[Deck] TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst [Archive] - Page 4

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phazonmutant

03-26-2013, 02:15 AM

What's the current list look like, then? There's more room, so what should be in those slots? (Well, actually, there's only one more slot, if we count one as filled by the Intuition.) And how's the SB?

The deck is your oyster!
Options include: (brace yourself)
Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy, Silence, Lim-Dul's Vault, Intuition, Reanimte #2, Goryo's Vengeance #4, Griselbrand 3-4, land #14, and if you really want to get crazy, Preordain, Careful Study.

I can come up with reasonable arguments for all of those cards. There are probably more besides these that make some sense.
I'm still testing around variations of the list I posted here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24104-TinFins-3-Return-of-the-Onion-Burst&p=711485&viewfull=1#post711485
That's just my take on it, though.

I talked about the sideboard just a few short scrollwheel rotations up (right under the purty Teferi's Realms).

Update on Gemstone Mine:
I tried playing 8 fetches, 2 basics and no Mines in some matches. I screwed myself fetching for basics 4 out of 4 times. I definitely don't like the basic Island and I felt a little sketchy on W sources, so I'm just going back to 2 Mines.

walker

03-26-2013, 02:34 AM

@ phazon - I agree with you about the other cards, but Griselbrand is not considered a dead draw because you can discard him from your hand. 2 copies seems like an arbitrary number. If you're relying on entomb to combo why not play 1 griselbrand, and duress over thoughtsieze?

I'm glad my recommendation of gitaxian probe and cabal therapy has been working out for so many players. Both cards are great on there own and can be an absolute blowout when combined. I think they are both better in lists running 4 griselbrand though. (Probe because you are more likely to have a natural turn 1 hand, and probe checks if the coast is clear. Therapy obviously because it bins griselbrand). I guess my testing has provided a different result.

@ koby - We didn't really get a chance to chat in depth yesterday, but the reason I think this deck is a sub-optimal choice is because of the sideboard. Overall I think most of the current maindecks are playable (obviously I still think 4 griselbrand is correct), but I put this deck down for good (for tournament play at least) until I can play a sideboard I'm confident with. I'm not sold on the anti-hate route, the show and tell route, or any of the transformational options. If this ever changes I will pick it up again with glee and I pray that day comes. Until then I'm tendrilsing without griselbrand :/

@ dark rit - You're right, careful study is crap in this deck, every other cantrip is better. Can't be said enough. No version of this deck runs the critical mass of creatures study requires. The only time I can think of careful study being useful is when you put it on the stack and then cast LDV to find creature.

Zubba

03-26-2013, 08:31 AM

@phazonmuant

Thanks for the kind words and yes i know my decklist was a little off atleast after playing a tournament with it there are some changes i would make.
I wasent trying to point out that the deck was bad becuse i had to mull alot or anything like that it's a combo deck and sometimes you just don't do anyting thats the nature of thoose decks.
Then again you can trade speed for consistancy if thats what you wanna do me and a friend has been playing Ooze combo for some time in legacy and i think i will look to that list to see if i can get any info from that deck to improve this one i know they are diffrent decks but in alot of way they are the same they wanna get things into the graveyard and win the same turn.
This deck has been tuned for over 1 year buy some of the best legacy players in sweden so i would say it's tuned okey with some cards moving in and out depending on meta ect.
I'am only posting this to inspire and maybe see if some of you veterans of Tin fins can see anything that can be good to convert from this deck to Tin fins. Reason we dropped it was becuse of Deathrite shaman you can't play around it if they know what they are doing in the same way you can with Tin fins for example.

This is the decklist

Maindeck

1 Aquamoeba
1 Necrotic Ooze
1 Triskelion
1 Phyrexian Devourer
1 Personal Tutor
4 Ponder
4 Buried Alive
4 Thoughtseize
4 Reanimate
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
3 Force of Will
2 Shallow Grave
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lim-Dul’s Vault
4 Lotus Petal
2 Underground Sea
2 Ancient Tomb
2 Swamp
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire

Sideboard

1 Echoing Truth
3 Helm of Obedience
4 Show and Tell
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Leyline of the Void

Now i did see that you had started playing Intuition as a 1 of in Tin fins We played 4 in this deck for along time but after testing Lim dul we changed to that, it's 1 turn faster and it doesnt fold to Surgical ect sure they still shuffel your library if they target something else but atleast you don't lose the card you where looking for it's still in your deck.
Reason we dident play it from start was becuse it was card disadvantage but after testing we relised that dident do anything becuse we would just go of that turn anyway.
This deck works the same way you find what you want and win so i think Lim dul is better then intuition the only part i don't like is the life loss wich is a much worse drawback in Tin fins then Ooze combo.
What do you guys think Lim-Dul or Intuition? Both would ad alot of consistancy to deck without slowing it down alot you don't have to play 4 or anything like that 1-3 would be fine.

This is the decklist of Tin fins i have been working on after the weekend and plan on playing at a big 100+ Legacy tournament this weekend and then bring it to GP Strasbourg ofc there could be changes to the decklist.

2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Children of Korlis
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Entomb
2 Intuition // Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
1 Silence
3 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Polluted Delta
3 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Swamp
1 Island

// Sideboard

2 Chain of Vapor
2 Teferi's Realm
2 Pithing Needle
2 Massacre
2 Pull from Eternity
2 Silence
1 Wipe Away
2 Surgical Extraction

This is very close to phazonmuant decklist and for alot of reasons i liked it alot when looking at it!
Teferi's Realm has been a BEAST in the test games my and my friend did last night we tested vs Elves/Mud and Stoneblade.
VS mudd it was the card that allowed me to win after chalice on 1 and a Trinisphere., played it and won on my next turn. But was also good vs Elves dunno if you should really bring it in there but it did some work taking away his lands so he couldent crop rotation.
It's slow but deals with everything exept the spells that can screw you up so i think it should be in the sideboard.
Also wanna test Grand Abolisher it's dubbel white but i think it's doable, anyone tested it so far?

.dk

03-26-2013, 11:54 AM

Haven't tested Grand Abolisher yet, but it's on my to do list. Seems like it could be strong in some matches, however it doesn't deal with Rest in Peace. If you're in a meta of Nihil Spellbomb, Tormod's Crypt, and Surgical Extraction though, it seems excellent.

phazonmutant

03-26-2013, 04:46 PM

@ phazon - I agree with you about the other cards, but Griselbrand is not considered a dead draw because you can discard him from your hand. 2 copies seems like an arbitrary number. If you're relying on entomb to combo why not play 1 griselbrand, and duress over thoughtsieze?

You're right it's not strictly a dead draw - you can bin it, you can hardcast it, etc. But almost always, I have to spend my disruption on my opponent and I'm unhappy to draw Griselbrand. That's why I'm personally a fan of 2 Griselbrand. There is a reasonable argument for 4 though.

What do you guys think Lim-Dul or Intuition? Both would ad alot of consistancy to deck without slowing it down alot you don't have to play 4 or anything like that 1-3 would be fine.

I haven't tested Lim-Dul's Vault too much in TinFins, but the similarish Griselbrand Storm deck I played at GP Atlanta had 2. After the event I was very underwhelmed with LDV. There were just too many times I was looking for a 4-of and paid 5+ life, or they had something to mess me up, or it was going late and I couldn't wait a turn. That being said, there's a bunch of people testing LDV and liking it in TinFins so I can't discount it out of hand.

The reason I like Intuition so much better is that it doesn't require life payment and it is a combo piece by itself. Multiples could be warranted, worth testing.

Koby

03-26-2013, 04:59 PM

I believe the hold-over for the 2 copies of Griselbrand was the reliance on Intuition. Two copies are required in order to properly bin one copy.

Dick_Tator

03-26-2013, 08:09 PM

I went 4-2 at a local 25-player tournament tonight which landed me in fourth place, the reward for which was measly 10$. But since the tournaments cost 5$ to enter, that's still the next two tournaments payed for right there:-)

This is the deck I played:

Main Deck:

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

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

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

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
4 Dark Ritual

4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Silence
1 Intuition

Sideboard:

2 Serenity
2 Silence
2 Pull from Eternity
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Pithing Needle
2 Massacre
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Pact of Negation

I had made some changes to my sideboard, trying out Serenity and Pact of Negation. To make room for these, I cut my Surgical Extractions - this would prove to be a bad move...

Match Report:

Round 1: Bye. 2-0

Round 2: vs. 12 Post. 2-1

Game 1: On the play I mulled to six and kept Ponder, Dark Ritual, Entomb, Gitaxian Probe, and two lands. I then drew a Goryo's off the top of my deck and comboed off on turn 1, killing him with Griselbrand and Emrakul. 1-0

Game 2:I don't recall my hand, but he plays a Pithing Needle naming Griselbrand on turn 1. I finally find Serenity to take care of the Needle, but by then he has slowed me down long enough for him to play Ulamog and kill med with it. 1-1

Game 3: I mull to six, keeping Chrome Mox, Cabal Therapy, Dark Ritual, Griselbrand, Shallow Grave, and an arbitrary sixth card that I can't remember. I go off on turn 1.

Sideboard: - 1 x Reanimate, 1 x Silence. + 2 x Serenity.

Round 3: vs. Reanimator. 1-2

Game 1: I mull to 4 before seeing any combo pieces and eventually keep a hand of Tunda, Entomb, Ponder, and Brainstorm. He has the nuts and gets a Griselbrand into play on turn 2. 0-1

Game 2: I keep a good hand, though I honestly cannot recall what it was. I go of on turn 2 or 3.

Game 3: We both mull to 5 and on the draw I keep a hand of 2 x Entomb, 2 x Shallow Grave, and a Gitaxian Probe. I manage to draw a land and then a ritual from my Probe the next turn, but he has a counterspell to prevent me from getting Griselbrand into play. Instead he lands Iona, names black, and rides her to victory.

Sideboard: Man I missed my Surgicals! I sided in 2 x Pact of Negation for 2 x Gitaxian Probes, but it never made a difference.

Round 4: vs. U/B/R Delver. 1-2

Nothing exciting to tell here, as I got thoroughly crushed. He played the full sets of both Daze, Force, Spell Pierce, and Misdirection main, along with Deathrite Shaman, and he boarded in Grafdigger's Cage and Surgicals. Wipe out.

Sideboard: -1 x Reanimate, 1 x Children of Korlis, 2 x Gitaxian Probe. + 2 x Silence, 2 x Chain of Vapor.

Round 5: vs. Goblins. 2-1

Game 1: On the play I mull to six and keep a hand with Dark Ritual, Goryo's, Entomb and Gitaxian Probe plus two other cards that I don't remember (no lands). My Gitaxian Probe finds nothing, but I rip a land the following turn and go off.

Game 2: I mull to four without finding a single combo piece and he is able to kill me before I get anywhere near going off.

Game 3: I draw a great hand and go off turn 1.

Sieboard:

- 4 x Gitaxian Probe. + 2 x Chain of Vapor, 2 x Massacre.

Round 6: vs. Burn. 2-0

Game 1: I keep a hand of Brainstorm, Ponder, Lotus Petal, Shallow Grave and three lands on the draw. I draw an Entomb within the next two turns and go off.

Game 2: I keep a hand of Griselbrand, Thoughtseize, Ponder, Chrome Mox, Brainstorm and two lands. I spend a couple of turns digging for an reanimate spell and finally find one.

Sideboard: - 2 x Thoughtseize. + 2 x Silence.

My conclusions: The main deck feels very solid. I never once fetched my basic Island, even when I played against decks with Wasteland. It should probably be either a Gemstone Mine or a fourth Marsh Flats. I really did not like Pact of Negation in my sideboard. I only boarded it in once, and even then I would much prefer to draw a discard spell or Silence. Serenity, on the other hand, showed some promise, even if I only got to cast it in a single game (which I lost). I'll give it another test run in next week's tournament.

phazonmutant

03-26-2013, 11:30 PM

Koby

03-27-2013, 12:57 AM

Did end up streaming tonite, but managed to go 3-1 in the MTGO Legacy Daily Event. I beat UW Miracle, lost to Fire & Lightning (bad mulls = dead vs Red), beat RUG with some tight mulligan (Probe is clutch in this matchup to know if you can go for it), and beat ANT with superior spells (Probe/Therapy + flashback sacing Kids / Silence post board).

I was using 3 Probe and 2 LDV. LDV has been clutch so far in my testing. I used it three times tonite between 3 matches and it found what I needed within the top 5 cards easily. Brainstorm in hand + LDV is also much much better.

My list right now:

8 fetch
2 Underground Sea
2 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Swamp
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual

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

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Prove
2 Lim-Dul's Vault

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
1 Silence

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

SB
1 Serenity (need to buy a 2nd -- didn't need it however)
2 Pull from Eternity (not using this anymore -- Silence might just be better overall)
3 Surgical Extraction (good vs ANT/TES)
2 Pithing Needle (may bump this up)
3 Chain of Vapor (been using less n less)
1 Echoing Truth (brought in vs RIP/Miracles)
1 Massacre (still has its uses vs Esper/Maverck/Junk)

My new proposed sideboard:

2 Serenity
3 Silence (1 main)
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Chain of Vapor/Echoing Truth mix
3 Pithing Needle
1 Massacre

Something odd happened today in testing -- twice I had a quick reanimation on Griselbrand and drew 21 cards, but failed to get any action. In one game I lost, as I was against Storm at 2 life; and the other against UW Miracles also at a low life total. Drawing that many cards will always find you a way to win the next turn, except unless you're pressured on board.

Bobmans

03-27-2013, 05:05 AM

Something odd happened today in testing -- twice I had a quick reanimation on Griselbrand and drew 21 cards, but failed to get any action. In one game I lost, as I was against Storm at 2 life; and the other against UW Miracles also at a low life total. Drawing that many cards will always find you a way to win the next turn, except unless you're pressured on board.

I think that statistically it was better to have the 2nd Children. Before Children was added to the deck, this, happened quite often. My suggestion is cutting the 8th fetch and go 2 Children. 13 lands is working great for me. Just as Zubba said, it keeps flooding somehow.

The single island has been good for me. Against Moon/Wasteland decks it helped to dig up the Island first, then go cantrippin and fetch up the Swamp while sculpting the winning hand. That has been a solid strategy for me.

Also I really like Deathmark over Massacre. Although it doesn't answers multiples and isn't free, it does answer to green creatures to. Elves, BUG, Nic Fit. If you play it on DRS and they answer it with a counter, then it is a (also) good trade.

Dick_Tator

03-27-2013, 06:21 AM

Thanks for the report dick_tator! I appreciate the description of what you kept, it's always nice to see some more data about how other people mulligan and keep. That Grixis delver deck sounds pretty interesting (although a complete pounding for our deck).

Why did you end up deciding to play 2 Children?

Edit: realized I didn't know what I was talking about with 12post. Your boarding seems fine.

Yeah, that Delver deck was a nightmare to play against. I only managed to steal a game against him, because he got cocky and cast three Dark Confidants, after which he blindflipped two Force of Wills and a Vendillion Clique in his next upkeep to kill himself:-)

I chose to play the second Children because I was scared of going down to one and not being able to find it when I go off. I just feel more confortable with two in my deck. Nevertheless, I did end up with a Children stuck in my hand several times (and once I even drew both of them), so I'm definitely going to try cutting one for my next tournament.

I'm also toying around with the idea of a green splash for my sideboard. I splashed for Abrupt Decay in my big tournament last Saturday and it worked fine (or the manabase did, at least. I know that the effectiveness of Abrupt Decay as a sideboard card is still up for debate). I really want to try out Reverent Silence, so I'm considering adding a Bayou to my main instead of the basic Island and then play a sideboard somewhat like this:

2 x Abrupt Decay
2 x Reverent Silence
2 x Silence
3 x Surgical Extraction
2 x Pull from Eternity
2 x Massacre
2 x Pithing Needle

Any thoughts?

Cacks

03-27-2013, 03:04 PM

I have been toying with the idea of running a personal tutor sideboard strategy, containing something like:

2 personal tutor
1 sheldock isle
1 doomsday
1 show and tell
1 reverent silence (although this is for CB matchups, where the tutor is likely to get countered anyway, and so I may need more)
2 abrupt decay
1 massacre
1 perish
3 silence (1 main)
2 pithing needle

I don't know if anyone has tried anything like this - enabling a mix of hate and (other) combo enablers with relatively few cards? The tutor can also fetch cabal therapy or thoughtsieze for protection / self discard, or the maindeck reanimate. The other obvious potential inclusion is buried alive, as a personal tutor 'entomb' target, but that seems veeery slow. If there was another better sorcery speed option for entomb, the plan could be good. As is, however, I am somewhat unsure. There is no testing at all here, since I thought I'd throw this out whilst waiting for my shallow graves (finally found four) to turn up.....! If/when they ever do, I may be able to say something more concrete!

Chikenbok

03-28-2013, 01:30 PM

I just want all of you to know, that as a long time DD player, I finally put this deck together for a LGS tourny (appx 38 people) and won every match.

I hate you guys. I love this deck.

Koby

03-28-2013, 01:33 PM

I just want all of you to know, that as a long time DD player, I finally put this deck together for a LGS tourny (appx 38 people) and won every match.

I hate you guys. I love this deck.

It may not be the most powerful Storm deck (who am I kidding, draw 21 cards is really powerful), but the simplicity in playing it to achieve a power level on par with Griselbrand far outweighs it over other Storm variants.

.dk

03-28-2013, 01:41 PM

I just want all of you to know, that as a long time DD player, I finally put this deck together for a LGS tourny (appx 38 people) and won every match.

I hate you guys. I love this deck.

I find this hilarious in that I've practically put Tin Fins down since GP Denver to focus on learning and becoming more proficient at DDFT.

Also - grats on blowing out your locals. :)

Chikenbok

03-28-2013, 02:00 PM

I find this hilarious in that I've practically put Tin Fins down since GP Denver to focus on learning and becoming more proficient at DDFT.

Also - grats on blowing out your locals. :)

I will say this, DD (as having played it well..... since all the pieces came together years ago) once cast, wins the game, as we all know. The games I was struggling with while playing Tin Fins I was generally staring at the board thinking, "If I could resolve a DD right now, the game would be over, immediately." Not to say that I didn't raw dog a reanimation spell off the top and proceed to win the game on the spot but the puzzle solving part of the equation is VASTLY different than any other storm deck I've played.

Also, and the main reason I'm playing this deck right now is because I get to play Lim Dul's Vault again.... (who remembers OG DD lists with 3 mystical tutors 2 LDV, anyone... c'mon).

List felt incredibly solid although I'm pretty certain that I'm going to be playing green in the SB for decays - they've immediately become a 3-4 of in every other storm deck I play, I see no difference not to do the same here.

Koby

03-28-2013, 02:06 PM

.dk

03-28-2013, 02:18 PM

LDV is fun, that's for sure.

I'm not a huge fan of Abrupt Decay in this deck, really. It really comes down to the fact that the decks that give us a lot of trouble tend to have multiple problem permanents on the board (i.e. Miracles).

Because of this, if I'm splashing green (which I am still testing that), I'm running Reverent Silence as the main anti-hate. Serenity and Teferi's Realm do that same thing without splashes as well. With the green splash, Decay is probably still necessary in the board to deal with things like Chalice and such too, but I can't see a case where I would have enough cards to board out and board them all in.

Chikenbok

03-28-2013, 02:25 PM

The board I was considering is essentially your 'alt' sideboard:

3 x Abrupt Decay
2 x Silence
3 x Pithing Needle
2 x Surgical Extraction
2 x Reverent Silence
1 x Chain of Vapor
1 x Bayou
1 x Massacre

This is at least what I'll be playing at my next event

Dick_Tator

03-28-2013, 02:46 PM

On the green splash --
I don't doubt that Abrupt Decay is a good card and there's plenty of room for it in the sideboard. My main concern is how to make them swap with maindeck cards in sideboard games to achieve the purpose we need them to perform. The expectation is that games will go "long" since we're playing more reactive. That means Chrome Mox will be removed (hurting the mana base a bit). Perhaps we can take the approach similar to ANT by adding an additional Bayou into the sideboard so we can board that in when we take out Chrome Mox.

Possible SB:
1 Bayou
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Reverent Silence
3 Pithing Needle
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Massacre
3 Surgical Extraction
ALT:
-1 Pithing Needle
-2 Reverent Silence
+3 Silence

This may make the deck weaker against other Storm variations, since we're dropping the Silence. Silence, admittedly, is very good at preventing Surgical from becoming live for our opponents. We also weaken the BUG, RUG matchups. These matchups will generally not require Abrupt Decay as a reactive element.

I've been working on something similar for my board.

If we do decide to try the green splash, do we really need to run both Abrupt Decay and Chain of Vapor? They seem to serve roughly the same purpose. And if this is the case, I might prefer Abrupt Decay over Chains. It's more difficult for us to combo off the turn you play Decay because of the mana requirement, but it deals with the problem permanently, so we can just combo off the following turn. And the fact that it is uncounterable obviously makes it much more effective against Counterbalance.

We might need Chain of Vapor to deal with threats that cost more than three CMC. But Besides Leyline, how many threats can our opponents reasonably play that Abrupt Decay cannot deal with? (this isn't a rhetorical question, I'm actually asking).

Also, I feel we need Silence in the board, it just serves too many purposes in a variety of matches for us to cut it. It stops Storm, protects against Surgicals, discard, counterspells etc.

I've been tinkering with this sideboard:

1 x Bayou
3 x Abrupt Decay
2 x Reverent Silence
3 x Silence
1 x Pithing Needle
3 x Surgical Extraction (btw, how do we feel about playing Extirpate in this slot?)
2 x Massacre

Cutting Pull from Eternity makes us vulnerable to exile effects, but we have Silence and discard to protect us against these. Abrupt Decay can deal with a lot of the cards that we would typically name with Needle, like D. Shaman, Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus and Sensei's Divining Top, so we might not need as many copies of Needle as before (though it still merits a spot in the board). Finally, decks like Death & Taxes and Maverick have been gaining popularity in my local meta, so I would prefer to run two copies of Massacre, but this is purely a meta call.

Koby

03-28-2013, 02:56 PM

I think the last few posts have a ton of merit. Now time to test them out and put theory into practice.

Chain vs Abrupt Decay - the only time I would feel that Chain is better is against Leylines; otherwise Abrupt Decay gets the nod. The main difficulty is understand and anticipating where Abrupt Decay would be needed to be boarded in.

Sometimes, it's just a guessing game and winning Game 1 has to be won in order to make effective sideboarding for Game 3.

Madmaniac21

03-28-2013, 03:02 PM

Been doing some goldfishing with the following board:

4 Show and tell
4 Sneak Attack
3 Emrakrul
3 Ancient Tomb
1 Volcanic island

and have considered adding 1 volc to main. I've always been a fan of transformational boards (Combo Bargain into Oath circa 2008?), and blanking people's hate is always nice. The dark rits make up for the missing City of Traitors when it comes to mana accel.

In theory what I'm thinking is to throw all 15 cards in (which I do at alrger tournaments anyways to hide SB strats), then watch how many cards my opponent boards - if I see them bring in 6+ I'll switch to the Sneak Show plan, if only 4 (so they came light on gyard hate) I stay with Tin Fins.

Thoughts?

Dick_Tator

03-28-2013, 03:14 PM

Sometimes, it's just a guessing game and winning Game 1 has to be won in order to make effective sideboarding for Game 3.

This ^^

I truly believe that bad sideboarding is one of the biggest reasons as to why I have performed so mediocrely with the deck in my first couple of tournaments. I won game 1 in all but one of the 12 matches I played in my last two tournaments, yet my overall record for the two tournaments read 7 won matches and 6 lost. Although there were games in which I was simply outplayed, there were also quite a few games in which I clearly sideboarded wrongly and it ended up costing me the game.

I'm growing to believe that once you've won game 1, you probably need to keep your sideboarding to a minimum in game 2 because you don't know what kinds of hate you'll be facing. Then if you lose, you can board the correct answers in for game 3.

HammafistRoob

03-28-2013, 03:43 PM

I'm growing to believe that once you've won game 1, you probably need to keep your sideboarding to a minimum in game 2 because you don't know what kinds of hate you'll be facing. Then if you lose, you can board the correct answers in for game 3.
This is where Silence really shines because of how flexible it is, it's never going to be a dead card. I can't say too much as of now because I've only played 6 pre-board games with the deck. But I can say that I've been loving 3 Ponders and 0 LDVs so far. Great work guys keep it up.

.dk

03-28-2013, 04:03 PM

I'm growing to believe that once you've won game 1, you probably need to keep your sideboarding to a minimum in game 2 because you don't know what kinds of hate you'll be facing. Then if you lose, you can board the correct answers in for game 3.

Exactly - boarding in a couple of pieces of generic answers in Game2 is usually appropriate, and then make it a bit more specific for Game3 if need be. I feel that Chain of Vapor and Pithing Needle are great for this purpose.

@Madmaniac21 - check back about 20-30 pages in the thread. We discussed the Sneak/Show transformation, and currently don't believe that it is better than anti-hate boards. Most of us are actually on only 2 Griselbrands maindeck now too, which makes that plan a bit worse.

Dick_Tator

03-28-2013, 05:19 PM

Since I'm trying out a green splash for the sideboard, I am contemplating going all the way and testing City of Solitude. I know that someone (Richard Cheese?) has mentioned it several times previously, but as far as I recall it was never tested because it demanded green mana. Well, if I'm splashing for green anyway, I might as well give it a try.

I know that some of us (perhaps even most of us?) are somewhat sceptical about the green splash. And I'm not saying that this is necessarily the way to go, I just want to test some stuff. City of Solitude is almost certainly too cute, but there's no denying that its effect is awesome, and the converted mana cost is the same as Teferi's Realm which several people are playing. So I think it at least deserves to be tested.

The problem then becomes what to cut in order to make room for them in the board. I could cut one Silence, seeing as City of Solitude can often function essentially the same way (protecting us against counterspells and Surgical Extraction when we go off). And I guess I could cut either a Surgical or a Massacre - I'm leaning more towards cutting Massacre, since we have other answers for Maverick's hatebears and we need the Surgicals against Reanimator and Storm.

Another option is to simply play the Bayou main, probably instead of the basic Island or one of the Gemstone Mines depending on the individual configuration. This would free up an extra slot in the board, but we would have to play our pre-board games with what would essentially be an extra swamp that can be wastelanded.

A proposed sideboard:

1 x Bayou
3 x Abrupt Decay
2 x Reverent Silence
2 x Silence
1 x Pithing Needle
3 x Surgical Extraction
1 x Massacre
2 x City of Solitude

.dk

03-28-2013, 06:04 PM

For if you're splashing green, i think there is a good case to be made to run the Bayou main, and (assuming it tests out OK) Koby's suggestion of another one in the board.

