Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
Quote:
Originally Posted by
.dk
How is it feeling without running basics? And if we're not running study and 4 Griselbrand, is 4 entomb feeling like enough or does the singleton intuition need exploring again?
Still debating taking a list like this one to my local tomorrow or continuing my DDFT practice...
Also - shallow grave being $40 is ridiculous. In a way I'm kind of proud I had a hand in that, but mostly - fuck the reserved list.
This all goes back to last weekend when I ran Caleb's version with Careful Study and went an unimpressive 3-3, mainly losing to g/y hate in the form of Leyline, Extirpate, and Grafdigger's Cage across multiple matchups, and unfamiliarity with the deck.
I'm not a big fan of Careful Study at this point for two main factors:
1. Forces you to run more Griselbrand in order to take advantage of the forced discard from Careful Study.
2. Removes additional shuffle and real digging effects that Ponder provides.
3. Signals that you're on a reanimation strategy.
So I decided to move back to Ponders, and with the increased experience with the deck I feel that is completely fine. That leaves the question of Intuition. I feel (and have witnessed too) that the card is too slow for this deck. While it's true that you can use it to setup the reanimation suite by binning a Griselbrand, I think that at the point in which you can afford 3 mana to cast this tutor is rare with a 14 land deck. Moreover, it's a huge liability against most forms of g/y hate, which is already coming in against us to begin with. While it's a 3 mana instant tutor, it's not the best for this deck. I would sooner play the 1st Careful Study or a Preordain than playing the Intuition right now.
Basically, I've started viewing this deck more like TES or Storm, in that it has a fragile manabase, some acceleration, and key components. Viewing it more like TES (esp now with Gemstone Mines and a pair of Silence), it gives us the ability to play and protect our cards from Discard (which is the most prevalent disruption). Ponder in that sense, is better than Careful Study. Our topdecks and ease of playing the combo are much simpler than TES and require less counting. This is a huge boon for the deck.
That said, here's my list:
4 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
1 Tundra
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
3 Gemstone Mine
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
1 Exhume
4 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Silence
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Griselbrand
2 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul
1 Tendrils of Agony
Sideboard:
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Pithing Needle
2 Pull form Eternity
1 Silence
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Massacre
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
I like that list a lot - it seems to have a pretty good balance going for it. Also agree that we're becoming a bit like TES in terms of the strategy you want to deploy. Makes your mulligan decisions that much more important, but what you state makes a lot of sense. You just have different combo pieces than TES, and if you actually are disrupted, you're a bit less all in. In this sense, I agree with the sentiment that Intuition is just too slow.
I guess more testing will tell if the sacrifice we make to the manabase is worth the answers we get in the form of Abrupt Decay, Pull from Eternity, and Silence. I'm inclined to think that it is, given how much more successful I've been in the past with TES vs. ANT, but need to jam some games to prove it. We get Wasteland resiliency by just being too fast (like TES) - seems fine to me.
I was going to bring it to Legacy this week, but it was canceled due to weather conditions... Hopefully I'll have a chance to test with some people in the coming week though. Also, think I'm taking the plunge into MTGO here soon, so once I figure out how that goofy interface actually works, maybe I can get some testing in there.
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
Hello,
Saw this deck on the SCG coverage and on Koby's stream, thought it looked sweet so I sleeved it up and played it in a local 9-player tournament today.
I've never played the deck before, so I made a lot of mistakes throughout the tournament.
I used 4 griselbrand, 1 children and 3 careful study, 2 cabal therapy, with an Ad Nauseam sideboard.
This is off the top off my head as I didn't take any notes.
1. RIP/Counterbalance - Won 2-1! Won the first by having disruption for Force turn one and being fast (won on the second turn), lost the second on the Ad Nauseam plan by miscounting, would've lost anyway as counterbalance top would be online next turn, + he had a force on top of his deck. Won the third because he got a bad draw. (I was back on the reanimate-plan, I needed to be faster than CB regardless of plan, so I chose the most consistent one.)
2. Affinity - 1-2 I thought this would be easy so I kept a mediocre hand game 1, and got promptly beaten by robots. I suppose that in these kinds of matchups it's correct to mulligan very aggressively
I won game two on turn two, he didn't draw any hate.
Game three I lost to a surgical extraction. I had more time here, and knew he was on surgical, so I should have waited until I had another Goryo or Shallow grave ready to respond to the surgical.
3. Reanimator 2-0? He mulls to three. The last game we both draw nothing for several rounds, then I am the first to topdeck something.
