9th Place at Vintage Champs with Gush Tendrils

[V is for Vintage]

Of course I'd like to thank Nick Coss for holding this ridiculous event. A thousand times cheaper than Gencon, the security was awesome, and the venue was sick. The rooms that were reserved in Hotels were great, and the judges knew vintage interactions! If you ever have the chance to go to Chima Steakhouse, get there, best meal of my life.

First off, the brew

2 Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Library of Alexandria

1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Demonic tutor
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Time Walk
1 Regrowth
4 Preordain

4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
2 Flusterstorm
1 Nature's Claim
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Ancestral Recall
1 mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Brainstorm
4 Gush

1 Fastbond

4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor


Sideboard:

2 Trygon Predator
2 Nature's Claim
1 Forest
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Mindbreak trap
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Ravenous Trap
2 Yixlid Jailer
2 Grafdigger's cage


I came to this tournament with one goal in mind: I wanted to kill people with Tendrils of Agony.

My deck choices were designed with this in mind. There were many decks that I've played over the past year that I considered to be extremely good; however, they did not win with tendrils. Before I was a gush player, I was a TPS player. I try to keep the feel as close as possible.

Over the past few months, i've been experimenting with a multitude of different variants to accomplish this. I'll go over a few of the commonly attempted gush strategies and explain why I chose not to use them

1. Pyromancer

This is definitely the strategy I spent the most time trying to refine over the past year. I consider Pyromancer Gush an extremely good deck, and I've top 8'ed multiple tournaments with it. I chose not to play it because it's a separate and individual strategy that does not synergize with the tendrils kill, it detracts from it. 3-4 slots occupied for pyromancers created a desire for creature removal to clear the way for aggro based wins. This is not synergistic with tendrils
Additionally, it's been a long-running joke with my play group that I don't know how combat works. This is....entirely correct. I found myself losing many top 8 matches to faulty combat plays and not understanding the correct way to assign damage (forget about adding in double strike, trample, etc). You cant' make those kind of mistakes in a 9 round tournament and expect to do well.

A deck such as AJ's RUG Delver list has the ability to take advantage of Pyromancer in ways that the combo deck cannot, because it aids pyromancer, whereas tendrils tries to combo off on its own strategies. The two pull at each other, rather than being synergistic.

2 Lotus Cobra

This card is one of my all time favorites; however, is usually a win-more. Against opposing blue decks the ability to continue to use mana to accelerate bombs is pretty good, but against shops you had to actually DRAW the land in order to use cobra, and many times its just a dead card on the field (draw a bunch of mana sources = dead)

3 Dark Confidant

This is probably one of the better choices to go with gush tendrils. A few extra cards goes a long way, and the average life loss isn't that terrible. In a creature heavy meta, however, dark confidant becomes a detriment, rather than an asset, and can quickly chip away at the life you need in order to win with gush. I found myself losing to any deck that ran vendilion clique. With decks having so many options available to deal with creatures, I knew I didn't want my center draw strategy to revolve around bob.

4 AK/Intuition

This is a new one for me. This draws a MILLION cards. Against blue decks, I'd imagine this strategy very strong. I played Miquel Alcoriza's top 4 LCV AK/Gush shaman list in the Grinder on Friday. I found AK to be the weakest part of the deck against decks that were not blue (But it was SO MUCH FUN)

Enter Deathrite Shaman

A kill condition, a Stall tactic, A mana producer.

Kill Condition

Typically, one of these on the field isn't going to kill anybody, but it acts as a copy of tendrils every turn, meaning that you don't need to rely solely on Yawgmoth's will to cast a tendrils for lethal, and you don't need to try and get past creature walls. Two of these on the field activating every turn usually kills someone


Stall Tactic

Life gain against aggro, plus a blocker. I'd trade it with Bob any day, plus it baits out mental misstep. In theory the deck could reasonably stall for a turn or 2 against game 1 dredge in order to set up a combo kill (didn't work that way, but the theory's nice)

Mana Producer

Fetchlands and opposing wastelands are the most obvious uses to fuel out extra mana, but I think what makes this card shine is that it taps for ANY color. This makes your mana base even stronger (which it already is since its only 3 color). The deck instantly becomes more able to deal with random Magus decks, and obviously helps against other mana denial strategies. Unwitting players would also find themselves on the wrong end of a flusterstorm/nature's claim, assuming I was tapped out.

Back when we played cobra a lot, it created a ton of excess mana that went unused. Shaman creates one mana a turn, which is relevant, but not excessive, and has other abilities.

Sideboard:

One of my theories about sideboarding is that I want cards that are relevant against multiple decks. Many of the cards i use I'll board in against entirely different vintage pillars

Blue Package:

I knew doomsday and burning long were going to be in the room, and they are more broken combo decks than I am. Additional Flusterstorms were a choice, and so was misdirection. I came to the conclusion that being able to attack strategies from another angle (especially when tapped out) was the way to go against blue decks.

Dredge package:
This is my normal dredge package. This 6 is SICK with deathrite shaman. Dredge can't deal with diversity like this, along with your countermagic. Stick one piece and ride it long enough to find the next, and wipe the graveyard every now and then. Even with 2 jailers, it's still your best card. If I didn't think oath was in the room, the grafdiggers would have been jailers too. The Nihil spellbomb comes in against welder type decks, plus it's a card draw against some snapcaster type decks. The one-of ravenous trap is great with top deck tutors, and they never see it coming if you've got permanent hate on the board (although i suppose now they might)

Shops:
Plan A is to cast Hurkyl's recall. Plan B is to refer to Plan A. Every card in the sideboard against shops is designed to destroy chalice on 2. If they choose to board in creature kill they will dilute the threat density, which buys time for massive hurks for the win. I'm sure there are better strategies out there, but I don't test against shops that often. I do know how to win when an opponent has no responses to my spells though, so I stick with the hurks strategy.

Oath:

The problem that I typically find with oath decks is that they play with Oath of Druids, and Oath cards. Be a broken blue deck dangit! Predators, claims, grafdiggers, and traps all have the potential to come in against it. Plus, i'm not a creature centered strategy, so i get extra free turns against it.

Aggro:

TOXIC DELUGE IS THE BEST BOARD WIPE IN VINTAGE. Losing to random aggro decks has always been the bane of my existence. Gaddock teeg drives me nuts, and there's countless other little disruptive creatures that can ruin gush's day. Targeted removal takes up too many slots and red weakens the mana base. Go with deluge. I might run 5 in the future.


Notable maindeck choices

Talrand - He's one slot. The other choice is tinker/bot, which is two slots. I hate having the bot dead in my hand, and I'm not running a million Jaces. I played talrand in the past, and was pretty comfortable with him. Unlike pyromancer, when he sticks the game ends FAST, even one or two activations is hard to handle. If you like tinker/bot better, play tinker/bot. Jeremy Beaver told me tinker's a crutch.

Deluge - One slot to steal aggro game ones seemed reasonable. Typically, a list like this chooses to run 10/11 counterspells. I only run 9, but I have deluge and nature's claim, which can answer different threats/more threats after they resolve. combo decks aren't that popular right now, so it's ok to have some spells in the main deck that answer things at sorcery speed, especially creatures.

Nature's claim- I wanted a way to clear blood moon, stony silence, oath of druids, and gain life in case i was low during fastbond. As i mentioned above, I cut a counterspell for this card. I knew oath was going to be around, and artifact/enchantment hate never hurts anyway.

