[Card Discussion] Gaddock Teeg -- The new vintage metagame warper

[netherspirit]

Turning off your own force of wills is a problem though.

That's why I'm still convinced he'd be better in a GBW build. Then you have access to a ton of discard spells, tutors and Dark Confidant. How is something like turn one Bayou, Duress, turn two fetchland, Savannah, Duress/Cabal Therapy/Gaddock Teeg/Tarmogoyf bad?

[Guli]

Why is adding blue (meddling mage) being presented as a critical move? Stick with 2 colors and work it out. I find Kataki+Gaddock very interesting togheter and less problematic color wise.

Something in this direction

4 Isamaru (1 drop)
3 Jotun Grunt (clock,disrupt)
4 Gaddock (new hot bear)
4 Kataki (mana denial)
3 Aven Mindcensor

1 Crop rotation (bomb)
4 Bazaar (draw)
1 Strip Mine (mana denial)
1 karakas (protection, anti-oath)
1 Maze of ith (oath,tinker)
2 life from loam (draw,ressurection)
2 riftstone portal
5 fetch
4 savannah
1 flagstones of trokair
1 plains
1 mox emerald
1 mox pearl
1 black lotus

3 swords (a lot creatures in meta)
4 keen sense (draw)

there are some open slots left but i would not use them to add another color but fill in the weak spots

[diopter]

I think you're underestimating it...You certainly do have a point, but you're making it sound like it's a draw-back.

I think it's a fair addition to Fish for sure, but he's no meddling mage.

/Zeus

The GW mana cost is a HUGE drawback.

It's a drawback, but its not unmanageable.  Throw in 1 trop in a deck with X fetchlands, mox emerald, black lotus, and 4 aether vials.

Look at what you're suggesting... Aether Vial might as well be a blank. I'd much rather have my first turn free to play Duress than have to wait until turn 3 to Vial in a dude that may be too little, too late.

It's not difficult to adjust your manabase to accomodate Teeg. The problem is what you give up. You give up access to Black and you give up access to Wastelands (unless you want to run a suicidal manabase). If you stay in UWG then your options for draw engines are limited to things like Standstill, and your turn 1 disruption options are limited to things like Stifle. You give up so much power, and what you get in return (Teeg) frankly isn't worth it, for reasons I've stated before.

[TopSecret]

Hmm. I sounds like there's some negativety against Fish here.

Just to throw out some ideas,
a deck with Gaddok Teeg would not neccessarily have to play blue or Force of Will.
It could be GWB, to enable Duress, Confidant, and other discard effects.
Duress has synergies with Tarmogoyf, too.
You'd get to play with that new Treefolk, Doran, the Siege Tower!

Also, you could always play four color, if you felt really naked without blue,
and you wanted to play Meddling Mage.
That way you'd have Meddling Mage, Gaddok, Confidant, and Tarmogoyf as your base package of beaters.
That sounds pretty solid to me.
You could play Mindcensor and/or Kataki, as well.

I've been playing this style of mana base in four color fish for a while:

1 Tundra
1 Badlands
1 Scrubland
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau
4 City of Brass
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
3 Flooded Strand
3 Bloodstained Mire

It could easily become this one to accomodate green, over red:

1 Savannah
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
4 City of Brass
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
3 Windswept Heath
3 Polluted Delta

Of course, there have been other four color decks floating around lately.
They probably have nicer manabases than mine, too.
There's plenty of wiggle room.

The only real drawback I can see is the succeptability to Bloodmoon (Magus) and Wasteland.

[the boogie man]

2 daze
3 spell snare

4 brainstorm
ancesral
time walk
1 swords
mystical
3 ponder

4 strip effects
4 flooded strand
3 tundra
3 tropical
mox u
mox g/w
1 island
1 esg

the blue is also better with vials, considering the vials usually do not get in the way of force of will. the only complaint I'd have is that I'd want more of a draw engine. The vials could go for space, but they really free up mana during the early to mid game. then again, most of your spells cost a whole lot. Im not sure which route is more optimal.

[SiegeX]

Here's an idea that I got from Brianpk80 way back when (see http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=30576.0).  What about going GWB and tossing in an Oath of Ghouls.  This would have some pretty great synergy with Bazaar, Jotun grunt, Riftstone Portal or even Saffi Eriksdotter.

