[Report] Undefeated with Gro-A-Tog

[Bardo]

Author’s Note: This is another one of those reports about a bunch of random "things that happened when I played Magic today."

“Undefeated with Gro-A-Tog”

Saturday; September 2, 2006
The Mana Curve
Beaverton, Oregon
8 Players. Yeah.

In a last minute whim, I decide to pack up some MtG goodies and get in a few games with my favorite format on another blistering summer afternoon in the Pacific Northwest. This is going to be a quick and dirty report—nothing fancy this time.

When I awoke I had the following sleeved up:

Legacy Loam-A-Tog
by Bardo

4 Brainstorm
3 Fact or Fiction
3 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
2 Duress
1 Forbid

3 Pernicious Deed
2 Vedalken Shackles
1 Haunting Echoes

3 Psychatog
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Wonder
1 Genesis

4 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Lonely Sandbar
5 Island
1 Bayou
1 Wasteland
1 Mishra’s Factory

This is one of my better decks, but I wasn’t in the mood to think too much today. And the idea of playing my signature deck, Blue/Green/White Threshold, which I’ve played in five tournaments since January didn’t seem too appealing either. Instead, I modified my Tog deck a little to make it more idiot-proof.

Legacy Gro-A-Tog
by Bardo

4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
3 Sleight of Hand
2 Night’s Whispers (aka “Ghetto-Bob”)
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Mystical Tutor

4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
3 Daze
3 Duress

3 Pernicious Deed
2 Ghastly Demise

4 Quirion Dryad
3 Psychatog
1 Berserk

4 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou

sb 4 Hydroblast
sb 3 Engineered Plague
sb 2 Tormod’s Crypt
sb 2 Naturalize
sb 1 Haunting Echoes
sb 1 Virtue’s Ruin
sb 1 Perish
sb 1 Duress

In retrospect, that Bayou should have been another Blue fetchland, but I just like the art on Bayou and I’ve justified its inclusion before since you really want early access to Green (for Dryad and Deed) and Black (for Duress, Demise, Deed and Tog). But I knew it was dodgy and it forced me to mulligan an otherwise perfectly fine hand in Game 2 of Round 3—my only mulligan of the day. And as suggested above, those Night’s Whispers should be Dark Confidants, but I didn’t own any at the time.

My goals going into the tourney were to have fun, play some tight Magic, and make enough in store credit to pick up some Confidants. More or less in that order.

I get there on time, forget to retrieve my loaned Eternal Witness from Frogboy and talk crap for a bit.

Eight players showed, and the field looked thusly:

* R/G/b Survival – “Angry Troll”
* 5-color Battle of Wits
* Affinity
* 4-color Psychatog – “Frogboy”
* U/G/W CounterSliver
* R/W/G Aggro – “Volt”
* U/B/G Gro-A-Tog – “Bardo”
* Dark Depths/Elf Combo – “LinkXwing”

For this tournament, my notes are worse than usual. I didn’t bother to write down how I was sideboarding and my handwritten notes are barely legible. For instance, I’d swear that one of my Round One notes reads: “Mud – Dry.” That just can’t be right…

Round One.
Bret Lincolm aka “LinkXwing” with Elves/Recycle/Dark Depths combo

If Bret and I happen to be anywhere near a Magic tournament together, we’re sure to be paired against each other. Unfortunately for Bret, he has a penchant for playing the kinds of decks that just happen to get mauled by the decks that I like to play.

Game One and The Tale of My Turn-1 Kill
I win the die roll, play a Flooded Strand and pass the turn.

Bret takes his turn and cast Land Grant, revealing the following:

Elves of the Deep Shadow
Fyndhorn Elves
Llanowar Elves
Sensei’s Diving Top
Slate of Ancestry (wtf)
Land Grant
 [one other card]

I have no idea what I’m up against, but it looks really bad. Land Grant resolves and Bret goes digging for a land. After some cursing and a few furrowed brows, Bret drops his deck on the table with a few sharpied proxies resting on top. Apparently, Bret’s deck wasn’t quite ready to go.

