Meta-Tog: An adaptation of the Gush Engine (with notes from Waterbury)

[Grand Inquisitor]

Metagaming the Best Engine in Vintage

When I first found out Gush was unrestricted, my initial impression was the same as when I played GAT post-restriction/pre-unrestriction.  At this point Hulk and now Slaver had really ironed out the wheat from the chaff in the metagame, numerous teams were springing up and their testing was forcing stronger strategies and counter-strategies, and the card pool from mirrodin block was tightening up what could be played in a competitive event.  My conclusion was that Quirion Dryad was the weakest part of GAT.

My reasoning was that decks were reaching a point where they had to switch between rolls so quickly that although Quirion Dryad required no resource investment besides 1G and going about your business, you still had to commit that single card at the beginning, instead of at a time of your choosing.  That seemingly marginal tactical bottleneck was the source of my ire with a card that had worked quite well for me through my first year of T1.

Fast forward to the current metagame and the recent unrestriction of Gush.  Here are the key assumptions I made while developing this deck:

1) Flash and GAT were the most powerful and resilient existing decks
2) The next echelon of decks were largely reactive (and slow) decks like Bomberman, Fish, and Oath
3) Workshop decks were a strong antidote to the top two decks, however they're inconsistency is an achilles.
4) Ichorid, and to a lesser extent, decks like Powder-Belcher and Doomsday are 'X' factors which are little played, but require design attention or you'll get hosed

***Let's not turn this into a large side discussion over how accurate these are unless it's related to the list***

The real key here is Flash.  While I expected GAT to see more play at Waterbury, I knew how the deck operates and it's basic tactics are 'fair'; the matchup becomes a question of preparedness, not actually trying to figure out how to beat it.  Flash is different.  It applies amazing early game pressure, and has enough pitch counters to win stack wars.  The deck has to be attacked pre-emptively.  However, it also has great tutoring, so it can remove hate cards before it wins.  The answer was obvious: Aven Mindcensor.

Before I go further, the deck list:

Decklist played at Waterbury (T8 after swiss, only 1 game loss in six rounds)

Creatures (6):
3x Psychatog
3x Aven Mindcensor

Disruption (14):
4x Force of Will
4x Duress
2x Mana Drain
2x Misdirection
1x Echoing Truth
1x Cunning Wish

Card Quality/Advantage Engine (10):
4x Brainstorm
4x Gush
1x Scroll Rack
1x Ancestral Recall

Tutors (6):
3x Merchant Scroll
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor

Brokeness (3):
1x Time Walk
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Fastbond

Mana (21):
5x Moxen
1x Black Lotus
3x Flooded Strand
3x Polluted Delta
3x Underground Sea
2x Tundra
2x Island
1x Tropical Island
1x Library of Alexandria (should really be in CQA section)

Sideboard (I wasn't really happy with it, but it's here for comprehension of the rest of the list):
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Engineered Explosives
2x Pithing Needle
1x Sacred Ground
1x Massacre
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Rushing River
1x Darkblast
1x Berserk

Since metagame decks are appropriate because of how your choices affect each matchup, here's the rationale on a deck-by-deck basis:

Flash - Game 1 you have what is already a fearsome attack on their combo with duress and pitch counters (backed up by merchant scroll).  When these cards get you through the first turn, Aven Mindcensor comes down to seal the deal.  Post board bringing in 4x Leyline and 3x E.E. was devastating in testing and the one match against Flash I had at Waterbury (Game 2 he drops Tarmogoyf and tutors for a second only to meet a E.E. at 2 to clear his board).  With Mindcensor stopping the engine and the combo, leyline as a counterless/free foil, and E.E. to mop up hard-casted slivers, slow combos, or transformational sideboards, this deck allows a very solid answer to Flash.

