New Miracle Grow Shell, need help

[serracollector]

I am working on a new "grow shell" since the fun-restriction of Gush and FS.  I have a decklist, but I will not post it in its entirety here as it has lots of metagame room.

Anyways the shell I am currently working on is:

4 x Gush
3 x Frantic Search
4 x Deep Analysis
4 x Lorescale Coatl
4 x Lotus Cobra
6 x fetch
X x Island
4 x Tropical
1 x Fastbond

Obv inclusions are your restricted Blue, BS, Acall, Walk etc.
Prolly some counter base of FoW/Leak/Spell pierce
Jace/Sower
Echoing Truth/Other Bounce
Maybe maindeck trygons/claims, not for me tho personally.

I play the deck more or less as a combo-eqsque deck, getting a Lorescale into play asap off cobra's or moxen, then I try to chain frantic into deep analysis into gush.  This makes your Lorescale extremely big extremely fast, alot faster than Quirion Dryad would normally grow (especially since we no longer have 4 x Brainstorm).  Also Jace + Lodescale is just sickening.

So based on this shell (or close to) how would you guys go from here?  I know I made some suggestions, but I am sure there are millions of other ideas out there I probably wouldn't even think of, so please discuss and help?  thanks.

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

Run black.

[serracollector]

If I were to run black, then I would run tendrils.  this is Blue green fish/grow.  Suggestions on that would be nice.  Thank you.

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

If I were to run black, then I would run tendrils.  this is Blue green fish/grow.  Suggestions on that would be nice.  Thank you.

So you're weakening the deck for no reason. Sounds good.

[serracollector]

Except that running lotus cobra, and Lorescale helps me get around MUD and Fish, and possibly even oath, as Lorescale gets really big really fast.  I do no want to just take another stab at GushBond Tendrils ok?  I think it is subpar and weak to most other tendrils builds.  If I were to build a tendrils build it would be on the hope of going off asap, not after I get 2-6 islands in play, while working under sphere affects.  GushBond is not worse or better than a Grow deck, it is all meta dependant, and in my high MUD meta, Grow would work better.  I am looking for advice on this type of deck, whether you THINK it is weaker or better than GushBond tendrils is not the point here, and is completely irrelevant, so either give real advice towards this deck type, or troll somewhere else.  Thank you.

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

Except that running lotus cobra, and Lorescale helps me get around MUD and Fish, and possibly even oath, as Lorescale gets really big really fast.  I do no want to just take another stab at GushBond Tendrils ok?  I think it is subpar and weak to most other tendrils builds.  If I were to build a tendrils build it would be on the hope of going off asap, not after I get 2-6 islands in play, while working under sphere affects.  GushBond is not worse or better than a Grow deck, it is all meta dependant, and in my high MUD meta, Grow would work better.  I am looking for advice on this type of deck, whether you THINK it is weaker or better than GushBond tendrils is not the point here, and is completely irrelevant, so either give real advice towards this deck type, or troll somewhere else.  Thank you.

What exactly does Tendrils have to do with running black? In case you didn't know plenty of decks run black without Tendrils because of cards like Yawgmoth's Will, Demonic Tutor, and Vampiric Tutor which are all apeshit insane in any Gushbond deck. I find it pretty funny that you went off ranting on something that had nothing to do with the topic at hand. I suggest calming down. Did Gushbond Tendrils rape your sister or something?

[serracollector]

ok, is it logical is splash the black, meaning more dual lands, and less basics for DT, VT, Y will, and Confidants (which i wouldn't run anyways)?  I have been playing this a lot on MWS, and have found that 4 gush, 3 frantic, 3 deep anal, ancestral, brainstorm, and 2 jace has been plenty to find everything I need.  I do not think a black splash really benefits more than it hurts. 

[honestabe]

Did Gushbond Tendrils rape your sister or something?

deep anal ...really benefits more than it hurts.  

hilarious


Ok, seriously, I played a deck with Coatl a while back, and twister was insanely good with it.

I also liked to run top, as it provided card quality with the ability to pump the snake every turn

[serracollector]

So my deck idea is just a joke?  No one would like to give some real advice or does everyone apparently want to anally rape my sister with a tendrils card?

