Gush in the metagame? (specifically North East Metagame)

[personalbackfire]

Am I off base in wondering where Gush has been specifically in the North East? Outside of Doomsday lists popping up every now and then I haven't seen any one do well with Gush in a while or consistently?

I can remember 2 Gush top 8s in the past few months. One from Josh P right before regrowth was unrestricted and one by someone else right after. I thought with the unrestricting of regrowth that would push more people to Empty Gush (ECW) updates and possibly even The Tropical Storm?
 
Is it that Gush isn't good compared to other blue options (bob and Jace)?
What are your thoughts?

[Samoht]

Am I off base in wondering where Gush has been specifically in the North East? Outside of Doomsday lists popping up every now and then I haven't seen any one do well with Gush in a while or consistently?

I can remember 2 Gush top 8s in the past few months. One from Josh P right before regrowth was unrestricted and one by someone else right after. I thought with the unrestricting of regrowth that would push more people to Empty Gush (ECW) updates and possibly even The Tropical Storm?
 
Is it that Gush isn't good compared to other blue options (bob and Jace)?
What are your thoughts?

Shops is probably the biggest deterrent. Not that it's unbeatable, just unfavorable. Add in the Fish/Control decks like Merfolk and Bomberman and it has a harder time getting through a swiss field.

[personalbackfire]

Shops is probably the biggest deterrent. Not that it's unbeatable, just unfavorable. Add in the Fish/Control decks like Merfolk and Bomberman and it has a harder time getting through a swiss field.

Ya I can take shops as a bad matchup as it has always been. Though I think some people argued that ECW was favored against shops.
Anyways, I've never played with Gush against Bomberman.
Is bomberman favored against gush?

[Smmenen]

Gush was in the NYSE Open Top 8, FYI.  And, it wasn't Doomsday.

[personalbackfire]

Gush was in the NYSE Open Top 8, FYI.  And, it wasn't Doomsday.

Thanks! I had missed that.

[oshkoshhaitsyosh]

Every time I sleeve up an empty gush pile I do really well with it...I just like landstill better, there lies the gap between my t8s

[personalbackfire]

@ Josh,
Yea it just seems too powerful for the lack of love I feel like it's getting.

However, maybe my perception is just off since I'm mostly talking about the Empty Gush shell.

Gush is an important part of DD and RUG and those have done well.

[oshkoshhaitsyosh]

Well a large amount of the vintage community just copies or net decks whatever is doing well at the time. While gush is very good imo and easily can put up results, people would rather copy a bomberman, fish, or shop deck and show up...there's no lack of love for gush from me. I build my lists to beat shops while still fighting control and empty owns fishy decks generally.

[Samoht]

Well a large amount of the vintage community just copies or net decks whatever is doing well at the time. While gush is very good imo and easily can put up results, people would rather copy a bomberman, fish, or shop deck and show up...there's no lack of love for gush from me. I build my lists to beat shops while still fighting control and empty owns fishy decks generally.

I think that's quite hyperbolic. Most of us suss out decks from oriented positions, but that's not the same as just simply netdecking a 75.

[Cruel Ultimatum]

It's not great against shops and most of the typical wincons gush would abuse are pretty stinky at the moment.

[mmcgeach]

Gush is just bad w/o one of: 1) heavy cantrips or 2) fastbond.  Otherwise it just nets 1 card and sets you back in mana development.  Fastbond is restricted and decks that rely on a half-dozen cantrips to smooth their draws are terrible against shops.  Traditional gush decks also run land-light with maybe 22 mana sources.  This again makes them vulnerable to shops.  Also, there are other important decks in the meta that punish greedy mana bases: Landstill and BUG fish.  This makes Gush a tough sell in most metagames.

Especially compared with Bob, which basically has the opposite effect in these matchups: Bob is fantastic against shops and fish.

[Samoht]

Gush is just bad w/o one of: 1) heavy cantrips or 2) fastbond.  Otherwise it just nets 1 card and sets you back in mana development.  Fastbond is restricted and decks that rely on a half-dozen cantrips to smooth their draws are terrible against shops.  Traditional gush decks also run land-light with maybe 22 mana sources.  This again makes them vulnerable to shops.  Also, there are other important decks in the meta that punish greedy mana bases: Landstill and BUG fish.  This makes Gush a tough sell in most metagames.

