The tendrils of Agony kill in MDG

[froz3nn]

While playing a game with some random guy on MWS, he was playing pitchlong and i was playing mdg, when i cast my gifts ftw, he asks how practical the tendrils kill is. This got me thinking that i hardly ever use it, every now and then it is just the oops i guess i win. What I want to know is how often do all of you use the tendrils kill. Although i dont think that is the first plan that you think of when you try to win, does anyone else value that kill condition to be nearly important as the dsc plan?

Note:I do know that the card is essential, and would never think of cutting it, even though i barely use it, especially since it is just 1 card in the board, since the wish is essential, so you can timewalk early.

[Pitlord]

For the brief amount of time I played around with gifts I noticed too that tendrils was never my main plan of attack. Sure, it could be convienent to win if everything fell into place perfectly for the set-up, but mostly just using turbo-tinker-time walk was the best plan. The problem with yawg-winning and then fetching tendrils was that MDG plays so many control elements it can be difficult to play enough spells in one turn to go lethal.

Now though, everyone expects to see at least a few DSCs staring at them on the other side of the board every tournament, so the hate comes often. Now that Wipe Away is being printed too, DSC loses another merit as a basic win condition. If decks continue to either be able to race DSC or simply out-hate it, the focus of MDG may have to shift to rely a little more on tendrils. However, if combo continues to do very well and people start mainbaording more tendrils hate, the kill may become even less used.

Basically, I think the yawg-will tendirls plan is very good, as long as you have enough time to set everything up perfectly, or if DSC is completely un-usable for some reason.

[Pathian]

I'm not an mdg player, but I do play/test against it quite a bit. Granted that the people I play against prefer combo to DSC beatdown, so that might skew things, but they're good enough to know when to use DSC even though they don't like him. My tendency goes towards aggro-control like Fish and TMWA and lately I've been dabbling with Bomberman. In my experience from that context, unless the DSC is hitting the board first turn, I fear the MDG tendrils kill infinitely more than a DSC. StP, tappers, Hide, Welder, Aether Spellbomb, CoV, Echoing Truth etc. Basically, in my opinion, the DSC kill just tends to not be as resilient as a MDG tendrils kill either backed up by countermagic or done in the late game with a Yawgwill and fat graveyard.

[Kowal]

The tendrils kill is insanely better than the Colossus kill.  It's faster, cleaner, more efficient, and tougher to answer.

I heard someone (I think it might have been Steve) say that if you won with Colossus, you were either playing game one against fish, or misplaying.  I agree.

Colossus leaves you spending a large portion of your hand to resolve Tinker, only to do pretty much nothing relevant with it.  If you can control the game for two turns after a counterwar, you might as well be killing with Brown Ouphe.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I almost always prefer to kill with tendrils when possible, for the reasons mentioned above.  Tinker tends to be more of a last resort against graveyard hate (crypt, leyline), or stuff like mage, true believer, etc, or for when you don't have time/resources to set up for the Will under a fast clock and can Tnker with double counter back-up instead.

[Hi-Val]

Ze Germans used Colossus pretty exclusively.

I find with Rebuild that Tendrils is infinitely easy to pull off. I often sideboard it in and just gifts for 3 mana artifacts and Tendrils and Merch up Rebuild and then tutor up Will. Colossus is a VERY secondary win condition for me, probably because Time Walking, Wishing for Walk and then Recouping it again takes a lot more mana and coordination.

[froz3nn]

you only have to timewalk then recoup timewalk, assuming you didnt use timewalk earlier to set up a turn earlier. Also, i think that maybe i dont like the tendrils plan because i always seem to be pitching my rebuild to fow or misdirection

[sean1i0]

It's interesting that you mention that.  I was doing some playtesting tonight with MDGifts and actually forgot to put Rebuild in the deck.  (I tend to do stuff like that a lot whenever I put a deck together; thankfully I usually realize after a few games.)  Interestingly enough I won via Tendrils twice without Rebuild in the deck.  It really is a nice sleak win.  Now, I will say that if I just have the perfect hand, I have nothing against the Tinker-Walk-Walk win, but often it's just easier to Tendrils for the win.

[verduran]

For those of you who don't like the Colossus kill; is DSC something you might put in your sideboard or remove from your deck altogether? If so, you also might not need the clunky Recoup. Perhaps when doing so, you could substitue the Colossus with Memory Jar or Sundering Titan, or  even go without Tinker. (Although not playing Tinker sounds wrong to me.)

[49 Cents]

For those of you who don't like the Colossus kill; is DSC something you might put in your sideboard or remove from your deck altogether? If so, you also might not need the clunky Recoup. Perhaps when doing so, you could substitue the Colossus with Memory Jar or Sundering Titan, or  even go without Tinker. (Although not playing Tinker sounds wrong to me.)

