[Deck] TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...81/tinfins.jpg
You'll wish you had less fun!

1. Overview
2. The Name
3. Core Cards
4. Sideboards and Sideboarding
5. Unsuccessful Ideas
6. Tips and Tricks
7. Why not just play ______?
8. Matchup Analysis
9. Coverage, Results, and Decklists
10. Thanks

The Name

Grislebrand = Grizzlebees = TinFins. Still Confused?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoShDwTNbnM

Grizzlebee's Introduces the Onion Burst
Take It from 'Ol Hank Murphy
Grizzlebees Burst Meal with TinFins Toys

It's a Sealab 2021 Reference. Good? Good. If you aren't familiar with Sealab, go watch the entire series for free on the Adult Swim site.


Overview
TinFins is a Reanimator / Storm hybrid built around Griselbrand. It aims to reanimate Griselbrand with haste using either Shallow Grave or Goryo's Vengeance, then draw enough cards to reanimate Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and swing for 22 or generate enough storm for a lethal Tendrils of Agony. Children of Korlis is used to enable additional Griselbrand activations and greatly increase the consistency of both win conditions. It is a fairly consistent turn 1-3 combo, often with protection.

The strengths of the deck are its redundancy, speed, and the low resource investment needed to combo off, but its reliance on the graveyard makes it susceptible to a variety of hate cards, especially when backed up by counter magic.


Core Cards


1 Children of Korlis
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2-4 Griselbrand
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Brainstorm
3-4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
0-2 Lim-dul's Vault

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate

4 Cabal Therapy
0-1 Silence
2-4 Thoughtseize

1-2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual

4 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Tundra/Island
2-3 Underground Sea


Wincons:
Griselbrand - Draw engine, wincon, reduces storm count by 3, has axes for hands.
Emrakul - Primarily a win condition, but also used for his shuffle effect in conjunction with Children to generate mana and storm count for the Tendrils win. Rarely, he can also act as an emergency board sweeper.
Children of Korlis - Cheap, tutorable with Entomb, and because of the wording it can combine with Emrakul's shuffle effect to give you infinite draws, life, and storm count.
Tendrils - The argument has been made many times to drop it, but as a singleton it is generally worth it to have a way to win outside the attack step. Can also be used in a pinch to stay in the game or enable more Griselbrand activations.

Enablers:
These are all self explanatory. The full set of Shallow Grave is played over Goryo's because it can reanimate Children, and it doesn't target, which makes it easier to play around hate.

Protection:
We choose discard that can target any player because it allows us to use it as another way to get one of our creatures in the yard. While not the ideal situation, it does make us less dependent on resolving Entomb, and thereby more resilient to counters and discard.

Mana:
Most commonly, the deck plays 8 fetches with 5-6 mana-producing lands, including a basic Swamp and sometimes a basic Island. This gives us good resiliency to Wasteland, with plenty of shuffle effects to maximize the usefulness of Brainstorm.
Petals, and Ritual play the usual storm roles. Chrome Mox is a concession to the need to have additional mana sources after activating Griselbrand. Some lists run 2, others a 1/1 split with Mox Diamond.


Sideboards and Sideboarding
The sideboard is still the greatest point of contention. Fighting hate without giving up consistency or just becoming a bad version of something else has proven to be somewhat of a challenge. The options generally involve protection against hate, transformation to a different combo/wincon, or some combination of the two. Note that some lists run a 14-card sideboard and a 61-card main deck.

Reactive
Probably the most common sideboard strategy. It requires knowing what hate you are likely to face from a given opponent/deck, and brings in specific answers for it. An average reactive board looks like this:

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

The most common cards to cut for a reactive board are Probes, LDV, and Reanimate. You typically don't want to bring in more than 4-5 cards, as any more than that will water down the deck to the point of making it too inconsistent. This limitation is probably the biggest downside to a reactive strategy, as beating opponents with a wide variety of hate cards becomes extremely difficult.

Reactive board discussion and strategy - Thanks Acclimation!

Doomsday
Doomsday takes advantage of boarded grave hate, is very compact, and offers multiple win conditions (Shelldock/Emrakul or Tendrils). Doomsday is a card that can be difficult to use effectively, but offers a high degree of flexibility in return. Practice is highly suggested.


1 Shelldock Isle
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Pithing Needle
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Doomsday

Doomsday board primer/discussion -Thanks .dk!

Historical and Theoretical Transformations

Show and Tell - Loses a lot of redundancy, and still folds to counter + Surgical, so the rest of the board is generally countermagic devoted to winning on the stack, then protecting your beater for a few turns. Pithing Needle is required to beat Jace and Karakas. Show and Tell can also be used as an addition reactive boards, as an out to decks that pack a lot of graveyard hate.

