The State of Gush

[Rico Suave]

I would like to share my current thoughts on Gush, the state of blue decks, and the combo/control archetype in general.

As a warning, this will contain a lot of my opinion and also maybe a bit of rambling.  It will also contain poor attempts at humor.

OK, so where are we?  Looking at tournament results lately, it seems that blue decks are all over the place.  We have Tezz, Trygon Tezz, Bob Tezz, Thoughtcast, Gush, Gush storm, Gush Cobra storm, Almost Blue, All Blue, Red White and Blue, and all sorts of other variations of blue decks possible.  I'm not here to pass judgement on any of these decks.  I'm just trying to point out that there are a variety of blue decks available which are seeing competitive play. 

So if you see me call something terrible, but it still sees competitive play or wins a tournament, well that's just the nature of the beast.  I can show you evidence of Mountain Goat making the top 8 of a tournament, but I will still call it terrible.

Alright, now that is out of the way, why play blue?  Well I can give you a simple reason: we get to play Force of Will.

http://morphling.de/

October 2010 Top 15
Vintage (16 events)
1. Force of Will (260)
2. Leyline of the Void (199)
3. Wasteland (168)

Now a question that is actually difficult, why play Gush?  Well it is my belief that Gush is the strongest engine available for blue decks currently.  Do I have proof of this?  No.  Are Gush decks dominating tournaments?  Not exactly.  Maybe we can change that.

But first we need to understand a little bit of history.  To me, the concept of "control" does not exist.  We aren't playing decks that are looking to hide behind a wall of permission, answers, and card draw.  We may have been trying to establish an impenetrable fortress in the days of Weissman but those days do not exist any longer.  Stopping the opponent does not win the game.  No, our decks have much more proactive goals.  Ever since Morphling was introduced to the world, these "control" decks have always had a purpose.  We aren't looking to survive forever, we're looking to survive long enough that our more expensive but more powerful plan takes over. 

In modern Vintage, there are three main plans that rise to the top for a blue deck:
a) Tendrils of Agony
b) Vault/Key
c) Tinker - Robot

I believe all 3 of those plans are necessary at this point in time.  Tendrils is innately the best.  For 4 mana and one card, we win the game.  Not a bad deal.  Unfortunately, there will be times we cannot realistically play 10 spells in one turn for whatever reason.  During these times, we play Vault/Key and Tinker - Robot. 

I suppose at this point it would be helpful to provide a list.  Here is one example.

Mana (25)
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
2 Mox Opal

Win (4)
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind

Control (10)
3 Spell Pierce
3 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

Draw (11)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Gush

Tutors (5)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Gifts Ungiven

Broken (5)
1 Fastbond
1 Regrowth
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will

SB:
3 Duress
1 Mountain
4 Ingot Chewer
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Ravenous Trap
4 Yixlid Jailer

Before I go on, I want to express a specific phenomenon in the deck building process.  Some people might not follow this plan, but I do.  My plan is simple.  I like my deck to work. 

My goal is to cast spells, and I understand this takes mana, so I like to include mana in my deck.  But for some strange reason, I see people all the time include amounts of mana that do not let them cast their spells.  And because I like to cast my spells, I do not include Polar Kraken in my deck, despite the fact it dominates Tarmogoyf in a fist fight.  Yet I see people include spells in their decks that are way too expensive.  This is strange to me. 

So when I go about building a deck for my own play, I treat my mana base like money - I like it in abundant supply, but not so much that I don't know what to do with it all.  And I like my spells like my women - cheap and effective.  Maybe this is why I'm not married.

But given a choice?  I would rather have 3 lands and a Ponder before having 3 lands and 2 Jace.  Casting one bad spell is better than not being able to cast 2 good spells.

Mana

The notable standout in this particular list is Mox Opal.  I don't want this to be all about Mox Opal.  I think the card is solid.  Have you played with it before?  Well maybe you should give it a shot and you might like it.  If you have tried it and don't like it?  Well no biggie.  Go ahead and Lotus Cobra or more land or something else.  I've been playing it for a while and still don't have a firm opinion on it, but I think it has a tremendous amount of potential. 

That out of the way, perhaps the most important thing to discuss isn't what is in the deck, but rather what is NOT in the deck.  You will not see a Dark Ritual here.  This is because Dark Ritual is a bad card against Workshops.  I'm not saying that decks with Dark Ritual are bad against Workshops.  I'm saying the card is bad there.

There has been a historic problem for many blue decks.  In order to operate against Workshops, a blue deck needs permanent mana sources.  I could take the term permanent mana source and abbreviate it, but I don't think that would fly too well.
1) Do I play 20 permanent mana sources and 4 Rituals? 
2) Do I play 24 permanent mana sources and no Rituals?
3) Do I play 24 permanent mana sources and 4 Rituals?

The first one is an instant castration of the Workshop match.  I'm sorry, but I just do not see how playing a deck with 20 or less sources of permanent mana can work against Workshops.  We will lose the die roll once in a while, and from there we quickly find ourselves in situations where our greediness kills us.  When the opponent goes "Sphere, go" we will be desperate for everything we can get to stick to the board.

The second one is the happy medium.  Granted, it doesn't involve Rituals.  But it works.

The third also works against Workshops.  We will have enough mana sources to operate under Spheres reliably, and we will be able to cast our spells (I know, what a novel concept).  The problem?  We will flood.  Mana flood is fairly obvious against another blue deck, but yes it's even possible to flood against Workshops.  When our hand is 2 Rituals and a Tendrils, with 4 lands on the board, we have flooded.  It's not that we have too much mana.  It's that we didn't draw enough things to cast. 

So there is a breaking point if we include Dark Ritual.  We need to include enough mana to operate under Spheres, but not so much that we can't combo them out.  Long story short, I don't think Dark Ritual and Gush are ideal together.  Yes it is awesome to play with Necropotence.  No, I don't think the card is good enough to warrant 5 slots in my deck and nearly 20% of my mana base.  Lotus Petal is in a similar boat.

But that doesn't mean we play without acceleration.  On the contrary, acceleration is exceptionally important to me and what I'm trying to do here.  Acceleration is important against Workshops so we don't get buried under Spheres immediately, and it's important against other blue decks so we can present our combos in a quick and timely fashion if the opportunity presents itself.  It's important against Dredge so we can legitimately race them.  And it's important against the guy who brought Affinity this week so we're not embarrassed by Legacy decks.  Cards like Mana Vault in particular are solid in the Workshop match, as it not only lets us get mana on the board but also lets us circumvent things like Chalice at 0 which can be very backbreaking.

I am usually not one to go for a 4 color mana base.  As I said before I like my decks to work.  Part of the reason I feel comfortable with 4 colors is Mox Opal, so keep that in mind.  The other part is that the deck is still blue-based.  It's not really a 4 color deck.  Against Dredge and other blue decks I don't even use the color red, and against things like Workshops it morphs into a Ur deck, but I'll discuss that more in depth later.

