[Deck] UGb Aggro DAT

[Hanni]

For those that don't know, DAT stands for Dredge-a-Tog. I'm sure there are countless other threads for DAT but I have yet to see any go with a more aggro approach. Anyway, I threw this together and played around with it for a few games and it seemed pretty solid. I figured I'd share the list, although I have absolutely no testing with it against any of the Tier 1 (unfortunately).

UGb Aggro DAT

Lands (20)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Wasteland
1 Cabal Pit
3 Lonely Sandbar

Creatures (12)
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Wild Mongrel
2 Psychatog
1 Wonder
1 Genesis

Spells (28)
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
3 Intuition
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Life from the Loam
1 Darkblast
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Mox Diamond

I haven't gotten around to building a good sideboard, I just have some randomness thrown together for the moment (some Stifles, Needles, Krosan Grips, etc).

Basically, I wanted to try and fuse together Threshold and Psychatog sorta. Nimble Mongoose is just begging to get put into a deck with Loam, as is Wild Mongrel. Mongoose is a great Lackey blocker and is also great at slowing down opposing aggro strategies early on. It's a great alternate win condition to Psychatog (especially with Wonder), and it's a thorn in many peoples sides regardless. G for a 3/3 untargetable is a solid inclusion to DAT, IMO, especially since DAT is a typically slow deck. Wild Mongrel is great because it gives me an additional discard outlet if I have a Wonder or Genesis stuck in hand and it's also a fairly strong beater for 2... it's not Threshold dependant, it avoids color issues (like vs Mother of Runes), and it can get fairly large with Loam. Both provide excellent early game protection vs opposing fast aggro strategies and provide excellent alternate win conditions to Psychatog.

I wanted to try and encompass the 8 cantrip plan that I usually roll with because it helps out early game bad hands but also digs for stuff throughout the entire game while being very mana efficient. They increase the consistency of my plays and also help develop Threshold for Mongoose if I don't get an early Loam. Backed with the 8 cantrips, I run 3 Intution to either dig for Loam itself or toolbox (Cabal Pit, Wasteland, Lonely Sandbar, Wonder, Genesis). I considered some of my other options... Deep Analysis, Fact or Fiction, Careful Study, and so forth but none of them seemed better than the 4/4/3 config I have right now.

As far as countermagic goes, I found Counterspell a little slow in Aggro DAT since I typically curve out throughout most of the early and mid-game. It's somewhat weak vs Goblins usually and against combo I think it may be a bit too slow. It's great vs Threshold but I should be able to overwhelm Threshold with card advantage, since I have early game beaters to slow down their assault long enough. This is all theoretical for the moment though. I went with Daze because, although DAT is usually mana hungry, I felt that it was important to gain as much control over the early game as possible (getting my early beaters or Intuition etc to resolve). So far I've liked Daze, the return a land part hasn't seemed too counterproductive for what it's worth so far. I may find myself changing them to Counterspell, but for now I think Daze works better since I want to put aggro into play early on.

2 Loam seemed like an appropriate number with 3 Intuition, since multiples are usually pointless, but I fear with only 1 I may not be able to get one or keep ahold of one. This may get dropped down to 1, I'm not sure.

For removal, I figured I didn't need a ton since I am using aggro to trade with aggro (and I can board into removal g2 and g3 if necessary). 1 Darkblast can be tutored with Intuition and recurred to wreak havoc on things like Goblins, 1 Cabal Pit can be recurred with Loam to handle most things, and the 3 Pernicious Deed is insanely good, even with Mox Diamond. I enjoy Deed'ing things and then recurring my guys with Genesis, it's lovely. It helps give me card advantage vs just about everything... killing Vials (Deed + Wasteland wrecks Goblins), Werebears, Slivers, you name it. I run 3 so that I can grab 1 with Intuition if need be and 4 seems a bit overkill, at least MD.

