[Deck] T.E.S. - The EPIC Storm

[Marcelo65]

I m reading your thoughts on the maindeck changes. Very interesting discussion going on here.
If we are looking fot more consistency I have a new tech which may lead to some sick moves:
Why aren't we chain multiple Burning-Tree Emissaries into Grapeshot. 2 Emissaries allow storm 3 and are still viable as blockers/attackers and food for CabalTherapies.
But I m not sure if we want to play the full set main. Testing will tell.

[Asthereal]

Taiga shouldn't even be a consideration - just look at the colour breakdown of our deck. Tropical Island vs Bayou is the only option for that 13th land. Bayou casts more spells, but Tropical Island adds consistency. I think Tropical Island is the correct choice.

This is the kind of condescendence we cannot use on a forum like this. This holds back any innovation. All innovation looks weird at first, not just mine. Remember when Bryant said the Probe was bad because it didn't do anything? He wasn't wrong in his remark, but he was proven wrong by the performance of the card. At least, many feel that way.

We are focussing more on duals here. You have to admit that with 12-13 lands, it's hard to consisently get to three lands, and Tropical demands we do that very thing if we want to be able to cast all our spells from our lands. I was looking into a way to cast all our spells from just two lands.

ANT has this setup: Tropical + Badlands. Unfortunately this isn't an option for us, because we usually need initial B and R to go off. Taking this into consideration, and the fact that I want to be able to cast Decay from two lands as well means my only option is Sea + Taiga. I don't like it either, but Bayou + Volcanic doesn't cast Decay.

If you don't like my idea, fine. Others have already mentioned they don't believe in it. I will try it when I get the chance, simply because I think we are moving the mana base into an ANTish direction, only with two lands less. That feels bad, and therefore it's worth looking into solutions.

[vercadium]

This is the kind of condescendence we cannot use on a forum like this. This holds back any innovation. All innovation looks weird at first, not just mine. Remember when Bryant said the Probe was bad because it didn't do anything? He wasn't wrong in his remark, but he was proven wrong by the performance of the card. At least, many feel that way.

We are focussing more on duals here. You have to admit that with 12-13 lands, it's hard to consisently get to three lands, and Tropical demands we do that very thing if we want to be able to cast all our spells from our lands. I was looking into a way to cast all our spells from just two lands.

ANT has this setup: Tropical + Badlands. Unfortunately this isn't an option for us, because we usually need initial B and R to go off. Taking this into consideration, and the fact that I want to be able to cast Decay from two lands as well means my only option is Sea + Taiga. I don't like it either, but Bayou + Volcanic doesn't cast Decay.

If you don't like my idea, fine. Others have already mentioned they don't believe in it. I will try it when I get the chance, simply because I think we are moving the mana base into an ANTish direction, only with two lands less. That feels bad, and therefore it's worth looking into solutions.

My apologies if what I said was condescending towards you; I honestly didn't intend my frankness to be taken as such. The reason I am so blunt regarding Taiga is that I believe it makes very little sense compared to Bayou, which could at least be argued, even if it's incorrect when compared to Tropical Island. Normally, I would start off with well thought out reasoning, but I am also entitled to outright dismiss something when I believe it holds no merit.

I think your logic regarding Taiga is flawed and I'll try to explain why I believe this is the case below. This does not stifle innovation and I welcome any new arguments or perspectives you have around it.

We have more black cards than red. The black and blue cards are the ones that more often need cast over multiple turns and on our 1st turn (discard/cantrips), so our re-usable mana sources are more effective in that colour. Moreover, our 9 red cards that are in the deck (4 Rite of Flame, 4 Burning Wish, 1 Empty the Warrens) are often cast only on the turn we're "going off", which makes breaking a petal for that source much more plausible, than say, having to break one for Duress because we have Volcanic Island + Taiga in play.

Here's the colour options we have with 2 lands, which is only relevant when we don't have Chrome Mox, Lotus Petal or Gemstone Mine:

Taiga + Underground Sea = RGUB = 4 different colour sources with 2 lands.
Bayou + Underground Sea = BGU = 3 different colour sources with 2 lands.
Tropical Island + Underground Sea = UGB = 3 different colour sources with 2 lands.

