[Deck] TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst

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Originally Posted by .dk

Tachikoma - I would be wary going to 3x LDV. You almost never want to see 2 of these as they clog up your hand. If you do, you might consider adding more Chrome Mox so that you can imprint extra LDV to make Underground Seas so they aren't rotting in your hand.

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Precisely what I did :)
I have 3 moxen in my build, which were 2 diamonds and 1 chrome, I just switched the numbers.
I'm quite happy with the 3 LDV, in fact we even need them more post-side as we can only side in so few cards, with 3 LDV it's almost like having 4 of each single sideboard card you put in.
I used to do the same as many, side them out G2, but don't do this anymore after it saved me quite a few games (which as a side effect make sideboarding trickier as I have even less possibilities out :)

Another reason is that I sticked with the one Sensei's Divining Top, which can turn your LDV from vampiric to demonic (tutor)
After being doubtful and playing more with it I'm also very happy with Sensei, the draw trick makes a crucial difference when you're struggling around counter and hate.

I also tried Hapless Researcher, it's nice sometimes to discard and draw instantly for free, but it's not a card that can replace another (Sensei replaces a Ponder, Hapless really don't), and we're out of space obviously :)

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Originally Posted by Acclimation

More than worth it. The deck has had a few top 8 showings at various tournaments over the last year.

Deathrite Shaman isn't a huge deal imo, it's slow and can only hit one target.

RiP is rough, but proper Cabal Therapy/Thoughtseize and sideboarding can go a long way in beating it.

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In my experience Shaman is more "statistically" deadly than RIP. Not the card itself, as you mentioned you can work it around, but the fact that it's a main deck 4 of in A LOT of major decks which almost all have discard (from a lot of discard to a hell lot of discard :). To work it around you generally need to double some of your combo pieces which is quite difficult with discard, and by the time you gather the needed pieces it's often too late.
RIP is a 2 or 3 of post side (except for those decks with Energy Field/Helm of Obedience, which I didn't met at all recently), and more rarely backed up with discard.
Preparing your combo, LDV, bounce and go is often "easier" even if those deck have other kind of troublesome hate (Thalia, Canonist, or many counters ...)

Talking about the current meta I played a lot with the deck in the past month and I have a really rough time getting above average results. Not impossible but we are in the crossing of all the hate fires ...
What strikes me is that in a recent tournament (Trial for next BoM) where I struggled against BURGWAnyColor delver decks, the top 8 was full of Combo decks which I usually win against (Omni-show, Painter and Storm)
Maybe it's just this tournament, maybe it's just that those players were really good, but maybe it tells us something about the resiliency of those other decks in the current meta compared to ours ...
Or maybe I'm just depressed by this tourney :)
3 times the same kind of deck in a row in 5 matches, many horrible hands mulliganed to oblivion (oblivion being 3 or 4), my last opponent dropped = no fun at all :(

I'm wondering about one situation I faced:

You are against a delver deck (choose whichever color combination you like :)
He's at 19 or so, while you had a discard vs counter/denial war during a few turns, he used this time to beat you with an insectile Delver and now drops a fat 5/6 Tarmogoyf, he's fully tapped and you know he still has a Daze.
You are at 8 or less life, 1 Island, 1 Swamp and a Petal, Entomb/Shallow Grave/Brainstorm in hand, you brainstorm and find a dark ritual ...
Do you
1) Go off normally with Griselbrand and hope getting a way to kill+enough fast mana in your next 7
2) Go entomb/shallow grave for an emergency Emrakul strike which in that situation would basically reset the game, but after that you have to wait for your hand to rebuild from scratch to get those last 4 life.

?

So the situation you're setting up is that you can only draw once with Griselbrand after attacks, correct? In this case, you know you need at least an IMS minimum. This is easy as you should still have a life to pay for a fetch land (which you'll likely draw off of your 7). Then, you're looking for any of the following:

Tendrils + rituals or petals
White IMS + Children of Korlis
ritual or petals/moxen + entomb + shallow grave or reanimate (to make children)
ritual or petals/moxen + discard + shallow grave or reanimate + children of korlis

or some other combination of cantrips and mana to find those.

Question being... do you think your odds of getting any of these outweigh your odds of wiping their board and then drawing into 4 damage later?

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Originally Posted by .dk

Question being... do you think your odds of getting any of these outweigh your odds of wiping their board and then drawing into 4 damage later?

