I would stick to 14 lands in your maindeck. This deck is capable of winning off of a landless hand (don't try it, but it can be done), and—confirmation bias though this might be—I both keep seeing people flood on 15 lands and keep flooding on 15 lands myself.
Regarding Grim Tutor, CabalTherapy's correct in his analysis. However, I prefer Petition for a number of reasons (less life-intensive after Ad Nauseam, rarely a slow card, smaller net-loss of mana in PiF chains, etc.); the big one is that, faster though Grim is to dig out Empty the Warrens, it works poorly with Ad Nauseam, and it's worse than any of our other tutors in Tendrils chains, which are this deck's primary route to victory.
Also note that Tutor-plus-Empty requires the same amount of mana invested as Petition-plus-AdN (if you have spell mastery), so if you're running Ad Nauseam, you're not actually saving mana; you're just lowering the threshold of the initial investment. Grim-plus-Ad Nauseam just hurts for all kinds of reasons.
The two "other tutors" (Grim and Petition) are both a bit awkward in a number of ways, so it comes down to an extent on your build and your style of play. I don't think I have ever been in a situation in which a Grim would've helped and a Petition didn't do the job, but I have been in a number of situations in which I would've prefered either Past in Flames or Ad Nauseam to either one of them. That's not an argument for running more than one AdN or more than two PiF, but I think both Grim and Petition are essentially the patchworking cards we run because there's no fifth Infernal to be had. It's pretty devastating when Petition gets countered, but I would be surprised if people felt differently about Grim; I don't really see either card as superior against countermagic.
So personally, I wouldn't run Grim unless I had decided to forego Ad Nauseam in my maindeck, which I haven't done. The two synergize poorly or not at all, and they also seem to fill a similar role of a T1-T2 hip-shooter spell. If I were to cut Ad Nauseam, I think Grim Tutor would probably be a necessary inclusion, but I haven't cut it, so I'm keeping Grim out. I run Petition because the mana threshold is often less of a problem than it looks to be at first glance and because it fits better into Ad Nauseam chains and PiF-Tutor chains, but if I were more all-in on gobbos, I think Grim might be a better option.
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Jonathan,
I was thinking of taking a list very similar to this to GP Columbus.
Testing will be done at a weekly legacy event and playing it with friends has seemed solid.
Any insight?
I was thinking of including -1 DP +1 Empty main for all the Eldrazi running around.
http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=19657&iddeck=149626
//NAME:
1 Bloodstained Mire
3 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Dark Petition
4 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Rain of Filth
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
I'm also on 14 land 2 Island main, but that's because I don't run any green. Further, my 15th land (sideboard) is a Badlands. 2 Island + 1 Tropical (sideboard) is one of the details I mentioned earlier that just don't make sense. For that matter, I also heavily dislike running only one green source when you're boarding Decays against Wastelands and would move the Trop to the maindeck, replacing an Island and put a Bayou in the sideboard.
I don't really like non-blue fetches here. I might be wrong, especially when there's two basic Islands already. I should probably do a short writeup on Storm mana. I listed some things in a facebook conversation a few weeks ago, I'll look that up later.
I'm not entirely sure what the sideboard is supposed to do. I don't mean any offense by this and I might be completely off, but it kinda looks like someone looked at decklists and noticed multiple lists running more than one Tendrils, running Disfigures etc. They then registered this and won regardless of these changes.
For example, I would never run Disfigure. I also see Chain of Vapor as a card almost specifically for Death & Taxes, but if you want something for Death & Taxes, just run Dread of Night. I don't see what Rebuild over Hurkyl's Recall is supposed to do either. Aside from Rebuild and Disfigure, all these cards are reasonable in their own right, but the composition doesn't make much sense to me.
As for Empty over Petition because of Eldrazi, I can't say much about this. I basically stopped playing Storm as soon as that deck became a thing (will probably be playing a few games of Storm on Friday in Prague, so hit me up!). What I can say, however, is that in my experience with the 2 Petition list, early kills tend to use Ad Nauseam rather than Past in Flames mainly because of the lack of red mana, not because of the amount of mana I have available in total. Empty is not going to solve that problem, although it does occasionally open up the Ritual, LED, Tutor kill (which sometimes isn't enough though).
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As I mentioned before, I talked to a friend recently about mana bases. It's not a proper write-up, but people have been asking about this a lot, so let me just share it here:
The 1 Swamp, 2 Usea, 8 Fetch, 4 blue lands manabase has been around for ages, and it has always been wrong.
