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

[Lemnear]

My newest list is on the opening post.

I think with the rise of UWr, along with the continuation of RUG it's tough to justify not playing Carpet of Flowers. I've made room by shaving the second discard spell and the two copies of Chain of Vapor. I've replaced one of the Chains with Revoke Existence so that we're not absolutely cold to Leyline of Sanctity (Note Lemnear's list up above lacks an answer). The problem with not having an answer to Leyline is that we'll be forced to make Goblins in a match-up where they could play out kill us after we pass the turn. That said, I'm not sold on Revoke. Part of me wonders if it should still be a Chain of Vapor for more versatility, the brightside is we'll have a Wishable answer to non-creature problems.

As I mentioned a few posts above, I feel that there are just too few Leylines in circulation to still keep dedicated hate and I'm willing to have a blind-spot against that card for the Moment which indeed Limits my options to Goblins + Silence-Walk (post AN).

I thought about Carpet, but don't you think that the possible double-application of EtW against RUG, UWR, etc. as well as against hatebears (D&T and Maverick on the rise again; Cannonist a common SB option for UWR, Esperblade and Miracles) make it a more flexible and valuable slot?


Edit: can we make a deal about calling it 5-Color-Mindtwist-Aggro-Goblins pal? ;D

Edit 2: any plans to Review the sideboarding-guide after you'll find conclusion about Evoke Existance? I feel the changing meta to more diverse hate and your latest changes in the deck might make that desireable.

[Bryant Cook]

As I mentioned a few posts above, I feel that there are just too few Leylines in circulation to still keep dedicated hate and I'm willing to have a blind-spot against that card for the Moment which indeed Limits my options to Goblins + Silence-Walk (post AN).

I thought about Carpet, but don't you think that the possible double-application of EtW against RUG, UWR, etc. as well as against hatebears (D&T and Maverick on the rise again; Cannonist a common SB option for UWR, Esperblade and Miracles) make it a more flexible and valuable slot?


Edit: can we make a deal about calling it 5-Color-Mindtwist-Aggro-Goblins pal? ;D

Edit 2: any plans to Review the sideboarding-guide after you'll find conclusion about Evoke Existance? I feel the changing meta to more diverse hate and your latest changes in the deck might make that desireable.

Sneak Show is as large as ever, Omni is still a deck. I disagree that Leyline's numbers have dwindled.

Have you tested multiple Emptys? It's great in theory, awful in practice. It essentially shuts off Ad Nauseam and makes mass removal extremely good against us, especially Engineered Explosives since we can't discard it after we make Goblins.

As for the "Mind twist", I'm on the fence about the third MD Therapy vs. Thoughtseize. As of right now I'm still on Thoughtseize, but I could see it changing.

I'm not updating the sideboarding guide until I have a more solidified list. Everything is in flux at the moment and it would be pointless as I would have to update it if it changed again anytime soon.

[Lemnear]

Sneak Show is as large as ever, Omni is still a deck. I disagree that Leyline's numbers have dwindled.

Have you tested multiple Emptys? It's great in theory, awful in practice. It essentially shuts off Ad Nauseam and makes mass removal extremely good against us, especially Engineered Explosives since we can't discard it after we make Goblins.

As for the "Mind twist", I'm on the fence about the third MD Therapy vs. Thoughtseize. As of right now I'm still on Thoughtseize, but I could see it changing.

I'm not updating the sideboarding guide until I have a more solidified list. Everything is in flux at the moment and it would be pointless as I would have to update it if it changed again anytime soon.

@Leyline:
Took the BoM and local metagame into consideration. Won't dare to give a general advice here

@EtW:
I'm still theorycrafting atm and can't test before Thursday. I'm afraid to sit behind a Carpet of Flowers for +1/+2 mana while staring at Cannonist /Meddling Mage or after losing my Business Spell to discard. Burned Kid, I guess :/
Strange gut-feeling about the masses of green cards in the SB of your OP

@Discard-suite:
I'm not sure how relevant the "5th peek" vs. "The lifeloss" vs. "The Flashback" really is. It depends a lot on personal experiences and if you sometimes Wish is would be the other card. Since we are beyond the limits of Duress to not being able to save us from Thalia/SFM/Cannonist/etc. I think this isn't a topic that deserves that much attention other than underlining the Synergy with an increased EtW-count, but I bored you and the fellow readers of this thread already enough with that ;)

@Sideboard-guide:
That's what I expected and hinted at by mentioning Evoke Existance. Was just a small reminder :)

[Bryant Cook]

@Leyline:
Took the BoM and local metagame into consideration. Won't dare to give a general advice here

@EtW:
I'm still theorycrafting atm and can't test before Thursday. I'm afraid to sit behind a Carpet of Flowers for +1/+2 mana while staring at Cannonist /Meddling Mage or after losing my Business Spell to discard. Burned Kid, I guess :/
Strange gut-feeling about the masses of green cards in the SB of your OP

@Discard-suite:
I'm not sure how relevant the "5th peek" vs. "The lifeloss" vs. "The Flashback" really is. It depends a lot on personal experiences and if you sometimes Wish is would be the other card. Since we are beyond the limits of Duress to not being able to save us from Thalia/SFM/Cannonist/etc. I think this isn't a topic that deserves that much attention other than underlining the Synergy with an increased EtW-count, but I bored you and the fellow readers of this thread already enough with that ;)

@Sideboard-guide:
That's what I expected and hinted at by mentioning Evoke Existance. Was just a small reminder :)

It's tough to argue Carpet of Flowers vs Hate bears as I don't think the sideboard discard spell improves the match-up more than the ability to negate Daze/Pierce/Flusterstorm.

Im going to test three Therapy maindeck this week. I actually just made the physical switch, we'll see how it goes.

A thought I've had was to move the Tropical main and then make the two slots (Tropical & Revokes) into Chains again. I don't know if this is a bad idea though, it would likely be over a Mox.

[Lemnear]

It's tough to argue Carpet of Flowers vs Hate bears as I don't think the sideboard discard spell improves the match-up more than the ability to negate Daze/Pierce/Flusterstorm.

Im going to test three Therapy maindeck this week. I actually just made the physical switch, we'll see how it goes.

A thought I've had was to move the Tropical main and then made the two Revokes Chains again. I don't know if this is a bad idea though, it would likely be over a Mox.

Just thought that more EtW's might solve both topics. Time will tell.

As I made the switch of -1 Mox +1 Fetch I had made a calculation for AN flips and such. Not sure where it ended up :/
Would be surprised to see you making that move after fighting for the 3rd Mox tbh. I sure get the intention here, but I wonder if it's wise to alter the manabase that way as Tropical adds nothing to your G1


Edit: still waiting for a fetchable Rainbow-Land *sigh*

[Bryant Cook]

Just thought that more EtW's might solve both topics. Time will tell.

As I made the switch of -1 Mox +1 Fetch I had made a calculation for AN flips and such. Not sure where it ended up :/
Would be surprised to see you making that move after fighting for the 3rd Mox tbh. I sure get the intention here, but I wonder if it's wise to alter the manabase that way as Tropical adds nothing to your G1

You'll find that additional Empties makes the deck weaker due to Ad Nauseam is a much weaker option at that point.

I think the third mox is a necessary evil, but I also am trying to optimize the deck as much as possible. What I've been doing in this thread over the last few hours is really just stream of thought, I may just make the Revoke a Chain again and call it for now. Who knows.

[Lemnear]

You'll find that additional Empties makes the deck weaker due to Ad Nauseam is a much weaker option at that point.

I think the third mox is a necessary evil, but I also am trying to optimize the deck as much as possible. What I've been doing in this thread over the last few hours is really just stream of thought, I may just make the Revoke a Chain again and call it for now. Who knows.

I opted to board AN out there anyways as I had a lot of trouble resolving it for value after I fought through Tempo.decs defense in the recent past while getting smacked by Delver, Mongeese or Lightning Bolts left and right :(

That's all just Brainstorming here. I enjoy sharing thoughts on the matter.

[Bryant Cook]

I opted to board AN out there anyways as I had a lot of trouble resolving it for value after I fought through Tempo.decs defense in the recent past while getting smacked by Delver, Mongeese or Lightning Bolts left and right :(

That's all just Brainstorming here. I enjoy sharing thoughts on the matter.

So... you're just willing to concede to any RUG/UWr/Grixis player smart enough to play Engineered Explosives/Electricery? I understand that we have Therapy, but they have ways to hide their answers. It seems like your eggs are all in one basket.

[Lemnear]

So... you're just willing to concede to any RUG/UWr/Grixis player smart enough to play Engineered Explosives/Electricery? I understand that we have Therapy, but they have ways to hide their answers. It seems like your eggs are all in one basket.

Wouldn't call it that way, since there are still all SB Engines as well as the natural spellchain available, which appears a bit underused in general.

I'm just willing to remove 1 Ad Nauseam as kill in the face of Pierce/Daze/FoW to add 2 biz-spells in the form of EtW facing mostly Stifle and optional 2-3 sweepers no one really mulligans into in fear of AN and the Tendrils-kill.

I can see myself doing this for the sake of testing

[BrettF]

Bryant,
What would you side out if you are bringing in Carpet/Carpet/Trop or Carpet/Carpet/Trop/Therapy VS Delver?

[Final Fortune]

Wouldn't call it that way, since there are still all SB Engines as well as the natural spellchain available, which appears a bit underused in general.

I'm just willing to remove 1 Ad Nauseam as kill in the face of Pierce/Daze/FoW to add 2 biz-spells in the form of EtW facing mostly Stifle and optional 2-3 sweepers no one really mulligans into in fear of AN and the Tendrils-kill.

I can see myself doing this for the sake of testing

I agree, I think Bryant is getting a little ahead of himself assuming that A) opponent's know our SB plan and B) opponent's are prepared to SB in or keep SBed in otherwise worthless cards in the event we don't SB at all game 2 or SB back out game 3. It's kind of the ol' "do I keep Swords of Plowshares in the MD for Xantid Swarm" argument, except Pyroclasm and Golgari Charm are a hell of a lot worse than Lightning Bolt or Abrupt Decay because they have no general application otherwise.