To round the deck out, I run 20 lands with 4 Mox Diamond. Running only 20 lands hasn't seemed to be an issue so far... the 8 cantrip + basic Island enable me enough dig for the early game, especially since my guys curve at 1cc and 2cc, and Loam eventually overwhelms me with land. Mox Diamond with only 20 land hasn't been a problem so far, although I'm sure it's an eyesore to most. Basically, I like how it enables turn 1 Mongoose + cantrip, turn 1 Loam, or turn Mongrel plays (and turn 2 Intuition is very sexy too). It may seem counterproductive with Deed, but I actually think Mox Diamond and Deed go well together... the Mox helps me accelerate in Deed faster. Losing the Mox is rarely an issue if I get a Loam active anyway. It cannot be Wasted or Ported, so it helps out greatly against Goblins or even B/w Deadguy and B/r Sui. The acceleration is amazing vs just about everything else.

The deck is pretty fun to play and alot faster than typical UGb DAT and I think it solves alot of the problems that standard DAT builds had... simply too slow to keep up with Goblins and little to no way to beat combo. The combo matchup is probably bad still but I think with the additional aggro and potential sideboard options (such as Stifle and Duress), the deck shouldn't have a terrible matchup vs combo. I'm hoping for the Goblin matchup to be good and I will try to test this against Goblins when I can. As far as Threshold goes, I'm almost positive that this deck has a favorable matchup against it... but don't quote me on that.

Comment/Suggestions welcome, Discuss!
Enjoy ;)

[Cavius The Great]

Nice build Hanni. I've always been a fan of your work. But is there any reason you're running Serum Visions over AKs? Even something like Deep Analysis might be a slightly better option than Serum Visions. That's probably something you've already considered, but I would love to hear the reasoning behind that choice.

[Zilla]

There's a long running thread on this topic here. Might give you some ideas.

Deep Analysis is a very strong draw option in this archetype because of its obvious synergy with the Dredge mechanic.

There are basically two directions to go with the archetype: extremely aggressive aggro-"combo", or control. A lot of the controlling builds run the AK/Intuition draw engine, but I think those builds tend to have the same failings as normal Tog in this format. I think an aggressive build is probably the way to go. The hard part is in finding the right balance of aggressiveness and ability to control the gamestate while protecting your threats.

In my experience with the archetype, it's seemed very potent and explosive, but also like it's trying to fit too many things into one deck. You have to dedicate a massive amount of resources to your various engines, and it tends to leave very little room for versatile control elements. If you can find the proper balance, though, it could theoretically be viable.

[Radley]

godzilla, the link doesn't work.

Is it possible to discard the top card of your library for psychatog or wild mongrel if you got future sight in play?

[KillemallCFH]

godzilla, the link doesn't work.

Is it possible to discard the top card of your library for psychatog or wild mongrel if you got future sight in play?

No, you can't. They errataed all the text that said "You may play... as though it were in your hand" to just "You may play..." because it made people think that you could discard it to mongrel or it could be duressed or anything along those lines.

[Radley]

Ok, that sucks then ^^

Is fact or fiction ok for this deck?

[Aggro_zombies]

Ok, that sucks then ^^

Is fact or fiction ok for this deck?

No, it's too mana-intensive and doesn't help with things like Dredge here. Aaaaand...he has one draw engine anyway.

[Joe_C]

no cunning wish/beserk? I have been playing GAT quite a bit lately and i have fallen in love with the deck. Beserk has won me games I should'nt have. Mostly because of a huge dryad, but the trample abilty beserk gives can send that killing damage home. Also wishing for echoing truth is huge against TES right now.

[Maverick676]

The list looks solid, but I don't think the 8 cantrip plan is very good here. Brainstorm is an obvious include but visions seems out of place. You might consider a couple more lands to support mox diamond better and maybe a couple more counterspells or even misdirection ,as It could take care of pesky swords/REBs pointed at your tog.

[rockSTAR]

4 mox D with 3 deeds really suck man.... and....you dont have any other spotremoval except for 1 darkblast. It has the same weakness as tog does...except for a bit more strenght then usual DAT-lists imho.

