GT - Gush Tendrils

[jakjakman]

Kyle, you've been awesome in this thread.  Thanks for the consistent responses and replys.

I'd love to get a bit more feel for how the deck is played.  Could you talk a bit more about the strategic and tactical goals of the deck?  I get the impression the general strategic goal is to start in a control mode until you bring your combo components online (Fastbond and Will) and then storm out.  I could use a bit more information on your tactical plays.  For example, do you hoard artifact mana in your hand as much as possible waiting for the turn you plan to storm out?  Or does it help to get more artifact mana down so returning islands to your hand doesn't slow you down as much?  Do you scroll for ancestral first or scroll and chain tutors for Fastbond?  Do you hold back Gushs until you get Fastbond?  As a pattern do you try to get Fastbond online first always before Will?  Do you use your disruption offensively or defensively (offensive for a strict control mode or defensive just to protect your combo and ignore everything else)?

It seems that you took a lot of good notes from the tournament you were in.  It would be awesome if you could post a report from a couple of the more interesting matches you had to highlight how the deck works.

Thanks man.

[Purple Hat]

Stax is the hardest matchup for the deck by a mile. I feel this deck has over 50% vs. the rest of the format with maybe the acception of GAT that depends 100% on the skill level of the player. For example I would say that I would take about 35-40% of my game 1's vs. ELD or Scott Limoges who are the best GAT players I have ever met, and win say 55%+ vs. other GAT players.

Stax is a bad matchup, because this deck is essentially the GAT draw engine and is permanent light. The matchup is not unwinable by any stretch of the imagination, but I believe that there are a few steps that could be made to greatly increasing the chances. Your comment about basic lands is accurate and is being adressed! I am not sure speed plays to much of a role vs. stax, because a turn 1 trinisphere is a turn 1 trinisphere. Or a lock is a lock, and stays that way until you bounce the lock. Now, getting to a point of getting out of the lock is something that can be improved through the maindeck, and the sideboard.

Kyle,
I think this deck actually has a worse game one vs stax than GaT does because gat has the ability to drop a dryad or tog and protect it throughout the game by sacrificing other perminants.  While the dryad may never reach the mythic proportions it can when you go off vs other decks stax tends to have a difficult time with creatures that are larger than 2/2 or 3/3.  even if you're restricted to 1 spell each turn following the dryad it's still a reasonably fast clock where as the tendrils deck can never win without breaking out of the lock.  I'm not saying that it's always going to happen, but GaT can win on a restricted diet of cantrips while tendrils is required to play 9 other spells and tendrils all on the same turn.

regarding your gat matchup are you concerned that your personal skill and experience both with the deck and in general, biases your results vs weaker players?  Scott and ELD are, admitedly, amazing GaT players, but you're also a very experienced player in your own right.  are you sure that your match results vs these two players don't accurately control for skill factors by putting highly skilled pilots behind both decks?

Hale

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

Hello,
   the second I heard about the unrestricting of gush I began working on a list. I’ve never played a combo list competitively before but my play test results have been looking promising. I originally played with 4 rits plus bargain, and I’d have to say I preferred it to street wraith. Then again my list looks very different from yours (probably because I not a seasoned combo player ).
   Slyfer mentioned that this deck can fizzle out and that is its weakness. He is definitely correct; my list currently runs 3x tendrils main deck. With the additional mana generated by gush I’ve had many turn 2/3 kills consisting of tendrils storm count 4 followed up by another tendrils. I’d have to agree with volkboys. I’ve found it helps with stax match ups a great deal and can let you continue to go broken even if you’ve taken a hit form colossus (fast bond can eat up a lot of your life).
   I was wondering if anyone had play tested a list against rg beats. Even with tog 2nd game I’ve found they are able to pack a ridiculous amount of hate towards combo…and tog . I was wondering how to get around the ridiculous amounts of rebs pillars, and blood moons.

[Whatever Works]

I have been swomped with soooo much work this weekend I havent had a chance to respond to my thread yet (and its past midnight right now so I wont even be able to get to much tonight). I will answer ALL questions by tomarrow so sorry for getting behind.

To quickly answer the last post's question: First off I personally am not a fan of that many tendrils of Agony maindeck. I feel that running 2 is acceptable, and 3 is just overkill. There is just to many tutors in the deck to run 3, and its probably slowing the deck down or making it less efficient.

I have some changes to the deck that adress the stax matchup that I will again adress with my LONG post tomarrow.

