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

[cranksmith]

You can also grab a tendrils, warrens or another tutor.

Yeah, but if you Wish > Infernal > Tendrils most of the time this happens you lack enough Storm count to kill your opponent.

Warrens is good, but it's basically the same thing with Wish > Warrens, unless we are really going for the big storm count.

Wish > Tutor > Tutor can only work if you have like 8 mana floating after the wish, but yeah, that can work too.

[Mark Sun]

Eye of Nowhere sucks, but its role needs to be filled.

I've been liking vindicate. 1BW is a lot easier to find post-nauseam than UU against the decks that would be packing leylines, and its shot a couple counterbalances for me. Thoughts?

It's weird, actually. Vindicate is one of the most versatile solutions (that is Wish-able) to handle a variety of obstacles. I did a Gatherer search a while ago for all Sorcery cards that can reasonably deal with Enchantments, this is what I found:

In White: (Both cards are basically the same)
Solemn Offering
Terashi's Grasp

In Green:
Gleeful Sabotage (Honestly just a Sorcery speed Naturalize, as we can never use the Conspire)

In Multi:
Hull Breach
Maelstrom Pulse
Vindicate


I think I want Maelstrom Pulse more than I want Vindicate, since there are no Land cards that would be worth diverting your attention to outside of Tabernacle, and if you are destroying it, most likely it's getting Loam'ed back into play the next turn anyways (and EtW here would be a poor win condition to start with). Regardless, with how the mana base is set up, white or green shouldn't matter, and you want whatever card you decide on to not only hit stuff like Gaddock Teeg and friends, but also get miser double Leyline draws. How practical is shooting a Counterbalance? I find this hard to achieve through how little mana we have / want to devote towards a 3cc removal spell, and the existence of Daze in said archetypes that run Counterbalance.

[jjflipped]

Regarding Maelsrom Pulse, i mentioned it a page back or so. It seems like the best card for that spot, as we only really need it to get rid of silly slow strategies anyway.

The double leyline thing happened to me at the GP btw.

The ONLY problem i see with this is that we no longer have a way to get rid of an iona on black.

[Nidd]

The ONLY problem i see with this is that we no longer have a way to get rid of an iona on black.
...at which point we should ask ourselves what's more likely to happen. Iona on black or double Leyline?

[Bryant Cook]

I'm glad you guys are keeping things relevant in the thread.


Anyway, I don't think the Wish targets that you guys are talking about are worth playing. You've probably lost already if you're paying five mana to destroy Counterbalance.

[Mark Sun]

2-1 drop tonight, a little unfortunate. I started off 4-0 games, 2-0 matches until I dropped two games straight to BG Eva Green/Rock-ish. I mull to garbage g1 and have the opportunity to use Diminishing Returns, but had too much protection and junk in my hand, I Ponder so I can draw LED next turn, and he topdecks a Hymn to take the only two cards that were relevant in my hand, Burning Wish and Dark Ritual. G2 he starts with Rit, Rit, Hymn, Nighthawk, go, and I'm stranded on nothing until I am forced to use Diminishing Returns (getting all of my Lands Wasted was relevant too), I flip garbage and the game is over. The reason I dropped was because I walked over to the potential 2-1's for the next round, and watched someone make a critical punt to put... two of my teammates in the 2-1 bracket. I just said fuck it and dropped, one was Enchantress with MD Leyline (same teammate as last week), and the other was CounterTop with MD Firespout, SB Explosives. It just wasn't worth it to try tonight.

I am still in the stage of learning this deck where I'm not sure how to recover from discard. This deck has no method of regaining lost cards (besides playing Draw-Go, and against a deck like BG Rock it's not an acceptable out), so what is the best line of play?

[jamis]

As an Eva Green pilot and someone who is learning this deck as well, I hope I can offer some advice, though I'm sure someone more experience like Bryant will know better.

Silence/Chant is surprisingly good here; be sure to play it as early as possible and during their upkeep. While playing Eva Green, I've seen people chant me during their turn more times than during mine, and I don't understand the line of thinking. The entire deck is sorcery speed, so chant on their turn not only protects you, but also stops them from building their board.

Duress is also a good early turn play you should be making. Don't bother saving your discard for later turns, because if a good Sui-black player knows you're playing Storm combo, they'll be mulliganing heavily for discard. Being able to strip the Hymn from their hand can win you the game.

Also play your Petals, LEDs, Chrome Moxes as soon as you draw them. They won't put you on as fast of a clock as something like Zoo, so you'll have enough life to be able to Ad Nauseam for enough to combo off without needing the artifact mana to add to your storm count. Once you draw an Infernal Tutor, you should be golden, so just play out your hand and dig for a way to win with cantrips.

This should be obvious, but save your Brainstorms so you can protect the cards in your hand.

Be careful about using Empty the Warrens on game 2 and 3, as they may bring in Engineered Plague, Maelstrom Pulse, or Pernicious Deed specifically for that reason.

The main thing you need to do is just keep fast hands. You need to combo before they can disrupt. Slow hands full of Cantrips won't cut it in this match-up. Be careful about mulliganing too much, though. Going below 5 cards is basically conceding and even 5 or 6 card hands will be tough. It's not an easy match-up for sure, but tight play will win it.

[nodahero]

I have personally never lost to BG since the advent of AdNos. While TES is prolly inferior in play against BG any deck that can simply top deck into AdNos or something similar will always have game against dedicated discard decks.

[Bryant Cook]

I took first place again this week in Syracuse with T.E.S. I played against mono black twice lost round one to it, then beat it in top 4.

Jamis really nailed it on the head when it comes to playing against the deck.

[Mark Sun]

I will try to play the matchup again. We don't actually have an Eva Green player on the team, so maybe I'll just sit down with MWS one day and hammer out a few games. The match was made atrocious with the topdeck Hymn to Tourach, but also because he had a Nighthawk in play and that's on par with a Rhox War Monk in play, so even a weak EtW for 6-8 would have been a bad decision. He also revealed 4 Mindbreak Trap to me after g2. I suppose we will see after next week.

[Rune]

Mindbreak Trap is actually a pretty bad sideboard card for them. Most of the time you will only resolve 1 other spell before AdN in this matchup anyway (IT/cantrip into AdN), so the Trap gets blanked by all the protection you will draw with AdN. As jamis said, just dump LEDs and Petals onto the table and wait to topdeck the tutor you need. Try not to break fetches until you really need to so that you dodge Waste/Sinkhole. Occasionally they run a build with Deed and all your artifact mana gets blown up, but this strategy is still the best (don't even think Deed is that common in these decks anymore). Also, my hand has to be REALLY bad before I mulligan against them.

[Jim Higginbottom]

I went 4-0-2 and made top 8 at vestal today. I'll try and write a small report tomorrow.

[NQN]

Went 5-1 yesterday beating U/w Fish, Ubr TempoFaeries, 2x SaitoMerfolk and Elfball, loosing only to Dredge in r2 (basically it was the dierole I lost to). I´m now 12-2 in total since I started playing the deck again, it really is as awesome as it was back than!

[Waikiki]

Thats a really strong performance. Where you using bryants list or the 3c fetchland list?

[OurSerratedDust]

Over the last week, I've been compiling some data and going through scenarios involving Diminishing Returns in TES. I wanted to find the fizzle percentages of various floating mana combinations after DR had resolved. In order to accurately do this, I needed to set some initial conditions. As Diminishing Returns is on the stack, I assumed the following:

-One Burning Wish is exiled.
-You have two tapped gold lands in play (Gemstone Mine, and City of Brass.)
-The opponent is at 20 life.
-The storm count is four (including DR.)
-You are at a safe life total for Ad Nauseam.
-You haven't played a land yet this turn.

Obviously the gamestates in which you cast Diminishing returns vary greatly, but I felt these were reasonable conditions for my purpose. The TES list I am using is Bryant Cook's most current.

I played this scenario out fifty times with the various mana combinations, and this is what I came up with.

Mana Floating/Win Percentage

None: 18%
U: 38%
R: 42%
B: 42%
UU: 54%
UR: 66%
UB: 66%
RR: 54%
RB: 66%
BB: 60%

(U/B/R): 48%
(U/B/R) (U/B/R): 70%
U (U/B/R): 66%
R (U/B/R): 70%
B (U/B/R): 70%

I took notes of all the sample hands, so if it interests you, they are available on the testing results section on the storm boards.

The whole goal of this exercise was to help TES players make more educated decisions on how and when to use Diminishing Returns. However, for my future reference, I have some questions. Were my initial conditions fair? If not, how so? Also, was my sample size large enough?

In unrelated TES news, I recently won a small local 25 person tournament with Bryant Cook's list, going 5-0 (no top 8.) The decks I beat were Dredge, Death and Taxes, Ugw Hunting Ground control(?), Enchantress, and Bant Aggro.

[GreenHornet]

I ran Bryant's list at a small 9-man tournament on Friday. I didn't lose a single match. I only lost 2 games. One to dredge, and one to a mana ramp deck. It was probably my fault with the mana ramp loss, I kept a slow hand.
I kind of felt bad, there wasn't any blue or dedicated discard being played so it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Hey guys, this is Bob. Just T8'ed the SCG denver with Bryant's deck. Should have won my quarterfinals match, but I punted savagely. Guess that's what happens when you're tired as hell. Anyways, look for a report soon. Props to Bryant for creating this monster of a deck.

[NQN]

Thats a really strong performance. Where you using bryants list or the 3c fetchland list?

I was playing Bryants exact list for both events, only difference beeing that I splitted the fetchlands into one of each.
I´m perfectly fine with it, even with the Grapeshot slot. One Game vs Merrows I went for it. T2 AdN at 19 life. I had to stop at 2 because I didn´t found a second Mox/petal but went for Rite->Rite->Wish->Grape his LoA and 9 in his face, win the next turn with the perfect hand. The other time I used it to punish my Opponent for playing miserable ;)

[aardshark]

Just won an 18-man in Berkeley, CA with Bryant's 6-12-10 list (swapped fetchlands).
5 rounds, cut to to top 8:
R1: Lost to [New Horizon's] Mystic Control (very close games)
R2: Beat enchantress
R3: Lost to Merfolk.
R4: Beat counterbalance & Jace (not sure if he had landstill also). Counterbalance never resolved (pyroblasted g2).
R5: Beat Dredge

Making top 8 (out of 18 it's a low bar...)

Top 8: Beat a Black/Green/White midrange control deck with discard (including hymns), goyfs, knight of the reliquary, and enlightened tutor for silver bullets. (Is this a known deck?)

Top 4: Beat burn (blowout)

Finals: versus same [New Horizons] Mystic Control player from Round 1. Negotiated prize split but played for pride. Won g1 in spite of loose play, lost g2, won g3 through his very solid hand (including fow & 2 spell pierce & teeg) by amassing disruption and eventually slow-rolling ad nauseum in response to his casting teeg, winning with grapeshot & tendrils on my main.

So in sum, I had pretty good matchups (especially in the top 8), and for the most part won the favorable while losing the unfavorables. This was my first time playing the deck (I'm a former ANT player), and my skill level definitely increased as the day progressed.

Deck seemed very tight and solid. My only question is about the mana base. I had to be careful not to exhaust my deck of fetchable lands (and at one point played and activated a fetchland to shuffle even though my 3 duels were in play). I also found myself wishing I could fetch for white mana a number of times.

Question for Bryant: Forgive me if this is answered somewhere in the middle of this thread (I have not read all 39 pages), but in light of the above would you consider going to 3 fetches, and swapping a fetchland for a tundra or scrubland?

Thanks to Bryant & everyone else whose active in this thread for so much great advice!

Edited to correct Bryant's name (sorry Bryant!) and the name of my opponent's deck in the first round and finals

[Deviruchi]

Hey guys, this is Bob. Just T8'ed the SCG denver with Bryant's deck. Should have won my quarterfinals match, but I punted savagely. Guess that's what happens when you're tired as hell. Anyways, look for a report soon. Props to Bryant for creating this monster of a deck.

I'm curious how it was to have +1 Pyro / -1 Silence MB.

[ummon]

Just won an 18-man in Berkeley, CA with Bryan's 6-12-10 list (swapped fetchlands).
5 rounds, cut to to top 8:
R1: Lost to New Horizon's (very close games)
R2: Beat enchantress
R3: Lost to Merfolk.
R4: Beat counterbalance & Jace (not sure if he had landstill also). Counterbalance never resolved (pyroblasted g2).
R5: Beat Dredge

Making top 8 (out of 18 it's a low bar...)

Top 8: Beat a Black/Green/White midrange control deck with discard (including hymns), goyfs, knight of the reliquary, and enlightened tutor for silver bullets. (Is this a known deck?)

Top 4: Beat burn (blowout)

Finals: versus same New Horizons player from Round 1. Negotiated prize split but played for pride. Won g1 in spite of loose play, lost g2, won g3 through his very solid hand (including fow & 2 spell pierce & teeg) by amassing disruption and eventually slow-rolling ad nauseum in response to his casting teeg, winning with grapeshot & tendrils on my main.

So in sum, I had pretty reasonably good matchups (especially in the top 8), and for the most part won the favorable while losing the unfavorables). This was my first time playing the deck (I'm a former ANT player), and my skill level definitely increased as the day progressed.

Deck seemed very tight and solid. My only question is about the mana base. I had to be careful not to exhaust my deck of fetchable lands (and at one point played and activated a fetchland to shuffle even though my 3 duels were in play). I also found myselfwishing I could fetch for white mana a number of times.

Question for Bryan: Forgive me if this is answered somewhere in the middle of this thread (I have not read all 39 pages), but in light of the above would you consider going to 3 fetches, and swapping a fetchland for a tundra or scrubland?

Thanks to Bryan & everyone else whose active in this thread for so much great advice!

Cool. My brother played Elves Combo there, going 3-2 and making T8, but losing the quarterfinals.

[hyc8028]

Hey, aardshark. I was the guy who played you in Round one and Final. My deck is not New Horizon. It is excalibur/Mystic Control. Scroll down to see my decklist and brief report.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?16881-[Deck]-Excalibur/page6

I was lucky to beat you in round one because I feel all of our games were super close. I knew from the beginning if I see you again in the Top 8, it is going to be a dogfight. The better man won yesterday. congrats!

[Jim Higginbottom]

Report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18630-Top-8-with-TES-at-JupiterGames-August-21st)

[kicks_422]

Awesome performances.

Just a question... How do you guys shuffle your deck? I'm trying to avoid getting hands of 3 Burning Wish, 2 Infernal Tutor, 2 lands.

[Brushwagg]

I usually pile shuffle then riffle 3-4 times and my hands are fine. You must be doing something wrong. Are your sleeves old?? I find if the sleeves are old, with any deck cards tend to stick together.

[aardshark]

Awesome performances.

Just a question... How do you guys shuffle your deck? I'm trying to avoid getting hands of 3 Burning Wish, 2 Infernal Tutor, 2 lands.

Disagree with Brushwagg.

This deck just produces hands like this sometimes. I don't yet have a great feel when they are worth mulliganing, but I was keeping unless I new my opponent to be playing a very fast deck. Game 1 against dredge I kept a hand like this (didn't know what my opponent was on) and luckily got there turn 3 or 4 after my opponent mulled to 5 and I topdecked some key acceleration (think I disrupted him with a bit with duress & chant). In contrest, I lost Game 2 of the finals against Mystic Control with a hand like this when I topdecked more lands and tutors. So it goes I think (although, maybe I should be mulling more aggressively).

[JonBarber]

Just a question... How do you guys shuffle your deck? I'm trying to avoid getting hands of 3 Burning Wish, 2 Infernal Tutor, 2 lands.

I usually pile shuffle in 6 piles, then riffle shuffle, then toss the deck about 7 inches into the air, let it drop, spread them all around the table, pile them back up, make 4 piles, then cut all those piles making a total of 8 piles, then cut those piles making 16 piles, then cutting those piles making 32 piles, From there i take every other card and make a separate pile with it. For piles still with 2 cards remaining in them, I switch the top and the bottom. I then do eenie meenie miney moe to create another pile. The remaining cards are left there while I do intensive riffle shuffles with my two piles. I then one by one add each of the remaining cards on the table to the deck, riffle shuffling in between each. Once I have a complete deck again, I lay out all 60, remove all the sleeves, put new ones on, and begin a game of memory. Once that is completed (or as good as its gonna get), I shuffle it all back into a pile. If for some reason I feel like something hasn't gone exactly as it should, I'll often light the deck on fire and pull out a duplicate copy I have with me. I'll then repeat the same process as before. Key here is speed. If your opponent thinks your trying to drag anything out with your shuffling, they might call a judge. If you shuffle exactly as I showed you, you'll no longer be victim to random odds, and will instead be given hands of T1 kills with protection. EVEN if your opponent shuffles your deck. Its good stuff.

[aardshark]

[duplicate post]

[Jim Higginbottom]

I too use JonBarber's method of randomization.

[OurSerratedDust]

Bryant, I noticed that your opening post says to side the following against some blue matchups:

+3 Pyroblast
-1 Infernal Tutor
-1 Brainstorm
-1 Ponder

But in your GP report, you usually side:

+3 Pyroblast
-1 Infernal Tutor
-1 Chrome mox
-1 Ponder

Is this optimal, or were you just trying it out? Thanks.

[Bryant Cook]

Try it out for yourself. Come to a decision on your own.

