[Deck] TGIF - Thank God It's Flashback - Past in Flames Combo

[andrewlb]

TGIF!
Thank God It's Flashback - A Past in Flames Combo Deck

When Past in Flames was spoiled I was very excited. I've played a fair amount of ANT and I love combo. My friend and I immediately began brewing different decks to play it in. He went the UBR route while I tried the straight UR list. I won't detail you in on all of my first drafts but the first drafts looked something like 4x Intuition, 4x Burning Wish and 1 Past in Flames and Grapeshot in each the main deck and sideboard. Tendrils of Agony made it in there as well because of Manamorphose and Lion's Eye Diamond.

After a fair amount of gold-fishing I found Burning Wish to be bad because it exiled itself and was generally just a bad tutor for Past in Flames. I removed it from the deck and went up to 4 Past in Flames and 3 Grapeshot. There was a lot of small tinkering from here but nothings super noteworthy. I got my first chance to play the deck in a real tournament at the Jupiter Games NELCQ November 5th tournament. I went 5-2 and made top 16 with the deck (I'll give a write-up on that a bit later). For now, the list:

4 Intuition
4 Past in Flames
3 Grapeshot
4 Pyroblast
1 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Brainstorm
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Manamorphose
3 Lotus Petal

2 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Polluted Delta
1 Arid Mesa
3 Mountain
2 Island
4 Ancient Tomb

4 Empty the Warrens
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Wipeaway
3 Chaos Warp
4 Leyline of Sanctity

I'll start with a simple explanation of how to go off, go through cards choices, then work back to fully explaining how to combo off through different things.

Basic Intuition line of play -
Field - Island, Island, Ancient Tomb, Mountain
Hand - Intuition, Past in Flames, Seething Song, Rite of Flame (This is a bit of a win more hand)

Cast -
Intuition for Rite, Rite, Rite (off of Island, Ancient Tomb)
Rite of Flame
Rite of Flame
Seething Song
Past in Flames
Rite of Flame
Rite of Flame
Rite of Flame
Rite of Flame
Seething Song
Tap your second Island for blue
Intuition (here you can get whatever you want depending on how much storm you need to create, for our purposes it can be Grapeshot, Grapeshot, Seething Song)
Cast whichever cards they gave you
Flashback Past in Flames
Seething Song
Grapeshot
Grapeshot

So you Grapeshot for 15 and then 16, killing your opponent.

Card by Card Breakdown:

Intuition - This is the reason that the deck exists at all, its lifeblood, its Time Spiral, its Ad Nauseam. Intuition finds you the pieces you need to go off and it finds you your kill after you have cast all of your rituals. If you already have a Past in Flames in hand you most likely want to Intuition for Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame. If you don't have a Past in Flames and count that you have enough mana to go off, Intuition for Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Past in Flames. Your opponent will probably give you Past in Flames, meaning that after you go off you will have an additional 3 mana (or more depending on the number of Rite of Flames in your hand. Intuition also serves as a tutor for any single card in your deck (as long as there are three). So you can use Intuition to find protection (Pyroblast) or maybe to kill a hate-bear (Grapeshot) and post board to find a Chaos Warp for that pesky Tormod's Crypt.

Past in Flames - The deck's namesake, Past in Flames most directly relates to Yawgmoth's Will, a cards that some would consider powerful ;). Past in Flames allows the deck to generate enough storm to Grapeshot for a lethal amount. It is incredibly powerful for many reasons, I'll try to list a few. First off casting a Past in Flames into a Force of Will is pretty sweet because next turn you can flash it back and try to go off again. It has a lot of value late game as an easy way to restart your combo or make a bunch of goblins with Empty the Warrens. It is resilient to a Duress or a Hymn to Tourach because of flashback.

Grapeshot: Your primary kill card! Either storm up to 20 and cast a single Grapeshot or cast 2 at 10 and 11. Grapeshot has a lot of additional value pre-combo because of its ability to kill Aven Mindcensor, Gaddock Teeg, Ethersworn Cannonist, Dark Confidant, Snapcaster Mage, Vendillion Clique or maybe a whole bunch of elves (albeit you also need a Lotus Petal if you want to knock out an Ethersworn Cannonist.

