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

[Endure2004]

Sup everyone, this is my first post on this thread.

I usually play next level threshold, but I gave this deck a whirl at a 33 man el mira event last month. I've been gold fishing / testing this deck for about two months now, about an hour every day to try and get more comfortable with counting mana, storm. I took bryant's exact 75 post IOK change and here's a quick rundown of how my matches went, sorry that they are pretty vague as it was long ago enough that i don't remember them all that well.

round 1 vs merfolk

game 1
His draw involves two cursecatchers, but I chant him about 4-5 turns in and have enough mana to pay for both cursecatchers and ad nauseam. ad nauseam gets there.

game 2
He has a quick cursecatcher into lord of atlantis draw. He force of wills my burning wish, I don't draw enough gas to go off before I die.

game 3
I keep a sketchy hand where I have to lotus petal into ponder to find my first land. I ask Bryant later and he tells me I should've mulled, as lands against blue decks is good. He says the hand would've been ok against a deck that I would have to go off fast against. Anyways, my ponder gets there and i draw a land. In the middle of this game, we notice a random merrow reejery off to the side that had been exiled to a FOW from the previous game. He gets a game loss, but we keep playing for practice. I build up to 7-8 cards in hand and set up to go rituals into tutor chain to kill him. I chant, he forces. I play out my rituals, counting to have enough to leave for spell pierce, and then go infernal tutor. I was going to just go for IT, IT, tendrils, but I see a burning wish and didn't stop to think if it made a difference. HE HAS BLUE BLAST!!! ouch. lesson learned. anyways, I win this round because of the illegal deck presented.

round 2 vs burn

game 1

this is against a little kid, couldnt be over 8th grade, and he didn't know what my cards did. I ad nauseam'd turn 3 and showed him rituals into tendrils, and he's like, so i lose two life? I show him the text for storm on the card, and he's like I'm dead? yeah.

game 2

He's stuck on one land, so i eat a lava spike and a bolt before I am able to set up an ad nauseam kill.

round 3 burn

game 1
He has turn 1 goblin guide. Turn 2 he has another goblin guide and a rift bolt. On turn 3, i have a kicked chant on his upkeep, and his rift bolt stays exiled forever! :) He throws some burn at me and I am able to set up a past in flames kill at like 5 life.

game 2
I duress away a pyrostatic pillar, but he draws another. I am unable to draw an answer, despite boarding in bounce.

game 3
I think this game I have a to go for a very sketchy ad nauseam with 0 floating and from like 15 life, and I have to stop, brainstorm, and then draw LED, dark ritual to be able to kill him.

round 4 UW adam van fleet

game 1
He has turn 2 stoneforge. I have turn 2 chant into ad nauseam. The ad nauseam, despite being from 20, is weak and I have nothing floating. I'm forced to stop at 2 and go can trip, shuffle, cantrip into the LED that I needed.

game 2
He has turn 1 leyline. At some point, I chant him, only to have bryant point out that I couldn't, due to leyline. I get beaten to death by canonist and snapcasters.

game 3
He has turn 2 canonist, force of wills my burning wish for an answer, and I can't find another answer in time.

round 5 against nich compton

game 1
He's on the nightmare effect..(tortured existence + krovikan horror). My turn 1 duress sees bob, gatekeeper, gatekeeper, liliana. I go off shortly after with ad nauseam.

game 2
he duresses me turn 1 and sees IOK, ponder, ponder, brainstorm, land, rituals. He takes brainstorm. I inquisition him on my turn, and see random stuff and a chalice. ??????????? He's like, crap, I should've taken your inquisition. Anyways, I can trip into business and get there.

round 6 ID

top 8

quarterfinals against gabe

game 1

I don't remember much other than that there's a wasteland involved and an early ad nauseam.

game 2

I punt this match by pondering. I see: LED LED burning wish. I meant to stack burning wish on the bottom. I draw LED and play it to play around discard. Next turn, I draw and it's burning wish. Crap, I stacked it wrong, meant to draw LED next. I get punished, as he has a discard spell to make me bin it, and i don't draw any more business in time.

game 3

He mulls down low (4 or 5) and has chalice on 0 but only 1 land. he does nothing for awhile while I build up lands. Eventually, I am able to go off with rituals into ad nauseam having 3 mana sources untapped. Ad nauseam shows me the nuts, and I echoing truth the chalice, play out all my artifacts and rituals, and tendrils him.

top 4 split

The deck ran great, has anyone suggested running a second volcanic island in place of a fetchland?

[Machahiko]

Hi,

It's always sad to talk about things like building on budjet, but seems like I have no other option at the moment. I pretty much have the deck completed, I'm only missing one land. Underground Sea. I have a load of store credit in a singles store, but they dont have any ug seas, and I believe they wont have any for quite some time. So I either have to save up money/store credit and buy black bordered UG Sea or get some other land. While saving up for fbb UGSea, I'd like to ask what would be a good substitute?