[rsaunder]

bryant's a dick



I use the second configuration. I don't love mox under the best of circumstances, so the 4th one is one of the first things I'm liable to cut.

[Bryant Cook]

bryant's a dick

There's nothing wrong with letting people figure out things for themselves. Its better to learn from experience than from what others say.

[LOurs]

First congrat to Bryant to have built this deck. I found it extremly interesting to play (sometime it gives headaches, but i'd always prefer to get headaches than headrest), and results I obtained were pretty good in average.
I'm running the page 1 list updated, and I am pretty satisfied with it as match after match, I'm feeling how tested & worked is each card choice. That said,and sorry in advance if already debated anywhere along the full thread : I often feel the deck is missing IGG md. Sure wish into IGG works well, but sometimes, if the only relevant decision is to play an IGG loop, to get 1R+2BB is a bit expansive although I could combo off faster if I could find it MD.
Is(are) there reasons not to play x1 IGG md ? It seems not good with ANT, often not a really good draw, but it just win some games faster in my experience with tutor/LED. Enlight me please or redirect me on the good part of the thread if it was already discussed.

[Rune]

First congrat to Bryant to have built this deck. I found it extremly interesting to play (sometime it gives headaches, but i'd always prefer to get headaches than headrest), and results I obtained were pretty good in average.
I'm running the page 1 list updated, and I am pretty satisfied with it as match after match, I'm feeling how tested & worked is each card choice. That said,and sorry in advance if already debated anywhere along the full thread : I often feel the deck is missing IGG md. Sure wish into IGG works well, but sometimes, if the only relevant decision is to play an IGG loop, to get 1R+2BB is a bit expansive although I could combo off faster if I could find it MD.
Is(are) there reasons not to play x1 IGG md ? It seems not good with ANT, often not a really good draw, but it just win some games faster in my experience with tutor/LED. Enlight me please or redirect me on the good part of the thread if it was already discussed.

95% of the time you draw IGG it's a dead card in your hand. By not having it mainboard you just need to have an extra Burning Wish/Infernal Tutor in your hand/graveyard when you IGG loop, or you need to pay 1B more for the loop (hellbent IT into Wish) so it's not really a lot more difficult to pull off. You can always board it in against aggro in game 2/3, but it's nice to have the maindeck clean of the more situational cards.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18645-StarCityGames-Denver-*5th*&p=483857)

[Pysethus]

There's nothing wrong with letting people figure out things for themselves. Its better to learn from experience than from what others say.

I highly agree. Also this thread is becoming too much an "ask Bryant" thread. Props to him. He's done a great job at creating and developing TES but don't expect him to be your mother and also remember that there are other experienced TES players aswell.

[LOurs]

95% of the time you draw IGG it's a dead card in your hand. By not having it mainboard you just need to have an extra Burning Wish/Infernal Tutor in your hand/graveyard when you IGG loop, or you need to pay 1B more for the loop (hellbent IT into Wish) so it's not really a lot more difficult to pull off. You can always board it in against aggro in game 2/3, but it's nice to have the maindeck clean of the more situational cards.

I guessed this answer and that seems pretty logical so I would agree with you. To be a bit more accurate, I observed that IGG md was more useful vs fast-clock deck or hard-discard decks. Otherwise, to get it by tutor and/or wish is already working well. I should try to board 1 more IGG which I could sb in only vs these decks.

[Bryant Cook]

I cut Ill Gotten Gains a while ago because I never used it anymore. I hated drawing it and even more importantly I hated revealing it off Ad Nauseam. I replaced it with warrens because I'm rarely upset to draw it and it massacres our worse matchups.

Jon barber - quit trolling my thread. It's getting old.

[LOurs]

I cut Ill Gotten Gains a while ago because I never used it anymore. I hated drawing it and even more importantly I hated revealing it off Ad Nauseam. I replaced it with warrens because I'm rarely upset to draw it and it massacres our worse matchups.

Thank you for your reply. I will train more without it.

[Jim Higginbottom]

Train? Are you running a marathon or playing a fucking card game?

[LOurs]

Train? Are you running a marathon or playing a fucking card game?

sorry but as you probably saw it, english is not my native langage and maybe "train" was not the good word. Let's say playtest in a competitive view if it's better.

[ummon]

sorry but as you probably saw it, english is not my native langage and maybe "train" was not the good word. Let's say playtest in a competitive view if it's better.

Ignore that idiot. Your english is fine. I think the word you intended was "practice".

[rsaunder]

There's nothing wrong with letting people figure out things for themselves. Its better to learn from experience than from what others say.

You're right. Reinventing the wheel is useful in this context, because this wheel is madly f*cking hard to use properly.

Bryant (and everyone else), I haven't been super fond of ETW, whenever I use it I feel like I'm whipping my ballsack out on the table and hoping that my opponent doesn't have something sharp or heavy hidden somewhere. Have I just been running into an unusual number of decks with EE and firespout, or does anyone else feel like ETW makes you awfully vulnerable if you can't chantwalk it after? It's probably worth the slot for the merfolk matchup alone, but it feels sup-optimal. I know there are lists out there running 2x AdN in place of your MB ETW. The percentage of drawing it over drawing the 1-of or a tutor is too small to warrant the slot, is that the main reason you don't run it?

[Bryant Cook]

You're right. Reinventing the wheel is useful in this context, because this wheel is madly f*cking hard to use properly.

Bryant (and everyone else), I haven't been super fond of ETW, whenever I use it I feel like I'm whipping my ballsack out on the table and hoping that my opponent doesn't have something sharp or heavy hidden somewhere. Have I just been running into an unusual number of decks with EE and firespout, or does anyone else feel like ETW makes you awfully vulnerable if you can't chantwalk it after? It's probably worth the slot for the merfolk matchup alone, but it feels sup-optimal. I know there are lists out there running 2x AdN in place of your MB ETW. The percentage of drawing it over drawing the 1-of or a tutor is too small to warrant the slot, is that the main reason you don't run it?

I already have created the wheel, showed the people of bedrock how to use it, and left them the wheel. All that's left if for people is to use the wheel themselves.

I play against a large number of blue decks. Empty the Warrens is great here. If you go all in and they Daze/Spell Pierce/Curse Catcher, guess what's there to break your fall? Empty the Warrens. You're low on life and don't think Ad Nauseam will get you there? Guess what? Empty the Warrens. Have a move that you want to bust? Empty the Warrens. See the big picture?

Diversity is important in a combo deck. This message is so important I'm breaking it down into it's own line.

Sure. Sometimes ETW gets stopped. More than likely they're lower than 10, now all that's left is to rebuild and mini-Tendrils or Grapeshot. Empty the Warrens also let's you stop at 4 as opposed to 5 on Ad Nauseam. That matters some times.

[rsaunder]

I already have created the wheel, showed the people of bedrock how to use it, and left them the wheel. All that's left if for people is to use the wheel themselves.

The best way I've found to learn to play combo is to build an understanding of it from the ground up by making your own deck, knowing that it'll eventually get tweaked to look like the optimal lists. It shows you not only the right plays and strategies, but why to make them and why the good lists run what they do.

/tl;dr: I wasn't being sarcastic. I agree.

Good points on ETW.

[AriLax]

Bryant, I noticed that your opening post says to side the following against some blue matchups:

+3 Pyroblast
-1 Infernal Tutor
-1 Brainstorm
-1 Ponder

But in your GP report, you usually side:

+3 Pyroblast
-1 Infernal Tutor
-1 Chrome mox
-1 Ponder

Is this optimal, or were you just trying it out? Thanks.

For what it is worth, I would consider boarding a land out from my build against any non-Wasteland deck where you don't need the super long game (ie. CB-top, NOT Merfolk or Landstill). Chrome Mox is the worst land in Bryant's build.

[JonBarber]

The best way I've found to learn to play combo is to build an understanding of it from the ground up by making your own deck, knowing that it'll eventually get tweaked to look like the optimal lists. It shows you not only the right plays and strategies, but why to make them and why the good lists run what they do.

Thats really the best way to do things. Bryant's list is definitely a good starting point, but if you look at the history, the decks undergone a lot of changes. I highly doubt the current build will stay that way forever. Not to mention, the build should reflect your play style. If you find you don't like doing things like ETW, don't play it. It doesn't mean the deck will no longer work. Lebron Jim just top 8'd vestal with a x2 Ad Nauseam list. Play the deck, experiment, and figure out what you like. The deck's flexible. Use Bryant's knowledge as a starting point, and then personalize it from there.

[Ozymandias]

That said, I card-for-carded Bryant's GP T8 list tonight (except I used Silence instead of Chant), and the deck is off the chain. I beat Merfolk, Bant, and GW survival without dropping a game, and at one point I won through Daze, Spell Pierce, Cursecatcher, FOW. ETW was essential a lot of the time, as getting to 6 mana for Ad Nauseum+Daze protection can be a trial.

[Eksem]

The best way I've found to learn to play combo is to build an understanding of it from the ground up by making your own deck, knowing that it'll eventually get tweaked to look like the optimal lists. It shows you not only the right plays and strategies, but why to make them and why the good lists run what they do.

/tl;dr: I wasn't being sarcastic. I agree.

Good points on ETW.

Agreed. I do understand that trying to build a storm deck from scratch, really working at it and still arriving at something close to the "top" lists several weeks later seems like a waste, but it is the best way to get a feeling for what you need, when and why (and also makes you more open minded to find interactions and outs you may otherwise not be aware of). It also teaches you a LOT about matchups and your meta, which is much needed knowledge.

I have come to the (temporary) conclusion that I personally - considering my style, my (lack of) skills and my meta - really like 4 Chrome Mox, BW and ETW in my decks; but that 4c-variants have a much to vulnerable manabase for me. To arrive at this conclusion I have tried out UB, UBw, UBR, 4c, 5c, with and without Doomsday, iGGy-variants, 2 AdN no IGG, etc. Now I know what kind of speed I need, how my manabase should look, which wincons I prefer and what consistency I expect.

Combo decks need to be adjusted to your personal playing style, even more so than most other decks I believe, so while I do think that there is nothing wrong with asking for tips and hints, to make something out of another person's knowledge you must have the ability to apply their knowledge to yours to validate whether something is right or wrong for you.

[NQN]

Deck to Beat, YaY! I´m not sure if this does only count american top8s but otherwise I´ll try my best to keep us here ;)

[Lorgalis]

Question: In a combo heavy meta, does Sadistic Sacrament earn a spot in the side?

[JonBarber]

Question: In a combo heavy meta, does Sadistic Sacrament earn a spot in the side?

What kind of.combo? That card really only shined in the B/U ANT matchup because the two tendrils were the only win con. If you can't remove ALL of their win conditions the cards basically useless.

[Lorgalis]

Yes, after testing it today in a 32-man tourney, I didn't use it a single time. I finished 5th, losing to merfolk and drawing with solidarity...
Any tips on how to beat the fish? It seems like the worst matchup in my meta...

[AriLax]

Any tips on how to beat the fish? It seems like the worst matchup in my meta...

1. Play more lands.
2. Don't get Wastelanded.
3. Cast more Duresses.

[Rune]

Yes, after testing it today in a 32-man tourney, I didn't use it a single time. I finished 5th, losing to merfolk and drawing with solidarity...
Any tips on how to beat the fish? It seems like the worst matchup in my meta...

Merfolk is like 15% of my meta so I've devoted sb 4 slots to the matchup: 3 Xantid Swarm, 1 Tropical Island

Pyroblast is also decent but I see that as more of an anti-CB card than a protection spell since it sucks hardcore when you want to play things with LED mana

[Ozymandias]

As far as I can tell, the easiest way to beat merfolk is to cast a protected ETW as soon as possible.

[FredMaster]

..the easiest way to beat merfolk is to resolve a Xantid Swarm.
Edited for truth.

[Bryant Cook]

Merfolk is like 15% of my meta so I've devoted sb 4 slots to the matchup: 3 Xantid Swarm, 1 Tropical Island

Pyroblast is also decent but I see that as more of an anti-CB card than a protection spell since it sucks hardcore when you want to play things with LED mana

I think this is a poor choice. a land is a dead sideboard slot in a board that wants to be larger. Also, tropical island is dead after you've cast xantid swarm. It might as well be a basic island.

I understand that xantid is good against them but it might be the wrong card for this deck at this time. Maybe not if you played more five color lands.

On a different note. Campus Internet is down. I'll be responding less the next week or so.

I dislike posting on my phone.

[Jim Higginbottom]

The sideboard is definitley way too tight to be sideboarding a land...you'd be much better off playing more cities if you really wanna play xantid swarm.

[sunshine]

Xantid is no more difficult to cast than Chant. You may possibly have 1-2 more white spells than green spells to imprint on a Mox, but the difference there is marginal. As far as the mana base is concerned I don't see any reason not to play Xantid that doesn't also apply to Chant.

[Rune]

The sideboard is definitley way too tight to be sideboarding a land...you'd be much better off playing more cities if you really wanna play xantid swarm.

You can just play the Xantids without the extra Trop/City of Brass in the board, but there are many matchups where I want +1 land anyway (Merfolk definitely being one of them).

[Bryant Cook]

Xantid is no more difficult to cast than Chant. You may possibly have 1-2 more white spells than green spells to imprint on a Mox, but the difference there is marginal. As far as the mana base is concerned I don't see any reason not to play Xantid that doesn't also apply to Chant.

Chant is more important than swarm. Having both in the deck will only dilute the color ratio and require more five color lands. If an opponent wastelands you, you'll be unable to cast either. You can't tutor for a green source that isn't a tropical. I've already explained why tropical is bad.

If you want to make wasteland better against us feel free. But it's a mistake.

[rocketrae21]

So I'm new to this whole TES deck. I have seen it played but never really played it myself. My main question is, what is better to go for, a tendrils win, or an early EtW for 10 goblins or more? I mean I'm assuming it all matters on the situation, but whats the latest you want to go turn wise.
Thanks

[Pulp_Fiction]

So I'm new to this whole TES deck. I have seen it played but never really played it myself. My main question is, what is better to go for, a tendrils win, or an early EtW for 10 goblins or more? I mean I'm assuming it all matters on the situation, but whats the latest you want to go turn wise.
Thanks

There is no answer for this. It depends. What is your opponent playing? Can they answer or race EtW? Is EtW in your hand or do you have to BW into it and crack LEDs? You don't have to go all-in everytime u cast EtW (unless ur busting LEDs), 6-8 tokens go a long way in dealing damage and stalling while u easily rebuild.

Turn wise it also depends. What deck are they playing? Against anything blue turns 2-4 EtW is pretty good, against Merfolk it depends on their cards in hand, counters on Vial, creatures in play, etc. But it still depends, does the opponent have EE? Just play the deck and u learn to adapt. The only guide for playing combo is using common sense and anticipating what your opponent is going to do, which is very easy, just assume they have the worst shit u can see and go from there.

[OurSerratedDust]

So, playing with Bryant's list, I've been having trouble with the Lands.dec matchup. I'm not exactly sure how to sideboard either. Game 1 is easy, but post board they have chalice of the void, as well as maindeck EE, tabernacle, wasteland, etc. I just find I get locked out too easily.

I plan on testing the following SBing against them (though I'm not sure if it is optimal.)

-1 Infernal Tutor, -1 Silence, -1, Orim's Chant, -1 Empty the Warrens, +1 Echoing Truth, +2 Pyroblast, +1 Wipe Away

Any insights on this matchup/sideboarding? Thanks for your help.

[ComboMan]

So, playing with Bryant's list, I've been having trouble with the Lands.dec matchup. I'm not exactly sure how to sideboard either. Game 1 is easy, but post board they have chalice of the void, as well as maindeck EE, tabernacle, wasteland, etc. I just find I get locked out too easily.

I plan on testing the following SBing against them (though I'm not sure if it is optimal.)

-1 Infernal Tutor, -1 Silence, -1, Orim's Chant, -1 Empty the Warrens, +1 Echoing Truth, +2 Pyroblast, +1 Wipe Away

Any insights on this matchup/sideboarding? Thanks for your help.

Oh my...

[OurSerratedDust]

Oh my...

What? Since when is Chalice of the Void, Wasteland recursion, Ports, EE, Extirpate, and even Zuran Orb easy to win against?

[ComboMan]

What? Since when is Chalice of the Void, Wasteland recursion, Ports, EE, Extirpate, and even Zuran Orb easy to win against?

Why pyroblasts?
Why board out infernal tutor , since u need to be "explosive"???

-4 orim's / + 2 echoing, +1 wipe away, +1 krosan

[OurSerratedDust]

Why pyroblasts?
Why board out infernal tutor , since u need to be "explosive"???

-4 orim's / + 2 echoing, +1 wipe away, +1 krosan

I was thinking maybe to get Intuition, to buy you some time? I dunno, I wasn't sure how valuable they'd be.

[sunshine]

Chant is more important than swarm.

I'm on board with this, that being said...


Having both in the deck will only dilute the color ratio and require more five color lands.

Having done literally no testing with Xantid Swarm I'll disagree with this. Supposing you bring in 3 Xantid to go along with 4 Chant effects you'll have a total of 7 spells that are realistically only getting played off of rainbow sources - of which we run 10 (out of a total of 21 intitial mana sources). Those feel like some reasonable ratios, I'm not sure if more five color lands are really necessary (and I have no real interest in boarding a Trop).


If an opponent wastelands you, you'll be unable to cast either.

