[Deck] TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst

[phazonmutant]

I played a 2 LDV list based on Koby's BoM list at my local tournament today. Played like a sack of dicks, 1-2 drop.

Lost g3 to Big Red (splashing W for Orim's Chant...) when I drew 7 cards with 6 in library. He just stared at me as I went through the motions of killing him, I guess made me nervous. Lost to UR burn because I threw away a Therapy on Force instead of holding it until I found the pieces to go off. Won against a child playing UWRb...thing. Hooray. Dropped to cube.

The deck definitely was fun. It seems like people at my store are trimming on their grave hate again so maybe I'll play it again next week.

[Koby]

I'm willing to rebuild the deck from the ground up again. It feels like I've been having some difficulty with consistency in mid-combo or getting initial mana. Maybe I'm seeing it through biased eyes after playing a series vs Maverick (Thalia... I hate you...).

I'll get some ideas flowing throughout the next few days and post them here to get rebuilt. Willing to take a look again at 2 Chrome Mox or 2 Children of Korlis.

[Richard Cheese]

I'm willing to rebuild the deck from the ground up again. It feels like I've been having some difficulty with consistency in mid-combo or getting initial mana. Maybe I'm seeing it through biased eyes after playing a series vs Maverick (Thalia... I hate you...).

I'll get some ideas flowing throughout the next few days and post them here to get rebuilt. Willing to take a look again at 2 Chrome Mox or 2 Children of Korlis.

I still like 2 Mox and 13 lands. Too many times I tap out to go off and have already used my land drop for the turn, so I'm usually looking for at least one artifact-based mana source. Been playing with 2 Children again lately, and I actually like it. It feels like it really helps to not fizzle in situations where you have to go for Tendrils, a.k.a low life total. While they don't help with comboing until Grizzlebees is in play, they aren't completely horrible beforehand. You can just ping for a couple turns, or use them to fog if you're under pressure.

I'm also thinking of testing Brain Freeze in the Tendrils spot. The mana cost is a pain in a different way, and the storm count needs to be higher, but we rarely have issues with storm count. I'm wondering if it might be possible to go off EOT, or after reanimating Griz to block on your opponent's turn. You'd get the extra 7 cards as though you're attacking, and as long as you have a free Blue source, you could conceivably win at instant speed. I'm skeptical that it could work in the real world though, without Petals, Mox, or Discard as options, it relies on a pretty specific board state and draws. On the other hand, is it demonstrably worse than Tendrils when comboing during our own main phase? If not, even the remote possibility would make it worth running.

[Holly]

Hello there,

took this deck to victory for a Tundra yesterday in a 29people tournament.
Played with 7 protection spells (1 Silence) and the full playset of Goryo's Vengeance and Shallow Grave.
2 Children, 10 cantrips (2 vault), 3 Griselbrand (no probes since I had no space for them :( ).

My Sideboard was pretty much irrelevant. I allmost never drew a sideboard card and the few times I did, I couldn't use it (out of the 1 off Silence in my board).

M1 vs High Tide
G1 I win pretty easily.
G2 I side in Silence, 2 Xantid Swarms + 2 Chain of Vapors (I tested with him the night before and knew he was playing 2 Extraction + 2 Gravediggers Cage). I'm allways 1 turn short of killing him when he goes to combo off and thus giving us a new hand (which sucked for me). First time I can stop him with a Silence, second time aswell, third time he fizzles and fourth time he gets me.
G3 I win.

M2 vs Jund
G1 I win easily.
G2 He gets me.. I have a hand of Griselbrand, Entomb, discard and other stuff, with a Shallow Grave on top of my library. He thoughtseizes me and discard my Entomb.
My thoughts: If he would've had Extraction/Extirpate he would've gone for Griselbrand. Thus I get greedy using my discard spell on myself and walk right into the Extirpate.
Later in the Game I go for Emrakul and walk right into the second one I allready thought he had while he had no real pressure on board (Lili & Shaman).. stupid me.
G3 I discard his Extirpate and win.

M3 vs Esperblade
G1 I win.
G2 I keep a greedy hand with a protected t1 kill, but my only mana source is a Chrome Mox.. which gets discarded.
Some amount of discard later (and me not finding mana in time) I'm one turn away from dying.
I silence him (resolves) and go for Emrakul to whipe his board and bring him to 4, unfortunately he does remember his Karakas (I knew it was there, but played to my out in he forgetting about it).
G3 I cantrip a bit, he discards a bit, I kill him (if I remember correctly with a topdecked Goryo's Vengeance).

M4 vs Team America
G1 He let me discard some stuff, wastes me, stifles me and I die.
G2 Pretty much like game 1.

M5 vs German ******** (aka BURG)
G1 He has everything he needs, some pressure + enough counter backup for me to die.
G2 I have a hand of double Entomb, casting one to get rid of a FOW, casting the other which resolves. He cast a discard spell seeing a hand of Griselbrand + Land, while applying some pressure to me. I topdeck Goryo's Vengeance.
G3 He keeps a greedy hand. Wasteland, Delver, Ponder, some counterspells.
I have a 1 lander aswell, thankfully it's a fetch and I'm going for my swamp (first and single time this tournament).
My hand is pretty much nuts. Fetch, Petal, Entomb, Goryo's, Therapy, Thoughtseize. I discard his first countermagic, the second one, drawing into a second therapy which gets cast and kill him.

M6 vs Team America
G1 I kill him.
G2 He gets me with discard, Waste, Shamans and FOW.
G3 There's a situation, my board: Land + Petal, my Hand: Drit, Entomb, Shallow Grave, Therapy, Silence.
I go -> Drit, he plays Brainstorm, I Silence, he dazes it, I don't pay. Brainstorm resolves, Drit resolves.
What do I do? Therapy for Force, cast Entomb and hope to rip a mana source? Nope. All in. Getting there.


The deck was nuts. I had to mulligan at least once every match, some amount to time even 2 or 3 times but in the end it didn't really matter. I was quite lucky as I faced near to no hate (Shamans, Extirpates, Nihil Spellbomb) but they rarely drew their hate as I never drew my anti-hate.
I did made some mistakes as I knew I would beforehand since I played the deck my second time (+ some testing but not that much).
Oh and the day before I playtested it against RIP-Miracles.
Going 6-0 preboard, and 5-1 postboard, dunno how that happend but I was funny.



Complete decklist for those interested:

4 Lotus Petal, 4 Dark Ritual
2 Chrome Mox

4 Shallow Grave, 4 Goyro's Vengeance

3 Cabal Therapy, 3 Thoughtseize
1 Silence

4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder
2 Lim-Dul's Vault

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

7 Fetchland
2 Useas, 2 Scrubland


Sideboard:
1 Silence, 2 Xantid Swarm
2 Chain of Vapor, 2 Serenity, 2 Teferi's Realm
2 Surgical Extraction, 1 Pull from Eternity
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Tundra, 1 Swamp, 1 Bayou



Edit:

Tin Fins in round 8 vs Omnitell, two t1 kills, once with silence backup.

[DredgingLoam]

I can build the full stockish version of this deck, but I am lacking 1x Thoughtseize. What would be the best replacement for one of those?

[phazonmutant]

I can build the full stockish version of this deck, but I am lacking 1x Thoughtseize. What would be the best replacement for one of those?

6 self-discard spells should be enough. I think a 3/3 split of Therapy and Thoughtseize is fine. You can either sub in an extra Silence main, the 14th land, the Probe, the 3rd-4th Griselbrand, or really whatever your personal and meta preference is.


On another note, congrats to Logan Creen for top 8'ing SCG St. Louis! His list is here:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=56515

At a glance his deckbuilding choices are include not playing the green splash, playing the 14th land, and Pulls in his sideboard. His list looks very solid, definitely a fine choice for a stock build. Does anyone know if he's a Sourcer?

[DredgingLoam]

6 self-discard spells should be enough. I think a 3/3 split of Therapy and Thoughtseize is fine. You can either sub in an extra Silence main, the 14th land, the Probe, the 3rd-4th Griselbrand, or really whatever your personal and meta preference is.

I would be playing 4 Therapy and 1 Thoughtseize. Careful Study as a 1-of?

[phazonmutant]

I would be playing 4 Therapy and 1 Thoughtseize. Careful Study as a 1-of?

Careful Study requires you to build the deck from the ground up to support it. I dunno...work hard at getting another Thoughtseize? Realistically you should be fine with 2 Silence and 5 discard effects as long as you max out on Probes and a couple tutor effects (either LDV or Intuition).

[Koby]

Logan's Maindeck looks nearly identical to the list I played from Bazaar of Moxen, but the sideboard still runs Pull from Eternity, which has failed to work well for me since my Vegas showing. I'd love to hear his thoughts on the list and his performance. Congrats on his good finish, 9 rounds is a long way to fight through.

[Acclimation]

Logan's Maindeck looks nearly identical to the list I played from Bazaar of Moxen, but the sideboard still runs Pull from Eternity, which has failed to work well for me since my Vegas showing. I'd love to hear hia thoughta on the list and his performance. Congrats on his good finish, 9 rounds is a long way to fight through.

Hey guys, Logan here, I'm currently riding home and typing from my phone, so once I get some sleep, I'll go over my notes and give a short narrative.

Highlight of the day: getting a feature match in round 8ish and 2-0ingthe the guy with consecutive turn 1 wins on camera.

Edit: Here's the link to my feature matches:

http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/414686764

Go to 10:06:40 for my round 8 feature, and go to 12:44:45 for my t8 match.

I'll try to get a report to you guys by Monday night and go over my thoughts on some things.

[Richard Cheese]

I would be playing 4 Therapy and 1 Thoughtseize. Careful Study as a 1-of?

How many probes are you running?

@Logan - awesome job man, glad to see people are still putting up results with the deck, especially on camera. Loved seeing Joe double check his worthless hand when you Shallow Grave on T1.

[Koby]

Hey guys, Logan here, I'm currently riding home and typing from my phone, so once I get some sleep, I'll go over my notes and give a short narrative.

Highlight of the day: getting a feature match in round 8ish and 2-0ingthe the guy with consecutive turn 1 wins on camera.

Edit: Here's the link to my feature matches:

http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/414686764

Go to 10:06:40 for my round 8 feature, and go to 12:44:45 for my t8 match.

I'll try to get a report to you guys by Monday night and go over my thoughts on some things.

http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/414686764?t=606m -- link to Round 8 match (lol match, it was 4 turns)
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/414686764?t=764m -- link to Top 8 match

[DredgingLoam]

How many probes are you running?

All 4

[.dk]

Nice finish! Curious to see what your matchups were throughout the day. Look forward to the report!

[Richard Cheese]

All 4

Then I would say it comes down to what you miss the most about the other Thoughtsieze - binning Grizzlebees or protection. Honestly, slot it up with a blank or backwards card and test a bunch of games. Every time you draw it, ask yourself if you'd rather have Silence or Careful Study. My guess is that Silence or Duress is probably where you want to be, if you're only running 2/3 Griselbrands then Careful Study will usually just be a bad cantrip.

[Acclimation]

Okay, report time. 7-1-1 in Swiss, then losing the first round in top 8 for an overall record of 7-2-1.

Round 1: Sean on Fish

I win the dice roll, and keep a hand with Probe, Cabal Therapy, Thoughtseize, Entomb, Dark Ritual, Ponder, and a fetch. I probe him and see Force, Lord of Atlantis, Vial, Curse Catcher, Island, Wasteland, and Phantasmal Image. I draw another land off the probe, then Therapy the Curse Catcher. He ends up topdecking another Curse Catcher and plays that. I draw another Ritual, play my land,Thoughseize the Force, and play Ponder. I find a reanimation spell. I pass, he plays another land and a lord. I draw a lotus petal and proceed to go off with more than enough mana to pay for Curse Catcher.

Sb: 3 Silence, -3 Probe.

He leads off with Vial and passes. I probe him, and then Cabal Therapy his only force. Next turn I win with Silence protection.

Round 2: I didn't write down my opponent's name, but he was on OmniClash/Knowandtell.

He wins the dice roll and plays a ponder. I Probe him, and see that he has the god hand and will win next turn. He does.

Sb: -3 Probe +3 Silence

Game 2 he gets a Leyline of Sanctity on t0, but I don't draw any hand disruption, so I don't care. We durdle around for 5 turns while I attempt to find an Entomb and end up with a lot of mana sources and 3 Silences in hand when I go off on turn 6.

Game 3: He gets the Leyline again, and I keep a hand that has 2 Silences and only missing an Entomb. I end up drawing a Griselbrand on t3. On his t4, he Show and Tells. I silence in response, it resolves. I flip Griselbrand, he shows Dream Halls. Next turn, I silence again, it resolves, and I swing with Emrakul and Griselbrand.

Round 3: Andrew on UWR Delver (he also hit top 8).

I win the dice roll, and do the turn one Probe into Therapy. I see Stoneforgex2, bolt, a brainstorm, and some land. I take the Brainstorm. I end up getting him on turn 2 with no resistance.

sb: -3 Probe +3 Silence

I get a protected turn 1 kill with Land, Petal, Silence, Rit, Entomb, Grave.

Round 4: Sean on Jund

Game 1 I keep a hand that needs a Reanimation spell, and I end up not finding it. He doesn't know what I'm on.

Sb: -3 Probe -1 Silence, +2 Pithing Needle +2 Pull from Eternity

Game 2 I get him on t2. He asked if I sideboarded into Reanimator. I laugh.

Game 3: I keep yet another hand lack a reanimation spell. I draw into a Griselbrand, but after a few ponders and brainstorms, couldn't find one. Eventually, I burned 2 Rituals to cast Griselbrand alongside the Children of Korlis I played the turn before. His board was 3 lands, 2x Deathrite Shaman, and a Goyf, with 1 card in hand. I pass turn, and he draws Maelstrom Pulse to kill my Griselbrand (I was at 6 life). He gets me with Bolts and Deathrite Activations.

Round 5 Feature Match (not on Camera) against Eric on budget GW Maverick.

He wins the dice roll and goes turn 1 Horizon Canopy into MoM. I play a fetch, and Ponder, finding the Entomb I need to win next turn. He then goes t2 Horizon Canopy into Leonin Arbiter. AWKWARD. I spend the next two turns playing fetches that I can't crack, then end up playing dark ritual to pay the search tax. I crack my fetches, do the Entomb and reanimation and win.

SB: -1 Silence -1 Probe +1 Chain +1 Echoing Truth (I was cursing myself for choosing to run Pull over Massacre at this point, despite winning the first game)

Game 2 I draw into the turn 1 kill. Who needs to kill hatebears when you can just win on your first turn?

Round 6: Chris on Burn.

I draw a fair amount of hand disruption, but it's not enough to hold him off before I can find the last piece I need (FIREBLAST! *shakes fist*).

I want to say I boarded in 2 Silences and 1 Chain of Vapor here.

Game 2 I get him on turn 2.

Game 3 I keep another hand that lacks reanimation, and end up on turn 2 using Reanimate on Griselbrand, dropping down to 10. I cautiously swing with Griselbrand for the next 3 turns, and not do anything else. Griselbrand gets there in the end.

Round 7: Feature match (back up camera) against Gene on Jund.

I probe him turn 1 and he moans about playing against a combo deck. I get him on turn 2.

-1 Silence -2 Probe, +2 Needle +1 Pull

Game 2: Whackity Smackity turn 1 win. He was not amused by my antics.

Round 8: Feature Match (main camera) Versus Joe on Omniclash (I had assumed that's what he was playing, but wasn't sure until I saw the video when I got home).

You can watch it here: http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/414686764?t=606m

You can see my hands shaking, I was excited to get those back to back turn 1s on camera. Apparently those were the first t1 kills on Camera that day. I boarded out the Probes for the Silences as per usual. On that game 2, If he had countered the Silence, I still would have gone for it, for those who were wondering.

Round 9 vs Edward (this guy also was in top 8)

We ID. I then wait the longest hour of my life to see if I made it into the top 8. I make it by a few fractions of a percentage points! I was excited, my friends were giving me high fives, etc.

Top 8 match vs Chris: You can see it here: http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/414686764?t=764m

In boarding for Game 2, I figured that my best chance to win would be on t1/2 and decided to bring in my Silences to combat his lone Forces. I felt that bounce and the Serenties would be too slow, and that he would plan around those. I was correct on that assumption. However, for game 3, I should have boarded in the counter hate since I was going to be on the draw. I didn't really think about it due to the long day, and was wanting to be done at that point. My opening hand had Entomb and a lot of Cabal Therapy, and I felt good about it. I don't know when he drew that ensnaring bridge, but I knew that I needed to stick a threat soon. I figured that I would have at least 1 turn to swing with Griselbrand, but I was wrong (he only had the 1 Bridge). As soon as he landed it, I knew that the game was over, but I stayed with it to see if I could draw into Tendrils for a Win. But after the hate upon hate upon hate, that wouldn't happen. If you could see my face, you could see a huge grin since I was just sticking with it to be a jackass, but still. I consider this to be my only punt of the day. That being said, I'm still extremely pleased with making Top 8, this was my 3rd SCG and was only hoping to make top 64 going into the day.

I'll type up my thoughts on my deck in another post later, just wanted to get that report out to you guys. Feel free to ask questions and I'll answer them as best as I can.

[Koby]

Thanks for writing about your matchups, and congrats once again. Big ups on being a degenerate!

[Acclimation]

Thanks for writing about your matchups, and congrats once again. Big ups on being a degenerate!

Thanks! The amount of tears and butt hurt I collected that day was enormous.

[.dk]

Sweet report - sounds like the deck treated you quite well. :) Thanks for showin those OmniClash players that Grizzlebees is still king!

[phazonmutant]

Nice report! Congrats again, Logan.

My biggest question is how did you feel about the manabase? Has 13 lands been too inconsistent for you? Was not playing G a bet that you would dodge Miracles?

--

I'm definitely going to play TinFins on Wednesday. I'm going to try out a build with the basic Island, one Bayou in 14 lands, and try out .dk's old tech of Mox Diamond again. It feels like the games where we're looking for lands, Chrome Mox doesn't really help anyway and Mox Diamond should be better in the games where we're flooded or have color issues. Also have moved the Tendrils to the board. I'm more and more convinced that it doesn't deserve the maindeck slot, and should only come in against deck with Swords to Plowshares and grave hate.

Logan, did you ever kill with Tendrils when you couldn't have killed with Emrakul?

[Acclimation]

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

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

Spells (43)
1 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
3 Goryo's Vengeance
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Shallow Grave
1 Silence
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
1 Reanimate
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Thoughtseize

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


I copied Koby's BOM list for the main deck. I did almost no testing for the event, so I decided to stick with the 61 card list. I wanted Probes and Lands more often then not, and I ended up mulliganing once all day- in the top 8 matches.

I didn't splash green since I felt as though the manabase was stretched pretty far, I remember having awkward moments at Milwaukee where I needed either a G or a W or a U, but had one of the other colors instead. Reverent Silence was clutch that day though, but I played against 0 Miracles then and ended up not wanting a G splash at STL.

I ran 2 Pull From Eternity over Massacre since I expected a low number of White hate bear decks. As seen in one of my rounds, I ran into one of these decks, but ended up not needing Massacre. I brought in the Pulls multiple times, but never ended up casting them, even seeing it once or twice. Unsure of how useful it is in practice, but I like it in theory.

The 2 Echoing Truth needed to be Chain of Vapor, but I couldn't find any extras.

The Silences were the champs of my sideboard, I brought them in in nearly every match.

I never used Surgical Extraction in STL, but used it a LOT in Milwaukee. I saw 2 Dredge decks (one being a friend) and heard that somebody else was playing Tinfins. Other than that, GY strategies seemed to be missing, I chalk that up to the hype EsperDeathblade (esper crapblade) was receiving.

I ran into the same situation with Pithing Needle that I did with Surgical- used it a lot in one event, but never cast it during this event. I do like turning off Deathrite Shamans and Sneak Attacks though, so I would stick with running at least 2.

I liked having the Serenity slots, and probably should have brought them in during my top 8 match, but otherwise saw no Chalice and Miracle decks at all (outside of another friend who brought Miracles), and I was walking around the tables since most of my matches were done in under 20 min.

As for mainboard stuff, despite falling in love with Lim-Dul's Vault in Milwaukee, I used it once at STL. It ended up being Chrome Mox fodder more often than not. I think this card is great in games where you are behind, but I was winning within the first 3 turns in the majority of my games, so I felt like the slot wasn't utilized to its maximum potential.

One of the bigger things I noticed was how I was digging for either Rituals or Lotus Petals during my combo turns, I wouldn't mind testing a single Mox Diamond or a second Chrome Mox to help get more free mana.

As for Tendrils, I won a few games off of the back of it (those awkward games where I can't find mana or an entomb to bin Emrakul before the attack step and need to swing with Griselbrand to gain life to draw more), especially a few g1s, but Emrakul+Griselbrand attacks is where I found most of my kills. I think Tendrils should stay in the main board.

14 lands felt correct. I mulliganed once in the whole event, and never had an issue finding at least 2 lands early on. There were a few games in which I drew all of the lands instead of any gas, but considering how lucky I was all day with t1 kills, I'll take a few sad games.

I also felt that 1 Children of Korlis was correct. It's only good when we are comboing off, and the few times I drew it over any other spell were sad times. Loved seeing it mid combo though.

If I were to play the deck in an event right now, I would stick with the same mainboard, and probably have this as my starting point for my side:

3 Silence
2 Pithing Needle
3 Chain of Vapor
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Serenity
2 Flex Slots

Not sure what I'd run for those last slots, Massacre is probably the best choice since Thalia decks are a pain if we don't win the game in those first 2 turns. I wish I could have cast Pull just to see if it was worth it, but I feel as though it's a card that is only good when we are behind or blunder into hate.

[phazonmutant]

As for Tendrils, I won a few games off of the back of it (those awkward games where I can't find mana or an entomb to bin Emrakul before the attack step and need to swing with Griselbrand to gain life to draw more), especially a few g1s, but Emrakul+Griselbrand attacks is where I found most of my kills. I think Tendrils should stay in the main board.

14 lands felt correct. I mulliganed once in the whole event, and never had an issue finding at least 2 lands early on. There were a few games in which I drew all of the lands instead of any gas, but considering how lucky I was all day with t1 kills, I'll take a few sad games.

I also felt that 1 Children of Korlis was correct. It's only good when we are comboing off, and the few times I drew it over any other spell were sad times. Loved seeing it mid combo though.


Good analysis. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Only having 5 IMSs has always been a little low (we started with 8!), but I've felt it was justified by making comboing more consistent. My justification has been that I've almost never lost once I've drawn 7 with Griselbrand, so it's ok to be 10% instead of 5% to brick on IMSs (arbitrary number warning).

I know it's a weird thing to keep track of if you're not explicitly trying to, but do you remember if you could have gone infinite after attacking? If there wasn't that angle of course I would never cut Tendrils, but since I feel pretty safe in saying that 95% of the time we're going off (undisrupted) it's possible to go infinite, I feel like Tendrils is not a necessary combo piece.

[Acclimation]

Good analysis. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Only having 5 IMSs has always been a little low (we started with 8!), but I've felt it was justified by making comboing more consistent. My justification has been that I've almost never lost once I've drawn 7 with Griselbrand, so it's ok to be 10% instead of 5% to brick on IMSs (arbitrary number warning).

I know it's a weird thing to keep track of if you're not explicitly trying to, but do you remember if you could have gone infinite after attacking? If there wasn't that angle of course I would never cut Tendrils, but since I feel pretty safe in saying that 95% of the time we're going off (undisrupted) it's possible to go infinite, I feel like Tendrils is not a necessary combo piece.

Unsure on the infinite. I stopped every time I had the kill, so I never pushed the matter. The only time I "show off" is when I'm messing around with friends or just at my card shop. The games I won with Tendrils were the games that I couldn't win via my attack step, usually due to not having the pieces necessary to get Emrakul out on my first main phase. I felt that most of these were due to never finding an IMS more often than not finding an Entomb or Reanimation spell.

[phazonmutant]

Unsure on the infinite. I stopped every time I had the kill, so I never pushed the matter. The only time I "show off" is when I'm messing around with friends or just at my card shop. The games I won with Tendrils were the games that I couldn't win via my attack step, usually due to not having the pieces necessary to get Emrakul out on my first main phase. I felt that most of these were due to never finding an IMS more often than not finding an Entomb or Reanimation spell.

Fair enough, I'm usually short on the IMS as well. The 6th IMS definitely isn't terrible, but doesn't generally seem worth it to me.

So I guess it's "showing off" if Tendrils is still in your deck, but I play without a Tendrils in the deck more than half the time postboard. Generally hardcasting Emrakul is a pretty good way to get another attack step...

[Damaku]

Has a sideboard like this ever been suggested?

3x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4x Force of Will
1x Griselbrand
3x Misdirection
4x Show and Tell

[phazonmutant]

Has a sideboard like this ever been suggested?

3x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4x Force of Will
1x Griselbrand
3x Misdirection
4x Show and Tell

We've played all sorts of sideboards. At SCG Atlanta I played 4 S&T and the 4th Griselbrand in the board and it was pretty awful. Extra Emrakuls are just bad unless you also add Sneak Attack, but then your entire board is devoted to a transformation that doesn't actually fix the problems.

Counterspells are just bad in the deck regardless. There aren't enough U cards we can afford pitching, and we need to be proactive, not reactive.

[Richard Cheese]

Has a sideboard like this ever been suggested?

3x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4x Force of Will
1x Griselbrand
3x Misdirection
4x Show and Tell

Yeah we've done pretty similar things in the past, but it's clunky at best, and most of the hate that comes in against you is still live. Most importantly, Karakas becomes insane and Surgical/Extirpate hitting Show and Tell can still ruin your day. If you were going to go that route, I think I'd almost go with something harder to deal with like Inkwell Leviathan, but in the current meta, half the time you're just going to be staring down another Emrakul or Omniscience or something across the table and lose before you ever get an attack.

[Moomba]

We've played all sorts of sideboards. At SCG Atlanta I played 4 S&T and the 4th Griselbrand in the board and it was pretty awful. Extra Emrakuls are just bad unless you also add Sneak Attack, but then your entire board is devoted to a transformation that doesn't actually fix the problems.

Counterspells are just bad in the deck regardless. There aren't enough U cards we can afford pitching, and we need to be proactive, not reactive.

Gonna be playing some Tin Fins this weekend, my list is very similar to the one just posted except I run pact of negation instead of LDV. I still believe pact can have a spot in the deck being a completely free counter since we usually win the turn we go off anyways. I'll make sure to keep track of my games and give a review.

[phazonmutant]

Gonna be playing some Tin Fins this weekend, my list is very similar to the one just posted except I run pact of negation instead of LDV. I still believe pact can have a spot in the deck being a completely free counter since we usually win the turn we go off anyways. I'll make sure to keep track of my games and give a review.

Dude, it's been tried at least 2 times before by multiple players and it's still bad. Silence and discard are better.

[Acclimation]

Gonna be playing some Tin Fins this weekend, my list is very similar to the one just posted except I run pact of negation instead of LDV. I still believe pact can have a spot in the deck being a completely free counter since we usually win the turn we go off anyways. I'll make sure to keep track of my games and give a review.


Silence is where it's at. It can't be Misdirected, you don't lose the game if you happen to fizzle, and if it resolves, you can combo without worrying about your opponent doing anything else.

Silence also has the benefit of of disrupting your opponent's turn, if you need to stall them, a Silence on their upkeep or during their combo will stop them harder than Pact will.

If you need to run more disruption/protection, Silence is what you want to add, not any flavor of Counterspell.

Even then, LDV is a great card, even if I didn't cast it often, since it digs deep and can find you exactly what you need.

[.dk]

I can't agree enough. Silence stops almost all flavors of stack based hate (faerie macabre is the only one I can think of that it doesn't stop), and it stops all of them if it resolves. Silence is totally the bees knees in this deck

[Darkenslight]

I can't agree enough. Silence stops almost all flavors of stack based hate (faerie macabre is the only one I can think of that it doesn't stop), and it stops all of them if it resolves. Silence is totally the bees knees in this deck

That's what Abeyance is for. :p

[Richard Cheese]

That's what Abeyance is for. :p

We've toyed with it before, but that :1: makes a whole world of difference.

[.dk]

We've toyed with it before, but that :1: makes a whole world of difference.

Correct - if Abeyance didn't cantrip and cost :1: less, it would definitely take the spot of Silence. Yeah it targets, but it also shuts off Faerie Macabre (as Darkenslight noted), DRS, Scavenging Ooze, Crypt, Relic, Knight of the Reliquary (for Bojuka Bog), and probably other things I'm not remembering. But that extra mana is brutal. If we're waiting that long to combo off, we've probably already lost.

[feline]

Grats on the top 8 Acclimation, the next morning Joey Pasco was saying there was a feature match with Tin Fin's & all the opponent did the whole match was cast preordain between 2 games, was lmao. I have to watch that feature match now that I am home & have time. I went up against Reanimator once myself, but it was traditional. Apparently there was a few Tin Fins decks in the room according to the different people I talked to.

[Acclimation]

Grats on the top 8 Acclimation, the next morning Joey Pasco was saying there was a feature match with Tin Fin's & all the opponent did the whole match was cast preordain between 2 games, was lmao. I have to watch that feature match now that I am home & have time. I went up against Reanimator once myself, but it was traditional. Apparently there was a few Tin Fins decks in the room according to the different people I talked to.


Thanks! I'm pretty sure my buddy and I actually talked to you during the middle of the day about High Tide decks and about how many were being represented at the event.

On topic, Abeyance is real neat, but that :1: is really killer.

[Koby]

On topic, Abeyance is real neat, but that :1: is really killer.

Yea, that's a big deal. While the cantrip is nice, it's the effect that's the more important part. On the other hand... Abeyance was printed in Korean... nevermind. :P

[Richard Cheese]

Correct - if Abeyance didn't cantrip and cost :1: less, it would definitely take the spot of Silence. Yeah it targets, but it also shuts off Faerie Macabre (as Darkenslight noted), DRS, Scavenging Ooze, Crypt, Relic, Knight of the Reliquary (for Bojuka Bog), and probably other things I'm not remembering. But that extra mana is brutal. If we're waiting that long to combo off, we've probably already lost.

It also shuts off Maze and Karakas, and SDT. One thing to note though is that it only stops instants/sorceries, so it's not as much of a time walk, and won't stop Venser or Clique. I may test it again just for the hell of it, but I'm pretty sure it's always going to end up being not quite as good.

[Claymore]

Someone posted asking about when to go for the Griselbrand + Emrakul kill or go for the Storm kill. Saw this corner case in the MTGS DnT thread and figured it could be insightful:


Game 1 was the craziest game of Magic I've ever played. He drew 28 cards off of Griselbrand, gained 20-some life off the Children of Korlis combo, attacked and hit me for 15 (and annhilator) with Emrakul...and I still somehow won. Karakas was huge. I actually was at 15 life when Emrakul hit me, but I had 2 counters on Jitte. Karakas was my only permanent left. I eventually got 2 more lands and played a Flickerwisp which carried me home.

