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

[Holly]

Opening hand - EtW, RoF, City, Chrome Mox, Silence, RoF, Wish

BUG T1 - Mulls to 6, Polluted Delta for Underground Sea, casts Ancestral Visions
TES T1 - Draw Gitaxian Probe, cast Probe (18 life) see Flusterstorm, FoW, Wasteland and Shardless Agent. Draw and play Gemstone.

Anything obvious I could've done differently or just one of those games?

You could've cast Silence, Mox (Wish), RoF, RoF, EtW for 12 Goblins.

[davelin]

You could've cast Silence, Mox (Wish), RoF, RoF, EtW for 12 Goblins.

Smacks forehead!

[Bryant Cook]

I'm sceptical about Capet for the current meta. It's not helpful if I face discard-heavy decks near every round (sans RUG Delver and OmniTell) which is an effect of DRS/A.Decay being a central part of the Metagame.

For the matchups I would side in CoF (Tempo and to consider: S&T) I fixed the problem of being blocked by Daze, Pierce, etc. a while ago for doing calculations about adding the 4th Fetchlad and ending up with it in place of the 3rd Mox and I'm full aware of natural T1/2 EtW/AN suffering from that.

It's a metagame decision, because I was very successful battling Heavy discard with stable mana and in Germany the Dark Mavericks and German T.hold(BURG with DRS + Delver + Nimble Mongoose + Probe + Thoughtseize + Daze) take over.

Well you wouldn't be siding it in against BUG decks. It would be for the RUG/UWR/Grixis tempo decks and Miracles/various control decks as well as the Blade decks (Perhaps maybe Omni/Sneak, I haven't figured that out yet). Hey dude, if you want to play an additional land go right for it, I can't control your deck list - but I don't agree with your decision.

I'm also considering a Tropical Island and a third Xantid Swarm in our sideboard since the Bee would help in our worst match-ups (Omni/Sneak&Show/Reanimator). The land in theory could also be good versus Tempo decks, but I'm unsure if it would be a good idea to side it in against a deck like RUG.

[Lemnear]

Well you wouldn't be siding it in against BUG decks. It would be for the RUG/UWR/Grixis tempo decks and Miracles/various control decks as well as the Blade decks (Perhaps maybe Omni/Sneak, I haven't figured that out yet). Hey dude, if you want to play an additional land go right for it, I can't control your deck list - but I don't agree with your decision.

I'm also considering a Tropical Island and a third Xantid Swarm in our sideboard since the Bee would help in our worst match-ups (Omni/Sneak&Show/Reanimator). The land in theory could also be good versus Tempo decks, but I'm unsure if it would be a good idea to side it in against a deck like RUG.

What would you board out for that Tropical and which matchups did you have in mind for siding it in?

The 13th Land is an approach to tackle all the tempo decks locally via more stable mana. I asume your idea about Carpet and the Tropical share that goal.

I just have doubts because the new BURG Tempo archtype isn't sitting on Daze and Pierce, waiting for your Carpet to negate them but runs active disruption in form of discard (especially Grixis Delver with Young Pyromancer and Cabal Therapy). I have more issues with them picking my hand appart than with my mana overall. It's not that Carpet makes more than 2 mana against Tempo

Just an idea to tackle the Euro-meta

[Bryant Cook]

What would you board out for that Tropical and which matchups did you have in mind for siding it in?

The 13th Land is an approach to tackle all the tempo decks locally via more stable mana. I asume your idea about Carpet and the Tropical share that goal.

I just have doubts because the new BURG Tempo archtype isn't sitting on Daze and Pierce, waiting for your Carpet to negate them but runs active disruption in form of discard (especially Grixis Delver with Young Pyromancer and Cabal Therapy). I have more issues with them picking my hand appart than with my mana overall. It's not that Carpet makes more than 2 mana against Tempo

Just an idea to tackle the Euro-meta

I haven't really figured out that goal yet. I normally sideboard out an Infernal Tutor for a Cabal Therapy in the tempo match-ups. I would likely side out a Ponder and keep the third Chrome Mox in the deck. I pretty much only side down to two Mox against slow blue decks - the more traditional Esperblade or Miracles. I could see siding in Tropical in those match-ups, perhaps?

I like that we would have a searchable green source for Xantid and Decay. I dislike that I would have to change my fetch-land configuration (Oh well).

But I really think the third Xantid could really improve bad match-ups. I'll say this, I haven't given-up on Carpet yet. I think it deserves more testing.

I haven't really had to deal with this BURG deck yet, but Carpet is actually really fucking good against the Grixis Young Pyromancer decks. It's an on table mana-source that doesn't get hit by discard that continually produces mana meaning that top-decked tutor effects are much better.

[albertomp1985]

Hello
I' m a European player. I made some Top's and won 2 tournaments with Bryant's list.
I think the list is awesome and don't need any changes.
The strenght of the sideboard is that plays the best generic cards to battle any matchup. Play specific cards like Carpet of Flowers hurts this strenght.
Not playing IGG for me is a mistake. It's an other path to victory and the most powerful storm engine against non blue decks.
Don't change the list please, it works perfect.
Regards and excuse me for my bad english...

[Lemnear]

Hello
I' m a European player. I made some Top's and won 2 tournaments with Bryant's list.
I think the list is awesome and don't need any changes.
The strenght of the sideboard is that plays the best generic cards to battle any matchup. Play specific cards like Carpet of Flowers hurts this strenght.
Not playing IGG for me is a mistake. It's an other path to victory and the most powerful storm engine against non blue decks.
Don't change the list please, it works perfect.
Regards and excuse me for my bad english...

As Bryant said, feel free to play a list YOU are happy with. Begging that the deck should not adapt to a changing metagame or be improved is total nonsense

[HammafistRoob]

The 13th Land is an approach to tackle all the tempo decks locally via more stable mana. I asume your idea about Carpet and the Tropical share that goal.

I just have doubts because the new BURG Tempo archtype isn't sitting on Daze and Pierce, waiting for your Carpet to negate them but runs active disruption in form of discard

Except for the fact thar BURG plays zero discard spells total in the 75. Sure there's Grixis, but that deck is completely different and Bryant seems to like Carpet against them, so it's more than likely a good card there.

I think Carpet is a good idea. If they can't counter it, it's really tough for them to win. If they do counter it they risk just losing next turn. Looking at their sideboard strategy against Storm, they take out half their clock for more counters. Their general plan is +2 Pierce, +2 Flusterstorm, +2Pyroblast +1 Nihil(terrible)//-2 Mongeese, -2 Goyf, -2 Decay, -1 Bolt. I really disagree with this plan here and it's possible other BURG players do as well, but if they are siding like this, they just scoop to Goblins every time. Also they are siding out answers to Vagina of Vaginas..erm I mean... Carpet of Flowers.

[sconnell]

As Bryant said, feel free to play a list YOU are happy with. Begging that the deck should not adapt to a changing metagame or be improved is total nonsense

This.

Bryant changing his list to adapt to his metagame doesn't force every TES player to do the same. If any changes are clearly wrong for him, his testing should eventually make that clear. Sometimes the only way to really test if a wishboard target is necessary is to go without it and see if you actually miss it.

It does seem like the IGG and 3rd Abrupt Decay are the weakest links in the sideboard - they're both very narrow cards because (a) the games where you actually need IGG to win are rare and (b) the third decay comes in against only a few decks compared to the first two. They're not flexible generic cards at all. As a result, if there are different narrow cards that are better against your metagame, it makes sense to replace them. At the moment, I'm considering leaving IGG intact, and replacing the third Decay with another Fetch, because I wouldn't mind another card against wasteland / stifle decks (probably boarding out a Ponder, as Bryant suggests.)

[TimHarding]

I put a tropical island in the SB over the IGG (which was rarely used, and hasn't been missed much yet), but my regional meta still points towards 3 decays, and they've been good. So I've taken a half step towards the more mana (carpet) plan. Reliable swarms and decays, with an extra land against wasteland is very rewarding.

[Bryant Cook]

Did some testing tonight against RUG.

I tested with a sideboard of 17 cards (Two Carpet and then 3rd Xantid/Tropical). I tested each 15 cards sideboard against RUG (All games post-board). The additional land was marginally good, there were two situations out of 10 games where Tropical was relevant. One of them was that Tropical was the last possible land I could search for, the other being it provided a mana after seeing two activated Wastelands. Carpet was phenomenal the three games I drew it out of five or six, but that was to be expected.

I haven't had a chance to test against Reanimator/Omni/Sneak with the third Bug but I imagine it's just as good as two bugs with a higher concentration of them in the deck.

As of right now, I'm leaning toward the third Xantid and a Tropical in the sideboard. But that could change?

[Asthereal]

An additional land in the side is not a bad idea at all. You could board it in against Canadian Thresh (and other mana denial decks), and you could use it against decks that don't require you to play 7+ protection spells (IE all the very good matchups), improving your entire deck a bit:

Siding -4 Silence, -3 Duress, +2 Chain of Vapor, +2 Abrupt Decay +2 Cabal Therapy, +1 fetch land.

In this way you have all the usual hate you would want to use, AND you've improved the deck itself a bit (one more land = lower chance of no-land mulligan & more initial mana = higher chance of going off quickly). This would lower the chance of losing to a good matchup.

By the way, the fact that Bryant lost a game against that Goblins player due to a Mindbreak Trap is a very rare thing. A Goblins deck that plays such narrow cards in the side normally doesn't score well enough to go top-8 in a tourney of that size. He must have been really lucky. Of course he deserves credit for the fact that he played well (which I am sure he did) but Goblins just isn't a very good deck right now.

[Bryant Cook]

An additional land in the side is not a bad idea at all. You could board it in against Canadian Thresh (and other mana denial decks), and you could use it against decks that don't require you to play 7+ protection spells (IE all the very good matchups), improving your entire deck a bit:

Siding -4 Silence, -3 Duress, +2 Chain of Vapor, +2 Abrupt Decay +2 Cabal Therapy, +1 fetch land.

In this way you have all the usual hate you would want to use, AND you've improved the deck itself a bit (one more land = lower chance of no-land mulligan & more initial mana = higher chance of going off quickly). This would lower the chance of losing to a good matchup.

By the way, the fact that Bryant lost a game against that Goblins player due to a Mindbreak Trap is a very rare thing. A Goblins deck that plays such narrow cards in the side normally doesn't score well enough to go top-8 in a tourney of that size. He must have been really lucky. Of course he deserves credit for the fact that he played well (which I am sure he did) but Goblins just isn't a very good deck right now.

Yeah... I'm not playing a fetchland.

[Lemnear]

Hmmmm ... we're testing a third CoV in the board atm and a Pyroclasm against Elves, Tempo, Goblins and Hatebears ... I hate Pyroclasm but will test that teammate Suggestion...

I think that's redundant and i'm unsure about IGG

[Asthereal]

I'm not playing a fetchland.
Indeed, I should have posted an argument for mentioning a fetch instead of the Tropical.

The Tropical does have its uses:
- Fetchable green for Swarm, Decay.
- Fourth land to fetch if a game goes long against a mana denial strategy.
But it also has its disadvantages:
- Doesn't tap for the main combo colours B and R.
- WTF, it doesn't tap for B or R?? Oh wait, I mentioned that already.

So one disadvantage for two plus points. One of the pros is a doubtful one, since you could also play a Sea or Volcanic, but I'll let the Trop have two versus one in pros/cons analysis. But the con is a very serious one. Let's not forget we're playing TES here, not ANT.

ANT has 8-9 fetch, additional cantrips and in general a slower game plan. Next to that ANT only needs red for Past in Flames or maybe a Wish. Often the red dual isn't even needed since that colour can be drawn from LED, or occaionally a Petal. So ANT has less issues in playing lands that don't tap for red, since it's not an important colour anyway, and it's only rarely needed as initial mana. We know that one black mana as initial combo mana is often enough, so this allows ANT to play more lands that don't tap for either B or R.

TES is a different beast. It has to be able to work well with just one or two lands, since it only plays 12/13. Also it plays no basics at all, so Wasteland can be a serious issue. Next to that TES plays both Dark Ritual and Rite of Flame, so the situation will come up pretty often that TES needs both R and B as initial mana to be able to go off at all. Having a land that doesn't tap for either colour seems like a very great risk. But... I did like the idea of adding a land to the sideboard, because of the reasons I posted, so I would recommend we try a fetch instead of the Tropical. The fetch is good for our cantrips and it gives us an additional initial mana source. This should help lower the chance of having to take a no-land-mulligan, and in general increase our odds to go off as soon as possible (better cantrips, more mana in the deck).

During my tournament play I very often came across matchups where I wanted to sideboard -4 Silence, -3 Duress, +2 Cabal Therapy (or in my case Thoughtseize, because I played that at the time), +2 Chain of Vapor, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 card that increases my chance of going off in general. I never had that card, but a fetch could be that card.

Long list of arguments and explanation, but still it's only an idea. I'm not saying it's the way to go, because I myself also feel that adding a random 'good TES card' to the sideboard should be a wasted sideboard slot.


One other thing: I also disagree with the cutting of Ill-Gotten Gains. It's an engine that often works when others don't (or just with terrible odds, like Returns). I still use it every now and then, and I feel sort of vulnerable without it. (Come to think of it though, perhaps siding in the Gains could be an option to increase the chances of going off very fast.)

[Bryant Cook]

Indeed, I should have posted an argument for mentioning a fetch instead of the Tropical.

The Tropical does have its uses:
- Fetchable green for Swarm, Decay.
- Fourth land to fetch if a game goes long against a mana denial strategy.
But it also has its disadvantages:
- Doesn't tap for the main combo colours B and R.
- WTF, it doesn't tap for B or R?? Oh wait, I mentioned that already.

So one disadvantage for two plus points. One of the pros is a doubtful one, since you could also play a Sea or Volcanic, but I'll let the Trop have two versus one in pros/cons analysis. But the con is a very serious one. Let's not forget we're playing TES here, not ANT.

ANT has 8-9 fetch, additional cantrips and in general a slower game plan. Next to that ANT only needs red for Past in Flames or maybe a Wish. Often the red dual isn't even needed since that colour can be drawn from LED, or occaionally a Petal. So ANT has less issues in playing lands that don't tap for red, since it's not an important colour anyway, and it's only rarely needed as initial mana. We know that one black mana as initial combo mana is often enough, so this allows ANT to play more lands that don't tap for either B or R.

TES is a different beast. It has to be able to work well with just one or two lands, since it only plays 12/13. Also it plays no basics at all, so Wasteland can be a serious issue. Next to that TES plays both Dark Ritual and Rite of Flame, so the situation will come up pretty often that TES needs both R and B as initial mana to be able to go off at all. Having a land that doesn't tap for either colour seems like a very great risk. But... I did like the idea of adding a land to the sideboard, because of the reasons I posted, so I would recommend we try a fetch instead of the Tropical. The fetch is good for our cantrips and it gives us an additional initial mana source. This should help lower the chance of having to take a no-land-mulligan, and in general increase our odds to go off as soon as possible (better cantrips, more mana in the deck).

During my tournament play I very often came across matchups where I wanted to sideboard -4 Silence, -3 Duress, +2 Cabal Therapy (or in my case Thoughtseize, because I played that at the time), +2 Chain of Vapor, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 card that increases my chance of going off in general. I never had that card, but a fetch could be that card.

Long list of arguments and explanation, but still it's only an idea. I'm not saying it's the way to go, because I myself also feel that adding a random 'good TES card' to the sideboard should be a wasted sideboard slot.


One other thing: I also disagree with the cutting of Ill-Gotten Gains. It's an engine that often works when others don't (or just with terrible odds, like Returns). I still use it every now and then, and I feel sort of vulnerable without it. (Come to think of it though, perhaps siding in the Gains could be an option to increase the chances of going off very fast.)

Since cutting Ill-Gotten Gains I've played in two full events and tested roughly 35 games against RUG. Not once did I want Ill-Gotten Gains, not to mention the last time I used 'Gains it could've been Past in Flames if I wasn't feeling lazy. It's simply just a safety net at this point.

I haven't had any issues with Tropical yet, I say yet, because your points are valid but I think the Tropical could be necessary if we decide to add a third Xantid Swarm. Sideboarding in three cards that want to be cast on the first turn without a Tropical to search for could be difficult.

I think playing a fetchland in the sideboard is very questionable.

[Asthereal]

Since cutting Ill-Gotten Gains I've played in two full events and tested roughly 35 games against RUG. Not once did I want Ill-Gotten Gains, not to mention the last time I used 'Gains it could've been Past in Flames if I wasn't feeling lazy. It's simply just a safety net at this point.
Against Canadian Thresh I also don't want Gains, but against Jund, Maverick, Goblins, Deat&Taxes and so on it can be a really nice engine. It saved my butt against D&T during my last Storm tourney and I could have used it against Jund if I wasn't so confident of my Empty the Warrens (which ended up running into his one-of Maelstrom Pulse...). Gains meant waiting a turn in that case, but the chances of him hitting a new discard spell were of course not very high.

I haven't had any issues with Tropical yet, I say yet, because your points are valid but I think the Tropical could be necessary if we decide to add a third Xantid Swarm. Sideboarding in three cards that want to be cast on the first turn without a Tropical to search for could be difficult.
Would you think it's a really bad idea if we tried Bayou instead? That one at least gets to tap for one major combo colour, as well as a protection colour. It doesn't tap for blue though, which is a pretty big deal...
(Heck I'm even thinking about adding a City of Brass now. :cry: Unfetchable, but does tap for everything we want.)

I think playing a fetchland in the sideboard is very questionable.
I'd be the first to admit it sounds rediculous, but if you only have 12 lands main deck, and a sideboard slot left, the arguments are there to at least give it a shot. It's pretty hard though to calculate how much better it makes your general odds. I'm sure it's marginal, but I have no idea how to calculate the advantages.

[Bryant Cook]

Against Canadian Thresh I also don't want Gains, but against Jund, Maverick, Goblins, Deat&Taxes and so on it can be a really nice engine. It saved my butt against D&T during my last Storm tourney and I could have used it against Jund if I wasn't so confident of my Empty the Warrens (which ended up running into his one-of Maelstrom Pulse...). Gains meant waiting a turn in that case, but the chances of him hitting a new discard spell were of course not very high.

Would you think it's a really bad idea if we tried Bayou instead? That one at least gets to tap for one major combo colour, as well as a protection colour. It doesn't tap for blue though, which is a pretty big deal...
(Heck I'm even thinking about adding a City of Brass now. :cry: Unfetchable, but does tap for everything we want.)

I'd be the first to admit it sounds rediculous, but if you only have 12 lands main deck, and a sideboard slot left, the arguments are there to at least give it a shot. It's pretty hard though to calculate how much better it makes your general odds. I'm sure it's marginal, but I have no idea how to calculate the advantages.

Because I'm sure for some reason neither Past in Flames or Diminishing Returns could've gotten there, right? Safety net. Think about how often it's actually used in events, it's pretty damn rare.

I believe that tapping for cantripping mana is a lot more relevant than tapping for combo colored mana for the sideboarded land slot. I think the cantripping mana is more relevant than the ability to tap for a red or black. Otherwise, we would've added Badlands years ago.

Having a land to help cast difficult spells to cast is more important in my eyes than an additional shuffle effect that doesn't really improve the deck. It's a wasted space.

[phazonmutant]

Because I'm sure for some reason neither Past in Flames or Diminishing Returns could've gotten there, right? Safety net. Think about how often it's actually used in events, it's pretty damn rare.

Have to agree. Just curious though, what do you think has changed from a year ago when you convinced me to play IGG? Is IGG a meta consideration or a playstyle one?

Went 4-0 at a local 30-man with your recommendation of -1 AD, -1 IGG, +1 Trop, +1 Swarm. I also tried out -1 Chrome Mox, +1 fetch in the main despite it seeming like a step in a less aggressive direction.

