I don't have any real vintage experience, and I was on a magic break when Psychatog came out, so I don't know the deck's history all that much, in fact, all I have to go by is the decklist that Steven used in his article as printed
here. Take this in mind when reading my comments, because I could really be waaaay off.
In any case, The purpose of winning with a tog seems to be to make it lethal using a full graveyard and then cast cunning wish for berserk. This means that there should be a decent amount of spells in the graveyard and/or in your hand. In addition, you need a wish, and the mana to cast both the wish and berserk.
First thing is that for a full graveyard, you'll need to be casting spells. Without graveyard cheating, Psychatog will need quite a few spells being cast prior to alpha striking. This means that the role this deck takes is that of a slow control deck. In fact, when I look over the decklist presented by Steven, it has a whole lot of similarities with "The Deck" (which I happen to know a bit off due to reading the Control Player's Bible).
"There are no wrong threats, just wrong answers"This is a quote that comes to mind and seems paramount to a slow control deck. My initial reaction was that Cunning Wish was clunky and a bit of a mana waste as well as a sideboard space waste. However, giving the time it takes for Psychatog to go lethal, you'll be facing varied threats that should be contained. Because even with an opponent's main plan foiled, you still need to get yourself into a position from where you can win. In this sense, Cunning Wish is both an answer to opposing threats, as well as an essential kill card.
Like any control deck, Tog needs an engine and a disruption suite. The basis of the engine is simple: 4 Brainstorm, 1 Ancestral Recall. The basis of the Control Suite is also simple: 4 Force of Will. In my mind, the deck really is that open to change. Let's start with the engine.
One remark here: If your goal is to cast spells and control the game, then Mana Drain becomes one of the best cards for your control suite, as it both controls the game and allows for bigger) follow-up spells, which are usually the ones that give the best card advantage, or the most in-game control. So, while I personally don't consider it part of the basis of the control suite, I think we can assume that some amount of mana drain is going to make it into any final version of the list.
Gush/bond is what was used in Stevens list, and is generally seen as the strongest engine in current vintage. A deck with as many tutors as Tog has in that list is certain to have a good shot at finding Fastbond, so why not run the best engine the game has to offer?
Well, this is Tog, not GAT. I think that using the Gush/Bond engine in any deck outside GAT requires a lot of thinking. What exactly does Gush/Bond offer? Mostly, it offers the possibility to go nuts and win instantly with a combo feel. If you take fastbond out of the equation, Gush is a mediocre draw engine. One that works perfectly for mana-light decks, but for something like Tog, a deck that wants to utilize a bigger mana pool, stifling your own development seems wrong. What you're stuck with is an engine that is erratic at best, unless you get fastbond into play.
So, an important ingame goal becomes getting fastbond into play. This requires tutoring, protecting your fastbond, and then going nuts. As a game plan, this has little to do with what Tog is trying to do, which is control the flow of play. In other words, Gush/Bond to me seems like an aggressive engine.
Also, Gush is a terribly ineffective card to use as a mana sink for drained mana. Ramping up to 5 mana to draw 2 cards is terrible. Tidings sees no play in vintage whatsoever, and that draws twice as many.
All things considered, Gush/Bond is not used at it's most effective in Tog, and as a result, might not be the best choice for an engine. In addition, people expect the engine to appear in tournaments, by using Gush/Bond, you'll expose yourself to some degree of collateral damage you take from anti-GAT strategies that attack it's engine.
You said that the old lists used Intuition/AK, and as an engine, it suffers some of the problems that Gush/Bond has, and is superior in other ways. First of all, in the right situation, it gives you seven cards in hand and five in your graveyard, which equates to 13 Tog power if nothing else. The similarities with Gush/Bond is that it's more an explosion of cards rather than an ongoing engine. You need one successful casting of intuition to finish the job of the engine. In addition, the AK's in your hand are rather dead until you fire off the intuition. If you do get it online, you'll most likely win the game due to massive card advantage. It's pretty similar to getting a fastbond in play, except that intuition is not restricted.
When thinking about it, the goal of Tog, to control the game state until it can create a position from which it can win in the mid- to late-game seems very similar to that of
Tyrant Blue. That list uses an unorthodox engine of mystic remora and meditate. While I think that Meditate is not an optimal card for Tog, I think that the remora has serious potential to be an addition to the engine of Tog. If your opponent develops his game plan, then he's giving you the tools to contain them and get into the late game. The last of the simple engines is to run Thirst for Knowledge.
Thirst does not seem ideal in that it's better in slaver-like builds that also benefit a lot from the discard, but it does offer a persistent engine that gives you cards in increments, and gives you a constant and decent drain mana outlet. In other words, like the remora, it gives you an engine that more consistent rather than explosive.
Which I think is one of the key aspects of Tog. The keyword that comes to mind with Tog, compared to GAT is consistency. If you are going for an explosive engine in Tog, then you need to wonder why you are not playing GAT, which makes far better use of such an engine due to it's capability to switch gears.
Finally, without fastbond, you could try out Fatal Frenzy instead of Berserk and drop green altogether for a more stable mana base, which incidentally also adds to the consistency of the deck. This also affects the wishboard though by losing oxidize, artifact mutation and ancient grudge. But most of this can be overcome with Rack and Ruin and Overload/Mogg Salvage. Artifact Mutation remains a loss though.
In the end, I would suggest at least testing an engine of Mystic Remora in combination with most likely Thirst for Knowledge, and possibly Meditate. Meditate means more emphasis on Misdirection, as you'll want to make your counters count in the face of an additional untap phase of your opponent, while Thirst is probably better suited with Duress as additional disruption.
But for someone who doesn't really know what he's talking about, I've gone on long enough about the possible engine of the deck. The Disruption suite is at least somewhat dependant on the engine as explained above, but I think that force of will, drains and a wishboard seem very likely, and hopefully there will be space left for duress/misdirection. Leaving the disruption package discussion for another time.
Tog seems like a very interesting list, as I've always liked control decks. I think that for it to stand out in today's meta, it needs to actively differentiate itself from GAT, starting with the engine.
