can't opt be replaced with telling time. I think telling time is supurior than opt
Based on what they do, I would agree with you. Digging 3 cards deep and then throwing away the bad card doesn't suck. But I've been able to keep a lot of 1 land hands because I'm holding an Opt. Opt also doesn't conflict as much with your countermagic mana in the early game. It's all about casting cost IMO, and Opt takes the cake.
I've stopped looking at Tog after Odyssey went out of T2, so I'm wondering how Circular Logic fell out of most players' favor. It seems to have a nice synergy with Tog, and it can stop a Pithing Needle, Innocent Blood, or any other 1-mana spell an opponent plays after the Upheaval. It can be more efficient than Force Spike too, in late games when you haven't done an Upheaval yet.
I dont think you guys understand, ruels deck was simply amazing. The random 1 of's arent random one ofs, he spent hours and hours tuning the deck. Also dont insult his card choices, he is a better deck builder and a better player than pretty much all of you. Also, test his build before insulting it, its going to be very hard to improve upon.
The deck is nuts in the hand of a good player. However, if people are going to cut Wonder aka I Win, then let them. If people are going to replace Opt, the smother mana maker, with the less amazing Telling Time let them. Cunning Wish is meh since it doesn't actually help you win the game until you use it to cast another Fact or Fiction. Honestly though, with the format being so aggro, I am tempted to remove 1 Boomerang for 1 Darkblast. It is so good in this aggro dominated format.
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The deck is nuts in the hand of a good player. However, if people are going to cut Wonder aka I Win, then let them. If people are going to replace Opt, the smother mana maker, with the less amazing Telling Time let them. Cunning Wish is meh since it doesn't actually help you win the game until you use it to cast another Fact or Fiction. Honestly though, with the format being so aggro, I am tempted to remove 1 Boomerang for 1 Darkblast. It is so good in this aggro dominated format.
I was thinking of cutting 1 smother for 1 darkblast. Do you think boomerang would be a better cut? I know when I sided in darkblast they were just amazing, and being able to dredge with it is just nuts when you have a tog out.
The deck is nuts in the hand of a good player. However, if people are going to cut Wonder aka I Win, then let them. If people are going to replace Opt, the smother mana maker, with the less amazing Telling Time let them. Cunning Wish is meh since it doesn't actually help you win the game until you use it to cast another Fact or Fiction. Honestly though, with the format being so aggro, I am tempted to remove 1 Boomerang for 1 Darkblast. It is so good in this aggro dominated format.
Any deck that has some degree of competative quality is nuts in the hand of a good player. Like I said before. This is STILL a tog deck, and we're talking about Ruel pilotting it.
Wonder = win more. You don't need it in order to win with Tog. There have been too many T8 tog decks that don't run wonder to think otherwise. T2, extended, or even T1. You don't need wonder.
Cunning Wish is meh.....wow, just wow. You know, I find it to be very rare that I draw into a Cunning Wish and I don't want to see it. Doesn't help you win the game? Pump Tog removing a counterspell or a removal spell, then wish for it. Counter that key spell that they were going to cast or remove that blocker that's in the way. Whatever was I thinking.
AoD1315-
Random 1 ofs...are you talking about wonder, meloku, and deep analysis? The only thing out of those that truely doesn't belong IMO is the Wonder, and it should be made into another Deep. nothing about those is random, in general melokue and wonder are expected to be 1 ofs, though wonder doesn't belong at all IMO.
I've tested his build....a lot. I really don't like it, so I changed it. Making improvements didn't seem "very hard" at all.
I've tested his build ... a lot. I really like it, so I didn't change anything. Making improvements was very deceptive : I thought it would be easy and it turns out I was wrong every time.
I'm just curious about what you've tested the deck against.
Seeing your list and your comments on his build, I think you failed to understand its true power : a very low mana-curve which allows you to play 2 spells a turn as early as turn 3. Cunning Wish costs 3 and is not even a spell of his own.
Maybe you didn't understand how the deck should be played. It seems unnatural not to play drawing spells at your opponent's EOT but it's usually better to play it in response to one of your opponent's plays. Like Threat -> TfK, discard land/Wonder/Deep Anal/whatever plus Circular Logic. This is also true for Cephalid Coliseum (which is in the deck for being used and not only for the final boost), Opt and Mental Note.
Truly a great deck.
I've been testing against a lot of rock and madness varients as of lately, and frankly, I really don't like trying to continuously deal with creatures that get recurred back with genesis or the dredge effect, especially with rock where they're returning things like witness to they can repeatedly cast duress/therapy. and gawd forbid they get a recurring Ghost-lit Stalker with 7 mana available (yes, it IS really good after game 1).
The opposing tings decks (the good ones that run cunning wish and 4 oblits) aren't easy either. Here's a nice scenerio:
Tings: "upkeep chant you"
Tog: "ok, I was just going to play a land and say 'go' anyways"
Tings: "Endstep Cunning Wish, Mana Short you. I guess I can untap and win now."
But then again, everyone thinks the Burning Wish variant is the end all be all to the deck, so nevermind.
