[Deck Discussion] GroATog: Outside-the-Box

[alvin6688]

EDIT: Replace all instances of the word Eternal Witness with the word Relearn, and ignore anything I said about having a bad mana base. All that has changed.

Posted on starcitygames.com:

Ok Id have to say that some people are really optimistic and others are very closed minded about this deck working. The deck will work. Not as Well at it could but it will. GAT should have enough counters/distruption to hold back most decks the only problem i see is it winning. It needs a killer combo or something to make it win. Tinker/DSC is good but if they can answer to that ur f*** so if u want this deck to really have a chance u need another win condition. Anyways GAT not viable yet...needs one more killer combo.

Hmmm.....

Regrowth unrestricted would be utter lunacy. GroAtog could come back with one Gush and one Ancestral and play 5 Ancestral/Walks in a row.

HMMMM.....

Anyway, Smemmen's comment stuck with me. I had secretly advocated the unrestriction of Regrowth, but never thought of it's potential brokeness in GAT should such an unrestriction happen. Now of course its replacement lies a notch below on the efficiency chart, but it nevertheless is still a good card.

Of course I'm talking about the 1GG Regrowth, Eternal Witness. Even I shudder at the thought of Witness in Type 1, but think about it. If you can get the mana base to work - and that's quite an if - you've got a deck that runs four Regrowths. GAT also happens to like beating, so Regrowths that win games via card advantage and damage isn't bad.

But what can Eternal Witness do for GAT?
1. Reuse Gush
2. Reuse Ancestral Recall
3. Reuse Time Walk
4. Gifts Ungiven

Not a bad list. Right now GAT decks rely on weak cards like AK w/o Intuition and Night's Whisper to draw cards. That is, quite frankly, sad, especially when you compare it to the card draw that goes on in Meandeck Gifts and Control Slaver. Heck, even Fish has a better draw engine than freaking Night's Whisper.

But wouldn't it be nice to force the other guy to deal with stuff like Recall, Will, Gush, or Time Walk twice? Wouldn't it be nice if you could tutor for brokenness, play it out, exhaust both sides in an exhaustion war, then cast this thing and second in a second wave of assaults? If you can get the mana going, the card advantage generated by casting a Recall that got countered last turn is overwhelming.

Now imagine if they don't have Force, or if you had a Force as well.

[updated decklist at the end]

Even I feel scared when I look at that decklist, but it does seem, for some reason, to work. Last week, I played a typical GAT list against our Type 1 team leader, who used Ugo Rivard's Control Slaver, card-by-card. Final score: Slaver 10, GAT 2. That's sad. This week, I played this deck against the same guy running the same Slaver list. Final score: Slaver 5, GAT 5. That's a pretty good turn-around, considering that he's a much more experienced Type 1 player than I am, and that he started playing Slaver back when they used Workshops.

I'll try to explain the reason for the turn-around without being boring or snobbish. What happened before with normal GAT was this: GAT would cast a Dryad, the two deck's would get into a counter war (unless Slaver had the Welder/fatty engine active already, in which case Dryad didn't matter). GAT would usually win the counter war thanks to Misdirections. Both sides would be exhausted of a hand, but Slaver would topdeck Intuition or TfK or Fact or Fiction or Gifts Ungiven, while GAT was drawing Sleight of Hand and AK for 1. Dryad would bring Slaver down to 10, but it never mattered. Life matters really little in Magic, and even less so in Type 1.

New GAT would do this: Cast early Dryad if it has one. Merchant Scroll for Ancestral Recall or Gush. A counter war would be fought over one of the two plays, or possibly an opposing threat. GAT would win half of them, and lose the other half. Either way, next turn GAT would either tutor another restricted drawer or cast Witness to return the Ancestral/Gush to hand. Due to the counter war last turn, Slaver would not have another counter in hand. The Ancestral Recall would resolve (either for the first time netting 3 cards, or for the second time that game, netting 6 cards). As Type 1 players know, a resolved Ancestral Recall is usually the beginning of the chain reaction that leaves the opponent forever behind on cards. Because GAT now had many more ways to find Recall/Gush and many more ways to reuse them, it would be able to win the CA war against opposing Drain decks.

In the 10 games I played with this new GAT, I often did do just what Smemmen described: cast many Ancestrals/Time Walks in a row.

Cards I really want to add but can't: A complementary draw suite (AK, TfK, etc); Duress/Stifle; more Merchant Scrolls.

