[Deck] Fetchland Tendrils

[Genericcactus]

I am by no means an expert in the archetype, but I feel as if Past in Flames ought to be played. Here's a rough list:

4x Lotus Petal
4x LED
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Rite of Flame
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
3x Duress
2x Thoughtseize
4x Infernal Tutor
3x Burning Wish
1x Ad Nauseum
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Past in Flames

4x Polluted Delta
4x Bloodstained Mire
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
2x Swamp
1x Island

Sideboard:
1x Past in Flames
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Grapeshot
1x Duress
1x Ad Nauseum
2x Shattering Spree
2x Tendrils of Agony
3x Pyroblast
3x Chain of Vapor

Past in Flames is more than an upgrade over IGG. It makes the deck far more resilient. It allows you to be more conservative when you attempt to go off. A very underrated aspect about the card is the ability to flash it back. If the spell is countered as you go off, if you still have some mana in your pool, with the help of LED, you could flash back the spell that same turn. The argument that Past in Flame doesn't have the interaction with LED that IGG does is true, but that is not to say it still doesn't have highly favorable interactions. You can't bring back LEDs, but LED is a very efficient way of flashbacking Past in Flames. It may be correct to play more in the deck as a result.

[Roman]

If Past in Flames is played, i would recommend to still run 1 copy of IGG either in SB or main. Since you run Burning wish already it should not be a problem to split 1/1 or both spells...

[Dark Ritual]

Yeah the only problem with past in flames is not being able to recur SDT, LED, and other random non sorceries/instants. IGG is also an integral part of some doomsday piles involving LED to get exact mana to tendrils them out. I can see the card getting played in here potentially but you might have to make a new shell.

The the situation with the emrakul on board and you being dead next turn is unwinnable due to the chalice at one. Without the chalice at one it would be a cakewalk with that much mana you just go dark rit, cabal rit, cabal rit, LED, IGG, cracking LED, get back LED, brainstorm, doomsday, cast doomsday assembling a meditate into petal, dark rit, dark rit, tendrils, play LED, play brainstorm cracking the LED in response for UUU, cast meditate, petal, rit, rit, tendrils. Very easy without the chalice. If you had echoing truth in hand though you could win by bouncing chalice with the tundra's, you go dark rit, cabal rit, cabal rit, LED, IGG cracking LED for UUU in response, get back dark rit, DD, and brainstorm, go dark rit DD assembling ideas unbound, LED, LED, gitaxian probe, tendrils, cast brainstorm, cast IU, cast LED, LED, gitaxian probe cracking the LED's for BBBBBB, tendrils. But this requires that you run ideas unbound and if you don't you're SOL.

[metalhead]

I agree with dark ritual here. The only solutions I could think of involved jedi mind tricking your opponent.

[HokusSchmokus]

Fun question: Can you win through this?

Opponent has Chalice on 1, and show and tells an Emrakul into play. They're tapped out playing 12 post - your opponent is at 19 life.

You have LED, Dark Rit, Cabal Rit, Cabal Rit, Doomsday, Ill-Gotten Gains, Tendrils in hand.

You've got 2 underground seas and a tundra in play, and your graveyard consists of 2 fetchlands and a brainstorm - you're at 18 life.

What do you do?

If only you had threshhold...Untap, draw Echoing Truth, play it, Play Rit->CRit->Crit->LED->Iggy(resp crack for UUU)->Crit-DD->Bs-random spell-tendrils.

[emidln]

If only you had threshhold...Untap, draw Echoing Truth, play it, Play Rit->CRit->Crit->LED->Iggy(resp crack for UUU)->Crit-DD->Bs-random spell-tendrils.

If you get back Dark Ritual, Doomsday, Brainstorm you can win if you play Ideas Unbound via:

Ideas Unbound
LED
LED
Gitaxian Probe
Tendrils of Agony

[tangram]

If only you had threshhold...Untap, draw Echoing Truth, play it, Play Rit->CRit->Crit->LED->Iggy(resp crack for UUU)->Crit-DD->Bs-random spell-tendrils.

You don't even have Echoing Truth in hand. If you DD he'll swing with Emraku and your dead.

Even assuming that you don't DD and know that Echoing Truth is on top of library, when you pass the turn he'll swing for 15 and you'll loose the 3 lands and you won't have mana on your turn to cast Echoing Truth and proceed.

