Are you seriously setting chalice at 1 often? You got 13 cards of conv. mana cost=1
99% I drop it immediatly at 0. The only exception is versus oath with a explosive hand.

Statistics also say that you got about 25% chance to have a ninja into your opening hand but no monkey and I find it kinda sad to bounce a 2mana cost creature to play the ninja. Bouncers are good but the lack of pression/draw engine make a lot of difference in most match up. Even against bomberman you just can't return most of them creatures because, actually, it's what they want.

You said others creatures had been tested. May you name them and say why they aren't in the actual list?

Hi,

I’m trying to  give a twist to ss and I think red is the perfect color, mainly cause we have access to REB and FTK. FTK help against aggro, which is the worst ss match-up. You version is interesting but I have a few questions:

1) Why don’t we run brainstorm? It could allows us to run a lighter mana base.

2) I really liked stifle, did you tested it?

3) I’m kinda disappointed by the creature base because I often draw 2 mox monkey or the bouncer is useless and don’t put enough pression. Did you tested some others creatures?

I’m still running cutpurse from the ss version and it’s very effective for the moment.

4) Why only 3 chalice? I really want to have it into my opening hand. With no brainstorm, you even can't dig on your first turn for it. Was it enough for you in playtests?

5) Does demonic tutor really worth it? I never really liked it in fish. The problem is that we don’t have enough bombs or silver bullets. In addition, in change nothing to the board and actually make us lose tempo. What’s your mind about this slot.

6) How were needle in side for you? I rarely side them in. In which match in do you side them in and what do you name?

7) Should we give at least one slot for echoing truth? Most fish deck actually run 2 of 'em for ETW.

Thanks in advance for the information.

You're right.

I contacted the creator of the deck on the french forum  last week but he could unfortunatly not help me because he don't test much last months.
The deck list linked was a great inspiration for the deck list I summited. We took the original list and made it more flexible and faster.

The bad side to be more agressive is that we lost the control the original list got. Both list are pretty good but for our metagames, we really to be the beatdown instead to try to control.

Sarah Angel
Fastbond is broken but will is even more.

Seal and mystical both find it but seal don't fit with mana drains.

I think advantages of the mystical over seal are also:
- it's blue, you can pitch it to fow, is also less hard on colors for the mana base
-you can find will with merchant scroll   scroll-)mystical -)will
-it's tech against bomberman, they combo, you mystical for BF, cycle wraith, braistorm, gush or whatever and kill them


Fastbonds help to combo but isn't necessary. In fact, we win about 50% of the time only with this. Most of the time, we try to combo without it and draw it with millions cards drawed, it makes things more easy, it's true, but isn't necesary.

The storm is almost never an issue due to different things.
First, in the ichorid match-up, a 10-storm BF is always enough to end game
Against others, you can BF, will BF or BF and play the second one. You can find it with multiples tutors (including scolls  )
The storm isn't an issue because you'll 95% of the time saw your crypt by the time you combo and all you need to do is to remove their grave after an BF. Most decks will immediatly scoop because their don't have any win conditions remaining, even if the BF isn't letal.

If they don't scoop, most of the time they have to change their gameplan, which slow then down and allow you to play a second, letal, BF.

And I have to say that if you play remand instead of drains, you can do BF, remand BF, Replay BF. Which is 99% enough to make a letal BF.

hvndr3d y34r h3x
Workshop almost non-exist around here so it's ok. For the oath match-up, you can let it trigger, crypt, replay BF. It's slower but oath don't usually win before turn 4 so you can setup your hand properly.

because:
1) when you combo with this deck, you are almost always over 10 storm anyway so isnt an issue
2) Running more black is bad with gush because with you play it and, in response, take your mana, you don't know what you'll draw and you have to plan if you combo, it just make random losts and now this problem is resolves.
3) You can pitch it to force/misdirection
4) You can do it on you if you are sure to resolve a letal will
5) Secret tech against bomberman, they go infinite, active spellbomb, BF in resp, GG
6) Is more playable due to being blue, BB of tendrils isn't hard to get but become a factor in the gameplan and you have now more simples playlines.
7) Mana cost is lower so risk of freezing are lower than tendrils because you're less dependant about your top deck who just won't give you what statictics said sometimes.
8) You can run more basic lands, I run only 2 because most people don't run wasteland here but you can easily play more.

Is it enough?

After multiples sessions of testing, we found that brain freeze was SO huge in this deck that we completly cutted tendrils for it.
The last version of test is:

Brain-a-gush v2.42

        4 street wraith
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Time Walk
        1 Mystical Tutor
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
        4 Gush
        3 Mana Drain
        3 Repeal
        2 Tormod's Crypt
        2 Brain Freeze
        4 Brainstorm
        4 Force of Will
        1 Mind's Desire
        1 Hurkyl's Recall
        1 Misdirection
        3 Merchant Scroll
        1 Fastbond
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Tolarian Academy
        3 Flooded Strand
        2 Polluted Delta
        2 Underground Sea
        2 Tropical Island
        2 Island

We are still not sure about drains. They come-in and out for duress or remand.
Tormod's crypt helps storm, kill ichorid (repeal on chalice) and end most matchs after a brain freeze if it's not enough to kill.

