UB Tudresl

[Benie Bederios]

Hello

This is a deck that looks alot like Veggie Tendrils, but because that thread is more than a month old I chose to make new one. If a moderator feels the urge to combine it, be my guest.

After I saw the list I started finetuning and testing for a small tournament in my local store comming up. This was the list I played.

Tudrels( Infernal Tendrils)

Lands

3 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
2 Island
2 Cabal Pit

Other

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Jet Medallion
3 Intuition
2 Grim Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Duress
3 Remand
1 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor

Sideboard

4 Dark Confidant
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Rushing River
3 Deep Analysis
1 Massacre
2 Tendrils of Agony

First I will go through the cardchoices very fast, because the most are obvious.

The mana

The manabase is just normal, 3 basics, 2 duals, 8 fetches and 2 Cabal Pit for beating that stupid Meddling Mage. Nothing strange here.

The fast mana

Again nothing strange here. the four strongest cards in Legacy. No Chrome Mox because of the carddisadvantage and the lack of draw cards with this deck.

The Tutors

The deck is built around Infernal Tutor and Intuition. Both capable of setting up the perfect hand/ graveyard and Infernal Tutor is also great during the combo. Grim Tutor, only two because they are quite bad in the early game, but they are very solid in the midgame. Brainstorm is just great with 8 fetchlands and as fas as I am concerned not only a autoinclude for a deck playing blue( except Faerie Stompy), but even a reason to splash blue.

The win

Only one Tendrils of Agony was a metagame call, I didn't expect much ***** so I figured that I rarely have to play more than one game 1. Ill-Gotten Gains is there to quicken your kill by a turn against anything non-counter. Jet Medallion is the Helm of Awakening of the deck, but better.

The control

As you can see, I played alot of control. Duress is normal and great pre-combo, to see what your opponent plays and slow them down, but also great during combo, for B you stop a counter, see your opponents hand and higher stormcount by one. Remand, originally Force of Will, but this deck couldn't support him very well and Remand is better than I thought. I thought the card was rather weak because this deck has alot less tricks then Solidarity, but it turned out great. Delaying your opponent a turn, or trying to go off, have your tutor countered, Remand it, and try again next turn. 2 Bounce spells to get around Chalice for 1.

The Sideboard

2 Additional Tendrils for playing the slow game, with multiple Tendrils. Dark Confidant is obvious after opponents board out there creaturehate. Hymn to Tourach/ Deep Analysis to get cardadvantage. Massacre and addtional bounce for the obvious.

Now the Tournament. It was a rather bad show up so I only played 6 rounds of Swiss( atleast I think you call it that way)

Round 1, Rw Vial Goblin by steven

I was very happy to play them, this deck just ruins Goblins and they can't bring in to much cards.
Game 1: I just waited till turn four. I was down to ten. Although this isn't the fastest deck, it still just runs any combodeck.
Game 2: He mulled down to four, first turn I go Island go, he played a mountain, I EOT Brainstorm. Turn 2 a swamp and he an Pyrostatic Pillar. Next turn I just combo playing excatly ten spells using Ill-Gotten Gains so I was down to 4 when I played Tendrils for the win.

1-0 2-0-0

Round 2, Affinity by alfred

Again an easy matchup, I'm glad I chose this deck.
Game 1: Again an easy game for me comboing on T2, because I didn't fear counters.
Game 2: He resolved a second Turn mage on tendrils, I Intuition for 3 Brainstorm giving me ********. Next turn I played Cabal Pit blew up Mage and combo out. I think every combo deck with black shoul at least play one Cabal Pit.

2-0 4-0-0

Round 3, some slow UW control deck by I dunno

I think this was some Landstill build, but without Landstill and Manlands.
Game 1: I just build up a very strong hand with 3 Duresses. He tapped out turn 5 to play a morpling or so. The turn after that I comboed, removing two forces out of his hand with the duresses.
Game 2: I boarded in my 2 Tendrils and Hymns and just ruined his hand hard. He managed to get a Mage and a Crypt out, but Chain of Vapor is just so powerfull, capable of bouncing my Led to up the stormcount and his Mage so I could win.

