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

[Pelikanudo]

@Guys:
While I do think we are in a completely unexplored field - we can assume certain facts - I do think that we can make a set up of possible choices. One is the fact that CTherapy is a strong effect and we've played CT with very few peek effects to a good success in the past - sure it is worse if we face Chalice decks or UB Reanimator than Duress, but as wPreaux says is an effect that can handle several copies of 1 single card or make opp. play in resp and IT is our unique card advantage slot (apart of AN of course). This moreless effect is done by Silence. that is why I think we should play one of these 2 effects - Silence OR CT. but as I said I don't know If we will face several angles of hate and then we will need to play plain discard - likely.

14 lands along with 4 CM is in my opnion excesive for TES. I don't think we've played so many IMS in TES ever. I could see 14 and 3 CM or backwards but not those numbers. maybe I am wrong because ou play so many fetches - while I am not but you'll find likely land flood.

I think 8 discard/silence effects is the proper number for TES right now. I was playing 7 - you guys were playing 6, so I understand you reach now 7 - not 8.

I think the deck can be tweaked to have a PiF main engine (along with 1 or 2 CRit), but I don't think it is the way TES wants to go - I dare to say it is backwards - focus on AN plus BW.

I don't think 9th cantrip is the way we should go - we need threats that's why I proposed 2nd EtW or 2nd AN - I will definately start with 2nd AN.

My initial take will defintely be like old 2012 lists with 4 Silence 4 Duress (those lists used 3 Silence 2 Orims 3 Duress) and 2 AN and not Tendrils main (this is the difference from old lists!)
but EtW instead along with full moxen and 13 lands (I before played 12 but not shit of badlands or swamp or island...). and see what happens from there - I also will enjoy nostalgic on this - the difference is that now EtW is played main instead of that useless Tendrils. AND I will not tire of repeating it - Days Undoing is a GREAT card which makes BW even a good threat card. As said I'll likely change to full discard if I start facing too much diversified hate. but as example - 2/3 SE backed up by Silence is not bad vs Reanimator.

Once my 1st local I'll see how this goes...

One thing I've been thinking is if 1 Dark Petition main instead of 2nd AN is worth it. I don't think so, but who knows! What do you guys think on this?

@Bahamut, are you by here to bring us your respected opinion?

@FFortune: you are wrong when you say that if Canadian raises, then EtW needs to be taken out from side. It is backwards. I anyway have survived withouth this strategy along the years...

Have a Nice Brewing!

[Lemnear]

we can assume certain facts

Say that again ... but slowly.

One is the fact that CTherapy is a strong effect and we've played CT with very few peek effects to a good success in the past

I am quite sure the '13 transition from Silence + Gold lands to 4 Therapy + 2 Duress + Fetch/Dual manabase already included 4 Gitaxian Probes. It's true that there were 2 Cabal Therapy in the SB back then to side in against creature decks, but those came in during postboard games when you already knew against what you play.

Our current problem is that game 1 without Probe is a unsatifying guessing game with Therapy; One we can and imo should evade.

is an effect that can handle several copies of 1 single card or make opp. play in resp

It's currently more likely that you hit literally nothing with your blind Therapies. There is no point to cast Therapy for FoW just to see RB Reanimator, SnT, Storm & Co across, which are all suddenly more viable and likely to face with DRS gone.

That is why I think we should play one of these 2 effects - Silence OR CT.

I can't follow that conclusion. I rather discard 1 card for sure with Thoughtseize and combo turn 2, than gambling with T1 blindcall Therapy against unknown decks and try to justify that by MAYBE being able to discard more than 1 card. Silence is totally out of discussion. Not going to cripple the manabase for a card which has proven to be outdated 5 years ago. From first metagame reports i got yesterday, it seems that many people picked up stoneforge mystic and hatebears again.

14 lands along with 4 CM is in my opnion excesive for TES. I don't think we've played so many IMS in TES ever. I could see 14 and 3 CM or backwards but not those numbers. maybe I am wrong because ou play so many fetches - while I am not but you'll find likely land flood.

You need to set the number of lands in relation to the turns you plan to play in each match. We got slower; we will likely play more turns per game in average; ergo we will get to play more lands. You don't want to sit on 1 land + Petal during your turn 3 to get past Daze, Pierce or whatever will ve down the line from here.

I think 8 discard/silence effects is the proper number for TES right now. I was playing 7 - you guys were playing 6, so I understand you reach now 7 - not 8.

I played 7 for a while and now up to 8 as we went from being a 56 card deck to a 60 card one. I want to keep a certain relation.

Ee need threats that's why I proposed 2nd EtW or 2nd AN - I will definately start with 2nd AN.

If you want more business, take a look at preordain. I don't think that running two Ad Nauseam on top of an EtW will be kind to your flips. Same with Dark Petition. It especially is no justification to dismiss Thoughtseize from a lifeloss perspective.

My initial take will defintely be like old 2012 lists with 4 Silence 4 Duress (those lists used 3 Silence 2 Orims 3 Duress) and 2 AN and not Tendrils main.

You're running a 2012 deck while everyone else is in 2018. Doesn't sound convincing as a plan to me.

[Pelikanudo]

Me: we can assume certain facts

Say that again ... but slowly.

ok

Me: One is the fact that CTherapy is a strong effect and we've played CT with very few peek effects to a good success in the past

I am quite sure the '13 transition from Silence + Gold lands to 4 Therapy + 2 Duress + Fetch/Dual manabase already included 4 Gitaxian Probes. It's true that there were 2 Cabal Therapy in the SB back then to side in against creature decks, but those came in during postboard games when you already knew against what you play.

