[Deck] Fetchland Tendrils

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Originally Posted by meanee

I have played this deck on and off for quite some time now, and I hate EtW. Therefore I play green.

Yearh I know it sounds awful, but I play 4 xantid swarm in the sideboard, and they are really worth against both landstill and thresh (which are both quite a large part of my meta).
My manabase looks like this:
8 fetches
3 basics (island, swamp, plains)
1 sea
1 tundra
1 scrub
1 tropical
And a bayou in the board too. This also helps in matches against any kind of LD.

Besides from the fact that I play green, I also play 4 chant AND 2 duress main. I don't think that 3 chant is enough - at least not in a metagame with blue in it. Of course - if it works for you guys, gogogo! But I have found myself in a lot of trouble fighting off counters with only three cards to hate it.
In many instances you have to play an ill-gotten gains to win. A clever landstill/thresh player nows this, and that will certainly make him counter the chant, so that when your Gains resolve, he will retrieve his force, to murder your infernal tutor. To fight this, you need A LOT of mana... Something I don't find myself having too often.

Anyway I like the deck a lot, and it is so much fun to play. There is something about playing combo and still being able to fight through counters and discardspells and other shizz...

- meanee

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Extirpate will likely treat you a lot better than Duress against control. Extirpate main as a 1-of can be pretty good (especially in an environment filled with Ichorid or blue-based control) where it can nab hard counters eot before you go off post countered chant.

A green splash looks fine although I'd question the usefulness of Bayou in the sideboard unless you board more than a 1-2of KGrip. (I've been considering 1 Trop, SB: 1 KGrip recently with the upswing of targetted discard in Daze decks.) Xantid Swarm is actually pretty bad compared to Abeyance and the combo that Extirpate brings to Chant and Abeyance. I would not recommend rewarding Landstill for not playing 15 anti-combo slots (which would mean they get to leave in STP and/or Deed).

Post testing a few games with Emidln with a KGrip list. I was playing the Hatfield's exact 5c list from VA:

• This deck still has issues with Counterbalance game one. Maybe it was MWS, maybe it wasn't, but I won both games preboard on the back of Counterbalance.
• Krosan Grip is really good. Actually removing CB is immeasurably better then just bouncing it.
• The one postboard game played was won by Emidln through 3 Force of Wills.
• 5c can deal itself a LOT of damage, which became increasingly relevent as the game progressed.

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Originally Posted by emidln

I posted a skeleton a page or so earlier of the cards that everyone plays with. I don't really understand the aversion to Death Wish. It's really good against anything that isn't burn. Your list looks to be about 59 cards (assuming 2 Tendrils and 2 IGG) which would lead me to suggest going -1 Draw4, +1 Ponder, +1 Extirpate in your metagame. If you're playing against Extirpates, Death Wish will become a lot better. I would probably board the 4th Chant and 2 Abeyance with 4 Serenity, Wipe Away, Rushing River, Confidants, and Extirpates (1-2).

Tundra is required. If you can't get Tundra, play Hallowed Fountain until you can get Tundra. You fetch for it more than any other dual land. Volcanic Island isn't required at all. The only things you'll consider casting in the color red are ETW and Pyroclasm, neither of which would be required in your metagame.

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That's fine, I just picked up a Tundra. Thanks for the suggestions. I think that I want to run 3 Ponders, 1 Pate, and 1 Duress. In my testing against Canadian Thrash Duress would have been stronger than Chant in many situations.

Duress does exactly the same as Chant when comboing off, as it takes FOW out of their hand, but Chant counts for an extra storm. Duress, however, won't timewalk, which is way better than being able to disrupt the opponent off one card.

In which situations would Duress be better?

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Originally Posted by Mental

That's fine, I just picked up a Tundra. Thanks for the suggestions. I think that I want to run 3 Ponders, 1 Pate, and 1 Duress. In my testing against Canadian Thrash Duress would have been stronger than Chant in many situations.