1-0

Sideboarding: +3 Engineered Plague, +1 Perish; -2 Sleight of Hand, -2 Night’s Whispers (something like that)

Game 2.

With two mana elves on the board, Bret taps his Gaea’s Cradle for mana and casts Crop Rotation on it (apparently to find another Cradle). I FoW in response and bash away with a lone Dryad. One turn before his demise, Bret begins to get his combo going (after I Daze a Concordant Crossroads) with Recycle and a few other pieces. Luckily, nothing deadly happens and I’m able to keep smashing with the Dryad. His life total: 20, 17, 14, 9, 3, -4
 
2-0

(Game Three.)

Even though I’m 2-0, we play another for fun and because his loss in the first round seemed cheap. Bret is playing first and drops an assortment of elves on his first two turns. On my third turn I play Perish and four of his dudes die a horrid death. On turn 4, I follow up with Pernicious Deed and Bret scoops them up.

(3-0)

With plenty of time between rounds, Bret passes his deck to Max (“Frogboy”) and I pull out my version of Red/Green Beatz.

Legacy R/G Beatdown
by Bardo

4 Kird Ape
4 Jackal Pup
4 Jungle Lion
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Scab-Clan Mauler

4 Rancor

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Shock
4 Magma Jet
4 Fireblast

4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
6 Mountain
6 Forest

There’s nothing fancy to this list here; just an assortment of efficient and vicious threats. Shock is a Poor Man’s Chain Lightning, but it didn’t seem to matter. In this format, if you can inflict 2 targeted damage, it rarely matters that you could have inflicted 3. I’d also rather play instant-speed burn than the alternative, and Incinerate costs twice as much mana as I really want to pay.

As for the games, I blast the elves, Rancor up my 1-drops and keep his side of the board clean while I beat with impunity.  I win two games in short order.
 
Round Two.
Noah Freed with U/G/W CounterSliver

Noah has the distinction of winning our local Grand Prix (Philadelphia) Trial with his CounterSliver (!) deck back in October. But as he was sitting down and shuffling up, I was pretty sure he was playing Threshold, since I’d seen him playing it earlier. Apparently, he was just borrowing Don’s deck at that time and I didn’t realize his round was over. In any case, I had the colors right.

Game One.

This round is a slaughter, and the game ends with me at -1 life and him at 29. Damn. Down a game and feeling a little demoralized, I have to get my crap together.

Sideboarding: Same as Round One, strangely (edit - except "Virtue's Ruin" instead of "Perish.")

Game Two.

I’m on the play and face a dilemma on what to play first. I didn’t write down my hand, but I know it involved playing either a turn 1 Duress or Serum Visions. I opt for the Visions. His first play is land, AEther Vial and I realize I probably made a mistake there. As the game progresses, I Daze an Essence Sliver, and drop an Engineered Plague to keep this Muscle Slivers manageable.

As we hit the mid-game we’re in a standoff.

My Board:
Engineered Plague (on Slivers)
Psychatog (aka “The Walking Abyss”)
Quirion Dryad (zero counters)

His Board:
Plated Sliver
Plated Sliver
Muscle Sliver
AEther Vial (two counters)

Playing around Daze he casts Fact or Fiction and hits the holy Five Spell Fact or Fiction. Bummer. My own Fact only hits two spells (though one of those spells hits Virtue’s Ruin—feel free to look it up), but my superior cards eventually get him on the defensive and he’s forced to chump block a huge Dryad several times while Dr. Teeth is held back guarding the fort. With the path eventually clear, I swing with my 8/8 Dryad and 10/10 Tog.

Game Three.

My opening hand is the "Stone Cold Nutz," as they say.

Engineered Plague
Engineered Plague
Virtue’s Ruin
Pernicious Deed
land
land
land

As you can imagine, this was an ugly game.  When I dropped the first Plague, I took out two Winged Slivers. Noah Naturalized the Plague the next turn (earning a sweet 3-for-1 for me) and I drop another Plague the next turn with Force back-up and he sinks in his chair. As he begins to rebuild, I drop and activate Deed for 1 to clear his board of AEther Vial, two Plated Slivers and a Phyrexian Furnace. A little later he over-extends his board, only to see it wrecked by Virtue’s Ruin again.  I eventually find a Dryad and grow her into a 5/5. When Noah’s at 11, I swing with the Dryad and a 6/6 Tog for the match.