Taiga + Volcanic Island = RGU = 3 different colour sources with 2 lands.
Bayou + Volcanic Island = BGUR = 4 different colour sources with 2 lands.
Tropical Island + Volcanic Island = UGR = 3 different colour sources with 2 lands.

As you can see, this more or less balances out regardless, so the Taiga doesn't really help that much to hit more colours with only 2 land when compared to Bayou. However, I will concede that it hits more colours a small % of the time, as we're more likely to fetch Underground Sea on turn 1 than Volcanic Island. Still, compared to the big issues, this is not relevant.

Red is our tertiary colour in my opinion. For our opening hands, Blue and Black are often the most crucial compared to red, as we often lead with a can-trip or discard. The point of the 13th land is so that we have a fetch-able source for our green sideboard spells. This leaves the only option being Tropical Island and Bayou.

Your point regarding casting Abrupt Decay with Taiga is null as, while you are correct that it does help you cast your red spells more consistently when used with Abrupt Decay off of 2 Lands and no Chrome Mox, Lotus Petal or Gemstone Mines - Abrupt Decay is a 2 of in my sideboard, that is only used in some match-ups, so that scenario will not occur often enough to justify making a sub-optimum change that has negative impacts in the much more commonly occurring scenarios I have mentioned.

To clarify - ultimately I feel like that small improvement of mana-fixing, which is only sometimes relevant for Abrupt Decay, is not worth leading with a Mountain (particularly in Game 1) instead of an Island or Swamp, which is relevant in many more cases. I'd rather have the Island personally.

Hopefully that has shed some light on my stance on the matter. You are entitled to disagree, as was I.

[davelin]

This is the kind of condescendence we cannot use on a forum like this. This holds back any innovation. All innovation looks weird at first, not just mine. Remember when Bryant said the Probe was bad because it didn't do anything? He wasn't wrong in his remark, but he was proven wrong by the performance of the card. At least, many feel that way.

We are focussing more on duals here. You have to admit that with 12-13 lands, it's hard to consisently get to three lands, and Tropical demands we do that very thing if we want to be able to cast all our spells from our lands. I was looking into a way to cast all our spells from just two lands.

ANT has this setup: Tropical + Badlands. Unfortunately this isn't an option for us, because we usually need initial B and R to go off. Taking this into consideration, and the fact that I want to be able to cast Decay from two lands as well means my only option is Sea + Taiga. I don't like it either, but Bayou + Volcanic doesn't cast Decay.

If you don't like my idea, fine. Others have already mentioned they don't believe in it. I will try it when I get the chance, simply because I think we are moving the mana base into an ANTish direction, only with two lands less. That feels bad, and therefore it's worth looking into solutions.

Don't take it so personally, the statement was hardly condescending. With a deck with 12-13 lands it's frequently the case you'll only have 1 land in the opening 7. Having that land be a Taiga is a feel bad.

[Lemnear]

Alas, I'm not sure if I should be flattered that no-one other than Lemnear had any other viewpoints to add to my post yesterday or insulted that no-one else bothered to do so.

Your question was pretty much directed at me, so I answered, which is the least I could do. There is not reason to be flattered or insulted.

We are focussing more on duals here. You have to admit that with 12-13 lands, it's hard to consisently get to three lands, and Tropical demands we do that very thing if we want to be able to cast all our spells from our lands. I was looking into a way to cast all our spells from just two lands.

ANT has this setup: Tropical + Badlands. Unfortunately this isn't an option for us, because we usually need initial B and R to go off. Taking this into consideration, and the fact that I want to be able to cast Decay from two lands as well means my only option is Sea + Taiga. I don't like it either, but Bayou + Volcanic doesn't cast Decay.

If you don't like my idea, fine. Others have already mentioned they don't believe in it. I will try it when I get the chance, simply because I think we are moving the mana base into an ANTish direction, only with two lands less. That feels bad, and therefore it's worth looking into solutions.

TES is trying to cast all it's spells off 2-3 initial mana sources (read 1-2 lands) which is a huge difference to ANT, which feels comfortable to drop 3-4 lands instead. Building the manabase according to ANT, but just with fewer lands, is a conceptional problem.