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Preboard, Canadian Thresh wins only when FT is short on lands/petals. This is actually the common way for FT to lose against aggro-control. (In the games Will mentioned above, I had 1 land game 1 and I believe 2 lands, with the second being very late in game 2.) The way to make FT short on lands/petals is to aggressive Daze/FoW/Disrupt/CB/Red Blast Ponders and Brainstorms. Unlike CB Thresh, Canadian Thresh has little ability to actually counter the setup if FT plays around Daze preboard which will force Canadian Thresh into its mana denial strategy with Stifle/Wasteland. Carefully played, this is easy to work around with fetches and opportune fetching and will generally lead to Canadian Thresh contesting FT on the combo turn, which rarely goes in the favor of Thresh.

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Originally Posted by Jaiminho

Duress does exactly the same as Chant when comboing off, as it takes FOW out of their hand, but Chant counts for an extra storm. Duress, however, won't timewalk, which is way better than being able to disrupt the opponent off one card.

In which situations would Duress be better?

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Chant also takes away another blue card (pitched to FoW) and 1 life (to FoW too). This helps a lot if you're not going fo the IGG plan

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Originally Posted by GreenOne

Chant also takes away another blue card (pitched to FoW) and 1 life (to FoW too). This helps a lot if you're not going fo the IGG plan

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Chant is significantly better against Counterspell decks. In the event that an opponent has multiple Counterspells but only has the available mana to play one Counterspell (it is common for an opponent to leave Counterspell mana up while using other lands to play threats) playing Chant forces an opponent to tap their lands to counter Chant. This is a better situation for the combo player than Duress which an observant opponent will let resolve since their ability to prevent you from casting threats does not diminish.

I do not think that dures is BETTER than Orim's chant, I play both (4/2 split).
What di you guys do, if you are playing against thresh, og landstill, and they counter your chant and have 1 island untapped? Just play ahead, and hope that he's not got a doombringing stifle, nor a - somtimes very annoying - daze?
See my problem is that I hate to be killed by a stifle, and I just think that happens a lot these days ;)

If you play with just a couple of duress, sometimes you will be able to cast orim's chant - then if it is not countered, Fine! Proceed and win, but if it is countered you play your duress to take out his last counter/stifle. If he can fight you through this, he is either lucky or cheating :)

Of course you can also simply find and play to chant, but I have found the mana requirement to be problematic.

My sb is something along the lines of:
4 confidant
4 swarm
1 tendrils
1 ill-gotten gains (1 death wish main)
2 wipe away (none main)
2-3 krosan grip/rushing river (depending on whether I fear counterbalance or stax)
0-1 bayou

- meanee

Well technically in that circumstance if your an compotent storm combo player that is playing fetchland tendrils. An playset of orim's chants is all you need considering you can always fetch for them with tutors. Of course adding duresses could bring an advantage as well as an disadvantage.

The advantage of playing duress is it gives your tendrils deck more resiliency to countermagic. However, the disadvantage is that it does not really help you to go off efficiently enough when needed. Besides duress does nothing to board hate(e.g. meddling mage, gaddock teeg and etc.) which is an significant downfall.

Besides if you fear countermagic you always can board in your abeyances which can be significant. Especially if you see your opponent plays something like an tormod's crypt on the first or second turn. Abeyance is definitely better then duress too since it takes generally the same role as chant as well as cantripping can be tech.

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Originally Posted by meanee

1 ill-gotten gains (1 death wish main)
2 wipe away (none main)
2-3 krosan grip/rushing river (depending on whether I fear counterbalance or stax)
0-1 bayou

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Why 1 IGG in side? When you play one of your maindeck IGG it gets RFG, so you can wish for it anyway. If they get extirpated too.

The doubt between Orim's Chant & Duress is an old diatribe I've seen one year ago also in the TES's thread.

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What di you guys do, if you are playing against thresh, og landstill, and they counter your chant and have 1 island untapped? Just play ahead, and hope that he's not got a doombringing stifle, nor a - somtimes very annoying - daze?

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In the same mode your opponent can counter duress and then he can play stifle on your deadly ToA.

Basically Orim >>> Duress because when you use the Ill-Gotten plan you want that your opponent can't play the cards he takes from grave (stifle, FoW,...). Orim allows to do this, Duress no.

An other situation where Orim >> Duress: if your opponent has no protection and 2 Stifle in hand.