More than anything it seems unnatural to cast draw spells during my turn. Hence I still don't like Deep Analysis, but I still use it because of it's versitility. Casting draw spells during my opponent's turn before the attack/second main is just part of playing control. I'm fully aware of casting some "draw, then discard" spell concept. It's nothing new. It's been around since Tog was type 2 (you know, when the whole madness thing came about.) However I still don't like the TfK concept because there are only 3 artifact sources. You're talking about mana and such. To hardcast Logic only costs 3 while to filter it through TfK costs 4.
Am I saying that my deck is all around better? Not really, but I do think that it fits me better, and it's more prepared for the upcoming metagame, because EVERYONE is going to want to play this. At which point, it's going to come down to who's the better player or who's deck is better prepared for the mirror.
Every deck that managed to Top 8 in history of a still-evolving format has been significantly altered in the following T8s. Why do you think that is?
1) Mana : Cunning Wish costs 3 and "does" nothing
2) For 3 manas, you play Circular Logic. I agree here. For 4 manas, you may actually DRAW Logic, draw two more cards and discard one (land, Wonder, Deep Anal) while still countering the spell you had no answer to. Seems good.
I agree, cunning wish doesn't even fill your yard getting you no closer to winning. Wish doesn't net you any CA either. If you ditch an artifact land or a logic to thirst, you gain CA and fill your GY a little more.
I'm curious about the stalking stones. Is there a necessity for them? If I were to run them, I would probably run standstill along with it. Are they there for against other blue control with counterspells?
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Guys, play what you want. Cunning wish is extremely good. If you honestly think it does nothing, then you don't deserve to play blue. You want to draw cards instead of tutor for the card you need at instant speed? You said that it doesn't fill up the yard? Most of you who think you are good at tog probably didn't play this card in type 2. It was called Read the Runes. It was amazing. You wanna talk about synergy with tog. Against the aggro match-up it was simply nuts. Cunning wish also gives you the ability to get things like, Divert, mana short, and ghastly demise for those pesky game ones where you are staring down a very cocky wurm. You also have the ability to get things like Coffin Purge, very good against opposing wonders or those stupid little fog cards that shouldn't have been printed. I like the version with no wish. I really do. If you think you are as good as Ruel, then play the deck. I know personally, 3 people on this board, and that includes myself. Out of those 3, one of them is an idiot who thinks he knows more than anyone because he got to top 8 in a pro tour, just to become a recurring joke on the PT. The other is good friend who knows what he is talking about when it come to control. He has been playing control for 100 years...give or take 3 score and 19 dozen fort nights.... and he is good. The word that comes to mind here when I read all these posts by you guys who think that wish is bad is...BARN. Ruel and his brother are better than you. His play test group, is better than you. Antoine is better than everyone that will be playing in your PTQs. All the tog decks that are running 3 colors and/or no wish will have a little run, get the crap kicked out of them, everyone will have a good laugh, and then the day will be over. Like I said, play what you want. I am going to play wish and I am going to do better than 99% of the people not playing wish, because I have more option. LOVIES
Guys, play what you want. Cunning wish is extremely good. If you honestly think it does nothing, then you don't deserve to play blue. You want to draw cards instead of tutor for the card you need at instant speed? You said that it doesn't fill up the yard? Most of you who think you are good at tog probably didn't play this card in type 2. It was called Read the Runes. It was amazing. You wanna talk about synergy with tog. Against the aggro match-up it was simply nuts. Cunning wish also gives you the ability to get things like, Divert, mana short, and ghastly demise for those pesky game ones where you are staring down a very cocky wurm. You also have the ability to get things like Coffin Purge, very good against opposing wonders or those stupid little fog cards that shouldn't have been printed. I like the version with no wish. I really do. If you think you are as good as Ruel, then play the deck. I know personally, 3 people on this board, and that includes myself. Out of those 3, one of them is an idiot who thinks he knows more than anyone because he got to top 8 in a pro tour, just to become a recurring joke on the PT. The other is good friend who knows what he is talking about when it come to control. He has been playing control for 100 years...give or take 3 score and 19 dozen fort nights.... and he is good. The word that comes to mind here when I read all these posts by you guys who think that wish is bad is...BARN. Ruel and his brother are better than you. His play test group, is better than you. Antoine is better than everyone that will be playing in your PTQs. All the tog decks that are running 3 colors and/or no wish will have a little run, get the crap kicked out of them, everyone will have a good laugh, and then the day will be over. Like I said, play what you want. I am going to play wish and I am going to do better than 99% of the people not playing wish, because I have more option. LOVIES
So out of that incoherent pile of broken english, what I could decipher was :
1) You consider Ruel brothers to be better players / deck builders than the most of people - which I agree with
2) And yet you claim that running wishes, which Ruel himself commented to be too slow, is superior.
3) And the evidence you used to support that are to find cards that could easily by more counterspells - why bother spending 4 mana for killing the wurm when you could've just countered it by using either counterspell / circular logic or even mana leak at times - or finding cards like coffin purge - which is no longer as important in the current format.
Basically, what you just said is you consider yourself a better player / builder than Ruel with statements like " I am going to do better than 99% of the people not playing wish, because I have more option ".
The funny thing is, you don't even understand that the true strength of Ruel's deck comes from raw speed, emphasis on EARLY disruption, and NOT on having more versatility / options for late game.
