Kowal's WTBY Report: Missing t16 on Tiebreakers

[Kowal]

Our story really begins on Monday night, when I realize how quickly Waterbury is approaching and hastily construct around ten to twelve decks to make my best attempt at testing furiously before the big day.  By Thursday, I've already come to the conclusion that if it's not Gifts, Control Slaver, or Uba Stax, there's simply no way you can expect to keep up a record over eight rounds of a tournament.
On Friday night, I decide to go with what I always go with, Gifts Ungiven.  My reasoning this time was that of those three there was a pretty clear rotation in my testing--  Uba beat Gifts, Gifts beat CS, CS beat Uba.  Of the three, the easiest strategy to trump from the sideboard was Uba's, so I went with Gifts and a pretty heavily anti-stax Gifts at that.

I savagely stole BrassMan's maindeck, and along with the board of my own creation, here's what I played.



OMFG IT'S A NINJA Gifts

4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor

1 Recoup
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Flame Fusillade

1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampirirc Tutor
1 Imperial Seal

3 Pithing Needle
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Time Vault
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Lotus Petal

1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Island

SB:
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Pyroclasm
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Annul
2 Engineered Plague
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Gorilla Shaman


Some notes about the list:

Imperial Seal was godawful.  I cast it exactly once in the entire tournament and boarded it out four or five times.  It's just so painfully slow, and if you lack a brainstorm or something to get the card right now, your opponent has a huge window to play something relevant and make your tutor target irrelevant, costing you two turns.  I wouldn't run this card again.  I do however want another tutor here.  Merchant Scroll is kind of unimpressive (and honestly, I'd rather run even Imperial Seal over it) which leaves junk like Lim-Dul's Vault.  It requires testing that I just haven't done yet though, so I guess I'm just talking out of my ass.

I've come around on Pithing Needle.  As predicted it was usually quite worthless, but the moments where it's not worthless, it's absolute gold.  You'll see a couple examples of this later on in the report.

Several unforseen advantages of Flame Vault also made themselves apparent.  In one game I utilized Fusillade as a pyroclasm, wiping out a small horde of men by tapping crappy permanents like Pithing Needle.  Also, the entire combo is immune to red elemental blast, which came up quite a bit as well.  In addition there was at least one Yawg Will turn where the reduced cost shined over Belcher/Severance.  As much as I feel that Belcher/Severance are superior on their own, Flame Vault's advantages displayed in this event blow it out of the water.

Colossus was a necessary evil.  This shouldn't require any explanation really.  I think the card is friggen terrible, but for what the deck is trying to do, there isn't really a better alternative.

Maindeck Rack and Ruin was supposed to level the playing field against Stax, but I only ran in to two Stax lists, and in both of my game ones it didn't show up.

From the sideboard, Annul and Gorilla Shaman were not impressive at all.  The sideboard wanted either Engineered Explosives or Rushing River to help the Oath matchup, and Explosives is better at Chalice hunting than Shaman anyway, being that Shaman himself does not dodge chalice and I have a tendency to name him with Pithing Needles anyway.

Anyway, enough regrets.

Having slept about 14 hours burning sick time at work, I get up around 7am and try to get some errands done before I head out around 8:30 for the hotel.  A trip that usually takes around an hour and a half due to traffic takes me about 40 minutes as I fly down the highway unimpeded.  I arrive in Waterbury so early that Aaron Rubenstein has to let me in to the ballroom before the doors are open.  Thanks man.  I say hello to folks and pick up a few necessary cards to play the Brass List for the day from one Jeff Anand, and after the usual socializing at the beginning of big events, it's time for the first round pairings.


Round One:  Oath of Druids

I'm usually pretty confident about this matchup.  Their deck just isn't that broken.  What many consider to be their god hand is still only a turn three kill, which I routinely can race with gifts assuming an average hand.  That said, this guy purely blew me out of the water with brokenness.
Game one I keep a hand that's lacking any real gas.  I've got the mana for a turn one Thirst for Knowledge, but I lead with Library of Alexandria instead, seeing as if he has a counter I'm definitely not getting back up to library range ever and I'm left with no spells.  He mulligans and leads with Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Mox Pearl, Ancestral Recall, Demonc Tutor, Forbidden Orchard, Duress.  He takes my only draw spell, I rip a sol ring, and play nothing, hoping to get a draw off the following turn.  He already has the Oath so I'm shuffling up for game two.
I keep a fairly solid game two hand.  No force of will, but it has an Annul in it, and it will be casting thirst and probably tinker on turn two.  I drop a fetch and pass the turn.  He drops City of Brass, Black Lotus, Choke.  I Annul and he has the Force for it.  About two turns later Oath sticks and I have no mana to speak of.