4 Preordain/regrowth - these cards are the "glue" that hold gush together. you need to be able to dig deeep with this deck in order to kill people fast. These cards dig through the deck to chain together multiple gushes and find the kill. Regrowth also recovers a countered will, which is super important, and is time walk #2 when talrand is out. If i could fit more regrowths I would, but one is usually enough


The TOURNAMENT

went 7-2 over the day

I'm only going to post notable interactions/memories, because I'm bad at taking notes

rounds went like so:

Rd 1  Dan Friedman - Pyromancer - win 2-0

Game 1 he mulls and I kill him before I see a wincon. I board out deluge because he's blue. I pay for it hard in game 2 where he has an army of pyromancer tokens, but I rip lotus off the top like a boss, and win a counter war with a hardcast mindbreak trap, and kill him with one life left. You HAVE to have a little luck to do well in an event like this, all there is to it.

Rd 2 Paul Mastriano - Oath - Win 2-1

Game 1 he oaths. He draws a million cards with griselbrand, brings himself down to 2 life with active mana crypt, and attempts to time walk. I flusterstorm. He passes the turn. I pass back, he wins the mana crypt roll. I die.

Game 2. He does not oath. Trygon Predator, nature's claim, Jace the Mind Sculptor Fateseal for the win

Game 3. See Game 2

Rd 3 Marc Tocco  - BUG Fish - Win 2-1

Pretty sketchy memory on these games. He mentioned he top 8'ed legacy champs the day before, which I thought was way cool. He was a little unfamiliar with some of the interactions, and I think I got ahead in one game because he didn't exile my gushes with deathrite shaman, assuming Yawgmoth's will worked like Past in Flames. (He did take a call, time walk, etc., so it probably evened out)

Rd 4 Kevin Cron - Keeper - Loss 1-2

Game 1 I combo kill him very early, maybe like turn 2

Game 2 he rides a single snapcaster to victory beats

Game 3 he wins with deathrite shaman activations

MISPLAY of the Day - In one crucial moment to gain a foothold of the game (maybe game 2), I cast Jace TMS with Force Force Flusterstorm in hand, with one mana open. He counters, I pitch Flusterstorm to Force, figuring that when Jace resolves, I'll brainstorm into the second blue card and be on easy street from here on out. He has the double counter, and Jace doesn't resolve, I'm stuck with nothing in my hand but a blank Force of Will.
Lesson Learned: Don't be too greedy.

Rd 5 Brian Plattenburg - Dredge - Win 2-1

See my sideboard commentary for Dredge. I Haven't lost a set to dredge in a looong time.

Rd 5 Taylor Pratt - Blue Angels - Loss 0-2

Sensei's Divining Top is pretty good, I hear. The ability to always have a counterspell, plus resolve a Jace. These matches were undoubtedly the most lopsided. I need to practice against this deck more or something.

Rd 7 Lance Ballester - Dredge - Win 2-1

See round 5.

Rd 8 Mason Sokol - Plateus - Win 2-0

This guy is in round 8 with an unpowered deck, freakin sweet!

Mainboard deluge saves me game 1, and Talrand does some WORK. Thalia is a monster, and the deck plays lodestone!

Game 2 Don't remember a log about it, but I remember winning with a late game yawg's will

Rd 9 Greg Kraigher - Shops - Win 2-1

Game 1 I get smashed

Game 2 I play a bunch of mana and a shaman over a bunch of turns as I slowly die and get nto a giant hurkyl's and ride the victory train. Best compliment of the day "Your deck DOES actually cast spells!"

Game 3

My turn 1 is nature's claim some threat, lotus mox trygon predator. The concession comes pretty soon after that, as He locked himself under wire for a turn or two as I nommed on artifacts with predator.



Deck has a lot of cool interactions, and can grind out long games against a variety of archetypes. Main kill is tendrils. I won 3-4 games with fateseal on Jace TMS, and 1 Game the entire day with Talrand (he was countered most of the time, or tendrils was an easier kill)

Going to play around with Shaman more. All of his abilities helped throughout the day. Makes Shops and dredge easier matchups, and can eat through control players life totals, and destroy snapcaster targets.



Props

Nick Coss - He's the man. He needs to figure out a way that he can PLAY.
Team Ramrod - Jon Geras and Chris Varosky - Playtest partners, hotel roomies, solid friends. What the format's about.
Full of Win Guys - Random Playtesting and years of gaming
-Chris Materewicz,Nate Thompson,  Dom Difebo, Rob Zimmerman, Anthony Scalzo, Nick Jury, Gery P(Chris gets top billing because he is most likely to mention not getting top billing, all others are random order)
Joe Brown - Recommended Chima - I ate my face off (also random playtesting and years of gaming)
Joe Pace - Put on the daddy pants and organized the trip to Chima (also random testing and years of gaming)
Random Friends along the way - Pretty much EVERYONE, the community rocks.
J.P. Kohler for making the switch to the GUSH side of the force

Slops

Not Winning
Scary homeless people who shout racial obscenities at you as you walk by
Decks that don't play blue cards ( You know who you are, and you should be ashamed)



Please feel free to ask any questions about the deck or the Experience in the comments below, and I'll respond as soon as time allows. I could talk about Gush all day, it's the only deck I've played since it was unrestricted, and I've piloted almost every variant out there at some tournament or another.

[msg67183]

Very nice list Vito! Congrats on the Top 16 finish, too bad you missed out on Top 8.
Why no Ponder? I was slightly surprised at first when I saw that.
How good was the main deck Deluge? Seems pretty strong when a lot of people were playing unpowered decks.
Are there any other cards you would toy around with?

Once again, Congrats!

[Onslaught]

This is a really, really well made deck. It's very easy (for me at least) to look at Vintage lists and think they are fairly straightforward/formulaic when the entire list is mostly x4 and x1 of everything. But this deck has a lot of thought put into it, both in the included cards but also what you chose to omit.

Even in the wake of Young Pyromancer, I have felt that the Almost Blue style lists were the best positioned Gush decks in the metagame due to stability/resiliency factors against Shops. Yet, it was too much of an uphill battle against Shops to achieve that sweet spot between watering down a Gush deck to the point where it almost loses potency, vs. getting too fancy with blue focused cards like Misdirection, cheating on land counts, etc.

But realistically, Gush decks should always have an edge against most blue decks that don't run Gush - so I think I was trying to outsmart myself by struggling too hard to find that aforementioned sweet spot. I tried Lotus Cobra builds of Almost Blue, but it is so apparent now after fully absorbing this list that the answer is Deathrite Shaman. It doesn't seem like the most intuitive card to run with Gush, but he single handedly takes you a large step toward that "sweet spot" for very minimal investment due to his multifaceted applications.

I think this deck is excellently positioned right now, and your great result at Champs attests to the potency of the build. Against blue you have the superior draw engine and inherent virtual card advantage of a Gush deck, against Shops you have minimal dead cards (eschewing some of the more common Gush Tendrils flashy combo oriented spells like Twister, MD, etc) with reasonable resiliency from DRS/mana count, and against creatures/Dredge you still have enough spells to ignore their board and kill them with Tendrils.

Congratulations on the crafting of your build and high finish, you deserved it!

[LemonLyman]

Congratulations on your finish, Vito.

Your endless nights of taking on all challengers has certainly paid off!  You have sat through many hours of mocking as you tried, let's call them "innovative and divergent strategies" in search of optimizing your gush tendrils lists.  How far we've come from land, ritual, will, pass!

