I hadnt really time to play and Test the Deck.
is the Golgari Troll really so good?
And Gozilla can you give me your actually Decklist? I dont want to beg, but i Think after your massive Testings my Decklist should be really outdated ;)
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I hadnt really time to play and Test the Deck.
is the Golgari Troll really so good?
And Gozilla can you give me your actually Decklist? I dont want to beg, but i Think after your massive Testings my Decklist should be really outdated ;)
Godzilla, Saint Impy doesn't need Wonder in the 'yard because it already has flying.
If you try Cabal Therapy, Birds of Paradise could also be worth a shot. A little bit of accel and a body to sac to Therapy.
You could try out Mana Leak too. Maybe - 3 Putrefy, -3 Daze and +4 Mana Leak, +1 Intuition and +1 something else.
I often Thougth about Daze.
It can Counter for 0cc, but it give your Opponent 1 Turn more, because you bounce a Land.
I would prefer Force Spike or Mana Leak.
If i think on Welder, SotF and Vial, I would prefer Force Spike.
Whats about 2 Force Spike and 1 Disrupting Shoal?
For those who aren't liking Darkblast, isn't Cabal Pit probably a lot better?
When Goblin Lackey gets banned, yes.
-Slay
Force of Will is already being debated on whether it fits. I don't think Shoal would cut it at all. Not sure about Force Spike though...Quote:
Originally Posted by Windux
Cabal Pit will be better than Darkblast when it loses the Threshold requirement on it's ability and gets Dredge. 'Nuff said.
In the combo build? Yes. It makes for relatively consistent turn 4 wins. It's actually an impressive beatstick in the lategame as well, which helps you avoid total reliance on Togs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Windux
It's at the bottom of page 3. Universal Snip's post at the bottom of page 4 is the same list with slight modifications. Some I agree with, some I might, but I'm not sure about. I'd post another list here, but it's in such a constant state of flux right now I'm not sure there'd be much of a point.Quote:
And Gozilla can you give me your actually Decklist? I dont want to beg, but i Think after your massive Testings my Decklist should be really outdated ;)
The only thing I'm totally convinced about is that the core of any Dredge Tog list should include the following:
At least 1 Basic Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Psychatog
At least 3 Dredge Creatures (Grave-Troll/Imp)
At least 1 Wonder
4 Brainstorm
At least 3 Intuition
At least 2 Deep Analysis
Beyond that, it's really wide open. Even the green splash isn't a given. Life from the Loam is very very good, but there are tons of other directions the deck can go, and I've been testing all kinds of them.
True. It was 4am and I straight up forgot.Quote:
Godzilla, Saint Impy doesn't need Wonder in the 'yard because it already has flying.
Mana Leak is almost strictly inferior to Counterspell. All of the lands in the deck aside from maybe 3-4 of them produce blue. If you don't have UU up by turn two you have a whole different set of problems. The issue isn't one of color availability; it stems from the fact that the combo version of the deck is highly proactive. It has a lot of sorcery speed things to do with its main phase, like casting Tog, Loam, or DA. Leaving 2 mana open in the early game drstically reduces the deck's speed, hence the switch to Daze. A 1cc counter like Force Spike or Circular Logic (if you add more discard outlets) could be acceptable as well.Quote:
You could try out Mana Leak too.
I don't agree. The deck commonly has threshold as early as turn 3. Cabal Pit doesn't cost you a draw phase. It can be recurred with Life from the Loam. It doesn't utterly suck against X/2 threats.Quote:
Cabal Pit will be better than Darkblast when it loses the Threshold requirement on it's ability and gets Dredge. 'Nuff said.
As for not having Dredge, I've never Dredged a Darkblast solely for pumping the yard ever. In doing so, you're skipping a draw. That one card in hand is actually strictly better for pumping Tog than Darkblast is, because it adds +1.5 power (1 card from hand, 1 from yard) as opposed to just +1 (2 cards from yard). Frankly, I'm not nearly as enamored with Darkblast as many others seem to be. Aside from answering a first turn Lackey (which happens infrequently with only 1 in the deck), it's really not very good at all.
