The State of Gush

[Grand Inquisitor]

The problem is that if we're going to include Tinker, which I do feel is the correct call...The synergy isn't between Vault/Key and Jace.  It's between Vault/Key and Tinker.

Really?  I don't see Tinker>Robot as particularly good against Workshop, Dredge or TVault.dec.  Using it to rationalize TVKey's inclusion seems to be completely using the tail to wag the dog.  This is exacerbated by the Gush builds by sometimes having less mana acceleration and artifacts in general.

I think Merchant Scroll is good against Workshops.   It can find Force or Drain on defense, or Hurkyls Recall or Hurkyl's Recall effect in the early game. 

The only case that is defensible to me is the Hurkyl's Recall play.  For certain hands, getting FoW and stalling a turn will be worth the card disadvantage because of a bomb you're about to drop, but often you'll just spend mana and cards for less than parity and get behind.  People have been saying for a while that mana drain is too slow without having to tutor for it.

few draw engines in Vintage that can support such a variety of strategies...Gush...Brainstor m...Dark Confidant

I'm going to borrow a page from your book, Steve, and really emphasize the interdependence of these draw engines within the decks they occupy.  From left to right I think each is an example that is less broken, but less interdependent.  Gush was most broken once it was combined with Fastbond and Yawgmoth's Will.  Still, it needs brainstorms and merchant scrolls to keep the momentum of the engine working properly.  Gush, when used to it's full potential is a 3-card combo.  Brainstorm is incredible card quality...provided you have a shuffle effect.  The card didn't see significant play until the advent of fetchlands; it's a 2-card combo.  Dark Confidant is much less sexy than the other two.  Still, it's the ultimate fire and forget.  Once you've invested your two mana, it will grow your advantage and only asks that you kill before you kill yourself.

[Smmenen]

The problem is that if we're going to include Tinker, which I do feel is the correct call...The synergy isn't between Vault/Key and Jace.  It's between Vault/Key and Tinker.

Really?  I don't see Tinker>Robot as particularly good against Workshop, Dredge or TVault.dec.  Using it to rationalize TVKey's inclusion seems to be completely using the tail to wag the dog.  This is exacerbated by the Gush builds by sometimes having less mana acceleration and artifacts in general.

Myr Battlesphere is pretty incredible against any Workshop deck from what I've seen/tested.   One of the key weaknesses of Tinker for a Robot is that you lose your board advantage, having to sacrifice a permanent.   Myr Battlesphere more than corrects for that problem, and is just as fast as Darksteel Colossus.   Opponent has Tangle Wire?  Not a problem.   Your early Tinker isn't stymied or tied up in the mud by a Tangle Wire or raced by Smokestack.  

[limitedwhole]

I went 3-0 versus Gush decks at the Kentucky State Championships with The Deck.  I got crushed by a zoo deck, and made a critical play mistake against a control-hate deck costing me the match 2-1.  A good day despite the play mistake.  It was allot of fun eating gush decks alive.    I just wish I had been in practice.  Might have had a shot at top 8.  How could I not regrowth swords to plowshareswhen the only cards he can rip are dark confidant and magus of the moon?  Rip Magus of the Moon.  So dumb.  Reclaim, Swords to Plowshares, and Mindtwist were savage all day.

Favorite Spell Stack of the Day:
Me: Mind Twist for four (opponent with six cards in hand
Him: Ancestral
Me: Mana Drain
Hime: Spell Pierce
Me: Spell Pierce
Him: Gush
Gush Resolves: Ancestral Recall is countered, he discards 4 at random. including 2 lands


Me; Wastelande go
Me: Strip Mine GO
Me Regrowth YAwgmoth's Will+ Mana Drain, Ancestral, Strip Mine, Mindtwist for 5+ Other fun stuff..

Great Non-Mulligans of the day.  WAstelande, Mox Pearl, Mox Jet, Vampiric Tutor, Swords to Plowshares, Yawgmoth's Will, Skeletal Scrying
2X REB, WAstelande, Strip Mine, Trinisphere, Polluted Delta, Reclaim

Drew 38 Cards off 2X Skeletal Scrying today in 5 rounds  Had hoped to boast of a higher number but didnt make top 8.  Drew only eleven off Stroke of Genius as I didn't side it in all day and only got to wish for it once
Take that Gush!