Sneak & Show 2-1
Shardless BUG 2-0
Rw Goblins 2-0
Rw Goblins 2-1

Sneak and Show game 3 was pretty interesting. She kept a 7-card hand with no Leyline and my Swarm resolved on turn 1. She Pondered and kept. On my second turn I Brainstormed into a hand that could cast Empty for like 12, pass, or Diminishing Returns with nothing floating. I decided to DimRet thinking that she must be pretty likely to kill me the next turn, and after the match she confirmed that. I didn't draw any IMSs, but just won the next turn.

I lost G1 to the second goblins player thanks to maindeck Thalia. So hateful. I got him back by winning G2 after he Mindbreak Trapped my t1 Infernal Tutor with 5 floating. He didn't draw a third land or a W source.

So I brought in the Trop against Goblins and S&S. It was never relevant in the match, but I'm definitely not opposed to having more lands against Goblins. I boarded out the 4th fetch for it against S&S, and against goblins I brough out 4 Silence, 2 Duress for the Trop, 2 AD, 2 CoV, and 1 Cabal Therapy. I'm definitely not opposed to this build moving forwards, deserves more testing. I never had a double Chrome Mox hand, which made me happy, but I bricked on an IMS off an Ad Naus from 13. Won on my next turn though. I'm going to continue testing with the 4th fetch, but I'm much less sure if it's right than the board changes.

I think that Carpet is too narrow, but I'm really not a fan of the card in general. I like something that helps our worse, common matchups like Show and Tell and Reanimator.

[Bryant Cook]

Have to agree. Just curious though, what do you think has changed from a year ago when you convinced me to play IGG? Is IGG a meta consideration or a playstyle one?

A year ago, Maverick was still huge and Deathrite Shaman didn't exist. Maverick couldn't interact and Deathrite wasn't making it worse.

As of right now, if the Invitational was tomorrow I would run three Chrome Mox and the Tropical/Swarm (3) in the sideboard.

[Machahiko]

If I may ask - how is the Omnishow/Sneakattack matchup for you guys? To me it has always been absolutely miserable uphill battle which makes me want to do something stupid to my health. Game one is pretty much a cointoss, games two and three always end up in the third game, I try to either cast xantid swarm and they fow it backed up by turn 1 kill or they just open up with one leyline when I have 2(+) discard spells in my hand. I'm bringing this up because you're adding the Xantid Swarm in for making these matchups better. Would the third copy make the matchup that much easier that it really matters? Or should we instead decide to plan on beating the matchups we're already good against?

Sometimes I curse the fact that metagame in here is so diverse that building your sideboard is almost impossible if you don't happen to have a lot of insider information.

If anyone is interested, I'd be more than glad to read about how to select the last few cards to your sideboard related to the decks you're likely to run into. I don't find myself good enough to do this myself - even though I've been testing the Carpet of Flowers' and they've been amazing so far. Going through two flusterstorms and a spell pierce for the kill feels just unreal.

[Lemnear]

If I may ask - how is the Omnishow/Sneakattack matchup for you guys? To me it has always been absolutely miserable uphill battle which makes me want to do something stupid to my health. Game one is pretty much a cointoss, games two and three always end up in the third game, I try to either cast xantid swarm and they fow it backed up by turn 1 kill or they just open up with one leyline when I have 2(+) discard spells in my hand. I'm bringing this up because you're adding the Xantid Swarm in for making these matchups better. Would the third copy make the matchup that much easier that it really matters? Or should we instead decide to plan on beating the matchups we're already good against?

Sometimes I curse the fact that metagame in here is so diverse that building your sideboard is almost impossible if you don't happen to have a lot of insider information.

If anyone is interested, I'd be more than glad to read about how to select the last few cards to your sideboard related to the decks you're likely to run into. I don't find myself good enough to do this myself - even though I've been testing the Carpet of Flowers' and they've been amazing so far. Going through two flusterstorms and a spell pierce for the kill feels just unreal.

1) I have no clue why you leave in Discard against OmniTell with Leylines in games 2 & 3 ... board -3 Duress, -1 EtW, +2 CoV, + 2 Xantid

2) why should I waste Sideboard space for decks which are already easy prey instead of tackling the problematic ones?

3) How is Carpet of Flowers better than Xantid against 2 Flusterstorm + Spell Pierce? Only in situations in which those Flusterstorms are paired with creature removal. That's part of the reason why the 3rd Xantid is a topic.

[lemariont]

Since cutting Ill-Gotten Gains I've played in two full events and tested roughly 35 games against RUG. Not once did I want Ill-Gotten Gains, not to mention the last time I used 'Gains it could've been Past in Flames if I wasn't feeling lazy. It's simply just a safety net at this point.

I haven't had any issues with Tropical yet, I say yet, because your points are valid but I think the Tropical could be necessary if we decide to add a third Xantid Swarm. Sideboarding in three cards that want to be cast on the first turn without a Tropical to search for could be difficult.

I think playing a fetchland in the sideboard is very questionable.

Do you side in the xantids vs RUG???? Are you sure that they leave their lightnings in sb???

[Bryant Cook]

Do you side in the xantids vs RUG???? Are you sure that they leave their lightnings in sb???

I don't side in Xantids against decks with removal.

[Teluin]

Hey guys,

I've never played a Storm combo deck before, nor have I ever played a combo deck that was more complicated than Reanimator so please keep that in mind. I am interested in the deck however, and I plan on playing it once I get the rest of the cards together.
I know why Silence is played over Orim's Chant, as the targeting of a player can be key, but I was wondering how relevant 1 extra mana is in all of this. Is it often very close mana-wise, or could a 2cc spell in place of Silence be feasible if the effect were similar?

[Jay_Gatz]

The deck is designed to be as mana efficient as possible. Most of the time every mana counts.

[Lemnear]

Do you side in the xantids vs RUG???? Are you sure that they leave their lightnings in sb???

as Bryant mentioned, the Bugs are exclusive for decks which can't remove them but play a lot of counters. He's trying to tackle RUG via the SB Tropical. It was more of an Expansion from the first point: wondering why you kept Discard against Leyine in.

[Final Fortune]

Because I'm sure for some reason neither Past in Flames or Diminishing Returns could've gotten there, right? Safety net. Think about how often it's actually used in events, it's pretty damn rare.

I believe that tapping for cantripping mana is a lot more relevant than tapping for combo colored mana for the sideboarded land slot. I think the cantripping mana is more relevant than the ability to tap for a red or black. Otherwise, we would've added Badlands years ago.

Having a land to help cast difficult spells to cast is more important in my eyes than an additional shuffle effect that doesn't really improve the deck. It's a wasted space.

Do you not bother to SB in Ill Gotten Gains and Tendrils of Agony for Ad Nauseam and Empty the Warrens vs Goblins etc. or is the EV of that not really a consideration anymore? Furthermore if you're not SBing in Tendrils of Agony vs anything but maybe Miracles is Grapeshot worth it over Pyroclasm or Deathmark anymore if it doesn't double as a SB replacement for MDed Tednrils of Agony?

[Lemnear]

Do you not bother to SB in Ill Gotten Gains and Tendrils of Agony for Ad Nauseam and Empty the Warrens vs Goblins etc. or is the EV of that not really a consideration anymore? Furthermore if you're not SBing in Tendrils of Agony vs anything but maybe Miracles is Grapeshot worth it over Pyroclasm or Deathmark anymore if it doesn't double as a SB replacement for MDed Tednrils of Agony?

I dare to jump in here. GS saved my ass in many situations where I needed to clear the field or moved ToA to the MB in Exchange for EtW.

However, Elves, RW Goblins (w/ Thalia) and other hate-bear decks in the advent of DRS made my teammate trying Pyroclam in the board and I found myself in situations, where I BOARDED IN Grapeshot + test-Pyroclasm + CoV's against such decks.

Ergo: If your meta is infested with hatebears and/or Delver/Geist/DRS/Goblins/Elves/etc. Pyroclasm is a card to have in the back of your head, but not good enough to replace GS

[Ragdoll]

Hi!

I have a question to all of you experienced players :) What is your strategy/side stratedy against death and taxes? What to side in? Is Dread of Night worth card? Thx :)

[Whippoorwill]

I know why Silence is played over Orim's Chant, as the targeting of a player can be key, but I was wondering how relevant 1 extra mana is in all of this. Is it often very close mana-wise, or could a 2cc spell in place of Silence be feasible if the effect were similar?

It makes a huge difference when flipping cards over for Ad Nauseam. The extra mana for Abeyance isn't worth the cantrip.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

It makes a huge difference when flipping cards over for Ad Nauseam. The extra mana for Abeyance isn't worth the cantrip.
It also shuts down Crypt/DRS activation in case you need to keep your graveard safe because of RoF/IGG/PiF/CRit. But it still has no place in AdN.dec, not even in ANT that's much more reliable on gy. It was good in Cephalid Breakfast, where the additional mana hardly ever mattered, becasue Vial helped with mana fixing, but I doubt that before century's end you'll see a single copy of Abeyance in any Storm deck other than some obscure DD version.

[Lemnear]

Hi!

I have a question to all of you experienced players :) What is your strategy/side stratedy against death and taxes? What to side in? Is Dread of Night worth card? Thx :)

It's a basic hatebear deck for TES. Please take a look in the primer for SB-Strategies against those decks. DoN doesn't kill Gaddock Teeg or other creatures in the format aside Thalia, Cannonist, MoR and Lingering Souls tokens. :)



It makes a huge difference when flipping cards over for Ad Nauseam. The extra mana for Abeyance isn't worth the cantrip.

Minor add: it doesn't prevent Clique either

[Asthereal]

I dare to jump in here. GS saved my ass in many situations where I needed to clear the field or moved ToA to the MB in Exchange for EtW.

Same here. Last tourney I played a TES/ANT hybrid thingy with 3x Wish and I tried Pyroclasm over Grapeshot. Indeed I ended up never needing Pyro, but did get into the situation where Empty the Warrens just got my opponent to two life or so before my goblin tokens got killed, and I had a Wish but no Grapeshot to burn my opponent to death. This "burning the last couple of life points away" thing occurs MUCH more often then you realise.

[lemariont]

The xantid/tropical in sb seems a solid plan. But I have two questions....

-In the RUG matchup, we side a therapy for an infernal tutor. Which is the optimal card to sb for the tropical???

-And in the sneak and show match, what cards will go to sb for the 3 xantids 1 tropical for optimize the deck ???

[Lemnear]

The xantid/tropical in sb seems a solid plan. But I have two questions....

-In the RUG matchup, we side a therapy for an infernal tutor. Which is the optimal card to sb for the tropical???

-And in the sneak and show match, what cards will go to sb for the 3 xantids 1 tropical for optimize the deck ???

RUG: Either the 3rd Mox or a Ponder

Sneak & Show: -3 Duress, -1 EtW

[Bryant Cook]

Do you not bother to SB in Ill Gotten Gains and Tendrils of Agony for Ad Nauseam and Empty the Warrens vs Goblins etc. or is the EV of that not really a consideration anymore? Furthermore if you're not SBing in Tendrils of Agony vs anything but maybe Miracles is Grapeshot worth it over Pyroclasm or Deathmark anymore if it doesn't double as a SB replacement for MDed Tednrils of Agony?

Grapeshot isn't going anywhere, it's the sole reason I made top 8 two weeks ago at SCG:Philly. I don't sideboard Ill-Gotten Gains or Tendrils vs non-blue decks because TES is an Ad Nauseam deck and those cards are still 'Wish targets - they stay where they belong. the best possible engine for the deck is Ad Nauseam. Not Ill-Gotten Gains or a natural Tendrils, creating a win out of either one of these is more difficult than counting to five.

[davelin]

I wouldn't replace Grapeshot with it, but I like having Pyroclasm as a wishable sweeper especially game one. Because your opponent can see what you Wish for, I've been in several games where my opponent was reluctant to commit another thread to the board to avoid getting hit 2 or 3 for 1, and gave me a extra turn or two to setup for the eventual kill.

[Plague Sliver]

It was fun to play in a tournament last week where 1/6 of the field was Storm - talk about representing the Storm Trooper brigade...

Jammed a few games this week vs. ANT. I know it's been said before, but...my goodness are we positioned well against ANT. Silence is unbelievable in the matchup.

In one game I had to stop my Ad Nauseam at 1 life, he had Duress in hand, but I was still able to go off the following turn. Good times.

[Teluin]

Question:

Let's say I have 3 black mana floating and an LED in play. I have an Infernal Tutor and a Burning Wish in my hand. Can I cast Infernal Tutor, in response crack the LED and thus discard the Burning Wish before Infernal Tutor resolves, allowing me to IT any card I want? Or do I have to name a card AS I cast Tutor?

[HammafistRoob]

Yes, that's the whole point. Although you'd only have 4 mana floating after that so you would have nothing to grab. Use the Wish instead and grab EtW unless it's too late for the goblin horde.

Basically Infernal+LED= Demonic Tutor+Black Lotus.

[Teluin]

Actually then I grabbed PiF, used the dark rituals in my GY to max my storm count and then cast Tutor from my GY for ToA. I just wanted to make sure that was allowed. I wasn't sure if IT+LED only worked like that if IT was the only card left in my hand or not. Thanks!

[HammafistRoob]

So you must have had an untapped land still right? You also maindeck Tendrils instead of EtW?

Just make sure you announce that you are retaining priority with Infernal on the stack, then break the LED and pass priority.

[Teluin]

Yeah, I had a mana source - mighta been a LP I forget. I'm trying a build without AN so got a ToA, PiF and EtW mainboard along with BW for the ones in my sideboard.

Oh, and thanks for the advice on priority!

[Darkness]

Yeah, I had a mana source - mighta been a LP I forget. I'm trying a build without AN so got a ToA, PiF and EtW mainboard along with BW for the ones in my sideboard.

Oh, and thanks for the advice on priority!

Curious to see how that's working. AN is a much more power engine in TES vs ANT. Your rituals for PiF are weaker since you either need 2 with a LED or 3 rituals total.

[Teluin]

I'm trying out Cabal Ritual over Rite of Flame because I find it works nicely with Dark Ritual, and so far has never caused an issue I couldn't play through. I do plan on trying out Rite of Flame as well though. I'm not even using Chrome Mox (yet?, not sure if I plan to or not).

Honestly, I don't even know if my deck is even close to TES (I'm also using Cabal Therapy over Silence because I found the W mana really screwed me over too many times). I just posted in here for general Storm advice since it seemed like there were some dbags in the ANT thread and TES uses Burning Wish.

[Darkness]

I'm trying out Cabal Ritual over Rite of Flame because I find it works nicely with Dark Ritual, and so far has never caused an issue I couldn't play through. I do plan on trying out Rite of Flame as well though. I'm not even using Chrome Mox (yet?, not sure if I plan to or not).

Honestly, I don't even know if my deck is even close to TES (I'm also using Cabal Therapy over Silence because I found the W mana really screwed me over too many times). I just posted in here for general Storm advice since it seemed like there were some dbags in the ANT thread and TES uses Burning Wish.

You're playing TNT, which is ANT with Burning Wish. TES is a 5 color Storm deck that uses Silence as it's main form of disruption. I don't know if there is a TNT deck thread, but the variant you're running is most definitely not TES. Regardless, I'm glad you've been enjoying it, I play both TES and ANT, I enjoy them both and find them to be equally fun decks.

[Bryant Cook]

I'm currently working on a new write-up for a sideboarding guide with three Xantid Swarm and a Tropical Island. It's going to be set-up differently and explain a lot of the thought process. Currently, it does not have the plus/minus format that formerly ran the system. My thoughts are that it's too generic and actually isn't accurate most of the time because sideboarded matches are based on individuals and not a cookie-cutter sideboard format.

[Bryant Cook]

New sideboarding guide in opening post along with a new decklist.

[Lemnear]

I'm still unsure about that land in the SB. The last time i played lands in my board was against Shops in Vintage and taxing-/Tempo-counters are far too common here to adress those with SB-mana.

Found myself less able to go off T1 as well #3rdChromeMox


@Bryant: i like the less axiomatic SB guide now, that we see more and more 3-/4-colored decks in the meta attacking you from several angles. Sadly I expect a lot more questions regarding SB-strategies now in the thread itself. A big thanks to you keeping the primer updated ... I know you're buisy as fuck, still finding time to do that stuff.

[lemariont]

New sideboarding guide in opening post along with a new decklist.

Thanks for the deck, thanks for the help Bryant. You are GREAT :cool::cool::cool:

C.) Aggressive Creature Decks:
(Applies to: Zoo, Goblins, Burn, etc.)

While we’re on fast paced decks, we have aggressive decks. Unlike the Tempo decks, Empty the Warrens isn’t exactly stellar against them and neither is Silence.

Are you sure about that?? I won many games against this decks with the Warrens. They usually cant do anything against 14 goblins T1 or T2, because they dont sb in mass removal, and the Ad Nauseam plan is not easy if they have a fast clock with creatures and lightnings.

[jandax]

He said it isn't stellar. Sure 12+ goblins on turn one will win, against most all decks it will making it kind of a moot point. I think he means that if you can go for a turn 1 EtW, go for it, otherwise, a Tendrils line will end the game on the Big Turn whereas Goblins have to attack over so many turns.

[Bryant Cook]

I'm still unsure about that land in the SB. The last time i played lands in my board was against Shops in Vintage and taxing-/Tempo-counters are far too common here to adress those with SB-mana.

Found myself less able to go off T1 as well #3rdChromeMox


@Bryant: i like the less axiomatic SB guide now, that we see more and more 3-/4-colored decks in the meta attacking you from several angles. Sadly I expect a lot more questions regarding SB-strategies now in the thread itself. A big thanks to you keeping the primer updated ... I know you're buisy as fuck, still finding time to do that stuff.

I'm not sure if siding in the land is absolutely right, which is partcially why I left it up in the air. If someone does or doesn't want to, I can't fault them. However, I am a big advocate of three Chrome Mox. People seem to frown or make comments every single time they draw a Chrome Mox, sure, it's not the best card to draw. But it's a necessary evil in an Ad Nauseam based deck, it's our sole engine main deck. Meaning, it requires being built around to some extent. I will not be going down to two copies of Chrome Mox.

I have no problem updating the opening post, the written content usually takes a little longer. But if anyone has links to articles/videos/reports that haven't been included feel free to message me the link and I'll review it to decide if it's worth adding.


Thanks for the deck, thanks for the help Bryant. You are GREAT :cool::cool::cool:

C.) Aggressive Creature Decks:
(Applies to: Zoo, Goblins, Burn, etc.)

While we’re on fast paced decks, we have aggressive decks. Unlike the Tempo decks, Empty the Warrens isn’t exactly stellar against them and neither is Silence.

Are you sure about that?? I won many games against this decks with the Warrens. They usually cant do anything against 14 goblins T1 or T2, because they dont sb in mass removal, and the Ad Nauseam plan is not easy if they have a fast clock with creatures and lightnings.

Outside of the first turn, Empty the Warrens will not get the job done. As a matter of fact, these decks are often fast enough to just kill you before Warrens is relevant. Especially Burn. Not to mention that I don't want to reveal Warrens to Ad Nauseam in this match-up.

[Tom T]

Just a small bit of nitpicking for you guys.

I think I've got the ideal fetchland configuration for the deck. It hardly matters, but because we can play different kinds of fetch lands it is something to discuss. My goal is to give the opponent the illusion I play an other deck. So in case I start the game with a couple of fetch lands and/or dual lands I try to have color combinations that represent an other deck. Conveying you're a control deck seems like the best strategy so opponents could figure why you didn't cast any (non-cantrip-)spells yet.

Assuming you play:
- 3 fetch lands
- 2 Underground Sea
- 1 Volcanic Island
I think it is best to play 1 Flooded Strand, 1 Polluted Delta and 1 Misty Rainforest.

This way you'll almost always have a combination of non-rainbow-lands that will represent another deck:

Strand + Sea = Deathblade/Stoneblade
Misty + Sea = Shardless Bug/Deathblade
Delta + Sea = Something UB
Volcanic + Sea = Storm (1)

Strand + Volcanic = Some control deck/Sneak show
Misty + Volcanic = RUG/Sneakshow
Delta + Volcanic = Storm (2)

Strand + Delta = Deathblade/Stoneblade
Strand + Misty = Some control deck
Misty + Delta = Deathblade/Shardless Bug

In other words, I think you should stay away from playing Scalding Tarn because otherwise the grixis color combination would be the most frequent board situation (because you play 2 Seas). When you reveal a grixis color combination and you didn't play spells before it screams storm combo.