No, this is wrong. Having only a single wincondition makes you much more vulnerable against graveyard hate, Cap, etc.

I practically always kill with Tendrils myself. It's so much easier and faster, because all you need to do is basically Drain something and resolve a Gifts. You don't have to worry about Welders, bouncespells, STP's, etc. And with Tinker, if they board in lots of combo hate, you can just Tinker for the win. In a tourney last week, in 6 rounds I killed with Colossus once or twice.

[zeus-online]

As others have said, having 2 win conditions is key, i'll run out a turn 1 tinker/DSC vs. any deck, any day without counter back-up, cause i can still just tendrils later if it goes bad (And it often works very well even against a deck with 4 swords and bounce)

Second, lately i've been using the tendrils kill alot more then the collosus kill...its just really good to be able to END the game. (That is, almost regardless of what he has in hand, he just dies)

Tendril's is so easy to pull off that i've done it without will plenty of times. I generally don't sideboard Rebuild out though.

/Zeus

[Whatever Works]

If the deck is being played right tendrils kill is generallly easier/faster/more efficient/safer etc...

The only time I would really ever use the collosus plan was early game if I had turn 1 tinker... or was able to find tinker w/FoW...

The other times I use collosus is if I have a way to time walk. That way I could easily set up my hand the following turn to protect it.

Regardless... I probably killed w/tendrils 60% of the time against people I consider to be the better players... and probably would just win with collossus 80% of time against less experience/lower playskill players... or against particular decks...

Kyle L.

[Disburden]

Keep practicing with the deck, you will learn how to play the tendrils kill more often. When I first played MDG I hated the burning wish--> Tendrils plan, I thought it was hard to play and totally unneeded for the deck to win. Now I am on total opposite sides of the spectrum on that issue. Rebuild is just amazing in this deck, along with Chain of Vapor, replaying all your zero costing mana accelerants twice shouldn't be any problems at all. If anything, Cycle Rebuild. That's the beauty of the spell!   If you're pitching it all the time then you're not playing the deck correctly. This kill, like said, is actually the better of the two win conditions in Gifts. I do think it may go down to playstyle and what you do when you play Magic also, but Colossus has become easier to deal with as of late.

Once you resolve a huge Will, you really shouldn't have a hard time finding the colored mana and storm you need to win with Wish. Wipe Away from Time Spiral is coming too, so beware of using Colossus so much. In testing I would recommend just trying to achieve the Tendrils plan and practicing up on it.

Nick

[InfinityCircuit]

I agree with much of what has been said here, but I have a couple of points to make:

1) If you are using the DSC win condition, you probably won't have to actually worry about Goblin Welders.  Whenever I'm forced to go for the DSC plan against Control Slaver or another Welder deck, I always recoup the will first and then play tinker--this means the artifact I sacrifice is removed from the game and the Welder won't have any targets.  In addition, StP is, in my opinion, an overrated threat because most decks that run StP also run creatures.  This means that your Misdirections will also be enough counter backup for your Colossus in case you can't just Time Walk FTW.

2) In his explanation of sideboarding with MDG, Smennen says that he prefers to side out the DSC/Tinker plan altogether in favor of REB and Pithing Needles against Control Slaver.  What do you guys think of this approach?  I think it is fundamentally flawed because the threat of an early Tinker-Colossus is often enough of a tempo boost to accelerate into a combo kill.

As others have said, having 2 win conditions is key, i'll run out a turn 1 tinker/DSC vs. any deck, any day without counter back-up, cause i can still just tendrils later if it goes bad (And it often works very well even against a deck with 4 swords and bounce)

In addition, just leaving in Tinker and siding out the DSC is another easy way to help the Tendrils kill--Turning a Mox into Lotus when both can be replayed helps remove the need to find that Rebuild.

3) Post-board, I think people are overestimating the importance of the bounce spells.  I've found that I've never had a problem with the Tendrils kill with a REB in my graveyard because of the ease of just countering my own spells to up the storm count.

[Whatever Works]

3) Post-board, I think people are overestimating the importance of the bounce spells.  I've found that I've never had a problem with the Tendrils kill with a REB in my graveyard because of the ease of just countering my own spells to up the storm count.

wouldn't it just make alot more logical sense to play a pyroblast over a reb or up the ratio of pyroblasts to REB's in your board??? I know pyroblast can get misdirected to anything, but it raises storm count w/o needing a target.

Though getting storm generally has never been an issue for me.

[MuzzonoAmi]

The tendrils kill is insanely better than the Colossus kill.  It's faster, cleaner, more efficient, and tougher to answer.

I heard someone (I think it might have been Steve) say that if you won with Colossus, you were either playing game one against fish, or misplaying.  I agree.

