Sac Land Tendrils is a Legacy format storm combo deck designed to be fast and competitive yet still extremely budget friendly. It's fairly simple and easy to learn to play, but like any storm combo deck it rewards practice and the skill of it's pilot.
The origins of this storm combo archetype come out of the Pauper format deck known as "The Pauper Perfect Storm". I piloted TPPS for quite a long time and eventually came to the conclusion that not only was it one of the most consistent storm combo decks I've ever played, but that it could actually be very competitive in the Legacy format with some tweaking, tuning, and the addition of some powerful Legacy format cards. After a few months of work (and more playtesting against Merfolk and Counter Top than I'd ever care to remember) I came up with what I feel is the most consistent and best performing competitive storm deck you can play in Legacy for $160 or less, and I gave it a name : Sac Land Tendrils.
The deck was named for it's unique use of sac lands from the Invasion expansion, which can tap for one color of mana or be sacrificed for two different allied colors of mana, and for employing Tendrils of Agony as it's primary win condition.
I must also give some credit to Bryant Cook for his deck "The Epic Storm", since much of the sideboard design was inspired by his creation. In that regard you could consider Sac Land Tendrils to be a hybrid fusion of The Pauper Perfect Storm and The Epic Storm.
BDeck List OptionsG
Since this was designed to be a budget friendly deck, I took the time to come up with 3 different deck lists to suit individual budget considerations. If you can afford to spend $160 US you can build what is in my opinion the most consistent and optimal version of this deck. But if you can't afford to spend quite that much there's still some extremely playable options that retain the core functionality of what makes this deck great at price points of around $100 for the second best version and $60 for the least expensive variation.
That said, here's the 3 deck lists and a bit more information about them...
This is what I consider to be the most finely tuned and consistent version of the deck. It utilizes Burning Wish to tutor into your sideboard, allowing you to run the equivalent of 7 copies of Tendrils of Agony in your deck. Not only that but Burning Wish also allows you to pack tutorable answers in your sideboard for almost any problem you might encounter while trying to combo off.
The only differences between this and the $160 version are some minor changes in the sideboard. The 2 copies of Thoughtseize in the sideboard have been replaced with Duress, and the single sideboarded Chain Lightning has been replaced with Firebolt to keep costs down as well. This allows the deck to maintain it's overall functionality while only losing a little bit in terms of situational answers. Firebolt will with deal with almost any bothersome 2 toughness creature you may encounter (such as Gaddock Teeg, Ethersworn Canonist, and Magus of the Moon) and there are very few situations in which you will actually need the 1 extra damage from Chain Lightning to get the job done. It also has the advantage of being able to be flashed back later (at a steep cost) to deal with a second creature should one appear. Regarding Duress, since it can't remove creatures from the opponent's hand like Thoughtseize can you may have to let an opponent hold onto a problematic creature like Gaddock Teeg or Ethersworn Canonist on rare occasion. But tutoring up the Firebolt in the sideboard with Burning Wish will still take care of them.
Overall this deck functions almost identically to the $160 list, it just lacks a few situational answers and saves you $60 in the process.
For the least expensive version of this deck, Burning Wish has been replaced with Empty the Warrens as an alternate win condition to Tendrils and the "wishboard" sideboard has been replaced by a more normal looking sideboard consisting of answers for various problematic things the opponent might have. Also, Night's Whisper has been replaced with Sign in Blood to save you few more dollars as well. While this deck is not quite as prepared for any given situation and not as consistent as the lists with Burning Wish, it still plays quite well and is certainly capable of being competitive in a well developed Legacy metagame.
WCard SelectionB
In this section I'll go over the cards in the main deck and sideboard of all 3 lists and why we play them. At the end I'll also touch on some additional cards that were tested and did not make the cut.
Rituals & Acceleration
Lotus Petal : It's 1/3 of a Black Lotus! Free to play, can make mana in any color you need, adds to storm count, and helps build threshold for Cabal Ritual. There's no reason not to play 4.
Rite of Flame : It's the cheapest most efficient ritual available for producing the fairly small amounts of red mana we need. These do get better in multiples, so 4 is the number we want to run.
Dark Ritual : The most efficient and iconic ritual in the history of Magic, 4 of these are an auto-include.
Cabal Ritual : With our use of sac lands this deck excels at reaching threshold, so 95% of the time you will be generating 5 black mana off of these which makes them almost as efficient as Dark Ritual. You'll have plenty of uses for all that mana too, which makes Cabal Ritual a definite 4 of.
Cantrips & Draw Spells
Chromatic Star : These little guys do a lot of work for us. They help us set up to filter the mana from our sac lands into the colors we need on the turn we go off and they draw us a card on the process. And even if they get destroyed by something before we are able to go off they still draw us a card! 4 are necessary for consistency.
Chromatic Sphere : They supplement our Chromatic Stars to give us greater consistency. They perform the same function except for the fact that they don't draw us a card if they are somehow destroyed before we're able to combo off. Running 2 to 4 is fine, although I find 3 to be the optimum number for consistency in game 1. They will often get boarded out in favor of protection spells in game 2.
Ponder : This is our premium cantrip. It helps us set up during the first few turns of the game by searching for lands and Stars/Spheres and also lets us dig through as many as 4 cards for whatever specific spell we might need while we're comboing off. Best of all if we don't like what we see in the top 3 we can always shuffle them away and try our luck with a 4th card. There's no other cantrip that lets us dig that deep, which makes Ponder an automatic 4 of. Boarding out 1 for game 2 is acceptable but I'd never want to take out more than that.
Manamorphose : Hands down the best mana filtration system we have. It can be played off red or green mana, fixes our colors for free, adds to storm count and threshold, and draws us a card! There's no reason not to play 4.
Night's Whisper : Our second most efficient draw spell and well suited to make use of the black mana produced by spells like Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual. Drawing 2 cards for 2 mana is very efficient, and the casting cost of 1 black mana and 1 generic mana makes Night's Whisper extremely flexible and easy to cast. The life lose we take when using it is usually irrelevant since we don't run big life total sinks like Ad Nauseam so I suggest running this as a 4 of.
Sign in Blood : A more budget minded alternative to Night's Whisper. It's a little less flexible in terms of casting cost, but the requirement of double black mana is rarely an issue since 2 of our 3 mana producing rituals generate black mana. Sign in Blood also has the upside of being able to target our opponent, so it is possible to burn our opponent out with it if we get them down to 2 life from a slightly less than lethal Tendrils. Overall I think the more flexible casting cost of Night's Whisper makes it preferable to Sign in Blood, but if you're trying to keep your deck as budget friendly as possible than Sign in Blood is still a fine alternative.
Ideas Unbound : Our most efficient draw spell! Paying 2 blue mana to draw 3 cards makes this just a slightly over-costed Ancestral Recall. The downside of having to discard at the end of the turn is almost always irrelevant since we plan to win the same turn we cast it or be in a good position to win next turn if we cast Empty the Warrens instead of Tendrils. Ideas Unbound should be considered a mandatory 4 of, but since it's double blue casting cost usually requires some color fixing to achieve I think it's fine to take out 1 of them for game 2 if you decide to board out any color fixers like Chromatic Sphere.
Business Spells
Burning Wish : The single most powerful tool in the deck. For 2 mana in a color we produce a good amount of we can tutor our win conditions, answers to hate cards that would otherwise lose us the game, and ways out of tricky situations that could result in us fizzling without such as Past in Flames and Diminishing Returns. The power this card brings to the deck is unrivaled by any of our other spells. If you can afford them there is no reason not to play 4.
Tendrils of Agony : Our primary win condition. Play 3 in the main deck and 1 in the sideboard if you're running Burning Wish and 4 in the main if you don't have Burning Wish.
Empty the Warrens : This card will be main decked as a 3 or 4 of only in lists that do not run Burning Wish. It serves as an alternate win condition in case you don't draw a Tendrils or don't reach a high enough storm count to cast a lethal Tendrils. In lists that do run Burning Wish, Empty the Warrens is still kept as a 1 of in the sideboard since it is a solid alternate win condition to Tendrils.
Lands
Sulfur Vent : One of the deck's 3 varieties of it's namesake lands. While it's a bit slow due to coming into play tapped it is still very useful. In game 1 you can sacrifice it to produce 2 of our 3 most used colors, red and blue, for spells like Rite of Flame and Ideas Unbound. In game 2 you can tap it to Thoughtseize or Duress your opponent to see if the coast is clear before going off next turn. As with all the sac lands run in this deck, their ability to produce 2 mana each and contribute to threshold for Cabal Ritual is what gives us the fuel we need to combo off. It's a 4 of for sure.
Geothermal Crevice : Another sac land! This one can tap for red mana or be sacrificed for black and green. Tapping for red can be useful in game 2 to tutor for an answer to a specific hate card with Burning Wish before going off the next turn. The black mana it produces when sacrificed can be used for a variety of things from rituals to Night's Whisper and the green can be used for Manamorphose or just filtered into a different color with a Chromatic Star or Sphere. This is a 4 of as well.
Ancient Spring : My personal favorite of the sac lands, this one can tap for blue mana or be sacrificed for black and white mana. Tapping for blue is useful during the first few turns of the game when you might want to cast Ponder to find another land, Star, or Sphere to play before you go off. When sacrificed the black mana can be used for rituals and Night's Whisper, and the white mana can either be filtered into a more useful color or used to cast Silence before you start storming off in game 2. Again, this should be a 4 of.
Gemstone Mine : Our only non-sac land! Lengthy testing determined that in a metagame filled with Wasteland, running only 12 land was not enough for us. Although Gemstone Mine only produces 1 mana and does not contribute to threshold it does have the benefit of coming into play untapped, so if we draw it during the turn we're comboing off we can use it right away to generate more mana in any color. Also, it can be useful for tutoring answers to hate cards with Burning Wish on the turn before we combo off and still retains counters on it to use for any color of mana on the next turn when we go off. I think 2 is the optimal number, but 1 may be fine if there are not many people playing Wasteland in your meta.
The Sideboard
Tendrils of Agony : If you play Burning Wish, keeping 1 of these in the sideboard is mandatory.
Empty the Warrens : An alternate win condition to be tutored with Burning Wish. 1 is all you need.
Grapeshot : Sometimes you don't get quite high enough storm count to kill the opponent with Tendrils the turn you combo off, and when that happens it's nice to have a Grapeshot in the sideboard to tutor up with Burning Wish and finish them off a turn or two later. It can also be used to kill problematic creatures like Gaddock Teeg before you cast Tendrils or for personal amusement purposes in those times when you reach a storm count of 19 or higher and want to finish off your opponent in style. 1 is all you need in the board.
Past in Flames : A somewhat complex card to use properly, but it does give us the ability to reach a high enough storm count for a lethal Tendrils in situations where we might not be able to without it. More information on this is available in the "Utilizing the Wishboard" section. If you run Burning Wish you need 1 of these in the board.
Diminishing Returns : Our tutorable "hail mary" play for when all else fails and we absolutely have to win this turn. If you run Burning Wish I highly advise keeping 1 of these in the board. More information on this is available in the "Utilizing the Wishboard" section.
Shattering Spree : The most mana efficient answer to any artifact based hate we may encounter. If you're running Burning Wish than you need 1 of these in the board. If you are not playing Burning Wish to tutor it than keeping 2 to 3 in the board is advisable.
Chain Lightning / Firebolt : These are our best tutorable options for dealing with creature based hate like Ethersworn Canonist and Gaddock Teeg. The 1 extra point of damage offered by Chain Lightning will give you a bit more flexibility to kill a wider variety of creatures, but almost every creature you would want to kill with this spell does have 2 toughness so this will rarely be relevant. They both also have the ability to shoot the opponent for the last few points of damage in need be and in that regard Chain Lightning has the edge, but Firebolt has it's own benefit in that it can be flashed back (albeit at a steep cost that we won't often be able to pay) to hit the opponent or another creature later on. Overall I prefer Chain Lightning. Run 1 copy of one or the other in the board if you are playing Burning Wish.
Eye of Nowhere : Our tutorable all-purpose bounce spell for any permanent based hate. No matter what the problem might be, you can tutor up Eye of Nowhere to bounce it when you're ready to go off. If you're running Burning Wish than keeping 1 of these in the board to tutor as needed is advisable.
Thoughtseize / Duress : Both are very good protection spells to be boarded in for game 2 if you think they might be needed. Thoughtseize has the advantage of being able to take problematic creatures but is quite a bit more expensive than Duress, so play whichever you can afford. If you're playing Burning Wish you'll probably only have room for 2 or 3 of these in your sideboard, but if you're playing a list without Burning Wish I'd recommend packing 3 or 4.
Echoing Truth : Our all-purpose bounce spell to be boarded in for any permanent based problem. The advantage of of Echoing Truth over other bounce spells is that it can take out multiple copies of the same permanent, which will be relevant more often than you'd imagine (I.E. the opponent starts game 2 with two Leyline of Sanctity in play). If you're playing Burning Wish you'll probably only have room for 2 in the board, but for decks without Burning Wish I'd recommend boarding 3 to 4 depending on your metagame.
