KI.TT - Tendrils Francais

[bebe]

Here is the deck list I would play in the N. American meta ...

KI.TT

// Mana - 27
   
    4  Dark Ritual
    4  Cabal Ritual
    3  Polluted Delta
    3  Land Grant
    3  Culling the Weak
    1  Bayou
    1  Underground Sea
    2  Swamp
    1  Island
    1  Chrome Mox
    1  Mox Diamond
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Lotus Petal
    1  Black Lotus

// Creatures - 10
    4  Shield Sphere
    4  Phyrexian Walker
    2  Ornithopter

// Search - 15
    4  Infernal Contract
    3  Diabolic Intent
    3  Cruel Bargain
    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Demonic Consultation
    1  Necropotence
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    1  Ancestral Recall

// Kill - 4
    1  Yawgmoth's Will
    3  Tendrils of Agony

// Disruption - 4
    3 Cabal Therapy
    1 Echoing Truth

// Sideboard
    1  Rebuild
    1  Hurkyl's Recall
    1  Echoing truth
    2  Massacre
    1  Tropical Island
    3  Xantid Swarm
    2  Chain of Vapor
    3  Pithing Needle
    1  Bayou


Gift or fish playing meddling mage, stifle or Oath
+3 xantid swarm
+3 massacre / for u_w fish only
+1 tropical island
+1 bayou
+2 chain of vapor
+1 Echoing Truth

against stax/slaver :
+1 rebuild
+1 Hurkyl's
+3 pithing needle
+1 tropical
+1 bayou

I will say that I wrote up an abbreviated tournament report on the french food for thought post found here

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=26857.0

Now for a bit more discussion. It was presented as a TPS type deck. It is not TPS nor does really combo out turn 1-3 - unless you are suicidal or playing a deck with no FoWs. I found the deck had a very strange feel to it and that could be due to the fact that I have never played a tendrils deck at a tournament before. Despite my lack of experience the deck played itself to a very good record against a strong field. We need to ask ourselves why we would play this over TPS though. I know that will be everyone's first thought. 

First - why no Tinker/Colossus if i'm adding blue - this is useless against all the welder decks out there and there are a lot of them. I'm quite comfortable relying on Tendrils as the sole win condition. As well, a number of Toronto decks sport bounce or StPs. This makes me uncomfortable with this win condition.

Why did I add blue to the original list - I would have sided blue in for every match up. It seemed crazy not include blue main deck. I had no time walk at the tournament and I should probably add one but for now I'll leave it as is. Adding blue meant I had to change the mana base and I dropped a land grant, swamp, culling and added islands and polluted delta. I never use more than one land grant to fetch but they add to storm count nevertheless. I also wanted some bounce m,ain deck as I don't enjoy auto losses.  Both Chain and Echoing also are useful for the strom count so very little was lost.

Some other minor tweaks - i dropped an ornithopter and added an extra therapy.

The decks strengths - It is very redundant. I was duressed, fowed, and meddling maged a few times during the tournament. I was able to fight through it all. I found Fish and Oath to be very easy match ups, wild zombie decks a bye.
Stax was more difficult but chalice for 0 is not going to stop you from going off ( the creatures after all still add to your storm count Null Rod really does very little to disrupt you. The drawand search is quite amazing in this deck. Because you can use multiple tendrils ( I did as often as not ) you can draw4 and necro a lot. In fact one game loss came when i necroed so much ( lousy top decks and no will) that my stax opponent was able to deck me with two welders and a memory jar. That match ended in a draw.

To those nay sayers that believe the deck is easily disrupted I ask how you went about playing it. You do not have to go off turn two. I've seen Doomsday die when they relied on a turn one or two win. I've seen Belcher die that way as well. If you see islands be a bit patient. A few therapies and then you can go off safely.
If you need to go off fast then this deck is brilliant at it. Against decks that do not play FoW you will win much more often than not.

Weaknesses - Well stax is tough if a first turn mask or trinisphere hits. So if I get a fast hand I just have to go balls for the wall against it and try to win first. Stax can make any deck cry with a broken opening but they don't get as many broken starts as this deck does.
The mana base can be a problem. I mulliganed twice to mana problems and had a first turn land grant FoWed. I really do not want to add moxen or more land because I think that overall it weakens the deck. This is plays like mono-balck and you need a lot of black mana. You can go off with two mana. If your opponent starts with three wastes in hand ( it happenend to me ) you will likely lose that game.

I never tested against blue chalice control ( they are some who still play this ) or Tog. I can't say other than theoretically how I would expect it to do but I imagine these will be tough match ups.