[color=#000000:post_uid12][quote:post_uid12="GodzillA"]Frankly, I'm not nearly as enamored with Darkblast as many others seem to be. Aside from answering a first turn Lackey (which happens infrequently with only 1 in the deck), it's really not very good at all.[/quote:post_uid12]
This is very true. I also noticed that Darkblast just isn't good enought because it does not take care of Warchief and Piledriver. I also never want to give up a card for the Darkblast in my graveyard. If only there was a sort of green/blue/black pyroclasm that isn't expensive :(
Some suggested Mox Diamond. I tested it and sure it's powerful when you get 2 mana first turn, but I think that you shouldn't play it because often you miss your second land drop unless you're able to brainstorm. Drawing land, land, land, mox diamond, and some non-brainstorm spells is almost always a bad hand to start with. Also, when you play Mox Diamond you can't play Pernicious Deed and that card just happens to be quite good against goblins...[/color:post_uid12]
That's actually not true. You mill 3 cards for +1.5 power. Darkblast then goes to your hand for +1 power, for a total of +2.5 power. I have however, gone down to one darkblast because, as others have said, they are rather lackluster.Quote:
Originally Posted by GodzillA
True. That's what I get for posting at 4 in the morning. Regardless, dredging Darkblast feels sooo underwhelming compared with, say, Golgari Grave-Troll, or even Life from the Loam. Basically, it costs me a draw and BB to remove an X/2 creature. In testing, that's been phenomenally bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by venustomars
I wasn't sold on this deck until I actually played it in a side event this past weekend, and I regret playing goblins over it in the Grand Prix. The following is a quote from a post I made in the Adept Lounge about the deck:
I ran the list Godzilla posted on page 3, but I cut two GG Trolls for Stinkweed Imps, bad choice. I thought it would improve my Goblin matchup, but the Imp is terrible against them because not only are you not setting up the win by casting Intuition, Tog, or some combination of Brainstorm + cycle lands, but you are playing a card that just gets Gempalm'ed out of the way. GG Trolls, like Zilla mentioned, not only dredge for one more (which does make a difference, especially when digging for Loams, or Pits/Darkblasts), but it is a secondary threat to control decks like Wombat - which by the way is a horrendous matchup if you don't have the turn 4 win with counter backup) - and Landstill, and wrecks the shit out of grow (recurring fattie that regenerates and flys and tramples with incarnations in the yard? GG Troll!).Quote:
I trult see DaT rising to tier 1.5 status sometime soon. I played it in the side event for dual lands, and walked out splitting because it was 11:40 and we didn't feel like playing a 3 hour game. The deck is just ridiculous. Darkblast is a house against goblins, it can easily race it, and Plagues out of the board can be reliably dug for via cycle lands and Brainstorms. Even though Wombat is a hard matchup, it still has game if it has a fast enough hand, the same is true for Solidarity, not to mention Chalices and other tech out of the board smash it games 2 and 3. The deck is incredibly resilient, consistant, and the synergy from dredge means that you can find you engine and win conditions easily.
I haven't tested Pit mainly because I forgot it existed, but I was strongly considering it after watching someone play it in the extended PTQ and cause many a blowout against aggro.
Darkblast is decent. It acutually won me a game versus Landstill because I was at 4, him having 3 factorys, me having a 4/4 GG Troll, a Genesis, and a Shitweed Imp on the table, 8 lands in play, and my hand consisting of 3x Sandbar 1x Moor, and a D-Blast in the 'yard. He's at 15 so I tell him "Whatever, attack with the 4/4's because I'm crazy" (they fly and trample, btw). He goes to 7, EoT cast swords on Imp, so it looks like I'm going to lose. Next turn he turns factorys sideways for lethal, so I cycle Sandbar, Dredging Blast casting it, again, and then once more, putting me at 1 life and proceeding to win. So its decent sometimes. Also, it kills 2/2's if you cast it in your upkeep, dredge it, then cast it again.
I just got my computer working again (which it hasn't since my last post in this thread) and immediately made some modifications for a tourny I noticed was coming up in a few minutes on o-gaming.
