[Deck] TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst

[ZeDan]

Afternoon All,

Hope this finds you all well. After a break of a few years I'm thinking about re-investing in MTGO (I have no LGS at present) with Tinfins. I played it before in 2015 when Tendrils of Agony was a win condition and absolutely loved the deck (I understand from this thread that this has now been replaced with Collective Brutality). I found this thread enormously helpful at that time so thank you to all those who have contributed. A lot of thoughtful/detailed guidance is provided here which makes piloting the deck a lot more intuitive when starting out.

When I last played Tinfins miracles was still a thing. As it has now gone the way of the dodo, I was wondering if anyone who had played in the new/emergent meta had a deck list (with sideboard) that they could recommend? I'm assuming that Doomsday sideboard is now a non-starter too, is Monastery Mentor still the prefered SB plan? Many thanks in advance to any and all who are able to offer some guidance.

Cheers,

Z

[.dk]

Afternoon All,

Hope this finds you all well. After a break of a few years I'm thinking about re-investing in MTGO (I have no LGS at present) with Tinfins. I played it before in 2015 when Tendrils of Agony was a win condition and absolutely loved the deck (I understand from this thread that this has now been replaced with Collective Brutality). I found this thread enormously helpful at that time so thank you to all those who have contributed. A lot of thoughtful/detailed guidance is provided here which makes piloting the deck a lot more intuitive when starting out.

When I last played Tinfins miracles was still a thing. As it has now gone the way of the dodo, I was wondering if anyone who had played in the new/emergent meta had a deck list (with sideboard) that they could recommend? I'm assuming that Doomsday sideboard is now a non-starter too, is Monastery Mentor still the prefered SB plan? Many thanks in advance to any and all who are able to offer some guidance.

Cheers,

Z

I haven't played the deck in ages, myself. But I would probably be mentoring out of the sideboard if I were. That said, you could still make a Doomsday transformation if you thought that running Tendrils over Collective Brutality maindeck was worth the cost. Provided that you're running 2 LDV maindeck (I would probably run my same 60 card maindeck from GP NJ if I were to do that. Well, -1 Tundra +1 Underground Sea), your sideboard could be something like this:

4 Doomsday
1 Ideas Unbound or possible Three Wishes?
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Conjurer's Bauble
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Infernal Contract/Cruel Bargain (or maybe Meditate?)
1 Pithing Needle
1 Chain of Vapor

There are some slick piles you can make with Conjurer's Bauble post-Doomsday - particularly with a draw 4. It's possible that Infernal Contract and Cruel Bargain should be your ONLY draw spell in this sideboard as well, allowing you to cut Ideas Unbound/Three Wishes for the 4th Conjurer's Bauble. Just watch your life total. :)

[Kobra_D]

Afternoon All,

Hope this finds you all well. After a break of a few years I'm thinking about re-investing in MTGO (I have no LGS at present) with Tinfins. I played it before in 2015 when Tendrils of Agony was a win condition and absolutely loved the deck (I understand from this thread that this has now been replaced with Collective Brutality). I found this thread enormously helpful at that time so thank you to all those who have contributed. A lot of thoughtful/detailed guidance is provided here which makes piloting the deck a lot more intuitive when starting out.

When I last played Tinfins miracles was still a thing. As it has now gone the way of the dodo, I was wondering if anyone who had played in the new/emergent meta had a deck list (with sideboard) that they could recommend? I'm assuming that Doomsday sideboard is now a non-starter too, is Monastery Mentor still the prefered SB plan? Many thanks in advance to any and all who are able to offer some guidance.

Cheers,

Z

Welcome back, and congrats on making the right choice of choosing Tin Fins. I haven't played this deck super recently (I usually sleeve up Nic Fit at my LGS now), but I ran it at a few big events over the past couple of months. My plan has been rather different from everyone else's as I have been on the badlands plan and not the typical blue list. This started off as a budget option (I didn't have/still don't own and underground seas) but the deck feels strong none the less.

