[Deck] TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst

[Richard Cheese]

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c258/justintime81/tinfins.jpg
You'll wish you had less fun!




Overview
The Name
Core Cards
Sideboards and Sideboarding
Unsuccessful Ideas
Tips and Tricks
Why not just play ______?
Matchup Analysis
Coverage, Results, and Decklists
Thanks


The Name

Grislebrand = Grizzlebees = TinFins. Still Confused?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoShDwTNbnM

Grizzlebee's Introduces the Onion Burst (http://www.adultswim.com/videos/playlists/sealab-commercials/the-onion-burst/)
Take It from 'Ol Hank Murphy (http://www.adultswim.com/videos/playlists/sealab-commercials/murphy-on-grizzlebees/)
Grizzlebees Burst Meal with TinFins Toys (http://www.adultswim.com/videos/playlists/sealab-commercials/are-your-kids-hungry/)

It's a Sealab 2021 Reference. Good? Good. If you aren't familiar with Sealab, go watch the entire series for free on the Adult Swim site.


Overview
TinFins is a Reanimator / Storm hybrid built around Griselbrand. It aims to reanimate Griselbrand with haste using either Shallow Grave or Goryo's Vengeance, then draw enough cards to reanimate Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and swing for 22 or generate enough storm for a lethal Tendrils of Agony. Children of Korlis is used to enable additional Griselbrand activations and greatly increase the consistency of both win conditions. It is a fairly consistent turn 1-3 combo, often with protection.

The strengths of the deck are its redundancy, speed, and the low resource investment needed to combo off, but its reliance on the graveyard makes it susceptible to a variety of hate cards, especially when backed up by counter magic.


Core Cards


1 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2-4 Griselbrand
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Brainstorm
3-4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
0-2 Lim-dul's Vault

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate

4 Cabal Therapy
0-1 Silence
2-4 Thoughtseize

1-2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual

4 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Tundra/Island
2-3 Underground Sea


Wincons:
Griselbrand - Draw engine, wincon, reduces storm count by 3, has axes for hands.
Emrakul - Primarily a win condition, but also used for his shuffle effect in conjunction with Children to generate mana and storm count for the Tendrils win. Rarely, he can also act as an emergency board sweeper.
Children of Korlis - Cheap, tutorable with Entomb, and because of the wording it can combine with Emrakul's shuffle effect to give you infinite draws, life, and storm count.
Tendrils - The argument has been made many times to drop it, but as a singleton it is generally worth it to have a way to win outside the attack step. Can also be used in a pinch to stay in the game or enable more Griselbrand activations.

Enablers:
These are all self explanatory. The full set of Shallow Grave is played over Goryo's because it can reanimate Children, and it doesn't target, which makes it easier to play around hate.

Protection:
We choose discard that can target any player because it allows us to use it as another way to get one of our creatures in the yard. While not the ideal situation, it does make us less dependent on resolving Entomb, and thereby more resilient to counters and discard.

Mana:
Most commonly, the deck plays 8 fetches with 5-6 mana-producing lands, including a basic Swamp and sometimes a basic Island. This gives us good resiliency to Wasteland, with plenty of shuffle effects to maximize the usefulness of Brainstorm.
Petals, and Ritual play the usual storm roles. Chrome Mox is a concession to the need to have additional mana sources after activating Griselbrand. Some lists run 2, others a 1/1 split with Mox Diamond.


Sideboards and Sideboarding
The sideboard is still the greatest point of contention. Fighting hate without giving up consistency or just becoming a bad version of something else has proven to be somewhat of a challenge. The options generally involve protection against hate, transformation to a different combo/wincon, or some combination of the two. Note that some lists run a 14-card sideboard and a 61-card main deck.

Reactive
Probably the most common sideboard strategy. It requires knowing what hate you are likely to face from a given opponent/deck, and brings in specific answers for it. An average reactive board looks like this:

3 Chain of Vapor
2 Massacre
2 Pithing Needle
2 Serenity
3 Silence
2-3 Surgical Extraction

The most common cards to cut for a reactive board are Probes, LDV, and Reanimate. You typically don't want to bring in more than 4-5 cards, as any more than that will water down the deck to the point of making it too inconsistent. This limitation is probably the biggest downside to a reactive strategy, as beating opponents with a wide variety of hate cards becomes extremely difficult.

Reactive board discussion and strategy (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24104-TinFins-3-Return-of-the-Onion-Burst&p=778798&viewfull=1#post778798) - Thanks Acclimation!

Doomsday
Doomsday takes advantage of boarded grave hate, is very compact, and offers multiple win conditions (Shelldock/Emrakul or Tendrils). Doomsday is a card that can be difficult to use effectively, but offers a high degree of flexibility in return. Practice is highly suggested.


1 Shelldock Isle
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Pithing Needle
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Doomsday

Doomsday board primer/discussion (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24104-TinFins-3-Return-of-the-Onion-Burst&p=850359&viewfull=1#post850359) -Thanks .dk!

Historical and Theoretical Transformations

Show and Tell - Loses a lot of redundancy, and still folds to counter + Surgical, so the rest of the board is generally countermagic devoted to winning on the stack, then protecting your beater for a few turns. Pithing Needle is required to beat Jace and Karakas. Show and Tell can also be used as an addition reactive boards, as an out to decks that pack a lot of graveyard hate.

Painter's Servant/Grindstone - Compact, low mana requirement, no reliance on the yard. Also lets you run Blue Blasts in the board as protection, or possibly Red blasts, with a lot of manabase tweaking. Vulnerable to some anti-Griselbrand hate like Pithing Needle. Also doesn't work against opponents running Emrakul.

Ad Nauseum - The OG transformational board. Hopes to take advantage of opponents boarding in grave hate, but becomes more vulnerable to countermagic due to relying on LED/Infernal Tutor. Also soft to anti-storm hatebears like Thalia, Teeg, and Canonist.

The Man Plan - Run a bunch of efficient, evasive beaters like Delver of Secrets, Tombstalker Bitterblossom, and Serendib Efreet. Not graveyard dependent, but even 15 creatures isn't a lot, and can be incidentally hated out by things like Humility, Energy Field, or just anyone with a better clock. Nobody has ever actually tried this.

15x Shadowborn Apostle - #YOLO

Unsuccessful Ideas
These are things that have been tried in the past, but just haven't worked out very well. If you're going to bring one of these up for discussion, please do some testing first to make sure you aren't just beating a dead horse.

Burning Wish - There have been builds in the past splashing red specifically for Burning Wish and a Sneak Attack transformation out of the sideboard. While it does enable us to have answers to hate in game 1, the mana cost and Sorcery speed have just made it a very clunky and slow addition in the past, and that was before we ran White for Children.

Laboratory Maniac - An alternative to Tendrils. It seems slightly cheaper to cast at first glance, but generally requires at least two Children activations to win, so it's not that cheap, is more restrictive, and is a pretty dead card on its own.

Lion's Eye Diamond - It can act as a discard outlet, makes a ton of mana, and enables Infernal Tutor. Unfortunately, it forces you to go all in on your combo turn reducing the benefit of the redundancy in reanimation spells that this deck runs. Additionally, the extra mana provided has proven to be of marginal use as the mana requirements to combo off with this deck are quite low.

Daze/Force of Will - Counters can be better than discard in a lot of situations, but in this deck they don't help get Griselbrand in the yard, and we usually don't have the blue count for Force

Grim Tutor/Infernal Tutor - Tin Fins is redundant enough with 7-8 reanimation spells that tutors such as these have been found to be unnecessary. Your filter spells are generally sufficient to find the pieces that you need.

Cunning Wish - Even though it's already on-color and can be cast on an opponent's turn to somewhat offset the extra cost, 3 mana is still a lot for a deck that only runs 13 land.


Tips and Tricks
Getting Griselbrand in the yard - The most obvious way is via Entomb, but you can also target yourself with discard, or just draw until you have 8 cards and discard him at end of turn.

Reanimating Emrakul - Goryo's Vengeance and Shallow grave are Instants, letting you put Emrakul into play in response to his shuffle trigger going on the stack.

Reanimating during opponent's end step - Both instant reanimation spells exile the target at the beginning of the next end step. Reanimating during your opponent's end step will give you that creature until the beginning of your end step, allowing you to have more mana available during your turn.

Playing around hate - Surgical, Crypt, Deathrite, and other exile effects can all be played around, either by casting another reanimation spell in response, or in the case of Shallow Grave, letting the exile effect resolve and casting Entomb with Grave still on the stack. Finally, Entomb can be used to grab Emrakul to effectively counter these effects in a pinch.

Children of Korlis - Can fog for a turn, or beat other Tendrils decks. Let as many copies of Tendrils resolve as possible, sac them to gain all your life back, live to fight another day.

Going Infinite - Children of Korlis will usually give you enough additional Griselbrand activations to find another reanimation spell to bring back Children with. At this point you most likely have enough life to draw more cards than you have left in your deck (Children only cares about the life lost so far in the turn, not the net gain/loss, so after 2 Griselbrand activations, you gain 14, after 2 more you gain 28, and so on). Now you can draw until you have 6 or fewer cards left, play out all your mana sources, and then Entomb or Therapy/Thoughtseize away Emrakul to shuffle your graveyard into your libary. Continue to reanimate and sac Children, drawing mana sources and business over and over and shuffling with Emrakul when necessary to generate infinite life, storm, and mana. Then, just to rub it in, hardcast Emrakul and go to discard.


Why not just play ______?

Reanimator: TinFins is faster, by a lot, and does not really care about Karakas or creature removal.

ANT: We play a similar protection suite, but can generally combo earlier, and with less mana. We also don't need to go all-in on Infernal Tutor/LED, so we can simply run multiple reanimation spells into counters until one resolves. The downside is having to fight through much better and more varied hate post-board, although AnT has recently become somewhat reliant on the graveyard too, as Past In Flames becomes the primary combo engine.

TES: Tinfins has a better manabase, and again we don't need to commit our entire hand to Infernal Tutor. Speed is similar though, and Burning Wish provides TES a ton of options for answering hate without diluting the deck.

Belcher: We're just about as fast, but we actually have protection, and don't need to dump our entire hand to combo off.

Sneak/Show: Again, we're faster and we win the turn we land Griselbrand. We're also a lot more resilient to discard.

Dredge: We lose to a lot of the same hate, but we have better potential for a transformative sideboard, and the ability to win as soon as we deal with hate, rather than needing to re-establish our graveyard.



Matchup Analysis
Generally, TinFins has a similar matchup against the field as AnT. Tempo decks are the most difficult because of their counter-suite combined with a quick clock. BUG especially because of the presence of maindeck Deathrite Shaman.

Miracles is also tough, but moreso post-board because of the amount and variety of hate they have access to (Rest In Peace, Karakas, Meddling Mage, Pithing Needle). Similar story with Deathblade, but possibly more difficult due to maindeck Deathrite.

Death and Taxes can be troublesome, but they have no turn 0/1 interaction, and Massacre is brutal postboard.

Anything else without counters is generally a cakewalk.

Other combo decks are usually slower, and we have silence in the board.

Update, March 5th 2018:
Given the current popularity of BUG Delver, BUG Control, Czech Pile, and Grixis Delver, thecrav was kind enough to prepare this excellent visual representation of the current meta:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DXdd9TAVAAAZlRS.jpg


Coverage, Results, and Decklists
Coverage:
Carsten Kotter's Article on SCG (http://www.starcitygames.com/article/25717_Eternal-Europe-ndash-Diamonds-In-The-Rough.html)
Caleb Durward's Article on ChannelFireball (http://www.channelfireball.com/home/legacy-weapon-beating-jund/)
Deck Tech with Greg Mitchell (phazonmuant) (http://starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_reanimator_tendrils_.html)

Games:
SCG Atlanta 2013 - Greg Mitchell Round 5, Legacy
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/363601431?t=6h56m

SCG Cincinnati - Caleb Durward Round 6, Legacy
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/368418943?t=3h25m

SCG Las Vegas 2013 - Jacob Kory
Round 7
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/373519422?t=3h55m
Quarterfinals
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/373519422?t=6h42m
Finals
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/373519422?t=9h3m

MTGO Streaming Legacy Daily - Jacob Kory
http://www.twitch.tv/jkory/b/366844881
http://www.twitch.tv/jkory/b/369271763
http://www.twitch.tv/jkory/b/371412000
http://www.twitch.tv/jkory/b/371766972
http://www.twitch.tv/jkory/b/374336353

MTGO Legacy Matches - Caleb Durward
http://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-calebd-legacy-tin-fins-matches/#1


Results and Decklists
Josh Bingaman - 58th place, Grand Prix New Jersey (2014-11-16): Report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28828-Onion-Bursting-of-DOOM!!!-58th-at-GP-New-Jersey-(12-3)-with-Tin-Fins)

Max Martinez - 15th place, SCG Oakland (2014-11-2):
http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=15152&iddeck=112440

Logan Creen - 8th place, SCG St. Louis (2013-06-09):
http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=11068&iddeck=80871

Chad Warford - 14th, SCG Seattle (2013-04-21):
http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=10720&iddeck=78247

Jacob Kory - 2nd place, SCG Las Vegas (2012-03-03):
http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=10299&iddeck=75048

Caleb Durward - 18th place, SCG Cincinnati (2013-02-17):
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Children of Korlis
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
2 Reanimate
4 Entomb
3 Careful Study
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea

// Sideboard
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Deathmark
2 Pithing Needle
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Duress
3 Blue Elemental Blast

Greg Mitchell - 34th Place, SCG Atlanta (2013-02-12): Report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25471-34th-at-SCG-Atlanta-with-TinFins&highlight=tinfins)

Josh Bingaman - 86th place, GP Atlanta (2012-07-01): Report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24179-86th-at-GP-Atlanta-with-Tin-Fins-(or-Reanimator-Storm))


Thanks
Many, many thanks go out to .dk and Phazonmuant for contributing so much to this primer. What I didn't outright steal, I used for ideas and inspiration, and there's still a ton of content I haven't included yet. Also many thanks to those two for keeping the thread and the dream alive in the early days, and for continuing to be great contributors to the thread as the popularity has taken off.

Thanks go to Dela for seeing the potential in Children of Korlis, and .dk for taking the time to test it.

Many thanks to CalebD and Koby for all the publicity and the great results, and thanks to Cedric Phillips for actually reading a Sealab episode synopsis on air.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who has contributed to the thread. We've had some great ideas, and the discussion has been civil and productive so far. This is my favorite thread on The Source, and not just because I started it.

"This deck has everything going for it" - Koby

[Kich867]

I have not yet read the list, I just wanted to tell you that I grossly appreciate the name and LOL'd irl. :laugh:

Ty. Thoughts to come.

Thoughts to come: that list looks pretty sweet. I like it. Grizzlebee's should always connect on turn 1-2 and if he doesn't you still gain a lot of life to activate his draw 7 enough times to win anyways.

[rxavage]

I've tried something similar but with LED, S&T, and Thoughtseize. Results haven't been spectacular. Also, I really want Soul spike to work but it doesn't. I may try your build.

[Mr. Safety]

So you're essentially getting Griselbrand into play for cheap reanimator-style so you can draw a buttload of cards and storm into Tendrils FTW. If you fizzle a little bit, you just tendrils for what you got and start again. It loses you less life than Ad Nauseam and Grizzle works fantastic as a secondary 'attack you and win' with a 3-turn clock, should you draw into 3 Grizzles (which you should drawing that many cards...)

I have to say, it's nothing if not elegant. I really like how Footsteps and Shallow Grave give the guy haste...so if you connect, the first 7 cards are 'free.' If you can't win after drawing 14 more, I would say that you're just the unluckiest guy on earth. But in reality, luck has nothing to do with it. With a 25 card hand you'll be able to do some crazy shit.

Honestly, this reminds me of Necropotence. Draw a ton of cards and gain some life to stay in the game (or just win from having so many cards available.) I like this better than Grizzle-Reanimator, for sure.

[Richard Cheese]

Playtested a bit this weekend, deck seems like the real deal. Unfortunately didn't get to test post-board much, but pre-board it's a house. Of course it can poop itself like all combo decks (3 Ponder, 2 Careful Study no Grizzlebee?!), but overall it's very consistent.

I'm still not convinced one way or the other on discard vs. counters, but the amount of protection actually feels alright. Not committing your entire hand to comboing off is bigger than I expected, and lets you put so much pressure on that it's hard for control decks to keep up.

So far the worst matchups have been RUG and Merfolk (with Chalice), as one might expect for a combo deck that depends on its life total. Chalice in general is a bitch. Conceivably it could be played around in the same way as Teeg, just reanimating and setting up another reanimation before EoT, but that's like saying a car still technically works without an engine because you can roll downhill.

[napdragon]

I'm so glad to see someone else doing this! I've been tuning a smilar list for a few months (ever since I saw Griselbrand in the spoiler). Here's the list:

4 Griselbrand
4 Shallow Grave
2 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Entomb
4 Dark Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
2 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Unmask
2 Ponder or Duress
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea

SB:
4 Pull from Eternity
4 Chain of Vapor
2 Deathmark
2 Massacre
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

The major differences I see is the protection. I prefer unmask because it is, in a round about way, free and can target myself. It also forces you hellbent in the event of needing to infernal tutor. Having LED main can let you crack in in response to shallow grave of he's abandoned in your hand. Pull from eternity in the side allows you to "next level" the usual graveyard hate. The deck is very powerful, it needs some time to be refined, but I have a lot of faith in the power level.

[Richard Cheese]

@napdragon: That looks a lot closer to TinFins2, which was basically ANT with Grizzlebees instead of Ad Nauseam. 10 lands seems way too low though. Even with petals and Chrome Mox, you're practically begging to get screwed by Wasteland. I think if you want to run a super greedy manabase, just run TES, which has much better protection and can deal with a much wider variety of hate b/c of Burning Wish.

Also FYI the tag is "cards", and you can actually just put one tag at the top of your list and one at the bottom. Hit "Reply with Quote" on my original post and you'll see what I mean.

[I am the brainwasher]

I played against a pretty similar deck just that it cut blue entireley and played Emrakul, Infernal Contract, Lake of the dead (which was a beast in the games) and Unmask+Thoughtseize as additional Disruption/enablers.
As shitty as that all sounds, it wasn't.

[.dk]

I played against a pretty similar deck just that it cut blue entireley and played Emrakul, Infernal Contract, Lake of the dead (which was a beast in the games) and Unmask+Thoughtseize as additional Disruption/enablers.
As shitty as that all sounds, it wasn't.

That sounds pretty cool. How else other than entomb was it getting creatures in the yard? I feel like I'd really miss Careful Study by cutting blue. Also sounds like it may have been a little more "all-in" on the combo turn. One of the things I like about this build is that a good chunk of it's protection is it's redundancy - if your reanimation effect is disrupted, there's a good chance that you can go off again the following turn by using your cantrip suite to find more.

[Richard Cheese]

I played against a pretty similar deck just that it cut blue entireley and played Emrakul, Infernal Contract, Lake of the dead (which was a beast in the games) and Unmask+Thoughtseize as additional Disruption/enablers.
As shitty as that all sounds, it wasn't.

How was it getting enough Griselbrand activations playing Infernal Contract and Thoughtseize?

[napdragon]

While the base does look very lean, it actually plays very nicely. You only need the land for 1 turn, 2 at the most. It's very glass cannon and in all the games I've played, wasteland has never been an issue. What ended up hurting me the most was either Spell Snare or Stony Silence. Mine was built on the intention of trying to get as high a turn 1 rate as possible while maintaining a little reliability.

[Richard Cheese]

Ah, so the Belcher plan. Really this deck plays a bit like Belcher, if Belcher could go off with a full hand and had 12 cantrips.

I'm still not really sold on the SB, I think there are probably better ways to play around grave hate post board, but don't really have time to test anything right now.

[.dk]

Rocked this pile of awesomeness to Day 2 and 86th place overall at GP Atlanta today. I'll post my exact list, tournament report, and some thoughts soon.

[Richard Cheese]

I don't know if the significance of someone taking an untested deck they've never played to 10-5 at a GP is really sinking in or not, but this deck is the real deal. Rather than talk about the advantages it has over other storm decks though, I'd like to address its weaknesses.

Basically, game 1 is almost an auto-win. Some well-timed counters or a Thalia can get in your way, but generally you have a 0-3 turn clock that's extremely resilient. The major issue is that the deck can be attacked from a couple angles: grave hate and storm hate. The original plan was to go all storm because there's just less storm hate out there right now (canonist and teeg really). That plan worked for Atlanta but it's admittedly janky and less good the more people know about it. The way we see it at this point, we have a few different board options:

-Transformational to storm: IT, LED, discard, rituals - dodges grave hate, but just a watered down ANT

-Transformational to Reanimator: more targets, permanent reanimation spells - arguably better vs. Maverick, but so much grave hate

-Show and Tell: SnT, counters, Pithing Needle for Karakas/Maze? - far less redundancy, requires SnT + Grizzle in hand = more variance

-Man Plan: Tombstalker, Delver, Clique, etc. - dodges most grave/storm hate, but not a lot of dudes in a removal-heavy meta

-Reactionary: Bounce, Virtue's Ruin/Massacre, Pithing Needle, counters, etc. - the primary plan is so strong it would be nice to stick with it, but the list is so tight it's hard to bring in any protection without watering it down.

If anyone can think of anything else, chime in. Unfortunately grave hate is in everyone's board right now, so the main strategy gets a lot tougher after game 1. The problem is that everything just feels shitty compared to drawing 21 cards on turn 1.

[PunkRocker1134]

I would say the SnT plan is probably best. Look at how reanimator deals with graveyard hate. I don't know exactly what .dk's list was, but Emrakul + SnT out of the board might not be a bad idea at all. You can have a full on transformation plan kinda like (assuming you add 2 or 3 Volcanic Island to the maindeck):

-3 Shallow Grave
-4 Goyro's Vengeance
-4 Entomb
-3 Tendrils
+ 4 Emrakul
+ 4 SnT
+4 Sneak Attack
+ 2 other (some kind of other protection spell I'd imagine)

The biggest issue I see with this plan is that it takes up so much sideboard space, and that Karakas and Needle still mess with you. Although the strengths are that you completely dodge grave and storm hate, and have a little more protection. Sure, careful study is worse, but it might be an avenue worth exploring if grave and storm hate are your biggest fears.

[Richard Cheese]

Another interesting strategy. I agree though that anything transformational leaves you with no slots for anti-hate. The ANT board actually worked pretty well most of the time in ATL, but things like Thalia and Chalice mess with both strategies, and there are just times you wish you had some bounce or a Massacre or something.

Note that another option I forgot to mention is to bring in Cabal Rits and go for hardcasting Grizz. This could possibly work with a Show and Tell Package, boarding out reanimation effects and Tendrils and going for a 3-turn clock. Any strategy that isn't planning on winning the turn he comes into play needs to pack a lot of protection for him though. I am toying around with something like:

4 Show and Tell
4 Force of Will
3 Pithing Needle
2 Misdirection/Spell Pierce/Flusterstorm/etc.
2 Cabal Ritual

Admittedly Cabal Rit looks like the weakest link there, and every time I want more of something, that's where I start cutting. I just hate the idea of going from a deck that's super redundant to one that needs one each of two 4-ofs to win. Not sure if Pithing needle is correct, but with Karakas and Maze seeing play, it seems pretty necessary.

Another option I was thinking of if we're just going for the Onion Burst (TM) kill every game, is to just run Abeyance or City of Solitude along with bounce and/or sweepers like Virtue's Ruin, and hope to set up a combo turn. Of course then we're back to the issue of what to take out of a list that can sometimes whiff on 21 cards (granted you're almost always in perfect position to win the next turn, but it's never a risk you want to take).

[Anusien]

If you are Entombing, you should probably have a singular Past in Flames.

Careful Study/Entomb + Chrome Mox is a ton of card disadvantage. You may consider replacing the moxen with Cabal Ritual and the Careful Study with Thought Scour. It's less hand optimization, but it's card neutral. And it plays better with Show and Tell from the board.

If you want a 5th Griselbrand, Magus of the Jar is a possible replacement.

Shallow Grave is much better than Goryo's Vengeance because you can cast it and crack LED in response.

[Wanderlust]

This deck is like a much improved version of Jar Tendrils (Shallow Grave + Magus of the Jar Storm)! After playing a few games with Richard Cheese's list from the OP against RUG Tempo, I felt like my biggest complaint was not having enough blue cards to pitch to Force of Will/Chrome Mox. I think Anusien's idea of adding Magus of the Jar (probably 1 or 2) is worth testing - it ups the blue count and makes Careful Study relevant more often.

[Richard Cheese]

I get the thing about FoW, and we've already cut it from the main list. I need to go back and update the primer, but I'd like to do a decent job at it and don't really have time to generate the numbers for matchup analysis, etc. Basically the deck looks like the original list, but with the reanimation split favoring Shallow Grave (old borders + no targeting = win), and Duress over Force, or possibly a 3/1 Duress/Inquisition split. The board is the same, but with IoK over Duress, so postboard you have a more standard 7 discard effects for ANT.

@Anusien - PiF is really unnecessary here, you generally don't need to go over 7 storm, which has never been a problem. The single most common reason for whiffing after reanimating is missing the mana sources to cast Tendrils, or not finding Tendrils. The first is the reason why I've chosen Chrome Mox over Cabal Rit. Running without LED makes the deck super resilient to counters, but also means we need extra 0-cmc mana sources. While they are card disadvantage, you usually have so many cards in hand that it isn't a problem. Additionally, once you've connected and drawn 14-21, Entomb and Careful Study are basically dead. Even if you do have to pass the turn, you're likely discarding another Grizzlebee or two to set up the next turn, so you can imprint those two all day. The deck goes off on so little mana, that casting Chrome Mox before the combo turn is just unnecessary.

Thought scour really doesn't make sense over Careful Study, as it doesn't really serve the same purpose of getting Grizz in the yard unless you set it up with Brainstorm.

[.dk]

My report from Atlanta is here:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24179-86th-at-GP-Atlanta-with-Tin-Fins-(or-Reanimator-Storm)

tldr, here is what I ran:


3 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Marsh Flats

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Careful Study
4 Duress
4 Griselbrand
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Tendrils of Agony


Sideboard:

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Cabal Ritual
1 Ad Nauseum
3 Inquisition of Kozilek


No bounce, derp. If I did it again, would run 3 Duress, 1 Inquisition main, 1 inquisition, 2 chain of vapor board.

I'm personally leaning towards the sideboard tact of reactionary to hate, along with some discard spells. I'm actually also really leaning hard towards 4 cabal therapy main, and 3 chain of vapor in the board, but I haven't yet tested that, so I'm not sure. Along with some combination of sweepers and such, and maybe Pull from Eternity as well. Not sure, honestly.

I will say this - whenever I boarded into Ad Nauseum, the deck felt like a dog. Even the times that I went off T1 or T2 with Ad Nauseum, it felt SO much worse than the Griselbrand plan. It's just THAT powerful. To the point where I wish I could reliably speed the deck up without losing consistency. That's probably the best plan of all. You go off turn 1, and if you're disrupted then who cares - just do it again on T2. Read my Round 8 matchup and you might understand what I mean...

[Anusien]

Can this list win without Griselbrand?

[.dk]

Can this list win without Griselbrand?

Yes, it can, although that rarely comes up due to instant speed reanimation. You can almost always respond to graveyard removal with a reanimation spell to get griselbrand out of the yard (although not in the case of Extirpate, obv). There were cases where I hit an opponent with Griselbrand once, fizzled on my draws, and wasn't able to get another one out of the yard. In that case, I cast a bunch of artifact mana and rituals into Tendrils for the kill.

[Anusien]

From the report I read there were multiple occasions where the player couldn't win post-Griselbrand with Tendrils, much less with the ability to win pre-Griselbrand. If that's the case, seems like you should just build a straight-up Reanimator list.

[.dk]

From the report I read there were multiple occasions where the player couldn't win post-Griselbrand with Tendrils, much less with the ability to win pre-Griselbrand. If that's the case, seems like you should just build a straight-up Reanimator list.

Yeah, I did end up fizzling a lot - which I found surprising. I would have thought that I could find 1/3 Tendrils when drawing 21 more often than I did - have to chalk that one up to variance I guess. But that said, even if you fizzle, you're practically assured to win the following turn, as you just sculpted the best hand on the planet, and discarded more fuel into your graveyard. I never felt that after an initial fizzle that I was in a poor position to win.

/edit: and as far as this vs. Reanimator: I feel like there are a couple advantages over Reanimator: 1. instant speed reanimation without losing any life is pretty huge, and gives you a lot of flexibility. 2. It's a much faster win condition than Reanimator, as you don't need to rely on your attack step to win. Reanimator definitely has some advantages though, in that your dudes stick around after EOT, and you have more reanimation targets. It may just depend on what kind of decks are currently in the crosshairs for sideboard hate: if there is a lot of grave hate, this deck might be better. If there is a lot of storm hate: reanimator might be better. Either way, it's WAY faster than Reanimator, and a lot of times can win before your opponent drops any hate anyway.

[Anusien]

The counter-risk is the inability to fight a protracted counter war.

FYI, the deck seems like it's in desperate need of some Grim Tutors.

[.dk]

The counter-risk is the inability to fight a protracted counter war.

FYI, the deck seems like it's in desperate need of some Grim Tutors.

I will say, counter wars generally aren't a huge problem for this deck. You run enough mana sources to play around soft counters, and enough reanimation effects to power through force of wills and bleed their hand. There aren't enough decks out there running a multitude of hard counters that have a good effect now that most lists have cut Spell Snare.

Grim Tutor is a damn good idea. I'll have to test with those. I was going to try out Lim-Dul's Vault as a 2 of - will have to test both.

[yankeedave]

Grim Tutor is good, but what about Diabolic Intent? Costs one less and you can use Russellbrand as the fodder and no life loss?

[Guevera59]

If you aren't playing Ad Nauseum, isn't Thoughtseize better than Duress? Being able to hit Thalia is pretty important.

[walker]

I built something similar with burning wish.

4 lotus petal
4 dark ritual
2 cabal ritual
4 lion's eye diamond
4 careful study
4 entomb
2 goryos vengeance
4 shallow grave
4 griselbrand
4 brainstorm
3 ponder
3 burning wish
2 infernal tutor
1 tendrils of agony

2 swamp
1 island
3 underground sea
1 volcanic island
1 badlands
4 polluted delta
2 bloodstained mire
1 flooded strand

It turn ones or twos fairly consistently for pre board games. I haven't tested post board yet. mana base might need work but it's been fine so far.

I want to get cabal therapy in there. When I do that I want to try putrid imp instead of careful study. Diabolic intent also might find a space.

For sideboard I was thinking helmline combo + some show and tells + wishboard. They won't know what you're doing game 2 and they'll show in a gilded drake or something and just die.

[Anusien]

I will say, counter wars generally aren't a huge problem for this deck. You run enough mana sources to play around soft counters, and enough reanimation effects to power through force of wills and bleed their hand. There aren't enough decks out there running a multitude of hard counters that have a good effect now that most lists have cut Spell Snare.

Grim Tutor is a damn good idea. I'll have to test with those. I was going to try out Lim-Dul's Vault as a 2 of - will have to test both.
You have about as many reanimate effects as most Reanimator lists, so why not just play that deck?

[.dk]

On thoughtseize: it's probably better. I didn't grab them in my haste to get to atlanta, although Inquisitions were doing good work against Thalia (not that I won any of those matches anyway...)

On Diabolic Intent: yes, that would work if you've already gotten Griselbrand in play, and would be pretty awesome then, really. However, I would prefer something with a bit of utility prior to actually getting Gizzle into play - so something like Grim Tutor, Personal Tutor, or Lim-Dul's Vault might be better. Although post-reanimation, Diabolic Intent is likely the best choice. Worth testing, likely.

@walker - cool list! earlier incarnations of this deck had LED, but we felt it was a bit all-in. It may be fine in the right construction, but we hadn't gotten there yet. We had been talking a lot about wanting a wish board, since the maindeck is so tight anyway. I worry that you have to dilute your rituals and tutors though with dedicating so much space to reanimation.

@anusien - was pretty sure i at least pseudo addressed this before. it's faster - WAY faster to the point where a lot of times just you just don't care about hate because it hasn't hit the table yet. it also runs instant speed reanimation which is extremely important in terms of flexibility. play with the deck and test it. if you think reanimator is better - then go play that.

[Richard Cheese]

If you aren't playing Ad Nauseum, isn't Thoughtseize better than Duress? Being able to hit Thalia is pretty important.

I've tested Thoughtseize a bit, but not enough to definitively say if it's better or worse than other options. On one hand, 2 life is not a big deal, on the other, 6 is. I'm almost leaning towards just going with IoK, since Force seems to be less of a problem here than Thalia, Teeg, or Chalice.

[Richard Cheese]

You have about as many reanimate effects as most Reanimator lists, so why not just play that deck?

Because this is a combo deck. It's really just ANT with a better draw engine than AdNaus, it just happens to be easiest to get into play from the graveyard. I mean, the strategy would be fundamentally the same with Sneak Attack and Through the Breach, it's just more expensive and off-color.

[phazonmutant]

Awesome deck and deck name! I did some game 1's with it on Cockatrice and it's quite the powerhouse! I agree you almost don't need protection - you just have so much business and speed.

I felt like the deck was very mana-light. I have no idea what to cut, but throwing a couple of Cabal Rituals in the maindeck would help a lot with getting the kill post-Griselbrand and making a non-Griselbrand kill feasible. If possible, I'd also like to find room for the 4th Tendrils - you just don't have time to set up and find the Tendrils, nor do you have enough lands in play to cantrip multiple times after making a Griselbrand, so you want to maximize your chances of drawing it. Your man not sticking around makes the combo turn so much more critical.

I'm not a huge fan of the transformative sideboard. You transform into a deck that's weaker to the extra counterspells they're going to bring in and you lose extra-hard to Thalia and Teeg. I'm thinking starting somewhere like this for a not-entirely-transformative sideboard:
4 Show and Tell
2 Emrakul
3 Thoughtseize
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
+ flex slot

Another Virtue's Ruin, Perish, Massacre, and Rebuild are all reasonable options.
If you're not interest in killing all their men, Pithing Needle is a good option for Karakas, Knight of the Reliquary, Scavenging Ooze, etc.
From experience with Reanimator, ANT, and Count Chocula, decks like Maverick are going to be your worst matchup. Your deck has the advantage of being super fucking fast, so you can just hope to get game 1 and be on the play for game 3. Definitely a couple of directions to take sideboarding. Like maybe on the draw board into Show and Tell + Thoughtseize? On the play board out an IMS or 2 and the Duresses for Chain, Slaughter Pact, Virtue's Ruin, and some Thoughtseizes?

