How does one beat aggro-control with storm?

[nayon]

So, I've asked this question in several storm threads several times, and I have only gotten half-answers, if any at all. So I'm calling all storm players. Please come to this thread and defend your choice of storm deck and tell me how to beat the following matchups:

BUG (any variant, but mainly ones with Thoughtseize, Hymn, FoW, Goyf. Some with Clique and Snapcaster)

Merfolk

Any other deck that puts on pressure and backs it up with discard and/or counterspells and hate.

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Yes, you can always god-hand them, but sometimes they have multiple discard spells and/or counterspells and beat you down with Tarmogoyf until you can assemble a resilient enough hand to overcome their protection. I understand how to play Storm, but I don't understand how to fight these odds.

[Esper3k]

TES: Resolve Chant. Win?

[JamieW89]

Merfolk is slightly in your favor. Resolve a chant and win or discard their fow and play around their mana taxing spells. Postboard you have Xantid Swarm, although they sometimes play Dismember.
Against Tempo Thresh without discard Chant makes the matchup winnable (but not in your favor). It ignores all the stifles, spell snares, red blasts etc. they might have.
Chant/Swarm also make IGG a good card against blue, and with the pressure they might put on that can be very welcome.
Team America often keeps hands with only 1 counter, or with 2-3 counters and no hand disruption. This matchup will never be favorable, but you'll win every now and then. I've never played Confidant myself, but I suppose it's a decent sb card in this matchup.
BGW decks with discard, a clock and possibly hatebears are good matchups however. Discard their hate or chant them in their upkeep and just win through IGG when possible. Postboard you get bounce for their hatebears.

[KevinTrudeau]

Cast a discard effect followed up by Xantid Swarm on the same turn.

[nayon]

In these matchups, which cards do I want to cut for Xantid/Bob?

[KobeBryan]

TES: Resolve Chant. Win?

Haha. You make it sound so easy. To be honest, fish beats up on these combo type decks.

Its an uphill battle to be honest.

[troopatroop]

Haha. You make it sound so easy. To be honest, fish beats up on these combo type decks.

Its an uphill battle to be honest.

Honestly, it is that easy. Cast/Resolve Chant, Duress them, or play Xantid. If you can't do those things, you probably lose. That's simple.

[nayon]

Haha. You make it sound so easy. To be honest, fish beats up on these combo type decks.

Its an uphill battle to be honest.

Indeed, especially if they have discard for your chant + counter(s) or double counters and you have no discard.

Basically when I play against these decks I try to have multiple protection spells, and I can't really win otherwise.

[Koby]

Board into a Plan B, for instance...

4 Goyf
4 Bob
4 Coralhelm Commander
3 Tombstalker

They bring in anti-combo/spells cards and board out creature removal, you bring in creatures.

[OurSerratedDust]

The best way to fight tempo/aggro control decks is with a green splash. If you have ever landed Xantid Swarm or Carpet of Flowers against these decks, you will know exactly what I mean. Carpet of Flowers single-handedly negates almost all of their soft counters (daze, spell pierce, etc.) if it hits play. Xantid Swarm fills a similar role by asking "Do you have a Force of Will right now? If not, you won't be able cast any permission you draw for the rest of the game."

A while back, I was playing the "German list" for Doomsday Tendrils. Against merfolk, I would go:

-2 Cabal Ritual
-1 Chain of Vapor
-4 Orim's Chant
+4 Xantid Swarm
+3 Carpet of Flowers

After playing 20 postboard games against fish, I had won ~70% of them, which is really outstanding in a matchup like this.

You also need to watch out for "choke points" when comboing off. This may be obvious to some, but often times good players won't be randomly dazing your spells. Getting your dark ritual/rite of flame dazed can stop you short, or cut you off from a certain mana color, quickly nerfing your combo.

Let me know if you have any more specific questions.

Edit: By the way, Chant isn't particularly good in these matchups. I'm pretty sure I would prefer Duress here, because you don't need to cast it your combo turn to be effective.

[Tammit67]

Edit: By the way, Chant isn't particularly good in these matchups.

I can't disagree more.

[OurSerratedDust]

I can't disagree more.

To be fair, it depends on what type of aggro-control deck you're playing against. I was talking primarily about the Merfolk matchup (and soft counters in general,) but I can agree that Chant is extremely strong against Spell Snare, Stifle, etc.