// Lands
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Lonely Sandbar
2 Barren Moor
1 Island
1 Tundra
1 Cabal Pit
1 Plains
// Creatures
4 Psychatog
3 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Wonder
1 Genesis
1 Brawn
// Spells
4 Mox Diamond
4 Brainstorm
3 Life from the Loam
3 Intuition
3 Deep Analysis
1 Ray of Revelation
4 Duress
4 Swords to Plowshares
// Sideboard
SB: 2 Oxidize
SB: 1 Regrowth
SB: 4 Engineered Plague
SB: 1 Darkblast
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Diabolic Edict
I'll come back with some explanations after this tournament is over.
About the above list:
First, the fourth diamond was easy. That card is responsible for all of this deck's broken openings, and it's an amazing colorfixer.
Second, I felt Demise just wasn't going to cut it after the GP results. Black creatures now exist. StP in, demise out. Splashing the fourth color wasn't a problem with the increased diamond count.
Force and Daze sucked and we knew it. Give up on them. If you force, you'll run out of gas, and daze just doesn't work.
I'm not sure where I was going with the sb, but it worked out alright. Edict was good. Plague was good. Blast was good.
Made t8, then lost. Not a particularly large tournament - only four rounds before the cutoff.
I went:
0-2 against R/G Survival. I would have won the first game and possibly the second, but I'm a pretty bad player.
Note that FtK is just as insanely good against togs in legacy as extended. Goddamn I love FtK.
2-1 against Deadguy Ale. The first game went pretty badly, but I logicked thusly:
Ale doesn't have very many creatures, so they should topdeck horribly if you keep confidant off the board. I sided in plagues and edicts and things went according to plan. Lessons: plague is very good against ale. Keep confidant off your ass. Keep loams md. Goddamn I love confidant.
2-1 against goblins. This guy had the most amazing ringleaders in the history of ever. They always pulled at least three cards and there was always either a piledriver or a lackey in the booty. Goddamn I love goblins.
In the first game I just got horribly vialed out. You know how it works. Second I got a plague out and just won from there. In the third, my hand was obscenely broken. I went first turn tog, discarded the last card in my hand during my next upkeep, and dredged for six. Some good.
I drew in the next round, went to t8, played the guy I just drew with, and got hammered. First game, I nearly locked him out with pit/loam recursion, but he just ended up burning me out. The second came down to hardcast trolls. He sacced all his permanents to double fireblast me. I sworded one of the trolls, but it was only a 3/3 - exactly small enough that I died anyway. We checked and he didn't have land coming for a looooooong time. Had I brought back a fetch instead of cabal pit at one point, I would have easily taken the game. Goddamn I hate burn.
Here's the list I'd now run:
// Lands
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Lonely Sandbar
2 Barren Moor
1 Island
1 Tundra
1 Cabal Pit
1 Plains
// Creatures
4 Psychatog
3 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Wonder
1 Genesis
1 Brawn
1 Akuta, Born of Ash
// Spells
4 Mox Diamond
4 Brainstorm
3 Life from the Loam
3 Intuition
2 Deep Analysis
4 Duress
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Ray of Distortion
// Sideboard
SB: 3 Oxidize
SB: 4 Engineered Plague
SB: 1 Darkblast
SB: 4 Meddling Mage
SB: 1 Ray of Revelation
SB: 2 Night of Souls' Betrayal
Distortion is obviously tough on the flashback, but a tutorable maindeck answer to needle and survival is too good to pass up. I made the sideboard a lot better and added akuta, which seems like a natural bomb to me.
You still get monkeystomped by any kind of combo, though. Also, the deck's mana requirements are insane! I think a good LD draw by your opponent, Life from the Loam or no, is going to stall you miserably.
-Slay
Yeah. :(Quote:
You still get monkeystomped by any kind of combo, though.
I can't put it any less bluntly than to say you're wrong. I fear price of progress. I fear back to basics. I do not fear land destruction, be it wasteland or sinkhole or army ants or whatever.Quote:
Also, the deck's mana requirements are insane! I think a good LD draw by your opponent, Life from the Loam or no, is going to stall you miserably.