[Richard Cheese]

Someone posted asking about when to go for the Griselbrand + Emrakul kill or go for the Storm kill. Saw this corner case in the MTGS DnT thread and figured it could be insightful:

Generally you go for storm if you can't get there through attacks (see example above) or just don't find the pieces and need 7 more cards.

[Koby]

Right - draw as many cards as possible (and play around Lightning Bolt...), seven cards at a time. If the first seven don't find a winning combination, draw another seven. Evaluate each time to see if there's a path to either draw more cards, or win outright.

Sometimes, it's Entomb (Kids) + Reanimate to keep going deeper.

[phazonmutant]

Someone posted asking about when to go for the Griselbrand + Emrakul kill or go for the Storm kill. Saw this corner case in the MTGS DnT thread and figured it could be insightful:

Always go for the most expeditious kill. But if he has freaking Karakas in play, of course things are going to get a little trickier. Your best bet in that case is just not even bother with Emrakul and just attempt to go infinite. Fortunately it's really easy to transition from drawing your deck to just attacking with Emrakul.

I'm very convinced that Tendrils is a crutch in almost every preboard game and many postboard. I played a local tournament with a Tendrils in the board, so I'll give a quick report then share some post-event thoughts.

First, my list. It's nothing especially revolutionary, just some tweaks:
4 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
1 Reanimate
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Silence
1 Children of Korlis
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

// 14 lands
4 Marsh Flats
3 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Bayou
1 Swamp
1 Island

// Sideboard
1 Reverent Silence
1 Xantid Swarm
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Massacre
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Pull from Eternity
1 Silence
2 Serenity
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Teferi's Realm

My thought was that Lim-Dul's Vault really pushes you to play an Island and a Swamp (which ended up being reasonably valid), and the sideboard was really just to get a feel for a bunch of different but similar effects. I cut a Probe for a Silence because I really wanted to fit a second Silence in the main but also wanted 14 lands for Mox Diamond.

Round 1 - Dredge
I got him game 1 by just being faster after his mull to 5. Boarded in 2 Chain (for Iona) and 2 Surgical for 3 Gitaxian Probe and 1 Cabal Therapy.
Game 2 he mulliganned to 6, dropped Leyline, and passed. I kept a no-lander with the combo and Surgical on 6. He found a land and dredgers before I found a land and bounce spell. Game 3 I had the choice of playing basic Island and holding up Brainstorm or cracking my fetch for Sea to Thoughtseize his 7 card hand. I ended up Thoughtseizing and taking his Faithless Looting out of a hand with no dredgers, but my Brainstorm bricked on action or shuffles and he killed me.
0-1

Round 2 - Niv-Magus Combo
Game 1 he got me down to 13 with Niv-Magus Elemental, but then instead of leaving up Flusterstorm he decided to Ponder. He seemed inexperienced to not leave up protection after seeing me play Probe and LDV and was also playing a shockland, so I just went for it. Went infinite, drew deck, he made me go through it until I cast Emrakul. Took a good 5 minutes, but it was kinda fun in the miserable High Tide sort of sense. Boarded in Silence, 1 Chain of Vapor, and Xantid Swarm for 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Gitaxian Probe, and 1 LDV. Game 2 I played it slow and steady. Waited for protection instead of running out the combo, was rewarded by Thoughtseizing Flusterstorm then my topdecked Silence beat his topdecked Surgical.
1-1

Round 3 - Hoogland Loam
This deck is just terrifying to a storm-style combo deck. Won the die roll, then Therapied both his Chalice of the Voids in the blind. He didn't recover. Boarded -2 Silence, -3 Gitaxian Probe, -1 LDV, +1 Abrupt Decay, +2 Serenity, +1 Tendrils of Agony, +Teferi's Realm, +1 Pull from Eternity.
Game 2 He dropped a Chalice on 1. I was fine with that since I had the Serenity and 2 lands in hand, but ended up waiting too long to play it (since I didn't have the combo or cantrips in hand), and got 2-shotted by a Knight. My bad. Game 3 I Thoughtseized his Thalia on a mull to 5, but took a while to find the pieces. He dropped a Sylvan Library, I durdled, he drew all 3 then Devastating Dreamseded for 2. I had Mox Diamond in play and could cast LDV for Entomb in response with the DR and Shallow Grave in hand, so that worked out ok.
2-1

Round 4 - Godo Dragon Stompy
Played by nedleeds, of course. Game 1 he mulliganed to a turn 2 Trinisphere on the play, but I topdecked the Entomb. My hand was pretty soft to Trinisphere, but not Blood Moon or Chalice: a land, Petal, Dark Rit, Gitaxian Probe, Griselbrand, Shallow Grave, and something else - a pretty easy draw-discard hand. Boarded similar to last round except brought in Chains over Pull and Tendrils. Game 2 he dropped a quick Magus of the Moon into Batterskull while I tried to find the kill. EOT LDV cast off of basics found the combo, but I couldn't find another IMS to continue after attacking with Griselbrand. Died to the swingback. Game 3 he mulliganned into a fine hand with Crypt and turn 1 Blood Moon. My Thoughtseize took the Crypt then I killed him a couple of turns later without him having found a good lockpiece.
3-1

Quarters - Megadeus with Hoogland Loam
He mulliganned to 5 and my Thoughtseize took his Chalice of the Void. Then I killed him in a turn or two later. Boarding same as before. Game 2 he had no turn 1 play and my Thoughtseize took his Thalia. He droppeda Kngiht and EOT I LDVd for the Entomb to pair with my Reanimate, cast Chain of Vapor on his KotR, made a Griselbrand, and passed at 3 life. He replayed Knight, I swung in but decided to not go for it and instead played Needle on Karakas. He cast Burning Wish and tanked for literally 5 minutes, then figured out that with me at 10, Chainer's Edict was really good. Knight got there. I punted by forgetting how many outs he has to a resolved Griselbrand and should have just gone for it at 10 life. Game 3 he dropped Chalice into Thalia. I played a couple basics then spent a couple of turns drawing to 8 and discarding Griselbrand. Tapped out to reanimate a Griselbrand, draw 14, passed with Massacre, Serenity, Shallow Grave, another land, DR, Pull, and Entomb in hand. He swung in, then I killed his dudes and dropped Serenity. Unfortunately, he had a Wish and Pulsed Serenity, which pretty much locked me out.


So overall thoughts:
Lim-Dul's Vault was definitely great. I doubted you guys before, but it's lived up to expectations. I liked having both basics and never got screwed on color. Part of that was Mox Diamond - it was good in the one game where I was a little flooded as a wasteland-proof dual. It was bad once while resolving LDV where a Chrome Mox would have been good, but wasn't game-ending. .dk always said it was good for him, so I'd been meaning to try it out.

I feel like I only really wanted Tendrils in against decks with Karakas and/or Swords. It was a fine board card, but I'm very happy to not be maindecking it. Combo turns took deliciously long (with me playing quickly) and were completely miserable for my opponents. Silence is a very good extra effect to have. I felt like the deck has never felt more consistent.

My sideboard was pretty random but I got a good feel for what effects I wanted. I think I want to cut a Teferi's Realm and a Reverent Silence for an Abrupt Decay and a Silence.

On the whole, it's feeling like the meta is shifting in a more favorable direction if people are playing more Omniscience and less Jund. The transition from Esper to Deathblade can't be too bad either. People seem to be trimming the grave hate again, so it's time for graveyard decks to pounce.

[Megadeus]

Yeah the basics I think were very good at least against me. Especially in a waste heavy meta like ours. I just luck sacked into a win there. LDV is basically a vampiric and watching you play it, it seemed like it did an extreme amount of work. Also I agree with the addition of an abrupt decay to the board, especially since not just in our meta, but everyone is seeming to figure out how good chalice of the void is again.

[catmint]

Haven't played with the deck for a while. What came to mind lately (not sure if someone brought it up) to abuse LDV a bit more. What I mean is by stacking the deck you can use thought scour instead of careful study as an additional discard outlet. Works with brainstorm and ponder as well of course, but has the advantage of providing "card advantage" by getting the graveyard bin for free as opposed to careful study where you lose 2 cards to get the effect.

[Koby]

Haven't played with the deck for a while. What came to mind lately (not sure if someone brought it up) to abuse LDV a bit more. What I mean is by stacking the deck you can use thought scour instead of careful study as an additional discard outlet. Works with brainstorm and ponder as well of course, but has the advantage of providing "card advantage" by getting the graveyard bin for free as opposed to careful study where you lose 2 cards to get the effect.

LDV and topdecking and Brainstorm are enough. Using LDV and paying more than 10 life is counter to the deck's plan of reanimating Griselbrand and drawing a bunch of cards. Playing Thought Scour is also just plain worse than any other cantrip.

[nedleeds]

Fuck. Do you guys just get home and start typing after the Wednesday night?

I was playing Blood Moon and honestly on the draw it's pretty useless against this deck -- if I had anything remotely better I would have sided out at least some Moon effects on the draw. But I had Pyrokinesis, and some other anti dude measures to ensure that I wasn't toast vs. The Hunter (a local goblin aficionado / legend / god / sack).

I boarded in the 4th Revoker and 3 Crypts and a Jitte in case I got stuck with a Grey Ogre as my only beater.

[phazonmutant]

Fuck. Do you guys just get home and start typing after the Wednesday night?

Well, yeah. Unlike you old farts, young guys like me don't have a bedtime :tongue:

[.dk]

So overall thoughts:
Lim-Dul's Vault was definitely great. I doubted you guys before, but it's lived up to expectations. I liked having both basics and never got screwed on color. Part of that was Mox Diamond - it was good in the one game where I was a little flooded as a wasteland-proof dual. It was bad once while resolving LDV where a Chrome Mox would have been good, but wasn't game-ending. .dk always said it was good for him, so I'd been meaning to try it out.

I feel like I only really wanted Tendrils in against decks with Karakas and/or Swords. It was a fine board card, but I'm very happy to not be maindecking it. Combo turns took deliciously long (with me playing quickly) and were completely miserable for my opponents. Silence is a very good extra effect to have. I felt like the deck has never felt more consistent.

My sideboard was pretty random but I got a good feel for what effects I wanted. I think I want to cut a Teferi's Realm and a Reverent Silence for an Abrupt Decay and a Silence.

On the whole, it's feeling like the meta is shifting in a more favorable direction if people are playing more Omniscience and less Jund. The transition from Esper to Deathblade can't be too bad either. People seem to be trimming the grave hate again, so it's time for graveyard decks to pounce.

Mox Diamond is pretty good sometimes - I had never tried it without running any Chrome Moxen at the same time. Curious if it's actually better than the 1st Chrome Mox, or just better than the 2nd or 3rd Chrome Mox. I think it becomes even more valuable if you're running Abrupt Decay though, since fixing across 3 colors in this deck can be pretty abysmal without running City of Ass or Gemstone Mine (which in turn make the rest of the deck abysmal). That said, I still don't really like Abrupt Decay in the deck. I feel like in the situations where I would want it, Serenity (Chalice, Sphere of Resistance), Reverent Silence (Counterbalance, Rest in Peace), or bounce (Thalia, Rest in Peace) are just as good at dealing with those situations along with other added benefits. My take though - if it's working, I certainly can't dispute it. I would ask if when you're drawing it, think about Serenity, Reverent Silence, or Cain of Vapor and if any of those would have been just as good in those same scenarios (or if you would have even boarded those in, for that matter).

I can't come up with a solid argument as to why I want Tendrils main - I can see your point. I think it does need to be in the 75 somewhere as it does get you out of a few sticky situations. There are certainly rogue builds out there (I'm looking at you Moat Stompy) where Tendrils is probably worthwhile, but nothing in the metagame at large really sticks out to me. Someone please let me know if I'm missing something, though, as I haven't been keeping up with Legacy as much lately as I would like.


I also agree that it seems like a good time for graveyard decks to make a resurgence. I haven't tested against Deathblade at all - how is that matchup?

[phazonmutant]

That said, I still don't really like Abrupt Decay in the deck. I feel like in the situations where I would want it, Serenity (Chalice, Sphere of Resistance), Reverent Silence (Counterbalance, Rest in Peace), or bounce (Thalia, Rest in Peace) are just as good at dealing with those situations along with other added benefits. My take though - if it's working, I certainly can't dispute it. I would ask if when you're drawing it, think about Serenity, Reverent Silence, or Cain of Vapor and if any of those would have been just as good in those same scenarios (or if you would have even boarded those in, for that matter).

I did do that when I was boarding. Serenity is good, but I really wanted an Abrupt Decay to answer both Thalia and Chalice of the Void. When a deck has hate bears as well as hate artifacts or enchantments, Abrupt Decay shines.


I can't come up with a solid argument as to why I want Tendrils main - I can see your point. I think it does need to be in the 75 somewhere as it does get you out of a few sticky situations. There are certainly rogue builds out there (I'm looking at you Moat Stompy) where Tendrils is probably worthwhile, but nothing in the metagame at large really sticks out to me. Someone please let me know if I'm missing something, though, as I haven't been keeping up with Legacy as much lately as I would like.

The big maindeck cards that I can think of that shut down Griselbrand are Maze of Ith, Glacial Chasm, Ensnaring Bridge, Peacekeeper, Karakas, and sometimes Swords to Plowshares, where Griselbrand is more likely to be a huge storm engine than an actual win condition. Fortunately, those decks are pretty rogue. Tezzeret, Affinity, Lands, and to some extent Maverick and Hoogland Loam. I think Stax doesn't count because we're likely to either kill them or have to play Serenity before going off. Generally Tendrils is worthwhile postboard against the W decks when they get to bring in grave hate as well as Karakas or Swords.

[Holly]

How much do you like the Reanimate?
In testing I'd rather not have it most of the time. Yes it can help getting t1 Griselbrand since you only need 2 mana instead of 3 but it's weak to Karakas, swords.

The moment where Reanimate really shines is when going off to get our childen back but then again, when we're going off we often allready have 3 mana pre-combat, thus can get Emrakul or do have a really good shot for having 3 mana anway post combat and can return childen with Shallow Grave.

That was my reason for cutting it in favor of the 4th Goryo's in it's place last saturday, unfortunately I didn't mark the one to see which card I rather have while playing the tournament.

[Koby]

You could also try playing Exhume.

Reanimate shines well against Tarmogoyf decks when you can force them to discard it. Otherwise, Exhume is a good substitute. Be mindful that it does cost more, so it becomes a bit more difficult to use. It's also symmetrical. The important point vs the 4th Goryo's Vengeance is that it should be able to reanimate Children of Korlis, which both Reanimate and Exhume can do.

[Holly]

Against most Tarmogoyf decks I'd rather discard their ways to disrupt me, whether it beeing counterspells, discard or shamans.
Obviously there are situation where it's right to let them discard Goyf, as example if they have no other pressure but a hand full of permission.

Haven't thought about Exhume in this deck yet, beeing symmetrical should be largely irrelevant, but like you said, it does cost 2 - so why not playing the 4th Vengeance which should be supreme to it ?


I'm soon gonna test a list with 1 Children (playing 2 right now), maybe then I'm more often in the need to really reanimate it rather then casting/Shallow Graving it and thus coming back to it.

[.dk]

Haven't thought about Exhume in this deck yet, beeing symmetrical should be largely irrelevant, but like you said, it does cost 2 - so why not playing the 4th Vengeance which should be supreme to it ?


The difference is that Exhume can get back Children, whereas Goryo's Vengeance cannot. That purpose is the primary reason there is an additional reanimation effect in the deck at all.

[Koby]

I'm soon gonna test a list with 1 Children (playing 2 right now), maybe then I'm more often in the need to really reanimate it rather then casting/Shallow Graving it and thus coming back to it.

I recommend my BoM list (61 cards). You can easily cut a Gitaxian Probe or an USea/fetchland to make it 60 cards. I don't think the difference between 60/13/4, 60/14/4, or 61/14/4 is noticeable in this list.

[phazonmutant]

How much do you like the Reanimate?
In testing I'd rather not have it most of the time. Yes it can help getting t1 Griselbrand since you only need 2 mana instead of 3 but it's weak to Karakas, swords.

The moment where Reanimate really shines is when going off to get our childen back but then again, when we're going off we often allready have 3 mana pre-combat, thus can get Emrakul or do have a really good shot for having 3 mana anway post combat and can return childen with Shallow Grave.

That was my reason for cutting it in favor of the 4th Goryo's in it's place last saturday, unfortunately I didn't mark the one to see which card I rather have while playing the tournament.

Keep in mind that when I originally rebuilt the deck (that makes it sound so fancy...) based on traditional reanimator lists, I started with 9 reanimation spells. Only when I proposed Probe did I cut down to the "stock" 8. Traditional reanimator now plays 10 reanimation spells. The marginal percentages for playing reanimate vs. Goryo's Vengeance vs. Exhume are pretty small, but I've found the 1-mana reanimate effect useful pre and post combo. That being said, any choice can't be that far wrong, and it's not right out to play more reanimation effects.
Also disclaimer, walker and others proposed Probe in the list before me. I'm not trying to take credit from their work in developing the deck.

I think that Exhume should only be a consideration if you're playing a ton of Pull from Eternities. Otherwise Reanimate or Goryo's Vengeance are just better.

Edit: seconded on what Koby said. People make a big deal about minor changes, but at the end of the day, it's not really that much different.

[Acclimation]

I won a few games off of a t1 Reanimate on Griselbrand, it's great against decks like Burn or RUG or Goblins (essentially red decks) that can't deal with a large creature on t1.

It's risky, but sometimes it is the correct line of play.

[Cybey]

If you are mainly going to use Exhume to get back Children, I'd suggest you use Animate Dead since it's not symmetrical and has the same CMC. Personally I think that the only downside of Animate Dead is that it can be Stifled, but does make sure your opponent can't get back a hatebear of its own. Also Animate Dead can get a creature from your opponents graveyard (just like Reanimate).

[Koby]

Yea that's a good alternative too. It's a little weaker than Exhume because it turns on Abrupt Decay in those match ups where that matters, but it's about as 90% as effective.

[.dk]

Yea that's a good alternative too. It's a little weaker than Exhume because it turns on Abrupt Decay in those match ups where that matters, but it's about as 90% as effective.

As phazonmuant said, Exhume gets better with Pull from Eternity as well, since it doesn't target.

[nedleeds]

well, yeah. Unlike you old farts, young guys like me don't have a bedtime :tongue:

get off my lawn!!!!!!

[Holly]

Went 4-2 today.
Lost against burn (I know..) won g1 easily. G2 I make a stupid mistake fetching the wrong land (Marsh Flats -> Island) casting Ponder which would've allowed me to win.. but it's the wrong land, cards get shuffeled in again I miss on the ponder (now cast from an Usea). He gets his second turn for pillar with Extraction + MBT backup.
G3 see g2 without the mistake.

Also lost against Jund (..) by keeping lose hands and getting blown up by Wasteland both times. G2 I still get to Emrakul but he has 7 permanents, keeping Ooze from whom I get beaten down 1 turn before I can find Entomb.

Wins were against: Junk, Painter, Gwu Enchantress, Tezzerator.


I tried the 1 Mox Diamond from phazonmuant, drew him 1 time with 0 lands after drawing 14 cards from Grizzelbrand (still won) and 2 times in my opening 7 (6) together with a single land were I'd rather would've had my second Chrome Mox. Won't try again.
Again never needed Reanimate nor wished my Goryo's Vengeance was one but again I did play 2 Children.
I did move the Tendrils to the sideboard to make room for Gitaxian Probe's and I can see it staying there (boarded it in vs Enchantress & Tezzerator because of humility/bridge).


Oh by the way, again my sideboard was pretty much irrelevant, used Serenity 2 times (one time it got destroyed), Submerge one time and Abrupt Decay one time for not much use. It's amazing how well this deck can play around hate just by its mainboard alone.

[Rush80]

I have played approx. 30 games online, with minimal variation of the basic shell.
My findings (some are surprising) are:

) the right number of GB is 2 or 3

) Tendris (1 copy) win is more consistent than Emrakul: I always have the mana to win with Tendrils but not all the time for a win with the 15/15 monster.
Currently I avoid having Emrakul main deck. It is just a redundant win-more condition.

) for combos, discard package (+ 1 silence) is better than countermagic as it allows to see the other player hand and cost always 1 CMC.

) 1 Silence is mandatory and better than 2 silence main deck.

) 4 Gitaxian probes are mandatory: 2 life loss is negligible vs the capability to see the other player hand and shorten the deck.

) the worst match-up are against: heavy discard, heavy countermagic, wasteland+stifle package, graveyard hate

) card with CMC greater than 3 are unplayable, mana curve is small at 14 lands + 6 artifact accel.

) 5 artifact accel (4 petals + 1 crome) are mandatory 2 cromes debatable

) 7 reanimate spells are needed with 4 shallow and 2 goryo mandatory.
I like reanimate over the third goryo

) Careful Study creates too much card disadvantage and intuition is too slow.


Sideboard:

) Echoing T is better than Chain of Vapor: good against Chalice of Void

) Boomerang is better than Chain of Vapor:

) a trans-formative SB is the only option:

Boseiju, as a sideboard option is pretty strong against no-wasteland controls

Often, I transform the classic deck UBw by moving in:
2 Tidespout Tyrant
2 Echoing T
4 Show and Tell
1 Boseiju

- 2 Entomb
- 1 Cabal Therapy
- 3 Reanimate spells
- 3 mana accel

I am surprised people avoided testing more about TT:
it allows to bounce back Omniscience, DRS, Pithing Needle, Crypt, Thalia, Karakas, Jace, Leiliana and Lands and more: when SnT resolve you can bounce back other people permanent by casting a spell.
Seldom people have a creature removal as they board out vs graveyard hate in.

Looking forward hearing your feedback and if anybody have tried consistently a SnT + GB + TT deck.

[Cacks]

) Careful Study creates too much card disadvantage and intuition is too slow.

Just one thought on this. Careful study isn't necessarily as much 'real' card disadvantage as meets the eye. Clearly 'draw 2 discard 2, plus cast the spell' = -1; but there are two points to note. First, if you are discarding G'brand, the card disadvantage is the same as entomb (-1 + G'brand in the yard). Secondly later on in the game, if you are discarding chaff that you don't need then the effective card disadvantage is mitigated, even effectively reversed. Take for example a situation in which you start with two lands in hand, it is now turn 3 and you have drawn two more lands in your draw steps. Those last two lands in this deck may be close to blanks, and careful study replacing these with fresh cards approximates +2 card advantage (obv. not quite, but you get my drift). That is why in the classic reaminator deck, where I have more personal experience, it is often important not to put lands into play beyond your first two or so.

[Rush80]

Just one thought on this. Careful study isn't necessarily as much 'real' card disadvantage as meets the eye. Clearly 'draw 2 discard 2, plus cast the spell' = -1; but there are two points to note. First, if you are discarding G'brand, the card disadvantage is the same as entomb (-1 + G'brand in the yard). Secondly later on in the game, if you are discarding chaff that you don't need then the effective card disadvantage is mitigated, even effectively reversed. Take for example a situation in which you start with two lands in hand, it is now turn 3 and you have drawn two more lands in your draw steps. Those last two lands in this deck may be close to blanks, and careful study replacing these with fresh cards approximates +2 card advantage (obv. not quite, but you get my drift). That is why in the classic reaminator deck, where I have more personal experience, it is often important not to put lands into play beyond your first two or so.

Agreed.
It shall read, for a deck low on Fatties (3/4 like TinFins), having additional card disadvantage on top of 4 copies of Entomb and mana accel, may be detrimental especially if you cannot discard a Fatties: I think CS is great in Reanimator and poorer in TF classic build.

[.dk]

I tend to agree on careful study.

I do disagree about Emrakul being in the maindeck. Based on my games played, and many matches I've watched, it pulls it's weight more often than you think. Against decks that are running maindeck storm hate (in particular Gaddock Teeg and Leyline of Sanctity), Emrakul is quite necessary to win. It also has corner case uses of storming infinite if your opponent has gained a billion life, but that almost never comes up. I think the main use vs. things like Gaddock Teeg are probably enough to justify maindeck inclusion.

[Acclimation]

I have played approx. 30 games online, with minimal variation of the basic shell.
My findings (some are surprising) are:

) the right number of GB is 2 or 3

I agree with 2, 3 seems a bit much unless you are running a Careful Study version, then 4 seems like the right number to me.


) Tendris (1 copy) win is more consistent than Emrakul: I always have the mana to win with Tendrils but not all the time for a win with the 15/15 monster.
Currently I avoid having Emrakul main deck. It is just a redundant win-more condition.

Emrakul has gotten me more wins than Tendrils has. I would say that 85% of my wins are off the back of Emrakul+Griselbrand swings, and outside of the 3 games in which I have used Reanimate on Griselbrand and the 2 that I used Rituals to power out Griselbrand, Tendrils gets me the win in maybe 1 game out of 10. That being said, I still believe that having both Emrakul and Tendrils in the main deck are the correct way to go. In fact, the games that I don't win with Emrakul are due to not finding a certain piece to get it out within 14 draws, usually a Lotus Petal or Dark Ritual, and require an attack phase with Griselbrand so I can draw 7 more cards to find that last piece.


) for combos, discard package (+ 1 silence) is better than countermagic as it allows to see the other player hand and cost always 1 CMC.

) 1 Silence is mandatory and better than 2 silence main deck.

Agreed on Discard+Silence package. 2 Maindeck Silence isn't bad though, especially if you are like me and couldn't borrow a second Thoughtseize for an event.


) 4 Gitaxian probes are mandatory: 2 life loss is negligible vs the capability to see the other player hand and shorten the deck.

Agreed. Probe lets me keep greedy hands and gives me great information. I love keeping hands that have Land+Probe+Therapy and then a combo piece or two, since leading with Probe>Therapy gives me a good start on my opponent.


) the worst match-up are against: heavy discard, heavy countermagic, wasteland+stifle package, graveyard hate

Agreed.

I'm still trying to get a hold on the Tempo Thresh match-up, the heavy countermagic is rough, especially on top of their clock and mana denial package.


) card with CMC greater than 3 are unplayable, mana curve is small at 14 lands + 6 artifact accel.

) 5 artifact accel (4 petals + 1 crome) are mandatory 2 cromes debatable

Outside of Tendrils, fatties, and Massacre, I don't have anything larger than 2 cmc. With 14 lands, casting 3 cmc cards on demand is too sketchy for me since I love to keep greedy hands with this deck.

I do want to find out if adding a Chrome Mox or a Mox Diamond to bring the artifact mana to 6 slots is worth it, since I felt like Lotus Petals were often a choke point for me. I do find Chrome Mox to be awkward in the opening hand, but I love seeing it mid combo, and I would imagine Mox Diamond is better after a couple draw 7s.


) 7 reanimate spells are needed with 4 shallow and 2 goryo mandatory.
I like reanimate over the third goryo
I think 4/3/1 is the right number of reanimation spells. I think playing less than 8 is wrong, since failing to draw one of these is awful for our deck.


) Careful Study creates too much card disadvantage and intuition is too slow.

Careful Study is great when you have 4 Griselbrand, and pitching excess land or other useless spells doesn't feel like disadvantage to me.

Intuition is way too slow though, 3 cmc and is overall awkward.



Sideboard:

) Echoing T is better than Chain of Vapor: good against Chalice of Void

) Boomerang is better than Chain of Vapor:

I think a mix of the two is best, Chalice at 2 stops our reanimation spells, and leaning too heavily on Echoing Truth and Serenity makes that awkward. In fact, if you are running Serenity, Chain of Vapor should get the nod over Echoing Truth, since you have an answer to Chalice at 2 different CMC, and Chain is overall easier to cast due to costing less; see our discussion on Abeyance over Silence.

Boomerang is too blue heavy for this deck.


) a trans-formative SB is the only option:

Boseiju, as a sideboard option is pretty strong against no-wasteland controls

Often, I transform the classic deck UBw by moving in:
2 Tidespout Tyrant
2 Echoing T
4 Show and Tell
1 Boseiju

- 2 Entomb
- 1 Cabal Therapy
- 3 Reanimate spells
- 3 mana accel

I am surprised people avoided testing more about TT:
it allows to bounce back Omniscience, DRS, Pithing Needle, Crypt, Thalia, Karakas, Jace, Leiliana and Lands and more: when SnT resolve you can bounce back other people permanent by casting a spell.
Seldom people have a creature removal as they board out vs graveyard hate in.

Looking forward hearing your feedback and if anybody have tried consistently a SnT + GB + TT deck.

I personally hate trans-formative sideboards. I feel as though building a sideboard with answers to the hate that people bring in is better than attempting to dodge that hate by making a more garbage version of a different deck. What do you do if the deck you change your plan for ends up having hate that effects both decks? You've effectively done nothing useful by doing so.

That being said, Tidespout Tyrant is a neat idea, but only if you are using SnT, since Reanimating it in this deck gives you no advantage over reanimating Griselbrand or Emrakul, and due to the heavy blue requirement is nigh impossible to cast. Since I feel that SnT is wrong for this deck, Tidespout Tyrant is a waste of a slot.

Boseiju is neat though, I saw that work out for people, but since the version I play runs on 14 lands, having a land that doesn't give me colored mana is incredibly sketchy. I would much prefer to lean on Silence+Discard to fight counterspells.

In other news, I played at a local TCG Player event on Sunday, and ended up splitting top 4 due to the others wanting to go home (it was Father's day, after all).

Round 1: Bye
Round 2: Combo Elves 2-0
Round 3: Belcher 2-1 (he won the dice roll and I actually beat him in game 1. I found this incredibly hilarious)
Round 4: ID

Top 4 split.

Easiest tournament of my life.

[Koby]

Easiest tournament of my life.

I petition the users of this thread for a name change of Tin Fins to "Skill Game". :laugh:

[Acclimation]

I petition the users of this thread for a name change of Tin Fins to "Skill Game". :laugh:


I about died from laughter when I was watching my feature match and the commentators called Tinfins a difficult and challenging deck.

I'm not saying it's the easiest deck to play, but the plan is so linear that I could probably get white girl wasted and still beat people with the deck.

[Koby]

I could probably get white girl wasted and still beat people with the deck.

Not trying to brag, but that's pretty much half my streamed archives. :D

[.dk]

Yes, Game 1 is usually a joke, one way or another. Sideboard games get a bit harder, but this is definitely storm on training wheels (as Koby called it once).

Tin Fins 3: Return of the Skill Game

[Richard Cheese]

I petition the users of this thread for a name change of Tin Fins to "Skill Game". :laugh:

Petition denied. The highlight of my Magic career thus far was a Sealab 2021 episode synopsis being read on the SCG live feed. Since I'm a terrible player, adding to the prestigious list of terrible Magic deck names may be the most I ever achieve at the game.

[cogitoergosum]

@Rush80, how is it that you support a transformational SB with SnT yet advocate not having spells at 3 CMC or greater?

And if there is going to be a name change, it shoule be TinFins 3: A Modest Proposal.

