Togless Trinket-Tog

[Benie Bederios]

Note: originally wanted to post it in the CANG contest, but found it not original enough and to few testing results( 5 to 8 eight games most of the time).

UBw Togless Balanced Trinket Tog

History

I'm always been a fan of Psychatog decks. In the current Meta I only felt that the graveyard hate was just to big for Mister Teeth. A while ago I found somebody use Fledging Dragon instead of Psychatog. It looked like a good idea so I started to fiddle with it. After a while I noticed the card Tombstalker(I'm kinda a thicky). It needs only six cards in your graveyard, only costs BB and black a better then red( Thanks Tarmogoyf) so I chose to play it. It was just a Hulksmash like deck. I could throw out a turn 3/4 Stalker quite easily.

The only problem was the deck was to focussed on getting cards in the graveyard and winning the turn after Tog came into play. I started to remove cards like Intuition and Accumulated Knowledge and even the complete green splash.

I decided to use the remaining slots for the Counterbalance engine. From there it was a smalls step to Trinket Mage.

Anyway this is my current list:

Decklist

Maindeck
4 Flooded Strand
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Tundra

4 Tombstalker
3 Trinket Mage

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Predict
3 Cunning Wish
4 Counterspell
4 Force of WIll
4 Swords to Plowshare
3 Counterbalance
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pithing Needle

Sideboard
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Slaughter Pact
2 Extirpate
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Disenchant
1 Echoing Truth
4 Engineered Plague
3 Duress

Card selection

Manabase
It's a light manabase, but this deck has a low curve anyway. Eight cantrips and 2 slowtrips for smoothing out the manabase. 3 basics against Wasteland. Eight fetches for getting a quicker Tombstalker.

Kill Condition
Tombstalker does a nice job in shrinking Tarmogoyf, and beating face. Trinket Mage is a 10 turn clock but gets the job done.

Draw and Tutor
Brainstorm and Ponder are autoincludes for decks that play few lands. They just smooth the deck so much. With 10 library manipulation Predict is a nice cheap card advantage card. It makes casting Tombstalker easier too. It's also nice for messing with your opponent's topdeck tutors. Cunning Wish is left from the old deck. It's still nice being 3 CC for Counterbalance and is never dead.

Control Package
Counterbalance is of course great in alot of matchups. Especially with Sensei's Divining Top and the cantrips. Force of Will and Swords to Plowshare are autoincludes. Counterspell seems rather weak, but after you resolve a Tombstalker you still have to protect for some turns. Counterspell does this without questioning: Daze isn't a hard counter and Spellsnare doesn't counter Swords to Plowshare.

Trinket Toolbox
Sensei's Divining Top is an autoinclude. Engineered Explosives and Pithing Needle are general answers too. Tormod's Crypt is a Metagame slot. This could be another Engineered Explosives/ Sensei's Divining Top or a card outside the Toolbox.

The sideboard
Nothing Special here. Fact or Fiction is rather weak so maybe it will become a second Disenchant. I know Goblins is on the decline, but this deck hasn't got a nice matchup and quite some dead cards in the MD.

Strategy
This is a control deck, that doesn't want to wait until turn 20 to win. It wants to get through the early game and after that beat down with a flying 5/5 monster, while controling the opponent with Counterbalance and co. Use the cantrips to set up a quick Counterbalance lock or a Tombstalker.

You have to keep in mind this deck can switch very fast from control to aggro and the other way around. You have to know wich roll to play.

Matchup analysis
Goblins: Preboard unfavorable / Postboard slightly unfavorable
Counterbalance is rather weak in this matchup. You have only eight answers against Lackey. One of them forces you to fetch an non-basic land for there Wasteland. Postboard you get Engineered Explosives, wich is still awesome againt Goblins. You just have to slow them down, until you can find a a wincondition and beat face.

Thresh(UGr) Preboard favorable / Postboard even
You have the Counterbalance engine really screw them. a Wincondition that shrinks Tarmogoyf. And Trinket Mage which can find Engineered Explosives and Tormod's Crypt. The problem is you can't board anything in, where your opponent gets Krosan Grip. The nice thing is your opponent can't deal with Tombstalker.

TES Preboard favorable / Postboard favorable
Counterbalance beats combo. Sure they will get through some wins with early Goblins tokens or a protected Tendrils, but this isn't a matchup you have to worry about. Postboard you get Duress to make there life even worse.

Standstill Untested probably slightly unfavorable
On paper it looks quite even. They have problems with killing Tombstalker and you have problems killing manlands. I do think Landstill has the upperhand, because they have alot more cardadavantage then you.

Aggro-Loam Preboard even / Postboard Slightly unfavorable
If you can Extirpate there Loam yout in good shape. If you can't it's very though. They have threads that can slip through Counterbalance and a nice draw engine. Again I can't board anything in so postboard it gets a little worse for me.

Anyway the deck needs to finetuned( especially the SB) and I would like your opinion about the deck.

[Cavius The Great]

This list seems original to me. You probably should have posted it in CanG. Can you also explain why Tombstalker is better than Tog? I'm just curious.

