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Giles
03-04-2009, 10:57 PM
A single blue has sometimes netted me 5 or more storm count (not to mention the fact that you can sac a tapped land to bounce a tapped mox to play the mox again untapped to net mana, too).

You are talking about me, right? Since I have never seen you play the deck at all since 2006.

GreenOne
03-05-2009, 07:35 AM
...What to do with counterbalance?...

This month 24 out of 144 (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=324856&postcount=26) decks that made Top8 played counterbalance, and not every deck has 4 (someone had them in the side too). This means that against an unknown opponent you meet at a tourney, you have the 16% probability that he's playing counterbalance in his deck, and roughly the 6% of the probability that your unknown opponent will play a counterbalance on turn 2.
I'm going to take the chance and try to win every other matchup preboard. After boarding Pyroblast and maybe more duresses come in to help.
This (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=310617&postcount=1028) other post sums my beliefs pretty well.
If you fear counterbalance that much you can try with pyroblasts, duresses, REBs and Shushers.


i usually don't get paired against NourishingLich..
You're a lucky guy. Nourishing Lich is obviously a DTB, and one of worst combo matchups. (see my sig for more testing results)


EDIT: against cb thresh, what usually should be cut out to make room for the sb pyroblasts? i usually cut 2 ponders , but i fell the necessity to run at least 3 pyros, if not 4.. but really can't understand what should be sided out without losing combo consistency.
Here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=314780&postcount=1106)are some general SB strategies I use.

BreathWeapon
03-05-2009, 11:29 PM
Running a bounce spell is perfectly acceptable. Opponents play cards that are bad for us after all.

And of those cards that are bad for us, which ones actually require you to tutor for Chain of Vapor and which ones prevent you from tutoring for Chain of Vapor altogether? Once Counterbalance and Chalice of the Void at 1 hit, Mystical Tutor -> Chain of Vapor is worthless, and against Gaddock Teeg I don't think it's really necessary given we have Burning Wish and the fact you're only running 2 Mystical Tutors any way.

We played Burning Wish based combo because we didn't want to waste MD space on removal, putting it back in, and putting it back in for just 2 Mystical Tutors for game one just seems like a step backwards. I don't think the mulligan to six is remotely worth running the card, especially over the consistency of Ponder #4.

GreenOne
03-06-2009, 08:11 AM
Althought it happens rarely, CoV helps when our opponent is playing nasty enchantments. We actually don't have SB solutions to enchantments, and something like solitary confinament or runed halo ruins our day.
I guess it can be safely substituted for some other kind of bounce or even one more duress, depending on your meta.

3duece
03-06-2009, 11:10 AM
So I was hoping to get some help with this deck, I'm not a combo player at all but I'm looking at broadening my horizons a bit. But I have some questions:
1. Is everyone preferring 4 burning wish to 4 mystical tutor?
2. How many ad nauseums, IGGs are standard?
3. Are people still running doomsday successfully?
4. Is meditate an option at all?
5. Finally, what about krosan grip somewhere between the 75?

I was thinking something like this:

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Top
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual
4 LED
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Duress
4 Orim's Chant
2 Ad Nauseum
4 Brainstorm
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Doomsday
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Krosan Grip
1 Forbidden Orchard
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine

Is this workable? Keep in mind this is my first crack at it.

Seriously
03-06-2009, 11:49 AM
Im not understanding the vexing shusher in the sb, is the shusher there just for the xantid swarm in the sb ?

Dark_Cynic87
03-06-2009, 12:36 PM
So I was hoping to get some help with this deck, I'm not a combo player at all but I'm looking at broadening my horizons a bit. But I have some questions:
1. Is everyone preferring 4 burning wish to 4 mystical tutor?
2. How many ad nauseums, IGGs are standard?
3. Are people still running doomsday successfully?
4. Is meditate an option at all?
5. Finally, what about krosan grip somewhere between the 75?

I was thinking something like this:

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Top
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual
4 LED
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Duress
4 Orim's Chant
2 Ad Nauseum
4 Brainstorm
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Doomsday
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Krosan Grip
1 Forbidden Orchard
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine

Is this workable? Keep in mind this is my first crack at it.

This list is definitely different. I don't think the D-Day plan will work for you as it's pretty clunky if you don't have enough mana and shuffle effects. Since you are going with the Rainbow land mana base, there's virtually no shuffle effects in your list other than tutors, and that's not acceptable for Top in a combo list, and only 10x lands isn't enough to power a top efficiently in the first place in my opinion. I'd drop Doomsday. If you like D-Day and want it to stay, change your manabase and go for a more ANT list. Also, when playing Doomsday, Meditate shouldn't be just an option, but considered more of a staple. If D-Day goes in my list, so does Meditate. It's essential. In TES, I believe that Grips belong in the Sideboard if you run them at all. Bounce belongs main. It takes care of more disruption than K. Grip will.

On the Tutor thing, it depends on what you are wanting. Since you aren't using any red accel, it seems that Mystical is the better choice. However, depending on what you are wanting, I'd add in red as it opens your sideboard up for more answers via burning wish game one. As a plus, I find that B. Wish makes Sideboarding infinitely easier, not to mention avoiding chalice @ 1 on a much more consistant basis.

I prefer Pyroblasts over Chants, and that helps influence playing red as well.

There's more, but I'll let bryant or someone else answer the more indepth parts of your questions as I'm in class right now and I'm getting funny looks from my professor.

Pce,

--DC

3duece
03-06-2009, 10:44 PM
Wow, thank you for the thorough reply. But it brings me to another question, hopefully not too ignorant of one. What are the benefits of playing T.E.S. over ANT over FT? I notice alot of folks in the FT thread don't even bother with Ad Nauseum. Is this possibly good? I think I'm looking into a fetchland manabase with red for rite of flame, burning wish and empty the warrens. With this shell what's the standard number of Ad Nauseums, IGG, Tendrils and Doomsday (for some reason I really want Doomsday, I'll fit a meditate in if I have to)?

Phoenix Ignition
03-06-2009, 11:10 PM
Being a control player I'd like to ask what the proper play is if I'm playing against you and only have a FoW + blue card in my hand for disruption. In the situation that you first play Orim's Chant, do I FoW it and hope to psych you out that I may have something else (most people I play against just continue on assuming I have nothing else), or do I just hope you fizzle/die to AdN and hang on to my unplayable (until next turn) FoW?

I'm thinking that I usually should FoW just so you can't IGG loop on me without getting around the FoW later on. Is this right?

Thanks in advance.

Limz
03-06-2009, 11:46 PM
Being a control player I'd like to ask what the proper play is if I'm playing against you and only have a FoW + blue card in my hand for disruption. In the situation that you first play Orim's Chant, do I FoW it and hope to psych you out that I may have something else (most people I play against just continue on assuming I have nothing else), or do I just hope you fizzle/die to AdN and hang on to my unplayable (until next turn) FoW?

I'm thinking that I usually should FoW just so you can't IGG loop on me without getting around the FoW later on. Is this right?

Thanks in advance.

Just FOW the chant. It is natural for combo players to continue even if their chant gets forced because the longer they wait, the more chance of you drawing into more answers. It is a risk that combo players have to face.

Dilettante
03-07-2009, 08:07 AM
Im not understanding the vexing shusher in the sb, is the shusher there just for the xantid swarm in the sb ?

Geez, I still have an account... I've been too bloody busy...

It lets you dance with Counterbalance. You can force a win through, alternating your spells, or if you have a pyroblast, just plaster the counterbalance. If you are that concerned about Counterbalance because you're in a control-heavy meta, just MD 1x EtW, but in a regular meta... not really.

Dark_Cynic87
03-07-2009, 02:36 PM
Wow, thank you for the thorough reply. But it brings me to another question, hopefully not too ignorant of one. What are the benefits of playing T.E.S. over ANT over FT? I notice alot of folks in the FT thread don't even bother with Ad Nauseum. Is this possibly good? I think I'm looking into a fetchland manabase with red for rite of flame, burning wish and empty the warrens. With this shell what's the standard number of Ad Nauseums, IGG, Tendrils and Doomsday (for some reason I really want Doomsday, I'll fit a meditate in if I have to)?

With TES you combo off faster. You don't always go lethal, but you can almost always get 14-16 goblin tokens turn 1/2 if you can't go lethal (happens a lot to me). More often than not it's enough to win you the game. Also, in Traditional TES, Moon Effects hurt less than they would if you were playing ANT due to red accel and burning wish being red to grab an answer, and also, Stifles are completely dead cards for them as you have protection spells and no fetches. On a side note, I play ANT Hybrid way more than I do TES as I don't care for the not winning on the turn you combo off aspect that EtW influences. It's normally enough, but I hate giving them 2-3 turns to find an answer.

If you play ANT Hybrid, you generally combo off slower a little slower than TES, but you have 3 different storm enablers, which gives you more versatility against control, and also allow you to be a tad more versatile when the game-state changes for the worse. A few things about the Hybrid is that there is no red accel in the list, and it also runs less accel, and this is because of more lands being played (5 to 7 more than TES). Fetchlands give you shuffle effects plus color-fixing (even though petals are more for mana-fixing than fetches are, there's still obviously the element of mana-smoothing in fetches), which also allows you to play a set of tops instead of ponders.

Doomsday is good against blue aggro-control lists such as Thresh and Dread/Landstill. In my hybrid list, I run a more traditional maindeck with 1x AdN, 1x D-Day, and 1x IGG, but have an additional IGG in my board and 2x more D-Days so that I have the speed that's most often useful against the majority of the decks I play against, but still have the ability to board back to my traditional DDFT list that's better against control.

If you like the synergy between Mystical, LED, and Top, I would highly recommend you play some sort of FT-style list.

Pce,

--DC

Pulp_Fiction
03-07-2009, 05:34 PM
@DC: You play a TES Hybrid that runs Burning Wish, Infernal Tutor, AdN, and Doomsday?? Can you post your list?

Deirex
03-09-2009, 09:11 AM
Does anyone have any info on how TES did at the GP?

Any reports would be very appreciated.

Seriously
03-09-2009, 02:06 PM
My current list is private. I won't be releasing it until after the GP.

ok, its after the GP now.

nodahero
03-09-2009, 02:54 PM
Tommy Kowlowith (hence forth TK), Solly, and I all played a TES'esq list with TK making it into the top 8 as the only combo deck and then lost to Brassman with an insanely brutal Balance slow whitiling TK's shot at winning either game. I know brassman had turn 2 balance on TK once and I think turn 3 the other game with top in place already.

Solly went 7-0 and then lost the last 2 matches of day 1 still making day 2 but then I beleive did poorly since I saw him wandering around by the third round of day 2. His frist two match losses of the tourney were I THINK to Merfolk getting a preety busted opening. I wasn't there to watch but that was what I was told.

I personally just scrubed it up and threw away my free Byes due to piss poor game play... I had a turn 2 kill against Deadguy with 3 cards in hand and was trying to be the smart player and didnt go all in on it incase he had a waste to take out my 5th mana... I should have went Fetch, Petal, Diamond go(with me on the play) then EOT mystical for Ad Nos... and cleaned the kids clock...

...but no I go Turn 1 Fetch into Duress to make damn sure he dosn't have a waste to kick out my only land ATM becasue if he did I would be at least another turn off a land due to the mystical (Which now in hindsight I supose I just could have not casted the mystical for... WOW I really did deserve to suck)... I kid you not that kid played 7 wastes in our first 2 games... It seems clear so I get ready to go for the setup turn 2 only to have my opponent decimate me by turn 1 duress off a topdecked land.. turn 2 confi off topdecked land... turn 3 reveal land... Hymm me Duress me... Then next turn land Seize me... play Hyppie....

Bryant Cook
03-09-2009, 06:19 PM
ok, its after the GP now.

I just got home less than three hours ago. Chill.

Lands
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea

Spells
4 Orim’s Chant
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
2 Mystical Tutor
2 Ad Nauseum
1 Cabal Ritual
3 Duress
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Chain of Vapor

SB:1 Diminishing Returns
SB:1 Ill-Gotten Gains
SB:1 Tendrils of Agony
SB:1 Empty the Warrens
SB:1 Grapeshot
SB:1 Wipeaway
SB:3 Pyroblast
SB:1 Vindicate
SB:2 Xantid Swarm
SB:3 Shattering Spree

I ended 6-3. Although, I was out of contention round 6. I started out 2-0 beating WGB Deadguy and Goblins, then hit Threshold, Team America, Threshold, and Dreadstill. Then won out, kind of disappointing.

If I were to make any changes I'd probably cut the Wipeaway from the SB for a Duress.

Jeff Kruchkow
03-09-2009, 06:26 PM
Ended up 6-3 at the GP
I Played:
Gobs - Win
RG Beats - Win
Affinity - Win
Affinity - Lose :(
Black Thresh - Lose
Black Thresh - Win
BWG Deadguy - Win
Last Round I punted a game to White Thresh :(

Heres my list:

Lands
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Forbidden Orchard

Spells
4 Orim’s Chant
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
2 Mystical Tutor
2 Ad Nauseum
2 Cabal Ritual
2 Duress
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Chain of Vapor

SB:1 Diminishing Returns
SB:1 Ill-Gotten Gains
SB:1 Tendrils of Agony
SB:1 Empty the Warrens
SB:1 Grapeshot
SB:4 Pyroblast
SB:1 Vexing Shusher
SB:2 Xantid Swarm
SB:2 Shattering Spree
SB:1 Duress

Ran beautiful all day. The Affinity loss was due to mulliganing error and them having t1 Disciple and t2 Ravager Frogmite Ornithopter Thoughtcast.... I lose

Last game I punted due to a bad Mox Imprint or I would have been day 2. Deck was amazing though. IMO I want even more Red Blasts. I don't think it was that bad for my first legacy tourney ever.

GreenOne
03-09-2009, 06:32 PM
list
I like the deck. Was the Vindicate useful?
Did the U.Sea give coloured mana issues?

Bryant Cook
03-09-2009, 06:41 PM
I like the deck. Was the Vindicate useful?
Did the U.Sea give coloured mana issues?

I wished for Vindicate twice. Once to blow up an Aura of Silence, the other to kill counterbalance. It allows you to board in all 3 spree's versus artifact decks, while having an answer for both Artifacts and Counterbalance. It could be hullbreach, but I wanted a 3cc card.

Underground Sea was amazing. It never gave me color screw at all. Although, now looking at the list; Xantid Swarm may be a problem. I never saw swarm all day.

Charlatan
03-09-2009, 08:39 PM
Hail Bryan!

Could u tell us about your matches?

CounterTop was the most pain in your ass?

SuperBean
03-09-2009, 11:04 PM
Bryant loves to be T-Bag'd.. Pass it on.. Pleasure meeting you :smile:

I played T.E.S as well at the GP, I'm in the middle of typing a tournament report right now, I'll post up a link when I'm all done.

Jeff Kruchkow
03-10-2009, 12:46 AM
@ Bryant: Do you still think the Grapeshot is necessary because IMO red blasts are damn good here.

On a side note, disciple of the vault sucks for us. Nauseaum to 2 and needing Petal/LED means fail.

Bryant Cook
03-10-2009, 01:52 AM
Hail Bryan!

Could u tell us about your matches?

CounterTop was the most pain in your ass?

I don't know who Bryan is but I'll tell you my matchups.

BWG Deaguy (won)
Goblins (won)
UGW Countertop Threshold (Lost)
Team America (lost)
UGWB Countertop Threshold (won)
Deadstill (Lost, should've won. Game 3 I resolved nauseum at 18 life, never hit anything higher than a 2cc and couldn't make mana.)
Burn (Won)
Enchantress (Won)
Survival with wasteland (Won)

Countertop lost me round 3, that was it. It never hit play versus the other Threshold opponent or Dreadstill.


@ Bryant: Do you still think the Grapeshot is necessary because IMO red blasts are damn good here.

On a side note, disciple of the vault sucks for us. Nauseaum to 2 and needing Petal/LED means fail.

Yes. I actually won a game because of Grapeshot over this weekend. Granted it was due to a storm count mistake on my part. Not to mention, what do Grapeshot and pyroblast have to do with one another?

Isn't this why we play IGG? So...you don't have to nauseum?

fearphage
03-10-2009, 01:55 AM
Did either of you ever wish you had a main deck Empty the Warrens?

Did you ever commit suicide or have to stop flipping at 5 life?

@Underground Sea: It can't cast 12 main deck spells nor can it cast any of the (8) cards you would side in in multiples. Best thing would be dropping it turn one (with and without ponder or EOT brainstorm) allows you to bluff counterspells more convincingly. The multicolor lands are generally a combo give away.

Seriously
03-10-2009, 02:28 AM
SB:1 Vindicate


how did the vindicate work out, if at all ?

no more vexing shushers in the board ?

did you write up a report for those matches, or was that it ?

Bryant Cook
03-10-2009, 02:30 AM
Did either of you ever wish you had a main deck Empty the Warrens?

Did you ever commit suicide or have to stop flipping at 5 life?

@Underground Sea: It can't cast 12 main deck spells nor can it cast any of the (8) cards you would side in in multiples. Best thing would be dropping it turn one (with and without ponder or EOT brainstorm) allows you to bluff counterspells more convincingly. The multicolor lands are generally a combo give away.

Not once.

Only against dreadstill that one game, I went to two and couldn't flip anymore.



how did the vindicate work out, if at all ?

no more vexing shushers in the board ?

did you write up a report for those matches, or was that it ?



I wished for Vindicate twice. Once to blow up an Aura of Silence, the other to kill counterbalance. It allows you to board in all 3 spree's versus artifact decks, while having an answer for both Artifacts and Counterbalance. It could be hullbreach, but I wanted a 3cc card.

Underground Sea was amazing. It never gave me color screw at all. Although, now looking at the list; Xantid Swarm may be a problem. I never saw swarm all day.

No report. No Shushers.

Charlatan
03-10-2009, 07:47 AM
Sorry Bryant :P

Are u disapointed with legacy?
I mean, with this countertop combo?

Bryant Cook
03-10-2009, 11:09 AM
Sorry Bryant :P

Are u disapointed with legacy?
I mean, with this countertop combo?

Why would I be? I lost one round out of nine because of it.

Jeff Kruchkow
03-10-2009, 12:57 PM
Yes. I actually won a game because of Grapeshot over this weekend. Granted it was due to a storm count mistake on my part. Not to mention, what do Grapeshot and pyroblast have to do with one another?

Isn't this why we play IGG? So...you don't have to nauseum?

Losing Grapeshot means +1 Red Blast in the side.

And yes that is why we have IGG... Except when you cant get to it because you counted on Dark Rit -> Dark Rit -> AdNto win and then got bad flips.

fearphage
03-10-2009, 02:08 PM
If you could do either IGG-loop or Ad Nauseam, which would you choose and why?

It seems like everyone is heavily reliant on Ad Nauseam all of a sudden. This deck was running just fine without it imo. (Side note: I rarely used the Diminishing Returns that it replaced)

Jeff Kruchkow
03-10-2009, 03:14 PM
If you could do either IGG-loop or Ad Nauseam, which would you choose and why?

It seems like everyone is heavily reliant on Ad Nauseam all of a sudden. This deck was running just fine without it imo. (Side note: I rarely used the Diminishing Returns that it replaced)

It all depends on what you are facing. If you are chant protected go for IGG since its fizzles like, never. Against burn you IGG. Against Black decks go for AdN since they could have Extirpate. Its all a matter of what they have.

Pelikanudo
03-12-2009, 06:24 AM
@mainly Bryant Cook or another TES expert

I've seen your last updated list,
regarding to the vindicate I find it a quite interesting addition I'll test it ,
regarding to the undergrounds , simply, a nonsense

but I find the counterbalance decks yet a great problem.
I added the 4th duress to the side having 2 in main and 2 in side and putting all them in base in 2nd and 3rd rounds vs c.b decks.
I cut the grapeshot definately instead pyroclasm because of enough win cond empty and tendrils and as much more efficient creature removal pyroclasm,
and the wipe away , which I found useless and as well the slaugther pact (its natural replacement) ,
regarding to the vexing shuser I'm testing 2, 3 and 4 numbers of this card
I tested shuser vs 3shold decks with red and NO c.b(and their blasts from side) and exclusively in this match up is useless,
(in here I'm testing the -3 ponder -1 cabal -1I.T=+3 blasts, + 2 duresses
the final result will be : 4 duress 4 orims 3 blasts which seems to be quite robust vs 3shold with red and NO c.b)

however in matchups like 3shold and WITH c.b and NO removal( I mean mainly no 3shold with red splash for litghnings ) , shuser has been perfect beeing the replacements: -3 ponder -1 cabal -1I.T = +3 blasts, + 2 shuser

well how did you side vs:
-tempo 3shold
-black 3shold
-red 3shold (blasts from side, 2 kind)
-balanced 3shold(in here we'll see dazes , Fow, c.b and stifles)
-landstill with mages

what do you think is the corect number of cards to side out vs these kind of decks ?
I think 5 is the number (intervals between 3 blasts , 2 shuser
OR 2 duress having in main full set of them)

another replacement I'm thinking about is -1 spree=+1 hurkil's

Ideas , suggestions, onions?

We're usually pretty forgiving of grammatical mistakes from members with English as their second language, but please do your best to make your posts as readable as possible. This one is pretty tough. :frown:

-PR

Skub
03-12-2009, 08:43 AM
Is it not possible to race Counterbalance by playing ETW main (with two more in the board)? Instead of putting the TES player in a position to get rid of Counterbalance, now putting the pressure on the other side of the table by finding a solution for the tokens from ETW.

BreathWeapon
03-12-2009, 07:09 PM
@Pelinkunado

What I found with TES, and what other players have found with AnT, is that Duress is more important than Orim's Chant vs the endless field of Counterbalance decks you're forced to face at GP events.If you want to know how to deal with Counterbalance decks, then all you need to know is that Orim's Chant should be cut to one and Duress should be maxed to 4 with Thought Seize in the SB.

Post board, you can either SB in more discard, Vexing Shusher or Empty the Warrens assuming the Counterbalance deck isn't using Stifle (to my knowledge, only Dreadnought based decks run both). Usually speaking, you want to SB out Ponder, because you can't risk Pondering on your turn and then Time Walking the opponent into Counterbalance.

Personally, I hate Vindicate, it eats Daze so hard.

Pulp_Fiction
03-13-2009, 01:11 AM
Is it not possible to race Counterbalance by playing ETW main (with two more in the board)? Instead of putting the TES player in a position to get rid of Counterbalance, now putting the pressure on the other side of the table by finding a solution for the tokens from ETW.

If you want to play like this run Belcher. Same concept. The Thresh/Counterbalance matchups are not based on speed. Why would you just start casting stuff when you know what the opponent is playing? Sometimes, if you think the opponent doesn't have Force on turns 1-2 by all means go for it (just don't expect positive results everytime, but aggression is often rewarded with a combo deck), but the blue matchups are not based on speed, but rather based on how well you setup the combo and the amount of pressure the opponent applies. Rarely will you be able to reliably go off on turn 1 with Chant/Duress backup, it will happen, just not alot. The days of Empty the Warrens tokens being good against blue are long gone. EE is everywhere and nullifies them. Out of all of the Burning Wish targets I will wish for EtW ONLY on turn 1 explosions (if I don't have enough mana to win and with Double LED I always go for DReturns or IGG if IT or additional BW is in the yard) or in later turns against decks like Dragon Stompy, Affinity, or Zoo where my storm count is a little short of winning but 16ish goblins will seal the deal. I really dislike EtW but its still great to have in the SB.

BreathWeapon
03-13-2009, 04:04 AM
If you want to play like this run Belcher. Same concept. The Thresh/Counterbalance matchups are not based on speed. Why would you just start casting stuff when you know what the opponent is playing? Sometimes, if you think the opponent doesn't have Force on turns 1-2 by all means go for it (just don't expect positive results everytime, but aggression is often rewarded with a combo deck), but the blue matchups are not based on speed, but rather based on how well you setup the combo and the amount of pressure the opponent applies. Rarely will you be able to reliably go off on turn 1 with Chant/Duress backup, it will happen, just not alot. The days of Empty the Warrens tokens being good against blue are long gone. EE is everywhere and nullifies them. Out of all of the Burning Wish targets I will wish for EtW ONLY on turn 1 explosions (if I don't have enough mana to win and with Double LED I always go for DReturns or IGG if IT or additional BW is in the yard) or in later turns against decks like Dragon Stompy, Affinity, or Zoo where my storm count is a little short of winning but 16ish goblins will seal the deal. I really dislike EtW but its still great to have in the SB.

By definition, the Balance/Top match up is defined by speed, you either Duress the opponent's Counterbalance or you win before it resolves. SBing in ETW is an effective strategy against Balance/Top, because the opponent A) Doesn't play Stifle B) SBs out his removal C) doesn't counter your acceleration and D) you resolve Empty the Warrens before your opponent resolves Counterbalance.

It's not a question of play Belcher vs play TES vs play AnT vs play DDFT, it's determining which strategies are the most effective against Counterbalance and integrating them into TES. Those strategies are more or less Duress, Empty the Warrens and Vexing Shusher in that order.

Sweepers are way, way overrated, they're either not present or only present in limited numbers, where the math favors you. Also, Ad Nauseam reduces the risk of Empty the Warrens, because unlike the Infernal Tutor and Ill Gotten Gains chain, you can now dump all of your resources into Empty the Warrens, have your army swept, and then top deck into a 1 card bomb and go off regardless.