Our current problem is that game 1 without Probe is a unsatifying guessing game with Therapy; One we can and imo should evade.

well not only agains creature decks it was there just because it was a good card also vs FoW. I don't know how you used to play CT, but I accepted completely a hand of CT withouth GP - I however agree that If I start to face S&T, Reanimator and Combo, CT (in adition to Chalice decks) is not the best idea, however this is something I don't know still and I can guarranty you that for the rest of decks: Canadian, Stoneblade, anykind of Control BUG I ould prefer CT not only in 1st game - also for postboard games.

Me: is an effect that can handle several copies of 1 single card or make opp. play in resp

It's currently more likely that you hit literally nothing with your blind Therapies. There is no point to cast Therapy for FoW just to see RB Reanimator, SnT, Storm & Co across, which are all suddenly more viable and likely to face with DRS gone.

As before I stated I just need to agree I even added Chalice decks to that equation and that is my fear... I am just talking about 2 CT not much rest 6 hit discard effects. but likely 4 TSeize 4 Duress is the safest take.

Me: That is why I think we should play one of these 2 effects - Silence OR CT.

I can't follow that conclusion. I rather discard 1 card for sure with Thoughtseize and combo turn 2, than gambling with T1 blindcall Therapy against unknown decks and try to justify that by MAYBE being able to discard more than 1 card. Silence is totally out of discussion. Not going to cripple the manabase for a card which has proven to be outdated 5 years ago. From first metagame reports i got yesterday, it seems that many people picked up stoneforge mystic and hatebears again.

I don't agree in here and you sould follow that conclusion, you win Control decks with overload on counters/fows/flusters with therapy most of the times, not by gambling in the firts turns - just by waiting and even tutoring to more therpies - at its simples once everybody has pondered and Brainstormed - just shooting a therapy win you the game on the spot - I prefer prior to shot a shitty duress. Silence is related not to the exact same effect but yes to the same rewarding result - 2/3 lnds, a petal and then Silence. Opp. can have fluster and Fow and will need to fire FoW.

you say Stoneforge decks will raise, I think the same -well- tell me that CT is not a bad card or at least better card than TSeize agains them.

Again, I am not sold on anything yet, but sure that if I face RB and UB Reanimator all the day I will not want no one CT main.


Me: 14 lands along with 4 CM is in my opnion excesive for TES. I don't think we've played so many IMS in TES ever. I could see 14 and 3 CM or backwards but not those numbers. maybe I am wrong because you play so many fetches - while I am not but you'll find likely land flood.

You need to set the number of lands in relation to the turns you plan to play in each match. We got slower; we will likely play more turns per game in average; ergo we will get to play more lands. You don't want to sit on 1 land + Petal during your turn 3 to get past Daze, Pierce or whatever will ve down the line from here.

I just expose proven facts from an era wherethere was no DRS no GP and moreless the same decks we - you and me are again naming. As I said the unique difference from that era is transition from Gold Lands To Fetch Lands and I DO understand that incrment from 12 to 13 with fetches and now from 13 with fetches to 14 with fetches and no probe. I just incrmented my count on 1 more land but no fetches. Maybe I adapt and change finally to a fetch base with 14 lands, don't know...


Me:I think 8 discard/silence effects is the proper number for TES right now. I was playing 7 - you guys were playing 6, so I understand you reach now 7 - not 8.

I played 7 for a while and now up to 8 as we went from being a 56 card deck to a 60 card one. I want to keep a certain relation.

well done, 7 always belonged to TES with GP.


Me: Ee need threats that's why I proposed 2nd EtW or 2nd AN - I will definately start with 2nd AN.

If you want more business, take a look at preordain. I don't think that running two Ad Nauseam on top of an EtW will be kind to your flips. Same with Dark Petition. It especially is no justification to dismiss Thoughtseize from a lifeloss perspective.

that is wrong. Preordain is not a Business. I don't know how many Preordains in base can be considered as a whole portion of a single business spell.... it costed me to understand this back in the 2012... the numbers that reigned in that era were: 8 tutors 2 AN 1 Tendrils. Next after GP, EtW was considered by itself a business, contrary to Tendrils, and then after adding the full 4 GP the 2nd AN left the deck. this fact is very curious. other curious aspect is that by that era only one persn named Abel Plating played GP TES list - the only one among other tops... and played 3 BW the guy.


Me: My initial take will defintely be like old 2012 lists with 4 Silence 4 Duress (those lists used 3 Silence 2 Orims 3 Duress) and 2 AN and not Tendrils main.

You're running a 2012 deck while everyone else is in 2018. Doesn't sound convincing as a plan to me.
.

and? I've been running a base with gemstones since I was the 1st person apart of bahmut proposing to run GP in base since that era along with CT and duress. and Until know you know what? I uniquely changed 1 Gemstone by a 5th fetch to my 60 - suggestion coming from FFortune. and I am a HatedStormPlayerThatWillWinYouAlways person by here by reputation... yes now winning with DU.

As said I maybe take that straightforward list with full of 4 copies, 14 lands full discard and I am fine with that but I want to evolve from my list which provided me great successes and I have to evolve therefore from a)12 manabase to 13 and from
b)3CM to 4th and from
c)7 disruption to 8 and well for me that would be my unique flex slot which prior to GP was...:
d)2nd AN.

[Lemnear]

I however agree that If I start to face S&T, Reanimator and Combo, CT (in adition to Chalice decks) is not the best idea, however this is something I don't know still*

The "I dont know" is a thing we all share in regards to the current metagame. We dont know how decks look, how likely it is to face certain decks, etc.