GAT - This matchup comes down to a simple transaction: the majority of the time, a GAT player can not swing their dryad into an untapped psychatog.  While this is basically a mirror, your one card advantage (not having played dryad) allows you an advantage in early wars over card drawers; after conceding 19 life, you drop the tog/ywill and win.  Mindcensor can also be highly disruptive, especially if you hit a fetchland.  The drawbacks are that you have mana where opt would be, so need brainstorm and scroll rack to turn chaff to counters and bombs.  In the T16 at Waterbury my opponent rightly countered my brainstorms and shuffle effects which cost me the first game, and I drew >50% mana in the 2nd game (after siding down to 19 sources).  I'd like to find better things to bring in from the sideboard, but without red, options are limited.  I consider this matchup slightly favorable, but it can go either way depending on what each list has.  An opponent with MD blasts almost took a game 1 from me, if not for a misplay.

Bomberman - This deck is going to have to adapt in order to survive the recent meta shifts, so my opinions here are of limited use.  As it stands, their key plays are Aven Mindcensor and extraneous hate (I saw Magus ot Moon at Waterbury).  Beyond that, you should be able to control the stack and set up a big play with Will, or Psychatog.  LoA is amazing in this matchup.  If I was Bomber, I'd counter Demonic and Vampiric.  Since spellbomb doesn't really apply here, they can't attack you in a ground war.  Since you have your own mindcensors, you can often neuter mage, and pick off opposing mindcensors.  You control most of the angles of attack in this matchup.

Fish - Hate decks really need to transition in this metagame as well, so my limited experience echoes what happens in GAT.  All the disruption in the world does little when resolving Psychatog acts like a moat.  It's not this simple, but in general you have the tools to thwart their clock, and then, use your brokeness (Gush is especially useful against decks that attack the manabase) to slow roll them.

Oath - This matchup didn't get as much testing attention as others.  I was honestly surprised at how much Oath I saw at Waterbury.  However, I played Dan Carp in the feature match and my basic logic on the deck remains intact.  Oaths most critical plays are first, the 'fast oath'.  This is the watered down version of 'mox, land, flash, fow, pon', except it looks like 'mox, orchard, oath, fow'.  The second is heavy disruption with chalices and strip effects.  Since Oath doesn't have a clock like Fish, however, it really has to go for a near hard lock until it can gain enough advantage to resolve Oath.  Similar to bomberman, it's a deck that has to fight with your amazing ability to chain brainstorms, gushes, and merchant scrolls together to develop overwhelming advantage.  Not having to commit early dryads into their oath is strong as well.  In my games with Dan wastelands and Chalices were not overly effective at slowing my gameplan down.  However, he "stole" game 1 with a well-timed engineered explosives which took out a mox and lotus the turn before I would have willed.  Having played the leading champion of Oath and feeling like I should have won the match (after mulling to five, I still almost won game 1, save for E.E. and G2 was early brokeness with fastbond and Gush, no game 3), I see this as at least a favorable matchup, if not a good one. 

Workshop - There's so many archetypes that use workshops, however, all of them should have good matchups against you.  The advantage over GAT is that Psychatog is so much better against workshops than Quirion Dryad.  By turn five, if they don't have a blocker, you should be able to swing lethal.  If you can get a Gush off, you can do this turn four.  That means resolving one, maybe two spells.  The matchup varies tremendously depending on the build you're playing against, but in general, you duress/fow whatever will stop you from resolving tog.  The sideboard E.E's help, but they're no replacement for artifact mutation, rack and ruin, and ancient grudge.  The advantage of having three more sources than GAT helps a lot in this matchup since you can use your early turns doing productive things instead of looking for land.

Ichorid - Leylines and Pithing needles are about good as anyone can do these days.  Not being hit particularly hard by chalice or duress effects helps.  Leyline can be a beating.

Gush Tendrils - I'm not sure if this deck has any staying power, but similar to GAT you have the same engine.  Mindcensor does to this deck what Psychatog does to GAT.