This deck surprised me. I did not think I would do as well as I did on its first outing without any real testing or practice. It helped that the bluespikeyone ( andrew o. of wild zombies fame ) put the deck together for me and he actually insisted on putting blue main deck. Of course he also wanted me to play TPS and not this mutated hybrid but after seeing it in action I think I've almost converted him.

Okay - you can now all rip this apart as expected. Go ahead and tell me you do not believe that it can survive through disruption. Go ahead and say that it is a coin flip deck. This only holds true if you attack looking for the turn one turn two win. I remeber Dicemanx ( Peter O. ) telling me that redundancy will win a lot of games. When I saw the list the first time I noticed how many of the spells were redundant. This profoundly changes the ways in which this deck can be stopped.

edited after creator comments - just some minor changes

[Gaagooch]

Why not play the man plan instead.  It is esentially the same thing but instead of running zero casting cost creatures it runs confidants, swarms, and trinket mages, the mages fetch out lotus, or any other artifact in your deck and confidant gives you extra cards every turn.  It is a great combo deck and can win turn one or can wait a few turns to get cards off confidant, or just build its hand up.  Having Xantid swarm in the main deck is retarded, and one of the best plays in the deck is trinket mage finding lotus, sack lotus for three black, culling the weak sac the mage, for six black floating, grim tutor for will, will, lotus etc...of course having a dark ritual in your bin wouldnt hurt either.  Anyways i think this deck may be too redundant for its own good.  Although as you say redundancy does sometimes stop the ability to be stopped, sometimes it also slows the ability to win.  And why run three tendrils in the deck, that is way too redundant, i know i dont like one tendrils in my hand so what good is two or even three.  And one question about a card not in the deck is Yawgmoth's Bargain.  You have 4 dark rituals, 4 cabal rituals, and three culling the weak, so doesnt that mean that bargain is that much better as it can be played first turn really easily.  Bargain allows you to win many games, as do tutors, and i have noticed that your deck runs very few tutors as in two that are unconditional, and three that are conditional.  The one less cost of Diabolic Intent as compared to grim tutor does not even matter in this deck.  This deck can generate so much mana so quickly that one more will not hurt you very often if at all.  Diabolic Intent is dead in your hand with no creatures in play where as grim tutor is never dead, well other than you being at three life.  A deck like this however really doesnt care about how many life points it has, it cares only about the opponents life.  I do like some of the ideas in your deck, but again i would run better creatures even though they cost mana the things they bring to the deck overwhelms that.

[bebe]

Yawg's bargain was considered and dropped. You really do not have five mana and a bargain iin hand often enough to make it worthwhile  - I get five mana after I use a draw4 but which time I can tutor up my necro or will if needed. It would seem the deck is very mana heavy but you would be surprised. As well, I suspect that drawing an opening hand of Bargain and mana would be a very rare occurence - draw4s are common.
I did try to explain the reason berhind three tendrils - they fuel your draw 4s allowing you to go off in stages. I'm always happy to see a tendrils in hand.
I like zero costing creatures - they slow down fish, they are played easily for storm and they fuel numerous spells in the deck. This deck is predicated on them.
Redundancy speeds up ypour kill. It means you are likely to have
a)  draw4 and mana in hand
b) tutor and/or creature in hand to get necro or will
the ancilliary benefit is that it makes the deck harder to disrupt.
I'm not familiar enough with the man plan ( I've never played it or seen it played ) to comment on its viability. If you like it and prefer it by all means play it instead. I'm not looking for an alternate deck list but rather suggestions for this one. I would play a more standard confidant tendrils if I was looking for a different deck. There are posts and results to back up its effectiveness. I like this build because it virtually plays itself and is very forgiving.

[Gaagooch]

I dont know to me it just doesnt seem like the deck is optimized enough and is wasting slots in itself.  But as you said i dont have to play it and i was trying to make suggestions.  I really think having bargain in the deck would make it better because bargain is always much better than a draw four pay half your life deal.  When you pay half your life with bargain you are usually drawing nine to ten cards which is kinda good.  I personally would much rather tutor up a bargain rather than a draw four.  I do understand the want of zero casting cost creatures for the fish matches, but doesnt your deck not want the game to go past the first few turns anyways?  What kind of late game has this deck had for you in testing?  I do not understand can be mana light when you run 8 ways to produce mana no matter what and three more conditional ways of producing it.  Did you ever think about running the off color moxen and even mana crypt and mana vault, they all add mana for you and all add storm?

[Methuselahn]

why no demonic consultation?  it seems like a natural fit, since you are running three tendrils.

[ReAnimator]

Essentially bargain is a dead draw if you allready played a draw 4 or 2 so whats the point? If you have a bunch of mana and an intent it probably means you have already drawn 4.

