[Deck] Drain Tendrils

[RaleighNCTourneys]

I think DT will still be very competitive. Here's my recommended list prior to any testing:

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

1 Sensei's Divining Top OR LoA
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Gush
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Accumulated Knowledge

2 Intuition
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor

1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
   
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus

Sideboard

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Pithing Needle
1 Echoing Truth
1 Darkblast
2 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
1 Hurkyl's Recall

[Son of Serra]

I am suprised that nobody has mentioned the idea of Mind Twist in a Drain Tendrils deck. What about:

x1  Black Lotus
x1  Lotus Petal
x1  Mox Emerald
x1  Mox Jet
x1  Mox Pearl
x1  Mox Ruby
x1  Mox Sapphire
x1  Sol Ring

x1  Ancestral Recall
x1  Brainstorm
x2  Cabal Ritual
x4  Dark Ritual
x1  Echoing Truth
x4  Force of Will
x4  Mana Drain
x1  Mystical Tutor
x1  Rebuild
x1  Vampiric Tutor

x1  Demonic Tutor
x4  Duress
x1  Empty the Wardens
x1  Merchant Scroll
x4  Mind Twist
x1  Tendrils of Agony
x1  Time Walk
x1  Timetwister
x1  Yawgmoth's Will

x1  Necropotence
x1  Yawgmoth's Bargain

x2  Flooded Strand
x2  Island
x1  Library of Alexandria
x4  Polluted Delta
x1  Swamp
x1  Tolarian Academy
x3  Underground Sea
x1  Volcanic Island

The idea of countering my opponent's spell and using each mana of it's casting cost to make him discard a card... all for the low, low price of UUB... Woot!

Thoughts?

[bluemage55]

I am suprised that nobody has mentioned the idea of Mind Twist in a Drain Tendrils deck.

Mind Twist has this stupid problem of resulting in suicide when cast early if it hits Misdirection.  Mind Twist is also inferior to Duress 98% of the time. 

Mind Twist is only good to finish off your opponent as a late-game bomb, and unfortunately, it's either win-more or doesn't do anything because your opponent is already in or near topdeck mode.

[Son of Serra]

I am suprised that nobody has mentioned the idea of Mind Twist in a Drain Tendrils deck.

Mind Twist has this stupid problem of resulting in suicide when cast early if it hits Misdirection.  Mind Twist is also inferior to Duress 98% of the time. 

Mind Twist is only good to finish off your opponent as a late-game bomb, and unfortunately, it's either win-more or doesn't do anything (because your opponent is already in or near topdeck mode).

I doubt we will see as much play of Misdirection without x4 Merchant Scroll for Ancestral Recall, but I do agree Duress is usually better because it requires less commitment.

[TripleAgent]

Cody:

I just off the top of my head did the same, but I did Frantic Search instead of Gush, and didn't think to replace a fetch with an Island. Also playing LoA again. I know the synergy with Gush and LoA, but I always love the untapping of three lands, especially if I have Academy on board, it's insane. So...how do you feel about....


- Frantic Search
- Mystic Remora
- Lim-Dul's Vault

This is my short list after Regionals to test in the deck. I know you know all about Frantic, but have you considered the other two? Since the general attitude is not to counter unless it's critical, or you want the Drain mana, meanwhile draw, draw, draw, Remora at least seems playable. At worst, it makes their Duress/Thoughtseize less effective. Thanks as always for the feedback.

[wiley]

Mystic remora is a niche card, it is used against decks  that like to play an explosive number of early spells.  Most decks like that were blue and ran brainstor, gush and/or ponder.  I would suggest that until new arhetypes that rely on this type of strategy come back that remora be shelved.

Misdirection is still a decent pitch counter, it's not like cards like thoughtseize and ancestral recall have left the format.  There might not be as many decks playing it but I doubt that it will dissapear entirely.  That said, mind twist would be a one of if you included it at all because, as has been stated, duress/thoughtseize/hymn to turoch are all better discard options.