TES isn't DDFT, we win before bad shit happens.

matelml
03-13-2009, 04:11 AM
I have really had a lot of succes with this deck and I liked my plan against CB. I would board in the 2nd, 3rd and maybe 4th EtW, plus 4 Duress, boarding out the AdN's except for one (I played 3), some Ponders, Chants and something like 1 Wish. Trying to get CB off the table is just hopeless, it costs you too many recources and your opponent will usually still win, because of the time you give him. He'll find a 2nd CB, draw too many counters from Confidant, beat you too death or counter your attempt to get rid of CB.
So I just focus on winning or comboing with EtW as fast as possible. Your odds aren't great, but better than when you wait. Look at the chance you'll win when you cast EtW turn 1-3: most CB decks run 0 to 2 EE's. This means that you will lose to EE some games. But the majority of the times, they won't have it. It's not a nice position to be in, waiting to get blown away, but it works.
Additionally, when CB lands, the EtW plan is still possible. If you find/draw one, you just play a bunch of spells, of which only some that make 3R together need to resolve, and you have a good chance of winning.
Of course, if I get a good hand, I'll still just try to win on ToA with protection. The route I take depends mostly on the hand I get.
Oh, and incidentally Duress also works if they have EE at hand or CB ofcourse.

SuperBean
03-14-2009, 05:25 AM
Just to keep the thread up, this is the list I'm going to my tournament with tomorrow...

Lands
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
2 Badlands

Spells
4 Orim’s Chant
2 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
4 Burning Wish
4 Mystical Tutor
2 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
2 Ad Nauseum
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Chain of Vapor

SB:1 Diminishing Returns
SB:1 Ill-Gotten Gains
SB:1 Tendrils of Agony
SB:1 Empty the Warrens
SB:1 Grapeshot
SB:1 Hull Breach
SB:1 Pyroblast
SB:1 Vindicate
SB:2 Echoing Truth
SB:2 Shattering Spree
SB:3 Red Elemental Blast

BreathWeapon
03-14-2009, 08:11 AM
Have you tried replacing Infernal Tutor and Ill Gotten Gains altogether with Mystical Tutor? Both cards are more or less dead in mulitiples, and while Infernal Tutor has a greater T1 win percentage, Mystical Tutor gives the deck more access to protection, removal, acceleration and has more synergy with Brainstorm and Ponder as a shuffle effect.

I've wanted to pilot and test something along the lines of,

1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Ad Nauseam
4 Burning Wish
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Duress
1 Orim's Chant
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Cabal Ritual
1 (Open)
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Glimmervoid
1 Forbidden Orchard

Note: have to run, will edit in more later

Ciberon
03-14-2009, 11:05 AM
Cut some Ad Nauseam. Add at least 1 more Tendrils. And that looks more like ANT then TES.

BreathWeapon
03-14-2009, 12:05 PM
Cut some Ad Nauseam. Add at least 1 more Tendrils. And that looks more like ANT then TES.

I will never, ever cut an Ad Nauseam, and you guys are insane for running less than four. I can't even count the number of games I've won because I revealed Ad Nauseam off of a Brainstorm, Ponder and Diminishing Returns or top decked it 4tw, it far out weighs the number of times I've either had to stop drawing or killed myself with it.

Second Tendrils is pointless.

The differences between ANT and TES are marginal, you're more or less trading lands for acceleration and playing Burning Wish.

I'm by no means advocating that build, btw, I just think we need to question whether or not Infernal Tutor is worth using over Mystical Tutor, when they're both essentially fighting for the same spots (IMO).

Joe_C
03-14-2009, 03:37 PM
I have issues running 2 Nauseam aside from running 4. I board out 1 against counterbalance decks since i bring in more protection and can more than likely get the one I actually cast to resolve. Flipping nauseam to a resolved nauseam without running angels grace(which ANT runs and thats why they can afford to make such risks) I can't justify increasing your average CC by that much you are guaranteed to kill yourself way more often than you would running 2 nauseam. No matter what you say, statistically your claims are invalid.

Moral of the posting- run less than 4 nauseam, the deck can win easily without it. Gains is our best storm generator. I am considering running 1 nauseam and 1 ETW maindecked

Deirex
03-14-2009, 04:30 PM
Flipping nauseam to a resolved nauseam without running angels grace(which ANT runs and thats why they can afford to make such risks)

That's bound to start some heated discussions again. I just know I wouldn't run them over chants.

Corwin
03-14-2009, 05:31 PM
I can't even count the number of games I've won because I revealed Ad Nauseam off of a Brainstorm, Ponder and Diminishing Returns or top decked it 4tw, it far out weighs the number of times I've either had to stop drawing or killed myself with it.
You had just a lot of luck then, statistically speaking :wink:

BreathWeapon
03-14-2009, 07:21 PM
I have issues running 2 Nauseam aside from running 4. I board out 1 against counterbalance decks since i bring in more protection and can more than likely get the one I actually cast to resolve. Flipping nauseam to a resolved nauseam without running angels grace(which ANT runs and thats why they can afford to make such risks) I can't justify increasing your average CC by that much you are guaranteed to kill yourself way more often than you would running 2 nauseam. No matter what you say, statistically your claims are invalid.

Moral of the posting- run less than 4 nauseam, the deck can win easily without it. Gains is our best storm generator. I am considering running 1 nauseam and 1 ETW maindecked

That's BS, the people who use less than 4 Ad Nauseam are the same people who don't play Dark Confidant in Threshold because of Force of Will, I've lost less game to revealing Ad Nauseam than I've lost to not having Ad Nauseam; there are lies, white lies and then there are statistics.

Ill Gotten Gains is incredibly overrated, assuming you have 2xOrim's Chant and Infernal Tutor is usually a pipe dream, it's so much easier to just Dark Ritual, Duress play a couple more accelerants and Ad Nauseam 4tw.

My avg. CMC is also barely higher than Bryant's, 2 mana symbols total, it's fractionally irrelevant.

bigbear102
03-15-2009, 12:11 AM
I think you guys are comparing 2 different decks. Breathweapon cut IT and IGG for Mystical and AdN. While I don't think it's right to not have IGG, the extra AdN's are not going to kill him because the rest of the deck is lower cmc.

If I were to play a list with 4 Mysticals, I would definitely cut 1 AdN for 1 IGG. There are a lot of situations where IGG is a guaranteed win, whereas AdN still might kill you. There are guarantees to IGG whereas AdN is still random.

Also, I wouldn't cut IT completely for Mystical, seeing as Mystical is a set-up card that needs AdN or a cantrip to work, whereas IT can combo itself into a win with nothing else (usually with the help of LED).

Bryant Cook
03-15-2009, 12:46 AM
Have you tried replacing Infernal Tutor and Ill Gotten Gains altogether with Mystical Tutor? Both cards are more or less dead in mulitiples, and while Infernal Tutor has a greater T1 win percentage, Mystical Tutor gives the deck more access to protection, removal, acceleration and has more synergy with Brainstorm and Ponder as a shuffle effect.

Have you actually tried 4x Mystical and Mox?

BreathWeapon
03-15-2009, 04:20 AM
Have you actually tried 4x Mystical and Mox?

Of course, Mystical Tutor and Chrome Mox are in every ANT deck. The card disadvantage isn't ideal, but it's workable. Both Infernal Tutor and Mystical Tutor are the two cards I have the least love for in TES, I hate them both in their own equally special way.

SuperBean
03-15-2009, 04:24 AM
So.. I took 3rd with the new deck list that I posted above, and I have to say that I was pretty impressed with it, not once did running the dual lands screw me over color wise.

I was also really happy about the 4 Mystical Tutors, it gave the deck a ton more resilience against decks like Eva Green, and the other few people in our meta that use Thoughtseize, and Duress in there main board.

I've been very satisfied with cutting my Infernal Tutor count as well, especially in favor of more Mystical Tutors, it just gave the deck a ton more options, and like I said more resilience against decks that are packing heavy discard. It just always felt better to have a Mystical Tutor and an Infernal Tutor in my hand versus multiple Infernal Tutors.

I'm also totally content with cutting the main deck Ill-Gotten Gains, the only time I even wanted to see that card tonight, I wished for it, and I also felt better about not ever Ad Nauseaming into it.

Vindicate it still something I'm totally not sold on, I wished for it once tonight to kill a Goyf and keep me in the game, but during his turn he just dropped another one and kept with the beats. So I think I'm going to use it for one more week, and if it doesn't pan out I'm going to go back to running Deathmark. The plus side to Vindicate in the CB/Top matchup is that it costs 3 which is hard for most of those decks to hit consistently and I'd imagine that a Vindicate coming from a T.E.S wish board isn't always expected by the control player. At least that was the reaction that I got when I cast it against a friend of mine playing a close version to what Gabriel Nassif was playing at GP: Chicago.

I did manage to take out two of the control decks in the meta tonight with not to much of a struggle. It was DreadStill and the Bassaruption deck that I ended up playing against. So I was pretty happy about that.

All in all, I'd say it was a good night, and again, I've really enjoyed the deck.

matelml
03-15-2009, 07:55 AM
By definition, the Balance/Top match up is defined by speed, you either Duress the opponent's Counterbalance or you win before it resolves. SBing in ETW is an effective strategy against Balance/Top, because the opponent A) Doesn't play Stifle B) SBs out his removal C) doesn't counter your acceleration and D) you resolve Empty the Warrens before your opponent resolves Counterbalance.

It's not a question of play Belcher vs play TES vs play AnT vs play DDFT, it's determining which strategies are the most effective against Counterbalance and integrating them into TES. Those strategies are more or less Duress, Empty the Warrens and Vexing Shusher in that order.

Sweepers are way, way overrated, they're either not present or only present in limited numbers, where the math favors you. Also, Ad Nauseam reduces the risk of Empty the Warrens, because unlike the Infernal Tutor and Ill Gotten Gains chain, you can now dump all of your resources into Empty the Warrens, have your army swept, and then top deck into a 1 card bomb and go off regardless.

TES isn't DDFT, we win before bad shit happens.


I have really had a lot of succes with this deck and I liked my plan against CB. I would board in the 2nd, 3rd and maybe 4th EtW, plus 4 Duress, boarding out the AdN's except for one (I played 3), some Ponders, Chants and something like 1 Wish. Trying to get CB off the table is just hopeless, it costs you too many recources and your opponent will usually still win, because of the time you give him. He'll find a 2nd CB, draw too many counters from Confidant, beat you too death or counter your attempt to get rid of CB.
So I just focus on winning or comboing with EtW as fast as possible. Your odds aren't great, but better than when you wait. Look at the chance you'll win when you cast EtW turn 1-3: most CB decks run 0 to 2 EE's. This means that you will lose to EE some games. But the majority of the times, they won't have it. It's not a nice position to be in, waiting to get blown away, but it works.
Additionally, when CB lands, the EtW plan is still possible. If you find/draw one, you just play a bunch of spells, of which only some that make 3R together need to resolve, and you have a good chance of winning.
Of course, if I get a good hand, I'll still just try to win on ToA with protection. The route I take depends mostly on the hand I get.
Oh, and incidentally Duress also works if they have EE at hand or CB ofcourse.

Is no one interested in this? I thought everyone was searching for a good way to battle Counterbalance.

GreenOne
03-15-2009, 08:41 AM
I'm testing 2 copies of ETW to board in in place of Pyroblast. The strategy might work, and feel like Pyroblast is the weakest SB slot anyway: Good to deal with CB, but the dissynergy with LED lost me many games.

Currently testing with 4 Duress 3 Chant MD too, but probably will come back to the 3/4 split: the 4th chant is useless in the SB, where the SB duress can be a wish target from time to time.

Would you guys suggest taking out all the AN but one and take in the wishable ETW too?

BreathWeapon
03-15-2009, 10:41 AM
I'm testing 2 copies of ETW to board in in place of Pyroblast. The strategy might work, and feel like Pyroblast is the weakest SB slot anyway: Good to deal with CB, but the dissynergy with LED lost me many games.

Currently testing with 4 Duress 3 Chant MD too, but probably will come back to the 3/4 split: the 4th chant is useless in the SB, where the SB duress can be a wish target from time to time.

Would you guys suggest taking out all the AN but one and take in the wishable ETW too?

SBing in Empty the Warrens is kind of tricky, I actually prefer SBing out Tendrils of Agony and Infernal Tutors depending on the opponent's soft counters, because you're essentially side step Spellsnare with all 1cc acceleration into either Ad Nauseam or Empty the Warrens.

I swear it's 4xDuress and XOrim's Chant with Mystical Tutor in the MD. Arguing a Duress is better in the SB because you can wish for it is kind of sketchy reasoning, you could just as easily wish for Thought Seize or even Cabal Therapy at that rate. You simply do not want to reduce your odds of ripping Counterbalance game 1 for any reason, on the draw it's life or death most of the time.

GreenOne
03-15-2009, 01:02 PM
I swear it's 4xDuress and XOrim's Chant with Mystical Tutor in the MD. Arguing a Duress is better in the SB because you can wish for it is kind of sketchy reasoning, you could just as easily wish for Thought Seize or even Cabal Therapy at that rate. You simply do not want to reduce your odds of ripping Counterbalance game 1 for any reason, on the draw it's life or death most of the time.
It's not for the counterbalance reason. It's just because Duress is overall good against almost any kind of deck, hitting other combo decks, artifact hate, discard, etc. It's not like we're only facing blue decks, and I'm sure I want the best win percentage against anything non-blue first. I'm also a bit sceptic about the disruption spells that have to be played during the combo turn, being less and less attracted by pyroblast and chant and more by swarm and duress. That's why the ETW idea intrigued me.

Are you siding in all the ETW or leaving one in the SB to wish for?

SuperBean
03-15-2009, 03:24 PM
That is one thing that I did against the Bassaruption deck was board out: -1 Ad Nauseam and +! Empty the Warrens.. It worked out great, me Emptying for 6 goblins, and him having a Confidant on the table made for a pretty easy win.

BreathWeapon
03-15-2009, 05:23 PM
I agree, Duress is good vs the entire field, but it's especially good against your worst match up. Being on color, being able to cast it before you combo and being able to cast it off of Dark Ritual is also incredibly underrated, Duress' mana efficiency is why Tinder Wall has worked so well for me IMO.

I SB 4 Empty the Warrens game 1, and then I SB 1 Empty the Warrens and MD 3 Empty the Warrens game 2; there's nothing wrong with MDing 4 Empty the Warrens in theory, but I don't like the idea of pigeon holing Burning Wish into just Diminishing Returns.

fearphage
03-17-2009, 05:02 PM
I SB 4 Empty the Warrens game 1So your only out game 1 is Tendrils of Agony?

Seriously
03-17-2009, 10:07 PM
Lands
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea

Spells
4 Orim’s Chant
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
2 Mystical Tutor
2 Ad Nauseum
1 Cabal Ritual
3 Duress
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Chain of Vapor

SB:1 Diminishing Returns
SB:1 Ill-Gotten Gains
SB:1 Tendrils of Agony
SB:1 Empty the Warrens
SB:1 Grapeshot
SB:1 Duress
SB:3 Pyroblast
SB:1 Vindicate
SB:2 Xantid Swarm
SB:3 Shattering Spree


in reference to the above list, this deck has 16 spells requiring red mana

4 rite of flame
4 burning wish
1 empty the warrens
1 grapeshot
3 pyroblast
3 shattering spree


but only 11 spells requiring blue mana

4 brainstorm
3 ponder
2 mystical tutor
1 chain of vapor
1 diminishing returns


can someone explain to me why x2 underground seas would be better than x2 badlands ? because the brainstorms/ponders/mystical tutors get played more often ? so more blue is needed in the long run ?

b4r0n
03-17-2009, 10:42 PM
Brainstorms, Ponders, and Mystical Tutors are your set-up spells. You want to be able to cast them early in the game to find what you need. Red is mainly needed when you're going off, so it's less important to have permanent mana sources that make red mana.

BreathWeapon
03-18-2009, 10:57 AM
So your only out game 1 is Tendrils of Agony?

You either Infernal Tutor for Tendrils of Agony or, in the event you discarded your Tendrils of Agony, Infernal Tutor for Burning Wish and then Burning Wish for either Tendrils of Agony or Empty the Warrens.

The MD kill condition isn't really necessary, all it does is reduce the amount of mana for Ad Nauseam -> Infernal Tutor/Mystical Tutor + Brainstorm/Ponder -> Tendrils of Agony compared to Ad Nauseam -> Infernal Tutor/Mystical Tutor +Brainstorm/Ponder -> Burning Wish -> Tendrils of Agony and stop them from Meddling Mage -> Burning Wish and forcing you to either lose the game or Mystical Tutor for bounce.

As an aside, those Duel lands are just fucking awful; Forbidden Orchard and Glimmervoid have reasonable penalties, and the Duel lands lose random games to severe color screw. They're especially bad with Empty the Warrens, Tinder Wall, Vexing Shusher and Orim's Chant ... and the "set up" reasoning for U over R doesn't really hold IMO, because Burning Wish is used a lot as a set up card also.

nodahero
03-18-2009, 12:21 PM
How does the argument against the red based lands not hold water? In the beginning you need blue to set up... in my typical case, I go for Ad Nos... Then when I cast Ad Nos I will always find any needed red sources... I have VERY RARELY needed red pre-going off except against counter/top where I attempt to play duck hunt with Counterbalance...

BreathWeapon
03-18-2009, 12:41 PM
How does the argument against the red based lands not hold water? In the beginning you need blue to set up... in my typical case, I go for Ad Nos... Then when I cast Ad Nos I will always find any needed red sources... I have VERY RARELY needed red pre-going off except against counter/top where I attempt to play duck hunt with Counterbalance...

It doesn't hold because Burning Wish is both a threat and a set up spell, so not being able to T1 Land + Chrome Mox, Burning Wish -> Thought Seize would really hurt your T2 protected win percentages.

Duel lands are just bad in a 3+ color deck with so few lands; you guys are seriously going to kick yourselves for playing them eventually.

troopatroop
03-18-2009, 05:13 PM
It doesn't hold because Burning Wish is both a threat and a set up spell, so not being able to T1 Land + Chrome Mox, Burning Wish -> Thought Seize would really hurt your T2 protected win percentages.

Duel lands are just bad in a 3+ color deck with so few lands; you guys are seriously going to kick yourselves for playing them eventually.

Well, Forbidden Orchard, Glimmervoid, and Undiscovered Paradise have all killed me with their drawbacks too. I'm pretty content with my chances on playing Seas. You can't downplay how much U-Sea -> Go throws your opponent either.

Nemcon
03-18-2009, 11:09 PM
I haven't been able to test this out with the seas, but it seems to me that we are so color intensive I really want the ability to go off with any color with a land that I get.
Maybe the seas are worth it , for having no drawback, and it is a very nice bluff, but something like that can only be a surprise once or twice.

Bryant Cook
03-18-2009, 11:26 PM
Well, Forbidden Orchard, Glimmervoid, and Undiscovered Paradise have all killed me with their drawbacks too. I'm pretty content with my chances on playing Seas. You can't downplay how much U-Sea -> Go throws your opponent either.

It's why I started playing them. ;p

BreathWeapon
03-19-2009, 04:15 AM
Well, Forbidden Orchard, Glimmervoid, and Undiscovered Paradise have all killed me with their drawbacks too. I'm pretty content with my chances on playing Seas. You can't downplay how much U-Sea -> Go throws your opponent either.

After City of Brass and Gemstone Mine, there are no good choices, but from testing I firmly believe that not having the right mana is far worse than having a 1/1 on the other side of the board.

It's a 5c deck, Dual Lands just aren't going to be very consistent in the long run. Plus, Forbidden Orchard and Tinder Wall have like the greatest synergy ever:tongue:

Piceli89
03-24-2009, 05:32 PM
here's the list i'm trying atm. i'm finding myself very comfortable with it, despites it may seem a bit "odd " for some inclusions and maindeck tunings.
Here we go:

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [WL] Gemstone Mine
4 [AN] City of Brass
2 [MR] Glimmervoid
1 [CHK] Forbidden Orchard

// Spells
2 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor
2 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
2 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [US] Duress
2 [PS] Orim's Chant
4 [CST] Brainstorm
2 [LRW] Ponder
1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
1 [DS] Echoing Truth

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
SB: 3 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 1 [IA] Pyroclasm
SB: 1 [CON] Telemin Performance
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 2 [SC] Xantid Swarm


So, basically, i found Infernal tutor in 4 copies to be most of the time redundant and not that really useful or optimal, so i cut it to 2 copies ( which seems to be the latest tendency among the TES players, btw) in order to fit the 3rd and the 4th mystical. I know, this inclusion may suggest this deck isn't what was used to be called " TES " one time, but i found mystical to be so useful and versatile ( and synergic with Led-nauseam upkeep tricks) that i couldn't not power up the full set. That card grabs the entire deck and solves the most problematic situations, and allows to play mana untapped adapting to the board situation, period.
Since Infernal tutor was pretty gone, i didn't find a reasonable choice to still keep IGG maindeck, also because i found it to be pretty underwhelming these last times among a sea of snares and fows which can be recurred during the loop by the oppo, and substitued it with a singleton copy of EtW, which seems the best way to achieve a quick victory since g1 agaisnt slow-controllish decks packing Cb+Top, where Ad Nauseam is less likely to get resolves in a quick time. Moreover, the fact that they expect nauseam after some rituals and instead they get 8-10 gobs on their teeth is a winning choice, most of the times.. unless they drop their e.e., of course.
The cut of IGG may be referred also to another choice: in the protections package, i swapped the number of duresses for the chants , and found it to be a good decision. Of course, the duresses are in colour, and other advantagaes other people have already explained. The only fault Duress shows is that, most of the times, it will be brainstormed in response, and, most of all, i found a little weaknes since [B]it doesn't prevent the opponent from cashing in the top and play that force he had the top3s, fucking us hard (usually on the key spell). Btw, has anyone noticed this thing, which seems to be really hurting the comboing mechanic?

For maindeck bouncer, i opted for truth instead of Chain, since Chain sucks against chalice @1 or multiple chalices, and against Cb too, most of the times. It never happened, btw, that i did the "bounce moxes " trick.
Last but not least, Sb packs the ultra new-tech played also by Kolowith durng the Gp chicago, the Alara'd Telemin Preformance, which is usually an automatic gg against landstill (unless he plays eternal dragons, which are likely to be sided out g2 to make room for other blue cards to be pitched to FoW, however) or against storm combo mirror. Seems kinda good.
Or sexy, at least.
The glimmervoids have been really nice for me, and i was never hurt hat much by their drawbacks. And forbidden orchard for the long run WAY sucks, but 1 -ofs is acceptable.
Ah, i also tried to squeeze the "5 fetches + 1 dual of each color+ 4 gemstones" configuration, but effectively, not being able to Orim the opponent even in their upkeep because you have a badland/volcanic/sea is very, very hurting. Rainbow lands 4 life, even if they don't provide shuffle effects ( for that, 4 tutors+2 ponders is quite enough).

Bryant Cook
03-24-2009, 05:35 PM
Not once, either day did Kolowith cast Telemin Performance. You sure it's worth the sideboard slot?

Piceli89
03-24-2009, 05:38 PM
Not once, either day did Kolowith cast Telemin Performance. You sure it's worth the sideboard slot?

I TP'ed one opponent once who was playing Fetchland ANT. GGed. But still, i'm not sure, yes. It could be a further protection slot or something else.


BtW, siding in multiple copies of EtW seems good in g2, if unexpected by an opponent who knows the "traditional " TES list, so i 'll leave them as long as they'll provide their work.

fearphage
03-24-2009, 06:19 PM
From testing, I'm not impressed with any dual (Underground Sea nor Badlands) . I could need 1 of any of the 5 colors on turns 1-3 and not having access to them hurts more than the benefit of misleading the opponent for a few turns.

@Bryant: How do you handle non-japanese, non-foil cards in your deck? I assume they are at least black bordered, right?

BreathWeapon
03-25-2009, 01:06 PM
here's the list i'm trying atm. i'm finding myself very comfortable with it, despites it may seem a bit "odd " for some inclusions and maindeck tunings.
Here we go:

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [WL] Gemstone Mine
4 [AN] City of Brass
2 [MR] Glimmervoid
1 [CHK] Forbidden Orchard

// Spells
2 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor
2 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
2 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [US] Duress
2 [PS] Orim's Chant
4 [CST] Brainstorm
2 [LRW] Ponder
1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
1 [DS] Echoing Truth

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
SB: 3 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 1 [IA] Pyroclasm
SB: 1 [CON] Telemin Performance
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 2 [SC] Xantid Swarm


So, basically, i found Infernal tutor in 4 copies to be most of the time redundant and not that really useful or optimal, so i cut it to 2 copies ( which seems to be the latest tendency among the TES players, btw) in order to fit the 3rd and the 4th mystical. I know, this inclusion may suggest this deck isn't what was used to be called " TES " one time, but i found mystical to be so useful and versatile ( and synergic with Led-nauseam upkeep tricks) that i couldn't not power up the full set. That card grabs the entire deck and solves the most problematic situations, and allows to play mana untapped adapting to the board situation, period.
Since Infernal tutor was pretty gone, i didn't find a reasonable choice to still keep IGG maindeck, also because i found it to be pretty underwhelming these last times among a sea of snares and fows which can be recurred during the loop by the oppo, and substitued it with a singleton copy of EtW, which seems the best way to achieve a quick victory since g1 agaisnt slow-controllish decks packing Cb+Top, where Ad Nauseam is less likely to get resolves in a quick time. Moreover, the fact that they expect nauseam after some rituals and instead they get 8-10 gobs on their teeth is a winning choice, most of the times.. unless they drop their e.e., of course.
The cut of IGG may be referred also to another choice: in the protections package, i swapped the number of duresses for the chants , and found it to be a good decision. Of course, the duresses are in colour, and other advantagaes other people have already explained. The only fault Duress shows is that, most of the times, it will be brainstormed in response, and, most of all, i found a little weaknes since [B]it doesn't prevent the opponent from cashing in the top and play that force he had the top3s, fucking us hard (usually on the key spell). Btw, has anyone noticed this thing, which seems to be really hurting the comboing mechanic?