Control

Previously, I have not been too much of a fan of Mana Drain.  In an environment where people are casting Golems and Dark Confidants and Oath of Druids and tapping Bazaars of Baghdad, I don't think Drain is fast enough to defend ourselves.  And it's always been awkward getting UU, especially if we want to do something with Drain back-up.  But with Mox Opal it is more reliable and faster.  Furthermore, the Gush engine itself helps us solve many of the previous problems with Drain - problems like Oath or Bob that could slip under Drain and give us headaches before.  But now?  Well, with Gush we can just overpower those cards and win through them.

Draw

One of the drawbacks of playing a deck with both Tendrils and Vault/Key and Tinker - Robot and other things of this nature is that things can become clunky.  We might draw Vault and Tendrils, which doesn't do much.  We might Gush into a Voltaic Key, which means we need to stop mid-combo and pass the turn.  We might accidentally draw a Robot which is really bad news if we were intending on Tinkering for it.  Basically what this means is we have a number of bad draws, and we need stronger card manipulation than if we were only to run a single win condition.  We need stronger card manipulation so that instead of being stuck with a near useless Time Vault, we can dig far enough to find that Key and make it win immediately.  Top digs further than other comparable cards like Preordain.  It digs far enough to make things come together.  And perhaps more importantly, with so many "dead" draws available in the deck, Top prevents us from drawing something bad.

Top is really good.  Is 3 too many?  Maybe.  Does my win percentage skyrocket the moment it enters play?  Yes.  Remember I treat my spells like my women, and in this case it's better to have 2 than to have 0.

Sideboard

Duress is pretty good.  It might not be as good against other blue decks as REB however there are a few issues.  First of all, mana bases are important to me.  I don't think playing a 4 color deck is wise in general, so I have trouble justifying a UBgr deck with REBs and everything.  That's just asking to malfunction.  But with Duress I get to play UBg which is very comfortable with Tendrils and the other black spells in the deck.  Secondly, Duress can take Will, Necropotence, and anything with the storm mechanic which REB just loses to.  Third, Duress lets the deck do something it couldn't do before, while REB doesn't do anything new.

On the subject of Dredge, I have taken a slightly different stance than I have previously.  With Gush, and the tremendous amount of combo potential in this deck, I feel that this deck will be able to fight the good fight and race very often.  Whether it is going off with Gush into Will, or establishing a quick Vault/Key, there are going to be times that we want to keep a hand that looks like Land/Land/Mox/Top/Gush without hate.  This is because we can play Top, look at 3, then untap and Fetch->Gush->dig and look at 8 new cards with 2 mana floating by the 2nd turn.  The digging power here is enormous, and as such I feel it is important to have a hate card that I can dig into as opposed to Leyline which would be useless if I were to dig into it.  So Jailer is a slightly different approach, but hey if you're comfortable with a Leyline/Jailer approach then go for it.  A lone Trap is because I enjoy having such an effect in my deck, particularly with Top, and particularly with Top and a topdeck tutor. 

Workshops, however, are the serious area of concern.  Despite my best efforts, I have been unable to make a traditional Ubg or Ug approach work for a Gush deck.  In fact, the only way I can get green to work reliably is with Oath of Druids, but that is an entirely different deck. 

It's not that green is bad.  The problem is Chalice at 1.  Chalice at 1 is already crippling, and losing Nature's Claim to it as well is brutal.  If our opponent cuts off Nature's Claim it can be pretty tough to get Trygon into play in the first place because we can't remove those Spheres or Golems or Wires that are preventing us from getting to 3 mana mainphase.  Then even if we manage to get Trygon into play, we're putting all our eggs into one basket as we try to get the beast through their Hellkite, Trisk, or Dupe.  And we can't remove that Hellkite either, because our Claim doesn't work.  Now I know not everyone will play Hellkite.  But that doesn't mean I want to lose to it either.

Red has worked for me though.  Both Chewer and Grudge dodge Chalice at 1, so we don't just lose to that play which is always nice.  Chewer can be awkward against Wire, but Grudge is instant speed so we can still get around that card.  Grudge might be awkward against a bunch of Thorns/Spheres, but Chewer slips under those nicely.  And Grudge helps simulate the continuous artifact destruction that locks Workshop players out of the game.  It's important that the cards we board in for this match don't lose to the cards they already play. 

Making Sense

The goal is to play the Gush engine in a consistent shell, but without sacrificing the Workshop match.  The core foundation of the deck is built on the raw power of Gush and the restricted list.  As such, we will ride the back of that to most of our victories.  On average we are going to be doing things that are just better than anything our opponent is going to do. 

So for starters we need that critical threshold of business spells necessary to maintain the Gush combo.  When we start to Gush, we want to keep Gushing and not have to stop mid turn if at all possible.  We want to be able to cascade from one action spell into the next, even if they're not all Gushes, and eventually climax with a Will or Tendrils or other game state that is equally devastating.  So we need to have a lot of draw/search/tutoring power in the deck.  It is important that tuning and adjusting does not take away from this.

We also need a way to defeat Workshops.  In this case, our main plans will be Vault/Key and Tinker-Robot.  It's important to make sure that our cards support our plan and need to be there.  It sucks playing Duress against Workshops, but it also sucks playing Hurkyl's Recall against blue decks too.  Make sure that the cards in your deck don't suck, even if you think they have a good reason to be there. 

I hope that if nothing else this might have been helpful to others trying to get their bearings straight or spark some new ideas.

[honestabe]

Very well-written and though provoking.

I also like to see that someone else share shares my opinion of red being the way to go vs shops.  Do you ever feel like you want Rack and Ruin?  I personally dig the card advantage you get off it, as well as the tempo boost.

[nineisnoone]

But first we need to understand a little bit of history.  To me, the concept of "control" does not exist.  We aren't playing decks that are looking to hide behind a wall of permission, answers, and card draw.  We may have been trying to establish an impenetrable fortress in the days of Weissman but those days do not exist any longer.  Stopping the opponent does not win the game.  No, our decks have much more proactive goals.  Ever since Morphling was introduced to the world, these "control" decks have always had a purpose.  We aren't looking to survive forever, we're looking to survive long enough that our more expensive but more powerful plan takes over.

I have always been a huge fan of this point.  Vintage decks (at least competitive modern ones) do not simply "stop;" they just momentarily slow down.  As deck building improves (and a growing card pool increases deck building potential) more and more decks gain resiliency against situations where they would normally just stop dead in their tracks.  Decks these days don't lose; they just don't get around to winning.

addressing some specific points:

Jace - Always been a huge fan, but if it's not your thing, it's not your thing.  However, I would retort that many feel that the analysis you give Tendrils of Agony is the same one many give for Jace, i.e. "Four mana, one card, win the game."  Personally, I've always loved Jace, but hey, I love Top too.  Top makes more sense here in as well.