This is doubtful. Or at least I have a hard time imagining a situation where I'd commit my only rainbow land to the board against an opponent running Wasteland and not try to either resolve Xantid, resolve Chant, or win immediately - when I otherwise wouldn't have played that land.

Assume that you do play your rainbow land a turn early to try and get Xantid to stick before going off. Regardless of what happens you're no worse off than saving the land drop and chanting on the next turn. If Xantid is countered that counter would have been aimed at Chant instead and your land gets Wasted anyway. If Xantid sticks and your land gets Wasted, the net effect is essentially that of tapping your land to play Chant on the next turn (except now you have another land drop available).


You can't tutor for a green source that isn't a tropical. I've already explained why tropical is bad.

Granted. I have no interest in playing a Trop.


If you want to make wasteland better against us feel free. But it's a mistake.

As I said above I don't feel that the manabase would have to change to accommodate Xantid, and against decks boarding our their removal or not running any at all - namely Merfolk - resolving the creature is very strong. Playing a Xantid early and getting your land Wasted does not put you any farther behind on manasources than saving that land to play Chant later.

Personally, I haven't been playing Xantid as I like the flexibility of Pyroblast - which also can be played off fetchable lands. Given that the last local tourney we had was 25% Merfolk (I was told) I'm thinking about trying it out though.

[Shimi]

On my last tournament playing TES (5-1 , just lost to Merfolks) the field was all over merfolks , I got paried twice (2-1 and 1-2) and there Xantids just shines, If you just solve Xantid then they will just die to Grapeshot(happen 2 times but it could be 3) and regreat playing merfolks and losing to 20+ storm.

Note: I'm playing 3 Fetch 3 City manabase to suport Xantid + Chant.

[ComboMan]

On my last tournament playing TES (5-1 , just lost to Merfolks) the field was all over merfolks , I got paried twice (2-1 and 1-2) and there Xantids just shines, If you just solve Xantid then they will just die to Grapeshot(happen 2 times but it could be 3) and regreat playing merfolks and losing to 20+ storm.

Note: I'm playing 3 Fetch 3 City manabase to suport Xantid + Chant.


É nois shimi!!!!

Go Bizarros, GO!

[Rune]

Counterbalance generally seems to be on the decline but Merfolk, UG Madness and Emrakul+FoW decks are on the rise, and all of those decks are just cold to Xantid Swarm. The printing of Spell Pierce has also made those matchups significantly harder and it has given an even bigger incentive to play the little bug over Pyroblast. I wanted a fetchable G land to minimize the risk of having my gamebreaking hoser in hand without being able to cast it, but I guess it can be debated if the sideboarded land is a good idea or not... However, not playing Xantid Swarm in the sb almost seems like a mistake at the moment.

[Bryant Cook]

Having done literally no testing with Xantid Swarm I'll disagree with this. Supposing you bring in 3 Xantid to go along with 4 Chant effects you'll have a total of 7 spells that are realistically only getting played off of rainbow sources - of which we run 10 (out of a total of 21 intitial mana sources). Those feel like some reasonable ratios, I'm not sure if more five color lands are really necessary (and I have no real interest in boarding a Trop).Realistically there’s 6 initial sources, not 10. You don’t want to be breaking a Lotus Petal on turn 1 to play a Xantid Swarm, or at least I don’t. The loss of card advantage and tempo against Merfolk will kill you.


This is doubtful. Or at least I have a hard time imagining a situation where I'd commit my only rainbow land to the board against an opponent running Wasteland and not try to either resolve Xantid, resolve Chant, or win immediately - when I otherwise wouldn't have played that land. Are you telling me you don’t keep one land Gemstone Mine hands with Cantrips, Protection, and rituals? This is a great situation since it happens frequently.


Assume that you do play your rainbow land a turn early to try and get Xantid to stick before going off. Regardless of what happens you're no worse off than saving the land drop and chanting on the next turn. If Xantid is countered that counter would have been aimed at Chant instead and your land gets Wasted anyway. If Xantid sticks and your land gets Wasted, the net effect is essentially that of tapping your land to play Chant on the next turn (except now you have another land drop available). I don’t often hold lands. I’ve lost too many games where I couldn’t become hellbent and lost because I was holding a land. Never again. It has more value on the table because If I draw another I’m in a much better position. This doesn’t really apply to me.


As I said above I don't feel that the manabase would have to change to accommodate Xantid, and against decks boarding our their removal or not running any at all - namely Merfolk - resolving the creature is very strong. Playing a Xantid early and getting your land Wasted does not put you any farther behind on manasources than saving that land to play Chant later.
I do feel like it needs to change for the reason stated above. It’s seven cards that are only castable on six lands. I’m not arguing that Xantid isn’t strong.

[Ozymandias]

So I played a 46 man tournament with this deck on sunday, and I wnet 4-2, missing the top 8 by .9 of a percentage point in tiebreakers. Basically Bryan's GP top 8, -1 Sea, +1 City

R1 vs Merfolk.
Game 1 I mull to 5 on the play, he leads with island-vial, and I ponder on turns 1 and 2 while he does nothing but add a counter. T3 I have the option of trying to resolve an ad nauseam off of LED+IT with 0 protection, or cast ETW for 12 after duress. I do duress, he flips over a hand full of lords, and he successfully races my 12 tokens. I cut IT, ponder, and Mox for 3x Pyroblast
G2, I have land, ritual, rite, ad nauseam, Duress, Burning Wish, Chrome Mox. I discounted going balls-out here, and duressed instead. He revealed 3 cursecatchers, and while I do manage to grapeshot his team down, I don't manage to do anything else before he finds force+lords. Should I have gone for the blind AN turn 1?

r2 vs Dredge.
Game 1: we both mull to 5, but my 5 have LED and IT. I win this off of Ad Nauseam on turn 3, after his self-therapy on Troll turns up a garbage six.
I take a ponder out for an echoing truth in case he has leylines.
Game 2: He mulls to garbage and I easily Ad Nauseam turn 2.

R3 vs. Suppression Field WW
Game 1 I win pretty easily off of a diminishing returns for crazy storm.
I cut IT, ponder, and ETW for the bounce spells.
Game 2 I lead with a brainstorm into garbage, hoping to ponder the next turn, but he end-of-turn runs Enlightened Tutor into Chalice @1. and 3 turns later my petaled Etruth on his chalice does not give me enough.
Game 3 he mulls to 4 and I wn in easy mode

R4 vs Elf Survival Combo.
G1 we each mull to 6 he leads with Fyndhorn, I lead with Duress, take your Glimpse of Nature, seeing 3 lands and Summoner's pact. T2 he swings and passes. Under no pressure, I make with an ETW for 10 or so (fff the one MD copy), and then Silence him when he casts Summoner's Pact after running out Priest of Titania and Heritage Druid. I swing, he takes it. He pays pact, casts Sylvan Messenger, and flips some elves. I have LED on board, and Ponder into IT+LED for the finish.
I cut ETW, Ponder, Chrome Mox, and IT for 4 bounce spells+Kgrip as I know he is playing Thorn of Amethyst.
G2 he runs out land, pitch esg, I grit my teeth looking at my sick one-lander ( with Cantrip, accel, Silence, and business)...Survival!? Okay, cool beans. I ponder into the nuts and upkeep silence him in case he has shenanigans, before Ad Nauseaming for the win.

r5 vs. 4c Counterbalance.
G1: I mull, but manage to t1 duress his CB. He brainstorms into another just in time, gets some good blind flips, and he seals it up with SDT+Jace.
I cut IT, ponder, ETW, Mox, and Silence for 3 Pyroblast 1 Kgrip 1 Wipe Away.
G2: I'm able to run Silence into burning Wish into Empty the Warrens, and he doesn't have Firespout or EE. Good times.
G3: I keep a hand with no disruption, but cantrips, mana, and wipe away. My plan is sculpt my hand some, and EOT bounce his counterbalance before forcing business through a few turns down the line. Unfortunately for me he has the end step of my turn 3 vendilion clique after the t2 Counterbalance, and I lose my chance. I go from 19 to 0 quite quickly. If Wipe Away was Kgrip, I would have managed to win.

r6 vs Painter-Stone counterbalance. I had loaned him a FOW literally the round before, so I knew he was on blue.
G1
He has t1 top, t2 painter's servant, t3 ET-Grindstone, while I am digging for a decent hand, but he can't t4 me as he must top to find land 3. I manage to, with certain death on the other side, silence successfully, and then instead of conservatively wishing for a shattering spree, go into the tilt-Diminishing returns floating a bunch of mana and win with Tendrils.
I board the same as last round.
G2: He goes t1 windswept heath. I go underground sea. He moves to crack EOT, I go Ritual, Ritual, ad nauseam, keep the super-sculpted 7, win t2.

All in all a really fun deck to play, but it needs more Krosan Grips in the board. Probably will cut a Wipe Away and 1 other thing (a Pyroblast, maybe?) for them. My lifetime record with TES is now at .777777 (7-2 what what!)

[kicks_422]

G2, I have land, ritual, rite, ad nauseam, Duress, Burning Wish, Chrome Mox. I discounted going balls-out here, and duressed instead. He revealed 3 cursecatchers, and while I do manage to grapeshot his team down, I don't manage to do anything else before he finds force+lords. Should I have gone for the blind AN turn 1?

Yes, I would have. The chance of them having countermagic online greatly increases with a land drop.

[Pulp_Fiction]

its unreal. it took a banning for this fucking dekc to make th DTB stasus. more power 2 it but, combo is not as strong at it was. sad time. but thi is probably the premier combe dek in the format and to all u who played saiuto ANT i say fuck u because u aint played real comobob yet tilll u played this shit.

[kinda]

Yes, I would have. The chance of them having countermagic online greatly increases with a land drop.

Agreed, take your 60%...unless you're running swarm.

[TheSleeper]

Is Pulp trolling with that kind of grammar or just really drunk?

Meanwhile congrats to TES on making it DTB.

[OurSerratedDust]

Is Pulp trolling with that kind of grammar or just really drunk?


I'd say the latter.

[sunshine]

Realistically there’s 6 initial sources, not 10. You don’t want to be breaking a Lotus Petal on turn 1 to play a Xantid Swarm, or at least I don’t. The loss of card advantage and tempo against Merfolk will kill you.


Fair enough. I'd be willing to spend a Petal to cast Xantid on turn one if I have other initial sources available, at least in theory. The rationale being I'd spend that same Petal to cast Chant 2-3 turns later without hesitation.



Are you telling me you don’t keep one land Gemstone Mine hands with Cantrips, Protection, and rituals? This is a great situation since it happens frequently.


I definitely do, this falls into the category of hands where I'd be playing into Wasteland anyway:


... I have a hard time imagining a situation where I'd commit my only rainbow land to the board against an opponent running Wasteland and not try to either resolve Xantid, resolve Chant, or win immediately - when I otherwise wouldn't have played that land.




I don’t often hold lands. I’ve lost too many games where I couldn’t become hellbent and lost because I was holding a land. Never again. It has more value on the table because If I draw another I’m in a much better position. This doesn’t really apply to me.


I certainly don't advocate holding lands if you're plan is to gain hellbent without LED. My point was just that if I'm playing those lands anyway I'm not opening myself up to Wasteland any more than I would otherwise. This is predicated on not changing the manabase to have more rainbow lands - If you swap fetches for rainbow lands you're definitely making yourself more vulnerable to getting Wasted out.



I do feel like it needs to change for the reason stated above. It’s seven cards that are only castable on six lands. I’m not arguing that Xantid isn’t strong.

Meh, I think we're in agreement on Xantid being strong and that it still probably is not right for the deck now (I say that since I'm essentially playing your list card for card atm). I guess it just boils down to whether or not you're willing to use a Petal to cast Xantid - maybe I don't have enough experience with the deck yet but I don't see that as being a horrible play.

[Bryant Cook]

I guess our argument comes down to play style. I think Pyroblast holds much more value, which you seem to agree upon. Counterbalance decks still exist, making Pyroblast better than Swarm in my eyes. If it was gone, sure, Xantid Swarm would even be maindeck able.

[Pulp_Fiction]

I'd say the latter.

And you would have been very correct. Had another screwdriver (basically straight voldka with a splash of OJ) then a few beers, I got pretty awesome :)

Now to post something actually constructive, I have been fucking around with more maindeck EtW and I have to say, I like it. Against aggro and shit I would run additional IGGs in the board just for the easy wins but I have to say I actually like 2-3 EtW in the main.

As far as the protection suite goes ... play whatever the hell u want. What Cook plays works in his meta ... your meta is probably different. There is no correct answer and I think its funny how most people will run his exact 75 and then complain about certain choices ... change em. If u want to run 4x Duress and 3x Swarm in the main (which is currently what I am doing) go for it. Don't like Pyroblast in the board, don't play it. Plenty of other options. U can run 7x Duress effects as protection spells, that may work better in your meta. Just put the time in with the deck and decide on what u like. Just cause it works for Cook doesn't mean it will work for u. I think Pyroblast is shit in the board, thats me though, it may work for u, try it out, and if u like the card, play it.

[JonBarber]

What Cook plays works in his meta ... your meta is probably different.

The Vestal meta is notorius for being blue heavy (especially counterbalance) which makes pyroblast a good idea. If your meta is more fish and similar type decks, xantid swarm may be better, but accept that the mana base may need tweaking. The difference of T1 lotus petal->swarm as opposed to T2 lotus petal->chant is the loss of two storm, which can make a significant impact sometimes.

[ScatmanX]

The difference of T1 lotus petal->swarm as opposed to T2 lotus petal->chant is the loss of two storm, which can make a significant impact sometimes.
And they'll have 1 more turn to dig for answers...

[JonBarber]

And they'll have 1 more turn to dig for answers...

Swarm also opens you up to twice as much hate, but only if they know it. Theres certainly positives and negatives of playing the card.

[Shimi]

I just LOVE pyroblasts in SB , except against Merfolks where Xantid is amazing due to their wastes + daze/pierce/catchers you are short on mana so you can cast your protec earlier and it will not take StP or anything.Also the less mana + more hand sculpt that xantid allows you against merfolks let you showboat them with grapeshot.

[fourtykiller]

So i'm kind of a newb with combo, built ANT and got to play two months with it before IT was banned, and have been piecing together Bryants list for TES as I really like the looks of it and it seems to be the best way to go without IT. I'm just wondering about the sideboard though, so many one of's that aren't fetchable with wish seems odd to me? Can anyone explain what the reasoning is for this? It must be the way to go since so many people are doing it that way, but I just can't seem to figure out how it works.

Thanks in advance

[Jayzonious]

So i'm kind of a newb with combo, built ANT and got to play two months with it before IT was banned, and have been piecing together Bryants list for TES as I really like the looks of it and it seems to be the best way to go without IT. I'm just wondering about the sideboard though, so many one of's that aren't fetchable with wish seems odd to me? Can anyone explain what the reasoning is for this? It must be the way to go since so many people are doing it that way, but I just can't seem to figure out how it works.

Thanks in advance

Infernal Tutor

[NQN]

Infernal Tutor

Thats just bullshit.
The 1offs are no real 1offs because they fulfil nearly the same purpose (bounce, destroy counterbalance, kill hatebears etc.) Just read the primer, it shouldn´t leave too many questions unanswered.

greetzs,
NQN

[Lorgalis]

Infernal Tutor

Erm...No. IT requires you to be hellbent. There are 1-ofs to provide redundant solutions to hate that, in turn, are no susceptible to cards like Meddling Mage.

For example: Krosan Grip and Wipe Away are both answers to Counterbalance; while any of the bounce can deal with Gaddock Teeg.

The idea is to diversify the answers taking into account the hate played in your meta. Also, some hate is only effective against your final spell (think Leyline of Sanctity,for example), so your Ad Nauseam can flip your 1-of answer.

[Jeff Kruchkow]

Hes talking about Mystical. And apparently is either foreign or horrible at english.

Anyway, the one ofs are redundant or wishable. Wish turns 1 copy SB into 4 MD so it provides the utility that MT used to with the added bonus of being business.

[Jim Higginbottom]

I went 4-2-1 at Vestal today coming in 17th. Fail.

[dar482]

How do you play LED in this deck, also with Infernal Tutor?

[Rune]

You play Infernal Tutor/Burning Wish and then you crack the LED before passing priority. LED is also useful for other things, like cracking it when you cast Ponder/Brainstorm (when you know that your top card is Ad Naus/Tutor/Wish etc). It also helpls a lot when you need to pay for multiple Spell Pierces/Dazes

[Bryant Cook]

I went 4-2-1 at Vestal today coming in 17th. Fail.

Please tell me how you have a draw. I've never gone to time in the round.

Mox Opal 0
LEGENDARY artifact
Metalcraft - T: add one mana of any colour to your mana pool. Use this ability only if you control three or more artifacts.

I don't think this will see any play. Although I could be wrong, I have been before.

[Neuad]

I'd like it alot more then Chrome if it works.

I really dislike Chrome :(

[Lorgalis]

Please tell me how you have a draw. I've never gone to time in the round.

Mox Opal 0
LEGENDARY artifact
Metalcraft - T: add one mana of any colour to your mana pool. Use this ability only if you control three or more artifacts.

I don't think this will see any play. Although I could be wrong, I have been before.

Well, last tournament I had a draw while playing against Solidarity. Long time to shuffle + long time to think can end in a draw sometimes...

As for the Opal, I can see it as a 1-of, replacing one of the Chrome Moxes. And who knows? Maybe this set/block will have a rainbow artifact land? That would enhance the playability of the Mox Opal.

