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

[JPoJohnson]

Lemnear would definitely be the one in the do-rag.

[Kayradis]

Hahahahahahahhaaha

[Lemnear]

Got our hotel hear La Defense (Adagio Hotels). Out for Sightseeing and food ^^

[Kael]

You're welcome! That match was one of the most awesome matches I played the entire weekend.

1. I did miss IGG in one hand: Fetch + 2 RoF + 2 Burning Wish + LED + X.
2. Telemin Performance wasn't awesome enough to run it again, Reanimator is playing Young Pyromancer sometimes anyways. However I will test it against the Show and Tell decks.
3. I'm testing Karakas now in addition to the Pyroclasm against Thalia/Teeg decks. Karakas is also pretty awesome in the Reanimator and Sneak&Show matchup.
4. Thoughtseize was awesome against all kinds of decks, but I think I'll try Therapies instead (like Lemnear) to have a better matchup against tempo.
5. There was indeed a respectable amount of Imperial Painter. The Painter decks would get beat up by Serenity I guess, which I am testing at the moment :)

I know there'll be both Big Red and Painter at a local even this week...might try Serenity out in the Abrupt Decay slot, just to see what it does. Has your testing gotten you any results yet?

Good luck at BoM Lemnear! Same goes for anyone else playing there.

[Lemnear]

If anyone is attending tomorrows 9am Trials, spot a guy with shiny shoes, vest and black/white scarf (shemagh-Style), come over and say "hi" :D

[Jaycounet]

One hour im looking for u ^^

[Lemnear]

Sitting on table 87 with the guys

[Lemnear]

Completely blew out Jund and Miracles in the first rounds of the Legacy trial. 4-0 in games with 2 hilarious Show-offs. More of that tonight ^^

Meet some fellow Sourcers but got once detected because of my dices -.-'

[Tom T]

Completely blew out Jund and Miracles in the first rounds of the Legacy trial. 4-0 in games with 2 hilarious Show-offs. More of that tonight ^^

Meet some fellow Sourcers but got once detected because of my dices -.-'

Awesome!

Just ask your opponent if they have a die when you want to roll for the play. Get your dice as soon as you combo out, but not any earlier. That way people won't put you on storm that easily :)

Good luck!

[Kayradis]

I think I'll bring tons of dice in DC just to have people thinking im on storm!

[Lemnear]

Awesome!

Just ask your opponent if they have a die when you want to roll for the play. Get your dice as soon as you combo out, but not any earlier. That way people won't put you on storm that easily :)

Good luck!

He just remembered the pic of my dices i posted here. Wasn't a problem. Awesome guy

Lost 1-2 against imperial Painter due to losing the dice and him having ridiculous draws/hands. can't beat turn 1 painters + double REB's +SSG followed by killing my lands and Magus beatdown game 1 and neither the Painter + double REB mimic play in game 3, this time followed by double Thorn and magus :/

Died with 2 LED + RoF + BW in hand game 1 ... No red mana

[vercadium]

Had a great weekend in Belgium at MTG Grand Prix Antwerp and got to play a load with TES which was great (there's not a lot of Legacy in Northern Ireland).

I went undefeated at the Legacy Warm-up event on Friday, taking 1st place out of 25.

I came 17th out of 136 at the Legacy Championship on Sunday, unfortunately loosing my last round which would have got me into the top 8 play offs; finishing at 5-2-1.

I had the enjoyment of playing against some extremely competent players (My opponent match win percentage was 73.19%) who afforded me no easy wins, including a few nailbiting games against German Canadian Threshold master and MTG Madness team member, Carsten Linden, who I defeated in round 4.

I'm avoiding writing a full tournament report as my last one was gargantuan (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...y-Adam-Stewart), but I'm going to go over some of my thoughts:

(My list didn't include any of the recent developments as I didn't want to make any changes to the list without having time to get used to them - thus I was running the following list:)

=========================
The Epic Storm
=========================

//Target (2)
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Empty the Warrens

//Tutor (8)
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish

//Disruption (7)
4 Silence
2 Duress
1 Cabal Therapy

//Draw (12)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

//Artifact Mana (11)
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox

//Ritual Mana (8)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

//Land (12)
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass

//Sideboard (15)
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Tropical Island
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns

I lost my win-and-in to top 8 against Imperial Painter. I opted to bring in Abrupt Decay and friends post-board; in heinseight I think mulliganing to faster hands and time-walking them with Silence is the preferred plan here though I agree with Bryant that both plans are fine. I guess it depends on the exact list and I do have a skewed perspective given that I lost game 2 to turn 1 Grindstone - turn 2 Painter's Servant + activate. I need to practice this match-up more to see how often starts like this occur.

The other loss & draw weren't notable - one hinged on a timely Echoing Truth being drawn, but perhaps I could have taken different lines which might have been a positive outcome. Overall my play was very tight and defensible given the information I had.

Here's my opinion on the changes to the sideboard that are being discussed as well as my thoughts on the performance of some other cards:

Cabal Therapy was excellent all weekend, but I still think roughly 2 "revealing" discard spells is probably still required in the 75. Thoughtseize seems an upgrade over duress in this case and I agree that paying the situationaly important cost of 2 life is probably worth the added versatility and potentially freeing up sideboard slots (now that we can hit creatures easier maindeck, one could argue that only 1 discard spell in the sideboard is required, but with this you loose the ability to Burning Wish for one post-board). The split of this is debatable as there are merits to going 2 Cabal Therapy and 1 Thoughtseize in the maindeck and vice-versa. The division of Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy across the maindeck and sideboard is also something that only extensive testing will be able to settle.