Especially compared with Bob, which basically has the opposite effect in these matchups: Bob is fantastic against shops and fish.

Gush can accelerate you from 3 to 4 and makes sure you make use of land drops that potentially could otherwise be wasted. Steve has written much theory about Gush for a reason, it isn't simply +1 card -2 lands.

[Phele]

It will be interesting to watch, what Young Pyromancer will make out of Gush. It seem to be taylor made for this archetype as it acts as a Dryad on steriods and comes out of the best anti shop colour. I could easily see it incorporated in some Empty Gush type of deck.

[oshkoshhaitsyosh]

Gush is just bad w/o one of: 1) heavy cantrips or 2) fastbond.  Otherwise it just nets 1 card and sets you back in mana development.  Fastbond is restricted and decks that rely on a half-dozen cantrips to smooth their draws are terrible against shops.  Traditional gush decks also run land-light with maybe 22 mana sources.  This again makes them vulnerable to shops.  Also, there are other important decks in the meta that punish greedy mana bases: Landstill and BUG fish.  This makes Gush a tough sell in most metagames.

Especially compared with Bob, which basically has the opposite effect in these matchups: Bob is fantastic against shops and fish.

There are ways around this...

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=45228.0

Semifinalist, my matchups were this...
Round 1 - Loss to Elias on Burning Oath
Round 2 - Win 2-0 John Jones on Magus Welder deck
Round 3 - Win 2-1 Steve on Bob CB top broken deck
Round 4 - Win 2-1 Folinus on Marinara Mud with Chalice
Round 5 ID
Top 8 Win 2-1 Seth on Burning Oath
T4 - Lose to Joel on Merfolk

I chose to up the land count so I could beat shops and ax the cantrips. The gush enginewas still helpful at firing off midrange empties. Also with bolts main, heretic main, grudge main, hurks main, mountain main, you WILL beat shops. If I played it again the counter suite would change a slight bit but I really think gush is still a fine choice people just aren't running it.

Gush is just bad w/o one of: 1) heavy cantrips or 2) fastbond.  Otherwise it just nets 1 card and sets you back in mana development.  Fastbond is restricted and decks that rely on a half-dozen cantrips to smooth their draws are terrible against shops.  Traditional gush decks also run land-light with maybe 22 mana sources.  This again makes them vulnerable to shops.  Also, there are other important decks in the meta that punish greedy mana bases: Landstill and BUG fish.  This makes Gush a tough sell in most metagames.

Especially compared with Bob, which basically has the opposite effect in these matchups: Bob is fantastic against shops and fish.

Gush can accelerate you from 3 to 4 and makes sure you make use of land drops that potentially could otherwise be wasted. Steve has written much theory about Gush for a reason, it isn't simply +1 card -2 lands.

^ Yeah, what he said...

[Smmenen]

Gush is just bad w/o one of: 1) heavy cantrips or 2) fastbond.  Otherwise it just nets 1 card and sets you back in mana development.  Fastbond is restricted and decks that rely on a half-dozen cantrips to smooth their draws are terrible against shops.  Traditional gush decks also run land-light with maybe 22 mana sources.  This again makes them vulnerable to shops.  Also, there are other important decks in the meta that punish greedy mana bases: Landstill and BUG fish.  This makes Gush a tough sell in most metagames.

Especially compared with Bob, which basically has the opposite effect in these matchups: Bob is fantastic against shops and fish.

Gush can accelerate you from 3 to 4 and makes sure you make use of land drops that potentially could otherwise be wasted. Steve has written much theory about Gush for a reason, it isn't simply +1 card -2 lands.

Well put.  Gush has at least four dimensions of advantage: as you noted, card advantage is merely the most obvious.  Gush also generates mana advantage, tempo advantage, and makes possible the extraction of virtual card advantage.

@ Personalbackfire
It should be noted that the RUG deck got 3rd place, not just top 8.  It was a very good choice in slow control environment, imo.  If I played in an environment that was 100% Landstill, I would probably play a well tuned RUG Delver deck with Gushes, Missteps, Flusters, etc. 

