A few years back I had to sell my collection and dropped out of the legacy scene. I never thought I'd get back into it, but a few years later I find myself with a real job and some disposable income, so...
The first thing I had to do was decide what deck to build. Back in the day I played mostly Zoo/Naya Sligh and Noble Hierarch/Stone Forge Mystic/Force of Will decks. Sadly, Wild Nacatl is no longer the awesome t1 play it once was, and with goyfs costing ~$200 apiece, those decks seemed a tiny bit outside what I wanted to spend. However, back in the day I always wanted to play Storm. At around $1500 for an average ANT list, it seemed feasible, and a few weeks later I found my bank account significantly lighter and my backpack about 8 oz. heavier. I picked up the dual lands for Naya Sligh at the same time since I had all the fetches already for modern, but that was more just for the sake of having my old pet deck together again than anything else.
Next I just needed an event to take it to. Luckily, there was a Duel For Duals just outside of Philadelphia today. Leading up to the event I got as much testing in as I could, and played in a few small LGS tournaments to mostly mixed results. I almost lost my nerve and audibled to Naya Sligh at the last minute, but I'm never gonna get good at counting to ten if I never try, so I stuck to my guns. My carpool buddy Russ lent me a Grim Tutor, and I registered this list:
MD:
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Past In Flames
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Grim Tutor
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
SB:
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain Of Vapor
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Massacre
1 Echoing Truth
1 Empty The Warrens
1 Thoughtseize
Round One-Johnathan playing Death and Taxes
He wins the roll and I keep a hand with two ponders, a dark rit, and an infernal tutor. He leads on Karakas + Vial and I am sad. I ponder into a probe and use it, seeing Thalia, SFM, Brimaz, Vial, and Canopy. He untaps and casts Thalia off the Canopy, going to 19. I topdeck an L.E.D. and play it out, paying the one with my Sea. He drops SFM off Vial and starts beating in with Thalia while I cast one cantrip a turn and work towards building up enough rituals to try to power through Thalia. He gets me down to 10 and I realize he can vial in Brimaz and Batterskull if I pass the turn, representing lethal, so I have to go for it. Luckily, I was able to get two cabal rituals to go with my dark ritual, giving me just enough mana to cast dark rit, cabal rit, cabal rit, LED, Past In Flames (using the petal I played out earlier), rituals again, infernal tutor and tendrils with 0 mana left. Sometimes you win game one through Thalia. *shrug*
-4 Duress
+1 Empty The Warrens
+1 Thoughtseize
+2 Massacre
Game 2 I keep a strong hand with Probe, Thoughtseize, an LED, two Dark Rituals, an Infernal Tutor and a Delta. He leads on Karakas, go. I probe him (paying 2 life) seeing Thalia, Spirit Of The Labrynth, Sword of Fire and Ice, and lands. I Crack the delta and thoughtseize the thalia. He plays Spirit and passes. I topdeck massacre. He taps out for SoFI on his turn, on my turn I Massacre and do a pretty rudimentary Past In Flames kill.
1-0
Round Two - Brian playing Sneak & Show
I win the roll and lead Game One on a ponder. On his turn two I cast a probe, he brainstorms, and I see Show and Tell, Daze, Petal, Ancient Tomb, Mountain and Misty Rainforest. I take his Show and Tell with a duress, as I am unafraid of Daze. I cast another few cantrips on turn three, and on turn four probe him again to see the daze, petal, and two Griselbrands... I do a methodical Past in Flames kill.
-2 Preordain
-1 Ponder
+1 Thoughtseize
+2 Xantid Swarm
Game Two I mulligan to 6, choosing not to keep my seven of Dark Rit, Dark Rit, Dark Rit, Cabal Rit, Petal, Past In Flames, Probe, no matter how tempted I may have been. (Seriously, look at all that mana!) My 6 has Xantid Swarm, 3 cantrips and two lands, so I try it. I resolve the Xantid Swarm, but my cantrips only find cabal rituals, and he makes turn three Emrakul. He swings for 15 and I can't win as I would need to topdeck two inital mana sources or one inital mana source and a dark ritual in one draw step, which sadly the rules say is impossible. :(
Game three he mulligans and my hand has tropical island, xantid swarm, a probe, two cantrips, a ritual and an infernal tutor to finish. I keep and play Xantid Swarm. He plays a land and ponders, shuffles and passes. I ponder and shuffle, but still miss the land. I cover him in bees turns 2 and 3 and cast cantrips, having to pass when I miss the black source. Turn 4 I pick up a delta off the top, play the probe seeing S&T, S&T, Sneak Attack, Sneak Attack, and lands. It comes to light that his ponder saw two lands and a Sneak Attack, and he drew nothing but lands after the shuffle. I'm still a little mana short of killing him, so I have to pass. He topdecks a cantrip, uses it to find Emrakul and puts it into play with Show and Tell. I get a brainstorm on my draw step, cover his emrakul in bees, and brainstorm into the necessary gas to do a past in flames kill.
