Dispoasble Heroes 5 Proxy

[Kerz]

I played GAT. There was 22 people. I didn’t take notes, and I didn’t write down names. My list was fucking tight as hell, in my opinion the most optimal a GAT list can get in type one. Here’s what I played:

Team One Eight Seven GAT

//Win
2 Psychatog
4 Quirion Dryad

//Draw
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Gush
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Brainstorm

//Tutor
2 Cunning Wish
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

//Counter/Disruption
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Duress
2 Misdirection

//Other/Utility
1 Time Walk
1 Mind Twist
1 Yawgmoth's Will

//Land/Mana
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Island

//Sideboard
1 Ghastly Demise
1 Smother
2 Oxidize
1 Naturalize
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Berserk
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Coffin Purge
1 Stifle
1 Misdirection
1 Submerge

Its fairly standard, but the last 1-2 slots make all the difference.

Lets get to the business. I don’t have a ton of pre-tourney shit, seeing I live 10 minutes away from the tourney. I wake up, make my deck on the spot, and leave my house at 12:30. We get to the store at 1 to find a few peeps there. We get started miraculously close to one, and that’s that.

Round 1: Control Slaver

I sit down knowing this can be tough: the key to the match is an extremely early dryad (control slaver is generally quite slow), and countering thirsts.

Game 1: I duress a thirst, and he is left with not a lot of gas, but a 1st turn welder. He has shitloads of artifact mana though. I get a turn 2 dryad, and at the end of his turn 3 I am able to AK and Brainstorm after FoWing a thirst he drew. During turn 4 main phase I Brainstorm and Gush. He top decks a slaver and is able to hardcast/activate it with all the artifact mana. My hand doesn’t have anything that fucks me up, so the best he gets is a timewalk. He slavers me four times with my huge dryad not being able to be dealt with. He eventually runs out of artifacts and loses.

-1 Mind Twist  -1 Duress + 2 BEB

Game 2: I have a first turn dryad, which I follow up with Duress and Brainstorm next turn. I counter thirsts and dryad gets too big too fast.

Round 2: Super-Gro (Columbus-Style)

Game 1: I misdirect ancestral, and resolve one of my own. Tog does his thang.

-1 Mind Twist (he played 2-3 MisD) +1 Deed (good card to have MD versus him, with all my tutoring)

Game 2: He mulls to five and I goldfish on him. It sucked.

Round 3: Keeper (NOT Germbus- no angels)

We draw because he is my homie. Also, a 2-0-2 or 2-1-1 makes it into the t8.

Round Four: Mono Blue

Don’t ask. I guess he had been winning random games somehow.

Game 1: I mull to 5 and just lose after he Misdirects my ancestral.

Game 2: I get a 1st turn dryad and he can’t deal (Keg is so, so slow)

Game 3: My LoA and his Phid battle for like, 6-7 turns, untill I resolve recall at his EOT into a HUGE will. I go to the Tog route.

Top 8: Tog

Game 1: He is forced to AK for 1 and 2 in response to my casting of ancestral. He FoWs, I FoW back. Ancestral resolves, and then I cast AK.

Game 2: I get a turn 1 Duress, and turn 2 Dryad. His DA gets MisD’d, and plays a desparation Tog. I win in a couple turns after cantripping and aggressively casting AK (I was sure he sided his out).

Top 4: EBA

Game 1: He gets an early Mage on Dryad, so I drain a Phid and a few other things into a ton of tutoring and drawing, playing the game as Hulk would. I get a tog out, then Vamp for gush with a wish in my hand for a 18/X beat down.

Game 2: I have a Jet, Island, and Sea out. He casts mage on Tog and passes. I draw-go. He plays phid, which meets my drain. I top deck a trop to cast one of the three dryads in my grip, burning for two. The nest turn I cast another dryad and Brainstorm. He balances me down to one card and one creature. He then casts Diabolic Edict. I play the 3rd dryad and ride him to vic-toh-ry.

I split in the finals with Brendan Boyle (misemaster) with Control Slaver to get some store credit, which I use to buy packs, which I sell for cash. Hot shit.

Props:
GAT, for being so ridiculously and insanely broken

Slops:
The other 18 people. Where the fuck were you? This tourney could have been for a lotus.

[FireFall26]

Nice job Aaron.  This is just a preview of how we will break 5 D GAT.

[hulk3rules]

My list was fucking tight as hell, in my opinion the most optimal a GAT list can get in type one.

That's pretty arrogant don't you think?

Its fairly standard, but the last 1-2 slots make all the difference.

What slots, what cards, and why are they so good?


Also- you said there were 22 people, but you only played 4 rounds of swiss??  What's up with that?

[Smmenen]

My list was fucking tight as hell, in my opinion the most optimal a GAT list can get in type one.

That's pretty arrogant don't you think?

Not if its true.  Don't you think?

Steve

[The Atog Lord]

Congrats, Kerz.

EDIT: Removed by Rich in the name of avoiding flame.

[Kerz]

Well, I included the "in my opininion" for a reason. If I simply said "this is the best possible GAT list", than that would be cocky. I'm entitled to my opinions, just like how the scrubs have their opinions on how Sui is good.

If you want me to dissect the changes, I guess I will. My starting point was Scott Limoges's Waterbury-winning list (me and Scott are good friends).

Here is his list:

1 Gush
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Quirion Dryad
2 Psychatog
4 Mana Drain
4 Brainstorm
1 Mind Twist
2 Duress
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampric Tutor
1 Mystical Tuto
1 Yawgmoth's Will
2 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
1 Merchant Scroll

5 Moxen
4 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Strip Mine
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea

SB:
2 Diabolic Edict
3 Naturalize
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Berserk
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Fact or Fiction

The first thing I noticed in his list was the horrendous sideboard. The whole thing needed to be revamped, and with the deck not playing red there was tons of space.

