If it is possible for this type of deck to be built in a format then it probably will. Red also has access to the possible best creature in the format, Arc-Slogger and plenty of other powerful cards like Pulse of the Forge, Shrapnel Blast, Slith Firewalker and Genju of the Spires. Just beating the best deck in the format alone is enough of a reason for a deck to at least be tier 2. Overall though this was the second most common deck in the top 8 at US Regionals and with good reason. There are actually 3 different decks in this category and I’ll go over each individually. Cards like Living Wish and Weathered Wayfarer also saw play when they were legal to find Dust Bowl / Wasteland or a couple of Cloudposts. Crop Rotation was even restricted because it let you find broken non basic lands (cough Tolarian Academy cough Library of Alexandria cough). As far as I can think of I can’t think of a single land tutor that lets you find non basic lands that didn’t see tournament play. While I don’t think Boseiju is broken or a mistake I do think it is a better idea to not let land tutors find non basic lands. Then there is the other problem that all the Tooth player needs to do is use one of his 7+ non-basic land searchers to find a Boseju and suddenly the blue player is completely powerless to stop Tooth and Nail from resolving. Right now though there is the first fact that Wizards has been actively hosing countermagic. The reason it isn’t common that a 9 mana sorcery sees tournament play is that under normal circumstances if you try to cast it your opponent will just tap a few Islands and counter it. The other smaller problem is Boseiju, Who Shelters All. Also the fact that Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breakerhas haste is what makes him broken rather than just powerful. Sundering Titan is scary but isn’t quite as scary when he blows up one of your lands on the first turn rather than 3. Darksteel Colossus is powerful but is still possible to deal with, with things like Duplicant and Molder Slug. A sorcery that costs 9 mana better win you the game when resolved. It think as far as the Tooth deck goes it is the only real mistake Wizards made. Notice a pattern for Tooth targets yet? With the exception of the rarely used anymore Platinum Angel + Leonin Abunas or the post sideboard Triskelion + Mephidross Vampire all the common Tooth pairs involve Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Duplicant or Triskelion will deal with pretty much any creatures. Kiki-Jiki + Darksteel Colossus will kill the opponent next turn. Sundering Titan + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker is by far the most common Tooth targets as they tend to blow up all the opponent’s land and give you 14 damage a turn. You then throw some creatures into play that tend to win the game. The basic game plan of Tooth is simple Get to 9 mana and cast Tooth and Nail with entwine. Green players also have more problems with the Tooth plan than the fatty plan as its own fatties are usually bigger and more numerous. Black decks have a much easier time Terroring Molder Slug than they do of dealing with Sundering Titan so leave the fatties in the board and be happy you beat them anyway. Just don’t bring in the fat against decks that lose to Tooth and Nail as that would be stupid. The fat would make the land destruction much less useful (as you are no longer trying to cast a 9 mana Sorcery) and Plow Under would make the mirror much better. The actual fatties tend to vary (as you can see in this list) but the plan itself is fairly standard. When playing the mirror or against red decks The Troll and Nail decks would board out all its copies of Tooth and Nail and the tooth targets for Plow Under and a bunch of fatties, generally including Troll Ascetic, Razormane Masticore, Molder Slug, and Iwamori Of The Open Fist. The theory was that every deck was sideboarding heavily against Tooth by bringing in land destruction spells like Molten Rain and Sowing Salt. Terry Soh provided the Troll and Nail sideboard. Where the decks tend to actually vary is in the sideboard. They became standard pretty quickly though and most decks have them. Also Kodama’s Reach is a fairly new addition to the deck since Terry Soh ran it in the Invitational (which he won). You occasionally find a Rude Awakening or two in the maindeck as well usually over a few Mindslavers. Mephidross Vampire is often in the sideboard but rarely main decked. Most versions are running a second Sundering Titan over the Darksteel Colossus and practically no versions are running the Platinum Angel Leonin Abunas combo anymore. It used to be that there was a few choices to make about which creatures you ran to Tooth into but even those are becoming more standard. There really isn’t a huge amount of variance between builds. This is a pretty basic list and by far the most common configuration.
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