TurboGush

[meadbert]

I have kept TurboGush as mostly secret over the past 4-5 months.  My playtest partners know about it and I spoiled it to Cody Vinci and Eric Becker.  They were not too impressed but had some interesting suggestions.  In my testing it seems to beat almost everything.  Here is an example converation with Ben, one of my playtest partners.
Note:  Ben is much better at magic than me and usually wins when we test.

After defeating Ben playing Stax:
Ben:  Well you run 3 Crucibles and Fastbond.  Also you are a Drain deck with a ton of basics.  You are obviously going to beat Stax.  That was not really a fair matchup.

After defeating Ben playing Gifts (It was restriced at the time)
Ben:  Well your draw engine is way better.  I mean Intuition/AK, Gush and Scroll->Ancestral.  Obviously you are going to outdraw me and gain control.  We need to find a better matchup.

After defeating Ben playing Grim Long:
Ben:  Look, between Forces, Drains, Scrolls to find Force and the ridiculous clock, I feel like I am playing against Gifts all over again.  Obviously you are going to beat Combo.

Finally I am owned by Ichorid.

What is this deck that defeats Prison, Control and Combo preboard?

TurboGush:
2 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Island
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Cephalid Colliseum
1 Nomad Stadium
1 Strip Mine

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
3 Crucible of Worlds

4 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
4 Force of Will
4 Gush
4 Intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
1 Echoing Truth
4 Mana Drain
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm

1 Fastbond
1 Regrowth

2 Argivian Find

SB:
1 Darksteel Colosus
4 Pithing Needle
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Leyline of the Singularity
1 Tinker
1 Hurkles Recall
1 Mystical Tutor


First of all, I personally believe this deck belongs in the development forum, but I suspect the moderators will think otherwise and since my tournament experience with this deck hardly backs up my claim I am putting it here to save the moderators the effort of moving it.  Mods, if you do believe this is worthy of the vintage development forum then please move it.

Typically Question I get when I begin to explain this deck:

Q) Where is the win condition?
A)  The win condition is the Fastbond, Crucible of Worlds, Cephalid Colliseum, Tundra, Nomad Stadium, Strip Mine and Threshold.

Q) How does that win condition work?
A)  Assume all lands are in the yard and repeat this loop:
Begin Loop {
  Play Tundra (-1 life)
  Play Nomad Stadium (-2 life)
  Play Strip Mine (-3 life)
  Tap Tundra for white (-3 life)
  Activate Nomad Stadium (+ 1life)
  Strip Tundra (+1 life)
} End Loop
This loop will gain you infinite life.  Next, using your infinite life you can activate Cephalid Colliseum as much as you want targeting whomever you want.  First you should Strip all your opponents land.  Then you should shoot through most of your deck using Gush, Ancestral and AKs to eventually amass a hand of 6 counters.  Finally you target your opponent with the Colliseums and deck him.  Keep in mind that Gush becomes draw 4 cards for free since once you Gush you immediatly Colliseum yourself and discard the lands.

Q)  Wait!  How on Earth are you supposed to reliablly assembly a 6 card combo when 4 of those cards are 1-ofs?
A)  This deck should be compared to Gifts in its general strategy.  It is a fast Combo Control deck that runs a ton of Tutors and a ton of Draw and finds the cards it needs quickly.  The combo should really be thought of as the Crucible of Worlds and Fastbond Combo.  Once that Combo is established you usually have an insane amount of mana and you can starting casting draw spells till you find Scroll or Intuition.  Intuition gets all the lands you need and Scroll finds Intuition.  The tough part of this deck is to find Fastbond, but this deck finds Fastbond far more reliably than other decks.

Q)  What's Argivian Find for?
A)  Finding Fastbond.  Basically think of Argivin Find in this deck as Recoup in Gifts.  It can be dead in your opponening hand when you have nothing to find.  Still, when the 3 best cards in your deck are Black Lotus, Fastbond and Crucible of Worlds then Argivian Find starts to be very good.  It is both less expensive than Regrowth and it can be cast at instant speed.  When you are lucky enough to start with Lotus, Argivian Find becomes better than Dark Ritual since you can produce 3 mana of any color you want.  You can Intuition for Fastbond and 2 Argivian Finds and in that manner find Fastbond.  You can also Intuition for 3xCrucible to find Crucible.  Also, if you have Argivian Find and Intuition in hand then you can Intuition for Fastbond, Crucible and Argivian Find and in that manner tutor up both combo pieces at once.

How fast is this deck?
  I goldfish on turn three about 35% of the time leaving this deck a bit slower than Meandeck Gifts.  This deck does get turn 1 wins more frequently due to Fastbond->oops I win games.

From here I will explain each card and at the same time compare this list to Meandeck Gifts.

Mana Base:
This rips off much of Meandeck Gifts' manabase.  Obviously this list uses Green and White rather than Red and Black, but the ratio of fetches, duals and basics is similar.  The only difference is that this list runs 1 less basic.  The biggest difference is that this list runs fewer acceleration components (Petal, Vault, Crypt, Ring, Academy) and runs the utility Lands (Colliseum, Stadium, Strip).  The result is that this list only runs 22 mana sources compared to Meandeck Gifts 25.  This has a few implications.  First of all this list does have a little bit more trouble mulliganing into blue.  There is not much more trouble.  Gifts ran 1 additional permanent blue source, but it was Academy and sometimes you don't have a free artifact.  Still this comes up.  Running fewer lands leads to inherent card advantage.  Also, Strip Mine and Cephalid Colliseum have other functions and thus do not have to be used for mana.  Really there are only 20 pure mana sources.  Top decking Strip Mine with enough mana out is not a dead draw.  The same is true with Colliseum.  There are a few reasons that this list can get away with fewer lands.  First of all there is no Recoup or Gifts engine so the mana requirements are much lower.  The decks mana curve ends at 3.  With 4 Intuitions and 3 Crucible the curve is much higher than GAT but still significantly lower than Meandeck Gifts which ran 4 Gifts, Fact or Fiction and Recoup, all of which required 4 mana.  Also Meandeck Gifts had DSC and in some cases Tendrils which could be dead draws.  This list suffers no such drawback.  The closest card to a dead draw is Nomad Stadium which is still a relevant color permanent manasource. 
The second reason this deck can get away with fewer mana sources is Gush.  With Gush in hand you can avoid missing land drops by Gushing just as GAT does.  The final reason is Crucible.  If you drop Crucible on turn 2 using a mox then you can always hit your land drop for the rest of the game as long as you have a fetch.  This has some implications for your draw engine as well.

