Introducing: Grinding Station

[Jonathan Alexander]

THIS THREAD IS OUDATED. This post was last updated in January 2012.
Since we added Infernal Tutors to this deck in late 2012, this deck has gotten much closer to Ad Nauseam Tendrils. You should check out the ANT thread, where this deck is discussed as well. If you have any questions, feel free to pm me. I usually take my time to answer all the questions I get, although I sometimes refer to my articles. You can check them out here: https://theweeklywars.wordpress.com/

I'll leave the original post intact for now. I think some of it is quite intersting to keep in mind, but most of it isn't accurate anymore.

//

Yes, Grinding Station.

No, not this one.

Table Of Content:
1. History
2. Grinding Station
3. How To Play
3.1 Opening Hands
3.2 A Few Guidelines
4. Additional Reading


1. "Brief" History

First things first, history lesson. I think to understand the deck, and how it works, it's useful to take a look at what the deck evolved from and why it exists.

Let's go back a few weeks. When my team was preparing for GP Amsterdam, we obviously build a gauntlet. I played pretty much all of the decks a decent amount of time and we were testing them against each other. In particular, I liked this Ad Nauseam Tendrils list:

Ad Nauseam Tendrils by Team Screw Attack

2 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils Of Agony
3 Thoughtseize
3 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea

4 Dark Confidant
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Chain Of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Tendrils Of Agony
1 Tropical Island

It was the first time I picked up storm combo in a while, basically since I started playing Team America again in March. So obviously the list is far from perfect. It should probably splash white for Orim's Chant and Silence rather than sticking to the discard spells. In consequence, I should cut the Xantid Swarms from the sideboard, considering how much Canadian Thresh there is right now, as they don't board out their removal against us anyway. At the time we were testing this list though, we did not know how strong Thresh actually was.

Generally speaking, my list was subpar, but still strong. It could be very explosive with a two Ad Nauseam setup and a lot of protection, but also had the potential to play rather long games (for a combo deck). With all the cantrips, especially Gitaxian Probe, I could often naturally reach storm ten, without resolving a key engine spell. Also, by turn four or five, the opponent often already helped me by fetching at least two times. With a full grip containing one or more cantrips and a protection spell, casting Tendrils Of Agony for eighteen is a cakewalk.

In those grindy games (yeah, we're slowly getting there) starting a turn with eight cards in hand and casting Gitaxian Probe usually results in a win. You have storm one, know your opponent's hand and still have a full grip. This is so much value just from a single card, it's incredible. You could say that Gitaxian Probe was the backbone of my list.

I've really been liking the hands with a naturally drawn Tendrils and I added some more. I don't know my exact setup at that point, but I think I actually just cut an Ad Nauseam for the second Tendrils. At the same time, I really wanted to try out Past In Flames.

In the maindeck, there was no room for Past In Flames, so I went to the sideboard. Cutting Dark Confidant was the obvious move, as they both fulfil similar roles; they're both there to improve the blue matchup. They both let you shoot mini-Tendrils, but Past In Flames does so way more effectively. Past In Flames might cost two mana more, but in exchange it doesn't die to removal, doesn't get countered by Spell Snare, which seems to be everywhere right now and can be recast after it gets countered.

I boarded out the Ad Nauseam plan against blue decks, bringing in additional Tendrils and some Past In Flames. It puts a lot of pressure on your opponent and works nicely with Lion's Eye Diamond. Also, casting Gitaxian Probes off Past In Flames is pretty sweet.

My approach for game one usually was "win as fast as possible no matter what they're playing". Often this meant: "go all-in on turn one or two Ad Nauseam". The plan was actually okay. More often than not, the blue player is not going to have the Force Of Will in hand, let alone two active pieces of countermagic on turns zero to two, meaning a single piece of disruption is usually enough. At least this is the case in game one, when they don't really see it coming.