Regardless of everyone's opinion on that, with a Tropical Island/Bayou main-deck as the 13th land, what do people think of a 5th fetch-land in place of the second Volcanic Island? I'll miss having that stability and redundancy against Wasteland and also being more vulnerable to Stifle, but it does help our low land count deck hit all its colours more reliably and has the added benefit of being a shuffle effect. Having less fetch-land targets than we have fetch-lands is detrimental in some scenarios though. We ran 1 Volcanic Island for literally years, so this isn't an outrageous suggestion.

We had the topic about 2 months ago in this thread and I dared to make a long post back when, explaining why you want the the second Volcanic. Maybe you or any other dear forum user wants to dig that up. I'm lazy at this point and rather post a mikro-spoiler from HotS 7 - Storm Shards:

During the unveiling of the beforementioned list, there was a lot of confusion about running 2 Underground Sea and 2 Volcanic Island instead of a further emphasis towards shuffle-effects by running only a single Volcanic, but 5 Fetchlands. Even more radical suggestions like 1 Underground Sea, 1 Volcanic and 6 Fetchlands popped up for discussion, but those suggestions missed a few points. While I love shuffle-effects in a deck which contains full sets of Ponder and Brainstorm like the next guys does, running Volcanic Island or Underground Sea only as singletons can cause several serious problems at times.

The first and obvious flaw in the plan to reduce the actual number of mana-producing lands is the existence of Wasteland. Hands down, this colorless Sinkhole is a cornerstone of the Legacy metagame and not being prepared to fight it equals losing games. Seeing your singleton Dual destroyed and your remaining 4+ Fetchlands (see: beforementioned land-configuation) unable to put either a red- or black-producing land into play, can be the backbreaker for your attempt to go into the combo. To prevent running out of quality targets (in terms of color), or running out of targets altogether (in case you drew/fetched every one of your duals, which turns further drawn Fetchlands into blanks), the list settled on an equal amount of Fetchlands and Duals. Furthermore, several possible scenarios underline the importance of running 2 of each Dual, like drawing an opening hand containing Underground Sea, a Fetchland, Ponder, Cabal Therapy and Thoughtseize. There is no way to squeeze out the maximum of value without a second Underground Sea in your 60, as it would be impossible to cast Ponder prior to fetching a second land and still being able to cast a discard-spell. Throwback: Now imagine Wasteland hitting your Underground Sea with that hand! Suddenly your discard-spells are turned off, as the Fetchland has no Underground Sea left to dig up!

[Plague Sliver]

Played a mini gauntlet today with a few store regulars.

Shardless BUG - 2-0

Miracles - 2-0

UW Thopters - 2-0

Death and taxes - 1-2

Continuing my bad run against D&T. It's go off quick or sandbag for Massacre, I got greedy in games 1 and 3. Well, hard to beat top decked Thalia.

Didn't get to use Vapor Snare or Pithing Needle in the board, but was nice to know they were there. Got jammed vs Thopters game 2 playing Leyline of Sanctity, passed the turn with 45 goblins and killed him anyway at 1 life with his batterskull, mystic, snapcaster on board.

I really like going down from 3 to 2 decays because of Ad Nauseam.

[Lemnear]

Played a mini gauntlet today with a few store regulars.

Shardless BUG - 2-0

Miracles - 2-0

UW Thopters - 2-0

Death and taxes - 1-2

Continuing my bad run against D&T. It's go off quick or sandbag for Massacre, I got greedy in games 1 and 3. Well, hard to beat top decked Thalia.

Didn't get to use Vapor Snare or Pithing Needle in the board, but was nice to know they were there. Got jammed vs Thopters game 2 playing Leyline of Sanctity, passed the turn with 45 goblins and killed him anyway at 1 life with his batterskull, mystic, snapcaster on board.

I really like going down from 3 to 2 decays because of Ad Nauseam.

Define "got greedy" against D&T. The topdeck-hatebear issue is the reason I'm not find of the discard-hatebear-with-Thoughtseize-plan which pops up here at times.

Looking forward to the storm-showoff in about a month

[Plague Sliver]

I had a greedy 7 card keep, on the draw, vs D&T. It was Empty, Rite, Chrome Mox, Ad Nauseam, LED and 2 lands. I figured I could draw a lot of topdecks to go off turn 1 or 2, but it didn't happen. Probably a mulligan with no dig spells.

