Warning: The report itself will be pretty much Q'n'D as I still love JPs old report-format. I'll be discussing the decklist quite extensively though, so you know what you'll get if you continue reading.
@mods: I'm not even sure this wouldn't fit better into some different forum, as the report is a lot shorter than the deck-discussion. Please move as feels necessary.
I've been again playtesting a lot more lately and revising and re-revising my GAT list with CAB Teammember Lennart Freitag lately (being in Paris cut me off somewhat from my teammates but luckily Lennart is here doing his exchange senmester now. Good times).
After playing a list with SB Tarmogoyfs and a md EtW to a Top 8 finish in an 79 player tournament two weeks ago, I really fell in love with everyones new favorite two-drop. And I was very happy about not playing that crappy Cunning Wish any more. That card sucks so much, it's not even funny. I therefore started with a list incorporating the 3 copies of Goofy MD. After all, the decks worst matchup is still Workshops and preboarding a little seems fine, especially as GAT is still rather rare in the French metagame.
This is what the original list looked like:
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Quirion Dryad
2 Psychatog
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Gush
2 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Duress
1 Misdirection
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Fastbond
1 Echoing Truth
1 Lotus
4 Mox (no Pearl)
3 Tropical
3 Sea
1 Island
1 Sc Island
6 Fetch
SB
3 REB
1 Volcanic
3 Oxidize
2 Trygon Predator
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Extirpate
The SB REBs + Volc are used to turn the mirror somewhat, as the MD is rather weak there. Tarmogoyfs are really bad in the mirror, in my experience.
Not having MD Echoing Truth is just bad, imo, even if you have Wish. You just need the direct Scroll-target far too often.
And not running Drain is, well, bad. You will need some hardcounters and they really help vs Shop.
Having lost to Ichorid in the last tournament in spite of running multiple hate cards, that's the first thing we started testing. The result was that Leyline is actually horrible because you have to mulligan too much and they usually can remove it even through a singleton counterspell. Whe switched to a Jailer/Needle SB-plan and it worked out marvelously.
Second up was Stacker - Thorn based workshop aggro. Testing was ok, but something seemed to be missing, especially md even with the Goofys. At some point I thought, when resolving a tutor, "if there was a Berserk in here, this match would be so over now". Note that Cunning Wish would have been far to expensive to be useful.
So to test this idea we removed a Tarmogoyf for a Berserk and wow did that pack a punch. After seeing how often and easily we got kills of tutoring for Berserk, we started looking for room to fit Mystical back into the deck, just to be able to Scroll for Berserk without having to resolve a 3 mana spell in between.
- a quick aside on Mystical: I actually think the card is pretty mediocre in GAT, and I sure as hell wouldn't be running it if not for the Berserk -
On Saturday we were still searching for a slot for Mystical but when we realized in the evening that the two of us would probably be the only two people playing GAT in this tournament, we decided to abandon the REBs and move another Tarmogoyf to the SB in place of the Volcanic. We replaced the REBs with a MisD and 2 Cabal Therapies (we wanted Thoughtseizes but weren't able to get them on short notice).
So this is what we were running in the end:
CAB - Zero Zero UFO: Invasion From Outer Space
1 Tarmogoyf
3 Quirion Dryad
2 Psychatog
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Gush
2 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Duress
1 Misdirection
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Fastbond
1 Echoing Truth
1 Berserk
1 Lotus
4 Mox (no Pearl)
3 Tropical
3 Sea
1 Island
1 Sc Island
6 Fetch
SB
1 Misdirection
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Oxidize
2 Trygon Predator
3 Yixilid Jailer
3 Pithing Needle
As for the tournament, ~40 players, 1/3 were unused to Vintage, this being the first T1 tournament held there. The rest were well versed veterans. There were 4-5 Ichorid in attendance, some Shops, some Oath 3 or 4 Storm-Decks.
On to the QnD
Round 1 - TPS/Pitch Long variant
G1 I duress away his Rituals turn 1 and 2, stranding Necro and Contract in his hand. Trix ... uh... I mean Berserk + Tog win turn 3
G2 I can easily identify and sort out my opponents SB cards, the sleeves are marked that strongly. I ask him to resleeve and when I shuffle afterwards count 62 cards in his deck. I call a judge and the game ends here.
Round 2
I get paired against Lennart and we're confident in our deck and don't want to play out the 75 card mirror. We ID
Round 3
I get paired down against Reanimator.
G1 A huge berserked Tog tramples over fast.
G2 When Dryad is 10/10 under Gushbond he scoops.
Round 4 MonoBrown MUD
This is guy is a regular, unpowered aside from Workshops, but the matchup is actually harder than that against any other Stax-variant I ever played.
