Originally Posted by
Vacrix
I looked at your post a second time and realized a few important things I should note.
One of the games you lost, you D4 into a Tendrils for 16. You had access to 2 Chrome Moxen and drew another one with fodder a few turns before you were killed. That gives you one or two activations. Belcher over Tendrils would have won you this game.
In the other game against UR your last D4 yielded 2 Land Grants, Cabal Ritual, and Belcher. After you board in 1 or 2 lands post-board, you can actually take advantage of those Land Grants. Honestly, the key to outplaying control with your D4's means you want to run as few dead cards as possible... so you aren't spending Petal, Drit, CB to draw only 3 cards because one of them is dead. Same goes for Pacts, Cullings, creatures, Arbor, etc. My board plan would have won you this game as well, Ceteris paribus.
Be wary when mulling below 6 in game 1. At 6, if you have a perpetual mana source like Land Grant or Chrome Mox, and either a ritual or a business spell, I tend to keep that hand simply because its safer than getting stuck with a mediocre 4 or 5.. especially in game 1. A 6 or 7 card hand against BUG control is really what you want, even if its shitty, because you have access to more resources, they play discard, and you might run into Liliana. Not that you could have known it the matchup.. but regardless. Mulligans in game 1 are much different than in games 2/3. Especially when the opponent has no idea how explosive you can be. Sometimes I lead with something really dumb like Bayou, Odious Trow. And my opponent just stares at me like they got paired against the 12 year old that 'borrowed' his brother's 'cool double land thingy'. Same thing can be said of opening with Arbor go, sometimes its better to debate it like you are playing another deck, but don't have an opening play and want to make sure your land doesn't have summoning sickness or some shit so you can play your 2 drop on turn 2. Subtle ideas like these, and especially timing, and just completely lower your opponent's expectations of your explosiveness.
In the other game against BUG, yeah your playmistake ultimately killed you, but had you boarded out the entire Culling/Pact system then you might be in a completely different situation entirely. Honestly, I find it almost impossible to Tendrils out a BUG control player. They will always have a counter for something and they play Jace and Liliana, both which stop you from sculpting in their own way, and they can blow the board if you over commit too many perpetual resources.. etc. I find its easier to grind on them with D4s until you overpower them with resources. As long as you have a decent board state, resolved D4s allow you to gain enough resources in hand that blowing the board with Deed won't set you back so that you can't combo, especially when you draw protection spells or EtW's. Its a more reliable plan just to treat each business spell as a threat equivalent to a Belcher because when every card you draw does something (unlike Pact, Culling, Land Grant, creatures) your D4s become deadly resources instead of puzzles that may require an additional D4, more storm, etc.
The reason I don't play Unmask in the post-board is that you are already usually going to trade 2 cards for 2 cards against control. You play something, ideally, like Carpet, Chrome Mox, or Land Grant, into rituals and a D4. They respond with a counter. As long as you keep your perpetual resources, you usually only spend like 2 cards to go off; a ritual, and a D4. Why trade a business spell and a protection spell when you can just play something like Duress the turn before you go off to make sure the coast is clear? Also, I've had many occassions where my opponent lets Dark Ritual resolve, not thinking I have a follow up ritual, and I Duress first with the BBB, then Cabal Ritual, then D4. Granted, you seem to be more concerned with speed in the post-board than I am. I tend to give myself a solid 5-8 turns to beat a tempo deck, and more like 20+ for a slow control deck.
I kinda started rambling though... fucking adderall. The point is that the the 3 Tendrils 1 Belcher, X MM builds are still good, but that build has a different advantage than the builds that run more Charbelchers; Charbelcher is a post-board staple with the Carpet of Flowers plan and you have a better matchup in general against Aggro because you can sit on a Belcher and mana sources without having to pay life and bide your time without risking a failed attempt and then getting burnt out with reach spells. Also, in the discard matchup, its much more feasible to just drop perpetuals and D4 into a Belcher rather than try to put together a long spell chain. For example, last week I played a match against Pox. I had to mull to 5 in game 1 but I kept it because I had a Chrome Mox and a LED in hand. So he leads with Swamp go, and then I draw another Chrome Mox and just lay down my hand Mox, Mox, LED go. He hymns me to nuke the rest of my hand, and keeps me off cards in hand until I eventually just draw a Petal and I think ESG + Belcher for the kill. Then I won game 2 because he couldn't find the turn 1 discard spell, also off the back of Belcher after a D4 failed. Its just consistent and has a lot more lax requirements. 10 storm requires a full fledged combo turn with lots of cards in hand. Topdecking a Belcher straight up wins games when you are just sitting on perpetuals and you can't do that with Tendrils. Also, its a business spell on its own that doesn't require other business spells. In other words, Tendrils is technically a win condition, not a business spell. Belcher stands on its own in a 7 card hand but a Tendrils needs to wait for a D4 to accompany it. I dropped the multiple Tendrils builds a while back because I was losing too many games to D4's and having to mulligan hands I could have won had my Tendrils been Belchers... and having a constricted sideboard space to fit in hate for bears, and control, and the Belchers to bring in against blue. Moving the playset to the maindeck allowed me to play through stupid shit like Ethersworn Cannonist. Belcher lets you blank Cannonist and Thalia but Tendrils forces you to deal with those bears. So I dropped the hate for bears too because it became easier to race them with a resolved Belcher waiting for an activation IMS(s)/accelerant/LED etc, or even play/activate Belcher through the hate itself.
On the other hand, Tendrils heavy builds allow you to do something like play 1 D4 into a 10+ ToA without having to do stuff like pass the turn. This also prevents you from dying to hands where you must go all in with Pact. Further, it allows you to go off with D4's that aren't perfectly compatible with the rest of your hand, because you only need like 7 mana to finish the game with access to 11 cards, so as long as you can play 10 spells, you can go off with significantly less mana and don't expose yourself to a late-spell chain Force when your opponent sees the Tendrils instead of Belcher.
Still I find that the advantages of the Charbelcher builds outweigh the Tendrils builds.