These are real problems for slinging Therapy.

Control decks with overload on counters/fows/flusters with therapy*

I think if control starts to overload on reactive stuff like counters, we would just run Xantids from the board and call it a day. Therapy isn't solving problems if your opponent diversifies tools. They could run 4 FoW, 2 Pierce, 2 Fluster + more. You still have to gamble on naming the right counter. Its another problem Thoughtseize does not have.

I just expose proven facts from an era wherethere was no DRS no GP and moreless the same decks we - you and me are again naming

They are not the same decks. Delver, Swiftspear, Mentor, Thalia, Miracle, Angler, Eldrazi and much more all got released after GP. I'd go as far and say that 90% of theats you get confronted with are printings released after Probe. These ones are the benchmark for todays design, not necessarily the stuff decks ran in 2011.

Preordain is not a Business. I don't know how many Preordains in base can be considered as a whole portion of a single business spell.... it costed me to understand this back in the 2012... the numbers that reigned in that era were: 8 tutors 2 AN 1 Tendrils. Next after GP, EtW was considered by itself a business, contrary to Tendrils, and then after adding the full 4 GP the 2nd AN left the deck. this fact is very curious

I guess we simply disagree in what is considered business. As long as yoi can chain spells im order to get access to AN, ToA or EtW its business to me personally.

I think reducing the number of 4cc+ flips were obvious if you a) suddenly run cards costing life and b) Delver was printed to speed up the clock of tempo decks.

So i dont think it fits to refer to extremely old 2 AN decklists as potentially viable now, because the most agressive threat at that time was prolly nimble mongoose, which is a lot slower than Delver & friends these days, meaning that your lifepoints are significantly more pressured.

[Pelikanudo]

They are not the same decks. Delver, Swiftspear, Mentor, Thalia, Miracle, Angler, Eldrazi and much more all got released after GP. I'd go as far and say that 90% of theats you get confronted with are printings released after Probe. These ones are the benchmark for todays design, not necessarily the stuff decks ran in 2011.

well man, look at this URL:

http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=7695

in here you'll see a Super Mr Bryant List and also a Delver deck. and note that by that era GP was released AND still not played - only Abel Plating was playing GP, and onbly after Timo won the GP TES players started to play GP. Surprisin!

I guess we simply disagree in what is considered business. As long as yoi can chain spells im order to get access to AN, ToA or EtW its business to me personally.

yes we disagree. Cantrips is one thing and Business is other.

I think reducing the number of 4cc+ flips were obvious if you a) suddenly run cards costing life and b) Delver was printed to speed up the clock of tempo decks.

So i dont think it fits to refer to extremely old 2 AN decklists as potentially viable now, because the most agressive threat at that time was prolly nimble mongoose, which is a lot slower than Delver & friends these days, meaning that your lifepoints are significantly more pressured.

NO, it wasn't! it was delver! look at the URL.

Edit: more examples:
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=7572

Edit 2: I dare to say that Tendrils by itself is not a business unless you can chain spells and kill with it. EtW on the other hand it is.

[Bahamuth]

How does that Crystal Vein/Mox Diamond list run Lemnear? It looks sweet. I'd think having a second Ad Nauseam in there would be really strong though. You can just cast it off a sol land and a ritual.

I don't think it makes sense to go back to Silences and Chants. As long as no one is running Spell Snares I don't see much of an upside.

[Lemnear]

How does that Crystal Vein/Mox Diamond list run Lemnear? It looks sweet. I'd think having a second Ad Nauseam in there would be really strong though.

The sol land + Mox Diamond concept is something i tinker with for months and i have no experience with an iteration without Probe yet. In general, I am pleased with the concept of replacing RoF and having the option to choose between dropping lands in order to beat Daze & Stuff or throw lands under a Mox to speed up your game while fixing colors.

I would avoid a second AN or such if we run Thoughtseize and became a bit slower.

If you throw it together and slam or goldfish a few games, I'd gladly take your feedback and suggestions on that approach. I think a second pair of eyes on the project would be really helpful

[Pelikanudo]

I don't think it makes sense to go back to Silences and Chants. As long as no one is running Spell Snares I don't see much of an upside.

why not?

they allow to use better DR, allow to force the opp to cast FoW if they have 2, handles snapcasters, makes you to interact with the stack, timewalks non U hatebears, they are better vs storm, doesn't cost you life, can fight through stifle/Fluster better than discard. Sure they have slops vs TSeize... I am maybe too optmistic and really want to play them...

EIT: What do you thinl on Days Undoing in the side?

[Final Fortune]

How you claim Swamp is bad in a deck playing 7+ discard is beyond me, right now I'm on 14 land, 4 Mox and 4 Thoughseize and see no reason to use the 2nd Ad Nauseam - the math says ten threats is optimal, when we cut Tendrils of Agony for Empty the Warrens the 2nd Ad Nauseam became completely unnecessary.

You don't SB in 2 more Empty Warrens vs Stifle decks who are going to SB in Flusterstorms as well.

Edit: Silence does NOTHING for us vs Reanimator, what do you think people are going to immediately play with DRS gone? Discard lets you play the control role in that match up, it is the only choice.

[wonderPreaux]

I'm on 14 land, 4 Mox and 4 Thoughseize and see no reason to use the 2nd Ad Nauseam - the math says ten threats is optimal

Just wondering, what is the math you're referencing here?

[Final Fortune]

Just wondering, what is the math you're referencing here?

Odds of opening with a threat and the diminishing returns of adding threats, there are simulations in the Belcher thread.

