Interesting list, but I don't agree with the choice to replace digging (LDV) for protection (Pact). Most games I've lost with this deck have been failure to find a key component (Lotus Petal, Entomb, Child, land) rather than not having enough protection to go off. Chances are, one piece of discard is enough to push the combo through. Digging (Ponder, BS, LDV) help to reach that point. One key example: LDV can find Brainstorm, Entomb, Shallow Grave (IDK the odds, likely low) which can combo off a dead hand for 4 mana (typically Dark Ritual). Pact doesn't help there.
Against decks that run instants to stop the reanimation, I'd say about 90% of those are counterspells and another 10% Surgical Extraction post-board. Silence answers those for a competitive cost. Pact is cheaper sure, but it's not as versatile otherwise. Silence was originally included to be able to answer combo mirrors. It alone can win games that Pact cannot. Obviously, if your metagame is not as combo heavy that may not be as big of a concern.
Let's compare/contrast:
Silence
Pros:
Shut off countermagic and Surgical
Pseudo time-walk against some strategies
Effectively counters other Combo decks
Cons:
Off-color with the rest of the deck
Increases cost to go off in a single turn
Pact of Negation
Pros:
Shuts off a single piece of Instant speed hate
No mana cost
Cons:
One shot effect, and must be used when going off. Furthermore, must kill the same turn.
Cannot be used defensively, or to bait spells.
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Last weekend, I tried a build with Careful Study in a 20 player tournament. To cut a long story short, I'll go back to Ponder.
That's the deck I played (61 cards, shame on me):
4 Griselbrand
1 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Brainstorm
2 Lim-Dûl's Vault
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Careful Study
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Reanimate
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
2 Gemstone Mine
4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
Sideboard:
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Silence
1 Massacre
1 Pull from Eternity
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Pithing Needle
2 Serenity
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Bayou
Match 1 - UW Miracle with SFM and without maindeck Counterbalance (0:2)
We both know each other from our local tournaments, so he knew I was playing Tin Fins.
G1: He kept a hand with FoW, Spell Pierce, Counterspell to slow me down and finished me off with an early Batterskull.
G2: He mulliganed a couple of times. I kept an OK hand that had Entomb and enough mana, but no reanimation. I thoughtseized him on turn 1, revealing FoW, Surgical Extraction, Sensei's and lands. I made the mistake to take the Extraction over the Top. I couldn't find the reanimation in time and he assembled a hand full of counters with his Top. That game I really missed ponders, since I drew 2 or 3 Careful Studies, but couldn't use them without throwing away good cards.
(SB: +2 Silence, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Bayou, -4 Probe, -1 USea)
Match 2 - RUG Delver (2:1)
G1: Winning the die roll, I thoughtseized him, showing Ponder, Mongoose and a couple of soft counters. I took his Mongoose and he couldn't find another threat. Having plenty of time, I could assemble enough mana to play around any taxing counter.
G2: I mulliganed to 5 and he destroyed me.
G3: I had a T1 combo with 2 Lotus Petals, Entomb, Shallow Grave and 3 lands. I drew 21 cards but couldn't find another Petal or Chrome Mox, since I allready burned 2 to start the combo. Luckily, I could Emrakul my opponent next turn with Silence backup.
Would you have kept such a hand? I knew the combo was likely to fizzle with only 2 Petals and 1 Mox left in the deck and I would be dead to FoW or Extraction, but I just didn’t want to ship a potential T1 kill.
(SB: +2 Chains, +3 Silence, -4 Probe, don’t remember the 5th card)
Match 3 - Death and Taxes (1:2)
G1: I kept a T2 hand on the draw and basically lost against a 2nd turn Thalia. I managed to get a Griselbrand with Reanimate, but was low enough on life to die to a Mirran Crusader with Jitte.
G2: T1 kill.
G3: I don’t think I’ll ever forget that match. The first time, I actually lost because my opponent was mana screwed. I kept an awesome hand with Entomb, Shallow Grave, Therapy and Massacre, only lacking a ritual. He used a Vial to play Mother, Revoker and Thalia (on Griselbrand), but I was pretty comfortable since he would be dead if he ever played a plains. Too bad he did not draw a single one in the whole game… After the game I asked him, if he played around Massacre, but he didn’t even consider the card.
