[Deck] TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst

[Koby]

Ridiculous!

[KobeBryan]

Ridiculous!

gonna be packing surgicals and FOWs this weekend!!!!

[Dark Ritual]

Ridiculous!

Quoted for the mother fucking truth. Great job, loved that brainstorm into emrakul against omnitell game three. I'll say it again. JUSTICE.

If you lack thoughtseize, cabal therapy seems good enough. Duress not being able to get griselbrand/emrakul out of your hand is a little relevant, however how often is the line thoughtseize/therapy targeting myself to bin emrakul/griselbrand out of curiosity? Haven't played this deck yet, but I'll probably be picking it up very soon despite lacking thoughtseizes I'll try to borrow some.

[Koby]

There are a lot of lines of play that start with Therapy or Thoughtseize self to reanimate Griselbrand into a combo turn. I don't think that there are subs for either after playing the deck. Duress is good in SB as additional disruption, but not as multi-prong disruption.

Tin Fins: Return of the Onion Burst -- A deck with so many layers that make the opponent cry for it to stop.

That last game: http://www.twitch.tv/jkory/c/1923236
Also, going sort of infinite: http://www.twitch.tv/jkory/c/1923262

[Basaka]

What you needed to do was to set up a loop of:

Dark ritual x4, lotus petal, thoughtseize, emrakul and draw 7 infinitely.

If you run low on life, replace a petal or ritual with a child, gain whatever life

This way, you really go infinite. Now I want to play this deck...

[Koby]

OK so I did some thing thinking (dangerous.. I know) and I don't think the :r: splash into Sneak Attack is realistic. Sneak Attack as a strategy requires a lot more operating mana than this deck can muster. The plan would require boarding into additional mana sources. Since the SB is the limiting factor, I don't think that transformational SB is valid.

Back to the drawing board.

[.dk]

That might be true - it's very possible that you want at least 15 lands and possibly a Mox Diamond if you're on the Sneak Attack plan. I have yet to try it while splashing white for Children, so it wouldn't surprise me if supporting 4 colors along with the mana needed for Sneak Attack is just too much of a burden. Still going to try sometime and test, just to see though.

Don't own any cards on MODO, but if anyone is interested in testing on Cockatrice sometime I'd be down.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

This. Deck. Is. So. Stupid. :cry:

Last night's stream made me wish we had Felidar Sovereign.

[.dk]

This. Deck. Is. So. Stupid. :cry:

Last night's stream made me wish we had Felidar Sovereign.

Felidar Sovereign... who wants to pass the turn? :P

[Richard Cheese]

Yeah I'm going to say Tendrils is a better "you win the game" card.

[Arew]

Kind of want to try and play this at SCG Cincinatti this weekend, but not sure if I can get ahold of Shallow Grave's. Probably would go with ANT sideboard as I'm not sure if I can get ahold of Show and Tell's.

[phazonmutant]

Fortunately Shallow Grave is cheap.
Please don't play the ANT plan. It's really bad. CalebD had one idea for a S&T-less board, and other people have made suggestions for what cards to swap out of that board. S&Ts aren't necessarily the best plan for the SB anyway.
I'd suggest:
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
1 Rebuild
3 Pithing Needle
2 Massacre
2 Deathmark
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Extirpate

[Arew]

They are, but SCG is sold out and overnight shipping is expensive. Thanks for the sideboard advice, I wasn't too happy about the ANT plan.

[Koby]

I originally thought boarding into Sneak Show might be do-able. Then I played the deck as is to get a feel for it, and can't imagine a good way to make it work.

It requires a total transformation.

This means cutting all the 7 reanimation and 4 entomb and 2 Children, which is exactly 13 cards. We could bring in:
3 Sneak Attack
2 Emrakul (going up to 3)
1 Griselbrand (going up to 4)
3 Show & Tell (leaving the 4th in SB)
1 Mountain/Badlands
3 City of Traitors

With the last 2 cards:
1 Show & Tell (to wish for)
1 Tendrils of Agony (for G1 combo)

This unfortunately makes the deck hyper dependent on being able to combo off Game 1, then leaving the risk of S&T plan not working out for Game 2. The extra mana sources are required to be able to cast Sneak Attack reliably, and still needs the permanent red sources to activate Sneak. I'm not sure if this is the best method.

[Richard Cheese]

Planning a rewrite of the opening post soon. Since it's fairly clear UBw is the way to go at this point, that will be the focus. Planning to include links to Greg's Deck Tech, Koby's stream, Caleb's mention at CFB, and of course the TinFins trailer. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to see.

[phazonmutant]

I think it might be worthwhile to briefly mention the different sideboard plans and their pros and cons, sort of like how the SI primer mentions different builds.

[xfxf]

What are this deck's options against a resolved RiP or hate like Leyline and Cage?

[takeo999]

What are this deck's options against a resolved RiP or hate like Leyline and Cage?

Preside you don't really have answer, you just hope to hardcast Griselbrand with dark ritual.
Postside you either have bounce spells or you're on a different plan so that's not a problem.

[CalebD]

Just had a sweet win vs Doomsday.

G3 on the play I keep Thoughtseize, Children, Entomb, Reanimate, Grizzle, and a few lands.

I turn one Thoughtseize him to see a land full of cantrips, including Gitaxian Probe, and a Cabal Therapy. Since his hand is slow, I take the Therapy.

He Probes me and passes.

I Reanimate a Grizzle turn two and am left with an interesting decision. I can draw seven towards a Lotus Petal (since I already have Children in hand) but decide to pass the turn and save the drawing for my attack. That way I'd go 14 cards deep and would have mana to Ponder and such in case I bricked.

On my eot he Brainstorms and on his turn he plays top and passes, Silencing me on my upkeep.

I have another interesting decision. I can respond to the Silence by drawing seven towards Entomb+Dark Ritual+reanimation spell to make Emrakul at instant speed and go for the win, but that seems lousy. After all, what if his hand sucks and I'm just giving him an easy Tendrils kill? The odds of bricking on seven cards just weren't worth it and I attacked, made my land drop, and shipped the turn.

On his turn he has the combo, and finishes with a Tendrils for 20 or so (I'm at 16). I let the Tendrils copies stack while he types "good game" into the chat bar.

I draw seven, hitting an Entomb, and then another seven, hitting some Shallow Graves and a single Dark Ritual. That's enough to make a Children of Korlis at instant speed, gain back my Griselbrand life, and then make the Children again, only sacrificing it once most of the Tendrils copies had resolved.

Had I drawn my second Children, or bricked on either Dark Ritual or Entomb, I would've been stone dead.

This deck is sick.

[Nooner]

Just had a sweet win vs Doomsday.

G3 on the play I keep Thoughtseize, Children, Entomb, Reanimate, Grizzle, and a few lands.

I turn one Thoughtseize him to see a land full of cantrips, including Gitaxian Probe, and a Cabal Therapy. Since his hand is slow, I take the Therapy.

He Probes me and passes.

I Reanimate a Grizzle turn two and am left with an interesting decision. I can draw seven towards a Lotus Petal (since I already have Children in hand) but decide to pass the turn and save the drawing for my attack. That way I'd go 14 cards deep and would have mana to Ponder and such in case I bricked.

On my eot he Brainstorms and on his turn he plays top and passes, Silencing me on my upkeep.

I have another interesting decision. I can respond to the Silence by drawing seven towards Entomb+Dark Ritual+reanimation spell to make Emrakul at instant speed and go for the win, but that seems lousy. After all, what if his hand sucks and I'm just giving him an easy Tendrils kill? The odds of bricking on seven cards just weren't worth it and I attacked, made my land drop, and shipped the turn.

On his turn he has the combo, and finishes with a Tendrils for 20 or so (I'm at 16). I let the Tendrils copies stack while he types "good game" into the chat bar.

I draw seven, hitting an Entomb, and then another seven, hitting some Shallow Graves and a single Dark Ritual. That's enough to make a Children of Korlis at instant speed, gain back my Griselbrand life, and then make the Children again, only sacrificing it once most of the Tendrils copies had resolved.

Had I drawn my second Children, or bricked on either Dark Ritual or Entomb, I would've been stone dead.

This deck is sick.

I hope you replied back "good game." or something along those lines. Don't count your chickens until they hatch!

[.dk]

Just had a sweet win vs Doomsday.

G3 on the play I keep Thoughtseize, Children, Entomb, Reanimate, Grizzle, and a few lands.

I turn one Thoughtseize him to see a land full of cantrips, including Gitaxian Probe, and a Cabal Therapy. Since his hand is slow, I take the Therapy.

He Probes me and passes.

I Reanimate a Grizzle turn two and am left with an interesting decision. I can draw seven towards a Lotus Petal (since I already have Children in hand) but decide to pass the turn and save the drawing for my attack. That way I'd go 14 cards deep and would have mana to Ponder and such in case I bricked.

On my eot he Brainstorms and on his turn he plays top and passes, Silencing me on my upkeep.

I have another interesting decision. I can respond to the Silence by drawing seven towards Entomb+Dark Ritual+reanimation spell to make Emrakul at instant speed and go for the win, but that seems lousy. After all, what if his hand sucks and I'm just giving him an easy Tendrils kill? The odds of bricking on seven cards just weren't worth it and I attacked, made my land drop, and shipped the turn.

On his turn he has the combo, and finishes with a Tendrils for 20 or so (I'm at 16). I let the Tendrils copies stack while he types "good game" into the chat bar.

I draw seven, hitting an Entomb, and then another seven, hitting some Shallow Graves and a single Dark Ritual. That's enough to make a Children of Korlis at instant speed, gain back my Griselbrand life, and then make the Children again, only sacrificing it once most of the Tendrils copies had resolved.

Had I drawn my second Children, or bricked on either Dark Ritual or Entomb, I would've been stone dead.

This deck is sick.


Awesome! I had a game like that vs. ANT a while back - saccing Children in response to the last 2 Tendrils copies. Draw go for a while, and Silence him (and older build) after he flashes back Past in Flames (I learned to not screw that up from a GPT late last year for GP Denver), then proceed to eventually attack and storm enough for the kill.

I also agree with the decision waiting to draw off Grizzlebees until you could attack - Reanimate is a pretty rough way to go combo out instantly. Same thing the following turn - you have a Griselbrand in play attacking for 7 lifelink that sticks around - he's already way behind. Sounds like a pretty awesome/hilarious game!

[Dela]

Just had a sweet win vs Doomsday.

G3 on the play I keep Thoughtseize, Children, Entomb, Reanimate, Grizzle, and a few lands.

I turn one Thoughtseize him to see a land full of cantrips, including Gitaxian Probe, and a Cabal Therapy. Since his hand is slow, I take the Therapy.

He Probes me and passes.

I Reanimate a Grizzle turn two and am left with an interesting decision. I can draw seven towards a Lotus Petal (since I already have Children in hand) but decide to pass the turn and save the drawing for my attack. That way I'd go 14 cards deep and would have mana to Ponder and such in case I bricked.

On my eot he Brainstorms and on his turn he plays top and passes, Silencing me on my upkeep.

I have another interesting decision. I can respond to the Silence by drawing seven towards Entomb+Dark Ritual+reanimation spell to make Emrakul at instant speed and go for the win, but that seems lousy. After all, what if his hand sucks and I'm just giving him an easy Tendrils kill? The odds of bricking on seven cards just weren't worth it and I attacked, made my land drop, and shipped the turn.

On his turn he has the combo, and finishes with a Tendrils for 20 or so (I'm at 16). I let the Tendrils copies stack while he types "good game" into the chat bar.

I draw seven, hitting an Entomb, and then another seven, hitting some Shallow Graves and a single Dark Ritual. That's enough to make a Children of Korlis at instant speed, gain back my Griselbrand life, and then make the Children again, only sacrificing it once most of the Tendrils copies had resolved.

Had I drawn my second Children, or bricked on either Dark Ritual or Entomb, I would've been stone dead.

This deck is sick.

Amazing.

It feels there is always a line with this deck... Finding it and playin correctly is the challenge. I LOVE all the interactions with this deck... It's so rewarding when it works out.

[Cacks]

Hi All,

forgive the ignorant post, but I have a couple of questions.

This deck looks fabulous fun - a work of true (mad) genius! But (without playing it at all) I was concerned that it looked a bit inconsistent, in that one would appear to be heavily reliant on drawing entomb very early in the game. Is that right? Since the deck does not play careful study (or similar) is there any common line of play that doesn't start with entomb? Is it thoughtsieze/therapy targeting oneself for G'Brand?

One thought that occured to me, and subejct to the above, is that the Griselbrands and Children of Korlis seemed amongst the worst cards to have in hand; whereas intuition for G'brand/G'brand/Children would seem really strong, since it gives you both halfs of the 'combo', with at least one G'brand in your graveyard and a children either in hand or your graveyard. Has anyone tried cutting down to just 2 G'brand and 2 (or even 1...) Children and going up to 2 or 3 intuition? It may be that the mana won't take it, but it would seem to potentially add consistency by giving you 6 - 7 'entombs'.

Many thanks for any help, and sorry if this turns out to be f*ckwitted!

[.dk]

Don't be afraid to ask questions - while the deck may be awesome as it is, that doesn't mean that new ideas are wrong and can't improve it. :)

Overall, consistency wise, the deck seems pretty fine to me. I don't have data to back that up - maybe I can run some numbers in matlab or something to come up with some percentages that we can add to the opening post.

There are a few ways to get Grizzle into the yard - Entomb is the primary method. Therapy/Thoughtseize (as you mentioned) is the second. With 4 Brainstorms and 4 Ponders, it's usually not too hard to find one of those scenarios. A third (and usually sub-optimal) way is Draw-Discard-Pass method if GB is in your hand. If you have enough acceleration in your hand, that can lead to a T2 combo with discard protection if you want. However can leave you very vulnerable to graveyard hate.

Adding more intuitions may be fine - I'm not sure that I would go below 2 Griselbrands though as that would make most intuition piles very weird. You don't want to have one rotting in your hand along with an Entomb. As well as if your combo is disrupted somehow, then you still have another Griselbrand to go off with in the following turns. The fizzle rate with this deck is pretty minimal at this point with Children, but it does still happen from time to time. You want another Griselbrand in your deck if that happens.

Intuition piles will vary based on game scenario and what is in your hand as well - a common one I've used is GB-GB-Goryo/Shallow Grave. Usually by the time I need to make Children, I either have on in hand or an Entomb to go get it after drawing 7-14. However, if you have enough reanimation in your hand already, GB-GB-Children would be strong as well.

[CalebD]

After a week of testing, this is what I'm on for Sunday:

// Lands
2 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
1 [SHM] Swamp (1)
1 [AVR] Island (1)
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn

// Creatures
4 [AVR] Griselbrand
2 [TSP] Children of Korlis
1 [PRE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

// Spells
1 [FNM] Tendrils of Agony
4 [MI] Shallow Grave
3 [BOK] Goryo's Vengeance
4 [OD] Entomb
3 [PD3] Cabal Therapy
4 [BD] Dark Ritual
2 [MR] Chrome Mox
2 [TE] Reanimate
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
3 [OD] Careful Study
1 [M10] Ponder
4 [DDJ] Brainstorm

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [ON] Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 [RTR] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [ZEN] Mindbreak Trap
SB: 3 [FBP] Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 [CS] Deathmark
SB: 1 [PD3] Duress
SB: 3 [R] Blue Elemental Blast

Might play the fourth goryo's over the ponder. Going to jam games in between standard rounds and decide.

[novatinhu]

After a week of testing, this is what I'm on for Sunday:


Might play the fourth goryo's over the ponder. Going to jam games in between standard rounds and decide.


Hello Caleb Im playing with a very close list as you can see, Good luck!

// Lands
1 Marsh Flats
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Tundra

// Creatures
3 Griselbrand
2 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

// Spells
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Entomb
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
2 Chrome Mox
2 Reanimate
2 Thoughtseize
4 Lotus Petal
3 Careful Study
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Intuition

[.dk]

After a week of testing, this is what I'm on for Sunday:

// Lands
2 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
1 [SHM] Swamp (1)
1 [AVR] Island (1)
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn

// Creatures
4 [AVR] Griselbrand
2 [TSP] Children of Korlis
1 [PRE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

// Spells
1 [FNM] Tendrils of Agony
4 [MI] Shallow Grave
3 [BOK] Goryo's Vengeance
4 [OD] Entomb
3 [PD3] Cabal Therapy
4 [BD] Dark Ritual
2 [MR] Chrome Mox
2 [TE] Reanimate
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
3 [OD] Careful Study
1 [M10] Ponder
4 [DDJ] Brainstorm

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [ON] Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 [RTR] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [ZEN] Mindbreak Trap
SB: 3 [FBP] Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 [CS] Deathmark
SB: 1 [PD3] Duress
SB: 3 [R] Blue Elemental Blast

Might play the fourth goryo's over the ponder. Going to jam games in between standard rounds and decide.

Sweet! Good luck!

Have you found the fourth Griselbrand to be necessary? And no intuition? I suppose that might be a bit more palatable since you're going back to 3 careful study though, and the fourth Griselbrand is much better then too.

Also - why BEB in the board?

[phazonmutant]

CalebD feature match on camera round 6!

[Darkenslight]

CalebD feature match on camera round 6!

He just killed with hardcasting Emrakul.

[.dk]

Dang, missed it cause I was off playing Legacy at LGS today. Will definitely catch it in when SCG puts up the archives though.

[Megadeus]

I just bought a set of Shallow Graves today. They are sold out everywhere. And reserved list right? Great Job guys on making a great card spike in price!

[.dk]

Yeah, Shallow Grave is on the reserved list. I should have bought all of them last year for a dollar. ;)

[phazonmutant]

He just killed with hardcasting Emrakul.

That makes me think that there's actually no reason to have Tendrils in the maindeck. I never even considered looping the deck to hardcast Emrakul as possible before Glenn Jones asked me if I could in the deck tech.

So what are the pros/cons of that move?
Pros - we reduce the number of dead cards to draw. That would be fantastic
Cons - it's much more difficult to win if for some reason Emrakul is exiled. I could see this happening from discard + deathrite or a failed attempt to go off. We're more vulnerable to a Humility or Ensnaring Bridge maindeck. Chain of Vapor could potentially move to the main.

[.dk]

That makes me think that there's actually no reason to have Tendrils in the maindeck. I never even considered looping the deck to hardcast Emrakul as possible before Glenn Jones asked me if I could in the deck tech.

So what are the pros/cons of that move?
Pros - we reduce the number of dead cards to draw. That would be fantastic
Cons - it's much more difficult to win if for some reason Emrakul is exiled. I could see this happening from discard + deathrite or a failed attempt to go off. We're more vulnerable to a Humility or Ensnaring Bridge maindeck. Chain of Vapor could potentially move to the main.

I suppose you could, but I do in myself using mini tendrils as a draw spell to win from there. As well as combs step hate, as you said. Seems like its a reasonable slot to question, but tendrils does have a lot of things going for it. Maybe it's just win more though.

[Koby]

I beat RIP miracles by slow Tendrils. I had no chance to win outside of Kids beatdown otherwise.

Quick recap:
R1: Jund (0-2) flood game 1, whiff on g2 after attacking with GB. Stopped short at 10, drew no artifacts, then lost to Liliana + DRS.
R2: RUG (1-2) Turn 2 kill = draw 59 cards, G2 kept a land that needed to draw a land from Careful Study, and bricked, then lost to the subsequent Grafdigger's Cage, then G3 lost to a quick delver + free counters
R3: Jund (2-0) Turn 1 kill G1: Swamp, Ritual, Entomb, Shallow Grave, Petal, Kids = god hand?, then a Turn 3 kill G2 after my 2nd land got Hymn'd. (drew ritual on turn 3)
R4: MaskNaught monobllack (1-2) Won G1, then lost to Extirpates in G2/3, coupled with Hymn/Sinkhole/Discard/Grafdigger's Cage. Chain could not pull me out.
R5: RIP Miracles (2-0), Opp mull to 5 G1, Slow Tendrils G2.
R6: Dredge (2-0) G1 I Reanimate Ichorid thinking I could pop 3 Bridges. Turns out, it goes into his g/y, and I lose 4 life to give him 3 Zombie tokens. So I do the next more logical thing - draw my deck and win. :D G2 Turn 1 kill on the draw flawless victory, draw 54 cards.

Thought about the deck:
* Feels like it's cheating when you don't face disruption.
* GY hate is still really hard to beat - especially Surgical/Extirpate.
* Show & Tell would be advantageous against Grafdigger's Cage, RIP, and Surgical.

EE (for Needle, Cage, Relic/Crypt) would be a sweet SB addition to permanently answer the hate cards.

This is the list I played:

Maindeck:
Caleb Durward's maindeck +1 Intuition (for a total of 61)

Sideboard:
3 Mindbreak Trap (unused)
3 Pithing Needle
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Duress
1 Massacre
1 Deathmark

[phazonmutant]

I beat RIP miracles by slow Tendrils. I had no chance to win outside of Kids beatdown otherwise.
...
Thought about the deck:
* Feels like it's cheating when you don't face disruption.
* GY hate is still really hard to beat - especially Surgical/Extirpate.
* Show & Tell would be advantageous against Grafdigger's Cage, RIP, and Surgical.

EE (for Needle, Cage, Relic/Crypt) would be a sweet SB addition to permanently answer the hate cards.

Haha, yes, the RIP Miracles matchup is very very awkward. I've had to beat Alphastryk with the Tendrils into 1/1 beats too. That tendrils slot could potentially become a Chain of Vapor, but I don't think that's very useful. Just win before it comes online!

Agreed with all of the above points. So I guess the trick is finding a way to beat Surgical / Extirpate or figure out a transform that actually works and also beats extirpate effects. Maybe now that Deathrite is more popular so most hate exiles, it's time to try out Pull from Eternity again?

One attraction to splashing R would be Meltdown as a cheaper alternative to EE. I think the point of R is to dodge the hate though. Maybe a 5c build with rainbow lands is viable?

So that's a few different ideas for how to fix the problems. How has cutting Careful Study for Ponders felt? It doesn't quite make sense to me to both cut Ponder and run S&T in the board, but I can see how Caleb's board with all anti-hate would benefit from study.

edit:
I was looking back through the thread and realized the last time anyone had mentioned Pull From Eternity was the first page. The more I think about it, the more I like it.

edit 2:
If there's a solid reason to splash W, there's some good sideboard cards we get access to. Serenity is a good answer to chalice decks as well as being a reasonable anti-hate spell for some grave hate.

[mort-]

Thought about the deck:
* Feels like it's cheating when you don't face disruption.
* GY hate is still really hard to beat - especially Surgical/Extirpate.
* Show & Tell would be advantageous against Grafdigger's Cage, RIP, and Surgical.

Basicly, that's what I thought about following this thread. I am almost sold on this deck, but this "little" problem.. I don't like it. So, seeing the anti-hate sideboards, I'll have to ask if the slots for Mindbreak Trap and / or Surgical are really needed. I understand that both the Dredge and the Storm matchups shouldn't be some kind of dice-roll, but in terms of raw speed, this deck should be ahead and is also backed up by good disruption. So, why not leave those MUs as they are and strenghten the anti-hate against Surgical / Extirpate and Cage? Imho, the Pull from Eternity tech seems brilliant and I could see this kind of SB working:

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Deathmark
SB: 2 Massacre
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 4 Pull from Eternity

I think this could be supported by 4 Cities only, cutting 1 / 2 USea and 3 / 2 Fetchlands, seeing as this deck also has Petals. Of course, I'm far from being pro with this deck, but I think especially AD would help to kill pretty much everything hateable.

[Koby]

Gemstone Mine is a better land than City of Brass for this deck. I've rarely had more than 3 land in play.

[Cybey]

http://twitch.tv/scglive/b/368418943?t=3h25m

Featured match of Caleb against Sneak & Show.

[CalebD]

I ran BEB because I'm like 50% to face burn at any given open, and while it's a good matchup already having answers to stuff like Pyrostatic Pillar or even just killing a goblin guide makes the matchup go from favored to really winning, which is nice. Will probably go down to two in the future.


That makes me think that there's actually no reason to have Tendrils in the maindeck. I never even considered looping the deck to hardcast Emrakul as possible before Glenn Jones asked me if I could in the deck tech.

So what are the pros/cons of that move?
Pros - we reduce the number of dead cards to draw. That would be fantastic
Cons - it's much more difficult to win if for some reason Emrakul is exiled. I could see this happening from discard + deathrite or a failed attempt to go off. We're more vulnerable to a Humility or Ensnaring Bridge maindeck. Chain of Vapor could potentially move to the main.

I thought about this a lot on the weekend. I even had one game against storm combo where I boarded out Emrakul, my Tendrils got Duressed, and I just drew my deck, stripped his hand, and Reanimated my Griselbrand to have a 7/7 against my hellbent opponent at ten life, which was fine.

In testing, having both tendrils and emrakul was necessary a few times against piles of disruption (like RUG). I could see boarding the second win condition, though.

[Jules]

Hi,

i saw the featured match against Sneak & Show yesterday ans was quite impressed by the Deck.

Because i own almost every card for it im looking forward to play it on a tournament.
But i'm a little scared to do some newbie mistakes because i haven't played this kind of storm/reanimator hybrid in the past.

Are there general playguides for a beginner with this deck to avoid certain mistakes?

How do you board properly? Which cards do you board out?
How do you play around extirpate/surgical the best?

Thanks in advance for your help and answers

[alastair]

Having become disillusioned with the decks I typically choose, last week a fiend sent me a random list of cards that didn’t seam to make a deck. Soon after reading Channel Fireball’s article, the list made a little sense. Two testing sessions and I had the basics.

+/- Chanel Fireball’s list, with 1x Scrubland MD, for sideboard Chant. Details as I remember, not enough notes unfortunately.

