[Deck] TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst

[alphastryk]

Massacre: Has anyone really cast this card? The only Deck I saw lately where I considered needing Massacre was Maverick which still sees more play than you would expect in the current Metagame. And even against Maverick because of Gaddock Teeg related issues I doubt that Massacre is the best solution here. And yes I still see Gaddock Teeg in Maverick because of Storm Decks.

We don't care about Teeg, we can loop Emrakul, no need to cast anything he stops. Massacre is for Thalia, Ethersworn Cannonist & Meddling Mage as far as I know, someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[.dk]

We don't care about Teeg, we can loop Emrakul, no need to cast anything he stops. Massacre is for Thalia, Ethersworn Cannonist & Meddling Mage as far as I know, someone correct me if I'm wrong.

You got it - Teeg is a don't care. The rest of the hatebears, particularly the ones you mentioned, can be huge problems though.

[Freggle]

Has anyone else had some good results at tournaments or some testing results? Freggle, any luck with the build? I'm curious to see how that shakes out.

I haven't tested the build vs. the built to an extent in which I feel I can speak about it comfortably. Also, given the time between now and Atlanta, and the time it would take to do that I'm not sure I'm in the best position to put this together for you. I don't have a solid play group, and Cocktrice is down. I do not want to lead you in the wrong direction. Perhaps others can comment on any build when it comes to play testing.

I also wanted to make a small not that the post in which I talk about percentages Kryptor PM'ed me about a small error.

Since I used the numbers of 1 or more it is calculating 1 to 4 on any of the cards we run 4 of, and since any given hand can only have a total number of 7 cards there would be a slight miscalculation in the probability of getting a certain hand because we could not have a hand of 4 Dark Ritual, 4 Entomb, 7 (2) mana reanimation spells, (16) mana sources because that would be a 31 card hand.

This miscalculation would lower the probability ever so slightly since the probability of getting 4 of (or max of) anything is very low.

I don't think that this would change the overall variance and ultimately the overall statement very much since the proportion of change would vary much given that everything was miscalculated in the same manner.

To do what I wanted to do accurately I would have had to use the "multidimentional hypergeometric distribution" fucntion not the "hypergeometric distribution" function. Hopefully that makes sense.

[Falconer]

We don't care about Teeg, we can loop Emrakul, no need to cast anything he stops. Massacre is for Thalia, Ethersworn Cannonist & Meddling Mage as far as I know, someone correct me if I'm wrong.

After my last post was already quit long I didn't wanted to go everywhere into the last detail. I am sorry if that lead to some confusion.

I am not worry about Gaddock Teeg stoping the Deck I am worried about Gaddock Teeg stoping the answers to the hate bear we care about. It is similar to Mother of Runes. Thalia alone makes Chain of Vapor more expensive, Thalia + Mother of Runes invalidates Chain of Vapor as an answer as long as you only have a single copy. The same is happening to Massacre when Thalia is joined by Gaddock Teeg. If we really consider Maverick as the primary hate bear deck we can face I would be much more comfortable in running Infest because compared to Massacre it can't be stoped by Teeg. Recent TinFin Lists run only two copys of Massacre and no way to tutor it. That means sometimes you need some time to find a copy of it, and that is the time Maverick has to establish a board position like Mother + Thalia + Teeg. And that is what I am worried about. Massacre is by now known tech especially after not only TinFin run that card but Storm too. As a result you should expect that the Maverick Player knows about that card and will not board out Teeg because of it.

[alphastryk]

After my last post was already quit long I didn't wanted to go everywhere into the last detail. I am sorry if that lead to some confusion.

I am not worry about Gaddock Teeg stoping the Deck I am worried about Gaddock Teeg stoping the answers to the hate bear we care about. It is similar to Mother of Runes. Thalia alone makes Chain of Vapor more expensive, Thalia + Mother of Runes invalidates Chain of Vapor as an answer as long as you only have a single copy. The same is happening to Massacre when Thalia is joined by Gaddock Teeg. If we really consider Maverick as the primary hate bear deck we can face I would be much more comfortable in running Infest because compared to Massacre it can't be stoped by Teeg. Recent TinFin Lists run only two copys of Massacre and no way to tutor it. That means sometimes you need some time to find a copy of it, and that is the time Maverick has to establish a board position like Mother + Thalia + Teeg. And that is what I am worried about. Massacre is by now known tech especially after not only TinFin run that card but Storm too. As a result you should expect that the Maverick Player knows about that card and will not board out Teeg because of it.

