[Deck] New Togless Tog

[jCoKn]

Ok so my list at Waterbury was decent, but it had weaknesses. Most notably, Psychatog as a maindeck kill condition. I relied around total hand control and card advantage to sign for every win I had at the tournament. That being said, cutting 2 Togs leaves room for a much better kill condition in Tinker/guy (which got boarded in almost every match anyway) and I also opted to cut 2 Pernicious Deeds, strictly because Pithing needle is everywhere nowadays and even then, Deed just doesn't cut it, maindeck anyways. Anhow, I decided to keep the shell of the deck the same for 2 main reasons:

1. Intuition/AK doesn't have the same deck-skewing effects that Gifts Ungiven and Thirst for Knowledge do. I stated already that both those draw spells are really good, it's just that they need the deck built around them... whereas I think the draw engine should work itself into the rest of the shell. Also, AKs are currently not being heavily played so it makes them more potent.

2. The huge amount of support cards gave me such a huge advantage. Duress on turn 1 was always amazing, landscrewing my 1-land/brainstorm opponent, or nabbing Tinker/Will before he can set it up, etc. Merchant Scroll and Cunning Wish are ridiculous, they let you run singletons al over the place and still make let you get to them with relative ease. Not to mention, Merchant Scroll > Ancestral Recall is never a bad thing. Maindeck and sideboard Silver Bullets will always win games.

On to the list,

// Mana Sources
    4 Island
    2 Flooded Strand
    3 Polluted Delta (EDIT: 2** Polluted Delta, 1 Replaced with Sol Ring)
    1 Tolarian Academy
    1 Library of Alexandria
    2 Tundra
    3 Underground Sea   
    1 Mana Crypt
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Sapphire

// Creatures
    1 Darksteel Colossus

// Spells
    3 Duress   
    1 Tendrils of Agony
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Yawgmoth's Will
    1 Tinker
    1 Time Walk
   
    1 Rebuild
    1 Swords to Plowshares (EDIT: Replaced with Balance)
    2 Cunning Wish
    4 Mana Drain
    4 Force of Will
    1 Chain of Vapor
    1 Mystical Tutor

    2 Intuition
    4 Accumulated Knowledge
    4 Brainstorm
    2 Merchant Scroll
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Deep Analysis



// Sideboard
SB: 3 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 1 Fact or Fiction
SB: 2 Energy Flux
SB: 1 Darkblast
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Sacred Ground
SB: 1 Disenchant
SB: 1 Vampiric Tutor

Ok, so what happened?

Green went for white, now giving the deck a better solution to aggro via MD and SB swords to plowshares. Sacred Ground is amazing, and is another one of the main reasons why I'm playing white. Added Tormod's Crypt (which shoulda been there in the first place), and Naturalize got Spectral Shift'ed. In these past few days of testing I had ben finding myself Wishing for Swords a lot, so I tried one maindeck (replacing a Yawgmoth's Bargain ?!?) and I love it. I just wish it was blue ...

Sacred Ground made the Stax/Workshop matchup (already decent) even better and combined with Flux it's game-over.
The main-deck Mind Twist and 1 Deed were also dropped for a mana sources, as I found myself tight on land and relying on brainstorm a lot.

We still win against Gifts, as Duress does wonders for that matchup. Now I have Plow as an added arsenal if they try to go tinker > colossus, and it's always fun bouncing their Time Vault in response to Flame Fusillade, so no realt problems there.

Dragon, previously nigh-unwinnable, now has to put up with 4x Swords. Xantid Swarm is your worst enemy here.

Aggro is still tough. It's much better, but still tough. If you find your meta is coated with aggro, maybe take out the white and play Deeds in your sideboard.

Combo will be combo... just find your Force of Wills and you should be fine. Duress is cool too, especially against Drain tendrils. Tormod's Crypt comes in against Will combo (and for that matter, any Will based deck)

I've tested some other stuff in the sideboard but it all depends on your metagame. Engineered Plague, Orim's Chant, and Massacre were the 3 that I think just barely missed the cut.

--------------

Anyhow, I just want to make it clear that this is still a work-in-progress so any suggestions are welcome. However, I think this is a relatively well tuned list (and for sure better than my Waterbury deck) and please, don't say "Add Gifts Ungiven because...", I've made my views on that already.

