[Deck] TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst

[Dick_Tator]

Thanks for the report dick_tator! I appreciate the description of what you kept, it's always nice to see some more data about how other people mulligan and keep. That Grixis delver deck sounds pretty interesting (although a complete pounding for our deck).

Why did you end up deciding to play 2 Children?

Edit: realized I didn't know what I was talking about with 12post. Your boarding seems fine.

Yeah, that Delver deck was a nightmare to play against. I only managed to steal a game against him, because he got cocky and cast three Dark Confidants, after which he blindflipped two Force of Wills and a Vendillion Clique in his next upkeep to kill himself:-)

I chose to play the second Children because I was scared of going down to one and not being able to find it when I go off. I just feel more confortable with two in my deck. Nevertheless, I did end up with a Children stuck in my hand several times (and once I even drew both of them), so I'm definitely going to try cutting one for my next tournament.

I'm also toying around with the idea of a green splash for my sideboard. I splashed for Abrupt Decay in my big tournament last Saturday and it worked fine (or the manabase did, at least. I know that the effectiveness of Abrupt Decay as a sideboard card is still up for debate). I really want to try out Reverent Silence, so I'm considering adding a Bayou to my main instead of the basic Island and then play a sideboard somewhat like this:

2 x Abrupt Decay
2 x Reverent Silence
2 x Silence
3 x Surgical Extraction
2 x Pull from Eternity
2 x Massacre
2 x Pithing Needle

Any thoughts?

[Cacks]

I have been toying with the idea of running a personal tutor sideboard strategy, containing something like:

2 personal tutor
1 sheldock isle
1 doomsday
1 show and tell
1 reverent silence (although this is for CB matchups, where the tutor is likely to get countered anyway, and so I may need more)
2 abrupt decay
1 massacre
1 perish
3 silence (1 main)
2 pithing needle

I don't know if anyone has tried anything like this - enabling a mix of hate and (other) combo enablers with relatively few cards? The tutor can also fetch cabal therapy or thoughtsieze for protection / self discard, or the maindeck reanimate. The other obvious potential inclusion is buried alive, as a personal tutor 'entomb' target, but that seems veeery slow. If there was another better sorcery speed option for entomb, the plan could be good. As is, however, I am somewhat unsure. There is no testing at all here, since I thought I'd throw this out whilst waiting for my shallow graves (finally found four) to turn up.....! If/when they ever do, I may be able to say something more concrete!

[Chikenbok]

I just want all of you to know, that as a long time DD player, I finally put this deck together for a LGS tourny (appx 38 people) and won every match.

I hate you guys. I love this deck.

[Koby]

I just want all of you to know, that as a long time DD player, I finally put this deck together for a LGS tourny (appx 38 people) and won every match.

I hate you guys. I love this deck.

It may not be the most powerful Storm deck (who am I kidding, draw 21 cards is really powerful), but the simplicity in playing it to achieve a power level on par with Griselbrand far outweighs it over other Storm variants.

[.dk]

I just want all of you to know, that as a long time DD player, I finally put this deck together for a LGS tourny (appx 38 people) and won every match.

I hate you guys. I love this deck.

I find this hilarious in that I've practically put Tin Fins down since GP Denver to focus on learning and becoming more proficient at DDFT.

Also - grats on blowing out your locals. :)

[Chikenbok]

I find this hilarious in that I've practically put Tin Fins down since GP Denver to focus on learning and becoming more proficient at DDFT.

Also - grats on blowing out your locals. :)

I will say this, DD (as having played it well..... since all the pieces came together years ago) once cast, wins the game, as we all know. The games I was struggling with while playing Tin Fins I was generally staring at the board thinking, "If I could resolve a DD right now, the game would be over, immediately." Not to say that I didn't raw dog a reanimation spell off the top and proceed to win the game on the spot but the puzzle solving part of the equation is VASTLY different than any other storm deck I've played.

Also, and the main reason I'm playing this deck right now is because I get to play Lim Dul's Vault again.... (who remembers OG DD lists with 3 mystical tutors 2 LDV, anyone... c'mon).

List felt incredibly solid although I'm pretty certain that I'm going to be playing green in the SB for decays - they've immediately become a 3-4 of in every other storm deck I play, I see no difference not to do the same here.

[Koby]

On the green splash --
I don't doubt that Abrupt Decay is a good card and there's plenty of room for it in the sideboard. My main concern is how to make them swap with maindeck cards in sideboard games to achieve the purpose we need them to perform. The expectation is that games will go "long" since we're playing more reactive. That means Chrome Mox will be removed (hurting the mana base a bit). Perhaps we can take the approach similar to ANT by adding an additional Bayou into the sideboard so we can board that in when we take out Chrome Mox.

Possible SB:
1 Bayou
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Reverent Silence
3 Pithing Needle
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Massacre
3 Surgical Extraction
ALT:
-1 Pithing Needle
-2 Reverent Silence
+3 Silence

This may make the deck weaker against other Storm variations, since we're dropping the Silence. Silence, admittedly, is very good at preventing Surgical from becoming live for our opponents. We also weaken the BUG, RUG matchups. These matchups will generally not require Abrupt Decay as a reactive element.