Painter's Servant/Grindstone - Compact, low mana requirement, no reliance on the yard. Also lets you run Blue Blasts in the board as protection, or possibly Red blasts, with a lot of manabase tweaking. Vulnerable to some anti-Griselbrand hate like Pithing Needle. Also doesn't work against opponents running Emrakul.

Ad Nauseum - The OG transformational board. Hopes to take advantage of opponents boarding in grave hate, but becomes more vulnerable to countermagic due to relying on LED/Infernal Tutor. Also soft to anti-storm hatebears like Thalia, Teeg, and Canonist.

The Man Plan - Run a bunch of efficient, evasive beaters like Delver of Secrets, Tombstalker Bitterblossom, and Serendib Efreet. Not graveyard dependent, but even 15 creatures isn't a lot, and can be incidentally hated out by things like Humility, Energy Field, or just anyone with a better clock. Nobody has ever actually tried this.

15x Shadowborn Apostle - #YOLO

Unsuccessful Ideas
These are things that have been tried in the past, but just haven't worked out very well. If you're going to bring one of these up for discussion, please do some testing first to make sure you aren't just beating a dead horse.

Burning Wish - There have been builds in the past splashing red specifically for Burning Wish and a Sneak Attack transformation out of the sideboard. While it does enable us to have answers to hate in game 1, the mana cost and Sorcery speed have just made it a very clunky and slow addition in the past, and that was before we ran White for Children.

Laboratory Maniac - An alternative to Tendrils. It seems slightly cheaper to cast at first glance, but generally requires at least two Children activations to win, so it's not that cheap, is more restrictive, and is a pretty dead card on its own.

Lion's Eye Diamond - It can act as a discard outlet, makes a ton of mana, and enables Infernal Tutor. Unfortunately, it forces you to go all in on your combo turn reducing the benefit of the redundancy in reanimation spells that this deck runs. Additionally, the extra mana provided has proven to be of marginal use as the mana requirements to combo off with this deck are quite low.

Daze/Force of Will - Counters can be better than discard in a lot of situations, but in this deck they don't help get Griselbrand in the yard, and we usually don't have the blue count for Force

Grim Tutor/Infernal Tutor - Tin Fins is redundant enough with 7-8 reanimation spells that tutors such as these have been found to be unnecessary. Your filter spells are generally sufficient to find the pieces that you need.

Cunning Wish - Even though it's already on-color and can be cast on an opponent's turn to somewhat offset the extra cost, 3 mana is still a lot for a deck that only runs 13 land.


Tips and Tricks
Getting Griselbrand in the yard - The most obvious way is via Entomb, but you can also target yourself with discard, or just draw until you have 8 cards and discard him at end of turn.

Reanimating Emrakul - Goryo's Vengeance and Shallow grave are Instants, letting you put Emrakul into play in response to his shuffle trigger going on the stack.

Reanimating during opponent's end step - Both instant reanimation spells exile the target at the beginning of the next end step. Reanimating during your opponent's end step will give you that creature until the beginning of your end step, allowing you to have more mana available during your turn.

Playing around hate - Surgical, Crypt, Deathrite, and other exile effects can all be played around, either by casting another reanimation spell in response, or in the case of Shallow Grave, letting the exile effect resolve and casting Entomb with Grave still on the stack. Finally, Entomb can be used to grab Emrakul to effectively counter these effects in a pinch.

Children of Korlis - Can fog for a turn, or beat other Tendrils decks. Let as many copies of Tendrils resolve as possible, sac them to gain all your life back, live to fight another day.

Going Infinite - Children of Korlis will usually give you enough additional Griselbrand activations to find another reanimation spell to bring back Children with. At this point you most likely have enough life to draw more cards than you have left in your deck (Children only cares about the life lost so far in the turn, not the net gain/loss, so after 2 Griselbrand activations, you gain 14, after 2 more you gain 28, and so on). Now you can draw until you have 6 or fewer cards left, play out all your mana sources, and then Entomb or Therapy/Thoughtseize away Emrakul to shuffle your graveyard into your libary. Continue to reanimate and sac Children, drawing mana sources and business over and over and shuffling with Emrakul when necessary to generate infinite life, storm, and mana. Then, just to rub it in, hardcast Emrakul and go to discard.


Why not just play ______?

• Reanimator: TinFins is faster, by a lot, and does not really care about Karakas or creature removal.
  
• ANT: We play a similar protection suite, but can generally combo earlier, and with less mana. We also don't need to go all-in on Infernal Tutor/LED, so we can simply run multiple reanimation spells into counters until one resolves. The downside is having to fight through much better and more varied hate post-board, although AnT has recently become somewhat reliant on the graveyard too, as Past In Flames becomes the primary combo engine.
  
• TES: Tinfins has a better manabase, and again we don't need to commit our entire hand to Infernal Tutor. Speed is similar though, and Burning Wish provides TES a ton of options for answering hate without diluting the deck.
  
