I came into the weekend expecting to just relax and have fun playing Deadguy Ale. But for the Legacy trial on Saturday I told bmjHagan to put ANT together just in case because I had never played it and I wanted to play around with it for fun. So right as I was about to play Deaguy with a single German foil Doran courtesy of Nedleeds, I grabbed storm and just decided fuck it.
Round 1 of the trial: Death and Taxes
Game 1: I probe on my turn 1 on the draw after I see him open on plains into Vial and see nothing that I care about so I decide to go for it without counting anything. I cast some rituals, and then a tutor and after doing some counting I realize I am a mana short. Derp. I scoop em up and go to game 2.
Game 2: he gets a Thalia which slows me down because despite a bolt in hand he has a Karakas. He gets a single hit in with Jitte, but luckily I hit land drops and he doesnt have any ports or wastes this game and I storm right through Thalia to kill him from 24 life.
Game 3: A similar situation, he gets Thalia and a Stoneforge, and I have a massacre in hand and he doesn't play a plains until like turn 6 or 7. Once he does I cast massacre with 5 lands untapped. He has Stoneforge open with BSkull in hand, though only 2 lands and one of them is a Karakas plus a vial on two. I cast massacre expecting him to activate vial, then bounce thalia, in which case I would cast all of my rituals with the vial trigger on the stack (but after he had returned Thalia. Instead however he just puts in a Batterskull, Lets Thalia and SFM die, then my life becomes easy and I natural Tendrils him via a tutor chain.
I can't remember my 2nd or 3rd round of the trial at all, but I won both games putting me at 3-0 going into the last round.
Round 4: TNT
Game 1 I am on the play, I probe him and see he is on TNT (ANT with BWish essentially). I cast rituals, duress his Burning Wish leaving him with Swamp, some rituals, petal and ponder, and tutor for Empty to make 16 men. I cross my fingers. He draws, passes. I draw and attack. He draws, Casts a ritual. Casts therapy targetting himself (to get Threshold) casts Cabal Ritual then casts burning wish. Unfortunately he is a storm short of killing me so he gets Massacre and hardcasts it (LOL). He proceeds to draw gas while I dont, and I die :(
Game 2: I Don't remember much, but he is able to disrupt me and kill me on like turn 3 or so.
3-1 though. I told myself that despite the mistakes that I made that the deck felt extremely powerful and well positioned in the meta so instead of playing Deadguy I decided to be a Storm Trooper. We go to a Mexican place, I get fairly drunk and punt a bunch of games against elves and write in my deck list. Watch Dexter until 3 AM and then wake up at 7 for the Open the next day.
Get to the venue and decide that despite my inexperience, storm can carry me to a decent finish. I'm just trying to break even and get top 64 anyway.
Round 1: Burn
I sit down across from and older gentlemen and put him on burn, because stereotypes exist. I see the bottom card of his sideboard, it's a Tormod's Crypt. A fair graveyard hate card for a burn SB.
Game 1 I don't remember much, just that he fetched a mountain and chain lightnings me. I think I kill him on my turn three and through it, he makes a comment about my deck being full of foreign cards. "This is america, people should be playing english cards". Sure. I guess
Game 2 I remember he keeps a hand based on Tormods crypt and a bolt or two, but he has double fireblast ( I Probed). I therapy him, and he sacrifices both is lands to fireblast me to 9, and I take the other one. So it gives me a million years to just natural tendrils with a tutor chain and not care a bit about his on board Tormods Crypt.
1-0
Round 2: Burn
I sit across from him and he makes a comment about he is 1-0 in his first real legacy tournament because his opponent was a no show. So I put him on burn or dredge because again, stereotypes exist for a reason.
Game 1 I kill him on turn 3 or so despite him getting me to like 7 or something. Don't really remember. I don't see Eidelon, but I assume he is playing it so I board in Bolts and a Pyroclasm.
Game 2: he has a very fast hand. Turn 3 kill while he is on the play. I have an awkwardly slow PiF hand and I see his hand knowing that I am dead on his turn three so I need to win now. I Brainstorm and figure out a line. I put back a Cabal Ritual on top. Play LED, cast probe, crack LED for red (my only other land is a swamp), which gives me thresh. Draw the Ritual off of probe. Cast it. Flash back PiF, cast rituals, cast IT and get there. Whew. Glad I saw that line.