I'll comment more later when i have more time, one thing i must say is that this deck is A LOT better in practice than it is on paper.

@ Methuselahn: When Bebe played this we had a consult in the deck but it really wasn't that good. (oddly enough intent was often better) run it if you want but like always it can screw you.

@ Bebe: i wasn't saying play TPS i was saying play horden tendrills. TPS plays force drain duress, where as horden is pure combo, they are wayyyy different. Horden is similar to this but plays a lot of blue with moxes and chromatic spheres and it also has the draw 4 engine. 

[bebe]

Sorry Andrew - I never really looked at your build of tendrils close enough - I get it now. Yes, horden tendrils, its close to this. Do you want me to beat you with that deck instead of this one?  Sorry - just trash taling. you know I respect you. I tweaked the deck a bit more since the last pmed list. If you bring it for me again I think this new list  is better.

Methuselan - the original deck had the consult as Andrew mentions. I have bad luck with that card. I consulted for a Shield Sphere in testing  with Andrew and almost decked myself with four in the library. Just needed to therapy before going off and ended with mywill and two tendrilsin my gaveyard! Andrew andI did not coplete the testing for this build yet. We feel this is an improvement over the original but more could be done.

Don't misunderstand me. I don't feel bargain necessary in this build. You could try it out yourself. I have yet to tutor for a draw4. I tutor for necro, will, tendrils or a bullet - massacre, chain, truth, crypt, etc. Yes, I somemes have the mana to play it turn two or three but that require finding it first. Its easer to find and play necro. I could add it for insurance though - I like redundancy, lol. You've gotten me thiking about it again but no.

Off color mana in a deck this black intensive is a problem.  need a lot of black sources. Infernals, Guilts and Necro are all triple black. Removing a black source for off colored would be tricky. I tried mana crypt but was not impressed and it is far better than an of color source.

The deck has gone mid to late game and won. You can go off early and you want to but if facing a lot of disruption a later kill is still quite feasible. Against fish and oath I generally went off between turn four and seven. I do not need to rush.

On horden tendrils since it is the best comparison to this deck -
It uses draw4s, consultation, bargain, and spoils. It plays off color moxen. It is consistently faster than this build but really struggles against disruption, chalice and null rod and can kill itself. It does have four tendrils though so three is not so many is it? Of course it needs four with three spoils main deck! Now Andrew, I believe made some changes to the deck but I'll wait for him to discuss bot build when he is free.

[cophos]

My first thought was: This deck is freaking terrible!
My second thought was: Let's see, doesn't seem that bad, esp. vs Fish.
So I did some testing.
My last thought was: This deck is freaking terrible.

But: I only played a few games and I really could not post my final verdict yet. In my testing the deck had serious consistency issues. (Having bad opening hands and mulliganing to nowhere, or fizzling. (E.g not draw into additional Tutors, Draw4's.)) Also the deck pretty much dies vs. Chalice @1. (Oath, Stax, which's a bad matchup anyway.)

Some of you tended to compare the deck to TPS, but the most important comparsion IMO is the one to decks like long, which are a bit slower, but very potent vs. Mana Drain Decks. (/worse vs. fish.) (But have a much higher power level regarding the individual cards. (Desire, Bargain, Brainstorm vs. Ornithopter, Cabal Ritual and multiple copies of tendrils.)  Therefor the only place I see for this deck is in a fish-heavy metagame. (Vs. Stax Belcher's probably better, vs. control long definitely is.) What's your take on this?

Addressing the deck itself: The Sideboard seems terrible. Why would I ever want to play cards like massacre or blast? Trying to control the opponent's definitely not the way to go with this deck, IMHO.

I'd like to test the deck further and help developing it, but ATM I don't see many reasons to pick it up again ...

[Mark_Story]

Massacre isn't used as board control, it is an answer to all the meddling mages and annoying little men a fish player can drop.  Furthermore, against a deck with white in it, It acts as a free spell.  From watching paul play this, massacre can be pretty gruesome against fish/welders. Espescially with meddling mage set on tendrils.

I don't think that bargain fits this deck either.  It costs too much and the life loss from all the draw 4s leaves you with little room to bargain with.  necro comes down faster, and uses less acceleration to get down.  In any instance where you had the option of necro or bargain first turn, you are far more likely to be able to drop necro due to lower mana requirements.

Chalice for 1 is a problem this deck would have as it became more easily recognized.  I think if you surprise a meta with a combo deck they've never seen you are going to get a lot of misplays. Like people dropping chalice for 0 instead of 1.  But there could always be answer main or in the board that could help.  Seeds of innocence comes to mind as something that won't get chaliced out, and doesn't require retooling the mana base.  I'm sure there are other answers as well.

