Atog Smash!

This past Thursday (6.4.15) we had our weekly Old School meet-up at MTG Card Market. Eight people showed including my friend, and longtime Vintage/Legacy player and deck builder, Ian DeGraff.

Ian drove down from Madison, WI to hang out with me for a few days. I had been talking up the format, so naturally he wanted to try it out. I already had Blue/White/Green Stasis together, so we assembled a couple of decks for him to try out. With the cards I had available, we made Mono Black and mono red Atog Smash.

I had never played against, or even gold fished Atog Smash, but after a few quick games, it became very clear that Atog Smash is a VERY fast deck. I think the most impressive interaction I saw (at least for me) was tapping a Mishra's Workshop and Mox to play Su-Chi, sacrificing it to an active Atog, then using the mana to play a Juggernaut. There was already an active Juggernaut in play, and Ian was able to sacrifice all of his artifacts in play (other than the active Juggernaut) and swing for lethal on turn three.

Not the craziest Atog kill of the day, but still amazing!

Mith brought his Blue White Black control deck packing 4 Serra Angel, 4 Juzam Djinn, and 4 Strip Mine. Surprisingly, he never seemed to have any issues casting his creatures. It was especially good against me because I was unable to draw land during our 2 of our 3 games. Fortunately I was able to Stasis lock him one game.

Good and evil, side by side

I played against Shane, who was playing a Black & White aggro-control deck. In one of our games, I casted Timetwister on the second or third turn. Later in the game, I targeted Timetwister with Regrowth, and we did it again. Over the course of the game, Shane was able to Swords both of my Serra Angels. For a while, he was beating me down with two Hypnotic Specters. At the turn where I was at 4 life, I miraculously drew Wrath of God off the top and saved myself. Unfortunately, he landed an Underworld Dreams a few turns later, but my draw for the turn that Underworld Dreams put me to 1 life happened to be Disenchant, and I barely saved myself. I am also clearly the luckiest person ever.

I then used Ivory Tower to gain 30+ life during the next portion of the game. Regardless of life gain, both Shane and I were quickly running out of cards in our decks. I did draw my Regrowth (again), and had the chance to play Timetwister (again). This didn't really make any sense because I had no permanent-based win conditions left in my deck.

I had about 10 cards left in my deck and it looked like shane had maybe 15-20 cards left. I looked through my graveyard and realized that Braingeyser was still somewhere in my deck. I had more than enough mana on board to Braingeyser him out of the game in addition to a Black Lotus that I was holding. I also knew that he didn't have access to Mind Twist, and had played 3 of his 4 Hymn to Tourachs.

Knowing this, I could afford to just continue to hold my cards, gain life on Ivory Tower, and let anything resolve that I didn't care about. So I just used Regrowth on a Power Sink and let the game continue. I was especially happy to see Shane play Greed. I don't think he realized that I was planning to kill him with Braingeyser.

 I drew Braingeyser with 6 cards left in my deck

Anyways, see you later, and keep Forking those Mind Twists!

//Danny