Tendrils of Darkness, part 2

[the phoenix]

Jason-Mox's original post introduced Tendrils of Darkness, and then the thread split up with different people (myself included) each taking the deck in different directions. In this thread, I hope to determine which direction is best. The first thread can be found here:

http://www.themanadrain.com/cgi-bin....;t=8385

If constructed accordingly, ToD can consistantly goldfish turn 2, but such a configuration is weak against control since it packs more mana accelerators and less disruption than the original build. In a purely aggro metagame, however, this would obviously be the best build. Conversly, the deck can be made to do extremely well against control by packing loads of disruption. However, this slows the deck down and makes it more vulnerable to fast aggro strategies. The goal, therefore, is to determine where to draw the line between speed and disruption.

Additional things to consider are the number of colours it runs, ie its resiliance to non-basic hate, as well as whether or not to include the Rector and/or Hurkyl's Recall engines into the deck. For reference, here is my current decklist:

spells (31)
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
1x Timetwister
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Windfall
1x Time Spiral

1x Necropotence
1x Yawgmoth's Bargain
2x Tendrils of Agony
4x Duress
1x Vampiric Tutor
4x Cabal Therapy
1x Yawgmoth's Will

1x Wheel of Fortune
4x Burning Wish

1x Regrowth

4x Academy Rector

1x Memory Jar

mana (29)
1x Lotus Petal
4x Dark Ritual
1x Cabal Ritual
1x Mana Vault
1x Grim Monolith
1x Sol Ring
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Pearl
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Underground Sea
1x Badlands
4x Gemstone Mine
4x City of Brass
3x Undiscovered Paradise

SB:
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Mind’s Desire
1x Vindicate
1x Words of Worship
3x Defense Grid
3x Hurkyl’s Recall
1x Form of the Dragon
1x Innocent Blood
2x undecided

A few card explanations:

- Burning Wish: The deck was already running all non-basics (even though it was only b/u/w, it only ran 14 lands), so I figured that, if I'm going to run a shaky mana base, I might as well make full use of it. Burning wish allows me to get Demonic Tutor (the most common target) to set up a kill next turn. Not only can it also get toolbox spells such as Vindicate and Innocent Blood, but it significantly increases the chances of me drawing business spells, instead of a hand full of just disruption and mana acceleration (a problem which I originally had with the deck).

- Lotus Petal: I ran this instead of a 3rd Cabal Ritual or Mana Crypt because it sacs and comes back with Will and produces coloured mana. Sometimes I'll find myself with a Cabal Ritual in hand but not that extra coloured mana to cast my Rector or draw-7. As for Crypt, not only does it not sac and come with Will, but it is quite brutal in control matches which can become quite drawn out.

- Mind's Desire: Right not it's in the SB, but I'm thinking of even cutting it from that. MD it was hard to cast because, unlike Bargain, I cannot Ritual it out, and often I'd only reveal mana acceleration and/or disuption, but not business cards. I also usually had something better to do, if I had that much mana open. Therefore, I moved it to the SB, but there it has been totally useless, so I will probably cut it outright.

- Hurkyl's Recall: Mainly against stax, and it has good synnergy with the rest of the deck. Would Rebuild be better? Possibly...

- Form of the Dragon: This is gold against sui and other random aggro since they have absolutely no answer for it. Obviously it is supposed to be fetched with Rector, not hardcast.

I think the rest is pretty self-explanatory. A brief run-down of the match-ups:

- Sligh: Very favourable. They pack hardly any disruption, and you goldfish quicker than them. Shaman is not much of a problem since you try to hold all your artifact mana in your hand until you go off, anyways.

- Sui: Can be tough surviving all of their disrupion, but FotD trully is the silver bullet here.

- RectorTrix: Comes a lot down to luck. Both decks can have "I win" draws. Where they run FoW, you run Burning Wish. Again, very luck dependant.

