[Budget Combo Deck] Easter Tendrils.

[Kasuras]

Well, the previous got closed. And for good reasons too, please don't that much decklists. So hereby: the next version.

I ask in all my polliteness: don't go posting random decklists.  

Well, for history and all: go read the other topic. There ain't going to come other reactions to the thread and reading trough 170 reactions are so could be easily done.

For those of you don't have the time to read that topic, a short summary of what the goal in this deck is: get a helm of awakening into play as soon as possible to cast an egg for free. Sacrifice the egg in the hope of drawing another egg, which you play again for free and sacrifice with the mana the previous egg gave you. And so on.
If you have assembled the precious 9+ spell count: cast a tendrils and go for the win.

This deck has a lot of problems, which are mostly the problems most combo decks encounter:

Force of Will
Null Rod
Chalice of the Void (Easter Tendrils hates this card more than every other deck around.)
Trinisphere
And off course some other random cards, but these are your most important enemies.

However, over to the lists:

Draw7 Eggs - Kasuras

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Windfall
1 Mind's Desire
1 Tinker
1 Windfall
2 Diminishing Returns
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgoth's Will
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Memory Jar
4 Helm of Awakening
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Skycloud Egg
4 Darkwater Egg
4 Mossfire Egg
4 Shadowblood Egg
4 Dark Ritual
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Grim Monolith
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Glimmervoid
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass

This version is the one I'm running now and is tweaked for my own metagame: random scrubs. I can afford running 1 tendrils, no removal or disruption and draw7's because frankly, they can't do anything about it. However: I wouldn't advocate using this list in your meta. However, if you're living in a scrubby meta just like I do: go ahead and help me with the list. Its far from perfect.

The deck can easily be summarized by:

1 Tendrils
12 Random B0rkeness
4 Helm of Awakening
20 Eggs
2 ESG
4 Dark Ritual
6 Random Artifacial Accelerators
1 Tolarian Academy
12 Random 5 color producing lands

And there are some points of discussing:

The 1 tendrils, it might be a good idea to make that count 2. The random B0rkenness is rather random at the moment, and consists of the draw7 cards from the draw7 deck. (Minus timetwister and time spiral.) And the rest speaks for itself.

Over to the next list:

Budget Draw7 - Hermitthedruid

Land (12)
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine

Acceleration (18)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
R Channel
R Lotus Petal
R Mana Crypt
R Mana Vault
R Sol Ring
R Grim Monolith
4 Helm of Awakening

Spells to Resolve (10)
R Tinker
R Windfall
2 Diminishing Returns
R Mind's Desire
R Time Spiral
R Yawgmoth's Will
R Necropotence
R Wheel of Fortune
R Memory Jar

Filters (14)
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Darkwater Egg
2 Shadowblood Egg
4 Skycloud Egg

Utility (4)
R Mystical Tutor
R Demonic Consultation
R Vampiric Tutor
R Demonic Tutor

Win (2)
2 Tendrils of Agony

Which is also a draw7 version. Its quite similar to mine, but some differences:

Mystical tutor
Demonic Consultation
Only 14 eggs
Necropotence
Time Spiral
Cabal Ritual
Channel
No Academy
Ancient Tomb

The mystical tutor makes sense, since you want to fetch the draw7 cards. However: there rises a big questionmark about the 14 eggs. They seem way too less. I think you should play at least 18, and 20 is the right number. Necropotence makes sense due to the cabal ritual. Channel.. Why? For the lone memory jar? That makes no sense. I ask myself why in hell your list lacks the academy. Ancient tomb is a card I doubt too, since you will probably end up having not much life because you already play city of brass too. May I suggest replacing the citys with glimmervoid?

Conclusion: the draw7 version is very good in a scrub/aggro meta, but should need much consideration if played in a control meta. The good part however is: this deck dies less to null rod as the other versions do. Since you don't have to use the eggs. Just casting them is just fine. This doesn't say null rod isn't a problem, its still your worst enemy. If you live in a prison meta: consider if Easter Tendrils is even the deck for you.