[Pelikanudo]

How you claim Swamp is bad in a deck playing 7+ discard is beyond me, right now I'm on 14 land, 4 Mox and 4 Thoughseize and see no reason to use the 2nd Ad Nauseam - the math says ten threats is optimal, when we cut Tendrils of Agony for Empty the Warrens the 2nd Ad Nauseam became completely unnecessary.

that is rigth, 10 threats are the optimal number, an yes - ToA is not a threat, but my reasoning is that EtW will be most of the time a threat in 1st games (NOTE: well not vs Reanimate or storm or Sneak - because we even lost CT which served to maintain the equilibrium vs those decks having EtW and targeting twice) BUT, for 2nd and 3rd games I'll likely take this out lot of times so I need the 10th threat still, also, some ponders will go out - reducing therefore the odds of drawing the threat even more.

In my opinion 14 lands 4 CM are too much and having a 2nd AN makes those CM less worse. you'll find that with 14 lands and not drawing BS you'll be land flooded. I apart explode CM also with DU from Side as lately and once discovered the potential of DU, I found that 4th CM make DU better.

You don't SB in 2 more Empty Warrens vs Stifle decks who are going to SB in Flusterstorms as well.

I personally don't, but it was a way lot time ago to battle those RUG decks and in deed that strategy was used recently to handle those Grixis. you can anyway make Stifle target your fetches while playing natural EtW. which is the thing likely to occur. EtW has been always a good strategy to handle Tempo in general.

Edit: Silence does NOTHING for us vs Reanimator, what do you think people are going to immediately play with DRS gone? Discard lets you play the control role in that match up, it is the only choice.

agree, but only vs Reanimator (well maybe some others...), also, my plan post side is Silence+Surgical which is not the best, but well something to see if works. Silence was good also to just play and force the opp to draw 2 FoW which was not bad also. but again, agree vs those Reanimate I prefer discard than Silence.

anyway, it maybe is not correct to play Silence, but I just want to see how it now develops... I played some MWS games and it was not as bad as it seem the Silence... avoiding some Snaps triggers, handling some stifles / double FoW from tempo...

[Lemnear]

I don't think it makes much sense to argue about threat density if you board out Ponders for any postboard game a "lot of times". Boarding out cantrips is something we suggested when Chalice & Countertop were locking you out of many 1cc spells and these Ponders got replaced by ways to break out of these softlocks. They are not the decks default boarding slots.

You also need to decide, if you want to keep pointing at being flooded with lands OR at using Fetchlands to draw out Stifles protecting your EtW without getting choked out of initial mana. You can't use both at the same time

[Final Fortune]

The second Ad Nauseam doesn't make Chrome Mox better, Chrome Mox makes the first Ad Nauseam better and the second Ad Nauseam makes the first Ad Nauseam worse. If you want to SB out Empty the Warrens and replace it with another threat, then you SB in the Tendrils of Agony AND The Past in Flames now that Deathrite Shaman has left.

4 Chrome Mox is fine, people were using the 4th Chrome Mox for the 3 Empty the Warrens plan regardless and it makes up for the damage you're going to take from Thoughtseize and the life loss you're going to suffer from being slower without Gitaxian Probe. 14 lands is not "too many" lands in Storm, I don't know if you've played ANT at all but 14 lands is generally considered "land light" there - double Chrome Mox and land flood are problems taken care of by cantrips and fetchlands and not by Gemstone Mines. What are you actually going to replace the 14th land and the 4th Chrome Mox with, a 2nd Ad Nauseam (which is bad) only fills one of the two open slots assuming you're already playing with 8 discard? Furthermore 14 lands means +1 SB card and the mana stability to SB out Chrome Mox(es).

Here is why Silence is bad A) No effect on Reanimator or Sneak&Show B) No effect on hatebears C) No effect on discard D) No one plays with Spellsnares or Counterpsells E) doesn't imprint for black mana F) can't be cast off Bayou

If you need a reference point,

1 Ad Nauseam
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Grape Shot
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Dark Petition
1 Bribery (Reanimator)
1 Massacre (mandatory with the return of U/W Blade and increase of Miracles)
1 Consign/Oblivion (mandatory with the absence of Abrupt Decay and increase in Chalice of the Void)
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Rending Volley (expect hatebears, lots and lots of hatebears)

[wonderPreaux]

Odds of opening with a threat and the diminishing returns of adding threats, there are simulations in the Belcher thread.

Yeah, that's what came to mind, because I remember that 10 count coming up there before. I don't really think that's the sort of thing we'd want to be relying on for discussion, though. I recall reading that thread and there was talk of glitches and trying to program mulligans and so forth. Aside from the obvious statement that TES doesn't play like Belcher, I never recalled seeing a simulation that seemed definitively good for modeling the play of the decks. (If anyone from the Belcher thread wants to show me as incorrect, I will gladly retract my claim, though).

Also, I think there's some over-reliance that people place on these stat models that doesn't account for actual gameplay. For example: anyone who played Wraith + Probe + Manamorphose and then modeled their deck proportions under a "48 card" deck (or Probe + Wraith for "52 cards" etc). It's just not feasible in practice; your optimal percentage would include some number of games where you have to cycle 2+ times to find the business spell, but you wouldn't sensibly keep those hands in a real game because they would fizzle more often than not, so the optimal percentage in theory drops in practice.

I also don't think the 10-threat statement holds up in practice because the majority of players don't abide by it in practice. Look at this search of mtgtop8 for Belcher in 2018:

All 11-threat builds. And on the Storm boards, Emidln's black Belcher list had the strategic objective of threats that won the game right away -- and had 12 of them (4 Infernal, 4 Ad Nauseam, 4 Belcher. Iirc, the original build even had a 13th in Diabolic Intent). Now, the question is: what are the gameplay dynamics that would inform a statistical model in a way that would allow us to approach an optimal number of business spells for actual games?