I'm pretty happy with SBing out Ad Nauseam and just playing 3xEmpty the Warrens MD, I also think it's going to become increasingly important to SB in the 4th Cabal Therapy with 3xEmpty the Warrens and I typically find myself cutting back on Silence. I really think Xantid Swarm is lack luster, mainly because Tropic Island is terrible, and Carpet of Flowers suffers from the same problem.

[Asthereal]

Side:

3 Xantid Swarm
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Telemin Performance
1 Grapeshot
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns


I would go:
-3 Decay, -1 Swarm
+3 Chain, +1 discard spell
Chain is just faster and more versatile.

Last tourney I played with a second Empty on side and beat Canadian Thresh. I'm not sure we need a third.

[Koby]

Are there enough creatureleas decks that playing Telemin Performance becomes better than Bribery vs the bevy of Griselbrand decks? The former is a win vs a smaller subset than the latter.

[Final Fortune]

Are there enough creatureleas decks that playing Telemin Performance becomes better than Bribery vs the bevy of Griselbrand decks? The former is a win vs a smaller subset than the latter.

I'm kind of going back and forth between the two, the only problem I've found with Telemin Performance is that it's slightly unreliable vs Reanimator if you land on Elesh Norn etc. and Bribery is clearly better vs Oops, No Lands compared to Telemin Performance being clearly better vs Storm.

It probably doesn't matter a whole lot, Bribery is going to be more consistent in the "guaranteed to win now off Griselbranned" department.

[BrettF]

Telemin against Reanimator or Sneak&Show is probably still 65% win at least. If you miss on grisselbrand and land into Iona or Emrakul there is a chance they cannot answer back.

Quick meta calculation using MTGpulse.com

Telemin vs TES (175 Top16s since RTR)
Telemin vs ANT (120 Top16s since RTR)
Telemin vs Dream Halls (98 Top16s since RTR)
Telemin vs High Tide (55 Top16s since RTR)
Bribery or Telemin vs Show and Tell (355 Top16s since RTR)
Bribery or Telemin vs Reanimator (218 Top16s since RTR)
Bribery vs MUD (53 Top16s since RTR)
Bribery vs 12 Post (28 Top16s since RTR)
Bribery vs All Spells (24 Top16s since RTR)

Telemin score: 448 at 100%, 573 at 65%
Bribery score: 678 at 100%

To me it looks like Bribery may be better in certain local metas or an SCG invitational, but during the swiss of a deep tournament i would want telemin.

[Bryant Cook]

Bryant,
What would you side out if you are bringing in Carpet/Carpet/Trop or Carpet/Carpet/Trop/Therapy VS Delver?

-1 Chrome Mox, -1 Infernal Tutor, -1 Ponder.



I agree, I think Bryant is getting a little ahead of himself assuming that A) opponent's know our SB plan and B) opponent's are prepared to SB in or keep SBed in otherwise worthless cards in the event we don't SB at all game 2 or SB back out game 3. It's kind of the ol' "do I keep Swords of Plowshares in the MD for Xantid Swarm" argument, except Pyroclasm and Golgari Charm are a hell of a lot worse than Lightning Bolt or Abrupt Decay because they have no general application otherwise.

I'm pretty happy with SBing out Ad Nauseam and just playing 3xEmpty the Warrens MD, I also think it's going to become increasingly important to SB in the 4th Cabal Therapy with 3xEmpty the Warrens and I typically find myself cutting back on Silence. I really think Xantid Swarm is lack luster, mainly because Tropic Island is terrible, and Carpet of Flowers suffers from the same problem.

I have opponents that bring in answers to Goblins all the time. Maybe Europe is a little different, but my opponents are certainly prepared.

Have you played at all with Tropical Island? The additional land is awesome across more than one match-up and isn't always there to tap for a green.

[Lemnear]

@Asthereal:
There are, by far, too many Miracles in Europe to cut Decay from my SB

@Koby:
North Europe loves combo and while TP isn't guaranteed to hit Griselbrand, it offers more flexibility in combo-matchups, as you can use it against High Tide, storm and OmniTell. Hitting an Iona, Ashen Rider, Titan or Emrakul isn't quite bad, is it?

@Answering EtW:
It was stated that Zealous Persecution and Golgari Charm will rise to power sole because of the TNN and were everywhere at the BoM. Everyone boards some sweepers for the Goblins in Europe.

@MB Trop
The 13 land always felt nice, no matter the colors. I'm just in fear of an increasing realiance on green mana and if you want to add that 13th Land in the MB for casting SB cards, those land might be better a Rainbow instead then.

@Final Fortune
It's not a bad thing that Bryant want to prevent blind spots in the deck. I just had a similar discussion with my mate and fellow Sourcer Holly about the topic yesterday afternoon as he suggested at least one Hull Breach to run to have outs after a dropped Leyline, but having to resolve a Wish for a 2cc sorcery feels like a losing Position regardless, that's why I let it be. Boarding in the last remaining Therapy sure looks delicious. Testing will tell, if those matchups don't want a wishable discard instead or if engines + Kill are enough in the Board

[mario91234]

Few additions:

I only bring in chain of vapor vs a deck with non leyline hate. I found AN->empty+silence is pretty reliable vs the leyline combo decks. I could see going down to 1 since it doesn't deal with vial or aven mindcensor problems and that's a matchup I want it in.

Extra empties are not strong against the field. Goblin hate is at an all time high and people still believe stifle is good vs the deck. Little sense in making their dead cards better and making our AN worse which is pretty good. If you are going to have empty + therapy in your opener, it's stronger than say IT+therapy, cantrip+therapy, or carpet+therapy but those "alternate cards" often give you a good shot of winning the game. Empty plays pretty poorly with the best cards in our deck on several levels and is a severe liability past the explosive turn 1. If I was going to win die rolls all day, I would be more inclined to be on the empty plan to be faster than stifle. Frankly, that's not reliable.

I'm currently running 2 therapy 1 seize/ 1 therapy 1 seize. I've been boarding in the seize leaving the therapy to be wished for since seize is better post board main and therapy to wish for. This probably isn't optimal and requires streamlining, but I don't see a way to beat counters and bears in a reasonable fashion.

3 Chrome mox is a necessity.

Curious on lightning bolt being an option. In matchups you want it, it's exclusively bad vs miracles because its not decay. However, it can kill a lodestone golem for what it's worth. It's unlikely that mini tendrils/grapeshot/pif with bolt will ever come up as I've haven't had to do that recently.

Is telemin actually good? I really doubt we need help in any combo matchup aside from omni tell which you can only turn 1-2 the telemin reliably and they still have leyline. I think leaving the matchups to the strength of silence and swarm to win these. Reanimator is a garbage matchup anyway and if telemin was a win 100% of time we could reconsider.

Thanks for reading, Mario

[Lemnear]

Hahahahaha, looks like peeps spotted me on FB. :)

Will probably send out a few requests myself. Don't wonder ;)

[vercadium]

Following on from my post at the beginning of the month (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23361-Deck-T-E-S-The-EPIC-Storm&p=762506&viewfull=1#post762506), this is my current list:

//Card Selection (12)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I still find the Tropical Island low-impact, but with even more green (Carpet of Flowers) in the sideboard I think it's necessary.

I didn't get to use the 3rd Xantid Swarm often enough to warrant its spot which is why there is 2, but frustratingly, when I do get to use Xantid Swarm it's great and I feel like I want the three. I think the decision between 2/3 is a meta-game call.

The split between Thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy between maindeck and sideboard is still up in the air, but if one is better, it is marginally so. I think our efforts are best focused elsewhere.

I need more actual physical play with this list before I can come to any complete conclusions.

[Lemnear]

Mario, you might underestimate the postboard-games against Tempo where you have to fight through FoW, Daze, Pierce, Snare, Flusterstorm and Wasteland (not to talk about subtypes with black or white) while facing a clock. Unlike AN, EtW is cheaper to cast and has kind of a protection from counterspells other than Flusterstorm and Stifle making it an option before several of their counterspells are online and annoy the hell outta your attempts to go for AN

[Mindlash]

Some thoughts on the recent discussion with additional EtWs and the Grinding Station playstyle (there may be flaws in it...just brainstorming at work):

1) ToA > EtW in multiples: you usually start to aim for a kill around turn 3 with Grinding Station. ToA gives you life and does its damage on the spot. The extra life might be important in longer games against Delver and Bolts, while Goyfs and Goose can be chump blocked by EtW on the other hand. (Edited for clarity)

2) Basics might be needed for this playstyle because you often just do your landdrops and try to play 8 vs 7 in your killturn making nonbasics a problem (Jona even wanted to add a third basic to his deck as it is crucial if you want the tempo decks start which might be reasonable in this kind of playstyle).

3) EtW suffers to mass removal (cards I am happy to see in my opponents hands while playing ANT or Grinding Station)

4) EtW has a very good synergy with Cabal Therapy and every Dredge-Pilot knows how good flashbacking Therapies is :)

5) EtW wins against Leyline of Sancity without help though it weakens Cabal Therapy alot.

I like the idea behind Grinding Station alot which is why I mentioned I will test Jonas deck with the Grinding Station Plan postboard. I also like the idea of multiple EtW against Tempo. I am just not sure if it works out well for TES overcommiting in a Grinding Station Plan. I am eager to hear about your test results though Lemnear :)

Greetings Mindlash

[Holly]

Some thoughts on the recent discussion with additional EtWs and the Grinding Station playstyle (there may be flaws in it...just brainstorming at work):

1) ToA > EtW in multiples: you usually start to aim for a kill around turn 3 with Grinding Station. ToA gives you life and does its damage on the spot. The extra life might be important in longer games against Delver and Bolts...the rest can be chump blocked by EtW.

