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Author Topic: Suicide Tendrils  (Read 8359 times)
Onslaught
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« on: January 02, 2012, 09:19:58 am »

First, my list

4 Dark Confidant
2 Snapcaster Mage

R Ancestral Recall
R Brainstorm
3 Night's Whisper
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
1 Chain of Vapor

R Imperial Seal
R Vampiric Tutor
R Demonic Consultation
R Demonic Tutor

R Necropotence
R Yawgmoth's Will
2 Tendrils of Agony

4 Dark Ritual
R Black Lotus
R Mox Jet
R Mox Sapphire
R Lotus Petal
4 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
3 Underground Sea
3 Swamp
1 Island

So the genesis of this deck started out silly, but it was kind of kismet since it ended up having so many mini-synergies. In general, I've been determined to play Rituals lately. Since I grabbed a foil set of Night's Whisper, I've also been trying to use them a lot too. I've never been huge on balls to the wall combo, so I like Bob in my Tendrils decks. Night's Whisper over Bob is not my style, but in addition to Bob...it seemed interesting. SNOB Tendrils, Forino Suicide Black, and some other decks have tried a similar configuration. From there, everything fell into place organically. Missteps are the bane of Ritual decks, and my choices boiled down to a) fight fire with fire, or b) run a critical mass of 1 mana spells. I ended up just going with both, to the tune of 3 Misstep and 8 Duress effects. It was initially just x4 Thoughtseize and x4 Duress, but opposing Missteps ruined my day to the point where I started considering Cabal Therapy. Being able to use it twice helps punch stuff through, and since there is already a nearly unmanageable amount of life loss it was nice to be able to drop Thoughtseize. Once Therapy became a legitimate consideration, I obviously needed some more bodies and some more ways to gather info about their hand. For a while it was 4 Duress/4 Thoughtseize/4 Cabal Therapy. This is actually not that bad. Turn one Duress effect + turn two Bob followed by a stream of hand stripping is really good. Bob just wears them out, of course.

Yet, on the non Ritual opening hands, I was annoyed by Therapy. With 4 Duress/4 Thoughtseize, Therapy was almost never blind outside of the first turn. However, when the ideal first turn play involves clearing the way for Bob, Therapy on turn one was lacking. Also, I still needed to add more creatures for Therapy flashing. Since I had tons of fun with a Snapcaster/Gitaxian Probe build recently (which can be seen here), it was natural to move Gitaxian Probes into the deck. They solved the first turn Therapy issue, they played nice with the topdeck tutors, they build storm, they turn Snapcaster into a ghetto Thoughtseize, etc. Probes also get your blue count just high enough to be in the range of using FOW, though for a long time I played a version with x4 Misstep and no copies of FOW.  

Flow of play

Usually games go something like Misstep their opening play (18 life), Probe on your turn (16), pop a fetch (15) and Imperial Seal for something (13), then FOW them (12), and Night's Whisper (10) into Bob, which can then reveal stuff to finish killing yourself.

...Just kidding, but as you can see this is truly a "Suicide" approach to Tendrils. Since you are putting yourself on a clock, this might make you think that the deck should be played similar to Pitch Long or Belcher or something. On the contrary, you are actually a bit more grindy. I think of this deck as a middle-ground between TPS and GWSx. You have a very deliberate early game, and you need to know how to manage your life before punching it into overdrive. In a lot of matchups, you get to that "overdrive" state pretty easily. Probe helps with this a lot, since you can see if their hand is easy enough to power through with your tutors. You know that feeling you get vs. Dredge or Shops (on the play) or whatever where your hand is just barely enough to blindly go off but you know they can't stop you from doing anything on your turn? Sometimes, Probe lets you experience that vs. blue decks too. Your Will becomes lethal really fast, especially if your 6 creatures have gotten some attacks in. Depending on which tutor you use, there are tons of scenarios where you need very little mana to be able to find and play a Will for game. For example, turn 3, Bob swings for a second time putting them around 15 or 16 life, Seal for Will (Storm 1), flash Therapy (2), Probe to draw Will (3), Ritual (4), Will (5), Seal for Tendrils (6), Probe for Tendrils (7) only requires 3 mana to win with. There are tons of configurations of turns like this, and a lot of times you can just strip their hand (or see that the path is clear with Probe), then pop a Ritual and tutor for Lotus and win outright. Mana floating (from Lotus or Ritual or w/e), Demonic for Yawgs, replay mana, Demonic for Tendrils is a common "oops I win" victory that is enabled by Probe. So, even though it isn't an "all in" combo deck, it definitely has a significant amount of fast wins. Most of the time though, your order of operations is Disrupt > Ride Bob > Go Off.

