Turbo Frog

[Sansian]

I've mulled around putting this deck in the casual section, but so far it's actually done kind of well. I let my brewer's certificate lapse back around 1999 and have been solidly on the net-deck train ever since, but occasionally I get bored and toss something together for my local five dollar events. Ever since I saw The Gitrog Monster spoiled, I knew that I needed to make some magic happen by adapting my favorite casual deck... Turbo Fog. I'll start by saying that I know that this isn't an optimized list in the least, but it's a start that may tickle someone's fancy so I figured I'd post it. The sideboard is a disaster.

So now for a bit of what was running through my head as I committed this atrocity. The idea of the deck was to take the turbo fog idea of creating a miserable gameplay experience for your opponent by repeatedly nullifying their combat steps while drawing more and more cards to fuel your degeneracy and use The Gitrog Monster to facilitate the gameplan rather than some boring howling mine effects that are entirely too symmetrical to be fun. The biggest problem with this idea (assuming we discount how horrible the premise of turbo fog is to begin with) is that Gitrog costs five mana. So I looked into my heart and decided that the best GB fast-mana engine for this sort of thing is Veteran Explorer. He's symmetrical, but not everything is perfect. So the next question was, "how do we abuse the Gitrog to maximum value?" My answer was to toss lands in the yard and bring them back from almost every quarter. Between Knight of the Reliquary, Constant Mists, Wasteland, and Ghost Quarter, there should be a steady stream of lands cascading into the graveyard for maximum card advantage.

Since it's a fog deck, I originally had a bunch of fogs and darkness effects, but after playing it a few times, it felt way more on point to add Spore Frog and Volrath's Stronghold as a secondary combat step soft lock.

I'm not sure what else to really say at this point. I'm happy to elaborate a bit if anyone is curious and I'm very happy to edit as we go if anyone else thinks this is fun for some reason. Thanks for humoring me and my terrible deck.

Spells
4 Constant Mists
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Crop Rotation
2 Life from the Loam
1 Crucible of Worlds

Creatures
4 Veteran Explorer
3 The Gitrog Monster
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Spore Frog
1 Gaddock Teeg

Lands
4 Wasteland
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
4 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Plains
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Phyrexian Tower

//Sideboard
SB: 3 Choke
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
SB: 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Helm of Obedience

[MaximumC]

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/muppet/images/5/50/KermitGreen.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120211215303

So... is the Spore Frog really doing anything in this deck? Or is it just there for Maximum Froggage?

If you're playing Gitrog, doesn't the combo with a discard outlet and Dakmor Salvage have a place in the deck?

[ESG]

Constant Mists is hot, but when I brew these days, I'm usually trying to stomp one or more decks. Do you intend to run Turbo Frog in events, or is this a more open-ended experiment?

[Ricardio]

what about Pursuit of Knowledge and Sylvan library!??

[rufus]

Raven's crime is too cute, right?

[Sansian]

Constant Mists is hot, but when I brew these days, I'm usually trying to stomp one or more decks. Do you intend to run Turbo Frog in events, or is this a more open-ended experiment?
I've played it in a five dollar tourney, ended up 3-1. My meta is very fair at the moment and full of eldrazi with sneak and show that preys on the eldrazi. This was more of a cute meta call that I did for fun. It walks over eldrazi in my limited testing.

As for spore frogs... They replaced some other fog effects, but aren't anything To which I'm overly attached.

PoK and Sylvan is too cute even for this pile.

Crime could be cool, could replace some of the spore frogs?

[Ricardio]

I've played it in a five dollar tourney, ended up 3-1. My meta is very fair at the moment and full of eldrazi with sneak and show that preys on the eldrazi. This was more of a cute meta call that I did for fun. It walks over eldrazi in my limited testing.

As for spore frogs... They replaced some other fog effects, but aren't anything To which I'm overly attached.

PoK and Sylvan is too cute even for this pile.

Crime could be cool, could replace some of the spore frogs?

Too cute? Why, thank you.

[ESG]

I've played it in a five dollar tourney, ended up 3-1. My meta is very fair at the moment and full of eldrazi with sneak and show that preys on the eldrazi. This was more of a cute meta call that I did for fun. It walks over eldrazi in my limited testing.

