[Deck] Meandeck Tendrils

[Nazdakka]

We have a list.

Meandeck Tendrils SX
4 Tendrils of Agony
4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Night's Whisper
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Brainstorm
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Darkwater Egg
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Land Grant
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Polluted Delta

Sideboard:
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Force of Will
1 Bayou
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Black Vise
1 Necropotence
1 Chrome Mox

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandevent.php?Article=8768

[ThirstForBLOOD]

I goldfished the list 20 or so times and all I can say is wow. About 50% of the time the deck killed turn 1. However, I think it is far from a perfect list for this "speed tenrdills" sort of deck.

I often found myself lacking blue mana to cast spells like brainstorm or sleight of hand. I think a cantrip castable with black mana would be far better in the spot of sleight of hand, such as conjurer's bauble. While not great I think it is better considering this deck creates so much black mana compared to how much blue mana it can make.

Props to Meandeck for coming up with an awesome idea!  

[pox_reborn]

I've been playing around with it but it still seems very fragile. While having a consitant goldfish rate, it leaves itself susceptible at many times where it can all go downhill. Also the self destructiveness of spoils is much like draw-7''s diminishing returns removing valuable resources. Good thing about the deck though is that most hate is a non-factor due to insane speed.

Can anyone tell me the advantage this deck has over meandeathlong? Is meandeathlong now inferior to this?

[jpmeyer]

I goldfished the list 20 or so times and all I can say is wow. About 50% of the time the deck killed turn 1. However, I think it is far from a perfect list for this "speed tenrdills" sort of deck.

I often found myself lacking blue mana to cast spells like brainstorm or sleight of hand. I think a cantrip castable with black mana would be far better in the spot of sleight of hand, such as conjurer's bauble. While not great I think it is better considering this deck creates so much black mana compared to how much blue mana it can make.

Props to Meandeck for coming up with an awesome idea!  

Mostly because if you do that, you really can't run Force of Will in the sideboard.

[Bulls on Parade]

I guess I'll be the first to say that I haven't been entirely disappointed with my preliminary testing of the deck. Maybe that's just because my expectations weren't ridiculously high because of what I've read about it, maybe not. One thing I really like is that there are no "in-between" difficulty matchups. A large amount are a cakewalk, a few are very difficult.

I disagree with the assessment that Sleight is the worst card in the deck. Night's Whisper is probably my least favorite card to see, but I understand why it fills the slot. The only change I've made to the deck after the matches I ran it through is to cut one Whisper for Chrome Mox.

This is how I feel about most cards in the deck. They're the right cards to fill the slots they fill, and there really isn't much room for improvement. This is why I don't think the deck can be a Long-esque powerhouse. It's absolutely more difficult to play correctly than Belcher, but that doesn't mean it's automatically better.

[Subversity]

This cant be the deck. I have too much respect for Meandeck to believe that this is really what they played.

Two Bad mistakes in this deck. First, they didn't have faith in their draw engine, and then they became to obsessed with cards replacing themselves.

1) No Vampiric Tutor.

All that draw and your not willing to select the next card you draw?

2) No Lim Dul's Vault.

Didn't anyone here ever play an old necro deck? Why use Spoils from the Vault which lets you pay one life to look at one card when you can pay one life to look at FIVE. ( Duh )

I think Land Grant was a mistake too. Belcher used it to remove the land from the deck for a kill, this deck shouldn't care. Drawing multiple Land Grants with its 1G casting cost is just as detrimental to the deck as drawing multiple Underground Sea's would have been.

[Hi-Val]

One mana for one card. Not putting it on top of the library, not sifting through it, ONE CARD FOR ONE MANA. It's that simple. Bauble didn't make the cut because making blue mana with egg was far better than putting something back in your library. And Lim-Dul's Vault? When the only card in the library that abolutely reads "I win, hands down" is Yawg Will, it's not worth running. Seriously, you pay two COLORED mana to cast this tutor and it doesn't even put it in your hand? Whatev. We've been testing the list for two months and you think that adding Vamp solves all the problems? The real thing that makes the deck work is that there are TEN 4-of cards in here. Find me another deck that runs 10 sets of 4 cards. The consistency is blazing.

As far as thinking it sucks, wait for the primer and try to learn it then. Knowing what to spoil for, how to build up storm, etc. is all very hard. It's a matter of doing comparative percentages on the spot in your head against an opponent who may or may not have FOW. I played it terribly until I was walked through it. Here's a hint though-- your ninth spell is usually a thresholded Cabal Ritual.

