Psychatog

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"Psychatog" is a multi-colored (blue and black) Magic: The Gathering creature card, printed at the "uncommon" level of rarity in the Odyssey expansion set in 2001. Its abilities, which allow the player to strengthen it by discarding cards or removing cards in the graveyard (discard pile) from the game, resulted in Psychatog being labeled "broken" (overpowered) by players; in an online poll conducted in 2002 at Magicthegathering.com, 35.9% of respondents said they believed that printing Psychatog had been a mistake.^[1] Six of the top eight players at the 2002 World Championship used Psychatog-based decks, including the winner, Carlos Romão.^[2]

Psychatog forms part of a five-card cycle of multi-colored atogs, the others being Sarcatog (black and red), Lithatog (red and green), Thaumatog (green and white), and Phantatog (white and blue). Several other atogs exist; the first, printed in the Antiquities set in 1994, was simply named Atog. Atogs other than the original Atog are named for what they "eat": for example, Necratog eats corpses, and Atogatog eats other atogs. Psychatog consumes thoughts, represented in Magic gameplay by the cards in a player's hand. Due to Psychatog's preeminence among the various atog cards, it is referred to informally simply as Tog.^[3] Another nickname is Dr. Teeth, due to its artwork.

[edit] Development

The multi-colored atogs in Odyssey were intended as hybrids of the earlier, single-color atogs. Psychatog is a hybrid of the black Necratog (from Weatherlight) and the blue Chronatog (from Visions), and this is reflected in the card's art.^[4] Psychatog has a modified version of Necratog's ability to "eat" cards in the graveyard, but it was felt that Chronatog's ability, which involves skipping turns, should not be continued in Psychatog. It was initially replaced with an ability that required removing 7 cards from the player's library (deck); running out of cards means losing the game, placing a limit on how many times this ability could be used. After developer William Jockusch showed that this could be circumvented simply by using a large enough deck, the number of cards removed was increased to 10, but even this was felt to be too powerful — Battle of Wits, a card that wins the game for players with more than 200 cards in their library, was being planned for the same set, giving players more incentive to use unusually large decks. Eventually the "library-eating" ability was replaced with its current discard ability.^[5]

[edit] Strategy

Psychatog decks are usually constructed as Control decks, which focus on stalling against the opponent's threats until they can be defeated using Psychatog. Cards such as the blue Counterspell, which disrupts the opponent's spells, and the black Chainer's Edict, which eliminates their creatures, fulfill this role. Another important class of cards are those that allow the player to draw extra cards, such as Concentrate and Deep Analysis. In addition to getting needed cards quicker, these provide more fuel for Psychatog's ability. Standstill, by deterring the opponent from playing cards and allowing the player to draw cards when they do, can fulfill both of the above roles, but it is less effective against other Psychatog decks.

The coup de grâce of most Psychatog decks is to play Upheaval followed immediately by Psychatog, using mana that was "floated" prior to the Upheaval. By returning all cards in play to their owners' hands, Upheaval simultaneously removes the opponent's defenses while providing ample fuel for Psychatog's abilities.^[6][7]

[edit] References