G1 I loose the dieroll and mull to 5. Sphere + Waste make sure I die without having played a spell.
G2 Tarmogoyf holds away an army of Karnimated artifacts and an angry Tog smashes over.
G3 I mull to 6 and lose to a turn 1 Masticore when I don't find spells to make Dryads grow to 5/5 before having to chump
Round 5 Stifle-MaskNaught
G1 He gets T1 Confidant. A few turns later after I Duress him, Psychatog tramples over a Phyrexian Dreadnought for 36
G2 My disruption leaves him with nothing but mana, I win.
Round 6 RW-hate Weenie
G1 I misplay and allow him to resolve a Magus of the Moon I had seen before with Duress because of it. I don't find a Mox in time to drop some kind of blocker.
G2 I counter two Thorns than Tarmogoyf starts beating him up.
G3 I go broken with Lotus, Ancestral, Walk turn 1, counter a Glowrider and a Thorn and follow it soon with Yawgmoth's Will. Dryad goes to town.
QF Landstill
G1 I wait around for him to drop Standstill before Fetching, get some mana on the table. I break two Standstills this game but Duress the relevant Counters. Vamp->Berserk makes Tog smash over Factory for the win when I'm at 4.
G2 I Duress and take Standstill over Stifle when I have only one Fetch, making me waste a Force. Having to search for protection for my Will + Fastbond allows him one more attack which costs me the life necessary to be able to kill him with Gushbond. With one more life, Berserk - Tog - Time Walk would have happened.
G3 I once again get a hand with Lotus and Ancestral, plus Brainstorm and Ponder. I dig into Walk and Will. He dies with only a Fairy Conclave in play.
SF PonderLong
This is Serge Metz, who gave us the ride here. He's playing combo because there isn't much control in the meta.
G1 I get the ideal hand of Duress + Force. I Ponder into a second Duress next turn and soon Tog goes boom.
G2 He gets 10 Goblins turn 2 but I dig into Scroll-Truth in time. I get him well under control, I'm at 7, Tog will be lethal next turn and I have a counter. He has academy and 3 cards in hand. He plays Crypt and Ruby, getting him to 6 mana ( I smell Desire but decide to not counter in case he's baiting. Desire for three should be managable anyway). He reveals Ritual; Land and Petal and plays both (no other mana left). I stupidly say ok, he reveals his last card to be Tendrils. Damn I'm soooo bad. He looked really convincingly disappointed with the Desire though, congratz on the bluff.
G3 He REB's early and takes forever to find a second land aka Black Mana. When he does the turn before Dryads finish him, I drain his Ritual an he reveals the two Duress + Will he's been holding.
Finals
The unpowered MonoBrown MUD again. He has just taken out Lennart in the Semifinal-match. We consider a split, but as I already have one with Lennart pre-tournament, I want to play it out. He wins the roll (sooooooo important here!)
G1 This is insanely long and intense and I loose it when, very late with a Sphere and CotV @1 in play, I pitch a Drain to FoW instead of a Gush (I have a Dryad and hope to grow it). I'm still never over three mana and am one turn from truthing his Karn and killing him with my Dryad when he can finally deploy Masticore (oh Drain, where art thou).
G2 I get FoW, 2 Fetches and a Drain. I FoW turn 1 Smokestack, drop Tarmogoyf on turn 2 and defend myself with Drain. Game1: 40 min, Game 2: 5min
G3 Longer again. I Force a turn 1 Metalworker and his turn 2 Masticore is trumped by a 4/5 Tarmogoyf (he has only Shop and Sol Ring for mana, Worker was quite important to his gameplan) so he lets it die and drops Karn instead. Tangle Wire happens but I get to drop lands. When Wire is at 2 I get Demonic into Lotus into Will just to get the mana to Oxidize his new Smokestack and drop a Predator. Predator eats him alive.
I go home tired, with a shiny new Imperial Seal (ok, I half-own it, damn team-split
) and quite happy with the deck.
Berserk was insane and Tarmogoyf wasn't all that hot in the main. Tog on the other hand... wow. He's definitly still the hot kid on the block!
The off-color Mox was really good, so much better than the LoA it's replacing.
I really need to get some Thoughtseizes!
Mystical was rather so-so, but for now I'm keeping it for the chain. If it leaves, a MisD or Ponder will probably take it's place.
Well, so much from Europe, have fun guys and do playtest Berserk, what a beating!
Oh, for those interested the T8 was
1st GAT
2nd unpowered MUD
3rd GAT
4th PonderLong (3rd/4th played out for fun, so not as tight a match as in a "counting" setting)
5/8th Landstill
5/8th Oath
5/8th Oath
5/8th Ichorid