But so far the draw7 versions. Lets get over to the wishing versions.

Win Condition (2)
Easter Eggs (17)
4 Chromatic Sphere
2 Sungrass Egg
3 Skycloud Egg
4 Shadowblood Egg
4 Darkwater Egg

Search/Draw (12)
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Frantic Search
3 Thoughtcast
4 Death Wish

Mana Acceleration (14)
1 Sol Ring
1 Grim Monolith
4 Helm of Awakening
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

Kill (2)
2 Tendrils of Agony

Land (15)
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Glimmervoid
4 City of Brass

Sideboard
4 Duress
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Mind's Desire
1 Terror
1 Devour in Shadow
1 Oxidize
1 Tel-Jilad Justice
1 Demystify
1 Aura Blast
2 Defense Grid (?)

This deck uses the power of the wishes to wish for stuff that is located in the sideboard to have a more stable mainboard with things like duress.

It seems to me that this deck would function best in a healthy meta where there is everything of a kind.


And well, that was about it. I sincerely hope this thread won't be flooded with decklists. We have 2 decklists now, we'll just have to see how we improve both. Please avoid posting full decklists which has changed 1 card from a decklists in a previous post.

This off course all in the favor of the future of Easter Tendrils


Edit: replaced Ephraim's list with his new one.

[Hermitthedruid]

I'm sorry about the random decklist there... I don't know how else to get my point across.

But to address the questions to my version:

Channel is just Helm of Awakening #5. I don't run Spoils of the Vault or any card that seriously hurts my life total, so Channel is a one-time Helm that also happens to super-accelerate everything else. Like in Belcher, Channel just wins the game, especially since there are eggs to fix the mana.

Ancient Tomb's drawback is irrelevant because I don't run Death Wish or Spoils or whatever else like that (except Channel, which wins the game). The extra mana means faster Helms, more mana to go off on, and once again, eggs fix the colorless issue. This card needs a serious look by all budget combo decks.

I don't run Academy because it doesn't speed up the deck as well as Ancient Tomb, most of the time. Unless it's a God draw with enough eggs or artifact accelerants, Tomb's guaranteed 4 mana over the first two turns trumps whatever insane amount Academy can produce on the second turn.

Eggs are just filters for the deck, either through mana fixing or deck thinning. Card drawing and acceleration wins the game for Type 1 storm combo. Why not run fewer eggs and more game-breaking spells?

[Mog]

I have a few quick question:  

In the board, why is Tel-Jilad Justice used instead of Naturalize?  It seems like Naturalize would be better and perhaps it would be able to open up some more board spots.  Maybe you guys can help me on this.  

Also, what enchantments is the deck really afraid of?  I know it's almost auto-loss with worship in play, especially worship-argothian enchantress, but I'm not really seeing anything else, enlighten me please!  

[Ephraim]

Worship is far from an autoloss. Worship only concerns itself with damage. It doesn't touch loss of life. Because Tendrils operates through life loss and not through damage, it ignores Worship entirely.

I use Tel-Jilad Justice because the board is not tight. At least in my build, there were a lot of sideboard slots and not much to do with them. In the end, the wishboard evolved into having two separate cards to deal with both artifacts and enchantments. This allows for maximum versatility. If all there is to deal with is a single artifact, I Wish for Oxidize. If I would really benefit from scrying as well, or if there is a Chalice of the Void for 1 in play (probably the artifact I want to destroy), I'd Wish for Tel-Jilad Justice.