4. Sneak attack 0-2 I play sloppy and lose, should've gone for it one turn but waited for disruption for fear of countermagic, he didn`t have any and I lost when he played sneak-attack on his turn. The other game I needed an entomb or equivalent effect, but just drew lands for a few turns.
I manage to sneak in to top 4 on tiebreakers (Yeah we do top 4 for 9-player tournaments, because we like to play magic :smile:)
Semis: Sneak and show 2-1? - I mulliganed a hand I should've kept, I had reanimation and lands and Griselbrand, but no discard or entomb. The third game he mulligans, then goes first turn Show and tell for Emrakul, I put Griselbrand into play and win on my turn. First-turn kill, Yay!
Finals Against RUG 1-2
I win game one, after making him discard some counters, and having enough renimate to get through the rest. Also, he told me afterwards he removed a spell pierce for force instead of spell snare, so when I cast a surprise Reanimate on griselbrand he couldnt counter. Rogue deck FTW!!
The other two games surgical and mongeese own me. The last game I misplayed by going for it a round early. I think I would really like some more discard for this matchup.
Lessons I learned:
*Our game one is excellent against most decks.
*Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy were amazing.
*More disruption post-board would be useful, as hate and counterspells are very common. I am not quite sure what form this disruption should take.
*Tendrils was a dead card once, and didn`t matter any of the other games.
*Also, not too happy about the ANT transformation, it leaves a lot of dead cards in the deck.
*There were times when having more children of korlis or hapless researcher to flashback cabal therapy would've been sweet.
Changes I'm considering -2 careful study +2 cabal therapy,
+1 Children -1 Griselbrand? (suggestions welcome) The xtra children would be good with therapies.
Also -1 careful study +1 hapless researcher - almost as good as careful study, and goes well with cabal therapies
Not sure how much better we are than normal reanimator; We certainly are faster, but not having countermagic is a bit harsh sometimes.
Cheers
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Koby
This all goes back to last weekend when I ran Caleb's version with Careful Study and went an unimpressive 3-3, mainly losing to g/y hate in the form of Leyline, Extirpate, and Grafdigger's Cage across multiple matchups, and unfamiliarity with the deck.
I'm not a big fan of Careful Study at this point for two main factors:
1. Forces you to run more Griselbrand in order to take advantage of the forced discard from Careful Study.
2. Removes additional shuffle and real digging effects that Ponder provides.
3. Signals that you're on a reanimation strategy.
So I decided to move back to Ponders, and with the increased experience with the deck I feel that is completely fine. That leaves the question of Intuition. I feel (and have witnessed too) that the card is too slow for this deck. While it's true that you can use it to setup the reanimation suite by binning a Griselbrand, I think that at the point in which you can afford 3 mana to cast this tutor is rare with a 14 land deck. Moreover, it's a huge liability against most forms of g/y hate, which is already coming in against us to begin with. While it's a 3 mana instant tutor, it's not the best for this deck. I would sooner play the 1st Careful Study or a Preordain than playing the Intuition right now.
Basically, I've started viewing this deck more like TES or Storm, in that it has a fragile manabase, some acceleration, and key components. Viewing it more like TES (esp now with Gemstone Mines and a pair of Silence), it gives us the ability to play and protect our cards from Discard (which is the most prevalent disruption). Ponder in that sense, is better than Careful Study. Our topdecks and ease of playing the combo are much simpler than TES and require less counting. This is a huge boon for the deck.
That said, here's my list:
4 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
1 Tundra
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
3 Gemstone Mine
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
1 Exhume
4 Thoughtseize
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Silence
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Griselbrand
2 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul
1 Tendrils of Agony
Sideboard:
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Pithing Needle
2 Pull form Eternity
1 Silence
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Massacre
How has silence been? I generally find myself having less issues with counters than I do with permanent-based hate like RiP and DRS. I think I'd rather have main deck bounce in those slots, or more discard. I'm still not sure that cutting a Grizzle is right, given how often I find myself using discard to pitch him.
Agreed on intuition though, tried running it a while ago in the UB version, but never cast it.
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
So happy I happened to be watching the coverage and immediately went and bought 3x (i had one) for 3$ a pop. Guess I should have been buying the entire TCG stock lol
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
I bought 4 for 20. I just traded them for a w wasteland, misty rainforest and a chrome mox lol
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Megadeus
I bought 4 for 20. I just traded them for a w wasteland, misty rainforest and a chrome mox lol
I bought 8 at 4$ each. Now I can buy 4 at 8 each... Should I stock more ? :P
This deck is seriously broken...
