywhere in TnT.  However, Simulacrum seems quite viable.

why can't tnt run bloodmoon? it runs basic forests. furthermore bloodmoon has traditionally been part of tnt's sb and has occasionally been run md. also, most people do run tangle wire. as for ankh it has some bad synergy since tnt has fetchlands and solemn simulacrum. fetches could be cut, but that gives you a lot of trouble useing anger. winter orb is very good with tangle wire, and in the past has been unessesary because wire would create enough of a gap to swing for the win... however now people are running less fat so it may be more important to be able to stall.

about sylvan, it's always been amazing in tnt because of the following reasons:
1. 6 fetchlands + survival
2. stp + jugg/chi + sylvan = creatures cantrip
3. there were no good aggro decks so nobody could penalize the life payment.
4. helped general consistancy and mana issues

so reason # 2 is gone if you run solemn simulacrum over chi. reason 3 goes away due basically to tog. reason 1 is lessened because we're running less fetches. so is sylvan a good choice, not right now imo... but at one point it was an amazing choice.

i'm not trying to be a dick here, but if you don't know what you're talking about... don't post. if you never played tnt, fine... but make sure you're not making blatently false statements like "it can't run bloodmoon"... without any explaination at all.

[Matt The Great]

Quote so "creatures cantrip" is gone if you run solemn simulacrum over chi.

Heh. Simulacrum does nothing BUT cantrip.

[Lord of the Goats]

Quote (Matt The Great @ Dec. 06 2003,06:52)

Quote so "creatures cantrip" is gone if you run solemn simulacrum over chi.

Heh. Simulacrum does nothing BUT cantrip.

and fetch your mana base... so i dub it a better sylvan

[Eastman]

Solemn is at first glance an apparently powerful and useful card.


Much of the testing and all of the positive tournament results show the successful use of Solemn.

It should at this point be synonymous with 'neo-TnT'\n\n

[Matt The Great]

Simualcrum also has the neat property that it accelerates you from 4 to 6 mana on turn two - which is an important flashpoint for stuff like Duplicant and Triskelion.

[urza's child]

I've been talking to LotG recently about the new TnT, and our views are slightly different on it (even though I still feel that he knows better). This is what I'm thinking:

1 Black Lotus
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Juggernaut
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Memory Jar
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire

1 Platinum Angel
1 Sol Ring
1 Keldon Vandals (Or Elvish Replica, metagame dependant)
4 Solemn Simulacrum

2 Triskelion
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Anger
3 Blood Moon
4 Goblin Welder
1 Gorilla Shaman (only this > karn because of the lack of wires)
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Lands:

3 Forest
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Mountain
1 Strip Mine
3 Taiga
4 Wasteland
3 Wooded Foothills

SB:

3 Artifact Mutation
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Xantid Swarm
1 Whatever isn't used in the destroy target artifact/enchantment md slot

Some of my questions are,

-Which is better, Keldon Vandal or Scavenger Folk? The Folk can easily come down turn 1, but sometimes vandal can also. Vandal is also useful only if the artifact is in play already (i.e. useless against scepters if the Vandal is layed down first turn)
-Is the Xantid Swarm really needed sideboard?
-Are Jester's Cap's worth it? Should I try and make room for them in the sb seeing as how they can be auto-win's vs. combo decks and keeper
-Is there enough fat in today's TnT for it to keep up with decks like dragon? Or does blood moon and the full arsenal of tricks sb and pre-sb make up for this

alex i feel that i know enough about tnt to post here, but if i dont then oh well, i did

[bebe]

Quote
-Is there enough fat in today's TnT for it to keep up with decks like dragon? Or does blood moon and the full arsenal of tricks sb and pre-sb make up for this

I don't think Blood moon is all that effective against a well built Dragon deck. They will go off before you even play it most times. Crypts are your best sideboard option by far but remember that Dragon is also siding for you. I don't see Dragon as a favorable match up for most Workshop decks.

I'm also not sure that neo-TnT can outrace Venguer Masque either but I have not played that match up so I could be wrong there.

Aggro in general will have a rough time with Dragon as you don't have counters and stifles to help you. You don't even have access to Coffin Purge or Wretches. Outracing Dragon is not the solution. The only aggro deck that I see taking Dragon to school at times is Fish and this because they have the right sideboard and main deck cards to put up a fight.

When we played TnT in Toronto we experimented with a black splash and that might be a direction to take this deck if Dragon is prevalent in your area. It does get you Purges, Wretches and other goodies which are useful in a number of match ups.

[Toast]

The black splash sounds appealing but in reality it is not...I was playing TnT with black up until very recently. In a format with many decks running 5 strips 3 color TnT is not a very good option (especially the black splash which traditionally has a larger demand for off colored mana). TnT has a fragile mana base as it is and a 3rd color only magnifies this.