Silence : The single best protection against counterspells we have. Resolving a Silence first thing when you start comboing off protects you from any counterspell your opponent might be holding and gives you free reign to do whatever you please for the rest of the turn. It's also immune to cards like Mindbreak Trap if played as the first order of business and will shut off other more situational counterspells that might hurt you later like Spell Snare and Stifle as well. If you're playing Burning Wish you might only have room for 3 in your board, but in general I'd say board as many as you can find space for which means 4 in any list without Burning Wish.
Pyroblast : You won't likely find room for this card in your sideboard if you're running Burning Wish, but for lists without Burning Wish this is an extremely powerful tool to have at your disposal. For 1 red mana you can not only counter counterspells but also take out all sorts of problematic permanents ranging from Counterbalance and Jace, the Mind Sculptor to a Merfolk threatening to reduce your life total lower than you'd like. Also, if you just need to up your storm count and you're sure your opponent is out of counterspells and has no blue permanents in play you can target a non-blue permanent with Pyroblast, it will just do nothing other than up your storm count when it resolves.
Cards that Didn't Make The Cut
Ad Nauseam : Simply said, our mana curve is too high to run this draw engine without killing ourselves before drawing enough cards to consistently win the game for us. Most of our spells are in the 1-2 CMC range where as decks that effectively employ Ad Nauseam have the majority of their spells in the 0-1 CMC range. Also worth taking into account is that we are not running Infernal Tutor & Lion's Eye Diamond, so we do not have any way of consistently tutoring up Ad Nauseam even if our mana curve was low enough to support it.
Preordain : While Preordain is a solid card for decks like ours, it was tested and not included in the deck because I believe that Ponder and the current suite of draw spells function better. The reason for this is that Preordain can only dig 3 cards deep, 2 of which you will see and 1 that you won't, whereas Ponder can dig 4 cards deep (3 that you see and 1 that you won't). Both cards work fine for setting up in the turns before you go off, but once you're comboing off you will often find yourself digging for one specific card (such as Burning Wish or Tendrils of Agony). When that happens you want the maximum possible chances to find that card you're looking for, and Ponder gives you 1 more chance than Preordain to find it. That is why Preordain did not make the list.
Infernal Contract / Cruel Bargain / Meditate : These 3 draw spells were all tested and ultimately found unsuitable for the deck due to the amount of mana required to cast them. While Sac Land Tendrils does tend to generate a very large quantity of mana, much of it's resilience to counterspells comes from the fact that the mana curve of the vast majority of it's spells are so low, which leaves you spare mana to cast other spells if one or two rituals get countered. By adding in 3 CMC draw spells the deck loses a very large amount of it's resiliency to counter magic. Also, the triple black cost on Infernal Contract and Cruel Bargain make mana fixing much more tedious and the "skip your next turn" clause on Meditate does not work well in a deck that runs Empty the Warrens.
Pact of Negation : This card was suggested many times as a viable protection spell, but it did not make the list simply because we run Empty the Warrens as a win condition. If our only win condition was Tendrils than it might be more viable, but there are still times when you might end up casting a Tendrils for 18 or some similarly less than lethal amount of life loss and need another couple turns to regroup and go off again to Grapeshot your opponent. Because of the fact that we don't always end the game the turn we go off I have chosen to not include Pact of Negation in the list.
Simian Spirit Guide / Desperate Ritual / Seething Song : These red mana producers were all left out for various reasons. In the case of Simian Spirit Guide it was because he did not contribute to storm count or threshold. Desperate Ritual and Seething Song were left out because they are less efficient in terms of the amount of mana they can generate for the mana put into them when compared to our current suite of rituals. Also, the deck does not require a very large amount of red mana to run effectively (black is much more important) so Rite of Flame serves our purposes quite nicely.
Ill-Gotten Gains : Before the printing of Past in Flames this card was considered a "must have" 1-of in the sideboard as a Burning Wish target. Tutoring up Ill-Gotten Gains with Burning Wish gave us the ability to under certain circumstances reach a high enough storm count to cast a lethal Tendrils of Agony when we might not have been able to without it. The downsides to Ill-Gotten Gains are vast though. First we have to discard our hand, which means possibly discarding something that could be useful later on, and then we get only 3 cards back from our graveyard to cast again. Even more unfortunate is that the opponent also gets 3 cards back from their graveyard, which makes this card almost unplayable against any deck with counterspells unless we have resolved a Silence beforehand.
While it is still a playable storm count enabler, for our purposes Ill-Gotten Gains is a much weaker and riskier option than Past in Flames. Should Past in Flames ever become banned in Legacy I'm sure we'll go back to playing with Ill-Gotten Gains again, but at the moment there is a better option for the slot this card took up in our sideboard.
Oust / Deathmark : Oust has been tested as a sideboard answer to problematic hate creatures, but since our opponent's life total is relevant to the amount of storm we need to generate to win I think Chain Lightning and Firebolt are both better options. Deathmark is a reasonably good solution for dealing with hate creatures and may be easier to cast than Chain Lightning or Firebolt (since our deck produces more mana in black than any other color) but suffers from the problem of not being able to kill Magus of the Moon and any other non-white or green creature. Both Oust an Deathmark also lack the ability of Chain Lightning and Firebolt to hit the opponent for the last few points of damage after a less than lethal Tendrils if need be. While Oust and Deathmark may be workable situational answers to problems, they are simply not as versatile as the other tutorable options recommended.
Meltdown : Another suggested sideboard card. It works very well if you're trying to hate out Affinity, but is not as efficient as Shattering Spree against most artifact based hate such as Ethersworn Canonist, Null Rod, Thorn of Amethyst, Trinisphere, etc. The better mana efficiency of Shattering Spree is why Meltdown did not make the cut.
Abeyance : You'd think that a Silence effect that cantrips would be very good in this deck, or at least that's what I thought until I spent some time testing it. The problem is that the 2 CMC cost would often result in a mana shortage when you needed to play a critical spell. This happened often enough that I decided to leave it off the list and recommend Silence instead. The moral of the story here is that, just like with Meltdown versus Shattering Spree, we want our protection to be as efficient as possible to leave us more mana to storm off with.
UPiloting The DeckR
If you've never played a storm combo deck before it might seem a bit confusing at first, but let me assure you that this is one of the most simple and straightforward storm combo decks there is. It's easy to play because it at it's core there's only 3 things it does.
1. Generate lots of mana.
2. Filter the mana into the colors you need to cast spells.
3. Draw cards.
By doing these 3 things repeatedly you will quickly find yourself having cast 9 spells in a single turn, at which point you will want to either cast a Tendrils of Agony you drew somewhere along the way targeting your opponent or use Burning Wish to tutor up Tendrils from your sideboard and then cast it. And that's all there really is to it! Make lots of mana, filter mana, draw lots of cards, and cast Tendrils once you've reached a high enough storm count to cause lethal life loss with it.
This philosophy makes the deck design extremely redundant, which in turn makes it much more resistant to counterspells than the vast majority of storm combo decks. The composition of the deck is almost entirely rituals and cantrips / draw spells, so any time one of your spells gets countered there's a very good chance that you'll have another 1 or 2 in your hand that do almost exactly the same thing.
Combine this level of redundancy with a legacy competitive speed of play and you have the recipe for a very effective deck. With an average draw you will be able to storm out and kill your opponent on turn 3 or 4, and in most cases you can afford to have 2 or 3 of your spells countered and still keep on going.
The things you do in the first few turns before you start comboing off are very important though. 98% of the time the only non-land cards you'll want to play during the turns before you combo off are Chromatic Star, Chromatic Sphere, and Ponder (tapping either Ancient Spring or Gemstone Mine for the blue mana). Anything other than those should be saved for the turn you combo off.
The ideal course of play is generally...
Turn 1 : Play a sac land and pass the turn.
Turn 2 : Play another sac land and a Chromatic Star/Sphere.
Turn 3 : If you've got another land, Star/Sphere, or Ponder in hand (and an Ancient Spring or Gemstone Mine to Ponder with) and do not feel that you are likely to be killed next turn than play them. If not, skip to Turn 4's instructions.
Turn 4 : Sacrifice all sac lands lands for 2 mana each and then use the Stars/Spheres on the board to filter the mana into whatever colors you need to cast your spells and draw a few cards. Then play a bunch of rituals, mana color filtering spells & artifacts, draw a lot of cards, and Tendrils em'!
In general you will want to have at least 1 ritual (such as Dark Ritual or Rite of Flame) and 1 draw spell (such as Ideas Unbound or Night's Whisper) in your hand when you decide to sacrifice your lands and combo off, although having 2 or more of each in hand is preferable.
That's the basic rundown of how to play the deck, and with a little practice it's quite easy to get the hang of.
BSideboardingG
If you're running one of the recommended lists employing Burning Wish than the design of your sideboard will be very different from any other non-storm combo deck you may have played. For the 2 lists above with Burning Wish there are only 7 cards in the sideboard that you'll ever want to sideboard in for game 2. Those cards are : Silence, Thoughtseize/Duress, and Echoing Truth. The rest of the cards in the sideboard are all meant to be left there so you can tutor them up with Burning Wish if you find that you need one of them.
What cards you bring in for game 2 will depend largely on what you think your opponent might be boarding in. If they had any counterspells in game 1, or you think they might be boarding in something like Mindbreak Trap or Pyroblast for game 2, you'll want to sideboard in 3 Silence and 2 Thoughtseize/Duress. If on the other hand you think they might be boarding in artifact, enchantment, or creature based hate (such as Thorn of Amethyst, Leyline of Sanctity, or Gaddock Teeg) you'll want to board in 2 Echoing Truth and 2 Thoughtseize/Duress instead.
Figuring out exactly what kind of hate your opponent will board in for game 2 will require some practice and experience though. If you're unsure of what kind of hate your opponent is boarding in than the safest bet is to bring in 3 Silence and 2 Echoing Truth, which will give you answers for most common spell and permanent based problems your opponent might throw at you.
Figuring out what to take out for the cards you're sideboarding in can be a challenge when playing any deck, but even more so when playing a finely tuned storm combo deck. What you chose to take out for your protection spells is entirely up to you, but the focus here should be to not dilute the 3 primary functions of the deck (make mana, filter mana, and draw cards).
After extensive testing I've come to believe that the most flexible cards to take out when bringing in protection are : 2-3 Chromatic Star, 1 Ponder, and 1 Ideas Unbound. Again though, what you chose to take out is entirely up to you but the primary focus should be to not dilute the 3 main functions of the deck.
If you are playing the least expensive version of the deck you will have many more options for sideboard cards to bring in, since you are not dedicating a portion of the board to Burning Wish tutor targets. In this case you will have access to Pyroblast to handle all things Blue and Shattering Spree to deal with artifact based hate as needed. Do keep in mind though that the same rule of not diluting the deck's overall function applies here as well, so try to avoid bringing in more than 5 or 6 cards at most for any given matchup to keep your deck running properly in game 2.
WUtilizing The WishboardB
Here I'll go over the cards that will always be left in the sideboard to be tutored up with Burning Wish if needed, what their uses are, and when you'll want to tutor them up.
Tendrils of Agony
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This one is pretty straightforward. If you've cast 8 or more spells this turn, have at least 6 mana floating in your mana pool (with at least 1 of them being red and 2 being black) and have a Burning Wish in hand than tutor this one up and win the game!
Empty the Warrens
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Every now and then you may find yourself in a situation where you have a Burning Wish in hand, 6 mana floating (of which at least 2 is red), but have run out of rituals and draw spells and either don't have a high enough storm count to cast a lethal Tendrils or don't have the double black mana needed to do it. In situations like this tutoring up Empty the Warrens can serve as an alternate win condition. You'll just have to wait until next turn to attack with the goblin tokens and hope that the opponent doesn't have some kind of board sweeper to cast during their turn.
Grapeshot
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There's a couple uses for this card, and while you probably won't be tutoring it up very often, it can win you games that you would not win without it. It's main use is for situations in which due to either a lack of mana or draw spells you had to cast Tendrils for slightly less than lethal life loss. For instance, say you stormed off and cast Tendrils for 18 and left your opponent at 2 life. You had no mana left afterwords but you did have Burning Wish in your hand, a tapped Gemstone Mine on the field, and a tapped sac land that you played this turn. Next turn, if you top deck a ritual of some kind, you can crack the sac land for 2 mana, tap the Gemstone Mine for 1, cast the ritual and Burning Wish, and tutor up a Grapeshot to cast for 3 damage and finish off the opponent. Using Grapeshot to finish off the opponent after you've stormed off and have limited resources left to work with is it's primary function.
Another handy use for Grapeshot is that it can be tutored up to kill problematic creatures like Magus of the Moon and Gaddock Teeg. The final use for Grapeshot is just for your personal amusement. This deck is capable of reaching a storm count of 20 or more at times and in those situations it can be quite a bit of fun to tutor up Grapeshot and kill your opponent in style instead of going with the usual Tendrils plan.
Past in Flames
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This is an immensely powerful card with a myriad of uses. Since our deck is composed almost entirely of instants and sorceries, the ability of re-cast every instant and sorcery in our graveyard can frequently raise our storm count high enough to cast a lethal Tendrils when we otherwise might not be able to. There are so many situations under which Past in Flames can be used to reach a high enough storm count for a lethal Tendrils that it would be nearly impossible to list them all, but there are a two basic things you want to be sure of before you tutor up this card.