- Keeper: It's quite hard for them to stop all your threats. With the right hand, however, they can become proactive and screw up your game plan with Twist, a Balance, or other brokenness. Still, it's at least even, if not in your favour.

- Phid: Although they can't become proactive as easily as keeper, they do pack more counters. At least even, if not in your favour. Also, you obviously do better against builds without StP.

- Hulk: Where phid runs more counters and keeper runs broken proactive spells, hulk runs Tog, which is the least effective of the three against ToD. However, a quick Tog can put a stop to your Bargain/Necro engine.

- TnT, stacker: Builds of these decks vary. If they cast a Blood Moon or Pyrostatic Pillar then you're in trouble but, other then that, you goldfish much sooner then them. Form of the Dragon sometimes comes in against stacker, depending on how much burn they run, or TnT if they don't run Wonder.

- other combo: You're just as fast and you pack more disruption than them.

untested: Mask and Stax.

From my experience, this deck wins in three ways most of the time, via Necro/Bargain, via Will, or via draw-7s. The first is pretty straight forward, cast a quick Necro or Bargain (or a quick Rector and sac it), draw lots of cards, play lots of spells, and cast Tendrils (twice if need be, the first time to refuel on life).

The second route to victory revolves around Yawgmoth's Will. Basically you cast mana acceleration, Wish for Tutor (if you can), Tutor for Lotus or Yawgmoth's Will (whichever isn't in your hand), cast Will, recast your mana acceleration (including Lotus), recast Tutor for Tendrils, and finally Tendrils for the kill. Obviously, depending on which "combo pieces" you have in hand, you will tutor for different targets, but the principal remains the same.

The third and least used route revolves around draw-7s. Basically you cast some mana acceleration, cast a draw seven with mana floating, cast more spells, and then cast tendrils (or switch into one of the first two kill methods). I kill in this method least since it is more luck dependant and risky than the other two, so I try to set one of the others up if I can.

You'll notice that, although Tendrils is indeed uncounterable, all methods that ToD wins with require a counterable card to resolve, so this really isn't an uncounterable combo deck as some seem to think.

Hurkyl's Recall, I suppose, would be a fourth available kill method, but I don't like it since Recall can be dead in too many situations, and forces you to run artifacts that you otherwise would rather not (Shield Sphere...etc.). But nothing is set in stone. Which direction is best for the deck? My opinions I think are obvious from my decklist and card explanations. I'm especially eager to here what you have to say Jason, since it was after all you who thought up the deck, and I believe that you have taken it in the opposite direction as me (two coloured and using Hurkyl's Recall). Discuss!\n\n

[Fever]

I have to say i am opposed to the red splash. I liked the deck as UB, and i dont mind adding some white for Rector if necessary, but i see absolutely no need to add red. Obviously your findings must support this choice, or else you would not have gone with it, but i still dont see the logic here. Also, do not ever sb Demonic, i dont care if you are running Burning Wish, there is no excuse.

[urza's child]

good read, but i heavily disagree with some choices.

Burining Wish - IMO it and wheel of fortune are NOT worth the red splash, at all. This gives you access to 5 things, but theyre not necessary. Your deck is so anti-aggro, when all combo is already anti-aggro

Green Splash - For regrowth? Complete waste of mana base destruction

FotD - Wow, this is the card i have been needing, thanks for the idea!

LoD - Why? Control is really the only matchup you have to worry about, and you said it yourself, these suck against control.

Unprepared-ness for combo - You say the rector trix matchup rely's on draws n' such, but thats only because you have 5 wasted slots in your sideboard for the wish and 2 slots for aggro. Try gilded light, disrupt, or stifle. They all work wonders for me.

1 Badlands and 1 U. Sea - You rely on white much more than black, so why run badlands?

Cabal Ritual - Drop them, theyre useless, they really don't help. 4 rectors MD are necessary, and I'd suggest running a 3rd tendrils MD.

Words of Worship - This is the only card you need for aggro other than blood moon hate, which COMPLETELY shuts down your deck, and if it hits you can do absolutely NOTHING about it.

