[Article] The Super Long Primer, part 1

[hauntedechos]

@tsundayb:  I have been running Fact since I first read the list as I don't own a Twister, and the other 5 proxies I'm allowed are filled.  To get to the point, while you probly won't have a bomb given to you via Fact, you generally get support cards that will help the game state.  when I get a Brainstorm or Ponder I'm usually pretty happy about it, considering how they work so well with the top deck tutors (as Eric has pointed out time and time again).

I've been saying this for a while now, but I guess one more time won't hurt.  This deck doesn't play like traditional Long and it's not supposed to, hence the high protection count and lack of the usual draw seven suspects.  It's meant to abuse topdeck tutors and cantrips to fetch and protect a game winning bomb.  The only thing this deck want's is CHEAP draw cards and an increased density of it.  Twisters, desire etc, they just don't work in this deck consistently.  Necro and Bargain do because if youre going ten deep or more possibly, you can sculpt a winning hand from thoes cards.  Gifts does because you can scultp a winning line of play through it as it tutors for the cards you want.  Tinker can get you a cheaper Jar, pass, untap and then see what you get from it with the untapped mana.  While I don't even care for Jar it's the lest mana intensive.  Typically a Tinker leads to DSC for me and protect it, fetching Timewalk if I have the means to.

It's awesome to see this kind of interest in a deck!!

Michael

[XxtSundaybxX]

Alright just to address a few things...Do you feel the need to mention the " as eric already stated before" comment in every post you make?? i mean    becker wrote this article so he's said alot of things that doesnt mean we cant discuss the deck. Second you are claiming the deck was cheap draw spells but yet FoF costs 3U...its one of the most expensive draw spells you could play in a deck like this...its the same principle as playing gifts except gifts is better because it actually wins you the game..where as FOF gets you 3-4 cards at the most...3 on a consistent basis. And Timetwister is insane in a deck like this, how do you figure cards like twister and desire are bad? I will agree that in this deck desire is bad...thats the argument im trying to make...but twister and wheel are much more useful than FOF seeing as theyre actually bombs!! And yes i agree that its nice to see this thread going somewhere

[Webster]

Alright just to address a few things...Do you feel the need to mention the " as eric already stated before" comment in every post you make?? i mean    becker wrote this article so he's said alot of things that doesnt mean we cant discuss the deck. Second you are claiming the deck was cheap draw spells but yet FoF costs 3U...its one of the most expensive draw spells you could play in a deck like this...its the same principle as playing gifts except gifts is better because it actually wins you the game..where as FOF gets you 3-4 cards at the most...3 on a consistent basis. And Timetwister is insane in a deck like this, how do you figure cards like twister and desire are bad? I will agree that in this deck desire is bad...thats the argument im trying to make...but twister and wheel are much more useful than FOF seeing as theyre actually bombs!! And yes i agree that its nice to see this thread going somewhere

What I'm saying is that many of the questions you asked have been discussed thoroughly in detail in both of the superlong threads as well as the primer.

I don't like symetrical draw 7's in this deck. Jar is not symetrical because it limits your opponent to only instants. I don't like wheel and timetwister very much because of the nature of the deck. If I'm spending so much time durressing, brainstorming, and pondering in order to make a suitable hand to win with, one of the last things that I'd want to do is to give the opponent a new hand as well as mine which would suggest a failure of the deck to assemble such a hand in the first place. If the afformentioned scenerio were to arise, I would rather play other cards that prevent that form happening in the first place.

[hauntedechos]

I will refrain from mentioning Erics comments if it bothers you in whatever capacity.

To move along, I was stateing only that the draw7's don't function the same way as they do in Long because of a lack of them and then a lack of power to maximize there effect.  Do I feel they ar bad cards? no, not at all.  I just don't feel they have the same umph in this deck OR tropical storm.  Agreed Fact is a "bad Gifts", and I wouldn't claim other wise, further, I hope that I mentioned that I run Fact because I don't actually own a Timetwister.  Fact is there to draw cards, give me the best of whatever piles the opponent gives and further me to threshold to properly abuse Cabal Ritual.  It's not cheap, as you've stated it's the same as Gifts.  I agree I'd MUCH rather pay out for Gifts than Fact, but I've been given some decent cards off a Fact and I'm sure many have.  Fact also doesn't have the drawbacks that playing a draw 7 has in terms of your opponents hand, I won't go over this because we've all aknowledged it.  When I was talking about cheap draw, it was a reference to Ponder and Brainstorm and when considering the power of it resolving to it's cost, necropotence.

