[Discussion] Ponder Long vs. The Tropical Storm

[hauntedechos]

I was originally going to post my current thoughts in the Super Long thread, however it gave me a stern red type warning about "...thirty days..." and I don't want to necro a thread, even though I still consider it a viable topic, given the similarities of the two decks in question.  On the other hand, I did want a chance to merge the two topics together as a chance to get both camps in discussion and see what we can come up with as there are enough differences between the two decks.

The original Super Long thread is herehttp://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35080.0 and I suggest that anyone who is new to the topic / deck should give it a reading to ensure that the discussion added to this thread is relevant.

Okay so where are we with Ponder Long (I dislike the name Super Long, sorry guys)?  Well it was left off as lacking the ability to create card advantage, and hence Eric's endeavor to create TTS, which is short the Merchant Scrolls in the Gush/Bond engine to create card advantage.  It does the trick, while at the same time I'm not one hundred percent on the idea.  The fact is, Gush/Bond is the flavour of the year, rebourne after restrictions hiatus and as such everyone is stuffing it in their decks in attempt to ride the "free" draw wave to victory...I'm still not convinced.  Here's my take on the whole matter, quite simply, your deck can either abuse the Gush/Bond engine with efficiency, or it cannot and to illustrate that, the gush/bond engine needs scrolls to properly chain the draw together like AK's need intuition, as a final reality, you need Fast bond in play to keep from holding your resources back.  Every time I've Gushed and dropped a land for the turn, then been unable to do anything relevant to the game, it's been a bloody time walk for my opponent and he knows it, just like I know it when playing against TSOath.  I'm saying it's the times that I can't do anything, not to be confused with me saying every time you do it, you cannot do anything.  There are times that it does work out.

Ok so what makes Ponder Long so much better then?  Where is the draw engine that is soo much better...I haven't one.  In the end, I think that we all realize that the games won with either deck, arrive at that game state on the back of the tutors.  I've never won a game by going: Gush, Gush, with no Fastbond in play, then using tapped mana to play Brainstorm....  However I HAVE won games by going: Delta for Sea, Jet, Ritual, DOOMSDAY with Brainstorm in hand.  Or how about Delta for sea, ritual, demonic for black lotus and drop necro from the hand, setting up a game winning play for turn two.  To be completely fair one could go: Delta for sea, ritual, demonic for lotus, crack for  ,  drop fastbond from hand, another land and then gush...but how many cards was that again?  I realize that using demonic for the examples is equally as straining on "chance to open with" percentages.  The point that I am trying to get across here is that we can work a deck out that doesn't require two thirds of an engine that isn't really even optimal in a storm combo shell anyways, well unless you are going all out gush/bond engine at which point it just feels clunky to me.

Now I am certainly not trying to bash or discredit TTS by any means - contrary to how it may look.  I am simply looking to find THE optimal storm build from the two and I think that since Doomsday was suggested in the TTS thread, it can be equally viable in Ponder Long, possibly more so.  Ponder Long is no super star either, don't get me wrong.  The lack of card advantage makes the deck feel streaky and as it's been mentioned before, that is not the sort of thing you want to sport at a tournament.  On the other hand, Ponder Long, lacking the four Gush and Fast bond, has more room to play with, as well as being more straight forward.  To be sure, we still need to fill at least some of those slots with cards that will allow us to see more cards and that is something that I will leave open to discussion and testing from the community.  Consider that we don't really need to have bulk cards in hand, simply the one that shows us the path to victory and in that sense, even a Sensi's Divining Top could work.

So where do we stand on this matter community?  Are we settled on one deck or the other or are we equally unhappy with at least some parts of each?  What can we do to deal with this situation?  Let's Discuss this.

Haunted.

[Lemnear]

First of all it's a desicion between running rituals to power all your expensive spells and let the deck explode in your opponents face as fast as you can or build on a deck with a strong card-draw and mass of disruption but suffer from a loss of speed (I talked to many guys who tell me that's not true but I'll explain in the upcomming lines).