Jon

[Machinus]

This deck is really similar to Meandeck Gifts, in that it wants to set up an early Colossus, or use the backup plan of a Tendrils to win the game. Steve mentioned that he considered using Intuition/AK, but ultimately chose to go with Merchant Scroll. What advantages do Intuition and Cunning Wish offer in the current environment? Can you elaborate on your decision not to run Gifts?

EDIT:

No, I am not being sarcastic. Gifts is a powerful card, and as you said causes the deck to be built around it, but decks like Slaver have added one copy simply because the card is so good. One problem that running black and white spells like Duress presents is that when fetching out a dual land early, the deck becomes more vulnerable to wasteland. A deck running Intuitions and Wish really wants to cast Mana Drain early, and getting nonbasics on turn 1 can prevent this from happening.

I am honestly asking you why, if your objective is to cast Tinker or Tendrils, the Intuition/Wish engine is better than Gifts. I'm not suggesting that it isn't, I would just appreciate more discussion of the draw engine.

[jCoKn]

I hope that's sarcasm, Machinus.

EDIT: Ok, maybe I'm being too blunt, but still. This is not Gifts. I clearly said that I don't like the effect Gift Ungiven has on skewing the deck and forcing certain card choices. Without recoup, when you Gifts you lose other key cards, unless of course you're holding Will, in which case you should just win anyways. This deck performs much more fluidly without Gifts Ungiven, in fact it was tested even before Waterbury and dismissed. I'd need to dip in to 4 colors in order to do so, which is big frowns. Let's just state for the record, this deck isn't Gifts, doesn't play Gifts, and doesn't need Gifts for all the reasons I've stated both here and in my tournament report. There is no real reason to hurry for the kill with this deck... it performs at its own speed and it performs consistenly and efficiently. You can sit back on a huge hand and play the control deck its supposed to be, and when the opportunity presents itself, you simply seal the deal. It really doesn't need Gifts to make that one broken play, it can control the game all the way through, with added disruption, and less dead cards in the main than Gifts has.

[Akuma]

You seem to be heading in a direction that might start to converge with the following:

T1Tog by Lorenzo Fedeli

Blue (29)
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
3 Merchant Scroll
3 Cunning Wish
3 Intuition
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Fact or Fiction

Other (7)
3 Duress
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth Will
1 Recoup
1 Darksteel Colossus

Mana (24)
7 Solomoxen
1 Mana Crypt
4 Island
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Flooded strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard (15)
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Pithing Needle
1 Sundering Titan
1 Misdirection
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Brain Freeze
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Pyroblast
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Darkblast

If you were to run Gifts, you would then have to restructure the deck. If you do that, then you end up playing Gifts. In that case forget about what is being discussed and go look at one of Probasco's latest lists.

Why AK/Intuition? This is a viable draw engine in type 1. It is powerful enough to be played in this format, period. This draw engine has its advantages / disadvantages, which I won't go into.

jcokn - What do you think of using red instead of white? It opens up a lot of different possibilities. Not to mention the stupid Recoup / Lotus / Broken Sorcery play. Lorenzo's list is quite polished and very effective in a varied metagame. Thoughts?

[Moxlotus]

Red also gives the option of REB which is amazing in the control mirror.

Rack and Ruin is a good replacement for Sacred Ground.

It seems the best reason to run white is because of StP, but with REBs you can fight Gifts ability to even get him onto the table.

That said, I love the maindeck Tendrils.  It adds another option to the deck and is amazing with Intuition.

[Kowal]

Red also gives the option of REB which is amazing in the control mirror.

I don't think any deck can support both Duress and REB at the same time without boarding out too many real cards.  Jon claims Duress was absolute butter for him at Waterbury, so I'd be tempted to believe he's better off saving those slots for real cards.

On a side note, Sacred Ground is far more brutal than Rack and Ruin.

Also, adding red for Recoup is probably one of the things he's trying to avoid, given that Recoup is actually a crappy card by itself.

[jCoKn]

Thanks for pointing out Lorenzo's list, as I've said before I haven't been sincerely active in the community over the past couple of months, so there were some finer lists like this one I had overlooked prior to Waterbury. Theoretically speaking sure, red makes sense... but when you really think about it, the red just tries to help out the matchups you're already good at: Mana Drain and stax. REB can't hit an Akroma, a Dryad, a Worldgorger Dragon, a Confidant, or anything of those sorts. The white for the spot removal is really important IMO because otherwise aggro becomes such a frightening matchup (not like it isn't already), where you essentially turbo-Tinker and try to race. And as per REB helping out in the control mirror, I think Duress plays a much larger role here, because it lets you plan a few turns ahead, knowing what's coming at you. Instead of denying a spell, deny your opponent's strategy altogether and make the pre-emptive strike.

