GT - Gush Tendrils

[Whatever Works]

Gush has clearly opened up some serious new options for Type 1. Clearly there is GAT, and Doomsday. However, I believe the deck with the most potential is the deck I piloted effectively to Top 8, and a top 4 split at last weekends Myriad Games power tournements. I was the ONLY person on either day to run a gush Tendrils deck, and I think my results and total weekend match record of 9-2 (20-6 in games) speaks for itself. I will start off with the list:

"GT" Gush Tendrils by Kyle Leith

4 Street Wraith
4 Gush
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Brainstorm

4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
3 Duress

1 Fastbond
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mind's Desire
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Dark Ritual

4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Lotus Petal

Sideboard:

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Yixlid Jailer
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild
1 Duress
1 Psychatog


Thats the List! OK, so how does the deck work? The simple answer is that the deck generally finds fastbond, and then casts gush, and draws into either more copies of Gush or Merchant Scroll (which you cast to find more copies of Gush) until you have a hand size that can easily get over 15 cards before you even realize it, and then the mana created off Gush is more then enough to cast a tutor for tendrils that you can draw into with either street wraith or Gush etc. Then tendrils for the kill.

In this deck Gush can often act as: +2 Mana, +2 Cards, +1 Spell all for 1 card. If you reffer back to a very well written article on Storm 10 the whole theory of that deck was that every card either acts as +1 card, or +1 mana, and then through the few advantageous cards like Lotus, ancestral, dark ritual etc. it made the difference to reach 10 spells with +4 mana (for the tendrils). On this scale Gush is incredible.

To my own suprise I won most of my games without fastbond. The deck doesnt relie on Fastbond nearly as much as I originally expected because I often was able to win the game by floating 2 mana off the lands, gushing for free, and then gush acted as an efficient draw spell for 0 mana that often leaded me to replay my land for the turn or draw me the cards neccessary to combo.

The strangest thing about the deck was that it has the ability to "walk into kills". I often had no intention on killing my opponents on turn 1, or 2 etc. but the deck has an incredible "oops I win factor" that is difficult to explain. Obviously, drawing and resolving fastbond generally ends the game. With tons of draw spells, 4 tutors, and a deck that shuffles A LOT. The card quality is considerably high, and a true stength to the deck.

Resiliency! Gush Tendrils is the most resilent combo deck I believe I have ever piloted, and it feels very similar to a more powerful version of meandeck gifts in that sense. Duress is great, but the ability to use merchant scroll for FoW/Misdirection while holding Gush was incredibly when playing vs. Combo mirrors that I went 3-0 (6-0 games) vs. over the weekend. The has absolutely 0 reliance on the graveyard, and can play both as the fast deck, or the controlling deck in several different matchups.

Gifts Ungiven in the maindeck over regrowth was the change I made from day 1 to day 2. That seems anti-synergetic because regrowth is very good in gifts piles, but regrowth seemed to be a win more card at time, and many decks tried to hate out my graveyard making regrowth a dead card I couldnt pitch to FoW or MisD.

Sideboard choices:
Threads of Disloyalty - Amazing. It should be a staple in sideboards within a month, because of GaT and its general usefulness vs. Fish.
Hurkyl's/Rebuild - Just tested stronger vs. Stax. The card also can be played to bounce my own moxes and be proactive in winning.
Leyline/Jailer - Best solution I have so far to Ichorid. Every deck should have something for Ichorid, because if Ichorid gets the right hands its very very powerful.
Psychatog - Alternate Kill that most people never see coming, and is a nice alternative option vs. hate.

Overall, I thing that Gush Tendrils is a very viable combo deck in type 1. Is it better then GAT? I cant say, but its matchups are very different vs. Decks like bomberman (which GT owns and GAT often struggles against) so based on the decks played in New England I preffer GT. I had great results to it, and found it funny that everyone was trashing the list posted by Steve a few days ago saying how it was horrible in testing. My results weren't steller, but after A LOT of testing (for the short ammount of time) I found a list that I was fairly happy with that has tested and played well in and out of the limited tournement experience it has had.