[Rush80]

Cogito,

It looks 3 CMC is the maximum playable:

") card with CMC greater than 3 are unplayable"

so show and tell makes the cut but 4 CMC is too much: at 4 there are B and U (e.g. Cryptic Command) and W cards worth considering but CMC is of primary importance for this deck

I am planning to test a transformative SB with Goblin C. but I am highly skeptical, even if I add further mana accel.
One way is to add 1/2 Boseiju from the SB which make Shallow, Goryo, Snt uncounterable.

[cogitoergosum]

I still am not on the 3 CMC train, and I think we have found that SnT is just not effective enough with the limited amount of creatures and mana.

As for Boseju, it is very intersting. However, what I don't like about it is that it does nothing for entomb, which is the most important spell to resolve. For these reasons, I would rather just bring in additional silences to protect our GY plan.

Regardless, let us know how the testing works out for you. Perhaps one of these cards will end up like LDV, where it seemed superflous but actually ended up being pretty amazing.

[Richard Cheese]

Cogito,

It looks 3 CMC is the maximum playable:

") card with CMC greater than 3 are unplayable"

so show and tell makes the cut but 4 CMC is too much: at 4 there are B and U (e.g. Cryptic Command) and W cards worth considering but CMC is of primary importance for this deck

I am planning to test a transformative SB with Goblin C. but I am highly skeptical, even if I add further mana accel.
One way is to add 1/2 Boseiju from the SB which make Shallow, Goryo, Snt uncounterable.

If you want to do a transformational board to something as different as Charbelcher, why not go for ETW instead. You could do a board like:

2 Chrome Mox
4 Rite of Flame
3 ETW
4 Manamorphose
2 Burning Wish

It's still terrible, but dodges all the Fatty/yard hate people will bring in, still hard to counter, and nobody's going to leave sweepers in against this deck.

[P-E]

the problem is the combo hate will be the same ^^
mindbreak trap , thalia , fluster , pierce , canonist etc

[.dk]

the problem is the combo hate will be the same ^^
mindbreak trap , thalia , fluster , pierce , canonist etc

Yes... which is one of the many reasons that transformations likely won't work with this deck. We've tried a LOT of them over the past year. All are pretty much bad. Move along.

[Richard Cheese]

Yeah and I just realized you'd have to have 4 ETW if you wanted B. Wish, which would only leave you with 3 Manamorphose, and that just CLEARLY sucks.

[P-E]

the only plan is man plan ^^
phyrexian obliterator , tarmo and alike haha (just think to discard/surgical stp)

[.dk]

the only plan is man plan ^^
phyrexian obliterator , tarmo and alike haha (just think to discard/surgical stp)

Honestly, that's probably the best bet for a transformation, but I have 0 faith in it.

[Holly]

Honestly I don't see the need for a transformational sideboard anyway since this deck is capable of fighting through hate rather well.

[Koby]

That said, I think a good plan against RIP specifically is to play 4 Helm of Obedience. Golly gee whiz Batman, RIP is symmetrical!

[.dk]

That said, I think a good plan against RIP specifically is to play 4 Helm of Obedience. Golly gee whiz Batman, RIP is symmetrical!

Yeah, I was testing that for awhile, along with E-tutors a some of our own RIP. Seemed a bit too mana intensive to be viable.

[catmint]

Honestly I don't see the need for a transformational sideboard anyway since this deck is capable of fighting through hate rather well.

No, the deck cannot fight through hate well. Despite many people falling in love with the speed and the fancyness of the kill (including me) and some people thinking this deck would get Griselbrand banned (lol), the main reason why the deck did not show up good results are the consistency issues and the disability to fight through a meta full of disruption. Compare it to traditional Reanimator, show variants and ANT - TinFins is not that strong.

The biggest achievements of the deck are establishing the name and creating an unjustified hype about its strength.

[Richard Cheese]

We can fight through each specific piece of hate easily, the real problem is the proliferation of excellent graveyard hate over the past few sets. We now have creatures, enchantments, artifacts, and free instants to deal with, and being able to combat all of them out of the board without watering down the maindeck has proven extremely difficult. The fact that RiP and DRS have found their way into the maindeck of tier 1 lists is also a real paradigm shift from just a couple years ago. We're suffering from the same issue as Dredge where people actually have a chance in game 1, and have much more streamlined boarding plans for 2/3...that soft underbelly that used to be graveyard hate has grown some scales.

[Koby]

No, the deck cannot fight through hate well. Despite many people falling in love with the speed and the fancyness of the kill (including me) and some people thinking this deck would get Griselbrand banned (lol), the main reason why the deck did not show up good results are the consistency issues and the disability to fight through a meta full of disruption. Compare it to traditional Reanimator, show variants and ANT - TinFins is not that strong.

The biggest achievements of the deck are establishing the name and creating an unjustified hype about its strength.

I disagree. The deck is powerful and can go deep into a tournament. Both SCG T8 finishes are an example of that, as well as my Day 2 in BoM. Are there issues? Certainly - RUG Delver is a weak matchup that needs to be addressed still. I think the deck is significantly easier to play than other storm combo decks, and it is scary fast. That should be reason enough to not discount it as "hype".

[cogitoergosum]

@Koby, I still think submerge is a very viable answer to the RUG match-up if you are expecting a prevalence of it in your meta. The timewalk aspect of it has done wonders in testing for buying me the time to find the necessary pieces to protect my combo and go off.

[Koby]

@Koby, I still think submerge is a very viable answer to the RUG match-up if you are expecting a prevalence of it in your meta. The timewalk aspect of it has done wonders in testing for buying me the time to find the necessary pieces to protect my combo and go off.

By that logic, Chain of Vapor is just as fine and more versatile. My hesitation is boarding this in when I already need to bring in Silence too. I don't think boarding out 6 cards is viable in this matchup. I really need to test this matchup in depth.

[cogitoergosum]

The difference being that CoV costs mana, as well as does not timewalk by putting the card on top of the RUG library, a big and relevant tempo swing overall. Anyway, just my thoughts. CoV is still my favorite bounce spell, especially because of the neat tricks you can do by using it on yourself.

[eriktyvollk]

I know that it has been stated that we are always the beatdown, against Rug I have always taken more of a controlling role and have never lost a match to Rug the more mana we can develop against them the better also just like playing ant against them I board in another tendrils to be able to mini tendrils to not die and keep the game moving.

[Koby]

I know that it has been stated that we are always the beatdown, against Rug I have always taken more of a controlling role and have never lost a match to Rug the more mana we can develop against them the better also just like playing ant against them I board in another tendrils to be able to mini tendrils to not die and keep the game moving.

Maybe you can expand on that a bit more? I found the match to be very dynamic and depend more on draws from either side than specific cards. Perhaps my last memory of Bazaar of Moxen tournament was biased since I was fatigued and underrested. This is definitely one matchup I want to be very certain of when I'm piloting Tin Fins next.

[Richard Cheese]

Regarding the RUG matchup, I was curious to see what they were boarding these days and holy hell has anyone used the "compare" feature on TCDecks? The good news is that at least based recent finishes, it looks like the deck is dropping most of it's sideboard graveyard hate. I see a Grafdigger's cage and a Tormod's crypt and that's about it.

[eriktyvollk]

So when I have played against rug probably 10+ matches with this deck (I know that is not huge numbers) I have just been very patient with my discard and gitaxian probes and do my best to bait the forces. Daze has never been a huge issue if you wait a couple turns. (turn 4 or 5) as the only proactive disruption they have is wasteland (Pre-Board) obviously they get some draws that put a lot of pressure on you but you should know there hand and how to play around what they may be holding. The matchup is even better now as they have cut stifle again for the most part. After board it gets trickier because they normally board in some number of surgicals or graffdiggers cages but they normally board out some number of dazes/fire/ice. And I only board in my silences and another tendrils to try to mini tendrils them to buy more time or set up a emrakul alpha strike. I have been told by a lot of people I play against and test with that I play the deck conservatively and my build certainly reflects it with 2 basics in it. But Rug just seems to me like a game of patience with this deck instead of trying to all in them. Silence is so clutch against them because a lot of the times you go for it with silence they are damned if they do damned if they don't. I hope this makes some sense?

[Acclimation]

In regards to fighting through hate, I find that the combination of Silence+Bounce effects are really all I need out of the sideboard; the mainboard discard is also very helpful. Even then, we're so fast that sometimes the t1 deathrite shaman can't touch us, leaving only Force, Surgical, and Mindbreak Trap as the things I worry about seeing, all of which Silence helps combat.

As per RUG, that match-up is something I've been meaning to test more, that match is rough as hell and so far I've just been getting lucky. I know that a lot of those lists are dropping GY hate since Dredge is such a piss-poor match that it's better to hope to dodge than it is to attempt to make a shitty match okay at best.

[.dk]

In regards to fighting through hate, I find that the combination of Silence+Bounce effects are really all I need out of the sideboard; the mainboard discard is also very helpful. Even then, we're so fast that sometimes the t1 deathrite shaman can't touch us, leaving only Force, Surgical, and Mindbreak Trap as the things I worry about seeing, all of which Silence helps combat.

As per RUG, that match-up is something I've been meaning to test more, that match is rough as hell and so far I've just been getting lucky. I know that a lot of those lists are dropping GY hate since Dredge is such a piss-poor match that it's better to hope to dodge than it is to attempt to make a shitty match okay at best.


Yes, I agree with this. We can fight through hate early in the game decently enough - as the game goes longer the worse our prospects get. That said, Silence doesn't get there against those Faerie Macabres (i got got by those a couple times).

The lack of GY hate in RUG I think is a combination of dredge being terrible, and Deathrite Shaman decks keeping traditional reanimator in check.

[Richard Cheese]

Board in Wall of Denial, beat format.

[Koby]

Board in Wall of Denial, beat format.

*grumblegrumble* Stupid Liliana *grumble*

[Richard Cheese]

*grumblegrumble* Stupid Liliana *grumble*

Just use Shallow Grave whenever you need a blocker.

[.dk]

I'll only run Wall of Denial if I can figure out how to run Doran too. Until then, NO WAY.

Doran FTdubs.

[Koby]

I'll only run Wall of Denial if I can figure out how to run Doran too. Until then, NO WAY.

Doran FTdubs.

I think we could our Man-plan Man for the BUwg versions :P

[Richard Cheese]

I think we could our Man-plan Man for the BUwg versions :P

We're already in the right color...
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/be/186.jpg

Edit: Damn you Shroud!!!!#E@$@#

[roflwaffles]

Why was Daze considered a failed idea in this deck? It seems that there's definitely enough fetchlands to ensure that you have an Underground Sea in play most of the time and the deck is so blazing fast that they'll generally tap out in order to answer your threats.

Plus, it feels like this deck loses alot of steam if it doesn't get an initial Entomb to resolve and additional insurance seems like a good idea.

[phazonmutant]

Why was Daze considered a failed idea in this deck? It seems that there's definitely enough fetchlands to ensure that you have an Underground Sea in play most of the time and the deck is so blazing fast that they'll generally tap out in order to answer your threats.

Plus, it feels like this deck loses alot of steam if it doesn't get an initial Entomb to resolve and additional insurance seems like a good idea.

Couple of reason. 1) It isn't useful as an enabler like discard, 2) it isn't really great against the weak matchups - controlling decks like Miracles that don't often tap out, 3) if shit goes wrong, it's terrible late-game, 4) it's not good disruption in the combo-mirror.

Discard and Silence address those problems better than Daze on the whole. Basically Daze is really good when it's good, but most times is pretty bad. The deck definitely doesn't need more high-variance cards.

[TraxDaMax]

Couple of reason. 1) It isn't useful as an enabler like discard, 2) it isn't really great against the weak matchups - controlling decks like Miracles that don't often tap out, 3) if shit goes wrong, it's terrible late-game, 4) it's not good disruption in the combo-mirror.

Discard and Silence address those problems better than Daze on the whole. Basically Daze is really good when it's good, but most times is pretty bad. The deck definitely doesn't need more high-variance cards.

This, and the discard just gives you more information in general, whether you can actually go off or not. Tin Fins often plays out like Belcher, balls to the wall only we do have slighty more info normally plus can strip counters off our opponents. You generally want to be proactive, just like Belcher.
Atleast, this is how I have experienced the deck.

[Niggurath]

Hey guys, I have been building this deck on MTGO, and I have to say that this is an amazing combo deck. Big kudos to the creators!

Well, 'til now I just have been goldfishing the last Koby's version -I like it a lot, dude!-, trying to get confortable with combo. I have everything but the dual lands, but planning to get them soon.

My questions are: Is it actually necessary to run 1 tundra? Is it reasonable to run +1 scrubland instead, or 1 tundra is mandatory?

Why? Scrubland is cheaper :smile:

[Koby]

Tundra is easily replaceable with Scrubland. Its nice to have a blue source fetchable by Marsh Flats however. Additional Underground Seas are also acceptable.

[ZimAshe]

Anyone going to be playing this deck in worcester this weekend? If i can make it to the Sunday event I may. I'm having a hard time deciding whether I want to play this deck or Nic Fit. I know, polar opposites. It depends on the Meta i guess. Anyone have any in sight?

[Richard Cheese]

Anyone going to be playing this deck in worcester this weekend? If i can make it to the Sunday event I may. I'm having a hard time deciding whether I want to play this deck or Nic Fit. I know, polar opposites. It depends on the Meta i guess. Anyone have any in sight?

As someone who's played both, go with TinFins. You'll have way more time between rounds to eat/trade/buy/get things signed/etc.

[Acclimation]

Punching people in the face with Griselbrand is always the correct answer.

[TinkerRobot]

I've had some success at the local level playing Tin Fins with a singleton Unmask over the second Thoughtseize. At first this was a budget consideration, but now I'm thinking of just playing 4 Therapy 2 Unmask as my discard suite. Having a free spell that can be used as either disruption or an enabler seems powerful, and in a deck that uses it's life total as a resource, the 2 life lost from Thoughtseizes can be troublesome.

Has anyone else had similar experience?

[.dk]

I've never tested it, but what do you usually find yourself pitching to it? I suppose if you have extra reanimation spells that's fine, since it's usually the Entomb that gets countered. I like Thoughtseize as I never have a problem casting it, and usually 2 life isn't that big of a deal. But I have nothing to argue with against replacing it with Unmask.

[TinkerRobot]

I've never tested it, but what do you usually find yourself pitching to it? I suppose if you have extra reanimation spells that's fine, since it's usually the Entomb that gets countered. I like Thoughtseize as I never have a problem casting it, and usually 2 life isn't that big of a deal. But I have nothing to argue with against replacing it with Unmask.

Most often I have been pitching extra copies of Goryo's Vengeance, Cabal Therapy, or Lim-Dul's Vault.

I think it adds strength to the deck in that it allows more frequent turn 1 kills with disruption. Opening hands with Dark Ritual > Entomb (or Therapy yourself) > Shallow Grave (or Goryo's) don't usually have the resource to defend themselves otherwise.

EDIT: Also openings like Land > Unmask (yourself) > Reanimate, or Land > Lotus Petal > Unmask (self), Shallow Grave become possible turn 1 combos without Dark Rituals or multiple Petals.

[phazonmutant]

I tested 2 Unmask when I played a version with Serum Powders and Pull from Eternities in the main. That deck was...inconsistent, but I'm pretty sure I can generalize my experience with Unmask to say that you can't afford to 2-1 yourself in the bad matchups. If I could get turn 1 hands significantly more consistently than what I've been seeing I'd agree with you that Unmask is worth it despite that, but I just don't think making your excellent hands better and your bad hands worse is a good path to take.

[Acclimation]

Fun story time (I thought it was cool, damn it).

We had a small Legacy event recently (so I could fulfill one of my requirements to become an L1), and round 1 I play against a friend who plays either UW counterbalance, GW Loyal Retainers/Emrakul combo, or BUG control. Game 1 I keep a hand that can cast Reanimate on Griselbrand t1, and went for it. It turned out he was on Countertop, and proceeded to Swords it. I draw 7, exile Griselbrand, and take my next turn. Whiff on Cabal Therapy naming Rest in Piece, sculpt, and ship, he top decks Rest in Piece (sonofabitch). He ends up getting stuck on lands, and I eventually burn 3 dark rits to cast Griselbrand. He eot Enlightened Tutor with 3 lands, and ends up going for Energy Field. Awkward. Cue more sculpting. He's at 18, and I'm sitting at 12 with 6 lands. Finally, he miracles Entreat for about 5 (on his turn), and I draw 7 in response. I proceed to get him with a 9 storm Tendrils with a combination of Petals, Mox, irrelevant cantrips and Shallow Graves and my last Dark Ritual (which was the only spell I needed to resolve).

Next game I do the monster mash. It was a graveyard smash. I end up winning it (my friends are good, but my luck is better), and ended up getting Judge Certified by the end of the week.

I know a lot of people aren't fans of mainboard Tendrils, but sometimes you got odd ball games like this where Tendrils is your only way out in game 1. Maybe not the BEST example as to why Tendrils should be kept in the main, but I feel as though it needs to stay.

[Niggurath]

Tendrils should stay on main, imo. Here's another example:

I was playing a match against a BUG "Shardless" Control deck. First game I had a emmy + grisel kill on second turn. Second game was pretty fun. He opened with a 'seize discarding my lone entomb. I therapied a FOW. He played a deathrite shaman and a nihil spellbomb, so I played my 2 lotus petals anticipating more discard. He began to deathrite me at the end of my turns, so when I finally found another entomb, therapied another fow and waited for my next turn, having 3 lands and 2 petals in play.

He deathrited me as always, so I entombed a grisel in response and casted goryo's. Then he cracked his nihil spellbomb and I casted another goryo's. On his turn he doesn't make anything and I draw 7 in response to grisel's exiling trigger. Being at 5, I played land, therapied a fow, chain of vapor his shaman, dark ritual + entomb a grisel + shallow grave. Attacked with griselbrand and drew 7, being at 5 again. No more entombs or children, so tried the storm kill. Played lotus petal, casted a probe to find gas, but didn't draw well. Brainstormed with my lone island and was lucky and found the kill: 2 dark rituals and tendrils of agony casted with petal.

I think it's pretty cool to have 2 different ways to kill on maindeck. Sometimes I've faced an ensnaring bridge, which I didn't cared, going for the storm kill.

[Tachikoma]

Hi everyone,

Just to start it's my first post here and I only dug 4-5 pages in the 50+ of this thread so I might say/ask redundant things, sorry if I do.
Second I'm not a regular competitive tournament player so I might not play as good as some of you do and miss some strategies ... end of disclaimer :)

Here is the build I tested at my local store yesterday, and I made a miserable 1-3 with it.


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

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

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Lim-Dul's Vault

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
1 Silence
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
4 Dark Ritual

// lands
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Island
1 Swamp

// Sideboard
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Echoing Truth
1 Extirpate
1 Flusterstorm
1 Karakas
2 Pithing Needle
2 Pull from Eternity
1 Show and Tell
2 Silence
2 Surgical Extraction



1st round was UR Delver packed with countermagic, the second was esper stoneblade and I died 0-2 without doing anything on those 2 so I'll focus on these.

I really don't see how to manage them, especially how to play discard properly.

For example you have an opening hand with a thoughtseize, a shallow grave, the appropriate mana acceleration (mox, dark rit and enough land), and 1 or 2 cantrips, seems like a pretty correct hand doesn't it ?

Option 1) You use your thoughtseize early, you may clear the path and see what he's got, but then you absolutely need entomb (and draw Griselbrand instead :)

Option 2) You keep your thoughtseize so that either drawing entomb or griselbrand enables your combo but if your opponent counters your self-thoughtseize, you're in an even worse situation than Option 1, and as you didn't discarded him, he's very likely to have one or more countermagic in hand.

I did option 1) and drew Griselbrand, Emrakul or lands or cantrips or you name it but Entomb.
And when an insectile-aberrating Delver and a Geist are kicking your ass, you don't have a lot of time to cantrip/dig :)

The stoneblade matchup was a bit different, he simply kozileked me the entomb, then snapcasted/kozileked a shallowgrave and I felt that early discard can ruin you too easily.
And again, if you do not have a turn 1-kill-style starting hand, and try to hold a 1st turn discard to be able to potentially brainstorm-save part of your stuff, you simply leave him more chance to draw countermagic, throw in a Stoneforge/Batterskull you can't stop (or yes you can because you draw the pithing needle .. the turn after batterskull comes in :)

Well you get my point I felt simply defenseless in those 2 matchups.
I really was frustrating, like I have a beast of potential I like to play with in hands, but womething wrong inside that makes it fail ...
It may be those particular matchups, but even the other games I didn't quite felt the flexibility and reliability that I can read in your various tournament reports.

So I'd like your advice, what is your experience against those matchups ? and more generally against heavy countermagic and discard decks as it's a large part of the metagame I have where i play ...
Do you see something in my build choices that could explain the problems I faced ?

Have a nice weekend and happy Griselbranding :)

[.dk]

タチコマ歓迎! Always glad to see new people picking up the deck. I know you haven't had a chance to read the whole thread yet, but I would highly recommend taking some time to read the past 30 pages or so - lots of good discussions in general.

I've never played against UR Delver before, but I would imagine that it isn't that much different than RUG. In this case (that's definitely a keepable hand), I would generally hold onto my disruption and use cantrips to try to sculpt a better hand. Try to play around wasteland as best as possible. You likely aren't going to thoughtseize a threat out of their hand - only an answer, so there isn't good incentive to do so early. It's possible that if they see you doing nothing and just cantripping, they'll burn a counter on a cantrip even. That gives you the most flexibility in your plan, and you're not locked in one way or another.

Remember, even if they counter your self-thoughtseize, you effectively did the same thing as thoughtseizing them too since you wouldn't be taking one of their threats. That gives you the most outs off the top in drawing more discard to continue to self target, or an entomb.


As far as Esper goes - sometimes if they are on the play, the game just goes like that. Discard can be rough like that, and then it is a matter of operating your cantrips to maximum efficiency to try to recover. The good news is that you have lots of redundancy, so there are many chances to draw out even if pieces are discarded. If it is game 1 and you think you have an opportunity to cast Entomb (and believe that they are a discard heavy deck), you might want to just go for it and cast entomb, even if you don't have a reanimation spell. Don't give them the opportunity to strip it from your hand - Entomb is the weakest link in this deck.

Hope that helps a little, and good luck!

[Richard Cheese]

Agreed. I think it's important to always remember that our discard does double-duty. To me, the most important thing is to try and go off as quickly and consistently as possible. In the current meta, grave hate is everywhere and I personally think it's better to go off earlier, even if that means taking a risk without protection. The only time I think this is potentially not the case is when you're pretty sure the opponent is going to drop something that's a pain in the ass to play around on their next turn, like RiP or Thalia. This is a lot more applicable postboard though.

That said, I kinda suck at playing combo decks. Koby would know. Koby always knows.

[Acclimation]

There is nothing scarier than a fearless combo player. Probably bad advice incoming: Just go full man mode on every game. Keep greedy hands, run your combo out without protection or respect to Force of Will, just GO for it. You'll probably lose a lot, but after awhile, you'll start to recognize what works and doesn't work for opening hands, and have a better understanding of the deck.

Speed is our best protection against other decks. You can't get wastelanded out of a game that you win on turn 1 (No shit, Shirlock). The same goes for Deathrite Shaman, Rest in Peace, Counterbalance, and so on. Make it a mini game with yourself, see how many games you can win on turn 1 or 2 in a night. It's a lot of fun, and if you're into that kind of thing, you'll harvest a lot of tears and buttmad from your opponents.

That aside, playing against UR Delver is interesting. You don't have to worry about Tarmogoyf clocks (sometimes they can stop your first attempt and you need to rebuild) nor Scavaging Oozes out of the side, but you do have to worry about more burn (in my experience). Silence is your friend here, I found Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy less effective against this match-up.

Against any deck with Discard, Entombing as soon as you can is most ideal- you have 8 reanimation effects, but only 4 Entomb (provided you are using a list similar to Koby/me). What I've noticed about Stoneblade and BUG decks, is that they don't run as many counterspells as other blue decks (Tempo Thresh and Counterbalance) and just enough hand disruption to be annoying, but not terribly hard to come back from. If you can punch through early, do it, especially if it's game one, they don't know what you are on, and they tapped out.

Gitaxian Probe is your friend in all of these match-ups, but I always found myself boarding them out in g2/3 for more Silences. I'm still rocking the 61 card main deck because I love having both 4 Probe and 14 land, I can't decide what to shave in order to have an even 60.

So, to recap:

Be fearless.
Be Greedy.
Gitaxian Probe and Silence are your friends, and help you with both of those.

Your mileage may vary.

[TinkerRobot]

Firstly, I agree with the "be greedy" assessment; that's why we're playing Tin Fins, right?

Speaking of Greed, in my testing I've had the desire to go up to 4 Goryo's Vengence. I don't yet know if this impulse is irrational or not. There are times when the 1-of Reanimate is a real stinker because I want to draw all the cards AND attack the turn my Grizzie comes into play. Thoughts?

[Acclimation]

Firstly, I agree with the "be greedy" assessment; that's why we're playing Tin Fins, right?

Speaking of Greed, in my testing I've had the desire to go up to 4 Goryo's Vengence. I don't yet know if this impulse is irrational or not. There are times when the 1-of Reanimate is a real stinker because I want to draw all the cards AND attack the turn my Grizzie comes into play. Thoughts?

Hell, go for it and see what comes of it. The big downside on Goryo's is the fact that it targets, and Reanimate on Griselbrand in certain match-ups will win you the game (Burn and Burn like decks, provided you do it early enough that the 8 life loss is a non factor). That being said, I have had a few games recently where I would have much rather had Goryo over Reanimate.

Test it and come back with some notes.

I have personally been testing +2 Silence -2 Thoughtseize (Adding Massacre and another bounce spell to the side) since I don't own Thoughtseize and am unable to borrow them regularly. So far, it's been working out great, but that's mostly because my local meta is either combo (Silence during their combo is fun) or control (I want more silence anyway) and minimal Aggro decks (maybe some Goblins). I think that Thoughtseize is necessary at a large event, but for my meta, Silences have been working fine.

[.dk]

That's one of the downsides of goryo's vengeance. The larger one, in my opinion, is that it any reanimate children of korlis. If you reanimate Griselbrand with Shallow Grave, having an extra spell left that can make Children is crucial - I would highly recommend against replacing reanimate with Goryo's Vengeance for that reason.

[Tachikoma]

タチコマ歓迎!

.dk-san こんばんわ＾＾


but I would highly recommend taking some time to read the past 30 pages or so - lots of good discussions in general.
I'm catching up, 10 pages already :) I also watched Logan's SCG open videos.


Remember, even if they counter your self-thoughtseize, you effectively did the same thing as thoughtseizing them too since you wouldn't be taking one of their threats. That gives you the most outs off the top in drawing more discard to continue to self target, or an entomb.
That's what I was thinking


If it is game 1 and you think you have an opportunity to cast Entomb (and believe that they are a discard heavy deck), you might want to just go for it and cast entomb, even if you don't have a reanimation spell. Don't give them the opportunity to strip it from your hand - Entomb is the weakest link in this deck.
I saw Logan do this in one of his videos, and said to myself I got to play more to see those obvious things :)

Thanks for your advice !

I changed my build to include 3 Gitaxian Probes, and T1 killed a Canadian Tre shold online last night, which is always good for self-confidence :)
Post luck + Post side was another (sad) story ... still have to work :)
The probes are definitely a must though.

[Tachikoma]

I just pulled Rite of Consumption from my first beta home made BG instant reanimator deck.

I can see several uses of it.
When you Shallow/Goryo Griselbrand, it avoids the exile, so that even if you fizzle after drawing you can start over next turn without needing an Entomb.
(+ if you swinged with Grisel + the Rite, your opponent is at 6 so one Grisel hit away ...)
It can help to gain 7 life for 2 mana in situations where you can't attack with Grisel and you are below the crtical 7 life.
It makes Emrakul a potential kill on its own (Swing for 15 + Rite of consumption = 30.)

Any thoughts ?

(Sorry if this card already has been mentioned somewhere in the 50 pages :)

[Acclimation]

I'm catching up, 10 pages already :) I also watched Logan's SCG open videos.

I saw Logan do this in one of his videos, and said to myself I got to play more to see those obvious things :)

:cool: Although, I am slightly embarrassed about punting game 3 in the top 8, I should have changed my sideboard like I planned (I will always bitch about this).



I changed my build to include 3 Gitaxian Probes, and T1 killed a Canadian Tre shold online last night, which is always good for self-confidence :)
Post luck + Post side was another (sad) story ... still have to work :)
The probes are definitely a must though.


Getting those turn 1 kills are always great, especially against TT, I love beating that deck with Combo.

I highly recommend adding a 4th probe, sitting at 61 cards is worth it for the information and potential for greed. Just my opinion though.

As for the Rite, I think we're a bit tight on space (although, you could probably swap tendrils for it), and would prefer to stick with what I have for wincons. Really neat suggestion though.

[Tachikoma]

Hi There,

I'm back with a few more games and I have to say I'm really really liking the deck, now that I know how to play it.
I 400% agree with you, it's a really deck to be played "Cowboy Style" :)

First I went the Rite of Consumption route (replacing Tendrills) and I'm quite happy with the results :
- Most of the time it's equal to Tendrills : it sits in your hand while you Swing with Griselbrand + Emrakul :)
- Quite a few times the 2 mana cost really made a difference, for example against burn and aggro decks when your life total go low and you can't draw enough gather the petals or dark rit for the tendrills (I was surprised, but it happened several times), you play the rite, your opponent is at 6 or less, your life total is safe, and your Grislebrand is waiting in the grave begging to be reanimated and swing for the win next turn :)
- Only once it was worse, but it was in a situation I was going infinite anyway, so it just made the kill longer.
- I killed once with reanimated Emrakul alone + Rite (but yes, only once :)
- Nobody knows this card, so you surprises even those who know the deck, which is always fun :)

So yes it's not revolutionary, but it seems to be a valid replacement to Tendrills.
Of course "your mileage may vary", but it's definitely not worse, and I'll stick with it as my personal touch to this deck :)

Other thoughts
- Silence really rules, not only against combo/countermagic, but It can protect you against a surgical extraction in the middle of your combo too.
- Gitaxian Probe rules too :)
- I removed the Lim-Dul's vault, I'm always too short of mana for UB + it does not makes you draw, the only time I casted it was to put the five on the top almost in the same order :) ... if you really want some more draw, maybe Impulse is better ?
- I think 3 moxen is really a plus: I was surprised to find myself struggling to make the combo go on because one lacking petal/mox more often that I would have expected.
- Sideboarding is really tough ... the deck is really tighten up, Reanimate goes out first, then Probes although I don't like them out except when replacing them with Silence, and that's it, 4 cards only ...
I often ends up with a generic 2 silence/2 surgical extractions in, and go for speed.
That said my ass was saved several times by
- Needle against Deathrite Shaman
- Massacre against Thalia/Canonist (but not when Gaddock is there ......)
Never sided in anything else so far, but I'm still not very confident in my sideboarding choices in general ... any sideboarding experiences to share ?

