[Single Card Discussion] Infernal Tutor (Dissension)

[freakish777]

Unmask seems solid.  Not to mention, Belcher and SX Tendrils are more likely to mulligan aggressively, playing into the synergy with Infernal Tutor.  Something else to consider is its synergy with Bazaar of Baghdad.  I could see Dragon using this a 1 of, and I don't think it's entirely unlikely for a Stax deck to run with Bazaar.  The point of the card isn't to play it for another copy of a card in your hand, as stated previously, playing it without Hellbent is win-more at best, and lose-more at worst (hm, I'm losing, let me tutor for some more of the same garbage that got me in this mess).

[b-tings]

Actually, tutoring for a second Dark Ritual goes fairly far in setting up a game-ending Will, and if you have Threshold, a second Cabal Ritual nets you mana.

[cherub_daemon]

It seems like the Hellbent mechanic would be paired well with Uba Mask shenanigans, in addition to the LED tricks already proposed. Not that (vintage) Stax has any use for a worse Tutor than what it's (rarely) running. Maybe Flame Vault Stax in Legacy would run it, but since Bazaar is not legal in that format, Uba is < amazing. (I think...I'm no Stax expert...or Staxpert, if you will...)

If someone out there is sitting on some amazing Uba-based prison/combo list, speak right up.

[FW]

I really think this card shouldn't have been printed.
It makes LED better then lotus, it makes land grant and saying oops i find no land good:S
It makes mox diamond and chrome mox good...

I could be mistaking but i think if some ppl are willing to spend some serious time to the card they can easely get it restricted (asin build a deck that would call for the restriction of the card)

[sampling_percus]

Won't this just be ace in MD Tendrils, but only making it better at what its good at and cover up none of its weaknesses?

[Tin_Mox5831]

Here's my current list utilizing Infernal Tutor:

The Answer 2.0 :

Black Lotus x 1
Mana Crypt x 1
Mana Vault x 1
Sol Ring x 1
Lotus Petal x 1
Lion's Eye Diamond x 1
Chrome Mox x 1
Mox Jet x 1
Mox Sapphire x 1
Mox Ruby x 1
Mox Emerald x 1
Mox Pearl x 1
Elvish Spirit Guide x 4
Bayou x 1
Tropical Island x 1
Land Grant x 4
Dark Ritual x 4
Cabal Ritual x 4
Chromatic Sphere x 4
Night's Whisper x 4
Duress x 4
Tendrils Of Agony x 2
Yawgmoth's Will x 1
Grim Tutor x 2
Tinker x 1
Ancestral Recall x 1
Infernal Tutor x 4
Necropotence x 1
Yawgmoth's Bargain x 1
Imperial Seal x 1
Demonic Consultation x 1
Vampiric Tutor x 1
Demonic Tutor x 1
Memory Jar x 1

As you can see, I changed my lands from two Bayous to a Bayou and a Tropical Island. I decided that as much as I love the consistency this deck has, Ancestral Recall and Tinker are almost never bad draws. Plus, playing Tinker is just like slipping another Memory Jar into the deck. I considered using Unmask over Duress at the urging of Ambivalent Duck, but I found in testing that I prefer Duress. (BTW, thanks for the input AD!) That doesn't make Unmask wrong, mind you, it's just a preference choice. If you like Unmask over Duress, I say go for it. If there were a deck custom made for Unmask, it's this one. I also added Demonic Consultation and Yawgmoth's Bargain into the deck, while cutting the Helms Of Awakening. I liked Helms due to their ability to chain Spheres together, etc., but it isn't broken enough. I'm considering swapping out Consultation for Mystical Tutor, but I'm not sold on either yet. Consultation has been the stone nuts for me lately, as I have a deck full of 4-ofs and it puts the card right to hand, but only time will tell.

By the way, throw this together and give it a few runs. I really think you'll like what you see.

Later,
Dave

[Burntgerbil]

goldfishing this thing on mws makes it seem incredibly fast. Land Grant is huge in this thing.  I am concerned though about how easily disruptable it is early on. I like this build and  I plan on continuing testing it. Infernal tutor is tremendous in this thing and I am really looking forward to stocking up on them asap.

[kkoie]

I admit I am not very experianced with decks like this, but it strikes me as being very similar to Grim Long in some ways, at least by looking at the decklist and screwing around with it on MWS.  My question is what kind of sideboard would you use with a deck like this?  Something similar to Grim Long?  Or would the sideboard be slightly differn't?  I just wonder if Infernal Tutor would influence a slightly differn't sideboard, that is more copies of sideboard cards to work better with ITs mechanic, as opposed to a large list of 1 ofs and 2 ofs that I've seen in some Grim Long decklists.