Blood moon hate - 3 BeB, 2 Seal of cleansing, and 1 Island are necessary in the sb.

[Vegeta2711]

A 4th Rector would def. be nice here, I also disagree with the Red splash as I don't think the deck actually gains enough from it to be worth screwing the mana base further and cutting down on other cards. I'll give it a whirl though.

Oh and I hate you now. Form of the Dragon is v. good against TnT and Stacker 3 since most TnT's dropped Wonder and my own personal build of Stacker runs no burn or scrolls so it can only rely on Vise or you to kill yourself after you drop Moat (or in this case FotD).

Pillar and Sphere fucks you hard though, you def. need 3-4 BEB, 2-3 Seals, Hurkyll's and 1 Island. That basically takes care of BM, Pillar, Sphere and very fast Stax/TnT/Stacker starts.

Also where's the Balance? If your going to run White you may as well run 1 MD or SB. It seemed pretty good in West's deck and I like running it.

[the phoenix]

- red splash: Before I splashed red (and green for Regrowth), I was running a b/u/w deck with 14 lands. I wanted a low number of lands to keep the mana/spells ratio down since, against control, you want business spells rather than mana accel. Therefore, with only 14 lands, I was running all non-basics (CoBs, Mines, UPs...etc). Running fetches meant either running so few actual duals that, if they got stripped away, I was left without that colour of mana or, running a safe number of duals, meant less actual fetches and therefore less mana of each colour (and more chance of getting colour screwed). This being the case, adding red didn't at all hurt my mana base, so I did so.

- Blood Moon: Sure, sometimes I will lose to Blood Moon, but you must consider a few things. First of all, 4 Duress and 4 Therapy give me a good chance of snatching Blood Moon before it ever hits play. Second, running anti-Blood Moon cards and running an anti-Blood Moon mana base takes away from all the other match-ups in which Blood Moon isn't a factor, and it especially makes the mana base shakier in these match-ups. Third, even with all this anti-Blood Moon hate, I imagine that I would still often lose to Blood Moon since it cuts off all of my other colours and I don't have too long to get rid of it before I'm dead. On the flip side, by sacrificing those games where Blood Moon hits play, I improve my over-all match-ups against other decks.

- Cabal Ritual: Well, I agree that sometimes they're not what you want, but other times they mean 1st turn Necro, or a 9th spell for Tendrils, or enough mana to keep your combo going, etc. Cutting them would mean moving away from the Yawg Will kill method and more towards the Necro/Bargain kill method. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it does move my deck in a different direction; I'll try it out. EDIT: In this scenario, I will also add a 4th Rector.

- Demonic Tutor: I run this in the SB to turn all four Burning Wishes in my deck into Demonics. Now let me crunch the numbers...aha, just as I thought, 4 is indeed greater than 1. =) This does slow you down a bit against aggro, but it makes you much better against control (I say again: more business cards).

- green splash: Again, it didn't harm my mana base any further.

- Burning Wish: What can I say except that the deck lacks business spells and that Burning Wish fills this hole perfectly?

- Wheel of Fortune: Another business card and another must-counter against control.

- 1 Badlands and 1 U. Sea - I must say that I do not understand your comment here.

- LoD: I am open to changing them for something better, if I come accross it...which brings me to

- Words of Worship: Ah! Sounds great, thanks!

- # of Tendrils MD: I am confortable at two, don't forget that I can Wish for one. In versions not running Burning Wish, I can understand how three would be preferrable to two.\n\n

[BurningIce]

I played Rector Trix at the last tournament... Since the structure is fairly similar, Blood Moon solutions are also similar.  I ran Celestial Dawn in the SB.  Not only as an Anti Blood Moon card, but it also shuts down Academy, and other decks that use special lands.

[Rico Suave]

Westredale has been toying around with a Tendrils based kill attached to Rectors.  It's like Rector-Tendrils, for lack of a better name.  He's been very pleased with it.  

