Bizarro Stormy (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Griselbrand) [Archive]

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.dk

04-07-2018, 02:28 PM

Overview
Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior, Griselbrand?

We were on the edge of Urborg when the Serum Powder began to kick in...

http://i.imgur.com/faN0SKE.jpg (https://imgur.com/faN0SKE)

We can't stop here, this is Deathrite country!
We can now stop here, at this deck. This is no longer Deathrite country!

This deck is the bastard child of Tin Fins - a storm & reanimator hybrid that leverages Griselbrand and hasty reanimation. However, the mechanics of playing this deck are quite different than that of its older cousin, as this deck abuses Yawgmoth’s Bargain, Yawgmoth's Will, as well as Mind’s Desire effects. Those cards proper were banned in Legacy for a good reason...

Ultimately, Bizarro Stormy aims to reanimate and activate a Magus of the Mind (potentially multiple times), generating large amounts of mana and storm, then killing your opponent with a lethal Tendrils of Agony. Bizarro Stormy has varied lines of attack as well as protection and disruption. This deck also truly abuses Entomb.

Bizzaro Stormy is much less linear than a deck like Tin Fins and thus less reliant on any particular card. In this diversity comes flexibility and resilience. The deck also affords us the ability to run more targeted protection in the sideboard.

The Name

(Griselbrand = Griselbees = TinFins = SeaLab 2021) + Storm = Bizarro Stormy
http://www.adultswim.com/videos/sealab-2021/bizarro-stormy/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWXIiNwXGJ4&
Confused still? Read the Tin Fins primer (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24104-Deck-TinFins-3-Return-of-the-Onion-Burst&p=652861&viewfull=1#post652861). Still confused? Consider a different deck.

http://i.imgur.com/FpcSxSt.gif (https://imgur.com/FpcSxSt)

Decklist and Card Choices

Through the extensive testing of a small group of people degenerates, we settled on this 60 card maindeck (with changes for which splash color you’re using). Don’t take this as gospel - there is likely a lot more tuning to be done.

4 B/x Fetchland
1 U/x Dual Land
1 B/x Dual Land

4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

2-3 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

4 Shallow Grave
2 Corpse Dance
0-1 Unburial Rites

3 Griselbrand
1 Magus of the Mind

4 Entomb
0-2 Mastermind's Acquisition / 0-1 Dark Petition / 0-1 Tendrils of Agony
1-2 Past in Flames

1-3 Collective Brutality
4 Thoughtseize
1 Cabal Therapy

Wishboard:

1 Tendrils of Agony
14 Sideboard cards… keep reading

It’s a bizarre looking list (get it now?) but it plays rather smoothly. Let’s break this down by cards that are worth talking about:

Mastermind’s Acquisition - At first glance, Acquisition looks like trash. It might be in most cases, but it’s damn good in this deck. This card has 3 key features to it:

Tutoring from the maindeck - Diabolic Tutor. Not amazing, but serviceable.
Wish for anything from the sideboard - this is slightly interesting. You can grab any sideboard card in Game 1 for black mana. Similar to Burning Wish in TES - except we can grab any card, but for a greater cost. We can also move a win condition to the sideboard too. OK, seems cool.
Doesn’t exile itself - Incredibly important. This allows for redundancy in the maindeck by having a tutor which can then can be cast again off Past in Flames to get your kill condition.
The fact that it does all 3 of these within 1 card merits possible inclusion. Mastermind’s Acquisition is incredibly flexible and while it is mana intensive, we’re running 14 pieces of mana acceleration to help with mana production. Not to mention…

Magus of the Mind - Magus is really the card that sets this deck apart from Tin Fins. For those that haven’t cast Mind’s Desire before, this card is a draw spell and a ritual wrapped into one. Magus of the Mind DOES NOT exile itself after activation. Combine this with the possibility of flipping more haste-granting reanimation and we're chaining Mind's Desire effects for the cost of U. Drawing upon current Vintage deck building, this is akin to Paradoxical Outcome in that it is not restricted, draws cards, and generates mana. However, we get to run far more than 4 of these effects given that we are running 4+ reanimation spells as well as Past in Flames to flash them back.

Also... since there have been a fair number of questions about this, let's clearly explain one way Magus differs from Griselbrand. Magus DOES NOT draw cards - it exiles them from your library. This means that Leovold, Notion Thief, Chains of Mephistopheles, and Spirit of the Labyrinth have no effect on Magus activations. Furthermore, this also means that, according to rule 120.4, you do not lose the game by exiling your entire library with Magus of the Mind. So feel free to go overboard on activations - you simply run out of additional cards to exile.

Griselbrand - Flying Lifelinking Bargain with axes for hands is still amazing. Our Lord and Savior.

Entomb - Entomb is far more complex in this deck than it seems at first glance. A somewhat concise list of the most common modes to play it:

Obvious application: Entombing reanimation targets.
Functions as a pseudo-instant-speed Demonic Tutor when you’re playing with Past in Flames - that’s right, Entomb grabs any card from your library, not just creatures!
Grab Past in Flames itself - then it’s only 5 mana to flash back. Golly gee willikers, Batman, that’s a 6 mana line to a storm engine, just like ANT (IT -> PIF).
Tutor for more rituals if you’ve already got Past in Flames to increase mana and storm count.
Tutor for Mastermind’s Acquisition, Dark Petition, or Tendrils if you’ve already got all the mana you need and Past in Flames ready to cast.
This card does basically everything. Entomb is by far the best card in this deck - but it isn’t necessarily a choke point.

Cabal Ritual - Bizzaro is a bit mana hungry at times so having another way to generate BBB on turn 1/2 is important. Later in your combo or later in the game, you’re able to generate BBBBB, which is critical as well.

Lion’s Eye Diamond - I think we all know this card. But a some notes about it in this deck:

You can crack it in between Griselbrand draws to use it as an initial mana source to cast more spells.
Crack for UUU to get 3 Magus activations.
Casting Past in Flames.
Also a discard outlet for your reanimation targets: cast LED, cast Shallow Grave holding priority, crack LED discarding Griselbrand or Magus, then Shallow Grave resolves
Seems good.

Collective Brutality - This card was once an all star - but with the banning of Deathrite Shaman, it has now become merely "very good." It's discard for countermagic, it kills hatebears, and it's a discard outlet for your reanimation targets. Sometimes it's all 3! Given that we’re running 14 pieces of mana acceleration, it’s very possible to cast CoBru and reanimate in the same turn. The life drain mode has also been relevant multiple times in testing; just dealing 4-6 damage to an opponent and swinging with Griselbrand to get the last bit of damage in sometimes does the trick.

Past in Flames - This card does some amazing things in this deck. It’s got similar lines as a deck like ANT with flashing back rituals, but it also aSlows redundancy with your reanimation spells and Entomb as well. If they’ve gotten countered or discarded, Past in Flames provides additional resiliency by flashing them back.

Corpse Dance - For all intents and purposes (https://i.chzbgr.com/full/7625576192/hE65380C0/), this is Shallow Grave that costs 1 more mana. It gets the nod over other possible reanimation spells for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Magus isn’t legendary, so Goryo’s Vengeance doesn’t work. Secondly, it doesn’t target, which gives it a lot more play with instant speed spells, LED’s, and possible sideboard inclusions. CMC 3 is a bit much sometimes, but remember that we do have free discard outlets in LED and also run Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, and Lotus Petal to generate more mana. Given the large amount of mana we generate, it’s also occasionally correct to pay the Buyback cost to ensure you have another reanimation to recur Magus.

Dark Petition This is a possibility in place of Mastermind’s Acquisition, usually along with 1 Tendrils of Agony in the main deck. This allows for some cheaper lines as it can function as a “2 mana” tutor, allowing you to continuing to combo the turn you cast it rather than having to pass the turn with Mastermind’s Acquisition. What you lose with this option is the flexibility that Acquisition offers.

Thoughtseize Now that Gitaxian Probe has been banned, this becomes our primary discard spell. We aren't as life total dependent as Tin Fins or traditional Storm, so we can afford the lifeloss incurred with running a play set. Collective Brutality can also help offset this a bit.

Everything Else

The rest of the cards should be obvious. We can argue about the number of Ponders that are correct if you want though.

Strategies and Typical Lines of Play

Bizzaro Stormy is worth goldfishing to see the different things you can do with it. The basic strategy involves getting to activate Magus of the Mind for 6 or greater, which will likely get you to a win. For example:

Entomb for Griselbrand
Shallow Grave
Play and crack LED for BBB
Draw 7 cards
Entomb for Magus of the Mind
Shallow Grave
Lotus Petal
Sacrifice Lotus Petal for U and Activate Magus for 6

After that, you’re looking to somehow cast Mastermind’s Acquisition or Dark Petition to fetch and cast Tendrils of Agony. Use all of the resources at your disposal - Entomb, Past in Flames, Rituals, Cantrips. Reanimate and activate Magus more times, draw more cards with Griselbrand, use the attack step. There are lots of avenues to keep going from here.

Griselbrand vs Magus of the Mind: Which is better to reanimate and when?

This is one of the discussion points that is still up in the air. Drawing large swaths of cards and flipping cards to cast for free are both great options, but at what point is one better than the other?

The current ranking system is: Magus for 13+ > Draw 21 > Magus for 10-13 > Draw 14 > Magus for 6-9 > Draw 7 > Magus for 6 and less. However this is just a general rule of thumb. Just because you CAN draw more cards with Griselbrand, doesn’t mean you should.

The goal is to chain Magus activations. Flipping less than 6 random cards off the top, even though we can cast them for free, is likely less good than a draw 7 (which is usually a draw 14 unless you’re playing against burn). You can get lucky and flip an amazing 5, but it’s generally better to reanimate Griselbrand first. Given that our combo usually starts with Dark Ritual->Entomb->Shallow Grave, Magus is a bit anemic unless you have a hand full of artifacts and rituals to build storm.

As a reminder, Magus’ ability requires that you shuffle your deck first. That means you can’t sculpt the top of your deck to allow for better flips.

In short, aim to reanimate Griselbrand first. Drawing 7-14, attacking, and drawing another 7 in the second main phase is going give you a better chance at winning than flipping Magus for less than 6.

For those interested in more reading on this subject, ManaT wrote an article about this with a version of the deck here: https://medium.com/@a_manatee/4c14a5131b83
Great read, and turns out based on his analysis that activating Magus with lower storm count might be better than you think it is!

What to do when you fail to go off
Sometimes you draw 7, 14, or even 21 and still fail to finish the game. Don’t worry, it happens to everyone. Remember that you’re playing Past in Flames! Play out any permanent-based mana sources that you can and sculpt your hand and graveyard to setup a Past in Flames next turn. Given that you’ve just drawn a third of your deck, that should be well within the realm of possibility! Also, don’t forget the power of Entomb in these situations - it can bail you out frequently if you don’t flip or draw the obvious cards.

When to crack LED and on what colors

Usually you’ll want to crack LED for BBB before drawing with Griselbrand to be able to cast more rituals, entomb, and reanimation
If you want to activate Magus, even with 1-2 cards in hand, it’s usually correct to crack LED for UUU to fuel a few activations. You’ll be flipping more cards to cast for free, and you’ll likely be able to flash back whatever you pitched with Past in Flames anyway.
Cracking for RRR is common when needing to cast Past in Flames. Either as an engine itself, or to flash back other spells mid-combo with Griselbrand or Magus
Sideboards, Wishboards, and Sideboarding

This is tricky with a deck playing a “wish” in Mastermind’s Acquisition. Outside of specific protection and/or anti-hate you might want in game 1, IGNORE THE FACT THAT MASTERMIND’S ACQUISITION IS A WISH. Think of Acquisition as Diabolic Tutor with upside - board in the same cards you would if you were running 0 wishes. You’re more likely to draw them, and you can tutor for them with Acquisition.

That said, your sideboard needs to answer and/or hate. With Mastermind’s Acquisition, we are running a 14-card sideboard due to Tendrils of Agony in the sideboard. Dark Petition maindeck recaptures that slot. Beyond that, some possible card choices (many of which will be similar to other Storm variants), and then sample sideboards:

Silent Gravestone - Unreal good in this deck. None of your use of the graveyard targets any cards and most people don’t seem to realize that after game 1. This shuts off Deathrite, Surgical Extraction, Faerie Macabre, and Snapcaster Mage. It has applications against other reanimator decks, and even ANT with the activated ability (yes, it does have more text on it outside of the Ground Seal effect). Easily a must include in sideboards for this deck, it will eat a Force or cause opponents to burn cantrips or Surgicals to attempt to answer this card or gain value before it resolves.

Chain of Vapor - Cheap, all purpose bounce spells are ubiquitous both in Storm decks and Reanimator decks, hitting Leylines, Gaddock Teeg, Sphere effects, whatever. When in doubt, board these in if you are unsure what hate your opponents will bring in (because you killed them without seeing any of their deck).

Hurkyl’s Recall - Another standard piece of hate-bounce, this time specific to artifacts. Remember that Ethersworn Canonist is an artifact- this spell has value vs D&T (Canonist, Revoker, Vial, equipment) if you aren’t running Massacre.

Echoing Truth - That’s right, more bounce. It’s good to diversify your bounce spells and sometimes the extra clause will be relevant.

Massacre - Bizzaro can have a problem with hatebears (D&T and Maverick), as sometimes we don’t have the kill before T3. Massacre answers almost all of them at little (and usually) no cost (in the face of Thalia), save for Teeg, so it’s worth the inclusion if these decks are common in your meta.

Rending Volley - Uncounterable answer to Canonist, Meddling Mage, Leovold, Thalia, Gaddock Teeg. Most of the creatures we hate (beyond DRS) are blue or white, so consider this if your expected meta has more blue based creature hate to fight through.

Grapeshot - Could be used as a sweeper or an alternate win condition if Gaddock Teeg is everywhere in your meta. We play a lot of artifact mana so storm counts can be high enough to kill a few things. Given that we frequently can get in one swing with Griselbrand, we only need a storm of 13 to finish the job, which is easy to do in this deck.

Flusterstorm - Fantastic protection spell. You usually don’t need to crack your LED’s until after your key spells have resolved, so that makes countermagic better protection in this deck than it would be in traditional storm decks.

Empty the Warrens - Possible alternative win condition that isn’t graveyard reliant. However, we don’t have cheap 6 mana lines to get to it like TES and ANT do, so this likely wants some number of Infernal Tutors to go along with it.

Monastery Mentor/Young Pyromancer - Sidesteps graveyard hate, and outside of Swords to Plowshares, most creature kill spells should be boarded out in sideboard games against you. Either of these can quickly overwhelm your opponent.

Dark Confidant - Sometimes you might flip a Griselbrand. Greatness, at any cost. It’s very good in Bizzaro though, as the deck can win with natural storm. Also can draw fodder for Mentor or Pyromancer if you’re running those. Just don’t forget to board out some Griselbrands if you’re bringing this in.

Cavern of Souls - If you’re running any of the creatures above and want to make them uncounterable, consider this for a slot, as all 3 of the suggested creatures are Human (Magus too - That 4 power is nothing to sneer at!).

Past in Flames – There have been a lot of discussion about the addition of a second PiF, as the first one has a lot of value, and there are lines where a second would be very useful (involving an early Entomb for Past in Flames). If the creature beatdown plan isn’t your cup of tea, consider running a second PiF in the SB alongside another Storm wincon as some sort of grind plan. This route would be better in red splash lists over white splash lists, but don’t let things like not owning lands stop you from pursuing this route.

Carpet of Flowers: If you're running a Green splash, this card is well worth the slot as a 2-of. The extra mana it provides allows us to power through opposing soft counters as well as the ability to have more mana on the combo turn to speed up the clock and decrease the fizzle rate. Furthermore, the extra mana makes casting Griselbrand more viable as well (a line that comes up more often than I originally thought it would). This and Abrupt Decay are strong reasons for the Green splash.

Abrupt Decay - Chalice, Leovold, Blood Moon, Counterbalance - we all know how good this card is by now. Almost mandatory in some amount if you're running a green splash.

Hull Breach: given the rise of Leyline of the Void in Chalice decks, this card is another example of a compact, but high impact sideboard card. RG mana requirements make this difficult to cast and pretty much lock this into Green splashes that run a Badlands or Volcanic main deck, but in lieu of other options to hit multiple hate cards across different permanent types, it's hard to pass this efficient option up.

Abrade: compact card for dealing with artifacts and creatures. Has lots of targets versus Stompy decks, and allows you to skimp on spot removal to run other anti-hate options. Great option for Red splash lists.

Wear // Tear : Similar to Hull Breach, this is an option that hits both an Enchantment and an Artifact on one card, or one of either type for a discount. Benefits over Serenity: gets rid of its targets on resolution of the spell. Benefits over Disenchant: can hit 2 targets (has to be different type for each target) for one extra mana. Downside of Wear // Tear: 3 mana split across 2 splash colors, overlaps with Serenity in the same match-ups.

Ancient Grudge: Artifact hate you can tutor for with Entomb, or get 2 artifacts if you draw it naturally. Downside is needing Red mana and Green for Flashback, but still a valid option. Consider this if you run into an artifact heavy meta where you want a spell you can Entomb for.

Ray of Revelation: Enchantment version of Ancient Grudge, but costs White on the front end instead of Red. Similar to Ancient Grudge, consider running this because you can Entomb it, and if you are in an Enchantress heavy meta.

Bad Sideboard cards

Show and Tell - Stay away. If you’re planning on running 1 as a wishable target, don’t. It’s garbage. I’ve got a $20 bill to prove it.

Sample Sideboards

Sideboarding for this deck is tricky. It’s easy to overboard, so look to swap 3-5 cards so you don’t dilute the game plan of the deck. We’re executing a plan that is likely more powerful than anything your opponent is doing, so look to board in high impact cards.
Let’s start with the most important cards:

3 Silent Gravestone (Easily the best protection spell for the GY, don’t leave home without it)
2 Chain of Vapor (General answer for damn near every permanent hate, and random storm generator and Marit Lage answer)
These 2 cards (5 slots total) will deal with 80% of the sb hate currently played.

For the next 10 slots, pick some number of the following based on personal preference, splash color, and meta considerations:
0-1 Tendrils of Agony (if Mastermind’s Acquisition is in your list)
0-2 Massacre (Death and Taxes is incredibly popular, and you don’t lose to 1 hate bear, you lose to a swarm of them)
2-3 Carpet of Flowers/Silence/Defense Grid (Anti counter magic and/or reactive spell hate. Carpet is best in a vacuum since it gives us more mana to combo and fight through soft counters, Silence has utility vs storm decks, and Grid splits the difference)
2-3 Serenity/Abrupt Decay* (Hate for chalice and other artifacts/enchantments, *with cmc restriction)
0-2 Hurkyl's Recall (When Chalice is prevalent)
0-1 Echoing Truth (Extra bounce never hurt anyone)
0-1 Splash land (Trop/Scrubland/Basic land/Bayou)
0-2 Fatal Push/Swords to Plowshares/Rending Volley/Sudden Shock (spot removal has its place in the deck. Volley is good vs Meddling Mage/Leovold heavy metas, Sudden Shock is great vs Mother of Runes and Infect)
0-2 Flusterstorm (some people like it as an additional counter magic and anti-combo protection spell)
0-1 Disenchant (Random chalice/Leyline/3ball value)
0-2 Abrade (Spot removal+Artifact hate in one card, great example of a high impact and compact sb card)
0-2 Phyrexian Arena (Good against discard decks, but Leovold just turns this into a Curse of the Pierced Heart, so beware)
0-3 Night's Whisper (similar to Arena, use against discard decks to dig out of topdeck mode faster)
0-2 Surgical Extraction (If you have a Reanimator heavy meta that doesn't get hosed by Silent Gravestone, it's worth running. Also, don’t be dumb and bring this in if you bring in Gravestone)

There are other SB options to consider, but this section should give a decent roadmap to start thinking about how to construct a sideboard for your local meta. Look to start with Gravestone+Chain of Vapor, then add niche sideboard options that the general answers can’t solve. Don’t forget, we do run 5-6 main deck discard spells, which can go a long way in stripping hate from your opponents. Figure out what you need to beat, or alternatively, what you are fine losing to.
To put it all together, here are some sample sideboards, assuming base UB with only one splash color:

For white splash lists:
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Massacre
2 Serenity
1 Plains
1 Disenchant
3 Silence
1 Tendrils of Agony (or 1 flex pending md config)

Green Splash:
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Flusterstorm
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Massacre
3 Silent Gravestone
1 Tropical Island
1 Tendrils of Agony (or 1 flex, pending md config)

Red splash:
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Massacre
2 Abrade
2 Defense Grid
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Echoing Truth
1 Tendrils of Agony (or 1 flex)

Other Possible Card Choices

This deck concept started pre-Rivals of Ixalan. Based on that, there has been some, but minimal testing done with these and probably a few more…

Burning Wish - It may be good enough, but Burning Wish warps your deck construction. It makes Past in Flames worse as it exiles itself. And it probably wants you to be playing more red sources, possibly including Rite of Flame instead of Cabal Ritual. This reduces your net mana production, but also reduces net mana costs. A more red-based deck may be feasible but we haven’t been able to come up with it as of yet. As a place to start, here is a shell of a Burning Wish list that could be viable:

4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Ritual
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
2 Corpse Dance
4 Entomb
3 Griselbrand
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Magus of the Mind
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
4 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
3 Burning Wish
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Flex slot (Extra discard, Preordain, 4th Wish, etc)

SB:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Exhume
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Abrade
2 Silent Gravestone
2 Chain of vapor
2 Flex

Infernal Tutor - we haven’t found this card to be needed maindeck. Entomb is also a tutor with Past in Flames, costs less, is an instant, and doesn’t require you to be hellbent, meaning you can save your LEDs. There may be merit to playing Infernal Tutor in the sideboard for a pseudo-transformation, though.

Lim-Dul’s Vault - Another TinFins favorite, but probably not necessary with the versatility of Entomb. Also a very sad card to flip with Magus.

Unburial Rites - Super interesting card. It’s a great entomb target for additional reanimation, providing more flexibility for the deck. However, this does have dis-synergy with Silent Gravestone out of the sideboard, essentially forcing you to board this card out whenever Gravestone comes in. Due to this, if Rites is included, it likely needs to be in addition to the standard Shallow Grave and Corpse Dance reanimation slots rather than replacing one of those cards.

Chrome Mox - Could be another initial mana source, but likely not necessary with the addition of LEDs.

Children of Korlis - It pains me to not have this in the deck, but Magus invalidates the need. I’d rather flip cards off of Magus than draw them with Griselbrand, and the fringe uses of Children aren’t worth the slot.

I will have to find another way to satisfy my Children-sacrificing urges.

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - Similar to Children of Korlis, Magus of the Mind generally makes this unnecessary. Some insane people have been known to play one as a Mastermind’s Acquisition target for spiciness though (Gotta send a message! -Acclimation).

Pithing Needle - If you fear Wasteland, I certainly wouldn’t blame you for including it. Karakas is even less of an issue for Bizzaro than it is for Tin Fins due to Magus being non-Legendary. In reactive sideboards, it’s a great card to consider if you’re scrambling to fill a slot with a general purpose card. You can name Faerie Macabre as well in a pinch.

Magus of the Will - Hey, we’re playing Yawgmoth’s Bargain and Mind’s Desire, why not reanimate Yawgmoth’s Will too? 4 reasons why this card isn’t worth running:

Magus of the Will exiles itself and every card that would go to the Graveyard after activating its ability. This prevents us from chaining Magus of the Minds, which is one of the key strategies of the deck.
2B to activate is a lot of mana, although 2B to cast does make it easy to play the turn before we combo off. That would require you untap with it - difficult in a meta with common removal such as Swords to Plowshares, Fatal Push, and Lightning Bolt.
Magus of the Will is a much worse draw for future reanimation.
Past in Flames does everything we want and isn’t reliant on reanimation to be used. Sure, we can’t cast artifact mana (8) and Griselbrand (4) from the yard with Past in Flames, but that’s not nearly as much of a deal breaker as the previous 3 points.
That being said, if you want to run it because a couple of decks from the infamous “Small Japanese Tournament” ran it, have fun, we can’t stop you.

(Note: If you play multiple Magus of the Will and multiple Magus of the Mind, I insist that you register your deck as Magus: The Gathering. - Sam Craven)

UB list with no splash- Outside of the Past in Flames, the main deck is completely UB, so we use a splash color in the SB to gain access to sideboard options. It’s very possible that you might not want to run a splash color. In this case, a potential sideboard is listed in the SB section (Past in Flames doesn’t count as a splash since we have 8 sources of mana to cast it with LED and Petal), and you could possibly run an extra Swamp, Island, and whatever black fetch you want in the land slots in the maindeck.

BR list with no splash - You need U to activate Magus, Brainstorm is busted, bounce is great for general answers to hate, and being reliant on Petal/LED to activate Magus is a bit too risky. If you want to go this route for budget reasons, feel free to play shocklands as the life total requirements aren’t as steep as they are in Tin Fins. Red cantrips aren’t as good as their blue counterparts, so we don’t recommend it.

Why Play Bizzaro Stormy over Tin Fins (or any other deck)??

Bizzaro Stormy is much more resilient than Tin Fins. It plays protection against common graveyard hate in Silent Gravestone, and gets redundancy in the form of Past in Flames. It is more diverse in strategy, allowing you to tailor your game plan in the face of what your opponent is doing. It makes more mana than Tin Fins, allowing you to more easily play through soft countermagic.

Furthermore, this deck is much less life dependent, as your Magus of the Mind will “draw” you cards as well. This leads to less random blowouts against unexpected burn spells.

More specific to the current metagame, a large part of the graveyard hate currently being played is targeted (DRS, Surgical, Snap, Faerie Macabre). This means Silent Gravestone is far and away the best protection spell we can play. However, Since Gravestone turns off everything targeting any graveyard, this disrupts the usage of Goryo’s Vengeance, so that card needs to be replaced with Corpse Dance to retain reanimation density. Given that Corpse Dance requires more mana, we want to run more mana acceleration to be able to consistently combo on turns 1-3. If we are generating more mana, then Magus is likely better than Emrakul because Magus plays better with a higher ritual density. Higher ritual density means storm lines and higher cost cards are more possible to play, so cards like Past in Flames and Mastermind’s Acquisition gain a lot of value.

Yawgmoth’s Bargain and Mind’s Desire are banned in Legacy, and this deck lets us abuse versions of them for cheaper, and that’s dope (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gtIHcWa6HU).

Why would you play it over other decks? Seriously? Why WOULDN’T you!?

But really, comparing to other combo decks:

ANT - The initial mana requirements to start your combo are lower than ANT, meaning you need a lower ritual density to start your combo. A decent portion of the time, ANT will also need to go all in on their combo turn by cracking an LED in response to an Infernal Tutor. This leaves ANT more vulnerable to countermagic. Bizzaro Stormy, on the other hand, generally doesn’t use LED in this manner, allowing you to keep the rest of your hand if disrupted by countermagic. Bizarro Stormy is likely a faster goldfish than ANT, allowing it to play out before our opponent gets their lock pieces out (this is based on anecdotal evidence - needs more data to confirm this).
TES - Similar to ANT with the usage of LED along with Infernal Tutor and Burning Wish. Bizarro Stormy has a more stable manabase as well. These two decks are likely similar in speed, however (again, anecdotal evidence for the time being).
Belcher - Belcher is slightly faster, but less resilient. Bizarro Stormy gets cantrips to dig for discard spells or combo pieces after being disrupted.
Sneak and Show - We’re faster and more diverse in our threat capabilities. Whether you choose Bizzaro or SnS will depend on whether you think countermagic and lack of graveyard reliance are better ways to protect your combo. This deck is way more fun to play though!
BR Reanimator - Bizarro Stormy is far more resilient than BR. We almost always win the turn we combo off, while BR allows opponents to continue to draw for answers. BR has Turn 0 disruption in the form of Chancellor of the Annex but the blue cantrip suite and diversity of strategies more than makes up for this, allowing us to shape our gameplan in the face of our opponent’s disruption.
Spanish Inquisition - If you’re asking this question, then you should just play SI.
Matchups

Strictly positive vs. the field. Always.

(More content here as more testing, tuning, and data are gathered)

Videos/Articles/Tournament Reports

Andrea Mengucci recording with 5C Bizzaro Stormy: https://youtu.be/pY40zl9oMKI
Caleb Scherer streaming with Burning Wish Bizzaro Stormy: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/281515571

Myself, Acclimation, and thecrav are going to try to record matches vs. decks and publish periodically. Stay tuned...

Thanks

Thanks to all who have contributed to this deck’s (and Tin Fins) development but specifically: Acclimation, KaiSchafroth, Sam Craven, Richard Cheese, Koby, Wanderlust, movadomk5, and Chris C.

And thanks Richard Cheese for our amazing banner. :)

Help us gather and track data here! (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1woLXyxcXv26S_qlqOwnIdjIITDx-gCCyj_fe01oHuOc/edit?usp=sharing)

Join the SeaLab Discord server here! (https://discord.gg/mq9pQfz)

.dk

04-07-2018, 03:14 PM

So, a few of us ran versions of this deck at GP Seattle this weekend. Unfortunately none of us made Day 2... :(

I ended up 5-3 with this list:

1 Badlands
4 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 Brainstorm
2 Cabal Ritual
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Collective Brutality
2 Corpse Dance
1 Dark Petition
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Griselbrand
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Magus of the Mind
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize
Sideboard:

2 Chain of Vapor
2 Massacre
4 Monastery Mentor
1 Plains
2 Serenity
3 Silent Gravestone

I'll write up an event report later, but I felt like every match but 1 was very close, and I know I punted 1 match away definitely, and possibly a second. Hadn't played magic for a while before this event, and had never played this 75 before the event either. The list felt very strong throughout the event, but I'll post more thoughts later along with the event report.

