T1 Awesome Sauce--extreme budget tendrils

[EnialisLiadon]

Combo's insane broken-ness draws me towards it, but I currently lack the funds to purchase the cards that essentially make it function:  power.  So I, with the help of some friends, have been working on a ritual-based tendrils combo deck that could be built relatively easily while still being effective for the cost.

We demanded consistent turn 2 and 3 kills, and that standard wore us into the ground.  I tried damn near everything...budget meandeath, budget SX, easter tendrils, budget doomsday (brainstorm/gush stack), Rector Tendrils, Rector Trix...I think I even tried bringing ReapLace back from the dead.  So instead of setting out to build a deck with a "gimmick," I figured I'd try to make a generic deck that just plays 9 spells in turn and kills with tendrils with a little protection in for good measure.  And after weeks of toil, I give you...

T1 Awesome Sauce
//Mana--30
1x Chrome Mox
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Mox Diamond
1x Sol Ring
3x Cabal Ritual
4x Dark Ritual
1x Crop Rotation
3x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Land Grant
2x Bayou
3x Gemstone Mine
1x Tolarian Academy
2x Tropical Island

//Protection--8
3x Defense Grid
3x Duress
2x Chain of Vapor

//Win--3
1x Darksteel Colossus
2x Tendrils of Agony

//Search and Draw--15
1x Memory Jar
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
4x Brainstorm
1x Frantic Search
2x Meditate
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Tinker
1x Windfall
1x Wheel Fortune

//Broken--4
1x Necropotence
1x Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
1x Mind’s Desire

Stripped down to the bare essentials; mana, card drawing and tendrils (with DSC alt kill for back-up).

Not as obv card-by-card analysis...
Chromatic Sphere:  Fixes mana, cantrips and sometimes draws into what you Mystical'd/Vamp'd for.

Cabal Ritual:  Dark Ritual's bastard son.  Still a net gain of 1, but threshold isn't too difficult to reach.

ESG:  It's free mana, and helps power out Chromatics and Cabals

Land Grant:  I <3 meandeck for coming up with the Land Grant manabase (SX was the first to use it, right?).  It gives me an excuse to use Mox DIamond, lowers my land count, increases my storm count and it generally all-around awesome.  Play can get tricky when the control player across the table knows what's in your hand, but the plethora of benefits offset that.

Protection slots:  these came down to personal preference.  Some want Xantid Swarm in maindeck, others want FoW.  I like Grid, so I use that.  FoW kills threat density and I run few blue cards as it is.

Darksteel Colossus:  Most combo decks sideboard the big guy if they use him at all.  But this deck fizzles a little more than it's powered predecessors (it's budget; give it a break), so the alt kill condition is welcome.  Also, the deck sometimes capable of turn 1-2 DSC, which is nifty.

Meditate:  I don't have recall or twister.  This doesn't replace them, but it does get the job done.  Generally has no drawback as you're winning the turn you cast it.  Four cards for three mana is super.

That should be about it; the rest should be pretty obvious.  The deck goldfishes mostly at turn 3 with a fair smattering of turn 2's.  I've killed on turn 1 one with the deck, and it was beautiful.  Needless to say, those hands don't come up too often.  Now, as a budget deck, how can this be improved?

[MrZuccinniHead]

would it be really hard to include time spiral over windfall in a deck with academy and numerous mana-fixers?

This deck reminds me of a half-way point between a deck like SX and a standard tendrils deck.

[BigMac]

If i look at the list it resembles SX a lot. But as it is budget it lacks some of the cards for that to work properly. However i think you could implement a lot of the SX cards instead of some cards you are playing.

Defense grid as defence sounds nice but when you are comboing and you draw into a defence grid that is not so good. So lose the 3 defense grid and at least put back 1 Duress. (2 slots open now)

Myself i am not overly fond of demonic consultation. (personal call but 3 slots open)

The windfall could be nice but i think is a bit slow and needs to many ifs. (if opponent has no cards or has a fast start it becomes virtually worthless) (4 slots open)

Mystical can look for stuff but is a bit reaction like, except when playing in your upkeep which means you allready lose at least 1 blue. As it is you dont have to much mana (coloured mana anyways) so to slow to my liking. (5 slots open)

If you like meditate to playin your own turn, why not play nights whisper. It only costs black and 1, is a sorcery but you were planning to play it in your own turn anyways. (lose 2 meditate and add 4 nights whisper(3 slots open))

As you have 3 slots open now i would suggest to take a loot at darkwater egg. This card gives you black and blue and also draws a card. The end it is your call if you go for defence or offence. So either take the defence grid or put those in the sideboard and play this one instead.

Good luck and i hope this helps.