[Lucentspirit]

I think I would have tried to find a spot for grim monolith in this deck.  It's mana acceleration seems a natual inclusion. I also think I'd prefer to have vampiric tutor over a forth spoils.  
    The weakest part of the 2 land belcher deck is the mana base. Which is why this deck has trouble with the same decks that belcher does. I don't see much of a chance for this deck if an opponent lays down a trisphere.
      Thinning out a land with polluted delta doesn't make a huge difference. I think I would have gone with a gemstone mine instead.
       I'm personally a big fan of having an alternate route to victory. Belcher seems like a natural 1 of.  An early null rod can cripple this deck, fortunately null rod usually takes 2 turns to drop. It might make the addition of tinker collosus an option, at least for the SB.

[Bulls on Parade]

I also think I'd prefer to have vampiric tutor over a forth spoils.  
 

Typically my 10-spell chains have been ending like this:
8. Threshold Cabal Ritual
9. Spoils of the Vault (name Tendrils)
10. Tendrils for win.

Vamp can't do that. Spoils is the right card.

[Saucemaster]

I think Land Grant was a mistake too. Belcher used it to remove the land from the deck for a kill, this deck shouldn't care. Drawing multiple Land Grants with its 1G casting cost is just as detrimental to the deck as drawing multiple Underground Sea's would have been.

I hate to say it so bluntly, but you're wrong.  Play the deck for a while and then revisit the question.  Land Grant is what broke this deck, and it will not work properly without it.  It provides another shuffle for Brainstorm, you can use it for free storm (search and fail to find a land) if you draw multiples, and as far as this deck is concerned, it's basically a Chrome Mox that doesn't require an imprint.

@ Everyone, seriously, there are valid criticisms of the deck and its role in the metagame, but the maindeck is incredibly tight and we spent months on it.  There may be things we're wrong about, but PLEASE for the love of God learn the deck and PLAY with it for a while before making suggestions.

[Komatteru]

with months of testing and some of the best t1 players piloting the deck, in two seperate tournaments, can it really be said that play mistakes were the only reason the results were as unpromising as they were? the article on scg seems to imply that, but it doesnt seem likely that the decks creators with what they themselves describe as months of testing could all make enough mistakes to create what could otherwise only be called a statistcal anomaly of this extent.

I think it was.  The deck is very, very difficult to play, even more than DeathLong.  The order of how you play things is very, very important, and it's often hard to guess which way to play them, since you usually have little information.  If I have 4 mana available, do I play Night's Whisper first and then use the Sphere after, because I might draw a Brainstorm (and don't have blue available), or use the Sphere first, and risk needing to have one more black available after Night's Whisper?  You are faced with decisions of this type every single time you go to play something.  Add up that you need to play 10 spells, and you've got one complicated turn where one play doesn't seem to be better than another.  Even when you do everything right, the deck can still kick out on you, as you can draw utter garbage fairly easily.

The thing is, that even though you can practice, this deck requires more guessing and more intution than other combo decks.  You can practice, practice, practice, but most of the time, the situations never replicate themselves and you can never go back to "Well, last time I did this..." while other combo decks afford some of that luxury.  Sometimes, you cannot be absolutely sure which play is better, as they both seem equivalent on the surface.  You're trying to play the probabilities, but that can backfire quite easily.  When you're faced with two situations which have a nearly equal probability of leading to what you want, which one do you take?  Amazingly, it can make quite a difference.

I don't forsee the deck being much of a problem in the future.  It's just plain too difficult to play (and how many people are scared to pick up Long because of that) and is even more prone to sputtering out than TPS or Long.  It's horribly broken when it works, but that's the thing, when it works.

[Komatteru]

Yes, but you can only get 2 free spells off it and, since your not running Desire, getting rid of lands in your deck wouldn't be very relevant.  I agree that it is necessary to run them but 4 is a bit excessive and I believe that maybe, just maybe, one could be cut for a MD Chrome Mox to increase mana and spell count and get rid of unneeded cards (excess Spoils, extra Land Grant, etc.).

Wow, this is not very insightful.  You can only play one land per turn, and land isn't a spell, so it doesn't contribute to storm.  Every land you draw kills a card in your hand, and it's very hard to get to 10 storm if you keep drawing lots and lots of land (i.e., dead cards).