I was testing City of Solitude earlier - and yes it does have a sweet ability. Maybe it's fine with more lands, but it is SO SLOW. The difference between this and Teferi's Realm is that in the matchups where City is good, they are putting on a bunch of pressure. i.e. Tempo Decks like RUG or BUG Delver - they play taxing counters, Surgical effects, crypts, etc. City cuts these off, but you're waiting a while to cast it after they've already been beating you down with a Delver and Goyfs, so by the time you have a chance at landing it, you're mostly dead.

Realm and Serenity are a bit different in that the matchups where they shine, Miracles specifically, you don't have pressure on you at all. You can wait to assemble your answers and not really worry that you're going to die.

Hope that makes sense.

Koby

03-28-2013, 10:39 PM

That feel good feeling when your Silence is Forced, telegraphing Surgical Extraction in hand, promptly taken by a Cabal Therapy.

TraxDaMax

03-29-2013, 12:34 AM

Chikenbok

03-29-2013, 12:56 AM

Are the Pithing Needles mainly for Sensei's Divining Top?
If so, if I were to try out a green sideboard could I cut them?
At the moment I'm running Koby's list -1 c.mox, -1 children, -1 g.probe, +1 bayou, +2 LDV.

Side:
1 bayou
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Reverent Silence
1 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Silence

It much more mana intensive but Abrupt Decay just deals with so many things that hate on us that I figured I could move out some other things.

With 4 decays do you really think its necessary to run 3 other spells to deal with permanents? In the last handful of games I played with a green SB 3 Decay + 1 Chain was all I ever really wanted. Curious as to how many things you need to bounce.

Final Fortune

03-29-2013, 02:52 AM

It may not be the most powerful Storm deck (who am I kidding, draw 21 cards is really powerful), but the simplicity in playing it to achieve a power level on par with Griselbrand far outweighs it over other Storm variants.

I'm in the process of putting the deck together and 'I'm curious as to whether or not the Storm kill is actually necessary in the MD. Short of a miser's Karakas, Emakrul is the more reliable kill condition and I seem to draw Tendrils of Agony and Chrome Mox every game.

Can we just SB Tendrils and MD another Child?

TraxDaMax

03-29-2013, 03:01 AM

With 4 decays do you really think its necessary to run 3 other spells to deal with permanents? In the last handful of games I played with a green SB 3 Decay + 1 Chain was all I ever really wanted. Curious as to how many things you need to bounce.

You're absolutely right after checking sideboards for the last 40 minutes on tc decks.
Chain of Vapor and Echoing Truth are mainly for Leyline of the Void, Humility, and Iona.
Reverent Silence deals with 2 of those I mentioned, and I guess Surgical Extraction is a good enough shot at disturbing Iona to appear.

Probably end up more like this:

1 Bayou
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Reverent Silence
2 Silence
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction

Seems a lot of sideboard cards tend to have the same purpose though, no matter what I bring in.

I'm in the process of putting the deck together and 'I'm curious as to whether or not the Storm kill is actually necessary in the MD. Short of a miser's Karakas, Emakrul is the more reliable kill condition and I seem to draw Tendrils of Agony and Chrome Mox every game.

Can we just SB Tendrils and MD another Child?

Sometimes I feel the same way, but then the game occurs where I have to attack with Grizza to get 7 extra cards before I can win and I'm glad I can go off(*) with Tendrils then.

*Not much of "going off" to it, but I guess that's still what it is.

phazonmutant

03-29-2013, 03:07 AM

I'm in the process of putting the deck together and 'I'm curious as to whether or not the Storm kill is actually necessary in the MD. Short of a miser's Karakas, Emakrul is the more reliable kill condition and I seem to draw Tendrils of Agony and Chrome Mox every game.

Can we just SB Tendrils and MD another Child?

I've advocated cutting Tendrils from the 75 before, but after playing some more matches with and without, I have to admit Tendrils is necessary against decks that can remove Griselbrand in play. Tendrils is a pretty awful waste of a sideboard slot - it's not high-impact at all. At least in the main it can somewhat help consistency if you can't draw Children or Entomb+Reanimate but do draw Tendrils - that's happened before in tournament g1s to me.

Couldn't tell if you were advocating cutting Children if you're cutting Tendrils. If that's the case, you're dead wrong - Children is necessary to kill the turn you make Griselbrand because you often won't find all the pieces without attacking, especially if you don't have Tendrils in the main. Not sure why Tendrils in the board would entail extra Children either.

Final Fortune

03-29-2013, 03:55 AM

I've advocated cutting Tendrils from the 75 before, but after playing some more matches with and without, I have to admit Tendrils is necessary against decks that can remove Griselbrand in play. Tendrils is a pretty awful waste of a sideboard slot - it's not high-impact at all. At least in the main it can somewhat help consistency if you can't draw Children or Entomb+Reanimate but do draw Tendrils - that's happened before in tournament g1s to me.

Couldn't tell if you were advocating cutting Children if you're cutting Tendrils. If that's the case, you're dead wrong - Children is necessary to kill the turn you make Griselbrand because you often won't find all the pieces without attacking, especially if you don't have Tendrils in the main. Not sure why Tendrils in the board would entail extra Children either.

You misread, I assumed removing the Tendrils of Agony from the MD would reduce your ability to find a kill condition post-Griselbrand and in order to compensate I suggested moving the Tendrils of Agony to the SB and replacing it with a second copy of Children in order to compensate for whatever mathematical instability not having the 2nd kill condition MD would cause to your ability to close out the game.

Do you really think Swords to Plowshares is the reason to play Tendrils of Agony MD? I'm pretty sure it's the reason to play a 2nd copy of Griselbrand MD, where you just draw 14 cards, sit at 13 life and then go off again on the following turn.

The only thing I could really think of as a counter argument is that you can't kill your opponent if you draw the Emakrul off of Griselbrand.

.dk

03-29-2013, 10:31 AM

You're absolutely right after checking sideboards for the last 40 minutes on tc decks.
Chain of Vapor and Echoing Truth are mainly for Leyline of the Void, Humility, and Iona.
Reverent Silence deals with 2 of those I mentioned, and I guess Surgical Extraction is a good enough shot at disturbing Iona to appear.

Probably end up more like this:

1 Bayou
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Reverent Silence
2 Silence
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction

Seems a lot of sideboard cards tend to have the same purpose though, no matter what I bring in.

Sometimes I feel the same way, but then the game occurs where I have to attack with Grizza to get 7 extra cards before I can win and I'm glad I can go off(*) with Tendrils then.

*Not much of "going off" to it, but I guess that's still what it is.

4 Abrupt Decay seems a bit excessive. What are you planning on taking out of the maindeck to sideboard those in? I would be concerned that you're watering the maindeck down too much by bringing all of those in along with a Bayou, while not having broad enough answers (such as Silence, Pithing Needle, or what have you). It looks like you'd be bringing in a good 6-7 cards in some matchups which would worry me.

.dk

03-29-2013, 10:32 AM

The only thing I could really think of as a counter argument is that you can't kill your opponent if you draw the Emakrul off of Griselbrand.

Yes you can - that's why we run Discard. Just discard Emrakul with a Thoughtseize or Therapy, and reanimate in response to his trigger. Same as if you Entombed for him.

phazonmutant

03-29-2013, 12:22 PM

You misread, I assumed removing the Tendrils of Agony from the MD would reduce your ability to find a kill condition post-Griselbrand and in order to compensate I suggested moving the Tendrils of Agony to the SB and replacing it with a second copy of Children in order to compensate for whatever mathematical instability not having the 2nd kill condition MD would cause to your ability to close out the game.

Do you really think Swords to Plowshares is the reason to play Tendrils of Agony MD? I'm pretty sure it's the reason to play a 2nd copy of Griselbrand MD, where you just draw 14 cards, sit at 13 life and then go off again on the following turn.

The only thing I could really think of as a counter argument is that you can't kill your opponent if you draw the Emakrul off of Griselbrand.

Ah, I was confused because what you're suggesting doesn't make sense. :tongue:
What's the point in losing a sideboard slot for a mediocre card if you're not even gaining a maindeck slot? The first Tendrils does much more work than the second Children in the maindeck and you do want it postboard.

Yes, I really do think Swords (and Karakas, Path to Exile, Diabolic Edict) are enough reason to play Tendrils. A lot of the times when you're able to go off against UW decks is when they tap low for something like Stoneforge, Geist, or Counterbalance. If you look back 5 or 10 pages I make a similar argument to yours, but after watching a match Koby streamed against UW Stoneblade, I'm convinced to leave Tendrils in.

Julian23

03-29-2013, 02:20 PM

Yes you can - that's why we run Discard. Just discard Emrakul with a Thoughtseize or Therapy, and reanimate in response to his trigger. Same as if you Entombed for him.

Or you just hardcast Emrakul. Some people might not be aware that this deck is capable of producing infinite mana.

mike1987

03-29-2013, 02:22 PM

I tried playing this deck yesterday and it was damn fun to play. However I ran into consistency issues like failing to find a entomb for griselbrand into the graveyard in the early few turns of the game or lack of reanimation spells after the demon is in the graveyard. What constitutes a good hand to keep for this deck?

Julian23

03-29-2013, 02:29 PM

Anything with Entomb. Dark Ritual is a premium addition. But basically anything with mana and Entomb will do. The deck is pretty tightly bottlenecked by access to Entomb. You only run 4 but usually 8-9 cards for reanimation. Since most nowadays (I think correctly) run only 2 Griselbrands, discard on yourself will not always be reliable...albeit from being pretty wacky in the first place.

TraxDaMax

03-29-2013, 03:01 PM

4 Abrupt Decay seems a bit excessive. What are you planning on taking out of the maindeck to sideboard those in? I would be concerned that you're watering the maindeck down too much by bringing all of those in along with a Bayou, while not having broad enough answers (such as Silence, Pithing Needle, or what have you). It looks like you'd be bringing in a good 6-7 cards in some matchups which would worry me.

Well, having played Massacre for a while and I'm not too happy with it. So I'm not sure what I'd want instead of the 4th Decay since that is basicly its spot.
Adding colors opens options but also adds dillemas apparently.

As for siding out, I consider siding in cards weakening the core. I would never side out more then 6 cards. In my list that would be for me: -3 Gprobe, -1 CMox, -2LDV.
Probes are great game 1, but game 2 I rather have an answer to hate in that slot. Cmox and LDV are carddisadvantage which are acceptable but not so much when siding in cards in my opinion.
The only deck I could see myself side in 6 cards though, is Rest in Pieces. Again here Reverent Silence and AD kind of do the same thing though, so you're probably right. What do you think is better in its spot? More GY hate? Putting back Pull from Eternity?
just forget about green and the decks bad matchups?
I've been toying around so long with the side that bad ideas start looking like good ideas.

.dk

03-29-2013, 03:16 PM

Or you just hardcast Emrakul. Some people might not be aware that this deck is capable of producing infinite mana.

If you're going to do that, you have to discard Emrakul anyway. Regardless as to how you get there, Emrakul needs to get to your graveyard.

Well, having played Massacre for a while and I'm not too happy with it. So I'm not sure what I'd want instead of the 4th Decay since that is basicly its spot.
Adding colors opens options but also adds dillemas apparently.

As for siding out, I consider siding in cards weakening the core. I would never side out more then 6 cards. In my list that would be for me: -3 Gprobe, -1 CMox, -2LDV.
Probes are great game 1, but game 2 I rather have an answer to hate in that slot. Cmox and LDV are carddisadvantage which are acceptable but not so much when siding in cards in my opinion.
The only deck I could see myself side in 6 cards though, is Rest in Pieces. Again here Reverent Silence and AD kind of do the same thing though, so you're probably right. What do you think is better in its spot? More GY hate? Putting back Pull from Eternity?
just forget about green and the decks bad matchups?
I've been toying around so long with the side that bad ideas start looking like good ideas.

I feel like if you're boarding out Probes and Chrome Moxes, you pretty much have to board in an additional land, especially if you're only running 13.

In Abrupt Decay's place, I could see a good case for Serenity, another Surgical, another Chain of Vapor (1 seems risky against decks with Leyline), another Reverent Silence. Some of that is going to depend on your meta.

Since you're on the anti-hate plan though, when you're boarding things in you want them to be as high impact as possible with as few slots. That's why I've been liking options like Serenity and Reverent Silence. Ideally to me, you don't want to board in more than 4 cards, but you want to make sure that you have 4 cards that can answer what you're opponent is doing. Which means having a wide distribution of answers. Probably just a matter of looking at the decks you're likely to play against, and tailoring your answers to that set of possibilities and making sure that you have 3-4 good cards to board in for every match.

phazonmutant

03-29-2013, 03:25 PM

Since you're on the anti-hate plan though, when you're boarding things in you want them to be as high impact as possible with as few slots. That's why I've been liking options like Serenity and Reverent Silence. Ideally to me, you don't want to board in more than 4 cards, but you want to make sure that you have 4 cards that can answer what you're opponent is doing. Which means having a wide distribution of answers. Probably just a matter of looking at the decks you're likely to play against, and tailoring your answers to that set of possibilities and making sure that you have 3-4 good cards to board in for every match.

Couldn't have said it better!

Just want to back up .dk here, when I first proposed Abrupt Decay, I was really excited that the CB and Prison matchups would magically be fixed. After testing it a ton, I found the problem with those matchups is really that they can bring to bear multiple hate cards consistently before we can combo out. We're not just vulnerable to Counterbalance like TES but also Rest in Peace, not only Chalice but also Tormod's Crypt, etc. That's why we've been testing Serenity and Teferi's Realm - we need to deal with multiple threats onboard. We can almost never afford to be in a position to have to answer multiple permanents with multiple board cards - it's just impossible to do that, go through counterspells, and still have our deck function.

Serenity is going to be difficult to resolve through Counterbalance but is easily castable, whereas Teferi's Realm is going to be difficult to cast and resolve through taxing counterspells, but they CB plays fewer 3s and also deals with hatebears if they draw that portion of their hate or lands if they draw nothing but have counterspells up.

Massacre has felt very necessary for hatebears decks, but if you're not encountering those then feel free to cut it. The better Miracles lists and Maverick decks will be a problem postboard with their bears.

TraxDaMax

03-29-2013, 03:37 PM

If you're going to do that, you have to discard Emrakul anyway. Regardless as to how you get there, Emrakul needs to get to your graveyard.

I feel like if you're boarding out Probes and Chrome Moxes, you pretty much have to board in an additional land, especially if you're only running 13.

In Abrupt Decay's place, I could see a good case for Serenity, another Surgical, another Chain of Vapor (1 seems risky against decks with Leyline), another Reverent Silence. Some of that is going to depend on your meta.

Since you're on the anti-hate plan though, when you're boarding things in you want them to be as high impact as possible with as few slots. That's why I've been liking options like Serenity and Reverent Silence. Ideally to me, you don't want to board in more than 4 cards, but you want to make sure that you have 4 cards that can answer what you're opponent is doing. Which means having a wide distribution of answers. Probably just a matter of looking at the decks you're likely to play against, and tailoring your answers to that set of possibilities and making sure that you have 3-4 good cards to board in for every match.

I run 14lands/1cmox/4petals main. 1 bayou main instead of the second cmox. 1 bayou side.
So that part is covered.

Koby

03-29-2013, 11:01 PM

phazonmutant

03-29-2013, 11:05 PM

sideboard

I like it. Analysis and choices make sense. The second Massacre and 4th Silence would seem to be meta choices, right?
What's your manabase look like maindeck?

.dk

03-29-2013, 11:13 PM

I like it - that's almost identical to what I was just running except that Serenity was Pull from Eternity - that switch should be made at this point. Massacre could easily be Pithing Needle depending on the meta, it seems to me.

Koby just destroyed me with MUD when I didn't have Serenity. Seems like a great compliment to Reverent Silence for the Miracles matchups while providing an awesome answer to Chalice decks.

Holly

03-30-2013, 06:03 AM

Hey folks,

just started to pick up this deck with the intention to maybe bring it to GP Strasbourg in 2 weeks.
Played some games yesterday but unfortunately not against CB-Top but will do next time.

In theory I like Koby's sideboard and used a similar one:
- 3 Pithing Needle (instead of Massacre) for Crypt, Relic & Shaman if needed.
- 2 Pull from Eternity
- 2 Serenity
- 2 Teferi's Realm (instead of Reverent Silence) which would allow me to drop the green splash.
- 2 Chain of Vapor
- 2 Surgical Extraction
- 2 Silence (1 Main)

at least in theory I thought I can bring in enough cards against every type of hate. Saw the Realm only 1 time but couldn't cast it, so maybe the green splash is still needed.. I'll test more as soon as possible..

Koby

03-30-2013, 12:49 PM

I like it. Analysis and choices make sense. The second Massacre and 4th Silence would seem to be meta choices, right?
What's your manabase look like maindeck?

4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Swamp
(1 Bayou/Scrubland) for 14 land builds.

TraxDaMax

03-30-2013, 06:30 PM

I am still not convinced that Abrupt Decay is right for this deck. The Bayou, however, has been pretty good with Reverent Silence. While there may be some matchups that are not favored, I don't think there is a way to turn all of those bad matchups (CBtop) around very well without running into some sort of counterspells. Reverent Silence can cover that matchup. Chain of Vapor solves all the rest of the issues while also still providing Storm count for Tendrils of Agony. Serenity serves triple duty vs Enchantress, MUD, as well as RIP CB decks. It's a long shot to resolve, but sometimes you have to get lucky.

I propose this sideboard:

2 Serenity
3 Silence (1 main)
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Reverent Silence
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Bayou
1 Massacre

After going top 4 today at GPT Strasbourg, I think this sideboard you made is actually really accurate, Koby.
The Decay's weren't as good as I wanted, and I pretty much got funked by Leyline of the Void, KotR into Bokuja Bog, and Surgical Extraction.
Off-topic: Something that happened to me twice today which I haven't seen myself ever do is look at the top 4 cards with Ponder, bad and sloppy automatism coming from jetlag and being used to draw 7 from Grizza.
I got extremely lucky that the judgeruling on that is a warning, and I feel like a major douche now, lol. Especially because it happened twice... derp.
Anyways, deck is still bonkers.

.dk

03-30-2013, 11:00 PM

TraxDaMax

03-31-2013, 11:55 AM

Don't feel that bad... At SCG Denver last year, I watched Richard Cheese cast Ponder and make it Ancestral Recall. He didn't notice nor did his opponent (he had already drawn 14 that turn). Funny thing though - if he had actually cast it as Ponder, he likely would have won. ;)

also - gratz on the finish!

Thanks, was only a small 24 man tourny though so nothing too special. My buddy took it down with Belcher eventually, and I lost in the semi-finals to a Rock deck unfortunately.
Took game 1 easy on turn 2, only seeing Mother of Runes and Gaddock Teeg with a Plains and a Horizon Canopy. So I put him on DeathnTaxes.
Game 2 he opens with Leyline of the Void, which I didn't expect because I hadn't seen black yet. I did board one Chain of Vapor but didn't have it in my opener and didn't find it in time either.
Game 3 I durdeld and drew blanks. Started with 1 land, 1 Goryo's, 2 Shallow Grave and Emrakul after mull to 5. Hoped to find a land and discard spell(preferably Cabal Therapy) or Entomb but failed to find anything relevant and Thoughtseize + Knight of the Reliquary into Bokuja Bog cleaned up Emrakul from shuffeling back. 2 Knights cleaned up quickly after that.
I had people ask me what I thought about the deck and its consistency. I was like, uhm.. I don't know, I turned 1 my opponent 4 times in the first 3 rounds. One time even protected. I'm pretty sure the deck is rather consistent. Results indicate this too.

Deckerator

04-01-2013, 07:28 AM

i'm not sure about playing Gitaxian Probe ? Is it good/ important to play?
What are your experiences with Probe? Is it possible to cut?

leegoo

04-01-2013, 07:53 AM

i'm not sure about playing Gitaxian Probe ? Is it good/ important to play?
What are your experiences with Probe? Is it possible to cut?

guess I'll stop lurking in this thread.

I'm playing Koby's list (well, close) on Modo the last week or so, and I like the probes quite a bit g1. The information is very useful the first couple of turns, and being able to draw into LDV is often relevant.
I do usually end up cutting some if not all of them in g2/3.

Also, been playing a wipe away and a tempest of light in the 15 to bring in against rip/top. They've been useful in an abysmal matchup :) (not wanting to splash green if I can help it)

Koby

04-01-2013, 12:46 PM

Also, been playing a wipe away and a tempest of light in the 15 to bring in against rip/top. They've been useful in an abysmal matchup :) (not wanting to splash green if I can help it)

Tempest of Light is an interesting alternative to Reverent Silence. That it's instant helps out too. Hmmmm. This might make the SB even easier. *pondering and brewing*

leegoo

04-01-2013, 12:53 PM

Tempest of Light is an interesting alternative to Reverent Silence. That it's instant helps out too. Hmmmm. This might make the SB even easier. *pondering and brewing*

it also costs a lot less on Mtgo than Rev Silence :)

- That said, I think I might try the sorcery version (can't think of the name offhand) with the personal tutor's suggested a page or so back. I *think* that being an instant is just way more important, but it's worth a look (especially being a 1 of - or so)

Koby

04-01-2013, 12:56 PM

it also costs a lot less on Mtgo than Rev Silence :)

- That said, I think I might try the sorcery version (can't think of the name offhand) with the personal tutor's suggested a page or so back. I *think* that being an instant is just way more important, but it's worth a look (especially being a 1 of - or so)

Personal Tutor can only tutor up... Reanimate and Ponder in this deck. It's a poor addition to the deck when it can't even find Entomb.

leegoo

04-01-2013, 01:03 PM

true, although it can find protection too. (and we're talking after board) so finding a 1 of show&tell isn't unreasonable.

Still, I agree it's probably not worth it. Always worth some matches in tourney practice to make sure though.

Koby

04-01-2013, 02:29 PM

Personal Tutor does make more sense in S&T sideboard plans, so there's a truth to your statement afterall.
The deck that would be able to run those look very much different from the list I played in SCG Vegas however. For starters, 4 Griselbrand would need to show up in the 75 cards.

.dk

04-01-2013, 02:39 PM

Tempest of Light is an interesting alternative to Reverent Silence. That it's instant helps out too. Hmmmm. This might make the SB even easier. *pondering and brewing*

Seems like a decent option to test, however at first glance it does seem worse in non-Miracles matchups. Paying 3 mana is a bit rough without blowing petals and rituals which may pose a problem for a more aggressive deck that you may want the cards in. Also, flipping a 4 to counterbalance seems a lot less likely than 3, especially in those versions running Entreat.

But of course now that I think about it, I can't think of an aggressive deck where I would want a Reverent Silence/Tempest of Light effect against...

leegoo

04-01-2013, 02:51 PM

I think with the # of Jaces miracles usually runs it's a wash on 3 or 4. I just wanted to mitigate the splashes (whether that's right or not I'm not sure)

Koby you're right, you'd need more fatties to run s&t in the board. Maybe buried alive :) Ok...maybe not.

phazonmutant

04-01-2013, 03:03 PM

i'm not sure about playing Gitaxian Probe ? Is it good/ important to play?
What are your experiences with Probe? Is it possible to cut?

We've discussed it over the past 10 pages if you want to get some context, but the summary is that it helps consistency, helps velocity, and gives information, so is pretty valuable. People have cut it, but I'm a fan of it. It often gets trimmed sideboarding though.

Chikenbok

04-01-2013, 04:24 PM

.dk

04-01-2013, 04:30 PM

I think with the # of Jaces miracles usually runs it's a wash on 3 or 4. I just wanted to mitigate the splashes (whether that's right or not I'm not sure)

Maindeck, I agree, but I would think (and this could just be my ignorance as to how to play the deck) there is a good chance that Jace is coming out in post board games against super fast combo like Tin Fins.

alphastryk

04-01-2013, 04:34 PM

Maindeck, I agree, but I would think (and this could just be my ignorance as to how to play the deck) there is a good chance that Jace is coming out in post board games against super fast combo like Tin Fins.

Nope, there's already so many cuts that there are not enough cards to bring in, and Jace is blue for force and good with counterbalance. He usually gets to stay against combo as the removal spells are worse.

.dk

04-01-2013, 04:39 PM

Well I stand corrected then. What do you usually end up boarding out? Just swords?

alphastryk

04-01-2013, 04:47 PM

Well I stand corrected then. What do you usually end up boarding out? Just swords?

Stp, Terminus, E Field for RIP lists, Engineered Explosives, Detention Sphere, Blood Moon. Whole piles of garbage! :)

Edit: My personal boarding:

- 4 StP
- 3 Terminus
- 1 Blood Moon
- 1 Detention Sphere
- 1 Energy Field

+1 Force of Will
+2 Meddling Mage
+1 Ethersworn Cannonist
+2 Vendilion Clique
+1 Counterbalance
+2 REB
+1 Pithing Needle

phazonmutant

04-01-2013, 04:50 PM

Reverent Silence is god card, last night won a tourny solely because of that card. Also, I think it was helpful that everyone thought I was playing Doomsday. I've got one bayou main now and it looks like its here to stay - mildly interested in going back up to two Children however.

I'd love to read a report if you have time to write one. Was 1 Children not consistent enough?

Edit:

- 4 StP
- 3 Terminus
- 1 Blood Moon
- 1 Detention Sphere
- 1 Energy Field

+1 Force of Will
+2 Meddling Mage
+1 Ethersworn Cannonist
+2 Vendilion Clique
+1 Counterbalance
+2 REB
+1 Pithing Needle
I've played probably 30 postboard games against alphastryk and can almost never beat this board. Absolutely terrifying.

Chikenbok

04-01-2013, 05:20 PM

I'd love to read a report if you have time to write one. Was 1 Children not consistent enough?

I'll try and write a quick report this evening after I'm done grading 70 bratty undergraduate philosophy student's quizzes... Sigh

Well, the problem I've had with one children is the following. Despite what you might perceive to be the truth, the card really actually reads "If Griselbrand is in play, pay 1 white mana and draw your deck. Then, you win the game."

Now, because white mana is somewhat restrictive and IMS are down to 5 its sometimes difficult draw 14 -> cantrip to find an IMS to reanimate the child again. There were a few games that a lucky ponder/brainstorm found something to get me out of trouble but I'm a big fan of drawing a lot of cards. I repeat. I a lot of cards. It is also the case that because the deck runs so few lands, having extras to play around with during the combo turn is finicky, especially when you're trying to max out on black rits. You need blue after your draw to cantrip into the win, you need white after your draw to continue doing so, you need black after your draw, to reanimate either a phatty and swing lethal, or storm your opponent out via tendrils. This is hard to do.