2-0
Round Three - Lucas playing Death and Taxes
Game One I win the die roll and probe him, seeing Mirran Crusader, Stoneforge Mystic, Spirit of the Labrynth, Serra Avenger, Horizon Canopy, Eiganjo, Karakas. I breathe a sigh of relief because my hand has two L.E.Ds, two Dark Rituals, and my probe draws me the infernal tutor. Turn two past in flames kill and we're on our way.
-4 Duress
+1 Empty The Warrens
+1 Thoughtseize
+2 Massacre
Game Two he's on the play. I mulligan to 6 and keep a hand with multiple cantrips, probe, a land, and a lotus petal, thinking that if worse comes to worst maybe I can cantrip+probe into a cabal therapy and cast it off my lotus petal? Unfortunately, my probe sees two thalias and a revoker and I do not hit a therapy. Thalia and revoker both come down, and while I have multiple turns to find a massacre, I do not get there.
Game Three I keep L.E.D., L.E.D., Dark Rit, U.Sea, Infernal Tutor, Lotus Petal, Empty The Warrens. Turn one I cast L.E.D., L.E.D., Dark Rit, Petal (crack for red), Empty The Warrens for 10 goblins. He plays Eiganjo and passes. I attack for 10. I think he cast Serra Avenger, which as I'm typing this up, I realize that shouldn't have been possible. Either it was a different non-disruptive two drop, or we both failed to acknowledge Serra Avenger's 'can't cast until turn 4' clause. Either way, I topdeck a lotus petal, attack for 10, he blocks and drops to 1, I cast petal, Infernal Tutor, crack L.E.D.s, and tendrils him for 6. No reason to give them a turn three, right?
3-0
Round Four - Eli playing UWR Pyromancer/Monastery Mentor.
Aaaaaaaand this is where the wheels came off a bit. Game One he wins the roll. I have an early duress which sees FoW, Brainstorm, Dig Through Time, Lightning Bolt, Forked Bolt, Island, and Ponder. I take the brainstorm, as I have therapy in hand. We play draw-cantrip-go for a bit while I try to sculpt a hand that can break through his counters. Unfortunately, I pull the trigger too early. I cast dark ritual, followed by duress (forced), cabal therapy on force of will. Unfortunately, he has drawn a stifle. I activate my polluted delta and he stifles it. I think that I can cast my remaining dark rit to get to six mana and infernal tutor + tendrils for 16 with him at 15, but after casting the dark rit I realize I only actually have five mana...
... Math is hard sometimes. :[ I infernal tutor for past in flames in the hopes that I topdeck a red source, but he made too many tokens off his pyromancer, and I die two turns later.
[WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE]
If I had not cast that second dark ritual, I could have saved the Infernal Tutor for next turn, which might have given me an option to win, depending on my topdecks. Realistically, I think the best option might have been to lead on the therapy instead of casting the first dark ritual before it, and gone for the win the following turn. I'm not 100% certain.
-2 Preordain
-1 Ponder
+2 Carpet of Flowers
+1 Empty The Warrens
Game two I duress him and see Meddling Mage in his hand. I saw no white game one, and as such did not side in any answers to meddling mage. I can make 9 storm for tendrils because my hand has two L.E.D.s, Past In Flames, and Tendrils in it, with some rituals. He plays a land and passes. I tunnel vision on needing to prevent him from casting that meddling mage, but the more I do the math I see there's no way to kill him this turn or to get the meddling mage out of his hand. At this point I've been thinking about this turn for so long that I have to make a decision or risk the nearby judge giving me guff about slow playing. I make the wrong decision and tendrils him for 18, leaving him at 1, so that he can't crack his fetchland. I don't find Empty The Warrens before he kills me.
[WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE]
The greatest irony about this game is that he almost certainly would have named Infernal Tutor with his Meddling Mage, with the fetchland taking him to 18. The exact same line of play kills him if I just wait a turn... :( Hindsight is 20/20.