[.dk]

You found it to be mana light? I'm either thinking its pretty close, if not 1 land too many. Been toying around with cutting one, but not totally sure yet. I never really seemed to have an issue with all of the artifact mana in there, at least prior to reanimation. A few fizzles were due to not quite enough rituals or artifact mana to storm high enough, but most seemed to be because I just couldn't find Tendrils. I think I may have fixed both problems, but I haven't tested it enough to be sure - stay tuned... ;)

That sideboard plan is reasonable. I agree that the ANT board is pretty trashy, especially with no bounce. It's certainly worth a shot anyway - one issue with SnT though is that you lose the hastiness of Griselbrand, which is pretty huge. I've been trying to see if I can switch the manabase around a bit to support Red out of the board for rite of flame and sneak attack, but haven't had a chance to test that one much either. SnT with a couple Emrakuls may be better. I definitely like having a sideboard with room for bounce and sweepers though - that's so key with all of the hatebears running around, as you mentioned.

The more I've thought about thoughtseize though, the less I like it. I think some combination of Duress, Inquisition, and Cabal Therapy are probably better. My reasoning is the case where you fizzle, but can tear apart their hand with a ritual into 2-3 discard spells to make sure they can't do anything the next turn. Thoughtseize isn't really viable in that case (corner case, I know, but still relevant) and you don't really give up much by not running them. My take anyway.

[phazonmutant]

You found it to be mana light? I'm either thinking its pretty close, if not 1 land too many.
Sorry, I meant ritual-light. The land-base seems fine. If you have 3 Chrome Moxen, then cutting a land seems reasonable. I was having trouble finding the mana after drawing 21, which seems absurd.


one issue with SnT though is that you lose the hastiness of Griselbrand, which is pretty huge.
Trust me, having Griselbrand on board at all is pretty solid ;) Rite of Flames plays nice with Chrome Mox (unlike Cabal Ritual) and Through the Breach, but the thing that really impressed me about our U/B Griselbrand storm decks is its rock-solid manabase. It may prove to be good though.

Thoughtseize was fine for me all day, but you might be right that Duresses, Gitaxian Probe, and Cabal Therapy would be much better in this deck. It allows you to keep Griselbrand in your graveyard, too! You rely so much more on drawing 21 immediately since your man doesn't stick around, so the lifeloss is more relevant.

[from Cairo]

A playtest partner of mine's been running this deck with a couple additional Reanimation targets. Particularly, a Tidespout Tyrant which can be a good way to bounce hate, but also combos pretty well with Lotus Petal like in Vintage with Jewelery, neat way to build free storm.

Not sure if it belongs MD or SB, but seems like it's worth a slot.

[phazonmutant]

A playtest partner of mine's been running this deck with a couple additional Reanimation targets. Particularly, a Tidespout Tyrant

Are you talking about the same deck? Half the reanimation spells only get legendary creatures.

[from Cairo]

Are you talking about the same deck? Half the reanimation spells only get legendary creatures.

His list is slightly different, there's a couple Reanimate in the 60, but yea it uses the Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal accel package and Shallow Grave and Goryo's Vengeance (which yes I realise can't Reanimate Tidespout) instant speed package. The Tyrant is a just a silver bullet for when it is needed.

[Wanderlust]

(I've been testing Zombie Infestation replacing Tendrils of Agony. Cabal Therapy makes up the backbone of the discard suite in this iteration. The infestation kill is technically a turn slower, but does that really matter when you can Cabal Therapy their hand to Oblivion? Zombie Infestation has some advantages over Tendrils of Agony: 1) it is another discard outlet for Griselbrand pre-combo, 2) It costs less than ToA, making it easier to play post combo and thus helping against fizzling due to lack of mana, 3) it is unhindered by Gaddock Teeg, Stifle, and corner cases like Leyline of Sanctity. It has weaknesses of its own, of course, like being affected by stuff like Elephant Grass, Ensnaring Bring, Engineered Explosives, etc... But I thought I'd throw it out there because I think it's an interesting possibility.)

EDIT: I tested this further and it's a bad idea.

[CookedChestnuts]

I've been testing Zombie Infestation replacing Tendrils of Agony. Cabal Therapy makes up the backbone of the discard suite in this iteration. The infestation kill is technically a turn slower, but does that really matter when you can Cabal Therapy their hand to Oblivion? Zombie Infestation has some advantages over Tendrils of Agony: 1) it is another discard outlet for Griselbrand pre-combo, 2) It costs less than ToA, making it easier to play post combo and thus helping against fizzling due to lack of mana, 3) it is unhindered by Gaddock Teeg, Stifle, and corner cases like Leyline of Sanctity. It has weaknesses of its own, of course, like being affected by stuff like Elephant Grass, Ensnaring Bring, Engineered Explosives, etc... But I thought I'd throw it out there because I think it's an interesting possibility.

No, too cute. This plan loses to Pernicious Deed, Engineered Explosives, Maelstrom Pulse (all cards seeing play right now), and an opponent crushing you with Sneak Attack in the extra turns you gave him.

The reason to play this deck over a Reanimator deck is so that you can avoid the whole attack step shenanigans. This deck is fantastic, and probably a lot better than ANT. It's only a matter of time before it is perfected, and starts seeing very good finishes (other than .dk's 86th place finish in Atlanta).

[toor]

I am thinking about rocking this at a Mox Tournament this weekend. So many formats on my plate right now that I just want to have fun in legacy.

Only going to have a chance to theory craft:

15 lands (2 swamp, 3 sea, 1 bayou, trop)

4 Grisel
7 reanimate
4 entomb
3 Mox
4 Petal
2 Tendrils
3 LED
3 Infernal
4 BStorm
3 Ponder
4 Ritual
2 Thoughtseize
2 Durress

SB:
3 Cabal
1 Chrome mox
1 LED
1 Infernal
3 Massacre
2 Discard or Pact of Negation
3 Xantid Swarm (could be silence)
1 IGG

I like the idea of boarding into basically belcher games 2/3. The original AdN seems turrible due to no longer leveraging GRisel and just slowing down generally. Whereas I have always like IGG versus non-blue decks.

SB Plans:
-6 reanimate spells
-4 Entomb

+6 tendrils cards
+2 Discard

then either Xantid or massacred depending on what they are.

I will try to gold fish tonight and if it isn't working I will move to dk's original. Great Primer and Great deck.

[walker]

Try to fit careful studies in. Why not swap out the second tendrils for a maindeck IGG? I would go up to 4 LEDs and 4 infernal tutors maindeck. You can probably go down to 4 shallow grave as your reanimation spells and cut a couple lands.

[Richard Cheese]

I wouldn't run LED or Tutor main. After running three lists with them and one without, I don't ever plan on going back. If you have to commit your entire hand to comboing, you need better protection, more discard or Chant/Silence. Careful Study, while sometimes the weakest card in the deck, is definitely worth including.

Right now I'm working on a sideboard like this:

4 Cabal Rit
3 Chain of Vapor
4 Show and Tell
2 Additional Discard (testing cabal therapy right now)
2 Virtue's Ruin

It gets off the graveyard but it still feels less powerful overall. You lose an attack step and therefore 7 cards, the extra rituals help to offset that somewhat, but still doesn't feel great.

The other option is a ton of protection along with Show and Tell, but so far it has seemed inherently weaker. You need Pithing Needle to beat Karakas/Maze, removal to handle bears, and counters to stop spot removal, and there just doesn't seem to be enough space in the board for it all. I keep cutting Cabal Rits, but then you basically lose any hope of having a second way to get Grizz in the yard.

[walker]

I like LED + tutor. It makes the deck more explosive. Since shallow grave doesn't target you can use LED as a discard outlet. Thoughtsieze to make sure the coast is clear before going all in.

As far as the sideboard goes, I haven't found something I like yet. I really don't like show and tell or any of the transformational sideboards I've tried. When this deck get's a solid sideboard it will be really strong.

[.dk]

I like LED + tutor. It makes the deck more explosive. Since shallow grave doesn't target you can use LED as a discard outlet. Thoughtsieze to make sure the coast is clear before going all in.

As far as the sideboard goes, I haven't found something I like yet. I really don't like show and tell or any of the transformational sideboards I've tried. When this deck get's a solid sideboard it will be really strong.

Not to put too fine of a point on it, but enjoy getting blown out by decks with countermagic. You're all in on your hand with LED - this deck doesn't run enough protection (specifically silence or chant) to be able to get that sequence to resolve reliably. It seems like a fun idea, and likely does speed te deck up a bit, but you really don't need it. I've tested it in previous incarnations of the deck - I'm guessing you'll come to the same conclusion. Consistent T2 as it is beats a lot of hate, and the resiliency of not being all in beats a lot of countermagic.

[cosme]

I've been trying a wish list on cockatrice and even if it's nice yo adapt to the hate they use it's clunky, the deck is fast but doesn't seems to have enough aceleration to suport cuning wish (maybe with led?).



4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Island
4 Flooded Strand
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study

3 Entomb
4 Griselbrand

3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave

3 Tendrils of Agony

3 Duress
3 Cunning Wish


SB: 1 Goryo's Vengeance
SB: 1 Entomb
SB: 1 Corpse Dance
SB: 1 Pact of Negation
SB: 1 Slaughter Pact
SB: 1 Wipe Away
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Sudden Spoiling
SB: 1 Boomerang
SB: 1 Stifle
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Orim's Chant
SB: 1 Rushing River



Also i've been masacrated by surgical extraction a lot... i think i want some counters maindeck.

[JBlaze]

The Channel Fireball crew played two karakas in their Reanimator deck at the GP. This deck should definitely steal that tech.

Karakas plus Vendilion Clique in the board or possibly even main deck seems great for fighting through disruption, dealing some damage, maybe a block every now and then. In a pinch Clique is also a legal target for Goryo's Vengeance.

[phazonmutant]

Played in a local tournament with the deck and split finals! Ton of fun. My list was:
// Maindeck
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
4 Entomb
4 Careful Study
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Griselbrand

4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp

// Sideboard
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Virtue's Ruin
2 Extirpate
2 Thoughtseize
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
4 Show and Tell
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

I think I would cut one Careful Study for the fourth Ponder in the main and replace the fourth Show and Tell and Tendrils in the board with something that deals with Karakas.
I played the Cabal Ritual because I thought it was a little ritual-light in testing and wanted a reasonable way to make Griselbrand going long, but it was relatively weak overall. Extirpate was for Reanimator, which seems like a bad matchup, especially if they have the 2x Karakas tech.

Quick tournament recap:
Round 1 - I played against Kobold Storm (Cheerios?). He Glimpsed, dropped some men, and passed. I ritual'ed into Entomb and an out turn 1 and killed him, seeing Grapeshot with a Duress. Boarded in an Echoing Truth in case he has Empty. He mulled to 5 game 2 and didn't do anything.

Round 2 - My opponent was on Wal-Mart Burn. I caved his skull in with Griselbrand turn 2ish game 1. Boarded in a couple Show and Tells, an Emrakul, and a Chain in case he has Surgical or Pyrostatic Pillar. I struggle to find an out and he kills me turn 4ish. Game 3 he mulligans to 5 and passes with no plays. On his end step, I ritual, Entomb with Shallow Grave in hand, and then have to decide whether or not to play around Surgical. End up deciding that if I get Griselbrand and he Surgicals, I probably lose, but given that I have a Tendrils in hand, if I 15 him, I'm very likely to win and if he does Surgical I still have a good shot at winning. He doesn't have it and I kill him with Tendrils in a couple turns.

Round 3 - He was playing a Bant Hexproof list similar to the one that top8'd like 5 opens ago (Unstable Mutation, Spectral Flight, Troll Ascetic, Geist of Saint Traft, etc). Game 1 I Ponder turn 1, then Entomb, drop land and Petal, and cast an out, but he Dazes. No matter, he replays his land, I drop another Petal and cast another and kill him. I board in a couple of Show and Tells, an Emrakul, a bounce spell, and another Thoughtseize for some Cabal Rituals, a Careful Study, a Goryo's Vengeance, and I think Chrome Mox. I have a hand with an Entomb and 3 outs and plenty of lands. He does nothing though, so I simply play lands and pass while he does the same. On 3 lands I go for an Entomb eot with the plan to attempt to tap him out for another go at it on my turn. It and the reanimation spell end up resolving though. I battle with Griselbrand, he StPs, I draw, he Vapor Snags, I draw again, putting me at 4 life and +14 cards. I kill him from 20 with Tendrils (after some harrowing cantripping to find it).

Double draw into t8.

Semis - I play the same burn guy. I win the roll, ritual into Entomb and Grave, kill him turn 1. I board the same, he Lava Spikes me. I drop land, Petal, Petal, Show and Tell -> Emrakul turn 1. He scoops.

Quarters - I played yet another Wal-Mart burn deck. I get him turn 1. Dark Ritual is pretty good. Game 2 I mulligan and struggle to find either a man to Show and Tell or the second in + out to fight past his Nihil Spellbomb, but he kills me. Game 3 he again turn 1s a Spellbomb, but on my 3rd turn's upkeep, bounce it with Chain and Entomb. Unfortunately, I don't find what I need to go off that turn. He replays the Spellbomb and gets me down to 14, then on my turn I Show and Tell in an Emrakul, which he can't beat.


Overall, the deck is insanely powerful and very consistent. Show and Tell adds a valuable dimension post-board. My matchups were lucky though - no real control decks, no Karakas.

[Richard Cheese]

Nice report. Loaned the deck to a friend to take to SCG Vegas, I'll be interested to see if he actually plays it (how could you not choose this over RUG!?).

Haven't played much lately, but got to wondering if it might be worth it to ditch the maindeck discard for something like 3x chain of vapor, 1x darkblast, or maybe 2 chain, 1 chrome mox, 1 darkblast. The deck seems to handle counters fairly well as it is. Much more annoying are permanent sources of hate like Thalia, Thorn, Chalice, etc. Might be worth a try.

[phazonmutant]

Played the same list as last time in this week's local legacy tournament and split top4. This tournament was a bit smaller, only 16ish people. I didn't have time to make the changes I had mentioned above.

Round 1 - played against fellow Sourcer nedleeds. He usually is an apt metagamer with prison-style decks in our combo-infested meta, but this week he was on Naya stuff. I had a slow start game 1 while I tried to find an Entomb, but he kept a land-heavy 6 and only found Mother of Runes and Noble Hierarch for the first 4 turns. One of his lands happened to be a Karakas, though. I eventually put a Griselbrand in my grave, reanimated it, swung, got it bounced, drew 7 and couldn't find the Tendrils, so I discarded the Griselbrand and some other junk, keeping a duo of reanimation spells and an Entomb and mana. On his turn, he swung with Mother for 2 (with me at 5), I Dark Ritual'd, Entombed, and reanimated, and he bounced my man with Karakas, which cleared the way for me to reanimate and swing in for 7 on my turn, then find the kill. Boarded in a couple S&T, an Emrakul, a bounce, for a Chrome Mox, a Careful Study, a Goryo's Vengeance, and a Cabal Ritual. Next game he started with a Relic on turn 1 but couldn't find lands. I set up for a S&T on turn 3ish and won from there. I feel bad that he got so unlucky with his draws, but not playing Brainstorm is a huge handicap.
1-0

Round 2 - I played against a friend I lent the GP Ghent winning storm list to for his first legacy tournament. Game 1 I reanimated and drew 21 on turn 1, but couldn't find Tendrils. I did it again next turn, still couldn't find Tendrils. Killed him next turn. Duressing helped prevent him from going off. Game 2 he was able to Duress away my Entomb from my stacked t1 hand, then went off the next turn. Game 3 we had a grindy Duress-fest with him going down to like 15 from fetches and Thoughtseizes. I thought that I could kill him with a natural Tendrils, but miscounted and wasted a bunch of cards. He was able to go off a few turns later while I was Brainstorm-locked. He ended up chopping t4 as well :)
1-1

Round 3 - basically a bye. He was playing unsleeved cat tribal, and I crushed him 2-0.
2-1

Round 4 - ID

Quarters - Dredge. Unlike most Dredgers, this guy actually knew how to play the deck, so there were some interesting games.
Game 1 I attempted to find an Entomb for a t1 with a Brainstorm, missed, but played a Petal and Duress to take his Faithless Looting, leaving him LED, some lands, and some dredgers. He ripped a faithless looting and got his dredge going, but his Cabal Therapy whiffed (for some reason, Dredge players always name Dark Ritual, so I had hidden one on top). I Pondered into an Entomb and killed him from there. Boarded in 2 Extirpate and an Echoing Truth for Duresses. He had some bad dredges and I was able to Extirpate his Narcs and saw he boarded out his Ichorids. I wasn't doing a whole lot though, so he dredged and played Thug and was able to strip my hand and win. Game 3 I played a fetch, took it back, played Petal, Brainstorm in an attempt to shuffle away the 2 extra lands I had and try to speed up (I didn't need the Petal since I couldn't go off that turn). Found the business, but didn't have the Dark Rit to go off that turn, so I was on the EOT Entomb plan. He made the interesting play of land, ship. I reanimated, battled, and started to go off, but he was definitely playing like he had something. I decided he was bluffing and just went for it. After the match, he explained that he thought my hand was pretty bad because of the Lotus Petal play, so he had time to represent a bluff, despite having plenty of dredge action in hand. We decided that that he should have just tried to further his gameplan, especially since I usually don't respect bluffs (and most times, they don't have it!).

We chopped top 4. Again, I played against no Force of Wills and had fairly reasonable luck, but this deck is definitely one that crushes non-U decks into the ground. Even fast combo like Dredge is favorable because you're just as fast and have sideboard disruption.

[.dk]

Played the same list as last time in this week's local legacy tournament and split top4. This tournament was a bit smaller, only 16ish people. I didn't have time to make the changes I had mentioned above.

Round 1 - played against fellow Sourcer nedleeds. He usually is an apt metagamer with prison-style decks in our combo-infested meta, but this week he was on Naya stuff. I had a slow start game 1 while I tried to find an Entomb, but he kept a land-heavy 6 and only found Mother of Runes and Noble Hierarch for the first 4 turns. One of his lands happened to be a Karakas, though. I eventually put a Griselbrand in my grave, reanimated it, swung, got it bounced, drew 7 and couldn't find the Tendrils, so I discarded the Griselbrand and some other junk, keeping a duo of reanimation spells and an Entomb and mana. On his turn, he swung with Mother for 2 (with me at 5), I Dark Ritual'd, Entombed, and reanimated, and he bounced my man with Karakas, which cleared the way for me to reanimate and swing in for 7 on my turn, then find the kill. Boarded in a couple S&T, an Emrakul, a bounce, for a Chrome Mox, a Careful Study, a Goryo's Vengeance, and a Cabal Ritual. Next game he started with a Relic on turn 1 but couldn't find lands. I set up for a S&T on turn 3ish and won from there. I feel bad that he got so unlucky with his draws, but not playing Brainstorm is a huge handicap.
1-0

Round 2 - I played against a friend I lent the GP Ghent winning storm list to for his first legacy tournament. Game 1 I reanimated and drew 21 on turn 1, but couldn't find Tendrils. I did it again next turn, still couldn't find Tendrils. Killed him next turn. Duressing helped prevent him from going off. Game 2 he was able to Duress away my Entomb from my stacked t1 hand, then went off the next turn. Game 3 we had a grindy Duress-fest with him going down to like 15 from fetches and Thoughtseizes. I thought that I could kill him with a natural Tendrils, but miscounted and wasted a bunch of cards. He was able to go off a few turns later while I was Brainstorm-locked. He ended up chopping t4 as well :)
1-1

Round 3 - basically a bye. He was playing unsleeved cat tribal, and I crushed him 2-0.
2-1

Round 4 - ID

Quarters - Dredge. Unlike most Dredgers, this guy actually knew how to play the deck, so there were some interesting games.
Game 1 I attempted to find an Entomb for a t1 with a Brainstorm, missed, but played a Petal and Duress to take his Faithless Looting, leaving him LED, some lands, and some dredgers. He ripped a faithless looting and got his dredge going, but his Cabal Therapy whiffed (for some reason, Dredge players always name Dark Ritual, so I had hidden one on top). I Pondered into an Entomb and killed him from there. Boarded in 2 Extirpate and an Echoing Truth for Duresses. He had some bad dredges and I was able to Extirpate his Narcs and saw he boarded out his Ichorids. I wasn't doing a whole lot though, so he dredged and played Thug and was able to strip my hand and win. Game 3 I played a fetch, took it back, played Petal, Brainstorm in an attempt to shuffle away the 2 extra lands I had and try to speed up (I didn't need the Petal since I couldn't go off that turn). Found the business, but didn't have the Dark Rit to go off that turn, so I was on the EOT Entomb plan. He made the interesting play of land, ship. I reanimated, battled, and started to go off, but he was definitely playing like he had something. I decided he was bluffing and just went for it. After the match, he explained that he thought my hand was pretty bad because of the Lotus Petal play, so he had time to represent a bluff, despite having plenty of dredge action in hand. We decided that that he should have just tried to further his gameplan, especially since I usually don't respect bluffs (and most times, they don't have it!).

We chopped top 4. Again, I played against no Force of Wills and had fairly reasonable luck, but this deck is definitely one that crushes non-U decks into the ground. Even fast combo like Dredge is favorable because you're just as fast and have sideboard disruption.

Sounds like the deck is going well for you! We have a local event tomorrow, but I don't think I'm going to be able to make it this weekend, unfortunately. However, I have a some maindeck as well as sideboard modifications that I think shore up some weaknesses to test out. Hopefully I can get some testing in with folks here soon, and I'll post some findings.

Also have been playing around with a 3 color build, a little more along the lines of TES with Griselbrand with a wishboard. Haven't gotten a lot of games with it yet, but it certainly has the ability to protect itself a lot better than the 2 color build.

/edit also, as far as playing against blue decks go, it's not as hard as you think. you have a good amount of discard coupled with a lot of redundancy, which spells big trouble for decks packing force of will. it's quite easy to play around daze with lotus petals (and likewise spell pierce, but that can be a bit tougher at times), so you end up bleeding out their hands pretty fast. the challenge you get is if you run into a blue deck that can apply pressure fast - i'm kinda worried about the resurgence of merfolk because of this in particular, although i haven't actually tested it yet. been traveling in asia for the past few weeks, so i haven't touched my cards.

[phazonmutant]

Also have been playing around with a 3 color build, a little more along the lines of TES with Griselbrand with a wishboard. Haven't gotten a lot of games with it yet, but it certainly has the ability to protect itself a lot better than the 2 color build.
Are you talking about playing a bunch of Silences? I'd like to see what you've come up with.


it's quite easy to play around daze with lotus petals (and likewise spell pierce, but that can be a bit tougher at times), so you end up bleeding out their hands pretty fast. the challenge you get is if you run into a blue deck that can apply pressure fast - i'm kinda worried about the resurgence of merfolk because of this in particular, although i haven't actually tested it yet.
That's my intuition, I'd just like to test it. I know in Count Chocula, you were very good against grindy control decks like Stoneblade, but discard hurt because you were trying to assemble a 2-card combo in-hand. Thresh and Merfolk were pretty easy in my experience because you could play around taxes so easily - you just have to duress the one hard counter out of their hand. TinFins has more redundancy so that helps there. I'm just not sure if speed offsets the weakness to grave hate.

[.dk]

Are you talking about playing a bunch of Silences? I'd like to see what you've come up with.

Actually, I haven't tried 4 colors yet, but it could support it. Still relying on discard and redundancy as protection. I was feeling like I would need to cut reanimation effects for Chant/Silence, and that just doesn't seem very great in a deck without infernal tutor, but I could be wrong. Maybe cutting some is ok. The changes I've been thinking about are basically taking the TES manabase as is (4 Gemstone mine, 2 city of brass, fetches, USeas, and Volcanics), and adding red in the form of:

1. Burning Wish (which is specifically the reason I was testing this - sideboarding potentially dilutes the maindeck so much that it becomes ineffective, however a wishboard fixes that problem as well as providing answers to graveyard and storm hate)
2. Faithless Looting (better than Careful Study)
3. Rite of Flame (although this may not be necessary, not enough testing yet)

List currently looks like this, but I'm guessing needs some work still:

4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire

4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Burning Wish
3 Faithless Looting
4 Entomb
4 Griselbrand
4 Shallow Grave
2 Goryo's vengeance
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard:

1 Grapeshot
1 Shattering Spree
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Turbulent Dreams
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Deathmark
1 Reanimate
4 Show and Tell
2 Massacre Wurm

It even gives you access to Show and Tell maindeck (via wish) if you really want it. As is though, this may be too protection light maindeck. It's possible that the deck doesn't want a wincon main, and the Tendrils can be replaced with another Cabal Therapy. Also - Turbulent Dreams seems like an amazing bounce spell for this deck.

Disclaimer on all of this: I haven't yet played a single game in this config, so I have no idea if it is good at all, or just terrible.

[Johanovich]

I am following this thread for a while now since I play regular reanimator and this seems like a fun deck to build.

Just to throw an idea into the discussion: I've recently acquired doomsdays so I was wondering, why not go for the doomsday approach in de tha sideboard?

I was thinking of something along these lines:

4 griselbrand
3 tendrils of agony
3 goryo’s vengeance
4 shallow grave

4 lotus petal
4 dark ritual
2 chrome mox

4 brainstorm
3 ponder
2 lim-dûl’s vault
4 careful study
4 entomb

4 force of will

4 polluted delta
2 bloodstained mire
2 scalding tarn
2 island
3 swamp
2 underground sea

Sideboard:
4 doomsday
1 emrakul, the aeons torn
1 shelldock isle
1 ideas unbound
3 show and tell
1 wipe away*
2 echoing truth*
1 slaughter pact*
1 amulet of vigor

The 3 * are actually the cards that I'm not too sure about. Maybe add some discard?

So the general idea is to board out most of your reanimator strategy and go for a doomsday package and show and tell. I'm also not too sure about 3 show and tells. Maybe I'll add a 4th.

Your pile from doomsday should generally consist of a combination of the following cards depending on your hand:

Amulet of vigor
Ideas unbound
Shelldock isle
Lotus petal
Emrakul
Doomsday

You should nearly always put a doomsday on the bottom. That way (as long as you are on 1+ life) you can avoid being decked and reset the pile if necessary.

What do you guys think?

[.dk]

I like the idea of transforming to a wincon from a totally different angle like doomsday, however i'm not sure if shelldock/emrakul is where you want to be. There are a lot of wastelands running around out there, which means you must land amulet of vigor to be able to win. potentially very challenging...

an alternative doomsday wincon could be laboratory maniac - maybe not using the mental note/unearth combo (since then you're still relying on the graveyard), but you potentially have enough rituals and free mana to actually hard cast Lab Maniac fairly easily. Something to think about anyway.

Oh, and 1 piece of feedback on your maindeck - I too have moved to using 2 Lim-Dul's Vaults main - I feel that this change fixes a good bit of the variance and fizzling that I've experienced at times. However, I think you likely only need 2 Tendrils maindeck in this case (at least based on the testing that I've done). I'm currently running 2 LDV, 2 Tendrils, 4 Ponder, 3 Chrome Mox, 3 Careful Study. I can certainly see a case being made for keeping 4 careful studies maindeck though.

[Johanovich]

I like the idea of transforming to a wincon from a totally different angle like doomsday, however i'm not sure if shelldock/emrakul is where you want to be. There are a lot of wastelands running around out there, which means you must land amulet of vigor to be able to win. potentially very challenging...

an alternative doomsday wincon could be laboratory maniac - maybe not using the mental note/unearth combo (since then you're still relying on the graveyard), but you potentially have enough rituals and free mana to actually hard cast Lab Maniac fairly easily. Something to think about anyway.

Oh, and 1 piece of feedback on your maindeck - I too have moved to using 2 Lim-Dul's Vaults main - I feel that this change fixes a good bit of the variance and fizzling that I've experienced at times. However, I think you likely only need 2 Tendrils maindeck in this case (at least based on the testing that I've done). I'm currently running 2 LDV, 2 Tendrils, 4 Ponder, 3 Chrome Mox, 3 Careful Study. I can certainly see a case being made for keeping 4 careful studies maindeck though.

Like I said if you put another doomsday on the bottom and if you have more than 1 life you can just remake the pile and try again, which is one of the major strenghts of doomsday. You could also go for the regular tendrils doomsday combo but I don't own any LEDs. Hence the emrakul plan.

I could always put 1-2 more amulets in the side to draw them earlier in the game. Also laboratory maniac can just be put in as a 1-off anyways, so that if your shelldock/emrakul fails due to wasteland you just draw into him as the last card in your library.

Also with show and tell it happens quite often that you do the griselbrand trick, and then doomsday with enough petals and moxen to cast ideas unbound and double ritual into tendrils.

[phazonmutant]

The Doomsday plan is a good suggestion! I'm trying to figure out what problems it addresses, though. Postboard, the deck is weak to grave hate + counterspells or grave hate + pressure, with Thresh and Maverick being the exemplars. Both of them pack all the Wastelands and either Stifle or Karakas, which makes me not so happy about the Shelldock plan. The Lab Man plan seems good against Maverick, but Thresh is going to leave in its Bolts. I'm really not sold on a Tendrils pile without siding in LEDs (assuming you can figure out a pile that has a bounce spell for troublesome things like Teeg or Thalia). So is the DDFT transform actually that much better than just fighting through hate? In its favor, I guess it gets around Counterbalance pretty well.

What if we side into some sort of Omniscience combo? Maybe something like this?

// Maindeck
4 Griselbrand
4 Entomb
3 Careful Study
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance

4 Burning Wish

4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
2 Chrome Mox

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize

4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp

// Sideboard
4 Show and Tell
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Omniscience
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Petals of Insight
1 Exhume
1 Thoughtseize
1 Echoing Truth

That's really jamming the sideboard tight - not too much room to address troublesome permanents like Thalia. If you hadn't noticed, I'm scared to death of her. But it does transform the deck into something that's not really weak to the same things. Advantages:

It can play around Thalia better (because Omniscience makes things free, so you have to pay +1 for S&T, +1 for Burning Wish, and +1 for Living Wish, all of which can be on separate turns.
It can play around Humility with the Petals kill.
It can play around Canonist with S&T -> Emrakul or S&T -> Omniscience -> Emrakul.
It can play around maindeck grave hate.

Disadvantages:

Going off is probably 20% harder (have to find Tendrils or make red)
Manabase is much more susceptible to Wasteland


I'd like to find room for a Karakas, but not sure what to cut.
Thoughts?

edit:
Changed decklist. I don't like Living Wish without a 3rd Emrakul and a Karakas.
second edit:
After testing some last night, changed the sideboard and added more combo pieces to the maindeck. The deck felt business-light against a counterspell-heavy deck, and the maindeck Tendrils and Emrakul were bad. The sideboard seems unrefined, but the Omniscience plan is insane against Maverick. They don't know which plan I'm on (since I have to leave in like 3 ins and 3 outs).

[.dk]

What if we side into some sort of Omniscience combo? Maybe something like this?

// Maindeck
4 Griselbrand
4 Entomb
3 Careful Study
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance

4 Burning Wish

4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
2 Chrome Mox

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize

4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp

// Sideboard
4 Show and Tell
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Omniscience
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Petals of Insight
1 Exhume
1 Thoughtseize
1 Echoing Truth

That's really jamming the sideboard tight - not too much room to address troublesome permanents like Thalia. If you hadn't noticed, I'm scared to death of her. But it does transform the deck into something that's not really weak to the same things. Advantages:

It can play around Thalia better (because Omniscience makes things free, so you have to pay +1 for S&T, +1 for Burning Wish, and +1 for Living Wish, all of which can be on separate turns.
It can play around Humility with the Petals kill.
It can play around Canonist with S&T -> Emrakul or S&T -> Omniscience -> Emrakul.
It can play around maindeck grave hate.

Disadvantages:

Going off is probably 20% harder (have to find Tendrils or make red)
Manabase is much more susceptible to Wasteland


I'd like to find room for a Karakas, but not sure what to cut.
Thoughts?

edit:
Changed decklist. I don't like Living Wish without a 3rd Emrakul and a Karakas.
second edit:
After testing some last night, changed the sideboard and added more combo pieces to the maindeck. The deck felt business-light against a counterspell-heavy deck, and the maindeck Tendrils and Emrakul were bad. The sideboard seems unrefined, but the Omniscience plan is insane against Maverick. They don't know which plan I'm on (since I have to leave in like 3 ins and 3 outs).

Awesome! I love it! I was actually thinking about Omniscience in the board along with SnT the other day as well - do you really need 2 Emrakuls to go along with that as well though? Seems good that you have another SnT target (bringing the total to 10), but I just wasn't sure. Also - what do you plan to board out to bring in 4 SnT, 4 Omniscience, and 2 Emrakul?

Also, have you considered Turbulent Dreams as bounce in the board? It seems potentially awesome with Griselbrand, and can be fetched with Burning Wish.

And what would you think about replacing the 2 Thoughtseize maindeck with 2 Lim-Dul's Vault? That would fix the not being able to find Tendrils problem.

One last question - is red rare enough in your build that you can't replace Careful Study with Faithless Looting? Maybe you could run some rainbow lands to fix that and the red for Burning Wish? (maybe a manabase closer to the one I posted a few posts up).

Seems good overall though - and I really like the Omniscience plan vs. Maverick. I need to get to testing, as SCG Open Denver is right around the corner!

[phazonmutant]

Awesome! I love it! I was actually thinking about Omniscience in the board along with SnT the other day as well - do you really need 2 Emrakuls to go along with that as well though? [...] Also - what do you plan to board out to bring in 4 SnT, 4 Omniscience, and 2 Emrakul?
Emrakul's insane with Omniscience and I was bringing in a couple without the transformative board to beat Surgical, but you could be right. My roommate agrees with you, for the record. I tested against Maverick and UW Miracles last night. Against the former, +3 S&T (one sb to Wish for), +2 Emrakul, +4 Omniscience, +1 Echoing Truth; -4 Duress, -2 Careful Study, -1 Entomb, -3 Goryo's Vengeance. Against Miracles, I didn't test postboard, but it felt like the only way I was winning was to kill him t1-2. Maybe bring in a few S&T and a couple Omniscience to mise? Not sure how to make that matchup good.


Also, have you considered Turbulent Dreams as bounce in the board? It seems potentially awesome with Griselbrand, and can be fetched with Burning Wish.
It's a cool card, definitely deserves some testing. I'm nervous about UU though - leaves us vulnerable to Wasteland and it's really slow.


And what would you think about replacing the 2 Thoughtseize maindeck with 2 Lim-Dul's Vault? That would fix the not being able to find Tendrils problem.
The Omniscience plan really needs the protection against counterspell decks and with 4 Burning Wish, finding Tendrils isn't really a problem. I love Lim-Dul's Vault, but I think it competes with Burning Wish.


One last question - is red rare enough in your build that you can't replace Careful Study with Faithless Looting? Maybe you could run some rainbow lands to fix that and the red for Burning Wish? (maybe a manabase closer to the one I posted a few posts up).
If you've ever played Dredge or TES, you'll know how awful the City / Gemstone Mine manabase is. It makes Brainstorm and Ponder weaker, makes resolving S&T postboard much harder, and one of the few ways Maverick can beat TES is Wasting their t1 land they used to Ponder or whatever. I hate getting my lands Wasted, so stretching to splash red already makes me nervous. Looting isn't actually much better than Study - you rarely want to be slow enough that you have time to flash it back, especially considering we're only running 14 lands - and changing the manabase to be solidly 3 colors means we'd have to cut out all the basics.

