So Many Insane Plays - Glorious Grow

With the Legacy Grand Prix this coming weekend, one of the larger Calendar Vintage events is on the immediate horizon. Known affectionately as The Mana Drain Open, and colloquially as the “Waterbury,” First prize is slated to be $1000. Information regarding this tournament can be found here This
will be the 13th Waterbury, and the first since the June restrictions.

The Waterbury is a wonderful tournament, and if you have never played in a Vintage tournament before, there is no better way to introduce yourself to the format and the community. It has the feel of a Grand Prix, a very worthwhile payout structure, and loads of fun extras. If you plan on competing in the Waterbury, I have a deck for you to
consider.

I received some feedback from some of my more talented Vintage readers that some of my articles do not actively work to help improve their skills and make them better at Magic, and Vintage in particular. I will work harder on rectifying that beginning now. I write for a broad audience, but I don’t have to target the same audience with each article. This article is written for those of you who are serious about making a good showing at the upcoming Waterbury.

You might be looking at the format and not really satisfied with any possible deck choice. You could pick up a Tezzeret deck, but might find that that archetype is played out, or the target of everyone else’s efforts. You might want to play something else, but find
those options less than satisfactory. You could go round and round in circles, unhappy with the current slate of choices.

History has shown that Grow decks have historically done well in Waterbury tournaments, and not when Gush has been legal either. Five months after Gush was originally restricted, a Grow deck got second place in the Waterbury.

GroAtog
Ben Taraskevich, 2nd Place, Waterbury, 11.16.2003

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Duress
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
4 Accumulated Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
2 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
1 Gush
1 Merchant Scroll
2 Misdirection
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
4 Quirion Dryad
1 Regrowth
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Psychatog
1 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea

Sideboard:
1 Annul
1 Berserk
1 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Coffin Purge
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Naturalize
2 Null Rod
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Smother
1 Stifle
1 Zuran Orb

Just a few months later, GroAtog did a little bit better, in a record field of two hundred players, and won the January Waterbury.

GroAtog
Scott Limoges, 1st Place, Waterbury, 1.17.2004

1 Gush
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Quirion Dryad
2 Psychatog
4 Mana Drain
4 Brainstorm
1 Mind Twist
2 Duress
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
2 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
1 Merchant Scroll
5 Moxen
4 Island
1 Black Lotus

1 Strip Mine
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea

Sideboard:
2 Diabolic Edict
3 Naturalize
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Berserk
4 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Blue Elemental Blast

2 Pernicious Deed
1 Fact or Fiction

Two years later, in the height of the Gifts era, Josh Meckes improbably took Grow to the top once again.

Gro-a-tog

Josh Meckes

1st Place at Junior Super Series on 01-29-2006

Vintage

Creatures (6)

4 Quirion Dryad
2 Psychatog

Lands (14)

Spells (40)

Sideboard

But Grow’s reign of Waterbury success did not end there. Oh no, six month’s later, Rich Myeist repeated the feat with the janky “Worse than Grow.”

Worse than Gro

Rich Meyst

1st Place at Junior Super Series on 07-30-2006

Vintage

Creatures (11)

Lands (21)

Spells (29)

Sideboard

Of course, Gush was unrestricted at the next Waterbury, and Rich Shay won it with GroAtog.

But the point remains: Grow decks have repeatedly succeeded in Waterbury’s when they were least expected and least warranted. Why? Why would an archetype that had been long neutered by restrictions continue to perform in this metagame? Is this metagame some sort of oasis for dead decks, or janky decks, or is something else going on here?

I don’t have a very good answer to that question. It has something to do with the fact that Aggro-Control decks seem to be unusually strong performers in Waterbury metagames. There is a perception that the North Eastern metagame is unusually Mana Drain heavy. Although I cannot say that this perception is true or not, the statistics I’ve seen do not support this claim, such as the metagame breakdown in the StarCityGames.com Deck Database for the 2006 Waterbury. All 148 decks can be viewed here

Even much weakened (one could say castrated or neutered), the most powerful Aggro-Control deck ever still has solid game against these over-heavy Drain decks. A Dryad or a Goyf coinciding with a barrage of Duresses and countermagic, followed by a lethal or just menacing Yawgmoth’s Will, is often just what it takes.

But that is speculation. What we do know is that history counsels that Grow decks win Waterburys, repeatedly, even when they are least expected.

I believe it can work again. Vintage is a format of cycles. Granted, this time is different. It’s not just Gush that is restricted, it’s also Brainstorm, Ponder, and Merchant Scroll too. The entire Grow concept is the idea of building a light manabase through the substitution of a high number of Blue cantrips to foster pseudo-card advantage. In the mid- and late- game your opponent is drawing blanks while you are drawing useful cards. How can Grow function without these cantrips to reliably keep one land hands or create sufficient card advantage to win without 4 Merchant Scrolls to dig up Ancestral Recall or multiple Gushes? How can it cheat on mana in this environment?