And as I think I've said at least 4 times so far in the past week, I second Kowal in that Sacred Ground is a bigger beating than Rack and Ruin... R&R doesn't even solve the problem that is Goblin Welder. Sure, combined with a Gorilla Shaman it does, but that's 2 for 1. Sacred Ground shuts off Crucible, Smokestack, balance and strips, essentially denying Stax's primary crippling motive : your resources. Not to mention, you may want to be bringing in Sacred Ground against stupid new decks like Meandeck Fish Stax, Confidant Fish, and whatnot.

Nobody ever played Recoup before Gifts Ungiven was printed: and in my opinion the only reason it began being played is that it neutralized Gifts' one main weakness: sending 2 really broken cards to your graveyard. It made you all of a sudden not-so-afraid to go Giftsing for Yawgs Will and Tinker, you knew you could get them back! Realistically... if a card like recoup didn't exist, would the established Gifts archetype be able to dominate the way it does? I'll send this one out to the pros - Brassman, Kowal, Dicemanx, or anyone else with extensive Gifts testing. My view I guess is that Recoup on it's own is, as Kowal stated, actually pretty weak. It needs a good card together with it to be a 2-card supercombo. Sure, I suppose I could re-try that Tinker that failed to resolve, or take that extra Time Walk for the gg, but those mostly situational plays would be few and far between, and I'd rather smooth out my match%'s by keeping in white, and keeping to 3 colors only.

I appreciate the suggestions, and does my reasoning for standing behind white make sense to any of you? I may just be being narrow, but to be perfectly honest at first I was asking myself why I wasn't playing red. But in the end this same argument I bring forth now is what I had to convince myself, and I at least hope I'm right...

[Machinus]

Recoup is a weak card. But it has replacements. Regrowth is the most obvious one.

Generally, with enough mana, Recoup just becomes any sorcery in your graveyard. It is only a combo enabler, but the combo is certainly good enough to risk drawing it sometimes.

With chain of vapor maindeck, what makes StP better than balance?

[Dirty_Harry]

I realy like the ideal that your going with in this deck but, I have one question did u ever think of keeping the tog in the sidebored.  You know to give you more of an edge, in certain games?
That realy all I see that I might change, all in all realy nice build I like it

[Metman]

I'm not a huge player of Tog but one of my testing friends plays it religiously.  The reason the deck is so explosive is because Tog feeds off the grave which the deck so easily plays in to.  The lone kill condition Tinker/DSC has always seemed so vulnerable to easy hate.  Is Psychatog such a crappy kill in a Tog deck? The Tendrills kill is cute but how reliable is getting two swamps online after go off on a turn to make the Tendrils even worth playing?  With the amount of Wasteland/Strip and Stax around is it really a practical play?  Correct me if I'm wrong; it just doesn't seem logical.   

[exit music]

I can see arguments for cutting Mana Vault and Lotus Petal... but cutting Sol Ring?

What's up with that?

[jCoKn]

@ Metman,
Yawgmoth's Will feeds off the grave much better than Psychatog. And no, getting your black sources aren't as hard as you'd think. Try it out and see for yourself.

@ exit music,
I need as many colored sources as possible, and i honestly think for this deck Mana Crypt is much better, allows turn 1 intuitions and wishes. I may switch it out for a sol ring yet, more testing will tell.

[pyr0ma5ta]

Heh, I read the thread title as "Topless Tog." 

On topic: I like it.  Tinker is the stupid turn 1 win that every magic player has wet dreams about.  This deck looks a lot like what a modern keeper might look like: an updated win condition, and good maindeck and sideboard answers to everything.  The only issue I have with the deck is your slim number of win conditions: an untimely force, stifle on your tendrils, or crypt in responce to will might rip you a new one.  The duresses help a lot here in making sure you win when you want to, but that's the only thing I'm uncomfortable with.  Overall, however, nice design.

[stichadou]

A similar deck finished #6 at the french vintage championship and  #3 at the Switzerland Vintage championship.

http://www.solomoxen.com/?page=7&id=33&menu=1

Paul played tog at this moment because metagame was not the same but you can easilytake out some togs.

