The idea is that
- Using Titan to search up Depths combo or mana + Eye of Ugin is potentially a lot stronger than the payoffs of the Modern version of the Amulet deck (which also have weaker ramp because they can't play Exploration)
- Being able to entomb/shallow grave a Titan (or Emrakul) provides a faster clock than normal post which means compared to post you might have better combo matchups
- Having a big mana Post endgame means the deck is probably more resilient to counters/discard than normal Tinfins
- Having Entomb in the deck can randomly add value in fair games with e.g. Life from the Loam
Downsides
- Maybe there realistically isn't enough space to fit all the necessary pieces
- Adding the reanimation package possibly just makes the deck into a less consistent version of post, and it's not glass-cannon enough to gain the upside of a tinfins deck (no actual turn1 kills for example).
[In my defense I don't really have much experience playing any of these decks and it's just an idea I had when I was bored. It's also possible that Entomb / Shallow is totally the wrong approach and an RG version of the deck might work instead playing Through the Breach / Sneak Attack + Gamble]
4 Primeval Titan
1 Emrakul the Aeons Torn
1 Kozilek the Great Distortion / Emrakul the Promised End
1 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Amulet
4 Pithing Needle (necessary? I guess so)
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
4 Golgari Rot Farm
2-3 Gruul Turf
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Flamekin Village
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Field of the Dead
1 Vesuva
1 Mirrorpool
1 Volrath's Stronghold
X Verdant catacombs / forest / bayou
A few more open slots
Optional Lands:
Kessig Wolf Run
Safe Haven (or Endless Sands)
Glacial Chasm
Lotus Field -> Can't think of any combos with this one
Karakas
Sejiri Steppe
Other Entomb Targets:
Cabal Therapy
Genesis
World Breaker
Other spells:
GSZ
Reclaimer
TKS
Azusa / Dryad etc
Crop Roto
Dark Ritual?
Plays:
1) Shallow Grave Primeval Titan with amulet in play and no mana floating:
Option A) Get 1 flex land plus phyrexian tower. Attack, get depths + stage. Postcombat sac titan to the Phyrexian tower then use the 2 mana to activate depths and get a 20/20. If you are ok with titan getting exiled at end of turn you can instead get depths + stage + urborg + x. If you sac the Titan you can stack it with volrath's stronghold or shallow grave it again later but the urborg play lets you make the 20/20 token at end of opponent's turn to dodge e.g. Oko
Option B) Safe haven + x. Next turn you can bring the Titan back and with the etb trigger get a red source + Flamekin Village
Option C) Get 3 Cloudposts and a Mirrorpool, tap all the posts for 9, copy the primeval titan floating 4 mana then get a 4th post and eye, activate eye searching for a creature (floating 1). With 1 more mana you can get a TKS here which might be ok. Or after you copy the primeval titan you can get depths/stage
2) Titan etb (no haste) with an amulet in play and shallow grave in hand:
Search for Phyrexian Tower + another land
Untap the 2 lands and sac titan to phyrexian tower
Use BB mana to Shallow Grave the titan, get 2 lands on etb, attack and get 2 more lands
net result: 5 untapped lands and a tapped phyrexian tower
Option A) Get 4 cloudposts + eye
16 mana - 7 = 9 + reduction from eye = up to 11 mana worth of colourless creature
-> Kozilek the Great Distortion seems like a good generic thing to slam and pass the turn but there may be better choices here
Option B): Get 3 cloudposts + gruul turf + wolf run
This is only +9 power for 15 damage with titan but this seems like maybe a good route to lethal if you have extra posts/mana/amulets, maybe Wolf Run is unnecessary though
Option C): With Mirrorpool in the deck get 4 Cloudposts + Mirrorpool
Tap 2 cloudposts for 8, activate Mirrorpool copying titan floating 3, get Eye and Vesuva
Tap 3 cloudposts add 15 (so 18 mana) activate eye floating 11, (13 eldrazi mana with the eye discount)
-> You can do e.g. emrakul promised end here instead of kozilek, plus you also get to keep a primeval titan token
3) BBB + Entomb + Shallow Grave:
Just Entomb Emrakul and Shallow Grave it into play with the reshuffle trigger on the stack to attack for 15 + annihilate 6
4) Entomb Loam for more resilience against Wasteland decks with your 4 explorations
5) Titan ETB with no haste and with Amulet in play:
Get something like gruul turf + flamekin village, give Titan haste
Get depths + stage on attack, even if there isn't mana to activate stage immediately you are still threatening a 20/20 next turn with haste off the Flamekin Village
It looks fun to play in casual, but for Legacy what does it add over other options?
If you want to accelerate out Marit Lage, Turbo Depths already does that better. There's no need to use PrimeTime in a format with Crop Rotation, Elvish Reclaimer and Once Upon a Time.
Shallow Grave is a 2-card combo that's card disadvantage and vulnerable to gravehate. Is it worth it for anything weaker than Yawgmoth's Bargain? A 6/6 trample is a weenie in Legacy. Either cut the Grave combo or +1 Griselbrand.
Prime Time ramp could be worth it without the graveyard combo, but is Amulet the best way to do it? What about the Dryad decks already in Legacy? Or green 12 Post?
