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

[Asthereal]

Hard luck on the matchups and opposing topdecks.

BTW, have you tried swapping the main deck Tendrils for an Empty the Warrens?
Tendrils almost always is a bad card to draw, but EtW is actually a pretty sweet card to draw.
If you cast Ad Nauseam, you can always Wish for the Tendrils, or Tutor for Wish into Tendrils.

And one comment for round 3: Against RUG Delver the best win is usually a quick Empty the Warrens.
Yet you Wished for Returns game 1. Perhaps going for EtW was better, but you didn't mention the game state, so I'm not sure.

[Larzdk]

A boss, you don't have a judge at your gamestore? Cause the douchebag mcdouchy telling your opponent what you're playing is textbook "Outside Assistance"

[Asthereal]

+1 to that. That's actually a DQ, if I remember correctly.
Hadn't thought of that myself yet. Perhaps next time you can have mr Douchbag removed from the tourney.

[Larzdk]

+1 to that. That's actually a DQ, if I remember correctly.
Hadn't thought of that myself yet. Perhaps next time you can have mr Douchbag removed from the tourney.

Nah, it's a matchloss - but the guy might just get enraged enough to leave if he's as shady as descriped.

[a boss]

Hard luck on the matchups and opposing topdecks.

BTW, have you tried swapping the main deck Tendrils for an Empty the Warrens?
Tendrils almost always is a bad card to draw, but EtW is actually a pretty sweet card to draw.
If you cast Ad Nauseam, you can always Wish for the Tendrils, or Tutor for Wish into Tendrils.

And one comment for round 3: Against RUG Delver the best win is usually a quick Empty the Warrens.
Yet you Wished for Returns game 1. Perhaps going for EtW was better, but you didn't mention the game state, so I'm not sure.

I was dead in the air to delver

[a boss]

I like the mainboard tendrils because against counterbalance I can run all my spells into counterspells and top and come out with a lethal storm count. It may just be better though. I have not tested. I also think I am going to start running carpet of flowers over a inquisiton and chain in the board. Xantid Swarm seems over kill when you have duress and silence. I just want to make enough mana around tax master bullshit like daze and spell pierce and wasteland. Belcher player suggested it, I had seen the card mentioned on Bryants list of "Didn't make the cut cards" Luckily maverick seems mostly dead so those karakas might come out. An issue seems to be that legacy decks never die. Zoo is dead but people still play it, solidarity is dead but people still play it. Maverick can be dead but I may need to keep in karakas for a year or two before some new green deck replaces it

[a boss]

There was a judge. I was unaware that was outside information. I had an opponent cheat super hard against me and only later I found out randomly deciding games is a DQ along with the other stuff he did. I never seemed to have people cheat against me and try to fuck me over when I played stuff like affinity. Maybe people just think they need to cheat to consistently beat it. Like the guy with the mystic gate in round 4. I had a guy at an open write the wrong result in round 9 at the st louis open and I caught it. Maybe there is just rampant cheating at high levels of magic I am not used to.

[Asthereal]

Ah there, you didn't metion that your opponent had a lethal Delver at that moment. So you had to try to win.

Only very little people cheat deliberately. Mostly their are not aware of certain rules when they break them, or make impossible plays by accident. For example the guy using colourless mana to activate Mystic Maze. That's probably just carelesness. I just saw a video where one guy tried all abilities from Liliana otV despite his opponent having a Leyline of Sanctity in play. His opponent was paying attention though, and kept reminding him of the Leyline. 'No, you cannot ultimate Liliana because of... / Oh shit, ye're right...'

Always good though to pay attention to what the players around you are doing. If it disadvantages you, you should obviously alert a judge.

[Bryant Cook]

I enjoyed the article.

Only one nitpick, hand three is overly fictional. Two reasons why. Firstly, you wouldn't ever go that low with an Ad Nauseum in a real game. Secondly, there would have been a lot more showboating with all that mana floating.

Thanks for the article.

Aha, I really do Ad Nauseam that low. If I know the opponent can't Lightning Bolt me I'm going to draw every last card I can while still being safe. As for showboating, I can't give instructions on that, it's something someone does once they have a feeling for how awesome they are.