For the record, here is a link to the previous thread: Easter Tendrils

I am going to say that I agree with Kasuras's assertion that this deck is only viable in a scrubby metagame. I was in the process of developing a variant of the deck that improved the deck's consistency at the cost of speed. I was able to devise a build that would go off by turn four nearly 100% of the time, with very little chance of stalling. Once that was complete, I was able to start work on adding disruption to the deck, in the form of Duress, that would allow the deck to withstand some of the opposition that it would face in the form of counter magic and artifact hate. In the process, I came to a fatal conclusion about Easter Tendrils. It is inherrently unstable. From my consistent four-turn kill, I removed a scant three cards and replaced them with Duress. The results were terrible. Although the deck still had decent results sometimes, all consistency was gone. The deck became as prone to stalling as it had previously been. I am not certain this deck could ever compete in a strong Type 1 metagame. In order to work, one must sacrifice speed for consistency and both speed and consistency for disruption. The fast, inconsistent version will take its share of games, but can't expect to win regularly, due to stalling. The slow, consistent version may also take a few games (less than the faster version), but will generally be too slow to outpace the opposition. The slow, inconsistent version, with disruption probably won't take any games at all.

[Ifflejink]

I have a few topics that I'd like to discuss:
1. Channel. Although it's Helm #5, it costs GG. In my version, I have completely cut Sungrass and Mossfire eggs, and so only have my lands as green mana sources. That means you'd have to wait until turn 3 or later to go off, and that's a luxury I don't think the deck can afford.
2. Kasuras, although you did make a very comrehensive analysis of the archetype, you missed one build: mine. It runs Death Wish, but no Duresses, and more card drawing. For reference, here it is:
//NAME: Easter Tendrils
Lands:
        3 City of Brass
        3 Glimmervoid
        4 Gemstone Mine
        1 Tolarian Academy
Other mana Acceleration:
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Mana Vault
        4 Cabal Ritual
        4 Dark Ritual
Tutoring/ Draw:
        1 Demonic Consultation
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Demonic Tutor
        2 Night's Whisper
        2 Thirst for Knowledge
        1 Wheel of Fortune
        1 Windfall
        3 Death Wish
        1 Burning Wish
Engine/ Kill:
        4 Chromatic Sphere
        4 Conjurer's Bauble
        3 Skycloud Egg
        4 Shadowblood Egg
        4 Darkwater Egg
        1 Tendrils of Agony
        4 Helm of Awakening
SB:  1 Aura Blast
SB:  1 Tel-Jilad Justice
SB:  1 Oxidize
SB:  1 Yawgmoth's Will
SB:  1 Tendrils of Agony
SB:  4 Duress
etc...
Card choices:
Night's Whisper: Usually ends up costing B, has a negligible drawback, and is quite powerful.
Thirst for Knowledge: Almost alwats costs U1, draws two cards (usually), and has a negligable drawback. Most of the time, I either pitch and unneeded egg or excess land.
Windfall: It's easy to cast and provides a massive boost.
Cabal Ritual: After a Helm is in play, it's a stictly better Dark Ritual.
Death Wish: Although it has a severe drawback, it provides both disruption and brokeness.
Burning Wish: Acts as a tutor for Tendrils and Will.
The mana base: Its primarily meant for sideboarding, though it does help in casting Burning Wish and Wheel of Fortune.

Note: Sorry for posting another decklist, but this is one of the major versions of the deck.

[Mog]

Perhaps I wasn't clear and I apologize for my misunderstanding, but I don't think you answered all of my questions Ephraim.  I understand now that the board isn't tight and that's the reason for inlcuding Tel-Jilad Justice.  But what enchantments is this deck afraid of?  Is there really a need for enchantment hate at all?

I also question the use of some board options like Ancestral Knowledge because from testing situations in which I would wish or board them in seems very minimal.  Perhaps I'm wrong and you could be so kind as to point me in the right direction.  

Also, what do you guys think about Diminishing Returns as a reset button in this deck.  My decks are often unforgiving and it has allowed me to go off when I would usually just fizzle out and lose the game.  It could make it more consistent despite the UU.  Just a thought.

[Kasuras]

So now we have 3 decklists, and I believe that is enough. And the following we have:

-Draw7 variant. Uses the raw power of the draw7 cards to go of as fast as possible. Turn3 kills are the majority, and turn2 kills can also happen. Turn1 kills cannot happen, even with a turn1 bargain; (Which happens more than you think.) you can't go off turn1 since you don't have any moxen to support it, just hoping for a mana crypt/petal doesn't work. This deck is the one that gets hurt by fow the most of the three versions.