I attempted to answer a lot of these questions in the post (especially the "why not green post" part), idk if you even read it or if you did and this is your oblique way of disagreeing.
Primeval is not just a "6/6 trample" because finding Eye/Depths gets the opponent dead. You can't drop Griselbrand into this deck as it's just a "7/7 weenie", drawing cards is far weaker here than double hour of promise. You can argue that 10 spells -> Tendrils is better than double hour of promise, but is that enough to be worth it when your deck becomes almost totally reliant on the graveyard at that point? 4GG is realistically hardcastable in a lot of situations where 4BBBB isn't (and it's also more resilient to things like Thalia/Thorn/Deafening Silence etc).
I think the Post mana-base is too fragile to accommodate all of what you're trying to do. I mean, you're essentially conceding the game to a resolved Blood Moon out of Dragon Stompy or 4c Pile decks. I understand that you can work around Wasteland somewhat with Pithing Needle, but it will still be difficult to establish what you need for colored mana to resolve a Titan. The deck just seems like Post or Tin Fins with extra steps.
I think using Primeval Titan as an additional combo engine alongside Griselbrand in a deck closer to Tin Fins would be pretty cool. Leave the Post lands out of the mix and just play Titan for Depths/Stage or absurd value. Titan has the potential to get you enough lands to actually hardcast Griselbrand, which can work around grave hate. It could also be a transformational sideboard plan.
TL,DR: cool idea, but if you're not reanimating Griselbrand I don't think this is worth the risk.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
You can have SB interaction for Moon, I'm not sure that this deck is necessarily any weaker to it G1 than regular post decks are. (Sure the mono green post decks have 8 Basic forests or whatever but it still seems pretty difficult for them to win under a moon and they don't really have ways to answer it g1 I don't think).
I think the version of Tinfins that plays living wish + depths ("Ice Station Zebra") can play a Primeval Titan in the sb as a living wish target for situations where you can cast wish with a lot of mana floating but not quite enough mana for Grisel. I think that's the only place where it really makes sense. The idea that you use primeval titan as a way to ramp into griselbrand doesn't make sense because if your primeval titan sticks then you should already be winning.
You could play a deck that's just Titan into Depths combo without the post aspect but how are you casting titan in a reasonable timeframe without the ramp that you get from posts? You can just use the amulet engine without posts but then it seems like not much of a payoff compared to what the modern version of the deck is doing (or there's no reason to be doing this compared to all the crop rotation / reclaimer you could be playing in those slots if you were just playing depths) and Titan + Depths together don't address the weakness of regular Depths to Swords to Plowshares, whereas the cloudpost / eye plan does something against that.
All I mean to say is this: trying to jam so much into a deck doesn't seem reliable. I didn't know there was a Living Wish version of Tin Fins, that seems compact and easily incorporated. Honestly, it's the kind of deck I would love to play. I was on the Reanimator/Depths idea for a little while for that reason, it's just fun to have 2 win conditions that are diverse in a fast combo deck.
I'm a person that is always trying to cram more into a deck, but it doesn't usually work out. The temptation is always there though, lol. You're definitely in the same boat, always trying to jam new stuff. As you say, the benefit is your mana production over raw card draw with Griselbrand. The great part about Titan is that it's also a tutor, so the card draw isn't as important. You just need silver bullets to win. Good luck with this!
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
I think to dial back the amount of greed, the Shallow/Titan/Post part of the deck might have potential without Amulet (and then you get to play ramp that has more synergy with posts, rather than exploration)
Edit: you could also play Elvish Rejuvenator (not Reclaimer), which you can just chumpblock with to get a not-terrible shallowgrave target
Last edited by kombatkiwi; 08-05-2020 at 03:32 PM.
I think it's possible to lean into Titan even more. As you know by the modern Bloom Titan deck, it's the explosive mana coupled with Primeval Titan that can win games as early as turn 2. There will be decks that just can't beat a resolved Primeval Titan. So the question is: how do you get a turn 2 Titan in every game? I think this has to be your goal: t1 Amulet, t2 titan. Mox Diamond comes to mind, as well as Summer Bloom. I think at that point Pithing Needle is the cut; sideboard them in against Wasteland decks.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
The concern then might be that you are playing a worse Show and Tell deck, but that's also possible
I assume that deck would start with all the modern banned cards and be something like
4 Titan
X Dryad of Ilysian Grove
1 Ramunap Excavator
4 Amulet
4 Summerbloom
4 Exploration
4 OUAT
4 GSZ
1 Flamekin Village
1 Valakut
1 Vesuva
1 Depths
1 Stage
1 Field of the Dead
X Karoos
1-2 Cavern
etc
I assume GSZ > Summoners Pact, but you can also summoner's pact for ESG in legacy, which is interesting
This does seem pretty soft to delver though
Maybe 1 Shepherd somewhere to make your stuff uncounterable
This is a worse Show and Tell/Reanimator/Depths deck; you're diversifying to add resilience. If that makes it a little slower, that's ok, as long as your goal is met. If it doesn't create a more resilient deck then it's better to just streamline into a known strategy.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
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