Tom

[Asthereal]

I would vote for off colour fetch whenever possible.
So in the case of TES I play Strand and Rainforest.
In Canadian Thresh FI I have 4x Foothills, 2x Strand, 2x Delta, hoping to represent a different deck.

It's pretty marginal, but these things can help.

[Bryant Cook]

Just a small bit of nitpicking for you guys.

I think I've got the ideal fetchland configuration for the deck. It hardly matters, but because we can play different kinds of fetch lands it is something to discuss. My goal is to give the opponent the illusion I play an other deck. So in case I start the game with a couple of fetch lands and/or dual lands I try to have color combinations that represent an other deck. Conveying you're a control deck seems like the best strategy so opponents could figure why you didn't cast any (non-cantrip-)spells yet.

Assuming you play:
- 3 fetch lands
- 2 Underground Sea
- 1 Volcanic Island
I think it is best to play 1 Flooded Strand, 1 Polluted Delta and 1 Misty Rainforest.

This way you'll almost always have a combination of non-rainbow-lands that will represent another deck:

Strand + Sea = Deathblade/Stoneblade
Misty + Sea = Shardless Bug/Deathblade
Delta + Sea = Something UB
Volcanic + Sea = Storm (1)

Strand + Volcanic = Some control deck/Sneak show
Misty + Volcanic = RUG/Sneakshow
Delta + Volcanic = Storm (2)

Strand + Delta = Deathblade/Stoneblade
Strand + Misty = Some control deck
Misty + Delta = Deathblade/Shardless Bug

In other words, I think you should stay away from playing Scalding Tarn because otherwise the grixis color combination would be the most frequent board situation (because you play 2 Seas). When you reveal a grixis color combination and you didn't play spells before it screams storm combo.

Tom


This isn't a new concept, for me personally, it just doesn't matter. Mainly for two reasons: The first being that I'm Bryant Cook, the second being, do you fucking know how expensive Japanese Foil Flooded Strands and Polluted Deltas are?

[Sloshthedark]

3 Bloodstained mire obv. Ok not with the Trop...


This isn't a new concept, for me personally, it just doesn't matter. Mainly for two reasons: The first being that I'm Bryant Cook, the second being, do you fucking know how expensive Japanese Foil Flooded Strands and Polluted Deltas are?

Not that hard to learn the later and you had some success at the Opens... also acquire A/B duals finally.. until A Seas and 3 Deltas the deck is not finished

[Bryant Cook]

3 Bloodstained mire obv. Ok not with the Trop...



Not that hard to learn the later and you had some success at the Opens... also acquire A/B duals finally.. until A Seas and 3 Deltas the deck is not finished

I don't want A/B. They only come in English.

[Megadeus]

I would vote for off colour fetch whenever possible.
So in the case of TES I play Strand and Rainforest.
In Canadian Thresh FI I have 4x Foothills, 2x Strand, 2x Delta, hoping to represent a different deck.

It's pretty marginal, but these things can help.

My delver opponent got me at an open with this. Last time I played vs him he was on RIP Miracles. He goes Stran Pass. I go Foothills pass. He cracks a delta, gets a trop and plays delver and I cried a little bit inside knowing how I just got got

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Isn't Misty Rainforest the best? It mimicks RUg which is 180° different direction than TES, also you may use those Progenitus alters to further mislead your opponent. :cool:

[Megadeus]

I personally keep my TES Goblin Tokens in my box even when I dont play the deck just to let my opponents know that they MIGHT have to mull to force of will.

[Griselpuff]

So I'm a longtime Legacy player who has just gotten fed up with losing to this deck. I started playing it on MWS today and I have to say, I'm addicted. It's SO MUCH fun to play and combo off and beat hate. Pretty sure this is one of the very best decks in Legacy right now, with the decline of counterbalance and FoW. Thanks to Bryant Cook for managing one of the very best primers out there, it's been so helpful.

Man, I kinda wish I didn't invest $3000 into blue decks so I could justify buying this...

[paeng4983]

@akatsuki
TES is resilient to whatever meta there is. That's why I gave up my Ux cards/ decks and brought the pieces and build this one for a lifetime keeping together with my Berserk deck and Dutch Stax deck. Build it and try playing it in real life so that you'll know the feeling of "blind top decking for the win." I hope to read good news. ^_^

@ Ill Goten Gains (IGG) and Past in Flames (PiF)
About the cutting of IGG. In my experience, most of the time, if I have to use my gy to fuel-up my storm count, I usually resort to an IGG route. I know doing an IGG route against blue decks, especially if there are no protection (Silence, Duress, Xantid) used and/ or in situations where there are relevant counter spells in his gy, is not a good choice. Neither Pif route EXCEPT if you have a lot Dark Rituals and Rite of Flames and an Infernal Tutor (provided you do not have a card at hand for the hellbent) or an extra Burning Wish.

@Bryant Cook
Why did you opt for PiF instead of IGG? Doing math with IGG is much more simple than PiF.
Just my two cent. Thanks

[KevinTrudeau]

They certainly both seem similar at face value, but regarding graveyard-based storm generators, Past in Flames is the apple to Ill-Gotten Gains' orange; the latter is a Lion's Eye Diamond-based loop that requires not only Tendrils of Agony to be in the maindeck but a resolved Silence as well to be conducive, while the former is a ritual-based loop with far less inherent baggage that stimulates the possibility of an attrition-y win in certain common in-game scenarios (less of a glass ceiling in comparison). Considering the need to create sideboard space for answers to be boarded in with regards to today's diverse metagame, the communal realization that a maindeck copy of Tendrils is subpar in most in-game modern age (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY2axROV1MY) scenarios, and the propagation of Empty the Warrens' efficacy versus the current field, I think it's safe to say we can accept the asymptotic Ad Nauseam with regards to most in-game scenarios usurping the need for IGG and its many positive, unique, yet ultimately not-enough-in-number-to-make-room-for nuances. There simply are more situations where PiF (consider casting Burning Wish for it proactively, for instance) will generate a win over IGG, hence the supplanting of it.

It would be nice, wouldn't it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFxMW-z_Sno), to be able to not only play IGG in the board but a maindeck Tendrils as well, but alas, it would also be nice if my wife weren't such a complete whore.

@Bryant-- Glad to see you're both liking Carpet and tinkering with misleading fetchlands now. I still know not of the truly optimal composite manabase for this archetype, but your suggestion of a Tropical Island in conjunction with the standard six gold lands and three blue fetchlands seems pretty well enough.

[HammafistRoob]

it would also be nice if my wife weren't such a complete whore.

I'm telling her you said that.

[Tom T]

They certainly both seem similar at face value, but regarding graveyard-based storm generators, Past in Flames is the apple to Ill-Gotten Gains' orange; the latter is a Lion's Eye Diamond-based loop that requires not only Tendrils of Agony to be in the maindeck but a resolved Silence as well to be conducive, while the former is a ritual-based loop with far less inherent baggage that stimulates the possibility of an attrition-y win in certain common in-game scenarios (less of a glass ceiling in comparison). Considering the need to create sideboard space for answers to be boarded in with regards to today's diverse metagame, the communal realization that a maindeck copy of Tendrils is subpar in most in-game modern age (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY2axROV1MY) scenarios, and the propagation of Empty the Warrens' efficacy versus the current field, I think it's safe to say we can accept the asymptotic Ad Nauseam with regards to most in-game scenarios usurping the need for IGG and its many positive, unique, yet ultimately not-enough-in-number-to-make-room-for nuances. There simply are more situations where PiF (consider casting Burning Wish for it proactively, for instance) will generate a win over IGG, hence the supplanting of it.

It would be nice, wouldn't it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFxMW-z_Sno), to be able to not only play IGG in the board but a maindeck Tendrils as well, but alas, it would also be nice if my wife weren't such a complete whore.

@Bryant-- Glad to see you're both liking Carpet and tinkering with misleading fetchlands now. I still know not of the truly optimal composite manabase for this archetype, but your suggestion of a Tropical Island in conjunction with the standard six gold lands and three blue fetchlands seems pretty well enough.

You don't have to main deck Tendrils. Situations where IGG is the safe engine all involve 2x Wish or Wish+Tutor and at least 1 LED (or an other way to create 12/14 mana including IGG targets). Sometimes in these situations you can also use PiF as an engine. If that isn't possible you can also DimRet with (Ux) mana floating most of the time.


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[vercadium]

They certainly both seem similar at face value, but regarding graveyard-based storm generators, Past in Flames is the apple to Ill-Gotten Gains' orange; the latter is a Lion's Eye Diamond-based loop that requires not only Tendrils of Agony to be in the maindeck but a resolved Silence as well to be conducive, while the former is a ritual-based loop with far less inherent baggage that stimulates the possibility of an attrition-y win in certain common in-game scenarios (less of a glass ceiling in comparison). Considering the need to create sideboard space for answers to be boarded in with regards to today's diverse metagame, the communal realization that a maindeck copy of Tendrils is subpar in most in-game modern age (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY2axROV1MY) scenarios, and the propagation of Empty the Warrens' efficacy versus the current field, I think it's safe to say we can accept the asymptotic Ad Nauseam with regards to most in-game scenarios usurping the need for IGG and its many positive, unique, yet ultimately not-enough-in-number-to-make-room-for nuances. There simply are more situations where PiF (consider casting Burning Wish for it proactively, for instance) will generate a win over IGG, hence the supplanting of it.

It would be nice, wouldn't it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFxMW-z_Sno), to be able to not only play IGG in the board but a maindeck Tendrils as well, but alas, it would also be nice if my wife weren't such a complete whore.

@Bryant-- Glad to see you're both liking Carpet and tinkering with misleading fetchlands now. I still know not of the truly optimal composite manabase for this archetype, but your suggestion of a Tropical Island in conjunction with the standard six gold lands and three blue fetchlands seems pretty well enough.

Ill-Gotten Gains & Past in Flames:

I agree with all of this (although, fortunately, my wife isn't a whore) and it was an excellent summary.

Although I think the key thing to note is not just that Ill-Gotten Gains isn't worth the slot, but that, when needed, 80% of the the time Past in Flames or Diminishing Returns could likely have "gotten there" instead (admittedly, the lines are more convoluted, but that's a price worth paying for an extra sideboard slot).

At my last tournament I didn't need to cast Diminishing Returns or Ill-Gotten Gains at all. I cast Past in Flames once against a hand of 2 Stifle as flashback Silence was the only out. The card is invaluable and even then I personally think I need to start casting Past in Flames more often instead of finding alternate routes to victory; this is something I am working to improve.

Perhaps those who dislike Past in Flames also just need to learn to use it better/more frequently? The problem might be with you; not the card.

Burning Wish:

It's also worth discussing that, hypothetically, as the size of our 'wish-board' reduces, Burning Wish reduces in value (I still love it, so this is more food-for-thought than a call for change).

The recent sideboard changes:

@Bryant - I can get behind the addition of Tropical Island and Xantid Swarm and I agree that these changes are positive ones.

What were the factors that encouraged you choose this option over the 2 Carpet of Flowers? Can you talk about your experience testing both options? What would need to change about the situation/meta for Carpet of Flowers to be 'worth it'? Were they just sub-par?

Fetch land configuration:

I too think it really doesn't make much difference, as I lead with Probe a lot now "the cat is out of the bag" much more quickly. I'd rather play with the ones I prefer, whether that be due to artwork, frame or a reduced cost to foil.

I believe it's only the turn 1 plays were imitating another deck can really pay off. For example:

Scalding Tarn -> Volcanic Island -> Ponder
Flooded Strand -> Underground Sea -> Duress.

To focus this discussion and hopefully come to a consensus - what style of deck is most benifical to simulate as TES? Tempo? Control? Why?

Thanks for reading.

[Bryant Cook]

@Bryant Cook
Why did you opt for PiF instead of IGG? Doing math with IGG is much more simple than PiF.
Just my two cent. Thanks

Doing the math isn’t an issue. I can figure out within seconds if I can win using Past in Flames or not, it’s about choosing the storm engine that is most beneficial for the deck. As other gentlemen (I use this term loosely) have pointed out in this thread, if you could use Ill-Gotten Gains to win, there was likely a line of play where Past in Flames or Diminishing Returns floating two mana could’ve “Gotten there.” It’s all about conserving space to help other match-ups.



@Bryant-- Glad to see you're both liking Carpet and tinkering with misleading fetchlands now. I still know not of the truly optimal composite manabase for this archetype, but your suggestion of a Tropical Island in conjunction with the standard six gold lands and three blue fetchlands seems pretty well enough.

The whole misleading fetchlands thing isn’t new, honestly, I don’t really know why it was brought up. I play three differently named blue fetchlands in my list because it avoids Pithing Needle and Surgical Extraction, they are: Flooded Strand, Misty Rainforest and Scalding Tarn. Those are the fetchlands when I post the list. My physical deck at the moment contains two Scalding Tarn and a Misty Rainforest, those are what I own Japanese foil – that’s what I’m playing. It doesn’t really matter to me the configuration because most people know what I’m on, if they don’t? Good luck beating me.

As for the Carpets, I was testing them, but read below for my thoughts as vercadium was also interested.


Ill-Gotten Gains & Past in Flames:

Burning Wish:

It's also worth discussing that, hypothetically, as the size of our 'wish-board' reduces, Burning Wish reduces in value (I still love it, so this is more food-for-thought than a call for change).

The recent sideboard changes:

@Bryant - I can get behind the addition of Tropical Island and Xantid Swarm and I agree that these changes are positive ones.

What were the factors that encouraged you choose this option over the 2 Carpet of Flowers? Can you talk about your experience testing both options? What would need to change about the situation/meta for Carpet of Flowers to be 'worth it'? Were they just sub-par?


I don’t really see the value of Burning Wish losing anything, there’s still plenty of “Wish targets”:

Cabal Therapy, Grapeshot, Empty the Warrens, Tendrils of Agony, Past in Flames, Diminishing Returns and Infernal Tutor (Post-sideboard in some match-ups). I’ll say that we have six and a half “Wish targets” that is more than enough to me considering I rarely casted Ill-Gotten Gains. The Tropical Island and how more often it will be used holds much more value in my eyes.

Carpet of Flowers was absolutely “fine” it was great in the match-ups where it was supposed to be. The problem is that those match-ups are already decent, I don’t have too many issues beating Tempo decks. It’s improving a match-up that may not need it, where we really need help against worse match-ups like Sneak Show, Omni Show and Reanimator. The additional Xantid Swarm and Tropical Island do this. If Show and Tell were ever banned and Reanimator stopped surfacing, I could easily see a pair of Carpet of Flowers back in my sideboard. I bought two Japanese ones just in case this happens! (I think it could).

In other news, I’ve been looking for a Japanese foil Temporal Fissure for the last six months or so. One appeared on eBay last night, I own it now.

My opponent’s permanents are no longer safe!

(This is something that I’m only likely going to do at locals)

[deviant]

I believe you all are forgetting the main point in the fetchland discussion:
- Older frame looks so much better than the new one, and even more so in foil.
Thus; mire-delta-strand is the optimal configuration.

Also, so many people do the whole fetchland shenanigans thing it´s not really fooling anyone competent by now..

[Lemnear]

Misty Rainforest -> Volcanic Island -> Ponder is a thing to confuse people in game 1, but that's rather marginal like the pithing needle issue for 3 lands.

In the unlikely case that anyone cares: I'm running a 2/2 split between Misty Rainforest and Flooded Strand in the 13-lands-configuration. Maybe switch to a 2/2 Judge FOIL split with Deltas for BoM.

[Asthereal]

Come to think of it, I actually use whatever is left after building four-five decks without proxying anything. I own four of all fetch and duals, but when I build decks, it never seems to be enough. When I opened my deckbox just now, I found that I play 2x Strand, 1x Mire now. :tongue:

[Lemnear]

Come to think of it, I actually use whatever is left after building four-five decks without proxying anything. I own all four of fetch and duals, but when I build decks, it never seems to be enough. When I opened my deckbox just now, I found that I play 2x Strand, 1x Mire now. :tongue:

Hahaha, my teammate does always the same too ;)

As long as you ran any splits between fetchlands here, it's fine. It's not that we're playing a deck that want's access to basic lands, where the specific Fetchland-color-combinations matter.

Since most of my deck is new-frame, englisch, judge FOIL, I'll face a tough battle within myself to run Misty over my Judge Deltas :/ Just need to find 1 Modern Masters Foil City of Brass and 2 Decays in my Mail and I'm ready for Paris.

[phazonmutant]

Hahaha, my teammate does always the same too ;)

As long as you ran any splits between fetchlands here, it's fine. It's not that we're playing a deck that want's access to basic lands, where the specific Fetchland-color-combinations matter.

Since most of my deck is new-frame, englisch, judge FOIL, I'll face a tough battle within myself to run Misty over my Judge Deltas :/ Just need to find 1 Modern Masters Foil City of Brass and 2 Decays in my Mail and I'm ready for Paris.

I guess everyone has the right to pimp in whatever way they see fit. But still. Modern Masters?

Actually on-topic, I've played a bunch of tournaments with TES and never once gotten Needled or Extracted. People would only bring in Needle if they think it works on LED (and then why are they naming your lands?) or if they have an abysmal matchup with no hate, so we should win anyways. There's also much more exciting targets to extract...like any of the rituals or tutors. I'm playing with 4 Deltas right now because they're the only sweet fetches I own (S-Chinese in that hot font from MMQ -> MIR blocks).
So...pretty much exactly what deviant said.

If anyone cares, went 1-2 drop in a local. Eh.

vercadium, we have the same avatar pic. That's confusing. Dibs?

[Lemnear]

Jep, Modern Masters imo has the Supreme Artwork for EtW, Grapeshot and City aside the fact that a huge bunch of german cards sound totally stupid for anyone speaking german ... "In Betracht ziehen" is plain retarded for "Ponder" even it catches the intention for example.

[Machahiko]

All modern masters art is disgusting. Skrillex, release the kawaii green men and evil jace playing volleyball.

[Lemnear]

Np, everyones free to scoop in disgust before I grab my SB with Wish on the Stack...

[Bryant Cook]

If anyone cares, went 1-2 drop in a local. Eh.

It's probably because you're running thirteen lands and four of the same fetchland.

As for your other point, I've had my lands Pithing Needle'd and Surgicaled more than once. I've also seen Gerrard Fabiano do it to Royce Walter's Misty to only find the one in his graveyard.

[Asthereal]

If anyone cares, went 1-2 drop in a local. Eh.
Why would you drop in a local tourney? It's not like you just failed to win 500$ over the course of 12 rounds of hard work.
Whether you win 25$ worth of store credit or not doesn't really matter. One plays local tourneys because they are fun, right?
At least, that's how I look at it.

Let's go back to the sideboard discussion though. I've been thinking, and it still feels weird to side a Tropical in a deck with only three fetch. Bryant has had this plan for a few eeks now, and perhaps others have picked it up as well. What are the experiences everyon ehere has had with it so far? I haven't played it in a tourney yet, and I'm relucant to try it...

[Bryant Cook]

Why would you drop in a local tourney? It's not like you just failed to win 500$ over the course of 12 rounds of hard work.
Whether you win 25$ worth of store credit or not doesn't really matter. One plays local tourneys because they are fun, right?
At least, that's how I look at it.

Let's go back to the sideboard discussion though. I've been thinking, and it still feels weird to side a Tropical in a deck with only three fetch. Bryant has had this plan for a few eeks now, and perhaps others have picked it up as well. What are the experiences everyon ehere has had with it so far? I haven't played it in a tourney yet, and I'm relucant to try it...

What would you be adding in the sideboard? The third Decay? Ill-Gotten Gains? Both are extremely weak at the moment.

[Asthereal]

I'd keep the Ill-Gotten Gains for now and add a thrird Chain of Vapor. I always loved the Chain. Very nice catch-all.
Another option for me would be an additional Chant. Lots of Storm and Tempo decks here in the Netherlands.