Seriously please.

[Killane]

ok, is it logical is splash the black, meaning more dual lands, and less basics for DT, VT, Y will, .........

You've cast Yawgmoth's Will right? And it's resolved?
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Yes, it's worth less basics and more duals for these 3 cards. It is. Trust me on this one.

[LordHomerCat]

So my deck idea is just a joke?

Unless you'd like to play Yawg Will, then yes, it is. 

[serracollector]

If I don't play yawgmoth's will in a gush shell then I am playing a bad deck.  Good to know that there is room for innovation in magic.  Thanks for the help.

[forests failed you]

If I were to run black, then I would run tendrils.  this is Blue green fish/grow.  Suggestions on that would be nice.  Thank you.

So you're weakening the deck for no reason. Sounds good.

This is exactly the kind of negative attitude that detracts from good innovation ever taking place.

First of all, he didn't actually list a decklist--he suggested a possible draw engine based around Frantic Search, Deep Analysis, and Gush.  It isn't a prerequisite that every Gush deck must play Yawgmoth's Will, that is exactly the dogmatic, backwards, and dismissive line of thinking that makes Vintage stale and the majority of its deck builders an empty well of useless ideas.  

What I think people may have 'meant' to say is that historically, in the two periods of time where 4 Gush has been legal before, the lists that have historically performed well have been based around recurring and chaining Gushes together with Yawgmoth's Will--So, if you are not going to play with Yawgmoth's will there should be a reason for that decision.  I would encourage you to try playing versions of the list with and without Yawgmoth's Will and see what ultimately ends up performing better, and suggest to you that if your goal is to combo-out Yawgmoth's Will is going to have good Synergy with recasting Gush as well as getting back cards you have pitched to Frantic Search.

If I were going to stick to a straight UG build of the deck I would focus on my beatdown plan as well as denying my opponent's mana development.  What if you tried playing with Null Rod or Chalice of the Void in a deck like this?  Lotus Cobra clearly has good synergy with these cards as it allows you to make Mana while depriving other strategies of their acceleration.  Spell Pierce also seems to me one of the better disruption spells in this strategy.  I really like Lorescale Coatl in a deck like this--much more than I like him in a Yawgmoth's Will deck.  If you are not going to play Yawgmoth's Will, I would like to see another beater in the deck.  What about Arrogant Wurm as a possible card for this deck. Or, what about Basking Rootwalla, Vengevine or all of the above?  They all have synergy with Frantic Search and they make Frantic Search not lose a card.  Not to mention they are all good at attacking.

If you are interested in jamming ideas feel free to PM me, I'd be happy to give you feedback and make suggestions without criticizing you for not building the obvious Gush list that everybody who isn't completely dense has already built, is only mediocre at best, and suffers from a lot of metagame related splash damage.  You guys want to go all in on Gushbond-ing in a format where the best decks play 3x Nature's Claim in the maindeck or 5-9 sphere effects?  Way to think outside the box.

[KeiDot]

I think the issue is that you haven't given concrete evidence as to why the omission of black is superiour to running a number of restricted black cards. While the hesitation to run a mana base that is susceptible to wasteland is some-what understandable, you have shown nothing to offset the tournament data generated before the June 2008 restrictions which shows the undeniable strengths of gush featuring black. Most discussions that aim to be productive here are result-based discussions detailing match ups and tournament reports. Without being much more long winded about this, I think you'll convince others of the viability of UG Gro when you can enequivocally show that this deck can outperform a more traditional Gush deck with the ability to go broken with YagWill.

--------
Edit: forests explained what I was trying to express more verbosely and without the restrictions of typing on a phone

[TopSecret]

Adding white for Land Tax, Mox Diamond, and Knight of the Reliquary has some synergy with the plan.
You could then also add some of the new mox. This way, you could get first turn cobra very consistently.
The 6-ish moxes that add any color would then help with color screw introduced by basics for land tax.

White also gets you Enlightened Tutor to find Fastbond, and possibly a silver bullet package if that's your thing.