Round Three
Joe with Five Color Battle of Wits

Yeah, as weird up as it sounds, the only other undefeated player at this tournament is Joe wielding his 265+ card Five Color Battle of Wits deck. I’m figuring I’ll win one game on the back of his inevitable mana screw alone and hopefully pick up another win as he draws into suboptimal cards. But, for reasons that still aren’t clear, he was able to beat my arch-nemesis, Max McCall (aka “Frogboy”) the round before, and pretty much no one beats Max.

I feel the need to win just for the good of the format. It’s nothing personal.

Joe wins the die roll and plays a Polluted Delta. My first play is Duress and I see a hand full of awesome cards, but no other land. I pluck the Brainstorm and hope he draws into a pile of spells. On his EOT, he cracks his Delta for a Tundra and Enlightened Tutors for Standstill.

Joe gets lucky and pulls a land off the top and drops his Standstill; I Daze, he Forces in response. The next turn I’m forced to break the Standstill with a Quirion Dryad who goes the distance as my deck produces a never-ending stream of countermagic to keep my strategy on track.

Strangely, this match was a lot harder that I thought.

I sideboard in a Duress, Naturalize, and Haunting Echoes just for the fun of it.

While Joe is pile shuffling, the TO announces that there’s no need for us to play, since we’ll both be making the cut to the Top 4, regardless of who wins or loses. So we’re just playing for placement at this point. Since Max is also in the Top 4, we all decide right there to split the prize money evenly among the Top 4, since none of us feeling like playing like another two hours of Magic.

We play Game Two just for the heck of it and I get mauled. I did have the pleasure of nabbing an Engineered Explosives with Duress, and EE is my second favorite card, next to Meddling Mage. But with a stream of man-lands slowly beating me down, I’m always on the defensive and I can’t get a threat to stick on the board.

Instead of moving to Game Three and enduring another twenty minutes of watching Joe pile shuffle, we intentionally draw and I move to the next table to play some Type Four with Bret, Don, Max and Noah.

I ended up with enough store credit to get two Dark Confidants for a few bucks and I had a great time—so I consider the day a success.

Parting thoughts on Gro-A-Tog

I think GAT is a great deck, but I can’t honestly say it’s better than UGW Threshold. Having strong threats that aren’t reliant on your graveyard (Dryad) is a good thing, but Thresh can already (and has) run this threat, but has since discarded her. But I'll point out that Dryad is much tastier in GAT due to the sheer number of non-green spells. Other than the Berserk, the only other spell in my deck that doesn't grow Dryad(s) is another Dryad.  In Thresh, you have Mongoose and Werebear keeping your Dryads small.

Black offers a lot of goodies in Duress, Pernicious Deed, Dark Confidant and Engineered Plague; as well as Perish and Virtue’s Ruin/Massacre. But I don’t think that offsets the loss of Swords to Plowshares, Meddling Mage, Armageddon and Mystic Enforcer. For instance, trying to contain Joe’s Eternal Dragon was an exercise in frustration. I countered and killed the thing at least four times, but I couldn’t stop it. I was just wishing for a single StP.

Of course you can run something like 4c Threshold (U/G/w/b), to gain some awesome cards at the expense of your mana stability. Whether this is worth it to you really depends on your metagame and the amount of non-basic hate you’re expecting.

But if you’re familiar with Threshold and are comfortable with how those games play out (drop cheap threats, recognizing what needs to be countered and when to be aggressive or play the control role), GAT offers a nice change of pace that’s a hell of a lot of fun to play.  And bashing with enormous Dryads always makes for good times. Deed is also just so damn powerful that you’ll win several games on the back of that alone.