How to beat RG Beats? Same way as old gifts.dec did... Tinker/Collossus. If you resolve tinker they have no real way to deal with collossus, and it ends the game. I wouldnt concern yourself with hate decks, because hate decks never win tourneys. Why? because they are bad decks fundementally. Smennen explained it best a while ago in a thread that I have forgotten the name of. Best advise, get in the 2-0 bracket and you shouldnt expect to play it. If your really that afraid of enchantments pull an ichorid and run shrine lol (and I am sadly only joking a little, but if your THAT afraid of bloodmoon its almost justifiable...almost)

Again, I will give analysis, and answer questions from Purple Hat, JakJakman, and post an updated list tomarrow.

Kyle

[volkboys]

After multiples sessions of testing, we found that brain freeze was SO huge in this deck that we completly cutted tendrils for it.
The last version of test is:

Brain-a-gush v2.42

        4 street wraith
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Time Walk
        1 Mystical Tutor
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
        4 Gush
        3 Mana Drain
        3 Repeal
        2 Tormod's Crypt
        2 Brain Freeze
        4 Brainstorm
        4 Force of Will
        1 Mind's Desire
        1 Hurkyl's Recall
        1 Misdirection
        3 Merchant Scroll
        1 Fastbond
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Tolarian Academy
        3 Flooded Strand
        2 Polluted Delta
        2 Underground Sea
        2 Tropical Island
        2 Island

We are still not sure about drains. They come-in and out for duress or remand.
Tormod's crypt helps storm, kill ichorid (repeal on chalice) and end most matchs after a brain freeze if it's not enough to kill.

The worst match-up is definitly boberman, every single card they got annoy us. We need to win before cutpurse/confident resolve and drains help more than duress here. We are faster so grim long is a better match-up and tormods helps.

Massacre isn't enough for the boberman match-up, we're still looking for answers but none of us got any old man of sea.

We think about cutting wraiths for 2 lands and 2 thirst of knowledge, it could allows us to run 4 bob in side. It's now impossible because it really hurts too much.

That's about it for the moment.

[Sarah Angel]

Volkboys - Could you explain why you feel Brain Freeze is so huge in this deck that you cut Tendrils?

I cant see why it would be beneficial to have to get to 16 or 17 storm when with tendrils you only need 8 or 9.

Are you concerned about the 2B casting cost of Tendrils?  I havent been in a game where this has been a problem for me or my opponent yet.

[volkboys]

because:
1) when you combo with this deck, you are almost always over 10 storm anyway so isnt an issue
2) Running more black is bad with gush because with you play it and, in response, take your mana, you don't know what you'll draw and you have to plan if you combo, it just make random losts and now this problem is resolves.
3) You can pitch it to force/misdirection
4) You can do it on you if you are sure to resolve a letal will
5) Secret tech against bomberman, they go infinite, active spellbomb, BF in resp, GG
6) Is more playable due to being blue, BB of tendrils isn't hard to get but become a factor in the gameplan and you have now more simples playlines.
7) Mana cost is lower so risk of freezing are lower than tendrils because you're less dependant about your top deck who just won't give you what statictics said sometimes.
8) You can run more basic lands, I run only 2 because most people don't run wasteland here but you can easily play more.

Is it enough?

[Sarah Angel]

Those are good reasons!  I will also add:

9) Children of Korlis does not stop brain freeze

But I am still curious if in your testing, you are consistently getting 16 or 17 storm when you need to?

It seems like getting storm this high is awfully dependent on having fastbond in play.

I see you have no Imperial Seal??  Why keep Mystical Tutor in place of Imperial Seal??

This deck MUST get Fastbond in play 90% of the time to win (just made that number up, but I would imagine it's pretty high).  Mystical tutor dosent get it for you, Imperial Seal does.

Also, if you dont want imperial seal, then change mystical for a fourth Merchant Scroll.

Mystical=Slow and does NOT get fastbond.
Merchant=Fast and does NOT get fastbond.
Imperial seal=Slow and DOES get fastbond.

