[Deck] TinFins 3: Return of the Onion Burst

[D@N]

hurkyls recall , or rebuild could work as it hits all the artifacts and cannonist as well.

[Koby]

That's generally the idea behind Serenity, as it frees up your mana for your turn to do the combo.

[cogitoergosum]

That's generally the idea behind Serenity, as it frees up your mana for your turn to do the combo.

Indeed, I went up to 3 serenity because my meta is filled with dark dpths decks running chalice and sphere of resistance. Once you 6 for 1 somebody, you never go back :)

[DavidHernandez]

That's generally the idea behind Serenity, as it frees up your mana for your turn to do the combo.

True, and I run 2 of them. I think I will bump to three like cogitoergosum mentioned. Two doesn't seem to be enough when you're going to be facing down a turn-one Chalice or Trinisphere at our local store. Mulling to 5 just to find a Serenity isn't really the best of all strategies. It might not be appropriate to run three at a large event though.

Thanks.

[warfordium]

i didn't board in serenity once at SCG Seattle… i chose pithing needle and silence as the 3-of hate slots. it is great, mind.

[DavidHernandez]

i didn't board in serenity once at SCG Seattle… i chose pithing needle and silence as the 3-of hate slots. it is great, mind.

I also run 2 Needles in the board, but they don't do anything against Trinisphere, Sphere of Resistance, Pithing Needle, and Phyrexian Revoker...

[Acclimation]

Serenity is a card that you can never board in for multiple tournaments, but more than pays off for the one time you play against Hate Rocks.

3 is a good call if that's what your meta is weak to.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[warfordium]

I also run 2 Needles in the board, but they don't do anything against Trinisphere, Sphere of Resistance, Pithing Needle, and Phyrexian Revoker...

I usually see Revoker from decks which also run swords to plowshares—one reason why i debated a 3rd massacre as well. sorry to hear that you're fighting MUDslides

[Koby]

I'm all ears if we feel that there needs to be an update for the sideboard.

[DavidHernandez]

I'm all ears if we feel that there needs to be an update for the sideboard.

I think it's situation/meta dependent. Our tournaments are small...last week we only had 22 people. Sometimes we see multiples of decks on the same night, and the small turnout can skew what you play against. One night, I had to play against 3 Dredge decks in a row. I like the following as a general board:

SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 2 Massacre
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Serenity
SB: 3 Silence
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction

But on the nights that I hear we'll have multiple Dredge decks, I run:

SB: 3 Chain of Vapor
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Serenity
SB: 3 Silence

We don't see Death and Taxes unless I play it...so Massacre in our area isn't so good.

Last week we had 2 ANT and one Tin Fins decks. Makes me want to run Mindbreak Trap in the board...

I may have to run:

SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Serenity
SB: 3 Silence
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Thoughtseize

Again, our local store is probably not the best way to prepare for a true meta environment. While we do see a lot of Tier1 decks, sometimes we see them in clumps of 3 (3 UWr Miracles; 3 Dredge; 3 Artifact-based; 3 Storm, etc.) ... all on the same night.

Blah. I need to go to a big tournament!

[D@N]

it just seems harder to find white and serenity for a board full of hate then it is blue. ill add a another serenity and see what it does bit i think paying 1-2 for a petal and a turn later another 2 for serenity seems weaker.

[DavidHernandez]

it just seems harder to find white and serenity for a board full of hate then it is blue. ill add a another serenity and see what it does bit i think paying 1-2 for a petal and a turn later another 2 for serenity seems weaker.

Yeah, that's why I run 2 Scrublands.

[cogitoergosum]

I'm all ears if we feel that there needs to be an update for the sideboard.

How often are you guys even using surgical? Against other graveyard and combo decks, we are usually faster. The main time it is useful for me is against loam wasteland decks with chalice, which is fairly niche. I think two may be correct amount, leaving a flex spot.

[DavidHernandez]

How often are you guys even using surgical? Against other graveyard and combo decks, we are usually faster. The main time it is useful for me is against loam wasteland decks with chalice, which is fairly niche. I think two may be correct amount, leaving a flex spot.

You can also use it as a defense. They Surgical you, you Surgical yourself in response, fail to find in your library, and save yourself from losing all of your cards.

[Koby]

I only really bring in Surgical against the following decks:

Dredge (they can win faster than us, esp with Cabal Therapy to disrupt)
Storm combo (generally ANT, rather than TES)
Reanimator
Miracles (replacing Gitaxian Probe as a source of information + SDT disruption)
Lands / Loam-Wasteland decks

I don't really bother against Loam decks however, since that's asking for a lot of things to go severely wrong.

[Acclimation]

it just seems harder to find white and serenity for a board full of hate then it is blue. ill add a another serenity and see what it does bit i think paying 1-2 for a petal and a turn later another 2 for serenity seems weaker.

Finding White is easy with 8 fetches.