3-0 6-0-0

Round 4 UGr ***** by Pascal

The first though matchup, luckily no white though.
Game 1: Game one I lost quite easily, I had 2 duresses in hand when I want to combo but he revealed a hand full of couters.
Game 2: I boarded in Hymn/ Tendrils and Deep Analysis. But he though I played IGGy-pop so he played a first turn crypt. This neutered my DA but I was capable of playing a Tendrils for 15 protected by a duress/Hymn, buying enough time for the second Tendrils.

4-0 8-0-0

Round 5 Staxx by Rene

The matchup that I hated, this was the reason for the double bounce main, and the Rushing Rivers in the SB.
Game 1: I lost to a T1 Trinisphere and a T2 Smokestack, as simple as that.
Game 2: I board in my Rusing Rivers. My opponent plays a T1 Chalice for 1, T2 Trinisphere and T3 Crucible of Wordls. I just sit on my basic lands and EOT I play Rushing River bouncing Trinisphere and Chalice and just combo out the next turn.
Game 3: Was very savage, I menage to get him down to 2 lifes with a Chalice for 1 in to play. But after that he resolved a Stax. I tried to bounce it and buy me a few turns, But it was hopeless.

4-1 9-2-0

Round 6 UGw ***** Eddy

I suggested a draw but he wanted to play it out, I was in for a very though matchup.

Game 1: He didn't play with mages main so I had some changes to win it. Due to the high number of fetches he got him self down to 16 I manage to combo out with quite some luck, because he countered my Infernal Tutor, bringing the stormcount up to 7 and I had already had Tendrils in my hand.
Game 2: He played T1 Needle naming Cabal Pit, T2 Meddling Mage Tendrils of Agony, T3 Meddling Mage on Infernal Tutor and lost to Mage-beatdown.
Game 3: Took quite som time. He countered alot of my spells( including 2 Jet Medallions) But I forced the third through. After that I Tendrild him for 10 keeping me alive, but I still lost to a Goose a Bear and a Mage, due to a stupid mistake. I could have Tendrild for 11 and killing him( he had 8 lives) but I just played 4 spells and Tendrils, but in response he Plowed his own bear, keeping him alive.

4-2 10-4-0

All in all I was happy with my performance. Against the most difficult matchups I won atleast a game. The only two I'm not sure about is Tendrils between the MD and SB and the Dark Confidant, because I only sided it in once.

[Mad Bomber]

First off


2 Bounce spells to get around Chalice for 1

Chain of vapor has a rough time getting around chalice for 1 :tongue:

And who would chalice for one anyway...you either chalice for 0 or 2 against these decks!

But anyway my reason for responding was that i thought this deck seemed like a bad version of iggy-pop. I'm not saying that it can't or wouldn't win, because the raw power of LED and Inferal Tutor is ridiculous in any deck that can support it and then cast Tendrils. But basically it looks like you took a very solid shell and removed some really good cards for some subpar ones.

Basically i feel that the main thing this deck has over traditional Iggy Pop is the maindeck duress which can be a 1 of in iggy pop against a control heavy field if you playing around the maindeck stifles.

[Togit460]

First things first, For the majority of legacy players, Grim tutor is to much $$$ to own right now for a lot of us. That said, it shouldn't be an issue while making a deck, Grim tutor isn't great in this deck, I've played many many versions of tendrils, from naseau to veggie, to iggy. Grim tutor was never a key card for me in those decks, and i've always preferred going with something cheaper. Try taking it out of the list and trying out different tutors in it's spot, i think you'll be pleasently surprised how much easier it is to go off. -peace, J.J.

[Benie Bederios]

Chain of vapor has a rough time getting around chalice for 1

And who would chalice for one anyway...you either chalice for 0 or 2 against these decks!

Well then I change my text to get around Chalice for 1 or 2. :tongue:


But anyway my reason for responding was that i thought this deck seemed like a bad version of iggy-pop. I'm not saying that it can't or wouldn't win, because the raw power of LED and Inferal Tutor is ridiculous in any deck that can support it and then cast Tendrils. But basically it looks like you took a very solid shell and removed some really good cards for some subpar ones.

Basically i feel that the main thing this deck has over traditional Iggy Pop is the maindeck duress which can be a 1 of in iggy pop against a control heavy field if you playing around the maindeck stifles.