I'm gonna try out this build at legacy tomorrow. Usually transformative sideboards are really bad, but this one might actually attack from a different enough angle that it's fine. The only bad matchup seems to be UW Miracles. The Reid Duke version with Counterbalance main actually scares me less than the older stack-control version because both of our plans are fairly vulnerable on the stack, whereas Counterbalance is fine but not amazing against S&T.

[.dk]

You bring up some good points with regards to the manabase for sure. Although, as I've been goldfishing, I'm not sure that this deck can support a third color without rainbow lands. One of the selling points (for me anyway) was the incredible speed and consistency of the deck. I've found (goldfishing) that I was struggling to access the colors of mana I needed to consistently win T2/T3. I found myself casting Burning Wish, and then not having the right mana left to be able to win, whereas rainbow lands would have made that burden a bit easier. I do hear what you're saying with regards to them making Brainstorm and Ponder much worse, however. Maybe 3 colors just isn't the right way to go...

Maybe we can stick with a SnT based transformational board, but don't use a Wishboard, and keep the deck UB. Maybe something like this:


3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Marsh Flats
2 Island
2 Swamp
3 Careful Study
2 Tendrils of Agony
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Griselbrand
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Duress
2 Lim-Dûl's Vault
SB: 4 Show and Tell
SB: 1 Virtue's Ruin
SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 4 Omniscience
SB: 1 Petals of Insight


This can easily switch from a reanimation plan to a straight SnT plan and swap out a full 15 cards. It's not quite as versatile as the URB version that you posted, however I think it may be a bit more consistent and fizzle a bit less. Definitely more vulnerable to countermagic, but hopefully there is enough discard and mana sources to play around Daze/Pierce.

Although I'm not totally sure on the sideboard, and how good that plan would be as is - haven't been able to play games yet. It's also possible that the Virtue's Ruin wants to be Massacre Wurm as well, but I'm not sure. I should be able to get some testing in tomorrow evening though, so I'll try to post what I find (if anything of note).

[phazonmutant]

In testing I had no problem with the red for Burning Wish, but I didn't play a whole lot of games. You definitely could be right that it's better to be 2 colors.

Lim-Dul's Vault would be an interesting direction to take the deck. I liked it in Chocula, but with the Omniscience board, you don't get to draw the card immediately to kill...maybe Top would be good? I like that it allows you to find Emrakul without Living Wish. BTW, Chain is really bad with Omniscience.

I played the list I posted in this weeks tournament, but didn't do well at all. A good bit of it was that I was exhausted, but I also ran into tough matchups. Round 1 was Merfolk. He had a couple of Cursecatchers and I wasn't able to find the lands to play around them before he drew some lords and Force. Second game he found 3 grave hate spells (ding!), but I couldn't resolve a S&T until I was already at 7 and he killed me with his islandwalking swingback. Round 2 played against Delver and mulled to 6 with no cantrips and then drew 8 lands, then game 2 had an opener with t1 man off Petals but he Forced the Shallow Grave and I didn't draw any lands. Round 3 played against Tezzeret prison and won through 3-sphere after he 15'd himself with lands, then Showed in Omniscience and won when I drew Emrakul (conveniently sidestepping Chalice on 0, 1, 2, and 3sphere). Dropped to beer.

Not sure how I feel about the Omniscience board. It's fairly bad against taxing counterspells. I really wanted better access to Emrakul - there were a couple of times where I needed to cast him to win and Griselbrand just wasn't cutting it. I definitely need to test more though.

[.dk]

In testing I had no problem with the red for Burning Wish, but I didn't play a whole lot of games. You definitely could be right that it's better to be 2 colors.

Lim-Dul's Vault would be an interesting direction to take the deck. I liked it in Chocula, but with the Omniscience board, you don't get to draw the card immediately to kill...maybe Top would be good? I like that it allows you to find Emrakul without Living Wish. BTW, Chain is really bad with Omniscience.

I played the list I posted in this weeks tournament, but didn't do well at all. A good bit of it was that I was exhausted, but I also ran into tough matchups. Round 1 was Merfolk. He had a couple of Cursecatchers and I wasn't able to find the lands to play around them before he drew some lords and Force. Second game he found 3 grave hate spells (ding!), but I couldn't resolve a S&T until I was already at 7 and he killed me with his islandwalking swingback. Round 2 played against Delver and mulled to 6 with no cantrips and then drew 8 lands, then game 2 had an opener with t1 man off Petals but he Forced the Shallow Grave and I didn't draw any lands. Round 3 played against Tezzeret prison and won through 3-sphere after he 15'd himself with lands, then Showed in Omniscience and won when I drew Emrakul (conveniently sidestepping Chalice on 0, 1, 2, and 3sphere). Dropped to beer.

Not sure how I feel about the Omniscience board. It's fairly bad against taxing counterspells. I really wanted better access to Emrakul - there were a couple of times where I needed to cast him to win and Griselbrand just wasn't cutting it. I definitely need to test more though.


I've pretty much had 2x Lim Dul's Vault maindeck since right after Atlanta. It fixes a LOT of the fizzling problems that this deck suffers from at times. They still seem fine with Omniscience though, given the amount of filter you run in Brainstorm, Ponder, and Careful study that you can also cast for free.

Agreed on Chain, but I'm not sure if I would board in the Omniscience package against counter heavy decks. It seems like it might be better to board in the bounce and discard to stick with the maindeck plan, hence the Chains in the board. Maindeck is very resilient to countermagic due to discard and redundancy already, so the problem that you're really fighting in that case is graveyard hate. So... you can use bounce and discard to hopefully deal with that, and use the same plan that you would maindeck.

Merfolk does seem like a bitch of a matchup though... pressure + counters is pretty rough for this deck (as it is with most decks, really).

[.dk]

Well, the local Legacy event didn't fire over the weekend, but I've gotten a fair bit of testing in against some blue decks. That said, I haven't been able to test a wide variety of sideboard plans yet. I believe I should be able to get some good games in this week, however.

However, the more I'm running the updated maindeck with the Ad Naus board + 3 bounce spells, the more I'm liking it again. It actually doesn't feel THAT bad against decks that bring in a bunch of graveyard/griselbrand hate. I haven't tested it against much else other than RUG and Next Level Thresh, but NLT at least packs a good bit of grave hate in it that they seem to always bring in game 2. So even though it turns into mediocre ANT, your opponent's deck can be quite diluted with grave hate at the same time. I was having a bit of a problem with Red Elemental Blast countering my cantrips all over the place though...

Anyway, I think I have a few different plans to test out this week, so I think I should be able to get some testing results with at least a few of them:

1. ANT transformation (already a lot of data)
2. Omniscience Transformation
3. Reactive board with bounce, and potentially City of Solitude and/or Pull from Eternity
4. Running a TES like maindeck with Silence + Burning Wish and a wishboard.

We'll see, I guess.

[phazonmutant]

How is the ANT board any good at all? You still get hit by Surgical somewhat and Thalia and Canonist hurt so much more than the reanimation plan. So you're switching to ANT against non-W decks? Or you're hoping to find your bounce? And is turning into a bad ANT list actually good against the difficult Thresh matchup?

I'm not saying Omniscience solves these problems, just that it's a transformative plan that actually attacks from a different angle as the maindeck. I think I'm going to test out a list with Top and Lim-Dul's Vault this afternoon. Not sure about the sideboard.

[.dk]

@phazonmuant

Well, the ANT plan is be no means optimal, but in a field where no one is really expecting your G1, or an ANT transformation, it can work fairly well. It can still T1/T2 very easily, and boarding in 3 bounce spells is has usually been enough to deal with Maverick. I won't say it's great, but it's definitely been doable provided that you're mulligans are ok. Sometimes you just lose, but that's the nature of the deck.

Another possibility for the sideboard could be something like this:

4 Show and Tell
4 Cabal Ritual
2 Massacre Wurm
3 Chain of Vapor (or whatever the right bounce is)
2 Thoughtseize

Bring in more discard to protect Show and Tell, and more rituals to hardcast Griselbrand as a backup. Massacre Wurm also seems pretty insane against Maverick (and even RUG) and is can also be hardcast. Worst case, do your best to clear their board and just swing!

I tried out a 4 color build with rainbow lands and Silences (basically making it TES) - and it actually felt amazing! Until I ran into wasteland. :( Way too vulnerable there (as you said). So, I ended up back at something similar to the 3 color build you posted a bit ago. I think it needed a bit more mana sources and fixing, so I ended up with this list maindeck:

1 Badlands
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea

4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Burning Wish
4 Entomb
4 Griselbrand
4 Shallow Grave
3 Duress
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Faithless Looting

With 3 colors, I'm liking 15 lands a bit more than 14. I also added back in the 3rd Chrome Mox as I found imprinting Faithless Looting on Chrome Mox fixed most of the problems I was having making red mana for Burning Wish. I don't think I've yet flashed back faithless looting though - it's main purpose seems to be creating a red source of mana. :)

As far as what the actual board goes... that's a rough one. I like the Omniscience plan you originally posted, although like I said before, I don't think you need the Emrakul's there with the Omniscience win-con. So maybe something like:

4 Show and Tell
4 Omniscience
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize
1 Exhume
1 Meltdown
1 Petals of Insight
3 Chain of Vapor

I wish I could fit a Deathmark in there as well, but I don't really see how. I suppose you could run that instead of Meltdown and change the bounce to Echoing Truth/Wipe Away or something.

Another option for this would be a transformation involving Through the Breach:

4 Through the Breach
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Cabal Ritual
1 Show and Tell
1 Exhume
1 Grapeshot
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Meltdown
1 Thoughtseize

Plenty of play with the wishboard and maintains Griselbrand's potency with haste postboard. A bit slower (hence the Cabal rituals), but can totally dodge grave hate while still maintaining a very similar game plan.

Appreciate the work and thoughts you've put in thus far. Great ideas - I think we can make it work!

[phazonmutant]

Played the Burning Wish / Omniscience board in a small tournament again, and it's truly awful. Like you said, it's way harder to actually combo off g1 (I lost against Death and Taxes! Fucking Thalia...) and the Omniscience plan is just too slow and still loses to every W aggro deck. Burning Wish is just so slow and takes up a ton of board slots. A maindeck Tendrils is without a doubt necessary.

I can buy that ANT is good if people are unprepared, but it takes up so many slots... That other board you posted with Wurm is sweet though!

Having 15 lands and the Chrome Mox make a lot of sense in a solidly 3-color version. The list you posted seems pretty ideal if you decide to go with Burning Wish (although I would consider a basic mountain if you have Faithless Looting).

Dude! Through the Breach! That's an awesome idea! I'd have to test whether that or Sneak Attack is better, but that's a cool new angle to take the deck. So Sneak Attack is better in that it allows you to leave a massive threat on-board and play around Daze and Thalia better, but you lose instant speed (which can be pretty important for counterspells and Karakas) and it's harder to make double red. I especially like the sideboard Cabal Rituals - outside the box thinking!

I don't think I'm going to be able to any legacy tournaments in the next few weeks, but when I get a chance to test I'll post updates. Agreed that this deck seems sweet and has a lot of potential.

[Dela]

Went to a local tourney and went 3-1 with my own twist on the deck.



3 City of Brass
2 Gemstone Mine
1 Island
2 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea

4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Children of Korlis
4 Entomb
4 Griselbrand
3 Shallow Grave
1 Duress
3 Thoughsieze
2 Tendrils of Agony
3 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Faithless Looting

SB:
4 Show and Tell
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Sneak Attack
2 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors

Round 1 Vs Maverick (Seemed to be more budget Maverick, but I didnt see much of his deck)

G1 I combo out turn 2
G2 I just make land drops and play sneak attack off a ritual and smash with Emrakul, he scoops.

Neither game was close.

Round 2 Vs Maverick (non-budget w/ wasteland)

G1 I combo with a Thalia in play, cant kill with tendrils but hasty grisel after hasty grisel gets there (consecutive turns) followed by a mini tendrils. Close game.

G2 Wasn't close, he brought in relics and surgicals but they do anything vs sneak attack.


Round 3 Vs BW Dead Guy (Heavy discard with SFM, Bob, and wasteland)

G1 He strips my hand to a million pieces. I manage to hold on recurring a Korlis with Shallow grave for a few turns but I whiff on my cantrips when I have to go off.

G2 I board into the sneak plan and Show n Tell turn 1 Emrakul. GG

G3 I stick to the Sneak Show plan hoping he brings in grave hate. He attcks my hand and plays an early bob. He makes the mistake on turn 4 or 5? of playing a sword of fire and ice instead Hymning me.(I knew he had it off a revealed Bob trigger) The next turn when he does, I have a brainstorm to hide my gas. I play show and tell and put in Grisel, but he puts in Mirran Crusader with a sword of fire and ice already in play. I think I'm at 11 and I'm dead if I don't draw into more cards and Show N tell into Emmy to block the crusader. Luckily I had the mana and cards to do it off of the new 7 and my existing hand. He had to rip Karakas off the top and doesn't. Very interesting game.


Round 4 Finals Vs RUG (No Stifle but had wastelands)

G1 I combo out turn 3 playing around daze and get a Grisel in play. I attack, go to 25, and then proceed to draw my deck and win. 21 cards deep I don't draw a korlis or a tendrils. I cantrip with a ponder, no dice... shuffle. Brainstorm... no dice. I had looked through 28 cards, looking for one of the 3 children or one of the two tendrils. Not one of the 5 cards showed up. My first fizzle, funny I'd always thought I'd win with 25 cards in hand in legacy with a storm deck. =) I set up a to Grisel reanimate next turn and I getspell snared, and died shortly after. Sad Game.

G2 I board into the Sneak plan and get there after he counters my first show n tell. He had ooze and graffdiggers cage in play. =)

G3 I can't decide which way to go. RUG can be so fast (with the right hand and disruption) I decide to go with the graveyard reanimate plan. Game goes on for awhile and I get to the point where I know his hand: Ooze, goyf, force, unknown. In play he has tormod's crypt, delver and an untapped island

I untap with 3 lands and play a land. I already have a Grisel in the yard. I know I have the win. I play a land, tap it and cast dark rit. with the rit mana I cast shallow grave. He responds by activating crypt. Here is where I mess up. I say "ok" instead I meant to cast goryo's vengeance in response. He then would have to force of will, and I could have let the force and the crypt resolve only to then cast entomb for Grisel. (Since shallow grave doesnt target) Instead my yard goes to exile and I cast entomb which of course he forces and I stare at my Goryo's in hand. I tell him GG and ask if i can see if I would have won (I can only activate Grisel once) He says sure and of course I can combo out off the first 7 new cards I see.


Thoughts after the games:
I like the deck but the mana base might need adjustment, I am unsure. Wasteland is of course tough. I think some, if not all of the sideboard lands should become duresses, again I am unsure. I was always happy to see them and mana usually wasnt a problem between the rits, moxen, and petals.

[phazonmutant]

Was Sneak Attack better for you than Through the Breach? Was Children actually better than just playing a more consistant mana base and more Tendrils and/or Burning Wishes?

[.dk]

So, I took a UBr build to SCG Denver, with overall disappointing results. The meta (at least what I played) was very hostile to storm combo, making me really work for most of my wins. On top of that, I didn't feel like I played that great either... Here is the list that I ran:


2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
3 Duress
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Faithless Looting
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Griselbrand
4 Burning Wish
1 Tendrils of Agony


Sideboard:


4 Show and Tell
3 Chain of Vapor
3 Dread of Night
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Meltdown
1 Infest
1 Deathmark
1 Exhume


The list was obviously set up to beat Maverick (which I've had problems with in the past - re: my GP Atlanta experience). Never played it though. :(
anyway, a quick breakdown of the day (my notes aren't great):

Round 1: Dredge
I win the die roll (one of the few times on the day)
G1: I drop USea and ponder, finding what I need to go off the next turn. He drops Gemstone Mine and careful studies, dropping a dredger. Perfect! Passes back to me, and I do my thing on T2 and Tendrils him out.
G2: I keep the nuts, he drops Leyline T0, does something irrelevant and pass. I topdeck Chain of Vapor (because I'm really good I guess), bounce Leyline and win.

Seems like a great start to the day! Except that was the only easy match all day....

1-0

Round 2: Esperblade
He wins the die roll, I think. I die to infinite counters and getting Jaced out in both games, I think. Neat. I thought this was a better matchup, as most of the Esperblade lists I've seen recently have cut a lot of counters. He didn't really cast discard on me either game, and just kept very counter heavy hands. Not sure if it was a different build, but it certainly was a rough matchup.

1-1

Round 3: UW Counterbalance
Nightmare matchup, and he was a very good player. In fact, he went on to win the event. I win game 1 on the back of tendrils. Games 2 and 3 I can't play out of counter/top lock...

1-2

Round 4: UW Counterbalance
Awesome! 2 in a row! I knew what he was on, as he was testing against one of my friends the previous evening. When he sat down I think my shoulders visibly slumped. I think I get there game 1, and die to countertop lock. Game 3 he gets countertop online, but I use my bounce to manipulate Top to the top of his library at times to keep him from manipulating. Eventually get what I need when he is tapped out, forced to flip top to counter a ritual, and combo with lotus petals and chrome moxes. barely! Turns out, he had drawn every match before this one...

2-2

Round 5: Omniscience
This was a fun match. Game 1, he actually managed to Show and Tell in Omniscience on his T3, and bricked on his brainstorm for finding business. He dropped... another Omniscience and passed, and I proceeded to combo out on my T3. Game 2, he casts Show and Tell at a really awkward time... I have no permanents in hand. He drops Omniscience, then burning wish for Petals of Insight and Grapeshots me to death. Game 3 was pretty hilarious - I made an awful mistake but managed to recover. I have a great hand with a Griselbrand, Faithless Looting, and a Reanimation Spell. I cast Looting on T1 into another Griselbrand, and keep 1 in hand in case he casts Show and Tell. I pass the turn and he drops Grafdigger's Cage - dang. I do nothing and pass, and then he casts Show and Tell... uh oh. He flips Emrakul, and I flip Griselbrand. I draw 14 on my turn, but can't find a win con, so I know I'll have to draw more. I attack with Griselbrand to gain 7 more life via Emrakul blocking, upon which I was planning on Reanimating him again to draw more cards. I tried this, and forgot that he had Grafdigger's Cage in play - whoops! So I Chain of Vapor-ed it, and reanimated him again, this time actually doing something. :) Drew my 7, and had enough to kill him from there, and enough mana still to get it done. Bad mistake, but draw 7's sure can make a lot of mana sometimes...

3-2

Round 6: Merfolk
This was a very frustrating match. Game 1 I lose to Adept + Reejerey + Reejerey while he has 2 Force of Wills for everything I try to do. Yep - that will happen with Merfolk sometimes. The actually frustrating game was Game 2. He beats me down a bit with a grafdigger's cage out and a Griselbrand in my yard. I burning wish for meltdown and on the next turn I actually reanimate Griselbrand and swing, and am able to draw 14. I draw a bunch of rutals... and no burning wishes or Tendrils. I have plenty of mana, a Ponder, Brainstorm, and a Faithless looting, so I just dig.. and dig... and dig... Ponder -> shuffle, draw another looting. Brainstorm, nope, put back 2 lands, and crack a fetch in play. Faithless Looting -> nothing there (including no more cantrips). Only access to 1 more red, but don't have a choice at this point but to looting into either Tendrils, cantrip, or burning wish and a lotus petal... but nope. Nothing. Felt like I saw the whole deck, but couldn't find a 4 of in about 30 cards. Very frustrating.

3-3

Round 7: RUG
This wasn't frustrating. It was painful. I kept decent hands with a combo piece and 1 or 2 cantrips, but they kept bricking. On top of that, I forgot to play around stifle and lost my land. So I did nothing for 2 games except cast a few cantrips (some of which were countered anyway). Fun times.

3-4

Round 8: Affinity
This match should be easy... but like the rest of my day, it wasn't. Game 1 I combo out really early. Game 2, I have 1 Burning Wish, and some cantrips that proceed to do nothing. I wait until he has lethal on board for the next turn, and then burning wish for Meltdown and wipe his board clean, except for an Ancient Tomb and Glimmervoid. Should be game over, right? We then play draw-go for a long time... I make an awful mistake and miscount my mana by 1 when I try to hardcast a Griselbrand... and am forced to pass. And eventually I die. Really sad... Game 3 he mulled to 4 and I blew him out. I was playing really sloppy this round as I was pretty frustrated by this point, and had to apologize for playing so loosely at the end of the match (it ended up causing confusion in game states multiple times). Yep, I suck. :(

4-4

And then I magically get 56th which is good for $50. That felt very weird being rewarded for playing not very well, and having a pretty bad record. Oh well, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, right?


Thoughts afterwards:

My draw 14's, Ponders, and Brainstorms were awful all day long (see Merfolk Game2) - that's what you get playing combo sometimes though. Sometimes you have the luck, sometimes you don't. Also, if UW Counterbalance is a thing, this is probably not the deck to play. Or at least not this incarnation (or likely straight UB either). Some major modifications would need to be made in that case.

After discussion with some friends, I think we need another angle of attack as a backup plan. Maybe a 1 of Emrakul maindeck would be sufficient, but maybe not. After you draw, if you brick, you usually have at least 1 entomb or looting, and another reanimation spell. Why not just reanimate Emrakul (since your spells are instant speed)? That may even be better than Tendrils-ing someone out anyway, and goes very well with the backup Show and Tell plan. Honestly not sure - seems like the fizzle rate would certainly be less. Another option (credit to Dela above) would be to include a 1 of Children of Korlis to entomb/reanimate/sacrifice after drawing a bunch to more or less draw the rest of your deck. That may be more cute than good though - not sure. Some other options might be a singleton Whirlpool Rider to act as a "Time Spiral" if you've fizzled. And one last option might be a singleton Conflagrate to Entomb for - this could potentially finish them off by itself given enough cards, or worst case at least clear the board of their creatures so you can live until next turn.

[phazonmutant]

Good job on the top 64!
Some of the problems you pointed out are why I'm setting the deck aside for now - it's really really difficult to play correctly, and you have to fight through a lot of hate to win even good matchups. It's definitely one of the most powerful decks in the format right now though.

How was Burning Wish and Faithless Looting for you? Were there situations that actually came up where it was useful to find sideboard cards (apart from the sweet Meltdown vs. Affinity)? Did you get Wasted more than the UB version?

I like the idea of adding 1 Emrakul maindeck. You're right it helps give you another plan of attack when you can't find Tendrils or enough mana. If we cut the Burning Wish in the main, that opens up room for a couple of Cabal Rituals in the sideboard to transform into more of a S&T gameplan. I'll try testing this list on Cockatrice today:
// 14 lands
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire

// spells
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
2 Careful Study
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Tendrils of Agony

// Sideboard
4 Show and Tell
2 Cabal Ritual
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Virtue's Ruin
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild
2 Through the Breach
1 Inquisition of Kozilek

The sideboard looks like it needs some serious refining and I may be super greedy for trimming Ponders and Careful Studies, but we'll see.

[Kanti]

I'm just about to start testing this deck, and so have no games under my belt yet, but the Emrakul idea kind of brought another to me.

What if the deck dropped Tendrils for Emrakuls?

edit;

heres what ive been testing for the last couple of hours

15 lands (4 Sea, 2 Island, 1 Swamp, 4 Deltas, 3 U-fetch, 1 B-fetch)

4 Griselbrand
4 Brainstorm
1 Cabal Ritual
3 Careful Study
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Lotus Petal
4 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Thoughtseize

sideboard
4 Dread of Night
4 Show and Tell
3 Emrakul
3 Wipe Away
1 City of Traitors

My plan is to side out of the Tendrils combo against decks I can't bring in Wipe Away or Dread of Night against. I still think the storm plan is probably better as it completely gets around gy hate, and the deck really functions like a normal UB ANT deck, not a shitty storm deck.

[.dk]

@kanti
I thought about something like that as well, and sticking to UB for a more stable manabase. However, at least in my testing, I wasn't finding that 4 SnT and some discard were enough to get through countermagic usually. thoughts?


@phazonmuant
I've kinda been digging on the Burning Wishes as more copies of SnT, really. I also like that if you transform into some sort of SnT / attacking plan Game2, Burning Wish gives you some game/answers if you go back to some Tendrils/Reanimate plan if you go to Game 3 by providing access to a few answers. Also, the more I tested Through the Breach, the more I disliked it. It's really bad against Maverick, as Thalia makes it cost 6! Sneak Attack is likely better because the activation isn't taxed, and it can beat Karakas as well. My original suggestion of Through the Breach was probably just a little too greedy. Speaking of greedy... if it were me, I would cut the LDV in your list for the 4th ponder to start testing, and play around with the final slot later. You may cut the 3rd Tendrils for LDV, but I don't really know for sure. Also, I feel like if you're running Red, you really want Faithless Looting rather than Careful Study to imprint on Chrome Mox...

Anyway, here is the UBR list that I've been meaning to test, but haven't gotten around to it yet:


1 Badlands
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Burning Wish
4 Entomb
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Shallow Grave
3 Duress
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Faithless Looting

Sideboard:

3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Sneak Attack
4 Show and Tell
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Meltdown
1 Exhume
1 Deathmark


In this one, I cut 1 reanimation spell for Emrakul (making the sideboard plan a lot easier with less dead cards post-board - board out Shallow Graves, Goryo's Vengeance, and Entomb). Cutting a land could be right, but I haven't tested at all yet, so I'm not sure (and switching 1 land to a Mountain may also be right). This gives you can alternate line of play Game 1 by reanimating Emrakul, and then more or less a complete transformation into Sneak/Show for Game2, still maintaining a backup plan of tendrils-ing them out. It is possible that the Chrome Moxes should be Rite of Flame since Chrome Mox really sucks with the Sneak/Show plan... but again, more testing needed...

[walker]

Today I decided to play my LED griselstorm deck at the Knightware store credit event. I haven't thought much about this deck recently since I've been focusing on Belcher. My maindeck looked similar to what I had tried out at Starcity open Las Vegas:

4 griselbrand
1 emrakul
4 shallow grave
4 entomb
4 infernal tutor
1 ill-gotten gains
1 tendrils of agony
3 careful study
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 dark ritual
3 cabal ritual
4 LED
4 lotus petal
2 chrome mox
4 polluted delta
3 flooded strand
1 bloodstained mire
3 underground sea
1 swamp
1 island

I threw this sideboard together:

3 noxious revival
3 tombstalker
2 virtues ruin
4 thoughtseize
1 chain of vapor
1 echoing truth

I know the maindeck has no disruption. It's the decks only weakness! And I know its a problem that must be addressed. I know not everyones a fan of the LEDs. But I honestly wouldn't play the deck without them.

Round 1 I lose the roll. I play against a novice on belcher. He tries to make goblins but passed priority after burning wish. Then he read his LED. wooops. I learned the hard way too. I sculpt with a blue card and win on my second turn. Game 2 He plays out a belcher but cant pop it. I turn 2 him.

Round 2 vs RUG Delver played by an expert. I lose the roll. Game one he blew me out with counterspells and beat me down with animals. Game 2 was more of a grind. I brought in noxious revivals and tombstalkers. He got a cage and I still tried to combo. After feeding my combo cards to his counterspells I go for Tombstalker. Of course he has a force left over pitching... Izzet charm! I didnt realize it was available for legacy play yet. So. Neither of us have a hand left and he has a flipped delver. I have a couple turns to stabilize but I'm not drawing live and I die. Somewhere in this round a stifle hit my fetch and messed me up.

Round 3 vs RUG Delver I lose the roll. I don't remember game 1 but I died. Game 2 he mulligans a no lander with force and all blue cards. I board in thoughtseizes and tombstalkers for this match. I'm uncertain what's best so I'm trying different strategies. I turn one him and he doesn't have the force. Game 3 is a grind. He gets a dude down. We have a counter battle and neither of us have any cards in hand. I quickly die to a dude.

Round 4 vs Dredge I win the roll and turn one him both games.

Round 5 vs RUG Delver I lose the roll. These were by far the most fun and interesting games of the day. I don't remember too many details though. Game 1 I spend the first 2 turns sculpting my hand while he's summoning animals. I cast infernal tutor retain priority cast shallow grave retain priority pop LED discarding griselbrand. He has double force for all my action!! Ouch. I get attacked by animals and burned to death. Game 2 I don't remember the details but I won through some disruption. Game 3 I lost after a super epic super fun and interactive match. The details are lost and the tournament is over for me. My buddy has been running super hot with belcher lately and is in first place after smashing through the swiss. Top 8 agrees to split the prize instead of duking it out.

I think my biggest problem today was with the dice. I would have been able to win a lot easier if i was winning the dice rolls. The deck was delivering good results and most of my losses were close games. Besides that it was a blast to play. I chose the deck because it's the most fun to play since the stakes are low today. But now I'm considering playing it at SCG open las angeles next week. Although I'm thinking about making some changes to the maindeck:

- 4 ponder
- 1 emrakul
- 1 cabal ritual

+ 4 thoughtseize
+ 2 goryo's veangance

Adding the thoughtseize to the maindeck will give me some more room in my sideboard. The tombstalkers were really good and surprised my opponents. I'm thinking about sideboarding into a creature deck that can randomly combo out sometimes. Add in delvers and some cliques. I want to try darkblast to deal with annoying creatures. I liked noxious revival and might try them again. I still feel kinda lost about the sideboard. There are so many possibilities and none of them seem perfect yet.

When I came home I was looking through my black cards and I saw Necrotic Ooze and for the first time I realized it's awesome with griselbrand. I don't know if it could ever be right for this deck... but it's something to think about. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has tried it out.

[.dk]

Today I decided to play my LED griselstorm deck at the Knightware store credit event. I haven't thought much about this deck recently since I've been focusing on Belcher. My maindeck looked similar to what I had tried out at Starcity open Las Vegas:

4 griselbrand
1 emrakul
4 shallow grave
4 entomb
4 infernal tutor
1 ill-gotten gains
1 tendrils of agony
3 careful study
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 dark ritual
3 cabal ritual
4 LED
4 lotus petal
2 chrome mox
4 polluted delta
3 flooded strand
1 bloodstained mire
3 underground sea
1 swamp
1 island

I threw this sideboard together:

3 noxious revival
3 tombstalker
2 virtues ruin
4 thoughtseize
1 chain of vapor
1 echoing truth

I know the maindeck has no disruption. It's the decks only weakness! And I know its a problem that must be addressed. I know not everyones a fan of the LEDs. But I honestly wouldn't play the deck without them.

Round 1 I lose the roll. I play against a novice on belcher. He tries to make goblins but passed priority after burning wish. Then he read his LED. wooops. I learned the hard way too. I sculpt with a blue card and win on my second turn. Game 2 He plays out a belcher but cant pop it. I turn 2 him.

Round 2 vs RUG Delver played by an expert. I lose the roll. Game one he blew me out with counterspells and beat me down with animals. Game 2 was more of a grind. I brought in noxious revivals and tombstalkers. He got a cage and I still tried to combo. After feeding my combo cards to his counterspells I go for Tombstalker. Of course he has a force left over pitching... Izzet charm! I didnt realize it was available for legacy play yet. So. Neither of us have a hand left and he has a flipped delver. I have a couple turns to stabilize but I'm not drawing live and I die. Somewhere in this round a stifle hit my fetch and messed me up.

Round 3 vs RUG Delver I lose the roll. I don't remember game 1 but I died. Game 2 he mulligans a no lander with force and all blue cards. I board in thoughtseizes and tombstalkers for this match. I'm uncertain what's best so I'm trying different strategies. I turn one him and he doesn't have the force. Game 3 is a grind. He gets a dude down. We have a counter battle and neither of us have any cards in hand. I quickly die to a dude.

Round 4 vs Dredge I win the roll and turn one him both games.

Round 5 vs RUG Delver I lose the roll. These were by far the most fun and interesting games of the day. I don't remember too many details though. Game 1 I spend the first 2 turns sculpting my hand while he's summoning animals. I cast infernal tutor retain priority cast shallow grave retain priority pop LED discarding griselbrand. He has double force for all my action!! Ouch. I get attacked by animals and burned to death. Game 2 I don't remember the details but I won through some disruption. Game 3 I lost after a super epic super fun and interactive match. The details are lost and the tournament is over for me. My buddy has been running super hot with belcher lately and is in first place after smashing through the swiss. Top 8 agrees to split the prize instead of duking it out.

I think my biggest problem today was with the dice. I would have been able to win a lot easier if i was winning the dice rolls. The deck was delivering good results and most of my losses were close games. Besides that it was a blast to play. I chose the deck because it's the most fun to play since the stakes are low today. But now I'm considering playing it at SCG open las angeles next week. Although I'm thinking about making some changes to the maindeck:

- 4 ponder
- 1 emrakul
- 1 cabal ritual

+ 4 thoughtseize
+ 2 goryo's veangance

Adding the thoughtseize to the maindeck will give me some more room in my sideboard. The tombstalkers were really good and surprised my opponents. I'm thinking about sideboarding into a creature deck that can randomly combo out sometimes. Add in delvers and some cliques. I want to try darkblast to deal with annoying creatures. I liked noxious revival and might try them again. I still feel kinda lost about the sideboard. There are so many possibilities and none of them seem perfect yet.

When I came home I was looking through my black cards and I saw Necrotic Ooze and for the first time I realized it's awesome with griselbrand. I don't know if it could ever be right for this deck... but it's something to think about. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has tried it out.

Sounds like you had the problem that I was experiencing when testing LED versions. They seem to just be too all in and require too much space. If you're disrupted when you're going off with LED, then it's pretty much GG (at least in my experience - and yours in Round 5 it sounds like). It's certainly more explosive though! There is probably some version of this deck that wants it and can play enough disruption - just haven't found it yet. The problem is that the reanimation package just takes up so many slots alongside LED and IT! Hope you can figure it out, cause if you can, it sure seems likely to be the best version!

I've thought about Necrotic Ooze as well - particularly including buried alive, phyrexian devourer, and triskelion. I SO wanted to make Ooze work with Griselbrand in the yard (beats Grafdiggers' Cage!) - but I think you're better off just winning with Devourer/Trike. Could be wrong though... If you go that route with Ooze getting Grizzlebee's activated ability from the yard, you may want to try a Scourge Familiar as well to be able to get critical mass of mana from all of the dead cards in your hand. Just a thought anyway.

[walker]

While it is "all in" with LEDs... I'm generally not discarding action when I go for the win with LED (just griselbrands). As you can see in game 1 round 5 LED actually helped me play through counter magic. He was tapped out and I even had a mana floating for daze. the only thing that could have stopped me was double force.. I mean, if he's got it he's got it. Combo is fragile to counter magic, I don't know how much resilience we can realistically be hoping for when we're trying to win with a reanimation spell. That said though... I'm trying out cutting the ponders for thoughtseizes. Hopefully that will help.