[Moxlotus]

UWG Fish dosn't sound all that bad to me, with tarmogoyf (Being a better beater then joten grunt), this guy who shuts off Gush, Tendrils, Bargain, Mind's desire etc. etc...although he probably does suck against flash.

Turning off your own force of wills is a problem though.

/Zeus

I don't get why turning off your own forces is such a huge problem.  If turning off your own cards was a problem then Stax would never play Chalice.  It's not like fish doesn't have  other disruption it can't use in addition to force--daze, stifle, trickbind, daze, reb, duress, spell snare, nix...

Look at what you're suggesting... Aether Vial might as well be a blank. I'd much rather have my first turn free to play Duress than have to wait until turn 3 to Vial in a dude that may be too little, too late.

I don't know why you think Aether Vial might as well be a blank.  The card is good and has been played in a number of fish decks in the past.  Paul Nicolo made top8 with it last year at gencon.  Nobody is saying you can't play the duress turn 1.  The deck should be running full power and just use an offcolor mox to cast the vial. 

[quote ] You give up access to Black and you give up access to Wastelands (unless you want to run a suicidal manabase). If you stay in UWG then your options for draw engines are limited to things like Standstill, and your turn 1 disruption options are limited to things like Stifle. You give up so much power, and what you get in return (Teeg) frankly isn't worth it, for reasons I've stated before. [/quote]

How does running Teeg make you give up black AND wasteland?  You can easily fit green in along with black, or green in along with wastelands.  You have lots of options for draw engines depending on how the deck is built.  It can be Dawn of the Dead like and run Bazaar and bob.  It could run blue and have Ninjas.  It could use standstill.  It could use brainstorm with fetches.   

Or you could just throw your nuts on the table and run a 5 color manabase like Stax and play with everything (except wastes)!  With Vial you don't need a mana base.

There is soooo many directions you can go with this that saying he isn't worth it is very short sighted.  I have in front of me w/g/b, w/g/u, w/g/b/u, and 5c lists that I'm toying with.  Cheap and powerful effects should always be considered and never dismissed.  It doesn't get much more powerful than a 2 mana spell that may take out 1/6 to 1/5th of an opponent's deck.

[diopter]

I don't know why you think Aether Vial might as well be a blank.  The card is good and has been played in a number of fish decks in the past.  Paul Nicolo made top8 with it last year at gencon.  Nobody is saying you can't play the duress turn 1.  The deck should be running full power and just use an offcolor mox to cast the vial. 

In a three-color deck there are only two off-color moxes. That means 60% of the time you are playing Aether Vial turn 1 off a mox, you should actually be playing Meddling Mage or the new, shiny Gaddock Teeg.

Aether Vial is not good in this metagame. A year or two ago it was nice because a lot of people played Drains. Now they play Duresses and they LOL at you when you don't do anything productive on turn 1.

How does running Teeg make you give up black AND wasteland?  You can easily fit green in along with black, or green in along with wastelands.  You have lots of options for draw engines depending on how the deck is built.  It can be Dawn of the Dead like and run Bazaar and bob.  It could run blue and have Ninjas.  It could use standstill.  It could use brainstorm with fetches.   

Or you could just throw your nuts on the table and run a 5 color manabase like Stax and play with everything (except wastes)!  With Vial you don't need a mana base.

There is soooo many directions you can go with this that saying he isn't worth it is very short sighted.  I have in front of me w/g/b, w/g/u, w/g/b/u, and 5c lists that I'm toying with.  Cheap and powerful effects should always be considered and never dismissed.  It doesn't get much more powerful than a 2 mana spell that may take out 1/6 to 1/5th of an opponent's deck.

Firstly, it is true that you don't need a manabase with Aether Vial... with your disruptive creatures not coming down until turn 3, you actually won't need anything because your opponent will be steamrolling you.

Secondly, Gaddock Teeg does not shut off the following cards:
- Merchant Scroll
- Brainstorm
- Ancestral Recall
- 1G fatties
- Dark Ritual
- Tutors
- Bounce spells
- Yawgmoth's Will

These are core spells that Meddling Mage can attack (either directly or indirectly) that Teeg cannot. GAT and Flash will laugh at Teeg because it just does not do enough. What Teeg should be, if it is played at all, is a complement to Meddling Mage. Which leads me to the following:
- If you are playing UWGB, you cannot play turn 1 duress and turn 2 Teeg unless you add non-Island duals to your deck (and think of what that would do to your already suffering manabase!)
- If you play UWG you don't even *have* access to Duress.
- Either way it's so risky to run Wasteland because you can only run so many lands, and it's so important to hit all of your colors.
- Of course you don't have this problem if you run Vials, but then your disruption comes down a turn later, which is almost the same effect that happens when you stumble on your mana.
- If you decide to forgo blue and go GWB or something, then all of your mana problems disappear... but then what you end up with is a vastly weaker Meddling Mage and a lack of Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Brainstorms, or Forces of Will.
- If you go five-color then good luck winning against Stax... waste your land, Shop->Crucible, waste your land, waste your land, Factory or huge guy, win (I know I know, it's not that simple, but it's not that far off).