But don't see this to be a competetive deck, eventhough I love Tog and Loam :>

[Cavius The Great]

4 mox D with 3 deeds really suck man.... and....you dont have any other spotremoval except for 1 darkblast. It has the same weakness as tog does...except for a bit more strenght then usual DAT-lists imho.

But don't see this to be a competetive deck, eventhough I love Tog and Loam :>

I have to disagree with you. Mox Diamond accelerates everything in the deck and feeds your graveyard. In combination with Pernicious Deed it can actually help you fill your graveyard to an even further extent. There really isn't any anti-synergies there with the interaction of those two cards.

[Hanni]

I'm sorry that I failed to address specifically why I don't run cards like Eternal Witness, Cunning Wish, and Fact or Fiction. Let me explain:

Those cards are extremely slow. Witness does absolutely nothing to help against matchups that are already difficult... vs combo, it's a bad clock. Vs Goblins it also sucks... 3cc 2/1's won't help me slow down the early game assault. It makes my late game much stronger but I feel as though my late game is already incredibly strong. The same applies to Fact or Fiction... it's just too slow to help me when I need it and I already have a mid-late draw engine with Loam. As for Cunning Wish... I'm paying 3cc for a tutor and then however much for the tutored card, so by the time I cast the tutored card, I'm way behind. Intuition also costs 3cc but it's a necessary evil for the deck.

I don't run Accumulated Knowledge because, on it's own, it seems like a fairly bad draw card. Drawing 1 card for 2 mana is terrible. I realize with Dredge it gets a little better but I still find it lacking. I never Intuition for it... I have more important targets for Intuition and 5 mana for 3 cards doesn't seem overly amazing anyway.

I had considered Deep Analysis as well but dismissed it because it's only truly good if it's already in your graveyard, making it situational, and I should already have a draw engine by the time I can get to that point. An early Mongrel into Deep Analysis is nice, but I just find Serum Visions doing more for me throughout the entire game.

Again, I find the 8 cantrip plan to be amazing. It helps feed me lands early on with 1 Island in play through land disruption if that's the problem and it digs for important cards like Intuition/Loam in the early game without breaking my curve. It allows me to cast Mongoose and a cantrip in the same turn, it allows me to cast Mongrel and a cantrip in the same turn, and it digs for specific cards I need at the time. It's also a nice cheap pump spell for Mongoose (Threshold), all the while enhancing my card quality. The deck already gains massive card advantage through the Loam engine, Deed, Genesis, so on and so forth. With the cantrips, I can increase my card quality too. Basically, the 1cc of the cantrips are the premier reason I run them... they help speed up the deck alot more than a version with slower draw like Accumulated Knowledge. As an avid blue-based aggro/control player of various types (Thresh/Fish/Slivers/etc), I'm very aware of how strong the 8 cantrip plan is and why it's strong. I think adding some of those tempo concepts in DAT strengthens it greatly (even if you consider cantrip as a tempo loss, 1cc cantrip is much less of a tempo loss than something like Cunning Wish, for example).

I don't feel that the deck really needs Berserk with Mongoose and Mongrel... they quicken the clock quite a bit and, situation depending, can lower the opponent's life total enough to where Tog can go lethal much sooner. Berserk is extremely iffy and is extremely vulnerable to StP. Wonder usually gives me all the evasion I need... if not, I can either Deed or make multiple swings rather than 1 big one.

To address Godzilla:

In my experience with the archetype, it's seemed very potent and explosive, but also like it's trying to fit too many things into one deck. You have to dedicate a massive amount of resources to your various engines, and it tends to leave very little room for versatile control elements. If you can find the proper balance, though, it could theoretically be viable.

That was actually something I forgot to address in my original post. I agree that a balance between aggro, combo, and control needs to be found for the deck to work efficiently. I'm not sure exactly where I'm at so far but I'll find that out with further testing. Basically though, I love how the deck combines all 3 (kinda like Goblins). It allows the deck to change gears depending on the game state; it molds to the situation. The deck can go from being the beatdown, to the control, to the beatdown, over and over throughout the match. Of course, mis-assessing the correct role to play in a given match may lose some games... but the ability to be able to switch like that gives the deck incredible power, in my opinion.

