[Deck] TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst

[.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

.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.