[NWI Team_Zilla]

What have you tested this against?  Because I get a feeling that though it may have pretty god matchups against budget aggro decks and fish, I imagine it has a real problem with more control-ish decks such a Chalice Stax, Control Slaver, and the Gifts decks.  If you can afford them, I think that you should include FoW's as part of your protection strategy.  The one problem I see with putting the FoW's in is that you may not have enough blue cards that you would be confortable removing to it. And I also believe that you should have the 4th Duress in the MD, I think that duress is a cards that you want to see in your opening hand pretty consistently, and if you cant afford FoW's, or you simply don't want them I would suggest adding a few unmasks to the deck.

maybe do something like this:
-1 Memory Jar, seeing as your deck is unpowered, I find it hard to believe that you can really use this card effectively, even if you can cast it, it is unlikely that you can bust it the same turn and be able to play anything out of the new hand, and if you wait a turn to bust it, it gives your opponent time to destroy it or try to abuse it more when you bust it.
-1 Chain of Vapor, Since we would be adding FoW's in it's place, I imagine that you will probally just count any threat that you would have bounced with the chain.
-3 Defense Grid, If you are now adding counters, it may be better if your were able to stop your opponent from comboing out or casting a a possible game stopping threat against you during their turn.  Also, its costs 2 mana for a card that doesn't speed out your combo any faster, and it can be close to dead in a few matchups, such as Chalice Stax.

+4 Force of Will
+1 Duress

alt(if not FoW)
-1 Memory Jar
-3 Defense Grid

+1 Duress
+2 Unmask
+1 Chain of Vapor or Echoing Truth or Hurkyl's Recall

Just a few suggestions.

[EnialisLiadon]

I test this on whatever people play against me in the #Apprentice channel on mIRC (MWS doesn't work on my comp); lots of fish, stax, sligh, madness and multi-colored control.  Aggro and most aggro-control is a good match-up, but control is tough.  I win about the same amount that I lose, probably because they're using powered decks and I'm not.

I want to get FoW's in here; and once I get them, they'll be going in.  I am debating whether they should be a 4-of, or a 3-of.  Memory Jar is staying; it's largely a Tinker target that is golden when I want to combo off.

Windfall and Consult will also stay.

In light of the suggestions given, I have made these changes from the original deck...
+1 Elvish Spirit Guide
+1 Gemstone Mine
+1 Wooded Foothills
+1 Duress
+4 FoW

-1 Bayou
-1 Tropical Island
-3 Defense Grid
-1 Chain of Vapor
-2 Meditate

The current list is as such...

T1 Awesome Sauce
//Mana--30
1x Chrome Mox
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Mox Diamond
1x Sol Ring
2x Cabal Ritual
4x Dark Ritual
1x Crop Rotation
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Land Grant
1x Bayou
4x Gemstone Mine
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Tropical Island
1x Wooded Foothills

//Protection--8
3x Duress
1x Chain of Vapor
4x Force of Will

//Win--3
1x Darksteel Colossus
2x Tendrils of Agony

//Search and Draw--19
1x Memory Jar
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Necropotence
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1x Yawgmoth’s Will
4x Brainstorm
1x Frantic Search
2x Meditate
1x Mind’s Desire
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Tinker
1x Windfall
1x Wheel of Fortune

EDIT:  List updated yet again.

[Revvik]

You run 14 blue spells and four of them are the Force of Wills themselves.  Do you think you can afford to be utilizing Force of Will with such a low count?

[EnialisLiadon]

Depending on what I'm up against, I usualy mull into a hand with a Duress or a Force of Will.  At times, it can be tough to get something I don't mind pitching.  The only thing I can think of to raise to blue count would be to add in the Meditates, but I don't think that would be a strong use of valuable card slots.  Do you have any suggestiosn on how to raise the blue count without sacrificing efficiency?

In other news, some changes have been made to the mana-base.  -1 Gemstone Mine, -1 Wooded Foothills, -1 Duress, +2 City of Brass, +1 Regrowth.

[Nazdakka]

A couple of old threads you might find interesting:

Easter Tendrils
Easter Tendrils - new thread

I'd say the best versions of that deck that we developed could get pretty consistant turn 2-3 kills. By transplanting some tech from Tendrils SX (most importantly Land Grant) I reckon we could improve a little on goldfish rate. Below are the outcomes of 15 goldfish runs with a year-old build.

Turn 1:
Turn 2: PPDDP
Turn 3: PPPD
Turn 4: DD
Fizzle:   DPPD

(Fizzle is classified as either a kill after turn 4 or the deck self-destructing for some reason.)

(Notes on my build: Plays a bit like Long, the usual winning play is Death Wish -> Yawgmoth's Will, no Tinker in MD or SB, MD disruption is limited to 3 Xantid Swarms. The Swarms should probably be replaced by Duress. I'll edit the list into this post if people are interested)

[McBain]

i run a deck just like yours, right now im tinkering with budget deathlong and other builds like yours currently i run almost identical decks. however i have a timetwister which i add in, sometimes subin out wheel of fortune because sometimes getting a red source in the middle of comboing sometimes can be tricky. or i sometimes run 3 FOW instead of 4. i find 4 is sometimes to much and i draw myself dead because of them, however they protect the DSC.
also citys are a good option for mana.

[EnialisLiadon]

I do want to get the Meditates back in, though.  And you are all right about the FoW count; but with the Meditates going in, do you think 16 will be enough for four? 

-1 Cabal Ritual
-1 Duress
+2 Meditate