It’s true that no single deck has been neutered this badly since Academy a decade ago. But Thoughtseize and Duress remain unrestricted, and they are more powerful than ever. In my final Grow lists of 2008, I was running four of each. Given the speed of the format, I think it is acceptable to keep a one land hand that has a couple of Duress effects. Turn 1 Duress is about as powerful an effect as you can generate with unrestricted cards in current Vintage without using Dark Ritual, Mishra’s Workshops, Oath of Druids, or Bazaar of Baghdad. Since Brainstorm, Ponder, and Scroll are all restricted, a Turn 1 Duress does much more than it would have nine months ago. It’s a play that can accord little resistance. You can nab the best card in their hand, and there is little they can say and or do about it. Then, and unlike in years past, you can reliably follow the contents of their hand even a turn or two later.

But what about the actual Blue one- and two-mana spells that made Grow such a Vintage powerhouse? Although you can buy time with Duress effects, that won’t — by itself – find you a second land with a reliable degree of consistency.

There remain a number of vigorous one- and two-mana spells in the format that could help in that respect. Careful Study is potentially the most abusive, but it’s too card disadvantageous. Disrupt has seen use before. Doug Linn, in his run to the StarCityGames.co Power 9 finals with GroAtog in 2007 ran Disrupt over Ponder. Possibly better, Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand stand out as the possible one-mana replacements.

But if we expand our sights to two mana, at least four cards stand out as cards that can fill in for the gaps left by Merchant Scroll and company. Those cards are Dark Confidant, Accumulated Knowledge, Impulse, and Strategic Planning. Each of these options have particular advantages depending on how you want to build the deck, and I’ll review them each in turn.

The one undisputed effect of the June, 2008 restrictions has been the slaying of the Gush-Bond engine. Even if Gush itself were unrestricted, or Gush and Ponder — moves which I think would be quite sensible — the Gush-Bond Engine, an engine that would win as early as turn 1 with Fastbond in hand simply by chaining Brainstorms, Ponders, Gushes, and Merchant Scrolls — is undeniably dead. That engine was so powerful that it was ported into every Blue deck at the time, from Oath to Painter. Even with unrestricted Gush or Gush and Ponder, you could not reliably string everything together such that it would be an automatic inclusion in every Blue deck. It would simply make Grow a stronger player, which is a very sensible move given the dominance of Drain decks.

The problem, however, is that the killing of the Gush-Bond engine makes Quirion Dryad obsolete. With just Gush restricted, GAT players like Scott Limoges could run multiple Merchant Scrolls and Brainstorms and still support the Dryad. Today, it’s not possible to string together enough spells in today’s environment to justify running Dryad over Tarmogoyf. Now that the Gush-Bond engine has been totally neutered, Quirion Dryad is not a reliable win condition, and Tarmogoyf stands out as a much larger man. Even when the Gush-Bond engine was unrestricted, many preferred Goyf. Now, there is no doubt about it.

For that reason, I wanted to start my re-exploration of the archetype with Strategic Planning. Since Tarmogoyf is likely the creature we will be “growing,” Strategic Planning seemed like the card that would give Goyf maximum power, dumping creatures and artifacts into the yard. Accumulated Knowledge, the go-to card for the first post-restriction era, seems far too slow for today’s environment, despite the fact that it does provide critical mass mid- and late-game card advantage. I can see little reason to think that that would be more valuable than the critical mass advantages that accumulate through the use of Strategic Planning culminating into a Yawgmoth’s Will. (Oddly enough, Strategic Planning has some weak synergy with Accumulated Knowledge.) Strategic Planning has already proved its worth in Vintage, putting two players into the Vintage Championship Top 4 last summer, on account of its synergy with the format in general. It seemed like a perfect fit for a new take on Grow.

After testing and tuning, here is what I came up with:

Strategic Grow

Stephen Menendian

Test deck on 03-08-2009

Vintage

Creatures (5)

1 Darksteel Colossus
4 Tarmogoyf

Lands (14)

Spells (41)

Sideboard

As a way of explaining how I came up with this list, let me highlight he differences between pre-restriction Grow and this deck.

Starting with the list I was running in May/June 2008, the differences are as follows:

– 4 Quirion Dryads
+ 4 Tarmogoyf

I already explained that without the Gush-Bond engine, or even Brainstorm, Quirion Dryad is suboptimal.

