[Deck] TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst

[wonderPreaux]

Probably also going back to 60 cards since the SB space is needed for Wishboard:

2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul
1 Children of Korlis

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
3 LED

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
1 Goryo's Vengeance

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Burning Wish

4 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize

3 USea
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Swamp
8 black fetches

SB:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Buried Alive (?)
1 Show and Tell
1 Exhume
1 Reanimate (?)
1 Pyroclasm (? maybe more vs UR Delvers)
1 Massacre
1 Thoughtseize (? might be overkill)
1 Treasure Cruise (? interesting from lists I've seen, emergency cantrip?)
2 Duress (for boarding)
3 Chain of Vapor (still boss)

I think you might want 3 Griselbrands in this particular build. Since LED is such an efficient discard outlet, Burning Wish for a reanimation effect combined with LED can be a solid complement to Entomb. I feel like this is an important supplement, given that one of the issues Tin Fins seems to have is that it's hard to win without Entomb. Moreover, Burning Wish for Show and Tell is a robust line that plays around a good deal of one dimensional hate (Chalices, Graffdiggers, etc) and that is well-served by having the 3rd Griselbrand. I feel like you could get away with cutting the Swamp for it, TES seems to do just fine with 13 lands + no basics and the reanimation effects you sling at the opponent to wear out counters are huge bombs with low-mana costs, so, seems feasible.

Regarding the sideboard, I don't think Buried Alive is worthwhile. Its so mana-intensive, and despite opening a few corner cases with Exhume and Shallow Grave, I think it just takes too long or too many resources to be effectual. If you have the Wish and the mana for such an expensive enabler, could you not just put together a line with Empty the Warrens or the far more powerful Show and Tell? For Reanimate and Exhume, I think both are worthwhile, they give you good coverage between mana-cost, life-preservation, and cognizance of the opposing graveyard. Moreover, having both means you can maintain a higher density of threats using Wishes to advance the primary game-plan. I'm on the fence on Treasure Cruise here, just because if you're not Delving away cantrips, lands or some discard, you run the risk of disrupting your ability to use Emrakul to loop your library. I think one Chain of Vapor being a Void Snare could be good, that way your don't have to side it in if you suspect permanent hate but don't want to dilute the deck too much game 2. A couple Pyroclasms to get UR/UWR decks is also a pretty good choice, imo.

Something like this could be solid:
1 Tendrils or Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Exhume
1 Reanimate
1 Show and Tell
1 Treasure Cruise
2 Pyroclasm
1 Massacre
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Void Snare
3 (Thoughtseize + 2 Duress/Thoughtseize + 2 Pithing Needle/Duress + 2 Pithing Needle)

[cogitoergosum]

I'm going to be trying out the red splash for Burning Wish again. I don't have much expectations, but hoping that it is fruitful.

+4 Burning Wish
+3-4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Thoughtseize
0 Lim Dul's Vault
2 Goryo's Vengeance
0 Reanimate
0 Silence (maindeck anyway, maybe even SB, going in line with TES's direction recently)
0 Tendrils maindeck

Probably also going back to 60 cards since the SB space is needed for Wishboard:

2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul
1 Children of Korlis

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
3 LED

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
1 Goryo's Vengeance

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Burning Wish

4 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize

3 USea
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Swamp
8 black fetches

SB:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Buried Alive (?)
1 Show and Tell
1 Exhume
1 Reanimate (?)
1 Pyroclasm (? maybe more vs UR Delvers)
1 Massacre
1 Thoughtseize (? might be overkill)
1 Treasure Cruise (? interesting from lists I've seen, emergency cantrip?)
2 Duress (for boarding)
3 Chain of Vapor (still boss)

Stronghold Gambit might be worth testing in a BW list.

[Pomegrant]

2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul
1 Children of Korlis

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
3 LED

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
1 Goryo's Vengeance

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Burning Wish

4 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize

3 USea
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Swamp
8 black fetches

SB:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Buried Alive (?)
1 Show and Tell
1 Exhume
1 Reanimate (?)
1 Pyroclasm (? maybe more vs UR Delvers)
1 Massacre
1 Thoughtseize (? might be overkill)
1 Treasure Cruise (? interesting from lists I've seen, emergency cantrip?)
2 Duress (for boarding)
3 Chain of Vapor (still boss)

I've been playing Buried Alive in my wishboard and it's rarely been good. It's completely reasonable to play more Duress or something else. I would play some kind of shatter effect because a lot of people are playing Grafdigger's Cage as their graveyard hate now. I play a Meltdown as the deck doesn't make all that much red mana for something like Shattering Spree. But you have three Chain of Vapor so it might just not matter anyway. I'll have to try them if you think they are that good. I play the Treasure Cruise in the board as a way to gas up in long games. I think you could cut it if you need space. Void Snare is worth a spot in the board, I think.

Been thinking of trying a Reanimate in the main deck if there is room for it. Was thinking of cutting the Emrakul for it seeing as it can be pretty awkward with LED at times. I'm on 3 Griselbrand just so you can draw them a little more often but I'm not sure if that is entirely relevant.

@cogitoergosum: I tried Stronghold Gambit a bunch and it isn't very good. There are a lot of delver decks right now and most decks have small creatures in it anyway. The decks Gambit would be good against Show and Tell will be good against them in most cases as well.

[Technics]

So I am working on writing up reports, but I have gone 4-0-1 (ID) 8-1 in games into Top 4 split, and then 4-0-2 (Double ID) 8-2 in games to First round loss in Top 8 with this deck recently. My one loss was to a guy I beat 2-0 in the swiss, but he ran 4 Maindeck Spell Snare, and misered the Fluster storm for my Show and Tell with Emmy in hand (bad beat's very close game).

I am running Pom's list exactly as it. Really impressed with it so far. There are a ton of cards I never wish for currently, and am tallying what actually gets wished for.

[GiveMeYourOil]

So I am working on writing up reports, but I have gone 4-0-1 (ID) 8-1 in games into Top 4 split, and then 4-0-2 (Double ID) 8-2 in games to First round loss in Top 8 with this deck recently. My one loss was to a guy I beat 2-0 in the swiss, but he ran 4 Maindeck Spell Snare, and misered the Fluster storm for my Show and Tell with Emmy in hand (bad beat's very close game).

I am running Pom's list exactly as it. Really impressed with it so far. There are a ton of cards I never wish for currently, and am tallying what actually gets wished for.


Looking forward to the report :cool:

[Technics]

Tin Fins on the MAP!

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=78243

[Secretly.A.Bee]

.dk and I put in some time with the deck at GP: Denver in the 5-round Legacy side event on Saturday. The difference between our lists were him on a D-day sideboard plan while I was on a reactive sideboard with a 61/14 75. My board is, iirc, identical to acclimation's board.

I believe he did better than I did. I went a miserable 2-3. Tons of combo there. I faced a leylines list first. She won the match 2-1. She got a turn 0 lotv in game one, as well as leyline of sanctity. This is not a great match up.

[.dk]

I ended up playing 15 rounds with Tin Fins over the weekend in Denver. Overall, I went 9-4-2 (both draws were IDs). I was playing my NJ list, -Tundra and +Underground Sea in the maindeck, everything else the same.

On Friday, I went 2-3, beating Jund Lands and Infect, and losing to Death and Taxes 3 times... wow. That matchup is a lot harder without Massacre. One interesting scenario from one of the Death and Taxes losses:

Sideboard game, and I'm on the Doomsday plan (RIP just seems to hard to fight through with my maindeck, particularly if they have E-Tutors). He has out Vial on 3, Plains, Port, Karakas, Leyline of Sanctity, Ethersworn Canonist, and Thalia. Ok, I can beat that... Cast Doomsday and make a Shelldock Pile with Pithing Needle for Karakas. Play Shelldock, hiding Emrakul, pass. My turn, draw needle, cast it, and he activates Vial in response. Flickerwisp comes into play and blinks Shelldock Isle. Damn... Yep, can't beat that when he has an untapped Karakas with Needle on the stack... Grr. Yeah, D&T is a lot harder without Massacre!

Saturday I went 3-1-1. I don't remember everything I played, but I know I beat Imperial Painter and lost to UR Delver (was a close match). ID in the last round with Admiral Arzar playing a sweet Eva Green list so we can both get prizes.

Sunday I went 4-0-1. Beat Burn, Miracles, UR Delver, and.... something else. I don't remember. :( Drew with UB Tezz in the Finals to split the prizes there too.

Yeah, if you're expecting a lot of hatebears... probably don't pack the Doomsday transformation. It's much much better against basically everything else.

Regarding the Burning Wish splash - I think I agree that Buried Alive is a bit sporty, but I do like the rest of it. I'm not sure why I never tested LED with Burning Wish when I was running it a couple years ago - seems like that will help a lot with the ridiculous mana requirements with Burning Wish. But I do worry that it slows us down a bit too much though, and LED does make it a bit more all-in. You planning on playing this anywhere soon Koby?

[Koby]

Regarding the Burning Wish splash - I think I agree that Buried Alive is a bit sporty, but I do like the rest of it. I'm not sure why I never tested LED with Burning Wish when I was running it a couple years ago - seems like that will help a lot with the ridiculous mana requirements with Burning Wish. But I do worry that it slows us down a bit too much though, and LED does make it a bit more all-in. You planning on playing this anywhere soon Koby?

I am play testing this a bit on MTGO. So far it seems pretty clean, and BWish isn't too much of an issue with the mana, and LEDs make Gitaxian Probe and discard much more important to know when you can go off. Shallow Grave + LED + Griselbrand is like Magical Christmasland when it works, so it definitely feels good when it works.

[jonnnny]

I ended up playing 15 rounds with Tin Fins over the weekend in Denver. Overall, I went 9-4-2 (both draws were IDs). I was playing my NJ list, -Tundra and +Underground Sea in the maindeck, everything else the same.

On Friday, I went 2-3, beating Jund Lands and Infect, and losing to Death and Taxes 3 times... wow. That matchup is a lot harder without Massacre. One interesting scenario from one of the Death and Taxes losses:

Sideboard game, and I'm on the Doomsday plan (RIP just seems to hard to fight through with my maindeck, particularly if they have E-Tutors). He has out Vial on 3, Plains, Port, Karakas, Leyline of Sanctity, Ethersworn Canonist, and Thalia. Ok, I can beat that... Cast Doomsday and make a Shelldock Pile with Pithing Needle for Karakas. Play Shelldock, hiding Emrakul, pass. My turn, draw needle, cast it, and he activates Vial in response. Flickerwisp comes into play and blinks Shelldock Isle. Damn... Yep, can't beat that when he has an untapped Karakas with Needle on the stack... Grr. Yeah, D&T is a lot harder without Massacre!

Saturday I went 3-1-1. I don't remember everything I played, but I know I beat Imperial Painter and lost to UR Delver (was a close match). ID in the last round with Admiral Arzar playing a sweet Eva Green list so we can both get prizes.

Sunday I went 4-0-1. Beat Burn, Miracles, UR Delver, and.... something else. I don't remember. :( Drew with UB Tezz in the Finals to split the prizes there too.

Yeah, if you're expecting a lot of hatebears... probably don't pack the Doomsday transformation. It's much much better against basically everything else.

Regarding the Burning Wish splash - I think I agree that Buried Alive is a bit sporty, but I do like the rest of it. I'm not sure why I never tested LED with Burning Wish when I was running it a couple years ago - seems like that will help a lot with the ridiculous mana requirements with Burning Wish. But I do worry that it slows us down a bit too much though, and LED does make it a bit more all-in. You planning on playing this anywhere soon Koby?

With the burning wish + LED splash, this is looking more and more like Burning Reanimator. With a red splash perhaps blue can be cut completely in place of faithless looting/full set of Griselbrands/full set of shallow grave/goryo's for consistency.

[.dk]

Makes sense - and makes sense to cut Discard too, since you get LED as a discard outlet if you need it. I do like the option of Empty the Warrens out of the board as well, as in Pomegrants' list. Has that been relevant for you much?

[Koby]

With the burning wish + LED splash, this is looking more and more like Burning Reanimator. With a red splash perhaps blue can be cut completely in place of faithless looting/full set of Griselbrands/full set of shallow grave/goryo's for consistency.

I have to ask why you would want to play an inferior version of the same concept. Blue cards only come at the cost of blue duals, but better filtering which makes bad hands playable.

[alastair]

I attended a small event this weekend with TinFins and a Doomsday SB. Two loses, both to Miracles; beating UR Standstill, UB Tezz (with literally all the hate), Assendency, and Deadguy. The DD SB was again a solid choice, if not my ability to construct piles correctly. I’m currently running 3x Griselbrand with 3 Careful Study, and am happier with this over LDV.

On several occasions I removed all disruption, and pruned cantrips and reanimation, to accommodate both Reanimation and DD. I was happy with this strategy to overwhelm their counterspell package, as opposed to force through one win-con. In hindsight I incorrectly mulliganed, pruned some of the wrong cards, and was not aggressive enough in just going for it.

With your DD SB, I’m feeling that perhaps one of the LED’s, and one SDT, could be cut for more flexible answers (bounce, massacre, etc).

4 SDT (maybe -1)
4 Doomsday
3 LED (maybe -1)
1 IU
1 Needle
1 Sheldock Isle
1 Chain

[.dk]

I attended a small event this weekend with TinFins and a Doomsday SB. Two loses, both to Miracles; beating UR Standstill, UB Tezz (with literally all the hate), Assendency, and Deadguy. The DD SB was again a solid choice, if not my ability to construct piles correctly. I’m currently running 3x Griselbrand with 3 Careful Study, and am happier with this over LDV.

On several occasions I removed all disruption, and pruned cantrips and reanimation, to accommodate both Reanimation and DD. I was happy with this strategy to overwhelm their counterspell package, as opposed to force through one win-con. In hindsight I incorrectly mulliganed, pruned some of the wrong cards, and was not aggressive enough in just going for it.

With your DD SB, I’m feeling that perhaps one of the LED’s, and one SDT, could be cut for more flexible answers (bounce, massacre, etc).

4 SDT (maybe -1)
4 Doomsday
3 LED (maybe -1)
1 IU
1 Needle
1 Sheldock Isle
1 Chain

I'm not trying to be an asshole here... but if those are the cards you want to cut, I don't think that you understand Doomsday well enough. By cutting the 3rd LED, you're cutting yourself off of making the very common and simple double cantrip piles. SDT is also the best card in any Doomsday deck as it stores a free draw into your Doomsday pile for later. This either starts you into an Ideas Unbound pile into Tendrils, or flips into Shelldock Isle to play it a turn sooner, leaving you only 1 turn to pass post Doomsday.

This transformation is not conducive to anti hate. The sideboard is WAY too tight. Also, since you're a 1 card combo (Doomsday), I can't see how Careful Study is better than LDV. If you're running Doomsday in the board, I really think you want LDV maindeck to be able to Mystical Tutor Doomsday when you can't find it.

/edit: also, cutting an SDT lessens your chances of taking some of the more obscure lines with 2 SDT in play. Such as using the 1 top to flip along with LED to cast Doomsday under a Blood Moon, or making a 2xSDT Doomsday pile to Tendrils.

[KaiSchafroth]

Hi all - post pretty minimally on the boards but thought this somewhat worthwhile. Outside of some gold fishing and a couple play tested games against UR in the last couple weeks; haven't had a chance to actually jam with TinFins prior to yesterday. We have a monthly legacy event at the lgs (usually around 20 or so) and it just felt like a good day to run it out there.

I'm running the Doomsday transformation so the 75 is pretty straight-forward. It's the same list .dk ran at NJ if that helps (also linking that report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28828-Onion-Bursting-of-DOOM!!!-58th-at-GP-New-Jersey-(12-3)-with-Tin-Fins) as it was hysterical).

Including what I can decipher from my notes and recall from games. Apologies in advance for the wall of text.


R1 - UR Delver
G1: Pretty much got to just do my thing here. Relatively streamlined Probe to get some info, and the next turn TS away his Force leaving BS, Young Pyro and two Swiftspears while he’s tapped out from a T1 Ponder. Ritual my way to a Griseldad and draw a few times to add Emmy to the board and give ‘em the ole 22-spot.

G2: We tend to have a wide enough array of decks and my opponent is a pretty skilled grinder that I anticipate more than the usual minimal/no real killer SB that UR typically presents. Take out an LDV and Probe for Needle and CoV.
Didn’t note my specific hand but I recall it having a bit of discard and dig; missing either an Entomb or Gris to discard myself. I Probe and see the bad news: Grafdigger’s Cage, Flusterstorm, Spell Snare and some other stuff. I fail to draw a Therapy or TS off the Probe so once Cage comes down I spend some time trying to find the CoV; opponent wisely countering a Ponder at one point while still having enough in hand if it was a bait. I end up dying to the lovely TS on the stack, double Bolt, TS resolves. Womp womp

G3: No changes for the final game
Opponent pitches back his 7 (later told me it was a no-lander with Probe and Cage; said he would have kept it if he had another Probe giving him 3 draws to land a T1 cage) and seems unhappy about his 6 – sweet. I obviously have to Probe to see what he kept and see: FoW, Cruise, Probe, Pyro and fetches. I figure it’s worth TS the FoW leaving him a pretty anemic hand and giving me a bit more flexibility (hopefully). Therapy a turn later reveals he has a BS (no mana up after dropping Pyro) with a Ponder drawing me a Petal which gives us what we need. He scoops after realizing Children is going to gain us 16 and he doesn’t feel like eating the tendrils :frown:
2-1
1-0-0

R2 – GW Elf Combo
G1: Opener was solid enough – dig, discard and Entomb – spent the first few turns trying to just dig into the recursion and eating my opponent’s hand. At one point I’m trying to figure out why he’s having such a miserable draw when I TS and see some normal elf pieces alongside Wellwisher…wtf. I draw Reanimate and have to suck it up and drop to 7 (worst life total ever) to put the Gris into play. This stops his beats for a few turns but he keeps deploying the little green men. I’m trying to figure out why he still has stuff in hand and a Probe reveals he’s drawn Craterhoof, well then. A quick calc shows he can shenanigan the mana on board to cast Hoof which puts me just dead. Luckily when you draw 7 cards finding a Therapy doesn’t seem too far-fetched and he scoops.

G2: There didn’t seem to be any really crazy tech outside of taking advantage of the swarm of elves to gain a boat load of life. Take out an LDV and Probe for Needle and CoV.
Opponent opens on a completely unexpected Fetch, Forest, elf…whoa now. Unfortunately for my opponent he seemed to have shuffled and cut me to the perfect 7 with my draw only helping. TS and see a Test of Endurance (things are making a bit more sense now); pass back and he plays another thing. Therapy to ensure there’s no Mindbreak Trap and proceed to bring out the tag team champions. Had to slow down and explain to my opponent how it all worked (e.g. stuff has haste, Emmy trigger on the stack, etc.) but the look on his face was one of pure sadness at the end of it all.
2-0
2-0-0

R3 – RW Painter
G1: Only opponent I played that I knew what he was on. This is the gent that runs our event and I know somewhat well; very skilled pilot of the deck. Interesting changes to his deck regularly and I sadly can’t recall the exact build of what hate is main vs. board usually
Win the roll and I can’t fetch that Swamp quick enough. I open on Therapy naming Magus of the Moon and miss but get ready for him to land a Blood Moon on his turn (go figure) with not much else in hand after that outside of land. We draw-go for a couple turns before I put together what I need and 22 him.

G2: Between him already having an ETutor package main with Ensnaring Bridge I’m guessing there will be a tutorable RIP and who knows what other artifact-based hate from the board. I transform (finally, woohoo!) and shuffle up.
Well, he gets a Magus before I can find a fetch to get a Swamp so we’re stuck digging off two tops. I manage to get a Needle in play early though on Grindstone to buy some time. Eventually he plays a Painter and I’m just waiting for my Needle to eat it. I top and see a Petal and figure it’s the only shot. We’re getting beat down by the crew of 1/3s and 2/2s and time is not on our side between Painter/Pyroblast tricks and a Thorn of Amethyst putting further pressure on our ability to play things. Cast Petal, resolves. I get hopeful – maybe he just doesn’t have the Pyroblast! Sac for black, tap one of my mountains (eye roll) and cast Dark Ritual. Pyroblast; damn! On the upside I didn’t have to show him the Doomsday.

G3: Interested for opinions here as I stayed on the DD plan despite being on the play. My reasoning at the time (and I even started to re-board in the moment) was that I had better chances of slogging through a few pieces that might slow us down as opposed to hoping to god-hand him before he lands any sort of hate that either stops the GY/our fatties or puts constraints on the mana.
First couple of turns weren’t much to write home about. Have two tops in play, TS a Blood Moon (while he tutors for RIP in response, groan) and just work on topping to sculpt the hand and dig into a DD to go off. I eat some hits from an ape and am topping like a mad man. Draw for turn; top and see DD as the new card, legit started to get excited. Draw DD with top, TS to see nothing relevant (ya never know). Hand is Probe, Probe, Ritual, DD, LED with a top in play.
“Ritual” – Resolves
“LED” – Uh…resolves
“Doomsday” – Wait…seriously? Not even mad, go for it
From there build a straight-forward pile of IU-LED-LED-Ponder-ToA.
2-1
3-0-0

R4 – Sneak and Show
Pairings go up and my opponent and I notice that it’s final round and we’re both the only undefeated. We decide to ID into the T4 and just play for fun. I really should have taken notes and played tighter, even with it not counting – so that I could get some more practice in. Trying to write these games from memory and really open to thoughts on playing this MU in general.
G1: Opponent mulls to 5, I TS to see basically nothing besides a FoW + blue card plus a Sneak Attack. Snipe the FoW and just burst onions.

G2: Sided a Needle but stayed on TinFins. I noticed .dk switched to DD in the NJ report which is something I maybe should have gone with?
This time I get slapped by the mull stick and watch him Sneak a Gris into play followed by Emmy. We joke about how the last game can now be a real one since we both got shafted the first ones.

G3: No changes
This is definitely the game I should have taken notes for. There was a lot of back and forth between discard, counters, etc. Had to float a number of spells out as bait but my opponent was just very aware of what was relevant. The game grinds on and I’m pretty much ready to just scoop it all up but hell, let the guy have his fun. I eat an Emmy attack and then die to a ‘Surgical, hold priority, Swan Song it’. His feathered friend finishes the game.
1-2
3-0-1

Top 4
1. Sneak and Show
2. TinFins
3. Food Chain
4. RW Painter
We just split the T4 so we can all save some time and each of us gets a balanced/healthy chunk of store credit.

Overall happy with the games I played and I felt like I made the right choices on cantrips/discard (outside of the somewhat obvious decisions) to give myself the breathing room needed. Couldn’t have asked for a better first time with TinFins!

[alastair]

I'm not trying to be an asshole here... .

No offence taken.... completely new to DD.

I've found SDT a little frustrating with the lack of shuffle effects, triggering the draw into doomsday with brainstorm, ponder, GP far more often. SDT into the pile is lovely with zero mana commitment, but few decks give you the luxury of time to take full advantage of SDT in the setup. Ponder and to a lesser degree Careful Study show more cards or clear cards, as opposed to repeatedly looking at the 3rd from top card in a desperate search for a fetch.

LDV finding doomsday as Mystical is excellent, but lacklustre in the main deck, despite assuring turn 3 kill more often. Similarly Grim is just too slow at 3cmc. There is a trade-off, and I prefer the more explosive results Ive gotten with Careful Study, increasing the nutty T1/2 kills.

I've not needed the 3rd LED for a pile as yet.... but am new to this and you didn't include it for nothing. More reading / practice required.

[.dk]

Hi all - post pretty minimally on the boards but thought this somewhat worthwhile. Outside of some gold fishing and a couple play tested games against UR in the last couple weeks; haven't had a chance to actually jam with TinFins prior to yesterday. We have a monthly legacy event at the lgs (usually around 20 or so) and it just felt like a good day to run it out there.

I'm running the Doomsday transformation so the 75 is pretty straight-forward. It's the same list .dk ran at NJ if that helps (also linking that report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28828-Onion-Bursting-of-DOOM!!!-58th-at-GP-New-Jersey-(12-3)-with-Tin-Fins) as it was hysterical).

Including what I can decipher from my notes and recall from games. Apologies in advance for the wall of text.

[REPORT]

Overall happy with the games I played and I felt like I made the right choices on cantrips/discard (outside of the somewhat obvious decisions) to give myself the breathing room needed. Couldn’t have asked for a better first time with TinFins!

Damn good showing with the deck for the first time, particular slinging Doomsdays around! Couple pieces of feedback based on my experience:

1. Elves - I usually stick with Doomsday in this matchup because of Deathrite Shaman. If you're on the play, I can see a case for Tin Fins to race, but on the draw particularly I will stick on Doomsday. A lot of times they board in a lot of discard, and Sensei's Diving Top with a 1 card combo is pretty damn good against that kind of disruption. Also, they sometimes have Ruric-Thar, and Shelldock->Emrakul wrecks their day if they are counting on that.

2. Sneak/Show - I'm actually not even sure in this matchup what the right thing to do is. Probably sticking with Tin Fins on the play, and Doomsday on the draw. Obviously putting down a Griselbrand off of their Show and Tell is nuts, which is why maindeck is sweet... however I can see a good case for them bringing in Blood Moon as well, which means Sensei's Divining Top gets a lot better, as well as having LED's around to be able to case Doomsday with. More IMS that aren't affected by Moon. You also get to use your discard 100% as disruption on Doomsday, as they aren't serving double duty like they are in the maindeck. This seems good as disruption for an opposing combo deck. I'm really not sure though - I've only played the one match in New Jersey against Sneak/Show with the deck in this configuration.

3. Painter - I would always stick with Doomsday here. They basically can't beat a good Shelldock/Emrakul pile (just stash a Chain of Vapor in there and another Doomsday, and you'll pretty much be fine - just make sure you have a petal too if they have blood moon or think they'll draw it). They have the possibility of Rest in Peace, practically infinite Tormod's Crypts with Welder, and Thorn of Amethyst - sounds like too much hate to me to fight through with the maindeck. The Doomsday transformation, while slower, is still very fast, so I wouldn't worry about the speed difference much. And again, you can use all of your discard as disruption to snag Painters, Blood Moons, etc.

4. If you're running my NJ list - I would totally ditch the Tundra. I wasn't thinking/paying attention to my manabase for that event and just copied an older list. Tundra is rarely needed, and Underground Sea is almost always better. Or maybe even Gemstone Mine (as Wanderlust suggested to me).

And glad you enjoyed my report - I had a good time writing it too ;)


No offence taken.... completely new to DD.

I've found SDT a little frustrating with the lack of shuffle effects, triggering the draw into doomsday with brainstorm, ponder, GP far more often. SDT into the pile is lovely with zero mana commitment, but few decks give you the luxury of time to take full advantage of SDT in the setup. Ponder and to a lesser degree Careful Study show more cards or clear cards, as opposed to repeatedly looking at the 3rd from top card in a desperate search for a fetch.

LDV finding doomsday as Mystical is excellent, but lacklustre in the main deck, despite assuring turn 3 kill more often. Similarly Grim is just too slow at 3cmc. There is a trade-off, and I prefer the more explosive results Ive gotten with Careful Study, increasing the nutty T1/2 kills.

I've not needed the 3rd LED for a pile as yet.... but am new to this and you didn't include it for nothing. More reading / practice required.

There are plenty of shuffle effects in the deck, IMO. More than I run in DDFT if you count LDV. 8 fetchlands and 4 Ponders. What decks aren't giving you enough time to take advantage of those?

I also think LDV shines in the maindeck, finding whatever you need as Mystical. I know Richard Cheese hasn't liked it either, but it's been an all-star for me both for setting up the Turn 3 Onion Burst, as well as finding Doomsday post board.

And for the 3rd LED... For example: You have USea, and SDT in play, and Doomsday, Dark Rit, and Probe in hand. The 3rd LED lets you combo there making: LED, Ideas Unbound, LED, LED, Tendrils.

Also - you mentioned cutting all of your disruption and having both combos in. I hadn't really thought of that. What do you end up cutting when you do that?

[KaiSchafroth]

Damn good showing with the deck for the first time, particular slinging Doomsdays around! Couple pieces of feedback based on my experience:

1. Elves - I usually stick with Doomsday in this matchup because of Deathrite Shaman. If you're on the play, I can see a case for Tin Fins to race, but on the draw particularly I will stick on Doomsday. A lot of times they board in a lot of discard, and Sensei's Diving Top with a 1 card combo is pretty damn good against that kind of disruption. Also, they sometimes have Ruric-Thar, and Shelldock->Emrakul wrecks their day if they are counting on that.