So you plan on going of 1 time with ToA, then with EtW to chumpblock and then AGAIN with ToA for the kill? Ambitious.
You can spit out some token to go the distance, but a single ToA for 14, 16, 18 won't be enough (well ok the one for 18 probably will be if they fetched 2 times) but it doesn't matter if they're at 4 or 20.. We're talking about 2 slots.. not 3 for 4 copies of ToA and some more PiF. You can't adopt the Grinding Station playstile with that few sideboard slots.



2) Basics might be needed for this playstyle because you often just do your landdrops and try to play 8 vs 7 in your killturn making nonbasics a problem (Jona even wanted to add a third basic to his deck as it is crucial if you want the tempo decks start which might be reasonable in this kind of playstyle).
Third basic? We're not even playing 2.. nor even 1.. are you in the wrong thread? Maybe you're looking for ANT? (Or PNT or however they want to be called these days.)
Edit: Missread your sentence. I don't think anyone will try out to board in 2-3 Basics + 2-3 EtW for the tempo matchup.




3) EtW suffers to mass removal (cards I am happy to see in my opponents hands while playing ANT or Grinding Station)
Fair enough and the subdamage of Persecution/Charms we talked above. Then again, they play how many mass removal and how many Spell Pierce, Daze, Force (Counterspell) to ruin your day if you try to go off with Ad Nauseam?




5) EtW wins against Leyline of Sancity without help though it weakens Cabal Therapy alot.
Most decks with Leyline we fear are combo decks, EtW WILL need help (Silence Walk) to win, one can't allways depend on that and I wouldn't board it EtW 2 + 3 versus SnT anyway so that point is kinda mood.


All in all im pretty positive that one can't board into Grinding Station from T.E.S.
If I misinterpreted some of your statements and you were solely talking about the view of Grinding Station on the tempo MU and not about storm going into Grinding Stations (point 1 as example) I'm sorry.

[vercadium]

Grinding Station? Really?

Anyway, I forgot to add this to my above post:

Regarding the multiples of Empty the Warrens - I've tried it in the past and I feel like it's a trap. Increasing your chance to draw it against the tempo decks is a sound theory, but in practice there's not that much value from it.

[Mindlash]

So you plan on going of 1 time with ToA, then with EtW to chumpblock and then AGAIN with ToA for the kill? Ambitious.
You can spit out some token to go the distance, but a single ToA for 14, 16, 18 won't be enough (well ok the one for 18 probably will be if they fetched 2 times) but it doesn't matter if they're at 4 or 20.. We're talking about 2 slots.. not 3 for 4 copies of ToA and some more PiF. You can't adopt the Grinding Station playstile with that few sideboard slots.

Yeah I problably did not write what I meant to say. It is easily misinterpreted in the way you did :/ I will fix that afterwards.
What I meant was: ToA is stronger than EtW in multiples. I know you can chumpblock with goblins but Delvers and Bolts are still threatening. Tendrils on the other hand gives you life which can be more valuable because it is not unusual to finish RUG with two mini Tendrils with Grinding Station. It also wins / deals damage the turn you cast it which leaves less room for interactions. Tendrils into Empty into Tendrils is pretty ambitious I'll admit that ;)



Third basic? We're not even playing 2.. nor even 1.. are you in the wrong thread? Maybe you're looking for ANT? (Or PNT or however they want to be called these days.)
Edit: Missread your sentence. I don't think anyone will try out to board in 2-3 Basics + 2-3 EtW for the tempo matchup.

Yeah it is the same issue again. I am well aware this isn't the ANT or Grinding Station thread. I am just comparing Grinding Station to Lemnear's idea of playing more stormspells. And in Grinding Station you just drop lands against RUG until you assembled your winning hand and play 8 vs 7 on them. I know there are no basics in TES nor do I want to suggest some. I just think it might not play out as well as it does for Grinding Station.



Fair enough and the subdamage of Persecution/Charms we talked above. Then again, they play how many mass removal and how many Spell Pierce, Daze, Force (Counterspell) to ruin your day if you try to go off with Ad Nauseam?

There will be more removal in their boards due to TNN. And I am not saying the 4 EtW plan won't work. It is just a weakness to consider. As in all of the other points I am just brainstorming the differences of Leamnear's 4 EtW plan to ANTs 3 - 4 Tendrils plan. It is not that it is unplayable overall. The synergy with Therapy is very strong which I also mentioned.


Most decks with Leyline we fear are combo decks, EtW WILL need help (Silence Walk) to win, one can't allways depend on that and I wouldn't board it EtW 2 + 3 versus SnT anyway so that point is kinda mood.

You are right on this. I was just comparing the cards without context here which doesn't to anything in real magic.


All in all im pretty positive that one can't board into Grinding Station from T.E.S.
If I misinterpreted some of your statements and you were solely talking about the view of Grinding Station on the tempo MU and not about storm going into Grinding Stations (point 1 as example) I'm sorry.

As I stated in my points (hopefully ^^) I also think the Grinding Station idea works better with an ANT shell in my opinion. I am eager to see some of Lemnear's test results though. Playing more stormspells was lots of fun against RUG in the past. But another problem I see in this concept for both decks is the fact that it works best for RUG while other tempo decks like BUG are not that easily played 8 vs 7 against...if at all.

I guess you misinterpreted me but I am not innocent on that :) Writing here while working is not alway the best idea especially if it is not your native language :D
My intention was just a brainstormed comparision of Lemnear's and Final Fortune's suggested sideboard on that idea with an existing model of the storm archtype that utilizes a similar idea.

Mfg Mindlash

Edit:


Grinding Station? Really?

Anyway, I forgot to add this to my above post:

Regarding the multiples of Empty the Warrens - I've tried it in the past and I feel like it's a trap. Increasing your chance to draw it against the tempo decks is a sound theory, but in practice there's not that much value from it.

Well I was regarding to the multiple EtW too. I just called it Grinding Station like Lemnear because of the similar gameplan against RUG.


Having 1-2 additional copies of EtW in the SB to board in those in a deck with 4 CT in the 75 is something I have to take a closer look at to mimic the gameplan of Grinding Station.

[Lemnear]

Sorry for causing the confusion by mentioning Grinding Station or giving some the picture of playing the 8-vs.-7-game.

Just to set things straight: i wanted to dump my hand T1/T2 more reliable (as you notice by the return of the 3rd Mox) and pushing into the red Zone while drawing cards per turn to repeat the goblin assault off a second EtW if needed, which was all the reason i refered to Grinding Station which does the same with ToA.

[mario91234]

Maybe im missing something here, but i believe the multiple empty plan fails if it isnt done on turn 1, unless you have therapy which lets you go off turn 2. This means you really need either a hand that can beat force if the line uses a tutor or you need lotus petal. On a turn 2 basis, you're now open to stifle+Counters lines. I'd put the likelihood of having the winning hands in these scenarios at less than 50%. I cant justify a plan that requires extensive sb slots that has such a % of success. Im interested to hear more on the numbers side.


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[Lemnear]

Maybe im missing something here, but i believe the multiple empty plan fails if it isnt done on turn 1, unless you have therapy which lets you go off turn 2. This means you really need either a hand that can beat force if the line uses a tutor or you need lotus petal. On a turn 2 basis, you're now open to stifle+Counters lines. I'd put the likelihood of having the winning hands in these scenarios at less than 50%. I cant justify a plan that requires extensive sb slots that has such a % of success. Im interested to hear more on the numbers side.


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I just noticed that the gameplan with AN is insanely hard to execute against tempo atm, so Bryant and me just threw ideas in the ring with a different approach which is (for my part) altering the usual gameplan against tempo-subtypes with the same tools as I'm planning to battle hatebears (comes in handy that UWr run both, the tempo-package and heatebears), therefore I consider EtW's doing a double-duty.

I will test the various approaches during the next days or simply take one idea into the field thursday.

[Final Fortune]

So far the ETW plan has been interesting to say the least, the possibility of SB sweepers aside, I think we may want to push the ETW plan as far as we can go by SBing Simian Spirit Guides in addition to ETW. Considering we're SBing out Ad Nauseam and we're concentrating on going off as soon as possible on turn 1/2 with ETW backed by Cabal Therapy, I think we should be cutting back on cards like Silence, Ponder and Lands in favor of anything that strengthens ETW and to a lesser extent DimRet.

The plan is incredibly linear, but they never know at what point you're boarding it in or even if you are boarding it in.

[Lemnear]

So far the ETW plan has been interesting to say the least, the possibility of SB sweepers aside, I think we may want to push the ETW plan as far as we can go by SBing Simian Spirit Guides in addition to ETW. Considering we're SBing out Ad Nauseam and we're concentrating on going off as soon as possible on turn 1/2 with ETW backed by Cabal Therapy, I think we should be cutting back on cards like Silence, Ponder and Lands in favor of anything that strengthens ETW and to a lesser extent DimRet.

The plan is incredibly linear, but they never know at what point you're boarding it in or even if you are boarding it in.

I'm strickly against having IMS' in the board, nor do I see the space to add those shenanigans. Our deck already has so many fastmana that I'm sure we can use the SB slots for more value than SSG.

The more important message is, that the expected trend towards UWr and TNN made peeps cut some or completely chop all the Stifles according to the recent US-T16-lists.

That could be a turning point for storm

[Mindlash]

Sorry for causing the confusion by mentioning Grinding Station or giving some the picture of playing the 8-vs.-7-game.

Just to set things straight: i wanted to dump my hand T1/T2 more reliable (as you notice by the return of the 3rd Mox) and pushing into the red Zone while drawing cards per turn to repeat the goblin assault off a second EtW if needed, which was all the reason i refered to Grinding Station which does the same with ToA.

Ah ok yeah this seems to fit the structure of the deck more and might be viable indeed ;)
But I guess it really more like Belcher instead of Grinding Station with 3 EtW and fast Goblins. Might an additional PiF be useful in the maindeck after boarding the EtW plan for going of another time? Or do you think it is enough to push through a Wish with flashbacked Therapies?

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/250x250/32337912.jpg

[Lemnear]

Ah ok yeah this seems to fit the structure of the deck more and might be viable indeed ;)
But I guess it really more like Belcher instead of Grinding Station with 3 EtW and fast Goblins. Might an additional PiF be useful in the maindeck after boarding the EtW plan for going of another time? Or do you think it is enough to push through a Wish with flashbacked Therapies?