As far as necrotic ooze goes... It got me thinking. There's some interesting directions to take it. filling up the graveyard can be easy in a deck with entombs, careful studys, faithles lootings, and LEDs. Turn one dark ritual thoughtseize entomb reanimate ooze. play n pop LED dumping griselbrand draw a ton of cards.... Just trying to brainstorm possibilities haha.

As far as in this deck goes. It might be possible in the place of goryos.

In any case I'm going to continue brewing and testing. If I'm feeling comfortable with it I'll bring it to SCG LA open series.

[phazonmutant]

I tested a version with LEDs and IF online and at a small tournament as well. As .dk said, you're way all-in. Say, you're playing a deck that tries to win t1-2, doesn't run protection, and expects to dump its hand? Sounds like Belcher, except you trade being better against Force for being vulnerable to commonly played hate.

Versions with Duresses main and Show and Tell in the board have the advantage of having a passable to good matchup against counterspells, which is where I'd want to be in a large tournament.

[.dk]

I tested a version with LEDs and IF online and at a small tournament as well. As .dk said, you're way all-in. Say, you're playing a deck that tries to win t1-2, doesn't run protection, and expects to dump its hand? Sounds like Belcher, except you trade being better against Force for being vulnerable to commonly played hate.

Versions with Duresses main and Show and Tell in the board have the advantage of having a passable to good matchup against counterspells, which is where I'd want to be in a large tournament.

Yep, that was exactly my take. Now, if you can somehow fit something like City of Solitude or Abeyance into an LED build, then you might be cooking with gas. But I've yet to figure out some way to do that without totally wrecking the manabase.

[dameus]

I'm way late to the party here, but I saw throughout the thread that the deck can sometimes fizzle on mana post Gris and LED is too all in.
I didn't see anyone mention Culling the Weak. With Gris coming in under a death sentence, it seems like the perfect addition.

[.dk]

I'm way late to the party here, but I saw throughout the thread that the deck can sometimes fizzle on mana post Gris and LED is too all in.
I didn't see anyone mention Culling the Weak. With Gris coming in under a death sentence, it seems like the perfect addition.

I actually had that in there for a time in a UB version instead of Chrome Mox. There are definitely applications - but my fizzling hasn't usually been because of mana. It's usually been because I can't find Tendrils or can't storm enough if Griselbrand is blocked. Burning Wish and Lim Dul's Vault helped with that in the 2 builds respectively, but still haven't really been able to fix it. It really needs something synergistic with Entomb to use as a tutor after drawing cards - something like Emrakul or Conflagrate.

That said, using something to sac Grizzlebees to is pretty rad - my weapon of choice would likely be Cabal Therapy if I went that route - the deck is already light on disruption, and it's another free storm count.

[dameus]

That said, using something to sac Grizzlebees to is pretty rad - my weapon of choice would likely be Cabal Therapy if I went that route - the deck is already light on disruption, and it's another free storm count.

Yup, Cabal Therapy can also target yourself as an additional way to get Gris in the 'yard in a pinch.

I just realized that Burnt Offering is even better than my 1st suggestion. Might still get consideration as a 1 or 2 of, especially for the lists that splash red for Burning Wish.

BTW, dk, I saw you got 56th at Denver. I didn't do so hot, either, and got 57th :smile:

[.dk]

Yup, Cabal Therapy can also target yourself as an additional way to get Gris in the 'yard in a pinch.

I just realized that Burnt Offering is even better than my 1st suggestion. Might still get consideration as a 1 or 2 of, especially for the lists that splash red for Burning Wish.

BTW, dk, I saw you got 56th at Denver. I didn't do so hot, either, and got 57th :smile:

Ah yeah - burnt offering! That's a good idea - I vaguely recall Richard Cheese and I discussing that one early on in the UBr development, but we never tested it. Let us know if it tests well as an additional ritual.

I think I've settled on my UBr list for the time being - the last one I posted. Has a reasonable backup plan out of the sideboard in a Sneak/Show transformation. Not sure Burnt Offering fits well there, as you need more red to activate Sneak Attack - but if there is another version that works well... by all means! Possibly one that uses Overmaster and Conflagrate?

Hah, 1 spot behind me, eh? Did I meet you there, I don't remember? Sent you a PM, btw.

[dameus]

I'm still catching up on taking this deck thru it's paces. For ex, I finally proved to myself that Mox is good (at least 2, prob 3) and that I like 1x Emmy MD. I desperately want more protection than the proposed lists run. I've never played a combo deck w/ less than 8 (but I don't yet have a fully workable solution).
I'm torn between adding the power/consistency of Burning Wish and having the super stable mana base that just UB provides. So, I'll provide comments on both:

Red Splash:
I'm not sold on a transformational SB, but if ya do, the Omni plan (with Emmy!) is way better than a the one w/ Sneak Attack. Omni-Emmy beats Karakas and Thalia. BTW, no need for Petals of Insight in SB. Omni plays it as an Alt Win Con vs Bridge and such. We already have a Storm win w/o it, tho, and nobody's siding in Bridge G2. You also want Emmy w/ Omni to get around the Storm hate.
That all said, it seems very inefficient to transform into a new look that does little more than dodge grave hate (and to a lesser extent Storm hate). Post-SB, Blue still knows what to counter, Black still knows what to pluck, Gobo's are still coming at you full force, and Mav still has Thalia and Karakas. Sure, their GY hate cards are dead, but you stuffed your SB so full, you don't have any hate for them.
Besides, the combo, as is, gets around over half the grave hate already (ooze, crypt, relic, surgical, extirpate) but still has trouble with some (Cage, Leylines, new 1W card from R2R). But why not just play 1x S&T (wishable) and 3 or so bounce (CoV) + the 1x artifact killer (I prefer Shattering Spree to get around counters) in SB? Just about any deck doesn't pack more than 4x grave hate cards. With some very flexible bounce and 1x wishable S&T (useful in G1 too!), we have enough to fight thru it!

UB only
14 lands is plenty from my testing
2 Tendrils + 1 Emmy was always enough finishers in my testing
I want to so bad down play the alternate way to get Griz in the 'yard (besides Entomb, which is a rock star). Assuming 7x reanimate effects and 3 Careful Study effects, and 4x Griz, couldn't you imagine chopping a reanimate or 2, all (or all but 1) Careful Study, and 2x Griz to run 4x Mystical Tutor (if they weren't banned!) and 2-3 more protection? Can we come close - legally? Maybe cut 1x reanimate, 2x CS, and 2x Griz and then +4 Peer Through Depths +1 Buried Alive??

Lastly, this is a fun deck. I really want to make it work. However, I'm having trouble trying to prove how it could be better than Omni (which is my main deck ATM).

[dameus]

FWIW, here's what I'm testing now:

1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Griselbrand
4 Lotus Petal
4 Shallow Grave
2 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Entomb
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Dark Ritual
2 Duress
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Tendrils of Agony
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Chrome Mox
1 Burnt Offering
2 Intuiton
2 Lim Dul's Vault


7 protection spells is closer to my comfort zone.

[Richard Cheese]

I'm still catching up on taking this deck thru it's paces. For ex, I finally proved to myself that Mox is good (at least 2, prob 3) and that I like 1x Emmy MD. I desperately want more protection than the proposed lists run. I've never played a combo deck w/ less than 8 (but I don't yet have a fully workable solution).
I'm torn between adding the power/consistency of Burning Wish and having the super stable mana base that just UB provides. So, I'll provide comments on both:

Red Splash:
I'm not sold on a transformational SB, but if ya do, the Omni plan (with Emmy!) is way better than a the one w/ Sneak Attack. Omni-Emmy beats Karakas and Thalia. BTW, no need for Petals of Insight in SB. Omni plays it as an Alt Win Con vs Bridge and such. We already have a Storm win w/o it, tho, and nobody's siding in Bridge G2. You also want Emmy w/ Omni to get around the Storm hate.
That all said, it seems very inefficient to transform into a new look that does little more than dodge grave hate (and to a lesser extent Storm hate). Post-SB, Blue still knows what to counter, Black still knows what to pluck, Gobo's are still coming at you full force, and Mav still has Thalia and Karakas. Sure, their GY hate cards are dead, but you stuffed your SB so full, you don't have any hate for them.
Besides, the combo, as is, gets around over half the grave hate already (ooze, crypt, relic, surgical, extirpate) but still has trouble with some (Cage, Leylines, new 1W card from R2R). But why not just play 1x S&T (wishable) and 3 or so bounce (CoV) + the 1x artifact killer (I prefer Shattering Spree to get around counters) in SB? Just about any deck doesn't pack more than 4x grave hate cards. With some very flexible bounce and 1x wishable S&T (useful in G1 too!), we have enough to fight thru it!

UB only
14 lands is plenty from my testing
2 Tendrils + 1 Emmy was always enough finishers in my testing
I want to so bad down play the alternate way to get Griz in the 'yard (besides Entomb, which is a rock star). Assuming 7x reanimate effects and 3 Careful Study effects, and 4x Griz, couldn't you imagine chopping a reanimate or 2, all (or all but 1) Careful Study, and 2x Griz to run 4x Mystical Tutor (if they weren't banned!) and 2-3 more protection? Can we come close - legally? Maybe cut 1x reanimate, 2x CS, and 2x Griz and then +4 Peer Through Depths +1 Buried Alive??

Lastly, this is a fun deck. I really want to make it work. However, I'm having trouble trying to prove how it could be better than Omni (which is my main deck ATM).

On the UB comment: we were just talking about this today. Getting Griz in the yard seems to be the most consistently weak part of the deck. We were actually talking about testing Intuition over some combination of Tendrils, Careful Study, LDV. It's expensive yes, but it has the benefit of being instant, and able to tutor for basically anything AND dump Griz. We're thinking 3 is probably the right number, but it needs to be tested in both versions.

For the red version, we were also talking about Conflagrate as a win-con over Tendrils. The idea being that you don't necessarily need storm to win, since they probably don't have counters if your Grislebrand resolved and Conflagrate can be searched up by Entomb, so theoretically you need less main.

Either way, how do you live in Denver, play TinFins, and not come to our weekly tournaments?!?! Or should I already know who this is?

[.dk]

Red Splash:
I'm not sold on a transformational SB, but if ya do, the Omni plan (with Emmy!) is way better than a the one w/ Sneak Attack. Omni-Emmy beats Karakas and Thalia. BTW, no need for Petals of Insight in SB. Omni plays it as an Alt Win Con vs Bridge and such. We already have a Storm win w/o it, tho, and nobody's siding in Bridge G2. You also want Emmy w/ Omni to get around the Storm hate.
That all said, it seems very inefficient to transform into a new look that does little more than dodge grave hate (and to a lesser extent Storm hate). Post-SB, Blue still knows what to counter, Black still knows what to pluck, Gobo's are still coming at you full force, and Mav still has Thalia and Karakas. Sure, their GY hate cards are dead, but you stuffed your SB so full, you don't have any hate for them.
Besides, the combo, as is, gets around over half the grave hate already (ooze, crypt, relic, surgical, extirpate) but still has trouble with some (Cage, Leylines, new 1W card from R2R). But why not just play 1x S&T (wishable) and 3 or so bounce (CoV) + the 1x artifact killer (I prefer Shattering Spree to get around counters) in SB? Just about any deck doesn't pack more than 4x grave hate cards. With some very flexible bounce and 1x wishable S&T (useful in G1 too!), we have enough to fight thru it!


I've actually tested an Omniscience board a good bit earlier in the year, and to be honest, it felt very weak. The deck is so ritual/mana heavy that by the time Omniscience actually hits play, you only sometimes have some sort of business to cast. It actually turns it into a 3 card combo, which is a bit rough. It's possible that Omniscience might be ok in a UB build though, but I'm pretty convinced that Sneak Attack is actually better in this deck.

Sneak Attack also gets through Karakas, you just need another red mana to sneak it back into play. It does completely dodge storm hate if there is any - sneaking Emrakul into play pretty much gets around all of that. Griselbrand also gets around Karakas for the storm plan, even though it is a backup post board. I've had multiple games where I've won through a Karakas bouncing my Griselbrand, and I draw 14 in response and storm out.

I've also tried that exact configuration in the board that you've tested - 1 S&T in the board, bring in 3 CoV, with Meltdown (the deck doesn't have enough red to support Shattering Spree - but I do agree, it is better against counters), Deathmark, Infest, Exhume, and Thoughtseize. Fighting through all of the hate they bring (thalia, grave hate, chalice, etc) with a wish board is pretty rough, as you need it to counter both their graveyard AND storm hate. I found that to be a good bit weaker than just changing the strategy to a combat based one (Sneak Attack). In fact, that is very similar to the configuration I took to SCG Denver (but I boarded in 3 show and tells, and left 1 in the board). In my experience anyway, this deck has a problem with a reactive sideboard in that there are too many things to react to. I suppose it is possible that this can change in a UBg version with Abrupt Decay, but I haven't yet explored how to make that work.


Either way, how do you live in Denver, play TinFins, and not come to our weekly tournaments?!?! Or should I already know who this is?

seconded... which is what my PM was about. :)

[dameus]

Maybe it's because I only play 2 ToA's, but I find that my (goldfish) kill is about 50/50 between ToA and Emmy. I'm assuming I get to draw 14 pre-combat if I go off T3 or earlier, but I realize that might be optimistic. Maybe I should only assume a pre-combat draw 14 on T1 or T2? I still haven't taken this deck for a spin at a tourny, so any practical advice from experience would be useful.

[Richard Cheese]

Depends on what you're up against, and how aggressive their start was. Only a handful of decks in the format can lay down 5-7 damage over the first few turns. If you land a reanimation spell, it's a pretty good sign that they have no counters, the only thing you have to watch for at that point is Swords/Burn in response to your draws. I'm actually testing out Dispel over Duress currently in a UB build with Emrakul replacing Tendrils entirely.

[dameus]

I'm starting to think Pact of Negation deserves some consideration. Most storm decks don't run it usually because it doesn't play well with LED; but we don't have to worry about that.
There's too many times I'm chosing between going off or delaying a turn to play a discard spell.

[Richard Cheese]

Just wanted to bump this thread with some of the latest ideas .dk and I have been working on, see if anyone else is still playing the deck, has some new ideas, etc..

Wincons
First, one of the major themes lately has been alternate win-cons to Tendrils. We don't really have a good way to search up Tendrils, and it sucks drawing 21 cards and whiffing on your combo. Tendrils does have the unique advantage of being able to keep you in the game in a pinch, or let you activate Grizzlebees again, but these are situations that seem to come up very rarely. Tendrils is also very mana intensive, for a deck that doesn't run a lot of rituals.

The simplest solution may be to cut Tendrils entirely and instead run a single Emrakul. You draw 7-14 pre-attack, and look for another Entomb/reanimation spell, then swing for lethal. This takes advantage of cards we're already running, and is one mana cheaper. It remains to be seen whether it can be as consistent trying to win via combat, with 7 fewer cards.

Another option in UBr lists is Conflagrate, as you can also use Entomb as a cheap tutor for it. It also might provide surprising utility against Maverick, although as a 1-of, it's not something you really want to count on. This doesn't have the same resiliency to counters as Tendrils, but then again we are most likely in the clear if Griselbrand is actually on the table. I find that people will generally do everything they can to prevent getting teabagged by the baddest dude in town. On the other hand, if the deck gains in popularity, this seems like a less sustainable path, as people will know that there is a single point of failure that can be countered. It also makes us more reliant on combat.


Protection
As always, we're struggling to get more protection into the deck, without watering down it's effectiveness. Running Emrakul over Tendrils frees up some slots, which is one of its main advantages. After all the discussion in the "why isn't Junk more popular" thread regarding the efficacy of discard vs. counters, I've been trying to move back to counters in my UB list, possibly a mix of counters and discard. The thing I really like about counters is that they deal with all the same problems, but they don't lose to top decks, and they can be free, which is really nice in a deck that's very tight on mana. Then the problem becomes figuring out which will be effective, do we have enough blue to justify Force, etc. Stifle is also a card I've been toying with. Its applications here are fairly narrow, but possibly important enough to warrant inclusion if we need to start winning via combat.

Sideboard
A few different options here, we really need more testing to see what's working. We can go the transformational route towards Ad Nauseum or Doomsday (Shelldock? Lab Maniac?), or possibly even something jankier like Polymorph or UB control. Or we go with protection for our primary combo in the form of bounce, more discard, hate for the hatebears, etc.. So far I think my most successful UB board has been somewhere in between, running Show and Tell and Cabal Ritual to power out Griselbrand, and bounce/Pithing Needle to deal with Karakas/Maze/Bridge. This was still with Tendrils though and the main plan was still to try and win the turn Griselbrand came into play, rather than give them the opportunity to find an answer. With Emrakul as the main win-con, that doesn't really work as well. I believe .dk was having pretty good results in UBr basically boarding into Sneak/Show, adding more Emrakuls, Sneak Attack, and Show and Tell.

[Ppa0]

Hey I didn't have the chance to read every post but I like the deck, I have tested the build that is on the front page and just had a question. With my limited testing it seemed to be pretty consistent and solid however I was just thinking when I dropped Grisslebrand and drawn a ton cards off of him on T2-3, I have quite a few reanimation spells. Why not add 1 Emrakul? I understand sometimes you get very low on life and you have to swing with Grisslebrand to get more cards and go off, but I think that adding 1 Emrakul would just add more to the deck then hurt it. Reasoning: if you entomb a Grisslebrand and they have Extirpate/Surgical Extraction your plan with him is over whether you saw it coming or not but this way you will have another chance with Emmy and all those entombs and reanimation spells are not wasted. Also if you reanimate him on the same turn as Grisslebrand before you swing you don't have to worry about fizzling. Lastly if you play versus a deck that is facing you down and you will lose next turn unless you wipe his board... well you have your man...-thing-creature.

[dameus]

Why not add 1 Emrakul?

You'll see the same suggestion on post #71 and just about all lists after that include 1x Emmy (including mine on #84).
I simply wouldn't play this deck without one MD.

[.dk]

yeah, you're both right. the latest lists that we've been testing all have 1 emrakul main for stated reasons, and also why Richard Cheese mentioned it in his last post. That's basically my most common win G1 - reanimate GB, draw 7-14, entomb + shallow grave emrakul out for the win.

I wouldn't recommend testing the list that is currently in the primer - it needs updating. We more or less have 2 different versions of the deck now - a UB version, and a UBr version. I feel that the UBr list is fairly tuned at the moment along with a pretty decent sideboard plan (you could easily argue 1-2 maindeck slots still - potentially cut ToA main for the 3rd Goryo's Vengeance or more discard). However, it is a little weak to wastelands, and is lacking a bit in the protection department. Currently revisiting the UB version...

Current UBr:


1 Badlands
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Burning Wish
4 Entomb
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Shallow Grave
3 Duress
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Faithless Looting
SB: 3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 4 Sneak Attack
SB: 4 Show and Tell
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Meltdown
SB: 1 Exhume
SB: 1 Deathmark

[Bobmans]

This deck is awesome. Just awesome.
I've been goldfishing a mono black version with LED + IT, a B/R version with burning wish and LED+IT, a B/U version with BS/Ponder and finally the UBr version. With the UBr version was the one i like most.


yeah, you're both right. the latest lists that we've been testing all have 1 emrakul main for stated reasons, and also why Richard Cheese mentioned it in his last post. That's basically my most common win G1 - reanimate GB, draw 7-14, entomb + shallow grave emrakul out for the win.

I found that when trying to setup ToA ftw you will always be able to also setup a hasted Grisel+Emmy and win with less effort. For this reason i have cut ToA from the Main. I left it in the board as an alt wincon. Also Conflagrate get moved out for now. It seems that you would always need to discard 13 cards drawn of at least 2 griselbrand activations + 1 attack with Griselbrand to do 20 damage. So it still is impossible to win with this card without having to attack with Griselbrand, making it kinda useless because setting up Emmy and attack with both is more easy to setup.

I've put together the following list and will try it the next tournament. The list is nearly the same as .dk last post. Changed some fethlands more to my liking and replaced the Duress and ToA for 4 Cabal Therapy.

The time Enter the Infinite becomes legal i will swap the 4 Sneak Attack to 4 Omniscience and i will squeeze in 1 Enter the Infinite and 1 of either Spiraling Ember or Conflagrate. The reason for this is that i want to be less combat dependant postboard. Also casting Emmy out of Omniscience is awesome. Although i do believe the Sneak Attack plan is a little more consistant where the Omniscience plan is dependant to Show and Tell.

Edit: Come to think of it, i don't think not having a alternative win condition mainboard is not that great of an idea. I might just include the 1 ToA back in.


1 Badlands
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn (might replace one for a mountain)
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Burning Wish
4 Entomb
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Shallow Grave
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Faithless Looting
SB: 3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 4 Sneak Attack
SB: 4 Show and Tell
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Meltdown
SB: 1 Exhume
SB: 1 Deathmark

[Wess]

This deck is a powerhouse! Also, the funnest Legacy deck that I've played :laugh:

Some notes:

Firstly, the sideboard, I don't have a transformational board or Plan B other than graveyard. The reason, its not needed. The power of the deck is absurd. The games I played, the opponents would bring in hate such as relic of progenitus, deathrite (main), surgical, bojuka, etc. None of these effect the deck's gameplan, I would just wait for a double casting of reanimation spells in response to their graveyard hate. That is why there are 2 reanimate in the sides, simply to bait their gy hate.

Also, I cut 2 griselbrand and 1 tendrils for 3 lim duls vault. The deck wants to entomb griselbrand, not discard griselbrand, thus, 4 careless researcher is terrrible, as with only 5 creatures the chances of a blind bin are not good.

Deck MVP: Daze, by a long shot. The deck only needs 1 land and goes off turn 1 or 2. Often I don't get a chance to play discard as its better to just combo off. I may maindeck 4 Force of Will, the only reason I haven't is between the disadvantage of chrome mox, lotus petal and lim duls vault I probably will not have a blue card in hand to pitch. I have them in the side, if I put them in the main, I may have to rebuild with gitaxian probe in the list.

Intuition VS Lim Dul : What this came down to, is that Lim dul allows me to run less Wincons (Intuition needs 3 of each), and tutors my sideboard hate. Intuition's only advantage was that it can bin Grisel instead of just tutoring for the entomb. But that's not good games 2 and 3, as I want to emtomb and reanimate in the same turn to dodge hate.

I will be playing this UB list in the Legacy DE's.


Protection:

Daze X 4 <--------MVP
Thoughtseize X 2
Inquisition of Kozilek X 2

Filter/Tutor:

Brainstorm X 4
Ponder X 4
Lim Dul's Vault X 3
Entomb X 4

Acceleration:

Lotus Petal X 4
Dark Ritual X 4
Chrome Mox X 3

Reanimation:

Shallow Grave X 4
Goryo's Vengeance X 3

Win Cons:

Emrakul the Eaons Torn X 1
Griselbrand X 2
Tendrils of Agony X 2

SideBoard:

Reanimate X 2
Dread of Night X 2
Engineered Explosives X 2
Force of Will X 3
Thoughtseize X 1
Chain of Vapor X 2
Mindbreak Trap X 1
Pithing Needle X 2

[.dk]

My take on the last couple posts...

In general, I think it is worth it to splash a 3rd color. Be it red, white, or green - each have their merits. We are fast enough (like TES), that we can play around wasteland.

@Bobmans: With the red splash - I found myself hating Burning Wish every time I cast it. The deck doesn't make boatloads of mana, so I was always struggling to have enough to BW and then cast Tendrils - could be fixed with LED's, but I think we've had that discussion before. However, that may be the right direction to take the red splash.

I saw after your edit that you think having a maindeck alternative win con has merit - I see your original point as well (although I don't seem to be able to successfully make a hasty Griselbrand and Emrakul pre-combat as consistently as you). If you have burning wishes, you sort of already have an alternate win con main - you just need enough mana to cast them all. Like Rite of Flames or LED's or something. I still think there is something there with UBr, I just haven't been able to figure it out quite yet. Conflagrate was probably bad, as it is too conditional, as you said - especially without a good way to protect it.

Also I tried Omniscience with SnT a long time ago - and it felt like it just turned into a 3 card combo at that point. I liked Sneak Attack for the same reason that Sneak and Show does - it's actually cast-able if SnT gets countered. It does make you combat reliant (as you said) so maybe you want a wishable answer like Eye of Nowhere (as awful as the casting cost is) to make sure you can deal with Humility, Ensnaring Bridge, etc.

@Wess: Yeah, Daze can be very awesome since the deck is so fast. And this deck isn't limited in design space of counterspells since we aren't running LED, so countermagic is certainly an option. I like targeted discard main (granted, you're running 4), so that I can get more information on what my opponent has (and may bring in) for games 2 and 3 to adjust my gameplan. Been trying to figure out a way to fit Daze in to any of my builds, but haven't really found a configuration I liked yet.

That said - I think you might be a little too reliant upon finding Entomb in your first couple draws. Finding a 4-of is not a guarantee; especially not with only 4 brainstorms and 4 ponders to find it. I personally like having more ways to discard Griselbrand (careful study, cabal therapy, thoughtseize, etc) - in your build, I think Intuition might have a lot of merit in this regard over Lim-Dul's Vault, considering it can bin Griselbrand to reanimate. But I do also understand the merit of being able to cut some maindeck wincons for LDV. You may consider going to 1 Tendrils in that case depending on the mana you run. After swinging, you need to make UUB to LDV into tendrils and cast brainstorm/ponder to draw it - that seems potentially doable with some number of rituals, petals, and chrome moxes.

Also, if you're planning on just getting more reanimation spells post board to counteract grave hate, wouldn't you want the 4th Goryo's Vengeance? Can you explain what the rest of your sideboard is for as well? I can take some guesses...

Dread of Night - Thalia
EE - ?? Seems a bit mana intensive to be of real use, but maybe I'm missing something
Pithing Needle - Deathrite, Tormod's Crypt, Nihil Spellbomb, Relic?

Good ideas from a different angle though - let us know how your lists test out in practice.

[Wess]

@.dk

Intuition is no good, because my list goes all in on the graveyard strategy, so, to beat the most played gy hate, you have to be able to entomb+reanimate same turn.

As for the sideboard, its a work in progress. But, what you have to understand is that I play on MTGO, so, my deck/sideboard will be tuned for that meta. Currently, the meta is dominated by BUG, Combo (Belcher and ANT) and counterbalance decks. So, my sideboard is:

Engineered Explosives = Most versatile counter-hate, kills Turn 1 Goblins from TES and Belcher (if I can't go off), defeats counterbalance, RIP, Thorn etc.
Dread of Night= Thalia, Aven Mindcensor (Teeg is no problem for my build)
Pithing Needle= DRS, Relic, Crypt, Karakas etc.
Chain of Vapor= LotV (though you don't see this)

Really, the tough part is deciding what to side in game 2, or if at all to side anything in. I might try running 4 Dark confidant in side as well to counter discard and combo, which isn't so scary since I can cut to just 1 Gris and 1 Emmy.

As for Reanimate in side over Goryo, its 1 less mana, which is HUGE. Remember, its just to bait them, you need, Entomb + Reanimate effect + Reanimate effect to go off through hate, so 4 mana is much easier than 5 mana.

Will post a tourno report tommorow.

Cheers,

Wess

[.dk]

@.dk

Intuition is no good, because my list goes all in on the graveyard strategy, so, to beat the most played gy hate, you have to be able to entomb+reanimate same turn.

As for the sideboard, its a work in progress. But, what you have to understand is that I play on MTGO, so, my deck/sideboard will be tuned for that meta. Currently, the meta is dominated by BUG, Combo (Belcher and ANT) and counterbalance decks. So, my sideboard is:

Engineered Explosives = Most versatile counter-hate, kills Turn 1 Goblins from TES and Belcher (if I can't go off), defeats counterbalance, RIP, Thorn etc.
Dread of Night= Thalia, Aven Mindcensor (Teeg is no problem for my build)
Pithing Needle= DRS, Relic, Crypt, Karakas etc.
Chain of Vapor= LotV (though you don't see this)

Really, the tough part is deciding what to side in game 2, or if at all to side anything in. I might try running 4 Dark confidant in side as well to counter discard and combo, which isn't so scary since I can cut to just 1 Gris and 1 Emmy.

As for Reanimate in side over Goryo, its 1 less mana, which is HUGE. Remember, its just to bait them, you need, Entomb + Reanimate effect + Reanimate effect to go off through hate, so 4 mana is much easier than 5 mana.

Will post a tourno report tommorow.

Cheers,

Wess

Fair, I hear that there are less FoW on MTGO than real life, so maybe your success rate of resolving entomb is higher. Definitely look forward to seeing your results though.

[Bobmans]

..
Daze X 4 <--------MVP
Thoughtseize X 2
Inquisition of Kozilek X 2
Lim Dul's Vault X 3
..
SideBoard:
..
Reanimate X 2
Dread of Night X 2
Engineered Explosives X 2
Force of Will X 3
Thoughtseize X 1
Chain of Vapor X 2
Mindbreak Trap X 1
Pithing Needle X 2

I really like your approach on this deck with the "free" protection. Also i have been thinking about better options to support a turn 1/2 combo instead of Thoughtseize, IoK or Cabal Therapy. I've been looking into other "free" spells and found interest in Misdirection and Unmask. I figured that both can support a turn 1/2 combo. Now i do like multi roles in supportive cards. Misdirection in an opponents turn one on Hymn, Thoughtseize or IoK sounds tasty. Where Unmask can be cast on youself to discard Griselbert.
As for Lim-dul's Vault, this card is cast as early as turn 2 to enable turn 3 business. I like it better than Intuition as it costs less and as it is both black and blue it can be used as fodder for both unmask and misdirection.
So my configuration would be:

4 Daze
2 Misdirection
2 Unmask
3 Lim-Dul's Vault

As for the sideboard plan. It is a solid plan, but i am not to sold on 2 Reanimate, 1 Thoughtseize and 1 Mindbreak Trap. I understand the Reanimate plan, i would rather go on to protect it with more counters/discard. Where the drawback of Thoughtseize is a bit problematic as you can have a maximum of 5 damage before activating Griselbert twice. And still there lot of Lightning Bolts. Also having fetchlands does not help. So i would go for either Duress or Cabal Therapy as they can also remove FoW. Next to this i think that 3 FoW is the right amount. As i would have 2 Misdirection and 2 Unmask making 7 remove some other business from the game a lot. Personally i would also replace Dread of Night for Deathmark seeing so much BUG lists lately that it might be helpfull to also take care of DRS, Ooze, Teeg, ethersworn cannonist, etc.
I think i would make it like this:

3 Force of Will
3 Deathmark
3 Duress
2 Pithing Needle
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Engineered Explosives


I do like the UB list like this, but i am sticking to the UBR version for now.

I do agree that Burning Wish can be either dead or clunky. Even in my OmniTell list it mostly feels clunky and it will 9/10 times go for S&T in that list anyway. I like the sideboard plan of the UBR list as that is the main reason i am running that list. Burning wish is more of a backup plan, but requires so much mana. Although during goldfishing i never got out of mana as i always found some way to get the right mana. I haven't played it on a tournament yet. Until i have done that, i will stick to the same list for a better evaluation.

[Bobmans]

Against Empty the Warrens this looks really funny to reanimate: Massacre Wurm...

[Wess]

Well, my 1st MTGO DE didn't go so well, ended up 2-2, should have been 3-1 but I mis-clicked a lim-dul's vault.

Round 1: Burn

Game 1: I have the Godly trio of Dark Ritual, Entomb, Shallow Grave. Turn 1, he wins roll, plays a mountain and a goblin, I laugh at his puny 2/2 goblin attacking me. My turn, Etomb Gris and reanimate him. I draw 14 before combat phase to try and get an Emmy to swing for 22, this doesn't work. I then swing for 7 and draw another 7, but don't find anything. I try lim dul's vault, but run out of life, uugh.

Side: Out 2 thoughtseize, in 2 FOW
Game 2: I smash him turn 3 for 22 with Emmy and Gris.
Game 3: I animate Gris early, draw 14 and find nothing. Decide to set up for another turn and gain 7 life attacking. On his turn he plays pyrostatic pillar, ughh. gg
Note: I got fireblasted for the lose both times both times.

Note: Lim Duls is tough to get your winning card, because we don't have that much free mana, and I need 2 blue to search, then a ponder or brainstorm to draw it.

Round 2 Junk?

Game 1
I have nothing good in hand, but have ponder, ok, I keep. Nothing happens for a few turns and he has a KOTR on the board. The next turn, I reanimate Gris, he responds by Swords, I draw 7. I then reanimate another Gris and proceed to Tendrils for the win.
Game 2
Was quick game, basically, he lands Relic of Progenitus turn 1. On my turn 3 I reanimate Gris, he cracks relic, I double reanimate and storm him out.

Round 3 UW Counterbalance

Game 1
I go for turn 2 Gris after he plays SDT. I cast shallow grave, in response, he Spell Pierce's it, I Dark Ritual in Response, he FOW's, I daze his FOW :laugh:
Game 2
I don't have a fast hand and he lands Relic of Progenitus the countertop combo and rest in peace. :mad: No problem though, I play engineered explosives blow up his gravehate. Next turn I double reanimate through his FOW and relic with my force of will and reanimate+shallow grave.

Round 4 Burn

Again, I whiff on Gris both times.


Realistically, neither beating with Emrakul for 15 of storming off was that reliable, and lim dul's was a bit underwhelming, especially against burn. Its a tough call what to do, make the storm more reliable or keep the Emmy plan. Basically, I found that I would never want to attack with just Emrakul, I always went for Griselbrand, so, I may have to make some tweaks to make casting and finding Tendrils easier. If I did, I would have one both burn matches with ease and 4-0'd.

[Bobmans]

@wess
Kinda disappointing when you expect more out of the deck.
How where the discard spells? Did those help?
And although draw 14 should be enough to win the game, i found myself fizzling with the UBR version myself couple of times. It still lacks consistancy post-grizzlebrand.

[Wess]

I think that this deck is missing a card that will make it top tier, unfortunately, I don't think that card has been printed yet.:frown:

The real problem is that every card that is awesome after a Gris reanimation (ie. Diabolic Intent, Snapcaster Mage, Burnt Offerring, Grim Tutor etc), is bad before a Gris reanimation. Griselbrand alone never gets there, because after drawing 14-21, a Goyf, burn or hate piece will race your deck. I think its essential that this deck wins on the turn Gris is reanimated, otherwise, its better to play Next Level Reanimator.


Concerning discard, its ok but not close to being as good as Daze/counter. After a Gris reanimation, its better in that it ups your storm count, but that's rarely ever an issue in the first place.

Edit. I'm thinking that a rebuild is in order. I just realized that post Gris reanimation, there is a 1 mana instant that allows you to cast every mana source and draw your entire deck---Angel's Grace. Will try a test build with cunning wish, then post Gris, you have a 4 mana win-con (wish+angels grace)

[dameus]

Sorry, Wess. Angel's Grace doesn't do what you want it to. It only protects against damage - not life loss / pay life effects - and you can only pay life you have.

[Bobmans]

Sorry, Wess. Angel's Grace doesn't do what you want it to. It only protects against damage - not life loss / pay life effects - and you can only pay life you have.