Ok, that makes a lot more sense. In my area at least, Maverick has disappeared for at least 4-5 months now, so it isn't as much of a concern, and I wasn't thinking about him protecting other hatebears.

[.dk]

hah, same. I actually haven't played a single game against maverick since GP Atlanta last year. Hadn't even considered it.

Massacre is useful against Miracles though, as they do tend to board in things like Canonist and Meddling Mage.

[Koby]

There is also Virtue's Ruin to ignore Gaddock Teeg stopping the Thalia/Canonist crimp plan. I'm not sure how castable it is, because the situations are always in flux with regards to G/W Hatebear decks. Dread of Night is likely better against Thalia, but you would need a second one or a Chain to deal with Canonist. Karakas deals with Thalia and Teeg, but not Canonist/Mom, so that's also insufficient. Basically it comes down to:

Massacre vs Virtue's Ruin

Or win on turn 1 / 2 and ignore it :D

Massacre is pretty sweet against Deadguy / Junk decks however, as it kills not only Thalia but also Deathrite Shaman. Against Maverick, it's weaker due to the selection of hatebears. Against all other Plains decks, Massacre shines.

[Falconer]

I am living in the area of Germany where I can walk to France and Luxembourgh. Germany was always a Maverick stronghold and for irregular Legacy players it is the deck which they dust of for Grand Prix and the Trials leading to the Grand Prix. In the areas of France on the other side of the boarder it seems that someone casted a standstill and as a result you see many decks that commonly are considered to be outdated including Maverick. Whats going on in Luxembourgh I will find out this weekend.

Even I was so far able to dodge it during the Tournaments I have seen a lot of Maverick during the last weeks of Grand Prix Trials for GP Strasbourgh.

@ Koby

Infest kills Deathrite Shaman too. But I agree winning on Turn 1 or 2 seems the best solution most of the time.

[.dk]

My strategy against Maverick was always to just mull to a fast hand. But honestly, it's a pretty tough matchup if you go past T2. Scavenging Ooze is pretty rough, and you need to make sure you don't play your Entomb straight into a random Mindcensor. I packed Dread of Night for SCG Denver last year, but I never played against Maverick. Also have tried both Virtue's Ruin and Infest in the wishboard of UBr lists sporting Burning Wish, but the situations never really came up to use them.

Virtues' Ruin vs. Infest = Ruin hits Linvala and Infest can hit Deathrite and an early Ooze. Casting cost of both suck.

[kihachi]

I want to share my opinions about some cards after testing for discussion purposes. But before that I want to agree with Darklingske that the European Versions (I don’t know if there are really that big differences between European and American Esper Blade Lists) of Esper Blade feels unfavourable. But I have to point out that my opponent know what I was playing and always kept counter + hate heavy hands. Jace is also an annoyance when they start fatesealing you and with their load of discard and Counter they usually have the time to get to the point where they can play Jace.

Just wanted to say first off, before I disagree with a bunch of stuff, that this is a great post, so thanks.

Lim-Dûl’s Vault: I have mixed results with LDV. For every game where it found me the cards I need and allow me to win with it there is the a game where I pay 5+ life and are not able to use Griselbrand effectively after it because of my low life total. However if I had paid 5+ Life it means that I would have not find what I need in the next 25+ cards. These are the games where Cantrips without shuffle effects also will not help you. In that case LDV just helps you to realise faster that you should try the next game. And in some of the games where LDV helped I also put 15+ cards away which I would consider the point where Cantrips are not a sure thing to hit because you need a shuffle effect and shuffle in a beneficial way which is also not a guarantee. So far I think 10 Cantrips + 2 LDV build are more consistent than 12 Cantrips + 0 LDV builds. But LDV is definitely not the dream card for this deck and we don’t need to discuss that if Mystical Tutor, Vampirical Tutor or even Imperial Seal would be available we wound not waste a second thinking about LDV.