Rnd 1 Omni-Show
Unfortunately Matt is very good, and knows my deck better than me. Matt’s forced to S&T GrisilB as he suspects I’m about to go off. I was, but as I also show GrislB, and have Shallow Grave for my turn. G2, I suspect Matt had a poor hand and its pretty straightforward swing, draw 21, Storm. Matt gave me tips all day long, really appreciated.
2-0

Rnd 2 Esper
Chris, I expected few mistakes as he really knows the deck. G1 was turn 2 through light disruption, double animate & swing, forcing use of Karakas, into a Storm win. G2 was tight. I knew he SB’d Surgical, so I focused on land drops & patience, but after two activations of Jace I knew I had run out of time. In response to a Stoneforge (or something), Entomb & Shallow Grave: primarily to bate a Counter, or Surgical. He paused, thought, and said resolves. I did the obvious thing and drew 14. My turn, 20 cards, storm was pretty simple at this point.
2-0

Rnd 3 Canadian Thresh
G1 is straightforward despite pressure from Delver & Mongoose, and a timely Daze hitting Children. G2 Therapy / Thoughseize are not enough to buy me time, but it’s my inability to avoid Stifles, and ultimately the Ooze that really shuts me down. G3 was a bad keep in hindsight, but the T2 Ooze and constant 2-3 available G finished the game long before I scooped.
1-2

Rnd 4 Loam
G1 Mark makes Scavenging Ooze Turn 1. I make GrisilB and Emrakul T1, the nuts hand. G2 he makes Chalice on 1 T1. I dismiss this as irrelevant with most reanimates costing 2. Which is fine until he points out that Children is countered. I’ve lost all filtering, Entomb, Children, Reanimate, and Ritual….. reanimate GrisilB on three consecutive turns drawing 7 each time. It worked, but was not pretty………… any better suggestions (I had not brought Chains in, as I opted for Needle instead).
2-0

Rnd 5 Zombardment
ID as there was no advantage to playing. I can’t see how this is a bad matchup unless they have a very disruption heavy opening seven; but I never found out and could have equally lost.

T8 Quarters – Painter
John, who suggested the deck in the first place, completely outplayed me in both games. Fighting Force, Coliseum, Spellbomb, and Grindstone was a nightmare. In both games I was put to 4-6 via Painter beats before he brought out the big guns of Trinket Mage for the killing blow. A shameful way to loose.
0-2

All in all a good deck, almost at the fun level of Solidarity, but with a good chance of winning.

I was counting on people not knowing my deck to steel a few games, but everyone knew the deck card for card. Even so, the deck won through, or had the ability to win. I need to practice SB against hate; but I struggled with the sideboard all day. Removing cards from the MD is difficult. I liked the Orim’s Chants, Chains of Vapours, and Echoing Truths; but everything else felt poor.

[Raystar]

Hello guys,

I hope you'll forgive my "noobish-ness" while I present you an elaboration of the deck based on an idea I captured on another thread and elaborated in the hope to solve the grave hate that we are actually facing.

The list I'm working upon is the following:

Main Deck:
--------

6 Swamp
2 Bayou
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs

3 Griselbrand
3 Putrid Imp
4 Necrotic Ooze
1 Phyrexian Devourer
1 Triskelion

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal

4 Buried Alive
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
4 Exhume
2 Reanimate

2 Hymn to Tourach
4 Thoughtseize


Sideboard:
---------------

4 Abrupt Decay
3 Carpet of Flowers
4 Ground Seal
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite


As you can see my kill mechanism is based on the Necrotic Ooze combo. That would make me very susceptible to GY hate G2...that's why I thought that by taking out the reanimates and the tourachs I could bring in the ground seals from the side solving every type of targeted GY hate.

In case we face RIP or artifact based hate I bring in abrupt decay and slow down the little bit needed to disrupt their strategy.

I haven't had much time with the deck to provide a detailed and fact-based analysis of the behaviour of the deck, but the little tests I made are comforting.

Do you think it could be a good approach towards making the deck more resilient to hate?

[Megadeus]

Ground seal is always an option bit then I think you are forced to run rainbow lands. And its slow. And its a nonbo with goryos vengeance. But you do get decay at that point...

[.dk]

Wow, lots of activity in the thread since yesterday. Thanks for the publicity Caleb. :)

In terms of some beginning guides and how to play the deck and such, Richard Cheese and I are working on a new primer for the deck now. Hopefully will be up within a couple days with some of the normal lines of play, how to play around some hate, and maybe some sample hands and such. Now that most of us have settled on a similar maindeck configuration an actual primer is feasible. Hopefully that will answer most of these questions.

Caleb - ok, BEB makes sense for that. If you really don't want to lose to Burn, then yeah. :)

Koby - EE seems like a very interesting addition to the board. One thing I was thinking about was just slowing down a fair bit in sideboarded games to make sure that we can answer hate. Also - same question as phazonmuant to both you and Caleb - how were the Careful Studies instead of Ponders?

Phazonmuant - 5 color could be viable utilizing Gemstome Mines like Koby mentioned. I'm personally not a huge fan of Pull from Eternity as I feel it is a bit specific, but maybe it is worth testing again in a version with rainbow lands. We don't make enough White in the current MD configuration to support it or Abeyance, IMO. If you're looking at white SB options - Abeyance seems like the best one to me as a better Silence/Chant effect. But then again, it does add a bunch of mana required to combo...

My thoughts moving forward - I think we either need a powerful transformation from the board that attacks from a completely different angle and dodges the kind of hate that will be brought in, or we need to slow down and have real answers to the hate that we can face. The problem with slowing down is that you become much more vulnerable to wasteland.

I've been thinking a bit lately about exploring a Green based sideboard to be able to utilize City of Solitude and Abupt Decay along some bounce, a Pithing Needle or 2, and Show and Tell. City feels like the effect that this deck wants the most, as it turns off opponent's countermagic as well as any of the activated or cast graveyard hate. Between that and Decay, it seems like you have the answers to pretty much everything you need (and doesn't turn off Goryo's Vengeance or Reanimate like Ground Seal) - the question is how do you construct a manabase to support it and how do you survive long enough with mana intact to be able to cast a 3 drop (City) and then combo off. Not sure if that's possible, but I'll certainly think about it. One advantage green has going for it is Elvish Spirit Guide - that at least can't be wastelanded, but does suck against Force of Will when you're casting City.

/edit

@Raystar - that looks a lot like a version that Drew Levin posted a while back on SCG when I was talking to him about this deck after GP Atlanta. I haven't played with Ooze combo, so I'm not sure I can talk intelligently about it - but at a glance that feels like it is even more graveyard dependent than the current lists. How has Putrid Imp felt as a discard outlet? Has the casting cost of Buried Alive proven prohibitive at all?

[catmint]

Interesting deck - I did not thought it would be good, but going to start looking at it.

My questions:
There is a great answer to surgical, which also deals with removal, countermagic and discard (anticipating it). Are chant effects md/sb not an option?

Also Leyline of Sanctity is great against opposing tendrils and discard based decks. Is there a certain reason why this is not an option?

To deal with Deathrite, RIP, Crypt, Relic, Counterbalance, Teeg, Ensnaring Bridge: Abrupt Decay comes to mind. Any reason this is not needed (at least caleb thinks so)?

Thanks

[Megadeus]

You could do something liek how TES does it:

4x Gemstone Mine
2x City of Brass
4x UFetch
2x Usea

Normally TES has volcanic but you obviously dont need it here. The issue is that BS/Ponder becomes a bit weaker with less fetches. Pros though are children become much easier to cast. Also postboard Abrupt decay under a Chrome Mox Gives you black to cast rituals and green to cast your city of solitude/other abrupt decays.

[Finntrinsic]

Greetings All,

So I got introduced to this deck the hard way by .dk at the day 2 side event of GP Denver. J. I'm the one that pulled you aside after the round and asked for the mini deck-tech. A few orders to my favorite internet card suppliers later, and now I get to threaten turn 1 foolishness. Like everyone else I love the deck more than breathing when playing anyone without counters/disruption. Also like everyone else I'm trying to come up with the right "answer" to game2/3 GY hate and such. Everyone has their own variation on the theme, this is mine:

4 G-Money
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Lotus Petal
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Preordain
4 Dark Ritual
4 Pact Of Negation
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Chrome Mox
2 Children or Korlis
1 Niv-Mizzet Firemind
1 Tendrils of Agony
Lands

My record with the deck is around 66%. The thing I am most pleased about is that I haven't yet "Whiffed" with the deck. Every time Grizzle hits the board I've won the same turn. Games I've lost have been to counterbalance decks that lock me out before I can combo, and other combo decks (hello S&T) that have nailed G's cage on turn 1 or 2.

So 2 questions:

Q1: Caleb I watched your feature match with the deck yesterday. Looks like you are running Emrakul main in addition to Grizzle. If that is the case, why did/do you opt to swing first and then draw cards? If you stick Grizzle, don't your chances for same turn kill improve if you draw 14 before combat? Gives you the opportunity to entomb Emrakul and fast re-animate him and swing for 22?

Q2: I don't know if (but I assume) this has happened to anyone else. Have you ever hard cast Grizzle due to opposing hate? I've had to do it a couple times now just wondered if anyone else has had that happen.

Loving the deck, searching for the "answer" to the hate.

-Finn

[Megadeus]

Ive seen Koby on stream hard cast grisels before.

[Koby]

I had no issues with Careful Study, but it does make you want to play 4 Griselbrand to take advantage of it more. I play Intuition too but that never mattered with the new update. It will be coming out back to 60 cards or replaced with the 4th Study.

Basic Island in this deck is a bit weak. Maybe we can swap that out along with 1-2 fetches for Gemstone Mine to make sure we always have B available. I lost a game in which I drew Island with all black spells in hand after a Wasteland.

[Holden1669]

Caleb - I had a question while watching your feature match yesterday. Both times you shallow graved Griselbrand you attacked with him right away and then started to draw cards in your second main phase. When I've played the deck online I tend to draw 14 (or however many I can) before the attack in case I can also attack with Emrakul and just end it on the attack step. Tendrils tends to be my backup plan, maybe because I'm lazy. But either way it seems to me that attacking first reduces the number of ways you can win this turn from 3 (Attack with Emrakul + Griselbrand, Tendrils, cast Emrakul to time walk) to 2. Do you have a reason for this line?

Thanks.

[Cacks]

@ .dk - thanks. V helpful, and much appreciated.

[phazonmutant]

Caleb - I had a question while watching your feature match yesterday. Both times you shallow graved Griselbrand you attacked with him right away and then started to draw cards in your second main phase. When I've played the deck online I tend to draw 14 (or however many I can) before the attack in case I can also attack with Emrakul and just end it on the attack step. Tendrils tends to be my backup plan, maybe because I'm lazy. But either way it seems to me that attacking first reduces the number of ways you can win this turn from 3 (Attack with Emrakul + Griselbrand, Tendrils, cast Emrakul to time walk) to 2. Do you have a reason for this line?

Thanks.

Can't answer for Caleb, but I've started to question why Tendrils is even in the deck. Your line makes sense.

Testing a 5c list with Silences and Pull from Eternity. Not impressed so far, but small sample size, etc.

[Holden1669]

Can't answer for Caleb, but I've started to question why Tendrils is even in the deck. Your line makes sense.

Testing a 5c list with Silences and Pull from Eternity. Not impressed so far, but small sample size, etc.

A couple of weeks ago I saw your deck tech and I immediately went to buy the last few cards for TinFins online. I had like 53 of the maindeck cards or something like that. I bought four Shallow Graves and three Goryo's Vengeance from a bot and started playing in Tournament Practice. I got through four matches before I realized that I had forgotten that your decklist had 61 cards and the missing card was... Tendrils! I had won all the matches.

So perhaps that is an indication that Tendrils shouldn't be in the deck but, honestly, I still like it there. I'm not sure if that's because it's fun or for some other, better, reason.

[Holden1669]

A couple of weeks ago I saw your deck tech and I immediately went to buy the last few cards for TinFins online. I had like 53 of the maindeck cards or something like that. I bought four Shallow Graves and three Goryo's Vengeance from a bot and started playing in Tournament Practice. I got through four matches before I realized that I had forgotten that your decklist had 61 cards and the missing card was... Tendrils! I had won all the matches.

So perhaps that is an indication that Tendrils shouldn't be in the deck but, honestly, I still like it there. I'm not sure if that's because it's fun or for some other, better, reason.

Though "It's fun to kill them with Emrakul in game one and Tendrils them with storm 30 game two" isn't the worst reason ever.

[Dela]

Call me crazy, but what about pull from eternity and serum powder? They make pseudo entombs 5-8 when combined with the opponents gy hate and serum powder. It keeps our starting hands REALLY explosive.

It might be worth cutting the Tendrils (as discussed) adding a chrome mox (synergy with pull from eternity) and subbing a U-Sea for a Scrubland.

Something like this:

4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
2 Children of Korlis
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
1 Ponder
2 Reanimate
4 Thoughtseize
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Sideboard:

3 Pact of Negation / Duress / Mindbreak Trap?
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Pithing Needle
4 Pull from Eternity
4 Serum Powder

[Dela]

Also, with the inclusion of Pull from Eternity, Exhume might just be better than reanimate.

[catmint]

I just read through the thread and did some goldfishing with Calebs list to get familiar with the deck.

Going off:
16% Turn 1
40% Turn 2
22% Turn 3
10% Turn 4
casting in average 0,68 Discard spells as protection before going off. I did not go all-in for speed or win% though: i.e: a couple of times casting discard first loosing a turn or also did not some keep hands with a turn 2 kill but loosing to a wasteland. It was pretty impressive i have to admit.

Biggest question I have before I start testing is: Since the life-total is such an important resource, speed probably still has a very high priority postboard. Therefore I suppose if you don't bring in show&tell (like calebs sideboard) you cannot side out any combo-pieces and only little acceleration right? For example against deathrite decks: Do you just swap some discard for needle/deathmark? Makes you more vulnerable to the other forms of disruption though. It feels lame to ask this, but some generic sideboard guides would be very helpful. :smile:

[.dk]

@koby - I think what you're saying makes sense. I haven't tested yet with 7 discard + careful study, but in that case maybe it does make more sense to run the 4th Griselbrand over Intuition. You have SO many ways to find and discard Griselbrand from your hand, maybe intuition isn't needed. And it's pretty damn slow anyway...

Also hear you on the basic Island - might want to be another USea, or as you mentioned switch to a few Gemstone Mines. That would certainly open up a lot of sideboard options.

@Dela - Serum Powder + Pull From Eternity sounds pretty hot, actually. I hadn't really thought about using Pull from Eternity like that, or along with Chrome Mox. Those are definitely good ideas that make Pull better - something to test for sure. I really like that, actually - might be one of the next non-transformational options I test.

@Holden - that's the same way I play the deck. I generally draw as much as is safe pre-combat to try to make an Emrakul too and swing for 22. That's generally my plan A - Tendrils and the other fun lines are if you don't quite get there. However, I don't think that cutting Tendrils is a good idea, personally. It opens up many lines of play and allows you to have a varied attack plan if for whatever reason you can't attack, they have karakas, their life total is above 22, etc. I suppose it might be win-more, but at minimum I think it should be in the sideboard. It's honestly just too good not to play.

@catmint - a while back I ran Silence/Chant in the sideboard and used them from time to time. However, since this deck doesn't run LED, a good counterspell suite would probably be better. Flusterstorm in particular would be my choice. Since you aren't going to dump your hand mid combo like TES would, Chant effects aren't really required pre-combo. Leyline is almost good... the problem is that you really need to board in 4 since you're never going to cast it. And in that case, what are you taking out to effectively only stop part of the hate that you care about? Abrupt Decay is good - however for most things not Chalice or Counterbalance, a Chain of Vapor will do the job just fine too. Probably depends on the meta - and again splashing green would require a large change to the manabase.

@Finn - Yep, totally remember you from GP Denver. :) I see you have Niv-Mizzet in your list - he's one of the cards we considered right after GP Atlanta. Personally, I think an Emrakul is generally superior in that slot, as he can wipe boards to deal with permanent based hate (leyline of sanctity, etc.), and his shuffle trigger is actually used to cycle your deck multiple times. But, if you're finding Niv-Mizzet to work, by all means! Also, I hardcast Griselbrand from time to time, but that's like Plan D usually, if there is just too much hate. We usually have a fairly tough time just drawing rituals and lands into 8 mana, so it can be rather difficult. For a time, we were running Cabal Ritual in the sideboard for that purpose alongside Show and Tell and Massacre Wurm to deal with Maverick's hatebears, but that isn't really much of an issue anymore.

[phazonmutant]

It feels lame to ask this, but some generic sideboard guides would be very helpful. :smile:

No, it's completely reasonable! It took a lot of playing with entirely different builds of the deck to figure out what playing with the numbers does to percentages.

I think the primer will have some of this information, but I'll go ahead and post my intuition for sideboarding. Numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.

Ok, so the cards I do not cut:
Brainstorm, Ponder (if you have it), 1-2 Cabal Therapy, 1-2 Thoughtseize, 2 Griselbrand, 1 Emrakul, Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, 13 of the lands.

These cards help you find the other cards, protect them, are essential to any non-ANT transform, or are your mana cards. There is an argument for shaving a Ponder if you want to be faster, but I don't like that. I've played the deck with as few as 13 lands and it works, but will have more inconsistent openers.


Cards I prefer not to cut:
Shallow Grave, Entomb, Intuition, Children of Korlis
These are the core combo pieces and I'd think twice before cutting them. Intuition is better than it looks, multiple Children help get you out of variance.


Cards I usually shave / cut:
0-2 Goryo's Vengeance, 1-2 Reanimate, 1-2 Chrome Mox, 1-2 Griselbrand, x Careful Study (if shaving Griselbrand), Tendrils.

Cutting the worst ins and outs (Reanimates, Careful Studies, rarely Goryo's Vengeance) makes your consistency some small percentage worse (5%? 10%?) to find in the first 2 turns, but you typically expect sideboard games to be grindier because they have cards that interact with you. That gives you more time to find the pieces because they're diluting their gameplan too.
Chrome Mox is almost always miserable to draw pre-combo. I think 1 Mox is sufficient to kill the turn you make Griselbrand >75% of the time (and you can almost always do a pass-the-turn kill).
I don't think the Tendrils is actually necessary in the vast majority of the matchups after playing without it some. Be prepared for 10 minute combo turns though.

You have to think about why the above cards are in the deck in the first place. They all make the deck faster by being extra pieces of an effect other cards do better. Reanimate especially kinda sucks, but is useful as additional ways to make Children.

Multiple copies of Griselbrand are in the deck for a few reasons (in order of importance):
1) so Intuition works as a 5th Entomb,
2) in case a copy gets RFG'd,
3) so you can discard yourself / Careful Study.
If you're expecting to have to use your discard on your opponent because they have a lot of relevant cards (U control), you can shave down to 2 Griselbrands because reason 3 just isn't going to come up unless things are already going your way.


So those are the cards I look to take out. I look to bring in about 2-4 relevant cards for the matchup g2 (because you won g1, right?). So far I've been happy with some combination of Chain of Vapor, Pithing Needle, and maybe Pull from Eternity as generic answers for non-prison decks. They all answer a variety of hate, and 1 Chain of Vapor isn't a bad idea to always bring in since you'll always find it if you need to. Adjust g3 as necessary.

Sideboarding reanimator decks is difficult and feels so loose - you're just shaving numbers semi-randomly and throwing in answers to your best guess of what the opponent has. Keep track of tournament results and look at what grave hate each deck tends to have.

[Richard Cheese]

Going to try to quickly address some of the recent comment flood...I know a lot of this has already been answered but I wrote this earlier today and the site timed out and I don't want to just let it go to waste.

On City of Solitude - it's an interesting idea, but if we're going to play that slow postboard, I think we should try seriously testing Abeyance or other Chant effects first, before we move towards a rainbow-land manabase for a couple sideboard cards. Pull From Eternity is cute, but relies on your opponent exiling something first, or I guess imprinting on a Chrome Mox...seems too conditional. If I've learned one thing from Children of Korlis though, it's never to write anything off without testing it.

One thing that none of these options really deals with though that's becoming increasingly popular is Rest In Peace. Abrupt Decay is a good option, but again a fairly gross mana requirement when we're already in the color of bounce.

I think the best reactive board is going to have a combination of bounce, Pithing Needle, some kind of chant effect, Show and Tell, and possibly a couple Cabal Rituals, which get much better when you anticipate a longer game.

On drawing before/after attacks - I'm of the opinion that it's correct to draw as many as you can pre-attacks. I could be wrong on this, but I agree that leaving the hasty Emrakul win open is probably best whenever possible.

On Leyline of Sanctity - It is really good at stopping discard, but to be effective you have to board in 3-4, and pulling cards from the main is hard enough as it is. I personally don't think discard is as much of a back-breaker for us as it is for Sneak/Show, since we have so many interchangeable pieces. Again, I don't want to discourage testing any idea, but it probably just isn't worth having 3 dead draws to insulate yourself from discard.

@Finntrinsic: Niv-Mizzet is pretty funny, but I really think you want it to be Emrakul. In addition to being another win condition, he's a great emergency reset button, and probably most importantly, his shuffle effect let's you chain Children/Grizzlebees activations to make infinite storm/mana/life

[phazonmutant]

Call me crazy, but what about pull from eternity and serum powder? They make pseudo entombs 5-8 when combined with the opponents gy hate and serum powder. It keeps our starting hands REALLY explosive.

This is the most fun belcher deck ever... I'm definitely going to be working on a list and playing it Wednesday. 4 Serum Powder, 4 Pull from Eternity main, HERE WE GOOOOOO. Expect a tournament report.

[catmint]

Thanks for all the tips and comments.

Can someone maybe also comment on the Show&Tell sideboard plan. I guess you can remove some graveyard combo and keep discard. But do you want to bring show&tell in against a deathrite deck? It seems that ~4 slots anti deathrite + 3-4 slots show&tell would delute the deck so much that it looses too much of it's natural protection/enabler (discard) and speed. I would rather go for anti deathrite hate and keep enough speed to "naturally" fight deathrite rather than show&tell. How Against UW variants which don't kill that fast I guess some speed can be sacrificed (i.e: -2 chrome mox & -2 engance, -1 cabal +3 show&tell & 2 chain of vapor (RIP).

My questions to the people thinking Serum Powder and Pull from eternety is a good SB plan. If this really works shouldn't it be maindeck? What is the advantage of bringing this in over anti-hate or show&tell.

[ZimAshe]

this may be a dumb question and also may have been addressed already but has anyone thought of Mox Diamond over Chrome Mox?
In goldfishing the deck I've noticed that sometimes there is an excess of land in the cards that you draw off Griselbrand. Diamond could also help with the need for white mana in the deck and not having to rely solely on petals. just a thought. I am looking forward to running this deck on sunday at our Legacy event!

@Phazomuant: looking forward to your report

[Darkenslight]

To potentially answer DRS, how about Permafrost Trap? The only other 'relevant' card is Dream Tides, which is far too expensive, in my opinion. Permafrost comes down potentially on Turn 1 (but it's far more relevant on the play, and is very meta-dependent.)

[catmint]

If we already run Pithing Needle and Deathmark as answers which are not maxed out in possible numbers - why run the trap over these options? both cards deal with a bunch of other stuff as well (crypt, relic, belcher, sneak attack - Thalia, Canonist, Meddling Mage). Trap is more conditional, less effective and not versatile at all. Beeing strictly worse is term that you can not use often but here it might apply. :)

[Finntrinsic]

@Finntrinsic: Niv-Mizzet is pretty funny, but I really think you want it to be Emrakul. In addition to being another win condition, he's a great emergency reset button, and probably most importantly, his shuffle effect let's you chain Children/Grizzlebees activations to make infinite storm/mana/life

Mr. Firemind is usually only around for game1. I have an Emrakul in my board. My thinking was this:

Assume you make your combo and have a Hasty Grizzle with enough life to draw 14 before combat.

Scenario A: In that 14 you hit the mana and spells to bin/reanimate another creature. If its Emrakul you swing for 22 gg. If its Niv you swing for 11 Draw 7 and (assuming 18 isn't enough to kill them) they're dead to a brainstorm.

Scenario B: In that 14 you "Whiff" on another bin/reanimate. You swing for 7. You draw another 7. Hopefully in that 21 you have now hit mana+Children to reset and draw. Or mana + tendrils to finish. If its tendrils great GG. If it children now you reset draw 7, etc etc.

In Scenario B, without Niv-Mizzet all a post combat bin/reanimate gets you is a GY reset or more card draw. With Niv-Mizzet in the deck any time you get a second bin/reanimate you have the potential to threaten lethal damage.

For game 1 it seems just a touch more consistent (to me anyway).

-Finn

[Richard Cheese]

@Finntrinsic: Niv-Mizzet is pretty funny, but I really think you want it to be Emrakul. In addition to being another win condition, he's a great emergency reset button, and probably most importantly, his shuffle effect let's you chain Children/Grizzlebees activations to make infinite storm/mana/life

Mr. Firemind is usually only around for game1. I have an Emrakul in my board. My thinking was this:

Assume you make your combo and have a Hasty Grizzle with enough life to draw 14 before combat.

Scenario A: In that 14 you hit the mana and spells to bin/reanimate another creature. If its Emrakul you swing for 22 gg. If its Niv you swing for 11 Draw 7 and (assuming 18 isn't enough to kill them) they're dead to a brainstorm.

Scenario B: In that 14 you "Whiff" on another bin/reanimate. You swing for 7. You draw another 7. Hopefully in that 21 you have now hit mana+Children to reset and draw. Or mana + tendrils to finish. If its tendrils great GG. If it children now you reset draw 7, etc etc.

In Scenario B, without Niv-Mizzet all a post combat bin/reanimate gets you is a GY reset or more card draw. With Niv-Mizzet in the deck any time you get a second bin/reanimate you have the potential to threaten lethal damage.