[V is for Vintage]

Matt:

Ponder is not in the deck because I hate that card. You have to leave the other 2 on top! not so good when you're trying to dig through your deck for win cards. If i take gush off ponder, I'm FORCED to put the other 2 into my hand. If I blind shuffle, all of the junk I preordained to the bottom dilutes the threat density of the deck. I cut ponder out of these lists and put in Library of Alexandria as the 15th land most of the time. Library is the best in gush, plus draws you cards like preordain

Main Deck Deluge was pretty good. I didn't cast it a lot, but when I did it was worth it. If you deluge for 1, your deathrite shaman survives, and you can kill bobs/pyromancers, cliques, true name nemesis, any of the 1 toughness guys in the format. I can't wait for the day I pay 11 life to kill a blightsteel colossus!


Onslaught:

Thanks for the kind words! I really like the deck as it is now. I wouldn't say that shaman is the "answer", because the format is constantly shifting. I imagine if everyone starts playing shaman gush, shaman gush will be bad, because the deck is weak to shaman lol. It's currently what I'm messing around with though, but you really need to be willing to take risks, play with terrible cards, and use the knowledge other people have already come out with to augment your understanding of a deck.
The beautiful thing about Vintage is that i've been playing the same engine for years. There's times where I know what i'm going to draw next just because i've played the deck so many times. No other format is like that, so cool! I hope the comments i put above lend some insight into different angles of attack for you, and if you have any questions, feel free to shoot them my way!

Chris:

The years of constant berating, with endless nights of Cruel Bargains, does pay off once in a while. I still want entomb in the cube.

[cvarosky80]

Excellent report, Vito, and once again, great job on the day! A big thank you for the props as well.

[ErtaiAdept]

I will admit I was very intrigued by this list when I saw something similar at a Euro tournament.  I was always a big fan of the gush engine, and Gush tendrils in particular.  However I hated the workshop matchup.

How have you found your matches against shops to be, and could I ask what you take out for the post board matches?

[ramrodjon]

Great job, Vito! 

[ELD]

Mainboard deluge saves me game 1, and Talrand does some WORK. Thalia is a monster, and the deck plays lodestone!

At first I was like, why run



When you can run



Then I realized, that can't be right.  



So now I'm wondering if this is going to get a different nickname.  TD, perhaps?  Though no one is confused when Force is used to describe Force of Will, instead of this guy: 



It does seem likely that Toxic Deluge could quickly move from new fringe toy to a Vintage Staple, so this may be the only time anyone would ever be confused for a moment over the name  

[V is for Vintage]

ErtaiAdept:

The workshops matchup is definitely one of the LEAST fun, but I was able to beat it. Workshops is one of the reasons I include the 15th land, and Sol ring. Sol ring is SO important against shops.

There will be games where you are just blown out by chalice lodestone, or something similar, just like you can blow them out with fastbond gush. I definitely felt a little more comfortable with a playset of mana producing 1 drops! Shamans are also additional permanents for tangle wire.

As I mentioned above, my style is to build enough mana to make a relevant hurkyl's. The other option is to be the control deck. If you can stabilize trygon predator and back it with nature's claim, you're most likely set. Red obviously opens a lot more options, and shamans can probably support it, but I've never been a huge fan of 4 colors.

I don't playtest nearly as much as I'd like to, and I don't playtest online. I'm a busy adult, life happens. I do spend a lot of time goldfishing though. The key to understanding the shops matchup is memorizing their lines of play, or in other words, understanding their tempo. When building/playtesting a deck, if you can't manage to stay in the game and build resources at the appropriate tempo, you will lose. If you can consistenly maintain your tempo with theirs, your odds are way better; but, you have to understand, it still is a bad matchup. That's why they built the deck, after all.

I hope that makes sense. That being said, I'd say the deck overall probably has a 50+% chance to win against shops on the right day, and as far as blue combo decks go, that's pretty exceptional.


Some Sideboarding notes

I know a lot of my choices may seem unintuitive, but you just need to take some of them on faith until you try them. Of course I'm open for suggestion and debate, but get yourself into a few tournaments and give it a shot before we discuss sideboarding theory. Additionally, one of the big things that you need to recognize is that against matchups like dredge and more broken blue decks, YOU become the control deck. You need to not only have the mindset of a combo pilot, but a control pilot as well. Playing those tight control games, and being able to shift between the two roles, is crucial to gush success. Just like shifting gears in a car. Against decks that have more control elements, we need to enable the combo strategy as quickly and aggressively as possible.

Rule number ONE
One thing that people love to take out of the deck in sideboard matches is preordain. DO NOT DO THIS. If you need to draw your sideboard cards, you can't cut the most efficient way to find them out of your deck!

Dredge:
-1 Regrowth
-1 Hurkyl's recall
-1 Library of Alexandria
-1 Merchant Scroll
-1 Nature's claim
-1 Gush

+2 grafdiggers
+ 2 Jailer
+1 Nihil Spellbomb
+1 Ravenous trap

Additional note: if they run leylines, the claim stays in. I think I may have boarded out a Force of Will. I know it seems unintuitive, but it's kind of inefficient and as long a you have ONE piece of hate, even if they blow it up, you've typically got time to find another and stabilize. The second games are usually slower. I'm still not sure if it's right, but I hate to weaken the combo engine TOO much. You could probably take out a second gush though and be the control deck.

Shops

On the Play:
- 3 misstep
-2 flusterstorm
-1 regrowth
-1 merchant scroll
-1 Gush

you can win with less resources. They have no interactions with you.

On the Draw: (You could reasonably do this on the play as well, but I like to get as much out of my turn 1 as possible, so I wouldn't really know what to cut) I used this same theory when I piloted remora gush.

All of those other cards
-2 X
+2 Mindbreak Trap

The matchup I played at worlds was pretty convenient. He was running slash panthers. I cut the Jaces

Blue:

Honestly it depends on the deck. If they run blighsteel, i leave in hurkyl's, otherwise that's the first cut.
If they don't run creatures, I cut deluge. If they only run a few, it's not an unreasonable cut.

If they're on Oath, i like to cut a lot of the creatures, and add in all of the mindbreak traps along with artifact/enchantment hate and become a control deck.

You can reasonably cut a mana source, I recommend Sol ring, since Library is a boss, islands are good for gush (and cutting them can sometimes make fetchlands dead, and that sucks), plus you want/need the blue mana, and we don't run tinker. (crutch)

Nihil spellbomb is another draw card, I add it in against decks with graveyard interactions like bomberman or welder.

I rarely cut regrowth in these matchups. I never cut Jaces. The main deck is pretty good against blue. Unless you're playing oath, i suggest as few changes as possible.


Aggro - Flusterstorms and regrowth. Other cards it depends on what they run. add more claims if they run null rods/stony silence.

I play a lot of sideboarding by ear. Decks are so unique these days. That's why I like to have my cards hit as many relevant decks as possible.



ELD:

I didn't know Deluge was a card until you just posted that lol.

I think Toxic Deluge will quickly become a Vintage Staple. I think it will keep the aggro decks in check(especially since people are now so aware of the top 2 champs decks), which will give a short rise to the combo decks, and then the shops will be on top again once they're done hiding from the aggro decks. Circle of Vintage.

[ErtaiAdept]

@Vito

Thank you for such a detailed response to my question.  It certainly shed some great light on the topic.  I've played my fair share of gush in the past, and recently put them down due to not really being able to reliably beat workshops with it.  (50% sounds a lot better than my previous record).  I had exchanged my gush's for Oath of Druids as it absolutely crushes workshops. 