Basically, the issue is that people think blue mana is more important because you're casting cantrips a lot and early, but black mana is more important because you don't want to get timewalked every time an opponent counters a ritual.
Basic Island is more important to get early, but Basic Swamp is way more important late. Early 2014, Pascal and I actually played a second Swamp in the sideboard to help with Wasteland matchups.
We were testing vs. Jeskai Delver at the time and I suggested we try the second Swamp; it won the first three games we played with it in the deck. Having that Wasteland-proof black source is super strong.
Likewise, against non-Wasteland decks you just want a higher density of black sources.
Plus sometimes you need to get your off colour dual (red/green) earlier in the game. If you have it next to Basic Island, there's a big chance it's gonna end up being dead in the combo turn because you have no use for the extra blue, whereas black is always live in the combo turn.
This is part of the reason I want to run Badlands right now, because it allows you to fetch a red source when you use discard before your combo turn.
The ideal mana base is this:
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Badlands
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
+1 extra blue source
(+1 Swamp if you have space, it helps a lot in some matchups)
The fifteenth land can be another dual, but it can also be another fetch. I have tried Island, Flooded Strand and Bloodstained Mire in this slot already and haven't really come to a conclusion.
If you're running four colours, you have to tweak this a bit. If you want green against Wasteland decks, Badlands should likely be a Bayou and the extra blue source should be Tropical.
The extra black dual should always be in your 75, but Chrome Mox can sub in for that if the Mox makes sense for your configuration (basically, that means you're running it alongside Ad Nauseam).
Hope this helps.
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Thanks for the help guys, I think I will go with my first list. @JonathanAlexander I can see you point, but it seems difficult to argue against results, while both lists are played(14 and 15 land lists) in bigger tournaments i have observed that 14 lists make tops more often. Of course this can be because they are played more but thats also important. What is the reason behind running 14 lands then? a heavy wasteland meta? dark petition? I would agree with your points on swamps over islands, but can you explain why you suggest running blue fetches when you can get anything with bloodstained mire except for the island?
I've been running singletons Island and Swamp with an added Badlands ever since I acquired a Volcanic Island. Still on 14 lands. I haven't noticed the balance between 2 Islands and 1 Swamp to be deficient, nor have I had problems since switching out the second Island with a Volcanic (/Badlands). Worth pointing out that in both configurations I still had an "extra" black source, and I think it was better on balance than having a third basic.
15 lands in the main is almost definitely too many for the maindeck, and I've been able to win through Wasteland on only 14. I like having a second red source with double PiF in the maindeck and an Empty in the side, and the extra source for black mana is great generally. I still don't bring in Abrupt Decay very often, and I only use a singleton against non-Miracles decks because there's better specialized hate for hatebears (Chain) and a swarm (Chain and Disfigure). I've got a Tropical in the sideboard, but I only bring it in with Decays or when I feel like a fifteenth land is necessary or helpful (versus Eldrazi, Rishadan Port, and maybe other hate-intensive decks).
Regarding the 14-land, 2-Petition setup and why people run it, it's very flexible and fast. I started on that build because Petitions had just hit the shelves, but I can still see plenty of reasons to run a second Petition. I think double-Past in Flames, 1x-Petition is more resilient, and the PiF-Cantrip chains are just as good at finding the combo, but I think double-PiF sacrifices a little speed. Petition is excellent at finding us additional cards on our combo-turn, it doesn't detract much from Ad Nauseam, and spell mastery is very easy to attain. I'd rather have a Petition in the main than a second storm spell because it's so much more versatile, but (burn matchups notwithstanding) it's the first piece of business I replace.
At this point, I think a 14-land, double-PiF, 1x Petition, Ad Nauseam, Preordain, Chrome Mox, Rain of Filth build is fast and resilient, and I haven't been missing the second Preordain or feeling like the deck's sluggish without added tutoring. I run an Empty and a second Tendrils in my sideboard for matchups in which they seem necessary, and I usually slot one of those in instead of the Petition if I feel like I need one. The Mox is probably the most finnicky card I'm running, and Rain of Filth occasionally doesn't do much, but they're both great options to have around and they really help with Ad Nauseam and Cabal Ritual (respectively). I sometimes cut one (usually Rain) but I like their performance so far.