1. You are out of rituals, draw spells, and any other means to get to a lethal Tendrils.
2. You have enough mana floating (of which at least 2 is red) to cast Burning Wish then Past in Flames and still have enough black and/or red mana left floating to flashback enough rituals and/or draw spells in your graveyard to achieve a high enough storm count and enough mana floating for a lethal Tendrils.
To give you a better idea of how this card can be used, here's a few simple examples of applications for Past in Flames...
You are at a storm count of 4 and have 7 mana floating (5 black & 2 red)
You have Burning Wish and Tendrils of Agony in your hand and there are two copies of Dark Ritual and a Cabal Ritual your graveyard
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Cast Burning Wish for Past in Flames > Cast Past in Flames > Flashback Dark Ritual > Flashback Dark Ritual > Flashback Cabal Ritual > Cast Tendrils of Agony for 20
Another example is...
You are at a storm count of 3 and have 8 mana floating (4 red & 4 black)
You have two copies of Burning Wish in your hand and there are two copies of Rite of Flame and a Dark Ritual in your graveyard
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Cast Burning Wish for Past in Flames > Cast Past in Flames > Flashback Rite of Flame > Flashback Rite of Flame > Flashback Dark Ritual > Burning Wish for Tendrils of Agony > Cast Tendrils of Agony for 20
These are just a couple possible uses for Past in Flames and there are quite literally hundreds of different situations under which it can be used to get you to a lethal Tendrils. Remember that rituals aren't the only things you can flashback, you can flashback draw spells like Ideas Unbound and Night's Whisper too. Flashing back Manamorphose can help you fix the colors of mana you have floating to insure you have the right colors of mana needed to flashback the rest of your graveyard. You may also encounter times when you want to use Past in Flames atypically, such as tutoring it up a few turns after a failed attempt to combo off to try again by recasting every instant and sorcery in your graveyard.
Lastly, there are times when you may just want to use Past in Flames for your own personal amusement. There are many situations under which Past in Flames can be used to raise your storm count high enough to kill your opponent with Grapeshot rather than Tendrils of Agony. With a decent draw you'll often find yourself at storm count of 10 or greater with quite a bit extra mana floating and multiple copies of Burning Wish in hand. At that point you can Wish for Past in Flames, use it to flashback every ritual and draw spell in your graveyard, cast all the rituals and draw spells you drew off the draw spells that you flashed back, then flashback Past in Flames, and finally flashback every spell in your graveyard that was drawn and cast off the first round of flashed back spells. By doing this it's possible to reach absurdly high storm counts (68 is the highest I've ever gotten to) and Burning Wish for Grapeshot to use as your kill spell. Good times.
Diminishing Returns
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Consider this card to be our last resort play when we absolutely have to kill our opponent this turn and have no other way to get to a lethal Tendrils. To use an American football analogy, it is our "Hail Mary" play for when we know our opponent will kill us next turn and we have no other way to cast Tendrils for lethal this turn.
When all else fails and you know you will die next turn if you don't win right now, tutoring up Diminishing Returns and casting it can give you a chance to still win. Worth noting is that your chances of winning after resolving a Diminishing Returns increase greatly for each point of mana you have left floating in your mana pool after casting it. If you have 2 black mana, 1 red mana, and 1 blue mana left floating after casting Diminishing Retuns you'll have a much better chance of finding your way to a lethal Tendrils than you would have if you only had 1 or 2 mana of any given color left floating after casting it.
Again though, this is a last resort play so don't play it unless you absolutely have to win this turn and have no other way of getting to a lethal Tendrils. It's a risky play, but it can win you games in situations where nothing else can.
Shattering Spree
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Being able to tutor up this card gives us an out to any artifact based hate that would otherwise prevent us from comboing off. It takes care of Null Rod, Thorn of Amethyst, Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere, Ethersworn Canonist, and pretty much any other artifact based hate you can think of. This is one of the few cards in the wishboard that I think it's often acceptable to tutor for on the turn before you start comboing off. If the opponent has any kind of artifact based hate in play your best bet is usually to tutor up shattering spree and then wait until the next turn to use it to get rid of the problematic artifact before you start your combo chain. Fortunately you can tutor this up the turn before you combo off without having to sacrifice any lands as long as you have 2 lands in play and one of them is a Geothermal Crevice or Gemstone Mine so you can generate the red mana needed to cast Burning Wish.
Chain Lightning / Firebolt
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Depending on your budget you'll be playing one or the other of these in your wishboard, and both are generally used for the same purpose. The main function of these cards are to kill little hate creatures such as Gaddock Teeg, Ethersworn Canonist, and Magus of the Moon. The advantage of Chain Lightning over Firebolt is the 1 extra damage it provides, which is rarely needed when killing creatures like the ones mentioned above. Also, just like Grapeshot you can tutor up either of these spells to hit your opponent for the last few points of damage needed to kill them if you end up having to cast Tendrils for just short of lethal. In that regard Chain Lightning is the superior choice, since there will be times (rare as they may be) that the 1 extra point of damage will be relevant.
Regardless of which you end up using, just like Shattering Spree this is another card that it's okay to tutor up the turn before you combo off so next turn you can take care of the problem creature before you start your combo chain.
Eye of Nowhere
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The last tool in our wishboard is this one. It's useful for removing problematic enchantments such as Leyline of Sanctity, Counterbalance, and Leyline of the Void (which would prevent us from getting threshold for Cabal Ritual or using Past in Flames). It's a very versatile tool in that it can also be used to bounce problem creatures, artifacts, and anything else that might otherwise prevent you from winning. Again, like Shattering Spree and Chain Lightning / Firebolt, this is another card that I think it's totally fine to tutor for the turn before you decide to combo off.
UAdditional Tips & TricksR
In this last section I'd like to offer some tips and tricks to help play Sac Land Tendrils more effectively.
Tip #1 : Find a good way to keep track of the mana you have floating & your storm count
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Everyone will have their own opinions on what is the best way to do this. Some like using a pen and paper, some prefer to chant the amounts and colors of mana they have floating and their storm count in their head while they play, and others prefer dice or some other system.
Personally I've found that the easiest way to keep track of the mana you have floating is with dice like the ones below.
I use 1 eight sided dice colored to match each color of mana to keep track of my mana floating, a twenty sided spindown dice to keep track of my storm count, a six sided dice to use as counters for Gemstone Mine, and an additional black ten sided dice to use in situations where I end up generating more than 8 black mana (which actually happens quite regularly). Using these dice to keep track of my mana and storm count has proven the most effective method for me and I'd definitely recommend it to others, but you should go with the method that works best for you.
Tip #2 : Bait out counterspells
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As a general rule of thumb, always cast your least important spells first. If there's anything in your hand that you think you could stand to have countered and still keep going try to lure out a counterspell by casting that first. You can also bait out counterspells by making the opponent think your mana has bottle-necked when it really hasn't. For instance, if you have 1 black mana and 3 red mana floating and two Dark Rituals and a Manamorphose in your hand try using your 1 black mana to cast a Dark Ritual first and see what happens. Your opponent may think they have a chance to deny you black mana and counter your Dark Ritual. If that happens you can then use Manamorphose to turn some of your red mana into black, cast your other Dark Ritual, and keep going.
I highly suggest spending as much time as you can testing your deck against opponents with counterspells so you can get the hang of baiting them out. With a bit of practice you can learn quite easily how to bait out counterspells, and learning to do this effectively can often make the difference between winning or losing a match in a tournament setting.
Tip #3 : Remember that your opponent's spells add to your storm count
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One thing that new storm combo players often forget is that any spells their opponent casts during their turn adds to their storm count. For instance, say you were at storm 4 and played a Dark Ritual. If your opponent counters your Dark Ritual that would put you up to storm 6, since 2 spells were just played. Realizing this and remembering to add the opponent's spells to your storm count will greatly increase your likelihood of winning against decks packing counter magic.
Tip #4 : Don't forget that you can cast Tendrils twice in a turn
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Since we run 3 copies of Tendrils of Agony main deck in builds with Burning Wish and 4 copies in builds without, there are times when you will find yourself drawing multiple copies of Tendrils. When this happens do keep in mind that once you reach a storm count of 4 you can cast both copies of Tendrils and win if your opponent is at 22 life or less. The first copy will cause them to lose 10 life and add 1 to your storm count (bringing you up to storm 5) and the second one will cause them to lose 12 life and win you the game.
It makes me wonder if you considered cards like Magma jet or Preordain (over ponder, here) Do they work well, or not well enough? You could even add in night's whisper and consider nuking blue.
Looks like a fun deck to play, and creative too. Thanks a lot for sharing.
I have most of the cards already - would try making the deck but I would probably add 4 Gitaxian Probe somewhere.
EDIT: I see $1-2. You should play it, even over ponder/preordain, but I think over ideas unbound would be a better choice. While it doesn't help you dig for force in this deck, it can hide cards in response to discard effects.
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It's kind of another moment when we throw our hands up and go "DAMMIT universe, why you gotta always make me look bad in front of everyone?".
I actually did the same thing in porting the deck to Legacy, and from your list the difference I have is Peer Through Depths and Compulsive Research over Ponder and Empty the Warrens. I just like more draw in my deck, and because the deck goes off Turn 3-4, Empty the Warrens was weak for me as the opponent would already have a good board by then.
And Brainstorm is pretty bad without any shuffle effects, especially for a deck that relies on raw card draw to continue the Storm chain.
I definitely wouldn't use compulsive research in here. You're definitely better off with ideas unbound. However, I was still debating the merits of including night's whisper over ideas unbound or perhaps ponder. The mana would be easier to get and draw 2 is pretty solid, no matter what.
Why not Compulsive Research? I'm not taking out Ideas Unbound for it. IU is the best card draw you have in the deck, and it's worth bending over backwards with mana filters and such to accomodate the card.
While Ponder and Brainstorm are good set-up cards, the deck really doesn't need those as the critical mass of draw and mana ideally would give you all you need. During the combo chain, the deck needs raw card draw, not just card dig/selection.
Peer Through Depths looks like an exception because it only gets you one card. However, the great thing about it is that once you get your one card, it sends the chaff to the bottom of your library. I hate Brainstorm here because if you do send chaff back to the top of your library, you'll just draw right back into them with your other draw spells.
raw card draw I can accept. compulsive research is 3 cards for 3 mana and probably have to discard two of those w/ only 12 lands. thirst for knowledge is just straight up superior in here, in my opinion, if that's what you want. An instant is just that much better. You're looking for mana fixers that aren't always going to be manamorphose. Why not Impulse over Peer thru depths or even lim duls vault?
Compulsive Research because you have no use for lands during the combo chain. And when you're drawing 10+ cards during the chain, at least one of those would be a land. Your artifacts are important, and you don't want to discard those to Thirst.
I'm looking at Impulse over Peer Through Depths so I can get Petals and Star/Sphere, but I'm leaning towards the extra dig of PtD. Lim-Dul's Vault doesn't draw you a card during the combo chain and so it's horribad.
Getting the double U to cast Ideas Unbound might be a problem, because there's no guarantee that Manamorphose would always be there. I'll try Brainstorm as a substitute first (since Brainstorm is a card that I already have). But if Brainstorm doesn't work out, then it's time to search for some Ideas Unbound.
Have never used a storm deck before so I'm kind of excited in making this, even if it's only for casual play.
Due to a shortage on certain cards, my version of the deck only has Tendrils as it's win condition. The sideboard has other cards to protect the combo, but I prefer protection that isn't vulnerable to Mental Misstep so it's Pact that goes to the main deck.
20 of your 24 "draw" spells only replace themselves. I guess you didn't get that the deck needs raw card draw, not just cantrips. Good luck finding those Tendrils.
I get that it needs raw draw, but have you actually tested night's whisper? the 1B mana cost is easier than sign in blood, and otherwise, would 8 2 for 1s be helpful or is more needed?
Your criticism is welcome. While Preordain only replaces itself, it has proven to be good in moving lands to the bottom - I prefer using it over Ponder. Also, I currently don't have any Ideas Unbound, would have used it if I had some. I'm thinking of using Careful Study as a temporary substitute.
@weltkrieg
Good suggestion. Though I think with 8 Rituals that produce B, getting double black mana won't be much of a problem. The only disadvantage I'm seeing in using Night's Whisper is that there might be a rare situation where the opponent is left with 2 life, and Sign in Blood can be used to deal the last 2 points of damage.
I've playtested budget storm decks for a while now, and I've actually had much better success with a Spanish Inquisition type engine, with 4x Culling the Weak, 4x Dark Ritual, 4x Cabal Ritual and Diabolic Intent for Ad Nauseum. I'll post my list later if I get the chance.
I've continued to work on this deck over the past 3 weeks since the original post and I think I've managed to make some definite improvements to it. The biggest improvement has been the addition of Burning Wish, which wasn't too expensive and increases the consistency of the deck quite a bit by allowing you to run what amounts to 7 copies of Tendrils and to have a wishboard sideboard to answer various problems you may encounter.
That said, here's my current list...
I think the biggest thing I played around with over the past 3 weeks was the mana base, trying my hardest to make it faster and more consistent. The best results for an alternate and faster mana base came from removing the 12x sac-lands and swapping them for 4x Gemstone Mine, 4x City of Brass, and 4x Darkslick Shores. Unfortunately though, by switching to this mana base the deck's consistency went way down and it ended up whiffing quite regularly due to mana shortage. Also, the usefulness of Cabal Ritual went way down and the deck's ability to play through counterspells went way down as well, again due to lack of mana at critical times.