-Slay
Also notice ray of distortion is the only card that requires double mana, and that only when flashbacked. Note that a single mox diamond is capable of fixing your mana for the whole game. Observe that this is one of the most synergetic manabases to EVER grace the halls of magic.
The mana really isn't a problem. If I found a need I wouldn't have had any issue with splashing red.
EDIT: I would make one adjustment. -1 Delta, +1 Flooded Strand.
I'm not really understanding this whole bit here. I assume first, that these Trolls are not Troll Ascetic, and then I assume by "sacced all his permanents to double fireblast me", you mean he sacced 4 Mountains to double Fireblast you?Quote:
I drew in the next round, went to t8, played the guy I just drew with, and got hammered. First game, I nearly locked him out with pit/loam recursion, but he just ended up burning me out. The second came down to hardcast trolls. He sacced all his permanents to double fireblast me. I sworded one of the trolls, but it was only a 3/3 - exactly small enough that I died anyway. We checked and he didn't have land coming for a looooooong time. Had I brought back a fetch instead of cabal pit at one point, I would have easily taken the game. Goddamn I hate burn.
That aside, looking at the current meta: this deck will often have 3 first turn needs.
First turn blue for Brainstorm for any suboptimal hands.
First turn black for Duress against combo/control.
First turn white for StP against Goblin Lackey.
My question is that is white really needed as a 4th colour? Basically you are splashing white for Mage SD and StP main. Wouldn't say... Darkblast and Deed serve virtually identical purpose? If not better, given Darkblast's interaction with Tog?
Hrm. I suppose I should have listed my sideboard along with my original build:
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Pithing Needle
4x Engineered Plague
3x Naturalize
The Chalices answer many of the combo matchups and lock down the Burn matchup hard. The original list only had 5 1cc cards (Brainstorm and Darkblast) and 6 2cc cards (3 Loam, 3 Daze), so there was a lot of flexibility there. Now that you've added 8 more 1cc cards, Chalice is probably no longer an option. You've got Mage for the combo matchups, for what that's worth... but unless you want to make room for Chill, I think you're probably resigned to losing to Burn. I mean, unless you want to run 3x Golgari Brownscale in the board. I imagine that tactic would work fairly well.
I'd really really miss Chalice as an SB option though... it just shuts down so many problems for the deck. It locks down most combo, it locks down Burn, it protects your Tog from REB and Swords, and and it keeps Pithing Needle off the table. Hell, at one point I was tempted to run it maindecked, but it really is more of a reactive SB option I think.
In any case, more than anything, I see a real problem with your ability (or lack thereof) to control the board and protect your Tog. 4 Duress as your only protection seems like you're asking for trouble. I've tested a similar build with 4 Duress and 3 Therapy and even that seemed light as far as control was concerned.
Frankly, having spent two weeks testing 6 distinctly different dredge Tog strategies, I'm getting a little disheartened with the endeavor. Any build with the ability to race other aggressive decks in the field tends to end up feeling woefully light on control, and any build that feels solid on control seems to take forever to win... particularly when it only has 4 real win conditions in the entire deck which force you to overcommit and go "all in".
I'm beginning to wonder how much better than the more classic Tog builds these ones really are. They can be lightning fast but they're also very fragile. I dunno, it's late and I'm rambling. I'll keep working with it. Keep me posted.
They're of the golgari persuasion. They can be hardcast if you need some revised quality beatsticks.Quote:
I'm not really understanding this whole bit here. I assume first, that these Trolls are not Troll Ascetic,
Don't see what else it could mean.Quote:
and then I assume by "sacced all his permanents to double fireblast me", you mean he sacced 4 Mountains to double Fireblast you?
Ok.Quote:
That aside, looking at the current meta: this deck will often have 3 first turn needs.
First turn blue for Brainstorm for any suboptimal hands.
First turn black for Duress against combo/control.
First turn white for StP against Goblin Lackey.
That's not very hard. Goldfish it if you have doubts.