[Bryant Cook]

Well, last tournament I had a draw while playing against Solidarity. Long time to shuffle + long time to think can end in a draw sometimes...

As for the Opal, I can see it as a 1-of, replacing one of the Chrome Moxes. And who knows? Maybe this set/block will have a rainbow artifact land? That would enhance the playability of the Mox Opal.

There's no reason for a draw in my eyes. Even with shuffling, ect.


I'd like it alot more then Chrome if it works.

I really dislike Chrome :(

Opal has the same problem as Diamond in my eyes. It's only good post-Nauseam. You're not going to have it with three artifacts before Nauseam and be in a winning position.

[Jeff Kruchkow]

Opal has the same problem as Diamond in my eyes. It's only good post-Nauseam. You're not going to have it with three artifacts before Nauseam and be in a winning position.

You only need 2 other artifacts since it counts itself. I can see it as a 2 of replacing like a Chrome Mox or 2. I mean laying out an LED and Chrome/Petal a little early seems like a fair price since it gives us an unwasteable gold land.

[Bryant Cook]

I just don't see it being that great. It may be better than the silence slot. However, you're going to come across situations where you lose because it's useless and doesn't do anything.

[JeroenC]

Opal seems great to me, especially for Storm. That being said, not in this deck (yet). Chrome Mox, however, is really good in this deck. I used to really hate it too but now it's definitely one of the cards I'm happiest with- never been as happy with taking a 3-of up to a 4-of.

[kicks_422]

Same here. I used to play it conservatively, only using Chrome Mox on my Storm turn - which sucked. However, if you use it aggressively, like

Turn 1
Land
Chrome Mox, imprint something
Tutor/Wish

or

Turn 1
Land
Chrome Mox, imprint something
Duress + Brainstorm/Ponder

You'll learn to love it.

I don't like Mox Opal as well. Anything that needs a requirement before it works for the deck should probably be out.

[JonBarber]

Yeah, mox opul MIGHT have a place in belcher, but definitely not here. Mox diamond would be better.

[GoboLord]

Hi guys,

I'm in doing some statistics and I need your help.
I need you estimates about certain MUs of TES. If you want to help me, please click on the link below and answer 9 questions about TES's MUs.

Survey (http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=1kng1p13xufo6e7802800)

Thanky you for your help!

[Nidd]

Hi guys,

I'm in doing some statistics and I need your help.
I need you estimates about certain MUs of TES. If you want to help me, please click on the link below and answer 9 questions about TES's MUs.

Survey (http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=1kng1p13xufo6e7802800)

Thanky you for your help!
I doubt the deck has MUs, the pilots have MUs.

[voltron00x]

Curious to get people's thoughts on this:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/20020_Ideas_Unbound_The_TendrilsMerfolk_Matchup.html

Ari's deck having basics makes that match-up quite different, I'm more interested in whether or not people in this forum consider TES from the GP to be a favorite versus Saito-style Merfolk.

[Bryant Cook]

While I don't agree with Max's final outcome, it's still a decent article. Max really underrates Chant in the match-up.

[dar482]

So why, what's your opinion on the matchup? That despite pilot, it can be a rough? Also, what about the 2 color approach vs. going for Chants and Wishes?

[voltron00x]

I'm exceptionally new to this style of Legacy storm (TES), like just started playing it at all within the last month. I've found the Merfolk match-up, Saito-style, to be pretty atrocious. They have a relatively reliable clock, and a MASSIVE number of relevant disruptive cards: 4 Force, 4 Daze, 3 Spell Pierce, 4 Cursecatcher, 4 Wasteland. Comparing this to CB/Top, that match-up has (for me) actually been easier because unless they have the nut draw of Top into CB immediately, they actually have less relevant cards AND a much less consistent clock to take you off Ad Naus. There, again, there are many different styles - for example, in the event in which i played TES and made top 8, I lost 1-2 to Dreadstill b/c in the 3rd game, he drew 4 Wastelands plus Daze and Force, and it was too much for me to fight through.

I would imagine that the straight U/B Ari Lax build would be MUCH better against Merfolk on account of basic lands, and the extra filter effects and Grims are much more relevant against control than more all-in spells like Burning Wish. However, against the rest of the field I'm pretty sure I want to be on TES because it feels so powerful and flexible to me.

Its certainly possible that I'm really just THAT BAD with TES right now, but I struggle to see how anyone would consider the Saito Merfolk vs TES match-up to be favorable for TES.

[egosum]

IMHO, it seems that Max needs alot more testing with TES, which is not that strange since TES is one of those hard-to-master decks out there. According to my experience if you know which hands to keep (and definitely a hand full of cantrips is not always a hand you want to keep) dealing with wasteland is not that dificult with TES, you have by far more explosiveness than UB ANT, and the power of level of any single card is superior in TES (except maybe chrome mox, which is a necessary evil...), that grants an easier coming from behind, if needed.

And about the MU I definitely think that TES has the edge, since having a balanced hand for the folk player is quite difficult, they normally have very few disruption or very few pressure, either situation is favorable for TES only a "god" draw can seal the deal for the folks, and with this I mean something like Catcher + Lord (with FoW + Daze), or similar, you know.. the perfect curve.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[Bryant Cook]

So why, what's your opinion on the matchup? That despite pilot, it can be a rough? Also, what about the 2 color approach vs. going for Chants and Wishes?

I’m not going to rewrite an article. The man was spot on about a lot of what he said. This isn’t necessarily aimed at you, just the general population of storm readers.

[rant]Stop private messaging me asking why you should play TES over ANT or anything like the sort. I will not respond. There’s an entire thread, where you can come to a decision on your own. Hell I event wrote part of the answer in the opening post. I’m getting tired of being the credible answer when it comes to questions on storm combo.

There’s several decent to great storm pilots on this message board. [/end rant]

Now on the Merfolk match-up and the parts where I disagree with Max. He highly overrates basics. They’re restrictive, even in ANT. Playing basics requires more lands, more lands is awful. They create situations where the combo player is unable to become hellbent with Infernal Tutor. They are also all dead after Ad Nauseam. Especially in Ari’s list where there’s zero Chrome Mox. Chrome Mox allows the combo player to be able to win with a much lower life total. Meaning if Merfolk gets the aggro draw, the combo player won’t be sitting on their thumb.

Chrome Mox helps a ton with keeping a faster tempo game against Merfolk. It’s unwastelandable and doesn’t require multiple turns to become effective. One of TES’s great strengths against Saitofolk is that Empty the Warrens absolutely destroys them. Max didn’t emphasize this at all. It allows the combo player to run head first into 4 Daze, 3 Spell Pierce, 4 Cursecatcher. If they manage to use their Daze effects and put you in a tough situation, you make an army and tell them to win fast. Look at this situation for example.

Your hand:

Underground sea, Lotus Petal, Rite of Flame, Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor, Lion’s Eye Diamond.

Sea, Petal, Rite of Flame, Dark Ritual (Daze,Cursecatcher,Spellpierce), Lion’s Eye Diamond, Tutor, Empty the Warrens.

This is one of several possible hands. The daze effects are much less effective versus TES than Max lead to believe. Not to mention that TES plays more mana acceleration than Ari’s list, making these daze effects even less impressive. Merfolk really needs a Force of Will if it even wants to compete against TES.

Orim’s Chant vs Duress effects – I’m not going to repeat what Max said about these. However, he forgot the fact that Chant is a must counter where it forces Merfolk to play it’s tricks out pre-combo. Where Duress does not, the Merfolk player can let Duress resolve, take a protection spell. Then cast others mid-combo.

[Jim Higginbottom]

I think this matchup is very player skill dependent and I don't think I could say what the average percentages are.

[Rune]

@voltron00x: I wouldn't call it an atrocious matchup, but I agree that the matchup is unfavorable if there's no difference in player skill. The only storm deck I have ever been happy to face a GOOD Merfolk player with was/is UB ANT. In my eyes, basics are a huge deal here since everything becomes a lot easier when you can take Wasteland out of the equation. Duress/Thoughtseize are also superior to Chant in this matchup since they can be played the turn before you go off, thereby giving them 1 draw to find an answer, but in return you get a lot more freedom with your mana on the critical turn. Chant is obviously good with IGG and Diminishing Returns, but I think it's not worth it overall. In this specific matchup, UB ANT is definitely better, but you're right that TES is generally a better deck now. If you want to play TES with a few basics, you could try out emidln's 3c TES.

[AriLax]

Bryant, I you are underrating Cabal Ritual and the strength of 12 cantrips as well as the strength of a first Ritual Daze against the 5 color builds.

Getting hellbent with extra lands is rarely an issue due to being able to have a Brainstorm later and having more dig for an LED.

Being at lower life against a binned Force is much less of an issue due to Cabal Ritual powering out Tutor chains into a lethal Tendrils. You are almost always Thresholded during a turn 3 combo.

Getting your first Ritual Dazed usually burns important colored mana, especially if you are being Wastelanded. UB only has one color that matters during the combo most of the time.

[Bryant Cook]

Bryant, I you are underrating Cabal Ritual and the strength of 12 cantrips as well as the strength of a first Ritual Daze against the 5 color builds.

Getting hellbent with extra lands is rarely an issue due to being able to have a Brainstorm later and having more dig for an LED.

Being at lower life against a binned Force is much less of an issue due to Cabal Ritual powering out Tutor chains into a lethal Tendrils. You are almost always Thresholded during a turn 3 combo.

Getting your first Ritual Dazed usually burns important colored mana, especially if you are being Wastelanded. UB only has one color that matters during the combo most of the time.

I've played Cabal Ritual before. I understand it can be powerful, but not by the time combo decks want it to be. It's too much of a mid-game card. Turn three is still weak a lot of the time. Zoo/Goblins have the possibility of giving you fits by turn three. You'll be cantripping and fetching dying to reach threshold while they're putting you below ten life. It's just slow and Rite of Flame is better, it's less mana for a similar effect that is less damage on Ad Nauseam.

As for being Hellbent, you can't rely on having a four of to get you to this point. What if you've already cast Brainstorm that game. Not to mention, It's hard to believe that you and your 12 cantrips don't clog hands up.

I'm just calling bullshit on Cabal Rituals making enough mana where you can chain tutors into Tendrils at such a low lifetotal.

Sure if they have wastelanded me and Dazed Dark Ritual, I'll probably have to wait a turn. But that's a sacrifice I make to play more powerful cards than UB.

[AriLax]

As for being Hellbent, you can't rely on having a four of to get you to this point. What if you've already cast Brainstorm that game. Not to mention, It's hard to believe that you and your 12 cantrips don't clog hands up.

I think this is the disconnect. With 12 cantrips you don't have to draw more cantrips unless you want to. Each cantrip also basically replaces itself with a Ritual on the combo turn provided you have the blue mana.

[Bryant Cook]

I think this is the disconnect. With 12 cantrips you don't have to draw more cantrips unless you want to. Each cantrip also basically replaces itself with a Ritual on the combo turn provided you have the blue mana.

I think this is irrationality.

Brainstorm, you're telling me you don't have to draw into lands and cantrips?
Ponder, you shuffle and draw, it doesn't have the chance of a cantrip?
Preordain, you scry the two to the bottom, there isn't the chance of drawing a dead land or another cantrip?

I wish I could always draw Rituals or LED's when I need them, unfortunately, it's only 80% of the time that happens.

[Nidd]

I think this matchup is very player skill dependent and I don't think I could say what the average percentages are.
That's it. Decks have MUs
Most Storm decks have MUs in which it boils down not to deck VS deck but rather to player VS hate.

[Lorgalis]

Regarding the ritual vs. cantrip issue, I'd rather play 8 cantrips + 8 rituals than 12 cantrips + 4 rituals. Rituals >> Cantrips, given that what you usually need to find with cantrips are rituals (or mana in general). When I tried the 12 cantrips plan in straight UB, sometimes I was just cantripping endlessly while getting killed by my aggro opponent.

That said, I do use Cabal Ritual x 2 in TES, as I really hate Chrome Mox...

As for Merfolk, well, in my experience the fish are this deck's worst matchup, at least in my meta (not much Counterbalance and not a single Stax). I'm going to try Xanthid Swarm in the side and see how it works.

[jin]

Regarding the ritual vs. cantrip issue, I'd rather play 8 cantrips + 8 rituals than 12 cantrips + 4 rituals. Rituals >> Cantrips, given that what you usually need to find with cantrips are rituals (or mana in general). When I tried the 12 cantrips plan in straight UB, sometimes I was just cantripping endlessly while getting killed by my aggro opponent.

That said, I do use Cabal Ritual x 2 in TES, as I really hate Chrome Mox...

As for Merfolk, well, in my experience the fish are this deck's worst matchup, at least in my meta (not much Counterbalance and not a single Stax). I'm going to try Xanthid Swarm in the side and see how it works.

yeah, swarm is intesting when I used it. Too bad the fish i play with splashes whte...


I think this is irrationality.

Brainstorm, you're telling me you don't have to draw into lands and cantrips?
Ponder, you shuffle and draw, it doesn't have the chance of a cantrip?
Preordain, you scry the two to the bottom, there isn't the chance of drawing a dead land or another cantrip?

I wish I could always draw Rituals or LED's when I need them, unfortunately, it's only 80% of the time that happens.

agreed, cantrips seem to slow down the deck too much. Even with the extra ponders it feels a bit slower..


I'm exceptionally new to this style of Legacy storm (TES), like just started playing it at all within the last month. I've found the Merfolk match-up, Saito-style, to be pretty atrocious. They have a relatively reliable clock, and a MASSIVE number of relevant disruptive cards: 4 Force, 4 Daze, 3 Spell Pierce, 4 Cursecatcher, 4 Wasteland. Comparing this to CB/Top, that match-up has (for me) actually been easier because unless they have the nut draw of Top into CB immediately, they actually have less relevant cards AND a much less consistent clock to take you off Ad Naus. There, again, there are many different styles - for example, in the event in which i played TES and made top 8, I lost 1-2 to Dreadstill b/c in the 3rd game, he drew 4 Wastelands plus Daze and Force, and it was too much for me to fight through.

I would imagine that the straight U/B Ari Lax build would be MUCH better against Merfolk on account of basic lands, and the extra filter effects and Grims are much more relevant against control than more all-in spells like Burning Wish. However, against the rest of the field I'm pretty sure I want to be on TES because it feels so powerful and flexible to me.

Its certainly possible that I'm really just THAT BAD with TES right now, but I struggle to see how anyone would consider the Saito Merfolk vs TES match-up to be favorable for TES.

yeah I'm having a lot of trouble fighting fish too. They either daze my rits.. or force my tutors.. it's quite stressful.
post board, I got screwed by infernal tutor and pyroblast once or twice.
man, I'm bad with this deck and I"ve been playing it for about a year.



Your hand:

Underground sea, Lotus Petal, Rite of Flame, Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor, Lion’s Eye Diamond.

Sea, Petal, Rite of Flame, Dark Ritual (Daze,Cursecatcher,Spellpierce), Lion’s Eye Diamond, Tutor, Empty the Warrens.


This works, but often, they have a second daze/cursedcatcher/spellpierce for your rit.. and then I end up sitting there waiting for my rits again...

Maybe I just don't know when I'm supposed to strike. The article pointed out something tha twas really interesting and that is you can kind of telll what kind of defense the fish opponent are running if they swarm you with merfolk or if they hold back and beat you down slowly. I think it's pretty useful to know this. I guess it helps make it more obvious when to strike. I still haven't figured that part out yet.

[emidln]

It's not actually hard to build TES with basics and thoughtseize if you feel like thoughtseize and basics are what you need for your metagame. From bryant lists:


-4 Chant/Silence
-4 Gemstone Mine
-2 City of Brass
-1 Scalding Tarn

+3 Thoughtseize
+4 Polluted Delta
+1 Volcanic Island
+1 Badlands
+1 Island
+1 Swamp

// Reconfigured manabase

4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp

The rest of Bryant's maindeck is solidly UBR and this exact manabase has shown up on deckcheck. In this metagame (which has a ton of tempo), cutting the 8th disruption from the main for an extra land makes sense.

If you want to run Bryant's current sideboarding plan of Pyroblasts, this manabase makes it work very well. I would cut a Shattering Spree for a Pulverize since Pulverize is, by cost against common pieces of hate (3sphere, 2spheres, chalices), cheaper than other artifact destruction spells.

In the end, if you want basics + discard you can do that without giving up access to ETW, double tendrils, and hatebear and artifact removal. Cutting yourself off Chrome Mox thus making your best spell worse against the field in the name of basics is just silly.

[voltron00x]

I'm going to give that build a shot, it makes sense.

Here's a little video that I think explains what's going on with Storm combo based on recent SCG articles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXaa6dk-UgI

[Lorgalis]

In the end, if you want basics + discard you can do that without giving up access to ETW, double tendrils, and hatebear and artifact removal. Cutting yourself off Chrome Mox thus making your best spell worse against the field in the name of basics is just silly.

Agreed with that (I assume you're meaning Burning Wish here).

[emidln]

Agreed with that (I assume you're meaning Burning Wish here).

I mean Chrome Mox. Burning Wish doesn't do as much for making Ad Nauseam amazing as Chrome Mox (although having 4 spells which you can stop on because they give you Tendrils is a big deal too).