Also, adding Life from the Loam has big time synergy with Frantic Search.

All of these cards also have synergy with having a single Bazaar of Bagdad, Tolarian Academy, and possibly some Crop Rotations maindeck.


A bunch of different stuff that you can't use all of necessary, but that's just what I got off the top of my head.


Also, and this is not tested, but White also gives you access to Pursuit of Knowledge, which could be interesting with Frantic Search and Coatl...etc.

[oshkoshhaitsyosh]

Except that running lotus cobra, and Lorescale helps me get around MUD and Fish, and possibly even oath, as Lorescale gets really big really fast.  I do no want to just take another stab at GushBond Tendrils ok?  I think it is subpar and weak to most other tendrils builds.  If I were to build a tendrils build it would be on the hope of going off asap, not after I get 2-6 islands in play, while working under sphere affects.  GushBond is not worse or better than a Grow deck, it is all meta dependant, and in my high MUD meta, Grow would work better.  I am looking for advice on this type of deck, whether you THINK it is weaker or better than GushBond tendrils is not the point here, and is completely irrelevant, so either give real advice towards this deck type, or troll somewhere else.  Thank you.

What exactly does Tendrils have to do with running black? In case you didn't know plenty of decks run black without Tendrils because of cards like Yawgmoth's Will, Demonic Tutor, and Vampiric Tutor which are all apeshit insane in any Gushbond deck. I find it pretty funny that you went off ranting on something that had nothing to do with the topic at hand. I suggest calming down. Did Gushbond Tendrils rape your sister or something?

dude, your a dick

[forests failed you]

My point is "how is it useful to dismiss all ideas except the status quo?"  The attitude of "there is no reason to discuss playing Gush without Yawgmoth's Will," is a bad attitude, regardless of whether or not the assumption turns out to be true or not.  Keep in mind that it isn't even a given that Gush/Will decks are good yet, the cards and decks we are talking about are not even legal for tournament play for another week.  People are assuming that because that strategy has performed well in the past it is going to be very good in the present.  However, the context has changed dramatically: first of all, Gush has lost a lot of its enablers--Merchant Scroll, Brainstorm, and Ponder are all restricted, this is significant.  Second of all Nature's Claim exists as a card people actually play--this is significant.  Third of all, Time Vault exists now--this is significant.  Forth and most significant of all, LODESTONE GOLEM exists--hugely, significant.  

My point is there is not yet data to suggest that Gush/Will combo is the best, or even good--therefore, I think it is ridiculous to say "it is impossible to play a Gush deck without Yawgmoth's Will."  Do I think it is likely that Gush in a deck with Will is good? Yes.  Have I seen one that I intuitively think is better than a well built Mud deck--Hell no.  Historical data will only take you so far, this is a completely different context and being open to creating new niches in which to play with Gush is a righteous endeavor.  

[Marske]

The very first person calling any body a Dick or mentioning raping somebody's sister gets a full blown warning. Keep this discussion civil gents. I'd also want to state to the OP specifically, that posting in the way that you did is going to lead people to suggest the status quo cards. You should have been prepared for this, there's no need to get all "stressed out" when people do mention cards. Since you're asking for help it doesn't look like you're very open for going beyond your own boundries (a UG deck) whilst I think you should keep splashing every other color in mind as well.

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

@FFY

First of all, I loved your article on format innovation and deck optimization. I hope you write more articles as I think you do a good job of getting your point across. Now that I'm done shooting myself in the foot I think it is pretty obvious why Yawgmoth's Will is amazing in a Gushbond deck. You don't need to "go off" but when a deck like this runs tons of cheap/free draw/filter engines by the time you're done with a Will turn you should be so far ahead you should win easily. Not to mention the fact that Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor are the best tutors in the game especially in a deck that can need to get an instant, sorcery, enchantment, creature, and potentially other card types. Whats the downside? You cut a Trop and an Island for 2 Seas. In other words you run 1 more nonbasic at the cost of your deck's power level spiking. There is a reason that it was always run like that in the past.

As for modern times dictating that Will magically becomes a bad card, I think your 4 points are faulty.

