Optimizing TPS

[mongrel12]

@maxxmat
Do you have an updated list that you could post so that we could compare of the 'tutor' tps?

[BigMac]

Has anyone thought about thirst for knowledge.

I used to play with meditates as in my oppinion giving your opponent 7 new cards is a bad idea. Playing carddraw your opponent gets no new cards from is always good. My build was fairly stable at the time. I havent played it lately but will rpolly do it again in the near future.

I replaced meditate with thirst as i think the turn you give away is just to much in type 1 to give your opponent time to actually throw a bomb on you. And if you count well you have enough artifacts to discard. Worked pretty well for me so far.

[BigMac]

Has anyone thought about thirst for knowledge.

I used to play with meditates as in my oppinion giving your opponent 7 new cards is a bad idea. Playing carddraw your opponent gets no new cards from is always good. My build was fairly stable at the time. I havent played it lately but will rpolly do it again in the near future.

I replaced meditate with thirst as i think the turn you give away is just to much in type 1 to give your opponent time to actually throw a bomb on you. And if you count well you have enough artifacts to discard. Worked pretty well for me so far.

[FreshIsOuttaTurn]

I glanced at this thread a few times and after reading it I quickly changed my deck around to include a Gifts in place of Windfall (the weakest, in my opinion, of the draw 7s).

I goldfished it maybe 5 times to remember the proper way to play it before I took it up against Oath.  Wow... first 5 matches, all 2-0 TPS wins easily except 1 where a Desire for 10 turned up 5 lands 3 Moxen 1 Mana Crypt and a duress.

Gifts is such a bomb its not even funny.  It has the most versatility of any card in the deck (Cunning Wish included) and just breaks the game wide open.  I have used it to set up Will.win (3 tutors + recall as targets) on my opponents turn 2 end step, to get moxen to pump the storm count on both Desires and Tendrils, to get bounce to pop 3sphere, to get a few draw 7s, you name it, ive pretty much Gifted for it.  I need to fit Deep Analysis in there somewhere for some added b0rkenness.

I dont think you can really argue the inclusion of gifts... Its strict card advantageous targetted tutoring (CATT) like no other spell.  Id play another if I could find space.

I think just adding gifts instead of Red and WoF is sooo much better because a 1 card splash is rarely a "Good Plan"(tm).  You cant just ignore the large numbers of wastelands popping up everywhere, and every nonbasic hurts nowadays.

Library is just too underpowered for this deck I think.  I go for turn 2 or turn 3 wins everytime and its just not worth the possible bomb factor to slow me down so much.  I play 28 mana sources now and changed the LoA into Colossus, who is also a beating.

Platz vs Colossus?  I think stopping other combo is a lot easier by just killing them dead.  I tried both and found Colossus is better because the Oath I play against has Control Magic to get around Platz' ability.  If they control magic a colossus, who cares?  But if they control a Platz it forces you to grab a bounce spell.  Plus DC has 3 11s on it and so I can't not play a card with that many double digit figures on it.

My list (for reference) is

//NAME: Office Space
SB:  3 Claws of Gix
SB:  1 Cranial Extraction
SB:  1 Ebony Charm
SB:  2 Chain of Vapor
SB:  1 Echoing Truth
SB:  1 Brain Freeze
SB:  1 Stifle
SB:  1 Meditate
SB:  2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB:  2 Hydroblast
        2 Tendrils of Agony
        4 Force of Will
        4 Duress
        4 Brainstorm
        1 Darksteel Colossus
        1 Hurkyl's Recall
        1 Timetwister
        1 Time Walk
        1 Time Spiral
        1 Rebuild
        1 Mystical Tutor
        1 Mind's Desire
        1 Gifts Ungiven
        1 Cunning Wish
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Necropotence
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Tinker
        1 Memory Jar
        1 Tolarian Academy
        3 Underground Sea
        2 Swamp
        3 Island
        4 Polluted Delta
        1 Flooded Strand
        4 Dark Ritual
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mana Vault
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Black Lotus