Thank ya! I've really liked the looks of TinFins for a while and having started playing Legacy with Storm (TES) it's hard to pass up a chance to DD someone lol

Elves - 100% agree, the only reason I didn't was the assumption based on what I saw during various points of G1 that my opponent wasn't so much typical Elves as a GW combo utilizing elves to fuel it (e.g. Test of Endurance & Wellwisher)





2. Sneak/Show - I'm actually not even sure in this matchup what the right thing to do is. Probably sticking with Tin Fins on the play, and Doomsday on the draw. Obviously putting down a Griselbrand off of their Show and Tell is nuts, which is why maindeck is sweet... however I can see a good case for them bringing in Blood Moon as well, which means Sensei's Divining Top gets a lot better, as well as having LED's around to be able to case Doomsday with. More IMS that aren't affected by Moon. You also get to use your discard 100% as disruption on Doomsday, as they aren't serving double duty like they are in the maindeck. This seems good as disruption for an opposing combo deck. I'm really not sure though - I've only played the one match in New Jersey against Sneak/Show with the deck in this configuration.



Good to know and makes sense. I can't see many players keeping S&T in post-board unless they have some wonky; no alternative SB plan which gives more reason to go DD for the play G2 (obviously assuming we just win G1 lol)
I might try to jam some testing and see what appears to be a more consistent "right" move





3. Painter - I would always stick with Doomsday here. They basically can't beat a good Shelldock/Emrakul pile (just stash a Chain of Vapor in there and another Doomsday, and you'll pretty much be fine - just make sure you have a petal too if they have blood moon or think they'll draw it). They have the possibility of Rest in Peace, practically infinite Tormod's Crypts with Welder, and Thorn of Amethyst - sounds like too much hate to me to fight through with the maindeck. The Doomsday transformation, while slower, is still very fast, so I wouldn't worry about the speed difference much. And again, you can use all of your discard as disruption to snag Painters, Blood Moons, etc.



Glad to know I probably made the right choice/thought process on this. I just had the nagging thought in my mind of going TinFins on the play but sounds like what talked me out of doing so is the same thought process you have here.





4. If you're running my NJ list - I would totally ditch the Tundra. I wasn't thinking/paying attention to my manabase for that event and just copied an older list. Tundra is rarely needed, and Underground Sea is almost always better. Or maybe even Gemstone Mine (as Wanderlust suggested to me).

And glad you enjoyed my report - I had a good time writing it too ;)



I very well may try that out or making it a basic Island so it remains fetchable. I would agree that there's maybe been two games (between testing and against my UR Delver opponent) that I wanted literal Tundra to just cast Children

[.dk]

I very well may try that out or making it a basic Island so it remains fetchable. I would agree that there's maybe been two games (between testing and against my UR Delver opponent) that I wanted literal Tundra to just cast Children

Watch out for Island... it screws up your fetchland base if you do that as Marsh Flats can't get it. Probably the best you could do then would be 4 Delta, 2 Flats, 2 Flooded Strands.

Did you just want tundra because Scrubland was already in play and tapped?

[Pomegrant]

Makes sense - and makes sense to cut Discard too, since you get LED as a discard outlet if you need it. I do like the option of Empty the Warrens out of the board as well, as in Pomegrants' list. Has that been relevant for you much?

Empty the Warrens is okay. It's a good backup plan when your opponent turns off the graveyard but the problem is that you might not be able to pump out a huge amount of Goblins the way Belcher or TES is going to. Making eight goblins isn't great but in the right matchups it'll get you there. This could be because I'm usually playing towards getting Griselbrand into play rather than switching plans to goblins though so it might be more powerful than I'm giving it credit.

[Koby]

Empty the Warrens is okay. It's a good backup plan when your opponent turns off the graveyard but the problem is that you might not be able to pump out a huge amount of Goblins the way Belcher or TES is going to. Making eight goblins isn't great but in the right matchups it'll get you there. This could be because I'm usually playing towards getting Griselbrand into play rather than switching plans to goblins though so it might be more powerful than I'm giving it credit.

I agree, and even in my limited playtesting, there are so many paths with BWish that it can get stumbling just thinking about a potential Plan B. If anything, it informs me that there are many more sessions that I need to practice with. My failures in past lists was the exclusion of LED under the premise of "how to beat blue decks," but after playing with Esper lists of Tin Fins, that has died down. Thanks for sharing your list, I will continue to play it for a few weeks to get a better feel for its full capability. I imagine a few more Turn 2 wins are opened up.

[alastair]

The triple LED stack with SDT and GP does look good; but does this not also work with LED, IU, LED, Petal, ToA? GP into LED, you still have U for SDT after IU, and the LED/Petal pay for ToA.

Its never going to be a perfect DD list, but I like the idea of 2-3 flexible SB slots (if they can be accommodated with one less LED or SDT). I did try 1x SDT main deck to free up a space, but its just awkward Game 1. I would like a second Chains or Echoing Truth.

Against Miracles I wanted to overload their counters, every entomb / DD / (potentially) Careful Study risks a win on the spot. They must commit counterspells at a quicker rate than our disruption can ever hope to take it.

Sheldock was the primary plan against Miracles, with Entomb/Study to bait counters.

-1-2 Griselbrand (I was running 3)
-2 Thoughtseize
-3 Cabal Therapy
-1 Goryo’s Vengence (I like reanimate, as you have the life + time against Miracles).
-1-2 Ponder (SDT in part replaces)
-1 Chrome Mox

+1 Sheldock Isle
+4 Doomsday
+3 SDT
+2 LED
+1 Chains (RIP is a pain)

It means going to 61, but the extra is a land which I’m happy to accept.

[KaiSchafroth]

Watch out for Island... it screws up your fetchland base if you do that as Marsh Flats can't get it. Probably the best you could do then would be 4 Delta, 2 Flats, 2 Flooded Strands.

Did you just want tundra because Scrubland was already in play and tapped?

That would be the issue/next step of reconfiguring fetchlands and I'm not sure that's worth the time/yields a significant enough benefit for a lonely island now that I think about it.
Tundra - exactly that, the scrub already being in play/tapped from being naturally drawn and needed to play out the turn. Very cornercase/rare which I think supports removing the Tundra for something (be that USea, Gemstone, Island)

[lilevo]

So I decided to stick to Shallow Storm aka Pomegrant's list for a while and if I do attend the SCG Open this weekend in Philly that is the deck I will be using to battle, for reference here is the list I have been playing:

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/253782#online

Currently on MODO I cut the cruise for meltdown since I have seen a lot more chalices and trinispheres on paper I am probably playing that exactly 75. The only issue I have found with the deck is that it has no way of dealing with opposing gy strategies and I actually have found out it can be hard to beat dredge and reanimator.

If anyone would like to help me test I will be playing the deck this week on my stream.

[.dk]

The triple LED stack with SDT and GP does look good; but does this not also work with LED, IU, LED, Petal, ToA? GP into LED, you still have U for SDT after IU, and the LED/Petal pay for ToA.

Its never going to be a perfect DD list, but I like the idea of 2-3 flexible SB slots (if they can be accommodated with one less LED or SDT). I did try 1x SDT main deck to free up a space, but its just awkward Game 1. I would like a second Chains or Echoing Truth.

Against Miracles I wanted to overload their counters, every entomb / DD / (potentially) Careful Study risks a win on the spot. They must commit counterspells at a quicker rate than our disruption can ever hope to take it.

Sheldock was the primary plan against Miracles, with Entomb/Study to bait counters.

-1-2 Griselbrand (I was running 3)
-2 Thoughtseize
-3 Cabal Therapy
-1 Goryo’s Vengence (I like reanimate, as you have the life + time against Miracles).
-1-2 Ponder (SDT in part replaces)
-1 Chrome Mox

+1 Sheldock Isle
+4 Doomsday
+3 SDT
+2 LED
+1 Chains (RIP is a pain)

It means going to 61, but the extra is a land which I’m happy to accept.

Ah, you're totally right. I'm so used to running Doomsday with Burning Wish that I wasn't even thinking about it. Yes, Petal can replace an LED in the pile. Good work smacking around my lazy brain ;) I'll have to think about that more and what the effects of going to 2 LED would be. Thanks for pointing that out. :) Maybe you're right, and you can actually run a Massacre or something in the extra slot as another piece of hate (D&T feels really bad in this configuration).

And interesting board plan with both combos in - I would usually just be scared of counterbalance from Miracles, essentially turning off Entomb and such anyway. I really like 4 SDT in that matchup to increase our chances of landing one on Turn 1. And yes, Shelldock/Emrakul is the primary plan here, and either hope that they don't run Karakas or that you can manage to land a Pithing Needle on it. Alternatively - you could also run a Wasteland in the last slot of the sideboard if you're cutting the LED, and that would work against Karakas as well. How I miss the days that we could run our own Karakas to kill theirs...


That would be the issue/next step of reconfiguring fetchlands and I'm not sure that's worth the time/yields a significant enough benefit for a lonely island now that I think about it.
Tundra - exactly that, the scrub already being in play/tapped from being naturally drawn and needed to play out the turn. Very cornercase/rare which I think supports removing the Tundra for something (be that USea, Gemstone, Island)

That was my conclusion on Island as well. At least with the current reduction in Wasteland in the format as a whole. If Canadian Thresh somehow gets revived and is popular, then I think you can make a good case for reconfiguring the manabase.

Did you not have a way to discard Children from your hand and reanimate it in that case? It has actually never come up for me that I've had Children stranded in my hand mid-combo. Either a Petal, therapy flashback, or chrome mox with ritual into discard + reanimation has always been available.

[alastair]

Alternatively - you could also run a Wasteland in the last slot of the sideboard if you're cutting the LED, and that would work against Karakas as well. How I miss the days that we could run our own Karakas to kill theirs....

Wasteland might well be a good call. DnT has proved very difficult on both the Reanimate and Doomsday play (except the obvious Turn 1 you're just dead). I agree that 4 SDT is good, I'm just yet to be convinced that the additional bounce, Wasteland, Masacure may not be better than the fourth SDT.

[.dk]

Wasteland might well be a good call. DnT has proved very difficult on both the Reanimate and Doomsday play (except the obvious Turn 1 you're just dead). I agree that 4 SDT is good, I'm just yet to be convinced that the additional bounce, Wasteland, Masacure may not be better than the fourth SDT.

Actually, the 3rd LED does enable more Turn 1 wins with Doomsday as well (and I was experimenting with the 4th LED maindeck as the 61st card for a bit for the same reason). Take this scenario in your opening 7:

Cantrip, LED, Doomsday, 3 black mana, way to cast cantrip (2 life for probe, U for brainstorm/ponder, 1 for SDT).

That wins on the spot, and the extra LED's help enable that. So, they do certainly speed up your Doomsday plan, but the question is whether or not that is better or not than anti-hate. I'm inclined to believe that the faster you combo with these configurations, the better. We don't run a lot of land, and even 1 more piece of anti-hate isn't much. We're not very well equipped to go for the long game like DDFT is, so I think I'd rather try to enable more T1 or T2 wins. But again, just my opinion which could easily be wrong.

[KaiSchafroth]

Did you not have a way to discard Children from your hand and reanimate it in that case? It has actually never come up for me that I've had Children stranded in my hand mid-combo. Either a Petal, therapy flashback, or chrome mox with ritual into discard + reanimation has always been available.

IIRC it was just a matter of wanting to spin the proverbial basketball on my finger longer since it was one of the first times with the deck - hardcast the Children and save the other stuff to rebuy the entire deck through Emrakul shuffles and tendrils for a zillion :tongue:
No rational reason for not reanimating which I did most other games

[.dk]

IIRC it was just a matter of wanting to spin the proverbial basketball on my finger longer since it was one of the first times with the deck - hardcast the Children and save the other stuff to rebuy the entire deck through Emrakul shuffles and tendrils for a zillion :tongue:
No rational reason for not reanimating which I did most other games

Just as a tip, you probably could have done it anyway. Keep in mind that basically if Children ever hits play with Griselbrand in play, you've essentially gone infinite. The drawing power at that point is basically unstoppable. So... my reanimating and sacrificing children, you're then going to draw enough to get more rituals, discard, etc, and if not, then a way to reanimate children again and keep going. It's basically impossible to lose at that point, unless you've only lost 7 life and gained 7 with Children.

[Kryptor]

2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul
1 Children of Korlis

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
3 LED

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
1 Goryo's Vengeance

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Burning Wish

4 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize

3 USea
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Swamp
8 black fetches

SB:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Buried Alive (?)
1 Show and Tell
1 Exhume
1 Reanimate (?)
1 Pyroclasm (? maybe more vs UR Delvers)
1 Massacre
1 Thoughtseize (? might be overkill)
1 Treasure Cruise (? interesting from lists I've seen, emergency cantrip?)
2 Duress (for boarding)
3 Chain of Vapor (still boss)

I really like the Burning Whis idea. But i would adjust somethink.
This list more and more looks like TES (and i like that).

I would cut Emrakul. It was very nice in the "original" list, but now you don´t need to resuffle your grave to get your petals and dark rituals back. Also it suck when you have shallow grave, grizz and LED.
And i am not sure about that chrome mox. i know that is the 5th petal in your combo turn but you don´t want to find it before going off.
i like an island main.
so i would try

-1 Emrakul
-1 Chromemox
-1 Usea
+1 Island
+1 Tropical
+1 LED/Thoughtseize/Preordain (i guess that the 4th LED is not needed)

Did anyone consider to play a TES - Style Board ?

something like

Wishboard: (at this moment 16)
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Show and Tell
1 Exhume
1 Reanimate
1 Pyroclasm
1 Massacre
1 Thoughtseize
1 Treasure Cruise

"real board":
2 Xantid Swarm
3 Decay
2 CoV

[wonderPreaux]

I really like the Burning Whis idea. But i would adjust somethink.
This list more and more looks like TES (and i like that).

I would cut Emrakul. It was very nice in the "original" list, but now you don´t need to resuffle your grave to get your petals and dark rituals back. Also it suck when you have shallow grave, grizz and LED.
And i am not sure about that chrome mox. i know that is the 5th petal in your combo turn but you don´t want to find it before going off.
i like an island main.
so i would try

-1 Emrakul
-1 Chromemox
-1 Usea
+1 Island
+1 Tropical
+1 LED/Thoughtseize/Preordain (i guess that the 4th LED is not needed)

Did anyone consider to play a TES - Style Board ?

something like

Wishboard: (at this moment 16)
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Show and Tell
1 Exhume
1 Reanimate
1 Pyroclasm
1 Massacre
1 Thoughtseize
1 Treasure Cruise

"real board":
2 Xantid Swarm
3 Decay
2 CoV

I don't think you want to be touching the Emrakul or Chrome Mox. Chrome Mox is actually pretty important as a way to accelerate Burning Wish out by imprinting a black card, allowing your duals/fetches to find a red source, when you're running Wishes, the Mox serves as color-fixing, not just IMS post-Griselbrand. Emrakul also contributes to the what I feel to be the greatest strength of this build, the number of lines you can impose on the opponent. Sometimes running in the 15 dmg and X number of vindicates via Shallow Grave is the best way to win or stay in the game, it also becomes easier to beat certain corner cases cards like Meddling Mage when you have a win condition in the main deck. Reshuffling your deck can also be pretty relevant as it can dodge Extraction (including on your Burning Wishes), refill your library with Petals or LEDs if you used a lot of them to combo off etc.

[Higgs]

I would agree with keeping Emrakul in the Burning Wish build. I think it's needed because with the Burning Wish build it becomes harder to go for a Tenrdils kill due to:
1) this being a slower build and by the time you go for it you are on lower life, therefore can draw less cards and can assemble less mana for a lethal Tendrils
2) you having fewer reanimation spells therefore reanimating a Children to going infinite and ending with a Tendrils kill (while also having enough mana) becomes more difficult.

Emrakul gives you either the option to reshuffle if you have Children action going and go infinite OR it's simply an alternate kill condition that ends the game now.

[Pomegrant]

I'm leaning towards cutting Emrakul but it shuts off some potential lines of victory. When you go Shallow Grave into cracking an LED, you will have three black mana available to combo off a Griselbrand pre-combat. Finding another Entomb plus reanimation effect during this is the most efficient kill. Using LED solely as a discard outlet is not bad in these scenarios but being able to utilize the mana is important as well. I've only needed to shuffle with Emrakul a few times while playing the Burning Wish version so I don't think this line of play is too important for this build of the deck. Having Burning Wish to find kill conditions means you won't need to shuffle everything back in and just converts harder when you get to cast it.

Playing green for sideboard options is just too taxing on the mana base and I don't think it provides much to the deck. I think the strong part of TinFins was it's ability to battle through soft permission and even hard counters (to a certain extent). Cards like Xantid Swarm don't really work, in my opinion, because in TES and ANT you're looking to build a large amount of resources that you can't afford to have your payoff countered. Here, once Griselbrand is in the graveyard, you just need to get him into play and it starts going. Abrupt Decay is powerful at removing hate cards but Burning Wish fixes this problem somewhat, and Chain of Vapor bounces hate before you need to go off (I have yet to play with Chains).

Chrome Mox is fine before going off. The whole point is to go fast and going down a card to maintain speed is fine.

[exallium]

3-1 Last night at a weekly legacy event with this list:


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

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

4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox

3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacomb
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp

// Sideboard
2 Silence
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Hoodwink
1 Serenity
1 Perish
2 Massacre
1 Flusterstorm
2 Exhume
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pithing Needle
1 Show and Tell


2-0 VS Jund:
Game 1 turn 2 GBrand / Emmy kill.
Game 2 Deathrite was a bit annoying and that plus a Grafdigger's cage shut me down. Eventually I drew a Show and Tell with Emrakul in hand and he conceded.

+1 Show and Tell
+2 Pithing Needle
+1 Hoodwink

-4 Probe

1-2 VS Elves:
Game 1 Turn 2 Tendrils Kill!
Game 2 Deathrite held me off long enough for him to go off, and I never saw an entomb, through 3 brainstorms and a ponder, or a fatty for my discard.
Game 3 I learned how bad a card Hoodwink is, because had it been chains I would have destroyed him. My sideboard has since been updated. (Hoodwink was in the board of the deck I originally copied)

+1 Show and Tell
+1 Hoodwink
+2 Massacre
+1 Perish

-4 Probe
-1 Therapy

2-0 VS Sneak and Show:
The feels when you kill someone because they cast Show and Tell.
Game 1 I got the turn 2 GBrand / Emrakul kill through force of will.
Game 2 He Show and Tell'd in GBrand, and I played my own. I drew my cards and started going off. He was at 14 because he was running some shocks and fetches, so he could only draw once and didn't find a relevant counterspell, and then died to Tendrils.

+1 Flusterstorm
+1 Hoodwink
+2 Pithing Needle
+2 Silence

-2 Therapy
-4 Probe

2-0 VS Affinity:
Game 1: Turn 1 kill.
Game 2: Turn 2 kill.

+1 Hoodwink
+1 Serenity
+2 Pithing Needle

-4 Probe

I'm still working on sideboarding plans, and I've changed the Liliana and the Hoodwink to a Chain of Vapors and an Echoing Truth

[.dk]

Grats on the finish! Though, all of those 1 ofs in your sideboard look a little odd to me without something like LDV to be able to find them more consistently.

[exallium]

Grats on the finish! Though, all of those 1 ofs in your sideboard look a little odd to me without something like LDV to be able to find them more consistently.

Thanks!

The board is sort of a work in progress, and I definitely want to make it more consistent. I'm trying to have a good number of anti-hate that allow me to play around meddling mage. I'll try a one-of Lim-Dul's Vault next time I bring the deck out, as I'm suspecting that next week people will be running a bit more GY hate than this week (Dredge took second, I took third)

EDIT: Yeah, I shouldn't have blindly copied the sideboard. It's been changed since ;) Good general advice though.

[Koby]

Stop copying sideboards without thinking about them.

That's how you end up with shitty SB cards like Hoodwink, Echoing Truth, & Tormod's Crypt.

Lilliana is "neat", in that she can kill some Hatebears and provide discard for Shallow Grave. HOWEVER, this seems more trouble than its worth.

[.dk]

Stop copying sideboards without thinking about them.

That's how you end up with shitty SB cards like Hoodwink, Echoing Truth, & Tormod's Crypt.

Lilliana is "neat", in that she can kill some Hatebears and provide discard for Shallow Grave. HOWEVER, this seems more trouble than its worth.

Yeah, I haven't ever understood Hoodwink... and I see it crop up from time to time. We can beat Karakas as it is, and I don't really see any other usage.

Lili seems like a good idea, until you realize that you don't really want to waste rituals on her, and if you get her in play, the game is late, we run 12-14 lands, and you're probably losing.

[lilevo]

Hoodwink is a boomerang that doesn't cost UU and it doesn't get countered by chalic of the void but I agree that it's very unnecessary.

[Koby]

Hoodwink is a boomerang that doesn't cost UU and it doesn't get countered by chalic of the void but I agree that it's very unnecessary.

There are so many better options than Hoodwink that fill the role of "get rid of Chalice @ 1" for 2 mana. While I understand that bouncing Karakas or Maze of Ith is applicable in this case, I don't think we care. Simply getting Griselbrand (Bargain mode) into play is a winning line 80% of the time.

[.dk]

There are so many better options than Hoodwink that fill the role of "get rid of Chalice @ 1" for 2 mana. While I understand that bouncing Karakas or Maze of Ith is applicable in this case, I don't think we care. Simply getting Griselbrand (Bargain mode) into play is a winning line 80% of the time.

Hence the copies of Serenity in your older sideboards, as that deals with Chalice as well as Counterbalance+Top, Canonist, Lodestone Golem, Revoker, and Pithing Needle. Hoodwink doesn't deal with hatebears at all, so Chain of Vapor still needs to get the nod in other cases due to efficiency, and a storm engine in a pinch.

Maze of Ith and Karakas are very beatable without bouncing them or Needling them. Karakas is a little tougher as you need a high life total, but most of those decks aren't putting a ton of pressure on early anyway.

[exallium]

Hence the copies of Serenity in your older sideboards, as that deals with Chalice as well as Counterbalance+Top, Canonist, Lodestone Golem, Revoker, and Pithing Needle. Hoodwink doesn't deal with hatebears at all, so Chain of Vapor still needs to get the nod in other cases due to efficiency, and a storm engine in a pinch.

Maze of Ith and Karakas are very beatable without bouncing them or Needling them. Karakas is a little tougher as you need a high life total, but most of those decks aren't putting a ton of pressure on early anyway.

I've actually switched to the reactive boarding plan on the first page. I haven't gotten to test it out yet, but it feels like it's a) plain better and b) a lot more consistent.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Acclimation would agree with you and before GP Denver, so would've I. However, it's been my current for quite some time and it did okay, but in the current meta, I would probably prefer Doomsday. I'm looking into grabbing a set of LEDs. The irony is that one of the things I liked about this list is that it didn't use LED as a full-on combo list.

[exallium]

Acclimation would agree with you and before GP Denver, so would've I. However, it's been my current for quite some time and it did okay, but in the current meta, I would probably prefer Doomsday. I'm looking into grabbing a set of LEDs. The irony is that one of the things I liked about this list is that it didn't use LED as a full-on combo list.

I'm doing some work for a friend that should score me a set of LEDs + other stuff, so I'll definitely give it a shot as well!

[Richard Cheese]

I think I need a hug.

Preferably from someone with axes for hands.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Meh, I'm thinking of embracing a certain freshly unbanned Dragon. I'm excited.

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[Richard Cheese]

Meh, I'm thinking of embracing a certain freshly unbanned Dragon. I'm excited.

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

Et tu, Bee?

Honestly, I think WGD is interesting, but I don't see how just trying to jam it out as fast as possible is going to be anything but strictly worse than this deck. Our reanimation target is a draw engine, WGD just isn't. I think it would be more interesting to jam into something like BUG Nic Fit that could slow roll and control the board.

Sorry, I'm probably just salty after getting sassed by people with 6 fucking posts that don't have any idea how this deck works, but won't take 10 minutes to read the goddamn primer. Too many awesome people have put time and effort into this for me not to get pissed when I see shit like "Reanimator has always been about "I win," however, it's never had an "I win this turn" combo."

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Yes, ignorance is frustrating, but then again that's something I like about this deck, it catches people unawares. I saw some of that sass, and the saltiness seems warranted. I have an interest in WGD because I have never played vintage and as one who enjoys combo, I find this enjoyably nostalgic, while being conveniently cheap enough to play (finally, that's why I'm excited!).

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[Wanderlust]

I think I need a hug.

Preferably from someone with axes for hands.

Worldgorger Combo seems so much worse than Tin Fins it's not even funny.

[Technics]

Worldgorger Combo seems so much worse than Tin Fins it's not even funny.

Where is my like button for this?

[Acclimation]

WGD combo is Shitfins.

The only reasons why you would play that deck over this are because

a) you don't own Griselbrands
b) you are nostalgic
c) "it was banned, therefore it must be bah-roken"

I can appreciate wanting to brew, but playing all of those suboptimal cards just looks like a bad time.


Just lurking in those threads is hilarious.

[Bobmans]

WGD combo is Shitfins.

The only reasons why you would play that deck over this are because

a) you don't own Griselbrands
b) you are nostalgic
c) "it was banned, therefore it must be bah-roken"

I can appreciate wanting to brew, but playing all of those suboptimal cards just looks like a bad time.


Just lurking in those threads is hilarious.
Hahahaha. Golden.

[Darkenslight]

WGD combo is Shitfins.

The only reasons why you would play that deck over this are because

a) you don't own Griselbrands
b) you are nostalgic
c) "it was banned, therefore it must be bah-roken"

I can appreciate wanting to brew, but playing all of those suboptimal cards just looks like a bad time.


Just lurking in those threads is hilarious.

Well, at least we have a name for it. :tongue:

Honestly, whilst I like bursting onions as mkuch as the next guy, I find it funny that I can finally replay with my favourite banned card.

[death]

Shitfins.

Just lurking in those threads is hilarious.

You do realize that that term can backfire to this deck, right?

I guess if this deck has been putting up results in major circuits outside of your local one-stop shop people will notice. After 2000+ posts and 100+ pages, quite frankly it isn't.

[Jankwolf]

This deck IS shitfins. I've seen crap out on itself so many times. But still, I love the concept behind it. I completely agree with everyone when it comes to WGD being suboptimal. Keep brewing people! I love watching this thing in action.

[Mystical_Jackass]

I'm just about positive nobody thinks WGD combo is better than this deck. Just like with Land Tax unbanning, there was a short burst of energy of people trying to figure out some new age parfait and brainstorming (till eventually throwing in towel). Just like Jeskai Ascension, it'll eventually wash over and that will be that.

[KaiSchafroth]

Worldgorger Combo seems so much worse than Tin Fins it's not even funny.


Where is my like button for this?

+1

[Richard Cheese]

You do realize that that term can backfire to this deck, right?

I guess if this deck has been putting up results in major circuits outside of your local one-stop shop people will notice. After 2000+ posts and 100+ pages, quite frankly it isn't.

Eh, go look at results for yourself: http://tcdecks.net/tipo.php?archetype=Tin%20Fins&format=Legacy

Are we headed for DTB? Not any time soon, especially with Cruise and U/R Skillgame out. Still, if you think TinFins is a shitty deck, you're entitled to that opinion. I just don't see how you can feel that way, then come to the conclusion that needing an extra combo piece, going a turn slower, and adding vulnerability to Decay, Swords, and Waste is in any way a good idea.

For the 1000000th time, I'm not writing off WGD entirely. I just think that trying to jam him out ASAP with Rituals and Petals is just going to leave you with a shittier version of what you apparently think is a shitty deck to begin with.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I already stated that mine is strictly nostalgic in nature. I played a Legacy UG Madness list in 04 at a Vintage side event at KC Nationals, beating a fully powered and Bazaar'ed Dragon deck. I beat him 2-1 and was very proud. I loved his deck and ever since, I've been thinking about the card and finally have an opportunity to get to try it out. I think I will. As for TinFins, it's at least as good as ANT/Reanimator, it just doesn't have the following of traditional storm/reanimate decks. I wouldn't play it otherwise. I'm a Spike/Johnny, and my deck choices reflect this.

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[Acclimation]

Eh, go look at results for yourself: http://tcdecks.net/tipo.php?archetype=Tin%20Fins&format=Legacy

Are we headed for DTB? Not any time soon, especially with Cruise and U/R Skillgame out. Still, if you think TinFins is a shitty deck, you're entitled to that opinion. I just don't see how you can feel that way, then come to the conclusion that needing an extra combo piece, going a turn slower, and adding vulnerability to Decay, Swords, and Waste is in any way a good idea.

For the 1000000th time, I'm not writing off WGD entirely. I just think that trying to jam him out ASAP with Rituals and Petals is just going to leave you with a shittier version of what you apparently think is a shitty deck to begin with.
This right here.

I love brewing, and seeing a card come off the ban list is awesome, but people are trying to make a worse version of our deck, which people already dismiss as a flash in the pan deck.

Instead of making a worse version of our deck, do something different, something that gives you a reason to play that combination of cards. If people don't innovate, then WGD is going to fade away into obscurity.

I mean, hell, you're using an interaction that provides infinite mana and plays well with enter the battlefield effects, something that has been pushed heavily in recent years, there has to be something good.

[tescrin]

Tinfins with Doomsday transformational is about the only combo deck that gets me remotely excited and at some point I figure I'll build it.

I don't think anyone can see that swap and not just crack up at the genius/insanity of it. Similarly, it seems difficult to hate out properly since having the correct answer is indeterminate for the opponent.