[Rekk]

Hi,

It's always sad to talk about things like building on budjet, but seems like I have no other option at the moment. I pretty much have the deck completed, I'm only missing one land. Underground Sea. I have a load of store credit in a singles store, but they dont have any ug seas, and I believe they wont have any for quite some time. So I either have to save up money/store credit and buy black bordered UG Sea or get some other land. While saving up for fbb UGSea, I'd like to ask what would be a good substitute?

watery grave

(badlands could theoretically work too)
so could being a miser and running another city of brass

[DrHealex]

Hi,

It's always sad to talk about things like building on budjet, but seems like I have no other option at the moment. I pretty much have the deck completed, I'm only missing one land. Underground Sea. I have a load of store credit in a singles store, but they dont have any ug seas, and I believe they wont have any for quite some time. So I either have to save up money/store credit and buy black bordered UG Sea or get some other land. While saving up for fbb UGSea, I'd like to ask what would be a good substitute?

ANOTHER Option other than downgrading to a watery grave would be to sell your store credit to someone, maybe even at a slight discount to sweeten the deal. Then just buy the UG Sea elsewhere with cash. (I do this from time to time)

[leegoo]

If I couldn't get the sea I think I would run Badlands > Watery Grave, but I haven't ever tried either in that slot so you might want to test and see if not having that 2nd fetchable U/B source hurts.

[gamer4life]

Endure2004 I play a City of Brass over the 4th fetch. I haven't had any problems with running 3 Fetchs. Id say go for it.

[Tammit67]

Is it bad I'd rather play against a blue opponent than a non-blue opponent right now?

[thefringthing]

Is it bad I'd rather play against a blue opponent than a non-blue opponent right now?

The non-blue (i.e. Maverick) players are respecting us right now, and Chant isn't amazing against them. Things aren't too bad for us now and may always change in the future.

[Bryant Cook]

Is it bad I'd rather play against a blue opponent than a non-blue opponent right now?

I've felt this way recently but it's only because I'm paying for my luck streak. At SCG Baltimore, Round 3, against RUG Countertop (Maindeck):

It's game three, turn 5, He has two Force of Will in the graveyard, one card in hand (I know it's a stifle), a top, just fetched and played a goyf tapping out. I have the option of Chanting him, then Wish -> Returns floating one, or Wish -> Infernal, Ad Nauseam from 15. I decided Nauseam was the better line of play. Flops the top to reveal a third Force of Will. Devastating.

Then round 5 (I posted this up above):
G2, I managed to get out of Cannonist/Teeg to find a Mind Break Trap.

g3, I kept a hand of Scalding Tarn, Inquisition of Kozilek, Lion's Eye Diamond, Lion's Eye Diamond, Rite of Flame, Dark Ritual, Ad Nauseam.

I went fetch, go. He went Forest, Hierarch. I drew a second Rite of Flame. I fetched, Inquisition. I was doing this to play around Wasteland. Gnab GSZ. He plays a Pridemage, I draw a Chant, he draws a land and attacks. I draw some other useless card, He draws Thalia, then Wasteland.

I was on a draw 1 of 80% of my deck for three turns that we're a mana source, Dark Ritual, Infernal, or Burning Wish and I won that game. Unfortunately, the deck shit the bed.

Round after that, Mono Blue Control with maindeck Countertop.

I won game two to drawing every single card out of his hand into a Burning Wish for Tendrils, other than that I was blown out by Counterbalance.

I feel like I'm not losing to my opponents at all, but losing to karma/bad luck. Maybe I'm the only one feeling this, but I should've never of been in the bracket with Mono Blue Control with maindeck Coutnertop. I should've been 6-0 beating up RUG Delver.

[Oiolosse]

@Bryant - did you talk to the event organizer? Head judge?? Just tell them you are Bryant Cook and you're playing TES. I'm sure they'd make an exception.

More seriously, you posted just a short time ago your exploits at what I remembered to be a good-sized tourney. Has the field changed since then? In a meta full of non-blue where Chant becomes mediocre what do you suggest, 1-2 IoK main to pluck out Thalias, Teegs, etc?

[thefringthing]

If you didn't want to run any Chant effects at all, you could do -2 Silence, -3 Orim's Chant, -4 Gemstone Mine, -2 City of Brass, +1 Duress, +4 Inquisition, +3 Island, +2 Swamp, +1 Badlands or something drastic like that. This is just hypothetical though; I don't think you'd want to hurt your matchups against UW(B) and RUG that badly.

I think the current plan of siding out of Chants and into Inquisitions is sufficient unless your metagame is really weird. That said, I haven't had a chance to play with the new sideboard yet.