[MaxxMatt]

You can see a lot of nearly equal "new lists" on this thread. Even if the language is Italian, the Lists are almost in English

For general updates I recommend you to read and click through this page for our weekly Top8's Lists


Maxx

[Negator13]

A cursory glance at your list, Maxx, shows that it seems to be focused on using selective card manipulation (Tutors, Gifts, FoF) to find and win with a Bargain or Necro. It has... 1 draw 7. It seems like it's trying to be a U/B Rector deck, with Gifts, etc. instead of A.R. Is that a bad assumption to make? If you replace the mass draw of the Twisters and replace it with more expensive, smaller, and selective spells, it seems to go against the Storm mechanic.

[Rico Suave]

A cursory glance at your list, Maxx, shows that it seems to be focused on using selective card manipulation (Tutors, Gifts, FoF) to find and win with a Bargain or Necro. It has... 1 draw 7. It seems like it's trying to be a U/B Rector deck, with Gifts, etc. instead of A.R. Is that a bad assumption to make? If you replace the mass draw of the Twisters and replace it with more expensive, smaller, and selective spells, it seems to go against the Storm mechanic.

I'm going to take this a step further.  Assuming that card manipulation is superior to draw7 effects, is Tendrils really the best kill card?  I mean, the card manipulation works against it, Time Walk works against it, and you're virtually unable to beat the most common hate cards thrown your way.  It seems like Tendrils is holding the deck back from what it truly wants to be.

To me, that list you're referring to is evidence enough that TPS really just wants to change it's kill and focus more on Bargain.  Why not play RectorTrix?  It seems like the natural evolution if you're going to cut draw7s.

[Freelancer]

Rico it is a nice idea but TPS is build on the idea off a stable mana base off 2 colours and MAYBE a splash for a small third colour...if you are going to build it in the direction off rectortrix this means adding a third colour that needs to support 4 cards (the rectors) consistantly, i'm not sure we want this extra mana unstability in this period of wastelands and non-basic hate...I didn't play a single test game though...wich means I have no clue or i'm right...

But the direction off more tutors and less draw's is certainly a interesting one to explore...As many people pointed out before gifts ungiven is another tutor wich is very good in this deck...but i am unsure or multiple gifts is a good idea because a second gifts is dramaticly weaker than the first one (less bombs to tutor for)...
Although it would be nice to go against control with the first gifts: skeletal scrying, duress, misdirection/fow, gifts ungiven...

[Negator]

I don't see the Gifts Ungiven's targets in all matchups. Can somebody unlighten me? Are there some tricks to discover?

[Freelancer]

It basicly depends on the game state/hand for instance if you are short for mana search for ritual/lotus/mox/mox (example) if you need a business spell search for draw7 or the like and if you need disruption/protection search for duress/fow/broken spell/broken spell (or duress/fow/tutor/tutor)...

Or incase off gamestate if you HAVE to go off NOW search for multiple bombs that all spell doom for the opponent this turn...On the other hand against control its perfectly fine to search for draw and duress for instance (or another gifts if you play 2) duress/recall/fow/gifts or bomb...

This is what I do though...Not sure how other people use gifts...This has been working for me so far...

[Shaman]

Taking advantages from opponents' mistakes is the key to win every match: Gifts Ungiven (like Fact or Fiction) gives your opponents the chance to do these mistakes.