[Samoht]

Gush is just bad w/o one of: 1) heavy cantrips or 2) fastbond.  Otherwise it just nets 1 card and sets you back in mana development.  Fastbond is restricted and decks that rely on a half-dozen cantrips to smooth their draws are terrible against shops.  Traditional gush decks also run land-light with maybe 22 mana sources.  This again makes them vulnerable to shops.  Also, there are other important decks in the meta that punish greedy mana bases: Landstill and BUG fish.  This makes Gush a tough sell in most metagames.

Especially compared with Bob, which basically has the opposite effect in these matchups: Bob is fantastic against shops and fish.

Gush can accelerate you from 3 to 4 and makes sure you make use of land drops that potentially could otherwise be wasted. Steve has written much theory about Gush for a reason, it isn't simply +1 card -2 lands.

Well put.  Gush has at least four dimensions of advantage: as you noted, card advantage is merely the most obvious.  Gush also generates mana advantage, tempo advantage, and makes possible the extraction of virtual card advantage.

@ Personalbackfire
It should be noted that the RUG deck got 3rd place, not just top 8.  It was a very good choice in slow control environment, imo.  If I played in an environment that was 100% Landstill, I would probably play a well tuned RUG Delver deck with Gushes, Missteps, Flusters, etc. 

I like when we agree. Gush is very solid.

I don't think RUG Delver is the best home for it now is it the best way to go in a slow blue environment, but that's another can of worms altogether.

[personalbackfire]

It will be interesting to watch, what Young Pyromancer will make out of Gush. It seem to be taylor made for this archetype as it acts as a Dryad on steriods and comes out of the best anti shop colour. I could easily see it incorporated in some Empty Gush type of deck.

Yea it's so interesting to me with all the win conditions that Gush has available to it, there doesn't seem to be an agreement on the best way to build it.

Off the top of my head:
Etw
Tendrils
Dryad
Goyf
Kiln Fiend
Tog
Talrand
Vault/Key
Tinker/Bigman
Meloku
Delver
Oath

[mmcgeach]

I think people quoting me above have shown that there's a lot you can do with Gush, provided you set up your deck to benefit from what otherwise would be fairly substantial drawbacks.  I think we all agreed that "+1 card, -2 land" would be a terrible card.  So the trick with Gush is to never use it as a card that reads: +1 card, -2 land.  This requires using it at precise moments when you're able to capitalize on tempo and temporary mana gains.  Just using it as a draw engine is bad.

So yeah, comparing it to bob and Jace is sort of unfair.  Bob and Jace are the best draw engines available.  Bob and Jace win you the game if they're left alone for a few rounds.  Gush is this tricky thing that isn't real good at drawing cards.

[personalbackfire]

So yeah, comparing it to bob and Jace is sort of unfair.  Bob and Jace are the best draw engines available.  Bob and Jace win you the game if they're left alone for a few rounds.  Gush is this tricky thing that isn't real good at drawing cards.

Yea I mean I think I have to disagree with you on this. Gush is an excellent draw engine that has added benefits which smmenen has written at length about before.

Earlier in the thread he summarized them as mana, tempo, and virtual card advantage. These are the advantages you get by using gush as your primary draw engine.

The advantages you get by using Jace or Bob is that they are a permanent that creates a repeated action every turn. For example, every additional turn Bob lives he gives you + one card per turn.

So what we are comparing is a draw engine that comes in permanent form, to a draw engine that comes in instant/sorcery (one time use) form. 

If I'm building a blue deck and want a draw engine in vintage currently I think the best options you have are Bob, Jace, Standstill, and Gush.

Why Gush isn't being chosen by more players is what I was trying to ask in the opening post.

[Smmenen]

Gush into Jace is just as good, if not better,  than Gush into Bob.  The two lands become two quality cards with Jacestorm.   The Gush can also help you cast Jace. 

Bob decks are better against Workshops, though. 

[Purple Hat]

Gush is always on my radar.  Gush decks are among my favorite to play, but right now I don't get to play much, so I have to play things that are more noninteractive.  We'll see what comes out of my testing for champs though, I think young pyromancer is going to change a lot of things about gush decks.

[Commandant]

Gush is always on my radar.  Gush decks are among my favorite to play, but right now I don't get to play much, so I have to play things that are more noninteractive.  We'll see what comes out of my testing for champs though, I think young pyromancer is going to change a lot of things about gush decks.

