[Legacy casual] "The Phantom Menace" -- Phantatog.dec

[Harlequin]

Phantom Menace

Lands -- 21
4  Tundra
4  Flooded Strand
3  Island
3  Plains
3  Tropical island

4  Mishra's Factory

Insane Draw --
4  Hatching Plans
3  Perilous Research
3  Intuition
4  Accumulate Knowledge

Combo Cards -- 10

3  Phantatog
3  Berserk

2  Cloak of Invisibility
2  Wonder

Control -- 16
4  Force of will
2  Misdirrection
3  Daze
4  Swords to plow
3  Orims Chant


Normal Sideboard --
2-3 Ground Seal
3-4 Seal of Cleansing
2-3 Oxidize
3-4 Seal of Removal
0-1 Orim's Chant
0-2 Misdirection
0-4 Meddling Mage
0-3 True Believer / Ivory Mask

The "A New Hope" Sideboard
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Meddling Mage
4 Wearbear
3 Life from the Loam

Note: I would probably include wooded foothills and a basic forest or 2 in the maindeck If I went with this sideboard.  Possibly dropping the Factories.

----------------------------------------
Less known cards:

Phantatog 1UW
Creature - Atog
Sacrifice an Enchantment: +1/+1 until EOT
Discard a card: +1/+1 until EOT
1/2

Perilous Research 1U
Instant
Draw 2 Card, then sacrifice a Permanent

Hatching Plans 1U
Enchantment
When Hatching Plans is put into your graveyard from play draw 3 cards.

Cloak of Invisibility U
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant Creature
Enchanted creature gains Phasing and cannot be blocked accept by walls.



Well first I should say, this deck is untested.  So more or less anything I say is based on conjecture.

Phanatog Vrs Psychatog (and White vrs Black in general)
By droping black you loose Duress.  That's by far the biggest hit to the deck. 
By adding white you gain, Swords to Plow, and Orim's chant.  Plow for Duress is almost a wash... both are situationally amazing, and cover polar opposite sides of the control spectrum.  So rather than focusing countermagic on creatures, this deck focuses the counters on Non-creature spells (and thus the inclusion of MisD).  Orim's Chant ensures a smooth win.  Typically in goldfishing I would cast a Chant on my turn right before I "go off."

Phatatog - Pro: Enables Hatching Plans, and surprise factor.
Cons: Slower, needs a bit more precise of a set up for the win.  Almost always requires a berserk to win, and also allows for minimal opportunities to "partially pump" the auratog to have him survive direct damage or blocking.
How the Cons are handled:  Because the color tree is more focused, the deck can run Factories as blockers,  The deck has both PR-HP, AND Int-AK draw engins.  So a hand of 12+ when "going off" is not-uncommon.  The deck runs plenty of active control as well as pro-active Orim's chant to ensure that when you're ready to combo, you can do so un-iterupted.

Psychatog - Pro: Fast, Well established, versatile / resilient, can remove 2 or 4 cards in the yard without breaking a sweat to sluff off direct damage or blocking
Con: Vulnerable to graveyard hate.

Wash: Both can be REBed

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

Notes on Synergy:
Parilous Research + Hatching Plans = 2 mana over 2 turns for -2 cards + Draw 5 ==> card advantage +3

Phantatog + Hatching Plans = +4/+4 -to- +1/+1 and 3 Card Advantage

Intuition + AK = Well known

Phatatog + Wonder = Flyer

Phatatog + Cloak of Invis = Unblockable accept by walls, then after blockers are declared he can eat the cloak for +1/+1.

Parilous Researh + Opponent's Destruction spells = Lets you recoup a neutral card advantage when your opponent destroys something of yours.  For example in response to Sinkhole, Wasteland, or Vindicate.

Cloak of invisibility + Opponent's Creature = Delay an attack for one turn, and means they can only attack every other turn.  Definitely not as good as swords to plow, but It can be used to stall a game slightly. Also there is a chance that your opponent will attack into your auratog thinking that their creature is "unblockable" then you just eat the cloak after attackers are declared and block with the tog.
-----------------------------------------------

Sideboard plan.  I really wanted to fit meddling mage in the main.  But I simply could not afford the space.  The nice thing about mage in the board is game 2 and 3 he is generally more effective than game 1, becuase you know what their deck is packing.  That lead me to consider a transformational sideboard into Threshold.  The manabase can be adapted to be more Green friendly, and all the pithing needles, targeted removal, and extra discard they added will be more or less worthless against your new Fish-style army.  Also it is likely they sided out any and all maindeck graveyard hate after game 1.  However this plan gives you very little actual reactive control as in no Seal of Cleansing or whatnot.  It does however give you a better game against Homebrew in game 2 and 3 I would immagine.  something like
+4 Mage
+4 Goose
+4 Bear
+3 Loam

-2 Cloak of Invis
-3 Berserk
-3 Phantatog
-4 Hatching Plans
-3 Something else (1 Orim, 1 Daze, 1 Perilous Research - maybe?)
-------------------------------------------------------

So What do you all think?

[BreathWeapon]

This is sarcasm to all of the recent Tog lists, right?

[Nastaboi]

Aboshan's Desire, Writ of Passage and Rancor (if more green) are all better than Cloak of Invisibility.

I have been brainstorming with similar ideas myself. I thought of running full set of Researchs, Terrarion, and some Read the Runes to make both Plans and Research more reliable. The deck might be fun on casual, but I doubt it will make it in serious environment.

[Harlequin]

No, Its a different take on the control/combo decks in general.  It seems like most of the psychatog decks are forgoing an actual draw engine, for the quicker dredge engin.  I think ingeneral is more combo and less control.  The problem with building a control deck out of the commonly used psychatog is that it is either too slow or does not have broad enough solutions or enough countermagic.  And it always is reliant on the graveyard.  

If I was going to mock the psychatog lists, I would have posted Hermitog.  Or something like that (not that the hermit is even legal).  

This deck has a solid draw engin, backed by solid counterspells, and a protected win condition (orim - berserk).

[Anusien]

Intuition for the Life from the Loam engine both draws more cards and makes Tog bigger faster.  It's worth noting that it provides more much better mini-pumps on Tog.  The problem is after Intuition fetches your Accumulated Knowledges, they are practically dead since putting cards into the graveyard is so awful for you.  You also lose out on all the utility lands.

[BreathWeapon]

I don't agree with that assesment of Tog at all, especially after kicking as and taking names with my most recent build all up and down the Legacy tier structure, but whatever.

The problem as I see it is that you don't have an actual draw engine, you have a number of cards that are included for synergistic effects that are otherwise terrible on their own. Hatching Plans and Perilous reserach are worthless with out one another, and Phantatog and Hatching Plans is hardly a combo in comparison to Psychatog and Deep Analysis. Phantatog doesn't even have the deceny to Abyss aggro.

So many of your other card choices seem suspect as well, why would the deck need 2 Wonder and 2 Cloak of Invisibility when every standard Tog lists runs 1 Wonder, and why would you include 3 MD Berserk instead of 3 Cunning Wish?

If I were going to splash White, I'd try a Psychatog list with Solitary Confinement. Atleast Solitary Confinement can send an unprepared opponent into their scoop phase.

[Matt]

Yeah, I'm afraid I have to move this to casual.

[Shmn]

This looks like a very fun deck, actually. And yay for Hatching Plans!

As for changes - I would drop one Intuition for a Fact Or Fiction, and consider Abeyances instead of Orim's Chants since they don't cost you a card. Also, have you considered Trade Routes? They could get you the extra damage you need and at the very least feed the tog.