[Deck] Fetchland Tendrils

[Dark_Cynic87]

While I won't "rip" on your list, I will mention a few things.

First, to do an IGG loop, you simply need 1x IT, 2x is excessive. I like them too, but they tend to eat Spell Snares if it's not your combo turn, which is lousy for set-up. I only run one IT and one IGG, and I still get the loop off.

Here's how an IGG loop works. You must play 4 spells before you Infernal Tutor to hit a lethal 20. Three if they are 18, etc. from their own Fetches, Thoughtseize or what-have-you.

4 set-up spells into IT-->IGG-->LED/Rit, LED/Rit, IT-->Tendrils.

Example:

Requirement:
WBB in mana pool, Chant, Rit, LED, IT in hand.

Duress-->Chant-->Dark Rit-->LED-->IT-->IGG-->LED/Rit, LED/Rit, IT-->Tendrils.

I know the second IT is there for utility, not just the kill, but there are better cards in my opinion. I think a second IGG in the sideboard would be a solid choice. I'm just saying why a lot of us only run 1x, it won't make your build bad if you run 2x.

I'd drop a Tundra in favor of a Plains. 3 basics that each produce 1 of your primary colors is good. Getting ruined by wastelands and Stifles (UGr Thrash) is no good.

Oh, the Grapeshot thing. Yes, it works well, but in the sideboard. It's not good maindecked unless you are swimming in a fish-ruled metagame--the only deck to play it maindeck as far as I know. With that said, Mage/Teeg (I guess people run Teeg MD, but that's why you have wipe away) can shut you down. Grapeshot + Helm of Awakening = Ignoring their Mages and their Teeg, winning after you kill the mages and Teeg just for fun. Also, with Grapeshot and Helm, you can completely drop the Volcanic as it's completely unneccessary when you put it in a D-Day stack, which is the only way you can really go off with it unless you figure out a way to put it in an IGG loop twice...That sounds difficult, and I refuse to work on it tonight.

We don't run EtW for the exact reason you stated in your tourney report (congrats, btw). EE/Deed. Echoing Truth/Decay. Pyroclasm. Point: It's not exactly optimal. Plus, it's VERY bad with D-Day. And, it's not win-NOW.

I'd put Grapeshot in the board, drop EtW completely, and use the 2x Slots to up the 'Seize/Chant counts to 4, then I'd drop the 'Seizes and instead toss in Duresses, as creatures are irrelevant for the most-part, unless you really do get scared of Mage/Teeg. I guess you could keep them, but I hate the life-loss. My suggestion is Duress, but you know your meta, and if it calls for it, so be it.

I really recommend dropping a C. Rit for your 4th Top.

That's all I have, except for the P-Blasts in your board. Oh, looking again, Brain Freeze is pointless (I was utterly convinced of this the other day). Grapeshot fulfills all purposes in the department of a 2cc win-con, and it's win-now, and with all the painter lists, you don't have to worry about Gaea's Blessing or Wheel of Sun and Moon. NOW I'm done.

Again, congrats.

Pce,

--DC

[thefreakaccident]

Yeah.. I kind of built it up a couple minutes before the tournament, and I see your points.

I will probably add the additional stuff for the shot and ETW.... Although, with one wincon in the MD at that point, I would get nervous.

I wasn't dissatisfied at all with the second IT, although I can see how it would be terrible to see both early on, even though it is a rare occurrence.


The sideboard was a little last second, but I want my reports to be as honest as possible, so I gave you guys the cards I ran, not the ones I wished I had.


The thoughtseize was to stop teeg, as he is annoying, hardly impossible to deal with, but the two life has yet to a=be an issue for me.


Thanks for the input though, we seem to be looking at it in a very similar way (I knew my list was slightly suboptimal, but 2o mins b4 a tourney, I was pretty close).



What's everyone's current boards for this deck?


Mine is a load of crap, but the meta was trash, and didn't require my attention really.


If I am expecting a huge load of threshold, how many rebs would you guys recommend in the board?

[Dark_Cynic87]

No one that I know of even runs REBs/Blasts. Just 'Pate for Force of Will that you bait out and K. Grips for CB.