So after 3 weeks of testing I'm still fairly sure that the 12 sac-lands, while a little on the slow side, are the best mana base for this style of storm deck. You won't be able to go off until turn 3 or 4 on average, but when you do go off you should be able to afford to have at least 2 or 3 of your rituals countered and still keep going. Wasteland and Hymn To Tourach are a much bigger problem than counterspells, but after playtesting against a proper CounterTop deck for 3 weeks I can safely say that even pre-board you should have no problems playing through multiple counterspells with my current list. If there are a lot of Wastelands in your meta though I would suggest running 14 lands rather than 12. I found that removing the 2x Chrome Mox in my list and adding 2x Gemstone Mine or 2x Tinder Farm seemed to work well for a build like this.
That's all for now! I'll post updates as I play the deck in tournaments more, and as always any thoughts on the matter are much appreciated
Can I suggest a cheap draw spell (e.g. the 4th Ideas Unbound or something else) in the SB so you can wish for it? You don't always want to go for Diminishing Returns.
Haven't tested the deck in tournament.. my casual meta is fairly competitive though (Merfolk, Burn, BG Infect and a Reanimator deck are the usual opponents). We use sideboards.
So far I've become aware of some things.. it's almost impossible to win through a Null Rod backed up with plenty of countermagic, Pyrostatic Pillar is painful, and Iona Shield of Emeria naming black is a very bad situation. Decks that I own for competitive play are mostly aggro (please look at sig), so playing something like Budget Tendrils is a new experience. It's still fun eventhough it's getting a bit harder to win now.
Deck has changed very little, but the sideboard has changed a lot in an effort to cope with the decks that I'm playing against.
i am just wondering why don't you play 4 Lotus Bloom. It should only cost 2-3USD each nowadays.
As for the Protection i would play 4 Duress instead of Pact of Negation.
Also you should play some bounce in the sideboard for Ethersworn Canonist, Meddling Mage or Gaddock Teeg, i would suggest 3 Echoing Truth.
Also 12 Lands seems a little bit too less. I would suggest playing 16 lands and to add 4 Gemstone Mine to your decklist.
Used to have a Lotus Bloom, but I gave it to someone as Christmas present. Isn't it a bit slow for this deck?
Use of Mental Misstep is widespread in my meta, so Duress isn't really good right now. The prevalence of Mental Misstep is also the reason why I have 2 Burnout and 1 Pyroblast on the sideboard instead of 3 Pyroblast. I win on the turn I cast Tendrils, so paying for the pact is not a problem. On game 2, if I would put in the ETW, I would remove all 4 pact and replace them with something else from the sideboard as well.
Not sure about adding more land, because one of the last things I want to draw when I start to combo is land.
I agree about the bounce, they are definitely needed. Added 3 Echoing Truth to the sideboard.
Cool list Fluff! I really dig the maindeck Pact of Negation protection. I may have to try that myself, since I've been wanting to have some kind of maindeck protection due to my meta being at least 70% blue decks playing Force/Daze and Mental Mistep.
On that note, I was able to play my Tendrils deck in a 30 some odd person Legacy tournament last night and I was pretty pleased with how things went. I don't remember every play of each match, but I will do a very basic tournament report. That said, here's the list I played and how the tournament went...
Round 1 : U/B/W Control
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I wasn't sure exactly what to call this deck, but it was running 3 colors with fetchlands, Underground Seas, and Tundras. In game 1 he Thoughtseized me on turn 1 and took a Dark Ritual, but I still managed to go off on turn 3 (after playing a land on turn 1 and a land and a Star on turn 2) by Wishing for Tendrils for lethal. He did mental misstep twice along the way, but I was able to keep going due the large amount of mana production and card draw the deck produces.
For Game 2 I boarded in 3x Silence and 2x Duress, and boarded out 3x Chromatic Sphere and 2x Chrome Mox. In this game I got Thoughteized on turn 1, hit with Hymn to Tourach on turn 2, then Thoughtseized again and Hymned again on turn 3. He then proceeded to beat me down with a Dark Confidant and Vendellion Clique for the win.
Game 3 was much like game 1. I got Thoughtseized once, again having a Dark Ritual taken, and went off on turn 3 after having my Silence and 1 Rite of Flame mental missteped. When I finally got the point of casting Burning Wish (with 4 black mana left floating) he Dazed the Wish, but I was able to pay for the Daze, leaving me 3 black floating, got Tendrils, then cast the 1 Cabal Ritual I was still holding to get the mana for Tendrils.
Result : Win 2-1.
Current Record : 1-0
Round 2 : Enchantress
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Game 1 went quite well. I went off on turn 3 and cast Tendrils for lethal. Nothing much to say there.
For game 2 and 3 I boarded in 3 Duress and 2 Echoing Truth, again boarding out 3x Chromatic Sphere and 2x Chrome Mox (I think these are the most flexible spots in the deck). Games 2 and 3 went relatively the same. He opened with a Leyline of Sanctity on the field, quickly dropped an enchantment that gave the Leyline and all his other enchantments shroud, and then proceeded to play Moat and Elephant Grass before killing me with Words of War around turn 5 or 6. Very fast and very brutal, I just had no chance against this prison deck once he brought in the Leylines.
Result : Loss, 1-2
Current Record : 1-1
Round 3 : Burn
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In game 1 Burn does what Burn does and he gets me down to 12 life by turn 3. I go off on turn 3 and Wish for Tendrils. GG.
For game 2 I noticed my opponent didn't board anything so I didn't board at all either, and it went almost exactly like game 1. I once again go off on turn 3 (he had me down to 8 life this time though, with a Rift Bolt suspended) and there is nothing he can do about it.
Result : Win 2-0
Current Record : 2-1
Round 4 : R/G/B Goblins with Mental Misstep
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Game 1 was pretty interesting. I start off by playing a land on turn 1, then tapping the land for a Chromatic Star on turn 2. He plays a mountain and a Vial on turn 1 then fetches for a Taiga and drops a Tin Street Hooligan on turn 2, destroying my Star but I still get to draw a card off it. On turn 3 I again (as I have in almost every game this night) go off, on only 1 land this time, and start doing my thing. I thought everything was perfectly safe until I used my 1 black mana floating to cast Dark Ritual, which was responded to with a Mental Misstep! Fortunately I was able to use Manamorphose to make some more black and Dark Rit again to keep going, but the Misstep did catch me by surprise. He actually had another one later on which he used on a Chromatic Star, but I was still able to draw into Tendrils for the win.
In game 2 I remember doing my usual board plan of 3x Silence and 2x Duress and keeping an opening hand with 2 lands, 3 Cabal Rituals, a Rite of Flame, and Tendrils. I play my lands (which both get hit by Wasteland immediately) and then draw a couple more rituals but no land. He kills me on turn 4 with a horde of hastey Piledrivers off Goblin Warchief and a Matron.
In game 3 I couldn't seem to get a land in my opening hand to save my life and mulled to 4 to keep a sketchy hand with 1 land. Fortunately my opponent mulled to 4 as well. I played my land, he played an Aether Vial. Next turn he Wasted my land and dropped a Lackey off the Vial. Over the course of the next 7 turns he beats me down with the Lackey and never drops a single Goblin off him while I draw no lands or Lotus Petals to start my combo with. Finally, he drops a Siege-Gang Commander off the Lackey and the next turn I top deck a land. I play my land and on his turn he vials on a Goblin Ringleader, revealing a couple goblins and Thorn of Amethyst (which mercifully goes to the bottom of his deck) and beats my face in. I am now at 3 life and have 1 turn left to live at this point. I crack my land, play manamorphose to make the colors I need and draw into a Lotus Petal. I play the petal, crack it for a white, and cast Silence. No response. I then cast a bunch of rituals, a few Stars, Ideas Unbound twice, and am able to luck-sack draw into a Burning Wish with just enough mana left floating to cast it and Tendrils. Good game
Apparently he was holding 1x Mental Misstep in his hand during the last game but saw no point in Missteping the Silence and contributing to my storm count with no way to stop me if I did go off.
Result : Win 2-1
Current Record : 3-1
Round 5 - Top 8 Match : U/W/R Stoneforge Deck
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So here I am, in the Top 8! The winner of this match gets to go home with a nice chunk of cash in their pocket.
He wins the dice roll and plays a fetchland and passes the turn. I play a land and then he cracks the fetch to get a Tundra and Brainstorms at the end of my turn. Turn 2 he plays another Tundra drops a Stoneforge Mystic to find Batterskull. I play another land, try to play a Ponder, and he missteps it. The next turn he Stoneforges in the Batterskull and at this point I know it's do or die. I'm not terribly confident about my hand but I try to go off on turn 3 anyway. It goes fairly well until he casts Force of Will on my Ideas Unbound, but I recover after a couple Manamorphose and eventually Burning Wish for Tendrils with enough mana to cast it and a few leftover in case he has Daze. No response. I cast Tendrils and he cracks the one fetchland he has open for another Tundra. He responds by casting Stifle on the Storm ability on Tendrils. Damnit. I scoop.
For game 2 I board as usual and bring in 3x Silence and 2x Duress, leaving one Duress in the board incase I need to Wish for it. I play a land on turn 1, he Brainstorms on turn 1. I play another land on turn 2 and once again try to Ponder. He lets it resolve. He plays a fetchland on turn 3 and passes. I look at my hand, which I feel quite good about, and decide to go off. I lead off with Silence, he Mental Missteps it. I continue on and along the way get a Dark Ritual hit with Mental Misstep and an Ideas Unbound hit with Pyroblast. Jeebus! In spite of having 3 counters played against me so far I am able to produce a good amount of mana and casting Sign in Blood twice leads me to a Burning Wish. I have 2 Red mana and 5 Black floating and think that there's very little chance that he has another counterspell. I use my 2 red to cast Burning Wish (with nothing but land left in my hand) and he lets it resolve. Yes! I get Tendrils and cast it, to which he responds by cracking his fetchland (the one land he has left open) and casting Stifle on Tendrils... again.
At this point I just scoop, shake his hand, and say good game.
Result : Loss, 0-2
Final Record : 3-2
And there you have it! I went 3-1 in the initial rounds which was good enough to make Top 8, but lost my Top 8 money matchup to Stifle twice. Still though, I'm very happy with how my first go at playing this deck in a tournament went and I think it is certainly tournament worthy after this experience. It was a good learning experience and I was able to take away a couple things from it.
#1 : I need some kind of protection main deck. Three of my five matchups were against decks playing counterspells (even Goblins had counterspells!) so it seems that there is a definite need for main deck protection of some kind. The real question is what to take out for it. I'd really like to run 4x Silence and 4x Duress maindeck, but I've yet to find any combination of 8 cards I could take out for these without crippling the consistency of the deck. Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated!
#2 : Turn 3 is my critical turn. The overwhelming majority of the time I was able to go off on turn 3 if I played a land on turn 1 and turn 2. While this may not be fast enough for storm combo mirror matches, I didn't have any of those (I think I was the only Storm player there that night) and turn 3 is plenty fast enough against any other deck I might face. However, if I miss my turn 2 land drop or get 1 of my lands hit with Wasteland before turn 3 it can really set me back. Because of this I feel it might be wise to up the land count to 14 with a few Tinder Farm or possibly Gemstone Mine instead so that if I draw one mid combo I can play it and use it the turn I'm going off. At this point the main thing I'm considering removing for these additional lands are the 2x Chrome Mox, since this deck really likes to be able to play all non-land cards available and because of this I most often find myself playing the Chrome Mox without imprinting anything on them just to up my storm count by 1 (which has actually never been relevant in my experience thus far).
So there you have it! The tournament went well I think and I learned quite a bit. Now my big goal is to figure out where/how to fit in main deck protection from counterspells and 2 more lands if I can find space for them.
I think the maindeck protection you need is mental misstep itself or maybe spell pierce. Minus the force of will, nearly every card that caused you trouble was cmc1. you could have dealt with them all with the mental misstep main. I think 4 of these protection slots with your burning wishes is probably enough. I say this because it's nearly certain that you'll draw into them with that amount of draw available to you and your deck has shown a remarkable tendency to keep on going even with having major amounts of counters thrown your way.
On the chrome mox debate, I absolutely think that this should be gemstone mine. You do need a 5 color mana producer that doesn't enter tapped on your combo turn. 2 should be plenty with all the card draw you have.
Once again, thanks for sharing your idea on this deck.
Had so little money left after completing a Zoo deck, I never thought that a small amount of cash would be enough to make a simple, yet still fun deck like the one we have here. And since we're at the Budget area of the forum, there's no pressure to spend on high-priced cards.
#1 : I need some kind of protection main deck. Three of my five matchups were against decks playing counterspells (even Goblins had counterspells!) so it seems that there is a definite need for main deck protection of some kind. The real question is what to take out for it. I'd really like to run 4x Silence and 4x Duress maindeck, but I've yet to find any combination of 8 cards I could take out for these without crippling the consistency of the deck. Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated!