On this point I want you to realize that I played both decks in several builds in tournaments. The big plus about the Long-bulids in general is their speed but have sometimes problems with a control heavy meta. Time again a achieve pretty good results in tournaments but as gush becomes unrestricted and Gifts was gone the meta slowed down in favor of more disruption as we can see by the core of FoW + Duress most of the decks use. They are accompanied by Stifle, Thoughtseize, Misd. and moch more. I ignored it that time ... blinded by the light Long shines in. But it vanished soon ... several tests with mates piloting Deeznought and GAT show me that brutal power is no thread due to mana denial via duress/stifle/more leaving me with expensive/unplayable bombs in hand on the table. So I realize that I have to change my attitude and drop several thread like draw7 (excluded Timetwister) or Minds Desiree, replacing them with 4 Ponder and 4 Street Wraith, running only 4 Duress as protection and do well against both with this very straight build. The plus was that running 11 Lands with Wraith + Ponder is very solid and I always hated the draw7 because they gave my opponents every time I played them new FoW and/or Duresses (won't post list now -> refuse to spam the tread. If you are interested I'll add it). Again I felt untouchable with Long again ...

But then a tournament took place were I face Tarmofish, Platz/TSOath, GAT, Staxxx and Deeznought whole day ... even I finished "in the money" I was really pi ... disappointed ...  ... after, being bashed by Fish which drops 2 Stifle + 1 FoW + 1 Duress + 1 Null Rod in at least 3 turn agains me in both games we played ... unbelievable ... Another loss against Platz-Oath opend my eyes that today power is nothing without control. The lack of Long is that it's recovery rate is pretty low and tutoring for solutions aka Bounce/Duress costs much of time and recources, looking at your opponts scrolling Force by Force and keeps on duressing you. This time I decided to quit playing long for now looking over my shoulder at Flash-Players asking myself why the heck I play a such skill-intensive/rewarding deck instead of an auto-pilot with mass of protection.

I refuse to play auto piloted decks all my life and won't start now. I was always attracted to the Gushbond-shell with Ponder but won't win via beatdown (damn, there are 4 FOIL X-Edition Drayds at home  ) but started to fit Tendrils into it, realized that I can also drop Rituals because intelligent gushing in will-turn produced more than enought (black)mana to finish of my opponents. We know that Gush w/o Fastbond is no engine but only dodges Wastelands so you are forced to tutor up fastbond as early as you can. With fastbond in play it's pretty easy to go off and kill you opponent but I share your doubts 'bout the fact that Gush as standalone sucks but I think it's much better than a drawn ritual without a tutor or other spell to power (so I added Iseal to my list). Gush is probably the Dark Ritual of the Gush-based-storm-decks. The problem left is that tutoring Fastbond before even try to go into combo takes time ... sometimes several turns ... sometimes too much.

In fact I really miss things like casting Necro off an ritual on turn 1 ... I miss casting masses of rituals into tutors and drown my opponents in waves of black spells ... But I, for myself, guess that the Long builds can't really compare to the mass of hate the meta nowadays shows ... maybe the gushbond-shell provides me more resistance due to the meta than my ol' (Ponder) GrimLong did. I'll extend my field testing with Gush-storm-deck a bit since my experience with Long is nearly a year and Gush only 1-2 Months. At least it's possible that the truth is somewhere in the middle ... in other threads the community of Gush + Ritual is discussed but as I'm very, very unhappy with it by looking at myself brainstorming the rituals away time and time again. For me the only reason to Play Rituals are Necro + Bargain + Doomsday (+ the easier casting of Tendrils/Will) but I miss neither so much that I want to fill the deck up with more forced-cooperative cards like Gush (Gush-Fastbond / Ritual-Necropotence).

A last word to Doomsday ... I respect it as independent deck ... even with the accompany of Gush instead of Street Wraith but pushing 3 different mechanics together in one deck makes me worry. Can't imagine that they will work together smooth and sound without drawing dead all the time ... may I prejudge the idea itself but I would appreciate if someone could tell me his experiences in tournaments/field tests.

[XxtSundaybxX]

Wow I dont even know where to start, lets see...

