[Deck] Psychatog

I figured I would write up a post explaining my rouge legacy deck from the Oct 09 Mean deck open (been called bitter blossom (BB for short) control, a fair name I guess but not what I would call it, I would call it Psychatog. Only thing I’ve really done is evolved psychatog into a new version that runs BB instead of zombie infestation or some other creature generator and running standstills and mox diamonds I get cards in graveyard quick enough for a tog kill prolly on turn 5 or so with a heave into a tog).

I’ve been play testing this deck for almost a year now, started in Jan or 09 when I decided to run this for grand prix Chicago. The deck started out as a land still deck that ran the crucibles, waste lands, man land, mox diamonds, and bitter blossom. The choice of BB was because I hated loosing to an early game goyf that went nuts….. With mox diamond I could get BB on turn 1, fight over it with counter spells and then hopefully cruise to wasteland crucible control.

Didn’t really work that way…. I knew back then that counter-top was getting all the hype (for good reason) and I punted to it trying to out race it early… So I went to the extreme opposite way of thinking….What if I use a spell to wreck them that is so far a way from the counter/top engine that I could always get it off with minimal counter back up….This led me to a deck that ran standard when OTJ block was the it block…Mr. Teeth (Psychatog/Upheaval)…. The crucibles, stifles, etc… came out and in went 3x upheaval and 3x psychatog.

The next tourney I was in before Chicago I realized that combo was still present and to a deck that is completely conditional like that I really needed access to my sideboard at any time so I could one up the combo decks (besides praying for a mulligan to fow), and put other decks on tilt when they’re not expecting it, so 4x cunning wish came in and focus on the sideboard started….

The deck is optimal but I do take advice and change things as is needed. In the Mean deck I was running 3x fact or fiction… I guess because I just wasn’t thinking about it…. Once it was suggested that Brainstorm was prolly the right call over fact I agreed and started testing it…. I like Brainstorm better, helps keep the gas up early game and the subtle nuances with it and fetching or hiding away fow from mbc decks is an awesome fold to have added to the deck. I also would love to flirt with the idea of putting in Jitte but have no idea what I would take out to squeeze them in…The deck list now looks like this and I will be playing in Dec at the next Mean deck open hope to see a lot of people there!!

Land (this is going to seem odd at first…just remember, my main deck is really just B/U the rest of the craziness is just for utility out of the board that isn’t necessary for the deck to run.
4x Wasteland
4x Underground Sea
1x Tundra
1x Tropical Island
1x Volcanic Island
4x blue fetches (prolly 1 of each cause I fear the extirpate)
4x Mishra’s Factory
3x Faerie Conclave (wanted the extra blue source and flyer over mutavault but may change if fish keeps coming on strong!)

Artifacts
4x Mox Diamond

Sorceries
4x Damnation
3x Upheaval

Creatures
3x Psychatog

Enchantments
4x Standstill
4x Bitter blossom

Instants
4x Force of Will
4x Cunning Wish
3x Daze (there’s a reason!)
3x Brainstorm (used to be FoF , it was just to slow!! Good call Harrison and A. Knaack)
2x Spell Snare (only thing about the main deck I don’t like is I would love to squeeze in Jitte but other than maybe 2 Jittes in for 2 spell snare, which I don’t like cause of taking a way a force pitch and a great counter spell; I can’t figure out how to squeeze any in….)

Sideboard (tool kit)
1x Daze
1x Grip of Amnesia
1x Hurkyl’s Recall
1x Path to Exile
1x Disenchant
1x Red elemental Blast
3x Extirpate
3x Stifle
3x Jund Charm (ok this is the clunkiest card in the side….but… it helps a lot against dredge, thresh, counter-top, and land still match ups….as odd as it sounds I can get to the r/g/b without to many complications using the mox diamonds and a well placed fetch land!, willing to take suggestions for a replacement card here but would want it to be an instant so game 2 and 3 instead of 3 or 4x tormod’s crypts I’m basically running 6 crypt effects main deck…. Side in 2x Jund charms and 4x wishes to go get the last charm in the board increases my probability of getting to it over a 3 or 4 spot of crypts)

I would rather run Ravenous Trap than Jund Charm. Free vs Dredge, and 1 more mana in much easier colors vs. everyone else. Unless you plan on instant speed pyroclasm.

