The skill floor required vs both of these matchups is quite high. It also depends on the strength of hands kept by both players.
Inconclusive is the best estimate I would give.
West side
Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
Here's the list I've been championing for awhile now:
Instant (21)
4x Brainstorm
4x Dark Ritual
4x Entomb
3x Goryo's Vengeance
2x Lim-Dul's Vault
4x Shallow Grave
Land (14)
4x Marsh Flats
4x Polluted Delta
1x Scrubland
1x Swamp
1x Tundra
3x Underground Sea
Sorcery (17)
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Ponder
1x Reanimate
1x Tendrils of Agony
3x Thoughtseize
Creature (4)
1x Children of Korlis
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2x Griselbrand
Sideboard (14)
3x Chain of Vapor
2x Massacre
2x Pithing Needle
2x Serenity
3x Silence
2x Surgical Extraction
Artifact (5)
1x Chrome Mox
4x Lotus Petal
Sideboard (14)
3x Chain of Vapor
2x Massacre
2x Pithing Needle
2x Serenity
3x Silence
2x Surgical Extraction
No big changes, yes, the numbers are intentional.
As mentioned above, both match-ups are skill dependent and take either a good amount of practice or luck.
I personally feel pretty good against these decks, but I'm probably way too over confident with this deck. That being said, this deck isn't for the faint of heart.
Tinfins & Bizarro Stormy & Belcher & DDFT
@acclimation6 on twitter
Back to back t1 kills at SCG STL 2013:
https://youtu.be/kk3crCPsNLg
I'll be in Portland this weekend as well, running this if (when) I scrub out of standard and need to alleviate my rage. Maybe if I make enough bad decisions I'll run it in the open. Damn myself being so intrigued by this deck.
Also, pack rats in the sideboard because why not
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
Hi All,
I recently picked this deck back up after a while of playing Shardless BUG. Really, burn bothered me so I decided to play with lifelink again.
Anyway, picked up a build from a couple pages ago that I liked for the last week where I could hit stores unprepped. Deck performed well and it seems to make sense to me that the more people side REB for Show and Tell The better this deck seems to be. Of course the main reason it was good was the absence of those playing miracles.
Going to an SCG event this weekend and am bringing Tin Fins. Expecting a heavy representation of Miracles and BUG. Looking for insights.
I have readdressed to use the list above but am thinking twice about the tundra only because of the sideboard strategy.
I actually changed the fetches a little to
2 verdant catacombs
2 marsh flats
2 misty rainforest
and I am debating having
1 Bayou
3 Abrupt Decay
in the sideboard specifically for Miracles. It would replace the Serenity and Silence as I can't imagine siding in either. Well, Silence against Delver I guess.
Anyway, any insights or Strategy for the Counter-top Lock?
Also stunned a seasoned Tin Fins player who had put the deck down when he realized I played 2 Reanimates. Got grisel off of one of them.
So, playing against Counter Top is somewhat awkward from our perspective, but very doable.
Assuming Joe Lossett's list from this article back in April: (http://www.starcitygames.com/article...-Miracles.html)
They have 7 main board counterspells, the playset of counterbalance, and then a 1/1 split of reb/pyroblast, with 1 Snap and 1 Venser, and 2 Karakas, which is a lot of interaction.
My main goal in this game is to get a Griselbrand into the yard and just jam reanimation effects until one resolves. If you can resolve 1, then you can combo out and get Emrakul or Tendrils through that turn as well, or at least set yourself up the next turn to get in with Griselbrand again. We need to leverage discard hard against them, and I tend to bias hands with heavy disruption in this match-up.
In the sideboard, they have 1 Needle, 1 Relic, 2 RiP, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Pyro, 1 REB, and 1 Snare as likely cards to bring in against us, usually dropping the Terminus and JTMS to bring in 7 cards, usually Needle, Relic, RiP, Fluster, and Snare.
My sideboard plan has been:
-1 Reanimate -1 Goryo -1 Mox -4 Probe -1 Ponder
+3 Chain +2 Serenity +2 Needle
Chain of Vapor comes in, as it bounces all of those permanents and occasionally getting Counterbalance, Serenity wipes the board in those long games, and Needle names Karakas, Top, Relic, or even fetches as you see fit.
Reanimate comes out, since they have Swords and that makes it a waste of resources.
Mox is less necessary, since the game is likely to go long and we often need the cards we imprint.
Probe is almost always the first cut, since it's relatively low impact.
1 Ponder is a safe cut since we still have the full set of Brainstorms and the LDVs to handle our card selection needs.
Goryo gets cut as Shallow Grave is generally better. Now, we are going from 8 reanimation effects to 6, which makes the game 1 strat of bash reanimation spells until 1 resolves harder to do, but the counterhate we bring in allows us to play a more slow, controlling game.