It seems that you can get you're life total into the negative since you can't lse the game this turn, but i think thst you can't activate Griselbrand when you have 6life or less.
Sorry bad writing, but this smartphone is sooo annoying. :-/

[Viridia]

It seems that you can get you're life total into the negative since you can't lse the game this turn, but i think thst you can't activate Griselbrand when you have 6life or less.
Sorry bad writing, but this smartphone is sooo annoying. :-/

This is true, you can lose life below 0 because you can't lose the game this turn, however you can't pay life you don't have (EG Griselbrands D7 when <7 life)

[Wess]

Right, slipped my mind on the life thing, I got excited :rolleyes:

However, there is another card that does work, for only 1 more mana : Search Warrant http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=253614

It would be draw 21 cards +21 initial Gris +8 naturally drawn + (casted cards, entomb, brainstorm, fetechland) =53+ cards. A single Laboratory Maniac is an auto non-targeted win condition

[Bobmans]

Right, slipped my mind on the life thing, I got excited :rolleyes:

However, there is another card that does work, for only 1 more mana : Search Warrant http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=253614

It would be draw 21 cards +21 initial Gris +8 naturally drawn + (casted cards, entomb, brainstorm, fetechland) =53+ cards. A single Laboratory Maniac is an auto non-targeted win condition

That mana being U and W. It feels kinda complicated to set up Search Warrant ftw. I will toy around with it a bit in Cockatrice.

Also i have been thinking about a setup with LED+IT. As it can help with both Pre- as Post Griselbrand. In this case i am thinking of cutting Emrakul for Skirge Familiar so i can setup a discard outlet as a way to convert 'dead' cards into mana.
EDIT: Something like the Bargain deck had during the Urza block.
I am not sure of the setup tho. Maybe something like:

4 Griselbrand
1 Skirge Familiar
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Faithless Looting
3 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Dark Ritual
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
2 Goryo's Vengeance
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Scalding Tarn

Sideboard:
1 Tendrils of Agony
14 others..

It looks cool, but it might be just rubbish. Lacking to much protection.

[.dk]

Well, I did pretty terrible at GP Denver, but overall I was pretty happy with my list. It has a ton of play, and in my opinion, fixes a lot of the problems I've historically had with the list. Sometimes you just can't beat 3 Force of Wills + Extirpate though...

Here is what I ran:

Maindeck:

4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Children of Korlis
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Entomb
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Careful Study
4 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Karakas


Sideboard:

4 Show and Tell
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
2 Echoing Truth
3 Flusterstorm
3 Divert
1 Karakas


I ended up 2-3 and dropped after that, and was pretty disappointed. The deck played pretty well - I played extremely loose in one of my matches that likely cost me the match. I'll post a pseudo report later...

I took the same list except for 1 change to the sideboard (4 Flusterstorm and 2 Divert) to the Legacy Redux on Sunday, and ended up 4-3 (which easily could have been better - lost the die roll against UG Infect, which killed me on T2. Sometimes they're just faster). I didn't take very good notes during that, but I'll try to come up with something there as well.

Overall - I love the maindeck. It's insane. It has so much play, and can get around most if not all non-Leyline/RIP/Surgical/Extirpate grave hate with relative ease (i.e. Deathrite Shaman at this point). It goes infinite relatively easily as well, as I found out in one of my matches against elves... Only thing I wish I could fit in are Dazes (which I considered cutting Careful Study for - but no testing to find out if that is ok).

The sideboard, however... still needs work. The Show and Tell plan is fine - it basically transforms into Count Chocula (shoutout to phazonmuant). However... it's too weak to many of the same things that the maindeck is. Clique still gets you, as does boatloads of counterspells. And Surgical is awful if they hit Show and Tell.

I think if I were to continue with this (which I will... later. Setting this deck aside for a while) - I'd look for a more dramatic transformation out of the sideboard. My other idea that I decided not to run due to little testing was:


4 Rest in Peace
4 Helm of Obedience
4 Enlightened Tutor
3 Flusterstorm


Honestly, that may have been better. It attacks from a completely different angle, and they will have already boarded out their Abrupt Decays. I heard 2nd hand from Richard Cheese that Koby had alluded to running Painter/Grindstone out of the board. Similar idea. Blank their graveyard hate, blank their Show and Tell hate (if they next level you), blank their storm hate, blank their Pithing Needle on Griselbrand, and maybe get some free wins from the RIP/Helm decks that are already out there. The manabase, however, would need a bit of tweaking, I think to make sure that you could reliably have access to W on the board.

Anyway - that's my summary... more later. Let me know if you have any questions about the list or card choices (since some of them are obviously wacky).

[Wess]

@.dk Sorry to hear the deck didn't perform optimally.

I've had a bit more success with it on the addition of Search Warrant, so I was really surprised to see your list already running a better card: Children of Korlis. I found with Search Warrant I would never fizzle and would always draw my deck, the problem was the mana was extremely tight because blue/white only came from the petals/mox.

Also, I've played around 10 matches against top tier control decks, and have smashed them. You really need to run maindeck daze, its the best disruption the deck can have, along with Force out of the side. That, combined with our mana advantage and multiple reanimate effects overwhelms them.

Sideboard is definitely a tough call.

@Bob

I haven't played with the UBr list yet. As to your list with LED, you have to ask yourself, why not just play TES at that point?
I am going to replace search warrant with children and test that.

[Bobmans]

@Bob

I haven't played with the UBr list yet. As to your list with LED, you have to ask yourself, why not just play TES at that point?

I asked myself the same question, but then again... Griselbrand.

[.dk]

Ehh, I think if you're running LEDs you probably should be on TES. We're relying on a resource that is extremely vulnerable (graveyard) already. Going all in with LED just makes you worse to counters and random grave hate.

But that's my take...

[Bobmans]

Yeah i know. It was purely aesthetical to go this way.

[Richard Cheese]

Yeah i know. It was purely aesthetical to go this way.

I like the honesty. Storming out off Griselbrand just gives you a warm feeling inside. That being said, I'm still leaning more towards Emrakul for a win. This is my current list:


4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Careful Study
4 Entomb
4 Griselbrand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
2 Chrome Mox
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 4 Show and Tell
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Chain of Vapor
SB: 3 Flusterstorm


So you don't have to break out diff, I've essentially gone down to 13 land, switched to 6 discard that can self-target, up to 3 Emrakul, and the full 8 reanimation effects, with a board of protection and Show and Tell. I think the UBw version is probably best at the moment, but I think .dk is doing a great job developing that, so I'm focusing on UB.

Right now it seems like Surgical Extraction is taking a backseat to Deathrite and Rest In Peace, and single shot stuff like Spellbomb and Crypt, so I don't feel it's necessary to completely abandon the reanimation plan postboard. I did speak to Koby a bit at the event, and he suggested Painter/Grindstone. I haven't messed with it much, but it doesn't seem like a bad plan if you're avoiding the graveyard entirely. It's compact and cost-efficient, and it probably isn't a big deal to splash red for a bunch of red blasts in the board. I guess the question is whether it's worth making the manabase worse at all in the main deck just to enable a secondary sideboard plan.

[Koby]

I think if the Painter plan were to be included in the SB, a few City of Traitors could be used to help ramp up that plan. With Dark Rituals, it's easy as turn 2 -- Dark Ritual, Painter, Grindstone, City of Traitors, activate. BOOM Turn 2 kill. (ya ya 5 specific cards in hand magical xmasland blah blah) They maindeck has the streamline to take advantage of such openings, and the cantrips provide the necessary dig to make it work too. It conveniently dodges all Flusterstorm and some Spell Pierce interactions too, which isn't to be dismissed.

For a combo deck manabase, you can probably swap an Island and a Swamp for their red dual equivalents and manage just fine. With enough fetchlands, it won't matter, and assuming you're able to combo doesn't effect it.

@Richard Cheese
Your list is just a faster version of Reanimator at this point, but lacks staying power due to the reanimation spells. Does this improve or worsen compared to the Tendrils combo kill via Griselbrand?

[Richard Cheese]

I think if the Painter plan were to be included in the SB, a few City of Traitors could be used to help ramp up that plan. With Dark Rituals, it's easy as turn 2 -- Dark Ritual, Painter, Grindstone, City of Traitors, activate. BOOM Turn 2 kill. (ya ya 5 specific cards in hand magical xmasland blah blah) They maindeck has the streamline to take advantage of such openings, and the cantrips provide the necessary dig to make it work too. It conveniently dodges all Flusterstorm and some Spell Pierce interactions too, which isn't to be dismissed.

For a combo deck manabase, you can probably swap an Island and a Swamp for their red dual equivalents and manage just fine. With enough fetchlands, it won't matter, and assuming you're able to combo doesn't effect it.

@Richard Cheese
Your list is just a faster version of Reanimator at this point, but lacks staying power due to the reanimation spells. Does this improve or worsen compared to the Tendrils combo kill via Griselbrand?

I still go for the combo kill, reanimate Griselbrand, draw a bunch, find an Entomb or Emrakul + pitch spell + reanimation, swing for 22. I think both kill conditions have their merits. Using Emrakul means you need 1 less mana, and you have built-in tutors in the form of Entombs. It also lets you just grab Emrakul and swing if they have some troublesome permanents or have dropped under 15 from Bob, Thoughtseize, etc., and gives you much better odds with Show and Tell postboard. On the downside, you're pretty cold to Karakas, and it's fundamentally 7 less cards because you need to "go off" before attacking. Like other versions, you usually end up in a pretty good spot to try again the next turn, but 7 cards is a lot of cards.

With Tendrils, you get something that's harder to fight on the stack, 7 more cards, and another lifegain outlet so you can theoretically chain into more Griselbrand activations if your storm count is too low. The downside is that we don't really have space for tons of rituals like TES or AnT, so the extra mana can be important, and you either have to run several copies or some way to find it like Children of Korlis or Diabolic Intent or something. It also, at least to me, feels like more of a dead card pre-combo. Whereas we already have this pitch/reanimate framework for Griselbrand that works with Emrakul to clear the board or just go for the kill, Tendrils without Griselbrand usually just buys you a couple turns at best.

We've also looked at conflagrate a bit as the kill condition. It has the potential to basically combine the best of both worlds and let you kill post-combat for the extra cards, but you can still grab it with Entomb. The downside, obviously, is the damn :r::r: cost. I guess if you were trying to rock Painter/Grindstone postboard, you could take the list above, and drop two basics for Volcanic and Badlands like you said, then -2 or 3 Emrakul and -1/2 Goryo's Vengeance for some number of Conflagrate and possibly Rite of Flame or even Mox Diamond. I don't think I would bother with Tombs/Cities in the board though. One thing we've noticed about Show and Tell is that you get a lot more fragile postboard, and Surgical/Extirpate can still be terrible. I would probably run 4 Painter, 4 Grindstone, 4 blasts, and probably either 3 Flusterstorm or Tormod's Crypt, depending on how many copies of Emrakul I think are running around. Then again, I'm not all that good at this game, just seems right in my head.

[phazonmutant]

It's awesome that you guys are continuing to develop this deck, and I like the lists that have been posted.


I think if the Painter plan were to be included in the SB, a few City of Traitors could be used to help ramp up that plan. With Dark Rituals, it's easy as turn 2 -- Dark Ritual, Painter, Grindstone, City of Traitors, activate. BOOM Turn 2 kill. (ya ya 5 specific cards in hand magical xmasland blah blah) They maindeck has the streamline to take advantage of such openings, and the cantrips provide the necessary dig to make it work too. It conveniently dodges all Flusterstorm and some Spell Pierce interactions too, which isn't to be dismissed.

For a combo deck manabase, you can probably swap an Island and a Swamp for their red dual equivalents and manage just fine. With enough fetchlands, it won't matter, and assuming you're able to combo doesn't effect it.

@Richard Cheese
Your list is just a faster version of Reanimator at this point, but lacks staying power due to the reanimation spells. Does this improve or worsen compared to the Tendrils combo kill via Griselbrand?

Re: sol lands, in a deck with Dark Ritual I'm not really a fan. The problem is that none of the spells you want to play pre-board have lots of colorless mana so the lands are slower and don't add to storm maindeck. Also, a transformative board plan should be as compact as possible because Pithing Needle, counterspells, and discard all are relevant cards to slog through with both combos, so you still want to play some amount of anti-hate.
The painter-grindstone combo is a solid suggestion, but it seems like it should be possible to simply fight through the hate at least as well. Instead of devoting the board to a transformational plan, how horrible is it to just have a pile of Pithing Needles and Echoing Truths and a couple Show and Tells?



So you don't have to break out diff, I've essentially gone down to 13 land, switched to 6 discard that can self-target, up to 3 Emrakul, and the full 8 reanimation effects, with a board of protection and Show and Tell. I think the UBw version is probably best at the moment, but I think .dk is doing a great job developing that, so I'm focusing on UB.

Props for being willing to look outside the box for what this deck wants to do, but I honestly think that the Next-Level Reanimator lists are better at doing what you're trying to do. Dark Ritual helps speed up game 1, but the fundamental problem with the deck is more consistency in its 2-card combo than speed. Game 2, the Dark Rituals in your list don't do anything to go faster or through hate, but the land base is predicated on having extra mana sources. Comparatively, the NLR lists have more protection in the form of Daze and Force, but are still able to have disgustingly fast starts with Petals.

.dk:
Your list looks really sweet. Did it feel like it was able to play through hate? Did you feel light on disruption? How was the Mox Diamond?

[.dk]

Your list looks really sweet. Did it feel like it was able to play through hate? Did you feel light on disruption? How was the Mox Diamond?

Thanks! In general, yes most hate was very easy to play through. Deathrite Shaman and most targeted graveyard stuff. I "got got" by Faerie Macabre once in the Legacy Redux due to me completely forgetting it was even a card though... Fun story from playing against 12 post in the Redux event:

My hand contains 2 Entombs, and 2 reanimation spells. I know that he has 2 crop rotations in his hand from an earlier Thoguhtseize - so he has the potential to fetch Bojuka Bog once. I see one trop and a vesuva untapped, so I think I'm golden. I entomb for GB - resolves. Shallow Grave - Crop Rotation in response - Goryo's Vengeance in response - crack Vesuva that was copying one of my fetches for another Green source (I had completely forgotten it was copying a fetch - thought it was colorless, so that was my first mistake) and then Crop Rotation in response. So, stack is:

Crop Rotation
Goryo's Vengeance
Crop Rotation
Shallow Grave

I ended up playing this incorrectly, but apparently it wouldn't have mattered. Should have let the top Crop Rotation resolve for Bojuka Bog, let Vengeance fizzle, let the second crop rotation resolve for whatever, and then Entomb for Griselbrand again. I failed to actually do that - but apparently wouldn't have mattered as he had a blue up and a Flusterstorm in hand. But in general, it seems pretty easy to play around most hate. Just need to know how.

And an interaction I hadn't actually caught until Monday after the event - if someone Surgicals you (SnT, Griselbrand, whatever), you can Entomb for Emrakul in response to make it fizzle, which is pretty cool. It's possible that leaving Entomb in along with the SnT plan is actually correct for this, considering how weak that plan is to Surgical. Still does nothing about Extirpate, but nothing does... Understanding that interaction might make the SnT sideboard plan more feasible than I thought as well.

Disruption... yes, it feels light. I really wish I could run Daze as well, but I don't feel like there is enough room in the maindeck. The only thing I can think of would be to cut the Careful Studies for Dazes, but I'm pretty sure that's a bad idea. It's very possible that cutting them for 3 Cabal Therapies is correct though - they can still function as combo pieces then to discard a creature from your hand, and also interacts with Dark Ritual better than Careful Study. I would probably be trying that configuration out next if I were going to tweak anything.

The singleton Mox Diamond was amazing all weekend. Pretty much insane. It fixed mana early on to cast Ponders, ditched extra lands to accelerate, was a non-wastelandable rainbow land, and also functioned beautifully as the 5th Lotus Petal to cast Children of Korlis post reanimation (the original reason it was included). Especially if you're running 15 land like my list, I don't think I would leave home without it. If you're not splashing though, or running less land, it's probably not a great idea.

[Richard Cheese]

It's awesome that you guys are continuing to develop this deck, and I like the lists that have been posted.
Props for being willing to look outside the box for what this deck wants to do, but I honestly think that the Next-Level Reanimator lists are better at doing what you're trying to do. Dark Ritual helps speed up game 1, but the fundamental problem with the deck is more consistency in its 2-card combo than speed. Game 2, the Dark Rituals in your list don't do anything to go faster or through hate, but the land base is predicated on having extra mana sources. Comparatively, the NLR lists have more protection in the form of Daze and Force, but are still able to have disgustingly fast starts with Petals.


Totally disagree. What this deck wants to do is reanimate Griselbrand and win that same turn. Because Griselbrand's effectiveness as a draw engine diminishes rapidly as the game progresses (in the majority of matchups), it's necessary to try and do this as early in the game as possible. For that purpose alone, Ritual is indispensable. Postboard, it really helps a 13-land deck cast a crucial 3-mana spell, and helps you protect it by providing extra mana for discard spells or to play around taxing counters like Daze. In my build, I also don't need to pull all the reanimation effects postboard, so it allows me to combo off early if presented with the opportunity.

I personally don't like NLR because it doesn't seem to have a clearly defined goal, and is just stuck somewhere between Reanimator and Combo. Flashing a Jin in EoT to Mind Twist someone is cute, but it's not worth burning an Entomb or pitch spell and a reanimation spell for. Entomb is probably the most important card in the deck because there are no good alternatives to it, so wasting one to get rid of counters, when it's the spell you really want to resolve in the first place, just doesn't make sense. I get that running more creatures makes Careful Study better, but it seems like the lists I'm seeing in that thread are cutting some number of CS, and don't run discard that can double as a pitch outlet either, so I just can't see wasting two critical spells where targeted discard would probably work just as well. Maybe I'm missing something because I just don't understand what that deck offers either in terms of consistency or speed besides a small counter suite. I tested running counters over discard in my UB list, and I'm pretty positive that in this archetype, the extra utility of being able to bin your own creature outweighs the downsides of discard vs. counters.

[Wess]

Just 3-1'd a DE, the list will be up tommorow, so won't write it out. Should/could have been 4-0, but in the last match, I drew 23 cards and couldn't find a mana source for the win :mad: , almost mathematically impossible, but, oh well, that's magic.

On the other hand, I drew the absolute turn 0/1 Godhand in my 2nd match of: Entomb, Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, Shallow Grave, Thoughtseize, Daze, Underground Sea.
Cast Lotus Petal--->Thoughtseize, take FOW--->play land--->Dark Ritual--->Entomb Gris--->Shallow Grave with Daze backup :laugh:

Quick Summary: Beat 2 counterbalance decks, then a green sun hate bear deck. Lost to the easy matchup of Belcher in the 4th round. 1st game to the impossible math, the 2nd because I had a godhand and figured to combo off on Turn 1 before he got to play a turn, Well, should have waited as I got surgical extracted, and forgot to board in my Emrakul. I kept playing thinking I had it in my deck, entomb'd with a shallow grave in hand and the mana to cast it, but no Emrakul....really, my bad.

Children of Korlis is the real deal, out of 14 games I've played with it, the final match today is the only time I've ever fizzled. Also, IMO, the deck NEEDS to maindeck 3-4 daze to be competitive.

[.dk]

Daze does seem pretty ideal - I just can't seem to find a good way to fit it in without drastically reducing the effectiveness of the combo itself. There just aren't enough slots. The biggest problem I find myself having is actually getting Griselbrand into the graveyard due to only being able to run 4 entomb. I may test replacing Careful Studies with Daze at some point, but that seems like it might cause some big issues. I'd be more apt to replace the studies with Cabal Therapy and run a 7 maindeck discard suite as a protection/combo piece hybrid and just plan to go off T2. I'm also a bit wary of cutting down on the reanimation targets as well, since that makes Careful Study even weaker than it already is with only 5 targets maindeck (especially if you are on SnT post board).

If there is a better way to fit in Daze though, I'm all ears since it is practically a hard counter in this deck.

[dameus]

Flashing a Jin in EoT to Mind Twist someone is cute, but it's not worth burning an Entomb or pitch spell and a reanimation spell for. Entomb is probably the most important card in the deck because there are no good alternatives to it, so wasting one to get rid of counters, when it's the spell you really want to resolve in the first place, just doesn't make sense. I get that running more creatures makes Careful Study better, but it seems like the lists I'm seeing in that thread are cutting some number of CS, and don't run discard that can double as a pitch outlet either, so I just can't see wasting two critical spells where targeted discard would probably work just as well. Maybe I'm missing something ...
Keep in mind that while Jin-G has the obvious vulnerability to removal, it's effect is considerably more than you describe. When you flash him in on your opp's EoT, you get the Mind Twist effect as well as your turn to attack with it and, most importantly, draw 7 cards at your EoT! In my book, Mind Twist AND Draw 7 is easily worth a pitch and rez effect (if you have Entomb, I think the NLR guys would agree Gris would be the 1st choice).

[Richard Cheese]

Keep in mind that while Jin-G has the obvious vulnerability to removal, it's effect is considerably more than you describe. When you flash him in on your opp's EoT, you get the Mind Twist effect as well as your turn to attack with it and, most importantly, draw 7 cards at your EoT! In my book, Mind Twist AND Draw 7 is easily worth a pitch and rez effect (if you have Entomb, I think the NLR guys would agree Gris would be the 1st choice).

I see. I was missing the fact that something reanimated during the opponent's end step would stick around until the beginning of the next one. Sometimes I still live in the old world of "end of turn". This actually opens up some interesting plays in TinFins as well that I was missing. Flash in EOT in response to DRS/Surgical, have a blocker for their turn, draw before their end step, or just reanimate on their turn if you're light on mana.

Still not a fan of burning reanimation spells if I'm not attempting to win on the spot. The whole reason the deck does well against control is that it can throw haymakers until they just can't stop them anymore.

[dameus]

So, I know TinFins and NLR have somewhat different objectives. However, they're much more similar than not. I thought it would be useful to show the core of both to have a more constructive discussion on what to do with the remaining design space. The following is the near-consensus core of both decks (although I know a few of us - including me - have tried some slight variations even from this):

14 lands
4 Lotus Petal
4 Griselbrand
1 Emmy
8 instant Reanimate effects
4 Entomb
3 Careful Study
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder

which only leaves 16 slots for design space and lots of candidates. I prefer 1 extra land (15 total) and at least 8 protection slots. So, I only have 7 flex slots.

Candidates:
2 more Ponder
1 more CS
more fatties (either Jin-G or Emmy)
more protection
more (less ideal) reanimate effects (Exhume, Animate Dead, Reanimate)
flawed tutors
more acceleration (Dark Rit, Chrome Mox, Diamond Mox)
Tendrils
Children of Korlis

Since this is the TinFins thread, if I want to keep the fun, win-on-the-spot combo option, acceleration (or really non-land mana) is an absolute necessity, probably requiring 6 more slots (beyond Lotus Petal). That only leaves 1 slot for a CoK or ToA. That's tough!
It's not hard to see the temptation of an NLR approach that tries to do without Dark Rit and other accel to gain flex slots for constructive use. The trade-off is that while Gris gets out nearly as fast as TinFins, it needs to finish the job on the following turn.
Anyway, it really drives home the constraints and limited choices.

[Richard Cheese]

This is probably too cute, but what about a single Worldspine Wurm over Emrakul #3? Reanimate, swing, sac to Therapy, hilarity ensues.

[.dk]

This is probably too cute, but what about a single Worldspine Wurm over Emrakul #3? Reanimate, swing, sac to Therapy, hilarity ensues.

If you're going to run a list with a bunch of reanimation targets, that's probably a pretty good one... having the interaction with therapy is pretty awesome.

Alternatively, you could probably come up with some list that utilizes mostly Worldspine Worm and it's synergy with Diabolic Intent and Therapy... but that's probably a different deck entirely.

[Wess]

This is the list I've been running, which is performing very well. I had numerous turn 1/turn 0 wins. Overall, I am going to keep tweaking with it to make it faster. There is the argument that speeding the deck up makes it less consistent, however, I would argue against that. I find that if you can combo off faster, you actually make your deck MORE consistent. The reason being, game 2 and game 3 opponents bring in hate. If you can combo turn 1 or 2, then you effectively dodge a lot of that hate (DRS, RELIC, RIP, Surgical Extraction, Thalia, etc).
Also, the longer the game goes, the more the opponent disrupts you (counterspells, clique, thoughtseizes, etc).

Most of the games I won on turn 1 or 2 with the below list.

Main Deck
60 cards

1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
3 Verdant Catacombs
15 lands

2 Children of Korlis
3 Griselbrand
1 Laboratory Maniac
6 creatures

4 Brainstorm
2 Careful Study
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
3 Daze
4 Entomb
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Intuition
4 Lotus Petal
4 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
3 Thoughtseize
39 other spells

Sideboard
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Children of Korlis
1 Daze
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Force of Will
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Pithing Needle
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Wipe Away
15 sideboard cards

[phazonmutant]

Wess, I tested your list, first time playing Lab man or Children. It. Is. Disgusting. Wow...literally drawing your deck on turn 1-2.

That sideboard is really interesting. How do you sideboard?

[Wess]

Hey Phazonmount, good to hear you enjoy it! In the last tournament I played, a counterbalance opponent complained that the deck was busted and unfair when I went off turn 1 through a SE and FOW. That made me happy:laugh:

.DK gets credit for the Children of Korlis

As for the sideboard, basically, there are only 8 noteworthy cards, the rest of the 7 I rarely/never sided. The 6 counterspells are key and the extra children is for burn/aggressive damage decks. Emrakul is for surgical extraction so I still have a plan B. Tendrils I never sided in, as Laboratory Maniac outclasses it, but, for same reason as Emrakul, I keep 1 in the side.

What I think I will do, is add 4 Cabal Ritual to the side, and maybe 1-2 Misdirection.

As for the maindeck, the weakest cards is careful study. I might cut them, 1 Gris, and 1 Intuition for 3 Buried Alive and the 4th daze. Game 2 and game 3, I would then bring in the cabal rituals. The advantage of buried alive is that it finds Children AND Gris. Though, 3 intuition might work better. Either way, I'm going to cut the 2 careful studies.

[TheG]

hello, amazing 3ead/Deck!

Can anyone teach me about the different closure of the deck?? Emrakul / Tendrills / Laboratory and when Children of Korlis is needed?

And then, talking about speed, which version is the fastest?

Thx a lot :D

[phazonmutant]

As for the sideboard, basically, there are only 8 noteworthy cards, the rest of the 7 I rarely/never sided. The 6 counterspells are key and the extra children is for burn/aggressive damage decks. Emrakul is for surgical extraction so I still have a plan B. Tendrils I never sided in, as Laboratory Maniac outclasses it, but, for same reason as Emrakul, I keep 1 in the side.
...
What I think I will do, is add 4 Cabal Ritual to the side, and maybe 1-2 Misdirection.

So what would be your updated sideboard? What the heck are you boarding out to bring in 6 counterspells?

[dameus]

hello, amazing 3ead/Deck!

Can anyone teach me about the different closure of the deck?? Emrakul / Tendrills / Laboratory and when Children of Korlis is needed?

And then, talking about speed, which version is the fastest?

Thx a lot :D

First off, all the finishers are equally fast, because the speed of the deck in TinFins is dependent on getting Gris out. After that, it's a matter of avoiding fizzles and a few hosers that your opponent can have. For the one I'm most familiar with, Emrakul, the concept is simple:
Rez Gris, draw 14 or so cards, use extra rez spells to pitch/entomb Emrakul and rez at instant speed while the reshuffle trigger is still on the stack, then swing for 22 (15+7). Other than countermagic (which the opp should have used to fight over the Gris rez) the only thing that really stops you is stuff like Karakas / Maze of Ith. The nice part is that it's very compact.
With a Tendrils or LabMan kill, you can swing with Gris early, using the 7 life gain to get 7 more cards than you would have in the Emrakul scenario (so likely 21). The likely next step (essential for LabMan, optional for ToA) is to cast and sac a CoK with a Lotus Petal you almost certainly drew and then draw another 21 cards and kill 'em with a Tendrils or do the CoK again, cast/rez LabMan, and draw the rest of your deck for a win. The ToA win doesn't need CoK (but it helps) and is highly resistant to coutermagic (but as I mentioned before, your opp should have already used 'em up by that point fighting over Gris). The LabMan only uses 3 mana vs 4 for ToA, which I'm sure is why Wess calls it superior. The most likely reason for a fizzle is not getting a CoK + Petal in your 1st draw 21, or in the case of ToA, not quite having enough mana.

[Wess]

@Phazonmount

I board the Mindbreak in against other combo (probably will add one more, as MTGO is infested with combo...and counterbalance decks, unfortunately), I board in +1 Daze and +3 Force against control, take out 2careful study, and 2 gris. Will cut the 4th Force from the board. The other 6-7 slots in my sideboard I'm playing around with/

@Dameus

Labman is superior to Tendrils in quite a lot of ways

1. You can run a single copy as a win condition, because you are drawing your entire deck. To cast tendrils off of a draw 14 or 21 you have to run at least 2, probably 3. That's 1-2 card spots extra it takes up.
2. Labman is a non-targeted win, that can't be prevented.
3. Labman wins at instant speed, Tendrils is sorcery
4. Your opponent can discard tendrils (they can discard labman, but you can shallow grave him back)
5. You can't tutor for tendrils, you can tutor for Labman (entomb)
6. Labman is 1 less mana
7. If absolute worst comes to worst, you can beat for 2 with him<---I actually won a match this way

Also, you don't need to draw a Children+Lotus petal to combo off, you can entomb+shallow grave it as well, which is why its way more reliable than tendrils or emrakul.

[phazonmutant]

Took the deck to a small local tournament today. It felt just absolutely unbeatable when the cards came together and reloaded pretty well, but I made a ton of mistakes and had some problems fighting through some types of hate.

I lost to aggro-loam with Chalices, Karakas, Ooze, and Thalia. In the third game, I even Dazed a Thalia, but the second combined with Chalice on 0 combined to slow me way down. I also lost to UW Control with a pile of Canonist.

A few Forces were very good against Counterbalance-based decks, but bad against BUG. I really wanted to draw Needle against G/B/x decks, so I think 2-3 are necessary. Echoing Truth or splashing G for Abrupt Decay might warrant inclusion too. I definitely wanted some way to kill hatebears, so I think multiple Massacre might be really good.

I'm not sure if antihate is a better plan than 4 Show and Tell, some more men, and Cabal Rituals. There was a guy who did well at GP Denver playing only anti-hate, so maybe it's correct.

The most important thing to fix in the maindeck is making it more consistent. Not sure how to do that. Been tossing around the idea of Gitaxian Probe.

[.dk]

Labman is superior to Tendrils in quite a lot of ways

1. You can run a single copy as a win condition, because you are drawing your entire deck. To cast tendrils off of a draw 14 or 21 you have to run at least 2, probably 3. That's 1-2 card spots extra it takes up.
2. Labman is a non-targeted win, that can't be prevented.
3. Labman wins at instant speed, Tendrils is sorcery
4. Your opponent can discard tendrils (they can discard labman, but you can shallow grave him back)
5. You can't tutor for tendrils, you can tutor for Labman (entomb)
6. Labman is 1 less mana
7. If absolute worst comes to worst, you can beat for 2 with him<---I actually won a match this way

Also, you don't need to draw a Children+Lotus petal to combo off, you can entomb+shallow grave it as well, which is why its way more reliable than tendrils or emrakul.

Lab Maniac - interesting idea! That's a pretty sweet win-con, actually. Definitely worth testing.

I'm not sure yet if it is superior to Tendrils + Emrakul in every way - however it could give you a pretty sweet Doomsday plan out of the sideboard. Especially if you can fit Gitaxian Probes into the maindeck. Seems like you likely want a Chromatic Sphere in the maindeck as well so that you can win without using the stack.

I disagree with a few of your points you posted above though

1. Running 2-3 copies of Tendrils - if you're running Children, the most you ever want of Tendrils is 1. Children will draw you through your deck if you can't find Tendrils.
2. Agreed - that's sweet.
3. It's only sort of an instant... you still need to draw your whole deck to win, which is likely going to involve casting lotus petals and Children of Korlis anyway, all of which are sorcery speed. I understand that the win itself is an instant - but does it matter at that point? Seems like you should have Thoughtseized every relevant card out of their hand by that point anyway.
4. If they discard tendrils - then use Emrakul to win. I can't see running Tendrils without Emrakul - all of his abilities are relevant (including the shuffle trigger)
5. That's true. And the reason I started running Children in the first place. If you are drawing your deck (which you have to do for Lab Maniac), then you will be finding Tendrils regardless.
6. Definitely true, although more susceptible to counters (but like I said in 3 it seems like you should have discarded their hand by that point)
7. Yeah - I've done that with Children too. Rarely relevant, but true!

Lab maniac may actually be better - but wanted to discuss based on your points above. He does a few things that I'm not a huge fan of in general:
1. Turns opponents removal on. Swords-ing a Griselbrand is awful - but hitting Lab Maniac is pretty relevant. (This is why I think you need Chromatic Sphere, actually)
2. It forces you to draw your entire deck. I'm not sure I like this all that much as you aren't always going to assemble Children + Griselbrand. If this is the plan, it seems like running 3 Children maindeck might be better.
3. Can't be reanimated by Goryo's Vengeance

Some things he does that I think are awesome:
1. Costs less mana, as you said
2. Not susceptible to (most) storm hate - Canonist can still be a problem
3. Doesn't target anything to win
4. Provides you with a potential sideboard plan that doesn't use the graveyard (Doomsday)

Some things that I really like about the Emrakul + Tendrils plan

1. Mini-Tendrils will draw you a lot more cards (usually 14 depending on your life total). This is usually enough to find a Children of Korlis if you haven't yet, which means that you've won. You can draw until you get Emrakul, discard him to shuffle Tendrils back into your library, and use your Children life gain to draw your deck again to re-get Tenrdils.
2. Emrakul can sometimes be a Planar Void and just wipe their board in a pinch - you're usually favored to win at this point...
3. If you fizzle (which will happen now and then no matter what your build), it's easy to reanimate Emrakul and swing for the win the following turn.

The biggest thing I don't like about that plan is not being able to tutor for Tendrils - but honestly Children more or less fixes that.

Oh, and after goldfishing a bit - I'm definitely cutting Careful Studies for Cabal Therapy. It works better with Dark Ritual to go off, and I think the extra disruption is better than the extra 2 cards you get from Careful Study now and then. I would recommend anyone running a maindeck like mine from the GP to try out this switch.

[Bobmans]

Tonight im gonna play a local tournament with a BU version of the deck. As a wincon running Emrakul with toa backup. I like the idea of Children of Korlis, but unfortunatly i don't have those.

[.dk]

Tonight im gonna play a local tournament with a BU version of the deck. As a wincon running Emrakul with toa backup. I like the idea of Children of Korlis, but unfortunatly i don't have those.