Marginal Card Choices and Possible Changes

Mox Ruby - I liked having the acceleration.  I probably won't change this.  In fact, on my more radical days, I want to turn it into a Volcanic Island, cut another basic for a second, and find room for stuff like F/I, REB, Mutation

Six Fetchlands - I suspected that everyone else would figure out how good mindcensor was too.  However, Mindcensor is much stronger at hosing actual tutors and the Flash kill.  When you run nine other lands and brainstorm, these are pretty easy to set up.  Against everything else they're amazing.

Psychatog - If Fish further disappears from the metagame, I can see going down to two.

Scroll Rack - I only got to use it twice in my matches, but it was great.  My teamates got comments all day on how strong of an effect it was.  While testing GAT the week previous I always wished I had it to filter lands out of hands, this was the result.

Mana Drain - I'd like to find room for a third one, but I really have no idea what to cut.  Possibly for the third tog.

Merchant Scroll - Chaining Gushes is ok, but without fastbond, kinda underwhelming.  I can usually find better ways spending my limited mana.  I don't miss #4.

Sideboard - It was pretty crap, but you have to devote so much to ichorid, that it kind of has to be.  The maindeck was plenty strong on it's own.  E.E., Swords, and Berserk were the most useful cards out of it.  I'd like to either add Nix or something else for the GAT matchup, or live the dream of playing 5c Tog.


I don't expect this deck to work in every metagame.  However, if you see parades of workshop decks, it's surprisingly better than GAT in a lot of regards.  Against the emergent menace, Flash, it really shines, and it has the tools to beat other Gush-based decks.

Thoughts?

[Korhil]

You added Mindcensor to improve the Flash Match up, and in doing so, removed Red for White instead.
Would you not get similar results from playing REB's main in an otherwise more normal GAT build instead?
REB main is good in the GAT mirror too, and seems more precise than Mindcensor.

This would allow you to maintain access to cards like Artifact Mutation and Ancient Grudge for the Stax matchup.
You do also have extra mana sources vs Stax, but you could add these anyway if you saw this as another means of improving this matchup.

---Korhil

[pyr0ma5ta]

Big props to Stephan for dominating on Day 1 with this concoction.  For those of you reading the rest of this post, realize that I worked with Stephan on testing his list, and played the same deck (without a Scroll Rack because I couldn't find one...) at Stratford.  While I cannot claim credit for the entire list, I think that my insistence that Aven Mindcensor was the best proactive and widely applicable hate card in Vintage was important in the development of this list.  Congrats on your finish, Stephan.

Some thoughts:
I played against Urbana Fish in a side event, and basically I was playing Tog and 57 bad cards.  I resolved a Tog, and then another, and promptly started Abyssing him.  He soon died, never having done anything relevant in the entire match.  Urbana Fish has a real tough time with the deck.

I had a similar experience against Stax.  I held up some Fetchlands, resolved a Tog through double SoR, and did nothing from then on other than attack my Tog into his Welders while he desperately tried to get his Powder Keg up to 3.  He ran out of Welders with 2 counters on it, and then he took 8 billion damage.

My match against Ben Carp was quite unusual, and despite my match loss result, I think the overall matchup might be in Tog's favor.  Mindcensor is a beating against the new Oath build, but even moreso is the almighty Sacred Ground from the board.  It basically completely invalidates their Loam-Waste strategy. 

The Flash matchup is akin to a truck and a motorcycle smashing into each other.  I feel the deck has an extremely favorable matchup against Flash.  I was 2-1, 5-3 in games against Flash on the weekend.  Although I did drop a match against it, he started Game 1 on the draw with Mox, Land, Flash, Hulk, Ancestral, Fow, Scroll, and Game 3 with Lotus, Land, Flash, Hulk, Ancestral, Fow, Chain.  Unreal nice.

[Moxlotus]

Some thoughts:
I played against Urbana Fish in a side event, and basically I was playing Tog and 57 bad cards.  I resolved a Tog, and then another, and promptly started Abyssing him.  He soon died, never having done anything relevant in the entire match.  Urbana Fish has a real tough time with the deck.