Moved to New & Developmental. Threads posted in the Established Forum require a full description including explanation of card choices and matchups.

How well did you do with the deck in the Oct. Meandeck Open? What does the rest of your tourney results look like?

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Originally Posted by Kangaxx

How well did you do with the deck in the Oct. Meandeck Open? What does the rest of your tourney results look like?

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I plan on doing a complete play test write up of how I've done with the deck and my key matchups, but for the mean deck I did mid pack ok with it. I ended up going 2-2-1 left (cause I didn't realize there was 6 rounds thought it was 5).

Round 1 I went 1-2 against mono red goblins.... He gets a good start game 1 with lacky(I fow), my turn I cast mox diamond, bitterblossom, pass turn,(I'm holding a daze, standstill, and maybe some land). He casts Lacky, passes turn, I lay standstill, as a fast effect he casts lightning bolt on my 1/1 fae, I daze it, and standstill resoles. His turn he swings for 1 with lacky, in comes seiege gang commander, the next few turns go I get a token pass, he lays a mountain pays 2 fries it, swings piledriver....ok thats about all she wrote.... Game 2 I get early control and roll him with 6 flying faeries, I also hit 2 standstills that he had to break to try and come back. Game three I kept a no counter hand cause I had mox, underground sea, wasteland, mishra's factory, bitterblossom, stand still, and a volcanic island. He goes first lays lacky, passes. I draw another standstill(think I'm in great shape here... cast BB pass turn). He swings with lacky, plays a piledriver, taps 2 red casts a piledriver.....seriously...... not much I can do at this point to gain control except pray for a damnation turn 3, don't see it.

Game 2 was the mono blue stax deck for me, I know I handled this deck very easily and wasn't worried during any part of the game but I'm not sure if I 2-0 him or if it was 2-1 (either way bitterblossom turn 1 for 1 win, and psychatog under ensaring bridge for the other.)

Game 3 against Fish (hadn't tested much against it) lost game 1 to a fast swarm, saw a couple counterspells but he resolved curse catcher which made damnation hard to hit. Game 2 I hit a turn 3 damnation to take control resolved BB, wished for a disenchant to nail his Jitte before it did anything and won. Game 3 I also ended up winning after many many turns of going back and forth. Late game he resolves a curse catcher, a lord of atlantis, and has a mutavault in play, I'm at like 10, with BB out with 4 flyiers, he's at 12 or so. At his EOT I cast cunning wish and he lets it go I grab jund charm and do the instant spead pyro, tapping out, he sacks curse then it's my turn. I swing with some tokens to put him to 8, tap all 6 mana and cast upheaval. He FOW's it, I FOW his off another cunning wish (i'm now at 8, he's at 7). Heaval hits, I lay a waste land for my land for the turn and pitch a land to mox diamond, and cast stand still. I've got 1 factory in hand and my wasteland will take care of the mutavault. He goes lay a land passes, I lay my factory and thats pretty much it, I had control from their out, he ended up breaking standstill into a daze to finish him off.

Game 4 was a game that was odd, I now know he was playing esper landstill, but honestly he was so frustrated that he didn't see the meta he was expecting that this game was just uncomforatable... Game 1 I chained like 3 standstills in a row, hit my BB tokens, and won. Game 2 went back and forth and when he had me to a point where I couldn't win I was stuborn and didn't conceede to go to game three, I played it out way longer than I should have and we ended up drawing 1-0-1