Draw Engine:
1)  Intuition/AK:  With each in hand you Intuition for 3xAK and then cast AK for 3 and AK for 4.  2 cards just transformed into 7.  This is huge card advantage.  Scroll can also complete the combo.
2)  Scroll/AK:  Sometimes you have 2 AKs in your oppening hand.  In this case you AK for 1 and 2 and then draw into Scrolls and AKs.  THis is slower but ends up drawing even more cards.
3)  Scroll/Ancestral:  Just Scroll for Ancestral on turn 1 and then cast it on turn 2.
4)  Fastbond/Gush:  With Fastbond out Gush is broken as it basically draws you 2 cards and produces 2 mana for the cost of only 2 life.  Note that Scroll becomes draw 2 cards for 2 life.
5)  Gush/Brainstorm:  Against control decks being able to gush on turn 3 and then Brainstorm away lands is huge since you just drew 5 cards and only put back cards you won't need.
6)  Crucible/Brainstorm:  Once Crucible hits you can repeatedly fetch each turn.  This helps Brainstorm in two ways.  First you can Brainstorm back any mana sources you draw.  Second you get your shuffle effect every turn.  With Crucible out Brainstorm becomes Ancestral Recall.
7)  Crucible/Colliseum:  With Crucible and Colliseum out you can see 4 cards a turn.  You can also discard mana sources with Colliseum.  Gush combos here too.  You can Gush two lands to your hand drawning 2 cards and then activate Colliseum drawing 3 more.  Then you discard 3 lands so you basically just drew 5 cards with the only major drawback being the tempo loss of losing lands in play.  You can start playing them back with Crucible.
8)  Regrowth on AK4/Ancestral:  You can Regrowth AK for 4 or Ancestral amassing a lot of card advantage.
9)  20 Non Strip/Colliseum mana sources = Inherent card advantage.
10)  Brainstorm remains the best unrestricted draw SPELL in magic.  It combos with Crucible, Gush, Fetches, Scroll and Intuition and allows the minimal manabase.
11)  Time Walk remains the best cantrip in magic.

Control:
1)  Force of Wills are obvious.  There is more than enough blue cards to support them and Scroll finds them against Combo.
2)  Mana Drain works very well in this deck.  There are plenty of Instant speed draw spells.  Drain has double Synergy with the Intuition/AK draw engine since it that draw engine allows you to keep UU up and if you do resolve a drain, Intuition/AK can be a good sink for your Drain mana.  Crucible is the other good sync.  Gush can be a sync as well since this list does not like to bounce its lands as much as GAT since it does have a higher mana curve.
3)  Strip Mine is nice control.  With Crucible out it is great.
4)  Echoing Truth is the bounce of choice.  This answers Warrens or DSC and can bounce both Chalice@1 and Chalice@3.  Although Chalice@2 seems painful since it shutts of AK, Scroll and Drain, keep in mind that it does not touch the combo and against Stax you generally tutor for combo pieces rather than attemping to play a long game and outdraw them.

Perceived weaknesses:
Q)  Can't you just wait till Intuition finds Fastbond or Crucible and then counter it.  Now you need Regrowth to get the missing card back and you have no way to tutor for Regrowth?
A)  Allowing Intuitions to resolve against this deck is a huge no no.  First Intuition is likely to find AKs which means you now have 2 huge bombs to counter instead of 1.  Second, you never know when your opponent is actually holding 2xCrucible or Crucible + Argivian Find and he is actually just using Intuition to find Strip Mine.  I strongly recommend always countering Intuition just as you would always counter Gifts when playing against Meandeck Gifts. 

Q)  Aven Minscensor brutalizes you right?
A) Yes!

Q)  Extirpate brutalizes you?
A)  Yes, but it rarely shows up pre-board.  Post-board DSC helps a lot.

Q) Tormod's Crypt and Pithing Needle stop your combo and cost 1 and 0 respectively.  That is bad right?
A)  Again, neither shows up much preboard.  Post board these guys are annoying, hence Hurkles's Recall.

Explanation of sideboard:
TurboGush has a strong control and combo match preboard.  Actually it has a strong Stax matchup too, although Welder can be annoying if you have a Mox or Lotus in the yard.  Basically the only bad matchups are Flash and Ichorid along with random hate decks.
The 7 Leylines are in there for Flash and Ichorid.
The Needles are amazing right now in my kitchen table meta.  The three best decks seem to be Ichorid, Uba Stax and TurboGush.  Needle hoses all of them.
I almost alway board in the final 4 cards (Tinker, DSC, Mystical, Hurkles).  The combo is easily disrupted and I do expect a bunch of hate including Leylines post board.  I generally either board out AKs or Gushes depending on who I am playing.  I then bring in the 4 board cards.  Tinker->DSC is a nice alternate win condition.  Mystical finds DSC and allows both Scroll and Intuition to find DSC.  Hurkles is to combat Needle and Crypt.

Matchups:
GAT/Empty Gush:  In testing GAT seems to be about even while Empty Gush seems to be in TurboGush's favor.  The latter is heavily impacted by having a token Echoing Truth to Scroll for.  I probably do not play those decks optimally so real results may be worse than my testing is showing.  TurboGush needs its life so the aggro aspect of GAT can be annoying.  If GAT does not get a quick beater it has a lot of trouble.

Stax/Uba Stax/Shop Aggro:  Fastbond and Crucible allow for winning the permanent war.  Being able to Scroll for Force is nice.  Having Drain is nice.  Having a quick combo is nice.  Running 4 Basics and only having 4 off color cards is nice.  Really this is a very good matchup.  You cannot really compare the TurboGush/Stax matchup to the GAT/Stax matchup.  TurboGush just has a much easier time.

Long:  This matchup plays out similar to Meandeck Gifts versus Long preboard.  You get random turn 1 I win hands with Fastbond.  You also have Force and Scroll for Force as well as hands with Drain and hands where you Brainstorm into Force.  Post board things are much worse since Meandeck Gifts ran Duresses and this list does not.  I should point out that Ponder Long lists are slower than previous Grim Long and Pitch Long lists.  The result is that Drain is far more likely to be availabe in time. 

Flash:  Between Force, Scroll, 7 Leylines and Echoing Truth the Flash matchup is strong.

Ichorid:  Game 1 is almost an autoloss.   Sometimes you randomly get Fastbond on turn 1 or you hose them with Strip Mine, but most of the time you just lose.  Post board you bring in 7 Leylines and 4 Needles to go with Strip Mine and you have a great chance of winning both games post board.

Random Hate/Aggro:  It all depends on which hate they have and whether it comes in preboard or post board.

Tournament report:
I only took this list to one tournament and did quite poorly, but the tournament was small and I basically forfeited one game.

Round 1:  Cody Vinci playing Platz Control.
I won this round in two games.  Cody usually plays AKs so I was hesistant to Intuition for AKs or even cast the ones in my hand.  Eventually Cody Tinkered Platz which gave me 5 turns to answer.  Over that time it was trivial to draw most of my deck, bounce Platz in win.  I had an early Crucible/Strip lock in this game.
Game 2 I again lucksacked into Crucible + Strip.  Cody against cast Platz and I again won despite Platz.  I dropped to 1 life in this game and actually had to activate Nomad Stadium with lethal damage on the stack.  Note that had Cody Tinkered for Titan or DSC I would have lost in either game.

Round 2:  R/G Beatz
Game 1 is very close but I am 1 mana/life away from winning.  If one of my fetchlands had been a dual I would have won, as it is I lose.
Game 2: I shuffle up a 75 card deck and get a game loss.
We play a third game for fun, which I should have lost by 1 life again but my opponent gave me fastbond when I Intuitioned for 2xArgivan Find + Fastbond.  This allowed me to win at 1 life again.

At this point 3 of 4 games have come down to 1 life.  This is the reason that I do not run Mana Crypt.

Round 3: Dragon
Turn 1 my opponent combos out but takes 30 minutes to do so.  Partly this is my own fault as I insist he shows me how to combo out.  He had no permanent mana source since he had gone turn 1 Bazaar -activate pitching Dragon, Lotus, Necromany.  After he realizes he has a problem he Bazaars again finding Witness + Squee which allows him to stop the loop and Mox Jet.  That is some lucksackery.  From there he combos out.  I probably should have conceded once I saw the Witness, Jet and Squee but I wanted to gleam as much information about his deck as possible.
I saw Forbidden Orchard but no Cities or Gemstone Mines in game 1.  This suggested Oath post board.  Since I do alright against either Oath or Dragon I decided to leave out the Leylines and Needles since they are not helpful against Oath.  Sure enough he boards into Oath and I race him winning on turn 3 but we run out of time and the round is a tie.

Round 4:  B/W TurboGush Hate.  I think if someone were to attempt to design a deck that hated out TurboGush they could not do much better.  This guy ran 4 Duress, 4 Thougtseize, 4 Extirpate and 4 Aven Mindscensory preboard.  Post board things got even worse as Leyline came in. 
Game 1:  He quickly Extirpates my AKs which he was happy about.  I was happy he didn't hit any of my 6 combo pieces.  Then Aven Mindscensor resolves and I am screwed.  I actualy have the Fastbond Crucible combo but cannot activate fetchlands or tutor for missig lands.
Game 2:  He gets a Confidant out to beat with and starts beating me down.  I am holding 2 Intuition but have no artifacts so I Intuition for 3x Mox on one turn.  Next turn I Intuition for 3xScroll and Scroll up Mystical.  Finally I Mystical for Tinker and win with DSC.
Game 3:  He had turn 1 and 2 Duress and turn 2 and 3 Waste and Strip and I was dead in the water and Negator beat me down quickly.

After finishing 1-2-1 I was quite dissappointed.  Maybe my own testing is flawed or maybe I had some bad luck in the tournament. 

Some ideas I have played around with:
1:  Add black.  Eric Becker and Cody Vinci suggested this.  This provides access to Yawg, Demonic, Vamp and Imperial Seal.  I think having Argivian Find is better as I am not eager to go to 4 colors.  It should point out that I could run a Scrubland which can be fetched by either Delta or Strand and in that manner get all 4 colors with only two duals.  It does reduce the Island count which effects Drain and Gush though.  In general I am a strong beliver in a solid mana base so I have not done this.  Also, putting together the combo can be tricky with Yawg as you must wait a turn to win so you really want Walk in the yard.  I would probably drop AKs or Gushes if I did this.

2:  Drop Gushes and add Tinker, DSC, Mystical and Gifts.  Gifts grabs both Fastbond and Crucible with the Fastbond, Crucible, Argivian Find, Regrowth Pile.  Also Gifts can get all needed lands.  By dropping the 4 Gushes it would be easier to get to 4 mana.  Also I have noticed that in general I do better post board.  This may suggest that Tinker->DSC and Mystical really belong in the main deck.  This would free up the board for some Misdirections or Threads of Disloyalty to improve the GAT matchup.

Q)  How extensive is my testing?
A)  This deck has been around with this exact maindeck since around since September.  In that time I have played around 150 matches with it.  My testing is fairly extensive in its quantity.  Most of the decks I test against are top eight candidates but I end up playing against random decks in my kitchen table meta as well.  It turns out that Plagiarize.dec is actually a bad matchup for instance.
Although I do test about one night a week against friends, much of my testing is two fisted so that can be flawed.  Also, I doubt I play many decks optimally, so there are flaws there.
My testing suggests that TurboGush defeats top 8 decks in about 60% of matches which gives it a more significant advantage each round.
My testing is about half post board so the sideboard has been tested and sideboard hate has been tested against.

[TopSecret]

Currently, the only reason you're playing white is for Nomad Stadium and Argivian Find.
If you dropped Nomad Stadium for Glacial Chasm, you could drop white and the 'Finds altogether.
This would also give you the option to add black over white, for things like Will and tutors.

Given, Glacial Chasm doesn't add mana, while Nomad Stadium does.
'Stadium also negates the loss of life from Fetchlands while comboing out, which 'Chasm cannot do.
However, 'Chasm with an active Crucible is sometimes GG, which is not true of Nomad Stadium.
Also, Glacial Chasm and Fastbond allows for infinite Fastbonding with only two cards, whereas Nomad Stadium and Fastbond does not.

It's just an idea, as I haven't tested your deck.

[Duncan]

Currently, the only reason you're playing white is for Nomad Stadium and Argivian Find.
If you dropped Nomad Stadium for Glacial Chasm, you could drop white and the 'Finds altogether.
This would also give you the option to add black over white, for things like Will and tutors.

I was thinking the exact some thing after reading the initial post! If you insist on playing white, i'd consider playing balance and mystical tutor for games against creaturebased decks.

Q) How does that win condition work?
A)  Assume all lands are in the yard and repeat this loop:
Begin Loop {
  Play Tundra (-1 life)
  Play Nomad Stadium (-2 life)
  Play Strip Mine (-3 life)
  Tap Tundra for white (-3 life)
  Activate Nomad Stadium (+ 1life)
  Strip Tundra (+1 life)
} End Loop
This loop will gain you infinite life.  Next, using your infinite life you can activate Cephalid Colliseum as much as you want targeting whomever you want.  First you should Strip all your opponents land.  Then you should shoot through most of your deck using Gush, Ancestral and AKs to eventually amass a hand of 6 counters.  Finally you target your opponent with the Colliseums and deck him.  Keep in mind that Gush becomes draw 4 cards for free since once you Gush you immediatly Colliseum yourself and discard the lands.

Why do do you want to assemble a hand full of counters after you've ripped your opponents manabase? That seems quite useless to me.

I'd definitely add tinker + dude to the main or some other wincondition. You just scoop to some cards right now preboard.

[meadbert]

Regarding Glacial Chasm/Black.

This could be a great idea.  Glacial Chasm randomly beats decks like Ichorid right now and being able to stall for a few turns can hellp.  The trouble is that it no only does not produce mana itself, but I must sacrifice a mana source when I play.  That puts be behind on mana sources by 2 compared to Nomad Stadium.  In normal Turolands decks with 4 Explorations I love Glacial Chasm because of the random I win factor.  I am not sure about in this deck.  I tried it and it would sit in my hand in many matchups.  Glacial Chasm does not "replace" Nomad Stadium because you still need another mana sources.  Instead you replace Stadium with Island and then Chasm must come in for something else.

-1 Stadium
-2 Tundra
-2 Argivian Find

+3 Underground
+1 Yawg
+1 Demonic

Something like that could work.  It would be nice to incorporate Vamp as well.


Regarding Balance:  Great idea!  I will consider adding it to the board.  Perhaps I could drop a Leyline of the Singularity.  Balance could make a big difference against aggro decks and when you have AK in hand discarding it is not that terrible.

The handfull of counters is in case my opponent gets ESG + Oxidize or some other annoying combination.  Keep in mind that since I do not run Null Rod, his artifact mana are left in play.  If he has a Jet out there I will generally Echoing Truth it and then move to my post combat main phase to clear his pool.  That protects me from Extirpate.

[madmanmike25]

Mods, if you do believe this is worthy of the vintage development forum then please move it.

I second that, I think this qualifies as "serious Vintage discussion."  The fact that it has been extensively tested and isn't just a 'theory' deck also helps the cause.

I don't have too many comments as the list looks really tight.  Nice job.

You are obviously going to beat Stax.  That was not really a fair matchup.

Really?  How many times did your opponent resolve a Sphere or Thorn on the play?  Also I am curious about the Shop aggro matchup, particularly 9 Sphere Shop Aggro WITH Magus of the Moon.  That seems like a real headache match.

Oh, and also;  What happens if they resolve an early Uba Mask and you RFG your win condition with all your draw spells?  Wouldn't Uba Mask reduce your draw to Sorcery speed, making you vulnerable to Tanglewires?

You mention how this deck is similar to Gift's Ungiven.  Have you thought about adding the card in here?  Gift's Ungiven is still a really good spell for Drain mana.  Same with Fact or Fiction.  I am going to assume you found 4 Intuitions to be superior to those 2 cards though.

Finally I am owned by Ichorid.

And man, does your SB reflect this.  I fail to see how you can lose to Ichorid in games 2 and 3.

my kitchen table meta.

That's a tough meta to go into, good luck!

Again, solid looking list.
Mike

[meadbert]

Uba Mask is actually a pretty big problem.  It not only shuts off your draw engine, but you also cannot deck your opponent with Colliseum until you bounce it.

Spheres and Thorns are interesting.  There was a debate about this a year and a half ago or so when someone built an Intuition/AK/Gifts list and claimed it was better against Spheres because its mana curve was lower.  That argument can be true, but Resistor makes you pay an extra 1 every time you cast a spell.  This means you want to be able to win without casting many spells.  That list suffered from really wanting to Intution for AKs.

With TurboGush your strategy against Stax is to tutor up the Fast/Crucible combo as fast as possible and waste as little time and resources drawing as possible.  Once you have 4 permanent mana sources you can Intuition eot for Fastbond + 2 Argivian Find.  You can then cast Fastbond and Argivian Find the next turn.  As those who play Stax are away, keeping someone off three mana is much more difficult than keeping them off 4 mana.

Tanglewire is not much of a problem at all.  This is because your draw and Tutor engine is still instant speed so you can still cast Intuition and Argivian Find during upkeep.  Gush gives you at least one land to play a turn.  As an example you can cast Intuition one turn.  Then next turn you can Argivian Find out Fastbond and then tap out to Tangle Wire.  On your main phase you can Gush Tropical Isand to hand and replay it to cast Fastbond.

A fairly important lock component for Stax is Chalice@1.  That can be annoying.

5 Color Stax seemed to be a good matchup including ones that maindecked Leyline.
Metalworker Stax also was a good matchup though I may have oversideboarded.  The list I tested against had 7 Crypts + Needles post board which stop the combo but not Tinker.
Uba Stax is much tougher.

Post board having Hurkle's Recall to Merchant Scroll for is good.  Also, Tinker gives you more flexibility in your win condition.
Post board Jester's Cap is a huge pain, though you do have Needles to bring in to combat it.

The Shop Aggro lists I tested against had Magus of the Moon in the board and not the main, thus it was not a problem.  Post board you just go for Tinker if Magus comes out.  Since you have 5 Fetch and 4 basics your mana base is not at all vulnerable to Magus.

One change I have been considering is to drop the 4 Gush and replace them with Tinker, DSC, Mystical and Gifts.
Gifts finds both combo pieces by Giftsing for Fastbond, Crucible, Argivian Find and Regrowth.  I would then add 3 Threads of Disloyalty/Misdirection to the board to help the GAT matchup.

[meadbert]

I want to go back to the Workshop Aggro question.  I sort of danced around the question and address Resistors/Thorns in Stax rather than Shop Aggro.

Resistor does not cut you off from cards because of the low mana curve.  Because of that it is a somewhat poor "lock" component.  It is thus not great in Stax.  Chalice@1 is scarier than Resistor.

Against Shop Aggro Resistors and Thorns are much scarier but there, their purpose is to slow you down which they do an excellent job of.  Even if you want to use Intuition to go straight for Fastbond you still have to pay an extra 3 colorless as you cast Intuition, Argivian Find and Fastbond.  This makes Fastbond cost 8 mana instead of 5 and it can be time consuming.  If Shop aggro is bashing your face in at the same time those guys are scary.

Anyway, TurboGush's Shop Aggro matchup is generally much worse than its Stax matchup.

[JankWolf]

I am curious, how does this thing do against flash game1? I can see in game two you would most likely have the situation handled. The reason I ask is against flash you would play land and possibly a spell or a moxen and say "go". Flash turns around plays island mox flash, with force/pact backup. How does this matchup go for you?

[meadbert]

In game 1 Flash is a bad matchup.  It is not as bad as Ichorid but it is very unfavorable.  The poor matchups against Flash and Ichorid explain the 7 Leylines in the board.  Post board, the Flash matchup is very favorable since between 7 Leylines and 8 counters you have a lot of ways to stop their combo.

[Sephiroth]

Hi,
I played this deck in a tournament in my town, I finished the tournament 2nd (i won a pretty playset of tundras, wow...!) , I lost the final match vs a pitch long.
I like the deck very much !
During the tournament i defeated a BW hate deck, 2 flash, a Stax and GAT,i lost only vs long during the swiss and in the final.
The deck seemed really solid, but I have to disagree to your optimism about the match up vs long, the 5 match that I played against it where the only ones in which I had really bad problems !
The list that I played runned 1 mistycal tutor, 1 tinker, 1 colossus , 1 gifts instead of the 4 gush.
I like the idea of cutting white for black but with this solution you lose the combo plan that is very interesting in my opinion.
Maybe simply add black and keep a 4 colors combo ?
In fact we run 3 crucible and I think that we'll not have problems of color screw ?
What do you think about it ?

Thanks and sorry for my bad english !

S.

[meadbert]

Congratulations on the great finish!  What did you run as your sideboard?

Regarding Long:  I actually went 3-1 against Super Long while playing side games at a tournament on Saturday.  Slower Long decks are a much better matchup because Drain matters so much more.  If you play against old School Grim Long as Menendian originally designed it, then the matchup is much worse as that deck is designed to win on turn 2 and thus win before Drain ever has a chance to do anything.

In your experience, how was the mana base?  I keep wondering if I need to add another permanent blue source?  Also a tournament report would be excellent.

[Sephiroth]

My sideboard was:
4 leyline of the void
3 leyline of singularity
4 pithing needle
2 hurkyl's recall
2 threads of disloialty 

But i'm not sure that is the best side for this deck, I'll try some changes the next time !

The long deck against I played was a sort of  old style long, in fact i never had the possibility to drain a spell cauz it was too fast, the only match I won I had a broken start with a turn one land mox and merchant for fow and a turn 2 tinker for colossus with a time walk in my hand  !

The mana base was really solid,i never had color screw problems, even vs artifacts...Instead of adding another blue source i suggest to add a fetch land , beacuse is very nice with crucible and fastbond !