You can consider also that Orim functions like a Time Walk in many situations: against aggro, against disruption decks and like protection (more efficient than Duress) against combo. At my last tournament Orim helps me to take one more turn FTW against an horde of green goblin of a Belcher's player for example.

There is a myriad of situations where Orim >>> Duress. The only disavantages of Orim is that it's white, but with the last builds playing a basic plains this isn't a problem. I think you can cut the duress maindeck and alternatively play them in sb.

I see that you playing a split of both Orim / Duress, but do you really need 6 protection in a deck with so many cantrips and tutors? I think that 6 protections slow down too much the speed of the deck. Usually I play in an heavy blue enviroment but I don't play more than 3 Orim's Chant maindeck because with so many cantrips/draw4/tutors it's not so difficult to search one or more Orim.

Why do you play so many split second card in side?
Don't you need more efficient boucers like Rebuild or response like Serenity instead of all these split second card? Basically split second cards is only for Counterbalance (and marginally for Arcane Laboratory). I think that 1 copy is enough because we have also mystical to search wipe away / krosan grip (I don't like this solution: weak the manabase).

I'm happy that this thread has more visibility, but lately I think that there are a lot of suggests here that are already sayed and tested in the last months.

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Originally Posted by GreenOne

Why 1 IGG in side? When you play one of your maindeck IGG it gets RFG, so you can wish for it anyway. If they get extirpated too.

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I think because sometimes we can start the combo with the only Death Wish in hand so we can search in SB Ill-Gotten and increase the storm combo to 10 (but we need also a tutor or ToA in grave). I don't like this choice, I think that it's a slot in SB wasted away.

There is really no reason to play Xantid Swarm over Abeyance in this deck. At this point, there also isn't much of an excuse to not include at least one copy of these cards in your sideboard:

Echoing Truth
Rushing River
Wipe Away
Extirpate

Serenity should also be an auto-include unless you happen to live in a metagame without Loam, Survival, Stax, Goblins, and Chalice Aggro.

As far as the maindeck is concerned, it's a really bad idea to remove Wipe Away because the color blue does get played in this format. Being able to remove problematic cards game one without fear of countermagic is a big deal.

This post was approaching too long for a PM that I received from rsaunder asking for a current list. I'm posting it here because it seems to be relevant and the questions are important.

The current list is pretty close to the one that you played, although I'm currently experimenting with just what Street Wraith provides in given matchups vs solutions like extra business (which solves a problem I'll talk about a little later) and Portents (to help dig more yielding 10 Cantrips).

These are the cards that I really want to play. It's important to note that this is 66ish cards.

// 15 lands out of these 17
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Scrubland

// 16 of 16 accel
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

// At least 10 out of these 14, but min 11 with SW
4 Street Wraith
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Portent

// At least 12 out of these 14
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor
1 Death Wish
1 Cruel Bargain
2 Ill-Gotten Gains
2 Tendrils of Agony

// At least 4 of these 6
4 Orim's Chant
1 Extirpate
1 Wipe Away

The sideboard has been looking like this (again, note that it is much larger than 15 (22 cards I think)):

// Extra win conditions vs Earwig Squad, Death Wish targets
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony

// Anti-discard
4 Dark Confidant

// Anti-permanents
4 Serenity
1 Rebuild
2 Rushing River
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
2 Krosan Grip
1 Sudden Death

// Blue Hate
2 Abeyance
2 Extirpate

The important questions that I'm running into right now are:

(1) Is the fifteenth land better off as a Flooded Strand yielding 1 basic Island or as a basic Island yielding 3 Flooded Strand?

(2) How many cantrips are optimal? Specifically, is Street Wraith as a 4-of better than 2 Portent and 1 Business, 1 Protection Spell or 2 Portent, 2 Business Spells? (I've determined that I definitely don't want 4 Portent, but 2 seems to be really good.)

(3) Stemming from the second question, how important are the second Ill-Gotten Gains and the second Tendrils of Agony relative to the third and fourth Orim's Chant and the first Extirpate?

