T4 @ ELD Lotus - QnD Report

[Grand Inquisitor]

Testing in preparation for this event I had two focuses, Flash and Oath.  Testing with BC and Albert on Wednesday showed 99 ways not to beat Oath (we tried every combination of hate decks possible).  Inspiration came after a long night of drinking while I was tooling on MWS at 5am before the tournament: simply out control the format.  When the meta was similarly flash and oath GAT last summer I went undefeated at Waterbury with a version of Tog splashing white.  Whereas mindcensor was the meta choice then, I needed something non-creature; spell snare wasn't exactly an exotic find, but it was exactly what the situation called for:

Metatog v2

Win-
3x Psychatog

Answer-
4x Fow
4x Duress
3x Spellsnare
2x Misdirection
1x Mana Drain
1x Echoing Truth
1x Cunning Wish

Engine-
4x Gush
4x Brainstorm
4x Merchant Scroll
3x Ponder

Broken-
1x Fastbond
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Vamp Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk

Manners-
4x Flooded Strand
3x Polluted Delta
3x Underground Sea
2x Tundra
1x Tropical Island
1x Island
1x Black Lotus
4x Moxen

SB (please ignore except for Ray of Rev, StP and Mindcensor)-

2x Swords to Plowshares
2x Ray of Revelation
1x Berserk
1x Disenchant
1x Extirpate
1x Kataki War's Rage
1x Aven Mindcensor
1x Jotun Grunt
1x Yixlid Jailer
1x Engineered Exposives
1x Pithing Needle
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Energy Flux

It pained me not to have room for some of my control favorites, LoA and Scroll Rack, but the metagame is simply too fast for them at this point.  Also, the draw and lack of dead cards in this list is compelling in a format where playing tight control pays off.

Round 1, Slaver (eventual T8er Corey Frasier)

G1, I get a busted opening with mox, duress, lotus, scroll, recall, land, timewalk, duress.  I then draw lots of search and land, but have to wait til it's close before I finally find a tog/will/fastbond to end it.

G2, I'm in a good position, but, knowing time is getting close and trying to play too conservatively I sit back with a hand of (FoW, DT, Scroll, Wish, 2 lands).  He has welder and I was at 8 with a fastbond on the table.  The correct play was to lay two more lands and DT for Mana Drain, so I have access to double counter, or FoW, Wish.  He pushes through a Will, and steals the draw (he played very well, I just had better cards I didn't use).

Round 2, Tyrant Blue

He's playing a slightly unconventional list with Commandeer and Plagarize.

G1, he Commandeers my early DT, but since he's tight on land, he needs to go get sapphire.  I wait out a mystic remora (having the founders of the deck in my local metagame, i've become accustomed to how to play around this, which is not easy), and set up a chain of broken spells starting with a counter war won by 2x spell snare.

G2, he has early Remora again, but I'm allowed to play Psychatog into it without recourse, and he's forced to tap out for Tyrant, which I answer with Wish>Swords.  Tog eats him a couple turns later.

Round 3, Tyrant Blue (deck co-creator Jeremiah Rudolph)

G1, Both of us know this is going to be a grueling match, and Jeremiah has the gall to start off with Remora, mox, sol ring followed up with meditate.  I try to fight the good fight and manage to get off a small yawgmoth's will, but I fail to draw into either fastbond or lotus, so we move to G2.

G2, I force down an early fastbond and do the things the Gush engine does.

G3, He has an early LoA, but I'm able to force him into suboptimal plays with duress (repeal his own mox) in order to keep it active.  I bait with a psychatog (the bait was that I knew he had Drain, and I had Spell Snare), which both gave me a threat, and took him off LoA.  I win a couple turns later, getting him to tap out and then pitching most of my hand to Tog.

In theory, ray of revelation should be a house in this matchup, since mystic remora is crucial to them maintaining tempo parity, but I didn't see it in any of my three post-board matches against Tyrant Blue.

Round 4, TSOath (eventual T8er Demonic Attorney)

G1, We trade duress effects, but spell snare and scroll for FoW allow me to blunt is early attempts to land an oath.  I get ancestral recall to stick and vamp for time walk to finish him off with his own spirit tokens.

G2, I believe he had to mulligan, and my early disruption keeps him from doing anything productive.  Midgame I have him in topdeck mode and although he baits a FoW with something else, I have the misdirection for ancestral recall and the ray of revelation for fastbond.  Will seals the deal.

Round 5, Red WSA

G1, I'm stuck on 1 land, and by the time he's about to go lethal, he wisely decides not to play trike into my mana drain, preventing a big turn that may have pulled me out of it.

G2, An inauspicious trouncing where he has strip for my island and jugg to quickly finish it.

Round 6, Flash (perennial all star, Ray Robillard)

G1, I deflect early attempts to combo, but while we're in topdeck I decide to go for it with Tog, and he kills me a turn early with the combo.

G2, Lotus>Mindcensor on his first fetchland is game

G3, is a grueling back and forth with his lone sliver being outraced by my mindcensor.  Time is called with neither of us capable of winning unless he can combo.  he has exactly the right cards for it, but I have triple counter and more gas to follow.  His line of play was complicated by my countering his heart sliver earlier in the match.  He graciously offers the concession.