[oSeabass]

Newish (few months now) Storm player, went 3-1 at my LGS Legacy night with TES running Bryant's suggested 3 Swarm 1 Tropical Island board changes. I played against 2 Show & Tell based decks, 1 on the Sneak Attack secondary plan, and 1 mono blue Ant kill. Both matches the Swarm made the wins feel like super easy mode. Casting them turn 1 instead of the combo turn (in case of Silence) allows the chance to catch them with no mana to Brainstorm into hate. Once the Swarm resolved it felt good.

One of the games I forgot to bring in Chain of Vapor for the Leylines (didn't know the matchup well), and the only out was to EtW for a bunch of goblins to survive past an Emrakul swing. The first Swarm attack into Emrakul to clear the path for the combo, and during the Goblin combo I found a second Swarm to block Emrakul on the next turn when I pass with a critical number of Goblins. The fact that Swarm can block Emrakul in bad situations makes it even stronger and I was only able to win that game because of it (1st real Swarm got countered so I needed all 3).

Having the Trop. fetchable to help cast Abrupt Decay is very nice against decks running things like Thorn, Trinisphere, etc. other permanent based hatred. Not having to use a Petal or Mox to help make the Green (or the unavailability of a 5 color land) is a huge gain I think. That being said I think IGG was useful in the day, but I agree that the times where I wanted to IGG loop, I just needed to think a little more and was able to PiF instead.

I'll be sticking with the deck for a while as it is very fun to play. I'm planning on running it at the Grand Prix in DC coming up in November. Something about just drawing into a turn one kill with a Probe, after seeing they have no hate and just "yolo"ing it up feels so good. Feels better against Delver or another deck that is rough to beat if the game goes to turn 2.

[thefringthing]

Sleeved TES up again after playing Prosak-style ANT for a couple of months. Went 3-1 at my smallish local weekly Legacy tournament defeating Merfolk (opponent made a bad error game one, won game two with Xantid Swarm), a mono-green storm deck based on Enchantress effects, and Elves. My loss was in three games to RUG Delver (Hain's list from Strassbourg). I like the sideboard currently listed on the first page, with the caveat that I might want a Shattering Spree to wish for since people play Chalice decks at my store occasionally. Having been playing ANT for a while, I was reminded that TES is a) much harder to play, b) significantly faster, c) very vulnerable to Wasteland, d) mulligans a lot more, and e) less vulnerable to Extirpate effects and other graveyard hate. I was also reminded how much I love casting Silence in Legacy.

[oSeabass]

I was also reminded how much I love casting Silence in Legacy.

Used turn 1 Silence against a known Pox deck to stop a turn one Thorn coming down. Turn 2 in response to his Dark Ritual, I Brainstormed into another Silence which stopped a turn 2 Liliana. Silence is so fun even game one as a Time Walk. I am learning to do this more aggressively to get extra turns to draw into what you need. Feels so good when it works out.

[Lemnear]

TES doesn't mulligan a lot; greedy and inexperienced players do.

[Asthereal]

TES doesn't mulligan a lot; greedy and inexperienced players do.

TES does require more mulligans than 16 cantrip ANT though.

[thefringthing]

I definitely used to mulligan a lot more with TES than I do now. A lot of opening hands that look sketchy at first glance are actually fine (or at least not worse than the average six). 16 cantrip ANT with three basics and lots of land can keep basically any seven with blue mana though (this is obviously an overstatement, but you get the point), which is definitely not how things work with TES.

[phazonmutant]

It's probably because you're running thirteen lands and four of the same fetchland.

As for your other point, I've had my lands Pithing Needle'd and Surgicaled more than once. I've also seen Gerrard Fabiano do it to Royce Walter's Misty to only find the one in his graveyard.

Haha, that must be it. Match one was against a really weird UWr Miracles deck. I misboarded by bringing in ADs and taking out a couple Silence. Turns out he wasn't playing Counterbalance, only a pile of soft counters. In that matchup it's usually correct to take out a Chrome Mox, so another land was probably better than a Mox. Second round was against Thresh and I didn't make it to a second land ever. My keep game 2 was possibly sketchy (no lander with GP, Ponder, LP, and a couple rituals and IT on the draw), but I think my keep game 1 was correct. In both those games I would have actively preferred a land.
Also, only one of my Deltas isn't signed so I'm keeping track of whether I'd prefer to have that instead of a Mox when I draw it. So far it hasn't really made much of an impact either way.

Well, I guess I'll hope to dodge the mana-screw misers then. Or really I'll just hope to dodge Fabiano all the time ever.


Why would you drop in a local tourney? It's not like you just failed to win 500$ over the course of 12 rounds of hard work.
Whether you win 25$ worth of store credit or not doesn't really matter. One plays local tourneys because they are fun, right?
At least, that's how I look at it.

Dropping to do an 8-man with my cube is definitely correct vs. playing more matches in the scrub bracket with a deck I know decently well.

[Tammit67]

Dropping to do an 8-man with my cube is definitely correct vs. playing more matches in the scrub bracket with a deck I know decently well.

As a friend of mine says "No way am I staying in; there are too many Wurmcoils down there"

[Lemnear]

I definitely used to mulligan a lot more with TES than I do now. A lot of opening hands that look sketchy at first glance are actually fine (or at least not worse than the average six). 16 cantrip ANT with three basics and lots of land can keep basically any seven with blue mana though (this is obviously an overstatement, but you get the point), which is definitely not how things work with TES.


TES does require more mulligans than 16 cantrip ANT though.

There's no point in comparing 16-cantrip-ANT with TES or Belcher with OmniTell in regards to mulligan. Obviously you "mull more" with TES or Belcher ... the price for being a more explosive deck.

But that wasn't the point I was going to make. The claim is, that this deck does not "mulligan a lot" compared to the average Legacy deck or in terms of being an inconsistent pile. Dear user thefringthing mentioned something that I preach in my reports as well: don't mull sketchy hands for that reason alone, gambling for a miraculous 6! That's a fucking behaviour I see a lot when peeps pick up the deck and watch them mulling into oblivion (4-5 cards) and losing, just to hear them whine and rant (IRL as well as forums) how bad the deck is, blahblah.

Balanced keeps and mulligan decisions based on your opponent ("Is my opponent playing combo and I need either speed or protection?") are a crucial but underdeveloped skill-trait in a world full of Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, SDT, Jace and 8+ Fetches in almost every deck.

[davelin]

To prepare for an upcoming SCG Legacy Open, I've been goldfishing the deck in my spare time. After about 200 games, I find myself mulling around 1 in 8 hands. This is obviously independent of opponent, pre or post-sb, etc. This level frequency sound about right?

[Lemnear]

To prepare for an upcoming SCG Legacy Open, I've been goldfishing the deck in my spare time. After about 200 games, I find myself mulling around 1 in 8 hands. This is obviously independent of opponent, pre or post-sb, etc. This level frequency sound about right?

Unless you feel pressured to mull into a faster hand/disruption against other combo decks, a mulligan-rate up to 20% is acceptable and imo not that different to the average Legacy deck.

Sounds about my level tbh. You're doing good

[davelin]

Unless you feel pressured to mull into a faster hand/disruption against other combo decks, a mulligan-rate up to 20% is acceptable and imo not that different to the average Legacy deck.

Sounds about my level tbh. You're doing good

Thanks Lem, it's nice to have another benchmark for comparison purposes. My problem is probably not mulling enough, instead of too often, and I'm depending on my draw and/or a single cantrip to get me there.

[Lemnear]

Thanks Lem, it's nice to have another benchmark for comparison purposes. My problem is probably not mulling enough, instead of too often, and I'm depending on my draw and/or a single cantrip to get me there.

A minor remark to the "depending on a single cantrip" topic:

This week we had a Team session in Cockatrice (2 playing, 2 watching) while chatting in Skype and I had to advice my dood playing TES NOT to fire off his lone cantrip in hand (+ Rituals) in the face of pressure for 2 turns, which was totally counterintuitive for him to willingly take damage in this deck.

Long Story short: The delayed brainstorm not only found him the Biz he needed but the 2 additional draws also gave him the protection required to play his grip of 8(!) cards into PIF finishing with a 50+ Grapeshot

[davelin]

A minor remark to the "depending on a single cantrip" topic:

This week we had a Team session in Cockatrice (2 playing, 2 watching) while chatting in Skype and I had to advice my dood playing TES NOT to fire off his lone cantrip in hand (+ Rituals) in the face of pressure for 2 turns, which was totally counterintuitive for him to willingly take damage in this deck.

Long Story short: The delayed brainstorm not only found him the Biz he needed but the 2 additional draws also gave him the protection required to play his grip of 8(!) cards into PIF finishing with a 50+ Grapeshot

What deck was he playing against?

[Lemnear]

What deck was he playing against?

If I remember correctly it was a RUG Delver or such ... too many decks/games in recent testing. Sry :(

[Pelikanudo]

I'll expose my opinion about the changes in the side, to whom may interest

a) Ill Gotten Gains is for me the unique reason why having 2 B.Wish in hand is good, IGG also allows you to maximize a hand with LED and sometimes is even quicker than A.N. For me at least will be in side. So many times IGG has won me games where D.R OR PiF couldn't vs Decks like Goblins or Fast Agro.
b) I've been testing Bribery in side and its being good, its natural replacement is the 3rd A.Decay - having a pseudo A.N in side vs Reanimator and S&T is not bad. Just meta dependant.
c) Still I prefer having 3 duress in main, but not yet convinced
c.1) The idea behind vs S&T is to use full of duress so that misdirection has no targets AND not to side out I.T because of Bribery AND still using 2 X.Swarm. Simple.


d) About taking out Grapeshot - Never, this single card even serves to 2 different roles.
e) Also putting a land in side for me is nonsense in a deck like TES.
e.1) The deck can handle 3 Xantid with no needs of a land -- > If you substitute a A.D by a X.Swarn, still you have 7 green producers.
e.2) If you feel you need more mana, just add it to the M.base and save side space. Not sure but for example I think Bahamut plays 13 lands 1 empty 3 b.wish.
e.3) If you really feel you need more mana for some specific matches just put Carpet of flowers in side.
e.4) Would you put C.Mox in side? I don't think so. In the worst case, isn't better to put C.Brass?

[Lemnear]

We had the discussion about Bribery today again in my team. I'm known for shenanigans like Bribery or Reanimate in TES sideboards, so I'm free to give you my first hand experience: You don't need Bribery.

If you side out Infernal Tutor you achieve the effect of having a wishable Ad Nauseam for 2 extra mana (but without being required to cast Wish and Infernal in a single turn for mana issues). Bribery is nothing more than a waste of space to Showboat against Reanimator or SneakShow.

Having the 2/1 split between Duress and Therapy in the Maindeck is essentially for the sideboarding against decks with permament hate, so you can shift around the 2 Duress spots (and 4 Silence) for Decays, Chains and 2 more Therapies. That however doesn't mean that i'm a big Fan of preboard Therapy ...

For IGG I want you to remind that the loop almost "requires" double LED and it's a waste to keep an engine which is not only that limited, but also scoops to DRS and RIP. 2 Engines that depend on the grave are too much these days.

For the SB land and Carpet I just wanna mention that you are first required to find a green manasource against manadenial to cast it ... that CAN become a problem while Tropical is a land. The issue is more meta depending and with a lot of tempo in my meta I choose to run a 13. Land myself, rather than trying to adress a common matchup with the SB.

[Sinkhole]

I`m a new T.E.S player too and can`t understand, where all the "needs of mulligan so often" are comming from! I mean our deck consists of 3 - 4 main card types Buisness (and Cantrips), Speed and Protection. I think if you hold 2 of these card types with enough lands in hands, you should be allright, because, it doesn`t takes a long time to draw the 3rd needed one. Also I think it`s nothing wrong with holding a hand with 2 - 3 disruption spells and maybe one cantrip, against blue opponents you need the disruption and have too slow down a little bit automatically. I top deck like a lucky fellow so often with T.E.S and I think that isn`t only luck :wink:

On cutting IGG: When I would be more experienced, i would do so, because you use it pretty much never, but under the consideration that I am green as hell with T.E.S I keep it in the board (sometimes, really sometimes it`s the easiest way for going of). :tongue:

[Barbed Blightning]

I`m a new T.E.S player too and can`t understand, where all the "needs of mulligan so often" are comming from! I mean our deck consists of 3 - 4 main card types Buisness (and Cantrips), Speed and Protection. I think if you hold 2 of these card types with enough lands in hands, you should be allright, because, it doesn`t takes a long time to draw the 3rd needed one. Also I think it`s nothing wrong with holding a hand with 2 - 3 disruption spells and maybe one cantrip, against blue opponents you need the disruption and have too slow down a little bit automatically. I top deck like a lucky fellow so often with T.E.S and I think that isn`t only luck :wink:

On cutting IGG: When I would be more experienced, i would do so, because you use it pretty much never, but under the consideration that I am green as hell with T.E.S I keep it in the board (sometimes, really sometimes it`s the easiest way for going of). :tongue:

Also looking into the deck (I want an unfair deck and T.E.S. has the most interesting lines of play) and I agree: mulligans are rare if you can understand your branches of play. That's the learning curve with the deck.

Branching off the Iggy discussion: has anyone considered Time Spiral? I know Ning ran it for a while over Diminishing Returns. Is there some discussion within this thread?

[Lemnear]

Also looking into the deck (I want an unfair deck and T.E.S. has the most interesting lines of play) and I agree: mulligans are rare if you can understand your branches of play. That's the learning curve with the deck.

Branching off the Iggy discussion: has anyone considered Time Spiral? I know Ning ran it for a while over Diminishing Returns. Is there some discussion within this thread?

Ning never thought it was good himself. It's junk and the topic appears every 10 pages. It requires more initial mana and is only "better" than DR if you have 3 lands to untap (Gemstone Mine counters!). In essence, you can't cast the card early for value which perverts the concept of draw7's.



"Dear storm-padawans,
don't act like the fact that this deck contains a limited number of concept-cards (mana, biz, protection) equals easy mulligans. It's not that LED and Chrome Mox have the same value in a starting grip or you have infinite time to sculpt your hand. Discard, counter(balance) and hatebears will Dismember you easily with your attitude.

Greetings"

[Pelikanudo]

We had the discussion about Bribery today again in my team. I'm known for shenanigans like Bribery or Reanimate in TES sideboards, so I'm free to give you my first hand experience: You don't need Bribery.

If you side out Infernal Tutor you achieve the effect of having a wishable Ad Nauseam for 2 extra mana (but without being required to cast Wish and Infernal in a single turn for mana issues). Bribery is nothing more than a waste of space to Showboat against Reanimator or SneakShow.

Having the 2/1 split between Duress and Therapy in the Maindeck is essentially for the sideboarding against decks with permament hate, so you can shift around the 2 Duress spots (and 4 Silence) for Decays, Chains and 2 more Therapies. That however doesn't mean that i'm a big Fan of preboard Therapy ...

For IGG I want you to remind that the loop almost "requires" double LED and it's a waste to keep an engine which is not only that limited, but also scoops to DRS and RIP. 2 Engines that depend on the grave are too much these days.

For the SB land and Carpet I just wanna mention that you are first required to find a green manasource against manadenial to cast it ... that CAN become a problem while Tropical is a land. The issue is more meta depending and with a lot of tempo in my meta I choose to run a 13. Land myself, rather than trying to adress a common matchup with the SB.

@Lemnear

It is a fact that with Bribery the first game vs Reanimator and S&T is improved --> that was my main goal. --> it is meta dependant but by here there is a lot of S&T decks. For sure having 3 xantid in side will improve these match ups, but for second and 3rd games. and you sometimes do not reach 3rd games.

Related to the land in side, Before including the land in the side, you had 3 decays and 2 xantid, 5 cards requiring green, now we have also 5 cards requiring green, if before it worked I do not understand why it will not work unless you set an aditional land. if there is lot of tempo in your meta, this may be a solution, but then an U.Sea is simply better-

As said IGG is a puzzle piece for me, I've won so many times with this cards in so many sitations where other cards were useless. it is more a matter of remembering which cards are used in which situations and to choose not to take it out.

[Lemnear]

@Lemnear

It is a fact that with Bribery the first game vs Reanimator and S&T is improved --> that was my main goal. --> it is meta dependant but by here there is a lot of S&T decks. For sure having 3 xantid in side will improve these match ups, but for second and 3rd games. and you sometimes do not reach 3rd games.

Related to the land in side, Before including the land in the side, you had 3 decays and 2 xantid, 5 cards requiring green, now we have also 5 cards requiring green, if before it worked I do not understand why it will not work unless you set an aditional land. if there is lot of tempo in your meta, this may be a solution, but then an U.Sea is simply better-

As said IGG is a puzzle piece for me, I've won so many times with this cards in so many sitations where other cards were useless. it is more a matter of remembering which cards are used in which situations and to choose not to take it out.

I'm sure, it's still a strange idea to "improve" that matchups but see the access to 7 mana and Wish as given. Another downer is, that S&T doesn't always mean they run creatures.

The issue about green mana lies within the matchups not the sources. Being ablt to drop Carpet against Tempo isn't given at all.

The IGG topic is not that different to Bribery. Sure there are situations there those cards are better than DR and PIF in the board, but those situations are not only rare but can be played around with a lil brainwork.

[JPoJohnson]

I'm sure, it's still a strange idea to "improve" that matchups but see the access to 7 mana and Wish as given. Another downer is, that S&T doesn't always mean they run creatures.

The issue about green mana lies within the matchups not the sources. Being ablt to drop Carpet against Tempo isn't given at all.

The IGG topic is not that different to Bribery. Sure there are situations there those cards are better than DR and PIF in the board, but those situations are not only rare but can be played around with a lil brainwork.

I thought every version of S&T at least ran Emrakul?

Even with that being said, I'm not thinking bribery would be a better include over something else that could be in the board.

[Squirrel]

I thought every version of S&T at least ran Emrakul?

Even with that being said, I'm not thinking bribery would be a better include over something else that could be in the board.

Some versions of Omnishow don't run Emrakul Maindeck..

I think in this case Telemin Performance is better than Bribery.. but still not sideboardable.

[Lemnear]

Some versions of Omnishow don't run Emrakul Maindeck..

I think in this case Telemin Performance is better than Bribery.. but still not sideboardable.

Telemin has also application against ANT ... not a real argument though

[Jay_Gatz]

Won a GPT today with the updated list. Didn't ever bring the Bees in so I didn't get to test them out. I did miss Ill-Gotten gains once but I ended up just casting returns with 2 floating and getting there.

[Lemnear]

http://imageshack.us/a/img35/3650/9mtp.jpg

Ready for BoM!

[davelin]

Won a GPT today with the updated list. Didn't ever bring the Bees in so I didn't get to test them out. I did miss Ill-Gotten gains once but I ended up just casting returns with 2 floating and getting there.

Congrats! What did you play against?

[Jay_Gatz]

Team America 1-2, UW miracles 2-0, Tin Fins 2-1, Shardless BUG 2-0 and Elves 2-1 in swiss. Since I had to play the last round I ended in second so I was on the play for my top 8/top4. 2-1 against UGR Thresh and 2-1 against another elves player. I was scooped to in the finals by a 4 color death blade deck and we didn't play because breaking bad was coming on. I didn't take notes so I'm not going to write a report. I did get very lucky against the tin fins player one game where he combo'd out and drew with griselbrand down to 5 life but couldn't hit the 4th mana for tendrils. Also both elves players brought in 7 discard spells and 2 mindbreak traps, I'm not sure if this is the new norm or if they were just metagaming.

[Lemnear]

It's the norm and part of the reason I don't board in Decays or Chains anymore. The second reason is that they began to cut Gaddock Teeg as well

[Jay_Gatz]

Both played Savannahs so I'm assuming they had teeg but I never saw him. I brought in chains on the draw but took them back out on the play.

[Griselpuff]

So, how do ppl sideboard given that they have the turn 1 kill on the play with Empty? Bring in Chain of Vapor? Cut Silence?

Also, this deck is stupid good. Probably the best deck in Legacy right now.