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/250x250/32337912.jpg

You can still wish for PiF to flashback the EtW in your GY or board the sad Yawgmoth's Will lookalike in the matchups in question. There is no need for additional PiF's

Edit: or did i mistake you talking about a second one in the 75?

[Final Fortune]

I'm strickly against having IMS' in the board, nor do I see the space to add those shenanigans. Our deck already has so many fastmana that I'm sure we can use the SB slots for more value than SSG.

The more important message is, that the expected trend towards UWr and TNN made peeps cut some or completely chop all the Stifles according to the recent US-T16-lists.

That could be a turning point for storm

It really doesn't, I don't know if you were around when "the norm" for TES was 4 Lion's Eye Diamond, 4 Lotus Petal, 4 Chrome Mox, 4 Dark Ritual, 4 Simian Spirit Guide and 4 Rite of Flame pre-Ad Nauseam, when TES use to regularly SB multiple ETW's before it had significantly more acceleration than we do now. I don't think SBing Simian Spirit Guide is any more ridiculous than SBing Carpet of Flowers or Tropical Island and the premium on SB space just depends on what cards you value and how you're SBing;

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Grape Shot
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Past in Flames
1 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Simian Spirit Guide

All you're missing is the little luxuries like Telemin Performance, Xantid Swarms and Revoke Existance, which is all pretty much for the Show&Tell match up. The kind of nice thing about it is that you can stick with 2 Chrome Mox/13 Land MD and then do stuff like cut Mox post-board altogether for roughly equivalent acceleration when Ad Nauseam gets cut for more ETW.

[Lemnear]

Lets just not forget that this was in another age of storm and it's foes. I don't think however that we can afford to drop the Swarms in times of S&T, Griselbrand and the return of Meerfolk

[Bryant Cook]

This is true theory and has no testing to back it up, I thought of it while getting ready this morning. I'm going to test four main deck Cabal Therapy and three Silence with a Thoughtseize in the sideboard. With the lack of Stifle in the current metagame, I think it's perfectly acceptable to shave off a Silence. I'll be testing this in upcoming weeks.

[Lemnear]

This is true theory and has no testing to back it up, I thought of it while getting ready this morning. I'm going to test four main deck Cabal Therapy and three Silence with a Thoughtseize in the sideboard. With the lack of Stifle in the current metagame, I think it's perfectly acceptable to shave off a Silence. I'll be testing this in upcoming weeks.

I'm less concerned about Stifle (as a card) than counter overloads post SB. Testing is valid, but I'm surprised by that idea with our recent chatter about Leyline as it affects the previous SB plan of no-targeted-protection post-SB against Leyline.

[Final Fortune]

I'm less concerned about Stifle (as a card) than counter overloads post SB. Testing is valid, but I'm surprised by that idea with our recent chatter about Leyline as it affects the previous SB plan of no-targeted-protection post-SB against Leyline.

I don't see the point of it either, considering a Silence walk is just as good as a Cabal Therapy Flashback in a lot of situations. That said, I don't think "no targeted discard" post-board vs Leyline is a necessary approach vs Leyline of Sanctity, that match up isn't nearly as bad as the aggro-control match up and I question the necessity of dedicating so many SB slots (what, Telemin Performance, 3 Xantid Swarms and Tropical Island?) against it compared to dedicating SB slots vs aggro-control and control.

[Lemnear]

I don't see the point of it either, considering a Silence walk is just as good as a Cabal Therapy Flashback in a lot of situations. That said, I don't think "no targeted discard" post-board vs Leyline is a necessary approach vs Leyline of Sanctity, that match up isn't nearly as bad as the aggro-control match up and I question the necessity of dedicating so many SB slots (what, Telemin Performance, 3 Xantid Swarms and Tropical Island?) against it compared to dedicating SB slots vs aggro-control and control.

Not being feared by Leyline is a reason I still run TP. Estimating the relevance of Leyline as a threat was part of the brainstorming in this thread this week as I opted to cut the CoV and therefore my only out against Leyline to improve the tempo- & hatebear-matchup, which Bryant reminded me about and suggested to have an out in the SB left for that.

I decided to stick to the goblins + Silence-walk in that case as I did this several times before against S&T which I believe is even once covered in a HotS-Report. With Leyline as an annoyance, Bryant kept playing the Tropical over the Telemin in his SB (could talk a whole paragraph about not having the trop in side but more lands in main by having cutted a mox blablabla). There are 4 slots in the SB for that matchup and I don't think those are far too many.

The Carpets in Bryants side cover the aggro-control and control matchups already. Which cards do you want to add for those matchups?


P.S.: I feel that the gameplann to slowly picking appart control suits better for ANT's increased cantrips and stronger Rituals, therefore the idea to take profit from the speed layout of TES and overwhelm those decks with goblins. Still theory

[phazonmutant]

I'm strickly against having IMS' in the board, nor do I see the space to add those shenanigans. Our deck already has so many fastmana that I'm sure we can use the SB slots for more value than SSG.

The more important message is, that the expected trend towards UWr and TNN made peeps cut some or completely chop all the Stifles according to the recent US-T16-lists.

That could be a turning point for storm

FinalFortune already made a very good response, but I'll add to it. If you want to capitalize on tempo decks cutting Stifle, play a deck with 8 fetchlands like...oh, I dunno, ANT.


Some more general thoughts:
People are increasingly realizing that they can't beat combo by trying to interact on one axis. Thresh has always been characterized by their ability to interact with both our mana and the stack - if they don't do both, we will win. Now, we're seeing other decks like Raka Delver exploit this - they board permanents and counterspells.
Previously, we win the hate-permanent battle by being faster. Death and Taxes is historically favorable because they don't interact until turn 2. Now, the hate-permanent decks also play cheap stack interaction (as mentioned in the ANT thread and elsewhere, part of the reason the fair decks can afford the sideboard space is because of True-Name Nemesis).

In my experience, a combo deck needs an above-average draw to beat a deck that packs several forms of interaction. For example, let's look at TinFins. It's one of the most objectively powerful deck in the format, but it hasn't really put up numbers. Why? Almost every deck packs 2 forms of interaction. Jund has discard + permanents. U decks have counterspells + grave hate. Etc. Obviously TinFins can prevail (it has put up some finishes), but on average the opponent's greater threat density will outweigh both explosiveness, especially given that you have to dilute your deck to deal with 2 types of answers.

This lesson applies equally to storm. Think about the games you lose. It's almost always the combination of 2 disruptive elements, right? Any high-tier legacy deck can fight through just one, but the mathematics are just not in favor of 2+ forms of interaction. Let's look at that.

Say your opponent starts out with 10/60 interactive cards maindeck - whether that be discard, counterspells, or both. Then they board in an additional 5 things that interact, often on a different axis.
That means you're fighting them drawing about a quarter of the cards in their deck vs you drawing a kill or a specific answer. To win that fight, you either need to be much faster or your answers need to be very versatile. TES qualifies much more than ANT on the first metric - trying to out-control the now-proactive control deck seems to be a losing battle - but on the second metric it falls flat. That's why I'm now thinking that TES is a contender, but an underdog.

To fix this problem, either people need to stop boarding cards that interact with storm on a second axis, storm has to be faster, or storm has to find more general answers. I doubt the first will happen since the quality of hate has gone up so much, the second seems unlikely given how long people have tried to optimize on that, and the last depends on either new printings or radical innovation.

So for that reason, I think the many-Empty plan (among others) is interesting. But otherwise, I think I'm going to take a break from my favorite deck to explore fair-land.

[Lemnear]

This analysis is correct, but we are all chopping into the same notch to fix that issue. I doubt that the situation, with a lot of the format focusing on the midrange threat of SFM + TNN and tempo facing tremendous troubles therefore, is that bad for storm.

In a world without Stifle, I rather drop T1 goblins than fetching and cantripping till my opponent drops hatebears and draws into counter/discard

[Bryant Cook]

I'm less concerned about Stifle (as a card) than counter overloads post SB. Testing is valid, but I'm surprised by that idea with our recent chatter about Leyline as it affects the previous SB plan of no-targeted-protection post-SB against Leyline.


I don't see the point of it either, considering a Silence walk is just as good as a Cabal Therapy Flashback in a lot of situations. That said, I don't think "no targeted discard" post-board vs Leyline is a necessary approach vs Leyline of Sanctity, that match up isn't nearly as bad as the aggro-control match up and I question the necessity of dedicating so many SB slots (what, Telemin Performance, 3 Xantid Swarms and Tropical Island?) against it compared to dedicating SB slots vs aggro-control and control.

Why does it effect that plan? You can still very easily board out all four Cabal Therapy for the three Xantid and a Tropical Island. Of course you're less worried about Stifle as there's less of it in the metagame, which is why I recommend that we shave a Silence (for now). Having the additional Cabal Therapy allows us to be slightly faster with the fact that we're more likely to go off turns one or two protected without needing the third color, it also allows us to disrupt on all the axis' (like Phazonmutant mentioned) that we're being attacked through. Silence doesn't do as great of an impersonation against hate bears as Cabal Therapy, it can slow them down, but it's not always enough. That said, I wouldn't go below three Silence as I think we still need to consider RUG.

Which brings me to my next point, Final Fortune claims we're not doing enough for control and aggro control. We're doing more than we have in the past with the Tropical Island and the pair of Carpet of Flowers, I don't know if he's played the Reanimator/Sneakshow match-up. But it's pretty miserable, much worse than tempo/aggro-control which isn't as bad as some make it seem. Albeit, these newer UWr lists with hate bears in the side are tougher than the former RUG.

[Royce Walter]

I don't see the point of it either, considering a Silence walk is just as good as a Cabal Therapy Flashback in a lot of situations.

First, most of the time goblins give them 2 turns, and Silence can only take away one of them. Second, it's a lot easier to get a Cabal Therapy in your graveyard in a deck with a bunch of black mana and LED than it is to have a Silence in your hand after you Empty.