I've also found that I never really mind having children in my opening hand. Turn 1 children go. Opponent land go. Turn two ponder go. Opponent land go. Turn three rit -> entomb -> goryo *opponent decay's child in response* draw 14, reanimate children sac, win game. I wouldn't mind seeing more games like that.

tldr; Because of Mana Constraints on the combo turn, I don't think running 2 children MD would be at all a bad idea.

p.s. I would like to thank the BUG control players for continuing to play BUG control in my Meta. My children laugh at your innocent bloods.

SB for last night:

SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 3 Silence
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 Reverent Silence
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Echoing Truth (realistically, this will probably become another R.S)

Dick_Tator

04-02-2013, 05:57 PM

I went 4-2 at my local tournament tonight, which landed me in fifth place, just out of prices. The tournament itself was mostly uneventful, I was tired from work and didn't play very well. I honestly feel like the deck carried me in several of my matches, because the way I was playing I certainly did not deserve to win:-)

Tonight's all star would have to be Reverent Silence, that card was awesome. In round three I was playing against some form of blue-black homebrew. My oppenent had mulled aggressively to find a Leyline of the Void in game two, and he did the same in game three, putting not one but two Leylines into play before turn 1. You could tell that he was feeling very confident (and who can blame him). On the play, I then went: Bayou, Reverent Silence, Dark Ritual, Entomb, Goryo's Vengeance, drew my library and killed him on turn 1. That was nuts:-)

My list was pretty standard, with 1 Intuition, 1 Children, 1 Bayou and 1 Silence main. My board looked like this:

2 x Abrupt Decay
1 x Chain of Vapor
2 x Reverent Silence
3 x Silence
2 x Pithing Needle
3 x Extirpate (they should be Surgicals in the future)
2 x Massacre

My match results:

vs. Merfolk 0-2

vs. Death and Taxes 0-2

vs. U/B Homebrew 2-1

vs. ANT 2-1

vs. ANT 2-1

vs. Shardless BUG 2-0

Dick_Tator

04-02-2013, 06:01 PM

I'll try and write a quick report this evening after I'm done grading 70 bratty undergraduate philosophy student's quizzes... Sigh

I was wondering why you had Logos and Telos written on your avatar, I guess this explains it:-)

.dk

04-02-2013, 06:07 PM

Dark Ritual

04-02-2013, 06:16 PM

If you're going to run tempest of light (not sure why you would do this over reverent silence ever) why not run paraselene? It gains you a life for each enchantment destroyed and that can be relevant with griselbrand. Sure it's a sorcery, but it's generally better than tempest due to lifegain when your opponent has a boatload of enchantment hate. Bonus points if you resolve it against enchantress itself, then you get to draw another 7+ cards for virtually free and at the same time remove elephant grass to let our griselbrand attack.

Koby

04-02-2013, 06:22 PM

Being an Instant matters for this deck when fighting Counterbalance. Reverent Silence gets a nod because it's 0 mana with an easy alt-cost to meet. I would look at Paraselene as win-more in this context; the life gain is hardly relevant.

phazonmutant

04-02-2013, 06:24 PM

Dick_Tator

04-02-2013, 06:28 PM

Sweet - those scenarios are why I'm leaning toward the Green splash for Reverent Silence over Tempest of Light - although admittedly I haven't yet tested Tempest. I like the free nature of Reverent Silence, in general.

Did you end up using the Abrupt Decays at all? Were you running just 1 Bayou main?

I boarded Abrupt Decay in against Death and Taxes, but I never got to cast it, as I was manascrewed in both games, while he beat me to death with his Thalia and his Revoker (naming Griselbrand, adding insult to injury). Chain of Vapor would probably have been a better option in this matchup, and I did board in my singleton copy but I never drew it.

Overall, I felt quite unhappy with Abrupt Decay tonight. But then again I did not face any counter-heavy decks tonight, and these are the matchups where I believe Decay outclasses Chain of Vapor.

My landbase looked like this:

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

Hix360

04-02-2013, 06:59 PM

My biggest weakness with this deck is sideboarding...Is it possible to make a list of what people bring in, gy hate wise? That way I could just look at it and sideboard accordingly.

For instance, I thought Stoneblade had RIP and/or Leyline, so i brought in Reverent Silence...However, they were using Extirpate, so I had dead cards. This information would be incredibly helpful for the invitational.

.dk

04-02-2013, 07:06 PM

I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but that's pretty much everyone's biggest problem with the deck. I don't think there is any real "sideboard guide" at this point - you're going to need to figure a bit of that out for yourself. Best advice I can give:

If you've won Game 1, bring in a few generic answers and see what they bring in. Adjust Game 3 accordingly. Don't over sideboard - 3-4 cards max.

A lot depends on what cards you're running. This isn't information that can be spoon-fed.

Koby

04-02-2013, 07:10 PM

If you've won Game 1, bring in a few generic answers and see what they bring in. Adjust Game 3 accordingly. Don't over sideboard - 3-4 cards max.

A lot depends on what cards you're running. This isn't information that can be spoon-fed.

This. Practice until you're comfortable with your sideboard, make adjustments as necessary, and get a little creative. The maindeck is powerful enough to accommodate some SB slack. Put yourself in the mind of your opponent and pay attention to how they play their hands/sideboard. This deck rewards players able to go outside the games in the match in order to succeed.

@Dick_Tater
Do you feel that the Gemstone Mine would be necessary if you did not include the Abrupt Decay in the sideboard?

Dick_Tator

04-02-2013, 07:34 PM

@Dick_Tater
Do you feel that the Gemstone Mine would be necessary if you did not include the Abrupt Decay in the sideboard?

I don't know. The Gemstone Mine is mainly there to ensure that I have enough green sources to reliably cast Abrupt Decay when I need to, while still enabling me to play my other non-green spells as well. Without Decay in the board it might not be needed. I somehow like it, though. It fixes my mana, and I have not yet experienced a situation where I used up all the mining counters and had to sacrifice it, as I usually draw at least one other land along with it.

I guess you could argue that this slot would be better suited for another fetchland, or perhaps a second Scrubland or Bayou. You could perhaps even argue that I could cut the land altogether and replace it with a second Chrome Mox (which I dislike), or perhaps a second maindeck Silence or something similar. But for now I'm keeping my Gemstone Mine, even if I decide to cut Abrupt Decay (which I honestly doubt I will).

What does your land configuration look like at the moment, Koby? Are you running 13 or 14 lands?

Koby

04-02-2013, 10:32 PM

Dick_Tator

04-03-2013, 02:19 AM

I always try to push the limit of the manabase, so most builds are 13 land using 8 fetch and 4 duals and a swamp. For big events I recommend going to 14 lands because Wasteland is a thing that will occur. In this case I add a Bayou to the maindeck.

That makes a lot of sense. My local meta is infested with Wastelands, it's as if most people believe that you cannot build a Legacy deck without auto-including a full playset of Wastelands. Yesterday I played against 3 decks running Wasteland, and this was actually below average...

TraxDaMax

04-03-2013, 11:59 AM

That makes a lot of sense. My local meta is infested with Wastelands, it's as if most people believe that you cannot build a Legacy deck without auto-including a full playset of Wastelands. Yesterday I played against 3 decks running Wasteland, and this was actually below average...

Same reason I have 14 lands and one Bayou side :)

Zubba

04-03-2013, 02:25 PM

So i was at this big convention in Sweden this weekend and played the deck in the 2 legacy tournaments with around 100 people in each
The decklist i used was this.

2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Children of Korlis
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Entomb
1 Intuition
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
1 Silence
3 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Polluted Delta
3 Marsh Flats
1 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Island

// Sideboard

2 Chain of Vapor
2 Teferi's Realm
3 Pithing Needle
2 Massacre
2 Pull from Eternity
2 Silence
2 Surgical Extraction

I went 5-0-1 and 5-2

Tournament 1

Round 1 vs Mirror

This match was pretty straight forward, he had a diffrent build in many ways using putrid imp and other cards.

Match 1 i was on the draw and he won in turn 2 and i scooped when i probed me so he wouldent know what i was playing.

Sideboard -4 Gitaxian Probe +2 Surgical +2 Chain of Vapor

Match 2 i won on turn 3 after i used toughtseize on him and then sat up the win his keep was pretty bad to no combo elements and 2 Carful Study as search cards.

Sideboard dident change anything here.

Match 3 i won turn 1 after he used discard to take away my entomb, on my turn i then went Petal Brainstorm to find the next Entomb

2-1

Round 2 vs Infect

Wierd match that ended in some really wierd way.

Match 1 i won on turn 1 on the play i dident see anything from him so dident know what i was up against.

Sideboarding - 1 Intuition -1 Lim Dul - 2 Probe +2 Chain of Vapor +2 Pithing Needle

Match 2 was very long he had a hand full of counterspells but no pump at all. I only had 1 Silence in my main deck and some discard to combat this so after a very long match getting hit by 1 lonley creature 10 times i lost and it was time in the round(He played very slow thinking alot and he seamed afraid almost all the time to lose, even when i only had 2 cards in hand.

1-1

Round 3 vs Storm

Ohh yeah time to show wich ones is the best storm deck this was vs a friend but he was not really 100% on what i was playing.

Match 1 i'am on the draw he duress me and see Entomb, Dark Ritual, Shallow Grave, Goryo's Vengence, Brainstorm. Fetch and Probe. He takes Entomb
On my turn i play Probe for life find a Petal, play it to brainstorm finds the entomb and wins.

Sideboard -4 Probe +2 Silence +2 Surgical Extraction

Match 2 After some Therapys and duress he goes for 10 Goblins in his turn 5, i have Entomb and a Shallow grave ontop of my library from a Lim dul that i played earlier so i know i have the win if i don't miss wich i don't.

2-0

Round 4 vs MUD

Dodged a pullet here for sure.

Match 1 he is on the play goes Wasteland go and i win on my turn 1 after probed him i know this is gonna be hard fro match 2

Sideboard -4 Probe +2 Teferi's Realm 2 Chain of Vapor

Match 2 i keep and hand with 2 Fetches 1 Petal 1 Teferis realm. 2 Gory's Vengence 1 Brainstorm

He goes Land Chalice on 1, Tormods crypt

I do nothing on my turn playes land and petal,

He playes a Metalworker on his turn.

My turn 2 i go for Teferi's Realm he wonder what it does i explain to him but he wants a judge to come he get's it explained to him and he looks very chocked.
My Turn 3 i say Artifacts and boom i win!

2-0

Round 5 vs G/W/B stoneforge deck

Don't really remeber what happend i know i won 2-0 and that he said the matchup was very bad from him.

2-0

Round 6 vs Reanimator

Very good player

Match 1 He startes match 1 on the play, playes duress and say ooohhh tin fins takes entomb.
I Ponder on my turn find nothing so shuffle, on his turn he playes Carful study bins som random card no target for reanimate.
My turn brainstorms find the Entomb i put it ontop so he can't dicard it on his turn he Toughseize me takes away 1 of my 2 Goryo's vengence
Then i draw entomb for the win.

Sideboard -4 Probe +2 Surgical Extraction +2 Silence

Match 2 Don't remeber exactly but he makes a big play error that makes him lose the game he tought he know my hand from a duress but missed that 1 card is unknown i have played a 1 lim dul a turn earlier so i know i will draw Entomb into Goryo's Vengence i have 2 cards in hand 1 Shalllow Grave and Ritual. He thinks he knows both cards and passes the turn and i win.

2-0

This means i went 5-0-1 for a Second place(No top 8)

Tournament 2

Will update this when i find my notes.

Sry for some spelling and grammar but i'am in a hurry so :) Will be posting the other tournament report and some toughts later!

.dk

04-03-2013, 02:32 PM

My Turn 3 i say Artifacts and boom i win!

Rad. Teferi's Realm is hilarious - I love that shit! Nice finish and thanks for posting your report. Looking forward to your 2nd one.

Interesting list - I think it's identical to what I was running for a while when I was testing Intuition vs. LDV aside from 3 Marsh Flats being 3 Flooded Strand. Any thoughts on those 2 cards in particular as you played? Did you ever see Intuition and wish it was LDV or vice-versa? Any other thoughts?

Koby

04-03-2013, 03:12 PM

Sweet report, thanks for sharing Zubba!

Baum

04-03-2013, 03:20 PM

That's the list I'll probably play at GP Strasbourg:

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

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

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Intuition
3 Gitaxian Probe

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
2 Silence

1 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual

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

Sideboard:

2 Chain of Vapor
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Serenity
1 Reverent Silence
1 Silence
2 Massacre
2 Pull from Eternity
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Pithing Needle

The sideboard looks pretty redundant with Chain of Vapor + Abrupt Decay and Serenity + Reverent Silence, but I think all the cards are good against slightly different decks (and I had some free slots once I moved the Silences to the maindeck again).

My big problem is, that I'm still not sure what to board against Canadian. Chain of Vapor or Abrupt Decay? Decay can't be countered but I fear that it's too difficult to cast against a deck with Wasteland/Stifle... I had absolutely no opportunity to test against Canadian so far.

Koby

04-03-2013, 03:24 PM

Sideboard:

2 Chain of Vapor
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Serenity
1 Reverent Silence
1 Silence
2 Massacre
2 Pull from Eternity
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Pithing Needle

My big problem is, that I'm still not sure what to board against Canadian. Chain of Vapor or Abrupt Decay? Decay can't be countered but I fear that it's too difficult to cast against a deck with Wasteland/Stifle... I had absolutely no opportunity to test against Canadian so far.

Vs RUG, and with your list:
-3 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Silence
+2 Chain of Vapor

If you see Surgical G2, then you can swap the Chain of Vapor back for Probes (to speed up and check). Silence is golden in this matchup in that case, so you're at the highest possible maindeck.

Having a 14th land in the SB might help you out in this matchup due to their taxing counters and Wasteland.

.dk

04-03-2013, 03:26 PM

Good luck at the GP! Have you tested with the Intuition much? I went back on it (ended up too slow for me, just like the first time... weird. Definition of insanity?) and am back on 2xLDV maindeck at the moment. They help find sideboard material as well.

As far as Thresh goes - Silence and CoV have been the best in my opinion. Needle is ok if you think they are bringing in Crypt - but most of the ones I've played against recently have been running surgical. I saw a list somewhere recently that was running Grafdigger's Cage as well, which seems odd. CoV takes care of all of their permanent based stuff, and Silence can take care of Surgicals.

/edit: oh, and this goes without saying, but beware of drawing low with Griselbrand if they have reds open...

TraxDaMax

04-03-2013, 05:52 PM

I'm on 2 LDV aswell and curious how others have been doing with Intuition.

phazonmutant

04-03-2013, 10:28 PM

TraxDaMax

04-03-2013, 11:51 PM

Koby

04-03-2013, 11:56 PM

.dk

04-04-2013, 12:00 AM

Walker raised this point a little while ago - why are we still playing 2 Griselbrand if we're purely looking for the Entomb at this point and also not playing Intuition? I think I'd feel uncomfortable going into a field with Deathrite Shamans with only 1 Griselbrand, but not too long ago I was uncomfortable playing 1 Children of Korlis, so it's definitely something worth considering.

There is also the case of fizzling after reanimating Griselbrand as well. I know that is usually quite uncommon at this point, but if you're doing it from a low life total, it's definitely possible. If you can't flashback a Therapy with Griselbrand, then you're kind of shit out of luck if Emrakul doesn't work for some reason (like if you had to reanimate during their turn to block and not die or something).

phazonmutant

04-04-2013, 12:13 AM

Theoretically I can agree you only need 1 Griselbrand. Are we at a lack of maindeck space that it needs to be trimmed? Having more increases the odds of being able to point discard at our own hands to enabler Griselbrand reanimation.

The deck has felt much more resilient once we found room for 7-8 disruption spells. You're right that there's probably diminishing returns past that point though.

There is also the case of fizzling after reanimating Griselbrand as well. I know that is usually quite uncommon at this point, but if you're doing it from a low life total, it's definitely possible.

That's a strong argument for the 2nd. A more common scenario that's come up for me is if they Plow Griselbrand you want to be able to find another if you haven't found Tendrils.

Zubba - thanks for the first report! Good to see people doing well. I'm curious that you decided to cut a Ponder - do you think LDV takes its place? Was Teferi's Realm ever better than Serenity for you? That's been the sticking point for me.

Baum - That list looks strong. Good luck!

.dk

04-04-2013, 12:21 AM

That's a strong argument for the 2nd. A more common scenario that's come up for me is if they Plow Griselbrand you want to be able to find another if you haven't found Tendrils.

Ah, yeah that's a very common one against Esper and such. I think all of these combined make a sufficient argument for having 2 maindeck.

Baum

04-04-2013, 07:00 AM

Good luck at the GP! Have you tested with the Intuition much? I went back on it (ended up too slow for me, just like the first time... weird. Definition of insanity?) and am back on 2xLDV maindeck at the moment. They help find sideboard material as well.

I'm still testing the Intuition. I think it's a close call between Intuition and LDV. Intuition into 3 Griselbrand or 2 Grisel and 1 Child costs as much mana as LDV into Entomb, but LDV/Entomb can be splitted over 2 turns with only 2 mana sources. On the other Hand, LDV's lifeloss *can* cost you 7 cards sometimes.
Finding sideboard pieces is a valid argument for LDV as well.
Tomorrow we'll do a final testing session. Maybe I hate Intuition afterwards... We will se ;)

BTW: Has anyone tested Grim Tutor? Might be an alternative as well.

Ardass

04-04-2013, 08:19 AM

Hello ! Played TinFins to a 4-1 finish last sunday at a Bazar of Moxen trial, finished 3rd, but only the first two won byes...
Here is the list I played :

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

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

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

3 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
1 Silence

1 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual

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

Sideboard:

2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Serenity
1 Duress
2 Silence
2 Massacre
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Pithing Needle

The tournament went the following way :
Round 1 : MUD/Tezzerator : 1-2
Game one I comboed on the second turn after him playing a Tezzeret. Sadly, he had the FoW :/
Game two : Chalice on 1 turn one, I made him discard his threats but had to wait a bit before finding an echoing truth and then kill him on turn 5
Game three : Same thing but could not find either Serenity or Truth in time :/

Round 2 : Nic Fit : 2-0
Complete blow out... ;)

Round 3 : RUG Tempo ***** : 2-1
Game one : Discard his FoW, then played around pierce to kill him
Game two : Went for it after making him discard all of his counters. He had of course drawn a Spell Snare...
Game three : Silence is just that good ;)

Round 4 : BUG Tempo (delver) - 2-1
Game one : turned two him with discard on turn one
Game two : Huge discard/counter battle, went for it the following turn, but he had the Extraction
Game three : Discard battle which let me with only mana sources and a Griselbrand in hand. Luckily, I started drawing more mana sources, cabal him to remove FoW and then hardcast Grisel daze proof ;)

Round 5 : High Tide : 2-0
Well, silence !!

Overall I was quite happy with the deck. I need to do some testing with only one children main deck, because on paper I do not like that choice. But I need a slot to play either Intuition, Buried alive or Lim Dul's Vault (my preference goes to LDVault). I also would love a seventh discard spell.

About the sideboard, I liked the Duress and the Silence. I am going to try the green splash this sunday, something like that :

1 Chain of Vapor
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Serenity
2 Reverent Silence
2 Silence
1 Massacre
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Pithing Needle
1 Bayou

Against what decks do you side in Needle ? Looks like I will always want a mix of CoV/Decay/R. Silence / Silence/Serenity more than the needle.

All in all, the deck is a blast to play. Griselbrand is my favourite recent card and I usually play ANT in Legacy, so that was an easy switch ;) If I am happy with the results I'll get this sunday and from testing, I will play TinFins at GP Strasbourg.

Chikenbok

04-04-2013, 09:43 AM

I'm on 2 LDV aswell and curious how others have been doing with Intuition.

I'm back on 2 LDV 1 Intuition and sometimes its really just what you need to win the game, on the spot, when you know that you have to go off. Its been amazing at finding what you need at the right time, I don't think I'll play the deck again without it in the next several tournaments. It also makes SB a bit easier because if you expect extractions (which you probably should) its an easy cut.

TraxDaMax

04-05-2013, 05:06 PM

Played a game against my own Delverstill deck which I was working on before messing around with Grizza.
My buddy was piloting it, and I gotta say that is almost unbeatable. He didn't even side even though he could.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25439-UR-StifleStill/page2

thats the link to my Delverstill deck I was up against except it had -2fetch, -1 Mishra's Factory, +2 Spellstutter Sprite, +1 Mutavault.

I just got majorly slaughtered, against Spell Snares, Wastelands, Spell Pierces, FoW's, a bunch of faeries and Stifle's.
If anybody feels like it, sleeve that deck up. I'm trying to find myself a way to win against it.

Koby

04-05-2013, 06:29 PM

TraxDaMax

04-05-2013, 06:50 PM

I'm not surprised this matchup is miserable for Tin Fins. It's designed to beat combo decks with cheap counters and fast threats.

I went 1-2 in the GPT Strasbourg against a BUG Tempo deck aswell. Game 3, he had a turn 1 Deathrire Shaman, which I Pithing Needle'd. And when I finally got to see his hand(after a mull to 5), it contained double Force of Will, double Spell Pierce AND double Surgical Extraction... Goes without saying I lost that game.

So I've watched the stream of Caleb playing against RUG Delver, which has a lot of elements the list I tested against has, but Caleb seems to waltz right over RUG.
I guess the match-up is hoping we get a nutty hand? I actually would have had a way better chance if I had Reanimate.
Which has me thinking, is that sometimes just good enough? If so maybe Reanimate deserves an extra slot main or side to be a little less dead vs Spell Snare? I am just trying to do some next leveling against the next level thinkers coming with a plan to the GP. If I were to take a different deck, I'd definately pack Spell Snares in this meta.

Koby

04-05-2013, 07:46 PM

Each situation is different. I can't say for certain how to play against Tempo lists, because it depends on what you have access to, what they have access to, and how your deck is constructed. <not enough info>

Wilkin

04-06-2013, 02:19 AM

I'm not surprised this matchup is miserable for Tin Fins. It's designed to beat combo decks with cheap counters and fast threats.

Yeah it's a very tough match-up. I've played against it once...beat it 2-0. Where I play, I'm deadguy 99% of the time so my opponent (Lam Phan, one of the creators of Canadian Threshold) is putting me on it and not a combo deck......I reanimate Griselbrand turn 2 and his only response was Brainstorm....

Game 2 he stifles 3 lands in a row but I was able to cast Show and Tell with the help of Boseiju.

Unfortunately I go 2-3 in the tournament. Beat Hive Mind and UR landstill and lost to BANT and 2 Canadian Threshold decks.

TraxDaMax

04-06-2013, 11:08 AM

Yeah it's a very tough match-up. I've played against it once...beat it 2-0. Where I play, I'm deadguy 99% of the time so my opponent (Lam Phan, one of the creators of Canadian Threshold) is putting me on it and not a combo deck......I reanimate Griselbrand turn 2 and his only response was Brainstorm....

Game 2 he stifles 3 lands in a row but I was able to cast Show and Tell with the help of Boseiju.

Unfortunately I go 2-3 in the tournament. Beat Hive Mind and UR landstill and lost to BANT and 2 Canadian Threshold decks.

Hmm... Boseiju... Why didn't I think of that, that might actually just be a lot better. Ok, still doesn't help that Wasteland is a card, but if they don't have it or waste it on an Underground Sea, we can combo out anyways.
I have one week to test this, but thanks a bunch for this tech! I'm pretty psyched about trying it.

kirkusjones

04-06-2013, 03:42 PM

Just won a small tournament with the deck. My favorite match was against a Sneak and Show player who thought I was playing regular reanimator. His face when I comboed out with tendrils was priceless.

Koby

04-06-2013, 04:53 PM

I love that feeling you get when you GProbe your opponent and they kept nothing relevant. Casual Dark Ritual-Entomb-Reanimate on them.

TraxDaMax

04-06-2013, 08:15 PM

I'm still testing the Intuition. I think it's a close call between Intuition and LDV. Intuition into 3 Griselbrand or 2 Grisel and 1 Child costs as much mana as LDV into Entomb, but LDV/Entomb can be splitted over 2 turns with only 2 mana sources. On the other Hand, LDV's lifeloss *can* cost you 7 cards sometimes.
Finding sideboard pieces is a valid argument for LDV as well.
Tomorrow we'll do a final testing session. Maybe I hate Intuition afterwards... We will se ;)

BTW: Has anyone tested Grim Tutor? Might be an alternative as well.

The Split over two turns, is what often makes the difference in my experience. The only times I wish I drew Intuition, is when I'm flooding. Which I guess, at that point we can only hope we get enough lands into play that we can:
a) Tendrils our unexpecting opponent
b) Hardcast Griselbrand with Petals and Rituals.

I've been trying to pay attention to this, but haven't tested it in practise yet. Time is lacking, and at the moment I'm trying to fix other problems.

T-Ralph

04-07-2013, 04:28 AM

I've been playing 2 different list this one is with a green splash.

Lands
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
2 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea

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

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

// Sideboard
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Silence
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Massacre
2 Serenity
2 Pithing Needle
1 Bayou
2 Reverent Silence

I really like this board but i really want to add a second massacre i've noticed throughout testing is that thalia is very annoying and it makes it just about impossible to combo off.

and here is a more traditional list
Lands
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
2 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea

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

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

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

I've been doing very well with this list i feel like the second massacre makes the match up against Thalia decks a little smoother the only real change I want to try is -2 PfE from the sideboard and + 2 teferi's realm and maybe -1 Echoing truth +1 chain of vapor.

Karhumies

04-07-2013, 05:13 PM

1 Intuition ... makes SB a bit easier because if you expect extractions (which you probably should) its an easy cut.

"Being easy to sideboard out" is a terrible argument why to MD any card.
Better reasons would be cmc 3 -> goes around Spell Snare and less likely to be caught into a resolved Counterbalance. But even these are poor arguments as long as we are not running Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors, because having to spend 3 mana in one go is just plain slower than 2 mana.

LDV > Intuition post-SB.

LDV is 1 mana less, which is often 1 turn faster to find a response to a hate card.
With Intuition, you need to SB in at least 3 of the same anti-hate card to find it. Not to mention putting the other copies into GY (potentially into exile vs a hate card), which is especially bad if the single copy you got to keep is not enough to win.

Life is a static resource. However, if you are worried about LDV life loss, one (risky?) way is to cut 1-2 fetches when you include LDV into your list. Less life loss, and less often need to shuffle immediately after setting up a LDV pile of 2-3 good cards on top of your library. This of course will make Brainstorming worse, but then again you are less likely to need Brainstorm if you have a Tutor in the first place. So it's essentially a trade-off.

Baum

04-08-2013, 07:19 AM

[...]
LDV > Intuition post-SB.