[trikky]

I have been crushing Gush decks left and right too.

I'm not sure if the pilots were bad or what. I have played against about every gush net-deck you care to name and usually they quit while bitching about "mana screw". When you run 14 lands against a 5 waste + crucible meta and return lands to your hand as part of your strategy, its not "mana screw".

[Rico Suave]

Really?  I don't see Tinker>Robot as particularly good against Workshop, Dredge or TVault.dec.  Using it to rationalize TVKey's inclusion seems to be completely using the tail to wag the dog.  This is exacerbated by the Gush builds by sometimes having less mana acceleration and artifacts in general.

Well, the main point I was aiming at wasn't the use of Tinker-Robot, it was the use of Tinker to find the missing piece of Vault/Key.  That's why I feel Tinker and Vault/Key are closely related.  Tinker for Vault/Key is strong against any strategy, though the reason to Tinker-Robot is a bit different.

On the subject of Tinker-Robot, it isn't a play that I will want to actively pursue most of the time, but sometimes it becomes necessary because we were unable to stop them from establishing a board position, or perhaps we didn't want to stop them because we were busy with other things.  Being able to stabilize a board is a huge deal in my opinion.  It's an entirely unnecessary facet of the deck against, say, a blue deck.  But it's invaluable against a lot of other things.

I also want to highlight something in particular with Dredge.  I feel it's worth noting that Sphinx is the only robot that matters there, in my opinion.  Sometimes they squeeze some zombies onto the board before we can cut off their graveyard, or maybe they found a window of opportunity after Nature's Claiming a Leyline.  But Sphinx beats even 10 zombies in a race. 

I went 3-0 versus Gush decks at the Kentucky State Championships with The Deck.  I got crushed by a zoo deck, and made a critical play mistake against a control-hate deck costing me the match 2-1.  A good day despite the play mistake.  It was allot of fun eating gush decks alive.

OK.  That's great.  But I don't see your point, are you trying to suggest that Gush is bad because you beat people who were playing it?  Or that The Deck is a better choice than Gush? 

[waffles]

Fascinating.  I have to disagree, however.   There are few draw engines in Vintage that can support such a variety of strategies, ranging from Aggro Control, to Control, to Combo Control, to Combo, to Aggro-Combo-Control, and that can also display such a range of intra-archetype strategic variety (switching roles from play to play).   Gush is perhaps the only blue draw spell that is just as good in Aggro Control as it is in Storm combo (excepting Ancestral and Brainstorm, of course).   I talk about this in the free chapter to my gush book, but the only card I can think of that's as flexible is Dark Confidant.  Dark Confidant shows up in all of the same archetypes, except that it's sometimes played in Workshop decks too!   Not Thirst, not Fact, not Standstill, not even Gifts has proven that kind of strategic flexibility.  

That said, it is definitely true that Gush requires careful timing and sequencing, and that those rules can be somewhat counter intuitive until taught.  Improper use of Gush can be a self-inflicted wound.  

Now that gush is unrestricted, what does that mean for stasis? in one of the incarnations for stasis, it relyed on gush and the other land bounce play spells to bounce lands to keep paying for it. Gush continues to be a strong draw engine under stasis. I for one am happy too see it unrestricted

[Killane]

Well, the main point I was aiming at wasn't the use of Tinker-Robot, it was the use of Tinker to find the missing piece of Vault/Key.  That's why I I also want to highlight something in particular with Dredge.  I feel it's worth noting that Sphinx is the only robot that matters there, in my opinion.  Sometimes they squeeze some zombies onto the board before we can cut off their graveyard, or maybe they found a window of opportunity after Nature's Claiming a Leyline.  But Sphinx beats even 10 zombies in a race. 

Ummmm Sphinx does not beat 10 Zombies in a race. Assumign you get to attack first and you start at 20 life

Swing, go to 26 (opponent 10 Zombies, 14 life)
Block a Zombie, take 18 from the other 9, go to 8 (opponent 9 zombies, 14 life)
Swing, go to 14 (opponent 9 zombies, 8 life)
Block a zombie, take 16 from the other 8, die.


You manage to race 8 zombies (at 2 life, hopefully you didn;t have to vamp up the tinker or crack any fetchlands), 9 kills you, 7 is likely the highest number you can actually feel comfortable racing.