If you playtested his deck at all, under optimal condition, the game win occurs BEFORE what any blue player would consider mid-late game. This means drawing into cunning wish to find answers for cards that hasn't hit the play yet or doesn't affect the game hugely thus far is a BAD thing. He wants to play his psychatog, protect it with very tight window of opportunity, then swing in for massive damage AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
Honestly, if you're going to claim you're better than 99% of the players or try to tell others that they don't deserve to play blue, at least get your facts straight.
More importantly, never, EVER compare yourself to Ruel brothers in any possible way until you die. Because you've more or less proven in your useless post that you'll never even get CLOSE to playing on the same level as them in your life time.
Broken English? huh. You're from Canada aren't you? Anyway, your arguement against my wish arguement is terrible. You say why waste the 4 mana to kill the wurm when you can just counter it. IC. Well, lets see, I run the same counter magic that everyone else does, so I could also counter it. However, anyone who has actually played tog, ie. not you, knows that you don't always have a counter spell when you need it, therefore, you need another answer.
You also say that Coffin Purge isn't useful in the current format. Hmmm....ok. So, now that everyone is on this UB tog kick, which I have been saying was superior ever since you lackies where saying deed tog and sceptor tog was the way to go, it would be bad to coffin purge your opponents wonder so you can swing for the win. Or, since everyone thinks this Life from the Loam trash is good, you can purge that junk away too. Getting rid of a genesis doesn't suck either. I can go on here, but those are the big ones.
Ruels deck is build for speed. K. Once again, proof that you don't play tog. I can play tog as an aggro deck with the best of them, but you still have to have late game options. My deck is just as fast, I just have the ability to win counterwars over non wish decks, have more card draw than non wish decks, and just plan be better.
That whole, "if I actually playtested the deck..." nonsense. Yeah. You can just stop talking now. I've been playing tog since that junk came out. I have played every version of tog in every format. Know thy enemy, ass.
Then you go and make yourself look dumb by implying that I compared myself to the Ruel Brothers. sigh. I never said that. There you go, being a good little liberal idiot putting words in my mouth. I don't say that I am better than 99% of the players on here. I am, however, saying that I am better than you. Have fun playing no wishes. I will play wishes, and I will win.
Broken English? huh. You're from Canada aren't you? Anyway, your arguement against my wish arguement is terrible. You say why waste the 4 mana to kill the wurm when you can just counter it. IC. Well, lets see, I run the same counter magic that everyone else does, so I could also counter it. However, anyone who has actually played tog, ie. not you, knows that you don't always have a counter spell when you need it, therefore, you need another answer.
So you're willing to assume while the counter that is being used on the casting of arrogant wurm will be countered, but NOT the 4 mana cunning wish + ghastly demise?
Let's do some basic math here :
1) Circular logic for madness : U / Mana Leak : 1U
2) Cunning wish + removal : at least 2U + B
So tell me, genius, if the opponent who's playing madness has a counter in hand, will the CHEAPER / LESS MANA INTENSIVE SPELLS have higher chance of resolving? or will it be HIGHER / LESS DEPENDABLE spells have higher chance of resolving?
And I do agree that you won't always have counterspell in hand - but you're not going to help yourself in that department by having less counterspells or draw spells for cunning wish that's not at all guaranteed to resolve.
This is true ESPECIALLY for madness deck which can simply counter your wish or your wish target.
You also say that Coffin Purge isn't useful in the current format. Hmmm....ok. So, now that everyone is on this UB tog kick, which I have been saying was superior ever since you lackies where saying deed tog and sceptor tog was the way to go, it would be bad to coffin purge your opponents wonder so you can swing for the win. Or, since everyone thinks this Life from the Loam trash is good, you can purge that junk away too. Getting rid of a genesis doesn't suck either. I can go on here, but those are the big ones.
So you're saying, psychatog, which starts off with aggressively early disruption, will want to see a cunning wish in hand anytime soon? Barring your idiotic logic which I debunked above, your assumption of being able to coffin purge / swing in for the win being a guaranteed thing is laughable. When you commited 3 mana for cunning wish, there's a window of chance for the opposing player to respond by :
1) Killing your tog
2) Counter the wish
3) Counter the wish target while you commited 4 mana for nothing.
Ruels deck is build for speed. K. Once again, proof that you don't play tog. I can play tog as an aggro deck with the best of them, but you still have to have late game options. My deck is just as fast, I just have the ability to win counterwars over non wish decks, have more card draw than non wish decks, and just plan be better.
First of all, do not claim to represent Ruel. Read his interview. He was much more focused on having superior speed over the loam version and being able to fill his yard faster with spells like TFK / Mental Note - indiciating FULLY he wanted speed. Faster graveyard filling means faster damage pumpout from psychatog. I'm sorry you didn't understand this.
That whole, "if I actually playtested the deck..." nonsense. Yeah. You can just stop talking now. I've been playing tog since that junk came out. I have played every version of tog in every format. Know thy enemy, ass.
Again, you show 0 evidence of your competency, just a lot of trashtalk.