However the meta game in my local area has significantly shifted again and I find myself facing more blue decks than before as well as a large number of anti-oath strategies.  I think after many months of being undefeated my local group got fed up.  That being said there are a couple of smaller local events coming up and I intend to sleeve up my Gushes once more and give this list a go.

Thanks for the input!

[Smmenen]

Over the past few months, i've been experimenting with a multitude of different variants to accomplish this. I'll go over a few of the commonly attempted gush strategies and explain why I chose not to use them

1. Pyromancer

This is definitely the strategy I spent the most time trying to refine over the past year. I consider Pyromancer Gush an extremely good deck, and I've top 8'ed multiple tournaments with it. I chose not to play it because it's a separate and individual strategy that does not synergize with the tendrils kill, it detracts from it. 3-4 slots occupied for pyromancers created a desire for creature removal to clear the way for aggro based wins. This is not synergistic with tendrils
Additionally, it's been a long-running joke with my play group that I don't know how combat works. This is....entirely correct. I found myself losing many top 8 matches to faulty combat plays and not understanding the correct way to assign damage (forget about adding in double strike, trample, etc). You cant' make those kind of mistakes in a 9 round tournament and expect to do well.

A deck such as AJ's RUG Delver list has the ability to take advantage of Pyromancer in ways that the combo deck cannot, because it aids pyromancer, whereas tendrils tries to combo off on its own strategies. The two pull at each other, rather than being synergistic.

Strange, I've observed the opposite to be the case.  In my opinion, Pyromancer supplements, complements and synergizes with Tendrils.  Pyromancer gives you a route to victory in matchups where Tendrils is difficult, plays defense to buy time for setting up the Gushbond engine executed with Tendrils finish, and makes Tendrils an easier finisher and often random victory.   When playing Grow, I don't actually feel the need to run creature removal at all.  Pyromancer can overwhelm any blocker in the long run, and doesn't need to attack in the short run.  It can just play defense until I can combo out with Tendrils.  Pyromancer also pulls decks into a different posture to deal with it, and makes Tendrils easier to execute.  It's so strategically different that it actually gives you a good deal of role and strategic flexibilty.

On another note, Deathrite Shaman seems very strange to me in a Gush combo deck such as this  My primary concern would be fetching out a dual land to cast it, and risk getting Wastelanded before I can get Gush up.  Similarly, Shaman's primary value is mana generation in the early game.  Gush decks are naturally mana light and don't need to ramp up mana supply.  It seems like Shaman, if anything, has unusually poor synergy in a Gush deck, especially one like this that only has 2 Jaces to Ramp up to.  I have alot of respect for Deathrite Shaman, but this seems like the total opposite deck that I'd use him in.  I'm surprised by your enthusiasm for him in this deck, but can't deny your success.  Congrats on your finish.

[ErtaiAdept]

Over the past few months, i've been experimenting with a multitude of different variants to accomplish this. I'll go over a few of the commonly attempted gush strategies and explain why I chose not to use them

1. Pyromancer

This is definitely the strategy I spent the most time trying to refine over the past year. I consider Pyromancer Gush an extremely good deck, and I've top 8'ed multiple tournaments with it. I chose not to play it because it's a separate and individual strategy that does not synergize with the tendrils kill, it detracts from it. 3-4 slots occupied for pyromancers created a desire for creature removal to clear the way for aggro based wins. This is not synergistic with tendrils
Additionally, it's been a long-running joke with my play group that I don't know how combat works. This is....entirely correct. I found myself losing many top 8 matches to faulty combat plays and not understanding the correct way to assign damage (forget about adding in double strike, trample, etc). You cant' make those kind of mistakes in a 9 round tournament and expect to do well.

A deck such as AJ's RUG Delver list has the ability to take advantage of Pyromancer in ways that the combo deck cannot, because it aids pyromancer, whereas tendrils tries to combo off on its own strategies. The two pull at each other, rather than being synergistic.

Strange, I've observed the opposite to be the case.  In my opinion, Pyromancer supplements, complements and synergizes with Tendrils.  Pyromancer gives you a route to victory in matchups where Tendrils is difficult, plays defense to buy time for setting up the Gushbond engine executed with Tendrils finish, and makes Tendrils an easier finisher and often random victory.   When playing Grow, I don't actually feel the need to run creature removal at all.  Pyromancer can overwhelm any blocker in the long run, and doesn't need to attack in the short run.  It can just play defense until I can combo out with Tendrils.  Pyromancer also pulls decks into a different posture to deal with it, and makes Tendrils easier to execute.  It's so strategically different that it actually gives you a good deal of role and strategic flexibilty.

On another note, Deathrite Shaman seems very strange to me in a Gush combo deck such as this  My primary concern would be fetching out a dual land to cast it, and risk getting Wastelanded before I can get Gush up.  Similarly, Shaman's primary value is mana generation in the early game.  Gush decks are naturally mana light and don't need to ramp up mana supply.  It seems like Shaman, if anything, has unusually poor synergy in a Gush deck, especially one like this that only has 2 Jaces to Ramp up to.  I have alot of respect for Deathrite Shaman, but this seems like the total opposite deck that I'd use him in.  I'm surprised by your enthusiasm for him in this deck, but can't deny your success.  Congrats on your finish.

I don't know if this is Vito's opinion or not, but I look at deathrite in this list as a precaution against workshops more than anything.  Gush decks have a very difficult time executing their game plan early on against workshops due to losing a lot of value from their gushes because of sphere's.  Having the extra mana producing and board presence from a deathrite shaman means being able to continue developing despite resistance.

Plus after boarding you have the option of fetching a basic forest to play it so you're not really opening yourself up to wasteland.  As Vito mentioned in his description of the deck he made some concessions in the power level in order to make the deck more stable.  Admittedly this list is not nearly as explosive as your grow list with 3 regrowth and really the low amount of mana sources that can really take advantage of the gushbond engine, but it does run more smoothly in other matches where that strategy may lead to problems.

[V is for Vintage]

Steve,

First off, thank you for taking time to read my notes and provide your insight. I think everyone has something to bring to the table, and I value everyone's comments so far.

I suppose I can expand on what I meant when I was talking about Young Pyromancer. You can look back for the past half a year or so since it was printed and see I've had some pretty solid finishes with it; it's not a deck I'm unfamiliar with.

What I'd like you to keep in mind as you read is not overall effectiveness, but play style.

The last tournament I played pyromancer grow in, I won one game with Tendrils of Agony, and that was during the top 8 off the back of a counter chain on my own spells. The rest were off the back of Pyromancer. In my experience, Pyromancer did a bulk of the work, and tendrils was a secondary win condition. As you said, it was easier to "oops i win" into tendrils, than it was to set up a quick kill. many matches went into the late game, rather than the early kills I was accustomed to.

In my experience, Tendrils complements Pyromancer, but not the other way around. I can understand why you would have a different position than me if you had different results with the deck. That's one of the cool things about Magic, people can play the same cards in entirely different ways!

I agree with many of your points. The ability to spread your opponent's resources between two different strategies does make pyromancer grow an appealing deck choice. I do not question Pyromancer's legitimacy, and I expect I'll play it again eventually, but I was interested in building a deck that's primary win condition was Tendrils of Agony. Simply a stylistic choice. I can only draw my conclusions based on my own experience.