Game 2 I made 12 goblins turn 2.

Game 3 I mulled to 6 and kept one of those hands with acceleration and no mana where drawing one mana source would have let me make 12 goblins. Turn 1 probe, see garbage, opt not to Therapy, he top decks turn 2 Thalia. There was an interesting sequence where his revoker named lotus petal instead of LED as I expected him to. This was the blowout because I had one land ported and another land plus lotus petal to chain of vapor his thalia. Obv big fail on my part.

I didn't need LED to naturally Empty, but I had two of them in my hand to build storm. We talked about this after and I could have mindgamed a little bit by playing out the LED so he might name it instead.

They were greedy keeps. Well, game 1 was pure greed, and for game 3...I usually don't like going down to 5, it puts me way too far behind and I'd rather gamble if there are so many outs.

Also for what it's worth, I keep my probes in for the storm and cycling, and took out all 3 Duresses. The plan is to blind name Thalia with Therapy everytime and buyback for Jitte/Batterskull. Against Taxes I also side the Infernal back in because I'll maximize my chance of goblins any day of the week. I pretty much took your advice to heart and don't rely on the Decays they are too expensive. My sideboard still has a singleton Chain for this matchup.

[Lemnear]

I had a greedy 7 card keep, on the draw, vs D&T. It was Empty, Rite, Chrome Mox, Ad Nauseam, LED and 2 lands. I figured I could draw a lot of topdecks to go off turn 1 or 2, but it didn't happen. Probably a mulligan with no dig spells.

Here I see a virtual mulligan to 5 with a Chrome Mox and a LED which can cast nothing without a Brainstorm as you have both business spells of TES already in hand and unless the mana source you draw is a Dark Ritual, you can only dump a maximum of 8 Goblins w/o Cabal Therapy against a deck with SFM. On the draw gambling for a Topdeck DR or a BS (while praying that your opponent don't drop Thalia in his turn 2), is indeed greedy

Game 2 I made 12 goblins turn 2.

Game 3 I mulled to 6 and kept one of those hands with acceleration and no mana where drawing one mana source would have let me make 12 goblins.

happens. Better than a mull to 5

Turn 1 probe, see garbage, opt not to Therapy, he top decks turn 2 Thalia. There was an interesting sequence where his revoker named lotus petal instead of LED as I expected him to. This was the blowout because I had one land ported and another land plus lotus petal to chain of vapor his thalia. Obv big fail on my part.

I didn't need LED to naturally Empty, but I had two of them in my hand to build storm. We talked about this after and I could have mindgamed a little bit by playing out the LED so he might name it instead.

They were greedy keeps. Well, game 1 was pure greed, and for game 3...I usually don't like going down to 5, it puts me way too far behind and I'd rather gamble if there are so many outs.

Also for what it's worth, I keep my probes in for the storm and cycling, and took out all 3 Duresses. The plan is to blind name Thalia with Therapy everytime and buyback for Jitte/Batterskull. Against Taxes I also side the Infernal back in because I'll maximize my chance of goblins any day of the week.

yep

I pretty much took your advice to heart and don't rely on the Decays they are too expensive. My sideboard still has a singleton Chain for this matchup.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Played terribly this weekend in KC.

2-1 Elves
0-2 BUG Delver
2-0 UWR Delver
2-0 UWR Delver
1-2 Deathblade
2-1 Maverick
2-1 Eggs
0-2 Sneaky Show
Drop

5-3 overall.

[jake556]

Played terribly this weekend in KC.

2-1 Elves
0-2 BUG Delver
2-0 UWR Delver
2-0 UWR Delver
1-2 Deathblade
2-1 Maverick
2-1 Eggs
0-2 Sneaky Show
Drop

5-3 overall.

Play it out 6-3 for $50?

[Lemnear]

Played terribly this weekend in KC.

2-1 Elves
0-2 BUG Delver
2-0 UWR Delver
2-0 UWR Delver
1-2 Deathblade
2-1 Maverick
2-1 Eggs
0-2 Sneaky Show
Drop

5-3 overall.

What happened in the SneakShow matchup?

[Bryant Cook]

Won a 139 player side event at GP:Worchester for a foil set of Modern Masters. Deck felt very good and my Ad Nauseams were noticeably better.