I meant Fetchlands, Dual Lands and Basics foregoing White and Green altogether, essentially the UBR Tendrils decks where the only judgement call is between whether or not you want to play Cabal Ritual and 0-2 Chrome Mox or Rite of Flame and 3-4 Chrome Mox where you're left choosing between consistency and speed. Without extraneous color requirements, the deck's manabase should be more stable.

Essentially all black disruption lets you reconsider your manabase and subsequently your SB options, I'm not sure that's something TES actually wants, but it's there.

I didn't see this.

Why would you not play green for Abrupt Decay? I could understand Xantid Swarm leaving, as it's something I've considered recently, but Decay is just too good. Even ANT right now is four colors. Which is something I don't understand, that deck has always prided itself on it's mana base. It's no better than TES's at the moment, while being a slower deck. A mana base with Duals, fetch lands, and basics doesn't actually mean that it's more stable. Awkward mana base draws happen much more frequently than you would expect. Drawing the basic island and one of the two Volcanics in ANT is miserable. Not to mention, with TES you generally have all of the color requirements when you need them to go off. The mana base is designed for TES, not ANT. ANT seems to want to play a longer game, TES is faster, meaning that the disappearance of Gemstone Mine is less relevant. Meeting the correct color requirements within the first three turns is crucial, which is why TES plays 5c lands.

I'm a huge advocate of Silence and Abrupt Decay, I don't see myself cutting these cards anytime soon.

I mentioned it above, I'm considering cutting the two Xantid Swarm for another Abrupt Decay and the forth discard spell (Therapy or Duress). Another thing I've thought of is with Maverick dying down and Karakas being less relevant against the show decks is maybe cutting the two Karakas for the third Decay and a Tropical Island.

Although, I'll admit, I still see a decent amount of Maverick and Reanimator... which has caused me to leave them in my sideboard.

[stoked]On a side note, yesterdays mail had two Japanese foil Cabal Therapy![/stoked]

[End3r000]

In regards to ANT's mana base becoming 4 colors, as I said before I feel like both decks are evolving along a similar axis where Abrupt Decay and Cabal Therapy make it into both decks. I personally didn't like the Silence plan, so I cut the 5 color mana base in favor of just going URB, more along the lines of the older ANT decks. With my current list I'm running 7 discard spells with 4 probes, which maximizes the Therapy's, and releases some pressure from your mana. Along with cutting the 5 color lands I upped the fetchland count to get better results from Brainstorm. In the TES list I was running off of here the 3-4 fetches were not cutting it, and dare I say it, Brainstorm was preforming quite poorly. I feel like the 5 color version can fight through a lot of hate better, but it's slower than just going URB.

[Final Fortune]

Aha, I really do Ad Nauseam that low. If I know the opponent can't Lightning Bolt me I'm going to draw every last card I can while still being safe. As for showboating, I can't give instructions on that, it's something someone does once they have a feeling for how awesome they are.



I didn't see this.

Why would you not play green for Abrupt Decay? I could understand Xantid Swarm leaving, as it's something I've considered recently, but Decay is just too good. Even ANT right now is four colors. Which is something I don't understand, that deck has always prided itself on it's mana base. It's no better than TES's at the moment, while being a slower deck. A mana base with Duals, fetch lands, and basics doesn't actually mean that it's more stable. Awkward mana base draws happen much more frequently than you would expect. Drawing the basic island and one of the two Volcanics in ANT is miserable. Not to mention, with TES you generally have all of the color requirements when you need them to go off. The mana base is designed for TES, not ANT. ANT seems to want to play a longer game, TES is faster, meaning that the disappearance of Gemstone Mine is less relevant. Meeting the correct color requirements within the first three turns is crucial, which is why TES plays 5c lands.

I'm a huge advocate of Silence and Abrupt Decay, I don't see myself cutting these cards anytime soon.

I mentioned it above, I'm considering cutting the two Xantid Swarm for another Abrupt Decay and the forth discard spell (Therapy or Duress). Another thing I've thought of is with Maverick dying down and Karakas being less relevant against the show decks is maybe cutting the two Karakas for the third Decay and a Tropical Island.