(4) Is there enough blue, Ichorid, Breakfast, and the mirror to justify Extirpate maindeck? Against blue is the (virtually) guaranteed resolution of the second Chant after the first Extirpate and the first Chant worth the extra effort required to find either the second Chant or the first Extirpate to pull off the combo in the maindeck?

(5) How much hate for Counterbalance is appropriate. It is easy to splash for Krosan Grip off Tropical Island, but how many Krosan Grip are necessary with what amount of Wipe Aways between main and sideboard?

(6) Is Sudden Death a worthwhile addition to the sideboard? In matchups where multiple Mages are a possibility, Mage on Tendrils, Mage on Wipe Away could be a really difficult situation, but it seems that the best way to use the second Mage (from an anti-FT perspective) is to simply name Tendrils again. This would lead to resolving Chant and then Clasm as the best solution, something that would likely require a Volcanic Island.

(7) Is Pyroclasm necessary? It's my firm belief that Krosan Grip should at least be a 1-of which dictates that Clasm would put us into a 5th Color. This is possible (even with 3 Basics and 7 fetches), but is it worth it?

(8) Does the deck have enough problems with discard that Dark Confidant is worth the 3-4 slots dedicated to him. Without these slots, fitting in hate for Earwig Squad and an Empty the Warrrens is possible (giving maindeck access to ETW via Death Wish).

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Originally Posted by nightbringer

Hi,

I just startes following this tread but i was wondering why so few people play Grim tutor?
Is it because its to expensive or is it just no good in this deck?

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I guess, it's just the fact that nobody wants to buy a full playset of them for 'bout 400$. (Don't really know what they're exactly) And actually Grim Tutor is useless in every other deck, uneless you're playing Vintage, and they're very hard to find.
But Grim's also a thing I was wondering about: If I have access to at least one, should I play it?

Another thing I'm not sure about, is the g-splash. Is it worth to run another dual and either increase your landcount or your vulnerability to wasteland/moon, just to run a some grip in sb? Are the any other green cards to play, since we don't need xantid?
And what's the extirpate for? Sure, it's great against ichorid, and it can remove Lftl, but does it really improve some matchups that much, that it's worth the slot? edit: Ah I see, just forgot about the pitchcounters it takes.

If you flip back a few pages I believe there is a disscussion about running grims in FT. I'm not nearly as qualified to touch on this topic as Emidlin but the end point was that it while amazing against counterbalance as a must counter it didnt really do much else that say a draw 4 or death wish cant do. There was alot more to the arguement I realize but as I said I'm not really the best guy to talk about running grims in here.

As for the green splash I personally do not feel the vulnerability to waste and moon is worthy of its inclusion. Not to mention there has never been a situation where it was any better for then Wipe Away although I understand that that will not always be the case. Not to mention in my meta there is only one (competient (Spelling?)) deck packing counter-top compared to the sheer number and compeitency of players playing some form of deck running waste and/or moon effects.

The extirpate while phenomenal at RFGing a certain hastey annoyance also serves to do recon in control matchups if for example you have no more chants for some unkown reason and need to know if they have something to screw with the plan... It could provide card advantage.. not to mention ripping a hard counter from ur opponent is never bad.

Especially so since the deck runs 4 Mystical Tutors to fetch the aforementioned Chants.

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Originally Posted by emidln

(8) Does the deck have enough problems with discard that Dark Confidant is worth the 3-4 slots dedicated to him. Without these slots, fitting in hate for Earwig Squad and an Empty the Warrrens is possible (giving maindeck access to ETW via Death Wish).

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To answer the question as it was presented:

• To answer the first part, does Confidant repair the damage done by pinpoint discard in a short enough time-frame to combo off before the opponent's pressure kills you? Then yes, but it seems to me that, if Confi lives, he adds to the opponent's pressure and doesn't do enough to help against having your key pieces ripped fom your hand.
• For the Second, are you finding Earwig Squad to be a problem? In the Goblins thread they've dismissed it as too slow to matter and haven't included it an any lists. I would be more concerned about the RB lists that run Cabal Therapy or the Rw builds with Orim's Chant than the seemingly sub-optimal Earwig Squad.