[jin]

It's not actually hard to build TES with basics and thoughtseize if you feel like thoughtseize and basics are what you need for your metagame. From bryant lists:


-4 Chant/Silence
-4 Gemstone Mine
-2 City of Brass
-1 Scalding Tarn

+3 Thoughtseize
+4 Polluted Delta
+1 Volcanic Island
+1 Badlands
+1 Island
+1 Swamp

// Reconfigured manabase

4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp

The rest of Bryant's maindeck is solidly UBR and this exact manabase has shown up on deckcheck. In this metagame (which has a ton of tempo), cutting the 8th disruption from the main for an extra land makes sense.

If you want to run Bryant's current sideboarding plan of Pyroblasts, this manabase makes it work very well. I would cut a Shattering Spree for a Pulverize since Pulverize is, by cost against common pieces of hate (3sphere, 2spheres, chalices), cheaper than other artifact destruction spells.

In the end, if you want basics + discard you can do that without giving up access to ETW, double tendrils, and hatebear and artifact removal. Cutting yourself off Chrome Mox thus making your best spell worse against the field in the name of basics is just silly.

I like Bryant's 5 colour list, but this is brilliant. It's amazing how it can actually be converted to 3 colours. It kind of makes you wonder if the other 2 colours are really needed now that swarm is cut from the sideboard and IGG is moved to the board making Chant less important as a distinction from discard spells.

Someone please help justify the 5 colour list, as emidln has tempted me to test this 3 colour build. I need major help against fish.

[whiteshepherdman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXaa6dk-UgI

LOL this is just plain awsome.

[Lorgalis]

I like Bryant's 5 colour list, but this is brilliant. It's amazing how it can actually be converted to 3 colours. It kind of makes you wonder if the other 2 colours are really needed now that swarm is cut from the sideboard and IGG is moved to the board making Chant less important as a distinction from discard spells.

Someone please help justify the 5 colour list, as emidln has tempted me to test this 3 colour build. I need major help against fish.

I'd rather play with chant/silence than thoughtseize because:

- Enables the IGGY plan against blue decks
- Can be used to thwart other combo decks
- Can be used to "timewalk" fast aggro decks (Zoo especially)
- Protects you against discard decks

[Jander78]

I've been testing a 3 color build for a while now. It's much more resilient to Wasteland and, I believe, more consistent due to less color options in casting your proactive protection.

My manabase is almost exact to emidln's, sub one Scalding Tarn.

Here's the build I've been testing with:

4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
2 Lim-Dul's Vault

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam

4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands


Sideboard:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Thoughtseize
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Pyroblast
1 Pyroclasm
1 Grapeshot
1 Shattering Spree
1 Diminishing Returns
2 Wipe Away
1 Eye of Nowhere
1 Echoing Truth
1 Telemin Performance


The IGG plan is used a lot less, but still viable against certain decks / situations. Other than that, I don't really miss Chant / Silence at all. The random times it can "Time Walk" you or save you against aggro is generally made up in being more consistent and resilient (I.E. being Time Walk'd by a Wasteland).

[AriLax]

I'm interested to hear how Lim-Dul's Vault is working out for you. I had it in my build for a while but it never really panned out.

[Jander78]

I'm interested to hear how Lim-Dul's Vault is working out for you. I had it in my build for a while but it never really panned out.
I've been testing with it for about a month. It's been great. If played on turn two, it can pretty much guarantee a turn three win.

It edged out Grim Tutor, in my opinion, for a couple of reasons. It's two mana, so it can be a turn faster. It's an instant, so it sets up the win at the end of your opponents turn and doesn't tie up mana on your turn tutoring for something. It's the best Chrome Mox imprint target in the deck (I wouldn't normally consider this a real bonus for a card, but it does come into play often).

They are about on par for a few scenarios. It's generally around the same life commitment as Grim Tutor (can be more at times, can be less). The casting cost is sometimes helpful compared to Grim Tutor. Tutor is better with Dark Ritual, where Lim-Dul's Vault is much better using standard mana sources.

The major con is that it's not as good of a top deck (without a cantrip) as Grim Tutor is.

With Brainstorm / Ponder, you can still setup tricks with Lion's Eye Diamond, albeit a little more convuluted, but still plausable. It helps find sideboard cards (i.e. Wipe Away / Pyroblast), without requiring to be Hellbent. Overall, the extra tutoring really helps the consistency of the deck and will generally ensure a turn 3 win.

[Bahamuth]

Cutting in the amount of land and adding LDV seems counterproductive. I'm also interested to hear how good LDV is. I am anxious to actually play that card at a tournament, because it can make for so many complicated situations (where you can cycle through your deck to add cards from the next/previous 5 to a stack thus seting up for a winning Brainstorm). I suspect the card is not good enough in a TES shell, and you're better off running 2 Preordain or additional rituals.

EDIT: Too slow. Opinion still stands though.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

I like Bryant's 5 colour list, but this is brilliant. It's amazing how it can actually be converted to 3 colours. It kind of makes you wonder if the other 2 colours are really needed now that swarm is cut from the sideboard and IGG is moved to the board making Chant less important as a distinction from discard spells.

Someone please help justify the 5 colour list, as emidln has tempted me to test this 3 colour build. I need major help against fish.

The reason you run a 5c manabase is not just because of cards like chant/grip.

TES is a three color deck with very little land. You want each land to produce all three colors so you don't put yourself in an awkward situation when you don't see a second land. Three color control decks have the luxury of playing much more lands and being able to play the long game. TES wants to combo out ASAP.

Imagine a hand with Duress, Burning wish, Ponder, and a ritual. Ask yourself if you'd rather have a 5c land or a dual land in that situation. I've played with a fetchland configuration, and honestly, it's not an improvement over the 5c manabase.

Running a basic land will not help drastically against wasteland. A competent player will just cut you off of a color while you sit there helpless.

I personally like Bryant's current list. I played it card for card at SCG: Denver, only with a maindeck pyroblast. I'm not entirely sure that's correct. I was anticipating lots of merfolk, but playing against merfolk, I think I would have rather had the 4th chant. Pyroblast is a reactive card. There were situations where I needed to go off with LED and had pyro in hand. Obviously a chant would have been better.

[jin]

The reason you run a 5c manabase is not just because of cards like chant/grip.

TES is a three color deck with very little land. You want each land to produce all three colors so you don't put yourself in an awkward situation when you don't see a second land. Three color control decks have the luxury of playing much more lands and being able to play the long game. TES wants to combo out ASAP.

Imagine a hand with Duress, Burning wish, Ponder, and a ritual. Ask yourself if you'd rather have a 5c land or a dual land in that situation. I've played with a fetchland configuration, and honestly, it's not an improvement over the 5c manabase.

Running a basic land will not help drastically against wasteland. A competent player will just cut you off of a color while you sit there helpless.

I personally like Bryant's current list. I played it card for card at SCG: Denver, only with a maindeck pyroblast. I'm not entirely sure that's correct. I was anticipating lots of merfolk, but playing against merfolk, I think I would have rather had the 4th chant. Pyroblast is a reactive card. There were situations where I needed to go off with LED and had pyro in hand. Obviously a chant would have been better.

yeah I read your report.. it is evident in it that you believe in your philosophy to win asap. It's almost always ad nauseum and rarely anything else.. too bad it wasn't more detailed about the regular turns. I'd like to hear about how you read the opponent and what was on the board.

[Jander78]

Cutting in the amount of land and adding LDV seems counterproductive. I'm also interested to hear how good LDV is. I am anxious to actually play that card at a tournament, because it can make for so many complicated situations (where you can cycle through your deck to add cards from the next/previous 5 to a stack thus seting up for a winning Brainstorm). I suspect the card is not good enough in a TES shell, and you're better off running 2 Preordain or additional rituals.
Coincidentally, Preordain was one of the three cards I was testing for the slot. While cantripping is always nice in this deck, it didn't have what I was looking for. The original reason I made room for 2x LDV (or a tutor / cantrip slot in general) was due to getting mana flooded quite often without any buisness spells in hand. Chrome Mox is an excellent card, but I rarely want to see more than one before going off. It's too stressing on your hand to ever imprint more than one card for multiples (pre-Ad Nauseam). And after removing white, I felt 3 Thoughtseize to be the right number.


The reason you run a 5c manabase is not just because of cards like chant/grip.

TES is a three color deck with very little land. You want each land to produce all three colors so you don't put yourself in an awkward situation when you don't see a second land. Three color control decks have the luxury of playing much more lands and being able to play the long game. TES wants to combo out ASAP.

Imagine a hand with Duress, Burning wish, Ponder, and a ritual. Ask yourself if you'd rather have a 5c land or a dual land in that situation. I've played with a fetchland configuration, and honestly, it's not an improvement over the 5c manabase.

Running a basic land will not help drastically against wasteland. A competent player will just cut you off of a color while you sit there helpless.

I personally like Bryant's current list. I played it card for card at SCG: Denver, only with a maindeck pyroblast. I'm not entirely sure that's correct. I was anticipating lots of merfolk, but playing against merfolk, I think I would have rather had the 4th chant. Pyroblast is a reactive card. There were situations where I needed to go off with LED and had pyro in hand. Obviously a chant would have been better.
When you can conserve land with basics it saves you time (1 turn) rebuilding your mana base. Against decks using Wasteland to slow you down, having two basics can prevent delays in mana development. Having one basic would be incorrect and can fail to the situation you have outlined, having two out can be quite productive.

I'm not touting this as the correct manabase configuration. It's worked well in testing so far, but that doesn't make it infallible. I do prefer it at the moment with Wasteland so prevelant. Having the option to ignore mana denial can be quite advantageous.

[ZZZ]

@3c vs 5c: I've played both and both have their advantages and disadvantages. In my last tournament with TES, I played Emidln's 3c colour list and although I was really happy with it I'll be playing Bryant's list upcoming Sunday.
It's been said a couple of times that the 3c list is more Wasteland proof because it runs basics but I found this could also be a disadvantage at times. I've had to mull some excellent hands because my 1 land was a swamp. Also against Merfs for instance fetching a basic might just be to slow at times when you need the blue mana for a cantrip but you need black or red to use your ritual on the next turn.

A couple of good points have been made on the discard vs Chant topic. Some of the more obvious ones which haven't been said:
- Using discard on your combo turn against a Top in play you can get blown out by a floating counter; you can't have that with Chant (unless they have 1 counter in hand and 1on top but then your screwed with discard as well).
- Chant is great after EtW; Thoughtseize and Duress aren't bad either but not as good as Chant.
- Discard is better vs. Counterbalance and permanent based hate.
- Discard can be played before the combo turn which frees up a mana on your combo turn but allows for top deck counters.

Just a couple of notes for people contemplating the 2 builds.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

yeah I read your report.. it is evident in it that you believe in your philosophy to win asap. It's almost always ad nauseum and rarely anything else.. too bad it wasn't more detailed about the regular turns. I'd like to hear about how you read the opponent and what was on the board.

Ad Naus is just the cleanest, simplest kill. The majority of my matchups were non-interactive, so I just went for the sure thing. I did win a nontrivial amount of games with Diminishing Returns and Ill-Gotten Gains. It's just that those engines either are more random (DRet) or require more setup (IGG). In my match in T8, I won game 2 off a desperate Returns.


When you can conserve land with basics it saves you time (1 turn) rebuilding your mana base. Against decks using Wasteland to slow you down, having two basics can prevent delays in mana development. Having one basic would be incorrect and can fail to the situation you have outlined, having two out can be quite productive.

I'm not touting this as the correct manabase configuration. It's worked well in testing so far, but that doesn't make it infallible. I do prefer it at the moment with Wasteland so prevelant. Having the option to ignore mana denial can be quite advantageous.

In my experience with the deck, you usually won't have time to find the two basics before it's too late. I agree that having a wasteland proof manabase is strong, but only against a deck that isn't putting you on a clock. Part of the reason Merfolk is a tough matchup is because they can disrupt you with wasteland AND crap out monsters. In a deck that wants to win fast, I want my lands to produce all three colors that I'm playing. I'm not saying running basics in a combo deck is wrong. I'm saying that it may not be optimal in a list like Bryant's.

[Jander78]

In my experience with the deck, you usually won't have time to find the two basics before it's too late. I agree that having a wasteland proof manabase is strong, but only against a deck that isn't putting you on a clock. Part of the reason Merfolk is a tough matchup is because they can disrupt you with wasteland AND crap out monsters. In a deck that wants to win fast, I want my lands to produce all three colors that I'm playing. I'm not saying running basics in a combo deck is wrong. I'm saying that it may not be optimal in a list like Bryant's.
Merfolk is one of the matchups where this configuration can work towards your advantage. Not allowing their mana denial strategy to take full effect will help you keep up with them. As far as time is concerned, it's not usually too hard to get the Swamp and Island between the first two turns. It allows you to saftely cast a cantrip / discard spell turn 1 without worrying about losing your land on the opponents turn. I'm not disagreeing with you as I agree that it may not be optimal, but so far I have found it too my liking. The current accepted mana base (Bryant's) can have the same discrepancies. If a 5 color land gets Wasted and you only have a dual or fetchland in hand, you fall to the same issues.

[ScatmanX]

While playing against Goblins, what is the SB card that you guys most fear coming from it?
I have tested Chalice and Thorn (and ReB). Think asking wouldn't hurt...

[AriLax]

While playing against Goblins, what is the SB card that you guys most fear coming from it?
I have tested Chalice and Thorn (and ReB). Think asking wouldn't hurt...

No single card actually scares me that much. Possibly Chalice as my knee jerk reaction would be boarding a couple Chain of Vapors. I'm more afraid of them hitting a critical mass of hate that still lets their deck function. If they had White Leyline, Thorn/Chalice, and an Earwig Squad I would be afraid.

[Rico Suave]

This deck cannot afford to run basic lands. If your goal is to run a Wasteland proof mana base, 3 colors in a combo deck will never, ever work. You just have to accept that Wastelands will frequently ruin you and that Merfolk is a poor match because of it.

Now, playing a 2 color deck will let it fight Wastelands. But then it no longer has Burning Wish and it gets worse against everything else.

[Azdraël]

It is not that problem, we run a great amount of fetchs, and swamp/island. Just get the red mana when you need it to combo off. Sure Wasteland can slow you down, but it is not the greatest threat.

[Jim Higginbottom]

Since when did merfolk become a matchup that we need to ruin our mana base and weaken the deck to play against? I've played against the deck a lot in recent tournaments so I went back and looked at the results and I've won them 6 out of my most 10 recent matches. Play tighter..people who have been playing this deck for a while have positive merfolk matchups.

[Jander78]

Since when did merfolk become a matchup that we need to ruin our mana base and weaken the deck to play against? I've played against the deck a lot in recent tournaments so I went back and looked at the results and I've won them 6 out of my most 10 recent matches. Play tighter..people who have been playing this deck for a while have positive merfolk matchups.
I don't agree with Merfolk being a positive matchup for this deck. Regardless of your recent personal tournament performances, which is pretty close to the projected matchup percentage in the opening post (albeit 60% compared to 50%), the matchups that this deck has close win/loss percentages with is mainly due to mana denial, with Wasteland being the key culprit (sub prison). Discounting this as a "play tighter" scenario is facetious. This is not being claimed as a solution, just a suggestion in different environments where you may run into many Wastelands.

[Rune]

Since when did merfolk become a matchup that we need to ruin our mana base and weaken the deck to play against? I've played against the deck a lot in recent tournaments so I went back and looked at the results and I've won them 6 out of my most 10 recent matches. Play tighter..people who have been playing this deck for a while have positive merfolk matchups.

Well, I guess it's important to distinguish between the Merfolk builds. Are you talking about Saito's build with maindeck Spell Pierce, or something like the 16 lords, Standstill-less nonsense? I don't think anyone is really worried about the latter. All of the older builds are very much beatable, so I would only be impressed by a positive record against Saitofolk.

[Jim Higginbottom]

7 of them were Ub merfolk...saito's build. I won 4 of those. Also I think it's important to mention that in the 4 matches I lost all of them went to game 3 and all were very close. One of the losses was to Alex Bertoncini playing mono blue who won game 3 by drawing 3 forces and a couple wastelands...this matchup isn't bad.

[emidln]

If you mulled a hand with only basic swamp in my list you'd mull that exact same hand with Bryant's list 100% of the time. The swamp is the 14th land that I play over Bryant's 8th protection spell. In Bryant's list, you'd have a Silence there and you'd quickly mull your almost good opener because of lack of mana.

As far as not being wasteland proof, this deck is extremely good vs wasteland.

The basics chosen were for a very specific reason. You rarely cast red spells outside of your combo turn (the occasional wish->ts aside). This lets an uncracked fetch, petal, or mox function as your red source while your Swamp/Island are used during your critical setup turns. I thought this was obvious but I was probably giving this thread too much credit.

For every game you win because you go turn 1 BS/Ponder, turn 2 play a second land make RB in a 5c list you're going to lose at least one game to enemy going turn 1 Waste your land. When it comes down it, casting spells is extremely important and you don't get to do this as often without basics.

FWIW, I play an extra land (Bayou) in my sideboard and bring in 4 Xantid Swarm with this manabase:

4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp

My sideboard has 1 Bayou in it.

If anyone's curious, I'd play extra lands in Bryant's build over the same protection spell too. I don't feel like 13 lands is enough in a metagame with this many Wastelands. If you're playing a matchup without LD, go ahead and side out 1-2 lands.