1. With Preodain and other options available the deck doesn't lose that much consistancy. What it does lose is the ability to just combo out of nowhere. What does this mean? The power level of the deck drops. What 3 cards can you possibly run to add more power than the 3 black cards once your deck is at 57 cards? The correct answer is none.

2. Yes, Nature's Claim makes Gushbond decks better at fighting their nemesis, Workshops. If you mean that they can kill Fastbond easier, dosen't that make Will even better because it gets it back? Seems like a terrible argument.

3. Time Vault makes traditionally slow Drain decks even faster. Why would you not run a card that offers you even more explosiveness?

4. I don't see how Lodestone Golem could possibly make Will worse since it lets you win in 1 turn via bounce->make huge Coatl.

No offence, but having to argue Yawgmoth's Will and the 2 best tutors vs 1 nonbasic land seems beyond stupid. I will go on the record as saying that if your Gushbond deck does not run Yawgmoth's Will you are doing it wrong. You can quote me on that when it never stops being true.

If you want to keep this pile straight UG go for it, but when you present your deck and ask for optimization without listing arbitrary restrictions don't be surprised when people tell you your later slapped on arbitrary restrictions are stupid.

Fuck when I first posted here I was hoping we'd end up with some awesome new Coatl deck thanks for blowing that.

[jp22102000]

I also have been thinking of a miracle grow deck with the unrestricting of Gush and Frantic.  I was playtesting a grow deck a while back that had black in it for the tutors and 2 duress and 4 thoughtsieze, although the deck used Quirion.  I had some success with it but I simply moved onto other decks (still trying to find a deck I like).  Personally I would splash black at least for Demonic, Vampiric and Yawgmoths Will, and might still play 3-4 discard if I had room.  When I playtested the old build I found that the discard did help.

[serracollector]

ok, so after quite a few test games I have decided to post the decklist I currently am using, and I finally gave in an added black.  I really didn't want to, and without confidants, I am not really sure if the splash is needed, but it hasn't hurt.


Ancestral
time walk
Mystical tutor
Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Yawg Win
Merchant Scroll
regrowth
fastbond
Cunning wish
Brainstorm
2 x Jace TMS
1 x Berserk
3 x Gush
2 x Frantic Search
2 x thoughtseize
2 x Spell Pierce
1 x Echoing truth
3 x Lorescale Coatl
1 x Pyschatog
4 x Lotus Cobra
4 x Force of Will
4 x trop
2 x U sea
1 x forest
3 x Island
1 x Library of Draw
1 x Strip Mine
5 x Moxen
1 x Sol Ring
1 x Lotus

SB
4 x T. Crypt
3 x Nature's Claim
3 x Pithing Needle
3 x Sower of temptation
1 x Plummet


The deck has been doing very well against fish and MUD, storm...not so good. 
the idea is kinda like the grow of old, grow grow, berserk swing. 

The problems I am facing is even with the mass draw and 5 tutors and only running 17 lands, I have this horrible habit of drawing into mass mana and nothing else.  Should i drop  a few lands for more frantics and maybe add the DA back in?  Thanks.

[Darkenslight]

My suggestion would be to drop the one-of 'Zerk and add in Distortion Strike, 'cause unblockability > Trample.

Also, if you're playing with FS, then I'd also suggest dropping Cunning Wish and Scroll for either:

2 FS;
Gush+FS;
Ponder+FS;
or 2 Preordain/Crystal Ball.

[Hayek]

As for modern times dictating that Will magically becomes a bad card, I think your 4 points are faulty.

<snip>

God you are missing the point. 

The point of the post you're responding to isn't that "Yawgmoth's Will is probably not good because of these four things," but more a "we shouldn't rush to make ANY broad, sweeping statements about decks (no matter how obvious these seem) just because those things have been true in the past."

Regarding Will: past results would dictate that it deserve a slot in any Gush based deck.  However, arguments for or against splashing black in a deck for Will + 2/3 tutors (or for that matter, for or against ANYTHING in the deck) mean nothing if those arguments are not backed up by testing in the current metagame.   

