TnT with black: Legion

[dicemanX]

Anybody actually tried using Sphere of Resistance yet vs tog? A main deck Bouncer offers such scant resistance (it only needs to be FoWed once), while Legion (G/R/b) doesn't offer much unless you plan on using the Chains of Mephistopheles tech. I've never tried it, so I don't know if Chains is enough to slow them down. I still think that REBs and Pyros along with Blood Moon is the way to go.

[MadWombat]

Forgive me if I'm being stupid, but a couple of things occur to me that could be interesting.

Has anyone tried a nantuko husk, academy rector and a savannah? With fetchlands for the savannah, you should be able to find it with some regularity, and the rector whips out any enchantment, while the husk, apart from being bloody dangerous in itself, can save any of your critters from StoP, and cause them to come back again next turn with OoG.

It seems a little clunky, since you really need the husk to abuse the rector effectively, and that may presuppose survival. However, even without survival, it becomes a 2/2 that your opponent really doesn't want dead. It's weak vs combo, certainly, but against control, I figure it might warrant a look (especially as rector fetches chains).

[Matt The Great]

If I was going to Rector something out against Grotog/Tog, it would be a hell of a lot better than Chains. Maybe Treachery.

[MadWombat]

Parallax Wave should give you a good 5 turns to win....

[Lord of the Goats]

well, i have a rather nice solution to the gro-tog matchup that's not limited to g/r/u. i'm not sure if it will work in g/r/b since there in a space issue. i cut my md bloodmoons and a jar for 4 tangle wire.

tangle wire is exactly what tnt has wanted since day 1. it provides early disruption to hold off mana drain so you can force through an important spell, and once you have a threat it's generally armagedeon. i've been testing it for about the last 2 week with very strong results although i havn't been through all the matchups it's pure gold. i played it yesterday at the ne championships, and although my record was 4-2 and i came in 17th. tangle wire was absolute gold all day long. i locked sligh on turn 2 under it for about 5 turns round 6.... twice. oath scooped to it, as did u/b phid, and a zombie infest deck. it's also at least a double walk against gro-tog. the 1 game i didn't like it was when i kept a double wire hand with no fat and the td'ed land, wire, wire, land. 4 wires in your first 10 cards with no gas at all is bad.  

definatly an amazing card in tnt, and worth finding slots for

[Zherbus]

Here are some cards  and results I am testing right now for Legion for the Tog craze:

1) Wall of Corpses; 1B; B,sacrifice Wall of Corpses: Destroy target creature Wall of Corpses is blocking.;0/2

This one, so far, has been my favorite. It gets smothered, however it takes quite a while for Gro-a-Tog to get the mana to Wish and Smother on a regular basis. Usually, within that time you can smack with 5/3s enough to kill first. Since Dryads aren't much of a problem with Plaguebearer, it really only comes out to kill Togs.

2) Abyssal Hunter; 3B; B,T: Tap target creature. Abyssal Hunter deals damage equal to Abyssal Hunters power to target creature.; 1/1

I really like this one because, short of Submerge, there is no way to get rid of this in the Gro-a-Tog matchup. It's an excellent staller that wont get Smothered or Ghastly Demised (non-black only). However Submerge has been a problem as had the casting cost of this guy. 3B really is hard to come by when it matters.

3) Abyssal Gatekeeper; 1B; When Abyssal Gatekeeper is put into the graveyard from play, each player sacrifices a creature. 1/1

I like him, but he can be costly and tricky to make work. So far he just sucks against Gro-a-Tog, but isn't that bad against Keeper.

4) Serrated Biskelion; 2; T: Put a -1/-1 counter on Serrated Biskelion and target creature.; 2/2

If I get Welder going, I can really wreck Togs...but I don't really need to kill the Tog if I can just abuse the Welder to deal 20 damage before they do.

[Fishhead]

Quote 2) Abyssal Hunter; 3B; B,T: Tap target creature. Abyssal Hunter deals damage equal to Abyssal Hunters power to target creature.; 1/1

Wouldnt good ol' Royal Assassin be better?

Quote It gets smothered, however it takes quite a while for Gro-a-Tog to get the mana to Wish and Smother on a regular basis.

The other option is for GroTog to just cast two creatures and force you to block.  But, true, that slows them down.

[j_orlove]

Quote Wouldnt good ol' Royal Assassin be better?

This is not a deck that can get BB with any kind of reliability.  

[Zherbus]

Yeah, BB can be achieved fairly easily but not reliably. Really, all I was going for was to stall Tog from 'going off' until I can kill them which shouldn't take that long.

[dicemanX]

For creatures that can deal with Psychatogs, how about Starke of Rath? Like Royal Assassin, an untapped Starke can hold off multiple Psychatogs. The nice thing is that he can kill creatures in response to creature elimination (Smother/Demise). Even if your opponent gets control of him by some chance (ie if you don't use stack tricks during combat when you use his ability), he might be very reluctant to use the ability and pass Starke right back. Of course, I'd rather go with Assassin normally, if it didn't have BB in its casting cost.

[j_orlove]

It's not a creature, but would Forcefield help?

Forcefield
Color= Artifact  Type= Artifact  Cost= 3 A®/B®/U®  
Text (ABU+errata): : Prevent all but 1 combat damage that would be dealt this turn by target unblocked creature attacking you. [Oracle 2001/08/24]
Cannot be used to prevent damage caused by a blocked creature with Trample ability. [bethmo 1994/04/01]
Only usable on combat damage. Any damage from spells and abilities (even while it is attacking and is unblocked) is not valid. [Duelist Magazine #7, Page 99]

[LoA]

I've been thinking about testing Spinal Villain vs. GAT, although it seems I've got a ton of cards in the SB for this match as-is.  It can't stop the Dryad, as a Sentinel can, but it's also not vulnerable to Naturalize.  Maybe if Hulk Smash dominates over GAT (I suspect it might be the better deck, much as I'd wish otherwise) it'll find a spot.  Forcefield would be great, but they're damn expensive ($$) and I don't own a single one.  Edit:  That little bit of errata on Forcefield regarding the blocked trample damage makes me wary that I'll lose some game to that sometime.

Spinal Villain   2R
Summon Villain (how sweet is that for a creature type?)
Tap: Destroy target blue creature
1/2

[Zherbus]

I really want to test Starke of Rath, but I expect that in the end it wont be much better that Royal Assassin. Double red in some cases might be just as hard as double black assuming no Bloodmoon is in play (which I should be winning anyways).

Forcefield really doesn't do anything that Tangle Wire wouldn't. Really, I want to have 6 ways to tutor up my solutions (4 Survivals and 2 Tutors) and while Forcefield is cool (this actually might be some rad tech for another deck if they can stop Naturalize), I just don't think its TnT tech.

Spinal Villian is very cool and effective as well. With Anger and Oath of Ghouls working, it could work nicely as a stall. I'll have to steal one from somewhere to try him out.