[Deck] TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst

[Megadeus]

I dont even think that it is the Counters this deck really is worried about as much as it is GY hate. You dont need overmaster when you have SIlence.

[Dela]

Here is a list I have been tinkering with. I'm thinking about putting 1 buried alive in the SB as a burning wish target and it probably needs a sorcery speed bounce as well as tendrills #2 in the SB

The main problem I see is that I don't think it addresses the matchup issue of RiP Miracles.

2 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Children of Korlis
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Thoughtseize
4 Burning Wish
3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Sideboard:

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Reanimate
3 Cabal Ritual
1 Ideas Unbound
4 Doomsday
1 Tendrils of Agony

[Falconer]

This is probably the most important discussion we can be having right now, and to answer: I don't really know that it is. The reason the deck is so consistent and generally able to play through countermagic game 1 is that we have a ton of redundancy built in. Multiple ways to bin Grizzlebees, plenty of ways to reanimate him, multiple win conditions. To bring in anti-hate means we're always watering some aspect down, unless we're completely switching gears, which is why we've tried so many transformational boards. Being reactive still seems like the best strategy so far, but it still feels like trading a GT-R for a Maxima. You're burning cantrips to find answers instead of combo pieces, and there just aren't as many answers as hate pieces, unless you've boarded in so much that you weaken the combo.

It may just be that TinFins is a deck that's doomed to wax and wane like Dredge. In an unprepared meta it's just a monster, but in it's current incarnation at least, it's fairly easy to hate out. The problem is if RiP/Helm continues to be a good win condition for control decks, the meta may never really be all that unprepared.

Even if the question is discussing TinFins specific, I think in general it is underrated that today some Decks have the ability to board into Mini Prison Decks with all the printed hate cards.

Remember playing Storm against Maverick? Okay you have bounce for Gaddock Teeg but they could have Mother of Runes. In that case you might want to play two bounce spells to get rid of Gaddock Teeg in response to Mother of Runes ability but if they also have Ethersworn Canonist that plan will also not work. Don't mentioned the case that maybe you only have two bounce spells and need to draw your entire Deck to make sure that you have both. Now you looking for Damnation until you remeber that with Gaddock Teeg in play you will also not be able to cast Damnation. That was the point where Storm started to look for Infest or Virtues Ruin as Sideboard Cards because they was the only Cards that was never dead.

The same could be said about Griselbrand Decks shortly after the printing of Griselbrand when everyone was running Humility, Karakas, Cursed Totem or some even more exotic cards.

If you playing a Combo Deck especially one based around the Graveyard or Storm you have to accept that if they want to beat you hard enough they can beat you if they try hard enough. But if they try hard enough they will lose sideboard slots against other decks and than they lose against something like Jund. Then they decide that loosing to Jund is not worth it to have 10 anti Graveyard Cards and oops the combo Deck come back.

Its part of the modern Legacy Metagame you trade free Wins when they are not prepared against free loses when they are prepared. And the only thing you can do about that is to analyze what are they boarding against us and is there a Card like Infest or Virtues Ruin that can safe us.

Maybe we need Devout Witness or Nevinyrral's Disk or Pernicious Deed or Trygon Predator, we only find out when we follow what the other Decks doing and prepare for it. Pull from Eternity was a first step in that direction but you can't just call at a day at that point instead you have to watch out from where you get attacked next. Look at the Miracles Thread how before SGC Las Vegas everyone who broad up the RIP/Helm Version was flamed how bad that Deck because it has so many dead cards in it. Remember that many player hate playing with and against Sensei's Diving Top because it is so time consuming and maybe we are really discussing what are we doing in the match up you only see once in a big tournament. In that case hope that it will happening in the swiss and not in the Top 8. And if everyone is playing RIP/ Helm Miracles put TinFins on the Bench watch out how the BUG Delver Player having fun with all the miracles deck until the Miracles player put Miracles on the Bench in favor of Jund to give the BUG Delver player some payback. And if everyone is playing Jund look how the Metagame come back to the current point, take TinFins of the Bench be happy again and wait until everything starts again. Or in other words yes we have bad Match Ups and we have Sideboard Cards that can destroy us, but how does that make TinFins different than any other Deck?