[Rico Suave]

Rico it is a nice idea but TPS is build on the idea off a stable mana base off 2 colours and MAYBE a splash for a small third colour...if you are going to build it in the direction off rectortrix this means adding a third colour that needs to support 4 cards (the rectors) consistantly, i'm not sure we want this extra mana unstability in this period of wastelands and non-basic hate...I didn't play a single test game though...wich means I have no clue or i'm right...;)

But the direction off more tutors and less draw's is certainly a interesting one to explore...As many people pointed out before gifts ungiven is another tutor wich is very good in this deck...but i am unsure or multiple gifts is a good idea because a second gifts is dramaticly weaker than the first one (less bombs to tutor for)...
Although it would be nice to go against control with the first gifts: skeletal scrying, duress, misdirection/fow, gifts ungiven... :roll:

People can support Wheel very easily.  Why not support Rector?  Yea it's 4 cards and not just 1, but look what splashing black gives you in C.Slaver.  Or splashing for red in Stax.

The point is those 4 cards will win you the game right there.  You don't have to worry about what you'll get with your Rector (unlike Gifts), multiple Rectors are never bad, and you only need to use white once so you can include a single white source and use your fetchlands to find it.

Taking advantages from opponents' mistakes is the key to win every match: Gifts Ungiven (like Fact or Fiction) gives your opponents the chance to do these mistakes.

I go into every match-up assuming that my opponent will play perfectly.  You can't count on your opponent making mistakes for your cards to be good.  The best way to win in fact is to exclude your opponent from having any effect on the match, and this is evidenced by something like first turn Trinisphere.  While FoF allows an opportunity for your opponent to make a mistake, the difference is that FoF is great even if your opponent doesn't make a mistake.  

I'm not saying Gifts is bad, I'm saying the reason you use to support the card's inclusion is not a legitimate reason.  It's akin to saying "this card is good against bad players, so I should play it."  In comparison, I think along the lines of "this card is good against good players, and if it can beat good players then it can beat poor ones as well."

[Shaman]

Your opponents can make mistakes since they don't know what you are holding within your hands while resolving a Gifts. They will make the PERFECT choice considering only what they are aware of: permanents, spells on the stack, but not the cards in your hand. For this simple reason, sometimes, this PERFECT choice is very far from the BEST choice! In this, IMHO, consists the real power of the card.

[Thug]

To me TPS has always been about Necro, Bargain and Will. The first two often lead to the latter. A game in which you resolve Will is very hard to lose, even if it's very early on and only to flashback Ancestral, Duress and a Fetch or something like that.

The draw-seven mainly functioned as backup plan, If all else failed they were a great option to get back into the game. However they also tended to fizzle fromt time to time, since TPS is relativly low on real bombs.

The italian approach makes perfect sense to me, and after some testing I can say I like almost every single change they made to the draw compartment. (The only thing is I don't like the Deep Analysis and rather have a Scrying maindeck).

Double Cunning Wish also satifies me, I used to play none, since the second Tendrils seemed much better than the little flexibility a single wish provides. But with 1 Tendrils and 2 Wishes there's a perfect balance in methods to kill and options to get an answer to something.

I can't imagine cutting Time Walk though, since it has soo much different uses and at least always is a decent cantrip. The fact that it messes with your storm count very rarely matters, since the deck isn't based on draw-sevens like other combo decks. It is based on bombs, which will win you the game even if you might draw your Time Walk.

Gift's Ungiven is a pretty hard card to play correctly and by no means I can say that I play it perfectly, since I have just started using it. But even when  (most likely) not played perfectly yet it proved to be maindeck worthy. I can easily be compared to FoF and Scrying in both cost and powerlevel, but often Gifts does just a little more than a normal drawspell would do since it has soo much flexibility to it.

The main thing I'm tweaking with right now is the sideboard. With two Wishes it becomes pretty important to have a lot of good answers in your sideboard, but theres only a limited space.

After some testing against Stax both pre and post sideboard I can't say I liked Meditate all that much. Nine out of ten times I would have been happier with a H. Recall or a Rebuild. Also after sideboarding I like to have room for two Energy Fluxes since they are perfect to battle the tools which Stax has against you (chalice, spheres).

 ---

I don’t think Rectors are needed at all since they open you up to a lot more hate, and are slow 3W sorceries that even need another card to function. An updated build of Rector Trix could be pretty decent right now, but I don’t think it fits this skeleton.