A) Deed is awful in tog, whatever the formatQuote:
My question is that is white really needed as a 4th colour? Basically you are splashing white for Mage SD and StP main. Wouldn't say... Darkblast and Deed serve virtually identical purpose? If not better, given Darkblast's interaction with Tog?
B) Darkblast is very much a niche card out here
I think you did, actually. [/too lazy to look]Quote:
Hrm. I suppose I should have listed my sideboard along with my original build:
Hmm.Quote:
I mean, unless you want to run 3x Golgari Brownscale in the board. I imagine that tactic would work fairly well.
Here's a thought:
Firemanes.
I notice you gravitated towards seven disruption slots again. It seems to me you'd have to make some structural changes rather than -4 Force -3 Daze +4 Disruption +3 Other Disruption.Quote:
In any case, more than anything, I see a real problem with your ability (or lack thereof) to control the board and protect your Tog. 4 Duress as your only protection seems like you're asking for trouble. I've tested a similar build with 4 Duress and 3 Therapy and even that seemed light as far as control was concerned.
The build I posted is NOT intended to protect the tog. It's intended to protect the engine. Get the engine going and all other things will fall into place.
I think the problem with disruption in this deck is that it has to be extremely cheap (like cabal therapy), extremely good (like cabal therapy), and extremely synergetic (not like cabal therapy. or force of will for that matter).
Worst case scenario we're looking at Thwart. Ugh. Thwart is ass.
Okay, I'm not really understanding the whole "golgari persuasion" bit here, so I'll skip ahead to the rest.
I did some goldfish, well, more like I generated 200 opening hands on MWS. The mana base is shakey in a vacuum, and it will only destablize more once you factor in Wastelands, Ports, and BwD's Sinkholes and Vindicates. Four colour decks, even with full out suited duals, IMO, will always have mana consistency issues.
This to me, is not an expliantion. Why is Deed bad? Other than losing the Mox, you will likely lose no other permanents. Deed can wipe out an army of Goblins, blow up some random Mystic Enforcers, kill any RoP/CoP Black that Wombat's running in fear of BwD, and it does NOT require a 4th colour splash. So why is it bad?Quote:
A) Deed is awful in tog, whatever the format
B) Darkblast is very much a niche card out here
Darkblast can take out first turn Lackey, it can help you set up your engine, which by your own admission, is the most important aspect of the deck. Again, it needs no 4th colour splash. In my mind, using "on-colour" utility that advances the primary goal/engine of the deck is good, not bad. I would very much appreciate some explinations.
PS. Firemane over Golgari Brownscale? I must be overlooking the Plateaus in the deck list.
PPS. Wouldn't Foil be actually superior? Since you can discard two lands to counter, and get the lands back later with Loam?
Meh. Gaining only 1 life per turn against Burn isn't likely to be enough. Further, Brownscale actually supports the dredge engine and Tog itself. And in a pinch, they can be hardcast and used as beaters.Quote:
Originally Posted by UniversalSnip
Clearly. The problems I see with the argument are as follows:Quote:
The build I posted is NOT intended to protect the tog. It's intended to protect the engine. Get the engine going and all other things will fall into place.
1. Tog is a key part of your engine.
2. Get the engine going without protecting Tog, and any non-control deck will race you every single time. The comboesque build that you and I are working with operates under the premise that it can ignore a lot of other decks and just win on turn 4. This plan isn't going to work if we let our opponent StP/Edict/REB our Tog off the table. Sure, we still have an uncounterable draw engine and Genesis to recover, but it will take us until like... turn 20 to do it. That's a feasible strategy against control, but not against, say, Burn, Goblins, Solidarity, etc.
We're working with a difficult paradox here. To operate as a combo deck, we need to be winning consistently by turn 4. If we can't do that, we have to add control elements. The problem is that the more control elements we add, the slower the clock becomes, because our entire deck is our combo engine, as opposed to, say, a deck like FlameVault, where only 8-11 cards are dedicated to the engine, and the rest of the deck can be control elements and draw.
Honestly, I don't have any easy answers. Some options are to go much mroe heavily control, but at that point, you're just playing with a really really slow combo deck. Another option is to add more win conditions, but again, while this removes your reliance on Tog, it slows you down overall.