So to recap:  I don't think draw 7's are bad, I just don't see them working hard enough in this deck.  Twister is still strong, I know, but it's not as strong as it would be in a fully powered Long deck.  I don't care for wheel because of it's side effect of helping the opponent in conjunction with running a third colour in this deck.  I won't keep bringing up Erics past comments and writings and for the record, it was not my intention to come across as "anything that isn't according to Eric is bad and shouldn't be talked about", certainly I think it's great that this deck is getting the time of day that it is!!

Maybe someone could put up a post with some goldfishing hands and how they've played out?  perhalps through that we can illustrate some of our individual points?  Sure they would be in an ideal environment, but I think that some of our discussion if from personal preference and we can at least illustrate where we are comming from.  Or we could always record a two fist session to try and make a better case for our points!!

anyways guys, sorry if anyone felt I was trying to stifle conversation, it was not my intent at all

cheers
Michael

[XxtSundaybxX]

i understand you dont have Timetwister...Have you tested Merchant Scroll? or Any other card draw ie Nights Wisper?

As far as goldfishing sample hands heres a pretty standard opening 7:

Underground Sea
Mox Sapphire
Cabal Ritual
Yawgmoths Bargain
Brainstorm
Force of Will
Force of Will

Turn 1
Play Mox Sapphire, Tap play brainstorm, draw cabal ritual, black lotus, duress...haha nuff said. actuallt i would throw back force, force then play polluted delta, sac, for Usea. Play Duress....taking X(counter). Play Black Lotus. Pass

Turn 2
draw ponder, assuming you duressed the only counter they had and they didnt play a draw spell i would play Crit, Crit, Bargain...obv...with B floating...draw some cards and see if i can win...if not pass turn with a full 7 and win next turn. Now assuming they A either had another counter or B played a draw spell i would play ponder...tapping sapphire...seeing thoughtseize, yawgmoths will, dark ritual...wow pretty good...again assuming they had another counter i would draw the thoughtseize and then stack dark rit on top of will and draw Drit next turn and play bargain and draw will and win.

Sample Hand 2:
On the Draw

Duress
Ponder
Black Lotus
Imperial Seal
Volcanic island
Dark Ritual
Flooded Strand

Hmm pretty good hand

Now Assuming opponent had no duress effects...I draw
I draw flooded strand... so ill play flooded strand, sac for Usea, tap Duress...taking counter? or X. Play Black Lotus. Pass

Turn 2 ...I draw...Force of Will. Sac Lotus for BBB, Drit...BBBBB. Imperial seal for will...BBBB...play volcanic island...tap for ponder seeing...Will, Drit, Duress. Take Will...Play will floating B....Spell 5. Play Lotus. Using B floating play Drit...BBB floating...imiperial seal for tendrils...BB floating...play duress....play ponder draw tendrils... sac lotus for BBBB play tendrils ...win

these are just some sample GOLDFISH hands...anything could happen in a real game ie opponent duress or lucksack a topdeck counter...anything....

[hauntedechos]

I do run merchantscoll in my list and I did run x2Night's whisper to smooth out the draw issue, however I found it a little extensive in terms of life loss with necro bargain and x2 thoughtseize also in the list on top of fetch loss.  I'll admit that it wasn't the worst thing, but when playing against aggro it was always pretty dicey towards the late game before I would seal the deal.  I'm currently playing tropical storm as it's draw package is pretty good for me, as well as when going off, the tutor for Fastbond has been nutty, but not always needed.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

Some one posted a reply with concern about the nine sphere decks emerging. I've tested against against a lot of 9 ball decks, with good pilots, and both the stax player and myself feel that a simple wire+sphere was much more effective than thorn sphere, as it also limited sb options.

[XxtSundaybxX]

echoes: i can understand your point the loss of life will start to add up quick especially with the top deck tutors as well as all the fetches and the deck tends to tutor out bargain as much as possible. what about something like repeal? it adds storm and it cantrips 2 for 1...i havent tested it at all but im sure its worth a shot.

