Past in Tendrils [PiT]

[egosum]

Well this is just initial brainstorming about what we can make with the new super exciting bomb: Past in Flames.

"PiT"

Main deck 60

Cantrip 10

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
2x Preordain

Fast Mana/Mana fixers 16

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion's Eye Diamond

Protection Suite 7

4x Duress
3x Thoughtseize

Tutoring 8

4x Burning Wish
4x Intuition

Bombs 3

3x Past in Flames

Win Cons 2

1x Emtpy the Warrens
1x Tendrils of Agony

Mana (lands) 14

1x Badlands
2x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
2x Polluted Delta
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Scalding Tarn
3x Ancient Tomb

Siedeboard 15

3x Pyroblast
3x Chain of Vapor
2x Wipe Away/Extirpate
1x Thoughtseize
1x Meltdown
1x Pyroclasm
1x "New Blue Sorcery that Unsummons with Flashback"
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Past in Flames

As this is an initial draft I expect the list can become something very different in its optimal version, but I think is, at least, an starting point.

Some card choices explanations:

-See that most of cards are chosen because they are instant. This is very intentional to make the deck more resilient to grave hate, it maybe irrelevant, we'll see it during the testing, but theoretically it will work better with instants than with sorceries (imagine the situation with Tormod/Relic/Nihil in game, you can start the turn by playing "Pif", Past in Flames, the you can start playing rituals pretty safe just because if they activate the hate artifact you can respond with the flashback and you won't lose your bussiness, this is also the reason of playing 3 chain of vapors, so you can play intuition in response and get rid of any hate in table just before the "remove your graveyard" resolves). So you can see Cabal Rituals instead of Rite of Flames for this reason basically, but also because thy are very sinergic with Intuition, which I think can be the real engine of the deck.

-I'm not sure of those 2x Prerodain. I 've thought in replacing them with Manamorphose, is an isntant that can fix colors and work nice under Past in Flames, but they seem suboptimal at first glance.

-I'm not sure also of playing EtW/ToA in the main deck, maybe only a single tendrils will be enough for closing the game, and meybe it is not needed. But I decided to keep them in to gain resiliance to Extirpate effects (which may hurt us badly). EtW maindeck seems very underwhelming withouth Infernal Tutor in the list, but I'm not sure if we should cut it (again I think we should test it, then decide).

-I dont' really like the mana base, it looks very fragile but I think that this is what the deck needs (not the fragility but playing the tombs is very interezting if we play intuition, for example...). What do you think?

-In the sideboard I dont' know if Wipe Away if better than Extirpate, both are nice against Cb/Top (which I think will come back) and reanimator. Wipe Away being stronger against the former and extirpate against the latter (let's see how the metagame fixes and then decide).

Well this are more or less my initial thoughts. What do you think?

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[tsabo_tavoc]

-See that most of cards are chosen because they are instant. This is very intentional to make the deck more resilient to grave hate, it maybe irrelevant, we'll see it during the testing, but theoretically it will work better with instants than with sorceries (imagine the situation with Tormod/Relic/Nihil in game, you can start the turn by playing "Pif", Past in Flames, the you can start playing rituals pretty safe just because if they activate the hate artifact you can respond with the flashback and you won't lose your bussiness, this is also the reason of playing 3 chain of vapors, so you can play intuition in response and get rid of any hate in table just before the "remove your graveyard" resolves). So you can see Cabal Rituals instead of Rite of Flames for this reason basically, but also because thy are very sinergic with Intuition, which I think can be the real engine of the deck.

Past in Flames does not work on cards put into graveyard after it resolves. Therefore, another Storm engine is a better way to fight graveyard hates.

[egosum]

If it is this way I completely misread the card and need to give a complete different approach. Thanks for the note.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[Koby]

I was examining Manamorphose when I fleshed out the list over in the ANT thread - it's purpose is entirely identical to Gitaxian Probe - generating Storm and being effectively 0 mana cost. I like that it can fix mana to to continue chaining Cantrips, but I'm not sure if it's needed at that point other than Infernal Tutor/Burning Wish to just win outright.

I figure at the point where you're chaining Cantrips is just to show boat, considering the amount of spells that could be cast.

I'm dubious of the Intuition aside from setting up the fundamental turn. 3 Mana is a bit rough, and as others have mentioned doesn't interact favorably with Past in Flames. Impulse or Peer Through Depths might be a better fit, as would simply Personal Tutor.