Well this is not particulary a bad version of IGGy-pop. I think combo decks doesn't need to have a high percentage of turn 1/2 kills. The fastest aggro decks rarely kills on turn 3 and most of the time turn 4/5. This deck is a slow version of IGGy-pop. It doesn't aim for the most speed, but just want to be faster than aggro. This way I could pack more disruption, and make this deck less reliable on the graveyard, and give it a slightly faster clock against control. So you could look at this as IGGy-pop wiithout the insane draws, but more consitent.

Next to that the deck is more flexible because of the tutors. It can play like IGGy-pop, being reliant on the Graveyard, but also like nausea with Jet Medallion.

If you read the IGGy-pop thread you'll see that quite some people suggest boarding out 3 IGG against some though matchups, to dodge some graveyardhate. I thought I just played a postboarded IGGy-pop deck, and made it that fast that I didn't need the 3 last IGG's.

I don't think I replaced the good cards for some subpars. Leyline of the Void is quite useless without IGG to support it. Mystical Tutor isn't that hot, now Thresh plays Predict quite often. Where Duress is always good, and Jet Medallion is quite usefull too.


First things first, For the majority of legacy players, Grim tutor is to much $$$ to own right now for a lot of us. That said, it shouldn't be an issue while making a deck, Grim tutor isn't great in this deck, I've played many many versions of tendrils, from naseau to veggie, to iggy. Grim tutor was never a key card for me in those decks, and i've always preferred going with something cheaper. Try taking it out of the list and trying out different tutors in it's spot, i think you'll be pleasently surprised how much easier it is to go off.

Well at first glance Grim Tutor isn't that good, but if you play against control decks you will see the raw power of it. capable of tutoring for any card in the deck without revealing it, is awesome. The first version I played Grim Tutor as a 4-off, but that was really overdone. You don't want to see multiple and early on. But in the midgame this tutor is great as 2-off, making hands really deadly. I thought of replacing it, but most other tutors aren't that great too. If you can't play it due to budget reasons I suggest playing Tainted Pact. About 80 % of the time I search for mana and Tainted pact can do that too, but it's like Vindicate in Bw Confidant. Most of the time it hits lands, BUT it can hit other cards. So with Grim Tutor, most of the time it searches lmana, BUT it is really strong when you need a IGG, bounce, Tendrils or Infernal Tutor.

[Benie Bederios]

First I'm sorry for the double post.

I've been testing the last week trying to get this deck cheaper and faster and this is what I came up with.

Lands

3 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
2 Island
2 Cabal Pit

Other

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Jet Medallion
3 Intuition
2 Mystical Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Duress
2 Remand
1 Chain of Vapor

Next to that some explanation.

The combo

This is a stormbased combo, wich means that you must play as much spells as possible( well atleast 10) in a single turn. In order to do this you need 1) Tutors, 2) mana and 3) a low manacurve. To able to do this you need 4) to protect your 5) kill.

1) This deck plays 9 Tutors. Infernal Tutor is the real engine The sy-energy with Lion's Eye Diamond is awesome on his own, but it has far more uses. You can tutor for additional duresses to force through the combo easier, additional Tendrils' to go for the double Tendrils plan or search for more mana. If you search for a Dark Ritual you don't loose mana, but added 2 to your spelcount. With a Jet Medallion or with Cabal Ritual you can even gain mana. Intuition is a real powerhouse midgame and against non-counter decks. Tutoring for Triple LED when you've got a Ill-Gotten Gains in hand is powerfull. Also tutoring for Triple Brainstorm when you need threshold, or go for 2x Mystical Tutor and Instant/Sorcery X, if you want that card, but don't want to thin the other copies out of your deck( for example Infernal Tutor.) The last tutor is Mystical Tutor. The revealing and carddisadvantage is quite bad, but the instant speed and the sy-energy with Brainstorm makes up quite alot. It tutors for mana or other Tutors and sometimes disruption to make your hand so deadly. Ill-Gotten Gains is in here as 1-off to fasten your kill. It makes T1 kills more likely. No need for more Ill-Gotten Gains because of the high CC and that it is quite bad against decks packing counters. Brainstorm is an autoinclude for a deck playing blue and fetchlands.

2) The only mana in the deck is that doens't bring much disadvantage. Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal are autoincludes. Doesn't ask questions and give or 2 black mana, or 1 of any color. Lion's Eye Diamond is a little harder to use but gets 3 mana. Lion's Eye Diamond is better in this deck than in IGGy-pop, because of MD duresses. During your combo you rip your opponents hand of counters so that you are sure you can safely empty your hand. Cabal Ritual only nets 1 mana, but later in the game 3 mana and if you have Jet Medallion even 4 mana.