[Final Fortune]

I suppose there's nothing wrong with 3 Silence, 4 Cabal Therapy MD as far as disruption configurations go, my main problem is that it forces you to SB another discard spell and potentially the 4th Silence. Yeah, I realize Show&Tell and Reanimator aren't good match ups for Storm, it's one of the reasons I advocated Bribery. However, I don't think Show&Tell and Reanimator are anywhere near as common place as aggro-control and its ilk. I guess we just have to pick what are one bad match up is going to be regarding dedicated SB space and move on, maybe we dump the Abrupt Decays and bite the bullet vs Miracles for a better aggro-control and show&tell match up?

[Lemnear]

Still don't get it. You have to take into considersation

1) Hatebears -> Decay, CoV
2) softcounter -> Carpet
3) Leyline -> CoV, Xantid
4) discard -> nothing
5) Counterbalance -> Decay

What you suggest is either folding to Miracles (and hatebears) or to the whole S&T-crowd by the changes suggested, or am I mistaken? I have no clue how you want to squeeze more dedicated anti-Aggro-control-cards in the MB after sideboarding without making the deck a bricking mess. I asked before, but what would you add to your SB for those matchups and how would you plan to board?

[Final Fortune]

Still don't get it. You have to take into considersation

1) Hatebears -> Decay, CoV
2) softcounter -> Carpet
3) Leyline -> CoV, Xantid
4) discard -> nothing
5) Counterbalance -> Decay

What you suggest is either folding to Miracles (and hatebears) or to the whole S&T-crowd by the changes suggested, or am I mistaken? I have no clue how you want to squeeze more dedicated anti-Aggro-control-cards in the MB after sideboarding without making the deck a bricking mess. I asked before, but what would you add to your SB for those matchups and how would you plan to board?

My working assumption is the best way to beat anything played on T2 is speed, and if you have the full package of 4 Infernal Tutor, 4 Burning Wish, 3 Empty the Warrens, 4 Lion's Eye Diamond, 4 Lotus Petal, 4 Chrome Mox, 4 Simian Spirit Guide, 4 Dark Ritual, 4 Rite of Flame and 4 Cabal Therapy plus a 50% to 100% chance of going first depending on the coin flip or a game loss then the match up could potentially play out like Belcher with aggressive mulliganing into Goblins.

The more linear you make the deck the faster it is, whether or not that's a good enough strategy I have no idea - but I prefer to push the deck towards the extreme of "going off" as much as possible before I fall back on reactionary answers to T2 cards.

It's how the deck use to play vs Counterbalance back in the day when every deck played Counterbalance and before Abrupt Decay was printed.

[Lemnear]

Ok, I wasn't sure if pushing the deck towards beating aggro equals the SSG idea. All clear now

[Asthereal]

@FF: You do realise that cantrips don't fit into that strategy very well?
But the thing with cutting, say, Ponder, is that our consistency goes down quite a bit.
Let's face it, this deck just doesn't always go off turn one.

[Final Fortune]

@FF: You do realise that cantrips don't fit into that strategy very well?
But the thing with cutting, say, Ponder, is that our consistency goes down quite a bit.
Let's face it, this deck just doesn't always go off turn one.

I'm aware, my SBing plan pretty much revolves around cutting Ad Nauseam, Ponder and X Silence for Empty the Warrens and Simian Spirit Guides vs aggro-control. Cutting Ponder doesn't necessarily mean your consistency decreases, if you're playing 3 Empty the Warrens and 4 Simian Spirit Guides it actually increases as the deck becomes more linear.

Ofcourse it doesn't always go off turn 1, but considering you're trying to race a T2 lock piece it doesn't have to always go off turn 1. Sometimes they'll be on the draw, other times you'll have a Cabal Therapy etc.

[Asthereal]

I'm aware, my SBing plan pretty much revolves around cutting Ad Nauseam, Ponder and X Silence for Empty the Warrens and Simian Spirit Guides vs aggro-control. Cutting Ponder doesn't necessarily mean your consistency decreases, if you're playing 3 Empty the Warrens and 4 Simian Spirit Guides it actually increases as the deck becomes more linear.

Ofcourse it doesn't always go off turn 1, but considering you're trying to race a T2 lock piece it doesn't have to always go off turn 1. Sometimes they'll be on the draw, other times you'll have a Cabal Therapy etc.
You could cut one Infernal as well. If you cut Ad Nauseam, Infernal becomes way weaker than Wish anyway.

[Lemnear]

You could cut one Infernal as well. If you cut Ad Nauseam, Infernal becomes way weaker than Wish anyway.

Would be pointless to reduce Tutors if you goal is to drop EtW T1/T2


Edit: Tests delayed ... work, work, work :/

[Asthereal]

It's also pointless to draw multiple business spells. I thought 10 business spells was the sort of optimal number for TES.
On the other hand, we wanted to not cast Brainstorm/Ponder too often in these games, so maybe you're right and we need the full 11 business spells just like Belcher always has them.

[Lemnear]

As the crew around Jonathan highlighted in regards to his article today, it appears, that most top-performing S&T lists have dismissed the Leyines for several reasons and therefore I began to question the role of Xantid Swarm (and to a lesser extend, Silence). I opt to make another radical change to the testing list

5-Color-Goblins - Testing Grid

4 Gemstone Mine
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam


3 Carpet of Flowers
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Thoughtseize
1 Telemin Performance
1 Grapeshot
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns



I know, how bad Dim.Ret. becomes as a Storm-Engine without Xantid/Silence. Testing without the non-targeted-protection as Final Fortune suggested

[vercadium]

I'd like to discuss/raise some points; your thoughts on these are appreciated:

PhazonMutant hit the nail on the head with this:


Say your opponent starts out with 10/60 interactive cards maindeck - whether that be discard, counterspells, or both. Then they board in an additional 5 things that interact, often on a different axis.
That means you're fighting them drawing about a quarter of the cards in their deck vs you drawing a kill or a specific answer. To win that fight, you either need to be much faster or your answers need to be very versatile. TES qualifies much more than ANT on the first metric - trying to out-control the now-proactive control deck seems to be a losing battle - but on the second metric it falls flat. That's why I'm now thinking that TES is a contender, but an underdog.

To fix this problem, either people need to stop boarding cards that interact with storm on a second axis, storm has to be faster, or storm has to find more general answers. I doubt the first will happen since the quality of hate has gone up so much, the second seems unlikely given how long people have tried to optimize on that, and the last depends on either new printings or radical innovation.

So moving on from here we need answers that hit a variety of problem cards but are still powerful enough to be effective.

We've already started to do that by cutting Duress for the more versatile Thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy and creating more sideboard space which has been a great evolution.

Bear this key theory in mind as you read the rest of this post.

Shaving 1 Silence for 1 Cabal Therapy and general thoughts on our disruption package.

I've often wondered in the past about whether this split would be correct; I remember reading recently in Ari Lax's DC article that he felt it was a possibility too. It's certainly a switch I can get behind. I know lots of people have advocated wanting to cut Silence entirely to a mono-black disruption suite. But I digress; let's get down to the details:

Obvious benefits are it costing black instead of white. Less awkward Chrome Mox imprinting, easier casting and synergy with Empty the Warrens. The list goes on. Excellent!

We've established above that we want powerful, versatile cards. Cabal Therapy fits that role perfectly. It answers nearly any card we care about.

While Silence can be amazing against some combo decks and the "silence-walk" means it's rarely completely dead, Cabal Therapy is even better in this regard. Seriously, what's the worst Cabal Therapy you've ever cast? It probably just revealed their hand. Provided you make good use of that information, you could do worse in a combo deck like this.

So when is Cabal Therapy not as good as Silence? Picture the scenario - You name Thalia, Guardian of Thraben; they reveal something else. Fuck. What's the alternative? Silence in your upkeep. 100% works. Every. Time.

What's my point? I think the important thing to distinguish here is how much better Cabal Therapy gets when you have other information. Look at ANT - Cabal Therapy is much more potent in that deck because they complement it with 3/4 Duress. With nothing other than Gitaxian Probe to reveal their hand, we could run into issues with the reliability of our disruption.

I'd suggest perhaps 3 Cabal Therapy, 1 Thoughtseize with 1 Cabal Therapy in the sideboard, but truthfully, upon testing with Thoughtseize I have found the shock from it to be quite relevant against the tempo decks. I'm not moving back to Duress due its lack of versatility against hate, so what choice do I have? 4 Cabal Therapy is probably correct. That way we can Burning Wish for Thoughtseize only when we can afford to pay the life.

One could argue for cutting more than 1 Silence (or all of them!) to have more hand revealing spells, but as stated, I have my difficulties with Thoughtseize and the next best things are Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek which don't hit everything. Even without the hand-revealing, I'd probably rather have Silence - it's still very powerful against soft counters, certain combo decks, Stifle and often cycles when required.

It's also important to note that while not having perfect information of what to name could be a problem, the things we want to hit with Cabal Therapy in this deck are few and far between. Half of the time we'll be naming Force of Will anyway.

To conclude, I agree that 4 Cabal Therapy, 3 Silence main deck and 1 Thoughtseize sideboard is the best disruption option at the moment. That's what I'll be using from now on.

I began writing this yesterday and played 4 games last night with the full 4 Cabal Therapy main deck. Bearing in mind the small sample size I was very impressed. I felt I was getting much more value from my disruption and not shocking myself felt great. I'm pretty comfortable with the format and what cards I expect to face, so the lack of perfect information wasn't that important. Your mileage may vary.

Boarding in multiples of Empty the Warrens.

Your meta may vary, but I actually find opponents have always brought in answers to the goblins regularly in the past, in fact, often even more than they should. I find that if an opponent looses game 1 to a ton of Goblins even in a match-up were it is clearly the plan B, they become focused on not loosing like that again and I end up facing copies of Echoing Truth and Engineered Explosives (which I'm often happy for them to have).

That statement was referring to my experiences in the past. What about the future?