I don't see why, Talrand seems loads better and Empty is always going close the gap faster.

[mmcgeach]

Why Gush isn't being chosen by more players is what I was trying to ask in the opening post.

Well, I definitely answered that for you, even if you didn't like the answer.

But I think what you were trying ask is: "Hey guys, lets brainstorm ways of getting Gush decks to work in the current metagame."  Which is fine, and I think the best response you got was oshkosh's pointer to his Basic-Mountain-Gush deck.  I'd maybe refocus your discussion on that.  I mean, he's proposing some pretty (ahem) heretical (pun) changes to traditional Gush builds in order to thrive in a shops-heavy meta.

[rooneg]

Gush is always on my radar.  Gush decks are among my favorite to play, but right now I don't get to play much, so I have to play things that are more noninteractive.  We'll see what comes out of my testing for champs though, I think young pyromancer is going to change a lot of things about gush decks.

I don't see why, Talrand seems loads better and Empty is always going close the gap faster.

The main difference that I can see is that you can drop the pyromancer a lot faster than you can drop talrand.  A turn 1 or 2 pyromancer lets you start building up your little army of elementals a lot faster than you could if you needed to get to 4 mana for talrand.   This, combined with the fact that it's not a legend, means you are hopefully going to be building that army of elementals quickly enough to let it help you against shops (things to tap to tangle wire, stuff to sac to smokestack, chump blockers to stop lodestone).

Talrand requires you to get to 4 mana and THEN do other stuff before you really get the benefit from him, and can really only be played as a 1 or 2 of and that means you're casting a bunch of your instants and sorceries in an effort to actually find and play him.  He does have the advantage that his tokens are bigger and fly, so they can end the game faster, but you have to get to the point where you've got him in play and have made the tokens, and pyromancer seems like it'll let you start that process a lot faster.

Empty does get you more tokens faster, but it has to be at least a medium sized storm turn, pyromancer can hit the table with no other spells being cast that turn and still be a useful play.  This is especially important against shops.

Of course, this is all theorycrafting, I haven't proxied it up yet.

[Onslaught]

Gush decks should theoretically be definitively superior against other Blue decks, assuming all other things being equal. T3 Gush is so much more powerful than a T2 Bob, or in some cases even a T1 Bob. Since you have such a natural inherent advantage against other Blue decks, the emphasis should be on devoting as few slots as possible to beating Blue and spend the rest on resilience against Workshops. Besides just adding cards to beat Shops specifically, you could also try to minimize your use of cards that are bad vs. Shops. Cutting down on stuff like Misstep and Flusterstorm gets back to the first point of running very few anti-Blue cards, and they are also bad vs. Shops.

The hardest thing for me to cut when making a more "solid" Gush list is the Preordain package. I'd love to be able to run 14 lands, 4 Preordain/1 Ponder. Consistently keeping one land hands, digging for Fastbond, and drawing mostly juice with such a low land count would he delightful. But of course, all this does is press your advantage in Blue matchups and make you even more vulnerable to Shops. Sticking with something like 2 Preordain, 1 Ponder, 15-16 lands is the right start to combat Shops.

I've noted and lamented the demise of Gush for over a year now, and I always hope to see a resurgence of the ECW style control builds. In the meantime, I've experimented with countless Gush builds that try to follow the guidelines above. The thesis statement of a viable Gush deck in a Shops heavy meta should be "how much can I water the deck down while still keeping my inherent advantage in the blue mirror?" I think the answer to that question is "a lot" - Gush is just that much more powerful than the other Blue decks with lesser draw power. Here are some of my observations that I try to incorporate into most builds now:

1- When you run a tiny suite of situational counters, Snapcaster Mage makes them feel a lot more redundant.

If I have 2 Misstep 1 Fluster as my only non-hard counters, I've devoted a tiny amount of space to some backbreaking cards that are relatively easy for Snapcaster to recur. Playing 2 or even 3 Snapcasters in a Gush build gives you a lot of flexibility, especially if you run x1 techy stuff like Spell Snare, REB, etc.

On a side note about the situational counters, I'd skew towards Mindbreak Trap when possible since it is semi-live vs. Shops  

2- A sufficient amount of basics is important, but it still doesn't matter in many games.  

