Optimizing the fastest deck ever..

[McBain]

For a long time now i have been playing around with the pile that most people call meandeck tendrils. There is nothing better than pwning 1st turn at a very high %, recently cards like repeal have altered the deck from its original form which used cards like sleight of hand instead.
The addition of repeal has been give and take, sure it stops chalice but null rod... that can be a much harder feat to accomplish before you are picked apart and have no hope of winning. Also spending 3 mana to draw 1 card is the last thing the deck wants to do, even if this does mean having a chance to combo.
i have been trying 4 sleight and 4 nights whisper, for a much more basic and original chain combo that the deck was once based on.
Tricks like tap mox saf and repeal then replay, for upped storm i find much weaker than drawing more cards, sure its just 1 card...but 1 card is a lot in this deck.
I have also been tinkering around with sbing Necro/vampT/Impseal for games where you can afford to set up a combo and not just go nuts turn 1.
Another new addition is Chromatic star...basically another chromatic sphere..but now it has 5 points, not just some ball thing. I have played this over darkwater egg, with no problems.

Anywho this is my current deck list:

// Lands
    1  Bayou
    1  Tropical Island
    1  Windswept Heath

// Spells
    1  Sol Ring
    4  Brainstorm
    1  Ancestral Recall
    4  Spoils of the Vault
    4  Dark Ritual
    4  Cabal Ritual
    1  Lion's Eye Diamond
    1  Yawgmoth's Will
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Mox Pearl
    1  Mox Ruby
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Chrome Mox
    4  Night's Whisper
    4  Land Grant
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Lotus Petal
    1  Mana Crypt
    1  Mana Vault
    4  Tendrils of Agony
    1  Demonic Consultation
    1  Demonic Tutor
    4  Chromatic Star
    4  Chromatic Sphere
    3  Sleight of Hand
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    1  Imperial Seal

// Sideboard
SB: 1  Bayou
SB: 4  Force of Will
SB: 2  Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 2  Chain of Vapor
SB: 1  Elvish Spirit Guide
SB: 1  Necropotence
SB: 4  Duress


Thoughts and comments?

Removed Repeated Text.
Please try to add a bit more content on card choices if possible. Thanks.
-- TAL

[GUnit]

Errrr... repeal improved this deck so significantly that its creator brought it back from the dead. I've played this deck in a tournament setting before and I can say that it's both faster and more resillient with the repeals. I'd rather try and bounce my opponent's null rod with a repeal than with a sleight of hand. 

[InfinityCircuit]

I've playtested this deck extensively and Repeal is a must if you want to have a competitive edge.  The real bottleneck with this deck is mana, not card-drawing.  As Justin Walters explained in his primer, it's normally the mana-heavy hands you want to see every game to have the highest possibility of a turn one kill.  Repeal promotes this by being a free cantrip that generates storm, and with Mana Crypt, results in a net gain in mana available.  Cards like Sleight of Hand simply cannot do this and are therefore strictly inferior.  Repeal also solves Chalice @ 0, which in this environment is probably a bigger threat than Null Rod.

If you really want to try to optimize this deck I recommend you check out Perilous Research from Coldsnap--it functions identically to Night's Whisper, ups the blue card count, promotes threshold, and makes Spoils of the Vault much less dangerous.

[McBain]

ill give research a try, it seems stronger, well see if the blue is a hassel or not.
What about cards like vamp tutor and imp seal? Do these deserve a maindeck slot? does breaking the fundemental rule of the deck still warrent inclusion if it does get lotus/will

Chromatic star better than darkwater egg? i think so, p.research with star in play can mean sac it and get a card for it anyway, just another little trick i guess

[President Skroob]

I'm at work and thus can't look up the cards, but can't you use Chromatic Star with Perilous Research to sacrifice the Star and still draw the card off it, thus getting a 3 card draw?

Wouldn't that make it better than Egg?

[AJFirst]

Yes you can, but it does not draw a card if you're coming out of a Yawgmoth's Will.

Either way, I think Star warrants a slot in the deck, but not egg's. The egg allows you to continue your streak of black cards while allowing a brainstorm in between. Egg, although a bad card itself, is both necesary and insane in this deck. I'm sure Stephen'll back me up on this: allowing you to cast ALL of your spells as oposed to one color is some good I hear.

Both cards net a -1 in mana, and cantrip-replace themselves, and getting 2 mana is just as hard as getting 3 thanks to all of the accelerants in the deck.