Game 5 I saw counter-top goyf..... I'm very confident at this point I'm going to be 3-1-1 cause I never! loose to this deck. In all honesty this deck like I said from the beginning is why I made my deck. Game 1 goes as expected, I resolve BB on turn 2, fight over it with counters, win the war, he resolves goyf turn 3 for a 4/5, I sit there build up to 2 tokens, and sit paying 1 life to not take 4 or more, then he hits the counterbalance top engine, and I wait till I have 7 lands , 1 mox diamond in play, and in hand 2 fow's, 1x cunning wish, 1x psychatog, 1x spellsnare, 1 upheaval in hand and tap 7 and use 6 for upheaval, of course counter-top fails (that's why I play my deck of course it's going to fail!) we fight over it with a small counter war (i win), recast mox diamond, lay a land for the turn, tog.... I win...
Game 2 he resolves goyf, noble hiearch by end of turn 3 and hits another goyf on like turn 5, he wins.
Game 3 goes forever and I have a BB online with 6 tokens out and him at 12, he has a goyf out and thats it, I'm at 16 this is my 3rd win!!!.....Or not..... he casts natural order when I have no cards in hand and a standstill on the board, it cracks, just a daze, he has the mana, and he sacs goyf (now up until this point I haven't seen this and I didn't put 2 and 2 together until he reveals progenitus.... Yeah that's how I lost a freakin 10/10 that all I can do is pray for a damnation that never comes.....

then I left, could have sworn someone told me it was 5 rounds but I knew at 2-2-1 I wasn't going to make it anyways....

I'll do a complete write up of other matches I've had. I test this deck at least 10 to 12 hours a week (every Wed and Friday at Comic Town in columbus OH). I know the canadian thresh match-up backwards and forwards (my friend's fav deck) as well as quite a few other decks we've playtested with/against. I hope to have the full write up soon.

Thanks for checking the deck out!

We played at the open round 5 and now that i've had time to look at your list here are my thoughts.

1. your mana-base is atrocious. this is legacy, not standard and while you can get away with some naughty behavior your over-all base needs to be solidified and not so damn look what I can do because "I am Mr. Crazy five color".

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4x Wasteland
4x Underground Sea
1x Tundra
1x Tropical Island
1x Volcanic Island
4x blue fetches
4x Mishra’s Factory
3x Faerie Conclave

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Lets break this down a bit. Starting with the obvious you run 8 actual colorless sources. to give you an idea for consistency reasons I run 5 and I play a 2 color deck which splashes black (very lightly) this is because this format plays wasteland (as you know) and stifle (as you know as well.)

You need to cut down to reasonable amounts of colors and some damn basic lands. Jund charm while a good card doesn't permit you to go crazy with your lands. It just says high im an overcosted tormod's crypt against graveyard based decks or high im a pyroclasm against land-Still? Thresh doesn't care if you play jund charm at all it only resets their graveyard IF you resolve it. So there goes trop and volcanic.

You use white for 1 path to exile and 1 disenchant in the board. Why wouldn't you run stp? why would you run disenchant as opposed to seed spark If you ran green or if you moved heavier on white ray of distortion or return to dust? Drop white or play stp in the main. end of story.

This leaves us with 2 potentially 3 color. Lets color you pretty.

4 sea
1 tundra
1 scrub
4 delta
1 flooded
1 marsh flats
3 island
2 swamp
1 plains
3 mishra
3 wasteland

Conclave is worthless in a standard meta-game and I think you'll see that if you test more. It's also very dead against decks that use wasteland or s.t.p. Running more manlands is not the answer. Running a safer manabase to get you the cash money is.

Thats all the time I have for tonight I hope I helped.

yeah I was expecting this argument and I always have to steer ppl away from it. I dunno if I'm the only one that has ever had the "toolkit" idea or not but it messes with ppl mind's when they see my mana base. Let me break it down a little more in depth.

The part I'll agree with you on for sure is conclave does seem like a wasted card the way you broke it down and I can see it not being there for sure, I would probably change it to more black sources.

if you really break it down you'll see that my deck is actually 2 colors.....yeah only 2, black/blue.... I know, I know, yeah but your 5 color sideboard, blah blah...