-More controllish version. This one packs duress and wishes for a constincy kill of about turn 4 instead of raw power. But the question rises: is that sufficient?

-Wish version. It looks like the draw7 version, but has less draw7 cards to make sure your opponent doesn't draw additional counters. Instead: the deck uses draw cards only you have benefit from, night's whisper for example. It also packs wishes to have more constincy in the sideboard.

I believe this is how the decklists work, correct me please if its wrong.

[Ephraim]

At least for the time being, Kasuras, the "control" version should not be under consideration. That's the list I was developing and as I stated above, it is not stable. The last stable, consistent build may be found near the top of page 9 of the first Easter Tendrils thread. A few quick changes, like the substitution of Conjurer's Baubles in place of some Odyssey eggs and the insertion of Mana Vault into the mana accelerators somewhere would be appropriate. Beyond those small changes, that is the list from which I will be working to re-establish a stable, disruptive build.

You note that my version ends up paying a lot of life to achieve its ends, which is quite true. I hadn't really considered the ramifications of this during goldfishing, but it has in fact harmed the deck in real play. Anything resembling fast aggro hurt me enough that my ability to go off was hampered by life considerations. Although the deck doesn't need to spend much less life in its pursuit of victory, removing two or three of the painful cards in the deck would be helpful, if suitable replacements could be found. The most expendable card, in my opinion, is City of Brass. The two mana from Ancient Tomb is extremely useful in getting out a first or second turn Helm of Awakening. Also, since I've concluded that this deck requires a bare minimum of three mana available to start going off, Ancient Tomb pushes the turn on which that mana is availalbe up and also provides valuable leeway, if the bare minimum proves to be insufficient. It has occasionally been problematical that the mana is colourless, however. Death Wish is also indispensible. Although one copy can be removed for Burning Wish, the ability to fetch Yawmoth's Will with four cards from the deck has provided me with far more wins than any other aspect of the deck.

Mog, Ivory Mask totally destroys this deck, for one. Of course, it doesn't see play in strong environments, but it has been previously noted that this deck is, at present, best suited for play in very scrubby environments. The sideboard partly reflects a totally unpredictable metagame. Other possibly harmful enchantments include Blood Moon and Back to Basics, both of which can make it very hard to set up, if not strictly speaking, to go off.

Ancestral Knowledge is currently partly a Wish target, but I am not altogether sure that I like it that way. However, a single copy may still remain in the sideboard as a real sideboard card. I don't feel comfortable casting Windfall when facing another combo deck, so in that matchup, Ancestral Knowledge would come in to replace Windfall. This is all rather theoretical, though. Windfall was not present in the last stable version of my version of this deck, so there's no full guarantee that it will be present.

[Ifflejink]

For those of you running the Draw-7 variant, have you found it difficult to cast Diminishing Returns? The UU seems like it would be a bit hard to achieve. The same goes for Mind's Desire, except that I also wonder how you can also reliably have 3-4 other mana. Please enlighten me on how consistently you get the mana, because I'm quite curious about it.

[Hermitthedruid]

For those of you running the Draw-7 variant, have you found it difficult to cast Diminishing Returns? The UU seems like it would be a bit hard to achieve. The same goes for Mind's Desire, except that I also wonder how you can also reliably have 3-4 other mana. Please enlighten me on how consistently you get the mana, because I'm quite curious about it.

It's true; 2nd turn Returns or Mind's Desire isn't easy for this deck. However, Ancient Tomb helps out with this immensely, as shown:

1st turn: Tomb, 2 blue producing eggs
2nd turn: City/Mine, Ritual, Returns

These are surprisingly common hands; most of them have enough acceleration to make a 2nd turn Returns. On the other hand, Desire usually needs a Helm, an artifact accelerant, and a Ritual to go off on. After testing the different versions, Desire is about as consistent as what other versions do to make Thoughtcast for U on the 2nd turn.

In short, I usually get the mana to cast the spells in question.