Last tourney at my local store was better, still not terrific (2-2), but games I lost were often one draw away for the win :)
- Junk 2-0 T1 kill on game 2
- Show-Halls-enter-The-Infinite-Ants 0-2 but game 2 I was going infinite, forgot about him having a Leyline of Sanctity and ended up to loose on bad rule interpretation (that I'm force to target myself if I cast Rite of consumption, that if I cast it on myself I die before gaining the life ...) + I did a game 3 just to to see how it goes, and I won :((( (where is the smiley for "I hate myself" ?)
I also played 5-6 games against a friend with a Sneak and Show and we're definitely faster :)
- BUG shardless with a lot of discard 0-2 ... heavy discard+deathrite shaman+force of will = waaay to much, aggressive mulligan, aggressive play and speed seems to be only weapon there ..
- Burn 2-0 easy thanks to the Rite

Also any idea about how to deal with counter top ? I just lost to one online and don't see any option when counterbalance hits the table.
The only thing I see is Boseiju, Who Shelters All, but it comes into play tapped, which can be read as "comes into play wastelanded" ...

Well ... next tourney 3-1 that's my goal :)

Have a nice week-end

[phazonmutant]

I'm back with a few more games and I have to say I'm really really liking the deck, now that I know how to play it.
I 400% agree with you, it's a really deck to be played "Cowboy Style" :)

Absolutely. This deck is definitely closer to Belcher than High Tide on the ballsy-to-durdly spectrum.


First I went the Rite of Consumption route (replacing Tendrills) and I'm quite happy with the results :
- Most of the time it's equal to Tendrills : it sits in your hand while you Swing with Griselbrand + Emrakul :)
- Quite a few times the 2 mana cost really made a difference, for example against burn and aggro decks when your life total go low and you can't draw enough gather the petals or dark rit for the tendrills (I was surprised, but it happened several times), you play the rite, your opponent is at 6 or less, your life total is safe, and your Grislebrand is waiting in the grave begging to be reanimated and swing for the win next turn :)
- Only once it was worse, but it was in a situation I was going infinite anyway, so it just made the kill longer.
- I killed once with reanimated Emrakul alone + Rite (but yes, only once :)
- Nobody knows this card, so you surprises even those who know the deck, which is always fun :)

The first bullet is the reason I'm not a fan of Tendrils. There are definitely oddball scenarios where Tendrils can be useful if you happen to draw it, but pretty sure for every one time that happens, nine more times you draw Tendrils and it rots in your hand. Basically the only decks where drawing Tendrils is relevant are decks with Swords and grave hate - so the miserable Miracles matchup preboard, and other W decks postboard.


- I removed the Lim-Dul's vault, I'm always too short of mana for UB + it does not makes you draw, the only time I casted it was to put the five on the top almost in the same order :) ... if you really want some more draw, maybe Impulse is better ?
- I think 3 moxen is really a plus: I was surprised to find myself struggling to make the combo go on because one lacking petal/mox more often that I would have expected.

Seems like a step backwards. Adding LDV and cutting Chrome Mox were both changes that helped with consistency in making a Griselbrand, which is by far the most important thing to optimize.


- Sideboarding is really tough ... the deck is really tighten up, Reanimate goes out first, then Probes although I don't like them out except when replacing them with Silence, and that's it, 4 cards only ...
I often ends up with a generic 2 silence/2 surgical extractions in, and go for speed.
That said my ass was saved several times by
- Needle against Deathrite Shaman
- Massacre against Thalia/Canonist (but not when Gaddock is there ......)
Never sided in anything else so far, but I'm still not very confident in my sideboarding choices in general ... any sideboarding experiences to share ?

You're right that it's vital to keep a light touch. A total of 4 cards sounds about right for almost every matchup.


Also any idea about how to deal with counter top ? I just lost to one online and don't see any option when counterbalance hits the table.
The only thing I see is Boseiju, Who Shelters All, but it comes into play tapped, which can be read as "comes into play wastelanded" ...

Boseiju doesn't help Entomb, which is what the good players will counter anyway. It's also slow and Wasteable as you mentioned. I've pretty much written off the Miracles matchup. I've tested probably 50 games with different builds against a good player (alphastryk) and my percentage is like 20% at most. Of course, he always played a list with RiP and at least 3-4 hate bears in the sideboard, but his list wasn't especially inbred, that's just what he believed was optimal.
If your goal is solely to beat Counterbalance, splashing G and playing Abrupt Decay is very reasonable (and Reverent Silence is not unreasonable). The problem is you can't ever beat any 2 things that stop you (hate permanents, counterspells, etc). The only way to win is to ask if they have it turn 1.

Good luck, glad to see new interest in the deck!

Edit: just reread this:

Show-Halls-enter-The-Infinite-Ants 0-2 but game 2 I was going infinite, forgot about him having a Leyline of Sanctity and ended up to loose on bad rule interpretation (that I'm force to target myself if I cast Rite of consumption, that if I cast it on myself I die before gaining the life ...) + I did a game 3 just to to see how it goes, and I won :((( (where is the smiley for "I hate myself" ?)

Wat. A) "Forcing" you to target yourself is wrong. If a spell is cast illegally (or an ability is activated illegally) for any reason (besides cheating of course) and it's caught within a reasonably brief window of time, the game is simply rewound to the last legal state (before casting the spell). This includes illegal targets, improper colors, not enough mana, etc. B) Both losing life and gaining life are part of the resolution of the spell. State based actions are checked only if a player would gain priority, not in the middle of resolving a spell.
Someone really screwed the pooch on that ruling.

[Acclimation]

Hi There,

I'm back with a few more games and I have to say I'm really really liking the deck, now that I know how to play it.
I 400% agree with you, it's a really deck to be played "Cowboy Style" :)

First I went the Rite of Consumption route (replacing Tendrills) and I'm quite happy with the results :
- Most of the time it's equal to Tendrills : it sits in your hand while you Swing with Griselbrand + Emrakul :)
- Quite a few times the 2 mana cost really made a difference, for example against burn and aggro decks when your life total go low and you can't draw enough gather the petals or dark rit for the tendrills (I was surprised, but it happened several times), you play the rite, your opponent is at 6 or less, your life total is safe, and your Grislebrand is waiting in the grave begging to be reanimated and swing for the win next turn :)
- Only once it was worse, but it was in a situation I was going infinite anyway, so it just made the kill longer.
- I killed once with reanimated Emrakul alone + Rite (but yes, only once :)
- Nobody knows this card, so you surprises even those who know the deck, which is always fun :)

So yes it's not revolutionary, but it seems to be a valid replacement to Tendrills.
Of course "your mileage may vary", but it's definitely not worse, and I'll stick with it as my personal touch to this deck :)

Good to see you had good results with it. I recently had a game versus UWR Stoneforge/Delver where I had to get him with a Tendrils kill (no reanimation shenanigans, just baiting him into casting spells and breaking fetches and playing all 7 cards in hand). I'll stick with Tendrils personally, but perhaps Rite might be worth testing some more.


Other thoughts
- Silence really rules, not only against combo/countermagic, but It can protect you against a surgical extraction in the middle of your combo too.
- Gitaxian Probe rules too :)

I absolutely love Silence and Probe, I have a hard time playing a combo deck without either.


- I removed the Lim-Dul's vault, I'm always too short of mana for UB + it does not makes you draw, the only time I casted it was to put the five on the top almost in the same order :) ... if you really want some more draw, maybe Impulse is better ?

LDV is a card that you should play more with. It's not used for draw, but to find that missing combo piece (or two). 2 mana to stack our deck is pretty awesome. I don't cast LDV often, but when I do, it's awesome.


- I think 3 moxen is really a plus: I was surprised to find myself struggling to make the combo go on because one lacking petal/mox more often that I would have expected.
I have this problem often, I struggle to seal the deal due to not finding that fast mana. It doesn't happen TOO often, but if I'm struggling mid combo, that's usually the reason why.


- Sideboarding is really tough ... the deck is really tighten up, Reanimate goes out first, then Probes although I don't like them out except when replacing them with Silence, and that's it, 4 cards only ...
I often ends up with a generic 2 silence/2 surgical extractions in, and go for speed.
That said my ass was saved several times by
- Needle against Deathrite Shaman
- Massacre against Thalia/Canonist (but not when Gaddock is there ......)
Never sided in anything else so far, but I'm still not very confident in my sideboarding choices in general ... any sideboarding experiences to share ?

Koby and I were having a small discussion about sideboarding on twitter last night, I think that discussing options and strategies on the thread might not be a bad idea in light of the new rules change. I almost always side out the Probes for whatever I bring in, since I'm not siding in more than 4 cards. Silence also goes out fairly often if I don't need it (Jund is the big one that comes to mind).

Sideboarding is a bit tricky, we want to bring in enough stuff to shore up those match-ups or to counter hate, but we don't want to sacrifice speed. If you don't have too great a grasp on sideboarding, I recommend not changing the board for game 2 (unless there's an obvious change like more Silences), and waiting until game 3 (if there is one) to make the proper changes. This assumes you won game 1, but that should be the case more often than not.

Pithing Needle is great versus Deathrite Shaman, I always bring it in versus DRS decks. It also hoses opposing Tormod's Crypts, Nihil Spellbombs, Sneak Attacks, Sensei's Divining Top, Liliana of the Veil, Karakas, and so on. A lot of applications, I like it as a 3 of.

Massacre isn't in my sideboard if I have access to Thoughtseize, but I think it's a lot better option over Pull from Eternity, which I'm still running (for some reason). Obviously great against Thalia and Ethersworn Canonist and other hatebears that aren't named Gaddock Teeg.

Chain of Vapor (and Echoing Truth) exist as general purpose anti-hate cards. If you expect some flavor of permanent hate, and either Needle can't hit it (or you don't know what to name), bring it in. Leylines of both flavor, Pyrostatic Pillar, Rest in Peace, Counterbalance (gl with that), Sphere of Resistance, Chalice, Trinisphere, Ensnaring Bridge, and so on.

Serenity hits all of the things I mentioned above, and is great to bring in against decks that utilize the above cards. I find that Serenity is better against Counterbalance decks, since the game is going to be slower, and Chain is better when you want to be speedy. Serenity is great though, and I think 2 is the right number.

Pull from Eternity- great against decks that are going to be exiling your reanimation targets. The problem is, is that you can play around exile effects by reading the proper signs and boarding in more appropriate cards, such as Serenity, Silence, or Chain of Vapor. It's not bad in a long game, in which you have to reanimate multiple times and need to "buyback" your Griselbrands, but those long games aren't in our favor. Probably not worth the slots, so unless you need filler, this could be replaced.

Silence exists in the sideboard in some numbers depending on your configuration (I have 3 main and 1 side currently, but if you have access to Thoughtseize, you probably have 1 main and 3 side). This almost always comes in against Force of Will decks and against opposing combo decks, and I usually side out Gitaxian Probes for them. If for some reason you are in a meta that doesn't need silence effects, you could always replace the Silences with more discard, but 4-6 mainboard discard effects should be enough.

Surgical Extraction is for Dredge and opposing GY strategies. You could also bring these in against combo decks as well. I like this as a 3 of, usually replacing Probes when I want them.

I think a solid sideboard would look like this:

3 Pithing Needle
3 Silence (assuming 1 mainboard; if you are like me, I have 2 Pull From Eternity and 1 Silence in the side)
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Chain of Vapor (could probably be cut to 2 if you wanted more Massacre, you could also have one of these be an Echoing Truth if you really want, but Chain should be the first choice)
2 Serenity
1 Massacre (or 2 if you want to cut a Chain)

Koby has been trying a 14 card sideboard (61 maindeck) so he can board out the 14th land against combo, but I personally like using all of my sideboard slots. Once again, YMMV.


Last tourney at my local store was better, still not terrific (2-2), but games I lost were often one draw away for the win :)
- Junk 2-0 T1 kill on game 2
- Show-Halls-enter-The-Infinite-Ants 0-2 but game 2 I was going infinite, forgot about him having a Leyline of Sanctity and ended up to loose on bad rule interpretation (that I'm force to target myself if I cast Rite of consumption, that if I cast it on myself I die before gaining the life ...) + I did a game 3 just to to see how it goes, and I won :((( (where is the smiley for "I hate myself" ?)
I also played 5-6 games against a friend with a Sneak and Show and we're definitely faster :)
- BUG shardless with a lot of discard 0-2 ... heavy discard+deathrite shaman+force of will = waaay to much, aggressive mulligan, aggressive play and speed seems to be only weapon there ..
- Burn 2-0 easy thanks to the Rite

Junk and BGx decks are surprisingly easy matchups. They lean hard on Deathrite Shaman, which is incredibly easy for us to beat.

Know and Tell, or whatever those kids call it, is a super easy match-up for us. We are their worst match-up- and it's all in that speed. They will bring in Leyline, but I never bring in bounce or Serenity, just Silence effects, and I've only lost 1 game to the deck, and have never lost a round to it. If we don't combo off first, a Silence in response to a Show and Tell is enough to buy us time. Also, you wouldn't lose to your own Rites. You lose the life, then gain it back before the spell finishes resolving. State based actions aren't checked here until after the card resolves. Another note, if you cast Probe versus a Leyline, you don't show them your hand, Probe says "Look" and not "reveal." I had a friend tell me about him falling for it, and I had to smack him.

BUG decks are the hardest of the BGx decks, but our speed is our resiliency here. Be aggressive.

Burn is just a slow combo deck. Easy wins for us, provided you aren't dumb and put yourself too low mid combo.


any idea about how to deal with counter top ? I just lost to one online and don't see any option when counterbalance hits the table.
The only thing I see is Boseiju, Who Shelters All, but it comes into play tapped, which can be read as "comes into play wastelanded" ...

Well ... next tourney 3-1 that's my goal :)

Have a nice week-end

Counterbalance is such a hard match-up. I'm pretty sure this is the only deck that I'm at least even with, if not a bit negative in w/l ratio against. Being aggressive is the best thing, just hope they tap out for something silly and don't have a Force (shitty advice, I know). I played against a Counterbalance deck the other day that brought in Tormod's and Surgical against me, but no Rest in Peace (he had Snapcaster). Needless to say, I lost when he went t1 Crypt and Top, t2 Counterbalance, t3 sit on a gorillion counterspells to counter my Serenity, LDV, and Pithing Needle AND keep a Surgical on top for easy access. That was the least amount of fun I had ever had with this deck. (In fact, a week later and I'm still mad about it :mad: ).

I saw Boseiju in a few lists earlier in the year, but the problem with it are: Comes into play tapped and produces colorless mana. I don't like it, but it might be worth consideration against Counterbalance.

[Tachikoma]

Seems like a step backwards. Adding LDV and cutting Chrome Mox were both changes that helped with consistency in making a Griselbrand, which is by far the most important thing to optimize.

Yes I know, if I look at Logan's list, it goes to the opposite direction : 61 cards, less Griselbrand, less Mox, more lands, less discard, more library manipulation.
Based on the games I did so far, making a Griselbrand was very rarely a problem, the problem is more getting it through counter/exile/discard and getting it not to fizzle.
But based on your results against mine, I would say it's probably even more rarely a problem for you :)
I just seems counter-intuitive to situations I faced
- "I really want to draw a Griselbrand, because I have no Entomb but Cabal Therapy+Goryo/Shallow, what if I cut 1 ?"
- "I really want to have a discard to get rid of this FoW/Daze (which will turn into Fow/Daze/Pierce next turn after a brainstorm), but I have a LDV, what if I add another LDV and cut Thoughtseize ?"
- "I only have one USea, it's gonna be wastelanded next turn, I need my petal for Silence, I need to ponder/brainstorm to draw for the win, but if I do, no dark ritual or no silence ... I have lands in hand, I want a mox instead !"

I would say the LDV and the Mox cases are 2 different things
I can see how LDV can make the difference though ... just never was in a situation it did, maybe because 1 is too random ... I have to think about it and try more configurations ...
As for the 3rd mox, I just added it and I cut a land for it so it should not change combo consistency, so far it at least once turned a fizzle into a win, so i'll go for it.


and Reverent Silence is not unreasonable
Did not know this one (this is why I love Magic, soooo many unknown interesting cards :)
But still need the splash, which seems not reasonable at all considering how sensitive to wasteland we can be ...



Wat. A) "Forcing" you to target yourself is wrong. If a spell is cast illegally (or an ability is activated illegally) for any reason (besides cheating of course) and it's caught within a reasonably brief window of time, the game is simply rewound to the last legal state (before casting the spell). This includes illegal targets, improper colors, not enough mana, etc. B) Both losing life and gaining life are part of the resolution of the spell. State based actions are checked only if a player would gain priority, not in the middle of resolving a spell.
Someone really screwed the pooch on that ruling.

Yes the judge said exactly that afterwards, but what happened was :
- I played the Rite with an arrogant smile on my face
- I looked at his board seeing a beautiful foil Leyline
- My arrogant smile turn into a "I am the stupidest guy in the universe, but I played it ... anyway I'll win next turn"
- He said "wait you have to target something"
- Me : "uuh yes maybe ... so I target myself ? ok then what ? .... I'm at ... 9 ... I take ... 15 ... so I ...."
- He : "yes"
- My "I am the stupidest guy in the universe" turned into "If I had myself in front of me I would beat myself to death", then I was so angry, and wrapped up my deck, and the second I put my 30+ cards hand on top of my library, I thought .... hey wait ... I take 15 but I win 15 too !!!!
- We called the judge, he explained what you explained, but too late, I had "conceded" ....

Casual tourney player VS pro, isn't it ? ;)
At least now I know :)

[Tachikoma]

Chain of Vapor (and Echoing Truth) exist as general purpose anti-hate cards. If you expect some flavor of permanent hate, and either Needle can't hit it (or you don't know what to name), bring it in. Leylines of both flavor, Pyrostatic Pillar, Rest in Peace, Counterbalance (gl with that), Sphere of Resistance, Chalice, Trinisphere, Ensnaring Bridge, and so on.

Counterbalance no, Chain or Echoing Truth will be countered
Same for Chalice
Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere and other mana denial thing, yes but you're likely to have to wait for more mana, and then get more denial than you can get around ...
But yes it's still useful in some cases, I just noticed those cases seems to be very rare though.



Serenity hits all of the things I mentioned above, and is great to bring in against decks that utilize the above cards. I find that Serenity is better against Counterbalance decks, since the game is going to be slower, and Chain is better when you want to be speedy. Serenity is great though, and I think 2 is the right number.


Again Serenity has to go through Counterbalance, which is far from guaranteed ...
Am I traumatized by counterbalance ? well ... :)



Pull from Eternity- great against decks that are going to be exiling your reanimation targets. The problem is, is that you can play around exile effects by reading the proper signs and boarding in more appropriate cards, such as Serenity, Silence, or Chain of Vapor. It's not bad in a long game, in which you have to reanimate multiple times and need to "buyback" your Griselbrands, but those long games aren't in our favor. Probably not worth the slots, so unless you need filler, this could be replaced.
This really seems a good but not "save your ass" type of sideboard card, which tend to lead it out of the sideboard ...
Each time I think about siding it in, I say to myself it's not better than what I have to remove.



Silence exists in the sideboard in some numbers depending on your configuration

1 main, 2 side so far, 90% of the time 2 probes out 2 silence in, 90% of time useful
So yes having more of them main makes sense ... the only problem I had with silence is its whiteness ...again (wasted)land/petal/moxen story



I played against a Counterbalance deck the other day that brought in Tormod's and Surgical against me, but no Rest in Peace (he had Snapcaster). Needless to say, I lost when he went t1 Crypt and Top, t2 Counterbalance, t3 sit on a gorillion counterspells to counter my Serenity, LDV, and Pithing Needle AND keep a Surgical on top for easy access. That was the least amount of fun I had ever had with this deck. (In fact, a week later and I'm still mad about it :mad: ).

You described exactly the games I had (including madness about it :)

[phazonmutant]

Yes I know, if I look at Logan's list, it goes to the opposite direction : 61 cards, less Griselbrand, less Mox, more lands, less discard, more library manipulation.
Based on the games I did so far, making a Griselbrand was very rarely a problem, the problem is more getting it through counter/exile/discard and getting it not to fizzle.
But based on your results against mine, I would say it's probably even more rarely a problem for you :)
I just seems counter-intuitive to situations I faced
- "I really want to draw a Griselbrand, because I have no Entomb but Cabal Therapy+Goryo/Shallow, what if I cut 1 ?"
- "I really want to have a discard to get rid of this FoW/Daze (which will turn into Fow/Daze/Pierce next turn after a brainstorm), but I have a LDV, what if I add another LDV and cut Thoughtseize ?"
- "I only have one USea, it's gonna be wastelanded next turn, I need my petal for Silence, I need to ponder/brainstorm to draw for the win, but if I do, no dark ritual or no silence ... I have lands in hand, I want a mox instead !"

I would say the LDV and the Mox cases are 2 different things
I can see how LDV can make the difference though ... just never was in a situation it did, maybe because 1 is too random ... I have to think about it and try more configurations ...
As for the 3rd mox, I just added it and I cut a land for it so it should not change combo consistency, so far it at least once turned a fizzle into a win, so i'll go for it.

The most important thing to realize is that "fizzling" still usually results in you winning. Really, how many times have you gone off with Griselbrand and failed to win? It definitely happens if you're too aggressive with life and they have pressure, or if they can drop Rest in Peace or something, but otherwise even when I fizzle, I just kill them next turn.

The Griselbrand count is definitely still in contention. Koby and .dk prefer 3 or 4 I believe, but I'm a fan of 2. Maybe I'm just the champ at drawing him in my opener on the draw, but every time I draw him and can't immediately draw-discard, it feels miserable. Against the difficult matchups, you can't really afford to use your discard on yourself anyway. Again, it goes back to my philosophy of minimizing dead combo pieces that you can draw.

For the second point, yeah sometimes you need a Thoughtseize. And sometimes you need an Entomb, and sometimes you need a Shallow Grave. The point is that LDV is a vampiric tutor.

We played 3 Chrome Mox for a while, then 2 for even longer. The number of times they were relevant pre-combo were few, and the number of times they were worse than a land were many.



Did not know this one (this is why I love Magic, soooo many unknown interesting cards :)
But still need the splash, which seems not reasonable at all considering how sensitive to wasteland we can be ...

The manabase I'd been toying with was this:
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Marsh Flats

It was playing well, stable, and as long as you're smart about fetching duals when you actually need to fetch duals, produced all the colors when needed. I haven't played the deck enough recently to know if this is the correct manabase, but it's been fine so far.


About the Rite thing - oooooh, that sucks :(

[Koby]

My list (61/15) has not changed since Bazaar of Moxen (you can see it on my blog linked in the signature below). I have since cut a Surgical Extraction from the sideboard down to 14 so I can go back to 60/15 in some sideboard games.

I'm still on 2 Griselbrand, as I believe that is all this deck needs once LDV was added. The goal is always to maximize the speed of the combo. Adding more Griselbrand does add the density, but not the means of putting it into the graveyard.

On an interesting note, the new Legendary rules has made some funny and interesting interactions. In one game, I Reanimated Griselbrand, draw Children of Korlis right away, used it to regain all the life, then Entomb/Shallow Graved a second Griselbrand to be able to attack. Keep in mind that we have many more tricks available now.

I'm going to put together a walk-through guide with the deck against a few sample DTBs so we can get better idea of how to play this deck. Look for it in about 2 months. (time is limited for me)

[.dk]

I don't have a current list for this deck, but it would probably be very similar to Koby's. I'm definitely on 2 Griselbrand - I was playing around with 3-4 again a while back testing out Careful Study again. Wasn't good enough, LDV was better.

I hadn't really thought about this deck in relation to the M14 rules - Koby brings up some really good points that there are many more tricks available to us now. I'm rather interested to find them - unfortunately I don't think any of them help us in our ability to fight through 2 pieces of hate. :(

[Tachikoma]

Hi, There

Just a quick report and thoughts out of may weekly local store tournament.


next tourney 3-1 that's my goal :)

And I ... failed .... 2-2 again :)
But overall It felt more consistent, no fizzle, just lost when my opponent had more answer/hate I could deal with.

For information, here is my 60 cards list as for now

3 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Children of Korlis
1 Rite of Consumption

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
1 Lim-Dûl's Vault
3 Gitaxian Probe

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
1 Silence

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond

// 13 Lands
1 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Scrubland
3 Underground Sea

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


I forced myself to fit in LDV, even tested with 2 on cockatrice, never came except once: casted it, spent 4 life to stack for the win, then fetched .......
I can definitely see the potential, but I'm sticking to one until Wizards edits a better replacement that draws :)

Talking about cantrips, during the games I noted that Brainstorm got me to the win several times by getting me the missing piece + the missing way to cast/protect it right away (dark rit, petal/mox, silence/discard) in one draw. This + instant speed made me think it's a little more relevant than Ponder in our deck, but it's by no mean saying Ponder is not relevant :)
I'm also thinking about trying Sensei Top, as it seems to be the closest thing to a Brainstorm available (I like Mirri's Guile too, but it's green and lacking the draw ability, which makes it slower so probably not for us). Telling Time would be great if it did not cost 2 ...

Other minor notes on my list
- I'm going to change 2 Chrome/1 Diamond, by 2 Diamond/1 Chrome, those 3 definitely helped in preventing fizzling, and Diamond is way more flexible in those situation (and is usually as crappy as its Chrome friend early game, but still I somehow prefer to dump a USea which is going to be wastelanded anyway, than imprint a useful card like Cabal therapy/Seize ...).
I'm pretty confident about this Mox addition (replacing a 14th land)
- Removed the Tundra for an additional fetch (which happens to be a Misty only because I don't have 2 Flooded Strands and I want blue). Had problems with God Hands like Entomb+Probe+Discard+2 Shallow/Goryo+Dark rit+ ... Tundra few time, that's why. It can still happen with the basic Island, but I want to keep that Island, as my meta is a Wasteland field.
Any reason for that specific Tundra ? over a Scrubland or another USea for example ?
- On the side the 1 CoV/2 Echoing Truth should be 2 CoV/1Echoing truth, just don't have the second CoV right now :)
- Removed the Reanimate, so far never won me a game, never saved me. Of course there is the "Reanimate opponent's Snapcaster" case which is quite cool I admit, but how many times does this happens VS having it when a Shallow/Goryo is needed ?

The rest is Good ol' Stock list :)

Now the results
- Round 1 Junk super heavy discard. 0-2
Game 1 : Tough one .... I kept a hand with Cabal, Goryo, and Emrakul, I probed for his hand seeing "A fucking encyclopedia of discard" (Copyright Richard Cheese :), so I decided I had to Emrakul strike ASAP as T2, hoping it would slow him down enough so that I can reassemble another combo hand. It actually did, as he put a Shaman on, and had to keep his only green mana open for a long time fearing every single card I drew.
But those "Every single cards" were mainly lands and mox crap and, although going down to 1 life by himself, he recovered his discard abilities thanks to Top + Bob before I could assemble anything, I had so much mana acceleration I was able to hardcast Grizzle, but then came Liliana :( I eventually died by a late Tarmo.
Game 2 : I had to play around the Shaman again after a Decayed Needle, dodging the discard at the same time (well, not successfully dodging unfortunately), he just shut me down completely with a surprising Chains of Mephistopheles which happens to be a massive hate on Cantrips + Griselbrand at the same time ...

- Round 2 Weeny white with a bunch of soldiers backed up by Mother of Runes. 2-1
Thought it to be easy as my only fear was Thalia.
Game 1 : Thoughtseized looking for Thalia, found a maindeck RIP !! Then went of for the win some turns later.
Game 2 : Boarded in only CoV/Echoing. T1 Grafdigger Cage, never got the CoV, Game over.
Game 3 : He mulliganed to 4 hoping to get the T1 hate again, but didn't. T2 kill.

- Round 3 : Belcher 2-0
This one was quite fun, I never played against Belcher before.
Game 1 : I start with a simple fetch and pass, He smiles at me with what I assumes to be the typical Belcher player smile, and start throwing off a bunch of spells, then a Belcher. I ask "Am I dead now ?" "He says "You're lucky I can't activate it now but the clock is ticking" keeping his smile. I say "OK", Brainstorm and find the exact 2 cards missing for a T2 kill, I assume I had the same smile as he had :)
Game 2 : I keep a crappy hand with Needle and needles Belcher. it was probably the longest TinFins vs Belcher game ever (maybe 3 or 4 turns :), When he started smiling back, I got the discard for Empty the warrens, and went off the turn after.
We had the time to do 4 games after this one just for fun, I only lost one, so the matchups seems to be for us.

- Round 4 : Merfolk 1-2
Game 1 : T1 Kill on the draw
Game 2 : He was so scared to do anything and thus not being able to counter, I barely saw a single Merfolk before long, only a Mutavault.
I kept pressuring on his counters with discard which were all Pierced or Dazed, after 3 countered-discards in a row, I threw a Silence, which was FoWed and thought, ok he has 2 cards in hand, let's go ... Fow :( Then I had no more cards in hand, so he started beating me up with the Mutavault, soon backed up with one or 2 lords.
Game 3 : Had a T1 kill hand, Probed to see a FoW and a Surgical, went almost the same as G2, except that the Surgical gave him more flexibility so he started beating me up earlier, added a Jitte on top of it and I was not able to go off before dying.

Some sideboarding note:
- I'm starting to think that, in our deck, except against Karakas, CoV >= Pithing Needle 95% of the time. As we usually go off the turn after the hate leaves play, so shutting it off permanently doesn't really matter + it can get rid of non activated hate. I mean Needle is powerful, but in a "I can't side out more than 4 cards" situation, maybe CoV is a better choice.

[Tachikoma]

The most important thing to realize is that "fizzling" still usually results in you winning. Really, how many times have you gone off with Griselbrand and failed to win?

I thought about this and really I have to say I don't remember a single game I fizzled and won after (except easy matchups which are defenseless against our combo). In my experience, in difficult matchups, wins are almost always sneaking in through a wall of hate/discard/counters or pressure. And the occasion only happens once in the game. The turn after you fizzle, that Shaman goes out of its summoning sickness, Thalia comes in (or any other hate or .... Counterbalance :), he goes out of Silence and brainstorms for this additional counter or get this additional mana which let him counter AND play, he Storms/Belchers/Enter the infinite or whatever combo he plays ... you name it ... That's again just based on my experience, you played way more matches than I did with this deck so I might be wrong.

[phazonmutant]

Talking about cantrips, during the games I noted that Brainstorm got me to the win several times by getting me the missing piece + the missing way to cast/protect it right away (dark rit, petal/mox, silence/discard) in one draw. This + instant speed made me think it's a little more relevant than Ponder in our deck, but it's by no mean saying Ponder is not relevant :)
I'm also thinking about trying Sensei Top, as it seems to be the closest thing to a Brainstorm available (I like Mirri's Guile too, but it's green and lacking the draw ability, which makes it slower so probably not for us). Telling Time would be great if it did not cost 2 ...