LDV is 1 mana less, which is often 1 turn faster to find a response to a hate card.
With Intuition, you need to SB in at least 3 of the same anti-hate card to find it. Not to mention putting the other copies into GY (potentially into exile vs a hate card), which is especially bad if the single copy you got to keep is not enough to win.
[...]

After some testing last weekend, I totally agree.

I've also come to a point where I don't like Reverent Silence in the UW Miracle matchup. I'll play a third Abrupt Decay in that slot. While testing, it happened quite often that they were able to counter the Reverent Silence. Once they've got CB/Top, they will keep all counterspells in hand to protect that combo. And once the CB is active, we can't wreck their hand with our discard.

If they don't get the nut draw, 3 Decays and 1-2 Serenity should be enough. If it's not, we're probably screwed anyway.

phazonmutant

04-08-2013, 02:45 PM

After some testing last weekend, I totally agree.

I've also come to a point where I don't like Reverent Silence in the UW Miracle matchup. I'll play a third Abrupt Decay in that slot. While testing, it happened quite often that they were able to counter the Reverent Silence. Once they've got CB/Top, they will keep all counterspells in hand to protect that combo. And once the CB is active, we can't wreck their hand with our discard.

If they don't get the nut draw, 3 Decays and 1-2 Serenity should be enough. If it's not, we're probably screwed anyway.

I'm not sure that boarding in all those anti-hate cards will allow you to win through their counterspells, especially if they have hatebears. You might be able to get there, but it seems difficult to draw protection, anti-hate, and combo pieces in time. At least that's been my experience.

I know one guy played TinFins in the invitational, but he said he won only one match. I think he didn't have a lot of experience though.

cogitoergosum

04-08-2013, 03:48 PM

I played this deck at two tournaments recently, and figured I would share my experiences. I the first tournament I ran Jacob Kory's SCG list -1 MD silence, +1 discard spell. I went 0-2 drop after mulling to 5 in 4 out of 6 games and only seeing entomb in 1 opening hand the entire day. This led me to making a couple changes to the deck. I ran JK's list again, but only 13 lands, -1 Chrome Mox, -1 MD Silence, +2 Lim-Duls Vault, +1 Intuition. Seeing as the entomb reliance is the biggest obstacle for this deck, I figured have 7 MD would be a solid move. I want 2-1-1, but it easily could have been a 4-0 day.
Match 1- VS Dragon Stompy/ Red Prison Deck
g1: I lose game 1 to t1 trinisphere, t2 magus of moon
g2: I win turn 3. He plays magus of the moon, I float a blue, and CoV his magus, and go off the next turn
g3: He hit the nuts, and Im on the draw. He t1 chalice at 0, chalice at 1. He turn two trinisperes. If I can make a third land drop, I am holding serenity in hand. I dont get a land, and he lands magus of the moon and I scoop.

This was a tough match up to lose the die roll on.

Match 2-Tin Fins Mirror
G1: He entombs turn 1, I turn two reanimate his griselbrand, and beatdown ensues.
G2: I won around turn 5. He has two silence and flusterstorm in hand. I am able to therapy his silences, and flashback it with CoK for the fluster, before going off.

Match 3: I win in three against TES.
G1 I have a t1 win, g2 he has a t1 win, g3 silence seals the deal.

Match 4-Pox
G1-THis is the craziest game ive played. I end up losing like turn 10 when Im at 1 life. I whiff on a grisel storm with no way to get children back. I dont remember all the details becasue it was getting a bit late.

Edit: "Reanimating during opponent's end step - Both instant reanimation spells exile the target at the beginning of the next end step. Reanimating during your opponent's end step will give you that creature until the beginning of your end step, allowing you to have more mana available during your turn." I was told that I could not do this during the tournament by a person who went and asked the judge after seeing my hand. I should have called the judge myself for a ruling. However, knowing this, I would have won game 1. I should have done more research :( It was still a good learning experience.

g2-we go to time, he makes me discard with liliana (poor move), and I shallow grave ftw on turn 4 or time rounds.

Overall, It was a solid tournament and a good learning experience. I never used the intuition, but was close one time. I think I like 2 MD LDV, but will likely remove the intuition for MB silence, or perhaps a third grisel to increase chances of self discard.

This has to be the most fun deck to play. Cheers!

Karhumies

04-08-2013, 04:56 PM

I've also come to a point where I don't like Reverent Silence in the UW Miracle matchup.

In a Miracle-heavy meta, you can play Boseiju as a meta choice. If their clock is irrelevantly slow, you can even LDV the Boseiju. I know that some opponents choose to let the tutor resolve and then counter the spell you tutored in order to time walk you, so tutoring a land works against that strategy at least. Once you land that Griselbrand, you can have practically all of your stuff countered and still tendrils them for the win anyhow. Pithing Needle is a threat in this scenario, though.

Seeing as the entomb reliance is the biggest obstacle for this deck

We can still Cabal Therapy or Thoughtseize ourselves or draw up to 8 cards on the draw. Even playing a 4 Griselbrand list is one meta option if you prefer less mulligan variance. You will have to cut back on some of the cantrips for that, though, and that can become a problem if your first go off attempt is countered or otherwise sabotaged.

Darkenslight

04-09-2013, 05:22 PM

Koby

04-09-2013, 05:40 PM

Could Master of Cruelties (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=502235) be a viable alt-kill for the deck alongside Emrakul? Dropping your opponent to 1 life before Gris hits seems like a ridiculous plan.

"Can only attack alone" Nope, doesn't look like it.

TraxDaMax

04-10-2013, 01:39 PM

Could Master of Cruelties (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=502235) be a viable alt-kill for the deck alongside Emrakul? Dropping your opponent to 1 life before Gris hits seems like a ridiculous plan.

Notice how they can actually just let it keep attacking you aswell. they'll just stay on 1 life

Ardass

04-11-2013, 09:29 AM

Went 3-1-1, good enought for top 4 in a 16 players tournament, and then won the whole thing with this list :

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

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

// Spells
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
4 Entomb
1 Buried alive
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Silence
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox

// Sideboard
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Silence
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Massacre
1 Serenity
2 Pithing Needle
1 Bayou
2 Reverent Silence
3 Abrupt Decay

Round 1 : Jund : Draw 1-1
Game 1 : Easy turn 3 kill
Game 2 : I thoughtseized him and see only a tourach and a shaman. Took the tourach because I had a CoV in hand. He then went on to top deck 4 discard spells (1 tourach, 3 targetted) in a rows and I could not recover from this
Game 3 : Time was called but he again drew like 4 discard spells and wrecked my hand.

Round 2 : UWr Stoneblade : 1-2
Game 1 : Discarded the fow, kill on turn 3
Game 2 : God draw from him
Game 3 : Probe turn one, but I punted because I pay it with mana and of course I drew the missing pieces to go turn 1... Went off on turn 2, obviously he had drawn his singleton Surgical Extraction...

Round 3 : RUG Tempo : 2-0
Don't remember, bad player, easy win

Round 4 : UWr Stoneblade : 2-0
Game 1 : turn 3 kill while he was stucked on 1 land...
Game 2 : Turn 3 kill with discard

Round 5 : RUG Tempo : 2-1
Game 1 : Easy win, played around Pierce/Daze
Game 2 : Long game, but he has the surgical when I have to go for it
Game 3 : Long and interesting game, I kill him reanimating Griselbrand 3 times because of my life point and the need of blocking his tarmo. Sacrificing to Therapy is just the best thing ever ;)

Top 4 : Sneak & Show : 2-1
Game 1 : He force my first Entomb, and I then proceed to draw nothing during 6 turns
Game 2 : Turn 2 kill
Game 3 : We traded Counters for discards, which left us with no gas in hand. I kill him when I finally draw an entomb

Finale : UWr Stoneblade : He conceeded, the winner gets a qualifiction to the French Legacy Championship and he won't be able to go there. Also 100

Was fun, especially in round 5. But I punted one game against Stone blade in round 2, and made some mistakes in game 3 of round 5.
Buried alive is not bad, but too expensive against Tempo decks. Should be LDV I think.
Also, I find the Jund match up not that easy after sideboarding, they have A LOT of discard, and that's like the worst thing if you can't protect your entomb. How do play against Jund (and BUG cascade also) ? Any special tech against the discard spells ?

Not sure about the sideboard, no miracle so the green splash wasn't that important.

GP Strasbourg is in two days, and I am still torn between this and ANT.

.dk

04-11-2013, 10:05 AM

Was fun, especially in round 5. But I punted one game against Stone blade in round 2, and made some mistakes in game 3 of round 5.
Buried alive is not bad, but too expensive against Tempo decks. Should be LDV I think.
Also, I find the Jund match up not that easy after sideboarding, they have A LOT of discard, and that's like the worst thing if you can't protect your entomb. How do play against Jund (and BUG cascade also) ? Any special tech against the discard spells ?

Not sure about the sideboard, no miracle so the green splash wasn't that important.

GP Strasbourg is in two days, and I am still torn between this and ANT.

Good job!

Turns out Jund is tougher than it looks on paper. You'd think a deck without counterspells would be easy for a deck this fast, but turns out it can actually pose challenges. I feel like you can do 1 of 2 things against them:

1. If you think they have graveyard disruption handy (via a probe or something), do your best to hang onto your brainstorms and keep a blue up so that you can protect your pieces.

2. If you know they don't have graveyard disruption handy and you feel like you have enough dig (ponders, LDV, etc.), then fire off your entomb early and dig for the reanimation spell.

Make sure that you're using your discard proactively and have a good idea what to name with Therapy at all times.

That's the best advice I can give anyway - I've only played the matchup 4-5 times and lost 1 of them, but most of them were actually pretty close.

Koby

04-14-2013, 11:45 PM

Anyone have any experiences from GP Strassbourg with Tin Fins? I would be interested to hear the results from those who piloted it there.

AncientOne

04-15-2013, 05:54 AM

Anyone have any experiences from GP Strassbourg with Tin Fins? I would be interested to hear the results from those who piloted it there.

I went 6-3 with it (having 1 bye (on PlanesWalker points)).
I've been playing TinFins in 7 or 8 tournaments now, usually ending up slightly positive (4-2, 4-2-1, 3-1-1, etc.) but also finishing Top8 twice in two GPT's for GP Strasbourg.
I've tried many (types) of sideboards, using Show and Tell most of the times (MD I've even tried out 3x Dispel or 3x Pact of Negation, but for the 3 flexible slots I've now returned to Gitaxian Probe (which are ALWAYS sided out for games 2 & 3).
This time I went for the anti-hate-hate sideboard, also with 4 Silences SB. I only boarded those in once, in the 9th round against RUG Delver (my nightmare matchup), winning the deciding game on it...
I'll check my notes for the exact matchups tonight (I went 2-0 against regular Reanimator, 0-2 against MUD (no chance whatsoever against it). The other matchups I'll have to check. I only saw RUG Delver once (luckily !).

The second day I tried SneakyShow, which felt more powerful (it plays counters!), but I ended up with a (lot) worse record, going 3-5-drop (there were 257 players, so 9 rounds!). Having to drive 6 hours back home, I called it quits at 3-5.
This more or less proves that disruption is better than counters (which was already clear in this thread), but I was still doubting if a combination of disruption and counters wouldn't be better. I'm now convinced: it isn't! (for TinFins at least - Sneaky Show might profit from disruption: see also one of the winning Last Chance Trial winning decks at GP Strasbourg: Show and Tell with 4 Thoughtseize MD. But my 9th place fellow countryman played SneakyShow without disruption, so it works fine without disruption as well...

Baum

04-15-2013, 12:04 PM

After a not so glorious 4-4 finish in Strasbourg, here is a short report.

Because I had to work, we couldn’t go there on Friday. So we did the ride to Strasbourg on Saturday at 3am, arriving at 8am. I would have preferred to get enough sleep before the GP, but that’s life.

It did some last minute changes on the list I posted some days ago. I cut one MD Silence for a 2nd Child and swapped the 3rd Thoughtseize for the 4th Probe.

The List:
2 Griselbrand
2 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Brainstorm
1 Silence
1 Lim-Dûl's Vault
4 Dark Ritual

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Reanimate

4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox

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

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

Match 1: Tin Fins Mirror (1-2)
Losing the die roll in the mirror sucks.
G1: He went off on his 2nd turn. When he thoughtseized me mid-combo, I scooped to hide what I was playing.
G2: I killed him on my 1st turn.
G3: I didn’t mulligan aggressive enough to disrupt a potential 2nd turn kill on his side (he kept his initial 7). He killed me on turn 2. Clear mistake on my side.

Match 2: RUG Delver (1-2)
G1: I managed to go off, but due to poor sequencing, I fizzled and died. If I wasn’t an idiot, I would have won the match…
G2: Killed him on my 1st or 2nd turn.
G3: His deck did what it is supposed to do against combo decks. I died to a couple of Delvers and more disruption than I could handle.

Match 3: BW Stoneblade (2-0)
G1: Turn 1 kill on the play.
G2: I saw him boarding 11 cards and was slightly worried. Luckily, I had a T1 Thoughtseize for his Extirpate and went off on T2.

Match 4: RUG Delver (0-2)
G1: He put me on a clock with Mongoose and Goyf while I couldn’t find Shallow Grave of Goryo’s. When I found a Reanimate, I could either wait to play it around Daze, getting low enough to die to a single Bolt, or being able to race his creatures and a potential Bolt but playing right into a Daze. I chose the latter and he had the Daze.
G2: I had to mull to 5 and he had too much disruption.

Match 5: Esper Stoneblade (2-0)
G1: Turn 1 kill on the play.
G2: He basically kept a hand with nothing good but a Surgical Extraction and a discard spell. On his first turn, he discarded my Shallow Grave, letting me keep an Entomb and a Thoughtseize. In response to my Thoughtseize, he extracted the Shallow Graves. After playing draw go for a couple of turns, he started beating me with Vendilion Clique and SFM/Sword of Feast & Famine. I Found a Goryo’s on the last possible turn and was able to go off with a single draw 7.

Match 6: Aluren (2-1)
G1: I went off around turn 2 or 3 while he had no disruption.
G2: Couldn’t assemble the combo in time and eventually died to creature beatdown.
G3: Killed him on turn 2.

Match 7: UW Control (1-2)
He was a friend of the Tin Fins player I met in round 1. Bad matchup and a player who is experienced against Tin Fins. Great. :D
G1: Turn 1 kill on the play.
G2: He kept me from going off long enough and I eventually died to Jace and Geist.
G3: I had to mull to 4 and he beat the crap out of me with an early Geist.
Not sure if he played Counterbalance. I didn’t see one during the match.

Match 8: Elves (2-0)
Both games, I had the T1 kill. Due to being pretty tired, I almost screwed up in G2 when I mistook a Reanimate for a Shallow Grave and entombed an Emrakul mid Combo, only to shuffle it away again. The deck forgave me and I drew into the Tendrils kill after attacking.

We decided to drop after round 8, because our last player was kicked out of day 2 contention and we still faced a 5 hour ride home. In the end, it was almost 24 hours of playing and driving without sleep.

Interestingly, I did not lose a single game to graveyard hate. The only problems were myself screwing up, mulling into oblivion and my opponents having more countermagic than I could handle in time.

In terms of sideboarding, I mostly boarded out Probes.

In the future, I might go back to the 2nd Lim-Dûl’s Vault, moving the Silence to the sideboard again. This could easily be wrong, since countermagic is an issue, but I’d rather lose to a wall of counters than to not finding a way to get Griselbrand into the yard. Otherwise, I’m content with the list so far.

TraxDaMax

04-15-2013, 12:37 PM

Anyone have any experiences from GP Strassbourg with Tin Fins? I would be interested to hear the results from those who piloted it there.

I went a terrible 4-3 drop.

I actually scrubbed out at 2-3 and played 2 more rounds where one guy conceded due to having to leave. I'll try to post what I remember, but I had little to no sleep because of my teammate snorring as if he was taking down the whole freaking Amazon rainforest...

R1 ANT (vs Gwendall)

Game 1:
I lose the roll. He starts with Volcanic into Ponder. My first guess is Sneaky Show.
I play Delta and pass. He plays Misty Rainforest and passes. I am cautious now fearing Stifle. RUG plays ponders, Rainforest and Volcanics too.
I play a second Delta and he sacrifies his fetch, I do one too in response. It resolves and gets me a Underground Sea. His does too. I'm aware he's playing ANT now.
In his turn 3 he Duress'es me, I Brainstorm my Entomb away, but still lack a Reanimate spell. A couple of Ponders later from myself, I fail to find a reanimation spell, and he gets Ad Nauseam going and enough storm to knock down my lifetotal.

Game 2: I forgot how I died, but it included me reanimating a Griselbrand in his turn, which I think was a bad gamble on my part, but I'm not sure what my chances were if I hadn't one that. I'm pretty positive I messed something up here in this game just not sure.
Anyways, he still pretty much had a busted hand of double Dark Ritual, double Cabal Ritual, Infernal Tutor, LED which would have killed me anyways.

0-1 Kind of a bummer since this should be a win. Though my opponent played well game 1 misleading me in what he was playing.

R2 UB Planeswalker Stax (vs Micheal)

I lose the roll again.

Game 1: He plays Chalice on 1 turn 1. I have 2 lands and 5 1cc spells in my hand. A couple of turns later he drops Chalice on 2, so I scoop them up. Hardcast Griselbrand only works once or twice due to lack of the manasources, and is incredibly farfetched as I discarded one of the two to try and topdeck a reanimationspell of 2cc which ofcourse didn't happen for like 4-5 turns.

Game 2: I play land go, he plays Chalice on 0, Chalice on 1 -> I respond with Entomb, he Force of Will's it.
I play land go, he plays Ensnarring Bridge, Leyline of the Void, Helm of Obedeince , Lodestone Golem in the few next turns in some order I can't remember, but which pretty much doesn't matter anyway. He told me he has never lost to TinFins before. Wow, I wonder why :D

0-2

R3 Burn (vs Francois)

Game 1: I win the roll, and I turn 1 him with our 2 buddies for life Emmy and Grizza after seeing his hand with Probe. Ironic how I have the godhand in this game where it's not really needed.

Game2: Same thing, only turn 2 this time.

1-2

R4 Burn (forgot his name, but he was an Italian)

I lose the roll. I start to wonder if I need new dice.

Game 1: I play three Ponders, and have to shuffle all three times failing to find anything to combo. He draws insane with the singleton Thuderous Wrath he proudly domes me for 5 with, and with me eventually at 9, knowing he has double Chain Lightning in his hand and a suspended Rift Bolt heading my way my only out is to discard Emrakul and swing for 15+ crush his 2 lands.
He responds to the trigger by saccing 2 lands for Fireblast ( ugh) and I go to 5. In his upkeep I go to 2, and two turns later he finds his land.

Game2: He plays a turn 1 Relic, which cleans up a card of mine every turn keeping my GY clean.
I again fail to find anything relevant with my Ponders. The guy feels sorry for me.
So I Cabal him naming Fireblast blindly, which hits but also sees: Skullkrank (...), Price of Progress, Flame Rift, Hellspark Element and Lava Spike.
I win the game at some point with this boardstate:

He has 2 mana open, the Relic on the table, and I know he has Skullkrank in hand.
I'm at 10 life. I have two lands in play, and a Chrome Mox which produces Black.
I play Dark Ritual into Entomb, and play Shallow Grave. He tanks for a second, then decides to blow up Relic which to I repsond by casting a second copy of Shallow Grave. I return my Griselbrand and after drawing 7, attacking and drawing another 7 I find a Petal and a Children and proceed to tendrils him for 24.
If he had just Skullkrank'd me, I would have lost.

Game 3 he opens again with turn 1 Relic, and again I draw patheticly into nothing but discard. Kind of lucky though I guess because otherwise I'd be facing another Skullkrank and a Sulfuric Vortex. But, in the meanwhile I just get burned out anyway.

1-3 Good job, this GP is going fantastic...

R5 Merfolk (vs Ed)

I lose the roll again. Kind of used to it by now.

Game 1: He plays Island go, I play probe, revealing all lords and 0 counters. I draw Ritual, and have the rest in hand combo out and to swing for 22.

Game 2: He plays a Gravediggers Cage turn 1, I look at his hand with Thoughtseize and it contains FoW and double Cursecatcher. I grab FoW. But I fetch through my deck and realize I brought in Needles instead of Abrupt Decays and I scoop.

Game 3 I turn one Ritual, Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy him and he gives up after I take the Relic and cast Entomb. He has no counters in hand, but I told him he doesn't need to concede yet but he insists he has no way to win, and doesn't feel like this game anymore. Ragequit for the win?

2-3

R6 Opponent says sorry, and concedes after explaining he has to leave.

3-3 Hooray for free Planeswalker Points.

R7 Deadguy Ale with green splash (vs Stanisla)

I lose the roll.

Game1: He goes turn one Deathrite Shaman. I go turn one fetch.
He goes turn 2 Dark Confidant. I end of turn Entomb, next turn Goryo's and we're off to game 2.

Game2: I see a hole to punch through with Emrakul to wipe his board and kick him to 5. He fails to find lands and a couple of turns later I get another hastey 7/7 flier. I had the Abrupt Decay and Pithing Needle in hand for his Relic of Progenitus which he Tutor'ed for right before his lands got demolished.

4-3 As he checks the squarebox for Drop, I ask him if he is offended if I mark mine aswell, as I was tired and thought spending some time checking out the rest of the GP would be interesting. He said no ofcourse not and that was the end of the GP for me.

Drafted a box of Chinese Gatecrash that night which was pretty poor on loot, and day 2 played 2 Chaos Drafts earning me a couple of older boosters including an Alliances booster. I had got wasted Saturday so missed out on the day 2 legacy event.

Final thoughts, I'm still content with the deck and will definately still play it. Just sometimes bumming out on the combo pieces can be frustrating.
But nothing I haven't dealt with in the past playing Doomsday or Show and Tell.
I think it's a pattern that shows combo can be insanely powerful, but the consistency isn't there to make it that powerful all the time.

Sorry for the vague report, I didn't keep notes other then lifetotal notes and scribbling of cards in hand of my opponent.

P-E

04-15-2013, 01:36 PM

a french finished at 11-5 (58th) with tinfins:smile:

Vad_

04-15-2013, 02:58 PM

Hello everyone, first post here on the source, but i read all about Tin Fins and i finally got here to thank you about this topic.

Got 3 byes in my local tournament with the exact same list, winning in finals against Esper.

So feel free to ask, comment, and please remember, i'm far from a pro player and i tweaked the list based on what i wanted to do with the deck : go as fast as possible.

Here it is :

4 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
4 Griselbrand
1 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Careful Study
1 Scrubland
1 Marsh Flats
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Thoughtseize
1 Intuition
SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Bayou
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Reverent Silence
SB: 1 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
SB: 1 Karakas

I'm not happy with many slots in the SB, otherwise the MD seemed very good to me, with a lot of turn 1-2 kills.
These are the changes i'll probably do :
MD -1 Island +1 Tundra or Scrubland
SB -1 Jin-Gitaxias -1 Hurkyl's Recall -1 Krosan grip +3 Pull from Eternity

I'm thinking of these changes because the hate i faced all day was Surgical extraction. I thought instant speed and Jin-Gitaxias as an extra target would be enough, but i was wrong, and the games i lost was vastly because of surgicals.

Ended up day 1 at 8-1, defeated by Giuseppe with UW RiP.
Was at 10-1 day 2, but 3 losses in a row, then a win and a loose for the final match.

Got lucky on the GP, faced only 1 BUG, 1 Miracle and 8 Show&Tell.deck (This is so fun to watch them loose on their own Show&Tell)

Special thanks to Phazonmutant, i discovered the deck by watching you play on camera, and fell in love with it !

Bye guys.

phazonmutant

04-15-2013, 05:07 PM

TraxDaMax

04-15-2013, 05:22 PM

Thanks for all the reports, guys! It looks like there's still some consistency issues postboard so I guess that's the thing to work on. People running LDV - how did it treat you? Did you board it out?

Interesting list, Vad_! How did the Careful Studies treat you postboard? Being able to find antihate was the big incentive for Ponder for me.

I really like LDV. Every time I had it I went off. Slower, but I went off.
Still, I'm actually wondering how Sensei's would work out in our list and will be trying it.

Grats to the11-5 player!

Acclimation

04-16-2013, 04:56 AM

Ended up playing this at SCG Milwaukee this weekend, and ended up at 57th, going 5-3-1.

The deck is pretty sick. I found that I was 50-50 in my wins between winning with Tendrils and winning with Emrakul+Grizzlebee swings.

My list looked like this:

2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul
1 Children of Korlis

2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
4 Marsh Flats
3 Verdant Catacombs

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

SB:
1 Bayou
2 Reverent Silence
3 Pithing Needle
3 Silence
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Massacre

I wasn't able to nab a Tundra, and also liked the idea of Reverent Silence to deal with problem Enchantments, so my mana base reflects this.

In my brief testing, I was split on Intuition/LDV, since I was using the Intuition as Entomb #5, as well as getting any Reanimation spells or other specific cards. During the Open, I never cast the card, and often sided it out. LDV on the other hand, was incredibly clutch the 2 times I played it. If I were playing this again, I would drop the Intuition for another LDV.

I played against TES (1-2), Esper Deathblade (2-0), Dredge (2-1), Lands (2-1), Esper Deathblade again (2-0), Sneak and Show (1-2), Jund (2-1), B/W Stoneblade w/ maindeck Rest in Peace (0-2), and Shardless BUG (ID).

Overall, I was pretty happy with how I did, I only punted a game once, and my losses usually came from well timed disruption into a good enough clock while I top decked poorly.

Vad_

04-16-2013, 07:35 AM

Interesting list, Vad_! How did the Careful Studies treat you postboard? Being able to find antihate was the big incentive for Ponder for me.

They sure are not as efficient as ponders, but they still dig. And as a former player of old school reanimator AND ichorid, i'm used to play careful study to dig. :cool:
The postboard games is lost, was about 2 types :
- Me having anti-hate, and still loosing to tons of counterspells
- Me having anti-hate, and still loosing to a quick clock because i don't have the combo pieces (often looking for more shallow/goryo/reanimate)

Even post-board, T1-kill hands are incredibly efficient. Only surgical and/or FoW to stop you, and you have probe/cabal therapy to know it.

The good point in tin fins however, is that even if you discard the griselbrand while searching answers to hate with careful study, they will not make the move as long as you have an untapped source of mana. Or they might get punished in response :wink:

Baum

04-16-2013, 01:26 PM

Koby

04-16-2013, 01:32 PM

After reading Vad_'s post, I just goldfished a Careful Study build around 60 times. It's definately worse at digging for specific cards, but it produces so much more keepable hands. Maybe 2 LDVs can help with the digging part.

Damn, I wanted to play Modern on the next weekend, but I think I have to test the build in a tournament...