The hardest part is being able to reload if something goes wrong without brainstorm in the deck, but there is a lot of discard to help smooth things over.

I don't have my list in front of me but I am pretty sure it is a lot like this:

//Creatures:
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Children of Korlis
4 Chancellor of the annex

//Inst. & Sorc.
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Shallow Grave
4 Entomb
4 Faithless Looting
4 Unmask
2 Collective Brutality
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual

//Artifacts
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox

//Lands
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
3 Badlands
2 Swamp
1 Mountain or Scrubland or Bayou


The sideboard for me varies and the last land reflects that.
A mountain means I am running 3 sneak attacks in my 75. Scrubland puts me on mentor out of the side (even in mardu mentor is good). Bayou is mostly for ground seal which helps around most grave hate except for rest in peace and containment priest.

I know people are still mostly on the blue plan, and rightfully so, but this build has treated me well and can still be piloted successfully given the normal amount of luck you would need dodging grave hate.

Have fun spreading the good word of Griselbee's.

[ZeDan]

I haven't played the deck in ages, myself. But I would probably be mentoring out of the sideboard if I were. That said, you could still make a Doomsday transformation if you thought that running Tendrils over Collective Brutality maindeck was worth the cost. Provided that you're running 2 LDV maindeck (I would probably run my same 60 card maindeck from GP NJ if I were to do that. Well, -1 Tundra +1 Underground Sea), your sideboard could be something like this:

4 Doomsday
1 Ideas Unbound or possible Three Wishes?
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Conjurer's Bauble
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Infernal Contract/Cruel Bargain (or maybe Meditate?)
1 Pithing Needle
1 Chain of Vapor

There are some slick piles you can make with Conjurer's Bauble post-Doomsday - particularly with a draw 4. It's possible that Infernal Contract and Cruel Bargain should be your ONLY draw spell in this sideboard as well, allowing you to cut Ideas Unbound/Three Wishes for the 4th Conjurer's Bauble. Just watch your life total. :)

Hi dk,

Many thanks for such a quick response. That proposed Doomsday sideboard looks very interesting. When I played an older version of it (at least on MTGO) nobody ever expected it (or knew what was happening). Given it's 'all in' style, I think it's the perfect supplement for Tinfins. I do remember having lots of success with the 'Mentor SB' too. I'd probably want to try both out to have some options/variety. As it's been a while since I played I'm not entirely sure what to pick for my mainboard. I don't believe Unmask was prevalent in Tinfins at that time. Here is a list of what I used before (to the best of my memory):

Creatures
2x Griselbrand
1x Children of Korlis
1x Emrakul Aeons Torn

Artifacts
2x Chrome Mox
4x Lotus Petal

Spells
4x Entomb
3x Ponder
4x Gitaxian Probe
3x Thoughtseize
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Shallow Grave
3x Goryo's Vengeance
2x Reanimate
1x Tendrils of Agony
4x Brainstorm
4x Dark Ritual

Land
Flooded Strand x2
Marsh Flats x2
Polluted Delta x4
Scrubland x2
Underground Sea x2
Island x1
Swamp x1

What would you recommend changing in the current meta (to make way for multiple Unmask and Collective Brutality)? Cheers once again for your time guys! Hope you're having a good day/night.

Z

EDIT: Thank you Kobra for your recommendations, too. That combination looks like a lot of fun also. Did you look to merge aspects of Tinfins with classic reanimator? Home brew decks can be the most effective I find, as opponents don't expect them (and therefore under estimate them). Are you still looking to try out a 'classic' style Tinfins deck yourself or are you sticking with your current setup?