As for the mana base: GG is annoying in the face of Wasteland. However, opposing decks often have to make a choice between successfully countering a threat the first time GAT casts it, or preventing Eternal Witness from recurring the threat via Wasteland. Often, if they Wasteland early on, they won't be winning the counter war because Drain is temporarily turned off. They also have a smaller chance of stopping the Merchant Scroll that is looking for Gush. Also, many opponents don't know that the deck needs double-green, so they go for the black source instead of the second green one.

Nevertheless, the mana base is tricky. You want GG, you want black, but only very little of it. You want basics too. Forests are stable, but unfetchable. Nonbasics are better for color-consistency, but Waste-able. I can't run Duress in the sideboard without running more Underground Seas, so I have to find something else answer REB. Ideas?

In order to support the ability to cast a 3cc Regrowth effect and still cast the Regrowthed card, I needed to increase the mana count. Drain helps, but I run Mana Crypt as well. 23 mana sources, including 7 accelerants, lets us run off our higher curve. The higher mana count combined with more tutor effects lets this GAT deck play the Yawgmoth's Will game a lot more often than normal versions could, and makes the deck a little more like it's 4-Gush grandfather.

Atleast for the Slaver matchup, Witness was worth what ever weird things it did to the deck. The deck can use a ton of tuning and fixing, but I'm posting this to suggest an idea, is all. Anyone have any thoughts on this new draw engine?

U/G/b GroATog (updated 8/04/05)

4 Quirion Dryad
2 Psychatog

4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Merchant Scroll
2 Relearn
1 Regrowth
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Gush
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Cunning Wish
1 Intuition
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Fastbond

4 Misdirection
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl

3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Island

3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Echoing Truth
1 Snuff Out
1 Berserk
1 Blue Blast
1 Coffin Purge
1 Oxidize
3 Naturalize

[EnialisLiadon]

Why not stick a tog or two in Sex and see where that gets you?  Seems like it'd be the same thing, more or less.  MD 'zerk would be nice, too.

[Revvik]

I'll try this simply for the thrill of using my old S-Chinese Foil Dryads again, but I can't help but lament the lack of enemy-color fetchlands in this game.  You want to talk diversity?  Imagine if you could fetch islands OR forests with a single card - 'twould be amazing!

That said, I would certainly like to see what unrestricted Regrowth would do to this format, and once I'm done testing some with this, maybe I'll use this as a basis for researching that.

Have you considered Daze at all?  The obvious change I would make here would be
-3 Misdirection
+3 Daze
which may not even be the correct move, but consider that Daze does still win some counter wars and help save lands.  Tough luck about Forests though 

Seems to me that Gifts Ungiven, although costly, is going to be just this side of amazing in here.
- Eternal Witness
- Gush
- Ancestral Recall
- Yawgmoth's Will
or maybe subbing in a Fastbond in the Witness slot if you already have one, or something like that.  This way, you're almost guaranteeing yourself a Yawgmoth's Will in one of your next turns in much the same way that Meandeck Gifts and etc. do.  I wonder if it is possible to do the same with Intuition - is one mana less worth getting one less card?  This deck does not specifically care about them all being of a different name...

My last suggestion would probably be to cut Cunning Wish entirely.  Take it with a grain of salt though, as I haven't even picked up the cards for this yet.

[Dozer]

It looks nice, but what I am missing is the cantrip power. I don't see your Dryads getting big. The Witness is a very good shot at mid-term advantage, and with a single good cantrip or a Gush in your graveyard, should go a long way on its own. But how many Dryad-growing cards can you cast in one turn? The strength of old GAT was that it could chain cantrips into cantrips. With your version, you mostly have to rely on Witness, and your Wills will be much less explosive. This version looks like it plays a slower game and relies on Ancestral much more (as you describe in your opening post).

With that premise... What does Deep Analysis do for you? If you want to draw cards for four mana, Merchant Scroll for Ancestral is cheaper, and Witness for Ancestral is the same (although with double green). Especially since you say you want to fit in more Merchant Scrolls, DA can probably become one. That would smooth the curve even more and give you another cheap instead of clunky Dryad pumper. If you already got Ancestral, Merchant Scroll for Brainstorm is still at least two counters for Dryad and cheaper to boot. DA is probably vers good with Gifts, but is the single copy worth it? Your call, but I believe Brainstorm could be just as effective. The "Regrowth, Will, Walk, Witness" Gifts should be perfect in any situation. Also, maybe you can cut the second Wish for the fourth Merchant Scroll, since it fetches the Wish anyhow.