T8, UWB Fish

G1, We trade duress effects and he has mage naming yawgwill.  While at 8 life I start to gain momentum when he duress's me to see: ponder, gush, cunning wish, echoing truth.  While I believe this is a defensible play, he takes (and later regrets) the cunning wish.  I gush into vampiric tutor, and ponder into lotus to set up a game ending yawgmoth's will.

G2, He goes with a mana denial strategy with stifle on fetch and 3x waste/strip (one of which he burned a DT on).  However, I'm able to ponder and brainstorm into enough mana to keep above water.  From there it's the usual strategy of trading life and tempo in 1-for-1's until I hit critical mass with psychatog and another big yawgwill.

T4, I'm paired with Shay, but we all agree it's late enough on a Saturday Night.  Team Copes (our car coming from Cambridge) takes home half the finals and heads north.

Besides the usual task of trying to find a sideboard configuration for Ichorid and Workshops, the deck performed exactly as planned.  While Flash is not a walk in the park, it is favorable from what I've seen.  Combining this with solid matchups against Oath, storm combo and Tyrant Blue and I feel this deck is an excellent tool in a blue heavy NE metagame.

[StarOrc]

First off, Congrats.

Couple of things I was wondering. Was the Single Drain worth it over the 4th Snare or 3rd Misd? In some limited testing with a control deck with no drains people often times play around them because they expect them. Also was Cunning Wish worthwhile with a limited number of targets? I know you got me with one, but how was it the rest of the day? Also I really want to ask how you came up with that board configuration but you said ignore most of it.

Star

[Grand Inquisitor]

Re drain, it was good all day.  I scrolled for it on a number of occasions.  It also contributes to the mindscrew postboard, but it's really just a solid card when I needed one more answer slot.

Re wish, berserk is a necessary option when you're killing with Psychatog.  I've tried to build faster versions of the deck where a maindeck berserk would make sense, but I could never get it to contend with faster combo decks, and in a slower format, there's usually better choices than Hulk.

Re SB, yeah, I was throwing it together on the car ride down.  I went with lots of one of's in order to be able to cover a number of decks from a lot of angles.  If I had more time to prepare, I would have had something with a lot more focus.

Good playing you Corey; it's always a well fought match.

[sundering jerk]

Would you use thoughtseize if you could do it all over again?

[VsTheWorld]

You make our match (Red Shop Aggro) seem so boring. That probably was my least eventful match all day though. I just remember you Brainstorming into things that weren't mana sources and me going to town with spheres and big dudes. That's just the way it goes sometimes. Anyway, congrats on the finish. I would've been happy to join you in the Top 8 had it not been for a small oversight on the parts of Rich and I during our round 6 match. He couldn't scoop to me, I had to win to be guaranteed in, and in game 2 when I'm facing down turn 1 EtW for 8 we somehow both miss the fact that a draw guarantees Rich in and gives me a chance on tiebreakers. He wins 2-0, I finish 9th with tiebreakers that get me in Top 8 had we drawn. O well.

[pyr0ma5ta]

Congratulations, Steve.  Glad to see our testing inspired you, in a way.  Hope your windfall paycheck goes to good use.

[TrueUVGP]

Hey its Sean Lind, the fish player.
My opening thoughtseize only saw two lands in your hand, so a mana denial strategy didn't sound too terrible.
The only thing I would have done differently in hindsight is hold a waste effect for a turn, so I could have Demonic Tutored for my deck's crucible.
When I did tutor, I only had two lands in play and none in hand.
A grevious mistake in deed.
Good work on the 100% win percentage.
I hope to see you at the next event, Where I will have my revenge!
lol
Good Work
-Sean

[ELD]

Congrats on the Top 4.  It is always good to see innovation/metagaming do well.  Tog is still a great answer to aggro, while a solid counterwall/draw engine is trouble for most of the best decks in the format.  This build strikes me as having a hard time vs Ichorid.  Do you find that to be the case in testing?  With only two dredge decks turning out, it's certainly wasn't a huge gamble even it it autoloses to Bazaars.  Thanks for the report. 

[slyfer]

Congratualations!

The deck is ok for me, but you should call it "PAT" instead of "metatog", because it's simply GAT switching tog over dryad  . I know that the strategy is reversed (GAT wants early dryad...PAT wants hold on, draw and drop Tog in the end of the process, to swing for the win), but the pool cards is the same:
1) low mana sources (19), like gat
2) Gat engine (duress, fow, snare is tech btw)
3) Gat protection and aswers (like 1 echoing 1 wish)

I think the most relevant innovation is the white as third color... you faced lot of oath so I think it's correct in that case white > red. 
In any other case of general metagame I think red is quite superior than white

[Grand Inquisitor]

The deck is ok for me, but you should call it "PAT" ...I think the most relevant innovation is the white as third color... you faced lot of oath so I think it's correct in that case white > red.  (Wink) In any other case of general metagame I think red is quite superior than white

Most accurately it should be called "Hulk", but it could just as easily be called "Four Gush, three Spell Snares and 53 cards".  I find in a 'general' metagame it depends what that metagame is.  Especially with the printing of Gutteral Response, I see red as increasingly unnecessary.