[Deck's Discussion] Pitch Long + Wraith (Street Long?)

[Malhavoc]

Street Wraith has found his obvious home in Ichorid; it was long discussed if this card should also be an auto inclusion in any non-oath deck, but until now it does not seem to have got such a success.. probably 2 life generally seem too much. Among the various decks that could improve more by running it, Pitch/Grim Long was immediately taken as one of the best candidates. I'm not a Long expert: I consider myself more a control deck player, but I still have some experience with storm decks, particularly with TPS. Therefore, I'm not going to give you the "perfect" list, but just try to discuss with you which seems better.

To begin, let's see which good and bad things SW gives us:

BAD:
- We lose life. Generally this isn't a big trouble, but in a deck already running Grim, Vampiric, Seal, Necro and Bargain it could be a little nuisance
- It makes mulligan harder, VERY  hard if we end up with two in hand
- if we get it with a brainstorm we are unable to use it to reach deeper, unless we have a shuffle effect; even in that case, we don't know if that draw is going to be better than the other cards we've seen with brainstorm
- If flipped with Desire it can't be cycled (but differently from a land it can at least be cast to up the storm count)
- It can't be cycled from the grave under YWin either



GOOD:
- It increases threat density (a very good thing, but of difficult gain evaluation)
- It is quite unlikely to cycle more than one or two in a game, thus we should never lose to them more then 2-4 life
- Even if VERY unlikely, it could technically work as a win condition of its own
- It is GOD with the 1cc tutors, so much that it could make interesting to try even Personal Tutor. Mystical and Vampirc could also switch instantly to powerful misdi against an opponent's ancestral, but most of all SW will let us tutor what we want NOW without losing storm count or make us mana burn.
- It is very good with LED, in conjunction with 1cc tutors and brainstorms
- It helps us getting threshold


The hard part is of course evaluating those good and bad things and understand if the addition is worth it. Among those, the higher threat density and the synergy with 1cc tutors are the most intriguing, while the mulligan factor is the one that most scares me.. however this doesn't make the deck technically weaker, just harder to play.

Here it is the list I'm testing right now


// Lands: 10
    1  Tolarian Academy
    4  Polluted Delta
    1  Badlands
    2  Underground Sea
    1  Swamp
    1  Island

// Other Mana: 11 artifact + 6 Rituals = 17
    1  Mox Pearl
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Mox Ruby
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Lotus Petal
    1  Mana Vault
    1  Mana Crypt
    1  Sol Ring
    1  Lion's Eye Diamond
    4  Dark Ritual
    2  Cabal Ritual

// Protection: 6
    4  Force of Will
    2  Misdirection

// Draw: 11
    4  Brainstorm
    3  Street Wraith
    1  Ancestral Recall
    1  Timetwister
    1  Memory Jar
    1  Wheel of Fortune

// Tutor: 8
    3  Grim Tutor
    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    1  Mystical Tutor
    1  Imperial Seal
    1  Tinker

// Win: 1
    1  Tendrils of Agony

// Broken: 5
    1  Mind's Desire
    1  Necropotence
    1  Yawgmoth's Bargain
    1  Time Walk
    1  Yawgmoth's Will

// Tools: 2
    1  Hurkyl's Recall
    1  Chain of Vapor

// For a total of 18 blue spells

SB: 3  Duress
SB: 4  Leyline of the Void
SB: 1  Extirpate
SB: 1  Rebuild
SB: 1  Echoing Truth
SB: 1  Night of Souls' Betrayal
SB: 1  Pithing Needle
SB: 1  Empty the Warrens
SB: 1  Sundering Titan
SB: 1  Massacre

Some comments on certain choices:

- Personal Tutor: it has seen almost no play in Vintage right now, but with Street Wraith, Brainstorm, and Draw7, it could become ineresting: it would usually fetch Tinker, YWill, Desire, Tendril, Demonic. At worst it's a blue spell. I would like to test it, but right now I simply cannot find the slot

- Mana: 27 sources are the bare minimum, but SW should help since we are virtually running a 57 cards deck. Testing will tell if we need at least another slot for a land or cabal ritual.