Two other questions I'd like to just throw around, because I obviously haven't tested this deck: How many Gifts do you want? The card is pretty expensive for GAT, but having none means missing out too much, plus you have Witness tor recur it. Is one Gifts enough, then? Would more even be bad since they are topping the curve?
And what does the Tog do in there? Is it necessary? I know it is Grow-A-Tog, but you might as well just Grow-A-Dryad because you can always go Witness beatdown, too. The Psychatog looks like an unnecessary safety net to me.

So far, an interesting concept... worth trying, I think, although WTF looks better than this on paper, and so does Legacy GAT. Maybe I'm just put off by the high number of Green cards that don't pump your Dryad and by the comparatively many
expensive spells.

Dozer

[alvin6688]

Thanks for the replies. I'm glad we've got a discussion going. I tested this a bit more against Slaver and UbaStacks, and I really think it's stronger than old GAT. We simply draw more cards; while old GAT runs out of steam around turn 3, this deck picks up more steam the later the game goes. Anyway...

EnialisLiadon: I'm glad you brought up Sex.dec. I never even knew what it was (just heard of Mark Perez talking about it). I googled for a decklist, and found them running 4 Bop,  Werebear, 3 Witness. Weird. For some reason I'd always thought that Sex ran Forgotten Ancient. Bop is certainly interesting, though I think Werebear is too small in a field of Wild Mongrels. Also, the Sex deck I found ran 4 colors (UGRB) and had the scariest mana base ever.

Revnik: I don't like Daze. Too often, a deck with an explosive start will have mana sitting around. Playing around Daze is too easy without mana denial like Wasteland, Strip, Null Rod, Chalice, etc. Gifts indeed is very strong in the deck. Intuition is something I'll have to try, though if I run it I'll be tempted to use AKs  .

Yes, I cut the Cunning Wishes. I don't need them if I get my game going. If I end up missing them, I'll add one to Scroll up in desperate and/or weird situations.

Dozer: I'm taking into account what you said about the cantrips. I do miss Sleight of Hand a lot. I ran DA as a Gifts target (I do the same in extended). But, I never Gifted for it, because Regrowth/Witness/brokenness always took priority. That and the Wishes are some of the cards I'm taking out for cheaper cantrips.

To answer question 1: I find 1 enough. I scroll for it if I'm finally out of Ancestrals/Gush to recur, or out of cantrips. Functionally, Gifts acts as a sort of scrollable Eternal Witness - a midgame rejuvenator. It's a juicy target for games that call for it, but it's expensive, as you said, so I'm sticking to one. I am going to test Intuition and see how well to does.

The Tog question is tough. If I run black, I might as well run one Tog incase Dryad doesn't get through. But the real question is the effectiveness of black. Black gives Will, Tog, Demonic Tutor. That's about it. This deck can't support Duress, so that's out the window. Demonic Tutor is easy to replace, and Tog is just a finisher - not too important. Yawgmoth's Will, on the other hand, is obviously huge, especially in this deck. So the question is: Is it worth splashing black for just Will? If so, then we keep all three cards in. If not, we take all three out for more disruption.

Heh. Reminds me of Chapin Gro, except Witness >>>> Ophidian.

It loses the Will/Fastbond combo, but theoretically the deck has enough midgame gas that it won't need it too much. Running two colors opens the possibility for Chalice, Null Rod, and Wasteland between MD and side, while UGB will probably have a partial Wishboard. Also, UG makes casting Witness on turn 2 or 3 a MUCH more consistent play.

Changes I'd make to UGB:
-1 Wish
-1 Deep Analysis
-1 Mana Drain
+3 Sleight of Hand
and make a Gifts/Intuition split card to see which one is used more

So, two colors or three?

[b-tings]

I have nothing valuable to contribute to this discussion, but I vote we name this deck "ReGroATog."

[Revvik]

I have nothing valuable to contribute to this discussion, but I vote we name this deck "ReGroATog."

Seconded.  And I don't think cutting black is appropriate - if it is, then the entire deck becomes aggro control and loses its whole "regrow the Will" combo.  Gifts Ungiven becomes too weak to run, and much of the deck's power is lost.

I think you're absolutely right about Daze.  Maybe that was just me thinking "I have zero foil Misdirections, but three foil Dazes..."

Maybe cutting a Cunning Wish would make room for another Gifts Ungiven?  This would leave you with:

Mystical Tutor
Demonic Tutor
2x Merchant Scroll
2x Gifts Ungiven

to get a good chain going (looking at the original list).  This is only IF you want to reinforce the Gifts Ungiven plan.