[Gabethebabe]

What amazes me is that you play white and Balance is nowhere to be seen.
if I had to play 1 maindeck white card in a creatureless deck (well, more or less), it would be Balance.

Just a note: you can play Gifts without Red for Recoup. I once tried Gifts with white for 1 Salvagers as win condition and 3 Cunning Wishes (Shallow Grave in the SB, think of this Gifts pile: Lotus, Salvagers, Wish, Will). I worked pretty well actually, earning me a T4 after beating the crap out of everybody in the Swiss.

[AbouTreeFiddy]

this deck takes a lot from A design about 3 weeks ago on the forum

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=26816.0

White offers the greatest sideboard answers in vintage, but I think by cutting deed you are making your game 1's worse against alot of the field.  I would not put so much false confidence in sacred ground and energy flux, as both can be hit with a single ray of revelation before they do anything for you.  I won't go into the bad luck of having stax opponents not be able to draw them when they need them though.

[Rapalaman1]

As an avid playtester of the deck I would like to add a few things that may or may not have been already said in the few T1T threads:
-The white seems good only for Sacred Ground. Sure, there are probably other cards that are good in the main/side that the addition of white can utilize, but I think if you went with red it makes your Wishes alot better I.E. Rack and Ruin, Shattering Pulse, REB, and my favorite Grab the Reigns  . If you are going to stick with the white, you might want to also look into having an Abeyance in the side, it has alot of potential and cantrips.
-The maindeck Tendrills is amazing! Even if you decide to switch to red, the maindeck Tendrills is better than Burning Wish IMO because you don't have to go that extra step when comboing out. Also, it allows you to be able to combo out alot easier without using Yawgmoth's Will, if the situation ever arises.
-It may sound silly, but maindeck Night of Souls Betrayel has been absolutely amazing for me ever since I have played it in my list. It completely owns Slaver if it ever resolves and is a huge trump card against Oath. You may find it can be "dead" at times or can be troublesome to get out due to the BB2 casting cost, but against most of the field right now, if it resolves, it can be game ending.

And on a side note: I am considering changing the 2x Thirst for Knowledge and 2x Pithing Needle in my maindeck to 2x Duress and 1-2 Deep Analysis and maybe an Engineered Explosives due to getting thouroughly whomped at Waterbury by those cards in the "mirror" 

[jCoKn]

Gabe, did your build of salvagers also play Tinker/colossus in the maindeck? Did it play the tendrils, or at least cunning wish > Brain freeze? The reason I wouldn't feel confortable with playing a Salvagers finish is that before I go off I have to deal with stupid crap like Null Rod, Pithing Needle, Ground Seal, Tormod's Crypt, Chalice 0, etc. And come to think of it, I'd almost rather just play Psychatog... he only gets hated by Needle really, and still that's mroe than enough hate for me to want to steer clear from him. Congrats on your finish with the deck though.

I've had a number of PM's concerning Balance. All i can say is that my position on this card is very unstable, at times I've loved it and at times I've thought it unplayable. How good it is totally depends on board position and oftentimes it's a dead draw. To be fair, I will test it in the spot of the maindeck StP, and we'll see how it performs. I foresee a bunch of mixed results...

As to the complaint about a slim number of kill conditions and their susceptability to being disrupted, the entire focus of this deck revolves around resolving a single spell. With Duress, you should be able to know what you need to do to set up your kill, and don't be afraid to wait a turn or two before you go in. Always be sure that your Will/Tinker is going uncontested.Tormod's Crypt is quite a bitch to deal with... but I found myself baiting the Crypt action all the time by casting intuition. Sure you lose your AK's but it lets your Will still be stupid. Bonus points if you can manage to cast your AK in resp to Crypting.

Sorry Rapalaman, but I honestly think that with the exception of Rack and Ruin, all those red wishables are pretty weak. You already have disenchant, StP > Grab the Reins, and Duress in the maindeck essentially subs in for Red Blasts. I mentioned above I've tried both Engineered Plague and Orim's Chant in the SB, as you mentioned their brethren Abeyance and NoSB, and I haven't dismissed either of them yet. Engineered Explosives however, is some tech I haven't looked in to yet and thanks for bringing that up. Good against aggro too

I looked at the French list and I honestly think it's terrible. Strip Mine and wastelands have no business being anywhere near this deck especially since he is playing 4 colors, 3 Intuitions is too many, Boseiju maindeck like WTF and he'll be rolling to stax all day like it's his job. Chalice? Please... He's not playing Sacred Ground to protect his extremely shaky manabase and How is Diabolic Edict in the SB necessary when he has StP? I could go on but I'll refrain myself. And Psychatog is worse than Colossus, which he has omitted from the whole 75 cards. STOP ME PLEASE!