Wanderlust

04-08-2018, 03:34 AM

This is a very exciting deck with serious competitive potential! I've been enjoying goldfishing it. The lines of Entomb -> Past in Flames can be utterly busted. I like that the deck is less reliant on Entomb than traditional Tin Fins, especially with Lions Eye Diamond in the mix as a discard outlet.

splorf

04-08-2018, 06:41 PM

Thank you for writing the primer! I like the attitude to play weird, but cool cards in order to punish the plebs with style and do them a tergo. I'll keep all eight eyes on this.

Doishy

04-08-2018, 07:26 PM

I actually have had a similar concept going but without the Gman element:

// Legacy - Magus Cannon

// 60 Maindeck
// 8 Artifact
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Chrome Mox

// 3 Creature
1 Magus of the Will
2 Magus of the Mind

// 17 Instant
4 Shallow Grave
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Entomb
2 Corpse Dance
1 Chain of Vapor

// 14 Land
3 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacomb
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Island

// 17 Sorcery
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
4 Ponder
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Dark Petition
1 Collective Brutality

Have not been able to test proper but deck is excellent when it goes off (normally Magus for 5+ is enough).

I might take some elements of your list and splice them in.

Kap'n Cook

04-08-2018, 08:18 PM

I love you guys. Always need more combo heros in the world.

Acclimation

04-08-2018, 09:17 PM

Went 2-3 at Seattle with the list below, playing against Grixis (1-2), Turbo Depths (2-1), Burn (0-2), ANT (2-0), BR Reanimator (1-2). Also played some side games vs Miracles (2-0) and 4c Vial Smasher (2-1, get wrekt @.dk) As it turns out, I'm bad at mulligans with this deck, partially because the lines can get complex, but also because I've got Ferengi levels of greed in my veins.

1 Scrubland
4 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 Brainstorm
2 Cabal Ritual
2 Thoughtseize
3 Collective Brutality
2 Corpse Dance
1 Dark Petition
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Griselbrand
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Magus of the Mind
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Cabal Therapy

Sideboard:
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Massacre
3 Silence
1 Plains
2 Serenity
3 Silent Gravestone
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Disenchant

Some thoughts:

As per a private discussion with .dk and Koby, the Scrubland should be a Badlands, as it enables PiF lines a bit easier.

Silent Gravestone is an insane card for us.

Silence was great, Grixis delver tends to run 9-11 Counterspells, 2-3 Surgical, and 2-3 discard, so it's usually a bit easier to try to land a Chant to bait out counters. Also great in combo mirrors!

Plains exists because we were expecting Blood Moon to be played, and it gives an out to cast Serenity.

Phyrexian Arena I didn't get to test, but it's for decks that run Hymn and maybe Miracles as a way to grind out longer games.

Deck is super duper close to being there, and flipping Magus is obscenely powerful. Every round I entombed for Magus, the players on both sides would stop their match to see what was going on.

thecrav

04-08-2018, 10:39 PM

Went 0-4 on this at Seattle winning three games :(

This is a deck that makes your opponent "have it" and my opponents had it in spades this weekend

cdnza

04-09-2018, 01:05 AM

Koby

04-09-2018, 02:37 AM

I too had a non-winning record in the Grand Prix, which I don't think is reflective of the deck in general, but more to do with my lack of play practice over the last 6 months. As evident from this DCI event history:

2018-04-05 Grand Prix Seattle - Legacy
2018-03-20 Magic Tournament - Weekly Legacy
2017-10-22 NA Eternal Weekend 2017 - Sunday 3pm Vintage Challenge
2017-10-21 2017 North America Legacy Championship

Anyways, I did beat TES on the draw in Game 3 on turn 1 with a no-land hand. Take that Goblinstorm!

.dk

04-09-2018, 02:49 AM

Super excited to see how this develops. I have played Mind's Desire in every format it has ever been legal in so anything even vaguely similar is compelling to me. I played Heartbeat Desire (remember that old PT top8 with SWK against Billy Moreno on Madness?) in old extended for years, and even played it in Standard during the Nationals season that covered ONS-5DN (use KCI to power out Desire; seemed good).

Love the addition of Silence in that list just above this post. Some of my first thoughts when I read the OP were "I wish we could fit in a tiny bit more disruption" and that seems like a good direction. Eager to see where Doomsday mastermind Doishy takes this concept too!

Silence is good - really good. Koby and I were thinking that Mentor was slightly better vs most delver matchups though. Particularly BUG. I had never played my 75 before the event and had been testing with Silence for a bit prior to Seattle. It’s good protection.

As far as a Doomsday board would be, it would actually fairly straightforward:

4 Doomsday
1 Probe
2 Conjurer’s Bauble
1 Lab Maniac
1 Three Wishes
1 Infernal Contract
2 Chain of Vapor
2-3 Silent Gravestone
0-1 Dark Petition

Something like that anyway.

I’ll try to get my event report up tomorrow with some thoughts too.

mistercakes

04-09-2018, 03:56 AM

Just putting this here for some merit for the other guy

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31958-Let-s-Break-Magus-of-the-Mind&highlight=Magus+of+the+mind

He's off by a bit and the approach is slightly wrong, but he did give it a go.

quadich

04-09-2018, 11:16 AM

So i have been meddling with this deck too (a list with burning wish, i can add it later if you want).
Anyways i was thinking about potential threats out of the board i came across pack rat. How do you feel about the rats as opposed to mentor.
To me the resilience to removal given open mana seems appealing as well as being easier on the mana base.

Acclimation

04-09-2018, 12:06 PM

re: Pack Rat

We've discussed it at length, and one of the issues with Rat is needing 5 mana to make 2 rats immediatly, and consistently hitting 3 mana to make more.

I think it's worth testing, but given our spell list, it's a bit easier to make a bunch of dudes with Mentor than it is to swarm with Rats.

cdnza

04-09-2018, 01:37 PM

movadomk5

04-09-2018, 02:12 PM

I played the green splash going 5-3 with most of my losses I was about a top deck away either for me or my opponet. I'll write up a more detailed report once I get home from Seattle

.dk

04-09-2018, 02:36 PM

Acclimation

04-09-2018, 04:06 PM

Just buying some bits and pieces I'm missing for this now (the Tin Fins cards really. When did Collective Brutality break $20?!). Wondering if anyone who has jammed it in real games can offer their thoughts on how it reacts to sideboard tech compared to "ordinary" storm decks.

Do we have an easier time against hate bears? I feel like we can probably just win through Thalia thanks to Magus but is there any plan for Canonist/Teeg type cards?

Has anyone tried the green splash over white for Xantids and Decays, a la conventional storm?

I had a friend play a green splash build a month ago at the Missouri 5k (and put up better results than me despite never playing a game with the deck and not playing sanctioned magic in years), and he played Xantid and Decay. We wanted to try 1-2 Carpet of Flowers, but didn't have any on hand, and didn't care enough to try and find some. Xantid was relevant a few times for him, and Decay has its applications.

One of the strong points for the deck, as we wrote in the primer, is that it's a UB maindeck, and you splash for whatever sideboard cards you want to run. Most of us opted for White to play Serenity, and either Silence or Mentor, and part of that is personal preference (or for me, budgetary since I own those duals).

Brutality is a great card, and 3 has been a good number for me so far. The only match ups I hate it in are chalice decks and opposing storm decks.

As far as reactions to sideboard tech, a few years ago in the Tinfins thread I wrote a lengthy explanation of a reactive sideboard for that deck (it's in the primer of that thread), and I tend to follow that same thought process with this list (while taking notes from TES sideboard plans). Generally speaking, I look at the vector of how the opposing deck is going to stop me (Countermagic, discard, hatebears, fast clock, prison pieces), and bring in things that fight along that axis.

In the case of Death and Taxes, they're bringing in lots of bears and 2 RiP, so I want a lot of answers to small creatures (CoBru, Massacre) and bounce to deal with a resolved RiP. Since we're better off by going under their hate bears, I tend to shave ponder, as I don't want to spend my early turns durdling with cantrips.

Grixis is going to attack us with Countermagic and gy targeting spells, and some discard. Most of their hate, beyond 4 deathrite and 2 cabal therapy, is interacting with us on the stack, so I like Silence here. Surgical, Deathrite, and Snapcaster target the graveyard, and they run a lot of taxing countermagic, so I want Gravestone to protect the yard, since I'm likely going to have to Entomb when I have a window and leave a griselbrand sitting idle.

In short, wander over to the TES website and read their boarding plans, I feel like their thought process is going to be similar to what we want to do, and back it up with the stuff I wrote in the Tinfins thread, since a lot of that applies here too.

Jblinder

04-09-2018, 10:42 PM

Not having access to 1 unburial rites in a deck with 4 LED and 4 Griselbrand is crazy.

LED + entomb + griselbrand is a common holding. Turning entomb into reanimation in that spot is crucial. I promise if you try it you will never go back. You can board it out when gravestone comes in.

thecrav

04-09-2018, 11:37 PM

without the Gman

https://media1.tenor.com/images/0b42bbac58face82501335ecc4fce00a/tenor.gif

cdnza

04-10-2018, 03:29 AM

Alternative deck name: Shallow Desires

jasper

04-10-2018, 10:32 AM

Just wanted to drop in to say that this deck is silly and delightful and that I'm very tempted to take it for a spin on MODO.

.dk

04-10-2018, 12:08 PM

Finally had time to write up my Seattle event...

My list again for reference:

1 Badlands
4 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 Brainstorm
2 Cabal Ritual
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Collective Brutality
2 Corpse Dance
1 Dark Petition
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Griselbrand
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Magus of the Mind
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize
Sideboard:

2 Chain of Vapor
2 Massacre
4 Monastery Mentor
1 Plains
2 Serenity
3 Silent Gravestone

round 1 - bye*

round 2 - D&T (Woodrow) (1-0)
Turns out he was a local that I had met once or twice before - we play at different stores though. He was there with a group of OTHER friends that I do know very well though.

I won the die roll.

G1 - Don't remember my exact hand, but I kept 7. Saw he had some wastelands, so I was having to cantrip to find what I needed to kill him. I was eventually able to cast a Corpse Dance and kill him from there.

G2 - We both mull to 6. I keep Delta, PIF, Ritual, Dark Petition, and 2x Probe. Scry another Dark Ritual to the top. He plays a mother of runes and passes. Probe, see a hand of another mom, plains, port, wasteland - looks like he was hoping for the mana denial strategy and a slow start from me. I draw a land off probe... so I probe again and draw LED. Perfect - Ritual, Ritual, Dark Petition for Cabal Ritual, Cabal Ritual, LED crack, flash back past in flames, flash back rituals, dark petition for Tendrils. Easy game.

round 3 - D&T (Tony) (2-0)
He wins the die roll.

G1 - I thoughtseize and see a hand of 3x Swords to Plowshares, SOFI, Revoker, and wasteland. Take Revoker, proceed to kill on T2 by casting Corpse Dance, cracking LED in response to discard Griselbrand. Do whatever I do from there.*

G2 - He gets a canonist in play. I honestly don't remember exactly what happened, but I think maybe I bounced it? I ended up making a Griselbrand and drew 14 - they weren't great as I couldn't kill on the spot, but I could set myself up for the following turn to kill canonist and play around the wasteland I know he has, and then past in flames -> Tendrils after that. But whoops - I kept a chain of vapor in hand instead of collective brutality. I pass, he wastelands me off of blue, and I die. Punt...

G3 - I mull to 5, he makes a bunch of hate bears and beats me down. :(

round 4 - Moon Stompy (Kain) (2-1)
He wins the die roll.

I didn't take notes in this match at all - I had Serenity and Chain of Vapor, but i don't think I needed them either game. I think I bought in Mentor in Game 2 as well, and just killed him with Griselbrand anyway.*

round 5 - Steel Stompy (Thomas) (3-1)
I win the die roll.

G1 - I keep a super questionable hand - I think it was Griselbrand, 2x Shallow Grave, 2 Dark Ritual, Brainstorm, 2x Entomb. I thought he was on Delver, so it looked like a pretty good hand, as it was super redundant. So i just pass the turn - turns out he's not delver and plays a T1 Thorn of Amethyst. Well fuck. I draw a probe, discard griselbrand. Draw a land and cast probe, but never cast another spell. He beats me down with artifacts.

G2 - Boarded in bounce and Serenity. He's got Overseers, Ravager, Lodestone beats going at a pretty low life total. I finally top deck Serenity, but it's a turn too late. If it were Hurkyl's Recall I would have killed him on the spot. Oh well.

round 6 - Sneak and Show (Gabriel) (3-2)
He wins the die roll.

G1 - He plays Tarn and passes, I put him on Sneak and Show. I don't play anything that would obviously give away what I'm doing - I Therapy him which gets forced pitching Show and Tell. He has a very long brainstorm while deciding what to do, while I have 3 lands out. He plays petals, casts Sneak Attack, and Sneaks in Emrakul and Annihilates me. But he's hellbent at least, and I have Griselbrand and some rituals in hand. I naturally rip a land, and pass. Rip another ritual next turn and cast Griselbrand. Draw something irrelevant the following turn into beats for 7, and I draw the worst 7 ever. No mana sources, just cantrips and discard spells while I have a swamp out. He naturally top decks ponder into another Emrakul, so I die.*

G2 - I don't remember this game all that well, but I do know he had a lot of disruption. I fought through most of it, but his plan got there better than mine. Bummer.

round 7 - D&T (Justin) (3-3)
He wins the die roll.

G1 - I kept 7, but had to cantrip and discard for a long time. This game lasted forever - he has a Thalia with Mom on the board, and I don't have enough mana to go crazy. I make Griselbrand at a low life total, attack, and draw 7 to hopefully hit another CoBru to match the one in my hand. I do, so the next turn I CoBru Mom, then CoBru Thalia, then cast PIF with LEDs to kill with Tendrils. Whew.

G2 - This game was very fast - I believe I killed him on my T2 or 3. He had Karakas at some point.

round 8 - Sneak and Show (Rosemary) (4-3)
She won the die roll.
G1 - She T1 Ponders, and I follow up with a Thoughtseize that sees 3x Sneak attack, Petal, Misty, 2x Omniscience, and Brainstorm. Naturally take the brainstorm, pass, and kill her next turn with Griselbrand beats into Tendrils.

G2 - Discard tore her hand apart, and then I kill her.

5-3 on the event.

I activated Magus and chained activations a LOT throughout the event. Pretty much always got people's attention around me. Was a lot of fun. :)

Really weird set of matchups - 0 delver decks seems insane. But you just never know at a Grand Prix what you'll get paired against.

Overall thoughts…

The main deck was very strong. I would love to be able to get down to 60 cards and play the 4th probe, but I don’t think cutting the 2 cabal rituals is a viable solution to that, nor is going to 2 LED. So not totally sure what to do with that. The numbers are very tight.

Sideboard thoughts…

I was a bit unhappy. Serenity didn’t seem quite good enough in the matches I played - although it has been in prior events. In general though, I think at least 1 of those should be Hurkyl’s Recall, as I think this deck actually cares a bit less about Blood Moon than I was originally thinking. If the Serenity I had drawn against Steel Stompy had been Hurkyl’s Recall, I would have won that game. Anecdotal data obviously, but a top deck Hurkyl’s Recall is usually way better late in the game than top deck Serenity as you may not have to pass the turn to win.

Mentor, I’m out to lunch still. I brought it in once and didn’t cast it when I did. They are low cost to include in the sideboard and do give a great orthogonal backup plan to your normal graveyard shenanigans. I’m just not sure how good they are. Need more testing against Delver decks with this list to see, as that was really the reason they were in the list at all (to take the place of Silence in the reactive boards) and I didn’t play against any of those.

Massacre was obviously great, given that I played against so much D&T. Seemed well worth 2 slots if you think D&T is going to be around in your meta.

I actually didn’t bring in Gravestone at all for the event, but from previous times testing it’s a house vs. Deathrite decks. I did get got by Faerie Macabre out of D&T that gravestone would have stopped, but I don’t think it’s worth bringing the card in for that matchup.

Next steps…

Some other ideas to try out next are possibly going back to a Burning Wish Grixis based build, and running rite of flame over Cabal Ritual. Movadomk5 and I talked for a bit after the event - it’s possible that with Cabal Ritual we are creating excessive mana that we don’t totally need, so maybe Rite of Flame is fine, and then can support a Burning Wish build along with a wishboard. That could eliminate the need for white and keep the deck a bit more on color. Also allows for a good backup plan that is non-graveyard reliant in Empty the Warrens.

We’ve also talked about running some number of Unmasks in this chalice meta, which makes a lot of sense too. Could do a 3/3 Unmask/CoBru split and try that out too.

And because it’s totally my jam, I’m sure I’ll try out a Doomsday sideboard sometime too. But I don’t have as much time to test magic as much these days as I used to, so that might be a while.

.dk

04-10-2018, 12:10 PM

Acclimation

04-10-2018, 06:25 PM

Thinking about Unburial Rites and a few other cards:

4 Griselbrand
1 Magus of the Mind
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Dark Petition
1 Unburial Rites
1 Past in Flames
4 Entomb
4 Dark Ritual
4 Shallow Grave
2 Corpse Dance
3 Collective Brutality
3 Unmask
4 Brainstorm
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Ponder
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
3 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Tundra
1 Swamp

SB:
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Massacre
1 Serenity
2 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Silence
1 Phyrexian Arena (Flex)
1 Disenchant (Flex)

The biggest differences:

Unburial Rites: for all the reasons Jblinder said. Seems worth testing, and something you board out when bringing in Gravestones

Unmask: manaless discard is useful in a Chalice world, and we have a high enough black density to support it. Could be Thoughtseize if you wanted it to be, or you can go 4 CoBru 2 (Unmask/Therapy/Thoughtseize) if you were in a meta that would benefit from maxed out CoBru.

No Cabal Ritual: since we probably make more mana than we need, I cut this from the list. Could be worth bringing in and cutting LED, Griselbrand to make space, but I wanted 4 LED and 4 Griselbrand to take advantage of Rites a bit more.

The flex slots in the board can be anything, even extra CRits, or other spells we shaved from the main deck to make room for things, if we wanted to look beyond any of the other slots we could run here (extra basic, Arena, Echoing Truth, a 2nd PiF, Disenchant, etc).

edit- forgot Dark Petition, dropped a Ponder for it.

Doishy

04-10-2018, 08:29 PM

Eager to see where Doomsday mastermind Doishy takes this concept too!

:eek: No masterminds here, only madmen.

Jblinder

04-11-2018, 07:52 AM

And also...

JBlinder - Unburial Rites is cool. Could try it for the 2nd Corpse Dance. I don't like that it doesn't grant haste though, for Magus. But maybe it doesn't matter?

cdnza: Shallow Desires has 0 references to SeaLab so it gets auto-rejected. :P

Yeah you’d really only be using it for Griselbrand, it won’t work well with Magus. I’ve been playing Fins with LED for awhile, most recently the Depth Fins that did well at the GP and U Rites is one of the more important cards in the deck. I think you’ll find it valuable as well, as it really opens up a lot more potential lines. Double entomb hands and Griselbrand + Led + entomb hands get so much better. You’ll probably want to make room for a scrubland (or tundra as acclimation chose).

Jblinder

04-11-2018, 07:55 AM

Thinking about Unburial Rites and a few other cards:

4 Griselbrand
1 Magus of the Mind
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Unburial Rites
1 Past in Flames
4 Entomb
4 Dark Ritual
4 Shallow Grave
2 Corpse Dance
3 Collective Brutality
3 Unmask
4 Brainstorm
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
3 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Tundra
1 Swamp

SB:
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Massacre
1 Serenity
2 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Silence
2 Flex

The biggest differences:

Unburial Rites: for all the reasons Jblinder said. Seems worth testing, and something you board out when bringing in Gravestones

Unmask: manaless discard is useful in a Chalice world, and we have a high enough black density to support it. Could be Thoughtseize if you wanted it to be, or you can go 4 CoBru 2 (Unmask/Therapy/Thoughtseize) if you were in a meta that would benefit from maxed out CoBru.

No Cabal Ritual: since we probably make more mana than we need, I cut this from the list. Could be worth bringing in and cutting LED, Griselbrand to make space, but I wanted 4 LED and 4 Griselbrand to take advantage of Rites a bit more.

The flex slots in the board can be anything, even extra CRits, or other spells we shaved from the main deck to make room for things, if we wanted to look beyond any of the other slots we could run here (extra basic, Arena, Echoing Truth, a 2nd PiF, Disenchant, etc).

I haven’t played Bizarro yet (I’ll give it a spin soon) but this main deck looks really good to me. Maybe scrubland over tundra? I think I want all lands to tap for B.

I also worry these builds don’t have enough business (reanimation). 4 shallow and 2 corpse feels a little light. U rites helps a lot, but I wonder if a couple probes could become even more corpse dance or even something like exhume, which works with led and is cheaper. I know not giving haste feels damning, but often exhuming a grizzle that sticks is quite enough, and how often wouldn’t you be able to set up a next-turn magus kill even if they have karakas or whatever? Maybe probes are necessary for desire-count. I haven’t played the deck yet; just throwing ideas out.

Acclimation

04-11-2018, 11:50 AM

You would be surprised, 6 reanimation spells hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. One of the advantages of Magus is that we don't need our attack step to win, so I often find myself attacking and drawing 21 before going off and winning, which regular Tinfins has issues with (normally you just reset the cannon to go off again next turn).

Definitely play the list (either the one I just listed or one of the GP builds) in an event or two, it's something that you want to get a few reps in.

.dk

04-11-2018, 07:22 PM

Yeah, it does seem like it has a lot of play to it, and I agree that it does want at least 1 white land in the list too. Easy if you're already on the white splash.

With 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, and 3+ Probe, and Past in Flames, I haven't had an issue with 6 reanimation spells. I don't think Probes are necessary for Magus, but they are a pretty huge benefit in a deck that sometimes wants to combo off Turn 1. The information is invaluable to direct the best use of your resources. I also like to run 1 blue dual in the splash color as well, as I'm usually either cantripping + winning in a turn, or using it for a sideboard card and winning that turn. It's been rare that I've wanted the splash color land to also make black, and would usually prefer to be able to cast Brainstorm and Ponder off of it.

phazonmutant

04-12-2018, 03:37 AM

.dk

04-12-2018, 04:14 PM

Sweet deck, it's been super fun to play. I'm liking a more storm-inspired build with regards to the sideboard and maindeck protection:
1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volcanic Island
4 Brainstorm
2 Cabal Ritual
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
2 Corpse Dance
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Griselbrand
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Magus of the Mind
1 Mastermind's Acquisition
1 Past in Flames
3 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
1 Thoughtseize
Sideboard:

2 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Flusterstorm
1 Ground Seal
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Massacre
2 Silent Gravestone
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Tropical Island
1 Xantid Swarm

The Mastermind's Acquisition hasn't been relevant for natural storm lines, but at least it frees a slot in the maindeck. It's not clear what to cut if you wanted to play 60 with DP and Tendrils. I really think Probe is important since there are a ton of cards you could potentially need to play around, and it helps speed up the deck. Ponder, Cabal Rit, LED seem like the most cuttable?

Empty the Warrens hasn't come up for me yet, but I haven't played against Delver, Czech, or Steel Stompy where I'd want it. I might want to try committing to the plan more. Otherwise that could be a Chain. Carpet of Flowers has been outstanding.

I like this maindeck a lot. The Island seems a little suspect to me and I'd probably swap the Therapy and CoBru numbers, but that's about it (minor). I'd been meaning to try 1 Acquisition in place of Petition + Tendrils to save the slot. I've liked Dark Petition a lot as well, but it may not be viable to not play at 60 card maindeck. I have no idea what the cut would be to try to fit it in there - probably start with the 2nd Cabal Ritual... but I really don't like that much either, nor do I like only 2 Ponder or LED. :( Space is just too tight.

The 1 of Flusterstorm, Xantid, and Empty the Warrens in the sideboard seem weird to me. Flusterstorm + Xantid to go up to 3 Empty maybe? Seems like a card you'd really want to see early vs. Delver matchups and cast from hand - doesn't seem like you're ever going to Acquisition for it and cast it in the same turn if you're not already comboing out with Magus.

MDHackbert

04-13-2018, 01:52 AM

Since this is (for a discord) close enough to Tin Fins, I figured I'd link the new Tin Fins Discord server here: https://discord.gg/3z4NpZ6

Also, @.dk, your sideboard looks to only have 14 cards?

.dk

04-13-2018, 02:57 AM

Yep, mentioned in the discord, but for completions sake... my Seattle list was 61/14. Good eye. :)

P-E

04-14-2018, 06:40 AM

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2972/3206/1600/Real%20Bizarro.jpg

awesome thread and awesome name.
i was fed up with legacy but i have to admit that playing some matches with bizarro storm was very funny and strong.
Magus is great and playing corpse dance add some good old flavor ^^

.dk

04-14-2018, 02:12 PM

Kyle

04-17-2018, 06:11 PM

Matchups

Strictly positive vs. the field. Always.

Classic. Purely Extreme TinFins.

Kobra_D

04-18-2018, 05:37 PM

Pardon me, I'm a little late to the party, but why play magus of the mind over magus of the will? It's play a bit different, but I thought that was the way to lethal storm counts.

Acclimation

04-18-2018, 05:41 PM

Magus of the Will is a lame, pedantic boy that puts things into exile after we cast them, and can't win the game on his own.

Magus of the Mind comes in with his leather jacket, restored 60s Stingray, and brings a cooler full of beer to the party.

Or in more serious terms, as I wrote in the Primer:

Magus of the Will - Hey, we’re playing Yawgmoth’s Bargain and Mind’s Desire, why not reanimate Yawgmoth’s Will too? 4 reasons why this card isn’t worth running:

Magus of the Will exiles itself and every card that would go to the Graveyard after activating its ability. This prevents us from chaining Magus of the Minds, which is one of the key strategies of the deck.
2B to activate is a lot of mana, although 2B to cast does make it easy to play the turn before we combo off. That would require you untap with it - difficult in a meta with common removal such as Swords to Plowshares, Fatal Push, and Lightning Bolt.
Magus of the Will is a much worse draw for future reanimation.
Past in Flames does everything we want and isn’t reliant on reanimation to be used. Sure, we can’t cast artifact mana (8) and Griselbrand (4) from the yard with Past in Flames, but that’s not nearly as much of a deal breaker as the previous 3 points.

That being said, if you want to run it because a couple of decks from the infamous “Small Japanese Tournament” ran it, have fun, we can’t stop you.

(Note: If you play multiple Magus of the Will and multiple Magus of the Mind, I insist that you register your deck as Magus: The Gathering. - Sam Craven)

thecrav

04-18-2018, 05:45 PM

Magus of the Mind comes in with his leather jacket, restored 60s Stingray, and brings a cooler full of beer to the party.

I picture Magus of the Mind as a bit more modern.

https://i.imgur.com/qTcee5d.jpg

Acclimation

04-20-2018, 12:32 PM

https://i.imgur.com/Ce0KyCz.png

Acclimation

04-21-2018, 01:57 PM

Did some testing last night with 3 Unmask in the Therapy/Seize slots, and I wasn't too big on it. Played against Aluren, Lands, and a BR Shops deck (so it would have been decent against the chalice decks in the room). I will say that I mulliganed to 5 almost every game, with 2 7s kept and 1 4, so Unmask loses a lot of value when you start off low on cards. 3 matches isn't a lot of data, but it felt much worse in this deck than it did with stock Tinfins.

Unburial Rites also never came up, so I'm withholding judgment on that card.

Next build I run will probably be 3 Therapy and 4 Probe, but that might be due to the non-english ones I have coming in the mail next week.

.dk

04-25-2018, 01:43 AM

lol somehow i totally missed that you even posted that...

I ran a small 3 round event tonight, going 2-1. I tried a green splash and was testing out Unburial Rites as well. This was my list:

1 Badlands
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Brainstorm
2 Cabal Ritual
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Collective Brutality
1 Corpse Dance
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Griselbrand
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Magus of the Mind
1 Past in Flames
3 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize
1 Unburial Rites
Sideboard:

2 Abrupt Decay
1 Bayou
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Flusterstorm
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Massacre
3 Silent Gravestone

I went 2-1 on the night.

Maverick - Game 1 Mom into top deck Teeg (after I probe-therapied away Thalia) was pretty brutal. Got there by just making Griselbrands 3 turns in a row and attacking. Overall though, this felt fine.

Deathblade - Green splash was good here. Decay was able to deal with Leovold, which I saw was relevant after this scenario in game 2: he has Canonist + Leovold. I Massacre away Canonist, then CoBru Leovold, which then got Flusterstormed. Couldn't quite dig out with Leovold on the table.

UR Delver - Think I made some poor mulligan decisions here - kept swingy hands when I shouldn't have. Carpet of Flowers was very good, but wasn't enough to win the match. Mulled to 5 twice (winning one) and 6. The losses both should have been mulligans again. Oh well - was still close regardless.