[Lemnear]

So, how do ppl sideboard given that they have the turn 1 kill on the play with Empty? Bring in Chain of Vapor? Cut Silence?

Also, this deck is stupid good. Probably the best deck in Legacy right now.

I don't get the question, nor have I any idea how a "turn 1 EtW kill" looks like...

[paeng4983]

I don't get the question, nor have I any idea how a "turn 1 EtW kill" looks like...


So, how do ppl sideboard given that they have the turn 1 kill on the play with Empty? Bring in Chain of Vapor? Cut Silence?

Also, this deck is stupid good. Probably the best deck in Legacy right now

Maybe this what he's trying to say: "Why cut silence for chain wherein a turn one X goblins off ETW is enough to finish it?"

@Lemnear, nice picture you have there. ^_^ I hope to see you this coming November there. ^_^

@topic mulligan, I rarely do this, unless my hand contain no land or there's going to be no activity for the 1st two turns.

[Lemnear]

Still have no clue why we discuss boarding plans according to given nut-draws :/

@paeng
We have our flights booked and a hotel suite for the whole gang. Trying to convince the guys to suit themselves up for the Mainevent! Would be epic :D

[paeng4983]

Still have no clue why we discuss boarding plans according to given nut-draws :/


I just assume that Akatsuki is a new player (with TES).

Try TES Akatsuki and you'll know why it is like that, or read like 10 to 15 pages back.
Or maybe read some TES reports, there are situations in the reports that has the answer/s.
*cheers*

[Lemnear]

I agree, most questions regarding those topics are outlined in Bryant's Articles and other peeps reports.


P.S.: I should not have started to send around signed german FOIL EtW's and Goblin Tokens as gifts ... shit gets expensive

[Kayradis]

I agree, most questions regarding those topics are outlined in Bryant's Articles and other peeps reports.


P.S.: I should not have started to send around signed german FOIL EtW's and Goblin Tokens as gifts ... shit gets expensive

Then suddenly I resleeved TES!

[Lemnear]

Then suddenly I resleeved TES!

I told the story ... got snowballed by requests :/

[Kayradis]

Hahaha. Fair enough!
Now you'll be assaulted by people with some german foils!

[oSeabass]

Random art question... if you had to pick non foil Dark Rituals for your deck, which ones would you go for. A LGS had a set of Beta Dark Rits at $25 a pop and they looked damn good. Right now I use a set of altered ones from different sets with full extended alters of the art. I use currently: Alpha/Beta art, Tempest, Ice Age, and Mirage.

I personally like the Ice Age, MM, and Alpha art the best. I know there are a lot of Dark Rits (even new FTV ones) to pimp out with. Just curious what you all use as your set?

[DarkJester]

Random art question... if you had to pick non foil Dark Rituals for your deck, which ones would you go for. A LGS had a set of Beta Dark Rits at $25 a pop and they looked damn good. Right now I use a set of altered ones from different sets with full extended alters of the art. I use currently: Alpha/Beta art, Tempest, Ice Age, and Mirage.

I personally like the Ice Age, MM, and Alpha art the best. I know there are a lot of Dark Rits (even new FTV ones) to pimp out with. Just curious what you all use as your set?

3rd Edition German BB (the Alpha/beta/unlimited/revised-Artwork). It has everything, many Skulls, a creepy black mage/lich/whatever invoking powerful magic, and the background reminds me of the stage goro's lair from MK1 :laugh: But, I don't care about pimping at all. Still playing my beautiful, non-foil, full-art ponders. (maybe it's another kind of pimping, choosing the artwork which fits me most. I dislike the including of a playset with different artworks, f.e. 1 beta Ritual, 1 Ice Age-ritual....)

[Megadeus]

Random art question... if you had to pick non foil Dark Rituals for your deck, which ones would you go for. A LGS had a set of Beta Dark Rits at $25 a pop and they looked damn good. Right now I use a set of altered ones from different sets with full extended alters of the art. I use currently: Alpha/Beta art, Tempest, Ice Age, and Mirage.

I personally like the Ice Age, MM, and Alpha art the best. I know there are a lot of Dark Rits (even new FTV ones) to pimp out with. Just curious what you all use as your set?

Iplayed masques ones. I just like the art

[Jay_Gatz]

Before I got foils I played with a set of German BB rits.

[thefringthing]

I use Beta Dark Rituals.

[davelin]

Mirage for my cheap ass

[oSeabass]

I use Beta Dark Rituals.

The text on the Beta ones just looks so bad ass. I may wait til payday and snag a playset of them, cus they look slick as hell.


I dislike the including of a playset with different artworks, f.e. 1 beta Ritual, 1 Ice Age-ritual....

I normally try and go with the 4x same art/style/language etc. I think if the deck went and embraced it, it could look ok. Lorwyn Ponder, Full art, Core set, ???
Brainstorms you have: MM, Ice Age, Beatdown white border, dual decks. Dark rit you have a million choices. Couple Lotus Petals I think, some promo ones were printed???

For now I stick to 4x the same, except the Dark Rituals which are all just full art extensions of the art, so it's "pimp" and different. The Beta's though... damned... now I really want them.

[oSeabass]

"Dear storm-padawans,
don't act like the fact that this deck contains a limited number of concept-cards (mana, biz, protection) equals easy mulligans. It's not that LED and Chrome Mox have the same value in a starting grip or you have infinite time to sculpt your hand. Discard, counter(balance) and hatebears will Dismember you easily with your attitude.

Greetings"

I am still learning when and what I can keep, because I have quickly learned going down to 6, or even 5 is just going to get destroyed. Learning the %'s on drawing into my missing piece is something I still need to learn. Any tips for remembering the %s?

[Barbed Blightning]

Mirage for my cheap ass

It has the sickest flavor text though

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Random art question... if you had to pick non foil Dark Rituals for your deck, which ones would you go for.

4ED BB Messe Noir

[P-E]

japanese coldsnap theme deck are nice if you love IA art :cool:

[Tammit67]

It has the sickest flavor text though

Really? For me Tempest flavor text is easily the best:

"If there is such a thing as too much power, I have not discovered it."
—Volrath

On another topic- Bryant your updated primer is amazing. I really prefer this style of walking through your decisions instead of having a TL;DR section of +good cards -bad ones at the end. This way people will actually have to read and hopefully thereby retain some of it.

Still the best primer out there, and certainly the most frequently updated.

[Griselpuff]

My question was perhaps not phrased very well. If you empty on turn 1 and your opponent concedes, how should you sideboard? I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to read through every single report/page on this thread (it's not on the primer).

[davelin]

My question was perhaps not phrased very well. If you empty on turn 1 and your opponent concedes, how should you sideboard? I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to read through every single report/page on this thread (it's not on the primer).

Umm....don't sideboard?

[Bryant Cook]

My question was perhaps not phrased very well. If you empty on turn 1 and your opponent concedes, how should you sideboard? I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to read through every single report/page on this thread (it's not on the primer).

You don't.


Really? For me Tempest flavor text is easily the best:

On another topic- Bryant your updated primer is amazing. I really prefer this style of walking through your decisions instead of having a TL;DR section of +good cards -bad ones at the end. This way people will actually have to read and hopefully thereby retain some of it.

Still the best primer out there, and certainly the most frequently updated.

It's Japanese foil Masques or GFTO.

Also, thanks. I try to stay on top of the reports, feature matches, articles and decklists. It's a bit of a pain in the ass to update the sideboarding guide. As I've said before if there's anything that should be included let me know, it's tough to stay on top of the feature matches because I don't always watch.

[phazonmutant]

Really? For me Tempest flavor text is easily the best:

No way. Korean 4th very easily the best flavor text:

Circle-hat circle circle-hat-circle-stick



I personally like the Ice Age, MM, and Alpha art the best. I know there are a lot of Dark Rits (even new FTV ones) to pimp out with. Just curious what you all use as your set?

I play with K 4th. The art is cool and iconic. I have to admit that I prefer Rebecca Guay's art on the MM ones. On the other hand, Korean > all.



It's Japanese foil Masques or GFTO.

Here, I found this for you:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HwQjAgJwRGo/TZ0UKV_SNjI/AAAAAAAAAEo/e_xbRLwt5p8/s400/charizard.jpg

[paeng4983]

My question was perhaps not phrased very well.
^_^
I tried my best to rephrase it.



If you empty on turn 1 and your opponent concedes, how should you sideboard?

Well, it now depends on your call.
If it happens that you know what your opponent is with, then remove cards from the main and board-in the cards as Cook suggest. Promise, trust what he had written and you wont get lost.



(it's not on the primer)

It is.



I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to read through every single report/page on this thread .

Well, yes its unreasonable to read every pages in this thread. I agree to this.
If you are going to check again the very first page of this thread, it also have a section wherein it has links to tournament report. Try to read at least the last three reports so that you will have an idea how TES does.
Also, try reading the Heart of Storm.

Before I was using four different art of Dark Rituals. Now, just beta. Currently, I'm looking for an Arabian Nights City of Brass.




Korean 4th very easily the best flavor text:

Circle-hat circle circle-hat-circle-stick

LMAO

[Lemnear]

I heared someone wrote those HotS reports to exactly answer those kind of questions ... ;)

[Bryant Cook]

Here, I found this for you:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HwQjAgJwRGo/TZ0UKV_SNjI/AAAAAAAAAEo/e_xbRLwt5p8/s400/charizard.jpg

I said Japanese foil AND it's not even first edition.

[oSeabass]

No way. Korean 4th very easily the best flavor text:
I play with K 4th. The art is cool and iconic. I have to admit that I prefer Rebecca Guay's art on the MM ones. On the other hand, Korean > all.

Just looked up the Korean ones on Ebay..... those are real nice. That being said, Cook's Jap. Foil MM ones DOOOOO look really nice, but they're a bit "pricey". If I was spending that much on them, I might go with Alpha English.

Looking on Troll & Toad, I think it is Italian/Spanish. The copyright date makes it less cool, but the wording is awesome IMHO, "Reserva de mana!". I'm a sucker for lame ones like this, because I can stumble my way through pronouncing the words. Asian foreign languages, I cannot fake my way through.
http://media.trollandtoad.com/products/pictures/81380.jpg

[Lemnear]

The german limited black bordered ones' text still sound like my grampa wrote it. REALLY oldschool ;D


No love for the bizarre and horrific Judge Promo Art?

[oSeabass]

No love for the bizarre and horrific Judge Promo Art?

The art is just... odd. I think I am also going to avoid foils and cards with white borders. In the deck there is only a few foils (which I need to remedy), AN, and Cabal Therapy (boring Graveborn ones). I want to have only 1 foil, AN, and only 3 (4 in board) white border (dual lands). This way, when I am sifting through the deck on a tutor or fetch land, I know what to look for quicker. Need AN? Find the sole shiny card. Need a dual land? Look for where the white border sticks out. Fanning the cards out a bit and quickly scanning based on border or foil, really helps me tutor faster... which gives me more time to think my play through until I can auto pilot it better.

[Jay_Gatz]

The art is just... odd. I think I am also going to avoid foils and cards with white borders. In the deck there is only a few foils (which I need to remedy), AN, and Cabal Therapy (boring Graveborn ones). I want to have only 1 foil, AN, and only 3 (4 in board) white border (dual lands). This way, when I am sifting through the deck on a tutor or fetch land, I know what to look for quicker. Need AN? Find the sole shiny card. Need a dual land? Look for where the white border sticks out. Fanning the cards out a bit and quickly scanning based on border or foil, really helps me tutor faster... which gives me more time to think my play through until I can auto pilot it better.
I'd be very wary of this. Having a single foil, especially a one of like as nauseam is an easy way to get busted for marked cards.

[oSeabass]

The german limited black bordered ones' text still sound like my grampa wrote it. REALLY oldschool ;D

Just checked the text on it. The best thing about that is the German word for Interrupt...


Unterbrechungszauber!

[oSeabass]

I'd be very wary of this. Having a single foil, especially a one of like as nauseam is an easy way to get busted for marked cards.

At my local shop it isn't much of an issue. I plan on playing in bigger tournaments with the deck, I will be "judge proofing" the deck. Taking out the full art alters of the dark rituals, and the foils in the maindeck to replace with boring non foil. The only thing I still worry about is the 3 foil Cabal Therapy, since it is the crappy Graveborn ones that have that awful foiling process that makes them have the weird bend. I need to get my hands on some normal Judegment Therapy.

[Barbed Blightning]

The german limited black bordered ones' text still sound like my grampa wrote it. REALLY oldschool ;D

No love for the bizarre and horrific Judge Promo Art?

To me it looks like a bug is getting cracked open.

I like the same FBB too. Then again, German > Everything else (except maybe Russian)

[P-E]

Looking on Troll & Toad, I think it is Italian/Spanish. The copyright date makes it less cool, but the wording is awesome IMHO, "Reserva de mana!". I'm a sucker for lame ones like this, because I can stumble my way through pronouncing the words. Asian foreign languages, I cannot fake my way through.
http://media.trollandtoad.com/products/pictures/81380.jpg

It's portuguese.
Beta ones are the best when they're paired with beta duals
otherwise German fbb with german fbb duals

[Griselpuff]

Duress LED Empty the Warrens Dark Ritual Dark Ritual Ponder Burning Wish

Would you keep this hand on the play? On the draw?

[JUNI0R]

Duress LED Empty the Warrens Dark Ritual Dark Ritual Ponder Burning Wish

Would you keep this hand on the play? On the draw?

I wouldn't keep it on the play or draw. Too much has to go right, you basically have to runner runner 2 intial mana sources or ims, ad nauseum or ims, infernal or I'm sure there's a couple other combinations but we're talking bad odds. Even with the ponder it's not worth the it to me.

[phazonmutant]

The german limited black bordered ones' text still sound like my grampa wrote it. REALLY oldschool ;D


No love for the bizarre and horrific Judge Promo Art?

Haha, makes me wish I could read any of the ferrin cards I have. A Korean friend told me Korean Ancient Tomb translates to "Old person grave". So I guess they can be pretty literal...

What, you mean the owl being cracked open for black mana? No way. It's new border, foil, promo, and has horrific art. I'm not sure how a card could strike out harder.

[Lemnear]

Duress LED Empty the Warrens Dark Ritual Dark Ritual Ponder Burning Wish

Would you keep this hand on the play? On the draw?

I might consider it if the Rituals and Tutors would match. In this case and especially without initial mana it's a mull in either case

Edit: more than 3 weeks left till Paris, but the MB and SB for the Mainevent is already set in stone. Time to fix my side-event-deck ... muahahahahahaha

[Lemnear]

Haha, makes me wish I could read any of the ferrin cards I have. A Korean friend told me Korean Ancient Tomb translates to "Old person grave". So I guess they can be pretty literal...

What, you mean the owl being cracked open for black mana? No way. It's new border, foil, promo, and has horrific art. I'm not sure how a card could strike out harder.

http://www.testedich.de/quiz25/picture/pic_1204041348_1001.jpg

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/jr/38.jpg

[paeng4983]

Duress LED Empty the Warrens Dark Ritual Dark Ritual Ponder Burning Wish

Would you keep this hand on the play? On the draw?

Either on the play or on the draw, it's a clear mulligan.
I will not gamble on this one.
TES is capable of going off even mull to 5.
^_^

[Griselpuff]

I might consider it if the Rituals and Tutors would match. In this case and especially without initial mana it's a mull in either case

Edit: more than 3 weeks left till Paris, but the MB and SB for the Mainevent is already set in stone. Time to fix my side-event-deck ... muahahahahahaha

Might I ask what differences your list has with the list in the primer and why?

[Asthereal]

Lemnear usually plays the exact same 75 as in the opening post.
See his five tourney reports "Heart of the Storm" in his signature.
Keep in mind the sideboard changes -1 Gains, -1 Decay, +1 Trop, +1 Swarm are very new.

Right now I believe Lemnear tests the main deck change -1 Chrome Mox, +1 fetch land.
Another main deck change that is being tested in the Netherlands is -1 Burning Wish, +1 fetch land.
I personally believe that last change could be an overall improvement to the deck, but it's designer Bryant disagrees. :wink:

So now you know the different TES lists that are being tried. All changes are small ones.
Skill will make a much bigger difference than playing an optimal list, whatever it may be.

[Bryant Cook]

Lemnear usually plays the exact same 75 as in the opening post.
See his five tourney reports "Heart of the Storm" in his signature.
Keep in mind the sideboard changes -1 Gains, -1 Decay, +1 Trop, +1 Swarm are very new.

Right now I believe Lemnear tests the main deck change -1 Chrome Mox, +1 fetch land.
Another main deck change that is being tested in the Netherlands is -1 Burning Wish, +1 fetch land.
I personally believe that last change could be an overall improvement to the deck, but it's designer Bryant disagrees. :wink:

Yeah, let's take out one of our few win conditions. Great idea!

[Asthereal]

Yeah, let's take out one of our few win conditions. Great idea!
I knew you were going to say that. :laugh:

The idea is that 12 cantrips can easily find one of our 9 remaining wincons.
We do need lands to cast those cantrips though.
Like I said, I personally feel it's a good change, but I have no proof. No million test results.

[Pelikanudo]

Yeah, let's take out one of our few win conditions. Great idea!

I personally prefer to play with 4 B.Wish, however Bahamut I think plays the list with only 3, and he plays 13 lands, he even was the first to propose the inclusión of EtW in main...

But if you're going to take out IGG, maybe 3 B.Wish can be an option.

On overall 3 B.W 4 I.T 1 ETW are not as low number as Business Spells.

I personally play anyway 4 B.W and IGG.

[oSeabass]

On overall 3 B.W 4 I.T 1 ETW are not as low number as Business Spells.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't one of the great reasons about 4 Burning Wish, is that in some tricky matches (forget which specifically I need to reread BC's primer) you take out a Ponder and Infernal Tutor to the board. This makes them, primarily the IT, wishable. Going down to 3 wishes lowers the effectiveness of this, as well as cuts out the reach needed with PiF.

For a while I was testing around with the -1 Mox, +1 Fetch, because I liked the extra shuffle effect to be able to keep 3 on a Ponder and shuffle 2 of them away. After playing with the deck more, I am realizing how important just going for AN is, and sometimes the 3rd Mox is really helpful to beat Wasteland. Having the extra fetch when we bring in the 4th searchable land in the board (Tropical Island) seems ok, but I haven't tested the -1 Mox +1 fetch chance with the BC approved SB changes of -1 AD, -1 IGG, +1 Tropical Island, +1 Swarm.

So far, the extra Swarm has proven to be great against the growing number of blue based Show and Tell decks (Omni-Tell, Sneak and Show, etc.). Swarm has allowed me to combo, as well as providing a blocker for Emrakul when I had to pass the turn with critical mass Goblins at 1 life to answer a Leyline. I also like the extra land to be a little nicer against Wasteland decks.

[Asthereal]

You could add the fourth Burning Wish to eeh sideboard if you feel that siding out an Infernal is too important to not be able to do at all. You then just sidfe -1 Infernal +1 Wish and have the same setup postboard. I tried the fourth Wish in the board and wasn't sure it was necessary, but I have a lot less experience with the whole idea of cutting a Wish than my fellow Dutchman Bahamuth does. I just feel the deck runs slightly more smoothly with one less Wish. The 12 cantrips usually find me a business spell fast enough, and I get a lot less awkward hands with 2x Wish and an Infernal. Also the extra fetch land helps cantripping and reduces the chance of drawing no-landers.

[oSeabass]

The 12 cantrips usually find me a business spell fast enough, and I get a lot less awkward hands with 2x Wish and an Infernal. Also the extra fetch land helps cantripping and reduces the chance of drawing no-landers.

The extra wish can be used as a nice card for the Chrome Mox. Also, if you have 2 in hand and a bunch of mana spells with enough land/Mox to cast one, you can throw one out there to force out a counterspell (pun intended). Having the ability to throw it out and smoke check works pretty well. You can also get a card out of the board they don't expect, which then makes them start thinking.... "What is this guy thinking grabbing XYZ out of the board with a grip full of cards and using his Wish on THAT!?". I've grabbed a Diminishing Returns before to bluff if on the next turn, and it changes people's line of play when it might not matter. I like the 4 wishes seeing as how it is great with AN and Chrome Mox. Having 4 gives the best chance of "finding" a PiF after AN, which is game.