And on to the Gifts/Intuition deck... that is another deck altogether. If you want to compare how good either one is, feel free, but know that as I was building this deck I essentially built it with no prior lists, I built it on intuition alone (no pun intended) and with helpful suggestions from teammates.

[Rapalaman1]

As to the complaint about a slim number of kill conditions and their susceptibility to being disrupted, the entire focus of this deck revolves around resolving a single spell. With Duress, you should be able to know what you need to do to set up your kill, and don't be afraid to wait a turn or two before you go in. Always be sure that your Will/Tinker is going uncontested.Tormod's Crypt is quite a bitch to deal with... but I found myself baiting the Crypt action all the time by casting intuition. Sure you lose your AK's but it lets your Will still be stupid. Bonus points if you can manage to cast your AK in resp to Crypting.

Something I'd like to add to this would be susceptablilty to Jester's Cap in particular ( you know this as well as I do  ) Having 2 of your 3 kill conditions removed and having Yawgmoth's Will removed can be quite crippling most of the time. This is especially true since most decks that are going to board in Jester's Cap are going to be running Goblin Welders, and therefore Duress does not always help and it can be alot harder to deal with.
I found Pithing Needles were quite good going into that fight.

[Sean Ryan]

@JCokn,

I have come up with a list almost identical to yours from attempting to find a home for Dark Confidant in combo/control.  I ended up ditching Confidant for a Tog Shell, you can check the thread here: http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=25923.30

The primary difference in my list is that I splash red instead of white.

I've never been that frightened of Oath when playing combo/control unless they have the god hand and I have mediocracy.  You have access to enough bouncers without StP in this matchup.  Regardless, I usually combo out the turn before they have lethal damage.

Against Fish, which is arguably your toughest matchup, I think pyroclasm is much stronger than StP.  Balance on the other hand trumps both.

Sacred Ground is good against stax but so is RnR/Heretic.  I don't think Sacred Ground itself justifies running white over red.

Recoup - yes it is another "dead" card but it allows you the option to go for the throat with Intuition or with the single copy of Gifts that I run.  Including Recoup there are only 5 cards that are devoted toward winning: Tinker/DSC, Tendrils and Will. 

There is no problem running REB in addition to Duress simply side out Rebuild/Cunning Wish or even Tinker/DSC in the control mirror.

Here are the difference between our lists:

+ 2 Volcanics
+ 1 Swamp
+ 1 Sol Ring

-2 Tundra
-1 Sea

+1 Recoup
+1 Gifts

-1 StP
-1 C. Wish
-1 Chain of Vapor

SB:
+2 REB
+2 RnR
+1 Coffin Purge
+1 Echoing Truth
+1 Engineered Plague
+2 Pyroclasm
+2 Pithing Needle
+1 ???

-3 StP
-3 Sacred Ground
-2 Energy Flux
-2 Tormod's Crypt
-1 Disenchant
-1 Vampiric Tutor

What I find remarkable is that seperate people across the country are coming up with very similair designs but from different starting points.  You started with Tog, I started with Koen's Confidant list.

Anyway, just my 2 centz

Thanks
Sean

 

[goobafish]

From the tiny bit of playtesting I have done with this deck, i have come to a few conclusions.
First off, I think the splash of the 3rd color is unecesary, you can do just aswell with Blue/Black, thus letting you run more basics and being less suseptible to land hate. The library is total awesomeness. The addition of Lotus Petal and Sol Ring are a must, especially with academy in the deck. A maindeck Hurkyls Recall is much better than rebuild in my opinion. At 1 mana less and targeting a player is amazing, especially when you have a collosus in play. The draw engine of this deck is INCREDIBLE, I cant believe the advantage it provides, at one point at end of oponents turn I had 16 cards in hand through aks. Fact or Fiction is also essential to the maindeck, as it provides a nice advantage and is great under an Uba Mask.

[exit music]

From the tiny bit of playtesting I have done with this deck, i have come to a few conclusions.
First off, I think the splash of the 3rd color is unecesary, you can do just aswell with Blue/Black, thus letting you run more basics and being less suseptible to land hate.