[Metman]

This is just food for thought but maybe the Eternal Witness isn't the right answer to get the Regrowth effect.  Have you considered Relearn?  It's a blue sorcery with double blue in the casting cost but it seems that it would be easier on the mana base than the Witness and it still gets the same cards. 
Bosium Strip is also a card I had thought about trying to abuse.  It's casting cost and activation price may be steep but with a couple of instants or sorcerys on the top of the library and you may be able to do some crazy stuff. 

[alvin6688]

Dang. Relearn is awesome. The only things ReGAT ever gets with Witness is Recall/TimeWalk/Gush anyway. I think Relearn will repace Eternal Witness. Thank you Metman. With that change, black will be an auto include, as will 2 Togs. Sweetness.

6 creatures
20-21 draw
1 Fastbond
11-12 Counters
7 CryptLoMoxen
14 Lands

Looks broken.

And I don't think cutting black is appropriate - if it is, then the entire deck becomes aggro control and loses its whole "regrow the Will" combo.  Gifts Ungiven becomes too weak to run, and much of the deck's power is lost.

Agreed. I tested U/G, and while its exactly underpowered, it misses Yawg's Will too much.

Maybe cutting a Cunning Wish would make room for another Gifts Ungiven?  This would leave you with:

Mystical Tutor
Demonic Tutor
2x Merchant Scroll
2x Gifts Ungiven

to get a good chain going (looking at the original list).  This is only IF you want to reinforce the Gifts Ungiven plan.

I was thinking of cutting the Wish for a third Merchant Scroll. Maybe I should try two Gifts, but I've yet to see a GAT list (or Slaver list, which generally runs a lot more mana sources than GAT does) run more than one. I'm not sure if the deck needs more midgame draw, especially now that Relearn is in the picture.

As for Daze: I'd run MisDs before Daze, but if we find that we have extra room for more than 11 counters, Daze follows right after. Or maybe Duress, now that we don't need double-green.

[Revvik]

Looking at the scheme of things, I'm not sure about Relearn.  It's a definite improvement on the mana base, and it saves me from competing with Type 2 players for a few Eternal Witnesses (which won't be an issue for long anyways).

Basically, you won't be able to regrow Lotus, Fastbond, Dryad, or destroyed mana sources.  That's not much of a drawback, but I was actually imagining some of the sick turn two plays involving a Lotus, Ancestral, Gush, Eternal Witness, and a couple other random cards (in the scenario I was imagining, the Witness would allow replaying of the Lotus to do some incredible stuff fast.

I don't think those situations would come up enough, and even then, targeting the Lotus with the Witness was just to generate mana.
This deck is getting me thinking much more than I thought it would...

[Dralock]

We were working on this a few months ago. At the time, Trinisphere was unrestricted, and the deck just didn't DO enough to warrant building it out very far, this is the list we came up with for a black splash (and not just U/G). I think cutting duress and twist for more counters and the third scroll would be optimal.

*EDIT* I completely missed a few sentances.

At the same time, if you add in more utility colors, like white, and drop wasteland, you have made yourself quite a potent grave abuse engine, which can rival slaver in its ability to just bounce back from anywhere. Originally the deck was on wizards and was called "IplayfiveAncestral Recalls.dec".

lands: 21
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

artifact mana: 8
5 Moxes
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Rind
1 Mana Crypt

creatures: 8
4 Eternal Witness
4 Quirion Dryad

countermagic: 8
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain

tutoring and card drawing: 8
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Merchant Scroll
1 Demonic Tutor

broken: 7
1 Time Walk
1 Fastbond
3 Duress
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Mind Twist

[alvin6688]

Revvik, the problem with recurring a Black Lotus with Witness is that you gain 3 mana, but it costs 3 to cast the Witness. They cancel out, unless I'm forgetting something tricky with Time Walk. I'm glad the deck is interesting - I personally find all forms of Gro, especially GAT, fascinating.

Dralock, I'm not sure about the Wastelands and the 29 mana sources. Dryad decks are supposed to be land light, after all. I understand that Witness acts like a Crucible of Worlds if you have Wastes/Strip Mines in your graveyard, but between regenerating a Recall and regenerating a Strip, I'd still go with Recall most of the time. That, and I thnk Relearn is superior because it's blue: Pitchable, castable under Wasteland harrassment, grows Dryad, Mystical Tutor-able, etc.