I guess my over all question concerning Infernal Tutor is, would we need to construct a sideboard with more 3 and 4 ofs in order to work better with Infernal Tutor? 

[Darkenslight]

Tin_Mox: I'm tempted to call your deck Two-Land Tendrils, because that's basically all it is.  And if it has that level of consistency, then you might as well restrict it now, because bent stuff in Vintage = restriction. 

kkoie: Perhaps, but will we really need all that consistency?  This is essentially a combo deck, and taking out combo pieces usually = bad mojo.

I like the potential, however, to go for the double Tendrils/Bob beats plan post-boarding.  Tutoring up a Bob is some good, I've heard.

[CCClark]

This may not be broken in Vintage, but it's insane in Legacy.  I was testing this as a proxy just to see what we could come up with and the LED thing is silly.   Put it in Iggy pop.   lmao  it goes nuts so easy now. 

I can see this fixing a lil bit of the inconsistancy in TPS also.  Need mana, just copy one of the multiple mana sources in it (Ritual, Cabal Ritual), don't need that?  Dump hand, go get the will.   Considering it's nice cc of what happens to be the output of an egg, it seems like a good fit.  Testing will show though and I was never much for TPS, it just seems like a good fit from first look. 

[Tin_Mox5831]

@ Darkenslight: You're absolutely right. That's all it really is. The deck has so many accelerants that the Land Grant engine found in 2 Land Belcher and/or Meandeck Tendrils is usually sufficient to support either a Turn 1 kill or a bomb Turn 1 that ensures the win Turn 2 (Bargain, Necro, Jar).

Just as a general reference, here are 3 Goldfishes in real time as they occur. (These hands will not be altered or tampered with and appear exactly as I play them out.)

Goldfish One:
Mox Sapphire, Mox Ruby, Land Grant, Cabal Ritual, Dark Ritual, Demonic Consultation, Night's Whisper

My play:
Grant for Bayou, Dark Ritual, Mox S, Mox R, Cabal Ritual, Whisper draws Dark Ritual and Infernal Tutor, Infernal revealing Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Consultation for Tendrils 14 cards down, Cast Tendrils with 9 storm. GG.


Goldfish Two:
Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Sol Ring Tendrils Of Agony, Black Lotus, Demonic Tutor, Land Grant

My Play: (Although I really don't need to explain this. This is the freaking nuts!)
Grant for Bayou, Lotus, Dark Ritual, Sol Ring, Cabal Ritual, Demonic for Yawgmoth's Will, Break Lotus for black, Will, Grant for Tropical, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Lotus, Demonic for Necropotence, Tendrils with 12 storm. Plus, if I don't get the Tendrils off, I have a wide open Necropotence.


Goldfish Three:
Mana Vault, Chromatic Sphere, Land Grant, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Infernal Tutor

My Play:
Grant for Bayou, Vault off Bayou, Sphere off Vault, Wash a colorless into Black drawing Lotus Petal, Lotus Petal, Cabal Ritual, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor w/ Hellbent for Yawgmoth's Will, Break Petal for Blue, Will, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Petal, Sphere, Infernal Tutor w/ Hellbent for Tendrils of Agony, Tendrils with 15 Storm. Ouch!


Now those hands are just the first three I have drawn today, but they certainly suffice to demonstrate the broken openings this deck has. I love this card, and I can't wait to round up my team and go trading for every Infernal Tutor we can possibly find! I'll continue to tweak and tune this deck, but I really think that this card will prove to be the next huge R&D mistake.

Later,
Dave

[Burntgerbil]

yeah. I really love this deck right now. It seems to have the resilience to user mistakes like tog did. I also enjoy the relatively short games. It gives me plenty of times to grab a snack in-between games. What lets me down though is out of the 100 goldfishes I have played, 8 of them I have lost due to nothing hands mulling into nothing. If this deck has to take a hand with all mana and no "finders" It becomes luck of the draw.

[Tin_Mox5831]

I've been noticing that happening to me as well, and at roughly the same rate (8-10 %). I'm still batting around card ideas, but I'll take a deck that gives me at least a chance to win early roughly 80% of the time. For those of you who are testing this out there, let me know if you figure out anything interesting you're willing to share. I'll continue to do the same here. (And for the love of God, don't let Steve see this, or we'll be hearing about "The Meandeck Answer"!!!)