For game 1 it seems just a touch more consistent (to me anyway).

-Finn

That's really the argument for having Tendrils main. You are pretty much guaranteed 7 more cards post-combat, which can often be the difference between passing the turn and winning.

@Darkenslight - Why run something conditional like permafrost when you could just run bounce for the same cost, or Deathmark, which is potentially better given the fact that we generally have more black mana than anything?

[Koby]

Submerge over Deathmark over Trap cards IMO, unless you're fighting vs Teeg. This deck doesnt care about Teeg unless youre winning with Tendrils anyway.

[.dk]

Submerge over Deathmark over Trap cards IMO, unless you're fighting vs Teeg. This deck doesnt care about Teeg unless youre winning with Tendrils anyway.

Submerge is a good idea - nice. We don't care about Teeg or Leyline of Sanctity at all - just use Emrakul and Griselbrand beats to win instead. That's exactly why we have 2 very different win cons to be able to get around random things like that.

/edit

@ZimAshe

I ran a singleton Mox Diamond at GP Denver for that reason. It was fine - great in some circumstances and terrible in others. One thing to keep in mind is that post drawing with Griselbrand, not only do you have a bunch of extra lands, you have a bunch of extra cards in general to imprint on Chrome Mox. Diamond looks somewhat attractive in a 5c build though - maybe a 1/1 split of Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond.

[Koby]

RE: Mox Diamond vs Chrome Mox
Both are great in the situation where you have a fist full of cards. I think we should consider which is better in the case that we haven't gone off yet.
In this deck with 13-14 lands, Chrome Mox has a better chance of providing mana than Mox Diamond. In the situations in which the deck is short on mana makes Chrome Mox a better fit.

[Megadeus]

Diamond, much like Chrome Mox is only good post Grisel draw. Id say that Diamond is better post draw, but opener wise, I think Chrome Mox is a little bit better. With 12-13 lands There will be many hands that you draw Mox Diamond and dont have an extra land to pitch :/

[novatinhu]

Anyone have tested Defense Grid and Unmask in SB to combat counter decks and surgical SB's?

[Koby]

Anyone have tested Defense Grid and Unmask in SB to combat counter decks and surgical SB's?

Why Unmask, if we can just cast Duress / Thoughtseize / Cabal Therapy?
Defense Grid is fine however, but discard does the job just as well and costs less mana.

[novatinhu]

Why Unmask, if we can just cast Duress / Thoughtseize / Cabal Therapy?
Defense Grid is fine however, but discard does the job just as well and costs less mana.

Unmask is nice becouse you can cast it for "free", for example, you can discard and combo off with a hand:

1 Unmask + 1 black card (Shallow, reanimate, goryo, therapy...) + 1 lotus or land + 1 dark ritual + 1 Shallow or Goryo's + 1 Entomb + 1 other card different than: Lotus, land and ritual.


And I agree with you that discard is better, but i want to hear from better players than me about Defense grid.:wink:

Thanks

[catmint]

Defense Grid is good in sneak and show where you are slower casting cantrips and using sol-lands. Countermagic can be handled well with discard & redundancy + most of the times if you have to board against countermagic you also have to board against permanent hate... and permanent hate is usually more important and imo gets the nod over anti counter cards.

Speaking of permanent hate. Submerge sounds nice, but it is too conditional for me. I know from playing tons of (and vs.) RUG, BUG, Jund that deathrite can sit there cast from a swamp and once they know you play submerge that is even more likely. Having Island is often also less important than having a swamp. Another argument is random stuff like Death and Taxes with a thalia/canonits - they won't bring a lot of forests. To me that 1 mana is worth it.

on a different topic:
Calebs version runs 4 Brainstorm and 1 Ponder. The way I feel the deck works the "sick value" of brainstorm "renewing a hand" with a fetchland is less likely to happen than with a slightly slower combo deck. I don't think you can keep a hand full of cantrips without any gas - and the deck mulligans well making it easy to keep something where only 1 piece is missing with a cantrip in hand. I don't think running a lot more cantrips is good for the mentioned reason of speed, but there were situations where I wished my brainstorm was Ponder because I was missing the shuffle effect. Any thoughts if something odd like 3 BS, 2 Ponder or the other way round could be correct?

[.dk]

Defense Grid is good in sneak and show where you are slower casting cantrips and using sol-lands. Countermagic can be handled well with discard & redundancy + most of the times if you have to board against countermagic you also have to board against permanent hate... and permanent hate is usually more important and imo gets the nod over anti counter cards.

Speaking of permanent hate. Submerge sounds nice, but it is too conditional for me. I know from playing tons of (and vs.) RUG, BUG, Jund that deathrite can sit there cast from a swamp and once they know you play submerge that is even more likely. Having Island is often also less important than having a swamp. Another argument is random stuff like Death and Taxes with a thalia/canonits - they won't bring a lot of forests. To me that 1 mana is worth it.

on a different topic:
Calebs version runs 4 Brainstorm and 1 Ponder. The way I feel the deck works the "sick value" of brainstorm "renewing a hand" with a fetchland is less likely to happen than with a slightly slower combo deck. I don't think you can keep a hand full of cantrips without any gas - and the deck mulligans well making it easy to keep something where only 1 piece is missing with a cantrip in hand. I don't think running a lot more cantrips is good for the mentioned reason of speed, but there were situations where I wished my brainstorm was Ponder because I was missing the shuffle effect. Any thoughts if something odd like 3 BS, 2 Ponder or the other way round could be correct?

Since we're running a lot of fetches (currently), I don't see how you can't run 4 BS. I get where Caleb was going by cutting Ponders for Careful Studies - Careful Study doesn't cantrip, but it does filter and acts as a combo piece. Worst cast, you get a "shuffle effect" in that you can bin your top 2 cards to see a fresh one on top. I haven't played that version yet, but seems like a very reasonable swap to me. I could also see a 2/2 split of Ponder and Study since we really only have 5 good targets (assuming that you're running the full 4 Griselbrand) to bin off of Study.

I also don't think Defense Grid does enough work - we're already pretty decent against counterspells - Force of Will in particular - due to so much discard and redundancy. Grave hate is where we have our problems - specifically Rest in Peace, Surgical, and Extirpate. That was actually the reason I originally thought of City of Solitude since it deals with almost all grave hate and has added value against countermagic. But as a few people have mentioned, it's likely too slow to actually be good.

I'll likely be testing a couple different sideboard configurations this week (Green splash and some kind of Serum Powder/Pull from Eternity/Abeyance/Chant thing) - finally get some cycles in with the deck for the first time since GP Denver. :o

[phazonmutant]

Defense Grid is good in sneak and show where you are slower casting cantrips and using sol-lands. Countermagic can be handled well with discard & redundancy + most of the times if you have to board against countermagic you also have to board against permanent hate... and permanent hate is usually more important and imo gets the nod over anti counter cards.

Speaking of permanent hate. Submerge sounds nice, but it is too conditional for me. I know from playing tons of (and vs.) RUG, BUG, Jund that deathrite can sit there cast from a swamp and once they know you play submerge that is even more likely. Having Island is often also less important than having a swamp. Another argument is random stuff like Death and Taxes with a thalia/canonits - they won't bring a lot of forests. To me that 1 mana is worth it.

on a different topic:
Calebs version runs 4 Brainstorm and 1 Ponder. The way I feel the deck works the "sick value" of brainstorm "renewing a hand" with a fetchland is less likely to happen than with a slightly slower combo deck. I don't think you can keep a hand full of cantrips without any gas - and the deck mulligans well making it easy to keep something where only 1 piece is missing with a cantrip in hand. I don't think running a lot more cantrips is good for the mentioned reason of speed, but there were situations where I wished my brainstorm was Ponder because I was missing the shuffle effect. Any thoughts if something odd like 3 BS, 2 Ponder or the other way round could be correct?

Agreed that Submerge cannot be the correct card there. Free options I would play far before that are Massacre (since all the hate-bears are white implying Plains) or Slaughter Pact if I'm not worried about Mom.

I will never play a combo deck without Brainstorm. There's just too many dead pieces to draw and a lot of time Brainstorm is Ancestral because you're actually just killing them before you would draw those cards. Also there's a reason I prefer to play 9 fetches if possible (and Entomb is another shuffle that you can do on upkeep). That being said, I still prefer Ponder. I've played like 15 tournament rounds with Careful Study and I can remember discarding Griselbrand with it about twice. Because this deck is so much more constrained on deck space than normal reanimator, we can't necessarily afford to run dedicated backup ins in the form of Careful Study (and we have fewer creatures), so our ins have to serve double duty as disruption.

[Richard Cheese]

In all fairness, if they aren't playing their green sources to avoid Submerge, then they're cutting off the Deathrite ability we actually care about, unless they have two active. Still don't think Submerge is the best option though.

Also, Ponder > Careful Study. CS is really good at what it does, but it's mostly been replaced by having 7 discard effects that can self-target. I still mess around with a UB version that runs CS, but only because I've cut Tendrils in that list, so getting Emrakul in the yard is paramount.

[alphastryk]

In all fairness, if they aren't playing their green sources to avoid Submerge, then they're cutting off the Deathrite ability we actually care about, unless they have two active. Still don't think Submerge is the best option though.

Not really, they can just leave a fetch up and not have to worry about it, and some decks have non-forest green sources (Grove of the Burnwillows comes to mind). I definitely would not want to be on Submerge.

[Bobmans]

Nice to see this deck getting a lot of attention. I't might even end up in DTB section.

I've played with 6 discard effects and 1 intuition. Still it felt not enough ins. So next tournament i will try 4 CS instead of Ponder. Also 4 griselbrand. A 4th Goryo and 2 reanimate next to 4 therapy, 2 thoughtseize and 1 intuition.

Seems like a bit overkill but i was missing ins in quite a few games. More mulligans perhaps.

Love beating the crap out Jund... just as a sidenote.

[phazonmutant]

Nice to see this deck getting a lot of attention. I't might even end up in DTB section.

I've played with 6 discard effects and 1 intuition. Still it felt not enough ins. So next tournament i will try 4 CS instead of Ponder. Also 4 griselbrand. A 4th Goryo and 2 reanimate next to 4 therapy, 2 thoughtseize and 1 intuition.

Seems like a bit overkill but i was missing ins in quite a few games. More mulligans perhaps.

Love beating the crap out Jund... just as a sidenote.

I went 1-3 postboard against Brian playing Jund and he wasn't even boarding correctly the first 2 games! I think that matchup may be tougher than you think against a good player. My draws weren't the best ever, but I think it was reasonably representative.

[alphastryk]

I went 1-3 postboard against Brian playing Jund and he wasn't even boarding correctly the first 2 games! I think that matchup may be tougher than you think against a good player. My draws weren't the best ever, but I think it was reasonably representative.

Agreed. I think a lot of the scarier games two and three are against the decks with no combo hate main, as they tend to overload in the board and TinFins gets hit by hate for storm, graveyards, even red blasts to some extent.

[Koby]

Tendrils has to stay. Won't play a version without it.

[Jules]

On drawing before/after attacks - I'm of the opinion that it's correct to draw as many as you can pre-attacks. I could be wrong on this, but I agree that leaving the hasty Emrakul win open is probably best whenever possible.





That's really the argument for having Tendrils main. You are pretty much guaranteed 7 more cards post-combat, which can often be the difference between passing the turn and winning.




I don't really get it. If i play Griselbrand i draw pre-combat 14 cards and look at them. At this point i see if i can kill by tendrils/emrakul. If i'm not, i attack to draw another 7.
Why would you attack with griselbrand right away?

Another thing: Game 1 on the play (don't know what my opponent plays), when you got Ritual/Entomb/shallow grave and perhaps a Seize. Do you go everytime for the Turn 1 reanimation or do you play safe and play t1 seize t2 grisel?

Thanks for your help.

[catmint]

Another thing: Game 1 on the play (don't know what my opponent plays), when you got Ritual/Entomb/shallow grave and perhaps a Seize. Do you go everytime for the Turn 1 reanimation or do you play safe and play t1 seize t2 grisel?

Thanks for your help.

Against unknown on the play I would seize first, since you gain a lot of information for g2 altough I think and the scenarios where it sucks is if they have multiple disruption spells, topdeck or run brainstorm into disruption. This might be even a bit more likely than having a random opponent with a FoW in hand, but it sucks going into g2 on the draw not knowing what you are up against whereas your opponent has perfect information.

Edit: Different question
Transformational plans have been discussed already. To me transforming into a creature deck would have this surprising factor making the opponents hand of spell pierces, surgicals and what not really bad.
15 slots could include Delver, Dark Confidant, and some number of Illusory Angel (!),serendib efreet and maybe a couple of removal spells.

Based on calebs build you could board –7 instant reanimation, -3 Emrakul & Chrildren, -1 Tendrils, -2 Entomb, -2 Griselbrand, leaving in 2 Entomb, 2 Reanimate, 2 Griselbrand, the acceleration and careful study as suboptimal spells. This “crap” could have some corner-case utility (entomb-reanimate, chrome-mox imprint, cast Griselbrand, reanimate some dead dude you discarded from opponent or flashback cabal therapy and reanimate your dude again), but the idea would be to mitigate the disadvantage of a bad creature deck by totally surprising the opponent with something explosive i.e.: ritual into thoughtseize & confidant followed up by 1-2 flyers. Also brings up some funny mindgames in case a g3 happens. 

Did anyone test something like that?

[.dk]

I think Koby's match 4 game 3 last night made a damn good case as to why we want tendrils as a win-con I've just Emrakul. Was an awesome game and match, actually - would recommend people watching it to see how the deck can play through hate - Relic in this case.

@catmint - Richard Cheese and I had discussed a man plan a long long time ago, but never got around to testing it. I was thinking something like T1 - swamp, petal, ritual -> phyrexian obliterator. A fliers plan could work fine as well - illusory angel seems pretty cool. Would be interested to see some testing results with a man plan since most decks will have boarded out their decays and other removal.

[Grave]

Hello everyone, I'm quite impressed about this deck, seems very solid and fun to play with. So here is my contribution:

1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Children of Korlis
4 Griselbrand

1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea

2 Chrome Mox

3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Lotus Petal

3 Pact Of Negation
4 Shallow Grave
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb

1 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Reanimate
3 Careful Study
4 Thoughtseize

I have replaced the Cabal Therapy for Careful Study, since most of time we will use for our-self discard process and we have no guarantee the discard of our opponents hand and we will not use the flashback ability most of times, also, Careful Study will help us digging into the library and draw 2 extra cards, so 3 Ponder was replaced too with the same card. This changes release 3 slots for some defensive cards like Pact of Negation. We always need all the mana sources possible, and since we will probably win the game in the same turn that Griselbrand hits the game, Negation Pact seems quite good as a preventive card. We can always discard/shuffle/imprint it if we don't need it, but it will give as a little protection for no-cost, neither mana or cards.

Congratulations for all the deck developers!

[Richard Cheese]

@Catmint - I definitely think the man-plan still deserves testing at this point, and Illusory/Serendib sound pretty saucy. Originally I was mainly looking at Delvers and Tombstalkers when I ran Careful Study. really I think EVERY sideboard strategy still needs extensive testing, and that we should probably start tracking results somewhere. I have an old Google docs spreadsheet I was using early in development, maybe I'll break that out again and make it public. It may be that there are several viable options, and we can change them up as the meta adapts.

@Jules - I think we're making the same point about drawing as many cards as possible before attacking. If they don't have something like Maze/Karakas/Bridge in play, there's really no reason to pass on the potential Emrakul win if you're presented with it. Gives you a lot more time to eat between rounds.

@Grave - I'm not really convinced that Pact is where we want to be over Ponder, but let us know how it goes. One thing I would definitely change though is dropping a couple Underground Seas for Scrubland/Tundra.

[ZimAshe]

yes the sideboard is where i am having the most difficulty.
I've just been goldfishing the deck in my apt and am hoping to bring this to a Legacy even this weekend and play against some decks for real.

this is the list i will be running:

Creatures:

1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
2 Children of Korlis

Spells:

2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
2 Reanimate
4 shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Tendrils of Agony

Lands:

1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh flats


my first thought was to go anti hate and expected matchups
I know I'll be facing Goblins, 12 Post, Dredge, BUG Control, Jund, and RUG Delver. all of which i should have a very good game 1 agaisnt.

possible sideboard:

3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Duress
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Pithing Needle
3 Disfigure
1 Dismember


but then i've been toying around with the idea of making a Laboratory Maniac sideboard as alt win condition. it gets used a lot in Vintage in Doomsday Decks.

[.dk]

yes the sideboard is where i am having the most difficulty.
I've just been goldfishing the deck in my apt and am hoping to bring this to a Legacy even this weekend and play against some decks for real.

this is the list i will be running:

Creatures:

1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
2 Children of Korlis

Spells:

2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
2 Reanimate
4 shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Tendrils of Agony

Lands:

1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh flats


my first thought was to go anti hate and expected matchups
I know I'll be facing Goblins, 12 Post, Dredge, BUG Control, Jund, and RUG Delver. all of which i should have a very good game 1 agaisnt.

possible sideboard:

3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Duress
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Pithing Needle
3 Disfigure
1 Dismember


but then i've been toying around with the idea of making a Laboratory Maniac sideboard as alt win condition. it gets used a lot in Vintage in Doomsday Decks.


Doesn't look like there is a lot of Blue in your meta, so Careful Study over discard spells seems good. I would probably run Thoughtseize over Duress in the sideboard, since you can use it as a combo piece as well as disruption when playing against BUG or RUG.

I'm unsure what you're BEB-ing - that card seems a little out of place. Why Disfigure over Deathmark? I see that you're not expecting Knight of the Reliquary, but you can still nab a big Goyf putting pressure on you with Deathmark. Also might consider another Pithing Needle since it looks like it can have good uses in almost all of those matches except RUG.

I'm personally not a huge fan of Lab Maniac in the board as it doesn't really fix any of your problems from Game 1 (unless you're referring to boarding into DD/Maniac - in which case I think there are too many sideboard cards to make it viable).

[catmint]

Played a bit with the man plan and my first conclusions are:
- the explosive starts like T1/2 multiple discard & creatures seem to be frequent enough to make it worth considering
- white decks will leave swords in, so 12 creatures would be minimum.
- it sucks to topdeck illusory angel having to wait for a spell, so its a bit swingy. Maxing out efreet might be better.
- There are decks where you are not sure the man-plan gets there but they still might pack ugly disruption which you then cannot answer. This and the right way to go will only be evaluated by testing I guess.

Still not sure if 3 spots for removal are necessary. SFM - Batterskull can be handled with discard and to make sure confidant can attack the 3 spots are way too little. So having confidant just as a fragile draw engine might not be worth it. So dropping confidant enables Tombstalker which should be easy to support.

I did not play against Jund so far - certainly a deck where you want to go for the man-plan. I suspect they side out liliana since it would enable our combo leaving them cold to Obliterator. They will probably side out decay, liliana and bloodbraid before any burn (since damage matters) making confidant or any creature without shroud and toughness smaller than 2/3 a weaker choice.

Problem I have with obliterator is that
- I want a basic island
- Even without a basic island BBBB without dark ritual does not seem realistic given you want to discard your lands to careful study.

Considering decay is sided out bitterblossom might be an option. Pretty slow but synergies with cabal thereapy and jumping in race situations pretty well. Probably just...slow...

Going all flyers maybe something like:
4 Delver
4 Serendib Efreet
3 Tombstalker
4 flex like: Hypnotic Specter, Bitterblossom, Vendilion Clique, Vampire Nighthawk or funny stuff like Shadowmage InfiltratorTidehollow Strix and of course phyrexian negator if you feel lucky. :smile:

I have limited time so hope others with more experience start testing this idea as well.

[Jules]

One thing I would definitely change though is dropping a couple Underground Seas for Scrubland/Tundra.


Tundra or Scrubland for Children of Korlis? Most of the time i already played a land in my "combo-turn" before casting grisel.

[Grave]

@Grave - I'm not really convinced that Pact is where we want to be over Ponder, but let us know how it goes. One thing I would definitely change though is dropping a couple Underground Seas for Scrubland/Tundra.

Hello Richard, I don't mean to change Pact over Ponder, Pact was primary changed for Cabal Therapy and Careful Study over Ponder. And as far as I see goes quite well since Careful opens gates to discard Griselbrand.

Thanks for the hint for the Useas, I was planing change 1 Usea for 1 Scrubland ;)

[ZimAshe]

Doesn't look like there is a lot of Blue in your meta, so Careful Study over discard spells seems good. I would probably run Thoughtseize over Duress in the sideboard, since you can use it as a combo piece as well as disruption when playing against BUG or RUG.

I'm unsure what you're BEB-ing - that card seems a little out of place. Why Disfigure over Deathmark? I see that you're not expecting Knight of the Reliquary, but you can still nab a big Goyf putting pressure on you with Deathmark. Also might consider another Pithing Needle since it looks like it can have good uses in almost all of those matches except RUG.

I'm personally not a huge fan of Lab Maniac in the board as it doesn't really fix any of your problems from Game 1 (unless you're referring to boarding into DD/Maniac - in which case I think there are too many sideboard cards to make it viable).

unfortunately I don't have access to Thoughtseize :frown: I would if i did though.
I figured BEB would be a good answer to Goblins and Burn if it shows up. My friend will probably show ups with some brew. he can't help but jam jace and FoW into EVERY deck he builds lol.

I was thinking the same thing about the DD side board. i thought it would be neat but realized that it would take too many slots.
Disfigure was for the turn 1 DRS. i was also thinking about Silence or Abeynce in the board.

[.dk]

unfortunately I don't have access to Thoughtseize :frown: I would if i did though.
I figured BEB would be a good answer to Goblins and Burn if it shows up. My friend will probably show ups with some brew. he can't help but jam jace and FoW into EVERY deck he builds lol.

I was thinking the same thing about the DD side board. i thought it would be neat but realized that it would take too many slots.
Disfigure was for the turn 1 DRS. i was also thinking about Silence or Abeynce in the board.

You might actually want to run some other Discard spell then that can act as a combo piece. Raven's Crime comes to mind.

In goblins - the only cards you care about are the grave hate, if they are splashing white for Thalia, or the random Earwig Squad. Don't think BEB is worth it here. Would rather board in bounce.

Burn - sure, if (like Caleb) you want to make sure you don't lose the match. I've had a bit of trouble in the past, but it isn't that bad of a matchup.

Deathmark can also take care of DRS and I think has some more utility otherwise for larger green or white creatures. For instance, Linvala, which is a pretty big issue.

I've tried both Silence and Abeyance too - Silence just seemed worse than Counterspells to me. And while Abeyance's effect is very awesome - it always seemed like adding 1W to your combo turn was a little oppressive. If you're planning on slowing down post board though, it may be an option. Always wanted it to work - just couldn't figure out how, I guess. Hope you can!

[Richard Cheese]

Tundra or Scrubland for Children of Korlis? Most of the time i already played a land in my "combo-turn" before casting grisel.

But sometimes you haven't made a drop yet. There are also situations where you just want to cast Children. Against other storm decks they basically beat Tendrils, or can fog for a turn against aggressive decks. There's also the dreaded Children beatdown.

@ZimAshe - I think Careful Study is probably a reasonable Thoughtseize stand-in. You could also run Funeral Charm, which can self-target, is an instant, and has the added bonus of occasionally being able to double as removal. The problem with Charm and Raven's Crime though is how bad they at actually being discard spells when you need them to, so I'd almost just stick with Careful Study since it digs harder and is a pseudo-shuffle effect after a Brainstorm.

[.dk]

But sometimes you haven't made a drop yet. There are also situations where you just want to cast Children. Against other storm decks they basically beat Tendrils, or can fog for a turn against aggressive decks. There's also the dreaded Children beatdown.

@ZimAshe - I think Careful Study is probably a reasonable Thoughtseize stand-in. You could also run Funeral Charm, which can self-target, is an instant, and has the added bonus of occasionally being able to double as removal. The problem with Charm and Raven's Crime though is how bad they at actually being discard spells when you need them to, so I'd almost just stick with Careful Study since it digs harder and is a pseudo-shuffle effect after a Brainstorm.

I was referring to replacing duress in the board but that may be wrong too. Duress may be just fine. You're right that the other options are pretty crappy as actual disruption so... yeah, duress is prolly fine if that is what you're looking for.

[Jules]

Hi,

i have questions regarding sideboarding.

How do you board g2 / g3 against decks, where you can expect that they play extirpate/surgical?

The Decks im refering to are RUG/Jund/Esperblade....

My sideboard atm:

2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth (i have no third chain)
3 Pithing Needle
1 Duress
2 Deathmark
3 Surgical Extraction
3 ? flex......

i'm thinking of adding 3 Pull from Eternity and board it against the mentioned decks above?

My Mainboard ist more or lesse Calebs list....

[.dk]

You could try Pull - would recommend changing your maindeck land configuration around a bit if you do though, to make sure that you have W available.

4 other options that I see:

You could run Show and Tell instead of reanimation.

You could get a hand with double reanimation and enough mana to cast it in response to Surgical.

You could run counterspells out of your sideboard.

You could run Silence/Chant and cast that before binning Griselbrand.

In general both Surgical and Extirpate are big problems for this deck. Probably the biggest problems, actually. You can at least bounce a Leyline or Rest in Peace and then combo off from there on the same turn. if Surgical resolves on Griselbrand, you're in trouble. That was one of the original reasons for a transformation as there were so many Snapcaster + Surgical decks out there.

[Hammunition]

First things first: the name:
Grislebrand = Grizzlebees = TinFins. If you don't get it, I can't help you.

I'm sure you can give us more than that.

Please? :cry:



Also, have you guys noticed the prices on Shallow Graves? The last ebay listing closed at $45 for a playset, and the only set available now is at $100 for the four. That deserves a pat on the back.