On that note, my experience shows me deathrite shaman is a HOUSE. He looks terrible on paper, I know. I was very skeptical when I saw other lists that ran him in similar builds. He works surprisingly well in a number of situations

I think I can agree that shaman's primary role is mana generation, but like I mentioned in my writing, where he really stands out is COLOR generation. Being able to upkeep vamp tutor regardless of wasteland on turn 1 was pretty awesome. (also, you can cast a-call if your first land was a fetch, since that means you had 2 lands in yard!) He solves a lot of those awkward off color problems you find in your hand, and makes null rod/magus far less uncomfortable. Additionally, as your teammate Kevin showed, he's a solid control card against blue decks, and can eat away precious graveyard/snapcaster resources.

Additionally, on a "blind keep" of 7, where I didn't know what my opponent was running, a one land hand was much more reasonable of a keep with a deathrite shaman in it.  It's true that you can get wasted and stall off gush, but for every gush in your deck, there is also a preordain that you could cast off the destroyed land to find additional mana sources/relevant spell. I never really had problems with mana, and that in itself is valuable. In those cases where I was low on cards, He managed to do work on his own, gaining or draining life, like a little planeswalker.

Many times I found the life gain to be important, and the damage was also relevant, even in the face of opposing creatures that were much bigger. I could go on and list a million reasons this card is good, but you can do that with any card.

Like i said in my reply to Onslaught, I don't know if it's the "answer", but I've never been afraid to try new and unintuitive things in decks. What looks bad on paper sometimes works out, and vice versa. He worked very well for me and I will definitely be using it at some point in the future.

I recommend giving it a few playtest games, and see what you think. Again, it might just be another one of those style choices. It's so hard to say that anything is concrete "right" or "wrong" in Magic.

[Smmenen]

Thanks for your insights  Your rationale makes sense in light of your goals, although counter-intuitive.  

Now I'm going to have to add a section on Deathrite Shaman in my Gush book.  Thanks for that But the good news is that I have a decklist I can post in that section

EDIT:

I put some more thought into your focus and approach, and wondered if you had considered Necropotence.  

You have made clear your priority interest in channeling and executing Tendrils of Agony, yet aside from the Gushbond engine (which I define as the arc Fastbond --> Gush --> Yawg Will --> Tendrils), you have no other dedicated storm enablers.  Most historical Gush decks that are focused primarily on the Tendrils kill have supplemented the Gushbond engine/Yawg Will, with additional storm enablers.  

Consider Necropotence.  The very strange, but potent synergies with Deathrite Shaman are remarkable:

Deathrite Shaman can

* help you accelerate out Necropotence on Turn 2 by generating the black needed to cast it.

* fuel Necro by gaining life.

* shield your life total by blocking attackers

* already compels you to find a black mana source early, so you might as well use that mana productively and proactively.

[V is for Vintage]

Everything is worth trying! it's something I had not considered, mostly because it's been so long since I've dusted mine off. Now that champs is a year away, there's a ton more time to test fun cards and just have fun exploring the format. I'll definitely keep the vintage world posted on what develops, hopefully via top 8 lists!

[boggyb]

Just made top 8 at NYSE Open II with a modified version of this list.

Differences:

Maindeck:
-1 Deathrite Shaman
-1 Nature's Claim
-1 Toxic Deluge

+2 Mana Drain
+1 Talrand Sky Summoner

Sideboard:
-1 Forest
-1 Nihil Spellbomb
-1 Ravenous Trap
-2 Yixlid Jailer
-2 Grafdigger's cage

+1 Hurkyl's Recall
+1 Toxic Deluge
+2 Abrupt Decay
+2 Spell Snare
+1 Gifts Ungiven

I tried a ton of variations on the maindeck but always came back to that beautiful core Vin constructed here in his first post. Noteworthy differences are:

• Drains. Found these to be superb at smoothing out the draws even more. Sorta like Deathrite: Just a very good card in most matchups, though not outstanding in any. I prefer that kind of deck construction strategy over pre-boarding narrow cards like Claim and Deluge. It also increases the power of Mystical and Merchant even more, in this, the best Merchant Scroll deck in the format. Its most powerful use is in protecting an on-board game-ender like Deathrite, Talrand, or Jace. Scroll for a Drain when you're ahead and you usually can't lose.
• Extra Talrand. He's usually the Ace of trumps in tempo matchups, especially against decks without blue spells and/or with higher curves (e.g. UW Card Advantage Dude decks, Junk Bros, BUG Dudes, etc.). The deck is soft to tempo, so plan A is usually stick a Talrand and win and/or stall with it. He ain't bad vs. most blue decks, either. He's subpar vs Merfolk, though, and only so-so vs. UR Delver. A house in RUG or anything slower than that.
• And of course, the sideboard. No Dredge hate. I predicted zero Dredge and a ton of Shops, Tempo, and Oath, so I overloaded on hate for them and I wouldn't have gotten there otherwise. Won 3 or 4 games off my sideboard strategy. Gifts was a severe mistake -- I threw it in at the last minute as an extra bit of hate against dedicated control decks. But that was stupid: the deck naturally trumps those anyway. This should've been Energy Flux or another Hurkyl's.

Made three play mistakes all day:
• Not holding up drain for my Round 1 Shops opponent's SUPER OBVIOUS in-hand Sundering Titan. Just wasn't thinking. Cost me the match and destroyed my breakers, which almost cost me top 8.
• Not Forcing my opponent's Trinket Mage for Spellbomb when he already had Salvagers + Lotus assembled. Yeah, I actually did that. I said "Okay" kind of absentmindedly when he cast Trinket Mage and he picked up his deck and that was that. I would've had 2-4 more turns otherwise.
• Attacking with a spirit token without using using some floating Drain mana to cast a Jace. Didn't end up mattering, as I was way ahead at that point.

And in Top 8, Keith's first play was to cast Black Lotus. I had double Force in my hand but let it resolve. He played Cavern and cast Lodestone and then, after a huge Yawg turn at 5 life that Gushed me into a pile of lands, he won with that same Lodestone. I think he had only one other 1-mana land in his hand after that, so my only winning line was to Force his opening Black Lotus, which is super counterintuitive and, I'd say, an incorrect/loose decision to make. But oh well. As he said, the future of Shops is one word: Cavern. Damn straight!

Otherwise, I played tight and had a blast. Got lucky in a few spots, but nothing out of the ordinary for this deck. Let me know if you have any questions.

[Smmenen]

And in Top 8, Keith's first play was to cast Black Lotus. I had double Force in my hand but let it resolve. He played Cavern and cast Lodestone and then, after a huge Yawg turn at 5 life that Gushed me into a pile of lands, he won with that same Lodestone. I think he had only one other 1-mana land in his hand after that, so my only winning line was to Force his opening Black Lotus, which is super counterintuitive and, I'd say, an incorrect/loose decision to make. But oh well. As he said, the future of Shops is one word: Cavern. Damn straight!

That's a good lesson to learn!  Congratulations on your performance.  Great to see another Gush deck in that top 8, and a strategy performing consistently well in marquis tournaments.  I'm definitely using it in my Gush book.

How many games did you win with Talrand versus Tendrils?  Given the more controlling elements, what made you ultimately decide against Tinker?  

[boggyb]

Thanks, Steve. I Talranded 4 times, I think, Deathrited twice, and Tendrilsed the rest. Got one game win off a deck reg error. And I never Jaced to victory, though he was excellent as bridge capital card advantage and/or a distracting threat during those critical turns 3-6 where you're trying to assemble your pieces. Once the deck pulls itself together, it basically can't be beat. The card advantage and selection it sports is simply too powerful.

