I didn’t know how this was going to work or if it was going to work. My reasoning for picking up this deck was because I was searching for a strategy that met this criteria:
Doesn’t draw extra cards.
Makes 2-for-1s through creatures (cards like Flametongue Kavu and Thought-Knot Seer)
Survival of the Fittest appealed to me because it essentially is able to cheat on the “doesn’t draw extra cards” criteria. It doesn’t draw extra cards, but it finds exactly the card that you want and puts it into your hand. So I began the search on Morphing.de, aiming for one of the Spike Feeder combos or Vengevine lists, but I stumbled upon an old deck from 2002 called TnT.
I started with a list that was directly from 2002, just to observe some things and figured it was a good place to start. And of course I’ve been analyzing the strategy and my games and making changes when I think of them. But 14 years is a lot of ground to cover so I know that I’m not even close to an ideal list yet. But here is where I’m at:
4 Mishra’s Workshop
4 Mana Confluence
4 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
1 Cavern of Souls
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Sol Ring
4 Goblin Welder
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Fire Imp
1 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Su-Chi
1 Lodestone Golem
1 Flametongue Kavu
2 Razormane Masticore
1 Ingot Chewer
3 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Sundering Titan
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Trinisphere
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
-sideboard-
1 In the Eye of Chaos
1 Choke
1 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Pyroblast
1 Ingot Chewer
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Artifact Mutation
I’m not going to get into card specifics because It’s hard for me to say any of these cards definitely belong in the deck and they might be replaced by tomorrow. I started with a list that had 4 Juggernauts and 4 Su-Chis. I cut Juggernaut right away because its pretty bad against 3/2 first strikers, but Su-Chi is not bad. I went to zero but then added 1 because its kind of nice to have a plethora of options with Survival.
I’m sharing this because I’ve been really impressed by this deck. I didn’t expect it to be as competitive as it is. I was more or less trying to scope it out for future iterations of the Vintage meta. (i.e. Hate bears.meta), because it makes sense that it would have really good game against those decks due to the Flametongue Kavus, redundant (and Large) creatures, and ways to go broken with Goblin Welder. So the real question is how does this deck stack up against Gush Mentor, Ravager Shops, and the other decks that are being playing on MTGO right now.
The first thing I noticed on MTGO is that a lot of people are trying out these underpowered hate strategies before CN2 is even available. So right of the bat, I can confirm that TNT truly dominates that whole pillar. If someone wants to beat this deck, they’re going to have to go broken (Like DPS or a great first turn from Ravager Shops), it’s not going to be beaten by something fair. So Eldrazi, is a joke of a matchup apparently. They’re aiming too much for Gush decks with how they’re constructed and they just miss TnT. One game against Eldrazi I didn’t have much going besides a Phyrexian Revoker so I played it naming “Abandon Hope”. A couple Squee chump blocks later, and I was able to get a Survival of the Fittest and the deck just takes off from there. Get another Revoker, name the Endbringer he just cast, get a Welder into play, Weld in a Wurmcoil Engine, etc. It’s truly remarkable how Survival just allows you to go off.
Now I have lost some games to those turn 1 Monastery Mentors; but I’m not convinced its a bad matchup. If you can resolve a Survival of the Fittest, its very hard for the Gush deck to keep up with your card advantage. They have to counter your threats and you’re drawing 3 cards (creatures that you choose) every turn. Then after the dust settles, maybe they get a Mentor in play, but then I’m just able to kill it via Fire Imp or something. In the Gush matchup, this deck operates within the “do-nothing theory”. The Do-Nothing Theory is what I describe what the Gush deck does against Dredge or Goblins. They might have a good hand in general (Preordain, Land, Gush, Flusterstorm, Gitaxian Probe, Force, Land), but simply do nothing against the particular strategy that I’m deploying.
Overall this deck has promising alignment within the metagame. And I'm happy to be working on it currently.