Goryo's Vengeance is starting to pick up as well (you can find them for around $3 each, but a few months ago they were $1 to 2), so if anybody that hasn't gotten them, you probably want to get on that soon.

[phazonmutant]

Well, not much of a tournament report. I brewed up a Pull from Eternity + Serum Powder list for the local tournament last night.
4 Serum Powder
3 Pull from Eternity
4 Entomb
3 Careful Study
4 Brainstorm
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtsezie
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Children of Korlis
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland

// Sideboard
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Silence
2 Massacre
3 Show and Tell
2 Pithing Needle
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Unmask

I think the list is sweet, but not better than regular TinFins. Some of the openers are hilarious with Serum Powder, but it's not really doing anything consistently good.
Round 1 - Played against unsleeved commons.deck. T1'd him both games without any Serum Powder shenanigans.
Round 2 (nedleeds) - RW Vial Humans - I got him good g1, but then Canonist and poor draws beat me down g2/3. We both mulled to 4 g3, drew, and mulled to 7 and I kept an unkeepable hand without having seen Serum Powder yet this tournament.
Round 3 - Aggro Loam - He's on the play an t2s Chalice on 0, Chalice on 1. I respond with Entomb and swing for 7, then discard a Griselbrand, but he untaps into Ooze. Filthy. G2 he boards in 13 cards and I have no chance of winning.

Saw Serum Powder once, on turn 4 against aggro loam. Pretty salty about that. Some other directions to take it are to cut U and just play Spoils of the Vault (isn't that just adorable?).


I'm currently testing an actual list that might be good.
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
2 Children of Korlis
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
2 Silence
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
1 Reanimate
2 Ponder
2 Careful Study
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
1 Exhume
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Scrubland
1 Bayou
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea

// Sideboard
1 Pithing Needle
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Pull From Eternity
1 Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Massacre
2 Thougtseize

It's still unrefined - 61 cards maindeck, testing the Ponder / Study split. So far it's been working very well though. Silence is an utter pounding for most decks we're slightly soft to g1 (the permission decks), and Abrupt Decay is a versatile answer to prison pieces as well as CB and RiP. Pull from Eternity finally gives us a reasonable answer to Extirpate effects, which is very valuable (and Exhume maximizes that effect).
The manabase is reasonably stable, not sure how bad wasteland is for it though. Hasn't been a problem so far.
The biggest problem is that I have no idea how to board in different matchups, especially ones that present a variety of hate. More testing will help. So far though, this list seems to have by far the best sideboard. It loses some percent in the manabase, but hopefully gains it in versatile answers.

[alphastryk]

Some other directions to take it are to cut U and just play Spoils of the Vault (isn't that just adorable?).

I have a tentative list for this plan. Warning - this deck is super inconsistent, but very fun:



4 Serum Powder
4 Entomb
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
4 Pull from Eternity
4 Spoils of the Vault

4 Unmask

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

2 chrome mox
4 lotus petal
4 dark ritual
4 marsh flats
4 bloodstained mire
1 swamp
4 scrubland




I'm currently testing an actual list that might be good.
<...>

Any particular reason for the move to an Exhume / Reanimate split in the main?

[.dk]

I'm sure you can give us more than that.

Please? :cry:



Also, have you guys noticed the prices on Shallow Graves? The last ebay listing closed at $45 for a playset, and the only set available now is at $100 for the four. That deserves a pat on the back.

Goryo's Vengeance is starting to pick up as well (you can find them for around $3 each, but a few months ago they were $1 to 2), so if anybody that hasn't gotten them, you probably want to get on that soon.

Check this out: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0696982/
Google "tinfins" and see what comes up. :)

New primer should have a link to the trailer...

Pretty hilarious about the price of Shallow Graves, isn't it? go go reserved list? :/

@phazonmuant - funny report, and hilarious list. Was trying to find some way to fit Pull and Powder into a list, but couldn't do it without cutting too much business. You might be right that cutting blue is the only way - Spoils sound pretty much awesome for that, btw.

The second list you posted is interested - but I'm not sure why the move from 2 Reanimate to 1 + Exhume when you've weakened your manabase to wasteland. The ponder/study split seems reasonable as well as cutting down on Thoughtseize. My current list that I keep meaning to test has the 2/2 split right now as well, just to test out if nothing else. Silence seems odd to me - wouldn't we just be better off running countermagic? We're better at making blue than white.

I may end up bringing the deck to my local this weekend rather than DDFT for a change, so we'll see how it does there.

[phazonmutant]

funny report, and hilarious list. Was trying to find some way to fit Pull and Powder into a list, but couldn't do it without cutting too much business. You might be right that cutting blue is the only way - Spoils sound pretty much awesome for that, btw.

The second list you posted is interested - but I'm not sure why the move from 2 Reanimate to 1 + Exhume when you've weakened your manabase to wasteland. The ponder/study split seems reasonable as well as cutting down on Thoughtseize. My current list that I keep meaning to test has the 2/2 split right now as well, just to test out if nothing else. Silence seems odd to me - wouldn't we just be better off running countermagic? We're better at making blue than white.

Haha thanks. Credit to alphastryk for terrible ideas *ahem* Spoils of the Vault.

Exhume vs. Reanimate - fair point. I just wanted to see how often Pull + Shallow Grave / Exhume would come up. Probably too cute.
I think Silence is better than countermagic. The manabase I posted is about as good at making W as U, and we have Petals and more W cards to pin now. Silence is better for 2 reasons - it forces them to react right then, so you don't have to fully commit, and it stops Surgical shenanigans so they can only interact with you with counterspells. Our own counterspells would be stretched trying to deal with both grave hate and permission.

[.dk]

Haha thanks. Credit to alphastryk for terrible ideas *ahem* Spoils of the Vault.

Exhume vs. Reanimate - fair point. I just wanted to see how often Pull + Shallow Grave / Exhume would come up. Probably too cute.
I think Silence is better than countermagic. The manabase I posted is about as good at making W as U, and we have Petals and more W cards to pin now. Silence is better for 2 reasons - it forces them to react right then, so you don't have to fully commit, and it stops Surgical shenanigans so they can only interact with you with counterspells. Our own counterspells would be stretched trying to deal with both grave hate and permission.

Ah yeah, I guess you can do the Exhume thing and Pull in response, as you said, like we do with Shallow Grave. That seems like a good enough reason, actually. Maybe not too cute - worth testing. :)

You're right that in some matchups that Silence is insane - but a good counterspell suite can also deal with other grave hate (permanents) that come down earlier. Depends on the meta I suppose - Silence trumps stack wars. I definitely like both, there have just been enough times where I've been unimpressed with Silence in this deck that I'm a little turned off. I do like that it gives you something to pin under Chrome Mox as well to cast Children - I did that out of the sideboard back in December quite a bit when I ran Silence/Chant in the sideboard along with Show and Tells. Made the Show and Tell plan into casting Children to still storm out much more viable (or, the Hot Carl plan, as you call it). :)

[ZimAshe]

Re: shallow grave $ increase

glad i jumped on that when i did! holy moly!

[Koby]

Damn you guys. I went and bought Entombs today.

lol @ $2. Good timing! I probably did a good part to help promote this deck. Next time, I'm buying 20 copies :mad:

[Grave]

Re: shallow grave $ increase

glad i jumped on that when i did! holy moly!

Phewww, I get my spanish playset (Tumba precaria xD) just in time!

[ZimAshe]

lol @ $2. Good timing! I probably did a good part to help promote this deck. Next time, I'm buying 20 copies :mad:

when i bought the 1 copy i needed for my playset off ebay there were tons. i shoulve bought them all then lol!

[.dk]

Yet another example while the reserved list is awful...

[xfxf]

I traded 2 for my 2 Crop Rotations and 1 Veteran Explorer, the next day it's sold out in MKM and now the new listings start from 14-15 Euros. Wow.

[phazonmutant]

Koby, we might have to share credit for popularizing the deck (with CalebD of course) :wink:

Whienot placed a big order with a German retailer for some of us Atlanta folk right before the price hike and a few of us managed to snag playsets of Flaches Grab for 4 euro. Thrilled I committed to upgrading my Shallow Graves when I did!

The ebay average seems to be around $20 / card for English!

[Dela]

Went 4-0 at my local legacy tourney. 30ish people. Beat Combo elves 2-0, Junk 2-0, combo elves 2-1, Miracles 2-0. Went with pretty much the standard list, adding a scrubland and a SB of:


2 Pull from eternity
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Flusterstorm
3 Pithing Needle
1 Duress
2 Death Mark

Didn't really get to use the Pulls, chain and needle were great.
Deck feels very strong atm

[Richard Cheese]

Nice result! I wish we had 30 people at our locals. I'm interested to see how you boarded for those matchups. Actually, since I'm currently re-writing the primer, I'm interested to see how everyone is boarding, specifically against current/recent DTB.

[Koby]

So after playing with the SB that included S&T, I never used it successfully and the maindeck is not geared towards being able to use it. Going forward, I'm going to adding more bounce/removal (Hurkyl's and Rebuild are nice to deal with multiple Pithing Needles/Tormod's/Grafdigger's) and considering Abrupt Decay. I haven't had enough time to hash that out (nevermind that Abrupt Decay is useless vs :w: Leyline... I digress). Locally and for me, I'm also going to add Flusterstorm/Mindbreak Trap since there's a decent amount of Storm around these parts.

[phazonmutant]

So after playing with the SB that included S&T, I never used it successfully and the maindeck is not geared towards being able to use it. Going forward, I'm going to adding more bounce/removal (Hurkyl's and Rebuild are nice to deal with multiple Pithing Needles/Tormod's/Grafdigger's) and considering Abrupt Decay. I haven't had enough time to hash that out (nevermind that Abrupt Decay is useless vs :w: Leyline... I digress). Locally and for me, I'm also going to add Flusterstorm/Mindbreak Trap since there's a decent amount of Storm around these parts.

I've been having that same experience with S&T. At this point, the anti-hate board seems superior. Hurkyl's Recall seems like a very strong choice in the appropriate meta.

I've been testing more with the 4c list I posted the page back, and while I'm not saying I broke it, the list feels like at least as much of an improvement as adding the 2 Reanimates felt compared to the 7-out list. It's very strong, and Silence allows you to have a very powerful card against both tempo and storm, which saves board space. I really recommend you try it out.

At least in that list, the Careful Study / Ponder split has felt good. I've been happy to have both cards at different times. Still not sure if one is better than the other, but I have to agree with CalebD that Careful Study has its place in the main.

Edit: Just wanted to add that Pull from Eternity is the real deal. Played against Pox on cockatrice. He was feeling good that he was on the play and had Extirpate in hand. I put him on that because he passed with 1 B up on his first turn. I had an Entomb, Exhume, and Pull in hand, so just drew Dark Rit, eot Entombed, on my turn played a Gemstone Mine, DR, Exhume, he Extirpated, and I Pulled and very easily won.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Can this deck play Snapcaster Mage? Probably too cute, but it sounds awesome.

[.dk]

Can this deck play Snapcaster Mage? Probably too cute, but it sounds awesome.

Funny - that was one of our original thoughts too. We tried some builds (Tin Fins 2 maybe) but they mostly ended up being too slow. I think they were in place of some of the reanimation since he would be adding redundancy. That was in a LED list, so a good bit different than the modern lists. Maybe there is room for him now? Would be interesting to see, as he could add a lot of redundancy of any of the various effects in the deck. Specifically functioning as extra Entombs would be nice.

/edit:

@phazonmuant - in the pull list, would you just be relying on bounce for RIP and Leyline and such for G2/3? What can you reasonably even board out at that point? As tight as the maindeck seems in the standard lists, that one seems even more tight.

[Koby]

I'm currently testing an actual list that might be good.
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
2 Children of Korlis
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
2 Silence
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
1 Reanimate
2 Ponder
2 Careful Study
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
1 Exhume
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Scrubland
1 Bayou
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea

// Sideboard
1 Pithing Needle
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Pull From Eternity
1 Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Massacre
2 Thougtseize



Is this your most recent list Greg?

[phazonmutant]

Funny - that was one of our original thoughts too. We tried some builds (Tin Fins 2 maybe) but they mostly ended up being too slow. I think they were in place of some of the reanimation since he would be adding redundancy. That was in a LED list, so a good bit different than the modern lists. Maybe there is room for him now? Would be interesting to see, as he could add a lot of redundancy of any of the various effects in the deck. Specifically functioning as extra Entombs would be nice.

/edit:

@phazonmuant - in the pull list, would you just be relying on bounce for RIP and Leyline and such for G2/3? What can you reasonably even board out at that point? As tight as the maindeck seems in the standard lists, that one seems even more tight.

Snapcaster sounds cool with Pull. Maybe as a better Intuition?

Yup, for decks with Leyline I bring in Chain. For RiP miracles decks I board in the 3 Abrupt Decay. I've been boarding out Reanimate if I board in Pull, Exhume otherwise, a Chrome Mox, and some combination of Griselbrand and Careful Study. I've been trying to board in only about 3 cards g2 so I don't overboard, then board more as appropriate g3.


Koby - pretty much. I miscounted, that list is only 60. I think I might swap the Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy numbers main actually. Of course still testing the Ponder / Study / Reanimate / Exhume splits.
As far as the board, the thought for the extra discard is against attrition discard decks, but it might not be worth it. Hopefully prison decks are taken care of with Abrupt Decay, but a Hurkyl's Recall wouldn't be bad either. Same goes for Massacre.

[Holden1669]

Snapcaster sounds cool with Pull. Maybe as a better Intuition?

Yup, for decks with Leyline I bring in Chain. For RiP miracles decks I board in the 3 Abrupt Decay. I've been boarding out Reanimate if I board in Pull, Exhume otherwise, a Chrome Mox, and some combination of Griselbrand and Careful Study. I've been trying to board in only about 3 cards g2 so I don't overboard, then board more as appropriate g3.


Koby - pretty much. I miscounted, that list is only 60. I think I might swap the Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy numbers main actually. Of course still testing the Ponder / Study / Reanimate / Exhume splits.
As far as the board, the thought for the extra discard is against attrition discard decks, but it might not be worth it. Hopefully prison decks are taken care of with Abrupt Decay, but a Hurkyl's Recall wouldn't be bad either. Same goes for Massacre.

So the green is just Abrupt Decay out of the board? Would replacing that with Wipe Away or other bounce and a return to more fetches/duals make the manabase work more smoothly? I haven't tested it out yet, just asking.

I do like the Silence + Pull From Eternity plan. That sounds very promising.

[phazonmutant]

So the green is just Abrupt Decay out of the board? Would replacing that with Wipe Away or other bounce and a return to more fetches/duals make the manabase work more smoothly? I haven't tested it out yet, just asking.

I do like the Silence + Pull From Eternity plan. That sounds very promising.

Yes, the green is just for Abrupt Decay, but I think Abrupt Decay is one of the few things that will allow us to have any shot of winning the Miracles matchup, and it also happens to be a real plan against prison. I don't think the manabase is any worse as far as casting spells (Gemstone Mine is much better than it looks), and TES manages to play through Wasteland, and I think we've gotten to a point where we're equally fast and also have plenty of artifact mana.
I don't think making UU or getting to 3 lands is going to be very consistent, so Wipe Away is pretty much not a consideration.

The reduction in shuffle effects is a real concern, but you actually have more than TES because of both more fetches and Entomb, and the idea is to just kill them before you have to draw the cards again! :wink:
But seriously, that in itself might be the reason this version is worse. More testing will tell.

[Koby]

Some thoughts:
* With less fetches, Ponder becomes more important now. It also helps navigate around more awkward draws due to the more vulnerable manabase.
* 3 Gemstone Mine and 1 Marsh Flats may be better than 4 Gemstone Mine.
* Without Careful Study, only 3 Griselbrand is needed. This opens up a slot to play 1 more discard.

Also,
http://i.imgur.com/HSttyqP.png

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

So Shallow Grave is $40? #mtgfinance

[Darkenslight]

So Shallow Grave is $40? #mtgfinance

...I'm really pissed off now, because they've gone from a £1 junk card to Wasteland prices and I only get paid next week.

[novatinhu]

...I'm really pissed off now, because they've gone from a £1 junk card to Wasteland prices and I only get paid next week.

I'm so happy, buy 12 for 3 bucks each was awesome!

[.dk]

Some thoughts:
* With less fetches, Ponder becomes more important now. It also helps navigate around more awkward draws due to the more vulnerable manabase.
* 3 Gemstone Mine and 1 Marsh Flats may be better than 4 Gemstone Mine.
* Without Careful Study, only 3 Griselbrand is needed. This opens up a slot to play 1 more discard.

Also,
http://i.imgur.com/HSttyqP.png

How is it feeling without running basics? And if we're not running study and 4 Griselbrand, is 4 entomb feeling like enough or does the singleton intuition need exploring again?

Still debating taking a list like this one to my local tomorrow or continuing my DDFT practice...

Also - shallow grave being $40 is ridiculous. In a way I'm kind of proud I had a hand in that, but mostly - fuck the reserved list.

[dunk]

Haha. I sold my single copy like 1 month ago for 6 Euro. Now it sells for slightly less than 20 Euro. It's just the market which tries to adjust right now - the rest is on you guys. If you keep up having good results it may get close to SnT within the next year, otherwise it will probably go back to 10-15 $ each. Not the first time that I see a reserved list card go through the roof just to stabilize and go down a few months after.

Ban Griselbrand obv.

[Bobmans]

Ban Griselbrand obv.

That would break my heart.

[Koby]

How is it feeling without running basics? And if we're not running study and 4 Griselbrand, is 4 entomb feeling like enough or does the singleton intuition need exploring again?

Still debating taking a list like this one to my local tomorrow or continuing my DDFT practice...

Also - shallow grave being $40 is ridiculous. In a way I'm kind of proud I had a hand in that, but mostly - fuck the reserved list.

This all goes back to last weekend when I ran Caleb's version with Careful Study and went an unimpressive 3-3, mainly losing to g/y hate in the form of Leyline, Extirpate, and Grafdigger's Cage across multiple matchups, and unfamiliarity with the deck.

I'm not a big fan of Careful Study at this point for two main factors:
1. Forces you to run more Griselbrand in order to take advantage of the forced discard from Careful Study.
2. Removes additional shuffle and real digging effects that Ponder provides.
3. Signals that you're on a reanimation strategy.

So I decided to move back to Ponders, and with the increased experience with the deck I feel that is completely fine. That leaves the question of Intuition. I feel (and have witnessed too) that the card is too slow for this deck. While it's true that you can use it to setup the reanimation suite by binning a Griselbrand, I think that at the point in which you can afford 3 mana to cast this tutor is rare with a 14 land deck. Moreover, it's a huge liability against most forms of g/y hate, which is already coming in against us to begin with. While it's a 3 mana instant tutor, it's not the best for this deck. I would sooner play the 1st Careful Study or a Preordain than playing the Intuition right now.

Basically, I've started viewing this deck more like TES or Storm, in that it has a fragile manabase, some acceleration, and key components. Viewing it more like TES (esp now with Gemstone Mines and a pair of Silence), it gives us the ability to play and protect our cards from Discard (which is the most prevalent disruption). Ponder in that sense, is better than Careful Study. Our topdecks and ease of playing the combo are much simpler than TES and require less counting. This is a huge boon for the deck.

That said, here's my list:

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

4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual

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

4 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Silence

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

3 Griselbrand
2 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard:
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Pithing Needle
2 Pull form Eternity
1 Silence
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Massacre

[.dk]

I like that list a lot - it seems to have a pretty good balance going for it. Also agree that we're becoming a bit like TES in terms of the strategy you want to deploy. Makes your mulligan decisions that much more important, but what you state makes a lot of sense. You just have different combo pieces than TES, and if you actually are disrupted, you're a bit less all in. In this sense, I agree with the sentiment that Intuition is just too slow.

I guess more testing will tell if the sacrifice we make to the manabase is worth the answers we get in the form of Abrupt Decay, Pull from Eternity, and Silence. I'm inclined to think that it is, given how much more successful I've been in the past with TES vs. ANT, but need to jam some games to prove it. We get Wasteland resiliency by just being too fast (like TES) - seems fine to me.

I was going to bring it to Legacy this week, but it was canceled due to weather conditions... Hopefully I'll have a chance to test with some people in the coming week though. Also, think I'm taking the plunge into MTGO here soon, so once I figure out how that goofy interface actually works, maybe I can get some testing in there.

[SmokedParsley]

Hello,

Saw this deck on the SCG coverage and on Koby's stream, thought it looked sweet so I sleeved it up and played it in a local 9-player tournament today.

I've never played the deck before, so I made a lot of mistakes throughout the tournament.

I used 4 griselbrand, 1 children and 3 careful study, 2 cabal therapy, with an Ad Nauseam sideboard.

This is off the top off my head as I didn't take any notes.

1. RIP/Counterbalance - Won 2-1! Won the first by having disruption for Force turn one and being fast (won on the second turn), lost the second on the Ad Nauseam plan by miscounting, would've lost anyway as counterbalance top would be online next turn, + he had a force on top of his deck. Won the third because he got a bad draw. (I was back on the reanimate-plan, I needed to be faster than CB regardless of plan, so I chose the most consistent one.)

2. Affinity - 1-2 I thought this would be easy so I kept a mediocre hand game 1, and got promptly beaten by robots. I suppose that in these kinds of matchups it's correct to mulligan very aggressively
I won game two on turn two, he didn't draw any hate.
Game three I lost to a surgical extraction. I had more time here, and knew he was on surgical, so I should have waited until I had another Goryo or Shallow grave ready to respond to the surgical.

3. Reanimator 2-0? He mulls to three. The last game we both draw nothing for several rounds, then I am the first to topdeck something.

4. Sneak attack 0-2 I play sloppy and lose, should've gone for it one turn but waited for disruption for fear of countermagic, he didn`t have any and I lost when he played sneak-attack on his turn. The other game I needed an entomb or equivalent effect, but just drew lands for a few turns.

I manage to sneak in to top 4 on tiebreakers (Yeah we do top 4 for 9-player tournaments, because we like to play magic :smile:)

Semis: Sneak and show 2-1? - I mulliganed a hand I should've kept, I had reanimation and lands and Griselbrand, but no discard or entomb. The third game he mulligans, then goes first turn Show and tell for Emrakul, I put Griselbrand into play and win on my turn. First-turn kill, Yay!

Finals Against RUG 1-2
I win game one, after making him discard some counters, and having enough renimate to get through the rest. Also, he told me afterwards he removed a spell pierce for force instead of spell snare, so when I cast a surprise Reanimate on griselbrand he couldnt counter. Rogue deck FTW!!

The other two games surgical and mongeese own me. The last game I misplayed by going for it a round early. I think I would really like some more discard for this matchup.

Lessons I learned:
*Our game one is excellent against most decks.
*Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy were amazing.
*More disruption post-board would be useful, as hate and counterspells are very common. I am not quite sure what form this disruption should take.
*Tendrils was a dead card once, and didn`t matter any of the other games.
*Also, not too happy about the ANT transformation, it leaves a lot of dead cards in the deck.
*There were times when having more children of korlis or hapless researcher to flashback cabal therapy would've been sweet.

Changes I'm considering -2 careful study +2 cabal therapy,
+1 Children -1 Griselbrand? (suggestions welcome) The xtra children would be good with therapies.
Also -1 careful study +1 hapless researcher - almost as good as careful study, and goes well with cabal therapies

Not sure how much better we are than normal reanimator; We certainly are faster, but not having countermagic is a bit harsh sometimes.

Cheers

[Richard Cheese]

This all goes back to last weekend when I ran Caleb's version with Careful Study and went an unimpressive 3-3, mainly losing to g/y hate in the form of Leyline, Extirpate, and Grafdigger's Cage across multiple matchups, and unfamiliarity with the deck.

I'm not a big fan of Careful Study at this point for two main factors:
1. Forces you to run more Griselbrand in order to take advantage of the forced discard from Careful Study.
2. Removes additional shuffle and real digging effects that Ponder provides.
3. Signals that you're on a reanimation strategy.

So I decided to move back to Ponders, and with the increased experience with the deck I feel that is completely fine. That leaves the question of Intuition. I feel (and have witnessed too) that the card is too slow for this deck. While it's true that you can use it to setup the reanimation suite by binning a Griselbrand, I think that at the point in which you can afford 3 mana to cast this tutor is rare with a 14 land deck. Moreover, it's a huge liability against most forms of g/y hate, which is already coming in against us to begin with. While it's a 3 mana instant tutor, it's not the best for this deck. I would sooner play the 1st Careful Study or a Preordain than playing the Intuition right now.

Basically, I've started viewing this deck more like TES or Storm, in that it has a fragile manabase, some acceleration, and key components. Viewing it more like TES (esp now with Gemstone Mines and a pair of Silence), it gives us the ability to play and protect our cards from Discard (which is the most prevalent disruption). Ponder in that sense, is better than Careful Study. Our topdecks and ease of playing the combo are much simpler than TES and require less counting. This is a huge boon for the deck.

That said, here's my list:

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

4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual

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

4 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Silence

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

3 Griselbrand
2 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard:
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Pithing Needle
2 Pull form Eternity
1 Silence
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Massacre

How has silence been? I generally find myself having less issues with counters than I do with permanent-based hate like RiP and DRS. I think I'd rather have main deck bounce in those slots, or more discard. I'm still not sure that cutting a Grizzle is right, given how often I find myself using discard to pitch him.

Agreed on intuition though, tried running it a while ago in the UB version, but never cast it.

[Madmaniac21]

So happy I happened to be watching the coverage and immediately went and bought 3x (i had one) for 3$ a pop. Guess I should have been buying the entire TCG stock lol

[Megadeus]

I bought 4 for 20. I just traded them for a w wasteland, misty rainforest and a chrome mox lol

[bartmanqc]

I bought 4 for 20. I just traded them for a w wasteland, misty rainforest and a chrome mox lol

I bought 8 at 4$ each. Now I can buy 4 at 8 each... Should I stock more ? :P

This deck is seriously broken...