[Dark Ritual]

No infernal tutor in the MD or SB? This seems like the most glaring omission from your list; at least have one as a wish target and put some in the MD. Love the LED interaction and burning wish + PiF has dissynergy since wish exiles itself while infernal just continues the chain.

I like intuition in theory but in practice I'm not sure if it's good enough. Testing will tell whether this card is the stone cold nuts with PiF because it is essentially an a. call if you PiF afterwards getting all 3 cards back especially if they're all dark/cabal rit's. Also serves as a tutor for tendrils but so does infernal tutor.

And I sometimes find that when playing PiF I wish it were IGG. Sometimes it's nice to be able to get back 2x LED and IT FTW without having to dabble around casting cantrips from the yard.

Another card to consider would be gitaxian probe. It's a free cantrip that gives information and interacts nicely with PiF.

[Benie Bederios]

Yeah the lack of Infernal Tutor seems strange for me too. Especially if you can go: Ritual, Ritual, LED, Hellbent Infernal Tutor(Past in Flame), Past in Flame, Flashback Ritual, Flashback Ritual, Flashback Infernal Tutor, Tendrils of Agony.

I was wondering with Past in Flame, if you could use Gifts Ungiven. The deck can be quite some slower, because you don't recycle your opponents counters and you don't need alot of life to go off. With Gifts Ungiven you could make some very nasty stacks for your opponent.

An End of turn Gifts Ungiven into Seething Song, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual and Past in Flame could be very nasty. If the opponent gives you Dark Ritual and Past in Flame. You can make at least 5 storm and quite some mana. If you have some rituals in hand, you could go for Burning Wish, Infernal Tutor, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual. The tutors can get Past in Flame and you can easily kill from there.

.Benie.

[P-E]

no gamble ?
with active PiF it's almost a good tutor ^^

[rufus]

An End of turn Gifts Ungiven into Seething Song, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual and Past in Flame could be very nasty. If the opponent gives you Dark Ritual and Past in Flame....

As long as you have 4 mana sources - with at least one of B U and R - in play and threshold, you can just flashback the rituals into gifts into Past in Flame, Cabal Ritual, Dark Ritual, Tendrils of Agony for the win. Though I wonder how easy it is to get those four mana sources on the table.

[r0ckstAr]

I really don't think past in flames should be the way to build a slower storm deck. If anything, it should allow us to use Duress/Thoughtseize to our advantage, avoiding the randomness of AdN and DR, and avoiding to give the opponent his Force back with IGG.

Black and Red are the obvious 2 colors, and blue for brainstorm and maybe Ponder as digging #5-8.
Gitaxian Probe (information and +1card when you get PiF active) and Gamble seem like nice additions too (with PiF the decks gains redundancy and Gamble will likely not make you lose).

PiF is no YawgWin, but I think only a BR/u shell can successfully abuse it.

[ThomasDowd]

I really don't think past in flames should be the way to build a slower storm deck. If anything, it should allow us to use Duress/Thoughtseize to our advantage, avoiding the randomness of AdN and DR, and avoiding to give the opponent his Force back with IGG.

Black and Red are the obvious 2 colors, and blue for brainstorm and maybe Ponder as digging #5-8.
Gitaxian Probe (information and +1card when you get PiF active) and Gamble seem like nice additions too (with PiF the decks gains redundancy and Gamble will likely not make you lose).

PiF is no YawgWin, but I think only a BR/u shell can successfully abuse it.

i've eschewed the blue in my rough drafts, they aren't very good yet. also I had a hard time getting hellbent without LED's in my rough draft as well. Will be working on this mainly as B/R(wish, I tutor, maybe grim's?, definitely forgot about gamble).

also without the blue you NEED to have a large tutor package in order to go off/ kill them since you just want redundant business, and burning wish kind of sucks since it exiles itself, but it's so good in general I think it is necessary.

[P-E]

i think wish is still needed to find missing combo piece or solution for gaddock etc

just thought about entomb as a tutor with PiF active ^^
what do you think of it ?

[fallenphoenix]

Entomb and Gamble may seem sweet, but they only work half as decent as you might expect.
When you flash them back you don't get to cast the card you just put into your grave until you cast another PiF (or flashback your first one), which costs a lot of mana. Often you won't be able to do that, so something like Intuition or Infernal, which put the cards in your hand, are the way to go imho.