Although, I'll admit, I still see a decent amount of Maverick and Reanimator... which has caused me to leave them in my sideboard.

[stoked]On a side note, yesterdays mail had two Japanese foil Cabal Therapy![/stoked]

I wouldn't play Green because Xantid Swarm and Abrupt Decay are niche SB cards and I think having a 3 color deck with fetch lands, dual lands and basics is better vs Wasteland than a 4 color deck with fetch lands and dual lands is vs. Counterbalance, the moment I add Silence or SB Xantid Swarms and/or Abrupt Decay I'm just going to play TES and play a manabase with golden lands. What I was trying to say was if you forego Silence, Xantid Swarm and Abrupt Decay then you have the ability to play a MD that's significantly better vs Aggro control with Wastelands.dec but still have an equivalent, or even faster, fundamental turn by playing Rite of Flame instead of Cabal Ritual and having 7 disruption cards you can cast off Dark Ritual instead of 3.

I honestly have no clue wtf ANT players are doing with their manabases, because unless they're SBing Tropical Island and Bayou along with their Abrupt Decays then they're just destroying their resiliency vs Wasteland. I'm just saying TES is fundamentally a Rite of Flame and Chrome Mox based Storm deck, and that playing more linear MD disruption and SB answers exchanges flexibility for stability vs Wasteland because you no longer need White and Green mana and therefore no longer get color screwed.

[JamieW89]

I wouldn't play Green because Xantid Swarm and Abrupt Decay are niche SB cards and I think having a 3 color deck with fetch lands, dual lands and basics is better vs Wasteland than a 4 color deck with fetch lands and dual lands is vs. Counterbalance, the moment I add Silence or SB Xantid Swarms and/or Abrupt Decay I'm just going to play TES and play a manabase with golden lands. What I was trying to say was if you forego Silence, Xantid Swarm and Abrupt Decay then you have the ability to play a MD that's significantly better vs Aggro control with Wastelands.dec but still have an equivalent, or even faster, fundamental turn by playing Rite of Flame instead of Cabal Ritual and having 7 disruption cards you can cast off Dark Ritual instead of 3.

I honestly have no clue wtf ANT players are doing with their manabases, because unless they're SBing Tropical Island and Bayou along with their Abrupt Decays then they're just destroying their resiliency vs Wasteland. I'm just saying TES is fundamentally a Rite of Flame and Chrome Mox based Storm deck, and that playing more linear MD disruption and SB answers exchanges flexibility for stability vs Wasteland because you no longer need White and Green mana and therefore no longer get color screwed.

I'm only boarding in a 4th color in ANT in UBr(g) and UBw(g) versions which run 1-2 green duals and 3-4 decays sb. Green replaces white against some aggro decks and the manabase isn't an issue against countertop.

[vercadium]

I agree that if you want to add a forth or fifth colour to a storm deck then you go with 5c lands. The only question seems to be whether or not the Green and White cards are enough to justify this. I believe they are, though I can see the appeal of a fetch/dual/basic mana base if the deck in question only runs 3 colours (UBR).

Bryant, now that you have had some time to test it, are you a proponent of Reforge the Soul over Diminishing Returns? Or do you remain undecided/require further testing?

[Bryant Cook]

In regards to ANT's mana base becoming 4 colors, as I said before I feel like both decks are evolving along a similar axis where Abrupt Decay and Cabal Therapy make it into both decks. I personally didn't like the Silence plan, so I cut the 5 color mana base in favor of just going URB, more along the lines of the older ANT decks. With my current list I'm running 7 discard spells with 4 probes, which maximizes the Therapy's, and releases some pressure from your mana. Along with cutting the 5 color lands I upped the fetchland count to get better results from Brainstorm. In the TES list I was running off of here the 3-4 fetches were not cutting it, and dare I say it, Brainstorm was preforming quite poorly. I feel like the 5 color version can fight through a lot of hate better, but it's slower than just going URB.