3) The manacurve is quite low. This is a reason I only played 1 Ill-Gotten Gains. I only have 4 4CC spells. This way I can empty my hand rather easy without Lion's Eye Diamond and I do have cheap disruption that is effective against counters.

4) The protection consists out of 9 cards. This is quite much if you compare it to other combodecks( except Solidarity.) Duress is an autoinclude, so is Chain of Vapor. There are little tricks with Chain of Vapor like bouncing your own Lion's Eye Diamonds and Lotus Petals to make your stormcount bigger. Remand is good in Timewalking an opponent, and it has some nice tricks during combo, like remanding your own spell to hardcounter counters from your opponent. Cabal Pit is a non-counterable way to get rid of Meddling Mage, and it gives black mana, wich is good.

5) The kill is upped to three, after the first version. It's just a personal choice, but sometimes against Thresh you only get your storm count to 8 or so putting your opponent on 1/2 lives due to fetchlands. The additional Tendrils gives you some space for mistakes.

How to play

If you are playing against a non-counter deck. You just want to build up a hand with some mana and a Infernal Tutor. let say you have 3 mana spells next to the Tutor. You play the manaspells(3 spells) Tutor for Ill-Gotten Gains(4 spells) play it for 2 manaspells and a Infernal Tutor( 5 spells) Play manaspells( 7 spells) Infernal Tutor for Infernal Tutor (8 spells) twice (9 spells) and fetch Tendrils of Agony for twenty. Of course the more spells you've got in your opening hand the less you need to link Tutors for the spellcount. This can be done as soon as T1 and ad latest turn 3. This means, sans a insane draw of Goblins or Affinity you will run every aggrodecks.
Against decks packing counters, you want to have at least one duress in hand and maybe 2. The turn you go off you want to empty your opponents hand of counters and so you can empty your hand for the hellbent abilty from Infernal Tutor.

The matchups

I only tested against 3 decks.

Goblins
Favorable. They can't run you simple as that. Just fetch basics to play around Wasteland and go for a T3 kill. After SB( I don't finished mine, so I played without) it is still favorable. They normally play hate as Pyrostatic Pillar, but this deck can win through it. Also REB is inefective, and Rule of Law can be runned.

Threshold(UGw)
Even. Same as Solidarity, but you have Duress and Cabal Pit wich makes the matchup so much better. Normally go for a quite fast kill before they can forge the perfect hand and can play multiple counterspells, but the deck can play a long game and go for multiple Tendrils. Postboard nothing much changes, They can't bring in much against you. I'm thinking of playing Hymn in the board to get CA over them, because some of the builts only plays Predict as real CA. Watch out for Predict by the way. Having the card you tutored with Mystical Tutor milled away is pretty bad.

Solidarity
Unfavorable. Stormcombo against stormcombo at instant speed. Every duress can buy you a single turn. Start playing them T3 before they can combo. Next to that a T2 IGG is nice to, you don't need as much cards in you hand as Solidarity. I need some SB slots for this matchup but I don't know wich.

Why play it over
Ill-Gotten Gains: Your matchup against decks packing counters is much better. You have Duress, wich reveals your opponent hand so you know where you if you can combo or not. Also all cards I play can be played during combo. Leyline of the Void sits dead in your hand, and if you don't draw it in your oppening hand you have a though time getting it in play.

Solidarity: You are faster, no aggro deck can run you. Next to that you will win the longgame against controldecks no matter what, like solidarity. A third point is that you are less effective by LD. It's a pitty you loose against Solidarity.

Nausea: You play basiclands. You doesn't help your opponent( Land Grant and Helm of Awakening.) Little less luckbased( Spoils of the Vault.)

I hope this helped. The deck is just as expensive as IGG, but it has better matchups against control.

[mercc]

Nice reading, thanks!

[mercc]

How do you play 9 spells + tendrils without using IGG ?