So you played against a deck in one match and have been able to formulate how the match will go the vast majority of the time.  This comment is so misleading based on a number of things, a few of which I will name:  caliber of player, experience of player, decklist, and random luck in the massive sample size of ONE MATCH.  A number of cards such as maindeck and postboard REBs, control magics, waterfront bouncers, and counters can help deal with Tog--it is not game over as you have implied.  While I have not tested the match myself, I am not going to give solid figures as to how the match would look exactly--and I'm certainly not going to test one match and give my results.

This isn't just me protecting my pet deck.  It is a message to all players beware of ridiculous statements with many variables and small sample size.

[Imsomniac101]

Fast forward to the current metagame and the recent unrestriction of Gush.  Here are the key assumptions I made while developing this deck:

1) Flash and GAT were the most powerful and resilient existing decks
2) The next echelon of decks were largely reactive (and slow) decks like Bomberman, Fish, and Oath
3) Workshop decks were a strong antidote to the top two decks, however they're inconsistency is an achilles.
4) Ichorid, and to a lesser extent, decks like Powder-Belcher and Doomsday are 'X' factors which are little played, but require design attention or you'll get hosed

I agree with everything stated here.

A few questions:
- Did you ever find that you were not able to get Tog lethal due to Leyline or Crypt?
- Is Fastbond and Beserk worth splashing Green for?
- Ever thought about replacing a land with Volc. to splash for REB's? This improves a large swathe of matchups in the current meta, albeit they are already at least slightly favorable.

Some thoughts:
I played against Urbana Fish in a side event, and basically I was playing Tog and 57 bad cards.  I resolved a Tog, and then another, and promptly started Abyssing him.  He soon died, never having done anything relevant in the entire match.  Urbana Fish has a real tough time with the deck.

So you played against a deck in one match and have been able to formulate how the match will go the vast majority of the time.  This comment is so misleading based on a number of things, a few of which I will name:  caliber of player, experience of player, decklist, and random luck in the massive sample size of ONE MATCH.  A number of cards such as maindeck and postboard REBs, control magics, waterfront bouncers, and counters can help deal with Tog--it is not game over as you have implied.  While I have not tested the match myself, I am not going to give solid figures as to how the match would look exactly--and I'm certainly not going to test one match and give my results.

This isn't just me protecting my pet deck.  It is a message to all players beware of ridiculous statements with many variables and small sample size.

Agreed, except for the part where Control Magic is relevant.

Workshop players really need to cut they're ties to the traditional lists before Shop can become a dominant force again. The old hold-overs like Chalice, SoR and ironically Smokestack are still good. Cards that used to be good, ie Welder and Crucible need to be cut; these are the cards that are holding the players and the archetype as a whole from performing.

[ErkBek]

My conclusion was that Quirion Dryad was the weakest part of GAT.

Totally agree. I really like the addition of Mindcensor with removal of Dryad. I didn't see Dryad and Mindcensor working together well, but Mindcensor and tog seem to fit better together. I also think the 3 EE's on the board is an excellent call for a deck like this.

Congrats on the performance.

I played against Urbana Fish in a side event, and basically I was playing Tog and 57 bad cards.  I resolved a Tog, and then another, and promptly started Abyssing him.  He soon died, never having done anything relevant in the entire match.  Urbana Fish has a real tough time with the deck.

I don't know how this match would play out at all since I've never played against the deck. I know URBana used to crush decks that had a similar frame, but with IT/AK instead of Scroll/Gush. That engine could make all the difference in the world, idk. I'd be interested to test the matchup further before making any conclusions.

Agreed, except for the part where Control Magic is relevant.

Here's a PM talking about a GAT vs. URBana game which seems very relevant......

One game involved a resolved bouncer, getting 2x control magics duressed, followed by drawing my last control magic and stealing a psychatog. I drew zero cards that game, while GAT merchant scrolled for recall (and resolved it) followed by a gush or two.

