[Deck] TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst

[TheyCallMeTim]

Very cool idea, and I'm interested in trying some experiments to see if there is something there. Richard does make a very good point that Emrakul is a key out to Pithing Needle on Griselbrand (and Borborygmos in your case, if they have 2 Needles). Soul Spike can deal with Revoker at least (and other hatebears).

They wouldn't really need to Needle Borborygmos, since I doubt he's going to go very far in a deck with 14 lands without the card drawing power of mighty Mr. Onion Burst. I suppose you could sculpt a hand that would let you flash him in to nuke a couple hatebears through Karakas, but that seems like a bit of a corner case. Generally, I think lacking Emrakul just makes the deck slightly more all-in on Griselbrand.

Pithing Needle is something I've only run into once. It's definitely a card but so is Grafdigger's Cage and my perspective of them is similar. You're going to need to Chain or Serenity the Cage, why should Needle be any different? Surely when your deck contains Emrakul and Needle is their only hate, you don't mind so much not drawing the bounce but that seems even more of a corner case than might be immediately apparent. Also, we have 8 reanimation spells so it seems reasonable to swing, sacrifice to flashback Therapy and do it all over again. With 14 damage (plus lifelink or seismic assault activations) and Soul Spike in the deck, even that line of play isn't far-fetched. That is if we don't kill them before their hate ever becomes a factor... ;)

I'll see if I can figure out something I like and run it in a local or something sometime.

I believe Koby suggested Soul Spike a couple of years ago in the first 5-6 pages of the thread, if I remember correctly.

Definitely appreciate the new ideas for the deck!

Thanks again. I look forward to hearing about your results!

EDIT: Most decks have only 1 - 2 Pithing Needles anyway.

[Koby]

Just throwing this out here:

Necrotic Ooze can copy both Griselbrand's and Borborygmos' abilities without the need for reanimation.
We're coming closer to Oozing with this trend, which isn't bad. Just different.

[TheyCallMeTim]

Koby loves him some Coldsnap-pitch-two cards. What's next, Commandeer?

"Tin Fins IV: The Quest for Commandeer".

LMAO. Of course, the list I ran Saturday also had Unmask. And I too have played with Fury of the Horde in Modern. I'm all about doing broken things. If we're playing with a walking Yawgmoth's Bargain we might as well cast cards for free!

[.dk]

Just throwing this out here:

Necrotic Ooze can copy both Griselbrand's and Borborygmos' abilities without the need for reanimation.
We're coming closer to Oozing with this trend, which isn't bad. Just different.

Oh, that's a great point. That pushes you more to a Buried Alive type of build to grab all 3, make an Ooze, and then kill them. At that point, that mana requirements become weird though, as you can't combo off of a single dark ritual. Interesting thoughts and ideas though.

[TheyCallMeTim]

Just throwing this out here:

Necrotic Ooze can copy both Griselbrand's and Borborygmos' abilities without the need for reanimation.
We're coming closer to Oozing with this trend, which isn't bad. Just different.

I tried to make it work in Modern but didn't get past the play testing stage. Just feels clunky and slow. Probably fun for people that want to go in that direction, I was just hoping to be competitive with Borborygmos.

[pandaman]

Oh, that's a great point. That pushes you more to a Buried Alive type of build to grab all 3, make an Ooze, and then kill them. At that point, that mana requirements become weird though, as you can't combo off of a single dark ritual. Interesting thoughts and ideas though.

Oozing is slower than Tin Fins, so if you're looking to exploit a meta with a fast combo deck, I'd be playing Tin Fins right how. Also, winning with Ooze without reanimation (I.e. casting it) is a significant part of Oozing's strategy and that hurts somewhat with all the Lightning Bolts running around (toughness 3). Tin Fins doesn't have that problem!

[.dk]

Oozing is slower than Tin Fins, so if you're looking to exploit a meta with a fast combo deck, I'd be playing Tin Fins right how. Also, winning with Ooze without reanimation (I.e. casting it) is a significant part of Oozing's strategy and that hurts somewhat with all the Lightning Bolts running around (toughness 3). Tin Fins doesn't have that problem!

So what you're saying is that once all of the Lightning Bolts change into Sudden Shocks to kill all of the Swiftspears in the UR Delver mirror, then we're golden to start playing Ooze? :)

[Richard Cheese]

Oozing is slower than Tin Fins, so if you're looking to exploit a meta with a fast combo deck, I'd be playing Tin Fins right how. Also, winning with Ooze without reanimation (I.e. casting it) is a significant part of Oozing's strategy and that hurts somewhat with all the Lightning Bolts running around (toughness 3). Tin Fins doesn't have that problem!

Provided you already have Grizzlebees and Boybandrigormortis in the graveyard, you can probably just win in response to a bolt. On second thought, maybe not without lifelink to draw you 7 more cards. Seems like you would have to have a lot more lands than TinFins currently runs to make that work without any combat damage.