I really didn't like that I had to board out Unburial Rites when I brought in Gravestone, with Rites as the 6th reanimation spell. Going to 5 felt way too light sometimes. I think if I were to test it again, I'd find a way to fit in Rites as the 7th reanimation spell. The effect itself was good, but I'm not sure that it's better than the 2nd Corpse Dance.

/edit: I also really hated drawing Unburial Rites with Teeg on the board. That felt awful. But probably happens rarely enough that it's not really worth considering

Kobra_D

04-25-2018, 11:54 AM

Acclimation

04-25-2018, 12:36 PM

Thanks for the imagery, I could definitely see the appeal of one versus the other, it just seemed will comes off as a little more deterministic.

Also, my bad for not reading through the full primer, it is exactly there so people don't ask the same questions again and again :cry:.

I think when we were writing the primer, we were making jokes that nobody was going to read it beyond the first posted deck list, so we could put literally anything in it and nobody would catch it.

In fact, I specifically wrote that section of Will vs Mind because I knew somebody was going to ask why we aren't playing Will.

.dk

04-25-2018, 12:57 PM

Also, my bad for not reading through the full primer, it is exactly there so people don't ask the same questions again and again :cry:.

25 demerits

Acclimation

04-25-2018, 03:28 PM

.dk

04-25-2018, 03:34 PM

Now that .dk finally posted the banner after a week, we can now put the car discussion to rest: Magus drives a '71 Impala, the Red Shark.

And Tinfins was a movie about a mechanical shark. Therefore, it's all connected and fits, man.

Look dude, some of us have other things to do than remembering to post a picture that Richard Cheese hacked together.

I mean, I don't... I just forgot. But SOME OF US DO

Kobra_D

04-25-2018, 04:49 PM

As an aside, I'm also taking the banner due to it being awesome. Who can I credit for this?

.dk

04-25-2018, 04:51 PM

As an aside, I'm also taking the banner due to it being awesome. Who can I credit for this?

:D

That was allllll Richard Cheese, of course (I added a credit at the end of the Primer)

.dk

04-27-2018, 02:50 PM

FYI, small updates to the Primer for the decklist, Thoughtseize explanation, removed Gitaxian Probe from cards to consider, and added an Unburial Rites note:

4 B/x Fetchland
1 U/x Dual Land
1 B/x Dual Land

4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea

4 Brainstorm
3-4 Gitaxian Probe
3-4 Ponder

2 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

4 Shallow Grave
2 Corpse Dance

3 Griselbrand
1 Magus of the Mind

4 Entomb
0-2 Mastermind's Acquisition / 0-1 Dark Petition / 0-1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames

3 Collective Brutality
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize

Unburial Rites - Super interesting card. It’s a great entomb target for additional reanimation, providing more flexibility for the deck. However, this does have dis-synergy with Silent Gravestone out of the sideboard, essentially forcing you to board this card out whenever Gravestone comes in. Due to this, if Rites is included, it likely needs to be in addition to the standard Shallow Grave and Corpse Dance reanimation slots rather than replacing one of those cards.

Thoughtseize Even though we're running Probe, Thoughtseize still has value in a Death and Taxes/Chalice/Blood Moon meta when you're on the play to be able to always nab one of their many lock pieces. Thoughtseize still warrants inclusion based on this, depending on the expected metagame.

.dk

05-01-2018, 04:50 PM

More updates to the primer - started a Video/Article/Reports section with a link to Card Kingdom's stream archive from last night:

4 straight rounds of Bizarro Stormy on Card Kingdom's Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/256382614

jugglervr

05-03-2018, 06:55 AM

4 straight rounds of Bizarro Stormy on Card Kingdom's Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/256382614

The deck really took CK by... storm.

(too bad 2 of the matches seemed to be less skilled)

JackaBo

05-03-2018, 09:13 AM

The deck really took CK by... storm.

(too bad 2 of the matches seemed to be less skilled)

Awesome how a fringe deck got so much attention. I agree that many of the games seemed suboptimally played. Was fun to watch anyhow.

Acclimation

05-03-2018, 11:40 AM

Since I've been slowly buying up non-English cards for Tinfins over the last year, here's where I'm at with my Bizarro Deck:

https://imgur.com/gallery/18ZkHGW

I'm still sitting at 61 cards main deck, and I'm considering dropping Dark Petition or swapping to 1 MA, Tendrils in the side to get down to 60. Scrubland should optimally be Badlands, but I don't own one and can usually borrow one to make it work.

SB, I'm probably going to work Hurkyl's into the side, I just haven't felt the need to make the swap yet since I don't have any plans to play in the next week or two.

After much discussion, I'm not super keen on Rites. It's a good card, but I think in our style of deck it doesn't gel as well, and we're super dependent on Rituals/LED to make it work early on. I would almost rather run Reanimate in the slot, or a 3rd Corpse Dance, but I think that it's probably unnecessary at this time.

I wasn't too big on Unmask, so I'm currently trying 3 Therapy. I might swap the Ponder and Probe numbers around to decrease the odds of blind shots. After watching Greg play in the CK event the other night, having more Therapy so we can utilize the flashback to sac Griselbrand and just continually beat in seems worth the slots.

I'm also considering dropping 2 Defense Grid into the SB in the Silence slots, as it should perform the same function (lock out countermagic and surgical), and be a bit more of a permanent solution. I think it would be good in a more Grixis version of the deck (- Tundra + Volc; +Red SB cards), as green splashes have Carpet of Flowers to help with taxing countermagic.

8bit9mm

05-03-2018, 12:18 PM

Well, if this is what we're doing now...

Here's where I am with the deck:
https://imgur.com/gallery/KNLAAsN

I've not found Mastermind's Acquisition to be necessary. Same for Dank Petition.
I find that if you get to draw 14-21 cards, you can set up Magus/Past in Flames/Natural Tendrils fairly easily.
The verdict is still out on the white splash for me. I need to do some testing with Burning Wish.
Serenity has been amazing though. I don't know if I can give it up.
Silences have been hit or miss. Either they win you the game or do nothing.
Grid may be worth testing, as Acclimation suggests. I just haven't been a fan of it in traditional Storm decks in the past.

Acclimation

05-03-2018, 12:52 PM

I've not found Mastermind's Acquisition to be necessary. Same for Dank Petition.
I find that if you get to draw 14-21 cards, you can set up Magus/Past in Flames/Natural Tendrils fairly easily.

My thought on this is that Tendrils is a card that I don't want to see until I want it, as it's a dead card 90% of the time.

With the 1 MA, Tendrils side, MA plays out like a wild card for the deck, where if we draw it early we can use it to tutor up any card within the 75 and still have the option to flash it back with PiF later on in the combo.

Dark Petition has been playing out pretty well, as it helps in games where I'm sitting on one piece of the combo, and can use it to search up the other half and go off that turn. The only draw back is that it costs 5 mana and that it requires Tendrils to be run in the main, or 1 MA over Tendrils- but either way you need to run a 4 mana spell with the 5 mana spell, and that can make for some awkward draws.

Early versions of the deck ran 2 MA, as we really liked the Wild Card aspect (it can be anything, EVEN A TENDRILS). I think we ended up moving more towards DP+ToA main, as it was awkward to cast, and some people have had decent luck with 1 MA main.

It's probably correct to run Tendrils and cut the tutors, but it's such a dead card 90% of the time that it feels so bad to draw.

8bit9mm

05-03-2018, 01:12 PM

My thought on this is that Tendrils is a card that I don't want to see until I want it, as it's a dead card 90% of the time.

With the 1 MA, Tendrils side, MA plays out like a wild card for the deck, where if we draw it early we can use it to tutor up any card within the 75 and still have the option to flash it back with PiF later on in the combo.

Dark Petition has been playing out pretty well, as it helps in games where I'm sitting on one piece of the combo, and can use it to search up the other half and go off that turn. The only draw back is that it costs 5 mana and that it requires Tendrils to be run in the main, or 1 MA over Tendrils- but either way you need to run a 4 mana spell with the 5 mana spell, and that can make for some awkward draws.

Early versions of the deck ran 2 MA, as we really liked the Wild Card aspect (it can be anything, EVEN A TENDRILS). I think we ended up moving more towards DP+ToA main, as it was awkward to cast, and some people have had decent luck with 1 MA main.

It's probably correct to run Tendrils and cut the tutors, but it's such a dead card 90% of the time that it feels so bad to draw.

I wholeheartedly agree that Tendrils is an awkward draw early on and a virtual mulligan when you see it in your opener, but I'm willing to live with that. It's like drawing your Lab Man in DDFT. You just hope to be able to Brainstorm it away.

I may give Acquisition another go. It's a busted effect, I just wish it cost BBB instead. Although, then it would probably be too busted to exist.

Nothing is set in stone for Bizarro right now, so I'm not opposed to testing things again. I've just been fairly happy with my current configuration.

Acclimation

05-03-2018, 01:38 PM

.dk

05-03-2018, 05:34 PM

After this discussion, I'm leaning more toward 1 MA and tossing Tendrils back in the side. Not sure how I'm going to configure the sideboard, but I'll figure it out (probably dropping Arena since it's just there as a fun-of).

At least with my current sideboard in the green splash:

2 Abrupt Decay
1 Bayou
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Flusterstorm
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Massacre
3 Silent Gravestone

I have no idea what I would cut if I were to run Acquisition maindeck again. I wish had had 1 more board slot as it is.

And yes, while Dark Petition does require 5 mana starting off, it's still a 2 mana tutor effectively. If you're worried about that initial 5 mana investment, it could also easily be Grim Tutor to ease that concern as well, as this deck isn't super life total dependent.

Acclimation

05-03-2018, 06:00 PM

Grim Tutor

You get on out of here with that!

I think in your SB I would cut Flusterstorm, but I'm not too big on the card. Or a Chain of Vapor since you have Hurkyl's+Decay, and you really only lose ground vs Leylines and other random permanents above 3cmc, but that's just me.

.dk

05-03-2018, 06:16 PM

You get on out of here with that!
what?! The only thing wrong with Grim Tutor is that you can't get it black border!

I think in your SB I would cut Flusterstorm, but I'm not too big on the card. Or a Chain of Vapor since you have Hurkyl's+Decay, and you really only lose ground vs Leylines and other random permanents above 3cmc, but that's just me.

I think the first thing to cut would be Hurkyl's, but i don't really like that either. I'm generally not huge on Flusterstorm either, but I do think we can have issues against Show and Tell variants, and that card helps a whole lot there. It's also a lot better in other combo mirrors than something like Xantid Swarm is as well, so that's why it gets the nod. 19 card sideboard, that's all I'm askin' for.

Acclimation

05-03-2018, 06:50 PM

what?! The only thing wrong with Grim Tutor is that you can't get it black border!

I just refuse to play it because I owned one for over a year and it got 0 play since DP got printed. Not good enough for Storm, not good enough for us.

I think the first thing to cut would be Hurkyl's, but i don't really like that either. I'm generally not huge on Flusterstorm either, but I do think we can have issues against Show and Tell variants, and that card helps a whole lot there. It's also a lot better in other combo mirrors than something like Xantid Swarm is as well, so that's why it gets the nod. 19 card sideboard, that's all I'm askin' for.

I think 1 Hurkyl's is fine, because I'm finding that Chalice decks are just auto pilot slamming on x=1, so having an answer that hits that and other things in one go seems pretty good when you don't have Serenity.

I think my plan vs Show is bounce their Leyline, discard their countermagic, and maybe Silence them out, but once again, that's a strength of the White splash is that Silence is good vs combo and vs counter magic decks.

.dk

05-03-2018, 06:59 PM

I just refuse to play it because I owned one for over a year and it got 0 play since DP got printed. Not good enough for Storm, not good enough for us.

It's good enough in storm sometimes too. Depends how many spell pierces and dazes are out there.

I think 1 Hurkyl's is fine, because I'm finding that Chalice decks are just auto pilot slamming on x=1, so having an answer that hits that and other things in one go seems pretty good when you don't have Serenity.

I think my plan vs Show is bounce their Leyline, discard their countermagic, and maybe Silence them out, but once again, that's a strength of the White splash is that Silence is good vs combo and vs counter magic decks.

Right - green has cards that are better in specific scenarios, white is a bit less powerful but more diverse. *shrug*

phazonmutant

05-04-2018, 03:37 AM

So far I'm 3-1, 4-0, 4-0 in CardKingdom weeklies, 4-2 in a 1k for 15-3 overall. Not bad for a "joke" deck! It feels pretty busted, but it's dang hard to play. I'm playing something like this, with the caveat that the numbers look dumb and the sideboard is basically untuned.
1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volcanic Island

4 Brainstorm
2 Cabal Ritual
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
2 Corpse Dance
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Griselbrand
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Magus of the Mind
1 Mastermind's Acquisition
1 Past in Flames
3 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
1 Thoughtseize

Sideboard:
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Flusterstorm
1 Ground Seal
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Massacre
2 Silent Gravestone
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Tropical Island

Notable differences from other lists:

2 CoBru instead of 3. It's a great effect, but just more expensive. 4 1CMC discard seems like a minimum.
1 Volcanic over 1 Badlands, 1 Island main. /shrug Storm plays this configuration for a reason. I've liked having 2 basics for Moon Stompy and D&T.
Green sideboard. Somewhat more common now, but Carpet has been amazing. Decay is nice too for the grind plan lategame.

My big realization from playing this deck is that it goes late really well. There's not much incentive to go all-in in most matchups since you can just play haymakers or cast a giant dude pretty realistically. PiF really helps this too since it's a tutorable both halves of the combo / random Tendrils enabler.

I don't really remember each match, but I can give some analysis on the matches I've played.
Moon stompy 1-1 - pretty tough. Some seem to be playing Faerie Macabe, which seems really dumb but I got blown out by not playing around it. Board out some discard and Ponders, in bounce and Decay.
D&T 1-0 - This matchup feels pretty easy. Most of their interaction is turn 2. Watch out for Faerie Macabre. Board out some LEDs, some Ponders, a Cabal Rit, maybe a discard.
Eldrazi 0-1 - I got blown out by an ape. He mentioned Leyline was pretty good in this matchup afterwards, in case I hadn't noticed. Pretty hard.
Lands 1-0 - very easy. Watch out for Crop Rotation.
Burn 1-0 - yawn
Grixis Delver 2-0 - Feels close. You can usually play around Deathrite, but discard is rough.
Storm 1-0 - draw dependent but I think they're ahead. They have more t1 discard, about the same clock, and are a little less clunky. I like having a couple cards to bring in.

Meh that's it for tonight, don't feel like writing more of a novel. I haven't played too many blue control decks yet but I'm not too afraid, Gravestone is very, very good. I'm only really afraid of Chalice decks but mostly have beaten them.

8bit9mm

05-04-2018, 12:45 PM

I'm playing something like this, with the caveat that the numbers look dumb and the sideboard is basically untuned.
...
My big realization from playing this deck is that it goes late really well. There's not much incentive to go all-in in most matchups since you can just play haymakers or cast a giant dude pretty realistically. PiF really helps this too since it's a tutorable both halves of the combo / random Tendrils enabler.

Initially looking at your fetches, it looked like a mess. But, the more I stare at it, the more it actually makes sense and seems perfectly serviceable. I don't think your numbers are really off at all.

I had a conversation with .dk on the discord about this deck's grinding capabilities. It's still Tin Fins-esque at it's roots. It'll still turn 1 you, but I find that post board you can just sit back, tear apart their hand, kill their Deathrites (hnnnnngggggg CoBru) and pick your spot. I also really love the ability this deck has to just cast Hook-Hands with rituals. It's not really that uncommon.

Grats on your success so far.

Acclimation

05-04-2018, 04:15 PM

My big realization from playing this deck is that it goes late really well. There's not much incentive to go all-in in most matchups since you can just play haymakers or cast a giant dude pretty realistically. PiF really helps this too since it's a tutorable both halves of the combo / random Tendrils enabler.

I'm curious as to your mulligan decisions based off of this point, as I've been mulliganing myself into the ground looking for nutty hands (Belcher style), and tossing back hands that are more land/cantrip heavy if they don't have entomb or reanimation.

.dk

05-04-2018, 05:04 PM

I'm curious as to your mulligan decisions based off of this point, as I've been mulliganing myself into the ground looking for nutty hands (Belcher style), and tossing back hands that are more land/cantrip heavy if they don't have entomb or reanimation.

That's a really interesting topic of discussion. My heuristic is that I throw back a 6 or 7 if it doesn't have at least a reanimation spell or entomb and a ponder/brainstorm - same as it was for Tin Fins. At least game 1 - mulligans get a lot tougher in post board games too.

phazonmutant

05-04-2018, 06:11 PM

I'm curious as to your mulligan decisions based off of this point, as I've been mulliganing myself into the ground looking for nutty hands (Belcher style), and tossing back hands that are more land/cantrip heavy if they don't have entomb or reanimation.

Good question. I think it's roughly:
Mull if it has no combo pieces
Mull if it has no lands or Petals
Mull if it has a Reanimate and fast mana / disruption but no cantrips.
Keep if it has an Entomb and disruption, even if it doesn't have cantrips.
Mull if it requires 2+ cards, has a cantrip, but gets blown out by Wasteland *and* playing against a Wasteland deck
Keep any 2 cantrip hand with lands.
Keep if it has lands, fast mana, disruption, and a Griselbrand.

Basically I just want the deck to function and do something. I'm happy making land drops and setting up for a PiF or hardcast dude, so I usually keep 1 of those cards in hand with Brainstorm if possible, even at the cost of putting back reanimation.

8bit9mm

05-08-2018, 12:20 PM

Here's where I currently am at with the white splash:

Sorcery (15)
3x Cabal Therapy
2x Collective Brutality
4x Gitaxian Probe
1x Past in Flames
3x Ponder
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Thoughtseize

Instant (20)
4x Brainstorm
2x Cabal Ritual
2x Corpse Dance
4x Dark Ritual
4x Entomb
4x Shallow Grave

Land (14)
1x Badlands
1x Island
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Swamp
1x Tundra
2x Underground Sea

Artifact (7)
3x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal

Creature (4)
3x Griselbrand
1x Magus of the Mind

Sideboard (15)
2x Chain of Vapor
2x Echoing Truth
2x Fatal Push
1x Massacre
2x Serenity
3x Silence
3x Silent Gravestone

I've currently trimmed down to 3 Ponder and 2 Collective Brutality (following phazonmutant's advice), to make room for the 4th Probe and 3rd Therapy. The list has been very smooth so far. I still need to go and give Mastermind's Acquisition another test run, but I've been very sold on the main-deck Tendrils. Being able to Entomb your Tendrils and go for the kill via Past In Flames has come up on more than one occasion.

I've also been considering changing the land configuration as well for the white splash. Something along the lines of:

4x Polluted Delta
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Marsh Flats
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Underground Sea
1x Badlands
1x Scrubland
1x Swamp
1x Island

This would allow me to throw the Tundra in the SB and maybe run Swords over Fatal Push as my 1-for-1 removal.
I've found white to offer very potent SB options, I'm just not 100% sure they are more potent than splashing green.

.dk

05-08-2018, 03:57 PM

.dk

05-08-2018, 03:59 PM

Also... small primer update to include Carpet of Flowers in the sideboard section, and move Abrupt Decay into the same section:

Carpet of Flowers: If you're running a Green splash, this card is well worth the slot as a 2-of. The extra mana it provides allows us to power through opposing soft counters as well as the ability to have more mana on the combo turn to speed up the clock and decrease the fizzle rate. Furthermore, the extra mana makes casting Griselbrand more viable as well (a line that comes up more often than I originally thought it would). This and Abrupt Decay are strong reasons for the Green splash.

Abrupt Decay - Chalice, Leovold, Blood Moon, Counterbalance - we all know how good this card is by now. Almost mandatory in some amount if you're running a green splash.

8bit9mm

05-08-2018, 05:15 PM

I still haven't run the land configuration that lets you run a basic Island. I should try that. Your proposed land configuration looks good for Tundra in the board too.

Basic Island has provided a lot of utility. It's nice to not be cut off casting your cantrips.
Plus, basic Swamp and Island let you do pretty much everything you'd want to do.
I do find myself prioritizing blue mana though. I find it to be the choke point when going off with Magus.

phazonmutant

05-09-2018, 05:18 PM

8bit9mm

05-10-2018, 10:23 PM

I went 4-0 again on Monday, same deck as posted above except -1 Fluster, +1 Surgical. I find it hard to believe the numbers are right, but I don't really have a good idea of what to change around and it keeps on winning. I think the sideboard cards just aren't that good besides Carpet, Gravestone, and some Decays.

The matchups were:
BR Reanimator: -1 CoBru, -1 Ponder, -1 Griselbrand, -1 LED, +2 Gravestone, +1 Fluster, +1 Surgical. Fluster stopped his Entomb and Gravestone won the game.
UR Burn: -1 Thoughtseize, -2 LED, -1 Ponder, -1 Cabal Ritual, -1 Griselbrand, +2 Carpet, +2 Gravestone, +2 Decay. Carpet was great here for playing around Fluster. He kept in PoP.
Czech Pile: -2 LED, -1 Petal, -1 Cabal Ritual, -1 Griselbrand, -1 Island, -1 Thoughtseize, -2 Ponder, +2 Decay, +1 Trop, +2 Carpet, +1 Fluster, +2 Gravestone, +1 Ground Seal. Carpet was so so good, enabled PiF.
Bizarro Stormy (mirror): -1 Island, -1 Ponder, -1 CoBru, +1 Surgical, +1 Fluster, +1 Trop

I would suggest Reverent Silence, but we won't be blowing up Blood Moons with it and the only other enchantment I see regularly is Leyline of the Void/Sanctity, which we would just bounce if needed anyways.
I guess Hull Breach and Seal of Primordium are things we have access to as well, but it doesn't seem like you're running into as much Chalice as I am.

Edit: I guess Ancient Grudge is also something we could play, splashing green. May be a bit of a stretch to use 2 different splash colors though.

Acclimation

05-11-2018, 12:57 AM

SB cards are overrated.

Gonna play Ral Zarek and Tibalt and Charbelcher alongside 2 Chain of Vapor, 3 Gravestone, 1 Tendrils, because that's all you really need (if you have MA main).

thecrav

05-11-2018, 07:35 PM

SB cards are overrated.

Gonna play Ral Zarek and Tibalt and Charbelcher alongside 2 Chain of Vapor, 3 Gravestone, 1 Tendrils, because that's all you really need (if you have MA main).

Need me to ship you a Lhurgoyf to run in that slot?

Acclimation

05-12-2018, 12:41 AM

Need me to ship you a Lhurgoyf to run in that slot?

Duh. I'll ship you a couple of Logan tokens back.

KnittedSoup

05-13-2018, 05:31 AM

Recently jammed bazarro in a 'Win an Underground Sea' event in Melbourne. 5-0-1 in swiss and lost in the semi-finals.

I used the list posted earlier by phazonmutant with a few sideboard changes due to card availability.

1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volcanic Island
4 Brainstorm
2 Cabal Ritual
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
2 Corpse Dance
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Griselbrand
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Magus of the Mind
1 Mastermind's Acquisition
1 Past in Flames
3 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
1 Thoughtseize

Sideboard:
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Flusterstorm
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Massacre
3 Silent Gravestone
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Tropical Island
2 Xantid Swarm

The deck seems insanely powerful and consistent. Just wanted to thank everyone who has worked on this list so far. Below are the matchups I played. Happy to write a short tournament report if anyone is interested.

Rd 1 - W - 4c Delver
Rd 2 - W - Infect
Rd 3 - W - Czech Pile
Rd 4 - W - Miracles
Rd 5 - ID - Miracles
Rd 6 - W - Storm

Top 8 - W - Storm
Top 4 - L - Miracles

Favourite play of the tournament would definitely be:
Turn 2 fetch, dark ritual, entomb for past in flames, LED, cabal ritual holding priority, crack LED for red discarding a brainstorm (getting me threshold after my storm opponent duressed my shallow grave turn 1). Into flashback PIF and replay the rituals into entomb griselbrand and flashback the shallow grave.

The best phrase to sum up the deck... "Got em!"

Stevestamopz

05-13-2018, 06:01 AM

We're definitely going to need a tournament report!

Acclimation

05-13-2018, 01:10 PM

Favourite play of the tournament would definitely be:
Turn 2 fetch, dark ritual, entomb for past in flames, LED, cabal ritual holding priority, crack LED for red discarding a brainstorm (getting me threshold after my storm opponent duressed my shallow grave turn 1). Into flashback PIF and replay the rituals into entomb griselbrand and flashback the shallow grave.

The best phrase to sum up the deck... "Got em!"

SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK!

Great job, I would love to read a report, as well as any thoughts you had on match-ups and card slots (especially sb slots, since we're in a weird rut with those).

KnittedSoup

05-13-2018, 07:34 PM

Okay. Tournament report. Please note that I didn't take notes during the event so I may be a little off with some of it. Most of the boarding is guesswork so it's probably not even close.

Rd 1 - 4c Delver
I'm mates with my round 1 opponent and he knows what I'm on. We were discussing the deck before the event and he was pretty keen to see it go off.

Game 1 - I won rock paper scissors and look at the opening hand. We have the turn 1. My opponent said something about playing as if he didn't know what I was on so I go for it. I check his hand at some point mid combo and it had a daze and deathrite but no force. A reasonable keep on the blind. Standard draw 21 off Griseldad then reanimate magus 3 times to cast the whole deck.

-1 Ponder
-1 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Thoughtseize
-1 Cabal Ritual
+2 Carpet of Flowers
+2 Silent Gravestone

Game 2 - Things don't line up nicely here. Multiple deathrites and a gurmag to back up the clock. I think there ended up being multiple counterspells and I could never get a creature on board. Standard delver things.

Game 3 - My opponent has an early delver and infinite countermagic. I try to jam through it and he shuts me down multiple times. On turn 4 I play land, petal, dark ritual, cabal ritual and play Griselbrand and he has the force. We are now both hellbent. On my next turn I rip a shallow grave. Jam it and he didn't have interaction. I can only afford to draw 7 which isn't enough to get there but gets me more reanimation. He holds his delver back to block so he isn't dead and I draw another 7. Then he doesn't have a flier the following turn and we get there. 1-0.

Round 2 - Infect
I know my opponent plays infect but I am pretty sure he doesn't know what I'm on.

Game 1 - Won the dice roll. I have a turn 1 hand with no interaction. Go for it. My opponent had a daze hand that contained glistener elf, invigorate and beserk. Too slow. Drew 21 with Griselbrand but didn't find the win. Went on the plan of attack with the big boy 3 times to avoid showing the storm kill. Stripped his hand and got there after 4 attacks. (He crop rotationed for an Inkmoth nexus to block at one point.)

-1 Ponder
-1 Probe
-1 Cabal Ritual
+1 Silent Gravestone
+2 Xantid Swarm

Game 2 - Don't remember particularly much about this game. I think he played multiple hierarchs and I ended up going full combo at some point after getting to therapy 2 force of wills. 2-0.

Round 3 - Czech Pile
Playing against another mate lovingly known as "super draws". I know what he is on but he isn't sure what I am on. At the start of the match we had a chat where he was saying that he wasn't sure whether he was expecting miracles, dnt, sns or some random pile.

Game 1 - Won the dice roll. Kept a pretty solid hand. Turn 1 underground sea ponder. He jams a deathrite. I therapy his force and then go off and play significantly more than ten drills.

-1 Ponder
-1 Cabal Ritual
-1 Probe
-1 Thoughtseize
+2 Silent Gravestone
+1 Xantid Swarm
+1 Carpet of Flowers

Game 2 - I kept a slow hand with both griselbrand and magus in hand. I do have an LED as a discard outlet though. He jams turn 1 deathrite into turn 2 deathrite hold up blue while I ponder and shuffle. Miss land drop on turn 2 which isn't great and pass it back. He plays a third deathrite but doesn't have green available to really destroy me. I start to see the line of draw any mana source and I can shallow grave, hold priority, then crack LED to put 2 dudes in the bin and just get there. He attacks with one of the deathrites which afterwards he acknowledged as a huge mistake. I draw a fetch off the top crack it and play a dark ritual. He flusterstorms. Play a second dark ritual and therapy him to name force. He had a snapcaster but because he had missed land drop and attacked with drs couldnt snap the fluster. Shallow grave shenanigans. Get there. 3-0.

Round 4 - Miracles
Playing against one of (in my opinion) the better control players in melbourne and we each know what the other is on.

Game 1 - I probe him early and see force x2 plus a portent and I can't get through it that turn. He played the portent and resolved it as a brainstorm which we only realised after he was finished putting 2 cards back so we called a judge. The fix was that I got to see his hand and we reconstructed it based on known information and I effectively got to decide (from the 4 new cards) which card he drew that turn and the top 3. There were 2 blue cards in the 4 so I only gave him 1 then went off on my turn as he didn't have double force up.