- Protections: why choosing the Pitch approach rather than the Grim one? Apart from my personal taste for FoW (even if we are a fast combo, there are some turn one play of our opponent we want so much to stop), the SW is meant to speed up the deck, so using the fastest protection among the two seems more reasonable. Regarding the risk of stifle, we should remember that we can also misdirect it onto a fetchland's or SW's triggered ability. As for trickbind and such, duress post side are of course a must.

- Tendrils: the doubt about running 1 or 2 Tendrils is common. With the major cantrip and tutoring power given by SW, and due to our need to cut slots, 1 Tendrils is surely meant to leave.

- Wheel: the card is strong, even if risky. My main doubt, however, is how well we can support red. Having just a badlands and 4 fetchlands, plus lotus and petal, COULD not be enough. In that case we could switch badland for another fetch/sea and switch Wheel with Windfall

- Street Wraith: for testing purpouse I'd would prefer to run 4, but I think that for a final build they risk to be too much: having two of them in the first hand makes mulling decisions just too random.. or just to hard for the player I am. If you feel good and lucky, go for the fourth - but cutting what?

- Street Wraith as a win condition? This is rather odd, but should not be disregard completely. As an Oath player I've learned that even weak 1/1 can sometime be your demise. Sure, SW on his own isn't going to be really dangerous, however it's always a 3/4 SWAMPWALK, which often makes it unblockable even against some creature based decks. If you happen to have an almost lethal tendril, or you NEED a non-lethal Tendril to stay alive, this thing (maybe revealed by a Desire) can be able to steal the match. This is far from being a decent win condition, beware, just the last hope in case our only Tendril gets removed from the game without killing the opponent on the spot.


SIDE:
It's one of the few Tier1 decks with a decent first game matchup against Ichorid, but having Leyline in side seems like a good choice anyway: the match is far from being easy, and Leyline should be a very nice card againt Flash and maybe even other decks too. Sure, we are a combo and we should not put too much focus on disrupting others' plan, however Leyline does not even need to be drawn in the first 7 cards here, since we can also cast it quite easily through a ritual. The rest of the side is rather thrown there, with some idea and tech I'd like to test a bit more.

SB: 4  Leyline of the Void
SB: 2  Duress
SB: 1  Pyroblast
SB: 1  Extirpate
SB: 1  Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1  Echoing Truth
SB: 1  Night of Souls' Betrayal
SB: 1  Pithing Needle
SB: 1  Empty the Warrens
SB: 1  Sundering Titan
SB: 1  Massacre

[Stamford]

Thank you for this post.
You have put the bad parts of Street Wraith out obviously.

As mentioned in the previous thread of whether Street Wraith fitted into Long decks, I am more concerned about the following---

Playing Street Wraith makes Mind's Desire weaker. Considering that any Long deck, would normally Desire for 5-7 and the occasional 8-10 with Hurkyl's Recall and/or Chain of Vapor, it is not very beneficial when you reveal Street Wraith off a Desire.
Given with my experience with Grim Long, I can aknowledge that, sometimes, my Desire for 5 can turn up absolute crap.
With a Pitch Long deck with 3-4 Street Wraiths and an overall 5-8 cards that do not contribute to threat density(E.g. Force of Will, Misdirection), I am seriously doubting the impact and reach of Desire in a Long deck with 3-4 more dead slots.
Perhaps it would be wise to cut out Desire completely, since it no longer has that much of an impact after Street Wraith's inclusion.

I have also previously mentioned about the life problem that Street Wraith can cause when used in conjunction with the aforementioned cards in your post. However, some may choose to think otherwise as they believe it can be managed.
I just want to add in a reminder that despite life being a resource, you only have 19 to spare. Consider 2 lost to Lands. You are down to 17. 3-6 would be lost to an opponent playing Fish. You would be left with around 13. Generally, another 2-4 would be lost to Tutors on average and other random factors.
This would leave you down to around 9-12 life to spare. Generally, that means, games without Bargain and Necro end with you having 10-13 life.
By adding 4 Street Wraiths, you bring down that total by another 2-3.
That would mean 8-11 life generally when you end the game. If you want to prove what i said is true or not, just take out some cards from your Long deck, add in 4 Street Wraiths, and play 20 games with a real-life opponent. Most of the time, you will find yourself ending the game, if you win, with 10-13 life without Street Wraith.
But with Street Wraith, its normally 8-11 life when you win the game.