Duress is the best defense card in combodecks, but the only time it isn't good is when you are playing with IGG =/ (when wanting to get rid of counters)

[Benie Bederios]

Well, normally you can forge your hand completly with 6 or 7 cards, and maybe with a Medallion in play. Normally you play out your mana and Duress' and after that you chain Infernal Tutors to up the stormcount. With 7 cards in hand and 2 lands you can win like this:

Tap land( B, 0 spells)
Play Dark Ritual( BBB, 1 spell)
Play Duress( BB, 2 spells)
Play Lion's Eye Diamond( BB, 3 spells)
Tap land( BBU, 3 spells)
Play Brainstorm(BB, 4 spells)
Play Cabal Ritual( BBBBBB, 5 spells)
Play Duress( BBBBB, 6 spells)
Play Infernal Tutor( BBB, 7 spells) for Infernal Tutor
Use Lion's Eye Diamond in response( BBBBBB, 8 spells)
Play Infernal Tutor( BBBB, 9 spells) for Tendrils of Agony
Play Tendrils for 20

Next to that, if you have Remand, you can remand a spell from yourself, when it's countered and up your stormcount too. Another trick is Chain of Vapor, just sac you tapped lands and bounce some LED's and Petals for additional stormcount. You also can go for double Tendrils of Agony. Most players won't counter your mana, so if you can ramp up to 8 mana, you can just play 2 Tendrils of Agony and you only need a stormcount of 4 or 5. And sometimes against for example Thresh I try to play a fast Tendrils for 16 or so, this buys enough time for a second one, because it gives you lifes too.

[mercc]

"Use Lion's eye Diamond..." doesn't add a spell :P

Well, I see where you are going.

I'm trying out 4 mental note because playing cabal ritual and getting BBBBB makes it hard not to win.

[mercc]

Gah, now we have to break this combodeck, I just testplayed against threshold and it was hardly fun, 2 mages in play and 2 Fow's on hand during the game.

Maindeck duress is an __absolute must__ in my book(in a deck that's not dependant on playing IGG), I cleared his hand of counters with duress, but then it was impossible to play IGG, giving him 2 FoWs and a blue card, congratulations.

So if you gonna make it to 9 spells without IGG..... Jet medallion is a nice card, isn't Nights Whisper good with the medallion? 1 black mana, draw 2 cards, add 1 to the spellcount, yes please.

[Benie Bederios]

Well the game against UGw Threshold isn't easy, but hey any combodeck has problems against it. This is the mainreason I play 3 Tendrils' MD. Don't be afraid to Tendrils your opponent for 16 or so on turn 2 or 3. Remeber they play 6 to 8 fetchlands, so they will deal themself damage, and if you're lucky you can even lock there lands this way. The 16 lifes you've gain mostly give enough time find a second Tendrils. Always calculate how many things they can counter. If they don't have 2 blue mana, go for it, if they have few cards in hand, go for it.

Postboard you can probably put some Crypts in. This way you can Duress once or twice, remove their graveyard and use IGG. Crypt is also a cheap spell for the stormcount.

Mental Note is a personal choice. But I wanted to make the deck not too graveyard dependent, but feel free to test and tell your results. As for Night's Whisper. I wanted to make the deck as little luckbased as possible. This way you can calculate excactly what you need. But Night's Whisper might be a nice card for setting up. I'm testing Deep Analysis in the SB. It can give massive CA and dodges discard. I'm also testing Hymn to Tourach, because this deck can easily support double black and it gives the CA as Night's Whisper.

On another note, why isn't anybody else posting on this thread, is the deck that bad.

[xsockmonkeyx]

I really like your deck, Benie. Whats the argument against running Helm of Awakening instead of Jet? Seems like the benefit of powering out blue spells seems like it would outweigh the disavantage of speeding up your opponant.

[Benie Bederios]

Well thanks I'm flattered, but the most credits should go to the player who made Veggie Tendrils.

At the Jet Medallion versus Helm of Awakening point.

The first version ran Helm of Awakening, but the only cards that aren't affected by Medallion are Medallion, Intuition and Remand. But what do you gain from it, it can draw counters like no other and helps alot with bluffing. If you have a weak hand, you can still play a second turn Jet Medallion and just sit there building up your hand and combo out on turn 5 or so. Another point was that the Solidarity matchup is already difficult, playing Helm of Awakening give them a better positions, with Remand costing U and Meditate and Cunning wish costing 1U.

But it depends a little on the SB wich one it will be. I need a little help on that one. What can I bring in against Solidarity and Thresh? And for the Tier 2 matchups what about Bw Confidant, because it's probably not a good matchup.