• Belcher: We're just about as fast, but we actually have protection, and don't need to dump our entire hand to combo off.
  
• Sneak/Show: Again, we're faster and we win the turn we land Griselbrand. We're also a lot more resilient to discard.
  
• Dredge: We lose to a lot of the same hate, but we have better potential for a transformative sideboard, and the ability to win as soon as we deal with hate, rather than needing to re-establish our graveyard.

Matchup Analysis
Generally, TinFins has a similar matchup against the field as AnT. Tempo decks are the most difficult because of their counter-suite combined with a quick clock. BUG especially because of the presence of maindeck Deathrite Shaman.

Miracles is also tough, but moreso post-board because of the amount and variety of hate they have access to (Rest In Peace, Karakas, Meddling Mage, Pithing Needle). Similar story with Deathblade, but possibly more difficult due to maindeck Deathrite.

Death and Taxes can be troublesome, but they have no turn 0/1 interaction, and Massacre is brutal postboard.

Anything else without counters is generally a cakewalk.

Other combo decks are usually slower, and we have silence in the board.

Update, March 5th 2018:
Given the current popularity of BUG Delver, BUG Control, Czech Pile, and Grixis Delver, thecrav was kind enough to prepare this excellent visual representation of the current meta:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DXdd9TAVAAAZlRS.jpg


Coverage, Results, and Decklists
Coverage:
Carsten Kotter's Article on SCG
Caleb Durward's Article on ChannelFireball
Deck Tech with Greg Mitchell (phazonmuant)

Games:
SCG Atlanta 2013 - Greg Mitchell Round 5, Legacy
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/363601431?t=6h56m

SCG Cincinnati - Caleb Durward Round 6, Legacy
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/368418943?t=3h25m

SCG Las Vegas 2013 - Jacob Kory
Round 7
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/373519422?t=3h55m
Quarterfinals
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/373519422?t=6h42m
Finals
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/373519422?t=9h3m

MTGO Streaming Legacy Daily - Jacob Kory
http://www.twitch.tv/jkory/b/366844881
http://www.twitch.tv/jkory/b/369271763
http://www.twitch.tv/jkory/b/371412000
http://www.twitch.tv/jkory/b/371766972
http://www.twitch.tv/jkory/b/374336353

MTGO Legacy Matches - Caleb Durward
http://www.channelfireball.com/video...ins-matches/#1


Results and Decklists
Josh Bingaman - 58th place, Grand Prix New Jersey (2014-11-16): Report

Max Martinez - 15th place, SCG Oakland (2014-11-2):
http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=15152&iddeck=112440

Logan Creen - 8th place, SCG St. Louis (2013-06-09):
http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=11068&iddeck=80871

Chad Warford - 14th, SCG Seattle (2013-04-21):
http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=10720&iddeck=78247

Jacob Kory - 2nd place, SCG Las Vegas (2012-03-03):
http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=10299&iddeck=75048

Caleb Durward - 18th place, SCG Cincinnati (2013-02-17):
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Children of Korlis
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
2 Reanimate
4 Entomb
3 Careful Study
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea

// Sideboard
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Deathmark
2 Pithing Needle
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Duress
3 Blue Elemental Blast

Greg Mitchell - 34th Place, SCG Atlanta (2013-02-12): Report

Josh Bingaman - 86th place, GP Atlanta (2012-07-01): Report


Thanks
Many, many thanks go out to .dk and Phazonmuant for contributing so much to this primer. What I didn't outright steal, I used for ideas and inspiration, and there's still a ton of content I haven't included yet. Also many thanks to those two for keeping the thread and the dream alive in the early days, and for continuing to be great contributors to the thread as the popularity has taken off.

Thanks go to Dela for seeing the potential in Children of Korlis, and .dk for taking the time to test it.

Many thanks to CalebD and Koby for all the publicity and the great results, and thanks to Cedric Phillips for actually reading a Sealab episode synopsis on air.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who has contributed to the thread. We've had some great ideas, and the discussion has been civil and productive so far. This is my favorite thread on The Source, and not just because I started it.

"This deck has everything going for it" - Koby

I have not yet read the list, I just wanted to tell you that I grossly appreciate the name and LOL'd irl. :laugh:

Ty. Thoughts to come.

Thoughts to come: that list looks pretty sweet. I like it. Grizzlebee's should always connect on turn 1-2 and if he doesn't you still gain a lot of life to activate his draw 7 enough times to win anyways.

I've tried something similar but with LED, S&T, and Thoughtseize. Results haven't been spectacular. Also, I really want Soul spike to work but it doesn't. I may try your build.