Pyroblast: This cards is your primary protection against blue decks. It counters Vendilion Clique, Force of Will and Stifle as well as a slew of other cards. You can use it for storm by targeting a random permanent and you can point it at the face of a Delver of Secrets to stop the vicious beatdown.

Ponder: The 5th Preordain in some senses, more directly the 11th cantrip in the deck. I believe people understand what these do by now.

Preordain: Cantrips smooth out your draws, find you what you need and help you win the game!

Brainstorm: You could write a whole article on effectively using Brainstorm, for now I will say that it is best used when you crack a fetch land afterwards to shuffle away the chaff in your hand. The general order that you use your cantrips (although there is some dispute to this) is Preordain -> Ponder -> Brainstorm. Although if you have a 2 lands in play and one is a fetch land you probably want to go Brainstorm, fetch, Preordain.

Rite of Flame: A ritual effect, it makes mana, it wins you the game. Basic Rite of Flame math: The first Rite of Flame nets you 1 mana, the second nets you 2, the third nets you 3 and the fourth nets you 4. All together they net you 10 red mana. It has natural synergy with Intuition because of its ability to net you mana even when it is in your graveyard.

Seething Song: Your second ritual effect, every Seething Song nets you 2 mana, use it wisely.

Gitaxian Probe: Duress without the discard. Gitaxian Probe gives you a way to check out what is in your opponents hand. As a bonus, after you have resolved Past in Flames you can flash back Gitaxian Probe to see what is in their hand, draw an extra cards and make an extra storm.

Manamorphose: Has the same value as Gitaxian Probe in that it draws you 2 cards. Fixes your mana pre and post Past in Flames so that you have blue for Intuition.

Lotus Petal: Storm/Mana fixing, especially good with Empty the Warrens.

Manabase: 18 lands, 5 basics, 7 fetches, 2 duals. Ancient Tomb is for speed considerations, often allowing you to go off a turn before you normally could. In pretty much all of your match ups you will be able to fetch basics, and the manabase is built accordingly.

SB:
Empty the Warrens: This is your main way of playing around graveyard hate against decks that can't deal with a bunch of goblins (most decks). Even casting Empty the Warrens for 6 goblins is often enough in the early game. It is also very good at playing around Force of Will because of storm (watch out for Stifle though!).

Red Elemental Blast: Pyroblast 5-7, kills dudes and counters spells.

Wipe away: A good way to fight Counterbalance as well as deal with random hate. This is played over the 4th Chaos Warp because it can fight through a Mother of Runes and various other protection.

Chaos Warp: Serves as a Chain of Vapor of sorts but with the ability to kill Batterskull, a huge problem for your goblin army post board.

Leyline of Sanctity: Solely for Belcher, TES, ANT and BUG, these are all of your worst match ups and Leyline of Sanctity can randomly blow all of these decks out.

Going off/Playing the deck:

Common lines -
Intuition for Rite, Rite, Past in Flames on your opponents end step - go off the next turn
Intuition for Rite, Rite, Rite if you already have Past in Flames in your hand
Ritual Ritual Ritual Grapeshot Past in Flames Ritual Ritual Manamorphose Cantrip Cantrip Grapeshot

Going off guidelines - Cast all of your cantrips before you cast Rite of Flame so that you don't feel like a donk when you Brainstorm into your fourth Rite of Flame after you cast the other three. Count your Mana/Storm before you do anything so that you know you have enough to go off/make the proper lines of play. Most importantly make sure you can create blue mana to cast Intuition for Grapeshot again (if you are going off in this fashion). Don't get blown out by a Spell Snare on your single Manamorphose. As another note casting Intuition for Rite, Rite, Rite as long as you have a way to produce one red doesn't net or lose you mana (although it converts blue mana to red).

Playing out the games:
Against blue decks your games should generally be about cantripping early and hitting land drops before finding your window to go off and taking it. Your life total is largely unimportant so you can pretty much wait around until you know that you can go off (Gitaxian Probe) or you feel fairly safe. A lot of times it is good to go for it if they tap out for a threat (leaving them with only Daze and Force of Will). The general order for casting your cantrips is Preordain -> Ponder -> Brainstorm. However if you have a fetch land you would probably rather go Brainstorm, fetch, other cantrip. Unless you have good reasoning it is probably incorrect to Brainstorm without being able to fetch afterwards. Sometimes you have to go off without knowing that you can get there by casting cantrips post Past in Flames in order to build storm or find a Grapeshot or Intuition. Most of the time you want to cast Gitaxian Probe before your cantrips so that you know what the one random card will be and have a better idea of what to save in your hand/ditch. Postboard it is valuable to save them however so that you can build storm for Empty the Warrens. There are a lot of little things you figure out after gold fishing with the deck a lot, I'll try to add to this section when I can and if you have any questions let me know and I'll update the main post with explanations.