I believe part of that is due to 4 Griselbrand, which now turns on Ritual-Discard-Shallow Grave hands. Realistically, that accounts for:

P(Dark Ritual) + P(Discard, but not Careful Study) + P(Reanimation) + P(Griselbrand)
P(4/60) + P(5/59) + P(8/58) + P(4/57)

The increased odds of doubling the Griselbrand count helps to see more "live" hands, but this line in general is less common due so many pieces required. It certainly improves with Careful Study enabling turn 2 kills also.

This comes at a trade-off by reducing the ability to dig due to the removal of Ponders.

I'm not very good with stats, but would the inclusion of the 3rd Griselbrand improves the odds of the traditional list be worth it? Does the statistical gain make enough of a difference?

My current build:

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

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

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe
2 Lim-Dul's Vault

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
1 (Silence/Thoughtseize)

8 black fetches
2 Underground Sea
2 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Swamp

Alternate for small events: -1 Scrubland +1 Gitaxian Probe (increases speed at the risk of mana screw).
Alternate for long events: -1 Scrubland +1 Bayou (Reverent Silence in the SB)
Alternate for experimentation: +1 Gitaxian Probe and going to 61 cards with 14 land.

Finntrinsic

04-16-2013, 03:16 PM

Hello again,

Played Fins again this weekend at the Milwaukee SCG. Piloted to a 6-2-1 record for a 25th Place finish and my first cash in an SCG. Here is the List I played:

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

4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Boseiju, Who Shelter's All

SideBoard:

4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Silence
1 Pull from Eternity
1 Pithing Needle
1 MindBreak Trap
2 Echoing Truth
2 Massacre

Here is a report from the event:

R1 Rogue G/W Ramp (vs Tyler)

Tyler Wins the die roll, elects to play first

Game 1: I have Entomb/Goryo's in the opener but no accel. Tyler opens on a Plains and a Shield Sphere. I am...optomistic, I fetch my basic swamp and say go. Tyler plays a forest and a G1 Wall and passes back. I entomb on his end step and go-off on turn 2. Find the goods in the first 14 to entomb/shallow emmy and we are on to game 2.

SB: -1 exhume -1 Duress -2 Boseiju
+1 Surgical(really want to know whats in the deck) +1 Pull from Eternity +1 Pithing Needle +1 E-truth

Game 2: Have the shallow, dig, and accel in opener no G-Money, no entomb. Up a game I decide to keep. I see an axebane something-or-other that give mana ramp for dudes with defender, figure its a ramp deck of some type, pull entomb off of ponder in Turn 4 and go off.

1-0

R2 BUG Delver (vs ) David

David plays at my home store and I'm pretty sure he know's what I'm playing. You can find his list here: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=55020

David wins the die roll, elects to play first.

Game 1: I have the T1 go off hand, David plays a Tropical Island casts a Deathrite and passes. I draw a 2nd ritual for T1...hmmm. Play and underground cast 1st Ritual, David tanks for a second (has countermagic) says it resolves. "Here we go." I think I cast Therapy, he picks up his Island and drops the daze. "I pay the mana" I respond, David frowns (Sometimes RUG & BUG players in my observation look at tapped lands to determine if daze is good, forgetting about floating mana). David now Forces therapy pitching Jace, with my last floating black I cast the 2nd ritual. David sighs "Resolves", as do the following entomb & shallow. Swing for 22 Annihilate 6 later and its on to game 2.

SB: -1 Exhume -1 Duress -1 LDV -1 Therapy -1 Children -1 Ponder
+2 E-Truth +1 Pithing Needle +1 Pull From Eternity +2 Silence

Game 2:

I mull to 6 and keep a hand with ritual, entomb x2, boseiju, Flats, and Ponder. He opens again on Deathrite. I draw a Verdant, Fetch an Underground and Ponder. He Wastes the underground and casts 2 delvers. T3 he wastes again and the delvers flip off a revealed daze. Couple swings later and we're on to game 3.

Game 3: I don't remember a lot of the details from this one. I tried to entomb t2 or 3, got forced. Goyf & shaman finish me off.

1-1

R3 Storm (vs ) Jeremy

I win the die roll and elect to play first.

Game 1: I fetch an Underground, Ponder and draw the entomb I was looking for. Jeremy plays a Volcanic & ponders, passes back. I play a Boseiju and pass, Jeremy plays a City of Brass and passes. I entomb on his end step. I cast shallow on my turn 3 off the Underground and the Boseiju. Draw 7 off of Grizzlebees and find the combo, but no mana. Sitting at 10 & staring at 2 untapped red sources and a full grip on the other side...I blink. I move to combat without drawing another 7 and draw my second 7 after combat damage has me back at 17. More combo pieces and dig but light on mana and children. Decide to pull up and play "safe" and pass back at 10 life and a perfect 7 for next turn. His turn 3 he storms out and kills me, lesson learned.

SB: -2 Boseiju, -1 exhume, -1 duress, -1 ldv, -1 Therapy, -1 Ponder, -1 Grizzlebees
+4 Leyline, +2 E-truth, +2 Silence

Game 2:
Game 2 is an odd affair, we rip up each other's hands with disruption early, then have one of those super awkward draw-go exchanges for like 4 turns that combo players don't want to admit they have. Somewhere around T6 or 7 I play a Children of Korlis followed up by a hardcast Leyline of Sanctity. 2 Turns later Jeremy storms up to drop 16 goblins with me at 17 life...hmm this seems bad. I'm almost back to combo grip, only needing an entomb to get rolling. Jeremy's next turn he swings in for 16. I take it and immediately sac child to heal back to 17. Next draw...E-Truth, I'll take it. Jeremy goes to swing in again I E-truth the horde. 2 Turns later and I still have no entomb. Jeremy casts burning wish for "Cabal Therapy"?!?! Jeremy's next turn he storms up a bit and casts Ill Gotten Gains....um ok...I pitch my hand and pull e-truth, entomb, and shallow from the yard. Jeremy then goes to cast therapy on me to pull the e-truth. I point out that therapy targets and that Leyline is still in play. He scoops.

Game 3:
Game 3 was more 1 sided, I had Leyline in the opening grip with lands, goryo's, and ldv. Unable to disrupt me or hit me with the primary combo I LDV bottom of his turn 2 for the goods I need and go off on turn 3.

2-1

R4 Dredge (vs ) Corbin

I win the die roll and elect to play first.

Game 1: I have the combo in the opener, but no accel. T1 I play my only land and ponder looking for a ritual (brick) shuffle and draw a verdant. Get saucy and decide to play the chrome mox from my opener with the only other non-combo black card I have available in my hand Tendrils. This may have been too greedy, but as you will see it hardly mattered. Corbin's t1 he plays Cephalid Coliseum and Lion's eye x2. Sacs the lion's eyes discards his hand with 2 dredgers and activates coliseum...hilarity ensues, facing down multiple therapies from narcomebas resulting in hordes of zombies I opt to scoop before providing any additional information.
SB: -2 Boseiju, -1 Exhume, -1 Duress
+2 Surgical Extraction +2 Silence
Game 2: I mull to 5 looking for the T1. I get the combo, but only 1 land. I entomb on his end step...and draw...Ponder. He goes off Turn 2.
2-2

R5 EsperDeathBlade (vs ) Craig

This one just sucks. Craig is one of my closest friends in the Magic community, we have roomed together on the road for tourneys and we have an uncanny knack for getting paired against each other. I'm also a little torqued that in a tourney of 278 people I have to play 2 people I know in the first 5 rounds. We have seen each other's decklists so there isn't much finesse in this round.

Craig wins the die roll, he elects to play first.

Game 1: Craig mulls aggresively to 4 to get the disruption he knows he needs. His version of Deathblade is very aggro so I know his countermagic is all in the board. Sure enough, he t1 thoughtseizes me and takes my entomb making my t1 powerhouse pretty mediocre. My turn 1 Draw...Entomb. Swamp, Ritual, Entomb, Shallow, Bam! Zip! Pow! you all know the deal.

SB: -1 Duress, -1 Exhume, -1 children, -1 ldv, -1 ponder, -1 Griselbrand
+4 Leyline of Sanctity +2 Silence

Game 2: I have a good opener of Landx2, Leyline, Therapy, Shallow, LDV, Ritual
Craig mulls to 6...smiles (hello thoughtsieze) says keep. I reveal the leyline, Craig stops smiling. Therapy t2 to check the coast is clear go off on t3.

3-2

R6 EsperBlade (vs ) Andrew

I win the die roll I elect to play first

I keep a decent 7 with shallow, therapy, lands and dig. My t1 ponder resolves I find the entomb. Andrew's t1 strand into tundra slows my roll a bit. T2 land +therapy gets a force pitching Jace. His T2 he fetches an island drops the inevitable Stoneforge Mystic searching up Batterskull. T3 play a land Ponder draw Therapy off ponder. Decide to hold it. His turn 3 he makes his land drop passes. My t4 I therapy, he responds by mystic'ing in Skull. Therapy resolves I name force. He reveals Land & Jace...ok by me. His turn 4. He swings for 5 (puts me to 14) plays land casts Jace and Jace storms. 1 Card in hand passes. My turn 5...(Mom says make them have it) I combo off with enough mana to beat daze & pierce he didn't have counterspell or snare.

SB: -1 duress, -1 exhume, -1 children, -1 ldv
+2 Silence +1 Pull from eternity +E-truth

Game 2: I keep the opener with Shallow, Boseiju, Griselbrand x2, land, petal, ponder
T1 Andrew drops an island and passes, I draw my card, discard Grizzle and pass. T2 brings the mystic fetching skull. I play bosejiu and pass. T3 He plays land and brainstorms. T3 I play land activate bosejiu and shallow. No response from Andrew I draw 14, play trinkets, cast silence, ritual, entomb emmy shallow. Swing for the win.

Amusing side note: Person to my right in this round in also playing Fins. He was having similar success against his opponent and their was no small ammount of (filthy combo) grumbling taking place on the other side of the table.

4-2

R7 Lands (vs ) Tom

I win the die roll and elect to play first:

Game 1: I have the T2 combo with dig and lands, no disruption, lets hope we get a sign. T1 in the dark I opt to fetch my basic swamp, no point getting hosed up by a wasteland. Tom's turn 1 he cracks a wooded foothills for a forest. Seems good, I entomb on his endstep. "This is not good" was his reply. He responds by cycling a land (lands or loam) I smile on the inside. T2 go off.

SB: -2 Bosejiu(MISTAKE) -1 duress -1 exhume
+1 Pull from eternity +2 Surgical +1 Echoing Truth

Tom at this point mentions that one of his other losses was vs Fins today. "Seems like a tough matchup." I comment. "Yeah" he responds "I pretty much need a god draw to have a chance"

Game 2: Tom turn 1 land +Mox Diamond Chalice of the Void on 1. ALLLLLLRIGHTY Then. I eventually get to where I can discard Grizzlebees and I have 1 turn to re-animate. By this point he's added ensnaring bridge to the party so I can draw 14 and hope for my 1 of E-truth...Whiff...string it out for 2 more turns just to mine more info on his deck. He finishes me off with punishing fire/grove. Off to game 3.

Game 3: Look at 7, t1? Nope. Mull
Look at 6, t1? Nope. Mull
Look at 5, t1? Yep!

5-2

R8 Dredge (vs ) Benning

Benning wins the die roll he elects to play first.

Game 1: Cephalid Coliseum, LED, LED, (Haven't we been here before?) He dredges a ton his lots of narco's and therapies I snap conceed in response to the first therapy, seeing the inevitable and not wanting to provide any info.

Benning: "I don't know what to sideboard?" Me: "That was kind of the idea"

SB: -2 Boseiju, -1 Duress, -1 Children
+2 Surgical Extraction +2 E-Truth

Game 2: I draw the nuts, I go off fail to find entomb,re-animate,mana in the opening 14. Swing, draw 7 more,play Child, Sac, Draw 21 still no tendrils, Shallow Children, sac, draw 7 finally hit tendrils and finish him.

Me: "One turn 1 deserves another don't you think?"
Benning: "I do! Lets hope for a third!"
Me: "Notsomuch"

Game 3: I pull land x2, Shallow x2, Grizzlebees, Ponder, Chrome Mox. I spend too long tanking on this keep. I know I'm giving away too much, but I'm stuck on throwing away a for sure t2 to try and snag a t1. Finally I just say screw it if I die before t2 I die before t2. KEEP.

His turn 1: Land, Careful Study binning Troll & thug. My turn 1, Bin Grizzle pass. His Turn 2 Dredge, Cast Faithless looting dredge Troll, Dredge Thug, Discard 2 troll. Only business hit on Dredge is 1 Narcomeba and 1 Cabal therapy. "Sac Narco for Therapy targetting you" He says. "Resolves, Naming?" I reply "Goryo's Vengeance" he says.

6-2

R9 Storm (vs ) Tommy

Overall standings had been posted before round 9. My Opponent and I were both aware that X-2 and lower were effectively locked out of top8. "Can we draw out this round to make sure we top 32?" He asked? "Fine with me." We played it out for fun...he roughed me up pretty good (no boarding).

6-2-1

Was very happy with how the deck performed overall. I caught a couple breaks playing the rogue brew in round 1 and Lands in round 7. I also felt like the play-testing my friends and I have been doing at our local store since I started with the deck after the Denver GP has been big. Observations:

PRO:
Convinced LDV is the correct 9-10 dig spell. 2 mana at instant speed just too good.
In a bigger event like this I was always happy to see Leyline. So much disruption & storm.
Bosejiu got me there I think vs the 2nd Esper player in game 2. Will keep 2 main until more data is available.

CON:

Tempo still seems like a nightmare matchup.
Still think 1/2 my sideboard is garbage.
Didn't finish high enough to fan the "Ban G-Money" flames.

Once again thanks to Josh, Richard, and everyone else on the list for your insights and comments. 2 1/2 months playing the deck and I'm still having a ball.

-Finn

.dk

04-16-2013, 03:47 PM

Finntrinsic

04-16-2013, 04:10 PM

Nice report, great finish, and cool list!

Boseiju seems like it did good work based on your report. Interesting... Some other interesting choices I thought from your list as well:

3 Griselbrand vs. 2
2 Chrome Mox vs. 1
1 Duress

Any particular reason that you chose those cards over something like Gitaxian Probe or more Thoughtseize? Was Duress just for budget reasons?

Duress was mostly budget (I own 1 thoughtsieze).
The Grizzle & Mox were deliberate decisions made by the playtesting done over the last couple months. Simple truth sometimes you just need to bin a grizzle T1 as your "In" or therapy/seize yourself. Having the extra Grizzle seems to make a difference. Same sentiment with Mox #2 Worst feeling in the world is to combo "Thin" having played your land and used all your mana to go off, only to miss on petal/mox and have a mitt full of business and nothing to play it with.

Meant to mention the extra Grizzle in the report, just forgot. :) think there were at least 2 spots in the tourney where I discarded G-money to get things started.

-Finn

Joe Eigo

04-17-2013, 06:20 AM

Dear all,

i took Tin Fin's to GP Strasbourg last weekend, but didn't end too well. At least i won every 1st game of the 6 matches (except vs Miracle) before i dropped out. (2-3-1)

Started 2-0 without Byes and then managed to get a draw against some BUG Control. Game 2 he made some weird play's in extirpating my Underground Sea's and Rituals, so i was a little too mana light to go off efficiently. Should have conceded that game at some point, but i actually couldn't see the clock from the table.... :-/

So i was stuck in the draw bracket, which is just bad if you want to avoid to play all day long against Miracle style decks... Whatever the 4th match was against burn, which i lost to. Why ? Well... it was my own fault. Kept a mediocre hand game 2 with some cantrips and was a little too slow. 3rd game i would just win if i do not drop my 3rd nonbasic to run in exactly lethal PoP. Would have won that, since i already had Grizzle in play and Children + Petal in hand at that point. Horrible loss.... :-(

I guess that caused also a mental break on my part and i wasn't too concentrated anymore... Also got the Miracle matchup afterwards which was like unwinnable. First game he drops Counterbalance and is tapped out. I get a Shallow through next turn but he reveal's a Top on Top of Lib. No Rituals, no Entomb, no Children for me. Next turn i tried to somehow get around his Top/CB action's, but just couldn't get through that....

Apart from the result, the deck felt very strong as usual and my draws were really solid. In the Intuition/LDV experimental slot's i just decided to go with 2x Preordain which felt very good if i drew them, since they either found me more cantrip's or the stuff i needed.

Baum

04-17-2013, 01:47 PM

@Koby:

You're right that more Griselbrands raise the percentage to discard one via Thoughtseize or Therapy. But adding Study enables even more starting hands. I'm far away from saying that Study is better than Ponder. The reduced digging ability is a huge downside that can't be measured by just goldfishing. But I think the combination of Study and LDV is at least worth testing.

Interestingly enough, the build seems to shift our winning turn from 1 towards 2. You just get more reasonable T2 hands, that you would have mulliganed if Study were a Ponder. Thus we “lose” the ability to mulligan into a T1 hand. Of course, 60 is not that great of a sample size. Not sure if T2 is where we want to be, since the T1 kill is one of our main advantages over traditional reanimator.

@Finntrinsic:

Is making Shallow Grave and Vengeance uncounterable that much of an issue? In my experience the good players almost always try to counter the Entomb (which is the right play in 90% of the time), which is not affected by Boseiju.

TraxDaMax

04-17-2013, 02:52 PM

atopebenidorm

04-17-2013, 05:17 PM

Idea:

In green manabases, with decay or reverent silence on sideboard, I will add one Dryad Arbor for Cabal Therapy Flashback.

I Play with 4 grisel and 3 show&tell (You must play it) in maindeck. 2 Boseiju could be a strong option Vs blue decks

Koby

04-17-2013, 05:30 PM

Idea:

In green manabases, with decay or reverent silence on sideboard, I will add one Dryad Arbor for Cabal Therapy Flashback.

That seems quite terrible in the 11.4% of the time in which you draw this in your opening hand; or the time that sacrificing it would interfere with Shallow Grave.
Additionally, it would weaken the fetchland manabase by removing the ability to tutor Tundra from Marsh Flats, which would now become Verdant Catacomb.

I would sooner run Thrun the Last Troll as an alternate plan from the SB than run Dryad Arbor.

Richard Cheese

04-17-2013, 05:38 PM

This just in: we must play Show and Tell. I'm going to go ahead and edit the opening post.

Koby

04-17-2013, 05:39 PM

This just in: we must play Show and Tell.

Oh? What is that? Please elaborate.

Well played, Mr Cheese. Done got trolled.

.dk

04-17-2013, 05:41 PM

I Play with 4 grisel and 3 show&tell (You must play it) in maindeck. 2 Boseiju could be a strong option Vs blue decks

@Koby - I think he was referring to this....

Richard Cheese

04-17-2013, 05:43 PM

Oh? What is that? Please elaborate.

We Must play it.

atopebenidorm

04-17-2013, 05:45 PM

That seems quite terrible in the 11.4% of the time in which you draw this in your opening hand; or the time that sacrificing it would interfere with Shallow Grave.
Additionally, it would weaken the fetchland manabase by removing the ability to tutor Tundra from Marsh Flats, which would now become Verdant Catacomb.

I would sooner run Thrun the Last Troll as an alternate plan from the SB than run Dryad Arbor.

I don´t need a tundra only for play 1 card, I only run 1 children and often entombed or casted with petal. Only one Dryad is very difficult to see in opening hand, I think is a good option if you need use a cabal theraphy to discard our griselbrand.

Playing Show and tell, Dryad add mana, sacrfice to cabal and after use show and tell to win.

.dk

04-17-2013, 05:47 PM

Tundra is there more for things like Silence than casting Children. I fail to see how running 5 extra cards (2 griselbrand and 3 show and tell) is better than any of the current configurations, and at this point you've offered no reasons as to why the current configurations are wrong. care to elaborate?

/edit: I'm also a bit unclear as to what this sentence means: "Playing Show and tell, Dryad add mana, sacrfice to cabal and after use show and tell to win."

Koby

04-17-2013, 06:02 PM

I don´t need a tundra only for play 1 card, I only run 1 children and often entombed or casted with petal. Only one Dryad is very difficult to see in opening hand, I think is a good option if you need use a cabal theraphy to discard our griselbrand.

Playing Show and tell, Dryad add mana, sacrfice to cabal and after use show and tell to win.

P(1/60) + six other cards = 11.67%, which occurs a non-trivial amount of times. Say, once every nine games.

Richard Cheese

04-17-2013, 06:03 PM

http://i.imgur.com/BD2zJq2.png
Is so good.

AncientOne

04-18-2013, 04:45 AM

I went 6-3 with it (having 1 bye (on PlanesWalker points)).
I've been playing TinFins in 7 or 8 tournaments now, usually ending up slightly positive (4-2, 4-2-1, 3-1-1, etc.) but also finishing Top8 twice in two GPT's for GP Strasbourg.
I've tried many (types) of sideboards, using Show and Tell most of the times (MD I've even tried out 3x Dispel or 3x Pact of Negation, but for the 3 flexible slots I've now returned to Gitaxian Probe (which are ALWAYS sided out for games 2 & 3).
This time I went for the anti-hate-hate sideboard, also with 4 Silences SB. I only boarded those in once, in the 9th round against RUG Delver (my nightmare matchup), winning the deciding game on it...
I'll check my notes for the exact matchups tonight (I went 2-0 against regular Reanimator, 0-2 against MUD (no chance whatsoever against it). The other matchups I'll have to check. I only saw RUG Delver once (luckily !).

The second day I tried SneakyShow, which felt more powerful (it plays counters!), but I ended up with a (lot) worse record, going 3-5-drop (there were 257 players, so 9 rounds!). Having to drive 6 hours back home, I called it quits at 3-5.
This more or less proves that disruption is better than counters (which was already clear in this thread), but I was still doubting if a combination of disruption and counters wouldn't be better. I'm now convinced: it isn't! (for TinFins at least - Sneaky Show might profit from disruption: see also one of the winning Last Chance Trial winning decks at GP Strasbourg: Show and Tell with 4 Thoughtseize MD. But my 9th place fellow countryman played SneakyShow without disruption, so it works fine without disruption as well...

So it took me a little longer to find my notes and reconstruct what happened at GP Strasbourg, but here is my report:

My decklist:

TinFins

Creatures [6]
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Children of Korlis
3 Griselbrand

Instants [18]
3 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave

Sorceries [16]
1 Reanimate
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder

Artifacts [6]
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal

Lands [14]
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
3 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand

Sideboard:
2 Echoing Truth
3 Pithing Needle
1 Pull From Eternity
2 Serenity
4 Silence
3 Surgical Extraction

R1: BYE
1-0 in matches
2-0 in games

R2: Marcus from England (very nice guy who won round 1 against Goblins against a bad loser, so he is glad to have a friendly chat with me before, during and after our match)
Reanimator
2-1 Win
Game 1:
He starts. I Thoughtseize him on turn 1, take an Entomb and think I'm playing the mirror. We play two turns draw-go when he Entombs Griselbrand and then plays Animate Dead on it. So he plays Reanimator, not TinFins. Next turn he hits me down to 11, and goes up to 26. He draws 7, Entombs Iona, and not having seen any of my cards, plays Exhume. In response I Brainstorm, hoping to find an Entomb AND a fattie, so I'll still have a chance. But I find neither and scoop, hoping he doesn't know what I'm playing. 1-0
Game 2:
I have the turn 1 kill hand and go for it without information about his hand. Turns out, he doesn't have a counter, so I Entomb and Shallow Griselbrand, draw 14, Entomb and Shallow or Goryo Emrakul and attack for lethal. He adjusts his sideboard and were on to game 3. 1-1
Game 3:
He starts with a fetch for Underground Sea. I fetch one myself and play a Lotus Petal, which he allows and pass the turn. He does nothing relevant again. I play a Thoughtseize on him, seeing nothing relevant. So I go for it, saccing my Petal for B, play Dark Ritual, Entomb Griselbrand and Shallow/Goryo it. I draw 14, going to 3, Thoughtseize him since I found a Children, going to 1. I take something irrelevant again, play a Petal, sac it for W, play and sac Children, going to 17 again. I draw another 14, play a fetchland for Scrubland, play my second Children, going up to 33, draw another 7 and go for the Tendrils kill. 2-1
2-0 in matches
4-1 in games

R3: Andreas from Germany
Shardless BUG
1-2 Loss
Game 1:
I start with Gitaxian Probe on him, seeing 2 Verdant Catacombs, Tropical Island, Underground Sea, Goyf, Shardless Agent and a Deathrite Shaman, which I take. I play Dark Ritual, Entomb a Griselbrand and the Reanimate it, going to 10. He can only play one of his lands. I attack him to 13, and draw 7, staying on 10 life. He plays a fetchland and passes. I play a fetch, attack him to 6, going up to 16 again. I pay 7 to draw 7, he responds with Brainstorm, finds nothing, cracks his fetch but then decides it's no use and scoops. 1-0
Game 2:
He starts and plays Deathrite Shaman. Would have been a good start, if not for my turn 1 Pithing Needle on Deathrite Shaman! The next turns I'm spending on Ponders and Brainstorm, trying to find business. He plays a turn 2 Tarmogoyf, hits me for 2 (to 17) with it and the Shaman, then for 3 with both (to 14). I try an Entomb which he Forces (discarding a Shardless Agent), and he attacks me again with Goyf and Shaman hitting me for 6 damage total (I go to 7 since I fetched away some bad cards after my Brainstorm). I still find nothing and scoop since he played his other Agent which got him another Goyf. 1-1
Game 3:
I start with a fetch for Swamp and play a Thoughtseize. I see an Underground Sea, Polluted Delta, Abrupt Decay, Ancestral Vision, Sower of Temptation, Shardless Agent and Flusterstorm (which I take). He plays a land. I play another fetch, getting an Island and play another Thoughtseize, this time taking the Shardless Agent (of fear of Deathrite Shaman or Thoughtseize) leaving him a Goyf. I'm still looking for the kill when he plays a Deathrite Shaman and the Goyf. I can only play draw-go and he attacks me with his 5/6 Goyf to just 9 life. With his Shaman still active in my turn, he threatens lethal next turn. So in my turn I have to go for it. However, I only manage to play a Petal, Ritual, Therapy and Tendrils for 8 life, which only bought me one more turn. I topdeck nothing and die. 1-2
2-1 in matches
5-3 in games