[Scott_Limoges]

Bebe - with so many artifacts, try running hurkly's recall or rebuild.  Also, you should try crop rotation because bayou's are in the manabase.  Mind's Desire would then be a good addition, with the above suggestions.

I like new, rogue ideas - good luck.

Edit - also try diabolic intent

[bebe]

cophos - Exactly what I thought after playing four games pre tournament against Andrew. The deck is a pile of shit. Who would play this or try to improve this. Glad I'm stubborn though. I started to regret my decision to take the deck to the tournament at all. Then I went and lost my first match due to a third game multiple mulligan. However, I did not lose the next four matches. I got the feel of deck and understood what a good opening hand was composed of. I really felt in control the rest of tournament. This indeed may not be the deck for you. Two games though really tells you very little about the workings of this deck. It's strange that it managed to de well in France and now in Canada but still seems to elicit negative feedback. As for the sideboard - massacre is huge in this deck. Darkblast is great sideboard card against welders ( a match up that is very tight ) especially after tutoring for Will. Again, this deck can play a little more controlish than balls to the3 wall combo. Do not look to always combo out turn two or three. You really need to play this game by game looking for the approach most likely to eke out the win. Canada is all workshop and fish so this deck is great choice.

mark_story - You were watching that closely? Yes Chalice for one could really cause some problems - you would be left with only cabal rituals to accelerate and you would lose some disruption. Currently i rely on my Truths and from the side Hurkyl's and Rebuid. I never got chaliced for 1. Always was played at 0. But you can use diabolic intent for the truth and then a therapy to rid yourself of the probelm and go off that turn.

scott_limoges - it has diabolic intent and hurkyl's/rebuild in the side - main deck truths and vapors are, IMHO, better and more versatile.

[Gaagooch]

If you have a problem getting the triple black to cast some cards then maybe you should run cards that are less mana specific.  i personally can not understand how getting triple black should ever be that big of a problem where you cant run off color moxen and maybe mind's desire.  you run 11 cards that produce between 3 and 5 black mana when cast.  Lets say you have a mox emerald in play with 4 black in pool off a culling the weak, and you have diabolic intent, rather than using two black to play it you can use the emerald to pay for the colorless part of the cc.  Maybe it is just me and maybe im not being very helpful, but i like the idea this deck has, and i just feel some of the cards are not as optimal as they could be, i mean i would love to see this deck maybe cutting some draw fours and adding some draw sevens and yawg's bargain.  Drawing four cards by paying half your life just doesnt seem as good as drawing seven by paying nothing, or drawing 10 cards off bargain.  This deck from what i see on paper is able to produce a lot of black mana very quickly, so if you have bargain you can cast it very easily, the amount of games that Bargain will win in a deck like this or like tps is far greater than the number of games it loses.  I find it a lot easier to play more spells and go off better when i have drawn ten or more cards and not four.  Again this is just my personal oppionion and i know i may not be helping much, but i do plan on building something like this with a few minor changes and playing it at least for testing purposes...

[bebe]

By all means try bargain. There are few cards I want to try as well.

I'm thinking of replacing darkblast with pithing needles - still stops welder and also stops bazaars and crypts. This is a definate must look card. This is a change that I'm pretty sure I'll make. 

Still looking for a really good answer to Chalice although I can still play through one.

I'm looking at my search/daw - bargain, spoils, consultation, lim dul's and others. You are correct that a first turn Bargain is game but so is a first turn necro for ten. Like I said you got me thinking but I still find it expensiive without the off colored moxen which this build does not want. However, I proxied one Cruel Bargain ad cannot find a third. I might have to use bargain in a non-proxy tournament unless someone sells me one - sigh.

I thnk you would be happier playing Horden Tendrils, BTW. Tobe did uite well with it and it uses all the cards you want to shove into this deck that are more difficult to fit.

[Gaagooch]

I probably would like playing a deck more like that, but i still want to test this, i may think it isnt optomized, but what does that mean?  nothing...since i have never really tested this deck i can not say it is a bad deck, nor can i say it is good, i can only make assumptions based on other decks i have played like it.  My imediate thought when seeing the deck was that it was the man plan only a bit slower and even less able to search itself for a win card.  But then again i dont know this for sure as i have never actually tested your deck. 

[Vertigo]

Hallo everyone.

A while ago I was presented KI.TT by its creator. He told me that he had designed a new deck I should test. The following night I didnt get much sleep as I sat up goldfishing the deck. I am typically a control player but I have always admired combo decks. I was quite fashinated by koboldclamp some time ago but this deck seemed much better I felt. So I felt that I had to test in the proper mileu a tournament. I have also been consistently a top 8 player but never actually won one. Well, this deck took me to the top and I ended up winning it.