For those keeping track, yes, I'm aware that we are taking out 8 and bringing 7. The list is 61/14, and there's some math reasons behind it, don't question it.
g2 and 3, we hit them hard with discard, and then make sure we can resolve our Griselbrands by utilizing hate cards.
It's a tough match-up, and a pretty big grind, but don't lose hope and give up. Stay calm, think straight, and just play tight, as well as hope that they don't draw well.
Serenity is a card that people tend to doubt. Don't. It's good- it does a lot of work, and is lifesaving if you play against the MUD decks in the jungle.
Silence is also great, it gives us an edge against opposing combo decks, as well as help against Delver.dec.
Tinfins & Bizarro Stormy & Belcher & DDFT
@acclimation6 on twitter
Back to back t1 kills at SCG STL 2013:
https://youtu.be/kk3crCPsNLg
I've been playing Tin Fins on and off for a little while now, and there are a lot of matchups I still don't quite know how to play. The biggest question I have is, how to we play against the other Griselbrand decks, namely S&S and Reanimator? It seems to me that they are almost as fast as we are, with the added benefit of permission and redundancy. Given that the lines will vary based on the game, in general do we outrace them? Go for post-board silver bullets?
Tinfins & Bizarro Stormy & Belcher & DDFT
@acclimation6 on twitter
Back to back t1 kills at SCG STL 2013:
https://youtu.be/kk3crCPsNLg
Lossett is different from lots of other miracle players in his choices. Most miracles will only run 1 Karakas even when playing 4+ legendaries. The Blast effects are the same way. It's pretty meta dependent on both these topics, but I think that you are way more likely to see multiple Karakas and md'ed blast effects mainly at large events such as gp's and opens unless you have some seriously large number of blue players at your local.
I love Serenity. Every time I play against my buddy who always runs mud, I break into song, "I need serenity" by Godsmack. It's better than Hurkyl's Recall by a large amount.My main goal in this game is to get a Griselbrand into the yard and just jam reanimation effects until one resolves. If you can resolve 1, then you can combo out and get Emrakul or Tendrils through that turn as well, or at least set yourself up the next turn to get in with Griselbrand again. We need to leverage discard hard against them, and I tend to bias hands with heavy disruption in this match-up.
In the sideboard, they have 1 Needle, 1 Relic, 2 RiP, 2 Flusterstorm, 1 Pyro, 1 REB, and 1 Snare as likely cards to bring in against us, usually dropping the Terminus and JTMS to bring in 7 cards, usually Needle, Relic, RiP, Fluster, and Snare.
My sideboard plan has been:
-1 Reanimate -1 Goryo -1 Mox -4 Probe -1 Ponder
+3 Chain +2 Serenity +2 Needle
Chain of Vapor comes in, as it bounces all of those permanents and occasionally getting Counterbalance, Serenity wipes the board in those long games, and Needle names Karakas, Top, Relic, or even fetches as you see fit.
Reanimate comes out, since they have Swords and that makes it a waste of resources.
Mox is less necessary, since the game is likely to go long and we often need the cards we imprint.
Probe is almost always the first cut, since it's relatively low impact.
1 Ponder is a safe cut since we still have the full set of Brainstorms and the LDVs to handle our card selection needs.
Goryo gets cut as Shallow Grave is generally better. Now, we are going from 8 reanimation effects to 6, which makes the game 1 strat of bash reanimation spells until 1 resolves harder to do, but the counterhate we bring in allows us to play a more slow, controlling game.
For those keeping track, yes, I'm aware that we are taking out 8 and bringing 7. The list is 61/14, and there's some math reasons behind it, don't question it.
g2 and 3, we hit them hard with discard, and then make sure we can resolve our Griselbrands by utilizing hate cards.
It's a tough match-up, and a pretty big grind, but don't lose hope and give up. Stay calm, think straight, and just play tight, as well as hope that they don't draw well.
Serenity is a card that people tend to doubt. Don't. It's good- it does a lot of work, and is lifesaving if you play against the MUD decks in the jungle.
I've had mixed Results here. Maybe I can try playing tighter with my discard to help the Silence resolve, but then it's kind of a moot point. I also need to do better at just playing around daze.Silence is also great, it gives us an edge against opposing combo decks, as well as help against Delver.dec.
Fair enough. I've found that a lot of the Miracles players around me tend to skew towards Lossett's builds.
As far as Silences, it takes some practice to get used to using them effectively, and usage is going to differ based on each situation. Either way, it is a must counter card, and coupled with Discard can make for a lot of space.