I could see U/B/r or straight U/R work out. You do have to choose between red and black rituals and stick with one kind, though, mixing red and black ones is asking for trouble.
As for B/R, no cantrips make you soooo much weaker against disruption, I don't think it's worth it.

Interestingly enough, LED has been disappointing for me in a straight PiF-list.

[Smea.gol.lum]

If you go for a straight PiF list, which is graveyard-dependant, you can add Brain Freeze as well.
I haven't tested it yet, but in theory it's insane, as it acts as a tutor pre- and post- PiF and as a win-con.
I think Manamorphose is also worth a try, although it makes mulligan decision very difficult especially if you also play the Probes.
If you play Summoner's Pact(tutoring for ESG) it helps you to go off without mana floating, but I don't if it's too mich all-in and functions reliably.
Just some ideas which need to be tested... ;)

[GexxX]

I also like the Idea of Gift's Ungiven, because it can be fueled with rituals in the early game state and tutor up PiF to reuse it. The main Problem of this scenario then again seems the cost for PiF. Also the additional splash for blue will make your mana base less stable. Since MM is now banned I predict more Counterbalances and also more wastelands to fight those decks. Might not seem like the Ideal plan, but it still is facinating.

So what about a whole different approach? Like making a Ritual fueled Gift's Control Shell with a Combo kill? I need to look it up, but I've seen a Vintage Gift's list that packed Rituals instead of Drains and the Pilot said it performed incredible. I also attended the tournament and we were heading home together that's why I remember. The guy was also not some random idiot, but very well known in Southern Germany for his skills in both Deck design and playing.

3rd Place here.

The Main problem is that you can't really make piles that say: I win - no matter what you do. Instead you can make piles that say: I will have something really good. Deal with it or you're most likely going to die.

Right now I might be to close to that theory that it seems good and in reality it isn't, but I still wanted to share the list and thoughts in case someone here can build a viable Deck with it.

Have fun ;)

EDIT: I just noticed that playing a bunch of spells and an empty or a Tendrils (nonlethal) as the end of the line might be a viable strategy when you abandon LED's + Infernal Tutor but bring in Force + Misdirection. It's not a win like this, but it can buy you time to make it a win. I don't know, but I'd love to play FoW in storm...

[Koby]

Under the assumption that playing P.i.F. with countermagic, I suspect that Spell Pierce would be an incredible to add to the protection suite.

The problem remains that doing so would force the deck heavier into , where the more disruptive spells are in .

Perhaps the deck could utilize Gitaxian Probe andManamorphose, and eschew the need for Brainstorm and Ponder.

[ThomasDowd]

Entomb and Gamble may seem sweet, but they only work half as decent as you might expect.
When you flash them back you don't get to cast the card you just put into your grave until you cast another PiF (or flashback your first one), which costs a lot of mana. Often you won't be able to do that, so something like Intuition or Infernal, which put the cards in your hand, are the way to go imho.

I could see U/B/r or straight U/R work out. You do have to choose between red and black rituals and stick with one kind, though, mixing red and black ones is asking for trouble.
As for B/R, no cantrips make you soooo much weaker against disruption, I don't think it's worth it.

Interestingly enough, LED has been disappointing for me in a straight PiF-list.

i mean gamble is a one mana tutor with the chance you might pitch something relevant, if you gamble for PiF and discard something other than it, it's a non issue, since it will gain flashback, if you pitch PiF, ok now you need +1 mana, which is sometimes back breaking but with the density of rituals you are playing with should be a non issue. I haven;t tested it out yet but in theory it seems very strong since the downside it had before of losing a random spell from your hand to the yard forever is pretty much nuked when you get to flashback your entire graveyard

also how has mixing rituals been a problem? which ones are you playing of each variety? mana is mana, if you are on two colors your rituals are like heaven since the most mana intense spell in the deck is tendrils of agony at BB, everything else pretty much gets going for a single red or a single black. like i feel like the +3 mana from LED is just so insane that you almost can't not play it, it turns on your infernal tutors and adds 3 mana.

regardless, the idea needs to be thought out and worked on. i have a crappy shell that i need to work on and will eventually post something that i feel is not god awful and decent, and at the same time:

is this just a worse something else?

graveyard hate (leyline/wheel mainly, since all the artifacts can be hit via burning wish targets) hits you slightly stronger than other storm decks, or at least slows you down and then you have to tutor chain.

also is it fast enough? like TES/ANT is turn 3-4 on average if you just go for it, if not Turn 1

lot's of questions.