Just kidding Steve!  :lol:

Later,
Dave

[Burntgerbil]

We should probably move this discussion to the deck's own forum. I am currently playing one time twister in over one nights whisper. It works great goldfishing but would be terrible in a control-heavy field, methinks. I have found that Infernal tutors work well but are not the busted element that makes this deck run. They greatly help it, but I could only imagine how great they would have been if LED was unrestricted.

[Vegeta2711]

As long as every single infernal tutor deck rolls to Force of Will or a breeze pushing against it on the draw (i.e. stax pieces) there is absolutely no need to restrict anything.

[b-tings]

I guess I'm going to be the one to play devil's advocate here, since everyone else seems to be having fun whacking off on turn 1 with this thing.

What matchups have you improved by building a blisteringly fast deck that folds up on itself 10% of the time?

Turn 1 kills are all well and good, but they don't kill any better than turn ten kills. Of your three goldfishes, all three fold to Force of Will (1 and 3 on Land Grant, 2 on Demonic Tutor), and, what's more, your opponent KNOWS that they fold to Force of Will. You also can't win around a turn 1 Sphere of Resistence. You've given up resilience for speed. What matchups does this speed improve?

Furthermore, all three of those hands win if Infernal Tutor is Grim Tutor. Your deck is over-exploding; you have more mana than you need to go off. Why not just play with Grim Tutors and be able to tutor properly when you have cards in your hand?

Without Unmask, you have precisely 2 ways to get rid of a Bargain or Tendrils in your hand without casting it. You also need a ritual in hand or you get stuck on 2 x Infernal Tutor.

If you're going to add blue to the deck, add Brainstrom. It's the best Hellbent-enabler this side of LED, and better than Ancestral Recall at least half the time with Infernal Tutor in the deck. It will also reduce the number of hands that you get stuck with all mana and no gas, but you'll have to cut some mana to fit it in (probably ESG, which is doesn't add to storm count and only nets one mana), meaning some of your turn 1 kills will have to slow down a bit.

That's all for this five minutes. I'll probably come back with more later.


EDIT Vegeta hit two of the nails on the head, except he said "every" instead of "this"

[Tin_Mox5831]

Well, I feel that Duress/Unmask do a nice job of telling Force Of Will to piss off, but that may be just me. Also, I'm just trying to get people excited about this neat new card. If folks want to throw turn 1 FoW in every combo player's face constantly, I can at least throw my Duress/Unmask back in theirs. After all, the turn 1 odds of seeing each card will be the same or maybe slightly better for the combo player if they resolve a cantrip effect or two.

No offense, just a thought.

Later,
Dave

[Vegeta2711]

Duress doesn't exactly mean much when you'll generally have to resolve Lotus or Land Grant to actually cast it and go off on the same turn (Hum, or actually just cast it period. o_o). 

Actually Unmask may be better purely because you can cast it before you need to throw out the Land Grant.

[b-tings]

One of the great strengths of Unmask is the ability to cast it before resolving your mana. An adept player can stick you by Forcing a Dark Ritual cast off your last remaining source of Black Mana. I've run into this mostly after casting draw-7s, but my build doesn't run Land Grant and carries more lands than the ones in this thread.

[ErkBek]

For the past 2 weeks I've been trying to get this card to work. I intially tried a deck with 4 careful studies and 3 breakthough to maximize an early yawg will fetched by infernal tutor, it goldfished turn 2 with only 4 duress as disruption, so I went back to the drawing board. I put together Tin_Mox's meandeck tendrils like deck for some direction and after some major rebuilding, here is my final list.

Land 9
6 Fetch
2 Usea
1 Swamp

Mana Accel 22
8 Sol-Lo-Moxen-crypt
1 LED
1 Mana Vault
0 Chrome Mox
1 Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
3 ESG

Defense 6
2 Duress
4 Unmask

Tutors 10
1 Vamp
1 Iseal
1 DT
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Grim Tutor
0 Mystical

Draw/Bombs 11
3 Night’s Whisper
3 BS
2 Chromatic Sphere
1 Ancestral
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Necro

Kill 2
1 Tendrils
1 Yawg Will

I found Land grants to be unneeded for storm so I added fecthes, duals, and a swamp. Unmask is the decks best disruption spell hands down. The deck goldfishes turn 1 about 20% of the time, turn 2 40% (many with disruption), and turn 3 30% (most with disruption). The problem is, as a pure combo deck Grim Long is just so good, it has much more game than this deck ever will. I really would be surprised if anybody got this card to work in vintage. Legacy is a different story though.