Drain - I'm not up-to-date with the meta, but my general opinions of Drain has always been it's mostly important in certain match-ups where the opponent is running it, i.e. in "control" mirror match-ups.  In this deck however, it seems more like just another counter.  Perhaps more of a janky-suggestion then you'd like, but have you ever tried out Muddle the Mixture?  Anything that it can't counter, you can transmute it to find an answer.  This would be useful in the Shop match-up where Transmute isn't effected by spheres  and you can grab a Hurkyls or Ancient Grudge.  You could even grab Vault. Yes, it's very slow, but it adds versatility.  I would probably add a fourth spell pierce before considering it though.

Gush - In my eyes you kinda skimmed over the part where you explain why playing Gush is a good idea (not that it really needs a huge explanation).  Personally, I'm not all that sold on Gush and I don't see it rising to dominance.  It's a perfectly fine card choice, but I just don't see it offering much.  At the end of the day it just draws two cards which is good, but not jawdropping.  And it's combo-strength is there, but I do feel like there are stronger combo options that what were around prior.  Sure it gives you a bit more flexibility with win-conditions, but you don't really explain why its better to run 3 types of wins rather than 1-2 which are more focused.  

Tutors - How have they been working for you?  I kind of question how good these are going to be with your Gush plan.  Mystical seems fairly weak aside from Recall and Tinker.  I'm also not sure how good Scroll -> Gush is when there is only 1 Scroll in your deck as well which leaves you with Scroll -> Recall or Scroll -> Mystical (which I don't particularly like as a play).  Even Vamp seems kinda of poor outside of Vault-Key.  I'm not sure what I would replace those cards with, but it feels like with so many fancy cards like Tendrils, Fastbond, Vault/Key, etc.  You need something more meaty, and 3 Tops don't seem like enough.

[Smmenen]

SHHHHHHH!!!   Don't tell anyone!   Gush is currently an undercover brother.   

I agree with you, but I think it will be a few months, at least, before Gush decks take off.   There are too many barriers to performing well with Gush.   Too many players don't really know how Gush decks work, and they are very different from traditional or conventional blue decks.  Experience or expertise with Gush is more important than ever, now that you don't get all of the other goodies along with Gush.   

[Royal Ass.]

Very nice write up, and fun to read.  The Mox Opal inclusion is interesting.  I'm wondering how reliable it is.  I assume with all the draw that it isn't difficult to get metalcraft up quickly.

I have not tried putting together a gush deck yet.  One thing that I wonder about is just how critical it is to get Fastbond in play.  Like how do you decide whether to tutor for Fastbond and hope your gushes draw you into cards that allow you to combo out or just try to get tinker and play a bot and hope you have a few turns to swing?

[znoyes]

Hi,

I like the article.

What is your oppinion on:

Hurkyl's Recall maindeck (or sb) (interactions include: storm count booster, null rod bounce, tops drawing, workshop matchup timewalk/setup win)?
Top #4 vs ponder or other (I like top alot lately in gush lists, esp if you're playing opal)?
Choice of tinker target? (My favorite in a drain list is Battlesphere, if for no other reason than, half the time he entered play, I cast him.)
Some sort of answer to Gaddock Teeg/other annoying hate creature in sb (bolt, fire/ice, pyroclasm, firespout, etc)?

Thank you.

[znoyes]

One final question (sorry, should have added this above): what about a singleton cunning wish (optimally gets something for each matchup)? Thanks.

[TheShop]

Great read!  I enjoy the simplicity approach to deckbuilding.  One question on the list posted.  You have 25 mana sources, but only 14 lands.   I am a major proponent of the rock solid base, but I have always interpreted "rock solid" as 17-18 lands(3 of which were basic).  I am not dogging you on this, I just really want an insight into the though process here.  Chalice at 0 seems brutal here, as does wasteland, ratchet bomb...thank goodness you don't run into null rod.

I truly, nonsarcastically don't understand how manabases in blue control work.  Is there an article on this I can read or something, because all of mine have always had 25 sources(16 land, 9 artifact) because that was a sort of average from what I was seeing online.

[Rico Suave]

I also like to see that someone else share shares my opinion of red being the way to go vs shops.  Do you ever feel like you want Rack and Ruin?  I personally dig the card advantage you get off it, as well as the tempo boost.

I dunno, is it better than Ancient Grudge?

Jace - Always been a huge fan, but if it's not your thing, it's not your thing.  However, I would retort that many feel that the analysis you give Tendrils of Agony is the same one many give for Jace, i.e. "Four mana, one card, win the game."  Personally, I've always loved Jace, but hey, I love Top too.  Top makes more sense here in as well.

There are a lot of cards that, for 4 mana, will win us the game.  The question is how many do we want to play in our deck?  I think maintaining a low mana curve is important, especially in a deck that wants to be casting Gush and generally keeping a low land count.

If I were to run Jace I'd cut Gifts, but personally I feel Gifts is a better investment of 4 mana (though this might not be true for everyone, which is fine).

Drain - I'm not up-to-date with the meta, but my general opinions of Drain has always been it's mostly important in certain match-ups where the opponent is running it, i.e. in "control" mirror match-ups.  In this deck however, it seems more like just another counter.  Perhaps more of a janky-suggestion then you'd like, but have you ever tried out Muddle the Mixture?  Anything that it can't counter, you can transmute it to find an answer.  This would be useful in the Shop match-up where Transmute isn't effected by spheres  and you can grab a Hurkyls or Ancient Grudge.  You could even grab Vault. Yes, it's very slow, but it adds versatility.  I would probably add a fourth spell pierce before considering it though.

Personally, I wouldn't run Muddle.  I just don't think it's that good.  I could be wrong.

But even beyond that, Drain is an important part of my strategy against Workshops.  With Chewers and Grudges, along with Force and Pierce, I find that I can fight their important cards one at a time long enough to squeeze in a Vault/Key or Tinker/Robot.  So Drain gives me a way to ramp from 2 mana and overcome a lock piece to get to 3 mana for something like Tinker.  But also, perhaps more importantly, is that Drain protects me from bombs like Duplicant or Karn that can be devastating even if I'm sitting on a Chewer in hand.

Gush - In my eyes you kinda skimmed over the part where you explain why playing Gush is a good idea (not that it really needs a huge explanation).  Personally, I'm not all that sold on Gush and I don't see it rising to dominance.  It's a perfectly fine card choice, but I just don't see it offering much.  At the end of the day it just draws two cards which is good, but not jawdropping.  And it's combo-strength is there, but I do feel like there are stronger combo options that what were around prior.  Sure it gives you a bit more flexibility with win-conditions, but you don't really explain why its better to run 3 types of wins rather than 1-2 which are more focused. 