So you're essentially getting Griselbrand into play for cheap reanimator-style so you can draw a buttload of cards and storm into Tendrils FTW. If you fizzle a little bit, you just tendrils for what you got and start again. It loses you less life than Ad Nauseam and Grizzle works fantastic as a secondary 'attack you and win' with a 3-turn clock, should you draw into 3 Grizzles (which you should drawing that many cards...)

I have to say, it's nothing if not elegant. I really like how Footsteps and Shallow Grave give the guy haste...so if you connect, the first 7 cards are 'free.' If you can't win after drawing 14 more, I would say that you're just the unluckiest guy on earth. But in reality, luck has nothing to do with it. With a 25 card hand you'll be able to do some crazy shit.

Honestly, this reminds me of Necropotence. Draw a ton of cards and gain some life to stay in the game (or just win from having so many cards available.) I like this better than Grizzle-Reanimator, for sure.

Playtested a bit this weekend, deck seems like the real deal. Unfortunately didn't get to test post-board much, but pre-board it's a house. Of course it can poop itself like all combo decks (3 Ponder, 2 Careful Study no Grizzlebee?!), but overall it's very consistent.

I'm still not convinced one way or the other on discard vs. counters, but the amount of protection actually feels alright. Not committing your entire hand to comboing off is bigger than I expected, and lets you put so much pressure on that it's hard for control decks to keep up.

So far the worst matchups have been RUG and Merfolk (with Chalice), as one might expect for a combo deck that depends on its life total. Chalice in general is a bitch. Conceivably it could be played around in the same way as Teeg, just reanimating and setting up another reanimation before EoT, but that's like saying a car still technically works without an engine because you can roll downhill.

I'm so glad to see someone else doing this! I've been tuning a smilar list for a few months (ever since I saw Griselbrand in the spoiler). Here's the list:

4 Griselbrand
4 Shallow Grave
2 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Entomb
4 Dark Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
2 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Unmask
2 Ponder or Duress
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea

SB:
4 Pull from Eternity
4 Chain of Vapor
2 Deathmark
2 Massacre
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

The major differences I see is the protection. I prefer unmask because it is, in a round about way, free and can target myself. It also forces you hellbent in the event of needing to infernal tutor. Having LED main can let you crack in in response to shallow grave of he's abandoned in your hand. Pull from eternity in the side allows you to "next level" the usual graveyard hate. The deck is very powerful, it needs some time to be refined, but I have a lot of faith in the power level.

@napdragon: That looks a lot closer to TinFins2, which was basically ANT with Grizzlebees instead of Ad Nauseam. 10 lands seems way too low though. Even with petals and Chrome Mox, you're practically begging to get screwed by Wasteland. I think if you want to run a super greedy manabase, just run TES, which has much better protection and can deal with a much wider variety of hate b/c of Burning Wish.

Also FYI the tag is "cards", and you can actually just put one tag at the top of your list and one at the bottom. Hit "Reply with Quote" on my original post and you'll see what I mean.

I played against a pretty similar deck just that it cut blue entireley and played Emrakul, Infernal Contract, Lake of the dead (which was a beast in the games) and Unmask+Thoughtseize as additional Disruption/enablers.
As shitty as that all sounds, it wasn't.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by I am the brainwasher

I played against a pretty similar deck just that it cut blue entireley and played Emrakul, Infernal Contract, Lake of the dead (which was a beast in the games) and Unmask+Thoughtseize as additional Disruption/enablers.
As shitty as that all sounds, it wasn't.

---

That sounds pretty cool. How else other than entomb was it getting creatures in the yard? I feel like I'd really miss Careful Study by cutting blue. Also sounds like it may have been a little more "all-in" on the combo turn. One of the things I like about this build is that a good chunk of it's protection is it's redundancy - if your reanimation effect is disrupted, there's a good chance that you can go off again the following turn by using your cantrip suite to find more.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by I am the brainwasher

I played against a pretty similar deck just that it cut blue entireley and played Emrakul, Infernal Contract, Lake of the dead (which was a beast in the games) and Unmask+Thoughtseize as additional Disruption/enablers.
As shitty as that all sounds, it wasn't.

---

How was it getting enough Griselbrand activations playing Infernal Contract and Thoughtseize?

While the base does look very lean, it actually plays very nicely. You only need the land for 1 turn, 2 at the most. It's very glass cannon and in all the games I've played, wasteland has never been an issue. What ended up hurting me the most was either Spell Snare or Stony Silence. Mine was built on the intention of trying to get as high a turn 1 rate as possible while maintaining a little reliability.

Ah, so the Belcher plan. Really this deck plays a bit like Belcher, if Belcher could go off with a full hand and had 12 cantrips.

I'm still not really sold on the SB, I think there are probably better ways to play around grave hate post board, but don't really have time to test anything right now.

Rocked this pile of awesomeness to Day 2 and 86th place overall at GP Atlanta today. I'll post my exact list, tournament report, and some thoughts soon.