Maybe there's a different archetype brewing here that's some kind of middle ground between TinFins and Oozing, hell you could potentially add green to run cards like Grisly Salvage and Commune with the Gods (into Animate Dead FTW), replace some/all of the IMSs with lands and ramp into Ooze. I agree with Panda though, why be susceptible to nearly all the same hate, but several turns slower?

[phazonmutant]

Tim - congrats on the 5-3. I'd just like to put your list in a little bit of perspective though. Your list is "innovative" but only for the sake of being different. There's no change that helps to make the deck more consistent or resilient. Unmask is great in your great hands, and awful in all the others. Cutting Tendrils and Children for Soul Spike makes it more likely to fizzle because Entomb isn't an enabler any more and Soul Spike gains far less life. It also makes your hands clunkier because there are 4 dead cards vs 2 - the fringe benefit of Soul Spiking a creature is about as likely to come up as Tendrils'ing out an opponent naturally or using Children to flashback Therapy. Cutting Emrakul means you can't win through Leyline of Sanctity in one turn by attacking, can't deal with very high life totals or Leyline of Sanctity + Ensnaring Bridge (by going infinite), and does essentially nothing if you reanimate him without Griselbrand. Adding an extra Griselbrand and cutting a Brainstorm, Probe, and Lim-Dul's Vaults do nothing to help consistency either. I can personally attest to having tried each of these cards (except Borborygmos) and discarding them because they created more inconsistent draws.

TinFins is so grossly powerful that it can pick up wins even with terrible lists - .dk day 2'd a GP with a list that looks like shit and has a terrible sideboard - but every refinement in the stock list has been made with consistency and resiliency in mind. That is the only way to go deep in a tournament.

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but it frustrates me when people who make changes to a stock list without understanding what those changes do or why the stock list looks like it does. The burden of proof is on the innovator.

[.dk]

T I can personally attest to having tried each of these cards (except Borborygmos) and discarding them because they created more inconsistent draws.

In general, I think I agree - but Borborygmos is a pretty cool idea to be able to use all of those extra lands you draw off of Griselbrand - similar to why I prefer the first Mox Diamond to the 2nd Chrome Mox. I don't think it's necessarily better, but it's a neat idea. In general, you're right though. The maindeck is all moving parts that interact with each other to create different lines. Even Gitaxian Probe, aside from just letting you see more cards, has great synergy with Lim-Dul's Vault if you're about to get killed the following turn. This is exactly why I don't really like the reactive sideboards for this deck - there just isn't enough room to bring in as much anti-hate as you would like.

I wouldn't want to discourage new ideas and if there is some solid reasoning/theory behind changes I'm all ears to give something a shot. That said, I do think we're pretty close to the end of the rope with existing cards now. We've tried a LOT of different stuff over the past couple of years to arrive where we are. But there could be another gem or angle out there that we've missed.

TinFins is so grossly powerful that it can pick up wins even with terrible lists - .dk day 2'd a GP with a list that looks like shit and has a terrible sideboard - but every refinement in the stock list has been made with consistency and resiliency in mind. That is the only way to go deep in a tournament.

I sure hope you're talking about my list from Atlanta a couple years ago. ;)

[TheyCallMeTim]

Tim - congrats on the 5-3. I'd just like to put your list in a little bit of perspective though. Your list is "innovative" but only for the sake of being different. There's no change that helps to make the deck more consistent or resilient. Unmask is great in your great hands, and awful in all the others. Cutting Tendrils and Children for Soul Spike makes it more likely to fizzle because Entomb isn't an enabler any more and Soul Spike gains far less life. It also makes your hands clunkier because there are 4 dead cards vs 2 - the fringe benefit of Soul Spiking a creature is about as likely to come up as Tendrils'ing out an opponent naturally or using Children to flashback Therapy. Cutting Emrakul means you can't win through Leyline of Sanctity in one turn by attacking, can't deal with very high life totals or Leyline of Sanctity + Ensnaring Bridge (by going infinite), and does essentially nothing if you reanimate him without Griselbrand. Adding an extra Griselbrand and cutting a Brainstorm, Probe, and Lim-Dul's Vaults do nothing to help consistency either. I can personally attest to having tried each of these cards (except Borborygmos) and discarding them because they created more inconsistent draws.

TinFins is so grossly powerful that it can pick up wins even with terrible lists - .dk day 2'd a GP with a list that looks like shit and has a terrible sideboard - but every refinement in the stock list has been made with consistency and resiliency in mind. That is the only way to go deep in a tournament.

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but it frustrates me when people who make changes to a stock list without understanding what those changes do or why the stock list looks like it does. The burden of proof is on the innovator.