[Pulp_Fiction]

I have also been liking the 14th land. It actually doesn't set DReturns off that bad. I still have a 70-85% success rate with it depending on how much mana is floating. And I also agree on 7 protection spells. Now I am not sure exactly what u run but I play 4x Duress and 3x Thoughtseize and really like it.

[Shimi]

I'm 3-2 against Merfolks in my last 3 tournaments with TES with the Bryant list and ofcourse waste ruined my day in one match but Iggy + Silence own me another match where Adn or EtW would not get there , against a CB deck with Top in the table silence is much more valuable than duress cause they can flip Top and draw Fow from the top to stop you after they show you their "counterless hand".
I didn't tested 3c list but for me it is very clear that silence/chant > duress/seize and that multiple wastelands just happen less than being manascrewed by basic lands.

[ZZZ]

FWIW, I play an extra land (Bayou) in my sideboard and bring in 4 Xantid Swarm with this manabase:

4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp

My sideboard has 1 Bayou in it.



Now I'm curious. This means you cut the Doomsday Shelldock plan from your side?
I switched to Bryant's main and was planning on trying out Xantid Swarm in the side (because of the Saito-Merfolk matchup) but now I'm tempted to take your list again. Do you mind sharing your sideboard?
Thanks,
Z

[emidln]

I think I've mentioned it elsewhere in the thread, but the Doomsday sideboard plan didn't win signficantly more games than going -1 Ponder, +1 Thoughtseize while on the play postboard. On the draw, it did a lot better, but I wasn't losing enough (and the CB I see isn't hateful enough) to really warrant taking that much space. Madness and Merfolk are a good bit more of the metagame though...

The sideboard that I'd run in a tourney tomorrow would be:

Tendrils of Agony
Empty the Warrens
Grapeshot
Diminishing Returns
Ill-Gotten Gains
Thoughtseize
Pulverize
Bayou
3 Chain of Vapor
4 Xantid Swarm

[ZZZ]

Thanks, I like it a lot.

You're pretty much screwed against a resolved CounterTop but like you said, I expect a lot more Merfolk and Madness (and other Survival builds), so that's a risk I'm willing to take.
I'll probably be playing this on Sunday.
Thanks again.

[JonBarber]

Thanks, I like it a lot.

You're pretty much screwed against a resolved CounterTop but like you said, I expect a lot more Merfolk and Madness (and other Survival builds), so that's a risk I'm willing to take.
I'll probably be playing this on Sunday.
Thanks again.

If your worried about countertop and already playing the bayou you could always run Reverent Silence in your board.

[rsaunder]

If your worried about countertop and already playing the bayou you could always run Reverent Silence in your board.

Since its only post-board it seems weak. I'd almost run a forest of some sort main if I was going to bother using the slot.

[jandax]

If you run Burning Wish its not resigned to post board

[emidln]

I think all of you missed the part where Bayou is the worst swamp ever unless it's casting Xantid Swarm. This is all assuming you're okay with trying to solve a 2 into a 4 when they can counter either.

If they CB you, you should have (a) got luckier with Duress/TS or (b) gone off sooner. Since we know those don't happen all the time, you can run the plan (c) of playing bait the CB until they have something that isn't crippling on top of their deck. You also probably need to accept that resolved CB is usually GG for your combo deck in g1 since you 2 useful high CC bombs as opposed to the 4-8 that Show and Tell, Doomsday, and Sneak Attack decks have.

[Psyqo]

So I'm in the process of building and playtesting TES. There is a Stax player in our local metagame. That deck is one nut I have yet to crack... how does TES deal with a T1 trinisphere, without waiting 3 or more turns for the mana to hit it with Chain of Vapor (after sideboard)? Before sideboard I would just feel like scooping to a T1 trini.

[Nidd]

So I'm in the process of building and playtesting TES. There is a Stax player in our local metagame. That deck is one nut I have yet to crack... how does TES deal with a T1 trinisphere, without waiting 3 or more turns for the mana to hit it with Chain of Vapor (after sideboard)? Before sideboard I would just feel like scooping to a T1 trini.
Stax doesn't really have a clock, if he doesn't get Crucible-Wasteland or Crucible-Flagstones-Smokestack going under the cover of Trinisphere/Chalice, you can just keep going on until you hit enough mana to get rid of it.

The MU is quite hard, but it's doable. Winning the roll is tech.

Today I won against Dragon Stompy and Pikula, but lost to Bant Aggro and Merfolk. I had abysmal draws against Merfolk, decent against Bant (but he slammed down a RWM and I kept drawing Rituals G1 =/). Drew the nuts against Pikula and Stompy, though.

[Lorgalis]

Any thoughts on Leonin Arbiter, the new hatebear? For reference:

Leonin Arbiter 1W
Players can't search libraries. Any player may pay 2 to ignore this effect until end of turn.
2/2

[Dia_Bot]

Not the best hate card imo. E.canonist is better for obvious reasons.

[Bryant Cook]

So I'm in the process of building and playtesting TES. There is a Stax player in our local metagame. That deck is one nut I have yet to crack... how does TES deal with a T1 trinisphere, without waiting 3 or more turns for the mana to hit it with Chain of Vapor (after sideboard)? Before sideboard I would just feel like scooping to a T1 trini.

Run rebuilds in the side.

[Ando]

Not the best hate card imo. E.canonist is better for obvious reasons.

Well, you can't grip the new guy though. Although Burning Wish makes the Arbiter a lot less good. Ehh, they both have pros and cons, but I think Canonist is overall better.

[alderon666]

Well, you can't grip the new guy though. Although Burning Wish makes the Arbiter a lot less good. Ehh, they both have pros and cons, but I think Canonist is overall better.

I woudn't worry too much about this new hatebear as it can only be played in monowhite decks. Playing it in decks with fetchs seems like a waste of time. And even in DnT Canonist + Mother is probably better against us, as we either need 2 answers or Krosan Grip to get rid of that.

[dsck]

Hi guys, I got couple newb questions:

1x Pyroclasm on sb, good or not? Kills Meddling Mages, Canonists and Teeg.

Is there any tips/guide for Diminishing Returns/Ill-gotten gains and Grapeshot? Example situations you want to use these?

Badlands instead of 2nd UG Sea, any noteable difference? Or should I just buy 2nd UG sea?

[Bryant Cook]

Hi guys, I got couple newb questions:

1x Pyroclasm on sb, good or not? Kills Meddling Mages, Canonists and Teeg.

Is there any tips/guide for Diminishing Returns/Ill-gotten gains and Grapeshot? Example situations you want to use these?

Badlands instead of 2nd UG Sea, any noteable difference? Or should I just buy 2nd UG sea?

Read the opening post for a lot of these questions.

Badlands doesn't cast cantrips which are vital in the opening turns of the game.

[Jim Higginbottom]

Every turn but the turn you win you need blue mana. Badlands doesn't tap for blue.

[kiwi]

today a I have won a tournament with 64 participants with TEPS, this deck is the nuts !!

I have a question , today I have played 4 burning wish +3 infernal tutor in main deck and 1 infernal tutor in sideboard, but some players preffer to play 4 burning wish and 4 infernal tutor in main, what is better and why ?

[Diprivan]

First of all, congrats on the finish!

I think nowadays most TES players prefer 4 infernal tutor main, as it speeds up your deck game 1. Even if you happen to have "too much" infernal tutors and/or burning wish in hand, you can still shuffle them away with brainstorm, or use infernal to get an extra led, dark ritual, etc (and burning to get iggy, returns, etw, whatever)

Against certain matchups, I board 1 infernal out. Either It's because you need space to board in some cards or you just want the ability to go burning wish into infernal into ad nauseam/iggy loop.
The landstill matchup is a good example of this, you board in some extra protection (pyroblast, xantids, thoughtseize, whatever). You build up your manabase, try to break through their counterwall and when you succeed you'll be able to use burning wish to find ad nauseam (via your SB infernal), which remains a bomb until lategame against landstill, as they don't have a clock.

[slobad23]

http://www.germagic.de/

If there any place for this card anywhere other than the sideboard as a wish target?

*molten psyche

[kilukru]

Nope,Winds of Change does the same relevent action for only R and we dont need/want it. The only time it would be good, is after a DR when you get a bad hand.

Brainstorm and Ponder are strickly better. If you end up with a hand that you would want to WoC, you probly should have mulliganed in the first place, or where really unlucky on top decks.

[Albert]

Hello Everybody.

I have been reading the source for more than a year now, but it is the first time I post here.
I am a former ANT player that after trying to settle for a deck went back to combo in the form of TES.
I played a 105 player tournament this Saturday and top2 splited it with 3 colour TES. I am working on a report, and there will be some videos about it soon.
Once I have the report completed I will post the link here. I hope you can take a look and comment on the list and plays I did.

It's good to be here!

Edit: Here is the link - Report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18889-[Report]-Top-2-Split-with-3c-TES-at-September-LCL-%28105-players%29)

[slobad23]

I have just re-read molten psyche and realize now that it is not a windfall effect... my bad!

[dsck]

Can somebody pm me how iggy loop works (wasnt in primer or im blind), thanks.

[ninja_attack]

Can somebody pm me how iggy loop works (wasnt in primer or im blind), thanks.

Fast mana (prefer some amount of lion's eye diamond) then burning wish> sacing lions eye diamond in response, then go get IGG,get back LED, a ritual (or another LED) and a tutor that you should have discarded with LED, then replay them > tendrils...

[x8eikdls]

Can somebody pm me how iggy loop works (wasnt in primer or im blind), thanks.

Hand: Infernal Tutor, LED, Burning Wish

Play IT for LED. Play LED x2, Burning Wish. Sac both LEDs for black in response to Wish. Grab IGG. Play it, returning LED x2 and Infernal Tutor. Play LED x2. Then IT, saccing LEDs in response for black. Fetch another IT, cast it, get Tendrils, win.

Generates 10 storm for 20 damage if you have 4 initial mana.

[dethangel666]

Hey why do people run 3 orims chant and 1 silence why not 4 orim's chant?

[Lorgalis]

Hey why do people run 3 orims chant and 1 silence why not 4 orim's chant?

In case the opponent has Meddling Mage, or something like that.

[maxflow2]

In case the opponent has Meddling Mage, or something like that.

Also, Silence gets around Leyline of Sanctity whereas Orim's Chant does not.

[Sage]

Also, Silence gets around Leyline of Sanctity whereas Orim's Chant does not.

If Meddling Mage and Leyline of Sanctity are seeing play, wouldn't it make sense to run two of each as kicking an Orim's Chant is almost never done? Mabey even 3 silence/1 chant. In my playtesting, kicking chant really set me back and made it very difficult to combo off the next turn.

[maxflow2]

If Meddling Mage and Leyline of Sanctity are seeing play, wouldn't it make sense to run two of each as kicking an Orim's Chant is almost never done? Mabey even 3 silence/1 chant. In my playtesting, kicking chant really set me back and made it very difficult to combo off the next turn.

I actually play a 3c version with Thoughtseize over Silence/Chant because I was disappointed with both cards when I tried them, so I'm not entirely sure how often either of those come up. But a Meddling Mage on Orim's Chant is pretty much only going to come up versus Bant and Leyline of Sanctity hasn't been seeing that much play in my experience (and in the decks I have seen it in, like enchantress or lands, you actually don't care about casting Silence/Chant that much). I would think the option of kicking Chant would win you more games than the cases in which either of the previous matter. Bryant's list is admittedly pretty low on white sources, so maybe the option to kick it doesn't come up that often, though.

[Bryant Cook]

If Meddling Mage and Leyline of Sanctity are seeing play, wouldn't it make sense to run two of each as kicking an Orim's Chant is almost never done? Mabey even 3 silence/1 chant. In my playtesting, kicking chant really set me back and made it very difficult to combo off the next turn.

I Chanted with kicker twice at GP: Columbus. It's very relevant. The 3/1 is the correct number for splitting them.

New T.E.S players - Please read the opening post before asking questions. The last few pages also have had the questions you're already asking. Please do research before posting the same question repeatedly.

[rocketrae21]

I was just wondering it there was any thought to how Mox Opal would fair in the deck? I was thinking a two of, but I wasn't sure what the community thought

[Autotron]

I was just wondering it there was any thought to how Mox Opal would fair in the deck? I was thinking a two of, but I wasn't sure what the community thought

My understanding is that Mox Opal is a "Win More" card. I'm tempted to try it, but it's a $40 mythic that has a lot of hindrances built in (legendary, metalcraft). The price will hopefully drop after the hype dies down.

What does it offer that your other cards don't offer better?
In order to use it you will need two more artifacts. What artifacts does the deck have? Chrome mox, Lotus Petal, and Lion's Eye Diamond. If you already have two artifacts you can play, does Mox Opal help that much more?

And be careful wanting to cut Chrome Mox for it. Chrome Mox helps empty your hand for Hellbent, a hindrance that can actually be a benefit. Also, I've heard people mention adding artifact lands. That seems dangerous as it allows for extra Wastelands.

[rocketrae21]

It just seems helpful trying to go off when you need a mana, yet your hand has nothing to imprint on chrome mox. There has been plenty of times I have been waiting to draw a color card just to go off

[psu42]

Mox Opal seems worse than Chrome Mox imo. You need a combo of 2 petal/Leds to get it to work. And legendary sucks.

On another note, it makes affinity playable maybe in legacy, and it is super rare, or whatever they hell its called. The price will probably stay 30-35.

[ComboMan]

I was just wondering it there was any thought to how Mox Opal would fair in the deck? I was thinking a two of, but I wasn't sure what the community thought

Seriously... Mox Opal just sux in the deck. Believe in me

[Ando]

I was just wondering it there was any thought to how Mox Opal would fair in the deck? I was thinking a two of, but I wasn't sure what the community thought

I would do a 2-of Mox Diamond way before even considering Opal. Diamond is nuts post Ad Nauseam, which is generall the only time Mox Opal would be good, but it's more likely that you'd have an extra land than 3 artifacts out, seeing as you burn through a lot getting Ad Naus mana.

Basically, Mox Opal is no good at the moment.

[Bryant Cook]

I would do a 2-of Mox Diamond way before even considering Opal. Diamond is nuts post Ad Nauseam, which is generall the only time Mox Opal would be good, but it's more likely that you'd have an extra land than 3 artifacts out, seeing as you burn through a lot getting Ad Naus mana.

Basically, Mox Opal is no good at the moment.

However, Mox Diamond is a dead draw before Ad Nauseam making it worthless. With so few lands it's hardly ever going to be worthwhile. Although, I do agree on what's been said so far about Mox Opal.


Seriously... Mox Opal just sux in the deck. Believe in me

Thank you for your constructive criticism. Please come back and post more uselessness.

[Lorgalis]

Well, I've been playing with one diamond for quite some time and I've Never been dissapointed with it. I usually only draw it post-AdN, when it is stellar if you're low on life. I haven't tried the deck with 2 of them, because it can end in risky situations.
I do agree on Opal being bad for the deck, also due to the reasons stated.

[x8eikdls]

Well, I've been playing with one diamond for quite some time and I've Never been dissapointed with it. I usually only draw it post-AdN, when it is stellar if you're low on life. I haven't tried the deck with 2 of them, because it can end in risky situations.
I do agree on Opal being bad for the deck, also due to the reasons stated.

Why play a card that is only good when you're already winning, aka post-Ad Nauseam? I'd play another land before I played the first Mox diamond.

[Lorgalis]

Well, probably because Chrome Mox sucks hard. On the rare occasion I have Mox Diamond on my opening hand (or pre-AdN), it will almost always be better than a Chrome, because I don't need to sacrifice some good accelerant nor a business spell to be able to get some mana out of it. Also, if your opponent is playing Wasteland, are you willing to trade any of your lands for an unwastable, painless and eternal rainbow land? I do. Regarding the drawback, discarding a land is not an issue when you're going off, and even less after AdN. At worst Diamond adds 1 storm for 0 mana, just as Chrome. Also, the whole "yes, Chrome is good because it enables hellbent"-thing is 99% of the times not relevant.

I would play 2 if that wasn't too risky, as stated above.

[kilukru]

A relatively common situation with this deck is the : c'mon top deck I need 1 mana, any mana to go off.

Now take this situation with a chrome mox in hand, it mean that you will go off with every single card in the deck except another chrome mox and sometime LED, odds are good
Now try this with a Mox Diamond, you have Lands and petal as out, and in the sometime depending of the situation categorie : LED, Ritual and Rite of flame. Odds are alot worst

And for me, putting cards that only shine post AdN is like putting anti aggro cards in the side, you can do it, you will use it, when you do you will KRUSSSHHH your opponent, but you dont need it and those slot can be putted to better use.

[frogboy]

Some thoughts:

I've been finding that it's hard to support a manabase with basics when you're playing three colors and Mox. With only about thirteen to fourteen lands, you'll usually have to expose at least one dual to Wasteland before going off. This gets exacerbated when you're playing a cantrip on turn one, need a basic, and plan on casting Rite and Ritual later in the game.

I'm also getting pissed off at Burning Wish. It's pretty damn hard to kill someone with just a Wish. Looping IGG requires a weird draw where you binned an Infernal earlier or just happened to draw your Tendrils or something. Getting to ten manually is pretty difficult. Diminishing Returns can brick. Having an Infernal in your board requires a ton of mana and, you know, having an Infernal in your board. Empty the Warrens past turn one (or two on the play) is fairly risky unless you're making twelve plus. It's hard to just Wish on turn two and get any sort of value out of it. I usually hate drawing two.