Hi, i'm also playing this deck, and I really like it (more then TES or something..). This is the build i'm testing:

// Lands
2 [PT] Island
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [B] Underground Sea
1 [A] Tundra
1 [ST] Plains
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [U] Scrubland
1 [MM] Swamp

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Street Wraith

// Spells
4 [MM] Dark Ritual
3 [LRW] Ponder
1 [PT] Cruel Bargain
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
2 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
1 [TSP] Wipe Away
2 [SC] Tendrils of Agony

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [JU] Death Wish
SB: 1 [TSP] Wipe Away
SB: 1 [UL] Rebuild
SB: 1 [PS] Rushing River
SB: 1 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 2 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
SB: 2 [WL] Abeyance
SB: 4 [WL] Serenity


- Should 3 Chants main be enough? I see everybody playing 3 main, but why not 1 more? (I dont know what to cut..)
- I don't like Serenity, you have to waste (3/)4 SB slots on it, because you cant tutor it with Mystical Tutor. I think, with all the bounce you play, you can (almost) always find a bounce that does the same thing as Serenity in that situation.
- I also don't like Sudden Death/Pyroclasm/etc to answer Teeg/MM, you have your bounce for them..
- The SB is 17 cards, since I don't know what to cut... (and its also meta dependent)

Tips for the list? Maybe the 4th Ponder/Chant..

Jip

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Originally Posted by dlevsApiJ

Hi, i'm also playing this deck, and I really like it (more then TES or something..). This is the build i'm testing:

// Lands
2 [PT] Island
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [B] Underground Sea
1 [A] Tundra
1 [ST] Plains
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [U] Scrubland
1 [MM] Swamp

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Street Wraith

// Spells
4 [MM] Dark Ritual
3 [LRW] Ponder
1 [PT] Cruel Bargain
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
3 [PS] Orim's Chant
2 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
1 [JU] Death Wish
1 [TSP] Wipe Away
2 [SC] Tendrils of Agony

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [PS] Orim's Chant
SB: 1 [JU] Death Wish
SB: 1 [TSP] Wipe Away
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [UL] Rebuild
SB: 1 [PS] Rushing River
SB: 1 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 2 [7E] Duress
SB: 2 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
SB: 2 [WL] Abeyance

- Should 3 Chants main be enough? I see everybody playing 3 main, but why not 1 more? (I dont know what to cut..)
- I don't like Serenity, you have to waste (3/)4 SB slots on it, because you cant tutor it with Mystical Tutor. I think, with all the bounce you play, you can (almost) always find a bounce that does the same thing as Serenity in that situation.
- I also don't like Sudden Death/Pyroclasm/etc to answer Teeg/MM, you have your bounce for them..
- The SB is 17 cards, since I don't know what to cut... (and its also meta dependent)

Tips for the list? Maybe the 4th Ponder/Chant..

Jip

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Personally, I'd cut an island for the 4th chant, and the Cruel Bargain/Death wish if you really want to fit in the 4th Ponder.

Duress is a pretty bad card in the sideboard. It's worse than Abeyance in this deck. Death Wish doesn't need to be more than a 1-of in the 75. That frees 3 slots right there. Dark Confidant isn't necessary as a 4-of with Cruel Bargain, which frees another slot. Tendrils isn't necessary unless you are facing down Earwig Squad, so that's another slot. You're at 3 real slots right now. I would highly recommend making those 3 slots Serenity because there is nothing else that costs 2 mana to hose both artifacts and enchantments at the same time so well. That you play 3-4 doesn't matter because you have a large amount of cantrips and if you see even one of them when you board it in, you win the game. There are very few cards that are "gg" material, and this is one of them.

Cutting sources that produce blue mana in a deck that most often mulligans for lack of blue mana is a bad idea. Anytime the second island is cut should be for a land that also taps to cast Ponder/Brainstorm/Mystical Tutor.

I really like the 2nd Island, and also like the 15 lands. I cutted the MD wish, because when you see Pate, its probably not Game 1.. And using it to have a toolbox (I was thinking about that) is to mana and Life intensive.. Thanks for the tips :)

I edited the list.. The Sb is 16 cards now, I cut 2 cards each tournament, dependant on the meta..