0-2 0-1

A fairly subpar start.  I blame my loss on my failure to pound a can of moxie.  I slug it down and toss the can away, resolved to win out.


Round 2:  ChangStax

The kid playing ChangStax is definitely not Chang.  He leads game one with a pretty sick hand that involves playing both Smokestack and Trinisphere before I can ramp to Mana Drain.  Just piling on, he has the Strip Mine to keep me under 3 mana and I never get to squeeze off a Rack and Ruin.
Game two we get about four turns in to.  I've got some decent control in the form of a Pithing Needle on Goblin Welder and a pair of Drains in my hand, but I don't have any good spells to cast with Drain mana.  I get some compulsive urge to count his cards at this point, and realize that when he mulliganned to six, he mulliganed to seven.  I apologize and call the judge, and he receives a game loss.
Game three I force a turn one Choke.  I play an island and pass.  He plays a Crucible of Worlds, tapping out, with a strip mine already in play.  I let it resolve, and then play another island, a mox, and Pithing Needle naming Strip Mine.  He doesn't have much other gas, and it's only adding to his predicament when I drain his eventual topdeck Smokestack and transform it in to a Gifts pile that has Black Lotus and Tolarian Academy in it, to cast all my cards this turn.  He takes 20 points from a Time Vault to the dome.

2-1, 1-1

A little bit of judging gives me this match.  I'd have felt much worse about it if I wasn't confident in my position in game two, but it's still a sucky way to lose a game.  Sorry man.


Round Three:  Bird Shit

This was about the last thing I expected to see, but according to some scouting later in the event (note to self-- scout early, stupid!) this was actually a pretty popular choice for some ungodly reason.
Game one the judge gets called again.  My opponent hasn't de-sideboarded and his sideboard is only 12 cards.  There are a LOT of issues with his sideboard, including forgetting to de-sideboard, never having a 15 card sideboard to present, and others.  I make a bad decision and only call the judge over once, deeming my opponent to be "mostly harmless" given that he's playing Bird Shit and is apparently at his first Vintage tournament ever.
In our game two (game one being his penalty) he has Daze and Force of Will every time I want to play anything.  Null Rod never shows up for him but it doesn't have to since my mana isn't playing nicely anyway.  Eventually a Meddling Mage naming Tinker keeps me from having juice and he overwhelms.
Game three looks the same way for a while due to my opening of island, pithing needle on wasteland with no other mana in sight and a strip mine in his hand, but eventually I recover and stabilize.  Having removed the Mage on Tinker finally, I tinker in my big man, and fight counter wars over his plows.  Unfortunately, he has both and a counter to back them up, which trumps my setup.  I have a Tormod's in play to try to keep his men off Threshold, but he plays Null Rod, so I have to Crypt in response.  He has a stifle on top of it all, and ends up finding tons of little green men in rapid succession thanks to a topdeck gush.

1-2, 1-2

Shitty.  X-2 is never a good place to be, even in a tournament with the cut being to top sixteen.  Even so, I am resolved to come out of this with a good record.  It's been several months since I had a high performance, and not being on like everybody's Waterbury game cut deep. 


Round Four:  The Mountain Wins Again

Unfortunately for this kindly gentleman, it was in fact the islands that were destined to win again.  Game one is over in the blink of an eye as I tinker in a Colossus and have the drain for his plow.
Game two he manages to race my incoming Yawgmoth's Will (fuck you, imperial seal!) by smashing me in the face with Genju of the Spires and some mediocre men.
Game three he gets me down to about 14 with beats, and then I Gifts for combo pieces and Vamp for Yawg Will.

2-1, 2-2

Two down, four to go.