[.dk]

LDV is fun, that's for sure.

I'm not a huge fan of Abrupt Decay in this deck, really. It really comes down to the fact that the decks that give us a lot of trouble tend to have multiple problem permanents on the board (i.e. Miracles).

Because of this, if I'm splashing green (which I am still testing that), I'm running Reverent Silence as the main anti-hate. Serenity and Teferi's Realm do that same thing without splashes as well. With the green splash, Decay is probably still necessary in the board to deal with things like Chalice and such too, but I can't see a case where I would have enough cards to board out and board them all in.

[Chikenbok]

The board I was considering is essentially your 'alt' sideboard:

3 x Abrupt Decay
2 x Silence
3 x Pithing Needle
2 x Surgical Extraction
2 x Reverent Silence
1 x Chain of Vapor
1 x Bayou
1 x Massacre

This is at least what I'll be playing at my next event

[Dick_Tator]

On the green splash --
I don't doubt that Abrupt Decay is a good card and there's plenty of room for it in the sideboard. My main concern is how to make them swap with maindeck cards in sideboard games to achieve the purpose we need them to perform. The expectation is that games will go "long" since we're playing more reactive. That means Chrome Mox will be removed (hurting the mana base a bit). Perhaps we can take the approach similar to ANT by adding an additional Bayou into the sideboard so we can board that in when we take out Chrome Mox.

Possible SB:
1 Bayou
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Reverent Silence
3 Pithing Needle
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Massacre
3 Surgical Extraction
ALT:
-1 Pithing Needle
-2 Reverent Silence
+3 Silence

This may make the deck weaker against other Storm variations, since we're dropping the Silence. Silence, admittedly, is very good at preventing Surgical from becoming live for our opponents. We also weaken the BUG, RUG matchups. These matchups will generally not require Abrupt Decay as a reactive element.

I've been working on something similar for my board.

If we do decide to try the green splash, do we really need to run both Abrupt Decay and Chain of Vapor? They seem to serve roughly the same purpose. And if this is the case, I might prefer Abrupt Decay over Chains. It's more difficult for us to combo off the turn you play Decay because of the mana requirement, but it deals with the problem permanently, so we can just combo off the following turn. And the fact that it is uncounterable obviously makes it much more effective against Counterbalance.

We might need Chain of Vapor to deal with threats that cost more than three CMC. But Besides Leyline, how many threats can our opponents reasonably play that Abrupt Decay cannot deal with? (this isn't a rhetorical question, I'm actually asking).

Also, I feel we need Silence in the board, it just serves too many purposes in a variety of matches for us to cut it. It stops Storm, protects against Surgicals, discard, counterspells etc.

I've been tinkering with this sideboard:

1 x Bayou
3 x Abrupt Decay
2 x Reverent Silence
3 x Silence
1 x Pithing Needle
3 x Surgical Extraction (btw, how do we feel about playing Extirpate in this slot?)
2 x Massacre

Cutting Pull from Eternity makes us vulnerable to exile effects, but we have Silence and discard to protect us against these. Abrupt Decay can deal with a lot of the cards that we would typically name with Needle, like D. Shaman, Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus and Sensei's Divining Top, so we might not need as many copies of Needle as before (though it still merits a spot in the board). Finally, decks like Death & Taxes and Maverick have been gaining popularity in my local meta, so I would prefer to run two copies of Massacre, but this is purely a meta call.

[Koby]

I think the last few posts have a ton of merit. Now time to test them out and put theory into practice.

Chain vs Abrupt Decay - the only time I would feel that Chain is better is against Leylines; otherwise Abrupt Decay gets the nod. The main difficulty is understand and anticipating where Abrupt Decay would be needed to be boarded in.

Sometimes, it's just a guessing game and winning Game 1 has to be won in order to make effective sideboarding for Game 3.

[Madmaniac21]

Been doing some goldfishing with the following board:

4 Show and tell
4 Sneak Attack
3 Emrakrul
3 Ancient Tomb
1 Volcanic island

and have considered adding 1 volc to main. I've always been a fan of transformational boards (Combo Bargain into Oath circa 2008?), and blanking people's hate is always nice. The dark rits make up for the missing City of Traitors when it comes to mana accel.

In theory what I'm thinking is to throw all 15 cards in (which I do at alrger tournaments anyways to hide SB strats), then watch how many cards my opponent boards - if I see them bring in 6+ I'll switch to the Sneak Show plan, if only 4 (so they came light on gyard hate) I stay with Tin Fins.

Thoughts?

[Dick_Tator]

Sometimes, it's just a guessing game and winning Game 1 has to be won in order to make effective sideboarding for Game 3.

This ^^

I truly believe that bad sideboarding is one of the biggest reasons as to why I have performed so mediocrely with the deck in my first couple of tournaments. I won game 1 in all but one of the 12 matches I played in my last two tournaments, yet my overall record for the two tournaments read 7 won matches and 6 lost. Although there were games in which I was simply outplayed, there were also quite a few games in which I clearly sideboarded wrongly and it ended up costing me the game.