Koen

P.S. : I'm not posting a list since I pretty much went over all my card choices and I don't want to spam another List.

[NicolaeAlmighty]

Has anyone considered Frantic Search? If this has been suggested, I'm sorry, but it seems like an efficiently draw spell, and can untap a Tolarian Academy or some other valuable land.

[Freelancer]

@nicolea Yes it has been considered, but to me it just feels a bit weak...obviously it is fantastic with a library (and enough cards) or a academy out...Somehow it just feels to weak to me...But it's a solid choice if you have space left...

@thug I didn't actually test with double cunning wish, but the problem i always had with it was that it slows you down quite a lot if you want to use it...anyway i will test your maindeck setup since it sounds interesting...(I guess you have cutted all the draw7's besides timetwister right?) For the rest I totally agree with you about the rectors (one small thing I didn't think off yet:P) they indeed open yourself up for much different hate, and it won't be TPS anymore if you add them...(duress probably becomes therapy, some draw7's get cutted more nonbasics although it is a interesting option for a rectal agony deck )

[Thug]

Yeah timetwister is the only draw-seven left in my deck. The (previously unusual) drawcards/bombs I play are 1 Gift's Ungiven, 1 FoF, 1 Scrying, 1 Frantic.

I really learned to love the Frantic Search, which I never played. I keep discovering new uses for the card. On of my favourite plays is floating mana in my upkeep with a Wire on the board, letting Wire resolve just to follow it up with a Frantic so that you have mana to Rebuild at the end of their turn.

I also would like to discuss the land count/config people chose to run. Right now I got this land configuration:

4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tolarian Academy

Aside from Necro there really no reason to run more than 1 swamp IMO, and I'm actually considering cutting a Strand for another Island. I wonder what other people think of this.

Koen

[MaxxMatt]

@About Rectors.

-You should work on freeing 4 maindeck slots. I don't know why I should add a card that doesn't win by itself but it should be used coupled with Cabal Therapy in order to resolve a spell such as Necro or Bargain that is perfectly resolvable with the Non-Rector's configuration.
-You are obliged to use them in your mainphase, while a lot of your other bombs can be used alternatively at Istant Speed or at Sorcery Speed.
-You should splash the bicolor mana base with a third color. I don't recommend to do it at all. The deck works perfectly especially because his resilient manabase
-Cabal Therapy aren't comparable at all with Duress.

These few initial things come into my mind in order to refuse using Academy Rectors.

On the other hand, the Non-Rector's Version didn't rely specifically to nothing while developing his winning strategy. The Rector's Version, with his huge use of the grave,  would be hated out a lot more easily ( Crpyts, Purge etc etc ).



@Thug.

I'm using a version without Tinker and Jar but with 2 Tendrils, 1 Wish and 1 Frantic Search. I'm using a 14 land's mana configuration without LoA.Tinker is in my side with the Darksteel Colossus.

In this way I have Tendrils, Brainfreeze and Colossus as possible winners. A single Cranial Extraction or other hate cards could not prevent me from winning in some ways.

The choice of playing a maindeck Deep Analysis instead of Skeletal Scrying is exclusively dependent on the difficulties of winning against some Control Decks and on the presence of Frantic Search and Gift Ungiven and Fact or Fiction.
With it, I usually oblige my opponent to think about countering my draw spell twice and it is an huge advantage imho. I use one or two Skeletals in the side anyway.

I recommend to try the use of a single Deep Analysis if you are using Frantic Search, Gifts Ungiven, Fact or Fiction and you are facing Control Decks all day long.


This is a possible sideboard of my own for general porpouses and not metagamized at all ( and tweaked for a maindeck configuration with 2 Tendrils, 1 Timetwister as only Draw7, 2 Gifts, 1 Deep, 1 FoF, 1 Frantic, 1 Wish .