I understand the realities of this. I have always admitted that my list is less than ideal, not even perfect for one playing Borborygmos. I was fully prepared for you guys to wipe the floor with my report, much more prepared than I was for the GP itself! With that perspective, I had already resigned to not trying to defend my choices against criticism. Meanwhile, .dk made significant changes himself and had much better results. Big congratulations to you, sir.

Without trying to further frustrate anyone, I will address those few points (though many of them come down to "IDC, I just like the card" which admittedly makes me more of a Timmy). With regard to Unmask, I have also used Thoughtsieze and am not convinced the former is necessarily better, it simply enables some powerful plays. Surely it also can be weak. Soul Spike likely suffers the same fate in that it's good when it's good and it's bad when its bad. Luckily I have Brainstorm to exchange late game cards for early game cards as the situation dictates. I will definitely be looking to get these back up to 4 in the maindeck. As someone mentioned earlier, Borborygmos is actually more "compact" in that it requires less resources to go off (compared to Tendrils), it's just that I actually found myself with 2 less slots as you mentioned. Personally, the fact that he allows for instant speed winning warrants some testing. There's definitely room for brewing here. As far as going infinite, I don't have the experience of needing to do that, maybe it happens more often for you guys. Along the same lines, I haven't ever seen Leyline of Sanctity + Ensnaring Bridge on the other side of the table and I'm not sure how the other lists would handle it any better. I have a lot of research and learning about Doomsday piles however, .dk likely has an out to it.

I hope it's clear that my intention wasn't to come in here, waving my list around in the hopes that everyone in would change the standard build. The reactions I've gotten so far (and results) greatly exceeded my expectations. My hope that some people might try it out is simply because it's fun and interesting (with an ego boost in there). Tins Fins does feel like it needs help though, so I'm happy that we're at least having the conversation. <reads more Doomsday articles...>

[.dk]

I understand the realities of this. I have always admitted that my list is less than ideal, not even perfect for one playing Borborygmos. I was fully prepared for you guys to wipe the floor with my report, much more prepared than I was for the GP itself! With that perspective, I had already resigned to not trying to defend my choices against criticism. Meanwhile, .dk made significant changes himself and had much better results. Big congratulations to you, sir.

Thank you! My changes were really just in the sideboard, and then what the maindeck needed to be to support Doomsday - 4 Gitaxian Probes are required. The way I look at my 60, it's as streamlined and compact as you can get with this build. Nothing cute or fancy.

And as I mentioned, I'm always interested in new ideas that have a slightly different application. Winning at instant speed without getting blown out by a flusterstorm on Tendrils (I mean, usually you would discard it anyway, but still) while making use of more extra cards in your hand is worth a look, I feel. In theory, I don't think it's better, but who knows? Children of Korlis kinda came out of left field, and that turned into an all-star IMO.

Without trying to further frustrate anyone, I will address those few points (though many of them come down to "IDC, I just like the card" which admittedly makes me more of a Timmy). With regard to Unmask, I have also used Thoughtsieze and am not convinced the former is necessarily better, it simply enables some powerful plays. Surely it also can be weak. Soul Spike likely suffers the same fate in that it's good when it's good and it's bad when its bad. Luckily I have Brainstorm to exchange late game cards for early game cards as the situation dictates. I will definitely be looking to get these back up to 4 in the maindeck. As someone mentioned earlier, Borborygmos is actually more "compact" in that it requires less resources to go off (compared to Tendrils), it's just that I actually found myself with 2 less slots as you mentioned. Personally, the fact that he allows for instant speed winning warrants some testing. There's definitely room for brewing here. As far as going infinite, I don't have the experience of needing to do that, maybe it happens more often for you guys. Along the same lines, I haven't ever seen Leyline of Sanctity + Ensnaring Bridge on the other side of the table and I'm not sure how the other lists would handle it any better. I have a lot of research and learning about Doomsday piles however, .dk likely has an out to it.

Leyline + Bridge is unbeatable with the maindeck, unless you can get lucky and swing in with Children of Korlis repeatedly.

Out of the sideboard, however, it's pretty easy to beat that board state with Doomsday. VERY easy to beat that with a Chain of Vapor/Tendrils pile (and you can use CoV as a storm engine in that case too, bouncing LED's and Lotus Petals if their life total is high and you have more in play). Something along the lines of this:

With SDT in play...

Ideas Unbound, LED, Chain of Vapor, LED/Ritual, Tendrils.

This costs 1UUU to get through the pile, and you can get an extra storm from Chaining your own LED as well - 7 storm just from that pile itself. So if you cast a discard spell, Dark Ritual, and Doomsday, you Tendrils for 20.

Or, if you're unfamiliar/uncomfortable with that, then make a Shelldock pile, cast Emrakul, and make the next card a Chain of Vapor to bounce Ensnaring Bridge, and swing in.