3-1
Round Five - Ben playing U/R... Delver? I think?
He was playing what looked like an aggressive U/R Delver list with snapcasters and goblin guide, but I never actually saw Delver, so I don't know if it was in his deck or not. Game One I win the roll and ponder. He plays an EOT Snapcaster and starts attacking on his turn 3, but my cantrips get me a stacked hand. He forces a dark ritual delaying me a turn, but the next turn I power through his counters and use past in flames to kill.
I forget exactly how I boarded this round, and forgot to write it down. I think I did a similar strategy as I did in round 4, but I also brought in an abrupt decay and an echoing truth just in case... I think. Also, I'm like 90% sure I boarded out Ad Naus this round.
Game Two he leads on Guide again and my probe sees Null Rod, Spell Pierce, Mire, Delta, and Flooded Strand. I duress him for the null rod and pass. He attacks a few times, but my choice to get island instead of U.Sea on my first fetch in case of wasteland bites me in the ass, as I only have one black source to find a way to fight through his spell pierce when my only rituals are of the cabal variety. Ultimately I topdeck a petal and therapy him, to which he responds by snapcasting his spell pierce, but does not cast it. For some reason I have a mental misstep (pun intended) and walk cabal ritual into the flashbacked spellpierce. :(
[WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE]
I didn't need to cast the therapy. He had only one unkown card in hand (which turned out to be delta), and I think I should have simply cast cabal ritual with trop+petal untapped, and seen if he pierced that. If he did, he's only on 16, so I can just pay it, cast my other cabal ritual, and tutor chain to victory. If he didn't pierce that, I can still cast my therapy and go for past in flames, or tutor chain if he does eventually contribute his two spells to my storm count. Sometimes you just need to go for it, yanno? I think that route would have had a higher chance of winning, and definitely would have won this game in particular, and thus the round. *Sigh*.
Game Three back on the play, I keep a hand with multiple cantrips, past in flames, a ritual, and infernal tutor. He opens on Goblin Guide. Unfortunately he topdecks null rod after my duress, blanking my lotus petals. I cantrip a few times, but can't find what I need to win through null rod. He then casts grafdigger's cage, blanking the past in flames in my hand. Goblin Guide beats me down, I use a fetchland to shuffle my deck after his guide reveals a third lotus petal, he brainstorms and draws into a lightning bolt for the last three points of damage.
[WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE]
I don't really know about this one. Perhaps I should have mulliganed into a stronger hand/one with disruption, but there's no guarantee that hand would have been any better. My cantrips bricking certainly didn't help things... This is the only game I lost that I'm not sure what I should have done.
3-2
At this point I believe I can still squeak into top 8 if I win out, because my breakers are the best of all the x-2s. Unfortunately this winds up not being true, as the last 16th pointer wound up in 8th place. Still, I was playing for top 16, which would still net me a taiga or a plateau.
Round Six - Chris Kelly playing Elves!
Game One I win the roll and probe him seeing Wirewood Symbiote, 2 Deathrite Shamans, Green Sun's Zenith, Dryad Arbor, Forest, and Windswept Heath. He casts GSZ for Arbor and passes. I cantrip again and he casts two DRSes. I cantrip some more. On my turn four I have Past In Flames in hand, Dark Rit, two Cabal Rituals, an L.E.D., and a Lotus Petal, with Brainstorm, Probe, and Ponder in my yard. I go for a Past In Flames kill, knowing he will probably eat my Ponder with his DRS, but I miss the fact that he can use Wirewood Symbiote tricks to get a third activation out of his DRSes; Thankfully he only has one land up, so he can still only eat two spells, but this is still cause for concern. He leaves me with just probe in my yard to draw with. After a deep breath I probe into another probe, which probes into Infernal Tutor. Thank Goodness.
[WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE]
While this line of play did win the game, it was risky. I went for it when I did because I was afraid of him keeping me off threshold when I had two cabal rits in hand, and was also worried about him comboing out if I let him have another turn. I think I could have let it go another turn, but I'm also not sure that would have been any safer, as he could have eaten all my draw spells out of my yard. Ultimately, I was lucky that Infernal Tutor was on top of my deck. If I hadn't been lucky, I don't know if I could have won this game.
-4 Duress
+1 Thoughtseize
+1 Chain Of Vapor
+1 Echoing Truth
+1 Abrupt Decay
I think I did this just so that I'd have answers to any random junk he brought in. I'm not sure what the correct SB strategy is for this match up. (If anybody has advice, feel free to let me know.)
Game two I wind up with Grim Tutor, Infernal Tutor, Ad Nauseam, Cabal Ritual, Dark Ritual, Probe and a U. Sea in hand. I duress him seeing a Null Rod (which I take) and a Cabal Therapy (Which I leave because I expect him to cast it and flash it back for Infernal and Grim Tutors, leaving me with Ad Naus to cast on his end step the following turn) in his hand. I ponder for a second land and float a dark rit on top. He topdecked a Thoughtseize which he uses to take Ad Naus, to my surprise, and then takes my Grim Tutor with his Therapy. I expect him to Therapy me again, sacking his DRS, to take my Infernal Tutor, but he does not. I sit there for a minute trying to figure out if he sees something I don't. He's on a one lander, so I realize he chose not to flash it back because he wants to cast Natural Order next turn to get his clock going. Luckily for me, I have that dark ritual on top that he didn't know about, which means I have plenty of mana to go for Past In Flames and Tendrils for lethal.
4-2
Round Seven - Zane playing Esper Deathblade
Game One I win the roll. I Duress him seeing that he has Thoughtseize, but take his Force Of Will because my hand is slightly redundant, and I think I can assemble what I need pretty easily post-seize. Sure enough he seizes me. We play draw-go for a couple turns, and I attempt tap out to play Grim Tutor, knowing that if he Force of Wills it I can just win the next turn with the infernal tutor in my hand, and if he doesn't force it I can go get anything I want to build an unbeatable hand for next turn. Ultimately he forces it. The next turn I cabal therapy naming force, but am surprised to see Counterspell in his hand. Since he's presenting no clock, we play one or two more turns of draw-go before he Digs Through Time and gets SFM into play, followed by Batterskull. He gets one hit with Batterskull in before I duress him, which he counterspells. He's only got two more cards in hand one of which I know is True Name Nemesis, so I decide to go for it. I go for a methodical Past In Flames kill, and he has no more counters.
I didn't write down my boarding for this round either, but I know I brought in a mix of Decays, Empty The Warrens, Echoing Truth and Chain Of Vapor in place of some cantrips.
Game Two we trade discard spells, and he plays SFM for Sword of Feast And Famine. I cast a duress and he Digs Through Time, then lets Duress resolve. He has an untapped DRS in play, FoW, Brainstorm, Sword and Batterskull in hand. I take his Brainstorm stranding Force in his hand and Past In Flames for the kill.
5-2
Ultimately I wound up in 11th place, getting a Plateau for my trouble which I hope to trade to Russ towards a Grim Tutor. I know I could have won both of the rounds that I lost had I played better, but I'm mostly happy with this result. It was my first real tournament playing Tendrils, and my first real legacy tournament in ~2-3 years. I knew I would make mistakes going into it, and I learned a lot today, especially from matches four and five.
As for the deck, I was happy with it. I liked having the Grim Tutor, as even though I never actually resolved it, it ate multiple force of wills and discard spells throughout the day, which was sweet. It was a big relief to have a bomb that I could run into a counterspell without needing my hand to be empty, and just having a fifth tutor effect made finding one with cantrips feel a lot less hopeless. While I don't presently have one, I will be trying to borrow one for future events whenever possible until I do.
The sideboard was good I think, with everything except I think the second Chain of Vapor getting sided in at least once. I almost played today without the Empty The Warrens on the board, but I am very glad I used it now, as it was definitely useful multiple times, and just being able to side in a second win con seems useful in some matchups. I also liked the Thoughtseize on the board, as it was helpful multiple times. I didn't miss the Dark Confidants that I took off the board, which those two cards replaced, but I also didn't play the matchups where I want Confidant. I don't know whether I'll bring back Confidant for the next tournament or not, but I'm leaning towards not.
I'm not certain one way or the other on massacre/dread of night/pyroclasm. Massacre seemed fine to me today, and I was glad I had it, but I see the merits in the other two options as well. I might try having a pyroclasm around for the next tournament I go to, just in case the DnT player doesn't play a plains.
Well, I think that's about it for now. Thanks for reading, and I hope to cast Tendrils against you soon!
--hungryLIKEALION
Originally Posted by Bardo
Welcome back Harry. It's good to have you around again
Matt Bevenour in real life
Congratulations, both on your finish and your return to Legacy.