If you want, i'll write a little report soon !

I'm thibking about this possible changes (i'm talking about the list with gifts tinker colossus and mystical instead of 4 gush) :
- 4 ak
- 1 intuition
+4 gush
+1 deep analysis

But i think that this way the  match up vs artifacts will be a little worse...

What do you think about this ?

[meadbert]

I am not sure that Deep Analysis is right for this deck, unless other changes are made.  The Intuition + AK draw engine works really well with Mana Drain.  This is because the draw engine is instant speed so you can keep Drain Mana available against Stax and then cast draw spells at End of Turn or on upkeep in response to Tangle Wire's trigger.

Deep Analysis has a similar function but it is worse in a few ways.
1)  Deep Analysis is dead in your hand other than being pitched to Force or Brainstormed back.  Once you get 4 mana out DA becomes good, but a deck without Mana Crypt, Mana Vault and Lotus Petal has some trouble getting to 4 mana quickly.
2)  Deep Analysis is a sorcery so even if you can get to 4 mana, do you want to tap out in order to play it?
3)  When you flashback Deep Analysis the damage can hurt.  TurboGush frequently damages itself as much as 10 life between Fastbond, Force and Fetchlands.
4)  Deep Analysis is Misdirectable.  When playing someone running 3-4 Misdirections I go for the Intution/AK draw engine first and once I have established card advantage and have counter back I play Ancestral Recall.  When your draw engine is Ancestral and Deep Analysis then you are more vulnerable to Misdirection.

I ran Quiet Speculation + Deep Analysis in Dragon for a while and I considered for this deck since Ray of Revelation and Ancient Grudge would be really good options in the sideboard.  In the current meta I found the damage taken from Deep Analysis was too painful and I was losing to aggro decks.  Also, Intuition is really good since it has the flexibility to find Draw, Crucible or Fastbond.  You can even Intuition for 3xForce against a combo deck that is about to win.

I actually tend to board out both Gush and AK against Stax.  I bring in 4 Pithing Needle, Mystical, Tinker, DSC and Hurkles.
Gush is very good against Fishy decks because it can dodge Wasteland.  AK is amazing against Drain based decks.

I look forward to your report.

[wiley]

This certianly is an interesting list.  It seems like it would be a lot of fun to play, and it should hold its own against top teir decks (with a bit more questionable matchups against random swiss fodder).

I'd like to start with the fact that glacial chasm cannot protect you from the life payment of fetches (that really bugged me when I read that, and when I looked up chasm it says all damage delt to you is reduced to 0.  Life payments, ie: loss of life, is different than damage.)

The following are changes to think about, but you should note that I'm thinking on a purely paper basis (as I just read this thread at work and have not had any chance to test this  )

MD
-4 AK
-2 Intuition
+1 Gifts
+1 tinker
+1 colossus
+1 underground sea
+1 yawg
+1 D Tutor

SB
+1 Hurky
+1 zuran orb? (I really don't know what should go here)

This reduces the auto scoop game ones quite a bit, plus solves the mana problem + making gush and drain more consistant and gives you two more ways to get combo peices (at the expense of a really good draw engine and the addition of one 4 cc card.  I beleive it should be worth it)  Also your games against UbaStax and aggro stax improve a lot with the possibility of 2-4 hury's.  Zuran orb would allow you to have a backup inf. life combo post board (the only decks that can fight inf. life are dragon [4 leyline of the void + 4 pithing needle + counters] and flash [7 leylines + counters]) which stalls until you deck someone or beat the opponent to death.

Also as a question, how often do you find yourself casting regrowth on something other than a combo piece?  I know it's nuts when you regrow a AR or the fourth AK out of the yard, and it is probably there to dodge chalice at one, but that cuts off fastbond as well so probably doesn't matter too much.  Just thinking it could be another AF to lower the cmc/reliance on green.

[meadbert]

Against Control I usually end up casting Regrowth on Recall, Intuition or AK for 4 since those are frequently countered.
Against Stax it is far more common to use Regrowth on a combo piece.

Against Combo, I frequently Regrowth Force of Will or Mana Drain.  Basically Regrowth can "counter" a Duress by getting back whatever was take.

There is a fourth common use which is to Regrowth a bounce spell.  Preboard, if your opponent has two threats that must be bounced then I find that I must Echoing Truth threat one and then Regrowth Echoing Truth and Echoing Truth the second Threat.

Now, if you are looking to add Yawg Will into the deck then Regrowth is no longer needed as Yawg Will can replace it.

I have found that Yawg Will is not that powerful in this deck.  First, you cannot win the turn you play it so you must find Time Walk somehow.
Also Yawg Will costs 2 more than Argivian Find.  After Intuitioning to for Fastbond I would much rather be able to Argivian Find it and replay it with Drain backup than play Yawg without Drain backup.  Even worse, if they let Yawg resolve and then counter Fastbond you just lost your win condition.

Against Stax I would much rather have Argivian Find which is easier to cast under Spheres and mana denial.  I would also much rather run 3 colors than 2.

Against Control I REALLY want AKs since that is what allows you to outdraw your opponent.  Although there are exceptions in general I think that AKs are better in this deck than Gushes.  The reason is that Gush is best once Fastbond resolves, while AKs are good at ensuring Fastbond resolves.  AKs force your opponent to counter Intuition.

Against Aggro, having to pass the turn before winning can be really annoying.  Lists with Mystical can find Walk more reliably, but sometimes you will be forced to pass the turn.  Also if your opponent has an untapped Wasteland then all they have to do is Waste your Colliseum or Nomad Stadium or Strip Mine and then you will have lost access to your combo with one of the pieces RFGed.

Without Gush, Fastbond is far less threatening and the trick to beating this deck is to keep Crucilble off the table.  With no Crucible and no Gushes Fastbond is just not that good.  Gushes are what force your opponent to counter Fastbond.

I am very open to the idea that Gifts, Mystical, Tinker and DSC belong in the main deck.  As I mentioned earlier, I have found that I am doing better post board and I believe that Tinker->DSC is a big reason why as it really allows for far more flexibility in how you play out a round.  Still, game 1s are about going more broken faster and Tinker and DSC do not tie into that.


Glacial Chasm is interesting post board.  Cody wondered if the board or even the maindeck should contain redundancies to dodge Extirpate.
Cody was thinking about adding Glacial Chasm and Wasteland.  2xFactory or Barbarian Ring would provide an alternate win.  I tried this and could never get the mana right.  It is just not possible to run 22 mana sources and have so many off color.  The only option was to start dropping off color moxen and that slowed down the deck too much.

[wiley]

Taking your gush to AK comparison into account the wouldn't it be fine to reduce the number of gush by two to sneak in the tinker kill.  As soon as you have the nomad crucible fastbond and strip you have inf. life and inf. mana.  Therefore it's possible to hardcast a colossus, or gush/tutor/whatever with FoW/MD backup (taking 5 mana burn is nothing at that point).  Since that intuition to AK is the real fuel to the deck I suppose it should certianly stay.  the question is can there be a more secure way to get the life combo off (since it is required for the cephalid home to work)?  Living wish with a token nomad in the side seems good to me, but what would you cut?  My guess would be the other two gushes making room for two wishes.