Well look at my board a little closer and you'll realize that the "real" sideboard is 3x stifle, 3x extirpate, then 3 slots I can easily get to with blue mana like 1x Daze, 1x Hurkyl's Recall, 1x Grip of Amnesia... Then I do 3 slots of things I would like to have at a certain time, those being 1x disenchant, 1x path to exile (used to be smother and could easily go back to it), and 1x red elemental blast... Notice I said would like to have at a certain time, all of which takes 1 off color being white/red, my deck does not need these 3 cards to function, nor do I need them to win, just nice to have to deal with things quicker that pop up in games(looking at jitte for example, sure creature control works well, but why not just freakin disenchant the thing and call it done!).... Then the admittedly worst spot in the board is the 3 jund charms, it's the only instant I could find that says remove target players graveyard, seemed like a good fit late game cause I only get it when I have the mana to pull it off (or really desperate, usually when I have the mana to pull it off though) and it turns 1 or 2 goys that are 6/7's into 0/1's when I jund charm with a tog on the board (nail his graveyard, sac my own, advantage me, seriously any advice on a better instant than jund charm I'm for, but I couldn't find one that hits graveyards like it does!)

So now that the board is out of the way, lets look at the main deck...
Every card in the main deck is sitting on either U, UU, UB, or BB. That being said the only problem I have every now and then is hitting BB for damnation (why I said the conclaives could go for a black source). I always have my islands for Daze. And to be completely honest going 1 of's really throws opponents off cause they always wasteland the wrong lands.... If they really wanted to screw my deck over then wasteland the underground sea's... Having the tundra, volcanic island, and tropical isalnd throws them off.

I will try the other mana base but it will be odd to find 4x sideboard slots to replace 3x jund charm's and a red elemental blast. Maybe your idea does free up the spell snares to move to the side for 2x jitte's main(might try it)...

I have another 15 hours of playtesting this week so I'll let you know what I find out making some of the changes!

Hi, It's Eric - we spoke briefly at comic town, and I was the Faerie stompy player at the meandeck open who made top 8. I used to run a UB tog deck back before the days before goyf, and have developed it to adapt to the meta since. It is unfortunate, but without gush to push tog's power level in a turn, and with goyf in the format eating away at out grave (if you have tog) or life, Tog is likely outdated. I also used to run the full set of damnations, but see them as a thing of the past, as sweepers are not that good against goblins, and against decks that expect it, and in most game twos/threes, damnation is a hard-to-cast 1-for-1, 2-for-2 or 2-for-1. (assuming they are good enough to not overextend, and that you were not put under much pressure as to have to lay a blocker) I think EE or recurring EEs are probably the way to go here as far as sweepers are concerned. Any deck not running MD swords or burn probably needs to have jitte as at least a two-of, as opposing bobs need to be dealt with else they single-handedly win the game. Cunning wish, while it adds utility, is slow. Slow as hell. We are not landstill, we have no moats or humilities to bide time allowing us to wish->3/4cc spell to deal with CB. Goyf will eat our face in the meantime. Here's my take on UB 'noTog':

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [R] Underground Sea
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [10E] Island (1)
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (4)
1 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [10E] Swamp (1)

// Creatures
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [TSP] Looter il-Kor
3 [TSB] Shadowmage Infiltrator
3 [FD] Trinket Mage

// Spells
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [NE] Daze
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
1 [ALA] Executioner's Capsule
1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
4 [TSP] Ancestral Vision
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 4 [UL] Engineered Plague
SB: 2 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [CSP] Counterbalance
SB: 3 [TE] Perish

I think the strength of blue based aggro-control decks (in the absence of goyf) lies in landing a quick permanent to generate CQ/CA (such as CB/top, or in this build looter, bob, and shadowmage.) I omitted CB MD, as EE + CB = major nonbo, but CB/top is gravy against some MUs such as burn, zoo, and combo. I understand that this is not totally in-line with your deck shell, but it takes the same approach, (losing a card T1 to attempt to power out an early threat that will dominate in the mid-game) and is streamlined. (IMO, chome mox is superior to mox diamond without a means of land recursion, as chrome allows you run fewer lands, whereas mox diamond necessitates you to run 24+. The 'any color' is mostly irrelevant in a 2 color deck, and IMO dark confidant and looter are much more devastating sources of CA than bitterblossom in a deck without faerie lords or spellstutters.)