Btw, is anyone interested in a decklist that uses Force of Will? It is basically a Draw7 variant with Serum Visions and Brain Freeze to bump the blue count to make FoW playable.

[Ifflejink]

Hermitthedruid, a list with FOW, if it's fast and consistent, is just what this deck needs. Although I don't see why you would ever want to run Brain Freeze/ Serum Visions over something like Brainstorm or Thirst for Knowledge.

[Kasuras]

Casting Diminishing Returns is indeed rather hard. And I am really thinking of removing the card. Mind's Desire however is a card that pops up in the lategame of the combo, so to say, and is a card that says "you win the game, no matter what". In short: Mind's Desire stays, I have to find something new for the Diminishing Returns.

[Ephraim]

As previously stated, the "Control" version of this deck is being taken back a few steps to a point before it had disruption. When I added the disruptive elements, I wasn't as careful as I should have been and as a result the deck suffered a great deal. I have returned to a slightly-modified version of an earlier build. From that point, I will be testing various elements to determine how to maximize the consistency of that build.

As I see it there are three aspects of this or any combo deck that will trade off against one another: Speed, Consistency, Durability. Speed defines the deck's critical turn, consistency defines the deck's reliability in achieving that critical turn, and durability defines the deck's ability to play through countermeasures played against it.

I have little experience with the Draw 7 variant, but Ifflejink's build emphasiszes speed. I am told it achieves a critical turn of two or three. However, it suffers from gross inconsistency, often stalling out when it tries to go off. My build emphasizes consistency. Although it is a full turn slower than Ifflejink's build, once it starts to go off, it almost never stalls.

Neither build, however, has any durability. Null Rod, Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void (1 counter), and Stifle all shut down both builds entirely. This is a problem I eventually hope to solve. Because the speedy build is not consistent, adding any disruption whatsoever, to counteract its weakness, damages its already fragile consistency and makes the deck unplayable. However, even my most consistent build isn't quite consistent enough to survive the removal of three maindeck cards and their replacement by Duress. It is for this reason that careful testing is in order to absolutely maximize the consistency of a non-disruptive build first before any further attempts may be made to improve the deck's durability.

That leads the discussion into my current build. It is extremely conservative. As long as I can maintain a turn-four goldfish, I am going to do everything I can to improve the deck's stability. Only when I've done that will I begin to reconsider speeding the deck up slightly and adding Duress or Cabal Therapy.

(Commentary to follow will mostly compare my build with Ifflejink's. Sorry Kasuras, but I haven't had much time to acquaint myself with the Draw 7 variant yet.)

Win Condition (2)
2 Tendrils of Agony

Easter Eggs (17)
1 Mossfire Egg
4 Shadowblood Egg
4 Darkwater Egg
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Conjurer's Bauble

Search/Draw (13)
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Burning Wish
3 Death Wish
1 Frantic Search
1 Windfall
3 "Draw-Two's"

Mana Acceleration (14)
3 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Helm of Awakening
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Grim Monolith

Land (14)
1 Tolarian Academy
2 City of Brass
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Glimmervoid
4 Gemstone Mine

There are three key differences between this build and Ifflejink's.
1. My build has three more lands than Ifflejink's.
2. My build has two fewer Easter Eggs than Ifflejink's.
3. My build uses the less Lim-Dul's Vault instead of Demonic Consultation, Vampiric Tutor, and Wheel of Fortune (Note, Wheel of Fortune could make an appearance in my build, in the future. I use Windfall, so the sheer power represented by Wheel of Fortune is clear to me. However, I wish to minimze the "off colour" effects as much as possible. If I can reliably assume that I will only ever need black or blue mana, I minimize the chances of getting colour-screwed.)

1. Although Ifflejink's build tends to require somewhat less mana than my build to effectively go off, the margin is not so large that either build can reliably go off with only two lands on the table. A third land, I have found significantly increases the deck's capacity not to stall. Although 14 lands sometimes yield a glut of unusable lands, when going off, the use of Frantic Search and Windfall makes this problem not altogether serious.