-2 Cabal Ritual
-1 Probe
-1 Ponder
-1 Thoughtseize
+1 Carpet of Flowers
+2 Xantid Swarm
+1 Tendrils of Agony
+1 Silent Gravestone

Game 2 - I kept a slightly awkward hand and probed to see multiple pieces of interaction. I decided to try to build up my hand before going for it. I ended up resolving a carpet of flowers into a Xantid Swarm but he was slowly getting in with a mentor. He unexpectedly absented my Swarm and I had to replay it. He attacked in with a mentor and a vendilion clique. I knew he had a fluster in hand that I still couldn't beat and if I didn't block I went to 8 so I took the hit. He played a jace and fatesealed me. Drew a land which gave me enough to hardcast griselbrand and draw 7 after attacking with swarm but couldn't find any action and scooped it up.

Game 3 - Had a fast hand with discard to get through his counters. Just get there. 4-0.

Round 5 - Miracles
I don't know my opponent but I had seen he was also on miracles. When we get to the table he asks if I want to ID so he can go get lunch. I don't really want to play the matchup again so I'm happy to do so. 4-0-1.

Round 6 - Storm
I don't know my opponent for this round either but again I had seen him playing earlier so knew he was on storm. The matchup seems very favourable given that we have a faster clock than them. When the pairing initially went up he asked to ID and I said sure because I was happy to have a storm deck in the top 8. Then there was a re-pair and it was the same matchup. I had a think and realised that if I ID'd then I would be 4th in the standings, whereas if I jammed and won I would be top and if I lost I would be 7th. Given that it's a positive matchup I made him jam so that I could be top seed.

Game 1 - Won the dice roll. Turn 1 jam with no backup because its storm and they don't have interaction.

-1 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Cabal Therapy
-1 Cabal Ritual
+1 Tendrils of Agony
+1 Flusterstorm
+1 Silent Gravestone

Game 2 - Probe him to see a hand with a lot of discard. He plays a duress turn 1. I rip a therapy to take both of his therapies. The game stalls for a bit and we eventually find an entomb for Past in Flames line where the mana works out nicely and we get there. 5-0-1.

Top 8
1 - Bizarro Stormy (Your intrepid hero)
2 - Miracles (The guy I ID'd with in round 5)
3 - Czech Pile (Superdraws)
4 - Miracles (The guy from 4)
5 - Elves
6 - DnT
7 - Turbo Depths
8 - ANT (The guy from round 6)

Top 8 - Storm
Happy that this guy made top 8.

Game 1 - Had a decent hand which he duressed and I think I just got there turn 2 anyway.

Game 2 - I had a turn 2 hand. So did he. At least we get to be on the play in game 3.

Game 3 - The game stalled out after we both attacked the others hands for a bit in the early turns. I drew a silent grave before he drew anything and got there.

This is where things didn't really work out how I wanted them to. All of the top 4 won their matches so the rest of the top 4 was force of will decks.

Top 4 - Miracles
Game 1 - Played through a force to get there reasonably quickly.

Game 2 - My opponent plays land go. I probe and see force of will, fluster, ethersworn canonist, mentor, brainstorm and two lands. I pass turn and he jams the canonist and I can't play through it.

Game 3 - My opening hand is somewhat questionable. It was something like Swamp, Lotus Petal, Brainstorm, Gitaxian Probe, Shallow Grave x2, Dark Ritual. I remember turn 1 probing twice and seeing a bunch of countermagic while drawing into 2 more reanimate spells. Petal brainstorm into more reanimation spells and no second land. Couldn't get out of the brainstorm lock and he had a mentor on the board with a lot of backup before I saw a relevant card.

My opponent then lost the finals in the miracles mirror because he wasn't running red and his opponent was.

I think I need a lot more practice with the deck to work out a better sideboarding plan. I also want to do some tweaking with the sideboard as most of it wasn't touched all day.

Overall though, this was the most fun I have had playing legacy in years and this is probably my go to deck for the foreseeable future. Hopefully I can continue to put up results for you guys.

cdnza

05-14-2018, 01:36 AM

Sick performance KnittedSoup! Can you share a little bit of your experience with Mastermind's Acquisition?

KnittedSoup

05-14-2018, 01:58 AM

cdnza

05-14-2018, 02:55 AM

ManWearingHat

05-14-2018, 10:02 AM

Excellent tournament report KnittedSoup! I've been testing a green splash in paper as well, and the while Acquisition is solid and enables some corner case lines, I'm going to start taking notes on times where Tendrils main would have been equivalent or better. I've got a couple local buds who are eager to help me test the deck in paper and on modo.

I whiffed on top4 at a small win-almost-a-dual event this weekend with Canadian Thresh, so I jammed some Bizarro vs. BUG Delver with my friend who had dropped earlier, while our third went to win it all with Reanimator. I won 4/5 games we played, punching through Force and Daze a couple times, Hymn once, and brutalizing a DRS.

I do want to pose a question here though. The deck operates on a more Storm-esque axis than a Reanimator one, and sideboards (especially the green versions) reflect that. What I'm waffling on is what to include for anti-hatebear tools. Is it fine to throw in a couple Massacre and call it a day? Is it better to include a couple Fatal Push since we usually only need to beat one bear and it still kills Teeg? Do we not need more than one of either with Decay in the board? Currently I'm on 2 Decay 2 Push in the slots and it's been decent.

LarryJ

05-14-2018, 10:48 AM

I just wanted to stop lurking and say that this thread has been fantastic so far. As a former Doomsday player recently returning to Magic - this deck does all of the things that I am wanting to do in Legacy.I hope to contribute more to the topic.

-L

Acclimation

05-14-2018, 11:21 AM

Acquisition seemed fine. There wasn't a point where I played it for anything other than tendrils out of board though. So it's a little hard to say. Going forward I'm going to test just running tendrils in the slot.

On another note, what are peoples thoughts on running defense grid? I think it would really suit the plan.

I've been considering Grid for the next serious build that I try. I think Carpet is likely a bit better, so if you're running Green, I would just go with that, whereas Grid is better in nongreen builds as a method of shutting down most interaction on your turn.

Carpet, Grid, and Silence (to me) fall under the umbrella of anti-counter magic tools. You really only need one of these options, as the slots are tight to cut for SB card. Carpet is probably the most powerful in a vacuum, since it let's us plow through soft counters and/or gives us extra mana to combo off. Grid has about 1 turn before opponents can just pay 3 for their Forces and Surgicals, and 2 before Fluster and Pierce come back online, so it gives us a narrow window to make action happen. Silence functions as a lightning rod for countermagic, and if you run into opponents that only have Surgical/Stifle/Mindbreak as their reactive spells, it can be much more game winning than Grid, not to mention the utility versus storm decks.

I think Grid is good, but probably not as good as Carpet, and on par with Silence (ranking the utility against storm pretty highly).

I do want to pose a question here though. The deck operates on a more Storm-esque axis than a Reanimator one, and sideboards (especially the green versions) reflect that. What I'm waffling on is what to include for anti-hatebear tools. Is it fine to throw in a couple Massacre and call it a day? Is it better to include a couple Fatal Push since we usually only need to beat one bear and it still kills Teeg? Do we not need more than one of either with Decay in the board? Currently I'm on 2 Decay 2 Push in the slots and it's been decent.

I'm running 2 Massacre in my SB, because it hits every hatebear except for Teeg, Eidolon of Rhetoric, and Knight of the Reliquary. In my experience, if you don't have a quick combo, you get hated on by multiple bears, so the board wipe is solid. Since CoBru can nuke hatebears, I don't see the need to run any extra spot removal. However, Push, Swords to Plowshares, Rending Volley (for heavier red splashes and if your meta has a lot more Meddling Mage and Leovold), and Sudden Shock (if you find Maverick to be an issue because of Mom defending Teeg) are all fine SB options if you find yourself wanting other options.

To answer both questions, my sideboards for this deck start like this:

3 Silent Gravestone (Easily the best protection spell)
2 Chain of Vapor (General answer for damn near every permanent hate, and random storm generator and Marit Lage answer)
2 Massacre (I really hate losing to Death & Taxes and the deck is pretty popular in the Midwest)

8 slots, pick some number of the following based on personal preference, splash color, and meta considerations:

2-3 Silence/Defense Grid/Carpet of Flowers (see above paragraph)
2-3 Serenity/Abrupt Decay (Hate for chalice and other artifacts/enchantments)
0-2 Hurkyl's Recall (When Chalice is really popular)
0-1 Echoing Truth (Extra bounce never hurt anyone)
0-2 Surgical Extraction (haven't ran it yet, but if you have a Reanimator heavy meta that doesn't get hosed by Silent Gravestone, it's worth running)
0-1 Tendrils of Agony (if MA is main)
0-1 Phyrexian Arena (Good against discard decks, but Leovold just turns this into a Curse of the Pierced Heart, so beware)
0-1 Splash land (Trop/Scrubland/Basic land/Bayou)
0-2 Fatal Push/Swords to Plowshares/Rending Volley/Sudden Shock (spot removal, see above paragraph)
0-2 Flusterstorm (some people like it)
0-1 Disenchant (Random chalice/Leyline/3ball value)
0-2 Night's Whisper (similar to Arena, use against discard decks to dig out of topdeck mode faster)

As I've mentioned multiple times, and as some of you are finding out, sideboard with this deck is pretty hard, and over half of the sideboard doesn't get touched, so beyond Gravestone and Chain of Vapor, run whatever you want. It's very likely correct to figure out your local meta, and pick some high impact, but niche, sideboard options to run in the remaining 10 slots, as boarding more than 4 cards is incredibly difficult without diluting too much.

One meta trend that I'm noticing is the rise in Leyline of the Void. It's been slowly climbing the ranks of most played cards, sitting at 40th in April and 36th in May, and almost primarily in Stompy decks. If you find yourself playing against these decks a lot, it's probably worth splashing White for Serenity, as it can wipe Chalice+Leyline much more efficiently than any other option. In Green, Decay doesn't answer leyline, but Chain of Vapor/Echoing Truth are likely good enough answers, as these decks aren't able to cast Leyline if you bounce it. You could also try Trygon Predator, but I'm personally a bit wary of that option (slow, 3 cmc, creature so it can mess up our reanimation), but a few people are interested in giving it a shot.

Hope this post gives some of you some direction.

.dk

05-14-2018, 11:59 AM

One more piece of advice both for constructing sideboards as well as what to bring in: Over sideboarding is very easy with this deck. So you're really looking to bring in 3-5 cards tops so as to not wreck your own game plan. To that end, pick whatever the most powerful cards are for matchups you want to sideboard against, and only bring in the ones that are overwhelmingly powerful. Our game plan is likely more powerful than whatever else you're playing against, so rely on that. You're going to get blown out sometimes by a random Leyline out of a BUG Control deck (good lord that sucked), but you just have to take those lumps. So referencing Acclimation's post...

You have a couple more generic answers in Chain of Vapor and Silent Gravestone. Beyond that, pick what you want to beat (or alternatively, pick what you want to lose to).

8bit9mm

05-14-2018, 12:12 PM

.dk

05-14-2018, 12:22 PM

On the topic of sideboarding, I find the way I board to be very heavily dependent on whether I'm on the play or draw.

On the play, I find myself trimming on ponders/probes/CoBrus.

On the draw, I find myself cutting therapies and some number of probes.

Obviously, this is a generality and will change depending on matchup(s). YMMV

Yeah, that's a hard thing to nail down, as to what exactly to take out. I do think it is very matchup dependent though. I trim a Griselbrand a lot, and sometimes an LED. I cut Probes in matchups that I think are going to go long, and Ponders in matchups where I value speed more. Therapy gets trimmed vs. Chalice or hatebear decks.

8bit9mm

05-14-2018, 12:31 PM

Yeah, that's a hard thing to nail down, as to what exactly to take out. I do think it is very matchup dependent though. I trim a Griselbrand a lot, and sometimes an LED. I cut Probes in matchups that I think are going to go long, and Ponders in matchups where I value speed more. Therapy gets trimmed vs. Chalice or hatebear decks.

I've never considered trimming a Griselbrand. I've trimmed and LED on occasion.

A play/draw sideboarding guide might be a nice thing to work on, breaking it down for the top X decks in the format.

But, like you said, nailing something like that down might be difficult.

We might want to take cues from the DDFT guys and create a shared spreadsheet for games played.
I don't know how many other people are jamming the deck on MTGO like I am, but there should be enough people getting paper games in to get some decent data.

.dk

05-14-2018, 12:42 PM

That's a good idea. The DDFT one has a lot of data in it - I can create one (and add sections for sideboarding details as well) hopefully this week.

Acclimation

05-14-2018, 12:57 PM

8bit9mm

05-14-2018, 12:58 PM

That's a good idea. The DDFT one has a lot of data in it - I can create one (and add sections for sideboarding details as well) hopefully this week.

Awesome!

Then all we need is someone as skilled at collating the data in a meaningful and usable way as Doishy.

.dk

05-14-2018, 01:37 PM

Awesome!

Then all we need is someone as skilled at collating the data in a meaningful and usable way as Doishy.

Yeahhhhh, I just don't have the time for extensive analysis these days. :( I'll hopefully have something out there to share in a day or two. Likely will be blatantly stealing Doishy's work (thanks!!!!) to get started. :)

.dk

05-14-2018, 01:44 PM

Also... decent sized Primer update for Sideboard cards, sample sideboards, and sideboarding strategies courtesy of Acclimation.

Added a couple of possible sideboard card choices:

Hull Breach: given the rise of Leyline of the Void in Chalice decks, this card is another example of a compact, but high impact sideboard card. RG mana requirements make this difficult to cast and pretty much lock this into Green splashes that run a Badlands or Volcanic main deck, but in lieu of other options to hit multiple hate cards across different permanent types, it's hard to pass this efficient option up.

Abrade: compact card for dealing with artifacts and creatures. Has lots of targets versus Stompy decks, and allows you to skimp on spot removal to run other anti-hate options. Great option for Red splash lists.

And some sideboarding strategies:

Sideboarding for this deck is tricky. It’s easy to overboard, so look to swap 3-5 cards so you don’t dilute the game plan of the deck. We’re executing a plan that is likely more powerful than anything your opponent is doing, so look to board in high impact cards.
Let’s start with the most important cards:

3 Silent Gravestone (Easily the best protection spell for the GY, don’t leave home without it)
2 Chain of Vapor (General answer for damn near every permanent hate, and random storm generator and Marit Lage answer)
These 2 cards (5 slots total) will deal with 80% of the sb hate currently played.

For the next 10 slots, pick some number of the following based on personal preference, splash color, and meta considerations:
0-1 Tendrils of Agony (if Mastermind’s Acquisition is in your list)
0-2 Massacre (Death and Taxes is incredibly popular, and you don’t lose to 1 hate bear, you lose to a swarm of them)
2-3 Carpet of Flowers/Silence/Defense Grid (Anti counter magic and/or reactive spell hate. Carpet is best in a vacuum since it gives us more mana to combo and fight through soft counters, Silence has utility vs storm decks, and Grid splits the difference)
2-3 Serenity/Abrupt Decay* (Hate for chalice and other artifacts/enchantments, *with cmc restriction)
0-2 Hurkyl's Recall (When Chalice is prevalent)
0-1 Echoing Truth (Extra bounce never hurt anyone)
0-1 Splash land (Trop/Scrubland/Basic land/Bayou)
0-2 Fatal Push/Swords to Plowshares/Rending Volley/Sudden Shock (spot removal has its place in the deck. Volley is good vs Meddling Mage/Leovold heavy metas, Sudden Shock is great vs Mother of Runes and Infect)
0-2 Flusterstorm (some people like it as an additional counter magic and anti-combo protection spell)
0-1 Disenchant (Random chalice/Leyline/3ball value)
0-2 Abrade (Spot removal+Artifact hate in one card, great example of a high impact and compact sb card)
0-2 Phyrexian Arena (Good against discard decks, but Leovold just turns this into a Curse of the Pierced Heart, so beware)
0-3 Night's Whisper (similar to Arena, use against discard decks to dig out of topdeck mode faster)
0-2 Surgical Extraction (If you have a Reanimator heavy meta that doesn't get hosed by Silent Gravestone, it's worth running. Also, don’t be dumb and bring this in if you bring in Gravestone)

There are other SB options to consider, but this section should give a decent roadmap to start thinking about how to construct a sideboard for your local meta. Look to start with Gravestone+Chain of Vapor, then add niche sideboard options that the general answers can’t solve. Don’t forget, we do run 5-6 main deck discard spells, which can go a long way in stripping hate from your opponents. Figure out what you need to beat, or alternatively, what you are fine losing to.
To put it all together, here are some sample sideboards, assuming base UB with only one splash color:

For white splash lists:
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Massacre
2 Serenity
1 Plains
1 Disenchant
3 Silence
1 Tendrils of Agony (or 1 flex pending md config)

Green Splash:
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Flusterstorm
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Massacre
3 Silent Gravestone
1 Tropical Island
1 Tendrils of Agony (or 1 flex, pending md config)

Red splash:
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Massacre
2 Abrade
2 Defense Grid
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Echoing Truth
1 Tendrils of Agony (or 1 flex)

8bit9mm

05-14-2018, 03:51 PM

Added a couple of possible sideboard card choices:

Hull Breach: given the rise of Leyline of the Void in Chalice decks, this card is another example of a compact, but high impact sideboard card. RG mana requirements make this difficult to cast and pretty much lock this into Green splashes that run a Badlands or Volcanic main deck, but in lieu of other options to hit multiple hate cards across different permanent types, it's hard to pass this efficient option up.

Along the same lines as Hull Breach, I've found Wear//Tear to play a similar role for the white splash. It fills that either/or/both role like Hull Breach, but it is slightly more mana intensive for both and uses 2 splash colors.

Although, i say all of this, yet I've switched to green for now.

Acclimation

05-14-2018, 04:22 PM

Along the same lines as Hull Breach, I've found Wear//Tear to play a similar role for the white splash. It fills that either/or/both role like Hull Breach, but it is slightly more mana intensive for both and uses 2 splash colors.

Although, i say all of this, yet I've switched to green for now.

The other 2 card options to consider for the deck: Ancient Grudge and Ray of Revelation. Both only hit one card type, but the extra benefit is being able to Entomb for them, or get rid of 2 permanents if you draw it naturally.

They probably aren't good enough to make the cut, but it's worth mentioning them in the conversation because of that built in Flashback.

Michael Keller

05-14-2018, 05:25 PM

Has anyone given thought to Composite Golem to jack Storm up egregiously and Tendrils out? Maybe even using that as an alternative in the event Griselbrand gets nixed?

LarryJ

05-14-2018, 05:30 PM

The other 2 card options to consider for the deck: Ancient Grudge and Ray of Revelation. Both only hit one card type, but the extra benefit is being able to Entomb for them, or get rid of 2 permanents if you draw it naturally.

They probably aren't good enough to make the cut, but it's worth mentioning them in the conversation because of that built in Flashback.

I ran both of those in a Modern Dredge-style deck and those two cards always over performed. Ray would be a bit intense with the dual splash colors, but I imagine that Grudge would be easier to cast.. but at that point is Recall just generally better?

Acclimation

05-14-2018, 05:49 PM

phazonmutant

05-14-2018, 06:23 PM

Recently jammed bazarro in a 'Win an Underground Sea' event in Melbourne. 5-0-1 in swiss and lost in the semi-finals.

Sick result! Sounds well played from the tournament report. What did you think of Swarm? After playing with it a bit, I didn't really like it - would rather have discard and Fluster against Show and Tell or Reanimator, or Carpet against control decks since they leave in removal anyway. But maybe we were using it differently.

I'm going to try 2 Hull Breach, 2 Trygon Predator tonight I think. If they're good, they're great (although they're probably just hard to cast). I only seem to be losing to Leyline / Chalice decks, so might as well overboard for them :rolleyes:

Also moving a Tendrils main over Acquisition and playing a Quicken over a Ponder for lulz. My goal is to Magus someone out at instant speed.

1 Tropical Island
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Silent Gravestone
1 Ground Seal
1 Flusterstorm
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Hull Breach
2 Trygon Predator
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Abrupt Decay

Since we're talking about sideboard cards, I might as well throw in my two cents. I really hate bounce spells in ANT, and TinFins seems similar. I'm willing to spend turn 1 cantripping or whatever then kill the hate card and play the late game. Chain is versatile, but so is Decay and it kills things. Also I really want Massacre to be good but I keep on running into situations where a skilled player can play around it by not fetching white or playing Teeg (it happens!). So I'll just play versatile spot removal.

.dk

05-14-2018, 06:34 PM

One of the things I've been thinking about, and we've been discussing off and on on the Discord, are builds using Burning Wish or Cunning Wish or even Death Wish. The first prototype build I ran with the deck, back in December looked like this:

2 Magus of the Mind
3 Griselbrand
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Death Wish
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Corpse Dance
3 Collective Brutality
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
3 Thoughtseize
1 Past in Flames
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Swamp

SB
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Ground Seal
1 Buried Alive
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Corpse Dance
1 Creeping Corrosion
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Collective Brutality
1 Pithing Needle

It's not pretty, Rivals wasn't printed nor even spoiled, and I ran Deathrite because I saw how DRS decks have been using it to fix mana and provide hella utility. That being said, the list itself is borderline competitive, and really needs the following changes to be worth playing:

-4 Deathrite Shaman
-1 Magus of the Mind
-1 Corpse Dance

+2 Cabal Ritual
+1 Children of Korlis
+3 Probe

Since we have more life loss, it enables us to run Children for more value, and have access to a Wish board, where we can get anything.

For a SB, you probably still want to start with Silent Gravestone and Chain of Vapor, but you can also add random wish targets, such as extra Corpse Dances, Past in Flames, Buried Alive, Empty the Warrens, and so on.

I think these lists want 2 Children of Korlis - 1 maindeck, and 1 as a wish target (per our respective lists from December :P )

I do love me some Death Wish, particularly since I have signed ones now. :) Never did get enough testing in to figure out if the life loss was too high though. I can't seem to find my list from that time period either. :(

I ran both of those in a Modern Dredge-style deck and those two cards always over performed. Ray would be a bit intense with the dual splash colors, but I imagine that Grudge would be easier to cast.. but at that point is Recall just generally better?

I'm not sure the dual splash is actually that hard - I'm testing out a 5 color list tomorrow night, actually. I could see it - although not convinced that either of these are better than Serenity or Wear//Tear or Hull Breach. However... you CAN entomb for them. But that doesn't really get you anything when you're trying to blow up a Leyline.

Has anyone given thought to Composite Golem to jack Storm up egregiously and Tendrils out? Maybe even using that as an alternative in the event Griselbrand gets nixed?

To jack up Storm? I guess I don't understand - as a ritual? I feel like I must be missing something here.

And lastly, couple more small updates to the primer for some more sideboard cards:

Wear // Tear : Similar to Hull Breach, this is an option that hits both an Enchantment and an Artifact on one card, or one of either type for a discount. Benefits over Serenity: gets rid of its targets on resolution of the spell. Benefits over Disenchant: can hit 2 targets (has to be different type for each target) for one extra mana. Downside of Wear // Tear: 3 mana split across 2 splash colors, overlaps with Serenity in the same match-ups.

Ancient Grudge: Artifact hate you can tutor for with Entomb, or get 2 artifacts if you draw it naturally. Downside is needing Red mana and Green for Flashback, but still a valid option. Consider this if you run into an artifact heavy meta where you want a spell you can Entomb for.

Ray of Revelation : Enchantment version of Ancient Grudge, but costs White on the front end instead of Red. Similar to Ancient Grudge, consider running this because you can Entomb it, and if you are in an Enchantress heavy meta.

.dk

05-14-2018, 09:06 PM

If anyone is interested and would like to help/participate... I've created a shared Google Spreadsheet here to keep track of decklists, results, sideboarding, etc:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1woLXyxcXv26S_qlqOwnIdjIITDx-gCCyj_fe01oHuOc/edit?usp=sharing

Should only need to modify the first 3 tabs, and just 2 of them per event, really. The sideboarding tab is a little clunky, but not sure of another way to capture the data without creating a database (which maybe I'll do sometime).

Hopefully collecting data like this can help influence decklist decisions and we can all learn from it. Thanks for your help!

Also, major thanks to Doishy who created the DDFT tracking spreadsheet that I stole and modified to create this. I've added a link to this at the end of the primer as well.

Manroe

05-15-2018, 11:15 AM

For anyone interested, I'm going to have Jim Davis play this on his stream soon. I'll update with when and the exact list when I have a better idea.

Acclimation

05-15-2018, 12:20 PM

For anyone interested, I'm going to have Jim Davis play this on his stream soon. I'll update with when and the exact list when I have a better idea.

Neat! Definitely hop in the Discord server and let us know when it happens, I would love to watch.

As far as lists go, I feel like the list phazonmutant has been playing is a good starting point. Not sure if I would copy the SB he posted a few posts up with Trygon, but the main deck is solid and has been successful.

phazonmutant

05-15-2018, 12:52 PM

.dk

05-15-2018, 01:32 PM

Definitely don't copy the sideboard above. Went 2-2, in part because I played badly against miracles, and in part because hull breach and trygon were uncastable. I might throw in one Hull breach, but that's it.

Thanks for the feedback - I was definitely interested in how those performed. I wish Hull Breach were easier to cast - it's so almost good!

8bit9mm

05-15-2018, 04:23 PM

This is the sideboard I've been using so far.
I like where it's at and it deals with most things I care about.

2 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Flusterstorm
1 Ground Seal
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Massacre
2 Silent Gravestone
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Tropical Island

I find that the Flusterstorm is a flex spot.
There's times where I've wished it was a 2nd Massacre and other times where I wished it was another Thoughtseize.
Ground Seal could just as easily be the 3rd Silent Gravestone as well.
The cantrip is nice and the fact that it's an enchantment is nice, but other than that, meh.
I suppose it could be a slight hedge against multiple Surgicals as well.

Misersoneof

05-15-2018, 09:34 PM

This deck is so hilarious and I can't stop checking on this thread. I've been goldfishing it on Tapped Out and I might try to bring it to a local event the next time I have a chance.

I was hoping to join the Tin Fins / Bizarro Stormy discord but the link is expired in the Discord Servers thread. .dk, could you please update the link so it doesn't expire?

Acclimation

05-15-2018, 11:02 PM

Acclimation

05-16-2018, 12:17 AM

Here's an updated Death Wish build, since I realized the previous one doesn't have any Ponder, and I like that more than Probe.

1x Bayou
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Island
2x Misty Rainforest
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
2x Underground Sea
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Volcanic Island

1x Children of Korlis
3x Griselbrand
1x Magus of the Mind

4x Brainstorm
2x Cabal Ritual
2x Corpse Dance
4x Dark Ritual
4x Entomb
4x Shallow Grave

3x Collective Brutality
3x Death Wish
1x Past in Flames
4x Ponder
3x Thoughtseize

3x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal

Sideboard (15)
2x Abrupt Decay
1x Buried Alive
2x Carpet of Flowers
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Children of Korlis
1x Corpse Dance
2x Massacre
3x Silent Gravestone
1x Tendrils of Agony

The sideboard is still an awful mess, but whatever.

.dk

05-16-2018, 02:22 AM

https://discord.gg/mq9pQfz

Here you go!

Thanks, damnit I thought I had one that didn't expire. I'm adding that to the primer as well.

.dk

05-16-2018, 02:35 AM

Went 2-1 in a local tonight with a 5 color list. I was interested in having access to both Serenity for Chalice matchups as well as Carpet of Flowers and Abrupt Decay. Basically just trying to get access to the most powerful sideboard cards for any particular matchup. The mana actually felt pretty good, for what it's worth. I was surprised - not sure if you could play a basic island in this configuration though.

Played against...
Maverick - 2-0. This wasn't very close. Beat Thalia + Leovold Game 2.

Deathblade - 2-0. More interesting. Game 2 I had to Massacre to kill Canonist, and then decided to ritual out Griselbrand rather than casting Past in Flames and flashing back reanimation after pitching Griselbrand to LED. This played around Force of Will, as I had enough mana to cast Past in Flames by flashing it back with LED even if Griselbrand got countered.

Czech Pile - 1-2. Super interesting match. Game 1 I lose to his Thoughtseize into T2 2x Deathrite when I couldn't T1 Brainstorm into a kill or Therapy. G2 I make a Griselbrand in my draw step in response to a Vendilion Clique, and get there. Game 3 takes forever - I played through 2x Force, Clique, Surgical, and Snapcaster with Silent Gravestone, Discard, and Past in Flames. I try to combo off at 1 life using Past in Flames, but my draw 7 + Brainstorm is short 1 card or Lotus Petal to be able to win. Was very close and could easily have gone the other way. I was impressed with the deck's ability to come that close in that game.

List for reference...

1 Bayou
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volcanic Island
4 Brainstorm
2 Cabal Ritual
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
2 Corpse Dance
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Griselbrand
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Magus of the Mind
1 Mastermind's Acquisition
1 Past in Flames
3 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
1 Thoughtseize
Sideboard:

2 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Massacre
1 Scrubland
2 Serenity
3 Silent Gravestone
1 Tendrils of Agony

Couple other things to note - Volcanic Island cast Past in Flames at least once (possibly a second, I don't remember clearly enough). Mastermind's Acquisition was good in utility mode at least a couple of times to find a missing combo piece or an answer to a hate bear. I had forgotten how strong that card can be as I've mostly been playing with Tendrils main deck lately.

Manroe

05-16-2018, 02:52 PM

Just talked to Jim, the deck will be streamed Friday Morning beginning between 830 and 9 am EST (-5 UTC)

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

8bit9mm

05-16-2018, 03:08 PM

Just talked to Jim, the deck will be streamed Friday Morning beginning between 830 and 9 am EST (-5 UTC)

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

Nice! The deck isn't the easiest to pilot, but I don't suppose it'll be Mengucci-esqe.

