Is GAT dead?

[acidfreak]

...or still playable without gush/bstorm?

GroAtog
Waterbury, Winner - Scott Limoges

Main Deck

2  Flooded Strand
4  Island
3  Polluted Delta
1  Strip Mine
3  Tropical Island
4  Underground Sea
17 lands


2  Psychatog
4  Quirion Dryad

4  Accumulated Knowledge
1  Ancestral Recall
1  Black Lotus
4  Brainstorm
2  Cunning Wish
1  Demonic Tutor
2  Duress
4  Force of Will
1  Gush
4  Mana Drain
1  Merchant Scroll
1  Mind Twist
2  Misdirection
1  Mox Emerald
1  Mox Jet
1  Mox Pearl
1  Mox Ruby
1  Mox Sapphire
1  Mystical Tutor
1  Time Walk
1  Vampiric Tutor
1  Yawgmoth's Will

Sideboard

1  Berserk
1  Blue Elemental Blast
2  Diabolic Edict
1  Fact or Fiction
1  Hurkyl's Recall
3  Naturalize
2  Pernicious Deed
4  Tormod's Crypt

This deck only loses three brainstorms by the restrictions (like all other decks). Could it work with a brainstorm substitute like opt, serum visions,... ?

I am now trying this (unpowered )
Blue
4 Force of Will
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Serum Visions
2 Mana Drain
2 Counterspell
2 Misdirection
2 Cunning Wish
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Gush

Black
4 Duress
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Green
4 Quirion Dryad
1 Fastbond

Multi
2 Psychatog

Artifact
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Lotus Petal

Land
1 Strip Mine
2 City of Brass
4 Island
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand

Basically you want to control the early game and draw cards until you get two tutors, then get yawg with one gush with the other and tutor into accumulated knowledges or cunning wish for berserk or to reuse gush.

[hitman]

I'm sure you could play it if you wanted but the question should be, "Is it easier to win with something else?"  I was still playing Slaver in the GAT metagame just because I liked it so much.  I would do my fair share of winning but not enough to justify playing it if you realistically want to win tournaments.  GAT, without a lot of low casting cost spells that easily lead up to a sizable Yawgmoth's Will and/or Gushbond, loses its broken factor.  Why not play a second turn Thirst after your first turn Welder, Necro turn one off a Ritual, winning on turn two, or have the game locked up and beating with a huge Juggernaut?  All these strategies will probably beat you without your ability to abuse your win conditions.  All top tier strategies revolve around breaking a card or combination of cards.  GAT, without the never-ending one casting cost spells, free draw spells, and tutors that get both, lacks that broken strategy.  You're banking on halting your opponents progress long enough to get enough incremental beats in.  Overall, that shouldn't cut it in Vintage. 

[acidfreak]

I don't know. It works for Fish doesn't it? This is like fish but with alot more power even after the restrictions.

[hitman]

Fish plays Null Rod, Wasteland, Strip Mine, Meddling Mage, Stifle, Swords to Plowshares, Kataki, War's Wage, Jotun Grunt, Aven Mindcensor, etc.  The point is Fish decks can't pack enough disruption in.  Because they have no broken strategy, they have to pack in the disruption like no other deck.  Even their win conditions are disruption pieces.  All that said, Fish will never be a tier one deck.  It's there as a foil to top tier decks.  No underpowered deck can fight through all the brokeness in a tournament consistently.  It's kind of like the problem Ichorid has.  It can't fight through all the graveyard hate in a tournament consistently.  It's more reliable to just bring a solid, versatile, broken deck if you want to win.  Your deck is a mix between Fish and a blue-based control deck.  The problem is, you'll probably lose to MaskNought because they'll be firing bigger threats faster,  you'll probably lose to Workshop Aggro because they're effectively shutting off your draw engine by turn two with their own disruption pieces which come out faster and have longer lasting effects than yours, you'll probably lose to other blue-based strategies because they're better equipped to abuse their strongest cards like Tinker and Yawgmoth's Will because they have support cards and engines like Trinket Mage, Goblin Welder, Thirst for Knowledge, etc.  and they'll be able to seriously hamper your draw engine with a Tormod's Crypt or Leyline of the Void.  I'm trying to get across the point that, in most cases, you'll have a 3/3 or 4/4 a couple turns after casting the creature and that's not good enough for Vintage.  In that span of time, your opponent is setting himself up for something more powerful and they have at least equal as much disruption as you. 

Again, if you like the deck, play it.  In regards to whether it's playable, it's probably not.  I played Slaver when it wasn't playable because I liked the deck.  Ultimately, it's a game and if you're not having fun playing your deck, there's no point in playing.  I wouldn't play Serum Visions though.  Because you're playing Counterspell and Mana Drain, I'd play Opt so you can use that mana end of turn for something other than counterspells.  I don't think you need Misdirection anymore.  Without Merchant Scroll as a four-of, you can get away without playing any but definitely not more than one.  I'd cut the random Strip Mine and 2 City of Brass for Moxes.  AK/Intuition is a mana hungry engine.  You'll probably want more moxes than that.  I would cut the Cunning Wishes, too.  They're too clunky and you're playing very little acceleration.  I'd replace them with a bounce spell and maindeck Berserk.  Mystical Tutor definitely belongs in this deck.  Getting the third AK, Recall, counterspells, Time Walk, Will, bounce spell, Berserk, etc. is all very good.  Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond are definitely wrong.  Duress is a fairly common card.  If you remove a card to Chrome Mox and get Duressed, you're probably going to lose the game.  Mox Diamond is just unreliable and you can run into serious mana problems if it gets countered. 