I think star should be in the deck, but not for Egg.
-AJ

Edit :: Are you trying to take Repeal OUT of the deck? That card IS the deck! It generates mana with some artifacts, creates insane storm+evens out on cards AND mana (as oposed to just cards with chromatics), and can pop chalice with ease! The cards is a workhorse and an internal engine in the deck; one so powerful it resurected the deck upon being printed.

[McBain]

yes this is true, i didnt really notice it, then we i was goldfishing i saw it. Great Scott! ya its actually a very nice combo mixed in there, it fits right in with the deck, star+research=3 mana, and u get 3 cards, and make huge threshold. My last 10 goldfishs with this new change now has 9 of them being turn 1 kill. The research is amazing with star, it makes cabal rit so much more amazing. This also made vamp and seal more flexable and playable md.

Either way, I think Star warrants a slot in the deck, but not egg's. The egg allows you to continue your streak of black cards while allowing a brainstorm in between. Egg, although a bad card itself, is both necesary and insane in this deck. I'm sure Stephen'll back me up on this: allowing you to cast ALL of your spells as oposed to one color is some good I hear.

I have not had a problem with this. Now that you know that there is more blue in the deck, you just have to remind yourself of it, with the increased strength of cabal rit, i find myself just basically running to fill my grave and cast it and win.

The stax deck i just played vs-
game1= he wins flip, shop trini...gg
game2= i win turn 1, he shows hand, 2 turn 1 2spheres...pwnage
game3= stax goes mox sol ring 2sphere, i FOW and win my turn 1.

I have found that this additional blue over Nights whisper to greatly increase the actual times you can cast force and not lose a Brainstorm when u are going to land grant or something.

[MaxxMatt]

Your results show a dramatical "binary" condition.
If "1" I won, else I lose.

Encouraging people playing such a deck, seems to understimate the value of the word "winning" or "losing".
If is the deck/opponent/flipcoin/hate to play a primarily role, why should you play such a deck?

I want to lose AND I don't want to die.

The deck seems to fail on balancing players' impact on "both" the statements.



On a more complex note:
A deck, perfectly played, should have decent winning percentage against opponent's good starts.
This deck, even perfectly played can scoop before doing anything.
It prevent yourself to demonstrate how a deck, perfectly played, can win.


Maxx

[Grand Inquisitor]

I'm not sure if I've correctly interpreted MaxxMatt's logic, but the point is that there's been a long history of do-or-die combo decks in T1.  They've never been played with the frequency their competitiveness has deserved, but that's almost become inherent in the archetype.  There's an inverse bell curve for skill and deck performance for skill intensive combo decks.  Taking the archetype and pushing it further into 'chalice = 1 means I lose this match' does little for the deck unless you can get a large group of really good people to play it repeatedly.  Pitchlong has put up good numbers because:
1) it's resilient
2) it's easy to play
3) it's broken

... in reverser order.

I'm not saying that your suggestions aren't improvements on the archetype.  What I'm saying (and what I think I'm reinforcing in MaxxMatt's post) is that making a high power - low threshold deck into a higher power doesn't gain much in this format.  Meandeck Tendrils was unleashed on Waterbury (i.e. the best metagame in T1 - yes, that's an opinion, deal with it) with a vengeance, and one deck out of a squadron of some of the most feared people in T1 made it into a round of 16.  In summary, a robust metagame (t1 in general, not just scrubby NE'ers) shrugged it off.

Either change the paradigm for how storm deals with hate+FoW or move on.

Pitchlong has done this to a certain extent.

[ErkBek]

You may want to check out this thread on SCG.

http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=293814

Basically its meandeck tendrils -4 Land Grants -3 Lands -4 Random marginal spells +4 Chromatic Star +4 City of Traitors +2 Ancient Tomb +1 Academy. I actually think the deck is better than meandeck tendrils since it better utilizes the Chromatics and eggs with lands that produce 2 colorless mana instead of 1 on-color mana. Plus it doesn't play land grant.

Usually games go like City, Mox, Darkwater Egg, break for UB and draw a card, repeal mox or brainstorm, etc, etc, win. The additional mana provided by the land is huge and often is the difference in the game. As already stated, mana is usually the bottleneck in the deck.

However, the the loss of land grant means fewer shuffle effects. But, the lost storm count rarely matters.