The good news is that they are practically free. Next time you procure cards - just tack a playset on. ;)

[Wess]

.DK

Yeah, I mean there are advantages to running Labman, and I hear you on the Tendrils, it does have some utility, but dodging storm hate, being non-targeted and winning at instant speed are huge for me. And actually, Labman is immune to removal, as, when you cast Labman, and it resolves, you trigger Griselbrand in response and win (you never cast labman before you're immediately going to win). Also, my list runs counters, and you have very card in your deck in your hand. Also, you can cast Labman at instant speed (entomb+shallow grave), as well as children.

As for needing the children to draw your deck, I have so far never failed to draw the children OR entomb+shallow grave OR intuition, so 2 seems fine. I have a 3rd in the side for aggressive decks.

Tendrils and Emrakul are fine kill conditions as well, when you've resolved Griselbrand on the battlefield, and start drawing its pretty much game over for your opponent anyways. But, I think, against the top decks Labman is better.

Of course, I don't run Emrakul maindeck, and I only play with 1-3 Griselbrand in the deck, so Labman is more efficient, giving me space to run Daze, which is a powerhouse in this deck. Also, I bring FOW in from the side, so, having 1 more blue card doesn't hurt.

Edit: Am actually playing in a tournament right now, currently 3-0, had time to write this post in between rounds

[.dk]

Cool, hope your event finishes as well as it started.

Like I said, I'm not saying that Lab Maniac is worse - it's entirely possible that it is right. Was just saying that I don't think you should be so quick to dismiss Tendrils + Emrakul either.

How are you finding only 3 Griselbrands with 4 entomb and 2 careful studies? Seems like you're pretty depending on Entomb at that point. Are you having any issues finding it? Seems like you're in pretty good shape once you cast it since you have Daze.

[Wess]

Yeah, thanks .DK, I just finished the event going 4-0, with a perfect (2-0, 2-0, 2-0, 2-0) record....pretty cool, haven't done that too many times. It should be posted online tommorow, or Tuesday (someguy604)

I played the same decklist, and yes, its pretty consistent. Actually, I always sideboard out 1-2 Griselbrand and both careful studies Game 2 and 3, I will side in Emrakul and Tendrils in case they have surgical. I'm thinking I will cut the 2 careful studies for +1 daze and +1 intuition.

[Bobmans]

I went 3-1 at a local yesterday. Giving me a 4th place. The deck played ok. I am not to excited. It did have have a turn 0/1 kill. Pretty awesome. I'll post the list later. I had sided in 3 cabal ritual, 2 tendrils of agony and 1 skirge familiar against most matchups game 2/3 as they didn't expected it after game 1 win with emrakul dodging storm hate..
As expected the deck is very vurnarable to counters and discard. Even having 3 fow from the side and 4 daze, 4 cabal therapy and 2 misdirection main felt to light.
I will continue toying with the build, but i want to make the deck be stronger in getting Griselbert on the table.
Mvp for me was Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal, enabling turn 1 cantrip into entomb/discard, plus reanimate spell FTW.
The deck is soo incredibly fast.

[Wess]

If you maindeck daze and thoughtseize then control decks shouldn't be a problem. This deck requires you to play tight, and aggressively mulligan. I probably mulligan close to 50% of the time with the deck.
Discard shouldn't be a problem either, the only card that they can hit that hurts is entomb, which usually gets cast turn 1 anyways. If they take a reanimation spell, that's not a problem as we can cantrip quickly into another one.

There is this deck on MTGO that is dominate right now, which runs 3 X Spell Pierce, 3 X Spell Snare, 4 X Counterspell, and 4 X FOW, 4 Snapcaster...sideboard 3 REB, 4 Relic. Another variation has 4 counterbalance.

In my latest list I ran Dark Confidant X 4 in my sideboard to fight that deck, which proved very effective. I will go down to only 1 Griselbrand if I bring in BOB (no Emrakul).
-2 careful Study, -2 Griselbrand ----> +4 BOB

Edit: Also, the way I read your post, it sounded like you were bringing in Daze from the side. Daze has to be maindeck, not sideboard. Reason being, this deck needs to win game 1, and against control, you need daze to do that. If you lose game 1, then you can get hit with random GY hate game 2 and lose. Game 2 I don't bring in any anti-hate, because its too hard to guess what they bring in. If they beat me, then game 3 I have options.

[phazonmutant]

Tested a bunch of preboard games with a slightly tweaked version of Wess's list, and I've been very very happy with it.

// 13 lands
1 Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta

// 8 creatures
2 Children of Korlis
1 Hapless Researcher
1 Laboratory Maniac
3 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Daze
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
1 Intuition

In the 10 or so games I've played against a Deathrite deck with Force, Cabal Therapy has been amazing both for targeting myself and the opponent, flashing back, etc. Intuition has been insane as well, often finding 2+ Griselbrand to play around Deathrite.

Gitaxian Probe is one of those cards that is very subtly good. I've found it to be very good in TES, and I'd imagine it's good here.

[.dk]

Interesting... how are 13 lands running for you? Do you miss the basic Swamp at all? How is Hapless Researcher? Seems like I would hate to use reanimation on him just to loot...

Definitely like how you've fit Probe in there - such a sweet card when you're running therapy.

That looks like a pretty sweet list, actually. I really like the Intuition and Dazes as well. I was already thinking about cutting the 4th Griselbrand in my list for a singleton Intuition. If I get some time in between Doomsday games, I'll test that (or something like it) along with Tendrils in the Lab Maniac slot.

[phazonmutant]

Interesting... how are 13 lands running for you? Do you miss the basic Swamp at all? How is Hapless Researcher? Seems like I would hate to use reanimation on him just to loot...

Definitely like how you've fit Probe in there - such a sweet card when you're running therapy.

That looks like a pretty sweet list, actually. I really like the Intuition and Dazes as well. I was already thinking about cutting the 4th Griselbrand in my list for a singleton Intuition. If I get some time in between Doomsday games, I'll test that (or something like it) along with Tendrils in the Lab Maniac slot.

The 13 lands have been great. I was getting flooded a ton. This deck feels like it needs about as many IMSs as TES, which plays 12 and 3 Chrome Mox, assuming you're not expecting to cast Show and Tell of lands consistently.

The Researcher is mostly as a body to flashback Therapy, as is the Scrubland for Children. I haven't played against a Wasteland deck with this manabase yet, but I suspect that this deck is so fast and has so many artifact IMSs that Wasteland isn't a huge problem.

Yeah, Tendrils vs. Lab Man is fairly irrelevant. Tendrils is more useful to just storm off or if you brick really hard on Children, but I've never yet bricked if I have 8+ life and an attack. Lab Man allows you to tutor for your kill in case it's in the bottom 6 cards of your library, but that's pretty rare.

[Wess]

This is the latest 75 I 4-0'd the DE's with. It feels like the most broken, soul-crushing deck I've played with in Legacy, and I played Reanimator with Mystical tutor when it was legal:



Main Deck
60 cards

1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
3 Verdant Catacombs
15 lands

2 Children of Korlis
2 Griselbrand
1 Laboratory Maniac
6 creatures

4 Brainstorm
1 Preordain
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Daze
4 Entomb
3 Goryo's Vengeance
2 Intuition
4 Lotus Petal
4 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
3 Thoughtseize



Sideboard
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Dark Confidant
3 Force of Will
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Wipe Away
2 Liliana of the Veil

Main changes: -1 Griselbrand, -2 Careful study, +1 Intuition, +1 Preordain, +1 Daze
Sideboard: +4 Dark Confidant, +2 Liliana

The decklist is performing very well, and to me, it feels like its pretty much optimized, so, I won't be making any major changes to it, just minor stuff, like I might change the preordain for a sensei's divining top, plays nicer with BOB, and fetches.

@Phazonmuant, like the Gitaxian probe wish I could fit it in. 13 lands seems a bit light, I find I always want to fetch or have an underground sea or 2 for Daze protection, and to cast intuition if needed (neither of which TES wants to do). Additionally, the deck already has a high mulligan rate, I don't want to increase that. But, let us know how it works out.

[Bobmans]

The list is evolving into a great list. The inclusion of Children of Korlis really changed the deck post-Griselbrand to go crazy. It never seems to fizzle after connecting with Griselbrand.

As for card choices. Has anyone considered bringing 4x Silence main/side since we are already splashing white? For this to work you might need to include 1-2 white duals. Tundra > Scrubland for Daze. But possibly not having black man might be an issue. I already cut Islands down to one for this reason.

I personally don't like Thoughtseize being in the list as the loss of 2 life might mean you can activate Grisel only once pre-combat in some scenario's. Personally i still prefer Cabal Therapy over thoughtseize as it can self target and it might even remove threats in multiples. Also as a discard 5-8 i do prefer Duress as it is there to remove disruption and can remove FoW.

Also i like having both Ponder and Careful Study next to Brainstorm. Ponder can let you dig deep and you can choose to shuffle. Where CS can discard a creature. The last has been relevant in a number of situations. Gitaxian Probe provides usefull information, but lacks the ability to do something about it, where Cabal Therapy on it's own does both. Game 1, Turn 1 you'll propably go for FoW anyway. The two combined totally wrecks a hand, but it gives up some consistancy. And it seems with this in your main you might need to mulligan more.

Intuition feels a bit to slow for this deck. Having only 1-2 makes it kinda random to.

When running ToA i included 1 Skirge Familiar to solve mana issue's. BBB seems to be real easy to setup, while getting BBBB for ToA can sometimes be a problem. Also with Skirge Familiar you can hardcast Emmy. Or just use it as a discard outlet + mana generation when you can't generate W for some reason to get Children on the table.

For mana sources, 13 lands feels fine. Mostly you only need 1-2 land drops before winning. Lotus Petal is more important due to Children. For this reason i added 1 Mox Diamond. When drawing of Griselbrand you have an extra white source and the extra land draws are useless anyway. With Mox Diamond 1-2 Chrome Mox is enough. I prefer 1 Chrome Mox in this case.

As for Lab Man. I see a scenario where he gets removed somehow and you loose the game instantly. Can he be that vulnerable? Is this even a realistic scenario?

[alphastryk]

Intuition feels a bit to slow for this deck. Having only 1-2 makes it kinda random to.


Intuition is a bit slow, but basically acts as extra Entombs when you need it, and is a tutor if you absolutely need it to be. I don't think you can realistically play more than about 2, but it is very powerful to have access to. Having it instead of an entomb will always beat Deathrite Shaman, for example - just get multiple men.



As for Lab Man. I see a scenario where he gets removed somehow and you loose the game instantly. Can he be that vulnerable? Is this even a realistic scenario?

I don't see a scenario where this happens, as every time the Lab Man kills comes up, the TinFins Player should have Griselbrand in play and is at more than enough life to draw again in response to removal. Making Lab Man should be the very last step before drawing the end of your library.

[Richard Cheese]

For those running Children/Lab Maniac/etc., are you finding the 4/3 split of Grave/Vengeance ok, or have you been burned by Shallow Grave returning the wrong creature?

[Bobmans]

For those running Children/Lab Maniac/etc., are you finding the 4/3 split of Grave/Vengeance ok, or have you been burned by Shallow Grave returning the wrong creature?

Lab Man should be the last creature to enter the grave. You might answer that by casting Entomb -> Emrakul and reset the loop. In the version with Skirge Familiar this is even more easy to accomplish. You can discard a Children in response and continue the infinite loop. You still require Emrakul for this tho.

7 Renimate spells is as thight as it can be. I think its the perfect number. You really need one of those to initially land a Griselbrand turn 1/2. Decreasing that number also decreases that "chance".

[Richard Cheese]

Lab Man should be the last creature to enter the grave. You might answer that by casting Entomb -> Emrakul and reset the loop. In the version with Skirge Familiar this is even more easy to accomplish. You can discard a Children in response and continue the infinite loop. You still require Emrakul for this tho.

7 Renimate spells is as thight as it can be. I think its the perfect number. You really need one of those to initially land a Griselbrand turn 1/2. Decreasing that number also decreases that "chance".

I'm just talking about reversing the ratio, not cutting reanimation.

[phazonmutant]

Wess, can you post how you sideboarded? This sideboard looks very...strange.


I'm just talking about reversing the ratio, not cutting reanimation.

Shallow Grave is the nut, and grave order doesn't really come up often. If I could play 7 Shallow Graves, I would.

For those playing Intuition, one of them comprehensive rules says that a player putting multiple cards into his/her library or graveyard at the same time gets to chose the order. So you get to choose the order of the 2 cards that go to the bin.

[.dk]

The list is evolving into a great list. The inclusion of Children of Korlis really changed the deck post-Griselbrand to go crazy. It never seems to fizzle after connecting with Griselbrand.

As for card choices. Has anyone considered bringing 4x Silence main/side since we are already splashing white? For this to work you might need to include 1-2 white duals. Tundra > Scrubland for Daze. But possibly not having black man might be an issue. I already cut Islands down to one for this reason.



Yeah, Children of Korlis is pretty much insane. :)

I was originally running 4 Silence in my sideboard, since they imprint on Chrome Mox well to cast Children. However, I ended up cutting them for countermagic in the GP Deck as I felt Flusterstorms and Diverts were better in a meta that was expected to be full of discard spells. This was also my reasoning for the inclusion of the singleton Mox Diamond - to make sure I always had a W source after drawing to cast Children with (sometimes you'll have played your land and a lotus petal pre-reanimation to go off and pay for Daze, etc.).



I personally don't like Thoughtseize being in the list as the loss of 2 life might mean you can activate Grisel only once pre-combat in some scenario's. Personally i still prefer Cabal Therapy over thoughtseize as it can self target and it might even remove threats in multiples. Also as a discard 5-8 i do prefer Duress as it is there to remove disruption and can remove FoW.

Also i like having both Ponder and Careful Study next to Brainstorm. Ponder can let you dig deep and you can choose to shuffle. Where CS can discard a creature. The last has been relevant in a number of situations. Gitaxian Probe provides usefull information, but lacks the ability to do something about it, where Cabal Therapy on it's own does both. Game 1, Turn 1 you'll propably go for FoW anyway. The two combined totally wrecks a hand, but it gives up some consistancy. And it seems with this in your main you might need to mulligan more.


I found the lifeloss from Thoughtseize to be of little relevance when running Children of Korlis. The lifegain there usually makes up for it.

The more I've been thinking about it, the more I think Careful Study isn't needed. We don't run enough good things to pitch, and unless you're land flooded, you pretty much want every spell in your deck in your hand. That's why I've cut them for Cabal Therapy - because as you said, Therapy is awesome at protection (especially if you know their hand from Thoughtseize), can discard Griselbrand out of your hand, and can flashback to increase storm and save your GB from getting RFG'd.




Intuition feels a bit to slow for this deck. Having only 1-2 makes it kinda random to.


I tend to agree for those builds running extremely land light. However, if you're packing 14-15, running a 1 of or 2 of is probably fine. It can easily act as Entomb 5-6 if the game is going long, and as others mentioned, can tutor for Children + Reanimation if you don't have them post GB draws.



When running ToA i included 1 Skirge Familiar to solve mana issue's. BBB seems to be real easy to setup, while getting BBBB for ToA can sometimes be a problem. Also with Skirge Familiar you can hardcast Emmy. Or just use it as a discard outlet + mana generation when you can't generate W for some reason to get Children on the table.


I originally tested Skirge Familiar a long time ago as well. However, once I switched to the Children of Korlis builds, I found I didn't need it. Running the Lotus Petals, Rituals, and Emrakul to shuffle them all back and recycle them has been enough to get 2BB for Tendrils every time I've gone off. The only time I could see it being a problem is if you draw the Tendrils and no Children on your first 14 or 21, and don't have enough to cast it - but that too seems very rare.



For mana sources, 13 lands feels fine. Mostly you only need 1-2 land drops before winning. Lotus Petal is more important due to Children. For this reason i added 1 Mox Diamond. When drawing of Griselbrand you have an extra white source and the extra land draws are useless anyway. With Mox Diamond 1-2 Chrome Mox is enough. I prefer 1 Chrome Mox in this case.


Yes - exactly the same reason I ran a singleton Mox Diamond at GP Denver as well. I wanted 5+ Lotus Petals.



As for Lab Man. I see a scenario where he gets removed somehow and you loose the game instantly. Can he be that vulnerable? Is this even a realistic scenario?


That was my worry too. I was piloting Menendian's Lab Maniac Doomsday deck for a while, and he is indeed rather vulnerable. I think with this deck, however, since you actually have your entire deck in your hand (rather than a 5 card tutor like Doomsday), you should be able to protect him with Discard or Countermagic (whichever disruption suite you're running) just fine.


In general though, my biggest worry is still the sideboard. Game 2, you can expect a lot of hate in the form of countermagic and Surgical, and it can be very difficult to play through that with some anti-hate.

The SnT sideboard plan was OK for me - but I'm not yet convinced it's better than just running some Cabal Rituals, Phyrexian Obliterators, and Massacre Wurms or something.

[phazonmutant]

I was watching Todd Anderson stream reanimator and he played against this deck! Or at least something similar. Todd got absolutely nutty hands game 1 and 2 and animated Griselbrand on turn 1-2 each game by playing 2 Petals and Exhume or Animate Dead. The poor TinFins player got crushed.

[.dk]

Haha, I saw that too. He saw Children of Korlis and was like, "oh it's THAT deck!" and proceeded to crush. :(

i can't see how there is another deck running Children of Korlis in Legacy, much less Entomb + Children...

[Bobmans]

I'm just talking about reversing the ratio, not cutting reanimation.

ah. Thats makes more sense. I was reading it wrong.




I was watching Todd Anderson stream reanimator and he played against this deck! Or at least something similar. Todd got absolutely nutty hands game 1 and 2 and animated Griselbrand on turn 1-2 each game by playing 2 Petals and Exhume or Animate Dead. The poor TinFins player got crushed.

Last weekend i lost to a regular Reanimator list 0-2. Regular reanimator lists have a good disruption package to deal with TinFin. They can Reanimate/Animate Dead Griselbrand from our grave. And if they connect Iona on black, theres little to do about it, but chain of vapor or echoing truth.

[Cybey]

Last weekend i lost to a regular Reanimator list 0-2. Regular reanimator lists have a good disruption package to deal with TinFin. They can Reanimate/Animate Dead Griselbrand from our grave. And if they connect Iona on black, theres little to do about it, but chain of vapor or echoing truth.
Hey Bobmans, that was me piloting the Reanimator list.
I love the decklists posted here, but what you already suggested, the deck seems to be too sensitive for counters and discard. Post-board I put some extra Thoughtseizes and Duress in, just because I knew I had to make sure I could disrupt you long enough so I could reanimate a big target. Also I figured I could use the Thoughtseizes to discard on of your creatures if necessary and reanimate those.

[Bobmans]

Hey Bobmans, that was me piloting the Reanimator list.
I love the decklists posted here, but what you already suggested, the deck seems to be too sensitive for counters and discard. Post-board I put some extra Thoughtseizes and Duress in, just because I knew I had to make sure I could disrupt you long enough so I could reanimate a big target. Also I figured I could use the Thoughtseizes to discard on of your creatures if necessary and reanimate those.

Yep, i really need to figure out how to play that matchup. Regular Reanimte vs TinFins is like SneakShow vs OmniTell...

Silence really got me thinking and i will try those in the next list i'm gonna play. I'll buildup the manabase the same as the UBR list, except for Badlands and Volcanic Island being Scrubland and Tundra. In a 13 land base it would look like:

2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Marsh Flats

Next to this, i am not sure about the numbers, going:
3-4 Silence
3-4 Daze
3-4 Cabal Therapy

As a repeated statement from previous posts ill drop Careful Study and go 4 Ponder and see how it feels. I think that 4 Cabal Therapy is the right number in this case as it functions two roles. That Leaves me to 7 open slots for Daze and Silence. I might go 4 Daze and 3 Silence and 1 Silence in the SB as Silence might be mana hungry. Skirge Familiar got booted. Emrakul stays. I like having two wincons in the maindeck. Still i am not sure if i want to use either LabMan or ToA as my second wincon. It seems at this point it doesn't really matter. I've been looking for alternatives as a wincon, but this still is the most compact way to win. I like LabMan over Tendrils because it wins instant speed. Meaning that from the first Griselbrand activation you can keep responding to something you're opponent is casting/activating. If you keep stacking Dark Rituals and float some black mana you can keep looping Entombing/Shallow Grave -> Children into Entomb/Goryo's -> Emrakul into gain more, get more and then you can win with Entomb/Shallow Grave -> Labman. This requires you to cast 3x Dark Ritual. Leaving the 7th B open for the new loop.

For a possible Sideboard plan i have looked up some options. You guys have any additions?

Karakas
Oblivion Ring/Detention Sphere
Stp/PtE
Silence
Erase
Disenchant
Surgical Extraction
Extirpate
Pithing Needle
Echoing Truth/Chain of Vapor
Dread of Night
Deathmark
Thoughtseize/Duress/IoK
Spell Pierce
Force of Will (requires to much blue cards. In my list i only have 13 blue cards to pitch)
Flusterstorm
Divert
Misdirection (Same as FoW)
Leyline of the Void
Leyline of Sanctity (might block you from self targeting discard to drop Griselbrand)
Contagion
Unmask
Show and Tell (requires 4 Griselbrand)

Of course all sideboards are meta dependant, so i would like to have an overal view to what might be useful against what matchup.

[Richard Cheese]

Ah the eternal sideboard conundrum. One interesting approach I thought of is cramming Show and Tell + another compact combo in there like Painter/Grindstone or RiP/Helm. The problem with Show and Tell is that it's not great when you only have 4-5 good targets for it, and if you pull the whole reanimation plan in favor of protection, you're more vulnerable to discard, and just as likely to get blown out by Surgical, or even worse, Extirpate. So you end up running a bunch of other stuff just to protect Show and Tell. If you ran something like 4 Painter, 4 Grindstone, 4 Show and Tell and 3 Flusterstorm, I wonder if it might be close to the original plan of just throwing haymakers until one lands. That said, all the two card combos are a lot more mana intensive and a bit clunkier, but it might be worth testing.

Oh and FYI Leyline of Sanctity says "You have hexproof.", so it shouldn't stop you from Therapying yourself.

[Bobmans]

Ah the eternal sideboard conundrum. One interesting approach I thought of is cramming Show and Tell + another compact combo in there like Painter/Grindstone or RiP/Helm. The problem with Show and Tell is that it's not great when you only have 4-5 good targets for it, and if you pull the whole reanimation plan in favor of protection, you're more vulnerable to discard, and just as likely to get blown out by Surgical, or even worse, Extirpate. So you end up running a bunch of other stuff just to protect Show and Tell. If you ran something like 4 Painter, 4 Grindstone, 4 Show and Tell and 3 Flusterstorm, I wonder if it might be close to the original plan of just throwing haymakers until one lands. That said, all the two card combos are a lot more mana intensive and a bit clunkier, but it might be worth testing.

Oh and FYI Leyline of Sanctity says "You have hexproof.", so it shouldn't stop you from Therapying yourself.

aahh, ooh. Yeah, ofcourse. Indeed.

Anyway, for an alternative combo plan post-board Doomsday might be fun to look at as it also has a win with LabMan. Just need the right configuration to have it work.
Sensei's Divining Top
Ideas Unbound
Gitaxian Probe
Lion's Eye Diamond
Laboratory Maniac
Shelldock Isle
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Amulet of Vigor
Burning Wish
Tendrils of Agony
Just a selection here.

[.dk]

It seems really unlikely to me that you will be able to win with Lab Maniac at instant speed. You're going to have to be casting Lotus Petals and Children of Korlis which gives you enough sorcery speed interactions that your opponent can respond to. If they don't disrupt that, then they aren't really going to disrupt anything that you can't deal with after drawing your deck (i.e. boatloads of discard or whatever).

Because of that, I do think that they are mostly equivalent, but after testing a bit, I do think that Tendrils is still slightly better. Yes, you can tutor for Lab Maniac with Entomb, but you MUST draw your deck to win with him. Why would you even be entombing for him unless you know you can draw everything? Tendrils at least has the added bonus of a potential draw spell if you don't happen to hit a Children of Korlis (which definitely happens).

I've tried a Doomsday sideboard (August of last year I think), but I think it takes up too many slots. Doesn't seem like you want a pass the turn pile given the deck structure, which means that post Doomsday, you need at minimum, UB open and 2 draw spells (usually SDT and Gitaxian Probe) to win with Lab Maniac. That turns into a lot of cards to sideboard in for a slower combo plan that is still extremely vulnerable to discard and graveyard disruption (unearthing Lab Maniac). 4 DD, 4 SDT, 4 Gitaxian Probe, 1 Unearth, 1 Mental Note, 1 Predict.

I suppose you could try the Tendrils version, but there again you really want Gitaxian Probe, SDT, and LED's at a minimum as well as the Ideas Unbound or Infernal Contract/Cruel Bargain and ideally at least a Chain of Vapor. Coupled with the copies of Doomsday, you're well over 15 cards at that point.

Emrakul/Shelldock Isle with Amulet or Cloud of Faeries would probably be the most ideal, but again, you're going to want SDT at a minimum. However, this plan is extremely vulnerable to decks running wasteland - and it doesn't seem like you could dodge that enough over the course of a tournament to make it worthwhile.

Sideboards I'm thinking of currently:

4 Enlightened Tutor
4 RIP
4 Helm of Obedience
3 Flusterstorm

(and make sure to leave in your entombs so that you can entomb for Emrakul if a combo piece gets Surgical-ed).

4 Show and Tell
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
3 Massacre Wurm
2 Jin-Gitaxias
2 Cabal Ritual

or something like that. Some greater amount of men that are castable with rituals or SnT targets. Obliterator in particular seems pretty insane.

[Dela]

Hey everyone, I've been away from the game for awhile but I'm glad to be back and see that this thread has continued to develop and evolve!

I'm glad others have tried my idea of Children of Korlis - the card is nuts!

Sadly, the deck seems to suffer from the same problem... postboard interactions. Also, Deathrite Shaman, though he fairly easy to play around, is another maindeck card we have to watch out for.

I REALLY like the Lab Manic kill. Great idea.

As for the Sideboard...

Is something like through the breach, show and tell, sneak attack, + more fatties out of the question? Ideally we would want the hate they bring against us to be useless... Gravehate, spellsnare (does it even see play?), mindbreak traps, flusterstorm. Things like pierce and discard are still a problem.

Or perhaps a more white heavy maindeck list w/ silence + discard with a postboard transition into the helm of obedience, rest in peace, leyline of the void, enlightened tutor option. This option might prove to be better because of less strain on the manabase.

[Dela]

There is also the possibility of slowing the deck down - adding a few lands, moving a single entomb to the sb, and running cunning wish. Wish would be a slow answer to anything - grab a counter, a stifle, a bounce spell, an entomb, a reanimate spell. it would also let us run maindeck intuition more easily.

I think the issue with slowing the deck down is the fact that the deck needs a decent life total to begin going off.

[.dk]

Hey everyone, I've been away from the game for awhile but I'm glad to be back and see that this thread has continued to develop and evolve!

I'm glad others have tried my idea of Children of Korlis - the card is nuts!

Sadly, the deck seems to suffer from the same problem... postboard interactions. Also, Deathrite Shaman, though he fairly easy to play around, is another maindeck card we have to watch out for.

I REALLY like the Lab Manic kill. Great idea.

As for the Sideboard...

Is something like through the breach, show and tell, sneak attack, + more fatties out of the question? Ideally we would want the hate they bring against us to be useless... Gravehate, spellsnare (does it even see play?), mindbreak traps, flusterstorm. Things like pierce and discard are still a problem.

Or perhaps a more white heavy maindeck list w/ silence + discard with a postboard transition into the helm of obedience, rest in peace, leyline of the void, enlightened tutor option. This option might prove to be better because of less strain on the manabase.

Yeah - you were totally right on Children. That card is insane. Although the combo did totally fail me once when someone cast False Cure in response to sac-ing Children for 21... that was pretty boss. And likely never to happen again. :)

I tried Sneak and Show out of the sideboard when I was splashing red - it actually worked pretty well for the most part. I ran Burning Wishes maindeck at the time, but may not actually be needed. Seems like it wouldn't be a HUGE strain to board in 4 SnT, 4 Sneak Attack, 3 Emrakul, and still have some slots for whatever other answers you need. Seems like you definitely want Mox Diamond in this case though.

[phazonmutant]

Played in a local tournament with a pretty similar list to what I posted above. The deck felt absolutely insane, and most of my losses were to variance with the deck, an abysmal matchup, and my own mistakes.

Round 1 - Jund
I killed him on the play on turn 1 with Lab Man. He boarded in a couple of cards, so I boarded in 2 ETruths and 2 Needles. He stripped a lot of my hand with Hymn and Liliana, but he never found a Deathrite. I had a man in the yard from earlier and eventually topdecked a Shallow Grave for the Lab Man win (from like 13 life no less).

Round 2 - Vial Zombies
I killed him turn 1 on the draw after seeing maindeck Withered Wretch. Boarded the same in. He disrupted me with Sculler and beat down. Game 3 I went for a turn 1 Emrakul instead of taking his Enlightened Tutor with my Therapy. He killed me from there with Sculler. He dropped to drink though, so gave me the win.

Round 3 - Budget Stoneblade
He had some Forces, but only one Tundra. Game 1 I had a turn 2 kill, but he left up Pierce mana, so I just Therapied him instead. Saw Mana Leak and some junk. A few turns later, he tapped a land to cast Top, which allowed me to EOT Shallow Grave, untap Shallow Grave. Killed with Emrakul. Game 2 he was able to Flusterstorm my Vengeance in response to Rest in Peace and couldn't find Echoing Truth in time. Game 3 he snap-kept, and I mulliganed. Opened up Petal x2, Dark Rit x2, Intuition, Goryo's Vengeance, hope you don't have Force. He didn't, I won.

Round 4 - draw

Top 8 - Dragon stompy
I got smashed by moons and Chalices. Not a whole lot to report. Didn't find turn 1 kills, proceeded to lose.

The match I lost in the swiss was really just me getting hot in the pants to make Emrakul turn 1. If I had played correctly I feel like I would have won. I liked Gitaxian Probe + Cabal Therapy a lot. I'm really still not sure what to sideboard. Force of Will has been truly awful for me. I'm trying out a couple Flusterstorms and Spell Pierces and those have been a bit better. Echoing Truth is still good. I think I might want a couple of Show and Tells against random things like Chalice decks because they can't really beat it, but otherwise I think the deck can fight through the interaction, or just open on the nut and ignore the opponent.

[.dk]

The match I lost in the swiss was really just me getting hot in the pants to make Emrakul turn 1. If I had played correctly I feel like I would have won. I liked Gitaxian Probe + Cabal Therapy a lot. I'm really still not sure what to sideboard. Force of Will has been truly awful for me. I'm trying out a couple Flusterstorms and Spell Pierces and those have been a bit better. Echoing Truth is still good. I think I might want a couple of Show and Tells against random things like Chalice decks because they can't really beat it, but otherwise I think the deck can fight through the interaction, or just open on the nut and ignore the opponent.

Do you think that Probe + Therapy is better than Thoughtseize + Therapy? That's the debate I'm having, since Thoughtseize can be used as a combo piece on it's own as well. Is a card taken from their hand worth more than a card drawn from our Library? I can't decide that in this deck yet...

I think unless you are completed transforming to something else (man plan, RIP/Helm, Painter/Stone, etc.) you probably want Show and Tells out of the board. At least in some quantity to get around random hate, like you said. RIP and Leyline are pretty tough to get around unless you draw bounce, and SnT will just eat their lunch if that is all they are relying upon. Still weak to Vendilion Clique and if they next level you and board in Humility or something expecting you to bring in SnT. Although, it seems that Show and Tell is a bit less reliable now than it once was, due to Miracles actually having a decent amount of 3 drops in their deck.

[Dela]

Went 3-1 at my local shop and ended up in 4th place.

I played 15 lands, 6 creatures, therapy/daze/Thoughtsieze.
SB was bobs, fluster storms, lilianas, bounce

I lost round 1 (2-1) vs combo elves with deathrite shaman. I think I punted this game away in game 3 but it was hard to know when to try to go off. He went on to get 2nd

Second round was against another combo elves player. I played tighter, learned from my mistakes and beat him 2-0. He had deathrite as well.

Round 3 was against belcher. Game 1 he Emptys for 16. I mulled to 5 and still had a turn 1 kill. Lucky I guess.
Second game I just beat down with bob and kept up plenty of counters

Round 4 sneak and show. Game one had an interesting interaction. He show and tells putting in Grisel. I untapped and played shallow grave (Grisel already in yard) he responds and draws 7, I respond and cast another shallow grave. He responds and draws 7. (he's at 3 life now). He whiffs on force (he'd already used 2). Gbrand comes in an legend rules, then the second one comes in hasty for the kill.
In the second game he eventually loses to all the hand disruption and I combo out.

Lab man is a much better kill. Very happy with him. I attracted a decent amount of attention - you know - drawing your entire deck, going to 40-80 life, and winning on turn 1-2 often. It's a very fun deck to play.

[Bobmans]

Do you think that Probe + Therapy is better than Thoughtseize + Therapy? That's the debate I'm having, since Thoughtseize can be used as a combo piece on it's own as well. Is a card taken from their hand worth more than a card drawn from our Library? I can't decide that in this deck yet...

I think unless you are completed transforming to something else (man plan, RIP/Helm, Painter/Stone, etc.) you probably want Show and Tells out of the board. At least in some quantity to get around random hate, like you said. RIP and Leyline are pretty tough to get around unless you draw bounce, and SnT will just eat their lunch if that is all they are relying upon. Still weak to Vendilion Clique and if they next level you and board in Humility or something expecting you to bring in SnT. Although, it seems that Show and Tell is a bit less reliable now than it once was, due to Miracles actually having a decent amount of 3 drops in their deck.

On game 1 Probe is more valuable than thoughtseize, because it gives you the right information on going off that turn or not without costing you anything except for two life points. If you see you can't go off you just adapt to the situation or you can Therapy/Daze protect yourself to still go off. The fact that it costs no mana and gives you a card back makes it fully supportive if you can pull it of in the first turn. If they play counter magic you play around it and if they don't you smash their face. Personally id take the probes out game 2/3 because id rather have answers at that point. You know what your up against game 2/3.

As for S&T, i think thats a weak plan due to the low creature count. I'd personally have either Pithing Needle or Echoing Truth in those situations. I've even thought about running Disenchant instead of ET, but ET also gets rid of annoying creatures like Thalia, Ooze or DRS. I prefer ET over Chain of Vapors so i can bounce Chalice @ 1 on or before (eot) the turn i want to go off.

@ Dela
Bob against Belcher? Aside for being a 2 powered beatstick, was it usefull in that matchup? As for Bob, i see him be usefull against hand disruption. But hows your experience with him? And how was Liliana? Her +1 can help us to by binning Griselbrand.