[Megadeus]

How are the silence lists going?

[ZimAshe]

i had abeyance in the board. i never was able to side them in as they slowed the deck down way too much. i have a very high interest in silence as that is what i have in my modern Eggs deck and it works very well.

i think i may main deck duress and cut some careful studies. duress and against the blue decks is just good.

i lost to a RDW deck today after i mulled to 5 :frown: that's magic for you.

on the flip side of that i turn 1ed a player but going: land, dark rit, entomb, shallow grave on Griselbrand. draw 14. lotus petal, dark rit, entomb, goryo's vengeance on Emrakul. swing for 22. :laugh:

[Julian23]

on the flip side of that i turn 1ed a player but going: land, dark rit, entomb, shallow grave on Griselbrand. draw 14. lotus petal, dark rit, entomb, goryo's vengeance on Emrakul. swing for 22. :laugh:
You don't say.
:cool:

Started out playing with Ponder, switched to Careful Study, now I'm back on the Ponder plan. I really prefer the card selection it provides since you've usually got enough speed anyways. I mainly used Careful Study as a sorcery speed Entomb 5-8 to play around gy removal. As such, I never really liked the card disadvantage associated with it. And postboard, Ponder really shines whereas Study usually comes out.

/edit: If you really want to talk sick plays, here you go:

Opponent Force of Wills my hardcast Griselbrand, leaves me tapped out.
On his turn he drops Dream Halls, then draws with Sensei's Divining Top.

RESPONSE, Shallow Grave pitch Thoughtseize.
Draw 14 with Griselbrand but hit no Silence.
Entomb for Children of Korlis.
Shallow Grave Children of Korlis, gain 14 life.
Draw 14 with Griselbrand, hit Silence but no white pitch.
Shallow Grave Children of Korlis, Echoing Truth Children of Korlis.
Silence, Pitch Children of Korlis.

Opponent: "Sick.."

[walker]

I just built a new version of griselstorm leaving LED and IT on the bench this time. I maxed out cantrips to improve consistency. Here's the rough draft:

4 entomb
4 shallow grave
2 goryos vengeance
4 griselbrand
1 emrakul
1 tendrils
4 thoughtseize
4 cabal therapy
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 probe
2 preordain
4 dark ritual
4 lotus petal
2 chrome mox
2 swamp
1 island
2 underground sea
4 delta
1 strand
1 mire
1 catacombs

Important points:

12 cards to bin Gman.

8 card protection suite doing double duty binning griselbrand.

14 cantrips. I opted to max out this category to improve consistency of hitting one of several winning combos (see combos posted below)

Probe = All star status. Combos with therapy, makes other cantrips better, builds storm, awesome on its own providing incredibly valuable information practically for free.

No children- I don't own any. It seems win more. I haven't had trouble goldfishing wins without it. If I try them it will be in pre ordains spot, but unless testing proves otherwise I think I prefer consistency (I'm open to suggestions, please share your thoughts).

Emrakul + tendrils- 2 routes to victory. This configuration seems optimal.

2 colors- fetch basics and beat wasteland decks. I'm still not sure if the land base is optimal. I want to cantrip t1 each game when necessary, but I still value black mana above blue mana in this deck. I don't see a huge drawback running 3 basics but I could very well be wrong. I'd appreciate feedback.

Sideboard- Options are transforming into rip/helmline to dodge gravehate or going the anti hate route. Testing is needed. I'm open to ideas.

Combos:

entomb + shallow grave
entomb + goryos
thoughtseize + griselbrand + shallow grave
thoughtseize + griselbrand + goryos
therapy + griselbrand + shallow grave
therapy + griselbrand + goryos
+ hardcast griselbrand- very rare to get this off early, involves multiple rituals.
+ natural storm hands- very rare includes naturally drawn tendrils + multiple probes and rituals. Keep your opponents life total in mind, tendrils kill gets easier the lower their life is (obviously lol)

So far it's been goldfishing hot. Try it out, let me know what you think.

[Darkenslight]

I just built a new version of griselstorm leaving LED and IT on the bench this time. I maxed out cantrips to improve consistency. Here's the rough draft:

4 entomb
4 shallow grave
2 goryos vengeance
4 griselbrand
1 emrakul
1 tendrils
4 thoughtseize
4 cabal therapy
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 probe
2 preordain
4 dark ritual
4 lotus petal
2 chrome mox
2 swamp
1 island
2 underground sea
4 delta
1 strand
1 mire
1 catacombs

I think it's missing Children of Korlis, which is positively insane. Imagine a W-cost draw 14. It is really pretty damned hard to lose from there, and it adds the capacity to outgrow Storm/Charbelcher and can even race opposing Emrakuls that have wiped your board clean.

My suggestion would be to drop two GProbe for 2 Children, but I'm not an absolute expert on the deck.

[.dk]

@walker - this looks a lot like earlier lists of Tin Fins. We opted to run more copies of Tendrils rather than Cantrips, but overall is very similar. While the deck was fine that way, I actually found that Children of Korlis opened up many more lines of play and increased consistency post drawing with Griselbrand. Basically, once you've drawn 14-21 cards and you make Children of Korlis (which is rather easy via entomb and a non-goryo's reanimation, or just petal + children), you pretty much can't lose, whereas with cantrips and/or more copies of Tendrils, you have a higher chance of fizzling (which seems ridiculous after drawing 21 cards, but it happens more than you'd think). Take a look at my GP Atlanta report from last year to get an idea.

Also, I've found Gitaxian Probe to be unnecessary. While it does combo well with Therapy (and is practically the last card I've cut from any of my lists because of it), the added storm count isn't necessary. Swinging with Griselbrand almost always hits them for 7, which means that you only need storm 7 (they are at 13) to win. And since you've likely cast a Ritual, Entomb/Discard, Shallow Grave/Goryo's, you're already at storm 3 before you even try to draw. Playing 4 spells after drawing 14-21 is trivial, it's a matter of finding your win condition.

However, if it works for you, that's great. But, I would also test any of the lists with Children of Korlis to get an idea as to how those play.

[.dk]

You don't say.
/edit: If you really want to talk sick plays, here you go:

Opponent Force of Wills my hardcast Griselbrand, leaves me tapped out.
On his turn he drops Dream Halls, then draws with Sensei's Divining Top.

RESPONSE, Shallow Grave pitch Thoughtseize.
Draw 14 with Griselbrand but hit no Silence.
Entomb for Children of Korlis.
Shallow Grave Children of Korlis, gain 14 life.
Draw 14 with Griselbrand, hit Silence but no white pitch.
Shallow Grave Children of Korlis, Echoing Truth Children of Korlis.
Silence, Pitch Children of Korlis.

Opponent: "Sick.."

Sorry for the double post, but wow. That's insane! We need to have somewhere to store recounts of ridiculous plays like this and CalebD's win against Doomsday and such. Seriously feels like the most powerful deck I've ever set my hands on.

[Koby]

Silence is pretty good against the fast combo decks. In a more mid-range metagame, I would swap it for Chain of Vapor. Remember that Silence shuts off Surgical/Extirpate following your mainphase Entomb/discard.

[dameus]

Can we revisit the kill condition for a bit? Seems like the thread has settled on the 4-slot kill: 1 ToA, 1 Emmy, 2 CoK. Wess made the case for the 3-slot kill: 2 CoK, 1 LabMan back on post #133, which was countered to some degree by .dk on post #135, followed by a little more follow-on discussion. After playing some, I know LabMan is a terrible top deck, but almost never fizzles, and is only vulnerable to a 2-card counter from the opponents (discard & extraction, for ex.) or perhaps needle on CoK post-board. Are the small advantages of mini-tendrils, board wiping with Emmy if you get behind, and safety of having 2 kills worth the extra slot? Is it worth considering a hybrid 3-slot kill: 1 CoK, 1 LabMan, 1 Emmy? Anyway, I wanted to know if everyone had definitely made up their mind or just following the latest lists.

Also, I like playing the 4th Goryo's, but it seems that Exhume or Reanimate gets the 8th rez slot in most lists. I know Goryo can't reach CoK, but it still is the 2nd best rez spell in this deck. If you're going to play at least 8 rez effects, are we sure Goryo doesn't deserve the 8th spot?

I can't believe how much this deck has gained fans!

[phazonmutant]

Can we revisit the kill condition for a bit? Seems like the thread has settled on the 4-slot kill: 1 ToA, 1 Emmy, 2 CoK. Wess made the case for the 3-slot kill: 2 CoK, 1 LabMan back on post #133, which was countered to some degree by .dk on post #135, followed by a little more follow-on discussion. After playing some, I know LabMan is a terrible top deck, but almost never fizzles, and is only vulnerable to a 2-card counter from the opponents (discard & extraction, for ex.) or perhaps needle on CoK post-board. Are the small advantages of mini-tendrils, board wiping with Emmy if you get behind, and safety of having 2 kills worth the extra slot? Is it worth considering a hybrid 3-slot kill: 1 CoK, 1 LabMan, 1 Emmy? Anyway, I wanted to know if everyone had definitely made up their mind or just following the latest lists.

Also, I like playing the 4th Goryo's, but it seems that Exhume or Reanimate gets the 8th rez slot in most lists. I know Goryo can't reach CoK, but it still is the 2nd best rez spell in this deck. If you're going to play at least 8 rez effects, are we sure Goryo doesn't deserve the 8th spot?

I can't believe how much this deck has gained fans!

Definitely, I think the kill condition is an easy area to overlook. I thought for a bit that we could shave the Tendrils and solely rely on hard-casting Emrakul to win, but watching and playing some more games has convinced me that Tendrils is worth 1 slot in the deck. Tendrils is better than Laboratory Maniac because it's possible to get a Tendrils kill if your Griselbrand is killed (e.g. when Koby played through Force, Pierce, Surgical, and Plow, and was able to win with Tendrils). Laboratory Maniac is actually unnecessary because the times we'd be able to win with him, we'd be able to win with infinite life/mana/Emrakul anyway. Tendrils also has some marginal utility in finishing off an opponent or serving as lifegain mid-combo.

I think at this point it's worth considering shaving the Children of Korlis to 1 slot. It decreases the consistency of the combo turn by some small percent, but it's a fairly safe card to trim based on experience with sideboarding. So that's something that we'll have to figure out moving forward.

I originally added the Reanimates to be the 8-9th outs to match the stock reanimator lists to see if it added consistency. I've been happy to have reanimate in my deck to t1 a Griselbrand before, and I've definitely wanted more ways to make Children, but the 4th Goryo's is very reasonable too. Again, that's one of those choices that's either something that will be determined by hundreds of matches or is a personal choice.

[catmint]

I am a fan, but I do have my doubts. Problem is that life total is so important which tends to be attacked quite heavily - especially if you need timte to cantrip into anti-hate. Not counting people having reach, without a griselbrand activation you only have entomb emmy(or the rare cases where you have emmy in hand -> discard emmy) and hope the anihilator trigger gets you there. Btw.: This is also the main reason why to play this over lab-maniac. With maniac you need at least 2 initial grisel activations to be able to win consistantly (and still not assured that you can cast children). If you have only one Grisel activation left that probably means you also close to loosing. If you can't find the emmy combo there its gg.

You can say Show&Tell Griselbrand helps on low life total, but there are board states where you just stall and if they have a removal that's it.

So considering all the strength to me that is the big weakness over other combo decks working with Griselbrand (and of course combo decks having an instant kill on 1 life). Reanimator can do something like sphinx, archon and stalling does not hurt since they will soon exhume something else. Sneak attack has also problems with low life but you have more options to bring an emmy into play.

Maybe some players learned their way to work around this problem or have any tech I am not aware of. Happy to learn more.

[Richard Cheese]

Silence is pretty good against the fast combo decks. In a more mid-range metagame, I would swap it for Chain of Vapor. Remember that Silence shuts off Surgical/Extirpate following your mainphase Entomb/discard.

Right, but I feel like Surgical/Extirpate are sideboard cards, whereas the maindeck grave hate we see now is all permanent based - DRS, RiP, Ooze. I think if we're playing protection in game 1, it should deal with the hate we're likely to see game 1. As far as other combo goes, I'm not really too worried about it. Seems like we should be as fast or faster than everyone but Belcher, and we do have a considerable amount of discard. That said, I really haven't come up against it much so far, so I'm interested to see what others' opinions are.

[Koby]

Some odd scenarios came up during the stream last nite that makes me question whether Abrupt Decay is needed at all. I'm fine with having the Counterbalance matchup be poor if it means I get to play more fetchlands and shuffle effects. The issues specifically were being Brainstorm locked while digging for the combo pieces.

Manabase has been adjusted:
3 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
8 :b: fetchlands

Maindeck is otherwise the same (2 Silence can be combination of additional Therapy and/or Chain of Vapor for different metagames).

RE: Silence:
I prefer this in my maindeck out here on the West Coast. It's very typical to have a lot of combo in this metagame and I want to be able to win games that discard alone won't be all that helpful. This can be considered a flex slot.

Sideboard:
-3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Hurkyl's Recall
+1 Therapy (3rd in my case)
+1 Chain of Vapor (3rd in SB)

[Darkenslight]

Has anyone considered the possibility of cards like Oblation and Barrin's Unmaking (that was an interesting find!) (EDIT: or AEther Tradewinds)?

[Koby]

Has anyone considered the possibility of cards like Oblation and Barrin's Unmaking (that was an interesting find!) (EDIT: or AEther Tradewinds)?

Maybe I'm not understanding the application, but what would these cards help to do? Both of these cards are likely too expensive (mana) to be useful. What do you recommend cutting from the deck to make room for them?

[cogitoergosum]

Koby, and anyone else playing the silence version, do you think that Abeyance is too slow to fit in the silence slot? My thoughts were that, in addition to replacing itself, it also shuts down activated abilities, like deathrite, ooze, relic or P, etc.., which are not prevented with silence.

I think it certainly merits testing, though I have a hunch that the extra mana might be a little hard to come by. Though, abeyance seems much better in the longer, grindier games in which our first attempts to combo have been foiled.

[Kryptor]

Caleb Durward played this deck on SCG with this:

Creatures (7)

2 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand

Lands (14)

1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Marsh Flats
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
1 Verdant Catacombs

Spells (39)

2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
2 Reanimate
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Thoughtseize

Sideboard
2 Pithing Needle
3 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Mindbreak Trap
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Deathmark
1 Duress

This deck is great, but I just don´t understand what he is doing against hate. Of course instant reanimation is a kind of protection against extraction and deathrite, but against cage and RIP (maybe some rare times leyline) the 2 bounce cards looks insufficient. The Options of hardcasting Grisel or storming to a deadly tendrills should be very rare. So can someone please explain to me, what could be a boarding plan against hate ? (such as Cage)

[Cellar Door]

Some odd scenarios came up during the stream last nite that makes me question whether Abrupt Decay is needed at all. I'm fine with having the Counterbalance matchup be poor if it means I get to play more fetchlands and shuffle effects. The issues specifically were being Brainstorm locked while digging for the combo pieces.

Manabase has been adjusted:
3 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
8 :b: fetchlands

Maindeck is otherwise the same (2 Silence can be combination of additional Therapy and/or Chain of Vapor for different metagames).

RE: Silence:
I prefer this in my maindeck out here on the West Coast. It's very typical to have a lot of combo in this metagame and I want to be able to win games that discard alone won't be all that helpful. This can be considered a flex slot.

Sideboard:
-3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Hurkyl's Recall
+1 Therapy (3rd in my case)
+1 Chain of Vapor (3rd in SB)

In my testing I actually encountered this same problem a few times, where I would have multiple Brainstorms in hand, but didn't have a fetchland and couldn't reliably find one off of the top of my deck.

It's a tough call though, because I really don't want to give up my outs to counterbalance/RiP.

[Megadeus]

Some odd scenarios came up during the stream last nite that makes me question whether Abrupt Decay is needed at all. I'm fine with having the Counterbalance matchup be poor if it means I get to play more fetchlands and shuffle effects. The issues specifically were being Brainstorm locked while digging for the combo pieces.

Manabase has been adjusted:
3 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
8 :b: fetchlands

Maindeck is otherwise the same (2 Silence can be combination of additional Therapy and/or Chain of Vapor for different metagames).

RE: Silence:
I prefer this in my maindeck out here on the West Coast. It's very typical to have a lot of combo in this metagame and I want to be able to win games that discard alone won't be all that helpful. This can be considered a flex slot.

Sideboard:
-3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Hurkyl's Recall
+1 Therapy (3rd in my case)
+1 Chain of Vapor (3rd in SB)

Im with you here. I was testing vs tin fins yesterday. Did about 10 games of UR Stilfenought and there were a lot of times where brainstorm was just not that good.

[ZimAshe]

yeah the RiP/Counter Top mach up is a pretty bad one for us. It might be the deck that we just concede the loss to and move on. i played against one this weekend won game one because there wasn't an active top in play and I had managed to run him out of counter magic. i hard cast a griselbrand and killed him with Tendrils.

games 2 and 3 werent so good for me. the only thing i can think of in the board that would help is more disruption like duress and the like followed by needle on top and bounce spells to clear the way. that's really the only thing you can do in this type of match up.

[kihachi]

Hi everyone!

I too hail from Carsten Kotter's SCG article, which I basically stopped reading after he posted this deck. I'd known about Tin Fins from before but was skeptical. Trying it out on Cockatrice a ton, especially with the innovation of Children of Korlis, has made me a believer.

Anyway, I wanted to run the Storm sideboard (as I own it, do not own Show and Tells, and think it's a good answer to Surgical Extraction). I haven't seen a list yet incorporating Children of Korlis while transforming to Storm post-side, so I gave it a shot:


3 Griselbrand
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Marsh Flats
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Ponder
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Thoughtseize
2 Preordain
1 Children of Korlis
2 Scalding Tarn

Sideboard
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Preordain


Essentially, 15 cards out, 15 cards in, and you should have a serviceable Storm deck with no dead cards. I took out the second Korlis because... I'm not sure why you need two? I never really had a hard time finding one with Entomb when I needed it. I also found Emrakul to be a little "win-more," though the tricks (reanimation, reshuffle, hardcast) are fun, I think it'll be a real corner case where you actually need them to win.

What I'm not the happiest with are only having 7 reanimation spells and only 3 Griselbrands. Those were the sacrifices to get the non-Storm elements down to 15 cards. Though having 10 cantrips does help, it sort of forces you to keep cantrip-heavy hands and hope for the best. Otherwise you won't be keeping many hands. But it seems to work out to a turn 3 or less kill on most occasions, sometimes with discard backup. Thoughts on how to improve, or whether this is a worthwhile endeavor are appreciated.

[phazonmutant]

Based on my testing results and watching Koby stream the past couple of weeks, it's very clear that the deck has consistency issues. The games where it draws the right cards and doesn't brick off Ponder / Brainstorm it's nuts and can play though a ton of hate, but there's a bunch of games where it just draws lands and redundant effects.
The most obvious solution to that issue is to add more cantrips. The best cantrip seems to be Gitaxian Probe (based on some theorycrafting). Probe actually increases the speed of the deck (one of TinFin's strongest points) by giving information and should also help with consistency. Careful Studies 1-2 in addition to Ponders are another option that might want to be explored.

Probe has the big issue of costing life, but I suspect that being able to more consistently combo faster is worth it, just like in TES. From experience, as long as you can draw 14 cards, you should be 80+% to win immediately. That only requires that we animate Griselbrand with haste from above 7 life - pretty easymode.

Here's a possible Gitaxian Probe list:
// Combo Pieces
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
4 Entomb
2 Children of Korlis
2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Tendrils of Agony

// Protection
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Silence

// Cantrips
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

// Mana
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Bayou
2 Gemstone Mine

// Sideboard
2 Pull From Eternity
1 Silence
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Massacre
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Hurkyl's Recall

Koby's build that cuts the Gemstone Mines and Abrupt Decays is very reasonable too, but I would prefer to continue testing if the UW Miracles matchup and Prison matchup can be salvaged. Obviously different metas will influence the sideboard decisions.


Megadeus - I never played TES without Gitaxian Probe, I'm curious how its Brainstorms were compared to how they are now. Maybe Gitaxian Probe allows you to see deeper with Brainstorm which allows more early kills or more access to shuffle effects?

kihachi - neither the Show and Tell plan nor the ANT plan are considered optimal anymore. I think the past few pages have made substantial strides in improving the deck, whereas your list seems to be based on a much older build.

[DireLemming]

Snapcaster should be investigated further. I tried a couple of games with him as a 2-of, and it does wonders for resilience as well as improving consistency. It might be just due to variance, but I got the impression it supplants all the questionable additions (CS, Intuition, 10th reanimation spell, ...).

[walker]

@dk- I'm testing one children in place of a preordain and it seems very useful ensuring griselbrand draws into a win. While storm count might not be a factor for this deck, I think probe still has incredible utility here for all the other reasons I mentioned. If you look closely at my deck construction you'll see my new list is hopefully an evolution of the archetype rather than just a rehash of the old list. It's really quite different, improving several issues, and easy enough to fit children into.

@phazonmuant- I don't know if all the consistency issues of this archetype can ever be fully solved. It seems somewhat volatile by nature, but, like you said incredibly powerful and resiliant when it gets going. It's sad that griselbrand and mystical tutor didn't overlap, at least for a short time. On the previous page I posted a new deck rough draft that focuses on increasing consistency. As you can see I agree with you about probe, I'm a big fan. The lifeloss is a slight issue, but you can probe twice and still draw 14 cards before swinging given only one fetch and no other damage. I just threw the list together yesterday and I'm finding pre ordain to be the flex slot, right now I'm leaning toward one children and a 3rd goryos in place of the 2 pre ordains.

In the past my biggest consistency issue was binning griselbrand. Relying on 4 entombs wasn't cutting it. That's originally why I started playing LED. The interaction between LED and shallow grave is really sick, and I still think that version of the deck is very powerful and fairly consistent, but lacking protection. Going forward I'm packing playsets of griselbrands, thoughtseize, and cabal therapies. In theory this should improve the odds of getting a winning hand since thoughtseize and therapy double as combo pieces with griselbrand in hand. Also, probe therapy is just unfair. With the deck stretched so thin, cards that serve multiple purposes are key. I think sticking to strictly u/b feels more solid, at least for the maindeck. Silence is definitely nice but I'd rather have a card that doubles as a combo piece, and a manabase thats less vulnerable to wasteland. I would definitely consider running green or white in the sideboard if I go the anti hate route. I haven't had a chance to test my new list yet but I've solitaired quite a bit and it feels strong. I still need a sideboard, this is the issue that won't go away with this deck. I'm leaning towards transformational because I haven't been convinced by any of the anti hate boards suggested so far.

A note on careful study- I think this card is the worst cantrip in this deck. It doesn't even net you a card and there aren't enough creatures for it to be even close to consistent at binning a wincon.

[Cacks]

Hi All,

does anyone know the answer to this rules question? The exile effects on Shallow Grave and Goryo's Vengeance trigger, I believe, at the start of the end step. If you shallow grave / vengeance in response to the start of your opponent's end step, then as I understand it the reanimated creature will then stay in play until the end of your turn? I was thinking about combining a few careful studies (or even 4) with Jin-Gitaxis as (bad) Griselbrands 5-6 - shallow grave / vengeance at end of oppo's turn, mind twist them (since Jin-Gitaxis reduces their hand size, which is relevant to clean-up, rather than causes them to discard directly in the end of turn step), and stack the draw 7 at the end of your turn. Probably a very poor idea to improve consistency, although mind twist plus draw seven is not shabby for 1B(!), but since I am unsure the rules I haven't explored any more yet!

I suppose the point, if right, also opens a more mana efficient line of play when going off normally, since you can tap the two to reanimate G'brand at the end of your oppo's turn instead of during your own turn.

Thanks

[Mantis]

From the Comprehensive Rules (Dark Ascension)
513. End Step
513.1. First, all abilities that trigger "at the beginning of the end step" or "at the beginning of the next end step" go on the stack. (See rule 603, "Handling Triggered Abilities.")
513.1a Previously, abilities that trigger at the beginning of the end step were printed with the trigger condition "at end of turn." Cards that were printed with that text have received errata in the Oracle card reference to say "at the beginning of the end step" or "at the beginning of the next end step."
513.2. Second, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.
513.3. If a permanent with an ability that triggers "at the beginning of the end step" enters the battlefield during this step, that ability won't trigger until the next turn's end step. Likewise, if a delayed triggered ability that triggers "at the beginning of the next end step" is created during this step, that ability won't trigger until the next turn's end step. In other words, the step doesn't "back up" so those abilities can go on the stack. This rule applies only to triggered abilities; it doesn't apply to continuous effects whose durations say "until end of turn" or "this turn." (See rule 514, "Cleanup Step.")

Apologies in advance if this is not in the correct subforum.

[.dk]

Here's a possible Gitaxian Probe list:
// Combo Pieces
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
4 Entomb
2 Children of Korlis
2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Tendrils of Agony

// Protection
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Silence

// Cantrips
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

// Mana
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Bayou
2 Gemstone Mine

// Sideboard
2 Pull From Eternity
1 Silence
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Massacre
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Hurkyl's Recall

Koby's build that cuts the Gemstone Mines and Abrupt Decays is very reasonable too, but I would prefer to continue testing if the UW Miracles matchup and Prison matchup can be salvaged. Obviously different metas will influence the sideboard decisions.



For adding Gitaxian Probe - I like this list. I feel like you've made some good cuts to fit the Probes in. I wonder, however, how much of a trap we'll fall into with opening hands. 13 lands seems fine with running Probes, I just wonder if it's going to trick us into bad keeps. Testing will tell.

Also - thanks for all of those who are testing and pushing this deck forward. Apologies for not being able to contribute much recently - haven't had a lot of time to play Legacy (and Tin Fins in particular - local meta kills me every time I play it after 8 months of it now...)