[CorwinB]

Well, the main point I was aiming at wasn't the use of Tinker-Robot, it was the use of Tinker to find the missing piece of Vault/Key.  That's why I I also want to highlight something in particular with Dredge.  I feel it's worth noting that Sphinx is the only robot that matters there, in my opinion.  Sometimes they squeeze some zombies onto the board before we can cut off their graveyard, or maybe they found a window of opportunity after Nature's Claiming a Leyline.  But Sphinx beats even 10 zombies in a race. 

Ummmm Sphinx does not beat 10 Zombies in a race. Assumign you get to attack first and you start at 20 life

Swing, go to 26 (opponent 10 Zombies, 14 life)
Block a Zombie, take 18 from the other 9, go to 8 (opponent 9 zombies, 14 life)
Swing, go to 14 (opponent 9 zombies, 8 life)
Block a zombie, take 16 from the other 8, die.


You manage to race 8 zombies (at 2 life, hopefully you didn;t have to vamp up the tinker or crack any fetchlands), 9 kills you, 7 is likely the highest number you can actually feel comfortable racing.

You gain 6 from blocking the zombie, though. So the other 9 only get you down to 14.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Swing for 6 (up to 26, opponent 10 zombies, 14 life)
block (-18 +6 = 14 life, opponent 9 zombies)
swing for 6 (22 life, opponent 9 zombies 8 life)
block (-16 +6 = 12 life, opponent 8 zombies)
swing for 6 (up to 18 life, opponent 8 zombies, 2 life)
block (-14, +6 = 4 life, opponent 7 zombies)
swing (opponent dead)

If you are on defense first
(-18 +6) = 8
swing (up to 12)
(-16, +6) = 2
swing (up to 8)
(-14 +6) = dead

You need to swing first, and have taken no more than 1 damage from yourself.  You could also survive 9 zombies on defense.

[Delha]

If you are on defense first
(-18 +6) = 8
swing (up to 12)
(-16, +6) = 2
swing (up to 8)
(-14 +6) = dead

Your math is wrong. When you swing back the first time, that puts you to 14 (you noted a gain of only 4 life).

They swing (-12) and drop you to 8. You swing back and go to 14.
They swing (-10) and drop you to 4. You swing back and go to 10.
They swing (-8) and drop you to 2. You swing back and go to 8.
They swing (-6) and drop you to 2. You swing back (for lethal) and go to 8.

Even if you hadn't killed them on the last swing there, you've already established equilibrium after their third swing. 7 zombies isn't enough to overcome the lifegain from your turn.

[silvernail]

I don't race zombies I just echoing truth them

[Rico Suave]

Echoing Truth and Tinker both share a common trait.  Both will help to deal with difficult board situations.

But they differ in one very important area.  Tinker wins the game where Echoing Truth does not.

Yet so many people seem allergic to winning. 

[vassago]

Yet so many people seem allergic to winning.

I know this is not helpful in anyway, but.......  LOL  

[Rico Suave]

I know it sounds kind of funny, but the main foundation behind a lot of my ideas in this thread are based on the concept of winning.

I've heard people ask "what do you do about _insert problem_?"  My response more often than not is very short: I win.  It sounds so trite and sarcastic, but let me try and explain in a little more detail just so I don't look like a meanie.

Now during a course of a game we will want to do everything in our power to go about winning.  We must present at least one threat over the course of a game in order to win it (barring our opponent losing the game, like he can do with not paying for a Pact trigger or something similar).  Sometimes our opponent will try to stop us, in which case he will try to answer our threats.  Sometimes we must stop our opponent because he is going to win before we do, in which case we must do our best to interact with him and answer his threats in some fashion or just delay him. 

But sometimes...we can "answer" our opponent's threat by simply playing a better threat.  In other words, we will do something that is better than what our opponent is doing.  In this event we're not actually answering our opponent's cards at all, we're just ignoring them because they don't matter.  In Standard, you can see this effect in action when one person plays a Goblin Guide and the other person plays a Baneslayer Angel.  It's quite clear the Angel is simply going to dominate whatever the Goblin Guide can possibly do - but the Angel is more than just an answer to the opponent's card, it is going to win the game if the opponent doesn't stop it.  And a threat is always dangerous. 