With Regards to Threat Density in TES

Introducing the Statistical Model
So, over-reliance on stat models is not ideal, but doing some good number-crunching is important at times. It helps to understand why certain choices seem to be successful over time, it illustrates the impact of adjusting proportions, and it gives you a rough map of the inflection points that cause you to make the choices in actual gameplay that you're trying to influence during deck construction.

This is the chart I'll be using in reference throughout this post. I made it a while ago for land counts, but since we're speaking broadly about "threats" as opposed to individual cards, we can consider it in a similar manner.


Now, I apologize profusely for how visually abhorrent this tool is -- aesthetics are not my strong-point, but let's go through how to use these tables that you're seeing. The very top row [0 <--> 27] is the count of whatever you're putting into your deck; lands, threats, any group of cards that you're willing to class as functionally identical is the [card type] we are considering. The two leftmost columns are coordinates showing the number of [card type] out of a number of cards drawn from a 60-card deck. You'll notice I have two tables here, the top table shows everything out of 7 cards (opening hand), while the lower table accounts for subsequent draw steps (hence, the second column increases in value as you go down, along with the first column). The percentages you see are the odds of that coordinate actually occurring given the number of [card type] in your deck.

Example: [card type] = Force of Will
There's a commonly cited statistic that an opponent's blind 7-card opener has Force of Will 40% of the time at most. Looking at the top table (opening hands), we can prove this out. Move along the top row to "4" and you can add up the occurrence percentages for 1, 2, 3, or 4 Force of Wills in the opponents hand. Overall, it's 33.63% + 5.93% + .38% + .01%, or 39.95%, which is where the rough 40% adage comes from. Make sense?

Now, the last thing to explain is why I color-coded the percentages. This is the anti-flood warning for whatever [card type] is (remember, I designed this for lands, and mana-flooding is a thing). As long as your percentage is green, the coordinate occurrence is going up and the coordinate below it for the greater number is going up by a smaller amount. So, looking at the top table, and topmost row, adding the 2nd to 5th copies of [card type] is having a greater marginal impact on increasing your chances of opening 1 of [card type] out of your opening 7 than it is on opening 2 of [card type] in your opening 7.

As you increase the proportion of [card type] in your 60-card deck, you are converting cards that weren't [card type], and can hit a diminishing return when it come to the exact proportion we're looking for -- hence the yellow and red color-coding. Yellow percentages mean that you're adding so many of [card type] that you're now increasing the odds of the next lower coordinate more than you are the one you're currently trying to optimize. Going back to the top-row example, the 6th to 8th copies of [card type] are adding more percentage points to the "2 of 7" coordinate than they are adding to the "1 of 7". The red colors are for adding so many of [card type] that your odds of the given coordinate are actually dropping because you've converted away so many cards that aren't [card type] and it's impacting your ability to have a small proportion of your opener being [card type]. So, to finish the example, once you're at 9+ copies of [card type], you should expect to be opening with it in multiples more often.

Now, given fetches and cantrips, there's some wiggle room here in terms of how accurately this model predicts lands. What I think is interesting is how some deck construction patterns match well with the tables. For example, table 2 (factoring draw steps) shows 15 as the yellow-limit for "2 of 7", which matches pretty well with how you tend to see ANT decks building their land counts. I think this is because the pattern that rose to the top was wanting to err on the side of caution in securing the 2nd land drop for the 2nd turn and enable the Brainstorm fetch or double cantrip or cantrip + discard, while not straying too far out in land count to avoid flooding. Going out further, to control decks, look at this list of mtgtop8 showing the front page of Miracle decks -- you'll see the averages is about 20 lands, which is the cautionary "yellow limit" for passively getting to 3 lands through draw steps:


Another historical example is how "8-land stompy" actually had 12 total forests counting Land Grants, which is the more aggressive "green limit" for an opener of exactly two lands when you look at the top table for opening hands (you'd want two lands for Winter Orb, but you definitely didn't want to flood out when you're just trying to Rancor people). Basically, you use the top table for planning openers, the bottom for multi-turn plans and you use the green or yellow limits depending on your aversion to seeing none of [card type] versus a lot of [card type].

Moving back to my original point, TES, we're going to define [card type] as threats, and look at the top table for opening hands, since we're not too far from Belcher's speed and the passive drawing and deployment of the second table makes more sense for lands than it does for threats. I originally talked about informing the statistical model with gameplay dynamics, so now that I've shown the model I use, lets talk about the dynamics.

Business Spell Dynamics - The Intolerable Proportion Vs. The Inoperable Proportion
I mentioned above how you can take an "aggressive" or "cautious" approach to achieving a certain proportion of a card in your opener, like the conservative approach to making sure you can passively lay down lands versus the aggressive approach to having just enough lands to facilitate an aggressive opener into a combo. This is because your hands are going to have a bell curve of actual outcomes that extend from the average in both directions, so if you set your deck proportion to deliver the desired outcome on average, you'll get a spread of hands that miss the mark by having too few of something as often as you would too much of something.

However, you basically can't play a hand with no lands, for example, whereas a hand with a land too many can be salvaged. In a similar fashion, you'd have to really scrutinize a hand of TES that has no business spells, whereas a hand that has a Wish/Tutor more than you'd like can be fixed up by committing to a Chrome Mox or Brainstorm (and that's not even considering the flexibility of some business spells -- more on that later). This is the difference between "inoperable" and "intolerable"; the hand with no threats or ways to find them just can't be kept, it doesn't operate as the deck intends to. By contrast, if you have an awkward hand of 3 Wishes/Tutors or something like that, you can at least evaluate if you want to try it and if you can make it work, if you can tolerate that sort of low-quality hand.