[jakjakman]

Congrats at the tourney!  I'm really liking the look of your deck, I think my Gifts deck will morph into something just like it.  I think it's awesome that it has so little reliance on the graveyard, especially since every deck comes prepared with massive graveyard hate these days.  A couple of questions:  1) How well did Mind's Desire work?  It seems that you have an equal amount of chance to desire into disruption as you do gas, so you may stall a lot more than in some of the Long variants.  2) Is  Fastbond a choke point in the deck? i.e. How bad are you hurt if they win a counter war over it or you don't ever find it?

[zulander]

I like the idea of the deck, I am personally working on a "DGT" deck, dryad gush tendrils deck, which so far runs 3 dryads so that if I fizzle I just swing with a 14/14. Also, have you thought of windfall for when you're going off so if you fizzle you can just replace your hand? I've enjoyed it so far in testing, I don't know how effective it is in your deck though.

[Whatever Works]

@ jakjakman - Thanks! to answer your questions:

1.) How did mind's desire work? It was very strong! Its not AS broken as it would be in GrimLong, but it is more consistent. Your not going to hit a bomb like Bargain etc. but your not going to hit rituals etc. Instead you hit merchant scrolls, gush, brainstorm, and tutors that with the free synergy is easily enough to end the game if you can desire for 4 or more.

2.) Fastbond I rarely found as a choke point. I found that either 2 things happened. #1 I play it, and it resolves and the game ends. #2 I play it (i look at my hand and dont have a gush, but I have generally powerful hand), and my opponent will make a scramble to counter it, and I will allow it to be countered to then be able to know that I hurt the opponent hand enough that my next 2-3 spells will resolve without resistence. #3 I lose a big counterwar, but am benefitted from a faster then general recovery b/c of the high proportion of draw/search spells that in other combo decks might be rituals, or expensive casting spells. 1 Critism originally was the deck couldnt win w/o Fastbond, and I played the deck with no fastbond in the deck to prove a point and the deck still functioned (though obviously you would never cut fastbond).

@ zulander - I have tried GaT, and I think its a very strong deck. However, I havent tried it in combination with tendrils. I find that the biggest advantage of GT is that it is so focused at reaching a tendrils kill. I find that my deck CAN fizzle, but most of the time it fizzled because I tried to push for kills that just werent there. That is mostly from play experience (or lack there of). I tried windfall, but it always felt like a win more card. If my hand is more then 7 cards with 3 or more mana in play i really dont think I would want to dump my hand, tap mana, and give my opponent a fresh start. I dont run Timetwister for essentially the same reasons. The list is too tight, and the cards dont really fit the decks style.

Kyle

[Nydaeli]

You may want to try Fact or Fiction over Gifts Ungiven.  It seems like you can't really harness the tutoring power of Gifts without something like Regrowth or Recoup, so you might as well just run a ridiculous draw spell instead.

[Jokah]

What about insert a Library of Alexandria? It seems pretty common under gush + street wraith situations stay on 7 cards in hand for a while during the play.

[Whatever Works]

@ Nydaeli - I tried FoF, and frankly it was mediocre at best. The card is good dont get me wrong, but I generally would rather have gifts. Gifts is extremely powerful in the deck, and I believe can be harnessed extremely effectively. I casted it 4 times on the sunday tournement, and I won the game on the same turn every single time. 1 Example was when I had a large graveyard, black lotus in hand. and about, 6 mana on the board... I gifted for: Fastbond, Demonic, Gush, Mystical. They gave me mystical, fastbond (not knowing I had gush in my hand), and then the game instantly ended when I played fastbond, gush, gush, scroll, gush, black lotus, minds desire, hitting yawg will.

@ Jokah - I consided Library of Alexandria. Its absolutely amazing in GaT, and gush decks. However, I chose against it because I wanted at least 1 basic land. And, more importantly I wanted to get 2x islands in play as fast as possible, because Gush is so crucial to the deck. Also consider that the deck is a combo deck. I won on turn 1 on 6 different occasions, and 70% of my games never went past turn 3/4.