For maindeck bouncer, i opted for truth instead of Chain, since Chain sucks against chalice @1 or multiple chalices, and against Cb too, most of the times. It never happened, btw, that i did the "bounce moxes " trick.
Last but not least, Sb packs the ultra new-tech played also by Kolowith durng the Gp chicago, the Alara'd Telemin Preformance, which is usually an automatic gg against landstill (unless he plays eternal dragons, which are likely to be sided out g2 to make room for other blue cards to be pitched to FoW, however) or against storm combo mirror. Seems kinda good.
Or sexy, at least.
The glimmervoids have been really nice for me, and i was never hurt hat much by their drawbacks. And forbidden orchard for the long run WAY sucks, but 1 -ofs is acceptable.
Ah, i also tried to squeeze the "5 fetches + 1 dual of each color+ 4 gemstones" configuration, but effectively, not being able to Orim the opponent even in their upkeep because you have a badland/volcanic/sea is very, very hurting. Rainbow lands 4 life, even if they don't provide shuffle effects ( for that, 4 tutors+2 ponders is quite enough).

I couldn't agree with this post more than if I had wrote it myself, Infernal Tutor and Mystical Tutor are the two cards fighting for the same slots in this deck, and I believe Mystical Tutor > Infernal Tutor because it finds you the cards you need to win instead of just being a kill condition. Even 2 Infernal Tutors aren't worth running, you're better off running 4 Ad Nauseam to have a less LED dependent threat and to have more Brainstorm/Ponder -> Ad Nauseam turn 3 wins.

I really, really don't understand why you guys are cutting Ponder for sub-optimal BS like Cabal Ritual #2, MD Empty the Warrens and MD Bounce, because 8 cantrips has been nothing but the nutz and you really need them to make the post Ad Nauseam into Mystical Tutor + Cantrip -> Tendrils of Agony consistent.

Duressing into Brainstorm doesn't seem to be much of a problem for me, but I usually Duress off of a Dark Ritual on the combo turn instead of Duressing before the combo turn. Yeah, Top sucks if it's active, but that's usually a big if in my experience.

Pelikanudo
03-25-2009, 01:43 PM
Idea:
vs counterbalance :
playing proactive cards like Druid Lyrist by 1cc and before c.b lands the game (4 copies in side).
this is something I've thoutgh and I'll test
another plan is playing the 8 kind of blasts.
Opinions?

Jeff Kruchkow
03-25-2009, 02:24 PM
Idea:
vs counterbalance :
playing proactive cards like Druid Lyrist by 1cc and before c.b lands the game (4 copies in side).
this is something I've thoutgh and I'll test
another plan is playing the 8 kind of blasts.
Opinions?

lyrist seems really bad here as you need to land it a least a turn before you combo which gives them time to just play another CB or kill the lyrist.

BreathWeapon
03-25-2009, 02:29 PM
Idea:
vs counterbalance :
playing proactive cards like Druid Lyrist by 1cc and before c.b lands the game (4 copies in side).
this is something I've thoutgh and I'll test
another plan is playing the 8 kind of blasts.
Opinions?

Creature based Enchantment removal is just worse than Vexing Shusher, I use to use the 8 blast plan, but you may as well cut Infernal Tutor and Lion's Eye Diamond at that rate.

Just board in more discard, IMO.

Piceli89
03-25-2009, 03:31 PM
I couldn't agree with this post more than if I had wrote it myself, Infernal Tutor and Mystical Tutor are the two cards fighting for the same slots in this deck, and I believe Mystical Tutor > Infernal Tutor because it finds you the cards you need to win instead of just being a kill condition. Even 2 Infernal Tutors aren't worth running, you're better off running 4 Ad Nauseam to have a less LED dependent threat and to have more Brainstorm/Ponder -> Ad Nauseam turn 3 wins.

I really, really don't understand why you guys are cutting Ponder for sub-optimal BS like Cabal Ritual #2, MD Empty the Warrens and MD Bounce, because 8 cantrips has been nothing but the nutz and you really need them to make the post Ad Nauseam into Mystical Tutor + Cantrip -> Tendrils of Agony consistent.

Duressing into Brainstorm doesn't seem to be much of a problem for me, but I usually Duress off of a Dark Ritual on the combo turn instead of Duressing before the combo turn. Yeah, Top sucks if it's active, but that's usually a big if in my experience.

The point is that every (decent) storm combo deck should run at least 1 bounce spell to prevent chalice at 0-1 and trinisphere (and counterbalance too, at this point) to give you an instant autoloss. I can see the point of your argument in the fact that running more pure "combo " pieces increases the avg speed of this deck slightly more, but you can have ritual, ritual , duress, duress, land,orim and mystical in your hand, but it won't be useful to you as long as the opponent on the start will throw to you a chalice@1. Moreover, turn 1 trinisphere- and, sometimes, moon effects- throws this deck into despair.
Another point, which seems to be a paradox for the "speed aim" you're searching: if we run the full set of ponders, i think we rely too much on playing in our turn , tapping us out and not being capable to fit the game ( i already said that). But that's just the most little point: if we cut cards like IT ( which sucks in multiples if shows up early in hand , but can pull some random victories by acting like a demonic tutor and grabbing nauseam or whichever finisher we play) to increase the qty of ponders, we are acting like changing completely TES to a crappy ANT, without fetches and surely with more mana problems ( due to the four-colored structure) and , perhaps, dead cards in hand too. I think that this deck should never lose some of its power, which derives from the capacity to pull fast victories having immediately access to the cards which actually can grab your finish spell. I mean, we can also cut completely IT for ponder, but then..what ? We'd pass lots of turn manipulating between BS, ponder and mysticals, losing what makes this deck strong: the ability to play the aggressor role, going off as fast as we can with lightning kills. I increased the numer of ponders and mystical tutors in my list rather than Bryant's one to include some shuffle effects and bettering a bit the thinning /filtering capacity of the deck, but this doesn't mean i'm going to play like ANT which spends usually the first two-three turns sculpting the perfect hand, cleaning the dead cards with the fetches ( something we WON'T be able to do with this deck instead, never) or carrying on cantripping.
If we'd going to play 12 cantrippers, cut IT and cut also bouncers, it would be a super slowish-setup crappy version of TES, or an underpowered version of ANT even more.
And 4 Nauseam are really too suicidal, i played 3-ofs and always revealed 1-2 at least in the process, hurting myself a lot. Counting that an hypothetical list packing 3 Nauseam would have 3 5cc and 2 4 cc, it may seriously be a problem 1) if we can't cast it that early, 2) if the opponent plays an aggro deck which lowers our lives fastly (even burn at this point matters, playing the version with 4 duresses and 2 orims), 3) if we flip 2 of these babies, at least.

Finally, on the Alt Maindeck kill given by EtW, i must say it's not that overwhelming if we cast it after turn 2, since i always found that having on avg 8 goblins is a thing which can be easily handled by the modern -format aggro controls playing good P/T ratio'd critters (trygons,goyf, manlands, merfolks, even slivers..), while control will surely have a mass removal. It always happens. And against combo, well.. they prevent it just accelerating to go off. The point, sadly, is that the more resource (cards) you put into EtW, the more powerful will be, but, differently from ToA which is a sure win, EtW actually isn't, and the lack of cards in the case the opponent manages to stop goblins is so hurting that difficultly the TES player will be able to recover in that 3-4 turns after. So, it's always a "risky" choice.
But it's unexpected as g1 surprise, and , if cast early, it's quite unstoppable, so i'm still reluctant in cutting it.

BreathWeapon
03-25-2009, 05:55 PM
Running bounce to prevent Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere is non-sensical, because if Chalice of the Void resolves then you can't Mystical Tutor for your bounce spell, and if Trinisphere resolves you may as well scoop. Burning Wish deals with random Chalice of the Void, not Mystical Tutor, so you're better off reducing your dead cards than you are adding a dead card for scenarios where the card isn't even relevant.

8 Cantrips does not turn TES into ANT, 8 Cantrips turns Lion's Eye Diamond into Black Lotus for either turn 2 wins or protected turn 3 wins. On the play, you have at least one turn to set up, and on the draw you'll either need it to find disruption or you'll SB it out for disruption. 4 Ad Nauseam is fine, I've won more games from resolving Ad Nauseam than I've lost games from revealing Ad Nauseam ... it's the Dark Confidant + Force of Will = bad neurosis all over again (cut ETW tho').

Cutting Infernal Tutor and adding Mystical Tutor doesn't turn the deck into a hybrid of TES and AnT, you have to treat Mystical Tutor based TES as its own deck and test it objectively.

Piceli89
03-25-2009, 08:38 PM
Running bounce to prevent Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere is non-sensical, because if Chalice of the Void resolves then you can't Mystical Tutor for your bounce spell, and if Trinisphere resolves you may as well scoop. Burning Wish deals with random Chalice of the Void, not Mystical Tutor, so you're better off reducing your dead cards than you are adding a dead card for scenarios where the card isn't even relevant.

8 Cantrips does not turn TES into ANT, 8 Cantrips turns Lion's Eye Diamond into Black Lotus for either turn 2 wins or protected turn 3 wins. On the play, you have at least one turn to set up, and on the draw you'll either need it to find disruption or you'll SB it out for disruption. 4 Ad Nauseam is fine, I've won more games from resolving Ad Nauseam than I've lost games from revealing Ad Nauseam ... it's the Dark Confidant + Force of Will = bad neurosis all over again (cut ETW tho').

Cutting Infernal Tutor and adding Mystical Tutor doesn't turn the deck into a hybrid of TES and AnT, you have to treat Mystical Tutor based TES as its own deck and test it objectively.

Ok i followed your advices and finally came to this list, which turns out to be slightly slower but more consistent.

// Lands
4 [WL] Gemstone Mine
4 [AN] City of Brass
2 [MR] Glimmervoid
1 [CHK] Forbidden Orchard

// Spells
3 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor
2 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [B] Dark Ritual
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
1 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [US] Duress
2 [PS] Orim's Chant
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [LRW] Ponder

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
SB: 4 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 1 [IA] Pyroclasm
SB: 3 [IA] Pyroblast

Now, i included the full sets of the best cantrippers/tutors, and found comfortable, even if still i can't accept having lost a MD bouncer, which was one of the few hopes againts chalice aggro & prison decks.
However..I still packed a singleton IT because i know that it is nuts sometimes, despites its weakesses , and put it instead of 1 Nauseam. You 'll have to be very lucky, because in goldfishing with 4 nauseams i always revealed AT LEAST 2 of thems, draining me 10 lives. Still with 3 ofs i don't feel my head safe when flipping, but i think it's an acceptable danger for being able to find with higher probability.
Now, i still packed 2x cabal rituals too, perhaps because i was convinced that "more cantrips = more threshold-hitting percentage", and i really WANTED this deck to have at least 10 spell- mana accelerants, but now i feel it's possible i can cut it ( perhaps). Suggestions about that slot? Don't tell me EtW or IGG, the mana avg cost is already enough high. Perhaps i could recover the bouncer in that slot, yuk.

On the sideboard, i am convinced too about the possibility to switch nauseam and leds and wishes for some EtW, and whatever else? Pyroblasts? Did anyone test how a LEDless list with EtW w/3-4 Pyroblasts as main kill can perform against CB tops?

matelml
03-26-2009, 04:25 AM
Did anyone test how a LEDless list with EtW w/3-4 Pyroblasts as main kill can perform against CB tops?

What's up with the "LEDless" lately? It's a discussion in the ANT thread, there is a Ichorid thread for it and now TES? Please let's not have the discussion here, it's impossible to play TES without LED. It's the strongest card in the deck!

GreenOne
03-26-2009, 06:54 AM
@Piceli89
You said that your list is slightly slower, and I see it also packs less protection than usual decklists. That's not what TES want to do.

And forgot about being LEDless. Even with only 1 Infernal, you still have 4 mysticals and a lot of cantrips to make it a Black Lotus.

Piceli89
03-26-2009, 06:58 PM
@Piceli89
You said that your list is slightly slower, and I see it also packs less protection than usual decklists. That's not what TES want to do.

And forgot about being LEDless. Even with only 1 Infernal, you still have 4 mysticals and a lot of cantrips to make it a Black Lotus.

No, with the "LEDless" issue i referred to someone who said that in g2 boards out LEDs and wishes to add EtW in 3-4 ofs and pyroblasts.. i wouldn't EVER cut LED from the maindeck list. Apologizes for miswriting.
And, GreenOne: i wanted this deck to have somehow a bit more consistency in order to pull off the "combo " (which is, at this point, mainly to cast AN) on turn 2-3 , always trying to dig for a protection spell before. I know it may seem kinda slow- and surely it is than the traditional TES build, but this decklist has been designed to perform slightly better against blue-based decks (which are the ones this deck has problems facing being a combo, i'd never have problems beating zoo or goblins) with a higher number of cantrips which enable more CQ. and Card selection.
I'm still reluctant too in cutting down IT to 1 copy since, as i said, its ability to Demonic Tutor a card is always very powerful, but i think it could efinitely work.
About the procection package issue: the TES lists usually run 6 pieces of protection, both 4 chants/2 duresses or vice versa, and so mine does. What did you mean?

GreenOne
03-26-2009, 07:18 PM
About the procection package issue: the TES lists usually run 6 pieces of protection, both 4 chants/2 duresses or vice versa, and so mine does. What did you mean?
Last Bryant list plays 4 Chants+3 Duresses+1 Chain of Vapor. If chain of vapor doesn't suit you you could play 4 chants and 4 duresses. It's 2 protection spells more.

Also, remember that the difference between comboing turn 2 or 3 is huge, cause on the play you're actually racing CounterBalance if comboing on turn 2.

SuperBean
03-26-2009, 07:33 PM
This is total speculation.. But, does anyone think that with Wizards taking away mana burn that Lion's Eye Diamond will see the ban list again?

Nemcon
03-26-2009, 07:55 PM
This is total speculation.. But, does anyone think that with Wizards taking away mana burn that Lion's Eye Diamond will see the ban list again?

Wait...they are taking out mana burn? What? I haven't heard of that before.

But I agree that LED is a key card in this deck, and I really don't want it seeing the banhammer.

Piceli89
03-26-2009, 08:01 PM
Last Bryant list plays 4 Chants+3 Duresses+1 Chain of Vapor. If chain of vapor doesn't suit you you could play 4 chants and 4 duresses. It's 2 protection spells more.

Also, remember that the difference between comboing turn 2 or 3 is huge, cause on the play you're actually racing CounterBalance if comboing on turn 2.

I find this statement to be somehow contradictory, before this you told me that my list was way too slow, and now you're advicing to pack more protection spells, which may show up in multiple copies in initial hands causing me to waste some turns not having the right cards with which to go off. I can try a 7 -protection slots , but i think 8 is pure overkill. Maybe in a meta where you're expecting counterbalance.dec at least 3 or 4 matches, but not even ANT plays 8 protection spells.

For the Mana Burn issue: really dunno, but i think this feature is not that good reason to ban LED. There are seriously things way more broken in legacy, which should deserve a way more careful eye ( you know what i'm talking about..).
Oh, i forgot, but Wizards doesn't care about legacy. Sorry.

SuperBean
03-26-2009, 08:01 PM
Apparently it was initially brought up with the release of Magic: 2010

GreenOne
03-26-2009, 10:23 PM
I find this statement to be somehow contradictory, before this you told me that my list was way too slow, and now you're advicing to pack more protection spells, which may show up in multiple copies in initial hands causing me to waste some turns not having the right cards with which to go off. I can try a 7 -protection slots , but i think 8 is pure overkill. Maybe in a meta where you're expecting counterbalance.dec at least 3 or 4 matches, but not even ANT plays 8 protection spells.
Well, to be fair, YOU said that the list was a bit slower (I just took it as data to work on), and I noticed it was packing 1-2 protection spells less than Bryant's latest list. Doesn't seem contraditory to just ask why: it's not like you're trading speed for protection. It's just less protection and less speed for more consistency.
Is that gain in consistency worth it?

I do believe TES is a combo deck wit a fundamental turn of 2. So you either want to cast a Duress or cantrip or Mystical on turn 1 to win on turn 2.
Playing a full set of Brainstorm, Ponders and Mysticals opens you to opening hands with 2 or more cantrips/Mysticals (50%) or 3 or more cantrips/mysticals (20%). So basically you have to waste your first turns playing cantrips that are more likely to find other cantrips, instead of winning.

The deck just needs a number of cantrips that gives you a good number of opening plays without having multiple cantrips (and so less gas/protection/tutors) in opening hand.
Double Mystical tutor is also not great. I think the deck can support 3, but 4 maybe a bit too much.

Also, are the rainbow lands problematic with a good amount of manipulation to play?

Piceli89
03-26-2009, 11:37 PM
Well, to be fair, YOU said that the list was a bit slower (I just took it as data to work on), and I noticed it was packing 1-2 protection spells less than Bryant's latest list. Doesn't seem contraditory to just ask why: it's not like you're trading speed for protection. It's just less protection and less speed for more consistency.
Is that gain in consistency worth it?

I do believe TES is a combo deck wit a fundamental turn of 2. So you either want to cast a Duress or cantrip or Mystical on turn 1 to win on turn 2.
Playing a full set of Brainstorm, Ponders and Mysticals opens you to opening hands with 2 or more cantrips/Mysticals (50%) or 3 or more cantrips/mysticals (20%). So basically you have to waste your first turns playing cantrips that are more likely to find other cantrips, instead of winning.

The deck just needs a number of cantrips that gives you a good number of opening plays without having multiple cantrips (and so less gas/protection/tutors) in opening hand.
Double Mystical tutor is also not great. I think the deck can support 3, but 4 maybe a bit too much.

Also, are the rainbow lands problematic with a good amount of manipulation to play?

I would NEVER, after testing, cut mystical tutors to 3. They just grab everything, being so useful you can't renounce to them. Rarely it happened that i had double mystical in my hand, and the sinergy with LED and AN gives this deck the crazy turn2 Nausea it sometimes misses.
What i'm finding more and more, instead, is that Burning wish in multiple copies do really suck. And if i open a hand with double BW, i'm likely to have a very slow hand which can be mulliganed as well. I'm even pondering to cut it down to 3, because, although being so versatile , they depend a lot on LeD to act their best function ( Wishing a thoughtseize may be a good player, but it loses time), very similarly to IT.
I don't know if the 12 cantrips issue is a good point, because both brainstorm and ponder can dig for three cards, and in case we draw other cantrips while not needed, we can just shuffle them back or put them on bottom and filter the "right " cards. While, for example, in a deck packing 4 ITs and 4 Wishes, the percentage of opening with 2-3 of thems is pretty high, and they are absolutely slow and redudndant if put together. A well -sequenced chain of Brainstorms and Mystical tutors not only sculpts the hand, but also provides the right cards with a cheaper cost and also in instant speed, which is awesome.

And playing 4 Mysticals + 4 LEDs with Nauseam, btw, ensures an autowin against discard-decks, so I would really keep Mystical to the full set, it's just too good not to be maximized even in TESesque lists.
About the speed of the deck, my list can pull turns 2 kills, but it's safier to go off turn 3 with protection usually. However, these are pure theorical goldfishes-datas, since I'm NOT gonna go for the all in on turn 2 against a deck i know packs blue when i know even a single daze/snare can fuck me hard. I understand the concept that this deck was built for pure speed and flashing storm enabling, but sometimes waiting just 1-2 turns more sculptng a decent hand is more clever than recklessly drop all the cards and get the counter on your teeth.

EDIT: Chrome mox. Vital to get free mana after AN, but really frustrating if we draw 2 in the opening hand. Has anyone tested a configuration with 3 copies? How did it was ?

SuperBean
03-27-2009, 12:13 AM
Personally, I was never a fan of Mystical Tutor in the deck from the beginning I thought it was more of a Fetchland Tendrils thing. I always thought that Infernal Tutor was enough for the deck but now I couldn't be a bigger fan of Mystical. I'm currently using this list with 4x Mystical Tutors:

Mainboard:

Artifacts:
4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
2x Chrome Mox

Instants:
4x Mystical Tutor
4x Brainstorm
4x Orim's Chant
4x Dark Ritual
2x Cabal Ritual
2x Ad Nauseam
1x Chain of Vapor

Sorcery's:
4x Burning Wish
4x Ponder
4x Rite of Flame
2x Infernal Tutor
2x Duress
1x Tendrils of Agony

Lands:
4x City of Brass
4x Gemstone Mine
2x Underground Sea
2x Badlands



Sideboard:
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Grapeshot
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Diminishing Returns
1x Vindicate
1x Hull Breach
1x Echoing Truth
1x Pyroblast
2x Duress
2x Shattering Spree
2x Red Elemental Blast

Edit: @Piceli89 - As you can see I'm only using 2x Chrome Mox in my deck, and I think I've concluded that as the right number for the deck, at least in my opinion.. I always hate seeing it in my opening hand, but very useful post ADN. I've never had any kind of a problem going off, or felt like the deck was clunky because cutting it. If anything making room for Ponder #4 has helped me quite a bit.

ParkerLewis
03-27-2009, 01:12 AM
This is total speculation.. But, does anyone think that with Wizards taking away mana burn that Lion's Eye Diamond will see the ban list again?

Why would they ?

It's not like that makes the card more abusable than it is.

Also, mana burn from LED means you've failed to do whatever you wanted. Which means you discarded your hand for nothing. At this point, the ramifications of taking 0 rather than up to 3 mana burn seem pretty much irrelevant.

Jeff Kruchkow
03-27-2009, 11:36 AM
Seems to me like people just keep shifting further away from TES and more toward ANT despite what they are saying.
IMO putting more and more dependency on AdN is a bad idea. One of the biggest strengths of TES was winning with either IGG, AdN, D. Returns or ETW.
Giving up that versatility for better AdN's seems like ANT territory.
Just my 2 cents but TES is meant to be fast and have some protection. Cutting ITs and adding Mystical just hurts that

Bryant Cook
03-27-2009, 12:38 PM
Seems to me like people just keep shifting further away from TES and more toward ANT despite what they are saying.
IMO putting more and more dependency on AdN is a bad idea. One of the biggest strengths of TES was winning with either IGG, AdN, D. Returns or ETW.
Giving up that versatility for better AdN's seems like ANT territory.
Just my 2 cents but TES is meant to be fast and have some protection. Cutting ITs and adding Mystical just hurts that

I couldn't agree more.

The lists that are being thrown in here every other post are starting to get ridiculous. You don't need to post a new list after a single card change.

Also, 4x Mystical tutor with 4x Mox is awful. The card disadvantage will kill you against a real opponent.

BreathWeapon
03-27-2009, 01:46 PM
1) Cutting Infernal Tutor for Mystical Tutor reduces the "gold fish" speed of the deck, but it doesn't necessarily reduce the actual speed of the deck, because a lot of the time your ability to go off isn't determined by drawing the perfect hand for Infernal Tutor but by finding the exact card you need to make your Starting 7 busted - so the speed issue is a really grey area.

2) Saying 8 cantrips forces you to skip turns because the 8 cantrips are set up spells is really linear thinking, because Brainstorm and Ponder usually enable you to combo on the same turn by either finding more mana, a threat, disruption etc. You don't have to use them as set up spells, usually whatever is in the top 3 will make up for the investment of U (especially hitting a land).

3) Double Burning Wish is great, usually I just use one Burning Wish to either grab Thought Seize, bait Spellsnare or grab Diminishing Returns after failing to resolve another bomb.

4) You don't need more than 4 protection spells, but more than 4 protection spells are nice. The less time you have to look for protection the more time you have to go off, it's really just risk vs reward and totally depends on how comfortable you are coin flipping game 1. It also really depends on their disruption package, if they run Spellsnare instead of Stifle you can just skip protection and go for the 3 MD Empty the Warrens plan.

5) If you run bounce, you run Chain of Vapor. The card is suppose to deal with Meddling Mage, Gaddock Teeg, Arcane Laboratory, Runed Halo and that kind of stuff. Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void and Counterbalance essentially both stop you from comboing and stop your from tutoring for removal, so just go with what works for the little nuisance cards. You also want the cheapest removal possible, because it increases your ability to remove a problem card and go off on the same turn. Prison is always going to be a coin flip, you just hope that you either win the coin flip or they have to mull really hard for Trinisphere or Chalice of the Void and that gives you enough time to remove it and go off.

6) Running Ill Gotten Gains, Diminishing Returns and Empty the Warrens was never the "strength" of TES, rather it was just necessary to run 2 different storm engines and 2 different kill conditions because you had to choose between recurring a counter, drawing them into a counter or getting sweeped. Now we basically just risk killing ourselves for a significantly more powerful card when cast all by itself and turned the cantrips into enablers for LED.

7) LEDless post-board is totally viable, I run a verions of AnT that just MDs 8 Red Blasts, and it really screws aggro-control when all of your counters are more efficient than their counters. The problem tho' is that you pretty much open yourself up to prison at the cost of PWNing aggro-control, but if prison doesn't exist

8) IMO, more than 1 Cabal Ritual just isn't worth it, the card is randomly great to tutor for or reveal off Ad Nauseam, but it's a pretty sub-optimal accelerant in your starting hand and in the early game too. A singleton Tinder Wall is pretty damn strong, I'd suggest trying that if you're looking for a little more acceleration.

9) A few people MSGed me for my current list, so I'm just going to post it here instead of replying to each MSG.

MD

1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Ad Nauseam
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Tinder Wall
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Glimmervoid
1 Forbidden Orchard

SB

1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Empty the Warrens
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill Gotten Gains
1 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Death Mark
1 Shattering Spree
1 Simplify

Sorry for the crappy English, not a lot of time and a lot of random thoughts, I'll edit this when I have more time.

Jeff Kruchkow
03-27-2009, 03:02 PM
1) Cutting Infernal Tutor for Mystical Tutor reduces the "gold fish" speed of the deck, but it doesn't necessarily reduce the actual speed of the deck, because a lot of the time your ability to go off isn't determined by drawing the perfect hand for Infernal Tutor but by finding the exact card you need to make your Starting 7 busted - so the speed issue is a really grey area.

