[Next Level Storm] Duress Situation #1

[emidln]

This is an expanded explanation/response about/to cheeseburger's duress scenario posted on storm boards. While this is about using NLS, the lines of play are pretty general to legacy ANT. Here's you go http://emidln.blogspot.com/2009/09/this-situation-was-proposed-on-storm.html

for the tl;dr crowd: Force of Will isn't always the correct Duress choice.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments?

[GreenOne]

I would have taken FoW at first. I needed like 5 mins to realize what the good choice was.

This is the way to get some serious skillz in storm combo. Keep on this good work.

[Nihil Credo]

I don't have much feedback to give, but I enjoyed this.

[undone]

Even reading the math, I still hold that spell snare was at the very least a ligitiment option. I looked at the hand and chose snare before reading on (The logic being you can draw out force+ fire if your a good at bluffing but your out leads 0 to chance). I can see the logic but you do have a few more outs this way I guess. This is Interesting situation.

[Jak]

Woah this was awesome. If I was playing, I would have probably gone with the Force, but when I can sit down and think about it like this, I was able to choose Fire/Ice as the best option. This was awesome emidln.

[Otter]

I really don't have anything to add -- it was just a very well written article. I applaud anyone who would be able to make that choice under real conditions, that's some pilot skill.

[akiratheoni]

That was a great article. I don't play storm combo decks but it was very interesting, thanks for the read lol.

[Nemavera]

It's nice to see someone investing that much time in writing articles about stormcombo and certain scenarios. Really a great article! Thx :>

[Pulp_Fiction]

It is a very cool situation but I think it really illustrates how different decks reward certain playstyles and how those playstyles really impact the game when playing storm combo. In this situation I would always take the Force of Will because they now have 0 hard counters in hand and you get to test the waters with a threshed Cabal Ritual (only portion that really leaves luck up to the equation) and if they counter it there you win the game by double LED into IT. And if they don't counter Cabal Ritual you get to cast Ad Nauseam with UUUBBBBB or UUURRRB floating with 10 life to spare (taking Bolt and Fire into account) and an Infernal Tutor in hand and Top on the Top. It would be VERY hard to fail at this point. Or, you could take Fire/Ice and if they don't Force AdN you have 12 life to spare. BUT, the reason I would not do this, is because you are not positive what they are going to Force and I would much rather cast Ad Nauseam with 10 life points against a Spell Snare than let the opponent have Force AND Spell Snare in hand and have 12 life points. Because with all of that mana floating all you have to hit is Duress, Mystical Tutor, Brainstorm (if things are getting bad and your odds of hitting relevant cards are ridiculous), any LED or Ritual + an additional BW or IT. This route seems like it excludes the luck factor a lot more than taking the Fire/Ice route. Hell, even Doomsday + LED or a ritual wins the game right there against the single Spell Snare.

[Valdez]

Party Jürgen got his 15 minutes of fame. :)

Nice article, can't w8 to read more.

//€: @emidln: The google doc with the DD piles isn't working anymore, can you reup it pls?

[emidln]

Party Jürgen got his 15 minutes of fame. :)

Nice article, can't w8 to read more.

//€: @emidln: The google doc with the DD piles isn't working anymore, can you reup it pls?

It seems to be working for me when I try it (not logged obv). I republished it anyway (although it's set to auto-publish on saves). If it still isn't working, I'll move it somewhere else (let me know).

I was doing a little thinking here this morning about the Ad Nauseam flips. I haven't done all the calculations (probably won't), but the base numbers might surprise you.

Firstly, you need to understand that if you leave your opponent with 5 points of a burn, a good player isn't going to just let you know when to stop. They're going to hold the burn until after you finish resolving Ad Nauseam. This means once you get to 7 life you only have 4 Mystical Tutor + 4 Duress + whatever lands/petals/moxen you haven't drawn that don't autolose you the game. If you go to 6 life and you don't have a Tendrils or a way to find it already (for example, going to 6 from 8 due to Burning Wish or going to 6 from 10 due to Tendrils is fine) you can't win the game because flipping any win condition causes you to go into lethal burn range.

Second, you have to understand that you start the flipping at 13 life, not 15. Your know your first two flips and they are SDT and Brainstorm. You also lose win conditions and gain loss conditions as you continue flipping. At 11 life, Doomsday no longer wins the game. At 10 life, Ill-gotten Gains actively loses you the game. At 9 life, add Tendrils to the list of things that kill you. Doomsday and Cabal Ritual find their way to the list at 8 life. 3 Burning Wish cease being win conditions and begin to kill you at 7 life. Also at 7 life, any remaining Brainstorms, Ponders, Sensei's Divining Tops, and Dark Rituals kill you (putting you at 6 life where you can't flip and win).

When you first start out, you have 40 cards remaining in your deck with 12 win conditions, 13 life, and a grand total of 37 CMC. There are decent odds to win the game here, (you have roughly a 30% chance of winning outright and your alternative is to take a card that that does you, on average, 0.6 damage) but still far worse odds than if your opponent gets to use Force of Will on your Ad Nauseam. There is also still a chance that you 70% chance of not winning keeps stacking until you get into a bad situation where you're flipping a coin for win or lose. If you take Fire/Ice, you have two major opportunities to bait the opponent (first with a properly played Cabal Ritual, second with Ad Nauseam) into letting you have a guaranteed win. As I mentioned in the article, Force of Will on any card you plan cannot harm you (in fact, causing you to immediately win), so why would you want your opponent to discard it?


Also, you don't have UUURRRB floating because if you break the second LED and you don't draw an LED, your Duresses cease to be a win condition as Infernal Tutor can't be hellbent.

[Pulp_Fiction]

Ok, I see what you are saying. I totally forgot that Volcanic Island was untapped, that greatly changes things knowing that you have a U/R available. So with AdN on the stack break 1 LED for UUU and so you have UUUB and U/R available. The only thing that scares me about not breaking both LEDs is that if you flip Tendrils you don't automatically win but the math is WAY in favor of not breaking both since breaking both makes IT possibly less effective (Brainstorm can still put garbage back on top) and your number of outs from Ad Nauseam increases dramatically with the 1 LED in play. Totally forgot that you were able to cast Burning Wish without breaking the second LED for RRR.

I want them to discard Force of Will since it almost guarntees that they will counter Cabal Ritual and because I would feel a hell of a lot safer casting Ad Nauseam with essentially 10 life points knowing they don't have the ability to counter any of my additional outs.

[emidln]

Ok, I see what you are saying. I totally forgot that Volcanic Island was untapped, that greatly changes things knowing that you have a U/R available. So with AdN on the stack break 1 LED for UUU and so you have UUUB and U/R available. The only thing that scares me about not breaking both LEDs is that if you flip Tendrils you don't automatically win but the math is WAY in favor of not breaking both since breaking both makes IT possibly less effective and your number of outs from Ad Nauseam increases dramatically with the 1 LED in play. Totally forgot that you were able to cast Burning Wish without breaking the second LED for RRR.

Yes you do. You have B floating from Cabal Ritual + Lotus Petal. I thought that at first two, but when I rechecked my math I found that it actually doesn't matter what color you break the first LED for. Even if you had a 2nd IT in your deck and managed to draw it (it's not in this list), you would still have to Brainstorm it away and then after the first runs into Force/Snare, you just break the 2nd LED and use B to cast Infernal Tutor and BB to cast Tendrils.