Is your build specifically lacking in shuffle effects? I run 8 fetches and 4 Ponders, so a bad LDV to me would generally not be an indicator that I would've been screwed anyway. More likely, I would either shuffle up with a land after a Brainstorm, or shuffle on a Ponder after seeing three bad cards (or take the best card and crack a fetchland).

I think you make a solid case for LDV not being the greatest thing since sliced bread though. Most importantly though, it costs 2 mana. At one mana, it would definitely be a great Mystical Tutor substitute, but at two, I personally think it slows down the deck a lot.

The one thing I would like to test when I have a chance, and this is probably a longshot, but 4 LDV and 4 Chrome Mox. The Mox would be a huge sacrifice of card advantage for speed, but LDV is the best card to put on a Mox, and Mox lets you cast one on turn one, so it seems very complimentary.

Children of Korlis: I can’t decide if one or two is the right number. Usually you only want to draw it after you have Griselbrand in play because before it does nothing which is a strong argument for only one CoK. But if you need him to draw more cards you really don’t want to miss him, which is a strong argument for having two. Every time I play two CoK I get CoK flooded, if I play only one I miss him after Griselbrand. Maybe I need to run 1,5 CoK.

In my experience, 2 CoK gives you a lot of consistency and a dead one can often be shuffled back in with a Brainstorm. I will probably run 2 forever, but I generally cut one as my first cut for sideboard cards.

Reanimate: I really hate this card in TinFins and I can’t agree that the first Reanimate is more valuable than the fourth Goryo’s Vengeance. Our goal is to get Griselbrand into play and draw as many cards with him to win. If you need Reanimate to get him into play you will draw 14 to 21 cards less than with all the other reanimation spells. 7 because of the lack of haste and 7 to 14 more because you need to pay 8 life to get him into play with Reanimate. And depending on the Game you can go down quickly to 16 or even 15 life. As a trade of Griselbrand gets more vulnerable to removal or bounce compared to the other alternatives that get Griselbrand into play. Yes I know the purpose of Reanimate is after we draw many cards with Griselbrand to reanimate CoK. But after we are already drawing many cards with Griselbrand are we not already winning? I prefer a card that helps me to get to a point where I am winning (like in this case the fourth Goryo’s Vengeance) over a card that when I am already winning helps me to win more (like in this case Reanimate). Sure you can make the claim that Emrakul or Tendrils also don’t help you before you have Griselbrand in play. But these cards are the closer so you will need them. But if you play Emrakul and Tendrils and two CoK and Reanimate these are five cards you don’t want to see before you have Griselbrand in play. But statistically you will have at least one of these cards in every second opening hand. Reducing the number of dead draws should be a goal to make the deck more consistent. Yes I know Reanimate can also reanimate opposing creatures, but this has two issues as well. We can’t influence what our opponent is playing. Good luck reanimating High Tides best creature or compare the impact of the Goblin Lackey that you reanimated with the impact the opposing Goblin Lackey has in his own deck. And even if your opponent play a creature that is worth to get reanimated how do you get it into the Graveyard? The two ways we have are discard and Emrakul Annihilator. If Emrakul is annihilating the creature the chance that you do not longer need to reanimate is quite big. If you can afford to discard the opposing creatures, hate bears not included because I doubt you want to reanimate them, why are you not simple combo the cost seems to be clear? So far I have reanimated zero opposing creatures.

I like Reanimate a lot because unlike Goryo's, it actually can work on both Griselbrand and CoK. Reanimating Gris with it may not be ideal but I've won plenty of games with a turn one Gris this way. You can't combo off quickly but you often just win three turns later through attacks anyway. I've also fizzled plenty of times looking for something to reanimate CoK with post-combo, before adding 2 Reanimates to the equation. Especially if you used one Shallow Grave on Gris, and are at too low of life to draw 21 cards.

Leyline of Sanctity: Maybe it is just because the Decks I faced but I really wondered if this Deck needs Leyline. Against other fast Combo Decks the Games often seem to come down to who wins the dice roll will win. And what will you do against a quick Goblin Charbelcher or Tendrils of Agony without Counters? Well at least both cards target and Leyline can stop that. Leyline can also stop many burn spells from Burn and UR Delver and as a result help you to keep your Life total in areas where Griselbrands draw ability still matters. Obviously there is also the anti-discard application in Match Ups where you need it. The only problem I have with Leyline are to find the slots.