[hauntedechos]

Sunday:  I was thinking about repeal last night when I was going to bed, I have't even given it a shot, but certainly it might be worth looking into.  It would be great to: play and tap mana crypt, play and tap saphire repeal crypt to hand, replay, draw which under thoes circumstances would add the storm and aid in mana too, not too bad sounding on paper.  Also Meandeck Tendrils ran x4 when they were printed, and I found it gave the deck a little breathing room (aside from the fact it still pretty much folded to Fow for most players.  On the other hand it was fully powered and ran eggs and chromatic spheres =/

But I've lost track here.  I will go back and see about the repeals, with 7 artifacts, I hope that there is enough consistency to support them.

So for reference the list I last ran was:

x3U.Sea
x4Polluted Delta
x2Flooded Strand
x2Island
x2Swamp

mox saph
mox jet
Black Lotus
mana crypt
mana vault
sol Ring
x4Dark rituals
x1Cabal Rituals

x4Brainstorm
x4Ponder
x1Ancestral
x1Fact or Fiction

x4Force of Will
x4Duress
x1Thoughtseize
x2MisDirection
x1Hurkyls Recall

x1Demonic tutor
x1Vampiric tutor
x1Mystical Tutor
x1Imperial Seal
x1Merchant scroll

Necropotence
yawg's Bargain
Gifts ungiven
memory Jar
Yawg's Win
Time Walk
Tinker

DSC
Tendrils

Sb: not included.  Sb options are metagame specific for the most part and thus aren't terribly usefull  in discussion.

Nothing really special that sperates my list from anything else.  I've elected to cut a cabal ritual for the 4th Ponder.  I run the fact or Fiction over Twister as explained (I'll see about Repeal or possibly the lone Night's whisper)  The scroll is still in and usually fetches A.Recall early and Gifts late game.  I run 1 Thoughtseize in favour of the 2nd Misdirection.  In my area 8 Duress effects are everywhere so while on the play I get the chance to fire one off first, but on the play I really wanted to bolster the defence against thoes effects.  For me it's because the opening 7 really can't take too much of a beating if you hope to sculpt a winning hand in proper time.  Another thought I had was the possibility of running Personal tutor.  I know it's sorc speed and that it's fairly narrow, it just seems that the sorc spells it could fetch are pretty huge really ->Demonic Tutor, Yawg's Will, Tinker, Tendrills, Time Walk and Imperial Seal as well, all pretty darn solid cards to search for depending on your situation really and lastly it pitches to MisD and Fow of course.  What would the community think about that?

cheers
Mike

[XxtSundaybxX]

i really thing repeal can bring something to the table...but no more than 2. Theyre also good against goyf and GAT...so they dont always necessarily need to be used to your own artifacts because it will still cantrip. I dont know its worth a shot...something to speed up the deck...it needs more bombs...im thinking about putting 2 grim tutors back in...and if i do that i might find a way to fit desire back in so theres more bombs to flip to desire.

[mistervader]

The moment you do that, we're back to Grim Long again. Heh.

I picked this deck because it doesn't need a full set of Moxen, nor Grims. I only have a few bits of Power, so every off-color Mox is $300 I can't afford.

[XxtSundaybxX]

grim long happens to be a good deck...however im just making suggestions to make this deck hang with the best. Lucky for me all my tourneys are 15 proxy so i dont need to spend money on power...or grim tutors...but i see your point, its much cheaper to build that previous builds or TPS/Long.   Back on Track, has anyone posted any results on the deck or done any testing that has greatly improved the deck?

[mistervader]

grim long happens to be a good deck...however im just making suggestions to make this deck hang with the best. Lucky for me all my tourneys are 15 proxy so i dont need to spend money on power...or grim tutors...but i see your point, its much cheaper to build that previous builds or TPS/Long.   Back on Track, has anyone posted any results on the deck or done any testing that has greatly improved the deck?

I don't dispute that GL is a good deck. Or Pitch Long, for that matter. What I'm disputing is adding Grim Tutors already sends us back to GL/PL, and is kind of self-defeating for me, at least, since this is the first time I can build a Long deck on my budget without having to sacrifice too much, since the decklist really only uses the Power cards I already have.

[hauntedechos]

Ok ok ok, so adding Grims brings us to Grim long and Pitch an dGrim long are good....let's get back on track here.  I'm going to start testing Repeals tomorrow, I'll post on initial findings.

I've been testing with a friend of mine who plays TideSpout Oath and Manaless Ichorid and Gobins as well asB/R TMWA.

vs Goblins:  The deck takes serious hits and it reduces necro draws n/m Bragain, it takes too long to get the mana.  Best case scenario is to Tinker for DSC and try and gather some sort of protection for him.  My friend boards in Edicts against DsC now and it's forced me to have back up and fetch Time walk asap.