Cards for consideration

Cabal Ritual: I hate this card so much, but it might be mandatory to get at least one more back in the deck. In the non-FOW version, I waffled a bunch between one and two copies. You get to threshold pretty quickly thanks to Probe, but it's still such a win-more card most of the time.

Grim Tutor: More life loss! When you include Grim Tutor, you can kill yourself by like turn three. It's awesome. That being said, having an overpowering amount of tutors is pretty good sometimes. If you hammer their hand early and just constantly throw tutors to find a game winning Yawgmoth's (which happens faster than most Tendrils decks), you usually win. In the non-FOW version, I was rocking two copies.

Thoughtseize: Mentioned above in a 12 Duress package, but it could also be somewhat interchangeable with Duress in the current build

Hurkyl's Recall: Kinda interchangeable with the Chain of Vapor slot. Having Chain get Misstepped when you are targeting BSC is insanely annoying, but doesn't happen that often with all your discarding. Making extra copies of Chain to bounce your own stuff for Storm building is almost never relevant. Bouncing Snapcaster can be sick from time to time. Hurk's gives you a little more juice against Shops G1 though, eh.

Time Walk: It feels so blasphemous to not be playing it, but since you put both players in topdeck mode so much this often feels like a cantrip. It's a complete blowout when Bob is in play, but since I have Night's Whispers I leaned more towards "one big turn" than incremental advantages.

Mystical Tutor: It's just as good as Vamp and Seal when it comes to putting Will on top to grab with Probe. It also ups the blue count to get FOW into a more reasonable usability. If I had extra space in the FOW build, I'd def run this over Grim Tutor.

Tinker and Timetwister: These suck in this deck. Don't use them.

Moxes: Fitting the last three Moxes might not be too hard, since you could slide down to 13 land pretty comfortably. So that would just leave finding space for two slots. The question is, how much off color mana does this deck really want? Turn one Bob is nice, but you are pretty consistent at opening with a Duress effect. So unless you have a Ritual, a Pearl or whatever doesn't let you open with both Duress and Bob. If you do have a Ritual, then you could already play Duress effect/Bob anyway. I don't think they are necessary in this build, but I did mess around with them at various points during the "I must play Night's Whisper!" testing phase. Off topic, but I swear there has to be a good UB(x) control deck out there that wants 4 Bob/3 Night's Whisper. Maybe with Snapcaster too...

Sideboard

As you may have noticed in the above section, it seems preferable to play the non-FOW version in order to fit a Cabal Ritual or two and some Grim Tutors. Being able to say "no" to something is usually fairly irrelevant for this deck. You just let them play whatever, then untap and kill them. It's nice to Duress someone and leave Tinker in their hand, because you know it won't be relevant for two turns and that you'll already be in a position to start blasting off. But of course, FOW is not here for Blue decks. It's to give you game against Shops. I bring this up in the Sideboard section to draw attention to the fact that you are really, really good against Blue. The sideboard is almost entirely devoted to Shops for this reason. I almost went as far to include x4 ESG or SSG at one point. Dismember is great against Shops (more ways to kill yourself!), and it's a complete blowout if you're ever able to flash it back with Snapcaster. Rebuild often feels like a pipe dream (and it doesn't really benefit you at all), but I still like it as a way around Chalice.