2) Saying 8 cantrips forces you to skip turns because the 8 cantrips are set up spells is really linear thinking, because Brainstorm and Ponder usually enable you to combo on the same turn by either finding more mana, a threat, disruption etc. You don't have to use them as set up spells, usually whatever is in the top 3 will make up for the investment of U (especially hitting a land).

3) Double Burning Wish is great, usually I just use one Burning Wish to either grab Thought Seize, bait Spellsnare or grab Diminishing Returns after failing to resolve another bomb.

4) You don't need more than 4 protection spells, but more than 4 protection spells are nice. The less time you have to look for protection the more time you have to go off, it's really just risk vs reward and totally depends on how comfortable you are coin flipping game 1. It also really depends on their disruption package, if they run Spellsnare instead of Stifle you can just skip protection and go for the 3 MD Empty the Warrens plan.

5) If you run bounce, you run Chain of Vapor. The card is suppose to deal with Meddling Mage, Gaddock Teeg, Arcane Laboratory, Runed Halo and that kind of stuff. Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void and Counterbalance essentially both stop you from comboing and stop your from tutoring for removal, so just go with what works for the little nuisance cards. You also want the cheapest removal possible, because it increases your ability to remove a problem card and go off on the same turn. Prison is always going to be a coin flip, you just hope that you either win the coin flip or they have to mull really hard for Trinisphere or Chalice of the Void and that gives you enough time to remove it and go off.

6) Running Ill Gotten Gains, Diminishing Returns and Empty the Warrens was never the "strength" of TES, rather it was just necessary to run 2 different storm engines and 2 different kill conditions because you had to choose between recurring a counter, drawing them into a counter or getting sweeped. Now we basically just risk killing ourselves for a significantly more powerful card when cast all by itself and turned the cantrips into enablers for LED.

7) LEDless post-board is totally viable, I run a verions of AnT that just MDs 8 Red Blasts, and it really screws aggro-control when all of your counters are more efficient than their counters. The problem tho' is that you pretty much open yourself up to prison at the cost of PWNing aggro-control, but if prison doesn't exist

8) IMO, more than 1 Cabal Ritual just isn't worth it, the card is randomly great to tutor for or reveal off Ad Nauseaum, but it's a pretty sub-optimal accelerant in your starting hand and in the early game too. A singleton Tinder Wall is pretty damn strong, I'd suggest trying that if you're looking for a little more acceleration.

1) Yes, it does reduce the goldfish speed because you dont have the explosive IT hands. Instead, you have to play Mystical and wait a turn or use a draw spell in which case you probably need to wait a turn after that anyway.

6) I would say that having 3 diverse storm engines and 2 very different (from a hate perspective) kills is an enormous strength. It means that your opponent has to choose the correct hate card based simply on a guess. Whether you agree or not, diversity IS a strength of the deck and cutting down on that hurts you.

7) No. You drop your LED's and you will lose to aggro and counterbalance both. LED helps you explode and get the win before anything significant (Chalice, EE, Deed, Counterbalance, Trini, Thorns, etc.) can hit play.

8) The Tinder Wall discussion has been had a million times. IMO 2 Cabal Rit are perfect as, like you said, it is randomly amazing and is good post-AdN but can be lackluster in the opener.

GreenOne
03-27-2009, 04:31 PM
6) I would say that having 3 diverse storm engines and 2 very different (from a hate perspective) kills is an enormous strength. It means that your opponent has to choose the correct hate card based simply on a guess. Whether you agree or not, diversity IS a strength of the deck and cutting down on that hurts you.
Yeah. That.
I've seen TarmoSlight players siding in graveyard hate, cause I was winning the first match with IGG: Ad Nauseam becomes unviable if you can't combo on the first or second turn against it. Siding in their graveyard hate they just slowed their clock, making Ad Nauseam relevant again, or you can still combo with Returns.
Other times you're playing against goblins and they play a Pillar on turn 2. You're fucked up if your only engine is AN, but you still can win with IGG.
The deck doesn't always have versatility: you can't always decide what your engine is going to be, but you put the opponent into difficult decisions. Keeping a hand without first turn disruption but with a counterbalance becomes risky when there's ETW involved. If you're playing burn and got a hand with 2 mountains, 3 bolts and fireblast but no Pillar/other hate this hand is definetly keepable if you know your opponent is going to play AN. Things change when IGG is involved. And so on.

The deck runs quite smoothly with 7 protection spells between Chant and Duress and 1 bounce. I love to have protection when needed to, and both duress/chant are not plain useless (like pyroblast) in matchups where you're not expecting disruption from the opponent.

BreathWeapon
03-28-2009, 05:05 AM
1) Yes, it does reduce the goldfish speed because you dont have the explosive IT hands. Instead, you have to play Mystical and wait a turn or use a draw spell in which case you probably need to wait a turn after that anyway.

6) I would say that having 3 diverse storm engines and 2 very different (from a hate perspective) kills is an enormous strength. It means that your opponent has to choose the correct hate card based simply on a guess. Whether you agree or not, diversity IS a strength of the deck and cutting down on that hurts you.

7) No. You drop your LED's and you will lose to aggro and counterbalance both. LED helps you explode and get the win before anything significant (Chalice, EE, Deed, Counterbalance, Trini, Thorns, etc.) can hit play.

8) The Tinder Wall discussion has been had a million times. IMO 2 Cabal Rit are perfect as, like you said, it is randomly amazing and is good post-AdN but can be lackluster in the opener.

5) Yes, it reduces the gold fish speed, but reducing the gold fish speed doesn't necessarily mean you've reduced the actual speed of the deck, because if you're casting Mystical Tutor your searching for the critical accelerant, disruption or removal to win where Infernal Tutor is a brick.

6) No, the opponent doesn't have to choose the specific hate card "at a guess" the opponent chooses the hate card that does the most to every Storm engine and kill condition. Counterbalance, Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, Gaddok Teeg, Ethersworn Canonist and Arcane Laboratory don't care which strategy you're trying to use. In pre Ad Nauseam TES, each Storm engine and win condition essentially covered the weaknesses of the other Storm engines and win conditions, now of the alternate Storm engines and win conditions just go to the SB for Burning Wish.

7) You don't need LED to beat aggro, and if you need LED to beat aggro then you're a bad Storm player. LEDless AnT is Top 8ing in aggro fields, and LEDless AnT with 8 MD Red Blasts has a very, very good game vs Threshold

8) No, we haven't had the Tinder Wall discussion a million times, people just dismissed Tinder Wall because it's green and it's "removable," but it's still arguably the best tertiary accelerant I've played with in the deck. One Cabal Ritual is fine with Mystical Tutor, but there's just very little reasoning to play two.

There just seems to be a lot of shoddy reasoning and throw away comments here that don't even make any sense, the ol' Chrome Mox + Mystical Tutor = "too much card disadvantage" being the absolute worst argument considering a Storm deck playing both is in the DTB and TES isn't.

Piceli89
03-28-2009, 03:14 PM
I'd just like to ask a noobish question: Does Undiscovered Paradise force the user to bounce it in the untaps tep even if it wasn't tapped in the previous turn for mana ? Because, if it's so, then that card really sucks. And if it isn't so too, I believe there are better options.. Because usually in the first turn you play a setup spell or , more rarely, cast a protection spell, so being forced to undo to hand the Paradise really can hurt you. You may say that "this deck needs a singleton land to go off" or similar things, but playing it ( with Cook's list) i usually needed that 2 lands on the board to get enough mana to go off.
Couldn't it be cut for, say, a 2nd Orchard or a Glimmervoid? I know that all those lands suck, but Glimmervoid has a drawback that can be quite "controlled"..hoping not to open with a hand without artifacts.

DeathScythe
03-28-2009, 03:19 PM
no, bouncing it is part of the mana ability. so unless you use that mana ability to make mana it won't bounce itself
If you tap it for black with an urborg in play it also won't get bounced

Jeff Kruchkow
03-28-2009, 05:58 PM
5) Yes, it reduces the gold fish speed, but reducing the gold fish speed doesn't necessarily mean you've reduced the actual speed of the deck, because if you're casting Mystical Tutor your searching for the critical accelerant, disruption or removal to win where Infernal Tutor is a brick.

6) No, the opponent doesn't have to choose the specific hate card "at a guess" the opponent chooses the hate card that does the most to every Storm engine and kill condition. Counterbalance, Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, Gaddok Teeg, Ethersworn Canonist and Arcane Laboratory don't care which strategy you're trying to use. In pre Ad Nauseam TES, each Storm engine and win condition essentially covered the weaknesses of the other Storm engines and win conditions, now of the alternate Storm engines and win conditions just go to the SB for Burning Wish.

7) You don't need LED to beat aggro, and if you need LED to beat aggro then you're a bad Storm player. LEDless AnT is Top 8ing in aggro fields, and LEDless AnT with 8 MD Red Blasts has a very, very good game vs Threshold

8) No, we haven't had the Tinder Wall discussion a million times, people just dismissed Tinder Wall because it's green and it's "removable," but it's still arguably the best tertiary accelerant I've played with in the deck. One Cabal Ritual is fine with Mystical Tutor, but there's just very little reasoning to play two.

There just seems to be a lot of shoddy reasoning and throw away comments here that don't even make any sense, the ol' Chrome Mox + Mystical Tutor = "too much card disadvantage" being the absolute worst argument considering a Storm deck playing both is in the DTB and TES isn't.

Actually reducing the goldfish speed does mean reducing the actual speed. What im saying is that IT can act likemystical depending on the hand, and is also a useful tutor post AdN.

Counterbalance - is played everywhere, Trinisphere - is in like 2 decks, Chalice of the Void - isnt just storm hate and can easily be played around, Gaddok Teeg - really?, Ethersworn Canonist - shattering spree says Hi and Arcane Laboratory - really? After those, other hate cards like Jund Charm, Extirpate, Runed Halo, and EE that are actually played can be avoided based on the route you take.

Taking out LED slows you down significantly and that is a fact whether you will admit it or not. And slowing yourself down opens you up to more damage from aggro or even losses. And hell, without LED to loop once they get a couple of swings in you have a huge chance of fizziling hard off of AdN.

Tinder Wall is bad. There is at leasta page of discussion on why that is and if you are still confused as to why PM me and I will be happy to explain.

And how is Mox and Mystical being too much disadvantage shoddy reasoning. Last i checked using those 2 is -2 to yourself so that seems to be a fact that it is disadvantage. And if you have to use 3+ of those cards pre AdN, you're hand is gonna get wrecked.

As far as ANT being in the DtB and TES not, the only combo that t8'ed at the GP ran Burning Wishes and rites which most ANT dont. It was more of a hybrid of the 2 than it was 1 or the other.

GreenOne
03-28-2009, 06:29 PM
8) No, we haven't had the Tinder Wall discussion a million times, people just dismissed Tinder Wall because it's green and it's "removable," but it's still arguably the best tertiary accelerant I've played with in the deck. One Cabal Ritual is fine with Mystical Tutor, but there's just very little reasoning to play two.
It's arguably the fourth accelerant of the deck (LED, Dark Ritual, Rite of Flame). Those are automatic 4ofs. It can be argued that the deck needs 1 or 2 Cabal Ritual. The only reason to play 2 is to IT for it, but there's no place for more than 1-2 Tinder Walls.

BreathWeapon
03-29-2009, 05:28 AM
Actually reducing the goldfish speed does mean reducing the actual speed. What im saying is that IT can act likemystical depending on the hand, and is also a useful tutor post AdN.

Counterbalance - is played everywhere, Trinisphere - is in like 2 decks, Chalice of the Void - isnt just storm hate and can easily be played around, Gaddok Teeg - really?, Ethersworn Canonist - shattering spree says Hi and Arcane Laboratory - really? After those, other hate cards like Jund Charm, Extirpate, Runed Halo, and EE that are actually played can be avoided based on the route you take.

Taking out LED slows you down significantly and that is a fact whether you will admit it or not. And slowing yourself down opens you up to more damage from aggro or even losses. And hell, without LED to loop once they get a couple of swings in you have a huge chance of fizziling hard off of AdN.

Tinder Wall is bad. There is at leasta page of discussion on why that is and if you are still confused as to why PM me and I will be happy to explain.

And how is Mox and Mystical being too much disadvantage shoddy reasoning. Last i checked using those 2 is -2 to yourself so that seems to be a fact that it is disadvantage. And if you have to use 3+ of those cards pre AdN, you're hand is gonna get wrecked.

As far as ANT being in the DtB and TES not, the only combo that t8'ed at the GP ran Burning Wishes and rites which most ANT dont. It was more of a hybrid of the 2 than it was 1 or the other.

Listen, you have 42 posts and either little or no experience playing Storm judging from your comments. It's nice to have an opinion, but trying to assert your opinion on some who has played TES just as long if not longer than Bryant has with out any experience or testing isn't going to get you any where.

No, reducing the goldfish speed of the deck doesn't reduce the actual speed of the deck, because in real games your opponents mulligan into counters or disruption and tutoring for answers becomes a mandatory criteria for "going off." Losing a turn or even two turns vs aggro doesn't matter, Emidln more or less proved this with DDFT already, and LEDless AnT is proving it again right now.

The point is Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void and Counterbalance stop Mystical Tutor from tutoring for Chain of Vapor, so adding Chain of Vapor to remove those cards is incredibly stupid. If you add bounce, you add bounce to deal with Arcane Laboratory, Gaddok Teeg, Ethersworn Canonist or Meddling Mage etc. where none of those cards prevent Mystical Tutor from tutoring for Chain of Vapor.

Removing LED and reducing speed is not the point, you use the threat of LED to force the opponent to mulligan into a counter or lose, and you don't use LED to Mind Twist yourself vs their counter. The Storm vs aggro-control match up isn't about speed, Force of Will is Turn 0, the match up is about who has the most disruption and the right disruption. If you look at Italian LEDless AnT lists, they're running 8 Red Blasts MD, because they know 8 Red Blasts MD is the most and the right disruption when facing Force of Will, Counterbalance and Meddling Mage.

Tinder Wall is good, there's at least a page of discussion on why that is, and if you're still confused as to why you can PM me and I'd be happy to explain it to you.

Because Mystical Tutor and Chrome Mox isn't "too much" card disadvantage, card disadvantage doesn't matter when the cards you are playing win the game for you. Infernal Tutor will NEVER, EVER act like Mystical Tutor, because Infernal Tutor finds copies of cards you already have instead of finding cards you're missing and that is a big difference. What most people fail to realize is that Infernal Tutor is a dead card until you are ready to win, and when you are ready to win then losing 1 card from your draw doesn't really matter. Mystical Tutor brings consistency and rewards skill, Infernal Tutor just relies on drawing otherwise busted hands.

@GreenOne

I agree and I disagree, if you're not running Mystical Tutor then you can run 4 Tinder Wall, but if you are running Mystical Tutor then you can run 1 Tinder Wall with out the G mana "gumming up" your combo turn. One of the problems a lot of people have with Tinder Wall is that they're still using Orim's Chant at 4x, I'm not using Orim's Chant at all, so the W you use to disrupt the opponent is the same G mana I use to accelerate (with Duress being resolved via Dark Ritual).

Running 2xCabal Ritual for Infernal Tutor isn't enough of a reason to run two, a lot of the time I have difficulty justifying even 1 Cabal Ritual because tutoring for a Dark Ritual or second Rite of Flame is usually good enough.

Bahamuth
03-29-2009, 05:58 AM
Listen, you have 42 posts and either little or no experience playing Storm judging from your comments. It's nice to have an opinion, but trying to assert your opinion on some who has played TES just as long if not longer than Bryant has with out any experience or testing isn't going to get you any where.

I can see your point here, but please do not diminish the guy's point on the basis of him having no experience. You cannot tell from his post count wether he is experienced with this deck, and even if he isn't, it doesn't make any well-argued points he makes any less true (I am not saying the points are well-argued, just that you shouldn't judge people like this).


No, reducing the goldfish speed of the deck doesn't reduce the actual speed of the deck, because in real games your opponents mulligan into counters or disruption and tutoring for answers becomes a mandatory criteria for "going off." Losing a turn or even two turns vs aggro doesn't matter, Emidln more or less proved this with DDFT already, and LEDless AnT is proving it again right now.

This is true for those decks that focus on more disruption than the opponent has hate, but I don't think this strategy is comparable to what TES tries to do. TES tries to win before most disruption lands, so it has to have very few disruption on it's own. Hence, the goldfish rate of the deck can certainly increase the speed of the deck. Any additional turn 1 wins you have will probably mean more won games anyway because of the reasoning I'm sure you're aware off.


Removing LED and reducing speed is not the point, you use the threat of LED to force the opponent to mulligan into a counter or lose, and you don't use LED to Mind Twist yourself vs their counter. The Storm vs aggro-control match up isn't about speed, Force of Will is Turn 0, the match up is about who has the most disruption and the right disruption. If you look at Italian LEDless AnT lists, they're running 8 Red Blasts MD, because they know 8 Red Blasts MD is the most and the right disruption when facing Force of Will, Counterbalance and Meddling Mage.

I disagree here to some extend. Any form of aggro-control only has 4 FoW for turn one wins, and only 4 FoW 4 Daze (which certainly doesn't always matter) and perhaps Spell Snare (which you will often be able to play through I think) on turn 2. You can win this matchup by either having more disruption, or being so fast that you can win before the disruption comes down.


Because Mystical Tutor and Chrome Mox isn't "too much" card disadvantage, card disadvantage doesn't matter when the cards you are playing win the game for you. Infernal Tutor will NEVER, EVER act like Mystical Tutor, because Infernal Tutor finds copies of cards you already have instead of finding cards you're missing and that is a big difference. What most people fail to realize is that Infernal Tutor is a dead card until you are ready to win, and when you are ready to win then losing 1 card from your draw doesn't really matter. Mystical Tutor brings consistency and rewards skill, Infernal Tutor just relies on drawing otherwise busted hands.

Completely agreed. IT often just sucks at finding what you need, and it can't be compared to Mystical Tutor in this aspect.

Cardadvantage doesn't matter for fast combo like TES at all. I've heard Bryant use this argument before, and I belive it's untrue. Wether you win against decks that disrupt you, isn't a matter of carddisadvantage, it's a matter of finding the right cards. TES can win with 2-3 cards in it's hand, it doesn't need a full hand at all. Finding the right disruption should certainly be priority, even though it will cost you cards.

BreathWeapon
03-29-2009, 08:02 AM
I'm not dismissing his "argument" because of his post count, I'm telling him that his "argument" has no basis in either theory, experience or practice and he can't just keep reiterating everything Bryant says as gospel and then tell me everything I say is wrong "just because" when Bryant's arguments are more or less just based on his play style and personal opinion at this point.

Granted, in context, for game 1 TES "coin flips" with a limited amount of removal and a lot of acceleration vs an unknown opponent, but game 2 it can and perhaps should deviate from this game plan by SBing out Infernal Tutor and Lion's Eye Diamond and SBing in 8 Blasts to flip the script. Essentially, you know you are on the draw and you know your opponent is mulliganing for disruption ... so why would play into that when you could side step it and just blast all of their counters and permanents? I'm not saying you should do it, because I'd rather use discard and resolve LED, but LEDless AnT has shown us the strategy is viable.

There are a lot of reasonable branch for Storm combo right now, and IMO that's a good thing, because it just makes us all that much harder to deal with.

Bryant Cook
03-30-2009, 12:37 PM
I'm not dismissing his "argument" because of his post count, I'm telling him that his "argument" has no basis in either theory, experience or practice and he can't just keep reiterating everything Bryant says as gospel and then tell me everything I say is wrong "just because" when Bryant's arguments are more or less just based on his play style and personal opinion at this point. Really? Are we going there? Because I've never put up numbers or I've never spent time and time again tweaking, adjusting, and tuning the deck. I stay out of this thread because of the people like you to be quite frank. Throwing random ideas up against the wall without ever actually casting a single spell you mention. I go to factual large events and contribute to the community instead of playing on Magic Work Station. But I'll keep to my opinions and style instead of numbers and results. Thank you.

Nightmare
03-30-2009, 12:49 PM
It's getting heated in here. Relax, everyone.

BreathWeapon
03-30-2009, 02:25 PM
Really? Are we going there? Because I've never put up numbers or I've never spent time and time again tweaking, adjusting, and tuning the deck. I stay out of this thread because of the people like you to be quite frank. Throwing random ideas up against the wall without ever actually casting a single spell you mention. I go to factual large events and contribute to the community instead of playing on Magic Work Station. But I'll keep to my opinions and style instead of numbers and results. Thank you.

I never said your results, practice and opinions weren't relevant, I said they weren't Gospel i.e. people just can't keep reiterating everything you say with out saying anything themselves. If you want to dismiss my results, my practice and my opinion as a MWS random who never attends "factual" events that's your perrogative, not all of us are in the U.S., in college and flip burgers (or whatever). The fact of the matter is some of your opinions are just opinions regardless of your "numbers and results," saying 4 Chrome Mox and 4 Mystical Tutor isn't viable when AnT is a DTB and TES isn't just doesn't make any sense.

We've rarely agreed on anything, and it takes you forever to recognize other people's arguments even when you're wrong, so you go your way and I'll go mine.

Brad Herbig
03-30-2009, 07:56 PM
Listen, you have 42 posts and either little or no experience playing Storm judging from your comments. It's nice to have an opinion, but trying to assert your opinion on some who has played TES just as long if not longer than Bryant has with out any experience or testing isn't going to get you any where.


You know that player skill comes from, well, being good at Magic. Playing a deck for a while does help you become better at it, but being a good player just helps overall. See the pros at the GP; they are really good players who have close to no knowledge of the Legacy format, yet they continue to dominate.

Also, I can attest to how much Jeff has played with TES, and it definitely isn't "little or no experience". He actually placed higher with TES at GP Chicago than Bryant Cook did. Ergo Bryant Cook has little to no experience with TES..? I'm sure that's arguable.

Piceli89
04-01-2009, 06:55 PM
Apart from flames and similar disputes,
I was trying the old list of TES, the AN-less one which ran 1 MD etw, DR and 2 Infernal contracts. I don't know if what i'm going to say it's true, but, paradoxally, i found that that list, which ran less protection and was without such a bomb which AN is, was better against CB decks. The point of running less protections spells ( only 4 chants) and the presence of SSG allowed more acceleration and digging into a deadly spell into the first turns. While this is still possible with the new An-with list, i found that sometimes you open with mediocre hands where protection pieces or tutors are redundant ( often it happens to me something like 2x wish, 1 tutor, 2 orim's, 1 land and 1 ritual), and you're going to mull that quite hopeless hand.
I have also read the tests made by Bryant against 4-color CB thresh, and was pretty surprised, since i expected frankly TES to do 0-6 against that deck. But still, it managed to push 2 games.
So, i 'm asking myself whether the AN-less list, which runs the singleton EtW Maindeck that i love if cast quickly against threshold variants, can paradoxally be more suitable for a CB-heavy metagame. I know we lose the main bomb of the deck, but also opening with draw4-s or higher percentage to pull off that 14 tokens g1 isn't that bad. Of course, on the other side is also true that, with only 4 protection spells, that's not going to go on the long distance against dazes, stifles, snares ,ecc...
But with the "new " list, i often stuck with dead cards in hands, and i wasn't allowed to do anything, giving my opponent turns to cast his UU shit. O really dunno whether it's just bad luck (even if it happened way one more time than once) of mine or not proper game skill, but i feel the old list can still say something. Just an odd thought, though.
Anyone can tell me something reguarding this?

Bryant Cook
04-04-2009, 01:39 PM
I don't understand what you want to be told. You seem to have your opinion already. The newer lists lack MD ETW, that's really the only downside. Nauseum was the natural replacement for Returns.

Piceli89
04-04-2009, 05:00 PM
I don't understand what you want to be told. You seem to have your opinion already. The newer lists lack MD ETW, that's really the only downside. Nauseum was the natural replacement for Returns.

I don't want to be told anything in particular, but above i was just referring to the fact that with the new list, which is yours and i'm testing at the moment, i found several ( and i underline-several) situations in which i open with hands such: chrome mox-chrome mox-land-orim-rite of flame-tendrils-ponder, or similar shit. Well , probably that's just me being incredibly unlucky (or you who draws always perfect hands, depending on the point of view). I know that i have to mulligan it, and i'm beginning to get frustrated too every time i open a hand with 2 moxes and /or 4-5 cards with different colours, which i'm not able to make work together, even pitching then to moxes. I dunno if something similar has happened to all of you, but it happens, i sweat, and not only once. Furthermore, i want to cut my veins when i always find that fucking tendrils in the opening 7s.
For this reason i advocated somehow if the Pre Nauseam version couldn't be slightly better, since it ran +1 ponder and , most of all, 3 moxes
furthermore, the fact of having EtW as a Maindeck kill condition could easily be a plus against counterbalance decks i guess. And , testing it, i felt it was running more "smoothy" than this one (apart from Diminishing Returns, which is a card clearly based on luck).
It's not that i don't like the new list of yours, I'm testing it pretty intensively and i sometimes get turn 1-2 kills.
And i admit running 4 ITs and 4 Wishes seems to be pretty good,even if it sucks opening with 3 of them in hand.
The point is that, on average, there are at least 3 times on 10 when i draw such horrible hands that i want to throw the deck against a wall, or just be forced to mulligan, which decreases drastically the chances of having a suitable fast-kill hand. And now maybe it's just MWS "goldfisher" which is incredibly bad for unkwown reasons ( there were times when i opened with 3 moxes..), but I'm a little scary about this happening to a real-life tourneament.
Pay attention, I'm not saying this deck sucks, I'm deeply in love with it. But i found it several times autolosing to itself with horrible hands, even before than from the opponent. I repeat, maybe that 's just MWS, maybe that's just me, but i don't want to believe that this deck relies heavily really only on a dose of good luck in opening. I always read things in this post such as " with this deck you go turn 1 protection/cantrip, turn 2 fast kill", but this happened quite few times in relationship to the quantty of games tested in goldfish. There were cases in which i missed a single mana,in others i wasn't just able to find a land and had to mull (even to 5), in other, playing against real opponents, i had such fragile hands that a single wasteland cut me off the game.