Manaless Ichorid:  Our game 1's have been back and forth.  I've managed 1st turn land mox mystic, vam tutor for Tinker 2nd turn Tinker DSC for the win.  On many other occasions, I've just been pillaged.  Of course post board games are much easier with the aid of leylines, but I also side in 2 extirpates on dred return of course.

TMWA:  he runs unmask, duress and 2 cabal therapies as well as 4 extirpates in the board.  Ive had my hand pillaged and still grabbed a bomb on turn 4 and won right there (Gifts the almighty).  In fact this match allows you to do many things, which means the match isn't bad at all really, just play basics and race them.  One game featured a small tendrils, with enough mana to tinker for the tin man and time walk for the rest of the damaged needed.

TideSpout is a little more dicey really.  His list has 4 Force and 3 MisD but no Duress effects.  Typically he looks to get into a counter war with me over a bomb I need to resolve and then drops the Oath on his next turn and combos out.  Fully powered and it's pretty fast which is hard to race and makes racing with the Tin man useless on account of the Tidespout combo.  I find that you cant just toss Duress effects out there because of the large number of MisD's Oath can run.

I know that it's pretty barebones in terms of reports, I will be trying to formalize the information for my next post on the topic.

cheers
Mike.

[mistervader]

Here's a thought, and I just really need someone to tell me what's wrong with this line of thinking...

Can't Super Long make do with a 4 Duress/4 Thoughtseize suite, and play more like Grim Long in terms of just throwing bombs against the (counter) wall until it sticks?

If you cut the five pitch spells in the deck, you now open yourself up to the option of doing stuff like:

1-2. Adding SSG and Mox Ruby
3. Adding Lotus Petal
4. Adding Wheel Of Fortune
5. Adding yet another bomb/Xantid Swarm for protection

Is there any reason why this isn't smart? I've been looking at old Pitch Long threads, and they deride Force+Duress packages because of the seeming lack of synergy the disruption pieces have. So why not toss the Forces out and just insist on disruption and aggression?

[hauntedechos]

@Mistervader:  I don't have a definite answer to that one.  However I do have experience of playing a little R/B TMWA post Lorwynn.  I've found that the disruption package of B proactiveness  is wonderfull when you have the pressure of a fast clock.  This deck is slower that traditional Long builds and I've been in various positions where I've really wanted a counter.  For example I duress and the opponent Misdirects =(  given the light number of bombs, if you had one in your hand, that really hurt.  Same can be said if you only had one draw spell in your hand to try and get going.  On the other hand, if it's your opponent trying to go off, and they're doing this dispite your best efforts of tearing thier hand appart, you really want a counterspell.  this deck feels like it really needs both proactive and responsive disruption to stay alive to both play and protect the game winning bomb.

When I was playing U/W Fish, I decided that I really wanted B to add 1 tutor and 4 Duress.  It was for much of the same reason, the deck isn't fast enough to rely on it's limited counter package, it needed something to start the disruption  early. Duress made this happen.

As a last thought, I was thinking that 4 Thoughtseize might be too taxing on the life totals, which would effect a mid game Necro/Bargain in terms of how far you can go with it.

It's just my initial thoughts to your post.  True the addition of R or G would be somewhat benificial to the deck in terms of options, but I'm not sure the options are fully worth the loss of the disruption/counter back up given the slow nature of the deck.  I'm sure I could be wrong though, try it out and see how it feels and let us know.

Michael

[ErkBek]

Here's a thought, and I just really need someone to tell me what's wrong with this line of thinking...

Can't Super Long make do with a 4 Duress/4 Thoughtseize suite, and play more like Grim Long in terms of just throwing bombs against the (counter) wall until it sticks?

If you cut the five pitch spells in the deck, you now open yourself up to the option of doing stuff like:

1-2. Adding SSG and Mox Ruby
3. Adding Lotus Petal
4. Adding Wheel Of Fortune
5. Adding yet another bomb/Xantid Swarm for protection

Is there any reason why this isn't smart? I've been looking at old Pitch Long threads, and they deride Force+Duress packages because of the seeming lack of synergy the disruption pieces have. So why not toss the Forces out and just insist on disruption and aggression?

This deck isn't a Long deck, it's much more combo control oriented.

Force of Will is really needed against Workshop decks.