4 Leyline of the Void
1 Yixlid Jailer
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild
3 Dismember

There is a lot of room for configuration in this board. The Surgical Extractions could probably come out for more Jailers depending on your desired strength against Dredge. The Extractions can come in against Gush and other stuff and do some big time damage with Snapcaster. Also, considering how often you put them into topdeck mode, it's nice to Extraction after they topdeck a Vampiric or Mystical. They can be useful against other combo decks as well. Sadistic Sacrament is worth considering for the same reason, and it can come in vs. Vault/Key, Oath, etc. I saw one of Forino's builds use Ill-Gotten Gains, which is something worth considering against blue decks with Thoughtseize. Darkblast is good too. You don't really need a Massacre or Virtue's Ruin or anything like that, since you are fast enough to just Dismember Teeg and go off before a hate deck can kill you (you're fairly immune to Null Rod, which helps a lot in this match). At one point I had 3 Null Rods and 4 Negator in the board. With that configuration, I really wanted 2 Emissary as well. Negator is unbelievably good in a lot of matchups, but you need to augment the beatdown with more than just Jailers/Bobs for it to be viable.

Closing thoughts

I am really content with how this deck turned out. I was pretty bugged by the lack of Rituals in Vintage right now, so it feels good to try to do something about it. My Ritual itch has been scratched, and it's nice to have a viable Ritual build to fiddle with and make tweaks over time. I've been playing a huge amount of matches with this during the holidays, and almost everyone who has played against the deck has commented on how much they like it. I think the main thing that other Ritual builds can take away from this list is that you have to construct your deck with the explicit goal of surviving in a Misstep infested metagame. Running Missteps of your own is not enough, nor is having 5ish Duress effects. You also have to focus on what Rituals can do that Gush decks cannot. Since this deck has "one card" combos (running as many tutors as you can fit >>>> win with Yawgmoth's Will since it gets lethal so fast in this build), your advantage over Gush is the speed. If you needed more setup, you're better off just running Gush/Fastbond (and potentially Lotus Cobra). If you wanted an even faster take on this deck, then Ad Nauseum is another good reason to run Rituals. Gush can never run it since it would kill them, so an Ad Nauseum list with -4 FOW, -1 land, -4 Bob, +3 Mox, +4 Pact of Negation, + X seems pretty good too. Rituals may be at an all time low, but they might be able to evolve and survive.



« Last Edit: January 02, 2012, 06:24:35 pm by Onslaught » Logged
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« Reply #1 on: January 02, 2012, 11:16:26 am »

Quote
There are tons of configurations of turns like this, and a lot of times you can just strip their hand (or see that the path is clear with Probe), then pop a Ritual and tutor for Lotus and win outright. Mana floating (from Lotus or Ritual or w/e), Demonic for Yawgs, replay mana, Demonic for Tendrils is a common "oops I win" victory that is enabled by Probe. So, even though it isn't an "all in" combo deck, it definitely has a significant amount of fast wins. Most of the time though, your order of operations is Disrupt > Ride Bob > Go Off.

I 100% agree with this. Gitaxian Probe was the MVP of the last Ritual deck I ran.
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« Reply #2 on: January 03, 2012, 09:02:12 am »

Very interesting. I was also toying around with a similar list using the same disruption pack.