[EDIT: Flexibility is different from resilience. Having a sixth tutor is excellent for flexibility because it can find whatever you need, but Past in Flames is so useful even/especially with a tutor in hand that I think it's a better choice to run as a double. It provides so much resistance against countermagic—in spite of relying on the graveyard and on already-cast cantrips—that it feels like a better duplicate, but if I were to play in a fast matchup against someone without interaction for our combo, I think I'd prefer a second Petition.]
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So I has no idea how to SB against the various delver decks, like I always take out ad nauseum and bring in more tendrils and empty, but after that im at a loss. Theyre fast, so i want to be fast, but they have counters, so i need to play a slower game, basically giving up on beating grixis delver. U/R delver seems easy enough to beat, but RUG and Sultai always throw me for a loop, what do I cut? Do I bother with decays and how many? This is the only matchup left that I seem to still be just sort of whatevering.
Also infect, I havnt lost to it yet, but im still not sure how exactly to SB, the infect deck just seems bad honestly.
I've been running 1 Swamp, 1 Island, 2 Usea, 1 Volc, 1 Badlands + 8 Fetches ever since I picked up the deck.
In my opinion people are way too conditioned in Legacy and think that every blue deck with cantrips should play as many Islands as possible, because that's what the fair blue decks have always done for good reason. Storm doesn't work like that. This deck literally splashes blue for cantrips. I'm fetching Badlands more frequently than Volcanic, and I always fetched Bayou more often than Trop back when I ran both (now down to only Bayou). I also fetch basic Swamp about as often as basic Island, which is why I personally don't agree with 4 Scalding Tarns as my Fetches #5-8. I'd run a split of fetches depending on your configuration of green lands.
If you run no green at all you need Tarn + Mire. Probably 2 each, maybe 3 Tarn + 1 Mire, I just personally think that 4 Tarn isn't optimal here based on the importance of basic Swamp.
If you run Bayou as your only green dual you need Mire + Misty. I run 2 each, which works fine, although I sometimes wish I had more fetches that get Badlands.
If you run Tropical as your only green dual you need Tarn + Catacombs. I don't like that option very much in general. Not only because it forces you to run the suboptimal Catacombs (doesn't get Volc) if you want more than 4 black Fetches, but also because Trop has always felt pretty bad to me because it doesn't produce black.
All of those obviously assume that Badlands + Volc are in the main deck, which for me is currently a given. People who don't run Badlands obviously can't use Catacombs at all, for instance.
I still fail to see why 2 Islands are so common nowadays, especially with many people going down to 14 Lands main. For the reasons Jonathan mentioned above, basic Island leaves you color screwed way too often. For two Islands to make sense, people would have to actively want 2 Islands in play a lot of the time. But even in the face of Wasteland, 2 Island + 1 Swamp is not really a functional mana base. I'd rather have 1 Island, 1 Swamp and an open Fetch at 3 lands. It's not like you can expect to have 4 Lands in play and have perfect mana even with 3 basics against a deck like Eldrazi a lot of the time.
Here's the board I'm running right now:
4x Abrupt Decay
2x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Chain of Vapor
2x Disfigure
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Pithing Needle
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Tropical Island
1x Pulverize (?????)
(quick caveats: Pithing Needle is still in testing. Hasn't done much for me, but it hasn't come up enough for me to have a good idea of how useful it is. Once or twice it's been pretty useful. Other candidates for the slot are a second Empty, a fourth Cabal Therapy, or Echoing Truth, Surgical Extraction, or KGrip. Pulverize is left-field tech versus Chalices, and it requires running both Volc and Badlands. Might just switch it for a third Hurkyl's, but I was looking for a way around Thorn of Amethyst.)
For Delver, a lot depends on what set of colors they're running. No reason I can think of to take out Ad Nauseam against BUG, but I would definitely take it out versus Izzet and Grixis (too much burn). I'm not sure about RUG.
The difficult thing about fighting delvers is that they (like Stoneblade) can mulligan into a hand with four or more pieces of hate without much trouble. So I don't think it's a good idea to side out much of our discard; they may just get a nutso hand with which they can just topdeck and leave mana open, but they're less likely to have an unbeatable hand than we are to have the discards to break through one or two pieces of countermagic. The creatures they play will chip away at us for sure, but I haven't run into many hatebears from Delver lists. The good news about the matchup is that it tends to hit us with countermagic first and foremost, so our discards are very useful. Lists with black also run hand-disruption, though, which can be nasty if we don't run out our mana artifacts or have a handful of cantrips.
