Random ideas about GAT

[monstre]

Hello,
I'm new and my English is akward, so please excuse me if my thoughts are a little incoherent. I have been playing around with GAT lately and I would appreciate your comments on the following ideas, which I don't claim to be original or even good.

First, has anyone given some thought about mana leak as an alternative to mana drain (or counterspell)? I have found the ability to counter first-turn with an off-color mox to be a critical difference in my limited experience. To be fair, you probably want to play a dryad on your first turn if you have the mox, so I don't know how much of a difference the mana leaks would make in practice. In principle though, there is a window of opportunity between force of will and mana drain and I think mana leak can help there.

Also, I had this crazy idea for a transformational sideboard with oath of druids. Please hear me out before starting to ridicule me. The plan is to switch the dryads for the oaths and use those to get an atog into play and as many cards as possible in the graveyard. For extra credit, you might even side in a couple of defy gravity* so that whichever creature triggered the oath won't block the atog. Ok, now you can make fun of me. I mean, I basically just said you should play with jump  :shock: . However, I can't help myself from thinking that oath of druids and psychatog are meant to be together. Please chime in if you've tinkered with a similar idea in the past.

Finally, when playing GAT, I sometimes fetch gush instead of ancestral with merchant scroll. Am I the only one doing this ? Anyway, this got me thinking that more scrolls would be a good idea. In an ideal scenario, you get 2 cards for one mana if you put one land right back on the table, plus 2 counters on your dryad. If you have a mox in play, you just need that one land to get mana leak going, so this ties in with my first idea. You only have one gush of course, but, between that and ancestral, i think the deck can accomodate two scrolls, if not three.

So anyway, I'm just throwing these ideas out there in case one of you feels like helping me out, because I have precious little experience playing this deck.


* Defy Gravity : target creature gains flying until end of turn (flashback U).

[Matt]

Also, I had this crazy idea for a transformational sideboard with oath of druids.

Ask Grand Inquisitor about Emerald Alice.

[monstre]

Also, I had this crazy idea for a transformational sideboard with oath of druids.

Ask Grand Inquisitor about Emerald Alice.

Thanks for the pointer.
I got the impression however that emerald alice sides in creatures along with oath and I was suggesting that those creatures should be atogs. I would still very much like to hear from him (or anyone else) about the viability of oath as a sideboard plan, especially when it comes to GAT.

[zero]

What GAT (and Tog) do is filter through the deck as quickly as possible with their respective draw engines; you don't need oath. If the oath in your hand were a dryad, you could be well on your way to winning without needing to wait for your opponent to play a creature. You're an aggro-control deck, what are you going to be mana leaking first turn? That's why you have so many pitch counters, play aggressively and let the opponent react to your moves. Adding duress main is more in line with what the deck wants to do than mana leak, I'd suggest testing that out.

[monstre]

What GAT (and Tog) do is filter through the deck as quickly as possible with their respective draw engines; you don't need oath. If the oath in your hand were a dryad, you could be well on your way to winning without needing to wait for your opponent to play a creature.

But the oath in my hand is a dryad. The oaths are in the sideboard to be brought in during matches in which they are superior. It may very well be that the oaths are never better than the dryads, but that's a quite a different proposition from what you're saying here.

You're an aggro-control deck, what are you going to be mana leaking first turn? That's why you have so many pitch counters, play aggressively and let the opponent react to your moves. Adding duress main is more in line with what the deck wants to do than mana leak, I'd suggest testing that out.

I was suggesting mana leak as a replacement for mana drain and definitely not duress, of which I play four. I think this can only make for a more aggressive deck, so I'm afraid I don't understand where you're going with this.

As a side note, if GAT should play aggressively, how do you feel about demonic consultation ? It wasn't on any list I've seen and I have a feeling it ought to be. I'd like to hear an argument against it if anyone were so inclined (and yes, I do side it out when going for oath).