Some questions/comments:
1. Did you feel that sometimes you missed to draw a finishing spell? It seems that you can hold off the opponent for some turns, but you need to get to one of your tutors or Tendrils quickly so you can finish the game.
2. How is Consultation performing with only 2 Tendrils? I always felt the need to have 3 Tendrils when using Consultation. 3rd Tendrils also helps to re-gain some life when suicide mode gets critical.
3. With only 13 land (21 mana sources) did you run into mana problems frequently? You need to get to two mana quickly so you can start your gameplan. Would a bunch of Preordain help? Maybe replacing Night's Whisper, which would also increase the blue card count.
4. Time Walk needs to be added
5. at least one Cabal Ritual needs to be added

Sideboard:
How do you plan to play against Workshops? With only 13 land you will not get to Hurkyl's them most of the time. Dismember will help to survive long enough hopefully, but still it seems you need more mana.
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« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2012, 09:33:55 am »

1. With 4 Tutors + 2 Tendrils, it's barely consistent enough. I would kind of prefer having a Grim Tutor or two to apply a constant stream of "counter this or I win" situations, but so far that has only fit in builds without FOW (which I'm starting to prefer more and more).

2. If you are uncomfortable using Consult with x2 Tendrils, you could do -1 Consult -1 Tendrils +2 Grim Tutor. I like to make risky shithead plays with Consult though, so I think it has a place in the deck. At worst it will be +4 Storm and a net gain of 2 mana on a turn where you already have Will.

3. I'm at 14 land currently, I'll have to look at the list I posted in the OP again and see where I messed up. I keep tinkering with different lists, so I guess some wires got crossed. As far as permanent mana goes, you're usually fine with the 14 land/4 artifact mana. I wouldn't use Preordain in this build, especially over Night's Whisper. Night's Whisper lets you overcome the card disadvantage of Ritual plays, and that parity is what lets your discard effects become overwhelming.

4. I feel weird not playing it, but I think it's the right move for now

5. If/when I go to the 4 Misstep 0 FOW version permanently, x1 Crit will def find its way back into the deck (and possibly even a second).

Regarding the sideboard plan against Shops, I don't find it impossible to get a Hurks off. Dismember gives you so much time to get a Bob down, and from there you have a fighting chance.There really isn't much more you can do against Shops short of using Steel Sabotage, but those were underwhelming in testing. Though, there is potential for a future build with a green splash that has x4 Tarm in the sideboard. Tarm was suggested by a friend, and I think it actually solves a lot of problem matchups. All of your blue matches except Standstill are extremely favorable, so bringing Tarm in against it could be nice. Tarm is pretty good vs. Shops. Tarm is great against assorted aggro like GW Hate or RG Beats. The green splash would also let you augment the Hurkyl's plan with some Nature's Claim.

Using a sideboard with 10 cards devoted to Workshops wouldn't bother me. The maindeck is already so strong against blue, and you can match Dredge's speed, so why not go all out to make sure you beat Shops? That's what makes Tarm so attractive, as he comes in vs. Shops while also being viable against a few other builds.
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« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2012, 10:37:49 am »

Grim tutor is a bomb that your overlooking.
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« Reply #5 on: January 03, 2012, 11:18:48 am »

Dark Confidants and Night's Whispers both would work better with full Moxen.
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« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2012, 06:49:23 pm »

Testing with a green splash has been interesting. I'm still fiddling with how I want to align the x6 fetches with a configuration of 3 Underground Sea, 1 Island, 3 Swamp, 1 Bayou in the maindeck and x1 Forest in the board.

I almost miss the halcyon days of running x3 copies of Tendrils in a Ritual deck with Bob, because it's pretty easy to generate a nice mini-Tendrils if you need to gain some life. Snapcaster flashing a Ritual and then sacrificing itself to Therapy is not an ideal play, but it costs you one card from hand while taking one from them, has a net loss of 0 mana, and builds three Storm.

I'm a huge proponent of Noxious Revival with Snapcaster, and in combination with Probe you have a 0 mana Regrowth that builds two Storm. Since you can win some games outright with an active Bob and some combination of Time Walk/Noxious/Snapcaster (and when taking into consideration that you can win some games by swinging after Tarm is boarded in), it was natural to put Time Walk back into the deck. With such strong disruption and a postboard suite of 10 attackers, I considered putting some Wastelands/Strip in the board to have the option of becoming pseudo-Fish. This would be similar to a board configuration I used featuring Negators and Null Rods. However, the matchups where you would want to board in 4 Tarm and X Wastelands are mostly matchups that you are already very good against. Wastelands could certainly come in against Workshops, but those slots would be better spent on more basic land or artifact hate.