I like the idea of this Leyline, but I think the problem is that our biggest weakness post-board is graveyard hate, and generally if you can fight that hate you'll win. We answer their counterspells with discard, and we answer their discard with discard, Brainstorm, and redundancy. We answer their direct damage with speed. This is all good in theory, and I know it doesn't always work out that way, but the hardest thing for us to answer is the graveyard hate. Permanent-based hate can be played before we have a chance to make them discard it, and without an answer we lose. So devoting spots to combat discard and burn spells and maybe proactively hate out other decks, I don't think we can afford to make space for.

One idea I had while playing at SCG Indy was, could we run Cabal Ritual in the sideboard to attempt, in the long game, a hardcast Griselbrand? Once you hit threshold, three mana sources + a Dark Rit and a Cabal Rit = 8 mana. I know I've been close to the hardcast without Cabal Rit, so I think it's a possibility. I'm sure there are a million downsides though, so could someone please talk me out of this? :)

EDIT:

My strategy against Maverick was always to just mull to a fast hand. But honestly, it's a pretty tough matchup if you go past T2. Scavenging Ooze is pretty rough, and you need to make sure you don't play your Entomb straight into a random Mindcensor. I packed Dread of Night for SCG Denver last year, but I never played against Maverick. Also have tried both Virtue's Ruin and Infest in the wishboard of UBr lists sporting Burning Wish, but the situations never really came up to use them.

Virtues' Ruin vs. Infest = Ruin hits Linvala and Infest can hit Deathrite and an early Ooze. Casting cost of both suck.

I think a hand stocked with discard can compete pretty well with Maverick too. They generally can't get hate out against you on turn 1, so you have a chance to get rid of one piece of hate. Ooze will generally cost them a GSZ to grab, so they generally can't play one on turn 2 with mana up to activate it. Also, game one you can often hide what deck you're on for a bit so they'll try to beat you down with Knights instead of grabbing hatebears, and maybe you can bait their Mindcensors out with fetchlands.

[.dk]

One idea I had while playing at SCG Indy was, could we run Cabal Ritual in the sideboard to attempt, in the long game, a hardcast Griselbrand? Once you hit threshold, three mana sources + a Dark Rit and a Cabal Rit = 8 mana. I know I've been close to the hardcast without Cabal Rit, so I think it's a possibility. I'm sure there are a million downsides though, so could someone please talk me out of this? :)

Richard Cheese and I ran something like this a long time ago - and actually worked fairly well. We were running 4 Griselbrand main at the time (and I think you would need to board in the rest for this if you're aren't), along with some Cabal Rits and Show and Tells, among other things. I think I was testing Massacre Wurm then due to all of the critters out of Maverick. I think your biggest problem in this case is that you need more than just 4 Griselbrand to cast and Show and Tell in.

I know you asked to get talked out of it, but I was always rather fond of it... ;)

[phazonmutant]

One idea I had while playing at SCG Indy was, could we run Cabal Ritual in the sideboard to attempt, in the long game, a hardcast Griselbrand? Once you hit threshold, three mana sources + a Dark Rit and a Cabal Rit = 8 mana. I know I've been close to the hardcast without Cabal Rit, so I think it's a possibility. I'm sure there are a million downsides though, so could someone please talk me out of this? :)

Before the last SCG Atlanta, I was testing 4 Show and Tell and 4 Cabal Ritual for a while. It just never worked out the way I wanted it to - there was still the bottleneck of assembling your 2-card(+) combo and you were still vulnerable to counterspells, discard, and storm hate. It really seems like a good idea, but it just never did anything for me either before or at the starcity.

edit: more stuff!

The one thing I would like to test when I have a chance, and this is probably a longshot, but 4 LDV and 4 Chrome Mox. The Mox would be a huge sacrifice of card advantage for speed, but LDV is the best card to put on a Mox, and Mox lets you cast one on turn one, so it seems very complimentary.