If you're suggesting the Goblins plan due to a shift in the meta-game (the reduction of Stifle) - did you forget that that shift has demanded a non-spot-removal response to 1 toughness creatures? Golgari Charm. Zealous Persecution. Engineered Explosives. Terminus. I don't want to be all-in on that plan.

You can't then argue that "In that case we'll just cast Ad Nauseam" because with 3 or 4 copies of Empty the Warrens, your Ad Nauseam's are going to be much worse.

Telemin Performance & Bribery.

I think any time I could cast this, I could cast something else that would kill them or likely wait a turn to enable a different option that doesn't require a sideboard slot. It is very narrow. That said, I must admit, against something like Reanimator it would be nice to have the option over Diminishing Returns when Past in Flames/Ad Nauseam isn't available and we don't have time to set it up.

The fabled 13th land and the 3rd Chrome Mox.

I play this deck quite aggressively. I don't feel like I need any more lands slowing me down. I feel that most times a 13th would be a hindrance.

The 3rd Chrome Mox is admittedly one of the weaker slots in the deck. It's awful in multiples. But I think it's a necessary evil. We need to be fast; don't forget we are the Ad Nauseam deck. The 'named' Ad Nauseam deck, ANT, is more of a Past in Flames deck these days. Ad Nauseam is much, much better with Chrome Mox. I think it's almost essential.

My current list.

//Card Selection (12)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

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

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

//Disruption (7)
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Silence

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

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

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

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

Additional thoughts on our sideboard.

I think Grapeshot is the best wish-able removal spell we have compared to alternatives like Pyroclasm and Deathmark. Doing the last few points of damage after an Empty the Warrens doesn't make it comes up quite often too.

I don't cast Diminishing Returns as much as I used to; it's still an option I think we need to have.

We don't really need the Thoughtseize in the sideboard after the above changes. It's only there as a Burning Wish target. Does that come up often enough to warrant the use of a sideboard slot? I think it does, but it's definitely up for discussion if there was something else we needed room for.

Chain of Vapor and Abrupt Decay have been excellent for me. I can't see running less than 2 of each at the moment as I think the versatility outweighs other powerful but narrow options like Revoke Existence or Karakas.

Were we go against the theory I referenced at the start of this is post is when we have difficult match-ups. If our versatility covers everything else comfortably, it makes sense to use powerful, if narrow, cards against the decks we have issues with. I think we can all agree this is primarily Show & Tell type match-ups and tempo. This is why I have 2 Xantid Swarm and 2 Carpet of Flowers. It's possible that a different split of these may be superior depending on their performance and the meta.

With so many green cards in our sideboard, the Tropical Island gains lots of value and is probably better than any remaining options. Sure, we could fit an additional copy of another card, or another narrow wish-able answer instead - but one Tropical Island offers increased efficiency of Abrupt Decay, Carpet of Flowers and Xantid Swarm which seems better to me.

I hope you enjoyed reading this; hopefully it has given you all some food for thought.

[Asthereal]

@Vercadium: you make a long list of valid points, but some points I don't fully agree with. Most important one (about the Thoughtseize as a Wish target):


That way we can Burning Wish for Thoughtseize only when we can afford to pay the life.
What if you cannot afford to pay the life, but do need to remove that Flusterstorm? And will you ever board in the Thoughtseize? Not against D&T or Maverick, because you'll be boarding bounce and removal. Not against Tempo or Control, because you need it as a Wish target. Only maybe against discard decks to remove Hymn to Tourach. Why not make that slot a Duress? Serves the exact same purpose, and doesn't cost life.

[Lemnear]

A small remark: The multi-EtW-idea isn't based on the decline of Stifle, but on the increased amount of SB hate in Form of Flusterstorm, Envelope, Hatebears etc. which you all may race/make obsolete with EtW being cast T1/T2. I don't believe that some 1-/2-offs being usually boarded against the Goblins are THAT big concerns in regards to our (flashback-)discard and the fact, that opponents prefer other cards in their starting grip than a solution to our plan B

In regards to the known calculation, that more peek-effects make Therapy better, I wanted to try out the ANT suit of discard, as it is plain better to handle variable hate (discard + Counter, discard + hatebear, Counter + hatebear) than Silence was able to do. You can even add the facts that the trend to leave the Leylines at home which S&T players started and the decline of Stifle may support the idea to test that Layout. You can take your first Paragraph and phazenmutants quote in the regards of TS over Silence as well.

TP is a narrow option, no doubt. Having the Edge in matchups where speed seriously matters could be worth that SB slot.

It's not such a big deal for AN if you either play 2 or 3 Moxen math-wise; it's however a big Problem, having to mulligan because of crappy hands without land, seeing your only land wasted/stifled in the previous Tempo-meta, or having Moxen in your starting grip (especially after a mulligan). I gave it a try and it never disappointed me in all the time. With the next meta-switch on the horizon, the return of the 3rd Mox is acceptable as it plays well with the suggested Multi-EtW-plan.

For the SB, I agree that tempo, S&T and not to forget, Miracles, are bad matchups. Carpets are good against Miracles and Tempo, but I think the Multi-EtW's are also fine against Miracles (they are forced to topdeck a 3-off or find EE) as well as against Tempo while working amazing with the 4 MD Therapies which most of us seem to agree on. You may want to observe mtgTop8.com in regards to the SB hate of other decks: Leyline vanished from top-performing Sideboards and therefore I would reconsider the roles of Xantid + CoV in your SB

[davelin]

Quick question, seems like ANT still is able to put up solid results but still subject to the same vulnerabilities. Just a numbers game?

[Zombie]

Quick question, seems like ANT still is able to put up solid results but still subject to the same vulnerabilities. Just a numbers game?

Discard is pretty bloody good atm. ANT packs a crapton of it, 7 or so pieces including 3-4 Cabal Therapies with Probe backup. It can play the long game better partly due to stronger cantrips. It's not that surprising that ANT would fare better.

[davelin]

Discard is pretty bloody good atm. ANT packs a crapton of it, 7 or so pieces including 3-4 Cabal Therapies with Probe backup. It can play the long game better partly due to stronger cantrips. It's not that surprising that ANT would fare better.

Hmm...I'm not sure I'm convinced. We're talking about how esp post-SB games other decks are attacking us on multiple axes (counters, discard, hatebears, etc.), I'm not sure how the above helps ANT against this disruption more.

[Asthereal]

TES is a tad harder to play optimally than ANT.
So it's less popular with the masses, and the masses perform worse with it.
This counts even more for Doomsday Tendrils.
Proving one is better than the other is almost impossible.

[Lemnear]

Quick question, seems like ANT still is able to put up solid results but still subject to the same vulnerabilities. Just a numbers game?

Concerning the BoM results: numbers game + the fact that ANT is more resistant to mana-denial.

Played against Painter, Miracles, UWR Delver , D&T and Esperblade exclusively that weekend


Hmm...I'm not sure I'm convinced. We're talking about how esp post-SB games other decks are attacking us on multiple axes (counters, discard, hatebears, etc.), I'm not sure how the above helps ANT against this disruption more.

Tbh, Silence does shit against the combination of Counter + hatebear or counter + discard (all 3 in terms of Esperblade). Therefore the idea to test without Silence as long as hate is so diverse

[Final Fortune]

As long as Leyline is sitting on the side lines, Thoughtseize is much better than Silence because of the mana efficiency of the card; I don't really think it being worse to Diminishing Returns after is that big of a deal because you rarely kill with Diminishing Returns vs anything blue anyway.

[HammafistRoob]

If you remove Silence, it probably makes sense to change up the manabase as well and get some more fetches in there.

[Final Fortune]

@Vercadium: you make a long list of valid points, but some points I don't fully agree with. Most important one (about the Thoughtseize as a Wish target):


What if you cannot afford to pay the life, but do need to remove that Flusterstorm? And will you ever board in the Thoughtseize? Not against D&T or Maverick, because you'll be boarding bounce and removal. Not against Tempo or Control, because you need it as a Wish target. Only maybe against discard decks to remove Hymn to Tourach. Why not make that slot a Duress? Serves the exact same purpose, and doesn't cost life.

Ofcourse you SB in Thoughtseize vs D&T and Maverick, why would you want a 2(3) mana re-active answer to Thalia as opposed to a 1 mana pro-active answer to Thalia? Duress does not serve the same purpose as Thoughtseize because Duress does not discard creatures, I can not tell you how many games I have Duressed vs Miracles, seen a Vendillion Clique and then picked up my cards and went home.

[Asthereal]

If it's your only sideboard discard spell, you won't side it in anyway against Miracles.
And I would max out on removal against D&T/Maverick to have a better chance to find it.
I don't really like to lose against a resolved Canonist, and even Thalia can be killed by Decay.
Remember the suggestion was to play 4x Therapy main, so we have our discard already.

Do you often Wish for a Thoughtseize to remove a Clique? I never had to do that in 5 years of storming.

[Lemnear]

If you remove Silence, it probably makes sense to change up the manabase as well and get some more fetches in there.

I already did iny example-list on the last page, replacing the Cities with a Trop (none in the board) and the 4th fetch. I had 3 Chrome Moxen in that list which could be replaced by the 3 Carpets in the SB for the blue-matchups



@sideboard-discard

Wishing for discard to get rid of Thalia is rare, as it requires you to burn either a Petal or a RoF to do so and therefore I would step back from that if possible. I indeed think that a Duress could do the trick in the SB

[BrettF]

Another compromise that some may go for here is to play duress for game one (like most ANT lists) and then side those out for better cards G2. This lets us cut white for the consistency %s and then actually have cards to side out for removal/thoughtseize without making our deck slower.
IE:

MD discard:
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Duress

average SB:
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Tropical Island

Boarding VS DNT:
-3 duress
+1 Thoughtseize
+2 Chain of vapor


OPEN QUESTION:
Do you side in a CoV or AD against UWr Delver in G2/G3 because they have 4x meddling mage?
Or do you just side in tendrils to increase the chance you can play around what they name?