R4: Jean-Claude from France
Rb Goblins
2-0 Win
Game 1:
I start with Reanimating Griselbrand in my first turn. He can only play Mountain, Goblin Lackey. Next turn I hit him to 13, going to 19. I draw 14, find and play Children, go back to 19, draw another 14, find and play another Children, go to 33, draw 28 and kill him with Tendrils. 1-0
Game 2:
He fetches a Mountain, and plays Aether Vial, I play Swamp, Pithing Needle on Aether Vial. He plays a Wasteland and a Piledriver. I fetch an Underground Sea and play another Pithing Needle on Wasteland. He fetches a Badlands and therapies me, taking an Entomb. I play a Brainstorm and find another Entomb. I Entomb & Shallow/Goryo Griselbrand, draw 14 going to 4. I find, play and sac Children and draw another 7. At that point I already have enough for Tendrils for 18, killing him on turn 3. 2-0
3-1 in matches
7-3 in games

R5: Amadeus from Switzerland
Affinity
2-0 Win
Game 1:
He starts with a mulligan, keeping his 6. He dumps his entire hand into play turn 1. I can only fetch a Swamp, going to 19. He hits me for 9 damage, so I'm at 10. In my turn I Shallow/Goryo Griselbrand, draw 7 and find nothing. I attack and then draw another 7 finding a Children. I sac it going back to 17, draw another 14. Play and sac another Children, going to 31. I draw another 14, play some Thoughtseizes and Probes, loosing 6 life, reanimate and sac a Children going to 59. Then play a lethal Tendrils for a turn 2 kill. 1-0
Game 2:
He starts by dumping 4 cards into play, but without pressure. So although I have a Serenity, I wait until my second turn to play it. He hits me twice for 3 damage per turn, after which his creatures, lands and Springleaf Drum are all destroyed. I fetch (13 life left) and Shallow/Goryo a Griselbrand. I draw 7, find nothing and attack. I draw another 7, fin, play and sac Children for 15 life, going to 21. I draw another 14 and kill him with Tendrils on turn 3. 2-0
4-1 in matches
9-3 in games

R6: Patrick from Austria (nice guy who made day 2 (having 3 byes) and finished just oustide top 32)
MUD
0-2 Loss
Game 1:
I start quite confidently, since he is 'only' 1-1 in matches played (4-1 with 3 byes) and has to take a mulligan. His turn 2 Chalice for 1 (from 2 Rishadan Ports!) quickly tells me this will be an uphill struggle however. After a Steel Hellkite hits me to 13, he makes a lot of mana, plays a Lodestone Golem and a Batterskull, so I scoop, hoping he doesn't know what I'm playing (he only saw Brainstorm, Ponder, Underground Sea, Scrubland and a Polluted Delta from me). 0-1
Game 2:
I start with a fetch, which I don't crack yet because of his Rishadan Ports (and probably Wastelands too). He starts indeed with Wasteland. So I have to choose Wasteland with my turn 2 Pithing Needle. He then plays an Ancient Tomb, Grim Monolith and Trinisphere! So the two Rituals in my hand are dead and the Brainstorm is quite useless and the Lotus Petal that I drew will have to wait some turns. I don't draw any more lands, whereas he draws business: Lodestone Golem and Prhyrexian Revoker (choosing Griselbrand). They finish me quickly. 0-2
4-2 in matches
9-5 in games

R7: Philipp from Austria (I told him I lost last turn to another Austrian. He asks me who, and I tell him Patrick's name. It turns out he only vaguely knows him, but Philipp knows he plays MUD. At that point I realise I given him a little more information than necessary...)
GW Maverick
2-1 Win
Game 1:
He starts by fetching a Savannah and playing a Green Sun's Zenith for Dryad Arbor. So I go for it turn 1 by Shallow/Goryo Griselbrand, drawing 14, not finding anything. So I attack, draw another 7, play a Probe on him, seeing Karakas (!) and taking a Green Suns Zenith. After playing a Children he immediately scoops telling me things would have been a lot different if he could have played Karakas... 1-0
Game 2:
He starts with turn 2 Thalia and I realize I haven't boarded in any bounce... His turn 2 Thalia and turn 4 Goyf beat me down to 11 before I can Entomb & Shallow/Goryo a Griselbrand (costing me 5 mana from 3 lands and 2 Petals!). I draw 7, do not find a kill, attack him to 12, going back to 11 myself. I draw another 7, find, play and sac Children, going to 18. I draw another 14, but do not find a kill nor a Children (!). So I have to discard to 7 keeping 2 Cabal Therapy, 1 Entomb, 1 Goryo's Vengeance, 1 Ritual, 1 land and 1 Emrakul. He then hits me from 7 to 3. In my turn I play my 4th land, the Ritual only gives me my 5th mana (because of Thalia), which is barely enough for a Cabal Therapy on myself, choosing Emrakul plus a Goryo on it, but he indeed has the Surgical Extraction I feared and wins. Without Thalia I would have been able to first Therapy his Extraction away, and then win, but now, I didn't have the mana for it. 1-1
Game 3:
I start with a Thoughtseize on him showing me a Windswept Heath, Cavern of Souls, Gaddock Teeg, Mother of Runes, Sigarda and 2 Knights of the Reliquary. I choose his Mother because it could protect a Thalia for which I have an Echoing Truth in my hand just in case. After he hits me to 14 I Entomb & Shallow/Goryo a Griselbrand. I draw 7, find nothing, attack him to 12, draw another 7. I find, play and sac a Children for 15 (I fetched that turn as well), going to 22. I draw another 21, find my other Children, play it and sac it for 36 after which I only have to draw 7 more for the Tendrils kill. 2-1
5-2 in matches
11-6 in games

R8: John from France (very quiet guy, who hardly spoke any English - we communicated by hand signals mostly)
UBW with Geist of Saint Traft, Dark Confidant, Deathrite Shaman, Jace TMS, Liliana o/t Veil, counters and disruption (haven't seen any Lingering Souls)
0-2 Loss
Game 1:
I start with fetch for Swamp, Thoughtseize him, seeing Flooded Strand, Tundra, Deathrite Shaman, Brainstorm, Dark Confidant, Geist of Saint Traft and Liliana o/t Veil which I make him discard, since I follow up with Dark Ritual, Cabal Therapy myself, choosing Griselbrand & Reanimating it (going to 9 life and emtpying my hand). He draws a card and plays ... Karakas (ouch! - nice topdeck!). So he bounces Griselbrand and since my hand is empty I HAVE to draw 7 cards, going to just 2 life, knowing he has a Deathrite Shaman in his hand. In my turn I play Dark Ritual, Therapy myself choosing Emrakul, hit him to 5, killing his Karakas. He plays his Flooded Strand, fetches an Underground Sea and plays Deathrite Shaman. So I have just 1 more turn to find a kill. I do draw a Griselbrand, I already have discard and another Ritual in hand, but no Shallow/Goryo. So I loose after a heartbreaking topdeck... 0-1
Game 2:
I start with fetch for Underground Sea (because of Ponder and Brainstorm in my hand, without any other lands, but with 2 Lotus Petals) and Thoughtseize him. I see Underground Sea, Tundra, Scrubland, Brainstorm, Inquisition of Kozilek, Surgical Extraction and a Deathrite Shaman (which he has to discard). So this will be tough... He then has another good topdeck and wastes my Sea. I end up saccing a Petal for Ponder, find two fetchlands, play one and fetch an Island. He plays land-go, I play Brainstorm which finds nothing, so I crack my other fetchland, but he Stifles it (his 3rd topdeck!)... He then plays a Goyf (4th topdeck), and starts beating me for 3 per turn. In the next 5 rounds he is completely in control, because of his disruption, a FoW, a Jace TMS and a Nihil Spellbomb (all three found with Brainstorm - 'topdecks' 5, 6 & 7). The only thing I manage to sneak in is a Pithing Needle on Jace TMS, the turn after he plays it, just before he plays the Spellbomb... He hits me with his lonely Goyf to 7, 4, 1 and then -2. So I lose to too much hate and WAY too much topdecks... This also means NO day 2 for me... :o( 0-2
5-3 in matches
11-8 in games

R9: Jonathan from Germany
RUG Delver
2-0 Win
Game 1:
I managed to dodge RUG Delver the entire day, but in round 9 it is finally there: my nightmare matchup: in 7 or 8 previous tournament I've lost all my matches against it, only winning 2 games (2-14 or 2-16 in games, 0-7 or 0-8 in matches against it). However I now have 4 Silence in my SB for the first time... I win the toss, have to take a mulligan, keep the next 6 and start with Swamp, Thoughtseize on him, seeing Volcanic Island, Tropical Island, Misty Rainforest, Lightning Bolt, 2 Nimble Mongoose, Daze and FoW (which I make him discard). So I play Petal, Ritual, Entomb a Griselbrand, Shallow/Goryo it and draw 14. I find nothing, attack him to 13, going to 11 myself. I draw another 7, find Children. Play it, sact it for 21 life, which I turn into 21 cards. I play and sac a second Children for 42 life, going to 46. I draw another 7, still not finding Tendrils. At this point I only have 5 cards left in my library. So I play a Chrome Mox, imprint a Brainstorm and play a Ponder. Still no Tendrils, so I shuffle the 5 cards and draw a random one: no Tendrils. I play another Ponder from a Petal: still no Tendrils. Shuffle the remaining 4, drawing another random card: still no Tendrils... So I play all three Probes (for 6 life, going to 33), drawing the remaining 3 library cards. Of course Tendrils is the very last one... I kill him with it. 1-0
Game 2:
He starts with a mulligan, keeps his 6 new cards, plays a fetchland a says go. I fetch a Swamp, Thoughtseize him and see Scalding Tarn, Daze, Lightning Bolt, Spell Pierce and a Flusterstorm which I make him discard. We then play a few turns of draw-go. Then in my 4th turn I go for it. I play a Silence, which is Spell Pierced, I play another Silence, he Dazes, I pay 1 more mana. He bolts me in response and Silence resolves. From my remaining land I play 2 Dark Rituals, then Entomb and Shallow/Goryo a Griselbrand floating 2 black mana. I draw 7 going to 6 and find Petal, Entomb, Goryo and 4 more cards. I play and sac the Petal for another black mana, Entomb Emrakul and Goryo him. I attack him for 22 with both fatties and win my last match of the day. 2-0
6-3 in matches
13-8 in games

My findings about TinFins:
I have been playing 3 Griselbrand since my third tournament with TinFins, since I want to be able to discard it to a Thoughtseize or Therapy on myself. Four is too much, since I end up with 2 Griselbrands in my hand too often. Two is not enough, since I often have several discard spells in hand, but no Griselbrand.
I play 2 Children, since I want to optimize the chance of finding one with the first 14 or 21 cards drawn. If I play just one, I either can't find it, or I would need Entomb + Shallow/Reanimate for it, costing me 1 or 2 more mana than I can afford at that point. The Scrubland and Tundra, combined with 4 Petals and 2 Moxen are enough white mana sources to be able to play it from my hand (and also to play the white SB cards).
I have gone down to 3 Brainstorm, since I think it's just a worse Ponder (!!), in this deck at least. Yes, I play 8 fetches, so I should be able to fetch away unwanted cards. That usually works fine for the 1st Brainstorm, but for the second I often do not have an open fetchland. If at that point you don't find your missing combo piece with the Brainstorm, you know you will be stuck the next two turns, which you can't afford to. If that 2nd Brainstorm is a Ponder however, you still see your next 3 cards, but when they do NOT contain your missing card, you can choose to shuffle and at least draw a random card and get 2 new random cards on top of your library, so you still have a chance of drawing what you're looking for in the next 2 turns. I will NOT go back to 4 Brainstorm, it is even more likely I'll replace 1 with Lim-Dûl's Vault... (!)
The three Gitaxian Probes are there to make my Cabal Therapies better, and to check if it is 'safe' to go off. They also tell me what deck my opponent is playing. I ALWAYS side them out in games 2 and 3, no matter what deck I face, since by then I know what I'm up against and will always have better cards for that matchup in my SB than Probe...
I haven't played Chain of Vapor in my SB since my 4th tournament or so, since it won't bounce a Chalice on 1. Also you can't use it after drawing 7 or 14 cards, before attacking, since your opponent can then just copy it, bouncing your Griselbrand. Echoing Truths work better because of this, and because TES and Belcher can churn out a goblin horde on turn 1 in which case Chain is useless...
The 3 Surgical Extractions in my SB are mainly there for the mirror (at the 3 GP Utrecht big Legacy side events I faced the mirror FOUR (!) times), against Reanimator, ANT and TES. I also often board one in against Control decks (together with the 4 Silences), to extract any previously played counter or hate card.
The Silences have turned out great, especially against RUG Delver, but they also improve other control matchups. Especially in combination with the 7 disruption spells... Once you know the type of hate they play, you can even side (more of) them in, in the 3rd game, in case they play Surgical Extraction or Extirpate (taking out useless Echoing Truths for example).
So far, I have NEVER used my Pull from Eternity, although having it in hand has won me 1 game against Elves in a previous tournament (he found out that his Slaughter Games on my Griselbrands wouldn't help him... (after seeing my Pull (and a Ritual + Shallow/Goryo) with a Probe - instead he opted for the combo kill that turn and failed). Because of that, I went down from 2 in my SB to just 1.
14 lands main deck feels just right. With 13 lands I often was mana screwed, whereas 14 lands feels as if it is 3 more lands than 13... I'm (almost) never manascrewed, 1-land hands on the draw are less awkward and against Thalia you still have a chance.
I'm playing 7 disruption, which, in combination with 3 Griselbrands and 3 Probes, feels exactly right. Because of the Probes I opted for 4 Cabal Therapy, only leaving room for 3 Thoughtseizes (and NO Lim-Dûls Vaults, which I really llike to try sometime, since it is a great tutor).
I haven't played the Bayou/Reverent Silence MD/SB combination yet, since I only once faced the UW Rest in Peace/Energy Field deck... That deck is hated out of the Dutch metagame apparently. Also it will often end up in the draw bracket, because it is slow. TinFins will never be in the draw bracket, since you can easily play 3 games with in within 50 minutes. You either win fast (within the first 4 turns) or you loose quite fast. I have only gone into extra time a few games in 7 or 8 tournaments...

Remaining problems:
Trinisphere still trumps my deck, since I can't find 3 lands in time against it. Also I then have to play Entomb/discard Griselbrand and Shallow/Goryo it over 2 turns, leaving my opponent with the chance to safely surgically extract it... Serenity often is also not a fast enough answer against Trinisphere, but those are great against Affinity and MUD as well as against hate cards like Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, Nihil Spellbomb, Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace, Chalice on 1, Ethersworn Canonist, etc. I'm thinking of going up to 3, taking out the Pull from Eternity.
Against BUG I'm not sure what they best SB-options are. The Pithing Needles against Deathrite Shaman are good, but the Silences are also very good. I can, however, only board 5 cards out (3 Probes, Chrome Mox & Reanimate), so what 5 should I board in? 4 Silence & 1 Peedle, or 3/2 (my current plan), or even 2 Silence and 3 Peedles? I'm still not sure...
Also I would like to test 2 MD Lim-Dûl's Vaults, but I am not sure what to take out. Most likely slots are 1 Brainstorm and 1 Thoughtseize but I'm still in doubt... Any ideas on that?

dameus

04-18-2013, 09:31 AM

I can say that until we find an Entomb effect #5+ that costs less than 3, I too am sticking with 3 Griz in the MD (along with Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy, and just 1 Careful Study). However, Brainstorm has proven itself so many times in so many decks, that rather than defending it, it's safe to say playing less than 4 is simply wrong.

Richard Cheese

04-18-2013, 04:09 PM

So it took me a little longer to find my notes and reconstruct what happened at GP Strasbourg, but here is my report:
Remaining problems:
Trinisphere still trumps my deck, since I can't find 3 lands in time against it. Also I then have to play Entomb/discard Griselbrand and Shallow/Goryo it over 2 turns, leaving my opponent with the chance to safely surgically extract it... Serenity often is also not a fast enough answer against Trinisphere, but those are great against Affinity and MUD as well as against hate cards like Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, Nihil Spellbomb, Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace, Chalice on 1, Ethersworn Canonist, etc. I'm thinking of going up to 3, taking out the Pull from Eternity.
Against BUG I'm not sure what they best SB-options are. The Pithing Needles against Deathrite Shaman are good, but the Silences are also very good. I can, however, only board 5 cards out (3 Probes, Chrome Mox & Reanimate), so what 5 should I board in? 4 Silence & 1 Peedle, or 3/2 (my current plan), or even 2 Silence and 3 Peedles? I'm still not sure...
Also I would like to test 2 MD Lim-Dûl's Vaults, but I am not sure what to take out. Most likely slots are 1 Brainstorm and 1 Thoughtseize but I'm still in doubt... Any ideas on that?

Thanks for the awesome report, sorry you didn't make day 2 but it sounds like overall you did pretty well.

I think against BUG if you have 5 slots, 2 Needle/3 Silence sounds good. They are most likely going to pull Abrupt Decay, so they shouldn't have much that deals with Needle other than counters. I personally would drop the single Reanimate if you want to find room for LDV, but from this report it seems like you use it quite a bit. I also wouldn't run less than 4 Brainstorm. I get your reasoning, but I think having those 8 core cantrips is really important in this kind of deck.

I do think 3 Griselbrand is correct for this deck, until another playable Entomb effect comes along.

Koby

04-18-2013, 05:51 PM

@AncientOne
Thanks for the length report. It's very useful in determining the next steps for development of the deck. I'm going to test some ideas out this weekend and hope to have a good report to share come Monday or Tuesday.

Vad_

04-19-2013, 06:31 AM

I know this card has been rejected before and i don't remember why, but since some people have come to test teferi's realm which cost 3 and seems happy about it, what about City of Solitude ?

.dk

04-19-2013, 11:55 AM

@AncientOne - Awesome report! Thanks for the detail as well. While I'm personally a bit confused by the 3 Brainstorm, I can certainly appreciate wanting to try new concepts. I think your points about 3 Griselbrands are good ones, and I can certainly see that perspective. Need to experiment more - if I only had more time and opportunity to play Legacy...

@Vad_ - I've tested City of Solitude a lot. It's a house against Tempo Decks, but doesn't really do anything against decks like Miracles. And that is really the where the difference with the mana costs comes into play as well. Against a deck like Miracles, they aren't putting quick pressure on you - so you can actually afford to wait and play Teferi's Realm later. Against Tempo, however, waiting to be able to land a 3 drop and then go off the follow turn pretty much spells disaster. They are going to be putting too much pressure on you to be able to wait that long and you'll be dead, or at such a low life total that you won't be able to draw much off of Griselbrand.

phazonmutant

04-19-2013, 11:58 AM

I know this card has been rejected before and i don't remember why, but since some people have come to test teferi's realm which cost 3 and seems happy about it, what about City of Solitude ?

The only appeal of T-Money's Realm (bling bling (http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ts/83.jpg)) is that it deals with hatebears and enchantments. City of Solitude is fine, but doesn't really deal with a smart counterbalance player or with Rest in Peace. But, it's definitely not clear if one is for sure better than the other or if either are good at all.

AncientOne

04-20-2013, 01:02 PM

This has been spoiled on MTGSalvation.com as a new common from Dragon's Maze:

Crypt Incursion 2B
Instant
Exile all creature cards from target player's graveyard. You gain 3 life for each card exiled each way
Common

Could be bad for TinFins since it doesn't target...:cry: Luckily it cost 3 mana...
It might even turn out to be a good card for TinFins, since it kills Dredge, making Dredge less played, making people board less graveyard hate, making TinFins a better deck choice... (?)

phazonmutant

04-20-2013, 01:28 PM

It costs 3, won't see play. Move along.

Mortox

04-20-2013, 03:09 PM

It costs 3, won't see play. Move along.

Ya sure, you'll be sitting there one day, ready to combo off, opponent has just one black mana open, odd you think that he didn't play anything. You cast Entomb, bin a Griselbrand, cast that faithful Shallow Grave when the opponent responds by turning his Swamp sideways, followed by a Dark Ritual, you start to sweat, what could it be? Dun, dun, dunnnn Crypt Incursion to seal the deal. Won't see play you said, move along you said!

Koby

04-20-2013, 03:50 PM

3 mana Black instant graveyard hate just does not cut it in Legacy when both Surgical Extraction and Extirpate exist.

I've been having some trouble against the Jund/BUG decks that feature DRS and Hymn. Those punish mediocre hands so bad.

GiveMeYourOil

04-21-2013, 01:39 PM

It costs 3, won't see play. Move along.

I second that.

warfordium

04-22-2013, 04:23 AM

will write more tomorrow/Tuesday—just got back from America. 7-2'd SCG Seattle with

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=55307

and only lost to 2 MD chalice decks (metalworker and junk-depths-loam-living wish). beat RUG, Goblins x 2, Enchantress, Affinity, the near-mirror, Death and Taxes. this deck is innnnn-sane.

Cacks

04-23-2013, 04:32 AM

Congrats warfordium! Looking forwards to a report.

Dick_Tator

04-23-2013, 06:54 PM

I went 4-1-1 at my local 38-player tournament tonight, which landed me in top-4.

I played the following list, which I believe is almost identical to the last one Koby posted:

Main:

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

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

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe
2 Lim-Dul's Vault

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
1 Silence

6 black fetches
2 Underground Sea
2 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Bayou
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Swamp

Board:

2 Reverent Silence
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Massacre
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Silence
2 Pithing Needle
3 Surgical Extraction

My matches:

Round 1 vs Belcher 1-2. He won the die roll. Enough said. Board: -3 x Gitaxian Probe. + 2 x Silence, + 1 x Pithing Needle

Round 2 vs Mono-Blue Stasis. 2-0. Both games were pretty grindy, but I managed to fight through his counterspells with discard and Silence. Lim-Dûl's Vault was an all star in both games, drawing me the fuel that I needed. Board: -3 x Gitaxian Probe, -1 x Reanimate, + 2 x Silence, 2 x Chain of Vapor

Round 3 vs RUG Delver. 2-1. I killed him in turn 1 in the first game, lost the second game, then managed to win a long and grindy third game by discarding all of his countermagic. It should be mentioned that he never saw any of his graveyard hate, which undeniably made things a bit easier for me. Board: -3 x Gitaxian Probe, -1 x Thoughtseize, + 2 x Silence, + 2 x Chain of Vapor

Round 4 vs U/W/G Delver. 2-0. Game 1 he kept a weak hand and I steamrolled over him. On the play in game 2 he kept a hand with both Deathrite and Daze, but I drew a great hand and was able to force him to use his Daze on my Thoughtseize before going off and killing him on turn 1. Board: -3 x Gitaxian Probe, -1 x Reanimate, + 2 x Silence, + 2 x Chain of Vapor

Round 5 vs Nic/Fit. 2-0. I knew my oppenent's decklist in advance, so I knew that he did not play any graveyard hate, counterspells or the like main. I kept my opening seven, and he just sighed as I comboed off and killed him. Game two he Duressed my only reanimationspell, but I topdecked a Shallow Grave like a champ and went on to win the game within two more turns. Board: -3 x Gitaxian Probe, -1 x Reanimate, + 2 xAbrupt Decay, + 2 x Chain of Vapor

Round 6 vs Goblins (2-0). We agreed to draw the match, as this would secure prizes for us both. However, we did play for fun, and I thoroughly thrashed him, both pre and post-sideboard. Board: -3 x Gitaxian Probe, -1 x Reanimate, + 2 xAbrupt Decay, + 2 x Chain of Vapor

Comments:

The deck still feels very powerful. The addition of Lim-Dûls Vault definitely makes the deck more consistent and enables us to dig more effectively for the answers we need. It certainly got me out of some tight sports tonight, and never once did I draw an LDV and wish that it had been an Intuition. My sideboard feels pretty solid, I still like the green splash, even if I did not really need any of the green cards in tonight's tournament.

phazonmutant

04-24-2013, 12:42 AM

The list looks solid. Congrats on the victory!

Cacks

04-24-2013, 09:27 AM

@Dick_Tator. Congrats! One question - were there any situations where you used the tendrils kill where going infinite with Emrakul and just attacking in your extra turn(s) would not have also been viable? The only common one I can think of is pre-board ensnaring bridge or solitary confinement (since post board you can go infinite, and chain of vapor it - even if they bounce something by saccing a land, you can just recast it)? Thanks

Richard Cheese

04-24-2013, 12:12 PM

Moomba

04-24-2013, 05:50 PM

Koby

04-24-2013, 06:38 PM

I really enjoy the 2 pacts of negation I run main deck, and out the silences side board. Having so much discard and probes, you know of you're going to only need 1 form of disruption to win the game and not rely on wasting mana you may need later.

Can you elaborate, maybe provide your list?
My concern is that you cannot be proactive enough if those Pacts are replacing discard spells. The latter can function as ways to put Griselbrand into the graveyard, which Pacts cannot.

Moomba

04-24-2013, 08:48 PM

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/tin-fins-15-04-13-1/ is my current list. Enjoying the list for the most part still trying to find the room for LDV or two.

Mortox

04-25-2013, 12:15 AM

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/tin-fins-15-04-13-1/ is my current list. Enjoying the list for the most part still trying to find the room for LDV or two.

I'm basically running the same list except for a Silence in place of the 2nd Children, and 2 LDVs in place of those Pact of Negations; how are those working out for you btw? I haven't seen them in many lists; occasionally I'll try to go for the kill but the deck won't cooperate and I'll be forced to pass turn with a well-sculpted grip to kill them the following turn, but I'd hate to be forced to cast Negation in those types of situations and find out I can't actually seal the deal. Has that been a problem or do you feel they win you more games than they cost you?

Also I recently swapped out the Tundra for a basic Island, I felt the deck was way too weak against opponents aggressively using their Wastelands, far too often I was getting screwed out of blue mana and unable to reliably cast back-to-back ponders or brainstorms which I felt was costing me games. I think the white splash in the deck is so minimal (only running 1 Children and 1 Silence MD) that I can rely on the Scrubland and Petals to cast those couple spells, occasionally I've even Chrome Mox'd the Silence to cast the Children which is fine once you're comboing out.

Moomba

04-25-2013, 12:38 AM

I'm basically running the same list except for a Silence in place of the 2nd Children, and 2 LDVs in place of those Pact of Negations; how are those working out for you btw? I haven't seen them in many lists; occasionally I'll try to go for the kill but the deck won't cooperate and I'll be forced to pass turn with a well-sculpted grip to kill them the following turn, but I'd hate to be forced to cast Negation in those types of situations and find out I can't actually seal the deal. Has that been a problem or do you feel they win you more games than they cost you?

Also I recently swapped out the Tundra for a basic Island, I felt the deck was way too weak against opponents aggressively using their Wastelands, far too often I was getting screwed out of blue mana and unable to reliably cast back-to-back ponders or brainstorms which I felt was costing me games. I think the white splash in the deck is so minimal (only running 1 Children and 1 Silence MD) that I can rely on the Scrubland and Petals to cast those couple spells, occasionally I've even Chrome Mox'd the Silence to cast the Children which is fine once you're comboing out.