I don't know if the significance of someone taking an untested deck they've never played to 10-5 at a GP is really sinking in or not, but this deck is the real deal. Rather than talk about the advantages it has over other storm decks though, I'd like to address its weaknesses.

Basically, game 1 is almost an auto-win. Some well-timed counters or a Thalia can get in your way, but generally you have a 0-3 turn clock that's extremely resilient. The major issue is that the deck can be attacked from a couple angles: grave hate and storm hate. The original plan was to go all storm because there's just less storm hate out there right now (canonist and teeg really). That plan worked for Atlanta but it's admittedly janky and less good the more people know about it. The way we see it at this point, we have a few different board options:

-Transformational to storm: IT, LED, discard, rituals - dodges grave hate, but just a watered down ANT

-Transformational to Reanimator: more targets, permanent reanimation spells - arguably better vs. Maverick, but so much grave hate

-Show and Tell: SnT, counters, Pithing Needle for Karakas/Maze? - far less redundancy, requires SnT + Grizzle in hand = more variance

-Man Plan: Tombstalker, Delver, Clique, etc. - dodges most grave/storm hate, but not a lot of dudes in a removal-heavy meta

-Reactionary: Bounce, Virtue's Ruin/Massacre, Pithing Needle, counters, etc. - the primary plan is so strong it would be nice to stick with it, but the list is so tight it's hard to bring in any protection without watering it down.

If anyone can think of anything else, chime in. Unfortunately grave hate is in everyone's board right now, so the main strategy gets a lot tougher after game 1. The problem is that everything just feels shitty compared to drawing 21 cards on turn 1.

I would say the SnT plan is probably best. Look at how reanimator deals with graveyard hate. I don't know exactly what .dk's list was, but Emrakul + SnT out of the board might not be a bad idea at all. You can have a full on transformation plan kinda like (assuming you add 2 or 3 Volcanic Island to the maindeck):

-3 Shallow Grave
-4 Goyro's Vengeance
-4 Entomb
-3 Tendrils
+ 4 Emrakul
+ 4 SnT
+4 Sneak Attack
+ 2 other (some kind of other protection spell I'd imagine)

The biggest issue I see with this plan is that it takes up so much sideboard space, and that Karakas and Needle still mess with you. Although the strengths are that you completely dodge grave and storm hate, and have a little more protection. Sure, careful study is worse, but it might be an avenue worth exploring if grave and storm hate are your biggest fears.

Another interesting strategy. I agree though that anything transformational leaves you with no slots for anti-hate. The ANT board actually worked pretty well most of the time in ATL, but things like Thalia and Chalice mess with both strategies, and there are just times you wish you had some bounce or a Massacre or something.

Note that another option I forgot to mention is to bring in Cabal Rits and go for hardcasting Grizz. This could possibly work with a Show and Tell Package, boarding out reanimation effects and Tendrils and going for a 3-turn clock. Any strategy that isn't planning on winning the turn he comes into play needs to pack a lot of protection for him though. I am toying around with something like:

4 Show and Tell
4 Force of Will
3 Pithing Needle
2 Misdirection/Spell Pierce/Flusterstorm/etc.
2 Cabal Ritual

Admittedly Cabal Rit looks like the weakest link there, and every time I want more of something, that's where I start cutting. I just hate the idea of going from a deck that's super redundant to one that needs one each of two 4-ofs to win. Not sure if Pithing needle is correct, but with Karakas and Maze seeing play, it seems pretty necessary.

Another option I was thinking of if we're just going for the Onion Burst (TM) kill every game, is to just run Abeyance or City of Solitude along with bounce and/or sweepers like Virtue's Ruin, and hope to set up a combo turn. Of course then we're back to the issue of what to take out of a list that can sometimes whiff on 21 cards (granted you're almost always in perfect position to win the next turn, but it's never a risk you want to take).

If you are Entombing, you should probably have a singular Past in Flames.

Careful Study/Entomb + Chrome Mox is a ton of card disadvantage. You may consider replacing the moxen with Cabal Ritual and the Careful Study with Thought Scour. It's less hand optimization, but it's card neutral. And it plays better with Show and Tell from the board.

If you want a 5th Griselbrand, Magus of the Jar is a possible replacement.

Shallow Grave is much better than Goryo's Vengeance because you can cast it and crack LED in response.

This deck is like a much improved version of Jar Tendrils (Shallow Grave + Magus of the Jar Storm)! After playing a few games with Richard Cheese's list from the OP against RUG Tempo, I felt like my biggest complaint was not having enough blue cards to pitch to Force of Will/Chrome Mox. I think Anusien's idea of adding Magus of the Jar (probably 1 or 2) is worth testing - it ups the blue count and makes Careful Study relevant more often.