LDV is really really bad in multiples. At GP Atlanta I played a deck with I think 3 Chrome Mox and 2 LDV, and it was still a problem drawing multiples of either one. That said, the times when you make an unwasteable Underground Sea and then tutor for the kill feel really good.
Overall I'm not a huge fan of relying multiple card-disadvantage spells. It doesn't make for a consistent deck through mulliganning. That's a big reason why I've cut down to 1 Chrome Mox and 1 Children of Korlis - I don't think any combo deck can afford to have a bunch of dead draws and still be resilient to mulliganning and discard.

To do what I wanted to do accurately I would have had to use the "multidimentional hypergeometric distribution" fucntion not the "hypergeometric distribution" function. Hopefully that makes sense.

I keep on having to relearn the excel functions when I try to do this math. They couldn't make the function prototypes any more confusing. Don't you just feel like a balla when you say "multidimensional hypergeometric distribution?"
Also thanks for the update.


Re: Massacre - If I expected to see a bunch of Maverick, I would honestly not expect this deck to do well. This slot is mostly for W decks that don't have access to Teeg, as others mentioned. I'm looking at you, UW Miracle-Fish-Bears. It can sometimes tag some hatebears out of Mav, but there isn't really a good solution outside of a playset of Dread of Night.


Cybey - thanks for the report! I think I'll put a Needle back in - I had forgotten how good it was at shutting down both hate and other people's combo. The biggest reason I've leaned away from it is because I realized Karakas just didn't matter - that was a huge incentive for it - and also BG/x players leaving in Abrupt Decay (incorrectly) and nuking my Needle on their Deathrite or whatever. That's actually a compounding factor for how I picked up my second loss and got massively tilted on my track to top8 at SCG Atlanta.


Falconer - I definitely agree Silence is awesome. I love having 2 in the main. Have to disagree about Reanimate though. As a bunch of people have mentioned, I've won a ton of times just Reanimating Griselbrand. I've also reanimated opponent's creatures - like my opponent's Meddling Mage that I Therapied (then named the Counterbalance in his hand ). That felt pretty good. I'm thinking of adding a second back in because it's so good at helping you be fast postboard.

[Deckerator]

Has anyone tried a list with 4x Force of Will? I know it slows the deck a bit but we have many blue cards in it and why not playing Force, if you can, to protect the Combo.

[Dark Ritual]

Has anyone tried a list with 4x Force of Will? I know it slows the deck a bit but we have many blue cards in it and why not playing Force, if you can, to protect the Combo.

Because force of will doesn't dump griselbrand in the yard like therapy and thoughtseize does? And discard is actually reliable at stripping opposing countermagic. Card has been tested, and it is awful. Usually I don't want to pitch cantrips to FoW in a combo deck, unless I naturally draw entomb reanimation spell every game but that is a pipe dream that has no consistency to it whatsoever.

I don't like show and tell in a deck with 4-5 targets including an emrakul that just dies to karakas off of show and tell or any form of interaction really. Rather just go for anti hate cards such as needle, pull from eternity, chain of vapor, etc. etc. that works quite well.

[Anthropoid]

First of I have to say great Deck and amazing work done with the Primer.
I have been an avid reader of every page so far.

I have a question I am kinda ashamed to ask but I will do it regardless.
My little brother saw me running the deck and was amazed by its sheer power
and the potential for broken stuff. He told me that he would pick Magic up again if
I build a version for him. My problem is the following: I dont really want to shell out
the cash for the duals again. I love my brother but being a student has also his downsides,
my pockets are not as deep as I would like.
So I'm building a rainbow manabase for him.
4x Gematone Mines
4x City of Brass
But how do I fill the other 5-6 land spots? Sound advice is appreciated.
Not running fetches also reduces the usefulness of brainstorm. Should such
a version still run it or would 4 Ponder 4 Preordain and X Gitaxian Probe or CS
the way to go. I know that this makes for a weaker version but the potential is
still there and my main goal is to make my bro happy! Thanks for proposals.

Now to my version:
I disliked the combination of thoughtseize and gitaxian probe due to the lifeloss.
Dont get me wrong I totally see the awesomeness of both of them. Especially Probe +
Cabal Therapy feels so good, also knowing if the coast is clear is great.
However I feel confident at blind therapying and thus made the following adjustments.