[LotusHead]

Maybe Gaddock Teeg can work his way into Kudzu.dec! 9 Strips, 3 color, STP, Beats, draw, Daze, Goyf, Kudzu's, the works!

[madmanmike25]

No one is saying this guy is totally broken in Vintage.  However, he should be tested a bit before being dismissed merely as a 'weaker' Meddling Mage.

Guli's list is a decent start towards a G/W list.  The first thing I would suggest is to put in 4 copies of Root Maze.  If you have never seen what a turn 1 Root Maze does to Fetchlands then you are missing out.

Keen Sense shouldn't be a 4-of I think.  Honestly if the list is going to use Bazaar's, then 0-2 copies are more appropriate.  And for the record, using Bazaars allows you to use Jotun longer.  Putting in 'goyf and Jotun might be a mismatch though.  The grunt offers disruption while the 'goyf might end up a tad bigger.

You can probably up the count of STP's to 4 in this meta.  Also, see if you can squeeze in a few copies of Wasteland.  Consider Chalice as well; for a solely G/W deck a first turn Chalice and Root Maze are probably the best hope you have of disrupting your opponent.  I know Chalice can't attack for 2 like Kataki does, but Kataki doesn't have a 0 cc.

The benefits of testing a G/W list will let you get Gaddock out more consistently than a deck with more colors.  From there you can establish if he is decent enough on his own(doubtful), if Blue/Black should be added, or if he simply does not make the cut.

[Harlequin]

In legacy my deck of choice is Counterbalance Control.  Currently I run it UW, but I am seriously considering adding Green for this guy. 

I just thought I would bring Counterbalance to the vintage discussion.  The main problem with counterbalance is that anything above 4cc is basically not effected.  Teeg gives a very real answer to that problem (where in my build I use MM for that exact purpose).  With Teeg cutting off access to the upper end of spells, and Top/CB crippling anything in the 0, 1 and 2 range.  The real threats are confined to the 3 range (wich is usually stopped 30% of the time by top/cb depending on the build's curve).  The mana base is not really a great concern, because even in my WU build I run 2-3 Sacred Ground in the board - which gives stax a huge pain if you can get it in.

[NicolaeAlmighty]

I'm sure Vroman would back me on this- who needs blue? Honestly, I'd just make a BGW aggro deck with all sorts of irritating things. Confidant, Mindcensor, Tarmogoyf, and ofcourse this lil guy. Am I saying it would be good? Could definitely be decent at the least. You say Grow will laugh and make their 1G bastard bigger without Gush? Awesome! Not only is that slower and weaker, but W means the deck has Swords. No Force/ Misd to worry about anymore... Could definitely be viable with the right pilot/ tuning.

Sure, any answer to our lil boy will be under CMC of 4, but thats still time... And to be fair, you could say that about ANY fish creature. They ALL have a CMC of 3 or less, so by theory as long as Smother exists, no creature will ever be "good enough". In my opinion, this guy is better than MMage in every aspect except that he cannot touch Yawg Will. Thats a bitch... Can't have your cake and eat it too, though.

[diopter]

I'm sure Vroman would back me on this- who needs blue? Honestly, I'd just make a BGW aggro deck with all sorts of irritating things. Confidant, Mindcensor, Tarmogoyf, and ofcourse this lil guy. Am I saying it would be good? Could definitely be decent at the least. You say Grow will laugh and make their 1G bastard bigger without Gush? Awesome! Not only is that slower and weaker, but W means the deck has Swords. No Force/ Misd to worry about anymore... Could definitely be viable with the right pilot/ tuning.