Mystical is the weakest of those, it seems.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

   I can definitely see why you’d play brain freeze. In addition to the dependency on fast bond, last I checked shop decks were heavy in the Meta (at least mine anyways) and uba mask is pretty prevalent.  As well as oath of druids, right now I know of three people consistently playing it at every tournament I play at, achieving 2-0. The odds are not friendly

@jakjakman
   You had a question on how to use your counters. Of course its game state dependant, but if you have the option, especially if your running the drains (which have been nothing but good to me) and duress, I’ve been successfully using them aggressively. With out fast bond in play you can easily hard cast gush into another gush off drain mana.  In addition, running merchant scrolls makes the other control more than easy to find. The returning of the 2 islands in addition to the draw 2 also makes hand space a little tight as well, so it’s not too bad of an idea to free up slots with an agressive play (as well as a reason to consider library).

   I have a question about the number of lands I should be running. I am currently running 13 lands, because getting to islands in play is very necessary.  Running 5 searches, starting at ten and adding land slowly, 13 lands was the lowest number that enabled me to do that consistently. I’d draw out 50 hands each. 12 lands left me mana screwed 32% of the time (as crazy as t hat sounds it KEPT happening). Late game the amount of lands becomes a problem. Drawing lands is obviously the most useless thing possible while trying to combo out, especially with fast bond gush operational. Mana flood doesn’t happen too often, but more than I’d like. I was wondering if keeping the number at 13 and running a 6th fetch would be overkill. Loss of life tends to be a factor as well (fastbond/bargain), which is why I’d like to avoid a 6th fetch. If anyone has anymore suggestions, I’d be more than glad to hear it.

   I was also wondering if dark ritual should be reconsidered. I’ve had more than a few major plays which consisted of dark rit tap 2 lands FOW/ misdirection. The yard is a good place for a rit anyway. As well as leaving a blue card (if you had one to begin with) in your hand to find more control/ business. I just think that it may have been cut out prematurely due to the fact that it’s suboptimal (useful, but suboptimal) comboing out without considering the mana excel for things like bargain,  hard cast gush, cast street wraith, and the hilarious FOW. It’s a more all purpose card than we’re used to treating it in this build (then again my build is odd).

thanks for your time.

[volkboys]

Sarah Angel
Fastbond is broken but will is even more.

Seal and mystical both find it but seal don't fit with mana drains.

I think advantages of the mystical over seal are also:
- it's blue, you can pitch it to fow, is also less hard on colors for the mana base
-you can find will with merchant scroll   scroll-)mystical -)will
-it's tech against bomberman, they combo, you mystical for BF, cycle wraith, braistorm, gush or whatever and kill them


Fastbonds help to combo but isn't necessary. In fact, we win about 50% of the time only with this. Most of the time, we try to combo without it and draw it with millions cards drawed, it makes things more easy, it's true, but isn't necesary.

The storm is almost never an issue due to different things.
First, in the ichorid match-up, a 10-storm BF is always enough to end game
Against others, you can BF, will BF or BF and play the second one. You can find it with multiples tutors (including scolls  )
The storm isn't an issue because you'll 95% of the time saw your crypt by the time you combo and all you need to do is to remove their grave after an BF. Most decks will immediatly scoop because their don't have any win conditions remaining, even if the BF isn't letal.

If they don't scoop, most of the time they have to change their gameplan, which slow then down and allow you to play a second, letal, BF.

And I have to say that if you play remand instead of drains, you can do BF, remand BF, Replay BF. Which is 99% enough to make a letal BF.

hvndr3d y34r h3x
Workshop almost non-exist around here so it's ok. For the oath match-up, you can let it trigger, crypt, replay BF. It's slower but oath don't usually win before turn 4 so you can setup your hand properly.

[Bulls on Parade]

This deck is absolutely disgusting. Here's the list I've come to, with discussion to follow:

3 Street Wraith
4 Gush
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fastbond
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Regrowth
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Mind's Desire
2 Empty the Warrens
4 Force of Will
2 Pyroblast
3 Misdirection
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Mana Crypt
5 Moxes
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
2 Island
SB: Tog, Pyroblast, Threads

Adding Red really cleaned up a lot of the weaker matchups. Although it doesn't seem to be needed just yet, I'm assuming in a month or two Artifact Mutation will be absolutely necessary for this deck. Wheel of Fortune obviously just wins games you have no business winning. It is very often sided out Game 2, but there are few matchups that I don't love it game 1.

Running Empty the Warrens rather than Tendrils as the kill really means you don't have to over extend at all, which is what I found myself doing a lot with this deck trying to get a lethal storm count. This alone dramatically improved a few matchups.

The Gifts Pile Regrowth, Fastbond, Will, Gush is amazing as always.

Life loss was getting a little crazy (and I'd assume it's even moreso in your build with Seal and the necessity of Storm 9-10) so I cut the 4th Street Wraith. It is, however, an amazing card.