My sideboard:

3x Meddling Mage
2x Serenity
1x K. Grip
1x IGG
1x Grapeshot
1x Helm
1x Rebuild
1x Reverent Silence (Meta-slot, I see Pyro Pillar quite a bit...O.o. I never side it in without Shot/Helm due to the 6 life you give them-this gives me another way to win if I mini-tendrils against burn to gain some life.)
1x E. Truth
1x Rushing River
1x Wipe Away (I run K. Grip MD)
1x Extirpate

Before Reverent Silence, I had Slaughter Pact in there also, which is what I would recommend for you unless you like Reverent Silence for CB.

There you go,

Pce,

--DC

[BreathWeapon]

IGG sucks against control, because most control decks are blue. It's the number one card coming out of the deck when sideboarding against those. I don't want to need N + 1 protection in hand where N is the number of counters my opponent has. It's simply not good. It's never been.




I run a total of 0 Pates in my 75. They are a conditional Duress, which simply doesn't seem worth the shot. Duress + Pate on CB is another story, narrow enough (4 Duress + 1 Pate does not equal combo) for me to avoid thinking about it.

Duress on turn 1 is golden against Ichorid. It's simply too good, unless they got lots of brokeness that we can't get rid of -- note: a single Breakthrough without a way to bin dredges isn't broken; neither is a lone LED. Ichorid can never beat us on the Ichorid beats plan by itself (as in no tokens), since it's too slow. Obviously, this probably doesn't happen, but in the few matches I had against Ichorid, I only needed to Chant to get them to be as slow as me or even slower.


Also, check your PMs, dude.

I'm not arguing IGG and ETW are sub-optimal, but IGG and ETW are necessary, because there are just some piles that can't get there with out IGG in them (DDAY go) and having a second kill condition is better than tutoring for an answer to Meddling Mage.

@DC

I had strong results with 12 cantrips, and for the moment I'm cutting Sensei' Divining Top for Serum Visions since I'm never getting the Sensei's Divining Top, Lion's Eye Diamond, Inferal Tutor -> Doomsday (pile) activate Top to draw into Infernal Contract scenarios.

I know it's "sacreligious," but there's something about the 12 cantrips, not having to activate/redraw Top and building Threshold that just seems to be working for me.

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill Gotten Gains
4 Doomsday
1 Infernal Contract
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Serum Visions
4 Orim's Chant
1 Wipe Away
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
1 Island

In goldfishing, I either just M.Tutor for Infernal Contract and cast Infernal Contract on the second turn or cantrip, pass. cantrip, cantrip, pass. and then go off on the next turn. It's hard to explain, but I think upping the number of cantrips has some merit whether or not you agree/disagree with cutting Top or running that much acceleration (Cabal ritual is underrated tho', I can't get enough Cabal Rituals for M.Tutor -> Draw4 or DDAY)

I'm not saying it's the way to go, I'm just throwing it out there. It actually helped me get to an AdN deck that's relatively consistent, so maybe it'll give you some ideas.

[Dark_Cynic87]

I saw your list in the AdN thread, and I have to tell you that CB/Chalice WRECKS it.

You do whatever you want, but I don't/won't call it FT. I'd call it cantripsgeteatenbydisruption-killspelleatsmylife.dec.

In other news, I think I'm going into renal failure due to lack of sleep. I can't sleep for the life of me. I think I'm dying. Is that possible? Shit...

Pce,

--DC

EDIT::: If you play Doomsday-Go, you are doing something wrong. You should never do that.

[Brehn]

@BreathWeapon's list: mmmkay, you've cut protection for additional cantrips. I don't like that.

EDIT::: If you play Doomsday-Go, you are doing something wrong. You should never do that.

Or you're playing against Counterbalance. You never want to do that, but sometimes you have to.

[emidln]

The reason you're not finding Infernal Tutor for Doomsday to be good is because Infernal Tutor is a bad card that doesn't have a place in FT except very specific situations as an out to discard. When I originally started playing Doomsday in FT it was with Infernal Tutor because I was using it in this capacity. The thing I noticed (that you've even noticed and wrote about) is that Doomsday is far better if you just have it in your hand. If it's in your hand, the cheapest piles to win with (and the ones that make more storm and allow alternate win conditions) involve Sensei's Divining Top. This is entirely because Top lets you pay mana for your combo outside of your combo turn. The primary reason why I'm able to turn 3 so often is because half of my combo is already on the table. If you aren't using Sensei's Tops piles very often, then you really need to (re)read the Doomsday section of my (partially finished) primer over on mtgsal.