Wait, Brainstorm is a good card? Whoah. :tongue:
I really can't get behind fewer than the set of Ponders. It's just so critical to finding the right pieces. I've already mentioned things I would cut in your list, so I'll refrain from reiterating.
Top has good synergy with LDV, but TinFins really doesn't grind well. I don't like Top in this deck.


- Removed the Tundra for an additional fetch (which happens to be a Misty only because I don't have 2 Flooded Strands and I want blue). Had problems with God Hands like Entomb+Probe+Discard+2 Shallow/Goryo+Dark rit+ ... Tundra few time, that's why. It can still happen with the basic Island, but I want to keep that Island, as my meta is a Wasteland field.
Any reason for that specific Tundra ? over a Scrubland or another USea for example ?
- Removed the Reanimate, so far never won me a game, never saved me. Of course there is the "Reanimate opponent's Snapcaster" case which is quite cool I admit, but how many times does this happens VS having it when a Shallow/Goryo is needed ?

The Tundra is a bit sketchy. I played it because I wanted 2 W sources and generally bias U in my combo decks, but Koby has played 2 Scrubland in the past.
It's won me several games and I've won games reanimating my opponent's man. You also didn't replace it with anything, which is a problem. Keep in mind traditional reanimator plays 10 outs. 10! Going down to 7 is a huge change in percentages.


Some sideboarding note:
- I'm starting to think that, in our deck, except against Karakas, CoV >= Pithing Needle 95% of the time. As we usually go off the turn after the hate leaves play, so shutting it off permanently doesn't really matter + it can get rid of non activated hate. I mean Needle is powerful, but in a "I can't side out more than 4 cards" situation, maybe CoV is a better choice.

I agree. I had a pile of Needles in the board at SCG Atlanta, but CoV is more versatile. I like having 1 or 2 at most, but getting your Needle Decayed sure is embarrassing.

[Tachikoma]

Someone at the tourney asked me "do you play Stifle ? You could stifle the EOT exile of Goryo/shallow grave !"

Keeping reanimated Grisel or Emrakul in play sounds quite a nice option...
I was asking myself if Stifle was a dead card except for that use ... Well it's a powerful card anyway but at first sight it does not fit the "proactive more than reactive" strategy of our deck.
But at the same time it can be quite useful against hate and break that Shaman, Karakas, Relic/Crypt that prevents us to go off and that Silence can't .. silence :)
And again when opponent keeps only that one fetch as a way to brainstorm/activate the shaman or whatever that prevents you going off safely ... Stifle can be very good.
+ it might have the "not expected" effect.

Maybe a sideboard option ? not sure ...
What do you think ?

[dameus]

I forced myself to fit in LDV, even tested with 2 on cockatrice, never came except once: casted it, spent 4 life to stack for the win, then fetched .......
I can definitely see the potential, but I'm sticking to one until Wizards edits a better replacement that draws :)


We can dream of a black version of Merchant Scroll, but for now, the closest thing to an LDV that draws is Peer Through Depths. It's been suggested and rejected as inferior many pages back, but feel free to give it a spin if you can't live without the draw.

3 Mox is nuts. It's been said before but worth repeating, making great hands better and average hands worse is not a recipe for consistency. I played 14 lands and 2 Mox early on (1 foil/1 not) and noted how many times I wish 1 was a land. It didn't take long to convince myself to drop down to 1 Mox.

As for the number of Gris discussion, I'm happy with 3 Demons, 6 (self) discard, 1 Careful Study, and an LDV. Maybe I'm lucky, but the miser Careful Study seems to come at the right time and be very welcome.

As for Stifle ... it's hard to say what it replaces, but I think it's worth testing.

[phazonmutant]

The deck you're looking for is Next-Level Reanimtor: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23794-Griselbrand-Reanimator

It's a ton of fun and I'd probably play it over traditional reanimator. Stifle fits pretty well as a card to pitch to Force and as a randomly awesome card. The deck's creator said that he had put it on the backburner to play more with TinFins, hasn't been much activity in the thread since. NLR is weird because it usually wins by going off multiple times - once you've resolved Griselbrand, it's hard to lose. There's also some cute interactions like reanimating Jin-Gitaxias at the opponent's EOT will mind twist them and also draw you 7 cards at your EOT.

It's going to be pretty much impossible to fit Stifle in TinFins. The deck is designed to kill in one turn so runs more fast mana, which takes up a lot of room. It just doesn't fit with the deck's plan.

[Koby]

I've began playing Tin Fins on MTGO again, to some moderate success. Checkout my stream for archived/highlighted reels. There was game three in the last match that really ended up interesting. I won't spoil, so look to see how you would have played it differently.

[Acclimation]

On that Brainstorm, I would have put back Ponder and Rit, then I would have sat on the fetch. No need to break it when we have 2 good spells on top, at the very least I would have waited to draw the Ponder next turn before cracking it. Rebuilding a hand with Ponder, Entomb, Ponder, Dark Ritual is better than rebuilding it with Ponder, Entomb, RANDOM CARD, RANDOM Card.

On game 1, I would have named Spell Pierce with the Cabal Therapy, watching it I was thinking it, and then felt good when it popped up on screen.

[lordofthepit]

Rules question: if you target yourself with Tendrils of Agony, does Children of Korlis see it as 2 life for each copy even though the net change with each copy is zero life?

[Acclimation]

Rules question: if you target yourself with Tendrils of Agony, does Children of Korlis see it as 2 life for each copy even though the net change with each copy is zero life?

"The life you gain is based on the total of all changes where your life total went down during the turn, not the net downward change. So if you lose 5 life, gain 3 life, and then lose 2 more life before activating this ability, the ability causes you gain 7 life, not 4."

I would assume that based on the wording in that sentence on the page for Children of Korlis, specifically "not the net downward change," Children would see that you lost 2 life per copy and would gain you that all back.

[Koby]

I have posted a short article on starting hands for Tin Fins. Maybe we can get some discussion about those hands, playing around hate or disruption, and disuss other

https://mtgkoby.wordpress.com/

[Acclimation]

I enjoyed reading the post.

Here's a hand that I got recently: Petal, Mox, Dark Ritual, Shallow Grave, Cabal Therapy, Underground Sea, Tundra.

Do you keep it?

It has no cantrips, but is either an Entomb or Griselbrand away from winning. Considering how much of our deck is cantrips, we could probably keep this one, especially if we are on the draw (assuming blind). However, it could lead to a very slow game in which our opponent just tears us apart while we spin our wheels topdecking nothing.

So, what did I do? Kept it. Drew Marsh Flats on t2 (sad), then on t3 drew Entomb. My opponent had nothing to stop us, so with plenty of mana, I smashed him that turn.

I think in real games though, keeping such a hand is a poor idea.

[Dela]

I've been away from MTG for awhile, but I'm glad this deck has gotten more popular and the thread is growing. I've still been trying to come up with a SB plan that works.

Using the latest list, (Kobe's) perhaps there is a way to make a grave-less transformation post SB. With some obvious adjustment to the mana base, (Misty Rainforest for Marsh Flats and a Scrubland for a Tropical Island... maybe more adjustment? and another Griselbrand main?) perhaps the following SB could work:

Skill Borrower x4
Show and Tell x4
Worldly Tutor x4 or Slyvan Tutor
Griselbrand x1-2
Chain of Vaporx1-2 or some kind of bounce, perhaps even Abrupt Decay

Yes this is slower than the original graveyard based plan, but it gives the deck an alternate way to cheat in Grisel's draw ability and it still works with Children of Korlis if you can brainstorm them back or tutor them up. It gets around needle naming Griselbrand as well. There is obvious synergy with Lim-Dûl's Vault though that is even slower.

I hope this gets the ideas flowing and perhaps there is something here. If nothing else, there may be a similar deck in the making using Unearth, Cavern of Souls or Aether Vile, or Sensei's Divining Top

[dameus]

Skill Borrower and Griselbrand don't make great friends. You only get a single draw 7 out of the trick.

[Dela]

Skill Borrower and Griselbrand don't make great friends. You only get a single draw 7 out of the trick.

I believe you can maintain priority and put two or more activations on the stack

[Tachikoma]

There's also some cute interactions like reanimating Jin-Gitaxias at the opponent's EOT will mind twist them and also draw you 7 cards at your EOT.
I was playing this in my old BG instant reanimator ... it's fun but it appeared to be more often inferior to just go Griselbrand.
I remember doing it once : reanimated Jin EOT ... then came Swords to Plowshares ... well at least I gained 5 life :)
After beating me the guy said, hey your deck looks fun, do you know Tin Fins ? And here I am now ;)

[Tachikoma]

Here's a hand that I got recently: Petal, Mox, Dark Ritual, Shallow Grave, Cabal Therapy, Underground Sea, Tundra.

Do you keep it?

It has no cantrips, but is either an Entomb or Griselbrand away from winning. Considering how much of our deck is cantrips, we could probably keep this one, especially if we are on the draw (assuming blind). However, it could lead to a very slow game in which our opponent just tears us apart while we spin our wheels topdecking nothing.

I can confirm such things can happen :)
I had pretty much the same hand in a game, kept, saw a Windswept Heath followed by Mother of Runes, thought "mmm probably Maverick do I Cabal for a Shaman ? With the risk of a blank Cabal and then solely rely on topdecking entomb ... " I did not, the Shaman came T2, neither entomb nor Griselbrand came :)

Talking about opening hands is a very good idea ! Thanks Koby :)

What about being on the draw against a deck full of discard ? I often kept "Could have been T1/T2 kill" hands which were T1 seized and then were very slow to recover because short on cantrips.
I'm wondering what would be the "ideal" hand to keep in this situation ...

[Tachikoma]

Just a short report as I'm continuing to bring Tin Fins at my local store every week :)
I'm still stuck at 2-2 each and every week ... and I played quite a bunch of games on Cockatrice, didn't keep the exact count, but it seems very "2-2ey" :)

Latest changes I did went a step further in Phazeonmutant/Koby's deck directions
-1 Griselbrand
-1 Discard (choose to go 3 Cabal/3 Thoughtseize though)
+1 LDV
I tried Sensei's Top to replace my 4th Ponder,
Also tried 1 Stifle which replaced the -1 Cabal

Stifle was not bad, not good, won me some games though, mostly by breaking opponent's plan to disrupt my combo, but it was just because it's strong on its own, not because it's strong in this deck.
Now it's back in the sideboard.
Sensei was quite the same, good because it's good, maybe a bit more as having an instant speed draw is something the deck often really wants, especially for LDV.
All this really feels like changing cards that are good in situation A and B, by others good in situation B and C where A, B and C all happen equally...

The core of the deck is really strong and consistent, and no change seems to really affect that positively or negatively.
But the hate around in the current metagame is really strong and consistent too :)

Quick results
- 2-0 Affinity (Rite of consumption saved my ass again against super fast aggro Cranial Plating start)
- 1-2 Junk
- 1-2 BUG (this and Junk were quite the same : T1 kill, then shaman/ooze + discard, then shaman/ooze + discard ... + surgical)
- 2-0 dredge (The easiest matchup I found so far, we're just faster)

- 2-0 countertop miracle (statistical error, he just had really bad draws, Top got me the 2nd game by drawing a topdeck land needed to go off the same turn as using all my petals to mess around with his counters)
- 1-2 Junk again with a splash of red, this time I was Boros Charmed while drawing with Griselbrand to 4 life ! I'm proud though to have won game 2 after Mulliganing to 3 (Pithing Needle + Griselbrand + Petal ... he played Shaman, I needle it, then I pray the anti-top-deck god I don't draw my reanimation spell before he plays his discard on me ... then he does Hymn to Tourach ! At the time I had 3 cards but he took Griselbrand ! Then I switched back the top-deck god religion and the reanimation came a few turns later :)
- 0-2 Maverick, see my earlier post about keeping the wrong hand :)
- 2-1 weenie white equipment, he can't stop our combo (except by T2 RIP and T3 Canonist ... Serenity didn't come to the rescue :)

I'll keep trying things, next is moving up to 3 LDV, and trying Hapless Researcher, it already has been mentioned here, I like the free instant speed discard/draw effect + having a blocker, a creature to sac to cabal etc ...
I'll tell you if it's another "sometimes good/sometimes bad" idea :)

[Requiem2]

So I just pulled the trigger on getting all the cards I need to join the Tin Fins action. It was a simple transition as I already have the UB reanimator staples. I am really looking forward to playing this at a weekly tourny after many practice rounds on the Decked Builder app I use. Keep up the fine tuning, and game reports they are really nice to read.

[.dk]

So, I haven't been active in a while - life has gotten in the way. And I haven't actually played this deck in a very long time either. :( Regardless...

Koby - thanks for the writeup on opening hands. We should do more of these kinds of things to spur some discussion I think. I do still think that we can have a healthy debate on sideboard strategies as well (not only cards themselves, but also what to take out for them to give you the best chance).

Dela - wouldn't Necrotic Ooze be a better choice than Skill Borrower as a way to get around Needle on Griselbrand? We have an easier time making black mana than Blue, it seems, and Necrotic Ooze isn't an embarrassing beater itself either. That opens up a couple other options to board in Trike/Devourer to get around Storm hate as well. If you do that, there might some other weird lines or cards you can use like Skirge Familliar or something.

Tachikoma - I would be wary going to 3x LDV. You almost never want to see 2 of these as they clog up your hand. If you do, you might consider adding more Chrome Mox so that you can imprint extra LDV to make Underground Seas so they aren't rotting in your hand.

Thanks everyone who have been testing new ideas!

[Dela]

@dk I agree that ooze is better for getting around needle. SB hate is also very good for that. I was mainly trying to come up with a way the deck can transform that doesn't revolve around the graveyard. Still in testing, but I think you may be right that it doesn't fit here however there may be something with skill borrower in its own deck. Just trying to innovate.

[Niggurath]

Hey .dk, sideboard strategies discussion would be awesome, because sometimes I feel like I'm not sideboarding properly against certain decks, specifically against counterbalance decks. I feel like I have to bring in 3x Silences and 2x Serenity, but then I don't know what to sideboard out (usually -3 Gitaxian -1 LDV -1 Reanimate). I'm playing Koby's BoM list, but -1 LDV.

I think the hardest is to sideboard against counters and permanent hate, because you need to side in > 3 cards.

About trying new things, I tried to play with Burning Wish, Rite of Flame and some Cabal Rituals, going all to storm way, and having Reanimate, Buried Alive, Empty the Warrens and another Tendrils at wishboard. This build felt a bit more consistent but slower and less explosive.

[.dk]

@dela absolutely, we need to keep trying to innovate! worth discussing pros/cons. :)

@Niggurath sounds like a good starting place for a discussion to me. For example, that is not how I would be boarding against Counterbalance. Silence is unimpressive in that matchup, in my opinion - they don't usually have a lot of countermagic in hand. We already have enough discard and enough must counter spells that I'm not worried about the counterspells in their hand - just a resolved counterbalance. I don't remember exactly what Koby's sideboard is/was, but given my last build, I would likely be bringing in Serenity (as you did) and possibly Pithing Needle (for SDT) and/or Reverent Silence if I'm running them. My take anyway - I tend to only bring in the Silences for combo matchups.

[Niggurath]

That pithing needle tip against SDT is cool. Well man, maybe it's just me, but I had faced counterbalance decks with tons of counters. I remember one match when opponent's hand was 7 counters (2 daze, fow, 2 spell snare and 2 spell pierce) when I tried to combo. Pretty awful.

My regular rule to side is -1 LDV -1 Gitaxian Probe -1 Reanimate for whatever I want to sideboard in. I hate sideboarding out more than 1 gitaxian probe because the information it gives is invaluable IMO.

So do you don't put in silences not even against Canadian *****?

[.dk]

Actually yes, I do board in Silences vs. Thresh - it's usually the best way to get around Surgical Extraction and Spell Snare. And I would likely board out the single reanimate in that matchup as the lifeloss can be devastating against their clock and burn. We usually make enough mana to play through Daze (and sometimes Spell Pierce), so I'm usually not too worried about those.

[kingsey]

This deck worth picking up these day with RiP and DRS? I love the fact it combos ultra fast, but seems fragile.

[Acclimation]

This deck worth picking up these day with RiP and DRS? I love the fact it combos ultra fast, but seems fragile.

More than worth it. The deck has had a few top 8 showings at various tournaments over the last year.

Deathrite Shaman isn't a huge deal imo, it's slow and can only hit one target.

RiP is rough, but proper Cabal Therapy/Thoughtseize and sideboarding can go a long way in beating it.

[Tachikoma]

Tachikoma - I would be wary going to 3x LDV. You almost never want to see 2 of these as they clog up your hand. If you do, you might consider adding more Chrome Mox so that you can imprint extra LDV to make Underground Seas so they aren't rotting in your hand.


Precisely what I did :)
I have 3 moxen in my build, which were 2 diamonds and 1 chrome, I just switched the numbers.
I'm quite happy with the 3 LDV, in fact we even need them more post-side as we can only side in so few cards, with 3 LDV it's almost like having 4 of each single sideboard card you put in.
I used to do the same as many, side them out G2, but don't do this anymore after it saved me quite a few games (which as a side effect make sideboarding trickier as I have even less possibilities out :)

Another reason is that I sticked with the one Sensei's Divining Top, which can turn your LDV from vampiric to demonic (tutor)
After being doubtful and playing more with it I'm also very happy with Sensei, the draw trick makes a crucial difference when you're struggling around counter and hate.

I also tried Hapless Researcher, it's nice sometimes to discard and draw instantly for free, but it's not a card that can replace another (Sensei replaces a Ponder, Hapless really don't), and we're out of space obviously :)

[Tachikoma]

More than worth it. The deck has had a few top 8 showings at various tournaments over the last year.

Deathrite Shaman isn't a huge deal imo, it's slow and can only hit one target.

RiP is rough, but proper Cabal Therapy/Thoughtseize and sideboarding can go a long way in beating it.

In my experience Shaman is more "statistically" deadly than RIP. Not the card itself, as you mentioned you can work it around, but the fact that it's a main deck 4 of in A LOT of major decks which almost all have discard (from a lot of discard to a hell lot of discard :). To work it around you generally need to double some of your combo pieces which is quite difficult with discard, and by the time you gather the needed pieces it's often too late.
RIP is a 2 or 3 of post side (except for those decks with Energy Field/Helm of Obedience, which I didn't met at all recently), and more rarely backed up with discard.
Preparing your combo, LDV, bounce and go is often "easier" even if those deck have other kind of troublesome hate (Thalia, Canonist, or many counters ...)

Talking about the current meta I played a lot with the deck in the past month and I have a really rough time getting above average results. Not impossible but we are in the crossing of all the hate fires ...
What strikes me is that in a recent tournament (Trial for next BoM) where I struggled against BURGWAnyColor delver decks, the top 8 was full of Combo decks which I usually win against (Omni-show, Painter and Storm)
Maybe it's just this tournament, maybe it's just that those players were really good, but maybe it tells us something about the resiliency of those other decks in the current meta compared to ours ...
Or maybe I'm just depressed by this tourney :)
3 times the same kind of deck in a row in 5 matches, many horrible hands mulliganed to oblivion (oblivion being 3 or 4), my last opponent dropped = no fun at all :(

[Tachikoma]

I'm wondering about one situation I faced:

You are against a delver deck (choose whichever color combination you like :)
He's at 19 or so, while you had a discard vs counter/denial war during a few turns, he used this time to beat you with an insectile Delver and now drops a fat 5/6 Tarmogoyf, he's fully tapped and you know he still has a Daze.
You are at 8 or less life, 1 Island, 1 Swamp and a Petal, Entomb/Shallow Grave/Brainstorm in hand, you brainstorm and find a dark ritual ...
Do you
1) Go off normally with Griselbrand and hope getting a way to kill+enough fast mana in your next 7
2) Go entomb/shallow grave for an emergency Emrakul strike which in that situation would basically reset the game, but after that you have to wait for your hand to rebuild from scratch to get those last 4 life.

?

[.dk]

So the situation you're setting up is that you can only draw once with Griselbrand after attacks, correct? In this case, you know you need at least an IMS minimum. This is easy as you should still have a life to pay for a fetch land (which you'll likely draw off of your 7). Then, you're looking for any of the following:

Tendrils + rituals or petals
White IMS + Children of Korlis
ritual or petals/moxen + entomb + shallow grave or reanimate (to make children)
ritual or petals/moxen + discard + shallow grave or reanimate + children of korlis

or some other combination of cantrips and mana to find those.

Question being... do you think your odds of getting any of these outweigh your odds of wiping their board and then drawing into 4 damage later?

[Tachikoma]

Question being... do you think your odds of getting any of these outweigh your odds of wiping their board and then drawing into 4 damage later?

As you might have guessed, I chose option 2 and lost miserably :)

In fact dealing 4 damages in Tin Fins is not that different from dealing 20 ... we need the combo pieces.
So after an Emrakul Strike, this is exactly as starting the game with no cards in hand, and in that situation, it does not take very long to Delver to start beating again, while it's a lot longer for us without the Topdeck god on our side.
The only think that could do it after a non-lethal emrakul strike, apart from combo, is Reanimate on his Tarmo or Delver, but Reanimate is off my list now, and as you mentioned, it's a bit of a dangerous card to play against pressuring decks.

Maybe having an alternative beater we could side in could be nice though, Children is a bit light for the job :)
I also had a similar situation I had no choice but going for Emrakul (Cabal+Emrakul+Goryo in hand) and lost for the same reason ... no way to get those extra damage.
Oona's Prowler is used in Modern Instant Reanimator decks I think. Cheap, flying, and can be used as a discard outlet... but not sure it really makes sense except in that specific case ...

[Tachikoma]

Question being... do you think your odds of getting any of these outweigh your odds of wiping their board and then drawing into 4 damage later?

I'll add that playing Tin Fins is all about taking risks, not protecting ourselves ...
Those crappy mulligans made me forget the core philosophy of this deck :)

[Acclimation]

One path is playing to win, the other is playing to not lose.


I go for Griselbrand and see if I can get them with that.

[phazonmutant]

Got to give my Flaches Grab (http://magiccards.info/mr/de/39.html)s a workout today in a small local. Wheeeeeeeee, monsters. Maybe I'll have to try TinFins again, it was feeling pretty consistent. I managed to beat a UW Miracles player :eek:.

Agreed with .dk on going for it. Always go for it.

[kingsey]

My shallow graves came in the mail today woot ! Hope to be playing this at my local Thursday.

Any beginners tips or tricks ? Always blind cabal for force correct ?

A basic sideboard should be

3 serenity
3 pithing needles
3 silence
?

Thanks and ill be sure to report :cool:

[Acclimation]

Tips:
Be a man- play to win, play fearlessly, and greed is good.

Cabal Therapy for the scariest card they have that could stop you. I typically don't blind Cabal t1 unless I know what my opponent is playing. Sometimes using Cabal Therapy/Thoughtseize on yourself is the right play to get Griselbrand or Emrakul into the yard.

Remember that Shallow Grave doesn't target, it just puts the top creature card onto the battlefield.

As far as sideboards go, I always want 4 Silence in the 75, at least 2 bounce, some Pithing Needle for oddball permanents, and then from there it's pretty open ended. Mine currently looks like:

2 Chain of Vapor
2 Serenity
3 Silence
2 Massacre
3 Pithing Needle
3 Surgical Extraction

I've found success with some number of Surgical Extraction, it makes Dredge, reanimator, and the mirror easier to play against. It could probably be 2 Surgicals and 3 Chain, but that's a personal choice based on the fact that when I want Surgical, I really want it, and Chain overlaps with Needle, Serenity, and Massacre.

When it comes to actually sideboarding, I tend to board out my Probes first, with maybe a few other cards getting cut if they are really not good, such as Silence in Jund-like match-ups. Against fast combo, I board out a land, since I run 14 lands (61 card list still) and try to keep the probes, cutting slower cards like LDV first, usually bringing in Silence.

In fact, a common sideboard change is usually -3 Probe +3 Silence, and I do this change against the various tempo decks, Omnitell, Esper Stoneblade (depending on how many counters I see g1), and really any deck where I want Silence.

That's what I can think of off the top of my head.

[John Cox]

I've found a card that deals with 99% of the graveyard hate out there: teferi's realm . The idea is you phase out their cage, RiP/whatever on your upkeep and then go for it. About the only thing they can phase out on their turn (if they get one) is enchantments since they need all the other stuff.
Crypt and spellbomb also fold to this because they can't use it if it's phased out when you entomb/discard.

[Koby]

I've found a card that deals with 99% of the graveyard hate out there: teferi's realm . The idea is you phase out their cage, RiP/whatever on your upkeep and then go for it. About the only thing they can phase out is enchantments since they need all the other stuff.
Crypt and spellbomb also fold to this because they can't use it if it's phased out when you entomb/discard.

Yea we discussed this about 6 months ago. Ultimately - it's 3 mana including :u::u:. Serenity deals with most non-BG decks, and Chain of Vapor/Massacre deals with the other set. They latter two are the most efficient ways to clear the creatures. Chain of Vapor also feeds the Storm kill with Tendrils that may sometimes lead to wins when the GY is shut off.

[Troll Slayer]

After seeing the video Caleb Durward put up yesterday I'm curious if there is anyone out there who thinks that a Grixis Tin Fins list with Stronghold Gambit either main or sideboard is actually viable.

http://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-calebd-legacy-rb-shallow-grave/
Something along these lines...

4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul

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

4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands

Or possibly as a sideboard option to dodge gy hate.
Is this a worse version? How valuable is silence/children/tendrils?

[Koby]

Personally, I feel like Tendrils wins about half my games on the same turn I get Griselbrand. Sometimes, it even wins the "limping along" games with mini-Storm.

Cutting Children of Korlis removes the "hard-cast Griselbrand/Emrakul" plan. This, to me, weakens the point of the deck existing. :)

Otherwise, it's likely a more consistent version at putting Griselbrand into play. It's less consistent with winning vs disruption (Karakas, StP, Jace-bounce, Mother of Runes+lethal, other combo decks, etc)

[Acclimation]

Is this a worse version? How valuable is silence/children/tendrils?

IT might be a viable version, but Silence is incredible and I board in the 3 in my sideboard all the time, Children gives the deck a lot of gas mid combo, and Tendrils accounts for about 25-50% of my wins.

I couldn't imagine playing without any of those cards, they are that good.

[kingsey]

Took this to my local for the first time with Kobys list. I couldn't find a reanimate so I went with 1 main deck chain of vapor.

Wow this deck is powerful! I ended with a disappointing 2-2, but in my first match against affinity I simply could not gas to save my life. Half was it was my first match and wasn't sure comfy with the deck yet. I die unhappily to god damn robots.....

Round 2 I play vs. UW miracles and one of the best players at the store....great.. 0-2 right? I end up killing him turn 2 game 1. Game two he boards all the hate and wins. Game 3 I draw the perfect 7 and just blow him out. Wow what just happened? :laugh:

Round 3 I play vs. a good friend and merfolk.. Back to back turn 1 wins. Round was over in 6 mins. If I would have won that round 1 I could have split first place my first time out.

Round 4 I play against team italia game one He thoughtseizes me taking a shallow grave. I have goryo's in hand. I draw a dark ritual off the top and win on the spot.
Game 3 was close I cabal naming extraction not rest in peace. It lands and he slowly wins as I look for a way to kill it.

The deck is awesome and a blast to play! I plan on playing it more, until my local's go crazy with the graveyard hate.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I'm looking at either this or Storm (I've played the crud out of Storm already) as my next main deck to play. One thing I like about this deck is that it lacks LED's, which I'm getting tired of playing. I'm skeptic of a few things, though. How bad does a Rest in Peace hurt? Also, what does this deck just fold to?

-ABC

[Koby]

I'm looking at either this or Storm (I've played the crud out of Storm already) as my next main deck to play. One thing I like about this deck is that it lacks LED's, which I'm getting tired of playing. I'm skeptic of a few things, though. How bad does a Rest in Peace hurt? Also, what does this deck just fold to?

-ABC

RIP maindeck is pretty much a loss. In the SB there are Chain of Vapor to bounce it for the critical turn, as well as Serenity to kill it during your upkeep.

This deck can deal with one set of disruption (Counters, GY, discard); but typically when they are compounded it becomes a difficult game. Example: Counterbalance + RIP.

[Cybey]

RIP maindeck is pretty much a loss. In the SB there are Chain of Vapor to bounce it for the critical turn, as well as Serenity to kill it during your upkeep.

This deck can deal with one set of disruption (Counters, GY, discard); but typically when they are compounded it becomes a difficult game. Example: Counterbalance + RIP.

Played in a small tournament against a UWR deck that played RIP main and after sideboard also played both Surgical Extraction and Relic of Progenitus... Just couldn't get around that much graveyard hate.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Wow, that's a dumb decision. What a waste of sb slots. I just bought a foil Jap. Emrakul, so I think I just made myself go Tin Fins. It's not my fault, it was SEXY.

I've been seeing two kinds of lists. 2 Griz and 4 Griz lists. What's the deal? I've got 3 in my list to get a feel for what I want, but I think there might be more to it. Is it because of SnT being a bigger part of some players' metagame than others? Is 4 Griselbrand so you can drop him off an SnT more readily?

I was thinking that with a lil tinkering, this list could transform into a d-day Lab Maniac list, which would completely swing away from the Graveyard gameplan that is so often the reason of a game loss in the middle game. It would make what they sided in dead, and throw off how they plan on attacking your game plan. You would almost definitely need tops, though, and that really slows the deck down; I am pretty sure I understand correctly that this is not a key element of winning with this deck.

also, has anyone done serious testing with Stronghold Gambit? It's awesome, but I feel that SnT is probably better here (even though I don't play it, either). How many people are playing the Mox Diamond? Is it better than Chrome #3?

I appreciate the answers and the brainstorm sessions.

-ABC

[Koby]

Wow, that's a dumb decision. What a waste of sb slots. I just bought a foil Jap. Emrakul, so I think I just made myself go Tin Fins. It's not my fault, it was SEXY.

I've been seeing two kinds of lists. 2 Griz and 4 Griz lists. What's the deal? I've got 3 in my list to get a feel for what I want, but I think there might be more to it. Is it because of SnT being a bigger part of some players' metagame than others? Is 4 Griselbrand so you can drop him off an SnT more readily?

I was thinking that with a lil tinkering, this list could transform into a d-day Lab Maniac list, which would completely swing away from the Graveyard gameplan that is so often the reason of a game loss in the middle game. It would make what they sided in dead, and throw off how they plan on attacking your game plan. You would almost definitely need tops, though, and that really slows the deck down; I am pretty sure I understand correctly that this is not a key element of winning with this deck.

also, has anyone done serious testing with Stronghold Gambit? It's awesome, but I feel that SnT is probably better here (even though I don't play it, either). How many people are playing the Mox Diamond? Is it better than Chrome #3?

I appreciate the answers and the brainstorm sessions.

