We're already in the right color...Quote:
Originally Posted by Koby
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/be/186.jpg
Edit: Damn you Shroud!!!!#E@$@#
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We're already in the right color...Quote:
Originally Posted by Koby
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/be/186.jpg
Edit: Damn you Shroud!!!!#E@$@#
Why was Daze considered a failed idea in this deck? It seems that there's definitely enough fetchlands to ensure that you have an Underground Sea in play most of the time and the deck is so blazing fast that they'll generally tap out in order to answer your threats.
Plus, it feels like this deck loses alot of steam if it doesn't get an initial Entomb to resolve and additional insurance seems like a good idea.
Couple of reason. 1) It isn't useful as an enabler like discard, 2) it isn't really great against the weak matchups - controlling decks like Miracles that don't often tap out, 3) if shit goes wrong, it's terrible late-game, 4) it's not good disruption in the combo-mirror.Quote:
Originally Posted by roflwaffles
Discard and Silence address those problems better than Daze on the whole. Basically Daze is really good when it's good, but most times is pretty bad. The deck definitely doesn't need more high-variance cards.
This, and the discard just gives you more information in general, whether you can actually go off or not. Tin Fins often plays out like Belcher, balls to the wall only we do have slighty more info normally plus can strip counters off our opponents. You generally want to be proactive, just like Belcher.Quote:
Originally Posted by phazonmuant
Atleast, this is how I have experienced the deck.
Hey guys, I have been building this deck on MTGO, and I have to say that this is an amazing combo deck. Big kudos to the creators!
Well, 'til now I just have been goldfishing the last Koby's version -I like it a lot, dude!-, trying to get confortable with combo. I have everything but the dual lands, but planning to get them soon.
My questions are: Is it actually necessary to run 1 tundra? Is it reasonable to run +1 scrubland instead, or 1 tundra is mandatory?
Why? Scrubland is cheaper :smile:
Tundra is easily replaceable with Scrubland. Its nice to have a blue source fetchable by Marsh Flats however. Additional Underground Seas are also acceptable.
Anyone going to be playing this deck in worcester this weekend? If i can make it to the Sunday event I may. I'm having a hard time deciding whether I want to play this deck or Nic Fit. I know, polar opposites. It depends on the Meta i guess. Anyone have any in sight?
As someone who's played both, go with TinFins. You'll have way more time between rounds to eat/trade/buy/get things signed/etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZimAshe
Punching people in the face with Griselbrand is always the correct answer.
I've had some success at the local level playing Tin Fins with a singleton Unmask over the second Thoughtseize. At first this was a budget consideration, but now I'm thinking of just playing 4 Therapy 2 Unmask as my discard suite. Having a free spell that can be used as either disruption or an enabler seems powerful, and in a deck that uses it's life total as a resource, the 2 life lost from Thoughtseizes can be troublesome.
Has anyone else had similar experience?
I've never tested it, but what do you usually find yourself pitching to it? I suppose if you have extra reanimation spells that's fine, since it's usually the Entomb that gets countered. I like Thoughtseize as I never have a problem casting it, and usually 2 life isn't that big of a deal. But I have nothing to argue with against replacing it with Unmask.
Most often I have been pitching extra copies of Goryo's Vengeance, Cabal Therapy, or Lim-Dul's Vault.Quote:
Originally Posted by .dk
I think it adds strength to the deck in that it allows more frequent turn 1 kills with disruption. Opening hands with Dark Ritual > Entomb (or Therapy yourself) > Shallow Grave (or Goryo's) don't usually have the resource to defend themselves otherwise.
EDIT: Also openings like Land > Unmask (yourself) > Reanimate, or Land > Lotus Petal > Unmask (self), Shallow Grave become possible turn 1 combos without Dark Rituals or multiple Petals.
I tested 2 Unmask when I played a version with Serum Powders and Pull from Eternities in the main. That deck was...inconsistent, but I'm pretty sure I can generalize my experience with Unmask to say that you can't afford to 2-1 yourself in the bad matchups. If I could get turn 1 hands significantly more consistently than what I've been seeing I'd agree with you that Unmask is worth it despite that, but I just don't think making your excellent hands better and your bad hands worse is a good path to take.
Fun story time (I thought it was cool, damn it).