I built the new SB from scratch:

2 Pernicious Deed - Pretty much a no-brainer. Needed vs. FCG and some Artifact Aggro,  among other things.

2 Blue Elemental Blast - With the large amount of FCG out there, this is becoming an auto-inclusion in most sideboards. Really good against welders and other randomness too.

2 Oxidize - This deck's toughest match is Workshop Slaver, seeing chalice for two really, really hurts me. I wanted to be able to have a MD one to fetch up while being able to use the 2 Cunning Wishes to get the 2nd.

1 Naturalize - I wanted to make the SB as tool-boxy as possible. This can be sided in vs. Belcher, and used to kill random Enchantments when Oxidize can't do the job.

1 Smother - Wish-able removal in the SB is needed. This is the shoe-in for that slot.

1 Ghastly Demise - A second removal spell, can be used to kill bigger stuff or sided in with Smother left in the board (or vice versa).

1 Submerge - AMAZING in the now more popular GAT mirror, and decent against tog/other random aggro.

1 Berserk - obvious.

1 Coffin Purge - While dragon has slowed down in popularity, I feel safer having some kind of GY hate in my board. It's not terrible versus slaver at some points, either.

1 Mis-D - Without REB, I really want a wishable counterspell. This won me a game yestarday, it really comes out of nowhere.

1 Stifle - I never really used this, but in my quest to make the SB a complete toobox, I wanted to include it. It can randomly own a decree, deed, and etc.

1 Skeetal Scrying - Better than FOF in the wishable-card draw slot.

My changes to the maindeck were:

-1 Strip Mine - this deck is mana hungry, and 1 strip mine won't do anything, really. What, is it there to kill a random LoA? With only 1 strip effect its not consistant enough, so its cut.

-1 Island - GAT can easily run on 22 sources with all the cantrips. Just ask Steve Houldette. :lol:

+1 Duress - IMO Duress is a perfect 3-of card. You want it consistantly in the early game, but mid-game its never terrible to set up a huge spell or take the Yawgmoth's Will they were setting up for. With only two, you'll never see them enough and its not worth it.

+1 LoA - This deck will be happy to play the control game in some matchups. I think it's an auto-inclusion with all the draw.

I don't want to get into the AK vs. DA/TFK argument, because I feel it's already clear which is better.

[hulk3rules]

@Menendian and Rich:

Kerz just posts his list and says "the most optimal a GAT list can get in type one" with absolutely NO reasoning why it's optimal or anything like that.  Therefore it appears as if he's saying it just because it performed well yesterday.  I don't see how me calling him arrogant is way off at all

Also- did you see what he played against?  Super-gro, EBA, mono-blue???  Comon now

[wuaffiliate]

hey aaron did you play vs any highlander or stasis? because thats what makes a REAL metagame man.

[The Atog Lord]

hulk,

Oftentimes, after a tournament, I realize that my decklist may have in some way been suboptimal. In that case, when writing a report, I list how I would change the deck to improve it, based on what I learned from the event.

By stating, "in my opinion the most optimal a GAT list can get in type one," Kerz is indicating that he would not make any changes to his list. This is useful information.

Moreover, even if you think Kerz is being arrogant, posting your thoughts out in the open like that is never the best way to go about things. Do you have some deep regard for Kerz' virtue, not wanting him to fall prey to hubris? Then, advise him in private. Public posting of your accusations will win you no friends, nor will it serve to improve either yourself or the subject of your post.

[Smmenen]

I agree completely.  The only real consequence is that it tends to put the poster on the defensive becuase they feel attacked in a public forum.  If your concern truly is with his hubris and not his claim, then PM him.  If you disagree, perhaps phrasing it in more tactful terms might be more appropriate.  I'm not saying i'm the model in that regard - but its certainly something to consider.

Steve

[Eastman]

The only real consequence is that it tends to put the poster on the defensive becuase they feel attacked in a public forum.  If your concern truly is with his hubris and not his claim, then PM him.
Steve

Then, advise him in private. Public posting of your accusations will win you no friends, nor will it serve to improve either yourself or the subject of your post.

holy hypocrisy batman! why didn't you pm hulk?

[hulk3rules]

Rich and Steve:

You guys have got to be kidding me.  It's not like I was trying to start a flame war or anything, what I said was true.  And because of my post, Kerzner came back and explained his choices.  Now this thread is 10x better and more usefull to the public.  So quite frankly, I think my post ended up serving this topic well

[Kerz]

I completely understand Brian.... to be quite honest the post was made in haste, and I didn't have time to go over it. I think everything should be kosher now.

The truth is that I did post a claim without any real backup, just hoping people would look over the list or whatever. It has nothing to do with me winning the tournament, it just has to do with the way the deck has been playtesting and such. The tournament did further solidify these claims, but by no means "proved" them. It was a rather small tournament anyway.

On another note: what do people think of the list anyway?

[Methuselahn]

Good fucking god.  Who cares if Kerz is arrogant in this thread or not.  Let him strut his shit a little since he won.  

[substantial content]
Kerz- perhaps you could go over the 3 Tropical Island/4 Island plan.  I'm not sure I would run that configuration, so I'm interested in your thoughts there.
[/substantial content]

[Kerz]

<3 Methu

While playing 4 Trops looks awesome, it's honestly not needed. The 4th trop will generally serve the same pourpose as an Island, but wasteable. Don't forget- this deck can get screwed by multiple wastelands. With the fetch count at 5, I didn't find 3 trops to be a problem.