[meadbert]

I actually tested Mystic Remora in TurboGush which has a lot of similarity with Drain Tendrils and found that it did not work well, because I really wanted to use my mana for other things.  I think DT is the same way.  It wants to use its mana to cast draw spells and fill the yard for Yawg.
I have not tested Mystic Remora in Drain Tendrils though.

[RaleighNCTourneys]

Cody:

I just off the top of my head did the same, but I did Frantic Search instead of Gush, and didn't think to replace a fetch with an Island. Also playing LoA again. I know the synergy with Gush and LoA, but I always love the untapping of three lands, especially if I have Academy on board, it's insane. So...how do you feel about....


- Frantic Search
- Mystic Remora
- Lim-Dul's Vault

This is my short list after Regionals to test in the deck. I know you know all about Frantic, but have you considered the other two? Since the general attitude is not to counter unless it's critical, or you want the Drain mana, meanwhile draw, draw, draw, Remora at least seems playable. At worst, it makes their Duress/Thoughtseize less effective. Thanks as always for the feedback.

I've test Lim-Dul's but not Mystic Remora, although I've considered it but never thought it was close to being worth testing. Meadbert's analysis is the same as mine for Remora in that DT is very focused on keeping mana open and using your opponent's EOT step or keeping Drain online. Mystic Remora doesn't help much in that respect. Further, it's often hard for DT to make consistent land drops. This is mitigated by all of the end of turn draw so that you can find more land. With Remora out, you probably won't be drawing any cards and it will be hard to make land drops. As a result, Remora will be even weaker and you won't have much land when it's over. Lastly, losing 3x Brainstorm really hurts the decks ability to find land. When I have time to test, I will not be surprised if I need to add 1-2 more lands to the deck.

re: Lim Dul's Vault

I think this is a fine 1-of. I tested this card for the longest time in one of my builds and it was always pretty good. Again, I think DT will have a hard time finding consistent land drops with the loss of BS so there may be more important cards to add that help in that respect (Sensei's Top, Ponder, more Islands, etc.).

re: Frantic Search

Honestly, this seemes weak right now. It may be the 64th or 65th card I'd add, but not near the top of the list. I really believe the deck (post 6/20) needs to be focused on getting it's mana online and draw engine running, and Frantic Search does neither of those. It's best used once the deck is already online and has built up card advantage.

[Baraka]

I type my purpose:

Repeal Tendrills

15 Lands

3-Polluted delta
2-Flooded strand
5-Island
3-Underground sea
1-Library of alexandria
1-Tolarian academy

1 Creature

1-Darksteel colosus

44 Other spells

1-Ancestral recall
1-Black lotus
1-Mox jet
1-Mox sapphire
1-Mox emerald
1-Mox pearl
1-Mox ruby
1-Time walk
4-Force of will
4-Mana drain
4-Thirst for knowledge
2-Intuition
1-Brainstorm
4-Accumulated knowledge
1-Demonic tutor
1-Vampiric tutor
1-Mystical tutor 
1-Sol ring
1-Mana vault
1-Mana crypt
1-Lotus petal
1-Chain of vapor
1-Tinker
1-Tendrills of agony
1-Fact or fiction
1-Yagwmoth's will
3-Repeal
1-Hurkyll's recall
1-Merchant Scroll

Sideboard

4-Leyline of the void
2-Pithing needle
2-Engineered explosives
1-Hurkylls recall
1-Rebuild
3-Dark confidant
2-Extirpate

Now repeal is back to stop aggro decks and give us extra cards in the 1º/2º turn.Once thouse turns has gone,we have thirst for knoledge,intuition,fact...when the deck is already working well.

[islanderboi10]

I actually really like Repeal in DT. It seems like a good replacement. 
I am considering this deck again, as it is insane.  Some thoughts I had though,
Why not splash red?  Blasts seem decent right now.
Also, what do you think the shift of the metagame will be like for DT?

Thanks!

[Baraka]

-Blast: brainstrorm,metchant,gush,ponder and flash are restricted.Then,blast will not have the same effect than before unless you play against painter.

-As thouse cards are resricted,blue decks will be slower than before.Now we have not brainstrom-merchant-echoing.Then,aggro decks may back.This is related with blast(blast against aggro...),although we have to wait to see the metagame.