(SB: +1 Massacre, +2 Chains, +1 Pull from Eternity, -4 Probes)
Match 4 – Goblins (2:1)
G1: Since he can’t interact at all in the 1st game, I won. In that game, Careful Study was nice to draw into a LDV pile and discard Griselbrand for just 1 mana.
G2: I played against him before in one of the GPTs for Strasbourg. The last time, he sided in 11 cards, including Leyline, Relic and Chalice but no Extractions. I kept an OK hand with a serenity. He had double Leyline and a 1st turn Lackey with a couple of Piledrivers. I dropped Serenity on the 2nd turn, but when his Leylines got nuked, I was below 7 life. In the single D7 I had, I found Children of Korlis which I could activate 2 times. Then I bricked on mana and fizzled.
G3: The game was pretty similar to G2. He had the Leyline, I had the Serenity. Too bad, he only had CMC 3 goblins in hand and I could animate Griselbrand at more than 14 life.
(SB: +2 Chains, +2 Serenity, -4 Probes)
Match 5 – Spanish Inquisition (2:0)
Another player from my local group. Both games I kept slow but disruption heavy hands on the draw. He was scared as hell about Tin Fins and tried to combo off ASAP in both games, despite the fact that I had weakened his hand with discard. He fizzled both games and couldn’t come back.
(SB: +3 Silence, -2 LDV, -1 Griselbrand)
In the end, I made 7th place. Not too impressive, but at least I didn’t lose because of stupid mistakes, like at the GP.
Thoughts
Regarding the deck, I’ll go back to Ponder again, as I wrote in the beginning. Study was nice sometimes, but often I had both Study and Entomb in hand. In the longer games, Study was just bad because I couldn’t afford the card disadvantage.
I’m unsure if it’s better to play 3 Grisel and 1 Children of a 2/2 split. 3/1 makes discarding Griselbrand easier and the 2/2 adds consistency during the combo. Any suggestions?
LDV was good as always. If I remember right, it won me 3 games.
For the sideboard, I’ll add the 2nd Massacre again. In the aftermath of the GP, there were 3 D’n’T players in the room and a 4th player just didn’t have time for the tournament. I’m not 100% sure, but the one card I never used was the Pull from Eternity. Cutting it might be a bad call though.
Nice report, and thanks for trying out a new config.
I'm not positive that Ponder and Careful Study are mutually exclusive - I have a few configs queued up to test on MODO a bit (albeit in tournament practice room likely, so take the results with a grain of salt when I get them). Maybe you cut LDV for Careful Study, or Discard Spells, or Probes, or some combination therein. Ponder is critical IMO, so I wouldn't cut it, but there may be room elsewhere.
@ Baum:
Thanks for the report. Third game against RUG round 2, I think it's a gamble that this deck doesn't have much ability to play around aka plau safe. Atleast that's how it usually plays out for me.
So I would have taken the gamble, but if he had the extraction you were definately toast. Perhaps you could have waited for a second reanimate spell but he gets the oppertunity to sculp his hand then, which more or less ends up being pretty much the same effect. I think you took the same call I would have made, if they have it, they have it. He didn't, you won.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Sometimes, and especially against Goyf decks. Reanimating Griselbrand against the non-Karakas Goyf decks usually earns a win. Reanimating a forced-discard Goyf also buys a whole shit ton of time or sometimes a victory.
What do you propose to replace the Reanimate with?
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Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
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My MTG Blog - Work in progress
Ok, I run a near-standard list. For context (I'm not really looking for a debate here), my off-consensus choices are 4x GV, 0x Reanimate, 3x Griz, 1x Careful Study, 8x protection. I think I'm the last TinFins player to go down to 14 lands MD, which frees up a flex slot. So, should I fill it with G. Probe #1, Reanimate #1, LDV #2, or something else? Thanks!
So I had to go compare my current list to yours from Vegas to see where we actually differ. This is what I'm running right now (or at least what I have saved in Cockatrice):
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Entomb
3 Griselbrand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
3 Marsh Flats
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
2 Chrome Mox
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
2 Children of Korlis
2 Gitaxian Probe
2 Silence
SB: 2 Silence
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 4 Show and Tell
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 3 Teferi's Realm
SB: 2 Pull from Eternity
The two Silence I really consider flex spots. Our local meta tends to run really combo heavy so they make sense here. I think if I were going to take it to an Open or GP, I'd run LDV and possibly the singleton Reanimate, then have 3x Silence in the board.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Hello everybody.