2-0
Round 3: UR Delver
Game 1: He plays a delver, I probe him, see nothing but a daze that interacts with me so I sculpt a hand and kill him while at a healthy 6 life. These Delver decks not playing SP and just Daze and Force are pitiful.
Game 2 I board in Bolts and Pyroclasm. He plays a Delver. I Bolt it. He looks surprised. He plays a Pyromancer, then makes a pile of dudes. I find pyroclasm and wipe his board giving me infinite time to kill him.
3-0
Round 4: Treasure Cruise Burn
Hooray more Lightning Bolt decks!
game 1 isn't much of a game. He has to mull to 3. I probe him and laugh my ass off when I see 3 Treasure cruise as the hand he keeps. Turn 2, I therapy him for the lulz and kill him.
Game 2: I have a turn 3 kill after some sculpting and that is when I found out that he was playing actual burn splashing cruise. I therapy him naming force and he is like: "I only have cruise for blue". Huh. So I kill him after figuring that out.
4-0
Feeling good, but they weren't necessarily difficult MU's. Luck of the draw I suppose.
Round 5: Death And Taxes.
Game 1: He knows I am on storm and knows how tough it is for him game 1. So I kill him on turn 2.
Game 2: He gets a Thalia, Spirit of the Lab, and a Stoneforge (fetch SoFaI) out while I am on a single swamp. I have a Pyroclasm in hand though but I need to draw running lands. So like a sack I draw running lands, cast pyroclasm, and he puts in BSkull. I take a shot from the Skull, and kill him the next turn through a natural chain that included massacre. I couldn't remember if I could flash back massacre for it's alternate cost because I suck at magic so I called a judge. Turns out I didn't need to anyway, but it was nice to learn of this.
5-0. Now I'm feeling pretty great. The gods are obviously giving me the things that I need.
Round 6: Reanimator (Jesse Inman from T8)
Game 1: I strip his entomb, but he has a careful study and a researcher who is hapless and he finds a Griselderp to discard with 2 reanimation spells to get him back. I think he misplays by immediately drawing 14 and going to three, so I ponder and cross my finger for Tendrils off the top. It doesn't find the top of the deck and we go to game 2.
Game 2: I get a Xantid Swarm and strip his hand of reanimation, but he has dudes in the yard so he just needs to rip like a champ. The judge however comes over and apparently his last opponent had a card of his in his deck and the judge unfortunately gave him a game loss because he presented an illegal deck.
Game 3: I cast duress (It's so much worse than therapy :( ) and see he has 2 TS and 2 reanimation spells, but no force. I go off, meaning to cast empty for 18 goblins, but then realize I boarded it out. Unfortunately I also only had 1 black and 3 red mana after cracking my LED so I can't even Tendrils him to 1 life. So I get Therapy and take his reanimation. After top deck a few turns, he makes Iona and Griselderp and I die.
5-1. Epic Punts Live just like Koby used to do.
Round 7 Maverick
He opens on Bayou into Deathrite. I remember seeing him the last round, I knew he wasn't playing blue, but I thought he was on elves so I turn 1 him with a double LED PiF Tutor hand. Ritual, cast LEDs, Tutor, crack LED's get cabal Ritual, cast it. Flash back Pif, Rituals, then tutor to kill him.
I board in a pyroclasm and a couple of bolts just in case. He goes T2 Canonist, I bolt it. He looks surprised. Unfortunately he plays a Teeg and I probe him seeing another Teeg in hand and plan to Therapy it plus Pyro his current Teeg, but nevcer find a Clasm.
Game 3, I ponder. He plays mom. I probe seeing bears of Hatred and then proceed to kill him.
6-1. Feeling pretty good now. This deck is nuts.
Round 8: Miracles (John Farrow)
I see I am against Farrow. I'm disappointed because we know each other and it sucks to play a buddy on the win and in. However I sit across from him and I'm like, "you know we will be on cam right? They wanna see the standard open champion." So I ask to see his trophy and I proceed to take the magical winning energy from it as we walk to the feature match table. I remember last time we played each other in an open he was on miracles, but last open I saw him he was on ANT with SB Pack Rats so I wasn't quite sure what he was on. The video is up here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3xsVVSYA2I
Yes I realize the extra land thing now. I have since apologized to John. No hard feelings. I asked the spotter and John when I cast the brainstorm before I played the fetchland if I had played a land that turn, and no-one at the table thought I had. Shitty way to win the match and if someone had called it out, I would've immediately scooped to game 3 had I realized it.