– 3 Merchant Scroll
– 3 Ponder
– 3 Gush
– 3 Brainstorm
– 1 Misdirection

+ 1 Imperial Seal
+ 1 Regrowth
+ 4 Strategic Planning
+ 1 Mox Pearl
+ 1 Mox Ruby
+ 1 Sol Ring
+ 1 Tinker
+ 1 Darksteel Colossus
+ 2 Negate

The exchanges should be intuitive. The first two inclusions since the restrictions are Regrowth and Imperial Seal. Both of these cards were already borderline inclusions in unrestricted Grow lists. With so many cards restricted, these cards easily earn a spot for their role in finding and recurring restricted sources of card advantage like Gush and Ancestral Recall.

Since our cantrip is a two-mana spell we need full Moxen support, which ups the mana count of the deck. The Sol Ring helps facilitate turn 2 plays like Strategic Planning plus Goyf. With the additional artifacts Tinker and Colossus, or some Colossus substitute like Inkwell Leviathan, become automatic inclusions as well. The two Negates are additional countermagic playable with just a Mox and a land.

– 1 Fastbond
– 1 Tendrils of Agony
+ 1 Time Vault
+ 1 Voltaic Key

Since the deck can no longer combo out with the Gush-Bond engine and a Tendrils or an enormous Dryad, the Time Vault–Voltaic Key combo has been included instead. This was the final tweak that I made to the deck, and the one that gave it the most “oomph.” Ideally, you want to actually win the game when you play Yawgmoth’s Will. Under Yawg Will, it’s usually really easy to chain two tutors together, since there are so many in this deck, and Key/Vault gives you a more effective and efficient win condition than Tendrils in that regard (Tinker plus Time Walk also works). Also, it’s not that hard to assemble the combo, especially when you naturally draw into one component. It’s not that costly either since Strategic Planning can dig through them, depositing one into your yard for later Yawgmoth’s Will. Since you have superior Duress effects and countermagic, it’s very difficult for an opponent to stop your Yawgmoth’s Will without an on board answer like Tormod’s Crypt.

The deck is running lots of tutors to create consistency and help you find an early Ancestral Recall or mid-game Tinker (or Vault-Key combo part). Regrowth synergizes with both this tutor engine and Strategic Planning.

A reliable sequence of play is:

Turn 1:

Land, Duress

Turn 2:

Land, Mox,
Thoughtseize, Strategic Planning

From here you can probably tutor up whatever you need to win the game
and resolve it with little trouble. For example, you can tutor up Tinker or Vault/Key, if you are holding the other. Or you can try to build card advantage towards a lethal Yawgmoth’s Will.

This deck was quite solid, but it still felt — as it should — underpowered compared to old-timey GAT. The main advantage was the utilization of the Vault/Key combo. As you fiddle with this deck, you will come to understand just how easy it is to assemble this combo. It will lead to unearned or deserved, random wins, and, perhaps as importantly, it will create quite a bit of anxiety on the part of your opponent if you have one of them in play. Any topdeck could produce the other, and each Strategic Planning digs you closer to doing so.

If this deck strikes your fancy, here are some basic sideboard plans I’ve sketched for you:

5c Stax/MUD

+ 3 Island
+ 2 Rebuild
+ 2 Hurkyl’s Recall
+ 1 Seal of Primordium
– 4 Duress
– 4 Thoughtseize

The one thing that Grow players never understood — partly because it’s so simple — is that the best plan against decks that want to deny you mana is to simply play more mana. Hence, the sideboard plan above.

Oath

+ 2 Seal of Primordium
– 1 Tarmogoyf
– 1 Sol Ring

Oath is a surprisingly easy matchup when you have 8 Duress effects. About the only chance they have is to get a turn 1 Oath online. Even then, you have a good shot at tutoring up the Echoing Truth before they can Oath.

Tezzeret

No changes.

Control Slaver

No changes.

This deck should be favored against Mana Drain decks, and hence it dedicates no sideboard cards to that matchup.

Ichorid

+ 4 Leyline of the Void
+ 2 Yixlid Jailer
– 4 Thoughtseize
– 2 Mana Drain

This should be enough to deal with the Ichorid menace.

The more I tested the deck, the more possibilities I began to see and that I wanted to explore. Although I greatly enjoyed playing Strategic Planning, and although it does give Goyf maximum boost, I couldn’t shake the suspicion that I needed to test alternative design options. My first question was whether Impulse would actually be better than Strategic Planning.