Heres what I like about it.

firstly in Europe we dont have proxy tournaments so people with little power (or influental friends) actually always wind up playing fish or the mountains win again, fcg and so on. While these decks have proven their worth this deck provides people with what I think a "broken" in the truest sense of the word deck. A deck that has a 48% first turn kill is what I define the epitome of broken.

So, this is also good for the magic community as a whole i think.

Secondly it has synergistic features truly abusing cc0 spells that affect creatures by doing important combo moves; mana acceleation and tutoring; intent, culling the weak, that arent shut down by null rod and a nice draw engine. And cabal ritual also deserves a say too; while duress gets you their best card, cabal ritual assures you with a high percentage of getting something like it. And it can actually ruin an opponents hand.

But it needs to be mentioned that the omnipresent chalice of the void is very disruptive. Stax is generally a bad matchup presideboarding but the sb is anyways dedicated to improve it.

Vertigo

[klu]

KI.TT is the deck of my teammate and me.. that's a long time (more than one year) i'm working on this type of acceleration and since they said portal will be allowed, i've just made the list with only a few differences (that's one year ago). The sideboard was completely modified since this time.
Since Portal can be play, i mostly bring this deck to the tournaments where i've been. I did top8 and 4-2 result. The worst i've done is a 3-3 ending in a chalicefull tournament (5deck over 6) when they told me about a mostly fullpowered meta. 

About disruption : As the analysis of Bebe describes, the deck is able to run through disruption, because of therapy, because of the number of mana source the deck plays and the fact tendrils is a storm-based card : each spell your opponent plays adds storm to your account and with the number of fetch/fow/deep/manaburn that happened in the game, you will need only an uncountered dark ritual to win the game (dark ritual? ok.. some beast/land grant/therapy flashback and a brainstorm of your opponent and you have 6-8 storm and 4 mana.., just cast tendrils, you don't care of opponent counters..). duress is sometimes game but moreoften it only reveals 2 types of mana and 2 types of engine, it will slow you, that's sure but it will not kill you.
You were arging about chalice for 1 but it depends of the match up : against stax, u will win because you have your tutors and you can play permanents. against controls, it cuts therapy that is the best card to play..
chalice in controls deck are a bit boring, even after sb because he has counters beside the chalice where you know that stax player won't do anything after he said "end of turn".
That leads to some explanation of my nowaday sideboard :

 // Sideboard
SB: 1  Island
SB: 2  Rebuild
SB: 2  Massacre
SB: 1  Tropical Island
SB: 3  Xantid Swarm
SB: 2  Chain of Vapor
SB: 2  Echoing Truth
SB: 1  Underground Sea
SB: 1  Hurkyl's recall

why blue in sb and not md?
why ancestral?
why lands???
why massacre?
why that number of bounces??
that are the question we are in right to ask ourselves.
why blue in sb : because of the mono-black base and the fact i'm running land grant : i can't play a tropical island in the deck (i hope we agree), and being based only on fetch to get the right mana is not a good plan. What are the blue cards to get in since we run blue : ancestral and chain of vapor : the 2 only blue cards we need to see in the deck. the worst thing that can happen are : going combo and find a blue card (erf, 1 storm missing) was countered our land grant or had to fetch blue with it to cast ancestral and get no black mana after. Why i put blue in sb is because bounces are the best answer to any kind of permanents.
Why ancestral? because it is the best blue card
Why lands? first, because in normal mode (meaning first game where the 2 opponent don't know what each other is playing, you wanna be able to kill Turn 1. That is not possible if you run too many lands. Second, what is the best card you wan't to have in hand against stax (if you don't start)? no ancestral, no ywill, no black lotus but a land, a basic land is a dream, 2 lands and you nearly can't be screwed.. running 11 land after sb is the best answer i found to the match up. the second swamp in the main is one of my last founds. i used to run a sapphire instead but the second swamp has just changed the stax match up from bad to good : the fact of being able to have 3 basic lands on table after sb is just amazing , the number of bounces makes you able to wait a long time before killing : eot : echoing on SoR, in my upkeep (while i'm full tap for tangle) i play rebuild to have chalice for 0 and 1 back in his hand, play a lotus petal and combo him out .. he had : 2 chalice, 1 tangle, a SoR and you won... i did ithose kind of thing many times.
The number of bounce is just here to walk through any chalice i'll say you can storm with it too.
As Mark_Story said, Massacre is THE answer to fish : believer, meddling, dracodars and daze. only fow works.. I used not to play them but i feel a lot better if i have them in my sb.
Xantid is game against oath, gOd card vs any kind of control deck when you play it 1st turn. if fow, you'll combo him on turn 2, if no fow, you'll....