Round 9: RUG ID
Go to top 8, I am feeling confident in the deck still at this point. I don't feel as if I can lose assuming I play to my best abilities.
Top 8: Sneak and Show... :(
Between this and Reanimator, the Match ups didn't look great for me. I originally was announcer as to getting to play against RG lands and was very excited. Unfortunately they called it wrong and I had to play against SnS.
Written Coverage here: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/...nd_vs_nic.html
The only comment that I have is that before the turn that I cast Empty for 6, I should've cast it for 4, then flashbacked Therapy (to 3 goblins) to take his Sneak attack. It felt bad so I didn't do it, but looking back, I would've left him with only lands and essentially a Delvers worth of power on board. Meh. I played like crap in an already poor MU and got punished for it.
The weekend overall was a great time and I did better than expected. My one comment for the deck for those who choose to pick it up is that, yes you are a storm deck that can have explosive openers, but be patient. It paid off for me, and I'm sure it will pay off for you as well. Again, I still feel really crappy about that game with John on cam, but I hope that everyone understands that it was a long turn, and we all forgot what happened that turn.
Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
Decklist for the Trial
Spells (15+7+16+7=45) Lands (15) Sideboard (15) 4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
2 Preordain
1 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
2 Underground Sea
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta2 Chain of Vapor
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Pyroclasm
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam
Decklist for the Open
Spells (15+7+16+7=45) Lands (15) Sideboard (15) 4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
2 Preordain
1 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
2 Underground Sea
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta2 Chain of Vapor
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Pyroclasm
3 Dark Confidant
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Massacre
1 Ad Nauseam
Sideboard
-1 Xantid Swarm
-1 Abrupt Decay
-1 Tendrils of Agony
+3 Dark Confidant
Nice writeup Deus, that match against TNT in the Trial still has me laughing. It was just such a bizarre game. "Storm 7; Massacre"
"stereotypes exist for a reason" -megadeus
Tusk up.
(Not so) Current Decks: GB Elves, GW Maverick, GWb Maverick, LED Dredge, ANT, TES, Jund Storm.
Very nicely done!
Hey Megadeus,
Congrats on the finish! I actually found your first game against John Farrow very, very interesting. Thinking about it and discussing it with some other storm players turned into a full article analyzing almost half a dozen lines of play. I'd love to have your thoughts!
http://bit.ly/1sadqp3
Please un-mangle URL shortener links before posting them.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
Not going to lie, I didn't see a lot of those lines. I didn't think John would be floating a clique on top, because if he were, I feel like he would've played it. Also, like I said, this was my second tournament (first being the day before trial) abd I didn't even test at all so I was just taking simple lines for the most part all day. I think you have very valid points, though I never was worried about spell pierce. That would've been easy to beat. I just knew there was a good chance he was floating a force. I figured by faking the all in, he forces it and it leaves him vulnerable. I even threw my hands up in exasperation to make it seem like I was screwed. Never in my mind did I think about trying to win that turn.
interesting, my choice of instinct watching the stream was BS back IT over Swamp,
... 1 LED, 2 DR, 3 CT (naming FoW because CS is better on top), 4 CR, 5 PIF flashback something, 6 CR, flashback GP-> 7 IT .. 8 ???