This dynamic can be seen in both Belcher and TES. If you open Wish + EtW + mana, the second business spell could be thought of as a "virtual mulligan", but I'd venture to say that's better than the literal mulligan of seeing no business spells. Your mulligan to six might force you to mulligan again, and you can at least imprint to Chrome Mox in the scenario of the Wish + EtW hand. This is why, given the small time scale this deck aims to operate on, I'd think you'd want to push towards the right end of the aggressive "green percentages", because a failure to find business spells is inoperable, whereas the hand of a couple of business spells is only occasionally intolerable. Now, "tolerable" is pretty subjective, and this is where we have to zoom in on what particular cards make up our broad card type of "threats". Depending on what the cards actually need to do, business spells are subject to scalability and uniqueness dynamics.

Business Spell Dynamics - Uniqueness and Scalability
While we can talk in broad strategic terms about "threats" or "bombs" in the context of combo versus control, the actual text on our individual cards does inform the amount of business that we end up running when it comes to deck construction. The two topics in play here are "Uniqueness", the degree to which the effect we're trying to access is spread across cards, and "Scalability", the degree to which the cards we're playing maintain utility in multiples.

A very unique threat limits your choices as a deckbuilder, because your choices are fixed at "1-4" of something. Take High Tide, for example: nothing else does what High Tide does; it's not a matter of 4 being the optimal number, it's the reality of there not being functional duplicates of High Tide. To bring it back to Belcher, it may be that they want more than 11 threats, but being basically mono-red means there's little else they can actually run unless they broaden out their threat suite to include less directly effective cards like Reforge the Soul or Recross the Paths. Directly impactful combo bombs are relatively unique in a mono-color shell, which means a slower, broader-colored deck can be hindered less by this concept. There's not too much to discuss here, but is necessary to keep in mind that the prevailingly successful proportion of a threat (or anything else, really) in a deck may just be by necessity and not mathematical optimization.

Scalability, on the other hand is something you can look at in depth - it's the real, in-game manner in which your cards hold their value when you find yourself having multiples of them. Cards like Rain of Filth and Ad Nauseam, for example, scale quite poorly, they draw from the same resource and diminish each other. Cards like Rite of Flame, by design, scale nicely by multiplying their effectiveness. Scalability extends beyond the text box, though, since your cards don't exist in a vacuum. Chrome Mox and Brainstorm give your cards scalability by giving you something else to do with your threat when you have a more useful one to use already. Burning Wish, and especially Infernal Tutor, also have scalability by contributing to the combo turn by finding protection or, in the special case of Tutor, netting you mana by replicating mana effects like Rite or LED; they didn't stop being useful, they just became useful in a different way. Scalability is an important consideration when you're evaluating how many of these threats to run, because the better the threats scale, the less "intolerable" a glut of them are, so you can skew towards a greater number of them to avoid the "inoperable" state of having none of them. This means fewer no-business mulligans, fewer hands when you have to cantrip for threats, more hands where you can out-speed the hate bears and challenge counter spells. I think the ability of Infernal Tutor to generate mana means the threats in TES are way more scalable than Belcher, and I'd err on a more threat-dense build for that reason.

The Optimal Threat Density for TES
Given the play patterns of TES, I think we'd actually like something closer to 12 threats, the aggressive end of the 2:7 opener proportion (Belcher may as well, but it would require more scrutiny). Given Infernal Tutor, Brainstorm, and Chrome Mox, I think TES suffers a lot less than Belcher does when we open beyond one threat in the opener, and thus we'd rather do that than open none and have to rely on cantrips or mulliganing. I also can't understate the relevance of our deck having more than 1 land that untaps, so we can go off multiple times more easily, and more readily test opponents with threats or apply them in alternative uses as is the case with Tutor/Wish. Moreover, we're not as fast as Belcher, we have to contend with Thoughtseize, run things into Pierce, etc -- so we're more often in need of a subsequent/spare business spell. I think the main thing holding back TES from having more business spells isn't that we wouldn't want them, it's that the other options aren't viable.

Consider the idea of a functional reprint of Infernal Tutor, an Infernal Two-tor, if you will. Would you really not consider slotting those into the open slots we're now all considering? On the TES site, there's tentative lists with 14 lands or even Preordain. I'd gladly go up to 12 total threats instead of those options, probably something like this, +/- a card or two depending on my knowledge of the metagame:

12 Land

4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual

4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Infernal Tutor
3 Infernal Two-tor
3 Burning Wish
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Past in Flames
1 Infernal Two-tor
10 Sideboard Cards

This is like the Vitruvian Man of TES decks, all proportioned neatly to relatively deliver a good setup for a second turn kill. The problem is that we just don't have such a neat option of adding to threat density that well, so we work to patch up other areas of concern like land count (where 14 is the "green limit" on the 3:9 draw step table in my chart; very sensible for a speculative tempo opponent, but could present issues when we try to race other decks), or try to patch things up with cantrips to substitute business and give us an opportunity to course-correct hands. The TL;DR to this is that I don't think Pelikanudo is wrong to look for extra business, I'm pretty sure all our options are just garbage, though. 2nd Ad Nauseam is close, but like Lemnear pointed out, it's relatively outdated technology when the tempo decks are hitting harder and are more optimized. Maindeck Tendrils or 2nd EtW are probably the next consideration, to combat Tempo/control decks to a certain extent, but they can be bad draws against other combo decks. Beyond that, we have all sorts of stuff that just doesn't belong in the main deck like Dark Petition, Grim Tutor, or Death Wish.