Sure, any answer to our lil boy will be under CMC of 4, but thats still time... And to be fair, you could say that about ANY fish creature. They ALL have a CMC of 3 or less, so by theory as long as Smother exists, no creature will ever be "good enough". In my opinion, this guy is better than MMage in every aspect except that he cannot touch Yawg Will. Thats a bitch... Can't have your cake and eat it too, though.

This guy can't touch Ancestral or Brainstorm or Merchant Scroll or Flash. Do you still think he's better than Meddling Mage in every aspect except stopping Will?

[NicolaeAlmighty]

Yes. When a MMage resolves, it will name something that is hopefully essential to the gameplan of the opponent. Flash has already been covered as an exception to MMage VS Teeg, but other than that Teeg does a great deal of damage to the opponent's game plan... Not to mention does not require nearly as much intuitive power as MMage. Its all a point of view though... So it really is all in the eye of the beholder. You think MMage is better, I think Teeg. Doesn't really matter beyond that.

[Vegeta2711]

This guy can't touch Ancestral or Brainstorm or Merchant Scroll or Flash. Do you still think he's better than Meddling Mage in every aspect except stopping Will?

I don't get why you like Meddling Mage so much when he hasn't been good in like a year. Like until Gush is restricted, I can't see why Teeg isn't better.

you've posted like the same thing 7-8 times in a row now. We get it, you don't like the card and think Meddling Mage is good for some reason.

You know, this is awfully close to a personal attack too. Next time, more content, and less ad hominem. Verbal to you too.
-Jacob

[diopter]

This guy can't touch Ancestral or Brainstorm or Merchant Scroll or Flash. Do you still think he's better than Meddling Mage in every aspect except stopping Will?

I don't get why you like Meddling Mage so much when he hasn't been good in like a year. Like until Gush is restricted, I can't see why Teeg isn't better.

you've posted like the same thing 7-8 times in a row now. We get it, you don't like the card and think Meddling Mage is good for some reason.

Like if you like, read my posts you'll like see that I, like, think that MMage > Teeg, not that MMage is like, good.

Don't like put words in my mouth, like ever.

You like, actually support my claim - if MMage isn't good (like you say), and MMage > Teeg (like I say) then why play Teeg?

Every Teeg proponent should look at the impact that Teeg actually has in regular game states (which is like, not very much). Fact of the matter is that he doesn't, like, attack the core engines of Vintage decks (Brainstorm, Scroll, fetchlands) the way that MMage and Mindcensor can do.

I've like had to post this like 7 to 8 times because like there are 7 to 8 times more people who don't know how to gauge the strength, or lack thereof, of Teeg.

Start supporting your claims with like, strong arguments and good logic. Your last post certainly didn't, like, do that.

Like.

Oh, how "clever". Verbal warning for flaming.
-Jacob

[SiegeX]

You should have ended that post with "such as"

Verbal warning for spam, and for encouraging this to escalate. Seriously, people, stay on topic or I will start handing out full warnings.

-Jacob

[runeblayde]

Teeg is not an effective answer to draw engines by any stretch of the imagination.  Teeg hits some very powerful spells that are run in almost every deck, and as such he has potential as a powerful tool.  However, all of these decks can win without those cards, it just takes them a little more work.  The deck that uses Teeg is obviously not a dedicated control deck, so we need to ask what strategies does Teeg not stop and what cards need to be run in addition to stop them.  The problem is that Teeg doesn't stop any particular strategy by himself so he needs to be an addition to a strong deck looking for a good effect on a stick, and not so much the center of a deck himself.  Maybe a stronger black core with Night's Whisper, Unmask and Leyline, with a bazaar engine, any cards shut down by your own Teeg can simply be tossed aside.  Green offers quick finishers and white gives us access to swords, grunt, mindcensor, etc.  The strength of Teeg is in the time he can buy for the rest of the deck to finish the job, the tempo he can generate by blocking a key card or two, not as a lock piece.

[vroman]

I'm sure Vroman would back me on this- who needs blue?

I will certainly be running gaddock teeg. GT turns off massacre, and thus eliminates the need for cavekoilos, for starters. riftstone just got more perfect, run 2-3 now. also why do you like t-goyf? isnt jotugrunt far more useful for aprox same power:cost?
also I dont think GW is viable on its own, if anyone was considering that. either GWU or GWB at min, and I still like 5c.

[NicolaeAlmighty]

Jotun Grunt is better. I mentioned Tgoyf as a potential beater but the fact that grunt beats and serves a purpose is much niftier.

