8 Gush GAT?

[meadbert]

1 Fastbond
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Gush
4 Fathom Seer

This is so early that I do not have a list mostly because I have come up with nothing good yet.

Fastbond + Gush is really good, but throwing in Lotus Cobra makes it even better.

From there Fathom Seer starts to get tempting.  Lotus Cobra makes playing Fathom Seer much easier and it helps you continue to hit your land drops.

Also, Fathom Seer is a solid blocker against opposing Lotus Cobra and Dark Confidant.

From there I am not sure where to go.

The obvious direction to run is black for Yawg will and Tutors.
I will say that Yawg will is slightly weaker with Fathom Seers since they do not go to the yard like Gush and they cannot be played face down even if they are in the yard.
This does not mean Yawg is out.  It is still busted, but that is worth pointing out.

With 12 Gush/Cobra it is tempting to run Enlightened Tutors to find Fastbond reliably.  White also gives Argivian Find.
It is not clear that Argivian Find is better than Nostalgic Dreams which has the possibility of getting back multiple Gushes and usually can discard unneeded lands.
ETs + Finds would make Vault/Key possible, but Vault/Key has no other synergy.

Jace might even make sense since you can bounce your own Fathom Seer to have a sort of recurable Gush, but I am not sure that is much better than Brainstorm.
Jace has some synergy with both Gush and Fathom Seer since you can use 2 lands a mox to play a Jace on turn 3.
Fathom Seer can block for Jace to keep Jace alive longer.
Cobra helps accelerate out Jace.

As far as win conditions there are several ways to go.  One way is the Crucible of Worlds Turboland win with Fastbond.
This has some severe problems in this deck.  First you would need to run the combo lands which reduce your Island count for both Gush and Fathom Seer.
Second, with 8 Gushes missing land drops is much less of a problem so being able to play lands from your yard does not really matter.
I am pretty sure Crucible is wrong for this deck.

Another option is Lorescale Coatl.  Coatl with 8 Gushes and possibly Jaces grows outrageously fast.
Dryad is also an option.

Painter/Grindstone can have synergy since you can use extra lands to pitch to Force, Misdirection or Commandeer.

The final question is which disruption to run.  Force of Will seems obvious.  Mana Drain is decent since 3 Drain mana can pay for Fathom Seer.
Drain helps Drain into Jace.  Also with Cobra out you can crack a fetch to pay for Drain.
Any build that runs tons of tutors for Fastbond might like Daze since bouncing lands is harmless.
Spell Pierce is obviously a good counter in general.

Thoughtseize is painful in conjunction with so many Gush effects, but Duress could be good.
Mindtwist is also a strong option.  I will explain later.

Here is perhaps a fundamental flaw in the whole engine:

Big Mana or Small:
This is a decision one must make as a deck designer.  Do you run lots of mana sources and then expensive bombs or do you run fewer mana sources with cheap efficient draw.
This deck is sort of forced into the Big Mana direction.  You obviously go nuts with Fastbond out, but even with Lotus Cobra and a mox you end up with turns where you tap 2 lands and a mox for 3, Gush and replay a land to get to 5 mana.  The downside is you are forced to run "too many" mana sources by traditional GAT standards.
You basically want 16 lands along with 6 Mox/Lotus and then the Cobras which is already 26 mana sources.
Once 26 mana source forces you into Big Mana land do you really want to be rewinding your development by bouncing two of your Islands?
While Cobras and Gush have synnergy they sort of pull your deck in different directions.
The result is that such a list is a "big mana" list which makes it the polar opposite of GAT in certain respects.
This is part of the reason that I feel my instincts may be wrong for such a list.
Because this ends up being a "big mana" list Mindtwist, a card that inconsistent with GAT, actually makes sense.
Basically if you drop Cobra on turn 1 off a Mox and then play a fetchland on turn 2 you are looking at 5 mana which means you can either Mindtwist for 4 or for 3 with Pierce backup.

I am really not sure what such a list should look like and I have not come up with anything competitive yet, but I would not surprised if a competitive list exists.

Here is the most recent list that I was testing.  Essentially it is slow in that Drain and Mindtwist are rarely turn 1 plays and it is not a combo deck itself.  Starting turn 2 things start to look up, but this needs work.

Help!

2 Scalding Tarn
2 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal (So good when played for Fastbond in front of Gush/Seer)
4 Mindtwist
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Jace,The Mindsculptor
4 Fathom Seer
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
4 Force Of Will
4 Gush
4 Mana Drain
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Fastbond
4 Lotus Cobra
1 Regrowth

[Blue Lotus]

I used to run i.mask with fathom seer. But I'm sure if that even works anymore. It would be a sweet alt win condition and works well against spheres (i think I really don't even know how that card works anymore)

[madlucas]

Just tested few games (about 10) on MWS with some friends and I immediately realized that this deck has not any card that wins on the spot so I would cut 1 Mind Twist for 1 Tendrils of Agony.
I found out that after the first mind twist a second one or a third one is pretty useless.

[TopSecret]

If you add Summer Bloom, this deck becomes ridonkulous.

(Actually, I probably should not have said that because now the format will be broken.)

It's like a ritual, except it also enables Gush. Is there any downside?!