Wishable Targets
1 Ebony Charm
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Hydroblast
1 Misdirection
1 Brainfreeze
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild
1 Rushing River
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Stifle / Skeletal Scrying
Non Wishable Targets
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Claw of Gix
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus

The non Wishable targets are general porpouses spells that help a lot in different matchups ( Dragon, T1Tog, Oath, Fish ) and they are almost always needed. The other istant speed's spells are a good mix of removals, bouncers and drawers to adapt a bit the deck against Artifact and Aggro/Control decks.

Playing with two Wishes, I would probabily rise the number of Wishable Spells increasing a bit the flexibility of the Wish itself. After all my tests, I found that a 2 Wish configuration works better than the 1 Wish configuration only if you are obliged or if you are planning to win with Brainfreeze a lot more frequently. In any other case, having different and solid utilities in the Wish's Slot is usually more sinergic with the rest of the deck and anything else usually speed up the entire winning process.



Maxx

[Thug]

@Maxx

I'm probably geared slightly more towards Stax, since I think it's one of the harder matchups, this explains the use of the Scrying (much better than DA in this matchup) and the double wish. Together with 2 maindeck Rebuilds I should always have acces to a bounce card. 15 land is also to battle Stax a little better.

I tried DA for a while (I copied an Italian list card for card at first) and after playing for a while I couldn't really justify the DA. Even against control I often would rather have a Scrying since you really don't want to cast a DA into a Drain, cause often the flashback won't matter since they use their mana for some broken Will/Slaver etc.

Rightnow I only have 4 non-instant in my sideboard, and a whooping 11 different Wish target / bullets to side in. The differences with your Instants it that I also have a Chain of Vapor sideboard (I got none maindeck, but I'm not sure I need one sideboard, since I got Truth too, and Rushing River). I got both Skeletal and Stifle, and right now the 11th slot is occupied by a Daze.

Cranial Extraction has never been played over here, but even if it would be, it does very little, they can take my single Tendrils, but winning with Brainfreeze isn't much harder. Jester's Cap is played and is a huge threat to my deck right now. The only solution I have right now is boarding in my Brainfreeze and keeping the 2 Wishes, so that I have 4 Potential kill cards (I don't run Tinker - Colossus sideboard)

Koen

[Whatever Works]

There is absolutely no reason to run tinker in the sideboard to begin with, because there is absolutely no reason for why it should not be ran in the maindeck. It can grab memory jar and win, or it can go and grab some artifact hate card you may have sided in to deal with Oath, or even a boarded darksteel.

Overall I think running collosus is just a big waste of space in the board, and in every single matchup i would bring it in against i would prefer platinum angel.

In testing I really disliked claw of gix... maybe its just me but i found it to be disappointing...

I tested 1 chain of vapor in the maindeck, and i was incredibly impressed, because of its versatility especially post board against cards like rack and ruin etc... or a way to give me an extra turn + vs. Oath etc... or returning welders etc...

[Thug]

There is absolutely no reason to run tinker in the sideboard to begin with, because there is absolutely no reason for why it should not be ran in the maindeck. It can grab memory jar and win, or it can go and grab some artifact hate card you may have sided in to deal with Oath, or even a boarded darksteel.

Off course there is a reason, otherwise people wouldn't have cutted it. For me I found it too be too fragile in the face of so many Welders. Often I would like to untap to take full advantage of a Jar, but an opposing Welder stopped that option. And popping a Jar with almost no mana avaible isn't all that hot.

Add to that the fact that Jar actually gives your opponent good artifacts / creatures in their graveyard too abuse, and the fact that Tendrils might get stuck in your Jar hand and then it might be easier to understand why I cut Jar and Tinker.

I can't speak for other people, and I don't know what their reasoning for not running Tinker and Jar are, but these are mine. So if you don't see many welders or different decks based around there graveyard Tinker + Jar might still work for you.