I would like to tell you about my Sunday games with TinFins. We were playing Bazar of Mooxen trials, first place was getting 2 byes, finalist was getting 1 bye on the Legacy Championship in Annecy, France.
Well, I’ve chosen this deck, because of it’s speed, quite combo auts and beauty how all this happens.
Decklist was a little bit changed from Jakob Kory’s version, because I was expecting several number of creature decks: goblins, maverick, elves. So that’s why I decided to put 1 Darkblast. Rather good thing to kill tons of creatures, especially dorks, plus it kills Thalia-Natalia, with the help of dredge mechanic it kill’s almost all other creatures in format))
The list is:
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo’s Vengeance
1 Reanimate
2 Griselbrand
2 Children of korlis
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Cabal therapy
2 Thoughtsize
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Darkblast
4 Dark ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils of agony
4 Lotus petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Polluted delta
2 Marsh flats
4 Underground sea
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp
Side:
4 Pithing needle
2 Pull from eternity
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing truth
1 Tendrils of agony
2 Mindbreak trap
3 Silence
Well. My first play was against rogue (as for me deck) with Gamekeepers + Emrakul / Leyline of the Void + Helm of Obedience. Two nice variants to kill. I lost dice throw, and my opponent began his opening hand with Leylines. I understood, that my chances to play simple combo were very-very low now. What could I do? Find tendrils, keeping several storm/ponder/probe spells, with rituals and mox/petals in hand – to make enough storm counter. Or to try to put Grisel through the DR, or to reanimate his elf, and wait until he kills him to try to get my own Grisel or Emrik. None of this happened, when at last, after third died elf - Emrik entered the battlefield.
Next game I got in hand: land/petal/petal/entomb/reanimate/shallow grave/dark ritual. He didn’t have Leylines in his opening hand, considering that he took mulligan to 5.
Third game was something about 5-6 turns, I had a lot of disrupt in hand + bounce. His hand was discarded and he could do nothing. I don’t remember why, but I put Emrakul in play, after attack he was left in 2 lives and 1 land in play. Untap, draw, land drop, and… he decides to play Sign in blood – textless, nice. He forgot, that it looses 2 lives.
Side out: 1 reanimate, 1 darkblast, 1 probe. Side in: 2 chain of vapor, 1 echoing truth
1-0 (2-1)
Next game – Nikolay Potovin and his UW.
I won dices, Nikolay was trying to guess, whether I was playing through the -t-r-a-s-h- grave or not)). First game was about 3-4 turns. He didn’t have any counterspells, several turns I was trying to find entomb and during this I discarded his StP with therapy’s.
In second, he had 3 Meddling mages, but I collected all bounce in hand. At last, on turn 6 Tendrils reached him. I also didn’t saw any counter magic, and was very surprised. He said it was in deck, but didn’t came.
The same, as in first.
2-0 (2-0)
Round 3. Merfolks.
Hard match-up, cause of fast face beating creatures and counter magic.
I won dices, second turn he put standstill into play and I understood, that it’s a bad idea to keep hand without entombs or any discard. But I managed to get through his counterspells, he took 3 cards from standstill but there was only 1 daze. That stopped me only for one turn and next turn I comboed.
After side, he took a mulligan to get more counterspells and he got them. It was very long game, but at least, after a lot of counter magic, fishes came to me.
Third game we began in turns, I got starting hand: sea, petal, entomb, cabal therapy, DR, brainstorm, grisel. In top was shallow, but opponent in response gave up.
Siding out: 1 reanimate, 2 thoughtsizes. Side in: 3 silence.
3-0 (2-1)
Round 4 ID with the future winner – Bug-agent.
3-0-1 and top 4 (yep, it was 14 people playing Trial)
Top 4.
ANT.
Well. To tell the truth, all 3 games were hard enough. In first, I couldn’t find entomb for a long time. Played a lot of discard, but he always got new ponder or a brainstorm in top deck. First I managed to win at least.