True, I didn't really cover why I think Gush is better than alternative options. 

The reason I think Gush is good isn't because it draws 2 cards.  I think it's good because it draws 2 cards...for free.  This is ridiculously broken.  Yeah, remember that rule about needing to spend mana to cast spells?  That rule doesn't apply to Gush. 

I have this theory about cards following a cost:effect formula.  In short, the effect is only half of what matters and the cost is just as important.  This is why nobody plays Polar Kraken, despite the effect being a lot better than Tarmogoyf which does see play. 

In terms of card draw it's a lot easier to see.  When we cast Ancestral, we draw 3 cards.  But we also get the same number of cards from Concentrate.  So why is Ancestral broken but Concentrate is unplayable?  Because Ancestral is only one freaking mana.  The cost is obscenely good.

Ancestral Recall = 1 mana : 3 cards
Necropotence = 3 mana : 19 cards

I would consider these two cards successful.  Their cost:effect ratio is somewhere between 1:3 and 1:6 on average (mana per card received).

Gush = -1 mana : 2 cards

When you go to a restaurant, normally you tip the waiter.  When Gush goes to a restaurant, the waiter tips it.  You can insert your favorite Chuck Norris joke here. 

I can't think of a readily castable card drawing agent that approaches this level of efficiency.

Sure it gives you a bit more flexibility with win-conditions, but you don't really explain why its better to run 3 types of wins rather than 1-2 which are more focused.

Well, I firmly believe that being able to win is important.  And while Vault/Key may effectively win, our opponent might ask us to comply with the rules of the game.  So we need a Tendrils and/or a Robot of some kind which will let us reduce their life total to 0.

Tendrils is pretty good.  Outside of rare cases like Oath of Druids, Tendrils has been in nearly every blue deck I've played for over a year now.  Explaining why might take a very long time, so if you want justification on that card I can provide it but I don't want to go off here and now.

But against a deck with like 13 Sphere effects, Tendrils is not so good.  We must resort to one of two options:
1) Cast Hurkyl's Recall to answer the problem.
2) Cast Tinker->Robot to answer the problem and win.

I prefer the latter.  If Hurkyl's Recall was a better card outside of the Workshop match, I might be more inclined to take the first route (though it's still worse than the second).  A little bit of flexibility never hurt, because sometimes the front gate of the castle is too well guarded and it's just better to walk around to the back where there aren't any walls or troops. 

As for Vault/Key, I don't want to go on forever about this one either, but let's just say it's really, really good.  For a while I thought that maybe I shouldn't play Vault/Key and Tendrils and Gush all in the same deck.  It took me a depressingly long amount of time to realize just how wrong I was.

Tutors - How have they been working for you?  I kind of question how good these are going to be with your Gush plan.  Mystical seems fairly weak aside from Recall and Tinker.  I'm also not sure how good Scroll -> Gush is when there is only 1 Scroll in your deck as well which leaves you with Scroll -> Recall or Scroll -> Mystical (which I don't particularly like as a play).  Even Vamp seems kinda of poor outside of Vault-Key.  I'm not sure what I would replace those cards with, but it feels like with so many fancy cards like Tendrils, Fastbond, Vault/Key, etc.  You need something more meaty, and 3 Tops don't seem like enough.

The tutors are great.  Do you have a Time Vault?  Vamp lets you win the game.  Congratulations.

On a more serious note, I'm not sure exactly what the problem is.  I know of at least one other player who doesn't like M.Tutor much, and I respect his opinion greatly.  I have also seen LSV comment that he doesn't like the card much.  If you don't like it, that's cool.  Nothing is set in stone. 

I don't understand though.  The card is cheap and finds Recall, Tinker, or Yawgmoth's Will.  If one of those cards isn't available or isn't any good at the time, we can still go on to find other cards that shouldn't exist like Time Walk, Regrowth, and Force of Will. 

SHHHHHHH!!!   Don't tell anyone!   Gush is currently an undercover brother.   

I agree with you, but I think it will be a few months, at least, before Gush decks take off.   There are too many barriers to performing well with Gush.   Too many players don't really know how Gush decks work, and they are very different from traditional or conventional blue decks.  Experience or expertise with Gush is more important than ever, now that you don't get all of the other goodies along with Gush.   

This may be true.  It took me a long time to find a list I felt comfortable sharing with the public, and before this point I had a lot of failed ideas which might be what a lot of other people are experiencing too.

I have not tried putting together a gush deck yet.  One thing that I wonder about is just how critical it is to get Fastbond in play.  Like how do you decide whether to tutor for Fastbond and hope your gushes draw you into cards that allow you to combo out or just try to get tinker and play a bot and hope you have a few turns to swing?

It depends.  I like to think of Fastbond as a card comparable to Black Lotus.  If I can play Fastbond and generate 2-3 mana, and actually make use of that mana, it's probably a good play.  But that doesn't mean it's the right play. 

I'd say I tutor for Fastbond less than the average person does.  But I think I tutor for Time Walk more than the average person.  And a lot of times I kind of want Fastbond to play my lands out, but I'd rather have a Time Walk.

It gets pretty complicated.

What is your oppinion on:

Hurkyl's Recall maindeck (or sb) (interactions include: storm count booster, null rod bounce, tops drawing, workshop matchup timewalk/setup win)?
Top #4 vs ponder or other (I like top alot lately in gush lists, esp if you're playing opal)?
Choice of tinker target? (My favorite in a drain list is Battlesphere, if for no other reason than, half the time he entered play, I cast him.)
Some sort of answer to Gaddock Teeg/other annoying hate creature in sb (bolt, fire/ice, pyroclasm, firespout, etc)?
what about a singleton cunning wish (optimally gets something for each matchup)?

-I'm not a big fan of H.Recall main.  Even with Top to simulate a draw engine, and the storm mechanic, it's pretty disappointing outside the Workshop match. 

-Top #4 is fine.  It's probably better than what I have.  Ponder is fine too.   

-I'm a huge fan of Sphinx.  A 6/6 with lifelink and vigilance is just ridiculous.  If you have a Sphinx, and your opponent has 10 Grizzly Bears, you win.  You might find this example humorous, but it's not so funny if I replace Grizzly Bear with Zombie and you're in G3 against a Dredge opponent.  The life total matters, a lot, especially if I'm against Workshops and can't turn my Robot sideways because my opponent can just kill me the next turn with his army of Golems and Hellkites.

-If I were to play in Europe, I'd probably play a Pyroclasm in the board.  Hatebears just don't have much of a presence around me, and if they did I'd probably still be more interested in sideboarding artifact removal for Null Rod anyway.  I don't mind creatures because they struggle so hard to beat Tinker. 

-C.Wish is a card that I think is too expensive for what it does. 