For example, if you'd open with a hand such as
CoV, MysticalT,Orim,Mox,Land,Petal,IT
Would it be to keep or to mull? i 'd think this hand is pretty LED -dependant to go off, so i just can't decide whether to risk and get it on the draw ( the percentage of which in kinda low), or mull.

And with this?
Orim, IGG, Wish, Land, Land, Mox, Led
It may be a good land, but again, it all depends on what is going to be on topdeck. If i'd topdeck a good accelerant, it may be ok, even if the only way to " go off " would be perhaps a EtW (IGG is kinda weak when it's not along with Dark rituals).

I also tried, for the sake of argument, to fit a EtW in the MD , but eventually gave up because i couldn't put another heavy 4-cc card, and just making -1An +1 etw was way risky, since AN still remains the main bomb of the deck.

I could try to make -1 Duress +1 Ponder to increase the probabilities of stacking a correct sequence of "storm cards"-hand, but running 6 pieces of protection may be too much low, especially in a meta heavily relying on blue as mine. It's sad that in this deck, increasing an aspect decreases another, but i feel the deck must not die to itself before of all.
Or i ca try -1 Orim +1 Duress to make the "color "issue slightly better, but it's clear that Orim is such that goodness against also nonblue decks ( a timewalk which gains you time to build combo is teh nuts) that's clear > Durex. But it has the fault of not being in colour, not being able to be dropped after a Ritual-which reallt COUNTS, so far, so needing 1 land "reserved" each time to be cast.

Thanks for your patience.

Jeff Kruchkow
04-04-2009, 09:55 PM
I don't want to be told anything in particular, but above i was just referring to the fact that with the new list, which is yours and i'm testing at the moment, i found several ( and i underline-several) situations in which i open with hands such: chrome mox-chrome mox-land-orim-rite of flame-tendrils-ponder, or similar shit. Well , probably that's just me being incredibly unlucky (or you who draws always perfect hands, depending on the point of view). I know that i have to mulligan it, and i'm beginning to get frustrated too every time i open a hand with 2 moxes and /or 4-5 cards with different colours, which i'm not able to make work together, even pitching then to moxes. I dunno if something similar has happened to all of you, but it happens, i sweat, and not only once. Furthermore, i want to cut my veins when i always find that fucking tendrils in the opening 7s.
For this reason i advocated somehow if the Pre Nauseam version couldn't be slightly better, since it ran +1 ponder and , most of all, 3 moxes
furthermore, the fact of having EtW as a Maindeck kill condition could easily be a plus against counterbalance decks i guess. And , testing it, i felt it was running more "smoothy" than this one (apart from Diminishing Returns, which is a card clearly based on luck).
It's not that i don't like the new list of yours, I'm testing it pretty intensively and i sometimes get turn 1-2 kills.
And i admit running 4 ITs and 4 Wishes seems to be pretty good,even if it sucks opening with 3 of them in hand.
The point is that, on average, there are at least 3 times on 10 when i draw such horrible hands that i want to throw the deck against a wall, or just be forced to mulligan, which decreases drastically the chances of having a suitable fast-kill hand. And now maybe it's just MWS "goldfisher" which is incredibly bad for unkwown reasons ( there were times when i opened with 3 moxes..), but I'm a little scary about this happening to a real-life tourneament.
Pay attention, I'm not saying this deck sucks, I'm deeply in love with it. But i found it several times autolosing to itself with horrible hands, even before than from the opponent. I repeat, maybe that 's just MWS, maybe that's just me, but i don't want to believe that this deck relies heavily really only on a dose of good luck in opening. I always read things in this post such as " with this deck you go turn 1 protection/cantrip, turn 2 fast kill", but this happened quite few times in relationship to the quantty of games tested in goldfish. There were cases in which i missed a single mana,in others i wasn't just able to find a land and had to mull (even to 5), in other, playing against real opponents, i had such fragile hands that a single wasteland cut me off the game.

For example, if you'd open with a hand such as
CoV, MysticalT,Orim,Mox,Land,Petal,IT
Would it be to keep or to mull? i 'd think this hand is pretty LED -dependant to go off, so i just can't decide whether to risk and get it on the draw ( the percentage of which in kinda low), or mull.

And with this?
Orim, IGG, Wish, Land, Land, Mox, Led
It may be a good land, but again, it all depends on what is going to be on topdeck. If i'd topdeck a good accelerant, it may be ok, even if the only way to " go off " would be perhaps a EtW (IGG is kinda weak when it's not along with Dark rituals).

I also tried, for the sake of argument, to fit a EtW in the MD , but eventually gave up because i couldn't put another heavy 4-cc card, and just making -1An +1 etw was way risky, since AN still remains the main bomb of the deck.

I could try to make -1 Duress +1 Ponder to increase the probabilities of stacking a correct sequence of "storm cards"-hand, but running 6 pieces of protection may be too much low, especially in a meta heavily relying on blue as mine. It's sad that in this deck, increasing an aspect decreases another, but i feel the deck must not die to itself before of all.
Or i ca try -1 Orim +1 Duress to make the "color "issue slightly better, but it's clear that Orim is such that goodness against also nonblue decks ( a timewalk which gains you time to build combo is teh nuts) that's clear > Durex. But it has the fault of not being in colour, not being able to be dropped after a Ritual-which reallt COUNTS, so far, so needing 1 land "reserved" each time to be cast.

Thanks for your patience.

Simply in reference to the hands thing, all storm combo decks will have this its inherient to running the cards that combo does but MWS shuffler is an issue as i have on more than one occasion opened 7land hands while running 10 lands.

However, after having played with the deck in real life at the GP, shitty hands like that don't occur more than 1 in 20-30 games and when they do the mulligan is usually pretty good. If i remember right I only mulliganed somewhere near 3 times total at the GP. The deck is very consistent and i would suggest to anyone having issues with bad hands with TES, sleeve it up and then test either against friends or just goldfish because in my experience, real life is much more hospitable for this deck.

kicks_422
04-04-2009, 11:24 PM
This is my list. Does it look right?

MAINDECK

4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Undiscovered Paradise

4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
2 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Duress
4 Orim's Chant

2 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

SIDEBOARD

3 Vexing Shusher
3 Pyroblast
3 Shattering Spree
1 Grapeshot
1 Tranquility
1 Pyroclasm
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

I'm making my final decision between building TES and Hybrid UBW ANT, and it basically boils down to Burning Wish and Pyroblast vs. Doomsday, Krosan Grip, and fetch lands.

Pelikanudo
04-04-2009, 11:41 PM
This is my list. Does it look right?

MAINDECK

4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Undiscovered Paradise

4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
2 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Duress
4 Orim's Chant

2 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

SIDEBOARD

3 Vexing Shusher
3 Pyroblast
3 Shattering Spree
1 Grapeshot
1 Tranquility
1 Pyroclasm
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

I'm making my final decision between building TES and Hybrid UBW ANT, and it basically boils down to Burning Wish and Pyroblast vs. Doomsday, Krosan Grip, and fetch lands.

I couldnt agree more with the base :
Cabal ritual are a non sense , better putting up both ponder and full packkages ,
finaLLY out chain of vapor ¡, why do we play burnin then?
could you tell us which is you boarding pla nn vs :
- landstill
- U/B/R trehold
- Tempo 3shold
- 4 counterbalance decks
- chalice and trinis decks
and other important match up I forgot

Thnaks

matelml
04-05-2009, 02:39 PM
I couldn't agree more with the base:
Cabal Rituals are nonsense, it's better to add both Ponders and a full protection package,
finally taking out Chain of Vapor. Why would we play Burning Wish otherwise?
Could you tell us what your boarding plan is vs:
- landstill
- U/G/R Threshold
- Tempo Threshold
- 4C Counterbalance decks
- Chalice and Trini decks
and other important match-ups I forgot.

Thanks

Spelling and grammar? It took me some time to understand what you were trying to say.:frown:

Piceli89
04-05-2009, 05:42 PM
This is my list. Does it look right?

MAINDECK

4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Undiscovered Paradise

4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
2 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Duress
4 Orim's Chant

2 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

SIDEBOARD

3 Vexing Shusher
3 Pyroblast
3 Shattering Spree
1 Grapeshot
1 Tranquility
1 Pyroclasm
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

I'm making my final decision between building TES and Hybrid UBW ANT, and it basically boils down to Burning Wish and Pyroblast vs. Doomsday, Krosan Grip, and fetch lands.

I'm not sure if cutting a chain of vapor ( the choice of which as a sort of 8th "protection" spell is pretty debatale, i know ) but, most of all, the cabal ritual is good. I mean, i know that in a field full of counterbalance, you want to go as protected as you can before going off, but an overamount of those kind of spell could generate a controproductive result, risking to draw too much of them instead of acceleration or tutors/cantrips. But on the 4th ponder i almost entirely agree, it's such a goodness which offers more resistance against discarders and more shuffling/selection that it 's generally a good choice.
What i was saying about Cabal ritual is that in some cases, especially in the late game-which, of course, occurs when you didn't manage to go off or got stopped-, a single cabal ritual can power off a fresh AdNos , making it a 2 card combo. Also, there are times when you need 5 mana instead of 4 after the "break led in resp to infernal/wish" trick to cast an igg and make the ritual/infernal/led carry on.
So i really don't know, i'm testing your list at the moment and trying to give you a concrete answer whether this lsit can be equally explosive and resistant.
Ah, i'd suggest putting at least 1 Orchard instead of the paradises, since this list is going to be slightly more slowish, and you'll probably need 2 lands on the board more of the times to go off. Having Paraidse bounced back almost every turn s a thing which pretty frustrates me.

GreenOne
04-05-2009, 06:59 PM
This is my list. Does it look right?

MAINDECK

4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Undiscovered Paradise

4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
2 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Duress
4 Orim's Chant

2 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

SIDEBOARD

3 Vexing Shusher
3 Pyroblast
3 Shattering Spree
1 Grapeshot
1 Tranquility
1 Pyroclasm
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

I'm making my final decision between building TES and Hybrid UBW ANT, and it basically boils down to Burning Wish and Pyroblast vs. Doomsday, Krosan Grip, and fetch lands.
I love this list for being really "square" (full of 4ofs).
I'd play it with 1x Cabal Ritual that it's a good tutor target, being almost like a LED after turn 3 or so.
I believe the deck needs some changes in the SB though.
I'd play your list with

MD:
-1 Duress/ponder +1 Cabal Ritual
-1/2 undiscovered paradise +1 Forbidden orchard +1 Underground sea

SB Either yours or:
-3 Shusher -3 Pyroblast
+3 Xantid Swarm +3 ETW

Anyway, you need at least 1 ETW in the SB. Isn't it useful in your testing?

kicks_422
04-05-2009, 08:19 PM
Agh. Yeah, I have an EtW in the SB. I think it's over the Pyroclasm.

Cut the Shushers and Pyroblasts? How would I be able to deal with Counterbalance then? The deck's having a rough time against that as it is... Is the EtW plan better against CB?

The only thing that Chain of Vapor did for me was up the storm count, so I switched that for more protection so I can cast bombs. And yeah, I'll be replacing 1 Paradise with 1 Orchard. Regarding Cabal Ritual - I almost never reach Threshold with the deck, or at least not often enough to make me want to tutor for it. I'll try it though.

Jeff Kruchkow
04-05-2009, 08:40 PM
Agh. Yeah, I have an EtW in the SB. I think it's over the Pyroclasm.

Cut the Shushers and Pyroblasts? How would I be able to deal with Counterbalance then? The deck's having a rough time against that as it is... Is the EtW plan better against CB?

The only thing that Chain of Vapor did for me was up the storm count, so I switched that for more protection so I can cast bombs. And yeah, I'll be replacing 1 Paradise with 1 Orchard. Regarding Cabal Ritual - I almost never reach Threshold with the deck, or at least not often enough to make me want to tutor for it. I'll try it though.

IMO pyroblast is too good not to run. turn one with on color protection wins a ton of games

Also, having tested Shusher extensivley, i find that its kinda garbage and i personally have gone back to xantid. xantid has the plus of coming down turn 1, costing 1 less and at worst, he draws out counters that would otherwise be used for AdNs and such.

Cabal rits have been a choice slot so upping ponder and duress is cool although you should still consider a chain maindeck to deal with people that main stuff like mage, teeg, cannonist etc.

And yeah paradise is kinda lackluster i used to use 1 paradise and 1 orchard and have since gone up to 2 orchards as i hated the fact that paradise bounced itself (makes mystical->AdN with LED much harder)

kicks_422
04-05-2009, 09:52 PM
I thought the biggest draw of Shusher was to get Pyroblast through to destroy Counterbalance. I do have to admit that I've never been able to actually do that. I'll try Xantid Swarms then.

GoldenCid
04-08-2009, 04:37 PM
I thought the biggest draw of Shusher was to get Pyroblast through to destroy Counterbalance. I do have to admit that I've never been able to actually do that. I'll try Xantid Swarms then.

If Xantid swarm resolves, if feel very quiet...even more if i have a pyroblast in the same hand!

Piceli89
04-08-2009, 06:43 PM
If Xantid swarm resolves, if feel very quiet...even more if i have a pyroblast in the same hand!

One question: do you guys still see that the " he plays combo so i board out creature removals " trick still works? Because after some matches with landstill, when i boarded in Xantids, it still got StP'ed. I know that the fact they still let creature removals in hurts them most of all, but it's not good seeing a "protection" card removed this way.
Moreover, has anyone had issues with the fact that it's green? not for the difficulty to cast it -which doesn't happen with rainbow manabase- , but most of all that some times it gets a bit hard to make "all-color" hands work well together ( for example, if you open xantid, orim, ritual , infernal , rite of flame, chrome mox and land, which isn't that bad as combo-possibility, after all)? It happened some times, and i wasn't very pleased with it.
And yes, pyroblast is still too versatile,although the LED dissinergy.not to run it. The possibility of blasting a meddling mage or a balance is still too good to cut it out for weaker -or, at least, slower- solutions like Vexing Shusher.

kicks_422
04-08-2009, 10:39 PM
For TES, are the only options against decks with Counterbalance these?

1. Duress it out, or Pyroblast it after SB'ing.
2. Try to go off before they get it to stick.

GreenOne
04-08-2009, 10:58 PM
For TES, are the only options against decks with Counterbalance these?

1. Duress it out, or Pyroblast it after SB'ing.
2. Try to go off before they get it to stick.
The ones you listed and, in order of efficiency (IMO)
- There's Vexing Shusher, if you're playing him.
- You can make some storm and play ETW. (obviously you can do it even before CB lands, speeding up your clock in exchange for a crappier win con)
- You can Mystical for Wipe Away/Krosan grip post sb or for CoV preside and hope it resolves.
- You can Wish for Vindicate, if you play it, and hope it resolves.
- You can try to go off and force blind flips. If they flip something out of the range of the cards you have (like FoW or Trygon Predator) then you can just go off.

Seriously
04-09-2009, 11:04 AM
what turn does this deck usually go off ? I find myself wanting to go off turn 2, but usually being able to tendrils for only 14 or so. as 7 spells are the most I can seem to generate for storm count, without using an ad nauseum.

should I just wait until like turn 3 or 4 ?

what are some of the common plays/combos with this deck ? I spent the last 3 months porting over my belcher deck to tes. belcher was easy to pilot, but I cant seem to play tes the same way.

what should I be tutoring for with infernal ?

what is the most common win/kill condition ?

what are just some common plays ?

GreenOne
04-09-2009, 12:56 PM
what turn does this deck usually go off ? I find myself wanting to go off turn 2, but usually being able to tendrils for only 14 or so. as 7 spells are the most I can seem to generate for storm count, without using an ad nauseum.

should I just wait until like turn 3 or 4 ?

what are some of the common plays/combos with this deck ? I spent the last 3 months porting over my belcher deck to tes. belcher was easy to pilot, but I cant seem to play tes the same way.

what should I be tutoring for with infernal ?

what is the most common win/kill condition ?

what are just some common plays ?
I'd suggest you to see some goldfishes of an experienced player. You can do it on MWS too.

These are the tutor targets I use more.
Infernal Tutor targets (when comboing), in order:
- Ad Nauseam
- Ill Gotten Gains
- IT -> IT -> Tendrils
- Burning Wish -> ETW

Burning Wish targets (when comboing), in order:
- Diminishing Returns
- ETW
- Ill Gotten Gains

Nemcon
04-09-2009, 01:31 PM
Yea, the best thing to do is goldfish, goldfish, goldfish. That's the easiest way to learn the order, count mana, storm, make sure that all goes well, get used to what hands you want to keep in general (while noting it may change depending on the deck you run).
If you can't do that on your own, against nothing, it's going to be much harder at a real tournament, when you can't take things back, need to plan ahead, and have an opponent pressuring you to continue, and dealing wiht disruption at the same time/

Seriously
04-09-2009, 02:22 PM
I'd suggest you to see some goldfishes of an experienced player. You can do it on MWS too.

These are the tutor targets I use more.
Infernal Tutor targets (when comboing), in order:
- Ad Nauseam
- Ill Gotten Gains
- IT -> IT -> Tendrils
- Burning Wish -> ETW

Burning Wish targets (when comboing), in order:
- Diminishing Returns
- ETW
- Ill Gotten Gains

what do you tutor for if you dont have hellbent or LED in hand ? do you just not tutor and hold off ?

so diminishing returns is a popular wish target for you, more so than ETW ?

Hopo
04-09-2009, 02:37 PM
You might be keeping hands which should have been mulliganed. Like with belcher, also with TES you should know from your opening hand if you can win or not. Did you read the opening post??

You can use tutor to get another ritual or LED and use it as a setup spell also.
Obviously you need just goldfish some more. Eventually you will figure out how to play your cards in order to get lethal tendrils going.

In the beginning try to goldfish in order to get first or second turn kills. Like land, petal, brainstorm, ritual, ritual, LED, infernal tutor -> ill-gotten gains. It all starts from determining whether the opening hand gives you a possibility to combo off.

bum_man
04-09-2009, 02:51 PM
what do you tutor for if you dont have hellbent or LED in hand ? do you just not tutor and hold off ?

This actually depends on the situation and what resources you have on your hand. If you have more than one tutor in hand, you can use one to fetch a 2nd copy of a resource that you lack in going off. Those are either mana sources or rituals. Lotus petals, Dark Rituals and Rite of flames are the usual things you look for in the deck apart from LED. If you only have one tutor then you just have to play cantrips until you get enough resources to be able to tutor and play one of your "Bombs."


so diminishing returns is a popular wish target for you, more so than ETW ?

This depends on the matchup. You usually wish for Diminishing Returns in match-ups where you need to kill via Tendrils and Burning Wish is your only tutor. ETW is usually wished for in match-ups where you can't or don't necessarily have to win via tendrils. Decks that can't handle 14 or 16 goblin tokens early on in the game. You usually resort to this strategy against blue decks. Burning Wish also fetches various answers likes sprees or pyroclams or vindicates in the wishboard.

Jeff Kruchkow
04-09-2009, 06:00 PM
IMO Green One your order of wish targets is a bit off. Honestly I go for IGG more than D. Returns easy. However, it also depends much more on what you have played so far so making a generalization is knid of a bad idea.

kicks_422
04-09-2009, 10:11 PM
I almost always NEVER go for Diminishing Returns, personally. I've had so much bad luck with the card, I'm even thinking of cutting it in favor of additional EtW's to be boarded in against CB decks.

GoldenCid
04-09-2009, 10:27 PM
On Shusher and X. swarm:

Shusher

CMC: :2: This in important for two reason: 2 mana > 1 mana, obviously. But you may reveal shusher with ADN getting an extra damage.
It`s ability is needlable and stifleable but it's uncountereable and makes your spell uncountereables if you have the open mana. In this point if feel shusher like a "sphere effect".

X. swarm

CMC: :1: One mana is one mana.
Its abaility is mana independent and not needleable. However it's countereable.

GreenOne
04-10-2009, 05:10 AM
what do you tutor for if you dont have hellbent or LED in hand ? do you just not tutor and hold off ?

so diminishing returns is a popular wish target for you, more so than ETW ?

I usually use the excess tutors to get either acceleration if I can't combo with the cards in hand, or get the second protection piece if I'm playing against blue. Obviously infernaling on turn 2 after a brainstorm is huge for its shuffle effect.
If I have excess Wishes generally I wish for Discard (protection), ETW (the opponent will be digging in the next turns for some solution for it instead of counters, and it also leave you open to both tendrils or ETW, making your hand more flexible), or Diminishing Returns (if I fail my combo attempt, I can still play it and have a fresh new hand).

Diminishing returns is an effective target against discard, which I happen to play quite often against.
ETW is a close second, but it's better if wished in the first 2 turns, or if the opponent doesn't have multiple creatures/jittes going. Playing ETW on turn one is almost always good, but from turn 2 on it's going to be risky, cause Deed and Plague become factors. Also, I'm siding in 3 copies of ETW against stifleless counterbalance decks, so I'm usually not wishing for it cause many times I already have it in hand.

GreenOne
04-17-2009, 12:33 PM
So, new card spoiled:

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/3216/attachmentm.jpg

Not that impressive in this deck, but 2 considerations have to be done:
Slops: this thing can actually be another answer to ETW tokens in the MD of legacy decklists.
Props: this thing can be 1x in our sb. Someone of us plays vindicate or Hull breach. This thing can actually be better than vindicate in this deck, taking out multiple copies of the same hate card, even double counterbalance. If the manabase could support the :1::b::w: of Vindicate, than can support :1::b::g: too. It also can be an answer to opposing ETW or Bridge tokens.

Giles
04-17-2009, 01:28 PM
]Maelstrom Pulse.

Honestly it depends. Maelstrom Pulse and Vindicate are dueling it out for the same spot in the sideboard.

Also, Vindicate is easier to cast than Maelstrom Pulse.

GreenOne
04-17-2009, 01:51 PM
Honestly it depends. Maelstrom Pulse and Vindicate are dueling it out for the same spot in the sideboard.

Also, Vindicate is easier to cast than Maelstrom Pulse.
The only time Vindicate is easier to cast is when you're imprinting an Orim's chant on Chrome mox (so you have Orim, Mox and Burning Wish in hand with only 2 lands and zero petals?).

It's not really a reason not to play a card that can deal with multiple hate card. Well, that's only because TES does not have to deal with lands (sometimes Tabernacle messes with ETW, but that's all).

Bryant Cook
04-19-2009, 07:16 PM
Honestly it depends. Maelstrom Pulse and Vindicate are dueling it out for the same spot in the sideboard.

Also, Vindicate is easier to cast than Maelstrom Pulse.

I feel that Pulse being able to deal with double counterbalance is more important than G vs W.

Giles
04-20-2009, 12:29 AM
I feel that Pulse being able to deal with double counterbalance is more important than G vs W.

Sure it hits a double plus counterbalance. But do you really think that people with knowledge of slow rolling counterbalances in the face of Pulse, makes Pulse better?

Remember if you are just hitting one, it just a worse Vindicate.

Bryant Cook
04-20-2009, 12:35 AM
It also destroys multiple chalices. What land do we need to destroy? Its never worse than vindicate.

BreathWeapon
04-20-2009, 12:36 AM
It's more or less a pipe-dream regardless, you still have to get Burning Wish thru' Counterbalance and you still have to invest a turn casting 3cc removal. I think you guys have to consider whether or not Vindicate itself is worth the slot over the 1 or 2cc removal, before you decide whether or not Vindiate or Maelstorm Pulse is better than the other.

GoldenCid
04-20-2009, 11:00 AM
@Cook: What did inspire you to run vindicate in SB cutting 1 pyroblast? Why the underground sea?? Paradise and orchard went worst??

Bryant Cook
04-20-2009, 11:46 AM
I want a card that can solve problems. I want to be able to board in all three shattering sprees against chalice decks while keeping a removal spell in the SB. I need something for Enchantments (preferably 3cc to dodge balance). It also answers Teeg/canonist.

As for sea, it's been beaten to death a few pages back. Basically I wanted lands without side effects.

Giles
04-20-2009, 08:27 PM
It also destroys multiple chalices. What land do we need to destroy? Its never worse than vindicate.
I am just playing devil's advocate here.
There has been times where I have blown up a Tabernacle to win with tokens. Currently I have been messing around, looking for proactive answers.

EDIT: Although I have never have ran into it, Glacial Chasm might cause problems. But I am not sure on the ruling on this and Tendrils.

Bryant Cook
04-20-2009, 08:46 PM
I am just playing devil's advocate here.
There has been times where I have blown up a Tabernacle to win with tokens. Currently I have been messing around, looking for proactive answers.

EDIT: Although I have never have ran into it, Glacial Chasm might cause problems. But I am not sure on the ruling on this and Tendrils.

Chasm is damage. Not loss of life.


This new card is better than vindicate in TES.

SuperBean
04-20-2009, 09:55 PM
Another Japanese foil for you to get ahold of :smile:

evilchen
04-22-2009, 05:01 AM
Here i post my list iam going to run the next time for testing/training while playing TES

Lands
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Forbidden Orchad

Spells
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lions Eye Diamond
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Orims Chant
3 Duress
3 Chrome Mox
2 Mystical Tutor
2 Ad Nauseam
1 Chain of Vapor (Dont know if i should cut it for 2nd Cabal)
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Ill gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard
3 Pyroblast (maybe 4 blast 2 xantid or vise versa don't know yet)
3 Shattering Spree
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ill gotten Gains
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Grapeshot
1 Duress
1 Tendrils of Agony

- I don't know if its worth to run 1 duress in Sideboard?
- Sometimes iam thinking about Pact of Negation mainboard
- I know its possible to kill someone via Grapeshot but i've allways used it for creatures so iam thinking about Pyroclasm in that slot
- vs discard/extirpate decks iam searching for a slot in the sideboard to pack in a 2nd ETW to side one in after boarding but thats sounds like a hard plan :/

GGoober
04-22-2009, 05:19 AM
I've been working on TES, and one question I had in mind is why isn't TES a DTB. To me, in all honesty, the deck seems much more stronger than ANT, being able to access more acceleration, more tutors (burning wish). It's true that the deck's manabase is more fragile (no basics), but we can play under moon effects with Burning Wish, Rite of Flame, Petal + EtW. Also, Burning Wish gives additional flexibility to answer Chalice/3Sphere.