Second we played almost the same game as the first was, the only difference was that he was playing a lot of discard and I was trying to manage with this. He won undoubtedly.
In the third we were discarding cards each other, but he was afraid to fizzle, and didn’t try to combo out, and that get him, next turn he was dead from my tendrils.
Side out: 1 darkblast, 1 reanimate, 1 gitaxian probe. Side in: 3 mindbreak trap (I don’t know, why didn’t I put silences in, but now I think it would be better.)
Top 2.
Bug-agent.
Well. Running ahead I’ll say that I lost 2-0. He won dices, played deathrite shaman, and I didn’t comboed on first turn. And the show begun. He played thoughtsize+ hymn, next turn hymn+tarmo, I still could do nothing, none of griselbrands were in grave, and then he always had activated shaman.
Second, well, I can say that I was very excited, and couldn’t think rationally, so that’s why I kept very bad hand and his Lilliana turn-2 in pair with shaman made the game.
Side out: 1 reanimate, 4 gitaxian probe’s, Side in: 4 pithing needle, 1 chain of vapor.
Sorry for bad spelling and mistakes, English is not my native language.
Now I’m thinking of to transform deck into ANT, after sideboarding, but I don’t know, whether is a good idea or not.
Side is something like this:
4 LED
4 Infernal tutor
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Ad nauseam
1 Past in flames
1 Volcanic Island
What could be sided out? For example: 5 creatures, 8 reanimate spells, and 2 any cards – 1 blast+1 entomb. But if to side only ANT with PiF, we would be very dependant on grave hate. So, I don’t know – what to do. Will be glad to hear any ideas, critics and crazy thought’s.
Just for the sake of sharing a good story, here it comes :
Against BUGw, game 1, on a mull to 5, I kept a hand with Gitaxian Probe / Scrubland / Fetch / Cabal / Silence
Probe shows Pierce, Liliana, Snapcaster, Waste, STP and 3 lands.
Later, after baiting Pierce with Silence, getting the best of Snapcaster with Cabal, I was hit by a topdecked Tourach (out Goryo's - Ritual).
My opponent laid his Jace and started his hand replenishment. Soon came Liliana in discard mode : My shredded Hand was just Petal + Reanimate.
Facing Lethal (10 life against 6 Lingering Souls Tokens + 2 Mishra), without anything to reanimate in my graveyard, with 3 lands (no fetch) in play, I was not looking that great.
My opponent Fateseals and announces proudly : "Griselbrand on Top. Keep. GG ?".
I asked timidly : "Got any counters in hand ? FOW ?"
Answer : "Nope"
GG, but not in the sense you were implying it, pal ;)
Draw, Petal, Reanimate on his Snapcaster, Goryo's vengeance gains flashback, Sac Snapcaster to Cabal Therapy on Griselbrand, Reanimation, and gain shortly thereafter.
Sometimes Reanimate is that good.
Well, any other normal day, it acts like everyone noticed : A cheap reanimation that dodges Snare and punishes any non white, no Karakas sporting deck in the format.
Last edited by OrGy; 05-02-2013 at 11:50 AM.
@Zilberdoich - good report, and good finish. SO close... :) I haven't played with a transformation since last August, so I'm not sure how good it would be anymore, but my instinct tells me that it is probably not a good idea. I think the anti-hate plan is probably superior, although this deck does have a bit of a problem against a few currently popular archetypes (Miracles in particular, and a slew of deathrite shaman decks). I would look to adjust your sideboard plans based on what your expected meta is.
@Orgy - that is SO sick. Shit like that keeps me constantly questioning if Snapcaster should be in our deck or not, actually. Possibly in the place of 2x LDV for those that are running them. Not sure though, as it does make us even more reliant on the graveyard.
Well, I think, that it will be everything in meta, from tier 1 decks to rogue decks, made in dark depths of hell
So i think to make a universal sideboard. To have answers on different threats. Deathrite is one of the biggest and sure, it's the best thing to kill him immediately, but with darkblast you need some engine...
This.
You don't want to rely any more on your graveyard than necessary. SCM can surely do nifty tricks but overall I'd rather play my opponent's to my convenience.
This could alternatively push forward the debate on a 2/2 split between Goryo's and Reanimate, which is a possibility.