[XxtSundaybxX]

i stop posting for a day and this thread dies...whats up with that? So anyway has anyone gotten any results on the deck...or any new ideas...i havent had much time to test it this week

[hauntedechos]

@Sunday:

I've recently been tinkering aound with the deck to try and find answers to the lack of draw.  The lack of card advantage seems to be an issue as there are times when you feel like you've Time Walked you opponent by not having a draw card or been unable to do anything of consequence on your turn.  True there are 12 Protection spells, but there are even times when you don't even have that going for you, hence the "streaky feel" of the deck.

Tropical Storm attempts to address that issue by adding G and Fastbond and 4Gush.  Although it does start to ease the issue, the deck also has reduced the number of disruption and protection spells.  I find that the deck is still slow, and the reduced number of said cards, can at times leave you open.

What I am trying to do with "super Long" is to find a hybrid between this and Tropical storm.  I've added G for Regrowth and Fastbond and for the allowance of Xantid from the SB games 2-3.  The reasoning for this is, Regrowth allows you to recoup a countered bomb or to reuse said bomb.  As example, I have done a Tendrils for 6, regrowthed it on the next turn and powered another out for 6 and finished the deal for 8 all without using Yawgs Will.  Fastbond is still usefull to this deck even w/o the gushes, as an example:  Fisrt turn Fetch for Tropical with Fastbond in hand, if it resolves, additional lands in hand are played and thusly act as additional on colour moxen allowing for huge tempo gains.  On the flipside, as you are comboing out, a Tutor for Fastbond can do a few things: A) force you opponent to blow a counter on it, knowing that there are fetches in your yard and thus will allow a greater flexability in what and how you play your spells. or B) he allows it, and you gain the above advantage.  Lastly, Fastbond and Regrowth are additional threats in this deck which is admittedly light in that area.

Although in the early testing stages, it seems to have good results so far.

Another aspect that I've been testing in my current list, is a second Merchant scroll w/o cutting Ponders.  I've found that adding a second Merchant scroll has given a great amount of flexability to the deck.  Increasing the choices of which I use the first one on knowing there is another in the deck, increasing the reliability to fetch out Gifts, Ancestral and especially Pitch magic or a U card to pitch to FoW or MisD.  I like this security as the deck moves slower than many combo decks out there.

I've swapped one Thoughseize for a third Misdirection.  In my meta the number of Duress effects used, has caused a major increase in Misdirections use.  With a deck like this that does not have robust card advantage engines, having a Duress thrown back at you, can really hurt your chances of recovering or even gaining favourable game states.  I've had many occasions where my Duress/Seize has been tossed back at me and almost cost me the game.

One option I was thinking about testing was the use of Xantids Maindeck.  While there is a tonne of creature removal running around in todays game, a Xantid that sticks can potentially win you the game single handedly.  As to how many main I'm unsure, but looking at the suggested list of Tropical and two Xantids main will likely be my starting point.

I would really encourage everyone to look into significant changes to the deck to try and bolster it's short commings.  Simply adding R for Wheel doesn't seem to bring enough to the table for me.  Sure the use of blasts and potential Burning Wish to recoup an extirpated card or card used in a Will turn (ie Black lotus or other accelerants) and artifact removal is solid, but I think the deck needs more speed and cards that really put wrenches in the opponents plan on dealing with you, and lastly a card like Regrowth (not unlike Burning Wish) to add flexability.

Michael 

[Puinsai]

Hi Eric, The Super Long, part 2 is comming ? Thks

[ErkBek]

Hi Eric, The Super Long, part 2 is comming ? Thks

I think so....It was submitted 3 weeks ago.

[Arathom]

@Sunday:
 I've had many occasions where my Duress/Seize has been tossed back at me and almost cost me the game.

As far as I remember, you can't toss back a Duress because it targets an opponement, as contrary to Seize. You must change to another legal target.

[XxtSundaybxX]

Yo echoes...I've been thinking about the suggestion you made about adding green and its interesting but I don't think you mix this deck with tropical storm...sorry. You will lose out on both ends, each deck is designed to use every card to its fullest ability. Trying to merge the two decks together will take away from that... Now as far as playing tropical storm over this deck...I've been considering it...but people say his deck is better but who knows...there are a couple things you need to think about...

1. Can my deck beat stax?
2. Can my deck beat GAT?
3. Will the loss of protection hurt me in the long run...my guess is yes but I hasnt tested the tropical deck yet.

So with all of that in mind which deck is really better for the format? Which deck is more fun?