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As you might have guessed, I chose option 2 and lost miserably :)

In fact dealing 4 damages in Tin Fins is not that different from dealing 20 ... we need the combo pieces.
So after an Emrakul Strike, this is exactly as starting the game with no cards in hand, and in that situation, it does not take very long to Delver to start beating again, while it's a lot longer for us without the Topdeck god on our side.
The only think that could do it after a non-lethal emrakul strike, apart from combo, is Reanimate on his Tarmo or Delver, but Reanimate is off my list now, and as you mentioned, it's a bit of a dangerous card to play against pressuring decks.

Maybe having an alternative beater we could side in could be nice though, Children is a bit light for the job :)
I also had a similar situation I had no choice but going for Emrakul (Cabal+Emrakul+Goryo in hand) and lost for the same reason ... no way to get those extra damage.
Oona's Prowler is used in Modern Instant Reanimator decks I think. Cheap, flying, and can be used as a discard outlet... but not sure it really makes sense except in that specific case ...

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Originally Posted by .dk

Question being... do you think your odds of getting any of these outweigh your odds of wiping their board and then drawing into 4 damage later?

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I'll add that playing Tin Fins is all about taking risks, not protecting ourselves ...
Those crappy mulligans made me forget the core philosophy of this deck :)

One path is playing to win, the other is playing to not lose.


I go for Griselbrand and see if I can get them with that.

Got to give my Flaches Grabs a workout today in a small local. Wheeeeeeeee, monsters. Maybe I'll have to try TinFins again, it was feeling pretty consistent. I managed to beat a UW Miracles player :eek:.

Agreed with .dk on going for it. Always go for it.

My shallow graves came in the mail today woot ! Hope to be playing this at my local Thursday.

Any beginners tips or tricks ? Always blind cabal for force correct ?

A basic sideboard should be

3 serenity
3 pithing needles
3 silence
?

Thanks and ill be sure to report :cool:

Tips:
Be a man- play to win, play fearlessly, and greed is good.

Cabal Therapy for the scariest card they have that could stop you. I typically don't blind Cabal t1 unless I know what my opponent is playing. Sometimes using Cabal Therapy/Thoughtseize on yourself is the right play to get Griselbrand or Emrakul into the yard.

Remember that Shallow Grave doesn't target, it just puts the top creature card onto the battlefield.

As far as sideboards go, I always want 4 Silence in the 75, at least 2 bounce, some Pithing Needle for oddball permanents, and then from there it's pretty open ended. Mine currently looks like:

2 Chain of Vapor
2 Serenity
3 Silence
2 Massacre
3 Pithing Needle
3 Surgical Extraction

I've found success with some number of Surgical Extraction, it makes Dredge, reanimator, and the mirror easier to play against. It could probably be 2 Surgicals and 3 Chain, but that's a personal choice based on the fact that when I want Surgical, I really want it, and Chain overlaps with Needle, Serenity, and Massacre.

When it comes to actually sideboarding, I tend to board out my Probes first, with maybe a few other cards getting cut if they are really not good, such as Silence in Jund-like match-ups. Against fast combo, I board out a land, since I run 14 lands (61 card list still) and try to keep the probes, cutting slower cards like LDV first, usually bringing in Silence.

In fact, a common sideboard change is usually -3 Probe +3 Silence, and I do this change against the various tempo decks, Omnitell, Esper Stoneblade (depending on how many counters I see g1), and really any deck where I want Silence.

That's what I can think of off the top of my head.

I've found a card that deals with 99% of the graveyard hate out there: teferi's realm. The idea is you phase out their cage, RiP/whatever on your upkeep and then go for it. About the only thing they can phase out on their turn (if they get one) is enchantments since they need all the other stuff.
Crypt and spellbomb also fold to this because they can't use it if it's phased out when you entomb/discard.

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Originally Posted by John Cox

I've found a card that deals with 99% of the graveyard hate out there: teferi's realm. The idea is you phase out their cage, RiP/whatever on your upkeep and then go for it. About the only thing they can phase out is enchantments since they need all the other stuff.
Crypt and spellbomb also fold to this because they can't use it if it's phased out when you entomb/discard.

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Yea we discussed this about 6 months ago. Ultimately - it's 3 mana including :u::u:. Serenity deals with most non-BG decks, and Chain of Vapor/Massacre deals with the other set. They latter two are the most efficient ways to clear the creatures. Chain of Vapor also feeds the Storm kill with Tendrils that may sometimes lead to wins when the GY is shut off.

After seeing the video Caleb Durward put up yesterday I'm curious if there is anyone out there who thinks that a Grixis Tin Fins list with Stronghold Gambit either main or sideboard is actually viable.

http://www.channelfireball.com/video...shallow-grave/
Something along these lines...

