TFK in GAT?

[Marek]

I don't think that not running a full set of moxen in this deck is acceptable.  Theres too many spells that this deck can be using off color moxen to cast (early game scrolls, demonic tutor, dryads, psychatog, cunning wish, yawgmoth's will, etc)  However late game moxen end up being garbage...as do the lands you end up drawing into after chaining together gushes.   Oh yeah, and that mana you got from mana drain? Whats that you don't know how to spend it? I hear casting TFK for 1 blue mana is pretty hot.  Anyway, I'm sure this build will get criticized for this, but I think TFK is the fix that the deck needs to make it run more fluently late game.

Here's the list I have together so far:

3 Quirion Dryad
1 Psychatog
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Gush
1 Echoing Truth
4 Brainstorm
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Cunning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Regrowth
1 Fastbond
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Island
1 Library of Alexandria

Sideboard:
3 Energy Flux
2 Oxidize
2 Pithing Needle
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Berserk
3 Yixlid Jailer
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Tormod’s Crypt


I realize that there isn't many artifacts to pitch to TFK, but I think the deck draws into plenty of unneeded cards that aren't a big deal to send to the graveyard.  TFK doesn't just discard the cards to get rid of them for good, the graveyard is just an extra hand that you get to use later in the game with yawgmoth's will.  TFK is also like playing ancestral recall if you have dead cards in your hand.  (These points were made by Brassman back with his old gifts builds)

I had also considered mana leak seeing im running the full set of moxen, but I think that drain is a lot better in this deck than manaleak and ended up going with that option.

The shell of this deck is similar to Rich Shays build he took to ELD and Myriads last tournaments.  I'm still experimenting with this build and any helpful criticism would be greatly appreciated.

[The Atog Lord]

I think this isn't a great idea. GAT is built around exploiting low-cost spells which have a large impact on the game. Thirst, while a fine spell itself, isn't good enough to justify three mana. Yawgmoth's Will, Psychatog, and Wish -- those end the game. Thirst isn't even better than Gush in terms of card advantage. I just think it's far too expensive for this deck.

[Vegeta2711]

What was wrong with the original GAT deck, as far as drawing cards went, that TFK needs to fix? Or like why?

[FTKzak]

Most of the time you want to keep the few artifacts that GAT runs and play them. It seems like you'd be tossing away two useable cards every time you cast TFK. In order to make TFK even close to playable, you would have to up the artifact (read: mana) count drastically, which is counter to what GAT wants to do in the first place: play a lot of cheap/free spells and card drawers with a colored casting cost.

It looks like you decided to cut Misdirections for TFK - sacrificing a great utility card for questionable and expensive card drawing does not seem like the right way to take the deck.

[Harlequin]

I would probably run Compulsive Research before TFK ... GAT tends to go off at sorcery speed anyway.  At least with Compulsive research you're likely gaining card advantage, which is not really the case with thirst. 

[defector]

I wish you the best of luck, but you may find your energies better spent elsewhere. GAT had resurgence number 2 about four years ago with the introduction of a sift card called "Serum Visions", it wasn't very strong. During that time I remember several players attempting to integrate TFK in place of Gush. TFK is not Gush, and now you have four Gushes. All the people back then were lamenting TFK as pathetic to Gushes greatness, so take a lesson from the past. The other angles to increase draw are Intuitions and Accumulated Knowledges, Intuition is also a great card for setting up Wills and Kills. Maybe something in that direction would be more useful.
defector

[Purple Hat]

I wish you the best of luck, but you may find your energies better spent elsewhere. GAT had resurgence number 2 about four years ago with the introduction of a sift card called "Serum Visions", it wasn't very strong. During that time I remember several players attempting to integrate TFK in place of Gush. TFK is not Gush, and now you have four Gushes. All the people back then were lamenting TFK as pathetic to Gushes greatness, so take a lesson from the past. The other angles to increase draw are Intuitions and Accumulated Knowledges, Intuition is also a great card for setting up Wills and Kills. Maybe something in that direction would be more useful.
defector

those gat lists were insanely different from 4 gush gat anyway.  they played things like deep analysis to abuse tfk.  I guess the problem is that the proper number of mana sources for gat is either 18 or 19 in virtually everyone's testing.  yet to play gush reliably on turn 2 you need to play 13 or so islands/fetches.  if you want to run LOA (which is considerably better than mox pearl btw) that means that with 5 artifacts you're up to 19....the main advantage of playing gat is that you don't run as many mana sources as the other decks so you have a higher card quality than other decks in addition to your superior draw.  adding mana sources hurts this, and adding higher CC cards requires you to play more mana.