Lands are terrible.  I had a thread not too long ago about how much I hate playing land.  It causes me pain when I have to play more than like 15 or so.

Chrome Mox has the problem of eating up 2 cards to produce 1 mana and 1 storm.  The loss of a colored spell (which gets you cards if it's not Land Grant, in which case it's a free spell) is not something that should be underestimated. It's inclusion would be questionable.  I figure that Meandeck tested the hell out of this deck and reached the conclusion that 2 cards for 1 mana and 1 storm wasn't quite good enough, as I suggest here.

Not playing 4 Spoils would be like control not playing 4 Mana Drain.

[Hi-Val]

WTF, how does Land Grant suck here? It basically reads:

Mox Land
As additional cost to play ~, reveal your hand.
When you play Mox Land, choose either Black or Blue. ~ makes mana of the chosen color.

Additional ones ramp up storm for free, rock under YawgWill in more storm ramping, shuffle the deck, INCREASE CONSISTENCY as well as pull out excess land from the deck, which is important if the deck is statistical in nature.

Land Grant is the first spell in the progression of Land Grant, Mox Pearl, Dark Ritual, Spoils of the Vault, Dark Ritual, Chromatic Sphere, Sleight of Hand, Cabal Ritual, Night's Whisper, Tendrils of Agony. Land Grant is basically 4 more Mox Jets in your deck.

We had Chrome Mox in here. I know Land Grant, and Chrome Mox is no Land Grant.

[Hyperion]

Let's try to do a better job of keeping the thread on track, and of keeping replies relevant. Examples of responses that are irrelevant and/or devoid of any useful content are

Still give it up for meandecks creation, I mean look at how they improve the magic world daily revising decks and even making some of there own. This deck may not be their best making so far but still...

so then its finally happened and a deck has been built that relies almost entirely on statistics? i dont know whether to celebrate this milestone or cut my wrists.

I agree with trickydan ;is this really a good idea to make a deck that is too hard to play or is it one great of an achievment?

<shrug> I have no problem rolling to this deck if the guy is skilled enough to play it correctly. How often can that happen, honestly?

Once again I will repeat myself... I strongly think that this was a great idea for a deck but the standards of the lack of intelligence for some t1 players is high.

 

...and all of those are on the last page alone .

[giddygorgon]

I wouln't have enough blue mana when id have hands with multiple brainstorms or slights.  Maby these hands should be muliganed but then again some of these hands have gone off first turn with some topdecking.

You should not need "Insane Topdecks" to win with this deck on turn one.   I have goldfished like 20 games and won on turn one 13 of those games.  Most of the time as long as your sleights aren't Land-Land you should be fine.  I really think this deck has a ton of potential and may just take a little more innovation and some really good players to take it to the very top of the metagame.

Ps- I have a sideboarding question.  If i am going second what should i side out for FOW?

[CrazyCarl]

While each and every member of Team Meandeck is a player of exceptional skill and ability, not all of us are cut out to be combo players.  It's just a fact of life.  Why do you think we develop so many different decks?

Basically what I'm seeing is the reason people in South Park started shoving food up their butts: There's just way to much s**t coming out of people's asses.  I was talking to Liz online and she said there were people saying Land Grant sucked.  I thought she was kidding.  I'm sad she wasn't.

Sorry, I needed to get that out of my system.

re. Lion's Eye Diamond: It doesn't pop out at first, i'll admit, but the play generally involves dropping LED with an Egg/Sphere or two on the table and a draw spell on the stack.  You get your draw spell then you turn the LED mana into mana -and- cards with the Eggs/Spheres.

Somone brought this up earlier, but this deck is -much- harder to play than Meandeath.  They are completely different concepts, and comparing the deck to Belcher isn't any better.  Like was said before, you don't have random borked Draw7s to pull you out of tight spots.  All you can rely on is extremely tight play, hours and hours of play experiance, goldfished and against people, and "luck" in that you know what's left in your deck, the odds of getting it, and weighing your chances with each decision.

The deck doesn't "randomly" crap out except in very rare circumstances.  If you've made a mistake, it can seem like a random crap out, but it generally isn't the case.  Only when you've played the deck enough can you recognize mistakes and be able to pinpoint -exactly- where you went wrong.  I personally don't recommend the deck except for a very, very few select people who put in the work to master it.  I wish I had, but I'm not sure if I'm cut out for it, sadly.  The deck is so, so, so good, but it was really hard to keep it all together all day.  I went 2-0, lost to a fairly random game 3 in round 3, then lost to Trinisphere and an awful mulligan hand.  In all the games I lost I was usually one card short of winning in the turning parts of the game, be it a lost mana source or not hitting a Spoils of the Vault.