I have been playing Long for a long time, and when i saw the new "super long" list i was ecstatic. I mean seriously who didnt love grim long or pitch long?? so the chance to be able to play Long again and be competitive?? So i sleeve up the list and my first thought was this deck is terrible...so i give it some more time, wow this deck is garbage, how is everyone doing so well with it?? I was playing it completely wrong, it is nothing like long at all, as i was playing draw 7's with BB floating and then just fizzling. Its much more control based, clearing the way with disruption until you know your bomb is going to resolve. Anyway so like Haunted has mentioned the card advantage is absolutely horrible. There arent too many ways to change that fact either, ponder is amazing but its just not enough. The problem with running doomsday in superlong is the 4 less draw spells, Gush. I mentioned this in the TTS thread but i have had problems with doomsday sitting in my hand with no rit so i use my draw spell to get it and now im out of a drawspell to win with doomsday so now i have to wait till i get another draw spell, which is why its better in TTS, but even saying that i dont think its worth running.

Now for TTS, Alot of people swear and think that you NEED fastbond to win. That is very untrue, over 50% of the games i win are without even seeing fastbond, not getting countered, just not seeing it. Haunted thinks that Gush is not as powerful without Merchant scroll(not to call you out, i apologize) but The thing is the deck doesnt work like GAT does. You dont need to chain 4 gushes together to get a big dryad or a tog. The great thing about Gush in TTS is that if you miss a land drop you can tap out play gush, draw 2 cards and play your land and play another spell. Another thing is it acts like a free storm count when your comboing out... you can tap out and Gush and then play your empty with atleast 1 more storm or more depending on what you draw off gush all for free. Gush is also ridiculous when you resolve Yawgmoths will, for the same reason, its free storm...plus you can draw into more spells. Top deck tutors and Gush are ridiculous with or without fastbond.

Why would you go Land, rit,demonic for lotus, necro when you could just cast the necro from the ritual? if it gets countered your now out of a lotus too, and even better i dont know about you but i know when i necro the 2 number 1 cards i wanna see are Lotus and YawgWill. Another thing i dont agree with is your alternative play, land,rit,demonic,lotus? why would you demonic for lotus if you already have a source to cast the fastbond off your fetchland...thats a waste of a tutor that you could fetch your YawgWill with? or another Gush? I'm not trying to pick on your im just curious why you would make those plays. I really feel any deck with the gushbond engine in it will do well in the current meta. I have not felt comfortable with a deck since Pitchlong, and i can say im very comfortable with TTS. Another big difference between TTS and Superlong is that TTS can be very explosive...Superlong really cant, i mean yeah sure you can ponder into Will or brainstorm into Lotus,rit,Will but Gush makes it so much more possible to get broken plays with topdeck tutors.TTS is also faster than Superlong.

Lemnear, if you read the TTS thread i posted results on testing Doomsday and why I did and didnt like it. let me know what you think.

[Zwadishim]

As a long player I tend to think that contrary to normal belief, long has a great capability to come from behind.  Where other decks that attempt to win attrition wars or lock out opponents, combo only has to get it together once.  What I find remarkable is the way in which the trend seems to be away from the draw sevens/necro/bargain/gifts and towards ponder while everyone seems to be complaining about how they are losing to the superior card advantage of the gush engine.  In my opinion, long should try to win before gush outdraws them too significantly.  What hinders this is a tendancy I have noticed with long players where they want the win to be a sure thing, and therefore play ponder to "search" instead of Wheel of Fortune to explode into wins.  Of course everybody hates when the draw seven leaves you with crap... but I hate to have to ponder... it feels like cycling.  I have to pay a blue mana, perhaps the hardest resource to come by in the deck, in order to grab a better card when I could have played a better card in the first place.  What ponder long is really searching for is Yagmoth's will, because it is the only way to build  large enough storm count without more explosive spells like wheel/jar/twister/gifts.  The dependancy on this card cripples many newer long players.  Sure draw sevens fill your opponents hand... but the only card I care about is force of will, and if I play 6-7 duress I have the odds.  If I can win with my starting 7 why not the next seven with some mana floating.  Sure this is a risk, you could mana burn for crying out loud... but mostly what I'm seeing is players who come from standard or extended and don't realize that casting brainstorm on their turn is a good idea because they do not believe that the card quality can take them to the win right now when it can.  Ponder players for the most part are too conservative, and long is a deck about taking the right kind of risks when winning isn't a sure thing and giving yourself a chance to make the right plays.  There is no stax like wins with long where it is a complete lockdown of your opponent and you sense victory 10 turns in advance.  Long is about skating the edge and being good at math and counting and practicing.

