[Theoretical]Flaming Tendrils

[Darkenslight]

This is a purely theoretical Balls-to-the-wall B/R combo deck utilising Past In Flames as an alternative Storm combo-enabler.  This is a basic version of the deck which I'm hoping that, with tweaks, will become competitive.

MANA: 37

4 LED (3 too many)
4 Manamorphose
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Chrome Mox
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Black Lotus
Mox Jet
Mox Ruby
Mana Vault
Sol Ring

DRAW/UTILITY: 19

4 Sign In Blood 4 Night's Whisper
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Past in Flames
4 Gitaxian Probe
Demonic Tutor
Yawgmoth's Will
Wheel of Fortune
Imperial Seal/Necropotence

WIN: 6
Empty the Warrens
2 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony

Note that there are three main avenues to victory: Chaining Rituals for Storm, Belch for the deck or Goblinning.  This version will probably be inconsistent to begin with.  I would prefer not to include Blue for now, to test the "pure" R/B version as compared to the usual Tendrils deck.  I'm not sure on whether to include the off-colour Jewellery.

Thoughts/critiques are, as always, appreciated.

EDIT: changes made due to me not paying attention to the BR list.

[meadbert]

Was LED unrestricted?  If so Dredge is now broken.

[Delha]

LED is restricted.

[madmanmike25]

Aside for the whole 4 LED issue....why would you chose the harder to cast Sign in Blood over Nights Whisper?

[Darkenslight]

Aside for the whole 4 LED issue....why would you chose the harder to cast Sign in Blood over Nights Whisper?

Delha: Derf, I should pay more attention to the B/R list.

madmanmike: I'd completely forgotten about Night's Whisper.  So, prospecitve changes:

-4 Sign in Blood
+4 Night's Whisper
-3 LED
+1 Mana Crypt
+1 Sol Ring
+1 Iseal/Necro

I'll edit the opening post with a Strike

[President Skroob]

Go for broke and rock the Infernal Contract.

Straight. Glory.

As a side note, in a deck like this with a large amount of redundancy, Demonic Consultation can be extremely powerful.

[Darkenslight]

Go for broke and rock the Infernal Contract.

Straight. Glory.

As a side note, in a deck like this with a large amount of redundancy, Demonic Consultation can be extremely powerful.

See, I like the Consultation, but I wasn't 100% sold on it.  And Infernal Contract seems like a possibility, but it's BBB in a deck which will have tight mana considerations (lacking the U foir Tinker, Walk, Recall, etc).  Still, I'm willing to test it if others are.

[serracollector]

I know you want to keep blue out, but a gifts for Y will, Flames, Ritual, Ritual, (rite, seething song, w/e), is usually gg.

Also I think I would play 1 ad nauseum over necro in this deck.  If your going ftw, go for it now etc.

I like the idea tho.

[Delha]

I know you want to keep blue out, but a gifts for Y will, Flames, Ritual, Ritual, (rite, seething song, w/e), is usually gg.

And how often do you expect to have blue for Gifts? Chrome Mox is very often going to be your initial source of black, but with only a spattering of blue cards, that won't work.

[honestabe]

I agree.  Infernal contract like you read about

[Darkenslight]

Right, from my initial goldfishing, there are three things of major note:

1) The only cards that should cost more than 2 are the Wincons, Past in Flames and YWill;

2) 37 mana-generators is too many, but 35 is too few to get a chain going;

3) The fizzle percentage is in the 30% range (I count a fizzle as any hand that has to wait past Turn 3 (turn 2 on the draw) UNLESS it sets up a kill the next turn.  Double going-off small works quite well, too.

Given that, here's the proposed changes:

-1 Cabal Ritual
-1 Desperate Ritual
-1 Necropotence
+1 Infernal Contract
+1 Imperial Seal
+1 Vampiric Tutor

Edit: a few sample hands:

Starting hand: Chrome Mox, 2*Gitaxian Probe, Simian Spirit Guide, Rite of Flame, Desperate Ritual, Manamorphose.

Chrome Mox (exiling SSG), Gitaxian Probe (Manamorphose), Gitaxian Probe (Rite of Flame), Tap Mox for R, Rite of Flame (RR), Desperate Ritual (RRR), Rite of Flame (RRRRR), Manamorphose (Y.Will), Manamorphose (Tendrils - RRRBB), Y.Will, Rite, Manamorphose (DT), (RRRBB) Tendrils.

Starting hand: Manamorphose, 3 Dark Rit, Infernal Tutor, Tendrils, Night's Whisper > mull to Mox Jet, Infernal Contract, 2 Infernal Tutor, Y.Wil, Manamorphose.

Draw Empty the Warrens, play Mox Jet.  Draw Manamorphose. Draw Night's Whisper (fizzle).

Starting hand: SSG, Chrome Mox, Past in Flames, Manamorphose, Cabal Ritual, Vampiric Tutor, Mox Jet.

Mox (SSG), Jet, Manamorphose (Manamorphose), Manamorphose (Past in Flames), Cabal Ritual, VT (Lotus).  Draw Lotus, play it.  Draw Past in Flames (fizzle).

[Darkenslight]

A quick update concerning this deck:

After around a hundred games with it, I'm considering dropping the Night's Whisper for Street Wraith, as the mana cost has been the largest problem for minimal gain.  The main disadvantage to wraith is it's not PiFable, but It's something I need to consider.