As for spore frogs... They replaced some other fog effects, but aren't anything To which I'm overly attached.

PoK and Sylvan is too cute even for this pile.

Crime could be cool, could replace some of the spore frogs?

Yeah, I didn't understand the Spore Frogs. I love that card, but I would never play it without a reliable way to recur it (such as Genesis). Thoughtseize and Raven's Crime seem like they'd be large improvements. If you're dying for another fog effect, I think Dawnstrider would be potent with your Loam and other card advantage.

[gngpostalsrvc]

Meren of Clan Nel Toth synergizes well with Spore Frog. No Volrath's Stronghold needed.

[Xod]

Meren of Clan Nel Toth synergizes well with Spore Frog. No Volrath's Stronghold needed.

I will definitly build/try this deck with Meren. Looks good and fun! The only thing missing here (and exists in Nic Fit) is filtering (2 GSZ is few) and 'control elements' (deed and AD, but on the other hand, you have spore frogs and constant mists)

Non combat decks or control decks might be your biggest problem. Let's hope for a good wastelock/quarterlock, which should be 'easily' obtained.

[Xod]

And Titania, Protector of Argoth, together with a Gitrog monster it's normally game over.

[Grapes17]

So I played this deck this past weekend, it was pretty fun.

I ran this list but with the the following changes:

-1x Constant Mists
-1x Spore Frog
+1x Titania, Protector of Argoth
+1x Raven's Crime

I would have also liked to run 1x Meren (maybe in place of one of the Gitrogs), but simply didn't have one handy for the tournament.


I'm a sucker for Turbo Fog and other spicy brews, and couldn't resist a deck that was also running both The Gitrog Monster & Spore Frog.

But I did end up with a 2-2-2 finish after 6 rounds before ultimately dropping to head home. Gotta say, better than I expected to do. I was just going to the tournament for a good time & a road trip with my buddy.


0-0-1 vs Elves
I fogged his Craterhoof, then the rest of the game just stalled to time. He tried to kill me with Deathrite Shamans, but ultimately couldn't find enough Instants & Sorceries to eat in the yard (and I couldn't find abrupt decays to deal with his shamans...) Titania also did wooooork in this game. Almost won it, but I wasn't aggressive enough with the 5/3s.

2-1 vs Infect
Game three was incredibly close, and I edged out a win when he wiffed on the last pump spell he needed.

1-1-1 vs Miracles
He got me Game 1. Game 2 I got him with the Helm combo. Game 3 started with about 5 minutes left on clock, at the end neither of us was clearly ahead.

2-1 vs Reanimator/Sneak/Tin-Fins
Game 1 he dodged my cabal therapies and got me with a quick exume kill. Game 2 & 3 the sideboard did a tooooooon of work against him. Maze of Ith & Karakas was also MVP in this match.

1-2 vs Mono White Death & Taxes
I drew into a lot of the wasteland/ghost quarter lock, and it just did no good against them. Game 3 I over extended, thought I could live another turn before I needed to start fogging, he proved me wrong.

0-2 vs MonoBlack (splash green for abrupt decay)
Again, the wasteland/ghost quarter cards just didn't do much against his deck. He quickly got me against the wall & there wasn't much I could do.


Not sure I would run this deck again. The Gitrog Monster is really cute, and I love the idea of fogging it up, but it just couldn't quite get there against the mono-colored decks. Also, it had very little ways to deal with all the creatures on the board once they got there, sure you could fog, but if that wasn't immediately handy, you were a bit dead in the water.....

Tho, Titania + Loam + Ghost Quarter/Wasteland is pretty sweet....

As I type this up, I wonder what this deck would look like if it were just GB and ramped quickly into Titania + Constant Mists... I could see it potentially... up the Green Sun's Zenith, drop Gitrog down to 1x, maybe more Crop Rotation. Drop down to 1x spore frog (or maybe 0, but I love the little guy so much...) Maybe cut white entirely (tho Gaddok Teeg & Thalia do sooooo much work)...

Fun deck tho. Thank you Sansian for the idea. :laugh::smile: