Bizarro Stormy (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Griselbrand)

[Misersoneof]

Thanks for the link! I'm happy to a part of such a friendly group and pleased to know there are a large amount of Sealab fans out there.

Re: the twitch stream, can someone post the link? Fortunately for me 9 am eastern is 10 pm where I live!

[Zavec]

Hopefully there will be a VoD of the stream, because as sweet as this deck is I don't think I'll be getting up at 5AM

Anyway, went 2-1 in a local with the following 75:

3 Griselbrand
1 Magus of the Mind

4 Shallow Grave
2 Corpse Dance
1 Unburial Rites

4 Brainstorm
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Ponder

3 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality

3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual

1 Mastermind's Acquisition
1 Past in Flames

1 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire (don't own verdants)
1 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea

//SB:
1 Tropical Island
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Silent Gravestone
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ground Seal
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Tendrils of Agony


I think moving forward I'll swap the ground seal for the third silent gravestone, casting that card on turn 1 is really good. I also kind of want a second hurkyl's in the board, maybe will move the trop to the maindeck instead of the scrubland. The number of games where you need to entomb for unburial rites but don't have an artifact source is probably pretty small. Other than that I was pretty happy with the list. Didn't ever need past in flames, but it seems like a necessary evil in case you need to discard the acquisition to a LED or something.

Round 1: Bye

First round bye, sad times. Watched a guy playing a modern gifts storm list with the cantrips swapped out beat pile though, turns out pile is not well-equipped to deal with pieces of the puzzle into empty the warrens.

1-0


Round 2: Pile

Game 1 punted super hard, had shallow grave+griselbrand+LED but decided to spend a turn collective brutalitying to make sure the coast was clear. Saw no force of will, but a leovold. D'oh. He attacked once with leovold, but I didn't see the line to reanimate and block until the turn afterwards, at which point he had a thoughtseize to seal the deal.

Game 2 mulliganed to 5, kept lotus petal, ponder, dark ritual, 2 brainstorm. Scryed a nonland to the bottom, pondered, shuffled, did not find a land. Maybe should have gone to four.

1-1


Round 3: Merfolk
Game 1 I can't remember much, mulliganed to oblivion.

Game 2 led with fetch into silent gravestone, in response he surgicaled my fetchland because I guess at least he saw my hand? Turn three went LED, corpse dance holding priority, crack. He had a vial on 2 and had named illusion with his second cavern, so things got a little interesting. Drew some cards, went to reanimate magus which he let happen, then flipped a therapy. In response he vials in a phantasmal image and draws a bunch of cards. I think if he had done that in response to the reanimated magus looking for force of will maybe there was a chance for him. Cleared up the illusion with a collective brutality and closed things out.

Game 3 was much the same, turn 1 silent gravestone, turn 2 entomb, turn 3 corpse dance kill you.

Key takeaways for me: should be more aggressive in jamming the combo, and if they attack with a leovold/thalia/whatever, bear in mind the possibility of reanimating to block! Also ran into another guy that said he was building the deck, he mentioned that there's a discord group for TinFins that's also talking about Bizarro. If somebody could invite me to that it would be much appreciated.

[Acclimation]

Hopefully there will be a VoD of the stream, because as sweet as this deck is I don't think I'll be getting up at 5AM

Anyway, went 2-1 in a local with the following 75:

3 Griselbrand
1 Magus of the Mind

4 Shallow Grave
2 Corpse Dance
1 Unburial Rites

4 Brainstorm
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Ponder

3 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality

3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual

1 Mastermind's Acquisition
1 Past in Flames

1 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire (don't own verdants)
1 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea

//SB:
1 Tropical Island
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Silent Gravestone
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ground Seal
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Tendrils of Agony


I think moving forward I'll swap the ground seal for the third silent gravestone, casting that card on turn 1 is really good. I also kind of want a second hurkyl's in the board, maybe will move the trop to the maindeck instead of the scrubland. The number of games where you need to entomb for unburial rites but don't have an artifact source is probably pretty small. Other than that I was pretty happy with the list. Didn't ever need past in flames, but it seems like a necessary evil in case you need to discard the acquisition to a LED or something.

Round 1: Bye

First round bye, sad times. Watched a guy playing a modern gifts storm list with the cantrips swapped out beat pile though, turns out pile is not well-equipped to deal with pieces of the puzzle into empty the warrens.

1-0


Round 2: Pile

Game 1 punted super hard, had shallow grave+griselbrand+LED but decided to spend a turn collective brutalitying to make sure the coast was clear. Saw no force of will, but a leovold. D'oh. He attacked once with leovold, but I didn't see the line to reanimate and block until the turn afterwards, at which point he had a thoughtseize to seal the deal.

Game 2 mulliganed to 5, kept lotus petal, ponder, dark ritual, 2 brainstorm. Scryed a nonland to the bottom, pondered, shuffled, did not find a land. Maybe should have gone to four.

1-1


Round 3: Merfolk
Game 1 I can't remember much, mulliganed to oblivion.

Game 2 led with fetch into silent gravestone, in response he surgicaled my fetchland because I guess at least he saw my hand? Turn three went LED, corpse dance holding priority, crack. He had a vial on 2 and had named illusion with his second cavern, so things got a little interesting. Drew some cards, went to reanimate magus which he let happen, then flipped a therapy. In response he vials in a phantasmal image and draws a bunch of cards. I think if he had done that in response to the reanimated magus looking for force of will maybe there was a chance for him. Cleared up the illusion with a collective brutality and closed things out.

Game 3 was much the same, turn 1 silent gravestone, turn 2 entomb, turn 3 corpse dance kill you.

Key takeaways for me: should be more aggressive in jamming the combo, and if they attack with a leovold/thalia/whatever, bear in mind the possibility of reanimating to block! Also ran into another guy that said he was building the deck, he mentioned that there's a discord group for TinFins that's also talking about Bizarro. If somebody could invite me to that it would be much appreciated.

Nice!

I linked the discord a few posts ago, it should still be a good link.

[.dk]

@Zavec - nice! Glad you're enjoying the deck. Funny you're talking about going to 3 Gravestone from the 2/1 split - I'm actually thinking of going the other way. Ground Seal is better vs. Control decks, so it probably depends on your meta. I would bring in Seal vs. Miracles, whereas I would likely not bring in Gravestone.

Nice!

I linked the discord a few posts ago, it should still be a good link.

That link is included at the bottom of the primer now too.

[8bit9mm]

Ground Seal is better vs. Control decks, so it probably depends on your meta. I would bring in Seal vs. Miracles, whereas I would likely not bring in Gravestone.

I would 100% bring in all 3 (Ground Seal + 2 Gravestone) vs New Miracles, because Surgical, Snap, Surgical is real.

[Zavec]

Just realized the list I posted is 55 cards. Missing are 4 entombs and a volcanic.

I'm actually starting to wonder about green. TES has gone back to grixis, and Caleb has been playing a grixis ANT list for a while. I think the only matchup where I really want it is miracles and maybe pile.

[.dk]

I would 100% bring in all 3 (Ground Seal + 2 Gravestone) vs New Miracles, because Surgical, Snap, Surgical is real.

I don't think Gravestone is good enough there, and that you end up overboarding. I find Abrupt Decay + Carpet of Flowers, or Serenity if you're in white to be more interesting. A natural storm line is viable (even for mini-tendrils) and very good here. I'm more concerned about the card advantage from Search for Azcanta and Counterbalance as well as Back to Basics.

[Zavec]

I'm not a big fan of serenity, since it kills your own (silent gravestone|ground seal).

Also, aren't we aiming to win before search for azcanta becomes relevant?

[Acclimation]

I don't quite remember how I boarded against Miracles when TheCrav and I jammed games at the Sealab during the GP, but I remember manhandling him.

I think I want something like, 2 Silent Gravestone 2 Silence, since I want to protect the yard vs Surgical+Snap, but also drag out their countermagic. We can grind pretty well, so as long as we can protect the yard, make land drops, and draw out counter magic, we can win the game.

I think I do something like (with my white splash list)

-1 LED
-1 Griselbrand
-2 Probe

+2 Silence
+2 Silent Gravestone

[Manroe]

So Jim did not make a VOD but I'll do my best to recap.

He started out 0-2 with a lot of bad luck, land draws and misplays but went on a good run to Finish 3-2. His overall thought was that the deck was just a worse storm variant and wasn't very sold on it.

Losses to Miracles and BUG Control
Wins vs Elves, Dredge, Sneak and Show

Feel free to add anything Acclimation.

[Acclimation]

So Jim did not make a VOD but I'll do my best to recap.

He started out 0-2 with a lot of bad luck, land draws and misplays but went on a good run to Finish 3-2. His overall thought was that the deck was just a worse storm variant and wasn't very sold on it.

Losses to Miracles and BUG Control
Wins vs Elves, Dredge, Sneak and Show

Feel free to add anything Acclimation.

He definitely had some suspect keeps (4 lands, PiF, 2 Discard) that he shouldn't have kept in those early matches, but that's fine since opening hands are hard to evaluate in this deck anyway (even more so for someone who just picked the deck up). I think he could have won the first round versus BUG if he was a bit more aggressive with Thoughtseize at himself, but he took the safe route and just drew poorly. Speaking of drawing poorly, he drew a lot of lands, and had a draw 21 that bricked in another game.

I think a lot of his criticisms were ones that people who haven't touched the deck or played it out in a few events make.

• Magus is a bit cute, could just be regular reanimator/storm/tinfins
  As we mention in the primer, DRS+Surgical are the main forms of hate, so you want Gravestone, which makes targeted reanimation less useful. There's also a lot of Edicts, Swords, Karakas, Maze, and Ensnaring Bridge played, so having a way to win without the attack step is very nice. Sure, drawing 21 is nice, but sometimes you don't have lots of life, but plenty of spells to cast. I can dig preferring ANT or TES to this, but going off with this deck feels so much more busted. I think this is a very fair criticism and is the main draw against the deck.
  
• Wanting Careful Study
  Round 1 he was stuck with Griselbrand in hand, and it makes sense there. However, we run only 4 guys, so Careful Study is just disadvantage for us unless we're in that situation. Between CoBru, Entomb, LED, and targeted discard, we have 9-13 outlets to get a creature in the yard. And even then, what do you cut for Study? Ponder and Probe do much more for us, and shaving reanimation, discard, or mana doesn't feel as good.
  
• Wanting Multiple Magus
  Everyone says this until they realize flipping Magus off Magus is bad, and there's no good way to grant Haste for a hardcast creature in this format (Dragon's Breath being the closest, but that's a really dead card).
  

I think 2 of these criticisms are from a lack of understanding of the deck and the construction of the deck. The first one is a very valid criticism, but you can ask that of any deck (Why play this over XYZ decks that do similar game plans?).

Why should you play this? Because it's fun and feels broken. There are many lines, which rewards playing the deck more, and makes the deck not boring to play all the time. Doing cool stuff is part of the draw of Legacy, and if you only care about winning and nothing else, go play Grixis or Stompy or Lands.

[.dk]

H

• Magus is a bit cute, could just be regular reanimator/storm/tinfins
  As we mention in the primer, DRS+Surgical are the main forms of hate, so you want Gravestone, which makes targeted reanimation less useful. There's also a lot of Edicts, Swords, Karakas, Maze, and Ensnaring Bridge played, so having a way to win without the attack step is very nice. Sure, drawing 21 is nice, but sometimes you don't have lots of life, but plenty of spells to cast. I can dig preferring ANT or TES to this, but going off with this deck feels so much more busted. I think this is a very fair criticism and is the main draw against the deck.

One other thing that Magus has going for it is that it doesn't actually draw cards. You can go off with Magus in the face of a Leovold, and just kill it along the way. This is impossible with Griselbrand, as you have to kill it before you can activate it at all (well if you want cards anyway).

And yes, that's a fair question to ask of any combo deck - there are advantages and disadvantages to this vs. ANT or TES in my eyes anyway.

[mistervader]

This seems like a dumb pair of questions, but here goes...

1. What do you guys normally board out when boarding in stuff? I really find that problematic about this and the parent deck, Tin Fins. I do decently on game 1, then the post-boarded games are a wash because of my boarding.

2. Is there any reason nobody runs Orim's Chant instead of Silence? Wouldn't the kicker be sometimes relevant enough to pick the former over the latter?

[.dk]

This seems like a dumb pair of questions, but here goes...

1. What do you guys normally board out when boarding in stuff? I really find that problematic about this and the parent deck, Tin Fins. I do decently on game 1, then the post-boarded games are a wash because of my boarding.

2. Is there any reason nobody runs Orim's Chant instead of Silence? Wouldn't the kicker be sometimes relevant enough to pick the former over the latter?

Sideboarding is tough, with both decks. It's very dependent on how you expect the match to go. So, in matches where I want to get in underneath hate (chalice, thalia, etc.) I will likely board out some number of Ponders and/or Therapies for what I want to bring in. Plan on maximizing the chances of a fast hand, with some number of answers to their hate cards. Against decks that are slower and grindier (particularly those running Force of Will), you can very easily board out a Griselbrand and/or an LED, along with some number of Gitaxian Probes. A top deck Ponder in those cases is a lot better than a top deck Probe.

As far as Chant vs. Silence - we had that discussion when constructing our GP Seattle lists. The added mode of Chant we thought was probably outweighed by it getting turned off by Leyline of Sanctity - which is a card a deck like Sneak and Show could possibly bring in vs. us.

Hope that helps a bit...

[Manroe]

I really enjoy Jim as a player and streamer and my main goal was to support his stream and channel with this and get the deck a little exposure.

Now, that being said -- This deck may be much better off in the hands of someone like Caleb Durward to get a really fair assessment at a high level competitive scene. Caleb does very well with intricate combos in legacy and also sideboarding. Perhaps I'll try to get him to play it next.

[Acclimation]

I really enjoy Jim as a player and streamer and my main goal was to support his stream and channel with this and get the deck a little exposure.

Now, that being said -- This deck may be much better off in the hands of someone like Caleb Durward to get a really fair assessment at a high level competitive scene. Caleb does very well with intricate combos in legacy and also sideboarding. Perhaps I'll try to get him to play it next.

I greatly appreciate you helping to get the deck out there. It's a bit harder to get someone to play this, as most of the bigger names play legacy often, and when they do it's more Delver-y things. Jim's probably a great streamer with other formats and deck types, so power to you for wanting to support his channel.

[mistervader]

Sideboarding is tough, with both decks. It's very dependent on how you expect the match to go. So, in matches where I want to get in underneath hate (chalice, thalia, etc.) I will likely board out some number of Ponders and/or Therapies for what I want to bring in. Plan on maximizing the chances of a fast hand, with some number of answers to their hate cards. Against decks that are slower and grindier (particularly those running Force of Will), you can very easily board out a Griselbrand and/or an LED, along with some number of Gitaxian Probes. A top deck Ponder in those cases is a lot better than a top deck Probe.

As far as Chant vs. Silence - we had that discussion when constructing our GP Seattle lists. The added mode of Chant we thought was probably outweighed by it getting turned off by Leyline of Sanctity - which is a card a deck like Sneak and Show could possibly bring in vs. us.

Hope that helps a bit...

It helps tremendously, thanks! I can definitely see now why I would want Silences more, and at least have a better understanding what to side out in which matchups, since I generally know what I want to side in, any given matchup, but not what to take out for them.

I think I've taken a long enough hiatus from competitive M:TG and should join a Legacy tournament soon to bring this deck for a spin.

[Manroe]

I greatly appreciate you helping to get the deck out there. It's a bit harder to get someone to play this, as most of the bigger names play legacy often, and when they do it's more Delver-y things. Jim's probably a great streamer with other formats and deck types, so power to you for wanting to support his channel.

Of course! I'm always brewing for legacy, it is my mtg passion and I love the list. My next stream I am going to have him do will either be mono-black pox with Karn, Lili and Heart of Kiran or BUG Food Chain with Leyline of Vitality.

[Acclimation]

It helps tremendously, thanks! I can definitely see now why I would want Silences more, and at least have a better understanding what to side out in which matchups, since I generally know what I want to side in, any given matchup, but not what to take out for them.

I think I've taken a long enough hiatus from competitive M:TG and should join a Legacy tournament soon to bring this deck for a spin.

Not to mention that WW on Chant is weird to cast in our deck, since you might only have 2 lands at best that can do it, and odds are one will get WL'd.

To pile onto .dk's post, I try to keep my boarding down to 5 cards, since there isn't much wriggle room. As a default, I tend to shave 1 Griselbrand, LED, and differing numbers of CoBru, Cabal Ritual, Ponder, Probe, and Therapy depending on whether or not I need to go underneath them or fight my way through loads of hate.

When I'm going under, I cut Ponder and some CoBru/Therapy first, since those tend to be slower cards. Usually this is vs things like D&T, Chalice decks, Storm, and Lands; decks that can kill quickly or establish a lock.

When I'm going to fight my way though things, I tend to cut Griselbrand, LED, a Cabal Ritual (or both), and maybe 1-2 Probe, since I want to max out on Discard and Cantrips to strip my opponents as much as possible before forcing the combo through. Think Delver, Miracles, etc- decks that rely on countermagic and cantrips to keep opponent's from gaining any traction.

Being on the play or draw effects numbers on some of these cuts and additions, but I don't have a good heuristic for that just yet, and have been taking it game by game.

[.dk]

Now, that being said -- This deck may be much better off in the hands of someone like Caleb Durward to get a really fair assessment at a high level competitive scene. Caleb does very well with intricate combos in legacy and also sideboarding. Perhaps I'll try to get him to play it next.

That would be cool - if you do, can you try to get him to unblock me on twitter too? ;)

It helps tremendously, thanks! I can definitely see now why I would want Silences more, and at least have a better understanding what to side out in which matchups, since I generally know what I want to side in, any given matchup, but not what to take out for them.

I think I've taken a long enough hiatus from competitive M:TG and should join a Legacy tournament soon to bring this deck for a spin.

Excellent - hope you have a fun time with it!