As for changes to my list above:
+2 Dark Confidant
+1 Polluted Delta
-2 Night’s Whispers
-1 Bayou

My maindeck Berserk was the only other card that seemed weak. It was unnecessary the entire day (though I only played seven full games) and the only time I cast it was on one of Joe’s attacking Flametongue Kavu to contain his threats and gain some time. This is one of those high-risk plays that just didn’t pan out. Anyway, I didn’t feel Berserk was necessary and it may have just as easily been another Ghastly Demise, which was solid all day.

Thanks for reading.
- Bardo

[cancerstix]

8 Players. Yeah.

How and where do you find the motivation to write such a nice report for an 8 player tournament? 

[Matt]

LOVE OF THE GAME BABY OH YEAH

[PipOC]

Where did this tourney take place?  I live in Tigard and I'd love to get in on this once in a while, unless it's at Rainy Day.

[Bardo]

How and where do you find the motivation to write such a nice report for an 8 player tournament?

I just love writing and writing tournament reports gives me something to write about. But seriously, I'd still find the motivation to write a report if the only players were me, my two dogs, and my 3 year old twin girls' imaginary friends.

Where did this tourney take place?

At the Mana Curve, the store opened like a month ago. It's on Broadway St in Beaverton. Here's their website.

There will be a sizable tournament with real prizes on Sept 16. Unfortunately, I'll be out of town for a wedding.

[Toad]

Woot Gro-A-Tog ! So cool
<3 Psychatogs, nice report too !

[LordHomerCat]

I just love writing and writing tournament reports gives me something to write about. But seriously, I'd still find the motivation to write a report if the only players were me, my two dogs, and my 3 year old twin girls' imaginary friends.

Even if you lost?

Your reports are always quite entertaining, ever though of playing a deck that wasn't U/G though? =]

[Anusien]

Actually, Dan worked a deal with Satan.  He will topdeck everything he needs as long as he plays with 4 Tropical Island in his decks.

This is why he can't draft or do T2.  The moment he touches the non-External formats, his luck is gone.

Incidentally, one of the riders is a fetish for German tranny snuff porn, but hey, it's worth it, right?

[Bardo]

Even if you lost?

Yeah, probably.

Your reports are always quite entertaining, ever thought of playing a deck that wasn't U/G?

Pfft. What kind of n00b do you take me for? I can almost guarantee that I'll never write a report about a deck that doesn't at least contain Brainstorm.

But seriously, no.

He will topdeck everything he needs as long as he plays with 4 Tropical Island in his decks.

This is one of the conditions of my Agreement.

Incidentally, one of the riders is a fetish for German tranny dungeon porn, but hey, it's worth it, right?

Fixed.

[Matt]

Incidentally, one of the riders is a fetish for German tranny dung porn, but hey, it's worth it, right?

Fixed.

Fixed.

[cancerstix]

Incidentally, one of the riders is a fetish for German granny dung porn, but hey, it's worth it, right?

Fixed.

Fixed.

When it gets this close to tubgirl I can't resist.  Fixed.

[Matt]

Incidentally, one of the riders is a fetish for German granny dung porn, but hey, it's worth it, right?

Fixed.

Fixed.

When I get close to tubgirl I can't resist.  Fixed.

Fixed.

[Anusien]

Incidentally, one of the riders is a fetish for German granny dung porn, but hey, it's worth it, right?

Fixed.

Fixed.

When I get close to Smmenen I can't resist.  Fixed.

Fixed.

Fixed.

[Bardo]

Let me just go on record and say I that approve of any of my tournament reports getting hijacked into the fringe realms of fetishism and sexual perversions.

But, please, for the love of the Buddha, and everything sacred in this universe, let's leave Smmenen out of it. Grazi.

[BreathWeapon]

Well, not to take away from the topical discussion on porn ... but have you considered using Infernal Tutor in GAT? It seems to be the best 2cc cantrip/tutor in the deck, because it replaces itself, gets a card of your choice from your hand, combos with Tog to get Berserk and win the game, or you can cast it as the last card in your hand to get Berserk and win the game with Dryad. Infernal Tutor in 1.5 GAT is like Merchant Scroll in T1 GAT pre-restriction, the roles of the two cards are almost identical.