[hauntedechos]

@Sunday:  I don't feel that you are calling me out and I welcome any thoughts and comments.  The fact is, I was playing the deck wrong and I can admit that.  Despite playing it for a while, I was in the wrong mindset and I have come to know that now.  I do understand that main, tap sea sea, alt cast gush, see what you get drop a land and ... leads to many options.  Just tonight I was seeing that vs. TSOath.  I am now beliving in that fact and capitolizing on it.  In concerns with doomsday, I've been seeing some serious pull from that card.  It's restrictions are offset by it's ability to win now, or at least I think.  tonight and through goldfishing I've seen that tutor,brainstorm, B and U sorce = win now, given that either turn one is duress or when I drop it I have Force.  The significant factor I consider is the bomb light aspect of both TTS and ponder Long.  Even though there are situations where dday may seem restrictive in nature, given the meager four dark rituals in TTS, I've seen more situations where I've resolved it vs. being dead.  To that effect I've never seen a situation where I couldn't equally work to resolve it vs. work to chain a Tendrils kill.  Further to dday's credit, necro off a first turn rit, will often lead to an easy path where getting dday will win easier than necroing and sculpting a hand from the X amount of cards you select from.  In conclusion, dday is easy to draw into and with a single rit (the same that you would use for your necro or will) can often win the game right there, it just seems way too good to dismiss.

as an edit:  the games I played rarely went beyond turn 3-4 as I either won, or the opponent blew me out knowing he had to mulligan into something fast.  To be honest I made a retarded amount of play mistakes based on the inexpirience of playing dday and it's piles.  However I have learned quickly how to identify a winning dday opportunity and know that testing will show this fact next session.  The point is: learn your piles on a basic level and then learn the piles you can make on the fly, it's not easy, it's like learning to play storm combo all over again, but it's very worth it.  we include draw 7's that are known to fizzle in these decks, i see NO reason why we should exclude a card that can win now.

Haunted.

[Lou]

Despite popular opinion in this thread, you do not need card advantage to win in type one anymore.

[ErkBek]

Despite popular opinion in this thread, you do not need card advantage to win in type one anymore.

Well yeah, that's why Super Long worked. The problem Super Long had was once it got behind it would usually have a hard time recovering, which TTS does better than probably any deck in the format.

  Every time I've Gushed and dropped a land for the turn, then been unable to do anything relevant to the game, it's been a bloody time walk for my opponent and he knows it, just like I know it when playing against TSOath.  I'm saying it's the times that I can't do anything, not to be confused with me saying every time you do it, you cannot do anything.  There are times that it does work out.

All I can say to this is you need to work on playing Gush better. The only time Gush really sucks to cast is on turn 2 without a Fastbond or turn 3 when you've got another land drop in hand and you don't win that turn. Gush gets really, really good around turn 4 without Fastbond since you can Gush twice for 2 free storm and to net lots of cards (especially with a Brainstorm).

[XxtSundaybxX]

Ponder in a Long shell just hasnt been too impressive, personally i dont think it fits. It fits much better in slower combo lists like Superlong and TTS because it lets you dig 4 cards deep for a bomb, which is pretty impressive. Personally when i play Long, and im talking Grim or Pitchlong, when i resolve a bomb whether it be wheel or desire i want to see a grim tutor or another bomb, not a Ponder. I Really dont think that draw 7's should be played in the new combo lists unless your playing Gushbond allowing you to continue to play gush and lands after the draw 7 resolves.  Zwadishim, you say that you only have to worry about force of will, i personally think this is a false statement. Most people who have played this deck can agree with me and say that when you play a draw 7 its almost guaranteed that your opponent is going to see another turn, allowing them to scroll for another force or play a duress of theyre own. Superlong is very bomb light as it is, so you dont want them to get a chance to take your bomb. Even though i said Doomsday fits better in TTS because of more draw spells, i feel that it fits in the style superlong much better. Me and teammates have tried testing all different variations of Faster lists of long but they just dont compete in the metagame right now. With so many duress effects and force of wills its just to hard to keep bombs in your hand and resolve them because of both disruption spells. I think Doomsday is great, it really works because it is WIN NOW, and i think it comes down to the pilot to decide if the drawbacks(waiting on a draw spell or a rit, or a protection spell to make sure it resolves) are worth keeping it in the deck. I personally have cut it for now just because i hate seeing it when i dont have all the resources to win on the spot when i draw it, and you cant leave it sit in your hand, it just ruins the element of surprise. I personally do not play wheel or fortune in my TTS list i only splash red for empty the warrens, which is insane for when you cant ramp your storm to 10 but you dont wanna fizzle.