Tinker is an interesting question. I go back and forth on it but ultimately opt to just run Talrand instead. He's not quite as sure a win condition, and he can't be found with Mystical, but he's a whole lot less variable than Tinker is, and I really dislike trying to win tournaments off the back of high-variance plays if I can help it. Tinker also has particularly bad synergy with this deck:
• It's card disadvantage, times two (you lose a mox, and you risk drawing Blightsteel), and mana disadvantage, in a deck that is extremely hungry for both.
• Very few ways to put Blightsteel back in your deck, and tossing in any more tends to dilute its focus.
• If Tinker is answered, it's done nothing to advance your other plans, and the resource disadvantage it creates almost always leads to a game loss. Jace and Talrand both advance the Tendrils and/or Deathrite plans by accruing you cards, stalling the board, and/or chipping away at their life total, so if they're answered, you're in a good spot.
• Running Tinker makes me want to run Mana Crypt, and lordy that is a bad card in this deck. Games go long way too frequently, and your life total is pressured way too heavily (by Fastbond and Fishes attacking you) to make me comfortable running Crypt. But Tinker is much worse without it.

Basically, an effective Tinker implementation in this shell requires a broad rewrite, to the point where it becomes a very different deck. You almost (almost) can't run Tinker and Tendrils in the same Gush deck, I don't think. They're both strategic center points but demand very different things from their support pieces.

[mr.grim]

I really enjoyed the games we had in the T8. Thank you and props on your finish! Caverns are just insane; they have won me two events in six weeks. After watching Vito have many very sick lines plays with his build, I feel that your plays were tight as hell!

[V is for Vintage]

Thanks, Steve. I Talranded 4 times, I think, Deathrited twice, and Tendrilsed the rest. Got one game win off a deck reg error. And I never Jaced to victory, though he was excellent as bridge capital card advantage and/or a distracting threat during those critical turns 3-6 where you're trying to assemble your pieces. Once the deck pulls itself together, it basically can't be beat. The card advantage and selection it sports is simply too powerful.

Tinker is an interesting question. I go back and forth on it but ultimately opt to just run Talrand instead. He's not quite as sure a win condition, and he can't be found with Mystical, but he's a whole lot less variable than Tinker is, and I really dislike trying to win tournaments off the back of high-variance plays if I can help it. Tinker also has particularly bad synergy with this deck:
• It's card disadvantage, times two (you lose a mox, and you risk drawing Blightsteel), and mana disadvantage, in a deck that is extremely hungry for both.
• Very few ways to put Blightsteel back in your deck, and tossing in any more tends to dilute its focus.
• If Tinker is answered, it's done nothing to advance your other plans, and the resource disadvantage it creates almost always leads to a game loss. Jace and Talrand both advance the Tendrils and/or Deathrite plans by accruing you cards, stalling the board, and/or chipping away at their life total, so if they're answered, you're in a good spot.
• Running Tinker makes me want to run Mana Crypt, and lordy that is a bad card in this deck. Games go long way too frequently, and your life total is pressured way too heavily (by Fastbond and Fishes attacking you) to make me comfortable running Crypt. But Tinker is much worse without it.

Basically, an effective Tinker implementation in this shell requires a broad rewrite, to the point where it becomes a very different deck. You almost (almost) can't run Tinker and Tendrils in the same Gush deck, I don't think. They're both strategic center points but demand very different things from their support pieces.

Awesome write-up! It sounds like you've really been playing this deck a lot. I've found many of the same findings you have (especially about tinker)

Do you happen to remember the archetypes of the decks you faced during the tournament?

a few notes/random thoughts about some card choices:

1. Drains vs claim/deluge
- in my playtest group, we've often referred to these as "flex spots". you can kind of put whatever you want into them. After champs i switched both of these slots to abrupt decays, and that worked well for a while. currently i've got a 2nd hurkyl's in one of those slots, and i've been up in the air on the other. I'm glad drain worked for you. Where I test, most decks that i'd want drain against run cavern of souls, so like i said earlier, kind of a metagame decision.

2. 2nd talrand/ -1 shaman
- I keep going back and forth on this. Shaman is good for consistency (but you don't really need more than 1 on the field usually).  Having a second Talrand is ok to increase the draw odds, but i haven't found it that much more relevant. I've played with some other cards in this slot. As crazy as it sounds, Magus of the Future (with a cavern of souls in the board) or Future sight have been really good options in playtesting. With fastbond it's insane. Another option i've thought about is timetwister, but I'm always leery about giving people more cards with no guarantee of killing them that turn. I'm sure there's other options out there.
Long story short, I'd rather put in another bomb card that synergizes with Tendrils, but can kind of win the game on its own, than a 2nd talrand. Since that card may not exist, Talrand might just be the best choice.

I don't think it's bad to cut a deathrite Shaman, but I just saw a guy playing a deck with a seeds of innocence in the sideboard, and I think this deck can totally support that card with 4 shamans, so i'm going to give that a run as well (as long as shops is on the uptick)

3. Question - if you had to only play 2 misstep, or play only 1 flusterstorm, which one would you choose and why?

4. how were the mindbreak traps out of the board? i found a lot of success with them, especially with all of the cavern

5. I also agree with your comments on Jace. A lot of people say Jace is terrible right now. I don't necessarily agree with that. Jace-centered strategies don't seem to be in a good spot, but Jace itself is a fine card. It's a big bullseye that they're forced to focus on while you just focus on winning.

6. After champs, I thought that I had made a Gush combo deck. Now that I've played it in so many tournaments, I think that this deck is much closer to Gush control than gush combo. Thoughts?


Thanks in advance for your insights! This deck is obviously very strong. I think since champs i've played with this deck in 6-7 tournaments and top 8'ed all but one of them. I think that just those results, along with your extremely impressive showing, really speak to the power of this deck.

[WhiteLotus]

I've been playing around with a list of my own, and I was wondering what people think about certain card choices:

• 1-2 maindeck Abrupt Decay as a removal 
• Transformative Sideboard plan into Griselbrand oath to adress problematic matchups
• Unusual Combo enabler : Future sight, I know some people have had some success with magus of the future in bomberman shells, and with fastbond + the library manipulation in the deck you basically play your entire deck with it, it's completely broken and provides an alternative angle to go off that isn't grave dependent like Gifts and Will are

Here is the list:

1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Island
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 Tendrils of Agony

1 Fastbond
1 Future Sight
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Yawgmoth's Will

4 Gush
1 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Regrowth
2 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Time Walk

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor

2 Mana Drain
2 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Abrupt Decay

SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 3 Nature's Claim
SB: 4 Oath of Druids
SB: 3 Forbidden Orchard
SB: 2 Griselbrand
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Flusterstorm

I only run 2 preordain but only because slots are too tight, I'd run 4 if i could

[boggyb]

Thanks dude! I played, in order:
1. Kuldotha Shops. 1-2 Loss.
2. RUG Delver, I think. (This was the guy with the deck reg error. I beat him pretty quick.). 2-0 Win.
3. Merfolk. 2-1 Win.
4. Bomberman. 2-1 Win.
5. Smokestacks and Forgemasters. 2-1 Win.
6. Grixis Dack Control. 2-1 Win.
7. Oath. 2-0 Win.
T8: Kuldotha Shops. 0-2 Loss.

1. Drains vs claim/deluge
- in my playtest group, we've often referred to these as "flex spots". you can kind of put whatever you want into them. After champs i switched both of these slots to abrupt decays, and that worked well for a while. currently i've got a 2nd hurkyl's in one of those slots, and i've been up in the air on the other. I'm glad drain worked for you. Where I test, most decks that i'd want drain against run cavern of souls, so like i said earlier, kind of a metagame decision.