This is the version I had,

4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection
4 Daze
4 Duress

4 Infernal Tutor

4 Brainstorm
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Opt

4 Psychatog
4 Quirion Dryad

1 Berserk

1 Pernicious Deed

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Swamp

Misdirection is great, because I want to win the counter war against Threshold as soon as possible to put the "mistress" into play and start feeding her, or I want to protect the Psychatog from being removed for when I go in for the win. Now that there are decks in the format that don't turn green men side ways, Misdirection has a sufficient number of uses to make it an advisable MD choice for the metagame. Also, with all of the free counter magic, you can play a cantrip, Daze it, Misdirect the Daze, play a land and get every card out of your hand, pump up your Dryad, and then cast Infernal Tutor with Hellbent for Berserk.

I can't stand Serum Visions in this deck, yes it digs deeper, over the long run, but Sleight of Hand and Opt get the second card immediately, which improves your chances of being able to Force of Will or Daze on the first turn or chain into another cantrip and keep going later.

The singleton Pernicious Deed is really 5 Pernicious Deeds when you are in top deck mode with Infernal Tutor, I just don't feel comfortable with out some form of removal in the MD to deal with anything that made it past Force of Will, Daze and Duress. Decks shouldn't lose to a resolved Solitary Confinement.

The SB is just 4 Engineered Plague and 4 Darkblast for Goblins, Counterspells for decks that aren't Goblins that don't use the stack and Pernicious Deed for randomness.

I don't think Threshold is even good any more, it's under powered in comparison to other Aggro-Control decks like Faerie Stompy, Fish/EBA (Jotun Grunt, Old Man of the Sea and Umezawa's Jitte) and it loses to grave yard removal. GAT doesn't have these problems, tho Jotun Grunt is still a significant threat for shrinking Tog and being a consistant 4/4 for 2cc when you are cantripping your ass off.

[Bardo]

[H]ave you considered using Infernal Tutor in GAT?

Hrm, what would it find? If you pitch your hand for 'hellbent' just so you can DT, you're probably going to lose, since Berserk is the only "I win now" card in the deck. And Berserk is fetchable with Mystical Tutor, which is far easier to use, cheaper, an instant and Blue.

Infernal Tutor in 1.5 GAT is like Merchant Scroll in T1 GAT pre-restriction, the roles of the two cards are almost identical.

I don't see it. You can only find something that's in your hand or anything when your hand is empty--but that's a rough spot to be in.

Misdirection is great, because I want to win the counter war against Threshold as soon as possible to put the "mistress" into play and start feeding her, or I want to protect the Psychatog from being removed for when I go in for the win.

With 4 MD Misdirection and ITs, I doubt you'll get to play against Thresh. The fun (or frustrating) thing about Legacy is you have no idea what kind of random jank you're going to face in round one. And if you start off x-1, you're in for an even rougher ride as you start seeing everything from Burn to Secret Force. I don't think Misdirection is justified in such a random metagame, or in any deck that isn't pure combo that lacks card advantage (Confidant, FoF, NW, etc.). Stifle is more generally useful.

Also, with all of the free counter magic, you can play a cantrip, Daze it, Misdirect the Daze, play a land and get every card out of your hand, pump up your Dryad, and then cast Infernal Tutor with Hellbent for Berserk.

This seems like an unlikely sequence of plays that loses the game if your opponents has StP or bounce.

I don't think Threshold is even good any more, it's under powered in comparison to other Aggro-Control decks like Faerie Stompy, Fish/EBA (Jotun Grunt, Old Man of the Sea and Umezawa's Jitte) and it loses to grave yard removal.

This is just sheer exaggeration. Thresh isn't good anymore? Two people in the T8 of TML; one at Gencon; winner of the last SCG DFD. Theoretically, it may seem "weak," but actual results haven't borne that out, have they?

[BreathWeapon]

You know you can use Psychatog to discard every other card in your hand, enable Hellbent, and then use Infernal Tutor to find Berserk and win the game, right?

You aren't going to try and go off with Infernal Tutor before you Duress the opponent's hand to clear the Counterspell or Swords to Plowshares.