@cog
Surgical is great as an information source against some FoW decks, if I bring one in, I'll sometimes hit a Brainstorm early on just to get some info and potentially leave them with awkward hands. Probably not optimal, but it works.



Sideboards should definitely be fluid based on your meta. In previous posts, I mentioned how I ran more Needles or more Extractions based on what I was seeing around me at any given tournament, sometimes bumping up to the full 15 if necessary.

At a larger event though, I highly recommend sticking with the current one, I haven't had any issues with the sideboard at any event larger than 50 people.

Being in a MUD heavy environment must be painful though, to hell with that.

[vizari]

Hey guys,
I just got done playing the deck on MTGO all night. I'm not a good player by any means, but I noticed a few things.
If I burn my ponder/brainstorms and fail to find combo, I feel like I just flounder for several turns while getting poked by goyfs and delvers.
Also, recovering from a Hymn or Thoughtseize, especially when they've also got counters for whatever they dont take, seems impossible.
As others have said, Entomb seems like the weak part of the combo. Has Snapcaster been discussed as a backup entomb? Intuition kind of does the same thing, but Snapcaster might be more versatile and gives us a body to sac to Therapy.

Too often I find myself with Goryo's/Shallow in hand and I find Emrakul or Gris in a ponder/storm, but I don't have any Therapy/Thoughtseize so I just shuffle them back in. Has anyone tried Careful Studys with 3-4 Gris?

I'm liking Mox Diamond a lot. If I get pretty low on life before I get Gris out and can only draw 14, it basically acts as another Lotus Petal to get Dark Rituals and Children out. I've also had it be the difference between getting my storm count or not.
This deck seems super tough to tune because its half storm, half reanimator so it suffers from both kinds of sideboard hate, and the more you go for the reanimator plan (ie careful studies and more gris as mentioned) the worse the storm plan gets/higher chance of fizzling. But during Gris draws, Careful Study might be useful. Draw 2, discard 2 lands - so it potentially trades 2 things that are of no use for more petals/rituals or the entomb we need for Emrakul. We can toss Children with it and reanimate, but with the benefit of drawing 2 additional cards. I really don't see the discard 2 as a drawback mid-combo; it's a better enabler than brainstorm and ponder at that stage.

Throwing out some random ideas - sideboard spinning darkness versus aggro? up storm count for free essentially and can potentially heal to allow an additional 7 draw.

Moat seems like it might warrant a SB slot if it weren't for white being so sparse.

What about Isochron Scepter? Goryo's/Shallow Grave, or an entomb, silence, etc. on a stick seems good in drawn out games vs control.

Another thing, why don't we use Orim's Chant instead of Silence? Simply because of Leyline of Sanctity / Misdirection? Seems like it would be worth the trade off.



Sorry if that was poorly written but I just spent 10 hours on MTGO and my mind is fried.

[cogitoergosum]

This is probably a bad idea, but back to the conversation of what cards are available as mana sources/ rituals to prevent combo from fizzling, how about a singleton burnt offering or cabal ritual to keep the combo going?

[Acclimation]

Hey guys,
I just got done playing the deck on MTGO all night. I'm not a good player by any means, but I noticed a few things.
If I burn my ponder/brainstorms and fail to find combo, I feel like I just flounder for several turns while getting poked by goyfs and delvers.
Also, recovering from a Hymn or Thoughtseize, especially when they've also got counters for whatever they dont take, seems impossible.

That happens with any combo deck, or any deck period, which is why BUG is a strong deck. Just have to fight through it and recognize that sometimes you aren't the one getting to do your beats.

As others have said, Entomb seems like the weak part of the combo. Has Snapcaster been discussed as a backup entomb? Intuition kind of does the same thing, but Snapcaster might be more versatile and gives us a body to sac to Therapy.

Snapcaster was discussed a few pages back. Some people liked it, but I'm not sure if it got dropped from their lists. There is probably a really solid SCM build that we haven't made up yet, probably one that runs a higher land count so you can regularly reach 3-4 mana for SCM+spell.

Intuition I tried personally, and didn't like it. 3 mana is too much for this deck (or at least my build).

That is why we run Lim-Dul's Vault in the list, it helps us find Entomb or any other business spell, and is reliably castable in our deck.

Too often I find myself with Goryo's/Shallow in hand and I find Emrakul or Gris in a ponder/storm, but I don't have any Therapy/Thoughtseize so I just shuffle them back in. Has anyone tried Careful Studys with 3-4 Gris?

This is another thing people have tried in the past, and was discussed somewhat recently too. Some people liked how it played and set their lists up to be closer to a reanimator build. Personally, I don't like the CDA that Study brings, and running more than 2 Griselbrand doesn't sound ideal to me.