[McBain]

interesting approach, i find the deck plays to on the edge or run more lands or cards that dont add percious storm. however the loss of landgrant is a plus and a minus, but the fact that your not showing a smart opponent holding a force, your game plan is a definte bonus. Usually when my opp doesnt know your hand you can use physical gestures and attidude to bluff certian bombs through as decoy spells. This increases storm, and gets rid of that nasty force in your opponents hand. However i have found landgrant to be not so bad as to not run it.
I would really recommend running stars and p.research. I also removed vamp and imp seal and added 2 nights whisper. This makes the drawing engine so much stronger, sure you cant do little vamp tricks but you usually dont need it when you can just draw a few more cards then spoils FTW.

[benthetenor]

Eric, that deck feels pretty awesome. The double lands help with the mana intensely, and the added draw that the Chromatic Stars bring is just great. And with repeal, there is no need for a storm booster in Land Grant. Though there are virtually no shufflers now, it almost seems not to matter.

[McBain]

i think that adding lands and taking out more of draw and suffle is a thing this deck cannot afford.
This deck plays to tight to allow more lands, often you will be running off just draw spells and chaining one into the other, with more lands in the deck this means more lost games.
Land grant can be bad when its the first or second spell, but mid combo it is much less of a matter. The shear suffle effect of landgrant is to great to pass up. Brainstorm and landgrant (as well as the 1 fetchland) are amazing together and provide strength for cards like perilous research and nights whipser as well as all the cantips to do what they do best.....DIG. After all, brainstorming, drawing nights whipser with no suffle effect and 1-2 dead cards is one thing this deck cannot afford.
adding more land, and egg i think is a bad idea, to often in testing i have found the lack of suffle to be to weak. Also by adding lands and egg, you take away from a major fact- Almost no blue! this means for game 2 and 3, you are virtually dead in the water with FOW. which is almost, or should be sided in each game. With the lack of P.reseach and 4 repeal, this leaves you with a third of the blue in the deck. Making Fow much much weaker.
Playing this deck i find requires very physical play, in that you can use your face and posture as a tool to bluff certain spells to be countered or not. Showing weakness in strength. Plus adding storm! True that landgrant can hamper this, but all in all i think its a needed card in this deck.

[InfinityCircuit]

One of the intricacies of Meandeck Tendrils that hasn't been explored very well is the sideboard.  It's obvious that 4 Force of Will are a necessity, but beyond that it seems that anything could be included.

I currently play the Meandeck 2.0 Maindeck with Chromatic Stars and -1 Imperial Seal +1 Sleight of Hand.  I've had success with a number of cards in the sideboard, and surprisingly little success with others.  First, I think Necropotence is a must-include.  Against control, siding in Necro is excellent because you can Necro with Force of Will backup for an easy win--it's likely you won't win first turn through the disruption they will board in.  Against Stax, however, I haven't had as much success with Necro--I don't know why. 

Second, I think that there should be at least 3 Chain of Vapor in the sideboard.  Chain is my main weapon against stax--I normally side out a Sleight of Hand and 2 Repeal, along with bringing in the Force of Wills.  (On the play I keep the maindeck to maximize first turn  kills.)  Obviously, this setup is not ideal--it has no way out of Trinisphere or Chalice set at one.  The only real way to combat these is to bring in Hurkyl's Recall, and probably ESG to combat Sphere of Resistance.  However, I have had absolutely no success with ESG--it has been terrible and just adds a green mana without upping my storm count.  As an example scenario comparing Hurkyl's + ESG and Force of Will + Blue Card, Force is just inf. superior.  Hurkyl's + ESG drains two cards from my hand and forces me to go off next turn, because otherwise they will replay the artifact.  Force of Will allows me to delay and slow-play if it appears that they are out of threats while also allowing me to use the blue card if I need to go off later.  Chain of Vapor is superior to Hurkyl's in this case because it can bounce my own Moxen at the same time.  In the end, I think the maindeck is just two tight to support them both and Hurkyl's must go.

Third, I think Xantid Swarm is subpar.  It runs into much the same problem as Hurkyl's--it drains your hand of precious cards and thereby reducing your storm count, making it less likely you can go off on the next turn, and giving your opponent more time to produce an answer.

[ErkBek]

Third, I think Xantid Swarm is subpar.  It runs into much the same problem as Hurkyl's--it drains your hand of precious cards and thereby reducing your storm count, making it less likely you can go off on the next turn, and giving your opponent more time to produce an answer.

I disagree. If you play Xantid turn 1 then you have a draw and untap step, bring you back up to 6 cards, a land, and Xantid. Its really pretty easy to win from there.