Edit some typos.

[Richard Cheese]

Color me puzzled, but how would a one mana instant help us resolve other 1 mana instants against Counterbalance or Chalice?

@ Cellar Door -- this looks like a discussion more fitted for Format Discussion rather than this thread. However, regarding the transformational sideboard, there are two good options (and one poor):

#1) Reanimator -> Storm deck
#2) Reanimator -> Painter/Stone (maintains use of the fast mana, still vulnerable to Counterbalance...)
#3) Reanimator -> Tempo creatures (Delver, Goyf, Tombstalker, Clique)

Depending on the UW list, going to the man-plan can be pretty bad too. A lot of them have an Energy Field or two and then you're just boned. Also people tend not to board out all their removal against us.

There's also the option of going all-in on Show and Tell and tuning the board to try and win on the stack. Silence, Show and Tell, Flusterstorm, and there's probably room for Forces as well. You'd pretty much have to have Needles still though, Karakas is just a douche like that.

This is what I've been testing lately, you could easily swap the Silences and Show and Tells to make it line up a lot more with Koby's list:


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

4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
2 Chrome Mox

3 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave

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

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
2 Show and Tell
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 Silence
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Show and Tell
SB: 3 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Force of Will
SB: 1 Inkwell Leviathan
SB: 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn


Looks janky, but then it always has.

[Azdraël]

@Falconer

Exactly. The problems of multiple hates above-adressed by Koby and the others are not new at all for Storm players. At such a point that at the end Maverick was not such a good Matchup at all (thalia + canon + MoR + Gaddock + random hate grave for PiF, WTF?!). But the same has always been for Control/UW/CB/(insert any shit comboers loath) deck boarding hatebears and anti-graveyards stuff. Yet, those match-ups have never been unwinnable. (It is particularly in those cases that I do love to keep G-Probe main)

In a nutshell, it is basically the same with any combo-like decks. Players are going to have to make a choice, either ensure the victory against Combo but weakens their side against any other deck, or either get the most versatile sideboard.

Other 2cts: I particularly love Disrupt as a sideboard tech. It counters early discards, early Counters, and possibly a Surgical. Trying it is adopting it, give it a go!

[Koby]

I have to say that Devout Witness looks to be the sickest tech ever. I just know it's not going to do squat in practice, but hilarious regardless. Being a discard outlet with an added effect is awesome!

[Azdraël]

Apart that it is a creature, white, costs 3, costs 2 to activate, and not active before T2/3, you made my night ahah.

[Koby]

Apart that it is a creature, white, costs 3, costs 2 to activate, and not active before T2/3, you made my night ahah.

Well, ya, obviously. Erase? Revoke Existence? Reverent Silence was a good card that we think might have merit going forward, but it does nothing to stop Counterbalance or a timely Force of Will. Basically, the anti-hate needs to answer Artifact && Enchantment spells while also being uncounterable, and possibly destroying/bouncing multiple copies of each. I don't think a card like that exists.

[Azdraël]

I knew you were ironical, no harm intended!

I'm afraid the best so far in Storm decks were Krosan Grip and Wipe away, with the capacity of handling both art/enchant + Counterspells, now to be replaced by Decay. So I might give it a try, as well as for Serenity. But I think the uncounterable effect is way better than the capacity of handling mutiple permanents, so +1 for Decay.

[walker]

Wow this thread is moving along fast. I'm glad to see the list I posted last week is catching on. Probe + therapy is nuts huh??

Going forward there are a few things I think are worth looking into.

What is the best number of griselbrand to play?

@koby- with 2 griselbrands, how often do you bin griselbrand without entomb? I ask because it seems like cutting the griselbrands makes the deck rely heavily on entomb to start the combo, which was never consistent for me in the past. What are your thoughts about 4 griselbrands in the maindeck?

Is 13 definitely the best number of lands? I'm down to 12 and it's been working out for me.