I also hate drawing two Chrome Mox, although I'm reasonably pleased with the first one, especially when I'm having trouble getting hellbent on my Tutor.

I hate killing people with Ad Nauseam and win most of my games against non-Blue decks with Ill-Gotten Gains on turn two or three. I just never want to cast Ad Nauseam unless I have mana floating or a land drop or almost all of my 0cc mana is in the deck.

When you cast Lim-Dul's Vault on turn two, your opponent is usually but not always dead on turn three; however, drawing multiples is pretty bad. I like Vault a lot against aggro decks, but Grim Tutor is better against control decks.

I pretty much always want to cast a cantrip on turn one unless my opponent is going to be dead on turn one or two. I want to find room for Preordain quite badly. I feel like Dark Ritual, Lion's Eye Diamond, and Infernal Tutor are much, much better than the rest of the cards in the deck and want to have as much access to them as possible.

[Lorgalis]

It seems that you should play the UB version then, as you're disliking the red part of the deck (and Chrome Mox). There's a primer here (http://www.mananation.com/legacy-storm-primer/), by Arix Lax.

So far, while I haven't tested it yet, I'm not liking the UB version. Wish is a very powerful card, while Rite of Flame and Empty the Warrens are meh. IMO Wish alone justifies the addition of red; also, Silence/Orim's Chant is very good against a variety of decks.

[frogboy]

I mean, it's not terribly persuasive to be like 'the Red splash is worth it because Burning Wish is so powerful' when I just went ahead and outlined all of the reasons that I basically hate drawing it.

It occurred to me that because I move in on Ad Nauseam less frequently that I value Chrome Mox lower. That makes sense, and it's possible that I should be embracing variance more often. However, 4 Chrome Mox 13 land manabases are exceptionally vulnerable to Wasteland.

[Autotron]

Also, the whole "yes, Chrome is good because it enables hellbent"-thing is 99% of the times not relevant.

I'm not getting the same percentages as you. Seems like a lot of these issues were addressed in the primer.

[Albert]

You can see the vids of my last round of the tournament (3c TES vs Dreaded merfolks) in this link: Videos (http://zasca-team.blogspot.com/2010/09/videos-top-4-lcl3-septiembre-con.html)

The report of the tournament is here: Report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18889-[Report]-Top-2-Split-with-3c-TES-at-September-LCL-%28105-players%29)

I hope you enjoy it.

It would be great if you could give me any feedback on the plays or list I played.

[x8eikdls]

You can see the vids of my last round of the tournament (3c TES vs Dreaded merfolks) in this link: Videos (http://zasca-team.blogspot.com/2010/09/videos-top-4-lcl3-septiembre-con.html)

The report of the tournament is here: Report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18889-[Report]-Top-2-Split-with-3c-TES-at-September-LCL-%28105-players%29)

I hope you enjoy it.

It would be great if you could give me any feedback on the plays or list I played.

I'd comment on your play, but I was too distracted by all the ugly white-bordered cards to notice anything else. =[

[Albert]

That's exactly the point of playing White Border cards! Distracting the oponent! :tongue:
More than once in a tournament I've had oponents looking disgusted at my white border cards. As long as they are thinking on something that is not strictly the game, the white border is serving its purpose.

In the videos you can see that there is a BlackBorder basic Island... I have already switched it for a white border one! :laugh:

[lorddotm]

That's exactly the point of playing White Border cards! Distracting the oponent! :tongue:
More than once in a tournament I've had oponents looking disgusted at my white border cards. As long as they are thinking on something that is not strictly the game, the white border is serving its purpose.

In the videos you can see that there is a BlackBorder basic Island... I have already switched it for a white border one! :laugh:

If you're going for that strategy, just pimp the deck.

[alderon666]

Is there a general consensus on the minimal amount of mana (and color) to have floating to safely diminishing returns?

ourserrateddust postedon StormBoards this set of tests he did on DR. He says he also posted this in here, but I don't have time to find it. I'll just paste it here.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted this on the Source as well:

Over the last week, I've been compiling some data and going through scenarios involving Diminishing Returns in TES. I wanted to find the fizzle percentages of various floating mana combinations after DR had resolved. In order to accurately do this, I needed to set some initial conditions. As Diminishing Returns is on the stack, I assumed the following:

-One Burning Wish is exiled.
-You have two tapped gold lands in play (Gemstone Mine, and City of Brass.)
-The opponent is at 18 life.
-The storm count is four (including DR.)
-You are at a safe life total for Ad Nauseam.
-You haven't played a land yet this turn.

Obviously the gamestates in which you cast Diminishing returns vary greatly, but I felt these were reasonable conditions for my purpose. The TES list I am using is Bryant Cook's most current.

I played this scenario out fifty times with the various mana combinations, and this is what I came up with.

Mana Floating/Win Percentage

None: 18%
U: 38%
R: 42%
B: 42%
UU: 54%
UR: 66%
UB: 66%
RR: 54%
RB: 66%
BB: 60%

(U/B/R): 48%
(U/B/R) (U/B/R): 70%
U (U/B/R): 66%
R (U/B/R): 70%
B (U/B/R): 70%

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[emidln]

I mean, it's not terribly persuasive to be like 'the Red splash is worth it because Burning Wish is so powerful' when I just went ahead and outlined all of the reasons that I basically hate drawing it.

It occurred to me that because I move in on Ad Nauseam less frequently that I value Chrome Mox lower. That makes sense, and it's possible that I should be embracing variance more often. However, 4 Chrome Mox 13 land manabases are exceptionally vulnerable to Wasteland.

Then play 14-15 lands. There have been several reports from 3c players playing up to 15 lands. I routinely run 3.5 color and the fetch/dual/basic config has posted results on mtgo as well.

Any argument about not wanting to fetch for turn 1 Island to cast a cantrip because you want to go turn 2 rit+rite is bad. If you're fairly certain they're playing Wasteland and you cantrip turn 1 off a nonbasic, then they waste you, you're not casting your rit+rite on turn 2 anyway (barring Petal/Mox, but you'd then be doing the same thing as if you had got Island, only with +U). You are correct that you have to expose yourself to Wasteland at some point once you get to three lands, but in doing so, you're probably comboing off that turn if you led with double fetch/basic.

I've said this in the past, but it comes down to whether you value casting spells against disruption decks. 5c Lands let you cast all of your spells all of the time, provided the Wasteland player doesn't draw their 4-ofs (and sometimes ways to recur them). The basics/duals config lets you cast your most important spells (cantrips and disruption) all of the time, at the expense of possibly needing a third initial mana source on turn 2 to get to BR in games when your opponent doesn't have Wasteland (the games where they do have it, as I explained, are a wash).

[Autotron]

in reference to the diminishing returns post:

/see page 1

[frogboy]

What about just playing more lands? Wasteland is a lot less powerful if you have a land to replace it with; it's pretty hard to use Wasteland for value against a deck like Tendrils that can kill on turn two.

edit: for those who run Xantid Swarm: Do you ever have any problems against the actual card Counterbalance when you don't have Pyroblasts to answer it with?

[emidln]

What about just playing more lands? Wasteland is a lot less powerful if you have a land to replace it with; it's pretty hard to use Wasteland for value against a deck like Tendrils that can kill on turn two.

edit: for those who run Xantid Swarm: Do you ever have any problems against the actual card Counterbalance when you don't have Pyroblasts to answer it with?

Yes. That's what 8ish Duress effects are for. If they hide it with Brainstorm and then resolve it, you can try to force the issue and hopefully they don't flip well. If they do flip well, hopefully they don't land top and stop flipping well relatively soon. The best solution I've found (outside of casting Doomsday for Shelldock Isle->Emrakul) is Duress effects.

[Autotron]

anyone care to sum up Matt Sperling's article on Starcitygames in regards to Mox Opal in TES for those of us that don't have premium?

[rocketrae21]

He doesn't talk about TES at all. He talks about Mox Opal in a Vintage highlight and in Belcher. So you aren't missing anything, unless you plan on playing Affinity

[AriLax]

I really dislike the "Haven't played a land clause" on the Dim. Ret. numbers. Only really valid on 3 at which point Wish for Ret could have been Vault/any other tutor or you should be able to even straight Tendrils them.

Max, if you have issues with Wish you can play a Infernal Tutor in the board, but then that brings up the whole issue of "Why is one of my best cards not in my deck".

[frogboy]

Ari: Well, yeah, exactly.

I don't think I'm moving in on Empty the Warrens or Ad Nauseam with no mana floating and no land drop frequently enough with the Burning Wish builds. I've been messing around with Doomsday builds for the last few hours to increase my threat density, but I don't think I'm smart enough to play or build them. For a while, John Penick was on a plan of sideboarding 4 Doomsday with the Emrakul package against specifically Counterbalance and I might try that out, but jamming Doomsday in the main is a bit beyond me, I think.

I also think that I'm not aggressive enough about slamming down Empty for ten or twelve in the first few turns and that I need to man up a bit; similarly, I hate moving in on Ad Nauseam when I've played a land and have no mana floating.

emidln: From what I can tell, you're playing a list pretty close to this, right?

4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp

4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

1 Ad Nauseam
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony

3 Thoughtseize
4 Duress

Sideboard
1 Bayou
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Pulverize
1 Diminshing Returns
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Thoughtseize
1 Grapeshot
3 Chain of Vapor

My only real questions are sideboarding related; I have basically no idea what I'm doing and never want to cut anything aside from like Duress. I think if I'm bringing in Xantid Swarms against Counterbalance that I'm just conceding if they lock me and I'm pretty okay with that, but I'm still not sure what to cut. I can see boarding out like 2 Chrome Mox and maybe like 1 Wish 1 Ponder or something?

I assume you've tried a Maelstrom Pulse in the board and a plan of boarding in Grips and Pyroblasts to fight Counterbalance. I'm not a huge fan of the Pyroblast plan against most Blue decks because if they Daze your first Ritual effect and have a second counterspell when you try to Ritual in response, you never really get a window to Pyroblast them. Similarly, if I have Grip, I'm not worried about Counterbalance and I'm pretty content to set up multiple Duresses before moving in. Have you just found that it's better to try to Duress them or hope they don't lock you while setting up more turn two and three kills?

Is it worth diversifying the sideboard bounce cards to beat Chalice, or are you just planning on Pulverizing?

How do people feel about Preordain over Ponder? I frequently only want to keep one of the cards that I Ponder into.

[Bahamuth]

I've played 4 DD 1 Emrakul 1 SI sideboard. It's a decent plan and it does give you another pan to go for. I didn't feel like it improved the CB matchup enough to warrant the slots. DD main in this deck isn't going to be any good ever.

emidln runs that list -1 Ponder -1 EtW -3 Thoughtseize +4 Swarm +1 AdN (and perhaps a different mana base).

When you're boarding in the Swarms, you've gotta be boarding out other protection. This deck can't really funcion if it runs more than, say, 10 protection, and I'd keep it at 8 if I could. Furthermore, a Chrome Mox and Ponder are the first cards to go.

I don't know that much about the American meta, but I doubt people play enough Chalices to warrant any more than 7 Duress and 4 Pulverize.

Ponder is miles better than Preordain. You're gonna lose games on Preordain not digging enough.

[Azdraël]

Emrakul is a house agaisnt CBtop, I've never felt that confident playing agaisnt Cb.deck. If your field is full of CB, go for Emrakul, definitely.

[The Big Ragu]

Nice to see this deck in its rightful place as being tier 1. I wish the format had more pure combo decks that could match up to it.

[AriLax]

Is Rite of Flame actually better than Cabal Ritual, even in the UBR builds? Ritual has consistently been thresholded on turn 3 for me, meaning Rite is only better on turn 1-2 in multiples or when you want RR for Wish-Empty.

[JonBarber]

Is Rite of Flame actually better than Cabal Ritual, even in the UBR builds? Ritual has consistently been thresholded on turn 3 for me, meaning Rite is only better on turn 1-2 in multiples or when you want RR for Wish-Empty.

Yes, right of flame is really good. It pays for bwishes that are followed with an LED crack, etw, and generates lots of mana in multiples. Idk how you hit threshold on turn 3 consistently with this deck. Only 4 fetches makes it a very difficult thing to do.

[AriLax]

Yes, right of flame is really good. It pays for bwishes that are followed with an LED crack, etw, and generates lots of mana in multiples. Idk how you hit threshold on turn 3 consistently with this deck. Only 4 fetches makes it a very difficult thing to do.

1. You know what else pays for B-wishes followed by LED crack? A red mana from a land.

2. I was talking more in context of the UBR builds, as the 5C build is in no way hitting threshold ever.

3. In multiples, it generates 1 more than 2 unthresholded Cabal Rituals, but what are the odds the first Cabal gives threshold to the second?

[Nidd]

1. You know what else pays for B-wishes followed by LED crack? A red mana from a land.

2. I was talking more in context of the UBR builds, as the 5C build is in no way hitting threshold ever.

3. In multiples, it generates 1 more than 2 unthresholded Cabal Rituals, but what are the odds the first Cabal gives threshold to the second?
A red land produces R, while RoF produces RR.

[emidln]

My build on MTGO is:

2 Ad Nauseam
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox

4 Duress
4 Xantid Swarm

4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Tropical Island
2 Gemstone Mine
1 Snow-covered Island
1 Snow-covered Swamp

SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Grapeshot
SB: 1 Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 1 Diminishing Returns
SB: 1 Meltdown
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 3 Dark Confidant

My sideboard plans lately have been (vs common MTGO decks):

Merfolk/Madness:

-2 Ponder
+2 Thoughtseize

Note: Cutting Chrome Moxen here is a bad idea since they tend to put a ton of damage on you in a hurry, and you're often going off at between 10-14 life.

Zoo/Goblins:

-4 Xantid Swarm
-1 Tropical Island
-1 Duress
+3 Thoughtseize
+2 Chain of Vapor
+1 Echoing Truth

Note:

Thoughtseize, even when it takes a burn spell, costs less life than getting hit by the burn spell. I know that Legacy players will probably roast me for this, but it's been sound theory in other formats for a long time. Having 10 ways to get rid of their hatebears and 14 ways to deal with potential Chalices/Thorns is very strong.

Vs Goblins you end up not taking out the land, but the infinite discard isn't as relevant either since they tend to play very little in the way of hate for you (sometimes you see Mindbreak Trap, Thorn of Amethyst, Chalice, Thoughtseize, or Pyrostatic Pillar, but none of those usually get combined).

DnT:

-4 Xantid Swarm
-1 Chrome Mox
-1 Ponder
+3 Thoughtseize
+2 Chain of Vapor
+1 Echoing Truth

Note: DnT does not do damage nearly as fast as Merfolk/Madness. Cutting Chrome Mox doesn't hurt as much since you tend to Ad Nauseam at much higher totals.

Storm w/Chants (e.g. 5c TES or UBw DD:
-4 Ponder
-2 Chrome Mox
+3 Thoughtseize
+3 Dark Confidant

Storm w/o Chants (e.g. UB ANT or 3c TES):

-4 Xantid Swarm
-2 Ponder
+3 Thoughtseize
+3 Dark Confidant

Note: Belcher is basically the same here but you want to not bring in Dark Confidants but give yourself a miser's Echoing Truth. In theory you can bring in the 2 Chain of Vapors too since Belcher has to lay down Belcher ASAP in this matchup due to your discard, but you need to consider just how worse Chain is than Ponder.

This build is meant for the MTGO metagame which is pretty well infested with Tempo, combo, and aggro decks. Some CB exists, but not much.

Edit:

As far as Cabal Ritual goes, there are a number of issues with it. To run it over Rite of Flame, you'd probably need to be playing 7 fetch, 7 duress sot hat you have a chance of hitting threshold. Once you can do that pretty well, I guess it's not awful. It getting Spell Snared is probably actually good for you since you still have a chance to do something (i.e. they didn't snare that hellbent tutor you were about to play). It costs more for Cursecatcher/Daze/Spell Pierce/Ad Nauseam. The taxing effects might not be as relevant with maindeck Xantid Swarms (only Cursecatcher and Ad Naus flips are affected). The Ad Nauseam issue is particularly relevant as this deck is really all-in on Ad Nauseam (sure you can Wish->IGG/ETW/DReturns, but plans A, B, and C are Ad Nauseam, Ad Naus + Luck, and Ad Naus + Hope and Dreams) since it's by far your most effective solution to pretty much any problem.

[AriLax]

A red land produces R, while RoF produces RR.

I realize, hence my statement about early Burning Wishes for Empty the Warrens.

And emidln, I've actually found Cabal Ritual to be very good against taxing counters. It might just be the fact I run 17 lands, but I never have issues with Daze on my first Rituals. The issue arises in doing the math on IGG loops and Tutor chains where Daze pulls you off the critical mana count, and a Thresholded Cabal Ritual help a lot with this. It also allows you to actually just skip the middle man of IGG/Tendrils/Returns often and just go Tutor chain up Tendrils.

[Bahamuth]

Have you done any proper testing without the ToA main already emidln?

[frogboy]

emidln: Do you just never have issues having to Ad Nauseam to find Burning Wish for Tendrils when you're low against an aggro deck? It seems like the second Ad Nauseam is counter to a plan of flipping the deck until you find the Wish. I'll battle with that list for a while, though.

Ari: When you're fetching, cantripping, and Duressing on turns one and two, getting to threshold is easy, but the UBR decks don't build up their yard quite as fast.

