[Deck] TES - The EPIC Storm

[Nightmare]

The EPIC Storm (T.E.S.)
Created by Bryant Cook (Wastedlife), Developed with assistance from The E.P.I.C. Syndicate

The EPIC Storm (TES) is a Tendrils of Agony – based combo deck, which tries to play as close to Vintage Long as possible, without sacrificing stability for speed. It’s primary path to victory lies in casting Dark Ritual effects and Lion’s Eye Diamonds, enabling it to utilize Burning Wish or the Hellbent ability of Infernal Tutor to generate 9 storm before casting a lethal Tendrils. What separates this deck from other, similar Tendrils decks in Legacy, such as IGGy Pop, is TES’s 5 color manabase, allowing it to utilize the most powerful effects available in the cardpool. With the printing of the Coldsnap and Time Spiral sets, TES received a powerful accelerant and win condition, making red a dominant force in Storm combo. Embracing this development has allowed TES to go from a niche deck played by a few individuals, to a powerhouse in consistent combo, seeing multiple top 8’s in 50+ player events.

History

This story opens with a rather humble beginning. In August of 2006, Bryant Cook posted a thread discussing a creature-based Tendrils list, soon after the DCI removed the power-level errata on Priest of Gix. This deck, found here, used Trinket Mage as a mana-neutral tutor for Lion’s Eye Diamond, and Helm of Awakening or Second Sunrise to “go crazy” with LED and Priest of Gix mana. Combining the draw power of returning Chromatic Spheres with the tutoring power of Infernal Tutor, Burning Wish, and Diabolic Intent, the deck had no small amount of paths to a lethal Tendrils. However, the instabilities of the deck became apparent over time. The creatures continued to under perform. Once they were removed, cards like Culling the Weak, Diabolic intent, and Second Sunrise became worse. A saving grace came in the form of Coldsnap.

Coldsnap brought an important inclusion to the deck, in Rite of Flame. Rite was a consistent replacement for the mediocre acceleration of Priest of Gix, who was only really good with two Helms of Awakening in play.

With the printing of Time Spiral, TES gained 2 new Storm weapons - Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens. Grapeshot was a secondary win condition, generally utilized to kill Fish-y creatures like Meddling Mage and True Believer before Tendrils won the game. It has fallen out of favor since the creatures pose less of a threat to modern builds. In Empty the Warrens, The EPIC Syndicate saw a serious threat to the most difficult matchups for the deck, the white/blue agro-control decks. With Empty the Warrens, you had the ability to raise the storm to a mere 3 or 4 before casting Warrens, allowing you to dump 8-10 Goblins in play. These decks have only a few spot removal spells available, and have an extremely difficult time finding an answer to this play when made early. Paired with the 2-3 turn clock, it improved this matchup immensely.

More recent innovations to the deck include the addition of Brainstorm, increasing the number of cards you see turn 1 as well as the stability of early kills; and Diminishing Returns in the maindeck and sideboard as a potential answer to the Stifle problem and a storm generator/card advantage spell.

The Decklist

Lands
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Tomb of Urami

Creatures
4 Xantid Swarm

Spells
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Burning Wish
2 Tendrils of Agony
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Plunge into Darkness
1 Diminishing Returns
4 Rite of Flame
2 Empty the Warrens
4 Brainstorm

Sideboard
SB: 1 Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Diminishing Returns
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Tranquility
SB: 1 Hull Breach
SB: 3 Shattering Spree
SB: 4 Dark Confidant
SB: 1 Earthquake / Rough//Tumble
SB: 1 Duress

Discussion of card Choices

Manabase – This manabase is a direct port of the GrimLong manabase from Vintage, adapted to the Legacy metagame. Originally it included Forbidden Orchard and Cabal Pit, which were replaced with Undiscovered Paradise once we came to the realization that the tokens do matter, and Meddling Mage wasn’t a significant problem anymore. The Tomb of Urami represents a threat that can be online turn 1 vs. decks that may not have the speed to deal with it, like Survival variants.