[wonderPreaux]

Tinfins with Doomsday transformational is about the only combo deck that gets me remotely excited and at some point I figure I'll build it.

I don't think anyone can see that swap and not just crack up at the genius/insanity of it. Similarly, it seems difficult to hate out properly since having the correct answer is indeterminate for the opponent.

Isn't Surgical Extraction a pretty solid answer for either mode?

[kihachi]

Isn't Surgical Extraction a pretty solid answer for either mode?

Ooh, good question. I think that once Doomsday resolves, you won't have any cards in the yard for the opponent to mess with, so at least with Shelldock, I think it'd be hard to mess with via Surgical shuffling.

EDIT: As far as the WGD controversy goes, I want to say that those guys (including me, I've been messing around with it quite a bit) deserve the same respect that Tin Fins developers would have wanted during the early days, HOWEVER, a lot of them are being pretty ignorant over there tbh. If you're going to go balls-to-the-wall with it, you have to be better at it than Tin Fins otherwise there is NO reason to pursue that kind of build. So not knowing what Tin Fins is or how it works is not acceptable, nor is not wanting to talk about it there.

Personally, I think there could be some room in the meta for a slower, more consistent version that has more deck space to dedicate to discard and/or counterspells. But so far I haven't found an acceptable build that gets the job done better than anything else. Someone needs to find their Children of Korlis! It's almost Baleful Strix or Hapless Researcher, but not quite. Anyway, sorry to digress. Looking forward to trying Tin Fins/Doomsday at Indy!

[wonderPreaux]

Ooh, good question. I think that once Doomsday resolves, you won't have any cards in the yard for the opponent to mess with, so at least with Shelldock, I think it'd be hard to mess with via Surgical shuffling.

Could I not just extract your Doomsday and shuffle your deck? If you put Shelldock on top to pass, you are pretty well wrecked, and I'd have a 20% odds on disrupting you if the Shelldock was in your hand and you piled Emrakul +4

[Namida]

Ooh, good question. I think that once Doomsday resolves, you won't have any cards in the yard for the opponent to mess with, so at least with Shelldock, I think it'd be hard to mess with via Surgical shuffling.

You are incorrect. Once Doomsday resolves it becomes the sole card in your graveyard, so there is always a chance for your opponent to shuffle your deck with Surgical Extraction. That being said, I have been playing Doomsday for years and maybe I've just been playing against weak players, but I've never had anyone actually pull the trigger on the "no value" Surgical Extraction immediately after Doomsday resolves to force the shuffle because it's not obvious. Basically, I think the average player hasn't seen a Doomsday resolve and thinks the same thing you did about no targets in graveyard post-Doomsday, so you can usually bait them into casting Surgical Extraction before Doomsday resolves. In the same way, I've had opponents who *do* understand the value of Surgical Extraction here but completely miss the Doomsday sitting in the graveyard because they don't think it should be there, which means that your opponent might just be unaware enough to let you draw the first card in your pile while they wait for a Surgical target (AKA, you might be able to draw your Shelldock Isle and make Surgical Extraction look foolish). Now then...if you're playing opponents that you actually think are good, then a Sensei's Divining Top or a Brainstorm is all you really need to dodge a forced shuffle when you make Shelldock Isle piles.

[.dk]

You are incorrect. Once Doomsday resolves it becomes the sole card in your graveyard, so there is always a chance for your opponent to shuffle your deck with Surgical Extraction. That being said, I have been playing Doomsday for years and maybe I've just been playing against weak players, but I've never had anyone actually pull the trigger on the "no value" Surgical Extraction immediately after Doomsday resolves to force the shuffle because it's not obvious. Basically, I think the average player hasn't seen a Doomsday resolve and thinks the same thing you did about no targets in graveyard post-Doomsday, so you can usually bait them into casting Surgical Extraction before Doomsday resolves. In the same way, I've had opponents who *do* understand the value of Surgical Extraction here but completely miss the Doomsday sitting in the graveyard because they don't think it should be there, which means that your opponent might just be unaware enough to let you draw the first card in your pile while they wait for a Surgical target (AKA, you might be able to draw your Shelldock Isle and make Surgical Extraction look foolish). Now then...if you're playing opponents that you actually think are good, then a Sensei's Divining Top or a Brainstorm is all you really need to dodge a forced shuffle when you make Shelldock Isle piles.

Exactly. I've played against people that have surgicaled the DD in the yard after resolving it. Only even with DDFT though, not with this deck. Just try to set yourself up so that you can play Shelldock that turn, or at least be able to get it into your hand in response or before Surgical resolves.

[Technics]

Has anyone tried out Gemstone Caverns? I have been having some strong results with it at Joe Losset's suggestion for it in reanimater. It allows us the Turn 1 without a Dark Ritual, and thus is very good at helping to play around turn 1 DRS.

My only issue with it currently, is I am playing Pom's Burning Wish list, and have found you can really only include one or the other, since there is no room in the board for extra lands, and Burning Wish targets really care about not having colorless lands when you don't get to "Leyline" it into play. However it is very strong in the BWish list when paired with LED and Grissy. The only problem with that is it only happens in 1-2 games in testing since it's Magical Christmas land and all.

That said, I have really liked the results in the traditional UBw lists. Getting that extra mana has been huge in being able to pair it with a Lotus Petal + Discard or Entomb to get your turn 1 combo before hate can land. Currently I am cutting 1 Scrubland, 1 Sea, 1 Swamp, and 1 Fetchland to fit them in, with all but the Swamp in the board to come in. Being faster than the hate has been worth the extra SB slots, as it effectively "answers" everything except for Surgical or Leyline assuming it can do it's job of turn 1ing.

[Mhenlo]

Has anyone tried out Gemstone Caverns? I have been having some strong results with it at Joe Losset's suggestion for it in reanimater. It allows us the Turn 1 without a Dark Ritual, and thus is very good at helping to play around turn 1 DRS.

My only issue with it currently, is I am playing Pom's Burning Wish list, and have found you can really only include one or the other, since there is no room in the board for extra lands, and Burning Wish targets really care about not having colorless lands when you don't get to "Leyline" it into play. However it is very strong in the BWish list when paired with LED and Grissy. The only problem with that is it only happens in 1-2 games in testing since it's Magical Christmas land and all.

That said, I have really liked the results in the traditional UBw lists. Getting that extra mana has been huge in being able to pair it with a Lotus Petal + Discard or Entomb to get your turn 1 combo before hate can land. Currently I am cutting 1 Scrubland, 1 Sea, 1 Swamp, and 1 Fetchland to fit them in, with all but the Swamp in the board to come in. Being faster than the hate has been worth the extra SB slots, as it effectively "answers" everything except for Surgical or Leyline assuming it can do it's job of turn 1ing.

Why would you not just use Chrome Mox or even Mox Diamond? It is better after Griselbrand is in play and does the same thing in terms of Turn 1ing other than the fact you can pitch a land/spell depending on which mox you use to Gemstone Caverns.

[tescrin]

Why would you not just use Chrome Mox or even Mox Diamond? It is better after Griselbrand is in play and does the same thing in terms of Turn 1ing other than the fact you can pitch a land/spell depending on which mox you use to Gemstone Caverns.

Gemstone is certainly a bit more versatile than a Mox, being optional, omni-mana, any card (meaning it's the best of each mox choice in a given hand) and not being a spell (or stifle-able) is a thing. A 1-of is probably worth testing. You don't need to T1 someone with it for it to be good; it simply is an omni-land that can sometimes be Dark Ritual #5.

[kihachi]

You are incorrect. Once Doomsday resolves it becomes the sole card in your graveyard, so there is always a chance for your opponent to shuffle your deck with Surgical Extraction. That being said, I have been playing Doomsday for years and maybe I've just been playing against weak players, but I've never had anyone actually pull the trigger on the "no value" Surgical Extraction immediately after Doomsday resolves to force the shuffle because it's not obvious. Basically, I think the average player hasn't seen a Doomsday resolve and thinks the same thing you did about no targets in graveyard post-Doomsday, so you can usually bait them into casting Surgical Extraction before Doomsday resolves. In the same way, I've had opponents who *do* understand the value of Surgical Extraction here but completely miss the Doomsday sitting in the graveyard because they don't think it should be there, which means that your opponent might just be unaware enough to let you draw the first card in your pile while they wait for a Surgical target (AKA, you might be able to draw your Shelldock Isle and make Surgical Extraction look foolish). Now then...if you're playing opponents that you actually think are good, then a Sensei's Divining Top or a Brainstorm is all you really need to dodge a forced shuffle when you make Shelldock Isle piles.

Good to know. I wasn't very sure at all, which is why I phrased my comment that way. I guess if you fear Extraction or saw one in their hand you'd have to play around it somehow, but with Brainstorm and Sensei's Top it wouldn't be all that difficult. I'd say the deck post-Doomsday transformation has a lot more game against Extraction than the Tin Fins version does.

[Mhenlo]

Gemstone is certainly a bit more versatile than a Mox, being optional, omni-mana, any card (meaning it's the best of each mox choice in a given hand) and not being a spell (or stifle-able) is a thing. A 1-of is probably worth testing. You don't need to T1 someone with it for it to be good; it simply is an omni-land that can sometimes be Dark Ritual #5.

Omni mana in our 2 color deck that only needs 1 color to combo off? I very much prefer the Mox being much much better at making us not fizzle post Griselbrand. I'm willing to test it but what would you cut for it? IMO the deck needs atleast 1 Mox to stay consistent.

[Technics]

Omni mana in our 2 color deck that only needs 1 color to combo off? I very much prefer the Mox being much much better at making us not fizzle post Griselbrand. I'm willing to test it but what would you cut for it? IMO the deck needs atleast 1 Mox to stay consistent.

As I mentioned it goes in the land slots. Being able to pitch extra lands, or blue cards (45% of the deck or so) means you never get in the aquward spot where you have the mox but no extra black cards to pitch. I have found that unless I already have Grissy in play and a hand full of cards you normally want every black card in your hand as very rarley do you have extra of whatever effect it is (discard/reanimate). That said the liability of Gemstone being Legendary is probably the biggest issue with it. The colorless aspect has been minimal in testing (with the UBw version) but the Legendary part has been relevant when playing against D&T since Port + Waste + Thalia means every landdrop counts, and now we have 3 less land.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Meh, this will be fruitless. I think we should discuss the Doomsday more. At least that is AWESOME!

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[kihachi]

As I mentioned it goes in the land slots. Being able to pitch extra lands, or blue cards (45% of the deck or so) means you never get in the aquward spot where you have the mox but no extra black cards to pitch. I have found that unless I already have Grissy in play and a hand full of cards you normally want every black card in your hand as very rarley do you have extra of whatever effect it is (discard/reanimate). That said the liability of Gemstone being Legendary is probably the biggest issue with it. The colorless aspect has been minimal in testing (with the UBw version) but the Legendary part has been relevant when playing against D&T since Port + Waste + Thalia means every landdrop counts, and now we have 3 less land.

I mostly agree with this. I goldfished a good amount yesterday with Gemstone Caverns in place of some lands and it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. However, I don't like having to choose to be on the draw every game before knowing if I'm gonna have Caverns, and starting with one in play doesn't feel like cheating as much as I'd like it to, unless you can go Thoughtseize, land drop, Ritual, Entomb, Grave/Vengeance. Further, you either have to cut fetches, USeas, basics, or some combination of that to fit in the Caverns, and it comes back to bite you sometimes. And if you need a land drop post-Griselbrand these really do nothing for you.

[Mhenlo]

I might test it in my SB for when I'm on the draw.

[Richard Cheese]

I think the problem with Caverns here is that we're aiming for a fundamentally different turn 1 than Reanimator. Whereas their ideal plays cost 2 mana (Entomb/Careful Study, Reanimate), ours cost 3. We're generally looking to get that off a Ritual, or spread it out over our first two turns.

An extra land drop on the first turn for TinFins is probably just going to end up being used for protection or just an extra mana post-Grizzlebees most of the time...not that either of those scenarios is a bad thing, but I'm not sure it's worth cutting any other lands for. We run so few as it is, there's just not any fat to trim there. I suppose you could cut Chrome Moxes + 2/3 lands and try that out. Caverns is probably more useful than Mox early, for the same card disadvantage. OTOH, it's a lot worse to draw into when going off.

[Darkgobs]

Actually, in this post-TC era, discard.deck will come back. In this optic, you really wanna be OTP - and not OTD - to avoid these annoying T1-thougheize before you can even BS to protect your hand. And you wanna go off before the Hymn to Tourach makes you randomly loose the game. So I'd say it is a particulary bad idea to develop specifics OTD-strategies atm.

By the way, I tested the Burning Wish + LED list a bit, and even if they are some really nice plays, it makes our T1 kill a lot less harder to do (due to less reanimate spell MD), and a bit slower. We are also more defenseless against discards-deck. Which, again, in the actual metagame, is not a good thing. I have been a bit disappointed with the list (even if having access to pyroclasm, Massacre and S&T and EtW first game is awesome) and might come back with the good old UBw list. So guys, how well did you do with this Burning Onions list?

PS: i played the standard list we talked about few pages befor, except i played 3 griselbrand (for LED + Shallow and BW into S&T).

[.dk]

I mentioned this a long time ago... but if we could run 6 Lotus Petals, we would. Richard Cheese and Mhenlo mentioned it - Caverns is WAY worse when you're going off. Fizzling with this deck is a very real possibility, and I'd be wary of any changes that increase the chance of that actually happening. 6 Petals would go a long way to fix that, hence why I have run versions in the past with 2 Chrome Mox, or 1 Chrome Mox + 1 Mox Diamond. The Diamond helps the problem that Technics mentioned, as you can pitch a land for it. While not great pre-combo, at least it is still an Underground Sea that can't be wastelanded, which is better than any other land in the deck anyway.

And as far as a post-TC meta goes - I'm expecting a dramatic increase of Deathrite Shaman again, which likely means I'm putting this deck away again. It's not unbeatable, but it is certainly enough of a pain that I wouldn't want to fight through it in 50% of the rounds that I'm playing in a large tournament.

[Pomegrant]

By the way, I tested the Burning Wish + LED list a bit, and even if they are some really nice plays, it makes our T1 kill a lot less harder to do (due to less reanimate spell MD), and a bit slower. We are also more defenseless against discards-deck. Which, again, in the actual metagame, is not a good thing. I have been a bit disappointed with the list (even if having access to pyroclasm, Massacre and S&T and EtW first game is awesome) and might come back with the good old UBw list. So guys, how well did you do with this Burning Onions list?

PS: i played the standard list we talked about few pages befor, except i played 3 griselbrand (for LED + Shallow and BW into S&T).

I'm not exactly sure I understand, but why is the Burning Wish version weaker to discard? You're trying to put the same amount of pieces together so I would feel that the decks have equal problems against discard.


And as far as a post-TC meta goes - I'm expecting a dramatic increase of Deathrite Shaman again, which likely means I'm putting this deck away again. It's not unbeatable, but it is certainly enough of a pain that I wouldn't want to fight through it in 50% of the rounds that I'm playing in a large tournament.

Try out my version more then!

I think expecting the meta to shift to 50% DRS might be an overstatement, but it is a problem. I think the post-Treasure Cruise shift is more about playing against Spell Pierce instead of Pyroblast now.

[Darkgobs]

I'm not exactly sure I understand, but why is the Burning Wish version weaker to discard? You're trying to put the same amount of pieces together so I would feel that the decks have equal problems against discard.

Well, a BW version is per se more risquy, because if you got hated, for instance by counterspells or discard (trageting the card you've just searched in your SB with the Burning Wish, well, you have maid a nice Card Disadvantage.
Also, i felt that only 5 reamination spells makes us more sensible to discrad on thoses spells, because it will be harder to find another one (even with the wishes, it takes time and a lot of mana).
To sum it up, i'd say that the more time we're waiting befor we start comboing, the more likely we will be discarded. And since the BW-version seems to be a bit slower, well, we are more likely to be discarded, or even Hymntotourach'ed.

[KaiSchafroth]

Didn't end up being able to head to Indy this weekend for SCG; anyone there repping the onion burst?

[Koby]

Well, a BW version is per se more risquy, because if you got hated, for instance by counterspells or discard (trageting the card you've just searched in your SB with the Burning Wish, well, you have maid a nice Card Disadvantage.
Also, i felt that only 5 reamination spells makes us more sensible to discrad on thoses spells, because it will be harder to find another one (even with the wishes, it takes time and a lot of mana).
To sum it up, i'd say that the more time we're waiting befor we start comboing, the more likely we will be discarded. And since the BW-version seems to be a bit slower, well, we are more likely to be discarded, or even Hymntotourach'ed.

Running 8 reanimation spells vs running 4 + 4 burning wish isn't that bad in practice. I will miss TCruise from the SB, but it's probably fine still.

[Technics]

Running 8 reanimation spells vs running 4 + 4 burning wish isn't that bad in practice. I will miss TCruise from the SB, but it's probably fine still.

I totally agree Koby. Here is what I am rocking at side events this weekend... Stole Pomegranets latest Post Cruise changes... Thanks Pom!


http://s13.postimg.org/eb8vag63b/IMG_20150201_011429.jpg

[Pomegrant]

Good looking deck and hope it ran well for you!

I played at SCG Indy and while starting well with a 5-0 record, I finished the day losing four matches in a row, all in three games. I can jot down some game notes if anybody is interested in how the tournament went. Round five I had a feature match on the SCG stream if anybody wants to watch. I didn't play incredibly well, as I punted game one, but if you want to see my version of the deck do it's thing, it's there.

[KaiSchafroth]

Good looking deck and hope it ran well for you!

I played at SCG Indy and while starting well with a 5-0 record, I finished the day losing four matches in a row, all in three games. I can jot down some game notes if anybody is interested in how the tournament went. Round five I had a feature match on the SCG stream if anybody wants to watch. I didn't play incredibly well, as I punted game one, but if you want to see my version of the deck do it's thing, it's there.

Personally I'd like to see some notes/tourney report.
Dropping a link to the SCG match for anyone interested (hope ya don't mind Pom)
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/618582124?t=4h35m04s

[p_spk]

Long time lurker, just putting this up here. Would be interested in a short report as well, Pomegrant. I've been watching your streams; deck looks great!

[Pomegrant]

Sorry this update took so long.

Round 1: Dredge (2-1)
I've played this match up a few times and I think in the abstract it favors us. Seeing that their discard is very minimal, the only way they win is through a combo oriented finish which a lot of the dredge decks have been taking out anyway. Game one is easy, but games two and three are more difficult since there is a turn zero Leyline of the Void. Game two I kept a turn one hand on the draw but it went off through a Lotus Petal so I spin the tires trying to cobble something together and die to zombies. Game three my hand is a lot more defensible as I'm able to Burning Wish for a Void Snare and then combo off.
1-0

Round 2: Shardless BUG (2-1)
I don't remember that much about this match but in general I like it. Game one their only real point of interaction is Force of Will, so I win that. Game two I believe I can't get under a Grafdigger's Cage and lose. Then game, I cantrip on one, my opponent has a Deathrite Shaman on two, and I make him discard and combo off. Some of the lists that are splashing white for more hate are definitely problematic but I think the Burning Wishes help for that still.
2-0

Round 3: RUG Delver (2-1)
I win game one. I thoughtseized something and went for a kill. Game two I lose when I try to go off turn one. He tapped out for a Delver and I had enough mana to play through Daze. So I decide that I'm okay losing to Force of Will and I still would get Griselbrand in the graveyard to try to go off again. Until he Surgical Extracts Griselbrand and I pack it in. I don't remember game three but I won so whatever.

I don't think RUG Delver is a good matchup and something I'm pretty afraid to play against. They have main deck Spell Pierce again and have the mana taxing elements that can just end a game on the spot.
3-0

Round 4: UWR Stoneblade (2-0)
I remember my opponent this round because he looked like he'd rather be doing anything other than playing a Magic tournament. In game one I Therapy Force of Will and see a Spell Pierce I can play into and then win. Game two he kept a hand of Containment Priest and Meddling Mages which all got swept up by Burning Wish into Massacre.
4-0

Round 5: Elves (2-1)
I get get the feature match against somebody I'm pretty certain is playing Elves. It's nice that they gave me an easy match up especially because I wasn't going to play well. Game one I fizzle (which becomes a theme during the rest of the tournament), and I think that I keep a Shallow Grave, so I can Therapy myself for Emrakul then attack, but I kept a second Burning Wish instead. So, I try to go on some real convoluted way to win and end up in a game state that I'm not comfortable playing in. At the time I didn't want to Burning Wish for Pyroclasm because I felt that him gaining life from the Scavenging Ooze was bad for me, but it was probably the best play regardless. Games two and three end up being good for me with some nice draws.

I think the Elves match up is good, as most combo decks, just because of our speed. It's easy to get under Elves and they don't have many sideboard cards that matter.
5-0

Round 6: UWR Delver (1-2)
My opponent plays turn one Delver off of a Tundra so I'm feeling pretty okay. Some of these UWR Delver decks don't play a full four Daze and don't often play Spell Pierce in the main deck. I therapy for Force, which he didn't have, then combo off. Game two is where I get really unlucky, as game three he had the nuts and I would never have won. I'm playing slowly because I'm assuming he's boarding in Containment Priests and/or Meddling Mage and I wait for him to make the first move. He plays a Stoneforge Mystic and I use discard to rip up the equipment then I make 12 Goblins through Empty the Warrens. He is at 19, then bolts one of the Goblins. He draws an obscene amount of creatures this game, something like 6-7 which lines up really well against the Goblins and I can't find enough pieces to Griselbrand him. Game three he had Force of Will, Daze, Spell Pierce, two Flusterstorm, Clique, and a Containment Priest so I was never going to win.
5-1

Round 7: Sneak and Show (1-2)
Game one Sneak and Show doesn't have much counter magic so I combo off and call it a day. Game two I get unlucky again. I have Emrakul in my opening hand, so I want to try to craft the game in such a way where I want him to feel pressured so he just has to Show and Tell his Griselbrand to dig for counter magic. I eventually get him to do this and now he's staring down an Emrakul with his Griselbrand. He's priced into drawing and he has a Sol land untapped so he needs to find three Lotus Petals and a Sneak Attack and an Emrakul to win, which he obviously does and kills me. Game three, I have a turn two kill, so he naturally has Grafdigger's Cage. Then without any sculptors he find the perfect draws of sneak attack emrakul and griselbrand plus enough mana to kill me on turn three.

I generally think this is a good match up and I hit a variance low, to be honest. We know all about how sometimes you dig with Griselbrand hoping to hit when it's low chances and my opponent got there.
5-2

Round 8 : UR Delver (1-2)
I'm feeling the pressure now, as I thought I was going to cruise into day two and now it's questionable. Game one my opponent game a creature and bolt heavy hand which amounts to me storming all over the place. Game two, he sticks an Eidolon of the Great Revel on two and that is pretty hard to beat. Game three, I got off on turn one and fizzle. In 21 cards I needed to hit either one more Lotus Petal or a Dark Ritual to end it and it just didn't happen. I try to set up the game state to try to kill again but he plays Grafdigger's Cage and battles back. It comes down to a really close game in the end that requires him to top deck a spell to grow his Swiftspear and he gets there.

This match up is both good and bad. I feel that most Delver players will keep trash hands because they just assume that their deck will get them there. I feel the game ones are good for us as a lot of the time they will mulligan permission heavy hands just because of how the meta game shapes up. I'm not super afraid of their sideboard but they always have their one Grafdigger's Cage because Magic.
5-3

Round 9: Infect (1-2)
For this match up, I'm not feeling great. I feel that both of our decks kill on the same turn on average with my deck being able to turn 1 while his can't. I feel the pressure of comboing early which is difficult through his permission. Game one, I Therapy and see he has no permission but he's kept a hand of no infect guys but has brainstorm. I figure I've got a bit of time but with no permission I'm going to go off, which is a great idea until I fizzle. By this point I'm pretty frustrated because I've fizzled a bunch and most of it comes from problems generating mana which my version is specifically built to be heavy on. He finds an infect guy so he goes in and kills me. Game two, he keeps a hand that has no infect guys again but has some flusterstorms and spell pierces that I can either play into because I can generate a lot of mana or Therapy. I win game two and I'm feeling a bit better but we don't have all that much time for game three. This is a pretty crazy game. He's got soft permission and no infect guy again, and I'm playing a more tradition Tin Fins game with two lands, two entombs, and some Shallow Graves. I'm just trying to force through my combo but I'm not really getting anywhere but that's okay because he isn't either. I'm only taking one per turn from a Noble Hierarch so it's fine. However, I'm starting to flood in a bad way and all I need to do is fine a reanimation effect. He finds a Blighted Agent so I know I'm not long for this world as he has two Invigorates in hand. He attacks, and even though he probed me an saw a Chain of Vapor, he goes in and give me the "good game" look and I vapor the Agent and get a bunch of draw steps to draw out of it. I'm getting so flooded that the turn before I die to this Blighted Agent, if I had drawn any non LED mana source I would have been able to hardcast Griselbrand. But, I lose and that's it.
5-4

This tournament was frustrating to say the least but I'm glad that I started so well and got a feature match (although I wish I had represented the deck better when it counted). It's easy to say I would have done better if the deck didn't fizzle on me so many times, but it's part of playing the deck. On the day I got a lot of free wins from my opponents not knowing what was going on, and even if they did, they often didn't have the presence to play around potential Wish targets. The reason to play a deck like this is to catch people off guard and get free wins, which happened a lot on the day. I feel great in game one, and as shown by how the matches shaped up, I think I can get there in one of the last two games. It just didn't shake out in a bunch of the matches, but in the four that I lost, I really felt that I was extremely close to winning all of them. Only a few times on the day I truly felt out of a game, which is much better than with other combo decks I've played in the past.

Right now, I don't think I'd change anything with the deck but I haven't played it since last week. If anybody has any questions about my tournament or matches or whatever, feel free to ask.

[mainactivenet]

Hello to everyone! What do you think about using Abyssal persecutor in Tin fins' sideboard against RUG/Miracles?

[pandaman]

"...he has a Sol land untapped so he needs to find three Lotus Petals and a Sneak Attack and an Emrakul to win, which he obviously does and kills me."

Pomegrant, just bad beats and variance gone wild, it was terrible to read, I was feeling your feels. Although I shouldn't talk I did something similarly ridiculous with three Lotus Petals the other day. It will swing back around to you buddy, don't worry! I sympathise, Lady Variance came back to haunt you in the latter rounds :( But still, shows the deck is gas when you go out to 5-0 ust like that!

[Pomegrant]

While it feels like bad beats, it's easy to forget when variance swings in your favor. I think my big take away from the tournament was that there are still a lot of areas I need to improve in to pilot this deck to a truly successful result. I just need to keep working on the deck because I know it can get better. And I need to get better at Magic too so I don't lose games due to mistakes that I make.

I just hope a get another chance to play the deck soon at a larger event and get another crack at it.

[.dk]

Hello to everyone! What do you think about using Abyssal persecutor in Tin fins' sideboard against RUG/Miracles?

Against RUG - sure. Although I think I might prefer Phyrexian Obliterator. Against Miracles... I don't think they have enough cards to bring in to take out all of their removal. Maybe though. I don't like needing to kill Persecutor to be able to win though - seems too conditional.

[Islandswamp]

Good looking deck and hope it ran well for you!

I played at SCG Indy and while starting well with a 5-0 record, I finished the day losing four matches in a row, all in three games. I can jot down some game notes if anybody is interested in how the tournament went. Round five I had a feature match on the SCG stream if anybody wants to watch. I didn't play incredibly well, as I punted game one, but if you want to see my version of the deck do it's thing, it's there.

I'm thinking of building this deck on MTGO. I have been playing a slightly incomplete reanimator list. but I think I'd rather win the game the turn I play Griselbrand :laugh: I know that the deck seemed sweet when I faced it online.

[CabalTherapy]

Hey guys, I plan on playing TinFins more often because my meta is full of combo+Miracles+random nonblue decks such as DnT or Stompy something; almost no Delver decks and no casual stuff like Burn. Since ANT's most MUs are even or difficult (against Miracles), I want to slam some Fins locally in order to improve my combo+fringe deck MUs. Playing ANT mirrors is not the best feeling, although I can win the majority of the mirror matches.
Now, I seek for a juicy SB against Miracles without having a transformational board into DD or stuff like that. I want a nice reactive board that improves my chances against this deck.
Currently, I play a rather standard UBw version with the following SB:
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Pithing Needle
2 Massacre
3 Silence
1 flex slot
I try to make room for the SB lands in the main but in contrary to ANT, I don't like them there.
Would be cool to read your SB techs against Miracles.

[Karhumies]

Would be cool to read your SB techs against Miracles.