[Marek]

@AtogLord:  I kind of agree that a 3 mana spell in GAT should be winning the game, but in my testing TFK was either pitched to FoW which was fine, or casted for 1 blue mana after draining a spell.

@Vegeta:  It's not that GAT did anything wrong.  I just found that late game once you started gushing and scrolling for gush that you eventually ended up drawing into plenty of dead cards such as lands.

@FTKzak:  Yeah Misdirection never has really fazed me.  Ever...  unless I'm playing balls to the wall combo, which rarely happens.  I find it unusable too many times.  Stealing ancestral occassionally isn't a good enough reason to me to be running a significantly worse FoW.  I'd rather play a draw spell to get more bombs and hard counters.  And I never find problems pitching a mox to tfk.  As I said I'm usually casting it late game after drain mana so I either have 2 dead lands or an extra mox to pitch.  This deck draws so many cards that more artifacts than that isn't really a problem.

@Harlequin:  When I play this deck I never rely on "going off", thats just an added bonus.  This deck can win small very easily which many people tend to forget.  End of turn TFK happens quite often for me, when I have to keep drain mana open, and then dont end up having to use the drain that turn.

@Defector:  Yeah this deck can't really focus on using TFK as a draw engine, but as I've said so far I've had excellent results testing the list with 2.  The AK Intuition idea may be something to try testing,.. thanks for the input.


All in all im not saying that TFK ISthe way to go, but its something I wanted to explore.  As ive said so far its been pretty good for me, but theres other directions I'd like to explore with this deck.  Just give me some time to tinker around with it and hopefully there will be a well oiled machine ready to go.  Thanks for the feedback so far!

[Webster]

All in all im not saying that TFK ISthe way to go, but its something I wanted to explore.  As ive said so far its been pretty good for me, but theres other directions I'd like to explore with this deck.  Just give me some time to tinker around with it and hopefully there will be a well oiled machine ready to go.  Thanks for the feedback so far!

Here are the main reasons why thirst isn't good in GAT:

1. It's three mana. The deck doesn't have that much extra mana to play around with. It's hard enough to keep two mana open at the end of the turn let alone three.

2. In the list you're using, you have thirst in the slot that's normally occupied by opt which is functionally the same in GAT but only one mana compared to three for thirst. Opt digs up to two cards deep and replaces itself for one mana. When comparing thirst to opt, thirst digs three cards deep for three mana and will most likely never get beyond just replacing itself in terms of card advantage since the artifact count is so low. GAT is not slaver where you have 12+ artifacts to discard. The vast majority of GAT lists will only run five artifacts at most (your version runs six which is basically the same).


Regarding misdirection:

Misdirection is quite good; pitch counters is one of the reasons why GAT is so good. The deck has a robust draw engine and can disrupt the opponent with minimal cost to its own tempo because it runs at least six pitch counters and at least three duress. Misdirection acts as a force of will when GAT is causing the other deck to use a counter of its own. Misdirection isn't just for stealing ancestral recall.


Regarding intuition/AK:

The main problem that is associated with the intuition/AK engine is that it requires a lot of slots in the decklist. A minimum of six slots (two intuition, four accumulated knowledge) needs to be devoted to the engine. To be able to fit the intuition/AK engine into a GAT list would require a lot of the utility scroll slots to be cut as well as some of the duress which isn't an option IMO.

The second problem with intuition/AK is that it takes mana whereas gush is free. When I say mana, I mean a significant amount of it; three for the initial investment for the ability to pay two more to draw three cards whereas you can net mana with gush.

[Purple Hat]

if you're planing to play intuition/ak play hulk with gush instead of gat.  basically cut the dryads and play 4 drains and an extra coupple wishes instead to beef up your control package.

I really really don't dthink tfk is a good card in gat.  yes the deck can win small as easily as win big, but gat's strength comes from it's ability to play all roles well and from it's high spell:mana ratio.  tfk locks you into the win small role and that seems like a mistake