The way I'm approaching the deck is to make it as similar to 4-Gush GAT has humanly possible with the current card pool. Hence, I'm going to base my decklist on Smemmen's from his article Gardening In Vintage: How To Gro-A-Tog And Clip A Lotus. I don't want to overload the thread with decklists because it tends to attract mods, but whatever:

ReGrow-A-Tog

MAINDECK:
4 Quirion Dryad
2 Psychatog

4 Brainstorm
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Merchant Scroll
3 Relearn
1 Regrowth
1 Time Walk
1 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Cunning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Fastbond

4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
1 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Island

SIDEBOARD:
3 Naturalize
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Oxidize
1 Stifle
1 Berserk
1 Snuff Out
1 Echoing Truth
1 Misdirection
1 Blue Blast

The maindeck is both strikingly similar to Menendian's list and to Meandeck Gifts. Merchant Scroll is as central here as it is in those two decks because getting Ancestral Recall or Gush is you primary plan of attack. The deck kicks off after you find that first piece of brokenness; whether it resolves or not isn't important because you have Relearns waiting to let you try again...and again.

I can't decide which is the elusive 61st card. It'll probably be Sleight of Hand number 4, but I don't know yet.

EDIT: I really want to test this deck out against Meandeck Gifts and see what happens, but I don't personally know anyone whose good at the deck. If anyone has MWS or Apprentice, maybe we good get a game or two in?

[Revvik]

Yeah yeah - Witnessing a Lotus is about it, but like I said: it's more for mana conversion, and definitely not good enough to help Witness make the cut.
Relearn it is.

I've never liked Sleight of Hand in just about any deck I've ever played, so I'm going to go over the list of cantrips and see what else I can find.  Since this is a Drain deck and all, maybe I'll even find a way to squeeze in Intuition / AK, but it ain't bloody likely.  Maybe just the 4 Accumulated Knowledges, since they chain into each other and you're already running 3 Merchant Scrolls to keep the chain going?

Comments on the Board:
- would Ground Seal mean boarding out the super-secret-tech of Relearn?
- Pernicious Deed: I love this card to death, but it's very bad with Dryads in the main.  If you were to board this in against a deck as a catch-all form of removal?  I'm not sure if my plan would match yours, so I'd like to compare:

Aggro: Deed comes in, but Dryads stay in as an early threat, so probably...
-3 Misdirection
+1 Pernicious Deed
+1 Echoing Truth
+1 Deck Specific Hoser (BEB against FCG, etc.)

Control Slaver: This is a tough one to decide on a boarding strategy with, but here goes...
-3 Relearn
-2 Psychatog (All I could think of cutting - odd)
+3 Ground Seal
+1 Misdirection
+1 Pernicious Deed

And then Stax would be a deck where I would want possibly even MORE Pernicious Deeds against. 
Say, the following changes to the posted sideboard?

-1 Smother
-1 Ghastly Demise
+1 Snuff Out
+1 Pernicious Deed

It's almost a preference as to which you prefer - Ghastly Demise or Snuff Out, but Snuff Out has performed consistently for me for the past nearly 2 years, and was MVP out of my sideboard this past weekend in Chicago, so it usually gets a mention from me before I try anything else.

[alvin6688]

Ground Seal isn't supposed to be in there. I run it in Legacy, so I typed it without thinking. Oops . I have Tormod's Crypt in its place. I think Crypt is better than Phrexian Furnace, mostly because it's cheaper.

I indeed think Snuff Out > Ghastly Demise. Free spells are always good, and that one mana is almost always more important in Type 1 than the life.

I'm not sure about the 2nd Deed though. I agree that Smother is probably suboptimal. Smother and Stifle are two cards I don't mind cutting, preferrably against some anti-Workshop tech. What would be best against UbaStaX, ChronoStaX, and AggroWorkshop? I've seen Energy Flux, Deeds (like you said), Pithing Needle, Null Rod, Magus of the Unseen, and even March of Machines!, but almost every deck runs red right now, and red gets huge cards like Rack and Ruin, Viashino Heretic, etc. They also get Pyroclasm, REB, and Fire/Ice.

Its really tempting to splash this color and that color in Type 1 decks because its so easy, but I'm trying to hold off on doing so until I test against Stax more.

Anyway, don't mind my sideboard too much. It's about 3 months and doesn't even know Gifts exists. We'd probably get better results if we started the board from scratch rather than trying to mess with that pile of fifteen. So, right now the top contenders are: Workshop (Aggro and Stax), CS, Fish/WTF, Gifts, Oath. Those are the main decks to deal with. I'm not a Type 1 Expert, so I don't know which cards are the best hosers against which. I know Old Man is outdated thanks to Kira, that Workshop doesn't fear Energy Flux that much, that Ben Kowal (or was it Hi-Val) doesn't fear Swords to Plowshares or graveyard removal when he's playing Gifts, and that Oath does. But aside from what I read, I've got no clue. Hence Ground Seal .

