Psychatog seems to be a controversial card. Some cube designers (myself included) think it is an amazing card, others have removed the card from their cubes.
Here is why I think it is a great card:
It is very hard to kill Psychatog in combat. Typically, the bigger the creatures you have, the more cards the Tog player has in the graveyard, so he can often make Tog big enough by discarding a single card, which basically means that any card in hand becomes a Giant Growth-type combat trick.
It is very hard to kill Psychatog with damage based or toughness based removal. Often removing some cards from the yard are enough to counter the removal spell, and discarding a card to do so is still OK because that means any card in hand becomes a counterspell.
The first two points make it so that Psychatog is very good at stabilizing a game early.
Psychatog wins games. When you face Psychatog, you have to make sure how much damage it represents, because it will be a lot once the game is into the later turns. Psychatog easily deals 10-20 damage in a single turn to end the game. Combine it with draw spells (especially Deep Analysis), Life from the Loam or Meloku the Clouded Mirror for a lot of extra damage.
Psychatog is an enabler for graveyard based strategies. It is one of only few discard outlets in cube where the discard option is an addition to an already great card.
I also am a Tog fan. He makes combat math really miserable for your opponent and he's insane with Upheaval. I think he plays out better than he looks on paper which is a big factor in people being reluctant to play him and therefore they end up cutting him. And how can you not love a guy that can shrink your opponent's Tarmogoyf?
I'm a huge Tog supporter. He wins the game, and only costs 3 mana, making him incredibly easy to cast and protect simultaneously. Not many creatures can swing for the last 10-14 damage in one turn and for only 3 mana. Probably none. And with all the bounce/removal in UB, sometimes there's nothing your opponent can really do about it. Every time he kills a player that underestimates him, we always tell the group to "Ask [dead player's name] what a Psychatog is."
I picked up a 'tog for my cube early on, just because he was cheap, he was on wtwlf's list, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I drafted him for the first time a couple of weeks ago and discovered firsthand that he is indeed a house.
He doesn't die to direct damage. He costs three and goes toe-to-toe with the biggest creatures in cube. He must be blocked every time or he'll just win the game. In short, I can see why for a long time he was considered one of the best creatures ever printed, and can't imagine ever cutting him from my UB section.
I guess I am the only one who isn't a fan of the famous 'Tog! I have found him underwhelming for a number of reasons: as a reanimation tool, he's slow. Three mana just to discard a card? No thanks, as there are better, easier, single-color ways to get this job done. As a blocker: Fine, I guess. In my mind this is his strongest role. The problem is that he doesn't fly, and in order for him to survive/kill the creature he's blocking, you are either losing cards, which is bad, or losing graveyard cards which isn't so bad but limits his effectiveness after a block or two. As an attacker I am very un-impressed. You need the game to go on for a while before he can threaten lethal, and by that point the opponent usually has something better to block with. Tog doesn't trample, so he gets chumped all day long.
Yes, Upheaval/Tog is great. So is Upheaval and almost any creature. I had Tog in my cube a long, long time. Everyone agreed he just wasn't pulling his weight
I don't support reanimator and I still think he's great. He CAN help reanimator decks but is bad in doing so so I don't think discussing this aspect of the card is very relevant at all. Also if Tog is surviving combat with another creature that creature is probably dead so it's not like you aren't getting any value out of him. I do agree he's probably not getting there by himself unless the game goes really long. You need to smack your opponent down to the 10-14 range to have a decent chance to 1 shot them.
It's going to take a lot to convince me any cube doesn't want this, although maybe it's my insane nostalgia surrounding it. I played my first PTQ with 'tog (probably not a good choice for a 13 year old at the time), and in my very first cube draft I was playing a sweet U/B tempo deck. In g3 of the last round, it had been a long, grindy game, and my opponent had just wrathed my board and dropped jace. I had flooded out and had 4-5 lands, lightning greaves in my hand.
You know what happened next...I killed him from 14.
I think that Psychatog is the strongest U/B gold card. It's tough to remove and can swing for large damage out of nowhere. Discard outlets are hard to come by, and he's a big threat in either U/B aggro or control, which are not uncommon archetypes in many cubes.
I think it's one of the strongest gold cards, and easily the most powerful Dimir card. Finkel/Tar Pit are more consistent performers, but the power-level potential of 'Tog is on another level entirely.
I think it's one of the strongest gold cards, and easily the most powerful Dimir card. Finkel/Tar Pit are more consistent performers, but the power-level potential of 'Tog is on another level entirely.
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I excluded him from my Cube:Lineage cube solely because it is built very hostile to the types of decks that 'Tog is good in, and because I've been aiming to exclude some sweet cards so that players have cards to subsequently try to add to the cube.
He's an omission that isn't exactly due to power level, more due to metagame.
If your cube's meta is even remotely durdly, then 'Tog is extremely good, albeit still probably not a power concern. It feels terrible to fight 'Tog with a remotely stacked GY, but he can definitely be fought against.
Psychatog is a good defensive creature early in the game that has some value in the (very) late game as well, but it isn't the unbeatable force that some people make it sound like, especially not against green decks or decks with direct damage.
That's certainly right. But in order to sell the unassuming cards like 'Tog or Wildfire to people who have never tried them, you have to exaggerate a little sometimes. The point is, once again, that he is all these things combined.