[Bryant Cook]

emidln: Do you just never have issues having to Ad Nauseam to find Burning Wish for Tendrils when you're low against an aggro deck? It seems like the second Ad Nauseam is counter to a plan of flipping the deck until you find the Wish. I'll battle with that list for a while, though.

Ari: When you're fetching, cantripping, and Duressing on turns one and two, getting to threshold is easy, but the UBR decks don't build up their yard quite as fast.
Over the summer I tried boarding out my win conditions, it bit me in the ass more than it helped me. I highly recommend against it.


I realize, hence my statement about early Burning Wishes for Empty the Warrens.

And emidln, I've actually found Cabal Ritual to be very good against taxing counters. It might just be the fact I run 17 lands, but I never have issues with Daze on my first Rituals. The issue arises in doing the math on IGG loops and Tutor chains where Daze pulls you off the critical mana count, and a Thresholded Cabal Ritual help a lot with this. It also allows you to actually just skip the middle man of IGG/Tendrils/Returns often and just go Tutor chain up Tendrils.

What you're talking about relates more to ANT than to TES, perhaps it's something for the ANT thread. TES is known for it's low land count, high artifact mana, and fastness. Not not so much for cantripping, 17 lands, ect.


Is Rite of Flame actually better than Cabal Ritual, even in the UBR builds? Ritual has consistently been thresholded on turn 3 for me, meaning Rite is only better on turn 1-2 in multiples or when you want RR for Wish-Empty.

TES aims to win before turn 3-4 when Cabal Ritual becomes worth it's mana cost. I'm pretty sure we've had this argument before.

[emidln]

emidln: Do you just never have issues having to Ad Nauseam to find Burning Wish for Tendrils when you're low against an aggro deck? It seems like the second Ad Nauseam is counter to a plan of flipping the deck until you find the Wish. I'll battle with that list for a while, though.

You don't necessarily need to draw Wish to get Tendrils since you can IT->Wish too. It's possible that they rush you and drop you too low to Ad Nauseam into Burning Wish->Tendrils. It's not very likely. It's even less likely that you can't assemble something like Wish->IGG before they do that, although I've been pretty comfortable at 10-12 life. Besides that other Ad Nauseam, nothing in the deck costs more than 2.

The second Ad Nauseam is because I'd rather draw Ad Nauseam than any other business spell. I feel like 9 business is too few, and given the choice between a 4 mana ETW or a 5 mana Ad Nauseam, I'll just take the Ad Nauseam in most games. If I was running nothing but duress effects in the main, I might be inclined to swap it to ETW to improve Merfolk/Madness, but Xantid Swarm does that pretty well already.

AriLax: Extra lands help a ton. One of the primary reasons that DDFT has an easier time against the taxing decks is that it generally runs 16+ lands. Having 2-3 basics and a bunch of spare lands makes their Dazes and similar stuff pretty bad. The other reason that DDFT improves the matchup is that there isn't much contention between making land drops and needing life to go off with. You can go off at very low life so you can afford to make those extra land drops to turn off their soft counters. If an ANT deck had extra lands plus Cabal Ritual, I could see the tutor chain into Tendrils being a similar way of killing them at low life.

Bahaumuth: I've played 9 (went 8-1 losing to the UBR TES mirror) matches in 2 man queues on mtgo with no Tendrils. I missed it once, but found a way out involving Chain of Vapor to get some extra mana to be able to IT->Wish->Tendrils.

[median]

A lot of whats being discussed is similar to things I have some knoweldge about, so I thought I would give my $0.02
Currently I face a lot of tempo and mana denial, I've arrived at a list based off bryants
the main differences are,
-tendrils main
-1x infernal main
+1 infernal side
+1 ad nauseam main
the disruption is 1 pyroblast, 1 silence, 2 chant
Empty the warrens main
no diminishing returns
+ 1 firespout/perish side (tweak spot)
14 lands including one basic island and 5 fetches

I wanted to chime in because the 14 land with a basic mana base has solved the daze/pierce/waste issue for me, and the infernal over D returns in the side has solved the 14 land issue. The second ad nauseam has solved the missing main deck infernal issue, and moving tendrils to the side is what let me do the whole thing.
The only thing left I want to try is tweak the accelerants, either with cabal rituals in place of chrome moxes or an additional mox (diamond).

I want to stress that I really agree with emidin on this one and that more lands are great. And that I haven't been in too many situations where I wanted a tendrils main, and I have been in more where I was happy to have drawn an ad nauseam.

[manugl84]

With all those f***ing goblins and merfolks messing around, I´m thinking about adding a pyroclasm to the side, like these guys in Spain.

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=37965
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=37795

What do you think?

[practical joke]

With all those f***ing goblins and merfolks messing around, I´m thinking about adding a pyroclasm to the side, like these guys in Spain.

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=37965
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=37795

What do you think?

pyroclasm is quite nice, since it takes out all hatebears at once.

[kiwi]

Im playig now 3 colors version and Im thinkg about playing 1 massacre (in 3 colors version we have enoughts swamps) in sideboard for killing gaddocks and cannonists with burning wish.

From my point of view we dont need pyroclasm for winning the pairings againts goblins and a lot of times isnt useful againts merfolks, for this reason I preffer massacre instead of pyroclasm

[Jander78]

Im playig now 3 colors version and Im thinkg about playing 1 massacre (in 3 colors version we have enoughts swamps) in sideboard for killing gaddocks and cannonists with burning wish.
Not a horrible card, but Massacre still can't be played against Gaddock Teeg.

[CorpT]

Im playig now 3 colors version and Im thinkg about playing 1 massacre (in 3 colors version we have enoughts swamps) in sideboard for killing gaddocks and cannonists with burning wish.

From my point of view we dont need pyroclasm for winning the pairings againts goblins and a lot of times isnt useful againts merfolks, for this reason I preffer massacre instead of pyroclasm

How is Massacre better against anything than Pyroclasm?

[LostButSeeking]

Against any deck playing Ethersworn Canonist (or, I suppose, Leonin Arbiter) if they have a plains, It costs 1R to kill them (just the cost of the burning wish) and not 2RR (burning wish + pyroclasm).

[Bryant Cook]

This is why I play Grapeshot over Pyroclasm.

If you're Wishing for Pyroclasm against goblins you've already lost. It's past turn 4. You won't ever be going turn 2 wish for clasm, go.

If you're Wishing for Pyroclasm against Merfolk you've already lost because you're wasting business spells to kill dudes that quite frankly don't matter. They could kill you with a Mutavualt. Because if their hand is counters, you've lost because you didn't wish for Thoughtseize.

If you're wishing for Pyroclasm against Gaddeck Teeg/Cannonist why not have something with an additional purpose? I can't count how many times Grapeshot has saved my ass. Being able to deal two damage to Teeg and then 5-7 to your opponent and mini-Tendrils is a great strategy.

If you're opponent has Ruined Halo in play you're forced to go for Tokens against a deck that more than likely has Moat/EE.


5,000.

[Lorgalis]

Agreed with Cook. In my experience, Wishing for something to kill their dudes (other than a single hatebear) is a position were you don't want to be, and usually means that you're going to die no matter what. So...I wouldn't plan for that eventuality. And while I'm not an expert with this deck, I think that goblins don't stand a chance against us, so no need to plan for that either. Merfolk is a totally different matter though. But in either case is fundamentally flawed wishing for something to kill their guys, when you can simply kill the opponent.

That said, in my meta there are at least 2 good players that usually play Bant colors (either survival, aggro or counterbalance), so I keep a Pyroclasm in my board in case they try to double lock me with a combination of Meddling Mage, Gaddock Teeg and Ethersworn Canonist. I have yet to wish for it, so maybe I'll cut it next time...

[Autotron]

grats on the 5,000.

As far as pyroclasm, isn't the plan with the deck to simply get the combo going, forcing the other decks to be reactionary and spend time/resources trying to stop you? At which point, your duresses, orim's chants, etc. are already working.

[kiwi]

Ouch, sorry I didnt remember that then pyrclasm is better than masssacre:)

[Albert]

This is why I play Grapeshot over Pyroclasm.

If you're Wishing for Pyroclasm against goblins you've already lost. It's past turn 4. You won't ever be going turn 2 wish for clasm, go.

If you're Wishing for Pyroclasm against Merfolk you've already lost because you're wasting business spells to kill dudes that quite frankly don't matter. They could kill you with a Mutavualt. Because if their hand is counters, you've lost because you didn't wish for Thoughtseize.

If you're wishing for Pyroclasm against Gaddeck Teeg/Cannonist why not have something with an additional purpose? I can't count how many times Grapeshot has saved my ass. Being able to deal two damage to Teeg and then 5-7 to your opponent and mini-Tendrils is a great strategy.

If you're opponent has Ruined Halo in play you're forced to go for Tokens against a deck that more than likely has Moat/EE.


5,000.

I see the point against Teeg, but against Ethersworn it is not that clear cut...
Only to begin with you need one artifact in hand, or the grape will not even kill the Ethersworn, and I very much doubt you will be able to generate any storm only using artifacts to reach 5-7 damage to the opponent.

Yes, probably I am mixing your example with Teeg with my example with Ethersworn.
But I start to feel very inclined to play a pyroclasm in the side in addition to a grapeshot.

If you see my last tournament report grape gave me one of the games.

[frogboy]

I've been trying to decide what constitutes a kill with Empty when goldfishing. Basically, it seems like Empty for ten beats an empty board, but if they have a creature and can play a second, you need to be going for twelve plus, and if it's turn three you probably need fourteen or more Goblins. Thoughts?

I haven't had a ton of problems with emidln's list having all sideboarded win conditions. I have noticed that Ad Nauseam can be a little more painful, but you have to flip the second Ad Nauseam and hit a bunch of twos when you're short on mana for it to be truly relevant. Drawing Ad Nauseam is pretty awesome, although I've had some times where I've had six mana with IT + LED and I want to Empty and can't.

Bryant: What are your thoughts on emidln's manabase?

[Bryant Cook]

I dislike it a lot actually. The basics I think may hurt him more than help him. If he starts the game with Island, Ponder. Next turn fetches a sea, casts Duress. Get's wasted. He could be a in tough boat the rest of the game. Basics in Combo are highly overrated in my opinion. You shouldn't be planning for the long haul, you should be setting up for a quick win.

4 colors on duals and fetches too? All that does is slow down the deck in my opinion. You need too many colors in order to reliably go off, with duals and fetches you'll need more actual lands.

I think it's worse against Stifle/Waste decks because of what I said above. Not including the fact it doesn't have Empty against Daze/Spellpierce situations.

Xantid Vs Chant? I understand Merfolk is a big deck right now but Chant is all around better in my opinion. I guess if you're only planning on beating one type of blue deck, sure. Don't give me that UG Maddness crap either. They play 6 counterspells and 2 of them are Daze.\

There's more but I need to get to class.

[Jander78]

I dislike it a lot actually. The basics I think may hurt him more than help him. If he starts the game with Island, Ponder. Next turn fetches a sea, casts Duress. Get's wasted. He could be a in tough boat the rest of the game. Basics in Combo are highly overrated in my opinion. You shouldn't be planning for the long haul, you should be setting up for a quick win.
Why wouldn't you get Island / Swamp in this scenario? That's exactly a situation where it can be better. When you face Wasteland and still have 2 lands available instead of having one of them Wasted. I wouldn't say it's correct in a 4 color configuration, but if you're trying to cut down to 3 colors, then it does work. There is only 3 more fetchlands than your manabase (1 more land in general), so it's slightly more susceptible to Stifle, but still better against Wasteland.

[median]

The matches wasteland comes up in are actually the matches you want to take your time and get a chant. It's also much worse to have your first land wasted before casting a cantrip, that sets you back a turn, If your on the draw you're effectively entering the game on turn three.
The basic is good.

[Bryant Cook]

Why wouldn't you get Island / Swamp in this scenario? That's exactly a situation where it can be better. When you face Wasteland and still have 2 lands available instead of having one of them Wasted. I wouldn't say it's correct in a 4 color configuration, but if you're trying to cut down to 3 colors, then it does work. There is only 3 more fetchlands than your manabase (1 more land in general), so it's slightly more susceptible to Stifle, but still better against Wasteland.

Bad example. I was in a hurry trying to type. Make it a Bayou then. My point being that basics are too restrictive when trying to win fast.

[lorddotm]

Bad example. I was in a hurry trying to type. Make it a Bayou then. My point being that basics are too restrictive when trying to win fast.

Once again, why would he want to get a Bayou?

Basics are pretty good, just not in the 5 colour versions, I haven't tested the 4 colour versions.


Anyways, the mana base in the 5 colour version seems to suck. I always seem to find myself with Chants sitting in my hand and no way to cast them. If the other guy is running Wasteland, it is only worse.

[Bryant Cook]

Once again, why would he want to get a Bayou?

Basics are pretty good, just not in the 5 colour versions, I haven't tested the 4 colour versions.


Anyways, the mana base in the 5 colour version seems to suck. I always seem to find myself with Chants sitting in my hand and no way to cast them. If the other guy is running Wasteland, it is only worse.

Because his other protection spell is Xantid Swarm? Meaning he could have it in hand.

How can you not cast Orim's Chant? There's plenty of five colored sources in the deck.

[lorddotm]

Well, I seem to hate drawing them. I will continue to test the deck, Grapeshot kills are way too fun to not play this deck.

[maxflow2]

I see the point against Teeg, but against Ethersworn it is not that clear cut...
Only to begin with you need one artifact in hand, or the grape will not even kill the Ethersworn, and I very much doubt you will be able to generate any storm only using artifacts to reach 5-7 damage to the opponent.

Yes, probably I am mixing your example with Teeg with my example with Ethersworn.
But I start to feel very inclined to play a pyroclasm in the side in addition to a grapeshot.

If you see my last tournament report grape gave me one of the games.

Against Ethersworn, getting Shattering Spree/Pulverize is usually better anyway. That said, I do like Pyroclasm in the sideboard against decks that go all in on a bunch of tokens like Dredge and Belcher and even the mirror (though it's rare for anyone to try to EtW in the mirror). Wishing for it to clear the board against those decks can be game winning sometimes. I dislike having both Grapeshot and Pyroclasm in the board as it seems like unnecessary redundancy that could be used for something else - board space is really tight in this deck. I prefer Pyroclasm because I feel the above comes up more often than the Grapeshot you for 4-6, Tendrils for 7 play. Massacre is also not an option because of its inability to deal with Gaddock Teeg.


Because his other protection spell is Xantid Swarm? Meaning he could have it in hand.

How can you not cast Orim's Chant? There's plenty of five colored sources in the deck.

There's only 10 five colored sources... that's about a 13-14% you don't see one in the first 10 cards which is pretty significant, especially when you're dealing with the same odds with your 10 win conditions.

I've been playing a 3 color list lately with a fetchland manabase and haven't looked back. I know some people swear by Orim's Chant but I've always been disappointed by it - there's been too many times where I've either been unable to get the colors to cast it or it has sat it my hand while my opponent plays a Counterbalance. I feel like you don't gain enough over Thoughtseize to make the additional color(s) worth it. I do appreciate how Orim's Chant interacts with Pyroblast out of the sideboard though (probably one of its biggest selling points for me).

I'm curious how the people playing Xantid Swarm feel about their Counterbalance matchup. In my experience, Pyroblast has been pretty key to stopping one from resolving. Even on the draw, being able to Duress, take any counters after they hide the enchantment with Brainstorm, and then Chrome Mox something or even play a Petal to leave up Pyroblast has been an important sequence of plays for me in the matchup, despite the card disadvantage. Does Dark Confidant help that much?

[Lorgalis]

Well, I seem to hate drawing them. I will continue to test the deck, Grapeshot kills are way too fun to not play this deck.

If you have trouble getting your white mana, you can always cut a rainbow land and put a Scrubland (or maaaybe a Tundra, depending on your fetches), to fetch when needed.

[kicks_422]

Or just drop fetchlands altogether and run something horrible such as Forbidden Orchard. Like me. :tongue:

[lorddotm]

If you have trouble getting your white mana, you can always cut a rainbow land and put a Scrubland (or maaaybe a Tundra, depending on your fetches), to fetch when needed.

Definitely not.

The mana already is shaky, not worth destroying it completely for 1 card.

[Albert]

Does Dark Confidant help that much?

In my experience dark confidant hass not been that great. Even more this days that people keep removal for them or for xantids.

The idea of a set of pyroblasts sounds atractive both for CB and merfolks, the main problem I see with them is when you need the mana from a LED to cast the next spell after a BW or IT and you are holding the pyro in hand. You can risk to not break the LED waiting for their counter, not gonna happen with IT, but likely with BW. The problem is if they do not counter you are screwed...

[Piceli89]

Definitely not.

The mana already is shaky, not worth destroying it completely for 1 card.

Totally untrue, you can up the land count by 1 and put a Scrubland. Having a white souce fetchable has saved my ass so many times when I opened the classical TES shitty hands with double Chant and fetchland.

[Lorgalis]

Totally untrue, you can up the land count by 1 and put a Scrubland. Having a white souce fetchable has saved my ass so many times when I opened the classical TES shitty hands with double Chant and fetchland.

Yes, I cut a Chrome mox for an extra land. At first it was Undiscovered Paradise, but when testing showed that it was quite shitty, it was changed to Scrubland. And so far it has been working nicely.