[cogitoergosum]

Alright, so here is the decklist that I have been testing wit some solid success:
Creatures (5):
x2 Grisel
x2 Children
x1 Emrakul

Lands (14):
4 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland

Accelerators (10):
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual

Cantrips (10):
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain

Protection:
4 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Silence

Reanimators:
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Exhume

Other:
4 Entomb
1 Tendrils

SB:
1 silence
2 Massacre
1 Cabal Therapy
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Pull from Eternity
3 Chain of Vapor
3 Pithin Needle

So far, in somewhat limited testing I have liked this build. While gitaxian probe gives you info., and essentially shrinks the size of your deck, i feel like the extra cards you see with preordain are more important.

I feel like 10 accelerators might be too much, but I can't decide what to cut. 1 Dark Rit seems like the answer, but this takes away from our ptential t1 kill. It seems to me like chrome mox is most often used AFTER we land grisel so keep us going, so maybe 1 mox would suffice. Maybe cut one to add another grisel for the purposes of self-discarding?

Silence is a star. It hoses other combo decks, but it has also served wonders against blue based control decks with a heavy counter suite. However, maybe we can fit all 3, or maybe just 2, in the SB, opening up more deck spce fro cantrips and library manipulation.

Also, I am still not sold on completely getting rid of intuition. Having another entomb effect goes a long way.
If anyone has any thoughts, or has also tested preordain, I'd love to hear it!

Cheers!

[Cacks]

From the Comprehensive Rules (Dark Ascension)
513. End Step
513.1. First, all abilities that trigger "at the beginning of the end step" or "at the beginning of the next end step" go on the stack. (See rule 603, "Handling Triggered Abilities.")
513.1a Previously, abilities that trigger at the beginning of the end step were printed with the trigger condition "at end of turn." Cards that were printed with that text have received errata in the Oracle card reference to say "at the beginning of the end step" or "at the beginning of the next end step."
513.2. Second, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.
513.3. If a permanent with an ability that triggers "at the beginning of the end step" enters the battlefield during this step, that ability won't trigger until the next turn's end step. Likewise, if a delayed triggered ability that triggers "at the beginning of the next end step" is created during this step, that ability won't trigger until the next turn's end step. In other words, the step doesn't "back up" so those abilities can go on the stack. This rule applies only to triggered abilities; it doesn't apply to continuous effects whose durations say "until end of turn" or "this turn." (See rule 514, "Cleanup Step.")

Apologies in advance if this is not in the correct subforum.

Thanks

[Bobmans]

there were a lot of times where brainstorm was just not that good.

Exactly that. In those cases i really wished Brainstorm was Ponder, or i had a shuffle effect. But since brainstorm can hide away combo pieces against discard i really think both should be run 4 times.
With the current configuration i really think that the deck relies a lot on Entomb, making that its weak spot. Intuition was cut. Which was a good thing since its just slow. But without careful study and only 5-6 discard effects and just 2 Griselbrands it is kinda hard to create an in.
I really think that Silence is a real strong card. I've played with it in a tournament where i went top8. It helps against a lot of decks and is a MUST answer. In combination with Probe, Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy it can and will win a lot of games. It also stops combo decks from exploding in your face. I really feel comfortable with 4 silence in the main/sideboard. Also i really like having 1-2 Reanimate as it can be a dodgeball.
Anyway, a lot of times i removed Chrome Mox (and Mox Diamond) for sideboard cards game 2/3 and still winning turn 1/2/3. So maybe that could have a cut. Also i run only 13 lands. So after some stripping i come this this:
But now it feels to light on INs.

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

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
2 Reanimate

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

3 Cabal Therapy
3 Silence
2 Thoughtseize

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal

2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
3 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
2 Flooded Strand
1 Swamp
1 Island


Also i would like to see a green source fit in somewhere to put some Abrupt Decay's in the side. I dislike having Gemstone Mine since it cannot be fetched. So either a Trop or a Bayou or even a Savannah.

[ZimAshe]

I have to say that it may not be correct but i am partial to a list with probe in it.
I have never been disapointed to have an opener with probe. it works well with therapy and that is kind of like the icing on the cake. it lets us know what to play around, replaces itself, and also interacts favorably with Children to add to our life total. It has also become cards i needed where if it were a seize or duress it would've been just another discard spell.

i was running 4 careful study and found that to be bad, i have since cut to 2 studty and may go further to just eliminating tha card completely.

[kihachi]

kihachi - neither the Show and Tell plan nor the ANT plan are considered optimal anymore. I think the past few pages have made substantial strides in improving the deck, whereas your list seems to be based on a much older build.

Understandable, I'm trying to play catch-up here. I just know from experience with other combo decks that sometimes diluting the deck is worse than just keeping it steady and racing, playing around, or hoping to avoid the hate. That's why I stuck with the ANT plan as it makes an almost perfect ANT deck post-board. But I understand if people have moved beyond that and probably won't provide much feedback for it.

Is there anything else I'm missing? Children kind of makes up the need for multiple Tendrils I suppose, so those could become Silences and some Gemstone Mines could be added, much as I hate them. It also appears people are down to 2 Griselbrands now.

[Cellar Door]

Exactly that. In those cases i really wished Brainstorm was Ponder, or i had a shuffle effect. But since brainstorm can hide away combo pieces against discard i really think both should be run 4 times.
With the current configuration i really think that the deck relies a lot on Entomb, making that its weak spot. Intuition was cut. Which was a good thing since its just slow. But without careful study and only 5-6 discard effects and just 2 Griselbrands it is kinda hard to create an in.
I really think that Silence is a real strong card. I've played with it in a tournament where i went top8. It helps against a lot of decks and is a MUST answer. In combination with Probe, Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy it can and will win a lot of games. It also stops combo decks from exploding in your face. I really feel comfortable with 4 silence in the main/sideboard. Also i really like having 1-2 Reanimate as it can be a dodgeball.
Anyway, a lot of times i removed Chrome Mox (and Mox Diamond) for sideboard cards game 2/3 and still winning turn 1/2/3. So maybe that could have a cut. Also i run only 13 lands. So after some stripping i come this this:
But now it feels to light on INs.

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

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
2 Reanimate

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

3 Cabal Therapy
3 Silence
2 Thoughtseize

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal

2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
3 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
2 Flooded Strand
1 Swamp
1 Island


Also i would like to see a green source fit in somewhere to put some Abrupt Decay's in the side. I dislike having Gemstone Mine since it cannot be fetched. So either a Trop or a Bayou or even a Savannah.

You could consider moving a Silence to your sideboard and upping your Griselbrand count to 3, but I'm not sure if that's the direction you want to go for getting more "ins".

As for the Abrupt Decay manabase, I think Gemstone Mine is a must if you want to run 4 colors. I hate having to run it also as it has limited use and isn't fetchable and cuts down on our fetch count, but there really isn't a good way to work around it that I can see.

[cogitoergosum]

Do you guys really like probe over preordain? I mean, I like all of its benefits, especially knowing what your opponent is on and what to play around. However, it seems to me like binning a creature is the hardest part of our combo, especially if we are cutting down to 2 griselbrands. In this respect, I realy like how preordain can dig us 3 cards deeper into the deck. I really think both need to be thouroughy tested so we can find out which is better, but so far, I'm leaning towards preordain.

[Koby]

Do you guys really like probe over preordain? I mean, I like all of its benefits, especially knowing what your opponent is on and what to play around. However, it seems to me like binning a creature is the hardest part of our combo, especially if we are cutting down to 2 griselbrands. In this respect, I realy like how preordain can dig us 3 cards deeper into the deck. I really think both need to be thouroughy tested so we can find out which is better, but so far, I'm leaning towards preordain.

You make good points. I'm leaning towards Gitaxian Probe as it doesn't hinder the speed of the deck, while Preordain slows it down (mana requirement). Playing with Preordain also means likely including a basic Island to ensure we have the resources to continue playing the cantrips.

Preordain
Pros:
Digs 3 cards deep
Hides important pieces
Cons:
Costs :u: -> Islands

Gitaxian Probe
Pros:
Costs :0:
Provides information
Cons:
Only cycles
Life payment

[walker]

With 2 griselbrands and 5 discard spells, how reliable is it to discard griselbrand to combo? I imagine you go for entomb most of the time. If the most consistent way of binning griselbrand is hitting one of 4 entombs then preordain is probably better.


The other option I suggest is more griselbrands and more discard spells. In theory this configuration improves the odds of drawing a winning hand. I think probe is superior to preordain here because when your hand is more likely to bin griselbrand, you can reliably combo faster and the extra information is critical if you're attempting a turn 1 or 2 kill.

[Bobmans]

With 2 griselbrands and 5 discard spells, how reliable is it to discard griselbrand to combo? I imagine you go for entomb most of the time. If the most consistent way of binning griselbrand is hitting one of 4 entombs then preordain is probably better.


The other option I suggest is more griselbrands and more discard spells. In theory this configuration improves the odds of drawing a winning hand. I think probe is superior to preordain here because when your hand is more likely to bin griselbrand, you can reliably combo faster and the extra information is critical if you're attempting a turn 1 or 2 kill.

Exactly. In that case i would suggest the list @ #417.
- 3 Silence
+ 1 Thoughtseize
+ 1 Cabal Therapy
+ 1 Griselbrand

Then the only two slots to debate are 2 Reanimate. Swap 1 for thoughtseize or exhume or just leave it tbere. Maybe a liliana to act as a sort of dodgeball. Like jace in Omniscience.dec

[Richard Cheese]

Yeah, can't say I agree with cutting Griselbrand. Relying more heavily on Entomb is just going to make us weaker to counters, and necessitates playing more cantrips to reliably find Entomb, so while you gain extra filtering, I doubt you're doing much for overall consistency in the long run. If that were the case, we might as well cut Goryo's Vengeance and just run more cantrips so we can find the Shallow Graves Consistently.

[Koby]

Yeah, can't say I agree with cutting Griselbrand. Relying more heavily on Entomb is just going to make us weaker to counters, and necessitates playing more cantrips to reliably find Entomb, so while you gain extra filtering, I doubt you're doing much for overall consistency in the long run. If that were the case, we might as well cut Goryo's Vengeance and just run more cantrips so we can find the Shallow Graves Consistently.

So, if I understand your reasoning correctly:

4 Griselbrand
2 Gitaxian Probe/Preordain

would be better than those number reversed? I think this makes somewhat sense, and assumes we have difficulty finding an Entombing effect. I found both cases of finding a reanimation or an entomb to be of equal concern. I'm very tempted to split the difference and play 3 Griselbrand 3 Probe this weekend.

[cogitoergosum]

3-4 Griselbrand also increases our chances of draw, discard grisel at end step, pass turn. This may not be ideal, but it is another way to get grisel in the yard.

[phazonmutant]

So, if I understand your reasoning correctly:

4 Griselbrand
2 Gitaxian Probe/Preordain

would be better than those number reversed? I think this makes somewhat sense, and assumes we have difficulty finding an Entombing effect. I found both cases of finding a reanimation or an entomb to be of equal concern. I'm very tempted to split the difference and play 3 Griselbrand 3 Probe this weekend.

I'm nervous about running 13 land with fewer than 4 Gitaxian Probe. It might be fine though. I think it doesn't really make sense to have 3 Griselbrand - it should either be 4 or 2. 3 just means we haven't tested enough. You could try going to 1 Children of Korlis to fit in one more card. Also, Tendrils could be sideboarded - the games I've seen it be relevant have all been playing through grave hate post board.

[elof]

Hi guys!

I been watching the thread for quite some time now and this weekend I got a big tournament that I will probebly play TinFins in since I can't find anything better or funnier to play.

I tried some with Kobys version but didn't like the Gemstones and the fact that there isn't a basic Swamp somewhere. I don't expect combo to be big enough to warrant the Silence either. I do however like the Scrubland so I might consider the Silences in the board. I also like the 4 Griselbrands, it happened more than a few times that I just drew a card and discarded a Grisel. Not particulary found of Careful Study, but I don't want just Entomb either. Ponder didn't feel that great, so if any cantrips are going to be added it's probebly Probe. Anyway, I would wish for a really soild SB. I have considered transformational but I don't think there is a good one, so how do we best fight hate? Is there any way we could find some other we to bin griselbrand?

[Richard Cheese]

So, if I understand your reasoning correctly:

4 Griselbrand
2 Gitaxian Probe/Preordain

would be better than those number reversed? I think this makes somewhat sense, and assumes we have difficulty finding an Entombing effect. I found both cases of finding a reanimation or an entomb to be of equal concern. I'm very tempted to split the difference and play 3 Griselbrand 3 Probe this weekend.

I think if you're running the full grip of Griselbrands, Careful Study still warrants some consideration as a cantrip. I have a love/hate relationship with that card though, it seems like for every time I use it in desperation and rip a Grizzle off the top, there's another time where I just whiff and end up scrapping something I don't want to, only to find Grizzlebees staring myself in the face a turn later. It can be a pretty decent follow up to Brainstorm when you don't have a fetchland available though.

I'm still a bit skeptical of Probe. Last time I goldfished a list with Probe/Therapy together it just ran through life too quickly, and it seemed like the games I won were the ones where I opened with all or most of the combo pieces anyway. This was pre-Children though, so they might be the piece that was missing from that puzzle.

Unfortunately, like .dk said our local meta is basically combo vs. control, and everyone knows the deck at this point, so it's a pretty hostile environment to test in. Maybe we'll have some extra time this weekend to grind some games outside the tournament.

[angryshrub]

The awesomeness of this deck is bringing me out of the woodwork to contribute. I wanted to test preordain v. probe, so I took a preordain list to a 12-man tournament, where I went 3-1. Here's some data for the common weal, for whatever it's worth, and my experiences with preordain.

I cut the silences since combo is limited at this particular store, played two grizzles, 4 ponders, 3 preordains, shaved a land, and switched in a basic island. Still running 1 bayou and the decays in the board.

On preordain:
I found that when I was winning, I was winning mostly in the first couple of turns before my opponent got his shit going. Longer games where I was digging tended to result in my opponent either getting his disruption online or advancing his own combo, or even just putting me on enough of a clock that forced my plans at some point. It's not that preordain never helped or was bad; just that I felt like I could be playing to the deck's strengths (i.e. explosive 'I win' draws) rather than slowing it down and trying to make it more consistent. I'm definitely going to try probe out. Beyond the speed increase, I feel the information factor for this deck is also highly significant, as sometimes you are put in a situation where you could go off but might lose if they have the right piece of disruption, and probe settles the issue, thus straight-up preventing some amount of losses.

I can also echo recent posts about tinkering with the grizzle count some more, as depending upon entomb so heavily haunted me several times during the tournament.


R1: High tide, win 2-1
g1: able to discard his counter-magic and go off turn 3.
g2: I preordain and ponder the first 2 turns. After he scolls for high tide turn 3, I feel I have to try and go off and hope he doesn't have the force, since I expect he's winning next turn. He has the force, rfgs a combo piece to it, then wins the resulting top-deck war.
g3: I mull down to 4 after some really bad hands, and get: land, cabal, grizz, shallow grave... and draw ritual t1! He doesn't have the force.

R2 stoneblade, win 2-0
g1 I discard his discard and sculpt till I can play around his conditional counters, then go off. Preordain was strong here.
g2 He keeps a bad hand and is dicking around with batterskull when I go off.

R3 glimpse affinity, win 2-1
g1 I actually fizzle after drawing all but 10 or so cards in my deck, in which 3 were petals and a chrome mox :( He kills me next turn. I probably could have played better, however.
g2 and 3: never see a canonist or gy hate (despite his mulligans) and I just win against his non-interaction.

R4 jund, lose 0-2
g1 he tears me up on the play through inquisition and thoughtseize to slow me down enough.
g2 A deathrite shaman and a crypt buy him enough time (I was going to go off turn 2) to get liliana on the field, at which point I'm hurting pretty bad.

Anyway, that's my experience and thoughts on a preordain version of the deck!

[Julian23]

Because I know you love sick stories about even sicker plays. I present you, Tin Fins pulling it out once again:

Me vs. High Tide,

Opponent: has a sizable Storm count and a Surgical Extraction in hand (active) + 1 mystery card. All lands tapped, quite a lot of mana though.
Me: Lands + Shallow Grave. Nothing in my yard. Half my deck exiled after Tormod's Crypt had hit me earlier.

He had fizzled pretty hard halfway through the combo but eventually manages to Cunning Wish for a Brain Freeze that would easily be lethal. He puts it on the stack and starts milling me until he hits Emrakul, The Aeons Torn which he extracts. He keeps milling me with his copies of Brain Freeze.

Step 1: So what am I to do? Unfortunately, I don't know how to open *Spoilers* in this forum, so here's what i came up with, the master plan for eternal glory: Wait until he bins Griselbrand. With the remaining, lethal copies of Brain Freeze on the stack I Shallow Grave out Griselbrand. Because I'm low on life from fetching, thoughtseizing and extracting surgically, I can only proceed to draw 7 cards. After drawing I have exactly 7 cards left in my library and about 6 copies of Brain Freeze on the stack, targeting me.

Step 2: In those 7 cards I find Silence and Pull from Eternity. Oh man, that card always makes the best stories. I let two more copies of Brain Freeze resolve. With once card left in my library I cast Silence. He responds by Blue Sun's Zenithing me with his last mana for x>1.

Step 3: With about 4 copies of Brain Freeze, only a single card left in my library and a lethal Blue Sun's Zenith on the stack...*catches breath*...I cast Pull from Eternity targeting my exiled Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. As I had previously extracted his Force of Will he couldn't response but had no more non-land cards in hand anway. Emrakul shuffles back my entire library. Zenith resolves and I draw some cards then get milled for 12. Among that is a Children of Korlis which I Dark Ritual into showboat-Shallow Grave back into play.

He dies during my next attack step to an Emrakul that had been sent into exile for a long time but got pulled back from eternity to once again cause havoc among blue mages. This is my story. My name is...ok, it's getting to melodramatic at this point ;-)

[.dk]

Because I know you love sick stories about even sicker plays. I present you, Tin Fins pulling it out once again:

Me vs. High Tide,

Opponent: has a sizable Storm count and a Surgical Extraction in hand (active) + 1 mystery card. All lands tapped, quite a lot of mana though.
Me: Lands + Shallow Grave. Nothing in my yard. Half my deck exiled after Tormod's Crypt had hit me earlier.

He had fizzled pretty hard halfway through the combo but eventually manages to Cunning Wish for a Brain Freeze that would easily be lethal. He puts it on the stack and starts milling me until he hits Emrakul, The Aeons Torn which he extracts. He keeps milling me with his copies of Brain Freeze.

Step 1: So what am I to do? Unfortunately, I don't know how to open *Spoilers* in this forum, so here's what i came up with, the master plan for eternal glory: Wait until he bins Griselbrand. With the remaining, lethal copies of Brain Freeze on the stack I Shallow Grave out Griselbrand. Because I'm low on life from fetching, thoughtseizing and extracting surgically, I can only proceed to draw 7 cards. After drawing I have exactly 7 cards left in my library and about 6 copies of Brain Freeze on the stack, targeting me.

Step 2: In those 7 cards I find Silence and Pull from Eternity. Oh man, that card always makes the best stories. I let two more copies of Brain Freeze resolve. With once card left in my library I cast Silence. He responds by Blue Sun's Zenithing me with his last mana for x>1.

Step 3: With about 4 copies of Brain Freeze, only a single card left in my library and a lethal Blue Sun's Zenith on the stack...*catches breath*...I cast Pull from Eternity targeting my exiled Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. As I had previously extracted his Force of Will he couldn't response but had no more non-land cards in hand anway. Emrakul shuffles back my entire library. Zenith resolves and I draw some cards then get milled for 12. Among that is a Children of Korlis which I Dark Ritual into showboat-Shallow Grave back into play.

He dies during my next attack step to an Emrakul that had been sent into exile for a long time but got pulled back from eternity to once again cause havoc among blue mages. This is my story. My name is...ok, it's getting to melodramatic at this point ;-)

F'ing BOSS. Christ, we need an archive of this shit!

[Koby]

Jund matchup is pretty frustrating. When you need every card in your hand to do things, and they play 1 mana discard followed by Tarmogoyf, there's not much we can do aside from god hands. Any thoughts on improving this matchup, tactics-wise?

[Blue_Meanie]

Because I know you love sick stories about even sicker plays. I present you, Tin Fins pulling it out once again:

Me vs. High Tide,

Opponent: has a sizable Storm count and a Surgical Extraction in hand (active) + 1 mystery card. All lands tapped, quite a lot of mana though.
Me: Lands + Shallow Grave. Nothing in my yard. Half my deck exiled after Tormod's Crypt had hit me earlier.

He had fizzled pretty hard halfway through the combo but eventually manages to Cunning Wish for a Brain Freeze that would easily be lethal. He puts it on the stack and starts milling me until he hits Emrakul, The Aeons Torn which he extracts. He keeps milling me with his copies of Brain Freeze.


Couldn't you have just cast Shallow Grave in response to the Surgical Extraction? Or was he as more than 15 life?

[elof]

The awesomeness of this deck is bringing me out of the woodwork to contribute. I wanted to test preordain v. probe, so I took a preordain list to a 12-man tournament, where I went 3-1. Here's some data for the common weal, for whatever it's worth, and my experiences with preordain.

I cut the silences since combo is limited at this particular store, played two grizzles, 4 ponders, 3 preordains, shaved a land, and switched in a basic island. Still running 1 bayou and the decays in the board.

On preordain:
I found that when I was winning, I was winning mostly in the first couple of turns before my opponent got his shit going. Longer games where I was digging tended to result in my opponent either getting his disruption online or advancing his own combo, or even just putting me on enough of a clock that forced my plans at some point. It's not that preordain never helped or was bad; just that I felt like I could be playing to the deck's strengths (i.e. explosive 'I win' draws) rather than slowing it down and trying to make it more consistent. I'm definitely going to try probe out. Beyond the speed increase, I feel the information factor for this deck is also highly significant, as sometimes you are put in a situation where you could go off but might lose if they have the right piece of disruption, and probe settles the issue, thus straight-up preventing some amount of losses.

I can also echo recent posts about tinkering with the grizzle count some more, as depending upon entomb so heavily haunted me several times during the tournament.


R1: High tide, win 2-1
g1: able to discard his counter-magic and go off turn 3.
g2: I preordain and ponder the first 2 turns. After he scolls for high tide turn 3, I feel I have to try and go off and hope he doesn't have the force, since I expect he's winning next turn. He has the force, rfgs a combo piece to it, then wins the resulting top-deck war.
g3: I mull down to 4 after some really bad hands, and get: land, cabal, grizz, shallow grave... and draw ritual t1! He doesn't have the force.

R2 stoneblade, win 2-0
g1 I discard his discard and sculpt till I can play around his conditional counters, then go off. Preordain was strong here.
g2 He keeps a bad hand and is dicking around with batterskull when I go off.

R3 glimpse affinity, win 2-1
g1 I actually fizzle after drawing all but 10 or so cards in my deck, in which 3 were petals and a chrome mox :( He kills me next turn. I probably could have played better, however.
g2 and 3: never see a canonist or gy hate (despite his mulligans) and I just win against his non-interaction.

R4 jund, lose 0-2
g1 he tears me up on the play through inquisition and thoughtseize to slow me down enough.
g2 A deathrite shaman and a crypt buy him enough time (I was going to go off turn 2) to get liliana on the field, at which point I'm hurting pretty bad.

Anyway, that's my experience and thoughts on a preordain version of the deck!

How was your list and how was the SB? I feel that the biggest concern I have with the deck is sideboarding.

How does everyone elses SB look like?

[Julian23]

Couldn't you have just cast Shallow Grave in response to the Surgical Extraction? Or was he as more than 15 life?

If I do, I die before Emrakul hits the grave. Remember it was his turn.

My sb currently is:

2 Pull from Eternity
2 Massacre
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Silence
1 Duress
2 Pithing Needle

But that's just a mostly random pile of cards I'm currently trying out. I very often tend to side out 2 Children+Tendrils to make room for higher impact cards. Unless there's definite need to have an alternate win that doesn't involve the redzone. A card that on my way to work just popped up in my mind was Reverent Silence as an answer to Black Leyline, Rest in Peace AND Counterbalance. In the past, decks that cared about one of the former cards rarely cared about the later one; it's different with this deck though. I don't know though if Abrupt Decay might still not be the better choice despite its inability to deal with Leyline of the Void.

Thus far I really liked Silence. My by far biggest concern with this deck is still consistency and finding a way to bin Griselbrand besides Entomb and self-discard.

[phazonmutant]

On preordain:
I found that when I was winning, I was winning mostly in the first couple of turns before my opponent got his shit going. Longer games where I was digging tended to result in my opponent either getting his disruption online or advancing his own combo, or even just putting me on enough of a clock that forced my plans at some point. It's not that preordain never helped or was bad; just that I felt like I could be playing to the deck's strengths (i.e. explosive 'I win' draws) rather than slowing it down and trying to make it more consistent. I'm definitely going to try probe out. Beyond the speed increase, I feel the information factor for this deck is also highly significant, as sometimes you are put in a situation where you could go off but might lose if they have the right piece of disruption, and probe settles the issue, thus straight-up preventing some amount of losses.

I can also echo recent posts about tinkering with the grizzle count some more, as depending upon entomb so heavily haunted me several times during the tournament.


Nice report! Glad to see some different takes. That analysis is exactly why the cantrip I suggested is Gitaxian Probe, though. This deck tends not to do well in the long game especially post-board, so we want to aim for a consistent turn 2-4 kill. So here's how I see the different cantrips that are available:
Brainstorm - must-include
Ponder - helps consistency and finding board cards, which can speed up the combo with protection, but also means that you're spending tempo to find pieces instead of comboing.
Preordain - here we're getting to diminishing returns on the consistency vs. tempo spectrum
Gitaxian Probe - doesn't help consistency a whole lot (although it does help), but it greatly speeds up the deck by allowing us to just go for it sometimes
Careful Study - very inconsistent, but very fast. It's the fastest cantrip because it's primarily a combo piece, but it sucks when you mulligan or don't draw Griselbrand

Beyond that we have some more expensive tutors like Lim-Dul's Vault and Intuition, but they're not exciting.