Preordain is an interesting consideration, as far as substituting business goes, my worry is that it detracts too much from comboing off quickly, which could cost our typical characteristic advantage against hate permanents, Hymns etc. Basic Island is a lot harder to omit as the cantrip density increases, but you also need to consider the fetch land proportions for Tarn/Mire when you start wanting Island more against Tempo which can preclude you from green spells in the 75, not even factoring the issue of Basic Island basically being Darksteel Citadel from the perspective of the combo turn. One thing I liked in Bryant's hypothetical lists is the idea of Past in Flames main deck. I think, aside from the irksome prospect of opening Chrome Mox + PiF, that could be worth exploring, as PiF can be a life-independent win against tempo, help us refuel against discard decks, etc. I think I'd still want some sort of Main-Deck win-con, though, compared to the list on the website. The dream would be somehow finding room for main-deck Tendrils, EtW, and PiF, but I just don't think you can fit all of that and try to fit Cabal Ritual for PiF and Chrome Mox for Ad Nauseam.

[Final Fortune]

That's one hell of a post, if you're looking to test the 12 threats theory you should try 3 MD Empty the Warrens over the Infernal Tutor "reprint." I did that awhile ago, and generally had redundant cards in hand. Personally I haven't seen any problems with 10 threats so far and prefer building up a manabase. The thing with TES is that it's not just a gold fish deck like Belcher, you've got the stamina to go long where you'll want to hit land drops and will eventualy draw a threat.

[wonderPreaux]

That's one hell of a post, if you're looking to test the 12 threats theory you should try 3 MD Empty the Warrens over the Infernal Tutor "reprint." I did that awhile ago, and generally had redundant cards in hand. Personally I haven't seen any problems with 10 threats so far and prefer building up a manabase. The thing with TES is that it's not just a gold fish deck like Belcher, you've got the stamina to go long where you'll want to hit land drops and will eventualy draw a threat.

You're kinda striking at the issue I was getting at with the idea of multiple EtW; I don't think the problem is that 12 threats is too many, it's that we have to play worse cards to get to 12 so our 11/12th cards are basically nonviable. Like, stacking up on EtW or Ad Nauseam is going to be pretty bad in some matchups and awkward to draw in some cases, and we're probably never getting another tutor effect that we could slot into the deck. The best current example of the thing I'm trying to illustrate is probably SI, where they play something like 15 bombs and can just keep untapping and throwing them at the opponent, the tradeoff there is that draw-4s are high variance and the deck is pretty fragile. Maybe NLS is the best overall example, actually, since that deck did play something like a dozen tutor/threat effects, and Mystical Tutor is the epitome of "scalable" business since it could find anything in the deck.

Like I mentioned towards the end of my prior post, I agree the manabase is definitely the next area to look at in terms of trying to make the deck more robust. I just think it's important to clarify that Pelikuando's idea of adding more business to the deck isn't indefensible, it's just not something that we can do right now, as far as my knowledge of the card pool goes.

[Grapeshot]

https://theepicstorm.com/legacy-leag...erde-07-10-18/

[Pelikanudo]

Hi guys, I just wanted to share my 1st experience post GP ban this weekend in a couple of local tournaments.

the 1st torunament we went a friend of mine with TES and me - we took moreless the same base and some diff. in side. We opted to go with a Silence 2012 List. the list was like this URL but:

http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=7695&iddeck=55987

-3 Orim's Chant = +2 Silence +1 Duress.

- as Edison said, "I did not fail, I only discovered 999 ways of not making a light bulb".
Well we both were not very conviced about Silence, but we really wanted to enjoy playing Silence again!, after the tournament he faced some Storm which of course won because of Silence and Sadistic Sacrament, but in deed T.Seize would have been better - well maybe not better - just more polivalent which is what we need right now. but still not sure if instead of duress!

my match ups were:

1) Agro hatebears, well I won 1st game easily and prior to the tournament I really had some lack of strategy vs these decks as I always used to win, so I didn't bother in any strategy...
2nd game he was just landed Thalia and teeg and even I was able to tutor for 2nd CoV and started to combo he was hidding a Mindbreak Trap. the 3rd game was both curious and determinant in just discarding 100% the idea of Silence - I obviously kept a hand with Silence and a 3rd turn combo, and I just silence him on upkeep, then when starting to combo he just Mindbreaktrap me again - he played only 2 MBT so just near 20% of drawing the card but tons of 2 CMC haterbears so it was the proper decission, however the error was to not to play Tseize instead. (lost 1-2) will never happen again.

2) Canadian - well at least by here Canadian is beeing playing everywere I think looots of players were happy to land those nimbles and stifle/wateland again. I had some illusion about Silence in here as it was supposed to be good but even I lost 0-2 it was because I was not able to do nothing - stifled or wastelanded. and sure Silence was shit as not even allowed to print on B, I was able to cast in one game AN which was great but I was at low life total. I noted the guy played 2 Snares (lost 1-2)

3) Stoneblade, won, I saw 1 canonist but nothing relevant - was an easy match up even with flusters, silence in here helped me, but don0t think it would have been a difference with TSeize.

4) Death shadow, won, the guy played T.Seizes and dazes an wastelands, etc BUT no stifles, and was easy to kill him with low life total self-inflicted.