[b-tings]

The biggest problem with not having land grant is the mana ratios. I find myself either mulliganing a lot of no-landers, or getting stuck with a land in hand having played one already, thus not being able to cast infernal tutor. It's not really a storm thing at all.

That being said, I've already noted some of the problems with Land Grant in the three sample hands, and I think Vegeta covered the rest. The problem is especially evident with Draw-7s in the deck.

I guess I might as well post the list I've been working on:

//NAME: DiscoInfernal
// Winning
        2 Tendrils of Agony
        1 Timetwister
        1 Necropotence
        1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
        1 Memory Jar
// Search
        1 Imperial Seal
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        4 Infernal Tutor
        4 Brainstorm
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Tinker
        1 Mystical Tutor
// Disruption
        2 Duress
        4 Unmask
        1 Hurkyl's Recall
        1 Chain of Vapor
// Acceleration
        3 Cabal Ritual
        4 Dark Ritual
        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 Chrome Mox
// Lands
        2 Underground Sea
        1 Island
        2 Swamp
        1 Flooded Strand
        1 Bloodstained Mire
        4 Polluted Delta
        1 Tolarian Academy

There are all kinds of problems with this deck. You need at least UU for Mystical Tutor to do anything this turn, and it, along with Hurkyl's and Chain, is absolutely awful when it's not brilliant. The only reason it makes the cut is the genuine need for one more business spell, and this deck DOES need that business spell. Memory Jar can be a nightmare to get out of your hand, and drawing Tinker and Jar can be frustrating. Despite all of this, the deck feels like it has enormous potential. It could just be that when Infernal Tutor works, it's like playing Grim Long with two free mana, so what I'm feeling might just be Grim Long going extra broken when it's not crapping on itself.

Thoughts?

[That0neguy]

The purpose of land grant is not to count for storm, although it is a nice benifit,  The point of the land grant is to minimize the number of lands that you will potentially have.  Also the breakthroughs seems like an exelent inclusion  They dig 4 deep while saving a card and ditching any crap thats stuck there.  They seem much better than the nights whispers.  The only downside is the blue mana which with the land  grant mana base seems to be a bit dificult.  Also to not run chrome mox in a deck like this seems like a mistake, it is so great as a storm generator and it can help get cards out of your hand for hellbent.

After taking these into consideration heres how I would change your list:

Land 8
5 Fetch
2 Usea
1 Swamp
Mana Accel 23
8 Sol-Lo-Moxen-crypt
1 LED
1 Mana Vault
1 Chrome Mox
1 Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
3 ESG
Defense 6
2 Duress
4 Unmask
Tutors 7
1 Vamp
1 Iseal
1 DT
4 Infernal Tutor

Draw/Bombs 11
3 Breakthrough
4 Brainstorm
4 Chromatic Sphere
1 Ancestral
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Necro
Kill 2
1 Tendrils
1 Yawg Will


Possible alternate land base:
4 land grants
2 bayou
2 tropical island

With breakthrough in the deck this might not be worth it to give away your hand and reveal any possible backup plans.

Another weakness I see in this deck is that if the will gets countered it really only has necro to back it up and would need to get lucky off brainstorms and chrome spheres.  This makes me want to run a regrowth or time twister but im not sure what to cut.  I would also feel much more comfortable with a bounce spell or 2 to deal with chalice's although you may be able to play around those with non hellbent tutors for rituals and a will.

[ErkBek]

I tried breakthrough and cut it. For break though to work here is the ideal situation

Pay 2U draw 4 and discard down to Infernal Tutor + Cabal Rit/Lotus/LED
Play Cabal Rit
Infernal Tutor
Will

That whole break though ftw takes 5 mana to start (2U + 1B), plus you usually have the liability of not drawing into the cabal rit or infernal tutor.  I found out careful study works better in most situations. Normally I'd play turn 1 careful study turn 2 win.

[Prometheon]

I honestly think that this card would be best as a way of increasing belcher's threat density, though I'm not sure if it is really better than Desperate Research and Tainted Pact, two often overlooked tutors.

It seems like it requires jumping through too many hoops to be worth the one B you save over Grim Tutor. Very cool deck though. It's fun to goldfish, and I think with enough work (Unmask is amazing) we could have another nice combo deck (along with GrimLong, IT and Belcher) on our hands.

[b-tings]

I wanted Breakthrough to be good so badly, but it just wasn't. If you can dump your hand and generate a ton of mana, you get to look at the top four and keep the gassiest, which makes it mildly better than Impulse for setting up and getting crap out of your hand.