Koen

[MaxxMatt]

@Whateverworks

There are a lot of reasons to run Tinker in the sideboard to begin with, because there isn't any crucial maindeck target to grab.
I don't want to run Jar because I'm using more asimmetrical cards to win
I don't run DSC maindeck for obvious reasons
I don't run Tinker maindeck because the only good target is Black Lotus and I have TONS of ways to search for it

On the other hand, I agree with you that there are useful things to tutor with Tinker post side. Exatly for this reason it is in the sideboard and exactly for this reason it isn't a waste of space.


I'm with you about the Claws of Gyx issue. The only other valid substitute is Spawning Pit that is stronger because it isn't mana intensive but slower than Claws.
While there are a lot of probabilities of resolving a Claws of Gyx during the first turn after one of your a Duresses, there are few ones of resolving the Pit with the same protections because of his cc.
I choose Claws of Gyx only for this reasons.

I had a Chain of Vapor maindeck too.
It is one of my best "Storm's Generator Tools" and it bounce almost anything my opponent could resolve during the game.

On the other hand, I perfectly realize the need that Thug have to protect itself from CotVs and his choice of playing with 2 maindeck Rebuilds instead of 1 Rebuild and a Chain. Playing against any deck with Chalices, it is really common to see your Chain blocked from his CotV for 1. Against Trinispheres, paying three for Rebuild or 3 for a Chain of Vapor isn't the same, becuase of the mass removal that Rebuild can produce.

If TPS is really hated out in his matagame, Chain of Vapor could be considered a dead card, almost any game it should have been considered useful.


@Thug.

I think that playing with Sorcery against Artifact.decs is always bad, so I understand your choice of playing with Skeletals.

On the other hand I would recommend to think that there isn't only the "mindless play" to do with an Deep Analysis in play ( Pay four. Countered. Pay two. Pay 3 Lifes. Resolve. Draw 2 ), that I usually avoid, especially against with decks that own Mana Drains.

Compare Skeletals and Deeps in these specific uses.

-You can add it as added Bomb into a Gift Ungiven. If he went into the grave, grabbing two other spells is usually as good as if it would go into your hand coupled with another good spell
-You can use Frantic Search, discard Deep Analysis and then use it to draw two, using less mana and maybe untapping good lands. You optimize your board and hand without losing nothing of consequence
-You can optimize his use if it is one of the cards revealed in your Fact or Fiction.

In all these examples, if you would have owned a Skeletal instead of a Deep Analysis, you would have lost a good drawer anytime it would have gone into the grave.

Some of the choices that you did for you sideboard are, as mine,  metagame choices...  I have fo fear a lot Welders, Dragons, ReBs and maybe Shamans, so there are some "dissimilar" cards such as Hydros and Mis-D.

I don't like Daze, because it is really situational but there are a lot of good
players around me that found that card spectacular. It is all about playstile.


@on the mana base.

I have 14 lands because my tests underlined a continuous flood in the mid-game when I played more lands.

My configuration his exactly as yours but with

+1 Swamp
-1 Island
-1 Underground/Flooded ( depending on what is the metagame I expect )

If, at some time,  Stifles are frequent I would prefer the Undeground instead of the sixth fetchland.


I'm with you that the Blue is the color NEEDED to win and that double Swamp are only connected with Tendrils. It let you search, tutor, draw, bounce etc etc etc  with ease.

But...

Sometimes the smart opponent would leave you ALWAYS with a single black mana fonts and would prevent you from Ritualling into something nasty.

Another game option in which is Crucial to have double black is when you need to Duress him AND THEN Ritualling into something. Ritualling AND THEN Duressing your opponent could be really disappointing if your opponent would own more than a single Protection.
IMHO, relying only on a single black producing solid land could be deadly, if your opponent would crush your Undegrounds at some points.