[Kiriyuu]

Hello everyone! : )

I'm planning to start playing Drain Tendrils as my 'main' blue deck in vintage, as it looks fun and powerful, and I'm yet to actually play my drains!

I was wondering though, without 4 brainstorm, how resilient is the deck against potentially 8 duress and thoughtseize, what is the plan to beat these cards attacking you early?

Also in the last list posted by RaleighNCTourneys, what happens if you replace the library/divining top slot with an imperial seal, or is it being a sorcery too restirctive?

Thanks for listening to my noobie questions! ^^

robert.

[Ufactor]

Without Brainstorm/Merchant Scroll, DT goes from a turn 2.5 goldfish to a 3.5 goldfish (where the half turn indicates an average of results split between both turns).  This is a full turn, or more, slower than both ICBM and Smmenen versions of Oath.  Does anyone find that this is a problem??  Is there any other way to compensate for it besides siding in some combination of Duress/Needle/Leyline? 

[RaleighNCTourneys]

Hello everyone! : )

I'm planning to start playing Drain Tendrils as my 'main' blue deck in vintage, as it looks fun and powerful, and I'm yet to actually play my drains!

I was wondering though, without 4 brainstorm, how resilient is the deck against potentially 8 duress and thoughtseize, what is the plan to beat these cards attacking you early?

Also in the last list posted by RaleighNCTourneys, what happens if you replace the library/divining top slot with an imperial seal, or is it being a sorcery too restirctive?

Thanks for listening to my noobie questions! ^^

robert.

The plan is to let the deck do what it does: have multiple draw spells in hand or draw into them. You shouldn't have that hard of a time producing a steady supply of draw spells. You'll be more vulnerable to Duress/TS without 4 Brainstorm, but the deck should still be able to produce draw through 1 or 2 early Duress or TS.

Without Brainstorm/Merchant Scroll, DT goes from a turn 2.5 goldfish to a 3.5 goldfish (where the half turn indicates an average of results split between both turns).  This is a full turn, or more, slower than both ICBM and Smmenen versions of Oath.  Does anyone find that this is a problem??  Is there any other way to compensate for it besides siding in some combination of Duress/Needle/Leyline? 

I've never expected a win before turn 4 from the deck, and in tourney play and testing, I don't win prior to turn 5 more than 20% of the time. The deck is slow to win, but fast to take control of a game over the first few turns. Yes, losing BS is going to make it slower. I still don't think that that's a problem. There have always been decks that are many turns faster than DT, but the deck has always performed well against them. I don't see why the new metagame would be any different. 

[Ufactor]

Without Brainstorm/Merchant Scroll, DT goes from a turn 2.5 goldfish to a 3.5 goldfish (where the half turn indicates an average of results split between both turns).  This is a full turn, or more, slower than both ICBM and Smmenen versions of Oath.  Does anyone find that this is a problem??  Is there any other way to compensate for it besides siding in some combination of Duress/Needle/Leyline? 

There have always been decks that are many turns faster than DT, but the deck has always performed well against them. 

Care to elaborate on how this happens?  What do you do against a faster, more aggressive deck that runs just as many permission spells as DT?

[RaleighNCTourneys]

You "just win." But seriously, you turn draw spells into counters and along the way you are building up card advantage and filling your yard. At that point, you look for an opportunity to win off Will or Tinker. An opportunity may be a counter war you just won, or a counter war your opponent won. It could be a large bomb you cast at EOT that gets countered and then you mystical, DT, vamp for Will and win. If you'v played DT correctly, you'd know that this turns out to be exactly what happens in tourneys and games. More agressive and faster decks with 4x Drain and 4x FOW don't have as much of an advantage as you may think. DT can play conservative and consistent and then explode and win (if it survives long enough, which is what many games come down to). It's power lies in its ability to consitently do something relevant while buiding up card advantage and a a yard. Oath isn't as fast as you're making it seem compared to DT... which will be able to race Oath in many matches. Which "faster, more aggressive deck that runs just as many permission spells as DT?" did you mean?