Kyle

[zulander]

Have you tested chain of vapor vs echoing truth for flash/ichorid matchups?

[RaleighNCTourneys]

Looks pretty good. Congrats on your finish. I've been testing the deck on MWS for a little bit and the only thing that I'd like to see in the main is a Hurkyl's or Rebuild. Chalice on 0-2 is not fun to play through.

[Whatever Works]

@ Zulander - I have tested both. I play chain of vapor over echoing truth, mainly because of the duel roles of chain of vapor. Chain of Vapor can be tutored to bounce a collosus, or a dredge returned creature. But, more importantly. It can be used to sac a bunch of lands to bounce moxes, etc. to then replay and cast tendrils/mind's desire for a large number.

@ RaleighNCTourneys - Thanks! The maindeck Hurkyl's/rebuild is a very fair question. I chose not to run them because I find the list to be extremely tight. A chalice for 0 to me is not a big deal. Unless my hand is full of moxes I would generally let it resolve (even if I have a FoW etc. in my hand). Chalice for 1 is a bit more ennoying, but the same applies. Most of my business spells arent in that casting cost range, but chalice at 1 I would likely want to counter. I find chalice to be a bit less of a threat because I only run 1 dark ritual. However, I have several forms of bounce in the board, because of cards like chalice, sphere of resistence, and of course trinisphere.

Kyle

[pyr0ma5ta]

I tested a version of this deck with 4 DRits and Bargain (no Street Wraiths).  It was disappointingly poor, because DRit was suboptimal but also necessary for the Tendrils.  Your version seems to have cut back on Rits, making it a tutor target rather than a mana engine.  How do you ensure that you have BB2 at the end of your spell chain if you can't reliably Gush into a DRit?

[Whatever Works]

@ pyr0ma5sta - I got rid of the rituals like you said, because they are fairly suboptimal. That being the case I have never really had any trouble getting the  casting cost. It can be a little tricky at times if your not paying attention to it, but generally what happens in my play experience was that prior to a gush I would float black mana then bounce the lands, and from there I would be generating the blue mana etc. If I dont have gush I relied off the lands I had in play, mox jet, dark ritual, lotus petal, black lotus. In the first tournement I HATED the 2nd dark ritual, but I left 1 in as a neccessary (and it was cool to cast gifts off it). The double black overall though never really was an issue. I often only had to get single black for yawgmoth's will, or  for mind's desire to end the game, and all these situations are baring that I never get fastbond into play. With the large ammount of disruption this combo deck plays (more then even older gifts.deck or TPS) I generally resolved what I wanted at will vs. the vast majority of my opponents accept perhaps ELD who had better hands, and dropped fastbond before me in 2 of 3 games.

In short, getting double black hasnt really been to much of an issue, and the single ritual is just a procaution more then a neccessity.

Kyle

[ErkBek]

Congrats on the finish Kyle. Some questions though.

Has 11 islands (12 total lands) ever proven to not be enough. Long barely gets away with running 11, but it seems like this deck would be fine running more.

I won on turn 1 on 6 different occasions, and 70% of my games never went past turn 3/4.

Are you serious? 6 Turn 1 kills in how many matches? The only possible chance I forsee of this turn 1 killing is it has to get Fastbond and Gush into a Yawg Will play. That doesn't seem all that likely for a turn 1 kill. Long only gets about 2 turn 1 kills a tournament.

So what turn are you typically going off on? To me it looks like a turn 3 or 4 deck with the potential to kill on turn 1/2 if it gets an early fastbond.

Last question, in games that you don't win via fastbond you pretty much need Yawg Will right? I could see going off turn 4 without fastbond or yawg will since you could play gush twice generating +2 CA and 2 storm for 0 mana, but it seems like merchant scrolls would get in the way a lot. 