Great read!  I enjoy the simplicity approach to deckbuilding.  One question on the list posted.  You have 25 mana sources, but only 14 lands.   I am a major proponent of the rock solid base, but I have always interpreted "rock solid" as 17-18 lands(3 of which were basic).  I am not dogging you on this, I just really want an insight into the though process here.  Chalice at 0 seems brutal here, as does wasteland, ratchet bomb...thank goodness you don't run into null rod.

I truly, nonsarcastically don't understand how manabases in blue control work.  Is there an article on this I can read or something, because all of mine have always had 25 sources(16 land, 9 artifact) because that was a sort of average from what I was seeing online.

I could go on for hours about this, so I'll try to keep it fairly short.

1) Gush decks in general don't want to play a lot of lands.  Against Workshops, sure a light land count can be a problem.  In other matches, Gush works best playing on few lands with lots of cheap spells.  Honestly though it's not uncommon that I'll have a lot more artifact mana than lands. 

2) Top.  This card will dig for lands if you need them against Workshops.  In fact, this is probably one of the best unrestricted cards we can have in our opening hand against Workshops (behind, what, Bazaar of Baghdad and Force of Will?). 

3) The reliance on other colors is minimal.  In the maindeck we have a grand total of 2 green spells, 4 black spells, and no red spells.  After boarding there is a basic Mountain for up to 15 lands and 3 basics, as well as the possibility of boarding out various off color spells.  Mox Opal helps alleviate the color problem too.  So Wastelands aren't too bad for me. 

The problem is when we're playing against Workshops, on the draw, and they open with a play like Sphere and Chalice at 0.  Yes, that sucks.  No, you're not going to win that game very often even with 25 land.  But if they don't have that Chalice at 0, we are in good shape to develop and proceed with our game plan.  And if we're on the play then Chalice at 0 loses almost all its power, not to mention we're also in a good position to protect our Moxen with cards like Pierce and Drain. 

If a Workshop deck successfully attacks our artifact mana, it can be tough.  But it's not that easy for them either. 

[Phele]

Thanks for the good read. Do you have any testing results against the major deck types (MUD, Trygon-Jace, Oath, Noble-Fish, Dredge, Confidant-Tendrils, Mirror)? To me it seems, that any type of Gush deck is far away from dominating the tournament scene. During the last month I have seriously watched tournament results from all parts of the world (especially US, Germany, Spain and Italy) over Morphling.de but also over TMD, Elsantuario.es and Tipo1.it and Gush decks had very good results but also were completely absent in Top8s of tournaments with lots of Gush decks in the breakdown. I don't think that these players just didn't know how to play a Gush deck. Maybe decks based on other centerpieces have developed to much further in general strength to hinder Gush from dominating again since the last unrestriction phase. I am not sure.

[heiner]

If you play with red and especially with the Mountain in the board, please play 3 REBs instead of Duress. Not only because they are sligthly better against control but more importantly because they own the fish matchup. THey kill half of their critters and are a hardcounter against pretty much anything else. Believe me its really strong, with three REBs you do not need Pyro/Massacre anymore.


Have you tested preordain? How do they compare to you against Tops? I really like both cards and I am not set.

[median]

Have you tested preordain? How do they compare to you against Tops? I really like both cards and I am not set.

Preordain is a great card, but interacts poorly with MUD. Look at the two,
Top; permanent, can tap in response to smokestack, it not affected by lodestone golem, can be used to fuel tinker and can be used multiple times, and on other turns than the one you cast it.
Preordain is a use once cantrip that will always be effected by sphere effects.

[honestabe]

I find Rack and Ruin to be just a bit better for me because, the lack of green allows us to have a stronger mana base.  Plus, Rack and Ruin is easier to drain into, and costs less under sphere effects.

[Diakonov]

Fastbond is too strong with Gush to cut green, I think.  Fastbond can help a lot against spheres as well.

[personalbackfire]

Fastbond can help a lot against spheres as well.

I have found Fastbond to be pretty underwhelming against shops. I mean it sounds like it should work great in theory but in practice it seems like you need to have it in your opening hand, be on the play, and be able to take advantage of it. When you are on the draw it is often to slow.

[Ten-Ten]

Excellent read. Enjoyed it very much. Very thought provoking.   I have been working on a Gush.List for some time, first with Garruk then Jace,TMS  and either way i ended up disapointed in the outcome. . I ended up with a similar list ,with one less off color Mox and +Opal#3, except i wanted to try more draw rather than tutors. Im still trying out Thoughtcast/Repeal and Preordain over Merchant Scroll and Mystical Tutor.  I might be way off but only testing will tell.  Thank you, again for writing this

[honestabe]

Fastbond is too strong with Gush to cut green, I think.  Fastbond can help a lot against spheres as well.

I don't mean not run green, but being able to just fetch up a basic, instead of a trop is a huge deal vs shops

[Rico Suave]

Thanks for the good read. Do you have any testing results against the major deck types (MUD, Trygon-Jace, Oath, Noble-Fish, Dredge, Confidant-Tendrils, Mirror)?

I unfortunately haven't been able to make it to a tournament since Gush was unrestricted, so I can't personally claim any results.  Most of the conclusions I've come to are the result of testing, experience, and personal opinion. 

Granted much of my testing was not with this specific list I posted above.  But the ideas that have gone into it have been a long way in the making.  Besides, this thread was mostly an attempt to make progress, share ideas, and maybe see what others have been up to.

But if I were to play the above list, I'd feel comfortable with it in all the matches you've described.  I don't want to write an instruction manual or a how-to-play-each-match guide, but is there anything specific you wanted to know?

To me it seems, that any type of Gush deck is far away from dominating the tournament scene. During the last month I have seriously watched tournament results from all parts of the world (especially US, Germany, Spain and Italy) over Morphling.de but also over TMD, Elsantuario.es and Tipo1.it and Gush decks had very good results but also were completely absent in Top8s of tournaments with lots of Gush decks in the breakdown. I don't think that these players just didn't know how to play a Gush deck. Maybe decks based on other centerpieces have developed to much further in general strength to hinder Gush from dominating again since the last unrestriction phase. I am not sure.

Right, Gush does not have numbers that would suggest it is dominant.  That's because I'm not playing (jk). 

Seriously though, there are a lot of factors that go into this.  Personally I don't want to get into all of them.  I'll say that I think Gush is the backbone of the best deck in the format but I'll also say it's my opinion.  Others will disagree, that's fine. 

I'd prefer, at least here, to work under the assumption that Gush is worth investigating, and then talk about how we can go about making the best Gush deck possible.  Then we can decide for ourselves if it is worth playing at a tournament.