I'm pretty excited about bringing the list to the next tournament i'm gonna play. But i am still working on sone details. Running Silence or Probe main and what to board. 2-3 Pithing Needle, 2-3 Echoing Truth (or Disanchant), 1 Children, Silence 1-4 (if not main), Leylines (those are dead if not in opening hand), Counters like Pierce or Fluster, More discard or Bobs and Liliana. Our Meta is very varied. Aside from a lot of BUG there is a mix if kinda everything. Scapewish, stoneblade, mud, reanimator, elves, storm, dredge, GBW nic fit, BUG fit, Food chain. Just about everything. I think the main concern is fighting counter wars, discard, gravehate, tax and moon/chalice/humility. Aside from that we just have to be faster.

So far i'm thinking about:
1 Children
3 Pithing Needle
3 Echoing Truth
1 Silence
2 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize
3 Spell Pierce

[.dk]

On game 1 Probe is more valuable than thoughtseize, because it gives you the right information on going off that turn or not without costing you anything except for two life points. If you see you can't go off you just adapt to the situation or you can Therapy/Daze protect yourself to still go off. The fact that it costs no mana and gives you a card back makes it fully supportive if you an pull it of in the first turn. If they play counter magic you play around it and if they don't you smash their face. Personally id take the probes out game 2/3 because id rather have answers at that point. You know what your up against game 2/3.

As for S&T, i think thats a weak plan due to the low creature count. I'd personally have either Pithing Needle or Echoing Truth in those situations. I've even thought about running Disenchant instead of ET, but ET also gets rid of annoying creatures like Thalia, Ooze or DRS. I prefer ET over Chain of Vapors so i can bounce Chalice @ 1 on or before (eot) the turn i want to go off.

@ Dela
Bob against Belcher? Aside for being a 2 powered beatstick, how would it be usefull in that matchup? As for Bob, i see him be usefull against hand disruption. But hows your experience with him? And how was Liliana? Her +1 can help us to by binning Griselbrand.

I'm pretty excited about bringing the list to the next tournament i'm gonna play. But i am still working on sone details. Running Silence or Probe main and what to board. 2-3 Pithing Needle, 2-3 Echoing Truth (or Disanchant), 1 Children, Silence 1-4 (if not main), Leylines (those are dead if not in opening hand), Counters like Pierce or Fluster, More discard or Bobs and Liliana. Our Meta is very varied. Aside from a lot of BUG there is a mix if kinda everything. Scapewish, stoneblade, mud, reanimator, elves, storm, dredge, GBW nic fit, BUG fit, Food chain. Just about everything. I think the main concern is fighting counter wars, discard, gravehate, tax and moon/chalice/humility. Aside from that we just have to be faster.

So far i'm thinking about:
1 Children
3 Pithing Needle
3 Echoing Truth
1 Silence
2 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize
3 Spell Pierce

That's a good point about Probe in the main. Maybe i'll try it that way and see how it goes. I have a pretty blue heavy meta locally, so I'm not sure. We'll see I guess. Seems pretty good to board out G2/3 like you said for more specialized answers if you're running an anti-hate board.

I agree on Echoing Truth vs. Chain of Vapor, also. If we were running Sensei's Diving Top, I'd probably run Chain, but I don't see a good reason for it without.

As far as too few SnT targets go - I think you need to either board in more and/or add Lim-Dul's vault to shore that up. I never really had much problem with 4 Griselbrand, 1 Emrakul, 4 Show and Tell, and 2 LDV when I was playing with that. Also, the interaction between Children of Korlis and LDV is pretty awesome.

[Dela]

I mistyped. I meant to say TES? He had Thoughtsieze, duress, tendrils, and empty. I figured flusterstorm + hand disruption were my best tools against him so I sided in 2 bobs.

I never got to cast liliana but I would have liked to slam her early vs elves and try that out.

I think the probes make sense as well and I too will be trying them out as well as your SB plan minus a change or two.

[phazonmutant]

I'm so excited to play this deck at the SCG open in Atlanta coming up. I've been durdling on cockatrice with it and it feels unbeatable. One G3 I mulliganed to 6 and only drew 2 non-land spells. Unfortunately for my opponent, they were Entomb and Goryo's Vengeance. Of course, that was after mulliganing to 5 and beating him on turn 57 after he ripped my hand to shreds with 3 discard spells game 1.

Here's where I'm at with my list:
// 13 Lands
1 Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Marsh Flats
3 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta

// Creatures
2 Children of Korlis
3 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Hapless Researcher

// Spells
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
3 Daze
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Intuition

// Sideboard
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Pithing Needle
1 Griselbrand
2 Echoing Truth
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Show and Tell
3 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm

I feel like the sideboard is a complete pile because the only cards I've boarded in are 2-3 Pithing Needle and 1-3 bounce spells, with the occasional Spell Pierce for value.
I'm very happy with the maindeck, but it's 61 cards. Can you guys find something to cut?

[.dk]

Man, that's a really tight list... The only thing I could think to cut would be a Probe, but you're already very land light... I suppose since you're running Daze instead of more therapies/thoughtseize, you can't really cut researcher either. Only other thing I could think of would be to cut the 3 Daze for 2 Thoughtseize and 1 Cabal Therapy, and then cut the Hapless Researcher. But I do understand how good Daze can be as well...

I haven't really played this deck much recently, but my thought was running a 4/3 split of Therapy and Thoughtseize to try to maximize protection by making them combo pieces if need be. Don't know if that is right though.

[nedleeds]

I'm so excited to play this deck at the SCG open in Atlanta coming up. I've been durdling on cockatrice with it and it feels unbeatable. One G3 I mulliganed to 6 and only drew 2 non-land spells. Unfortunately for my opponent, they were Entomb and Goryo's Vengeance. Of course, that was after mulliganing to 5 and beating him on turn 57 after he ripped my hand to shreds with 3 discard spells game 1.

Here's where I'm at with my list:
// 13 Lands
1 Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Marsh Flats
3 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta

// Creatures
2 Children of Korlis
3 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Hapless Researcher

// Spells
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
3 Daze
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Intuition

// Sideboard
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Pithing Needle
1 Griselbrand
2 Echoing Truth
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Show and Tell
3 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm

I feel like the sideboard is a complete pile because the only cards I've boarded in are 2-3 Pithing Needle and 1-3 bounce spells, with the occasional Spell Pierce for value.
I'm very happy with the maindeck, but it's 61 cards. Can you guys find something to cut?

Cut the basic swamp.

- Magus of the Moon

[Richard Cheese]

I feel like the sideboard is a complete pile because the only cards I've boarded in are 2-3 Pithing Needle and 1-3 bounce spells, with the occasional Spell Pierce for value.
I'm very happy with the maindeck, but it's 61 cards. Can you guys find something to cut?

If you're finding you don't need Careful Study, I think Hapless is the first thing I would cut.

[phazonmutant]

Nedleeds, I hate you and all your pimp moons. :tongue:

Thanks for the feedback, guys. It's just looking like it's hard to fit Gitaxian Probe in the list - the numbers are shaved already. .dk, you said that boarding into Hot Carl was ok but underwhelming? I'm thinking about trying that out, but don't want to just repeat past mistakes.

Compared to previous list, thinking about running tomorrow:
-1 Daze, -1 Hapless Researcher, -1 Lab Man, -1 Cabal Therapy, -3 Gitaxian Probe
+1 U Fetch, +1 Griselbrand, +1 Tendrils, +3 Thoughtseize
That takes the main down to 60 cards and should hopefully make it more stable. The change to Tendrils is to make Showing in Griselbrand better postboard against decks with StP, and it doesn't really change much maindeck. The only decks that run Leyline of Sanctity are Show and Tell combo, pretty much, so targeted shouldn't matter much.

The board I'm thinking about is:
4 Show and Tell
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
3 Cabal Ritual
1 Thoughtseize
3 Pithing Needle
2 Echoing Truth
1 Massacre

Theoretically, Intuition fills the role of the second LDV, 4 Cab Rit was never necessary, and all I've found myself boarding in are Needles and/or Echoing Truth if I want to stay on TinFins.
I feel like I want the S&T plan against any white control deck because the combination of Surgical/RiP, Plow, and Karakas are difficult to fight through, and they'll let you go late enough to set up S&T.
I think I want to stay on TinFins against G/B/x because they almost always rely on Needle'able hate and Deathrite is of limited utility against Shallow Grave.
S&T is better against decks with Chalice because your man stays around.
TinFins is probably better against random aggro decks like Goblins? They can kill you real quick, and I lost to a couple of red-based decks in GP Atlanta.


A random aside I was thinking about in the shower - this deck can beat "infinite" life with Tendrils by recycling the deck with Emrakul. The number of times you have to go through your deck is about 2*sqrt(Life / (Spells cast per iteration)) or roughly .5 * sqrt(Life). PM me if you care to see the steps. It would be awesome if this was ever ever ever relevant.

[.dk]

I'm probably being dumb, but... Hot Carl? What's that? :)

And the infinite Tendrils loop is rad - I was thinking about that the other day as well. Children of Korlis is just insane with the shuffle effect from Emrakul.

That's also a good point about Tendrils post board - so that you have a shot to win without drawing your whole deck.

I think your sideboard plan is pretty reasonable. We're already amazing against slower graveyard hate not named Rest in Peace - so having a Show and Tell plan against the rest seems good. What are you taking out in those situations?

[phazonmutant]

I'm probably being dumb, but... Hot Carl? What's that? :)

Oh, yeah, that's what nedleeds first named Chocula before alphastryk and I tried to come up with a, ahem, more apropriate name. I still think about the deck as Hot Carl. I tried to get it on the back of my GP Atlanta shirt, but the lady claimed it was "a disgusting sex act". Poo on her.


I think your sideboard plan is pretty reasonable. We're already amazing against slower graveyard hate not named Rest in Peace - so having a Show and Tell plan against the rest seems good. What are you taking out in those situations?

I was thinking of taking out the 7 reanimation spells and 4 Entombs and bringing in the 4 Show and Tell, 3 Cabal Ritual, 1 LDV, 1 Thoughtseize, and probably a couple Needles for Karakas. That leaves us with 6 ways to find S&T or Griselbrand, 8 protection spells, and a slew of mana.

[.dk]

Oh, yeah, that's what nedleeds first named Chocula before alphastryk and I tried to come up with a, ahem, more apropriate name. I still think about the deck as Hot Carl. I tried to get it on the back of my GP Atlanta shirt, but the lady claimed it was "a disgusting sex act". Poo on her.



I was thinking of taking out the 7 reanimation spells and 4 Entombs and bringing in the 4 Show and Tell, 3 Cabal Ritual, 1 LDV, 1 Thoughtseize, and probably a couple Needles for Karakas. That leaves us with 6 ways to find S&T or Griselbrand, 8 protection spells, and a slew of mana.

Ahh.... gotcha. I don't think it's a poor plan, per se. It's very reasonable - I'm just not sure I found the right protection around it. Flusterstorms were good - Divert was cute. And I'm not sure I was actually boarding right in some matchups... keep in mind that if you're on SnT and you suspect Surgical, you want your Entombs in too - they counter Surgical by fetching Emrakul. I think that would have saved me a few games, since you just scoop to it otherwise pretty much. Ritualing into hardcast Griselbrand is a thing, but only against the durdliest of durdles.

Sucks you couldn't get what you wanted on your shirt though - thankfully Tin Fins isn't offensive to anyone except those that hate humor so my shirt passed. ;)

[alphastryk]

The change to Tendrils is to make Showing in Griselbrand better postboard against decks with StP, and it doesn't really change much maindeck. The only decks that run Leyline of Sanctity are Show and Tell combo, pretty much, so targeted shouldn't matter much.

For the record, Tendrils opens you up to Gaddock Teeg mattering, where lab man doesn't. I'm not sure how much of a concern that it.

[.dk]

For the record, Tendrils opens you up to Gaddock Teeg mattering, where lab man doesn't. I'm not sure how much of a concern that it.

Generally you are winning before he lands. However, post board, you should have at least 1 or 2 bounce spells to clear him off the table. 1 might even be enough if you're drawing your deck anyway.

[phazonmutant]

Played in a local tournament last night. Finally broke my streak of Top 8 scrubouts, made it to the top 4 chop this time!

List was a little bit unusual:
1 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
2 Daze
2 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
2 Reanimate
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Hapless Researcher
1 Careful Study
2 Children of Korlis
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
3 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp

// Sideboard
4 Show and Tell
2 Cabal Ritual
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
3 Pithing Needle
2 Echoing Truth
1 Massacre

I wanted to try to increase the consistancy by upping the number of ins and outs to be more like traditional reanimator lists. Despite that, there were about 4 games where I kept a hand with cantrips and an out, but bricked on the cantrips and couldn't find an in for 5+ turns.
The reanimates were ok. There was one time I couldn't use it because I was at too low of a life total, but they were handy when going off. It allowed you to Entomb or pitch a Children (child?) and reanimate it with a mana floating, which helped because I cut the number of Chrome Moxes.
Cutting the Chrome Moxes wasn't a big deal. I couldn't find more IMSs once, but it was ok because I just killed him next turn.

I've been more and more unimpressed with Daze. It's good when everything is working right, but it's really bad against a ton of decks. I'm also really ambivalent about Careful Study effects. I was able to use a careful study to find a ponder which found an Entomb for the kill on like turn 7 one game, but they were never useful beyond that. So it feels like the deck wants more cantrip density, but Careful Study isn't consistantly anything but velocity. I may try to fit in Gitaxian Probe in this new shell.

Pithing Needle was an all-star again, I wouldn't leave home without 3. I was very impressed with the Show and Tell plan against UW control and prison decks. I played against MUD and was able to show him a cute 7/7 lifelinking demon. I did board in Show and Tells game 3 against Death and Taxes, but I think that was wrong. He has a ton of different cards that are bad for me (Mangara, Karakas, Revoker, Oblivion Ring) and most of their grave hate is slow like Rest in Peace.

Overall I think this experiment was promising in that it cut a lot of sacred cow cards like Chrome Moxen and was still able to go off thanks to the raw power of Children + Griselbrand, but still didn't quite feel right. I felt like I got flooded pretty often and just couldn't find the cards I needed. Definitely want to go back having an Intuition main as a 5th Entomb.

[Megadeus]

I feel as if careful study is just very needed. A Griselbrand in your opener without one is essentially a Mull to 6 since your SnT are all SB. It is a bit weak sometimes, but it is a way to dig 2 more deep, and at the same time be a way to toss a Grisel in the yard incase you dont have an Entomb.

[.dk]

I feel as if careful study is just very needed. A Griselbrand in your opener without one is essentially a Mull to 6 since your SnT are all SB. It is a bit weak sometimes, but it is a way to dig 2 more deep, and at the same time be a way to toss a Grisel in the yard incase you dont have an Entomb.

That's actually why I cut mine for Thoughtseize. 3 Thoughtseize and 4 Cabal Therapy - can serve as disruption or a discard outlet.

Good job on the finish @phazonmuant! Seems like you're right on Needle - hits karakas, deathrite, ooze, crypt, relic, etc. Seems pretty alright... Did you use Echoing Truth at all? Did you find you wanted it to be Chain of Vapor ever? Seems like with less Miracles around, it may want to be chain. Show and Tell is fine against Chalice, so maybe Echoing Truth isn't needed. What were you board plans most of the time - what were you swapping out for needles?

[phazonmutant]

That's actually why I cut mine for Thoughtseize. 3 Thoughtseize and 4 Cabal Therapy - can serve as disruption or a discard outlet.

Good job on the finish @phazonmuant! Seems like you're right on Needle - hits karakas, deathrite, ooze, crypt, relic, etc. Seems pretty alright... Did you use Echoing Truth at all? Did you find you wanted it to be Chain of Vapor ever? Seems like with less Miracles around, it may want to be chain. Show and Tell is fine against Chalice, so maybe Echoing Truth isn't needed. What were you board plans most of the time - what were you swapping out for needles?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I may just switch over to the mono-discard plan.

I did board it in, but only used it in this really awkward gamestate against Alluren. He had drawn his one-of Faerie Macabre to mind twist me when I tried to go off turn 2, so on turn 8 or so I used ETruth to bounce his Cavern Harpy in response to Parasitic Strix and then discarded it with therapy next turn. He had boarded out his Living Wishes, so that prevented him from comboing.

But yeah, Chain probably would have been better. I wanted ETruth against Chalice, but you're right that Show and Tell is probably just stronger.

As far as boarding, I usually cut one or both Dazes. If I was boarding into Show and Tell, there's 9+6=15 potential outs and ins to cut. If not, I usually trimmed the Study effects and Griselbrands.

[Bobmans]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I may just switch over to the mono-discard plan.

I did board it in, but only used it in this really awkward gamestate against Alluren. He had drawn his one-of Faerie Macabre to mind twist me when I tried to go off turn 2, so on turn 8 or so I used ETruth to bounce his Cavern Harpy in response to Parasitic Strix and then discarded it with therapy next turn. He had boarded out his Living Wishes, so that prevented him from comboing.

But yeah, Chain probably would have been better. I wanted ETruth against Chalice, but you're right that Show and Tell is probably just stronger.

As far as boarding, I usually cut one or both Dazes. If I was boarding into Show and Tell, there's 9+6=15 potential outs and ins to cut. If not, I usually trimmed the Study effects and Griselbrands.

I really think that Echoing Truth has the upper hand in the case of Chalice @ 1. Even if you get Griselbrand in play with S&T you still have to find an answer to get rid of Chalice @ 1, because it disables Entomb, Children of Korlis, Cabal Therapy/Thoughtseize, BS/Ponder, Dark Ritual. The only option is to get another S&T into Emrakul into play to maintain momentum. But even that plan loses a turn in speed and would require you to get some combination of Lotus Petal and Cabal Ritual iot get at least 2(U), which is pretty hard to accomplish with only 14 cards drawn of Griselbrand. Chain of Vapor is out of the question in this case to bounce Chalice @ 1, so 1/3 Echoing Truth is a better plan imo. It solves the same other problems as CoV does plus more.

As for Show and Tell, can anyone explain me why and when that card is better to board in? Because i am beginning to think its not worth to run S&T over hate against the same problem trying to solve with S&T in the first place.

[phazonmutant]

I really think that Echoing Truth has the upper hand in the case of Chalice @ 1. Even if you get Griselbrand in play with S&T you still have to find an answer to get rid of Chalice @ 1, because it disables Entomb, Children of Korlis, Cabal Therapy/Thoughtseize, BS/Ponder, Dark Ritual. The only option is to get another S&T into Emrakul into play to maintain momentum. But even that plan loses a turn in speed and would require you to get some combination of Lotus Petal and Cabal Ritual iot get at least 2(U), which is pretty hard to accomplish with only 14 cards drawn of Griselbrand. Chain of Vapor is out of the question in this case to bounce Chalice @ 1, so 1/3 Echoing Truth is a better plan imo. It solves the same other problems as CoV does plus more.

As for Show and Tell, can anyone explain me why and when that card is better to board in? Because i am beginning to think its not worth to run S&T over hate against the same problem trying to solve with S&T in the first place.

The advantage of Show and Tell against Chalice decks is that they don't really have good answers to a Griselbrand in play. If they do, they have no way to find them, so you can just steal wins. On the other hand, trying to find Echoing Truth against chalices and 3balls and then find action is pretty tough.

Chain of Vapor is better against taxing hate like Maverick or Death and Taxes, whereas Echoing Truth is better against hard prison. It really depends what your board plan for those respective decks is to say which one is better.

[.dk]

The advantage of Show and Tell against Chalice decks is that they don't really have good answers to a Griselbrand in play. If they do, they have no way to find them, so you can just steal wins. On the other hand, trying to find Echoing Truth against chalices and 3balls and then find action is pretty tough.

Chain of Vapor is better against taxing hate like Maverick or Death and Taxes, whereas Echoing Truth is better against hard prison. It really depends what your board plan for those respective decks is to say which one is better.

Right - if you're landed a Griselbrand in play off of Show and Tell against a deck running Chalice or 3sphere - you don't need to combo off. They more than likely won't have a good answer, and you can just swing in for the win. And if they do have an answer, well, I heard you have a pretty good draw engine to find more Show and Tells and threats.

[phazonmutant]

Top 4 chopped a local tournament again this week. Similar list as before except:
-2 Daze, -2 Study effects,
+2 Thoughtseize, +1 Cabal Therapy, +1 Intuition, +1 Chrome Mox
(Yeah, that's 61 cards, so sue me)

Board is:
-2 discard effects, -1 Echoing Truth,
+2 Chain of Vapor, +1 Massacre

Deck felt very, very solid. It was a very small tournament because of some severe weather so didn't get to play much magic, unfortunately.

Round 1 - ANT
Game 1 - He mulled to 6 and I kept a hand with a couple of cantrips and some disruption. I took both his tutors over a couple of turns and then was able to Reanimate Griselbrand (putting me to 9). Next turn I swing and drew 14, but bricked. He made an involved series of plays including Burning Wish for Tendrils, tank, play LED, play Infernal Tutor, crack for RRR with B in pool, scoop.
Game 2 - He mulliganed again and I kept another hand with a cantrip and an out and some disruption. I Intuitioned for Griselbrand x2, Children on turn 2 and killed him on turn 3.
1-0 (2-0)

Round 2 - Bant
Game 1 - He had a fair bit of disruption, but Thoughtseize took a Clique, Cabal Therapy forced him to Force (pitching Jace) or risk me taking both Forces, and from there I was able to win on turn 4 or so.
Game 2 - I boarded a couple of Needles and a couple of Massacres and a Chain for 2 Griselbrand, a Chrome Mox, a Cabal Therapy, and a Reanimate. Kept a 0-lander with Petal and Ponder. Got punished for my greed, but didn't see any hate cards when I finally drew a land to Thoughtseize him.
Game 3 - I boarded out the bounce and Massacres but left in Needle for Karakas or Knight. We both mulled to 6 and I kept a "do you have it?" hand - Petal, DR, Entomb, Vengeance, Brainstorm, Griselbrand. Got there.
2-0 (4-1)

Round 3 - ID
Yeah, there were only 15 players this week. I played a couple of preboard games against the guy (he's on 4c Punishing Fire Stoneblade) and crushed him one game through Force and StP x2, then lost single-handedly to Spell Snare preventing me from casting an out the next game.

Top 8 - Jund Zombie Bombardment
My opponent brewed up this deck a couple of months ago (before Sam Black's take) and has been doing well with it. It can really abuse Therapy and can be very explosive with Gravecrawlers and Vengevines. Unfortunately, he didn't have real grave hate.
Game 1 - He mulligans into an unexciting aggro hand. I kill him on turn 3 with some hot Goryo's Vengeance action after he does nothing but play Carrion Feeder and Lotleth Troll.
Game 2 - I board in Needle for 2 Griselbrands and a Chrome Mox because I'm convinced he has either Crypt or Faerie Macabre as the only logical grave hate. My hand is double Entomb, double Vengeance, land, Chrome Mox, Petal, and I draw Entomb for turn. He plays Needle on his first turn, so I tank for a bit, then decide my route to victory is swinging with both Griselbrand and Emrakul - it doesn't do enough to just make Emrakul and annihilate 2 permanents. So I end up Entombing Griselbrand at the end of his turn, then realize I can't animate both and cast Entomb, so decide to just eot Vengeance, main phase make Emrakul and play around Macabre somewhat. That all happens and I kill him despite him swinging for 5 with Lotleth Troll. It turns out he only has anti-hate - 3 Pithing Needle and 3 Ground Seal.


.dk - thanks for suggesting the move to all discard - I didn't miss Daze for a second! The discard is just much more versatile and consistent. I whiffed on Therapy a couple of times, but it was good once too. Not sure how I feel about it overall.

I've been liking the Reanimates as more action + more ways to make Children. It makes continuing the Children chain much easier. I've found it's usually not worth it to draw the turn Griselbrand comes into play, but the tradeoff of going off a turn earlier is worth it. I didn't use Show and Tells at all, but I like them - it's kinda comforting knowing that if someone has too much hate, you can just bring in Show and Tell. The other cards are versatile enough that I have plenty of extra sideboard room.

Definitely playing this list at SCG Atlanta this weekend. I hope I get feature matched / deck teched!

[Ziveeman]

Watching you on camera right now!

Grats on the win. Was awesome seeing the deck in action on camera!

[Dela]

So pumped to see you on camera! 100% rooting for you!!!!

[P-E]

Yeah really nice to see you in action Greg go go go !!

[Wanderlust]

Congrats Greg! Your wishes of feature + deck tech came wonderfully true! Looking forward to your tourney report (if you have time/energy to write one.)

[phazonmutant]

Man. Some awesome goals happened that tournament. So happy I managed to get Deck Tech'd and featured. I ended up going X-3 for 34th place (18 points were split down the middle for top32), ugh. Exhausted, part of why I didn't end so well, so brief summary. I lots to: a bad Maverick matchup with Canonist and weak hands (possibly bad sideboarding too), an easy matchup against 4c cascade with a greedy keep g2 then bricking and subsequently discarding Emrakul g3, then a bad Lands matchup that I sideboarded completely wrong for.

So I feel like if I had more tournament experience post-board, I could have very easily crushed. No one has relevant cards and the deck is consistent and powerful.

Also, yes, I played a 61-card combo maindeck. Suck it.

[Cybey]

I'm currently watching the decktech, and you're doing awesome.

Does anyone have a link to the featured match though?

[Megadeus]

That was some shitty luck with mavericl guy having Faerie Macabre in hand after the second Goryos Vengeance

[Freggle]

Man. Some awesome goals happened that tournament. So happy I managed to get Deck Tech'd and featured. ...Also, yes, I played a 61-card combo maindeck. Suck it.

I enjoyed watching both. Keep it up!

[Richard Cheese]

Nice, congrats on finish!

[OrGy]

Congrats on finish !

Is this Griselbrand/Goryo's Vengeance a real thing ? :smile:

[nedleeds]

Congrats Greg! Good to see your work pay off ... bad beats vs. Lands guy ... #ChaliceOnOneOwnsYou

[.dk]

Nice finish Greg - jealous of the camera match! :D

Haven't watched it yet, unfortunately - been out of the country for the last week and just got back last night. Will definitely be checking it out once SCG puts up the archives though.

[.dk]

Double post... but couldn't help to say thanks for the shoutout after watching the deck tech!

[Richard Cheese]

Just watched, realized I got a shout out too. Gonna have to get a Tundra now so I can start playing Children.

Edit: My only complaint is that you forgot to flip the table and yell "TinFins, BITCH!" at the end...or the beginning, just whenever.

[phazonmutant]

Of course, you guys had the deck idea to begin with!

I wrote a tournament report - http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25471-34th-at-SCG-Atlanta-with-TinFins

[.dk]

Love the decklist - have you tested with only 1 reanimate to cut down to 60? Or cutting the 4th Griselbrand and only running 3? Since the sideboard is (still) not right, there's probably room for the 4th Griselbrand there if you're boarding into Show and Tell.

And I do agree with you that SnT is awful sometimes - but it's a pretty huge trump to Chalice. More thoughts later, likely.

[thefringthing]

Somebody bursted his onion on me in the MTGO Legacy DE last night. Was no match for an army of Goblin tokens and a Karakas, though.

[phazonmutant]

Love the decklist - have you tested with only 1 reanimate to cut down to 60? Or cutting the 4th Griselbrand and only running 3? Since the sideboard is (still) not right, there's probably room for the 4th Griselbrand there if you're boarding into Show and Tell.

And I do agree with you that SnT is awful sometimes - but it's a pretty huge trump to Chalice. More thoughts later, likely.

All those things make sense. I think I'd prefer to sideboard a Griselbrand of the options. Reanimate was pretty impressive all day. It's never exactly what you want to see, but sometimes you just get to turn 1 them when you couldn't before.



Somebody bursted his onion on me in the MTGO Legacy DE last night. Was no match for an army of Goblin tokens and a Karakas, though.

Well, I'm glad people are picking it up. There've been a couple of people with very different lists, do you know if it was my list or the ones with Daze and Lilianas in the board?

[Koby]

Damn you guys. I went and bought Entombs today.

[.dk]

Damn you guys. I went and bought Entombs today.

Welcome to the fold. :)

[walker]

@ phazon- you think about cutting a fetch for a second swamp? I hate getting wasted out. Maybe worth considering since you are trying to show and tell after sb. Obviously my list is pretty different but I only have black fetches with 2 swamps and 1 island, which works well for me. I put this deck down for a while because I wasn't getting good results with my LED version and I don't feel confident with only 4 entombs to bin Gman. But thats niether here nor there, good job at atlanta!

@ koby- if you are building this deck hit me up I have some experience here, btw this is ethan.

[phazonmutant]

@ phazon- you think about cutting a fetch for a second swamp? I hate getting wasted out. Maybe worth considering since you are trying to show and tell after sb. Obviously my list is pretty different but I only have black fetches with 2 swamps and 1 island, which works well for me. I put this deck down for a while because I wasn't getting good results with my LED version and I don't feel confident with only 4 entombs to bin Gman. But thats niether here nor there, good job at atlanta!

@ koby- if you are building this deck hit me up I have some experience here, btw this is ethan.

Thanks!

Usually combo decks like Reanimator and Storm want the max number of fetches to make Brainstorm and Ponder better, but I could see going down to 8 fetches. I definitely think it would be the fourth Underground Sea or the first Tundra/Scrubland if I were to add a land though. Even in ANT I don't like having 2 basic Swamps - that's what Dark Rit is for!
I like maxing on U fetches because I'm either fetching a basic Island and cantripping, or I'm fetching Underground Sea and killing them. The basic Swamp helps out in those discard into entomb draws, but I think those draws are rarer and it's miserable to be drawing off the top and only have a B source so you can't cast cantrips.
I wasn't relevantly Wasteland in the tournament except by Lands. Even the feature match against BUG, he had 0 pressure, so the Wasteland just didn't matter, I just needed to draw any B source.

Intuition is pretty key as the 5th Entomb. It's a lot better than it looks.

[.dk]

Just watched the SCG coverage (went up in the archives this morning). Fun set of games - Shardless BUG is definitely one of the matchups you want to see with this deck.

And thanks for showboating Game 2 when you didn't have to (you could have entombed for Emrakul instead of Children, right?) to show off the raw power of the deck! Awesome!

[Holden1669]

This deck is incredibly awesome. I love it. I was trying to come up with something kinda like Griselbrand Reanimator but I didn't really like how that was playing when I saw the deck tech with @phazonmuant. Didn't know this thread existed, so glad I found it.

In the last couple of days I have been destroying people in the tournament practice room. I get turn 1 or 2 wins more often than not. The caveat is that I have played against just one deck that has Force of Will in it so far. So that's a pretty big asterisk. There have been a lot of combo mirrors against Storm or Belcher. When I get the chance I'll step up to two-man queues and daily events and see how things go.

Just now I was playing against TES. Game 1 I lost the die roll and he went turn 1 Brainstorm, Gitaxian Probe, pass. Then I played Fetch for Sea, Ritual, Ritual, Cabal Therapy (he had Silence, Dark Ritual, Burning Wish. Decently scary depending on what he left on top) Entomb, Shallow Grave, draw my deck. He conceded. Game 2 he went Ponder, Probe, pass. I played Sea, Petal, Entomb, Reanimate with a Children in hand. Drew 7 cards including a Mox Diamond. Then drew my deck. He conceded. Amazing.

I started with @phazonmuant's list and cut a Griselbrand, Chrome Mox, and Intuition (because I don't have any online) for a Sensei's Divining Top and Mox Diamond (since casting Children is so key). My sideboard is pretty terrible:

4 Show and Tell
3 Force of Will
2 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Coffin Purge
3 Pithing Needle

Cutting a Griselbrand makes the Show and Tell plan seem pretty bad and there probably aren't enough blue cards for Force. It's a work in progress.

I would love to get Gitaxian Probes in the deck but I'm not sure what I would cut for them. I have read a lot of talk about Daze in the thread but so far in my limited time playing the deck the discard feels really good and I have pointed it at myself quite a few times. One of the issues I had with my previous attempts at building Storm Reanimator is Careful Study was usually terrible but I never cut all of them for some reason. And I felt that I needed maindeck Force for disruption but the 7 discard spells here help replace both. I'm rambling because I'm excited so I'll stop now.

Great deck. Thanks for building it. I haven't had this much fun playing Magic in a long time.

[phazonmutant]

This deck is incredibly awesome. I love it. I was trying to come up with something kinda like Griselbrand Reanimator but I didn't really like how that was playing when I saw the deck tech with @phazonmuant. Didn't know this thread existed, so glad I found it.
...
Great deck. Thanks for building it. I haven't had this much fun playing Magic in a long time.

Glad you're having fun with it! Yeah, the sideboard is pretty haphazard. I really don't like Forces though, after playing with them for a couple small tournaments. They're just not consistently live when you need them to be, similar to Daze. Intuition is really good, but you could just move Lim-Dul's Vault to the main if you need to find ins.


Also, we got an article mention! http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/legacy-weapon-beating-jund/

[thra1l]

Yea, I'm pretty sure this is like the Legacy equivalent of crack cocaine. Lol. I have pretty much everything for the deck except for the Entombs which I traded for Tuesday, and ordered the rest of the little pieces I didn't have. I've been playing it quite a bit on Cockatrice and it's insane. I've had so many people just disconnect after I draw ~21 cards turn one. :cool:
Looking forward to testing more, especially the sideboard. I'll post any good ideas I have (though I doubt they'd be better than the veterans of this deck :tongue:).

[.dk]

I started with @phazonmuant's list and cut a Griselbrand, Chrome Mox, and Intuition (because I don't have any online) for a Sensei's Divining Top and Mox Diamond (since casting Children is so key). My sideboard is pretty terrible:

4 Show and Tell
3 Force of Will
2 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Coffin Purge
3 Pithing Needle

Cutting a Griselbrand makes the Show and Tell plan seem pretty bad and there probably aren't enough blue cards for Force. It's a work in progress.

I would love to get Gitaxian Probes in the deck but I'm not sure what I would cut for them. I have read a lot of talk about Daze in the thread but so far in my limited time playing the deck the discard feels really good and I have pointed it at myself quite a few times. One of the issues I had with my previous attempts at building Storm Reanimator is Careful Study was usually terrible but I never cut all of them for some reason. And I felt that I needed maindeck Force for disruption but the 7 discard spells here help replace both. I'm rambling because I'm excited so I'll stop now.

Great deck. Thanks for building it. I haven't had this much fun playing Magic in a long time.


I was originally thinking the same thing for casting Children with Mox Diamond as you did for GP Denver - but at this point I don't think it is necessary. Reanimating Children is just fine via Reanimate or Shallow Grave - the more I've been testing in that configuration the more I like it. Props to phazonmuant for the addition of reanimate!

Although, having 1 Mox Diamond and 1 Chrome Mox may still be ok. I don't think you should cut all of the Chome Moxes though - sometimes you need another IMS to do... well anything. Even post drawing 7 or 14. And I would highly recommend finding a copy of Intuition somewhere - it acts as an insane Entomb at times, and can tutor for other stuff too.

