Rector-Tendrils ....Better or weaker than TPS ?

[LSD]

After readong the TPS and the Rector-Trix thread I wanted to try out a Rector deck with Tendrils as its win condition.

After a month of testing I came up with this build:


Rector-Tendrils aka Rectal Agony aka Pain in the ASS.dec

Lands
    2 Scrubland
    3 Underground Sea
    1 Tolarian Academy
    4 Gemstone Mine
    1 Polluted Delta
    4 Flooded Strand

// Creatures
    4 Academy Rector

// Spells
    2 Tendrils of Agony
    1 Lotus Petal
    1 Mana Vault
    1 Memory Jar
    1 Tinker
    1 Balance
    1 Mystical Tutor
    4 Brainstorm
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Yawgmoth's Will
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Time Walk
    1 Mana Crypt
    1 Timetwister
    1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
    1 Necropotence
    4 Dark Ritual
    4 Cabal Therapy
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Vampiric Tutor
    1 Demonic Tutor
    4 Force of Will
    1 Mind's Desire

SB:
 1 Darksteel Colossus
 1 Form of the Dragon
 2 Tormod´s Crypt
 2 Seal of Cleansing
 4 Hurkyl's Recall
 4 Phyrexian Negator
 1 Chain of Vapour


Card Analyses:

Gemstone Mine:I am sure we will debate about this but it is the reason why I never have any problems finding the white mana source I need or the multiple black to cast bargain or necropotence.On the other hand its wasteable..

2 Tendrils of Agony:I run 2 because I felt that this is the more secure way.Fish and Landstill are still around with their Stifles and I also find myself into casting double tendrils to make lethal damage with a few moxen and with the addition of Minds Desire I felt that I could not run less than 2.

Lotus Petal:Since my main winning card has 4 CC and I think that this Deck should a bit more mana Accelaration than other Combo Decks.

Balance:Since I am not running Illusions/Donate I had plenty of room so I added this to the Deck.I don´t think theres too much to say about this card,sometimes it is amazing sometimes its dead.

Tinker,Memory Jar,Timetwister,Mind´s Desire:All these Cards allow me to go off even if I don´t get any Rector´s,Necro´s,Yaw.Will´s or Bargains.And Tinker if they board out their removal you can try to get DSC.

Force of Will:I can´t choose between Duress or this.FoW seems superior and the interaction with Bargain is sweet but Duress also has interaction with Therapy and 14 Blue Spells seem a bit too low to support FoW however most of the time you are able to pitch a brainstorm.



Machtups:This Deck has similiar Machtups to TPS and I think that it is even better against Control but slightly weaker against WS.The Combo Machtups are either quite even or slightly in your favor.


Why to run this Deck > TPS?
This Deck has a high number of Bombs(Rector is a bomb imho) and it can combo out much easier than TPS(the only thing you need is to resolve a rector and sac him to therapy).Someone mentioned that it dies to graveyard hate but It does not.It can also go the Draw 7 route and win with Timetwister;Memory Jar and/or with Will.Therapy seems to be better than Duress combined with Rector and Spirit Tokens.Well their are also reason to run TPS over this(the first thing that comes in my mind is the mana base).

Why to run this > Rector-Trix?
Rector Trix does the same thing like Rector Tendrils,it tries to get Bargain ASAP most of the time,but it its combo is much more distruptable then Tendrils.While Oath has recently popped up Enchantment Hate is getting more and more popular.Trix has also problems to win without Bargain.But it also has some advantages over Rector-Tendrils:It is more resilent to Hate Cards like Pyrostatic Pillar(Null Rod isn´t a that big problem I would say and Chalice for 0 is also not a that big issue for Rector-Tendrils) and it has more blue cards to support FoW more effectively(this makes it more vulnerable to Red Elemental blast)



There are some Questions I have about this deck:

Do you think that this could work out in today meta?
Do you think we should make the mana base more like TPS?
Do you think we should run duress instead of FoW?
Do you think we should make room for a Cunning Wish and fill the Sb with goodies so this could be more resilent to hate cards?
Do you think that Hurkyl's Recall is the best choice for this Deck against MWS?