So if that's the case, how reasonable is it to run 3 Ponder, 3 Gitaxian Probe, 2 Careful Study, 4 Griselbrand? I suppose we could trim on Children and maybe move a Tendrils to the board? Alternatively we could just run the janky 3 Griselbrand and leave Tendrils in.

I haven't tested too much with only 1 Children, how often do you fizzle?



Jund matchup is pretty frustrating. When you need every card in your hand to do things, and they play 1 mana discard followed by Tarmogoyf, there's not much we can do aside from god hands. Any thoughts on improving this matchup, tactics-wise?

Some crazy tactics might be to plan on Chant-walking them until we can go off. Another would be to board 4 Leyline of Sanctity and laugh at their lack of Brainstorm. Neither plan seems very consistent or robust though.

[Bobmans]

Nice report! Glad to see some different takes. That analysis is exactly why the cantrip I suggested is Gitaxian Probe, though. This deck tends not to do well in the long game especially post-board, so we want to aim for a consistent turn 2-4 kill. So here's how I see the different cantrips that are available:
Brainstorm - must-include
Ponder - helps consistency and finding board cards, which can speed up the combo with protection, but also means that you're spending tempo to find pieces instead of comboing.
Preordain - here we're getting to diminishing returns on the consistency vs. tempo spectrum
Gitaxian Probe - doesn't help consistency a whole lot (although it does help), but it greatly speeds up the deck by allowing us to just go for it sometimes
Careful Study - very inconsistent, but very fast. It's the fastest cantrip because it's primarily a combo piece, but it sucks when you mulligan or don't draw Griselbrand

Beyond that we have some more expensive tutors like Lim-Dul's Vault and Intuition, but they're not exciting.

So if that's the case, how reasonable is it to run 3 Ponder, 3 Gitaxian Probe, 2 Careful Study, 4 Griselbrand? I suppose we could trim on Children and maybe move a Tendrils to the board? Alternatively we could just run the janky 3 Griselbrand and leave Tendrils in.

I haven't tested too much with only 1 Children, how often do you fizzle?




Some crazy tactics might be to plan on Chant-walking them until we can go off. Another would be to board 4 Leyline of Sanctity and laugh at their lack of Brainstorm. Neither plan seems very consistent or robust though.

That is a very solid analysis on the cantrips. Along with the comment below i started thinking back to get a configuration supporting only speed. I don't care about consistancy since i found that this deck will never get enough consistancy like regular reanimate has. This is a about going in or die trying. This is like a shotgun with cut-off barrels.

I would always prefer keeping in 2 Children and 1 Tendrils of Agony along with the 1 Emrakul. I have found this setup to be very consistant when going off and this never (and is unlikely to get) fizzeled. If you draw 14 and can't find a way to get a hasted Emmy or a Children into play you will want to go with attack with Griselbrand and draw andother 7. It is most likely you can go for a ToA or a children and continue. I would never want to get in the situation to have to pass turn after Griselbrand connects.
To achieve this the 4 rituals and 4 lotus petals are a must. Dropping the moxen is not really a problem. I cut them game 2/3 mostly anyways.

Going back to the cantrips. decreasing the number of cantrips to include more different ones, makes the deck more subject to randomness. And thus clunkyness. I think the best option is to have 4 Therapy, 4 Thoughtseize, 4 Probes, 4 Ponder and 4 Brainstorm. The first two not only allow Griselbrand to be binned, in combination with probe you can surgically remove threats. Your opening hand is so important that you really need to make the right decision to mulligan. You need: Info, ramp, bin and reanimate. If one of them is abscent then Ponder or Brainstorm should be there. If there is missing some pieces then mulligan. If you can't combo out with protection on turn 5 then you might as well just scoop.

Because this deck is so dependant on its opening hand i do not think there is room for Leylines in the board as it will decrease the possibility to get solid opening hands. It also blocks the option to selftarget with Therapy and Thoughtseize...

So i am looking at 'free' protection again. Daze and Unmask are getting another attempt. Maybe even Pact of Negation.

[elof]

That is a very solid analysis on the cantrips. Along with the comment below i started thinking back to get a configuration supporting only speed. I don't care about consistancy since i found that this deck will never get enough consistancy like regular reanimate has. This is a about going in or die trying. This is like a shotgun with cut-off barrels.

I would always prefer keeping in 2 Children and 1 Tendrils of Agony along with the 1 Emrakul. I have found this setup to be very consistant when going off and this never (and is unlikely to get) fizzeled. If you draw 14 and can't find a way to get a hasted Emmy or a Children into play you will want to go with attack with Griselbrand and draw andother 7. It is most likely you can go for a ToA or a children and continue. I would never want to get in the situation to have to pass turn after Griselbrand connects.
To achieve this the 4 rituals and 4 lotus petals are a must. Dropping the moxen is not really a problem. I cut them game 2/3 mostly anyways.

Going back to the cantrips. decreasing the number of cantrips to include more different ones, makes the deck more subject to randomness. And thus clunkyness. I think the best option is to have 4 Therapy, 4 Thoughtseize, 4 Probes, 4 Ponder and 4 Brainstorm. The first two not only allow Griselbrand to be binned, in combination with probe you can surgically remove threats. Your opening hand is so important that you really need to make the right decision to mulligan. You need: Info, ramp, bin and reanimate. If one of them is abscent then Ponder or Brainstorm should be there. If there is missing some pieces then mulligan. If you can't combo out with protection on turn 5 then you might as well just scoop.

Because this deck is so dependant on its opening hand i do not think there is room for Leylines in the board as it will decrease the possibility to get solid opening hands. It also blocks the option to selftarget with Therapy and Thoughtseize...

So i am looking at 'free' protection again. Daze and Unmask are getting another attempt. Maybe even Pact of Negation.

So how does your current deck and SB look?

[Bobmans]

4 Griselbrand
2 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Marsh Flats
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
1 Island
SB: 4 Pact of Negation
SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 4 Silence
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Wipe Away

Still figuring if Pact of Negation is the right choice. It can help establish a fast combo, but if it bricks it will completely fail. It might only help on a turn 1 combo where it can stop a FoW. In this case Daze can be just as sufficient. But Daze becomes less usable as turns pass. You just have to be freaking sure that you can support the combo with only one, maybe two Pacts. So the information from Probe and Discard becomes so incredably important. Going in blind with a Pact is suicide.

Anyway. Daze can be a real solid choice for fast plays. Looking at the list posted above i would make the following adjustments on the main. Disconcerning the SB.

-1 Griselbrand
-2 Thoughtseize
(-1 Cabal Therapy)

+3 Daze
(+1 Intuition) <- dispite its casting cost it still adds some valuable flexibility

The choices between the minor details of this deck make me walk in circles. Every choice has its pros and cons. It feels like there is a missing link that would make this deck consistant. Maybe we have to accept there is nothing that can make this deck any more powerfull.

[phazonmutant]

Bobmans - if you're flat-out going for speed, I think you have to include some careful study. You can trim on the 8 discard spells maybe.

[Darklingske]

Can someone that plays the probe-list answer this:

Is the ANT SB plan completely of the map?

I don't like dilluting the combo post SB, so prefer to completely switch gears after boarding. But the current list I'm playing is a non-probe list and that list is far for ideal to do this. I'm thinking something along the lines of: -4 Grisel, -4 Entomb, -4 Shallow, -3 Goryo for 4 LED, 4 Cabal Rit, 4 IT, 1 Ad Nauseam, 2 silence.

[Baum]

Tin Fins just forced me to create an account. ;)
After winning our local tournament with the deck last week, I decided to take it to a GP Trial for Strasbourg today. It didn’t end so well.

That’s what I played:

3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Flooded Strand

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

2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
4 Entomb
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize

Sideboard:
2 Pithing Needle
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Silence
2 Massacre
3 Wipe Away
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pull from Eternity

The 3 Wipe Aways are just for Counterbalance. My Gemstone Mines didn’t arrive in time so I couldn’t splash green for Abrupt Decay. Luckily, there was not a single UW player in the room.


Match 1: Goblins (2:0)
G1: I took a mulligan to 5 and held Shallow Grave, Brainstorm, Ponder and 2 lands. He had a slow start and I killed him in turn 3 or 4.
G2: I destroyed his hand with Probe and double Therapy. When he fetched for a Plateau, I had a Massacre. Killed him around turn 5.

Match 2: Sneak and Show (1:2)
G1: I kept a somewhat mediocre hand and could not kill him before he sneaked in an Emrakul. The good thing was that I did not show him any Entombs or reanimation spells, so he just boarded against Storm Combo.
G2: He put me on Storm and did not have any graveyard hate. I had more reanimation spells than he had permission.
G3: He correctly played the control game and kept a hand full of counterspells and Tormod’s Crypts. When I played a Probe, he revealed Daze, FoW, 2x Flusterstorm, Spell Pierce and had 2 Crypts in Play. That was a bit too much to go off.

Match 3: Junk (1:2)
G1: I won the die roll, probed him and then killed him turn 1.
G2: He started with an Inquisition of Kozilek (taking my only reanimation spell) and played an Ethersworn Canonist afterwards. Then he put some pressure on me with KotR and Bob. I had 2 Griselbrands in my graveyard. Since I was on a short clock and he took a lot of damage from Bob (revealing Mindbreak Trap), my plan was to hit him with Griselbrand two times, racing his Knight. Then I screwed up. I didn’t notice that he played a Karakas the turn before and ran right into it. With a Pithing Needle in Hand… -.-
G3: Game 3 was similar. He had Deathrite Shaman, Canonist and Knight. That slowed me down enough.

Match 4: Mono U Faery Control (0:2)
Both games I basically mulled into oblivion and could not get through his wall of counterspells.

Match 5: Goblins (2:1)
G1: 1st turn Kill.
G2: I mulled to a mediocre 5 and he kept a fast opening 7.
G3: 2nd turn Kill.


Thoughts:

- Probe was good evertime I drew it. It helps playing around Wasteland, permission and combos with Therapy. It doesn’t really help with our consistency issues though.
- Sometimes, the deck just mulls into oblivion. The good thing is that you can just destroy the opponent with five cards.
- I made some horrible mistakes during sideboarding. Forgetting Massacre in G2 against Junk, not boarding Needle against Sneak and Show and stuff like that.
- I think a single Children of Korlis is enough. It reduces the amount of awkward draws and I never fizzled once I comboed off. Same for my goldfish games at home.
- I’d love to play additional discard or maindeck Silence, but I don’t think there is enough room. Maybe I’ll cut a Chrome Mox in the future.
- The Junk matchup seems to be pretty tough, maybe worse than Jund. Discard, Deathrite and white hatebears are just aweful.
- I’m not sure if I want Careful Study. In traditional Reanimator, I play it over Ponder, but Tin Fins probably plays too few creatures to discard. There were some situations where I wanted to use the discard as disruption but couldn’t because I needed it to get a Griselbrand in the grave and had no Studies.

When I came home, the Gemstone Mines were in the mail. I’ll test a build with Decay in the board on our local tournament tomorrow. It seems that I have to play against Counter Top every time I’m there. The deck will probably look like this:

2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
1 Children of Korlis
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Reanimate
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Thoughtseize
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bayou
2 Gemstone Mine

SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 3 Silence
SB: 2 Massacre
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Pull from Eternity
SB: 2 Abrupt Decay

Cut a Land, maxed out the Probes.

[Joe Eigo]

Hey folks, i also played the deck in a Grand Prix Trial today and didn't do so well either. But i have to admit i never was so happy with a 3:3 because it's such an amazing deck and people who didn't know it yet were everything from amused to totally shocked what's possible in Legacy these days... :-)

Loam Pox
Game 1: Keep a risky hand of zero mana but rituals. He tries to get rid of my hand with LftL and Raven's Crime 3x on 2nd or 3rd turn, but that didn't help. Finally i drew a land and win on turn 3 or something.
Game 2: Don't remember, but was an easy win since he didn't have many outs...
2-0
1-0

Stoneblade
Game 1: I mulliganed aggresively but wasn't rewarded.
Game 2: Game was close. Therapied him naming Spell Pierce and he revealed Flusterstorm and Brainstorm. So i had to wait a turn to play around flusterstorm. Resulting him in getting FoW through Brainstorm and i had no Reanimation spell left. If i name Brainstorm with Therapy i could have won... Maybe i misplayed here, but this is a really shitty matchup. Much Discard, Countespells, Snapcasters, Swords and random Karakas already in maindeck. Ugh.
0-2
1-1

Nic Fit
My hands were bad both games and he has his combo that beats mine twice: Veteran Explorer + Therapy and Veteran Explorer + Double Therapy + Extraction after boarding. But i really should not loose this... :-/
0-2
1-2

Merfolk
1 Game: Turn 1 Win, i had Therapy as Backup.
2 Game: Turn 1 Win.
2-0
2-2

Junk
Game 1: He gets a Confi going and get's some discard online. Couldn't recover from that.
Game 2: He Surgical Extracted me and add's a Chalice on 2 to the board. Really didn't see this coming and just can not win anymore because i boarded in 2x Echoing Truth. Ouch...
0-2
2-3

Junk (again)
1 Game: He has Deathrite Shaman and add's a second one to the battlefield using his only green source. Thanks. :-)
2 Game: I guess i got Surgical Extracted once more...
3 Game: I have the kill in hand for some turns but his board is 2x Deathrites and a cannonist. Could get rid of them with Massacre but would loose to Extirpate or Surgical Extraction. When he drops a Gaddok Teeg i bounce it at end of turn and wipe the board with Massacre to save some life for Grisel. A turn later i finally drew the Discard spell for his Extirpate and win.
2-1
3-3

The list i played was ok, but i'd change some things if i were to play the deck again.

3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Polluted Delta
1x Marsh Flats
4x Underground Sea
1x Scrubland
1x Swamp

4x Lotus Petal
2x Chrome Mox
4x Dark Ritual

4x Griselbrand
1x Emrakul
2x Children of Korlis

4x Shallow Grave
4x Goryo's Vengeance
1x Reanimate
4x Entomb
4x Thoughtseize
4x Cabal Therapy
1x Unmask
4x Brainstorm
3x Ponder

Sideboard
2x Pull from Eternity
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Chain of Vapor
2x Echoing Truth
3x Pithing Needle
1x Unmask
2x Massacre

- First of all i'd add the 4th Ponder to get even more consistency. Really liked it when i saw it.
- The single Unmask was really nice sometimes but maybe is not needed with already 8 superior discard spells. In theory it combo's well with Pull but maybe that's a too janky kind of entomb replacement....
- The 2nd Children of Korlis is not neccessary. There was once a situation which could have hurt if i had only one in the deck but that was absolutely avoidable: I was in combo mode and wanted to make sure, that i can activate Grisel 2 more times in case my opponent has swords to plowshares. So i played Children of Korlis from my hand first. After that i wanted to Shallow the Grisel into play but his response was Swords on my Children... Dumb. This happens if you get too greedy with the deck, hehe....

Changes i would make to the deck would include changing the 2nd children to the 4th Ponder. Emrakul i can see in the board since i never really needed it in the first game. Why we need it in the main again ? Do i miss something here... ? Also i think i will go back from the 4th Goryo's Vengeance to the 2nd Reanimate just for the speed. The Unmask i will leave in just for testing, but i can see it becoming Silence, Probe, Preordain...

Sideboarding:
The board was okish. Massacre is a damn house. Needle i rarely used but you want at least 2 depending on what other hate for Shaman you have. The bounce is just good, no further comment needed. After that Chalice on 2 stuff i will stick with Chain of Vapor over Echoing Truth for a while... No real opinion about Pull since i never drew it when i needed it and drew it if i could do nothing with it. Will keep at least 1 in the board and see how it goes. Unmask will get something better like suggested silence which should solve a lot of problems. At least that's what it looks on paper.

[atopebenidorm]

I will add liliana of the veil (maindeck) and Show and tell post-side gameplan, Liliana destroy opponent´s hand and hatebears, discard our creatures too. Ultimatum is an option Vs Counterbalance and control decks.

Only one Children of Korlis is testeable. Entomb is the way.

[mini1337s]

http://i.imgur.com/CK9DBEM.png?1

[ZimAshe]

I've been thinking about adding a singleton Rain of Filth to the deck for dark ritual number 5 while comboing off.
thoughts?

[.dk]

Because we generally want to go off so early and run very few lands, I think that a singleton Cabal Ritual would be better than Rain of Filth. Rain is also very all in as well so if you get a piece countered post sacrificing lands, you're pretty much done for the game.

Could see Cabal Ritual replacing a Chrome Mox though, potentially, if that is something that we need.

[Megadeus]

Watching Koby hardcast Emrakul on cam. #winning

[StackOverflow]

Grats Koby @ X-1 at the moment at SCG Vegas. Nice job going infinite! :D

[Whippoorwill]

Looks like Koby should hopefully make Top 8 with TinFins. For those who missed it he had a match on Camera for Round 7 vs. Pox.

[Gaius Darkfire]

Seeing Koby go infinite on turn 2 on camera and showboating on his way to the top 8 for us fans was awesome. Take it down!

[ZimAshe]

Tin Fins in the finals!!! :eek:

[r3dd09]

Stoked to see the deck perform.

Sadly, I don't have my shallow graves :/ How much were they before the jump?

NVM: checked completed list on ebay.

[Richard Cheese]

Great, now I have to stay up!

[Holden1669]

They just started reading a Sealab 2021 episode recap. So... that happened.

[menace13]

Looks like Koby should hopefully make Top 8 with TinFins.
Roll Tide!

[Richard Cheese]

They just started reading a Sealab 2021 episode recap. So... that happened.

Ok so that was worth staying up for.

Bad beats facing UW in the last round, that matchup is just abysmal. Great job otherwise though...hope everyone got their Shallow Graves already.

[P-E]

Goodjob Koby ^^

it's sad you have nothing in board for CB top :(

[KobeBryan]

Goodjob Koby ^^

it's sad you have nothing in board for CB top :(

combo decks usually don't have much against a CB top.

[phazonmutant]

Nice job, Koby!

So how about that Deck to Beat status, huh? :wink:

[r3dd09]

Ok so that was worth staying up for.

Bad beats facing UW in the last round, that matchup is just abysmal. Great job otherwise though...hope everyone got their Shallow Graves already.

0 Shallow Graves, I'll pick some up locally today.

[P-E]

combo decks usually don't have much against a CB top.


Abrupt decay ?

[Darkenslight]

Stoked to see the deck perform.

Sadly, I don't have my shallow graves :/ How much were they before the jump?

NVM: checked completed list on ebay.

In the UK, they were going for £1. Now, they cost the same as a Sneak Attack.

[Raystar]

Good job Koby!

[xfxf]

In the UK, they were going for £1. Now, they cost the same as a Sneak Attack.

No they don't. You can get Shallow grave for £13 and Sneak attacks for £34.

@koby. I didn't have a chance to watch the stream, how did reducing the number of Griselbrands and Thoughtseizes work out for you throughout the day?

[FrankEGee88]

Gratz Koby! Do you think you can give us a battle report? I'd love to hear your lines of play/thoughts during your matches.

Also, how do you feel about your sideboard? Any potential changes you'd like to make in the future?

Congrats again!

[Azdraël]

Glad to see that result, congrats. Yet, a bit nervous as for the increasing popularity of the deck... (plus prices and stuff)

Anyone could post a link to the coverage video we all want to see here on the Old Continent please? :cool:

As for the Pull from E, did you ever feel like you would prefer them to be another SB card? or were you completely happy about them?

[ironclad8690]

Nice job koby!

http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/373519422

There is the link for video.

[Richard Cheese]

I'm also really interested in hearing how the 2 Grizzle/4 Probe list felt.

I was thinking about some previous lists with 4 Grizzlebees, and wondering if the 2ish flex spots should just be Show and Tells. It would give us at least some out against G1 RiP, free up board slots if we want to go that route, and just adds another must-counter spell to the arsenal. The casting cost is pretty restrictive, but I could see it being more playable than Intuition since it does something right now, rather than being another setup piece.

[Koby]

Many of my "win right now" hands were preceded by Gitaxian Probe. Were they necessary? Not very. But the information allowed me to just go for it knowing the opponent could not disrupt the chain.

2 Griselbrand was never an issue. I found throughout the tournament that the two Griselbrands were always stuck together. I can't explain it very well, but something to do with the sleeves and confirmational bias put them side by side almost every time I searched throughout my deck.

I had more issues digging for hate than I did digging for ways to enable the reanimation spells.

All of the SB was utilized (except maybe Hurkyl's Recall, this was the weakest SB card).
Surgical Extraction didn't have many matchups where I needed them, but is highly needed against those matchups (Dredge, Rogue Hermit, Reanimator, etc).

Silence was Golden.
Chain of Vapor was boarded in almost everytime. 3 might make sense now, or even 1 maindeck.
4 Probe, 2 Chrome Mox, and 1 Children (optional 1 Silence too) were the most boarded out cards, depending on how many SB cards I needed maindeck.

The maindeck feels very solid. The only flexible slot right now I feel to be Silence, which should be a meta slot. Again, SoCal is a combo metagame, so I'm just hedging.

Quick & Dirty --
Round 1 - Sam Black.dec (2-1) Game 1 Turn 1 kill on the draw after getting Inquisition'd. Yep! Turn 1 kill in G3 when opponent lead with DRS instead of discard.
Round 2 - EsperBlade (2-1) Opp Inquisitions, I respond with Entomb>Griselbrand, then Surgicals it, then takes Pull from Eternity :[ and puts himself at 15... WHAM!
Round 3 - UW Miracles (2-1) Turn 1 kill on the draw. Have to check my notes in which game it happened. Super glad this game didn't go beyond turn 3.
Round 4 -Jund (2-0) G1 opp makes me discard a Griselbrand... He's dead next turn. G2 storm for 9 with Chain of Vapor and a naturally drawn Tendrils.
Round 5 - RUG (2-0) Turn 2 kill on a prayer and opponent didn't have a FoW in G1. G2 turn 1 kill on the draw after Probing to check (Waste x2, Goyf, Pierce, Brainstorm - Trop (tapped) & Delver in play).
Round 6 - Sneak Show (1-2) G1 T1 Show & Tell > Griselbrand for my opponent when I'm on the draw. Did not get there. G2 win through Silence. G3 we grind each other while I'm looking for a reanimation spell. Opp's Griselbrand drew him into more counters than I could fight through.
Round 7 - Pox (2-0) on camera -- total devastation. Sorry Sean :]
Round 8 - ID
Top 8 - Dredge (2-0) on camera -- total devastation. I punted, and it didn't even matter.
Top 4 - Sneak Show (2-0) G1 opp mulls to 5 on the play. I shred his hand T1 leaving him with 2 lands in hand and 1 in play. G2, draw-go for a while so I can 8 card discard Griselbrand and reanimate it. Upkeep Silence resolves, Chain the Grafdigger's Cage and reanimate Griselbrand at EOT while Silence is in effect. Silence again my turn and attack for 22.
Finals - UW RIP (0-2) on camera -- G1: Maindeck RIP = gg. G2: 2x CB = gg.

[phazonmutant]

Congrats, Koby! It's too bad they didn't feature the Sneak and Show match in the top8, it sounds like that would have been an interesting match.

A Chain of Vapor main definitely doesn't seem like a bad idea - outs to troublesome permanents and potential storm enabler. Perhaps cutting the second Children?

Was the basic Swamp ever important? Was it worth running over Bayou and Abrupt Decay in your opinion?

[FrankEGee88]

Many of my "win right now" hands were preceded by Gitaxian Probe. Were they necessary? Not very. But the information allowed me to just go for it knowing the opponent could not disrupt the chain.

2 Griselbrand was never an issue. I found throughout the tournament that the two Griselbrands were always stuck together. I can't explain it very well, but something to do with the sleeves and confirmational bias put them side by side almost every time I searched throughout my deck.

I had more issues digging for hate than I did digging for ways to enable the reanimation spells.

All of the SB was utilized (except maybe Hurkyl's Recall, this was the weakest SB card).
Surgical Extraction didn't have many matchups where I needed them, but is highly needed against those matchups (Dredge, Rogue Hermit, Reanimator, etc).

Silence was Golden.
Chain of Vapor was boarded in almost everytime. 3 might make sense now, or even 1 maindeck.
4 Probe, 2 Chrome Mox, and 1 Children (optional 1 Silence too) were the most boarded out cards, depending on how many SB cards I needed maindeck.

The maindeck feels very solid. The only flexible slot right now I feel to be Silence, which should be a meta slot. Again, SoCal is a combo metagame, so I'm just hedging.