Shelldock, Emrakul, Cabal Therapy, Chain of Vapor, Doomsday.

This lets you discard their hand before you cast Chain of Vapor as well (better if you have another draw spell, so you can do both in the same turn you activate Shelldock). Then cast Doomsday again if you need to swing twice to make sure you don't deck yourself.

[Richard Cheese]

The way I look at my 60, it's as streamlined and compact as you can get with this build. Nothing cute or fancy.

Except for the fact that TinFins, by default, is both cute and fancy.

[.dk]

Except for the fact that TinFins, by default, is both cute and fancy.

Well of course. It's all in context, you see. Relative to the already cute and fanciness that is this deck, I wasn't running anything that was particularly cute and/or fancy relative to THAT. In the maindeck. ;) I'm pretty sure the the entire point of my sideboard is cute and fancy.

[warfordium]

Leyline + Bridge is unbeatable with the maindeck, unless you can get lucky and swing in with Children of Korlis repeatedly.

couldn't resist chiming in here as I did about 6 damage with Child attacks once in the pseudo-mirror (my opponent was on the brain freeze version) after a probe revealed he could (and was likely waiting to) go off in response to my attempt. unless he was worse then i was giving him credit for. which he might have been.

the Children of Korlis beatdown plan. its an actual thing.

[.dk]

couldn't resist chiming in here as I did about 6 damage with Child attacks once in the pseudo-mirror (my opponent was on the brain freeze version) after a probe revealed he could (and was likely waiting to) go off in response to my attempt. unless he was worse then i was giving him credit for. which he might have been.

the Children of Korlis beatdown plan. its an actual thing.

Damn right it is! I watched Koby win a game on MODO in similar fashion. And I know on at least 1 occasion, I've swung with Emrakul to wipe their board, they are at 2 or 3, and then cast Children to attack for the kill.

[Richard Cheese]

Damn right it is! I watched Koby win a game on MODO in similar fashion. And I know on at least 1 occasion, I've swung with Emrakul to wipe their board, they are at 2 or 3, and then cast Children to attack for the kill.

Have also won off Emrakul into Children beats (I think it's in a report a few pages back). We should make an achievement badge or something. Or maybe I can just find more copies in Russian and start sending them to anyone with confirmed Children kill.

[TheyCallMeTim]

Thank you! My changes were really just in the sideboard, and then what the maindeck needed to be to support Doomsday - 4 Gitaxian Probes are required. The way I look at my 60, it's as streamlined and compact as you can get with this build. Nothing cute or fancy.

Leyline + Bridge is unbeatable with the maindeck, unless you can get lucky and swing in with Children of Korlis repeatedly.

Out of the sideboard, however, it's pretty easy to beat that board state with Doomsday. VERY easy to beat that with a Chain of Vapor/Tendrils pile (and you can use CoV as a storm engine in that case too, bouncing LED's and Lotus Petals if their life total is high and you have more in play). Something along the lines of this:

//Crazy Doomsday Scenario

I can't be the only one interested in the Doomsday transformation that has little experience with that deck. Is it possible to make a primer of piles that only apply to our deck? Are Shelldock / Emrakul and Tendrils our only "trees"?

Except for the fact that TinFins, by default, is both cute and fancy.

I'm going to have to get my Griselbees altered with purple top hats, tobacco pipes and/or cups of tea.

[.dk]

I can do that to get people started, but really Doomsday is a weird card. Approaching a Doomsday pile in a formulaic fashion/pile memorization is probably not going to get you really good with that transformation. The key to resolving that spell successfully is understanding what every piece of your deck can do in any situation. Take the example in my report when I was forced to play through Daze and Blood Moon, and use a Brainstorm in the pile to win - it would be very hard to provide a "script" of sorts for game states like that.

But, it is certainly a place to get started. I'll see if I can write some basics up and ask Richard Cheese to add it to the primer when he makes the next update.

To answer your other question directly - I don't really see any other win conditions we could have when resolving Doomsday besides Emrakul or Tendrils. I toyed around with replacing the Tendrils Maindeck with Laboratory Maniac (this wins when you go infinite with Children of Korlis and Griselbrand too). This could give you access to some straightforward Lab Maniac Doomsday piles, or some really unconventional ones as well. For example, you could put Griselbrand under Shelldock Isle and use his draw ability to win off of Lab Maniac. I'm not sure how good that is, but it is flexible in that you could put another Doomsday in your pile, and just win off of swinging in with Griselbrand and casting Doomsdays to make sure you don't deck yourself.

/edit: I would totally alter my Griselbrands to be a Metal Shark if I had any kind of artistic ability

[movadomk5]

Have also won off Emrakul into Children beats (I think it's in a report a few pages back). We should make an achievement badge or something. Or maybe I can just find more copies in Russian and start sending them to anyone with confirmed Children kill.

I have a sexy foil Russian Children :)