[ashiXIII]

This is the deck that seems like it can actually make use of Personal Tutor because of the 8 free draws it has. Obv Personal doesn't get Fastbond directly, but you can always get Will or Desire, and you can also Personal -> DT, cycle/Gush, DT for Fastbond/whatever. Or you can pitch it to Force/Mis-D.

Oh, I also think it should be 4/2 with Duress/ Mis-D

[Whatever Works]

@kobefan - 11 islands (12 total lands) has to my own suprise been enough. I reviewed all my match notes, and I mulliganed 4 times in 11 rounds. The reason for this is that with 4 street wraiths I can now get away with running 1 less mana source (in whatever deck I choose to play), and merchant scroll/tutors/draw affects etc. allow me to find the mana rather easily.

Also, the critical land number for the deck is 2. Any land beyond the 2nd is just excess in most cases (though they can obviously be helpful). But the deck can function on a basic level at 2 mana, and on total function at 2 lands.

Turn 1 Kills. The deck isn't designed to have turn 1 kills at all, but they do happen. In 11 rounds I had 6 of them. Here is a summary of a few of them that should show the situations that cause them to occur, and a general feel for how the deck can play at.

Day1 Tourney. Round 1. Vs. Travis Laplante - He has insane turn 1 w/CS. He passes turn. My hand is:

Underground Sea
Island
Mox Emerald
Street Wraith
Imperial Seal
Gush
Misdirection

I go... Sea, Emerald, I.S. for fastbond (18 life), Cycle S.W. (16), use emerald to play fastbond, play island (15), Gush (into Street Wraith + Merchant Scroll), replay both lands (13), merchant scroll for gush, replay lands (11), cycle S.W. (into dark ritual), cast ritual, gush (with  floating), gush into black lotus, demonic, replay lands, demonic into yawg will, replay lotus, ritual, demonic, tendrils. I got will not b/c I had too, but b/c it was fun to make travis mad because he said my deck sucked.

Example 2: Sunday Round 3, game 3, vs. Stax

Hand:
Polluted Delta
Dark Ritual
Black Lotus
Demonic Tutor
Mox Emerald
Force of Will
Chain of Vapor

This hand went, land, lotus, ritual, emerald, demonic (for will), lotus, emerald, ritual, demonic, tendrils. This hand played more like a grim long deck then anything, but randomly went off.

Generally the deck wins turn 1 if you have a situation where you have a turn 1 fastbond, with enough mana/land to cast gush, merchant scroll, ancestral, or a tutor with a way to see the top card.

Or a hand with a tutor and mana able to get fastbond. These combined with a strong brainstorm, and the deck can pull off fast kills. Generally, I really didnt try to get turn 1 kills. I merchant scrolled several times for Force of Will and Misdirection. to protect my 2nd merchant scroll for ancestral.

The decks average kill speed was turn 3-4, but I never really tried to go for a fast kill, because I every time I was combo'ing off I typically had a FoW/MisD. back up or played a duress prior to the kill.

@ashiXIII - I havent considered Personal Tutor, but it would be worthwhile to test! I dont know what I possible would cut for it, but it would complement the deck though it might possibly be narrow.

I like the 3/3 ratio with Duress/ Mis-D, because MisD. was amazing for me. I am a HUGE supporter of Duress, but I believe that in the current metagame where I live MisD is just amazing. Especially with decks randomly throwing Ancestrals around, and me being able to out counter them for the ancestral. That, and being able to use it to protect my own spells w/o having to spend mana. However, If I had the room I would want to add in duress #4, and regrowth. Though I am not sure what is cut worthy. Perhaps, Time Walk. However, it creates tempo for a 2nd land drop, and synergy with many of the tutors.

Hope this information helps.

Kyle

[pyr0ma5ta]

Seems like both of those Turn 1 kill hands you describe involved some insanely strong draws, one with actual card draw, and one just because your 7 cards were the nuts.  I'd have to say generally you had an above average day, and that this deck is probably Turn 3-4. 