[Stormanimagus]

Ponder in a Long shell just hasnt been too impressive, personally i dont think it fits. It fits much better in slower combo lists like Superlong and TTS because it lets you dig 4 cards deep for a bomb, which is pretty impressive. Personally when i play Long, and im talking Grim or Pitchlong, when i resolve a bomb whether it be wheel or desire i want to see a grim tutor or another bomb, not a Ponder. I Really dont think that draw 7's should be played in the new combo lists unless your playing Gushbond allowing you to continue to play gush and lands after the draw 7 resolves.  Zwadishim, you say that you only have to worry about force of will, i personally think this is a false statement. Most people who have played this deck can agree with me and say that when you play a draw 7 its almost guaranteed that your opponent is going to see another turn, allowing them to scroll for another force or play a duress of theyre own. Superlong is very bomb light as it is, so you dont want them to get a chance to take your bomb. Even though i said Doomsday fits better in TTS because of more draw spells, i feel that it fits in the style superlong much better. Me and teammates have tried testing all different variations of Faster lists of long but they just dont compete in the metagame right now. With so many duress effects and force of wills its just to hard to keep bombs in your hand and resolve them because of both disruption spells. I think Doomsday is great, it really works because it is WIN NOW, and i think it comes down to the pilot to decide if the drawbacks(waiting on a draw spell or a rit, or a protection spell to make sure it resolves) are worth keeping it in the deck. I personally have cut it for now just because i hate seeing it when i dont have all the resources to win on the spot when i draw it, and you cant leave it sit in your hand, it just ruins the element of surprise. I personally do not play wheel or fortune in my TTS list i only splash red for empty the warrens, which is insane for when you cant ramp your storm to 10 but you dont wanna fizzle.

Isn't D-Day only a 'win now' if you have BS, Street Wraith, Gush or Ponder in hand and the requisite mana to play everything to win? Don't D-Day piles still die to Leyline Of The Void?

What I think Long needs right now is:

1. a good way to play around Leyline Of The Void (i.e become less reliant on Will) as Leyline will be played a lot for a while

2. To be highly disruptive or difficult to disrupt (Old D-Day lists ran 12 MD disruption and could effectively run Unmask which is a huge strength)

3. The ability to recover easily.

As yet I have not seen a Long/D-Day list that could do that consistently. THAT is the challenge we should all be working on.

Heck. I've even considered a more Mono-Black Sui idea with Empty The Warrens + Skullclamp. That's a totally different avenue that is, as-of-yet, unpursued.

[ErkBek]

What I think Long needs right now is:

1. a good way to play around Leyline Of The Void (i.e become less reliant on Will) as Leyline will be played a lot for a while

2. To be highly disruptive or difficult to disrupt (Old D-Day lists ran 12 MD disruption and could effectively run Unmask which is a huge strength)

3. The ability to recover easily.

As yet I have not seen a Long/D-Day list that could do that consistently. THAT is the challenge we should all be working on.

Check, Check, and Check.

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35130.0

[XxtSundaybxX]

Yes,  Doomsday is only win now if you have a draw spell, which is the reason i cut it because i found myself waiting for 1 spell or the other. Anyway and Yes doomsday piles are effected by leyline, however the deck is not doomsday.dec its just another bomb in the deck to achieve an easy win because it wins on the spot. Also i know personally i dont sideboard leylines in against long or storm based decks, its just a waste, theyre going to bouce it and then win or they will just ramp storm without Will. TTS relys very little on yawgmoths will, it can ramp storm very easily, so even if leyline came down it wouldnt be that big of a deal. TTS recovers very well from behind, so if your looking for a deck that can recovers give it a try its been very impressive.