Round Five:  Cyle Wajdo with U/R Goblins

I play Magic with this guy like twice a week.  Seriously.  We live about ten minutes apart.  Anyway, his deck is basically your average aggro goblins, but it features some blue sources for the power and Dazes.
Game one he sticks a bunch of men to the board but I have a Colossus and a Demonic Tutor with enough mana to get Time Walk and pay for a Daze.
Game two I'm stuck on one mana while my opponent is smashing me with a Siege Gang Commander that was lackey'd in to play.
Game three is a little more interesting.  I've got a very early and rapidly developed board, enough such that I can cast Gifts on essentially my first turn.  I get some broken and some tutors to set up for a big Will the following turn, but he just gives me black cards and plays Blood Moon.  I've got a basic island in play, but my hand is literally Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Yawgmoth's Will at this point.  After a couple turns of draw-go and some beats from little men, I find a brainstorm and locate Mox Jet.  This gives me enough of a push that I can set up the game winning Yawgmoth's Will turn, followed by the Time Walk and cast Fusillade turn.

2-1, 3-2


Round Six:  Tyler Huff (TJ Whoopy) playing The Mountain Wins Again

Unfortunately as noted before, it was not the mountains' decision who wins today.
Game one is a little fuzzy in my memory.  I think I just tinkered in a fat man and hit him a few times.  If I recall my life total was still reasonably high when he died, as his hand wasn't terribly disruptive.
Game two he counters all my spells except the last blue card in my hand, which was Gifts Ungiven.  Casting it off a Sea, two Volcanics, and an Island, I get Mystical Tutor, Ancestral Recall, Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor.  He decides giving me Ancestral or Demonic would be bad times, so I take my mystical and Vampiric.  I play a Sapphire I'd been holding back for fear of it getting Goblin Vandalized, and cast my Mystical now so that he can't topdeck Red Blast.  I dig up Fusillade and pass.  He beats me down to about 14, and I vampiric myself down to 12 at the end of his next turn, for Time Vault.  Armed with two cards immune to the red blasts he can topdeck, I drop them both with the help of a sol ring and another mox.

2-0, 4-2


Round Seven:  Feature Match!  Jeff Greene (Team Hadley Alumni Mirror Match) playing Hadley's version of Uba Stax
Game one I keep a retarded hand that features Black Lotus, Mox Sapphire, Island, Gifts, and Vampiric Tutor.  I plan on end of turn Gifts, and Vamping for Yawg Will, to just win turn two.  Unfortunately Jeff has Chalice of the Void at zero, so instead I cast Thirst for Knowledge, and Vamp for Tinker.  I may be recalling incorrectly, but I believe after my Vamp he also plays Goblin Welder, making the Tinker I tutored for pretty worthless.  I untap and hold back my Volcanic for fear of Wasteland, and start hoping to topdeck Pithing Needle.  The following turn, Jeff plays Null Rod, severely limiting my outs.  I rip an Underground Sea which lets me Demonic Tutor for Pithing Needle.  He has the wasteland for it as suspected, but I have a topdeck Tolarian Academy.  I drop my Needle and keep my lands held tightly.  He finds and resolves Smokestack, but I have enough permanents at this point that my tinker wins the game.
Game two I keep a freaking terrible hand.  It features Mox Ruby as the only mana source, because I have a hunch.  I flash it to Jacob Orlove who just shakes his head and walks away.  My hunch pays off, as I force his first two threats and eventually find enough mana to cast the Rack and Ruins in my hand.  I can't really remember, but I believe Colossus goes the distance here.  I may have just assembled FlameVault, but I think it was a Colossus/Needle combo again.

2-0, 5-2

One more to go.  Deep breath.