Basic matchup guide -

RUG/Bant/Thresy -

These match-ups game 1 are in definitely in your favor in my opinion, you basically work to sculpt your hand and go off when you feel you have enough protection, your life total is getting low, or you know you can go off because of Gitaxian Probe. Since people don't really know what is going on you can try to bait out counterspells with Seething Song (people generally Force if they think you are choked on Red) or make them use their Force then go off next turn by flashing back PiF. Remember that you can Grapeshot dudes if you need to.

Postboard -
Your strategy mostly depends on whether or not they have Surgical Extraction (which I try to determine game 2 by whether or not they are playing Snapcaster Mage). Against Surgical Extraction I board out Intuition because it is just a huge blowout and against RUG boarding out Intuition is sweet because they have very few targets for Red Elemental Blast. You are bringing in Empty the Warrens to play around grave hate and have a solid way to win (you would be surprised at how easily 8 goblins gets there). A lot of the games you end up Emptying for 6 or so then emptying again through the use of a Past in Flames. Playing around Surgical Extraction is weird and mostly involves not having too many of the same cards in your hand (aka don't try to go off with three Rite of Flames), although I mostly just focus on casting an Empty the Warrens in games 2 and 3 for a significant amount. Each opponent will play Surgical Extraction differently, some people burn it early on a random cards, others will wait for a combo piece to hit.

Do not at all be afraid to spend your Pyroblasts and Red Elemental Blasts on Delver, as that is their best way of putting a clock on you.

U/W -

Preboard pretty much the same as RUG/etc.

Posboard-
Batterskull is a major obstacle for the deck because of how good it is against a horde of little Goblins. Casting Chaos Warp on a Batterskull is often necessary if you plan on winning with Empty the Warrens.

BUG -

Just as miserable as it is with ANT and High Tide, their Hymn to Tourachs against you aren't necessarily as good but it is by no means a good match-up. Try to go off with Warrens ASAP and lay the beats!

Zoo/Maverick/Non-blue decks -

Have fun gold fishing! Really in these match ups you just have to be conscious of your life total and playing around Lightning Bolt and Fireblast as much as you can afford. Against maverick don't get blown out by Aven Mindcensor or post board Bojuka Bog.

Postboard against Maverick can be obnoxious if they have an Ethersworn Cannonist or a hate bear + Mom. It is often worth keeping Lotus Petals in your hand so that you can cast Lotus Petal then Grapeshot to kill an Ethersworn Cannonist. Keep your eye out for Scavenging Ooze as well. Also be aware that Zoo can board into Pyroblast for your Intuition.

Goblins also commonly boards Chalice of the Void/Leyline of the Void so be aware of those as well.

How I sideboarded for the Jupiter Games tournament:

RUG
(without snapcaster)
+4 Empty the Warrens +2 Chaos Warp +3 REB +1 Wipe Away
-3 Petal -1 Tomb -1 PiF -1 Manamorphose -4 Intuition
(with surgical)
-3 Warp +3 Petal

BUG
+4 Empty the Warrens + 4 Leyline +3 REB
-4 Intuition -1 Tomb -1 PiF -1 Manamorphose -1 Grapeshot (leave in if clique/confidant in place of Manamorphose) -1 Ponder -1 Seething Song -1 Petal

Bant
(no snapcaster)
+4 Empty the Warrens +3 Chaos Warp +1 Wipe Away
-3 Petal -1 Tomb -1 PiF -1 Ponder -1 Grapeshot -1 Manamorphose
(snapcaster/surgical)
+4 Empty the Warrens +3 Chaos Warp +1 Wipe Away
-4 Intuition -1 Tomb -1 PiF -1 Ponder -1 Grapeshot or Manamorphose depending on x/1 creatures