EDIT: Isnt it an idea to cut the 4th SW in my list for the 4th Ponder? I think Ponder would do much more.. Since I don't use the M Tutor + SW "trick" that much..

So here are my thoughts referring to Emidlin's "possible choices" list a page back.

3 Chant, 1 Wipe Away, and 1 Pate seems optimal. You really do need a stable mana base to go off and Wasteland can really disrupt that. Also, baiting FoW and then Pateing it is a very strong play. I don't see the need for 3 Chant if you're going to run an optimal amount of Mystical Tutors.

15 Lands seems fine, but I'm sticking with 14 for now. I'm running a Trop in the SB and a Volc MB, because in my meta I need access to EtW. However, if I didn't, I wouldn't argue against the Trop MB and no red at all.

Street Wraith is really good usually. He helps you win quickly when that needs to happen, providing Threshold quickly. But I tend to side him out fairly often - It still seems he's more effective than Portent, because Portent doesn't help you at all when comboing out, so you can't chain with it, and costs mana.

On the business section of the deck. I run 2 Tendrils, 1 EtW, and 2 IGG. Double Tendrils is my main wincon Vs. Aggro or Control, while EtW or IGG is my main plan against Aggro.

I don't feel that I'm experianced enough with this deck to provide thoughts on the sidebored. But Confidant is very, very, strong, even not against discard.

For referance, here's my list:

4 Strand
3 Delta
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Sea
1 Volc
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra

4 Street Wraith
4 Ponder
4 BStorm

4 Infernal Tutor
3 Mystical Tutor
1 Contract

4 Petal
4 LED
4 Cabal Rit
4 Dark Rit

2 IGG
2 Tendrils
1 EtW

3 Orim's Chant
1 Extirpate
1 Wipe Away

I think that's 60.

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Originally Posted by Mental

4 Strand
3 Delta
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Sea
1 Volc
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra

4 Street Wraith
4 Ponder
4 BStorm

4 Infernal Tutor
3 Mystical Tutor
1 Contract

4 Petal
4 LED
4 Cabal Rit
4 Dark Rit

3 Orim's Chant
1 Extirpate
1 Wipe Away

I think that's 60.

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Actually, it's 55?!
You're missing 2 IGG, 2 Tendrils and a Mystical Tutor.

kcapp001 and I were thinking about (and testing) 2-3 Sensei's Divining Top in place of 4 Street Wraith and potentially the 4th Ponder so the config would go to something like this:

3-4 Chant
0-1 Extirpate
1 Death Wish
1 Cruel Bargain
2 Ill-Gotten Gains
2 Tendrils of Agony
3-4 Ponder
2-3 Sensei's Divining Top

The biggest loss is in the mirror where Street Wraith is a great threat. It's theorized that maindeck Extirpate and sideboard Extirpate should be able to let you gain Chant superiority fast enough to actually combo out, although we haven't tested this yet.

SDT opens up a number of interesting plays, functioning somewhat like a Street Wrath for 1 colorless in some circumstances (turning the blue demonic tutor for U into blue demonic tutor for 1U) as well as providing outs to discard, control. The synergy with LED is also really exciting. It's still undetermined if Top is good enough to replace Street Wraith, but the initial testing is promising.

Seems too slow. I know that's sort of a bad reason to dismiss something in magic, especially if that something is 1cc, but I think it may be plausable here. I've never been huge into street wraith, the life loss builds up a lot, he makes mulling REALLY challenging sometimes, and sometimes he just looks at me funny. He does, though, get threshold quickly. SDT sounds like it would be a meta choice. In a meta with a ton of control where the extra deck manipulation would be helpful, i can see it being amazing (perhaps not as good as another extirpate). It would make a nice bluff (tundra=>top, go. I'm playing thresh, right?), but in any other sort of meta (heavy combo, agro) I want immediate benefit out of my mana expenditure. Ponder and brainstorm do that, top needs two mana and a turn. Not godawful but not amazing.

Other SDT tricks would be fun, with LED like emidln mentioned. I don't know, I want to see more before I judge completely but it just sounds impractical in an open meta.