Control Magic looks so bad I know, but it's good.

[pyr0ma5ta]

I should clarify that my sideboard includes Sacred Ground, Pithing Needle, Disenchant, and STP and at least in theory at least none of the named cards are ridiculously devastating.  I therefore apologize, as I am from the West Coast and nobody plays this deck out there, so I saw it for the first time in action today.  Forgive me if I therefore have less than a passing respect for the list that even its greatest proponents admit looks horrible on paper.

Adding a Volc for REB means you're, uh, 5 color.  Seems quite unwise. 

[Grand Inquisitor]

realize that I worked with Stephan on testing his list

Big fox pass on my part here.  This opening post may look somewhat organized, but it was in fact a dump while I was doing eight other things yesterday.  I totally forgot to give credit to the rest of the team, largely pyromasta, elyas macheras, and wethepeople, who helped with creative input and testing.

You added Mindcensor to improve the Flash Match up, and in doing so, removed Red for White instead.
Would you not get similar results from playing REB's main in an otherwise more normal GAT build instead?

I had considered this.  The nuance here is not that you need good cards against Flash; you need pro-active cards against them.  If you wait until they're ready to put flash on the stack, it's likely any number of counters in hand won't be enough.  Mindcensor stops both the combo, and the entire tutoring, engine, and manabase of the deck.

Workshop players really need to cut they're ties to the traditional lists before Shop can become a dominant force again

While this may be true, I think the real strength of this deck is how Psychatog trumps the majority of mana/resource denial strategies by simply turning what you can't play into damage.

- Did you ever find that you were not able to get Tog lethal due to Leyline or Crypt?

No.  I haven't tested against leyline, but tormod's crypt is especially ineffective.

- Is Fastbond and Beserk worth splashing Green for?

Fastbond is uncuttable, and certainly worth the 1 slot for tropical island.  We discussed going without Cunning Wish and berserk.  Right now, I think having both is necessary and useful.  A better configuration may come along which will save slots either SB or MD, however, you need green for fastbond.

- Ever thought about replacing a land with Volc. to splash for REB's? This improves a large swathe of matchups in the current meta, albeit they are already at least slightly favorable.

In fact, on my more radical days, I want to turn it into a Volcanic Island, cut another basic for a second, and find room for stuff like F/I, REB, Mutation

URBana

I haven't tested this extensively.  What few games I played against (probably terrible) online opponents I found victory through darkblast and superior draw.  Mindcensor also provides a huge tempo swing when he out-ninjas ninjas.  I have no substantive opinion on the matchup, but it's also a non-factor in the NE metagame.

I also think the 3 EE's on the board is an excellent call for a deck like this

I had always found the card rather clunky, but it's flexibility won me over.  It was great in the tournament.

[horse the name]

Congratulations, Grand Inquisitor! Quick question: with white in the deck, would it be worth it to run enlightened tutor to grab fastbond?

[Grand Inquisitor]

Congratulations, Grand Inquisitor! Quick question: with white in the deck, would it be worth it to run enlightened tutor to grab fastbond?

Imperial Seal would be better for that role since it's more flexible and slightly more on color.  However, as Shay and Mons have pointed out, trying to play this deck as Gush>Fastbond combo is a recipe for disaster.  I'd be more interested in fitting in another mana drain, or something else that would help the draw engine, instead of focusing more on fastbond.

[Purple Hat]

GI:  did you test balance?  it seems like it might be a solid card for you given that you play such a light mana base and it can give you an out of bad situations.

[Grand Inquisitor]

GI:  did you test balance?  it seems like it might be a solid card for you given that you play such a light mana base and it can give you an out of bad situations.