[.dk]

Hi dk,

Many thanks for such a quick response. That proposed Doomsday sideboard looks very interesting. When I played an older version of it (at least on MTGO) nobody ever expected it (or knew what was happening). Given it's 'all in' style, I think it's the perfect supplement for Tinfins. I do remember having lots of success with the 'Mentor SB' too. I'd probably want to try both out to have some options/variety. As it's been a while since I played I'm not entirely sure what to pick for my mainboard. I don't believe Unmask was prevalent in Tinfins at that time. Here is a list of what I used before (to the best of my memory):

Creatures
2x Griselbrand
1x Children of Korlis
1x Emrakul Aeons Torn

Artifacts
2x Chrome Mox
4x Lotus Petal

Spells
4x Entomb
3x Ponder
4x Gitaxian Probe
3x Thoughtseize
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Shallow Grave
3x Goryo's Vengeance
2x Reanimate
1x Tendrils of Agony
4x Brainstorm
4x Dark Ritual

Land
Flooded Strand x2
Marsh Flats x2
Polluted Delta x4
Scrubland x2
Underground Sea x2
Island x1
Swamp x1

What would you recommend changing in the current meta (to make way for multiple Unmask and Collective Brutality)? Cheers once again for your time guys! Hope you're having a good day/night.

Z

EDIT: Thank you Kobra for your recommendations, too. That combination looks like a lot of fun also. Did you look to merge aspects of Tinfins with classic reanimator? Home brew decks can be the most effective I find, as opponents don't expect them (and therefore under estimate them). Are you still looking to try out a 'classic' style Tinfins deck yourself or are you sticking with your current setup?

The last list I was testing looked like this, to give you an idea as to what I cut for Unmask:

4 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Children of Korlis
1 Collective Brutality
4 Dark Ritual
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Entomb
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Griselbrand
1 Lim-Dûl's Vault
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ponder
1 Reanimate
4 Shallow Grave
3 Unmask

Might be that 4 Unmask is better than 4 Therapy - not really sure. This isn't the list I would run if I were transforming to Doomsday though. You need 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 Probe at a minimum for that, and Tendrils somewhere in the 75. The logical slot is to replace Collective Brutality IMO, but there may be other swaps you could make. Unmask also really wants to have at least 3 Griselbrands in the deck as well. You'd have to play with the numbers to see what you're swapping in and out for your Doomsday package to figure out what fits.

The maindeck above is probably more solid in the current metagame than the NJ list was - less reliant on Entomb, can kill a deathrite shaman, and has free protection with Unmask. I'm just not sure if you can finagle the list to make a Doomsday transformation work well with it.

[Acclimation]

My list that I've been running over the last couple of month's is the one that .dk just posted. Unmask is tight, but I think 3 is correct, not 4.


My sb is something like

4 Mentor
1 Collective Brutality
1 Pithing Needle
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Massacre
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Serenity
1 Plains (Was getting tired of losing to 8 bloodmoon.dec)


You could change the plains to something more functional (Another Needle, Chain of Vapor, Cavern of Souls) for a larger tournament.

Usually when I bring in Mentor, I keep a Griselbrand and a Reanimate or a Shallow Grave in, because sometimes you can sneak in a quick Griselbrand and draw into Mentor. Not sure if it's 100% correct, but since I've only been playing sporadically the last few months, I can't really get much testing in to figure out the best sideboard.

The maindeck is rock solid and a good place to start in a Top-less world.

[Darkgobs]

Unmask is tight, but I think 3 is correct, not 4.

Why exactly did you guys end up with 3 Unmask over Toughtseize / more Collective Brutality? Is the card that much better in the post-top meta?

[Zooligan]

Why exactly did you guys end up with 3 Unmask over Toughtseize / more Collective Brutality? Is the card that much better in the post-top meta?

After G-brand activation(s) Unmask's card disadvantage isn't really a disadvantage any longer. TS requires life payment which could potentially keep you from drawing an additional G-brand 7 or put you in range of something you otherwise would not be. CBru is awesome, and some mix of Unmask and it is probably right.