[McBain]

Third, I think Xantid Swarm is subpar. It runs into much the same problem as Hurkyl's--it drains your hand of precious cards and thereby reducing your storm count, making it less likely you can go off on the next turn, and giving your opponent more time to produce an answer.

I disagree. If you play Xantid turn 1 then you have a draw and untap step, bring you back up to 6 cards, a land, and Xantid. Its really pretty easy to win from there.

Adding xantid swarm is wrong, it delutes the deck and is a dead card when its not turn one.
Forces allow you to protect your combo, add storm, and stop spheres.
Each turn your oppentent gets his chances of winning increase, usually its a turn 1/2 kill or blow. sometimes you can slow roll, but not recommended. This deck plays balls to the wall, chaining all its spells, diluting the deck is the last thing you want to do. Cards that WIN NOW are needed, no cards to set up a combo.

[Moxlotus]

Except that unlike other decks like Pitch Long, this deck requires you to always go all in and lose to FoW.  PL can recover from a failed go off, this can't.  Xantid helps that.  Even if you don't have Xantid turn 1, then you can still just try to combo.  Waiting a turn for protection is usually worth it against control decks.

[Anusien]

I think the problem isn't just that you give them an extra turn but what they can do with that extra turn.  It opens them up to more chances to find a second counterspell (so you have to fight through 2), find combo hate or just win themselves.  If you open on Xantid the other guy might be PitchLong/GrimLong and just go off on you.  No, I think you just need to go for it.  I mean theoretically you have the turn 1 more often then they have FoW, and the deck is capable of fighting through Force of Will; just not any other sort of hate.  After all, what if you're in the boards and you go turn 1 Xantid, and they open on Sphere of Resistance?

[Moxlotus]

If you open on Xantid the other guy might be PitchLong/GrimLong and just go off on you

Why are you boarding Xantid against Pitch Long?

After all, what if you're in the boards and you go turn 1 Xantid, and they open on Sphere of Resistance

Why are you boarding Xantid against Stax?

[diopter]

After all, what if you're in the boards and you go turn 1 Xantid, and they open on Sphere of Resistance

Why are you boarding Xantid against Stax?

The opponent that Anusien is referring to is probably playing Control Slaver with Spheres in the sideboard.

[McBain]

Moxlotus said it best, "I think the problem isn't just that you give them an extra turn but what they can do with that extra turn."
this is exactly it, you cannot allow your opponent to draw that timewalk, sphere, or anything, each time that your opponent take a turn your chances of winning is decreased.
Almost all of the time you can go off turn 1 or turn 2. With the list that i toy around with can chain spells like theres no tomorrow and usually pull off a turn 1 kill. When playing person to person you can use physical play, much like a poker player. If your oppenent knows what deck your playing, or at least that your going to kill them turn 1, they are scared shittless. This makes it very easy to bluff a spell to be FOW and shot down, many times i have used this to actually get that storm up to 9, when normally i couldnt. The one weakness is landgrant, but with so much chaining and spells going off, people dont know what to counter, a lot of the time, that mox ruby is what i really need to resolve...not the nights whipser. they know i have.

[InfinityCircuit]

I figure I should better articulate why Xantid Swarm is inferior to Force of Will:

1) You yourself said in an older post that a common play was turn 1 Spoils for Xantid and play it.  This means you have lost a fair chunk of life and 2-3 cards.  At this point, it is much more difficult to go off.

2) Xantid simply doesn't handle so much of the hate people bring in against combo.  Decks like Slaver don't pack 4 Misdirection or board in their REBs against combo, they bring in Chalices/Sphere of Resistance/Arcane Lab, etc.  Force of Will handles these, whereas Xantid Swarm either does nothing or simply delays until they find the Echoing Truth or Chain of Vapor.

3) Xantid Swarm is vulnerable to hate as a 0/1.

I think something worth looking at is whether Duress now has a place maindeck.  In the past it was cut because it hurt storm too much, but I suspect Repeal may actually solve this problem.

[McBain]

I think something worth looking at is whether Duress now has a place maindeck. In the past it was cut because it hurt storm too much, but I suspect Repeal may actually solve this problem.

This would break the fundemental rule that that intire deck is based off, if you dont understand what this deck is designed to do then please go play grim long, and use xantid swarms and all the duress you want.