4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul

4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Stronghold Gambit

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

Or possibly as a sideboard option to dodge gy hate.
Is this a worse version? How valuable is silence/children/tendrils?

Personally, I feel like Tendrils wins about half my games on the same turn I get Griselbrand. Sometimes, it even wins the "limping along" games with mini-Storm.

Cutting Children of Korlis removes the "hard-cast Griselbrand/Emrakul" plan. This, to me, weakens the point of the deck existing. :)

Otherwise, it's likely a more consistent version at putting Griselbrand into play. It's less consistent with winning vs disruption (Karakas, StP, Jace-bounce, Mother of Runes+lethal, other combo decks, etc)

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Originally Posted by Troll Slayer

Is this a worse version? How valuable is silence/children/tendrils?

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IT might be a viable version, but Silence is incredible and I board in the 3 in my sideboard all the time, Children gives the deck a lot of gas mid combo, and Tendrils accounts for about 25-50% of my wins.

I couldn't imagine playing without any of those cards, they are that good.

Took this to my local for the first time with Kobys list. I couldn't find a reanimate so I went with 1 main deck chain of vapor.

Wow this deck is powerful! I ended with a disappointing 2-2, but in my first match against affinity I simply could not gas to save my life. Half was it was my first match and wasn't sure comfy with the deck yet. I die unhappily to god damn robots.....

Round 2 I play vs. UW miracles and one of the best players at the store....great.. 0-2 right? I end up killing him turn 2 game 1. Game two he boards all the hate and wins. Game 3 I draw the perfect 7 and just blow him out. Wow what just happened? :laugh:

Round 3 I play vs. a good friend and merfolk.. Back to back turn 1 wins. Round was over in 6 mins. If I would have won that round 1 I could have split first place my first time out.

Round 4 I play against team italia game one He thoughtseizes me taking a shallow grave. I have goryo's in hand. I draw a dark ritual off the top and win on the spot.
Game 3 was close I cabal naming extraction not rest in peace. It lands and he slowly wins as I look for a way to kill it.

The deck is awesome and a blast to play! I plan on playing it more, until my local's go crazy with the graveyard hate.

I'm looking at either this or Storm (I've played the crud out of Storm already) as my next main deck to play. One thing I like about this deck is that it lacks LED's, which I'm getting tired of playing. I'm skeptic of a few things, though. How bad does a Rest in Peace hurt? Also, what does this deck just fold to?

-ABC

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee

I'm looking at either this or Storm (I've played the crud out of Storm already) as my next main deck to play. One thing I like about this deck is that it lacks LED's, which I'm getting tired of playing. I'm skeptic of a few things, though. How bad does a Rest in Peace hurt? Also, what does this deck just fold to?

-ABC

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RIP maindeck is pretty much a loss. In the SB there are Chain of Vapor to bounce it for the critical turn, as well as Serenity to kill it during your upkeep.

This deck can deal with one set of disruption (Counters, GY, discard); but typically when they are compounded it becomes a difficult game. Example: Counterbalance + RIP.

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Originally Posted by Koby

RIP maindeck is pretty much a loss. In the SB there are Chain of Vapor to bounce it for the critical turn, as well as Serenity to kill it during your upkeep.

This deck can deal with one set of disruption (Counters, GY, discard); but typically when they are compounded it becomes a difficult game. Example: Counterbalance + RIP.

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Played in a small tournament against a UWR deck that played RIP main and after sideboard also played both Surgical Extraction and Relic of Progenitus... Just couldn't get around that much graveyard hate.

Wow, that's a dumb decision. What a waste of sb slots. I just bought a foil Jap. Emrakul, so I think I just made myself go Tin Fins. It's not my fault, it was SEXY.

I've been seeing two kinds of lists. 2 Griz and 4 Griz lists. What's the deal? I've got 3 in my list to get a feel for what I want, but I think there might be more to it. Is it because of SnT being a bigger part of some players' metagame than others? Is 4 Griselbrand so you can drop him off an SnT more readily?

I was thinking that with a lil tinkering, this list could transform into a d-day Lab Maniac list, which would completely swing away from the Graveyard gameplan that is so often the reason of a game loss in the middle game. It would make what they sided in dead, and throw off how they plan on attacking your game plan. You would almost definitely need tops, though, and that really slows the deck down; I am pretty sure I understand correctly that this is not a key element of winning with this deck.

also, has anyone done serious testing with Stronghold Gambit? It's awesome, but I feel that SnT is probably better here (even though I don't play it, either). How many people are playing the Mox Diamond? Is it better than Chrome #3?

I appreciate the answers and the brainstorm sessions.

-ABC