If you want to write it off, do so.  If I hear complaints from those people about losing to it in future events, I'll have to let Doug loose on them, turning them from a normal person into whatever colorful depiction of a pretty pony or rainbow that he pleases.

[Whatever Works]

I haved tested the deck otu for about a week almost and goldfishing does give the said 60ish% 1st turn kill. I then tested it out vs. some very good players with the usual gauntlet, and I found the deck to play awful (even in the hands of a friend who plays primarily combo)... Here are a few questions that I havent found an answer to yet...

1.) This is the fastest deck in the format... but does that mean much when the deck loses to first turn FoW... (You can say FoW doesnt hurt the deck), but if the FoW is played at the proper point in time like the cabal ritual you often see at around spell 7-8 (almost promising the wont hit required ammount to combo out), or FoW the early acceleration...

2.) This deck loses to almost every form of hate every created... It dies to trinisphere/CoTV/tinker for Plat/Arcane Lab/etc.... and even if you do bounce said cards the deck usually loses to much momentum to realistically recover...

3.) This deck requires alot of mulligans, and though the deck takes playskill you can basically look at your opening hand and say 1 of 4 possible things... A.) I can win 1st turn through FoW cuz sooo broken... B.) I win if they have no FoW... C.) Hmmm If i get LUCKY off my opening Sleight of hand I am going to win.... D.) Oh crap Mulligan...

Overall I think this deck symbolizes the best and very worst aspects of combo... It symbolizes the synergy and brokeness of combo...  but also it resembles the extreme randomness and inconsistency of combo that makes combo so loved/hated... I believe this deck is odviously not tier 1, but if you are a random mizer it is tier 1... It is clear however  that being "unlucky" is just an excuse that I am tired of seeing, because statistcs confidence levels and ranges are not 100% and just because you fell off the curve onto the curb that doesnt mean there havent been times when you spoil for ritual and its the 2 to 3rd card from the top of the library.

[LouGodKingofDustBunnys]

OK, arguing about this deck is totally nonconstructive. What it comes down to is playtesting the hell out of the deck until you learn it, inside and out, and then if you don’t like it or something about it/in it, then you adjust the list to your liking, or just plain shelf it.

   I have been playing a list that is with in 7 cards of the main deck of Meandeck Tendrils for about 3 to 4 months (like I said in a previous post, I never even thought about eggs) and I only rarely had a problem with the mana (and adding egg’s would have smoothed that out). The first turn kill ratio I had with my version was roughly 50%-55%, but I shelved it do to the fact that the new england  meta is so control orientated, and my variation (like Meandeck’s) has no disruption. In my testing I figured out that if my opponent has a force for my first turn kill, 75% of the time I could fight through it, either on that turn or the next turn. What it came out to me, was that against control, I would win, first turn about 37% of the time, and with my version, that just wasn’t good enough for me.

    Since the list came out, yesterday, I rebuilt the deck, card for card, to the Meandeck version, and you know what? It’s does just fine against almost anything I have put it up against (I do have a problem with trinisphere, but I think just about any one would, also FYI the version I ran was less susceptible to the trinisphere do to ESG and maindeck chain of vapor and rebuild, but had a harder time fighting past control/force of will do to the fact I was running ESG over something that actually did something).

   What I comes down to is this :

1)Are you obsessed with killing all of a sudden, in one turn?

2)Do you have the patience to play 200-300 games with this deck, just to learn it inside and out?

3)Do you understand all the possible interactions of the deck?


   If the answer to any of these questions are a no, then play something else. There are plenty of wonderfully broken decks out there, find one that suits your playstyle and your temperament.

   As for me, combo decks are my crack cocaine. I have to play combo, just so when someone calls me a dirty combo player I can get that nice phallic uprising that my wife seems to like so damn much (I mean, jesus, I got 4 kids.).

[ChaosTheory]

@Whateverworks. From what I read in tournament reports, the deck does not lose to 1'st turn FoW. A firstg turn FoW will hurt it, but it can be played around.