I've come to the exact same conclusion. The list I'm testing is down to two colours as well, and instead of sitting back and playing so many defensive spells, such as Cunning Wish and StP, it opts towards going straight for the throat and assembling its combo now. The deck doesn't really feel like a control deck at all to me, I can generally ignore them for most of the game while I assemble my combo of... drawing cards, then playing Yawgmoth's Will.

Do you know how to beat stax? Run 5 Fetches, 5 basics and have your mana curve topping off at 3. The same goes for Fish. Having the ability to play through Null Rod because it hardly slows down your mana curve is a beautiful thing in a combo deck like this. It is something that Gifts does not have. Running so many 4 Mana Spells definitely slows down their game plan, and running 3 colours makes Gifts much more vulnerable to wastelands.

Here is the list I've been testing:

Kill: 4
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tinker
1 DSC
1 Tendrils of Agony

The Combo: 15
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Merchant Scroll
2 Intuition
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

Tutors: 4
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Demonic Tutor

Disrupt: 13
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Duress
1 Chain of Vapour
1 Rebuild

Mana: 24
9 SoLoMoxCryptPetal
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
4 Island
1 Swamp
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy

The deck has pretty much one main gameplan, and that is setting up a big Yawgmoth's Will as quickly as possible. It does this by casting a combination of AK for 3 and 4, and Ancestral Recall. After that, you tutor up Yawgmoth's Will, and win. It's a pretty simple concept, and this deck can do that very effectively. I definitley use the Tendrils kill a lot more than DSC, simply because without Burning Wish you are unable to chain Time Walks. However, setting up a Tendrils for 10 is incredibly easy because you are drawing so many cards through AK and Recall. DSC also provides a very effective win condition. He allows you to cheat game wins against Stax and Fish - if you are caught under lock pieces and unable to fire off a good Will, Tinkering up a DSC will generally win you the game.

Anyways, you can just add me to the list of people that are excited about the AK draw engine in a TPS style deck.

[vroman]

I just want to add one thing to this discussion. from ubastax perspective, sacred ground is not the uber-hoser you may be counting on. w null rod/resistor and uba mask I still have plenty of effective locks that dont depend on killing lands. even w waste recursion shut off, crucible is still highly effective at fueling the bazaar draw engine. only smokestack is completely neutered. nonetheless, there are (admitedly unlikely, but plausible) situations where I can afford to ramp smoky higher than your number of lands and force you to drop the sacred ground, and then wipe your board the next turn. altogether, sacred ground though effective at protecting your lands, as it self evidently says, is not as good for your overall strategy, compared to actually removing the permanents (ie crucible/smoky) that are hurting your lands. for the same cost you can play serenity and gutshot stax. or you can play crucible of your own and not only protect your lands, but reap phenomenal card advantage of fetch recursion and possibly stripmine. even Dust to Dust (w the RFG effect) is probably worse for me than s-ground.
last thought about s-ground: I definitely would rather not see it. if I see opponent is running white mana game 1, I automaticaly think of them boarding in sground. my goal then in game 2/3 is to hit chalice @ 2 pronto. or if I keep a hand that drops an early smoky, I make sure to ramp it immediately, even if not in the most favorable situation, just to ensure that if enemy does resolve sacred ground in the first turn or two, then I have a chance to overwhelm them w soot. more likely, I might just muligan a hand on the draw that doesnt do anything but kill lands.

ok I lied, some more points. with the increasing popularity of refined/new combo decks, oath variants, and tinker+colossus drain decks (ie gifts, neo-tog, etc); Ive been encouraging my control slaver pilot team mates to consider siding 4x Extract. against a deck like this w only one win condition, extract is super cheap and easy answer. even if opponent has 2 or 3 wins, playing 4 extract ensures to draw multiples in the course of slaver's substantial draw engine. every time an extract resolves, you are that less likely to draw one of your few if any other wins, giving slaver time to draw another extract. maybe you should side some misdirections.

next point. engineered plague is made obsolete by darkblast. esp since dredge synergizes w psychatog. dblast is also cunning wish target, as opposed to e-plague's overcosted enchantment status.

last sideboard consideration. to those who suggest cutting tormod crypt in this or any list: you are wrong. graveyard hate is powerful and underutilized. the most efficient top tier decks are those that eke the greatest advantage out of every card they see. that means re-using (and abusing) the graveyard. vintage can be boiled down to crucible of worlds vs yawgmoths will. worldgorger dragon (or really bazaar) is a 3rd party adherant to the same dynamic.
once you realize eliminating the graveyard as an enemy resource is an effective disruption strategy, then theres no cheaper or more effective yard hate than t-crypt. withered wretch actually is better effect long term, plus a beater, and ignores null rod. sadly, BB prices it out of mainstream contention. if only wretch had been 1B for a 1/2. every non-combo deck w access to black would side that.
I would go so far as to say that a standard feature of next generation vintage decks will include maindecking at least one t-crypt in every deck, except perhaps prison or null rod aggro.