[Lemnear]

What I think Long needs right now is:

1. a good way to play around Leyline Of The Void (i.e become less reliant on Will) as Leyline will be played a lot for a while

2. To be highly disruptive or difficult to disrupt (Old D-Day lists ran 12 MD disruption and could effectively run Unmask which is a huge strength)

3. The ability to recover easily.

As yet I have not seen a Long/D-Day list that could do that consistently. THAT is the challenge we should all be working on.

Remembering that I run 2 Tendrils + 1 ETW mainboard as win conditions together with 4 Ponder and 4 Street Wraiths ... I NEVER lost to Leyline and smooth the draws out enough to recover pretty fast (do you think, I could finish the tournament named in the last post, in the money by scooping to every Duress?)... simply drop ETW and win. Another possibility was to drop bargain or necro and cast mini tendrils turn by turn. Leyline is only a thread against unexperienced long players who try to search for a bouncer facing leyline unable to realize that you can play around. Same as Meddling Mage ... I'm always confused seeing Long Players trying to bounce him instead of casting ETW and ride via Walk to victory. Guess I can check all 3 points ....

[XxtSundaybxX]

Just because a long player searches for bounce doesnt mean he/she is a bad long player...... There are plenty of reasons to look for bounce to win with tendrils over empty. The most obvious reason is that it wins NOW. Second with all the merchant scrolls running around ide rather not take a change of them being able to scroll up echoing truth unless it was the only win i could find in time...tendrils is superior, regardless of if you have to tutor for the bounce or not...if its that big of a deal to use your tutor for a bounce spell then maybe your the unexperienced long player...i never have any problems when i played long and leyline always came in against me.

[hauntedechos]

Given that there is a tournament comming up this weekend, I'd like to switch gears for a moment and address sideboarding issues for either deck.  I am unsure as to what deck I will be playing, though I am leaning on TTS, since I have yet to find a painless way to address Ponder Long's inability to make card advantage.

I've never played at this shop and as such, I have NO idea what the meta is going to be.  I've PM'd a local from the area, but he hasn't gotten back to me on it.

Anyways, as a TTS player, I would like to reach out to the community to see what the consensus is on the matter.  With flash running around, what can we do with minimal numbers to combat them?  My thought on Shop decks was that I like Ingot chewers over e.flux or multiple hurkyls, as it dodges thorns reducing them to sphere and three ball.  With minimal moxen, I don't know how well we can combat sphere effects while on the play, with hurkyls.  My build uses 1 volcanic, 1 ruby, 1 black lotus and 1 lotus petal, so I'm not too terribly worried about a  source.  Another thought I had was including simmians from the board to provide the mana needed to power out not just ingot chewer, but other spells in addition.  I'm not sure, but I think that this might be taking up sideboard slots that could be better used for other matchups, given that I don't know what the meta is.

How do the rest of the community feel about sideboard options given your meta, as well as Flash, Shop and TSOath considerations?

Haunted.

[Stormanimagus]

Given that there is a tournament comming up this weekend, I'd like to switch gears for a moment and address sideboarding issues for either deck.  I am unsure as to what deck I will be playing, though I am leaning on TTS, since I have yet to find a painless way to address Ponder Long's inability to make card advantage.

I've never played at this shop and as such, I have NO idea what the meta is going to be.  I've PM'd a local from the area, but he hasn't gotten back to me on it.

Anyways, as a TTS player, I would like to reach out to the community to see what the consensus is on the matter.  With flash running around, what can we do with minimal numbers to combat them?  My thought on Shop decks was that I like Ingot chewers over e.flux or multiple hurkyls, as it dodges thorns reducing them to sphere and three ball.  With minimal moxen, I don't know how well we can combat sphere effects while on the play, with hurkyls.  My build uses 1 volcanic, 1 ruby, 1 black lotus and 1 lotus petal, so I'm not too terribly worried about a  source.  Another thought I had was including simmians from the board to provide the mana needed to power out not just ingot chewer, but other spells in addition.  I'm not sure, but I think that this might be taking up sideboard slots that could be better used for other matchups, given that I don't know what the meta is.