I wouldn't play Green because Xantid Swarm and Abrupt Decay are niche SB cards and I think having a 3 color deck with fetch lands, dual lands and basics is better vs Wasteland than a 4 color deck with fetch lands and dual lands is vs. Counterbalance, the moment I add Silence or SB Xantid Swarms and/or Abrupt Decay I'm just going to play TES and play a manabase with golden lands. What I was trying to say was if you forego Silence, Xantid Swarm and Abrupt Decay then you have the ability to play a MD that's significantly better vs Aggro control with Wastelands.dec but still have an equivalent, or even faster, fundamental turn by playing Rite of Flame instead of Cabal Ritual and having 7 disruption cards you can cast off Dark Ritual instead of 3.

I honestly have no clue wtf ANT players are doing with their manabases, because unless they're SBing Tropical Island and Bayou along with their Abrupt Decays then they're just destroying their resiliency vs Wasteland. I'm just saying TES is fundamentally a Rite of Flame and Chrome Mox based Storm deck, and that playing more linear MD disruption and SB answers exchanges flexibility for stability vs Wasteland because you no longer need White and Green mana and therefore no longer get color screwed.

I understand what both of you are saying, but you have to keep in mind that having a manabase with Basics isn't going to guarantee wins against tempo decks. Wasteland still hurts you by cutting off colored sources. Do you know how useless basic Island is on the combo turn? Might as well be Darksteel Citadel. Having Silence against Stifle, Snare, REB, BEB, Envelop, and Surgical holds more value in my eyes than a supposedly more "stable" manabase. I'm not a believer in that basics equal stability in combo. They can be just as dangerous as duals. Losing Silence really hurts a lot of the tempo and control match-ups, anyone who has ever beaten RUG with TES knows how crucial Silence is.

If I'm already on the Silence plan, there's no reason not to play Decay.

I don't believe that I'm sacrificing much, if anything, by continuing to play Silence and Decay.

I agree that if you want to add a forth or fifth colour to a storm deck then you go with 5c lands. The only question seems to be whether or not the Green and White cards are enough to justify this. I believe they are, though I can see the appeal of a fetch/dual/basic mana base if the deck in question only runs 3 colours (UBR).

Bryant, now that you have had some time to test it, are you a proponent of Reforge the Soul over Diminishing Returns? Or do you remain undecided/require further testing?

I've had moments when Reforge and Return were both insanely good in different ways. I'm still on Reforge, but I haven't played any high level magic with either. I plan on running Reforge at SCG Baltimore next weekend.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

...anyone who has ever beaten RUG with TES knows how crucial Silence is.

The moment when you fire off a Duress -- they blow their load of soft counters -- and Silence next turn is priceless.

They always get so mad.

[thefringthing]

Planning to play the list in the first post cold this weekend (after playing ANT for a bit). I thought Bryant said his "Truths would never leave"? First time for everything, I guess.

Someone want to give me a real quick primer on the Therapy/Decay sideboard?

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Planning to play the list in the first post cold this weekend (after playing ANT for a bit). I thought Bryant said his "Truths would never leave"? First time for everything, I guess.

Someone want to give me a real quick primer on the Therapy/Decay sideboard?

OP.

[Bryant Cook]

Planning to play the list in the first post cold this weekend (after playing ANT for a bit). I thought Bryant said his "Truths would never leave"? First time for everything, I guess.

Someone want to give me a real quick primer on the Therapy/Decay sideboard?

Taking things out of context, nice. I said I didn't see Truth leaving anytime soon, regarding people playing Chain of Vapor. Abrupt Decay changed things.

Due to your obnoxiousness, I won't be helping you.

[thefringthing]

The quote was just teasing. It's pretty clear that if you swapped Echoing Truth for Abrupt Decay then you must think Decay does the same job better (or more jobs just as well, or both) and I agree.

Tournament went awfully. Played Blue-Red Landstill, and RUG Delver twice. Lost all three before dropping. Both Delver players were drooling idiots. Died to Ad Nauseam twice in one match, once from 20 life. Won a game against Landstill only due to a poor Brainstorm by my opponent. Room was full of Counterbalances and devoid of Thalias. I don't think 12 lands with 3 fetches gives any realistic hope of consistently beating opposing Wastelands.

[Bryant Cook]

I spent today rewriting some of the opening post as well as the sideboarding guide, sample hands, links. Pretty much everything. Check it out.

EDIT: Not that any of you care or are wondering, but holy crap! The TES opening post is 32 pages in word.