I also ran 4 because I used to run a 2/1 split on Abrupt Decay/Hull Breach, because my meta was full of Counterbalance decks. Having a game 1 answer to a quick top into Counterbalance would let me trick them into using mana to counter something like a Dark Ritual, then once they set a 1 on top with no mana open you can drop 0 mana things and go into the board for a Hull Breach and blow up the Counterbalance.

Also I think it works this way, but if you Hull Breach targeting a Counterbalance AND a Top, if they respond by drawing with the Top, does that counter the entire Hull Breach??? I don't think it does, since it has 2 legal targets, only 1 is no longer there. It isn't like a, "Do X to target Y. Draw", where if Y is gone you don't draw. Right?

[evilGod]

Hull Breach will resolve. Spells are only countered by game rules if ALL targets are illegal. Otherwise they do as much as possible.

[Bryant Cook]

I've been past the point of trying to convince people to play my decklist which I consider optimal. I do plenty of theorizing as well as testing, actual gameplay as well as running the deck in large events. If other people want to run a decklist that isn't mine, I don't really care, it's their own fault if they're unsuccessful. I understand that metagames often dictate slots, but I can't think of a single reason to shave off a Burning Wish. Others can do what they would like, I'll keep producing numbers.

While you won't immediately notice the lack of the fourth Burning Wish, put that card upside down in the sleeve and compare situations to which you would prefer the other. Most of the time Burning Wish will be more valuable than an additional land.

[Lemnear]

Might I ask what differences your list has with the list in the primer and why?


Lemnear usually plays the exact same 75 as in the opening post.
See his five tourney reports "Heart of the Storm" in his signature.
Keep in mind the sideboard changes -1 Gains, -1 Decay, +1 Trop, +1 Swarm are very new.

Right now I believe Lemnear tests the main deck change -1 Chrome Mox, +1 fetch land.
Another main deck change that is being tested in the Netherlands is -1 Burning Wish, +1 fetch land.
I personally believe that last change could be an overall improvement to the deck, but it's designer Bryant disagrees. :wink:

So now you know the different TES lists that are being tried. All changes are small ones.
Skill will make a much bigger difference than playing an optimal list, whatever it may be.

If you ever wished for a Diminishing Returns and removed 2 more Wishes or several Tutors/Wishes overall, you'll notice why the list in the primer has 4 Wishes. Aside from that I love to burn them for Cabal Therapies to slice through dedicated control or clear fields with Grapeshot to combo off next turns.

@changes:
I've ran tournaments without IGG and was called an idiot, so I feel good now that this change is inevitable post DRS/RIP. Even in the HotS-Reports I toyed around with several SB switches. I added the third Swarm as well a Pyroclasm to the SB. I never thought about needing that crappy sweeper but I saw a lot of Thalia-Goblins and hatebear-decks overalll and expect those for BoM too. In addition to those there are tempo-decks everywhere and I saw myself less and less able to fully Profit from the speed of 3 Moxen and had to battle through a shitload of taxing effects lately which I rather adress with a MB switch than the SB in case of a common Problem (topic 1: SB land; topic 2: more stable mana to Wish -> Therapy through defense without carddisadvantage).

Sooooo .... to adress taxing hatebears and more tempo-decks I have -1 Mox +1 Fetch, -1 Tropical, +1 Pyroclasm in my 75. i feel stupid with the Clasm and may adjust that slot once more if my impressions from Friday show me, that all the Miracles-player from Italy made their way to Paris.

[Bahamuth]

I've been past the point of trying to convince people to play my decklist which I consider optimal. I do plenty of theorizing as well as testing, actual gameplay as well as running the deck in large events. If other people want to run a decklist that isn't mine, I don't really care, it's their own fault if they're unsuccessful. I understand that metagames often dictate slots, but I can't think of a single reason to shave off a Burning Wish. Others can do what they would like, I'll keep producing numbers.

While you won't immediately notice the lack of the fourth Burning Wish, put that card upside down in the sleeve and compare situations to which you would prefer the other. Most of the time Burning Wish will be more valuable than an additional land.

The additional piece of business isn't that important. You board out an Infernal Tutor or a Ponder often, putting you at the same amount of business as me. I never do this by the way. If I ever board out business, it's a Burning Wish, because it is in my opinion by far the worst piece of business in the deck. Also, you were running a list with -1 EtW +1 ToA for the longest time which is essentially 1 piece of business less, and it wasn't a problem for you then.

[Bryant Cook]

The additional piece of business isn't that important. You board out an Infernal Tutor or a Ponder often, putting you at the same amount of business as me. I never do this by the way. If I ever board out business, it's a Burning Wish, because it is in my opinion by far the worst piece of business in the deck. Also, you were running a list with -1 EtW +1 ToA for the longest time which is essentially 1 piece of business less, and it wasn't a problem for you then.

Except that now you're down a business spell in match-ups where you need to win quickly, lowering your percentages to win on the first turn.

[Barbed Blightning]

Yeah, this talk of cutting burning wish is straight out of stupid town. Play ANT if you are THAT concerned

[Bahamuth]

Except that now you're down a business spell in match-ups where you need to win quickly, lowering your percentages to win on the first turn.

As far as I'm concerned I need to win quickly in every matchup.

[Bryant Cook]

As far as I'm concerned I need to win quickly in every matchup.

So...you're lowering your percentages of a turn one kill while still expecting to have one? You're obviously much better at TES than me.

[Final Fortune]

I don't think the MD and SB are constant, I've tried 4 Chrome Mox, I've tried 3 Chrome Mox, I've tried 4 Silence and 3 Duress, I've tried 3 Silence and 4 Duress, I've tried 4 Duress and 3 Cabal Therapy, I've tried 4 Infernal Tutor, I've tried 3 Infernal Tutor, I've tried 13 lands, I've tried 12 lands, I've tried 4 City of Brass and 2 Gemstone Mines, I've tried 2 Gemstone Mines and 4 City of Brass etc. and everything has a give and take relationship like speed vs resiliency, efficiency vs power, utility vs consistency etc. to the point where I'm pretty sure there are functional equivalents with minor strengths and weaknesses over each other.

I have found 2 Chrome Mox to just be really bad tho' in testing, winning off a Dim Ret is really hard with only 2.

[Lemnear]

I don't think the MD and SB are constant, I've tried 4 Chrome Mox, I've tried 3 Chrome Mox, I've tried 4 Silence and 3 Duress, I've tried 3 Silence and 4 Duress, I've tried 4 Duress and 3 Cabal Therapy, I've tried 4 Infernal Tutor, I've tried 3 Infernal Tutor, I've tried 13 lands, I've tried 12 lands, I've tried 4 City of Brass and 2 Gemstone Mines, I've tried 2 Gemstone Mines and 4 City of Brass etc. and everything has a give and take relationship like speed vs resiliency, efficiency vs power, utility vs consistency etc. to the point where I'm pretty sure there are functional equivalents with minor strengths and weaknesses over each other.

I have found 2 Chrome Mox to just be really bad tho' in testing, winning off a Dim Ret is really hard with only 2.

Isn't it always bad to Dim.Ret. without having mana float and already had your landdrop? One Mox more doesn't make much difference if you have to generate 6+ mana outta nothing (aka 7 cards with at least one Wish removed)

[Bahamuth]

So...you're lowering your percentages of a turn one kill while still expecting to have one? You're obviously much better at TES than me.

I never mentioned a desire to win turn 1 as often as possible, just that I'd like to win fast. I could argue that you're increasing your percentages to mulligan. They are both no real argument.

That ad hominem is pretty pathetic, but I'll defend myself. Even if you're better at playing TES than me, which might be the case, I'm pretty sure I'm better at building TES than you. We've been running the configuration with 4 Probes and an EtW in the mainboard way, way longer than you, and it is currently agreed upon as the right choice. In this current case, I don't think there's any way to determine if either option is plain better than the other, but your line of reasoning of 'I'm Bryant Cook so my list is better' is just sad.

[Bryant Cook]

I never mentioned a desire to win turn 1 as often as possible, just that I'd like to win fast. I could argue that you're increasing your percentages to mulligan. They are both no real argument.

That ad hominem is pretty pathetic, but I'll defend myself. Even if you're better at playing TES than me, which might be the case, I'm pretty sure I'm better at building TES than you. We've been running the configuration with 4 Probes and an EtW in the mainboard way, way longer than you, and it is currently agreed upon as the right choice. In this current case, I don't think there's any way to determine if either option is plain better than the other, but your line of reasoning of 'I'm Bryant Cook so my list is better' is just sad.

Burning Wish increases percentages of mulligans? One could argue that the additional land not being a business spell more often could cause a mulligan.

Sure, you're better at deckbuilding TES than me - whatever get's you by. I put countless time into tweaking my deck. I've taken a suggestion from the boards every once in awhile, more often than not the ideas posted here are pretty awful. From time to time there's a valid comment, but I find it pretty hard to believe that you claim to innovate the archetype more than me. I don't remember if the Empty the Warrens suggestion was you or not, that was a decent argument. Even so, that's incredibly small in the grand scheme of things. Also, Gitaxian Probe certainly was not a move you can claim to take credit for.

The "I'm Bryant Cook, I've put time into testing and know my deck in and out" holds more value then the "I tried this once, I think it was good?"

[Bahamuth]

Burning Wish increases percentages of mulligans? One could argue that the additional land not being a business spell more often could cause a mulligan.

You could, and it's still not a solid argument. Let's stop.


Sure, you're better at deckbuilding TES than me - whatever get's you by. I put countless time into tweaking my deck. I've taken a suggestion from the boards every once in awhile, more often than not the ideas posted here are pretty awful. From time to time there's a valid comment, but I find it pretty hard to believe that you claim to innovate the archetype more than me. I don't remember if the Empty the Warrens suggestion was you or not, that was a decent argument. Even so, that's incredibly small in the grand scheme of things. Also, Gitaxian Probe certainly was not a move you can claim to take credit for.

I can guarantee you that adding Gitaxian Probe was a decision me and my team made well before anyone else was doing it. Here's a decklist from GP Amsterdam back from 2011, where one of my teammates made top 32 with a list that has the exact same mainboard as what I'd currently run.

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=939980

While you were still arguing Probe is a bad card here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?15028-Deck-T-E-S-The-EPIC-Storm&p=615247&highlight=Probe#post615247




The "I'm Bryant Cook, I've put time into testing and know my deck in and out" holds more value then the "I tried this once, I think it was good?"

Who are you exactly to tell me I haven't put time into testing and know my deck in and out? I'm pretty sure the list I linked above shows you that I most certainly didn't just try this once and it was good.


AFAIK, the bottom line is that we can't show each other what configuration is better. I just came here to state that it's not obvious that 4 Wish 12 land is the better configuration at all.

[Bryant Cook]

You could, and it's still not a solid argument. Let's stop.

I look forward to seeing your results with three Burning Wish and thirteen lands.


I can guarantee you that adding Gitaxian Probe was a decision me and my team made well before anyone else was doing it. Here's a decklist from GP Amsterdam back from 2011, where one of my teammates made top 32 with a list that has the exact same mainboard as what I'd currently run.

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=939980

While you were still arguing Probe is a bad card here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?15028-Deck-T-E-S-The-EPIC-Storm&p=615247&highlight=Probe#post615247

I've admitted to being wrong in the past. This was one of those situations, I've said it before. However, I do not believe that I am wrong about this. It's very easy to post a decklist and claim to have been influential to it. ANT at the time had also been running Gitaxian Probe as well, all this person did was port over one of their ideas. Perhaps if there was a fourth Burning Wish, your "friend" would've made top 8 due to a higher tutor percentage.


Who are you exactly to tell me I haven't put time into testing and know my deck in and out? I'm pretty sure the list I linked above shows you that I most certainly didn't just try this once and it was good.

AFAIK, the bottom line is that we can't show each other what configuration is better. I just came here to state that it's not obvious that 4 Wish 12 land is the better configuration at all.

It's pretty obvious to anyone who's done their homework.

[Griselpuff]

Grudge match on MWS? Can I watch???

Serious question though: are there any good players who might stream TES? I'm trying to learn the deck and while watching coverage and playing games is helpful, what would be even better is simply watching a stream and have the player explain their thought process.

[Bahamuth]

I look forward to seeing your results with three Burning Wish and thirteen lands.

Yea, cause results are just the best possible argument there is. I don't write reports on every tournament I do well in. I don't even play that many tournaments. I've done well enough


I've admitted to being wrong in the past. This was one of those situations, I've said it before. However, I do not believe that I am wrong about this.


Please think about this for a second. At the time, did you think you were wrong about Probe? No you didn't.



It's very easy to post a decklist and claim to have been influential to it. ANT at the time had also been running Gitaxian Probe as well, all this person did was port over one of their ideas.

There weren't many people running Probe in ANT, but even so, Probe has a vastly different role in TES than it has in ANT, and you know that too. We added the Probes because they are amazing with Emtpy the Warrens, both because they give you the information required to learn if you can do EtW for the win, and because it makes 2 more tokens. You might notice that we were running additional EtW in the sideboard as I have been advocating a while back. It was a serious improvement to the RUG matchup, and still is.


Perhaps if there was a fourth Burning Wish, your "friend" would've made top 8 due to a higher tutor percentage.

This sentence takes the fucking cake. First of all, are you really going to question if I'm legit in claiming this guy is my teammate? Really? You think I'd just found that one decklist online that was just right to support my claim, from a person that just happens to have a Dutch name, and decided to claim it as my own? Really? I'm sure Asthereal can clean up your suspicion.

Second of all, that statement is just stupid. You didn't seem to understand that I'm not linking this list to show off anything about either running 13 land 3 Wish, nor about his performance. I'm linking it to show you that we've been running Probe forever. I think it's reasonable to defend myself when you deny that credit.

But then the claim that my 'friend' would've made top8 with your list? Wow. You can't get more speculative than that. Maybe if he ran RUG he would've won the entire tournament? Maybe if he was never born, we wouldn't be having this argument right now? Maybe if that one meteor never hit earth, we would all be highly intelligent human-dinosaurs playing Magic telepathically on Jupiter. This argument is nothing but a cheap trick to discredit my point.



It's pretty obvious to anyone who's done their homework.

This post was just pathetic.

[oSeabass]

Maybe if that one meteor never hit earth, we would all be highly intelligent human-dinosaurs playing Magic telepathically on Jupiter.

And now I can't get the picture out of my head of a T-Rex trying to draw a card... his poor tiny arms means he has to bend all the way down to reach his deck and ends up bopping his opponent every time he goes to draw.

[Bryant Cook]

Yea, cause results are just the best possible argument there is. I don't write reports on every tournament I do well in. I don't even play that many tournaments. I've done well enough

Magic is a game highly based on results. If you can't manage to create some with your three Burning Wish list, it says something. You're expecting me to believe that your three Burning Wish list is better when you claim you barely play tournament Magic?


Please think about this for a second. At the time, did you think you were wrong about Probe? No you didn't.

If the day comes in the foreseeable future, that I admit I'm wrong about playing three Burning Wish, I'll personally hand write you a letter apologizing.


There weren't many people running Probe in ANT, but even so, Probe has a vastly different role in TES than it has in ANT, and you know that too. We added the Probes because they are amazing with Emtpy the Warrens, both because they give you the information required to learn if you can do EtW for the win, and because it makes 2 more tokens. You might notice that we were running additional EtW in the sideboard as I have been advocating a while back. It was a serious improvement to the RUG matchup, and still is.

Are you admitting that you took your great "innovation" to TES from ANT? There were people running Gitaxian Probe in ANT at the time, like I said. The second Empty is garbage as well, you can keep that.


This sentence takes the fucking cake. First of all, are you really going to question if I'm legit in claiming this guy is my teammate? Really? You think I'd just found that one decklist online that was just right to support my claim, from a person that just happens to have a Dutch name, and decided to claim it as my own? Really? I'm sure Asthereal can clean up your suspicion.

Second of all, that statement is just stupid. You didn't seem to understand that I'm not linking this list to show off anything about either running 13 land 3 Wish, nor about his performance. I'm linking it to show you that we've been running Probe forever. I think it's reasonable to defend myself when you deny that credit.

But then the claim that my 'friend' would've made top8 with your list? Wow. You can't get more speculative than that. Maybe if he ran RUG he would've won the entire tournament? Maybe if he was never born, we wouldn't be having this argument right now? Maybe if that one meteor never hit earth, we would all be highly intelligent human-dinosaurs playing Magic telepathically on Jupiter. This argument is nothing but a cheap trick to discredit my point.

I'm supposed to believe everything at face value? I'm not new to the internet.

[Bahamuth]

Magic is a game highly based on results. If you can't manage to create some with your three Burning Wish list, it says something. You're expecting me to believe that your three Burning Wish list is better when you claim you barely play tournament Magic?

I'm pretty sure I linked a list with 3 Burning Wish that top32'd a GP. I have no idea how to show you any results, nor am I going to put effort in digging them up. One of the last tournaments I played was the Legacy Championship in Rimini of ~100 people that I split the top 4 in. You can go ahead and try to confirm that if you care so much about tournament results.




If the day comes in the foreseeable future, that I admit I'm wrong about playing three Burning Wish, I'll personally hand write you a letter apologizing.

How kind of you to reply in such a nice and sarcastic way, while completely avoiding that I make a valid point.



Are you admitting that you took your great "innovation" to TES from ANT? There were people running Gitaxian Probe in ANT at the time, like I said.

No. We looked at Probe when we started making storm lists again right after MM got banned. Before the banning, we weren't running storm because several forms of Tempo Thresh were way better. We tested Probe and found it was stupidly good.

But besides, even if people playing ANT were running the card, why does that make a difference? I just explained (which you completely ignored) that Probe is a different card in TES. In your line of reasoning, no one should even get any credit for anything related to storm combo in Legacy, because I'm sure people in vintage had already found you can build Tendrils combo before Legacy existed.


The second Empty is garbage as well, you can keep that.

Not the point of the argument, but I'll respond like you've been responding to me:

Sure, like Probe was garbage for a long time.


I'm supposed to believe everything at face value? I'm not new to the internet.

You ignore pretty much everything I said. Why do you argue with me if you're just going to pick out parts of my post that you think you have a good response against?


And now I can't get the picture out of my head of a T-Rex trying to draw a card... his poor tiny arms means he has to bend all the way down to reach his deck and ends up bopping his opponent every time he goes to draw.

That's why I included the telepathy!

[Bryant Cook]

I'm pretty sure I linked a list with 3 Burning Wish that top32'd a GP. I have no idea how to show you any results, nor am I going to put effort in digging them up. One of the last tournaments I played was the Legacy Championship in Rimini of ~100 people that I split the top 4 in. You can go ahead and try to confirm that if you care so much about tournament results.

That's one event that was years ago. I can link you to several events in the last six months where I've top 8'd with my list.


How kind of you to reply in such a nice and sarcastic way, while completely avoiding that I make a valid point.

I've admitted in the past that I was wrong about Probe, yet you dwell. I'm not wrong about Burning Wish, what exactly is left to say?


No. We looked at Probe when we started making storm lists again right after MM got banned. Before the banning, we weren't running storm because several forms of Tempo Thresh were way better. We tested Probe and found it was stupidly good.

Meaning that ANT players couldn't have been already doing this before you or at the same time?


But besides, even if people playing ANT were running the card, why does that make a difference? I just explained (which you completely ignored) that Probe is a different card in TES. In your line of reasoning, no one should even get any credit for anything related to storm combo in Legacy, because I'm sure people in vintage had already found you can build Tendrils combo before Legacy existed.

Even if the card functions somewhat differently, which it barely does (let's be honest), it's not enough to call it an innovation.


Not the point of the argument, but I'll respond like you've been responding to me:

Sure, like Probe was garbage for a long time.

I'm glad we agree.


You ignore pretty much everything I said. Why do you argue with me if you're just going to pick out parts of my post that you think you have a good response against?

Because you're so cute when you're frustrated.