I noticed that what the deck really wanted, rather than Chrome Moxen, which were bad with the cantrip-plan, were additional Rituals. I did not know what else to play besides Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual though. I once played a Spanish Inquisition-style Ad Nauseam list (no, not successfully, but it was fun and interesting), so I borrowed from that and considered Culling The Weak. As of late, I've really been disliking cute tricks though, so that idea quickly fell out of favour.

I did not think too hard about it though, as, judging from my testing, the deck was actually strong enough. I consistently beat most decks I tested against. Only Team America was an absolute nightmare. I wanted to test the deck against the other combo decks in the format (mostly the ANT mirror and Reanimator, both of which I expected to be heavily played at the GP), but sadly, I did not have the time since I spent the days leading up to the GP in good old England.

Flash forward to GP Amsterdam. As I mentioned before, we really liked our Canadian Thresh list, and due to a lack of testing, we settled on playing that. It was really strong, and while I totally scrubbed out, my teammate finished 107th or something. I had the time to play some side events and jam a few games with friends. I continued working on my storm list and tried out Empty The Warrens in the board and maindeck Rain Of Filth instead of Chrome Moxen. Both have proven to be worth running. This was my list at that time:

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
2 Rain Of Filth
1 Badlands
3 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
4 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
2 Tendrils Of Agony
2 Thoughtseize

3 Chain Of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
3 Extirpate
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Wipe Away
1 Volcanic Island
3 Past In Flames
2 Tendrils Of Agony

I still had the Ad Nauseam plan in the maindeck, but I moved away from that shortly thereafter. A friend of mine, Christian Bien, already told me to not play Ad Nauseam anymore and go for the full four Tendrils Of Agony maindeck instead. With that setup, I also dropped the Infernal Tutors and the Ill-Gotten Gains. At some point, my list had seventeen lands, but often I was flooding hard. Before I get further into detail, here's the current list:


2. Grinding Station by Team Screw Attack

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
2 Rain Of Filth
4 Duress
2 Empty The Warrens
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Past In Flames
4 Ponder
4 Tendrils Of Agony
2 Thoughtseize

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

//Sideboard
1 Ad Nauseam
3 Chain Of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
3 Extirpate
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Wipe Away
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor

I think I said enough about the maindeck already (and will talk about some more), so let's take a look at the sideboard. It's still in progress, but I don't board too many cards most of the time anyway. I think the one thing that strikes out is the Infernal Tutor package. This is mostly for the aggro matchups, when they bring in hatebears (Maverick is still super big in Europe) and sometimes, I board it in in combo mirrors, depending on what they're playing. With this package you're much faster and thus you can more reasonably kill them before they land a bear.

The bounce spells are somewhat mandatory. With this setup, pretty much everything is covered up. Especially Hurkyl's Recall is very good at bouncing multiple hate permanents and Ethersworn Canonist despite of an active Mother Of Runes.

The Extirpates are in there because I thought Reanimate was a tough matchup, but it doesn't seem too bad as long as they don't have Iona, Shield Of Emeria too early. They also come in handy against control or other combo decks at times. If I knew what else to play, I would probably go down to two.


3. How To Play

So now that we have the list, let's go a little into actual gameplay. In a nutshell, your plan is to drop lands until you have eight spells in hand. At that point, you go off. My experience so far has been that holding onto your cantrips until your combo turn is often the best thing to do. An alternative name for this deck was "Draw, Go, Grind, Tendrils". And this is really all you do with the deck.

My testing has proven that opting to draw is the right choice most of the time. Even against Hymn To Tourach decks you should not be afraid to let them play. They're only going to have the turn two Hymn to Tourach (which you can barely play around anyway, turn two kills don't happen too often) in slightly more than 40% of the games. If they're going to cast a cantrip on turn one, the percentage goes up by some points. You're definitely going to get the extra card though, and that's quite important.

3.1 Opening Hands

As for opening hands, I almost never take mulligans with the deck. As long as there's mana and some kind of business - even cantrips do the job - I keep my hands. Since this deck is not much of a "big spell deck", you're not as reliant on disruption as other combo decks are. Given you have enough rituals, countermagic is usually not much of a hindrance. Let's go through a few hands.