[Revvik]

Well, it's not as if Ground Seal is terrible, it's just that it requires the cutting of Relearn post-board or you will be running dead cards.

3 Ground Seal
2 Pernicious Deed
2-3 Naturalize
Coffin Purge
Snuff Out
Misdirection
Berserk
and the unholy tech of...
3 Flash Counter

This is fairly off the top of my head, and I'm not at all serious when I say Flash Counter.  It's probably not terrible, but I doubt its worth    Tormod's Crypt can replace the Ground Seals, so can E-Flux, depending on what you think you'll face.
Adding red gives us the obvious Red Elemental Blast, the tutorable Fire/Ice and blue bounce spells (Echoing Truth, Hurkyl's Recall), Lava Dart, and almost nothing added to the maindeck except for mana issues.  As is, you should probably be running 3 of each dual land to ensure ease of Dryad casting; time will tell.

With what I have listed above, multiple Naturalizes give a better game against Workshop Aggro - now you have cheap, efficient one-shot answers in your maindeck that can stall until the removal of Pernicious Deed comes online.  Then you can lay a Psychatog and pick up the pieces.  PROBABLY the same would go for Stax, but they attack you where it hurts, and not your life total.

[cssamerican]

Like I explained to Smemmen on the SCG Forum, there is already a deck that abuses Regrowth effects, it is called Sex. Its been around for a while now, at least seven-months that I know of, so it might be advisable to look at it, just so you can see if what you are doing is going to do something better than Sex does already. I really can’t see it, but I am really not at GAT player either. So, I will pass on any judgments until I actually try the deck out for myself. Just for reference click this hyperlink to see my lastest Sex list.

Taking what I know about Sex.dec and applying that knowledge to what you are trying to do here with Gro, I can see some potential problems you are going to run into. The first of these problems is going to be Chalice of the Void for one. It appears to be extremely painful for you. It kills Ancestral Recall, Sleight of Hand, and Brainstorm, which is pretty much your decks entire engine. It also stops you from playing Fastbond, which basically makes Gush crap, hence your secondary engine doesn’t get around the problem either. This means that you will have to build the deck in such a way that it can reliably remove a Chalice of the Void for one and remove it fast.

Your deck at this point has a lot of sorceries, which isn’t necessarily very synergetic with Mana Drain. Many games you will find yourself wanting to tap out which means Mana Drain will be a dead card. Other games you are going to leave {U} open only to find your opponent isn’t walking into your Drains; therefore, you will not be growing your Dryad or adding a bunch of mana to your pool, and since you have very few spells to cast at the end of your opponent’s turn this might hurt your development. This isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it will make the deck much harder to play optimally. Just something to think about as you go through the design process, because of this you might look at cards like Opt rather than Sleight of Hand due to their instant speed.

Seeds of Innocence is sooo much better than Pernicious Deed versus artifact decks because it cost a one time investment of three mana to wipe out their entire board, and it doesn’t kill your Dryads. Not to mention, in your case you can’t Relearn Pernicious Deed, but you could Relearn Seeds of Innocence.

Ground Seal kills Relearn and all the other regrowth effects, so I would advise against it.

[alvin6688]

I did check out Sex.dec as soon as EnialisLiadon mentioned it. I even playtested a few games with it to see what I could learn. As always, there are advantages and disadvantages in both Sex.dec and ReGAT.

Advantages of Sex.dec:
-more access to green allows the deck to run the superior Eternal Witness, who is more flexible and can beat for two.
-Birds of Paradise alleviates Wastelands
-Accumulated Knowledge engine doesn't care about Chalice 1.
-Runs Chalice
-Seeds of Innocence, something ReGAT can't run due to the double-green, is insane.

Disadvantages of Sex.dec
-It runs only 4 Force of Will for protection. This is big because MisD and Drain help ReGAT fight against opposing brokenness a lot better. Also, with Meandeck Gifts around, Misdirection an early Ancestral Recall is a lot more common. Mana Drain is insane against Workshop decks if you can get UU.
-Runs only one Island and one Forest. BOP helps the color problems, but the deck still struggled against Fish when Fish drew the heavy LD hand. ReGAT runs more islands (3 in my list above, 4 in my current list) and can live off just blue mana for a very long time. In fact, depending on the situation, I often Brainstorm away Dryads and play a Gifts-esque game of draw, draw, draw, set up Yawg's Will, win with Tog off Time Walk.
-I find Sex relies a bit too much on its Regrowth effects. It struggles against Tormod's Crypt more than GAT does because GAT can still Brainstorm and Opt/Sleight effectively.
-Werebear is only a 4/4, a 5 turn clock that trades with Juggernaut. ReGAT can laugh of Juggies if it has a Dryad or Tog out. It can even laugh off a Darksteel Colossus once in a while.