[Bahamuth]

That's one event that was years ago. I can link you to several events in the last six months where I've top 8'd with my list.

I think I pointed out that I don't give a fuck about results enough now.




I've admitted in the past that I was wrong about Probe, yet you dwell. I'm not wrong about Burning Wish, what exactly is left to say?

I'm not wrong on Burning Wish either. What now?


Meaning that ANT players couldn't have been already doing this before you or at the same time?

Your point?



Even if the card functions somewhat differently, which it barely does (let's be honest), it's not enough to call it an innovation.

This makes me think you don't understand why Probe is so good in TES.




I'm glad we agree.

You actually think that Probe was garbage during all that time you weren't running it? I'm dying to know what makes you say that.




Because you're so cute when you're frustrated.

http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/cute-animals-02.jpg

[Bryant Cook]

I think I pointed out that I don't give a fuck about results enough now.

Which is why it's hard to take your suggestions seriously.




I'm not wrong on Burning Wish either. What now?

We wait.


Your point?

That Gitaxian Probe wasn't your innovation...and we're back to square one.



This makes me think you don't understand why Probe is so good in TES.

I'm only running it because the cool kids over in Europe think it's really good.



You actually think that Probe was garbage during all that time you weren't running it? I'm dying to know what makes you say that.

Yeah, completely. I mean... it only draws a card.

[Bahamuth]

Okay then. This won't go anywhere if you just keep replying with those brilliant sarcastic remarks. You really know how to make your point with them. (see wot I did ther)

[oSeabass]

That's why I included the telepathy!

te·lep·a·thy
n.
Communication through means other than the senses, as by the exercise of an occult power.

They use that as a form of communication to resolve plays and such, still need to draw cards.

Joking aside, if you were to run a TES list today in the current Legacy (not in the 2011 GP cus I see Orim's Chants), what 75 would you run? It seems like the debate is on -1 Burning Wish +1 Land (fetch?). Also looks like the list from the GP uses a standard 7 "protection" spells, 4 Duress/3 "Silence" vs. Cook's 2 Duress/4 Silence/1 Cabal Therapy.

I am curious to see a list that you would run (arguing aside). End of the day, I will be playing Storm at a large event soon and I'm still learning it and would love to try a different style to see how it plays. I know they are VERY similar, and the changes are only a handful of cards, but I think things like removing a Burning Wish would change some of the lines a little, and I am curious to see how it gold fishes.

I like having extra Wishes when you have a Chrome Mox. I don't like them when I AN and hit 3 of them in a row with no way to cast them. I like having extra fetch lands when I have a heavy draw of cantrips where I can then keep one card off a Ponder draw and then shuffle the other 2 away.

[HammafistRoob]

One Therapy makes no sense. I really don't get it.

[oSeabass]

One Therapy makes no sense. I really don't get it.

It can take non spells out of their hand to remove hatebears game 1 against creature hate bear decks. I have used it after Probe to hit creatures that would have pressured me, so by removing 2 creatures I was able to take more time to set up a protected combo.

Duress is sad against Maverick and such, Therapy is a live card still. Also, it's real handy with the flashback after you EtW. You can Therapy to see the hate they have if you were to pass the turn (with a slew of Goblins), and then sac one to flash it back and hit the problem spell so your Goblins get there.

[TimHarding]

It can take non spells out of their hand to remove hatebears game 1 against creature hate bear decks. I have used it after Probe to hit creatures that would have pressured me, so by removing 2 creatures I was able to take more time to set up a protected combo.

Duress is sad against Maverick and such, Therapy is a live card still. Also, it's real handy with the flashback after you EtW. You can Therapy to see the hate they have if you were to pass the turn (with a slew of Goblins), and then sac one to flash it back and hit the problem spell so your Goblins get there.

Same that sac goblin option comes up soooo often for me. It's great.

[Jay_Gatz]

One Therapy makes no sense. I really don't get it.
A lot of it is diversifying your protection and the other part is being able to switch the therapies in the board for the duresses in matches where duress is weak or dead.

[HammafistRoob]

It can take non spells out of their hand to remove hatebears game 1 against creature hate bear decks. I have used it after Probe to hit creatures that would have pressured me, so by removing 2 creatures I was able to take more time to set up a protected combo.

Duress is sad against Maverick and such, Therapy is a live card still. Also, it's real handy with the flashback after you EtW. You can Therapy to see the hate they have if you were to pass the turn (with a slew of Goblins), and then sac one to flash it back and hit the problem spell so your Goblins get there.

I'm not saying that it's a dead card or anything, it obviously has uses. I just think it's straight up worse than another Duress in the maindeck. Cabal Therapy is great and all, it's my favorite card actually, but I think Duress is better here.

[Lemnear]

You guys miss switching Duress for Therapy in postboard games against hatebears ... With 3 Duress there would bv a slot left open ... That's most of it

[Tammit67]

Played 6 games last night against high tide with 3 main flusterstorm, 4 force, and fluster in board, mainly to get my friend a feeling of the matchup and more practice with High tide. No boarding was done for the sake of simplicity, that comes tonight.

Game 1 on the play: I therapy away protection on turn 3 after probing to ensure I might be safe. I don't have the mana to go IT->BW->Tendrils so I have to go IT->EtW for 20 with him at 19. I flashback therapy to rip his hand and kill him on the swing.
1-0

Game 2 on the draw: He plays a turn 1 top so I pretty much have to find silence for the inevitable force/fluster he is floating. A probe reveals he has 3x high tide and a cunning wish in hand though, so therapy baits the force floating (might have been a misplay on his part here, but I had found the silence too). Therapy + EtW + therapy gets there turn 3.
2-0

Game 3 on the play: I can't get a rainbow land into play so I play a petal and LED so I can cast the silence in my hand pre and post timespiral. Petal gets echoing truth'd in my endstep and I fail to hit brainstorm or silence after the first Spiral and lose.
2-1

Game 4 on the draw: I cast silence turn 3 with a second available should he stop me here and try to untap and win. He brainstorms in response and lets it resolve. Thanks to the brainstorm, I have a lethal amount of storm with tutor chain into tendrils.
3-1

Game 5 on the play: I go for the old petal, 2 dark ritual, chrome mox imprint BS, LED, IT, get ad nausem without playing a land turn 1. I grape shot him here since the reveal is really nice and he didn't have the force.
4-1

If your hand is BS, Mox, 2 Dark Rit, IT, LED, Petal... do you go for it or do you cast brainstorm first? I was inclined to go for it since I wanted to teach him to respect the turn 1 unprotected, but certainly casting brainstorm first is correct? Especially since it still has a backup plan of dumping goblins with that exact hand minus brainstorm.

Game 6 on the draw: Probe reveals 2 forces, one of which is spent on the cabal therapy trying to take both. He also reveals a flusterstorm and E truth. I empty for 6 goblins with mana floating to avoid flusterstorm and he e truths the goblins in response to the first therapy.I lay out as much mana as I can and pass. Two turns later he casts time spiral. I brainstorm then cast ad nauseum in response to his library manipulation spell of merchant scroll, which finds me 16 cards including the silence. I cast silence, scroll finds flusterstorm. I untap and duress it out and tendrils him with my hand of too many cards.
5-1

[Asthereal]

Bahamuth cannot produce results to show the three Wish list is fine, simply because hardly anybody ever plays it. Everybody just lazily copies Bryants list. Rightly so, because it's well tuned and the primer is great, so it's easier that way. The Team Nijmegen guys don't play that many tournaments anymore, so for them it's hard to produce the numbers all by themselves. And my efforts are hardly going to help since I'm a terrible player. A good deck builder, but a bad player.

Last time I was at a tourney, some guys from Nijmegen were there as well, and they were trying a list with 12 lands, and all they were doing was complaining that 12 lands wasn't enough. The tournament before that, one of them went top-4 or so with a TES'ish list with even 14 lands (-1 Mox, -1 Wish, 5 fetch). What works for you is highly dependant on your playing style. If you love the quick gamble, 12 lands and 4 Wishes will work for you. If you are in fact more of an ANT player who just feels ANT lists are bad right now, you will profit more from a slightly more conservative TES list with more land.

PS. Not that I should have to do this, but I'll second the claim that Abel Planting is indeed a part of Team Nijmegen and a friend of Bahamuth. I'll even add that the guys from Team Nijmegen are all VERY strong combo players (except for BWM and maybe MVK-they just play for fun). They have been tuning TES, ANT and Doomsday lists forever, and after the banning of Mystical they even came up with their own hybrid list we came to call TNT (Team Nijmegen Tendrils). I take things Bryant says just as seriously as things they say.

[Barbed Blightning]

Grudge match on MWS? Can I watch???


Tix and popcorn, please

[Griselpuff]

Hm, are there other alternatives to Tropical Island? I feel like not being able to cast rituals is worse than not casting cantrips, so maybe Bayou?

Also, why does it seem to me that I often stare at PiF wishing it were IGG? I rarely hit enough rituals to make PiF feasible, whereas I often have 2 LED after tutoring for a 2nd.

[Tammit67]

Hm, are there other alternatives to Tropical Island? I feel like not being able to cast rituals is worse than not casting cantrips, so maybe Bayou?

Also, why does it seem to me that I often stare at PiF wishing it were IGG? I rarely hit enough rituals to make PiF feasible, whereas I often have 2 LED after tutoring for a 2nd.

That's kinda how I feel, but I think in the long run I'd rather have PiF than IGG since IGG tends to be a hedge against aggressive decks we should beat anyway where PiF helps us against extended blue matchups.

[Lemnear]

Hm, are there other alternatives to Tropical Island? I feel like not being able to cast rituals is worse than not casting cantrips, so maybe Bayou?

Also, why does it seem to me that I often stare at PiF wishing it were IGG? I rarely hit enough rituals to make PiF feasible, whereas I often have 2 LED after tutoring for a 2nd.

IGG is crap against DRS or blue counterspells while requiring 2 LED and access to 2 Tutors/Wishes (as Tutor->Wish). There is a much higher chance of having a couple of Rites/Rituals/Probes/etc.in the lategame accessible (graveyard) than unmolested generating enough mana for the IGG loop with Infernal -> Wish -> IGG (+2 mana float = 10 Mana)

[Asthereal]

Hm, are there other alternatives to Tropical Island? I feel like not being able to cast rituals is worse than not casting cantrips, so maybe Bayou?
That's one way to look at it. The other is that in the relevant matchups (IE where you board in Swarms), casting cantrips can be very important. Additionally, when you board in the land, you don't board out other land, so it's just an addition. If the original land base is sufficient, it shouldn't matter. At least, that's a bit like Bryant put it, and he's probably right.
You could test the Bayou, or better, test with a card backward in the sleeve, and every time you want it to be Tropical, write it down and act like it's a Bayou, and the other way around. See what happens (next to beind frustrated all the time :tongue:).

[Basaka]

Oh yeah, was judging the legacy side event at GP Brisbane last night, TES took the event down winning an english moat. Was pretty sick.

[davelin]

Oh yeah, was judging the legacy side event at GP Brisbane last night, TES took the event down winning an english moat. Was pretty sick.

Cool, what did the rest of the meta look like?

[gibbousm]

Any advice beyond the Primer for a new Storm pilot?

I've been doing my best to get ready for GP DC but when playtesting I fizzle more often that I'd like mostly due to misusing cantrips.

[Jay_Gatz]

Watch the videos in the primer and try to test with someone looking over your shoulder, preferably someone who has played the deck but even someone who hasn't played it before can see things you missed or offer alternative lines. If you find yourself fizzling back yourself up to the last decision you made and see if doing something differently will help.

[Bryant Cook]

Won a small From the Vault: Twenty event earlier today. I found myself sideboarding in Tropical against Jund (Over a Silence) and against Shardless (Over the third Mox). It was relevant in one game because it was my last land I could fetch for, just some food for thought.

[davelin]

Any advice beyond the Primer for a new Storm pilot?

I've been doing my best to get ready for GP DC but when playtesting I fizzle more often that I'd like mostly due to misusing cantrips.

Carsten on SCG had a recent article on picking up storm decks, it's probably a good read. I would also recommend reading Bryant's recent tournament reports and Lemnear's Heart of the Storm reports where they go through their standing hands, play-by-play and thought process which is extremely helpful for someone picking up the deck for the first time.

[JPoJohnson]

Bryant - After testing out your new sideboard in a tournament, do you have any thoughts on Bayou vs Tropical Island as asked above?

[Lemnear]

@davelin

It's "Heart of the Storm". No free ads for a game company that insulted it's playerbase with Diablo 3

[davelin]

@davelin

It's "Heart of the Storm". No free ads for a game company that insulted it's playerbase with Diablo 3

Mistype, corrected :smile:

[thefringthing]

I quit reading the Heart of the Storm reports when it became clear that Lemnear has a magic super power to draw stone perfect sevens every game. :tongue:

[Jaycounet]

I quit reading the Heart of the Storm reports when it became clear that Lemnear has a magic super power to draw stone perfect sevens every game. :tongue:

I tough the same ^^

Quick question guy.

Against Omniclash do you mulligan a lot ? if you don't have xantid and or lethal stuff in hand ?

they can win on second turn

and if we follow in and out we don't have anymore duress / cabal in our deck

how win if we cannot kick their hand for combo and if we don't have ourself the combo + xantid ?

[Holly]

Swap out discard for Xantid Swarm and you still have the same number of protection.

Oh and sure they can kill on turn 2.. but it's more on the rare side.. ANT can kill turn 1.. do you mulligan each hand without discard/silence to stop it? No you don't because that would be a garbage thing to do.

So no I'd not mulligan a whole lot of good hands just because they don't have a turn 1 kill.

[Lemnear]

I quit reading the Heart of the Storm reports when it became clear that Lemnear has a magic super power to draw stone perfect sevens every game. :tongue:

I lol'd. Must be the reason my turn-1-Combo-rate is abyssal. ;)

Maybe I'm just getting out the maximum even from mediocre draws

[Jaycounet]

Swap out discard for Xantid Swarm and you still have the same number of protection.

Oh and sure they can kill on turn 2.. but it's more on the rare side.. ANT can kill turn 1.. do you mulligan each hand without discard/silence to stop it? No you don't because that would be a garbage thing to do.

So no I'd not mulligan a whole lot of good hands just because they don't have a turn 1 kill.

but they have fow so ? what the point to just take fow turn 1 ?

[Holly]

I'm not quite sure what exactly you're asking.

If I have the t1 kill and not a protected t2 kill in hand, I'll go for it. If they have the force so be it.
But I'm not going to aggressively mulligan a hand without a turn 1 kill just because they have a little chance of going off turn 2.

[Jaycounet]

Ok i got the point

[Final Fortune]

Isn't it always bad to Dim.Ret. without having mana float and already had your landdrop? One Mox more doesn't make much difference if you have to generate 6+ mana outta nothing (aka 7 cards with at least one Wish removed)

Maybe in gold fishing, on the play vs Jund I'm usually playing for Dim Ret ASAP after they strip LED. It's an important panic button.

As far as the 1xCabal Therapy MD is concerned, I agree with Hammerfist, it's kind of awkward MD compared to Duress and I usually prefer to board them in after I already know what the opponent is playing. It's not like ANT where you plan on cantripping for the first couple of turns and then know what to target after you see your opponent's land drops.

[Lemnear]

Maybe in gold fishing, on the play vs Jund I'm usually playing for Dim Ret ASAP after they strip LED. It's an important panic button.

I have a history of games against JUND and I dislike the idea of giving them 7 free cards just to gamble on a miraculous 7 drawn or any use of DR as a panic button. It's almost guaranteed that you loose against JUND if you fail to kill them immediately after DR.

[Bryant Cook]

Bryant - After testing out your new sideboard in a tournament, do you have any thoughts on Bayou vs Tropical Island as asked above?

There isn't much to say. Bayou doesn't cast cantrips which is incredibly important, it's the same reason we haven't been running a Badlands all this time.



As far as the 1xCabal Therapy MD is concerned, I agree with Hammerfist, it's kind of awkward MD compared to Duress and I usually prefer to board them in after I already know what the opponent is playing. It's not like ANT where you plan on cantripping for the first couple of turns and then know what to target after you see your opponent's land drops.

It's a skill card. You don't cast Cabal Therapy turn one, blind, on the play. But if you're going to, it should be naming Force of Will followed by a Tendrils for 20. I love the Therapy maindeck.

[Lemnear]

Shouldn't we then begin to reconsider the roles of Duress in the Maindeck then? Turn 1 Duress bought me so many turns in face of Thoughtseize/Hymn and other shit, that I never desired to replace it Maindeck. If my intention was to slice through several identical counterspells i wish for the SB Therapies.

Therapy rewards slower play and seizing your opponent ... I doubt this is the right deck for MB Therapy even under the aspect of sideboarding the 2-offs.

[Bryant Cook]

Shouldn't we then begin to reconsider the roles of Duress in the Maindeck then? Turn 1 Duress bought me so many turns in face of Thoughtseize/Hymn and other shit, that I never desired to replace it Maindeck. If my intention was to slice through several identical counterspells i wish for the SB Therapies.

Therapy rewards slower play and seizing your opponent ... I doubt this is the right deck for MB Therapy even under the aspect of sideboarding the 2-offs.

The Therapy is in the main deck because there simply isn't enough sideboard space to include everything that we need. If you don't mind being worse against the Thalia decks of the format, don't play it.

[davelin]

Been testing against RUG which is a matchup I've had trouble against. Couple of situations came up and wondering if I should've taken a different line or been more conservative -

Game 1: Pre-SB, TES on the draw

Opening Hand: Gemstone, City of Brass, RoF, Infernal Tutor, Dark Ritual, Petal, Ponder

RUG1 - Mulls to 6, Tropical Island -> Nimble Mongoose
TES1 - Draws RoF, Gemstone Mine -> Ponder (this was a mistake, should've dropped Petal in case of Daze). RUG dazes Ponder

RUG2 - Drops Tropical again, attacks (TES at 19)
TES2 - Draws Brainstorm, City of Brass (18) -> Brainstorm (looking for protection). RUG Spell Pierces Brainstorm, TES doesn't respond to pay. With RUG tapped out, TES drops Petal, RoF x2, Dark Ritual into Infernal with enough mana to get EtW or AD with no mana floating. Agree with this line of play?

Game 2: Post-SB TES on the draw

Opening Hand after Mull: Dark Ritual, Burning Wish, Gemstone, Infernal, Rite of Flame, LED

RUG1 - Volcanic Island -> Ponder
TES1 - Draw Underground Sea. Drop Sea

RUG2 - Drops Polluted Delta
TES - Draw Dark Ritual. At this point I was thinking about Wishing for Therapy to protect going off this or next turn. But with DR X2, RoF and LED, I believed I had enough mana to fight through soft counters and if my Wish was hard countered, I would still be able to cast Tutor to retrieve EtW or Ad Nauseum. Thoughts?

[Lemnear]

Been testing against RUG which is a matchup I've had trouble against. Couple of situations came up and wondering if I should've taken a different line or been more conservative -

Game 1: Pre-SB, TES on the draw

Opening Hand: Gemstone, City of Brass, RoF, Infernal Tutor, Dark Ritual, Petal, Ponder

RUG1 - Mulls to 6, Tropical Island -> Nimble Mongoose
TES1 - Draws RoF, Gemstone Mine -> Ponder (this was a mistake, should've dropped Petal in case of Daze). RUG dazes Ponder

RUG2 - Drops Tropical again, attacks (TES at 19)
TES2 - Draws Brainstorm, City of Brass (18) -> Brainstorm (looking for protection). RUG Spell Pierces Brainstorm, TES doesn't respond to pay. With RUG tapped out, TES drops Petal, RoF x2, Dark Ritual into Infernal with enough mana to get EtW or AD with no mana floating. Agree with this line of play?

Game 2: Post-SB TES on the draw

Opening Hand after Mull: Dark Ritual, Burning Wish, Gemstone, Infernal, Rite of Flame, LED

RUG1 - Volcanic Island -> Ponder
TES1 - Draw Underground Sea. Drop Sea

RUG2 - Drops Polluted Delta
TES - Draw Dark Ritual. At this point I was thinking about Wishing for Therapy to protect going off this or next turn. But with DR X2, RoF and LED, I believed I had enough mana to fight through soft counters and if my Wish was hard countered, I would still be able to cast Tutor to retrieve EtW or Ad Nauseum. Thoughts?