This deck seems super tough to tune because its half storm, half reanimator so it suffers from both kinds of sideboard hate, and the more you go for the reanimator plan (ie careful studies and more gris as mentioned) the worse the storm plan gets/higher chance of fizzling. But during Gris draws, Careful Study might be useful. Draw 2, discard 2 lands - so it potentially trades 2 things that are of no use for more petals/rituals or the entomb we need for Emrakul. We can toss Children with it and reanimate, but with the benefit of drawing 2 additional cards. I really don't see the discard 2 as a drawback mid-combo; it's a better enabler than brainstorm and ponder at that stage.

Throwing out some random ideas - sideboard spinning darkness versus aggro? up storm count for free essentially and can potentially heal to allow an additional 7 draw.

Moat seems like it might warrant a SB slot if it weren't for white being so sparse.

What about Isochron Scepter? Goryo's/Shallow Grave, or an entomb, silence, etc. on a stick seems good in drawn out games vs control.

Another thing, why don't we use Orim's Chant instead of Silence? Simply because of Leyline of Sanctity / Misdirection? Seems like it would be worth the trade off.

Going back to Careful Study, I've noticed that the times I need to dig more mid combo but can't draw 7 and have enough mana to cast a cantrip happen less than the games that I can't find the missing mana to continue going off.

For the sideboard ideas:

What aggro decks? We are faster than all of the Aggro decks in the format, and the cards we bring in against these decks are to fight off any sort of hate piece they bring in against combo decks, which can often be something that isn't a creature. Upping storm count isn't something that's necessary against these decks, since our combo provides enough storm to win (rit entomb shallow grave, swing with Griselbrand, petal rit rit tendrils=21 life loss/damage). Using it before combo is highly unlikely, and mid combo not terribly relevant, IMO.

Why Moat? With 8 fetches, we can make WW happen, but at 4 mana? What does Moat do for us, where do you want to bring it in?

Scepter is an interesting suggestion, but I feel that it's a slow one.

Orim's Chant targets, and Misdirection is a commonly played spell, on top of LLOS. We don't need to spend WW to prevent attacking, that's slowing us down.


Out of curiosity, what decks did you play against? What list were you playing? Since you admit to being a "not good player," then there are probably lots of small things that you are doing incorrectly that we can help you with. The deck isn't an easy one to play, but we can help you to be a better player.






@cogitoergosum

The problem I have with Burnt Offering is that it requires a creature on the field. Children does nothing to fuel this, and while Griselbrand will give us all of the mana, I feel that the card will be dead more often than not.

Cabal Ritual isn't a bad one, but the 2 cmc cost is rough.

I've always felt that my bottleneck mid combo was not drawing a Petal type effect to continue, and Cabal Ritual isn't easily cast in that situation.

I think a Snapcaster Mage build could get away with a singleton Culling the Weak though. Not sure what the most optimal build would be for that though.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I'm off and on with Snapcaster. I like him, but my list doesn't stay the same for long. I'm always testing different things. I can say to a solid conclusion that Snapcaster is very bad in any Tin Fins version that runs any Dazes. Discard and Silence effects only. The obvious problem is that it occasionally interferes with Shallow Grave's antics when it's in the graveyard. The deck can handle it, but you have to be a pretty good player and on your game to use him to his pinnacle best, and also not tank on any given game you forget about the bad synergies. Hard to do for 9+ rounds.

I play 2 Careful Study as I too personally think that the bottlenecking at Entomb is tough to stomach, and I'm somewhat unlucky. I like it, although sometimes its worse than a ponder. It doubles as a "shuffle effect" after a bad brainstorm. moves the top two to the yard. It's not ideal, but anything better won't be printed; just too broken.

Serenity is good. I guess in straight UB builds it would be more appropriate to use Hurkyl's Recall, but here I prefer the Serenity. Hits enchantments. Counterbalance and Rest in Peace. This is valuable in ways that Recall can't hold a candle to.

Vizari mentioned the aggro matchup, and Acclimation asked which aggro decks. My contribution to this would be: Merfolk. In my opinion, it's the premier legacy aggro deck. I realize that goblins is most people's first choice as "premier" aggro decks go, but I playtest against merfolk often and it's...rough. Between Cursecatcher, Daze, FoW, and Standstill it can really get you. That would be enough to go through, but then there's Wastelands and a fair amount of pressure. Massacre is worthless here as it's first off, not free here, and second, it's bad against a list of 10-14 lords. I'm not sure yet exactly what is the best way to win. I do know that boarding out 3 Probes for 3 Silence helps a lot. Paying any life in this matchup is a risk. Don't Thoughtseize unless you are going off, it hurts too much. Therapy on Force/Daze (it's a toss-up). Also, you can put in Needle if you want to name Cursecatcher. It's hit or miss, but can name Vial as well. I haven't boarded it in and hit it pre-combo, so I'm not sure it's worth it.

I don't think additional ritual effects are going to really do much. This deck is kind of like a lottery, and when you have it going it's good. Otherwise...well, you play it. You know.

-ABC