Any other questions, feel free to ask.

[Sarah Angel]

To be concise, I wouldnt be comfortable with EtW.

Echoing Truth is very ubiquitous and flat out stops this.

You're also susceptible to Moat and Balance now.

Not to mention all the ways to either deal 1 damage to all creatures or give all creatures -1/-1 or -2/-2 until end of turn.

Though the 2 maindeck pyroblasts are nice to help against E. Truth.

[Daenyth]

I've been running the Frozen Gush list posted earlier in the thread for a little but, and I'm wondering how to sideboard for various matchups. I have no clue what to cut usually.

It probably needs a lot of work on it, but my sideboard right now is:
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Yixlid Jailer
2 Massacre
3 Threads of disloyalty
1 Rebuild
2 Hurkyl's recall

I've also been considering a main deck change of
-1 Repeal
+1 Gifts Ungiven

[Sarah Angel]

I personally think 4 leyline/3 yixlid is way too much.

I do fine with 4 leyline.  Pretty much, you just need to take a mulligan if you dont have leyline opening.  Your chances of getting leyline opening or on your first mulligan are pretty good.  Just my opinion, obviously, but you have a tough match up against stax Mountains Win Again-type decks and I'd think you should devote more sideboard slots vs. those.

[Daenyth]

My metagame doesn't really have a lot of TMWA or St4x at the moment, but what cards would you suggest? At least vs stax I have plenty of bounce.

From my previous sideboard, I've done -1 Hurkyl's and +1 Chain of Vapor.

I've also been finding the deck to be quite inconsistant, although I suspect my poor mulligan skills and inexperience with the deck are skewing that. Does anyone else have any ideas about that? I also really find myself missing the hard tutors of Grim/Pitch long.

Do any people with more playtesting have recommendations for how to use the deck? I can't seem to win without Fastbond/Y.Will
I've been thinking also of testing the tendrils version, because getting the high storm count has been difficult for me so far. When I win, I win big, but it doesn't seem to happen often enough to justify running it over the other tendrils decks, at least in my mind.

[FiestaVaca]

I figured it's about time I posted, though my old account seems to have disappeared...

Anyways, I piloted a deck recently at an ELD tournament (Top 8) that was a Brain Freeze combo deck, and upon Gush's unrestriction came up with a game plan much like the deck you formed volkboys, except I ran 3 Brain Freeze. 

Ultimately, I combo'd out Brain Freeze to 16+ copies only twice in the tournament.  Almost every win was 2 Brain Freeze back to back -- spells number 7 and 8 or 8 and 9, which is extremely easy to obtain.  I was able to do this with frequency due to tutors and running 3 copies of the win condition, so if I had to FoW or MisD, I still had the ample ability to kill.

And like you said, T. Crypt can just own people randomly at times, as can sideboarded Leylines.   And yes, Bomberman can at times just die to a timely BF.

I've been really washy though on if this deck is still viable -- Mindcensor is a serious pain, and once it resolves, it can really mess things up. 

Just my $0.02

~ Alden

[Bubbydan]

  If you want to go the brain freeze route, I would go to something like Almost Blue, a deck the Europeans have been running. There is a list on this tournament report here with a little conversation about it.http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=32606.0

  I have done a little playing around with it, but haven't done anything with it since Gush was unrestricted.

Dan

[volkboys]

You're right.

I contacted the creator of the deck on the french forum  last week but he could unfortunatly not help me because he don't test much last months.
The deck list linked was a great inspiration for the deck list I summited. We took the original list and made it more flexible and faster.

The bad side to be more agressive is that we lost the control the original list got. Both list are pretty good but for our metagames, we really to be the beatdown instead to try to control.

[kombat]

I like the idea of taking this deck more in the direction of Brain Freeze over Tendrils, for all the reasons listed by other posters.  However, my one fear is that if I play this deck in a tournament, I'll get paired against some chump playing Oath and I'll be unable to win.  What's this deck's strategy against Oath when using the Brain Freeze kill?  With Gaea's Blessing in their deck, doesn't that virtually nullify the Brain Freeze kill?  Is your only hope to catch them when they're stuck with Blessing in their hand, or hope to take both post-sideboard games with an alternate win condition?