[.dk]

Not only that, but I believe that Unmask when more Chalices and Delvers are around as well. It allows you turn 1 protection while not burning an IMS. Thoughtseize is great too - but the lifeloss can really hurt against Delver decks. Moreso than the card disadvantage of Unmask, IMO. Just like how you can mulligan low with this deck and still T1 opponents, you can leverage that same strength with Unmask.

Collective Brutality's beyond the first I think can be great sideboard cards, for obvious reasons. I don't like more than 1 maindeck as they push you over the magic "3 mana" number as a way to pitch a guy and combo out the same turn. I'm skeptical of cards that don't let us combo out off of Dark Ritual without a very specific purpose. It also doesn't discard Chalice of the Void, Sphere effects, or Blood Moon. It's situationally great - something I don't like in the maindeck all that much. Shines when there are lots of deathrite + counterspells around. Although usually if that's the case, I just don't play this deck.

[Acclimation]

I'll reiterate what's already been said:


1) Protection that requires no mana. The main reason why I tested it in the first place was to find a theoretical balls to the wall list, and this is a card that allows us to protect our combo on t1 with no extra mana requirement AND pitch a fatty to be reanimated. We can be constrained on mana while comboing, so having a free pitch is great. Heck, on those random games you draw 14 and are unable to go off, you can fire off a few Unmask to ensure your opponent can't answer (without a topdeck) our subsequent turn's combo.

In short, I feel like I have an excess of cards and constrained mana more often than not, so having a protection spell (with lots of other utility) that I can cast without spending mana reduces those games in which I jam the combo and hope they don't have anything.

2) 4 cmc dodges Chalice and other spells that care about locking us out at specific CMC (sans Gaddock Teeg)

3) No life loss. Sometimes that 2 life from thoughtseize drops us from 16 to 14, and prevents us from drawing an extra 7.

4) The card reads: Look at target player's hand, not target player Reveals their hand. This seems like a weird one, but on the games where you have to target yourself to discard a fatty, you give up less info to your opponent. edit- as pointed out, the Oracle text reads "Target player reveals his or her hand."

I've tried playing lists with 2 maindeck CoBru (over the Thoughtseizes we originally ran) , and while it's great in metas that run a lot of DRS, bears, burn spells, and delvers, the fact that it costs 2 and only hits instants and sorcery spells really hurt the spells utility. It hurt cutting Tendrils from the deck to run CoBru in it's slot, but it having conditional utility makes it much more versatile than Tendrils, AND it's a wincon for us once we get to the loop our deck phase. However, once you start bumping its numbers and using it in other slots, you start to notice its deficiencies much more. I DO like having extra copies in sideboard games, as it can nuke bears and help us close out games w/ Mentor.

IDK if Unmask will be good a year from now, but for Legacy in 2017, Unmask does a lot of good work in the kitchen.

[bigbobbobber]

Being nit-picky here, but the gatherer rules for Unmask say that the player reveals their hand

[Kobra_D]

Got to love errata text. If you look at a copy of from the vault lore, unmask is also updated to signify it is reveal and not look.

But even then it is such a small percentage difference in our case that I wouldn't let that weigh on my conscience.

[Acclimation]

Well, shoot. Good to know, most everyone plays with the Masques version and just reads the card as is.

[Kobra_D]

My comp. did not load all of the responses last time to the unmask question, didn't mean to tack on towards the end.

Hi dk,

Many thanks for such a quick response. That proposed Doomsday sideboard looks very interesting. When I played an older version of it (at least on MTGO) nobody ever expected it (or knew what was happening). Given it's 'all in' style, I think it's the perfect supplement for Tinfins. I do remember having lots of success with the 'Mentor SB' too. I'd probably want to try both out to have some options/variety. As it's been a while since I played I'm not entirely sure what to pick for my mainboard. I don't believe Unmask was prevalent in Tinfins at that time. Here is a list of what I used before (to the best of my memory):