Chalice is at one and you can't draw into DD this turn. If you pass the turn you'll loose 15 and the only 3 lands. So the problem statement is missing something.

[tangram]

If only you had threshhold...Untap, draw Echoing Truth, play it, Play Rit->CRit->Crit->LED->Iggy(resp crack for UUU)->Crit-DD->Bs-random spell-tendrils.

You don't even have Echoing Truth in hand. If you DD he'll swing with Emraku and your dead.

Even assuming that you don't DD and know that Echoing Truth is on top of library, when you pass the turn he'll swing for 15 and you'll loose the 3 lands and you won't have mana on your turn to cast Echoing Truth and proceed.

Chalice is at one and you can't draw into DD this turn. If you pass the turn you'll loose 15 and the only 3 lands. So the problem statement is missing something.

[HokusSchmokus]

Just an example. I just noticed that you didn't draw your card for the turn yet in this scenario.

[Pulp_Fiction]

Hocus Spocus Pocus ride ... come take a spin on a carnie ride. I hope ur name is reference to ICP otherwise its just lame. Then again ... ICP is pretty lame these days .. they were once awesome and I still love Riddle Box and Milenko but ... not really relevant anymore. There is no way to possibly win through Chalice@1 in this scenario. If Emrakul is already in play from the opponent .... this is just lose. I am drunk as hell but ... wtf did ETruth come from? This was not even mentioned in the scenario.

[HokusSchmokus]

Its about the only chance you have to draw it from the top.You didn't draw your turn's card yet in the given scenario.
And no my Nickname is a nice basic little Wortspiel with Englisch and German.

[GoboLord]

Hey guys,

I'm new to DDFT (not new to legacy storm-combo though). After some goldfishing and testing I worked out the following list (point of departure was a list made by emidln and played by Christoph Alsheimer on the German National's):

//Lands [17]:
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp

//Mana [12]:
4 LED
4 D.Rits
1 Lotus Petal
1 Rain of Filth
2 Lotus Bloom

//Cantrip/Protection [24]:
4 SDT
4 BS
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Orim's Chant
3 Silence
1 IU

//Business [7]:
4 BW
3 Doomsday

//Sideboard [15]:
1 Tendrills of Agony
1 Doomsday
1 IU
1 Time Spiral
1 Deathmark
1 Duress
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Echoing Truth
2 Mental Misstep
1 Emrakul
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Cloud of Faeries


//Explanation:
When I was testing with emidln's list I had serious problems with color-fixing: I wanted more Lotus Petal and after a while I stumbled over Lotus Bloom. So far I didn't have the chance to test it much, but on paper (as they say) it looks great -especially when considering that you need 1R of extra-mana when you want to Wish any missing combo piece and use it in the same turn. Thus, I want to hear your oppinions (and possibly: experiences) on that card.
If it doesn't work out I'll probably exchange them 1:1 with good ole' Lotus Petal.
Tendrils: Banished 1 copy to SB cause I found it to be a dead card in MD too often. Then again I don't that many DD.piles - but most often I build them with 2 LED + 1 BW anyways. If anyone has good reasons for ToA in MD I'd like to hear them.
Rest of the SB: With the exception of Wishtargets the rest of the SB is mostly undecided yet. So far it's more a relic from my former ANT- and TES board.

[Bahamuth]

@bahamuth: Meddling Mage: Burning Wish .... lose.

Really? The last time I saw Meddling Mage must have been a couple of years ago. And with good reason. The card is terrible.

My reasoning behind not cutting Tendrils and relying on BW is just simply ... its a bad idea. Maybe if u were also running Emrakul main but ... no, its just bad.

Solid argumentation. It's just so bad to cut a dead card.

Against decks with lots of counters the mini-Tendrils wins a lot of games.

The truth is that this almost never occurs. And if you really want to be able to do this, you still can with the SB ToA. Most people won't counter a BW.

You also win some portion of your games on Meditate ... get there with Tendrils. The deck is DDFT ... I can not see any logical reason for cutting the T. Even though when running Burning Wish my primary pile is: Meditate, Petal, LED, LED, BW with Top in play .... what if Top isn't in play and I have marginal mana floating after DD? I have to cantrip into it and can't win with BW and have to build: Meditate, Petal, Rit, Rit, Tendrils.

In a build with Gitaxian Probe, IU is much much better than Meditate, specifically because of the situation you described.