You can try it, but Pact doesn't really work well with our other win condition which is ETW. Using Pact means relying on Tendrils 100% to win the game. Comparing our lists, it seems that what is occupied by Pacts on mine, it is occupied by Burning Wish on yours. I think using a wishboard is actually a strong strategy, you can wish for answers - like wishing for a Shattering Spree to destroy a Phyrexian Revoker.
Just one question. I'm using Simian Spirit Guides instead of petals right now (meta decision). Does producing mana with the guide add to storm count? I think it doesn't, but I want to be sure.
fluff> no, simian spirit guides are an activated ability, which isn't casting a spell. If you don't mind my asking, why would you use those over lotus petals in a storm deck? I can't think of any particular reason you would unless your meta is chock full of null rods
fluff> no problem. I was also asking why the lotus petal (or lack thereof) meta decision?
anyways, It occurs to me that this deck could benefit from some cheap graveyard recursion at times, especially if you've got a cantrip in hand. Has anyone considered noxious revival?
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U Introduction & Deck History R
Sac Land Tendrils is a Legacy format storm combo deck designed to be fast and competitive yet still extremely budget friendly. It's fairly simple and easy to learn to play, but like any storm combo deck it rewards practice and the skill of it's pilot.
The origins of this storm combo archetype come out of the Pauper format deck known as "The Pauper Perfect Storm". I piloted TPPS for quite a long time and eventually came to the conclusion that not only was it one of the most consistent storm combo decks I've ever played, but that it could actually be very competitive in the Legacy format with some tweaking, tuning, and the addition of some powerful Legacy format cards. After a few months of work (and more playtesting against Merfolk and Counter Top than I'd ever care to remember) I came up with what I feel is the most consistent and best performing competitive storm deck you can play in Legacy for $160 or less, and I gave it a name : Sac Land Tendrils.
The deck was named for it's unique use of sac lands from the Invasion expansion, which can tap for one color of mana or be sacrificed for two different allied colors of mana, and for employing Tendrils of Agony as it's primary win condition.
I must also give some credit to Bryant Cook for his deck "The Epic Storm", since much of the sideboard design was inspired by his creation. In that regard you could consider Sac Land Tendrils to be a hybrid fusion of The Pauper Perfect Storm and The Epic Storm.
B Deck List Options G
Since this was designed to be a budget friendly deck, I took the time to come up with 3 different deck lists to suit individual budget considerations. If you can afford to spend $160 US you can build what is in my opinion the most consistent and optimal version of this deck. But if you can't afford to spend quite that much there's still some extremely playable options that retain the core functionality of what makes this deck great at price points of around $100 for the second best version and $60 for the least expensive variation.
That said, here's the 3 deck lists and a bit more information about them...
4 Lotus Petal
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
[23 Cantrips/Draw]
4 Chromatic Star
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Ponder
4 Manamorphose
4 Night's Whisper
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Burning Wish
3 Tendrils of Agony
[14 Lands]
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Geothermal Crevice
4 Ancient Spring
2 Gemstone Mine
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Shattering Spree
1 Chain Lightning
1 Eye of Nowhere
2 Thoughtseize
2 Echoing Truth
3 Silence
This is what I consider to be the most finely tuned and consistent version of the deck. It utilizes Burning Wish to tutor into your sideboard, allowing you to run the equivalent of 7 copies of Tendrils of Agony in your deck. Not only that but Burning Wish also allows you to pack tutorable answers in your sideboard for almost any problem you might encounter while trying to combo off.
4 Lotus Petal
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
[23 Cantrips/Draw]
4 Chromatic Star
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Ponder
4 Manamorphose
4 Night's Whisper
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Burning Wish
3 Tendrils of Agony
[14 Lands]
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Geothermal Crevice
4 Ancient Spring
2 Gemstone Mine
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Shattering Spree
1 Firebolt
1 Eye of Nowhere
2 Duress
2 Echoing Truth
3 Silence
The only differences between this and the $160 version are some minor changes in the sideboard. The 2 copies of Thoughtseize in the sideboard have been replaced with Duress, and the single sideboarded Chain Lightning has been replaced with Firebolt to keep costs down as well. This allows the deck to maintain it's overall functionality while only losing a little bit in terms of situational answers. Firebolt will with deal with almost any bothersome 2 toughness creature you may encounter (such as Gaddock Teeg, Ethersworn Canonist, and Magus of the Moon) and there are very few situations in which you will actually need the 1 extra damage from Chain Lightning to get the job done. It also has the advantage of being able to be flashed back later (at a steep cost) to deal with a second creature should one appear. Regarding Duress, since it can't remove creatures from the opponent's hand like Thoughtseize can you may have to let an opponent hold onto a problematic creature like Gaddock Teeg or Ethersworn Canonist on rare occasion. But tutoring up the Firebolt in the sideboard with Burning Wish will still take care of them.
Overall this deck functions almost identically to the $160 list, it just lacks a few situational answers and saves you $60 in the process.
4 Lotus Petal
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
[23 Cantrips/Draw]
4 Chromatic Star
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Ponder
4 Manamorphose
4 Sign in Blood
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Tendrils of Agony
3 Empty the Warrens
[14 Lands]
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Geothermal Crevice
4 Ancient Spring
2 Gemstone Mine
4 Silence
3 Duress
3 Echoing Truth
3 Pyroblast
2 Shattering Spree
For the least expensive version of this deck, Burning Wish has been replaced with Empty the Warrens as an alternate win condition to Tendrils and the "wishboard" sideboard has been replaced by a more normal looking sideboard consisting of answers for various problematic things the opponent might have. Also, Night's Whisper has been replaced with Sign in Blood to save you few more dollars as well. While this deck is not quite as prepared for any given situation and not as consistent as the lists with Burning Wish, it still plays quite well and is certainly capable of being competitive in a well developed Legacy metagame.
W Card Selection B
In this section I'll go over the cards in the main deck and sideboard of all 3 lists and why we play them. At the end I'll also touch on some additional cards that were tested and did not make the cut.
Rituals & Acceleration
Lotus Petal : It's 1/3 of a Black Lotus! Free to play, can make mana in any color you need, adds to storm count, and helps build threshold for Cabal Ritual. There's no reason not to play 4.
Rite of Flame : It's the cheapest most efficient ritual available for producing the fairly small amounts of red mana we need. These do get better in multiples, so 4 is the number we want to run.
Dark Ritual : The most efficient and iconic ritual in the history of Magic, 4 of these are an auto-include.
Cabal Ritual : With our use of sac lands this deck excels at reaching threshold, so 95% of the time you will be generating 5 black mana off of these which makes them almost as efficient as Dark Ritual. You'll have plenty of uses for all that mana too, which makes Cabal Ritual a definite 4 of.
Cantrips & Draw Spells
Chromatic Star : These little guys do a lot of work for us. They help us set up to filter the mana from our sac lands into the colors we need on the turn we go off and they draw us a card on the process. And even if they get destroyed by something before we are able to go off they still draw us a card! 4 are necessary for consistency.
Chromatic Sphere : They supplement our Chromatic Stars to give us greater consistency. They perform the same function except for the fact that they don't draw us a card if they are somehow destroyed before we're able to combo off. Running 2 to 4 is fine, although I find 3 to be the optimum number for consistency in game 1. They will often get boarded out in favor of protection spells in game 2.
Ponder : This is our premium cantrip. It helps us set up during the first few turns of the game by searching for lands and Stars/Spheres and also lets us dig through as many as 4 cards for whatever specific spell we might need while we're comboing off. Best of all if we don't like what we see in the top 3 we can always shuffle them away and try our luck with a 4th card. There's no other cantrip that lets us dig that deep, which makes Ponder an automatic 4 of. Boarding out 1 for game 2 is acceptable but I'd never want to take out more than that.
Manamorphose : Hands down the best mana filtration system we have. It can be played off red or green mana, fixes our colors for free, adds to storm count and threshold, and draws us a card! There's no reason not to play 4.
Night's Whisper : Our second most efficient draw spell and well suited to make use of the black mana produced by spells like Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual. Drawing 2 cards for 2 mana is very efficient, and the casting cost of 1 black mana and 1 generic mana makes Night's Whisper extremely flexible and easy to cast. The life lose we take when using it is usually irrelevant since we don't run big life total sinks like Ad Nauseam so I suggest running this as a 4 of.
Sign in Blood : A more budget minded alternative to Night's Whisper. It's a little less flexible in terms of casting cost, but the requirement of double black mana is rarely an issue since 2 of our 3 mana producing rituals generate black mana. Sign in Blood also has the upside of being able to target our opponent, so it is possible to burn our opponent out with it if we get them down to 2 life from a slightly less than lethal Tendrils. Overall I think the more flexible casting cost of Night's Whisper makes it preferable to Sign in Blood, but if you're trying to keep your deck as budget friendly as possible than Sign in Blood is still a fine alternative.
Ideas Unbound : Our most efficient draw spell! Paying 2 blue mana to draw 3 cards makes this just a slightly over-costed Ancestral Recall. The downside of having to discard at the end of the turn is almost always irrelevant since we plan to win the same turn we cast it or be in a good position to win next turn if we cast Empty the Warrens instead of Tendrils. Ideas Unbound should be considered a mandatory 4 of, but since it's double blue casting cost usually requires some color fixing to achieve I think it's fine to take out 1 of them for game 2 if you decide to board out any color fixers like Chromatic Sphere.
Business Spells
Burning Wish : The single most powerful tool in the deck. For 2 mana in a color we produce a good amount of we can tutor our win conditions, answers to hate cards that would otherwise lose us the game, and ways out of tricky situations that could result in us fizzling without such as Past in Flames and Diminishing Returns. The power this card brings to the deck is unrivaled by any of our other spells. If you can afford them there is no reason not to play 4.
Tendrils of Agony : Our primary win condition. Play 3 in the main deck and 1 in the sideboard if you're running Burning Wish and 4 in the main if you don't have Burning Wish.
Empty the Warrens : This card will be main decked as a 3 or 4 of only in lists that do not run Burning Wish. It serves as an alternate win condition in case you don't draw a Tendrils or don't reach a high enough storm count to cast a lethal Tendrils. In lists that do run Burning Wish, Empty the Warrens is still kept as a 1 of in the sideboard since it is a solid alternate win condition to Tendrils.
Lands
Sulfur Vent : One of the deck's 3 varieties of it's namesake lands. While it's a bit slow due to coming into play tapped it is still very useful. In game 1 you can sacrifice it to produce 2 of our 3 most used colors, red and blue, for spells like Rite of Flame and Ideas Unbound. In game 2 you can tap it to Thoughtseize or Duress your opponent to see if the coast is clear before going off next turn. As with all the sac lands run in this deck, their ability to produce 2 mana each and contribute to threshold for Cabal Ritual is what gives us the fuel we need to combo off. It's a 4 of for sure.
Geothermal Crevice : Another sac land! This one can tap for red mana or be sacrificed for black and green. Tapping for red can be useful in game 2 to tutor for an answer to a specific hate card with Burning Wish before going off the next turn. The black mana it produces when sacrificed can be used for a variety of things from rituals to Night's Whisper and the green can be used for Manamorphose or just filtered into a different color with a Chromatic Star or Sphere. This is a 4 of as well.
Ancient Spring : My personal favorite of the sac lands, this one can tap for blue mana or be sacrificed for black and white mana. Tapping for blue is useful during the first few turns of the game when you might want to cast Ponder to find another land, Star, or Sphere to play before you go off. When sacrificed the black mana can be used for rituals and Night's Whisper, and the white mana can either be filtered into a more useful color or used to cast Silence before you start storming off in game 2. Again, this should be a 4 of.
Gemstone Mine : Our only non-sac land! Lengthy testing determined that in a metagame filled with Wasteland, running only 12 land was not enough for us. Although Gemstone Mine only produces 1 mana and does not contribute to threshold it does have the benefit of coming into play untapped, so if we draw it during the turn we're comboing off we can use it right away to generate more mana in any color. Also, it can be useful for tutoring answers to hate cards with Burning Wish on the turn before we combo off and still retains counters on it to use for any color of mana on the next turn when we go off. I think 2 is the optimal number, but 1 may be fine if there are not many people playing Wasteland in your meta.
The Sideboard
Tendrils of Agony : If you play Burning Wish, keeping 1 of these in the sideboard is mandatory.
Empty the Warrens : An alternate win condition to be tutored with Burning Wish. 1 is all you need.
Grapeshot : Sometimes you don't get quite high enough storm count to kill the opponent with Tendrils the turn you combo off, and when that happens it's nice to have a Grapeshot in the sideboard to tutor up with Burning Wish and finish them off a turn or two later. It can also be used to kill problematic creatures like Gaddock Teeg before you cast Tendrils or for personal amusement purposes in those times when you reach a storm count of 19 or higher and want to finish off your opponent in style. 1 is all you need in the board.
Past in Flames : A somewhat complex card to use properly, but it does give us the ability to reach a high enough storm count for a lethal Tendrils in situations where we might not be able to without it. More information on this is available in the "Utilizing the Wishboard" section. If you run Burning Wish you need 1 of these in the board.
Diminishing Returns : Our tutorable "hail mary" play for when all else fails and we absolutely have to win this turn. If you run Burning Wish I highly advise keeping 1 of these in the board. More information on this is available in the "Utilizing the Wishboard" section.