Colossus leaves you spending a large portion of your hand to resolve Tinker, only to do pretty much nothing relevant with it.  If you can control the game for two turns after a counterwar, you might as well be killing with Brown Ouphe.

That pretty much hits the nail on the head. I've actually gone so far as to push Darky to the board for Jar main, and go down to 3 Scrolls to run Tendrils. Colossus is horribly clunky, and is only  even marginally useful against Fish game 1, as Steve said (and even then, in my experience, he gets sent farming about 40% of the time).

[InfinityCircuit]

3) Post-board, I think people are overestimating the importance of the bounce spells.  I've found that I've never had a problem with the Tendrils kill with a REB in my graveyard because of the ease of just countering my own spells to up the storm count.

wouldn't it just make alot more logical sense to play a pyroblast over a reb or up the ratio of pyroblasts to REB's in your board??? I know pyroblast can get misdirected to anything, but it raises storm count w/o needing a target.

Though getting storm generally has never been an issue for me.

Yes I do use Pyroblasts--I just used the term REB because I thought it would be more easily identifiable.

[Damos]

Now I do not play MDG but I have played against it more then once with my deck. And there has never been a single time when they went the darksteel plan. The reason is that my deck has to much main deck darksteel hate for them to chance it. So they have had to go for the tendril's kill every time.

And now day's as I pointed out to someone just friday. With Hide/Seek seeing more and more play (at least in my area). Just playing the the one tendrils SB and the tinker main seems to be a problem. The reason is that if the play resolves a Hide/Seek they may just have won the game. Take my deck (which has just started to run the Hide/Seek) as an example. Now I know that I do not need to worry about the darksteel to much as I have a good number of answer's to him in the main. So I know that the tendril's kill is my only real worry. So if I can resolve a Hide/Seek early then all I have to do is go and get his burning wish. And then from there is is almost GG.

Now I know this is not as easy to do as it sounds with all the FOW and Misdirestions (though most I builds I has seen only play 1-2 misdirestions) and other counterspells. But the ability is still there and is something you have to worry about.

So with this in mind would it not be maybe a good idea for this deck to start to run 1x tendrils main deck too. And also leave the one in the SB. This way you can go and get the one main deck too if you need to.

Like I said though I do not really play the deck. This is just my thoughts on it as someone who plays against it. And with that prospective what I see some of the weaknesses of the deck to be. But I could be totally wrong.

[froz3nn]

what does everyone ussually gifts for when they setup for the tendrils plan, assuming you have sufficient mana and a decent yard?

[Storm]

The tendrils kill is insanely better than the Colossus kill.  It's faster, cleaner, more efficient, and tougher to answer.

I heard someone (I think it might have been Steve) say that if you won with Colossus, you were either playing game one against fish, or misplaying.  I agree.

Colossus leaves you spending a large portion of your hand to resolve Tinker, only to do pretty much nothing relevant with it.  If you can control the game for two turns after a counterwar, you might as well be killing with Brown Ouphe.

That sounds like something I said.   I definately agree that Tendrils is the superior win condition.  I was very surprised to see travis spero win almost all his games with Tinker Colossus.   

Alot of Gifts players have actually cut TInker Colossus for the deck entirely. 

[Whatever Works]

The tendrils kill is insanely better than the Colossus kill.  It's faster, cleaner, more efficient, and tougher to answer.

I heard someone (I think it might have been Steve) say that if you won with Colossus, you were either playing game one against fish, or misplaying.  I agree.

Colossus leaves you spending a large portion of your hand to resolve Tinker, only to do pretty much nothing relevant with it.  If you can control the game for two turns after a counterwar, you might as well be killing with Brown Ouphe.

That sounds like something I said.   I definately agree that Tendrils is the superior win condition.  I was very surprised to see travis spero win almost all his games with Tinker Colossus.   

Alot of Gifts players have actually cut TInker Colossus for the deck entirely. 

To me cutting colossus is just a huge huge mistake. I could understand the reasoning if your running something like titan in its place... but CS is on the decline overall, and colossus is just a simple efficient way to esentially end a game on turn 1, or force your opponent to use all the rescources in his hand to try and find an answer.

I am assuming you still run colossus, but kill primarily with tendrils like me. However, thats just my take on cutting the colossus.

Kyle L

[AJFirst]

Tendrils > Colossus.

It's easier to set-up (mana wise), the storm is natural, and you're resolving Yawgmoth's Will most of the time, so you'll have infy counter back-up to stupid stuff like REBs or Stifles that couldn't hit the Will itself. Also to the person that said they pith rebuild to FoW a lot, I say I pitch Time Walk to Force a lot too. You don't NEED rebuild to win via Tendrils, you DO however need Time Walk to win Via DSC. The reason it's in there is to prevent Tormod's from hurting you too much, and for the turn one tinker play which forces them to deal with it, and usually softens them up by 11 in the process. It's also nice Giftsing for Tinker, Will, Lotus, Academy with Recoup in hand when they're too afraid of DSC so they give you mana.