[zero]

In exactly what matches is an oath superior to a dryad? As I said, in a deck that allows you to find your creatures as quickly as possibly, and that runs as many togs as a dedicated tog deck anyway, why exactly do you think you need oath's?. Do you have problems with other aggro decks? I don't see how, but if you do, just board in another deed.
The core of the deck is dryad's, why would you be taking them out? Just play Tog if that's what you want, you don't need oath's there either.  This is type 1, not extended...you need 5 cards in hand and a berserk, not a fat graveyard with tog. Are you going to add cognivores too? You have more than enough tutors (4), most of my tutoring is for either ancestral or yawgmoth's will, neither of which I would be trying to get with consultation.
If you want to play with mana leak's and oath's, play a dedicated oath deck instead. Diluting concepts in type 1 is a fatal proposition, your deck needs to be focused to win. That mean the best cards with the best synergy or flat out brokenness; mana drain, quirion dryad, psychatog, yawgmoth's will, etc.. are all better than oath of druids and mana leak. Other gro decks  (including emerald alice, which had an oath transformational sideboard IIRC) pretty much became obsolete with the addition of black to the archetype.

[monstre]

Could you please give me the benefit of the doubt ? I'm familiar with current GAT builds and I like to think I have some idea how they operate. Please excuse me if you're only trying to help, but the tone of your posts strikes me as dismissive.

I guess I have have failed to provide compelling reasons for any of my proposed changes, but this is because I'm not sold on any of those ideas yet. Nevertheless, here's my best attempt to breathe new life into this discussion.

Regarding oath of druids, you might want to think of it as the combo route. If you're reasonably certain you will be facing early creatures, there is a very real possibility that the oath will get a lethal atog into play right away. This is hard to quantify of course, but in an ideal scenario you get a flying atog and lots of food. I'm not smart enough to figure out the odds though, so this is where you guys come in to explain why this is a terrible idea.

About the mana leak thing, I guess the objection is that it doesn't give any mana. I have noticed that some GAT builds have grown to accomodate the mana part of mana drain, so that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that mana drain is the prefered counter. The flip side of this argument is that the mana curve of your deck won't be ideal unless you manage to resolve a mana drain. This is a trade-off and I think a deck built around mana leak could prove a little more consistent, but I'm still working on that too  

I'm adamant about demonic consultation though. I mean, it's either a dryad, an atog, a counter, a duress, a wish or a land, for one mana, at instant speed. And if you're losing anyway, you can even fetch a one-of most of the time. I've met a few people who loathed (playing with) this card, so maybe it's more of a personal preference. I would argue that it's perfect if you want to play GAT aggressively.

edit : I just realized how much demonic consultation would suck against mindslaver. Mea culpa.

[Ultima]

Maybe I can help here with some of the reasons you want.

Oath of Druids- I don't think that oath is a good idea because its too symmetrical.  Against most decks that are good, oath isn't because Hulk and slavery don't need to play creatures until thier ready and just win.  All the while you've just wasted your resources and SB slots to play oath giving them another huge advantage.

Mana Leak- Nowadays, while its true that alot of decks are coming out the door turn 1 and you can get mana leak online turn 1,  the tier 1 decks can either play around leak(Hulk) or pay the 3(Workshop).

Consultation- GAT did use this card in the beginning, but it got sided out too often and removed to too many combo components when you used it so the reason for playing it was defeated by the card itself.

Hope this helps.

[monstre]

You are quite right that oath isn't any good against hulk or slavery. I guess it's more of a (possibly terrible) idea in search of a purpose at this point. It might be good against aggro, but that would be solving the wrong problem. Thank you for putting things in perspective, I need to do some more thinking about this.

I'm not giving up on the mana leaks just yet however. I have some experience playing this card and I don't think you should be concerned about anyone playing around it early on. Workshops can't be used for this by the way. Your opponent is going to use that lotus or mana vault to cast spells in the first place anyway, and in the unlikely event that he doesn't, then I guess you just countered a lotus or a vault Seriously though, I have found that mana leak only becomes a liability if the game starts to drag on. I'm not sure what you mean when you say that hulk can play around mana leak, but if you mean holding back spells until you have more mana, be my guest ! You know how daze can mess with your mind ? Don't let me slow you down without even using any cards...

Oh, and I think I've come to my senses about demonic consultation. Anyway, thanks a lot for your help and I can't wait to read the GAT primer you've been working on