This is the primary reason behind why I play Vault/Key and Tinker-Robot.  Sometimes Tendrils isn't better than what our opponent is doing, but if we have access to each of Tendrils, Vault/Key, and Tinker then we can always find something that trumps our opponent's game plan. 

Remember, sometimes sidestepping the opponent's answers is better than dealing with them.  I don't concern myself if my opponent wants to play a Meddling Mage naming Tendrils.  This is killer for decks that don't play Tinker or Vault/Key though, so those decks need to play Chain of Vapor.  But why would I want to play Chain of Vapor when I can play Tinker instead?  One card doesn't win and the other card does. 

Anyway, hopefully this explains a little bit of where I'm coming from.

[Ten-Ten]

I agree with RicoSuave...The idea of just trying to win instead of trying to stop my opponent from winning, took a while to fully sink in but I take a totally different aproach when building my GUSH.dec now. No matter how tempting it is for me to add a Repeal, CoV or an ETruth, i ask myself "How will this trump my opponent's threat?" ...also, FoW is better on the offense. Why use FoW to protect CoV when u can "force" a Tinker through?   imho.

[Killane]

Blah blah blah Killane being an idiot and forgetting about Lifelink on the blocking.

You gain 6 from blocking the zombie, though. So the other 9 only get you down to 14.

Yeah, yesterday was a dumb day for me. Sorry.

[znoyes]

On the topic of winning versus answering your opponent's threats:
the reason I stick by the confidant/jace package in the blue control decks is that they can incidentally win the game if left untouched (i.e., the card drawing/support cards are win conditions, while gush is just a support card). You can try to trump a confidant/jace, but you only have a short window in which to do so, which closes after the opponent draws the appropriate countermagic.

[silvernail]

I'm all for winning but sometimes that does necessitate having answers that are just answers instead of the trump threat.

[Rico Suave]

I'm all for winning but sometimes that does necessitate having answers that are just answers instead of the trump threat.

Right.  And in fact, I would say there are far more "answer" cards than "threat" cards in modern blue decks. 

My main point is there are many things we don't have to answer because our method of winning can ignore them.  This is also a big reason why I feel it's important to include Tendrils, Vault/Key, and Tinker-Robot all together. 

On the topic of winning versus answering your opponent's threats:
the reason I stick by the confidant/jace package in the blue control decks is that they can incidentally win the game if left untouched (i.e., the card drawing/support cards are win conditions, while gush is just a support card). You can try to trump a confidant/jace, but you only have a short window in which to do so, which closes after the opponent draws the appropriate countermagic.

The problem, of course, is identifying if our threats actually beat what the opponent is doing.

Tinker-Sphinx beats a board of zombies.  Bob...does not. 

[Bongo]

While others have covered the theoretical aspect pretty well, I want to delve into the practical side of things. Some things I discovered in testing:

- one Lightning Bolt main is very good, as it takes care of early Confidant/Lodestone/Jace/Welder and Fish creatures. Despite thinking that Rico is right with his reasonings, I keep losing if any of the aforementioned threats stick, since your opponent also has ways to interact with your "trumps". Bolt also goes well with Tendrils.

- Ancient Grudge is awesome. In fact, I started running one main, as it greatly increases your win percentage against Null Rod decks and is a decent card against VaultKey strategies.

- Twister gets nutty very quickly with with Fastbond/Gush.

- Wasteland is a problem, since you dont always have Gush ready. Even if you do, you might be forced to gush at awkward times. So I think one Pithing Needle in the SB is warranted, especially since it can come in against Shops, Fish and Dredge.

- Gifts is mediocre. I'm not running Regrowth, so that might be a reason. However, Regrowth was awful for me and drawing it in the opener felt like a mulligan to 6. I find that Gush + expensive spells do not synergize well. This is the card I side out most, since it is very vulnerable to manadenial and Spell Pierce. How do others feel about Gifts?

[trikky]

Gifts is out of control. You can win the game with it. You need to have 2 gy recursion cards for it to go off tho. Example:

Set them up to be tapped out at EOT or have more counters than they have cards in hand,then cast gifts. Get vault, key, regrowth, yawg will. Take your turn, they lose.