The Gush deck I've had the most fun/success with the last few months have been Talrand based with 4-5 basic Islands and just 4 non-blue spells. But even with a nine card board for Shops and a ton of basics, you still just lose to Chalice/Lodestone stuff all the time. So aiming for at least two basic Islands is nice (at the expense of LoA), three is a luxury, and 4+ is probably overkill.

3- Ancient Grudge and Abrupt Decay

Grudge is obviously a house against Shops, and your higher land count makes it somewhat easier to dip into a fourth color. Similarly, Abrupt Decay (especially if you can ever flash it with Snapcaster) is fairly relevant against Shops. But in practice, neither of these bore out for me how I wanted them to work. Not running Red means you lose Ingot Chewer, so it is a costly choice to make. I'm still trying to suss out whether or not to go back to four colors...

4- Trygon Predator

Especially in non-Red builds, getting a Predator out ASAP is your best way to win. In keeping with the plan to minimize dead cards against Shops while keeping an edge vs. Blue, I like running 1 GSZ, 1 Trygon, 1 Ooze, 1 Tarm.

5- Gush is primarily still a Tinker deck

For a while, I became enamored with the idea of using White in Gush. Based on the success of Bomberman against Shops, I wanted to try UGW with StPs, Serenity in the board, a Pridemage as a GSZ target instead of Tarm, etc. It played fine, but without the Black tutors it became instantly obvious that Gush should still hang its hat on quickly finding/protecting Tinker for BSC. Cages, better removal options for BSC, Metamorphs, blah blah - yes it is rough out there for relying on Tinker the way you used to, but Gush is still really good at executing this gameplan. I don't think it's a coincidence that the decreased prevalence of BSC has coincided with the disappearance of Gush.

Taking all that into account, a solid basis for starting a Gush list could be something like:

2 Snapcaster
1 Tarm
1 Ooze
1 Trygon
1 BSC

4 Gush
2 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral

1 Mystical
1 Vamp
1 Scroll
1 DT

1 Tinker
1 Fastbond
1 GSZ
1 Will
1 Time Walk
2 Jace

4 FOW
2 Misstep
1 Fluster
1 Steel Sabotage

15 land
8 SoLoMoxCrypt

This has room for 3, so stuff like Nature's Claim, Dismember, more Steel Sabotage, a Hurk's or other bounce spell, some Mana Drains, and things of that nature are all worth considering.

[personalbackfire]

@Onslaught
Thanks for your thoughts on the deck.

Interesting that you think you want Snapcaster. I think snapcaster is fine but it doesn't interact too well with Gush itself so I would rather not play it. If recursion is a thing we are looking for I think regrowth makes the most sense as we can loop Time Walks, play multiple Ancestrals, and keep the gushbond engine going. Something that has come up for me in testing as well is being able to regrowth a land. Another positive to regrowth (as well as snap to a lesser extent) is that we can make gifts piles that auto win quite easy.

I agree on needing basics, I've seen people run 1 in the past and I think that is a mistake. I Always want at-least 2 mostly so I can hold up drain, or just have double blue lands that can't be waste landed. If I had room for a 3rd I would probably play it but my version of Gush has 4 colors so its more important to have access to all the colors through duels and fetchs.

I disagree that Gush is still primarily a tinker deck. Historically it's been an aggro control or storm deck. It is not until we add vault/key to the mix (if we do) that I think you want Tinker, then a tinker target.

On a separate note, I went 3-0 at our local Monday night vintage tournament last night.
The core of my deck was:
3 Bob
2 Top
4 Gush
3 Regrowth
2 Drain
1 Empty
1 Tendrils

I decided to run bob because it gives you something to do that creates card advantage and board advantage on turn 1 or 2. I played 2 Top to try and lessen the damage that would be occurring with Gush/Force/Win Cons/ and Jace.

I think there are a few legitimate ways to build a Gush deck, I am excited to see what is the best.  

[Onslaught]

I disagree that Gush is still primarily a tinker deck. Historically it's been an aggro control or storm deck. It is not until we add vault/key to the mix (if we do) that I think you want Tinker, then a tinker target.