Again, to address the land issue. I really need to do alot of testing to figure out how many lands and what kind of configuration to be run would be the optimal in here. For the handful of games I played randomly on MWS (with about half of them being some form of LD, whether it be a weird Stax deck I played or some other Loam variation), the manabase seemed to be fine with the slightly lower curves vs the traditional builds and the Loam itself to fix my mana. 20 lands with 4 Mox Diamond looks pretty bad on paper, I agree, and further testing with prove whether or not I need to increase the land count. For now I want to try and work with 20 and see if it works well... I don't really need too many lands total in the deck if I get Loam going anyway.

I realize the anti-synergy between Mox Diamond and Deed. However, Mox Diamond helps accelerate into Deed... Deed is a bit slow, costing 3cc just to cast it and then however much to blow it up (like, say, vs Goblins, they go Lackey into SCG... that means I need 8 mana). Loam pretty much cancels out whatever damage that Deed does to my manabase, but Deed is a necessary evil for dealing with all kinds of randomness from Vial to Jitte to creatures, etc etc. I also think that Mox Diamond is really strong in here for the acceleration... turn 1 Mongoose + cantrip is extremely strong, among the other possible plays (turn 1 Mongrel, turn 1 Loam, turn 2 Intuition, etc etc).

I also realize that my only actual removal is 1 Darkblast and 3 Pernicious Deed... but you're forgetting about the 1 of Cabal Pit and the fact that I'm using aggro creatures themselves as removal for opposing creatures. Mongoose is just as good as StP against a Lackey... Mongrel is just as good as a Smother vs a Piledriver. If I really need additional removal, I can board into it, but my aggro deals with opposing aggro (which is also recurrable)... and again I also run 1 Darkblast and 1 Cabal Pit for recurrable removal and 3 Pernicious Deed to wipe away everything.

I think the deck has the potential to be extremely strong in the format, though I'm sure alot more fine-tuning needs to be done to my current build. I also need to figure out a sideboard configuration but I'll do that as I playtest more and figure out the major weaknesses the deck now has (since it's quite a bit different from traditional DAT). Cards like Counterspell may eventually make their way into the deck... but for now, 4/3 Force/Daze backed with 3Deed has been sufficient for dealing with most problems. We'll see in time. Misdirection seems like it would be better relegated to the sideboard if anything, though.

[Vetinari]

Have you considered adding Cabal Therapy to make the deck more proactive?

I have just thrown together DAT based on your list with the following differences:

-4 Serum Visions
-3 Daze
-1 LftL

+2 Deep Anal
+3 Cabal Therapy
+1 Psychatog
+2 Stinkweed Imp

Basically I am sacrificing some early-game control for greater threat density and higher power-level.

I realise Deep Anal. is a bit situational but it just seems the best 2-off to round off the draw suit, especially since I am adding more dredgers and the ever-hungry Tog.

[outsideangel]

No Grave-Troll? He makes Tog friggin' huge in no time...seems like you'd want to include at least 1 to Intuition for.

[Vetinari]

Stinky seems strictly superior as for 1 less dredge it is:

1) useful as a creature not just as a corpse
2) cheaper
3) in our secondary colour
4) always castable (empty graveyard makes troll very sad and very dead)

[Hanni]

I don't really feel as though the deck needs the additional dredge, since the deck wants to be actually drawing cards rather then dredging up stuff (with Loam, I get cycle lands). The Mongoose/Mongrel package can usually lower the life totals enough to where Psychatog can swing for lethal anyway so I don't really need to make Tog huge quick, but...

After playing a ton of games on MWS, I think a 1-of on Stinkweed may be a good idea. I didn't really feel I needed a 3cc creature removal card MD, but after having trouble with some fatties in a few games, I think a lone 1-of on Stinkweed may be a good idea. I'll give it a try. It doesn't seem like it's going to improve my Goblins or combo matchups but it should help a little with Threshold (Enforcer), AS (Exalted), etc etc.