With the 4 cabal's 2 thoughtseize 4 probes, I can usually see what threats they have that I have to be worried about. Sometimes early game I really need that extra mana source that would be spent on silence or another spell and the free pact is nice. I have found it extremely rare to fizzle the combo with this deck so not too worried about paying the upkeep.

I think I may change one of my children to a LDV as well as the tundra to the island since an early wasteland can really throw a wrench in your combo.

Koby

04-25-2013, 01:16 PM

Interesting list, but I don't agree with the choice to replace digging (LDV) for protection (Pact). Most games I've lost with this deck have been failure to find a key component (Lotus Petal, Entomb, Child, land) rather than not having enough protection to go off. Chances are, one piece of discard is enough to push the combo through. Digging (Ponder, BS, LDV) help to reach that point. One key example: LDV can find Brainstorm, Entomb, Shallow Grave (IDK the odds, likely low) which can combo off a dead hand for 4 mana (typically Dark Ritual). Pact doesn't help there.

Against decks that run instants to stop the reanimation, I'd say about 90% of those are counterspells and another 10% Surgical Extraction post-board. Silence answers those for a competitive cost. Pact is cheaper sure, but it's not as versatile otherwise. Silence was originally included to be able to answer combo mirrors. It alone can win games that Pact cannot. Obviously, if your metagame is not as combo heavy that may not be as big of a concern.

Let's compare/contrast:

Silence
Pros:
Shut off countermagic and Surgical
Pseudo time-walk against some strategies
Effectively counters other Combo decks

Cons:
Off-color with the rest of the deck
Increases cost to go off in a single turn

Pact of Negation
Pros:
Shuts off a single piece of Instant speed hate
No mana cost

Cons:
One shot effect, and must be used when going off. Furthermore, must kill the same turn.
Cannot be used defensively, or to bait spells.

Baum

04-26-2013, 10:28 AM

Last weekend, I tried a build with Careful Study in a 20 player tournament. To cut a long story short, I'll go back to Ponder.

That's the deck I played (61 cards, shame on me):

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

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Brainstorm
2 Lim-Dûl's Vault
4 Dark Ritual

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Careful Study
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Reanimate

4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox

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

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

Match 1 - UW Miracle with SFM and without maindeck Counterbalance (0:2)
We both know each other from our local tournaments, so he knew I was playing Tin Fins.
G1: He kept a hand with FoW, Spell Pierce, Counterspell to slow me down and finished me off with an early Batterskull.
G2: He mulliganed a couple of times. I kept an OK hand that had Entomb and enough mana, but no reanimation. I thoughtseized him on turn 1, revealing FoW, Surgical Extraction, Sensei's and lands. I made the mistake to take the Extraction over the Top. I couldn't find the reanimation in time and he assembled a hand full of counters with his Top. That game I really missed ponders, since I drew 2 or 3 Careful Studies, but couldn't use them without throwing away good cards.
(SB: +2 Silence, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Bayou, -4 Probe, -1 USea)

Match 2 - RUG Delver (2:1)
G1: Winning the die roll, I thoughtseized him, showing Ponder, Mongoose and a couple of soft counters. I took his Mongoose and he couldn't find another threat. Having plenty of time, I could assemble enough mana to play around any taxing counter.
G2: I mulliganed to 5 and he destroyed me.
G3: I had a T1 combo with 2 Lotus Petals, Entomb, Shallow Grave and 3 lands. I drew 21 cards but couldn't find another Petal or Chrome Mox, since I allready burned 2 to start the combo. Luckily, I could Emrakul my opponent next turn with Silence backup.
Would you have kept such a hand? I knew the combo was likely to fizzle with only 2 Petals and 1 Mox left in the deck and I would be dead to FoW or Extraction, but I just didn’t want to ship a potential T1 kill.
(SB: +2 Chains, +3 Silence, -4 Probe, don’t remember the 5th card)

Match 3 - Death and Taxes (1:2)
G1: I kept a T2 hand on the draw and basically lost against a 2nd turn Thalia. I managed to get a Griselbrand with Reanimate, but was low enough on life to die to a Mirran Crusader with Jitte.
G2: T1 kill.
G3: I don’t think I’ll ever forget that match. The first time, I actually lost because my opponent was mana screwed. I kept an awesome hand with Entomb, Shallow Grave, Therapy and Massacre, only lacking a ritual. He used a Vial to play Mother, Revoker and Thalia (on Griselbrand), but I was pretty comfortable since he would be dead if he ever played a plains. Too bad he did not draw a single one in the whole game… After the game I asked him, if he played around Massacre, but he didn’t even consider the card.
(SB: +1 Massacre, +2 Chains, +1 Pull from Eternity, -4 Probes)

Match 4 – Goblins (2:1)
G1: Since he can’t interact at all in the 1st game, I won. In that game, Careful Study was nice to draw into a LDV pile and discard Griselbrand for just 1 mana.
G2: I played against him before in one of the GPTs for Strasbourg. The last time, he sided in 11 cards, including Leyline, Relic and Chalice but no Extractions. I kept an OK hand with a serenity. He had double Leyline and a 1st turn Lackey with a couple of Piledrivers. I dropped Serenity on the 2nd turn, but when his Leylines got nuked, I was below 7 life. In the single D7 I had, I found Children of Korlis which I could activate 2 times. Then I bricked on mana and fizzled.
G3: The game was pretty similar to G2. He had the Leyline, I had the Serenity. Too bad, he only had CMC 3 goblins in hand and I could animate Griselbrand at more than 14 life.
(SB: +2 Chains, +2 Serenity, -4 Probes)

Match 5 – Spanish Inquisition (2:0)
Another player from my local group. Both games I kept slow but disruption heavy hands on the draw. He was scared as hell about Tin Fins and tried to combo off ASAP in both games, despite the fact that I had weakened his hand with discard. He fizzled both games and couldn’t come back.
(SB: +3 Silence, -2 LDV, -1 Griselbrand)

In the end, I made 7th place. Not too impressive, but at least I didn’t lose because of stupid mistakes, like at the GP.

Thoughts

Regarding the deck, I’ll go back to Ponder again, as I wrote in the beginning. Study was nice sometimes, but often I had both Study and Entomb in hand. In the longer games, Study was just bad because I couldn’t afford the card disadvantage.

I’m unsure if it’s better to play 3 Grisel and 1 Children of a 2/2 split. 3/1 makes discarding Griselbrand easier and the 2/2 adds consistency during the combo. Any suggestions?

LDV was good as always. If I remember right, it won me 3 games.

For the sideboard, I’ll add the 2nd Massacre again. In the aftermath of the GP, there were 3 D’n’T players in the room and a 4th player just didn’t have time for the tournament. I’m not 100% sure, but the one card I never used was the Pull from Eternity. Cutting it might be a bad call though.

.dk

04-26-2013, 12:04 PM

Nice report, and thanks for trying out a new config.

I'm not positive that Ponder and Careful Study are mutually exclusive - I have a few configs queued up to test on MODO a bit (albeit in tournament practice room likely, so take the results with a grain of salt when I get them). Maybe you cut LDV for Careful Study, or Discard Spells, or Probes, or some combination therein. Ponder is critical IMO, so I wouldn't cut it, but there may be room elsewhere.

TraxDaMax

04-26-2013, 05:59 PM

@ Baum:

Thanks for the report. Third game against RUG round 2, I think it's a gamble that this deck doesn't have much ability to play around aka plau safe. Atleast that's how it usually plays out for me.
So I would have taken the gamble, but if he had the extraction you were definately toast. Perhaps you could have waited for a second reanimate spell but he gets the oppertunity to sculp his hand then, which more or less ends up being pretty much the same effect. I think you took the same call I would have made, if they have it, they have it. He didn't, you won.

Richard Cheese

04-26-2013, 06:24 PM

Koby

04-26-2013, 06:35 PM

Agreed. I would look at cutting Probes long before Ponders. Maybe a 2/2 split of Probe/Study.

Also are people still finding the singleton Reanimate useful?

Sometimes, and especially against Goyf decks. Reanimating Griselbrand against the non-Karakas Goyf decks usually earns a win. Reanimating a forced-discard Goyf also buys a whole shit ton of time or sometimes a victory.

What do you propose to replace the Reanimate with?

TraxDaMax

04-26-2013, 07:08 PM

Agreed. I would look at cutting Probes long before Ponders. Maybe a 2/2 split of Probe/Study.

Also are people still finding the singleton Reanimate useful?

I've won several games playing Reanimate where my opponent grumbles looking at his Spell Snare.

dameus

04-26-2013, 08:41 PM

Ok, I run a near-standard list. For context (I'm not really looking for a debate here), my off-consensus choices are 4x GV, 0x Reanimate, 3x Griz, 1x Careful Study, 8x protection. I think I'm the last TinFins player to go down to 14 lands MD, which frees up a flex slot. So, should I fill it with G. Probe #1, Reanimate #1, LDV #2, or something else? Thanks!

Richard Cheese

04-29-2013, 11:08 AM

Sometimes, and especially against Goyf decks. Reanimating Griselbrand against the non-Karakas Goyf decks usually earns a win. Reanimating a forced-discard Goyf also buys a whole shit ton of time or sometimes a victory.

What do you propose to replace the Reanimate with?

So I had to go compare my current list to yours from Vegas to see where we actually differ. This is what I'm running right now (or at least what I have saved in Cockatrice):

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Entomb
3 Griselbrand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
3 Marsh Flats

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

SB: 2 Silence
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 4 Show and Tell
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 3 Teferi's Realm
SB: 2 Pull from Eternity

The two Silence I really consider flex spots. Our local meta tends to run really combo heavy so they make sense here. I think if I were going to take it to an Open or GP, I'd run LDV and possibly the singleton Reanimate, then have 3x Silence in the board.

Zilberdoich

05-02-2013, 08:35 AM

Hello everybody.
I would like to tell you about my Sunday games with TinFins. We were playing Bazar of Mooxen trials, first place was getting 2 byes, finalist was getting 1 bye on the Legacy Championship in Annecy, France.
Well, I’ve chosen this deck, because of it’s speed, quite combo auts and beauty how all this happens.
Decklist was a little bit changed from Jakob Kory’s version, because I was expecting several number of creature decks: goblins, maverick, elves. So that’s why I decided to put 1 Darkblast. Rather good thing to kill tons of creatures, especially dorks, plus it kills Thalia-Natalia, with the help of dredge mechanic it kill’s almost all other creatures in format))

The list is:
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo’s Vengeance
1 Reanimate
2 Griselbrand
2 Children of korlis
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Cabal therapy
2 Thoughtsize
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Darkblast
4 Dark ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils of agony
4 Lotus petal
2 Chrome Mox

4 Polluted delta
2 Marsh flats
4 Underground sea
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp

Side:
4 Pithing needle
2 Pull from eternity
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing truth
1 Tendrils of agony
2 Mindbreak trap
3 Silence

Well. My first play was against rogue (as for me deck) with Gamekeepers + Emrakul / Leyline of the Void + Helm of Obedience. Two nice variants to kill. I lost dice throw, and my opponent began his opening hand with Leylines. I understood, that my chances to play simple combo were very-very low now. What could I do? Find tendrils, keeping several storm/ponder/probe spells, with rituals and mox/petals in hand – to make enough storm counter. Or to try to put Grisel through the DR, or to reanimate his elf, and wait until he kills him to try to get my own Grisel or Emrik. None of this happened, when at last, after third died elf - Emrik entered the battlefield.
Next game I got in hand: land/petal/petal/entomb/reanimate/shallow grave/dark ritual. He didn’t have Leylines in his opening hand, considering that he took mulligan to 5.
Third game was something about 5-6 turns, I had a lot of disrupt in hand + bounce. His hand was discarded and he could do nothing. I don’t remember why, but I put Emrakul in play, after attack he was left in 2 lives and 1 land in play. Untap, draw, land drop, and… he decides to play Sign in blood – textless, nice. He forgot, that it looses 2 lives.
Side out: 1 reanimate, 1 darkblast, 1 probe. Side in: 2 chain of vapor, 1 echoing truth
1-0 (2-1)

Next game – Nikolay Potovin and his UW.
I won dices, Nikolay was trying to guess, whether I was playing through the -t-r-a-s-h- grave or not)). First game was about 3-4 turns. He didn’t have any counterspells, several turns I was trying to find entomb and during this I discarded his StP with therapy’s.
In second, he had 3 Meddling mages, but I collected all bounce in hand. At last, on turn 6 Tendrils reached him. I also didn’t saw any counter magic, and was very surprised. He said it was in deck, but didn’t came.
The same, as in first.
2-0 (2-0)

Round 3. Merfolks.
Hard match-up, cause of fast face beating creatures and counter magic.
I won dices, second turn he put standstill into play and I understood, that it’s a bad idea to keep hand without entombs or any discard. But I managed to get through his counterspells, he took 3 cards from standstill but there was only 1 daze. That stopped me only for one turn and next turn I comboed.
After side, he took a mulligan to get more counterspells and he got them. It was very long game, but at least, after a lot of counter magic, fishes came to me.
Third game we began in turns, I got starting hand: sea, petal, entomb, cabal therapy, DR, brainstorm, grisel. In top was shallow, but opponent in response gave up.
Siding out: 1 reanimate, 2 thoughtsizes. Side in: 3 silence.
3-0 (2-1)

Round 4 ID with the future winner – Bug-agent.
3-0-1 and top 4 (yep, it was 14 people playing Trial)

Top 4.
ANT.
Well. To tell the truth, all 3 games were hard enough. In first, I couldn’t find entomb for a long time. Played a lot of discard, but he always got new ponder or a brainstorm in top deck. First I managed to win at least.
Second we played almost the same game as the first was, the only difference was that he was playing a lot of discard and I was trying to manage with this. He won undoubtedly.
In the third we were discarding cards each other, but he was afraid to fizzle, and didn’t try to combo out, and that get him, next turn he was dead from my tendrils.
Side out: 1 darkblast, 1 reanimate, 1 gitaxian probe. Side in: 3 mindbreak trap (I don’t know, why didn’t I put silences in, but now I think it would be better.)

Top 2.
Bug-agent.
Well. Running ahead I’ll say that I lost 2-0. He won dices, played deathrite shaman, and I didn’t comboed on first turn. And the show begun. He played thoughtsize+ hymn, next turn hymn+tarmo, I still could do nothing, none of griselbrands were in grave, and then he always had activated shaman.
Second, well, I can say that I was very excited, and couldn’t think rationally, so that’s why I kept very bad hand and his Lilliana turn-2 in pair with shaman made the game.
Side out: 1 reanimate, 4 gitaxian probe’s, Side in: 4 pithing needle, 1 chain of vapor.

Sorry for bad spelling and mistakes, English is not my native language.

Now I’m thinking of to transform deck into ANT, after sideboarding, but I don’t know, whether is a good idea or not.
Side is something like this:
4 LED
4 Infernal tutor
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Ad nauseam
1 Past in flames
1 Volcanic Island

What could be sided out? For example: 5 creatures, 8 reanimate spells, and 2 any cards – 1 blast+1 entomb. But if to side only ANT with PiF, we would be very dependant on grave hate. So, I don’t know – what to do. Will be glad to hear any ideas, critics and crazy thought’s.

OrGy

05-02-2013, 08:42 AM

Agreed. I would look at cutting Probes long before Ponders. Maybe a 2/2 split of Probe/Study.

Also are people still finding the singleton Reanimate useful?

Just for the sake of sharing a good story, here it comes :
Against BUGw, game 1, on a mull to 5, I kept a hand with Gitaxian Probe / Scrubland / Fetch / Cabal / Silence
Probe shows Pierce, Liliana, Snapcaster, Waste, STP and 3 lands.
Later, after baiting Pierce with Silence, getting the best of Snapcaster with Cabal, I was hit by a topdecked Tourach (out Goryo's - Ritual).
My opponent laid his Jace and started his hand replenishment. Soon came Liliana in discard mode : My shredded Hand was just Petal + Reanimate.
Facing Lethal (10 life against 6 Lingering Souls Tokens + 2 Mishra), without anything to reanimate in my graveyard, with 3 lands (no fetch) in play, I was not looking that great.
My opponent Fateseals and announces proudly : "Griselbrand on Top. Keep. GG ?".

I asked timidly : "Got any counters in hand ? FOW ?"
Answer : "Nope"

GG, but not in the sense you were implying it, pal ;)

Draw, Petal, Reanimate on his Snapcaster, Goryo's vengeance gains flashback, Sac Snapcaster to Cabal Therapy on Griselbrand, Reanimation, and gain shortly thereafter.
Sometimes Reanimate is that good.

Well, any other normal day, it acts like everyone noticed : A cheap reanimation that dodges Snare and punishes any non white, no Karakas sporting deck in the format.

.dk

05-02-2013, 09:47 AM

@Zilberdoich - good report, and good finish. SO close... :) I haven't played with a transformation since last August, so I'm not sure how good it would be anymore, but my instinct tells me that it is probably not a good idea. I think the anti-hate plan is probably superior, although this deck does have a bit of a problem against a few currently popular archetypes (Miracles in particular, and a slew of deathrite shaman decks). I would look to adjust your sideboard plans based on what your expected meta is.

@Orgy - that is SO sick. Shit like that keeps me constantly questioning if Snapcaster should be in our deck or not, actually. Possibly in the place of 2x LDV for those that are running them. Not sure though, as it does make us even more reliant on the graveyard.

Zilberdoich

05-02-2013, 11:24 AM

@Zilberdoich I would look to adjust your sideboard plans based on what your expected meta is.

Well, I think, that it will be everything in meta, from tier 1 decks to rogue decks, made in dark depths of hell :laugh:
So i think to make a universal sideboard. To have answers on different threats. Deathrite is one of the biggest and sure, it's the best thing to kill him immediately, but with darkblast you need some engine...

OrGy

05-02-2013, 11:55 AM

Not sure though, as it does make us even more reliant on the graveyard.
This.
You don't want to rely any more on your graveyard than necessary. SCM can surely do nifty tricks but overall I'd rather play my opponent's to my convenience.
This could alternatively push forward the debate on a 2/2 split between Goryo's and Reanimate, which is a possibility.

Koby

05-02-2013, 12:25 PM

Well, I think, that it will be everything in meta, from tier 1 decks to rogue decks, made in dark depths of hell :laugh:
So i think to make a universal sideboard. To have answers on different threats. Deathrite is one of the biggest and sure, it's the best thing to kill him immediately, but with darkblast you need some engine...

Deathmark, Perish, and Pithing Needle can answer DRS. But I agree with .dk's sentiments - you need to properly calibrate the sideboard to what you expect may give you trouble. For an open metagame like BOM or a GP, that's really open ended challenge.

For starters, I would remove Pull from Eternity from the sideboard. I don't think it's usefulness is warranted for the space it takes up in the SB.

eriktyvollk

05-02-2013, 12:38 PM

Koby

05-02-2013, 12:44 PM

New to the deck, Have played combo in legacy for the last three years. Played High tide and Ant. Really wanted to give the deck a go at GP Portland side events if the main event does not go well. In testing chrome mox seemed awful...I replaced it with a disfigure to try and hedge against deathrite and thalia. Any advice for a new player playing this deck?

Practice against DRS, Tempo, and Miracle decks. These are the hardest matchups. If you can navigate your way around these matchups, you'll do fine against the other decks in Legacy.

.dk

05-02-2013, 01:04 PM

To add a bit more to the sideboard discussion in addition to the cards that Koby mentioned - I realized that I only wrote this in a PM to Zilberdoich and didn't post here (a good bit of which is in the opening post, btw):

The sideboard really depends on your expected meta, for a reactive board. I really know nothing about the Euro meta at all, other than everyone always says that it is super combo heavy. Some cards to consider:

Pithing Needle - deals with Deathrite, Scavenging Ooze, Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, Faerie Macabre, and random things like wasteland, Jace, Sensei's Top, etc. I generally don't use it for that though, only answering hate cards.

Massacre - if you're in a meta with a lot of hatebears (and specifically Death and Taxes, which I would imagine would be popular at BoM after winning GP Strausburg) this can be a super useful card. Great against Maverick provided they don't have Teeg out, but you can generally win through Teeg pretty easily. It's Thalia + Mother of Runes that's the problem out of that deck.

Silence - If you're expecting a lot of storm combo, then Silence is golden. :)

Chain of Vapor - great for dealing with Leylines, Rest in Peace (provided no counterbalance out), hatebears, etc. Chain is always an all-star.

Serenity - I play 2 of these in my sideboard on MODO, as they are amazing against MUD decks, and pretty good against UW Miracles as well.

Reverent Silence - I also play 2 of these on MODO to deal with UW Miracles. They basically can never counter it with counterbalance, and the 6 life they gain is a don't care.

Surgical Extraction - if you're expecting a lot of reanimator, then this can also be useful. Probably reasonable against Dredge as well.

I've cut Pull from Eternity from any of my configurations at this point - it's cute and has some neat interactions, but I don't think the meta is correct for this plan right now. It's pretty bad against Deathrite Shaman decks.

I would advise against Mindbreak Trap for combo, and would rely solely on Silence. It's more versatile and in general you are the faster combo deck. You don't have room to bring in both, so stick with the generic answers like Silence that can also function to protect your combo.

In general, I wouldn't side in more than 4 cards at any given time to not dilute your combo. I will side in the most generic answers for Game 2, and adjust in game 3 depending on what hate I see. It's actually very difficult to figure this part out without a lot of practice and understanding of common sideboarding strategies against you.

HexMachine

05-09-2013, 06:55 PM

Hey all, been playing this deck for the last couple months and I love it because it's probably the most degenerate deck in the format. I am going to be competing in the Portland GP Legacy side events and I wanted to run my list by the collective. It's pretty basic and some of my SB choices are based on the fact that on the West Coast we see a lot of DnT and other hatebear decks.

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

4 Dark Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lotus Pedal
4 Shallow Grave
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Entomb
3 Thoughtseize
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Chrome Mox
1 Reanimate

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

SB
3 Pithing Needle
2 Serenity
3 Silence
2 Echoing Truth
1 Thoughtseize
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Massacre

I'm a firm believer in playing a basic of each if I can because again, my meta has a lot of Wasteland in it. So as I said, pretty standard list. Lemme know if anyone has any additional thoughts on what I could change. I will give a report after the weekend as I have two days of side events to play in. Lets see if Grizza can bring home a Mox and or a set of Revised!

phazonmutant

05-09-2013, 09:03 PM

I'm a firm believer in playing a basic of each if I can because again, my meta has a lot of Wasteland in it. So as I said, pretty standard list. Lemme know if anyone has any additional thoughts on what I could change. I will give a report after the weekend as I have two days of side events to play in. Lets see if Grizza can bring home a Mox and or a set of Revised!

That's a fair philosophy. I felt that the basic Island caused me to lose more games than it helped, but perhaps I was just fetching for it when I couldn't afford to. In any case, I really think it would be better to maximize your basics (if you're going that route) by playing an 8th fetch over the unnecessary 3rd Underground.

I don't think the 4th Thoughtseize in the board does anything, and Chain of Vapor is way better than Echoing Truth. You could add a singleton Teferi's Realm :cool:

Good luck!

HexMachine

05-09-2013, 10:23 PM

That's a fair philosophy. I felt that the basic Island caused me to lose more games than it helped, but perhaps I was just fetching for it when I couldn't afford to. In any case, I really think it would be better to maximize your basics (if you're going that route) by playing an 8th fetch over the unnecessary 3rd Underground.

I don't think the 4th Thoughtseize in the board does anything, and Chain of Vapor is way better than Echoing Truth. You could add a singleton Teferi's Realm :cool:

Good luck!

I'll try out the 8th fetch tonight at my play test session. Teferi's Realm seems pretty sneaky. I'll try it out as well. I will say that I've had Echoing Truth pull a lo of weight. There is a lot of Storm here so it can help if they go with the Goblin plan. Also quite a bit of MUD and everyone is Leyline crasy so the Truths can often remove multiple instances of a problematic card. Again, this is what I've experienced in my meta. I will try both out tonight, thanks for the input!

phazonmutant

05-10-2013, 04:13 AM

I think I've mentioned this before, although I feel like it bears repeating:

Remember Mike Flore's article, "Who's the Beatdown?" Well, that applies to combo too. TinFins is faster than every combo deck except Belcher variants. If you're positioning yourself to be the control in the Storm matchup, you're preparing yourself to lose. Echoing Truth has the occasional moments where it bounces multiple permanents, but those are edge cases. You should position yourself to beat situations like Wastelands + Thalia with your board cards.

.dk

05-10-2013, 11:56 AM

Chain of Vapor isn't really included to deal with those decks that sport multiple problem permanents. Chain is there for things like Thalia, Deathrite Shaman, Scavening Ooze, or another single problem permanent prior to going off. Echoing Truth doesn't fill this role effectively with it's 2 CMC - it's too slow. The benefit of Chain is it's casting cost.

If you need to deal with multiple problem permanents, I feel that there are better options than Echoing Truth, but if you did want to run it, I don't think I'd want to replace Chain for it. Depending on your meta, you could consider things like Massacre, Serenity, or Reverent Silence based on the types of decks you're playing against.

And I second what phazonmuant said - we're ALWAYS the beatdown deck. Don't ever think otherwise.

Damaku

05-10-2013, 02:34 PM

And I second what phazonmuant said - we're ALWAYS the beatdown deck. Don't ever think otherwise.
http://i.imgur.com/8aZVHHR.jpg

.dk

05-10-2013, 03:15 PM

LOL YES! Avatar updated. :)

Damaku

05-10-2013, 04:13 PM

I'm currently building this deck, because i'm tired of loosing with my "The Gate". My girlfriend is altering cards for me. I think, i will get this one done for real ;)

Koby

05-12-2013, 02:15 AM

I have some data to report (later in about a week) from Bazaar of Moxen Legacy.
However while its still fresh in my mind, anyone interested in any specific details? I stopped taking matchup notes about round 7 when I started punting and fatigue hit me. Day 2 was worse due to external factors and 3 hrs of sleep.

Net result:

7-2 Day 1
2-4 Day 2

Losses to: RUG x3, Esperblade, myself (MUD), and BUG Walkers.
Two of the losses were to T8 competitors: Frederico with RUG and Pierre with BUG.

Turns out running cold and facing Goyf is not a winning strategy. Also having a bunch of Euros breathing down your back as you go on life tilt from lack of sleep does not help.

I drew a fair share of Emrakuls across the day, and that's kind of annoying.

P-E

05-12-2013, 08:35 AM

I'm pleased to met you koby.
Day 1 was great it's sad day 2 went bad.
At least you got a nice revised plateau to reward your trip ^^

I hope you'll post your list . But you seemed very happy with vaults

Good luck for thr vintage.

HexMachine

05-12-2013, 12:27 PM

I'd like to see the list you ran and any important details you think would be valuable to other players.
I'm heading into the second Legacy event today with TinFins so I'll post some information on Monday.