This deck is all about chaining spells together, not to find and cast will (which is nice anyway), or too duress...see if the coast is clear and then play nercopotence and pass the turn. Altough these are all still plays with this deck it is not what i wants to do, especially in game one.....
Most of the time, you look at your hand, see a good number of draw and mana spells..and just GO, chain spells into another, and another, and cast tendrils GG.

[InfinityCircuit]

I think something worth looking at is whether Duress now has a place maindeck. In the past it was cut because it hurt storm too much, but I suspect Repeal may actually solve this problem.

This would break the fundemental rule that that intire deck is based off, if you dont understand what this deck is designed to do then please go play grim long, and use xantid swarms and all the duress you want.

This deck is all about chaining spells together, not to find and cast will (which is nice anyway), or too duress...see if the coast is clear and then play nercopotence and pass the turn. Altough these are all still plays with this deck it is not what i wants to do, especially in game one.....
Most of the time, you look at your hand, see a good number of draw and mana spells..and just GO, chain spells into another, and another, and cast tendrils GG.

I know how to play Meandeck Tendrils.  You are still ignoring my argument.  It's obvious that if we could fit in Duress the deck would be better because it would have the ability to slow-play, etc.  Duress didn't fit in the original Meandeck Tendrils because it slowed the deck down too much.  All I'm saying is that the tremendous power of Repeal as a storm generator and mana producer might mean we could reintroduce Duress at the cost of a tiny loss of speed for much more stability.  One of the greatest skills required to play Meandeck Tendrils is to know when to wait before going off--a skill also inherent to Grim Long.  Here's an example from practice yesterday:

Stax has a Mountain, a Mox Ruby, and a Bazaar of Baghdad in play.  However, they clearly have little gas because their bazaar has been terrible.  I tried to go off turn one but my Ancestral gave me 2 Brainstorms and a Repeal without a Chromatic Star in sight.  They draw a Trinisphere and dump their hand with Bazaar to get it into play with the Welder.  I have the Repeal for it and enough mana to play it.  But in this situation I believe the correct play is to wait one more turn to play the fetchland in my hand, thus giving me one more card.  The chance that the Stax player will get another lock piece into play is infitesimal because of the dearth of Moxen.  In the end this play gave me an easy win on turn 4 or so.

In this situation Duress is game-winning because I normally won't have the mana to play a four-mana Repeal.  You have to understand that playing Meandeck Tendrils isn't just about the goldfish, it is about punching through disruption.  My dropping a Darkwater Egg, a Night's Whisper, etc. here and there will allow me to hurt other decks as well.  However, I'm not advocating an absolute switch--I'm still not sure which is better.  But I think that absolute thinking that divides Grim Long and Meandeck Tendrils into two separate categories is flawed.  Remember that Kobefan had success boarding out 4 land grants and bringing in four fetches + Xantid Swarm against control a while back.

[yespuhyren]

Stax has a Mountain, a Mox Ruby, and a Bazaar of Baghdad in play.  However, they clearly have little gas because their bazaar has been terrible.  I tried to go off turn one but my Ancestral gave me 2 Brainstorms and a Repeal without a Chromatic Star in sight.  They draw a Trinisphere and dump their hand with Bazaar to get it into play with the Welder.  I have the Repeal for it and enough mana to play it.  But in this situation I believe the correct play is to wait one more turn to play the fetchland in my hand, thus giving me one more card.  The chance that the Stax player will get another lock piece into play is infitesimal because of the dearth of Moxen.  In the end this play gave me an easy win on turn 4 or so.

Why is it such a small chance?

Lets see...4 Wire, 4 Chalice, 3 Null Rod.  So your opponent should be drawing 1 in every 5(or less depending on cards left), and your opponent is drawing 3.  If a 60%+ chance is infinitesimal, then I'm not really sure where you learned to do your math.

[InfinityCircuit]

They don't have the mana to cast it.  Hence, the only chance to get it into play is through playing a Mox and then using the Welder to bring it into play, because removing the Trinisphere does nothing since I still have the Repeal I need.

That means they need:
4 Moxen/Crypt/Sol Ring/Black Lotus/4 Chalice for zero= 11, which must be drawn for the turn since their hand was empty.  The chance of this is already 11/50 or so.

4 Tangle Wire (I was playing against the Jester without Rods) = 8/50 for two draws.  Chalice of the Void didn't matter because my hand didn't have any zero-mana accelerants except for a useless LD.

This is a 3.5% chance for Stax to get what it needed--higher if you overvalue Chalice of the Void.