Word. I found maindeck Decays to be too narrow, in general. Very hit or miss. They beat Oath and a turbo'd-out Vault, and do good work against tempo decks. They also kill Bob without question, which is great because this deck folds to Bob pretty quick. Otherwise they just rot in your hand, or trade for something you barely care about. They're especially unimpressive vs. Shops, actually. I'd rather run a card that progresses the Game 1 combo plan and/or is more broadly useful, like Drain.

My basic feeling on the deck is that it's a combo deck Game 1, and then figures out what it wants to be in Games 2 and 3. I'd rather try to win than try to answer my opponent's cards in Game 1. The logic when deciding between Drain and Decay is that it's close to a toss-up, but that the upside to Drain is that you win the game off it, and the upside to Decay is that you prolong the game in a defensive position. I don't think the deck is well-equipped for a long defensive game so opt very strongly for the former course. That said, if you feel they'll be more Hit than Miss, I'd advocate Decays for sure.

2. 2nd talrand/ -1 shaman
- I keep going back and forth on this. Shaman is good for consistency (but you don't really need more than 1 on the field usually).  Having a second Talrand is ok to increase the draw odds, but i haven't found it that much more relevant. I've played with some other cards in this slot. As crazy as it sounds, Magus of the Future (with a cavern of souls in the board) or Future sight have been really good options in playtesting. With fastbond it's insane. Another option i've thought about is timetwister, but I'm always leery about giving people more cards with no guarantee of killing them that turn. I'm sure there's other options out there.
Long story short, I'd rather put in another bomb card that synergizes with Tendrils, but can kind of win the game on its own, than a 2nd talrand. Since that card may not exist, Talrand might just be the best choice.

I don't think it's bad to cut a deathrite Shaman, but I just saw a guy playing a deck with a seeds of innocence in the sideboard, and I think this deck can totally support that card with 4 shamans, so i'm going to give that a run as well (as long as shops is on the uptick)

re: Deathrites, it's pretty simple: I just never want to draw three, and only very seldom want to draw two. I use him as a stopgap card, mostly -- he's just not powerful enough to consistently win the game on his own and doesn't do enough vs any deck with creatures in it to justify investing too much in him. I took him out for a long while but kept losing off missteps and missed opportunities made during turns 2-4 when my opponent had the liberty to focus on me exclusively. Deathrite distracts your opponent and smooths your draws considerably, by forcing interaction earlier than the deck otherwise normally does. I love the little guy but tend to get clogged with him when I run 4.

And for Talrand, yeah the second one is just to improve draw consistency. The 2nd copy was very much a metagame choice, and it paid off. The Future Sight idea is very interesting -- I'll check it out. My gut there is that I'd rather have another card manipulation spell, though, or maybe a counterspell. Maybe Imperial Seal, Lim-Dul's Vault, or Ponder. Or Hurkyl's?

3. Question - if you had to only play 2 misstep, or play only 1 flusterstorm, which one would you choose and why?

Good question. That depends but I'd almost always side with the Misstep. I've actually run 1 Mindbreak Trap over the second Fluster on numerous occasions to good effect.

Flusterstorm is beautiful for winning a deciding mid-game stack battle, but they aren't always necessary for that. And if you get to that point in the game, you're usually going to win, and/or you likely can wait another turn or two to draw into more gas. The problem games for this deck are the ones where you get behind quickly and fumble around with your crummy anti-tempo cards as your opponent stomps your face in. Misstep is critical for interacting early and forcing your opponent off their gameplan while you accumulate resources to go off and win. Plus, it has a bunch of convenient applications for this deck, in defending Fastbond, Ancestral, and Mystical/Vamp, which are very important to resolve. Also defends against Duresses, SDT, and Deathrites out of your opponent, which are superb.

4. how were the mindbreak traps out of the board? i found a lot of success with them, especially with all of the cavern

I cast it once all day, I think. They're the bomb diggety against Combo or hard control decks, and an easy switch-out for Hurkyl's against any ole pile o' blue stuff. I'm lukewarm on them against creatures, actually -- too situational. Much prefer Spell Snare or Decay or Deluge, etc. I love em though.

6. After champs, I thought that I had made a Gush combo deck. Now that I've played it in so many tournaments, I think that this deck is much closer to Gush control than gush combo. Thoughts?

Interesting. Again, I consider it a combo deck in Game 1, and then it grows up and figures out what it wants to be in Games 2 and 3. Against Oath, it's control, against Blue Stuff, it's combo-control, against Combo or Tezzerblaster, it's control, against Tempo, it's combo, against Shops, it's Praying. It depends.

[boggyb]

Have been tinkering around with this deck genre for some time and have more or less settled on this:

4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
2 Flusterstorm
2 Mana Drain

4 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
4 Preordain
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Dark Confidant

1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Nature's Claim

1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Fastbond
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony

3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus

SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 Yixlid Jailer
SB: 1 Ravenous Trap
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
SB: 2 Trygon Predator
SB: 1 Nature's Claim
SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 2 Mindbreak Trap

This is at least 70 of the cards I'll take to Eternal Weekend.

My basic motivating observation here is that the list I took to NYSE left a lot of equity on the table. In particular, its mana was over-perfect, and it didn't tax its own life total as much as it could have in service of other advantages. In other words, I usually won with more than enough mana to spare, and more than enough life points to gushbond off with. So I've shaved the mana a bit in favor of more card drawing and board control, and added in Bob -- exchanging life for cards is a much better deal than grinding out DRS advantages, I've found.

So to these ends, some developments:
- Bob. He's really overperformed, especially compared to DRS. He does most everything DRS does -- pressures their life total, distracts their counters and removal, bridges the gap between turns 1 and 4, and generates mana by drawing you into lands that a land-light deck is seldom holding -- but does so much more, especially against Shops. His dimensions of interaction are much more relevant to what this deck wants to do. The life loss never matters, even against aggro decks, as he doubles as a board-clogging pest there. Greatly bolsters the Jace plan, as well. Untap with Jace + Bob and you win. That said, 4 copies would be too many -- you never want to draw two of them early on, because you'll die, and because you need a minimum mass of cantrips, removal, and counters in your hand, not deadweight creatures.
- No Library. This is a win-more/lose-more card in this deck, I feel. By playing Library, you're time walking yourself to gain long-term advantage. That's good in a blue mirror, where the player who draws the most cards wins, but terrible against tempo decks, where the variable most correlated with victory is the number of turns you're allowed to take. And since you naturally trump other blue decks anyway, I don't see the appeal. I've played maybe 2-3 games where Library was the deciding factor in the positive and dozens where it was mediocre to negative. Since the extra land rarely helps (I'm finding the mana to be perfect without it), and tempo matchups are where the deck struggles the most, I've shelved this in favor of more board control.
- No Regrowth. Sorry, buddy. The only time I truly want this card is for Ancestral, which is extremely powerful but too edge-casey of a positive to warrant the overwhelming clunkiness of the negative. Just like Library: a win-more/lose-more option.
- Maindeck board control. The light manabase and critical mass of card-drawing and -selection frees up plenty of slots for board control cards. I've jammed as many in as the mana can support, to kill Oath, aggro, and shops. Still tinkering with these slots -- may swap something out for another Hurkyl's, for example, or add in a Nihil Spellbomb. Maybe a Spell Snare or Talrand.