The more I played with Strategic Planning, the more I realized that the function of depositing cards in the graveyard for Tarmogoyf was very marginal. Since very often your graveyard is just land and Duress effects, in many cases Impulse could actually provide as big a boost for Goyf. Not only because it was the only instant in the graveyard, but also because of the fact that it dug deeper, and got me to critical cards more quickly. So I decided to test Impulse instead. Every time I played Impulse, I thought about how it would have performed if it had been Strategic Planning. Although there were many times in which I took advantage of being able to play Impulse at instant speed, my ultimate conclusion was that they were about equal merit. For every time that seeing a fourth card mattered, a Strategic Planning would have produced a better Yawgmoth’s Will. For every time that instant speed allowed me to End of Turn Impulse, a Strategic Planning would have produced more damage with Goyf. In short, it turned out to be a wash in my significant, but not comprehensive, sample size. If anything, I found that the siphoning function of Strategic Planning, of thinning the library, was slightly preferable over time. Often, I didn’t want Voltaic Key or another land to go back into my library, but rather I wanted to thin my library so that I would get closer to the relevant restricted cards.

My teammates wondered whether Dark Confidant was the best two-mana play left in Vintage for GroAtog since the restriction of Scroll. Dark Confidant was already under consideration, but I didn’t think that pairing Confidant with another two-mana spell would make sense. If I was going to run Confidant, I was going to also run Sleight of Hand or another one-mana cantrip.

As I was thinking about how to design a list with Goyf and Sleight of Hand, a fortuitous event occurred. My buddy Paul Mastriano called me up and told me that he got second place in a Pittsburgh Mox tournament, losing to GroAtog in the finals. He told me that he recalled seeing Sleight of Hand and Dark Confidants. With an actual tournament win under the belt, I wanted to see what I could do with it. Here is what I came up with:

GAT 2k9 (Gro-A-Tarmogoyf)

Stephen Menendian

Test deck on 03-08-2009

Vintage

Creatures (8)

4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf

Lands (14)

Spells (35)

Sideboard

Sleight of Hand was surprisingly good. The immediacy of it gives it an edge over Serum Visions. The gulf between a one-mana and two-mana spell is so great that this deck is probably superior to the Strategic versions on account of its superior mana consistency and greater spell density. What surprised me the most, though, was how good Fastbond proved to be, even in raw-dog situations, where you just play turn 1 Fastbond, another land and a Mox, and a Bob or a Goyf. Then, when you combo out with Yawg Will, Fastbond generates you a few more mana.

Even more surprising, perhaps, was how good Tinker was with only four artifacts in the deck! It’s possible that this deck wants Inkwell Leviathan over Darksteel Colossus, mostly on account of the fact that it’s Blue. In any case, I would not cut the Tinker play if I were you.

The two Drains were added in lieu of Thoughtseizes three and four, and they have been quite good. Drain gets the nod over Negate in this list, since there are so many fewer Moxen, and one of them plays Drain anyway (Mox Sapphire). Their main function is to help set up Yawgmoth’s Will, and to stop opponent’s from implementing their own game plan.

I was most concerned that the quantity of Dark Confidants could prove dangerous, but that apprehension proved misplaced in testing. Vintage is such a fast and fascinating format. There are just enough library manipulation effects, including tutors, that I never was in real danger. If you decide to try this deck, and you find that the number of Confidants is too high, don’t feel bad if you only run a pair or so. They are still good even in lesser quantities.

After I had completed my work on this deck a few days later, the tournament organizer for the Pittsburgh tournament in which Paul had competed posted the Top 8 decklists. Here was the winning deck:

GAT
Zach Cavis, 1st Place, Pittsburgh Mox Sapphire Tournament

4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Fastbond
3 Quirion Dryad
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Echoing Truth
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Dark Confidant
2 Impulse
1 Gush
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Regrowth
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Mana Drain

Sideboard:
4 Extirpate
3 Pyroblast
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Tinker
1 Inkwell Leviathan

This decklist is impressive and sophisticated. The mix of Duress effects strikes me as thoughtful and intelligent — after all, it’s similar to what I came up with. The inclusion of the singleton Top makes a lot of sense. First of all, it helps ameliorate the pain suffered by using Bobs. Second, it provides another Tinker sacrificial lamb. Third, it makes sense as a possible replacement for Ponder. With a Mox and a Land, you can rearrange your top three cards to make a turn 2 land drop and more, even set up turn 2 Bob or better. It also functions nicely with all of the topdeck tutors. I was also surprised — and impressed — by the two Impulses. I think the one thing his deck is missing that it should clearly be running is Imperial Seal.

Between my list and Zach’s, you have two excellent Grow lists to play with as you consider your options for the Waterbury. These Grow lists preserve so many of the advantages of the original Grow that it is actually a bit astounding. I think if Wizards were to unrestrict Gush this could more than just a Mana Drain predator, but a legitimate, worldwide contender. As it stands, I think it is an excellent metagame deck for the American tournament scene. I would not be surprised one bit to discover that someone takes this deck to a Waterbury finals in two weeks. It might as well be you, right?

Until next time…

Stephen Menendian