Manroe

05-16-2018, 03:54 PM

Nice! The deck isn't the easiest to pilot, but I don't suppose it'll be Mengucci-esqe.Yeah, everytime I watch Jim play he runs into the worst luck too! Hope he at least has fun with it and the followers enjoy seeing how busted legacy can be!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

Acclimation

05-16-2018, 04:23 PM

Just talked to Jim, the deck will be streamed Friday Morning beginning between 830 and 9 am EST (-5 UTC)

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

Note to self, get up early and maybe work from home that day.

.dk

05-16-2018, 09:23 PM

Note to self, get up early and maybe work from home that day.

Yeahhhh I'm not getting up that early. That said, if someone can shoot me a link to wherever it is archived afterwards so I can add it to the primer, I'd appreciate it

Misersoneof

05-17-2018, 01:04 AM

Thanks for the link! I'm happy to a part of such a friendly group and pleased to know there are a large amount of Sealab fans out there.

Re: the twitch stream, can someone post the link? Fortunately for me 9 am eastern is 10 pm where I live!

Zavec

05-17-2018, 03:08 AM

Hopefully there will be a VoD of the stream, because as sweet as this deck is I don't think I'll be getting up at 5AM

Anyway, went 2-1 in a local with the following 75:

3 Griselbrand
1 Magus of the Mind

4 Shallow Grave
2 Corpse Dance
1 Unburial Rites

4 Brainstorm
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Ponder

3 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality

3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual

1 Mastermind's Acquisition
1 Past in Flames

1 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire (don't own verdants)
1 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea

//SB:
1 Tropical Island
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Silent Gravestone
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ground Seal
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Tendrils of Agony

I think moving forward I'll swap the ground seal for the third silent gravestone, casting that card on turn 1 is really good. I also kind of want a second hurkyl's in the board, maybe will move the trop to the maindeck instead of the scrubland. The number of games where you need to entomb for unburial rites but don't have an artifact source is probably pretty small. Other than that I was pretty happy with the list. Didn't ever need past in flames, but it seems like a necessary evil in case you need to discard the acquisition to a LED or something.

Round 1: Bye

First round bye, sad times. Watched a guy playing a modern gifts storm list with the cantrips swapped out beat pile though, turns out pile is not well-equipped to deal with pieces of the puzzle into empty the warrens.

1-0

Round 2: Pile

Game 1 punted super hard, had shallow grave+griselbrand+LED but decided to spend a turn collective brutalitying to make sure the coast was clear. Saw no force of will, but a leovold. D'oh. He attacked once with leovold, but I didn't see the line to reanimate and block until the turn afterwards, at which point he had a thoughtseize to seal the deal.

Game 2 mulliganed to 5, kept lotus petal, ponder, dark ritual, 2 brainstorm. Scryed a nonland to the bottom, pondered, shuffled, did not find a land. Maybe should have gone to four.

1-1

Round 3: Merfolk
Game 1 I can't remember much, mulliganed to oblivion.

Game 2 led with fetch into silent gravestone, in response he surgicaled my fetchland because I guess at least he saw my hand? Turn three went LED, corpse dance holding priority, crack. He had a vial on 2 and had named illusion with his second cavern, so things got a little interesting. Drew some cards, went to reanimate magus which he let happen, then flipped a therapy. In response he vials in a phantasmal image and draws a bunch of cards. I think if he had done that in response to the reanimated magus looking for force of will maybe there was a chance for him. Cleared up the illusion with a collective brutality and closed things out.

Game 3 was much the same, turn 1 silent gravestone, turn 2 entomb, turn 3 corpse dance kill you.

Key takeaways for me: should be more aggressive in jamming the combo, and if they attack with a leovold/thalia/whatever, bear in mind the possibility of reanimating to block! Also ran into another guy that said he was building the deck, he mentioned that there's a discord group for TinFins that's also talking about Bizarro. If somebody could invite me to that it would be much appreciated.

Acclimation

05-17-2018, 11:27 AM

.dk

05-17-2018, 11:39 AM

@Zavec - nice! Glad you're enjoying the deck. Funny you're talking about going to 3 Gravestone from the 2/1 split - I'm actually thinking of going the other way. Ground Seal is better vs. Control decks, so it probably depends on your meta. I would bring in Seal vs. Miracles, whereas I would likely not bring in Gravestone.

Nice!

I linked the discord a few posts ago, it should still be a good link.

That link is included at the bottom of the primer now too.

8bit9mm

05-17-2018, 11:59 AM

Ground Seal is better vs. Control decks, so it probably depends on your meta. I would bring in Seal vs. Miracles, whereas I would likely not bring in Gravestone.

I would 100% bring in all 3 (Ground Seal + 2 Gravestone) vs New Miracles, because Surgical, Snap, Surgical is real.

Zavec

05-17-2018, 01:16 PM

Just realized the list I posted is 55 cards. Missing are 4 entombs and a volcanic.

I'm actually starting to wonder about green. TES has gone back to grixis, and Caleb has been playing a grixis ANT list for a while. I think the only matchup where I really want it is miracles and maybe pile.

.dk

05-17-2018, 01:29 PM

I would 100% bring in all 3 (Ground Seal + 2 Gravestone) vs New Miracles, because Surgical, Snap, Surgical is real.

I don't think Gravestone is good enough there, and that you end up overboarding. I find Abrupt Decay + Carpet of Flowers, or Serenity if you're in white to be more interesting. A natural storm line is viable (even for mini-tendrils) and very good here. I'm more concerned about the card advantage from Search for Azcanta and Counterbalance as well as Back to Basics.

Zavec

05-17-2018, 08:07 PM

I'm not a big fan of serenity, since it kills your own (silent gravestone|ground seal).

Also, aren't we aiming to win before search for azcanta becomes relevant?

Acclimation

05-17-2018, 10:14 PM

I don't quite remember how I boarded against Miracles when TheCrav and I jammed games at the Sealab during the GP, but I remember manhandling him.

I think I want something like, 2 Silent Gravestone 2 Silence, since I want to protect the yard vs Surgical+Snap, but also drag out their countermagic. We can grind pretty well, so as long as we can protect the yard, make land drops, and draw out counter magic, we can win the game.

I think I do something like (with my white splash list)

-1 LED
-1 Griselbrand
-2 Probe

+2 Silence
+2 Silent Gravestone

Manroe

05-18-2018, 02:29 PM

Acclimation

05-18-2018, 02:50 PM

So Jim did not make a VOD but I'll do my best to recap.

He started out 0-2 with a lot of bad luck, land draws and misplays but went on a good run to Finish 3-2. His overall thought was that the deck was just a worse storm variant and wasn't very sold on it.

Losses to Miracles and BUG Control
Wins vs Elves, Dredge, Sneak and Show

Feel free to add anything Acclimation.

He definitely had some suspect keeps (4 lands, PiF, 2 Discard) that he shouldn't have kept in those early matches, but that's fine since opening hands are hard to evaluate in this deck anyway (even more so for someone who just picked the deck up). I think he could have won the first round versus BUG if he was a bit more aggressive with Thoughtseize at himself, but he took the safe route and just drew poorly. Speaking of drawing poorly, he drew a lot of lands, and had a draw 21 that bricked in another game.

I think a lot of his criticisms were ones that people who haven't touched the deck or played it out in a few events make.

Magus is a bit cute, could just be regular reanimator/storm/tinfins
As we mention in the primer, DRS+Surgical are the main forms of hate, so you want Gravestone, which makes targeted reanimation less useful. There's also a lot of Edicts, Swords, Karakas, Maze, and Ensnaring Bridge played, so having a way to win without the attack step is very nice. Sure, drawing 21 is nice, but sometimes you don't have lots of life, but plenty of spells to cast. I can dig preferring ANT or TES to this, but going off with this deck feels so much more busted. I think this is a very fair criticism and is the main draw against the deck.

Wanting Careful Study
Round 1 he was stuck with Griselbrand in hand, and it makes sense there. However, we run only 4 guys, so Careful Study is just disadvantage for us unless we're in that situation. Between CoBru, Entomb, LED, and targeted discard, we have 9-13 outlets to get a creature in the yard. And even then, what do you cut for Study? Ponder and Probe do much more for us, and shaving reanimation, discard, or mana doesn't feel as good.

Wanting Multiple Magus
Everyone says this until they realize flipping Magus off Magus is bad, and there's no good way to grant Haste for a hardcast creature in this format (Dragon's Breath being the closest, but that's a really dead card).

I think 2 of these criticisms are from a lack of understanding of the deck and the construction of the deck. The first one is a very valid criticism, but you can ask that of any deck (Why play this over XYZ decks that do similar game plans?).

Why should you play this? Because it's fun and feels broken. There are many lines, which rewards playing the deck more, and makes the deck not boring to play all the time. Doing cool stuff is part of the draw of Legacy, and if you only care about winning and nothing else, go play Grixis or Stompy or Lands.

.dk

05-18-2018, 02:58 PM

H

Magus is a bit cute, could just be regular reanimator/storm/tinfins
As we mention in the primer, DRS+Surgical are the main forms of hate, so you want Gravestone, which makes targeted reanimation less useful. There's also a lot of Edicts, Swords, Karakas, Maze, and Ensnaring Bridge played, so having a way to win without the attack step is very nice. Sure, drawing 21 is nice, but sometimes you don't have lots of life, but plenty of spells to cast. I can dig preferring ANT or TES to this, but going off with this deck feels so much more busted. I think this is a very fair criticism and is the main draw against the deck.

One other thing that Magus has going for it is that it doesn't actually draw cards. You can go off with Magus in the face of a Leovold, and just kill it along the way. This is impossible with Griselbrand, as you have to kill it before you can activate it at all (well if you want cards anyway).

And yes, that's a fair question to ask of any combo deck - there are advantages and disadvantages to this vs. ANT or TES in my eyes anyway.

mistervader

05-18-2018, 03:48 PM

.dk

05-18-2018, 03:54 PM

This seems like a dumb pair of questions, but here goes...

1. What do you guys normally board out when boarding in stuff? I really find that problematic about this and the parent deck, Tin Fins. I do decently on game 1, then the post-boarded games are a wash because of my boarding.

2. Is there any reason nobody runs Orim's Chant instead of Silence? Wouldn't the kicker be sometimes relevant enough to pick the former over the latter?

Sideboarding is tough, with both decks. It's very dependent on how you expect the match to go. So, in matches where I want to get in underneath hate (chalice, thalia, etc.) I will likely board out some number of Ponders and/or Therapies for what I want to bring in. Plan on maximizing the chances of a fast hand, with some number of answers to their hate cards. Against decks that are slower and grindier (particularly those running Force of Will), you can very easily board out a Griselbrand and/or an LED, along with some number of Gitaxian Probes. A top deck Ponder in those cases is a lot better than a top deck Probe.

As far as Chant vs. Silence - we had that discussion when constructing our GP Seattle lists. The added mode of Chant we thought was probably outweighed by it getting turned off by Leyline of Sanctity - which is a card a deck like Sneak and Show could possibly bring in vs. us.

Hope that helps a bit...

Manroe

05-18-2018, 04:04 PM

Acclimation

05-18-2018, 04:08 PM

I really enjoy Jim as a player and streamer and my main goal was to support his stream and channel with this and get the deck a little exposure.

Now, that being said -- This deck may be much better off in the hands of someone like Caleb Durward to get a really fair assessment at a high level competitive scene. Caleb does very well with intricate combos in legacy and also sideboarding. Perhaps I'll try to get him to play it next.

I greatly appreciate you helping to get the deck out there. It's a bit harder to get someone to play this, as most of the bigger names play legacy often, and when they do it's more Delver-y things. Jim's probably a great streamer with other formats and deck types, so power to you for wanting to support his channel.

mistervader

05-18-2018, 04:09 PM

Sideboarding is tough, with both decks. It's very dependent on how you expect the match to go. So, in matches where I want to get in underneath hate (chalice, thalia, etc.) I will likely board out some number of Ponders and/or Therapies for what I want to bring in. Plan on maximizing the chances of a fast hand, with some number of answers to their hate cards. Against decks that are slower and grindier (particularly those running Force of Will), you can very easily board out a Griselbrand and/or an LED, along with some number of Gitaxian Probes. A top deck Ponder in those cases is a lot better than a top deck Probe.

As far as Chant vs. Silence - we had that discussion when constructing our GP Seattle lists. The added mode of Chant we thought was probably outweighed by it getting turned off by Leyline of Sanctity - which is a card a deck like Sneak and Show could possibly bring in vs. us.

Hope that helps a bit...

It helps tremendously, thanks! I can definitely see now why I would want Silences more, and at least have a better understanding what to side out in which matchups, since I generally know what I want to side in, any given matchup, but not what to take out for them.

I think I've taken a long enough hiatus from competitive M:TG and should join a Legacy tournament soon to bring this deck for a spin.

Manroe

05-18-2018, 04:20 PM

I greatly appreciate you helping to get the deck out there. It's a bit harder to get someone to play this, as most of the bigger names play legacy often, and when they do it's more Delver-y things. Jim's probably a great streamer with other formats and deck types, so power to you for wanting to support his channel.

Of course! I'm always brewing for legacy, it is my mtg passion and I love the list. My next stream I am going to have him do will either be mono-black pox with Karn, Lili and Heart of Kiran or BUG Food Chain with Leyline of Vitality.

Acclimation

05-18-2018, 04:27 PM

It helps tremendously, thanks! I can definitely see now why I would want Silences more, and at least have a better understanding what to side out in which matchups, since I generally know what I want to side in, any given matchup, but not what to take out for them.

I think I've taken a long enough hiatus from competitive M:TG and should join a Legacy tournament soon to bring this deck for a spin.

Not to mention that WW on Chant is weird to cast in our deck, since you might only have 2 lands at best that can do it, and odds are one will get WL'd.

To pile onto .dk's post, I try to keep my boarding down to 5 cards, since there isn't much wriggle room. As a default, I tend to shave 1 Griselbrand, LED, and differing numbers of CoBru, Cabal Ritual, Ponder, Probe, and Therapy depending on whether or not I need to go underneath them or fight my way through loads of hate.

When I'm going under, I cut Ponder and some CoBru/Therapy first, since those tend to be slower cards. Usually this is vs things like D&T, Chalice decks, Storm, and Lands; decks that can kill quickly or establish a lock.

When I'm going to fight my way though things, I tend to cut Griselbrand, LED, a Cabal Ritual (or both), and maybe 1-2 Probe, since I want to max out on Discard and Cantrips to strip my opponents as much as possible before forcing the combo through. Think Delver, Miracles, etc- decks that rely on countermagic and cantrips to keep opponent's from gaining any traction.

Being on the play or draw effects numbers on some of these cuts and additions, but I don't have a good heuristic for that just yet, and have been taking it game by game.

.dk

05-18-2018, 04:30 PM

Now, that being said -- This deck may be much better off in the hands of someone like Caleb Durward to get a really fair assessment at a high level competitive scene. Caleb does very well with intricate combos in legacy and also sideboarding. Perhaps I'll try to get him to play it next.

That would be cool - if you do, can you try to get him to unblock me on twitter too? ;)

It helps tremendously, thanks! I can definitely see now why I would want Silences more, and at least have a better understanding what to side out in which matchups, since I generally know what I want to side in, any given matchup, but not what to take out for them.

I think I've taken a long enough hiatus from competitive M:TG and should join a Legacy tournament soon to bring this deck for a spin.

Excellent - hope you have a fun time with it!

ManWearingHat

05-18-2018, 05:32 PM

Why should you play this? Because it's fun and feels broken. There are many lines, which rewards playing the deck more, and makes the deck not boring to play all the time. Doing cool stuff is part of the draw of Legacy, and if you only care about winning and nothing else, go play Grixis or Stompy or Lands.

I just wanted to chime in on this part of your post Acclimation. For me it's not just that this deck is fun, complex, and exciting. I've played plenty of silly and neat Legacy piles that checked those boxes. But with Bizarro, I've learned that Shallow Graving Magus of the Mind and Entombing for Past in Flames are two STUPID powerful individual interactions/concepts in Legacy. So while we may not yet have the perfect 75 to exploit them, the raw power is there. Just needs to be figured out.

Acclimation

05-18-2018, 05:46 PM

I just wanted to chime in on this part of your post Acclimation. For me it's not just that this deck is fun, complex, and exciting. I've played plenty of silly and neat Legacy piles that checked those boxes. But with Bizarro, I've learned that Shallow Graving Magus of the Mind and Entombing for Past in Flames are two STUPID powerful individual interactions/concepts in Legacy. So while we may not yet have the perfect 75 to exploit them, the raw power is there. Just needs to be figured out.

I think people forget why they started playing this game in the first place- it's FUN. I can understand people who only derive pleasure from pure win %, but even then, with a million other games in the world, odds are people didn't start playing this because they thought they could win all the time. Fun+Powerful- that's where we're at here.

I think we're on the right track for finding a shell for those interactions, but I think that the main thing keeping the deck from taking off is DRS. Not because it eats our GY, but because of how strong that 1 card is, it's warping other decks to play it. DRS+loads of countermagic is an incredibly strong backbone for a deck, and that's why Delver variants have such a large meta share. Sure, Delver is similarly format warping, but given how there's plenty of decks that run a DRS shell and don't run Delver, i'm less inclined to hate on it, but I digress.

Entomb+PiF and Shallow Grave+Magus are very busted interactions. I'm unsure if there's a stronger build out there for both of these, as I'm really enjoying the main deck, but trying to find a sideboard plan that works has been challenging.

I think I have some ideas that I haven't put on paper yet after thinking about the stream from earlier. Not sure if they're good, but it's something.

Zavec

05-20-2018, 02:42 AM

One of my friends just picked up a custom playmat, which made me think about getting a sealab 2021 one. Does anybody have any high-res art from the show, or recommendations for a scene I could pull a good playmat from?

jugglervr

05-21-2018, 01:26 AM

For anyone interested, I'm going to have Jim Davis play this on his stream soon. I'll update with when and the exact list when I have a better idea.

does anyone have a link to a vod for this?

Acclimation

05-21-2018, 01:34 AM

does anyone have a link to a vod for this?

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/262708600

But only if you are a subscriber. Maybe we'll get a youtube upload sometime.

Zavec

05-21-2018, 08:31 PM

I think this week I'm going to try a chrome mox and 13 lands. I've been finding initial mana sources are a bit of a bottleneck sometimes.

.dk

05-22-2018, 12:39 PM

I think this week I'm going to try a chrome mox and 13 lands. I've been finding initial mana sources are a bit of a bottleneck sometimes.

IMS after you've already made a Griselbrand? Wouldn't another LED generally be better than Chrome Mox?

Manroe

05-22-2018, 12:54 PM

IMS after you've already made a Griselbrand? Wouldn't another LED generally be better than Chrome Mox?I like the idea of a mox in this deck for the same reasons I like one in ANT.. Another mana source that's free post drawing 21

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

8bit9mm

05-22-2018, 01:03 PM

I've started running leagues with Bizarro. Last night was the first. Went a mediocre 3-2, but at least we cashed.

Beat Miracles 2-0
Beat ANT 2-1
Lost to Grixis Delver 0-2
Lost to DnT 1-2
Beat DnT 2-0

Opened my treasure chest and got a Liliana, the Last Hope, which was good for 31 cold, hard tixxxxx

List here. (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/bizarro-stormy-1/)

.dk

05-22-2018, 01:26 PM

I like the idea of a mox in this deck for the same reasons I like one in ANT.. Another mana source that's free post drawing 21

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

I don't get this. How is the 4th LED not better than the 1st Chrome Mox? You can crack in between draws with Griselbrand.

Also, it's not in this thread (reference the Tin Fins thread somewhere), Acclimation and I did some data gathering on a thousand or so goldfish hands with and without Chrome Mox and found that the fizzle rate difference was somewhere around 1% if I recall correctly. I can't see how it's worth cutting another card for that kind of difference, particularly when we're already running LED and Past in Flames, which should make that difference even less.

Acclimation

05-22-2018, 02:24 PM

I don't get this. How is the 4th LED not better than the 1st Chrome Mox? You can crack in between draws with Griselbrand.

Also, it's not in this thread (reference the Tin Fins thread somewhere), Acclimation and I did some data gathering on a thousand or so goldfish hands with and without Chrome Mox and found that the fizzle rate difference was somewhere around 1% if I recall correctly. I can't see how it's worth cutting another card for that kind of difference, particularly when we're already running LED and Past in Flames, which should make that difference even less.

Double checked the sheet we had. Ended up being something like a 1% difference in fizzle rate between the Chrome Mox lists and non Chrome Mox lists, and a 2% difference in fizzle rate due to being unable to find an IMS. It also had a slight advantage on combo turns, as the Chrome Mox list had a higher t1+t2 rate by 2 games.

When it comes to raw goldfishing, Chrome Mox was marginally better, but things like Ponder, Discard, LDV end up being better in real games over the Mox.

The issue isn't fizzling, because it's pretty low rate and marginally different between the 2 styles, it's actually getting to the point where you can actually combo off versus an opponent. It's a bit harder to quantify as a number, but the gains in resiliency are much more meaningful than being 1% less likely to fizzle versus the goldfish.

Pivoting this back to Bizarro's deck construction, we (or at least, most of us) have 3 LED and 2 Cabal Ritual alongside 4 Petal and 4 Dark Ritual. Already we are doing better on the IMS front. LED is a bit harder to play with as an IMS, but in a deck with PiF, discarding your hand is much more synergistic than exiling a card (even if most of the time you're dumping a spare cantrip or discard spell). This deck rewards stopping after every draw 7 to evaluate the situation. Sometimes that means cracking an LED and drawing another 7 blind. One of these days, we'll probably do a similar jam of goldfish games to quantify fizzle rates, but after 5 months of playing this list at 58/60 of similar cards, I feel comfortable to anecdotally (grain of salt as anecdotes aren't datas) say that the fizzle rate feels much lower.

phazonmutant

05-22-2018, 03:27 PM

The past two weeks, I played cute shit and went 2-2 both weeks. Enough, I say! I would not recommend Quicken over a Ponder - although I did cast Tendrils in the attack step with a lethal Griselbrand once. I would not recommend Emrakul over a Griselbrand - although I did cast Emrakul before casting a lethal Tendrils. And Hull Breach was cute but too hard to cast. Most of the games I'm losing, I only have a couple of mana sources, so being able to cast Breach and go off is unlikely.

As part of the cute shit testing, I cut the Mastermind's Acquisition from the main in favor of a Tendrils, and more lines came up where I could have won if I had a bad tutor (2) versus natural storm or a PiF line that wouldn't be possible without Tendrils main (0).

So... my testing taught me nothing except that my list is perfect. :tongue:

.dk

05-22-2018, 03:41 PM

So... my testing taught me nothing except that my list is perfect. :tongue:

A fair point that I had not considered prior. I shall take this under advisement.

/edit although as we discussed, I believe I *do* have a good reason for straying from your exact land configuration...

8bit9mm

05-22-2018, 04:43 PM

As part of the cute shit testing, I cut the Mastermind's Acquisition from the main in favor of a Tendrils, and more lines came up where I could have won if I had a bad tutor (2) versus natural storm or a PiF line that wouldn't be possible without Tendrils main (0).

@phazonmutant, I've found that Mastermind's gives us just enough flexibility over Tendrils to favor it in the main.

Sometimes "bad tutor" is good enough.

In my league (g3) last night, I had a line against ANT where Mastermind's was crucial.

He Duressed me (after a ton of back & forth), saw my hand was Corpse Dance, Griselbrand, Dark Ritual, Mastermind's Acquisition, took my Dark Rit and passed.

I assume I'm dead next turn, since he took a card to slow me down and not a payoff.

I rip another Dark Rit off the top (USea x2 and Badlands in play). Tap Badlands to cast Dark Rit and then a USea for Mastermind's, using it to Diabolic Tutor for Flusterstorm (with a USea up). I wanted to make it seem as though I was setting up for an end-step Entomb to go off the following turn.

He ends up going for it, cracking an LED to cast Past In Flames out of the yard (thankfully with no discard preceding) which I promptly Fluster.

I eventually go off 2 turns later and win.

Acclimation

05-22-2018, 04:56 PM

A fair point that I had not considered prior. I shall take this under advisement.

/edit although as we discussed, I believe I *do* have a good reason for straying from your exact land configuration...

Signatures, got it.

phazonmutant

05-22-2018, 05:29 PM

I rip another Dark Rit off the top (USea x2 and Badlands in play). Tap Badlands to cast Dark Rit and then a USea for Mastermind's, using it to Diabolic Tutor for Flusterstorm (with a USea up). I wanted to make it seem as though I was setting up for an end-step Entomb to go off the following turn.

Sweet, nice line. I like playing the control in the combo mirror with ANT and TinFins.

Re: Chrome Mox: I don't really get why. It's great in TES for Ad Naus, but you can't crack LED in the middle of resolving it, unlike Grisel. And it's great for producing more initial mana sources, and that deck is hella greedy with its colors. If you're playing a couple Empties in the sideboard, I could see playing it.

Zavec

05-22-2018, 11:10 PM

Acclimation

05-23-2018, 12:20 AM

I'm not playing it over the fourth LED though, I'm playing it over the fourteenth land. They play different roles.

When you're going off LED may be a bit better, but in all the turns before that, mox does more. There are plenty of opening hands where a LED is dead until you go off, but mox will act as a land to cast cantrips, entomb, etc.

Originally, we were testing fizzle rates of Chrome Mox builds against non Chrome Mox builds because we were curious if having an extra land (from 14 to 15 lands was what I was doing) to support JVP+Mentor. We ended up liking 15 lands with SB Mentor quite a bit, and it stuck for awhile until we ended up back at 14 lands for Unmask builds.

I think that 14th land is going to be better than 1st Mox, as Land also can cast cantrips, entombs, and so on, as well as make mulligans a bit better.

You can definitely try 13+chrome, but I'm not convinced that it's better than 14 lands. Between Corpse Dance costing 3 mana, needing an extra mana to activate Magus, and wanting to cast 4 mana spells occasionally (PiF+MA/DP), having more 1 more land is probably better.

Jlive00

05-23-2018, 11:41 AM

Zavec

05-23-2018, 10:16 PM

What would you guys side against pile?

I'm thinking for sure the gravestones/ground seals, but I'm not sure if I should be bringing in something like abrupt decay for leovold, or just hope I can make them discard it/win before they cast it/win through it with magus.

Jlive00

05-23-2018, 11:54 PM

Hoogland about to stream the deck. Looks like an empty is in the sb.

Zavec

05-24-2018, 02:22 AM

It was a bad day to be Bizarro.

Round 1: Eldrazi

Game one turn one they played a thorn of amethyst, I had no way to remove that game 1 so I was locked out before getting a turn.

Game two made a griselbrand with unburial rites, a couple of attacks were good enough to close it.

Game 3 they had leyline of the void, I played an island and pondered instead of bouncing it with chain of vapor. Proceeded to get the chain thought-knotted and that was that. Lesson learned.

Round 2: UR painter
Game one I turn one'd him off land, dark ritual, cabal ritual, entomb, corpse dance.

Game 2 he played a turn 2 trinisphere and I couldn't find an answer before getting grindstoned.

Game 3 mulliganed to 4, didn't see a single non-LED mana source until one land in the hand of 4. Was still almost a game, but he had the turn one tormod's crypt and I couldn't find a way to make enough mana to cast two reanimation spells until after he landed another trinisphere.

Round 3: Storm
Game one thoughtseized him then went off no problem.

Game two kept a slow 5, got a bunch of discard pointed at me, died. Game three was much the same.

Mulligans were brutal all night, might go up to 14 lands + mox or 13+2.

Acclimation

05-24-2018, 12:43 PM

It was a bad day to be Bizarro.

GAMES

Mulligans were brutal all night, might go up to 14 lands + mox or 13+2.

Rough night. Mulligans have been something I've been struggling with, although I haven't jammed a game since asking Phazonmutant for his heuristics a few pages back.

re: Hoogland's stream: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o4xgg1Cs-Y4

There's the vod. I haven't watched much of it yet, just the first match and game 1 of match 2, since I don't really care much for Hoogland (dude's negativity really turns me off).

Rant incoming: Apparently he was calling it Magus Storm, and refused to call it Bizarro, because the name wasn't descriptive. One of my pet peeves about naming conventions is that it assumes people don't know how to google search things. You google "Magus of the Mind Storm Legacy" and get his video, and some random reddit posts. You google Bizarro Stormy, and this thread is the first link (and lots of Sealab links). It's fine if you want to call things Grixis Control in standard, because you can add the qualifier "Dominaria Standard" to find discussion, but with non-rotating formats, having weird names makes things a bit easier to find. /rant

Zavec

05-24-2018, 07:51 PM

scottpou

05-24-2018, 08:43 PM

The thorn of amethyst before I got to do anything was probably the most annoying. Makes me wonder about a burning wish version so we have outs game one.

Or maybe we just accept that if they have a turn one hate piece game one we probably aren't winning, and focus on games 2/3.

Even with TinFins, I have been going up against Thorn in game 1's. I have been thanking burning wish quite a bit. Happening to me yesterday to start the day on Cockatrice.