Rituals – 4 Dark Ritual, 4 LED, 4 Lotus Petal, 3 Cabal Ritual, and 3 Rite of Flame are a given. There has been some debate over whether the fourth Rite of Flame belongs in the Maindeck or Sideboard as a Burning Wish target. Generally speaking, using a Burning Wish – the most versatile tutor – on a Ritual effect is a weak play, as the second Rite of Flame is mana neutral, and only the third Rite generates mana. This is different than using a non-hellbent Infernal Tutor to find a second Rite, as that play both thins your deck, can shuffle a bad Brainstorm, and converts black mana to red. With no Rites in the graveyard it is a mana neutral play, and with any in the grave it generates mana.
Another debate for fast-mana is the number of Chrome Moxen. We believe you want to maximize your mana producing potential from Diminishing Returns, and so include the maximum number.

Tutors – 4 Burning Wish and 4 Infernal Tutor is possibly the strongest Tutor package ever allowed in constructed Magic, when paired with unrestricted Lion’s Eye Diamond. Even so, the threat density required another tutor. Plunge into Darkness wasn’t the first card that came to mind, but testing showed it to be an extremely strong choice. While the life loss can be an issue at times, situations occur where you utilize the second ability of the card, or entwine it. The fact that you can tutor for a type of card, rather than a specific card, enables you to Plunge for a smaller number, and makes it better than Spoils of the Vault. Maintaining card parity (rather, not losing your draw step, and putting the card in hand immediately) is important, and gives it an edge over Mystical Tutor. It’s instant speed allows it to be a setup card, played end step of the turn before you “go off.”

Wishboard – IGG, Tendrils, EtW, and Diminishing Returns are all integral combo pieces that can be used when needed. Tranquility is there specifically to deal with situations like a Solitary Confinement and Tranquil Grove, or more than a single Rule of Law, etc. Hull Breach deals with a single threat of that type, or multiple forms of hate such as Chalice of the Void at 0 or 1 plus Ivory Mask. Shattering Spree allows you to take down many artifacts at the same time, and is in multiples to allow you to sideboard some in if needed. Duress allows you additional protection if you know you need to fight through hate, or if you need to get a feel for what hate your opponent may throw at you. Earthquake and/or Rough//Tumble both allow you to take out opposing creature-based disruption while not interfering with your Xantid Swarms. While Boom can take out a Mystic Enforcer, Earthquake can potentially be used to win or draw the game.

Dark Confidant – Bob is utilized as a card advantage engine that hits for a Tendrils copy each turn he is left unchecked. Often coming in to replace the Xantid Swarms vs. non-permission opponents, he allows you to find the perfect hand to win, and makes winning easier at the same time. As often as he is sided in, people often ask why he isn’t maindeck to begin with. Simply put, he improves our marginal matchups into great ones, while Xantid Swarm makes our difficult matchups marginal. Both creatures die to basically every removal spell ever printed, but game 1 vs. an unknown opponent, the protection provided by Xantid is invaluable.

Why play TES, specifically over other Tendrils based combo?

TES, as said above, has 2 distinct advantages over other Tendrils based decks: Speed, and card selection. IGGy Pop is a turn 3-4 combo deck, as described by it’s creator, Mike Bomholt (bomholmm on TML, blarknob on MTS). TES is renowned by it’s ability to finish the game on turn 2 to turn 3 on average. This is congruent to the ability to generate a small storm count for Empty the Warrens on turn 1 or 2, and finish the game in 1 to 3 turns thereafter. TES’s full compliment of mana acceleration spells are responsible for this, allowing it to power out early threats ahead of most opponents. This deck can play “Do you have the Force of Will?” just as well as IGGy Pop, and when leading with turn 1 Xantid Swarm, can completely disregard the opponent entirely. This leads to the second point, card selection.
Even IGGy has come to the conclusion that more protection is needed by the combo decks in this format. Recent lists in the upper tables of large events show IGGy players splashing green for Xantid Swarm or white for Orim’s Chant. TES has had this protection built in from day 1, due to its relationship to Vintage GrimLong. Xantid Swarm has a distinct advantage over Orim’s Chant in TES, in being cast the turn before it wins. This conserves mana for the fundamental turn, and allows the disruption to be autonomous from the combo itself. This is something Orim’s Chant cannot do, and that Duress is only marginally good at. Aside from Xantid Swarm – which IGGy players are fully able to utilize, you gain an immense amount of benefit from access to red mana. Burning Wish is restricted in Vintage, as a direct correlation to LED, and their ability to pair together to find Yawgmoth’s Will. While we don’t have access to that spell (can you imagine how ridiculous this deck would be if we did?), we have access to an effective replacement in [Yawgmoth’s W]Ill-Gotten Gains, and an effective Timetwister in Diminishing Returns. IGGy’s graveyard dependency disallows it access to D-Returns, both for its recycling as well as its drawback, as IGGy has no ability to access the removed cards. If part of the IGG engine is removed, the ability to combo is severely hampered. This is not true of TES, as it has access post-removal, and has concentrated on removing the yard dependency that makes IGGy vulnerable.
Red also provides access to the second best Ritual effect in the deck, Rite of Flame. As discussed above, Rite can be as good or better than Dark Ritual when it comes to pure mana generation, and allows you the ability to concrete yourself in a two color combo. Without Rite, plays like Wish for Empty the Warrens would be significantly more difficult, as finding multiple sources of a non-black mana source would be much more difficult. Rite allows the deck to truly be a 2 color base with a splash for green and blue.
Empty the Warrens is probably the most significant card you gain access to by playing TES. This card allows a near infinite amount of versatility to the deck, by allowing it to play a more aggressive game with two win conditions that, while similar in nature, win the game in such different means that many decks have an extremely difficult time dealing with both at the same time. Often decks have a plan against Tendrils (True Believer, Children of Korlis, etc.), but fold to an early EtW. Other decks can handle EtW (Engineered Explosives, Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, etc.) but have literally no game against Tendrils whatsoever. This disparity between win conditions is what sets TES head and shoulders above less versatile decks. The ability to choose which plan of attack you utilize is one of the most pertinent advantages TES has against decks that can neutralize one or the other.