Depending on your build colors and amount of SB slots available here are some options:

Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Meltdown
Thoughtseize/Duress
Defense Grid
Wipe Away
Flusterstorm
Vexing Shusher
Xantid Swarm
Force of Will
Daze
extra SnTs
Pithing Needle
Abrupt Decay
Divert
Disrupt

Boseiju is great but vulnerable to Wasteland. Discard effects are a catch-all and never a bad SB option but they take away only 1 counter each. Xantid Swarm can actually pull its weight because the opponent is likely to side out creature removals, but against non-blue decks with post-sb grave hate they are not worth the splash and side slots without other green SB cards. Defense Grid is slower than Xantid but a nice card in builds without green splash, if you can find the space for it.

TBH, what you should be running depends on their SB hate package. Wipe Away for split second and Pithing Needle against Tormod/Relic/Top is a nice catch-all package. But even then, you need one more card against opposing pithing needle/Rest in Peace which does not destroy your own Needle. Also, SB Containment Priest, Phyrexian Revoker or Meddling Mage can be a pain if unexpected. Pyroclasm or a similar effect may help.

Overall, you want speedy opening hands into g2/g3 and you should hope the opponent's grave hate of choice is not Leyline of the Void. Especially when you are running an Abrupt Decay build. So...don't side out too many proactive combo cards for reactive SB cards.

If there is not a lot of Containment Priest and/or Wasteland in the metagame, main deck "sol lands" + Extra SnTs in the SB is also a valid option without being "too transitional". "Extra mana" from the Sol lands helps you play through tax counters (Daze, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm), leaving the opponent with only a very limited amount of hard counters (Spell Snare is generally a miss against us, btw).

Conclusions
1) Counterbalance + top is very slow to get online against our fast hands
2) hitting a cmc 3 for counterbalance against SnT is not easy for them
3) opposing t1 Pithing Needle and t2 Containment Priest/Rest in Peace on the play are the real problems we need to deal with

[CabalTherapy]

Depending on your build colors and amount of SB slots available here are some options:

Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Meltdown
Thoughtseize/Duress
Defense Grid
Wipe Away
Flusterstorm
Vexing Shusher
Xantid Swarm
Force of Will
Daze
extra SnTs
Pithing Needle
Abrupt Decay
Divert
Disrupt

Boseiju is great but vulnerable to Wasteland. Discard effects are a catch-all and never a bad SB option but they take away only 1 counter each. Xantid Swarm can actually pull its weight because the opponent is likely to side out creature removals, but against non-blue decks with post-sb grave hate they are not worth the splash and side slots without other green SB cards. Defense Grid is slower than Xantid but a nice card in builds without green splash, if you can find the space for it.

TBH, what you should be running depends on their SB hate package. Wipe Away for split second and Pithing Needle against Tormod/Relic/Top is a nice catch-all package. But even then, you need one more card against opposing pithing needle/Rest in Peace which does not destroy your own Needle. Also, SB Containment Priest, Phyrexian Revoker or Meddling Mage can be a pain if unexpected. Pyroclasm or a similar effect may help.

Overall, you want speedy opening hands into g2/g3 and you should hope the opponent's grave hate of choice is not Leyline of the Void. Especially when you are running an Abrupt Decay build. So...don't side out too many proactive combo cards for reactive SB cards.

If there is not a lot of Containment Priest and/or Wasteland in the metagame, main deck "sol lands" + Extra SnTs in the SB is also a valid option without being "too transitional". "Extra mana" from the Sol lands helps you play through tax counters (Daze, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm), leaving the opponent with only a very limited amount of hard counters (Spell Snare is generally a miss against us, btw).

Conclusions
1) Counterbalance + top is very slow to get online against our fast hands
2) hitting a cmc 3 for counterbalance against SnT is not easy for them
3) opposing t1 Pithing Needle and t2 Containment Priest/Rest in Peace on the play are the real problems we need to deal with


Thanks for the reply. The main issues are Counterbalace Top + things like Cage, RiP. I think that I should move the two green duals to the maindeck in favor of Swamp and Island. Then I have 3 extra slots for Miracles, although I don't want to overload on anti-hate.

[Karhumies]

Thanks for the reply. The main issues are Counterbalace Top + things like Cage, RiP. I think that I should move the two green duals to the maindeck in favor of Swamp and Island. Then I have 3 extra slots for Miracles, although I don't want to overload on anti-hate.

If they start with t1 Cage/Needle on the play, you can respond with t1 Engineered Explosives @1. I forgot to mention that card in my previous post.

[Acclimation]

Hey guys, I plan on playing TinFins more often because my meta is full of combo+Miracles+random nonblue decks such as DnT or Stompy something; almost no Delver decks and no casual stuff like Burn. Since ANT's most MUs are even or difficult (against Miracles), I want to slam some Fins locally in order to improve my combo+fringe deck MUs. Playing ANT mirrors is not the best feeling, although I can win the majority of the mirror matches.
Now, I seek for a juicy SB against Miracles without having a transformational board into DD or stuff like that. I want a nice reactive board that improves my chances against this deck.
Currently, I play a rather standard UBw version with the following SB:
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Pithing Needle
2 Massacre
3 Silence
1 flex slot
I try to make room for the SB lands in the main but in contrary to ANT, I don't like them there.
Would be cool to read your SB techs against Miracles.
Here's my sb plan that I've been using forever.
mb:61 cards
sb: 3 silence
2 surgical
3 chain
2 needle
2 massacre
2 serenity


Miracle/Countertop: -1 Reanimate -1 Goryo -1 Mox -4 Probe -1 Ponder
+3 Chain +2 Serenity +2 Needle

I use my discard aggressively, and sometimes you can just bust them early. I'm not a fan of our long game, since all it takes is a topdecked RiP to wreck all of the hard work we previously made.

In other cool news, check out these bad boys:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B_ixjpeUgAAOelR.jpg:large

[CabalTherapy]

Here's my sb plan that I've been using forever.
mb:61 cards
sb: 3 silence
2 surgical
3 chain
2 needle
2 massacre
2 serenity


Miracle/Countertop: -1 Reanimate -1 Goryo -1 Mox -4 Probe -1 Ponder
+3 Chain +2 Serenity +2 Needle

I use my discard aggressively, and sometimes you can just bust them early. I'm not a fan of our long game, since all it takes is a topdecked RiP to wreck all of the hard work we previously made.


Sounds nice. Since I usually play ANT, I went for Decays as my primary weapon against Miracles but now I guess that I will try your plan. Hence, I can switch back to basics main and forget about Bayou/Tropical.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I got my 1/2 set at GP Denver. They are pretty cool.

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[Kathal]

I have my four since GP Milan :wink: and crushing players since then.

Greetings,
Kathal

[Dziga Murnau]

Got some questions about Doomsday sb. Is it possible to side in just Shelldock part if we are sure that opponent won't let us play Tendrils route anyway? It's like 3 Doomsday, 2 Tops, Shelldock, 1 CoV/PN, leaving 4 Shallow Grave, 1 Griselbrand, 3 Entomb in the MB? I guess it's too fragile, but in this case we keep the option of onion burst on 1-2 turn, if our opponent can't draw gravehate. (will try it)
And - is there an option of Maniac win? I think, I'm just too bad at counting to 10 with Tendrils...

[Kathal]

Got some questions about Doomsday sb. Is it possible to side in just Shelldock part if we are sure that opponent won't let us play Tendrils route anyway? It's like 3 Doomsday, 2 Tops, Shelldock, 1 CoV/PN, leaving 4 Shallow Grave, 1 Griselbrand, 3 Entomb in the MB? I guess it's too fragile, but in this case we keep the option of onion burst on 1-2 turn, if our opponent can't draw gravehate. (will try it)
And - is there an option of Maniac win? I think, I'm just too bad at counting to 10 with Tendrils...

To lazy to write it down, so I just copied it:

-If you have IU, LED, GP or SDT in play or hand you can add a chant/discard spell in for just its mana cost-

--Cantrip pile--

In Hand: DR, DD, LED, GP
In Play: B source
-->DR, DD
IU
LED
GP
SDT
LabMan
-->LED, GP resp crack LED for UUU, IU, LED, Top, GP resp crack LED for UUU, LabMan, activate Top for the win.

------------------------------------------------------------------

--Pass the turn pile--
-If you pass the turn twice, you can beat 1 piece of removal-

(U)(U)(1) + 2 life available post Doomsday

-->Doomsday -
IU
SDT
GP
LED
LM
-->pass the turn, Ideas Unbound, LED, Sensei's Top, Gitaxian Probe resp crack LEDs for UUU, Lab man, activate top for the win.

Greetings,
Kathal

[.dk]

Got some questions about Doomsday sb. Is it possible to side in just Shelldock part if we are sure that opponent won't let us play Tendrils route anyway? It's like 3 Doomsday, 2 Tops, Shelldock, 1 CoV/PN, leaving 4 Shallow Grave, 1 Griselbrand, 3 Entomb in the MB? I guess it's too fragile, but in this case we keep the option of onion burst on 1-2 turn, if our opponent can't draw gravehate. (will try it)
And - is there an option of Maniac win? I think, I'm just too bad at counting to 10 with Tendrils...

I'm not sure what you mean by certain they won't let you play Tendrils? We run so much discard... But anyway, lets say it is. I don't see why what you suggest wouldn't work, however I would fear that you're diluting both halves of the plans too much. Seems like you're going to be relying on LDV a lot here. And if you're on a reanimation plan at all, I can't see it being right to ever have less than 3 Entombs.

If you want to win with Lab Maniac, then I would suggest replacing the Tendrils in the Maindeck with Lab Maniac. You can win off of infinite draws with Griselbrand and Children of Korlis with Maniac just like tendrils, but is more vulnerable than Tendrils in the maindeck. There are some posts/ideas about 50 pages back on it if you wanted to search for it. If you're going to do that, you may consider finding room for a Chromatic Sphere in the 75 somewhere though to be able to win "removal proof."

[KaiSchafroth]

Caleb D has vids going up with TinFins; figured I would share for the sake of sharing

Link to Youtube playlist (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcpJRIXE3KE&list=PL04lbfeNAaS_nuPuF-u6dJNPu8Uyc38Km)

[Acclimation]

Caleb D has vids going up with TinFins; figured I would share for the sake of sharing

Link to Youtube playlist (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcpJRIXE3KE&list=PL04lbfeNAaS_nuPuF-u6dJNPu8Uyc38Km)

2 Children? 4 Griselbrand? 2 Mox?

Tormod's in the sideboard?

What am I watching?

[KaiSchafroth]

2 Children? 4 Griselbrand? 2 Mox?

Tormod's in the sideboard?

What am I watching?

Yeah, I wasn't crazy about some of the choices myself but I know folks are always trying different iterations of lists based on their personal thoughts/experiences.

[.dk]

Trying new configurations is a good thing. I can see an argument for 4 Griselbrands. 2 Children seems odd though. I haven't watched the videos, but if Caleb was running Liliana's like he said he was on Twitter, then 4 Griselbrands make sense. Kind of like when I've run Careful Study in the past - if you're looking to discard Griselbrand as an enabler to supplement Entomb, then run more. Whether or not it's BEST... I don't know. Some of that depends on your sideboard plan as well.

[Ellomdian]

What am I watching?

Someone streaming online, which I am assuming you aren't doing if you're watching it :cool:

Seriously though, nothing wrong with trying different card choices. I'm always excited to see people play fun decks on streams - it's like TWoo, only not nearly as brain-melting to watch.

[Richard Cheese]

Trying new configurations is a good thing. I can see an argument for 4 Griselbrands. 2 Children seems odd though. I haven't watched the videos, but if Caleb was running Liliana's like he said he was on Twitter, then 4 Griselbrands make sense. Kind of like when I've run Careful Study in the past - if you're looking to discard Griselbrand as an enabler to supplement Entomb, then run more. Whether or not it's BEST... I don't know. Some of that depends on your sideboard plan as well.

I don't really get the Liliana angle, seems like it would be more suited to traditional Reanimator. Still, like I usually say: if your list is winning games, then stick with it. Anything that puts up consistent results is fair game for discussion.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Turn 1 rit -> lili -> +1 pitching Griz is a setup for a turn 2 combo with a form of protection (2 turns of discard if lili +1 before combo). It's not 2x Thoughtseize or anything amazing as far as that goes, but lili could be an option against heavy control like miracles. Landing her on turn 1/2 feels good against that imho.

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[Pomegrant]

From watching, I also felt that the Liliana was pretty powerful but I think if you were attempting to play the deck for speed, it isn't the route you want. However, since the metagame has shifted more towards disruptive decks, Liliana could be a great choice in grinding out games. It can deal with Delver threats as well forcing them to discard their disruption. I'm not sure I am thrilled about using fast mana to cast a Liliana, but the way he plays the deck is much more dependent on looping the Emrakul for a kill. It's an interesting variation for sure.

[Ancestral]

i play the deck recently and don´t participate much in this threath but i will do more now fowerd! i play the tin fins/doomsday plan and it feells awesome, and thats because tin fins has an incredible matchup G1 against almost all the decks, and wins so much more with speed than with lilianas in my point of view! and now other question, do you guys think that tin fins can be a really good deck for big tournaments since TC is ban now?

ps: i m new to this deck but i play miracles (and other decks for fun in my lgs) for over 3 years

[.dk]

From watching, I also felt that the Liliana was pretty powerful but I think if you were attempting to play the deck for speed, it isn't the route you want. However, since the metagame has shifted more towards disruptive decks, Liliana could be a great choice in grinding out games. It can deal with Delver threats as well forcing them to discard their disruption. I'm not sure I am thrilled about using fast mana to cast a Liliana, but the way he plays the deck is much more dependent on looping the Emrakul for a kill. It's an interesting variation for sure.

Rit -> Lili into T2 win is no doubt powerful. My concern is that the deck is just not really set up to grind. We run very few basics, and truly very few lands all together. I'm always very concerned about wasteland once the games go long as we can be pretty vulnerable.

Again, I haven't watched the videos, but I believe (from a twitter conversation with Caleb) that he cut search pieces (probe, ponders) for Lili's. So, we have a reduced chance of finding more combo pieces if our disruption/protection isn't good enough. This also seems to be a bit of a challenge with grinding.

Lili can be a very powerful tool for disruption and enabling (particularly against Delver decks like you mentioned) - but it does change the build a lot. It might be the right choice in the current meta - just needs testing and tweaking to come up with an optimal list.

I'm not sure how powerful it is against Miracles though, as you're never going to nab Counterbalance with her.

[Koby]

The Youtube link is just him playing an old list. This past Twitch broadcast seems far more interesting:

http://www.twitch.tv/calebdmtg/v/3908151

[mainactivenet]

RUG / BUG delver match up for my tin fins deck is really bad, do you have some ideas how play against cheap counterspells?
What do you think about Defense grid in sideboard? Or Liliana of the veil looks more interresting vs delvers?

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Lots of discard.

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[.dk]

RUG / BUG delver match up for my tin fins deck is really bad, do you have some ideas how play against cheap counterspells?
What do you think about Defense grid in sideboard? Or Liliana of the veil looks more interresting vs delvers?

BUG is a terrible matchup for most combo decks - and even worse for this one. You have to fight through Deathrite, Discard, and Counterspells. Liliana certainly has some use to take the pressure off by killing delvers and deathrites. That could be right. Generally if BUG Delver is the best/most popular deck, I just don't play Tin Fins.

Defense grid... try it and tell us?

[KaiSchafroth]

do you guys think that tin fins can be a really good deck for big tournaments since TC is ban now?


Depending what your definition of 'big tournament is' and comfort level it certainly can be.

See .dk's t64 at GP NJ (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28828-Onion-Bursting-of-DOOM!!!-58th-at-GP-New-Jersey-%2812-3%29-with-Tin-Fins)

[Richard Cheese]

On paper I don't like Lili here. With 13/14 lands and access to mana post-reanimation being of critical importance, I just don't feel like it's worth burning an early Ritual for, or getting 3 lands together for.

T1 as a discard outlet? Therapy/Thoughtsieze are already in the deck for a reason, and assuming you had a ritual and the reanimation spell, a turn faster.

With limited mana, really I think she's just going to run into Daze more often than not.

[Karhumies]

There's more and more MD deathrite around combined with MD spot discard. What would be an elegant solution to battling MD Deathrites for game 1?

[.dk]

Honestly, I don't really think there is one. 2 options:

1. Win the die roll and win by T2.
2. Play a different deck.

In a heavy BUG meta, I can't see how this is the deck that you want to be on.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Yep, it's nothing doing for me. I'm now on Stoneblade again.

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[.dk]

I wouldn't have an issue bringing the deck to a Grand Prix though - the variance in your matchups is usually high enough that even if BUG is "popular" then you still probably won't run into it much.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I agree as long as you are running a Doomsday board.

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[Karhumies]

I wouldn't have an issue bringing the deck to a Grand Prix though - the variance in your matchups is usually high enough that even if BUG is "popular" then you still probably won't run into it much.

In my last tournament on Sunday I played OmniTell over Tin Fins due to being scared of MD Deathrite. 4/6 opponents were running MD Deathrite as a 4-of. Only 1 of those 4 decks was BUG. It seems like every non-combo deck including either G or B wants to run the full Deathrite set, and at least around here that's easily half of the metagame. Pretty much every non-blue non-combo deck other than D&T with some additional blue decks splashing Deathrite in as well.

All in all, horrible metagame for this deck.

[Karhumies]

Some ways to fight Deathrite:

1) go off t1 on the draw or t2 on the play
2) win coin flip, t1 blindly name Deathrite to Cabal
3) run Thoughtseize over Cabal, win coin flip, t1 seize out Deathrite
4) B.Wish into Void Snare or Pyroclasm before going off
5) B.Wish into SnT
6) Reanimator method: cast Exhume, opponent removes 1 creature, cast Entomb
7) Sneaky Show method: run 1-2 MD SnT as back-up
8) Ooze method: hardcast Necrotic Ooze, Entomb Griselbrand, use Ooze's ability to go off
9) run 1of MD bounce, preferably Echoing Truth

[mainactivenet]

Another one interesting card vs BUG for me is Tasigur, the golden fang. Cheap, fast and pontentially entombing ability in late game, do anyone tested him?

[Secretly.A.Bee]

If you actually get to activate Tasigur, you are probably doing it wrong.

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[.dk]

I don't mean to imply that Deathrite isn't beatable. It certainly is. That's the beauty of instant speed reanimation and entombs as well. The problem is Deathrite AND discard AND countermagic. That shit is brutal.

[Koby]

The problem is Deathrite AND discard AND countermagic. That shit is brutal.

This x1000. Beating any one of those alone is easy. When they are compounded that's like shit on our parade. This is known. It sucks. Mise well and YOLO harder.

[Karhumies]

I don't mean to imply that Deathrite isn't beatable. It certainly is. That's the beauty of instant speed reanimation and entombs as well. The problem is Deathrite AND discard AND countermagic. That shit is brutal.

Agreed. Random Deathrite thrown into a non-blue/non-black deck we can work with. BUG delver shell with all of that disruption in MD is an all-around horrible MU.

[phazonmutant]

Oh man I always forget how fun this deck is. I went 3-1 at a 30-ish person weekly with some spice in the sideboard.

4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Children of Korlis

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

// Sideboard
2 Show and Tell
2 Dig Through Time
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Serenity
2 Massacre
2 Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Teferi's Realm

Dig was surprisingly good in the post-board games where it will tend to get grindy. There are a bunch of decks now that don't put a whole lot of pressure on your manabase but have a ton of counterspells or discard. LDV doesn't really shine there, but Dig is great.
The other thing I wanted to try out was LDV and Dig supporting a small Show and Tell package. I only brought it in one game because I played against Delver and combo decks. If I had brought in Chain of Vapor instead of S&T against the Delver deck, I could have won, but I drew reanimation instead of cantrips after he played t1 Cage on the play.

Quick recap:
R1 Death's Shadow 2-1 - t1 win on the play to start off the night :D. G2 Stifle + Daze crushed me. G3 I played through a counterspell and won at 3.
R2 Sneak & Show 2-0 - Children + Therapy bought time to find the pieces. G2 he anihilated me down to 3 and no permanents, but I won in 2 turns afterwards.
R3 Grixis Delver 1-2 - I didn't really figure out what his deck was doing this match - turns out it's basically UR burn with Therapies. Misboarded game 2, narrowly lost g3 because all my cantrips and Dig bricked on the second Entomb or any discard.
R4 Reanimator 2-0 - he got a turn 2 on the play, then g2 I Surgicaled him twice, and g3 I set up a Silence turn to go through Coffin Purge.

I wouldn't mind giving this sideboard another go. I'd like to play against a more diverse field. I think that cutting Needle might be really bad, but not sure.

[Ellomdian]

Obligatory mention of CalebD's writeup (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/tin-fins-ii-the-updatening/). 4 Griselbees and 0 Drils.

Discuss?

[phazonmutant]

Obligatory mention of CalebD's writeup (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/tin-fins-ii-the-updatening/). 4 Griselbees and 0 Drils.

Discuss?

Lol @ "solving the consistency issue" by cutting Ponder, Probe, and LDV. Also he perpetuates the misconception that Probe is training wheels. I'm better than most at sniping with blind Therapies, and the fact is that there are so many different cards you could care about. Not only hate plus counter spells, but also you might be forced into assuming a controlling role with discard. His sideboard also looks like it has no game against miracles. I doubt Liliana turns that matchup around.

That said, I'll give it a try. People have definitely suggested Liliana before. I just find it hard to believe that all the testing we did to improve consistency with Probe and LDV is incorrect.

[Acclimation]

Yeah, that article makes me cringe.

The couple times I've bumped into Caleb in the past hasn't been fruitful for discussion, because any suggestions you make are just met with an "Okay."

Also, blind therapy best therapy. Calling shit in Koby's stream.

[Koby]

Also, blind therapy best therapy. Calling shit in Koby's stream.

The call was "Spell Pierce" vs RUG Delver's 5 card hand. I called Force of Will. The hand?

Daze, Spell Pierce x3, Force of Will. POW!

Opponent's deck? 4 Spell Pierce 3 Fire/Ice. Unconventional is an understatement.

[GenghisTom]

@phazonmutant

Yea that was my Death's Shadow deck you were against round 1.
I'm on the draw game one and see you go first turn Korean Lotus Petal into Korean BB Dark Ritual - I look at my hand and see no FoW and think to myself, "this isn't going to go well..."

[warfordium]

been back on this deck (though i've been playing far less Legacy recently).

I figured out how to solve the Entomb problem: Switch to the Burning Wish version! you draw loads of entombs and nary a shallow grave (effect).

[alaska]

Combo'd through Magus of Moon and Thorn of Amethyst (Double Chain of Vapor) into a natural tendrils win last night. He was at 12 or 13, played out my whole hand.

Pretty satisfying.

[iosmacman]

I played my first fnm with Tin Fins tonight. A little background on my I started playing magic about a year ago and I'm 33 so I started a little late. I did find out quick I loved legacy so I dont know if I'm the best pilot but on to the results .
First was punishing jund I went 2-1
Next shardless bug also went 2-1
Last was miracles and went 1-2 and had a couple miss plays on first game I think I could have won if I didn't make them. I really like the deck and the style of play. I also played elves in legacy and it didn't fit. I definely will be playing this deck for a long time .

[iosmacman]

The one win against miracles was a tendrils for 20 felt pretty good lol.

[iosmacman]

I also was wondering about running a daze at a 2-3 of maybe take out lim-dul. I have a meta that has a lot of control.Most are running 12 counters and swords. I run into where i work to get grisel out and then only draw 7 before he gets swords. It seem like the daze would help after i get him out or to fight through the counters.

[Richard Cheese]

We've tried Daze in the past and it hasn't been that great. The corner cases where it's good are usually not worth the slots.

At the end of the day though, this deck is about trolling the format. If Daze helps you with that, go for it. TinFins isn't about a decklist, it's about a state of mind.

[Karhumies]

At the end of the day though, this deck is about trolling the format. ... TinFins isn't about a decklist, it's about a state of mind.

This comment got me thinking...what do we need blue for?


Troll Fins (Bg)

Land (16)
8x Swamp
4x Llanowar Wastes
4x Bayou

Acceleration (9)
4x Dark Ritual
1x Chrome Mox
4x Lotus Petal

Targets (8)
4x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4x Griselbrand

Instant Animations (9)
4x Goryo's Vengeance
4x Shallow Grave
1x Necromancy

Discards & Information (15)
4x Entomb
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Gitaxian Probe
3x Thoughtseize

Trollface (3)
1x Sickening Dreams
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Children of Korlis

Sideboard (15)

4x Abrupt Decay
2x Deathmark
2x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Massacre
3x Pithing Needle
2x Tormod's Crypt

Maybeboard (7)

2x Back to Nature
4x Pack Rat
1x Reanimate

Strategy:
Combo fast with Griselbrand/Emrakul, then try to get a "trollface" card for the kill. For example, even if a turn 2 Emrakul "only" hits for 15, a turn 3 Lotus Petal + Tendrils for 4 damage should most of the time be enough to finish the opponent. Also, the true Trollface way to showboat a win after a Griselbrand + Children library recursion via Emrakul entering the graveyard multiple times and the opponent's hand getting discarded one card at a time is not Tendrils for lethal. It's actually pre-combat Sickening Dreams to kill your own Emrakul and your own Griselbrand (and the opponent).

Sideboard Abrupt Decay is TecH from Modern Ooze/Griselbrand combo. Why try to bounce something with the risk of counter-war, when you can destroy it with only 2 mana? Pack Rat would be another Ooze/Griselbrand SB TecH card, but I don't think it will work against Legacy control decks.

Also, Google Search using "troll fins" gave me this gem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umHoetN53jQ

[phazonmutant]

If you really want to drop blue to troll your opponents, try the 4 Serum Powder 4 Pull from Eternity build.

[Darkgobs]

If you really want to drop blue to troll your opponents, try the 4 Serum Powder 4 Pull from Eternity build.

Wow, this makes me really curious about how viable such a list could be! Also, it makes me think about the T1 Serum Powder Dredge strategie: mull until you have a winning / decent hand.

1/ Could this list be better than our UBw / UBr list in the actual meta, or is it just about trolololoing?
2/ How much Emi / Grisel would you run?
3/ Has someone here really tested this list?
4/ Do you have a link/list for this build?

[alaska]

If you really want to drop blue to troll your opponents, try the 4 Serum Powder 4 Pull from Eternity build.

Been goldfishing it since our discussion at C.K. tonight. The pull from eternity half of the interaction hasn't come up yet, but I really liked the added opening hand consistency of Serum Powder itself. Serum Powdered into some T1/T2s. Then again, when you draw it later it's obviously worse than trash.

Other thoughts: Unintended boon of going up to 4 Griselbrands: Easier to discard naturally.

Once you get Griselbrand on the battlefield, your brick percentage is higher with this build (4X Serum Powder and 3-4X Pull from Eternity do less than nothing, along with extra Griselbrands).


Overall, it hasn't felt that bad yet. I think you're right about Scrubland though; may need to finally pick one up.

[dte]

What cards are you removing to add pull from eternity, serum powder and extra fatties?

I imagine that if you run pull, you want to run some chrome mox?
And that if you run additional fatties, you do not want to decrease your cabal/seize count?

I cannot see what I would like to remove to add 11-12 slots?
probe & ponder? They always felt so strong
Lotus petal & dark ritual? If you do not kill that fast, are you really trolling?

I would really like to see this trolllist.

[Darkgobs]

What cards are you removing to add pull from eternity, serum powder and extra fatties?

I imagine that if you run pull, you want to run some chrome mox?
And that if you run additional fatties, you do not want to decrease your cabal/seize count?

I cannot see what I would like to remove to add 11-12 slots?
probe & ponder? They always felt so strong
Lotus petal & dark ritual? If you do not kill that fast, are you really trolling?

I would really like to see this trolllist.

You remove almost every blue spell i guess. The idea is to not have to cantrip; you would rather mull until you find a winning hand (if I understood correctly the spirit of this "trolllist").

[alphastryk]

If you really want to drop blue to troll your opponents, try the 4 Serum Powder 4 Pull from Eternity build.

Wasn't that build just terrible when we tried it a while back?

[.dk]

The list is earlier in the thread... an ancient post from phazonmutant here:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24104-TinFins-3-Return-of-the-Onion-Burst&p=706037#post706037

Good luck with that.

[alaska]

You remove almost every blue spell i guess. The idea is to not have to cantrip; you would rather mull until you find a winning hand (if I understood correctly the spirit of this "trolllist").

Don't have the list in front of me, but if I recall Probe and Ponder did get cut.

I'll repeat: Serum Powder on it's own felt fairly good, but that may have been some good variance (only goldfishes about 10 or 15 times). I never used Pull from Eternity and never put myself in a position where I particularly needed to.

[phazonmutant]

Wasn't that build just terrible when we tried it a while back?

Absolutely, totally awful. But it was pretty hilarious. Credit where credit is due, alphastryk came up with the original idea.

I gave the napkin I sketched the decklist on to alaska last night, but I think this is the decklist:
4 Serum Powder
4 Pull from Eternity
4 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Children of Korlis
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Shallow Grave
4 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
3 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
2 Scrubland

[alaska]

Absolutely, totally awful. But it was pretty hilarious. Credit where credit is due, alphastryk came up with the original idea.