The deck, IMO, either wins fast or loses horribly.
It gets a uber good hand, gets through the hate and smashees face, or it dies horribly to the hate. It seems to be the most risk taking combo deck i've ever seen, but it could be a good surprise deck to play in a local tourney full of people that don't play very competitively  

The deck in itself has potential, but needs to find a way to win more reliably around stuff it would normally die to.
I'm sure in the future somebody will figure out a way to do it, whether it takes a new set, or a new block worth of cards to make it more resiliant to hate or maybe just some diffrent card choices.

[Smmenen]

Since there are so many questions and misperceptions about the deck, despite its performance I will write a card by card explanation of the deck that should be up within the next two weeks.

[Freelancer]

@smmenen already looking forward to it...

Sadly enough I don't have much to add just my (limited) experience with a build that was about 8-10 cards off...

At first (first 5 games) it seemed that the deck just kept crapping out on me, than I slowly started understanding the deck better and noticed it played very similar to a T2 deck (WTF) called Iron Roar wich was based around casting a bunch off cantripping artifacts than casting a Roar of Reclamation with a klark-clan ironworks and going off from there...The interesting thing is though that the first 3/4 turns is used up with casting draw/eggs and if you messed up here it would slow down the deck by atleast a turn, now the meandeck combo essentially plays out the same it however doesn't have the added resiliance off ironworks/roar (=I win)wich makes it very unforgiving and much more difficult to pilot properly (compressing it all in 1 turn makes it even more difficult)...Now I might not know how this new creation plays out but I played countless off hours with Iron Roar (personal T2 pet decK) and know it inside out...wich might give me a slight advantage...

I just want to enforce the things meandeck said, 1 mistake 1 card played at the wrong time=game loss...This is by far the most unforgiving deck I have ever played...
If only I had power than I could have another 'pet deck' in vintage...

Post Scriptum; No one selling P9 for 1000 dollars?

[Zherbus]

This card also says "If all your "2" lands have been fished out of your deck this card is shitty." Using four of them is not a good idea especially when running only two lands. Drawing them off a sleight or brainstorm when you absolutly need a bomb is a bitch.

Land Grant is what allows for a turn 1 combo deck, cutting land grants for anything means its a turn 2 combo deck. It sucks to draw multiples, but it often doesn't matter.

[Whatever Works]

This card also says "If all your "2" lands have been fished out of your deck this card is shitty." Using four of them is not a good idea especially when running only two lands. Drawing them off a sleight or brainstorm when you absolutly need a bomb is a bitch.

Land Grant is what allows for a turn 1 combo deck, cutting land grants for anything means its a turn 2 combo deck. It sucks to draw multiples, but it often doesn't matter.

I have to agree 100% with Zherbus... I am just suprised that out of the entire deck, and several cards that are rarely used until this deck (like eggs etc.) the card that gets questioned is land grant when it is probably the most neccessary card in the entire deck...

[Covetous]

After putting together and playing this disgusting pile of broken, I have a few questions:

1.  What made you choose polluted delta over underground sea as land #3?  I have found myself needing black AND blue mana (usually to set up a turn 2 kill when turn 1 isn't going to happen) with the delta in my hand and no other black/blue sources.  If it was a sea (as I have changed it to), this would be a non-issue.

2.  Would is be legitimate to replace Egg #4 with a chrome mox?  Sometimes, I find myself with a 2-egg hand and not enough mana sources, so I wonder if 4 eggs and 4 spheres might be overkill.  Also, there is that occasional hand with a blue mana source, a blue card or two, an egg and some black cards--the mox would be the difference between turn 1 and turn 2 or 3.  

3.  How often does this deck mulligan?  I haven't played enough to really recognize when to mulligan or not, just which hands cannot possibly win ever (i.e. obvious mulligans like only 1 off-color mox, no sources or 3 tendrils).  Recognizing the hands that aren't going to win fast enough is much harder for me.  Are there any general rules or just advanced pattern recognition?

4.  Why are people arguing over the point of building a turn-1 combo deck that's really hard to play?  The point is to build a turn-1 combo deck.  End of discussion.  It's not the deckbuilder's fault that you aren't good enough to play the deck.  MeanDeck doesn't build decks so the rest of us don't have to innovate.  They build decks to win tourneys.  If they build decks that are hard to play, then that is only because they are good enough to play them with a reasonable degree of success.  Don't whine about it.

5.  Are people really disparaging Land Grant in this deck?  Stop eating paint chips--they may taste good, but they're bad for your brain.  Play the deck with a legitimate knowledge of the game and the rules and the deck and then shut up.  Land Grant is so good here that it might get restricted.  It allows the deck to win turn 1.  Period.