I respectfully disagree with just about everything said here. While historically Gush may have been a strong choice for Storm, it is pretty apparent that Rituals have swung back into favor as the superior combo choice. As far as aggro control, is there any legitimate reason to run something like RUG Delver over the recent BoM winning deck? Gush can still be aggro control (especially the Bob/Gush deck you just talked about, always been a fan of that), and it can still be combo (especially Doomsday), but other non-Gush decks do those things better in the overall environment. Also, I still think of "a Gush based Tinker deck" as aggro control, since you are leveraging the numerous advantages of Gush to find a Tinker and ensure it resolves through disruption/protection. As far as Vault/Key, I don't like running it at all in a Gush build that is trying to maximize virtual card advantage. If we were still in the days of fitting Imperial Seal and relying on x1 Hurks and a Bolt or something to deal with non-Blue decks, then I'd be fine with Vault/Key. As it stands right now, I want to always Gush into more card advantage/quality, free spells, or things that can interact on the stack like Clique. A turn 3 Gush into a land and Voltaic Key or something is unappealing in the current meta.

On a side note about Regrowth, I think it is a red herring. Of course there are games that you can Gush, Scroll, Gush, Regrowth, Gush, Regrowth, etc. But for the most part I think it is a win more card that is only good in the matchups that you were going to win anyway (while being a near dead draw in many others).

I think there are a few legitimate ways to build a Gush deck, I am excited to see what is the best.  

Agreed! Off the top of my head there is Talrand/Repeal decks in the Almost Blue style, Delver stuff, Bob/Gush, Remora stuff, ECW hard control stuff, Night's Whisper/ETW Gush, Doomsday, Tropical Storm style stuff which may include Lotus Cobra, and so on...

[personalbackfire]

@ Onslaught
I just don't consider Gush a deck that actively wants tinker/big man enough to be labeled as a "tinker deck". I think that Gush could use Tinker, as well as any number of other win conditions to lock up the game. However, by no means is tinker mandatory in Gush. I personally think the reason to play Gush would be because of the Gushbond engine, which in my opinion lends itself to more of a storm finisher, like Tendrils or Empty.  However, I could be wrong in my approach, and look forward to others work on the archetype. We can disagree, that's fine

I agree that I personally don't really want Vault/key in my gush lists.

However, I do think there is room to build a more controlling gush list where you use Drains, and multiple Jaces, that vault/key begins to look more appealing in (like ECW). I would think this is where it would make sense to add Tinker/big man. This isn't so much in my play style though, which is why I often quickly dismiss it.

Thanks for your input! I'm glad others love gush enough to be actively working on it.

[The Atog Lord]

Gush is an archetype that I greatly enjoy. However, Gush is also very weak against Workshop. That is not an accident -- much of the initial work done on Workshops was done in the context of defeating Gush decks. Workshops have inherent advantage against Gush decks. Gush, as an archetype, does best with a heavy cantrip count and a low land count. This is just the sort of setup that Workshop decks prey upon. Preordain is perfectly fine at one mana. At two mana, it becomes unplayable. When you've designed your deck to find its second land through casting a cantrip on your first two turns, then having an added tax on those cantrips can easily cost you the game.

For non-Gush blue decks, Workshop can be addressed by increasing the land count. Making your first four land drops is a reasonable thing to ask of a Confidant-based blue deck, for example. However, Gush decks cannot simply add more land and call it a day. Much of the advantage of Gush as an archetype is the ability to skimp on the land count and get virtual land drops through Gush itself. This, however, means that including enough lands to make the first four land drops reliably weakens the Gush deck as a whole, and limits its ability to take advantage of Gush.

Put another way, if the metagame is such that you need to make your first four land drops, then you probably should find another deck. If the metagame is such that maindeck Trygon Predator is a necessity for non-Red Blue decks, then Gush isn't looking so good. Further,  the best Fish deck in the format is maindecking a full set of Abrupt Decays, making Fastbond as an approach against them much worse. In short, the metagame is very hostile to Gush at the moment, much to my dismay. Perhaps M14 and the new Pyromancer will add some potency to the archetype.

[Smmenen]

Rich said pretty much the same thing I've said dozens of times, except that what he calls "virtual land drops" I call  mana advantage as a dimension of Gush (actual land drops), and the ability to skimp on land as a source of "virtual card advantage," since it generates better (more high quality) draws over the course of the game.  Workshops punish or cut off virtually every form of advantage Gush offers.