[Tammit67]

To be fair, it depends on what type of aggro-control deck you're playing against. I was talking primarily about the Merfolk matchup (and soft counters in general,) but I can agree that Chant is extremely strong against Spell Snare, Stifle, etc.

Yeah, and I'd have to say I'd rather have duress to better punch through daze and cursecatcher the following turn. Seems we are actually in agreement :)

[Piceli89]

Are you playing ritual combo or High Tide combo? The first sucks pretty hard from Team America, because of Hymn. The latter, though, can play Meditate and grind for card advantage, since a turn for 4 cards isn't really a bad tradeoff. Also, Flusterstorm is a very good card in countering definitely Hymns and Stifle. Sometimes it's also a right choice to counter a Tarmogoyf since their threat density is particularly low.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Are you playing ritual combo or High Tide combo? The first sucks pretty hard from Team America, because of Hymn. The latter, though, can play Meditate and grind for card advantage, since a turn for 4 cards isn't really a bad tradeoff. Also, Flusterstorm is a very good card in countering definitely Hymns and Stifle. Sometimes it's also a right choice to counter a Tarmogoyf since their threat density is particularly low.

Agreed here. Tide definitely has a stronger matchup against tempo blue in general - however I think the TA matchup is still pretty nasty (that's a matchup I'll have to test a lot soon). One of the most important things to beating these decks with Tendrils combo is simply trying to ensure that your manabase stays reasonably intact going into turns 3-4 (playing around Stifle, fetching basics if you have them, using Chrome Mox to provide colors they might cut you off of, etc.).

[nayon]

Agreed here. Tide definitely has a stronger matchup against tempo blue in general - however I think the TA matchup is still pretty nasty (that's a matchup I'll have to test a lot soon). One of the most important things to beating these decks with Tendrils combo is simply trying to ensure that your manabase stays reasonably intact going into turns 3-4 (playing around Stifle, fetching basics if you have them, using Chrome Mox to provide colors they might cut you off of, etc.).

I've had really good games against TA with High Tide, as long as I don't get unlucky it seems pretty favorable.

With High Tide I can just wing it because many spells are backup versions of others, no one counters a cantrip and then you draw into a FoW, which makes their counters useless.

Tendrils decks, however, seem to have a hard time. I only have so many discard spells and he only needs to have 1 counterspell. If they beat me down enough, Ad Nauseam becomes useless and going off is way harder.

With doomsday I have no idea. Never played against TA, but Merfolk was really annoying.

[Scordata]

I play UBg doomsday and I have to say the roughest matchup is Team America with Vcliques. Post board you can win if you have 2-3 disruption spells, and if they are counter and discard light.

Honestly, if they don't play a threat on turns 2-3 we can run away with the game via an attrition war. The only thing that I can't stand is when they play a clique after you resolve a doomsday.

[dahcmai]

I play TES. I'm more of a fan of the resiliency.

Going the simple routes via IGG, with a chant back up, and just storming up instead of trying to rely on Ad Nauseum is typically the easiest way to push through Merfolk. Carpet of Flowers is an amazing card to use against them too. I'd definitely have a few in the board for them if you have a lot of fish in your area.

Team America just kind of sucks to hit. Hymns, Forces, and Thoughtseizes are just not what you want to see. It's not favored for you, but far from unbeatable. Just make sure to fetch when you can't be stifled, Go early if possible, and be sure to count everything to squeeze out a half tendrils if need be to stay ahead. That deck doesn't deal with an Empty the Warrens for 6 or so right off the bat real well either and that's a hell of a lot easier than going for a full win on the spot.

[Finn]

Damn I love reading storm players saying it is a simple matter to beat Merfolk.

[death]

I play Gitaxian Probe/Duress to see what I'm up against and I just go for it as soon as there is an opening. But play tight and be sure to play around whatever they have in hand.

That is one advantage of ANT/TES over High Tide, discard spells give perfect information. It's not impossible to beat aggro-control but I'm not saying it's that easy either.

[dahcmai]

Damn I love reading storm players saying it is a simple matter to beat Merfolk.

Heh, I doubt anyone thinks it's simple, but it's a sure easier than a lot of decks. It really just comes down to who's hand had more gas in it as usual. I'd gladly play against merfolk than a BUG deck any day. The worst Merfolk has to offer is Cursecatchers, Daze, and Force for the most part and have 3 land open and starting off with a ritual cancels out the Dazes and Cursecatcher right off the bat usually. If you have a Carpet, you don't even need much at all.

