TheManaDrain.com
February 04, 2026, 07:35:52 am *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News:
 
   Home   Help Search Calendar Login Register  
Pages: [1]
  Print  
Author Topic: TNT, an evolution  (Read 704 times)
Anonymous
Guest
« on: March 04, 2003, 09:51:12 am »

Now with the unrestriction of Berserk, Gro-A-Tog and brothers (Hulk Smash) have been pulled to the top Tier 1. TNT, like Keeper, will have to evoluate in some way in order to deal with Psychatog and the other threats like Quirion Dryad.
It's been a while since I'm working on my own GRu version of TNT, and I have tested a lot the following version. It can deal with Gro-A-Tog with the maindeck, and is still strong versus Keeper. I don't feel the need to go to black for tutors like Zherbus and his Legions deck, because I've never been disapointed with my Survival and Sylvan Libraries that allow to dig into the deck and are wonderfull with all the shuffle effects the deck has.

Here is the list I'm currently playing in real life :

// Mana base (28)
  1 Strip Mine
  1 Wasteland
  2 Forest
  2 Windswept Heath
  3 Tropical Island
  3 Wooded Foothills
  4 Mishra's Workshop
  4 Taiga
  1 Black Lotus
  1 Grim Monolith
  1 Mox Emerald
  1 Mox Jet
  1 Mox Pearl
  1 Mox Ruby
  1 Mox Sapphire
  1 Sol Ring

// Engine (10)
  4 Survival of the Fittest
  2 Squee, Goblin Nabob
  4 Goblin Welder

// Tubbies (12)
  4 Juggernaut
  4 Su-Chi
  1 Masticore
  2 Triskelion
  1 Phyrexian Colossus

// Utility critters (5)
  1 Karn, Silver Golem
  1 Anger
  1 Druid Lyrist
  1 Genesis
  1 Waterfront Bouncer
// Broken (4)
  1 Memory Jar
  2 Sylvan Library
  1 Ancestral Recall
  1 Time Walk

// Sideboard (15)
  4 Blood Moon
  3 Red Elemental Blast
  2 Tormod's Crypt
  1 Flametongue Kavu
  1 Bottle Gnomes
  1 Wonder
  2 Naturalize
  1 Viashino Heretic

The sideboard shown here is the one I'm using in an online Apprentice tournament. We've already played 3 rounds and I'm 3-0 with a 6-1 overall. Blood Moon #4 is not fix, neither are the 2 Naturalize (nobody plays Parfait in my meta and I feel safe with Genesis recurring the Lyrist against Moat or stuff like that). Even if Jester's Cap won me some games (I can remember a first turn Workshop, Black Lotus, Jester Cap against Academy removing Stroke, Geyser and Academy...), I found this way to slow to deserve a sideboard slot.
 
Some comments on the maindeck.
I'm playing a lone Wasteland, because I found that I was never happy seeing an opening hand with multiple Wasteland or topdecking one when I needed a fetchland. This is enough to deal with LoA or Maze of Ith, and I'm even thinking of playing Forest #3 over this Wasteland. I have a lot of Slighs in my meta and Price of Progress is real pain. The addition of Waterfrount Bouncer in order to fight Psychatog and Quirion Dryad mainly forced me to run Tropical Island #3 over fetchland #6. This is a more reliable blue source, even if I virtually lost a Taiga, but I never missed that virtual Taiga #10, mainly because of Sylvans which are wonderfull with fetchlands.
I'm playing with 2 maindeck Squees for two reasons. The first one is, of course, graveyard hate. I often play against good Keeper players and Survival is not the same without Squee when Ebony Charm removes it from the game. The second Squee allows to keep Survivaling even with an early Masticore drop against Sligh or Weenies.
I play Karny over Gorilla Shamaan because Karny don't fear Keeper's Fire/Ice and is a beatstick on its own. Well, of course it's cc5, but the deck is full of mana drain targets :op
I don't play Tinker for a single reason : Keeper. I really seeing this Mana Drain or force of Willed, because I waste precious moxens to morph into Juggys or Su Chi. Furthermore, I found that I always sideboarded it against the decks I face more often (Sligh, Keeper, Dragon).
I've cut the Quirion Ranger because I never found it useless. Suicide is a mere bye for TNT and versus Sligh I rush to Masticore and Triskelion before Quirion Ranger. I play a maindeck Waterfrount Bouncer, which is great against Gro-A-Tog and pretty useful against Mask. As you can see, I don't play artifact hate like Elvish Scrapper maindeck because there is no artifact I really fear to waste a maindeck slot. At worse, Karny backed up by a couple of Triskelion/Masticore shots can do the trick. I run Viashino Heretic as a sideboard anti artifact choice because I simple prefer this to the Sex Monkey or Elvish Scrapper. I've never been disapointed by this, even if it's often mana intensive to use It. But It's always less expensive thant recurring a Scrapper with Genesis. More, It's red and reusable, which is really useful against artifact based combo decks like TurboNevyn and Academy when playing under a first turn Blood Moon.
The 2 maindeck Forests allows to make good Survival chains under Blood Moon and are basic lands when facing Sligh's Price of Progress or BBS' Back to Basics. I've tried Gaea's Craddle over one, and found that the trick is only good when you are already winning, and is just more pain against no basic hate.

I'm currently writting down a primer on TNT, including the two other versions that are GR and GRb. I'm French, English is not my mother language so It takes me looooooong time to do it, hopefully I have good friends from Quebec. I ask Zherbus permission for using his last TNT Legions decklist in order to illustrate the GRb TNT.
Thanks for reading all this.  

Toad, french TNT and Keeper player
Logged
Pages: [1]
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
Page created in 0.028 seconds with 15 queries.