I suppose that would turn this ino turbo ak though huh?  How often do you find yourself needing to dig more after the AKs?  Basically how crucial has gush played into the deck in the past?  Have you been able to get all relevant combo peices/tutors after the AKs?  If so the cutting them might be your best bet.  Like I said before the only deck that can deal with inf. life are flash and dragon, which you almost auto win against post board, making sure that the combo is consistant is the biggest part of this deck.  Besides, if you think about it, if you get the combo off, their lands are gone and you will pass the turn with a strip in play, it's not teribly easy for flash or dragon to combo off through counters on only moxen.

Your right that barb. ring would give you an extra win con, but it is still based on the same mechanics and dies to the same hate, which means it shouldn't be run.

I also think that the factories really don't help the deck at all (I know I hate it when my creatures get wasteland'ed) since the only reason they would be good is if you get crucible in play, at which time you should be able to find enough combo pieces to win anyway.

I also really don't like glacial chasm because of the sac a land citp effect.  This totally ruins the card unless you have fastbond out, in which case you should play/wish for nomad.

[meadbert]

TurboGush is probably a bad name since I am contemplating removing the Gushes.  Perhaps TurboAK would have been better.  I only called it TurboGush because I was trying to come up with a Turboland deck that abused Gush rather than Horn since Horn is about the worst card in the current Fastbond infested meta.  Although I am contemplating removing the Gushes, for now I recommend Gush.  If actually thought Tinker, DSC, Mystical, Gifts was better than 4 Gush then I would have recommended that.  I just wanted to point out that there is a great deal of empirical evidence that the other configuration is better.  We now have a good result in a European Tournament as well as my own testing post board.  For now I am still running Gushes in the main.

Living Wish:  I have disliked Living wish for several years now.  I would rather just run another win condition.  Ironically Living Wish would actually allow for Wishing out DSC and hardcasting him if Fastbond and Crucible are out.  Living Wishes's flexibilty might be better now that the meta has slowed down, but it just seems like a bad card to me.  Ideally alternate win conditions should be as different as possible from the main win condition.  That is the beaty of Tinker->DSC.  It has so little in common with the Fastbond/Crucible combo.  I have a ton of experience with Turboland, although almost none of this is Drain based.  I used to play with Horns and sometimes Shops instead.  My experience has taught me that in general Glacial Chasm > Nomad Stadium > Zuran Orb.  Because this is a Drain deck that runs 22 mana sources rather than 27 which is more common for my other Turboland lists I think Nomad Stadium is better than Chasm.  Also, while Horn of Greed is great in Turboland in general you just cannot play that card in a meta where half the decks are packing Fastbond.  In all of my testing Living Wish has always been suboptimal.  Usually you should just pick your most common wish target and move that to the main.

If AKs actually draw 7 cards then you are in the clear.  You should already have all the combo pieces you need.  Gush's importance is in making Fastbond a threat.  The classic trouble with "combo" is that you only need to counter one half of the combo and the other half is dead.  Crucible is never dead in this deck because of Strip Mine, Cephalid Colliseum and Brainstorm.  Fastbond is however quite useless without Crucible if you do not run Gush.  If you do run Gush then all of a sudden Gush and Scroll become much more dangerous with Fastbond out.
With Gush you go from winning the turn you play Fastbond to possibly sitting around for a few turns till you can find Crucible.  There really is a big difference.

[meadbert]

I would like to correct something I said earlier.  I said that TurboGush goldfishes on turn 3 35% of the time.  That is not quite right.  If the deck is played super aggresively then it is much faster.  Last night I was able to win on turn 3 in 13 games out of 20.  This means I mulliganed hands with too much control and this includes silliness like Forcing Fastbond and then Draining Force so I can cast Crucible the same turn.  Also, when going for the jugular I go straight for Fastbond with every Intuition rather than grabbing AKs as I would in a normal game.
I felt "lucky" in those 20 games so I am not confident I could pull off 13 wins again.  I would guess that 11 or so would be average.

[gold eyes]

i like the deck i tried it to get a better under standing of how it works and it worked well but decking is maybe not the best way to go more in the lines of barbarian ring? how ever i like the deck and i jave tried and found it works just letting ur oppent potenaly finding a answer is realy realy bad

[wiley]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this.  They way to play once the combo is on the table is to start "milling" yourself first until you have as much counter magic as possible (casting cost doesn't matter as you have inf mana) then start milling your opponent.  I have never had a game in which they could break the combo after it started.

That being said, really fun deck Bert.  I'm still doing my own testing, but so far the original list has worked best for me.  Great job.

[meadbert]

i like the deck i tried it to get a better under standing of how it works and it worked well but decking is maybe not the best way to go more in the lines of barbarian ring? how ever i like the deck and i jave tried and found it works just letting ur oppent potenaly finding a answer is realy realy bad

There are scenarios where you opponent could in theory find an anwer.
Between AKs and Gushes you can usually assemble a hand of 5 or more counters.  If you are going to lose it will be to Split Second.
The relevant cards here are Exitirpate and Krosan Grip.  Wipe Away is not a problem.

The first thing you want to do is Strip all of your opponent's lands.  This leaves them with only moxen and Spirit Guides for mana.
If they have Mox Jet, Black Lotus or Lotus Petal out then you want to Echoing Truth that.

If your opponent floats any mana then move to your post combat main phase to empty their pool.

If it is post board then either Tinker or hardcast DSC so you have a backup if the combo is ruined.

Here is what can beat you:
1:  If your opponent has Jet out then you should Echoing Truth it.  If you cannot they can draw into Extirpate.  Note that Extirpate usually only shows up post board when you should have DSC anyway.  In this case cast your DSC before you start milling your opponent.
2:  You opponent may run 3+ ESG and Krosan Grip.  I have never seen this configuration in a main deck before in vintage.  If it does happen you can still be holding Regrowth and/or Argivian Find.  If you already used your Regrowths and Argivian Finds then you have a problem.  Post board, this is more likely to shop up, but again you have the option of hardcast DSC.

In hundreds of games with this deck I have never lost because of my opponent drawing into an answer with Cephalid Colliseum.  I have lost to Extirpate, but they already had it in hand when I started to go off.

Barbarian Ring suffers from the same problem as Glacial Chasm.  Neither works within the manabase.  A deck with 4 Gushes and 4 Mana Drains really wants Islands and really wants blue mana sources.  Having to run Nomad Stadium, Strip Mine and Cephalid Colliseum is already tough enough.

Another minor technical note.  This keeps coming up and some folks do not realize the ruling.

So I have no Tundra in play.  I have Fastbond and Crucible out.  I have already made several lands drops.  I am at 2 life and I have 3 untapped Islands with Intuition in hand.  Can I win?
The answer is yes.  I can Intuition for Nomad Stadium, Strip Mine and Tundra.
I play Tundra which drops me to 1 life.
I then play Nomad Stadium.  The Fastbond damage goes on the stack.  Fasbond damage is triggered and not a replacement effect so it does go on the stack.
With Fastbond damage on the stack activate Nomad Stadium using Tundra and jump to 5 life.  From there you can comb out as usual.