[Ten-Ten]

- Wasteland is a problem, since you dont always have Gush ready. Even if you do, you might be forced to gush at awkward times..

this is more of a problem when you start including red spells like Lightning bolt main.

Plus, if were still talking about Rico Suave's list, we have three SDT main to help with land drops. I was actually considering sending the Volcanic Island to the SB and adding another fetchland to go with the three Tops.

-Gifts wins you games. gets you mana sources to play your Vault/key or gets you the combo itself!

@Rico Suave:
I was wondering if you have tested out ,or what your thoughts are on, Dr.Teeth.
The reason I am even considering Psychatog for my Gush deck is the mox opal (Gush also, of course). I decided to go three opals
 He eats extra opals in your hand and is insane with gush..
any thoughts ?

[Mith]

At 4cc, Gifts screws with your post-Gush curve. I'll agree it's amazing in combination with Regrowth/Will, especially if you're running Vault/Key...however, I tend to lean towards Tendrils/ETW for my Gush kills. As such, I'd rather cut Gifts to streamline the deck.

While it's always nice to have Tinker/Bot/Vault/Key...it's not necessary. Gush decks can pack enough counters to either win via an early ETW or a late Tendrils. You don't need excessive amounts of win conditions.

[gamegeek2]

I'm not quite sure if Jace or Gifts is better for a Storm build with ETW and Tendrils...

[Rico Suave]

I know Gifts is a controversial card.  If you do not feel comfortable playing it, then by all means don't feel that you need to do so.  For me, I think the card is very good and brings a lot to the deck. 

@Rico Suave:
I was wondering if you have tested out ,or what your thoughts are on, Dr.Teeth.
The reason I am even considering Psychatog for my Gush deck is the mox opal (Gush also, of course). I decided to go three opals
 He eats extra opals in your hand and is insane with gush..
any thoughts ?

Is it good enough?  I haven't seen Psychatog have success since Mindslaver was printed, and I'm afraid that we can simply run a number of other cards that are better.  Why, exactly, do you want to run Psychatog?

While it's always nice to have Tinker/Bot/Vault/Key...it's not necessary. Gush decks can pack enough counters to either win via an early ETW or a late Tendrils. You don't need excessive amounts of win conditions.

If you run just ETW and Tendrils, you may be able to get away with fewer win conditions, but you end up running a similar number of dead cards anyway because you must run cards like Hurkyl's Recall and perhaps other situational or weak cards.

Also, I wouldn't put "Tinker" and "not necessary" in the same sentence...unless you also want to start talking about how cards like Time Walk and Demonic Tutor aren't necessary either. 

[AmbivalentDuck]

Also, I wouldn't put "Tinker" and "not necessary" in the same sentence...unless you also want to start talking about how cards like Time Walk and Demonic Tutor aren't necessary either.

Some Gush combo builds appear to rightly omit Tinker and Time Walk.  Ie. Emidln's current Doomsday list.

[The Atog Lord]

Omitting Time Walk from a Gush deck is incorrect, in any build.

[waikiki]

I wouldn't call the doomsday build a gush build. It doesn't use the gush/fastbond engine it simply uses gush as an enabler to draw into the doomsday pile.

[gamegeek2]

Both Hurkyll's and Tinker/Bot can be pitched to FoW

[AmbivalentDuck]

Omitting Time Walk from a Gush deck is incorrect, in any build.

With two Moxen (the historically agreed upon number in Doomsday), Time Walk is unlikely to give you the all important second land drop.  Instead, it's something more like a blue Explore that untaps two lands as it resolves.  We can all agree that Time Walk has a very high power level and is probably stronger than usual in Gush-based decks, but I think the inclusion of Time Walk is a subject for debate, not truism, in the context of a deck that only wants to resolve Gush once and will usually have two lands down already when it could cast Time Walk.

Since I have to be more careful than most about "derailing" threads, I'm happy to continue this discussion in the context of a specific list within the Doomsday thread.

I wouldn't call the doomsday build a gush build. It doesn't use the gush/fastbond engine it simply uses gush as an enabler to draw into the doomsday pile.

Yes and no.  While it doesn't use Fastbond, it's certainly happy to use Gush to generate mana-free storm and card draws while going off - even without Doomsday.  That said, it's certainly less focused on resolving Gush than other 4x Gush decks.