Deathmark, Perish, and Pithing Needle can answer DRS. But I agree with .dk's sentiments - you need to properly calibrate the sideboard to what you expect may give you trouble. For an open metagame like BOM or a GP, that's really open ended challenge.
For starters, I would remove Pull from Eternity from the sideboard. I don't think it's usefulness is warranted for the space it takes up in the SB.
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Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
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New to the deck, Have played combo in legacy for the last three years. Played High tide and Ant. Really wanted to give the deck a go at GP Portland side events if the main event does not go well. In testing chrome mox seemed awful...I replaced it with a disfigure to try and hedge against deathrite and thalia. Any advice for a new player playing this deck?
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Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
To add a bit more to the sideboard discussion in addition to the cards that Koby mentioned - I realized that I only wrote this in a PM to Zilberdoich and didn't post here (a good bit of which is in the opening post, btw):
The sideboard really depends on your expected meta, for a reactive board. I really know nothing about the Euro meta at all, other than everyone always says that it is super combo heavy. Some cards to consider:
Pithing Needle - deals with Deathrite, Scavenging Ooze, Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, Faerie Macabre, and random things like wasteland, Jace, Sensei's Top, etc. I generally don't use it for that though, only answering hate cards.
Massacre - if you're in a meta with a lot of hatebears (and specifically Death and Taxes, which I would imagine would be popular at BoM after winning GP Strausburg) this can be a super useful card. Great against Maverick provided they don't have Teeg out, but you can generally win through Teeg pretty easily. It's Thalia + Mother of Runes that's the problem out of that deck.
Silence - If you're expecting a lot of storm combo, then Silence is golden. :)
Chain of Vapor - great for dealing with Leylines, Rest in Peace (provided no counterbalance out), hatebears, etc. Chain is always an all-star.
Serenity - I play 2 of these in my sideboard on MODO, as they are amazing against MUD decks, and pretty good against UW Miracles as well.
Reverent Silence - I also play 2 of these on MODO to deal with UW Miracles. They basically can never counter it with counterbalance, and the 6 life they gain is a don't care.
Surgical Extraction - if you're expecting a lot of reanimator, then this can also be useful. Probably reasonable against Dredge as well.
I've cut Pull from Eternity from any of my configurations at this point - it's cute and has some neat interactions, but I don't think the meta is correct for this plan right now. It's pretty bad against Deathrite Shaman decks.
I would advise against Mindbreak Trap for combo, and would rely solely on Silence. It's more versatile and in general you are the faster combo deck. You don't have room to bring in both, so stick with the generic answers like Silence that can also function to protect your combo.
In general, I wouldn't side in more than 4 cards at any given time to not dilute your combo. I will side in the most generic answers for Game 2, and adjust in game 3 depending on what hate I see. It's actually very difficult to figure this part out without a lot of practice and understanding of common sideboarding strategies against you.
Hey all, been playing this deck for the last couple months and I love it because it's probably the most degenerate deck in the format. I am going to be competing in the Portland GP Legacy side events and I wanted to run my list by the collective. It's pretty basic and some of my SB choices are based on the fact that on the West Coast we see a lot of DnT and other hatebear decks.
MD:
3 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Children of Korlis
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Dark Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lotus Pedal
4 Shallow Grave
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Entomb
3 Thoughtseize
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Chrome Mox
1 Reanimate
1 Swamp
1 Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Flooded Strand
SB
3 Pithing Needle
2 Serenity
3 Silence
2 Echoing Truth
1 Thoughtseize
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Massacre
I'm a firm believer in playing a basic of each if I can because again, my meta has a lot of Wasteland in it. So as I said, pretty standard list. Lemme know if anyone has any additional thoughts on what I could change. I will give a report after the weekend as I have two days of side events to play in. Lets see if Grizza can bring home a Mox and or a set of Revised!
That's a fair philosophy. I felt that the basic Island caused me to lose more games than it helped, but perhaps I was just fetching for it when I couldn't afford to. In any case, I really think it would be better to maximize your basics (if you're going that route) by playing an 8th fetch over the unnecessary 3rd Underground.
I don't think the 4th Thoughtseize in the board does anything, and Chain of Vapor is way better than Echoing Truth. You could add a singleton Teferi's Realm
Good luck!
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