Removing Tendrils seems like a particularly bad plan if you are running a slower 4c list as well since ... you don't play a lot of acceleration anyway. Why handicap the deck and lose games you shouldn't just cause Tendrils isn't there?

Because this never happens. You can keep making these claims that seem to apply to many different situations, but the truth is that, given that you choose to run the superior IU over Meditate, there are almost no piles that become more efficient with a ToA main.

On Lotus Bloom, that card is only good if you can find it on your first turn. This deck runs so many cantrips, that running a card that's dead if you cantrip into it, seems really bad.

[flrn]

//Explanation:
When I was testing with emidln's list I had serious problems with color-fixing: I wanted more Lotus Petal and after a while I stumbled over Lotus Bloom. So far I didn't have the chance to test it much, but on paper (as they say) it looks great -especially when considering that you need 1R of extra-mana when you want to Wish any missing combo piece and use it in the same turn. Thus, I want to hear your oppinions (and possibly: experiences) on that card.
If it doesn't work out I'll probably exchange them 1:1 with good ole' Lotus Petal.
Tendrils: Banished 1 copy to SB cause I found it to be a dead card in MD too often. Then again I don't that many DD.piles - but most often I build them with 2 LED + 1 BW anyways. If anyone has good reasons for ToA in MD I'd like to hear them.
Rest of the SB: With the exception of Wishtargets the rest of the SB is mostly undecided yet. So far it's more a relic from my former ANT- and TES board.

Lotus Bloom really should be Petal's. Other than that, the main looks solid, but even with this setup I had color issues from time to time. Why do you play Mental Misstep? Playing countermagic to power you Chant's through is a good thing to do, buty why Mental Misstep over Pact of Negation?

You play exactly the same wish targets as I did about two weeks ago. I changed the Idea's Unbound to Infernal Contract to be able to play through Red Elemental Blasts poastboard. I don't think that you need Emrakul/Shelldock in a build like that and if you play it, you should include Wipe Away in your board.

My board currently looks like this:

6 Wish Targets
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Slaughter Pact
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Echoing Truth
2 Pact of Negation

[emidln]

How do you have color issues? I have 4 lands that tap for white (with 8 fetches and including a plains) , 4 lands that tap for black (with 8 fetches, and including a swamp), and 2 lands that tap for red (although this is far less of an issue because you can always always setup cantrips + LED if you can't find a one of your 3 non-LED red sources via fetches/cantrips).

The only time I've had color issues was due to misplaying my initial turn and being forced to use a fetch for tundra that cut me off from black. Had I played tightly and ran out Plains (the only land in hand playing vs TES), I would have won that game.

The only color the deck needs for the vast majority of the game is blue. Non-blue sources can be filtered via SDT, but they are generally pretty bad.

[GoboLord]

Why do you play Mental Misstep? Playing countermagic to power you Chant's through is a good thing to do, buty why Mental Misstep over Pact of Negation?

Mental Missteps are not only meant to push Chants through - for that purpose U-Pact is much better (just as you said).
Mental Missteps also serve other purposes like:
* countering Turn-1/2 discard spells
* [Reanimator] countering Reanimate or Entomb
* [any Deck] countering REBs, Missteps and Spell Pierce
* [Maverick] countering T1-GSZ (to disrupt their manaramp) and Mother of Runes

In many MUs I find Misstep better than the 6th & 7th Chant
//EDIT: About pushing Chants through:
Now that I think about it: I find MMs just as good as Pact here. Lemme explain. Chants are usually countered by of 3 spells, namely: Mental Misstep, Spell Pierce and Force of Will. People prefer the first two in order to keep FoW as a backup if they need to counter another relevant spell this turn. Thus, it'S most likely that you will catch one of the two cc1-spells with a Chant. Those spells are countered equally well by both Mental Misstep and Pact of Negation. Thus, the only situation in which Pact of Negation is superior to MMs is when they use a FoW to counter your Chant.
In this situation they will likely need another Force + pitch. If they have a cc1-counterspells as backup (after having FoW'ed your Chant) it doesn't matter wether you have a Pact or MMs in your hand to push your next relevant spell through.

You play exactly the same wish targets as I did about two weeks ago. I changed the Idea's Unbound to Infernal Contract to be able to play through Red Elemental Blasts poastboard.