[Quasim0ff]

Another compromise that some may go for here is to play duress for game one (like most ANT lists) and then side those out for better cards G2. This lets us cut white for the consistency %s and then actually have cards to side out for removal/thoughtseize without making our deck slower.
IE:

MD discard:
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Duress

average SB:
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Tropical Island

Boarding VS DNT:
-3 duress
+1 Thoughtseize
+2 Chain of vapor


OPEN QUESTION:
Do you side in a CoV or AD against UWr Delver in G2/G3 because they have 4x meddling mage?
Or do you just side in tendrils to increase the chance you can play around what they name?
That just seems so wrong, to play suboptimal cards just to have cards to sb after g1...

[Bryant Cook]

Top 4'd a small FTV:20 event today. I played the list on the opening post, I feel that it's pretty damn close to where we want it to be. I'm just wondering if the Thoughtseize in the sideboard should be another Chain of Vapor.

I beat:

Merfolk 2-0
Mono-Black Discard 2-0
Sneak Show 2-0 (Had Leylines - Xantid didn't care)
UR Delver 2-0

Lost to:

RUG 0-2

I mulliganed game one into a hand with three lands and when he killed me I still had three lands in my hand. FLOOD.
In the second game he managed to get me too low to reliably Ad Nauseam when I open handed it.

[Technics]

Top 4'd a small FTV:20 event today. I played the list on the opening post, I feel that it's pretty damn close to where we want it to be. I'm just wondering if the Thoughtseize in the sideboard should be another Chain of Vapor.

I beat:

Merfolk 2-0
Mono-Black Discard 2-0
Sneak Show 2-0 (Had Leylines - Xantid didn't care)
UR Delver 2-0

Lost to:

RUG 0-2

I mulliganed game one into a hand with three lands and when he killed me I still had three lands in my hand. FLOOD.
In the second game he managed to get me too low to reliably Ad Nauseam when I open handed it.

Nice Job!

I am in the same spot as you for the maindeck. 4 Therapy has been treating me really nice. I am still running 3 Decay side, with no carpets. How have the carpets been so far? I haven't really tested them much. Worth cutting down to 1 Chain, and 2 decay?

[Bryant Cook]

Nice Job!

I am in the same spot as you for the maindeck. 4 Therapy has been treating me really nice. I am still running 3 Decay side, with no carpets. How have the carpets been so far? I haven't really tested them much. Worth cutting down to 1 Chain, and 2 decay?

Decay won't be going back up to three unless Miracles becomes a heavily played deck again. It's a card I rarely want but is just necessary to have. Carpet has been fine, I just wish there was more sideboard room.

[Lemnear]

Top 4'd a small FTV:20 event today. I played the list on the opening post, I feel that it's pretty damn close to where we want it to be. I'm just wondering if the Thoughtseize in the sideboard should be another Chain of Vapor.

I beat:

Merfolk 2-0
Mono-Black Discard 2-0
Sneak Show 2-0 (Had Leylines - Xantid didn't care)
UR Delver 2-0

Lost to:

RUG 0-2

I mulliganed game one into a hand with three lands and when he killed me I still had three lands in my hand. FLOOD.
In the second game he managed to get me too low to reliably Ad Nauseam when I open handed it.


I guess he had the leyline in play and not in his 75, right?

Just for the statistics: how often were you able to a) 1-for-2 with therapy or b) flashback it to seal the deal in recent weeks? I suspect the number to be significant if it even makes you cutting back Silence.

What makes you think, that the SB discard might be replaceable?

[Jay_Gatz]

Its the weakest slot and only having one chain of vapor is risky.

[Bryant Cook]

I guess he had the leyline in play and not in his 75, right?

Just for the statistics: how often were you able to a) 1-for-2 with therapy or b) flashback it to seal the deal in recent weeks? I suspect the number to be significant if it even makes you cutting back Silence.

What makes you think, that the SB discard might be replaceable?

The first part of your sentence isn't making much sense to me. He had it in play, it was a three of in his sideboard (I asked) and he opened with two. He went Island, go holding up Flusterstorm I found out after. My turn was Probe, draw into Xantid, Gemstone Xantid. Close the deal with Goblins after.

2-for-1 with Therapy happened quite a bit, I did it on Lightning Bolts and even True-Names to buy time until I could fight through the counters. As for the numbers? I didn't keep accurate enough notes to tell you anything solid. But I've been happy with the change so far, I certainly don't see the numbers going any lower.

The UR Delver deck was more like Osyp's list from the Champs event and RUG was also packing, I'm still seeing Stifle. I couldn't imagine cutting it completely like some people are mentioning.

It's rarely used and the second Chain may be more valuable. I'm a bit unsure though. If I had to weigh-in right now, I'd probably keep the Thoughtseize?

[Lemnear]

The first part of your sentence isn't making much sense to me. He had it in play, it was a three of in his sideboard (I asked) and he opened with two. He went Island, go holding up Flusterstorm I found out after. My turn was Probe, draw into Xantid, Gemstone Xantid. Close the deal with Goblins after.

2-for-1 with Therapy happened quite a bit, I did it on Lightning Bolts and even True-Names to buy time until I could fight through the counters. As for the numbers? I didn't keep accurate enough notes to tell you anything solid. But I've been happy with the change so far, I certainly don't see the numbers going any lower.

The UR Delver deck was more like Osyp's list from the Champs event and RUG was also packing, I'm still seeing Stifle. I couldn't imagine cutting it completely like some people are mentioning.

It's rarely used and the second Chain may be more valuable. I'm a bit unsure though. If I had to weigh-in right now, I'd probably keep the Thoughtseize?

Sorry, my first sentence was horribly put to simply ask if he only had the Leylines in his SB or indeed opened with at least one in game 2, which wasn't 100% clear to me as I read that post.

It's debatable to switch the SB discard back to Duress, but I have no intention to cut it for now.

[Bryant Cook]

Sorry, my first sentence was horribly put to simply ask if he only had the Leylines in his SB or indeed opened with at least one in game 2, which wasn't 100% clear to me as I read that post.

It's debatable to switch the SB discard back to Duress, but I have no intention to cut it for now.

I wouldn't play Duress because you can't sideboard it in Duress versus Maverick or Death and Taxes.

[Lemnear]

I wouldn't play Duress because you can't sideboard it in Duress versus Maverick or Death and Taxes.

Valid. Should have mentioned that in regards to my current Multi-EtW plan i'm testing against hatebear.dec where I wasn't planning to board in the discard ever but rather drop EtW before the bear comes down

[PartyMonster]

I have been testing this Sideboard configuration

3x swam
2x carpet
2x decay
2x chain
1x therapy
1x returns
1x PIF
1x empty
1x tendrils
1x grape shot

[Lemnear]

I have been testing this Sideboard configuration

3x swam
2x carpet
2x decay
2x chain
1x therapy
1x returns
1x PIF
1x empty
1x tendrils
1x grape shot

There's nothing "wrong" with that. All depends on your metagame.

I'm just brainstorming SB's for the futur,e if the recent T8's at mayor events are an indicator for the upcoming S&T, UWR and Esperblade boards

[Pelikanudo]

I'm quite surprised about all the changes intended, I've always thoutgh therapy is the way to go...

Some general thoutghs:
I'm not sure how full set of therapys will result in such a number that you sometimes will fail, in other experience with other decks, backed full set of therapies plus more discard as total 7 watching effects this really makes therapy effective. likely the list of lemear with 3 t.seize main is the way, I would put 3 or 2 duresses/1t.s. instead. the manabase also seems to be the correct. but you dismiss the Silence and even D.Returns, generally believe Silence/Orims is a sacred cow in TES. Always hate to loose to UGR and Reanimator... and vs reanimator i'm not sure therapy how good wil it be, maybe he unique match up... as regards to therapy/silence list

Another thing is about Empty, theyve been always great and now with therapy, I couldn't say whan to take them out.

Please some side instructions about 3silence 4 therpyes list vs decks and, will test and back up results Bryant. Not time enough.

[Lemnear]

I'm quite surprised about all the changes intended, I've always thoutgh therapy is the way to go...

Some general thoutghs:
I'm not sure how full set of therapys will result in such a number that you sometimes will fail, in other experience with other decks, backed full set of therapies plus more discard as total 7 watching effects this really makes therapy effective. likely the list of lemear with 3 t.seize main is the way, I would put 3 or 2 duresses/1t.s. instead. the manabase also seems to be the correct. but you dismiss the Silence and even D.Returns, generally believe Silence/Orims is a sacred cow in TES. Always hate to loose to UGR and Reanimator... and vs reanimator i'm not sure therapy how good wil it be, maybe he unique match up... as regards to therapy/silence list

Another thing is about Empty, theyve been always great and now with therapy, I couldn't say whan to take them out.

Please some side instructions about 3silence 4 therpyes list vs decks and, will test and back up results Bryant. Not time enough.

I played without ANY MB Therapies for barely a year while Silence is that made TES superior in fighting counterspells and to recklessly abuse Diminishing Returns. I didn't even bother to follow Bryant's "preboarded" Therapy in addition to 2 Duress and 4 Silences then, feeling that Therapy was just random to dismantle hate.

It needed a few Hits to my forehead by fellow Sourcers to realize that boarding Duress out in favor of Therapies to hit hatebears is a plain waste of space and Duress is unable to hit Cliques and Thalia which is indeed a problem. I denied the issue first, but thought about the matter later. Btw, that is the reason I would not even pick up Duresses to supplement the MB Therapies like you suggested: it can't hit SFM, Thalia and clique. It took me just 2 tourneys to realize, that Therapy is not only a way to generate cardadvantage in a deck without any real way to do so outside the Ad Nauseam flips, but is devastating in combination with our often #1 victory-Route: EtW. Stripping sweepers, Stoneforge Mystics (or the tutored Batterskull) or cantrips to find those, has proven insane to Ride even a pretty small amount of Goblins to victory and I started to annoy the hell out of the readers here with my talk about the "Triforce" EtW - Gitaxian Probe - Cabal Therapy.