I'm running 4 Gbrand with the following cantrip configuration:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
2 Careful Study

Also 4 Silences instead of Toughtseize but here I am unsure. My meta is quite
Combo heavy and silence is often a timewalk for W.

Please bear with my writing english is not my native language and I'm creating
this post with my phone.

Feedback especially for the list of my bro would be great

[P-E]

without fetches you'll lack some shuffle effect
you can replace dual with ravlands or maybe m10 duals

[dameus]

@ Anthropoid

I think you'll miss the shuffle effects of fetch lands too much. Within a budget, try:
1x Swamp
1x Island
1x Watery Grave
1x Godless Shrine
6x fetch
4x Gemstone Mine

In many other decks, I too resist Thoughtseize for the life loss; but here, there's no good substitute.
You can do without Probe, though. Thoughtseize makes you more consistent (more pitch options), more resistant (protection), and makes your Therapies better, too.
I'd drop the 2x Preordains if you need space.

[phazonmutant]

Top 4'd my local tournament today. The store just bumped prize payout 3x (although we have to pay for entry now), so everyone was pretty pumped in top8. I refused to chop in the semis and was served some justice. My list has some minor changes from where I was at before Koby's list from SCG -- I feel like it's getting to a very refined state and the sideboard is actually starting to be good.

2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Children of Korlis
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Entomb
1 Intuition
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate

2 Silence
2 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm

1 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual

4 Polluted Delta
3 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
2 Gemstone Mine

// Sideboard
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Teferi's Realm
1 Pithing Needle
2 Massacre
2 Pull from Eternity
1 Silence
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Surgical Extraction

I didn't drop a single game in the 3 rounds of swiss I played or in the quarterfinals. Felt pretty good. I ripped Entomb like a champ in 2 games, but I liked how Gitaxian Probe saw me deeper into the deck and told me what to play around. I tried to leave 2 Probes in at all times. I'm back to 1 Intuition in the main and it did good work in 3 of the games, I was very happy to have it. Twice it was Entomb, once it was Demonic for Goryo's Vengeance. Here's a quick report:

Round 1 - alphastryk with UW Miracles (like we don't play that matchup enough in testing )
G1 - I'm on the play, Probe sees a hand that can't interact until turn 2 with Counterspell. I kill him on my turn 2.
G2 - I take his Force of Will with a Therapy and he taps out to find another piece of interaction with Brainstorm into Ponder. He doesn't and I kill him on my turn 2 again.
I got very lucky he kept a loose hand g1 and I had reasonable draws both games
Boarding: -1 Chrome Mox, -1 Tendrils, -3 Gitaxian Probe, +2 Teferi's Realm, +2 Massacre, +1 Chain of Vapor

Round 2 - Megadeus with UR Stiflenaught (he's abandoned storm, the traitor)
G1 - His Brainstorm bricks on interaction and I kill him on turn 3 through an useless Misdirection that Gitaxian Probe was kind enough to show me.
G2 - He says he doesn't have grave hate, but I'm not sure if I believed him. He's stuck on 1 land with stone nothing relevant in hand for a bit after Brainstorm bricks, but I'm just trying to draw the Entomb. He finally finds a Force with Ponder, but I strip it with Therapy and go off with my freshly-drawn Entomb.
Boarding: More Silence? Not sure since he doesn't have hate. I boarded in a couple of Chain of Vapor and a Pull for a couple Probes and the Tendrils.

Round 3 - RiP Enchantress
G1 - I Thoughtseize Rest in Peace then go off on my turn 2 or 3 when I rip Entomb.
G2 - Cabal Therapy blind-hit 2 Rest in Peace, which was enough to buy me time to put 3 lands in play to cast Intuition as Entomb and win from there.
Boarding: -1 Gitaxian Probe, -2 Silence, -1 Tendrils, +2 Teferi's Realm, +2 Chain of Vapor

Round 4 - ID

Quarters - Junk
G1 - I Thoughtseize and see nothing relevant in hand, and kill him on turn 2. It was taking a while to find mana to cast Tendrils, but after shuffling with Emrakul, he saw the writing on the wall.
G2 - He led on Deathrite, I led on a fetch. He played a Wasteland and Hymned me (using his Deathrite), which fortunately hit one a pair of cards I didn't care about. I double DR, Intuitioned for Griselbrand, and killed him from there.
Boarding: -3 Gitaxian Probe, -2 Silence, -1 Cabal Therapy, +2 Chain of Vapor, +2 Massacre, +2 Pull from Eternity (Junk sideboards attack from a lot of angles)