I actually thought this was a necro at first, since I remember you from years ago, but haven't read anything from you in a while
Thanks Matt, it's good to be back. :]
Thank you, Philipp. I'm hoping to become active again now that I have a deck. The biggest challenge at the moment is finding events to go to, as I work most Saturdays.Congratulations, both on your finish and your return to Legacy.
I actually thought this was a necro at first, since I remember you from years ago, but haven't read anything from you in a while
Nice! Welcome back, dude, even if you aren't making cats anymore.
Thanks! The only four cards I kept when I sold out of the game were my foil Wild Nacatls, and I'm definitely keeping my eyes peeled for an opening in the meta for them. I just feel like there are too many bad match ups around right now with the popularity of DnT, Sneak/Show, and Reanimator. I've been doing a lot of theory crafting about it, and while Mutagenic Growth and Ghor Clan Rampager both help a lot in the DnT matchup, I have yet to find something that makes the other two feel remotely winnable. :[ So for the moment, they're chilling out in my Modern deck. At least I get to play them somewhere.
Thanks for the report, and congrats on the finish.
If you've got your hand correct, you could have just killed your opponent:
Probe (1)
Delta, fetch for Sea (1, B)
Dark Ritual (2, BBB)
Dark Ritual (3, BBBBB)
LED (4, BBBBB)
Tutor, break LED (5, BBBRRR)
Past in Flames (6, BB)
Dark Ritual (7, BBBB)
Dark Ritual (8, BBBBBB)
Tutor (9, BBBB)
Tendrils.
Welcome to the first of many such realizations. Playing this deck is hard, but is so playing against it. Sometimes you have to count on your opponent making mistakes. Or in this case, making the right play.
Duress is actually fine as Elves beats storm with its spells, either by combing quickly (Natural Order, Glimpse) or by catching you off guard (Surgical Extraction, Mindbreak Trap). It is difficult for them to get the perfect mix of discard, creatures and game-ending spells if you attack their hand. I would bring in Chain, Chain and Thoughtseize for 3 Duress, but the Decay usually isn't necessary and it doesn't answer Ruric Thar or de-lethal a Craterhoof.
Good job again. I hope you continue to enjoy learning the deck!
Hmm. Either I didn't see this/miscounted the mana (which wouldn't surprise me given that this line produces no excess mana), or I'm wrong about what my opening hand was. I admit, my memory is not perfect, so it's possible a card or two were different. I'm trying to figure out a way to keep better notes for writing reports on this deck, but often by the time the game is over I've forgotten precisely what my opening hand was. In the future I'm considering writing down my storm turns as I go so I can more accurately represent them in my reports, but that might be putting too much extra work on what is already a turn that I'm doing a lot of things. Maybe as I play the deck more I'll just get better at remembering.
Yeah. One of the big lessons I learned from this game in particular is that I have to keep in mind whether or not the disruption my opponent is playing actually matters to my current plan or not. I spent nearly 3 minutes thinking about that turn, doing the math over and over, but not once did the thought, "Does Meddling Mage actually stop me from killing him?" cross my mind.Welcome to the first of many such realizations. Playing this deck is hard, but is so playing against it. Sometimes you have to count on your opponent making mistakes. Or in this case, making the right play.
I hadn't even thought of Ruric Thar. That's a very good point.Duress is actually fine as Elves beats storm with its spells, either by combing quickly (Natural Order, Glimpse) or by catching you off guard (Surgical Extraction, Mindbreak Trap). It is difficult for them to get the perfect mix of discard, creatures and game-ending spells if you attack their hand. I would bring in Chain, Chain and Thoughtseize for 3 Duress, but the Decay usually isn't necessary and it doesn't answer Ruric Thar or de-lethal a Craterhoof.
Thanks. :] I know I will, it's an absolute blast to play. Especially every time you beat a Force of Will deck.Good job again. I hope you continue to enjoy learning the deck!
When I play in a Competitive REL tournament, I like to keep storm count by writing down every spell played in a turn. Not only does it make for better notes, but you don't have to worry about keeping track of storm in your head. It also means judges will almost certainly rule in your favor if you and your opponent disagree about the storm count. Finally, if you do it in game one it opens up some sweet bluffs where you trick your opponent into thinking you are/aren't going off in games two or three.
That does sound like a good idea. I'm gonna try it next time I go to a tournament.
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