I get the thing about FoW, and we've already cut it from the main list. I need to go back and update the primer, but I'd like to do a decent job at it and don't really have time to generate the numbers for matchup analysis, etc. Basically the deck looks like the original list, but with the reanimation split favoring Shallow Grave (old borders + no targeting = win), and Duress over Force, or possibly a 3/1 Duress/Inquisition split. The board is the same, but with IoK over Duress, so postboard you have a more standard 7 discard effects for ANT.

@Anusien - PiF is really unnecessary here, you generally don't need to go over 7 storm, which has never been a problem. The single most common reason for whiffing after reanimating is missing the mana sources to cast Tendrils, or not finding Tendrils. The first is the reason why I've chosen Chrome Mox over Cabal Rit. Running without LED makes the deck super resilient to counters, but also means we need extra 0-cmc mana sources. While they are card disadvantage, you usually have so many cards in hand that it isn't a problem. Additionally, once you've connected and drawn 14-21, Entomb and Careful Study are basically dead. Even if you do have to pass the turn, you're likely discarding another Grizzlebee or two to set up the next turn, so you can imprint those two all day. The deck goes off on so little mana, that casting Chrome Mox before the combo turn is just unnecessary.

Thought scour really doesn't make sense over Careful Study, as it doesn't really serve the same purpose of getting Grizz in the yard unless you set it up with Brainstorm.

My report from Atlanta is here:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...animator-Storm)

tldr, here is what I ran:


3 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Marsh Flats

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Careful Study
4 Duress
4 Griselbrand
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Tendrils of Agony


Sideboard:

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Cabal Ritual
1 Ad Nauseum
3 Inquisition of Kozilek


No bounce, derp. If I did it again, would run 3 Duress, 1 Inquisition main, 1 inquisition, 2 chain of vapor board.

I'm personally leaning towards the sideboard tact of reactionary to hate, along with some discard spells. I'm actually also really leaning hard towards 4 cabal therapy main, and 3 chain of vapor in the board, but I haven't yet tested that, so I'm not sure. Along with some combination of sweepers and such, and maybe Pull from Eternity as well. Not sure, honestly.

I will say this - whenever I boarded into Ad Nauseum, the deck felt like a dog. Even the times that I went off T1 or T2 with Ad Nauseum, it felt SO much worse than the Griselbrand plan. It's just THAT powerful. To the point where I wish I could reliably speed the deck up without losing consistency. That's probably the best plan of all. You go off turn 1, and if you're disrupted then who cares - just do it again on T2. Read my Round 8 matchup and you might understand what I mean...

Can this list win without Griselbrand?

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Originally Posted by Anusien

Can this list win without Griselbrand?

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Yes, it can, although that rarely comes up due to instant speed reanimation. You can almost always respond to graveyard removal with a reanimation spell to get griselbrand out of the yard (although not in the case of Extirpate, obv). There were cases where I hit an opponent with Griselbrand once, fizzled on my draws, and wasn't able to get another one out of the yard. In that case, I cast a bunch of artifact mana and rituals into Tendrils for the kill.

From the report I read there were multiple occasions where the player couldn't win post-Griselbrand with Tendrils, much less with the ability to win pre-Griselbrand. If that's the case, seems like you should just build a straight-up Reanimator list.

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Originally Posted by Anusien

From the report I read there were multiple occasions where the player couldn't win post-Griselbrand with Tendrils, much less with the ability to win pre-Griselbrand. If that's the case, seems like you should just build a straight-up Reanimator list.

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Yeah, I did end up fizzling a lot - which I found surprising. I would have thought that I could find 1/3 Tendrils when drawing 21 more often than I did - have to chalk that one up to variance I guess. But that said, even if you fizzle, you're practically assured to win the following turn, as you just sculpted the best hand on the planet, and discarded more fuel into your graveyard. I never felt that after an initial fizzle that I was in a poor position to win.

/edit: and as far as this vs. Reanimator: I feel like there are a couple advantages over Reanimator: 1. instant speed reanimation without losing any life is pretty huge, and gives you a lot of flexibility. 2. It's a much faster win condition than Reanimator, as you don't need to rely on your attack step to win. Reanimator definitely has some advantages though, in that your dudes stick around after EOT, and you have more reanimation targets. It may just depend on what kind of decks are currently in the crosshairs for sideboard hate: if there is a lot of grave hate, this deck might be better. If there is a lot of storm hate: reanimator might be better. Either way, it's WAY faster than Reanimator, and a lot of times can win before your opponent drops any hate anyway.

The counter-risk is the inability to fight a protracted counter war.

FYI, the deck seems like it's in desperate need of some Grim Tutors.

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Originally Posted by Anusien

The counter-risk is the inability to fight a protracted counter war.

FYI, the deck seems like it's in desperate need of some Grim Tutors.