Some of the stranger Intuition piles I have put together:
Two tournaments ago I was playing Cody.  I think I had Echoing Truthed his Platinum Angel and then Drained it on the way back down, but I was at a very low life total and I had to figure out how to spend 7 Drain Mana.  EOT I Intuition for Tinker, DSC and Fastbond.  Option 1 was let me hardcast DSC.  In that case I probably would have won.  Option 2 was to give me Tinker and hope that I burned myself to death.  This might have worked but I was holding Brainstorm so I was very likely to draw into something with four chances.
The final option was to give me Fastbond and hope I did not combo out.  I most feared Fastbond because my hand was land, Brainstorm so I was worried I would not be able to do anything.
Cody gave me Fastbond but I brainstormed into the Nuts which consisted of both Scroll and Intuition I think and won that game with lethal Fastbond damage on the stack.

Around turn three I found myself with one of the weirdest hands I have ever had.  I had Tropical Island, Cephalid Coliseum and Mox Sapphire out.  My hand was 4 Gush, 2 Argivian Find and Intuition.  Weird hand.
Anyway, I actually Intuitioned for Tundra, Tundra and Fastbond or something like that.  From there I Argivian Finded Fastbond and won but that was a weird Intuition pile.  Note that had I been given Fastbond, it was not clear I could have done anything next turn since I lacked a second Island.  It turned out that I top decked Island anyway.

I played this deck a lot last night and it did okay.  It beat the Hoofprints of the Stag keep control deck, but then lost most of the games against Drain Tendrils.  The AK mirror is weid and I think I was making a lot of play mistakes.

[meadbert]

This was mentioned earlier, but Balance is really good in the sideboard.  It is solid against GAT and is even good against these new Shop Aggro decks with Metalworker.  Obviously Balance is amazing against Goblines, Fish and other non Ichorid aggro decks.  On top of that Balance removes Aven Mindscensor who is the bane of my existence at times.  I am not sure which matchups I should bring it in yet.  I might want to revamp the board in general.

Leyline of the Singularity has been somewhat weak.  It does address the two most problematic matchups in GAT and Ichorid though.

I have also considered an Oath transformational board.  Basically the main deck is already well positioned to do this since Intuiition can tutor up Oath or Orchard.

My main reason against the Oath transformational board is that although it could dodge graveyard hate, it still loses to Enchantment hate and is probably even worse against Ichorid which is already my worst matchup.  For now I will probably shift my board to:

4 Pithing Needle
1 Darksteel Colosus
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Leyline of the Singularity
1 Tinker
1 Hurkle's Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Balance

Another guy I wonder about is Children of the Korliss.  They have some synergy with Fastbond and buy very important turns against fast aggro.  They are also very good against Ichorid where they RFG Bridge from Belows.  They would add some hate against Tendrils decks as well.  My concern is that Children is not quite good enough to bring in most matchups and it is not worth it for just Ichorid.

My last transformational idea is to board into Bomberman.  I could bring in Salvagers, Needles, Crypts and Spellbomb.
Intuition could find Lotus + Spellbomb for the combo.  The weakness is that Salvagers is much weaker if the yard is hated out.

[wiley]

A few things;

Children are probably better than the blue lines, as even against gat they aren't "good".  Children help buy turns against random aggro, present a problem for tendrils players, removes bridges, and allows for a little more flexability in your own combo at times.  I've been swapping them out for about a few days now and I haven't missed the blue lines. (Note that it helps just as much in the gat matchup as they don't usually grow one dryad to 20/20, they grow two to 10/10 and swing, where you block one and just take the ten.  In both cases they need to get a bounce spell to kill you, but with the blue lines you have nothing to stop the single 10/10 from swinging anyway)

Running balance against MUD just to kill their creatures seems substandard, but since it can take out multiple juggs, workers and goblins it doesn't seem terrible, and balance is good against other decks too.  The cons however are that A) I usually have a slightly larger hand, and possibly one or two more land in a lot of matchups, this lowers balance's good points a lot.

As far as a transformational side goes, I think an old keeper list would be the best fit, as with a 15 card swap out you can get a decent keeper deck (Moats are so good right now).  Plus "some people" still run the actual deck  http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35343.0

[Zherbus]

Moved to development. This is a perfect example of the kind of threads I want to see here. Good job so far guys. Quality discussion, realistic points, and some results.

[meadbert]

I have been testing against Ichorid more to measure the value of Leyline of the Singularity.  I have actually come to this conclusion:
Rather than trying to get a Leyline in play and then protect it with control, the better strategy is actually to remain a combo control deck.  Board out none of your acceleration/draw.  Instead swap Forces and Drains for Leylines and Needles and just play like that.  Hope that you get either a really fast hand or Leyline or Needle. 
If you have no Leyline or Needle then you also have no Force or Drain since those are boarded out.  You are actually fairly likely to have a turn 1/2 combo in those games.  You are also fairly likely to Brainstorm into Needle.

Ideally you start with Leyline or Needle, drop it and just hope that slows Ichorid enough that you can combo out on turn 4 and race Ichorid.

Anyway, for this strategy you really only need 8 anti-Ichorid cards.  This frees up a good amount of space in the board.
I am not sure whether Mystical/Tinker/DSC is better than AKs or not.

I did not like Moat.  The problem is you only run 2 Tundras and Moat costs WW2.

Ray of Revelation could be an interesting option if Oath continues to attract more attention.  G and W are on color and Intuitioning for some of these would be great.

More Hurkles Recall could help against Mud.  Even Energy Flux could work since we have the luxury of waiting to drop Crucible till we are ready to combo out.

What other strategies would work against Shop Aggro?

[kalisia]

Very interesting list.
I just ask if it would not be fair to add consistance in the kill(s).
Even if pre-board, I agree that Extirpate and in general Split Second spells are usually not played, I understand reading the topic that the main problem is fast combo, like Long(the old list).
Why have Tinker-DSC in the sideboard (or even in the main) when we can find slots for Tinker-Sundering Titan in the main, which ends immediatly far more game than Colossus? Moreover, it helps again hard match-ups like Combo, and Titan as well goes more in the denial direction of the deck (crucible-strip) than DSC does. Titan replaces efficiently the Duress effects which would lead to add black splash.
I like very much the first list posted by Bert, and if I play soon the deck, according to the first list, I will probably do something like:

- 4 Gush (the deck needs Fastbond but not necessarily Gush to combo out)
- 1 Crucible of Worlds
- 1 Argivian Find
- 1 Merchant Scroll
- 1 Intuition

+ 1 Reclaim (replaces the second Argivian for more synergy with Gifts and Intuition, specially to find Tinker)
+ 1 Gifts
+ 1 Tinker
+ 1 Sundering Titan
+ 4 Thirst for Knowledge

Note that I try to keep the original colors wihtout adding black for the classical broken;-)

Thirst allows as well playing lands like Seat of Synod, Citadel, etc...which are not bad with Crucible.

Concerning the problem with Ichorid, I agree that Moat seems too hard to cast. May be we could try Ghostly Prison and the same enchantment card in blue which are in our colors.

[meadbert]

Adding Thirst is an interesting idea and might make sense.  Thirst is generally better when you do not have Fastbond out.  There are few things to keep in mind.