Apologies if this post comes of as condescending or whatever (this was not my intention).  I'm responding to your post mainly because my initial testing with Gush has shown that some Gush decks might not want one such card that people here assume is an auto-include.  I've been goldfishing a GAT style deck with Bobs, and have found that the deck just gets hurt a lot with Fastbond + 8 five cmc cards (force + gush).  In response to this, I've cut Force of Will and am toying with the idea of cutting Fastbond for Lotus Cobras.  Cutting Fastbond might ultimately turn out to be the wrong thing to do (although I'm still interested in trying to fit Cobra into the deck), but so far my initial testing without Force has been going well, as Confidant seems like it might be better against MUD than Force of Will is.

Anyway, before we bash the deck posted in the original post (or, for that matter, before the original poster posts his decidedly untested list), I really think we should all spend a week or so testing our preliminary Gush lists against what is theoretically this deck's worst matchup (MUD), paying particular attention to the following questions:

1) What colors do I want?  Some people used to splash R in GAT's board for Ingot Chewer/Shaterring Spree a couple of years back.  Is this still necessary?  Green now has access to Nature's Claim, and something like Viridian Shaman, which gets around Thorn and Golem, might also be helpful.  Red, however, still has REB for Drains/Blue.

2) How can I reconfigure my mana base in order to combat MUD's sphere/waste effects?  IIRC, three color GAT tended to run ~ 18 mana sources (14 lands, 3 on color mox, 1 lotus).  Does GAT want another mana source?  If so, is this another land, or another piece of artifact mana?  Does GAT in the current meta even want to run moxen? 

2b) We now have access to an U/G fetch.  Do Gush decks want basic forest in order to combat spheres and wastes, even if the inclusion of basic forest slows down the deck's ability to Gush?

3) Are the best Gush decks the ones that chain Gushes together in something we might recognize as a Gushbond engine, or those that just seek to Gush once or twice to gain CA and eventual permanent advantage over MUD?  If the former, then how can we stall out that deck before we can bounce their shit eot and go crazy?  If the latter, then how can we make our mana base more resilient to their hate before we overwhelm them?

4) Exactly how much artifact removal/bounce do we want in the main?

5) What are the best creatures?  Can we really afford to run a 3 cmc creature when we're playing against MUD?

I understand that some of these questions might seem ridiculous to explore (no moxen?  basic forest?), and that there are probably a lot of other points worth investigating, but frankly, I'm sick to death of reading people theorize about their untested lists on this website + make suggestions that are not backed up by any testing.  Instead of trying to come up with hypothetical "best lists" before we've played any games, can we instead just agree on a couple of points we'd like to explore in testing, and then actually test, before we post further about Gush?

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

Two points to defend myself and then hopefully this will end.

#1. I'm not against new ideas. I have no idea why you people are reading miles into this when its 2 inches deep. Not running black in Gushbond is the equivalent of cutting Workshop in MUD. Sure you can go for it, but you better have a damn good reason for not doing so. The reason presented was as bad as "Mishra's Workshop is a bad topdeck". Even if you ignore the whole rant about Gushbond Tendrils that was 100% random this is still all about the OP being VERY unclear about what they wanted.

#2. I know the flavor of the month is "new ideas", but can you try to keep in mind that the reason most ideas become staples is because they're groundbreaking ideas? Even people much smarter than me or you can win entire tournaments and not have their ideas catch on. Yeah Lotus Cobra is insane in this metagame. Even people who knew about the deck were caught with their pants down. I'm not going to pretend I know the thought process that led to this innovation, but I'm willing to bet money there was a direct objective in mind from the start. Now if you want help from others you need to tell them that objective or else they're going to shoot blanks and you're going to go on rants about Gushbond Tendrils. This leads to everyone wasting their time reading and responding to needless sniping from both sides.

Now can we drop this?

[saradoc]

Playing frantic search and gush on the same deck is a big mistake, both cards have no sinergy together. With frantic you want 3 lands in play and gush brings them back to your hand.

I also think lotus cobra and coatl are both the worst cards you can draw in this deck.