If you play with red and especially with the Mountain in the board, please play 3 REBs instead of Duress. Not only because they are sligthly better against control but more importantly because they own the fish matchup. THey kill half of their critters and are a hardcounter against pretty much anything else. Believe me its really strong, with three REBs you do not need Pyro/Massacre anymore.

This is certainly valid. 

There's a butterfly effect here.  This might require readjusting some other things.  For example, if we cut Duress to make room for REB then we also need to factor that our Ritual combo match will suffer.  We might have to accept that we'll lose to Necro and the storm mechanic more often, so what are we going to do in order to make up for this? 

Similarly, if I were to face Remora more often (there's like 2 people around here that would have any interest in such a deck and I'm one of them) I would be more inclined to run REB.  In Europe Remoras and Fishes are a lot more popular than here in the States, so REB grows in strength there but I still expect to get a lot of mileage out of my Duresses. 

Some of these might just be metagame decisions and figuring out the details. 

Have you tested preordain? How do they compare to you against Tops? I really like both cards and I am not set.

There are a couple things I like about Top that give it an advantage over Preordain in my eyes, but first I want to say I don't think Preordain is a bad card.  Preordain is a fine card.  But Top has clicked and made the deck work for me where Preordain has not. 

1) Top may require more mana overall, but it only requires colorless mana and not blue mana.  Blue mana is important to me.
2) Continuous card manipulation is also important to me.  If I need lands against Workshops, I don't want to Preordain for one.  I want to Top for 2-3. 

At first I thought hey I'll use Top to make Mox Opal work, but at this point I'll play Top regardless of that.  I've always liked Top, btw.  I play with the card a lot in my previous Vintage decks and I love it in Legacy too. 

I find Rack and Ruin to be just a bit better for me because, the lack of green allows us to have a stronger mana base.  Plus, Rack and Ruin is easier to drain into, and costs less under sphere effects.

Yeah I hear that.  Another possibility is to include a basic Forest in addition to the Mountain, but that depends on how many cards we want to put in our SB devoted to Workshops. 

As for RnR vs. Grudge, it's not really a crime to prefer one over the other.  If it dodges Chalice at 1 and works in combination with Ingot Chewer, we're probably in good shape.  Beating Workshops is mostly a matter of running a plentiful amount of artifact removal, cheap spells, and permanent mana sources. 

I could go on to suggest a whole slew of cards that might work, like Viashino Heretic or Goblin Vandal or Shattering Spree.  For me, Grudge works nicely because I like to ignore most of my opponent's cards and focus on the ones that apply pressure to me but I feel a crafty opponent won't commit 2 dangerous cards at the same time.  So when I see a Smokestack I want to remove it, but I don't care if I RnR a Sphere along with that Smokestack.  I just want the card that matters off the table.  But then on the next turn my opponent presents a Golem and I'll really wish I had Grudge instead of RnR, even if it means giving up a Tropical Island in the process (though Opal is a factor in my decision to play Grudge).

Different strokes for different folks. 

Fastbond is too strong with Gush to cut green, I think.  Fastbond can help a lot against spheres as well.

I tend to remove Fastbond against Workshops, along with Gush.  Sometimes if they are light on Spheres but have more tricks, like Welder or Metalworker, I'll keep Gush in the deck because they can't punish me for keeping it. 

[Grand Inquisitor]

focus on the ones that apply pressure to me but I feel a crafty opponent won't commit 2 dangerous cards at the same time

I wanted to highlight this because (1) if gush is going to be viable, it's going to do so by beating workshops and (2)  it's a really elegant point.

I used to be really good at piloting blue decks except when facing off against workshops.  I really didn't know how to adequately value their threats.  Rico's point about knowing what the real threats are and then realizing that they often only come out one at a time is crucial to selecting the right antidote.  I agree that Rack and Ruin probably isn't it.  Similarly, this is part of the reason why Energy Flux fails.

[TheShop]

I appreciate the answer to my manabase question- I guess I overestimated an opponents ability to impede your digging for mana sources and also overestimated the need to have that next manasource in hand versus it sitting on top of the deck.

I also did not see your other basic in the board.  Thanks for the lesson in manaconstruction!

[znoyes]

I was trying the current plan against shops and, while I like it, I have an idea in addition: Viashino Heretic. He is resistant to a lot of the anti-trygon hate like hellkite, maze, tangle wire at a correct board state and he seems like he could just finish the game against a shop deck after killing enough 4 and 6 drops. Mox opal and mountain makes the activation more reliable as well. Thanks.

[hitman]

I think Viashino Heretic is a deceptively bad card in Vintage.  On the surface, the card looks really powerful against Workshop decks.  However, in my experience, the turn needed to be able to use him is huge and I've lost several games with a Heretic in play because he couldn't do enough, fast enough.  With the printing of Lodestone Golem, I'm sure that experience would be all the more exaggerated.  This has just been my experience so take it for what it's worth.

[median]

I played around with gush a while ago and loved Life from the Loam. I would gush, top, use loam to get back fetchlands, top a few more times seeing new top 3's and eventually use the top to get a gush. Then use gush to draw top and  dredge into loam. I had a full graveyard for yawgmoth's will and never missed a land drop.
My beef with gush is that if I have an unrestricted card and can tutor for a singleton, I would rather those be vault and key than gush and fastbond. I don't see gush as the future of time vault, and I feel time vault is a better combo 90% of the time.

[Qube]

Thx for the interesting read. Sounds great.

I played around with gush a while ago and loved Life from the Loam. I would gush, top, use loam to get back fetchlands, top a few more times seeing new top 3's and eventually use the top to get a gush. Then use gush to draw top and  dredge into loam. I had a full graveyard for yawgmoth's will and never missed a land drop.
My beef with gush is that if I have an unrestricted card and can tutor for a singleton, I would rather those be vault and key than gush and fastbond. I don't see gush as the future of time vault, and I feel time vault is a better combo 90% of the time.

But Gushbond isn't a combo, it's an engine which allows you to find/assemble your combo like Vault/Key or Stormkill. And i.e if you have gush in hand and a tutor but no components of Vault/Key, I would highly prefer search Fastbond or Ancestral Recall then a combopiece...

btt: because of the MUD matchup, I think a good way to defeat it is to run MB bounces cause they will also allow you to storm out a Empty (which is also a house in this matchup) and SB 2 Ancient Grudge and an other bounce.

I play at the moment with a build which is based on a deck from Guillem Ragull (Spain) who made several t8 with GushStorm. He plays with main bounce like this:

3 Repeal
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild

and as kill Empty and Tendrils or 2x Brainfreeze. I think this is so good, because it is helping you to assemble the needed storm count and can also help you handle with Bob/Cobra/Hate-Bears and ... MUD.
With Gush as a "free" spell and Repeal as a "free" spell, it's so easy to reach enough storm with less resources. (I mean the traditional TPS also run Chain, Hurkyl's, Rebuild at least for the same purposes)

I play also with 2 Lightning Bolt main with helps a lot against Bob/Cobra/Hate-Bears/Jace and ... Golem. But what you don't have to forget, if your are going to storm into a Tendrils, a Bolt deals 5 dmg for just  . Do not underestimate the value of Bolt against MUD(Golem) it's really demoralizing if you bolt them the Golems, bounce and grudge them the threads all the time...