ETA: street Wraith are out.  Period.  I've been having games where I combo'ed out Turn 1 and won on 3 life.  OTOH, Black decks should NOT get this kind of card draw.

[nineisnoone]

since you are pure combo and your combo is with the GY, i'm sure entomb deserves a spot here.

[Stormanimagus]

What the heck does this deck do against even 1 Sphere of Resistance? Without a way to deal with the many ways your opponent will attempt to stop you from executing your plan A you are sunk. This deck is not even worth looking at if it can't answer turn 1 Sphere in a meaningful way. What about targeted discard? Is there a true draw ENGINE in the deck? Tutors are not draw engines. If someone simply duresses out your infernal tutor you are sunk. They will be gaining card advantage and advancing their game plan while you are stuck waiting for a tutor with a bunch of mana in your hand.

I hope you see my feedback as constructive criticism and not a slam. I just want folks to really consider what they will be facing at an event when designing a deck list and clearly you did not in this case.

-Storm

[Darkenslight]

What the heck does this deck do against even 1 Sphere of Resistance? Without a way to deal with the many ways your opponent will attempt to stop you from executing your plan A you are sunk. This deck is not even worth looking at if it can't answer turn 1 Sphere in a meaningful way. What about targeted discard? Is there a true draw ENGINE in the deck? Tutors are not draw engines. If someone simply duresses out your infernal tutor you are sunk. They will be gaining card advantage and advancing their game plan while you are stuck waiting for a tutor with a bunch of mana in your hand.

I hope you see my feedback as constructive criticism and not a slam. I just want folks to really consider what they will be facing at an event when designing a deck list and clearly you did not in this case.

-Storm

I absolutely understand where you're coming from: however, in testing they actually have to Duress your Manamorphoses, else I can just outdraw them into the other pieces I need.  Spheres are an issue though.  I was thinking of adding in some Shattering Sprees and Ingot Chewers in the board, which I've tentatively decided is:

4 Ingot Chewer
4 Shattering Spree
4 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Mindbreak/Ravenous Trap

since you are pure combo and your combo is with the GY, i'm sure entomb deserves a spot here.

It's a maybe.  One thing I am sure of, though, is that a second Infernal Contract is going in.

[Stormanimagus]

I absolutely understand where you're coming from: however, in testing they actually have to Duress your Manamorphoses, else I can just outdraw them into the other pieces I need. 

Ah. What?! No, you are incorrect. Sorry.

Here's how a typical game vs. Gush will go even if you are on the play.

Turn 1: You do nothing relevant (at best you play a probe or 2 permanent mana sources and a manamorphose)
Their turn 1: Island, Preordain (or hold up for Spell Pierce or Flusterstorm)
Turn 2: You attempt to play anything relevant and they either Pierce, FoW or Flusterstorm
Their turn 2: Get Gush going. Overwhelm you with card advantage. Tutor for something nasty.
Turn 3: You draw a mana source when you needed 1 of 4 tutors to even have a chance of "going off."
Their Turn 3: They play said nasty thing and either win on the spot or protect a win for next turn.

Typical game vs. Shops.

Turn 1: Again, you really have few ways to reliably win on turn 1 so you are doing hand sculpting here
Their turn 1: Sphere, Lodestone, Thorn, Chalice @0 or 1. All of these plays wreck you proactively so we may as well just stop here.

Typical game vs. Fish.

Turn 1: Nothing relevant
Their Turn 1: Noble Hierarch
Turn 2: Try to go off, They Daze or Misstep or Force something important.
Their Turn 2: Play a 2-drop while still being able to misstep or Force
Turn 3: At this point you are rebuilding and draw, guess what? NOT one of your 4 Infernal Tutors or LEDs to compliment the Tutors
Their turn 3: Drop a Selkie or some such.

You see where I'm going with this. You have an abysmal match-up vs. practically everything in the field because you CAN'T interact. I don't care what your "testing" has told you. If you have even a 40% win then you are testing against junk and not real Vintage decks. Any real Vintage deck piloted by a competent pilot will have about a 80-90% win vs. this pile. You have 0 land or ways to tutor for land so you are relying on spells that can be disrupted for the life blood of your deck.

The concept of this deck is flawed (trust me, I've tried similar decks in the past). You are trying to win as fast as you can, but the disruption out there will make it so you can never win. If you choose to add your own disruption you dilute the combo part and now you don't do that part well. Conclusion? Go back to the drawing board and try a different shell to abuse Past in Flames. Brian Demars made an interesting Past in Flames TPS deck that runs just 1 Past in Flames as a sort of "extra" Yawg. Will, but the deck doesn't sacrifice interactivity to include Past + Support cards.

You need to understand this concept of forced interactivity as the backbone of Vintage and accept it to be true before we can even have an intelligent debate about deck ideas. Every deck in Vintage has a plan it is trying to execute and it is trying to stop your plan from turn 0 (1 at the latest)! Do you really expect to dodge any sort of interactive turn 1 cards when all good decks run at least 8-10 MD cards that can interact on turn 1? By turn 2 most of the disruption in their deck is online. You have said your deck doesn't goldfish until turn 2. So. . . common sense would say that you'll have a 0% win vs. the field unless you can interact to protect your win.

-Storm

[Darkenslight]

Storm: Thank you for that.  May I ask, then, what you would suggest I change in order to make this remotely viable, in your opinion?  Remember, not all wins will involve Storming out and Tendrils'ing for 26.  I've seen wins by Belching for my library.  It's the main reason I have a non-Storm wincon.