BTW, if you disagree on these points, please tell me. I haven't been playing Sex for more than two days, whereas I've played GAT since it had 4-Gushes, and popularized it in Extended last season, then tried my hand at in Legacy for a while....anyway I'm much better with GAT than with Sex, so it's a bit unfair for me to compare my experiences with the two decks.

What I do like about Sex.dec are the AKs. I especially think they could be great in ReGAT if we can find room. Intuition is good with Regrowth effects, and Regrowing large AKs gets around the Chalice 1 problem. But the deck is insanely tight. We'd have to cut Gifts for Intuition, some Opts/Sleights for AKs, and maybe go down to 3 Drains. I suppose we could squeeze it in we we wanted to, but I'm not sure if we do. Too many weird draw engines could end up bogging the deck down instead of helping it, and in our case making Dryad puny. Sometimes removing something tightens the deck and gives it breathing room and speed. Just look at what removing AK did to the Gifts archetype.

The sorceries are a problem. I'm thinking of cutting a Drain, which I don't cast too often, for a 4th Misdirection, which have been golden against Slaver, Oath, and Meandeck Gifts. Maybe even 1 Disrupting Shoal to freak people out . In addition, I think Opt is better than Sleight. Revvik is doing research on that, but between Sleight, Serum Visions, and Opt, I think I'm going to switch to Opt. Another way to alleviate the sorcery problem is to replace one Relearn with a Mystical Tutor. Mystical Tutor gets Relearn later on, Ancestral early on, Yawgmoth's Will even later on, etc. If we run AKs, I'd make that switch. Right now I'm not sure.

Chalice 1: Chalice 1 is an ass-pain, even more that Chalice-0 is. OMG I hate Chalice 1. Right now ReGAT has to Scroll for Wish --> answer to deal with it. It sucks to spend 7 mana to deal with a 2 mana card IN A TEMPO DECK! I want to run an Echoing Truth in the maindeck to deal with stuff like that, Akroma, and Darksteel Colossus, but I don't want to run conditional cards, especially not if we manage to fit in the AK engine. A second Cunning Wish could be an answer, but thats's still a clunky way to deal with the problem. Nevertheless, Chalice 1 is one of the primary reasons AK looks inviting at all, since it's a two mana engine as opposed to the one mana Cantrip/Ancestral engine we've got going. That, and if we do run AK, we can boast having more draw engines than any other deck in Type 1: AK/Intuition, Relearn/Ancestral/Gush, Brainstorm/Opt, Fastbond/Gush/Will.

Sideboard: I think we should make as much of the sideboard to be instants/sorceries as possible to abuse Relearn. Finding cheap, brutal, onee-shot cards and recurring them is a nice way to hate a deck out if it comes down to that. One reason the red splash is appealing is that we can amplify the more powerful hate by reusing it. Recurring Oxidize against Stax is great, but recurring ARTIFACT MUTATION is brutal. Same goes for Pyroclasm/Firestorm/FireIce against Fish, REB against anything with blu, etc. For now, though, we still have great cards without red.

UBG Sideboard:
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Echoing Truth
1 Snuff Out
1 Berserk
1 Blue Blast
1 Coffin Purge
1 Oxidize
3 Naturalize

How good is Energy Flux? I keep hearing Stax players saying that it's not devastating, just an annoyance.

One last tech: What about running 1 or 2 Snow-Covered Islands in the deck? We could confuse people into thinking we're playing Meandeck Gifts. Not much of a gain, but there's absolutely no harm in it, so why not, right?

EDIT - Changes to the mana base: Looking at Oath and WTF lists, I think we need atleast 3 Islands, preferrably four. We need 11-12 sources of green and 10-11 sources of black. It's tough because we have to fit this in such a tight space of 15 lands. I tinkered around with the mana base for like an hour and came up with this:

1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen
0 Mana Crypt

3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta

3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea

4 Island (1-2 Snow-Covered)

I cut Mana Crypt because we have very few colorless outlets, while we have a large need for the right colored mana. I'm the most proud of the 4 Islands. They give GREAT stability against Workshop. I'm really gong-ho about running basics. If we're gonna convince people to try this over Oath, we need atleast as stable a mana base as they do.

3 Delta and 3 Flooded Strand (maybe 4 Strand, 2 Delta) is really important to stop Pithing Needle. Most people will set a Needle onto Tog, then a second onto Polluted Delta, assuming we run four. So, running equal or more Flooded Strands may decide a game here and there.