We had a small Legacy event recently (so I could fulfill one of my requirements to become an L1), and round 1 I play against a friend who plays either UW counterbalance, GW Loyal Retainers/Emrakul combo, or BUG control. Game 1 I keep a hand that can cast Reanimate on Griselbrand t1, and went for it. It turned out he was on Countertop, and proceeded to Swords it. I draw 7, exile Griselbrand, and take my next turn. Whiff on Cabal Therapy naming Rest in Piece, sculpt, and ship, he top decks Rest in Piece (sonofabitch). He ends up getting stuck on lands, and I eventually burn 3 dark rits to cast Griselbrand. He eot Enlightened Tutor with 3 lands, and ends up going for Energy Field. Awkward. Cue more sculpting. He's at 18, and I'm sitting at 12 with 6 lands. Finally, he miracles Entreat for about 5 (on his turn), and I draw 7 in response. I proceed to get him with a 9 storm Tendrils with a combination of Petals, Mox, irrelevant cantrips and Shallow Graves and my last Dark Ritual (which was the only spell I needed to resolve).
Next game I do the monster mash. It was a graveyard smash. I end up winning it (my friends are good, but my luck is better), and ended up getting Judge Certified by the end of the week.
I know a lot of people aren't fans of mainboard Tendrils, but sometimes you got odd ball games like this where Tendrils is your only way out in game 1. Maybe not the BEST example as to why Tendrils should be kept in the main, but I feel as though it needs to stay.
Tendrils should stay on main, imo. Here's another example:
I was playing a match against a BUG "Shardless" Control deck. First game I had a emmy + grisel kill on second turn. Second game was pretty fun. He opened with a 'seize discarding my lone entomb. I therapied a FOW. He played a deathrite shaman and a nihil spellbomb, so I played my 2 lotus petals anticipating more discard. He began to deathrite me at the end of my turns, so when I finally found another entomb, therapied another fow and waited for my next turn, having 3 lands and 2 petals in play.
He deathrited me as always, so I entombed a grisel in response and casted goryo's. Then he cracked his nihil spellbomb and I casted another goryo's. On his turn he doesn't make anything and I draw 7 in response to grisel's exiling trigger. Being at 5, I played land, therapied a fow, chain of vapor his shaman, dark ritual + entomb a grisel + shallow grave. Attacked with griselbrand and drew 7, being at 5 again. No more entombs or children, so tried the storm kill. Played lotus petal, casted a probe to find gas, but didn't draw well. Brainstormed with my lone island and was lucky and found the kill: 2 dark rituals and tendrils of agony casted with petal.
I think it's pretty cool to have 2 different ways to kill on maindeck. Sometimes I've faced an ensnaring bridge, which I didn't cared, going for the storm kill.
Hi everyone,
Just to start it's my first post here and I only dug 4-5 pages in the 50+ of this thread so I might say/ask redundant things, sorry if I do.
Second I'm not a regular competitive tournament player so I might not play as good as some of you do and miss some strategies ... end of disclaimer :)
Here is the build I tested at my local store yesterday, and I made a miserable 1-3 with it.
3 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Children of Korlis
4 Entomb
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
1 Reanimate
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
1 Silence
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
// lands
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Island
1 Swamp
// Sideboard
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Echoing Truth
1 Extirpate
1 Flusterstorm
1 Karakas
2 Pithing Needle
2 Pull from Eternity
1 Show and Tell
2 Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
1st round was UR Delver packed with countermagic, the second was esper stoneblade and I died 0-2 without doing anything on those 2 so I'll focus on these.
I really don't see how to manage them, especially how to play discard properly.
For example you have an opening hand with a thoughtseize, a shallow grave, the appropriate mana acceleration (mox, dark rit and enough land), and 1 or 2 cantrips, seems like a pretty correct hand doesn't it ?
Option 1) You use your thoughtseize early, you may clear the path and see what he's got, but then you absolutely need entomb (and draw Griselbrand instead :)
Option 2) You keep your thoughtseize so that either drawing entomb or griselbrand enables your combo but if your opponent counters your self-thoughtseize, you're in an even worse situation than Option 1, and as you didn't discarded him, he's very likely to have one or more countermagic in hand.
I did option 1) and drew Griselbrand, Emrakul or lands or cantrips or you name it but Entomb.
And when an insectile-aberrating Delver and a Geist are kicking your ass, you don't have a lot of time to cantrip/dig :)
The stoneblade matchup was a bit different, he simply kozileked me the entomb, then snapcasted/kozileked a shallowgrave and I felt that early discard can ruin you too easily.
And again, if you do not have a turn 1-kill-style starting hand, and try to hold a 1st turn discard to be able to potentially brainstorm-save part of your stuff, you simply leave him more chance to draw countermagic, throw in a Stoneforge/Batterskull you can't stop (or yes you can because you draw the pithing needle .. the turn after batterskull comes in :)
Well you get my point I felt simply defenseless in those 2 matchups.