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
How are the silence lists going?
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
i had abeyance in the board. i never was able to side them in as they slowed the deck down way too much. i have a very high interest in silence as that is what i have in my modern Eggs deck and it works very well.
i think i may main deck duress and cut some careful studies. duress and against the blue decks is just good.
i lost to a RDW deck today after i mulled to 5 :frown: that's magic for you.
on the flip side of that i turn 1ed a player but going: land, dark rit, entomb, shallow grave on Griselbrand. draw 14. lotus petal, dark rit, entomb, goryo's vengeance on Emrakul. swing for 22. :laugh:
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ZimAshe
on the flip side of that i turn 1ed a player but going: land, dark rit, entomb, shallow grave on Griselbrand. draw 14. lotus petal, dark rit, entomb, goryo's vengeance on Emrakul. swing for 22. :laugh:
You don't say.
:cool:
Started out playing with Ponder, switched to Careful Study, now I'm back on the Ponder plan. I really prefer the card selection it provides since you've usually got enough speed anyways. I mainly used Careful Study as a sorcery speed Entomb 5-8 to play around gy removal. As such, I never really liked the card disadvantage associated with it. And postboard, Ponder really shines whereas Study usually comes out.
/edit: If you really want to talk sick plays, here you go:
Opponent Force of Wills my hardcast Griselbrand, leaves me tapped out.
On his turn he drops Dream Halls, then draws with Sensei's Divining Top.
RESPONSE, Shallow Grave pitch Thoughtseize.
Draw 14 with Griselbrand but hit no Silence.
Entomb for Children of Korlis.
Shallow Grave Children of Korlis, gain 14 life.
Draw 14 with Griselbrand, hit Silence but no white pitch.
Shallow Grave Children of Korlis, Echoing Truth Children of Korlis.
Silence, Pitch Children of Korlis.
Opponent: "Sick.."
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
I just built a new version of griselstorm leaving LED and IT on the bench this time. I maxed out cantrips to improve consistency. Here's the rough draft:
4 entomb
4 shallow grave
2 goryos vengeance
4 griselbrand
1 emrakul
1 tendrils
4 thoughtseize
4 cabal therapy
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 probe
2 preordain
4 dark ritual
4 lotus petal
2 chrome mox
2 swamp
1 island
2 underground sea
4 delta
1 strand
1 mire
1 catacombs
Important points:
12 cards to bin Gman.
8 card protection suite doing double duty binning griselbrand.
14 cantrips. I opted to max out this category to improve consistency of hitting one of several winning combos (see combos posted below)
Probe = All star status. Combos with therapy, makes other cantrips better, builds storm, awesome on its own providing incredibly valuable information practically for free.
No children- I don't own any. It seems win more. I haven't had trouble goldfishing wins without it. If I try them it will be in pre ordains spot, but unless testing proves otherwise I think I prefer consistency (I'm open to suggestions, please share your thoughts).
Emrakul + tendrils- 2 routes to victory. This configuration seems optimal.
2 colors- fetch basics and beat wasteland decks. I'm still not sure if the land base is optimal. I want to cantrip t1 each game when necessary, but I still value black mana above blue mana in this deck. I don't see a huge drawback running 3 basics but I could very well be wrong. I'd appreciate feedback.
Sideboard- Options are transforming into rip/helmline to dodge gravehate or going the anti hate route. Testing is needed. I'm open to ideas.
Combos:
entomb + shallow grave
entomb + goryos
thoughtseize + griselbrand + shallow grave
thoughtseize + griselbrand + goryos
therapy + griselbrand + shallow grave
therapy + griselbrand + goryos
+ hardcast griselbrand- very rare to get this off early, involves multiple rituals.
+ natural storm hands- very rare includes naturally drawn tendrils + multiple probes and rituals. Keep your opponents life total in mind, tendrils kill gets easier the lower their life is (obviously lol)
So far it's been goldfishing hot. Try it out, let me know what you think.
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
Quote:
Originally Posted by
walker
I just built a new version of griselstorm leaving LED and IT on the bench this time. I maxed out cantrips to improve consistency. Here's the rough draft:
4 entomb
4 shallow grave
2 goryos vengeance
4 griselbrand
1 emrakul
1 tendrils
4 thoughtseize
4 cabal therapy
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 probe
2 preordain
4 dark ritual
4 lotus petal
2 chrome mox
2 swamp
1 island
2 underground sea
4 delta
1 strand
1 mire
1 catacombs
I think it's missing Children of Korlis, which is positively insane. Imagine a W-cost draw 14. It is really pretty damned hard to lose from there, and it adds the capacity to outgrow Storm/Charbelcher and can even race opposing Emrakuls that have wiped your board clean.