What this actually means is that you would normally only draw up to 10-11 cards from a Bargain or a Necro as compared to the usual 11-13. Plus, due to Street Wraith itself, you will find yourself with lesser cards for the sake of "better draws".

I hope this raised a few thoughts about Street Wraith and is it really worth its inclusion.

Also, i do not agree with diopter's change in Long decks to accomodate Street Wraith. Mainly because of his suggestion that Draw7s ought to be cut, which i felt to be completely hard to believe.

Ironically, while Street Wraith serves to complicate Mulliganing decisions, Draw7s help with them and are a way to even out card advantage or gain card advantage or just plainly, card selection. They just need to be used at the right situation in the right way.

[diopter]

@Malhavoc:

Haven't really thought about this deck in the past couple of days, having now focused on Steve's Doomsday build (which I think might edge out Long in the end, but that's neither here nor there). Anyways, my list:

MD:

4 Delta
3 Mire
1 Swamp
1 Island
2 Sea
1 Academy

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
5 Mox

4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual

4 Street Wraith
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

3 Grim Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Mystical
1 Vamp
1 Imperial Seal

1 Yawg Will
1 Necro
1 Bargain
1 Desire

4 FoW
3 Pact of Negation
1 Chain of Vapor (the mix of PoN and bounce varies depending on the metagame you expect)

2 Tendrils



SB:

Varies. 4 Leyline and 1 Swamp are auto includes, and the rest of the board would be a mix of Duress/Pact and Chain/Hurkyl's/Massacre.



My thoughts:
-> Run 12 land. Not only is this generally a good thing to do (I was never comfortable with 11 land before Wraith, soooo many autoloss hands against Chalice), this will greatly reduce the mulliganing you will have to do with Street Wraith.
-> Never been a fan of 2 Tendrils until now. It lets you Wraith to your heart's content, find that Necro or Bargain, and go nuts even with a reduced life total. Also, it lets you run Consult - by itself Consult is worth it, it wins so many games. It's the best tutor in the deck - better than Demonic Tutor. A lot of times I will DT for Consult, that's how good it is.
-> I cut the Draw7's and never looked back.
-> Pact of Negation is pretty amazing.
-> Sometimes I swap the Island with the SB swamp so that I can cast GT's off basic lands and moxen. Blue mana isn't really in demand until post-board anyway.



@Stamford:

We've debated this to death. See all of our previous discussions on why Draw7's are suboptimal bombs in Long.

[jakjakman]

@Diopter,

I really like the looks of your deck--it seems very clean.  I have one suggestion: swap a Grim Tutor for a Personal Tutor.  With the Street Wraiths your top-deck tutors are just as powerful and cost less.  I'd be interested to hear how this deck does during testing.

[diopter]

@Diopter,

I really like the looks of your deck--it seems very clean.  I have one suggestion: swap a Grim Tutor for a Personal Tutor.  With the Street Wraiths your top-deck tutors are just as powerful and cost less.  I'd be interested to hear how this deck does during testing.

Tried this a while ago when I was trying to cut the Grim Tutors. It didn't work - personal tutor was waaaay too situational, not being able to find mana or Ancestral Recall, and also needing Street Wraith to not be good.

Regardless, the Grim Tutors are the weak link in the deck now (whereas the Draw7's were the weak link before). They require a lot of mana to do what they're supposed to do. Granted the build has a lot of mana, but it pays for it by having less room for disruption. This is why I like Doomsday better - with less setup Doomsday does so much more than Grim Tutor, and you have more room for interactive cards.

[LotusHead]

-> Never been a fan of 2 Tendrils until now. It lets you Wraith to your heart's content, find that Necro or Bargain, and go nuts even with a reduced life total. Also, it lets you run Consult - by itself Consult is worth it, it wins so many games. It's the best tutor in the deck - better than Demonic Tutor. A lot of times I will DT for Consult, that's how good it is.