[Ufactor]

While the ICBM Oath deck has 4 Force and Drain, and can drop the "combo" on turn one or two, I'm less worried about that match up, because they use Platinum Angel.  It will take Platz longer to deal 20 points of damage and can be dealt with through multiple bounce spells.  This presents a difficult, but not nearly impossible challenge.

What actually concerns me is Meandeck Oath 2008.   The deck is stupid fast!  1) It uses Duress over Drain, so it can force through Oath on less mana.  2) It uses Bazaar of Baghdad/Deep Analysis, which is not only nigh-uncounterable, but also costs 0-2 mana.  3) It utilizes Tidespout Tyrant for that "win now" factor.

The strategy you present is not "just win", but play the "control role".  Survive as long as possible, develop mana, and turn all of your spells into counters.  I think I get it now.. Thank you for that!

[meadbert]

What actually concerns me is Meandeck Oath 2008.   The deck is stupid fast!  1) It uses Duress over Drain, so it can force through Oath on less mana.  2) It uses Bazaar of Baghdad/Deep Analysis, which is not only nigh-uncounterable, but also costs 0-2 mana.  3) It utilizes Tidespout Tyrant for that "win now" factor.

To address your points:
1)  Duress on Force, Drain, Thirst, Intuition and AK are all worse than Draining them.
2)  Drain Tendrils can outdraw Bazaar/DA.  DA also makes the Tendrils win easier.
3)  While Tyrant can win the turn it comes into play, it can also take several turns to swing.  Bouncing moxes is risky.  DT wants cards in hand and bouncing Moxes can fuel storm or Thirst.  All it takes is Academy for DT to untap and win.


Other issues: 
1)  Drains are good against Oath in general since Oath must be played during your opponent's main phase.  This means you can freely cast draw spells eot.
2)  DT's only runs 1 Creature thus Oath must actually assemble the combo of Orchard + Oath. If Oath drops turn 1 Oath but takes two more turns to find Orchard then it will be too late and DT will race it.

[RaleighNCTourneys]

Also, let's not forget that DA is a sorcery and if Drained gets you 4 mana. In addtion, their win (Oath of Druids) is played at sorcery speed. That makes for a lot of opportunities to Drain something on their turn, untap and go nuts or use the Oath player's EOT step while they're tapped out.

[Ufactor]

After goldfishing Oath over fifty games, the critical turn is usually turn two or three.  This means that very often they will have Oath BEFORE you can get UU online.  Additionally, Oath, Duress and Bazaar can all happen on their turn one - which could be your turn zero.

This is not a typical, glacially slow control mirror and shouldn't be treated as such.  This is more like facing D4r60N or Dawn of the Dead, where there is a seemingly endless stream of fast bombs backed by disruption.  I get the feeling that the words "stupid fast", aren't being understood quite so good

[AngryPheldagrif]

Having actually experienced the matchup, both in testing and in tournaments, allow me to share some of the relevant theory from the ICBM Oath side. Let me preface by saying that DT and ICBM Oath tend to run neck and neck pre-board, with a huge emphasis on the die roll (typical of many Drain mirrors).

Oath has an obviously inferior draw engine, so the real goal is to either win before DT's has a chance to come online or to prevent it from coming online altogether. The place you want to focus your attack is on their manabase. Null Rod and Chalice are effective against their 10 pieces of artifact mana, while Waste/Strip cut away blue sources. Ideally you can keep them off relevant Drain mana, or even resolve your own Chalice at 2 and beat them to death with hardcast Angel, Tinker, or Factories. You're really just worried about their ability to bring Hurkyl's Recall and Rebuild into play, so these become targets of opportunity. You want to put them on the defensive and clog them up with expensive and intrinsically less powerful spells while you hammer away at their life total.

In an abstract sense, your best bet is treating game 1 as a numbers game. Drain Tendrils has a certain number of counters, win conditions, bounce spells, and blue sources. None of these are particularly high numbers due to the deck's reliance on its powerful draw engine, so you try to pick the weakest link and break it.

Hope that helps things a bit.