Then you go and make yourself look dumb by implying that I compared myself to the Ruel Brothers. sigh. I never said that. There you go, being a good little liberal idiot putting words in my mouth. I don't say that I am better than 99% of the players on here. I am, however, saying that I am better than you. Have fun playing no wishes. I will play wishes, and I will win.
I quoted your specific post in the reply. If you can't even comprehend your own post, then consider taking an elementary english classes before posting on online forum.
If you're saying that you'll beat 99% of the people who doesn't play wish because "it gives you more option" - which is something you've yet to prove through sane man's logic - while Ruel brothers considered it as obsolete for the format, then you ARE comparing yourself to Ruel brothers and their deck designing skills. There's no other ways to interpret that.
...seriously though, if the guys wants to play with wishes, why not just let him. How about this: Intensive contest.
You each make the extended gauntlet on MWS. with judges deciding what decklists you hsoudl use besides your respective tog builds. Then, you play your build vs. the other guy playing the rest fo the field and vice-versa.
Whoever wins, wins, and whoever loses, loses. Then you'll have hard evidence instead of opinion to work with. After you guys do this, I think someone should do it with life from the loam as well.
Darkblast is just amazing, adds damage to tog, rapes BDW, and goblins.(I may try to fit the mental note back in, still need some more testing)
-1 Boomerang
+1 Smother
Smother is much better against tog, and goblins, and BDW, then boomerang.
-1 Stalking Stones
+1 Island
I found myself too often having to mulligan simply because my only land is a stalking stones. Plus, my meta is really aggro heavy, and it doesnt do much against aggro =/.
He runs a more powerful draw engine with 4 TFK and more artifact lands. He doesn't run as much creature hate MD as it is really dead against the mirror and many others. I love the SB Meloku's and darkblasts. The only thing I'm not quite getting fully is the MD gifts and the SB scrying. What exactally does one gift for? wonder deep analysis and what else? What match does one side in the scrying for? Also, why boomerang over echoing truth? Is hitting land that necessary? I can only think of two instances where I'd want to bounce land. An opposing Genju/manland, or a boseiju. I can see how these two reasons alone could warrent to, but i'll do some testing before I'm fully convinced. The version I was testing before was almost identical to his otherwise. I'm really liking this deck more than most of the others I have seen.
Edit: Autocards don't work off of wizards site, but you should know what they are by now...
that is a good question about the gifts ungiven. maybe just 3 cards he thinks would be better off in the grave yard. Just by playing gifts you get +1 card in hand and +3 cards in the grave yard. It tutors for wonder too. I think thats why gifts is in there, as 1 copy.
With opts instead of thirsts, you can often keep hands where if they were TFK's you wouldnt be able to. The low mana cost is what makes it so good. Also it has a much more fragile mana base, so kataki can also hurt you, and blood moon even moreso. Also a single darkblast tears up BDW, and Affinity, and Goblins, which are played way more than the 2 decks it does nothing against(No-Stick, and Mirror Match).
Oh also, boomerang bounces a New Dual, either it sets them back 2 turns, or it sets them back 2 life and 1 turn.
I stand by the TFK as they can dig up a counterspell or circular logic and madness it, at the same time gaining CA and feeding toggy. Opt is at best card quality. I see the logic behind boomerang . Echoing truth switched out. By there being less creature hate I didn't mean the lack of Darkblast whcih I disagree with not including. I mean't the no MD ghastly demises as they can be dead.
C'mon people keep the discussion going. Are you giving into the gross dredge versions already?
Thirst is terrible. Opt is really good. BTW. I played in the Q this last weekend. I played 3 tog decks. One was kenji tog. I destroyed him. One was Julien tog. I destroyed him. The other was UB tog with no wish. I compleatly destroyed him because of cunning wish. So....yeah. Cunning wish wins again.
Thirst is terrible. Opt is really good. BTW. I played in the Q this last weekend. I played 3 tog decks. One was kenji tog. I destroyed him. One was Julien tog. I destroyed him. The other was UB tog with no wish. I compleatly destroyed him because of cunning wish. So....yeah. Cunning wish wins again.
Wow, this goes to show... what?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
You've never proven the superiority of cunning wish by sane man's logic. And because you seem to be so fixated on simply repeating the same stuff over and over again until people simply give up, I'll TELL YOU how to prove usage of cunning wish would be "superior" :
1) Show some actual results in tournaments with TOP LEVEL PLAYERS in the pool. Simply saying you beat a certain deck without even mentioning the skill level of the players or how the match actually went does NOT justify the usage of a card.
2) You've yet to shown that cunning wish actually provides actual advantage vs. control matchups. In fact, I and other people on the forum, have repeatedly shown you packing wish vs. other tog decks would simply be tempo loss as well as giving them more chance to counter you with something as small as FORCE SPIKE.
3) Present arguments with LOGIC. You've yet to shown any signs of intelligence on this thread so far. You're simply slapping everything you do in favor of "cunning wish is good" argument.
As for Opt vs. Thirst for knowledge, both should be maindecked - but not in 4 ofs. The reason behind this two fold :
1) Thirst digs deeper into your library and gives you more card in hand / library. This means more power for your psychatog.
2) Opt isn't something that can replace TFK in terms of functionality - opt is a great card in early / mid game to make sure your draw QUALITY is better.