First, about the only downside to Crucible is that sometimes you draw 2 and do not have Brainstorm.  With Thirst this downside goes aways so I would guess that 3xCrucible still makes sense.
Also, there are plenty of cases where you want to Intuition for 3xCrucibles.  I once boarded down to 2 and tried to Intuition for 2xCrucible + Tinker and the after I was given Tinker I realized that I had no Crucible left in library.  Oops!

Second, the manabase is somewhat light.  Gush enables this.  There are many games where on turn 3 you would miss your land drop but instead you Gush and then Scroll for Ancestral.  On opponent's upkeep you can then Ancestral yourself.
You could also replace Scroll->Ancestral with Intuition.

By add 4 Thirsts and Gifts and dropping Gushes you start to run a greater risk of missing your turn 3 land drop and being cut off a large chunk of your deck.

Perhaps finding room for one more blue source could make sense.

Sundering Titan has a few major drawbacks to Colosus.  The fact that DSC is indestructable is huge.  Your oppoennt is likely to run Enchantment/Artifact hate in the form of Disenchant, Seal of Cleansing, Naturalize, Shattering Spree, Rack & Ruin, etc.
It is nice that DSC dodges those guys.

In a Gush heavy meta Titan can be risky since if your opponent Gushes his islands to hand in response to Tinker then if you get Titan you lose your own lands.  Usually your opponent will wait till you put Titan into play at which point you will have already declared targets so atleast he does not harm you.

I do not have a feel for how much Deglamer may show up.  That does remove DSC, Fastbond and Crucible.

There is also the chump blocker problem.  In a somewhat aggro heavy meta chump blockers can block Titan buying several extra turns.

Finally, with Thirst it would be nice to pitch DSC to Thirst and be able to shuffle him back.  Pitching Titan is nice for card advantage but then you cannot Tinker him out unless you Reclaim him.

Reclaim is an interesting idea.  Reclaiming Ancestral and AK for 4 could be good!

Thirst has awesome synergy with AK.  Let me know how it works out for you.

[wiley]

A few things:

You are absolutely correct about the prohibitive cc of moat, however, with the sheer amount of draw in the deck it can easily be replaced by island sanctuary.  (note that I don't really support a transformational sb in the first place, the md combo is good enough, and hard to hate anyway).

I am not a huge fan of putting e flux in the side for the following reasons:
1)It is already difficult at times to get the three mana on the board (and keep it against 4 wasteland.dec).
2)Against MUD/Stax decks you are staring down spheres within the first three turns almost 100% of the time and so need to hit 4 mana before being able to play it, though this is helped through artifact accel, it can still be difficult to reach soon enough to matter.
3)Often times, if they have anywhere near a fast start the flux comes down a turn too late, since they will pay for the juggs and sword and let their moxen die then play a land and be able to pay again next turn.

Hurky at least buys a turn because of summoning sickness, and is cheaper/easier to cast through spheres.

Actually, a md island sanctuary might not be a bad idea.  The only prevalent (and used loosely) flier right now is mindsensor, and that is a clock I can deal with.  With enough draw the drawback isn't crippling, you can choose to draw if you want, and even if the bounce/destroy it on their turn they still have to wait until the effect goes away.  Not to mention your own collosus can still swing for the fences.

Titan is a bad choice for this deck because you are playing green and white, which means you will almost always blow up some of your own lands, not to mention titan is seriously downgraded when half the field is playing the land saviour that is gush.  (plus a two turn clock w/trample is better than a three turn clock w/o)

I don't like the idea of running seats in this deck solely because it increases the already vulnerable mana base to more damage from wastelands.  I would assume you would be cutting islands for them, which means you no longer have basic ones and seats are not fetchable.

TFK just doesn't seem right for the deck without a high artifact suite, just like force doesn't really work without 30 other blue cards in a deck.

While reclaim is interesting, it amounts to being a top deck tutor, which for this deck is way too slow most of the time.  I find myself happy with finds mostly because if I can cast what I returned I win the game, with reclaim it gives them an entire turn (most likely seeing far more than one card) to find a counter/extirpate.

Some form of consistant enchantment hate or bounce needs to be found that will fit into this deck with the rise of tyrant oath.  Their combo is almost the same speed as ours and they can deal inf damage.  The only way to stop them is destroy/counter oath/tyrant.  I like the idea of Ray of Revelation or deglamer.  Probably degalamer more because it helps against stax/mud, even though those are slightly less problematic with the rise of oath decks (even though oath has a great stax/mud matchup most people who play shop decks are diehard fans).

I kind of went all over the place in this post, so sorry for the broken wot.

As a final note I will start testing the following sb, and encourage others to as well (keeping the md the same as Bert's original list)

1 Darksteel Colosus
4 Pithing Needle
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Tinker
4 Deglamer
1 Hurkles Recall

And I am trying to find a good way to put in 2 island sanctuarys into the main, my thoughts right now (read untested) are -1 M Scroll and -1 Intuition

[kalisia]

There are some points I would like to discuss.
Thirst for Knowledge can be strong in the deck, but, of course, we need to add artifatc acceleration like Vault and Crypt for example.
Colossus is not so huge in my opinion because it is the most famous threat in the format. Every deck well built has MANY ways to deal with (bounces, aether spellbomb, swords, creatures that have a bouncing/taping effect,...).
I agree that it may sound weird, but Titan is far stronger. In my metagame, one of the best players is still often playing Control-Slaver. He completely detroys all Gush.decks because even if the GAT player can play Gush to save lands, if he has not Fastbond in play, he can't recover enough quickly to try to bounce Titan. That said, I don't say that DSC is bad, I just think that Titan will win more pre-board games. But for sure, DSC in the sideboard is a good choice, even it should be better with Duress in the deck.
Concerning Chump blockers, let's just kill with the combo. Bert said it himself, the deck can be played like Gifts, and the force of Gifts was as well to give the choice of the kill, I mean that in Gifts you were killing "as the kill was coming", you did'nt know at the beginning of a game how you were going to kill some turns later.
This deck gives the same possibilities.
Concerning the mana base problem, I don't understand the "issue". We play 3 Crucibles!! So we don't need to have Gush operating on turn 2 to save our lands. And Titan is not bad for your lands when you play Crucible.

Here is the list I will certainly play soon:

2 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Island
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Cephalid Colliseum
1 Nomad Stadium
1 Strip Mine

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Sundering Titan

3 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
4 Force of Will
1 Deep Analysis
3 Intuition
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Echoing Truth
4 Mana Drain
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Enlightened Tutor

1 Fastbond
1 Regrowth
1 Reclaim

1 Argivian Find

SB:
1 Darksteel Colossus
3 Pithing Needle
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Balance
2 Ray of Revelation

[RJ]

In a Gush heavy meta Titan can be risky since if your opponent Gushes his islands to hand in response to Tinker then if you get Titan you lose your own lands.  Usually your opponent will wait till you put Titan into play at which point you will have already declared targets so atleast he does not harm you.

Titan's trigger does not target at any time, however you can blow up 1 dual land to satisfy 2 land types. For the time being, I think that titan is a better choice since against non shops, getting rid of titan will probably clear their board of land even if they have gush.  DSC is a bigger threat, but titan is disruption packed with a clock.  Yes he can be chumped, but I think preboard the benefits outweigh the negatives.