[Bubbydan]

I like the idea of taking this deck more in the direction of Brain Freeze over Tendrils, for all the reasons listed by other posters.  However, my one fear is that if I play this deck in a tournament, I'll get paired against some chump playing Oath and I'll be unable to win.  What's this deck's strategy against Oath when using the Brain Freeze kill?  With Gaea's Blessing in their deck, doesn't that virtually nullify the Brain Freeze kill?  Is your only hope to catch them when they're stuck with Blessing in their hand, or hope to take both post-sideboard games with an alternate win condition?

  Thats a little tricky, but can be done. You need a crypt in play. When the ability of Gaea's Blessing is on the stack you crypt them before it resolves. Or you have Leyline of the Void in play. Either way it makes it a bit tougher, but not impossible.

Dan

[ACME_Myst]

You could also do it without Crypt in play, though it's very tricky. It probably involves you finding Academy and some moxen before they activate Oath:

- Drop a crapton of mana before they can activate Oath. You'll need it. Also, find Ancestral Recall.
- They activate Oath. Pray that their first creature is like 30 cards down.
- In response to the Blessing trigger, start chaining some Gushes, Brainstorms and other instants.
- Hit storm 3 with 2UUU open.
- Double Freeze, then Ancestral them.

Or, you could just concede game 1, and board in some copies of Tendrils and a Ritual or something like that.

[breed]

Really interesting deck. I always loved Gush. I will try this deck in my next T1 tourney.

 

What about playing Impulse in it? It acts as a tutor and cost only 2 manas, no one tried that?
What about playing High tide in it? Just one, it can be really usefull.

Also, after some tests, I didn't find Time Walk insane in this deck, in most of the games, I didn't use it for the win.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Actually, with most Oath-decks running only one Blessing, it's not impossible to combo out through it the same way Legacy High-Tide does. You need to assemble two Brain Freeze and Ancestral plus a high Storm count. Play the first BF, once Blessing is flipped, respond with the second BF. Hopefully this second BF is big enough to empty the remaining deck (after the first flipped some stuff into the GY before Blessing) and with Blessings trigger still on the stack you can win with Ancestral. A bit messy but probably the best way to win without Crypt in play.

[Magu_]

May sounds strange. But why not involving one High Tide instead of D. Ritual. I use it in a semipowered Gush Deck. I never have problems to cast the black Mana and High Tide have a very good synergy with Gush/Fastbond. It gives you an amazing amount of blue mana which you can use for Gifts, FoF, Minds Desire, Empty etc.

Cya

Magu_

[senpai]

perhaps high tide should be given more consideration. would a high tide/gush deck work?

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

A single High Tide to fetch with Scroll sounds quite interesting, actually. Frantic Search might then want a spot, too. I could see it being good anyway, in testing with Gush I end up with more lands in hand than I need quite regularly anyway, even with Fastbond in play. There is only so much life to spend (and I keep drawing tons of fetches which deal additional damage, so it'd be good to just dump them for new cards...).

[g0tenks00]

hey ... i've only read the first 2 pages or so of this thread, so forgive me if i'm being redundant; if my question(s) were answered earlier, just point me to it, thx.

Steve mentioned interactivity in his article about The Mean Deck. I've been goldfishing this deck for a few days now, and I was just wondering how interactive this deck aims to be, because in most of my goldfishes it didn't really seem like the deck had that many business cards (aka bombs) when going off. I have been playing mostly grim long for the past year, so maybe I'm used to just playing a more aggressive combo deck than this one. However even when playing games against friends, where I'd have to counter threats and wait til aroudn turn 4 to go off, the deck consistently seemed to run out of steam. Also, it didn't seem like it would "walk into wins" as was mentioned earlier in this post. If you could help me out, perhaps in how I should be thinking about the goals of the deck when I play it, that would be great. Thx.

[Purple Hat]

this deck isn't bombish in the same way that grim long is.  instead of building up to a big bomb to fuel storm it plays a bunch of little spells and builds storm the way meandeck tendrils does.  basically you have to learn when you can trust your deck to give you the stuff you need and when you can't.

[EKM_Ichorid]

I've been testing a Hightide/Gush deck...50% of the time I win turn 2, 20% of the time turn 3, and after that I fizzle out 30% of the time. That 30% isn't sounding too good.

[senpai]

can you post a list please, i am interested.

Hello, and let me offer a slightly belated welcome to The Mana Drain!  While we're happy to see you participating in deck discussions, our posting standards require more content than mere requests for decklists standing alone.  Please review the forum rules to avoid this problem going forward.  We look forward to your future contributions.  -DA