I use a SB like this:

4 Leyline
2 Yixlid Jailer
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Perish
1 Pyroclasm

I've tested alot against MUD, Ichorid, Noble Fish, UBx Controll and the Mirror. I've hadn't almost no problem against the first three mentioned. Against MUD, which I think is the worst matchup for Gush.dec, Postboard is very in your favor. You just need good timing. Also against Bob/Jace controll I have a good feeling. The Mirror is always tricky and I think if you expect a lot Gush.dec, you should better play the brainfreeze version, as It wins easier against them then the Empty/Tendrils version.

If Guillem Ragull read this, I would be interesting in his thoughts about the State of Gush. But I have to say this version is very strong and I'm very happy with this list. But understand the deck and know what lines of play your opponents will do is very important and it isn't as easy to play Gush.dec as it was in the Golden Ages. But it is still one of the most "nice and entertaining deck to play"

Regards
Qube

[Bongo]

Quality posts here, awesome thread!
I've been testing your list Rico. It has performed well, but there are a few issues.

First, Mox Opal has been lackluster in crucial moments. I want my mana to be like my women - reliable. Mox Opal feels like a bimbo who needs a lot of jewelry before she does anything for you. There aren't many expensive spells you want to accelerate into, either.
Second, I'm really missing Fire/Ice somewhere in the 75. There are a alot of creatures with 1 toughness running around, and I definitely want a removal somewhere. To stay with the metaphors - you gotta burn those wieners.
Third, quite a few times the deck runs out of gas or has to switch into a draw-go mode because it only draws counterspells. I wished there were a few more business spells. While the Tops are nice, they are set-up spells, but no bombs. What are your thoughts on Timetwister? With Fastbond it gets ridiculous very quickly.

REBs in the SB have been golden, I can heartily endorse them.

[vassago]

First, Mox Opal has been lackluster in crucial moments.

I like Mox Opal so far, but I cut one as the second came up too often. It's been quite good for me actually, which is weird because at a first glance the cardseemed meh.

Third, quite a few times the deck runs out of gas or has to switch into a draw-go mode because it only draws counterspells. I wished there were a few more business spells. While the Tops are nice, they are set-up spells, but no bombs. What are your thoughts on Timetwister? With Fastbond it gets ridiculous very quickly.

I have noticed the same thing. The clunkiness has come up once or twice as well. I have considered cutting top number 3 for Fact or Fiction, but Timetwister isnt that bad either. What do you think?

[nineisnoone]

 There are too many barriers to performing well with Gush.   Too many players don't really know how Gush decks work, and they are very different from traditional or conventional blue decks.  Experience or expertise with Gush is more important than ever, now that you don't get all of the other goodies along with Gush.

Definitely want to preface everything I say here with admitting my experience with Gush fairly minimal.  So grain of salt and all that.

@Rico

I would definitely agree with there being a cost:effect correlation, but I think its important to note limits/threshold where the correlation isn't direct. 

For instance Street Wraith isn't very good (and I'll state that I thought otherwise when it was released).  Of course, the zero mana:1 card ratio would indicate that it would be great.  However, that 1 card ("cycling") shows a limit where it doesn't matter how cheap you could do it for, it's still just not worth the overall opportunity cost of being a card in your deck. 

Now we know that basically cycling goes beyond that equilibrium point (i.e. worse than par into being unplayable) where even being free isn't good enough, but what is that point?

My theory is that is drawing 2 cards.  Why?  Because as you stated in your OP, the Vintage standard-bearer is Force of Will.  And what does Force of Will do?  Sure, -1 life -1 card:counter target spell, but to put that in a different way it transforms any of your opponents spells into "draw 2 cards." 

The opponent has 4 cards in hand and goes down 1 card to cast Fastbond.  You have 4 cards in hand and go down 2 cards to Force it.  The opponent has 3 cards.  You have 2 cards.  This is relatively the same situation as if he cast a spell that drew him 2 cards.  FoW is so good, because the average Vintage card is so much better than drawing 2 cards.   Now of course, Gush is certainly better than Night's Whisper or any other draw 2 spell I can think of. 

But here's the question.  The opponent Gushes (without a Fastbond in play), do you Force it?  If you do, he goes up one card.  If you don't, he goes up one card.  I feel that there really isn't a correct answer here.  And sure, we can add details to swing it one way or the other, but just at a raw card power level it's ambiguous.   

Now that certainly doesn't make it a bad card, plenty of playable cards don't demand to be Forced 100% of the time, but when I see the analysis like that I feel like it's less that Gush is secretly awesome and more that if it does rise to dominance it's going to need people to find new "other goodies" that will go along with it.

As far as M.Tutor goes, it depends on the deck.  Tagging an additional card loss on-top of whatever you are searching for is significant.  Gifts, Thirst, and Gush only put you at +1.  So if you want to make an "even" Tinker play, i.e. cast Tinker with an equal amount of cards in hand, you'll need to cast one of those + M.Tutor.  This lengthens the play and makes it more vulnerable to being beaten out (for example, they do the same thing minus M. Tutor) or disrupted.  Otherwise, you are casting it at a disadvantage by going one card down into Tinker.

Now, none of those plays are necessarily bad.  My point is that a deck suited to using M.Tutor is going to want to have a strong element of building card advantage.  Here, it feels more like it's trying to link together strong elements of the deck (combo stuff) rather than being an outlet for a strength to the deck (card advantage).  When something is an outlet, it doesn't really matter how strong it is objectively.  Tendrils on it's own isn't a great card.  But you don't play it just on it's own, and you don't play a bunch of them.  You play your deck TO it, not THROUGH it.   And when you play to it, it's one of the best cards (if not the best card) out there. But when you play top deck tutors in decks without strong backbones in card advantage, it's the old adage that "the chain is only as strong as it's weakest link," and the card disadvantage vulnerability is more visible.

[znoyes]

Hi,

A thought to concider is playing dark confidant + Jace in a gush deck. These cards constitute soft locks on spells in vintage as I see it. Gush, dark confidant, and Jace seem to compensate for each other's weaknesses: Gush helps dig for action when you need it and go infinite, which confidant and Jace cannot do. conf and Jace make spell soft locks and grind the game out, which gush cannot do.

[Rico Suave]

I just want to preface this by saying it is, once again, a lot of opinion.  I could be wrong but it is how I feel.

@Qube:

Do you play Tinker?