So here's my most current list, which has not been tested nearly as much as the other builds. Right now I'd say the strongest build is the x0 FOW, x3 Misstep, x2 Grim Tutor, x1 Cabal Ritual list. The FOW version is basically just as good, though less explosive. The wild card is the following, though I believe it has a lot of potential:

4 Dark Confidant
2 Snapcaster Mage

R Ancestral Recall
R Brainstorm
3 Night's Whisper
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
3 Mental Misstep
1 Chain of Vapor

R Imperial Seal
R Vampiric Tutor
R Demonic Consultation
R Demonic Tutor
1 Noxious Revival
1 Grim Tutor

R Time Walk
R Necropotence
R Yawgmoth's Will
2 Tendrils of Agony

4 Dark Ritual
R Black Lotus
R Mox Jet
R Mox Sapphire
R Lotus Petal
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
3 Swamp
1 Bayou
1 Island

Sideboard: 1 Forest, 4 Tarmogoyf, 2 Hurkyl's Recall, 2 Nature's Claim, 2 Dismember, 4 Leyline of the Void, 1 Yixlid Jailer

If this had a second copy of Grim Tutor and x1 Cabal Ritual, I would be completely in love with it. The sideboard is still in flux, but 2 Claim feels right. I also want to be super greedy and drop down to 13 land in the maindeck. On one hand, you're essentially a 56 card deck against non-Workshops so 13 is manageable. After boarding you'd be at 14 against Shops...which isn't the end of the world because my previous builds have also been at 14 post-board. If Noxious turns out to be too cute for it's own good in this deck, I could see going dropping it and a land for another Grim Tutor and x1 Cabal Ritual.

« Last Edit: January 04, 2012, 07:07:28 pm by Onslaught » Logged
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« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2012, 10:55:43 pm »

It would seem that dropping both snapcasters would allow you the room for the 2nd grim tutor and 2nd cabal ritual. Snapcaster is slow, and thus deck just wants to go off ASAP, which is where the cabal ritual and grim tutor will shine. GT was one of my favorite cards in long decks. Also in a deck with so many cards to see/manipulate your opponents hand as well as 6(ish) rituals bargain just seems absurd. I would imagine your not playing cards like bargain and desire because of dark confidant, but in a "suicide" deck wouldn't you just want to fastest,strongest bombs available? Even over dark confidant? I can't imagine that dark confidant would shine more in the control matchup then 8 duress effects(therapy) and insane bombs.
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« Reply #8 on: January 05, 2012, 05:02:52 am »

I don't mind the life loss from revealing a 6 drop to Bob, it's just that Bargain can "only" draw like 6-8 cards by the time you can cast it with mana open. It might be more prudent to just add more Grim Tutors and spend 6 mana to Tutor for Will and win. Mind's Desire is great in this build though, you're right.

I agree about Snapcaster being slow, but he's versatile enough to not hurt you too much when you're trying to go off. Like, flashing him in to Misstep a Misstep on your Ritual is almost always worth it since you can then get a free Therapy shot off. Or the play mentioned above of flashing a Ritual where he stays card advantage/mana neutral while building a fair amount of Storm. He's kinda like another Grim Tutor in some situations where flashing Vamp or Demonic Consult or Seal (with Probe in hand or tons of mana and Night's Whisper) will win you the game. Especially in the Cabal Ritual version where sometimes you have a ton of mana, he just runs them over by flashing Grim Tutor or Demonic or something. He gives you a tiny bit of inevitability too, since he can let you recast a countered Will. Therapy just becomes so insanely broken when you can flash it, and Snapcaster feels like the best choice to get some more bodies in play to make sure that happens.
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« Reply #9 on: January 05, 2012, 08:41:29 am »

All of your situations of where snapcaster is good, grim tutor just sounds better. If you are really worried about missteps that much, that is an even bigger reason to run cabal ritual.