As far as upping the cantrip count with Sensei's Tops still in the deck, I've tried this in the past to inconclusive results. Predict is really good when you're running Brainstorm/Ponder/Top. Serum Visions is passable. Night's Whisper is even okay. I've had fairly good results with Standstill in certain lists. I don't currently feel that I would ever play less than 9 protection spells (currently 4 Chant, 4 Duress, 1 KGrip) and I don't know if I could justify playing less with so many Counterbalance/Force decks and so many Chalice decks in any given room. The cantrips bring you closer and closer to the guaranteed turn 3 victory, but upping acceleration does the same thing while being as good or better against discard and chalices.

I second the Mystical Tutor -> Infernal Contract play. I do this a lot when I have the opportunity. Mystical Tutor is the primary reason I play a 1/1 split on Contract/Meditate. If I played LDV (such as some of my Force/Standstill/Mage lists) then I always go to 2 Meditate. Two draw4s have been important to give me outs to random Tormod's Crypts from control (which are annoyingly still played against me).

Doomsday go is extremely situational. In the last six months, I've done it approximately 6 times in games. This is probably rarer than Soldarity's Brain Freeze myself to hit Flash of Insight + Think Twice play.

[BreathWeapon]

I saw your list in the AdN thread, and I have to tell you that CB/Chalice WRECKS it.

You do whatever you want, but I don't/won't call it FT. I'd call it cantripsgeteatenbydisruption-killspelleatsmylife.dec.

In other news, I think I'm going into renal failure due to lack of sleep. I can't sleep for the life of me. I think I'm dying. Is that possible? Shit...

Pce,

--DC

EDIT::: If you play Doomsday-Go, you are doing something wrong. You should never do that.

Counterbalance and Chalice of the Void beat all combo decks, FT can't deal with Counterbalance and Chalice of the Void either, at least 8 discard spells puts Trinisphere and Chalice of the Void to a coin flip and discard Counterbalance before it lands. You can't have a "monsters under the bed" mentality with combo

@Brehn

I cut disruption for acceleration, other than not being able to discard Countebalance, I haven't found the extra disruption to be all that useful. It's not so much a deck as it is a goldfishing exercise, something about that cantrip package just clicks.

@Emidln

Edit @ Emidlin

I do use Sensei's Divining Top in Doomsday piles, but I wasn't using Sensei's Divining Top in the Infernal Tutor for Doomsday chains because casting Infernal Tutor for Doomsday is just a joke, I don't seem to have a problem with using just Brainstorm, Ponder and Serum Visions because it standardizes the costs and being able to draw a litter further and reach threshold a little faster is coming into play.

At least we agree on M.Tutor->Draw4, that has been hands down the strongest play I've been able to make, tho' I kind of like running 2xInfernal Contract instead of an Infernal Contract and Meditate split because I get the Infernal Tutor option.

I'm not certain I'm prepared to cut Infernal Tutor, it could just be a wet blanket for me, but LED feels so underwheming with out it, and I just feel like I'm opening up to Meddling Mage.

Wow, I get into DDAY go a lot, I must be doing something wrong.

[emidln]

It's not that DDay->Go isn't there for me. I just don't do it because I don't feel comfortable whipping out my ballsack and landing it on the table with a guy who carries a bag full of hammers, knives, and other bad shit sitting across from me with a maniacal grin on his face. The number of things that can go wrong with Doomsday -> Go is staggering so it takes a truly desperate situation or an opponent who actually has 0 outs for me to do that.

[BreathWeapon]

Can you link the DDAY primer, I'm having a difficult time seeing where Top is saving mana over U cantrips. Are you piling Draw4, D.Ritual, LED, IGG, Tendrils and then cantripping into Draw 4 -> Top, D.Ritual, LED, IGG and then recasting Top, casting IGG and recurring DDAY, D.Ritual and LED and then cycling the loop for net mana or net storm or just recurring 3 accelerants?