Quick & Dirty --
Round 1 - Sam Black.dec (2-1) Game 1 Turn 1 kill on the draw after getting Inquisition'd. Yep! Turn 1 kill in G3 when opponent lead with DRS instead of discard.
Round 2 - EsperBlade (2-1) Opp Inquisitions, I respond with Entomb>Griselbrand, then Surgicals it, then takes Pull from Eternity :[ and puts himself at 15... WHAM!
Round 3 - UW Miracles (2-1) Turn 1 kill on the draw. Have to check my notes in which game it happened. Super glad this game didn't go beyond turn 3.
Round 4 -Jund (2-0) G1 opp makes me discard a Griselbrand... He's dead next turn. G2 storm for 9 with Chain of Vapor and a naturally drawn Tendrils.
Round 5 - RUG (2-0) Turn 2 kill on a prayer and opponent didn't have a FoW in G1. G2 turn 1 kill on the draw after Probing to check (Waste x2, Goyf, Pierce, Brainstorm - Trop (tapped) & Delver in play).
Round 6 - Sneak Show (1-2) G1 T1 Show & Tell > Griselbrand for my opponent when I'm on the draw. Did not get there. G2 win through Silence. G3 we grind each other while I'm looking for a reanimation spell. Opp's Griselbrand drew him into more counters than I could fight through.
Round 7 - Pox (2-0) on camera -- total devastation. Sorry Sean :]
Round 8 - ID
Top 8 - Dredge (2-0) on camera -- total devastation. I punted, and it didn't even matter.
Top 4 - Sneak Show (2-0) G1 opp mulls to 5 on the play. I shred his hand T1 leaving him with 2 lands in hand and 1 in play. G2, draw-go for a while so I can 8 card discard Griselbrand and reanimate it. Upkeep Silence resolves, Chain the Grafdigger's Cage and reanimate Griselbrand at EOT while Silence is in effect. Silence again my turn and attack for 22.
Finals - UW RIP (0-2) on camera -- G1: Maindeck RIP = gg. G2: 2x CB = gg.

Thanks for the report! Again, gratz on 2nd. I was totally stoked hearing how well you were doing! On another note, what were your typical sideboard plans? What card did you take out for which commonly? The deck looks kind-of hard to sideboard.

[P-E]

What about turning Recall into Wipe Away Koby ? It could have saved you in finals.

[Koby]

Congrats, Koby! It's too bad they didn't feature the Sneak and Show match in the top8, it sounds like that would have been an interesting match.

A Chain of Vapor main definitely doesn't seem like a bad idea - outs to troublesome permanents and potential storm enabler. Perhaps cutting the second Children?

Was the basic Swamp ever important? Was it worth running over Bayou and Abrupt Decay in your opinion?

Swamp could be replaced with Bayou, but also some Gemstone Mine or another 5c land to support Abrupt Decay. It would have been more useful than bounce in the finals matchup for sure. Again, it comes down to manabase consistency vs sideboard flexibility. I think the goal has been to make the deck consistent (in the 75) before trying to gain a few percentage points in one matchup. It sucks that we can't easily beat CB/RIP decks, but that's an acceptable risk.


Thanks for the report! Again, gratz on 2nd. I was totally stoked hearing how well you were doing! On another note, what were your typical sideboard plans? What card did you take out for which commonly? The deck looks kind-of hard to sideboard.

Typically --
-2 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Chrome Mox
-1 Children of Korlis
+2 Chain of Vapor
+2 something useful

Gitaxian Probes are then continued to be cut, possibly the Silence if it's a fair matchup, possibly the 2nd Chrome Mox if it's a control deck, possibly Reanimate if the expected GY hate is Leyline/RIP oriented. Probe is the most useful in G1 to know what to expect, but loses value in post-SB games.


What about turning Recall into Wipe Away Koby ? It could have saved you in finals.

I highly doubt that a single Wipe Away would have done anything against CB, RIP, and a fist full of counters + Clique. However, Serenity...

[sdematt]

Swamp could be replaced with Bayou, but also some Gemstone Mine or another 5c land to support Abrupt Decay. It would have been more useful than bounce in the finals matchup for sure. Again, it comes down to manabase consistency vs sideboard flexibility. I think the goal has been to make the deck consistent (in the 75) before trying to gain a few percentage points in one matchup. It sucks that we can't easily beat CB/RIP decks, but that's an acceptable risk.



Typically --
-2 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Chrome Mox
-1 Children of Korlis
+2 Chain of Vapor
+2 something useful

Gitaxian Probes are then continued to be cut, possibly the Silence if it's a fair matchup, possibly the 2nd Chrome Mox if it's a control deck, possibly Reanimate if the expected GY hate is Leyline/RIP oriented. Probe is the most useful in G1 to know what to expect, but loses value in post-SB games.



I highly doubt that a single Wipe Away would have done anything against CB, RIP, and a fist full of counters + Clique. However, Serenity...

Nice finish Koby! That was the worst possible matchup you could have faced, so don't feel bad at all. you played VERY masterfully. I was hoping in Game 2 of the finals he managed to not CB Top lock you and you just go off with RIP on the stack.

-Matt

[.dk]

I highly doubt that a single Wipe Away would have done anything against CB, RIP, and a fist full of counters + Clique. However, Serenity...

Oooh, that's hot. I hadn't considered that - assuming you can get it to resolve, that is. Maybe I was trying to think too broadly with City of Solitude - some combination of artifact and enchantment hate along with Pithing Needle may be enough, provided that they don't completely diversify their answers.

If we're running Bayou in a meta of RIP/CB - Reverent Silence seems pretty awesome, and certainly easier to cast than Abrupt Decay.

[Azdraël]

The thing with Serenity is: you can only play it during your turn, then it will likely get countered and the hate will land the turn after, which makes it even harder to play another copy of Serenity. For having played Storm for ages, the only bit of solution seems to splash green for Decay. (maybe cutting the white if you don't want too much mana inconsistency?)

[nudon]

The thing with Serenity is: you can only play it during your turn, then it will likely get countered and the hate will land the turn after, which makes it even harder to play another copy of Serenity. For having played Storm for ages, the only bit of solution seems to splash green for Decay. (maybe cutting the white if you don't want too much mana inconsistency?)

The problem with cutting white is the loss of explosiveness. You can't go infinite with children of korlis anymore and may possibly have to pass the turn after reanimating griselbrand. Also, pull from eternity is a pretty important card against surgical extraction. You can set up turn 2 serenity with turn 1 cabal therapy/thoughtseize.

[.dk]

The problem with cutting white is the loss of explosiveness. You can't go infinite with children of korlis anymore and may possibly have to pass the turn after reanimating griselbrand. Also, pull from eternity is a pretty important card against surgical extraction. You can set up turn 2 serenity with turn 1 cabal therapy/thoughtseize.

well, you don't need white lands to use Children. They rarely get cast off lands. You have petals, and can entomb/reanimate them as well. That's almost always what happens. That said, Pull is really quite useful against Surgical. Not advocating cutting white, just wanted to make sure we're all working from the same data set.

[phazonmutant]

Oooh, that's hot. I hadn't considered that - assuming you can get it to resolve, that is. Maybe I was trying to think too broadly with City of Solitude - some combination of artifact and enchantment hate along with Pithing Needle may be enough, provided that they don't completely diversify their answers.

If we're running Bayou in a meta of RIP/CB - Reverent Silence seems pretty awesome, and certainly easier to cast than Abrupt Decay.

Reverent Silence is pretty exciting. I know Mystical Tutor reanimator used to run it (and sometimes it was in the board of later builds when they played the Dryad Arbor plan against Edicts).

Right now trying out this board:
1 Pithing Needle
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Pull from Eternity
2 Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Massacre
1 Reverent Silence

I have 1 Silence main. Obviously for a more graveyard-centric meta, more Surgicals could be warranted. I've also been testing 1 Children main and it's been great. I'm not sure Massacre deserves a spot any more. Things to go in its place might be more Reverent Silences, a Hurkyl's Recall, or something to help with Jund. I still haven't figured out that matchup.
I've had 4 opponents in a row rage-quit on cockatrice. This deck is very disgusting.

[nudon]

well, you don't need white lands to use Children. They rarely get cast off lands. You have petals, and can entomb/reanimate them as well. That's almost always what happens. That said, Pull is really quite useful against Surgical. Not advocating cutting white, just wanted to make sure we're all working from the same data set.

Thanks for the clarification since I haven't had the chance to test the deck yet but had been interested in it ever since it gained traction following scg's deck tech a few weeks back, finally culminating in koby's finals appearance.

[Dark Ritual]

Congratz on the finish Koby. Deck deserves some recognition, it is a very powerful deck. As for the helm matchup, why talk about reverent silence? Abrupt decay seems infinitely better and that's what I suggest we adapt in our sideboards for the UW helm matchup and such. Abrupt decay is key against UW Helm, if Koby had had access to it at all postboard the game would have been completely different. Only permanents it doesn't kill are jace, humility, helm itself (not that big a deal since it kills the other piece of the combo, RiP, which is public enemy number 1 for us when it hits.) Winning before humility hits isn't unreasonable, and the card isn't that widely played.

I feel that pull from eternity is a sideboard staple at this point. Surgical on griselbrands hurts too much typically, at least in my experience and you have to go for emrakul when it might not even win the game outside of children of korlis beatdown afterward (that was probably the funniest thing I saw on your stream Koby, when you emrakul'ed the opponent then got there with children beatdown. Simply put it was priceless.)

[.dk]

What does decay hit out of UW that we care about that Reverent Silence doesn't? Really, the only things stopping us in that matchup are Rest in Peace and Counterbalance. Outside of that, their permanents are pretty much don't cares. It's very unlikely that they'll have a 4 drop to counter Reverent Silence, so in all likelihood you'll be taking care of at least a RIP or CB, if not both. And it does actually take care of Humility if they drop it. Neither hits Helm or Jace, and effectively neither of them hit Top. I guess I'm not sure what you're destroying with Abrupt Decay in that matchup that Revernt Silence doesn't also hit. And for the measly cost of 6 life in a deck that goes infinite. Decay is a fine card - but I don't think it is even enough against UW Helm because they have 2 enchantments that hit the board relatively frequently. The matchup is just that abysmal. My opinion, obv, and I haven't tested it either way, so it's pure conjecture regardless.

I think I'm also in agreement that Pull from Eternity is needed out of the sideboard. There are just too many decks packing Surgical out there to not want it. I rather like the sideboard Greg just posted - it contains both Decay as well as Reverent Silence, but I might go 2/2 split on those.

/edit Greg - is there a cockatrice server that is still up somewhere!?

[_Fortune_]

Reverent Silence is pretty exciting. I know Mystical Tutor reanimator used to run it (and sometimes it was in the board of later builds when they played the Dryad Arbor plan against Edicts).

Right now trying out this board:
1 Pithing Needle
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Pull from Eternity
2 Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Massacre
1 Reverent Silence

I have 1 Silence main. Obviously for a more graveyard-centric meta, more Surgicals could be warranted. I've also been testing 1 Children main and it's been great. I'm not sure Massacre deserves a spot any more. Things to go in its place might be more Reverent Silences, a Hurkyl's Recall, or something to help with Jund. I still haven't figured out that matchup.
I've had 4 opponents in a row rage-quit on cockatrice. This deck is very disgusting.

I like this idea a lot. What does your mana base look like to support the Bayou(s)?

[Koby]

I'm more more interested in persuing the Reverent Silence plan than Abrupt Decay. The two (three) permanents that we care most about are Counterbalance and RIP (and Leyline of the Void), and smarter CB players will not be floating a 4 cc on top of their deck. I am more willing to risk a few blowouts to a top of the deck Jace/Wrath and free up mana to go off instantly right after casting it than durdle around with awkward manabases trying to cast Abrupt Decay. Chain of Vapor solves almost all the deck's problems as it stands, and Reverent Silence will capture the 10% matchups. It also means that the manabase can be left intact (+1 Bayou -1 Swamp?) and still be able to cast R.Silence.

Right now (and experience with the deck from SCG Vegas) I would go -1 Marsh Flats +1 Bayou, then adjust the SB to account for Reverent Silence x2 for the CB matchup. I'm not absolutely sure we even want/need this considering that Jund/ADecay have done a fantastic job of suppressing CB/top decks from the mainstay, but I feel like Jack's performance (coupled with Joe's performance alongside) will revitalize the popularity of Miracles archetype.

Basically, I feel that the cat is out of the bag one way or another, and the coming weeks will be strife for Tin Fins in tournament performance as people adjust to adding more G/Y hate.

[.dk]

I'm more more interested in persuing the Reverent Silence plan than Abrupt Decay. The two (three) permanents that we care most about are Counterbalance and RIP (and Leyline of the Void), and smarter CB players will not be floating a 4 cc on top of their deck. I am more willing to risk a few blowouts to a top of the deck Jace/Wrath and free up mana to go off instantly right after casting it than durdle around with awkward manabases trying to cast Abrupt Decay. Chain of Vapor solves almost all the deck's problems as it stands, and Reverent Silence will capture the 10% matchups. It also means that the manabase can be left intact (+1 Bayou -1 Swamp?) and still be able to cast R.Silence.

Right now (and experience with the deck from SCG Vegas) I would go -1 Marsh Flats +1 Bayou, then adjust the SB to account for Reverent Silence x2 for the CB matchup. I'm not absolutely sure we even want/need this considering that Jund/ADecay have done a fantastic job of suppressing CB/top decks from the mainstay, but I feel like Jack's performance (coupled with Joe's performance alongside) will revitalize the popularity of Miracles archetype.

Basically, I feel that the cat is out of the bag one way or another, and the coming weeks will be strife for Tin Fins in tournament performance as people adjust to adding more G/Y hate.

1 Marsh Flats for Bayou makes sense if you're going to run Reverent Silence. I don't think we want to give up the basic land in the tempo/wasteland matches.

The good news is that I think outside of Rest in Peace, we're actually set up pretty well to handle most graveyard hate. Both inherently with instant speed reanimation, as well as Pull from Eternity and Chain of Vapor. But yeah, I think people are going to know what we're up to at this point.

Joe Losset is a machine with Miracles - even if more people pick up the deck, it's not like they're going to be piloting it at the same level that he does. (he crushed me at SCG Denver when I was on Tin Fins with Burning Wish last year).

I've yet to play this deck against Jund - it seems great on paper to me, but I've seen Greg's accounts that it's not so hot. Any others have any experiences? We managed to get our first local Jund player (Richard Cheese ironically), so maybe I'll get a chance to play some games.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

You guys are on Daily MTG.

[dameus]

Basically, I feel that the cat is out of the bag ...

Thanks, Koby! Ya just had to make the Finals, huh? Put the Sabre-Tooth back in the bag.
Yeah, that's not happening.
Oh well. I just wanted to advocate for trying to add to the pre-combo consistency at the cost of a little post-combo reassurance.
Namely, going down to 1 CoK (which seems to be gaining momentum) and only 1 Chrome Mox. What you chose to replace those cards with is less important than the concept. I choose to add 1x Careful Study and a 15th land, but I realize opinions vary. Even when I have Chrome Mox in my starting 7, I'm usually hesitant to cast it, because I can rarely afford to part with another card.

[phazonmutant]

I'm more more interested in persuing the Reverent Silence plan than Abrupt Decay. The two (three) permanents that we care most about are Counterbalance and RIP (and Leyline of the Void), and smarter CB players will not be floating a 4 cc on top of their deck. I am more willing to risk a few blowouts to a top of the deck Jace/Wrath and free up mana to go off instantly right after casting it than durdle around with awkward manabases trying to cast Abrupt Decay. Chain of Vapor solves almost all the deck's problems as it stands, and Reverent Silence will capture the 10% matchups. It also means that the manabase can be left intact (+1 Bayou -1 Swamp?) and still be able to cast R.Silence.

That's reasonable. I've only played against prison-type decks a couple times since I put Abrupt Decay in, and for the most part I wasn't able to use them effectively. In one match, Blood Moon shut off all my lands so I ended up just ritualing Griselbrand off my 1 Petal with a Decay rotting in hand.

I just tested 10 games or so against Alphastryk playing RiP Miracles and got demolished. The only preboard and postboard games I won were off a turn 1 and him not having Force. His board has 2-3 Meddling Mage and a Canonist as well as a couple Cliques, so he's especially hateful to combo, but I feel like we're maybe 20% against a good player. It felt that awful.
I never drew Abrupt Decay and had it be relevant, but I did draw Reverent Silence once and have it do nothing against his Meddling Mage. Massacre was an useful effect to have access to, but he was able to Force or Counterbalance it if was ever relevant.
My boarding was -4 Gitaxian Probe, -1 Chrome Mox, -1 Reanimate, +3 Abrupt Decay, +2 Massacre, +1 Reverent Silence. I wanted to try the TES plan of having answers to his hate and hoping he doesn't have a clock.

It actually felt very similar to why we lose to Jund - they just have too diverse and powerful a set of cards to play through.

So Koby, you definitely could be right that if it's not fantastic against Prison and it's not enough against Miracles, AD might not be worth the Gemstone Mine awkwardness.


.dk - there's a server on play.woogerworks.com. It has a decent number of people on it.

dameus - think about Chrome Mox as a basic land that you get to play for free on your combo turn. It's awkward to draw in multiples, but it is Wasteland-proof. If you're playing 15 lands that might be less of an issue though.

[Azdraël]

well, you don't need white lands to use Children. They rarely get cast off lands. You have petals, and can entomb/reanimate them as well. That's almost always what happens. That said, Pull is really quite useful against Surgical. Not advocating cutting white, just wanted to make sure we're all working from the same data set.

Exactly. CUtting the white only means cutting Silence (for more discard/probe) and Tundra/Scrub.

I don't really think we need Pull against Surgical. We ran 7/9 reanimate spell which allow us to double reanimate in response. That is why 1) I always keep Probe g2/g3 to see if I can combo off without having double reanimate spell 2) I always let Reanimate MD since it costs less mana to cast Reaniamte + SHallow/Goryo in response.

Basically, everytime I boarded Pull I feel it more like a gadget and I would have prefered to have one more bounce or discard, and surely more answers against UW/RiP/CB
My go for Pull would be if people start to board Extirpate if they can run or splash black, which kinda annihilates the deck...

my 2cts

[Falconer]

After finally discovering my membership activation in my spam filter :rolleyes: I also want to congratulate Koby to his second place. I know the feeling of losing against my own deck which I borrowed someone for local community support too good.

When CalebD played this deck it took my attention but it was Koby's stream which conviced me to give at a try. So it was nice to see him doing well.

Do you consider the Cantrip discussion to be solved? I think there are at least two more Cantrips that could be discussed.
Thought Scour: I think Thought Scour has some advantages over Carefull Study. It fills as much cards in your graveyard as Carefull Study but without attacking your hand. After it is an instant and can target a player it creates some plays that this deck previously didn't have. For example Thought Scour can get rid of a card your opponent Brainstormed away in response to your discard spell. The disadvantage on the other side is that you have no control which cards go to your graveyard, at least not without a previous Brainstorm.

Strategic Planning: Strategic Planning on the other hand is a Ponder effect where you take the card you want into your hand and the cards you don't want, or that you want in the graveyard, into your graveyard. The disadvantages however are the missing shuffle effect and the CMC of 2. But if everything is working as intended Strategic Planning is the only card that can get you a creature card in the graveyard and a reanimation spell in the hand at the same time.

Both cards however will most likely require to play 4 Griselbrand to make sure you hit something. After I just started to play the deck I don't fell able to make a decision right now if the advantages justify the disadvantages but at least it seems worth discussing.

Regarding the Miracles Match Up discussion, I think it is necessary to be able to deal with Counterbalance and Rest in Peace at the same time. Both cards have the ability to blow you out completly and at least after boarding Miracles play at least three copies from both cards while the Abrupt Decay boards discusst here only have two.This makes it likely that miracles have both cards before you have one Decay. Reverent Silence might be an idea. If you don't want a four colour mana base did you consider Tempest of Light as an alternative? CMC 3 is for the current Miracles builds not the easiest to hit CMC with Counterbalance. At Instant speed you can play it on your opponents turn before you try to go off on your following turn.

[Richard Cheese]

Thought Scour isn't a terrible idea. Brainstorm hiding stuff can be a pretty big pain in the ass, but I feel like it only really happens on our turn 1 in response to discard, so I'm not sure how often we'll also have the Petal and the Thought Scour ready to punish them.

Strategic planning is something .dk and I have looked at, but the mana cost and the dollar cost were both prohibitive of doing much real testing.

As far as Tempest of Light, what I've found in the UW matchup is that if you don't go off quickly, RiP and Counterbalance generally buy them enough time to sculpt their hand to have plenty of answers. Tempest has the same issue as Reverent Silence, where they probably can't hit it with Counterbalance, but by the time you find it, Brainstorm and Top have found force or Spell Pierce or Counterspell. Sometimes it feels like Needle on Top hurts them more than anything, they don't really have an answer to it outside Detention Sphere, but then you still have the sheer joy of running into blind flips and Brainstorms.

[Freggle]

I may be missing something, but, if the deck can consistently win within turn 3 without disruption. It only basically looses to fast graveyard hate like Rest in Peace, or faster combos. ...what exactly is wrong squeezing in a few main deck Spell Pierces and answering these problem cards on the stack?

Aside from sideboard Abrupt Decays if they have Force of Will your in equal trouble with any other permanent hate.

[Koby]

I may be missing something, but, if the deck can consistently win within turn 3 without disruption. It only basically looses to fast graveyard hate like Rest in Peace, or faster combos. ...what exactly is wrong squeezing in a few main deck Spell Pierces and answering these problem cards on the stack?

Aside from sideboard Abrupt Decays if they have Force of Will your in equal trouble with any other permanent hate.

Being reactive by its nature means being slower, as there are now dead pieces in place of combo pieces, or in place of cantripping.
Discard is the best use thus far, and it's quite unfortunate that we cannot do anything about Brainstorm hide + mainphase RIP.

[bartmanqc]

Being reactive by its nature means being slower, as there are now dead pieces in place of combo pieces, or in place of cantripping.
Discard is the best use thus far, and it's quite unfortunate that we cannot do anything about Brainstorm hide + mainphase RIP.

Only thing that I see is petal plus silence on their upkeep... but it's certainly not the optimal play...

[Freggle]

Being reactive by its nature means being slower, as there are now dead pieces in place of combo pieces, or in place of cantripping.
Discard is the best use thus far, and it's quite unfortunate that we cannot do anything about Brainstorm hide + mainphase RIP.

All of your "answers" discussed are reactive and non-combo enablers.

I'm not advocating the removal of discard (a combo enabler), but I see some lists with Silence, Unmask, Gitaxian Probe, chrome mox... It might be worth while to see what you commonly board out, and try them there. Or just try a few in the board if you want the main lean and mean. It is likely people will run right into them trying to race their hate out before you "go off."

Discard is very efficient, but can not stop top decks nor Brainstorm hides. Pierce can many times be a timewalk.

[Koby]

I may be missing something, but, if the deck can consistently win within turn 3 without disruption. It only basically looses to fast graveyard hate like Rest in Peace, or faster combos. ...what exactly is wrong squeezing in a few main deck Spell Pierces and answering these problem cards on the stack?

Aside from sideboard Abrupt Decays if they have Force of Will your in equal trouble with any other permanent hate.


Being reactive by its nature means being slower, as there are now dead pieces in place of combo pieces, or in place of cantripping.
Discard is the best use thus far, and it's quite unfortunate that we cannot do anything about Brainstorm hide + mainphase RIP.


All of your "answers" discussed are reactive and non-combo enablers.

I'm not advocating the removal of discard (a combo enabler), but I see some lists with Silence, Unmask, Gitaxian Probe, chrome mox... It might be worth while to see what you commonly board out, and try them there. Or just try a few in the board if you want the main lean and mean. It is likely people will run right into them trying to race their hate out before you "go off."

Discard is very efficient, but can not stop top decks nor Brainstorm hides. Pierce can many times be a timewalk.

I'm a little unclear at the progression of ideas presented.

The deck has unmatched raw power when left to its own devices. This much is evident and the reason for picking up this deck.

As you stated, it is soft to fast combo (Belcher, Rogue Hermit, TES, etc), Counterbalance, and continuous exiling effects (Leyline & RIP).
Against the first, being able to out-protect will mean winning on the back of Silence -- this was added a few weeks ago to positive results.
Against the second, winning fast enough to not allow Counterbalance to get online means playing more artificial mana sources (Dark Ritual, Chrome Mox, and Lotus Petal). It implies that aggressive mulliganning or early discard will achieve good results.
Against the latter, bounce provides the best mana:effect ratio.

When RIP and Counterbalance are combined (as popular in UW Miracles), troubles arise for a completely different concern: Force of Will.
Thus, suggesting Spell Pierce to reactively fight both of the enchantments is IMO the wrong approach and strains the manabase and style of the deck. It further complicates the vulnerability of dead draws even moreso than Mox, Silence, and Abrupt Decay do; and requires leaving mana up at possibly inopportune times.

In many decks that feature Chrome Mox, I will board them out against Counterbalance since they provide little to no function unless in a really good hand that can go off right now. Let's consider my SB from the finals vs Jack Colwell:

-2 Chrome Mox
-1 Children of Korlis
-1 Reanimate
-2 Gitaxian Probe
+2 Chain of Vapor
+2 Pithing Needle
+1 Hurkyl's Recall
+1 Echoing Trurth

Thus maintaining the complete minimum of combo finish, but eliminating Mox as a both a dead and unnecessary card; trimming a useless Reanimate vs RIP; and shaving Probe to find room for more powerful cards.

Abrupt Decay could have been useful, but I elected to be soft to this matchup at the expense of being more stable with the mana base. I specifically mentioned it leading into the event. I fail to see where I would implement Spell Pierce in this sideboard plan, let alone find enough room to play a meaningful number of those spells. What would you suggest to cut in the SB to fit Spell Pierce? What would you suggest to cut from the maindeck to bring them in?

EDIT -- completely off topic...
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8398&iddeck=61187
WOW! :eek:

[Freggle]

Quote

Koby i'm not quite up to speed as to what all the cards in the Sideboard function as in each match-up, but i'm eyeing-up from your sideboard the following (the bold ones):

2 Pithing Needle
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Pull from Eternity
2 Silence
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Massacre

I think you can shave or cut any of those to squeeze in 3 Spell Pierce

Then vs. Miracles I would board:

- 2 Chrome Mox
-1 Children of Korlis
-1 Silence

+3 Spell Pierce
+1 Surgical Extraction or +1 Chain of Vapor (test pending, likely Vapor)

The Probe it too valuable to cut let you know how to play your T1 if you have discard / counter magic option. It also enables the combo better.

On the play no probe I'd lead with discard.

On the draw no probe I'd lead with Pierce.