[BigMac]

I havent built the deck yet, so i havent tested with it yet. I believe it is fast, notforgiving and difficult to play. So for people not accustomed to combo probably an  improbability to master playing.

What i do not understand is people saying that cards are bad in this deck without even knowing how to play it. The best example for this is the whole landgrant discussion. As a combo player i can see its use, specially with multiple copies.

First you can play a land of it, second you can pitch a land to a mox diamond, third you can pitch it to chrome mox. But most importantly, every time you play that 1 land or use it for MD, you actually have no lands in hands, so you can play it for free, shuffling your deck, making your brainstorm a virtual ancestral.

As said i have not played this deck but this much is clear, Landgrand has an important spot in its consistancy to win turn 1.

As for playing around FoW, i reckon it will take skill to get around that with little to no disruption. That is true for every combodeck wanting to win turn 1.

Whatever the outcome in time will be about this deck, i think its always an accomplishment when a team makes a new deck and innovates the format as it is another deck to think of when making your own deck. So for those of you with doubts, dont spill those doubts with critisism, but bow before the people that made this format 1 deck richer. And then when you are opposite a deck like this, first try winning from it. But dont start critisise a deck without reason.

As for me, i bow down to the creators of this deck and hope i will be able to play it some time in the future.

[Zherbus]

1. What made you choose polluted delta over underground sea as land #3? I have found myself needing black AND blue mana (usually to set up a turn 2 kill when turn 1 isn't going to happen) with the delta in my hand and no other black/blue sources. If it was a sea (as I have changed it to), this would be a non-issue.

2. Would is be legitimate to replace Egg #4 with a chrome mox? Sometimes, I find myself with a 2-egg hand and not enough mana sources, so I wonder if 4 eggs and 4 spheres might be overkill. Also, there is that occasional hand with a blue mana source, a blue card or two, an egg and some black cards--the mox would be the difference between turn 1 and turn 2 or 3.

3. How often does this deck mulligan? I haven't played enough to really recognize when to mulligan or not, just which hands cannot possibly win ever (i.e. obvious mulligans like only 1 off-color mox, no sources or 3 tendrils). Recognizing the hands that aren't going to win fast enough is much harder for me. Are there any general rules or just advanced pattern recognition?

4. Why are people arguing over the point of building a turn-1 combo deck that's really hard to play? The point is to build a turn-1 combo deck. End of discussion. It's not the deckbuilder's fault that you aren't good enough to play the deck. MeanDeck doesn't build decks so the rest of us don't have to innovate. They build decks to win tourneys. If they build decks that are hard to play, then that is only because they are good enough to play them with a reasonable degree of success. Don't whine about it.

5. Are people really disparaging Land Grant in this deck? Stop eating paint chips--they may taste good, but they're bad for your brain. Play the deck with a legitimate knowledge of the game and the rules and the deck and then shut up. Land Grant is so good here that it might get restricted. It allows the deck to win turn 1. Period.

1) I actually ran Wooded Foothills maindeck. We needed the fetch and only two lands to minimize the number of turn 2 kill hands.

2) I personally liked 2 egg, 2 bounce, 1 Necro, 1 Chrome config. Necro treated me better than anyone and I never had a beef with running Chrome main. I only wanted 2 eggs to fix the mana a bit. I thought 4 was too much personally. We all ran 4 at Waterbury, but in retrospect the 2 slots being bounce would have saved us an ass-ton of Platinum Angel losses.

3) It mulligans a lot. It can easily rip a turn 1 win even after Mulliganing twice. You really need to train yourself about what is a turn 1 kill hand, a turn 2 kill hand, and the rest is junk.

4) It's tricky to play, that's for sure. But we also recognize that its a big risk in playing. It plays the percentages with everything.

5) It's an easy debate to solve. First learn how to play it so that you're getting about 70% turn 1 goldfishes. Then, take out the 4 land grants for whatever you want and try to achieve that same percentage.

What i do not understand is people saying that cards are bad in this deck without even knowing how to play it. The best example for this is the whole landgrant discussion. As a combo player i can see its use, specially with multiple copies.

It's simple in concept, but training yourself to make the right plays takes longer that a few days. Case in point - at Waterbury, the players who had the deck for months only lost to coin flips, Tinker-plats, etc. The players who only had it a few days were losing to making bad plays.