Bargain : be sure this question was asked so many times but my answer is simple now : if you have 6mana, you'll only need a tutor for will. If you have not 6 mana... tutor is usefull, bargain not. The best use of the bargain is that when your opponent plays a duress, he'll fear it and then remove it rather than a draw4.
Draw4 are really good because they storm enough to kill with only one of them on turn one and that's why i run 3 tendrils. It's because it is the most common kill and you must not have to tutor a tendrils when your storm count is ok
having 2 tendils in hand? well, 8 mana and game... 1 tendrils means that's 1 less card to find in the four card of the draw4.
Why i prefer draw4 instead of draw7 : you don't always wan't to trash your hand, your opponent is quite often as weak as you (because early game are sooo fast) and you don't want to give him a 7 cards hand if he has 4-5 mana untap...draw4 are black, that mean 1st turn dark ritual/draw4 Oops, i've 9 cards in hand. ancestral weak ?
Why i play diabolic intent rather than grim tutor : play some draw4 and watch your grim second : you need 7 mana + grim to have a lethal ywill, only 6 + intent..
Why i do not run any of-color mox : because there is only 9 cards playable with them (i don't count the tendrils). I play crypt because it gives 2 mana for 0 -> ywill, tendrils cabal + tutor..
demonic consultation : just play it a bit more, it's as broken as demonic is.



 

[bebe]

Thanks so mch for the imput. I can' say I disagree but I'm too comfortable withblue main to remove it. I like the bounce and they add to storm count ( especially chain ) so for now I will keep it. I'm going to bring in needles and a land to solve stax ang with some bounce (which is soso) - stiill it can go off game one turn one.

[ReAnimator]

I said earlier that i would comment more on this deck, but since the creators chimmed in i really dont have much more to say, thanks for reading guy's and thanks for the insight, your deck is awesome.

Some people earlier said, this would only be a good call in a fish heavy meta, well you may be right, but europe and toronto are really fish/budget aggro heavy so it works for us.

As for adding a heavy blue commitment, essentially you have to be running HordenTendrills.dec instead of this if you want lots of blue. there is no way of squeezing in that much blue without altering your manabase and running chromatic spheres. Spheres don't really help here as you don't need lots of different coloured mana and the cantrip is largley irrelivent with such a strong draw engine and you never want to waste your mana.

To those who say it looks bad, It does. it looks really really bad ... On Paper.
If you acctually test this and play properly not trying to combo off turn one (depending on matchup) this deck is really resiliant and way better than it looks. Colourless mana is quite useless in here.

Does anyone think Mox Diamond might have a place in here? I know that there are only 8 lands but you have landgrants and draw fours so it might be ok. Did anyone test this?

[klu]

Chromatic sphere, as you say, is just a waste of mana and time.
A list of the cards we thought a lot about and then kept or reject :
Main deck :
-LED(emptiing your hand to cast a spell (draw4/tutor means a one-way trip against disrupt. play the spell 1by 1 and evalutae at eahc moment what your opponent can do. Always estimate the worst thing he can do now and later, (think about stifle and cunning wish).
-mox diamond (it does not "create mana" as chrome mox does. Too many chalice to have it playable.).
-YBargain (already explain).
-6 lands or less (chalice is game here, SoR is worth, even after sb)
-blue : i don't really see in what way it is important to have it in the main since the deck "can" win against chalice. But it is  mostly because it weakens the manabase of the main. (Play land grant?/or not)
-academy + desire/crop : gadget area.. mass blue mana where you only need B mana..
-mox off-color :  i use to play up to 2 of them -> sapphire and emerald but they finally switched for more uselful cards (2nd swamp)
-duress : slows the combo.. you don't wanna end a 9 storm turn by many disruption cards... and the use is waaaayyyy worst than therapy.
-tinker/memory/colosse : i used to play memory, it's a good card but it won't go without tinker, and tinker is blue and not enough "win the game" for its hardeness to cast.


Sideboard :
-Phyrexian Negator : these pets rocks . They made me win an online tournament against an uba-stax. But masss blue in sb is way better instead to go against stax.
-Pernicious deed : don't laugh, i tried it in a mono B(g) perspective
-massacre : (don't laugh again) i keep them, don't want to loose against meddling..
-carpet of flower : was amazing against all type of control deck one year ago.
-oxidize/naturalize/crea-removal -> bounces are much better.

Let me know what you are testing in, i'll give my opinion

[bebe]

Well you can see wht I'm going to try next - I will leave blue maindeck for now - so far it has not been  problem at all but I played this less than you. I have not had a problem drawing too many blue cards or land off a draw4 but I have not played s many games as you.