My suggestion would be to drop two GProbe for 2 Children, but I'm not an absolute expert on the deck.
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
@walker - this looks a lot like earlier lists of Tin Fins. We opted to run more copies of Tendrils rather than Cantrips, but overall is very similar. While the deck was fine that way, I actually found that Children of Korlis opened up many more lines of play and increased consistency post drawing with Griselbrand. Basically, once you've drawn 14-21 cards and you make Children of Korlis (which is rather easy via entomb and a non-goryo's reanimation, or just petal + children), you pretty much can't lose, whereas with cantrips and/or more copies of Tendrils, you have a higher chance of fizzling (which seems ridiculous after drawing 21 cards, but it happens more than you'd think). Take a look at my GP Atlanta report from last year to get an idea.
Also, I've found Gitaxian Probe to be unnecessary. While it does combo well with Therapy (and is practically the last card I've cut from any of my lists because of it), the added storm count isn't necessary. Swinging with Griselbrand almost always hits them for 7, which means that you only need storm 7 (they are at 13) to win. And since you've likely cast a Ritual, Entomb/Discard, Shallow Grave/Goryo's, you're already at storm 3 before you even try to draw. Playing 4 spells after drawing 14-21 is trivial, it's a matter of finding your win condition.
However, if it works for you, that's great. But, I would also test any of the lists with Children of Korlis to get an idea as to how those play.
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Julian23
You don't say.
/edit: If you really want to talk sick plays, here you go:
Opponent Force of Wills my hardcast Griselbrand, leaves me tapped out.
On his turn he drops Dream Halls, then draws with Sensei's Divining Top.
RESPONSE, Shallow Grave pitch Thoughtseize.
Draw 14 with Griselbrand but hit no Silence.
Entomb for Children of Korlis.
Shallow Grave Children of Korlis, gain 14 life.
Draw 14 with Griselbrand, hit Silence but no white pitch.
Shallow Grave Children of Korlis, Echoing Truth Children of Korlis.
Silence, Pitch Children of Korlis.
Opponent: "Sick.."
Sorry for the double post, but wow. That's insane! We need to have somewhere to store recounts of ridiculous plays like this and CalebD's win against Doomsday and such. Seriously feels like the most powerful deck I've ever set my hands on.
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
Silence is pretty good against the fast combo decks. In a more mid-range metagame, I would swap it for Chain of Vapor. Remember that Silence shuts off Surgical/Extirpate following your mainphase Entomb/discard.
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
Can we revisit the kill condition for a bit? Seems like the thread has settled on the 4-slot kill: 1 ToA, 1 Emmy, 2 CoK. Wess made the case for the 3-slot kill: 2 CoK, 1 LabMan back on post #133, which was countered to some degree by .dk on post #135, followed by a little more follow-on discussion. After playing some, I know LabMan is a terrible top deck, but almost never fizzles, and is only vulnerable to a 2-card counter from the opponents (discard & extraction, for ex.) or perhaps needle on CoK post-board. Are the small advantages of mini-tendrils, board wiping with Emmy if you get behind, and safety of having 2 kills worth the extra slot? Is it worth considering a hybrid 3-slot kill: 1 CoK, 1 LabMan, 1 Emmy? Anyway, I wanted to know if everyone had definitely made up their mind or just following the latest lists.
Also, I like playing the 4th Goryo's, but it seems that Exhume or Reanimate gets the 8th rez slot in most lists. I know Goryo can't reach CoK, but it still is the 2nd best rez spell in this deck. If you're going to play at least 8 rez effects, are we sure Goryo doesn't deserve the 8th spot?
I can't believe how much this deck has gained fans!
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
Quote:
Originally Posted by
dameus
Can we revisit the kill condition for a bit? Seems like the thread has settled on the 4-slot kill: 1 ToA, 1 Emmy, 2 CoK. Wess made the case for the 3-slot kill: 2 CoK, 1 LabMan back on post #133, which was countered to some degree by .dk on post #135, followed by a little more follow-on discussion. After playing some, I know LabMan is a terrible top deck, but almost never fizzles, and is only vulnerable to a 2-card counter from the opponents (discard & extraction, for ex.) or perhaps needle on CoK post-board. Are the small advantages of mini-tendrils, board wiping with Emmy if you get behind, and safety of having 2 kills worth the extra slot? Is it worth considering a hybrid 3-slot kill: 1 CoK, 1 LabMan, 1 Emmy? Anyway, I wanted to know if everyone had definitely made up their mind or just following the latest lists.