[DragoFireheart]

And this is why I try to play Counterbalance decks. You underestimate storm and it'll kick your ass.

[hi-val]

With High Tide, I often find that you can pick your battles against people by casting Turnabout on their lands EOT. They still have their FOWs, but bigger shenanigans get cut off, and they cannot ride your High Tides and Spirals on your turn.

[death]

How about free spells like traps, surgical extraction with Force of Will?

[alderon666]

Damn I love reading storm players saying it is a simple matter to beat Merfolk.

I prefer playing against Merfolk simply because it doesn't have Brainstorm, Hymm, Seize, Counterbalance, Snapcaster.

I call Merfolk the 1-of deck. If it gets one of each card it'll just own you, but if they draw too many creatures or just counterspells they just lose... and there's nothing they can do about it.

[Dark Ritual]

Against merfolk and tempo in general I resolve carpet of flowers or they have to burn a fow on it. Against merfolk, I resolve a xantid swarm postboard and they only have cursecatcher to interact unless they are running dismember.

Against TA with vendilion cliques...I haven't run into that MU but it seems abyssmal at first but the thing about storm is that it can do very unfair things, which is why it almost always has a chance in a given MU because they can just count to 9 and tendrils you. And carpet of flowers in tempo MUs is king, same as sensei's divining top resolving (trust me, you rarely want a sensei's top to resolve unless they have a duplicate in hand because top is a really solid card for playing the long game against aggro control).

But mostly I just sling my duresses and chants when they can't be soft countered i.e. they can't get dazed or spell pierced for a 1 for 1 trade.

Chant is also king in MUs where the opponent runs conditional counters in the form of red/blue blast, spell snare, and stifle. They literally have to FoW it pretty much every time unless they can double daze it or something.

[AriLax]

Damn I love reading storm players saying it is a simple matter to beat Merfolk.

The matchup is actually heavily in Storm's favor. Even in the world of Misstep Storm was a favorite. The only time I ever had an unfavorable set was vs. Bertoncini, who always seemed to kill me on four with double Force while I repeatedly bricked on cantrips.

The trick against Fish, Bant, etc is just learning to A) not get Wastelanded and B) not let your Duresses get Dazed. From there it is fairly easy to assemble a high mana hand and go Tutor chain to Tendrils or just IGG if they don't have Force.

Against Junk, you have to manage your cantrips. Learn to hide things not just with Brainstorm, but also with Ponder/Preordain. Hand size is also a concern, so don't Duress too much otherwise you are stuck having to Ad Naus often. I often go down to 5 Duresses post-board, leaving Seize as an answer to hate bears. I don't think I've ever lost this matchup.

Team America is pretty bad, but only the traditional Hymn, Stifle builds. The lists with less "hard" counters are fairly easy to power through, even with Vendilion (again, manage cantrips well). The Hymn Stifle builds you mainly have to capitalize on their low threat density to sneak in an early Ad Naus from a high life total. Post-board Bob helps a ton as it lets you actively Duress them without ending up hellbent.

[Einherjer]

But isnt Zoo fast enough to beat Aluren and HighTide?

[emidln]

Aluren has a more/less infinite supply of chump blockers which makes it very hard to get in actual damage against them as an aggro deck (e.g. Zoo).

[Admiral_Arzar]

But isnt Zoo fast enough to beat Aluren and HighTide?

Zoo's nut-draw is about as fast as High Tide, yes. I would say High Tide kills on turn 3 with greater consistency than any Zoo build, however. Also, a random Force of Will on a one or two-drop can slow Zoo down a lot.

[paeng4983]

After drawing my 1st seven cards, and knowing that my opponent is an aggro-control one, i will go off immediately without any protections.
But if its merfolk, I'd like to see a xantid hit my table. or an early duress or chant.
If its against junk, pray hard to lourd combo that he wont have a swamp + ritual + dures + hymn opening.
If its GW mavs (canonnist, teeg et al), pyroclasm from my SB ^_^

[Beatusnox]

as a belcher pilot traditional team america is what my nightmares are made of. Against ta as belcher preboard go off as soon as possible, i recommend going the warrens route if possible though belching can work but is less resistant to counters. The same with fish. Gitaxian probe is an allstar in both matchups. Many players will burn a counterspell on it to keep their hand hidden and you can actively go off around it. Postboard pyroblast and xantid swarm are powerhouses that generally win the game if drawn. As a belcher pilot on the draw always figure enough mana to pay for daze.