I played with Needles both events and never was able to cast them despite siding them in three or four times. Void Snare was used three times, once to bounce a Leyline and then Iona & Goblin Guide (believe it or not! it gave me lethal with Empty tokens).

2-0 Esper Deathblade
2-0 Omnitell
2-0 NicFit
2-1 bUrg Delver
2-0 UWr Delver
2-0 UR Delver
1-2 UWR Delver (Jared Beottcher)

Top 4

2-0 UWR Delver (Jared Beottcher)
2-0 Shardless BUG (Two turn 1 ETW = 14 with Therapies)

I also took down a win-a-box defeating Reanimator twice.

2-1 Reanimator
2-1 Elves
2-1 Reanimator

[P-E]

Congrats Bryant , TES is still here and fully alive !!

[Togores]

Why would u say it gave u better nauseams If u cutted the 3rd mox wich usualy does this?

Of you dont played the 1st page list?

congrats anyway!!!!

[Bryant Cook]

Why would u say it gave u better nauseams If u cutted the 3rd mox wich usualy does this?

Of you dont played the 1st page list?

congrats anyway!!!!

I updated the OP with the list I played. Not the content though.

[seilaquem]

Won a 139 player side event at GP:Worchester for a foil set of Modern Masters. Deck felt very good and my Ad Nauseams were noticeably better.

I played with Needles both events and never was able to cast them despite siding them in three or four times. Void Snare was used three times, once to bounce a Leyline and then Iona & Goblin Guide (believe it or not! it gave me lethal with Empty tokens).

2-0 Esper Deathblade
2-0 Omnitell
2-0 NicFit
2-1 bUrg Delver
2-0 UWr Delver
2-0 UR Delver
1-2 UWR Delver (Jared Beottcher)

Top 4

2-0 UWR Delver (Jared Beottcher)
2-0 Shardless BUG (Two turn 1 ETW = 14 with Therapies)

I also took down a win-a-box defeating Reanimator twice.

2-1 Reanimator
2-1 Elves
2-1 Reanimator

Congrats on the great finishs! =D

BTW, since you got such great results, would you mind writing a report? I´ve been having a lot of trouble against BUG , miracles and reanimator, and you seemed to be alright =D

Thanks a lot for the fast replies and congrats again

[seilaquem]

This seems like a double post, but it isn't.

I just got a sneak attack as a prize on a 8-man tournament =D
I used the old version w/ cabal ritual. (2 Chrome mox/2 cabal ritual, w/ tropical island in the maindeck)

Match-ups:
2-0 Goblins (AN FTW)
1-2 miracles (AN on 1st game, then 2 t2 canonists on the following games, backed up w/ soft counters (game2) and countertop (game3) =/)
2-0 Junk (got 2 AN victories through t1 chalice on both games, w/ thespian combo waiting for me on T4. In this matches, cabal rituals really shined =D)

top 4:
1-1 - BUG delver (but he was a teammate, and had to leave early, so he conceaded ^^)
2-0 - Goblins (close games.
game1 got through discarding a sharpshooter and killing the 2nd w/ grapeshot =D,
the 2nd game got a risky hand OTDraw , getting the IMS to 16 goblins)

Guess I gotta thank everyone here for the testing and feedback, since I have been following the thread since page 180 (^^), and my teammate that pointed out how i could win against him against bug delver...

If any of you think it will be helpful, i can write a more detailed report.

[Togores]

So with the 13 land deck u never got flooded?

Do you sided out the tropical in some matches?

how good where the 2 chain of vapor? im still not sure if they are so good. Usualy I would prefer another decay and xantid.

[Bryant Cook]

Congrats on the great finishs! =D

BTW, since you got such great results, would you mind writing a report? I´ve been having a lot of trouble against BUG , miracles and reanimator, and you seemed to be alright =D

Thanks a lot for the fast replies and congrats again

Not likely, I didn't take any notes as it was a side event. I could write stuff from memory, but it wouldn't be completely worthwhile.

So with the 13 land deck u never got flooded?

Do you sided out the tropical in some matches?

how good where the 2 chain of vapor? im still not sure if they are so good. Usualy I would prefer another decay and xantid.

No, no and they were fine. Then don't play them? Remember, you don't have to run my list!