How necessary is reanimate? It seems cute but why not just run another goryos if you want more reanimation effects?

Is it worth exploring splashing green instead of white?

Besides abrupt decay green gives us access to carpet of flowers, rev silence, deed, trygon predator, ground seal, sylvan library, noxious revival, autumn's veil. Is there anything else worthwhile in green? I'm probably forgetting some obvious cards.. Even if green isn't the right splash color now, it could potentially offer a good strategy if you have a lot of chalice/countertop/hatebear decks in your meta.

Has anyone tried boarding into helmline/rip combo? I tried it once very briefly, but didn't get any conclusive results. If they slam a turn 2 RIP its hilarious to helm them. Possibly worth further exploring?

[.dk]

Wow this thread is moving along fast. I'm glad to see the list I posted last week is catching on. Probe + therapy is nuts huh??

Going forward there are a few things I think are worth looking into.

What is the best number of griselbrand to play?

@koby- with 2 griselbrands, how often do you bin griselbrand without entomb? I ask because it seems like cutting the griselbrands makes the deck rely heavily on entomb to start the combo, which was never consistent for me in the past. What are your thoughts about 4 griselbrands in the maindeck?

Is 13 definitely the best number of lands? I'm down to 12 and it's been working out for me.

How necessary is reanimate? It seems cute but why not just run another goryos if you want more reanimation effects?

Is it worth exploring splashing green instead of white?

Besides abrupt decay green gives us access to carpet of flowers, rev silence, deed, trygon predator, ground seal, sylvan library, noxious revival, autumn's veil. Is there anything else worthwhile in green? I'm probably forgetting some obvious cards.. Even if green isn't the right splash color now, it could potentially offer a good strategy if you have a lot of chalice/countertop/hatebear decks in your meta.

Has anyone tried boarding into helmline/rip combo? I tried it once very briefly, but didn't get any conclusive results. If they slam a turn 2 RIP its hilarious to helm them. Possibly worth further exploring?

I haven't tested enough with less than 3 Griselbrands to answer that question, but I think I can give some input on the others.

I'm not sure that I would go below 13 lands - usually the reasoning isn't that I need more, but really comes down to shuffle effects. I don't want to have less than 7 fetch lands and ideally have 8, which leaves only 5-6 slots left for mana producing lands. I can't see cutting the swamp, so you have some amount of duals - and depending on what colors you're splashing then you might need a couple of them to make sure that you can make the correct colors. 12 starts REALLY trimming either shuffle effects or access to color.

The reason Reanimate is there over the 4th Goryo's Vengeance is because Goryo's can't reanimate Children.

I've had a few ideas for a green splash floating around in my head - specifically with City of Solitude and Noxious Revival. Revival seemed pretty cool if you were also running Careful Study or Thought Scour. At the moment though, I think that Pull from Eternity is superior.

I've also tested RIP/Helm transformation as a sideboard strategy. It's perfectly fine sometimes - but the place where it seems awesome (against UW RIP/Helm), it's actually pretty bad. They end up bringing in a lot of countermagic, and it's tough to force through your combo. I tried 3 Helm, 3 RIP, 4 E-tutor, 3 Flusterstorm, 2 Spell Pierce. Maybe not optimal, but seemed like a decent place to start. in the end, I didn't really like it as it was tough to resolve Helm through taxing countermagic. Painter/Stone is probably better for that reason, as they've likely already boarded out their Swords to Plowshares and Abrupt Decays anyway.

[Koby]

Again, I never had an issue binning Griselbrand when it was in my hand - even demonstrated on camera. The only possible issue was not being able to find either Griselbrand (+discard) or Entomb. This was partially solved by running more cantrips and shuffle effects. Adding the 4th Goryo's doesn't provide the same effect as Reanimate, namely - returning Children of Korlis, or even using Reanimate offensively on opponent's creatures.

Removing white for green provides better anti-hate, but at the expense of Silence and Pull from Eternity. I can't say for sure if it's worth it yet, since I haven't tested a BU/g list yet.