I gave the napkin I sketched the decklist on to alaska last night, but I think this is the decklist:
4 Serum Powder
4 Pull from Eternity
4 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Children of Korlis
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Shallow Grave
4 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
3 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
2 Scrubland


Yeah that looks right. I think my count was wrong after all, so the 1 Reanimate gets to stay.

I won't say this list is better than the traditional one (not sure anyone would at this point) - but it has a certain je ne sais quoi, there's no denying it.

If I get around to picking up the last few pieces, I will run it out sometime in May.

[phazonmutant]

Yeah that looks right. I think my count was wrong after all, so the 1 Reanimate gets to stay.

I won't say this list is better than the traditional one (not sure anyone would at this point) - but it has a certain je ne sais quoi, there's no denying it.

If I get around to picking up the last few pieces, I will run it out sometime in May.

I did a bunch of goldfishes tonight and was surprised that it wasn't bad. I was goldfishing consistently faster than regular TinFins. It plays very much like Belcher, except sometimes has protection and doesn't just die to Force. Just aggressively mulligan or Powder any hand that doesn't win or way to cantrip into winning.

[alphastryk]

Absolutely, totally awful. But it was pretty hilarious. Credit where credit is due, alphastryk came up with the original idea.

I gave the napkin I sketched the decklist on to alaska last night, but I think this is the decklist:
4 Serum Powder
4 Pull from Eternity
4 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Children of Korlis
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Shallow Grave
4 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
3 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
2 Scrubland

Is it worth being in blue for just brainstorm? Is it worth trying out Spoils of the Vault again?

[alaska]

The life loss on Spoils of the Vault seems brutal though. How did the testing go? I'd be concerned you'd get at least 1 fewer Griselbrand activations. 2 should be enough to get you to Children I guess...

[commander0ion]

Hey guys.

Wondering what the current feelings are on a doomsday sideboard. Any thoughts?

[dte]

I tried it recently on several journeys. Played the same list as .dk except for minor tweaks in the dual/fetch distribution.
Won one (beating 5 different shardless BUG!, it was overrepresented), ended up third at another (with a bad - slow - keep against dark maverick in semi-finals) and punted 3-3 at the last one.

The deck feels very powerful versus most blue decks. The only one i felt i was really in a deep shit was UWr delver tempo, with stifle MD and cannoniste + meddling SB. LDV is a blast too.

The deck is very fun to play, is very powerful, but is a bit cold to hatebears (especially thalia, but meddling and cannoniste are quite played too) if you do not have a fast start. It results in not so interesting games versus D&T/maverick, where everything is decided in the first 2-3 turns (btw, versus these deck, I kept both the tinfins plan and the dd/SI/Emrakul plans).

A very nice advantage of this SB strategy is that it feels like you play two different decks during the same journey, and it is a lot of fun when your opponents found out what's happening.
However I do not think that this deck (tinfins in general) is the best if your goal is to have the most chance to win and if you play locally, it is less efficient once everybody got what you're doing.

[.dk]

If you're planning on playing the deck frequently in local events, I'd recommend a reactive board rather than the doomsday transformation (or any transformation, for that matter). Transformations are to take your opponent's by surprise so your local community will catch on fast. Furthermore, I would expect that you could get a good read on your local metagame to tune a reactive sideboard accordingly.

And as dte (and I) have mentioned - the Doomsday transformation (at least my list without Massacre anyway) is not great against hatebears. Death and Taxes is a nightmare matchup unless you luck out and T1 them. So if you expect decks like that in your local, tune a reactive board to beat them.

[Darkgobs]

Hey guys!
If we put asside the fact that TinFins isn't really optimal in the current meta (except if Omnitell becomes the most represented deck), which list would you pick right now, between a BUw-standard list and the BUr-wish list?

[Higgs]

If you resign to the fact that your deck isn't good in the current meta then it means you are in it for the fun, so you should pick whichever version feels like the more busted one. I would probably play the Burning Wish version because it's just fucking cool :)

[.dk]

The deck is just fucking cool. Play both. Play neither. Play your own version. Just burst some goddamn onions!

[Secretly.A.Bee]

The deck is just fucking cool. Play both. Play neither. Play your own version. Just burst some goddamn onions!
Qft. This deck is fun for trolling more than anything. Do that, it's on par with winning.

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[Darkgobs]

Ahahah! Thanks for your answer guys!
I intend to burn some facking onions, that's for sure!^^
But my quesiton was also serious, so i would put it again: if you are to play against a meta with a lot of: Miracle / Blade Control / Young Pyromancer-Delver.deck , which version do you prefer, especially regarding the SB? In thoses match-up, which one seems better between a Burning Wish adaptative SB and a more protective Silence-Serenity SB? (I often tend to side in my silences against decks with a lot of countermagic)

[.dk]

Well, the burning wish version gets your more versatility. However, that seems like it would be a rather heavy counterspell meta, in which case I would personally steer towards UBw, as you're not dumping your hand to LED there, and can eventually run them out of counterspells with either redundancy or discard spells. But then again, I also just prefer that version in a general sense. YMMV.

[Richard Cheese]

Ahahah! Thanks for your answer guys!
I intend to burn some facking onions, that's for sure!^^
But my quesiton was also serious, so i would put it again: if you are to play against a meta with a lot of: Miracle / Blade Control / Young Pyromancer-Delver.deck , which version do you prefer, especially regarding the SB? In thoses match-up, which one seems better between a Burning Wish adaptative SB and a more protective Silence-Serenity SB?

I honestly haven't heard much about the UBr-lists lately. It sounded like it had some promise but I haven't really had the time or motivation to test it myself. Maybe someone that was working on that version can chime in and let us know how some of those matchups are.

Or, you can be the guinea pig. Build both versions, play the shit out of both, let us know what you think.

[Darkgobs]

Or, you can be the guinea pig. Build both versions, play the shit out of both, let us know what you think.


Well, i built and tested both of them, few month ago, but that was befor TC ban, so the meta wasn't quite the same (also, beeing able to BW into TC was quite sweet).
My thoughts were that the UBr version had some better G1 and some weaker G2-3, due to the lack of serenity/silence against Miracle / Contermagic.deck especially. But against Miracle, Empty the Warren with only 4 storm token could sometimes be really cool if they couldn't find a Terminus in time. So I coudln't really tell which one was better, that's why I am asking to you guys: to have more input! :)

[.dk]

I don't think there is enough data to say, honestly. I know Pomegrant has put a lot of work into the Burning Wish version, but I'm not sure how many other people have tested it in big/competitive events and tried to tune it further.

[CabalTherapy]

I played the "old" UBw list today with 4 Decay and Bayou/Tropical in the board, while using 4 Therapy, 2 Thoughtseize and 2 Daze as protection and I have to admitt that Daze was awesome today. Although being casted only twice, it created awesome value negating Force of Will and in another match Counterbalance which lead to a win. Additionaly, I don't understand how one can play without Decay in the board since it is 10 billion times better than Serenity (tested it once, was worst plan ever :tongue:).
Had to play against 2 Team America and 2 Miracles, losing to one of the tempo decks and winning a lot via natural Tendrils.

[Pomegrant]

I think the version of the deck I built was much better pre-Treasure Cruise ban because Miracles moved out of the format a lot more during this time. Now that Miracles is one of the more represented decks, along with BUG Delver, I'm not confident with my list. It's very difficult for my version to beat Miracles, even though I think the deck has a lot of trouble with it anyway. I haven't worked on my version of the deck in a while, but I'm up to 4 Griselbrand to maximize getting them into the graveyard with LED. I think that the Burning Wish version still fixes some of the issues I found with the deck but created others in terms of being worse to hard counters that you sometimes just can't afford to play around. LED is great but having to discard answers to a hate card isn't good. I don't really see anything that can make miracles worse so I don't have much hope for my version of the deck moving forward.

[Darkgobs]

I played the "old" UBw list today with 4 Decay and Bayou/Tropical in the board, while using 4 Therapy, 2 Thoughtseize and 2 Daze as protection and I have to admitt that Daze was awesome today. Although being casted only twice, it created awesome value negating Force of Will and in another match Counterbalance which lead to a win. Additionaly, I don't understand how one can play without Decay in the board since it is 10 billion times better than Serenity (tested it once, was worst plan ever :tongue:).
Had to play against 2 Team America and 2 Miracles, losing to one of the tempo decks and winning a lot via natural Tendrils.

So you've got space for Bayou + Tropical? How is your manabase built? Something like 2-3 Underground Sea, 1 Tundra, 1 Bayou, 1 Tropical Island, 1 Scrubland? Wasn't that a problem against wasteland?

@Pomegrand:
Thank you for your answer!

[CabalTherapy]

So you've got space for Bayou + Tropical? How is your manabase built? Something like 2-3 Underground Sea, 1 Tundra, 1 Bayou, 1 Tropical Island, 1 Scrubland? Wasn't that a problem against wasteland?


Bayou and Tropical are in the board. My main manabase is: 2 USea, 1 Scrubland, 1 Swamp, 1 Island, 8 Fetchlands. I wouldn't play this deck without basic lands.

[Darkgobs]

Bayou and Tropical are in the board. My main manabase is: 2 USea, 1 Scrubland, 1 Swamp, 1 Island, 8 Fetchlands. I wouldn't play this deck without basic lands.

Ahh, ok! So, another question then: against Miracle, how do you side in, considering you're trying to pack Silence AND Decay?

[CabalTherapy]

Ahh, ok! So, another question then: against Miracle, how do you side in, considering you're trying to pack Silence AND Decay?

I don't go for Silence but for 1 Bayou, 1 Tropical, 4 Decay, 2 Needle to stop Counterbalance and Top.
I have cut something like this: -1 Therapy, -1 Petal, -1 Chrome Mox, -2 Probe, -1 Reanimate and used the "new" rule to have more cards postboard in the main than before boarding. I have boarded intuitively and there are possibly more sophisticated approaches to it. I did leave 2 Daze main even post-board on the draw against Miracles because I knew that I could trade Counterbalance with it, which in the end really happened once.

[Darkgobs]

I don't go for Silence but for 1 Bayou, 1 Tropical, 4 Decay, 2 Needle to stop Counterbalance and Top.
I have cut something like this: -1 Therapy, -1 Petal, -1 Chrome Mox, -2 Probe, -1 Reanimate and used the "new" rule to have more cards postboard in the main than before boarding. I have boarded intuitively and there are possibly more sophisticated approaches to it. I did leave 2 Daze main even post-board on the draw against Miracles because I knew that I could trade Counterbalance with it, which in the end really happened once.

Ok, pretty clear...except...you said you were playing and "Old UBw list". If not for Serenity nor Silence, what is the white for? I guess it's not for hardcasting Children! Or you meant UBg?

[CabalTherapy]

Ok, pretty clear...except...you said you were playing and "Old UBw list". If not for Serenity nor Silence, what is the white for? I guess it's not for hardcasting Children! Or you meant UBg?

Actually, it is UBw with g in the side. With "old" I have wanted to say that it is not the Wish/LED list which is "newer". I should have stated that using other words probably. I have 3 Silence in the side which I wouldn't use against Miracles but primarily against other combodecks. There is only one white land in the deck and I see it as another Swamp most of the times; comparable to the role of Volcanic Island in ANT casting only one spell from the main and maybe one more from the side. My side looks like this at the moment:
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Massacre
2 Pithing Needle
3 Silence
But don't value my words too much because I play this deck to have some time off from playing ANT and mostly for reasons of fun.

[Kathal]

Heyho guys!

I busted some Onions 2 weeks ago for the first time (5 Round tournament). I'm not new to Griselbrand, since I "cast" him in Modern and do pretty much the same stuff as Tin Fins (- Tendrils Kill, + Borborygmos Enraged kill, cause Modern :rolleyes:).

Just want to give a small report.

List:

//Lands
2 Flooded Strand
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
3 Underground Sea

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

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

//Sideboard
SB: 1 Shelldock Isle
SB: 3 Lion's Eye Diamond
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 4 Sensei's Divining Top
SB: 1 Ideas Unbound
SB: 4 Doomsday

(And yes, I was so lazy/had not that much time for anything else, so I just copied .dk list, since I like the DDFT sideboard and I didn't want to play DDFT since I didn't get that much sleep, so Tin Fins it was)

Round 1 vs Jeskai/WUR Stoneblade 1-2

Game 1: Mull down to 4, nice, first time I play the deck in a tournament and I start with a mull to 4, looks great. I drew garbage (Tendrils, Children and co) and I couldn't assemble something to win and died to 2 Stoneforge with Skull and SoFI. Also I didn't want to show him, what I was playing.

Game 2: Mull to 6, but a good hand (some cantrips and discard). He kept a decent hand against anything fair (Snap, Council, 3 lands after a BS to protect his hand from a Duress) and he died because of this on Turn 4.

Game 3: Kept a good hand, started to go off (turn 3), drew 14 cards, went down to 3 before I attacked and died to a bolt -,-* . I should have won this one, but yeah, when you are playing against a red deck and you don't play around bolt, I deserve it.


Round 2 vs Reanimator 2-1

Game 1: We both cantripped for a few turns and than he slammed Iona down on turn 3 :frown: not cool bro.

Game 2: Revenge, turn 1 entomb, turn 2 Duress (he opened with Trop, Petal and had in hand 2 BS, Tidespout Tyrant, 2 Fetches, Inkwell) and he couldn't find a force in the top 4 so he died to a hasty Griselbrand AND Emrakul.

Game 3: I show him how to play proper Reanimator and reanimated Grisel on turn 1 and killed him 2 turns later with beats by Dr. Grisel :D


Round 3 vs Wr Death and Taxes (what Bahra_ is currently playing) 2-1

Game 1: Mull to 5, again. He opened with land go, followed by Thalia and he wasted my only land afterwards, didn't help that I had the kill in hand, when I can't cast anything. I died to Thalia, Stoneforge + Skull beatdown.

Game 2: Griselbrand says hello on Turn 3.

For game 3 I switch to DDFT: He is manascrwed and had a pretty awesome hand against Tin Fins (both RiP and Priest). I killed him with DD on turn 4 via classic pile. I'm not sure if I should switch here too DDFT, since Thalia is a pain in the ass, but can be played around, but since I knew he had both RiP and Containment Priest in his board, I didn't want to run in those.


Round 4 vs Ub Omnitell (Duress instead of Gitaxian Probe) 2-1

Game 1: He casted S&T on Turn 3, he had the Omniscience into Emrakul, I had the Griselbrand. I knew, that he didn't have any counters in hand (1 card left which was a land). My way to win was, to draw 14 cards from Griselbrand, get a DR into Entomb for Children and Shallow Grave it gain 14 say go, take the hit and combo of on my turn. With the first 7 I didn't hit DR and with the second 7 I drew the Children. Well poop. I explained it later to him, and he didn't even realize how close it actually was.

Game 2: I looked at my hand Duress, Entomb, DR, Shallow Grave, Ponder, Petal, Sea. Turn 1 protected kill? Deal (he didn't have double force).

Game 3: What is better than a Turn 1 protected kill game 2? Right, another one in Game 3 :D He was pretty salty afterwards, since he had the turn 2 kill, but yeah, I'm faster :P


Looking at the standings it was a win and in for Top 8.

Round 5 vs Ponder Miracle 1-2

Game 1: I was otp, Turn 1 Ponder, he land go, I untap, think a little bit, cast a Duress, he BS in response showed me garbage and I busted some Onions. Later he showed me, that a Force and Spell Snare was on top of his bib.

I boarded in the DDFT plan, since I didn't knew how good Tin Fins is against Miracles post board. I also already played many games with DDFT against Miracles, which made the decision even easier.

Game 2: I opened with Probe and see 3x Force, Counterspell, Spell Snare and Jace. Well poop. I tried to Therapy something, he forced it, pitching Jace. 1 Force down, 2 to go. He drew is second land (lucker). I played my top, he needles it. Okeyy didn't expect that. We played draw and go for some turns, I tried to Therapy again at some point, he forces and casted Containment Priest eot. He swings for a few turns and slowly I'm able to assemble a kill through his counter wall (he still had Counterspell, Snare and Force, +3 unkown cards). The next time I fired a duress of, he counterspells it, so I played a redundant DD and I was thinking that he will force it. He let it resolve. Well, didn't expect that. I made a pile which beats his hand (at least the Force and the Snare), but I need to draw the top card for this, so that I'm able to make a double DD pile again. He flashed another Priest in and put down to 3, so I wasn't able to execute the pile. I can't remember anymore how the pile exactly looked and what I had in my hand.

I was considering to switch back, but I decided against it, since he wants the Priest as Flash creature and won't board it out.

Game 3: Probe again, see 2 Force, Priest, Dig, Snare, Island, Plains. So only 2 Forces this time. I played top, drew lands and discard spells and fired them of, he started the beats with Priest, soon followed by another one. At one point the board looked like this: His side, 2 Priests, 2 Plains, Karakas, Island, Tundra. I have 5 lands + a top. Life totals 1 on my side, 19 on his side. In my hand 2 DR, 2 LEDs, I know I have 2 lands (1 of them a fetch) and a Tendrils on top of my deck. He had 3 cards in hand, one of them a Spell Snare. It is his end step. My plan was, now, cast the DR and LEDs and Tendrils him for 10 and hope to draw anything in the next 2 turns. And at that exact moment I threw the game. Two mistakes occured:

First, I didn't put Tendrils on top of my bib, but a land and I noticed this mistake when I drew for my turn. So I executed my plan, so DRs, he says ok, LEDs? ok. Draw with top? ok. Draw Tendrils, Tendrils him for 10. And here is the moment where,

mistake number 2 occurred. I didn't use top to look in the top 3 cards to see the new one. I had enough Mana at this point (5B and still 4 untapped lands) to afford this. The question is now, what was the third card on top? A Ponder. If I would have drawn the Ponder instead of the Tendrils, I could have re-drawn the Top, which basically adds 2 Storm and I would have gotten another look at a fresh card.

Since I made those 2 mistakes, I had now no cards in hand, a Top on top of my bib, 2 LEDs in play and I was at 11 life instead of 15. He attacked me for 4 next turn, I drew top, played it, looked in the top 3 cards, I see 2 lands and a Ponder, put the Ponder on top, say go, he eot a Snapcaster and attacked me down to 1. When I drew Ponder for my turn and casted it, there was a DD as the third card, which I couldn't cast since I was at 1.

If I would have taken the "correct" line, I would have been able to cast the DD and win that turn (I still had the 2 LEDs in play). Since he didn't had access to UUU he couldn't Snapcaster a Counterspell, which he used on a LDV earlier, and the rest of his hand were blanks (he showed me his hand afterwards, which contained 2 Snares).

I threw that game, so no dual for me :cry:


But overall I really liked the deck and had several awesome plays which I didn't mentioned (like upkeep LDVs, for 3 good cards, draw one of them, play BS draw the other 2 and use another LDV as a shuffle effect :D ). In the end it reminded me, of how awesome and busted Griselbrand is in Legacy, not only in Modern ;D. Also, somebody asked me, why I play this deck and I simply said, I just want to troll people, and bust some Onions. It helped, that I just killed my opponent on Turn 1 :D

I will stick to this deck and if I go to Lillie, I will play this deck. Maybe without the DD sideboard, but killing the opponent with both Grisel and DD is just awesome (and max trolling :D ).

Greetings,
Kathal

[.dk]

Nice report - sounds like a fun event for you. I think you're right for going to DDFT against D&T, although I can see sticking with Tin Fins on the play. Against Miracles, I don't think you can board fast enough into DDFT. Curve is more diverse and your main business spell is a 3 drop, which is much harder for them to counter. Also, they have a rough time beating Emrakul usually.

Also - if you play it again, I think you should cut the Tundra. I've been playing a 4th Sea lately, but I could also see changing up the fetches to play 1 Swamp, 1 Island, 3 Seas, 1 Scrubland too.

[Kathal]

Yeah, had the same thoughts regarding D&T. I just have absolute no experience with Tin Fins (only some goldfish games), before I played at the tournament, so I wasn't sure, what to do.

Funny enough, I kinda like the DDFT vs Miracles match-up. I miss the Decays but there is not enough room in the SB to add those. I think, I'm even against Miracles with DDFT, maybe slightly more wins than loses, but I know the match-up pretty well. But from time to time I still make punts like this one :(

Regarding the Manabase, I don't own a 4th Underground, so I can't play a 4th one. I probably want a Island instead of the Tundra, what I noticed in the tournament.

Greetings,
Kathal

[Dziga Murnau]

Nice report - sounds like a fun event for you. I think you're right for going to DDFT against D&T, although I can see sticking with Tin Fins on the play. Against Miracles, I don't think you can board fast enough into DDFT. Curve is more diverse and your main business spell is a 3 drop, which is much harder for them to counter. Also, they have a rough time beating Emrakul usually.

Also - if you play it again, I think you should cut the Tundra. I've been playing a 4th Sea lately, but I could also see changing up the fetches to play 1 Swamp, 1 Island, 3 Seas, 1 Scrubland too.

It's even okay to remove Scrubland and play another fetchland or some Darkslick Shores. We just don't need white mana source that hard to keep a white dual in the deck. 4 Petals is really enough in the build which do not use antihate white cards like Silence and Serenity. Children usually cost BB or 1BB here, not W.

[dte]

I've also cutted the Tundra, for either 3 U Sea, 1 scrubland, 1 swamp, 1 island or 4 U Sea, 1 swamp, 1 Scrubland. I'm not decided yet, but I didn't missed the basic island a lot.

The report is very nice, why did'nt you switch to DDFT versus stoneblade?

Otherwise, vs D&T I used to do a mix between the two plans post SB:
putting out 4 probes (the information is not that interesting - except for CT, the life is relevant, there is no worse card vs thalia/cannoniste and you do want to know what your hand is doing for mulligan decisions. Thalia MUs are probably the only one where you want to side out GP), 1 tendril, 1 griselbrand, 1 reanimate (reanimate on grisel is terrible against them), -1 cabal, -1 LDV.
+ 4 DD, +1 SI, +1 CoV, +1 pithing needle, +2 SDT.
It increase by a lot your chances, as DD T1 OTD or T1/2 OTP for SI is gg against them, while anyway later building a DD-ToA pile through hatebears is kinda hard.

[.dk]

Putting an Island in the deck does make your fetchbase a lot shittier, unless you just say that you'll only be fetching it off of a delta, so then you can still run Marsh Flats.

I think the benefit of running 1 white dual outweighs the cost, even if you're not running Silence or Serenity. I like Scrubland as it is fetchable off of Deltas as well as Flats. I've run into some games where the only way I got Children in play was casting it off of a white land. 4 petals I don't believe are enough to cover this case. The case where I can see a benefit to cutting it is if you're running Island in the deck, and your fetch base is a little goofy because of it so you can run 9 fetches to even that out a little. I don't understand the Darkslick Shores comment though.

[Kathal]

@dte, I had the feeling, that he didn't had RiP or Priest in his SB (which was true, since he told me this after the game), but I boarded the Chain in, just in case. Also, I was still half asleep there, so my brain said, better burst some Onions instead of trying to make some DDFT piles. Overall I think it is correct to switch to the DDFT plan post board in that match-up.

I also like your plan against D&T, I just would keep the Tendrils in, just in case you need it (or you need to kill the opponent now).

@.dk, I would play like 4 Deltas, 3 Marsh Flats and 1 Flooded Strand. In one game I also needed the Scrubland to cast Children (can't remember anymore which one it was). I wouldn't cut both W Duals, but the Tundra cut seems fine. I think he meant that you could run the Darkslick Shore as Underground Nr. 5 (although you can't fetch it).

Greetings,
Kathal

PS: It was pretty funny for me to see, how close Tin Fins is to the Modern Shoal Reanimator version (from the playstyle). I will likely play Tin Fins in a few weeks at a tournament again (if I can take the time for it), probably with the same version, I just don't know, if I should play the Lab Man DDFT SB, which results in some problems (like you have 1-2 dead cards MD), but it doesn't lose against Wasteland and Karakas (although you have the Needle for them). Dunno I will write something together, but I really liked the MD.

[Koby]

PS: It was pretty funny for me to see, how close Tin Fins is to the Modern Shoal Reanimator version (from the playstyle). I will likely play Tin Fins in a few weeks at a tournament again (if I can take the time for it), probably with the same version, I just don't know, if I should play the Lab Man DDFT SB, which results in some problems (like you have 1-2 dead cards MD), but it doesn't lose against Wasteland and Karakas (although you have the Needle for them). Dunno I will write something together, but I really liked the MD.

Considering I helped push development on Tin Fins and the Modern deck in the same month, I think that has a lot to do with it.
#yolo #griselbanned

[Kathal]

I play the Modern Tin Fins Shoal version (or whatever you want to call that deck), since last year August. It is a blast to play (and it was sooo awesome to play it in the TC time, since there was no Graveyard hate and no discard :D ). But yeah, I sling Griselbrands since he was printed (first in Ritual Gifts with Griselbrand reanimator and now in Tin Fins), since I like drawing cards and Griselbrand is otherwise I pretty fair card Kappa.

Greetings,
Kathal

[dte]

PS: It was pretty funny for me to see, how close Tin Fins is to the Modern Shoal Reanimator version (from the playstyle). I will likely play Tin Fins in a few weeks at a tournament again (if I can take the time for it), probably with the same version, I just don't know, if I should play the Lab Man DDFT SB, which results in some problems (like you have 1-2 dead cards MD), but it doesn't lose against Wasteland and Karakas (although you have the Needle for them). Dunno I will write something together, but I really liked the MD.

Thanks to needle, waste and karakas are a non issue when you build DD => SI if they are not together on the battlefield.
And even if both are on the battlefield, it is not unbeattable.
If you want to build the labman side, you have to keep useless cards from MD AND you have to fit in IU, LEDs and the full set of SDT, so the transformation which keeps both combo is not possible anymore. Finally, be it tendril or labman, you usually lose to the same hate vs the hatebears MUs (thalia, canonniste, SotL, revoker,...).
Otherwise, what do you cut for Labman?

PS: do you have a link for these shoal-grisel modern lists?

[.dk]

Not that I'm necessarily recommending this, but there were builds of Tin Fins a year or two ago that people were playing around with Lab Maniac in the Tendrils spot maindeck. If you're looking for a Lab Maniac Doomsday wincon transformation, that may be a place to start.

[Kathal]

Thanks to needle, waste and karakas are a non issue when you build DD => SI if they are not together on the battlefield.
And even if both are on the battlefield, it is not unbeattable.
If you want to build the labman side, you have to keep useless cards from MD AND you have to fit in IU, LEDs and the full set of SDT, so the transformation which keeps both combo is not possible anymore. Finally, be it tendril or labman, you usually lose to the same hate vs the hatebears MUs (thalia, canonniste, SotL, revoker,...).
Otherwise, what do you cut for Labman?

PS: do you have a link for these shoal-grisel modern lists?

The thing is, that I never really liked the SI+Emmi plan, but I know the problems with Lab Man (especially if you want it transformation SB in a deck like Tin Fins). If I would play Lab Man in the SB I would go full DDFT against D&T, since Lab Man is the best DD strategy against D&T (what I felt, can be wrong through). Also, with Lab Man you can play around several things easier (like Thalia, Revoker and Needle), more difficult against some stuff (like Swords, Canonist (you need 2 Turns than)) and it is even against some other hate. But in the end it is personal preference.

About the Modern deck: KLICK ME HARD (http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/599726-griselbrand-reanimator) (link to the Primer, it is the Shoal-Insanity build)


Not that I'm necessarily recommending this, but there were builds of Tin Fins a year or two ago that people were playing around with Lab Maniac in the Tendrils spot maindeck. If you're looking for a Lab Maniac Doomsday wincon transformation, that may be a place to start.

Oh, thanks, didn't knew that one. I will look them up.

Greetings,
Kathal

[CabalTherapy]

I won a small 4 rounds tournament with TinFins yesterday (or as I call it now, DazeFins).
Played against Miracles, Esperblade, FoodChain and ThopterFoundry.dec. I have to say that Daze was unbelievably good throughout the whole tournament as was Abrupt Decay in the side.
Daze allowed me to counter a Counterspell with my Entomb on the stack, which is an awesome situation for TinFins. I might try an additional Daze in the main, going up to 3 but I am not sure about it yet. Nonetheless, the deck is pure destruction.

[alaska]

I won a small 4 rounds tournament with TinFins yesterday (or as I call it now, DazeFins).
Played against Miracles, Esperblade, FoodChain and ThopterFoundry.dec. I have to say that Daze was unbelievably good throughout the whole tournament as was Abrupt Decay in the side.
Daze allowed me to counter a Counterspell with my Entomb on the stack, which is an awesome situation for TinFins. I might try an additional Daze in the main, going up to 3 but I am not sure about it yet. Nonetheless, the deck is pure destruction.

This next week I'm trying the wacky Pull From Eternity build, but after that I want to test Daze. What did you cut for 2x-3x Daze?

[.dk]

2 Thoughtseize is probably where I would start. The discard yourself plan doesn't come up that often, and I personally prefer Therapy to Thoughtseize. Could also go to 1 Thoughtseize and cut a Probe or something.