Creatures
2x Griselbrand
1x Children of Korlis
1x Emrakul Aeons Torn

Artifacts
2x Chrome Mox
4x Lotus Petal

Spells
4x Entomb
3x Ponder
4x Gitaxian Probe
3x Thoughtseize
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Shallow Grave
3x Goryo's Vengeance
2x Reanimate
1x Tendrils of Agony
4x Brainstorm
4x Dark Ritual

Land
Flooded Strand x2
Marsh Flats x2
Polluted Delta x4
Scrubland x2
Underground Sea x2
Island x1
Swamp x1

What would you recommend changing in the current meta (to make way for multiple Unmask and Collective Brutality)? Cheers once again for your time guys! Hope you're having a good day/night.

Z

EDIT: Thank you Kobra for your recommendations, too. That combination looks like a lot of fun also. Did you look to merge aspects of Tinfins with classic reanimator? Home brew decks can be the most effective I find, as opponents don't expect them (and therefore under estimate them). Are you still looking to try out a 'classic' style Tinfins deck yourself or are you sticking with your current setup?

The rakdos build was because I didn't own any blue duals, which unfortunately is still the case. That being said, I started the deck in a far off place with rite of flames and simian spirit guides and have gotten it to this place which is more aligned with something like RB reanimator. This is more all in, but it performs unreasonably well still for lacking brainstorm. I brought it up in case you didn't have the deck yet/ wanted to buy pieces at a time, this gives you something to play in the mediary.

As for myself I have fallen in love with this list and will be sticking with badlands. Good luck.

[Richard Cheese]

So we basically already have all the tools to abuse this guy. Unfortunately Goryo's can't get him, and Corpse Dance is the next best thing, but the extra mana is a world of difference (+U to activate). We've discussed starting with pomegrant's BW/LED version, or possibly a slightly slower Reanimator hybrid with more protection.

Thoughts?

[Darkgobs]

Well, it looks fancy, but the downsides you mentioned seem to be quite problematic indeed.

Actually this makes me wondering: how does the "Pomegrant's list" look like nowadays, aka now that we got CBru? Would you also play Unmask in such a list?

[Kobra_D]

So we basically already have all the tools to abuse this guy. Unfortunately Goryo's can't get him, and Corpse Dance is the next best thing, but the extra mana is a world of difference (+U to activate). We've discussed starting with pomegrant's BW/LED version, or possibly a slightly slower Reanimator hybrid with more protection.

Thoughts?

Ok, I got to be missing something here. Why do we want to cast mind's desire? It's a fun card, sure, but it just seems to be deviation from the goal. Getting griselbrand is already good enough, or are you trying to cast this guy and then activate next turn? I chalk this card up to "look's cool but doesn't do quite what I want."

That being said, swap out 4 goryo's for 4 shallow grave and you're golden. Or you can reanimate the old fashion way having already binned this card Dragon Breath.

Ok, careful study/ looting pitching dragon breath and this guy does seem like the right kind of fun.

[bruizar]

looks like a good deck for the ur dragon..

[ZeDan]

Hello Again All,

Apologies for the delayed response - was away for a few weeks. I've finally managed to try out the deck dk recommended (with the sideboard recommended by Acclimation). I've played six games so far and have only lost two. I'm loving some of the new changes (Unmask is unreal value!). I'm still getting used to having no tendrils but overall I'm really enjoying it. Thank you for the suggestions/feedback, I really appreciate it!

BW,

Z

[Zooligan]

Hello Again All,

Apologies for the delayed response - was away for a few weeks. I've finally managed to try out the deck dk recommended (with the sideboard recommended by Acclimation). I've played six games so far and have only lost two. I'm loving some of the new changes (Unmask is unreal value!). I'm still getting used to having no tendrils but overall I'm really enjoying it. Thank you for the suggestions/feedback, I really appreciate it!

BW,

Z

Just for us people on small devices who don't really like to scroll back thru multiple post to look for lists and hope they find the one or ones you are talking about, could you post your currently-discussed main/side please?