I don't think the bounce approach is good, at least right now.  Cards like Repeal and Chain of Vapor aren't good for me against Workshops.  If I were aiming to defeat a Workshop opponent, why would I include those cards in my deck?  

Furthermore, none of the bounce spells are good against other blue decks.  If my opponent is drawing cards, what is my Hurkyl's Recall going to do?  What does my Chain of Vapor do?  Repeal is a cantrip, but we're playing Vintage and can do so much better.

If I include Tinker and a Robot in my deck, I do not need to include any of the above cards or anything like them.  What are your thoughts on this?

@Bongo:

1- Yeah, Opal is a consideration.  If it doesn't work for you, then it doesn't work for you.  There is, however, an expensive spell I want to accelerate into and its name is Yawgmoth's Will.

2- I don't think Fire/Ice is inherently a strong card, so I'm loathe to include it because it means I can't play something else important, but maybe I'll ask what creatures in particular are you worried about with 1 toughness?  Dark Confidant is a card that I do not concern myself with much, and I tend to ignore it more often than I care about dealing with it.  

3- If you want to add more gas to the deck, there are 3 main considerations:
a) Mana.  Perhaps 25 mana is too much, and maybe the 2nd Opal doesn't belong.
b) Control.  If you feel that you enter draw-go mode because you draw too many counterspells, and this hurts your performance, then cut back on some Mana Drains.
c) Win conditions.  Vault, Key, Tendrils, and a Robot.  Cutting one of these has pretty strong repercussions though.

Everything else *is* gas though.  

Prime candidates to include would be Top #4, Timetwister, and Jace.  Timetwister would probably be at the top of my list, particularly for its strength against Dredge in game 1.  

@nineisnoone

You make some interesting points.

Street Wraith is not worth including in our decks, that is correct.  Neither is something like Repeal, which can also cantrip "for free" in combination with a card like Mox Sapphire or Opal.  And you are right, we do not include these cards in our decks because despite the cost:effect ratio being good, these cards just don't have a powerful effect in the Vintage metagame.

On the other hand, drawing 2 cards is not the same as drawing 1 card.  In fact, it is twice as good as drawing just one card.  It is 100% better.  It is like dating a 5 last week and rebounding to a 10.

But this is beside the real point.  My real problem has nothing to do with anything you said.  You did a very good job of explaining the +/- of cards in hand.  

My problem is what you didn't say.  At no point did you discuss the investment of mana in any of these plays.  When I Force of Will my opponent's spell, I don't think of it as my opponent going up a card or him effectively drawing 2.  I think of it as my opponent spending somewhere between 1-5 mana and I spend 0 mana to neutralize it.  

Drawing 2 cards isn't the most powerful effect.  But drawing 2 cards for free is broken.  No, I'm not likely to Force my opponent's Gush most of the time.  I also don't often Force my opponent's Moxen, despite those cards being absolutely broken too.  Ultimately, being up or down a card isn't going to win the game anyway.  Timing, tempo, momentum, flow, mana - these things all have far more impact on winning a game than being up or down a card in hand.  

I find that at higher levels of play it's more about taking advantage of opportunities than it is anything else.  When our opponent only gives us a small window of opportunity, we're going to want to take advantage of it and do as much as we can to win the game before that window closes, and in most cases the window will close as soon as we pass the turn.  And I find that during those small windows of opportunity, our limiting factor is not how many cards in hand we have, but rather what we can do with our available mana.  I find that I can really leverage a spell like Gush during those windows precisely because it is free.

M.Tutor is also one of the best cards at taking advantage of opportunities because it's instant, cheap, and it finds cards that win the game.  M.Tutor -> Tinker against that Workshop opponent who played a Wurmcoil Engine instead of a lock piece, or M.Tutor -> Will against that guy who tapped 4 mana for Jace thinking that going up +1 card would matter.  Those are plays of opportunity.  

Is M.Tutor the best card in the blue mirror?  No.  It's certainly possible to SB it out.  

But if you want to beat Workshops, Fish, and Dredge?  Excluding M.Tutor is a mistake.  Furthermore, M.Tutor is strong against many blue decks - especially ones like Oath that aren't looking to win a war of cards in hand but rather a war of what you can do with your 5 mana before you lose the game.  

These are my thoughts at least.  I could be wrong.

@znoyes

I strongly believe that Bob and Gush have no place together.  Some people will be quick to point out that flipping Gush to Bob is quite painful, and while this is true I don't feel it is the biggest reason why these two cards do not belong in the same deck.

Gush, because it is free, allows us to play multiple spells in a turn.  The nature of Gush is that it will explode upon use and provide us a tremendous array of resources, options, and tools all at once.  Gush works best when we have a long chain of spells, with each one cascading from one spell into the next until we eventually arrive at a game winning board state (lethal Tendrils, Vault/Key, and Yawgmoth's Will being the most common three).  

What is the point of Gushing and drawing Dark Confidant?  It is not a resource or tool for anything.  It does not allow us to continue digging that turn for our key ingredients.  It does nothing.  It's worse than nothing actually, it requires us to invest 2 mana before doing nothing and then passing the turn.  Assuming we have not lost the game in that time period, if we manage to untap we have 2 less lands on the board and now our long game is crippled too.

Bob and Gush want to do entirely different things.  Whether we are Gushing into Bob or revealing Gush to Bob, I don't think they work well together.  Were I to play Bob, I would pursue Thoughtcast and Jace as additional card drawing sources.

[gamegeek2]

This is my list right now. Not sure how good it is, and I have yet to come up with a sideboard.

Mana Sources
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Polluted Delta
2 Island
3 Volc
2 U. Sea
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Trop
5 Moxen
1 Crypt
1 B. Lotus

Broken Things/Win Conditions

1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Time Walk
1 Regrowth
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Fastbond

Draw/Tutor

4 Gush
2 Preordain
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

Control Elements

2 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Pierce
2 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
2 Repeal
2 Hurkyll's Recall


Things I like:

1. Storm Engine, with ETW, 2 Hurkyll's, 2 Repeal, and Tendrils. Excellent with the Gush engine, and playing 2 MD Hurkyll's really improves the Gush MU.
2. 22 permanent mana sources + 2 Preordain. I considered Lotus petal as well, due to the prominent Storm them, but I'm not sure what would go.
3. Lightning Bolt. 1-mana answer to Hatebears, Golems, Bobs, and Jaces on the board.

Main points to consider:

1. Is Tinker worth it, or will it and/or Inky just be dead while Gushing?
2. Is 2 Lightning Bolt too many? Is fire/ice better?
3. Should I cut Gifts (and maybe something else) to include Jace?
4. What should the sideboard be like? Likely candidates include:

Leyline of the Void
Ingot Chewer
Rack and Ruin
Red Blasts
Nature's Claim
Duress
Tormod's Crypt
Ancient Grudge
Pyroclasm