[Blog Post] Bazaar of Moxen Paris & Storm Primer

[Jonathan Alexander]

I didn't have the time to write about Magic in ages, but I often thought about getting into it again. After having missed a few good opportunities for tournament reports, I finally managed to find some time.

Feel free to discuss.

Link.

[GoblinSettler]

Thanks for writing again. I enjoyed the Grinding Station take on storm last time around and value your thoughts on the current state of Storm.

Question about your list. I count 59 cards in the main. What is the 60th card? 1 Swamp?

[Jonathan Alexander]

Wow, you're the first person to point out that the list is missing basic Swamp. Thank you for that.

Also, thanks for the kind words. While I do like writing about Storm, I'm trying to have more than just that one topic this time. I will also be writing about other formats and, if the Legacy metagame changes, other Legacy decks. I've been swapping decks a lot lately, but this one just feels very, very good.

[Dark Ritual]

Going to try the list out tonight card for card in a 4 round event with your boarding plans as well card for card (agree with them anyways.) I'll let you know how it goes later tonight.

[Dark Ritual]

Went 2-1 in terms of record but it could have been 3-0 if I wasn't mentally drained (when the tournament started I had been awake for 19 hours already.) Match 1 v. nic fit with red was me bricking off forever and dying to thrun in game 1. Game 2 I duress his sphere of resistance and combo shortly thereafter. Game 3 he duresses and extracts my infernal tutors, which I opened with 2 but I had ad nauseam in my hand as well as top and CRit. I go down to 12 before I fire off ad nauseam and flip over the wish as well as a lot of zero mana cards to tendrils him out.

Match 2 is against death and taxes. Game 1 I open on probe after he goes plains aether vial. He has no interaction in hand whatsoever and I kill him when I get theshed CRit into ad nauseam after discarding serra avenger and flickerwisp. Game 2 is me opening with double dread of night in hand + delta so I think I can't lose. I play one on turn 1. He revokers LED on turn 2/has one of the few cards that gets past DoN. I play another one and cantrip and pass. He revokers petal. I draw an abrupt decay. I can infernal for another one leaving me no business in hand or decay. I chose to decay immediately. I cast ad nauseam from 14 life or something and stop at 5 and can't win but don't want to risk flipping down to 2 or less life. In hindsight I should have flipped more as my hand after ad nauseam was trash with just a couple of cantrips. He kills me with revoker before I find any business (also of note I had imprinted wish on a chrome mox earlier when I shouldn't have because I thought I could then infernal for LED and go LED x2 into infernal for AdN but I miscounted my black sources/had just one black source that I used for the first infernal and couldn't combo afterwards. Didn't want to ad nauseam with no mana floating that turn as I was playing sloppy due to tiredness.) Game 3 I cantrip and then wish for thoughtseize and cast it via petal on turn 2 taking thalia leaving revoker. He rips thalia off the top naturally. I play SDT and pass with no mana to spin EoT/having just 2 lands in play. He rips wasteland I spin on upkeep hitting land. Do the same on his end step again after tapping to draw in response to spinning due to him having vial at 2 with revoker still in hand. I hit a land with the blind draw having just shuffled and when I look at the top 3 they are land, PiF, SDT. I draw the PiF on my turn. I infernal tutor for another CRit with threshold. He rips rishadan port off the top of course. Ports my lone black source. I rip a misty off the top with a sea left in the deck and immediately fetch it. My hand before I combo is CRit, CRit, DRit, Infernal, PiF with another tutor in the yard with 3 lands untapped those being volc, trop, and sea. I start off with DRit leaving volc open. I CRit up to 5 mana. I can't infernal for another CRit without having no red so I CRit up to 7 mana. I cast past in flames. I flashback all 3 rituals. I flashback infernal instead of casting the one left in hand. I immediately lose due to being 1 mana short of tendrils after failing to find on the infernal flashback and the infernal from hand. I die.

Match 3 I won 2-0 against UR burn but scooped because I got paired up/they had a shot at more prizes than me. Game 1 I naturally draw PiF and go LED, LED, CRit with threshold, infernal cracking LED's for black and red in response. She forces the tutor. I flashback PiF and proceed to win. Game 2 I PiF with 2 floating due to her flusterstorm. I infernal for LED, LED out the last tutor in my bin for another LED, crack that for blue and brainstorm into land, CRit, tendrils of agony/win due to sheer lucksackery. Overall I was quite pleased with the deck and will gladly run it again. I love naturally drawing AdN as it ups the threat density in the deck by quite a bit.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Nice to see you picking up the deck! Did you board in the additional Tendrils in your last match?

[Dark Ritual]

I did not. Against UR burn stuff I boarded in 2 carpets for the 2nd ad nauseam and a probe because they are like burn/the 2nd ad nauseam is kind of weak against the burn plan and fast clock they have and probe is eh for the same reason (shock yourself to see all their countermagic + burn is a bad plan at least to me.) In hindsight if given the chance to board again I would likely do this:

-2 ad nauseam
-1 wish
+2 tendrils
+1 carpet

Althought flusterstorm puts a damper on the tendrils from hand plan and they have at least a single mountain to fetch (she fetched it game 2 against me so I got just 1 mana off carpet/yay suspended lotus petal.) At least they lack stifle. Played through flusterstorm by laying down double LED the turn before after therapy blind on FoW seeing some snapcasters and flusterstorm. Luckily she didn't have 4 mana for fluster snapcaster fluster as I couldn't win then short of some spectacular draws (though that flashbacked brainstorm was the nut high.)

Reason for above board plan is that wish sucks without targets and AdN is weak to fast clock. UR Delver is faster than RUG delver and ad nauseam is pretty bad against RUG. Carpet is nice against their soft counters and to have another virtual card in hand if you untap with it and 7 cards in hand to go for the raw tendrils.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I think the boarding should be the same as against RUG. If you have the Duress, swap it for Thoughtseize. The matchups are very similar, only UR is a little faster but also has much less disruption. Because beating Snapcaster Mage + Flusterstorm is very hard, it is often correct to name Snapcaster with your first Therapy when going for an in-hand Tendrils. Also, double Tendrils is sometimes an option, Carpet of Flowers helps enabling that.