Anyway, I'll give it a try, but I'm not sold that 1 DRit is enough to support BB2.  Seems like you require getting Fastbond, Black Lotus, or Dark Rit to resolve before you can win.

[ErkBek]

Seems like you require getting Fastbond, Black Lotus, or Dark Rit to resolve before you can win.

Well yeah, this a combo deck. You've got 4 tutors and you see around 12 cards before you even start to combo. So seeing at least one of those to play the tendrils isn't all that difficult really.

I actually really like the idea to cut Regrowth. The card seems clunky and doesn't do anything on its own.

[Whatever Works]

@ pyr0ma5ta - Turn 1 kill hands generally are insanely strong. If there not then they typically dont kill turn 1. The strong results took place over 2 seperate back to back tournements at Myriad Games where the top 8 was recently posted.

Typically the kill is turn 3-4, and almost always with multiple counter backup. Getting black generally occurs by floating black prior to or after a gush. I am not sure if its a concern or not, but it has never been a real problem in the games I have played.

Getting fastbond into play I have to point out is not difficult at all. Any deck that can almost guarantee a win if it resolves a   casting cost enchantment seems redicules overpowered to me. I cannot fathom why Gush was unrestricted, but this deck abuses it to the fullest.

Turn 3-4 doesn't seem that fast, but the fact that it can win faster if needed. AND, that it runs 4 FoW, 3 MisD., 3 Duress, and is resilant, and has almost no reliance on the graveyard is what seperates this deck from the pact. Not to mention that the deck does not mulligan often, and has a faster recovery time if for some reason it fizzles.

@ kobefan - Very accurate, and put much better then I was gonna say it. This deck generally sees 20 cards at a bare minimum before it wins, and generally in the range of 30+, and this doesnt count cards put back with brainstorm before cracking a fetch etc.

Kyle

[Purple Hat]

why do you find you need a basic island with 4 gush and fetchlands.  are you really having problems with waste?  it seems like this should only come up if you've A)cracked your fetches and b) don't have gush.  it seems like the island just slows you down and gush seems an acceptable answer to wasteland to me.

[slyfer]

How is the matchup vs stacker or workshop.deck in general??
I think it's pretty bad
1) chalice @ 1 owns you
2) gush is bad
3) misdirection and duress are bad....

and many other more threats

How can you address it?

[acidfreak]

Wouldn't it be better if you replaced the ritual and tendrils with high tide and brain freeze?

[Malhavoc]

Hi! Here in Italy we are testing a similar deck, and I came up with quite a similar list:

// MANA: 13+10
1  Tolarian Academy
1  Library of Alexandria
2  Tropical
2  Underground Sea
1  Island
1  Snow-Covered Island
3  Flooded Strand
2  Polluted Delta

1  Lotus Petal
1  Black Lotus
1  Mox Pearl
1  Mox Sapphire
1  Mox Jet
1  Mox Ruby
1  Mox Emerald
1  Sol Ring
1  Mana Crypt
1  Dark Ritual

// PROTECTION: 9
4  Force of Will
2  Misdirection
3  Duress

// DRAW: 12
1  Ancestral Recall
1  Timetwister
1  Frantic Search
1  Gifts Ungiven
4  Gush
4  Brainstorm

// TUTOR: 9
4  Merchant Scroll
1  Mystical Tutor
1  Vampiric Tutor
1  Demonic Tutor
1  Imperial Seal
1  Regrowth

// BROKEN: 4
1  Fastbond
1  Yawgmoth's Will
1  Time Walk
1  Mind's Desire

// WIN: 1
1  Tendrils of Agony

// BOUNCE: 2
1  Chain of Vapor
1  Rebuild

SB: 4  Leyline of the Void
SB: 4  Xantid Swarm
SB: 3  Pithing Needle
SB: 1  Massacre
SB: 1  Echoing Truth
SB: 1  Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1  Pernicious Deed


Let's first focus on the maindeck differences: nobody here has still opted for Street Wraith: the card is indeed strong with the topdeck tutors, but with brainstorms and gush those tutor should be quite optimized already. In all the other situations, SW seemed to hit the life points a bit too much, since Fastbond already hits life points quite a bit while the deck is comboing out. Since there are still a good amount of very strong cards to fit in, we haven't found the addition of SW to be necessary to increase threat density; however it's surely a possible option.