reading the article I was thinking my line is better (not sure about it now), I tried to justify my line expost (not that I was thinking all this through) but do not have time to do the stuff you did and proof read tripple time - I just bring the line above for your evaluation if you like it or not - partial non exhaustive reasoning follows
hands to beat (Clique is a cornercase due to Ponder, might as well try to play around Snapcaster+Flusterstorm)
hand: FoW/CS/known U library: CS/known U/unknown/unknown
hand: Snapcaster/CS/known U library: FOW/known U/unknown/unknown
interrupt in chokepoints
1 - continue, (if DR also countered the situation is the same next turn) name the other interrupt with CT, get PIF countered (or not = IT counterd and cantrips get there) kill next turn by CR->IT->CR-> flashback PIF ... (losing if CS is an unknown card, or CB is unknown and jace the known U card in library (but thats a masterclass miracle level)
2 - delay - similar situation next turn
3 - continue as in 1, if CR countered delay
4 - delay (CS on CR next turn means IT-LED and losing to a lot of stuff potentialy)
5 - delay
6 - doesnt matter
7 - you continue with flashbacking cantrips
why should this be better IT better on top than in hand? - because in reality Opps hand will be much worse and many delays could not happen, I think you do not get advantage by having IT in hand, you do not have to delay the kill if CR gets CSed (the swamp on top is clever (also a master class thinking) but too academic (at least for me) for a tournament setting and poor draw if you have to pass the turn due to more counters)
so put short - do not know if better (and hope I did not mess something up and embarassed myself) but IT on top might be a line to consider due to acting as a virtual hand extension
I feel like the final Gitaxian Probe Josh cast would have been better used during the turn of the kill instead of as fluff, and that this thread would be a lot shorter if that were the case.
The tournament I started is over. You should join the next one.
Not this exact line, but similar, was actually covered - it's the "deterministically beats one single counterspell unless it's on Infernal Tutor" line (in JD's example storm kept the IT in hand and miracles counters it when it's flashed back). Your line is actually slightly more vulnerable than that, because miracles can counter either the Tutor itself, or the Probe before it, to force storm onto the cantrip backup plan. If we're not even discussing playing around Clique, the "strongest against counterspells" line is strictly superior to this one.
One thing that hasn't been explored with rigor is a comparative analysis of how bad it is for storm to risk going off this turn versus passing the turn. My own loose analysis is that with such a stacked hand, I would be kicking myself if miracles untaps and slams a Counterbalance or a Rest in Peace...
if he had either of those, he would've played them the turn before, of that I am certain. It was obvious he was lookingfor one of those things but wasn't finding them the way he was aggressively digging.
As for flashing probe back earlier, I guess at that point anything I drew I could still play so I'd still be hell bent. I just had conditioned myself to not do that because I have been burned by it playing TES before.
Also, I'd like to reiterate the fact that I'm not a storm player. I didn't want to go off until I felt comfortable that I could beat anything which is why I played so slowly. Like it has been shown, there were a million lines that could've been taken there.
I'm not saying he had either in his hand, but every turn gets him one card deeper :)
Just saying that we always have to respect that possibility.
I don't think the "put back IT on top of the deck line" is more vulnerable because it allows you to get around 1-2 counters in hand plus a floating Clique except in the case of very aggressive countering/clique'ing by the opponent. You have the initial Therapy to potentially clear the way, mana to either cast Past in Flames out of hand or flashbacked. Therapy can be flashbacked as well to clear the way for Probe if needed to grab Tutor from top of deck.
There are 2 gp in the yard +noone couters that with billion cantrip ready in the gy
The line I would have gone for after some deliberation is putting back swamp below infernal. Opponent has to counter past in flames on the first go around then the flashback gets them with the gitaxian probes in the yard. Even if they don't counter past in flames we get to flashback 2 probes and multiple cantrips. The trickiest part of the game by far is naming with cabal therapy as you can name clique, counterspell, or force of will. I wouldn't name clique with the line I took because let's say they tuck past in flames to the bottom drawing you infernal. You can have therapy strip jace, the mind sculptor that they have ready to pitch to force of will sitting on top of their deck as counterspell can't be cast if they cast clique. Pierce isn't really much of a concern short of them using it on the dark ritual but even then you can play through it by flashbacking PiF instead of casting it from hand, which isn't the end of the world considering you took their last blue card for force. Can't play around counterspell on past in flames then as they have exactly enough to spin + draw with top post pierce but that risk has to be taken.
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Again, this line is probably fine in the real world, but if the opponent is holding Ponder, Jace and one of Counterspell/Force with the other on top, unless you hit with Therapy they can counter both halves of Past in Flames and then you're in real trouble. Next turn you can draw Infernal Tutor and...Ad Nauseam from 8, I guess? Especially considering Counterspell + Spell Pierce still gets you, and how uncommon Spell Pierce has become, I'd rather just ignore Therapy. We have enough mana that we can just jam three spells and they all have to be countered.
Agreed. Also considering I don't even have Ad Nauseam in the main, the line is especially weak
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