Saying "opt allows you to keep hands where you normally wouldn't" is such a crap argument. This usually implies to hands with low landcount or even the dreaded one land count or 1 ~ 2 answers.
These hands should be pitched even with or without opt at competitive levels. And with u/b tog running 24+ ish lands and only two colors with fetch lands + watery grave, the mana fixing / flow really shouldn't be a problem to begin with.
Sorry Nightwing, but even though you yoinked the namesake of my favourite super hero, you certainly lack every sense of logic in your arguments. I have to agree with ThoseBlueDudes in that Cunning Wish takes up valuable deck space, tempo, and a great deal of sideboarding options.
Now, on to bigger and better things: THE best Tog hoser in the freaking world for the mirror match is hands down: Llawan, Cephalid Empress. I can't tell you how many Breaking Dredge/Tog decks I've lost to because of it, but I am under the impression that if you ever take this deck to a PTQ that you immediately choose to include 2-3 copies of the card in your sideboard. Tog will be everywhere and Meloku will be attending many a Tog deck sideboard, and as long as people will play Tog you will need to play Llawan. I've put three copies of her in the board and have won damn near every mirror match I've seen her since. Really a metagame choice when it comes down to it, I think that Llawan will see quite a few plays in Extended PTQs.
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Yup, I still don't understand everyone's logic. Cunning wish was EASILY a staple in tog decks prior to PT:LA. The green varients still run the card, in fact. You all are talking about speed and such. Scepter Tog back when decks like Tinker-Stax, Desire, and Foodchain Goblins were around had Cunning Wish. Sure, it had Daze too, but it still had Wish. I'm sorry, but those decks were insanely faster than the meta now. Ontop of which, they were less forgiving. Prior to that, you had stuff like lackey sligh and Oath. Just more insane decks, and guess what....Tog ran wish. These decks were a lot more brutal than what's floating around now, but for some reason, running wish is considered lunacy now. I don't get the logic at all. The format has slowed down since then, but apparently there's a need to speed tog up (more or less). Whatever, I'm still a fan of wish. Like Flores said, there are 2 schools of thought. I'm just one of the people sitting on the "for wish" side. methinks it's time to move on.
Yup, I still don't understand everyone's logic. Cunning wish was EASILY a staple in tog decks prior to PT:LA. The green varients still run the card, in fact. You all are talking about speed and such. Scepter Tog back when decks like Tinker-Stax, Desire, and Foodchain Goblins were around had Cunning Wish. Sure, it had Daze too, but it still had Wish. I'm sorry, but those decks were insanely faster than the meta now. Ontop of which, they were less forgiving. Prior to that, you had stuff like lackey sligh and Oath. Just more insane decks, and guess what....Tog ran wish. These decks were a lot more brutal than what's floating around now, but for some reason, running wish is considered lunacy now. I don't get the logic at all. The format has slowed down since then, but apparently there's a need to speed tog up (more or less). Whatever, I'm still a fan of wish. Like Flores said, there are 2 schools of thought. I'm just one of the people sitting on the "for wish" side. methinks it's time to move on.
What I don't understand is how you can even begin to compare last season's extended tog with today's extended UB tog.
Back then, you had CHEAP / EFFICIENT card draw engine like intuition / ak / brainstorm which could EASILY make up for the slowness of cunning wish.
Moreover, with the format actually being so much faster AND diverse in terms of sudden kill, it was IMPERATIVE that you use that cunning wish.
This is best illustrated in matchups vs. COMBO DECKS - likes of which (cephalid life, aluren, reanimator) were actually largely viable AND considered top tier at the moment. If you could wish for that coffin purge vs. reanimator or cephalid life, you won the game.
At the moment, extended's top tier mainly belongs to control decks - variations of atog, scepter chant - and a hint of Boros Deck wins.
Now, looking at those top tier environment, is there any cards you can wish for that WINS YOU THE GAME? Are there cheap, efficient draw spells under 3 mana that can virtually render the slowness of wish?
The answer should be NO two both of the above questions.
Geez people, it's not a rocket science. Use your own brains.
p.s.: The same reason applies for Chant decks running cunning wish - for them, wish DOES fetch them win conditions in forms of chant, helix, or whatever that gets slapped on a stick.
Why are you coming down on marcus for trying to comparelast seasons tog with this seasons. It's a better comparison than trying to compare todays fast decks with last season. The last 3 seasons of extended have had nothing but turn 2 and 3 wins.
If you say that all the top decks are control now, great. That means that wish is needed. I also ran one upheaval that won me 5 games. Yay upheaval. Yay wish. Yay me and everyone else with a brain that thinks tog is a control deck and not a combo, aggro, splash green and run Boomerang, deck
If you say that all the top decks are control now, great. That means that wish is needed. I also ran one upheaval that won me 5 games.
You just successfully destroyed any credibility you had left.
If you're running against control decks, you want more permission or direct answers to their threats, not give them more opportunity to counter your counter with soft counters.
If you're playing a field where there are various top tier decks are available - like the last season - THEN you want cunning wish.
Yay for broken records.