The worst match-up is definitly boberman, every single card they got annoy us. We need to win before cutpurse/confident resolve and drains help more than duress here. We are faster so grim long is a better match-up and tormods helps.

Massacre isn't enough for the boberman match-up, we're still looking for answers but none of us got any old man of sea.

We think about cutting wraiths for 2 lands and 2 thirst of knowledge, it could allows us to run 4 bob in side. It's now impossible because it really hurts too much.

That's about it for the moment.

Why do you board in tinker-colossus versus bomberman? I mean, it's just the worst thing you could do. They'll bounce it most of the time. Those trinket mage may also tutor EE, instead if we use ETW. The problem is that boberman is more and more played and with 4 duress/fow/confident/cutpurse, it sometimes play enough disrupt to stack us and we can't come back due to the cards disaverage. For the moment, the match-up is about 50/50 but I would want to increase it since this deck is played a lot here.

I'm also not sure about all those bounces in the side. 3 seems a lot and we could make place for those xantid swarm.

Why do you board in Hurkyl's Recall against control? They don't play tinker-colossus anymore... is it to combo faster? In this case, the bounce could be better main deck.

Actually, I run 2 Rebuild in my deck cause it allows to play more agressively and to don't care about dropping mox to play tutors even if I don't combo this turns. It's true that I also run intuition but that's just an idea.

I don't believe that we can increase the number of turns it takes to kill and add disrupts because most of the time, those disrupt aren't the good answer.

By exemple, ichorid is much, much faster and resiliant post FS and we got a lot of dead cards. We'll almost never see the fourth turn.
This is the problem I met with my intuition build, at first I was running mana drain because there's a lot of boberman man around here but it was slowing me too much. I shifted to duress, even if it force me to be the beatdown. We just can't sit there and give them 3 turn. If we play the control role, we'll lose.

I don't see why dark rituals aren't good with gush. It's a huge tempo boost before AND post yawgmoth's will. It's the only way I see how we could make the deck enough fast to compete in the ichorid/grim long match-up.

We could easily cut 1 Gifts Ungiven, 1 Misdirection and 1 Street Wraith to have a full set of ritual.

Anyway, gift is really random, 3 misdirection is really too much in the metagame and Street Wraith force sometimes mulligans because play lines becomes too complex and risky, depending of what we draw.

At this point, grim tutor become interesting to do the old tricks like grim -) will -) grim -) tendrils

We could cut 1 Merchant Scroll (we won't draw 2 anyway) and another Street Wraith to add 2 grim tutor.

Why I find misdirection bad here is that the threat's density of this deck is way more low than grim long. He try to play early bomb and need to protect them.
I'm not sure if we should go into a grim long variante with gush or change the disrupt base but something have to change and it needs to kill faster than it does actually.

I'm actually trying a gush deck too but I went into the intuition/dark ritual way.

I was just wondering why do you run this deck over grim long?
Basicly, you try to do the same thing with more disrupt (maybe too much in my point of view) and you slow you down by 2-3 turn if we compare with grim long.

What's your good and bad match-up?

I often find myself with a kick-ass hand and even if I draw a bilion cards, I just can't find a tutor or the lone tendril. Have you considered running more tendrils or empty the warrens (the red splash affect a lot the mana base but give red elemental blast in side and maybe recoup main deck)?

Why don't you play Xantid Swarm in your side board?

Your deck is interesting, a lot of good ideas, I'll try some of them in future testings.

I didn't thought about chalice of the void but that's true, I'll probably use it.

After playtests, I still feel unconfortable when I have both bazaar and zombie infestation in my opening and because I always hesite between which discard engine I'll use. I mean, dropping zombie is good but drawing will help me to find additionnals squee and lands. I still don't know if I have to go head and try to disrupt my opponent enough to beat him with zombie or if I have to draw like a beast to be able to creat more tokens later.

The 2cc cost make most of the decision hard to take. By exemple, if I open: dark confidant, bazaar, demonic tutor, fetch, zombie infestation, imperial seal and squee, this is a good hand but I don't know how to procede to maximaze the effects.
Play #1:  bazaar -) hope to find some others squee or life from the loam

Play #2 fetch for bayou (more green cards in the deck) -) imperial seal for mana ? for squee to accelerate the draw engine?

Play #3 fetch for bayou Go (hoping to draw mana)

From my playtests, I would say #2 for mana (black lotus)
Turn 2:
drop black lotus and bazaar, crack the lotus, tap bazaar, drop zombie + dark confidant (demonic could be an option but I almost never know what to search for).

Active the bazaar and pray to find something...

This play was easy but if I didn't have the lotus, I would probably choose to go for dark first, zombie on the next turn and demonic for squee? after.

I feel like a beginner to ask all those questions but I never played dredge deck and I still don't know if I have to play the role of the beater or the controller.

Thanks again for your help.

This deck seems pretty cool!

I think I'll try it to the next tournement on this week-end. May we could have some advices? Which one does Vroman and Team Ogre gave to you before the tourney?
I didn't play T1 since a while so I'm sorry if the following questions seems to be weird...

Choke seems to be a house against mana drain deck but I'm afraid to go into a drain and with a 3cc spell, it's almost game over.
Cabal Therapy isn't better than duress in this deck?

About the 61st card to cut, I think I'll cut Sundering Vitae but I'm still not sure.

Thank for the information