As far as not including bargain and desire, I think that you cannot run those cards without playing 5 moxs. Which may be a reason to play more moxs not to cut them Smile The moxs are also better with your bobs and snapcasters. That being said, I haven't played bargain in a long time, but I don't know thing I have ever played a ritual deck without desire.
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« Reply #10 on: January 05, 2012, 10:10:02 am »

So I played around with this list last night a bit on Cockatrice.  And I have to say, I loved it.  I too have been itching for the more traditional tendrils/ritual deck and as Onslaught mentioned, this deck treats that itch well.

One thing I did do with my list was to drop chain of vapor for a 3rd tendrils.  This one of bounce really just didn't seem relevant enough though I suppose it does help against the random turn 1 tinker bot, but I stuck with the FoW version for that reason.  Having the 3rd tendrils meant that I didn't care about life loss at all, as I could easily fire off a quick tendrils at 2-3 storm and give myself a few more turns of Bob or Phyrexian mana and I didn't have to worry about not being able to win.  One of the biggest reasons for not running 3 tendril's is that you often end up with more than one of them in your hand, but I found in my games that this was often a good thing.  Since all of my draw engines were losing me life, it felt good to know that I had that security of being able to fire off a tendrils to regain some of it.  I also found that combined with confidant beats, and all of the discard effects most of the time a tendrils for 6-8 is all you really need to make them worry.

I really look forward to playing around with this list some more and hearing what others experience with it.
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« Reply #11 on: January 05, 2012, 10:15:11 am »

This seems pretty decent versus the mid range lists in the current meta. How do you justify playing a list like this in the current meta? It seems like dedicated control and shops would blow you out.
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« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2012, 10:23:10 am »

I understand your reasoning for snapcaster, however only half of your argument for inclusion seems logical to an extent. If you snap back a ritual it's now not in your gy anymore for will. I would prefer to cast it off will rather than snapcaster. It's +2 vs even in terms of mana. Sure you get a storm count but why not just use more cabal rituals like you originally wanted too? Also the deck seems like an all in YWill deck, short of the mini tendrils with bob route. Why not just cut cards like NW and add moxes and draw 7s, bargain. This decks seems like it's screaming for draw 7s, especially with 2 tendrils. Your Chances of reaching 10spells seems incredibly easy with duress,probe, rits, and draw 7s/bargain/desire. I haven't tested this deck so I'm just going off experience playing a ritual deck, that being said I could be way off.

I look at chain of vapor as a must in a straight combo deck. The first time you run into arcane lab, gaddock teeg, or cannonist you'll know why. Also just for the fact you mentioned about bouncing bsc, as well as wot bounce your sphere, win. It also generates storm extremely easy.
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« Reply #13 on: January 05, 2012, 04:39:54 pm »

This seems pretty decent versus the mid range lists in the current meta. How do you justify playing a list like this in the current meta? It seems like dedicated control and shops would blow you out.

Shops are the worst matchup for sure, but that's nothing new for Ritual decks. Getting blown out by dedicated control though? Landstill is tough but I wouldn't necessarily say it's unfavorable. This build destroys any other Bob deck, it's really good against Gush, etc. It's seriously super strong vs. blue. So I guess my justification for the current meta is that the maindeck beats blue (the majority of the field), and then the SB is totally warped to try to beat shops. That's why I'm trying Tarm in the board, it's more stuff to bring in vs. Shops that is also relevant in a few other matchups (like Landstill).

Quote
This decks seems like it's screaming for draw 7s, especially with 2 tendrils.