[meadbert]

Just tested few games (about 10) on MWS with some friends and I immediately realized that this deck has not any card that wins on the spot so I would cut 1 Mind Twist for 1 Tendrils of Agony.
I found out that after the first mind twist a second one or a third one is pretty useless.

What I was doing was just Mindtwisting their hand, playing out some creatures and maybe Jace and then passing the turn or Time Walking with a few counters.

Having the win now option would be nice so Tendrils would be nice.
A token Lorescale Coatl could also be good.
I can definitely see dropping Mindtwist because as you said if the first resolves you really do not need another one.

Summer Bloom is interesting.  It is similar to Exploration which I am pretty sure is not good enough for this list, but an extra 3 lands now is probably better than an extra land every turns just as Black Lotus is better than a Mox.  I will test it, but I am not THAT excited about it.  It is certainly interesting though.  Good find!



EDIT:  Upon further consideration Summer Bloom is probably worse than Exploration because it costs more.  It is still interesting though.

Another card that has synergy, but is probably not good enough is Save the Momment.
This is the Time Walk that skips your untap phase.  The reason that is okay is that you have Jace to potentially reuse and you can Gush lands back to you hand.
You can replay those for more mana which can be used to play more Savor the Momments.
I think this falls into the category of "cool things" which are just not good enough, but I thought I would throw it out there given the synergies with
Jace, Lotus Cobra, Gush and Fathom Seer.

[Qube]

I would consider also Sol Ring/Crypt, because you want "bigmana" and it helps to assemble morphcosts, bigger twists, more cobra first turn, faster jace... also i would look for petal>pearl, cause drain first turn, cobra...

Maybe you should add some Pierce, otherwise you maybe get problems in the first 1-3 turns.

Against what have you tested it allready?

[meadbert]

Sol Ring could be a good idea for the reasons you have listed.  I either need to cut to 15 lands, cut to 3 Lotus Cobra, go to 27 mana sources or replace a Mox.
Of all of those I am most inclined to cut a land, but this list does not run Ponder or Preordains so it needs more lands to reliably start Gushing that GAT.
I am not sure that 15 will be enough.  Sol Ring is really good with Mindtwist, Jace and Fathom Seer.   I will test that.
Lotus Petal also falls into this group.  Definitely it has good uses including getting Drain up on turn 1.

There is pretty much no way that Mana Crypt can work because you already lose so much life from Fastbond.  I love Mana Crypt in general, but it is just too risky.

I will answer Pierce and testing results at once.

I have only tested against Snake City Vault and Joe Brown Mud.
The fundamental problem with the list I gave is that it is too slow.  I do not mean goldfish speed.  I mean how quickly disruption comes down.
Snake City Vault runs Forces, Pierces and Duress effects while this deck just has Pierces on turn 1.

Dark Confidant can be very threatening if it resolves on turn 1.  The same is true of Lodestone Golem.

Spell Pierce does not solve either of those two problems although it would counter Oath of Druids which I have not tested against yet.  I really want that first turn counter spell, but Pierce is frequently too conditional.
Thoughtseize is tempting, but the life loss is scary.  Unlike Mana Crypt I can at least control the life loss.  I could always use a mix that includes some number of each.

I do not have hard numbers on the results, but Steel City Vault felt fairly bad and Joe Brown Mud felt bad, but not as bad.
Basically you have enough mana to play out from under Sphere effects.  The big threat is Golem since the damage adds up quick if you try to use Fastbond.

[KingHeavy]

Love Gush... I just put up a list of an idea im working on in another creative thread, it has similarities to your list but with a different win con.  Keep up the artistic thinking!

[heiner]

HI all,

I have also been testing a new GAT list which is based on the following cards:

- High Tide
- Ideas Unbound
- Twincast

All cards synergize really nice with gush and when goldfishing this dec it is extremely broken. Both twincast and Ideas take the role of the 4 merchant scrolls prior to restriction. Ideas can be ok even when not comboing as you can draw 3 fresh cards and discard lands. Fastbond is absolutely broken in this dec so imp. seal is definitely in. But using high tide it is often possible to combo out without it, or to draw into it later.
The problem with this cards is that they can be dead in certain situations, twincast I actually like best as it is quite flexible acting as a counter spell and much more. It allows a 3rd turn gush+twincast+drop land play which is quite nice and has copied ancestral many many times.  The problem with the dec is that it gets even worse than gat against workshops. Here's the list:

broken:
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Time Walk

kill
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Quirion Dryad

Control
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize

Draw:
1 Ponder
4 Preordain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
4 Gush
3 Ideas Unbound
3 Twincast

Mana accel:
2 High Tide
1 Fastbond
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire

15 land
1 Flooded Strand
3 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea

[tony3]

Just threw this together for ideas.  I want more beats, but not sure if Tarmogoyf/Confident/Tog etc. would really fit.

Lands: 17
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Polluted Delta
4x Tropical Island
4x Underground Sea
1x Island

Mana: 6
5 Moxen
1 Lotus

Broke: 3
1 Time Walk
1 Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Draw/Tutor: 6
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Jace, the Mindsculptor

Disruption: 8
4 Force of Will
4 Daze

Engine: 19
4 Gush
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Fathom Seer
3 Summer Bloom
2 High Tide
1 Fast bond

Win: 2
2 Tendrils