You aren't going to try and cast all of your free counter magic to pump up your Dryad, enable Hellbent, and use Infernal Tutor to find Berserk against a deck that plays with Counterspells or Swords to Plowshares; it's one of those plays you play against random.dec like R/G beatz to win on the spot.

I don't really see a lot of scrub decks that aren't affected by Misdirection, with the exception of Goblins, I can use it against anything I play against. If you can't, then I suggest using Counterspell.

There's nothing wrong with Infernal Tutor all by itself, even if you aren't using it to combo, you can use it for another counter, threat or cantrip and just go about your business.

As far as Threshold is concerned, in the larger tournaments it is still doing well, but I don't think that is going to last forever. People have realized how good Leyline of the Void is in this format, and an uncounterable, un-Pithing Needle(able) answer to Threshold is a serious impediment to the deck. What makes things worse is Jotun Grunt, which is becoming extremely popular as a SB and MD card in decks that already present Threshold with problems. Don't get me wrong, Counterspells, Meddling Mage and Swords to Plowshares area usually going to be able to deal with problematic cards, but the times they don't are the times I'm concerned with. The deck has a lot of vicious hate cards aimed at it, and now that the deck has become ever popular, everybody is aiming at it; that's why I would take it into a tournament setting. That, and it just loses to Faerie Stompy really hard, which has a dedicated and growing fanbase (that deck just scares the shit out of me in general).

[LordHomerCat]

It seems you are mostly suggesting tutor because it:
a) Makes your Psychatog kill earlier.  When has tog been too slow?
b) Lets you beat decks like RGBeatz easier.  Is this really a good reason to play a suboptimal card?
c) Can turn into a cantrip against real decks, so it isn't dead.  The thing is, if you just play another cantrip in this spot, you don't have to pay 1BU to brainstorm all the time.

None of those would make me want to play with the card.

[BreathWeapon]

No, I'm suggesting the card because it allows the deck to take on the combo role with no effort against aggro, can be done against aggro-control and control as well and it speeds up the deck vs combo like High Tide and IGG.

Tog is too slow against Goblins, when you have no evasion and they have a board full of creatures you really want a reliable way to find Berserk and win. You can't really play with 4 Mystical Tutor in the same way you can play with 4 Infernal Tutor in GAT. That and it is the only card that has been printed since Gush that has synergy with the deck and the potential for broken plays.

I guess I just don't like Night's Whispers in the deck, Infernal Tutor traded card selection for card advantage, doesn't cause 2 points of damage, is a superior top deck and can be used to go into combo mode.

[Bardo]

No, I'm suggesting the card because it allows the deck to take on the combo role with no effort against aggro, can be done against aggro-control and control as well and it speeds up the deck vs combo like High Tide and IGG.

Then just play Mystical Tutor to dig up Berserk. It's infinitely easier to use and more useful (like searching for Perish/Virtue's Ruin/Haunting Echoes/Infest, etc.) And you don't have to commit to it on your turn; you can get Berserk or whatever on your opponent's end step or your upkeep.

Re: Night's Whispers. I'm not a fan of it either, for the same reasons listed above. I've replaced mine with Dark Confidant. And Bob in this deck is a monster!

[BreathWeapon]

I don't think it's a question of Inernal Tutor or Mystical Tutor, I'd just as soon use both of if I wanted to go all out on Berserk. Besides, where else do you get a chance to play with Infernal Tutor outside of combo?
Dark Confidant is definately an interesting idea, what aggro-control deck hasn't he made better? I'd have to get rid of Misdirection altogether tho', five to the face is not cool.

[Matt]

You know, for one more mana than IT, you could just have Cunning Wish, which also has the plusses of not being in your splash color and of being an instant.

[BreathWeapon]

I tried that, and the 3cc was a problem once and awhile, because I wouldn't have the 4 lands on turn four to Cunning Wish and Berserk on the same turn, Daze or Wasteland. And not to sound like a broken record, but the two cards aren't exclusive. It's not a question of whether or not Infernal Tutor is the better tutor or Wish, it's a question of whether or not it is a better cantrip.