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Based on what they do, I would agree with you. Digging 3 cards deep and then throwing away the bad card doesn't suck. But I've been able to keep a lot of 1 land hands because I'm holding an Opt. Opt also doesn't conflict as much with your countermagic mana in the early game. It's all about casting cost IMO, and Opt takes the cake.
If you want GRAH, put this in your signature.
I was thinking of cutting 1 smother for 1 darkblast. Do you think boomerang would be a better cut? I know when I sided in darkblast they were just amazing, and being able to dredge with it is just nuts when you have a tog out.
Any deck that has some degree of competative quality is nuts in the hand of a good player. Like I said before. This is STILL a tog deck, and we're talking about Ruel pilotting it.
Wonder = win more. You don't need it in order to win with Tog. There have been too many T8 tog decks that don't run wonder to think otherwise. T2, extended, or even T1. You don't need wonder.
Cunning Wish is meh.....wow, just wow. You know, I find it to be very rare that I draw into a Cunning Wish and I don't want to see it. Doesn't help you win the game? Pump Tog removing a counterspell or a removal spell, then wish for it. Counter that key spell that they were going to cast or remove that blocker that's in the way. Whatever was I thinking.
AoD1315-
Random 1 ofs...are you talking about wonder, meloku, and deep analysis? The only thing out of those that truely doesn't belong IMO is the Wonder, and it should be made into another Deep. nothing about those is random, in general melokue and wonder are expected to be 1 ofs, though wonder doesn't belong at all IMO.
I've tested his build....a lot. I really don't like it, so I changed it. Making improvements didn't seem "very hard" at all.
I've been testing against a lot of rock and madness varients as of lately, and frankly, I really don't like trying to continuously deal with creatures that get recurred back with genesis or the dredge effect, especially with rock where they're returning things like witness to they can repeatedly cast duress/therapy. and gawd forbid they get a recurring Ghost-lit Stalker with 7 mana available (yes, it IS really good after game 1).
The opposing tings decks (the good ones that run cunning wish and 4 oblits) aren't easy either. Here's a nice scenerio:
Tings: "upkeep chant you"
Tog: "ok, I was just going to play a land and say 'go' anyways"
Tings: "Endstep Cunning Wish, Mana Short you. I guess I can untap and win now."
But then again, everyone thinks the Burning Wish variant is the end all be all to the deck, so nevermind.
More than anything it seems unnatural to cast draw spells during my turn. Hence I still don't like Deep Analysis, but I still use it because of it's versitility. Casting draw spells during my opponent's turn before the attack/second main is just part of playing control. I'm fully aware of casting some "draw, then discard" spell concept. It's nothing new. It's been around since Tog was type 2 (you know, when the whole madness thing came about.) However I still don't like the TfK concept because there are only 3 artifact sources. You're talking about mana and such. To hardcast Logic only costs 3 while to filter it through TfK costs 4.
Am I saying that my deck is all around better? Not really, but I do think that it fits me better, and it's more prepared for the upcoming metagame, because EVERYONE is going to want to play this. At which point, it's going to come down to who's the better player or who's deck is better prepared for the mirror.
Every deck that managed to Top 8 in history of a still-evolving format has been significantly altered in the following T8s. Why do you think that is?
I agree, cunning wish doesn't even fill your yard getting you no closer to winning. Wish doesn't net you any CA either. If you ditch an artifact land or a logic to thirst, you gain CA and fill your GY a little more.
I'm curious about the stalking stones. Is there a necessity for them? If I were to run them, I would probably run standstill along with it. Are they there for against other blue control with counterspells?
So out of that incoherent pile of broken english, what I could decipher was :
1) You consider Ruel brothers to be better players / deck builders than the most of people - which I agree with
2) And yet you claim that running wishes, which Ruel himself commented to be too slow, is superior.
3) And the evidence you used to support that are to find cards that could easily by more counterspells - why bother spending 4 mana for killing the wurm when you could've just countered it by using either counterspell / circular logic or even mana leak at times - or finding cards like coffin purge - which is no longer as important in the current format.
Basically, what you just said is you consider yourself a better player / builder than Ruel with statements like " I am going to do better than 99% of the people not playing wish, because I have more option ".
The funny thing is, you don't even understand that the true strength of Ruel's deck comes from raw speed, emphasis on EARLY disruption, and NOT on having more versatility / options for late game.
If you playtested his deck at all, under optimal condition, the game win occurs BEFORE what any blue player would consider mid-late game. This means drawing into cunning wish to find answers for cards that hasn't hit the play yet or doesn't affect the game hugely thus far is a BAD thing. He wants to play his psychatog, protect it with very tight window of opportunity, then swing in for massive damage AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
Honestly, if you're going to claim you're better than 99% of the players or try to tell others that they don't deserve to play blue, at least get your facts straight.
More importantly, never, EVER compare yourself to Ruel brothers in any possible way until you die. Because you've more or less proven in your useless post that you'll never even get CLOSE to playing on the same level as them in your life time.
You also say that Coffin Purge isn't useful in the current format. Hmmm....ok. So, now that everyone is on this UB tog kick, which I have been saying was superior ever since you lackies where saying deed tog and sceptor tog was the way to go, it would be bad to coffin purge your opponents wonder so you can swing for the win. Or, since everyone thinks this Life from the Loam trash is good, you can purge that junk away too. Getting rid of a genesis doesn't suck either. I can go on here, but those are the big ones.