I thought about balance, and, not to be critical, but I think it's the opposite type of effect this deck is looking for.  Balance was a bomb in a deck like Sensei, Sensei, because you could project your card advantage into mana accelerants, and permanents like FS, top and helm.  In Gush-focused decks, you're usually only doing this type of tempo transformation when you're dumping to fastbond or killing with a psychatog.  In the latter situation you've just won, in the former situation you're casting armageddon, in any other situation, mind twist on your self.

[Illissius]

Would Honor the Fallen be worth trying as a Wish target here, if you're using white?

[Purple Hat]

GI:  did you test balance?  it seems like it might be a solid card for you given that you play such a light mana base and it can give you an out of bad situations.

I thought about balance, and, not to be critical, but I think it's the opposite type of effect this deck is looking for.  Balance was a bomb in a deck like Sensei, Sensei, because you could project your card advantage into mana accelerants, and permanents like FS, top and helm.  In Gush-focused decks, you're usually only doing this type of tempo transformation when you're dumping to fastbond or killing with a psychatog.  In the latter situation you've just won, in the former situation you're casting armageddon, in any other situation, mind twist on your self.

it seems like it might be useful against goblins, which are good vs flash, and piledriver is prot blue, and armageddon for 1W could be situationally useful it seems.

[Grand Inquisitor]

it seems like it might be useful against goblins, which are good vs flash, and piledriver is prot blue, and armageddon for 1W could be situationally useful it seems.

Armageddon as an actual card (not just as a proxy by balance) was used quite successfully by super grow versions in Vintage's past.  It's most effective with an aggro based list with more creatures and pitch magic.  However, this list was made with great intention not to seek the aggro roll.

As far as the goblins matchup, it's something I didn't even come close to considering when building this deck.  Could goblins become a strong part of the metagame?  It's possible.  If so, piledriver may be sufficient to warrant abandoning this approach to creature control.  However, GAT especially, and Tog to a lesser degree were very difficult matchups for goblins in previous incarnations of this metagame. 

For now I consider Ichorid a much larger threat to this deck and to the metagame in general (Ichorid also has good game against Flash).  If something like Goblins becomes a contender, I would probably revisit the entire strategy instead of looking to balance.

Would Honor the Fallen be worth trying as a Wish target here, if you're using white?

I looked at Honor the Fallen, and I'd probably find room for it if I expected lots of Ichorid (e.g. at the smaller events in NE, like ELD, Myriad and Hadley, you have a much greater chance of facing it).  However, for Waterbury I figured most people would play more versatile decks.  I don't think Ray's crunched the numbers, but I'm pretty sure there were like two ichorid decks out of 128 the first day.  It's certainly better at dodging ichorid's counter-attack (silence) than leyline, but I needed something more general for the big event.  I bring in leyline against flash, ichorid, and even staxless stax.  Honor the fallen only shines vs. Ichorid.

[mutedequilibrium]

Workshop players really need to cut they're ties to the traditional lists before Shop can become a dominant force again. The old hold-overs like Chalice, SoR and ironically Smokestack are still good. Cards that used to be good, ie Welder and Crucible need to be cut; these are the cards that are holding the players and the archetype as a whole from performing.

I disagree with this entirely. Since Gifts has left, the amount of basic land present in Type One has gone down significantly: Wasteland hasn't been this good for a very long time. Also, the format has slowed down quite a bit [I'm sure everyone would agree with this, considering the only real combo deck played right now is Flash. Everyone else is turning creatures sideways for the win]. Because of this, Smokestack is actually useful again. And not only is it useful, it's actually good. And this makes Crucible even better. The amount of artifact acceleration used in most decks right now is also low, making Nulll Rod unviable and Strip/Waste even better, which in turn makes Crucible better, again.

Stax needs, and always has needed inevitability to function properly, otherwise it's just crossing its fingers. All the lock pieces in the world mean nothing if you can't seal the deal with something like Smokestack or Welder. I would say that Welder is also better now than he's been for quite some time.

So please, tell me. What cards should we be putting into Stax that Welder and Crucible are holding us all back from?