I don't know will be messing around in my spare time if it's just a worse something else, then just going to jam this bad boy in TNT and call it a day, maybe.

[ThomasDowd]

Under the assumption that playing P.i.F. with countermagic, I suspect that Spell Pierce would be an incredible to add to the protection suite.

The problem remains that doing so would force the deck heavier into , where the more disruptive spells are in .

why when you have pretty much the best counterspell in a counter war in the blast effects?

sure i guess you could counter green sun's zeniths or other non blue cards but you should probably punish those decks unless they find and stick a teeg/ cannonist/ hatebear. at least that's what the kids say about storm these days (non blue matches = bye, blue matches = thinking time) but what do i know?

and spell piercing turn one discard spells, yeah, ok, that happens i guess, sometimes

Perhaps the deck could utilize Gitaxian Probe andManamorphose, and eschew the need for Brainstorm and Ponder.

no where near in the same league as those two cards, don't kid yourself, selection versus draw are two incredibly different things and one is significantly more powerful than the other.

[TheG]

Hi guys i thought a BR list that resembles somehow Spanish Inquisition (all in combo deck, i mean) check this out.

//Manabase 8- unfortunately we cant run Land Grant as SI does so the answer is more lands..however 8 is minimum that the deck can afford ImHo to have t1/t2 landrop and...go off.

4 [A] Badlands
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire

// Artifact acceleration 12 - Despite artifacts don't gains flashback they are the best starters the deck could use. Interesting sinergy of Past in Flames with Led+Infernal..we could don't care of trashing our hand (thx Flames) re-playing things from graveyard, so Leds become like Black Lotuses.

4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond

// Acceleration 8 - Flashback & ******** desen't interact very well but smart player can doge that.

4 [US] Dark Ritual
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual

// Acceleration 12 / Manafix 4 - Manamorphose is indispensable for this deck having the possibility of change from (that's easyer to have) activating black accelerators. I was thinking to split/change Desperate Ritual to Seething Song that have a better CMC/Mana rateo.

4 [PLC] Simian Spirit Guide
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
4 [CHK] Desperate Ritual

4 [SHM] Manamorphose

// Tutor 8 - As i said Infernal with PiF is like a Demonic and the deck burns his hand really fast so, isn't uncommon to play it like a demonic from hand without Leds. Wish tutors for closures, Past in Flames, Rite of Flame, so why not?

4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor

// Engine 3 / Closure 2 - Obv things. +1 of all in SB for wishes.

3 [INS] Past in Flames
1 [FNM] Tendrils of Agony
1 [TS] Empty the Warrens

// Card Advantage 3 - Like SI does, deck need some CA simply 'cose the starting hand isn't always perfect to win. i have some alternatives with those base concepts: splashability - low CMC - lot of card draw - reusability - Wishability (sorcery spells). As you already understood we can't use SI drawers like Infernal Contract that would be perfect if it didn't cost . Black alternatves to Contract are: Pain's reward Ancient Craving Night's Whisper and everyone has some pros/cons. Pain isn't not reusable 'cose our op could force us to spend 17 life to draw 4 and if we flashback it would be totally uneffective. Craving has low CMC/Draw rateo. Wishper is reusable, good rateo, splashable, low CMC but doesn't dig very much. Red alternatives play with the Flashback engine to avoid discard drawback: Burning Inquiry, Control of the Court /Goblin Lore and last but not the least Gamble. The problem is that PiF doesn't give flashback to cards played after it, so we need to generate more 5 mana to flashback PiF and take complete advantage of cc2 +4ca like goblin lore.

Moreover i really like Gift Ungiven (also if isn't wishable) that's tutor+ CA, but doesn't fits well in a straight shell...Some thoughts about splashing?

I hope i bring something fresh to the discussion, thx for reading.

[P-E]

no slots for gitaxian probe ?
free draw and look at opponnent's hand is nice also with PiF it's stronger ^^

i thought of burning inquiry too , i think it has to be tested

[rnightingale]

I don't think that this is a NEW deck.. this is just a TES with Past In Flames..