-ABC

I would suggest you read through all the thread to find answers to these questions. We've discussed them, and tested them. Ultimately, the reactive-answer SB has been the best performing.

[phazonmutant]

Wow, that's a dumb decision. What a waste of sb slots. I just bought a foil Jap. Emrakul, so I think I just made myself go Tin Fins. It's not my fault, it was SEXY.

I've been seeing two kinds of lists. 2 Griz and 4 Griz lists. What's the deal? I've got 3 in my list to get a feel for what I want, but I think there might be more to it. Is it because of SnT being a bigger part of some players' metagame than others? Is 4 Griselbrand so you can drop him off an SnT more readily?

I think since CalebD made strong arguments for the all anti-hate sideboard, no one's run Show and Tell. It didn't seem to fit well with the rest of the deck or actually beat hate.
People running 4 Griselbrand are usually playing Careful Study. The card's bad. We've tested it a bunch.
Playing 3 Griselbrand makes it more likely for you to draw-discard or Therapy yourself. I think that's pretty marginal, so I play 2. 1 is right out.


I was thinking that with a lil tinkering, this list could transform into a d-day Lab Maniac list, which would completely swing away from the Graveyard gameplan that is so often the reason of a game loss in the middle game. It would make what they sided in dead, and throw off how they plan on attacking your game plan. You would almost definitely need tops, though, and that really slows the deck down; I am pretty sure I understand correctly that this is not a key element of winning with this deck.

Lejay posted that a few months back on the storm boards and it looked interesting. I don't feel that it actually beats the full variety of hate that legacy can bring to bear on reanimator storm, but haven't tested it too much. Also it devours your sideboard.


also, has anyone done serious testing with Stronghold Gambit? It's awesome, but I feel that SnT is probably better here (even though I don't play it, either). How many people are playing the Mox Diamond? Is it better than Chrome #3?

No, but it does look sweet. However, splashing another color is a big commitment and many of the bad matchups have plenty of creatures.
Tachikoma is the only one playing more than 1 Chrome Mox. We cut from 3 to 1 literal months ago after lots of testing.



Round 2 I play vs. UW miracles and one of the best players at the store....great.. 0-2 right? I end up killing him turn 2 game 1. Game two he boards all the hate and wins. Game 3 I draw the perfect 7 and just blow him out. Wow what just happened? :laugh:
...
The deck is awesome and a blast to play! I plan on playing it more, until my local's go crazy with the graveyard hate.

Nice, glad you're enjoying it! Yup, that's pretty much how you win against Miracles. I beat Miracles the last time I played TinFins too! It feels pretty awesome, doesn't it? Unfortunately doesn't mean the matchup is even close to good. I still think that the g splash for Abrupt Decay is worth it though.



IT might be a viable version, but Silence is incredible and I board in the 3 in my sideboard all the time, Children gives the deck a lot of gas mid combo, and Tendrils accounts for about 25-50% of my wins.

I couldn't imagine playing without any of those cards, they are that good.

Tendrils is easymode. Step up your game! :tongue: You're right that it's probably necessary with the awkward mana requirements of stronghold gambit though.
I agree that cutting Children kills the TinFins engine and makes it a different deck for all intents and purposes.

[Tachikoma]

Hi there,

A quick report of the latest BoM trial in Paris, about 50 people I think including some of the best Legacy players in France (for example LeJay)
Ok maybe I try to minimize the fact I did (again) an average result :)
Talking about BoM, anybody here going to the BoM in November in Paris ? Or will I be the only kamikaze going with Tin Fins ? ;)

Here is my latest list


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

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
1 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Lim-Dul's Vault

3 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
1 Silence

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond

// 13 Lands
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp

// Sideboard
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Echoing Truth
1 Submerge

2 Pithing Needle
2 Silence
2 Surgical Extraction

2 Massacre
2 Serenity
1 Engineered Explosives


I'm sticking with my specifics (Rite of Consumption/3 Moxens/Sensei Top/3 LDV)
Although it may not be obvious in my results, after several tournaments in a row with this list, I'm happier with this than with all my previous iterations, especially the 3rd LDV.

Round 1 / Death & Taxes / 2-1

Already played against him last week and he crushed me, so it was revenge time :)
Game 1 : I mulligan down to 4 with entomb/goryo but and no lands, he quickly put on Thalia, Revoker on Petal and Rishadan port, I concede ... bad start
Game 2 :
- Sideboard : -3 Probe, -1 Silence, +2 Massacre, +1 Chain of Vapor, +1 Echoing Truth
- Starting hand : Goryo, Shallow, Brainstorm, Sensei Top, 2 lands and a mox
Brainstorm gave nothing fancy, then one more turn and he puts RIP on.
He obviously kept an average hand for RIP, no Thalia, no Karakas, and at least I have the Top advantage, he went for Stoneforge, I cabal Batterskull. He goes for Stoneforge again and Jitte, I Top for another Cabal :)
Then he puts a Mirran Crusader on, the clock started ticking faster. After one double strike hit, I finally find a LDV, play it end of his turn, go for 3 or 4 life before finding a bounce and an Entomb in the 5, Top-draw for the bounce, bounce RIP. My turn, this time Griselbrand is not really an option because I know he has a Swords in hand and I'm at 4, so I go for Emrakul, he concedes.
Game 3 : He has RIP again, but I kill him T1

1-0-0

Round 2 / UWR Delver / 1-2

Game 1 : He starts, tough discard VS counters / brainstorm VS brainstorm battle. With fetches and FoW he was down to 15 life.
I find a LDV and rebuild the combo with it, go for Emrakul and win
Game 2 :
- Sideboard : -3 Probe, + 2 Silence, +1 Chain of Vapor
- Starting hand : a T2 "go off" hand (no dark ritual) with Cabal for protection
I blind Cabal for FoW, and find a Daze ... and a RIP. Next turn RIP is on. I discards his Daze, Delver comes. Then next turn I LDV for the bounce, but in the meantime he drew a FoW so RIP remained until I die.
Game 3 : Same kind of starting hand, I T1 seize .. RIP + FoW but no blue card, remove RIP. T2 I try to go off, but he drew a Daze and counter Goryo with it, risky move because Griselbrand is now in the grave, but he starts to have more CA that I do and eventually counters every cantrip/LDV I try to do while killing me with Delver.

1-0-1

Round 3 / Through The Breach-Sneak Attack-Blood Moon (don't know the name if it has one) / 1-2

Game 1 : I have the combo in hand with dark ritual, he starts with T1 Ancient Tomb / Chalice at 1, a few turns later he Trough the Breach Emrakul, while my only option here was to wait to draw Griselbrand, then wait to have 8 cards in hand ... I just let him play to see a bit of his deck.
Game 2 :
- Sideboard : -3 Probe, -1 Silence, +1 EE, +1 Chain of Vapor, +2 Echoing Truth (though it was better than Serenity which requires white mana, as I suspected blood moon, not sure though...)
- Starting hand, not sure why I felt it was worth keeping, I had 2 discards, Dark Ritual, Ponder, LDV, Basic Island + Fetch
I start fetch for basic swamp, thoughtseize, no Chalice, lots of mana acceleration, Through the Breach, Sneak Attack and Emrakul, remove Sneak
He draws a blood moon and puts it on. Next I puts my basic island on, discards his TTB. Then he goes for the beatdown plan with Simian Spirit Guide
EOT LDV, find Entomb/Shallow grave, my turn ponder and go, drew a bunch of petal and moxen so that Blood Moon is not a problem to finish my combo.
Game 3 :
- Starting hand : Fetch, (Dark ritual + Entomb + Shallow Grave) x2 !!!
He starts : Ancient Tomb Chalice at 1 :( ... T2 City of Traitors, Simian Spirit Guide Chalice at 2 :((((

He was a really nice guy to play with, and he wanted to do another game for fun, and to test the consistency of my deck
I started with a T2 combo hand, T1 Fetch, basic swamp go, his turn Chalice at 1, I entomb in response
T2 Goryo's Vengeance, but as I drew my 14 I realized that going off with Chalice may be just pointless, no Dark Rituals, no Cantrip, no Children of Korlis ...
Got nothing but 2 petals and a bunch of 1 drops and reanimation, attack, draw 7 more, a Mox, found EE, plays it at 0, boom, then with my last mana, Cabal for Chalice ... which was there ! Then I flashback the Cabal on anything to get Griselbrand ready in the grave for next turn win ... fortunately he didn't topdeck another Chalice ... yeah ! .... but it was just for fun :)

1-0-2

Round 4 / Homebrew BWG denial deck (sinkhole, vindicate ...) / 2-1

Game 1 : T1 Kill, had to cycle my entire deck with Children to find that damned Rite of Consumption :)
Game 2 :
- Sideboard : went generic -3 Probe, +1 Chain of Vapor, +2 Echoing Truth
We both mulligan to average hands, he discards my combo piece, then he starts destroying my lands, while I keep on drawing land :)
He puts a Deathrite Shaman on, at that point I have the bounce but still no combo piece, I also have a dark ritual and Griselbrand so I'm ready to hardcast it !
He basically is in the same ridiculous situation and hardcast a Batterskull :) I hardcast my Griselbrand as expected, draw 7 cards forgetting about 2 things
1) Batterskull is an equipment 2) He has that strange Stillmoon Cavalier in play which has protection from black ... so I'm at 5 or so, with 7 cool cards but no fast mana (which I already drew before and used for Grisel). Then he equips his cavalier with Batterskull and i die misearbly looking at my shiny hardcast Grisel :)
Game 3 : T1 entomb, T2 kill,

Another really cool guy, and we laughed a lot on that game 2 :)

2-0-2

Round 5 / Elves / 2-0

I'm not super confident as I don't know all the elves and which one is the actual combo starter

Game 1 : I keep a hand with Ponder, Top, Shallow, Probe, Cabal and 2 lands, Start, Probe, Cabal and among all elves choose a couple of Visionaries, not sure about my choice, just thought that removing his only CA would be good. And it was, the game went quite slowly on both side, but the number of elves started growing, I finally found a LDV before he found a Glimpse and won next turn.
Game 2 :
- Sideboard : -3 Probe, +1 Silence, +1 EE, +1 Chain of Vapor, really not sure here except for the EE, maybe needle would have been good if I knew which elf to name ...
- Starting hand : Entomb, Shallow, Ponder, Thoughtseize, Children, 2 lands sounds good :)
He starts and sided in Cabals, so one for Entomb.
I Cabal a Deathrite Shaman
He puts a Nettle Sentinel and sacs it to flashback Cabal. I draw another Cabal, and remove a Visionnary :)
Then we're both left with nothing, and the Ponder on my side gave me a bounce and a Top ...
Nothing for him is still a few elves, + tons of mana with a Gaea's cradle
Now he Green Sun Zenith for a Scavenging Ooze, not good for me. Influenced by the Cabal-war earlier, he exiles my 2 cabals with its ooze, and says go, then he realizes that by doing this he's full tapped !
I had nothing dangerous in hand, but a Top in play, so EOT Top ... entomb + goryo ! draw entomb, Top-draw for Goryo, win !

3-0-2

Round 6 / Esper Stoneblade / 0-2

Starting to be tired here (and I remember that BoM is not 6 but 8 rounds !)

Game 1 : I have a bunch of cantrip, Probe, 1 entomb, and go with this. I Probe, sees a Daze, draw a Goryo. Then I Brainstorm, find another entomb, not really useful here, put on a petal and choose to Entomb T1. Grisel is in the grave. Now I have to take care of the Daze, but he starts playing brainstorms after brainstorms, so takes the edge and counters all my attempts to reanimate Grisel. But he has nothing dangerous only a Stoneforge, off which I discarded Batterskull. On my side it's mana flood time again, I'm forced to play another entomb just to shuffle my deck :) Another stoneforge, this time with a Sword of Feast and Famine, I need to hurry up, but draw things like a 3rd Entomb ! LDV eventually come and he has 1 card in hand I go for it, next turn is good, but there is no next turn, as this one card is a Vendillion Clique, so next attack is lethal for me.
Game 2
- Sideboard : -3 Probe, +1 Silence, +1 Chain of Vapor, +1 Echoing Truth (White = RIP, so I think I need bounce as much as Silence)
- Starting hand : Seize, Goryo, Dark Ritual, Brainstorm, Ponder, land petal. keep
I start with thoughseize, good choice, I find RIP and no counter but cantrips.
T2 I brainstorm, finds an entomb, gives it a try, he brainstorms and FoW.
He plays a Meddling Mage on Show and Tell, he probably played against a transformative board version before. So I don't care, and continue cantripping.
I find another entomb, send a decoy LDV which is countered.
I eventually go off the turn after, reanimate Griselbrand, draw 7 he Swords Grisel, which I should have expected as I saw his starting hand, but completely forgot, then I draw 7 more in response ... and he smiled at me .... as I forgot another detail : my life total, which was precisely 14 :(
We continued the game to see what would have happened "if I had not done that shitty play" and the answer was "nothing", the 7 draw did not come with anything to finish the combo, and next turn he drew another RIP. But after trying to rewind the game, I had a doubt about that fetch I cracked earlier ... was it really useful ? because being at 15 would have been pretty cool there .... looking at the next seven, which were just "the dream 7" just achieved the punishment :)

3-0-3

Here I am again with this 50/50 result :)
Really after playing tourneys after tourneys I can't figure out how to break this barrier in the current meta.
The combo is there consistently (even more with LDV)
Thanks to LDV again, the few sideboard cards shows up consistently too.
Protection seems good too (although I would say I feel that this department is a bit weaker)
Even my play is step by step improving :)
But still ...

[Acclimation]

Ended up playing Tinfins 61/14 at a small Legacy tournament on Sunday, and ended up winning it.

Rd 1: Bye
Rd 2: Combo Elves 2-1

Game 1 I keep a hand that just needs Entomb, and I never draw Entomb, just more Dark Rituals and Reanimation spells. I get beat to death with mana dorks.

No sideboard changes, he doesn't know what I'm on since all I did was cantrip and cabal therapy.

Game 2: t1 win on the play, with Tendrils. He makes a comment about needing a turn while sideboarding, so I assume he has permanent based gy hate- so I bring in 2 Bounce spells, cutting a swamp and a probe.

Game 3: I get the turn 1 again, this time with Emrakul+Griselbrand. He ends up not having his hate in hand, but brought in 4 Ground Seal, so bounce was the correct choice, even though Shallow Grave gets around it.

Rd 3: High Tide 2-0

Game 1 he wins the dice roll and I draw the t1 kill. He probes me on his first turn and immediately scoops.

-1 LDV -1 Swamp +3 Silence

Game 2 I mull to 6 and get a hand that has the potential to kill on t1. He mulls to 5. I opt to Thoughtseize and he brainstorms. Next turn, I draw Silence and go for the kill. I draw 21 cards and couldn't find a way to get Tendrils or Emrakul. I tear his hand apart with Cabal Therapy (he had a Flusterstorm that he hid with Brainstorm) and set up the next turn. He probes me and scoops.

We play a 3rd game for fun and he goes t1 Grafdigger's Cage. I start laying the Children of Korlis beats. He gets 6 lands and does his thing before I can draw into Griselbrand.

Rd 4: Spanish Inquisition 2-0

He wins the dice roll and mulls to 5. I mull to 6 and keep a hand with the kill, a probe, and no mana sources. He passes the turn, I draw a land, probe him and draw a lotus petal. He scoops on the spot.

Same sideboard as rd3.

I mull to 6, he mulls to 6. I keep a hand with 2 Silence, lands, and cantrips. I Silence him 3 times while he has a Deathrite shaman out. I LDV and find Dark Rit, Entomb, Shallow Grave, Probe, and Land on the second pile, with Petal, Mox, and Shallow Grave in hand. I Silence him 1 last time, draw for turn, pass, he has to tap out to pay for Summoner's Pact, then I kill him the next turn (he was at 5 by that point).

Planning on taking Tinfins to the Invitational in Indy. Maindeck will be the same list I've been running. Sideboard looks similar to the one I've discussed over the last few pages.

RUG and Miracles are our bad match-ups, but I don't expect a lot of Miracles. RUG on the other hand, I expect to see a fair amount, but hopefully I'll dodge it. My plan is to sit on fetches, and try to force a Silence through. Not the best plan, but it's the best that I can do. Every other deck I could care less about playing, we're faster than anything but Belcher and Spanish Inquisition, and even then I haven't lost a match playing against either deck. Deathrite Shaman is easy to play around, and RIP maindeck decks are uncommon. Show and Tell is easy, and anything lacking Force is a cakewalk.

Feeling confident about the legacy portion, but less so about Standard, but oh well.

[Koby]

Played Tin Fins (61/14) at a 57 person GPT this weekend. Went 4-1-1 at the end of swiss for Top 8, then got paired against Miracles with RIP-Helm, which is pretty bad. Lost that one very badly thanks to the whole deck basically being anti-Tin Fins. (link to meta of the event (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?26660-Los-Angeles-CA-Knight-Ware-GPT-for-DC-Sunday-10-13-2013-20-25-staples-for-prize&goto=newpost))

Key highlights:
Loss to RUG
Loss to Miracles
Win vs Maverick, iPainter, Belcher, Jund (i.e., non-Blue decks)
Drew with BUG Pod to lock Top 8.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I would suggest you read through all the thread to find answers to these questions. We've discussed them, and tested them. Ultimately, the reactive-answer SB has been the best performing.

Well, I was simply asking for a quick recap. 59 pages is a task. However, I've been watching videos of TinFins Matchups (You were in a couple, had a poorly timed Children of Korlis activation...), reading and testing, but my time allotments are a bit stressed these days.

Just purchased the last few things I needed. I will be playing ONLY this and Patriot Miracles, so expect to see me on this thread way more often. Also, got Korean Petals! I'm debating if Korean D. Rits should be invested in, or if my Japanese ones will do...

-ABC

[kingsey]

It's def a long read ABC, but grab a coffee and read it. Totally worth it. I just finished this deck myself its so much fun.

Ive been debating on foil Japanese griselbrands for it, but I'm a noob in the jap foil market.

[.dk]

Wish I was going to BoM Paris... but I"ll be at DC later in November though. Unlikely I'll be on Tin Fins, but I could audible at the last minute. That said, there have been a fair number of graveyard decks at the top tables in the past couple of weeks, so it's possible that more grave hate will start coming back, which would be a problem.

Also - congrats to the performances from those who have been piloting it lately! In the meantime, here's to hoping we get another cheap entomb like effect...

[Acclimation]

Well, I was simply asking for a quick recap. 59 pages is a task. However, I've been watching videos of TinFins Matchups (You were in a couple, had a poorly timed Children of Korlis activation...), reading and testing, but my time allotments are a bit stressed these days.

Just purchased the last few things I needed. I will be playing ONLY this and Patriot Miracles, so expect to see me on this thread way more often. Also, got Korean Petals! I'm debating if Korean D. Rits should be invested in, or if my Japanese ones will do...

-ABC

You could probably get away with reading from ~40 on. Within the last 20 pages we discussed a green splash for sideboard options, the numbers for children/mox/griselbrand, sideboard options, the necessity of Tendrils, the merits of a 61 card maindeck, a 14 card sideboard, and random flex slots like Lim-Dul's Vault.

While the entire thread is worth reading, the last 20 pages have a lot of answers for questions that have been asked.


@ .dk The success of Reanimator is a bit troubling, but if people start skewing themselves towards more DRS/Scaveging Ooze, then we should be in good shape. Mainboard RiP decks are ofc awful, but I could see moving a Chain of Vapor mainboard over an LDV if those become popular.

[.dk]

Also, a fair bit of the first 20-30 or so pages is covered in the primer these days as well. As in... don't read the first 20 pages and look at all of my stupid ideas. :)

[Koby]

Scenario time:

It's turn 3. We're up against a UW/x Miracle deck in sideboard games, and successfully resolved Dark Ritual and Entomb. Our hand contains Shallow Grave, Cabal Therapy, and a second Entomb. How would you play this turn?

EDIT: Miracle player's hand is Entreat the Angels, Jace TMS, and Flooded Strand; known from discard and Surgical Extraction.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BWrArBeCYAEUYHS.jpg:large

[Acclimation]

Grab Griselbrand and Shallow Grave would be my first instinct. Usually people counter Entomb first since it's usually the bottleneck piece for us.

This person could also be sitting on a counterspell and RiP, and wants us to burn an Entomb and Reanimation spell for nothing, then get our Griselbrand on his next turn with RiP. We could grab Griselbrand, cabal therapy naming RiP, and attempt to reanimate next turn.

Without knowing much more about their hand, it's hard to make a guess as to what is the proper play. I see Cabal, Surgical, and Thoughtseize in the yard, with brainstorm exiled on his, and a Flusterstorm and top in his graveyard. Given that he also has 3 lands out, he didn't find RiP that turn, and you tore those spells out of his hand, it's likely that dude has nothing too relevant in hand and likely kept the opener based on the fact he had Top, Flusterstorm, and Brainstorm. I'm also assuming that since you have 2 lands tapped, you did a hand disruption spell that turn and saw that it was safe to Dark Rit>Entomb.

In short, I would just go for it. No mode like man mode.

[Darkenslight]

Grab Griselbrand and Shallow Grave would be my first instinct. Usually people counter Entomb first since it's usually the bottleneck piece for us.

This person could also be sitting on a counterspell and RiP, and wants us to burn an Entomb and Reanimation spell for nothing, then get our Griselbrand on his next turn with RiP. We could grab Griselbrand, cabal therapy naming RiP, and attempt to reanimate next turn.

Without knowing much more about their hand, it's hard to make a guess as to what is the proper play. I see Cabal, Surgical, and Thoughtseize in the yard, with brainstorm exiled on his, and a Flusterstorm and top in his graveyard. Given that he also has 3 lands out, he didn't find RiP that turn, and you tore those spells out of his hand, it's likely that dude has nothing too relevant in hand and likely kept the opener based on the fact he had Top, Flusterstorm, and Brainstorm. I'm also assuming that since you have 2 lands tapped, you did a hand disruption spell that turn and saw that it was safe to Dark Rit>Entomb.

In short, I would just go for it. No mode like man mode.

Can't be sitting on both, but you have to play around only one of them: the counterspell. Now, given what we know about your opponent's hand, I would still put in Gris and go for it. Because we are the beatdown.

Cast Grave targeting Gris. Use the Draw 7 ability, swing, use again, Therapy (naming Jace). Depending on what we draw (mana + DRit + Grave preferred) Use the second Entomb for CoK and reanimate, go for Tendrils kill. We get boned if the card on top is Pierce, but them's the breaks.

[.dk]

Am I missing something? Isn't this easy mode? Grizzlebees -> Shallow Grave, draw 7 and hope you hit an IMS and a way to make Emrakul as well, otherwise swing, draw 7 more, make Children and just win. Opponent doesn't have a way to interact with us, right? Sure there is a small chance we fizzle, but since it's Turn 3 I'm assuming we haven't played a land this turn, so finding an IMS should be easy.

[phazonmutant]

Am I missing something? Isn't this easy mode? Grizzlebees -> Shallow Grave, draw 7 and hope you hit an IMS and a way to make Emrakul as well, otherwise swing, draw 7 more, make Children and just win. Opponent doesn't have a way to interact with us, right? Sure there is a small chance we fizzle, but since it's Turn 3 I'm assuming we haven't played a land this turn, so finding an IMS should be easy.

I think Koby's saying there's a possibility the guy is hiding Force or Pierce on top. I agree with you though. This deck rewards aggression and there's so many terrible things that the Miracles player could do given an untap.

[.dk]

Also... the image was cut off so I didn't see that there was a Top in play. So yes, I was missing something. Regardless, I think the line is the same. Entomb resolved, you're in good shape.

[Acclimation]

Oh hey, we got an edit with the hand.

Then we definitely go for it. They have to flip top into Spell Pierce or Force, and I think the odds are in our favor, since they either have to crack the fetch and look at the top 3, turning off Spell Pierce, or just blind flip.

Also, Lim-Dul's Vault is getting a reprint in the Commander decks, with new art and borders and oracle wording! Check it out here (http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/cmd13/Ccc3Rz0ovS_EN.jpg)!

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I like my original prints. That picture is kinda lame anyway.

-ABC

[kingsey]

Went 3-1 again at the local. Good enough for 3rd place and 20 bucks woot.

Round 1 loss against esperstone blade/deathblade? Tough match, STP, clique, counters and discard. Lost 1-2

Round 2 win vs Jund 2-1

Round 3 win vs Rug delver 2-0

Round 4 win vs UWr miracles. F you rest in peace! :tongue:

I love this deck.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Deathblade doesn't really exist anymore. It was an effort put forth after DRS was printed, but ultimately it collapsed on itself. You almost certainly played against EsperBlade. The reason I say this is because you said it had counters, which Deathblade basically abandoned for card advantage and more aggressive answers. Ultimately, it died. I play esperblade on occasion, and it's always a treat to play. It's one of the reasons I like this deck; same colors, and it plays similarly except that it is inexplicably more aggressive. It's like the opposite end of the spectrum for me, and I can appreciate every nu'ance it allows. I can't believe I get to play a deck that's aggressive like storm, the speed of reanimator, and the early game control of tempo. It's a treat.

I can't think of a way to improve this deck. Honestly, I'm so happy I could shit.

-ABC

[Acclimation]

Since apparently Canadian Threshold is a scary deck for us, I'm thinking that adding some Orim's Chant to the sideboard might be worthwhile, potentially dropping 2 Massacre or the 3rd Surgical and Needle for 2 Chant.

Assuming my/koby's BOM maindeck, in addition to dropping 3 Probe for 3 Silence, perhaps dropping the last Probe and a Reanimate for 2 Chant?

RUG is dependent on using Counterspells, and while hand disruption is good, getting a Silence through on our combo turn is just GG. With 6 Chant effects and 6 discard effects, we can protect our combo turn and potentially bait counterspells. If a chant gets through and we don't have the combo, at the very least we can crack fetches without fear of Stifle (care of Wasteland).

I've also considered running a basic Island in the sideboard (I've been playing with 14 cards for the last month, so I can just add it), and we can cut an Underground Sea versus wasteland/stifle decks. What I don't like about it, is that it can turn off potential t1 kills where all we need is an initial black source to combo (or a white source to silence).

These are the ideas I've had for trying to shore up the RUG match-up. Any other thoughts or criticisms?

[Koby]

That seems to be overkill IMO. It's a bad matchup, but not one that we should remove Probes for. Probes still help us determine if we can safely go off, even against RUG.

[Acclimation]

It's probably overkill, but I honestly feel confident against every other match-up except RUG, but even then I think I'm positive versus it the few times I got to test the matchup (against a friend who is actually good at Magic, not just random shitters).

I am reluctant to cut Probes, but I'm unsure as to what we can cut for Silence. I think Reanimate is a good option, since the life loss can be too severe, potentially Chrome Mox since we just need to get our combo resolved (but Mox helps pay taxing counters), and maybe a LDV.

We can't cut Shallow/Goryo, Entomb, Ponder, Brainstorm, Dark Ritual, any lands, Lotus Petal, Cabal Therapy, Emrakul, Children, Griselbrand, or Thoughtseize.

Although... Would it be worth it to cut 1 Griselbrand? We need to leverage our Discard against RUG, so targeting ourselves seems less than optimal, and we can fit in protection without cutting cantrips or other useful spells. RUG doesn't seem to run much Extraction effects, but the list that just won has a singleton Grafdigger's Cage, so perhaps fitting in a bounce spell might be helpful- worst case scenario we have to bounce a Goyf or Delver.


Kind of just throwing ideas at the wall here, I don't think RUG is such a bad match-up that we just write it completely off.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

What has you concerned, the sheer amount of counters it runs along with Stifle/Wastes? It's a terrible matchup, probably the worst there is as far as a reactive deck is concerned, but I think that Chants aren't the answer, but rather testing Defense Grid (or have you? I saw nothing of it, and it's playable turn one off of a land + Petal or Dark Rit with an Entomb to follow it's resolution). Also, Defense Grid doesn't make you have to stress your mana base's color alotments. Defense grid can be clunky with only 13-14 lands (I run 14), but it may just be a good choice in leu of Xantid Swarms, which I think is bad because of how slow it is and how bad the green splash really is.

I also don't run Reanimate. I've been watching and testing and I don't think it's a piece I will use, probably ever. I understand what it's for, but I think for me it's a poor choice.

-ABC

[Acclimation]

What has you concerned, the sheer amount of counters it runs along with Stifle/Wastes? It's a terrible matchup, probably the worst there is as far as a reactive deck is concerned, but I think that Chants aren't the answer, but rather testing Defense Grid (or have you? I saw nothing of it, and it's playable turn one off of a land + Petal or Dark Rit with an Entomb to follow it's resolution). Also, Defense Grid doesn't make you have to stress your mana base's color alotments. Defense grid can be clunky with only 13-14 lands (I run 14), but it may just be a good choice in leu of Xantid Swarms, which I think is bad because of how slow it is and how bad the green splash really is.

I also don't run Reanimate. I've been watching and testing and I don't think it's a piece I will use, probably ever. I understand what it's for, but I think for me it's a poor choice.

-ABC


I'm concerned with the fact that they cast spells when I'm trying to do stuff. This is a 1 man show- please sit in the corner and watch me play with myself- NO TOUCHING!

I forgot Defense Grid is a thing, I used to run it back when I was first learning DDFT, but ended up cutting it and just relying on a combination of Chants/Silences/Discard to force my combo through, which I had better results with. What I don't like about Grid is that it's countered by Snare and can delay us the turn we go off (say if we probe them and see only 1 counter, we can just silence/chant/discard to force the issue for 1 mana and then go off). At the same time, it makes them burn a counterspell, and if it resolves, we can easily work without much fear.

It might be good, but due to being away from my test group, I can't run it through the gauntlet.

Xantid Swarm is no good versus RUG, it just gets bolted. I believe Bryant Cook had an explanation on when to use Swarm in a TES thread or an article, can't remember which (probably both). Also, not a fan of the Green splash anyway, I ran it at an SCG, and placed 63rd with it. Reverent Silence is cool, but not that cool. Nor relevant in a Countertop light world.

[Richard Cheese]

RUG isn't a writeoff, but it's certainly one of the worst matchups. If you go back in this thread a bit, you'll see there was a time when we were running Silence/Chant main, and personally I don't think it's a terrible option as a meta choice if there's tons of tempo decks around. Both are going to have their situations where it's exactly what you need, and both are going to have situations where they're pretty useless. I guess the argument for Probe is that it works the same way in every matchup, and it's never really a dead card.

Also I haven't played Reanimate main in months. Don't miss it. Goldfished with friends this weekend and went off turn 1 or 2 something like 7 games in a row. I wish it liked me that much at real events.

[Koby]

Also I haven't played Reanimate main in months. Don't miss it. Goldfished with friends this weekend and went off turn 1 or 2 something like 7 games in a row. I wish it liked me that much at real events.