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I will say, counter wars generally aren't a huge problem for this deck. You run enough mana sources to play around soft counters, and enough reanimation effects to power through force of wills and bleed their hand. There aren't enough decks out there running a multitude of hard counters that have a good effect now that most lists have cut Spell Snare.

Grim Tutor is a damn good idea. I'll have to test with those. I was going to try out Lim-Dul's Vault as a 2 of - will have to test both.

Grim Tutor is good, but what about Diabolic Intent? Costs one less and you can use Russellbrand as the fodder and no life loss?

If you aren't playing Ad Nauseum, isn't Thoughtseize better than Duress? Being able to hit Thalia is pretty important.

I built something similar with burning wish.

4 lotus petal
4 dark ritual
2 cabal ritual
4 lion's eye diamond
4 careful study
4 entomb
2 goryos vengeance
4 shallow grave
4 griselbrand
4 brainstorm
3 ponder
3 burning wish
2 infernal tutor
1 tendrils of agony

2 swamp
1 island
3 underground sea
1 volcanic island
1 badlands
4 polluted delta
2 bloodstained mire
1 flooded strand

It turn ones or twos fairly consistently for pre board games. I haven't tested post board yet. mana base might need work but it's been fine so far.

I want to get cabal therapy in there. When I do that I want to try putrid imp instead of careful study. Diabolic intent also might find a space.

For sideboard I was thinking helmline combo + some show and tells + wishboard. They won't know what you're doing game 2 and they'll show in a gilded drake or something and just die.

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Originally Posted by .dk

I will say, counter wars generally aren't a huge problem for this deck. You run enough mana sources to play around soft counters, and enough reanimation effects to power through force of wills and bleed their hand. There aren't enough decks out there running a multitude of hard counters that have a good effect now that most lists have cut Spell Snare.

Grim Tutor is a damn good idea. I'll have to test with those. I was going to try out Lim-Dul's Vault as a 2 of - will have to test both.

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You have about as many reanimate effects as most Reanimator lists, so why not just play that deck?

On thoughtseize: it's probably better. I didn't grab them in my haste to get to atlanta, although Inquisitions were doing good work against Thalia (not that I won any of those matches anyway...)

On Diabolic Intent: yes, that would work if you've already gotten Griselbrand in play, and would be pretty awesome then, really. However, I would prefer something with a bit of utility prior to actually getting Gizzle into play - so something like Grim Tutor, Personal Tutor, or Lim-Dul's Vault might be better. Although post-reanimation, Diabolic Intent is likely the best choice. Worth testing, likely.

@walker - cool list! earlier incarnations of this deck had LED, but we felt it was a bit all-in. It may be fine in the right construction, but we hadn't gotten there yet. We had been talking a lot about wanting a wish board, since the maindeck is so tight anyway. I worry that you have to dilute your rituals and tutors though with dedicating so much space to reanimation.

@anusien - was pretty sure i at least pseudo addressed this before. it's faster - WAY faster to the point where a lot of times just you just don't care about hate because it hasn't hit the table yet. it also runs instant speed reanimation which is extremely important in terms of flexibility. play with the deck and test it. if you think reanimator is better - then go play that.

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Originally Posted by Guevera59

If you aren't playing Ad Nauseum, isn't Thoughtseize better than Duress? Being able to hit Thalia is pretty important.

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I've tested Thoughtseize a bit, but not enough to definitively say if it's better or worse than other options. On one hand, 2 life is not a big deal, on the other, 6 is. I'm almost leaning towards just going with IoK, since Force seems to be less of a problem here than Thalia, Teeg, or Chalice.

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Originally Posted by Anusien

You have about as many reanimate effects as most Reanimator lists, so why not just play that deck?

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Because this is a combo deck. It's really just ANT with a better draw engine than AdNaus, it just happens to be easiest to get into play from the graveyard. I mean, the strategy would be fundamentally the same with Sneak Attack and Through the Breach, it's just more expensive and off-color.

Awesome deck and deck name! I did some game 1's with it on Cockatrice and it's quite the powerhouse! I agree you almost don't need protection - you just have so much business and speed.

I felt like the deck was very mana-light. I have no idea what to cut, but throwing a couple of Cabal Rituals in the maindeck would help a lot with getting the kill post-Griselbrand and making a non-Griselbrand kill feasible. If possible, I'd also like to find room for the 4th Tendrils - you just don't have time to set up and find the Tendrils, nor do you have enough lands in play to cantrip multiple times after making a Griselbrand, so you want to maximize your chances of drawing it. Your man not sticking around makes the combo turn so much more critical.