Semis - BUG Control
G1 - I kept a borderline speculative hand with a Gitaxian Probe, an out, mana and irrelevants. He got a triple Deathrite Shaman draw while I drew Emrakul, Children of Korlis, and no Brainstorms. He knew how to play around my deck and got there pretty easily.
G2 - I keep a fine hand with Ponder, a couple Rits, a couple Outs, Therapy, and lands, but Therapy whiffs and sees 2 Surgicals. He draws a Deathrite a couple of turns later while I'm trying to find Entomb, then I Brainstorm-lock myself. I finally find a way to play through 3 exile effects and Pierce with another Brainstorm into a hand of Entomb, DRx3, Goryo's, Shallow Grave, Reanimate, Pull, and 3 mana sources untapped, but he had essentially infinite outs to draw and did actually draw Force, Pierce x2, and Snapcaster to boot.

The BUG match was rough, but that player has experience playing GB/x in our store's meta, so he boards a lot of combo and grave hate cards. I kept a loose 7 g1, and he had a very good draw g2. Good beats.

Thoughts about the list post-tournament:
Besides the last match, the deck felt absurdly overpowered. For the most part, I wasn't searching for a way to put a man in the bin or get him out, only protection. I felt a little flooded several times and felt mana shy once or twice. It's definitely safe to cut a land, but I'm not sure which one. Gemstone Mine is an easy cut, but I'm nervous about the basic Swamp with only 13 lands. Another protection spell or the second reanimate are both reasonable. I was fairly happy with my sideboard and very happy with my maindeck otherwise.
There's a lot of people hating on Probe, but that card is absolutely nuts. It makes evaluating hands and sequencing much harder, but it's an all-star when used right. It gives you so much information for deciding when to go for it or not and helps dig into your deck. I've played it for mana more than 1/3 of the time it's in my hand (usually turn 2 or later), so it doesn't take all that much life. It doesn't really matter, anyway. Children is gross and this deck is fast.
I think Probe is a must-include in the same sense that you wouldn't imagine playing modern TES without Probe.

Edit: forgot cards in decklist.

[Cybey]

This is not smart since u have a emrakul in ure deck that reshuffles ure deck after the grindstone does it's thing...

I partially agree with you. But my opponent had a Painter's Servant and a Magus of the Moon in play, which could also attack for 4 damage each turn, killing me in only a few short turns. I only had a few outs (Petal, Mox, 1 basic land) and figured I'd rather be prepared for the next round while he had no idea what he was up against.


Phazonmutant - I also experienced that BUG Control is a very tough matchup for us, and I'm not entirely sure how to really improve this. This is also exactly the reason for me to play 3x Pithing Needle, since I really want to shut down those DRS to increase my odds of going off. My opponents have shown me several times what they boarded in and out against me and they always seem to board out their Abrupt Decays, so I'm not really worried about that. Reading your report I might add the Intuition again. How were the 2 Silence mainboard for you? I often found myself boarding them (or it, since I only play one) out game 2. Did you ever get to play Teferi's Realm? Because I really love the card, but I have serious doubts about how useful it really is, especially for 3 mana.

[Kich867]

I partially agree with you. But my opponent had a Painter's Servant and a Magus of the Moon in play, which could also attack for 4 damage each turn, killing me in only a few short turns. I only had a few outs (Petal, Mox, 1 basic land) and figured I'd rather be prepared for the next round while he had no idea what he was up against.

What point is there in sacrificing game one that you just win on the spot in, now giving yourself 2 more matches to kill him in? Because the alternative is he's up a game, you obviously should win the next one, but now instead of having 2 rounds to fight through his sideboard you have one and if he has it and you get a little unlucky you just lose.

That's not actually denying him any information, you're just throwing a game away. Even in the best situation for the opponent where he wins game 2, you're now on the play again which dramatically improves your chances of winning.

In the future, just take the win, because worst comes to worst you get to be on the play again.