When I think of why 'Tog is good, I come to the conclusion that it's the fact that he accelerates your hand. Sure, you have a hand of Terror, Fact or Fiction, Shriekmaw, Jwar Jwar Sphinx and a land and that's awesome, but against Elite Vanguard.dec, you might not be able to play all the cards before you're dead. Enter 'Tog: Every single card in your hand now does something useful! Discard the Sphinx so that Tog can block the bear, play the land, FoF for lots of Tog ammunition, and that might be all you need to do to stabilize. You essentially converted the six-mana card into a zero-mana card and that allowed you to do enough to survive. The fact that he randomly wins a it's-so-late-we-can-feel-climate-change-between-the-beginning-of-the-game-and-now late game is just a bonus, as is the interaction with Upheaval.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
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*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
You didn't even need Upheaval back in the day; while it was a game-winning play, often you just had a virtually unkillable creature that slowly gained food with which to kill your opponent through cards like Fact or Fiction, Cephalid Coliseum, and others. At some point, your opponent just couldn't afford to let it through for fear of dying on the spot, which is a lot to ask for a lot of decks.
Personally, I include him because any creature that was a title holder of 'best creature in Magic' deserves a spot in my Cube. If he was terrible, however, he would likely have been replaced...good thing he isn't!
I'm thinking of adding the 'tog in my BFZ update to try him out, how has he been doing in the year of 2015? Is he still as effective even with all the delve spells going around in black / blue?
Yep. This card is a pain in the ass to deal with and everyone always underrates it. Its either getting huge as they pitch cards to it, enabling some kind of cool combo, or both.
Currently I run Shadowmage, Tar Pit, and Baleful Strix over him. Probably be interested in Silumgar more than him too. But I would place him as #4 nonland in Dimir.
I've got cut, DTT, and Tasigur. Exactly three. Anyway, Tog is still a house. I especially love when my opponent calculates how much damage it can deal, lets it through, and then you FoF for +5/+5.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
I struggle with rating Tog in this day and age. It will steal games out of nowhere in a way that no other card can... and then look like a foolish excuse for a 3-drop in the next couple games. It really wants to be in a tempo or reanimator deck, yet tempo is generally the realm of UW and UG these days.
Right now for Dimir nonlands I have it firmly behind Strix + Ashiok (criminally underrated) and on par with Infiltrator. It's not in danger of losing its spot anytime soon, but beyond Strix and Tar Pit I don't think anything in Dimir is uncuttable.
Psychatog seems to be a controversial card. Some cube designers (myself included) think it is an amazing card, others have removed the card from their cubes.
Here is why I think it is a great card:
It is very hard to kill Psychatog in combat. Typically, the bigger the creatures you have, the more cards the Tog player has in the graveyard, so he can often make Tog big enough by discarding a single card, which basically means that any card in hand becomes a Giant Growth-type combat trick.
It is very hard to kill Psychatog with damage based or toughness based removal. Often removing some cards from the yard are enough to counter the removal spell, and discarding a card to do so is still OK because that means any card in hand becomes a counterspell.
The first two points make it so that Psychatog is very good at stabilizing a game early.
Psychatog wins games. When you face Psychatog, you have to make sure how much damage it represents, because it will be a lot once the game is into the later turns. Psychatog easily deals 10-20 damage in a single turn to end the game. Combine it with draw spells (especially Deep Analysis), Life from the Loam or Meloku the Clouded Mirror for a lot of extra damage.
Psychatog is an enabler for graveyard based strategies. It is one of only few discard outlets in cube where the discard option is an addition to an already great card.
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He doesn't die to direct damage. He costs three and goes toe-to-toe with the biggest creatures in cube. He must be blocked every time or he'll just win the game. In short, I can see why for a long time he was considered one of the best creatures ever printed, and can't imagine ever cutting him from my UB section.
Yes, Upheaval/Tog is great. So is Upheaval and almost any creature. I had Tog in my cube a long, long time. Everyone agreed he just wasn't pulling his weight
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You know what happened next...I killed him from 14.
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He's an omission that isn't exactly due to power level, more due to metagame.
If your cube's meta is even remotely durdly, then 'Tog is extremely good, albeit still probably not a power concern. It feels terrible to fight 'Tog with a remotely stacked GY, but he can definitely be fought against.
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That's certainly right. But in order to sell the unassuming cards like 'Tog or Wildfire to people who have never tried them, you have to exaggerate a little sometimes. The point is, once again, that he is all these things combined.
When I think of why 'Tog is good, I come to the conclusion that it's the fact that he accelerates your hand. Sure, you have a hand of Terror, Fact or Fiction, Shriekmaw, Jwar Jwar Sphinx and a land and that's awesome, but against Elite Vanguard.dec, you might not be able to play all the cards before you're dead. Enter 'Tog: Every single card in your hand now does something useful! Discard the Sphinx so that Tog can block the bear, play the land, FoF for lots of Tog ammunition, and that might be all you need to do to stabilize. You essentially converted the six-mana card into a zero-mana card and that allowed you to do enough to survive. The fact that he randomly wins a it's-so-late-we-can-feel-climate-change-between-the-beginning-of-the-game-and-now late game is just a bonus, as is the interaction with Upheaval.
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Personally, I include him because any creature that was a title holder of 'best creature in Magic' deserves a spot in my Cube. If he was terrible, however, he would likely have been replaced...good thing he isn't!
-AA
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I've got cut, DTT, and Tasigur. Exactly three. Anyway, Tog is still a house. I especially love when my opponent calculates how much damage it can deal, lets it through, and then you FoF for +5/+5.
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Right now for Dimir nonlands I have it firmly behind Strix + Ashiok (criminally underrated) and on par with Infiltrator. It's not in danger of losing its spot anytime soon, but beyond Strix and Tar Pit I don't think anything in Dimir is uncuttable.
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