While it might not be the best choice for a tournament, you can probably do pretty good with it if you play well.  I don't want to convince you to stop playing a deck you like to play.  Hopefully my suggestions were a help.  Good Luck.

[Aneurysm]

Mox Diamond is just unreliable and you can run into serious mana problems if it gets countered.

They changed it. You now discard the land when Mox Diamond comes into play.

EDIT: Errata'd wording.

If Mox Diamond would come into play, you may discard a land card instead. If you do, put Mox Diamond into play. If you don't, put it into its owner's graveyard.

[oneofchaos]

GAT lost 3 Brainstorm, 3 Ponder (Some played 4, some played 3, regardless it was played), 3 merchant scroll, and 3 gush.  Now because we lost 3 gush, we also lose fastbond.  Also because we lose brainstorms/ponders/scrolls, we don't have the ability to run as few lands so we draw into more business, we have to play more lands.  So we've lost more than 20% of of the deck and the deck becomes slower, less fluid, and needs more mana and we have to cut business spells.  I can't see a GAT deck in today's metagame being the monster it was just weeks ago.

[zeus-online]

You could probably make a decent aggro-control deck that is similar...but forget about the combo part and insane will turns.

It'd probably go with low cost draw spells like night's whisper, cantrips like opt and alot of disruption similar to smemmens last list (8 Duress, 4 fow)
I'm not sure if psychatog would be the best creature for the deck without gush to feed it, it you're running intuAK it's probably good enough...but intuAK is rather mana-intensive.

Card draw you could try:
Dark confidant
Night's whisper
Opt
Sleight of hand

Without gush in the deck, confidant probably won't hurt too much. This draw engine is very black though, so you'd still need alot of blue cards to feed fow and possibly misD.
A new GAT deck should probably run 5 Moxen, 1 lotus, 1 mana crypt and maybe even lotus petal...Since you don't need lands the way you did before, and night's whisper and confidant both require  , and to me they seem to be the best option.

One thing to remember is that your bad match-ups will be alot worse now, since you can't lucksack out of them as often.

Creatures:
Quirion dryad - Might grow a little slowly now, but might be worth running.
Psychatog - Really needs an engine to feed it, Gush was really good at this, so is intuAK.
Tarmogoyf - Probably better for the deck now, since it's easier to get it huge right away.
Dark confidant - Wasn't played before, but you're gonna need some card draw, and this might also help out the hungry psychatog.

I'd try something along these lines:

Creatures: (10)
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark confidant
2 Psychatog

Disruption: (12)
4 FoW
3 Thoughtseize
3 Duress
2 MisD

Draw: (14)
4 Night's whisper
2 Opt/Sleight of hand
1 Ancestral recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Merchant scroll
1 Gush
1 Demonic tutor
1 Mystical tutor
1 Vampiric tutor

Broken: (2)
1 Yawgmoth's will
1 Time walk

Utility: (2)
2 Cunning wish

Mana: (21)
5 Mox
1 Lotus
1 Petal
4 Underground sea
3 Tropical island
5 Fetch
2 Island

That's 61 cards...But it was only meant as a guideline as i have not tested it. Regrowth might be worth running.
I upped wishes to 2 since it's harder to tutor chain for them, and drawing that 1 naturaly is tougher.
The mana base might need some work aswell..And i'm not sure if petal is worth running.

/Zeus

[kicks_422]

Short Answer: Yes

Long Answer: GAT without Gush is... Well... Just AT. You could change it up a little and replace the engine with other draw spells and such, with a creature base of Goyf, Confidant, and Psychatog (as posted above me) but that's getting closer to a Fish core (ala Deeznoughts), which is way different and less bombastic than GAT was at its prime.

[nero angelo]

They should make a deck named "Gro-A-Goyf"

haha

Seriously, GaT would still be possible, but playable? I don't think so.

Ok, for you it IS playable. You could play it. But the question is, would it win most of the time with it's main engine (Gush-Bond) destroyed?



*Insight*

If they really like GaT that much, why don't they use the Grim-Long engine instead of the now-dead Gush-Bond engine...

[wiley]

Rich Meyst played it after it died last time, he called it worse-than-gro.

Here is the list:

Worse-Than-Gro
Rich Meyst - 1st place at a tournament in Waterbury on 2006-07-30 
 
LANDS (21): 
4 Ghost Quarter 
3 Polluted Delta 
1 Strip Mine 
3 Tropical Island 
1 Tundra 
4 Wasteland 
3 Windswept Heath 
1 Forest 
1 Island 
 
CREATURES (11): 
3 Nimble Mongoose 
4 Vinelasher Kudzu 
4 Wild Mongrel 
 
OTHER SPELLS (29): 
1 Black Lotus 
1 Mox Diamond 
1 Mox Emerald 
1 Mox Pearl 
1 Mox Sapphire 
2 Exploration 
1 Fastbond 
1 Ancestral Recall 
4 Brainstorm 
4 Daze 
4 Force Of Will 
1 Gush 
1 Misdirection 
1 Mystical Tutor 
1 Swords To Plowshares 
3 Life From The Loam 
1 Time Walk 
 
SIDEBOARD(15): 
3 Null Rod 
3 Meddling Mage 
4 Oxidize 
3 Ray Of Revelation 
2 Swords To Plowshares