Maverick
+4 Empty the Warrens +3 Chaos Warp +1 Wipe Away
-4 Pyroblast -1 PiF -1 Ponder -2 Probe

B/W
+4 Empty the Warrens +3 Chaos Warp +1 Wipe Away
-4 Pyroblast -1 PiF -1 Ponder -2 Probe

(if surgical)
+4 Empty the Warrens +3 Chaos Warp +1 Wipe Away
-4 Pyroblast -4 Intuition

High Tide
+3 REB
-3 Manamorphose

Tendrils
+4 Leyline
-3 Manamorphose -1 Petal

Esper
+1 Wipe Away +3 Chaos Warp +4 Empty the Warrens +4 Leyline (depending on Hmyn)
-4 Intuition -1 Tomb -2 PiF -1 Manamorphose -1 Ponder -1 SS -1 Pyro -1 Petal

Zoo/Goblins
+3 Warp +1 Wipe Away
-4 Pyroblast

Junk
+3 Warp +1 Wipe Away +4 Leyline
-4 Pyroblast -1 Manamorphose -2 Probe

Reanimator
+3 REB +1 Wipe Away +3 Chaos Warp

This is how I sideboarded my match-ups, however I can't say that this is the perfect way to do it. I have been winning on this plan but that doesn't necessarily make it the best, so I just wanted to put that out as a disclaimer.


Some cards I have tried and basic reasoning behind them not being included:

Brainfreeze - This cards was good in the deck Durward posted because that list played 16 Rituals, this deck does not so can't really take advantage of Brainfreeze's dual use.

Gamble - Tutoring for Past in Flames isn't as powerful as just playing 4 in the deck. Past in Flames doesn't win on its own so this makes a cards like Gamble worse.

Meditate - I tried this in the spot of Intuition post board as a way to fight Surgical Extraction. The problem is that it is almost literally impossible to go off with Grapeshot using Meditate. It suffers from the Brainfreeze problem where you really don't play enough ritual effects.

Pact of Negation - Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast are generally just better and can counter more things without allowing you to get blown out. Its mana cost is really nice to play with but I believe that against blue decks you would rather just have REB effects.

Lion's Eye Diamond - I do understand how insane Lion's Eye Diamond is, trust me on that. The problem with the cards in this deck is that it is really a win more. I rarely ever need the extra UUU or RRR and I feel that the slot is just better filled by Lotus Petal which stops you from getting choked on mana and is better suited to Empty the Warrens.

Merchant Scroll - I'm still not sure about this one. The cards is rather slow which is my main reason for not including it as is, that being said Intuition is a fairly nuts cards. If I was to put it in the deck I think I would have to cut cantrips because paying 1U eats a whole turn of casting cantrips. I think for now it is staying out of the deck but that is mostly due to Spell Snare being a 3 or 4 of in most blue decks.

Flusterstorm - Not sure about this one either, it might have a place in the deck, it might not.

Quiet Speculation/Entomb - See Gamble.

I will continue to update this main post as I answer questions/come up with new ideas, please ask away, no flaming!

Andrewlb

[andrewlb]

I'll get a full sideboarding guide up with this soon, sorry for the delay

[egosum]

It looks nice and interesting lots of people thought of this idea and try it, just to see you are fighting against 2 of the most common kinds of hate in current enviroment Grave and storm hate, so it seems like adding a handicap for the sake of coolness (no rudeness intended). Do you really think it is an established deck or would it better better fit as a developmental one,, for the moment?

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[death]

Playtested your list yesterday, and there are issues I feel need addressing. First, it feels more of a 3-card combo. With PiF + Grapeshot not cutting it without Intuition or red rituals. On the one hand, the deck has a hard time going off a single Intuition without a bunch of rituals/PiF. Also, it has no way of interacting against discard (on Intuition) and Surgical Extraction.

[andrewlb]

@egosum - No, I do think it belongs here, I have spent a lot of time testing and I've done well in a tournament with it. The developmental thread is I believe for when people are look for help on how to make their deck better. While I don't think my list is full optimized I think it is pretty close and doesn't belong in a thread where people are more or less suggesting things for the deck that I've already tried. The decks I played against were BANT, Show and Tell, Forgemaster, RUG, BUG, U/W and RUG which I think is a good representation of the meta at a tournament that is known for having good players (Jupiter).