I'm not a huge fan of the transformative sideboard. You transform into a deck that's weaker to the extra counterspells they're going to bring in and you lose extra-hard to Thalia and Teeg. I'm thinking starting somewhere like this for a not-entirely-transformative sideboard:
4 Show and Tell
2 Emrakul
3 Thoughtseize
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
+ flex slot

Another Virtue's Ruin, Perish, Massacre, and Rebuild are all reasonable options.
If you're not interest in killing all their men, Pithing Needle is a good option for Karakas, Knight of the Reliquary, Scavenging Ooze, etc.
From experience with Reanimator, ANT, and Count Chocula, decks like Maverick are going to be your worst matchup. Your deck has the advantage of being super fucking fast, so you can just hope to get game 1 and be on the play for game 3. Definitely a couple of directions to take sideboarding. Like maybe on the draw board into Show and Tell + Thoughtseize? On the play board out an IMS or 2 and the Duresses for Chain, Slaughter Pact, Virtue's Ruin, and some Thoughtseizes?

You found it to be mana light? I'm either thinking its pretty close, if not 1 land too many. Been toying around with cutting one, but not totally sure yet. I never really seemed to have an issue with all of the artifact mana in there, at least prior to reanimation. A few fizzles were due to not quite enough rituals or artifact mana to storm high enough, but most seemed to be because I just couldn't find Tendrils. I think I may have fixed both problems, but I haven't tested it enough to be sure - stay tuned... ;)

That sideboard plan is reasonable. I agree that the ANT board is pretty trashy, especially with no bounce. It's certainly worth a shot anyway - one issue with SnT though is that you lose the hastiness of Griselbrand, which is pretty huge. I've been trying to see if I can switch the manabase around a bit to support Red out of the board for rite of flame and sneak attack, but haven't had a chance to test that one much either. SnT with a couple Emrakuls may be better. I definitely like having a sideboard with room for bounce and sweepers though - that's so key with all of the hatebears running around, as you mentioned.

The more I've thought about thoughtseize though, the less I like it. I think some combination of Duress, Inquisition, and Cabal Therapy are probably better. My reasoning is the case where you fizzle, but can tear apart their hand with a ritual into 2-3 discard spells to make sure they can't do anything the next turn. Thoughtseize isn't really viable in that case (corner case, I know, but still relevant) and you don't really give up much by not running them. My take anyway.

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Originally Posted by .dk

You found it to be mana light? I'm either thinking its pretty close, if not 1 land too many.

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Sorry, I meant ritual-light. The land-base seems fine. If you have 3 Chrome Moxen, then cutting a land seems reasonable. I was having trouble finding the mana after drawing 21, which seems absurd.

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Originally Posted by .dk

one issue with SnT though is that you lose the hastiness of Griselbrand, which is pretty huge.

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Trust me, having Griselbrand on board at all is pretty solid ;) Rite of Flames plays nice with Chrome Mox (unlike Cabal Ritual) and Through the Breach, but the thing that really impressed me about our U/B Griselbrand storm decks is its rock-solid manabase. It may prove to be good though.

Thoughtseize was fine for me all day, but you might be right that Duresses, Gitaxian Probe, and Cabal Therapy would be much better in this deck. It allows you to keep Griselbrand in your graveyard, too! You rely so much more on drawing 21 immediately since your man doesn't stick around, so the lifeloss is more relevant.

A playtest partner of mine's been running this deck with a couple additional Reanimation targets. Particularly, a Tidespout Tyrant which can be a good way to bounce hate, but also combos pretty well with Lotus Petal like in Vintage with Jewelery, neat way to build free storm.

Not sure if it belongs MD or SB, but seems like it's worth a slot.

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Originally Posted by Cairo

A playtest partner of mine's been running this deck with a couple additional Reanimation targets. Particularly, a Tidespout Tyrant

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Are you talking about the same deck? Half the reanimation spells only get legendary creatures.

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Originally Posted by phazonmuant

Are you talking about the same deck? Half the reanimation spells only get legendary creatures.

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His list is slightly different, there's a couple Reanimate in the 60, but yea it uses the Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal accel package and Shallow Grave and Goryo's Vengeance (which yes I realise can't Reanimate Tidespout) instant speed package. The Tyrant is a just a silver bullet for when it is needed.

(I've been testing Zombie Infestation replacing Tendrils of Agony. Cabal Therapy makes up the backbone of the discard suite in this iteration. The infestation kill is technically a turn slower, but does that really matter when you can Cabal Therapy their hand to Oblivion? Zombie Infestation has some advantages over Tendrils of Agony: 1) it is another discard outlet for Griselbrand pre-combo, 2) It costs less than ToA, making it easier to play post combo and thus helping against fizzling due to lack of mana, 3) it is unhindered by Gaddock Teeg, Stifle, and corner cases like Leyline of Sanctity. It has weaknesses of its own, of course, like being affected by stuff like Elephant Grass, Ensnaring Bring, Engineered Explosives, etc... But I thought I'd throw it out there because I think it's an interesting possibility.)

EDIT: I tested this further and it's a bad idea.