I'm not understanding how this deck is "inferior" to ANT if it is. I personally think it's stronger.

@SB options: Anyone thought of Virtue's Ruin to kill Teeg/Canonist/Meddling Mage/Tidehollow Scullers?

Elf_Ascetic
04-22-2009, 05:28 AM
I've been working on TES, and one question I had in mind is why isn't TES a DTB. To me, in all honesty, the deck seems much more stronger than ANT, being able to access more acceleration, more tutors (burning wish). It's true that the deck's manabase is more fragile (no basics), but we can play under moon effects with Burning Wish, Rite of Flame, Petal + EtW. Also, Burning Wish gives additional flexibility to answer Chalice/3Sphere.

I'm not understanding how this deck is "inferior" to ANT if it is. I personally think it's stronger.

@SB options: Anyone thought of Virtue's Ruin to kill Teeg/Canonist/Meddling Mage/Tidehollow Scullers?

Well, because ANT does a better job finding protection. ANT has 4 brainstorm, 4 ponder, 8 fetchlands, 4 mystical tutors. Combined with 4 Orim's Chant and 4 Duresses in the main, ANT just wins against blue decks that haven't got CB or a fast clock.

BreathWeapon
04-22-2009, 06:46 AM
@SB options: Anyone thought of Virtue's Ruin to kill Teeg/Canonist/Meddling Mage/Tidehollow Scullers?

You're investing 3 mana to remove 1 target instead of 1 mana to remove 1 target too often; Death Mark is better, IMO, because it's more efficient and it removes Tarmogoyf also.

GoldenCid
04-22-2009, 12:48 PM
- I know its possible to kill someone via Grapeshot but i've allways used it for creatures so iam thinking about Pyroclasm in that slot


Once i thought like you. But look this. If you use EtW, pyroclasm will your golbins too, and you will need some time to combo off again.
I was in this situation. I dropped 16 goblins and my oponent has that many elves including that that wins life equal to the number of elves. Trust me i wished i had grapeshot instead pyroclasm in my SB. The match was a draw. Fortunately i had won the fisrt match so i won the round. The advantage of grapeshot is its selectivity.

Piceli89
04-22-2009, 04:17 PM
Once i thought like you. But look this. If you use EtW, pyroclasm will your golbins too, and you will need some time to combo off again.
I was in this situation. I dropped 16 goblins and my oponent has that many elves including that that wins life equal to the number of elves. Trust me i wished i had grapeshot instead pyroclasm in my SB. The match was a draw. Fortunately i had won the fisrt match so i won the round. The advantage of grapeshot is its selectivity.

Well, i think that if you opted for the Ewt kill against tribal decks (elves in this case), there's something which dosn't work with your way to play TES. EtW should be avoided absolutely against those types of deck, since they can pretty much recover from fast goblins being that much fast and dropping more consitent creatures (merfolks/elves/goblins all have nastier creatures which combo well among them, plus the advantage of running lords, particularly merfolk). If you don't manage to drop at least 12-14 gobbos by turn2, don't considder that option anymore,period.
Against elves, all you need is just wait a turn more if you don't have a hand which allows you to go off, and then go for it. Casting EtW is always risky, and once you discover that your oppo's playing elves, you're pretty much sure he hasn't anything to prevent you from comboing with the "true"storm enablers+tendrils. That should be an auto -win matchup, really.
So, i don't assume running grapeshot instead of pyroclasm is a valid thing because the second "kills my goblins too"; i'd wish to see you in certain "really hard" situation (double gaddock teeg or mage+canonist on the board) where pyroclasm does the difference, whereas grapeshoting for 2-3 wouldn't let you do anything. btw, Pyroclasm>>>grapeshot against goblins, which are way deadlier and fast than crappy elves, and sometimes can wreck, with quite lot of luck ( wastelands+fast clock), this deck.

GoldenCid
04-22-2009, 04:45 PM
Well, i think that if you opted for the Ewt kill against tribal decks (elves in this case), there's something which dosn't work with your way to play TES.

I seems like that. It was just a situation. What really happened was that in the former match i wished for IGG and i forgot to put it back in the sb. So when i began to comboing off at T3 i realized that there was no IGG to search for. So my only chance was EtW, ToA wasn't enough at that point. This circunstance show me the utility of grapeshot.
Off course, my plan against aggro is comobo off via IGG loop or even AN.

Jeff Kruchkow
04-22-2009, 11:01 PM
I've been working on TES, and one question I had in mind is why isn't TES a DTB. To me, in all honesty, the deck seems much more stronger than ANT, being able to access more acceleration, more tutors (burning wish). It's true that the deck's manabase is more fragile (no basics), but we can play under moon effects with Burning Wish, Rite of Flame, Petal + EtW. Also, Burning Wish gives additional flexibility to answer Chalice/3Sphere.

I'm not understanding how this deck is "inferior" to ANT if it is. I personally think it's stronger.

@SB options: Anyone thought of Virtue's Ruin to kill Teeg/Canonist/Meddling Mage/Tidehollow Scullers?

I've said this before and i'll say it again. TES does deserve a top deck spot.
In fact, the storm that topped at GP Chicago has just as much in common with TES as ANT and the Wishes are purely TES.
However, we are kept out because no one has posted big results in a while and sadly myself and other TES players failed to represent at the GP. Although the lack of results i blame on the fact that ANT is really really hyped while less people have heard of TES.

In other news, What do you think of cranial extraction in the board? Its basically an auto-win against opposing combo since it lets you take away their tendrils. however, its also a side spot which is very valuable but imo improving the combo mirror beyond just a die roll and who draws best can be good if you have a combo prevalent meta.

Bryant Cook
04-23-2009, 12:17 PM
In other news, What do you think of cranial extraction in the board? Its basically an auto-win against opposing combo since it lets you take away their tendrils. however, its also a side spot which is very valuable but imo improving the combo mirror beyond just a die roll and who draws best can be good if you have a combo prevalent meta.

Why not just extract? U for the same effect. Either way, its an awful idea. Storm combo mirrors aren't prevalent enough. I did this during the Hulk Flash metagame though.

Piceli89
04-23-2009, 12:35 PM
In other news, What do you think of cranial extraction in the board? Its basically an auto-win against opposing combo since it lets you take away their tendrils. however, its also a side spot which is very valuable but imo improving the combo mirror beyond just a die roll and who draws best can be good if you have a combo prevalent meta.

..Bitter Ordeal would be way more stronger and synergic with our deck way to work than the forgotten (rightly, i guess) Cranial Extraction. Or i'd rather play Telemin performance, which is game against combo and there's a serious probability it's game also against some forms of Landstill (Eternal dragon seems to be less played in these late deckbuilding tendencies). But combo mirrors never happen these days, so it's always better to dedicate that slot fighting the blue/artifact/creature shitness prevalent now.

Piceli89
04-23-2009, 04:54 PM
Just a silly question to anyone who wants to give his opinion: do you think that the printing of Cards such as Rhox War Monk and the next superstar Lorescale Serpent will give TES , paradoxally, some benefits in the eternal problem against Counterbalance? If white "threshold" (better to call it BANT) begins to play thiese dudes over-say- mongoose, the manacurve could see some transformation towards a higher density in the 3-cc slot, where TES just doesn't care. It would be pretty nice, especially because i think that combo won't care that much of the new-generation fatties, if not of their cc for Counterbalance, obviously. It could be even better if the known skeleton of threshold slightly changes to adapt these beaters, and begins to adopt a less-tempo version, maybe reducing (cutting seems very difficult to happen, but perhaps..) the Dazes, which actually cause quite lots of problems to Storm Combo archetypes.
Opinions?

Nightmare
04-23-2009, 04:56 PM
Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's going to be a marginal difference. CB is still going to be a MUST answer for TES, because if Top hits, it's over. Especially if they run the new guy, since he'll be much more of a threat than Goose has ever been.

Piceli89
04-23-2009, 05:17 PM
Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's going to be a marginal difference. CB is still going to be a MUST answer for TES, because if Top hits, it's over. Especially if they run the new guy, since he'll be much more of a threat than Goose has ever been.

Yes, but there's still a statistical difference, although not beng enormous, between running 4 cc1 and 4 cc3 in that slot, talking of the curve threshold has, which determines the %s of flipping a certain cards with Counterbalance. I know, of course that BANT is NOT going to run 4 Serpents, but still, it seems that its tendency is the one to raise the avg cc of its beaters (see Monks, and in some cases, sower). And this is nothing but a benefit for low-curve decks such as TES.
To be honest, I'm happy if BANT decides to play this dude over mongoose, since, by the time it will be on the board and it will have made some damage to me, i'll have already tried to go off, with or without success, since i know i can't afford to lose many times sculpting a perfect hand against a deck running Counterbalance . Mongoose, instead, can be more troubling, since it comes down more quickly, can steal me some damage and can't be even REBed post side. And it increases the cc-1 slots (in which TES has 2/5 of its own cards) for counterbalance flipping, of course.

I can't deny that Cb+Top is over, but it doesn't happen in all the matches that it comes down, fortunately.

Jeff Kruchkow
04-23-2009, 07:34 PM
Why not just extract? U for the same effect. Either way, its an awful idea. Storm combo mirrors aren't prevalent enough. I did this during the Hulk Flash metagame though.

Forgot Extract. And actually my meta has a shit ton of combo from ANT to Belcher and such and i dont like dice rolls.

Also, anyone else dissapointed in the lack of good cards for combo in alara? Hopefully Zendikar will have something good.

bruno_tiete
04-24-2009, 01:30 PM
i'd wish to see you in certain "really hard" situation (double gaddock teeg or mage+canonist on the board) where pyroclasm does the difference, whereas grapeshoting for 2-3 wouldn't let you do anything.
I know it's nitpicking, but in case you face double Teeg, just point at their supertype. SBE-fueled removal is always nice.

Piceli89
04-24-2009, 01:56 PM
I know it's nitpicking, but in case you face double Teeg, just point at their supertype. SBE-fueled removal is always nice.

Yes, sorry for that, i realized Teeg is legandary. But the same issue applies for double Mage, which isn't so remotely rare.

Bryant Cook
04-24-2009, 03:57 PM
Yes, sorry for that, i realized Teeg is legandary. But the same issue applies for double Mage, which isn't so remotely rare.

You red blast/chain one, then win around the other?

Piceli89
04-24-2009, 06:22 PM
You red blast/chain one, then win around the other?

Isn't just better to pyroclasm them making 2x1 in one shot ?

Bryant Cook
04-24-2009, 06:36 PM
Isn't just better to pyroclasm them making 2x1 in one shot ?

Why can't you just play a mox/petal then Grapeshot for the same effect and have a back up win condition for Halo?

Diversity/Flexibility > not.

Piceli89
04-24-2009, 06:50 PM
Why can't you just play a mox/petal then Grapeshot for the same effect and have a back up win condition for Halo?

Diversity/Flexibility > not.

the point is: if you go burning wish->grapeshot, and cast it the turn after, isn't it just a lil' weak? and btw, you can't always make petal+'shot or rite of flame+'shot. And i don't think you usually reach a storm count of ,say, 17-18 to bypass halo naming tendrils.
Pyroclasm here can make the same thing, i.e. removing pesky creatures preventing you from going off,in a better way, with less cards-resources investment. At least, i see it in this way. For the same cost, you get a more complete answer, which may be useful against vary decks.
And if you fear halo, you usually don't go wish-->grapeshot, you go wish-->enchantment solution ( whether it's vindicate, hull breach, maesltrom pulse or random enchantment breaker), and then combo. Tendrils is still the most powerful and reliable win con of this deck.
This deck has already enough flexibility (having 2 kill spells and 3 storm engines) at its actual state; therefore, powerful card>situational and weak one.

EDIT: above i'm refering in the situations where wishing for grapshot and casting it as the only spell of the turn is crappy, of course it's not if the turn after you go: petal petal rite of flame ecc and then you go ANT or IGG and go off, but that would be quite a perfect hand with plenty of mana to cast both removal and storm enginers in one shot, ( kinda infrequent, btw), while many times you just have to waste a turn shooting mages/canonists, and here i think 'clasm is plain better.

Bryant Cook
04-25-2009, 09:53 PM
the point is: if you go burning wish->grapeshot, and cast it the turn after, isn't it just a lil' weak? and btw, you can't always make petal+'shot or rite of flame+'shot. And i don't think you usually reach a storm count of ,say, 17-18 to bypass halo naming tendrils. Did you cut Ad Nauseum? I showboat and purposely storm up to thirty and kill people with Tendrils at events for fun. If you can't cast a lethal Grapeshot after Nauseum there's a problem. Why can't you play Rite/Mox/Led/Petal/cantip then grapeshot? Half of the deck costs next to nothing.


Pyroclasm here can make the same thing, i.e. removing pesky creatures preventing you from going off,in a better way, with less cards-resources investment. At least, i see it in this way. For the same cost, you get a more complete answer, which may be useful against vary decks. It's not a better way, rarely you'll need to kill more than one creature. Or if you do need to kill both you've already lost the game by taking too long to win. It's not a more complete answer, it only answers one thing, where grapeshot deals with multiples. Not to mention the fact grapeshot can deal damage to an opponent after killing critters. It also kills opponents after an Etw or tendrils. I won a game in Chicago based on the fact I had Grapeshot in the sideboard.

And if you fear halo, you usually don't go wish-->grapeshot, you go wish-->enchantment solution ( whether it's vindicate, hull breach, maesltrom pulse or random enchantment breaker), and then combo. Tendrils is still the most powerful and reliable win con of this deck.
This deck has already enough flexibility (having 2 kill spells and 3 storm engines) at its actual state; therefore, powerful card>situational and weak one. Why would I wish for removal when I could just win on the spot? Take your time, storm up, and win.

GoldenCid
04-26-2009, 10:11 AM
All this without mentioning the posibility of cracking the front critters when you have 18 goblins as mentioned above! :smile:

Piceli89
04-26-2009, 10:41 AM
I can accept some of your points, Bryant, but on one thing i'll never consider grapeshot > pyroclasm: if you go rite--> shot, for example to kill a mage, you have lost 2 cards to kill 1 ( not considering the Wish spent to grab 'shot, of course). in that situation, if you have pyroclasm, it kills by itself Mage, for the cost of 1 card. If you'd cast grapeshot alone even paying it with lands, without adding a rite, it deals 1 damage, which is useless against the x/2 critters that wreck this deck. Since this deck sometimes (not always, indeed) reachs 2 lands before killing, as it's meant to be since it's a fast combo that doesn't want to wait too much (at least, it should be this way, since you're fighting against an opponent who usually has something to slow or mess up your combo plans, unless you're playing against rebels.dec), OK, you can pitch a rite to grapeshot and kill a Canonist/Teeg/ troubling Mage, but after that, you'll lack a mana accelerator to pull off the storm engine. And you can say "just wait and then storm", but you know better than me that the more this deck waits to go off, the more the opponent fills his hand with counters and lowers your life, especially against Threshold.
And again, if i drop a led and then grapeshot, the turn after when (i presume) i'll try to go off i'll lack the possibility to make +1 storm, which is in many cases vital to reach the 10-count for tendrils ( in Igg loops, most of all).

How the fuck do you reach a storm count of thirty after Ad Nauseam ? Or you're incredibly lucky, or i can't grab it. I tried by myself and gone to 20-22 at maximum, but i got really, really lucky Nauseam -flips. However, it stills seems a bit difficult to me to win entirely via lethal grapeshot,e ven post Nauseam.

Bryant Cook
04-26-2009, 02:29 PM
I can accept some of your points, Bryant, but on one thing i'll never consider grapeshot > pyroclasm: if you go rite--> shot, for example to kill a mage, you have lost 2 cards to kill 1 ( not considering the Wish spent to grab 'shot, of course). in that situation, if you have pyroclasm, it kills by itself Mage, for the cost of 1 card. If you'd cast grapeshot alone even paying it with lands, without adding a rite, it deals 1 damage, which is useless against the x/2 critters that wreck this deck. You're also assuming you have two lands. If you don't have both lands to cast 'clasm you're going to have to use acceleration to cast 'clasm. Making it a worse Grapeshot because it doesn't have the option of killing. I understand that every once in awhile, rite -> Grapeshot happens. However, that's the worst of possibilities. More often it's 2 lands, Mox/Petal/LED, or the turn you're going off. If it's the turn going off, I often deal with the problem creature, send 5-8 at their face. Then cast Tendrils from my hand/tutor. The benefits of grapeshot far outweigh the cons.


And you can say "just wait and then storm", but you know better than me that the more this deck waits to go off, the more the opponent fills his hand with counters and lowers your life, especially against Threshold.
And again, if i drop a led and then grapeshot, the turn after when (i presume) i'll try to go off i'll lack the possibility to make +1 storm, which is in many cases vital to reach the 10-count for tendrils ( in Igg loops, most of all). When I said wait and storm, I didn't mean turns - I meant actual time. Play out all the possible cards/tricks you can do. If you're really losing by one storm, you're probably doing something wrong. Cast a cantrip or ad Nauseum.


How the fuck do you reach a storm count of thirty after Ad Nauseam ? Or you're incredibly lucky, or i can't grab it. I tried by myself and gone to 20-22 at maximum, but i got really, really lucky Nauseam -flips. However, it stills seems a bit difficult to me to win entirely via lethal grapeshot,e ven post Nauseam. How is it hard? You can Ill-gotten gains a possible 5 times, chain of vapor, and all the cards drawn.

evilchen
04-27-2009, 02:20 AM
5 times Ill Gotten Gains? or what do you mean iam a little confused :)?

loop
04-27-2009, 07:54 AM
There's 1 IGG and 4 Burning Wishes, so you can IGG 5 times.

evilchen
04-27-2009, 07:59 AM
Yeah, thats right ops!
But you must have been very freaking lucky to have all the mana for that !(iam allways a bit sceptic about that because my AdN flips allways have been very bad)

alderon666
04-27-2009, 07:59 AM
Yeah, thats right ops!
But you must have been very freaking lucky to have all the mana for that !(iam allways a bit sceptic about that because my AdN flips allways have been very bad)

This deck is so sick!
Yesterday I was playing against random opp on MWS and I was at 9, I think he had some kind of disruption because it took me quite some time to get to Ad Nauseam mana. So I start flipping, Land, Lotus Petal, Ad Nauseam(ouch), Dark Ritual, LED, here I needed a non-pain land to win, Lotus Petal.

Proceeded to play my whole hand and storm for 8 or 9 with Tendrills, just awesome going off at 9, flipping a Ad Nauseam and still winning.

evilchen
04-27-2009, 08:10 AM
You meani, you just said that because of my bad AdN flips :P!

Piceli89
04-27-2009, 09:05 AM
This deck is so sick!
Yesterday I was playing against random opp on MWS and I was at 9, I think he had some kind of disruption because it took me quite some time to get to Ad Nauseam mana. So I start flipping, Land, Lotus Petal, Ad Nauseam(ouch), Dark Ritual, LED, here I needed a non-pain land to win, Lotus Petal.

Proceeded to play my whole hand and storm for 8 or 9 with Tendrills, just awesome going off at 9, flipping a Ad Nauseam and still winning.

Not to piss you, but once i managed to go off flipping with Ad Nauseam being at 2: lotus petal, ritual, led, petal. i was at something like 6 spells done, wit tendrilz in hand. petal petal ritual, tendrils. 10 spells. gg.
But yeah, usually as EvilChen, even me has very unlucky AN flips (something like 1)Igg, 2)An, 3)tendrils..lol)

Ciberon
04-30-2009, 05:31 PM
Could someone explain the IGG loop to me? I don't seem to get it by myself.

conboy31
04-30-2009, 05:39 PM
Igg loop generally involves Lions eye diamond + Lions Eye diamond + infernal tutor. However, it can be LED + Dark Ritual + burning wish or infernal tutor if you had enough accel going into it.

So, open a hand of: city of brass, led, led, lotus petal, infernal, dark ritual,
land -> petal -> dark ritual -> LED -> LED -> infernal (crack leds) go find Ill gotten gains. Take back LED and LED and infernal. Replay all and go find Tendrills with infernal for the first turn win.

rsaunder
04-30-2009, 05:40 PM
Could someone explain the IGG loop to me? I don't seem to get it by myself.

Play LED, LED, IT. On the stack sac both LED's for BBBBBB. Get an IGG with IT and cast it (floating 2) returning LED LED IT. Rinse, repeat.

EDIT: Beat to the punch.

Ciberon
04-30-2009, 05:53 PM
Right. Somewhat like I had in mind. But as it is refered on the thread, I assumed it as more repeatable. My mistake, obviously. Thanks a lot.

troopatroop
04-30-2009, 05:58 PM
Right. Somewhat like I had in mind. But as it is refered on the thread, I assumed it as more repeatable. My mistake, obviously. Thanks a lot.

It's not infinite, but it generates enough storm to win with Tendrils, and without Ad Nauseam.

conboy31
04-30-2009, 05:58 PM
It kind of can be if you have a bunch of mana you can go burning wish and retake the removed iggy or the iggy in your sideboard.

Jak
04-30-2009, 06:46 PM
It kind of can be if you have a bunch of mana you can go burning wish and retake the removed iggy or the iggy in your sideboard.

Burning Wish removes itself from the game.

conboy31
04-30-2009, 06:51 PM
Burning Wish removes itself from the game.

Obviously.

My statement clearly implies using burning wish for after you have used infernal to Ill-gotten gains to re-loop because Iggy also removes from the game.

troopatroop
04-30-2009, 08:36 PM
Obviously.

My statement clearly implies using burning wish for after you have used infernal to Ill-gotten gains to re-loop because Iggy also removes from the game.

But his statement implies that you still can't go infinite.

Raindown
05-01-2009, 04:07 PM
Igg loop generally involves Lions eye diamond + Lions Eye diamond + infernal tutor. However, it can be LED + Dark Ritual + burning wish or infernal tutor if you had enough accel going into it.

So, open a hand of: city of brass, led, led, lotus petal, infernal, dark ritual,
land -> petal -> dark ritual -> LED -> LED -> infernal (crack leds) go find Ill gotten gains. Take back LED and LED and infernal. Replay all and go find Tendrills with infernal for the first turn win.


I think only once in a blue moon do I draw a hand that amazing....and like never when it matters:frown:

Piceli89
05-01-2009, 06:03 PM
I think only once in a blue moon do I draw a hand that amazing....and like never when it matters:frown:

perhaps you're testing on MWS. Don't believe it, it has theworst shuffling system ever, and you'll always open with shitty hands with a turn 8 win (if you'll ever win, btw). It's far better to build the deck irl and goldfish it irl.

Raindown
05-02-2009, 02:00 PM
perhaps you're testing on MWS. Don't believe it, it has theworst shuffling system ever, and you'll always open with shitty hands with a turn 8 win (if you'll ever win, btw). It's far better to build the deck irl and goldfish it irl.

I solitaire the thing a couple times an evening, the only thing that seems to snag me is not mulling when I should have. I must admit the first time I picked up the deck I didn't have a clue what to do. Definitely, a learning curve to this puppy, or maybe it is just me.

Wargoos
05-03-2009, 04:37 PM
Hi,
I just wanted to know which deck would make the cut if you compared this deck to ANT.

Since I can see that TES has more outs against combohate and still can win you the game out of the dumbest situations it appears that ANT is the deck which is easier to play. Is this the very reason why ANT is in the DTB section or what advantages else does ANT has over TES?
I'm asking actually as an ANT player, because I compared the decks for myself and cant see any advantages of ANT over TES.

Piceli89
05-03-2009, 05:08 PM
Hi,
I just wanted to know which deck would make the cut if you compared this deck to ANT.

Since I can see that TES has more outs against combohate and still can win you the game out of the dumbest situations it appears that ANT is the deck which is easier to play. Is this the very reason why ANT is in the DTB section or what advantages else does ANT has over TES?
I'm asking actually as an ANT player, because I compared the decks for myself and cant see any advantages of ANT over TES.

You're perhaps the only ANT player (good one, i hope) that , after having compared his deck to TES, says that TES is superior. Everyone playing the first ineviably sticks with it, and pretty much despises TES.
You already named the advantages of this build. The only thing ANT has more than TES, in my opinion, is a manabase which doesn't suck and can support a going-for-the-long-times match, while TES just has to win in the first turns (maximum, 5 , i guess), or it's going to lose in the majority of the cases.
But I tried ANT by myself, and really got to think that this advantage is countered by the fact that it's more slow, can get into randomic colorscrew (f.e., when you need to ponder and your only land is scrubland), and fits itself into a more controllish and "step-by-step" approach, while with combo, i found that the earlier you go off, the less the opponent can organize himself into adequate defences.
Moreover, I heard people adfirming that the goldfish speed of these decks is equal, but really, this is plain a lie.

Why ANT is in the DTB and this deck is not? Probably, because after the birth of ANT, people moved to it for obscure reasons, tested it, saw that it didn't run "bad" (apparently) cards like city of brass or forbidden orchard, but "always-good" fetches 'n' duals instead, and moved towards it, forgetting TES.
Or because Brainstorm/top/ponder+fetch=good sinergy, but also in TES, despites this is weakened, you can still make brainstorm +ponder/infernal and obtain a good filtering effect.
This, though, doesn't mean that TES < ANT, and i hope that a player , when deciding to play storm combo, tries both to understand which fits its style, instead of hearing everybody claiming "ANT is a house, TES is no more playable".

