[Deck Discussion] Rector Tendrill's a good combo choice?

[bedafile]

Recently at a local T1 power tournament I designed a Rector Tendrills for my brother. For whatever reason he didn't fare to well with it but in playtesting I found it too be quite reliable winning (not goldfishing) by turn 3 at the latest but turn 2 wins backed up by Duress and Cabal Therapy were quite common. I'm concidering letting a friend borrow the deck for our next tournament in April but I want to work out some of the bugs and hammer out a better sideboard. The decklist as it stands is:

Back Up
3 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Force of Will

Draw
4 Brainstrom
4 Chromatic Shpere
1 Ancestral Recall

Tutor

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Lim Dul's Vault

Win

1 Yagmoth's Bargain
1 Yagmoth's Will
4 Academy Rector
2 Tendrill's of Agony

Mana

4 Glimmervoid
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Dark Ritual
6 SoLoMoxen (excluding Mox Ruby)
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal

Sb (3-28-03)

4 Xantid Swarm
4 Oxidize
4 Naturalize
3 Rack and Ruin

This deck is for a 5 proxy tournament, I have an Ancestral to spare but no other power. This deck proxies Black Lotus and 4 moxes w/o Ruby.

I switched to the 4 Force 4 Lim Dul's Vault without much direct playtesting and if there's a weak point it lies here.

Here are some changes I'm concidering making for next month.

-4 Lim Dul's Vault; +4 Impulse
Lim Dual Vault works great on turn 1 and ditching to a Force but that's about it. Impluse look's like it will be useful everytime I draw one.

or -4 Lim Dul's Vault; +1 Duress, +1 Wheel of Fortune, +1Windfall +1 Mystical Tutor
 
Same reason, Lim's Dul's Vault rocks on turn 1 and stinks after, Wheel and Windfall work great with Force's to back it up, but we all know that.

-4 Xantid Swamp; +4 Phyrexian Negator
Having Net Decked alot on Rector Tendrill's I see most SB run Negator, I assume for the Aggro option again's control since its easy to get a Negator out on turn 1. Is this the only matchup Negator come in against or is Negator as obsolete as Rector Tendrill's is?

Some other comments and questions:

I know a Time Walk would be useful but in the 5 proxy format another mox is better.

Any other sideboard comments from anyone? The deck fears Chalice, Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere, and Pyrostatic Pillar. The SB represents the hate of those cards.

Another other comments about some of the card choices, Chromatic Sphere, no draw 7's, Force and Duress, I'm curious what some people think.

And one last thing, why do people this combo is dead, it can win on turn 1 often enough and back up its win with discard and Forces?

Having just read some of Ric Flair's rant about lack of playtesting I realize I need to playtest some of these options but I would like to know what some people think. I might be missing the boat about card choices.
Thanks
John

[Shadow Ninja]

If your metagame is dominated by Dragon, which is arguably a better and more reliable combo than Rector Tendrils, then your friend may be in trouble.  Because Rector uses the graveyard, he becomes vulnerable to much of the same hate as Dragon.  Stifle can be annoying, too, since it can wreck the combo at several points and is also good against Dragon.

In short, if Dragon's around (which it should be), then Rector Tendrils probably just isn't safe enough.

[Necrologia]

The reason the deck rarely sees play anymore is Dragon.

Recently there was an overabundance of Dragon hate, to the point where Dragon was only marginally playable. Rector Trix, which is hit by the exact same hate, is much less resilant in the long run so it was hated into complete unplayability.

Dragon is simply the better deck assuming you have the cards to play either. Rector needs 3WB in order to combo out, and even then it can still stall from time to time. Dragon has a guarenteed win at 1B, and if it's stopped it can just try again or draw the game. Rector can't say the same.

[wuaffiliate]

also since type one has had a huge influx of control rector-tentrils quite suseptable to a large amount of random hate naturally run in control.

[jpmeyer]

The deck also has a "loss condition" against Mindslaver

[Shadow Ninja]

I think you could argue that all decks have loss conditions versus Mindslaver, it's just the Rector Tendrils has a weakness that is very easily exploitable, compared to decks like Dragon that can be messed up by Slaver but aren't usually in a position to auto lose.

[Squee]

In our metagame there is only one fully powered dragon player, but the problem is almost everyone comes with graveyard hate in the sideboard.  Tormods Crypt is played by many people around here as a 4-of and this hurts the deck consistently.  

The reason your brother didn't fare well is because his own lack of playtesting and goldfishing it.  He just didn't play it enough to know when to mulligan and when he could go off against certain deck with certain cards in his hand.  

About your sideboard.  It was fine for an unknown metagame but there are only 3 Workshop players who show up.  Having 11 cards in the board even to deal with this deck's worst matchup is a lot.  Xantid Swarm should stay because of the large amount of control present and Negator would kill you as myself and 2 other control players have access to multiple Fire/Ices.  


-Matt

[Wollblad]

I would have quite a bit to say about your deck in particular, but there are plenty of threads where this have already been discussed.

As for the deck as such, I think that it migh make a comback. Here in Sweden, dragon was very popular just a few month ago, but all hate have made it vanish almost completly and as a result the amount of graveyard hate has done the same. The second reason not to play Rector is that the deck has a bad matchup against Mud and Stax. But the players owning Workshops do now abandon those decks for Slavery and Affinity decks. Although you do have a 'lose condition' against Slavery, you are far faster than they are, at least Slavery (I cannot tell about Affinity because I havn't played it). Against most other decks you have a very good matchup, so I think we will se more Rector decks in a near future.

[Rico Suave]

If people stopped running graveyard hate in their SB, then you don't suddenly start playing Rector - you run Dragon.