I've considered are Consultation and Spoils, but the results are inconclusive. Spoils is occasionally better and occasionally worse because of the Mirage Tutors, but because it would probably be in place of Mystical anyways, so this interaction probably isn't enough to make spoils stronger than consultation.

[That0neguy]

I don't like the idea of demonic consult/spoils in a deck w/o wishs and w/ only 1 tendrils that relies almost completly on resolving will.  Without acess to will you should probably just scopp it up because it is way to hard to generate 10 storm.  So not only do you have the probability that the cards will just kill you outright because of what they do but you have the chance that removing cards that will n to allow you to win.

I havn't actually tested breakthrough so I can't comment on it but looking at the mana requirements it would take its looking like its not going to be good enough.

I think that a key play to making this deck work is to have lotus/Led in hand early so we need to cram as many tutors for these cards as possible.  with lotus, rit, inf tutor you are 1 mana short of tendrilsing for 8 throw in a mox and you have tendrils for 9 and you could play essentially any other spell in the deck.   This really wants me to move to the land grant mana base because with the land grant over the mox you storm 10 and enough mana.

What this deck really needs to be crazy is ritual type card or another tutor for lotus/LED.

[Draven]

I don't like the idea of demonic consult/spoils in a deck w/o wishs and w/ only 1 tendrils that relies almost completly on resolving will.  Without acess to will you should probably just scopp it up because it is way to hard to generate 10 storm.  So not only do you have the probability that the cards will just kill you outright because of what they do but you have the chance that removing cards that will n to allow you to win.

I havn't actually tested breakthrough so I can't comment on it but looking at the mana requirements it would take its looking like its not going to be good enough.

I think that a key play to making this deck work is to have lotus/Led in hand early so we need to cram as many tutors for these cards as possible.  with lotus, rit, inf tutor you are 1 mana short of tendrilsing for 8 throw in a mox and you have tendrils for 9 and you could play essentially any other spell in the deck.   This really wants me to move to the land grant mana base because with the land grant over the mox you storm 10 and enough mana.

What this deck really needs to be crazy is ritual type card or another tutor for lotus/LED.

You dont actually need to Storm for 10. 9 is the maximum barring life gain, due to the original Tendrils giving 2 points of damage. Nowdays with Fetches and other things, storming for 7-9 is usually enough and not hard.

[That0neguy]

By storm 10 I meant with tendrils being the 10th spell so technically Its storm 9.  However as far as self damaging opponets are concerned I really don't think that should be taken into consideration with this deck.  We already have IT as a strong slow combo so this deck should be primarily concerned with killing turn 1/2 if they live to turn 3-4 you would be in trouble becasue you don't have draw sevens (at least in my lists) to get you a quick boost of cards.  And if they survive long enough all they have to do is counter the will or you will need to be very lucky and play tutors to up the storm count.

[b-tings]

I don't like the idea of demonic consult/spoils in a deck w/o wishs and w/ only 1 tendrils that relies almost completly on resolving will.

Reading lists is tech.

That said, you're somewhat right about Will. While you can win without it, removing it is a serious pain, and if you've already gone through the first half of your turn setting it up you've probably wasted an awful lot of momentum. This, of course, doesn't change the fact that the deck really desperately wants a good business spell, and it isn't mystical tutor.

[That0neguy]

Actually This deck should probably be running all of the cheap tutors that it can find.  Personal tutor might even be justified here with the esentially all UB mana they would be very easy to cast.  And as I have stated in the previous post with the low cost of infernal tutor you do not need much mana to go lethal.  THe CDA tutors find extra rituals to get to that 6 mana needed without a lotus to set up a probably lethal will.

So esentially what the deck wants to do is if it has a hand that is short on mana tutor up another source and go off next turn.  If it need disruption find unmask/duress depending on the mana/cards availible.  If you need an infernal tutor get that (although this play may seem counter intuitive to just grabbing will it also grabs the tendrils on the way out.)  If you have an alternate way to find tendrils or you already have tendrils just grab will.

The last thing I want to adress in my list is that after thinking it through more It seems like breakthroughs are going to be bad.  So to my list I would make these changes:
- 3 breakthrough
- 1 Chromatic Sphere
+1 Timetwister
+1 Hyrklys recall
+1 Tinker
+1 Memory Jar

Recall/timetwister help set up a win assuming that will got countered or duressed away.
Tinker/Jar has been called the best draw 7 avalible to combo The only problem I see with it is the possiblility to have the jar stuck in hand.