Sideboard could use some work. The amount and variety of Dredge hate in there is what most concerns me. Also trying to find a way to squeeze in one or two more Shops cards.

So, any thoughts? My main questions:
- What should I expect from the Eternal Weekend metagame? I've never gone. I expect lots of Dredge, Aggro, and Oath. Is that about right?
- Given that, what maindeck and sideboard changes do you recommend?
- Any angles I might have missed, here? One question mark in my head is Gifts, which I've barely tested, and Snapcaster Mage, which LSV seems to like. Seems well-suited to an aggro-heavy meta, if that's what I should expect.

Any thoughts much appreciated. Thanks.

[V is for Vintage]

Sorry for the late response, i've been out of town

Most likely be 9 rounds

Probably have to fight shops and dredge once or twice each, and the rest will be blue (unless you run into random budget contender). Oath is usually pretty relevant, but I'd imagine that there is going to be a lot of RUG in the room, and a decent amount of merfolk. The coming weeks will really impact deck choices, but a lot of people will be using results like waterbury to make deck choice calls.

I'd try and get talrand main. It really doesn't have any matchup that it feels bad to have, and there's probably other cards to board.
I'd also put a nihil spellbomb somewhere in there, probably sideboard it also comes in against the welder deck, and it's extra card draw.




One of my key pieces of advice is to remember this is a 9 round tournament. In a 9 round tournament, you need a few easy wins to get by. That's why people play tinker.

Library on the draw, being a free win against blue decks (most of the time), is too good to pass up for me. Being able to retrieve a countered yawgmoth's will is also pretty clutch. If i had timetwister in the deck i might not necessarily run regrowth. If you want snapcaster mage instead that's fine too, since it does counters/decays as well as will. It doesn't do gush though.


My other advice is just play the deck a lot, obviously. No angles. If you can play the deck well, because you're familiar with it, you are more likely to succeed

[boggyb]

Thanks for the notes and advice!

And yar, my latest list has Talrand main. He is very good.


I've tried the spellbomb but can't really see the appeal, honestly. Would much rather have another Jailer and/or Abrupt Decay. Its value vs. Welder over baseline seems close to nil, as this deck smashes theirs naturally. They spend all their time building what turns out to be an inferior contraption that also, by the way, just dies to Abrupt Decay. Their deck is full of irrelevant stuff that clogs their hand and wastes their tempo. Lightning Bolt? Goblin Welder? Baleful Strix? Even Dack isn't very good. They have probably 8-10 cards this deck can safely ignore.

My main concern with making design decisions with this deck is tempo, since it's running close to red at all times in that department. Tempo-negative cards like spellbomb make me queasy. Same for Library -- the more I play with it, the more I feel like the free wins it enables are more than offset by the free losses. It's the deadest of topdecks, usually, and is an auto-mulligan vs. the deck's worst matchups.  This is even more pronounced now that Bob is in there -- he's has a similar sort of "auto-win" status vs. other blue decks on the play with a Mox. I'll keep testing on them, though.

Currently playing around with removing Drain in favor of cards like Spell Snare and Abrupt Decay, which have both overperformed. Will keep you apprised.

[boggyb]

Any suggestions on further experiments to run? At this point I feel fairly locked into a slightly modified version of that list I posted. Modifications are just

Main:
+1 Talrand
-1 Deluge

Side:
+1 Deluge
+1 Jailer
-1 Talrand
-1 Mindbreak Trap

Have screwed around with Snapcaster but found it, like Library, win-more/lose-more. Snapcaster -> Ancestral is game ending but not necessary and it suffers from the same problems as Regrowth. It's a lot better in general, though, as it regrows counterspells and trades with a Pyromancer.

FWIW, have tried and dismissed these ideas for a 60th card. (The second Decay is currently 60th.)

Island
gifts ungiven
fact or fiction
imperial seal
notion thief
snapcaster mage
library of alexandria
nihil spellbomb
sensei's divining top
ponder
duress
thoughtseize
flusterstorm
misdirection
repeal
spell pierce
spell snare
hurkyl's

Best ideas (aside from the Decay) seem to be:
Island
Snapcaster
Spell Snare
SDT
Duress
Hurkyl's
Library

Spell Snare seems closest in competition, followed by Island.

Anyway, won't clog the thread any more. Any further experiment ideas welcome! Thanks.

[boggyb]

Went 3-2 drop with this list at champs:

4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
2 Flusterstorm
2 Mana Drain
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Hurkyl's Recall

3 Dark Confidant
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 Time Walk

4 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
4 Preordain
1 Merchant Scroll

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Fastbond
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring

SB: 1 Mountain
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Lightning Bolt
SB: 2 Ingot Chewer
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Ravenous Trap
SB: 2 Yixlid Jailer
SB: 1 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 Mindbreak Trap

Beat Storm, Landstill, and Merfolk. Lost to Delver twice, as to be expected. Dang it all.

Delver was my second-worst matchup (Terra Nova's the worst), and then they printed Treasure Cruise. It's not so much that Cruise puts the matchup over the top for them, but it made the deck a lot more popular and I started working with this deck all those months ago figuring the field would be at most ~10% Delver. In the end I thought Delver or Oath (only because of Delver) would be the best deck in the room but didn't want to spend all the time and money necessary to get up to speed on a new deck so went with what I'd been working on. It was a gambit but the right decision, I think. Didn't work out, unfortunately.

I had a blast, though. Great to see all of you!

I really should have maindecked a Deluge, and potentially cut or cut back on Drains in favor of Bolts or Decays (the latter being surprisingly good in control mirrors). Trouble with that is, board control cards severely hamper your blue matchup, which is the reason for playing the deck in the first place, so it's kind of a toss up decision depending on the matches you happen to get.

Note that red is a great addition to the deck, and you really can get away with the softened mana base. I found the straight BUG version to be a severe underdog to Shops and Delver, and red pushes you into even-to-winning range against them. Trygon just isn't the bomb he used to be, with all the Dismembers running around, so you need to win by developing your mana and answering their threats. Red is the only way to consistently do that. Plus, it gives you Bolt, which is almost exactly the sideboard card this deck wants.

Mistakes I made:
• I didn't test against Delver nearly enough. Didn't test against the 4-color version at all, even. That was a huge mistake -- I would've made different deck choices and play decisions had I had more experience against them, and given I expected it to be the strongest presence in the room, I definitely should have.
• Against Delver, I attacked with two Drake tokens when I should've held them back to block. Made it so I couldn't cast a Vampiric Tutor I drew, which might have won me the game (though I think my opponent had a counterspell). It was a low percentage play, but decisive.
• Gushed before playing a Talrand, against Delver. He blew me out with a Notion Thief with Force backup, but I should have played the Talrand first anyway. The extra two Drakes would have gone a long way. I figured I'd draw out a Pyroblast for Gush and also generate mana to backup Talrand with a Flusterstorm, but should have realized those concerns were less important than clogging up the board with Talrand. I could have forced back Talrand if necessary and then Gushed.

If I were to continue tinkering around with this idea, I'd go even harder control, cutting Talrand, adding the fourth Bob, adding in more board control cards and another Jace, and shifting to more of a red focus than a green, splashing a Trop just for Fastbond and 1 sideboard Abrupt Decay, most likely. Might consider adding in Deathrites, too.

However I'm going to take a long break from the game. Maybe 6 or 8 months, until next year. Might play in a tournament here or there but otherwise, I'm taking a step back.

So long! I'll check this thread sporadically for the next few days and then I'm out.