Hmm, I really like the idea.. I never liked SW that much.. And top is just insane with your Fetchlands.. Sometimes I really wish I could use my Ponder/Brainstorm a second time, cause I'm very topdeck dependent.. Top is a good card for that kind of situations.

I really gonna test the card :) (-4 SW, +3 Top +1 Ponder)

Replacing the 4th Chant with 1 Pate MD sounds nice, has someone tested this yet? Cause I'm not very sure about it.. I think most of the time (especially pre-board, when they dont know youre playing combo most of the time) 1 Chant > 1 Pate, because Pate is only usefull when they already have countered something.. When you have 1 Chant and 1 Pate, 2 Chants are usually also enough (and when you have 1 in hand, the 2nd can be found with an Infernal Tutor.. When you have 1 Pate in hand, you cant find Chants with your In. Tutor..)

Jip

Isn't top a problem when it keeps you from getting hellbent when you have no LED?

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Originally Posted by jjjoness'

Isn't top a problem when it keep you from getting hellbent when you have no LED?

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Wtf? Why would it be a problem? It costs one colorless. You can play it pretty much any time. It even works with Infernal by keeping stuff you can't cast from getting to your hand.

I saw someone at the Storm Boards playing B wish over D Wish in the SB. This seems much better (when you play red in your list), why is this the first time I saw this? Did I forgot something what will be a problem when you have the B Wish? Or am I not the only one that forgot B Wish should be better then D Wish?

I think of playing +2 Top, +1 ETW, +1 Volc. Island,+ 1 Ponder. And -4 SW, -1 Island (from my last posted list)
And SB: -1 D Wish, +1 B Wish

~Jip

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Originally Posted by WiLdFiRe

Actually, it's 55?!
You're missing 2 IGG, 2 Tendrils and a Mystical Tutor.

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Actually, I'm missing 2 IGG, 2 Tendrils, and 1 EtW. That card's a necessity in my Meta.

@Top. I really like the idea too. Cutting SW will give me room to go +3 Top, +1 Contract. Contract, IMO, is one of the most broken cards in this deck in a control heavy meta, because it lets you bait until you can go Chant --> Contract, recover. It's also very useful in conjunction with IGG because you can go Turn 2 Chant, IGG against thresh/landstill, get back Contract, Chant, Land or something like that, and next turn Contract back up to seven while they're stuck with three. IGG is a really underestimated early game card against control. It might not take out their control, but it will take out their clock/manabase.

Now that we're running Top, what about something really crazy. Counterbalance in the bored? I'd have to do a CC count, but it doesn't seem THAT out of place.

Cool, I like the idea, CounterTop in a Combo deck, Lool :tongue: .
But I think its to mana/slots intensive.. What do you wanna cut for it?

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Originally Posted by dlevsApiJ

Cool, I like the idea, CounterTop in a Combo deck, Lool :tongue: .
But I think its to mana/slots intensive.. What do you wanna cut for it?

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Well I'm just referring to a sidebored. I'm still fleshing mine out, but as of now, it looks like:

4 Confidant
1 Chant
1 Tranquility
1 EtW
1 Trop
2 KGrip
3 Extirpate
2 Abeyance
EDIT: 1 Pyroclasm would be nice in there somewhere.

So counterbalance would probably go in as a 2 or 3 of. Since it serves the role of protecting the Combo, it could probably replace 2 Abeyance and 1 Extirpate. However, it's completely untested.

CB seems like it would shine against Threshold and in the Mirror. It seems weak against Goblins, Landstill, and other deck that you crush. So it may not be all that bad.

Thoughts?

EDIT:

About the Manabase. Mine is:

4 Delta
3 Strand
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Volc

I need to fit one plains in there - Wasteland is too big in my meta. I'm thinking of cutting 1 Delta and adding a single plains. Otherwise I'll cut the Scrubland.

It (read: SDTop) seems to take away from the M. Tutor-->Wipe Away I seem to need against CounterTop, MM, Gaddock Teeg, etc., not to mention like you said, Wraith against mirror and etc. has always been a great back-up plan...I do like the blue quasi-Demonic thing w/out the life-loss, I'll test also.

Also, double-top can be a storm-builder, paying 1 per storm...