Instinctively I began by putting in Timetwister, but really it was hot garbage. Any time where I could pay 3 with mana floating, it woulda been better to just cast Grim Tutor and win than cast Timetwister and hope I win. So many games you win by pummeling their hand and then sitting there with an active Bob. At a certain point it doesn't matter what they topdeck, because a hand of like Probe, Ritual, Duress, Therapy, -some tutor- is going to kill any 4 or 5 card hand. Timetwister was nice as a comeback mechanism I guess, but other than that I didn't want to give them 7 new cards and hope I could Duress through their hand again.  Since you attack their hand pretty aggressively, I just wasn't feeling it. Also like you said, Draw 7s are for a version with full Moxes where you can vomit them out early and Timetwister to refill and win. Since T1 discard effect, T2 Bob is a better line of play than T1 Bob, I'd rather be able to run a ton of discard effects + Probe than squeeze in the last three Moxes. That extra colorless mana just doesn't seem that appealing in this build. Turn one Night's Whisper would be nice sometimes though.  
« Last Edit: January 05, 2012, 04:43:56 pm by Onslaught » Logged
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« Reply #14 on: January 05, 2012, 04:43:18 pm »

Shops are the worst matchup for sure, but that's nothing new for Ritual decks. Getting blown out by dedicated control though? Landstill is tough but I wouldn't necessarily say it's unfavorable. It destroys any other Bob deck, it's really good against Gush, etc. It's seriously super strong vs. blue. So I guess my justification for the current meta is that the maindeck beats blue (the majority of the field), and then the SB is totally warped to try to beat shops. That's why I'm trying Tarm in the board, it's more stuff to bring in vs. Shops that is also relevant in a few other matchups (like Landstill).

Seems like any dedicated control list running Mystic Remora would give this fits. I imagine the Gro deck Elias played at the last BBGD would give it fits as well. I just don't see the benefit of running Rituals or any Storm win conditions in the current metagame.
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« Reply #15 on: January 05, 2012, 04:49:03 pm »

Remora hasn't been too bad. If you go first you can strip it, if not then you can drop a Bob and keep up with their land drops or Misstep it. I haven't played against Remora Gush with this yet, which could be difficult.

Also there are some hands G1 where you can just power through a Remora when their only outs are pitch counters.
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ErtaiAdept
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cmasley1218
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« Reply #16 on: January 06, 2012, 07:29:52 am »

Remora hasn't been too bad. If you go first you can strip it, if not then you can drop a Bob and keep up with their land drops or Misstep it. I haven't played against Remora Gush with this yet, which could be difficult.

Also there are some hands G1 where you can just power through a Remora when their only outs are pitch counters.

If you want some testing against Remora Gush, find me on Cockatrice ([E]Llanowar).  I've been piloting Remora Gush for a few months now so I can probably give you a decent match.  I'd be interested to see how this list fairs since I've also been playing with this list the last few nights and am really starting to love it.
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« Reply #17 on: January 30, 2012, 09:57:42 pm »

For reference, here's the list I used to win the "TMD Ringers" online tournament. Similar to the list in the OP, but it's the non-FOW version.


4 Dark Confidant
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
3 Night's Whisper
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
3 Mental Misstep
1 Imperial Seal
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Grim Tutor
4 Dark Ritual
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Lotus Petal
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Will
2 Tendrils of Agony
4 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
3 Underground Sea
4 Swamp
1 Island
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Demonic Consultation
SB: 3 Dismember
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Yixlid Jailer
SB: 3 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Island
SB: 1 Rebuild
SB: 1 Sadistic Sacrament

Oddly enough, the whole point of this list (or any Ritual/8 Duress deck) is to prey on a blue heavy metagame. Instead I faced two Workshop decks and one Gush/Doomsday. I still think Snapcaster on Dismember is such a blowout against Shops, but it didn't come up in my 5 games against them. Snapcaster in general is pretty saucy in this deck though. Flashing back Misstep won me a game, using him as an attacker won me a game, using him for free storm flashing a Ritual won me a game, etc. The four Therapy become way more intimidating when you have more than just Bobs, so he's pretty great.
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