2. To compensate for the additional mana, cards needed to be removed elsewhere. Although the Easter Eggs are the centerpiece of the deck, there are enough draw effects that 17 eggs are sufficient for the deck's needs in most cases. The increase in the number of lands yields a greater benefit to the deck's consistency than harm done by the decrease in the number of eggs.

3. While Demonic Consultation and Vampiric Tutor assist in searching for a first-turn Helm of Awakening, they do little else to assist the deck. Demonic Consultation, in particular, can and does throw away some of the deck's valuable singletons. Windfall, Wheel of Fortune, other tutors, Tolarian Academy, and Ifflejink's single copy of Tendrils of Agony are all vulnerable to Demonic Consultation's removal. In particular, the removal of Tendrils of Agony necessitates that the win be achieved by casting Death/Burning Wish to get the copy from the sideboard.

The value of Lim-Dul's Vault lies not in the fact that it is a tutor. As a means of searching up a particular card, it is vastly inferior to Demonic Consultation and Vampiric Tutor. Its value lies in its capacity as a draw-fixer. Where Demonic Consultation can actively harm your draw quality and Vampiric Tutor doesn't affect it at all, Lim-Dul's Vault assures that you will find not only the card for which you're searching, but also that it will be accompanied by (in my experience) at least two additional quality draws. Furthermore, this benefit increases if one is not searching for a particular card. I often use Lim-Dul's Vault solely to find a pocket of three or four cards that I can guarantee will help the deck. This makes Lim-Dul's Vault my build's most indispensible tool in improving consistency.

There is one slot in the deck currently in contention between four or five competing cards. Note the position in the deck labeled "Draw-Two's". There are a number of options and I have yet to conclude which of them is the most consistent.

1. Thoughtcast: This is the traditional card for this slot. This deck does have a lot of artifacts, including Helm of Awakening, which has excellent synergy with Thoughtcast. However, one will not always be casting a "Draw Two" with lots of artifacts on the table. Because the purpose of these cards is often to prevent a stall, it will often be cast when Helm of Awakening is the only artifact remaining. for "Draw two cards" at such a critical juncture just isn't consistent enough.

2. Night's Whisper: With Helm of Awakening on the table, this will always cost and 2 life. This is certainly a good bargain (no pun intended) for two cards and is just right for digging this deck out of a stall. However, an idiosyncracy of my build is that three Ancient Tomb and two City of Brass make additional cards with a life payment questionably useful. While replacements for Ancient Tomb and City of Brass may be found, it is my opinion that for the purposes of this deck, they are the best available options, leaving Night's Whisper slightly short, but perhaps the best card for the task.

3. Thirst for Knowledge: (under Helm) for 3 minus 2/1 cards is a reasonable deal. It digs deeper than any of the other options, which is a good thing, and provides one with sufficient discard options to make it flexible. However, it suffers from two problems. First, like Thoughtcast, it isn't always the best card for preventing a stall. Especially when one is looking for more eggs with which to continue the chain, discarding an artifact can be a heavy burden. Suppose the three cards drawn are a [useless] City of Brass and two Darkwater Eggs. Regardless of how one discards in this situation, the net useful advantage of the spell is a single card. It can be argued that Frantic Search suffers from the same problem, but it is very noteworthy that Frantic Search's double-duty as a mana accelerator is what makes it worthy of inclusion. Second, it is typically more costly than any of the other options. The fact that it will almost never cost less than always concerns me when I consider using it.

4. Words of Wisdom: It has been previously noted that, especially at present, this deck is best suited for a scrubby metagame. Where relative card advantage is less important than the absolute number of cards held by the Easter Tendrils player, the cost of Words of Wisdom is somewhat mitigated. Words of Wisdom also has good synergy with Windfall, one of the deck's most potent card-drawers. Like Night's Whisper, the price of this card is ideal for digging oneself out of a stall situation.

5. Impulse: I'm not really sure about Impulse. It digs well, but doesn't yield much in the way of card advantage. It will be the last item I test and then only if the other four options fail me completely.