Shattering Spree : The most mana efficient answer to any artifact based hate we may encounter. If you're running Burning Wish than you need 1 of these in the board. If you are not playing Burning Wish to tutor it than keeping 2 to 3 in the board is advisable.
Chain Lightning / Firebolt : These are our best tutorable options for dealing with creature based hate like Ethersworn Canonist and Gaddock Teeg. The 1 extra point of damage offered by Chain Lightning will give you a bit more flexibility to kill a wider variety of creatures, but almost every creature you would want to kill with this spell does have 2 toughness so this will rarely be relevant. They both also have the ability to shoot the opponent for the last few points of damage in need be and in that regard Chain Lightning has the edge, but Firebolt has it's own benefit in that it can be flashed back (albeit at a steep cost that we won't often be able to pay) to hit the opponent or another creature later on. Overall I prefer Chain Lightning. Run 1 copy of one or the other in the board if you are playing Burning Wish.
Eye of Nowhere : Our tutorable all-purpose bounce spell for any permanent based hate. No matter what the problem might be, you can tutor up Eye of Nowhere to bounce it when you're ready to go off. If you're running Burning Wish than keeping 1 of these in the board to tutor as needed is advisable.
Thoughtseize / Duress : Both are very good protection spells to be boarded in for game 2 if you think they might be needed. Thoughtseize has the advantage of being able to take problematic creatures but is quite a bit more expensive than Duress, so play whichever you can afford. If you're playing Burning Wish you'll probably only have room for 2 or 3 of these in your sideboard, but if you're playing a list without Burning Wish I'd recommend packing 3 or 4.
Echoing Truth : Our all-purpose bounce spell to be boarded in for any permanent based problem. The advantage of of Echoing Truth over other bounce spells is that it can take out multiple copies of the same permanent, which will be relevant more often than you'd imagine (I.E. the opponent starts game 2 with two Leyline of Sanctity in play). If you're playing Burning Wish you'll probably only have room for 2 in the board, but for decks without Burning Wish I'd recommend boarding 3 to 4 depending on your metagame.
Silence : The single best protection against counterspells we have. Resolving a Silence first thing when you start comboing off protects you from any counterspell your opponent might be holding and gives you free reign to do whatever you please for the rest of the turn. It's also immune to cards like Mindbreak Trap if played as the first order of business and will shut off other more situational counterspells that might hurt you later like Spell Snare and Stifle as well. If you're playing Burning Wish you might only have room for 3 in your board, but in general I'd say board as many as you can find space for which means 4 in any list without Burning Wish.
Pyroblast : You won't likely find room for this card in your sideboard if you're running Burning Wish, but for lists without Burning Wish this is an extremely powerful tool to have at your disposal. For 1 red mana you can not only counter counterspells but also take out all sorts of problematic permanents ranging from Counterbalance and Jace, the Mind Sculptor to a Merfolk threatening to reduce your life total lower than you'd like. Also, if you just need to up your storm count and you're sure your opponent is out of counterspells and has no blue permanents in play you can target a non-blue permanent with Pyroblast, it will just do nothing other than up your storm count when it resolves.
Cards that Didn't Make The Cut
Ad Nauseam : Simply said, our mana curve is too high to run this draw engine without killing ourselves before drawing enough cards to consistently win the game for us. Most of our spells are in the 1-2 CMC range where as decks that effectively employ Ad Nauseam have the majority of their spells in the 0-1 CMC range. Also worth taking into account is that we are not running Infernal Tutor & Lion's Eye Diamond, so we do not have any way of consistently tutoring up Ad Nauseam even if our mana curve was low enough to support it.
Preordain : While Preordain is a solid card for decks like ours, it was tested and not included in the deck because I believe that Ponder and the current suite of draw spells function better. The reason for this is that Preordain can only dig 3 cards deep, 2 of which you will see and 1 that you won't, whereas Ponder can dig 4 cards deep (3 that you see and 1 that you won't). Both cards work fine for setting up in the turns before you go off, but once you're comboing off you will often find yourself digging for one specific card (such as Burning Wish or Tendrils of Agony). When that happens you want the maximum possible chances to find that card you're looking for, and Ponder gives you 1 more chance than Preordain to find it. That is why Preordain did not make the list.
Infernal Contract / Cruel Bargain / Meditate : These 3 draw spells were all tested and ultimately found unsuitable for the deck due to the amount of mana required to cast them. While Sac Land Tendrils does tend to generate a very large quantity of mana, much of it's resilience to counterspells comes from the fact that the mana curve of the vast majority of it's spells are so low, which leaves you spare mana to cast other spells if one or two rituals get countered. By adding in 3 CMC draw spells the deck loses a very large amount of it's resiliency to counter magic. Also, the triple black cost on Infernal Contract and Cruel Bargain make mana fixing much more tedious and the "skip your next turn" clause on Meditate does not work well in a deck that runs Empty the Warrens.
Pact of Negation : This card was suggested many times as a viable protection spell, but it did not make the list simply because we run Empty the Warrens as a win condition. If our only win condition was Tendrils than it might be more viable, but there are still times when you might end up casting a Tendrils for 18 or some similarly less than lethal amount of life loss and need another couple turns to regroup and go off again to Grapeshot your opponent. Because of the fact that we don't always end the game the turn we go off I have chosen to not include Pact of Negation in the list.
Simian Spirit Guide / Desperate Ritual / Seething Song : These red mana producers were all left out for various reasons. In the case of Simian Spirit Guide it was because he did not contribute to storm count or threshold. Desperate Ritual and Seething Song were left out because they are less efficient in terms of the amount of mana they can generate for the mana put into them when compared to our current suite of rituals. Also, the deck does not require a very large amount of red mana to run effectively (black is much more important) so Rite of Flame serves our purposes quite nicely.
Ill-Gotten Gains : Before the printing of Past in Flames this card was considered a "must have" 1-of in the sideboard as a Burning Wish target. Tutoring up Ill-Gotten Gains with Burning Wish gave us the ability to under certain circumstances reach a high enough storm count to cast a lethal Tendrils of Agony when we might not have been able to without it. The downsides to Ill-Gotten Gains are vast though. First we have to discard our hand, which means possibly discarding something that could be useful later on, and then we get only 3 cards back from our graveyard to cast again. Even more unfortunate is that the opponent also gets 3 cards back from their graveyard, which makes this card almost unplayable against any deck with counterspells unless we have resolved a Silence beforehand.
While it is still a playable storm count enabler, for our purposes Ill-Gotten Gains is a much weaker and riskier option than Past in Flames. Should Past in Flames ever become banned in Legacy I'm sure we'll go back to playing with Ill-Gotten Gains again, but at the moment there is a better option for the slot this card took up in our sideboard.
Oust / Deathmark : Oust has been tested as a sideboard answer to problematic hate creatures, but since our opponent's life total is relevant to the amount of storm we need to generate to win I think Chain Lightning and Firebolt are both better options. Deathmark is a reasonably good solution for dealing with hate creatures and may be easier to cast than Chain Lightning or Firebolt (since our deck produces more mana in black than any other color) but suffers from the problem of not being able to kill Magus of the Moon and any other non-white or green creature. Both Oust an Deathmark also lack the ability of Chain Lightning and Firebolt to hit the opponent for the last few points of damage after a less than lethal Tendrils if need be. While Oust and Deathmark may be workable situational answers to problems, they are simply not as versatile as the other tutorable options recommended.
Meltdown : Another suggested sideboard card. It works very well if you're trying to hate out Affinity, but is not as efficient as Shattering Spree against most artifact based hate such as Ethersworn Canonist, Null Rod, Thorn of Amethyst, Trinisphere, etc. The better mana efficiency of Shattering Spree is why Meltdown did not make the cut.
Abeyance : You'd think that a Silence effect that cantrips would be very good in this deck, or at least that's what I thought until I spent some time testing it. The problem is that the 2 CMC cost would often result in a mana shortage when you needed to play a critical spell. This happened often enough that I decided to leave it off the list and recommend Silence instead. The moral of the story here is that, just like with Meltdown versus Shattering Spree, we want our protection to be as efficient as possible to leave us more mana to storm off with.
U Piloting The Deck R
If you've never played a storm combo deck before it might seem a bit confusing at first, but let me assure you that this is one of the most simple and straightforward storm combo decks there is. It's easy to play because it at it's core there's only 3 things it does.
1. Generate lots of mana.
2. Filter the mana into the colors you need to cast spells.
3. Draw cards.
By doing these 3 things repeatedly you will quickly find yourself having cast 9 spells in a single turn, at which point you will want to either cast a Tendrils of Agony you drew somewhere along the way targeting your opponent or use Burning Wish to tutor up Tendrils from your sideboard and then cast it. And that's all there really is to it! Make lots of mana, filter mana, draw lots of cards, and cast Tendrils once you've reached a high enough storm count to cause lethal life loss with it.
This philosophy makes the deck design extremely redundant, which in turn makes it much more resistant to counterspells than the vast majority of storm combo decks. The composition of the deck is almost entirely rituals and cantrips / draw spells, so any time one of your spells gets countered there's a very good chance that you'll have another 1 or 2 in your hand that do almost exactly the same thing.
Combine this level of redundancy with a legacy competitive speed of play and you have the recipe for a very effective deck. With an average draw you will be able to storm out and kill your opponent on turn 3 or 4, and in most cases you can afford to have 2 or 3 of your spells countered and still keep on going.
The things you do in the first few turns before you start comboing off are very important though. 98% of the time the only non-land cards you'll want to play during the turns before you combo off are Chromatic Star, Chromatic Sphere, and Ponder (tapping either Ancient Spring or Gemstone Mine for the blue mana). Anything other than those should be saved for the turn you combo off.
The ideal course of play is generally...
Turn 1 : Play a sac land and pass the turn.
Turn 2 : Play another sac land and a Chromatic Star/Sphere.
Turn 3 : If you've got another land, Star/Sphere, or Ponder in hand (and an Ancient Spring or Gemstone Mine to Ponder with) and do not feel that you are likely to be killed next turn than play them. If not, skip to Turn 4's instructions.
Turn 4 : Sacrifice all sac lands lands for 2 mana each and then use the Stars/Spheres on the board to filter the mana into whatever colors you need to cast your spells and draw a few cards. Then play a bunch of rituals, mana color filtering spells & artifacts, draw a lot of cards, and Tendrils em'!
In general you will want to have at least 1 ritual (such as Dark Ritual or Rite of Flame) and 1 draw spell (such as Ideas Unbound or Night's Whisper) in your hand when you decide to sacrifice your lands and combo off, although having 2 or more of each in hand is preferable.
That's the basic rundown of how to play the deck, and with a little practice it's quite easy to get the hang of.
B Sideboarding G
If you're running one of the recommended lists employing Burning Wish than the design of your sideboard will be very different from any other non-storm combo deck you may have played. For the 2 lists above with Burning Wish there are only 7 cards in the sideboard that you'll ever want to sideboard in for game 2. Those cards are : Silence, Thoughtseize/Duress, and Echoing Truth. The rest of the cards in the sideboard are all meant to be left there so you can tutor them up with Burning Wish if you find that you need one of them.
What cards you bring in for game 2 will depend largely on what you think your opponent might be boarding in. If they had any counterspells in game 1, or you think they might be boarding in something like Mindbreak Trap or Pyroblast for game 2, you'll want to sideboard in 3 Silence and 2 Thoughtseize/Duress. If on the other hand you think they might be boarding in artifact, enchantment, or creature based hate (such as Thorn of Amethyst, Leyline of Sanctity, or Gaddock Teeg) you'll want to board in 2 Echoing Truth and 2 Thoughtseize/Duress instead.
Figuring out exactly what kind of hate your opponent will board in for game 2 will require some practice and experience though. If you're unsure of what kind of hate your opponent is boarding in than the safest bet is to bring in 3 Silence and 2 Echoing Truth, which will give you answers for most common spell and permanent based problems your opponent might throw at you.
Figuring out what to take out for the cards you're sideboarding in can be a challenge when playing any deck, but even more so when playing a finely tuned storm combo deck. What you chose to take out for your protection spells is entirely up to you, but the focus here should be to not dilute the 3 primary functions of the deck (make mana, filter mana, and draw cards).
After extensive testing I've come to believe that the most flexible cards to take out when bringing in protection are : 2-3 Chromatic Star, 1 Ponder, and 1 Ideas Unbound. Again though, what you chose to take out is entirely up to you but the primary focus should be to not dilute the 3 main functions of the deck.
If you are playing the least expensive version of the deck you will have many more options for sideboard cards to bring in, since you are not dedicating a portion of the board to Burning Wish tutor targets. In this case you will have access to Pyroblast to handle all things Blue and Shattering Spree to deal with artifact based hate as needed. Do keep in mind though that the same rule of not diluting the deck's overall function applies here as well, so try to avoid bringing in more than 5 or 6 cards at most for any given matchup to keep your deck running properly in game 2.
W Utilizing The Wishboard B
Here I'll go over the cards that will always be left in the sideboard to be tutored up with Burning Wish if needed, what their uses are, and when you'll want to tutor them up.
Tendrils of Agony
--------------------
This one is pretty straightforward. If you've cast 8 or more spells this turn, have at least 6 mana floating in your mana pool (with at least 1 of them being red and 2 being black) and have a Burning Wish in hand than tutor this one up and win the game!