[brianpk80]

Cards like Angus Mackenzie have no place in Vintage.

With all respect, this conclusion strikes me as shortsighted.  Perhaps it would help to think in terms of Fish/Stax where the essential gameplan is to overwhelm the opponent with lock pieces (Stax) or tangle the opponent with enough nuisances and soft locks that he/she can be eliminated by a middle to late-game clock.  We have a meta right now where almost every premiere deck relies on the combat stage for victory.  A 3-CC creature that nullifies almost every deck's win condition is at the very least worth considering as a middle to late-game soft lock piece.   Note that a similar argument can be made in favor of running Peacekeeper, a great and often forgotten old Weatherlight rare that would have utility v. GAT, Ichorid, etc. 

Secondly, Gaddock Teeg does not shut off the following cards:
- Merchant Scroll
- Brainstorm
- Ancestral Recall
- 1G fatties
- Dark Ritual
- Tutors
- Bounce spells
- Yawgmoth's Will

It's worth noting that Meddling Mage may shut off one of the above or another of the above or another, ad nauseum, but only one.  Good luck with the guesswork.  By contrast, and this is the real strength of Teeg IMO, he invalidates Force of Will and Misdirection and Gush and Massacre and Tendrils of Agony and so forth. It has a much broader influence albeit at the expense of flexibility.  Meddling Mage can never invalidate more than 1/15 of an opponent's deck.  Teeg stands to hit much harder.  After playing Fish for two years, I ended up dropping Mages from all my lists because they were too random and only really shined against a few decks with certain mega-threats that needed to be prevented (Oath of Druids then and Flash now).  I'd gladly try out Gaddock Teeg though as his effect goes a lot further to advance what I consider the Fish/Stax gameplan.  In that case, I would consider running Stifle/Duress/Extirpate and maybe Daze but no FoW.  I don't care to deliberately set up an unnecessary internal conflict within a deck. 

For the record, it's also impossible to overstate what a coup it is to shut off Engineered Explosives in the Fish/Bomberman match-up.  I used to name that with Meddlers most of the time because it's usually brutal.  Here, Teeg would nail that as well as half of their countermagic. 

 
Imagine you are playing UGW Fish against GAT.
You play Teeg on turn two.
GAT laughs at you as he plays Dryad and uses Scroll into Ancestral and Brainstorms into Duresses and fetchlands with impunity to make his 1G fatty bigger than anything on your side of the table. Teeg prevents you from Forcing anything, and your deck is otherwise underpowered because you couldn't stretch your manabase to four colors without risking not having G/W on turn 2 consistently, so you die without Dark Confidant or Duresses on your own. I haven't even touched upon what happens when he topdecks or tutors into Yawgmoth's Will.
Then he busts your ass in game 2 with Smother or Fire/Ice or Fire Imp.

I'm not sure what kind of UGW Fish list you're proposing for this hypothetical, but you describe it as though it runs nothing but land and Gaddock Teegs.  When analyzing a new card, it's helpful to consider a more realistic context and recognize that a creature like this will be working in tandem with other disruption and not something one can expect to face in a vacuum.  Of course you can Smother it, Swords it, Fire/Ice it, counter it, bounce it, etc.  Same goes for Dryads.  Unfortunately, such thinking says very little about the inherent strength of the creatures themselves. 

-BPK

[Guli]

Good points Brian.

Teeg makes your stuff uncounterable if your opponent is relying on force/misd.
This automatically makes TeeG a bait. If they let it come in you are coming in with backup that will directly or indirectly protect the teeg:
Meddling Mage(to name Chain of Vapor for example) and Aven Mindcensor(to stop the search for an answers)

I seriously think these 3 creatures are the correct way to go when building an aggro-control with Mr.Gaddock.
They are effective immediatly, they have a similar but at the same time unique disruptive nature. And they all are POWERHOUSES on there own.

I believe early game countering/disruption is required. In addition to the Teeg I recommend using Spell Snare. Right now im trying out top and counterbalance. A very interesting and on paper powerful approach.

Spell snare counters:
Flash,Mana drain,Oath,Walk,Dryads,A LOT OF BEARS,chalice@1,spheres,scrolls,cabal rituals,echoing truth,pillars,...

I am not sure yet but i think daze and maybe vials could work out nicely. Vials to help out if a chalice @2 strikes and more uncounterable effects. And to fix manabase a bit.

Whats best? Going the vial/daze route or counterbalance/top.