I have been testing with a single Reanimate in my main (mostly for Children recursion); and most of my easy wins vs RUG have been an early Entomb + Reanimate with enough mana for taxing counters or when the coast is clear via Silence / Probe face-check. I've won less often with Shallow Grave/Goryo's vs them.

[Richard Cheese]

I have been testing with a single Reanimate in my main (mostly for Children recursion); and most of my easy wins vs RUG have been an early Entomb + Reanimate with enough mana for taxing counters or when the coast is clear via Silence / Probe face-check. I've won less often with Shallow Grave/Goryo's vs them.

Do you tend to combo after that or just ride the 7/7 flyer to victory?

[Koby]

Do you tend to combo after that or just ride the 7/7 flyer to victory?

Usually just ride a 7/7 to victory. RUG can't beat the 7/7, the lifelink, or the card drawing. Hence why Reanimate as a card is so powerful from classic Reanimator vs RUG; also why a resolved Show & Tell is so powerful for both Sneak & Show and Reanimator.

[Richard Cheese]

Usually just ride a 7/7 to victory. RUG can't beat the 7/7, the lifelink, or the card drawing. Hence why Reanimate as a card is so powerful from classic Reanimator vs RUG; also why a resolved Show & Tell is so powerful for both Sneak & Show and Reanimator.

My problem with that is I can't reliably lucksack into my singleton Reanimate in specific matchups where it makes a difference. Whenever I play with it, it just ends up being icing on the cake mid-combo because reanimating children is slightly cheaper, but at that point it doesn't feel like it's affecting the outcome of the game. My list is geared towards being as redundant as possible, and so far it's been really consistent, which is nice when you have no luck.

[Acclimation]

Played in a small 8 man tournament today, went 2-1. Nothing special, went 2-1 versus EsperDeathblade, 1-2 versus Belcher (he won the dice roll), and 2-0 versus UB Tezzerator.

Things of note: Lost game 1 versus Deathblade by not drawing Entomb or a Discard (had Griselbrand in hand). Barely won game 2 by Tendrils for 14 and his Bob flipping another Bob for lethal. Tendrils keeps winning me games that I would not have won otherwise (I was at 3 life staring at Bob and Deathrite Shaman that game). I know some people don't like it, but I will continue to keep in mainboard. G3 I win after bouncing his Ethersworn canonist with Chain (only brought in one), then swinging with Emrakul for lethal.

I also had my streak of beating Belcher on the draw broken, kind of sad about that one, but it was bound to happen eventually.

Tezzerator was awkward in g2 because he opened with Chalice at 1 (I had an opener of fetch, petal, probe, ponder, ritual, goryo, serenity). I play land and pass, draw Griselbrand, discard it end of turn, and he plays another Chalice, this time at 0. I draw a fetch, drop Serenity, it gets countered. He plays Jace, I Goryo to swing and draw, hit another set of combo pieces and my second Serenity, and the second Serenity resolves. Next turn, I drop get out Emrakul for lethal.

So,

Tendrils still working out well.
Serenity is a great sideboard card.
Emrakul is cool.
Belcher match-up is a literal dice roll.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I love tendrils in here. In fact, it's the kicker that got me into the deck. It's more versatile in this list than I've ever seen it, and I love that it's more than just a win-con, but also the first (afaik) combo enabler to be part of the kill. I like it as much as I like Children of Korlis, I just don't get to use it as often as Children. I like it.

-ABC

[Acclimation]

I love tendrils in here. In fact, it's the kicker that got me into the deck. It's more versatile in this list than I've ever seen it, and I love that it's more than just a win-con, but also the first (afaik) combo enabler to be part of the kill. I like it as much as I like Children of Korlis, I just don't get to use it as often as Children. I like it.

-ABC

Tendrils has gotten me out of a lot of sticky situations:

Maindeck Energy Field and/or Rest in Peace
Not having the right pieces to power out Emrakul
Getting the remaining points of life if Emrakul+Griselbrand isn't enough
Doing a storm of 3 or 5 to gain some life to buy time against Burn
Sometimes having the right combination of cards to storm for a full 20 life because I didn't have the pieces for a regular combo kill.

As I've mentioned before, Tendrils makes up about 30-40% of my kills, and I feel that cutting it for anything else makes the deck less versatile in its plan of attack.

[Acclimation]

Jammed some games against RUG today/last night and ended up with a record of 7-2 overall.

Key cards: Cabal Therapy, Thoughtseize, Silence

This should be obvious, but the games I got to open Probe>Therapy were games I usually won.

Looking at the sideboards of recent RUG decks, I see a one of Grafdigger's Cage, and maybe a Tormod's Crypt or a Surgical Extraction for GY hate, and then some number of Flusterstorm.

I feel as though we need to add in Chain of Vapor on the offchance they stick the Cage, but bringing in 3 Silence and 2 Chain feels like a lot, and I have a hard time cutting slots.

I don't want to cut more Probe then necessary, since getting a peek at their hand is too invaluable in this MU.

Reanimate could get cut, but the games that you Reanimate Griselbrand are amazing since they can't deal with a 7/7 flying lifelinker outside of 3 Bolts or a combination of Delver blocks and burn.

I could see LDV getting cut, but in those longer games in which you ravage each other with discard and counters, stacking our library can find us the exact cards we need to win.

Tendrils is another potential slot, since it can get Stifled, but as seen in my previous post, I'm loathe to cut Tendrils since it provides such a handy back up win con.

Chrome Mox was a slot that I tried, since we don't want to throw away more cards than necessary, but removing mana sources is risky versus a mana denial deck.

In the sideboard games, I tried -2 Probe, -1 Mox, -1 LDV, and -1 Tendrils, and went 1-1.

In last minute thoughts or suggestions (currently typing this in my hotel room at Indy)?

[kingsey]

Jammed some games against RUG today/last night and ended up with a record of 7-2 overall.

Key cards: Cabal Therapy, Thoughtseize, Silence

This should be obvious, but the games I got to open Probe>Therapy were games I usually won.

Looking at the sideboards of recent RUG decks, I see a one of Grafdigger's Cage, and maybe a Tormod's Crypt or a Surgical Extraction for GY hate, and then some number of Flusterstorm.

I feel as though we need to add in Chain of Vapor on the offchance they stick the Cage, but bringing in 3 Silence and 2 Chain feels like a lot, and I have a hard time cutting slots.

I don't want to cut more Probe then necessary, since getting a peek at their hand is too invaluable in this MU.

Reanimate could get cut, but the games that you Reanimate Griselbrand are amazing since they can't deal with a 7/7 flying lifelinker outside of 3 Bolts or a combination of Delver blocks and burn.

I could see LDV getting cut, but in those longer games in which you ravage each other with discard and counters, stacking our library can find us the exact cards we need to win.

Tendrils is another potential slot, since it can get Stifled, but as seen in my previous post, I'm loathe to cut Tendrils since it provides such a handy back up win con.

Chrome Mox was a slot that I tried, since we don't want to throw away more cards than necessary, but removing mana sources is risky versus a mana denial deck.

In the sideboard games, I tried -2 Probe, -1 Mox, -1 LDV, and -1 Tendrils, and went 1-1.

In last minute thoughts or suggestions (currently typing this in my hotel room at Indy)?


I wouldn't cut tendrils as it gives you a mini boost to stay in game, or draw more cards to set up another combo. My teammate just build rug so i'll be doing some in depth testing shortly. I'll keep you in the loop.
Also how is everyones Death and taxes match up?

[Koby]

In last minute thoughts or suggestions (currently typing this in my hotel room at Indy)?

Try this:

-4 Probe -2 LDV
+3 Chain of Vapor (goodbye flipped Delver)
+3 Silence

Probe eats up life while not getting rid of the problem. Thoughtseize is effectively more useful at -2 life +info. The biggest hurdle is to make it to 3 mana from lands. At that point, you should be able to start baiting Silence into counters and just going for it. An early Delver is bad news. Same with Goyf. In this matchup I will usually to to discard their threat as it represents the best way for them to beat Tin Fins.

Additionally, they will likely bring in REB to counter cantrips. Removing 6 blue spells will make some of their cards dead vs the full combo. This isn't the case if they land a Relic, Crypt, or Cage.



Also how is everyones Death and taxes match up?

Watch out for RIP and try to discard/bounce Thalia. Stall until Massacre becomes live. Play reactively if you don't have the full combo on turn 1, to set up for a turn 2. Turn 3 may just be safer vs them, to enable extra land drops after Griselbrand connects.

[Acclimation]

Ended up going 1-3 in the Legacy portion of the invitational (went 3-1 in Standard, fuck that format).

Won every game 1, and then drew dead in every game except the round I won.

Chalking it up to variance though. Gonna play in some Legacy side events tomorrow and possibly the Open on Sunday.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Any thoughts on maybe slowing the list down by a turn or so to gain better records? I don't really have any ideas yet, but I'm thinking on it...I know this wasn't exactly a "helpful" post, but turn 1 is fast, and while I understand that more turns = more disruption from your opponent, I think 1 turn may be able to assist in a more probable win.

-ABC

EDIT::: Does Stifle stop the Sacrifice effect of Goryo's/Shallow Grave?

[entreri_fans]

yes, both of them could be counterd by stifle.

they are all delayed triggered abilities.

[Acclimation]

Played in 3 Legacy side events today, so here's the report(s):

Legacy Win a box 1:

Rd 1: Dredge (2-0)

Game 1: He wins the roll, dredges horribly and starts attacking with Stinkweed Imp and a Narcomoeba. I finally draw the missing piece and combo from 9 life.

-2 LDV -1 Silence -1 Swamp +3 Surgical +2 Chain

Game 2: He dredges horribly again, and I get a turn 3 kill. EZ.

Rd 2: Shardless Bug (2-0)

He wins the roll and ends up jamming a Shardless with Hymn off cascade. I therapy and thoughtseize most of his permission. Ended up combing off from 6 life winning with Tendrils (helps from Children)

-4 Probe -2 LDV +3 Silence +2 Needle +1 Chain

G2 he mulls to 5 and goes Wasteland, go. I blind therapy naming FoW and hit it, seeing a hand of two Shardless 2 abrupt decay. I cantrip and draw while he spins his wheels failing to find land, and I get there eventually.

Rd 3: Death and Taxes. (2-0)

This guy and I have a mutual friend, so we agreed to split the box and play the matches for the Mythic Madness envelope.

g1: Won the roll, t1 win. He's never seen tinfins before.

-1 Silence -3 Probe +2 Massacre +1 Pithing Needle +1 Chain

g2: He plays Relic t1 and passes, I lead off with Needle. From my notes it looks like I got him on t3 with Tendrils.

Envelope had a Vengevine, I ended up pulling some sweet stuff from my packs.

Win a Box 2:

RBUg Delver/YoungPyromancer/Bob/Deathrite Shaman deck (0-2)

My notes are pretty shitty here, but he had the right amount of Disruption + clock that I couldn't get through. I lost the dice roll and got Probe>Therapied taking Entomb, and it just went downhill with dead draws. I sideboarded in Silence and Surgical, dropping Probe and LDV. Since these win a boxes are single elimination, I'm out of this one.

Legacy Open Trial (4-0)

I took better notes for these games

rd 1: Jund. (2-0)

Lost roll

g1 he keeps and okay hand and plays a Thoughtseize, taking Entomb. I probe him, seeing Hymn, DRS, Goyf, and Lily, Therapy naming DRS. Next turn I rip Entomb and get him. He has only seen Tinfins once and is unsure of himself.

-1 Silence, -3 Probe -2 LDV +3 Needle +2 Surgical +1 Chain

g2: I keep the nuts, and he t1 duresses me and takes my Entomb. I Surgical Duress, seeing wasteland, bolt, reb, pyroblast, and bob in hand, seeing extirpate, surgical, and nihil spellbomb in his library. I end up drawing my combo pieces after 2 fetches and get 2 Children activations.

rd 2: Maverick 2-1

lost roll

g1 I can't find a second land and entomb to save my life, and with 2 turns before I'm dead draw entomb (still no second land), cast it eot for griselbrand, and end up not drawing a second mana source to cast reanimation.

He assumes I'm reanimator. -1 Silence -4 Probe +2 Massacre +2 Chain +1 Needle

G2: I t1 thoughtseize and see DRS, KotR x2, Oring, Horizon canopy, and verdant catacomb (he mulled). I take DRS and get him on t2.

g3: Risky keep, entomb, chrome mox, shallow grave, ponder, 3 land. He plays land, gsz for dryad arbor and passes. I draw a Lotus petal and kill him t1.

rd3: Jund (2-0)

I won the roll.

g1 I get a solid t2 kill hand (no dark ritual, but entomb+reanimation). I land and pass, he fetches, DRS and passes. I probe him and see Goyf, BBE, Lily, Bob, and forest. I get there on t2. This dude has also never seen Tinfins, only heard about it.

g2: I get the turn 1. Sideboard is the same as earlier.

Rd4: Aluren. He wants to split. I think about it, and decide to not do so. (spoiler:2-0)

g1:I won the roll I didn't realize he had a Fow, but end up LDVing up the countered piece.

+3 Silence +1 Chain, not sure what I pulled out.

g2: I stick an Entomb, he Therapies me next turn naming Shallow Grave, misses, plays Dreamstalker and flashes back the Therapy. He failed to write my hand down (I had LDV and Goryo), and says "akroma's vengeance" after bumbling around his words. I call a judge since my opponent was trying to describe the card. Judge ends up letting him get my Goryo, and I LDV up the kill next turn. #Dreamcrusher

Opted to get packs over the voucher for an Open, since I can't responsibly stay all day for the Legacy Open due to having lots of hw and 2 tests on Monday.

One of my friends that I'm rooming with is friends with Caleb Durward, and apparently Durward is wanting to play his Stronghold Gambit list if he can get Shallow Graves, which I said I could loan to him. We discuss his list a bit, and I tell him I'll follow him around and watch his games to see the list in action, since I don't want to be a typical internet shitter that shoots down ideas without testing/seeing it played.

So, 7-1 in Legacy today, but I saw a lot of RUG and UWR delver on the floor, so I'm not too sad that I'm skipping out on the Open. I am very curious to see the Stronghold Gambit list played.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I'm not, I was durdling with it and watching a vid or two on it (the guy was just bad with the deck), and I have to say I don't think it's worth the splash. Terrible for the most part.

I have been thinking heavily about Stifle. It has application in the long game, allowing to stop tons of activations (Stifling RiP's CIP effect is decent), stopping the sacrifice of your reanimate target at end of turn if for some reason you can't complete the combo, stop their fetch if it's appropriate (you can know if it's appropriate by scoping their hand), stop a waste. I'm sure there is more. Discuss?

-ABC

EDIT::: Big Red is using it to success, but I have to say with all these "big creature cheater" decks like SnT builds, Big Red, Reanimator, us, Turbo Eldrazi, and then some, I don't think letting them potentially put a fatty out is a good idea, especially with TNN being a thing soon. I dunno, more discussion and testing is warranted on this.

[Acclimation]

Ended up not loaning my Graves out, and Durward played in the Classic instead, so no Stronghold Gambit observations.

I saw 2 Tinfins pilots at the event, 1 was running a red splash for Burning Wish, Faithless Looting, and Simian Spirit Guide, the other appeared to be a more stock list.

I talked with the BW pilot, since I was intrigued, and he had things like Pyroclasm, Echoing Ruin, Exhume, Tendrils, and I think a Duress for wishable cards. It seemed like an interesting spin on the list, but I'm not fond of the Faithless Lootings and Spirit Guides. Dude was 2-2 when I spoke to him. Fun story, one of the guy's friends walks up to us while we are talking and goes, "Oh shit, is that Logan? He's the guy whose list we sent you!" I told them that I didn't design it, and I'm just some dude that had success with the deck. I'm just amused that I was recognized.

In that same round, I noticed the other pilot, and on t4 of rounds, he draws into Griselbrand and hard casts it with 3 Rituals (also had 2 petals, 5 lands) (his opponent was on ANT). He draws 14 with double Entomb and Shallow Grave, a Chrome Mox, and no other mana sources (some black cards). Instead of going Entomb> Griselbrand>Shallow Grave> Entomb Emrakul> Shallow Grave, swing, win, he Entombs for Children and Graves it. He gets down to 3 cards left in his library before he pitches Emrakul to reshuffle, then draws another 14 to get the Tendrils kill, and he was barely able to loop his library. I point it out to him after he signs the slip and he says he had a brain fart and realized it after he Graved Children.

Like I mentioned, I didn't play in the Open, lots of UWR present at the upper tables, so I'm glad I didn't play (kiiiinda).


I'm not, I was durdling with it and watching a vid or two on it (the guy was just bad with the deck), and I have to say I don't think it's worth the splash. Terrible for the most part.

I have been thinking heavily about Stifle. It has application in the long game, allowing to stop tons of activations (Stifling RiP's CIP effect is decent), stopping the sacrifice of your reanimate target at end of turn if for some reason you can't complete the combo, stop their fetch if it's appropriate (you can know if it's appropriate by scoping their hand), stop a waste. I'm sure there is more. Discuss?

-ABC

EDIT::: Big Red is using it to success, but I have to say with all these "big creature cheater" decks like SnT builds, Big Red, Reanimator, us, Turbo Eldrazi, and then some, I don't think letting them potentially put a fatty out is a good idea, especially with TNN being a thing soon. I dunno, more discussion and testing is warranted on this.

My buddy Davis has it in his Big Red list (his list was in a recent article of Durward's, actually; he also had a deck tech at scgmilwaukee), and he almost never brings it in. I understand Durward's reasoning for wanting Gambit, but I don't think it's good enough for the deck.

As for Stifle, what do you cut for it?

I usually have Cabal Therapy in the yard for me to Flashback to preserve my Griselbrand for the next turn. Playing mana denial is too cute and ineffective when we don't have Wastelands, and the other applications, while good, just don't do much for us.

I don't think Stifle is the right choice for the deck.

[Finntrinsic]

Greetings All,

After a 1 Open break (I goofed around with 4 color delver at Milwaukee) I played Fins on Sunday to a 6-3 record and a cash in 48th place.

Wins:
RUG Delver x2
Pod Nicfit
Ant x3

Losses:

Standard Reanimator x2
Led'ed Dredge

I'll post my list and some match report details later.

Take Care,

-Finn

[Richard Cheese]

I'm not, I was durdling with it and watching a vid or two on it (the guy was just bad with the deck), and I have to say I don't think it's worth the splash. Terrible for the most part.

I have been thinking heavily about Stifle. It has application in the long game, allowing to stop tons of activations (Stifling RiP's CIP effect is decent), stopping the sacrifice of your reanimate target at end of turn if for some reason you can't complete the combo, stop their fetch if it's appropriate (you can know if it's appropriate by scoping their hand), stop a waste. I'm sure there is more. Discuss?

-ABC

EDIT::: Big Red is using it to success, but I have to say with all these "big creature cheater" decks like SnT builds, Big Red, Reanimator, us, Turbo Eldrazi, and then some, I don't think letting them potentially put a fatty out is a good idea, especially with TNN being a thing soon. I dunno, more discussion and testing is warranted on this.

I was testing Stifle as a 2-of in straight UB a long time ago when basically the entire format was running Karakas Main. It did have some handy tricks like just keeping a fatty in play, reanimating EOT to have more free mana, or just screwing with someone's T2 land drop. With Children though, Karakas is somewhat less of an issue (originally you always wanted to attack with Grizzlebees to net the extra 7 cards and reduce the necessary storm count).

As far as RiP goes, if I were cutting cards for Stifle, I'd rather just have more discard or even Spell Pierce/Snare to deal with it permanently. The Leyline effect is what matters most on that card. Ditching Griz without a way to reanimate isn't really where you want to be, and once RiP comes down, even if you're able to reanimate, it remains a huge roadblock to finishing the rest of the combo.

Props to Acclimation and Finntrinsic, good to see people are still playing and having success with the deck. Let's just hope all this reanimator shenanigans dies down so we can once again attack the soft underbelly of the metagame in DC.

[kihachi]

Wow, I also played Tin Fins at the Open and went 6-3. My build is a little outdated and is only U/B (partly for budget reasons after selling some cards) but I was pretty happy with the deck on the day. My matches were:

Goblins (Won)
Maverick (Won)
Stasis (Won)
ANT (Won)
Sneak and Show (Lost)
4c Cascade (Lost)
Mono-Red Painter (Won)
Reanimator (Lost)
Dredge (Won)

Compared to the last open where I played the deck (Columbus, a long time ago) I found that there is a lot less mainboard hate for the deck (no RiPs and few Shaman, at least for me) but most decks bring in double digit cards against you. Chain of Vapor from the sideboard was crucial, but I wish I'd had some Duresses in there. I had LDV in the board and brought a couple in often, but only cast one once and it was countered.

Props go to me winning a game with Tendrils for 6, Emrakul for winning a ton of games by attacking, seven of my nine opponents for being generally pleasant, if not outright great people to play Magic with. Also to the loads of Mythics given away by SCG, which weren't amazing for me but did net me an Iona and a Tezzeret.

Slops go to the 4c Cascade deck for casting Lotion Thief in response to my Griz activation (even though that was really cool), Reanimator for naturally drawing the one Coffin Purge he brought in both games, and one of my opponents who straight up could not cope with playing against a combo deck and needed some cheese with his whine. I can't stand sore losers. Also, slops to me being the longest match in round 4, so that my next two opponents knew what i was on before we started.

[Koby]

If anyone is planning on playing Tin Fins this weekend at Eternal Champs, Bazaar of Moxen, or SCG Open @ Los Angeles; feel free to contact me. I will start an e-mail discussion thread for sideboard strategies.

[Finntrinsic]

Report from SCG Indy


Mentioned yesterday I would follow up with my list and some match notes. To business:

2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
2 Children of Korlis
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Pact of Negation
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Lim-Dul’s Vault
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo’s Vengeance
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Bosejiu, Who Shelter’s all

SideBoard:

4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Pithing Needle
2 Karakas
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Show & Tell


So right away you’ll see I’m a little off from the “Standard” list that Koby & Acclimation have had some success with. My viewpoint on this has always been the same, this deck is all about offense and I would rather have a card in my hand that lets me deal with my opponent’s interaction rather than just let me know what those cards are. To that end, I cut the probes and replaced them with 4 Pact of Negation. I also run the 2nd Children of Korlis and the second Chrome Mox because in my experience this provides maximum consistency for the instances in which you go off with Griselbrand.

Right from jump, I want to say this was a great SCG event for me in that all of my opponents were, if not cool, at least civil and professional (and most of you WERE Cool!)

Rnd 1: Chad Teuscher (RUG Delver)

Chad was very cool and I iirc he won the die roll and started with trop into ponder. I have an opener with entomb, 2 pact, ponder, petal, and lands. Seeing him tap I play petal and fetch for USea and ponder snagging the Goryo’s I need and putting another land on top in case he wastes. Turn 2 he does in fact waste and plays delver and says go. Turn 2 I fetch for swamp…pass the turn. Turn 3 he plays a volc and swings for 3…Turn 3 I draw a ritual and here we go:

Me: Tap swamp cast ritual
Chad: Hard cast daze
Me: Crack petal and Pay it
Chad: Return Island Cast Daze
Me: Pact of negation on daze
Chad: Pact Resolves return Island cast Daze
Me: Pact of negation on daze
Chad:…Ritual Resolves.
Grisel comes back from the dead and does what he does.


Game 2:
I side out a children, a Chrome mox, a Goryo’s and a LDV. Side in surgical and S&T.
Chad mulls his opener in game 2. I keep a speculative hand of: Tendrils, ritual x2, shallow-grave, surgical extraction, fetch x2. Mostly I’m hoping I can surgical so I can get perfect knowledge of his hate package. Chad keeps his 6 but does not look very happy about it.
Turn 1: Chad git probes me and I show him the goods (I hoping like hell he does not have a stifle or this could get bad for me quick). He draws for probe and immediately probes again for life?!?!? You’re digging sir? Now? He draws for probe 2 My turn 1 I draw ponder I fetch for a Usea and surgical the probes to see what’s up. He reveals brainstorm x2, flusterstorm, ponder x2, daze. Pass back, He draws and passes back with no land. I draw lotus petal and figure…why not

Petal?
Resolves
Tap Usea, Ritual?
Resolves
Crack petal for blue, Ponder?
Resolves
2 land and another ponder
Draw ponder from ponder
Play land, sac for Usea
Tap Usea, Play Ponder?
resolves
See Land, LDV, Ritual
Draw ritual for ponder
Ritual?
Resolves
Ritual?
Resolves
Shallow grave?
Resolves
Tendrils you for lethal?

1-0 2-0

Round 2 Ryan Hovis (Nic Fit/Pod)

I lose the die roll I keep a strong t2 go off hand Ryan opens on forest Vet Explorer and I draw a Ponder and play a land and ponder seeing pact, land, ritual I order pact, ritual, land draw the pact & pass the turn. Turn 2 Ryan plays a savannah and casts ethersworn canonist and my go off on t2 plan dies a quiet pitiful death…as do I about 4 turns later.
Board In S&T, Surgical, Chains (haven’t seen pod yet)
Side out Pacts, 1 child, 1 ldv

Game 2: I go off approx. Turn 4 with re-animated emrakul (therapied out of my grip) He manages to pod into 7 permanents and a baleful strix. I swing and wipe his board. We durdle for a few turns he gets back into things with a cannonist. He has fetched and poded and thoughtseized so much by now he is down to 4 life. I draw a lotus petal, play it and the tendrils I drew the turn before to finish him.

Board out 1 chrome mox, 1 ponder, 1 goryo’s
Board in Needles

Game 3: He opens on Deathrite, I play a land and needle deathrite, we play the ponder/thoughtseize back and forth for a couple turns and he’s ripping my hand up pretty good. Eventually I end up hardcasting Grisel off a topdecked ritual and the petal and 5 lands I have in play. Draw 14 pull S&T, Emmy, & mana, Therapy to make sure there’s no foolishness, happy I did when I see phantasmal image as one of his last 2 cards…sac grisel to flashback therapy to remove image. S&T Emmy. Ryan draws and offers the hand.

2-0 2-1

Rnd 3: Samuel Friedman (RUG)

TBH this one was kind of a blur, I won the die roll, hit FoW with a t1 therapy and saw no other counters. Went off on t2 iirc
SB: In Surgical & S&T
Out: Child, Goryo’s, Chrome, LDV

Game 2: I believe I therapied for daze when he was tapped out to play goyf with 2 cards left in hand. Then I S&T’d in Emrakul.

3-0 2-0
Rnd 4: Ben Robinson (ANT)

I lose the die roll

Game 1:He plays Usea and ponders… draws from ponder and plays a petal. Ok we’ve got a combo player. My opener is slower so this could be bad. I do have children of Korlis in hand which I play of a fetched tundra for my turn 1. He goes off on t3…he’s ramping up Led’s and rituals, and so on. I’m hoping he’s ignorant about Children, at storm count 10 with lots of gas left he re-reads the card (uh oh)...He calls a judge:
Him: So he can use this in response to any of my storm triggers?
Judge: That is correct.
Him: Hmm so he waits until 9th trigger and then heals 16 back to 19. (I was at 19) So I need…storm 20…challenge accepted!
Challenge Achieved!
Tin-Fin’s player dead in game 1 to Storm 20.
SB:
Out: Pacts, 1 child, 1 ldv
In: 4 leyline 2 surgical

Game 2: I go off on t2

Game 3: I keep an opener with the combo but only 1 land & a ponder and leyline, surgical, and child. Beg of game reveal, opponent frowns (good he left the empty the warrens in the SB) 2 turns later I hit the ritual and combo out.

4-0 2-1
Rnd 5: Rob Cucunato (Re-Animator)

I lose the die roll

Rob opens on a Polluted detla…pass. I have a t2 go off hand *IF* I use the discard rule to bin the Grisel I drew. Which my overly greedy self immediately does, Rob fetches in response to my discard (ruh-ro raggy). On his turn 2 he plays another land and promptly casts animate dead on MY griselbrand…the NERVE! I lose shortly thereafter.

SB: Out Pacts, 1 child, 1 ldv, 1 chrome
In: 2 Karakas, 3 Needle, 2 surgical

Game 2: Rob hits a re-animated Iona on black on turn 3…I never draw an answer and am killed like the greedy combo player I am.

4-1 0-2
Round 6: Daniel Kwiatkowski (Led’ed Dredge)
I lose the die roll
I keep a T2 go off hand and I know I’m in trouble when Daniel leads with the Colliseum t1…t2 he goes off and dread returns an Iona (on black).

SB: Out Pacts, 1 ldv, 1 child
In: Surgicals, karakas, and chains

Game 2: I draw the nuts go off on turn 1. “I Suppose that’s fair.” My opponent says with a smile. Combo LOVE max Respect!!!

Game 3: My brain implodes…I know what he’s playing. I know I can’t keep a t3 combo hand…and I do it anyway. He makes me feel slightly better by blowing up on t1 for like 15 zombies…t2 probably wouldn’t have been good enough either…still I should have mulled to something faster. <-My punt moment for the day. Also a note: I always agonize between chain of vapor and echoing truth, this is one of those moments where I had the chain in my hand and desperately wanted it to be etruth.
4-2 1-2

Round 7: Jake Xu (ANT)

Fun fact: Jake was the finalist at SCG Minneapolis, he lost playing ANT to one of the guys in my local store Kenny Dungar playing Goblins. So I had a pretty good idea that he was still on the storm plan.

I win the die roll and keep a T2 hand (no protection). I play a Usea and pass. He draws, cracks a scalding for a basic island and ponders. (Is he still on storm? God I hope so!) I entomb on his endstep…resolves. My t2 I goryo’s G-Money and Jake scoops it up before my follow-up cabal therapy can resolve.

Now I’m in my head about what he’s on…I make some questionable SB calls:

Out: Pacts, 1 child, 1 chrome mox
In: Surgicals, Karakas, chains

Game 2: I keep a speculative hand with entomb, surgical, therapy dig and 2 lands
Jake’s duress takes my entomb. I therapy his infernal tutor. We durdle at each other for a couple turns then Jake goes off with about 5 land/chrome in play. Cabal ritual’s into Ad-Nauseum…Draws about 14 cards…lots of land, discard, dig and…no tendrils and no tutor…He stops Ad-nauseum at 6. He goes to play dark ritual and in response I surgical the tutor in his yard. He then goes through the dig in his hand, probes me for life, plays out his Led’s and petals, cracks his mana, plays past in flames, ponders a couple more times..can’t find the tendrils…settles for ripping up my hand with thoughtseize and Therapy, passes the turn at 2 life and both of us hellbent…2 turns later. I peel tendrils off the top.

5-2 2-0

Round 8: Phil Silberman (Ant)

I have a t2 hand if things go according to plan. I play a fetch, and pass. I end up needing to fetch and entomb in response to phil’s t1 duress which makes my good hand significantly less good. My t2 go off slowly erodes into a watch Phil go off on like turn 4.