G1: with him only having 3 cards available, going for EtW is a valid path at this point. Another would have been to just sit on the Brainstorm for another 2-3 turns.

G2: Therapy Looks promising. Fighting through softcounter off a single IMP is a mistake. You can't respond to a Daze/Pierce on your first Ritual which is far too likely with this setup. Without pressure applied, you should slowroll here until you find another IMP. Even RoF->Wish is dismantled by a simple Daze here..,

[davelin]

G1: with him only having 3 cards available, going for EtW is a valid path at this point. Another would have been to just sit on the Brainstorm for another 2-3 turns.

G2: Therapy Looks promising. Fighting through softcounter off a single IMP is a mistake. You can't respond to a Daze/Pierce on your first Ritual which is far too likely with this setup. Without pressure applied, you should slowroll here until you find another IMP. Even RoF->Wish is dismantled by a simple Daze here..,

Lem,

For G2 when you say go for Therapy, are you thinking RoF (after dropping land) into Wish to pay for Daze if needed?

[Lemnear]

Lem,

For G2 when you say go for Therapy, are you thinking RoF (after dropping land) into Wish to pay for Daze if needed?

I mean that this is a good plan under 2 conditions: a) finding another IMP and b) not get blocked off hellbent by other cards while waiting for the 2nd IMP.

Thinking 2-3 turns in advance, paying Wish off a RoF+DR (floating red man to signal EtW) might be another option to consider (to provoke a FoW) just to follow up with another Ritual + x into a hellbent Infernal

In the case you described, your opponent can spit into your soup with any Daze, Stifle, Pierce or FoW. I'd avoid being too aggressive here.

[Jaycounet]

You don't cast Cabal Therapy turn one, blind, on the play. But if you're going to, it should be naming Force of Will followed by a Tendrils for 20. I love the Therapy maindeck.

I should have done that this week end during my top 4 in order to win my game against omoniclash (i've cabal him for show and tell to slow him down ...) silence in back up but bad luck he drew another force ...

[paeng4983]

Last Saturday night, I tested a list of - 1 wish for a +4th fetchland.
I never got t experience it all night long with my friends (miracle, URW, DT and Belcher) until to a point with RDW
Here it is:

G1: He won the dice. And snap keep his seven. I’m surprised that the inverted card (the wish = fourth fetch land) is in my opening hand. This was what I keep: fetch/wish, gems, probe, tutor, ad naus, LED and brainstorm. So that’s having two lands instead of one if it was a wish. Maybe a mull if the slot was a wish. But now that he is a fetch land, it gave this seven a little chance.

He started with a mountain into guide. Guide revealed an underground sea. I drew a silence for my turn. Dropped LED and usea and cast brainstorm: wish, ROF and ROF. Returned gems and fetch/wish as the top most. Then pass. Guide attacked (revealing fetch/wish) once more. He then bolt me twice putting me from 16 to 10 life points. I drew the gem. I dropped the gem. Cast probe to check his hand: Price of Progress and Fireblast and some other more.

“Its now or never,” he said. Probe gave me chrome. Dropped chrome with ad naus as its imprint, tapped gems into ROFs (3storm / 2R) tapped chrome for tutor (4 storm / 1R) fetched for another copy of ROF. Cast the two remaining ROF (6 storm / 6R). Cast wish cracked LED for U ( 7 storm / 4R 3U). Wish for Diminishing ( 8storm / 2R 1U).

Shuffled everything except for the DR and the wish; and exile the top ten (which it incuded 1 tutor, 1 dark rit and 1 LED) before netting my new set of seven: fetch/wish, ROF, brainstorm, LED, probe, petal and silence. If only the inverted wish is a wish.

Cast probe (6 life pts 9storm / 2R 1U) saw a very hot hand headed by bolts and fireblast. Probe gifted me with a ponder. Used ponder to dig (10 storm / 2R) and saw: chrome, silence, and petal. Shuffled those three and drew an LED. Okey, the situation is now getting more ugly. Dropped all artifact producing mana (LED LED and petal) and cast ROF (lethal storm / 3R). I cast brainstorm and cracked my two LEDs (3B and 3U) and saw the top three cards in this order: tarn, dark ritual and tutor. Tutor into wish into tendrils for the win.

Two points:
It was good having it on the opening hand.
But, I wish the inverted wish was a wish in times of need.
Good thing tutor was there off my brainstorm, I was just lucky.
I'll try this configuration in our next legacy sessions and tournaments.
I'll let you know my experiences with it. :-)

RE: why a singleton cabal
1. probe + cabal is a good combination
2. duress + cabal is another
3. if you know what he is on, then blind call the card that you annoys you most.
4. it can discard creature especially the likes of thalia, griselbrand.
5. cabal is like hitting two birds with one stone
6. dont forget cabal's flashback. one token off a 16 or 18 tokens wont affect your winning rate.

i personally use 3 silence and 3 duress and 1 cabal as my main deck defense.

[Lemnear]

3 Silence are not enough, 5 are illegal ... Troublesome decision

[davelin]

3 Silence are not enough, 5 are illegal ... Troublesome decision

Back to Orim's Chant?

[Lemnear]

Back to Orim's Chant?

Nope. Would require more gold lands and sux Balls against Leyline. It's not that Silence-walking is a thing you desperately want to do

[Patrunkenphat7]

Nope. Would require more gold lands and sux Balls against Leyline. It's not that Silence-walking is a thing you desperately want to do

You don't have to play more gold lands to support Chant. It's just a Silence that doesn't do anything against Leyline. Leyline is huge in this metagame though...

[JPoJohnson]

You don't have to play more gold lands to support Chant. It's just a Silence that doesn't do anything against Leyline. Leyline is huge in this metagame though...

What I get from what he's saying is that you'll have more white spells which will require a higher gold land count, not that the color variation is greater.

[Lemnear]

What I get from what he's saying is that you'll have more white spells which will require a higher gold land count, not that the color variation is greater.

Exact

Just to set things straight: playing more than 4 white spells increases the Chance of having several in your starting grip and to cycle those you need one of six Gold lands in addition. To be able to do this on a constant base without having them stranded in your hand without an economic way to use them, you'll have to run more rainbow lands.

[paeng4983]

TES1 - Draws RoF, Gemstone Mine -> Ponder (this was a mistake, should've dropped Petal in case of Daze). RUG dazes Ponder


I think its not.
Actually the hand was capable of going off during your first turn.
Two ROF, 1 dark rit, 1 tutor, and a petal are enough for you to produce 12 or 14 goblin tokens.



TES2 - Draws Brainstorm, City of Brass (18) -> Brainstorm (looking for protection). RUG Spell Pierces Brainstorm, TES doesn't respond to pay. With RUG tapped out, TES drops Petal, RoF x2, Dark Ritual into Infernal with enough mana to get EtW or AD with no mana floating. Agree with this line of play?

Knowing that the opponent is on RUG, ETW for 16 tokens is a good play in a game one situation. Well, doing the same in a game two situation is also a good thing and hope he doesn't have that rough / tumble or pyroclasm thing in his hand in the next two turns.




Game 2: Post-SB TES on the draw
Opening Hand after Mull: Dark Ritual, Burning Wish, Gemstone, Infernal, Rite of Flame, LED
RUG1 - Volcanic Island -> Ponder
TES1 - Draw Underground Sea. Drop Sea
RUG2 - Drops Polluted Delta
TES - Draw Dark Ritual

ME: most probably I'll pass for the turn. I'll wait for the moment me reaching 8 cards at hand, then go off.
Or if I drew a protection, in whatever form, before I manage to get 8 cards, and that lone protection is enough for me to go off, I'll just to my thing.
or If I really didn't drew into a protection but managed to reach 8 cards at hand, I might use his spells to fuel my storm for a lethal wish - tendrils.

*cheers




3 Silence are not enough, 5 are illegal ... Troublesome decision

In my playtest sessions and small legacy tournament (10-16 players), I use 3-3-1 set up.
But whenever I participate in big tournament (30 - onwards players) I use 4 silence, 2 duress and 1 cabal.

and by the way, what's IMP? ^_^

[davelin]

I think its not.
Actually the hand was capable of going off during your first turn.
Two ROF, 1 dark rit, 1 tutor, and a petal are enough for you to produce 12 or 14 goblin tokens.


Nope, can't be done

[paeng4983]

Nope, can't be done

I forgot the Brass and Ponder. ^_^

@all
During game ones, what's your thought whenever the opponent is on:

UW Miracle RIP
UW Miracle clique & snap
RUG
BURG
BUG

Thanks

[Lemnear]

"IMP" is a typo caused by my auto-correct. Should be "IMS" for Initial Mana Source ^^

[Griselpuff]

Sorry to rehash this, but can someone explain why IGG is bad again?

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?26719-Storming-to-Philadelphia-%289-8-2013%29-%96-5th-Place&p=750799#post750799

Here Bryant stated that he could probably have won without using IGG. It's looking to me like IGG is the best card in that situation. I feel like it comes up often enough that you have Tutor, Wish and one LED, and that's just an easy way to set up a win. I totally agree, having 2 graveyard engines is pretty meh in the era of DRS as the most played creature in Legacy, but it seems to me that a) they won't always have it and b) it's a straightforward way to win that doesn't rely on getting a bit lucky (i.e. Diminishing Returns).

Definitely a newbie to the deck so I'd love for someone to explain where I'm wrong.

[Lemnear]

Sorry to rehash this, but can someone explain why IGG is bad again?

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?26719-Storming-to-Philadelphia-%289-8-2013%29-%96-5th-Place&p=750799#post750799

Here Bryant stated that he could probably have won without using IGG. It's looking to me like IGG is the best card in that situation. I feel like it comes up often enough that you have Tutor, Wish and one LED, and that's just an easy way to set up a win. I totally agree, having 2 graveyard engines is pretty meh in the era of DRS as the most played creature in Legacy, but it seems to me that a) they won't always have it and b) it's a straightforward way to win that doesn't rely on getting a bit lucky (i.e. Diminishing Returns).

Definitely a newbie to the deck so I'd love for someone to explain where I'm wrong.

It's not just DRS but also RIP, Scavenging Ooze, Surgical Extraction, etc. ... Graveyard-hate made it's way into the core of Legacy. In addition, the use of IGG is pretty limited to non-blue matchups or requires a Silence in advance in addition to the access of 10 mana (with 2 LED's) at a Minimum and having at least Infernal or 2 Wishes at hand.

Those are narrow borders of IGG's usefullness and DR can already do similar in the situations IGG is used, even if it contains a bit of gambling. It was stated that the limited use which is often overlapped by DR, isn't worth the additional SB slot

[Tammit67]

It is rare for me to be forced to IGG when I couldn't just Past in Flames or Tutor chain (with tutor chain being usually easier). IGG was great against the fast decks that I just don't see as often. PiF will handle the discard attrition based matchups fine and has Diminishing Returns to supplement the situations where your GY can't be used readily, where IGG can't get enough storm without much of a hand or a GY.

While the positives of the 3rd swarm and tropical island are not things I'm completely convinced of (since I suck and couldn't seem to beat the easy matchups last week at my local), IGG was certainly one of the weaker SB slots in my eyes since the matchups where it really shines just aren't showing up as frequently

[paeng4983]

I’ve been playtesting with a couple of friends last night, a UW-miracle RiP build and a URW tempo, bringing with me is a list of - 1 Burning Wish or + 1 fetchland. And here are the stuffs that I noted:

URW-tempo
Three games all with main deck
1st: The upside down wish was not a factor here. I simply died to his second turn 3/2 and an ad naus from 11 life points. (0-1)

2nd: It was my turn 4 or five, I think, when I was hoping for a tutor or a wish or even an Ad naus for my hand then was: dark rit, dark rit, LED, probe and on my table: two gems. Then I had this for my turn: draw step (Silence) cast probe (saw daze and piece and he had one land available and one tapped), probe gave me Brainstorm. Brainstorm: ETW, wish/fetch and petal. X goblin tokens gave me the win here thanks to ETW off a brainstorm. (1-1)

3rd: The upside down wish was in my opening seven: wish/fetch, gems, ponder, silence, tutor, brainstorm and dark rit. At this point, seeing two lands increases the chances of you keeping such seven. I win the game here. (2-1)

Three games all with SB.
1st: Seeing my new set of seven off a Silence protected Diminishing Return (7storm with 1R 1U floating and no land drop): gems, tarn, ETW, LED, ROF, silence, wish/fetch. I could have ended the game here with tendrils via the upside down wish. Good thing ETW was there and was enough for me to get there. (1-0) (3-1)

2nd: I opened a hand with 2 lands (usea and gems) and cantrips and business spells. Usea got wasteland at some point. Gem’s counter was at one when I drew and I cracked the upside down wish but it got Stifled. I never got to drew lands. I lose to his 3/2 delver and bolt-snap to bolt play. (1-1) (3-2)

3rd: The upside down wish was not a factor here again for I had an opening turn of gem into two ROFs + petal + dark rit + cabal + wish + ETW. Good thing he drew no Force of Will here. (2-1) (4-2)


UW-RIP-Miracle
Three games all with main deck
1st: The upside down wish was not a factor here. He was able to set up his counterbalance-top lock in his turn three. It was an uphill battle for me since then. I lost eventually to his angels. (0-1) (4-3)

2nd: There was a point in time that I was needing a wish or a tutor. I managed to draw the upside down wish but didn’t help much for it is a land at this point. I lose to RIP-helm combo minutes later. (0-2) (4-4)

3rd: In my third turn, he tapped out and I need to take the opportunity to go off. But was lacking a land. I drew the upside wish and went off with a prayer he’s not holding a Force of Will. My prayer was answered and I finished him with tendrils. (1-2) (5-4)

- Lessening a wish decreases your chance of drawing a wincon or defense in certain situation/s.
- Having an extra land increases your keepable opening hand.
- During mid game, I’d rather get a wish than the extra land because drawing the latter will sometimes caused you the game.

Just my two cents.

[Lemnear]

I’ve been playtesting with a couple of friends last night, a UW-miracle RiP build and a URW tempo, bringing with me is a list of - 1 Burning Wish or + 1 fetchland. And here are the stuffs that I noted:

URW-tempo
Three games all with main deck
1st: The upside down wish was not a factor here. I simply died to his second turn 3/2 and an ad naus from 11 life points. (0-1)

2nd: It was my turn 4 or five, I think, when I was hoping for a tutor or a wish or even an Ad naus for my hand then was: dark rit, dark rit, LED, probe and on my table: two gems. Then I had this for my turn: draw step (Silence) cast probe (saw daze and piece and he had one land available and one tapped), probe gave me Brainstorm. Brainstorm: ETW, wish/fetch and petal. X goblin tokens gave me the win here thanks to ETW off a brainstorm. (1-1)

3rd: The upside down wish was in my opening seven: wish/fetch, gems, ponder, silence, tutor, brainstorm and dark rit. At this point, seeing two lands increases the chances of you keeping such seven. I win the game here. (2-1)

Three games all with SB.
1st: Seeing my new set of seven off a Silence protected Diminishing Return (7storm with 1R 1U floating and no land drop): gems, tarn, ETW, LED, ROF, silence, wish/fetch. I could have ended the game here with tendrils via the upside down wish. Good thing ETW was there and was enough for me to get there. (1-0) (3-1)

2nd: I opened a hand with 2 lands (usea and gems) and cantrips and business spells. Usea got wasteland at some point. Gem’s counter was at one when I drew and I cracked the upside down wish but it got Stifled. I never got to drew lands. I lose to his 3/2 delver and bolt-snap to bolt play. (1-1) (3-2)

3rd: The upside down wish was not a factor here again for I had an opening turn of gem into two ROFs + petal + dark rit + cabal + wish + ETW. Good thing he drew no Force of Will here. (2-1) (4-2)


UW-RIP-Miracle
Three games all with main deck
1st: The upside down wish was not a factor here. He was able to set up his counterbalance-top lock in his turn three. It was an uphill battle for me since then. I lost eventually to his angels. (0-1) (4-3)

2nd: There was a point in time that I was needing a wish or a tutor. I managed to draw the upside down wish but didn’t help much for it is a land at this point. I lose to RIP-helm combo minutes later. (0-2) (4-4)

3rd: In my third turn, he tapped out and I need to take the opportunity to go off. But was lacking a land. I drew the upside wish and went off with a prayer he’s not holding a Force of Will. My prayer was answered and I finished him with tendrils. (1-2) (5-4)

- Lessening a wish decreases your chance of drawing a wincon or defense in certain situation/s.
- Having an extra land increases your keepable opening hand.
- During mid game, I’d rather get a wish than the extra land because drawing the latter will sometimes caused you the game.

Just my two cents.

The more interresting question would have been: how many games did you draw a Mox and wished it was a land?

[paeng4983]

The more interresting question would have been: how many games did you draw a Mox and wished it was a land?

I haven't thought on that. Recalling from my memory, if I'm not mistaken, only once. It was in game two (with SB) vs. URW.
I recall, I drew a Mox before he stifled my upside down wish turn later.

Anyway, it's going to be my next agenda. Maybe tonight or tomorrow.
cutting a Chrome Mox for a fetch.

I'll let you know.

[Lemnear]

I haven't thought on that. Recalling from my memory, if I'm not mistaken, only once. It was in game two (with SB) vs. URW.
I recall, I drew a Mox before he stifled my upside down wish turn later.

Anyway, it's going to be my next agenda. Maybe tonight or tomorrow.
cutting a Chrome Mox for a fetch.

I'll let you know.

My mate and me tested this already successfully. It may requires a bit more oversight about already burned IMS' for T1/2 Ad Nauseams. This change is primary for metas with a lot of mana denial and taxing

[Tom T]

My mate and me tested this already successfully. It may requires a bit more oversight about already burned IMS' for T1/2 Ad Nauseams. This change is primary for metas with a lot of mana denial and taxing

Maybe it was my bad luck, but when I tested the switch (-1 Chrome Mox, +1 Fetch) my Ad Nauseams were way more risky. Ad Nauseam @ <14 killed me far more often than the opponent.

[Lemnear]

Took 2nd place today ... Lost with a lethal Army of goblins to a topdecked Lightning Bolt flipping a Delver with me at 5 life x(

[davelin]

Took 2nd place today ... Lost with a lethal Army of goblins to a topdecked Lightning Bolt flipping a Delver with me at 5 life x(

Cool, tourney report coming? Test any changes esp to the maindeck?

[JPoJohnson]

Ok guys, confession time: I've never been to a legacy event.

There, i said it. Im taking TES (Played many many games with it for many months now) to a GPT this weekend and wondered if there were any general tips to give for either piloting this deck or things to watch for in a tournament setting?

[jandax]

Been to the first post in this thread?

[Star|Scream]

Ok guys, confession time: I've never been to a legacy event.

There, i said it. Im taking TES (Played many many games with it for many months now) to a GPT this weekend and wondered if there were any general tips to give for either piloting this deck or things to watch for in a tournament setting?

Make sure to document well both players' life totals and all of your mana.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Make sure to document well both players' life totals and all of your mana.

Write down the whole spells' chain, it's far more easy to recover game state than just from the storm commas. Also, you may analyze your play later, and I have an impresion that my opponents were impressed that contrary to the dudes who just count the spells, I'm pretty good with Storm, because I write down the whole spells' chain so that I may analyze my play later.

It also looks pretty funny.
"RoF (Daze! - DRit!), Mox (BS), Ponder, DRit, LED, AdN (LED: BBB)..."
You know.

[davelin]

Ok guys, confession time: I've never been to a legacy event.

There, i said it. Im taking TES (Played many many games with it for many months now) to a GPT this weekend and wondered if there were any general tips to give for either piloting this deck or things to watch for in a tournament setting?

As others have said, be sure to be thorough with counting storm and mana. I recommend dice, even different colored ones for your type of mana floating (black, red, etc)!