The mana base is very similar, main difference being the use of LoA. It's true that the deck is generally quite fast and could not need LoA, but this old land is just too strong with Gush to not use it. There are times that we need to take a more controllish role, or maybe just gush (+4 cards in hand) and look for more threaths, and for that role LoA is just insane.

The lack of SW gave enough room for some more cards: regrowth, twister, frantic, rebuild mainly.

Regrowth is SO strong in the deck: it let us take back a countered/discarded fastbond, and already played ancestral, and it becomes exactly like a merchant scroll while comboing out if we have already cast a gush; plus is god if we are casting gift.

Frantic is really good in a deck like this which is usually light on mana (unless it has fastbond in play): it let us untap lands (and untappign LoA and/or Tolaria is awesome), or discard "useless" lands taken with gush in order to swap them with fresh new spells.

Rebuild, together with chain is just another storm activator and bounce spell at the same time. Gush lose quite a lot of its mana-producing ability under artifact's spheres, and also chalice, even if not deadly, is quite annoying and worth bouncing.

Twister is a new entry we are testing: it helps recovering some lost resource: since we do not depend so heavily on the grave, it's not tragic at all to shuffle it, while on the other hand it can be really annoying for the opponent. It is very useful in particularly to put bombs like ancestral and fastbond back in the deck, or to try and follow a more classic tendrils kill without using fastbond or yagwin.

Following the last words in the previous line, the deck, even if powerful, seems to be able to win only through fastbond or yagwin. Sometimes you can pull out a lonely winning desire, but most of the times on of the two above spells is just needed: gush risks to be often a dead draw if you don't have fastbond in hand, since the deck without fastbond isn't able to generate a lot of mana (no drains and only 1 ritual). And with few mana it's not easy to combo out. Getting BB for tendrils in my experience hasn't been hard when you resolve fastbond or yagwin,  otherwise it can become a bit tricky.. it's not however the main problem, since without fastbond or yagwin the main issue is just comboing out.

There are also some more options we are evaluating, such as a second tendril, a tinker for Colossus (with maybe even jar maindeck), or even psychatog, but apart from maybe colossus in some matchups, the other seem unnecessary.


EDIT:
A side note about Street Wraith and its good and bad sides:

Good:
- Makes threat density higher (this however is really strong only if you have REALLY inferior options for cards #57-#60)
- Makes top-deck tutors much stronger (this is probably its best ability)

Bad:
- Lowers the blue cards count (negligible, since you can always just cycle it, but could be forced to do that in not-optimal situations)
- Makes mulligan SO harder (I wouldn't run more than three anyway for this reason alone: having two in hand is almost always an automulligan)
- Makes brainstorm worse: you fail to see the third card. If you have a shuffling effect you can still keep SW, shuffle, and cycle it, but it can end up as a card worse than the other two you've seen and could have kept with brainstorm.
- Flipping one or more with desire is so irritating, to say the least
- The life loss can be sometime troublesome.. it's debatable that 2 life are cheap enough for its effect.

Overall, I think it sometime enables very strong plays through the more higher threat density and the optimization of tutors, thus providing you with 1-turn faster win sometime; however, there will be many times where it will just hit your deck consistency, making you lose if you choose not to mulligan (or just hitting your card advantage if you decide to mulligan), or making your brainstorms worse. Unless I really lack good cards for those 4 slots, I would prefer not to run them unless they have some very special synergy with the deck (like manaless for example). I understand however that the discussion is very debatable, and respect those who have chosen the other way.. sometime more broken, but just too riksy IMHO.