I think stax needs to come back so we can play combo again : )

[ErkBek]

3. Will the loss of protection hurt me in the long run...my guess is yes but I hasnt tested the tropical deck yet.

What loss of protection? TTS still runs 4 FoW, 4 Duress, 2 Thoughtseize, and 2 Bounce spells.

TTS is certainly faster than SL. The addition of Gush helps it recover from out of business and smooths out comboing. TTS has a better GAT matchup, though compared to SL's rock solid manabase TTS' manabase feels a little shaky at times, but I think it's fine. 

I think stax needs to come back so we can play combo again : )

If stax comes back let's hope it doesn't play Chalice.

[mistervader]

Super Long won the first tournament of the year in the Philippines! It runs a card-for-card list as the primer, and it went up against Sensei-Sensei in the finals.

I have to say that Super Long has definitely proven its worth in the Philippine meta at the very least, and I was flattered when the tournament winner partially credited me for making him aware of this great deck's existence (I had a booking last weekend for a magic show, so I didn't join the tourney.), and taking it all the way. I think except for Mono Red and Sliverless Cephalid, all decks are powered or semi-powered.

Here's the Top 8:

1st Juan, Michael (Super Long) - Team Ruthless
2nd Go, Osmond (Sensei-sensei) - Team MF
3rd Corpuz, Ric (Mono Red) - Team KFC
4th Crisostomo, John Michael (Stax) - Team Budget
5th Gomez, Rommel (Bomberman) - Team TF
6th Dominguez, Aries (Fish) - Team TF
7th Asprec, Lance (Oath) - Team KFC
8th Napao, Raymond (Sliverless Cephalid) - Team Kamote

[hauntedechos]

@Sunday:  I have continued to play around with the two decks and have concluded much the same as you, the two cannot be merged with any kind of reliance.  I have since added 1 Volc Island and Ruby to facilitate ETW.  having 3 outs has been huge for me and has made my reliance on the SB much much less.

@Eric:  In concerns with Stax, my sentiments EXACTLY.  Chalice at 1 pretty much kills the deck.  The amount of time you spend waiting to draw into it or Tinker for DSC pretty much kills you.  This is why I have added R.  I have not added Wheel because I feel that since I cant trust that it is going to allow me to go off, I know that it has most likely put Force and U card in my opponents hand or Duress or something.  Depending on the deck that I am facing, if my threat is countered, they very well may be able to recover faster than I.

ETW on the other hand has so many good functions.  A small one can cause huge headaches for Fish, ignore TangleWire, mess around with aggro plans in general, reduce the Storm needed for Tendrils or in some cases be the win condition.  1petal, Ruby, 1Volc Island, black lotus(rarely cracked for R) are always there when I need the R source.

It opens up the board for Chalice answers, blasts for U control, MM answers etc.

What are your thoughts on it's inclusion?

[XxtSundaybxX]

I really feel that this deck is kind of slow and that's because it is...but at my most recent blue bell tourney I played an old pitchlong list opting for pure speed over stability...my only 2 losses were 2 workshop aggro...due too open nuts grips and a lack of basic lands in the deck...I think with minor changes the deck can keep up wit he format...I have never lost a match to gat either...so with a solid sideboard against shops and some basic lands in the main I really think he deck can put up better results than superlong

[ErkBek]

I have never lost a match to gat either

I must ask. Have you ever played against GAT?

[XxtSundaybxX]

Of course I've played against gat Becker, ive just never lost to it. And the players playing it were certainly not bad players. Ive played against Shawn...your old teamate, Mastriano, and other local players who have posted good results in higher level tourneys...I just win before the can get going...

[juangamer]

Ive been piloiting this deck for a bit now and i do agree with the level of slowness. but isnt that how this deck runs. comboing off turns 3-5 rather then turns 1-3. i feel u have to adapt to ur opener alot. sometimes taking the control rout for a bit to open a path to ur combo fnish. I've also made a slight few changesto the list-1 tinker -1colosus -1jar -1 Usea for +1 cabal rit +1 tendrils +1 FoF +1 swamp. my reasons for this is because i absolutly hate tinker colosus and feel a lot of decks have answers to it, plus i hate having dead cards. there isnt a better feeling when ur in a bind and u top deck his dumb ass. plus there are a lot of shops+shepre in my meta so natuarly i wanted anouther basic in the main. ive also been playing with dark confidant in the board which ive liked alot. being able to drop him turn 1 or 2 and riding the CA and the few points he deals to an easy combo finish