Empty the Warrens
----------------------
Every now and then you may find yourself in a situation where you have a Burning Wish in hand, 6 mana floating (of which at least 2 is red), but have run out of rituals and draw spells and either don't have a high enough storm count to cast a lethal Tendrils or don't have the double black mana needed to do it. In situations like this tutoring up Empty the Warrens can serve as an alternate win condition. You'll just have to wait until next turn to attack with the goblin tokens and hope that the opponent doesn't have some kind of board sweeper to cast during their turn.
Grapeshot
------------
There's a couple uses for this card, and while you probably won't be tutoring it up very often, it can win you games that you would not win without it. It's main use is for situations in which due to either a lack of mana or draw spells you had to cast Tendrils for slightly less than lethal life loss. For instance, say you stormed off and cast Tendrils for 18 and left your opponent at 2 life. You had no mana left afterwords but you did have Burning Wish in your hand, a tapped Gemstone Mine on the field, and a tapped sac land that you played this turn. Next turn, if you top deck a ritual of some kind, you can crack the sac land for 2 mana, tap the Gemstone Mine for 1, cast the ritual and Burning Wish, and tutor up a Grapeshot to cast for 3 damage and finish off the opponent. Using Grapeshot to finish off the opponent after you've stormed off and have limited resources left to work with is it's primary function.
Another handy use for Grapeshot is that it can be tutored up to kill problematic creatures like Magus of the Moon and Gaddock Teeg. The final use for Grapeshot is just for your personal amusement. This deck is capable of reaching a storm count of 20 or more at times and in those situations it can be quite a bit of fun to tutor up Grapeshot and kill your opponent in style instead of going with the usual Tendrils plan.
Past in Flames
----------------
This is an immensely powerful card with a myriad of uses. Since our deck is composed almost entirely of instants and sorceries, the ability of re-cast every instant and sorcery in our graveyard can frequently raise our storm count high enough to cast a lethal Tendrils when we otherwise might not be able to. There are so many situations under which Past in Flames can be used to reach a high enough storm count for a lethal Tendrils that it would be nearly impossible to list them all, but there are a two basic things you want to be sure of before you tutor up this card.
1. You are out of rituals, draw spells, and any other means to get to a lethal Tendrils.
2. You have enough mana floating (of which at least 2 is red) to cast Burning Wish then Past in Flames and still have enough black and/or red mana left floating to flashback enough rituals and/or draw spells in your graveyard to achieve a high enough storm count and enough mana floating for a lethal Tendrils.
To give you a better idea of how this card can be used, here's a few simple examples of applications for Past in Flames...
You are at a storm count of 4 and have 7 mana floating (5 black & 2 red)
You have Burning Wish and Tendrils of Agony in your hand and there are two copies of Dark Ritual and a Cabal Ritual your graveyard
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Cast Burning Wish for Past in Flames > Cast Past in Flames > Flashback Dark Ritual > Flashback Dark Ritual > Flashback Cabal Ritual > Cast Tendrils of Agony for 20
Another example is...
You are at a storm count of 3 and have 8 mana floating (4 red & 4 black)
You have two copies of Burning Wish in your hand and there are two copies of Rite of Flame and a Dark Ritual in your graveyard
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Cast Burning Wish for Past in Flames > Cast Past in Flames > Flashback Rite of Flame > Flashback Rite of Flame > Flashback Dark Ritual > Burning Wish for Tendrils of Agony > Cast Tendrils of Agony for 20
These are just a couple possible uses for Past in Flames and there are quite literally hundreds of different situations under which it can be used to get you to a lethal Tendrils. Remember that rituals aren't the only things you can flashback, you can flashback draw spells like Ideas Unbound and Night's Whisper too. Flashing back Manamorphose can help you fix the colors of mana you have floating to insure you have the right colors of mana needed to flashback the rest of your graveyard. You may also encounter times when you want to use Past in Flames atypically, such as tutoring it up a few turns after a failed attempt to combo off to try again by recasting every instant and sorcery in your graveyard.
Lastly, there are times when you may just want to use Past in Flames for your own personal amusement. There are many situations under which Past in Flames can be used to raise your storm count high enough to kill your opponent with Grapeshot rather than Tendrils of Agony. With a decent draw you'll often find yourself at storm count of 10 or greater with quite a bit extra mana floating and multiple copies of Burning Wish in hand. At that point you can Wish for Past in Flames, use it to flashback every ritual and draw spell in your graveyard, cast all the rituals and draw spells you drew off the draw spells that you flashed back, then flashback Past in Flames, and finally flashback every spell in your graveyard that was drawn and cast off the first round of flashed back spells. By doing this it's possible to reach absurdly high storm counts (68 is the highest I've ever gotten to) and Burning Wish for Grapeshot to use as your kill spell. Good times.
Diminishing Returns
-----------------------
Consider this card to be our last resort play when we absolutely have to kill our opponent this turn and have no other way to get to a lethal Tendrils. To use an American football analogy, it is our "Hail Mary" play for when we know our opponent will kill us next turn and we have no other way to cast Tendrils for lethal this turn.
When all else fails and you know you will die next turn if you don't win right now, tutoring up Diminishing Returns and casting it can give you a chance to still win. Worth noting is that your chances of winning after resolving a Diminishing Returns increase greatly for each point of mana you have left floating in your mana pool after casting it. If you have 2 black mana, 1 red mana, and 1 blue mana left floating after casting Diminishing Retuns you'll have a much better chance of finding your way to a lethal Tendrils than you would have if you only had 1 or 2 mana of any given color left floating after casting it.
Again though, this is a last resort play so don't play it unless you absolutely have to win this turn and have no other way of getting to a lethal Tendrils. It's a risky play, but it can win you games in situations where nothing else can.
Shattering Spree
-------------------
Being able to tutor up this card gives us an out to any artifact based hate that would otherwise prevent us from comboing off. It takes care of Null Rod, Thorn of Amethyst, Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere, Ethersworn Canonist, and pretty much any other artifact based hate you can think of. This is one of the few cards in the wishboard that I think it's often acceptable to tutor for on the turn before you start comboing off. If the opponent has any kind of artifact based hate in play your best bet is usually to tutor up shattering spree and then wait until the next turn to use it to get rid of the problematic artifact before you start your combo chain. Fortunately you can tutor this up the turn before you combo off without having to sacrifice any lands as long as you have 2 lands in play and one of them is a Geothermal Crevice or Gemstone Mine so you can generate the red mana needed to cast Burning Wish.
Chain Lightning / Firebolt
-----------------------------
Depending on your budget you'll be playing one or the other of these in your wishboard, and both are generally used for the same purpose. The main function of these cards are to kill little hate creatures such as Gaddock Teeg, Ethersworn Canonist, and Magus of the Moon. The advantage of Chain Lightning over Firebolt is the 1 extra damage it provides, which is rarely needed when killing creatures like the ones mentioned above. Also, just like Grapeshot you can tutor up either of these spells to hit your opponent for the last few points of damage needed to kill them if you end up having to cast Tendrils for just short of lethal. In that regard Chain Lightning is the superior choice, since there will be times (rare as they may be) that the 1 extra point of damage will be relevant.
Regardless of which you end up using, just like Shattering Spree this is another card that it's okay to tutor up the turn before you combo off so next turn you can take care of the problem creature before you start your combo chain.
Eye of Nowhere
------------------
The last tool in our wishboard is this one. It's useful for removing problematic enchantments such as Leyline of Sanctity, Counterbalance, and Leyline of the Void (which would prevent us from getting threshold for Cabal Ritual or using Past in Flames). It's a very versatile tool in that it can also be used to bounce problem creatures, artifacts, and anything else that might otherwise prevent you from winning. Again, like Shattering Spree and Chain Lightning / Firebolt, this is another card that I think it's totally fine to tutor for the turn before you decide to combo off.
U Additional Tips & Tricks R
In this last section I'd like to offer some tips and tricks to help play Sac Land Tendrils more effectively.
Tip #1 : Find a good way to keep track of the mana you have floating & your storm count
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Everyone will have their own opinions on what is the best way to do this. Some like using a pen and paper, some prefer to chant the amounts and colors of mana they have floating and their storm count in their head while they play, and others prefer dice or some other system.
Personally I've found that the easiest way to keep track of the mana you have floating is with dice like the ones below.
I use 1 eight sided dice colored to match each color of mana to keep track of my mana floating, a twenty sided spindown dice to keep track of my storm count, a six sided dice to use as counters for Gemstone Mine, and an additional black ten sided dice to use in situations where I end up generating more than 8 black mana (which actually happens quite regularly). Using these dice to keep track of my mana and storm count has proven the most effective method for me and I'd definitely recommend it to others, but you should go with the method that works best for you.
Tip #2 : Bait out counterspells
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As a general rule of thumb, always cast your least important spells first. If there's anything in your hand that you think you could stand to have countered and still keep going try to lure out a counterspell by casting that first. You can also bait out counterspells by making the opponent think your mana has bottle-necked when it really hasn't. For instance, if you have 1 black mana and 3 red mana floating and two Dark Rituals and a Manamorphose in your hand try using your 1 black mana to cast a Dark Ritual first and see what happens. Your opponent may think they have a chance to deny you black mana and counter your Dark Ritual. If that happens you can then use Manamorphose to turn some of your red mana into black, cast your other Dark Ritual, and keep going.
I highly suggest spending as much time as you can testing your deck against opponents with counterspells so you can get the hang of baiting them out. With a bit of practice you can learn quite easily how to bait out counterspells, and learning to do this effectively can often make the difference between winning or losing a match in a tournament setting.
Tip #3 : Remember that your opponent's spells add to your storm count
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One thing that new storm combo players often forget is that any spells their opponent casts during their turn adds to their storm count. For instance, say you were at storm 4 and played a Dark Ritual. If your opponent counters your Dark Ritual that would put you up to storm 6, since 2 spells were just played. Realizing this and remembering to add the opponent's spells to your storm count will greatly increase your likelihood of winning against decks packing counter magic.
Tip #4 : Don't forget that you can cast Tendrils twice in a turn
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Since we run 3 copies of Tendrils of Agony main deck in builds with Burning Wish and 4 copies in builds without, there are times when you will find yourself drawing multiple copies of Tendrils. When this happens do keep in mind that once you reach a storm count of 4 you can cast both copies of Tendrils and win if your opponent is at 22 life or less. The first copy will cause them to lose 10 life and add 1 to your storm count (bringing you up to storm 5) and the second one will cause them to lose 12 life and win you the game.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Looks like a fun deck to play, and creative too. Thanks a lot for sharing.
I have most of the cards already - would try making the deck but I would probably add 4 Gitaxian Probe somewhere.
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EDIT: I see $1-2. You should play it, even over ponder/preordain, but I think over ideas unbound would be a better choice. While it doesn't help you dig for force in this deck, it can hide cards in response to discard effects.
And Brainstorm is pretty bad without any shuffle effects, especially for a deck that relies on raw card draw to continue the Storm chain.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
While Ponder and Brainstorm are good set-up cards, the deck really doesn't need those as the critical mass of draw and mana ideally would give you all you need. During the combo chain, the deck needs raw card draw, not just card dig/selection.
Peer Through Depths looks like an exception because it only gets you one card. However, the great thing about it is that once you get your one card, it sends the chaff to the bottom of your library. I hate Brainstorm here because if you do send chaff back to the top of your library, you'll just draw right back into them with your other draw spells.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
I'm looking at Impulse over Peer Through Depths so I can get Petals and Star/Sphere, but I'm leaning towards the extra dig of PtD. Lim-Dul's Vault doesn't draw you a card during the combo chain and so it's horribad.
Have never used a storm deck before so I'm kind of excited in making this, even if it's only for casual play.
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I already explained that Brainstorm is BAD here. If your really want to try a one-mana cantrip, use Ponder - though I won't cut Ideas Unbound for it.
4 Lotus Petal
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
Draw
4 Chromatic Star
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Manamorphose
4 Sign in Blood
4 Preordain
4 Tendrils of Agony
Protection
4 Pact of Negation
Lands
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Geothermal Crevice
4 Ancient Spring
Sideboard
4 Silence
4 Duress
4 Seal of Primordium
2 Burnout
1 Pyroblast
Going to test against my playgroup's decks. Just for fun.
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Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Your criticism is welcome. While Preordain only replaces itself, it has proven to be good in moving lands to the bottom - I prefer using it over Ponder. Also, I currently don't have any Ideas Unbound, would have used it if I had some. I'm thinking of using Careful Study as a temporary substitute.
@weltkrieg
Good suggestion. Though I think with 8 Rituals that produce B, getting double black mana won't be much of a problem. The only disadvantage I'm seeing in using Night's Whisper is that there might be a rare situation where the opponent is left with 2 life, and Sign in Blood can be used to deal the last 2 points of damage.
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That said, here's my current list...