SB: Out Pacts, LDV, Boseiju
In: Leylines & Surgical

Game 2: I have 1 Leyline in the opener along with entomb, ponder, ldv, fetch, therapy, chrome. Start of game I reveal the leyline and my opponent is visibly unhappy. Unmolested by disruption, I go off on turn 3 after I ldv in the bottom of t2 for the goryo’s.

Game 3: My opening 7 is 6 lands and a ponder (No thanks!) I mull for the first time today into leyline x3, fetch, ponder, entomb…um sure…Start of game reveal x3

Phil: Hmm…I think that’s real bad for me.
Me: How so,
Phil: I have 2 chains and a Past in flames in the deck…I need to hit them all to beat you.
Me: No Empty eh?
Phil: Left it in the board.

Phil did not find the chains in a timely manner:

6-2 2-1

Round 9: Andrew Shrout (Re-Animator)

I lost the die roll, I kept a decent hand with Pact and Entomb and lost in fine fashion when Andrew entomb’ed and re-animated Iona on turn 2.

SB: Out 1 Child, 1 LDV, 1 Mox, 1 pact, 1 therapy, Boseiju
In Karakas x2, Surgical x2, Chain of Vapor x2

Game 2: I keep an opener with entomb, karakas x2, tundra, ponder, petal, brainstorm
My turn 1 I play tundra and ponder,
His turn 1 he chucks his 2 lotus petals (his only mana) and entombs and re-animates Iona naming black
My turn 2 I drop karakas and bounce Iona and he scoops

Game 3: I mull to 6 and still have no h8, but the hand will get there on t2 so I hang on to it. T1 I get thoughtseized and lose my entomb, shortly after that I find myself being beat down by an Ashen Rider who could care less that I found my karakas on turn 4.

6-3 1-2
On the whole, a great event and in fine fashion I trimmed the sb out in anticipation of a meta filled with U/W/R Delver and Sneak & Show and I didn’t play either MU all day. 

The SB did work in spots where it was supposed to. If I had it to do again I think I’d opt for Echoing Truth instead of Chain of Vapor but otherwise I was happy with the board.
So my main question, anyone have any suggestions for the ReAnimator MU? I felt like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs when it came to dealing with them.

I look forward to your comments,

-Finn

[kingsey]

fin,

Is there any situation where you would have rather had the probes vs the pacts?

sometimes I feel probe into Cabal is almost cheating.

[Acclimation]

Great report, grats on your placing. I wasn't playing in the open, but I was roaming the tables for the first 4 rounds, bummer I didn't see you playing (found 2 other tinfins players that day).

In addition to the question about Pact over Probe, how has your land base worked out for you? You are running 15 lands (I've been on 14), with Boseiju as the 15th land- how often has that card been relevant? And how often have you had to ship back opening hands in which it is your only mana source? Another query, you are running Verdant Catacombs over Polluted Delta. Has this ever affected any game in which you couldn't fetch for a specific land (so, Tundra)?

Your sideboard is also interesting, Leyline seems like a cumbersome card, outside of Storm, what else do you bring it in against?

Karakas is a good call versus Reanimator, but did you feel that boarding in extra lands slowed you down too much?

Any reason for wanting Echoing Truth over Chain of Vapor? I've found in most of my games, I prefer the 1 cmc cost on chain.

Show and Tell is a card that most of us decided wasn't worth having in the deck, what are your reasons for keeping it?

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Great report, grats on your placing. I wasn't playing in the open, but I was roaming the tables for the first 4 rounds, bummer I didn't see you playing (found 2 other tinfins players that day).

In addition to the question about Pact over Probe, how has your land base worked out for you? You are running 15 lands (I've been on 14), with Boseiju as the 15th land- how often has that card been relevant? And how often have you had to ship back opening hands in which it is your only mana source? Another query, you are running Verdant Catacombs over Polluted Delta. Has this ever affected any game in which you couldn't fetch for a specific land (so, Tundra)?

Your sideboard is also interesting, Leyline seems like a cumbersome card, outside of Storm, what else do you bring it in against?

Karakas is a good call versus Reanimator, but did you feel that boarding in extra lands slowed you down too much?

Any reason for wanting Echoing Truth over Chain of Vapor? I've found in most of my games, I prefer the 1 cmc cost on chain.

Show and Tell is a card that most of us decided wasn't worth having in the deck, what are your reasons for keeping it?

I've been running a list with 2 Moxen too, Finntrinsic (catchy name). I think that's it's peak number, I don't think it'll ever go down in a build of mine. Also, I'm running 13 lands, and I play against Wastelands. I am still thinking on a 14th land (I was playing 14, dropped for Mox), but still dwelling on card choices to do it. Pacts are something I would have to think about because I like my discard being a combo-enabler, and Pact doesn't let that happen. I like Silence over it against blue (and that's also why I don't play Boseiju along with the no turn-one kills if it's my only IMS), so there's another minus. Pact does help against Surgical Extraction, and that's good, and right now I'm running a number (can't recall, 4 I think) of Leylines also, but I'm in against a heavy discard meta. Their best turn one play is Inquisition of Kozilek into your Entomb and Surgical it. That is a bad day, and Leyline blanks that. Echoing Truth should be a meta-call. It's especially good against combo, obviously. Empty the Warrens, and especially Bridge from Below are scary if they beat you to it. It's just bad against tempo decks, rarely being able to play around Daze and Pierce, and it gets hit by Snare.

-ABC

[phazonmutant]

Thanks for sharing your report, it was entertaining! Also left me with a whole slew of questions, but...


In addition to the question about Pact over Probe, how has your land base worked out for you? You are running 15 lands (I've been on 14), with Boseiju as the 15th land- how often has that card been relevant? And how often have you had to ship back opening hands in which it is your only mana source? Another query, you are running Verdant Catacombs over Polluted Delta. Has this ever affected any game in which you couldn't fetch for a specific land (so, Tundra)?

Your sideboard is also interesting, Leyline seems like a cumbersome card, outside of Storm, what else do you bring it in against?

Karakas is a good call versus Reanimator, but did you feel that boarding in extra lands slowed you down too much?

Any reason for wanting Echoing Truth over Chain of Vapor? I've found in most of my games, I prefer the 1 cmc cost on chain.

Show and Tell is a card that most of us decided wasn't worth having in the deck, what are your reasons for keeping it?

Acclimation already asked all of them.

The final question is one that I want to touch on though. I've been thinking a lot about TinFins lately but haven't had time to test a brew with DC coming up. Your list makes me think that I might not be off on a wild goose chase. I'll post the decklist first then talk about why it's interesting.

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
2 Lim-Dûl's Vault

2 Show and Tell
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance

4 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy

4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual

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

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Chain of Vapor

// 14 lands
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
2 Flooded Strand

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

Ok, why do I think this list is interesting? Where did it come from?
1. Why is TinFins not winning? At one point I thought it had the potential to be the best deck in the format, now I don't and it isn't. What changed?
2. Why play TinFins over traditional reanimator?

Let's evaluate the decks on a few criteria first:

Player adoption - possible but I think negligible. There's not many people playing traditonal and many people know about TinFins. It's possible that better players are playing traditional, but that's impossible to measure.
Consistency - probably traditional. We have more clunkers like Children and Dark Ritual that are highly variant. Traditional still has consistency issues, but gets to run more enablers (Study, Show and Tell) that work well when you inevitably draw your creatures.
Robustness - difficult, but probably traditional. Traditional can counter hate on the play and the draw and seems to a long game better. TinFins can beat hate with stack trickery (and fast mana) and doesn't care about random (but less common) monster hate (although Traditional has the tools to beat them). Traditional has more (real) plans available - reanimate your creature, Show and Tell, combo, whereas TinFins has combo and the dubious natural Tendrils. Traditional's creatures have more utility, especially at low life-total. TinFins is a little faster, which is its own kind of robustness.
Matchups - I think this too skill-determined to make a decision. Some people claim to have good thresh matchups, others have horrible. I don't even know from traditional's perspective. I'll leave this one for the reader.


To answer the questions, we need to look back to Jan-Mar this year when there was extremely active and rapid development of TinFins. We made a lot of changes from earlier versions of the deck, but maybe not all those choices were correct. We can use these criteria to focus on the purpose of the changes that were made in that time period. With the benefit of testing and development in both decks, we should be able to make more informed choices.

Roughly in order, these were the major design changes I want to talk about:

Upping outs to 9 to mirror traditional. This was focused on robustness and consistency. I can't see this thought being wrong.
Cutting Careful Study. This was to help consistency. It not only reduced highly variant cards since you could replace them with versatile discard, you also didn't have to draw the fatties as often because we could cut down on them. It had some side benefits like helping robustness to discard, but the deck lost some digging power postboard.
Cutting the Show and Tell transform. CalebD innovated this and I think we tentatively agreed it's better and then gradually just calcified. I'm not sure about this, more later.
Adding Gitaxian Probe. This was exclusively to help consistency, and it's also the decision I feel least sure about. It has great synergy with Therapy and Tendrils, but has some dissynergy with Griselbrand and just fitting everything. The idea was that another cantrip might help general smoothness issues. Note that this was when we felt comfortable dropping back down to 8 outs. Interestingly, we determined we still weren't there with consistency, leading to:
Adding LDV. Vampiric Tutor is sick. It's also an interesting convergence, more later.
Universal adoption of Silence. This helps tremendously against both Tempo and Combo, but it doesn't interact well with S&T. Flag it


Why am I talking about Show and Tell and LDV in the same breath? Before I learned about TinFins, I did pretty decently with a similar Griselbrand storm deck I called Count Chocula that played 4 Show and Tell and 2 LDV as its main plan. Interesting, huh? Back when we had S&T in the board, we were not really integrating it into our gameplan very well. Without LDV there's some major consistency issues and also we were completely scrapping the graveyard plan. Now look at what Reanimator has been doing. They're using it as a backup plan in the main deck - give the opponent too many cards that they have to care about - but it also just happens to work with their stable manabase and large number of creatures. If necessary, they can bring more in. I want to port that.

Show and Tell is an attempt to increase robustness without affecting consistency negatively. Probes are the first to get cut in sideboarding, so I feel comfortable cutting them and not greatly hurting consistency. We have the same number of outs as pre-GP TinFins. I'm nervous about adding back more creatures, but I guess they're not truly dead. This still leaves us in a position of being less consistent than traditional, especially in terms of the manabase (diff: -2 Seas, -1 basic, +2 w lands, +1 Chrome Mox), but hopefully the gap is small in absolute terms.
It's integrated into the maindeck as described above, and allows us to play an effective hybrid strategy as Reanimator does. Hopefully this helps with robustness.

As far as other less important things - if we're playing Show and Tell, a stable manabase is vital. Islands and Swamps are in, 14 lands are in. Also we're going to have more lines where we're not able to combo off the turn Griselbrand comes into play, so it's nice to have Tendrils as a backup. I feel bad running 2 vampiric tutors in the maindeck and not having any bounce. That slot could probably be another discard if you prefer. The sideboard may want Ashen Rider. All the sideboard cards are super high-impact except Chain, that might be the first cut. Bounce is also a nonbo with S&T.

I'm pretty sure I'm playing TES in DC, but I've run this deck through a few matches in cockatrice and I've been thinking a lot about it over the past couple weeks. Please give it a try and let me know what you think.

[Richard Cheese]

If anyone cares, here's my current list:


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

SB: 3 Teferi's Realm
SB: 4 Silence
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 Deathmark
SB: 1 Infest


I'd swap Probes for Silence if I were going to play in tempo.meta, possibly 2 Silence, one additional land. Sideboard is a mess, as always. Realm is still there for testing, but events keep failing to fire here so I haven't really had much opportunity.

[Finntrinsic]

Yay questions!

In the order received:

Is there any situation where you would have rather had the probes vs the pacts?

Short answer: Any situation where I don’t need to counter a spell to win.

Here’s the thing: Often I DO need to counter a spell to win. I know this deck uses the re-animation mechanic to make its combo work, but at the end of the day it isn’t a reanimator deck. If you want the closest equivalent deck for what we do and how we win IMO you should draw comparisons to Belcher or Storm. Storm is the closest analogy, they leverage Ad-Naseum for ridiculous card draw, we leverage G-Money. But however the deck “goes off” the point and the purpose is the same, the expectation is that you win the game on the turn you combo. Doesn’t always happen (sadly I’ve played the deck long enough now that I’ve had a couple of “draw 21 and wiff” games) but the VAST majority of the time if you resolve Grizzle with more than 14 life there should not be another turn in the game.

If you accept the described viewpoint of the way the deck works, then my point is this. Most decks will not have game 1 GY hate targeted specifically at beating our deck (deathrite shaman can be a problem, but he isn’t in their deck to beat us.). ALL non-combo decks will have a means to disrupt combo so they have a chance to win, that means 1 of 3 choices, countermagic, hand disruption, resource denial (wasteland, blood moon, chalice). Because of the synergy with cantrips most of the competitive non-combo decks opt for countermagic. Having an answer to FoW and Daze in the mainboard of our deck to me is essential. If everyone agrees on this then the question comes down to what the answer should be. Some folks like silence and it is a fair choice. My objection to it is that it costs mana (which makes it slower) and it cannot be used in reaction to something the opponent does after Griselbrand is in play. Some folks like using disruption to clear a path to combo off, while this can work…I don’t like the option very much for the following reasons:

1: Spending time forcing the Opponent to discard spells so you can execute your combo slows the deck down. This gives the opponent more time to:
A) Become clear on what they are playing against and try to search up whatever answers they have to our plan.
B) Do damage to us with creatures and spells potentially limiting our ability to “go off”

2. The discard spells in our deck serve the secondary purpose of enabling the combo in certain cases, having to split the resource between removing Countermagic and enabling the combo means the discard does both jobs less effectively.

3. Discard encourages the use of Probe as a means to “go surgical” on the opponent’s plan. While I appreciate it can be fun to spike the key card out of the Opponents opening grip setting them back in their plan, if it doesn’t enable us to combo out ourselves more quickly is it really that important to what we do? Fins is faster than most of the format, it is one of the decks primary strengths, if the cards you take from the opponent’s hand do anything other than prevent us from going off then the discard serves no real purpose and just wastes time and cards slots that should be used to advance our primary goal. So I am clear, I love discard and think it is essential to the success of this deck, I just don’t believe it needs to be married up with Probe because Probe is the peanut butter to Therapy’s jelly. In most situations where you want to use discard to clear the path to combo you know without peeking which cards can potentially stop you and should name your therapies accordingly.

how has your land base worked out for you? You are running 15 lands (I've been on 14), with Boseiju as the 15th land- how often has that card been relevant? And how often have you had to ship back opening hands in which it is your only mana source?

TBH Boseiju is a holdover from earlier in the year where the meta was more miracles and deathblade. Having the extra answers to countermagic at that time seemed more important, now if I had it to do again I would probably make that boseiju a dryad arbor (fetchable recursion for therapy) or a maindeck karakas. To date I have never run into a situation where it was the only land in my opener.

Another query, you are running Verdant Catacombs over Polluted Delta. Has this ever affected any game in which you couldn't fetch for a specific land (so, Tundra)?

True confession time, I don’t own a full playset of delta’s (come on reprint! :). With that said, even if I did have them I’m not sure I’d use them. The black throughline of the fetches hits every land except tundra. I’m usually only really looking for white to cast a Children so I can go get Scrub if needed. Also playing Verdant in the opening gives less info to the Opponent as to what deck they are facing, you can bluff a potential Jund opening which may change how your Opponent starts the game.



Your sideboard is also interesting, Leyline seems like a cumbersome card, outside of Storm, what else do you bring it in against?

Any deck that relies on disruption for its answer to combo. Examples:
Jund
Pox
Certain builds of BUG

And obviously the card is a HOUSE vs storm. As a note, pay attention to what GY hate your opponent brings in to beat you. In addition to its other fine uses, Leyline stones Tormod’s crypt and Nihil Spellbomb as they target the player and not the player’s GY.


Karakas is a good call versus Reanimator, but did you feel that boarding in extra lands slowed you down too much?

Karakas was one of the new editions to the SB for this event. It was added to address what I felt was the rising tide of traditional reanimator and Sneak & Show. It also serves, however as a good answer to my least favorite 2 drop in the game Thalia.

Any reason for wanting Echoing Truth over Chain of Vapor? I've found in most of my games, I prefer the 1 cmc cost on chain.

So obviously both chain & truth are your catchall “answers” to cards that are otherwise problematic for us to deal with:
Leyline of the void
Rest In Peace
Grafdigger’s Cage

and so on…For this event I did not see any of the permanent base GY hate. What I did see was Zombies….Lots and LOTS of Zombies. Also given the number of storm players I played I could have seen lots and lots of goblins (happy I didn’t in fact). In those cases you want the removal to cost 1 more mana and hit every stinking ZOMBIE on the board. This is one of those (chicken vs egg) questions that will plague Fins players until wizards prints us a better option.

Show and Tell is a card that most of us decided wasn't worth having in the deck, what are your reasons for keeping it?

Show & Tell was an addition for this event primarily as a reaction to the uptick in tiresome GY hate (Deathrite, RiP, Ooze, Cage) most of which I did not see.

[Mhenlo]

Yay questions!

In the order received:

Is there any situation where you would have rather had the probes vs the pacts?

Short answer: Any situation where I don’t need to counter a spell to win.

Here’s the thing: Often I DO need to counter a spell to win. I know this deck uses the re-animation mechanic to make its combo work, but at the end of the day it isn’t a reanimator deck. If you want the closest equivalent deck for what we do and how we win IMO you should draw comparisons to Belcher or Storm. Storm is the closest analogy, they leverage Ad-Naseum for ridiculous card draw, we leverage G-Money. But however the deck “goes off” the point and the purpose is the same, the expectation is that you win the game on the turn you combo. Doesn’t always happen (sadly I’ve played the deck long enough now that I’ve had a couple of “draw 21 and wiff” games) but the VAST majority of the time if you resolve Grizzle with more than 14 life there should not be another turn in the game.

If you accept the described viewpoint of the way the deck works, then my point is this. Most decks will not have game 1 GY hate targeted specifically at beating our deck (deathrite shaman can be a problem, but he isn’t in their deck to beat us.). ALL non-combo decks will have a means to disrupt combo so they have a chance to win, that means 1 of 3 choices, countermagic, hand disruption, resource denial (wasteland, blood moon, chalice). Because of the synergy with cantrips most of the competitive non-combo decks opt for countermagic. Having an answer to FoW and Daze in the mainboard of our deck to me is essential. If everyone agrees on this then the question comes down to what the answer should be. Some folks like silence and it is a fair choice. My objection to it is that it costs mana (which makes it slower) and it cannot be used in reaction to something the opponent does after Griselbrand is in play. Some folks like using disruption to clear a path to combo off, while this can work…I don’t like the option very much for the following reasons:

1: Spending time forcing the Opponent to discard spells so you can execute your combo slows the deck down. This gives the opponent more time to:
A) Become clear on what they are playing against and try to search up whatever answers they have to our plan.
B) Do damage to us with creatures and spells potentially limiting our ability to “go off”

2. The discard spells in our deck serve the secondary purpose of enabling the combo in certain cases, having to split the resource between removing Countermagic and enabling the combo means the discard does both jobs less effectively.

3. Discard encourages the use of Probe as a means to “go surgical” on the opponent’s plan. While I appreciate it can be fun to spike the key card out of the Opponents opening grip setting them back in their plan, if it doesn’t enable us to combo out ourselves more quickly is it really that important to what we do? Fins is faster than most of the format, it is one of the decks primary strengths, if the cards you take from the opponent’s hand do anything other than prevent us from going off then the discard serves no real purpose and just wastes time and cards slots that should be used to advance our primary goal. So I am clear, I love discard and think it is essential to the success of this deck, I just don’t believe it needs to be married up with Probe because Probe is the peanut butter to Therapy’s jelly. In most situations where you want to use discard to clear the path to combo you know without peeking which cards can potentially stop you and should name your therapies accordingly.

how has your land base worked out for you? You are running 15 lands (I've been on 14), with Boseiju as the 15th land- how often has that card been relevant? And how often have you had to ship back opening hands in which it is your only mana source?

TBH Boseiju is a holdover from earlier in the year where the meta was more miracles and deathblade. Having the extra answers to countermagic at that time seemed more important, now if I had it to do again I would probably make that boseiju a dryad arbor (fetchable recursion for therapy) or a maindeck karakas. To date I have never run into a situation where it was the only land in my opener.

Another query, you are running Verdant Catacombs over Polluted Delta. Has this ever affected any game in which you couldn't fetch for a specific land (so, Tundra)?

True confession time, I don’t own a full playset of delta’s (come on reprint! :). With that said, even if I did have them I’m not sure I’d use them. The black throughline of the fetches hits every land except tundra. I’m usually only really looking for white to cast a Children so I can go get Scrub if needed. Also playing Verdant in the opening gives less info to the Opponent as to what deck they are facing, you can bluff a potential Jund opening which may change how your Opponent starts the game.



Your sideboard is also interesting, Leyline seems like a cumbersome card, outside of Storm, what else do you bring it in against?

Any deck that relies on disruption for its answer to combo. Examples:
Jund
Pox
Certain builds of BUG

And obviously the card is a HOUSE vs storm. As a note, pay attention to what GY hate your opponent brings in to beat you. In addition to its other fine uses, Leyline stones Tormod’s crypt and Nihil Spellbomb as they target the player and not the player’s GY.


Karakas is a good call versus Reanimator, but did you feel that boarding in extra lands slowed you down too much?

Karakas was one of the new editions to the SB for this event. It was added to address what I felt was the rising tide of traditional reanimator and Sneak & Show. It also serves, however as a good answer to my least favorite 2 drop in the game Thalia.

Any reason for wanting Echoing Truth over Chain of Vapor? I've found in most of my games, I prefer the 1 cmc cost on chain.

So obviously both chain & truth are your catchall “answers” to cards that are otherwise problematic for us to deal with:
Leyline of the void
Rest In Peace
Grafdigger’s Cage

and so on…For this event I did not see any of the permanent base GY hate. What I did see was Zombies….Lots and LOTS of Zombies. Also given the number of storm players I played I could have seen lots and lots of goblins (happy I didn’t in fact). In those cases you want the removal to cost 1 more mana and hit every stinking ZOMBIE on the board. This is one of those (chicken vs egg) questions that will plague Fins players until wizards prints us a better option.

Show and Tell is a card that most of us decided wasn't worth having in the deck, what are your reasons for keeping it?

Show & Tell was an addition for this event primarily as a reaction to the uptick in tiresome GY hate (Deathrite, RiP, Ooze, Cage) most of which I did not see.

The Chicken came first. You have to assume they mean a Chicken Egg for the question or the answer is obviously Egg because eggs existed thousands of years before Chickens existed. Now you have which came first the Chicken or Chicken Egg and a Chicken Egg can only be laid by a Chicken. You name eggs by what lays them not what comes out of them because what lays them determines the characteristics we use to define eggs. Ex. If a Chicken came out of Ostrich Egg it doesn't change the fact that it was an Ostrich Egg.

On a more relevant note has anyone considered playing with Delvers and such in the SB and going into a tempo deck that can ignore graveyard hate?

[Koby]

Let's go back to the core list. I see the core of the deck as follows

2 griselbrand
1 emarkul
1 children

4 entomb
4 shallow grave
3 goryo's vengeance

4 brainstorm
2 ponder

4 dark ritual
4 lotus petal
1 chrome mox

4 cabal therapy

13 lands with 7 fetch min

That puts the core deck at 47 cards. Additional cantrips and protection is desired to able to play our game efficiently and reliably. We recognize that Entomb is the choke point, so we have two strategies:

1. Increase the cantrip density to find Entomb.
2. Increase the Griselbrand count and discard outlets to enable reanimation.

I think a combination of the two is effective enough.

As for my list: recent top 8 finish (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=11952&iddeck=87539)

[JPoJohnson]

A MB of 61 and a SB of 14?

[Acclimation]

A MB of 61 and a SB of 14?

61/14 has been surprisingly effective. The 61st card is either the 4th Probe or 14th land, depending on your point of view, and the 15th sideboard slot is usually filler, so you can do with out the full 15. This allows you to board out a land (usually swamp) versus fast combo to increase your speed and still have a legal deck.


As far as the core, I personally feel that increasing cantrip density and having a small number of Griselbrand is preferred, since extra Griselbrands feel like dead cards, and more cantrips allow us to find the pieces we are missing at that moment in time.

[Koby]

A MB of 61 and a SB of 14?

Using that exact list (61/14) back in May for bazaar of Moxen and finished 7-2 Day 1, and 2-4 day 2. Day 2 had some distractions, so I feel like I could have managed 3-3 or better. Regardless, the deck is quite solid at 61/14 and as Logan mentioned above, the 61st card is easily Probe or a land and could be cut easily.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Anyone else less than happy with LDV? Lately, I don't need it or it's just Mox-Fodder. Maybe I'm just not facing the decks where it's necessary, but it feels...weak. I dunno. I'm using Tendrils more than I first was, every time I attack with just Grizzly, I will win with Tendrils. I dunno if I'm actually going to, but I think I want a second Children of Korlis. Thoughts?

-ABC

[kingsey]

Anyone else less than happy with LDV? Lately, I don't need it or it's just Mox-Fodder. Maybe I'm just not facing the decks where it's necessary, but it feels...weak. I dunno. I'm using Tendrils more than I first was, every time I attack with just Grizzly, I will win with Tendrils. I dunno if I'm actually going to, but I think I want a second Children of Korlis. Thoughts?

-ABC

I'm still using 2 children. I love it when your low on life and and just chain into the 2nd one to dream crush people who think you're gonna fizzle.

I was going to play fins at my local tonight, and decided on playing team America to a terrible 1-2 finish. Frown Town

I still want to test the pact vs probe in depth. I'm going to try and get after it before my next local next Thursday.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I wouldn't play TA until I had at least 3 TNN in hand. I don't really fizzle any more, after a little math I have come to realize that if you have to attack with grizzly, you have essentially become a storm player. I at that point only have to hit (generally) about 4-5 storm to win.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

EDIT: Did some testing last night, Stax and Dragon Stompy are bad matchups. lol. I did win twice...Suppression Field should be a thing. It's frickin' stupid.

[ShivanGoat]

Even the best can be beaten:
http://i.imgur.com/ACW3kDw.jpg

[Richard Cheese]

Anyone else less than happy with LDV? Lately, I don't need it or it's just Mox-Fodder. Maybe I'm just not facing the decks where it's necessary, but it feels...weak. I dunno. I'm using Tendrils more than I first was, every time I attack with just Grizzly, I will win with Tendrils. I dunno if I'm actually going to, but I think I want a second Children of Korlis. Thoughts?

-ABC

It's come in handy a couple times for me, if I've got 2/3rds of the combo or postboard when I just need to find one of my answer cards for hate. Being instant is probably the best part, as it doesn't set you back a turn. Once I get my hands on some commander, I may try Strategic Planning in it's place, but my guess is that instant + digging super deep is going to trump cantrip + discard outlet.

[Tachikoma]

I have been thinking heavily about Stifle. It has application in the long game, allowing to stop tons of activations (Stifling RiP's CIP effect is decent), stopping the sacrifice of your reanimate target at end of turn if for some reason you can't complete the combo, stop their fetch if it's appropriate (you can know if it's appropriate by scoping their hand), stop a waste. I'm sure there is more. Discuss?


Anyone else less than happy with LDV? Lately, I don't need it or it's just Mox-Fodder. Maybe I'm just not facing the decks where it's necessary, but it feels...weak

Hi Bee,

I've been through those exact 2 questions after starting playing Tin fins (you can check my posts page 57 or so)

I've tried Stifle and it was useful and even powerful ... sometimes. With so few movable parts, the deck tends to beg for cards that are useful at least "most of the times".
Stifling Goryo/Shallow is 99% of the time unnecessary to win when you go off.
The question is exactly what Logan asked

As for Stifle, what do you cut for it?
You need to add 2 or 3 for it to be relevant.
I personally couldn't find a satisfying (and working) answer to it, so I gave up.

LDV is another beast.
I started with one and as expected it was just useless as a one of.
Following people strong recommendation I upped to 2 and felt exactly as you did ... yes but just "not that powerful", auto-side-out etc...
I figured out that the problem was not the power of the card which is obvious, but the fact that 2 is still too random to be a card you really rely on.
So I upped to 3 and I really felt the difference : now it's a card I can rely on drawing, and I verified the statistics by practice :)
I now tend to treat it as any combo piece, and found opening hands with Entomb+LDV or LDV+Goryo to be winning hands too, although being 1 or 2 turns away from usual combo start.
But the major improvement I saw is the second breath it can provide after being countered/discarded to hell, and the precious sideboard optimization it allows (now I never side them out except against fast combo matchups of course)

[Tachikoma]

About that Show and Tell list (damn you, you posted it just before the Bazar of Moxen main event, so I thought about I could incorporate Show and Tell in my list during the night instead of sleeping :)


I'm nervous about adding back more creatures

I might have turned into a LDV fanatic, but what about adding a LDV rather than adding back the Griselbrands ?

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I think after all this testing I'm gonna drop my 4th Silence to the board and instead run one of my 3 S. Extractions in the main. More information, essentially a 5th Probe with an added benefit instead of a card draw. We will see.

-ABC

[Koby]

I might have turned into a LDV fanatic, but what about adding a LDV rather than adding back the Griselbrands ?

I find the suggestion to go to 3 LDV as more promising than the 3rd Griselbrand. I'll have to adjust my list for testing in the coming weeks and see what sticks. How do you suggest to SB in matches where LDV is typically cut? (I've shortcut to taking it out in matches where I don't need to find Serenity or Massacre)


I think after all this testing I'm gonna drop my 4th Silence to the board and instead run one of my 3 S. Extractions in the main. More information, essentially a 5th Probe with an added benefit instead of a card draw. We will see.

-ABC

I find this strategy to be lacking. While it does provide information, it's now becomes even more "do nothing" against decks where you really just need more disruption to counters. I would suggest Duress or the 3rd Thoughtseize in that slot.

[entreri_fans]

Hello, everyone! I am a new tin-fins player.

would someone plz enlighten me about purpose of hardcasting Emrakul?

I understand I could gain infinite mana, life, and storm count after I succeed in looping my library.

after that, if I hardcast Emrakul, then there seems to be a problem.

I will get an extra turn thx to his time-walk ability, but at that turn my library is already empty, so I will deck myself before getting a chance to attack?

maybe I could flashback therapy to kill Emrakul to shuffle something in my library, so I am not dead in my new turn. but if I could kill my opponent in the previous turn(because of the infinite resources now), why should we need an extra turn?

thx!

[Acclimation]

You set it up to have more cards in your library so you don't deck yourself.

When you take that second turn, you've likely already swung with Griselbrand, so you just need 1 swing with Emrakul to win.

That being said, if I'm looping my deck for infinite mana, I'll just kill them with Tendrils instead, but sometimes the situation requires the hard cast Emrakul to win.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Then would you run only 3x Silence total or what would you drop from the board to keep the 3rd Extraction, Koby?

-ABC