I removed mana crypt - its good but too situational for me - because like you said black is king here. It's good with tendrils and will, i know, but mana is not a issue often as you know.

I removed one land grant. i found three were fine.

I am going to est pithng needl out the side and because blue is main have room in the side for a extra massacre

I will consulting again - give me examples where it won you games turn one or two - it lost me a game against Andrew. Jeez, I love and hate this card. I asume you are consulting for a Will or Tendrils only?

[ReAnimator]

I think the correct play is to usually consult for a draw 4 or cabal ritual. or even shield sphere or therapy or whatever it is you need to go off with 'right now' consulting for a yag will seems suicidal unless you are dead next turn.

[bebe]

WEell I would be consultng for anything that allows me to win now. Generally it is one f those two cards - I'm assumng I'm holding any others I need to go off.
Shield Sphere - didn't we do that already Andrew - usually the wrong play.

[Tobi]

Hello all,

comparing this deck to Horden Tendrils is not easy, because while it looks similar and uses some identical cards, it's approach is different. Using the creatures to be able to run more broken cards (Culling, Diabolic Intent, Cabal Therapy) eats some room where Horden Tendrils plays Duress, Brainstorms, off-color Moxen and Chromatic Spheres. I think Horden Tendrils has a slightly lesser chance to combo on turn one (though it is still very high), but then is probably less vulnarable to counter and disruption. Using spells that needs creatures to be sacced produces card dependencies and sometimes lead to more mulliganing. It also produces some card disadvantage when countered. On the other hand it makes Yawgmoth's Will much more powerful. As klu said, 6 mana, a creature and Diabolic Intent is game.

I am thinking about writing a primer on Horden Tendrils, so it should't be discussed further here. Just a quick hint: we removed the Spoils for Imperial Seal, one more bounce and one more Swamp.

Ok so, back to this deck and its cards in question:

- Yawg. Bargain
With so many tutors it may not be needed. To win with it on turn one, you need 7 mana, since you will have your land drop and use all your Rituals to cast it. To continue winning on the same turn, you will need one more black mana, and drawing into one is not easy (Petal, Lotus, Mox Jet, Chrome Mox). And after using a draw-4 it's a dead card (ok, after using Tendrils once it's good again ).

- Mox Diamond
Playing 8 lands and Land Grants would make this one playable. It turns additionally drawn lands into mana, helps threshold and helps getting rid of lands in hand when you need to cast Land Grant for more spellcount. And it provides the needed black mana, as well as blue after sideboarding.

- Academy
You need consistent black mana and not a conditional blue mana source. Drawing an opening hand with only Academy and no Artifacts sucks. It was tested in Horden Tendrils, too, and finally was replaced by the second Swamp.

- Duress
First Turn Duress, second Turn win is strong play. Though I agree Cabal Therapy is superior here.

- Demonic Consultation
A very strong tutor, but needs to be used with care. Only tutor for Will if you already have Tendrils in hand, you may end up removing your wind condition
It is usually used to fetch a Ritual or Tendrils. I see a good use in this deck, because you will often need either a creature or a spell to sac it for.

- LED
This one is not as bad as you may think. Cracking it in response to a tutor or a draw-4 is often a good play. And it doesn't need to be tapped to crack.

- draw-7
I agree that draw-4 are better. Though draw-7 are superior with Xantids. Twister also empties your graveyard, and most of the time you don't want that.

- Tinker
Nice tool to get an alternative kill after sideboarding (Colossus). Not needed maindeck.


Sideboard:

- blue and additional land
This is tech and I loved it, too. It makes you a bit slower, but improves mana-disrupting machtups like Stax or Fish a lot. Blue is not really needed maindeck, but provides very important sideboard cards.

- Xantids
Probably one of the best cards you can play in this deck. Protects combo and is a creature.

- Massacre
I am not very convinced of it. It may be good in some situations, but probably Snuff Out is better. It can also be boarded against dragon for example.

- blue bounce
Important tools to get rid of problematic permanents. Best used with widespread cc.

- Deed
Too slow IMO. And not really needed.

- Negator
Nice alternative kill. And being a creature still useful for the combo.


So long...

[klu]

I really like Tobi's analysis, he's objective even if he doesn't know the deck.
The cards many people think strange to see are the little crea. Why are they played in a combo type deck rather than moxen, brainstorm, chromatic, that look a lot more efficient?
First answer is for the moxen, for which, as i previously said are useless in the deck because they do not give you what you need and combo decks are really tight.
Second, i'll say that 0cc spells are really good when you just want to storm.
The 3rd but the only reason I began to build this deck is that they allow culling the weak. That means this kind of deck is running mass dark-ritual-like :
4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
4 culling the weak
1 lotus
nice proba to have at least one in hand.