I'm growing to believe that once you've won game 1, you probably need to keep your sideboarding to a minimum in game 2 because you don't know what kinds of hate you'll be facing. Then if you lose, you can board the correct answers in for game 3.

[HammafistRoob]

I'm growing to believe that once you've won game 1, you probably need to keep your sideboarding to a minimum in game 2 because you don't know what kinds of hate you'll be facing. Then if you lose, you can board the correct answers in for game 3.

This is where Silence really shines because of how flexible it is, it's never going to be a dead card. I can't say too much as of now because I've only played 6 pre-board games with the deck. But I can say that I've been loving 3 Ponders and 0 LDVs so far. Great work guys keep it up.

[.dk]

I'm growing to believe that once you've won game 1, you probably need to keep your sideboarding to a minimum in game 2 because you don't know what kinds of hate you'll be facing. Then if you lose, you can board the correct answers in for game 3.

Exactly - boarding in a couple of pieces of generic answers in Game2 is usually appropriate, and then make it a bit more specific for Game3 if need be. I feel that Chain of Vapor and Pithing Needle are great for this purpose.

@Madmaniac21 - check back about 20-30 pages in the thread. We discussed the Sneak/Show transformation, and currently don't believe that it is better than anti-hate boards. Most of us are actually on only 2 Griselbrands maindeck now too, which makes that plan a bit worse.

[Dick_Tator]

Since I'm trying out a green splash for the sideboard, I am contemplating going all the way and testing City of Solitude. I know that someone (Richard Cheese?) has mentioned it several times previously, but as far as I recall it was never tested because it demanded green mana. Well, if I'm splashing for green anyway, I might as well give it a try.

I know that some of us (perhaps even most of us?) are somewhat sceptical about the green splash. And I'm not saying that this is necessarily the way to go, I just want to test some stuff. City of Solitude is almost certainly too cute, but there's no denying that its effect is awesome, and the converted mana cost is the same as Teferi's Realm which several people are playing. So I think it at least deserves to be tested.

The problem then becomes what to cut in order to make room for them in the board. I could cut one Silence, seeing as City of Solitude can often function essentially the same way (protecting us against counterspells and Surgical Extraction when we go off). And I guess I could cut either a Surgical or a Massacre - I'm leaning more towards cutting Massacre, since we have other answers for Maverick's hatebears and we need the Surgicals against Reanimator and Storm.

Another option is to simply play the Bayou main, probably instead of the basic Island or one of the Gemstone Mines depending on the individual configuration. This would free up an extra slot in the board, but we would have to play our pre-board games with what would essentially be an extra swamp that can be wastelanded.

A proposed sideboard:

1 x Bayou
3 x Abrupt Decay
2 x Reverent Silence
2 x Silence
1 x Pithing Needle
3 x Surgical Extraction
1 x Massacre
2 x City of Solitude

[.dk]

For if you're splashing green, i think there is a good case to be made to run the Bayou main, and (assuming it tests out OK) Koby's suggestion of another one in the board.

I was testing City of Solitude earlier - and yes it does have a sweet ability. Maybe it's fine with more lands, but it is SO SLOW. The difference between this and Teferi's Realm is that in the matchups where City is good, they are putting on a bunch of pressure. i.e. Tempo Decks like RUG or BUG Delver - they play taxing counters, Surgical effects, crypts, etc. City cuts these off, but you're waiting a while to cast it after they've already been beating you down with a Delver and Goyfs, so by the time you have a chance at landing it, you're mostly dead.

Realm and Serenity are a bit different in that the matchups where they shine, Miracles specifically, you don't have pressure on you at all. You can wait to assemble your answers and not really worry that you're going to die.

Hope that makes sense.

[Koby]

That feel good feeling when your Silence is Forced, telegraphing Surgical Extraction in hand, promptly taken by a Cabal Therapy.

[TraxDaMax]

Are the Pithing Needles mainly for Sensei's Divining Top?
If so, if I were to try out a green sideboard could I cut them?
At the moment I'm running Koby's list -1 c.mox, -1 children, -1 g.probe, +1 bayou, +2 LDV.

Side:
1 bayou
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Reverent Silence
1 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Silence

It much more mana intensive but Abrupt Decay just deals with so many things that hate on us that I figured I could move out some other things.

[Chikenbok]

Are the Pithing Needles mainly for Sensei's Divining Top?
If so, if I were to try out a green sideboard could I cut them?
At the moment I'm running Koby's list -1 c.mox, -1 children, -1 g.probe, +1 bayou, +2 LDV.

Side:
1 bayou
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Reverent Silence
1 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Silence

It much more mana intensive but Abrupt Decay just deals with so many things that hate on us that I figured I could move out some other things.

With 4 decays do you really think its necessary to run 3 other spells to deal with permanents? In the last handful of games I played with a green SB 3 Decay + 1 Chain was all I ever really wanted. Curious as to how many things you need to bounce.