[CabalTherapy]

This next week I'm trying the wacky Pull From Eternity build, but after that I want to test Daze. What did you cut for 2x-3x Daze?

I play 2 Daze instead of LDV which is too slow and creates card disadvantage.
4 Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Daze

Ah and by the way: Never cut a Probe! This card is too strong.

[Mhenlo]

...
2 Thoughtseize
2 Daze

Ah and by the way: Never cut a Probe! This card is too strong.

Says CabalTherapy

[CabalTherapy]

Says CabalTherapy

True. I need this card in order to function properly. :cool:

[.dk]

If you're cutting LDV though, I can't see how you want to stick to only 2 Griselbrands. You're too reliant on a 4 of (entomb) to get Griselbrand in the yard. I'm also not sure I agree that 8 protection spells (4 therapy, 2 thoughtseize, 2 daze) is right either. That seems a little heavy on protection/disruption and too light on business.

Yes Probe is really good. However, it doesn't put Griselbrand in the yard. It's not key to how the deck functions - trimming those is very doable.

[alaska]

If you're cutting LDV though, I can't see how you want to stick to only 2 Griselbrands. You're too reliant on a 4 of (entomb) to get Griselbrand in the yard. I'm also not sure I agree that 8 protection spells (4 therapy, 2 thoughtseize, 2 daze) is right either. That seems a little heavy on protection/disruption and too light on business.

Yes Probe is really good. However, it doesn't put Griselbrand in the yard. It's not key to how the deck functions - trimming those is very doable.

Lately I've been running 2 Griselbrand, 6 discard spells, no LDV. I think your concerns about being overly reliant on Entomb are valid. I may go up to 3 Griselbrand.

[.dk]

That has historically been the main problem with all of the modern builds of this deck. The burning wish version fixes that a little bit, but it's still not great. Gimme mystical tutor back please.

[sdematt]

Build me a theoretical build with Mystical Tutor, and tell me your results, .dk. I'm very interested :P

-Matt

[.dk]

Yessir! Been thinking about that for a couple of years now... but haven't actually tested anything out. I'll get back to you on that one with a few possibilities. SDT becomes pretty nuts with Mystical in the deck

[.dk]

Ok, I haven't actually tested this yet, but here is my starting point. Might get some time to at least goldfish for a bit here pretty soon.


4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Children of Korlis
1 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
2 Flooded Strand
3 Gitaxian Probe
1 Goryo's Vengeance
2 Griselbrand
1 Island
4 Lotus Petal
3 Marsh Flats
4 Mystical Tutor
2 Pact of Negation
4 Polluted Delta
1 Reanimate
1 Scrubland
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Shallow Grave
1 Show and Tell
1 Stifle
1 Swamp
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Underground Sea

Sideboard:
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Doomsday
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ideas Unbound
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Massacre
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Shelldock Isle

[Moomba]

Mystical Tutor is super banned

[Richard Cheese]

Build me a theoretical build with Mystical Tutor, and tell me your results, .dk. I'm very interested :P

-Matt

[Moomba]

Fair enough, that's what I get for only seeing the new page

[.dk]

Oh whoops, Shelldock should be Lab Maniac in the board. I forgot I cut Emrakul from the maindeck with Mystical since you really don't ever need to loop. Or possibly an Emrakul in the board instead of the 3rd LED in case you feel like you want to board it in on the Tin Fins plan to go infinite or hardcast Emrakul. But finding Tendrils or Children after drawing with Griselbrand is trivial with this list. You should have 3-4 Entombs left, as well as 4 Mystical Tutors.

[alaska]

3-0-1'd (ID on the last round) a local weekly running 4x Serum Powder, 2x Pull from Eternity, also had 4x Gemstone Caverns in the board.

I didn't draw enough of the spice to get a good feel for it, so I will test some more. I will say, gemstone caverns into turn zero entomb on their upkeep is pretty satisfying, playing around daze, spell pierce, flusterstorm.

I played against maverick/hate stuff 2-1, miracles 2-1, and mono blue omnitell 2-0.

I have to say, a concern is revealing what you're on game 1 with serum powder.

[Richard Cheese]

3-0-1'd (ID on the last round) a local weekly running 4x Serum Powder, 2x Pull from Eternity, also had 4x Gemstone Caverns in the board.

I didn't draw enough of the spice to get a good feel for it, so I will test some more. I will say, gemstone caverns into turn zero entomb on their upkeep is pretty satisfying, playing around daze, spell pierce, flusterstorm.

I played against maverick/hate stuff 2-1, miracles 2-1, and mono blue omnitell 2-0.

I have to say, a concern is revealing what you're on game 1 with serum powder.

Ok I'm gonna have to goldfish this version now. Rules question on Serum Powder: if you win the die roll and choose to use Powder, I'm assuming that your opponent gets to see your exiled cards before making their mulligan decision?

[QQQ]

Ok I'm gonna have to goldfish this version now. Rules question on Serum Powder: if you win the die roll and choose to use Powder, I'm assuming that your opponent gets to see your exiled cards before making their mulligan decision?

Serum Powder is not a mulligan. It only can be used when you could mull. So you resolve the Powder and draw seven. They get to see the exiled cards. Then you choose whether to repeat this step or not. If not, you choose whether to mull or not. They then decide on their first mull. The process repeats. If you Powder again, you have to decide afterwards whether to actually mulligan or not before the oppenent decides.

[alaska]

Ok I'm gonna have to goldfish this version now. Rules question on Serum Powder: if you win the die roll and choose to use Powder, I'm assuming that your opponent gets to see your exiled cards before making their mulligan decision?

Honestly still a little unclear on Powder, I need to research more on the timing. But as was just mentioned, not sure it's in our favor.

One thing to bear in mind is, with the "traditional" list, it's damn near impossible to brick while going off.

With this serum powder, pull, caverns business, it's still unlikely, but it is possible. Drawing a 7 that looks like...2 land, goryos, 2 serum powder, thoughtseize, pull from eternity is an unfortunate possibility.

It felt a lot more stable after I added a second Children of Korlis. A simple Reanimate in place of the second one would SEEM better, but I'm not so sure it is. I found myself in several situations where the only thing to do was Lotus Petal into hardcast children. Being able to imprint Pull from Eternity onto Chrome Mox is another option.

Also, struggling with the proper number of griselbrands. Right now I'm on 3.

[Koby]

Try playing with 4 Griselbrand, and play about 20 matches. You'll know by then if you see it too much between Entomb, opening hands, and Serum Powder.

As far as Serum Powder is concerned, you perform the action as you would mulligan. So if you're going first, you would Serum Powder in place of a mulligan, and your opponent would see the cards before making any of their choices.

[Richard Cheese]

Try playing with 4 Griselbrand, and play about 20 matches. You'll know by then if you see it too much between Entomb, opening hands, and Serum Powder.

As far as Serum Powder is concerned, you perform the action as you would mulligan. So if you're going first, you would Serum Powder in place of a mulligan, and your opponent would see the cards before making any of their choices.

And like QQQ said, if you hit multiple powders...they all happen before your opponent decides whether to mulligan, correct?

[Koby]

Yes, all your "mulligan from 7 to 6" Powder decisions happen in the same "phase".

[Madman]

Tournament report 24/5/15

Hello to you all,

Please forgive the length of this, I've been longing to wax lyrical about my favourite deck... any feedback will be welcome.

I've played this deck on and off since practically the start of the thread, to not great success admittedly, but usually a winning record, some small local tournaments when the opportunity has been there, a few GPs and Bazaar of Moxen. Recently the transformational 'board ideas into Doomsday got me brewing again. I've usually played reactive boards with Serenity, Silence, Massacre, Needle, Chain of Vapor, Surgical etc. and never had much luck. Turn 1 Deathrite is the worst offender for me as they can leave it open for the game and they always seem to land the second one the turn before you can beat the 1st. You've somehow accumulated the resources to beat 2 active ones... Force of Will. I'm rubbish with Legacy Doomsday. I beat myself. I just can't work it out under pressure. You need to be calm and considered, know exactly what you're doing having practiced a lot and not mind when an opponent calls a judge while you're spending a few minutes working things out, carefully explain to the judge that you're winning this turn if they'd stop interrupting your train of thought for 2 damn seconds! Vintage, so much easier... Gush, Ancestral, Lotus, Will... lots of options.

I wanted to try something new, at least to me - The Man Plan. Tried and dismissed before, I know.

3 ideas:

1. Ignore all hate (Karakas, Needle, Revoker, Deathrite, Rest in Peace, numerous cheap artifacts, Surgical, Leyline). I wanted to try and ignore the lot, leaving them with a number of blanks and me with a plan - and slightly fewer blanks.

2. Play 4 Force in the board. I've been wanting to do this for ages - find a deck that not only can support the blue count but also is strong due to its obliterating speed. Tin Fins certainly/almost/maybe fits the bill. The count is 20 so it's close.

3. Shuffle all 15 in before game 2, and all 15 before game 3 if it’s gone to that. I'm a fan of doing this anyway.

So, the tournament was the Legacy portion of UK Eternal Championships at Worcester (80ish players). I had a reasonably stock list from a year or so ago:

Maindeck - 61:
1 Children of Korlis
3 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
1 Reanimate
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
1 Lim-Duls Vault
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard - 15:
4 Force of Will
1 Flusterstorm
2 Dig Through Time
4 Monastery Mentor
3 Young Pyromancer
1 Badlands

http://i1246.photobucket.com/albums/gg612/bencabrelli/Tin%20Fins_zpsmcu6ywbv.jpg (http://s1246.photobucket.com/user/bencabrelli/media/Tin%20Fins_zpsmcu6ywbv.jpg.html)

I'm sure more than a few of you are thinking "What the Phantom Menace is that 'board?!?"

Dig might seem a little out of place in a 'board looking to dodge graveyard hate but I'd figured it wouldn't come in if I suspected Leyline. I could play it with Rest in Peace on the stack, strip RIP with discard if I needed to or just pitch it to Force if RIP has already resolved. Against anything else, they'd wait to pull the trigger playing right into my plan. I tried a few different ways to use this 'board in my limited 2 week testing including a full 15 transform. (SPOILER ALERT!) The plan I went with didn't work!!! Not at all! However, it's a testament to the strength of the deck that I turned up with a pretty dead 'board and still did reasonably well. I faced 2 decks out of 7 that I actually wanted to transform for. I liked the Forces and the small guys did actually win an otherwise tricky boardstate that Griselbrand and Emrakul would't have... once. Didn't face BUG, Miracles, anything that I'd previously thought it might work against.

I didn't take any notes beyond discard information as I was concentrating on trying not to misplay - unsuccessfully, and trying to stay sharp after the previous days Vintage so almost all of this is by memory, sorry if I got something wrong.

Round 1: James - Dredge (1-2)

Lose the roll. He leads with Faithless Looting binning Grave Troll. I've kept my 7, an unprotected turn 1 because it's the reason to play the deck, and burst some onions on my turn. It involves Children into Tendrils post combat revealing a fully black border deck to him with everything foiled that can be. I'm very much enjoying myself and he grins looking quite impressed, took it well, nice guy. I think, this is an excellent day shaping up well which obviously leads to the worst punt of the day!

Game 2.
First issue with the board comes up immediately. I got thumped by Dredge the previous day in Vintage. I've got nothing planned beyond be faster. After all, who plays Dredge in Legacy! I board in a Flusterstorm for a Probe and leave it at that. I have a 6 I can keep with cantrips, LDV and Entomb. He gets some early pressure with an Ichorid and a few Bridge Zombies and I'm facing lethal on my 3rd turn if I don't finish him as there's a large amount of cards in his graveyard and he can flash back Looting during his turn and I can't see any way that he won't Flame-Kin me for 40 or so even if I Flusterstorm it. I still had the LDV in hand having Pondered into a Reanimate for his Griselbrand! (Yeah, that felt good!) It felt so good that I hit him for 7 and drew 7 without thinking with LDV still in hand. I glance at the one guy who's watching and roll my eyes, briefly wondering if he's on Tin Fins too as we're only 15-20 minutes into the round. He asked after the round was over why I didn't cast LDV 1st - I had the mana to do so. I could only respond with, "because I'm an idiot". When I did cast it, now on 6 life, the first 5 I looked at would have won me the game with Tendrils if I still had the life to draw them all. I said to myself "Great, Kid! Don't get cocky!!"

Game 3.
I'm paid in full when i have to mull to 4 looking for mana and he kills me on his turn 3 thanks to Cephalid Coliseum. I'm pretty sure he also had turn 0 Leyline of the Void which really left me with nothing to do. (I Flusterstormed his turn 2 Breakthrough, it still didn't help and I feel like a chump for not playing at least 1 Chain of Vapor in the 'board and want to hurl a foil Flusterstorm across the room).

0-1

Round 2: Rhys - ANT (2-1)

Lose the roll. He plays Probe, seeing the combo. Probe from me proves that he can't stop me, I burst onions and try and keep it simple as the 1st 7 reveals that I can just put Emrakul into play and swing with both as he too smiles. These guys, they take it well!

Game 2.
I think, why did I bother with a board at all as I put in the lone Flusterstorm. We both keep cantrip/discard hands and I think I'm favourite after 5 or 6 turns each. When I go for it he stops me in my tracks with a Brainstorm into Chain of Vapor in response to the 1st draw 7, if I go again and miss, Ritual Tendrils will kill me so I let it resolve with nearly all my mana tapped in play and no fast mana in hand knowing I'm going to have an excellent next turn - which I don't get. His storm count is way more than my life total thanks to Past in Flames. Tendrils me for a Billion! Should have gone for it. (I was reminded again that I should have run Chain of Vapor in the board, though obviously not for this matchup, TES - maybe, they run Xantid Swarm.)

Game 3.
Was a bit of an anticlimax after a quite interactive 2nd game as I got a turn 1 Probe, Entomb during his end step and Goryo's on my turn 2. Griselbrand provided decent cards this time.

1-1

Round 3: Matt - Affinity (2-1)

Lose the roll again. He empties his hand turn 1 complete with Cranial Plating. I look at my 1 land hand of Thoughtseize, Therapy, Griselbrand, a 2 mana reanimate spell and a cantrip. All I can do is grin and say "That seems really weak!" I mean it sarcastically but he must think I'm the biggest douche in history when I rip Ritual off the top and get my 3rd game 1, turn 1 victory in a row. I'm far too excited to explain or apologize so I'll take the opportunity now, sorry Matt, I completely lucksacked it.

Game 2.
Finally an excuse to use some board tech as I'm expecting quite a lot of hate from him - Canonist, Thoughtseize, Relic etc, so I board the counters shaving numbers - not blue ones (1 Griselbrand, 1 Goryo's, 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Chrome Mox and I think 1 Ritual). I keep a risky 6 that has a counter, a cantrip and some discard. The counter does its job stopping the turn 1 hate but I draw mana and nothing else and not with Griselbrand just agonizingly slowly off the top for 3 straight turns while he kills me. The second big flaw in the board rears its head but I don't notice until it's too late. Ethersworn Canonist! I'd remembered the card but somehow not noticed how much it makes my man plan look like a right "Mr. Confused", while still putting a dent in plan A. It's actually easier to play around when I'm in Tin Fins mode. It's one of the reasons I play 3 Griselbrand. When you run the reactive board you probably don't even notice the card. Cute, you say as you LDV for Massacre/Toxic Deluge during his end step. I board out the counters and wonder if at some point I should turn up to a tournament with just a main deck.

Game 3.
4th turn 1. I'm the first to admit that I'm not the best at this game, but honestly this deck sometimes makes you feel like you're the god of magic and I can't thank Richard Cheese, Phazonmutant, Koby etc all enough for making and tuning this. And the guy who thought of Children - you sir are a genius. I'm not going to trawl through the thread again to find it, I'm sure someone will remind me. I'm in the middle of putting Emrakul into play when I see Lee at the next table grinning broadly saying "honestly, who plays Emrakul?" I've got a snappy comeback ready and its quite wiped from my mind when I glance at his board state and see Emrakul, Ulamog, Karakas and a huge array of Cloudposts and for once feel just a tinge of jealousy. When it gets going, it too is a very cool deck!

2-1

Round 4: Steven - Death and Taxes (2-1)

Lose the roll. I'm sensing a theme. He'd played Unpowered Elfball in the previous days Vintage Championship and I see no reason to assume that he shouldn't be on the Legacy version. He leads with Plains - pass the turn, so I'm already planning a complete transform as D&T runs so many main deck cards that give you fits let alone after 'board. I make the 2nd major missplay of the day and get away with it. Attacking for the win (eventually) with 3 separate Griselbrands over a series of turns that all either brick or can't draw and get exiled EOT. My life total was a yo-yo and was on 5 many times this game, though I do get to strip all his Swords to Plowshares during the process clearing the way. Why I didn't go for Emrakul the 2nd time is still a mystery.

Game 2.
Complete transform, taking out all the main deck guys, instant reanimation, Tendrils and a couple of Rituals. Leave in Entomb as it can grab Therapy, or a Mentor if you have the Reanimate. At first it works, Force the Vial (caused a raised eyebrow, might have been wrong, might have been that it was the Judge promo), 2 quick Pyromancers and some triggers, then the wheels come off. 1 gets sent farming. I start to get my lands ported during upkeep, Canonist and Containment Priest make it difficult for me to finish him off, Crusader followed by Stoneforge for SOFI means my newly found Mentor has to chump block without getting a trigger... Sigh. It's at this point it finally registers that Canonist is pretty bad for me when I'm looking to chain spells. There's 2 shiny Chain of Vapor and an extra LDV sitting in my hotel room...

Game 3.
Board it all out and do what I should have tried to do in game 2 and get my 5th turn 1 victory of the day and certainly my favourite win as Griselbrand drew 14, then had to swing drawing another 7 leaving me on 4. I'd used 2 Petals to start it off and had 3 Rituals and Tendrils to finish the job but no way to cast them. I was sorting out a 7 to kill him with the following turn when I glanced at him and he was giving me a disbelieving look so I looked again at the bunch of cards I'd put aside to discard though I don't think I'd announced it, saw there was a single Probe that I'd missed the first glance through, thought I might as well cast it even though I knew his hand already, told him what what was going on, explaining he was probably dead the following turn anyway, went to 2 and ripped Petal off the top. Lucky doesn't even begin to describe it. He smiled and took it well, another very cool guy. (This might have actually been turn 2, but I can't remember so go with it)

3-1

Round 5: Mark - DeathBlade (2-0)

Lose the roll!!!! He leads with turn 1 Deathrite - finally, my nemesis. He's cast it off a Scrubland and when I Thoughtseize him I find out why seeing Wasteland, Stoneforge and 2 Swords to Plowshares. I take a Swords. He lands Batterskull and it connects twice to take him well above 20 but he doesn't find any green source. I have a lot of fast mana and am able to Thoughtseize the 2nd Swords, use a mini Tendrils before Grisebrand in order to draw 7, find Children, finish with Emrakul.

Game 2.
Turn 1 Deathrite again - Nuts! I've boarded the counters but didn't see them in my opening hand. Marks shattered having ferried other people to the event, so its a bit understandable when he makes an error game 2 and it costs him. Sorry dude. He landed an early Stoneforge tapping Deathrite and Tropical on turn 2 which though probably the right play, I didn't understand at first. In all my testing an active Deathrite with green mana up while not unbeatable is still hard to beat, a 2nd is practically game over. "Just wait me out dude", I'm inwardly shouting (however, it's pretty clear that he's tired enough that settling in for a grind isn't an option for him). I don't have the combo but I can make him pay for it. I cast Thoughtseize figuring he must have counters to make that play. He didn't - Swords to Plowshares. Nearly as good. I took the Swords and for good measure Therapy took Batterskull as well leaving him with a Baleful Strix. Light dawns - no black source - and it's critical. With it he can probably ride Deathrite for the game. Without it he needs to force the issue. He only drew 1 more land, a Tundra, and couldn't do much for the next couple of turns while I assembled the combo thanks to my counters. He tried to dig for some extra pressure and more answers by making the Strix tapping Deathrite and Tropical again leaving up Tundra. I thought the only reason he'd do that was if he had another Swords so I Probed, Therapied and hit, started to go off with Griselbrand and he scooped when he saw that Emrakul was on the cards too, clearly annoyed at his mistake. He was very gracious in defeat considering how mana screwed he'd been in both games. Bad luck Mark, tiredness is the cause of a lot of match losses, I've been there. In fact in the very near future... or recent past as it is now.

4-1

Round 6: Lee - 12 Post (1-2)

You guessed it, lose the roll. It's the win and in. Winner can ID the last round. I know exactly what he's on and when he says he remembers seeing me but can't remember exactly what I'm on, I feel good about my keep that has turn 1 discard, turn 2 reanimation (discard targets him, I can Entomb during his end step off Petal or save it till my turn). That is until he leads with Tropical, Crop Rotates it into Karakas and plays Pithing Needle naming Griselbrand!!! Guess it came back to him. That's a particular combo he had in all 3 games so I was already feeling good about the man plan. I need a Ritual or Petal off the top so I can go for Emrakul but don't get it. He untaps Karakas and leaves it open for the game. He has Show and Tells but I leave them alone and he never plays them - rightly so as I'd then have 2 guys in play having drawn Griselbrand and have a sniff of a chance. He played tight and when Prime Time off Cavern of Souls mana got Eye of Ugin, I could see the writing on the wall and could never assemble enough resources to make him tap Karakas during his turn and still be able to do anything relevant during my turn. I scooped to save some time.

Game 2.
Board in everything, take out all the big dudes. This time it really works. Turn 1 Pyromancer! Probe you! Needle - sure, names Griselbrand - cool, Karakas - don't mind if you do. (If I'd left it to Griselbrand this would have been a swift 0-2 unless I had the nuts and with so many turn 1's already under my belt I'm glad I didn't push my luck). I make a bunch of tokens with cantrips and discard, Force anything relevant. Unfortunately I have to reveal I'm running Mentor too just so he doesn't get 1 more turn.

Game 3.
Board 15 cards, take out 15, make sure he sees it. Keep the man plan, it worked before. He has Show and Tells this game but never gets to cast them as I strip them from his hand during the mid game as there's nothing else to take. I keep a hand with cantrip, discard and Force. He has the early Needle again so I turn 1 cantrip, can't remember if it's a Ponder, or a Brainstorm during his 2nd end step. I Probe on turn 2 (1st mistake - should have Thoughtseized) and he Crop Rotates in response leaving him with 1 land in play, I should have let him because he'd probably have gone for Karakas but instead (2nd mistake coming) I Forced pitching the only Dig I saw all day to try and keep him off Cavern (I think Force is fine if I'd pitched Probe). I see a hand with a Sensei's Divining Top which I Thoughtseize away and no mana - Score! I also Therapy his Expedition Map - Bonus! It might have been ok but it took me too long to find a Mentor, by the time I did he'd managed to find another Top and used it to make sure Prime Time wasn't stripped from his hand - I didn't know it was there, I just figured what else can he be doing other than saving it till he has mana. He's been playing off the top since I stripped his hand long ago. I then made another error that this time cost me the game. I've 4 lands when I cast Mentor, immediately made Chrome Mox, no Imprint leaving a single Therapy in hand which I figured I'd cast next turn for more triggers. I drew a Force which I couldn't cast, realized he probably had the mana to cast the Titan the following turn, remembered I'd been trying to keep him off Cavern for a reason and compounded the error by sandbagging the Therapy. I think that I have to bluff Force with only 2 cards in hand - I'm tired. (Judge foil FoW's look awful when they rot in your hand.) A turn later he goes for it anyway and casts Prime Time without Cavern in play - awkward. I have 1 free turn left, not for the 1st time this game I wish I hadn't been so hasty pitching Dig to Force in the early turns, now I really need the other 1 and could probably still have won if I'd got it. Instead I get a 2nd Therapy and used them with flashback naming Black Lotus on his empty hand to try to force him to block with the Titan but he wasn't buying any of it (he grabbed his pen and quickly drew a Lotus on his hand said it was empty and palmed it into his graveyard - nice touch, I like this guy!). He took the damage and found all the lands he needed, 1st Glacial Chasm and Glimmerpost - gaining 7 at that point. Eye of Ugin the following turn having sacked the Chasm. I'd drawn my 5th land. Cute deck, thanks for that. Also spotted another Therapy I could have used in the yard. Great! How many missplays can I make in a single game when I really needed to be tight. We'd drawn a bit of a crowd by now and it's far too late to beat myself up by telling
him how I should have played had I just spotted it in time - so I let him play it out. He declared infinite Emrakuls with Karakas and went for Ulamog to kill my Mentor with 50 odd mana available. I realize that if there's a 2nd Karakas and a 2nd of either eldrazi he has infinite both with Prime Time in play. I Force his Ulamog to give him a full library so he can demonstrate it if he has it, he goes to combat without using Eye and doesn't bother with Prime Time triggers so I assume he doesn't. Infinite Emrakuls is probably good enough. I went to my concede step. Sadness on the stack.... Sadness resolves! I remember my previous opponents and how well they all took it, smile, shake his hand and genuinely wish him luck hopefully not betraying how disappointed I was with my own play. If you dish it out with a deck like Tin Fins, you've got to be prepared to take it too and his deck is certainly a cool one to lose to! I know, I played the Therapys terribly. I Forced terribly. This game was definitely winnable. My turn to let tiredness rule my play. Not to take anything away from Lee who played tight with no errors that I saw and deserved the win on the day.

4-2

Round 7: Andrew - Dredge (2-1)

Lose the roll, shouldn't really have been surprised. We both know we're out no matter what but decide to play it out and have some fun - I certainly intended to and got my wish. He gets in some early beats with Ichorid but I'm able to do the Tendrils first again to enable the extra draw 7 that drew me into an Emrakul attack.

Game 2.
Single Flusterstorm again - Jeez, I think. My 'board is rubbish! There's times when it's more trouble than it's worth, this whole 15 in, 15 out thing. I pray he doesn't have Leyline - he doesn't... yet. I wait until he actually puts down some pressure before I go for it, sculpting the hand. He Surgically Extracts Griselbrand and I realize my sculpting skills need a little work.

Game 3.
I don't bother shuffling 15 in, there's really no point at this stage. I just silently thank the Tin Fins gods he isn't running Leyline (I'd spotted a Faerie Macabre in game 2. Leylines on top of that and Surgical would have been crazy), otherwise I'd have been very tempted to transform considering how round 1 went. As it was, a transform would probably have worked out just fine anyway as he mulls to 4 or maybe even 3 obviously looking for graveyard hate. I wait for a Probe or discard to let me know the coast is clear, it's a Probe and it's definitely not clear. I see 1 Surgical and 2 Faerie Macabre. I'm Michelangelo! By the time I go for it, I've Thoughtseized the Surgical and have 2 Rituals and 3 reanimation spells. That'll do it! Onions were burst for the final time in spectacular fashion. (I drew so well off 14 I wish I'd had a Quicken as I could have cast Tendrils with annihilator on the stack!)

5-2

A 15 point ends up making it, but my breakers are terrible - 12th.

I'd have liked to play a second LDV but I do like the discard yourself option hence 3 Griselbrand. Next time Chain of Vapor is definitely making the cut. I never tried Daze though I know others have to some success - probably should have and will do soon. I did like having the Force option, the extra LDV might just sway it for me to try again in a reactive board. Swapping the Digs for Chains, leaving out Flusterstorm would keep the blue count at 20. Boarding 6 is a lot though, but it won't stop me from testing this further. If I do run counters again it'd have to be one or the other. Force AND Daze is just normal Reanimator and I don't want to go there. It defeats the point of the deck. The Flusterstorm was bad enough! Just for the fun of it I'm also thinking of testing a Snapcaster if I'm going to try anything like a man plan again - unlikely! Please do let me know if you liked any of it, hated all of it etc. Many thanks. Can't wait for Lille!!!

Props/Slops:

Props to Manaleak UK for putting on the whole weekend. Very few people put in an enormous amount of work both before and during to make it happen and did an excellent job! Good space to play with plenty of elbow room - no playmats overlapping here, a free bottle of water for all players - awesome! Hope it becomes a regular event.

Props to everyone I played - (they're all getting slops too btw!) - not a single judge call from me or them for the entire day which I'm pretty sure is a first for me. I think one guy pulled over the card to check the text on Children. I definitely needed to reread Glacial Chasm - with some dismay... and that was it.

Props to Lee who made 9th in Vintage on breakers (unlucky) and Legacy top 8 (and for going infinite with Emrakul... a lot!).

Props also to Martin who travelled with us (and quite a long way before that - from Sweden) for good results narrowly missing out on top 8 in both Vintage and Legacy. Good to see you dude, unlucky.

Extra special props to Ben and Rod for lending the FBB Duals that enabled a full black border deck. They really tied the room together! And nobody peed on them.

Slops to me for drinking too much but I was having a good weekend and enjoying time with your friends plays a huge part in what makes this game fun.

Slops also to me for not speaking to the other Tin Fins players, there definitely were at least 2 others, I know I heard at one point "Goryo's targets Griselbrand" from a couple of tables down. Sorry guys and gals, there's no excuse for that - I'm going to give one anyway - despite how it might read, most of my matches went close to time and I spent the little spare time I had stocking up on fluids, taking pain killers, checking how my friends had done, munching Jaffa cakes (thanks Ben) and getting fresh air (and then polluting it with cigarette smoke). Note to self - must make more effort!