Tinfins & Bizarro Stormy & Belcher & DDFT
@acclimation6 on twitter
Back to back t1 kills at SCG STL 2013:
https://youtu.be/kk3crCPsNLg
Went 4-2 this weekend at a 46-man SCG IQ. Here's the list and a short report:
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Reanimate
3 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Children of Korlis
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtsieze
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
SB:
3 Massacre
3 Pithing Needle
3 Silence
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Serenity
1 Surgical Extraction
Round 1 - RUG
Game 1
I manage to get rid of 2x Pierce and a Force through discard/baiting, but he had me at 6 with a flipped Delver and Bolt in hand. I resolve Entomb into Shallow on his attack step, thinking I've at least got a chance. Then he taps 2 and Ices my Grizzlebees down. Touché sir.
Game 2
I mull to a shitty 5, and he gets two early Delvers. They don't flip for a few turns so I think I'm alright, but he does throw a few bolts at my face. Do or die time and I finally find a Shallow Grave, but it gets dazed and the Delvers finally flip. This guy doesn't play much Legacy and had to read Entomb, but sometimes RUG just plays itself I guess.
0-1
Round 2 - High Tide
Game 1
I probe on turn 1 and see Flusterstorm as his only counter. Therapy and he Brainstorms it away, but I find another discard spell and he uses the Flusterstorm on it. I smell blood in the water so I just go for it, win with Children into Tendrils
Game 2
I open a hand with Griz, Land, Therapy, Entomb, Shallow Grave, a couple Silences. I'm guessing he's on Surgical as his grave hate, and since I can't really play around it early, I decide to just draw/discard Grizzlebees so I'll still have Entomb in hand to grab Emrakul. He Flusterstorm's my first discard, and I think he forced the Shallow Grave, which was fine because I'd found a Goryo's. Then he does Merchant Scroll for Surgical to hit all of my Onion Bursts, but between that and two fetches he's at 16 and only has like 2 cards in hand. I Entomb/Goryo's and spaghetti gets all over his face and lands. A couple Brainstorms and a fetch find me Children + Petal for Silence and he scoops up his cards.
1-1
Round 3 - Jund
Game 1
He plays Flats and passes, then Forest and passes. I have no idea what he's on but based on his lands I don't think it's anything I care about, so I just Entomb on his end step and go for it on my turn. Swing with Griz + Emmy for the win, immediately realize I'm an idiot for not probing to see what the hell he's playing.
Game 2
Boarded a couple Chains and a Needle, then keep a sketchy hand with 3x Entomb and Griselbrand. He hits me with a Duress and Hymn but only gets 1 Entomb, but he did hit my other land. I draw a Chrome Mox and decide to play it Imprinting Entomb to make sure I've got 2 mana on the board. He's hitting me with a Goyf but it's only 3/4, and I finally find a Goryo's the turn before he gets a Deathrite. Entomb on his end step and go for it on my turn, Children + Tendrils for the win. Afterwards realized I should have used the Therapy in my hand for the Mox so that I could go for Emrakul.
2-1
Round 4 - 4c Stoneblade
Game 1
I keep a loose hand with only basic Island, but it's got Probe and Brainstorm and I think Ritual/Entomb. I believe he duressed me and took Goryo's on his turn, I probe him and see no counters so I Brainstorm, hit Petal and Shallow grave and go off. Win with natural Tendrils post-attack.
Game 2
I don't really know what he's on, but I saw Deathrite game 1 so I bring in Needles and Chains. He got an early RiP, I tried to hardcast Griz, but he Pierced my first Dark Rit then played Mage on Griselbrand and beat me down with SFM into Batterskull before I could find a Chain.
Game 3
After seeing Meddling Mage in the previous game, I swapped the needles for Massacres. I keep a hand of Petal, Ritual, Entomb, Thoughtseize, Therapy, Reanimate, something. Super risky, but that's the name of the game with TinFins right? I petal into Dark Rit and Thoughtseize, seeing a Force and a Jace, and I'm so excited that I snap choose Force, don't write any of the other cards down, and go straight to Entomb/Reanimate. I decide to then sit on 10 life with Griselbrand in play, which was a huge mistake because on his turn he rips Karakas and uses it to play Needle on Griselbrand. I respond by getting 7 cards, but Chain isn't one of them and it goes downhill from there. We go back and forth for a while - I cast Children and beat him to 8, he gets a Mage, wastes my Sea and Scrubland, gets a Deathrite, I massacre, he taps out for something and I get another Griselbrand swing in to put him at 1, but he finds another Mage for Tendrils, another Deathrite, and never taps the Karakas again and I lose in turns. I really should have taken the Jace, then drawn 7 immediately to try to nab that Needle with Therapy. Just got way too excited and punted
2-2
Round 5 - AnT
Game 1
We both know what each other are on. He wins the roll, Preordains, and keeps both, so I Thoughtseize him on my turn rather than going for Entomb right away, but all I see is lands, Petal, Cabal Rit, and LED. Luckily he doesn't go off, I Entomb, he Duresses and sees I've got two Shallow Graves and a Brainstorm, so he takes the Brainstorm and blows the rest of his hand so he can tutor up a Cabal Rit and take the Graves. Then I topdeck Goryo's like a champ and win.