Also, agreed that running 3 Griselbrand is pretty bad for SnT. I'm running the 4th in the board. Currently, if I were to play an event with this deck, it would look like this:

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Griselbrand
2 Children of Korlis
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Tundra
1 Intuition
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Thoughtseize
2 Reanimate

Sideboard:

1 Chain of Vapor
2 Echoing Truth
3 Pithing Needle
4 Show and Tell
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Griselbrand
2 Surgical Extraction


I hate every sideboard I come up with for this deck. I've had the best success with pure transformational sideboard in the past (GP Atlanta), but I honestly can't figure out one that I actually like. It's possible that small transformations and some anti-hate like phazonmuant ran (and mine above) is fine - but it feels so... mediocre, I guess. I always feel SO defensive when playing this deck Game 2 and 3.

I still haven't tested the E-tutor/RIP/Helm board yet - that may have some legs to it. Or Painter possibly, although that seems weak to other Emrakul decks.

[Dela]

Possible Maindeck:
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
2 Griselbrand
2 Children of Korlis
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Tundra
1 Intuition
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Thoughtseize
2 Reanimate

Sideboard:

3 Planar Void
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Helm of obedience
2 Transmute Artifact
2 Enlightened Tutor


Possible Transformation:

4 Helm of Obedience
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Planar Void
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Children of Korlis
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Intuition
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Thoughtseize
1 Reanimate
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Transmute Artifact
Sideboard:

3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
4 Helm of Obedience
2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Reanimate


I might try this config tonight at my local legacy tourney

[alphastryk]

3 Planar Void


This card does not do what you want it to do - it is a trigger, not a replacement effect, and does not combo with Helm.

[Koby]

Planar Void will not work favorably with Helm of Obedience, since Planar Void is triggered ability. Rest in Peace would work however.

I was watching phazonmaut's recorded game and one of the commentators suggested that a Doomsday SB plan with Shelldock or other kill method would be useful against the expected GY hate. That doesn't sound altogether bad, but requires a delicate Main/SB swap plan since each slot will need to be calibrated.

I'm curious (for I have not checkde back a few pages in a while) as to whether Burning Wish has been considered as a quasi-tutor and a potential Doomsday compliment in this case.

[Dela]

Planar Void will not work favorably with Helm of Obedience, since Planar Void is triggered ability. Rest in Peace would work however.

I was watching phazonmaut's recorded game and one of the commentators suggested that a Doomsday SB plan with Shelldock or other kill method would be useful against the expected GY hate. That doesn't sound altogether bad, but requires a delicate Main/SB swap plan since each slot will need to be calibrated.

I'm curious (for I have not checkde back a few pages in a while) as to whether Burning Wish has been considered as a quasi-tutor and a potential Doomsday compliment in this case.

Ahh thanks. Perhaps I will try Rest in Peace or scrap the idea all together.

[phazonmutant]

Planar Void will not work favorably with Helm of Obedience, since Planar Void is triggered ability. Rest in Peace would work however.

I was watching phazonmaut's recorded game and one of the commentators suggested that a Doomsday SB plan with Shelldock or other kill method would be useful against the expected GY hate. That doesn't sound altogether bad, but requires a delicate Main/SB swap plan since each slot will need to be calibrated.

I'm curious (for I have not checkde back a few pages in a while) as to whether Burning Wish has been considered as a quasi-tutor and a potential Doomsday compliment in this case.

A while ago we were talking about Burning Wish as a tutor for Tendrils and some bullets like Show and Tell, Massacre, etc, but that was before the Children of Korlis tech. Burning Wish took a lot of room, didn't consistently win because there's so few rituals in the deck, and hurt the manabase.

I'm not opposed to Doomsday, but I'm skeptical that it actually dodges the stuff we're concerned about. To run a reasonable DDFT transform, we want at least 15 lands, 4 Tops, 4 Probe, 4 Doomsday, 1 Ideas Unbound, and 4 LEDs somewhere in the 75. On top of that, you have to have bounce or removal for things like Canonist and Counterbalance. That's probably not workable.

I think a more realistic transform is 4 DD and 1 Shelldock Isle, but there's the question of does it solve the actual problem cards? It gets around storm hate like Chalice (and to some extent 3-ball), but Wasteland and Stifle were slight problems before and it doesn't solve some creature hate like Karakas. It's definitely workable, but it seems so all-in. Cloud of Faeries might help to go off the turn you Doomsday, but again not excited. If someone can figure out a build that includes Gitaxian Probe, that would help in the transform. The nice thing about it is that it's a very compact 1-card combo, so you could still have some reanimation in the deck.

I'll try it out on cockatrice some over the next couple days and report back.

[.dk]

A while ago we were talking about Burning Wish as a tutor for Tendrils and some bullets like Show and Tell, Massacre, etc, but that was before the Children of Korlis tech. Burning Wish took a lot of room, didn't consistently win because there's so few rituals in the deck, and hurt the manabase.

I'm not opposed to Doomsday, but I'm skeptical that it actually dodges the stuff we're concerned about. To run a reasonable DDFT transform, we want at least 15 lands, 4 Tops, 4 Probe, 4 Doomsday, 1 Ideas Unbound, and 4 LEDs somewhere in the 75. On top of that, you have to have bounce or removal for things like Canonist and Counterbalance. That's probably not workable.

I think a more realistic transform is 4 DD and 1 Shelldock Isle, but there's the question of does it solve the actual problem cards? It gets around storm hate like Chalice (and to some extent 3-ball), but Wasteland and Stifle were slight problems before and it doesn't solve some creature hate like Karakas. It's definitely workable, but it seems so all-in. Cloud of Faeries might help to go off the turn you Doomsday, but again not excited. If someone can figure out a build that includes Gitaxian Probe, that would help in the transform. The nice thing about it is that it's a very compact 1-card combo, so you could still have some reanimation in the deck.



I was running Burning Wish for quite a while, actually (SCG Denver last August, although my sideboard was pretty awful and it hurt me all day). And now that I think of it - it's probably worth testing again in a new configuration. I could see cutting the 2 Reanimates and Tendrils from my list above for 3 Burning Wish. Would have to figure out the mana, obviously, but it may be ok. My biggest problem with BW is the mana requirements though - it's not nearly as powerful without LED's. But, as a 3 of tutor for Tendrils, reanimation, Snt, and other answers it may be fine. We do go infinite fairly easily, so making enough mana to actually go off should be fine. Will have to think about this and test it out.

The best sideboard to date (in my opinion) has been with the red splash as well. It transforms into Grixis Sneak and Show very easily with BW acting as more copies of SnT. This might also lend credence to running a singleton Mox Diamond again as well to activate Sneak Attack. Definitely will have to get brewing with this...

As far as Doomsday goes - I wasn't a huge fan when I tried it. I attempted a Lab Maniac win as well as SI/Emrakul, and neither seemed very satisfactory. Not running SDT or Gitaxian Probe main means that you're taking up a LOT of sideboard space for the packages. And if you're boarding into DDFT, then you need LED's as well - and you're already over your 15 cards. SI/Emrakul is also pretty bad against tempo decks, and loses pretty bad to Karakas which would get boarded in after Game 1 reanimation anyway. That said - with Burning Wishes, it could be more viable. Something else to test, I suppose.

[alphastryk]

I was running Burning Wish for quite a while, actually (SCG Denver last August, although my sideboard was pretty awful and it hurt me all day). And now that I think of it - it's probably worth testing again in a new configuration. I could see cutting the 2 Reanimates and Tendrils from my list above for 3 Burning Wish. Would have to figure out the mana, obviously, but it may be ok. My biggest problem with BW is the mana requirements though - it's not nearly as powerful without LED's. But, as a 3 of tutor for Tendrils, reanimation, Snt, and other answers it may be fine. We do go infinite fairly easily, so making enough mana to actually go off should be fine. Will have to think about this and test it out.

The best sideboard to date (in my opinion) has been with the red splash as well. It transforms into Grixis Sneak and Show very easily with BW acting as more copies of SnT. This might also lend credence to running a singleton Mox Diamond again as well to activate Sneak Attack. Definitely will have to get brewing with this...

Huh, that actually sounds like a reasonable sideboard, but working red into the manabase is pretty miserable, and you likely end up with 0 or 1 basics, which is very unexciting. I'd be curious to see how much those changes affect your game 1 consistency.

[Megadeus]

I guess a SB splash for something like Ground Seal would be terrible? It turns off Goryo's Vengeance, but it does leave your shallow graves online, while turning off their targeted hate. The big issue is the green mana.

[Bobmans]

I guess a SB splash for something like Ground Seal would be terrible? It turns off Goryo's Vengeance, but it does leave your shallow graves online, while turning off their targeted hate. The big issue is the green mana.

Pithing Needle is used against the same hate (Deathrite Shaman, Faerie Macabre), but also being able to shut down Crypt, Relic, Karakas, Planeswalker and stuff like Sneak Attack. That being said. Green does enable abrupt decay, solving Counterbalance and Chalice of the Void locks.

Edit: i hope my order is in time this weekend for a tournament as i am going to play this deck again with some slight changes in the protection suite.

[Megadeus]

Ground seal shuts down Extirpate effects as well though which needle cannot do.

[.dk]

If there is a green splash for protection, I would probably first look at City of Solitude. That turns off EVERYTHING during your turn, leaving you free to go crazy. Was looking at Abeyance for a while in the white splash for the same reason, but was finding that producing an addition 1W during the combo turn to be a little prohibitive.

[Richard Cheese]

I thought about ground seal too, but I just don't think it's where we want to be. It still doesn't stop Crypt, Relic, or Grafdigger's Cage, and Pithing needle is just much more versatile, cutting off things like Karakas and Jace that can be a real pain in the ass postboard. Personally, I'm starting to lean towards the idea of SnT + another combo postboard. RiP/Helm seems toughest to disrupt, and fairly compact. Something like

4 RiP
4 Helm
4 SnT
3 Pithing Needle

Although to be honest, I've been pretty happy with Show and Tell, Needle, Bounce, and Cabal Rits.

[Holden1669]

I still haven't played this deck against a non-combo opponent who was playing any reasonable disruption. Also I have only been playing it for four days or something so take this with a grain of salt. That said, I used to play regular Reanimator quite a bit and my biggest issues with the Show and Tell sideboard plan were:

1. Because it was impractical to side out ten reanimation spells and four Entombs and depend on four Show and Tells to win the game I always felt pulled between the reanimate plan and the Show and Tell plan. This led to two plans that are good on their own but, watered-down, it really wasn't as effective.

2. If everything went well and I cast Show and Tell on turn 3 to get a fatty into play it didn't feel fast enough to win the game consistently. Granted, this was when Jin-Gitaxias was the target of choice before Griselbrand came out, but I was still looking to get some advantage and turn that into a win rather than just get a big creature into play and win that turn. It made my Dazes worse and I couldn't Entomb for the right creature for the situation. Swords to Plowshares, Jace, Lilliana, Karakas and more are all big problems for the Show and Tell plan.

This argues, to me, that a transformational sideboard isn't the way to go for this deck. Regarding point #1, this deck does something really well. There aren't any graveyard hosers that can't be answered by tools available to us in these colors. Add a couple of Show and Tells, maybe, as a backup way to get Griselbrand into play but which are clearly secondary and keep most of the reanimation package as plan #1. I don't feel like Doomsday, Helm, etc are better than the main plan of the deck. Transformational sideboards are awesome but this feels like the danger of cool things to me.

Regarding point #2, with this deck's Dark Rituals, Lotus Petals, and Moxes it seems reasonable to Show and Tell before turn 3. Or fight through disruption in order to reanimate by turn 3-4. (Instant speed reanimation makes it easier as well). And, most importantly, once Griselbrand gets into play this deck often just wins that turn. It's harder without haste but still very doable. This is very often soon enough, especially against decks that bring in disruption rather than just try to race.

So those are my thoughts. Like I said, I haven't played the deck enough yet to feel authoritative about this. But I'm going to go with anti-graveyard hate (Pithing Needle and bounce), my own disruption (probably Force I'd guess if I can figure that out), and two or three Show and Tells and see if I can slow the game down if I have to to win through disruption in games 2-3.

[Wilkin]

What about Doomsday in the board....with Laboratory Maniac and Shelldock Isle, seeing as there is an Emrakul Main? Big issue I guess with that is that takes up a lot of sideboard slots and being vulnerable to wasteland. Does dodge the potential sideboard hate coming in.

I guess if you are going the Ground Seal route, you could also have Exhume since it's like Shallow grave in that it doesn't target.

I just built the deck, looks like a lot of fun. It's just the sideboard which I'm not sure of, especially seeing as I haven't played/tested the deck yet.

[phazonmutant]

If there is a green splash for protection, I would probably first look at City of Solitude. That turns off EVERYTHING during your turn, leaving you free to go crazy. Was looking at Abeyance for a while in the white splash for the same reason, but was finding that producing an addition 1W during the combo turn to be a little prohibitive.

Oh wow. I didn't realize City of Solitude shut off Karakas and Maze of Ith too. That seems pretty hot.


I don't really get the plans to board in a 2-card combo that doesn't synergize with the main plan. How do you expect to find the pieces? They're still vulnerable to a quick clock and counterspells anyway.

Wilkin, if you look back one page, we discussed that exact thing.

[alphastryk]

Oh wow. I didn't realize City of Solitude shut off Karakas and Maze of Ith too. That seems pretty hot.


Yes, I'd forgotten it did both. Maybe that does what I wanted to do with Abeyance, but doesn't cost a thousand mana on the combo turn.

[Richard Cheese]

Oh wow. I didn't realize City of Solitude shut off Karakas and Maze of Ith too. That seems pretty hot.


I don't really get the plans to board in a 2-card combo that doesn't synergize with the main plan. How do you expect to find the pieces? They're still vulnerable to a quick clock and counterspells anyway.

Wilkin, if you look back one page, we discussed that exact thing.

This might be a total pipe dream, but the idea (to me at least) is to still have a large number of "must-counter" cards, while ditching most or all graveyard dependence. You really switch from one plan of reanimating Grizzlebees, to Show and Tell + something unrelated. Granted there aren't tutors, but there never really have been for board pieces, and I think we all know that 8 cantrips can go pretty far most of the time.

Like I said though, I've been pretty happy with just a handfull of reactive cards in the board so far. There really isn't that much grave hate in the format right now that we can't play around. If this deck gets big, or Dredge or Loam or some other grave-centric deck starts to dominate though, that may change, so I'm just trying to think of some ways to avoid that hate altogether. In the original list, we just boarded into AnT, idea being you just shuffle your whole board into the deck ever round, so people never know if you've switched combos or not. It seems fairly silly at first, but I don't think we're giving enough credit to dead cards in opponents' decks. I played against a guy in Atlanta that went turn 1 Cage, turn 2 Needle on Griselbrand, and I just killed him with AdNaus into Tendrils.

[.dk]

In the original list, we just boarded into AnT, idea being you just shuffle your whole board into the deck ever round, so people never know if you've switched combos or not. It seems fairly silly at first, but I don't think we're giving enough credit to dead cards in opponents' decks. I played against a guy in Atlanta that went turn 1 Cage, turn 2 Needle on Griselbrand, and I just killed him with AdNaus into Tendrils.

This is exactly why there are unrelated combos in the board. I did the same thing in atlanta - a Goblins opponent mulled to 5, had a T0 Leyline and T1 Pithing Needle on Griselbrand, and AdNaus -> Tendrils ate his lunch.

Maindeck, while extremely powerful, is also very vulnerable to (good) graveyard disruption and (good) storm combo disruption. Yes, we can theoretically deal with a lot of those in the colors that we're in, but boarding in enough answers to them I feel has a good chance of watering down the combo too much to be effective (usually anyway - the maindeck is extremely tight). So, the advantage to attacking on a different axis is that the answers that they board in to your extremely powerful maindeck aren't effective with your sideboard plan.

If you're worried about finding combo piece - remember, we do have 8 cantrips and an intuition. It's not like it's THAT bad. Furthermore, if you're running RIP/Helm, you could always run some E-tutors as well to find either piece you're missing. SnT still works here as you can use SnT as a duress for countermagic, and then slam down Helm anyway. And if they don't counter it, you either get a griselbrand, emrakul, or a combo piece in play.

I'm not saying it's the best - as I've never really been happy with any sideboard plan. The reactive ones have all felt really bad to me as it feels like you're always on your back foot, and the transformations are kind of mediocre. I did kind of like the Sneak/Show transformation, and obviously had some pretty good success with an ANT transformation though...

[Koby]

I think the Sneak/Show transformational board might have the most strength, as the only hitch to attacking with fatties from hand becomes permanent based lock pieces (Ensnaring Bridge, Humility, etc) and a solid clock. Running Dark Ritual and Petal and discard really makes that plan viable for when the deck needs to put away the G/Y shenanigans.

Using 3 BW maindeck:

3 Sneak Attack
3 Show & Tell (leaving 1 in the board for BW)
3 Emrakul

Taking out:
3 Entomb (leaving one 1 as a shuffle effect ;)
3 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance

[CalebD]

I kinda like the idea of a SB of hosers.

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [PD3] Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 [ON] Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 [RTR] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [ARE] Chill/Warmth/White Leyline? Chill has applications vs gobs and doesn't require a splash.
SB: 2 [CS] Deathmark
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 [A] Meekstone

[GexxX]

I think the Sneak/Show transformational board might have the most strength, as the only hitch to attacking with fatties from hand becomes permanent based lock pieces (Ensnaring Bridge, Humility, etc) and a solid clock. Running Dark Ritual and Petal and discard really makes that plan viable for when the deck needs to put away the G/Y shenanigans.

Using 3 BW maindeck:

3 Sneak Attack
3 Show & Tell (leaving 1 in the board for BW)
3 Emrakul

Taking out:
3 Entomb (leaving one 1 as a shuffle effect ;)
3 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance

Why would you not switch to omnitell instead? If I counted correctly that leaves wo more slots in the sideboard for either wincons or situational cards.

4 Omniscience
3 Show and Tell
equals seven. Maybe two Emrakuls to make sure you have more SnT Targets to draw into, or play off of Omniscience.



CalebD

I kinda like the idea of a SB of hosers.

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [PD3] Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 [ON] Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 [RTR] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [ARE] Chill/Warmth/White Leyline? Chill has applications vs gobs and doesn't require a splash.
SB: 2 [CS] Deathmark
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 [A] Meekstone



Chill might help vs. Goblins, but Leyline of Sanctity helps vs Discard which is way more popular and in a Deck like this much more a concern than a semi-fast clock. To be honest I don't see what Deathmark is doing better than Chain of Vapor. Chain is much more versatile and in rare situations performs as a Storm engine, especially if you play multiple Chrome Moxen in the 75. I might be overlooking something, but right now I am convinced by the board you're suggesting.

regards

[CalebD]

Chill might help vs. Goblins, but Leyline of Sanctity helps vs Discard which is way more popular and in a Deck like this much more a concern than a semi-fast clock. To be honest I don't see what Deathmark is doing better than Chain of Vapor. Chain is much more versatile and in rare situations performs as a Storm engine, especially if you play multiple Chrome Moxen in the 75. I might be overlooking something, but right now I am convinced by the board you're suggesting.
regards

My opponent would need to have a ton of discard before I felt White Leyline was necessary (Pox?) and maybe not even then. Discard is pretty bad against this deck since half the combo you can put into the GY for later. You can be hellbent and draw a Shallow Grave and win. Meanwhile, if you fill your deck full of dead cards it'll make it much harder to combo off when you want to.

Burn is a much bigger concern because it takes away from the actual resource we need to combo: our life total. If Chill or Warmth is better than Leyline at protecting my life total, I want that card.

I've been a fan of Deathmark in the sb of my storm decks for a long time. Ideally, you'll have a good draw and then it won't matter what you're using to get rid of their Ethersworn Canonist, but sometimes you simply don't have the combo, and that Deathmark is a useful spell that nets you three turns that a Knight of the Reliquary would've been Wastelocking you.

It takes two mana to answer a Thalia either way. What if you pass the turn with two mana up, ready to Chain it, and they Wasteland you? You're going to sit there and hope you draw another land, that's what. Meanwhile, something like a Dread of Night or a Deathmark would've let you answer the threat when you had the mana to do so.

Chain answers some forms of graveyard hate, but Pithing Needle does that better, and I don't want to overload on that sort of effect because, again, I don't want to flood on non combo pieces.

Not saying that sb is any good, it's just what I'm testing, but I wanted to give my rational for the slots.

[Bobmans]

Why would you not switch to omnitell instead? If I counted correctly that leaves wo more slots in the sideboard for either wincons or situational cards.
4 Omniscience
3 Show and Tell
equals seven. Maybe two Emrakuls to make sure you have more SnT Targets to draw into, or play off of Omniscience.


The Omniscience plan would require you to have at least 3-4 Burning Wish mainboard. Making red splash. Then you're sideboard needs 2 cards dedicated as a wincon, ergo Petals of Insight and Grapeshot. Next to this you would want 4 Show and Tell in the side. After boarding in 4 Omniscience and 3 S&T to the main leaving 1 S&T as a BW target in the side. As you said you would want some extra S&T target like 2-3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn leaving you with 2-4 flexibel sideboard slots. Which is about the same as with the Sneak Attack plan. As for the Omniscience plan vs the Sneak Attack plan i think Sneak Attack is more consistant as you can cast Sneak Attack on its own, where Omniscience requires Show and Tell. So in the Omniscience plan wou would defenitly require tutors like Intuition and/or Lim-Dul's Vault to fetch the missing combo piece. While this plan is really cool to play, it solves just a part of the problem and only distracts the game away from gravehate. Gravehate can pretty easily be dodged with some bounce like Chain of Vapor and Echoing Truth and/or Pithing Needle effects. Fighting thru countermagic is still an issue. And to much discard effects can be some trouble to. Especially combined in the same deck. Like the BUG or Esper Stoneblade.

So what i am trying to say is that transformational boards are really awesome, BUT this deck really needs support in its main combo plan. Reanimating Grisebrand asap and draw into a wincon in that same turn. I believe this deck is strongest when focussing on consistant turn 1/2 or at most turn 3 win ratio with solid protection to fight thru disruption. Last weekend i managed to finish 5th in a tournament (32 people), 4-1 and bricked top 8. Losses against Esper Stoneblade and some kind of 4c control with Jace, Lilliana, Punishing Fire, Snapcaster and counter magic. The deck now plays close to how i prefer it to be, a slight different from the version posted by .dk on #215, but still requires the finishing touch.

Edit: Come to think of it. Both or either Leylines in the board also is a crappy plan. You would have to mulligan to get it in your opening hand, making chances to solid opening hands smaller. And thats not what you want on a deck trying to win on turn 1/2/3.

2nd Edit: During the tournament i couldn't find an Entomb or the one-off Intuition. And sometimes i had Griselbitch sitting in my hand without any discard outlet. Having 4 Cabal Therapy and 2 Thoughtseize as is used those agianst my opponent for good reasons. So i am thinking about including Careful Study again and the 4th Griselbrand. This also means cutting 4 Ponder. And last, but not least i am also including Daze again. I really missed having the ability to go off turn 1 and not worry about a single FoW. Currently i am just goldfishing that build to see how it work out for me.

[Richard Cheese]

The problem with trying to board into just Show and Tell is that Surgical/Extirpate on a countered/discarded Show and Tell is every bit as backbreaking as pulling Griselbrands pre-board. You have to have some kind of backup plan, whether it's leaving in some reanimation pieces (which is what I've been doing), bringing in another combo like Painter or Helm, or including Sneak Attacks.

Edit:
@bobmans - I would not cut Ponders. The card is amazing and the extra shuffle effects are absolutely worth it. I would also not bother screwing around with Daze, as a single FoW might set you back a couple turns, but it's by no means GG. The strength of this deck lies in redundancy. Personally I still like having some number of Careful Study, but I'm probably on the wrong side of history with that one. It may have just been a misplay to use your discard to target your opponent rather than yourself, but it's hard to say without knowing the rest of the game state. I will generally prioritize getting Grizzlebees in the yard over disrupting the opponent, because at that point all 7-8 reanimation spells become must-counters, which most decks can't deal with.

[.dk]

Why would you not switch to omnitell instead? If I counted correctly that leaves wo more slots in the sideboard for either wincons or situational cards.

4 Omniscience
3 Show and Tell
equals seven. Maybe two Emrakuls to make sure you have more SnT Targets to draw into, or play off of Omniscience.



I tried Omniscience a long time ago, and honestly didn't like it much. It felt like you were boarding into a 3 card combo at that point (SnT, Omniscience, griselbrand/emrakul/burning wish). The Sneak/Show transformation I found to be more successful as I could at least cast Sneak Attack, and had sideboard room to add in the full compliment of Emrakul as well. YMMV, but I didn't feel like it was consistent enough as well as vulnerable to countermagic which would likely be boarded in after Game 1 anyway.



SB: 1 [PD3] Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 [ON] Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 [RTR] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [ARE] Chill/Warmth/White Leyline? Chill has applications vs gobs and doesn't require a splash.
SB: 2 [CS] Deathmark
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 [A] Meekstone


This seems pretty versatile for an answers type sideboard. I'm not a huge fan of any of the Leylines as you pretty much have to run 4, but Warmth is pretty good. I've had trouble against burn in the past, and that seems like a pretty good answer to that.

I also see your point with deathmark as well - pressure on your life total can be a big deal, and deathmark can buy you enough time in certain matchups to find your combo pieces. Same thing with meekstone (which is sweet, btw - good idea) - buys you enough time to throw more hay-makers at your opponents.

I think I would replace Leyline of the Void with 2-3 Surgicals, and maybe add the 2nd Chain and/or the 3rd Needle. Seems rare that you would want to be boarding in 4 cards anyway given how tight the maindeck is. Likely that you're usually going to be boarding in 2-3 at a time so as not to dilute the combo too much.

And I certainly understand the lack of Show and Tell - that card can be so powerful and so awful at the same time. It's a great sideboard against Chalice decks, but seems like everyone has an answer now. I remember sitting next to your match at GP Atlanta when Todd cast Show and Tell and you put in Humility...

[ZimAshe]

I have to say, I think this deck is insane. i am currently in the process of building it.
the one problem is I don't have any thouhtsieze. I realize that this card is a competative staple in most decks and I should get my hands on a playset. that having been said at $60 a pop that isn't happening anytime soon.

My question for the developers and the thread as a whole is: what card do you substitute? i realize thoughtseize works double duty in this deck. it has the ability to pull cards from your opponent but also put Griselbrand into your yard for reanimation purposes.

my thoughts for a "reasonable" substitution were one of the following:


4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Duress
4 Careful Study


thanks for your time.

[Dela]

I have to say, I think this deck is insane. i am currently in the process of building it.
the one problem is I don't have any thouhtsieze. I realize that this card is a competative staple in most decks and I should get my hands on a playset. that having been said at $60 a pop that isn't happening anytime soon.

My question for the developers and the thread as a whole is: what card do you substitute? i realize thoughtseize works double duty in this deck. it has the ability to pull cards from your opponent but also put Griselbrand into your yard for reanimation purposes.

my thoughts for a "reasonable" substitution were one of the following:


4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Duress
4 Careful Study


thanks for your time.

Cabal Therapy's and Probes are decent.

[Koby]

Inquisition of Kozilek is a decent substitute for Thoughtseize. However it has its limitations: it cannot take Force of Will nor Mindbreak Trap.
Cabal Therapy is also a good sub, but has a much higher learning curve and can still whiff. If you play it correctly, it should effectively do the same as Thoughtseize. Playing with Gitaxian Probe also makes this card useful.

[ZimAshe]

this is the list that I'm going off of for referance:


2 Children of Korlis
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Ponder
2 Reanimate
4 Thoughtseize
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Island
1 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea

[phazonmutant]

I kinda like the idea of a SB of hosers.

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [PD3] Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 [ON] Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 [RTR] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [ARE] Chill/Warmth/White Leyline? Chill has applications vs gobs and doesn't require a splash.
SB: 2 [CS] Deathmark
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 [A] Meekstone

Agreed with .dk that Leylines are probably bad. The deck doesn't need any more dead draws. Also, the graveyard matchups aren't that bad...

I have to disagree with the Chill / Meekstone plan. I don't think the deck will win if it tries to play control against Burn or Maverick because those decks either are more redundant or have better control tools. With Children, the deck can consistantly go off from 14-8 life and if you're that concerned about Burn, just play another Children as a lifegain spell. Meekstone doesn't solve any of the hatebears out of Maverick, so I'm really not sure what it's doing.

Deathmark makes sense though. Other potential options are Slaughter Pact, Massacre, and Disfigure. I like Massacre right now I've been seeing a lot more Mom + hatebear gamestates than Teegs, but it's close. Maverick has always been scary for reanimator, so it makes sense to devote some slots to anti-hate for that matchup.


ZimAshe - try playing 4 Therapies, 2 Duress, and 1 Careful Study. It's not often that I take one of their creatures with Thoughtseize, so Duress is a reasonable replacement, and add in the miser's Careful Study for value.

[.dk]

I have to say, I think this deck is insane. i am currently in the process of building it.
the one problem is I don't have any thouhtsieze. I realize that this card is a competative staple in most decks and I should get my hands on a playset. that having been said at $60 a pop that isn't happening anytime soon.

My question for the developers and the thread as a whole is: what card do you substitute? i realize thoughtseize works double duty in this deck. it has the ability to pull cards from your opponent but also put Griselbrand into your yard for reanimation purposes.

my thoughts for a "reasonable" substitution were one of the following:


4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Duress
4 Careful Study


thanks for your time.

Glad you find the deck fun, and it's getting enough publicity that more people are realizing that. :)

As far as substitutions for Thoughtseize - I would likely change the disruption suite from 4 Thoughtseize 3 Cabal Therapy to 4 Duress, 1 Cabal Therapy, 2 Careful Study or something to that effect (more Therapies if you're familiar with the card, and reasonably confident that you can hit often with it). You still get 5 pieces of disruption this way, along with 3 ways to pitch a Griselbrand from your hand. I don't think you need (or want) 4 Careful Studies though - there are only 4 pitch targets main deck (5 if you're running the full compliment of Griselbrands), so that scenario isn't a regular occurrence.

Gitaxian Probe + Therapy on it's own is pretty sweet too - but I'm not sure if only 4 pieces of disruption is enough.




I have to disagree with the Chill / Meekstone plan. I don't think the deck will win if it tries to play control against Burn or Maverick because those decks either are more redundant or have better control tools. With Children, the deck can consistantly go off from 14-8 life and if you're that concerned about Burn, just play another Children as a lifegain spell. Meekstone doesn't solve any of the hatebears out of Maverick, so I'm really not sure what it's doing.


Have you not had issues with Burn in the past? I've gotten into scenarios where I couldn't go off T1, and ended up in a position where I couldn't actually draw from Griselbrand else I got burned out. Warmth seems better than some number of Thoughtseizes to me in that matchup. Although, now that I think about it, those scenarios may have been before I was running Children...

Meekstone is there to stave off pressure - if you can't go off instantly or you're disrupted and they drop some beater (like RUG can do), you can have a real problem living until you can go off again.

My thoughts anyway - maybe you've had different experiences than I.

[phazonmutant]

Have you not had issues with Burn in the past? I've gotten into scenarios where I couldn't go off T1, and ended up in a position where I couldn't actually draw from Griselbrand else I got burned out. Warmth seems better than some number of Thoughtseizes to me in that matchup. Although, now that I think about it, those scenarios may have been before I was running Children...

Meekstone is there to stave off pressure - if you can't go off instantly or you're disrupted and they drop some beater (like RUG can do), you can have a real problem living until you can go off again.

My thoughts anyway - maybe you've had different experiences than I.

No major issues with burn. They usually can't deal more than 10 damage by turn 2 and their turn 3 kills are very unlikely. We have some games where we can't go off until turn 4+ even without disruption, but usually those hands will have some discard to serve as Healing Salve. Also, the more they sideboard, the slower their clock gets.

I guess against Thresh meekstone buys you a lot of time, but I would much rather have a spells like Defense Grid that actively helps me win rather than a spell that helps me not lose. I've always lost whenever I've played fast combo decks that position to "not-lose" after sideboarding. It just doesn't work at all with the strategic goal of the deck - sort of like Who's the Beatdown?


Specific decks I would position to be the control against are Belcher variants, TES (because they're explosive and disruption can easily buy a couple turns), Dredge if I have grave have because we have more inevitability if we can Surgical Narcs, and that's about it.
ANT is pretty hand-dependent on which of you is going to be the control - about equal amounts of disruption vs. dig/combo pieces and similar fundamental turns.
Traditional Reanimator, High Tide, Alluren, Show and Tell, etc are all positioned to be the control because of Force of Will.

[ZimAshe]

I'm pretty comfortable with Therapy. I've been using it for a while.

I think for this build i wil go:


3 Cabal therapy
2 Duress
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Careful Study


Probe and Therapy work so well together it's hard to not have at least a misers copy. Same with Careful Study. and duress will be good against the blue decks and their counter magic.

Edit:
I can't wait to run this deck against my friends at our Legacy tournament. Turn 2 wins rule! lol

[.dk]

No major issues with burn. They usually can't deal more than 10 damage by turn 2 and their turn 3 kills are very unlikely. We have some games where we can't go off until turn 4+ even without disruption, but usually those hands will have some discard to serve as Healing Salve. Also, the more they sideboard, the slower their clock gets.

I guess against Thresh meekstone buys you a lot of time, but I would much rather have a spells like Defense Grid that actively helps me win rather than a spell that helps me not lose. I've always lost whenever I've played fast combo decks that position to "not-lose" after sideboarding. It just doesn't work at all with the strategic goal of the deck - sort of like Who's the Beatdown?


Specific decks I would position to be the control against are Belcher variants, TES (because they're explosive and disruption can easily buy a couple turns), Dredge if I have grave have because we have more inevitability if we can Surgical Narcs, and that's about it.
ANT is pretty hand-dependent on which of you is going to be the control - about equal amounts of disruption vs. dig/combo pieces and similar fundamental turns.
Traditional Reanimator, High Tide, Alluren, Show and Tell, etc are all positioned to be the control because of Force of Will.


Fair enough on the burn matchup. That must have been prior to Children, now that I think about it. I don't think I've played against UR Burn since GP Atlanta, so I'm not even sure how that matchup works.

As far as thresh goes - we're already set up pretty well against counterspells due to the amount of business spells that we have. If they counter the first reanimation - well great, then cast another. What we have a hard time dealing with is pressure - and I think that is where meekstone could be good. Defense Grid actually serves a similar role - it just answers a different part of your opponent's gameplan.

Not necessarily saying that Defense Grid is worse, but if we are already set up ok to deal with countermagic, then maybe having a sideboard piece to deal with pressure is ok? For an answers type board, it seems like a good option to test out to see how it fares. And as an added bonus - it turns off getting waste-locked by KotR.

[Richard Cheese]

@ZimAshe - I would probably go 4 Cabal Therapy, 2 Careful Study, 1 Duress. There are a lot of situations with this deck where you want to be able to ditch something in your hand, whether it's Grizzlebees to combo off, Children so you can reanimate them if you don't have a white source, or Emrakul for a shuffle or the win. We don't need to protect our combo as much as TES or AnT, so I think you want more utility out of those slots than Probe offers.