5) candadian, this was funny, I just settled both games on 1 Bloodstained and well after 1 game I asked to show me his hand - he had 3 stifles... CM were dazed, LED countered (lost 1-2)

Conclusions:

- looking at next build version - I just took 4 full GP and from 12 lands I needed to go up to 14 as the meta seemed to contain wastelands everywhere
- Silence is good, but not polivalent enough, I feel that TSeize is a must right now I even think is much better than Duress, I could even see Duress going out and playing both Silence and TSeize - but not by the moment.
- didn't draw any conclusion on 2nd AN - likely vs Canadian would have been better the 4th land
- as talked to my friend it was not absolytly clear Silence belonged to an old era - (we don't discard anyway to play it again BUT not instead of TSeize) - but we wanted TSeize
- don't know what to think on DR / DU we really are not playing these cards too much lately,
- even my friend faced lots of storm, no UB reanimator or S&S appeared, but canadian is now a thing - then I started to evaluate things to change and the 14th land is now a must, but didn't want to play 14 lands 4 CM and soo many fetches... we also were stifled too much times.

Well, after some thoutghs I wanted then to start to develop a new design but evolved from my build, for 2nd time in my life I tested the fetch list and for 1st time I tested Island, I drew island one time and it is the worst card I can have in the deck - I neither want to fetch island under any circumstance, also fetches is not the thing I want to be settled on as it is more damage and is stifle target. So after some thoutghs and testing I made the following build to face the 2nd torunament post GP probe - there is no much maths on this - just a logic evolution from my before build.

- if I take 4 GP then I need to add 14 lands - 13 were not enough last torunament (2 less slots)
- not sure if to play 8 discard or 1 preordin instead - I just opted for a straighforward 8 disruption shell
- the flex slot was then 4th CM - as much as I hate to play 14 lands 4 CM well, I think it could be decent and it was going to be the card I will side out most of the time, other options were:
3 CM and 7 discards and 2 preordain, but well preordain? who plays preordain in TES, maybe 2nd AN instead of 8th discard? 2nd AN was not the card I wanted to draw vs canadian neither. what was sure is that if I played 2nd AN I needed to leave 4CM, but after including 4 TSeize 2nd AN started to loose sense...
- 10 threats is what I used to played 5 years ago - so lets see how the same numbers it develops without GP.

So the list I took to the next torunament was:

1 Ad Nauseam
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
4 Gemstones Mire

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Grape Shot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Dark Petition
1 Bribery - been there as always.
2 CoV
1 Spree
2 ET
2 SE
1 DU
1 CT.

NOTES:
- I just feared a lot stifle and from the begining - I used to win canadian by playing 1 or 2 lands and develop from here. 1 was more than enough!
- the 13th land was 4th gemstones - before I was playing 3 - I find gemstones just wonderfull - sure wasteland target it but I win games just with 1 gesmtone in play
- the 14th land was Badlands which allows me to play all cards in the deck except cantrips- didn't wanted 6th fetch and maybe 3rd USea was an option. I really don't know if I want to swamp - maybe it is the good call, but then I likely should put up the number of fetches to 8 and now with only 5 fetches and I don't think it worths.
- I was tempted to take out 4th CM and 8 discard by 2 preordains, but wanted to play something straighforward and see if it works, next adjust.

the 2nd tournament:
well it was stoneforge, sneak, storm and hatebears BWG with discard, again still not Reanimate and this time not canadian.
I just won 4-0 easily.

Final conclusions:
- GP was in deed a card I missed and really was not aware of the great card it in deed is, maybe I have to change to fetch->swamp->discard (even a diff strategy!), GP was such a great tempo card and allowed to develop my strategy based on already known statistics withouth no investment on rerources... snif.
- I want TSeize all days of the week, as said I could take out duress and return to a build with Silence - not lkely - but not withouth TSeize, however, TSeize is not the best card against canadian which is raising - it may have sense to play the multi EtW strategy as in old eras.
- I want somehow CT and it is there in the side, I've been thinking in taking the 4th duress and place in there just 1 CT - we will have the same numbers as before regarding peek effects, but I am not unconfortable with 4th duress.
- I don't know what to think on SE, I don't even want them vs storm and likely prefer more discard in the form of CT/IoK, so not sure
- I am happy with this manabase and really never played so many lands in any TES build, but not conviced on the 4th CM still...
- CoV, ET and bribery were key cards in side, don't know still if DP is a good comeback or if to increment discard instead of SE which does just nothing most of the times.
- don't know still what to think on 4th CM / 8th discard, but well from these last changes things went well, but likely want something pore polivalent than SE, maybe a sadistic sacrament or discard as stated, don't know.
- still don't see the need of green and then AD in side, but likely this is because I didn't face any mirales yet, but maybe just more discard will solve this.
- I saw Rending volley as a card to have in mind, but I just don't want to take CoV as it is infetiley more polivalent, I will fire discard untill I can bounce hatebear confidently against control and next win.

well, nice to see I am back again with TES, but I'll need to see what I can do vs those canadian- but there is nothing new to dvelop in deed and likely that 14th land will make the diff. between winning and loosing, if not I'll see if more EtW or discard or pyros or even carpet could help.

well it seems that we are all again sync about TES build - still rebel and prefer those gemstones!

thnaks for reading!

[Final Fortune]

You either play into Stifle or you play into Wasteland with Fetchlands or Gemstone Mines, the difference is not every deck plays Stifle, the shuffle effects are better with cantrips and sitting on Swamp with 8 discard just makes more sense.

Silence was probably bad even when we thought it was good, splashing another colour for a disruption card that isn't strictly necessary is a dubious choice. I even debate Green, Bayou and Abrupt Decay vs Miracles because with 8 discard the odds are their 3 Counterbalance never see the board, so bounce and another Underground Sea are probably best.