It helps a lot in some matchups such as Fish or Dragon or Keeper or Slavery, when setting up a quick Y Will with some Duresses and FoW backup is a lot more an easier path to victory if compared to Necro and Bargain or Colossus. Having double Swamp helps a lot in this process.


Maxx

[Negator13]

The biggest gripe I have with Deep Analysis, Skeletal Scrying, FoF, and Deep Analysis is that they are all outside the curve. It is very easy to cast anything up to 3 mana, but the 4 mana mark means you have to use a Dark Ritual, Lotus, Mana Vault or other one time use mana source in order to cast it in a reasonable amount of time. That means you are spending two cards in order to get 2-3, which seems really bad.

[Pliskin]

I've been just reading that you used Chain of Vapor 2-3 times to bump your Storm.

But I thought that the copy of Chain of Vapor doesn't count for Storm because it's just put on the stack and not played. Only if a spell is played it would be count for storm.

Maybe I just didn't understand what you wrote excatly^^

[CoBra]

I've been just reading that you used Chain of Vapor 2-3 times to bump your Storm.
But I thought that the copy of Chain of Vapor doesn't count for Storm because it's just put on the stack and not played. Only if a spell is played it would be count for storm.

I think it's used on your own moxes, Mana Vault and Ring to play them again: sacrifying a bunch of tapped lands you get a higher spell count and a bit of mana

[Negator13]

You bounce your moxen repeatedly with the Chain, then replay THEM for storm count.

[Rico Suave]

Your opponents can make mistakes since they don't know what you are holding within your hands while resolving a Gifts. They will make the PERFECT choice considering only what they are aware of: permanents, spells on the stack, but not the cards in your hand. For this simple reason, sometimes, this PERFECT choice is very far from the BEST choice! In this, IMHO, consists the real power of the card.

The point is you can just as easily make a mistake in choosing the cards because you don't know what is in your opponent's hand.  

I don’t think Rectors are needed at all since they open you up to a lot more hate, and are slow 3W sorceries that even need another card to function. An updated build of Rector Trix could be pretty decent right now, but I don’t think it fits this skeleton.

You mean they open you up to gravehate?  I thought your main kill card was Will?  Doesn't that die to gravehate too?

If a Rector deck rolled over and died to gravehate then maybe I'd be inclined to believe you.  It does run other cards however, just like TPS does, which is why neither deck is hosed by gravehate despite having cards that may perhaps be vulnerable to it.

If a 4cc card is slow, then what is Gifts?  Or Scrying?  Are these somehow faster?  Is Smokestack considered slow in our current environment?  A quote from another person in this thread sums up my thoughts on Rector vs. Gifts:

The biggest gripe I have with Deep Analysis, Skeletal Scrying, FoF, and Deep Analysis is that they are all outside the curve. It is very easy to cast anything up to 3 mana, but the 4 mana mark means you have to use a Dark Ritual, Lotus, Mana Vault or other one time use mana source in order to cast it in a reasonable amount of time. That means you are spending two cards in order to get 2-3, which seems really bad.

What happens if you replace Gifts with Rector?  Well, you get Bargain and instead of getting 2-3 cards you get 20-30.  

@About Rectors.

-You should work on freeing 4 maindeck slots. I don't know why I should add a card that doesn't win by itself but it should be used coupled with Cabal Therapy in order to resolve a spell such as Necro or Bargain that is perfectly resolvable with the Non-Rector's configuration.
-You are obliged to use them in your mainphase, while a lot of your other bombs can be used alternatively at Istant Speed or at Sorcery Speed.
-You should splash the bicolor mana base with a third color. I don't recommend to do it at all. The deck works perfectly especially because his resilient manabase
-Cabal Therapy aren't comparable at all with Duress.

These few initial things come into my mind in order to refuse using Academy Rectors.

On the other hand, the Non-Rector's Version didn't rely specifically to nothing while developing his winning strategy. The Rector's Version, with his huge use of the grave, would be hated out a lot more easily ( Crpyts, Purge etc etc ).