Fortunately, there are people who don't give a fuck about these voices and carry on playing this deck, which should have its position in the metagame recognized (if more players ever decide to pick it up, so that it 'd have > %s to make top8 again).

Charlatan
05-04-2009, 07:30 AM
Just one thing, against moon efects, what tes can do?

If my opp cast a magus or a blood moon, I will do.....

ty you all

evilchen
05-04-2009, 08:08 AM
well its slows you down because you cant mystical/infernal tutor..

but you can still b-wish for a solution/kill + you can make black mana via lotus petal / LED

GreenOne
05-04-2009, 08:27 AM
but you can still b-wish for a solution/kill + you can make black mana via lotus petal / LED
The real thing about an early Moon is that it stops your first cantrips/mysticals. However, doesn't hinder yuor combo, since you only need 1 black/blue mana and some red mana. The black mana can be taken off Petal, Chrome Mox and LED.

evilchen
05-04-2009, 09:14 AM
Yeah thats what i ment with "slowing you down"
Only thing i forgot was Chrome Mox sorry!

Bryant Cook
05-04-2009, 01:40 PM
Just one thing, against moon efects, what tes can do?

If my opp cast a magus or a blood moon, I will do.....

ty you all

Just play out artifact mana or Empty the Warrens. Most decks packing Magus of the Moon don't play 'Clasm effects.

Piceli89
05-05-2009, 11:20 AM
I' d like to know one thing: how is it correct to sideboard against, say, decks not packing Counterspell or Counterbalance ? Because i saw the statistics and most of the people tend to side out orim's chant in favor of shattering sprees ( to foresee, say, chalices and canonists), leaving in duress, but is it really correct? Assuming we're on the draw (since it should be very likely that we have won against a nonblue deck g1), if an opponent on t1 places chalice at 0 on the board, personally i'm not going to duress him on my turn to see if he has another pesky permanent, but im going to cantrip to find a solution/another way to go around (if possible), instead. What i mean is: can't orim's chant be universally good? it stops nonblue decks from playing relevant stuff like chalice, canonist or mage/teeg, it can save some lives for Ad Nauseam thanks to his kicker, so i find it to never be a dead card.
I consider it the best protection spell for thi deck, it has pratically no limits to do what it aims for: to make you stay alive, and to allow you comboing off despites all forms of hate.

Another thing is: has anyone tested the full set of ponders? I have done so far, and, despises sometimes sticking with a double cantrip in my hand, which slows me down a lot, i found that ponder gives a great hand to dig the topdeck in order to combo out quite fastly, and of course it adds consistency and a shuffle effect post brainstorm. I think it may be worth considering testing it in the Chain of Vapor slot, or do you think the deck is already set up in the perfect wat which balances consistency and speed?

P.S. this topic has almost reached score 100.000 :smile:

Bryant Cook
05-05-2009, 11:33 AM
I' d like to know one thing: how is it correct to sideboard against, say, decks not packing Counterspell or Counterbalance ? Because i saw the statistics and most of the people tend to side out orim's chant in favor of shattering sprees ( to foresee, say, chalices and canonists), leaving in duress, but is it really correct? Assuming we're on the draw (since it should be very likely that we have won against a nonblue deck g1), if an opponent on t1 places chalice at 0 on the board, personally i'm not going to duress him on my turn to see if he has another pesky permanent, but im going to cantrip to find a solution/another way to go around (if possible), instead. What i mean is: can't orim's chant be universally good? it stops nonblue decks from playing relevant stuff like chalice, canonist or mage/teeg, it can save some lives for Ad Nauseam thanks to his kicker, so i find it to never be a dead card.
I consider it the best protection spell for thi deck, it has pratically no limits to do what it aims for: to make you stay alive, and to allow you comboing off despites all forms of hate. While Orim's Chant stalls a turn or 'time walks', it's often just better to have an answer than a stall tactic. Orim's Chant is also clunky against decks that aren't blue. However, I often leave in one chant often. As a Mystical or Infernal tutor target for after I ETW.


Another thing is: has anyone tested the full set of ponders? I have done so far, and, despises sometimes sticking with a double cantrip in my hand, which slows me down a lot, i found that ponder gives a great hand to dig the topdeck in order to combo out quite fastly, and of course it adds consistency and a shuffle effect post brainstorm. I think it may be worth considering testing it in the Chain of Vapor slot, or do you think the deck is already set up in the perfect wat which balances consistency and speed?

P.S. this topic has almost reached score 100.000 :smile:

I used to play 4 Ponder, but I prefer an answer in Chain of Vapor. The deck is consistant enough as it is and could use an answer/storm engine/mana enabler.

Dark_Cynic87
05-05-2009, 11:51 AM
Bryant: With Goblins on the way back and Merrow running over lots of decks via their aggro approach with many counters, Dragon Stompy is in fact boarding Pyroclasms at this point.

Competent Dragon Stompy players understand that a blood moon effect forces the TES player to go EtW in most situations, and now with the inclusion of Pyroclasm in their board, will opt to put it in. Why not just run a Pyroclasm of your own to wipe out Magii and other pesky bears?

I don't have an answer for a Blood Moon other than that singleton Chain of Vapor Bryant already mentioned, or use Moxen and Petals to get your black mana rolling.

Pce,

--DC

Piceli89
05-08-2009, 03:05 PM
@ Bryant: i don't want to result as an ass-licker (as many other on this thread, tbh), but playing this deck, i really start to appreciate it; despite this, i feel the opening primer is kinda outdated, especially in the parts concerning Matchups, and ways to play the deck. You know, after Merfolks and Counterbalance (especially Dreadstill and White Thresh aka Bant) decks has come up, perhaps it could be a good idea if you would give your opinion about TES against these decks, and also some tips. It's not really because i can't play the deck, since I have progressively become very close and confident with it; it would be to give people who'd like to begin playing storm combo a complete depiction of the strengths , the weaknesses and the mechanis behind this deck. And, of course, it would be also a quite effective way to promote people playing this, too.

I don't know whether you're interested or not into spreading your own creation with other players, i just threw in here this proposal, because i fell it's a shame this deck isn't played enough, since it could pull off decent results in specific metagames. Maybe we could change things a bit, in this way.

Bryant Cook
05-19-2009, 01:48 PM
As requested, the opening post has been updated. It now includes my current decklist (not the one listed below), 10 new sample hands for you (feel free to play them out in the thread), and new match-ups. If you want me to add something to the match-ups or the opening post let me know.

This past weekend, I played in my first event since GP:Chicago. I ended up taking third losing round 1 and Top 4 to the same person - Doug Mckay. He was playing a Mono Green elf Stompy deck packing MD Chalice, Trinisphere, and Thorn. I won both Game one's then proceeded to loses all post board games, but never to him. I would get an answer, cast it, then cast Nauseum at 12, 13, or 14 according to my notes and not hit anything. So... it's not a terrible match-up, but not a great one. I just needed better Nauseum flips.

This is what I played...

Lands
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
3 Underground Sea

Spells
4 Orim’s Chant
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Mystical Tutor
2 Ad Nauseum
3 Duress
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Chain of Vapor

SB:1 Diminishing Returns
SB:1 Ill-Gotten Gains
SB:1 Tendrils of Agony
SB:1 Empty the Warrens
SB:1 Grapeshot
SB:1 Duress
SB:4 Pyroblast
SB:1 Red Elemental Blast
SB:3 Shattering Spree
SB:1 Chain of Vapor

There were a few sideboard changes that I made after the event, if you're interested, check out the opening post. One change was I was playing too many Red Blasts, I couldn't board them all in.

EDIT: The source didn't save the new opening post. It'll be up soon.

Raindown
05-19-2009, 02:30 PM
Hehe I have your deck build and sitting in a deck box...damn thing is hard to learn just playing it solo, can't imagine tournament play. I swore I would keep practicing because I want to bring this to my local shop:laugh:

First time I put it together and tried to play it I was like wtf, what a waste of $...I recant

SuperBean
05-19-2009, 03:09 PM
In all honesty, all you really need to do is gold fish the deck a bunch and play it out solo.

You can also pretend that an opponent has different forums of disruption against you, and make yourself play through it.

Raindown
05-19-2009, 03:15 PM
In all honesty, all you really need to do is gold fish the deck a bunch and play it out solo.


Yea that is what I do. Sometimes I feel like I got a bad draw(s), but I am probably not noticing a path a could be taking to combo out. Its a love hate relationship at this point.

matelml
05-19-2009, 04:05 PM
Reasons to Play The EPIC Storm Over Other Storm Combo
Why play The EPIC Storm (TES) over Ad Nausem Tendrils (ANT)? TES has no clear cut game plan, its very versatile and can end things many ways – unlike ANT. Ad Nauseum Tendrils is often forced to go for Ad Nauseum because lists don’t play Orim’s Chant (some lists do, but few). Without Orim’s Chant their Ill-Gotten Gains is shut off. Leaving them with one path to victory. TES because it plays five color lands has all of the best protection available (Orim’s Chant, Duress, and Pyroblast), while various ANT lists play 2 of the 3, it’s hard for them to play all of these without destroying their manabase. Playing four colors on duals and fetches can hurt. Especially against the tempo decks of today, the stifle wasteland package already hurts ANT, while it doesn’t effect TES as much because there’s less Stifle targets. TES I feel has an edge on ANT because of the speed factor also, TES plays less land(4) and more acceleration in order to win faster. While ANT goes for a more controlling feeling against blue (Which always doesn’t work), post-board we have 2 less protection spells than ANT. A marginal difference, I’ll take speed and protection against just two more protection spells.

Most of the comments aren't true for a good ANT list. Like this one: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=25459

(This/good) ANT also has some advantages. It has place for 8 protectionspells main, while still having a consistent turn 3 win. This doesn't help much in the CB MU, but a lot against Landstill/MUC/Merfolk and other blue CBless decks. Landstill and MUC are good MU's, Merfolk even when ANT is played well.
Fetches also have a big advantage. Brainstorm becomes a lot better, Ponder becomes better and Cabal Ritual becomes a lot better. You still have versatility with Chant->IGG/AdN and EtW in the board.
ANT isn't bad. But I must confess that after looking at your latest list, the two are very similar and such TES is also pretty good.

Jeff Kruchkow
05-19-2009, 04:38 PM
@ Bryant: So with the new list do you ever find yourself missing the Cabal Rits? I mean i know they were a bit inconsistent (either spectacular or garbage) but they were still accel (although you compensated by upping the land count)
Also, how much have you played the new list since you still have 4x mox and 3x tutor now. I know AdN off the top is redic good but is the card disadvantage causing you to mull more often?

Bryant Cook
05-19-2009, 04:46 PM
Most of the comments aren't true for a good ANT list. Like this one: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=25459

(This/good) ANT also has some advantages. It has place for 8 protectionspells main, while still having a consistent turn 3 win. This doesn't help much in the CB MU, but a lot against Landstill/MUC/Merfolk and other blue CBless decks. Landstill and MUC are good MU's, Merfolk even when ANT is played well.
Fetches also have a big advantage. Brainstorm becomes a lot better, Ponder becomes better and Cabal Ritual becomes a lot better. You still have versatility with Chant->IGG/AdN and EtW in the board.
ANT isn't bad. But I must confess that after looking at your latest list, the two are very similar and such TES is also pretty good.


I'm not saying there aren't advantages of ANT over TES, however, I don't consider fetchlands to be a great one in today's match-ups. While the extra shuffle is nice don't get me wrong. I'd rather not be down a land against Thresh/Merfolk/Team America.

I know you like your own ANT list, however, I was looking at the archetype as a whole. Not a specific list.


@ Bryant: So with the new list do you ever find yourself missing the Cabal Rits? I mean i know they were a bit inconsistent (either spectacular or garbage) but they were still accel (although you compensated by upping the land count)
Also, how much have you played the new list since you still have 4x mox and 3x tutor now. I know AdN off the top is redic good but is the card disadvantage causing you to mull more often?
I haven't missed it at all, it was always the first card I boarded out. Not taking the additional 2 damage is nice because you can often dig deeper.

I have only played it a week or so, the card disadvantage hasn't hurt me yet.

Piceli89
05-19-2009, 05:30 PM
Very well done, Mr. Bryant. Fulfilling my request is one thing you won't regret of, trust me. Moreover, it will encourage more people to pick up this deck or, at least, to watch at and thinking twice it before picking up ANT xD (but, still, who knows..)
You didn't post all the matchups, so if you have time, it 'd be great if you did it ( i see some important MUs are missing like Landstill, Dragon Stompy, Pseudo Pikula or Eva Green decks); despite this, i wanna ask you a question: why did you write to take out Brainstorms against blue based? I mean, now that you added 1 more Mystical, brainstorm seems able to be more optimized.. Did you mean Ponder perhaps?
And yes, i see somehow TES is taking more the shape of a 4 color ANT (the more mystical, the more quantity and dual lands..).. I hope this, at least, will reduce the times when you open with no landers or terrible hands. Last thing: you cut 1 Infernal, for the situations where you draw 2 of them and can't go off wasting time because of the hellbent issue, i suppose. But didn't you find times when it was burning wish to be more a weight than IT? I mean, Tutor at least can grab you more mana accels or protections, while wish can't grab mana accels, and mayrandomly give mana problems ( especially now that you are relying on 3 dual lands and not anymore on a fully rainbowed manabase).

Bryant Cook
05-19-2009, 05:34 PM
Very well done, Mr. Bryant. Fulfilling my request is one thing you won't regret of, trust me. Moreover, it will encourage more people to pick up this deck or, at least, to watch at and thinking twice it before picking up ANT xD (but, still, who knows..)
You didn't post all the matchups, so if you have time, it 'd be great if you did it ( i see some important MUs are missing like Landstill, Dragon Stompy, Pseudo Pikula or Eva Green decks); despite this, i wanna ask you a question: why did you write to take out Brainstorms against blue based? I mean, now that you added 1 more Mystical, brainstorm seems able to be more optimized.. Did you mean Ponder perhaps?
And yes, i see somehow TES is taking more the shape of a 4 color ANT (the more mystical, the more quantity and dual lands..).. I hope this, at least, will reduce the times when you open with no landers or terrible hands. Last thing: you cut 1 Infernal, for the situations where you draw 2 of them and can't go off wasting time because of the hellbent issue, i suppose. But didn't you find times when it was burning wish to be more a weight than IT? I mean, Tutor at least can grab you more mana accels or protections, while wish can't grab mana accels, and mayrandomly give mana problems ( especially now that you are relying on 3 dual lands and not anymore on a fully rainbowed manabase).

I had more match-ups, but it didn't save. I'll do more, but I can't promise how many. No, I meant Brainstorm, Ponder is often better against blue. You're searching for cards, if they're not there you have a shuffle effect built into the card. I cut an Infernal, because I often board out two. It's dead in multiples and sucks to draw sometimes. Burning Wish is just more valueable, it's a threat against blue. Players often feel obligated to counterspell it.

Edit: If you want you can board out a Mox instead of a Brainstorm.

Piceli89
05-19-2009, 06:20 PM
Ok.
A stupid question : what exactly led you to make these changes to the previous list? The necessity to get a more solid setup against blue decks , which are now dominaing Legacy? Or you just couldn't stand some of the deck's inconsistency issues?
Ah, also your new list is missing a Wish-answer for Counterbalance. I'd suggest looking back to the ol' friend Cleanfall, which is as good as Vindicate to that purpose, but more easy to be cast.

Bryant Cook
05-19-2009, 06:48 PM
Ok.
A stupid question : what exactly led you to make these changes to the previous list? The necessity to get a more solid setup against blue decks , which are now dominaing Legacy? Or you just couldn't stand some of the deck's inconsistency issues?
Ah, also your new list is missing a Wish-answer for Counterbalance. I'd suggest looking back to the ol' friend Cleanfall, which is as good as Vindicate to that purpose, but more easy to be cast.

I just wanted more consistency, Cabal Ritual was a wasted maindeck slot. I do play a wishable answer - Vindicate. Look at the opening post.

GreenOne
05-19-2009, 08:11 PM
I do play a wishable answer - Vindicate. Look at the opening post.



The EPIC Storm as of 5/19/09
By Bryant Cook
Lands
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
3 Underground Sea

Spells
4 Orim’s Chant
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Mystical Tutor
2 Ad Nauseum
3 Duress
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Chain of Vapor

SB:1 Diminishing Returns
SB:1 Ill-Gotten Gains
SB:1 Tendrils of Agony
SB:1 Empty the Warrens
SB:1 Grapeshot
SB:1 Duress
SB:4 Pyroblast
SB:1 Echoing Truth
SB:1 Rebuild
SB:2 Shattering Spree

There's no Vindicate in this list, but the Rebuild seems quite strange. Is there a typo or in place of the 3rd Spree?

I like this SB, even if it's quite different from mine. At the moment I'm playing with:
Usual wishboard stuff +
-2 more ETWs (3 total) to side in against counterbalance-stifleless decks. They might be getting worse lately due to the rise of maelstrom pulse.
-2 more shattering spree (3 total).
-1 Vindicate
-2 Pyroblast against counterbalance
-2 Xantid Swarm to side in against counter decks without CB. It's also good in the mirror matches
-0 Duresses, I'm playing the set MD.

It's worth noting that I'm playing zero Mystical-able bounce both MD and SB. I might find a single slot for bounce to side in. Should I take Wipe Away, E.Truth or Chain of Vapor?

I'm also playing with 3 Mysticals, but cut the single Tendrils (!!!) for it: people is calling Tendrils with (rare) Meddling Magi, and doesn't seem to affect the Aggro match at all.
The single Tendrils is often clunky when you draw it, and with Mystical I get more combo action and better AN flips instead.

I switched 1 Orchard and 1 IT for 2 Seas and I can feel the difference. Having lands that can be used in the middle game is golden.

I'm still not sure about the SB. What are you guys suggesting me? I like some ETWs, but don't know if they're still good paired with Swarms (they both die to EE and such). Should I just play more blasts instead?

More than some hand analysis, I'd like some report with your reasoning behind your game plays. An example: my wish almost never get countered (unless I broke LEDs obviously). Am I playing it wrong? What are your most wished targets in various matchups?

Bryant Cook
05-19-2009, 08:56 PM
There's no Vindicate in this list, but the Rebuild seems quite strange. Is there a typo or in place of the 3rd Spree? My bad, sorry. That sideboard is only 14, 15th card is Vindicate. RRR was sometimes hard against Chalice based decks, I just wanted a non-RRR based artifact removal. With 3 Sea it just opens options a bit.


I like this SB, even if it's quite different from mine. At the moment I'm playing with:
Usual wishboard stuff +
-2 more ETWs (3 total) to side in against counterbalance-stifleless decks. They might be getting worse lately due to the rise of maelstrom pulse.
-2 more shattering spree (3 total).
-1 Vindicate
-2 Pyroblast against counterbalance
-2 Xantid Swarm to side in against counter decks without CB. It's also good in the mirror matches
-0 Duresses, I'm playing the set MD.
I'm not sure entirely what you mean here. Are some of those dashes supposed to be pluses? Empty the Warrens I try not to use too often, it's just easily answered and the risk/reward sometimes isn't worth it. I used to play 2x Xantid in the sideboard recently, but I'm already at too many cards to board in against blue. Pyroblast just seems more important to me being able to deal with counterbalance.


It's worth noting that I'm playing zero Mystical-able bounce both MD and SB. I might find a single slot for bounce to side in. Should I take Wipe Away, E.Truth or Chain of Vapor? It really depends on what you're looking for. I've used them all recently, I think E.Truth is more effective as a sideboard card, but maindeck Chain of Vapor is more useful. Wipeaway is obviously better if you're looking for an answer to counterbalance.


I'm also playing with 3 Mysticals, but cut the single Tendrils (!!!) for it: people is calling Tendrils with (rare) Meddling Magi, and doesn't seem to affect the Aggro match at all.
The single Tendrils is often clunky when you draw it, and with Mystical I get more combo action and better AN flips instead. I'm not worried about people naming Tendrils, I'd be more worried about Burning Wish, especially with no maindeck bounce.


More than some hand analysis, I'd like some report with your reasoning behind your game plays. An example: my wish almost never get countered (unless I broke LEDs obviously). Am I playing it wrong? What are your most wished targets in various matchups?

I wish for Duress a lot. I use Wish for bait and if they don't bite, I get Duress. I also used Returns a ton this past weekend, in 5 rounds I cast it probably 8-10 times.

Jeff Kruchkow
05-19-2009, 09:28 PM
@ Green One: Not maining a Tendrils seems like a bad idea. Meddling Mage naming wish hurts you a ton and you will randomly get screwed by the inability to go for IT->Tendrils instead of IT->BW->Tendrils.

@ Bryant: The only thing im not really sold on so far is dedicating so much main deck space to protection. It seems like were putting alot more emphasis on LEDs to do crazy stuff. I'm curious, so far how is your record vs. CB-Top and Thresh decks?

Bryant Cook
05-19-2009, 09:36 PM
@ Bryant: The only thing im not really sold on so far is dedicating so much main deck space to protection. It seems like were putting alot more emphasis on LEDs to do crazy stuff. I'm curious, so far how is your record vs. CB-Top and Thresh decks?

I've had that much protection in there for awhile. So far, so good.

Jeff Kruchkow
05-19-2009, 10:12 PM
I've had that much protection in there for awhile. So far, so good.

Last list had 6, 7 if you count chain and honestly i got hands wayy to heavy in chants/duress against aggro.

And if the thresh matchup is improving then hopefully we can get some results up soon and get TES back into the DtB

evilchen
05-20-2009, 04:48 AM
My bad, sorry. That sideboard is only 14, 15th card is Vindicate.

Guess its Mealstrom Pulse now or?

btw: does the additional land help much more than a cabal ritual? i never had problems with cabal yet :/

GreenOne
05-20-2009, 05:00 AM
@ Green One: Not maining a Tendrils seems like a bad idea. Meddling Mage naming wish hurts you a ton and you will randomly get screwed by the inability to go for IT->Tendrils instead of IT->BW->Tendrils.
I'm playing an altered Mystical instead of a normal one, so I can tell when I'm drawing that instead of tendrils.
Right now I've lost 1 match to the lack of mana to go IT->BW->Tendrils. But I won 2 matches that I would have a chance of losing due to AN flips (like opponent playing Canadian Thresh with R open and me at 4 life at the end of resolution of AN) and other 2 matches that I won cause that Mystical was the only tutor in hand (well, I could have won topdecking a tutor anyway)
Playing with no MD win condition is playing with fire, and I'll probably do it only if people continues naming Tendrils or AN with their magi. By the way, are you playing against MD Meddling Magi? Cause if not we're also siding blasts, ETW and (maybe) bounce against them.

I'm not sure entirely what you mean here. Are some of those dashes supposed to be pluses? Empty the Warrens I try not to use too often, it's just easily answered and the risk/reward sometimes isn't worth it. I used to play 2x Xantid in the sideboard recently, but I'm already at too many cards to board in against blue. Pyroblast just seems more important to me being able to deal with counterbalance.
D'oh! Here's the deck, complete with understandable SB:
// Lands
4 [CH] City of Brass
4 [TSB] Gemstone Mine
3 [U] Underground Sea

// Spells
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [TE] Dark Ritual
3 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
4 [LRW] Ponder
2 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
4 [US] Duress
3 [MI] Mystical Tutor

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [6E] Diminishing Returns
SB: 3 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [TSP] Grapeshot
SB: 2 [SC] Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 [AP] Vindicate
SB: 2 [IA] Pyroblast


I wish for Duress a lot. I use Wish for bait and if they don't bite, I get Duress. I also used Returns a ton this past weekend, in 5 rounds I cast it probably 8-10 times.
I don't have duress SB, this is maybe a factor. I'm often unsure about grabbing an ETW or Returns. Usually take Returns if I have protection in hand and ETW if I don't (even if it's turn 2-3, if I don't expect EE/Deed/Pulse and I see an almost empty board).

I'm absolutely with you in cutting Brainstorm instead of ponder, even if the added Mystical can change the equation.
But I often side out IGG against FoW decks (usually for ETW), cause for it to be good you have to hit double protection (first chant/duress gets countered and you need a second one or loads of mana to recur your graveyard)
Am I doing it wrong?

GoldenCid
05-20-2009, 09:11 AM
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [6E] Diminishing Returns
SB: 3 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [TSP] Grapeshot
SB: 2 [SC] Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 [AP] Vindicate
SB: 2 [IA] Pyroblast


Wow!!! 3 EtW? Why?? Isn't it so much??

Jeff Kruchkow
05-20-2009, 09:14 AM
I'm playing an altered Mystical instead of a normal one, so I can tell when I'm drawing that instead of tendrils.
Right now I've lost 1 match to the lack of mana to go IT->BW->Tendrils. But I won 2 matches that I would have a chance of losing due to AN flips (like opponent playing Canadian Thresh with R open and me at 4 life at the end of resolution of AN) and other 2 matches that I won cause that Mystical was the only tutor in hand (well, I could have won topdecking a tutor anyway)
Playing with no MD win condition is playing with fire, and I'll probably do it only if people continues naming Tendrils or AN with their magi. By the way, are you playing against MD Meddling Magi? Cause if not we're also siding blasts, ETW and (maybe) bounce against them.

I'm absolutely with you in cutting Brainstorm instead of ponder, even if the added Mystical can change the equation.
But I often side out IGG against FoW decks (usually for ETW), cause for it to be good you have to hit double protection (first chant/duress gets countered and you need a second one or loads of mana to recur your graveyard)
Am I doing it wrong?

I have played against maindeck Meddling Mage and while you are right, most ppl name AdN or Tendrils and then we can just kill/bounce mage. However, better players have called a tutor or LED against me and screwed me hard. Just saying.

Also, while you are right, using LED against decks that run FoW is very difficult but i would still recomend keeping it in the MB. Because while it does need chant to be truly effective if they have used a FoW, not having a way to combo out with only a few cards after goyf beats is gonna be bad.