[Maveric78f]

I believe that cantrips are overrated in general, but here it seems really obvious. By the way, I would prefer to play Dark Confidant which is really generating card advantage than onder for instance.

[Nightmare]

I believe that cantrips are overrated in general, but here it seems really obvious. By the way, I would prefer to play Dark Confidant which is really generating card advantage than onder for instance.Dark Confidant is a sketchy inclusion in any deck running Toumbstalker as a four-of, Sensei's Top or no.

[Maveric78f]

I don't think so.

[Benie Bederios]

This list seems original to me. You probably should have posted it in CanG. Can you also explain why Tombstalker is better than Tog? I'm just curious.

Hmm, can this thread be moved to the CANG contest then?
About Tombstalker versus Psychatog. Psychatog needs a fatter graveyard in general and you need cards that can fill the graveyard quite fast. Intuition, Accumulated Knowledge and Deep Analysis are all decent cards, but in Legacy quite slow. This deck has the possibility of killing almost as fast as Psychatog deck, but without the avarage cards.
Next to that, this deck isn't hit hard by anti-graveyard measures. First of all, you opponent has a hard time, using it at the right time. Against Tog, as soon as an you resolve a Tog your opponent needs to kill your graveyard. Here you can play a Tombstalker for 3 mana with 5 cards in your graveyard, with an opponent's Tormod's Crypt in play. Even Jotun Grunt is quite bad in preventing a Tombstalker to hit play.


I believe that cantrips are overrated in general, but here it seems really obvious. By the way, I would prefer to play Dark Confidant which is really generating card advantage than onder for instance.

I have tried Dark Confidant and played it over Trinket Mage. But I found the versitality of Trinket Mage much better. On top of that Trinket Mage is a 3 CC spell for Counterbalance. There isn't enough room( at least in my testing) to play Trinket Mage and Dark Confidant. If your going in that direction I think your better of playing Stiflenought actually.

And yeah, getting 5-8 Damage off a Confidant is hard, especially when you normally stabilize around 10 lives.

I do agree with the Cantrips, I think to many people just throw in Brainstorm and Ponder, because it works in Thresh. That's why I only play 8 cantrips. In earlier versions I played up to 16 Cantrips and no Counterbalance engine, but this is working far better for me.

[Mordenkain]

While I'm pretty sure you came up with this yourself, at Worlds, Katsuhiro Mori played a deck with striking similiar concepts.

1 Ancient Den
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scrubland
3 Swamp
1 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
23 lands

4 Tombstalker
3 Trinket Mage
7 creatures

1 Bottled Cloister
4 Brainstorm
1 Cursed Scroll
3 Duress
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Engineered Plague
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thoughtseize
1 Tormod's Crypt
30 other spells

Sideboard
1 Duress
1 Energy Flux
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Engineered Plague
2 Exalted Angel
2 Hydroblast
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
1 Seal of Cleansing

While still a very different decklist, the whole Trinket Mage + Tombstalker concept is here as well. Maybe this list can inspire you a bit. For the record Mori went 4-1 with this list.

[Benie Bederios]

While I'm pretty sure you came up with this yourself, at Worlds, Katsuhiro Mori played a deck with striking similiar concepts.

1 Ancient Den
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scrubland
3 Swamp
1 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
23 lands

4 Tombstalker
3 Trinket Mage
7 creatures

1 Bottled Cloister
4 Brainstorm
1 Cursed Scroll
3 Duress
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Engineered Plague
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thoughtseize
1 Tormod's Crypt
30 other spells

Sideboard
1 Duress
1 Energy Flux
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Engineered Plague
2 Exalted Angel
2 Hydroblast
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
1 Seal of Cleansing

While still a very different decklist, the whole Trinket Mage + Tombstalker concept is here as well. Maybe this list can inspire you a bit. For the record Mori went 4-1 with this list.

If you look closer you see the only similarity are the creatures( and the Trinket Toolbox.) That deck is black based with an Enlightened Tutor toolbox next to the Trinket Toolbox. There is little I can use from this deck,except Thoughtseize. I could try Cursed Scroll, but my hand is usually bigger than that deck.

Are there any other suggestions, for example the manabase is not tuned. Can I play a Plains without hurting the manabase? Or are there cards I just missed?

Anyway I like to here some feedback from you guys.

BB

[Phoenix]

I'm building a similar deck, at the moment my list is:

1 Academy Ruins
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
4 Tundra
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Seat of the Synod

4 Dark Confidant
3 Psychatog
3 Trinket Mage
2 Tombstalker

2 Spell Snare
3 Counterspell
3 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder

2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt

I'd like to add a 3rd SdT but i have to find space for it. I've just started testing so i still don't have a side and i haven't already evaluated what is good or bad...

[Benie Bederios]

Hi,

Sorry for not reacting earlier.

The problem I hade with Psychatog, that it took ages to get a big enough Psychatog. Your build plays 29 cards wich you put yourself in the graveyard. That means 15 damage, if you went through your complete deck. So you need to deal damage through another way, or discard cards from your hand for Tog, or some cards must die. Of course this would probably happen, but Psychatog will still be a very slow win condition in this deck. At the moment I'm testing different matchups and will add a larger strategy explanation.

BB