[Whatever Works]

@ Purplehat - I run the single Island as a metagame decision. Basically, I new that there was going to be a lot of staxless stax and I felt being able to drop an island would be helpful (sinse gush doesnt always come in line turn 1 unfortunetly). 2nd, I am terrified of blood moon. 1 of my only 2 losses was a fairly janky 8 blood moon effect deck. So, it was a metagame call in short.

@ Slyfer - In testing I will admit my Stax matchup isnt great. However, I will say that it is better vs. stax in testing then GaT was by a wide range. I went 1-1 vs. Stax in tournement, and I believe that bringing in Hurkyl's and Rebuild's in from the sideboard significantly improves the matchup. Generally I board like this:

-3 Misdirection
-X Duress
+2 Hurkyl's Recall
+1 Rebuild
+X Threads of Disloyalty (if stax runs 4 welders etc. - steeling welder = steeling game)
- Leyline = horrible vs. stax b/c it just makes me start w/smaller hand vs. deck that I want to play permanents against.

Chalice for 1 hurts, but I dont think any 1 chalice # kills me. Regardless, from testing I realized that I might want to increase # of cards for the matchup.

@ Acidfreak - I could do that, but generally that would be a different deck entirely and would be more practical to build around a high tide deck if that was the case. Also Tendrils is a better kill in my mind then brain freeze, because I am not sure I could get to the 15-20 spell count as consistently as I get to the 8-10 spell count range needed to kill with Tendrils.

@ Malhavoc - Interesting list. Overall, we share several key differences in thought about several cards.

#1 - Street Wraith - To me this card is god-like. Its a 4 of in everything I play. I dont even look at is as a card really as much as I do me playing a 56 card deck.
- The life loss has NEVER been an issue for me.
- Mulliganing has yet to be an issue for me. If you dont have a land or enough mana to cast scroll/brainstorm you mulligan regardless of # of SW's.
- It can act as an alternate kill if somebody RFG's my tendrils (and it has worked! lol)
- Synergy with tutors. The fact that it doesnt cost mana makes a huge difference on turn 1-2 when tutoring for ancestral (so I can cast it or fastbond w/e on the same turn).
- Card efficiency. I find that running a deck w/o timetwister, regrowth, 13th land, etc. is more consistent and more broken.

#2 - Combo cards. To me timetwister isnt needed. It generally helps the opponent more, and I found rarely a time in testing where I would want to play it. I was always thinking... Why cant this just be a merchant scroll? Regrowth has been a "win more" card at times, but I do love it at times. I just notice that I cant find a slot for it because the list is so tight, and thats a good thing because that means the deck is efficient. It works great with gifts, but that means what? When you resolve gifts you should be winning the game regardless.

#3 - Frantic Search is a very interesting card, and I am a huge fan of it. I just dont have room, and when I bounce my lands so consistently its often hard to find a land to untap with it.

Overall, it looks like you took the deck in a more combo'ish route by replacing my unreplacable street wraith slots with combo threats. Interesting take, and I will be interested to see the results.

Kyle

[Malhavoc]

One particular thing we're wondering about is if a secondary win condition is necessary, either a second tendrils or an alternative win like tinker->colossus. It's usually not difficult to tutor tendrils when comboing out, and it's also uncommon to see the tendril RFG game1, however post side, when we can bump into many evil cards, I wonder if it some alternate plan could not be useful. Facing for example and aggrocontrol filled with tormod, meddling, force, daze, kataki, stifle and orims can make things quite hard. Not impossible, sure, but definitely hard. A lot of this hate may be avoided using a card like xantid swarm (since after all he is quite likely to have sided most of the swords), but I'm not too sure if it's worth it, while instead a brainless tinker into either colossus or even titan (being sundering very good with gush, btw) seems like a more easy path to victory. This could let us play both tinker and gundam in side, but we could also opt to try tinker+jar/lotus in the main. I'm not sure however about jar: it's indeed powerful, but with the low mana curve of the deck, I fear it could risk being a dead weight if drawn.