It's easier for counters/Needles to shut you down without cycling.

Note: Went to the prerelease in Denver, and tore up the only 2 other legacy players there that I saw...Played against Fish and MBA, Went off turn 2 all 3 games (had to leave after game 1 against fish). The MBA player said it's not fun to not get to play anything (I played through a Hymn, though. Luck-ish, as he missed my Tutor), the fish player kept a hand without disruption. I got lucky against Fish as I Abeyanced turn 2 (baiting), and topdecked an Infernal off the cantrip effect ftw. Otherwise I would have had quite a hard time winning, as his hand was double-Meddling Mage. Yikes.

Got a Russian Wipe Away...eh.

Pce,

--DC

I did a few test games with Top maindeck (-4 Wraith + 3 Top + 1 Ponder) and actually you're right emidln:top does not keep you from comboing off.
But I feel it makes the deck a bit slower, for it costs a lot of Mana. But it's pretty useful against controlish decks, baiting counters and helping to get multiple Chants/acceleration. But against aggro I think they slow you down a lot , I lost a some games to MonoG stompy, just because I wasn't able to combo off on turn 3 (actually I had no chants to timewalk him). Against Fastcombo fee l like it doesn't matter, you really want to keep your mana for Chant in the early game, and later you have to the mana and time to use Top.
So said, I only did few games, but I'm gonna test it again and again, but now I think in a more controlish meta SDT instead of Wraith could be a really good option.
Let's see if later testgames will tell the same.

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Originally Posted by Dark_Cynic87

It (read: SDTop) seems to take away from the M. Tutor-->Wipe Away I seem to need against CounterTop, MM, Gaddock Teeg

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How? SDT is a 1cc artifact that lets you manipulate the top of your library. Mystical tutor is a 1cc instant that puts stuff on top of your library. Wipe Away is a 3cc solution to hate. The only way these interact that doesn't result from the pilot being completely deficient is when you use SDT to draw Wipe Away after Mystical Tutor, when you use SDT to hide Wipe Away from discard until you're ready to go off, and when you Wipe Away SDT to build storm. The only way that it can harm you is when you make a mistake of activating top and hide Wipe Away out of your reach. That isn't a flaw in the design of the deck, just the skill of the player.

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It's easier for counters/Needles to shut you down without cycling.

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Seriously? Street Wraith's cycling ability (like all cycling abilities) is an activated ability and very Pithing Needle-able if your opponent is that inclined. I've had it happen to me in testing vs competent opponents.

So I did a quick CC count for Counterbalance. We've got plenty of 1 drops, but only 11 3 Drops post board, assuming the only thing brought in was 3 Balances. So meh. It could be decent, but I don't love it.

The goal of a sb CB would be to give you infinite time to setup vs Thresh. This means you need more 1 drops than two drops. (Goose is the only creature they play that you can't Wipe Away, which should also be coming in.) The major issue is that the current Thresh lists don't provide a good reason for sacrificing the sideboard space. (Thresh is already a good matchup.)

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Originally Posted by Mental

So I did a quick CC count for Counterbalance. We've got plenty of 1 drops, but only 11 3 Drops post board, assuming the only thing brought in was 3 Balances. So meh. It could be decent, but I don't love it.

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Well, I'd love CB in a storm combo deck, but I doubt this thing will be possible.

However, unlike thresh we can Mystical Tutor for 2 (IT) and 3 CC (Wipe Away) :wink:

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Originally Posted by GreenOne

Well, I'd love CB in a storm combo deck, but I doubt this thing will be possible.

However, unlike thresh we can Mystical Tutor for 2 (IT) and 3 CC (Wipe Away) :wink:

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Yeah, it doesn't seem bad on principle, but like EmidIn said, it's probably overkill. Still, running it could allow us to take out a few other anti-thresh cards and focus on other matches. Also, the bluff would be EPIC.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mental

Yeah, it doesn't seem bad on principle, but like EmidIn said, it's probably overkill. Still, running it could allow us to take out a few other anti-thresh cards and focus on other matches. Also, the bluff would be EPIC.

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You do realise that this deck is basically Threshold with a combo finish anyway?