Slops again to me for porting 13 out of 15 cards in the 'board straight out of my Vintage deck from the previous day and expecting it to work (+1 Pyromancer, +1 Badlands). I didn't get what I deserved, which was to do a lot worse than I did. Turns out Lotus, Ancestral, 4 Gush and 4 Misstep kind of pulls it all together - Who knew!

Slops to everyone I played for never giving me the chance to mutter "The Force is strong with this one" by Forcing my Force. A fact I'm secretly pretty thankful for - I'd decided not to play my altered Vader Rituals (thanks Sandreline) for the 1st time since I'd got them in favor of foil ones, just so there wouldn't be any issues and the quote just doesn't have the same allure without them.

Slops to SCG for having an eternal weekend on the same days as ours - also at Worcester - what are the odds!!! (Obviously a different Worcester which didn't make finding directions for the event online tricky at all - much!). For all of you in the US - Yes, there's a Worcester across the pond too... where do you think you got yours from!

Slops - and I can't stress this enough - to everyone who calls it a mainboard. It's a main "DECK" and a side "BOARD"!!! A mainboard is, as far as I can tell... the full 75 (or in my case 76). Sort it out people!

There were times I felt I played like a champ, times I definitely played like a chump, and all the time your "wonderful deck" dragged me through it kicking and screaming. See?... It's a wonderful DECK, not a wonderful BOARD... and I think we can all agree I'm right on this one.

It's been fun writing this so I hope you enjoyed reading. The deck was an absolute blast to play! The 'board was... Interesting? - well that'd be a stretch. Different? - almost certainly. Crazy? - definitely. Bad? - well... yeah. All of the above? - I'll let you be the judges of that. (Insert your keyword of choice - way ahead of you... be nice, people!).

[dte]

Hello,

Thanks for this really detailed report and congrats!

On the man-plan in the side deck (:tongue:) subject, if I counted properly you won 10 games out of 15 with the Tin-Fins plan (plus a flusterstorm sometimes), while losing 3 games out of 4 with the mans.
Do you think it is because of the manplan by itself, and did you think about other creatures which can do the work well? Delver, Death Shadow, pack rat come to mind. Both eschew the thalia / cannonist hate that you can expect from your opponents, and are not from splash colours. Maybe if someone has better ideas?

A second think I'm unsure about your SB is the 7 men // 5 counters structure. Usually decks do not want FoW against non-combo deck, and we want to stay combo against other combo decks. So it seems a bit contradictory to me to run a manplan + FoW SB.

[alastair]

Slops also to me for not speaking to the other Tin Fins players, there definitely were at least 2 others, I know I heard at one point "Goryo's targets Griselbrand" from a couple of tables down. .

I could only find one, and they were on the reactive plan with the usual U/B/W suspects. There was one straight reanimate build. I am sad and disappointed that I let the side down plumbing for Team America.

(next thing we know you'll be on Facebook Mark !!).

[Madman]

Thanks dte: (Side Deck! - Love it)

The Man Plan:
I'd considered Delver, Tasigur and Pack Rat - Death's Shadow, not so much, the chances of you having that in the 1st couple of turns is really small. I didn't add either of the first 2 because I didn't feel I could really protect them properly, you really want to be able to ride 1 for the game and 4 force isn't enough for that. Most RUG decks for example have 8-10 counters.

Really all I did was to remove the instant speed reanimation spells and the existing guys and see what was left, which is essentially some acceleration, some cantrips and some discard - all 1 mana or less. This led me to think that spell chains were an option. Mentor and Pyromancer seemed the best fit. Pack Rat I dismissed due to its card disadvantage. Compared to Mentor (seeing as it's 3 mana for an activation), would you rather discard a probe and get a guy, or use it, see their hand, draw another cantrip/discard AND get a guy, (btw. Prowess triggers)

I was really just trying to illustrate 2 points:

1. The Man Plan didn't work, or at least not at all like I wanted it to. If you think it warrants further testing, I'd obviously be interested. (Any other guys you think I should have tried?) Overall I think Yes, it's because of the Man Plan itself. I didn't know anybody who'd tried it like this and I wanted to give it a go at least once.

2. The main deck is astonishingly strong. I know a lot of luck was involved, but there was a catalog of errors and I managed a decent result. As you observed my record in TinFins mode was streets ahead of anything in the board.

Re: Force
I think I'd just got fed up with turn 1 hate I couldn't interact with when on the draw, which then caused me to slow down in order to find answers, giving them time to overrun me. I'd run into this situation a lot over the last year or so with TinFins until something cracked. Force is the go to Legacy "NO" card and I definitely wanted to say that to every Deathrite, every 1 mana artifact I ran into. I think this was actually my first decision about the board. The man plan idea evolved from that as I'd have a way to protect them too under transform conditions. limited protection, but still having some way to interact on the stack seemed crucial unless you run True Name or Geist (and they need equipment to be really good). I'd figured Force would work against everything except Abrupt Decay and I'd be really unlucky if they left them in. Flusterstorm I didn't like. I boarded it because I felt I should do something rather than nothing and in nearly every case it would have been better as a 2nd LDV or a Chain of Vapor. Not saying it was right by a long shot, it wasn't, it didn't work either - Deathrite still landed turn 1, I just got lucky. Needle landed turn 1 as well with nothing I could do about it. Very annoying! Though I'd like to test it further (counters in general that is, Daze is next up), my intent was that the entire report be an illustration of what not to do with the board. And if I made you smile along the way - mission accomplished.


Alastair
Sorry, thought there were 2, I stand corrected.
(I wouldn't go that far - 1 step at a time)

[.dk]

Nice report - your board is hilarious! As far as man plans go... I actually really like Monastery Mentor. That's a neat idea with all of the rituals and artifact mana that we run. I guess I don't understand why you didn't just jam a board of 12-15 creatures though to overload on threats. Seems like just jamming them through countermagic might be better than trying to protect something with Force. Richard Cheese and I have been discussing a man plan board for a very long time now... dudes we've talked about:

Delver
Serendib Efreet
Phyrexian Obliterator
Tombstalker

And newer ones obviously in the form of Tasigur and/or Gurmag Angler.

I don't think either of us ever actually tried any of these though, so props to you for giving the man plan a shot!

[Madman]

Many thanks .dk, not just for your feedback.

It'd been a really long time since I'd read the OP, but it's there right in front of me.
Children - thanks to Dela and yourself. It's the glue that enables all the ridiculous plays - BRILLIANT, and Thanks!

I'm glad you liked Mentor. I still think it's the best option for a man plan. The first 'board I tried was a 14 with Forces, Mentors, Show and Tells and 2 Ancient Tomb to power them out (obviously still keeping in the big guys at that point). Containment Priest made the S&T part of the idea look pretty bad which is when Pyromancer got added.

Some more explanation of why I ran the board I did with respect to the 12-15 creature options...

I have also tried this 12 creature option:

4 Delver
4 Pyromancer
4 Mentor
2 Dig
1 Badlands

I didn't like it and thought 4 Force was much better than Delver. Not only can you not protect your Delver for the game the way RUG can, I found it too many creatures, especially as they all want you to have spells. With Mentor/Pyromancer I'd thought there was a fine line between drawing too many creatures in a row getting no triggers and not finding 1 to start things off quickly enough. Delver reveals Pyromancer or a Petal instead of flipping for example, Ponder reveals a Delver, a Pyromancer and a land when you've a Mentor in play and want to be chaining spells. Maybe I was getting an unlucky run, but that sort of thing happened too often for me to stick with it. I've also tried Preordain with Mentor/Pyromancer instead of Force to try and increase the chances of a spell chain and didn't like that option either. With no real way to stop their plan - whatever it might be, it felt like just a really bad Delver deck. I ran Force primarily to stop them, either stopping their turn 1 hate if I'm only siding counters, or stopping their main plan buying me time to win in the full 15 transform. Protecting my guys with a "free" trigger just being a bonus if it was available. I was trying to be in a position where I didn't care if they dealt with a Mentor. I'd hopefully have other prowess guys left over to finish the job.

Although I never tested it with lots of "single" creatures (ones that don't make any additional creatures), I think that with 12-15 guys, Mentor/Pyromancer aren't as good and probably shouldn't make the cut. There really are so many issues you run into with "single" guys though, quite apart from the obvious 2...

1. They don't leave anything behind if they're dealt with.

2. You've no way to protect them. On the stack that is, you could always discard their removal.

(I know I'm probably covering old ground here, but for what it's worth - my thoughts on the others that have been mentioned)
Delver in a 12-15 creature 'board, I don't think flips as reliably as you want him to.
Serendib Efreet is Delver 5-8, but coming out too slow with not a big enough clock to be worth the extra mana.
(Isn't True Name just better than Efreet, they couldn't StP that. Still too slow though.)
I didn't like Obliterator as it seemed you had to have Ritual to cast it at all. If you don't have Ritual it rots in hand. It also has the same problem as Tasigur, Angler or Tombstalker - if it's exiled with StP, it could easily leave you with more uncastable copies in hand and no board presence.
The more cheap creatures you run, the harder it is to cast delve creatures as you're not stocking up the yard quick enough.
The more "3 mana or more" guys you run, the more likelihood of having too many in hand unable to cast.
The delve mechanic also looks pretty bad if you face turn 0 LotV or an early RIP, or any graveyard hate really... it's coming in - we're reanimating Griselbrand!
Goyf? Deathrite? Could be options (I've run reactive 'boards before with Decay and Bayou, they're pretty good), but I think you'd just be a really bad BUG deck.

Sorry if I'm sounding really disparaging, I'm not meaning to be a killjoy. I did consider quite a lot of options and these were the reasons why they never even made the testing sessions... well, Delver did but not to any success. I'm just skeptical that any of the "single" creatures could actually be good enough to make the cut with nothing to protect them, even when jamming lots of them. However, I didn't have a lot of time available so maybe I'm missing something.

[Richard Cheese]

Awesome report, and a really interesting take on the 'man plan'. The main issue I had with it was that it left some of the opposing hate weirdly relevant. If they leave in removal or get you with discard, Surgical on 4 of your 12 threats is pretty brutal. Then there's grave hate messing with any delve guys, Karakas on Tasigur, and random stuff like Ensnaring Bridge. Also other people generally have blockers, so everything needs to be evasive.

It's been a while since I messed with it though, and the meta definitely seems a little bit softer to it now. I really like the 'dude generators' although I'm not crazy about splashing another color just for Pyromancer. Maybe Mentor with Delver and True-Name? Seems too mana-intensive. There's also Lingering Souls and/or Bitterblossom, and randos like Master of the Feast.

[Madman]

Thanks Richard Cheese,

I completely agree about running into hate that was not intended for my board but interacts with it favorably for them anyway. (I found out the hard way with Ethersworn Canonist).

I'd not considered the other token makers like Souls or Bitterblossom. My gut reaction is, they wouldn't make enough impact quick enough (Souls also runs into hate, you might only get 2 1/1s). Mentor can win quite easily in 2 to 3 turns, if you can create a Monk or 2 the turn you make him with Probe or Petal - 1 to 2 turns.

About splashing R for Pyromancer:
Having splashed G for Abrupt Decay before (every fetch finds Bayou), it didn't seem a problem with every fetch able to find Badlands. I never ran into any issues finding red mana when I needed it thanks to Petal as well. That said, he definitely is a poor mans Mentor in this sort of build and can't finish the game anywhere near as quickly. The difference between having prowess triggers and not is huge especially if the Pyromancer dies. I'm currently looking into other red cards to make the splash worthwhile and some more reactive options that'd give me a good reason to cut red entirely.

Master of the Feast!!! Now that's... asking for trouble... exactly my sort of card!:smile: Testing begins immediately!

In general, Richard Cheese, .dk, dte, very many thanks for not just dismissing the idea out of hand and for giving me more ideas to work with. I'd thought it hadn't worked and was set to shelve it completely. Now though, you're making me want to do something really "silly" for Lille!

[Kathal]

If you really want to go the manplan route, Desecration Demon is your friend. There are several of those "cheap" big guys out there, maybe you can find some which you like. I would never play Master of the Feast, since he can backfire pretty hard, I even think that Pack Rat would be better (if the opp doesn't have a removal, he will die and it plays nice around nearly every hate card (Thalia, Canonist, Meddling Mage, Graveyard hate but folds to Needle/Revoker).

And yeah, Mentor >>>>>>> Pyro in this deck (or in nearly every deck, especially if the deck has Tops).

Greetings,
Kathal

[Richard Cheese]

Pack Rat is interesting, but he's pretty mana intensive. I'm not sure this deck could manage much more than one rat per turn, which isn't going to amount to much more than chump blockers. Desecration is pretty good, and Persecutor has some potential too, since we already have Therapy. I wouldn't bank on being able to use them after G1 though.

Then there's always Geist, but on his own he's pretty lackluster. Unless we're also boarding into removal and/or counters, we can't push him through any blockers.

Maybe we should look at something like 3x SFM, Jitte, and a SoFI. Nobody's going to bring in artifact hate against us, and most people are boarding out Decays. Paired with Bitterblossom or TNN either becomes a fast clock that also doubles as removal. Needle/Revoker will still be an issue though.

[KenCoghlanIII]

Just placed first at the Eternal Extravaganza satellite series in Coopersburg, PA with Tin Fins. Report to follow. Need rest.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Lol, so awesome, nice job!

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[KenCoghlanIII]

Alright, so I’ve been playing Tin Fins for a little while now. Goldfished the shit out of it over the course of the last few months and feel very confident with the deck. I played ANT and Doomsday before Fins, but nothing comes close to this deck. This past Saturday (June 13) was a satellite event for the upcoming Eternal Extravaganza being held by Tales of Adventure (Coopersburg, PA) in October. First place is $400 and a round one bye to EE (2nd is $200, 3-4 is $100, 5-8 is $75, 9-16 is $75). I brought along my game night group (wife, brother, buddy and his girlfriend). Why not burst some onions?

Maindeck:
3 Polluted Delta
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Island

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

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

Sideboard:
4 Daze
3 Chain of Vapor
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Massacre
2 Pithing Needle
1 Tropical Island

I wanted to try something different with the sideboard. I had read about people trying out Daze to a bit of success, so I threw them in. COVs/Massacre/Needle are for troublesome hate. Decays are for the Miracles matchup.


We get to the shop a little less than an hour early. It’s slowly starting to fill as we get our deck registration sheets. By the time the event starts, there are a total of 43 Legacy players. Sweet. Six rounds of swiss with a cut to the top 8. The last Eternal Extravaganza they held there in March had a little over 300 players. Looking good for the upcoming one.

I’m going to say here that I really don’t remember any of the names of my opponents. I’m not particularly good with names and didn’t write them down. Sorry about that.

Round 1 (12 Post)--

Game one:
I’m nervous as all hell as this is the first tournament I’ve played Tin Fins. I win the die roll and Probe to see a hand of a few cloudposts, a needle, and a brainstorm. I play a fetch and pass. He plays needle, I don’t crack my Delta like an asshole, and he names it. That’s alright. Mire into Underground Sea, ritual, entomb, vengeance. Draw 7 and have enough to make Emrakul. First game and a turn 2 kill? I like it.

Game two:
I sideboard in a few COVs to take care of any potential GY hate. Can’t really do anything about Bojuka Bog. We both play a land and pass. I have a turn two lined up. Sphere of Resistance hits the table and takes care of that. Can’t find a COV, get my reanimation spell Flusterstormed, he Bojuka Bogs next turn and eventually gets infinite Emrakul turns.

Game three:
On the play again. Just play a fetch and pass. Trying to rig together a turn two so I don’t even have to worry about sphere. He asks if needle resolves and I say yea, knowing he’ll name Griseldaddy and I’ll have to make Emrakul first, swing in, and then try to rebuild and do the remaining damage. I’m piecing this all together and he names Flooded Strand. Damn. Only land in my hand. Don’t draw another. Turn two and turn three sphere from him seal the deal. What a dumb mistake, especially after he did it the first game. Nerves had me shot.

0-1 / 1-2

Round 2 (Burn)--

Game one:
Win the die roll, mull to five and play a cantrip. She opens up with Swiftspear and swings in. I play a ponder on my next turn, get what I need but need to wait a turn. C’mon no Eidolon! Nope. Random burn spell, in with Swiftspear. Make Grisel, can’t find what I’m looking for. Swing in, draw, make children, draw 42 cards this turn. No tendrils. Six cards left. Waste a petal on a ponder and find it. Whew.

Game two:
I board in a few COVs in case of a pesky Eidolon. Didn’t want to give up more spots for the decays and just make myself slower. Turn one Swiftspear. I cantrip and pass. Turn two Eidolon has me worried. I ponder, see a rit and entomb and can make it happen next turn. I COULD play Thoughtseize on her, but it would cost me 4 life and the only thing that I’m worried about is another Eidolon. What are the odds? Well, pretty good, apparently. Turn three Eidolon and it’s not looking good from my end. Thankfully, she sequenced her spells wrong and played a lightning bolt afterwards, taking four in the process, going down to 14. She swings in and I’m at ten. My turn, I fetch (9), Entomb Emrakul (5), Shallow Grave (1), and swing in for the win. Couldn’t use the ritual and, thankfully, didn’t have to. One of the very few times I was happy to see a third land in my hand.

1-1 / 3-2

Round 3 (ANT)--

Game one:
I win the die roll and recognize my opponent as a storm player I had sat near the round before. I didn’t see his game, but I heard someone ask him if he can win if they extract his Tendrils. I open up with probe and see rit, tutor, probe, PiF, trop, misty. Draw the rit I need and kill turn 1 with Grisel and Emrakul.

Game two:
No sideboarding. Don’t need it. I mull to six, take two or three turns, and tendrils him to death after attacking with Grisel. He played a couple of cantrips, but missed a land drop on his second turn and was running off trop. I was pleasantly surprised how well the storm matchup went, especially considering how much storm was in the room. Probably half a dozen people playing it, if not more. Looking good.

2-1 / 5-2

Round 4 (Goblins)--

Game one:
We play rock/paper/scissors with those Unglued cards and he wins. I watched this guy beat my buddy the round before, so I wasn’t worried. He plays turn one lackey, go. I ponder. He attacks with lackey and puts in warchief. I kill him on turn two with Grisel and tendrils. He was VERY excited to be playing against Tin Fins. Hell, I was excited to be playing against Goblins.

Game two:
I bring in two Massacres and I think that’s it. He plays turn one fetch into Plateau, Skirk Prospector. I play a swamp and pass with a turn two if he doesn’t have the Thalia I know he does. Two turn Thalia and swing in with the prospector. I pay one for Massacre and take care of his board but need to wait for next turn. He plays another goblin. I make Griseldaddy, draw, entomb Emrakul and my vengeance is met with a Mindbreak Trap. Wasn't expecting that. We have a good laugh, as I shuffle my graveyard into my library, draw another seven, make children, draw more and I tendrils him out turn three. This guy was a great opponent and we talked for a while after the match. I absolutely love Goblins, even though it isn’t very viable right now. I played with goblins since before Onslaught...and then all bets were off. Probably played a casual Goblins! deck for a decade. We had some laughs over the matchup, as he had taken out his single Tarfire for game two and I brought myself down to 1 twice while finding tendrils. Delicious.

3-1 / 7-2

Round 5 (Death and Taxes)--

Game one:
I already know what my opponent is on as his last match with Miracles went to time. Go figure. Thankfully, he either won or drew as we were near the top tables. I lose the roll, mull to five, and he goes plains, go. I ponder, find the ritual, and just need one more turn without Thalia. Turn two he plays SFM and gets SoFI. I turn two Grisel/tendrils off a mull to five.

Game two:
He sideboards heavily and I know I’ll have a lot to work through. I bring in both Massacres and all the COVs and take out both Duress, a probe, and shave a few other things. I keep a no land hand that can win as soon as I find one. Don’t get one on my first draw. He plays turn two Containment Priest. Fuck. Turn three Revoker on petal (as I still hadn’t found a land). Turn three Canonist which blanks the Chrome Mox I drew so I can catrip, hopefully find a land, Massacre and then win the following turn. I don’t and die to bear beats.

Game three:
On the play and loving it. Great hand. Turn one fetch without cracking as I’ll need both my lands to win turn two and can’t afford to get Wastelanded out of this game. As long as he doesn’t have cage, I’m fine. He doesn’t. Plains, mother. Turn two Grisel into Emrakul.

Had a nice chat with this fellow after the match, as well. I love Death and Taxes and have played the deck on and off for a little bit. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t play the tutor package in the sideboard to have a better chance at hate in the postboard games. I always thought the tutor sideboards for D&T are better.

4-1 / 9-3

One more round of swiss. I’m in 9th at this point and my nerves come back. I have to win this next match, I think, to make top 8. Hell, I haven’t ever had to do math to see if I’d be in top 8 before. Ha! I tell my buddy as I walk out for a smoke that I just hope I can play against Lands next game and not Miracles. That matchup was going on next to me the previous round but I was outside or in the restroom when the round finished up. C’mon Lands!

Round 6 (Lands)--

Game one:
My opponent sits down and I breathe a sigh of relief. The Lands player I had sat next to last round. Thankfully, his matchup with Miracles looked like it was getting insane so I didn’t think he knew what I was on. I win the die roll and keep a hand of 2x Shallow Grave, Griseldaddy, Entomb, probe, ritual, ponder. Greedy, I know. But, if I find a land, petal, or mox off the probe, I get it turn one. If not, it’s all there for next turn. 18/53 odds are good enough for me (as an Island wouldn’t necessarily get there). See a hand of maze, stage, grove, Tabernacle, 2x Gamble and a Punishing Fire. Rip the petal off the top and win in one with Grisel into Emrakul. Looks like there were 3x Gamble in those opening hands. Yes. Love my puns.

Game two:
I think I bring in a few COVs, but that’s all. He plays a grove and passes. I probe and see he has turn 4 depths. I fetch an Island to play around his Wasteland, ponder, shuffle, draw a land. Can’t get there in time and he swings in with his 20/20.

Game three:
This game was great. I play a turn one Underground Sea into a Ponder. He wastes. I don’t have Entomb, but I have Emrakul in hand. Turn two Swamp, ritual, therapy myself, Shallow Grave, swing for 15. I have another Shallow Grave in hand, and I figure my top decks are better. We both durdle around for what seems like seven turns. I have tendrils now, but only a single ritual and he has an active port. He’s dredging away, but not hitting much. A few gambles and explores. I finally land Grisel and swing in, he crop rots for a maze and stops the attack. I draw 14, discard, and have enough for a tendrils kill next turn. I play it and hold my breath, even though I don’t think he can do anything. Chasm doesn’t stop tendrils even if he has another crop rot. He extends the hand and wishes me luck in the top 8. Fuck yes.

5-1 / 11-4

Standings are posted and I’m in second place with 15 points. We split the money, about $140 each, and play on for the bye. I tell ya, that split really took the edge off.

Top 8 looked like this:
RUG Delver
Tin Fins
Infect
Blue Manaless
Reanimator
12 Post
ANT

I don’t know what the eighth player was on as he took the split and dropped. RUG Delver got a free win and the quarter-finals were:

Tin Fins vs 12 Post
Infect vs Reanimator
ANT vs Blue Manaless

Quarter-finals (12 Post)--

Game one:
Same 12 Post player who gave me my round one loss. He picked up two losses throughout the day, giving him seventh. We were both in good spirits and the games were very friendly. I play first with higher seed and keep a greedy hand much like the first game with Lands. Only difference is that I have the petal in my hand. He mulls to six and keeps. I probe, see map, Punishing Fire, Glimmerpost, Repeal, and two needles. Petal into ritual, entomb, vengenace, Grisel, draw 14, Emrakul. Does this deck even need lands?

Game two:
He plays a post and passes. I probe, seeing 2x top, Eye of Ugin, crop rot, 2x Brainstorm. I have grisel, entomb, Shallow Grave, ritual, a fetch, and a few others in hand. I discard grisel with two thoughts; if he can play crop rot next turn for Bojuka Bog, I won’t have to worry about it anymore and can win the next turn. If he doesn’t, I win the next turn. He plays trop or grove (I don’t remember) and does just that. I exile my graveyard, draw, and get grisel into play. I draw 14, have Emrakul in hand, and discard it with therapy. And I mess up. I mistook one of the 20 cards in my hand with a reanimation spell...that I don’t have. Ah, well. I shuffle my graveyard back, attack, draw, make children, and tendrils him out. That was scary for a second, but it worked out. Got ahead of myself for a minute.

6-1 / 13-4

Infect beats Reanimator and then quickly drops when he finds out he’ll be playing RUG Delver. ANT beats Blue Manaless in three games and I have my next opponent.

Semi-finals (ANT)--

I actually remember this guys name: Martin. He beat my younger brother in round 1, I believe. Not a surprise; he plays this ridiculous Zombie tribal deck. Not a bad deck, but it doesn’t do well against combo. Martin seems like a nice guy and I’ve seen a few of his matches. Good storm player. I hope I do as well as my earlier storm matchup.

I play first with higher seed and keep a no land hand again. I probe turn one and fail to find what I need. He probes back, sees what he’s up against, but doesn’t have the discard to go with it. He cantrips a few turns. I get grisel in my yard and just need a mana source. I finally get it turn four and get in with grisel into Emrakul. He was just missing the LED to storm off.

Game two:
I don’t board in a single card. Another no land hand, on the draw, that wins on turn one. Grisel, draw 14, smash face, draw, make children, tendrils him out. I drew 44 cards that turn (one for turn, one on a later probe, 42 from Griseldaddy). At one point, when my entire deck was essentially in my hand, Martin said ‘So many cards,’ and had a good laugh. We compared sideboards after the fact, and he brought in three COVs. For what, he said, he didn’t really know. Ha! Really, I thought there was going to be a more competitive edge to the top 8, but all the games were very friendly. Again, splitting really took the edge off.

7-1 / 15-4

Finals (RUG Delver)--

Before we sat down to the table, I said ‘Ok, I’m ready to lose now.’ RUG is just a bad matchup for this deck, much like with storm. They have interaction, mana denial, and a quick clock (plus a bit of burn to keep me off getting greedy with Grisel activations). I didn’t have high hopes, but what the hell.

Game one:
He leads with a trop and passes. I probe to see a hand of 2x Brainstorm, FOW, pierce, Stifle, Daze. What the fuck am I supposed to do against that?! We play on for a bit and he starts getting in beats with a goose and then goyf. I draw counters out of his hand slowly, but his clock is anything but slow. Eventually, I Tendrils him for 12, getting myself back up to 18 and giving me two more turns. Unfortunately, I don’t find the reanimation spell to go along with the grisel in my graveyard and I lose. Not looking good. This is a bad matchup pre-board. Postboard, he will have Flusterstorm, probably another pierce, and I imagine some sort of GY hate. Ugh.

Game two:
I shuffle in my whole sideboard and then take out everything but the COVs. I think Daze may be good here, but I just want to be faster than his clocks. He mulls to six and I keep my seven. I have a ritual and a reanimation spell in hand, along with a few cantrips and two lands. I probe turn one and see Wasteland, 2x goose, pierce, volc, trop. Much easier for me to work with. I ponder, shuffle, and pass. He plays a trop and passes. My turn two brainstorm meets with pierce and I ship the turn back. He plays a land, a goose, says go. I play a land and pass. Another goose hits the table and the first is in for one. Again, draw land. Both geese get in, but he still doesn’t have threshold. I think he ponders at some point, but I don’t remember. I draw an entomb and cast the duress I’ve been holding. He shows me FOW, Daze, BS, and a bolt. I take the FOW and start to go off. He brainstorms in response, and stifles my first Grisel activation. I have to attack and then draw another seven. Luckily, both children AND Scrubland were in that seven. Make children and get there with tendrils. Whew!

Game three:
He plays turn one cage, of course. I mulled to six but have a COV in hand. Not too shabby. We play on for a turn or two, cantripping. I Duress him next turn and see 2x FOW, Stifle, Daze, Bolt, another delver, and a fetch. I pick off the stifle, crack my fetch, play therapy. Interesting position for him. If he forces pitching force, he has no protection. If he pitches delver, he has no clock. In the end, he forced pitching force, protecting his delver. He plays land, delver, go. I draw another duress and tank for a minute or two. If he has a pierce, I’m fucked, but I do it anyway. COV the cage, Duress you. He doesn’t look happy. His delver flips off of Ponder, and he attacks and Ponders. Keeps on top. Two cards in hand, now, one of which I know is bolt. I draw what I need and go for it, getting Grisel onto the field. I get bolted in response. Again, he stifles the first activation and I have to attack before I can draw again. Thank the gods of Tin Fins; Children was in my seven. I play it off of petal; he responds with a sigh. At this point, he says he has nothing and I don’t need to wait for priority. ‘Just go for it.’ And I do, drawing like a madman, separating my hand into three piles; shit I need, shit I don’t need, shit that may come up. Tendrils for a million. Fucking got there. After the games, he asks how many of that white creature I run. ‘One,’ I say and he curses his bad luck. I didn’t even need to draw it in the third game, as I had enough mana sources in my hand to entomb reanimate it. Just worked out better to have it in the hand, of course.