Game 2
He Pondered on Turn 1 and kept, so on my turn I fetched for Scrub into Children to shut off Tendrils, and play Chrome mox with Goryo's to Therapy myself and put Griz in the yard. He has the therapy for my Shallow Grave, but I get another off the top (I think I played another land and Brainstormed into it, don't remember). With Children already in play the win is super easy. He had Grim Tutor and Dark Rit, apparently thought of burning them to get a Surgical, which probably would have been better, but would have set him back pretty bad too.
3-2
Round 6 - Sneak/Show
Game 1
This guy was next to me in the previous round, so I remembered what he was on, but apparently he didn't pay much attention to my side. I keep a hand with most of the combo but no land, just Petal, Brainstorm. Brainstorm hits Sea and the piece I'm missing, and I go off on turn 1. Apparently I had some kind of protection too because I have his hand written down.
Game 2
I Thoughtseize and see he's got Force, Swan Song, Sneak Attack, Breach, and land, but no creatures, so I take his Swan Song so I can Petal -> Entomb. He plays the Sneak, but before I can find a reanimation spell he Intuitions for 3x Grizzlebees. Draws 14, can't find Emrakul so he hits me for 7 and passes. I still don't find a reanimation spell and he manages to cantrip into Emrakul on his turn.
Game 3
I decide to play it safe and open with discard. I think I ran him out of counters with a couple Therapies and a Probe and go off. He couldn't find his Grafdigger's, but I had the Chain in hand anyway.
4-2, top 16, Playmat acquired.
Overall I was pretty happy. Only one clear punt with a combo deck is pretty low by my standards. More importantly, the meta mostly felt really soft to the deck, except for the one Stoneblade deck. Most matchups felt like they only needed one or two kinds of reactive cards, which slotted nicely into the Probe spots. I think if I'd practiced more and kept myself in check better, I could have ended up in top 8, but my wife's plane landed 5 minutes after I got my prize so it was all good.
I also have to give props to this thing:
http://www.wipebook.com/products/wipebook-mini
I think almost every opponent plus a couple passers-by asked about it, and it really was sweet. Took notes for 6 rounds, just typed up this report and then erased all the pages with a damp tissue. I should contact these people and try to get some bulk deal going so I can resell them at big events. Shame about the name though.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
I put This back together recently. This deck is absurd fun! I went and played last night.
Round 1
some sort of MUD deck using Goblin Welder
Took game 1 then sided in 2 serenity as well as other cards.
Game 2 was a turn 1 serenity off of a lotus petal and a turn 2 kill
Round 2
Ad Nauseam
I did not see my pieces for a while so he may have thought it was the mirror match at first. It took him a while to kill me and he had to play around a shallow grave on a children halfway through the tendrils. He did manage.
I sided in a few cards but they didn't matter because game 2 I played loose and killed him turn 1.
Game 3 we both keep. He is on the play. Git Probes me and starts to panic. Tendrils was in his hand. Thoughseize Surgical was in mine. I win the game for the cost of 4 life.
Round 3
junk Hatebears maybe?/Aggro Loam?
I probe and see a scavenging ooze and a swords to plowshares and 4 lands (he had a fetch down). I cabal therapy the ooze (because I am still short on pieces). Anyway, I ended up dying to creatures including Gaddock Teeg.
Game 2 I sided in massacre and out Git Probes. I think I had to play massacre around teeg also. I just couldn't get there on that one though. He had deathrite, ooze, enough mana...
Then I had to drop and go have dinner with the wife...
I guess my question would be in regards to the 61/14 split and whether it could lend itself to a perish out of the board for Teeg, but more for Ooze and Deathrite especially.
Of coarse I can try anything, but am interested to hear insight from other players on the merits of Perish.
I usually find Chain of Vapor to do just fine against both DRS, Ooze, and Teeg. Likely, you will need both Massacre and Chains, and the latter takes care of all the hatebears when you have an early kill that is otherwise stopped by one such bear. Perish costing 3 mana is a lot compared to Chain's 1.
West side
Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
Teeg is also less of a concern for us than Thalia or even Deathrite. He does nothing to stop you from getting Grizzlebees in play, at which point you should either be able to win with Emrakul or draw into a Chain if you really need to go for Tendrils.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Point well taken.
Thalia is definitely more of a problem than Teeg.
Teeg only stops Massacre.
Perish doesn't hit Thalia.
Rock beats scissors, scissors cuts paper...
And I just learned I should have brought in Chains.
Thank you,
(I likely could have mulled as well)
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
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