So in comparison to your decklist, it would be more along the lines of cutting the green and red, then cutting draw-7's, and adding more disruption/search.  

Also, I still believe Brainstorm to be amazing.  It digs, puts Bargain back for Rector, it combos very nicely with the fetchlands you can add after going down to 3 colors, and it lets you cut back to like 27 mana sources.

[mrieff]

As has been pointed out, this deck has a core similar to RectorTrix.
The deck doesn't use many cards that are only usefull for the combo, making it pretty generic for a large part.

Im wondering if this deck would benefit from a transformational SB.
You could run the Illusions/Donate combo SB, but it is propably not worth it. You will only be able to kill with the knowledge that the opponent will most likely not have enchantment removal. But, you're still playing combo, and certain cards (stifle for example) are still good.

But a few Negators SB could do wonders. If you're removing the red part, you're be vulnerable to Jester's Cap, just as Trix. You will catch a few opponents unaware. You will force people to keep in creature-removal in game 3, when you're shown them negators game 2.
I've played Trix for some time now, and i really like my Negators. They give so much flexibility. You can:

- play combo only
- play a mix of combo/creatures  (very strong vs cap)
- play creatures only
 
Whatever you do, on most occasions your opponents deck is not optimized against your strategy with regard to anti-creature/anti-combo cards.

The reason I think you need creatures SB, is that several cards will kill you. For instance Arcane Lab. You don't run enchantment removal now except for the lone vindicate SB. Without FoW, your deck is quite vulnerable to topdecked/searched hate cards. You'd be lucky to catch it with Duress/Theraphy.

From the Trix point of view, I just have to side in 1 Arcane Lab and fetch it with my first Rector, or tutor for it and cast it. After that, I have all the time in the world to combo you, and without counters you can't do noting in my turns. Which means you die, assuming you didn't bring in FofD.

FotD seems really cool, and quite attractive. Thanks for the idea, I'll look into that for Trix.

[jpmeyer]

...and for the nargoTs of the world, "FotD" is short for "Form of the Dragon, although for some reason "LoD" stands for "Lion's Eye Diamond" as opposed to "Legion of Doom."\n\n

[Azhrei]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, what a RUSH!

[Spike85]

Ok I had quit MtG and my knowledge of the Current T1 metagame is limited, but I still have my logic and common sense. So can you explain why exactly is Demonic Tutor in your SB and not your MD?
Ok you have 4 Wishes to get it BUT Burning Wish + Demonic Tutor = 2BR .
Diabolic Tutor costs 2BB(No red mana needed + Can fetch anything in your deck)
As for the SB silver-bullets, you can always drop Regrowth and drop green from the deck since splashing just for it is not worth it (in my opinion always) and you can add the 2 most useful bullets in your main deck(Vindicate + Tendrils) and get them with tutors.
And you can always risk a Consultation since you are combo.
My 0,02$

[the phoenix]

Quote (Spike85 @ July 08 2003,22:53)Ok I had quit MtG and my knowledge of the Current T1 metagame is limited, but I still have my logic and common sense. So can you explain why exactly is Demonic Tutor in your SB and not your MD?
Ok you have 4 Wishes to get it BUT Burning Wish + Demonic Tutor = 2BR .
Diabolic Tutor costs 2BB(No red mana needed + Can fetch anything in your deck)
As for the SB silver-bullets, you can always drop Regrowth and drop green from the deck since splashing just for it is not worth it (in my opinion always) and you can add the 2 most useful bullets in your main deck(Vindicate + Tendrils) and get them with tutors.
And you can always risk a Consultation since you are combo.
My 0,02$

I can pay for Burning Wish and then Demonic Tutor over two turns, whereas I must pay for Diabolic Tutor all at once (and I will probably not have the mana to cast it after a Will to fetch Tendrils). I will say again: running Regrowth does not affect my mana base; I would run all non-basics either way. Vindicate is a poor MD choice since, not proactively helping to get the combo out, it slows the deck down, and Consultations is too risky because I wouldn't want to remove Bargain/Necro from the game, leaving my Rectors useless. As for Tendrils, there are already two copies in the MD.