Acclimation

05-24-2018, 09:02 PM

Even with TinFins, I have been going up against Thorn in game 1's. I have been thanking burning wish quite a bit. Happening to me yesterday to start the day on Cockatrice.

I think if Thorn is something you bump up against often in your meta, it's worth a change. If you want to make a BW version of the deck, here's where I would start (adjusted from the Death Wish build I posted a few pages back; also the manabase is probably not right either, but whatever):

1x Bayou
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Island
2x Misty Rainforest
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
2x Underground Sea
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Volcanic Island

3x Griselbrand
1x Magus of the Mind

4x Brainstorm
2x Cabal Ritual
2x Corpse Dance
4x Dark Ritual
4x Entomb
4x Shallow Grave

2x Collective Brutality
3x Burning Wish
1x Past in Flames
3x Ponder
3x Thoughtseize
3x Gitaxian Probe

3x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal

Sideboard
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Carpet of Flowers
2x Chain of Vapor
2x Massacre
3x Silent Gravestone
1x Tendrils of Agony

3 Other slots (Shattering Spree/Hull Breach/ Hurkyl's/Empty?)

LarryJ

05-24-2018, 09:48 PM

Rough night. Mulligans have been something I've been struggling with, although I haven't jammed a game since asking Phazonmutant for his heuristics a few pages back.

re: Hoogland's stream: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o4xgg1Cs-Y4

There's the vod. I haven't watched much of it yet, just the first match and game 1 of match 2, since I don't really care much for Hoogland (dude's negativity really turns me off).

Rant incoming: Apparently he was calling it Magus Storm, and refused to call it Bizarro, because the name wasn't descriptive. One of my pet peeves about naming conventions is that it assumes people don't know how to google search things. You google "Magus of the Mind Storm Legacy" and get his video, and some random reddit posts. You google Bizarro Stormy, and this thread is the first link (and lots of Sealab links). It's fine if you want to call things Grixis Control in standard, because you can add the qualifier "Dominaria Standard" to find discussion, but with non-rotating formats, having weird names makes things a bit easier to find. /rant

Watching him play the deck was disappointing.. he calls the deck bad, but misplays half a dozen times...

scottpou

05-24-2018, 10:50 PM

Watching him play the deck was disappointing..

Watched it live, and thought similarly. It definitely wasn't played optimally, but I do appreciate the exposure.

8bit9mm

05-24-2018, 11:03 PM

Sideboard
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Carpet of Flowers
2x Chain of Vapor
2x Massacre
3x Silent Gravestone
1x Tendrils of Agony

3 Other slots (Shattering Spree/Hull Breach/ Hurkyl's/Empty?)

If I were playing a Burning Wish variant (with green splash), I think I'd run something along the lines of:

2x Abrupt Decay
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Echoing Truth
1x Massacre
3x Silent Gravestone
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Reverent Silence
1x Meltdown / By Force
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Exhume

This is mainly from my experience playing a ton of TES and a good bit of DDFT.
I may have overlooked something, but I think this would be a decent start.

Acclimation

05-25-2018, 12:13 PM

If I were playing a Burning Wish variant (with green splash), I think I'd run something along the lines of:

2x Abrupt Decay
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Echoing Truth
1x Massacre
3x Silent Gravestone
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Reverent Silence
1x Meltdown / By Force
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Exhume

This is mainly from my experience playing a ton of TES and a good bit of DDFT.
I may have overlooked something, but I think this would be a decent start.

This is probably correct. I'm thinking you could run straight Grixis, but it leaves you soft to enchantments beyond bounce spells.

Probably a mana base of:

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

SB of (adapted from your suggested sb):
1x Rending Volley
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Echoing Truth
2x Massacre
3x Silent Gravestone
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Meltdown / By Force
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Exhume

.dk

05-25-2018, 12:19 PM

If I were playing a Burning Wish variant (with green splash), I think I'd run something along the lines of

This is mainly from my experience playing a ton of TES and a good bit of DDFT.
I may have overlooked something, but I think this would be a decent start.

I don't think you need green if you're playing Burning Wish. Empty is such a good card in the matchups where Carpet of Flowers is good and Abrade can mostly make up for Abrupt Decay. I think you'd want to board into multiple Empty the Warrens post board vs. Delver decks. Similar to a BW list I posted on the Discord 2-3 weeks ago:

2 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
4 Brainstorm
3 Burning Wish
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
1 Corpse Dance
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Griselbrand
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Magus of the Mind
1 Past in Flames
3 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
1 Thoughtseize
Sideboard:

2 Abrade
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth or Massacre
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Exhume
1 Past in Flames
1 Pulverize
3 Silent Gravestone
1 Tendrils of Agony

Substitute whatever artifact sweeper you want for Pulverize if you don't like that card - Meltdown, Shattering Spree, By Force, etc and update the manabase accordingly.

Acclimation

05-25-2018, 12:44 PM

I don't think you need green if you're playing Burning Wish. Empty is such a good card in the matchups where Carpet of Flowers is good and Abrade can mostly make up for Abrupt Decay. I think you'd want to board into multiple Empty the Warrens post board vs. Delver decks. Similar to a BW list I posted on the Discord 2-3 weeks ago:

2 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
4 Brainstorm
3 Burning Wish
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
1 Corpse Dance
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Griselbrand
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Magus of the Mind
1 Past in Flames
3 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
1 Thoughtseize
Sideboard:

2 Abrade
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth or Massacre
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Exhume
1 Past in Flames
1 Pulverize
3 Silent Gravestone
1 Tendrils of Agony

Substitute whatever artifact sweeper you want for Pulverize if you don't like that card - Meltdown, Shattering Spree, By Force, etc and update the manabase accordingly.

RIGHT, ABRADE. That was the card I was trying to think about.

I think for a BW build you want a sb of:

1 Tendrils (duh)
3 Gravestone (also duh)
1-2 Chain of Vapor (need more answers to leyline/rip)
1 Artifact Sweeper (your choice of By Force, Pulverize, or Meltdown)

And then 9 cards:
Massacre (at least 1, 2 if you hate D&T)
Exhume/Reanimate (no more than 1)
Past in Flames (1 to wish for is good)
Empty (1-3, at least 1 to wish for, 3 if you want to board into a more aggressive Empty plan vs Grixis.)
Abrade (0-2 I think this card is hot right now, breaks Chalice, Cage, 3ball, DRS, Magus of the Moon, other random dorks out of decks)
Rending Volley (0-2 I like this if you run into more Leovold and Meddling Mage over Chalice decks)
Cabal Therapy/Thoughtseize (0-1, wishable discard is nice sometimes)
Echoing Truth (more bounce is good)
Hurkyl's Recall (I'm not as high on this since we can run the red options listed above)

There's probably something I'm missing, but I like this for my meta:

1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Meltdown
2 Massacre
1 Past in Flames
2 Abrade
3 Empty the Warrens

.dk

05-25-2018, 12:54 PM

RIGHT, ABRADE. That was the card I was trying to think about.

I think for a BW build you want a sb of:

1 Tendrils (duh)
3 Gravestone (also duh)
1-2 Chain of Vapor (need more answers to leyline/rip)
1 Artifact Sweeper (your choice of By Force, Pulverize, or Meltdown)

And then 9 cards:
Massacre (at least 1, 2 if you hate D&T)
Exhume/Reanimate (no more than 1)
Past in Flames (1 to wish for is good)
Empty (1-3, at least 1 to wish for, 3 if you want to board into a more aggressive Empty plan vs Grixis.)
Abrade (0-2 I think this card is hot right now, breaks Chalice, Cage, 3ball, DRS, Magus of the Moon, other random dorks out of decks)
Rending Volley (0-2 I like this if you run into more Leovold and Meddling Mage over Chalice decks)
Cabal Therapy/Thoughtseize (0-1, wishable discard is nice sometimes)
Echoing Truth (more bounce is good)
Hurkyl's Recall (I'm not as high on this since we can run the red options listed above)

There's probably something I'm missing, but I like this for my meta:

1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Meltdown
2 Massacre
1 Past in Flames
2 Abrade
3 Empty the Warrens

No reanimation as a BW target? Exhume seems like such a no-brainer

Acclimation

05-25-2018, 12:57 PM

No reanimation as a BW target? Exhume seems like such a no-brainer

Right. Not sure what to cut, probably 1 Abrade or a Chain. I kind of hate my Exhumes because they're from Graveborn and are kinda warped, would almost prefer to run Reanimate even if it's worse just because I have it in JPN.

.dk

05-25-2018, 01:23 PM

Right. Not sure what to cut, probably 1 Abrade or a Chain. I kind of hate my Exhumes because they're from Graveborn and are kinda warped, would almost prefer to run Reanimate even if it's worse just because I have it in JPN.

Cutting 1 Massacre isn't terrible there either, as you're probably just boarding in 1 anyway? Also possible that it's better than Past in Flames as well, but I really don't know. I do like the prospect of having access to 2 PIF. That and having access to 5 Empties post board were the reasons I was wanting to play around with Burning Wish again to begin with.

Acclimation

05-25-2018, 02:33 PM

Cutting 1 Massacre isn't terrible there either, as you're probably just boarding in 1 anyway? Also possible that it's better than Past in Flames as well, but I really don't know. I do like the prospect of having access to 2 PIF. That and having access to 5 Empties post board were the reasons I was wanting to play around with Burning Wish again to begin with.

Was thinking with 2 Massacre one would get boarded in, the other would be Wishable.

I think I shaved a Chain.

.dk

05-25-2018, 04:28 PM

Was thinking with 2 Massacre one would get boarded in, the other would be Wishable.

I think I shaved a Chain.

That's what I meant, you'd be down to 1 massacre, and just wouldn't have one to board in and just have the wish target.

Acclimation

05-26-2018, 02:56 AM

Tested out the Burning Wish build at FNM tonight, and went 1-2. Since I don't own Volcanic Island or Badlands, I played shocklands, thinking it wouldn't matter... And it did matter.

Rd 1: Burn 1-2

Game 1 he goes Mountain, Guide, attack, go. I go turn 1 kill you.

In: 2 Abrade, 1 Chain of Vapor, 1 Silent Gravestone
Out: 3 Probe 1 Griselbrand

Game 2 I have a t2 combo, but my eot Entomb for Griselbrand gets Faerie Macabre'd. I end up drawing LED to pitch the GB in my opener, but brick on the draw 7 and couldn't make anything work with the mana floating. Had 7 life, swung for 7 to get back to 14, and decided to pass, since I figured I could have 2 more draw steps with a hand of Cabal Ritual, Magus, and loads of Reanimation. Opponent plays Eidolon, and I draw Burning Wish. I had a line (I wish I wrote it down) to play through it, but the shockland I needed to play untapped for Red mana prevents me from actually doing it. I make mini Tendrils to buy time and put him to 2, but don't draw CoBru to finish him.

Game 3: I keep a slow hand with Abrade, Ritual, Burning Wish, Shallow Grave, a Ponder, and lands. End up drawing CoBru and BW after shuffling with Ponder, kill both Goblin Guides but end up seeing 0 Instants/Sorceries in his hand with CoBru, just Sulferic Vortex, Macabre, and Land. He topdecks Eidolon, and I end up having a line for wishing for PiF and storming out for 14 (he also played Sulferic Vortex the turn after) when he was at 16, but Eidolon and needing to shock myself with a shockland once again leaves me 2 life short to win.

Rd 2: Nyx Fit 2-0
Nothing to note here, although in g2 he cast Lost Legacy naming Griselbrand when I was planning on t3 killing after keeping a mull to 6 that had one land and no rituals. End up going Magus for 5 into flipping Entomb, LED, Dark Ritual, Swamp, and Ponder-> Entomb PiF, Magus for 13 and flip 3 Shallow Graves and more LED+Rituals.

In: 3 Silent Gravestone 1 Chain of Vapor
Out: 1 Griselbrand 1 Ponder 2 Probe

Rd 3: Solidarity 0-2

End up getting slow hands both games and spun wheels. Tried to board in Empty to get a quick kill under FoW+Fluster+Remand+Muddle, and got punished by drawing both g2, so I had to make 6 Goblins t3 and 4 Goblins t4. He killed me with lethal damage swinging in t5.

In: 2 Empty the Warrens 1 Silent Gravestone
Out: 3 Ponder

Burning Wish was definitely interesting. I wish I had actual lands, as I should have won the first round and have been 2-1 (or maybe 3-0), but that's the risk of playing shocklands. I wish I had a Cabal Therapy in the SB, as I had a line where I could have Wished for Therapy to bin a Griselbrand in hand. Abrade is a good card, I like it vs a lot of decks, as it can answer random things like Cage+DRS out of Delver decks, Prison pieces+hatebears out of Stompy decks or D&T, and so on.

I wanted Empty to work out, but I didn't play any matches where having 2 Empty in the deck with 1 for Wish would have been good. That being said, my meta was this: 10 players: Me (Bizarro), 1 Nyx Fit, 1 Solidarity, 1 Tinfins (this guy also plays Aluren and Food Chain and BUG Control), 1 UB Eldrazi stompy (He had a boardstate of 2 Leyline of the Void, Chalice on 1, Sphere of Resistance, and Thought-Knot, with FoW in hand at one game I looked at), 1 4c control, 1 Burn, and 3 decks I didn't catch. We also have a guy that plays Moon Stompy pretty frequently, some guys that play D&T, and sometimes Miracles , BR Reanimator, Turbo Depths, Lands, Show and Tell, and Storm show up, but apparently tonight was jank night.

In short: not as dead to Stompy decks g1 (wish for By Force or Meltdown), extra storm lines (Wish for PiF/Empty), extra reanimation lines (Exhume). Probably worth fitting in a discard spell to wish for as well, since it comes up.

The cuts I made were 1 Ponder and 1 Discard spell (and MA) for the 3 BW, so there's a very good chance it's better, but it needs more testing.

I'm likely going to play my White splash build next week, as Serenity is really strong in my meta, and I really don't want to lose to shocklands again. Probably going to do 1 MA, 3 Therapy, 2 Cobru 1 Thoughtseize too.

Here's the BW list I played tonight:
1x Blood Crypt (Should be a Badlands)
3x Bloodstained Mire
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Island
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
2x Underground Sea
1x Steam Vents (should be a Volcanic)

3x Griselbrand
1x Magus of the Mind

4x Brainstorm
2x Cabal Ritual
2x Corpse Dance
4x Dark Ritual
4x Entomb
4x Shallow Grave

2x Collective Brutality
3x Burning Wish
1x Past in Flames
3x Ponder
3x Cabal Therapy
3x Gitaxian Probe

3x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal

Sb:
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Silent Gravestone
1 Chain of Vapor
1 By Force
2 Massacre
1 Past in Flames
2 Abrade
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Exhume

Recommended changes: Actual duals, probably go -2 EtW, +1 Cabal Therapy +1 Chain or other random card. Try to find way to jam in 6th discard spell, potentially.

.dk

05-26-2018, 11:19 AM

Burning Wish was definitely interesting. I wish I had actual lands, as I should have won the first round and have been 2-1 (or maybe 3-0), but that's the risk of playing shocklands. I wish I had a Cabal Therapy in the SB, as I had a line where I could have Wished for Therapy to bin a Griselbrand in hand. Abrade is a good card, I like it vs a lot of decks, as it can answer random things like Cage+DRS out of Delver decks, Prison pieces+hatebears out of Stompy decks or D&T, and so on.

I wanted Empty to work out, but I didn't play any matches where having 2 Empty in the deck with 1 for Wish would have been good. That being said, my meta was this: 10 players: Me (Bizarro), 1 Nyx Fit, 1 Solidarity, 1 Tinfins (this guy also plays Aluren and Food Chain and BUG Control), 1 UB Eldrazi stompy (He had a boardstate of 2 Leyline of the Void, Chalice on 1, Sphere of Resistance, and Thought-Knot, with FoW in hand at one game I looked at), 1 4c control, 1 Burn, and 3 decks I didn't catch. We also have a guy that plays Moon Stompy pretty frequently, some guys that play D&T, and sometimes Miracles , BR Reanimator, Turbo Depths, Lands, Show and Tell, and Storm show up, but apparently tonight was jank night.

In short: not as dead to Stompy decks g1 (wish for By Force or Meltdown), extra storm lines (Wish for PiF/Empty), extra reanimation lines (Exhume). Probably worth fitting in a discard spell to wish for as well, since it comes up.

Recommended changes: Actual duals, probably go -2 EtW, +1 Cabal Therapy +1 Chain or other random card. Try to find way to jam in 6th discard spell, potentially.

In that meta, totally. One of the reasons I wanted to try Burning Wish to begin with was having access to 5 Empty the Warrens post board vs. Delver decks. Not that 3 Empties are bad, but I wonder if that is strong enough in those matchups - this config doesn't have any great options there otherwise.

Acclimation

05-26-2018, 01:44 PM

In that meta, totally. One of the reasons I wanted to try Burning Wish to begin with was having access to 5 Empty the Warrens post board vs. Delver decks. Not that 3 Empties are bad, but I wonder if that is strong enough in those matchups - this config doesn't have any great options there otherwise.

And 3 Empty might as well be very good versus Delver, but due to the lack of the deck, I couldn't give it a spin. I think BW is promising though.

jaspercasidino

05-27-2018, 11:57 PM

Hello Fellow Stormys!

I played in a team constructed event yesterday, and although my team went 1-3 (with a first round bye), I went 4-0 (3-0 in actual matches) with Grixis Bizarro Stormy!

Round 1 - Bye

Round 2 - Win (2-1) vs Burn - Got on video at Geek Fortress twitch stream. link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/265848395?t=01h35m09s (starts at game 2 - you can watch a terrible game 1 if you want starts at ~1:27:00)

Game 1 - Burn on the play. My deck does nothing. His kills me turn 3 with a turn 1 swiftspear into turn 2 eidolon, into some burn spells, and fireblast. Pretty good burn hand. I played 2 ponders and did some fetching...

Game 2 - Turn 1 kill. If you watch the video, I didn't realize but I entombed to get the magus train running, but it was in my hand. I play two and typically board one out. Forgot about that. Worked out for a tendrils with 10 storm.

Game 3 - Burn plays a cage on turn 1. I end up acquisitioning for a cabal ritual (1 main that I sided out) to set up a hard cast Griselbrand next turn. It works and I take the match.

Round 3 - Win (2-0) UW Miracles/Mentor

Game 1 - Opponent plays scalding tarn and passes. I keep an LED, Magus, Petal, Thoughtseize, Dark Ritual, Corpse Dance, Fetchland. I decide to see how this deck can do. I fetch, cast petal, LED, then dark ritual. Opponent thinks for a moment and ritual resolves. I cast Thoughtseize and opponent scoops in response. Doesn't want to reveal what he is on. I put him on something with counterspells based on the tarn haha.

Game 2 - It takes a while but I keep jamming shallow graves during his end step. I turn 1 a silent gravestone. The turn I win, I had a couple lands in play, 2 dark rituals, acquisition, shallow grave. I cast dark ritual and shallow grave (Griselbrand in the yard). It gets countered. I then play second dark ritual and acquisition. They resolve and I fetch a shallow grave from there and cast with remaining 2 mana. Since he was on UW, I still had enough for 2 Griselbrand activations (3 after attack) and I tendrils for lethal. He had a surgical in hand and gravestone is just great.

Round 4 - Win (2-0) vs Lands

Game 1 - Its a slow go, but I combo off turn 4. Opponent tries to crop rotate into bog, but I know he has it in hand from prior life from the loams. He get's a Karakas instead, but that doesn't matter. He didn't even use it, because I never attacked.

Game 2 - Turn 1 sphere of resistance. I just move to game three and hope for a turn 1 or 2 kill.

Game 3 - I turn 1 cabal therapy naming sphere and I get one. He has nothing but do nothing lands in hand (including bog again). Turn 2 he plays a land and passes. Turn 3, I storm off with dark ritual, entomb, shallow grave and all the normal shenanigans. First magus activation is for 10 and the second for 13. He scoops when he seems the second exile pile.

All in all, I am loving the deck. I used to play a lot of Tin Fins and UBg Reanimator and this is so much more fun! Less prone to losing to DRS activations and the targeted graveyard hate. And for other matchups, it is just so much faster.

Deck List (Fetch lands are a bit off and no green since my team and I thought we were playing team unified as opposed to team trios - hence marshflats over bloodstain mire and no abrupt decay)

//Artifact (8)
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal

//Creature (6)
4x Griselbrand
2x Magus of the Mind

//Instant (20)
4x Brainstorm
1x Cabal Ritual
3x Corpse Dance
4x Dark Ritual
4x Entomb
4x Shallow Grave

//Sorcery (12)
1x Cabal Therapy
2x Collective Brutality
2x Mastermind's Acquisition
1x Past in Flames
3x Ponder
3x Thoughtseize

//Land (14)
1x Badlands
1x Island
2x Marsh Flats
4x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Swamp
3x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island

//Sideboard (15)
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Collective Brutality
1x Dread of Night
2x Echoing Truth
2x Flusterstorm
1x Massacre
1x Pithing Needle
3x Silent Gravestone
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Tendrils of Agony

Acclimation

05-29-2018, 11:25 AM

Hello Fellow Stormys!

I played in a team constructed event yesterday, and although my team went 1-3 (with a first round bye), I went 4-0 (3-0 in actual matches) with Grixis Bizarro Stormy!

All in all, I am loving the deck. I used to play a lot of Tin Fins and UBg Reanimator and this is so much more fun! Less prone to losing to DRS activations and the targeted graveyard hate. And for other matchups, it is just so much faster.

Nice showing! Glad to hear you are enjoying the deck!

Deck List (Fetch lands are a bit off and no green since my team and I thought we were playing team unified as opposed to team trios - hence marshflats over bloodstain mire and no abrupt decay)

//Artifact (8)
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal

//Creature (6)
4x Griselbrand
2x Magus of the Mind

//Instant (20)
4x Brainstorm
1x Cabal Ritual
3x Corpse Dance
4x Dark Ritual
4x Entomb
4x Shallow Grave

//Sorcery (12)
1x Cabal Therapy
2x Collective Brutality
2x Mastermind's Acquisition
1x Past in Flames
3x Ponder
3x Thoughtseize

//Land (14)
1x Badlands
1x Island
2x Marsh Flats
4x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Swamp
3x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island

//Sideboard (15)
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Collective Brutality
1x Dread of Night
2x Echoing Truth
2x Flusterstorm
1x Massacre
1x Pithing Needle
3x Silent Gravestone
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Tendrils of Agony

My one comment about your list would be that 2 Magus is definitely overkill, as flipping into one does nothing (no haste to activate), and you're generally better off going for Griselbrand before a Magus.

List looks a lot like the ones we were playing before we shaved a bunch of slots for Gitaxian Probe. Was it team unified Legacy? Or Unified Constructed?

8bit9mm

05-29-2018, 12:17 PM

Just getting this down while I have the time, before I add the matches to the spreadsheet.

I played in the Alabama Legacy League IQ on Saturday. I believe there was approximately 30 players.

I went a mediocre 3-2.

Round 1: Dredge 1:2

Game 1: I start going off turn 1 on the play, go to CoBru my opponent for free from Magus and he scoops to hide info.
Out: 2 Probe, 1 CoBru, 1 Therapy. In: 2 Silent Gravestone, 2 Chain of Vapor (figured I'd bring in general cards in the blind)
Game 2: Opponent has the nuts, dredges half his deck and Therapies me 3 times on turn 1, making 12 zombies. GG.
Out: 2 Chain of Vapor. In: 1 Echoing Truth, 1 Therapy.
Game 3: My hand is a little slow, but should be good to go on turn 2. Opponent makes an Iona on black, turn 1.

0-1

Round 2: D&T 0:2

Game 1: I attempt to go off with Magus (in my hand) turn 1 and fizzle, flipping 5 lands. Opp plays Thalia and I can't break out of.
In: Tropical Island, 2 Abrupt Decay, 1 Massacre, 2 Chain of Vapor. Out: 1 Scalding Tarn, 3 Therapy, 2 Probe.
Game 2: I Thoughtseize turn 1, taking a Canonist. Opponent Wastelands me. I brick on lands and my Opp plays a RiP (my Magus is in the yard, from discarding to hand size). She says "pass the turn" and as I'm reaching to draw from my deck, she moves her cards into exile. We argue about how she missed her trigger and my GY is still there, call a judge, he says the trigger is implied and away goes my Magus :frown: I end up Chaining the RiP, getting a Griselbee into play, swinging for 7, drawing 7 in response to a swords (all I could draw due to life total) and it was all garbage. GG.

0-2

Round 3: Aggro Loam 2:1

Game 1: I Thoughtseize turn 1 and take a Teeg. Opponent rips a Chalice off the top and plays it for 1 turn 1. I stare at a hand full of 1 drops until I die to Knight (don't worry, I checked him more than once on his Chalice).
In: Tropical Island, 2 Abrupt Decay, 1 Echoing Truth. Out: 4 Probe
Game 2: I Ponder, play Petal and pass turn 1. Opp plays a turn 1 Chalice on 1. I Entomb in response, he passes. Land, go. Opp plays Thalia. I make my third land drop, fetch, play Petal for 1, crack and play Cabal Ritual for 3, making 5 with threshold. Use 3 to Shallow Grave G-daddy, use the other 2 black to play 2 LEDs from my hand. Swing for 7. Crack LEDs for 3B3U, draw 7, Echoing Truth Thalia, then proceed to go off with Magus to kill my Opp, leaving the Chalice on the table.
Game 3: Opponent and I both mull to 5. He plays a Savannah and passes. I play Swamp, Dark Rit, Entomb, Shallow Grave, LED, hit for 7, crack for BBB, draw 21 and kill my opp.

1-2

Round 4: Miracles 2:1

Game 1: Turn 3 I get a Griselbrand into play, Opp Unexpectedly Absent's it in combat, draw 14 in response and end up getting there.
Out: Island, 2 CoBru, 4 Probe, 1 Griselbrand. In: Tropical Island, 2 Abrupt Decay, 2 Carpet of Flowers, 2 Silent Gravestone, 1 Ground Seal.
Game 2: Game goes very long, to the point where my GY is larger than my library. Opponent eventually gets there with Snapcaster beats and countermagic, after I had already Decayed on Snap and one Clique.
Game 3: I keep a nasty 7 without protection and decide to YOLO it. I play USea into Dark Rit, Entomb, Shallow Grave Griselbrand and dead my opp on turn 1. I was honestly amazed he had no Force.

2-2

Round 5: Combo Elves 2:0

Game 1: Opp wins the roll, casts Land Grant for a Bayou, makes a bunch of mana and plays a board full of Elves on turn 1. He passes and I kill him on turn 1, exiling my entire library with Magus, then casting PiF to cast the Acquisition I had to dump in the yard due to an LED crack.
Out: Island, 2 CoBru, 2 Probe. In: Tropical Island, 2 Abrupt Decay, 2 Silent Gravestone.
Game 2: Opp leads with a turn 1 Relic of Progenitus. I play land and cantrip. A few turns go by, I'm at 5 from dinky elf beats, and am dead on board. Rip a decay off the top. Blow the Relic. Go off with Griselbrand into Magus FTW.

3-2

Thoughts: The deck is strong. Extremely so. Mulliganing is extremely difficult with this deck. Cantrip hands can be deceiving and too slow to get anywhere in time. I had a blast though. The deck draws quite a crowd when people hear "Shallow Grave, Magus of the Mind enters the battlefield." For now, I'll keep on Bizarro-ing. Haven't had the urge to go back to DDFT quite yet.

List:

Land (14)
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea

Artifact (7)
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

Creature (4)
3 Griselbrand
1 Magus of the Mind

Sorcery (15)
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Mastermind's Acquisition
1 Past in Flames
3 Ponder
1 Thoughtseize

Instant (20)
4 Brainstorm
2 Cabal Ritual
2 Corpse Dance
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave

Sideboard
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Flusterstorm
1 Ground Seal
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Massacre
2 Silent Gravestone
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Tropical Island

LarryJ

05-29-2018, 03:22 PM

8bit9mm

05-29-2018, 03:40 PM

Is there a world that we would run a 1-of of Mastermind and Burning Wish to try to dodge specific color hate, or does this dilute the deck too much?

Awesome to hear about the results, 3-2 for a deck that is still being tinkered with is solid.

The thing is, the Iona wasn't the complete problem. I had found my Echoing Truth the following turn.

The issue was, if I Echoing Truth the Iona, I can't proceed due to choked mana and am still dead on board to his zombies and Ichorids.
If I Echoing Truth the zombies, I'm still dead to the Iona and Ichorids.
It was a lose-lose situation. Sometimes your opponent just gets the nutter-butters and rolls you. It happens.

Anyways, saying all that, I don't actually think it's worth it to hedge against "color" hate (i.e. Iona).

Edit: Also, thanks for the kind words. I think the deck is getting closer and closer to a polished build.

Acclimation

05-29-2018, 04:26 PM

Agreed, sometimes you just get rolled by your opponents, and there's nothing you can do.

Some days you're the steamroller, some days you're the poor sap in front of it.

As far as running 1 BW +1 MA, I think that it's possible, especially in more Grixis centered builds, but it might be better to just go all in on Burning Wish at that point.