[Whatever Works]

@ Malhavoc - Game 1 my alternate win condition was Street Wraith (seriously its not bad as such, but I almost never hardcast it unless its dire - I auto cycle it unless tendrils is RFG generally). I never needed to win with it as an alternative, but did Desire into 3 of them in a game and then just time walked. I thought that was pretty funny.

On a more serious note. I boarded in Psychatog every single round game 2. For the same reasons you stated. Everybody takes out removal, and brings in combo hate. I think I killed 1 of 20ish wins with psychatog, but that was just because I was generally able to win before hate came up, or was able to duress/FoW it before it stopped me.

There were times when I thought... "WOW! I am doing a whole lot of work/thinking/counting to win this game... I got mystical + Gush + FoW in my hand... Tinker would sure be convienent right now!" Though I was thinking this in the game I still think it would be clunky as you said. HOWEVER, I think your right that it deserves to be tested in the sideboard at a bare minimum. Though I doubt it would be needed game 2.

Kyle

[Sarah Angel]

It (Kyle's deck) worked really well against my Rector/Flash deck, which is a very fast deck and moderately strong against tendrils.  First game he beat me without fastbond and without yawg will (which i put in the graveyard when he used gifts).

Hell of a deck! it was fun playing against it too.

[demonic effect]

Just as a question, has anyone tried tolarian winds for this deck?  Initially it was said that windfall could be used since its synergy with gush is amazing...  Likewise, since in general you will be holding more cards than your opponent b/c gush gives you 4 would tolarian winds not be considered?  It seems relatively simple to string together a bunch of U1 cards which would not only help find cards such as fastbond, but tendril's, counters, etc...  Once the engine starts (gush + Tolarian Winds) it seems like its GG...  And in the cases its not, at least Tolarian Winds helps filter through the deck really fast and sets you up for an amazing Yawgmoth's Will if need be which allows you to just play the deck at the speed it wants you to go at without forcing it...  IDK, just a thought, but has anyone tested it?

[Whatever Works]

@ Sarah Angel - Thanks! My match with you was very fun, and you were a good spirited opponent which also always helps!

@ demonic effect - I have not tried tolarian winds in the deck. Im sure there is a deck out there that could abuse it, but I doubt that deck would be my deck. Why? Because, though I would be discarding lands I would also be discarding tutors. My deck runs 8 Tutor effects, and gush tends to draw tutors that I would rather not pitch. Also, one synergy I did a poor job of explaining is Gush's synergy with brainstorm. I cast gush, get lands, and then brainstorm lands back on top of library (if I dont need them). Then I shuffle away the lands with a deck filled with over 15+ shuffle effects. Its an interesting idea, but if I played it I would probably try to focus a deck around it more.

Note: Gush is amazing, but the deck doesnt revolve around it 100%. The deck plays around tutors, disruption, and consistency.

Kyle

[TimeWizzle]

I know you have said that you don't care for Timetwister and would most often prefer a merchant scroll, etc.  Have you considered it in the sideboard though? 
My reasoning is that in many matchups it can be a dual answer AND threat.  Against Ichorid for example, it often functions as 1-2 time walks as they have to refill their graveyard from scratch, and if you can cast it turn one after they have mulliganed and Serum powdered to find Bazaar, possibly giving them a non keepable hand you will have all the time in the world.
Secondly, against aggro or prison builds, your opponent drawing 7 cards (not named force of will) won't necessarily hurt you, and can give you the fuel to go off (and maybe accidentally kill a Grunt or something while you're at it). 

Maybe I'm just partial to the art, but I think Timetwister is a really strong card right now, and this deck seems like a good fit for it, at least in the side.

[Whatever Works]

@ TimeWizzle - Its an interesting thought, but against a deck like Ichorid a Yexlid Jailer is just better. Vs. Fish I believe that Threads of Disloyalty is better.

And, If I dont win the game on the same turn with timetwister. I can ensure that I probably will lose the game giving Stax a new hand with mana on the board already.

Kyle