[Piggy]

If I were going to run all the colors, I would probably test out replacing Necro with future sight then run fastbond/zorb.
It seems like it might be a good alternative, but it may wind up being the two card combo (future sight/fastbond) that kills it.

[pernicious dude]

@BurningIce

Quote I ran Celestial Dawn in the SB.  ...   but it also shuts down Academy, and other decks that use special lands.

Celestial Dawn is awesome, but it only affects you.

[BurningIce]

Right, but in a pinch it can be Donated, if necessary.

[Rico Suave]

Quote (the phoenix @ July 09 2003,09:32)I will say again: running Regrowth does not affect my mana base; I would run all non-basics either way.

Running all non-basics isn't the problem, it's how able you are at anytime to cast any spell you might draw.

The more appropriate question would be how often are you stuck with Regrowth at some point in time without being able to cast it?  Remember, this is combo so it can't afford to wait around until it gets green mana; it must be able to cast every spell almost immediately.

[the phoenix]

Well, with 14 green sources, I can't remember the last time that I was stuck with Regrowth in hand, unable to cast it.

[Rico Suave]

But those land are horrible.  A set of duals and fetchlands are so much better.  You may not be color-screwed, but you are certainly screwed in every other way you don't want to be.

To clarify that, you may have lots of green producing lands, but you won't be able to cast things because you don't have enough counters on Gemstone, you can't afford the life-loss from City, or you simply can't overcome the tempo loss of UP.  Oh, and don't forget fetchlands give Wasteland protection as well.

[Jason-Mox]

Quote If I were going to run all the colors, I would probably test out replacing Necro with future sight then run fastbond/zorb.
It seems like it might be a good alternative, but it may wind up being the two card combo (future sight/fastbond) that kills it.

you are right, it will kill it   , there are simple not a need to run future sight as it is painfully slow and unnecesary, and fastbond cost too much life


also my deck is, as of yet - still UB with delta's and basic lands, but it have been grat to me, and i NEVER, let me repeat that NEVER die to landscrew or nonbasic hate in all its forms (wasteland, PoP, back to basics, blood moon and the list goes on).

i feel that my choice it superior over running 3 colours and adding duals in MY metagame where landhate is everywhere, but i can deffenitly see the advantages of adding white for rector & Co

i will add more comments and a decklist later, discussing card choices and such

[BurningIce]

If you want to play a combo deck with Future Sight/Fastbond, just play Academy.  Like Jason-Mox said, it just doesn't belong here.  Unless you're Rectoring out the Future Sight, and why would you do that when you can fetch Bargain?  I just think you're trying to do too much here.

[David Hernandez]

i hope this thread isn't too old to post in...

at the Frank and Son's T1 tourney on Saturday August 2nd, there were 2 Rector decks.

1 used Tendril's (Jimmy Liu) and the other was straight Illusion's/donate (Giovanni).

The Tendril's deck was a hybrid.  It used 2 or 3 Illusion's in the main, and ONE Tendril's.

against my Stax deck, he beat me 2-0, and won each game on the second turn.  It was beautiful to watch!  He managed to get a Rector 1st and 2nd turn, with Cabal Therapy and Lotus BOTH times.

then he got Bargain, drew between 17 and 18, and then dropped Illusion's to draw 20 more.  ~40 cards in hand, with Force of Will backup, playing out moxes and dark ritual's and Yawgwill and Ancestral...and then Tutor for Tendril's if it wasn't already in his hand.

the deck works well as B/U/w, and i think that the red splash is not needed.  Even with 3 colors, the deck tends to be a little quirky and doesn't always go-off properly.  This is what happened to Jimmy, and he didn't finish in the top 3 (i can't remember what he finished, but i have the final rankings and will post in the Tourney report forum tonight).

--dave.\n\n