I'm not sure about Snow-Covered Island. It'll make people think we're Gifts.dec, but is that a good thing? Gifts.dec is susceptible to discard and graveyard hate. We're not as susceptible to either as they are because we can go beatdown just as easily, but it's still annoying. Then again, it might still be worth it in case we cast a mana Gifts for some reason. Besides, tricking Fish or EBA into naming Gifts Ungiven with Meddling Mage would be really funny. Imagine coming home screaming how Snow-Covered Island saved the day!

[Revvik]

So far I'm leaning towards NOT using Sleight or Opt but instead switching them one-for-one with Accumulated Knowledges.  It works slightly well with Gifts Ungiven, but the Gifts can be replaced straight up with Intuition and the deck won't miss a beat (still works well with Relearn and Regrowth, interacts with Accumulated Knowledge).

AK for two has almost always been solid.

Other changes that could be done would be to drop a Relearn to free up an empty slot, but for now it's not necessary.  What I have sleeved up currently is the list last posted, except dropping 4 Sleight for 4 Accumulated Knowledges.

This ensures that Chalice for 1 is nowhere near as huge of a problem, but opens you up to Chalice for two (which isn't as big as you think - Chalice set at two is not only a rare occurrence, but will almost always be crippling).

RE: Snow-covered Island - It's an option.  Opening with Fetchland --> SCI, Mox, Merchant Scroll for Ancestral is bound to give away "I Play Gifts Ungiven.Dec", but if the opponent's strategy against Gifts is solid against you as well, then maybe it's better not to (i.e.: if Control Slaver starts digging for their Tormod's Crypt to render Gifts's Yawgmoth's Will / Recoup engine useless, then they're also on the path to shutting off your Regrowth / Relearn setups.  However, if it causes the Fish player to land a Meddling Mage naming "Gifts Ungiven," then that's better than then waiting until they know what really hurts you).

[Ultima]

I find this very interesting.  Some things I think I should share.

1. Relearn is a great card, but remember that it costs 3 mana to use therefore it doesn't actually allow you to "combo" by recurring gush since you can't keep going after the first relearn without drawing more mana.  So those who are trying to base this list off Steve's old articles will see that there really isn't any way to simulate the power of the old gat lists.

2. The Metagame.  This is the thing that I thik nobody has really considered.  Stax and workshop is doing so well right now along with Slaver and Gifts that GAT is going to have a tough time climbing to the top 8.  If your planning on bringing this to a big tourny, then be prepared to face alot of bad matchs from the start.

3. Oath.  This something that me and many others who are passionate about GAT came to a census about a while ago when I wanted to stat playing this again.  To really make GAT at least somewhat viable, you have to be sure that whatever vewrsion you play, you can beat oath well enough whereby you can still play your hand aggressively and don't just lose if oath hits the table.  In other words, if you go first turn dryad and your opponent retorts with second or third turn oath, can you still win?

These are my primary concerns that I think anybody who wants to play GAT must consider.

-John

[cryolyte]

Hey guys, another option here to consider for choosing eternal witness over relearn. If you run eternal witness, and stick an echoing truth in the maindeck, you can perform infinite time walk recursion, as sex.dec does. Just one more trick for this deck that I think would be most effective at going for the big W.

[Revvik]

...and with a Dryad on the table that would essentially be game, since he can get as big as you need him to be AND cycle until you get a Cunning Wish in the case of blockers.

But which would be better?  Dryad Sex or ReGAT?  I'm leaning towards ReGAT at the moment, but it won't be too difficult to look at the Witness version again.

[KokiriOutkast]

Why not SB Ground seal(s)?

[TimeWizzle]

Firstly, I assume that any suggestions of running Ground Seal are a joke.  A bad joke.

Secondly, has any thought toward Aether Vial been made?  Uncounterable Dryads and free Witnesses seem good for this deck.  Also, if you can utilize/protect the vials, you could shift the manabase away from green a little bit (and speaking of manabase, vials would up the artifact count enough to include Tolarian).

Other than that, good luck with it, it looks like it has some potential.  Oh, and try Shadow Rift in this deck, it is savage (and sort of like berserk)

Edit: Would Entomb be strong in this deck with all the regrowth effects?

[alvin6688]

I think Bouncing Witness is a bit overkill. Witness an Ancestral is game winning on it's own. I still think Relearn is better. Too many decks have been keeping me off double Green. I can never cast Witness.

Ground Seal is bad. It kills our main draw engine. Crypt or Furnace are better choices. AEther Vial is interesting with Witness, but I don't think it's worth the 4 slots in ReGAT.