At least one benefit of running such a build is that you can fire off one to find a utility spell or some other missing piece, and still have the other to pull out Tendrils when it's time to kill. Personally, I like the 2 tutor set-up, as early builds (prior to this thread being created) we toyed around with 2 MA, as it felt really good to have 2 "wild cards" to flip with Magus, as well as have the ability to fire off one MA for a random spell without having to worry about losing our one Wish effect. We ended up trying out DP+Tendrils for a bit, and that's when the thread started, before people starting toying with 1 MA builds.

There's definitely a precedent for playing with 2 tutor effects, and it's not bad, but it ended up getting cut when we wanted to add Gitaxian Probe to the deck AND stay at 60 cards.

.dk

05-29-2018, 04:54 PM

Agreed, sometimes you just get rolled by your opponents, and there's nothing you can do.

Some days you're the steamroller, some days you're the poor sap in front of it.

As far as running 1 BW +1 MA, I think that it's possible, especially in more Grixis centered builds, but it might be better to just go all in on Burning Wish at that point.

That seems like a weird config to me. Almost seems like if you're playing BW, it should be 3-4, and maybe not even run Past in Flames maindeck. Use your wishes for redundancy in that case, as well as utility. BW plays pretty poorly with PIF to begin with. Acquisition, on the other hand, is great with PIF. Having a split seems to want to pull you in a couple different directions. Seems like we might want to think about it like TES vs. ANT - are we a Burning Wish deck, or a Past in Flames deck? Good arguments for both.

scottpou

05-29-2018, 05:04 PM

...BW plays pretty poorly with PIF...

Can confirm. I do agree it's one or the other. A la TES v ANT.

Acclimation

05-29-2018, 05:46 PM

Seems like we might want to think about it like TES vs. ANT - are we a Burning Wish deck, or a Past in Flames deck? Good arguments for both.

I mean, we almost have to be a Past in Flames deck, Entomb+PiF is such a powerful combination.

BW is pretty strong, but if we're already playing Entomb, it makes a lot of sense to lean into it. Granted, being almost all in on GY interaction is risky, but Entomb+PiF is much more powerful than BW- and raw power is what we're all about.

scottpou

05-29-2018, 05:56 PM

.dk

05-29-2018, 05:57 PM

I mean, we almost have to be a Past in Flames deck, Entomb+PiF is such a powerful combination.

BW is pretty strong, but if we're already playing Entomb, it makes a lot of sense to lean into it. Granted, being almost all in on GY interaction is risky, but Entomb+PiF is much more powerful than BW- and raw power is what we're all about.

that's not to say that you shouldn't run a PIF maindeck if you're running 3-4 Burning Wishes, just that the power level of PIF goes down. Maybe it's to the point where it's not worth it, but you're right that entombing for it is just so attractive. PIF seems to be more powerful in a raw sense, but less flexible. And maybe that's really what's at issue here - looking for flexibility in our answers for opposing sideboard hate.

Acclimation

05-29-2018, 06:42 PM

that's not to say that you shouldn't run a PIF maindeck if you're running 3-4 Burning Wishes, just that the power level of PIF goes down. Maybe it's to the point where it's not worth it, but you're right that entombing for it is just so attractive. PIF seems to be more powerful in a raw sense, but less flexible. And maybe that's really what's at issue here - looking for flexibility in our answers for opposing sideboard hate.

Flexibility is a bit rough in a deck with so few slots to swap in and out. The good news is, is that most decks are fairly one dimensional in their sideboard hate: almost all in on targeting the GY or putting down lock pieces. Some of these decks back it up with countermagic, or run a 1-of of another bit of hate (think 1 Cage in Delver decks), but for the most part, if you sit down vs Grixis you know their main avenue of hate is DRS+Surgical with countermagic back up or taxing bears+rest in peace for D&T and so on. If you know what's coming, it's easy to select 2-3 cards in the sb to keep on hand to dance around that stuff: Silent Gravestone, Serenity, Massacre, Chain of Vapor.

Sure, you're going to lose to that guy at your store that really hates combo decks, so he has 9 cards in his Burn sideboard of Cage+Faerie Macabre+Ensnaring Bridge+Leyline of the Void+Mindbreak Trap+Surgical, but unless you really hate losing to that guy, it's not worth worrying about being able to answer every possible thing that can get thrown at us.

I wonder what the bare minimum you need for Wish targets to get enough value out of BW? Is it viable to get a wishboard alongside the anti-hate vectors listed above?

1 Tendrils
1 Hull Breach (Wishable answer to Chalice+Leyline?)
1 By Force (Wishable answer to multiple artifacts)
1 Cabal Therapy (1 discard spell to open up lines//find protection to go off)
1 Exhume/Reanimate (Wishable reanimation to open up a play)
2 Massacre (one for Wishing, one to board in)
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Chain of Vapor (or 1 Chain+1 Echoing Truth or 1 Chain+1 Abrupt Decay)
2 Carpet of Flowers (Since we're in green for Hull Breach, might as well run this)
1 Abrupt Decay

It could be we want lots of Empty the Warren instead, but I think that it takes up just a bit too much room for not enough impact. But I'm imagining with this SB, you pick your vector of anti-hate, and have a few wishable options to hit the odd artifact/enchantment out of decks like Delver or D&T. It also leaves you less dead to game 1 lock pieces, as you can wish for something to break Chalice or Thorn.

Example boarding configs:

Vs Grixis: + Carpet+ Gravestone -2 ponder -1 Griselbrand -1 LED -1 Probe. If they draw their 1-of Cage, we can wish up Hull Breach or By Force to deal with it.

Vs D&T: +1 Massacre +2 Chain -3 Ponder. We have 4 copies of Massacre to draw into (3 Wish+1 Massacre), can Wish for Hull Breach to destroy RiP if we don't draw Chain.

Vs Moon Stompy: + Abrupt Decay + Chain, - Ponder or Discard pending Play or Draw.

Should alleviate some of the issues we have where we want to overboard because we want to be prepared for every angle they come at us with, because now we can Wish for anti hate to deal with the odd 1 & 2 ofs decks like to run.

PiF is still strong, even with BW, as sometimes you end up pitching BW to CoBru, or it gets countered or discarded. The card ends up in the GY sometimes.

.dk

05-29-2018, 07:10 PM

I wonder what the bare minimum you need for Wish targets to get enough value out of BW? Is it viable to get a wishboard alongside the anti-hate vectors listed above?

1 Tendrils
1 Hull Breach (Wishable answer to Chalice+Leyline?)
1 By Force (Wishable answer to multiple artifacts)
1 Cabal Therapy (1 discard spell to open up lines//find protection to go off)
1 Exhume/Reanimate (Wishable reanimation to open up a play)
2 Massacre (one for Wishing, one to board in)
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Chain of Vapor (or 1 Chain+1 Echoing Truth or 1 Chain+1 Abrupt Decay)
2 Carpet of Flowers (Since we're in green for Hull Breach, might as well run this)
1 Abrupt Decay

The green is looking a little weird to me here. I like where you're going with Hull Breach - I wonder how decent your mana is going to be. Since you're running Burning Wish, you already likely want more red sources maindeck - green cards adds a lot more pressure on your duals. I have been thinking a straight grixis list, but that does leave you weaker to enchantments. Have to rely on bounce, in that case. That said, at least in the case of Leylines (both of the relevant ones), Empty the Warrens is usually pretty good...

It could be we want lots of Empty the Warren instead, but I think that it takes up just a bit too much room for not enough impact. But I'm imagining with this SB, you pick your vector of anti-hate, and have a few wishable options to hit the odd artifact/enchantment out of decks like Delver or D&T. It also leaves you less dead to game 1 lock pieces, as you can wish for something to break Chalice or Thorn.

Overloading on Empties (and running 3 in the board, to board in 2 of them) actually works just fine with what you posted - the extra 2 Empties take the place of Carpet of Flowers - those are both really cards for the Delver matchups anyway, with each having some different advantages against some different decks.

Should alleviate some of the issues we have where we want to overboard because we want to be prepared for every angle they come at us with, because now we can Wish for anti hate to deal with the odd 1 & 2 ofs decks like to run.

Right - which is why you and I really started talking about it in the first place. It seems almost too difficult to have enough room to board everything in. Just needs testing to find a good config, and if that flexibility is worth warping the deck for.

PiF is still strong, even with BW, as sometimes you end up pitching BW to CoBru, or it gets countered or discarded. The card ends up in the GY sometimes.

Yes, it is. I didn't mean it was bad - it's power level just goes down a bit.

Acclimation

05-29-2018, 07:47 PM

The green is looking a little weird to me here. I like where you're going with Hull Breach - I wonder how decent your mana is going to be. Since you're running Burning Wish, you already likely want more red sources maindeck - green cards adds a lot more pressure on your duals. I have been thinking a straight grixis list, but that does leave you weaker to enchantments. Have to rely on bounce, in that case. That said, at least in the case of Leylines (both of the relevant ones), Empty the Warrens is usually pretty good...

I was thinking that you could adapt your 5c manabase to make it work, swapping the Bayou for a Badlands, then drop the Scrubland in the SB for Bayou. I think that you need to be able to answer random enchantments beyond bouncing them, and Breach dealing with 2 targets is almost too good to pass up, especially since the decks running Leyline of the Void are also gunning for Chalice or 3sphere to lock you out.

Alternatively, you could also do a similar splash running White instead of Green, and have things like Revoke Existence to wish for and Serenity, but I feel like Green is going to be a smidge better if you're doing 4c.

If going 4c is a bit much on the manabase, you could just drop the Breach for Void Snare and bring back the Empties for the Carpets+AD slots, and run 1 Chain+1 Echoing Truth or something.

hax0rm4n

05-29-2018, 07:53 PM

You can also try stealing DDFT's Consign/Oblivion for a bounce wish target that gets around chalice on 1

phazonmutant

05-29-2018, 08:33 PM

Another 4-0 at the CK weekly yesterday (27-7 in matches overall). This week, back to 1 MA main, 2 Flusters in the side, no cute stuff. I didn't like how Surgical was lining up against Storm. Beat: some port of modern Amulet Bloom, Moon Stompy, ANT, UBg Stifle Death's Shadow.

Just getting this down while I have the time, before I add the matches to the spreadsheet.

Thanks for posting, good to contribute matchups and boarding. I'm definitely approaching boarding very differently from you, might be good to hear what people think. Overall I think it's crazy to board out Probe, I think it's one of the best cards in the deck. A few years ago the TES thread had a discussion about boarding out Probe vs. Ponder and everyone pretty much came to the same conclusion - Probe is nuts. It helps build threshold, go off faster by effectively reducing deck size, build storm, strengthen PiF, and most importantly, inform how to play around and through answers.

I'm not the final authority though, so I'll comment how I would board inline and we'll see how people approach it.

Round 1: Dredge 1:2
Boarding blindOut: 2 Probe, 1 CoBru, 1 Therapy. In: 2 Silent Gravestone, 2 Chain of Vapor (figured I'd bring in general cards in the blind)
Out: 2 Chain of Vapor. In: 1 Echoing Truth, 1 Therapy.

In the blind is tricky, but in paper you can get some good clues from how people physical board. If they immediately jam a couple of cards in their deck, they're most likely to be Delver. If they put a stack of cards in, it's likely control or a prison deck. If they tentatively put in one or two cards, it's most likely combo. But if you can't get any clues, I think I would just present the starting 60. You can play through any of the commonly played hate by hardcasting Griselbrand, proper sequencing, or raw speed; and potentially dead cards hurt those plans.

Knowing the opponent is on Dredge, I like Fluster to buy time. You're dead by the time they can reanimate a creature, so Truth isn't worthwhile. Therapy is good on the play.
-1 CoBru, -1 Ponder, -1 Island, +2 Fluster, +1 Trop (Trop is easier to fetch in my configuration)

Round 2: D&T 0:2
In: Tropical Island, 2 Abrupt Decay, 1 Massacre, 2 Chain of Vapor. Out: 1 Scalding Tarn, 3 Therapy, 2 Probe.

I don't see why you'd not want all the lands you can get against a mana disruption deck. Going up to 15 lands is very nice. I always keep a Therapy to Entomb for if I need to save a Griselbrand but can't fully combo.
-2 Therapy, -2 Ponder, -1 LED, -1 Griselbrand, -1 Cabal Ritual, +1 Trop, +1 Chain of Vapor, +1 Echoing Truth, +1 Hurkyl's, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Massacre

Round 3: Aggro Loam 2:1
In: Tropical Island, 2 Abrupt Decay, 1 Echoing Truth. Out: 4 Probe

Same as D&T except -1 Massacre, +1 Therapy. They attack in basically the same ways except are scarier with faster hate pieces.

Round 4: Miracles 2:1
Out: Island, 2 CoBru, 4 Probe, 1 Griselbrand. In: Tropical Island, 2 Abrupt Decay, 2 Carpet of Flowers, 2 Silent Gravestone, 1 Ground Seal.

In this matchup I usually want to go less all-in and am more willing to make land drops and set up a big turn. Probe is an all-star to figure out what to play around. I'm torn on how many Gravestones to bring in.
-1 CoBru, -1 Griselbrand, -2 LED, -1 Cabal Ritual, -2 Lotus Petal, +2 Carpet of Flowers, +1 Trop, +1 Silent Gravestone, +1 Ground Seal, +2 Abrupt Decay.

Round 5: Combo Elves 2:0
Out: Island, 2 CoBru, 2 Probe. In: Tropical Island, 2 Abrupt Decay, 2 Silent Gravestone.

-1 Island, -1 Ponder, -1 CoBru, +1 Trop, +2 Silent Gravestone; OTD also -2 Therapy, -1 CoBro, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Flusterstorm

Acclimation

05-29-2018, 11:50 PM

Consign//Oblivion isn't a bad idea for Wishable bounce. Makes it easier to Wish and hold onto.

Another 4-0 at the CK weekly yesterday (27-7 in matches overall). This week, back to 1 MA main, 2 Flusters in the side, no cute stuff. I didn't like how Surgical was lining up against Storm. Beat: some port of modern Amulet Bloom, Moon Stompy, ANT, UBg Stifle Death's Shadow.

yeh buddy

I'll add my thoughts, but with a White splash.

Thanks for posting, good to contribute matchups and boarding. I'm definitely approaching boarding very differently from you, might be good to hear what people think. Overall I think it's crazy to board out Probe, I think it's one of the best cards in the deck. A few years ago the TES thread had a discussion about boarding out Probe vs. Ponder and everyone pretty much came to the same conclusion - Probe is nuts. It helps build threshold, go off faster by effectively reducing deck size, build storm, strengthen PiF, and most importantly, inform how to play around and through answers.

I've always been a fan of boarding out Probe, since I tend to prefer the extra dig over the extra information, but I've been reconsidering this and taking out Ponder more often after reading around the TES website. I still shave a copy from time to time, especially vs burn where I want to limit my life loss.

In the blind is tricky, but in paper you can get some good clues from how people physical board. If they immediately jam a couple of cards in their deck, they're most likely to be Delver. If they put a stack of cards in, it's likely control or a prison deck. If they tentatively put in one or two cards, it's most likely combo. But if you can't get any clues, I think I would just present the starting 60. You can play through any of the commonly played hate by hardcasting Griselbrand, proper sequencing, or raw speed; and potentially dead cards hurt those plans.

If I get to game 2 blind, I tend to bring in both Chain of Vapor and shave 1 GB and 1 Ponder. I figure I can answer Surgical+Countermagic with discard, and everything else with bounce. This is one benefit of playing in paper, you can watch your opponent board and make plans. Good tips.

Knowing the opponent is on Dredge, I like Fluster to buy time. You're dead by the time they can reanimate a creature, so Truth isn't worthwhile. Therapy is good on the play.
-1 CoBru, -1 Ponder, -1 Island, +2 Fluster, +1 Trop (Trop is easier to fetch in my configuration)

I tend to cut 2 Discard spells (Therapy or Seize), since I rarely want to aim discard at them, unless I'm taking Breakthrough or LED. I tend to bring Chain of Vapor, on the off chance they're bringing in Leyline of the Void. I've had Dredge opponents bring in Silent Gravestone recently (the Quad Laser variant), which is obviously fine for us.

In your board, with the Flusterstorms, I understand why you like adding it, as it can prevent them from stripping us with Therapy or eat a Looting or Breakthrough (or Dread Return if they're dumb and don't Therapy us first).

-2 Therapy +2 Chain of vapor

D&T: I don't see why you'd not want all the lands you can get against a mana disruption deck. Going up to 15 lands is very nice. I always keep a Therapy to Entomb for if I need to save a Griselbrand but can't fully combo.
-2 Therapy, -2 Ponder, -1 LED, -1 Griselbrand, -1 Cabal Ritual, +1 Trop, +1 Chain of Vapor, +1 Echoing Truth, +1 Hurkyl's, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Massacre

I bring in both Massacre and maybe both Chain of Vapor. They run 2 RiP at most, otherwise I wouldn't bother bringing in bounce. I tried Hurkyl's once, and they had Revoker+Canonist+Vial+Sword, so it was neat, but not the Flickerwisp and Mother of Runes. I'm more concerned with answering their creatures than getting their artifacts, even if it resets vial and slows their clock. I pretty much cut all my Ponder on the play, and board out 2 Therapy on the draw, as I'm probably going to need to play a longer game on the draw and will need to dig for answers.

+2 Massacre +2 Chain, -3 Ponder -1 Griselbrand (Play) -1 Ponder -1 GB -2 Therapy (Draw)

Loam: Same as D&T except -1 Massacre, +1 Therapy. They attack in basically the same ways except are scarier with faster hate pieces.

I don't have much experience vs Aggro Loam, as it's not as popular near me. Seeing that they run Chalice+ Leyline, I'm going to rely on Serenity+Chain of Vapor, so +2 Serenity +2 Chain - Same logic vs D&T.

Miracles: In this matchup I usually want to go less all-in and am more willing to make land drops and set up a big turn. Probe is an all-star to figure out what to play around. I'm torn on how many Gravestones to bring in.
-1 CoBru, -1 Griselbrand, -2 LED, -1 Cabal Ritual, -2 Lotus Petal, +2 Carpet of Flowers, +1 Trop, +1 Silent Gravestone, +1 Ground Seal, +2 Abrupt Decay.
Agreed on making land drops, if you can get a window to do something early, I take it, but otherwise I'm buckling in for a longer game. Depending on what I see g1 will change how I board for g2. If I see Snapcaster main, they're going to do Flusterstorms, Surgicals, so I like bringing in Gravestone+Silence+Chain. If I don't see any Snapcaster Mage and the game was long, I'm going to assume they are on RiP as their hate, and will leave out the Gravestone. If I don't see Snap and it was a short game, I err on them running Surgical, so I bring in Gravestone. Silence comes in, as sometimes you catch them shields down depending on Surgical with no Force, and sometimes you can play the mind game (am I casting Silence because I have the combo and I'm going for it or am I casting it to bait a counter?).

If I'm assuming they're on Snap+Surgical:
+3 Gravestone +3 Silence +1 Chain of Vapor (hedge vs random RiP, B2B, Blood Moon, Meddling Mage)
-1 GB -2 LED -1 Cabal Ritual -1 Probe -1 CoBru -1 Petal

Assuming RiP:
+3 Silence +2 Chain
-1 GB -2 LED -1 Petal -1 Cabal Ritual

Combo Elves:-1 Island, -1 Ponder, -1 CoBru, +1 Trop, +2 Silent Gravestone; OTD also -2 Therapy, -1 CoBro, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Flusterstorm
I assume they're going to rely on DRS and maybe GSZ for Ooze. Sometimes I've seen Surgical. It's also going to be a quick match, so I'm not a fan of keeping Ponder. I like keeping my CoBru, since it can kill a dude and sometimes snag a Therapy or Surgical or NO. Bounce is useful, as I've seen them run weird permanents, although it might just be the weirdos in my area.

+2 Chain +2 Gravestone -3 Ponder -1 GB

.dk

05-30-2018, 11:04 AM

I've always been a fan of boarding out Probe, since I tend to prefer the extra dig over the extra information, but I've been reconsidering this and taking out Ponder more often after reading around the TES website. I still shave a copy from time to time, especially vs burn where I want to limit my life loss.

I think this really just depends on what you're playing against. When you want speed either to race a combo mirror or to get in under lock pieces, I'll always board out Ponders first. And specifically in the lock-piece matchups Therapy will get the axe too, if more room is needed. Their hate becomes diverse, and your plan is to combo out before a lock piece hits the field, so Therapy loses value.

I board out Probe over Ponder in grindier matchups - basically against most every Hymn deck. Top decking a Ponder after getting your hand torn apart is so much better than top decking probe. Like you guys, I'm torn on how to board vs. Miracles, so sometimes I'll shave at most 1 Probe vs. them, depending on how much room I need.

I think I have much less of a standard list I'm playing than either of you at the moment though (particularly since I'm rarely getting to play right now), so it's harder for me to note actual plans for matchups. 5c has some similar heuristics, but I don't think you generally need to sideboard as many cards as your answers are a little more powerful across the board. And obviously any Burning Wish build has radically different heuristics.

hovercraft

05-30-2018, 11:52 AM

Acclimation

05-30-2018, 12:03 PM

Hey guys, love the look of this deck! Good work to everyone brewing and testing it. I'm currently playing JBlinder's Living Wish-Tin Fins, but have played a lot of Griselbrand decks (Griselstorm with Magus of the Will, BR reanimator, etc).
I want to get in on this Magus of the Mind shenanigans, but I sadly don't have Underground Seas or Volcanics. I have Bayous, Badlands, Tropical Island, Scrublands, Polluted Deltas, LEDs, etc. Could I get by somehow with Watery Graves and other duals? Are there any versions of the list that lean more B/R (Faithless Looting, Burning Wish)? I only play casual local legacy so nothing super competitive. Thanks in advance!

You can definitely get away with playing a couple of shocklands, as the deck isn't as dependent on life total as other Griselbrand decks. Since you have Bayou and Trop, you can get away with a manabase like this one:

4 Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Badlands
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Fetches of a mix of Misty/Mire/Verdant (2 Misty/1 Mire/1 Verdant a good start)

And just plug in shocklands where you need to. It's probably a bit better if you could run Volcanic, since Volcanic/Bayou is a bit better combination than Trop/Badlands, but it's only a marginal difference.

.dk

05-30-2018, 12:03 PM

Hey guys, love the look of this deck! Good work to everyone brewing and testing it. I'm currently playing JBlinder's Living Wish-Tin Fins, but have played a lot of Griselbrand decks (Griselstorm with Magus of the Will, BR reanimator, etc).
I want to get in on this Magus of the Mind shenanigans, but I sadly don't have Underground Seas or Volcanics. I have Bayous, Badlands, Tropical Island, Scrublands, Polluted Deltas, LEDs, etc. Could I get by somehow with Watery Graves and other duals? Are there any versions of the list that lean more B/R (Faithless Looting, Burning Wish)? I only play casual local legacy so nothing super competitive. Thanks in advance!

I don't see why not - it obviously won't be optimal, but not backbreaking. One of the problems is that you're usually going to want to be fetching for USea first or second pretty much every game, so you'll definitely feel the life loss sometimes. That said, this deck is much less life-total dependent than Tin Fins is as you're less likely to need to draw to a low life total with Griselbrand since you have access to Magus of the Mind.

I know Acclimation has played around with a couple of shocks for splash colors too.

hovercraft

05-30-2018, 01:41 PM

You can definitely get away with playing a couple of shocklands, as the deck isn't as dependent on life total as other Griselbrand decks. Since you have Bayou and Trop, you can get away with a manabase like this one:

4 Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Badlands
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Fetches of a mix of Misty/Mire/Verdant (2 Misty/1 Mire/1 Verdant a good start)

And just plug in shocklands where you need to. It's probably a bit better if you could run Volcanic, since Volcanic/Bayou is a bit better combination than Trop/Badlands, but it's only a marginal difference.

I don't see why not - it obviously won't be optimal, but not backbreaking. One of the problems is that you're usually going to want to be fetching for USea first or second pretty much every game, so you'll definitely feel the life loss sometimes. That said, this deck is much less life-total dependent than Tin Fins is as you're less likely to need to draw to a low life total with Griselbrand since you have access to Magus of the Mind.

I know Acclimation has played around with a couple of shocks for splash colors too.

Great to hear thanks! The green mana is just for sideboard cards right? I'm going to have to read through all the discussion on card choices and such now. Got my Corpse Dances and Maguses otw in the mail but should have everything else other than the U lands and maybe a couple SB cards.

How many cards do you generally see with your first Magus activation?

.dk

05-30-2018, 01:52 PM

Great to hear thanks! The green mana is just for sideboard cards right? I'm going to have to read through all the discussion on card choices and such now. Got my Corpse Dances and Maguses otw in the mail but should have everything else other than the U lands and maybe a couple SB cards.

How many cards do you generally see with your first Magus activation?

Yeah, I haven't run any green or white cards maindeck in Bizarro Stormy before.

And as for your other question... I would recommend reviewing the primer. There are some good guidelines on Magus activations vs. Griselbrand drawing, etc. I try not to activate Magus for <6 if I don't have to - sometimes it's a hail mary though, and your only option is to Magus for a small number and hope to hit gas.

hovercraft

05-30-2018, 03:01 PM

Yeah, I haven't run any green or white cards maindeck in Bizarro Stormy before.

And as for your other question... I would recommend reviewing the primer. There are some good guidelines on Magus activations vs. Griselbrand drawing, etc. I try not to activate Magus for <6 if I don't have to - sometimes it's a hail mary though, and your only option is to Magus for a small number and hope to hit gas.

Thanks again! Great work on the primer, very informative.

I'm leaning towards trying the Burning Wish variant as I think it gives you some nice lines to just storm off with a Shallow grave'd Griselbrand+21 cards and BW for Tendrils. Plus the general utility that BW brings, but like you guys have said it does warp your deck construction. But I think I should try the more standard MA version first.

Seems the consensus on LEDs is 3, is the 4th often just redundant?

.dk

05-30-2018, 03:32 PM

Thanks again! Great work on the primer, very informative.

I'm leaning towards trying the Burning Wish variant as I think it gives you some nice lines to just storm off with a Shallow grave'd Griselbrand+21 cards and BW for Tendrils. Plus the general utility that BW brings, but like you guys have said it does warp your deck construction. But I think I should try the more standard MA version first.

Seems the consensus on LEDs is 3, is the 4th often just redundant?

If you're just trying to learn how the deck plays, I would play a more stock list with Mastermind's Acquisition. phazonmutant's or Acclimation's are both great places to start.

The 4th LED is fine, but I don't think any of us have actually found it necessary. It's not part of your combo set-up like it is with many ANT and TES lines (infernal tutor), and usually comes up after you've already got a Griselbrand or Magus on the battlefield. If you're looking for less reliance on the reanimation part of the deck though, and want to open up more storm lines, then the 4th LED and 3-4th Cabal Rituals to go alongside Past in Flames would be interesting. We've discussed some sideboard plans like that in the past, although I can't recall how much (if any) testing we put into them.

Acclimation

05-30-2018, 03:52 PM

If you're just trying to learn how the deck plays, I would play a more stock list with Mastermind's Acquisition. phazonmutant's or Acclimation's are both great places to start.

Play phazonmutant's list, he's doing something right.

I think if you want to play with BW it's better to get some reps in with the deck without them, as it adds another layer of complication on an already complicated deck.

That being said, this is from someone who built DDFT over ANT as his first Legacy deck because "if I'm going to play a storm variant, I might as well play the most complicated one and get good", so feel free to start where ever your heart desires.

The 4th LED is fine, but I don't think any of us have actually found it necessary. It's not part of your combo set-up like it is with many ANT and TES lines (infernal tutor), and usually comes up after you've already got a Griselbrand or Magus on the battlefield. If you're looking for less reliance on the reanimation part of the deck though, and want to open up more storm lines, then the 4th LED and 3-4th Cabal Rituals to go alongside Past in Flames would be interesting. We've discussed some sideboard plans like that in the past, although I can't recall how much (if any) testing we put into them.

If I remember correctly, 4th LED was one of those things we cut when we made room for Probe, because we thought it was unnecessary. I think it's fine to run 4th LED, but 3 seems to be a good number.

.dk

05-30-2018, 04:05 PM

If I remember correctly, 4th LED was one of those things we cut when we made room for Probe, because we thought it was unnecessary. I think it's fine to run 4th LED, but 3 seems to be a good number.

Yeah, that's right - I remember now. It's of marginal importance, I think. Particularly with Probe, since you do have the ability to cantrip a bit more.

hovercraft

05-30-2018, 04:35 PM

.dk

05-30-2018, 04:47 PM

Thanks for the explanations guys. Appreciate it. I'm drawn to BW because I started on Burning Reanimator a few years ago. But I agree that I should play "stock" bizarro first.

I feel like the 4th LED(from Wish-Fins and Other LED reanimator experience) helps your explosive G1s but can easily be trimmed for SB cards in G2 or G3.
Since I'll be on shocks I might keep the 4th LED and cut 1 probe to ease the lifeloss a bit. Could that make sense?

Yes and no - it's kind of a double whammy vs. Force of Will decks. Probe lets you know if the coast is clear, and LED makes you go all in if you're using it as a discard outlet. So then you're left not knowing as well as more prone to being vulnerable.

jaspercasidino

05-31-2018, 01:14 AM

Nice showing! Glad to hear you are enjoying the deck!