Koby

05-12-2013, 02:58 PM

Heres some thoughts on the event.
https://mtgkoby.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/tin-fins-at-bazaar-of-moxen/

Dapr9

05-13-2013, 02:05 PM

Won a savannah in a small legacy tournament in Milwaukee this past weekend, pretty hyped about it. Had to beat my friends hive mind deck to win in the last round.

Heres the decklist I had:

2 Grizzle
1 Emmy
3 Children of Korlis

1 reanimate
3 goryos vengeance
4 shallow grave
4 entomb
4 cabal therapy
3 thoughtseize
2 unmask

4 brainstorm
3 ponder
1 lim-duls vault

1 tendrils of agony
1 sickening dreams

4 lotus petal
1 chrome mox
4 dark rit

4 marsh flats
4 polluted delta
2 underground sea
1 scrub land
1 bayou
2 swamp

sideboard---
4 echoing truth
1 vapor chain
4 abrupt decay
2 silence
2 surgical extraction
2 defense grid

decided abrupt decay and a bayou were gonna be really good both against most graveyard hate aswell as delver, goyfs, and any other clock. Echoing truth proved to be the card that won me the final game as my friend mulliganned down to five and i cut him into 2 leyline of the voids opening hand. Which sucked cus i had the turn one win in hand.
The first game was pretty epic because he show and telled and emrakul and i had the only emrakul in my hand, blew his up, shuffled my grave in, then entombed, next turn goryos vengeance for the win.
@nd game 2 I actually could have won, had i played my lotus petal the turn b4, because when he went off with hive mind and pact of the titan, I had 2 dark rits in hand, could have payed the cost, passed turn and won. Lesson learned.
Game 3 I was able to cabal therapy his force of will then surgical extract it. When revealed though he had show and tell and hive mind in hand, so had i named either of those 2 and he didnt force of will with the other card, then i would have been able to snatch up all his hive minds and since he boarded out his emmys he would have had to scoop. But i think extracting the force was the right call and I was able to entomb shallow grave an emrakul, get him down to 3, then cast a children of the korlis and beat him down for the next 3 turns lolz. I dont think typically the kids of k are supposed to be the win con but ill take it for a n/m savannah :)

eriktyvollk

05-13-2013, 05:35 PM

Deck
2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul
1 Children of Korlis
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goyro's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
1 Silence
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Entomb
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Island
SB
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Massacre
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Silence
2 Pithing Needle
2 Perish
1 Ill-Gotten Gains

Played in a Win a set of revised at GP Portland. Played Esper x2, Mud, UW Miracles, Oops all Spells and RUG Delver. The main deck was pretty good. I really want to find like 2 more enablers (intuition possibly?). Games were I actually found a entomb were a walk in the park. Other games I muliganed into oblivion trying to find a enabler or a hand that did something. The deck was awesome but I ran cold all weekend missing day 2 in the final round and dropping after 3-3 in legacy. The sideboard needed a lot of work because I forgot part of the deck at home and had to dig through foil binders at the GP to complete it. Mud and UW miracles were horrendous to play against and Oops all Spells was just a pure race in which I drew horribly. I will keep playing the deck and letting you guys know were I go from here.

Richard Cheese

05-14-2013, 10:38 AM

Nice to see reports keep coming in, especially because they seem mostly positive. I'm still getting the feeling that Entomb is the limiting factor for many people, and personally I still feel like at least 3 Grizzlebees is necessary to make the discard pull double-duty.

eriktyvollk

05-14-2013, 10:45 AM

I agree w/ going to 3 Griselbrands. Because there were so many games were had I drawn one I would have won on the spot but entomb would have won in those same situations. Just gives you one more out.

T-Ralph

05-19-2013, 11:04 AM

Ill be playing at a SCG IQ today With my take on Tin Fins I will post My list and results after the event.

DredgingLoam

05-22-2013, 11:46 PM

I've liked this deck for a long time. I usually hate playing a budget build of a deck, but sometimes you just can't afford to play with the real build. Here is a build that I can afford and eventually fill out over time. I was wondering if it seems possible for me to do well with this deck or if I should give up and build a non-budget real deck instead.

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

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

1 Godless Shrine
1 Island
4 Marsh Flats
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Watery Grave

SIDEBOARD
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Duress
1 Echoing Truth
2 Massacre
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Pithing Needle
2 Silence
3 Surgical Extraction

Any advice would be appreciated. ^__^

.dk

05-23-2013, 12:33 AM

as far as a budget build of this deck goes, that one seems pretty good. i think you're definitely going to need to be utilizing careful study if you don't have access to thoughtseize. You may still consider swapping the 4th Griselbrand and 2nd Children for some combination of 1 Gitaxian Probe, 2 Lim-Dul's Vault. Might also want the 4th Cabal Therapy since Duress can't be used as a combo piece. Other than that, it looks pretty good! You may lose a game here and there due to shocklands, but the raw power of the deck will likely make that not too noticeable.

Sideboard-wise - really depends on your meta. There isn't enough room in here for this deck to fight everything.

Good luck with the deck!

DredgingLoam

05-23-2013, 12:40 AM

.dk

05-23-2013, 12:45 AM

So, -1 Children, -1 Griselbrand, -1 Duress, +2 Lim-Duals Vault, +1 Cabal Therapy? I like it, but why only 1 Children? I thought it was a card that you always wanted to draw. And with Shocklands, it seems like it may even be better in this build.

That could be a fine swap - although more Probes are usually good when you're running Therapy too. Play around with it and see how you think it plays.

As far as Children go - I rarely find myself casting them. Hardly ever, really. It's much more common to draw 14, ritual, entomb for children, and reanimate them with Shallow Grave or Reanimate. My opinion anyway.

phazonmutant

05-23-2013, 12:46 AM

So, -1 Children, -1 Griselbrand, -1 Duress, +2 Lim-Duals Vault, +1 Cabal Therapy? I like it, but why only 1 Children? I thought it was a card that you always wanted to draw. And with Shocklands, it seems like it may even be better in this build.

Like sometimes you're not unhappy about drawing a Children so you can flash back Therapy, but 80%+ of the time, you wish is was almost any other card in the deck. That's why I've been advocating for only playing 1 for so long. You only want to draw one when you're already comboing, which is by far the most difficult stage to get to and the thing that you need to concentrate on making happen.

.dk

05-23-2013, 01:01 AM

DredgingLoam

05-23-2013, 01:03 AM

That was my initial thought as well. Mox Opal just got a whole lot better in any deck that can support it. Also, -1 Duress, +1 Probe?

.dk

05-23-2013, 01:11 AM

That was my initial thought as well. Mox Opal just got a whole lot better in any deck that can support it. Also, -1 Duress, +1 Probe?

maybe - that was my first thought. test it and see!

phazonmutant

05-23-2013, 02:12 AM

So, with the M14 rule changes - it's possible that a change to the manabase is in order to take advantage of the insanity that is Mox Opal. Just a thought anyway... I can't see a good reason why any storm deck wouldn't want those now if they can achieve metalcraft.

I don't see Mox Opal in this deck as it's currently built. It's much more conditional than Chrome Mox is, and we're not exactly excited about Chrome Mox to begin with. Of course there could be a new build that abuses it, maybe more like walker's original LED build. So working off that thought, how about this as a sketch of a build that tries to abuse infinite Lotus Petal effects?

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mox Opal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Shallow Grave
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Entomb
4 Griselbrand
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Silence
4 Thoughtseize
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland

It seems pretty sketchy, but could be powerful. The natural Tendrils plan is much more legitimate with this build too.

zulander

05-23-2013, 07:51 AM

Wait, M14 is next year right? Also I don't know what the rule change is, where can I read it at?

ScatmanX

05-23-2013, 09:30 AM

Wait, M14 is next year right? Also I don't know what the rule change is, where can I read it at?
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg%2Fdaily%2Ffeature%2F248e
Discussion in the Forum (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?26102-Changes-to-the-planeswalker-uniqueness-rule)

.dk

05-23-2013, 05:08 PM

I don't see Mox Opal in this deck as it's currently built. It's much more conditional than Chrome Mox is, and we're not exactly excited about Chrome Mox to begin with. Of course there could be a new build that abuses it, maybe more like walker's original LED build. So working off that thought, how about this as a sketch of a build that tries to abuse infinite Lotus Petal effects?

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mox Opal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Shallow Grave
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Entomb
4 Griselbrand
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Silence
4 Thoughtseize
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland

It seems pretty sketchy, but could be powerful. The natural Tendrils plan is much more legitimate with this build too.

Looks... weird. Maybe you want some number of Tops to help achieve Metalcraft? Although Top is really too slow for what this deck wants to do.

phazonmutant

05-23-2013, 11:34 PM

Looks... weird. Maybe you want some number of Tops to help achieve Metalcraft? Although Top is really too slow for what this deck wants to do.

Ok. I actually goldfished that list for some games. It's real bad. Like. Real bad. Mox Opal doesn't belong in this deck, the LED build is still inconsistent.

Lord_Mcdonalds

05-29-2013, 12:00 AM

.dk

05-29-2013, 02:14 PM

So I was playtesting against RUG and was wondering

a) If a RUG player stifles the Chrome Mox trigger, is it safe to assume they do not have daze?

b) I probed the RUG player, he reveals FoW, Stifle and Spell Snare, is it correct to cabal therapy the Snare

c) is it correct to board out thoughtseize/discard in favor of Silence?

i'll bite.

a - wouldn't necessarily say it's "safe" to assume that. depends on the board state. Stifle is there as a mana denial source - that works on either fetchlands or chrome mox triggers. Either seems appropriate, although a fetchland is obviously better. Again though, it depends on the board state. They could be wanting to cut you off of mana from Chrome Mox so that you CAN'T play around Daze...

b - yes, I would usually take the Spell Snare. If you are making them Force your plays, then they are losing more cards. Spell Snare is pretty insane against this deck in general. Exceptions could be if you know that you need to fetch to win now, and they have a Blue open for Stifle or something like that.

c - I wouldn't board out Thoughtsieze for Silence. It's a combo piece. Some of this depends on how many Griselbrands you are running, but I would usually cut something like Gitaxian Probe or an extra Chrome Mox or something before discard.

Lord_Mcdonalds

05-29-2013, 06:47 PM

a - wouldn't necessarily say it's "safe" to assume that. depends on the board state. Stifle is there as a mana denial source - that works on either fetchlands or chrome mox triggers. Either seems appropriate, although a fetchland is obviously better. Again though, it depends on the board state. They could be wanting to cut you off of mana from Chrome Mox so that you CAN'T play around Daze...

If I remember right, the board state was simply that I had a fetch active and he had one land in play.

As for the board plan, would you do:
-1 Chrome Mox
-1 Reanimate
-1 Child
+3 Silence (I don't run any mainboard, my list is similar to koby's, so I ran 1 mainboard, never really used it and sent it to the board for a third thoughtseize, my last post didn't reflect that as I forgot I cut it, so it should say -1 Reanimate +3 Silence, in addition to the -2 Thoughtsieze)

I don't feel confidant cutting probe as it gives information and interacts favorably with Cabal Therapy, and helps during the combo turn a little bit, although the two life tends to add up against RUG fairly quick.

Koby

05-29-2013, 07:03 PM

It's fairly safe to cut 2 Probes in matchups against Tempo, as the life loss is more relevant than the information you gain.
Thoughtseize provides the same information and eats the same life, but also removes one of their spells which is important.

Now against Delver for instance, as long as they don't have a threat out; you can take as much time as you need to setup. The hardest games against Delver are in which they resolve Delver and/or Goyf and start countering the setup spells like Entomb. You don't have the luxury of waiting for a good time to cast them; you just have to go for it. Sometimes, it means walking into an unfortunate Daze.

roflwaffles

05-31-2013, 05:34 AM

.dk

05-31-2013, 11:02 AM

I haven't played Magic for years since they split the format away from Vintage's restricted list but I just wanted to say this is the most magnificent deck I've ever seen. I used to play Angry Ghoul Reanimator when I last played MTG competitively in 2004 and this deck is the first deck in that amount of time that looks just as fun IMO.

I'm proxying this deck and testing it out and I was wondering why the OP says that Lim-Dul's Vault has been found to be redundant. It seems that sometimes the deck has trouble pitching a Griselbrand in the graveyard if you're only running 2 Grizzles since you need either an Entomb or a discard spell + Griselbrand in your hand. Brainstorm/Ponder only digs so far but Lim-Dul's is basically a 2 mana Vampiric Tutor (is that considered too slow?)

Also, is there a strong case for Pact of Negation in this deck? I haven't really had the combo fizz on me much so it seems like it would be okay to run one of these just as insurance.

Yeah, I think that line on the OP is a bit outdated. We had tried LDV a long long time ago with a suboptimal build (pre-children) and it didn't seem to work that great. If you're running a 2 Griselbrand build and are a bit more all-in on Entomb, then LDV makes a lot of sense.

I think you can make a good case for a 1 of Pact main, depending on your meta. I personally prefer Silence as it is a lot better in the combo mirror (and it seems every event I play this deck in is riddled with combo), but if you're in a very permission heavy meta, then Pact could be just fine. I kind of view that slot (as well as some of the sideboard slots) as very meta dependent.

cogitoergosum

05-31-2013, 03:57 PM

I am going to second LDV being awesome in this deck. I run two of them in the main, and they also help for finding necessary SB cards.

.dk

05-31-2013, 09:32 PM

I am going to second LDV being awesome in this deck. I run two of them in the main, and they also help for finding necessary SB cards.

If you're at 2 Griselbrand, I agree. I've been back playing around with 3-4 Griselbrand + Careful Study, and it's definitely not needed (nor is there room) in those builds

roflwaffles

06-01-2013, 03:11 AM

Yeah the list I'm currently testing is

Instant (22)
4x Brainstorm
4x Dark Ritual
4x Entomb
3x Goryo's Vengeance
2x Lim-Dul's Vault
4x Shallow Grave
1x Silence

Sorcery (14)
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Gitaxian Probe
4x Ponder
1x Reanimate
1x Tendrils of Agony
2x Thoughtseize

Creature (5)
2x Children of Korlis
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2x Griselbrand

Land (13)
4x Marsh Flats
4x Polluted Delta
1x Scrubland
1x Swamp
1x Tundra
2x Underground Sea

Artifact (6)
2x Chrome Mox
4x Lotus Petal

It's quite explosive but I do feel the hurdles it has to climb when there isn't an Entomb in hand nor a Therapy/Thoughtseize + Grisel in hand. I'm also about to test a build with Careful Studies and a full set of Griselbrands

(+2 Griselbrand, +4 Careful Study, -2 Gitaxian Probe, -1 Cabal Therapy, -1 Chrome Mox, -2 Lim-Dul's Vault)

What is Gitaxian Probe's role in this deck? Is it just to look at the opponent's hand before you combo out or to augment Cabal Therapy? It can't be for Storm count since whenever I Tendrils of Agony, it's doing far more than 20 life loss to the opponent. I just felt its the weakest card in the OP build right now but I could be wrong.

Also if you have a hand that's like: land, Shallow Grave, Entomb, Reanimate, land, Petal. Shallow Grave, what would you do? Go straight for a turn 1 Griselbrand that will stay past turn 1 and ride out a standard reanimator strategy or wait to go off on turn 2?

phazonmutant

06-01-2013, 05:00 AM

What is Gitaxian Probe's role in this deck? Is it just to look at the opponent's hand before you combo out or to augment Cabal Therapy? It can't be for Storm count since whenever I Tendrils of Agony, it's doing far more than 20 life loss to the opponent. I just felt its the weakest card in the OP build right now but I could be wrong.

I was going to make a snarky reply to just look back a couple of pages, but then I actually tried to find the original discussion on Probe (in the modern build) and discovered it was 28 pages ago.

Here's the post where I introduce the idea (again): http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24104-TinFins-3-Return-of-the-Onion-Burst&p=706939&viewfull=1#post706939
It was talked about by me and people before me all through the history of the deck, but this was the first build with it since a lot of the refining work.

Basically, it's great at just digging deeper for lands, spells, etc, and the information is very important.

.dk

06-01-2013, 09:43 AM

What is Gitaxian Probe's role in this deck? Is it just to look at the opponent's hand before you combo out or to augment Cabal Therapy? It can't be for Storm count since whenever I Tendrils of Agony, it's doing far more than 20 life loss to the opponent. I just felt its the weakest card in the OP build right now but I could be wrong.

Also if you have a hand that's like: land, Shallow Grave, Entomb, Reanimate, land, Petal. Shallow Grave, what would you do? Go straight for a turn 1 Griselbrand that will stay past turn 1 and ride out a standard reanimator strategy or wait to go off on turn 2?

The biggest benefit to Probe is information for 0 mana. Card draw is gravy, and storm count is... well usually worthless. If you're going to cut probes though, I would highly recommend adding back at least 1 land to run 14.

Given that hand, I would go for T1 reanimate. If it sticks, you can still attack, draw, and combo out T2. If the reanimate gets countered (likely by a Force), then you can just Shallow Grave T2. If Entomb gets countered... you're in a world of hurt. :)

cogitoergosum

06-01-2013, 01:19 PM

I really don't like careful study in the deck, it is just too hard to hit grisel with only 3-4 of him. I have been running 3 grisel, to increase self-discard, and 2 LDV main, to act as entomb 5-6. This build has had the best feel to me of anything I have played so far. For build reference, I run 13 lands, no silence main, and 3 gitaxian probe (sometimes 4 with a 61 card deck).

walker

06-01-2013, 02:22 PM

@ waffles - try careful study if you like, but even with 4 griselbrands you don't have enough creatures to consistently bin your dude. Probe is really versatile and always comes in handy for me. It's pretty good with LDV if your trying that card out.

@ phazon - lol bro look one page back at post 391, that's where I started the conversation about probe again, and posted the list most current decks are based off ;)

Koby

06-01-2013, 03:11 PM

Who cares who or when we found Probe. The important point is that it works well in the deck. I can see shaving a few copies to make room for more business like extra Griselbrands.

What do we think about Perish against Goyfs/DRS? These seem to be the consistent thorn in my side during testing.

walker

06-01-2013, 03:37 PM

@koby - I agree. Please pardon my childishness, but I put a lot of work into developing this archetype (not just the LED version). As a passionate deck builder it doesn't feel good to get left out of the conversation and then have credit taken for what I came up with first. I have posted quite a bit of useful information in this thread that didn't get much response from anyone besides people posting modified versions of my deck..

Perish is really good at killing drs and goyf but it's pretty slow.. Still might be the best option.

cogitoergosum

06-01-2013, 06:07 PM

Submerge is another option to deal with a lot of the tempo and untility creatures. I haven't tested it too much did it did win me a match against a scavenging ooze. Its value in traditional reanimator makes me think it merits further examination.

Richard Cheese

06-03-2013, 05:56 PM

Submerge seems decent. It doesn't deal with a wide range of problems, but it's free and instant and that's pretty hard to beat. As for Perish, I've been trying that, Virtue's Ruin, and Infest in the board since forever and they've all basically felt "meh". Infest actually seemed the best since it hit DRS, all the Elves, Delver, and most of Maverick, but even then it can just be too little too late. If Goyf is a thing, I'd almost rather have Deathmark or STP. BUG and RUG are both either going to already have a Delver on the table, or will be able to find another threat pretty quickly. In a deck where 3 mana is usually going to suck up an entire turn, I don't think any of those spells will buy us more than a turn on a regular enough basis to make them worth casting.

On a different note, I'm thinking of trying out 1-2 Impulse after seeing Keith Blackwell's praise for it in the Omniclash thread. I think LDV is probably better, but I think it's worth a look. While I'm stealing ideas from that thread, is Talrand, Sky Summoner as a tutorable pseudo ETW just too cute?

Koby

06-03-2013, 06:00 PM

Richard Cheese

06-03-2013, 06:23 PM

My only reservation regarding Impulse is that it can't dig deep enough.

Otherwise, it's comparable to LDV in that they are both instant, 2 cmc, including a singular :u:.
---
Talrand seems pretty sweet and fits the bills well with all the spells in this deck. 4 mana is a bit of a stretch. I wonder how we might be able to get him into play early enough and still have enough gas to cast instants to make little dorks.
---
I've been thinking that perhaps Engineered Explosives (@0,1,2) would be a big help in helping against Tempo or DRS. It's cheap enough to clear DRS before going off or killing stupid Delvers for :2:.

---
Looks like someone took my BoM list and crushed their local event:
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=10872&iddeck=79387

Ninja'd my edit!

I was thinking Talrand more as an alt to Tendrils, the same way ETW used to be in TES. If you have to swing in for the extra cards, you could tutor him up with Entomb into Shallow/Goryo's and then jam out some cantrips/discard/rituals into a small army. The issue is that if you're in that situation, why not just get Children and continue chaining Griselbrand activations?

P-E

06-04-2013, 12:08 AM

Another top8 but not in good categorie
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=10923&iddeck=79791

Talrand with UU seems hard to cast no?

Koby

06-04-2013, 12:11 AM

Another top8 but not in good categorie
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=10923&iddeck=79791

Talrand with UU seems hard to cast no?

Good find, looks like a take on the BoM list, with an added Children for more consistency.

roflwaffles

06-04-2013, 02:37 AM

@ waffles - try careful study if you like, but even with 4 griselbrands you don't have enough creatures to consistently bin your dude. Probe is really versatile and always comes in handy for me. It's pretty good with LDV if your trying that card out.

Yeah after testing it doesn't seem like this deck can really abuse Careful Study nearly to the extent that Reanimator or Dredge can due to only having 4 things you actually want in the graveyard. The deck still feels somewhat inconsistent and I find myself mulliganning into oblivion more often than I would like. I'm going to go with a full set of Griselbrands and up the Thoughtseize count to 4 since the deck absolutely needs a Griselbrand in the yard in order to get things going.

How do you guys go about your mulligans? What's the absolute minimum attributes you need to be relatively confident of your opening hand?

Richard Cheese

06-04-2013, 12:14 PM

Another top8 but not in good categorie
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=10923&iddeck=79791

Talrand with UU seems hard to cast no?

This is TinFins, we don't cast creatures, we cheat them into play.

Koby

06-04-2013, 01:15 PM

This is TinFins, we don't cast creatures, we cheat them into play.

Fact: we only ever put Children into play for :1::b::b: and don't even wince about doing so.

phazonmutant

06-04-2013, 01:49 PM

Fact: we only ever put Children into play for :1::b::b: and don't even wince about doing so.

I loved PSulli's comment on my feature match (ages ago now :rolleyes:) "Not often that you see the reanimation spell cost more than the thing it's reanimating...".

I put this deck back together for Wednesday. Yup, still a blast to play and win with such a clunky-looking deck.

Richard Cheese

06-04-2013, 04:59 PM

Koby

06-04-2013, 05:11 PM

Just to keep discussion flowing, here's a you-make-the-play, TinFins Edition:

You open on USea into Thoughtseize on the play. The rest of your hand is:
Entomb x2
Ponder
Children
Petal

In your opponent's hand, you find:
Delta
Trop
Force
Daze
Delver
DRS
Thoughtseize

What do you take, and why?

Assume that this is game 1, and prior to this neither player had any knowledge of the other's deck.

So reasonably, your opponent has 3 lines of play on turn 1:
* Delta-> Usea -> Thoughtseize
* Trop/Delta -> DRS
* Trop/Delta -> Delver

If he chooses to go with Thoughtseize, he would not gain much from our current hand. This seems like a poor choice to take.
If he chooses to go with DRS, he would be able to nab Griselbrand from an Entomb. This seems like a good choice to take as it gives us the most lee-way going long.
If he chooses to go with Delver, he puts himself at two blue cards left in hand. This play is least likely after a Thoughtseize played on him.

Alternatively, we could take Force of Will. However, this would lead to a situation where we have to play around Daze and quickly due to an active DRS.

Thus, the best choice would be to take DRS and end up falling prey to the BUG's countermagic over a couple of turns.

I would follow up with Lotus Petal and Ponder for additional lands in this spot.

catmint

06-04-2013, 05:37 PM

I would follow up with Lotus Petal and Ponder for additional lands in this spot.

Not sure if this is correct. We might lose to a waste from the top if he chooses to open with that, but if not we can play the petal next turn and have it sit there to deal with his daze. If he at one point pitches his daze, petal can still provide useful colored mana of some sort. We also get a chance to draw a land naturally and use the ponder for the business that is needed.

Richard Cheese

06-04-2013, 05:54 PM

My initial thought was to nab Force, then use Petal to Entomb before Daze is online. The problem there is that it makes it really obvious what we're doing, so that DRS is likely to hit the table immediately. With only one land and Ponder, that DRS is probably going to be active before we can find/play reanimation through Daze.

I think DRS is the correct choice, but then possibly play Petal, Entomb next turn to draw the Force? Or perhaps it's better to Petal into Entomb now while his only option is Force. Either way, I think one Entomb gets countered, then Thoughtseize takes the other.

Koby

06-04-2013, 05:59 PM

Not sure if this is correct. We might lose to a waste from the top if he chooses to open with that, but if not we can play the petal next turn and have it sit there to deal with his daze. If he at one point pitches his daze, petal can still provide useful colored mana of some sort. We also get a chance to draw a land naturally and use the ponder for the business that is needed.

My initial thought was to nab Force, then use Petal to Entomb before Daze is online. The problem there is that it makes it really obvious what we're doing, so that DRS is likely to hit the table immediately. With only one land and Ponder, that DRS is probably going to be active before we can find/play reanimation through Daze. I think DRS is the correct choice, but then possibly play Petal, Entomb next turn to draw the Force?

That's precisely why I would play Ponder before passing the turn. Finding a 2nd land would ensure that we can play around Daze, thus forcing BUG's hand to act with Force of Will. Ponder may even find Dark Ritual, Shallow Grave, Land; and complete the necessary cards needed to go off. The Thoughtseize will almost certainly get cast, however, that changes nothing - BUG may just as easily FoW the first Entomb, then Thoughtseize the second one. This all points to digging for more protection and land before committing to Entomb.

Richard Cheese

06-04-2013, 06:04 PM

FYI, this came up in some Cockatrice testing. I played it out taking DRS, then Petal->Entomb->Force. Drew into another land so Daze wasn't an issue, but 5/6 Goyf was too much of a clock.

I suppose it could be right to play the mind game, taking Force and playing Petal (maybe even into Ponder), hoping they assume we're on AnT and go for Thoughtseize instead of DRS turn 1. Leaving the combination of Force and Seize really seems to neuter an otherwise decent opener.

Koby

06-04-2013, 06:09 PM

5/6 Goyf was too much of a clock.

Most of my losses were to an early Delver or a Daze-backed Goyf knocking me down for 2-3 turns. It's what Tempo Thresh does best.