Nice one. Did I get you right that you exchange the MD IU for IC in g2/3? Or do you always leave IC as a Wishtarget? I found myself rarely wishing IU cause you have just so many ways to draw into the pile - what i mean is: I oftentimes build my piles with IU on top (unless I ocassionally drew it in the course of the game).

I don't think that you need Emrakul/Shelldock in a build like that and if you play it, you should include Wipe Away in your board.

Ok, probably you are right, but could give me reasons for that? (as I said I'm not too experienced with DDFT and even less with SB-techs)

How do you have color issues?

Most likely due to lack of skill/experience. As you said: the colorfixing is fine if you are playing tight. I can't say that about myself - so probably Lotus Petal just make things easier for me. I didn't (and would never dare to) say that the manabase is crappy or something.

[flrn]

I swap Infernal Contract for Ideas Unbound in matchups, where I expect Red Elemental Blasts/Pyroblast after boarding. I often had the situation, that my opponent used up his countermagic for my Chant's and I couldn't go off due to the that fact that I had to cast a blue spell. I also find myself rarely wishing for IU or Time Spiral. I mostly wish for Gitaxian Probe, if I want to draw into a pile, because I tend to board one out.

I will talk albout the other points later on, because I'm currently on my way to the stadium. Frankfurt is facing Rostock. D:

[HokusSchmokus]

I will talk albout the other points later on, because I'm currently on my way to the stadium. Frankfurt is facing Rostock. D:

Oh dear....good luck!

[mchainmail]

Really? The last time I saw Meddling Mage must have been a couple of years ago. And with good reason. The card is terrible.

Mage is showing up a lot in the various UW based decks in the format now. So It's a real concern.

[flrn]

Mental Missteps are not only meant to push Chants through - for that purpose U-Pact is much better (just as you said).
Mental Missteps also serve other purposes like:
* countering Turn-1/2 discard spells
* [Reanimator] countering Reanimate or Entomb
* [any Deck] countering REBs, Missteps and Spell Pierce
* [Maverick] countering T1-GSZ (to disrupt their manaramp) and Mother of Runes

In many MUs I find Misstep better than the 6th & 7th Chant
//EDIT: About pushing Chants through:
Now that I think about it: I find MMs just as good as Pact here. Lemme explain. Chants are usually countered by of 3 spells, namely: Mental Misstep, Spell Pierce and Force of Will. People prefer the first two in order to keep FoW as a backup if they need to counter another relevant spell this turn. Thus, it'S most likely that you will catch one of the two cc1-spells with a Chant. Those spells are countered equally well by both Mental Misstep and Pact of Negation. Thus, the only situation in which Pact of Negation is superior to MMs is when they use a FoW to counter your Chant.
In this situation they will likely need another Force + pitch. If they have a cc1-counterspells as backup (after having FoW'ed your Chant) it doesn't matter wether you have a Pact or MMs in your hand to push your next relevant spell through.

It's funny, that the only thing, which gets me to consider testing that card is the fact, that it counters Mother of Runes. I might give it a shot in the near future, if Wizards doesn't decide to ban Mental Misstep in the upcoming ban announcement.

Nice one. Did I get you right that you exchange the MD IU for IC in g2/3? Or do you always leave IC as a Wishtarget? I found myself rarely wishing IU cause you have just so many ways to draw into the pile - what i mean is: I oftentimes build my piles with IU on top (unless I ocassionally drew it in the course of the game).

I already talked about that in the post above.

Ok, probably you are right, but could give me reasons for that? (as I said I'm not too experienced with DDFT and even less with SB-techs)

Emrakul usually takes up four sideboard slots (Emrakul, Shelldock Isle, Wipe Away, Cloud of Faeries). When I played a straight UB list I had the space in the board, but I never boarded it against NO RUG or Stoneblade variants, because you are very likely to win anyway, if you push your game through. In a four colours list with Burning Wish, I simply don't have the space in my sideboard for it. I want those slots to be other cards and I don't think that you need it anyway. The only matchups, where I want Emrakul are sometimes Hive Mind and Reanimator and both matchups are bad for us anyway - with or without Emrakul.

Oh dear....good luck!

Thanks. Won 4:1. :)

My current list: http://deckstats.net/deck-824013-146...e504db-en.html

But I somehow really want a third Pact of Negation in my board, but if I cut a bounce spell, the numbers won't be right. I really want to cut the Time Spiral. I never wish for it. It's just a good feeling to have that "Oh Shit"-button in the board.