I really was frustrating, like I have a beast of potential I like to play with in hands, but womething wrong inside that makes it fail ...
It may be those particular matchups, but even the other games I didn't quite felt the flexibility and reliability that I can read in your various tournament reports.
So I'd like your advice, what is your experience against those matchups ? and more generally against heavy countermagic and discard decks as it's a large part of the metagame I have where i play ...
Do you see something in my build choices that could explain the problems I faced ?
Have a nice weekend and happy Griselbranding :)
タチコマ歓迎! Always glad to see new people picking up the deck. I know you haven't had a chance to read the whole thread yet, but I would highly recommend taking some time to read the past 30 pages or so - lots of good discussions in general.
I've never played against UR Delver before, but I would imagine that it isn't that much different than RUG. In this case (that's definitely a keepable hand), I would generally hold onto my disruption and use cantrips to try to sculpt a better hand. Try to play around wasteland as best as possible. You likely aren't going to thoughtseize a threat out of their hand - only an answer, so there isn't good incentive to do so early. It's possible that if they see you doing nothing and just cantripping, they'll burn a counter on a cantrip even. That gives you the most flexibility in your plan, and you're not locked in one way or another.
Remember, even if they counter your self-thoughtseize, you effectively did the same thing as thoughtseizing them too since you wouldn't be taking one of their threats. That gives you the most outs off the top in drawing more discard to continue to self target, or an entomb.
As far as Esper goes - sometimes if they are on the play, the game just goes like that. Discard can be rough like that, and then it is a matter of operating your cantrips to maximum efficiency to try to recover. The good news is that you have lots of redundancy, so there are many chances to draw out even if pieces are discarded. If it is game 1 and you think you have an opportunity to cast Entomb (and believe that they are a discard heavy deck), you might want to just go for it and cast entomb, even if you don't have a reanimation spell. Don't give them the opportunity to strip it from your hand - Entomb is the weakest link in this deck.
Hope that helps a little, and good luck!
Agreed. I think it's important to always remember that our discard does double-duty. To me, the most important thing is to try and go off as quickly and consistently as possible. In the current meta, grave hate is everywhere and I personally think it's better to go off earlier, even if that means taking a risk without protection. The only time I think this is potentially not the case is when you're pretty sure the opponent is going to drop something that's a pain in the ass to play around on their next turn, like RiP or Thalia. This is a lot more applicable postboard though.
That said, I kinda suck at playing combo decks. Koby would know. Koby always knows.
There is nothing scarier than a fearless combo player. Probably bad advice incoming: Just go full man mode on every game. Keep greedy hands, run your combo out without protection or respect to Force of Will, just GO for it. You'll probably lose a lot, but after awhile, you'll start to recognize what works and doesn't work for opening hands, and have a better understanding of the deck.
Speed is our best protection against other decks. You can't get wastelanded out of a game that you win on turn 1 (No shit, Shirlock). The same goes for Deathrite Shaman, Rest in Peace, Counterbalance, and so on. Make it a mini game with yourself, see how many games you can win on turn 1 or 2 in a night. It's a lot of fun, and if you're into that kind of thing, you'll harvest a lot of tears and buttmad from your opponents.
That aside, playing against UR Delver is interesting. You don't have to worry about Tarmogoyf clocks (sometimes they can stop your first attempt and you need to rebuild) nor Scavaging Oozes out of the side, but you do have to worry about more burn (in my experience). Silence is your friend here, I found Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy less effective against this match-up.
Against any deck with Discard, Entombing as soon as you can is most ideal- you have 8 reanimation effects, but only 4 Entomb (provided you are using a list similar to Koby/me). What I've noticed about Stoneblade and BUG decks, is that they don't run as many counterspells as other blue decks (Tempo Thresh and Counterbalance) and just enough hand disruption to be annoying, but not terribly hard to come back from. If you can punch through early, do it, especially if it's game one, they don't know what you are on, and they tapped out.
Gitaxian Probe is your friend in all of these match-ups, but I always found myself boarding them out in g2/3 for more Silences. I'm still rocking the 61 card main deck because I love having both 4 Probe and 14 land, I can't decide what to shave in order to have an even 60.
So, to recap:
Be fearless.
Be Greedy.
Gitaxian Probe and Silence are your friends, and help you with both of those.
Your mileage may vary.
Firstly, I agree with the "be greedy" assessment; that's why we're playing Tin Fins, right?
Speaking of Greed, in my testing I've had the desire to go up to 4 Goryo's Vengence. I don't yet know if this impulse is irrational or not. There are times when the 1-of Reanimate is a real stinker because I want to draw all the cards AND attack the turn my Grizzie comes into play. Thoughts?