-1 Life from the Loam
+1 Stinkweed Imp

I should be fine, at least MD, with only 1 Loam (I'm hoping), and it was the only questionable slot I could think of.

I'm still debating whether or not to run Counterspell over Daze too, but I'd rather run either of those over Cabal Therapy since they are in my main colors and pitch to FoW, as well as I don't want to sac guys early to play Cabal and later on (where it's effective with Genesis) it's usually not so good since the opponent's hand usually sucks and they typically topdeck into good stuff.

So far though, the deck has been running great. I love how I can so easily change the game state from being on the defensive/control role to being the aggro role after dropping a few Mongooses (post Thresh).

Oh, and also:

Stinky seems strictly superior as for 1 less dredge it is:

1) useful as a creature not just as a corpse
2) cheaper
3) in our secondary colour
4) always castable (empty graveyard makes troll very sad and very dead)

My secondary color is actually green, hence why I named the thread UGb and not UBg. I only splash black for 1 Cabal Pit, 1 Darkblast, 3 Pernicious Deed, and 2 Psychatog (and now 1 Stinkweed Imp), with green having a much stronger presence in the deck than black (although sideboard options may be heavy with black, I'm not sure).

[Vetinari]

An alternative to Counterspell would be Rune Snag. It is less colour demanding and has great synergy with dredge/pitch.

[IndyTerminator]

The problem I have with Troll is that it only does one thing in this deck and that's dredge. With the format the way it is I think you need cards that are able to fulfill different roles and that can be useful whenever they are drawn. I'd much rather see Stinkweed Imp than Troll.

[Zilla]

I fixed the link in my first post in this thered. Here it is again. I strongly recommend reading through the entire thing, because it has a wide array of possible builds, some on the pure control end of the spectrum, and some on the pure combo end of the spectrum, with everything in between.

Also, I have to agree with Vetinari on the Grave-Troll issue. The Dredge count does matter, when you're dredging as many as 3 times in a single turn. It can mean the difference between a turn 4 kill and a turn 5 kill. Also, it is an insanely strong threat in the lategame by itself. Look how many other creatures you're running, and think how many will end up being dredged to the yard. Grave-Troll is an excellent early-game accellerant and doubles as a strong backup threat in the lategame. It deserves consideration.

[Hanni]

I'll give Grave-Troll a try after I test some more with the current build, although I don't really think I need too much late game muscle in addition to Pyschatog. Stinkweed Imp can deal with problematic fatties that I can't otherwise touch with my other removal or aggro and it dredges for 5 so I want to try it out first.

As for sideboarding, this is what I put together so far:

Sideboard (15)
3 Stifle
3 Krosan Grip
4 Duress
4 Engineered Plague
1 Pernicious Deed

After playing against Goblins, I decided I wanted to run Plagues in the board. Deed is nice but it's only a 3-of and it doesn't answer Goblins permanently. My opponent proceeded to cast 4 Matrons and 3 Ringleaders in game 2 (and a bunch in game 1) and I simply couldn't hold out forever (although the game did last quite long). I was about 2 turns off of being able to swing with Tog (had Genesis in Tog in yard but I needed to keep Genesis'ing up Mongooses to chump block). I may have made some mistakes in the 2/3 I played with my opponent, but I think E Plague + Stifle out of the board should give me a very favorable matchup as opposed to what is probably about a 50/50 or so. I'm not quite sure, I need to do alot more testing.

Against Thresh, I'm not sure... Duress is good vs them, as is Deed and Krosan Grip for Needle. Again, more testing needs to be done.

Against combo, the 4 Duress + 3 Stifle seems like a solid addition with the clock I have and I'm hoping it to be sufficient. The Duress may become Cabal Therapy... I don't know yet.

Any opinions on this?

Oh, and I had forgotten about Cephalid Coliseum.

-1 Polluted Delta
+1 Cephalid Coliseum