[Trentemoller]

I played a DE with TES and recorded it. I'm relatively new to this deck so there have been a couple of mistakes due to the relatively newness but also due to talking to myself while thinking and the chess clock time constraints. Changes I made after the tournament were +1 Silence -1 Duress and in the sideboard I did -1 IoK +1 Thoughtseize. Still testing the Anc. Visions. Seems sweet in a discard heavy meta.

Dzy playing a Legacy DE with T.E.S.

[jin]

How have you guys coped against Tempo Thresh/RUG Delver when they bring in Counterbalance Top post board? What are some strategies you guys deploy now that Pyroblast is out of the picture?

[leegoo]

If you think they are on that plan I suggest being aggressive on your mulligans. Between Inquisition, bounce (they don't play all that many 2's so echoing truth has a possibility of working besides wipe away) or just a hand that kills before they drop it.

Isn't this where cunning wish would shine in your list?

@Trentemoller - Empty main is bad right now unless you expect to never see stoneforge mystic. Play the Tendrils. Anc. Visions is a great card in a deck that wants to draw 3 cards in the late game... TES's late game is long past by the time you remove the last suspend counter. If the game has gone long enough to draw your 3 cards, I suspect you are already in a hole so deep Acall won't dig you out. Trash it.

[jin]

If you think they are on that plan I suggest being aggressive on your mulligans. Between Inquisition, bounce (they don't play all that many 2's so echoing truth has a possibility of working besides wipe away) or just a hand that kills before they drop it.

Isn't this where cunning wish would shine in your list?

lol.. yeah, I can keep Wipe Away out.. I don't actually own Cunning Wish.. I've just tested it on magic workstation. I'm not a strong advocate for it. It was just a suggestion.. much like how Chain of vapors might replace echoing truth. Although, even if I did rely on Cunning Wish as my out, having only one out and nothing to sideboard in seems like a really bad plan.

Also Spell Sanare shuts down the echoing truth plan

[leegoo]

You are right about spell snare vs. truth... I wasn't saying it was a *good* plan, just that it was A plan. Counterbalance + Top resolving is BAD for storm any way you look at it... I'd say if both resolve there is a very, very good chance you aren't going to win. Sucks, but post board RUG has a LOT of weapons we have to fight through fairly fast. On the plus side most lists only run a 3/3 split, so an early well fired discard spell has a good chance of killing that plan for them.


Siding in the Empty the Warrens and trying to force it through is also an option.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Hunting Pack

[cash]

Hi,

I tested this deck since a couple of month and I have some questions/suggestions concerning Bryant's last list.:

-Concerning IoK, since it gets read of everything that you care about except FoW and since Maverick starts to be a bad matchup with all these hate bears, I was thinking to put them in the main deck replacing Duress. So, in other words, to have 3 IoK main and 3 Duress + 1 IoK in the board. What do think about that?

-For the chant's. Don't we need to come back to 4 chant effects/4 discards since U is less and less played?

-I have also another question concerning bouncers: Couterbalance and Chalice are almost not played anymore (in my meta at least). Wouldn't it be better to play chain of vapor?

-More general question: when you resolve an Ad nauseam with LED in play, do you usually crack it to have mana floating post nauseam or do you keep it to be hellbent with an IT revelad by Ad nauseam?

Thanks!

[j_rb]

-I have also another question concerning bouncers: Couterbalance and Chalice are almost not played anymore (in my meta at least). Wouldn't it be better to play chain of vapor?
Thanks!

Yea but don't come crying to me when someone shows up and blows you out with chalice :D.
I still prefer 1 truth because it's better against blue decks that pack meddling mage. You don't really want to let those guys bounce their snappys and cliques back to their hands with chain.

-For the chant's. Don't we need to come back to 4 chant effects/4 discards since U is less and less played?

I can see 4 discard and 4 chants maindeck, but my meta is till blue infested so I go 5 silence effects... I see a lot of successful list now running 4 discard still maindeck though. It's probably meta dependent and preference.

-More general question: when you resolve an Ad nauseam with LED in play, do you usually crack it to have mana floating post nauseam or do you keep it to be hellbent with an IT revelad by Ad nauseam?

Thanks!

You can crack it. Or not. It all really depends on the game state. If you ad naus with a mox trigger on the stack or with most of your moxen/petals in the deck you can just leave it. I tend to crack it when I am at lower life totals and don't crack it when I'm at higher life totals... Really high life totals. But really, It all depends... Everything with this deck just depends on the gamestates because its so versatile and open to different lines of play. Which is also why the deck is so good.

[TerribleTim68]

...-More general question: when you resolve an Ad nauseam with LED in play, do you usually crack it to have mana floating post nauseam or do you keep it to be hellbent with an IT revelad by Ad nauseam?

Thanks!

I typically will leave an LED on the board if I can just for that reason.