EDIT: @GoldenCid: I believe he sides 2-3 in against CB and tries to go belcher before they have EE.

GreenOne
05-20-2009, 10:17 AM
EDIT: @GoldenCid: I believe he sides 2-3 in against CB and tries to go belcher before they have EE.
Exactly, sry if I was unclear.
Reasoning is, instead of always fightning counterbalance with Duress and Pyroblast, I just go for ETW way before counterbalance goes online and now they're stuck with a useless hand, unless they have EE/E.truth or Deed.

That's often because decks playing CB have not many creatures, usually they got only spot removal and (unless it's Dreadstill) are not playing Stifle.

Bryant Cook
05-20-2009, 11:13 AM
Guess its Mealstrom Pulse now or?

btw: does the additional land help much more than a cabal ritual? i never had problems with cabal yet :/
It would be if I owned any. However, I don’t. I think the difference is marginal.

Like I said, I’d rather not take two damage and dig a few cards deeper. More than likely you’ll hit a Dark Ritual, Rite of Flame, or Lion’s Eye Diamond. Much more valuable cards while comboing.



// Sideboard
SB: 1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [6E] Diminishing Returns
SB: 3 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [TSP] Grapeshot
SB: 2 [SC] Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 [AP] Vindicate
SB: 2 [IA] Pyroblast


While Xantid Swarm is good in the combo mirror (which doesn’t happen often), wouldn’t you rather have a good anti-blue card that can deal with counterbalance (Pyroblast?)? I’m interested in your results with 3 sprees if you continue to play them; I just found it too hard with 3 Sea to replicate some times.

As for Empty the Warrens, I understand what you’re trying to do, it seems solid enough. I’ll try a 2nd ETW in the Vindicate slot (I rarely use vindicate).

Piceli89
05-20-2009, 01:33 PM
I have to agree with Jeff about the fact that 7 MD protections +1 Chain is perhaps slightly too much, so far i always performed with the 4 chants +2 duress +1 chain configuration and it was amazing. And i don't think the missing duress would hurt too much, especially now that the deck is given even more fleibility by the use of more mystical tutors to grab what we need. Perhaps, that duress could become a Cabal Ritual. I mean, as a singleton it is not that sucky, after all it may net you 3 black manas at full power, which makes it a 2 card combo with Ad Nauseam. I'll give a try to the singleton ab Ritual ( i used to play 2 and felt comfortable with it, but maybe it can be only 1 and work still well) and i'll make you know.

Bryant Cook
05-21-2009, 05:34 PM
I have to agree with Jeff about the fact that 7 MD protections +1 Chain is perhaps slightly too much, so far i always performed with the 4 chants +2 duress +1 chain configuration and it was amazing. And i don't think the missing duress would hurt too much, especially now that the deck is given even more fleibility by the use of more mystical tutors to grab what we need. Perhaps, that duress could become a Cabal Ritual. I mean, as a singleton it is not that sucky, after all it may net you 3 black manas at full power, which makes it a 2 card combo with Ad Nauseam. I'll give a try to the singleton ab Ritual ( i used to play 2 and felt comfortable with it, but maybe it can be only 1 and work still well) and i'll make you know.

You realize the difference between 1 card in a deck is in the decimals right? The difference between 2 and 3 Duress is almost unnoticeable. I disagree that 3 Duress may be "slightly too much". I'm interested in how often you draw that singleton cabal instead of a duress and how it plays out. I guarantee versus the match-ups that are tough, Duress is going to be more useful.

Jeff Kruchkow
05-21-2009, 09:04 PM
You realize the difference between 1 card in a deck is in the decimals right? The difference between 2 and 3 Duress is almost unnoticeable. I disagree that 3 Duress may be "slightly too much". I'm interested in how often you draw that singleton cabal instead of a duress and how it plays out. I guarantee versus the match-ups that are tough, Duress is going to be more useful.

I agree whole heartedly that vs thresh and CB decks, duress is an all star. What im saying is that by dropping accel for more protection, slower tutors and more land, is it reducing our speed to the point where non-blue decks can become a threat again? If not then its all good but if so that has to be taken into account. Anyway, I'll do some testing tonight with my new list and see how it plays out.

Piceli89
05-22-2009, 07:20 AM
So, if we follow your reasoning, we can say that the difference between 3 chrome moxes and 4 is "almost unnoticeable". But i can ensure you that drawing 2 moxes in an initial hand is total shit, is almost like playing with 5 cards. And since this really hurts our capacity to go off as fast as possible, i'm thinking that perhaps, the number of moxes could be cut to 3. You can use the argument "but it's critical after AN" , but if you try to goldfish the deck after Nauseam, you'll realize that it cab go off even starting from a singleton lotus petal, and still, the % of a Mox popping up of the top isn't that low. But mox is as good after An as it's really a shit pre-it when it comes up to 2-ofs and stucks your hand with 2 useless cards. Ok, we can play the mox without imprinting to get +1 storm if we're going etw , but i'd really prefer having something good.

GreenOne
05-22-2009, 07:52 AM
that duress could become a Cabal Ritual. I mean, as a singleton it is not that sucky, after all it may net you 3 black manas at full power, which makes it a 2 card combo with Ad Nauseam. I'll give a try to the singleton ab Ritual ( i used to play 2 and felt comfortable with it, but maybe it can be only 1 and work still well) and i'll make you know.
I was one of the people advocating a singleton or a 2of of cabal ritual in the deck. However, once I got it substituted for something else it became clear that it was suboptimal:
- you almost never get threshold to take full benefit of the card, like ANT. We have no fetches, and are faster than ANT.
- It's not a 2 card combo with AN, cause once you reach threshold you're probably too low on life to take advantage of Ad Nauseam
- You also don't have threshold after a resolved Diminishing Returns
- Spell snare > Cabal Ritual
- 2cc is bad as an initial mana cost for a ritual effect. Sometimes you're on 2 mana and you can't cast Chant or can't have the single red mana for B.Wish.
Daze often becomes a factor.

I don't mind if you wanna play the 4th ponder, the 3rd duress, the 4th IT, another mystical or even a land or tinder wall. Just don't play Cabal Ritual. Test another card in its place and you'll see.

evilchen
05-22-2009, 08:06 AM
I was one of the people advocating a singleton or a 2of of cabal ritual in the deck. However, once I got it substituted for something else it became clear that it was suboptimal:
- you almost never get threshold to take full benefit of the card, like ANT. We have no fetches, and are faster than ANT.
- It's not a 2 card combo with AN, cause once you reach threshold you're probably too low on life to take advantage of Ad Nauseam
- You also don't have threshold after a resolved Diminishing Returns
- Spell snare > Cabal Ritual
- 2cc is bad as an initial mana cost for a ritual effect. Sometimes you're on 2 mana and you can't cast Chant or can't have the single red mana for B.Wish.
Daze often becomes a factor.

I don't mind if you wanna play the 4th ponder, the 3rd duress, the 4th IT, another mystical or even a land or tinder wall. Just don't play Cabal Ritual. Test another card in its place and you'll see.

agreed 100%! i think its time to kick them out of my maindeck too...

Piceli89
05-22-2009, 08:27 AM
Ok, i can get the points of not running Cabal, despites after AN (and sometime even before , even if situationally) it seemed to be a bomb. But what about the 3 or 4 Moxes issue, which i have talked about above? Has anyone met a situation where he was stuck with 2 useless moxes in hands , and have wished ( and did) a cut to 3 ? If yes, how it was?

evilchen
05-22-2009, 09:27 AM
Its not like you can't do nothing if your opening hand has 2 Chrome Mox but
..
i stucked several times with 2 Mox in my opening hand and could not use the second one after all... and after that i tried 3 Chrome Moxes and iam still happy with only 3 of them yet!

GreenOne
05-22-2009, 09:32 AM
Its not like you can't do nothing if your opening hand has 2 Chrome Mox but
..
i stucked several times with 2 Mox in my opening hand and could not use the second one after all... and after that i tried 3 Chrome Moxes and iam still happy with only 3 of them yet!
Interesting. Did you play the 11th land or something?

Bryant Cook
05-22-2009, 10:44 AM
So, if we follow your reasoning, we can say that the difference between 3 chrome moxes and 4 is "almost unnoticeable". But i can ensure you that drawing 2 moxes in an initial hand is total shit, is almost like playing with 5 cards. And since this really hurts our capacity to go off as fast as possible, i'm thinking that perhaps, the number of moxes could be cut to 3. You can use the argument "but it's critical after AN" , but if you try to goldfish the deck after Nauseam, you'll realize that it cab go off even starting from a singleton lotus petal, and still, the % of a Mox popping up of the top isn't that low. But mox is as good after An as it's really a shit pre-it when it comes up to 2-ofs and stucks your hand with 2 useless cards. Ok, we can play the mox without imprinting to get +1 storm if we're going etw , but i'd really prefer having something good.

So you're telling me you've never needed more initial mana sources after Nauseam? I know I have, I believe that Chrome Mox #4 is now the weakest card in the deck. However, I feel it's a necessary evil. Yes, drawing two opening hand sucks sometimes. Make use of it, imprint that singleton Rite of Flame. It's a permanent mana source for later. That or Brainstorm one back.

evilchen
05-23-2009, 09:11 AM
Interesting. Did you play the 11th land or something?

4th ponder :) but i guess iam going back to 4 Chrome cutting out my last Cabal Ritual now!

Bryant Cook
05-23-2009, 09:50 PM
I played in the Pre-Lotus event today, taking 2nd and winning a Beta Sol Ring with the list on the opening post.

-1 Rebuild
+1 Shattering Spree

I decided 4cc artifact bounce against sphere effects was too much.

Jeff Kruchkow
05-23-2009, 10:27 PM
I played in the Pre-Lotus event today, taking 2nd and winning a Beta Sol Ring with the list on the opening post.

-1 Rebuild
+1 Shattering Spree

I decided 4cc artifact bounce against sphere effects was too much.

Have you considered a meltdown in the side?
Often spree will require at least 3 mana to wipe up artifacts and meltdown wipes anything that could give up trouble for 4 mana and still costs 2 to kill a chalice at 1. honestly, it might be better than spree...

Bryant Cook
05-23-2009, 10:40 PM
Have you considered a meltdown in the side?
Often spree will require at least 3 mana to wipe up artifacts and meltdown wipes anything that could give up trouble for 4 mana and still costs 2 to kill a chalice at 1. honestly, it might be better than spree...

I have considered meltdown. The only problem was that it destroys your own artifacts. Mox, petals, and very rarely LED.

Jeff Kruchkow
05-23-2009, 10:53 PM
I have considered meltdown. The only problem was that it destroys your own artifacts. Mox, petals, and very rarely LED.

I can see that as being an issue occasionally. However, petal would be sacced if you use it and i would gladly give up a mox to kill off some chalices/trini.
IMO it comes down to math on it.
Look at it like this:
Spree
Chalice @ 0: R
Chalice @ 1: RR
Trini: 2R
Chalice and Trini: RRR or more

Meltdown
Chalice @ 0: R
Chalice @ 1: 1R
Trini: 3R
Chalice and Trini: 3R

Since Stax decks are slower we can afford the extra mana and against stuff like d. stompy, the costs are the same except for trini and imo, the ability to kill multpile chalices and trinis for cheap is really good. That and the red cost is much less intense. Plus, we should shoot less of our own stuff if we know we have meltdown then i personally would just play out less arti mana and kill all the chalices.

Piceli89
05-24-2009, 04:45 AM
I have considered by myself Meltdown as an additional artifact-based answer, and i wasn't really happy with it. The point is, as Bryant suggested, that it kills your own artifacts, especially moxes. In these matchups, you usually want to drop down all your artifact acceleration to avoid chalice @0 and trini to leave you unplayable cards in hand. But we can't rely solely on lands (keeping moxes and petals in hand ) to cast meltdown, because it would require 4 lands, which this deck reaches perhaps on the 12th turn, when we've already been armageddoned/killed 3 times by DS fatties, and so.
At this point, i'd consider a Hurkyl's Recall in the place of Rebuild:it's cheaper, and, although can't be tutored by Wish, usually doesn't care about chalices , and does its job in one hit. And exploits USeas better, too.

GreenOne
05-24-2009, 05:56 AM
Hurkyl's Recall in the place of Rebuild:it's cheaper, and, although can't be tutored by Wish, usually doesn't care about chalices , and does its job in one hit. And exploits USeas better, too.
Rebuild can't be wished too.

I tested the 3 U.Seas configuration and they're good in in the maindeck, but I'm often unsatisfied by them during g2s and g3s. Shattering Sprees are significantly weaker, and breaking something like Chalice @0 and @1 is going to require RRR, that I almost never can afford. Meltdown can actually be the solution.

Anyway, with the 3 U.seas i find some good problems into casting those Chants and Pyroblasts and rituals in the same turn I'm going off. Finding Red and White becomes harder and harder.
Did anyone experience the same thing?
Maybe something like 2 U.Seas, 1 Orchard is a better configuration?
Or maybe even something like 1 Underground sea, 1 Polluted delta, 1 Volcanic island?
Or a fetchland configuration to add shuffle effects, as stifles are on the downfall?

Piceli89
05-24-2009, 06:21 AM
Rebuild can't be wished too.

I tested the 3 U.Seas configuration and they're good in in the maindeck, but I'm often unsatisfied by them during g2s and g3s. Shattering Sprees are significantly weaker, and breaking something like Chalice @0 and @1 is going to require RRR, that I almost never can afford. Meltdown can actually be the solution.

Anyway, with the 3 U.seas i find some good problems into casting those Chants and Pyroblasts and rituals in the same turn I'm going off. Finding Red and White becomes harder and harder.
Did anyone experience the same thing?
Maybe something like 2 U.Seas, 1 Orchard is a better configuration?
Or maybe even something like 1 Underground sea, 1 Polluted delta, 1 Volcanic island?
Or a fetchland configuration to add shuffle effects, as stifles are on the downfall?

I had the same problems regarding pyroblast + orim chant or rite of flame+orim's chant, and i decided to go 2 USeas + 1 Orchard, and has worked pretty fine since now. Of course, Orchard still sucks in giving 1/1s to opponent, but i think there isn't a better alternative than it. And giving 1/1s is acceptable, as long as you aren't going the Etw kill.
The configuration with fetches seems good, perhaps is worth testing. Let's hope we won't ever draw the 2 duals and then the fetch :tongue:

EDIT:I'm testing a hybrid configuration atm. It's working pretty well.

// Lands
1 [U] Underground Sea
1 [R] Volcanic Island
4 [WL] Gemstone Mine
2 [ON] Polluted Delta-->Will be 1 Delta and 1 Mire
4 [AN] City of Brass

// Spells
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
3 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
2 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
2 [FNM] Duress
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [MI] Dark Ritual
3 [MI] Mystical Tutor
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
3 [LRW] Ponder
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
1 [ON] Chain of Vapor

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [CHK] Cleanfall
SB: 1 [AL] Diminishing Returns
SB: 4 [IA] Pyroblast
SB: 1 [TSP] Grapeshot
SB: 1 [US] Duress


It's the maindeck in the OP, with the exception of -1 Duress, +1 Land. I know 6 protection pieces could be too light, but i find myself very comfortable with this quantity, and i know i'd perform this deck in a meta where counterbalance isn't the only deck in massive quantities ( i expect a lot of tempo thresholds, and so..at least, i hope).
The 2 fetches add some shuffle effects, which are vital when you're drawing ton of shit ( anyone said Moxes?) and can grab the 2 duals. since I had issues with not having red with the USeas, i decided to add 1 Volcanic Island Instead. Moreover, i opted for a higher land count because it often happened to open with 1 landers, which was a serious threat in case of opponent wasteland, and couldn't make the job with moxes as long as i had hands with 3-4 colors and 1 land. With 12 lands, the % of opening with 2 lands is more higher, and i feel more safe with it.
This version wants to be a convergence between the "conventional" TES and that strange one played by Kolowith on Gp:chicago. It basically tries to mix the more noticeable aspects of both: the land count is neither too low , neither too high, so it ensures a certain fleibility whether you're going for the long way (against blue decks) or you're aiming to a fast victory (against non-blue, non-diruptive decks). I also opted to keep a high number of rainbow lands because, diffrently from Kolowith's list, i felt Orim's chant had to be in the list as a 4-ofs, since it's clearly the best protection spell avaiable, far more than Duress. The maindeck, for the rest, is pretty standard, 3 ponders is the way to go. The only doubt is whether or not keeping the 3rd mystical, but i got close to understand that it can function very well when you drop the "all-in" philosophy which characterized this deck some time ago, and you opt for waiting some turns more building a solid and protection-endowed hand.
That 4th IT in the sideboard is amazing , it allows victories being grabbed with burning Wish and going to take Igg/An that the "normal" targets of Burning wish (Igg with no other tutors in the yard, Diminishing returns, which is hella risky) can't ensure really much.
I'm pondering whether or not to reduce the number of cinq lands to make room for other fetches, but i fear i'd expose too much the deck to Stifle , in this way, and could have issues finding the W to cast Orim.

GreenOne
05-24-2009, 01:20 PM
That 4th IT in the sideboard is amazing , it allows victories being grabbed with burning Wish and going to take Igg/An that the "normal" targets of Burning wish (Igg with no other tutors in the yard, Diminishing returns, which is hella risky) can't ensure really much.
Had the same idea but never tested it. I mean, of adding IT in the SB, maybe in the IGG slot.

The question I ask myself the most is what the hell is doing IGG in the SB?
It's arguably the worst SB card cause you always need 2xWish or Wish+IT to make it work (but if you got IT, why didn't you just IT for IGG?). It's also a strategy that usually doesn't work against blue decks (same ol' IGG problem) that are featuring a large part of the meta right now.
Maindeck IGG can also get removed by itself, Chrome Mox or even Diminishing Returns if you really need to wish for it.

Is the IGG in the SB still worth it?
Did anyone test a deck without it? How did it work?

Jeff Kruchkow
05-25-2009, 03:13 AM
Had the same idea but never tested it. I mean, of adding IT in the SB, maybe in the IGG slot.

The question I ask myself the most is what the hell is doing IGG in the SB?
It's arguably the worst SB card cause you always need 2xWish or Wish+IT to make it work (but if you got IT, why didn't you just IT for IGG?). It's also a strategy that usually doesn't work against blue decks (same ol' IGG problem) that are featuring a large part of the meta right now.
Maindeck IGG can also get removed by itself, Chrome Mox or even Diminishing Returns if you really need to wish for it.

Is the IGG in the SB still worth it?
Did anyone test a deck without it? How did it work?
IGG in the side is amazing. It helps make muli tutor hands good and honestly it might not seem worth it but i wish for IGG with about half of my wishes

evilchen
05-25-2009, 05:51 AM
I never ever used IGG from the sideboard yet :/
50% of my B-Wishes go to Diminishing Returns to be honest

GreenOne
05-25-2009, 06:40 AM
I never ever used IGG from the sideboard yet :/
50% of my B-Wishes go to Diminishing Returns to be honest
QFT. the other 50% usually goes for ETW (unless wishing for Tendrils obv)

Piceli89
05-25-2009, 07:18 AM
QFT. the other 50% usually goes for ETW (unless wishing for Tendrils obv)

Well, personally, about 60 % of the times i use burning wish to grab the protection spell ( Duress, for instance), the other 20% (usually post AN), it takes me Tendrils, and just 15% and 5% it goes for EtW (which i find to be really risky nowaydas) and DReturns ( which is even more risky, ofc). But yes, the flexibility of the card is what makes it a great swiss knife for this deck.

Jeff Kruchkow
05-25-2009, 12:32 PM
@ GreenOne, evilchen, Piceli89: I mean absolutelyno offence by this so please don't take it that way but, if you are going for returns half as much as you say then you are either missing another way tocombo out or you are making horriblemulligan decisions. DReturns is a LAST DITCH card. If you can win without it do. If not and there is no pressure, chill and go for the kill with AdN or IGG. Thats half the power of IGG anyway that you can use it and go off from 1 life. No I do understand that if you are simply goldfishing that DReturns might seem like a good choice but let me tell you that in actually tounament play, giving and opponent 7 new unknown cards is alnmost always a horrible idea. Especially if they are playing blue. Honestly though, I don't know how the legacy scene is your areas (I know mine sucks) but goldfishing can only help you understand the deck so far. After that you really need to experience play vs. real ppl (read: Not MWS) to get a feel for how to play it.

Piceli89
05-25-2009, 01:05 PM
@ GreenOne, evilchen, Piceli89: I mean absolutelyno offence by this so please don't take it that way but, if you are going for returns half as much as you say then you are either missing another way tocombo out or you are making horriblemulligan decisions. DReturns is a LAST DITCH card. If you can win without it do. If not and there is no pressure, chill and go for the kill with AdN or IGG. Thats half the power of IGG anyway that you can use it and go off from 1 life. No I do understand that if you are simply goldfishing that DReturns might seem like a good choice but let me tell you that in actually tounament play, giving and opponent 7 new unknown cards is alnmost always a horrible idea. Especially if they are playing blue. Honestly though, I don't know how the legacy scene is your areas (I know mine sucks) but goldfishing can only help you understand the deck so far. After that you really need to experience play vs. real ppl (read: Not MWS) to get a feel for how to play it.

Actually, if you read carefully at least what I wrote, you'd have noticed i mentioned Diminishing Returns is "hella risky" and i use it about 5% times, i.e. when i'm going to die and have only few mana after Burning Wish. At that point, DReturns is the only out before dying. I dislike that card by myself, because half he time it gives me new shitty hands or the opponent receives plenty of counters. So , of course is the "last hope", we are not that stupid to NOT understand it; if we can go off in an another way, we choose that, either way, if DR is the only chance left, so be it.
Thanks for the lesson and the explanation, in any case, but i somehow feel I'm already quite capable of piloting the deck (except against fucking Counterbalance, which is rising impressively, and will never allow this deck to return a tier1..i think it's pretty known in our coscience, even if we don't want to admit it. Hope WotC will take a look at legacy and move some tasty Banhammer..but it won't happen).

EDIT: ah, i forgot to say that i'm currently piloting the deck irl, after having bult it almost entirely. I'm testing against some decks which represent bad MUs for TES, like Dragon Stompy, Counterbalance Threshold, UBG Tog-esque controls, ecc. Just to make you know I'm founding what i say on real facts and observations :).

matelml
05-25-2009, 01:49 PM
I'm testing against some decks which represent bad MUs for TES, like Dragon Stompy, Counterbalance Threshold, UBG Tog-esque controls, ecc. Just to make you know I'm founding what i say on real facts and observations :).

When I used to play TES, before AdN was printed (now I play ANT), Dragonstompy was a match I tested quite extensively and my conclusion was that the MU is alomst exactly 50%. Now with AdN, I would guess it's even a bit in your favor. Remember EtW is very strong against it.

Piceli89
05-25-2009, 01:57 PM
When I used to play TES, before AdN was printed (now I play ANT), Dragonstompy was a match I tested quite extensively and my conclusion was that the MU is alomst exactly 50%. Now with AdN, I would guess it's even a bit in your favor. Remember EtW is very strong against it.

Not when your opponent goes turn 1 Trinisphere 3 times on 5, and the remaining 2 it goes first turn chalice @ 0 and Magus of the Moon.. Yes, there are Lucksacks here too :laugh:

Jeff Kruchkow
05-26-2009, 01:52 AM
Actually, if you read carefully at least what I wrote, you'd have noticed i mentioned Diminishing Returns is "hella risky" and i use it about 5% times, i.e. when i'm going to die and have only few mana after Burning Wish. At that point, DReturns is the only out before dying. I dislike that card by myself, because half he time it gives me new shitty hands or the opponent receives plenty of counters. So , of course is the "last hope", we are not that stupid to NOT understand it; if we can go off in an another way, we choose that, either way, if DR is the only chance left, so be it.
Thanks for the lesson and the explanation, in any case, but i somehow feel I'm already quite capable of piloting the deck (except against fucking Counterbalance, which is rising impressively, and will never allow this deck to return a tier1..i think it's pretty known in our coscience, even if we don't want to admit it. Hope WotC will take a look at legacy and move some tasty Banhammer..but it won't happen).

EDIT: ah, i forgot to say that i'm currently piloting the deck irl, after having bult it almost entirely. I'm testing against some decks which represent bad MUs for TES, like Dragon Stompy, Counterbalance Threshold, UBG Tog-esque controls, ecc. Just to make you know I'm founding what i say on real facts and observations :).

I apologize to you i was typing at like 9 am with no sleep and saw 5% as 50%. going back and reading it your percentages are close to what i wish for although i go for protection much, much less. and i still think that this deck can be tier 1 through counterbalance it just takes tons of practice time.

lordofthepit
05-26-2009, 02:36 AM
I'm sure this has been addressed before, but I couldn't find any definitive statement: in terms of included cards and strategy, what's the difference between ANT and TES (and Fetchland Tendrils for that matter, besides the obvious inclusion of fetchlands)?

Bahamuth
05-26-2009, 02:45 AM
I'm sure this has been addressed before, but I couldn't find any definitive statement: in terms of included cards and strategy, what's the difference between ANT and TES (and Fetchland Tendrils for that matter, besides the obvious inclusion of fetchlands)?

TES runs red for Rite of Flame and Burning Wish, and therefore uses a rainbow land mana base. Also, because it's generally faster, it runs less land than ANT. ANT is able to run a fetchland because it has more land and less colours.

Jeff Kruchkow
05-26-2009, 03:27 AM
TES runs red for Rite of Flame and Burning Wish, and therefore uses a rainbow land mana base. Also, because it's generally faster, it runs less land than ANT. ANT is able to run a fetchland because it has more land and less colours.

Also, ANT is mystical tutor centric and uses only AdN (and sometimes DD) as a win con. Most FT lists use DD as the win-con and the side in AdN if need be.