[meadbert]

Pheldagrif brings up a good point about Chalice and Null Rod.  Those are far scarier than Duress or Deep Analysis.
Still, Drain Tendrils runs 3 maindeck bounce spells and thus Chalice and Rod can be played around to a certain degree.  They are still quite scary.
I agree that old ICBM Oath with Razia/Akroma was on par with Drain Tendrils.

As mentioned earlier ICMB's Platz version has a huge hole in that Platz gives DT several turns to draw an insane number of cards and then combo out and cast Rebuild for the win.

With all the Welders that I expect to show up in Control Slaver and Shop decks I am not sure that Platinum Angel will make sense for Oath.  I suspect that Razia and Akroma would be the better options.

[AngryPheldagrif]

As mentioned earlier ICMB's Platz version has a huge hole in that Platz gives DT several turns to draw an insane number of cards and then combo out and cast Rebuild for the win.

With all the Welders that I expect to show up in Control Slaver and Shop decks I am not sure that Platinum Angel will make sense for Oath.  I suspect that Razia and Akroma would be the better options.

The idea is that in the even of an Orchard, Mox, Oath type of opening, that forcing Drain Tendrils to assemble an obscene amount of mana in order to cast Rebuild, other spells, and Tendrils is an insurmountable obstacle. Basically, assuming DT plays optimally and avoids dealing itself two damage, Platinums take 2 extra turns to kill. The question becomes whether two turns is enough time to stabilize the resources and force through a Rebuild. The problem for DT is that while the bounce can be cast at instant speed, it still requires you to tap down, meaning you have 4 spells total to defend it with. In this scenario, Oath has 8 to attack it with, as well as a spare pair of Thoughtseizes to potentially cripple the solution altogether.

In short, you have a bottleneck of resources that is further exacerbated by the lack of 4 Brainstorms to fix this. That's about as concise as I can summarize it. The long version would be about 10 pages of math dealing with the numbers on this.

As a short aside, if Welder proves a force in the coming field, I'll simply shift back to Tidespout Tyrant. Razia/Akroma has run its course forever, in my opinion.

[edit]: My bad, missed the Scroll.

[RaleighNCTourneys]

Merchant scroll is in the revised list. Not sure which list you were looking at or if it was someone elses.

[Ufactor]

Cody and Pheldy - Thank you for your input and constructive dialogue.  That's exactly what I was looking for!!!

..now for something slightly off topic.  Not having Merchant Scroll any more, I've been totally using Intuition as a tutor for the cards that I need.  Are there any probable combinations that I'm missing?

1) Accumulated Knowledge times 3

2) Black Lotus, Lotus Petal, X mana card (Tolarian, Crypt, Vault)

3) Chain of Vapor, Hurkyl's Recall, Rebuild

4) Mystical Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor

5) Gush, Tendrils of Agony, Chain of Vapor - This actually comes in useful with tons of mana and Yawgmoth's Will, but no tutor and no cards in the yard.

[RaleighNCTourneys]

FOW, FOW, FOW (or Drain, Drain, Drain)

Draw Spell, Draw Spell, Draw Spell (if AKs are used or yard is hosed)

[TripleAgent]

Darkblast, Draw, Draw is nuts against Fish or Welder.

Needle X3 could be useful also in a pinch.

[Matridom]

Pardon my noobness, but would a card like Frantic search fit well with this type of deck? I would think that untaping some lands like The Academy and the Library for a double tap during the same turn and getting 2 cards out of the deal (and two more in the graveyard for yagmoth's) would help build up the storm count for when the deck goes off. I would probably look at it replacing FoF; with the number of one of's this deck boasts, any FoF split would be a heartache to pick out.

[kalisia]

As a target for Intuition, don't forget Land, Land Land. It seems obvious, but in this new metagame, Intuition is a fantastic card to find mana stability when you are able to cast a 3CC spell. I even prefer have Island, Mana Crypt, Intuition in hand first turn than keep an hand with just Island+ Ancestral and pray to draw a land after having cast Ancestral.
Another point : I guess that having The Abyss in the maindeck in 1-of could be a good choice because it fits well in the deck and I expect some aggro control decks in this new meta. What do you think?

[islanderboi10]

Could Repeal be a possible replacement for some of the lost cards?