Lest anybody be tempted to ask why I am running Mana Vault when there are only three Dark Rituals in the deck, it is because under Helm of Awakening, Mana Vault is free. Thus far the deck has had sufficient colour consistency that the extra colourless mana has been more valuable than the coloured mana would be.

[BaskingRootWallaIsAwesome]

Ok a Few things here that need to happen.  First of all I play this deck non-budget but I still think tha I could give some good advice.  Of all these Decklists they are all missing one thing.  they all really do not have enough card advantage.  Here are a couple cards that aren't really hard to find that would definitely improve this deck.

First Of all Necropotence.  A first turn necropotence via swamp or whatever then dark ritual is simply un beatable.

Second, Yawgmoth's bargain could be added as it is good card draw all though i admit that it is a little bit expensive.

Lastly probably the easiest pick to go in this deck, Fact Or Fiction.  FoF has been known to give great card advantage yet I did not see it in anyone of these decklists.

I hope You take me up on some of this thanks.

[Ephraim]

Necropotence is a possibility. I hadn't really considered it before, but it definitely could have a strong effect in this deck. I've continuously preached deck consistency and this would allow a huge number of cards to be drawn, yielding seven perfect cards for the following turn.

I have two problems with Necropotence. First, it costs a lot of life to be particularly useful. As it stands, many of the other cards that give the deck even as much stability as it has (Ancient Tomb, Death Wish) also cost life. Being a restricted singleton, it might still be feasible to put in Necropotence in place of one copy of Death Wish.

Second, Necropotence helps you to go off next turn. Without an early Ritual, an early Necropotence is a dead draw, for the following reason: Once the deck starts to go off, which is really when it can generate enough mana to cast a 3cc spell (don't confuse this with a card like Windfall, which is only 2cc when going off), it doesn't want to wait until next turn to get a bunch of good cards. It wants (needs) them now.

Yawgmoth's Bargain has been considered in the past but has been rejected multiple times. With a converted mana cost of six, this deck's lack of power acceleration severely dampens its ability to play Yawgmoth's Bargain at all. Like the possibility of maindeck Mind's Desire, it is almost always the case that six excess mana would be better spent wishing for Yawgmoth's Will. Without the ability to frequently get this card out early in the game, it will almost certainly be a win more card. Also, like Necropotence, the life cost clashes with other important components of the deck.

Fact or Fiction is also borderline. Windfall is already of questionable value because it is sometimes too expensive. This deck absolutely lives and dies by cheap card advantage. Although Fact or Fiction is undeniably powerful, its casting cost may be prohibitive for its effect. It is a good enough suggestion that it merits testing, but I am not expecting good results.

In conclusion, I think that your non-budget (powered?) perspective has given you a false impression of this deck's ability to generate mana. All of the suggestions you've made are, at best, at the top of this deck's mana curve. At present, the only things that cost more than three, ever, are wished-for spells (if you take into account the {B} of the Wish.) The two spells most often wished for are Tendrils of Agony and Yawgmoth's Will. If you're wishing for Tendrils, it reads "You win." and if you're wishing for Yawgmoth's Will, it will have an effect that is also likely to win the game immediately. It will provide a massive boost to storm count, by recurring any eggs in the graveyard. If any rituals are in the graveyard, which there commonly will be, if there was enough mana to wish for and cast Yawgmoth's Will, it will also make possible the immediate regeneration of the mana required to cast it. Even at that, Wishing for and casting Yawgmoth's Will only costs four mana, notably less than the (probably) five that it would take to cast Yawgmoth's Bargain. With the numbers such as they are, I suppose I'm more inclined to test with Necropotence, but as previously mentioned, I'm very wary about not getting the cards until next turn.

[Ephraim]

The fundamental turn of the format general defines the speed with which a combo deck needs to win. Combo needs to win turn 2 about 50-60% with no disruption. Otherwise, no chance.

As far as Easter Tendrils, I think it has no chance. I have never seen it do well in any tournament, so I think that is the answer. If it is slower than Draw7 then it is not good enough. Draw7 isn't winning right now, I can't imagine how Easter Tendrils would.