Ruels deck is build for speed. K. Once again, proof that you don't play tog. I can play tog as an aggro deck with the best of them, but you still have to have late game options. My deck is just as fast, I just have the ability to win counterwars over non wish decks, have more card draw than non wish decks, and just plan be better.
That whole, "if I actually playtested the deck..." nonsense. Yeah. You can just stop talking now. I've been playing tog since that junk came out. I have played every version of tog in every format. Know thy enemy, ass.
Then you go and make yourself look dumb by implying that I compared myself to the Ruel Brothers. sigh. I never said that. There you go, being a good little liberal idiot putting words in my mouth. I don't say that I am better than 99% of the players on here. I am, however, saying that I am better than you. Have fun playing no wishes. I will play wishes, and I will win.
So you're willing to assume while the counter that is being used on the casting of arrogant wurm will be countered, but NOT the 4 mana cunning wish + ghastly demise?
Let's do some basic math here :
1) Circular logic for madness : U / Mana Leak : 1U
2) Cunning wish + removal : at least 2U + B
So tell me, genius, if the opponent who's playing madness has a counter in hand, will the CHEAPER / LESS MANA INTENSIVE SPELLS have higher chance of resolving? or will it be HIGHER / LESS DEPENDABLE spells have higher chance of resolving?
And I do agree that you won't always have counterspell in hand - but you're not going to help yourself in that department by having less counterspells or draw spells for cunning wish that's not at all guaranteed to resolve.
This is true ESPECIALLY for madness deck which can simply counter your wish or your wish target.
So you're saying, psychatog, which starts off with aggressively early disruption, will want to see a cunning wish in hand anytime soon? Barring your idiotic logic which I debunked above, your assumption of being able to coffin purge / swing in for the win being a guaranteed thing is laughable. When you commited 3 mana for cunning wish, there's a window of chance for the opposing player to respond by :
1) Killing your tog
2) Counter the wish
3) Counter the wish target while you commited 4 mana for nothing.
First of all, do not claim to represent Ruel. Read his interview. He was much more focused on having superior speed over the loam version and being able to fill his yard faster with spells like TFK / Mental Note - indiciating FULLY he wanted speed. Faster graveyard filling means faster damage pumpout from psychatog. I'm sorry you didn't understand this.
Again, you show 0 evidence of your competency, just a lot of trashtalk.
I quoted your specific post in the reply. If you can't even comprehend your own post, then consider taking an elementary english classes before posting on online forum.
If you're saying that you'll beat 99% of the people who doesn't play wish because "it gives you more option" - which is something you've yet to prove through sane man's logic - while Ruel brothers considered it as obsolete for the format, then you ARE comparing yourself to Ruel brothers and their deck designing skills. There's no other ways to interpret that.
You each make the extended gauntlet on MWS. with judges deciding what decklists you hsoudl use besides your respective tog builds. Then, you play your build vs. the other guy playing the rest fo the field and vice-versa.
Whoever wins, wins, and whoever loses, loses. Then you'll have hard evidence instead of opinion to work with. After you guys do this, I think someone should do it with life from the loam as well.
Cunning wish
Life from the Loam
Two very contentious card choices/ builds in 'Tog. I mean really, which is optimal:
UB,
UB wish,
UBg LftL,
or UBg LftL+wish?
hard to know.
edit: card tags.
U/ Tog
4 Polluted Delta
3 Watery Grave
2 Cephalid Colliseum
2 Seat of the Synod
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Stalking Stones
1 Swamp
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Wonder
4 Force Spike
4 Circular Logic
4 Counterspell
2 Mana Leak
3 Mental Note
3 Fact or Fiction
2 Opt
2 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Deep Analysis
3 Smother
2 Boomerang
1 Darkblast
MAINDECK CHANGES
-1 Mental Note
+1 Darkblast
Darkblast is just amazing, adds damage to tog, rapes BDW, and goblins.(I may try to fit the mental note back in, still need some more testing)
-1 Boomerang
+1 Smother
Smother is much better against tog, and goblins, and BDW, then boomerang.
-1 Stalking Stones
+1 Island
I found myself too often having to mulligan simply because my only land is a stalking stones. Plus, my meta is really aggro heavy, and it doesnt do much against aggro =/.
3 Ghastly Demise
2 Razormane Masticore
1 Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
1 Boomerang
1 Stalking Stones
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Darkblast
1 Smother
James Zhang - Psychatog
2005 GP Melbourne Top 8 Deck
Main Deck
60 cards
3 Seat of the Synod
2 Vault of Whispers
2 Stalking Stones
1 Swamp
3 Watery Grave
4 Polluted Delta
5 Island
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
2 Cephalid Coliseum
23 land
4 Psychatog
1 Wonder
5 creatures
4 Circular Logic
4 Counterspell
2 Mana Leak
3 Fact or Fiction
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Deep Analysis
4 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Smother
2 Boomerang
4 Force Spike
4 Mental Note
32 other spells
Sideboard
2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
4 Duress
3 Ghastly Demise
2 Darkblast
3 Pithing Needle
1 Skeletal Scrying
15 sideboard cards
He runs a more powerful draw engine with 4 TFK and more artifact lands. He doesn't run as much creature hate MD as it is really dead against the mirror and many others. I love the SB Meloku's and darkblasts. The only thing I'm not quite getting fully is the MD gifts and the SB scrying. What exactally does one gift for? wonder deep analysis and what else? What match does one side in the scrying for? Also, why boomerang over echoing truth? Is hitting land that necessary? I can only think of two instances where I'd want to bounce land. An opposing Genju/manland, or a boseiju. I can see how these two reasons alone could warrent to, but i'll do some testing before I'm fully convinced. The version I was testing before was almost identical to his otherwise. I'm really liking this deck more than most of the others I have seen.