I also agree that while 3 Abrupt Decay is fine, we don't get a lot of value out of the 3rd copy, so 2 feels like the right number.

I boarded in the Xantid Swarms once all weekend (in one round against High Tide). While this isn't a huge sample size (I would have loved to have them all day if playing against Show and Tell) I still think 3 is probably too much. I'm not certain on this one though and 3 is still pretty defensible given the lack of other options we have.

The Tropical Island was low impact - I never wanted the 13th land when I brought it in - just the colour fixing. Sadly, I don't think we can have it both ways while still maintaining our shuffle effects. I could see myself wanting the extra land against tempo based Wasteland decks with a fast clock, but I wouldn't board in a Tropical Island in most of these cases anyway. If running 3 Xantid Swarm (or lots of other green cards), the Tropical Island could still be argued.

I have not tested Carpet of Flowers yet. This is about the only other "answer" that is worth considering inclusion (assuming empty spots).

I have not tested Telemin Performance yet, but while it seems powerful (having a 1 card "kill" would be great) it is pretty narrow and, as Bryant pointed out, not being able to get them through Leyline of Sanctity is a strike against it. I will still try it.

3 Chrome Mox was amazing, I never did consider dropping to 2, but that's even more evident to me now.

Here's the changes I'll be testing for a the next week or two:

=========================
The Epic Storm
=========================

//Target (2)
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Empty the Warrens

//Tutor (8)
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish

//Disruption (7)
4 Silence
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize

//Draw (12)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

//Artifact Mana (11)
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox

//Ritual Mana (8)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

//Land (12)
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass

//Sideboard (15)
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Thoughtseize
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Telemin Performance
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns
1 ________________ - Not sure what to test here, probably a Carpet of Flowers to see what impact it has.

Anyway, I'm eager to hear everyone's thoughts, it was a gruelling weekend but a thoroughly enjoyable one!

As ever, thanks for taking the time to read this.

[JPoJohnson]

it also increases the power of Burning Wish

But you don't wish for instants? What am I missing?

Congrats on the event otherwise! Looks like you had some fun (:

Edit: Just went and read your last tournament report. That was a very fun read! Thanks for pointing it out (:

[mario91234]

Playing eternal weekend tomorrow, is there any merits to running 2 seize 1 therapy main, 2 therapy board? I dont consider myself to be an expert on playing the deck and i feel i may miss on therapies vs tempo and show decks. Also curious for the ad naus in the board.


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[vercadium]

But you don't wish for instants? What am I missing?

Congrats on the event otherwise! Looks like you had some fun (:

Thanks! And you're not missing anything... I'm just being an idiot... Guess I'm more tired than I thought! Will edit the post now, cheers.

[vercadium]

Playing eternal weekend tomorrow, is there any merits to running 2 seize 1 therapy main, 2 therapy board? I dont consider myself to be an expert on playing the deck and i feel i may miss on therapies vs tempo and show decks. Also curious for the ad naus in the board.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That split is fine, more so if you're not comfortable with Cabal Therapy. Forget about the Ad Nauseam in the sideboard that I spoke about, I had a moment of idiocy. My post has been edited to correct this.

[JPoJohnson]

Thanks! And you're not missing anything... I'm just being an idiot... Guess I'm more tired than I thought! Will edit the post now, cheers.

I had the same discussion with my brother at one point in time when he asked why I only had one and I thought, "Wait, why don't I have a second in the board?" Haha. Been there done that.

[oSeabass]

At this point I'm kinda locked in to running TES at the GP DC next week. I don't feel as comfortable with any other deck to just audible out at this point. I've been playing and practicing TES since about August, and it is still teaching me new tricks. At this point it is probably too late to learn a ton more about the deck and stuff (other then the rereading of BC's sideboarding tips in the main post).

Other then the deck being tough to play for new pilots, do any of you have any advice for someone who is going to play the deck over a large two day tournament? If I end up playing well and Day 2ing, I will be playing many matches with a very complex deck with many working parts. Does anyone have any tips for keeping your brain fresh during a long tournament when you are running a complex deck like this one. The thing that will help is if I play against people who are not prepared and I can just coast into a win, then I have the rest of the round to relax and chill out.

[Luklinda]

Bring something to nibble on.

Make notes of when you have a difficult choice (what to blind therapy - what to wish for, etc.).

Always write down what you reveal via discard/probe (and cross off as they play).

DON'T PANIC! (in big, bold, friendly letters).

[oSeabass]

Bring something to nibble on.

Make notes of when you have a difficult choice (what to blind therapy - what to wish for, etc.).

Always write down what you reveal via discard/probe (and cross off as they play).

DON'T PANIC! (in big, bold, friendly letters).

I always write down everything that gets revealed off everything and cross it off. I use a fresh piece of paper for each game in a super big life pad, which helps keep information clean as well as my opponents not seeing a Storm and Mana count from previous matches.