[Andreas]

One thing I would like to know: How do these decks beat aggro decks like Food Chain Goblins? I find the deck interesting and would like to play it this weekend, but FCG is rather prominent in my meta.

[zeus-online]

.

[FrenchBob]

What amazes me is that you play white and Balance is nowhere to be seen.
if I had to play 1 maindeck white card in a creatureless deck (well, more or less), it would be Balance.

Just a note: you can play Gifts without Red for Recoup. I once tried Gifts with white for 1 Salvagers as win condition and 3 Cunning Wishes (Shallow Grave in the SB, think of this Gifts pile: Lotus, Salvagers, Wish, Will). I worked pretty well actually, earning me a T4 after beating the crap out of everybody in the Swiss.

If you look at the list pointed by stichadou, you will see that Paul was playing a maindeck Balance. His list was in fact a Keeperesque Tog, I think it could be improved by removing some togs and adding the Tinker-BigMan stuff.

[Rapalaman1]

I would like to add that I have also come to the same conclusion about the mana base, it really only needs two colors. The only reason I think a third color might belong would be to further utilize your Wishes, they seem kinda dulled down if you are only playing two colors and not a splah of either red or green for sideboard cards.

[jCoKn]

Yeah, Balance is maindecked now. It's a sure fire out to aggro, whereas the maindecked STP was only meh.

I can't honestly believe how some of you suggest cutting the 3rd color, may it be red or white or whatever you prefer. The manabase can easily support it, on 5 fetches and 4 basics, and you need to have aggro-outs. U/B won't give that to you. Sol Ring is also in after quite a bit of consideration... Solely because I love casting turn 1 intuitions. Lotus Petal doesn't make the cut for me, but hey if you like it then go for it.

@vroman: So long as I have land to use in the stax matchup I'm gonna be winning, via Rebuild/Chain/Tinker. If I get heavily mana denied in the first 2 turns and happen to have no countermagic whatsoever, then I'm definitely losing. That justifies Sacred Ground right away. In fact, in testing my worst enemy has been Tangle Wire, and if the guy gets Welder going with Wire, it's absolutely over... but I'm not sure if your Uba Stax plays that or not? And yeah, Tormod's Crypt is ridiculous... everything relies on their GY so heavily now.

I can't see this deck surviving without Cunning Wish. Ask any and all of my opponents from Waterbury and they'll say that Cunning Wish was shitting on their respective parades all day (Naturalize of Puff's damn Time Vault was good times). And especially since those of you who want to cut Wish are also the ones who want to cut white, that's seppuku right there. You'll lose to some random piece of hate that you can't deal with. This also lets you play 2 Fact or Fictions, which is pretty ridiculous I think.

And I think Rebuild is 5,000,000 times better than Hurkyl's in the main. With Tendrils in the deck, it's just stupid because it adds like 4+ spells to your storm at the same time as removes your opps Sphere/Null Rod/Whatever else. You shouldn't need to be casting Rebuild at all if you have big guy in play, as you've already won.

@Rapalaman, yeah... this deck is friggin Superman, and Cap is kryptonite. Nobody should play Cap... ever. (FYI Bob: I topdecked the Psychatog the turn after you cast the Cap, Demonic'ed for Ancestral! I bet you thought it was the other way around )

Thanks to all so far who've made intelligent contributions.
Jon

[Kowal]

next point. engineered plague is made obsolete by darkblast. esp since dredge synergizes w psychatog. dblast is also cunning wish target, as opposed to e-plague's overcosted enchantment status.

Not true.  Darkblast is insufficient against Oath, which is the real reason to run the card.  It's far from a perfect solution, but it does give the Oath player something they have to remove while you're just doing your own thing, and while Oath's only real strength is being able to do what it wants to do early, giving it hoops to jump through severely weakens the deck in practice.