If by Consult, you mean Demonic Consultation (B: remove top 6, put named card in hand), then the above statement seems like pure gibberish, unless you are upping your storm count by 1.  Demonic Tutor puts the same card in your hand.  What gives? 

Thanks to all posters for giving their thoughts on Street Wraith.  I don't thin 4 of in every Non-Oath deck is the right way to go for every non-Oath decks, but still, with Future Sight and Flash De-Errata, I'm scared about the future metagame!

[diopter]

-> Never been a fan of 2 Tendrils until now. It lets you Wraith to your heart's content, find that Necro or Bargain, and go nuts even with a reduced life total. Also, it lets you run Consult - by itself Consult is worth it, it wins so many games. It's the best tutor in the deck - better than Demonic Tutor. A lot of times I will DT for Consult, that's how good it is.

If by Consult, you mean Demonic Consultation (B: remove top 6, put named card in hand), then the above statement seems like pure gibberish, unless you are upping your storm count by 1.  Demonic Tutor puts the same card in your hand.  What gives? 

Thanks to all posters for giving their thoughts on Street Wraith.  I don't thin 4 of in every Non-Oath deck is the right way to go for every non-Oath decks, but still, with Future Sight and Flash De-Errata, I'm scared about the future metagame!

I do mean Demonic Consultation. What I'll normally do is DT for Consult on turn 1 to set up the turn 2 kill. Consult saves two mana (one on the way in and one on the way out with Will) which is amazing when you don't have enough acceleration otherwise, or you're facing a Chalice, etc.

[zeus-online]

Do you use consult to get will?...dosn't that pose a real risk that you'll remove both tendrils?

/Zeus

[diopter]

Do you use consult to get will?...dosn't that pose a real risk that you'll remove both tendrils?

/Zeus

I usually get the Will. Consult can grab anything, obv., and does get a lot of things.
The risk is there. I don't know off the top of my head what the mathematical risks are, but I've encountered it maybe once every 15 times I've cast Consult. I think it's worth it.

[Skadrian]

well, mathematicaly the chance of it going wrong is one third, there are only 6 order in which the cards can be:
T1 (tendrils one), T2, YW
T1, YW, T2
T2, T1, YW
T2, YW, T1
YW, T1,T2
YW, T2,T1

in two of those you remove both tendrils before finding the will, so I dont think it is a good idea

it is obviously even worse, there is a more then 10% chance that the will is in your first 6 cards

[diopter]

well, mathematicaly the chance of it going wrong is one third, there are only 6 order in which the cards can be:
T1 (tendrils one), T2, YW
T1, YW, T2
T2, T1, YW
T2, YW, T1
YW, T1,T2
YW, T2,T1

in two of those you remove both tendrils before finding the will, so I dont think it is a good idea

it is obviously even worse, there is a more then 10% chance that the will is in your first 6 cards

The odds of removing Tendrils definitely does not work the way you have depicted it.

[Skadrian]

and why wouldnt it work that way?
just testing it 15 times may give different results, but mathematicaly it should work this way

[diopter]

I don't think the orders that you posted have the same probability of occuring. I will work on this tonight.

I've tested this more than 15 times - I've just encountered the removal of all Tendrils about 1 in 15 games.

[Klep]

I don't think the orders that you posted have the same probability of occuring. I will work on this tonight.

I've tested this more than 15 times - I've just encountered the removal of all Tendrils about 1 in 15 games.

Then you got lucky, or you're doing a poor job of shuffling.  For any given order of cards in the deck, there are 3 possible situations if all three cards are still in your library.  Either both Tendrils are after the Will, both Tendrils are before the Will, or one Tendrils is before the Will and one Tendrils is after it.  Assuming a random distribution, each of these possibilities is equally likely (well, almost.  There is a slight difference because of situations where the Will is first, second, last, or next to last, but we're talking about single digit differences among a large number of permutations).  That means roughly a third of the time you should remove both Tendrils before hitting Will.