Round Eight:  Pat Broderick playing Control Slaver

Pat had sold out of the game a while back.  It was weird seeing him back in Waterbury again, but it was nice to see he hadn't lost his touch.  His Control Slaver featured maindeck Gorilla Shaman and Crucible of Worlds, which I didn't realize until it was too late.
Game one he just blows me out of the water.  I have a very mox heavy opening, which he answers with a similarly mox heavy opening, plus Gorilla Shaman and Strip Mine.  I can't recover in time and he just smashes my brains out.
Game two is going fairly well until he wins a counterwar over his Tinker.  He looks as his lightly developed board position and remarks "What the hell, I won game one."  He grabs his Colossus and tosses it in to play.  On my turn I look at a somewhat complicated hand and think about how to get FlameVault active within two turns.  Finally I just decide to Brainstorm to see if I get Lotus or Academy or something easier to work with, but instead I get Fusillade itself.  That along with the Vault in my hand lets me go off this turn, and he never gets to swing with his colossus.
Game three was the greatest comeback I have ever performed, and possibly the best comeback I've ever witnessed.  My hand is weak, slow, and short a few cards off the mulligan.  His is very strong, and a couple turns in to the game my board positing is absolutely nothing (literally, not even any lands) and his is a Mindslaver, Crucible of Worlds, Wasteland, Flooded Strand, 2x Goblin Welder, and near infinite mana artifacts and lands, holding five cards or so.  He opts not to slave me this turn given that I'm not going to be very easy to rape on the slaver turn, and I rip an Island off the top.  I tap that bitch to drop a Pithing Needle which he Force of Wills, but I have a Force to toss back at him.  He slaves me in response, and I name Goblin Welder.  His slaver turn doesn't do much, but he does make me force my only brainstorm, leaving me with total junk in hand.  For many turns his two welders are racing the damage his crypt is dealing him, but after a couple unlucky rolls of the dice, he's winning the damage race.  Eventually my hand is only four cards to his three.  I'm holding Underground Sea, Mox Emerald, Tinker, and Yawgmoth's Will.  My board position is Island, Island, Pithing Needle.  I drop my Sea and cast the Will, which he drains.  He wastes my sea, burns on the mana, and swings in to bring me to 2.  I draw, and drop my emerald, and cast the Tinker.  He doesn't have another counter, and my Big Man enters play.  His welders can't kill me in time, and I end up winning the game.

2-1, 6-2


I'm relieved to have given a decent performance.  Looking at the round seven standings, it looks like I can actually sneak it in at 15th or 16th place.  Unfortunately, my opponents do terribly, as my tiebreakers drop like a rock and I end up in 24th, as I believe the last seeded 18 pointer.

After some Mental Magic, some hunger, and a kindly donation of chicken fingers from Orgcandman's wife Kerri, I am on my way home to die from exhaustion, dehydration, and a terrible catastrophe in my sinuses.


Obligatory Props and Slops

Props:
BrassMan and Outlaw, for making me play with Pithing Needle in a larger tournament.  It doesn't get a chance to shine very heavily in the little ones, but it was pretty crucial in this one.
Kerri, for the wonderful donation of sweet chickeny delight.
Ray, for another outstanding Waterbury
the judging staff

Slops:
Anybody who could have shown up and didn't
Imperial Seal for sucking
Threshold, seriously, wtf?
My tiebreakers
Alexander Hamilton for fscking with my Waterbury game by not t16ing.  Bastard!

[Machinus]

Thanks for the report.

Do you think all three pithing needles are needed? What do you think of a maindeck explosives?

[Eddie]

More importandly (I think), did you miss the burning wish? Not having it might influence your look at the Imperial Seal... Also, isn't Mana Vault a good help against chalice for 0 when you want to use your tinker?

Nice read. Too bad your tiebreakers sucked big time.

[xrizzo]

I'm relieved to have given a decent performance.  Looking at the round seven standings, it looks like I can actually sneak it in at 15th or 16th place.  Unfortunately, my opponents do terribly, as my tiebreakers drop like a rock and I end up in 24th, as I believe the last seeded 18 pointer.

Losing 2 out of your first 3 matches pretty much ensures you won't win any tie-breakers...  It looks like you knew you were playing for respect after round 3 anyway.

[Kowal]

Regarding Pithing Needle

It's likely I'll end up cutting the third needle for another mana source.  I saw a lot of mana screw in this event and only a game or two of mana flooding.  That said, I did enjoy having access to all three.  They get better as you see more of them, especially against a deck like Uba Stax where there are so many things to name.  It's also a very inexpensive permanent, mildly obnoxious, and feeds Thirst and Tinker.

Regarding Mana Vault

BrassMan said it best.

right now? this metagame? yeah, pretty much.  Too many times you just don't want to see it.  The less-than-stellar turn 2 gifts play, and the marginially useful, usually win-more added tinker utility aren't worth the times you're facing down Null Rod, or the hands you have to mulligan because you have Vault instead of Island

Regarding Burning Wish

Burning wish is freaking terrible.  You're paying sorcery speed off color mana for an effect that is extremely weak.  I don't want to be spending hot commodities like that to turn a worthless card I'm running in to a real card--  I want to spend that kind of mana to cast Flame Fusillade, or leave it untapped to Thirst when you don't have Drain up.  The only notable Burning Wishes I've ever seen people cast or cast in testing:
1) Time Walk recursion with Colossus.  Extremely win-more, and completely unnecessary.
2) Deep Analysis.  Because drawing two cards is totally worth 4UR at sorcery speed.
3) Duress.  How is Burning Wish for Duress any better than just running Duress?  And on top of that, it's not even good enough to make the cut.  Though I might sideboard it at some point, that point isn't now.