Thank you for reading and apologize my bad English.

[the boogie man]

I'd thnk that recall would make a better choice against workshop, since you could bounce everything, including moxen, to your hand and then replay them. that way you could up your storm count.

   And I have no jurisdiction on the choice between duress and force. But how does duress interact with therapy?

[Freelancer]

I think willow that you mean rebuild...
And indeed rebuild would also be my choice of weapon against workshop reasons: 1) it bounces everything so it ups the storm count
2) under trinisphere everything costs 3 anyway...

With regards to fow or duress I would say fow if you don't have trouble pitching cards...and duress if you do have troubles...

About the deck itself: I would still prefer TPS in these times filled with non-basic hate...you generally go turn 1 therapy/brainstorm turn 2 rector with ritual and flashback...but you do need lands to get WB and occasionally enough mana to cast rector with moxen...Wasteland can really set you back quite a lot...
Not to forgot that the WS match should be a little bit less favorable because you can easily get locked with crucible/wasteland or locked because he wasted your land under a trini...
I don't think the meta is right now good for this sort of deck (I think it used to be called rectal agony) especially the non-basic hate worries me...and I don't know if your manabase can hold together if it needs to support 3 colours and basics (3+)...(testing should reveal if it is a problem or not)

As a side note running trix (3 illusions, 2 donates) in your sideboard would improve your workshop matchup... (ie. it is easier to resolve 2 spells than 10)

Nice work btw...

[Covetous]

This deck has several dis-advantages compared to TPS/Doomsday:
1.  Lack of basic lands.
2.  Vulnerability to graveyard hate.
3.  Requirement for 4cc white cards.
4.  It needs to run Cabal Therapy, which is generally considered weaker than both Duress and FoW.  BTW this deck's original strength was that it ran 4x Duress, 4x Therapy AND 4x FoW (i.e. HUGE disruption).

Basically, if you want to run Tendrils, you need to focus the deck on that--Rector un-focuses the deck.  It's cute to run nasty cards like Bargain with an easy 4-of tutor, but in many cases, if you can poop out a rector and then win, you could have easily played Doomsday and won or just won with TPS/Deathlong.  Rector may be easier to play than other combo decks, but is also generally not as good.

[Wollblad]

We playtested this deck heavily this summer to try to adopt it to a meta game with lots of Stax and non-basic hate. We used the following mana base:
7 SoLoMoxen
1 Crypt
1 Vault
1 Petal
4 Dark Ritual
1 Tolarian
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Scrublands
1 Island
1 Swamp
We tried to use more basic lands, but it was not neccesary other than against Stax and possibly Fish. We therefore opted to have one Island in the sideboard which replaced Lotus Petal in mathups against Trinisphere, Chalice and Null Rod. Three basic lands can also creat a bid of trouble with color Stability and the extra Island was only used when when stable mana was the Issue. For example, the extra Island was not used agaisnt Keeper.

To have the slightest chance before sideboard against Stax and Fish, we maindecked two Rebuild. These are superior to Hurkyl's Recall since they can be cycled. They also add blue cards to the deck and making Mind's Desire much better. They actually gave a second rout to victory by only Rebuilds, TT or Mind's Desire and Tendrils.

The deck is cleary better against controll than TPS, but actually, the great advantage comes against TPS. Instead of playing a mirror match, you takes out most Rectors and Therapies (we  ran 4 Fow and 3 Duress MD), adding up to 4 Duress and 3 Orim's Chant. Let the TPS player use his mana to play draw 7 and then Chant him as a respons his first vital action afterwards.

TPS is however superior against Stax where almost everything is about the basic lands. Two basic lands gives you a possibility to win, but you never get close to the 50/50 that TPS has.

[Rico Suave]

TPS is however superior against Stax where almost everything is about the basic lands. Two basic lands gives you a possibility to win, but you never get close to the 50/50 that TPS has.

If you want to play this against Stax, you should play Trix instead of Tendrils.  

As far as the mana base goes, I don't see a reason not to play at the bare minimum 6 fetchlands.  They are far superior to Gemstone Mine and excess Scrublands.