I could see cutting Petals but 4 C.Rituals just feels right, it facilitates M.Tutor->Draw4 and M.Tutor->Draw4 facilitates Threshold, plus casting DDAY becomes a lot easier when M.Tutor doesn't need to find D.Ritual.

[rsaunder]

Emidln, would you link us to the (non finished) primer? Some of us (me) are too stupid to find it.

[Apex]

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=127049

I think this is it. It's outdated by like 1 month :P (not that it matters, since FT is highly customizable and is listed differently to different people's metagame and playing style).

[BreathWeapon]

Got it,

Topping into Draw4, Petal, D.Ritual, D.Ritual and Tendrils recoups the cost of recasting Top on the back end for a net gain of 1.

Thanks for the link.

[rsaunder]

If you had to cut one or the other, would it be a duress or a ponder?

[Kensai]

For those that run only 1 win condition main deck, do you guys ever find yourself with the tendrils removed from the game by some unlucky chance? Or does this rarely happen and therefore does not warrant a second win condition main deck?

[Jaiminho]

For those that run only 1 win condition main deck, do you guys ever find yourself with the tendrils removed from the game by some unlucky chance? Or does this rarely happen and therefore does not warrant a second win condition main deck?

The main problem with win conditions is that a good 2nd win condition will take 2 slots, as it needs Helm to be effective. If you are not playing a list with full sets acceleration cards and a full set of Infernal Tutors, Empty the Warrens sucks so much. If you want more resistance to graveyard removal effects, you might want to run a 2nd Tendrils, since only Extirpate will knock it off, or Death Wish. If you use Wish, get ready to need lots of life to kill someone.

[Dark_Cynic87]

Against Ichorid, would you rather have 'Pate or a 4th Duress md'ed? I played Ichorid vs. Jaiminho's DDFT the other day, and Duress seemed to win it for him. That and Chant. While I realize 'Pate is better any time other than turn 1, would it be better to up your chances of hitting a turn 1 duress, or leave 'Pate in and tutor for it?

LMK your guys' thoughts on this.

Pce,

--DC

[jegger]

Congratulations to thefreakaccident. In Italy we name apartment's tournament, the tournaments with less than 20 players.

I know that this list is out of the standard lists of FT, but I post it anyway.
This is a list of a my friend did 6-2 to a tournament at Annency in France, losing to dreadstill and to white stax for a mulligan to 5 in g2. Unfortunately with 200+ players, the prerequisite for the top8 was 7-1-1.

// Lands
2 [R] Underground Sea
1 [MI] Swamp
1 [U] Scrubland
1 [A] Tundra
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [MI] Island
1 [A] Plains

// Creatures
2 [FUT] Street Wraith

// Spells
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [IA] Dark Ritual
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor
3 [LRW] Ponder
2 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
2 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [PS] Rushing River
1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 3 [6E] Serenity
SB: 4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
SB: 2 [WL] Abeyance
SB: 1 [5E] Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void

[deadlock]

There is always another nice DD stack for cusomized needs:

SDT in play, BS in hand UU floating. (no other cards in hand)

i DD'ed for:

[top]
LED
Meditate
DRit
DRit
Tendrils
[bottom]

Top into LED, play LED, BS with U floating in response break LED for BBB
Put back DRit and SDT, Meditate with B floating into SDT, DRit, Drit, Tendrils
Cast them all for 7 Storm + Tendrils. (+DD and other spells played before).

I love these shenanigans

EDIT:
A slight variation:
2 SDT in play, 1 U/B mana floating

DD for:

[top]
LED
Meditate
DRit
LED
Tendrils
[bottom]

Top into LED and cast it, use 1 to put Meditate on the top with the other Top, Top into Meditate breaking LED in response for either U or B depening what you have floating. Make sure that you come out with B. Draw SDT, SDT, DRit, LED. Cast them all and Top into Tendrils, breaking LED in response. 6 storm + Tendrils. (+DD and other spells played before).

[Dark_Cynic87]

Cool stack. All you need before that is Chant/Duress, D Rit, Doomsday.

Nice.

Pce,

--DC