Also, I like playing the 4th Goryo's, but it seems that Exhume or Reanimate gets the 8th rez slot in most lists. I know Goryo can't reach CoK, but it still is the 2nd best rez spell in this deck. If you're going to play at least 8 rez effects, are we sure Goryo doesn't deserve the 8th spot?
I can't believe how much this deck has gained fans!
Definitely, I think the kill condition is an easy area to overlook. I thought for a bit that we could shave the Tendrils and solely rely on hard-casting Emrakul to win, but watching and playing some more games has convinced me that Tendrils is worth 1 slot in the deck. Tendrils is better than Laboratory Maniac because it's possible to get a Tendrils kill if your Griselbrand is killed (e.g. when Koby played through Force, Pierce, Surgical, and Plow, and was able to win with Tendrils). Laboratory Maniac is actually unnecessary because the times we'd be able to win with him, we'd be able to win with infinite life/mana/Emrakul anyway. Tendrils also has some marginal utility in finishing off an opponent or serving as lifegain mid-combo.
I think at this point it's worth considering shaving the Children of Korlis to 1 slot. It decreases the consistency of the combo turn by some small percent, but it's a fairly safe card to trim based on experience with sideboarding. So that's something that we'll have to figure out moving forward.
I originally added the Reanimates to be the 8-9th outs to match the stock reanimator lists to see if it added consistency. I've been happy to have reanimate in my deck to t1 a Griselbrand before, and I've definitely wanted more ways to make Children, but the 4th Goryo's is very reasonable too. Again, that's one of those choices that's either something that will be determined by hundreds of matches or is a personal choice.
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
I am a fan, but I do have my doubts. Problem is that life total is so important which tends to be attacked quite heavily - especially if you need timte to cantrip into anti-hate. Not counting people having reach, without a griselbrand activation you only have entomb emmy(or the rare cases where you have emmy in hand -> discard emmy) and hope the anihilator trigger gets you there. Btw.: This is also the main reason why to play this over lab-maniac. With maniac you need at least 2 initial grisel activations to be able to win consistantly (and still not assured that you can cast children). If you have only one Grisel activation left that probably means you also close to loosing. If you can't find the emmy combo there its gg.
You can say Show&Tell Griselbrand helps on low life total, but there are board states where you just stall and if they have a removal that's it.
So considering all the strength to me that is the big weakness over other combo decks working with Griselbrand (and of course combo decks having an instant kill on 1 life). Reanimator can do something like sphinx, archon and stalling does not hurt since they will soon exhume something else. Sneak attack has also problems with low life but you have more options to bring an emmy into play.
Maybe some players learned their way to work around this problem or have any tech I am not aware of. Happy to learn more.
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Koby
Silence is pretty good against the fast combo decks. In a more mid-range metagame, I would swap it for Chain of Vapor. Remember that Silence shuts off Surgical/Extirpate following your mainphase Entomb/discard.
Right, but I feel like Surgical/Extirpate are sideboard cards, whereas the maindeck grave hate we see now is all permanent based - DRS, RiP, Ooze. I think if we're playing protection in game 1, it should deal with the hate we're likely to see game 1. As far as other combo goes, I'm not really too worried about it. Seems like we should be as fast or faster than everyone but Belcher, and we do have a considerable amount of discard. That said, I really haven't come up against it much so far, so I'm interested to see what others' opinions are.
Re: TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst
Some odd scenarios came up during the stream last nite that makes me question whether Abrupt Decay is needed at all. I'm fine with having the Counterbalance matchup be poor if it means I get to play more fetchlands and shuffle effects. The issues specifically were being Brainstorm locked while digging for the combo pieces.
Manabase has been adjusted:
3 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
8 :b: fetchlands
Maindeck is otherwise the same (2 Silence can be combination of additional Therapy and/or Chain of Vapor for different metagames).
RE: Silence:
I prefer this in my maindeck out here on the West Coast. It's very typical to have a lot of combo in this metagame and I want to be able to win games that discard alone won't be all that helpful. This can be considered a flex slot.
Sideboard:
-3 Abrupt Decay
+1 Hurkyl's Recall
+1 Therapy (3rd in my case)
+1 Chain of Vapor (3rd in SB)