[Lou]

Regarding Burning Wish

Burning wish is freaking terrible.  You're paying sorcery speed off color mana for an effect that is extremely weak.  I don't want to be spending hot commodities like that to turn a worthless card I'm running in to a real card--  I want to spend that kind of mana to cast Flame Fusillade, or leave it untapped to Thirst when you don't have Drain up.  The only notable Burning Wishes I've ever seen people cast or cast in testing:
1) Time Walk recursion with Colossus.  Extremely win-more, and completely unnecessary.
2) Deep Analysis.  Because drawing two cards is totally worth 4UR at sorcery speed.
3) Duress.  How is Burning Wish for Duress any better than just running Duress?  And on top of that, it's not even good enough to make the cut.  Though I might sideboard it at some point, that point isn't now.

I just don't get this.  You didn't even mention Tendrils, which is what it is really for.  Do you guys feel like you can't ramp up a decent storm count for the Tendrils or what?  I feel that Burning Wish for Tendrils is the best way to win with the deck.  I don't use the Flame/Vault version, but I just don't get it.  Do you just have trouble with the Tendrils?  Have you thought about putting Tendrils in the main, or is that out of the question for you?

[Kowal]

I can't speak for Andy or Justin, but I personally tested the crap out of Tendrils and found it to be extemely terrible.

Why?  It's a question of setup.

The more setup necessary for any given kill condition, the less flexible you are when it comes to comboing out.  Tendrils requires you assemble around eight spells before you actually cast the Tendrils, which requires one of three things:
A) A busted, retarded Yawg Will turn.  If you're resolving a busted Yawg Will, how you're killing people isn't exactly of paramount importance.
B) A bunch of moxen and Rebuild.  If you can assemble Rebuild + Tendrils, why can't you assemble Flame/Vault?  It's even one mana less, with two fewer specific mana costs.
C) About a trillion mana and a handful of draw spells.  At this point, you could be killing people with Fireball and it wouldn't make any difference.

It wouldn't be fair to not have a separate column for the strengths of Tendrils, which as far as I can tell are:
A) Provides a turn or two hedge against incoming aggro.  Of course, if you have to burn your combo finish to buy a turn against the beats, you're probably not going to win.
B) Is only one card slot.
C) Could, theoretically, win through Null Rod.  I challenge anybody to try to pull that off when it's actually relevant, but I'll admit it's theoretically possible.

Using some Waterbury examples:

Winning against The Mountains Win Again through Tormod's Crypt.  My kill condition wasn't dependant on blue spells (Rebuild) or Yawgmoth's Will, so I was able to just tutor for my pieces and play them, no questions asked.  Do not pass go, do not gain two life for each copy of these spells on the stack.

Winning against Stax with first turn Island, Sol Ring, Time Vault, second turn Volcanic, Fusillade.

Brainstorming in to Time Vault with Mystical Tutor in hand, and only four cards in my graveyard and five mana to work with.

Thinking back, I cannot think of a single game in which Tendrils would have made killing my opponent any easier, but I can think of at least six in which it would have been tremendously more difficult or just plain impossible.  By selecting Tendrils as your second kill condition, you're forcing yourself to jump through hoops you don't have to jump through.

[Evenpence]

You're amazing.  I wish your opponents didn't suck so you could walk away with the thing.  I think your analysis is spot-on.  You've actually taught me a good bit about flame vault gifts (can we give that an acronym, like FVG?) just in this tournament report as well (as I don't play against it that much).  Thanks.

[Smmenen]

Burning Wish is awesome in gifts - just not in Flame Fusillade/Vault Gifts.

If you are ONLY running DSC maindeck, then you must run Burning Wish as an alternate kill.

Here are some notable uses of B. Wish:

At Origins in the finals of the Gencon Qualifier, I did:
Turn one Ancestral and Lotus
turn two: Yawg will replaying Ancestral and Lotus
Turn three burning wish for yawg will
LIke turn 8: massive yawg will win game.

If you run another win condition, then Burning Wish is much less necessary.

I personally LOVE being able to Will twice in a game because then you can do a much weaker early will to put you ahead so that you can play a much bigger and game winning will later.  And without Burning Wish, you can't guarantee the Time Walk * 2 play out of REcoup and Will.