Well, we've already come to an agreement that this deck is best suited to a scrubby environment. However, there also seems to be some inkling of hope that with careful metagaming, extensive testing, and a little bit of improvement, Easter Tendrils could be made into a low tier deck with an opportunity to weasel its way to a prize in a real Type 1 environment. However, if Ric Flair is correct, as I suspect he is, then even at its finest, our deck is a turn to slow. In fastest form, Easter Tendrils acquires most of its wins on turn 3, with a handful trickling in on turn two. This is without disruption and is subject to stalling. If my efforts come to fruition, it will be able to consistently go off turn four and to protect itself a little bit in the meanwhile.

It seems that these numbers simply aren't going to cut it. Without disruption, it needs a consistent, reliable kill on turn two. With disruption, it needs a consistent, reliable kill on turn three. Barring that, it isn't going to be of any value in a competetive Type 1 metagame.

That said, is it worth investing more time and effort into what is almost certainly a dead end? While I am content continuing to develop this deck in the casual forum (since I find no shame in devoting serious effort to casual decks) I want the opinions of the other primary contributors to this deck (Kasuras and Ifflejink, I mean you guys) before I resign this deck to the pile of ideas that were cute, but not quite good enough.

[Ric_Flair]

I think since I am being quoted here, I have an obligation to explain what I meant, though there was no misquoting involved.

I was playtesting a T1 Affinity deck for a while and it consistently rung people up on turn 3.  Very consistently.  It could eek out a crazy turn 1 win and had a good shot at a turn 2 win.  Budgetized it got bumped back a turn, which is not all that bad.  Raffinity could win on turn 4 in T2 regularly and this was without the benefit of Grim Monolith, Lotus Petal, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, and Mana Vault (all good budget accelerant replacements).  The deck, however, sucked wind with the rise in prominence of Null Rod.  And Null Rod is even worse for Easter Tendrils I would imagine based on the decklist.  I think that Affinity is maybe a tad faster as a budget combo deck than Easter Tendrils and probably a bit more consistent too, and it is a turn too slow for Null Rod (which, shockingly enough, comes down on turn 2 at the latest).  Thus, if Raffinity is stopped by Null Rod, Easter Tendrils is stopped too because of incidental hate.

CURSE YOU NULL ROD!

[Kasuras]

That said, is it worth investing more time and effort into what is almost certainly a dead end? While I am content continuing to develop this deck in the casual forum (since I find no shame in devoting serious effort to casual decks) I want the opinions of the other primary contributors to this deck (Kasuras and Ifflejink, I mean you guys) before I resign this deck to the pile of ideas that were cute, but not quite good enough.

The same goes for me actually. It really is a fun deck to goldfish, I mean: storm count of 40+ is pretty cool. Esspecialy if its on a budget. However: the turn 3 is too slow in competitive magic. And not to forget all the enemies this deck has: trinisphere, chalice for 1, null rod and artifact hate all kill this deck. Its not competitive, and will probably never will be.

That said: its pretty good in a scrubby metagame, which I live in. The problem however is as following: the deck is no fun for your opponent. Taken that you fight a scrub, who has no answer to your deck; its just like goldfishing. I have reached the point with my deck that a lot of people didn't want to play versus it anymore.

Therefore I have chosen to play a new deck in the real life. I am willing to devote my spare time on the internet to help this deck evolve but real playtesting in tourneys/real life is something I gave up.

If the same goes for Ifflejink, I think this thread could be locked. However, I would like to know his opinion first. If he declines, I will off course help him further with easter tendrils.

[Ephraim]

Just a brief note, if there is consensus that this deck needs to be allowed to pass on, I'd rather this thread (and the other, locked one) be reopened and moved to the Casual Forum (ie: My Kingdom)

[Ifflejink]

I think that we should either put this deck to rest, or, as Ephraim suggested, move this topic to the casual forum. It's simply not fast enough, and can't deal with disruption. Easter Tendrils, you showed promise, but in the end, you just couldn't keep up with the other decks.