[Richard Cheese]

Well, ya, obviously. Erase? Revoke Existence? Reverent Silence was a good card that we think might have merit going forward, but it does nothing to stop Counterbalance or a timely Force of Will. Basically, the anti-hate needs to answer Artifact && Enchantment spells while also being uncounterable, and possibly destroying/bouncing multiple copies of each. I don't think a card like that exists.

Teferi's Realm does everything except not get countered!

[phazonmutant]

Teferi's Realm does everything except not get countered!

Holy crap. Teferi's Realm seems nuts! It hits enchantments, artifacts, and creatures! (although not all at once)
I'm excited to try this out.


Koby, to answer the question you posted a page ago, I think this deck can usually beat heavy counterspells, light counterspells + discard, or heavy discard. It can't beat any of those plus strong grave hate reliably right now. It also has problems with prison from the get-go. Can it be further tuned to do so? Maybe...but I'm not hopeful after seeing how mediocre Abrupt Decay turned out to be - powerful, but very clunky. That's what it seems like most of the unexplored antihate options are.

So at that point, it could be correct to revisit transformational sideboards. There might be one we're missing, although again, not hopeful.

[Falconer]

Apart that it is a creature, white, costs 3, costs 2 to activate, and not active before T2/3, you made my night ahah.

Well this is a general problem against Counterbalance and Chalice if the Spell is cheap you are in danger that it will be countered because it is cheap and if it is expensive it will take some time until it is available because it is expensive. So pick your poison.

Well it might be an Idea not to go to a full transitional sideboard but to add a card that give you another angle of attack which does not depend on the graveyard or storm count or requires rituals but does not mess up the usual game plan. After boarding out three to four cards is quit common it might be an idea to see if we find a card where we know Miracles is worried about and where we can fit a playset into the board. After we discussed the problems of reactive cards lets focus on active cards. If you wondering what kind of cards gives a deck problems looking for the decks mirror strategy can be helpfull.

Currently Geist of Saint Traft is a common guest in this department before BUG and Jund became popular when the Miracles Mirror was more common Luminarch Ascension was preferred. Both are Threads that can put Miracles under a fast clock to find a very specific answer to this card. For Geist of Saint Traft a Sweeper or your own copy is necessary because Spot Removal does not work. Only that in the Miracle Mirror Sweeper are usually a death card that only under very specific situation will do something. This puts Miracle for the decission will I board out sweepers to reduce the death draws or keep I sweepers in to not lose against Geist. Luminarch Ascension will present them for an even greater problem not only need Miracles a Sweeper they also need Enchantment Removal to get rid of the Ascension before it creates another army. TinFin is also a Match Up where are not many reasons to keep sweepers in. This way we can present them the challenge find an aswer to this card while we are trying to find a way to get our combo going. We also have an even faster alternative to Luminarch Ascension in our main colour Bitterblossom. Non of this cards require us to completly change our sideboard even we have to find 3 to 4 slots which can be challenging enough. Geist of Saint Traft is a legendary creature too which means he also works with Goryo's Vengenance and with Shallow Grave obviously too. Non of this cards challenge our mana base more than the cards we are already running. These are cards that are able to operate when our plan A was shut down but does not require us to completly give up our plan A, all of them create a clock for Miracles which should give it some concerns. And after watching Kobys last stream and as a result understandig where his example come from, I think this cards can help in that Match Up too for the same reasons.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

How hard is it to hit WW? Grand abolisher was pretty savage when I ran him in combo.

[.dk]

How hard is it to hit WW? Grand abolisher was pretty savage when I ran him in combo.

Never thought I'd see the day you'd post in this thread constructively... :o


WW is pretty difficult - but like City of Solitude, the effect he provides is pretty ideal. I suppose you could fetch a scrubland, and cast him off of a petal or something like that too. He can't be spell pierced or flusterstormed, which is awesome. I think you're right though, that he's worth testing to see if we can fit him in. Most likely opponent's removal will be boarded out in sideboard games anyway, making him even better (just like the Xantid Swarm in TES).