@death - So you are saying if you have Intuition in your hand and literally nothing else the deck is bad? I don't understand how that could be your only action... and yes, if they inquisition or duress you they can hit your Intuition (assuming you didn't hold brainstorm up/keep it on the top of your library which is very doable during the course of the game), but that is pretty much the only spell in your deck that gets hurt by discard, vs. ant for example where they can hit grim tutor, infernal tutor or ad nauseum. I'm willing to answer your question but I don't fully understand what you are asking/suggesting.

[lyracian]

It look a fun way of using Past in Flames. I will probably give it a spin on MWS and see how it does. I will report back.

[Michael Keller]

Is there any particular reason why this is in Established and New and Developmental - at the same time?

[andrewlb]

Well initially I wasn't going to do a full writeup so I put it in developmental, but then I did a full writeup and put it here, I asked for the other one to be binned so this should hopefully become the main one

[Anusien]

My hunch is that Manamorphose is going to be terrible for you. Make those the other Ponders. The mana fixing isn't actually all that exciting, and it seems like actually drawing cards post-Past in Flames is going to be terrible. Your plan is just going to be Intution->2 Rituals and Past in Flames->Intuition for 3 Grapeshot->Win. All you want is mana and ways to find Intution.

Is Lotus Petal better than Desperate Ritual or one of the analogs of that card?

You can probably afford to play some City of Traitors too.

[Amon Amarth]

Cool its like a Legacy version of Intuition Tendrils.

I think a singleton Manamorphose would be fine to Intuition for to flashback with PiF.

[alderon666]

This topic shouldn't be here.
You should be playing LED.

[Anusien]

I question the 4th Past in Flames and the third Grapeshot.

Additionally you need more cards to generate mana.

[Final Fortune]

4th PIF isn't necessary, but less than three Grape Shot is kind of retarded when you're playing Intuition.

I really dislike both Probe and Morphose in this deck and I think you're better off playing more cantrips and REB MD or maybe Pact and Scroll.

[jlagrav]

I really dislike both Probe and Morphose in this deck and I think you're better off playing more cantrips and REB MD or maybe Pact and Scroll.

Aren't those already cantrips?

[Anusien]

Probe is obviously insane because it tells you exactly how much hate they have and whether it's safe to go off and how much time you have.

3 Grapeshot with Intuition is irrelevant because you're gonna have to cast two, and you always have access to both. Your plan is going to be Intuition for Past in Flames, cast your rituals, flashback Intuition, flashback Past in Flames.

Actually you could make an argument that you only need 1 Past in Flames because you can't win unless you have Past in Flames and Intuition (the Infernal Tutor problem in ANT). I actually find that argument rather compelling.

[andrewlb]

I have considered going down to one manamorphose, I think it might be valid however I need to do some testing with it to see because it mucks up your spell spell spell grapeshot pif spell spell etc. grapeshot kill. Going down to 1 PiF means you literally have to find Intuition to win, seems bad. Desperate Ritual gets spell snared and doesn't stop you from getting choked on mana.

Just remember that the non-Intuition kill is something to take seriously

[Bryant Cook]

Preordains should really be Ponder. Ponder sees four cards where Preordain only looks at three. It's important in combo because often there's only one card needed to win the game.

EDIT: The more I think of this deck, the more and more I think that this list is just the old IGGy Pop decks with red instead of black. They were also intuition based.

[ThomasDowd]

Is Lotus Petal better than Desperate Ritual or one of the analogs of that card?

they are both +1

I would imagine the fixing is more important than the red. also costing 0 to cast over costing 2 is relevant i'd say most of the time.

[andrewlb]

I know that I like 4 Preordain 1 Ponder much better than I liked 4 Ponder 1 Preordain. While getting to Intuition is really good, mostly the deck is looking to filter rather than find one specific card, since going off is a multiple card ordeal (usually the majority of your hand) I think I'd rather having a split favoring Preordain. That being said I think I'm going to try testing a 3-2 split (because of the value of Intuition). I'm also considering cutting down to one Manamorphose and a blue cantrip would fall into at least one of those spots so that will affect the count as well.

[andrewlb]

they are both +1

I would imagine the fixing is more important than the red. also costing 0 to cast over costing 2 is relevant i'd say most of the time.

Correct!