Final score:
8-1
17-5

Good for $140 in store credit and a bye at the next Eternal Extravaganza in October. I grab a foil Goryo’s Vengeance (they only have one), and a foil Massacre. The only foils I need for this deck are the Brainstorms, petals and vengeances. At least I’m one vengeance closer. I also grab an Inkmoth Nexus for my buddy’s girl. She’s been playing infect for a while but only has three .

I wouldn’t change a single card in the maindeck aside from -1 Bloodstained Mire/ +1 Polluted Delta. That was, of course, a mistake on my part. I DO run four, but accidentally grabbed the extra mire from the box with the rest of my ANT deck. The sideboard, however, may need some work. I’m not entirely sold on the Dazes, as I didn’t bring them in all day. Then again, I avoided Miracles and Delver all day. There was plenty of Miracles in the room, but I never faced them. I barely saw any Delver, which was surprising. Lots of combo, though, which is the perfect meta for Tin Fins to thrive. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Afterwards, the five of us head to Red Robin as we always do after a tournament. The Smoke & Pepper burger is top notch, if you haven’t tried it.

Turn one wins- 4
Turn two wins- 4

Props:
-All of my opponents. They all took it in stride and seemed to really like the deck.
-The 12 Post and MUD players taking care of Miracles so I didn’t have to.
-The one guy playing Food Chain. I don’t know that he won a single match and was having a great time. Play what you love!
-Tales of Adventure for running a great event.
-Richard Cheese and .dk and everyone else who helped develop this fantastic deck.

Slops:
-Whoever is meant to clean the bathrooms at that place. Generally, I don’t complain about this kind of thing, but it was absolutely disgusting.


Thanks for reading, guys.

[.dk]

Damn, nice work! One question about the maindeck - how did you arrive at 2 Duress? Those seem like an odd inclusion to me.

[KenCoghlanIII]

One question about the maindeck - how did you arrive at 2 Duress? Those seem like an odd inclusion to me.

I played ANT for a while before this and I brought Duress over with me. Obviously, the power of Cabal Therapy can't be matched, but sometimes you just don't know what's in their hand and have to try to go off. Plus, lead with Duress, you can't miss, and then see if it's worth using a Therapy or not. I started with one and then upped it to two removing a Therapy. Yes, I know...blasphemy. However, with 3x Therapy and 2x Thoughtseize I never have an issue discarding Griseldaddy when I have to.

[.dk]

Just seemed like if you wanted something that would be guaranteed to hit, more thoughtseize? Think the life loss is that big of a deal?

[KenCoghlanIII]

Just seemed like if you wanted something that would be guaranteed to hit, more thoughtseize? Think the life loss is that big of a deal?

It could be, I guess. Turn one probe, fetch, thoughtseize. Turn two fetch, and now you can't draw 14 off Grisel before attacking. Not saying that some games won't play out like that even with Duress in the list, but I like the option.

[.dk]

Yeah, I mean, that's why I tend to run a 4/2 split of 4 Therapy and 2 Thoughtseize. Was just curious as to your reasoning. You're also running an extra discard spell and an extra Griselbrand over the 2 LDV that I typically run. Was just curious if there was a specific problem that you were trying to solve.

[KenCoghlanIII]

Yeah, I mean, that's why I tend to run a 4/2 split of 4 Therapy and 2 Thoughtseize. Was just curious as to your reasoning. You're also running an extra discard spell and an extra Griselbrand over the 2 LDV that I typically run. Was just curious if there was a specific problem that you were trying to solve.

I do tend to like the extra discard. Not a specific problem I'm trying to solve, I just love having more discard. I orginally ran 2x Griselbrand, and ended up upping it to three. Wasn't seeing enough of them to make the discard plan was relevent. Also, I've never been a big fan of LDV. At least, not when I played it in Doomsday. Perhaps I'll try and give it a go. Maybe that'll be better than the third Griselbrand?

While I've got you, what do you think of the sideboard? I wanted to throw a counter in there, but FOW didn't seem to be the right fit (as I can only pitch my cantrips). I had read about people playing some number of Daze in the maindeck, so I figured I'd try that.

[.dk]

I've found that LDV is excellent at setting up a T3 kill by casting at opponent's EOT T2. So, if you're disrupted on T1, LDV can usually find what you need to go off again T3. Particularly with the Doomsday transformation, I like runnign 2 LDV as a way to find Doomsday post board. Having only, 5 business spells is pretty abysmal, whereas 6 (3 DD, 3 Burning Wish) is a pretty standard configuration in DDFT as well.

But I can also see why a lot of people don't like it. But if you're ditching those in favor of the self discard, it seems to me that having all of your discard spells maindeck able to ditch a Griselbrand is pretty important. I could see a 3 Griselbrand, 4 Therapy, 3 Thoughtseize split to get better odds of that.

I agree that FoW is not right for this deck in the current configuration. Richard Cheese tested FoW maindeck in the ancient Tin Fins 1 lists - there just wasn't enough blue cards to pitch. If you were running Careful Study in addition or something like that, maybe... but still doesn't seem quite right. Personally, I've never really been totally sure what problem Daze solves. Probably the best use would be to get a counterbalance or sphere effect as those can be difficult to remove after they land without mangling your manabase to cast Abrupt Decay (I'm not sure that I'm ok with only 1 green source for that plan). But... the only thing you're really cutting for Daze is what... discard? And then that weakens your self discard plan, making you want to push back to LDV. Unless you cut Gitaxian Probes for Dazes, but that just seems like way too much disruption to me - likely you'll end up with hands chock full of dazes and discard and nothing else to do. Just my opinion though as I've never tested it.

It's weird - it seems like this deck wants counterspells because we don't run LED - but I haven't yet found a configuration that I like them with. Maybe those that have tried the 2x Daze maindeck are on to something though - I've never really tested that. Flusterstorm also seems like a pretty good sideboard card in this case too - maybe something like 2 Daze main and 2 Flusterstorm sideboard if you want to experiment with countermagic? I really don't know.

But even as you said - you never even boarded your Dazes in. So how useful would they be? It's possible that just speeding up and going off as fast as possible is better protection against spheres/counterbalance - that's usually been my viewpoint. And against slower decks with countermagic, your protection is your redundancy. And against decks with Deathrite and countermagic, you lose. :)

[KenCoghlanIII]

I would be more set to take the Dazes out if I had played against Miracles or more Delver. But yes, maybe they should come out. I was thinking of something like a toolbox sideboard; with a few answers for each bad matchup. I've even been considering throwing in a few Helm of Obedience for the matchups where I know they're going to be bringing in RIP. I only put the Decays and Trop in the board for the Miracles matchup. Need all the help we can get, there.

I definitely agree with you that just trying to go faster is the best method. I wish I liked the Doomsday sideboard more, but I don't. The deck is so damn good! I'd rather fight through a little hate with my sideboard than play a different deck. I was in love with the idea when I read your report, though.

I may try LDV at a few small events and see how it does. It seems like it could be so good but too slow. As you said, it can get you out of some sticky situations, but I like to depend on the redundancy of the deck and the suite of cantrips for that. Definitely a great option if playing the Doomsday board, seeing as you lose Burning Wish and all that.

I can definitely see your problems with Duress. I'll try it with 4x Therapy and 3x Thoughtseize as you suggested and see how it goes.

[ThomasDowd]

I've found that LDV is excellent at setting up a T3 kill by casting at opponent's EOT T2. So, if you're disrupted on T1, LDV can usually find what you need to go off again T3. Particularly with the Doomsday transformation, I like runnign 2 LDV as a way to find Doomsday post board. Having only, 5 business spells is pretty abysmal, whereas 6 (3 DD, 3 Burning Wish) is a pretty standard configuration in DDFT as well.

But I can also see why a lot of people don't like it. But if you're ditching those in favor of the self discard, it seems to me that having all of your discard spells maindeck able to ditch a Griselbrand is pretty important. I could see a 3 Griselbrand, 4 Therapy, 3 Thoughtseize split to get better odds of that.

I agree that FoW is not right for this deck in the current configuration. Richard Cheese tested FoW maindeck in the ancient Tin Fins 1 lists - there just wasn't enough blue cards to pitch. If you were running Careful Study in addition or something like that, maybe... but still doesn't seem quite right. Personally, I've never really been totally sure what problem Daze solves. Probably the best use would be to get a counterbalance or sphere effect as those can be difficult to remove after they land without mangling your manabase to cast Abrupt Decay (I'm not sure that I'm ok with only 1 green source for that plan). But... the only thing you're really cutting for Daze is what... discard? And then that weakens your self discard plan, making you want to push back to LDV. Unless you cut Gitaxian Probes for Dazes, but that just seems like way too much disruption to me - likely you'll end up with hands chock full of dazes and discard and nothing else to do. Just my opinion though as I've never tested it.

It's weird - it seems like this deck wants counterspells because we don't run LED - but I haven't yet found a configuration that I like them with. Maybe those that have tried the 2x Daze maindeck are on to something though - I've never really tested that. Flusterstorm also seems like a pretty good sideboard card in this case too - maybe something like 2 Daze main and 2 Flusterstorm sideboard if you want to experiment with countermagic? I really don't know.

But even as you said - you never even boarded your Dazes in. So how useful would they be? It's possible that just speeding up and going off as fast as possible is better protection against spheres/counterbalance - that's usually been my viewpoint. And against slower decks with countermagic, your protection is your redundancy. And against decks with Deathrite and countermagic, you lose. :)

Flusterstorm seems incredible versus countermagic decks. Is pact on the table for the combo turn or is it too loose? may as well "#YOLO" all the way.

Personally I am in favor of speeding up instead of playing LDV. LDV to me is a slow card, plays well with A+B combo with force of will(kind of? so much disadvantage), but after that it kind of falls off.

This seems wonderfully spicy to me. Due to the fact that discard is sometimes pointed at yourself. I think having that much disruption is actually incredible.

edit 2:
RE: man plan. A few years ago I tried the man plan in ANT which was Obliterator, Delvers, VCliques, Jaces and something else that is escaping me at the moment (maybe tombstalker?). Point is obliterator is ridiculous and very turn one-able. if you can snag their StP/ non damage removal spell innocent blood i guess? They are very very dead. The Man Plan in ANT did not work out for me though, so, YMMV. Also I guess there are some better dudes now. But overall I do not know what you would want to be man planning against really other than bug, maybe CB? but i think the MD is just fast enough to beat CB, its the turn one grave hate thats rough. I guess you can always hedge and play ~2 if you have free spots that act as more "anti grave hate"/ plan B.

yeah DRS and friends ain't beating obliterator. also I doubt if they play dismember they will keep them in. or liliana.

[alaska]

3-1'd my local weekly with 3x Daze in the main.

Rd. 1: vs DnT, 2-1 (G3 he karakased my Griselbrand, but I drew 14 and was able to Daze my own Ponder to get to 10 storm, felt good).

Rd. 2: vs. Grixis Pyromancer 0-2 (Don't think I saw delver from him. Grixis was EVERYWHERE, presumably to combat Omnitell). He's a strong player and also knew what I was on. Cabal Therapy did a lot of work for him, as did FoW.

Rd. 3: Elves! 2-1. He obviously doesn't have much interaction. G2, he did go nutty with glimpse and attack for over a hundred turn 3.

Rd. 4: Phazonmuant on Miracles. 2-0. G1 on the play, Turn 1 Ritual entomb goryo's. G2, turn 1 ritual entomb shallow grave. Matches like that are why we burst onions. But Greg, FoW is your friend!! :tongue:

I really like Daze. People just do not play around it, assuming they don't screw up and think you're on Reanimator.

[CabalTherapy]

I really like Daze. People just do not play around it, assuming they don't screw up and think you're on Reanimator.


That is why Daze is a very good card in the main. It also should stay against Miracles on the draw because it can counter CB on their second turn which is usually a huge one for us.

[KobeBryan]

Has anyone tried Raven's Crime?

Double? Triple? the discard, and can force tons of discard after drawing everything from Grisel and tossing away lands. Or is choosing the opponent's hand that much more important?

ANd how would adding in the Worldgorger Combo work out? Take out Reanimate for Animate Dead and a Probe?

Or is it just win more?

[dte]

Alright, so I’ve been playing Tin Fins for a little while now.


Congrats for your results, and continue to write reports like this!




Game one:
We play rock/paper/scissors with those Unglued cards and he wins. I watched this guy beat my buddy the round before, so I wasn’t worried. He plays turn one lackey, go. I ponder. He attacks with lackey and puts in warchief. I kill him on turn two with Grisel and tendrils. He was VERY excited to be playing against Tin Fins. Hell, I was excited to be playing against Goblins.


What an amazing way to determine the toss !!!
I need a second set of these three unglueds cards now :)



Game two:
He sideboards heavily and I know I’ll have a lot to work through. I bring in both Massacres and all the COVs and take out both Duress, a probe, and shave a few other things. I keep a no land hand that can win as soon as I find one. Don’t get one on my first draw. He plays turn two Containment Priest. Fuck. Turn three Revoker on petal (as I still hadn’t found a land). Turn three Canonist which blanks the Chrome Mox I drew so I can catrip, hopefully find a land, Massacre and then win the following turn. I don’t and die to bear beats.


I don't understand the relationship between the cannonist and the chrome mox?
You can still land mox and cantrip this turn, massare and win the following turn?

Otherwise, vs D&T I would have put some dazes in. all their terrible hate cost 2, and there is decent chances we can win on turn 2. You have plenty you can remove, even the full set of probe which are really bad vs Thalia/cannoniste.



Thanks for reading, guys.

Thanks for writting this great report.


Has anyone tried Raven's Crime?

Double? Triple? the discard, and can force tons of discard after drawing everything from Grisel and tossing away lands. Or is choosing the opponent's hand that much more important?

ANd how would adding in the Worldgorger Combo work out? Take out Reanimate for Animate Dead and a Probe?

Or is it just win more?

Raven's crime is really a useless card here. When you reanimate grisel you almost always win. As in any combo deck, the important thing is to take out opponent's answers, not any card. And for the worldgorger dragon, why try a creature which let you die from StP, decay, (bounces, stifle, Wear/tear,) ... while when you reanimate griselbrand, you win?

[kombatkiwi]

Some hype in modern for that old school Cavius technology:
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/grishoalbrand-deck-tech-and-guide/

That Nourishing Shoal tech actually has some curiously good interactions with the Shallow Grave / Griselbrand engine compared to Lich:

- You can splice Goryo's onto Nourishing Shoal (not sure this is ever happening in legacy lol)
- You can play Worldspine instead of Autochthon making it possible to kill people in 2 turns by Shallow Graving it and then eating it with a Therapy postcombat

In legacy it's probably just skewing the deck to have a bad Children of Korlis but I felt like it was relevant enough to share here in case someone else gets a good idea to use.

[Kathal]

Some hype in modern for that old school Cavius technology:
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/grishoalbrand-deck-tech-and-guide/

That Nourishing Shoal tech actually has some curiously good interactions with the Shallow Grave / Griselbrand engine compared to Lich:

- You can splice Goryo's onto Nourishing Shoal (not sure this is ever happening in legacy lol)
- You can play Worldspine instead of Autochthon making it possible to kill people in 2 turns by Shallow Graving it and then eating it with a Therapy postcombat

In legacy it's probably just skewing the deck to have a bad Children of Korlis but I felt like it was relevant enough to share here in case someone else gets a good idea to use.

As somebody, who developed the deck (the Shoal version) and also made it public, just some thoughts:

The reason, why we are playing with Shoal in Modern is, that we have not access to either Tendrils nor Petals/Shallow Grave, which would allow us to play Children. That's why we have to build a work around to get things together. Hence, this version players nearly the same as Tin Fins (draw cards, gain life and kill the opponent either with Tendrils or Grisel+Emmi) where Wurm is the Emmi replacement (you need it for Shoal) and Borbor is the Tendrils replacement. The thing is, for Shoal to work you need around 12 G cards, which are completely useless in Legacy. I mean, do you ever want to attack with a Worldspine Wurm instead of a Emrakul, which survives Swords and co? Furthermore, you have with Children an easier way to gain your life back and you don't have to rely on getting Shoal + Wurm together (although, if you draw 14/21 cards it should be no problem, but happens from time to time that you just brick, especially if you are low on life).

The only thing, which does the Modern version better than the Legacy version is the instant kill part via Borbor. And he is just 1 slot which you could add. Furthermore, you can do cool splicing stuff with the Shoal deck :laugh: (srsly, I once comboed to 16 R mana from 0 to be able to pay for Pact triggers), but it is more difficult to play around counters in Legacy than in Modern (Fluster/Force), since the opp doesn't need to tap out/low for them.

Greetings,
Kathal

PS: If you want more information regarding the Shoal version, look here: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/599726-griselbrand-reanimator

[.dk]

Flusterstorm seems incredible versus countermagic decks. Is pact on the table for the combo turn or is it too loose? may as well "#YOLO" all the way.

Personally I am in favor of speeding up instead of playing LDV. LDV to me is a slow card, plays well with A+B combo with force of will(kind of? so much disadvantage), but after that it kind of falls off.

This seems wonderfully spicy to me. Due to the fact that discard is sometimes pointed at yourself. I think having that much disruption is actually incredible.


Could always try pact. I didn't like it because it does make one of the stronger parts of the deck a little weaker - our redundancy. If we're disrupted, we just rebuild quickly and go off again. With Pact... we don't necessarily get that opportunity. Seems rare we'll ever be able to pay for the pact trigger.

LDV is weird - I suppose running a higher concentration of discard spells and more Griselbrands could up your chances of a T1 kill hand, in terms of speeding up. I view the LDV spot a little differently - it's there to ensure consistent redundancy in case of disruption.

You may be right about daze + discard - like I said, I've never tested it. I would be interested to see how that does against a deathrite + counterspell deck.

[Richard Cheese]

As somebody, who developed the deck (the Shoal version) and also made it public, just some thoughts:

The reason, why we are playing with Shoal in Modern is, that we have not access to either Tendrils nor Petals/Shallow Grave, which would allow us to play Children. That's why we have to build a work around to get things together. Hence, this version players nearly the same as Tin Fins (draw cards, gain life and kill the opponent either with Tendrils or Grisel+Emmi) where Wurm is the Emmi replacement (you need it for Shoal) and Borbor is the Tendrils replacement. The thing is, for Shoal to work you need around 12 G cards, which are completely useless in Legacy. I mean, do you ever want to attack with a Worldspine Wurm instead of a Emrakul, which survives Swords and co? Furthermore, you have with Children an easier way to gain your life back and you don't have to rely on getting Shoal + Wurm together (although, if you draw 14/21 cards it should be no problem, but happens from time to time that you just brick, especially if you are low on life).

The only thing, which does the Modern version better than the Legacy version is the instant kill part via Borbor. And he is just 1 slot which you could add. Furthermore, you can do cool splicing stuff with the Shoal deck :laugh: (srsly, I once comboed to 16 R mana from 0 to be able to pay for Pact triggers), but it is more difficult to play around counters in Legacy than in Modern (Fluster/Force), since the opp doesn't need to tap out/low for them.

Greetings,
Kathal

PS: If you want more information regarding the Shoal version, look here: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/599726-griselbrand-reanimator

I can't even tell you how well this captures the spirit of TinFins. All you need is a ridiculous name that pisses off all the Magic players with no sense of humor.

[Kathal]

I can't even tell you how well this captures the spirit of TinFins. All you need is a ridiculous name that pisses off all the Magic players with no sense of humor.

That is the biggest problem :frown:

@All, the next time I will play this deck, I will run 1 Borbor maindeck, just to have an option to win with Instant speed. The problem is, that I have no idea, if I actually need him.

Greetings,
Kathal

[Richard Cheese]

That is the biggest problem :frown:

@All, the next time I will play this deck, I will run 1 Borbor maindeck, just to have an option to win with Instant speed. The problem is, that I have no idea, if I actually need him.

Greetings,
Kathal

Might I suggest an obscure Sealab reference?

[ThiefSlayer]

Hey guys! I've been playing with TES/ANT in the last 6 months, but was amazed by this deck when played it in a LGS small championship. I've made some adaptations to several builds here, but I've got some questions regarding mostly the sideboard. Here's the list I currently have:

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

1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Scrubland
3 Bloodstained mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bayou
2 Underground Sea

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

Sideboard:

2 Massacre
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Pithing Needle
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Silence

Regarding the mainboard, I think the biggest decisions I've made here were:

Use a Scrubland in case of drawing children, and for the SB silence
Use only 1 Children of Korlis (I think most builds nowadays use only one, don't see any reason to run more since you don't want to cast it before combo)
Use 4 Thoughtseize and 3 Griselbrand - I think thoughtseize is great here, as a "discarder" and a protection spell. With 8 discard, I think it's enough so you can protect your combo and also discard when not using entomb or maximum hand size.

About the sideboard, I'm not really sure what we should be protecting ourselves other than against hate. Against hate, I think the 13 cards are great.

Massacre is great against white hatebears, but can't get rid of shaman, karakas and non-creature hate
Abrupt decay is great (and UNCOUNTERABLE!!), but can't get rid of karakas nor leyline of the void
Pithing needle, mostly versus karakas and DRS
Chain of vapor is great against nonland hate to bounce on end step b4 combo, it's just not good against karakas and CB (I think)
Silence is good as ensurance against top activation (as you can't discard what's on top of the deck), protects against counter (as much as a discard spell, it takes care of a counter, at least), and is a must-counter for storm decks

The only weakness I can sense right now about the sideboard is instant hate and discard (but I guess 8 discard and 2 silence may be enough), and I'm not sure about the cards quantity. Also, I'm not sure about runing 3 lands that don't produce blue mana (I have a tropical island I can add instead of the bayou, or can get a Tundra with a friend, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea).

Can anyone give me some hints about sideboard choises, and other choises I can add?

[.dk]

Given how you seem to be playing and sideboarding with the deck, I think you're off to a good start. Some of my thoughts...

Particularly with your main deck (no LDV), blue is not necessarily your most important color. Making sure you have double black or a ritual to go off is the most important. I regularly fetch swamp to play around wasteland and the deck is usually redundant enough that you'll draw a piece of what you need. However... either basic Island or Bloodstained Mire in your list is weird. I think you would want a split of like... Misty Rainforest (can fetch island, USea, and Bayou) and Verdant Catacombs or something. That might help some of the mana problems you alluded to as well.

I personally don't like the 2nd Chrome Mox either, but that's just my preference. The deck already has some insane card disadvantage, and that doesn't help too much. But, we've debated that some number of pages back too - you could probably search for that. I haven't run the 6th piece of artifact IMS in a while, but I usually like Mox Diamond in that slot myself. That can also help with your 3 color manabase too. I find that Chrome Mox is also a bit better with LDV in the deck too, as you can make an Underground Sea sometimes.

Also, without the singleton reanimate, you MAY find yourself running into a little difficulty making Children now and then as 4 Shallow Graves and casting them are the only ways to get them in play. I used to run 2 Children a loooong time ago, prior to Koby's addition of reanimate. Reanimate has more uses pre-combo than the 2nd Children does, and still helps to fix the fizzling problem I'm mentioning here with having a hard time getting Children in play sometimes.

As far as the board goes - looks like you're only running 13 lands maindeck. I could see an additional Trop or Bayou in the board to support the cards you have.

Other options kind of depend on what you expect to be facing. I'll list some things that could be options given the colors that you're in and could have some interesting uses:

Xantid Swarm (this is pretty good against Reanimator and OmniTell)
Reverent Silence (another tool against Miracles)
Dread of Night (sometimes better than Massacre)
Surgical Extraction
Daze

Also, as far as more cards to fight through countermagic on the stack - the maindeck is actually pretty well positioned for that. Think of the redundancy you have as a good way to fight through those in addition to discard spells. Since you aren't dumping your hand with LED like TES/ANT do - you can more easily find another combo piece if you're disrupted along the way. 2x Silence seems like a good hedge against counterspells as well as other combo decks (and don't underestimate making instant speed children of korlis against opposing storm decks).

[ThiefSlayer]

Hey .dk, will answer you inside the quote to make it easier to get (I'm not really sure how to split it):


Given how you seem to be playing and sideboarding with the deck, I think you're off to a good start. Some of my thoughts...

Particularly with your main deck (no LDV), blue is not necessarily your most important color. Making sure you have double black or a ritual to go off is the most important. I regularly fetch swamp to play around wasteland and the deck is usually redundant enough that you'll draw a piece of what you need. However... either basic Island or Bloodstained Mire in your list is weird. I think you would want a split of like... Misty Rainforest (can fetch island, USea, and Bayou) and Verdant Catacombs or something. That might help some of the mana problems you alluded to as well. About the Island/Bloodstained mire issue, I find that both fetches can search for every dual land I want - as all of them are black - and I'm not pretty sure if I need more than 4 Island-searching fetches

I personally don't like the 2nd Chrome Mox either, but that's just my preference. The deck already has some insane card disadvantage, and that doesn't help too much. But, we've debated that some number of pages back too - you could probably search for that. I haven't run the 6th piece of artifact IMS in a while, but I usually like Mox Diamond in that slot myself. That can also help with your 3 color manabase too. I find that Chrome Mox is also a bit better with LDV in the deck too, as you can make an Underground Sea sometimes.I will give it a try, actually I think I missed some pages, will be reading this thread during the next months and testing, good to know this line of thoughts about the decklist

Also, without the singleton reanimate, you MAY find yourself running into a little difficulty making Children now and then as 4 Shallow Graves and casting them are the only ways to get them in play. I used to run 2 Children a loooong time ago, prior to Koby's addition of reanimate. Reanimate has more uses pre-combo than the 2nd Children does, and still helps to fix the fizzling problem I'm mentioning here with having a hard time getting Children in play sometimes. Didn't realize it before, really only 4 children-reanimating spells seems like too little. Actually I thought the reanimate was more about getting a Griselbrand in play and slowly grinding the opponent, or even reanimating something else you can discard from the opponent to get some time to combo

As far as the board goes - looks like you're only running 13 lands maindeck. I could see an additional Trop or Bayou in the board to support the cards you have. I think it would be nice to get an extra fetchland to get more versatility, as other colors sideboard cards are too few

Other options kind of depend on what you expect to be facing. I'll list some things that could be options given the colors that you're in and could have some interesting uses:

Xantid Swarm (this is pretty good against Reanimator and OmniTell) Sounds good, but one question about the matchups: are they difficult for this deck? I can see some paths the game can get, but I'm not sure about it. Other thing, isn't silence almost as good as it? Because xantid doesn't sound really good against decks with counter AND removal, and silence is good against them all
Reverent Silence (another tool against Miracles)I'm not really sold here, it's counterable and I think I'd rather have the 4th copy of decay
Dread of Night (sometimes better than Massacre)sounds nice, and may give some extra time, but it doesn't get rid of canonist, it's a pain in the ass in my local meta as I use to play storm and people are afraid of the combo as they don't know how to play against it, overloading on hate
Surgical Extraction Sounds really great, will test it, thx!
Daze Will give it a try, sounds really cool! The only issue seems to be about the lack of blue lands - maybe get a tundra instead of scrubland, or trop instead of bayou? Sure, then the fetch base would have to change a little

Also, as far as more cards to fight through countermagic on the stack - the maindeck is actually pretty well positioned for that. Think of the redundancy you have as a good way to fight through those in addition to discard spells. Since you aren't dumping your hand with LED like TES/ANT do - you can more easily find another combo piece if you're disrupted along the way. 2x Silence seems like a good hedge against counterspells as well as other combo decks (and don't underestimate making instant speed children of korlis against opposing storm decks). 10 spells to protect the combo and also the redundancy really sounds enough. Actually, silence sounds even better to me now that I think how good it is in certain matchups, and in other where I need to get protection it sounds good too. Children is really a cool card, I actually thought about sac'ing it in response to the letal copy of tendrils, but the one cool thing I've done in testing was to insta reanimate it and sac it in responde to Bridge from Below's trigger, the look on the dredge dude's face was bizarre!

Thank you very much for taking some time to help me, I will think about it more and bring a new list to testing, soon will bring you back the results!

[Richard Cheese]

Might I suggest an obscure Sealab reference?

Oh shit, I got it.
http://www.magicspoiler.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Borborygmos-Gatecrash-Art-615x448.jpg
=
http://i.cdn.turner.com/asfix/repository//8a25c3920ef15683010ef214f9770177/thumbnail_10339.jpg

Modern version is called Bebop Cola now.

[KaiSchafroth]

Oh shit, I got it.
http://www.magicspoiler.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Borborygmos-Gatecrash-Art-615x448.jpg
=
http://i.cdn.turner.com/asfix/repository//8a25c3920ef15683010ef214f9770177/thumbnail_10339.jpg

Modern version is called Bebop Cola now.


This is too fantastic...Richard delivers yet again :smile:

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

This is too fantastic...Richard delivers yet again :smile:

I lol'd.