My one comment about your list would be that 2 Magus is definitely overkill, as flipping into one does nothing (no haste to activate), and you're generally better off going for Griselbrand before a Magus.

List looks a lot like the ones we were playing before we shaved a bunch of slots for Gitaxian Probe. Was it team unified Legacy? Or Unified Constructed?

I agree with the Magus. I always boarded one out. I could make some room for Git Probes. Perhaps a Cabal Ritual, Magus, Mastermind's Acquisition.

The event was standard, modern, and legacy. We thought it was unified, but it was actually just team trios. No need to worry about who gets to play what card. That would have been nice to know! haha

Zavec

05-31-2018, 03:24 AM

1-2 at a weekly, but the losses all felt like my fault so at least that's good. Maindeck was the same as phazonmutant but with -1 bloodstained mire, -1 probe, +1 LED, +1 chrome mox. Chrome mox was an attempt to be slightly faster against prison decks and other combo after what happened last week, but it didn't come up. I'm not sure what to make of the meta here, lots of weird decks.

Sideboard was as follows:
1 Tropical Island
1 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Silent Gravestone
1 Thoughtseize
1 Xantid Swarm
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Echoing Truth
1 Ground Seal
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony

Round 1: BUG Leovold (with Life from the Loam and True-Name?)

Game 1: Thoughtseize sees two polluted deltas, brainstorm, ponder, strix, DRS, force, takes force.
He plays DRS, I untap and kill him.

I assume he's on pile. Boarding:
-1 Mox
-1 Griselbrand
-1 LED
-1 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Therapy (Should have been brutality)
+2 Silent Gravestone
+1 Ground Seal
+1 Thoughtseize
+1 Tropical Island

Game 2:
Keep 6 with some cantrips, some discard, and a reanimation spell. Thoughtseize sees true-name, snapcaster, ponder, 3 lands. Take true-name. Play a gravestone, die to snapcasters and leovolds as I proceed to not find anything to reanimate but do find three more reanimation spells.

Saw some soft permission so -1 Collective Brutality, +1 Carpet

Game 3 keep the following 6:
Swamp
Tropical Island
Lotus Petal
Entomb
Shallow Grave
Thoughtseize

Led with Thoughtseize, see brainstorm, brainstorm, edict, null rod, tropical island, polluted delta, wasteland. There are two lines I see here:
* Take brainstorm, between his draw for the turn and second brainstorm he has 4 draws to find either force+blue card or surgical extraction
* Take null rod, next turn play gravestone and go for it the turn after

I'm not sure which line is correct, but I didn't know what weird cards he was playing so I went with option A. He brainstormed, third draw was a surgical extraction. Griselbrand is gone, but at least I still have magus, right?

The next turn I played gravestone, he found a snapcaster to snap surgical shallow grave in response. Get beaten down by leovold, snapcaster, and a DRS but it felt pretty academic at that point.

Round 2: Lands. Nothing much here, good matchup for us. The guy's deck was beautiful though, all foil and japanese and promo and whatnot. Prettiest deck I've ever seen.

Boarding:
-2 Collective Brutality
-1 cabal therapy
-1 griselbrand
-1 LED
+2 chain of vapor
+1 hurkyl's
+1 echoing truth
+1 thoughtseize

Game 2 was interesting because he ghost quartered one of my lands on his end step which let me get an untapped swamp to entomb and win a turn earlier than I would have otherwise been able to.

Round 3: BUG death's shadow
Game one kept a hand that was a little sketchy, would have been great with a blue source. Did not find a blue source, should have mulliganed.

Didn't really know how to board at this point, haven't encountered shadow in legacy before.
-1 Griselbrand
-1 LED
-2 Cabal Therapy
-1 Collective Brutality
+2 Silent Gravestone
+1 Ground Seal
+1 Thoughtseize
+1 Carpet of Flowers

Kept a hand with ground seal, some lands, griselbrand, and some reanimation effects. He played 4 gitaxian probes, cycled 3 street wraiths, and passed.

Landed ground seal, we passed the turn back and forth a few times. Drew the 2 silent gravestones, which was a little unfortunate.

Ended up with like 4 reanimation spells in hand and no way to discard griselbrand, so it took another few turns until I had rituals to hard cast him. Notably at one point I was at 8 cards, but didn't realize until after I played the land. I think that mistake cost me the game. Hard cast, got countered, but now he's in the graveyard!

Unfortunately the extra turns drawing rituals allowed my opponent to find an angler, which turned the 3 stubborn denials in his hand from dazes into negates. D'oh.

Had I gotten griselbrand in the graveyard earlier I could have started firing off two reanimation spells a turn to burn through the counters, but by the time I was able to start casting those it was too late.

All in all the deck seemed powerful if a bit awkward, there were a couple games where I drew 4+ reanimation effects and no entombs/creatures, but I guess that happens with all two card combos. It also punishes you very hard if you slip up.

Takeaways and thoughts:
* Discarding to hand size in the midgame is still a line, don't rush to play the land you just drew before stopping to think.
* Still not sure how I feel about ground seal. Drawing a card and being harder to remove are great, but it's harder to resolve against delver, between 2 mana making it slower against daze, and needing to fetch a nonbasic to cast it.
* Abrupt decay has the same problem of needing a nonbasic, which makes it worse against prison decks with wasteland
* Collective brutality still feels a little slow, especially because you can't use it as both a way to discard a creature and kill a DRS.
* The fourth LED was probably superfluous, will be swapping it for the fourth gitaxian probe.

hovercraft

05-31-2018, 11:08 AM

Acclimation

05-31-2018, 12:27 PM

Has anyone ran into people using Pithing needle on Magus/Grisel yet? Necrotic Ooze could be some tech for that (Props to JBlinder for that). Sometimes the Ooze can be both creatures at once.

Yeah, you kill them with the other dude or break Needle and then kill them.

.dk

05-31-2018, 12:28 PM

Finally read through the whole thread, lots of great discussions.

Started gold-fishing a bit last night. Magus sure is nuts once you can get him going for ~8-10 cards. I realized you need to be careful about decking yourself on turns when you have to activate Magus a 2nd time. I had a 2nd activation leave me with like 5 cards in my deck haha. Sometimes 21 Grisel cards +MA and mana is enough to win without magus, does keep me curious about burning wish versions.

Has anyone ran into people using Pithing needle on Magus/Grisel yet? Necrotic Ooze could be some tech for that (Props to JBlinder for that). Sometimes the Ooze can be both creatures at once.

Dude, what? If you're close to decking yourself off of Magus, you had better be winning at that point. Like... you did something way wrong if your deck is in your hand or exiled via Magus and you can't win.

And if they needle one, kill them with the other. Or a PIF into tendrils.

.dk

05-31-2018, 12:41 PM

hovercraft

05-31-2018, 12:45 PM

Actually wait, are you saying that you think you are decking yourself with too large of magus activations? Magus doesn't draw cards, it exiles them. You won't lose to a magus activation for larger than your library size.

Oh yeah I had the win once I did the 2nd magus activation, I was just worried that exiling more cards than your library would be a loss like drawing. Glad to hear it doesn't work like that.

.dk

05-31-2018, 01:19 PM

Oh yeah I had the win once I did the 2nd magus activation, I was just worried that exiling more cards than your library would be a loss like drawing. Glad to hear it doesn't work like that.

120.4 A player who attempts to draw a card from a library with no cards in it loses the game the next time a player would receive priority. (This is a state-based action. See rule 704.)

Magus doesn't draw cards

hovercraft

05-31-2018, 01:26 PM

120.4 A player who attempts to draw a card from a library with no cards in it loses the game the next time a player would receive priority. (This is a state-based action. See rule 704.)

Magus doesn't draw cards

Thanks for answering all my stupid questions!

I was thinking of the Helm+RiP/Leyline situation but I guess your opponent just dies on their draw step, not to the Helm itself. Or is it because Helm mills, even if cards go to exile?

.dk

05-31-2018, 01:29 PM

your opponent just dies on their draw step

.dk

05-31-2018, 01:34 PM

Small primer update from this discussion on Magus of the Mind:

Magus of the Mind - Magus is really the card that sets this deck apart from Tin Fins. For those that haven’t cast Mind’s Desire before, this card is a draw spell and a ritual wrapped into one. Magus of the Mind DOES NOT exile itself after activation. Combine this with the possibility of flipping more haste-granting reanimation and we're chaining Mind's Desire effects for the cost of U. Drawing upon current Vintage deck building, this is akin to Paradoxical Outcome in that it is not restricted, draws cards, and generates mana. However, we get to run far more than 4 of these effects given that we are running 4+ reanimation spells as well as Past in Flames to flash them back.

Also... since there have been a fair number of questions about this, let's clearly explain one way Magus differs from Griselbrand. Magus DOES NOT draw cards - it exiles them from your library. This means that Leovold, Notion Thief, Chains of Mephistopheles, and Spirit of the Labyrinth have no effect on Magus activations. Furthermore, this also means that, according to rule 120.4, you do not lose the game by exiling your entire library with Magus of the Mind. So feel free to go overboard on activations - you simply run out of additional cards to exile.

8bit9mm

06-01-2018, 04:32 AM

So feel free to go overboard on activations

So what I'm hearing is, "don't stop til you get enough."

Chm'on :cool:

hovercraft

06-01-2018, 07:34 AM

Bizarro got a write up on goldfish:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/this-week-in-legacy-new-archetypes

Good job guys!

Acclimation

06-02-2018, 03:34 AM

Short report, FNM tonight was a Win a Dual, and we played 4 rounds. I went 3-1 overall with a 61 card White list, as I wasn't sure if I wanted 4 Probe or 4 Ponder, and decided to just have both.

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

4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder

2 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

3 Collective Brutality
3 Cabal Therapy

3 Griselbrand
1 Magus of the Mind

1 Past in Flames
4 Shallow Grave
4 Entomb
2 Corpse Dance
1 Mastermind's Acquisition

Sideboard:
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Massacre
3 Silence
1 Plains
2 Serenity
3 Silent Gravestone
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Disenchant

Played against:

Painter (2-0) IN:2|Serenity|2|Plains|2|Chain of Vapor|1|Disenchant Out: 1|Polluted Delta|1|Griselbrand|3|Ponder|1|Cabal Therapy
UB Reanimator (1-2)In: 2|Chain of Vapor| 3|Silent Gravestone Out: 4|Ponder|1|Collective Brutality
Turbo Depths (2-0) In: 2|Chain of Vapor| 3|Silent Gravestone Out: 4|Ponder|1|Griselbrand
Doomsday (2-0) In: 3|Silence|1|Chain of Vapor Out: 3|Ponder|1|Collective Brutality

List played very well tonight, had some good hands, an insane g1 vs Reanimator that involved MA for Chain of Vapor through Chancellor of the Annex to bounce it with 1 life left, after Entombing Griselbrand in response to his t2 Exhume and trading with his t3 Show and Tell for Iona on black. It's probably correct to go down to 3 Ponder, as I'm finding that the information from Probe in a build like mine with 3 Cabal Therapy is very important. I think if you ran 2-3 Thoughtseize over Therapy, you could do 4 Ponder and 3 Probe, but that's going to be a personal decision.

As an aside, the dude who won the event (and a Scrubland) took his modern hatebears deck and added GSZ, Mom, and 1 Swords to Plowshares, and ran things like Loxodon Smiter. Would have loved to have played against that, but unfortunately I didn't get the chance. Other good news is that a lot of people recognized the deck and called it Bizarro before I told them I was one of the co-creators, so there was a lot of good conversation to be had.

Zavec

06-02-2018, 05:48 AM

I'm liking the 4 ponders 4 probes. I think tomorrow I'll try cutting cabal ritual to fit those, I haven't been super impressed by that card.

How was 3 brutalities?

Acclimation

06-02-2018, 01:17 PM

I'm liking the 4 ponders 4 probes. I think tomorrow I'll try cutting cabal ritual to fit those, I haven't been super impressed by that card.

How was 3 brutalities?

I've been a fan of 3 Brutalities, as there's almost always targets for the removal mode, about 70% of the things I want to strip are instants/sorceries, and sometimes the drain makes a difference- all of this on top of an uncounterable discard outlet. It's definitely slow, but it's really nice having a g1 method of dealing with random creatures (DRS, Delver, Yung Peezy, Thalia, Eidolon, Moon, etc). I like the swiss army knife aspect of the card.

I do think that running 2 copies for another 1 mana discard spell is probably pretty good, but I probably wouldn't drop to 1 copy.

As far as Cabal Ritual, I've been enjoying having it, as it helps to enable storm lines and having an extra couple of rituals can make t1-2 combos happen more often. It's definitely meh without Threshold, but sometimes all I need is BBB to get going, so it helps. Shaving 1 is probably fine, but going to 0 makes PiF a little bit worse, and makes it a bit harder to cast MA/DP/Tendrils at random points in the game.

Zavec

06-02-2018, 09:12 PM

Dangit there's another guy that made it locally, so we had two copies in a nine person tournament today.

Guess I'll go back to ANT or people are going to start metagaming against bizarro super hard.

Didn't really miss cabal ritual, but the sample size was pretty low.

JackaBo

06-04-2018, 03:59 AM

8bit9mm

06-04-2018, 10:58 AM

1) How good is probe? I mean i know it's building storm count and it provides info if you can go off. But it's a pretty bad reveal to magus. The two life is also important when we want to draw 21 off Griselbrand. I could see going up on business and discard instead. Thoughts?

The two life almost never matters when you're going off. You have to go down to 14 for it to make a difference for the most part.
I've been running 3 Therapy, 2 Collective Brutality, 1 Thoughseize for quite a while now and it still feels correct. Just the perfect mix.
3 Therapy is also a big proponent for playing the full set of Probes. Also, information is key when you're playing a combo deck.

2) Have anyone tried intuition in the list. It could work as a tutor for tendrils (and pif and led) when we want to win. It can also be entomb #5 with the upside of binning two demons in opponents end step versus an active shaman.

I can't say that I've tried it, but I've found the maindeck to be very tight. I feel like Intuition would be better served as a Dark Petition. I will say that I'm only playing the Mastermind's main with Tendrils in the board, which has been just fine. I also feel like Intuition almost prices you into playing Unburial Rites.

Acclimation

06-04-2018, 11:54 AM

I love how new decks gets legacy players really excited. I guess this deck is also the perfect combo of hilarious and competitive enough to be worthwhile.
That our local Tin Fins player would pick it up was no brainer. But now me and another player are collecting the necessary cards and soon we'll be three bizarro players locally. Quite bizarre.

YEH

So i have these questions for you seasoned players:
1) How good is probe? I mean i know it's building storm count and it provides info if you can go off. But it's a pretty bad reveal to magus. The two life is also important when we want to draw 21 off Griselbrand. I could see going up on business and discard instead. Thoughts?

Overall I think it's crazy to board out Probe, I think it's one of the best cards in the deck. A few years ago the TES thread had a discussion about boarding out Probe vs. Ponder and everyone pretty much came to the same conclusion - Probe is nuts. It helps build threshold, go off faster by effectively reducing deck size, build storm, strengthen PiF, and most importantly, inform how to play around and through answers.

The information game has been incredibly important for this deck, as it can inform you which line is correct to take. I'd shave Ponder if I wanted to add business before cutting Probe.

2) Have anyone tried intuition in the list. It could work as a tutor for tendrils (and pif and led) when we want to win. It can also be entomb #5 with the upside of binning two demons in opponents end step versus an active shaman.

We did some testing with it before we released the primer, and it wasn't as good as some of the other options for that slot (things like MA). There might be a version of the deck that wants to run 2-3 Intuition and grind out more PiF lines, but I'm not certain as to what cuts I would want to make, in addition to adding an extra couple of lands so we can consistently cast a 3 mana spell. It's a strong spell, but for 1 copy I feel like we get more bang for our buck with MA, and with multiple copies we need to rebuild the deck, and I'm not certain that's the direction we want to go in a DRS+blue shell world.

.dk

06-04-2018, 12:12 PM

Maybe if Gitaxian Probe were to get banned sometime, Intuition might make more sense? In builds similar to our early ones, prior to running Probe.

8bit9mm

06-04-2018, 12:54 PM

Maybe if Gitaxian Probe were to get banned sometime, Intuition might make more sense? In builds similar to our early ones, prior to running Probe.

If Probe were to get banned, it'd really piss on having Therapy in the deck.
I've had some good blind-therapies in the past, but I'm no clairvoyant.

Although, that's just some hypothetical B.S. anyways.

Edit: I'd probably do something like:

-3 Therapy, -4 Probe
+1 Ponder (4), +1 Collective Brutality (3), +2 Thoughtseize (3), +1 Griselbrand (4), +2 Unmask (2)

phazonmutant

06-05-2018, 03:46 AM

I top 8'd the CardKingdom 1K last Saturday, losing in the quarters for a 5-2 record. Variance caught up to me, I didn't draw Probe (best card in the deck). VOD is here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/268604395?t=05h56m

Also 3-1'd today, totally punting the combo in the last round and losing to myself. Graveyard order matters, messed up sequencing with LED.

Still running my same list, so far 35-10 even including the 2 weeks of 2-2s with a bad build. So that's not bad. Deck feels super strong. I still don't know any obvious changes I would make. Maybe -1 LED for something? It seems the most cuttable.

hovercraft

06-05-2018, 08:48 AM

phazonmutant

06-05-2018, 02:18 PM

Nice results! I'm going to watch the VOD today, thanks for the link.
What is your current build and sb?

1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volcanic Island
4 Brainstorm
2 Cabal Ritual
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
2 Corpse Dance
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Griselbrand
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Magus of the Mind
1 Mastermind's Acquisition
1 Past in Flames
3 Ponder
4 Shallow Grave
1 Thoughtseize
Sideboard:

2 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Flusterstorm
1 Ground Seal
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Massacre
2 Silent Gravestone
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Tropical Island

As mentioned above, I think in the maindeck the most cuttable cards are the 3rd LED, 3rd Griselbrand, 2nd Cabal Ritual in that order. Sideboard, 1st Massacre, 2nd Fluster. I haven't brought Massacre in very much, and it seems like it doesn't map well in sideboard slots.

Zavec

06-05-2018, 02:58 PM

WarpWorld

06-06-2018, 10:43 AM

As mentioned above, I think in the maindeck the most cuttable cards are the 3rd LED, 3rd Griselbrand, 2nd Cabal Ritual in that order. Sideboard, 1st Massacre, 2nd Fluster. I haven't brought Massacre in very much, and it seems like it doesn't map well in sideboard slots.
Definitely interested in the deck and will be playing some games. Maybe the 4th ponder over the 3rd led.

.dk

06-06-2018, 12:11 PM

How often do you go for a storm line without a magus? I get the feeling maybe I'm undervaluing cabal ritual because that sort of line isn't one I think I've ever used. Outside of that specific case I'd just rather have the option of blue mana from LED I think.

Also, congrats on the top 8!

At least for me, while it hasn’t come up frequently (but it has come up), it does play a big part in other lines too. Using it to hardcast Griselbrand is quite good. As well as carting with threshold to start your combo and have mana floating afterwards. And lastly, it casts Mastermind’s Acquistion quite well.

phazonmutant

06-06-2018, 08:20 PM

How often do you go for a storm line without a magus? I get the feeling maybe I'm undervaluing cabal ritual because that sort of line isn't one I think I've ever used. Outside of that specific case I'd just rather have the option of blue mana from LED I think.

Also, congrats on the top 8!

Thanks!

At least for me, while it hasn’t come up frequently (but it has come up), it does play a big part in other lines too. Using it to hardcast Griselbrand is quite good. As well as carting with threshold to start your combo and have mana floating afterwards. And lastly, it casts Mastermind’s Acquistion quite well.

Exactly this.

8bit9mm

06-06-2018, 11:44 PM

At least for me, while it hasn’t come up frequently (but it has come up), it does play a big part in other lines too. Using it to hardcast Griselbrand is quite good. As well as carting with threshold to start your combo and have mana floating afterwards. And lastly, it casts Mastermind’s Acquistion quite well.

The number of times I've ritual'd out or Brainstorm'd (holding priority) cracking LEDs to just cast G-dizzle in this deck is a little ridiculous. I need to start keeping a running tally.
Also, casting Griselbrand for free off Magus always feels good, especially when it's just for +1 storm :wink:

Acclimation

06-11-2018, 11:25 PM

Time for a quick stats update since it's been a bit over a month since we've started collecting data.

So far we have 67 matches reported in the spreadsheet, with events between paper and MTGO, with all decks containing a similar core of 55/60 main and 5/15 sb cards (as color splashes want different slots).

Match Win %: 61.5%
G1 win %: 70.1%
G2 win %: 56.9% (65 games, with 1 draw and 1 due to deck list registration and winning g1)
G3 win %: 44.4% (27 game 3s)

Pretty good stuff overall! 67 matches isn't a lot, but it's a good start.

Now for a breakdown of relevant match ups:

Miracles: 66.7% win rate, 6 matches
Grixis Delver: 60% win rate, 5 matches
Czech Pile: 25% win rate, 4 matches
Maverick: 66.7% win rate, 3 Matches
BUG variants (Control, Delver): 66.7% win rate, 3 matches
Death & Taxes: 33.3% win rate, 3 matches
Stompy variants (Moon, Eldrazi, MUD): 50% win rate, 4 matches
Lands: 100%, 2 matches
Burn: 0%, 1 Match
Solidarity: 0%, 1 Match

Okay, Solidarity is not a real match-up and it's not completely correct to lump the stompy variants together, but there's been match ups between 36 archetypes, with a lot of them having only 1-2 matches.

For a much better stat breakdown and to contribute your own matches, please go to the shared drive here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1woLXyxcXv26S_qlqOwnIdjIITDx-gCCyj_fe01oHuOc/edit?usp=sharing)

Once again, this is a very limited pool of data, so don't take these numbers as gospel, as I'm certain there's a fair number of people who opt to not report their events if they did poorly. But it's still a good start and bodes well for the development of the deck.

Zavec

06-12-2018, 12:51 PM

I didn't realize we had a shared spreadsheet, I'll definitely add my matches going forward!

phazonmutant

06-12-2018, 03:51 PM

I went 3-1 at the CK weekly again, beating Wizard tribal, Punishing Czech x2, and losing to white Aluren. I updated the spreadsheet, but man that took way longer than I expected. Not sure I'll go into that much detail again.

So far the only decks I'm afraid to see are decks with Chalice and Leyline of the Void (Moon / Steel Stompy), a great Miracles pilot, and regular Czech pile (although I'm positive so far, the combination of DRS, Hymn, and Leo is brutal).

area

06-12-2018, 07:21 PM

Once again, this is a very limited pool of data, so don't take these numbers as gospel, as I'm certain there's a fair number of people who opt to not report their events if they did poorly.

If just matchups and results are okay (no die roll etc), I'll dig out my notes from EU Eternal Weekend and bring the numbers back down!

Acclimation

06-12-2018, 10:05 PM

I went 3-1 at the CK weekly again, beating Wizard tribal, Punishing Czech x2, and losing to white Aluren. I updated the spreadsheet, but man that took way longer than I expected. Not sure I'll go into that much detail again.

As long as you fill out your Results and what games you won, I could care less about the SB info. Bonus points for mulligans and dice rolls. Because I've been fiddling with the data in Tableau and the stuff I care about are the more quantifiable info (Wins, losses, combo turns, mulligans, dice rolls), and the notes/sb stuff is maybe less relevant beyond wanting data to figure out what works to make a SB guide.

So far the only decks I'm afraid to see are decks with Chalice and Leyline of the Void (Moon / Steel Stompy), a great Miracles pilot, and regular Czech pile (although I'm positive so far, the combination of DRS, Hymn, and Leo is brutal).

Czech seems rough if you let the game go long.

With Chalice decks, is it the combination of artifact prison piece+leyline that is the issue? I never feel like Chalice alone is enough to stop me, as they usually plop it on 1, and none of the combo pieces beyond Entomb or Ritual get hit by it, so I end up overpowering them in most games. That being said, I run White and therefore Serenity, so I can pop Leyline+Chalice/3sphere with one card.

ESG

06-13-2018, 03:26 AM

I went 3-1 at the CK weekly again, beating Wizard tribal, Punishing Czech x2, and losing to white Aluren. I updated the spreadsheet, but man that took way longer than I expected. Not sure I'll go into that much detail again.

So far the only decks I'm afraid to see are decks with Chalice and Leyline of the Void (Moon / Steel Stompy), a great Miracles pilot, and regular Czech pile (although I'm positive so far, the combination of DRS, Hymn, and Leo is brutal).

Slow Depths looked pretty unfavorable when you were testing against it a couple weeks ago. That said, I think this deck is very strong.

JackaBo

06-13-2018, 06:45 PM

I took bizarro for a premiere ride at our LGS today and went 2-1. I played the same MD as phazon but a rather iffy mana base and a not thought trough sideboard
4 gravestones
1 trop
3 decay
2 echoing truths
2 search azcanta - for grinding power
1 xantid swarm
1 therapy - against combo/ heavy permission decks
1 divert - to fight hymn
Our meta is usually pretty midrange-y, hence the grind cards, but i got paired like it was MTGO. I'm actually considering pure grixis board next time. Abrade instead of decay.

Started out with a bye [emoji20]
Grixis delver 0-2.. probably kept too slow hands
Show n tell 2-1 very fun and interactive games. Won both matches by putting in griselbrand off his show and tell [emoji4]
Grixis delver 2-1 he scooped to griselbrand both games

Deck was both fun and good, but i think we need some kind of anti delver tech. I'm going to explore empty the warrens.

phazonmutant

06-13-2018, 09:34 PM

Our meta is usually pretty midrange-y, hence the grind cards, but i got paired like it was MTGO. I'm actually considering pure grixis board next time. Abrade instead of decay.
[...]
Deck was both fun and good, but i think we need some kind of anti delver tech. I'm going to explore empty the warrens.

Not sure why you're playing a green splash if you're not running Carpet. You're right that the green build doesn't have any really unique effects compared to Grixis otherwise. It has come up that Decay gets through Chalice on 2, kills RiP, or kills a hatebear through permission, but it's marginal.

Empty is sweet but I found Carpet by itself was enough against Delver. If the mana taxing plan is shut off, it's hard for them to convert their cards into stopping you unless they draw Probe + Therapy.

8bit9mm

06-14-2018, 02:29 AM

Not sure why you're playing a green splash if you're not running Carpet. You're right that the green build doesn't have any really unique effects compared to Grixis otherwise. It has come up that Decay gets through Chalice on 2, kills RiP, or kills a hatebear through permission, but it's marginal.

Empty is sweet but I found Carpet by itself was enough against Delver. If the mana taxing plan is shut off, it's hard for them to convert their cards into stopping you unless they draw Probe + Therapy.

This.

Carpet is a powerhouse against Delver and similarly Miracles. I've had Delver players Wasteland themselves to keep Carpet from getting out of hand.
Also, sometimes you just have to jam and try to plow through all their countermagic with discard and excess business. They do run out eventually. What matters is that they run out before you get clocked to death with the bug.

Speaking of the spreadsheet:

I think the poor D&T matches (at least reported) isn't really due to their hatebears (directly). We have plenty of ways of wiping their board or killing/bouncing problem creatures. I think the problem is that they have almost all moved away from playing RiP in favor of playing Faerie Macabre and Surgical to fight BR Reanimator. Thus, we get hit with some of the splash damage.

JackaBo

06-14-2018, 03:58 AM

Yeah i can totally get behind carpet of flowers and have two in my binder. The reason i didnt bring them was i didnt expected to face delver. I think i faced the only two grixis delver players in the room of 35 people?
Loving the feedback tough.
My first SB draft were much greener with deed, ground seal and krosan grip.
Have any of you tested search for azcanta?

EDIT: Btw game 1 versus show n tell I didn't get to put in Griselbrand with show n tell, but Magus.
So i got to untap with 3 lands, an active magus and ~6 cards in hand. That was sweet!
Also: If magus had been Children of Korlis I would have died to emrakul swing next turn.

Acclimation

06-14-2018, 11:42 AM

I think the poor D&T matches (at least reported) isn't really due to their hatebears (directly). We have plenty of ways of wiping their board or killing/bouncing problem creatures. I think the problem is that they have almost all moved away from playing RiP in favor of playing Faerie Macabre and Surgical to fight BR Reanimator. Thus, we get hit with some of the splash damage.

I was reading their guide on Tinfins (http://www.thrabenuniversity.com/?page_id=668) the other day and they do mention swapping to FM and Surgical if Tinfins and BR are the more popular GY decks in your area.

I think that it's still safe to hedge towards them having RiP/Containment Priest in g2, but be ready to swap countermeasures if you see FM/Surgical in g2; this is all assuming you're playing against a stock D&T player. If you know what hate your D&T players are packing, obviously adjust accordingly.

How I board against them:

If RiP/Containment Priest:

+2 Massacre
+0-2 Chain of Vapor

-2-4 Ponder
-0-1 Griselbrand

If Surgical or Macabre:

+2 Massacre
+2-3 Silent Gravestone

-3-4 Ponder
-1 Griselbrand
-0-1 CoBru

Trying to board in excess hate is bad news versus D&T, and we don't have clunkers like Duress in the main deck that are easy to cut. Ponder is definitely an easy cut, and 3rd Griselbrand is another easy shave. I think you can shave one CoBru if you are running 3 of them, but the creature kill mode is nice to have, if a bit slow in the face of Thalia.