How do the rest of the community feel about sideboard options given your meta, as well as Flash, Shop and TSOath considerations?

Haunted.

Hmmmm. . . The SB for a deck running Red is something I've been thinking about for a while. If you are also running Green for Fastbond/Gush engine I might consider some Xantids in the SB or perhaps some transformational Oath SB with Forbiddens in the MD.

If you are just doing UBr or if g is not really more than a splash color that you don't want to devote SB slots to I might go something like this:

SB
1 Darksteel Colossus
3 Extirpate
4 Leyline Of The Void
3 Ingot Chewer
2 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Red Elemental Blast

If you are not running a Hurks and a Rebuild MD I might make some room for those in the SB too. They are really the way to go vs. Stax. Ingot is nice in that it is:

a) A permanent answer

b) A potential threat in a slow stalemate vs. Stax.

Other things to consider in the SB are:

More Empty/Tendrils.

Goblins is running Earwig Squad and Stax is running Jester's Cap. Those cards could really ruin your day if you are light on Win Conditions.

Hope that's a help. I think you really NEED to at least run Extirpate in the SB as a way to combat Ichorid and Flash and, to a lesser extent, GAT and Oath. Leyline is optional, but seems pretty effective right now given the meta. You could always swap it out for something equivalent I suppose. Don't really know what that could be. Pithing Needle?

[XxtSundaybxX]

As far as a sideboard goes for decks like flash and oath, you hit the nail on the head. Your best options are going to be leyline and extirpate and reb for flash and extirpate and reb for oath. The only thing you need to watch out for is the transformational sideboard that is being talked about in the flash thread. Either way both answers are still really solid.

TTS also split for 1st at a tourney over the weekend and the field was swamped with flash so i feel pretty good with the flash matchup.

Hurkyls is definitely a solid answer to shops but ive come to accept that its always going to be a rough matchup and i can accept the loss to shops and win again everything else.

The ingot chewer seems solid as well, i havent tested it though.

In reference to the shops matchup im boarding goyfs because it puts pressure on them and then cant deal with it.

[hauntedechos]

I'm in the middle of several things, however an off shot thought came to my head:  how does Death Wish, side or main, provide a keeperish solution to a wide metagame?

we run 4 rituals+ rituals as it is, lotus, lotus petal in my current list, jet and house 3 seas.  It comes at the cost of half your life, but we are combo.  It's a weak argument in terms of "we are combo", however a silver bullet plan is something that we may want to explore, given the explosiveness of the deck.  I realize that chaining Gush hurts with fast bond in play, and also the fetches and....etc.  However, like I said it's off the dome and I was wondering what the community thought about it.

Haunted.

[Lemnear]

Just because a long player searches for bounce doesnt mean he/she is a bad long player...... There are plenty of reasons to look for bounce to win with tendrils over empty. The most obvious reason is that it wins NOW. Second with all the merchant scrolls running around ide rather not take a change of them being able to scroll up echoing truth unless it was the only win i could find in time...tendrils is superior, regardless of if you have to tutor for the bounce or not...if its that big of a deal to use your tutor for a bounce spell then maybe your the unexperienced long player...i never have any problems when i played long and leyline always came in against me.

Cool down ... guess we're not here for some flaming ... I never said that ETW is superior and I never wanted to draw a clear line between experiences players and ones in-the-making  I simply choose to use my single tutor to grab a win-conditions than sitting several round at the table waiting for a second tutor to show up to bounce maybe a Meddling Mage blocking my tendils aware of the fact that ETW would have done the job in much lesser time. Anyway if I'm scarred of ET that might lures in all the decks I should play another one instead. I'm aware of ET but even more which kind of decktypes use it. As you said decks using Scroll rely on ET but Oath uses Chain to get rid of Chalice. The use of ET as supreme mainboard bounce has declined as the use of EtW has done... Chain made it's comeback so EtW still remains a thread.