Matchup Analysis vs. the “Big Three”

Threshold/Gro - (45%-55%) – Results vary with list and skill of opponent
Things to Consider:
- Do you have Xantid Swarm? If so play it as quickly as possible.
- Try and win as fast as possible.
- Does your hand have a Tendrils or Warrens?
- How are you winning? Are you using Diminishing Returns or Ill-Gotten Gains? Are you using Empty the Warrens or Tendrils?
- Do you have the double Tendrils option?
- How many turns do you have left?
- Keep in mind what Meddling Mage is chanting.
- Do they play a singleton Engineered Explosives?
- Do they play Stifle?
- Lastly, this is the most important question; can you read a bluff? Reading your opponent is HUGE when trying to figure if you’re brave enough to win on turn one or two.

Sideboarding
-3 Plunge into Darkness
-1 Cabal Ritual
+4 Dark Condifant

Solidarity (50%)
Things to Consider:
- Do you have Xantid Swarm? If so play it as quickly as possible.
- Try and win as fast as possible.
- Win before they get three islands.
- Do they have mana for Remand?
- Don’t be afraid to be aggressive. In this match-up you can afford to be since they don’t have Daze or Counterspell.
- Is your Empty the Warrens large enough to race Cunning Wish -> Echoing Truth?

Sideboarding
- None

Goblins (70%)
Things to Consider:
- Aim to keep a hand with more acceleration than tutors.
- If your hand generally has more than one piece of protection (Swarm) mulligan.
- Try and win as fast as possible
- If keeping a one land hand, be hesitant to play that land unless combo-ing out that turn.
- Chrome Mox is good in this match-up, as an un-disruptable mana source.

Sideboarding
-4 Xantid Swarm
+2 Dark Confidant
+2 Shattering Spree

Additional Reading

Old thread can be found here.
Combo Summer thread
TES vs. Iggy Pop thread

Major Tournament reports from TES players:
http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showp...11&postcount=1 - Bryant Cook's (Wastedlife) 1st place finish
http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showp...&postcount=393 - Florian Fischer's (Flod0) 1st place finish
http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost....6&postcount=78 - Andrew Weinberger's (Andrew777) 1st place finish
http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5470 - Gnesotto Carlo's (Jegger) 2nd place finish
http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showp...33&postcount=1 - Brandon Adams's (Emidln) 4th place finish
http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showp...08&postcount=1 - Bryant Cook's (Wastedlife) 15th place finish
http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showp...81&postcount=1 - Jesse Krieger's (Krieger) 16th place finish
http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showp...36&postcount=1 - Carl Wauer, Jr's (Carlos El Salvador) 2nd place finish


Articles discussing The EPIC Storm:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/new...cle/13782.html - By Chris Coppola (Machinus)
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/new...le/14088.html- By Chris Coppola (Machinus)

Podcasts discussing The EPIC Storm:
http://feed.teamicbm.com/ - I@n Degraff of Vintage’s ICBM interviews Bryant Cook, creator of TES