Edit: Autocards don't work off of wizards site, but you should know what they are by now...
Aether Sigs
Oh also, boomerang bounces a New Dual, either it sets them back 2 turns, or it sets them back 2 life and 1 turn.
C'mon people keep the discussion going. Are you giving into the gross dredge versions already?
Wow, this goes to show... what?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
You've never proven the superiority of cunning wish by sane man's logic. And because you seem to be so fixated on simply repeating the same stuff over and over again until people simply give up, I'll TELL YOU how to prove usage of cunning wish would be "superior" :
1) Show some actual results in tournaments with TOP LEVEL PLAYERS in the pool. Simply saying you beat a certain deck without even mentioning the skill level of the players or how the match actually went does NOT justify the usage of a card.
2) You've yet to shown that cunning wish actually provides actual advantage vs. control matchups. In fact, I and other people on the forum, have repeatedly shown you packing wish vs. other tog decks would simply be tempo loss as well as giving them more chance to counter you with something as small as FORCE SPIKE.
3) Present arguments with LOGIC. You've yet to shown any signs of intelligence on this thread so far. You're simply slapping everything you do in favor of "cunning wish is good" argument.
As for Opt vs. Thirst for knowledge, both should be maindecked - but not in 4 ofs. The reason behind this two fold :
1) Thirst digs deeper into your library and gives you more card in hand / library. This means more power for your psychatog.
2) Opt isn't something that can replace TFK in terms of functionality - opt is a great card in early / mid game to make sure your draw QUALITY is better.
Saying "opt allows you to keep hands where you normally wouldn't" is such a crap argument. This usually implies to hands with low landcount or even the dreaded one land count or 1 ~ 2 answers.
These hands should be pitched even with or without opt at competitive levels. And with u/b tog running 24+ ish lands and only two colors with fetch lands + watery grave, the mana fixing / flow really shouldn't be a problem to begin with.
Now, on to bigger and better things: THE best Tog hoser in the freaking world for the mirror match is hands down: Llawan, Cephalid Empress. I can't tell you how many Breaking Dredge/Tog decks I've lost to because of it, but I am under the impression that if you ever take this deck to a PTQ that you immediately choose to include 2-3 copies of the card in your sideboard. Tog will be everywhere and Meloku will be attending many a Tog deck sideboard, and as long as people will play Tog you will need to play Llawan. I've put three copies of her in the board and have won damn near every mirror match I've seen her since. Really a metagame choice when it comes down to it, I think that Llawan will see quite a few plays in Extended PTQs.
"A severed foot is the ultimate stocking stuffer."
"I love you guys, thanks for comin' to my special."
- Mitch Hedburg (1968-2005)
We love you too Mitch, we love you too.
"Girls are like Voltron: the more you stick together, the better it gets." SE
What I don't understand is how you can even begin to compare last season's extended tog with today's extended UB tog.
Back then, you had CHEAP / EFFICIENT card draw engine like intuition / ak / brainstorm which could EASILY make up for the slowness of cunning wish.
Moreover, with the format actually being so much faster AND diverse in terms of sudden kill, it was IMPERATIVE that you use that cunning wish.
This is best illustrated in matchups vs. COMBO DECKS - likes of which (cephalid life, aluren, reanimator) were actually largely viable AND considered top tier at the moment. If you could wish for that coffin purge vs. reanimator or cephalid life, you won the game.
At the moment, extended's top tier mainly belongs to control decks - variations of atog, scepter chant - and a hint of Boros Deck wins.
Now, looking at those top tier environment, is there any cards you can wish for that WINS YOU THE GAME? Are there cheap, efficient draw spells under 3 mana that can virtually render the slowness of wish?
The answer should be NO two both of the above questions.
Geez people, it's not a rocket science. Use your own brains.
p.s.: The same reason applies for Chant decks running cunning wish - for them, wish DOES fetch them win conditions in forms of chant, helix, or whatever that gets slapped on a stick.
If you say that all the top decks are control now, great. That means that wish is needed. I also ran one upheaval that won me 5 games. Yay upheaval. Yay wish. Yay me and everyone else with a brain that thinks tog is a control deck and not a combo, aggro, splash green and run Boomerang, deck
You just successfully destroyed any credibility you had left.
If you're running against control decks, you want more permission or direct answers to their threats, not give them more opportunity to counter your counter with soft counters.
If you're playing a field where there are various top tier decks are available - like the last season - THEN you want cunning wish.
Yay for broken records.