I actually feel like Delver is a matchup in which we shouldn't board all that much. I tend to replace a discard and the Preordain with Chains, and I often run Empty instead of Dark Petition. Not so great if they've anticipated that plan, but I haven't seen them board in a lot of hate for tokens. It's a gamble that they'll fail to find an answer, but having Cabal Therapy in this matchup is really helpful from what I've seen. I've tried Pithing Needle against Deathrites; seems ok, but not sure if it really does as much as we need it to do to make it worth the slot.
Infect is a weird one. It 2-0'd me once, but I think the guy had two turn-2 hands in a row (like, Glistener, Invigorate, Invigorate, Berserk, Forest, Other Cards). It's a bit luck-dependent from what I've seen, but I haven't had trouble with the matchup by just boarding in Chains, Empty, and a Disfigure. Their countermagic is a threat, but they run lighter on it than Delvers do in my experience. I'd still keep discard around (hitting multiple Invigorates with a Therapy is always good), but I don't know if we need all six.
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Am I crazy, but why don't people play an Echoing Truth main? Feels like nowadays between Gaddock Teeg, Thalia, Chalice, Eidolon, Counterbalance, etc. there seems to be an abundance of hateful permanents that are very difficult to win through. I've seen people begin to include a CoV main but that fails miserably against chalice(s).
Teaser inc. Played against Miracles in a MTGO league the other day. Probed into this hand, won the same turn. Video coming after Prague
So after completing a weekly last night I am now contemplating make changes right before the GP. (see my primer list a few posts up)
Oddly enough I was either getting land screwed or mana flooded on 14 lands (unlucky,very bizarre)
Additionally I found myself needing a discard spell desperately multiple times and not being able to find one , thinking about bumping it up to 7 main
Double PiF would of come in handy last night, if I run that for that GP that would be cutting down to just x4 tutors
Anyone else willing to share their lists before Columbus?
Thoughts?
If I were to run any piece of permanent-hate in the main, it would probably be Chain of Vapor (N.B.: I tried that a while ago and I wasn't impressed). Spot removal really doesn't help much against Eldrazi, and Chain and Echoing Truth are both pretty ugly in the matchup (Chain gets Chaliced and Truth gets prohibitively expensive against Thorn). Because we don't have space for mass removal in the maindeck, I don't think we should consider the Eldrazi to be a matchup we can answer with anti-hate preboard.
Discard is probably our best answer to hate permanents on the play. It's one reason I've toyed with a seventh Therapy, though I'm not sure it's worth it to run in the 'board (more on that in a bit). The other pieces of hate you mentioned (barring Counterbalance, for which we've packed our 'board) are all creatures, and spot removal is fine against those.
With that said, the problem with running permanent-hate in our mainboard is that we won't be getting as much mileage out of it as we get from discards. My only pseudo-flex spot in my maindeck is a Preordain, and much as I'd like to get rid of it, I think having an extra cantrip has been better on balance than having a seventh piece of discard or a singleton piece of removal in the maindeck. An extra cantrip is universally useful (unless we cantrip into cantrips into cantrips, which can happen), but spot removal often avails us little.
Think of it like this: if we're against Burn, we've got at least one turn to hit their Eidolon with discards. We can't even use our removal if it costs more than 1 until the Eidolon's already hit the board. The same is true for, e.g., Maverick. We can snipe GSZ or Thalia before they get the chance to use it. But if they land Thalia, our removal gets worse.
Discard's also generally better against control decks; if we need to point-kill a Delver, we're already in bad shape.
What are you running in place of a fifth Tutor? I'm on 1 AdN, 1 Petition, 1 Tendrils, 2 PiF.
I've had a similar rollercoaster on 14 lands, and I blame myself for cheating against myself (i.e., shuffling poorly). Chrome Mox is useful for that, so I'd give it a go if you haven't already.
With seven discards, I often hit way more discards than I need and not enough cantrips/mana/business. I don't find a discard much more often on seven than I do on six, as well. Granted, I'm running light on cantrips, so that might be a factor, but I don't feel like a seventh discard in the main will give us much of a return on the card invested.
Best of luck, everybody! Wish I could join you all at The Big Time. Storm 'em out.
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