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
[23 Cantrips/Draw]
4 Chromatic Star
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Ponder
4 Manamorphose
4 Sign in Blood
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Burning Wish
3 Tendrils of Agony
[12 Lands]
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Geothermal Crevice
4 Ancient Spring
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Shattering Spree
1 Eye of Nowhere
3 Duress
3 Silence
2 Echoing Truth
I think the biggest thing I played around with over the past 3 weeks was the mana base, trying my hardest to make it faster and more consistent. The best results for an alternate and faster mana base came from removing the 12x sac-lands and swapping them for 4x Gemstone Mine, 4x City of Brass, and 4x Darkslick Shores. Unfortunately though, by switching to this mana base the deck's consistency went way down and it ended up whiffing quite regularly due to mana shortage. Also, the usefulness of Cabal Ritual went way down and the deck's ability to play through counterspells went way down as well, again due to lack of mana at critical times.
So after 3 weeks of testing I'm still fairly sure that the 12 sac-lands, while a little on the slow side, are the best mana base for this style of storm deck. You won't be able to go off until turn 3 or 4 on average, but when you do go off you should be able to afford to have at least 2 or 3 of your rituals countered and still keep going. Wasteland and Hymn To Tourach are a much bigger problem than counterspells, but after playtesting against a proper CounterTop deck for 3 weeks I can safely say that even pre-board you should have no problems playing through multiple counterspells with my current list. If there are a lot of Wastelands in your meta though I would suggest running 14 lands rather than 12. I found that removing the 2x Chrome Mox in my list and adding 2x Gemstone Mine or 2x Tinder Farm seemed to work well for a build like this.
That's all for now! I'll post updates as I play the deck in tournaments more, and as always any thoughts on the matter are much appreciated
So far I've become aware of some things.. it's almost impossible to win through a Null Rod backed up with plenty of countermagic, Pyrostatic Pillar is painful, and Iona Shield of Emeria naming black is a very bad situation. Decks that I own for competitive play are mostly aggro (please look at sig), so playing something like Budget Tendrils is a new experience. It's still fun eventhough it's getting a bit harder to win now.
Deck has changed very little, but the sideboard has changed a lot in an effort to cope with the decks that I'm playing against.
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
Draw
4 Chromatic Star
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Ponder
4 Manamorphose
4 Sign in Blood
4 Preordain
4 Tendrils of Agony
Protection
4 Pact of Negation
Lands
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Geothermal Crevice
4 Ancient Spring
Sideboard
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Goblin War Strike
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Ray of Revelation
3 Echoing Truth
2 Burnout
1 Pyroblast
Used to have a Lotus Bloom, but I gave it to someone as Christmas present. Isn't it a bit slow for this deck?
Use of Mental Misstep is widespread in my meta, so Duress isn't really good right now. The prevalence of Mental Misstep is also the reason why I have 2 Burnout and 1 Pyroblast on the sideboard instead of 3 Pyroblast. I win on the turn I cast Tendrils, so paying for the pact is not a problem. On game 2, if I would put in the ETW, I would remove all 4 pact and replace them with something else from the sideboard as well.
Not sure about adding more land, because one of the last things I want to draw when I start to combo is land.
I agree about the bounce, they are definitely needed. Added 3 Echoing Truth to the sideboard.
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On that note, I was able to play my Tendrils deck in a 30 some odd person Legacy tournament last night and I was pretty pleased with how things went. I don't remember every play of each match, but I will do a very basic tournament report. That said, here's the list I played and how the tournament went...
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
[23 Cantrips/Draw]
4 Chromatic Star
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Ponder
4 Manamorphose
4 Sign in Blood
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Burning Wish
3 Tendrils of Agony
[12 Lands]
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Geothermal Crevice
4 Ancient Spring
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Shattering Spree
1 Eye of Nowhere
3 Duress
3 Silence
2 Echoing Truth
Round 1 : U/B/W Control
================
I wasn't sure exactly what to call this deck, but it was running 3 colors with fetchlands, Underground Seas, and Tundras. In game 1 he Thoughtseized me on turn 1 and took a Dark Ritual, but I still managed to go off on turn 3 (after playing a land on turn 1 and a land and a Star on turn 2) by Wishing for Tendrils for lethal. He did mental misstep twice along the way, but I was able to keep going due the large amount of mana production and card draw the deck produces.
For Game 2 I boarded in 3x Silence and 2x Duress, and boarded out 3x Chromatic Sphere and 2x Chrome Mox. In this game I got Thoughteized on turn 1, hit with Hymn to Tourach on turn 2, then Thoughtseized again and Hymned again on turn 3. He then proceeded to beat me down with a Dark Confidant and Vendellion Clique for the win.
Game 3 was much like game 1. I got Thoughtseized once, again having a Dark Ritual taken, and went off on turn 3 after having my Silence and 1 Rite of Flame mental missteped. When I finally got the point of casting Burning Wish (with 4 black mana left floating) he Dazed the Wish, but I was able to pay for the Daze, leaving me 3 black floating, got Tendrils, then cast the 1 Cabal Ritual I was still holding to get the mana for Tendrils.
Result : Win 2-1.
Current Record : 1-0
Round 2 : Enchantress
==============
Game 1 went quite well. I went off on turn 3 and cast Tendrils for lethal. Nothing much to say there.
For game 2 and 3 I boarded in 3 Duress and 2 Echoing Truth, again boarding out 3x Chromatic Sphere and 2x Chrome Mox (I think these are the most flexible spots in the deck). Games 2 and 3 went relatively the same. He opened with a Leyline of Sanctity on the field, quickly dropped an enchantment that gave the Leyline and all his other enchantments shroud, and then proceeded to play Moat and Elephant Grass before killing me with Words of War around turn 5 or 6. Very fast and very brutal, I just had no chance against this prison deck once he brought in the Leylines.
Result : Loss, 1-2
Current Record : 1-1
Round 3 : Burn
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In game 1 Burn does what Burn does and he gets me down to 12 life by turn 3. I go off on turn 3 and Wish for Tendrils. GG.
For game 2 I noticed my opponent didn't board anything so I didn't board at all either, and it went almost exactly like game 1. I once again go off on turn 3 (he had me down to 8 life this time though, with a Rift Bolt suspended) and there is nothing he can do about it.
Result : Win 2-0
Current Record : 2-1
Round 4 : R/G/B Goblins with Mental Misstep
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Game 1 was pretty interesting. I start off by playing a land on turn 1, then tapping the land for a Chromatic Star on turn 2. He plays a mountain and a Vial on turn 1 then fetches for a Taiga and drops a Tin Street Hooligan on turn 2, destroying my Star but I still get to draw a card off it. On turn 3 I again (as I have in almost every game this night) go off, on only 1 land this time, and start doing my thing. I thought everything was perfectly safe until I used my 1 black mana floating to cast Dark Ritual, which was responded to with a Mental Misstep! Fortunately I was able to use Manamorphose to make some more black and Dark Rit again to keep going, but the Misstep did catch me by surprise. He actually had another one later on which he used on a Chromatic Star, but I was still able to draw into Tendrils for the win.
In game 2 I remember doing my usual board plan of 3x Silence and 2x Duress and keeping an opening hand with 2 lands, 3 Cabal Rituals, a Rite of Flame, and Tendrils. I play my lands (which both get hit by Wasteland immediately) and then draw a couple more rituals but no land. He kills me on turn 4 with a horde of hastey Piledrivers off Goblin Warchief and a Matron.
In game 3 I couldn't seem to get a land in my opening hand to save my life and mulled to 4 to keep a sketchy hand with 1 land. Fortunately my opponent mulled to 4 as well. I played my land, he played an Aether Vial. Next turn he Wasted my land and dropped a Lackey off the Vial. Over the course of the next 7 turns he beats me down with the Lackey and never drops a single Goblin off him while I draw no lands or Lotus Petals to start my combo with. Finally, he drops a Siege-Gang Commander off the Lackey and the next turn I top deck a land. I play my land and on his turn he vials on a Goblin Ringleader, revealing a couple goblins and Thorn of Amethyst (which mercifully goes to the bottom of his deck) and beats my face in. I am now at 3 life and have 1 turn left to live at this point. I crack my land, play manamorphose to make the colors I need and draw into a Lotus Petal. I play the petal, crack it for a white, and cast Silence. No response. I then cast a bunch of rituals, a few Stars, Ideas Unbound twice, and am able to luck-sack draw into a Burning Wish with just enough mana left floating to cast it and Tendrils. Good game
Apparently he was holding 1x Mental Misstep in his hand during the last game but saw no point in Missteping the Silence and contributing to my storm count with no way to stop me if I did go off.
Result : Win 2-1
Current Record : 3-1
Round 5 - Top 8 Match : U/W/R Stoneforge Deck
===============================
So here I am, in the Top 8! The winner of this match gets to go home with a nice chunk of cash in their pocket.
He wins the dice roll and plays a fetchland and passes the turn. I play a land and then he cracks the fetch to get a Tundra and Brainstorms at the end of my turn. Turn 2 he plays another Tundra drops a Stoneforge Mystic to find Batterskull. I play another land, try to play a Ponder, and he missteps it. The next turn he Stoneforges in the Batterskull and at this point I know it's do or die. I'm not terribly confident about my hand but I try to go off on turn 3 anyway. It goes fairly well until he casts Force of Will on my Ideas Unbound, but I recover after a couple Manamorphose and eventually Burning Wish for Tendrils with enough mana to cast it and a few leftover in case he has Daze. No response. I cast Tendrils and he cracks the one fetchland he has open for another Tundra. He responds by casting Stifle on the Storm ability on Tendrils. Damnit. I scoop.
For game 2 I board as usual and bring in 3x Silence and 2x Duress, leaving one Duress in the board incase I need to Wish for it. I play a land on turn 1, he Brainstorms on turn 1. I play another land on turn 2 and once again try to Ponder. He lets it resolve. He plays a fetchland on turn 3 and passes. I look at my hand, which I feel quite good about, and decide to go off. I lead off with Silence, he Mental Missteps it. I continue on and along the way get a Dark Ritual hit with Mental Misstep and an Ideas Unbound hit with Pyroblast. Jeebus! In spite of having 3 counters played against me so far I am able to produce a good amount of mana and casting Sign in Blood twice leads me to a Burning Wish. I have 2 Red mana and 5 Black floating and think that there's very little chance that he has another counterspell. I use my 2 red to cast Burning Wish (with nothing but land left in my hand) and he lets it resolve. Yes! I get Tendrils and cast it, to which he responds by cracking his fetchland (the one land he has left open) and casting Stifle on Tendrils... again.
At this point I just scoop, shake his hand, and say good game.
Result : Loss, 0-2
Final Record : 3-2
And there you have it! I went 3-1 in the initial rounds which was good enough to make Top 8, but lost my Top 8 money matchup to Stifle twice. Still though, I'm very happy with how my first go at playing this deck in a tournament went and I think it is certainly tournament worthy after this experience. It was a good learning experience and I was able to take away a couple things from it.
#1 : I need some kind of protection main deck. Three of my five matchups were against decks playing counterspells (even Goblins had counterspells!) so it seems that there is a definite need for main deck protection of some kind. The real question is what to take out for it. I'd really like to run 4x Silence and 4x Duress maindeck, but I've yet to find any combination of 8 cards I could take out for these without crippling the consistency of the deck. Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated!
#2 : Turn 3 is my critical turn. The overwhelming majority of the time I was able to go off on turn 3 if I played a land on turn 1 and turn 2. While this may not be fast enough for storm combo mirror matches, I didn't have any of those (I think I was the only Storm player there that night) and turn 3 is plenty fast enough against any other deck I might face. However, if I miss my turn 2 land drop or get 1 of my lands hit with Wasteland before turn 3 it can really set me back. Because of this I feel it might be wise to up the land count to 14 with a few Tinder Farm or possibly Gemstone Mine instead so that if I draw one mid combo I can play it and use it the turn I'm going off. At this point the main thing I'm considering removing for these additional lands are the 2x Chrome Mox, since this deck really likes to be able to play all non-land cards available and because of this I most often find myself playing the Chrome Mox without imprinting anything on them just to up my storm count by 1 (which has actually never been relevant in my experience thus far).
So there you have it! The tournament went well I think and I learned quite a bit. Now my big goal is to figure out where/how to fit in main deck protection from counterspells and 2 more lands if I can find space for them.
On the chrome mox debate, I absolutely think that this should be gemstone mine. You do need a 5 color mana producer that doesn't enter tapped on your combo turn. 2 should be plenty with all the card draw you have.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Congratulations on reaching top 8!
Once again, thanks for sharing your idea on this deck.
Had so little money left after completing a Zoo deck, I never thought that a small amount of cash would be enough to make a simple, yet still fun deck like the one we have here. And since we're at the Budget area of the forum, there's no pressure to spend on high-priced cards.
You can try it, but Pact doesn't really work well with our other win condition which is ETW. Using Pact means relying on Tendrils 100% to win the game. Comparing our lists, it seems that what is occupied by Pacts on mine, it is occupied by Burning Wish on yours. I think using a wishboard is actually a strong strategy, you can wish for answers - like wishing for a Shattering Spree to destroy a Phyrexian Revoker.
Just one question. I'm using Simian Spirit Guides instead of petals right now (meta decision). Does producing mana with the guide add to storm count? I think it doesn't, but I want to be sure.
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Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Thanks for the clarification.
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anyways, It occurs to me that this deck could benefit from some cheap graveyard recursion at times, especially if you've got a cantrip in hand. Has anyone considered noxious revival?
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!