[jpmeyer]

I thought that the deck was called "Boner-Go"

[Cross]

whiner...I had better tiebreaks and I didn't make it in either. Same goes for laplante.

I heard that during one of the later rounds a ton of people didn't check "drop" on match slips, so their opponents next round all got game wins, resulting in an abnormal amount of people in the x-2 bracket. So, if you're reading this, if you are ever going to drop from a tournament, just check "drop" and don't be an asshole.

I'm sure those foreign packs will look oh-so-good on your trophy shelf.

[Kowal]

I thought that the deck was called "Boner-Go"

That's another acceptable name for it.  I'll put that on my next deckreg.

[CrashTest]

Ben, I was the Oath you played first round. That Moxie was indeed delicious! Perhaps it gave me the hand of brokeness, with 3 moxes to open.

     As for the matchup in general, I think that Oath has to get a slower start to give Gifts time to setup some control and combo out before Oath/Orchard can hit. GWS Oath probably does better vs Gifts then other versions, because it has Duress/Wasteland to disrupt while trying to get Oath down, and as you saw, it can go slightly broken. (Although not as badly as your own deck or other more powerful decks.)

         I agree with your assertion that the Oath deck generally isn't very broken. Gifts and Stax are much more so, since they have a lot more broken options. (Oath basically has turn 1 Orchard/Oath with Fow, or perhaps some crazy mox/lotus play with a lot of draw to get advantage early.)

     For what is lacks in powerful brokeness value, it makes up in consistency and ease of finding/playing combo cards. It is difficult to stop an Orchard from activating and keeping tokens in play, so the only real threat that can be stopped is Oath itself. Duress+counters makes this easier to protect, as other decks have a lot more important cards to protect vs Oath's minority. 

[Outlaw]

Regarding Burning Wish

Burning wish is freaking terrible.  You're paying sorcery speed off color mana for an effect that is extremely weak.  I don't want to be spending hot commodities like that to turn a worthless card I'm running in to a real card--  I want to spend that kind of mana to cast Flame Fusillade, or leave it untapped to Thirst when you don't have Drain up.  The only notable Burning Wishes I've ever seen people cast or cast in testing:
1) Time Walk recursion with Colossus.  Extremely win-more, and completely unnecessary.
2) Deep Analysis.  Because drawing two cards is totally worth 4UR at sorcery speed.
3) Duress.  How is Burning Wish for Duress any better than just running Duress?  And on top of that, it's not even good enough to make the cut.  Though I might sideboard it at some point, that point isn't now.

I just don't get this.  You didn't even mention Tendrils, which is what it is really for.  Do you guys feel like you can't ramp up a decent storm count for the Tendrils or what?  I feel that Burning Wish for Tendrils is the best way to win with the deck.  I don't use the Flame/Vault version, but I just don't get it.  Do you just have trouble with the Tendrils?  Have you thought about putting Tendrils in the main, or is that out of the question for you?

How easy is it to ramp up 3RBB to fetch and cast tendrils (disregarding necessary storming with other spells), I have never seen a tendrils kill from a deck like this that didnt go off with will. 

[Gaagooch]

Speaking soley based on experience of playing gifts as a tendrils deck, it is almost impossible to win with tendrils without casting yamgmoth's will.  Obviously it can happen if you run maindeck tendrils like me and go first turn artifacts, rebuild, artifacts again, and tendrils.  Regarding the casting cost issua and one combo costing less than the other, its all preferance in what you play.  Yes Flame/Vault is a cheaper and more effiecient kill then tendrils of agony, considering in order for tendrils to kill i need usually about nine spells to be played that turn before it, but in a gifts deck i can usually make this happen pretty well.  I personaly run a very weird list and also prefer the tendrils kill, at the same time outlaw, andy and many others prefer the flame vault combo.  The deck i play performs well for me, and the deck that they play performs well for them.  We can sit here all day and argue about which kill condition is better, why its better, and why everyone should play it, but no matter how much we argue about it one thing will stay the same, you are going to play the cards and the deck that suits your style the best.  Obviously having a number of people oppinions on a certain subject makes you think about it and maybe change things around, but when all is said and done i know that i am not playing a deck that i dont want to with win conditions i dont want, just like nobody else will.  My deck requires tendrils and nine spells with four mana (two black), their deck requires Fusillade, Vault, and seven mana (one red), their combo is better in terms of cost and effectiveness.  I will concede that point, but on a personal playing level i am much more comfortable with tendrils as my win codition.