I tested Chewer weeks ago and it was worth it  The only problem I can see is the rely on red mana ... I feel sometime very bad to fetch for Volcanic only to cast Chewer aware of Shop-decks to waste it then hit'n more spheres. I still tend to run Flux/bounce even in a long SB ... it's "on-color" and permanent since 1 run only one red producing land for EtW

@echoes: Remember that was played years ago. Of course it was tried due to the restriction of burning wish to grab Will. To use it to react to hate is a nice idea but I'm unsure if it isn't too expensive in terms of mana and life moreover the meta became more aggro. It would replace the grim tutors in that case but the idea of running Death Wish was dropped long ago ... can't remember the exact reason but guess it was the lifeloss ... maybe the meta-circumstances make it playable again.

[hauntedechos]

So I've been pondering the SB issue for a bit now.  I think I have a starting point and would like to open the forum up to critique it.

the board is as follows:

4Leyline - Yard utility.
2Extirpate - Mirror, Oath, Ichoird, Flash
2Pithing needle - wasteland, tormods, welder, bazaar, etc.
1E.Plague - spirit tokens, goblins, weenie, sliver kill flash
1hydroblast - Magus of the Moon/Blood Moon
1PowderKeg - Tokens, Oath(the card), Spheres
1Misdirection - Flash Pacts, Mirror
3Confidants - Shop

Again, this is just a starting point for an unknown meta.  I'm trying to cover my bases here and might be spreading myself a little thin by addressing match ups that don't really matter/ will most likely comprise a small amount of the meta anyways.  So have at it boys and girls.

Haunted.

[Negator13]

I really like Engineered Explosives, particularly as an answer to Spheres, but it also takes care of Oath, Goyf, Welder, Bob, etc. It is at its best against Spheres however because if they have one sphere out, you can play it at X=1 so that it will cost 2 under the sphere, and therefore you can pay UB (or whatever) and thus set it at Sunburst= 2 for 2 mana. If they have 2 spheres, you play it at X=0, making it cost 2 under both spheres, and the same happens. It also is a flexible answer to Chalice out of the same deck. I'd definitely play 2 EE's, over the Keg (which doesnt remove enchantments) and the Plague (which isn't necessary). You also don't really need Pithing Needle; none of the cards it's good against really affect you and you have better answers to Ichorid in Leyline and Extirpate.

[XxtSundaybxX]

So im testing this new list, its the list that split for 1st over the weekend: let me know what you guys think
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
3 Island
3 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Gush
4 Dark Ritual
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Merchant Scroll
1 Fastbond
1 Timetwister
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Misdirection
1 Echoing Truth
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Tendrils of Agony

im testing it and so far im not liking it, but i dont think i gave it enough of a chance yet so im gonna keep testing it...its a bit different than the tinker/jar list so try it out and see what you think...im curious

[hauntedechos]

I read the report surrounding this list, however I have not tested it yet.

The lack of "bombs" is worrisome to me.  I can see how the four brainstorm, four Gush and four Gush Ponder provide the draw/Storm count and perhaps that is the point, rather than dropping a bomb and seeing where it takes you.  With four moxen, lotus and petal in addition to the rituals, I would like to see Gifts in the deck...well any Storm deck really.  Perhaps it's just me, but a card like Gifts with enough acceleration to fuel it (and two scrolls to snag it) sets up game over plays.

Haunted.

[Lemnear]

Playing rituals to fuel gifts and play them again to cast tendrils during will is damn strong, but in this deck I feel the the gushes replaced the restricted gifts and fuel gush via ritual seems damn weak to me. As I wrote in the TTS-Thread, Gush-based-tendrils-decks work well even without rituals. I've tested list using rituals and list dismissing them and brainstorm them nearly every time away, one of them sneak into my hand, unable to use them before going off via Will. Without that Gush-shell it look familiar to win via multi tendrils using Necro to be able to win without Will. Gifts too is pretty strong as Empty Gush proves time and time again ... won't miss it ...  especially if you wish to play rituals. I myself dropped the rituals in my gush-tendrils list long ago and was never disappointed. With all those free slots I'm able to carry a 2nd or even 3rd kill-option in the main ... so I'm always confused what to play mainboard else ... Ideas?