/ Lands
    3  Swamp
    1  Bloodstained Mire
    4  Polluted Delta
    2  Underground Sea

// Creatures
    2  Ornithopter
    4  Shield Sphere
    4  Phyrexian Walker

// Spells
    1  Yawgmoth's Will
    1  Necropotence
    1  Lotus Petal
    3  Tendrils of Agony
    4  Culling the Weak
    4  Dark Ritual
    3  Cabal Therapy
    3  Diabolic Intent
    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    4  Cabal Ritual
    2  Chain of Vapor
    1  Ancestral Recall
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Demonic Consultation
    1  Chrome Mox
    2  Cruel Bargain
    1  Mana Crypt
    4  Infernal Contract

// Sideboard
SB: 2  Brainstorm
SB: 2  Echoing Truth
SB: 1  Island
SB: 1  Swamp
SB: 1  Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 2  Rebuild
SB: 2  Massacre
SB: 4  Duress

I found this morning this list i forgot, it's including blue in the main but it sacrifice the green part of land grant and xantid swarm. Its mana base is a lot stronger but loosing xantid is imo not a good thing.
I don't have time to make many test, if someone could say if the 9storm account is not too hard to reach in this version, I remember that it was my main problem : first turn kill count was a lot decreased.

[bebe]

Have you tested a single copy of ill-gotten gains in lieu of demonic consultation ( I still hate this card ). Played turn one or two it could be quite devestating to your opponet and it will build up your threshold count quite fast. 

[THEBIGLOU]

The only person that I have seen play Ill-gotten gains (IGG) is Vincent Forino's deck.  Top 16 in the Waterbury and played in several of the last Star city tourneys to high finishes.  Interesting card that complicates and/or alters your strategy.

When I first saw his deck, I thought is was a a fun diversion until he beat my gifts and controll slaver builds about 7-3.  Even more intersting is that when I played it I had to learn to play very differently then any combo deck that I had ever played.  IGG is a part of why it play differently.  More info is in the tourney section under results for the Waterbury

BIGLOU

[klu]

Sry THEBIGLOU, but i really don't see the goal of your post on this topic. IGG and TT just run two different comboing  mechanism...
I have tried IGG in my legacy draw4 deck (that work with the culling too), to balance the lack of ywill, and it has never been good, because it does not create threshold in the way you don't see new cards with it and it only works for 5+ mana where culling the weak and diabolic intent are not playable (because of the 3 cards limitation) and it will give your opponent his 3 best cards too. Including so many times at least a FoW.
The only good reason i see to play it would be to ensure your Ywill will resolve later in the game if it has been countered. The deck can kill without the will then if it is countered, it does not matter too much.

I think i've work on the curve enough to say that i really don't wan't any non-tendrils spell with a Cc > 3. I would rather play the 4th cruel bargain... When you say you trashed the demonic consultation (spell for 1Cc that works like a demonic) to bring in an IGG ("trixy" spell for 4 Cc), i must admit you hurt me

I saw that many people just think the deck is far from being optimized when they see the list and think i've spent only a few time to build up a "new" engine. I test this deck since one year, and i think i've played thousands of game with golfishing (it take 20sec) and playing against any kind of opponent.
When i say the deck is quite resilient even against stax. i'll say that the match is at least 50/50 main deck (if opponent just runs 4 chalice and a trini) and at least 50/50 SBed (if opponent just plays tangle & chalice & sphere of resistance). If those 3 cards are not runned at least at 3-4 of each, the match up quickly becomes very good. Smokestack, a late uba, crucible without strip are just useless.

[bebe]

I just finished testing IGG and indeed demonic consult is the better of two even with my terrible top decks. That said, yes, blue does reduce the number of first turn kills by maybe 10%. That couls be significant but I found in tournament play it was not enough to make me want to drop it. I just know that I will face certain cards main deck in Toronto that I want solutions for. Consider it a meta choice.

[Jacob Orlove]

consulting for a yag will seems suicidal unless you are dead next turn.

Actually, that has only about a 10% chance of killing you. If Will wins you the game, I'd generally just go for it. Lotus is another good target, although there you have to consider the possiblity of removing multiple Tendrils.

[bebe]

There are afew cards that you can consut for of course. I would only consult to finda card that wins the game or me now. But you have to know how bad my luck with this card is! I dn't think it is a question of being 'dead' the bnext turn. It' about not giving yor opponnt time to find answers. So yes, when I have a consult and one winnig condition to the end the game,
I will use it. I'm just wondering if thee is a better card o fit that slot. My testing has not found one yet.