[strick09]

I'd just like to chime in my support for this deck.
At this point I have only viewed the decklist and seen that it is more or less Belcher/Tendrils-but-without-Belcher. That deck [Belcher/Tendrils...and Meandeath as well, for that matter] happens to not only be a particular favorite of mine, but a deck with which I'm pretty damn good.

I just finished reading through this thread and there's one thing I have seen a lot of: Naysayers.   And I'm willing to bet a good number of the naysayers are *not* veteran combo players, because if they were they wouldn't be bitching like little girls, but rather be asking questions on how to play certain cards correctly.

Land Grant is an incredible BROKEN and awesome card. I used to play it a long time ago in a 1.5 Sliver deck I had built as (A) a free shuffle to break Scroll Rack, and (B) as a means to get WHATEVER COLOR MANA I needed.  I run it now in my 1.5 Belcher build, and in Legacy Belcher it is fucking awesome. Grabbing the land out of your deck...well that's certainly a nice boon-- but when you're going for a lethal storm count, every spell counts. Imagine this:
Opening Hand of: Land Grant x3, Dark Ritual, Yawg Will, Lotus, Spoils.  That's a winner right there! Grant, Grant, Grant, Rit, Lotus, Will, Lotus, Rit, Grant, Grant, Grant, Spoils for Tendrils for 28, win. Even with only 2 Land Grants that hand would be outrageously explosive.

Another thing people have been critical of is cantrip-mana preservation cards such as Chromatic Sphere and Darkwater Egg. I run Chrome Sphere's (and Pentad Prisms...another AWESOME card. If it cantripped I'd recommend it for inclusion in this deck) in my Legacy Belcher build and whenever I teach someone how to play it the first thing I always underscore is to NEVER NEVER NEVER underestimate the power of getting that one card. Vintage players should know better than anyone the power of an extra card draw in a turn-- even if you don't know your extra draw, you can get a-mise-ingly good top-decks, especially with this deck's inherent consistency with it's prevalence of 4-ofs.

It kind of seems like this deck could perhaps be the pinnacle of Tendrils decks. I say this not to kiss Meandeck's ass, but as a general statement about the evolution of the Tendrils deck at large, which I have more or less been casually following since Scourge (pardon me if I garble the order of these decks). Initially the deck (pre-Scourge legality) ran 4 Mind's Desires and other brokenness... then after Oscar Tan ruined our fun, it was a more control oriented build with Duress and whatnot (TPS) and its simultaneous counterpart Draw-7. Then came Long.dec, which lead to the restriction of Burning Wish, and then DeathLong, and it's stronger successor Meandeath. Each build has become more streamlined, increases in speed dramatically, as well as consistency. Honestly I'm not sure if there's much room left for evolution beyond this for a Tendrils deck (barring new syngeristic spells), minor preferential changes aside.

Nice work guys.

[Bulls on Parade]

Grabbing the land out of your deck...well that's certainly a nice boon-- but when you're going for a lethal storm count, every spell counts. Imagine this:
Opening Hand of: Land Grant x3, Dark Ritual, Yawg Will, Lotus, Spoils.  That's a winner right there! Grant, Grant, Grant, Rit, Lotus, Will, Lotus, Rit, Grant, Grant, Grant, Spoils for Tendrils for 28, win. Even with only 2 Land Grants that hand would be outrageously explosive.

I agree that Land Grant is what makes this deck. However, consider your example.

Edit: I suck.

You also discussed something I'm testing- Pentad Prism. I have always wanted to find a T1 combo deck that can abuse Thoughtcast, and I thought this might be the deck. I went with 4 Prism/ 4 Thoughtcast, and it tested out sweet at first. However, Prism doesn't add mana or cards. The Eggs and Sphere add both. After deciding Prism wasn't worth running, I had to drop Thoughtcast, but there's got to be potential for that mini-engine somewhere.

[Saucemaster]

The first Land Grant is the only free one. You need to have no lands in hand to play it for free, and you can only play one land per turn. You must be "pretty damn good" with the deck if you play it like that...

Just because you played a Land Grant doesn't mean you have to actually find a land....

[Cross]

Just because you played a Land Grant doesn't mean you have to actually find a land....

I did this a lot when I was toying with belcher. You can generate crazy storm count with a few land grants and yawg's really easily. I used the same idea with a sided in coffin purge to finish someone off at waterbury.