Tendrils kill is easier in so many different ways it's not even funny.
-AJ

Edit ::

what does everyone ussually gifts for when they setup for the tendrils plan, assuming you have sufficient mana and a decent yard?

Depends. With this hand:

Demonic, Gifts, Merchant Scroll, Brainstorm, Force of Will

My Gifts is Lotus, Sapphire, Jet, Ruby. You then Demonic for Will, Merchant Scroll for Rebuild, and Rebuild. Then replay artifacts, Will, artifacts, Rebuild, Artifacts, Demonic for Wish and win.

Gifts, Mercant Scroll, blue spell

My Gifts is now Lotus, Recoup, Will, Burning Wish. Then I can Merchant Scroll for a counter if I think I need it, then recoup Will and win. The problem is that you need a lot of mana if you don't have Will, Recoup, or a way to find Will already in hand because it means you have to spend 7 mana to recoup Will (usually 4 because they have to give you Lotus) plus mana to win.

These are kind of lame examples, but casting Gifts is the hardest thing to do in Vintage and depends greatly on every miniscule detail you've acquired throughout the course of the match and tournement for that matter.

[ErkBek]

Tendrils kill is easier in so many different ways it's not even funny.

Then why even play DSC?

[AJFirst]

Tendrils kill is easier in so many different ways it's not even funny.

Then why even play DSC?

Because of the splash hate that can make Tendrils much more difficult like Tormod's Crypt. It also allows you to just go busted turn one and end up with an 11/11. I've tried Gifts without it (on MWS, so it wasn't that great of quality testing but still) and it functions similarly but misses throwing Tinker into a Gifts pile and either get the Lotus you wanted, or shove a huge-ass onto the field forcing your oponent to deal with it.
-AJ

[kirdape3]

Without DSC, good luck with your Fish matchup.  It's not that stellar as it is, and not being able to Tinker your way out of it and get a dumb win is going to make it really difficult.

[Whatever Works]

I have seen nate peas win to many random games with like 2x crypt on board w/colossus to ever cut it... postboard colossus is much harder to stop then tendrils b/c of the type of hate that comes in.

[Storm]

is that really true?  Doesn't that depend on other things?

[zeus-online]

Definetly depends on what comes in, seriosly...how can you say that? People board differently. How does my tinker plan get easier if my opponent boards in...say 4 REB's? Sure if they board out all their removal for Crypts it gets easier, but you can't rely on them doing that.

/Zeus

[Whatever Works]

is that really true?  Doesn't that depend on other things?

It does of course. However, I generally find that the hate for colossus is much easier to play through then the hate for Yawgmoth's will.

B/C the combo approach is 100% about yawgmoth's will... Sure you can win w/rebuild etc. but Its generally easier postboard to merchant scroll for a FoW... save up a REB w/e... Then tinker... Its much easier then watching your opponent drop crypts etc...

Protecting yourself vs. bounce is much easier then stopping more proactive things such as crypt.

Also if playing colossus causes your opponent to bring in an extra chain of vapor, or a bounce card... Your the winner, b/c they are making there deck less efficient & strictly worse to protect themselves vs. colossus. The whole strategy of bringing in bounce for it mystifies me b/c if tinker resolves then generally your soooo far behind that you know your bounce wont resolve unless they randomly go for it on turn 1...

Im sure the scenarios can make either 1 harder/easier... but game 1 I kill more with tendrils. game 2/3 I kill more w/colossus (though still more often w/tendrils).

Also remember that postboard your deck is strictly worse & less efficient. So storming out w/o some tutors, etc. can be more difficult though I am not suggesting by any means that it is impossible at all.

Kyle L

[Liam-K]

Tendrils is definitely way better after the third turn.  If you're winning consistantly with gifts for recoup/will/tinker/timewalk, you need to be stopping to think about what cards make you win with tendrils.  The standard package is will/recoup/lotus/wish, but there are lots of situations where that's wrong (especially if there is a tutor in your yard).

The reason I keep DSC in my list is the early gifts.  Sometimes you just don't have the mana to try to win.  If you're in that situation and resolving a gifts, tinker is a huge threat and massively improves your 4.

After making that play sometimes winning through tinker is correct because it frees up space in your second gifts, allowing you to go off a little quicker.


edit:
The key to winning with tendrils without will is often gifts -> moxes.  It's still obnoxious but I used to overlook that option so I thought I'd share.