Polluted Delta
Polluted Delta
Polluted Delta
Ponder
Thoughtseize
Gitaxian Probe
Dark Ritual

This is a clear keep. Unless you sense combo at the other side of the table, you're going to play draw, go for at least three turns. If there actually is combo, you can fetch for an Underground Sea and cast Thoughtseize on turn one or two to slow them down a bit. Also, Counterbalance seems to make a comeback and you might want to try to strip your opponent's hand of that card if they're playing it. Otherwise, just wait until your hand is all business (or you draw into Brainstorm) and start the turn with Gitaxian Probe. You're going to see what you need to play around and then act accordingly.

Rain Of Filth
Tendrils Of Agony
Gitaxian Probe
Ponder
Badlands
Underground Sea
Polluted Delta

This hand is a bit worse than the first one since you're holding more than one nonbasic, which opens you up to Wasteland, but you have the Tendrils, which is very nice. Again, play draw, go until you have enough spells to go off. It's really that simple. Just make sure you're not running headfirst into Stifle, so you might want to dig for a discard spell if your opponent has it.

Tendrils Of Agony
Gitaxian Probe
Duress
Past In Flames
Dark Ritual
Underground Sea
Scalding Tarn

One of the best hands you can possibly get, outside of turn one or two kills, which this hand might actually produce if you happen to draw a Lion's Eye Diamond or additional Rituals. You should lead with the Scalding Tarn to play around Wasteland. Since you have Past In Flames alongside a protection spell, you don't need to wait until your hand is full, you can just rush it out. If your opponent counters any of your spells, you're very likely to still reach the necessary spell count, despite not having a boatload of cantrips.

Past In Flames
Past In Flames
Brainstorm
Lotus Petal
Rain Of Filth
Island
Scalding Tarn

While this hand might not be as strong as the hands above, it's still a keep. You have Brainstorm to shuffle away excess copies of Past In Flames and if you draw any kind of Ritual or a Lion's Eye Diamond, you should be able to go off easily. Keep in mind that you're going to see at least five additional cards. But also keep in mind that a Past In Flames hand needs some form of protection, so make sure you get some before you go off.

3.2 A Few Guidelines

Since the gameplay is so super simple, I'm not going to talk anymore about that. Most of the things you need to do have already been explained in the opening hands discussion, but here are a few guidelines:

3.2.1. You always opt to draw.
This way you kill about one turn faster. You're opponent gets the same amount of turns, but you deny them the extra card they would get if you chose to play. Without combo engines, every single card counts.

3.2.2. Almost every hand is a keep.
You rarely need to mulligan with this deck. As long as there's some business and mana in your hand, you don't need to mull. Business is everything that's not mana or disruption. Past In Flames only works as business if you have a lot of mana and cantrips though.

3.3.3. Protection is often unnecessary.
Yes, that's right. Due to the storm mechanic and the amount of rituals this deck has, you rarely care about countermagic. Unless you go for Past In Flames, there are pretty much only three cards outside of discard you care about: Stifle, Flusterstorm and Counterbalance. Sure there are more, but these are the only ones that actually see play.

3.3.4. Lead with Gitaxian Probe, don't get your Rituals countered.
Leading with Probe is probably obvious. It's your strongest card in almost every single matchup. After that, you're going for additional cantrips, then discard (if you need it), then rituals. If that plan works, you win. Most of the time, it does.

Additional Reading

Past In Flames In Legacy: Grinding Station
-An article on the deck by me

Being On Fire: 7-0 with Grinding Station/
-a tournament report by me

Grinding Station discussion over at the Storm Boards


If you have any questions, just let me know. I'm most likely going to expand this in the future, with some matchup analyses, card choice discussion and so forth. I know there are several things I left out, but I don't feel like writing a ton about a deck only I play. If people show interest in the deck, you can expect me to write some more.