Oh, and as far as transformations go - i think there is more room to explore these. Not sure how much testing anyone has done with a Man plan. Seems like there are likely other options out there too depending on color splashes.

[Koby]

Well this is a general problem against Counterbalance and Chalice if the Spell is cheap you are in danger that it will be countered because it is cheap and if it is expensive it will take some time until it is available because it is expensive. So pick your poison.

Well it might be an Idea not to go to a full transitional sideboard but to add a card that give you another angle of attack which does not depend on the graveyard or storm count or requires rituals but does not mess up the usual game plan. After boarding out three to four cards is quit common it might be an idea to see if we find a card where we know Miracles is worried about and where we can fit a playset into the board. After we discussed the problems of reactive cards lets focus on active cards. If you wondering what kind of cards gives a deck problems looking for the decks mirror strategy can be helpfull.

Currently Geist of Saint Traft is a common guest in this department before BUG and Jund became popular when the Miracles Mirror was more common Luminarch Ascension was preferred. Both are Threads that can put Miracles under a fast clock to find a very specific answer to this card. For Geist of Saint Traft a Sweeper or your own copy is necessary because Spot Removal does not work. Only that in the Miracle Mirror Sweeper are usually a death card that only under very specific situation will do something. This puts Miracle for the decission will I board out sweepers to reduce the death draws or keep I sweepers in to not lose against Geist. Luminarch Ascension will present them for an even greater problem not only need Miracles a Sweeper they also need Enchantment Removal to get rid of the Ascension before it creates another army. TinFin is also a Match Up where are not many reasons to keep sweepers in. This way we can present them the challenge find an aswer to this card while we are trying to find a way to get our combo going. We also have an even faster alternative to Luminarch Ascension in our main colour Bitterblossom. Non of this cards require us to completly change our sideboard even we have to find 3 to 4 slots which can be challenging enough. Geist of Saint Traft is a legendary creature too which means he also works with Goryo's Vengenance and with Shallow Grave obviously too. Non of this cards challenge our mana base more than the cards we are already running. These are cards that are able to operate when our plan A was shut down but does not require us to completly give up our plan A, all of them create a clock for Miracles which should give it some concerns. And after watching Kobys last stream and as a result understandig where his example come from, I think this cards can help in that Match Up too for the same reasons.

Just wanted to let you know you're providing a lot of good feedback! This post has gotten a lot of gears turning in my noggin.

Bitterblossom especially seems good as an answer to this kind of grindy/prison style control. Being on color, cheap cost (and castable via Petal or Ritual on turn 1), are both good perks compared to GoST. I have a wild idea - board into 2-3 Cabal Ritual + 1-2 Tendrils in this matchup as well, to win with Storm count rather than reanimation.

[.dk]

Nifty ideas - more excuses to run Bitterblossom are always good in my book. Faerie beatdown with Mini Tendrils seems actually rather cool - and what's not to love about casting Tendrils for value? Furthermore, Bitterblossom is usually pretty insane with Cabal Therapy. We could practically turn into a discard based control deck.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Never thought I'd see the day you'd post in this thread constructively... :o


WW is pretty difficult - but like City of Solitude, the effect he provides is pretty ideal. I suppose you could fetch a scrubland, and cast him off of a petal or something like that too. He can't be spell pierced or flusterstormed, which is awesome. I think you're right though, that he's worth testing to see if we can fit him in. Most likely opponent's removal will be boarded out in sideboard games anyway, making him even better (just like the Xantid Swarm in TES).

Oh, and as far as transformations go - i think there is more room to explore these. Not sure how much testing anyone has done with a Man plan. Seems like there are likely other options out there too depending on color splashes.

For the record, Xantid swarm is probably poop. The reason I brought up Grand Abolisher is his unique ability to stop permanent hate. It hits: Top, DRS, Tormod's Crypt, Relic, etc. It may even stop Counterbalance itself (not sure on the rules, since it says "cant' activate abilities"...is this activated abilities or all abilities?). Not to mention, you can straight up win the game when he hits play, unlike swarm. But the price is probably too steep at WW.