To be frank, it's not hard to find 4 cards to cut.  

Bargain/Necro are both perfectly resolvable with RectorTrix as well, if not moreso because the entire deck is based around resolving things.

Yes, Rectors are not instant speed.  So what?  The only real reason to play instant speed cards is against Wire/Stack, and a Rector in play trumps both.

Ah yes, the mana base.  If changing one, at the most two land is too much for you, then I'm sorry.  Look what splashing red does to Stax, or black to C.Slaver, or green to mono-U (Oath).  They gain huge bombs that win the game, and the entire deck becomes better.

You're right, Therapy isn't comparable to Duress.  Therapy nails multiple cards, is reuseable, sacs spirit tokens, is better when your opponent has a Welder out, and best of all it gets better when drawn in multiples.  

I've already covered the gravehate above.  RectorTrix dies to gravehate just as much as TPS does - practically never.  

I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding.  Let me contrast the new Italian TPS decklist with one that would include Rectors, and outline the differences:

-1 Island
+1 Tundra

-4 Duress
+4 Therapy

-2 Gifts Ungiven
-1 Deep Analysis
-1 FoF
+4 Rector

And that's it.  Now you don't need as much removal, so you could just as easily cut C.Wish/Rebuild instead of business spells.  

The point of this all is that TPS has problems doing something when it needs to.  Yea, it can eventually win a game but oftentimes you just don't have the gas to go off in your window of opportunity.  Rector gives you more cards that say "I win" which is something the deck doesn't have enough of.

[mongrel12]

So the reason rector isnt winning is because it isnt played? I think not. (not to be a complete asshole, but this thread is "Optimizing TPS." Perhaps Rico, if you have a promising UBw rector deck that isnt already in your trix thread starting another one would be suitable)

The operative difference between tutor-tps and draw7-tps is that ttps can be much less agressive and plays the control role a lot better. But in a shop-heavy meta could the loss in speed be a detriment to performance?

[Negator13]

Well I've found Windfall and Time Spiral to be horrible, and Jar and Tinker to be amazing. Therefore, I've met the Italians halfway, cutting Windfall and Spiral for 2 Gifts Ungiven but keeping Tinker/Jar instead of running FoF/Anal. I could be wrong, but I think I'm right, and it's hard for me to believe that 4 mana 2 for 2 card draw (Ritual+Drawer usually) is better than a 3 mana 7 for 1 that hardly helps my opponent.

[MaxxMatt]

Rector gives you more cards that say "I win" which is something the deck doesn't have enough of.

Rector is a different card that say "I win" which is something the deck have enough of.

One year ago Rectal-Agony smash faces all around the world. 4 Duress, 4 Therapy, 4 FoW were too much to battle for a common control deck.
Really quickly ( not more than 3 or 4 weeks ) anyone started packing 2 or 3 Purges in their sideboards and the ones who didn't play black usually play 3 or 4 Tormod's Crypts in their sideboards. As quickly as he had acquired his throne, Rectal-Agony stopped ruling all around the world.

At now any deck ( if it is not packing all that hate even now! ) could easily hate Academy Rector out again.

With TPS, I usually win coupling spells that a common control deck AT NOW isn't always able to stop:
1) An Istant Speed Bomb during his EoT
2) A Duress AND a Sorcery Speed Bomb during my next Mainphase.

There are a lot of simple ways to hate out an Academy Rector if you exclude countering it.
Which are the ways to hate out Gifts Ungiven and the other cards you decide to cut from my list, if not countering them?

The differents between my approach to the game AND yours are clear as the sun and you are intelligent and prepared enough to perfectly understand my points without flaming our decision not to play Academy Rectors because they are obsolete.

-------

I recommend anyone on trying to play Rectors again if needed and the hints that Rico gave to you with his changes to my TPS' lists are almost correct.

On the other hand I suggest to talk about different decks in different threads.

Thanks.

Maxx