Then I took the 3 MB Therapies to Paris, just to realize, that Silence doesn't do the trick against combined hate anymore and with Bryant now pushing the count to a full 4 of Therapies and seeing the recent US Top 8 Lists without any Leylines in Show&Tell SB's I want to try more "peek"-effects, more active disruption/protection and a more stable manabase without having to have one out of 10 white sources for Silence (ignore Moxen here). That even climaxed in my tests to run 4 EtW's in our 75 to spam the board with Goblins way ahead of any possible hate going online (hatebears, Hymn, various taxing counters in RUG)

Bryant mentioned that he'll update the SB guide once he's satisfied with the new list. He dropped a line somewhere about boarding the 4 CT out for 3 Swarms and a Tropical against S&T.


Edit: several fixes

Edit 2: yes, I reduced the Dim.Ret. to a T1/T2 reset Button without Silence against blue for the testing. No Holy cows

[Technics]

So with a bunch of D&T in my meta, have people have any sucess with Dread of Night? Is it worth cutting Swarms (My meta is almost all Combo, Rug, and D&T). Thoughts?

[Lemnear]

So with a bunch of D&T in my meta, have people have any sucess with Dread of Night? Is it worth cutting Swarms (My meta is almost all Combo, Rug, and D&T). Thoughts?

Dread of night is barely a solution if most of the hatebears you'll face are either Meddling Mage or Ethersworn Cannonist. Assembling 2 DoN is a pain with less cantrips and less lands to cast those. Your best Shot against D&T is either to combo off T1/T2 or board in spot-removal like Chains or Decays.

If there are no Leylines in the combo decks you face week for week, you'll may want to run more CoV instead of the Decays and, depending on the other combo decks, reduce the number of Swarms for a third Carpet against RUG or improve the combo-matchup itself with Telemin

[Final Fortune]

I don't think removing Silence for discard justifies removing Gold Lands for Fetch Lands, because our manabase still needs to consistently support 3 colors compared to ANT's 2 colors. If anything, we can play Gold Lands more aggressively than Fetchlands by playing them first in order to Cabal Therapy and save our Fetchlands for the Brainstorm and shuffle effect on turn 2 instead of the other way around if we were holding Silence.

[Lemnear]

I don't think removing Silence for discard justifies removing Gold Lands for Fetch Lands, because our manabase still needs to consistently support 3 colors compared to ANT's 2 colors. If anything, we can play Gold Lands more aggressively than Fetchlands by playing them first in order to Cabal Therapy and save our Fetchlands for the Brainstorm and shuffle effect on turn 2 instead of the other way around if we were holding Silence.

The idea was to get more access to green mana and shufflung effects as the matches you want the green Source for Carpet and Decay are usually the more grindier ones and Carpet still fixes colors so the 3-color-issue shouldn't be a big one unless you get wasted to hell. Just an idea I wanted to test

[Final Fortune]

The idea was to get more access to green mana and shufflung effects as the matches you want the green Source for Carpet and Decay are usually the more grindier ones and Carpet still fixes colors so the 3-color-issue shouldn't be a big one unless you get wasted to hell. Just an idea I wanted to test

I've tested it again and again and again, adding basics never works out, adding fetchlands instead of gold lands decreases access to the third color and green mana can be supported by Tropical Island (that's like 10 permanent green sources)

I really hate Carpet of Flowers, the ETW plans seems so much better than that IMO. I'm strongly considering going back to the 4th Mox at this point.

[Jay_Gatz]

When you get to the point of cutting gold lands for fetches and duals you might as well just switch over to ANT because the deck won't function like TES anymore

[Lemnear]

When you get to the point of cutting gold lands for fetches and duals you might as well just switch over to ANT because the deck won't function like TES anymore

TES is a 5-color-deck at heart, but white and green always had ups and downs and it's not unheared of to possibly alter the manabase according to it.

The moment we shave the speed components like RoF, 0cc Mana stones like Chrome Moxen, Wishes or our general goal to resolve AN/EtW asap but instead opt to create a layout for longer, grindier games which includes slower but stonger acceleration like Cabal Ritual, you are right. This however isn't what I am doing. If I want to test Thoughtseize replacing Silences, we need a lot less rainbow mana in the MB and I thought, this is a chance to move the SB Tropical into the maindeck as I was able to increase the shuffle effects and avoiding City of Brass + Thoughtseize which is disgusting

[JPoJohnson]

Still don't get it. You have to take into considersation

1) Hatebears -> Decay, CoV
2) softcounter -> Carpet
3) Leyline -> CoV, Xantid
4) discard -> nothing
5) Counterbalance -> Decay

What you suggest is either folding to Miracles (and hatebears) or to the whole S&T-crowd by the changes suggested, or am I mistaken? I have no clue how you want to squeeze more dedicated anti-Aggro-control-cards in the MB after sideboarding without making the deck a bricking mess. I asked before, but what would you add to your SB for those matchups and how would you plan to board?

discard -> Brainstorm

[Holly]

discard -> Brainstorm

Although he doesn't board in Brainstorm (and he's talking about the constellation of his sideboard and which angles of attack he covers) :p

[Asthereal]

When you get to the point of cutting gold lands for fetches and duals you might as well just switch over to ANT because the deck won't function like TES anymore
I tried a hybrid last month, and I was pretty satisfied with it.
It was a three colour Storm with 6x dual, 8x fetch as lands, 3x Wish, 2x Mox and 4x Rite of Flame (no Cabal Rits).
I won three rounds (RUG, TES and Maverick) and lost three (TES, Sneak&Show, OmniHalls). Losses were because I am an idiot, because Silence is better than Duress and because some people just draw better cards than me. The list was absolutely fine. I'm sure Bryant would hate it, but I'm also absolutely sure he is able to win a tourney with it.

Seriously, basics are not necessary, and Rites are better than CRits in so many cases. For the rest the decks are almost the same anyway.

[Lemnear]

I tried a hybrid last month, and I was pretty satisfied with it.
It was a three colour Storm with 6x dual, 8x fetch as lands, 3x Wish, 2x Mox and 4x Rite of Flame (no Cabal Rits).
I won three rounds (RUG, TES and Maverick) and lost three (TES, Sneak&Show, OmniHalls). Losses were because I am an idiot, because Silence is better than Duress and because some people just draw better cards than me. The list was absolutely fine. I'm sure Bryant would hate it, but I'm also absolutely sure he is able to win a tourney with it.

Seriously, basics are not necessary, and Rites are better than CRits in so many cases. For the rest the decks are almost the same anyway.

I'm pretty interested in the Duress-part here: Can you elaborate or describe the situation(s)?

That bugs me from all the reports I read is, that we still loose to S&T and Tempo :\

[davelin]

I'm interested in testing some of these changes myself. Some thoughts -

1) I like swapping a Silence for a discard spell if not only to put less strain on our mana

2) Cutting down to 1 discard in the SB sounds good, I'm assuming this is still usually left in as a Wish-able target in matchups we want it (i.e. tempo/control matchups)

3) Although Therapy is great post-ETW, I feel it weakens us pre-ETW. Good against say DnT or Maverick to get rid of hatebears but doesn't seem as good against Tempo or perhaps even other combo decks where there are multiple targets that would be ideal to discard. Or perhaps I'm just a terrible guesser of what is in opponent's hands.

[Pelikanudo]

Defending the manabase of Lemeanr Full Package disruption Deck list:
You play 2 CoB instead, I would not cosider the Fetch as it is better than CoB as we only play 3 Colors, but the T.Island slot will not provide neither Black or Red. I think it is quite aceptable having in mind +3 C.M. I've tested a 4Opal List and the mana base was much worse and at least I didn'tlost for Mana issues as a Radical example.

Other points:
However I have to say I'm quite ilusionated about the 4Therapy 3 Silence List... I'll wait for Side Instructions, and I'll try some mutch ups and to elaborate a siding Strat. All seems to be in harmony now, I think we still are in troubles vs Reanimator but its ok, and I woul substitute the lonely CoV by a Revoke Existence, but no other changes, I would like to put a) Bribery b) IGG but there is no space... The more you play therapy the more you like it.... how can't we have played it before, we even play EtW main as opposite to ANT..., well lets see how if this makes TES as some say not an under dog...

EDIT: Question before updating the post: how do side vs RUG now with Carpet.? vs RUG is not super fantastic...

[Lemnear]

Other points:
However I have to say I'm quite ilusionated about the 4Therapy 3 Silence List... I'll wait for Side Instructions, and I'll try some mutch ups and to elaborate a siding Strat. All seems to be in harmony now, I think we still are in troubles vs Reanimator but its ok, and I woul substitute the lonely CoV by a Revoke Existence, but no other changes, I would like to put a) Bribery b) IGG but there is no space... The more you play therapy the more you like it.... how can't we have played it before, we even play EtW main as opposite to ANT..., well lets see how if this makes TES as some say not an under dog...

I fear it will take a bit more time for those Sideboard instructions as there are still so many ideas in the room that needs to be tested. I expect Bryant being far ahead of my testing so far, so maybe you get something in the primer during the next week.

We've never had so much SB space like today afaik. You can board 4+ cards against your local problems without having to shove essential stuff, which you desperately need to win certain matchups. Decay, CoV, Telemin, Carpets, Xantids, etc. are slots to adress your expected metagame. Numbers may vary depending on S&T, Miracles, Tempo or Hatebears. You can find space for anything.

We didn't play Therapy, because it's far from amazing in game 1 against unknown opponents and without a dedicated Knowledge about the metagame and decklists. You have to know that UWR Delver runs hatebears out of their SB to take those into consideration for blindcalls etc. all on top of already piloting one of the most unforgiving and complex piles in the format. See davelin's post:


Good against say DnT or Maverick to get rid of hatebears but doesn't seem as good against Tempo or perhaps even other combo decks where there are multiple targets that would be ideal to discard. Or perhaps I'm just a terrible guesser of what is in opponent's hands.

There's a lot of value to squeeze out of Therapy especially as we run EtW, but as amazing as the Stories about the "black Ancestral Recall" sometimes are, it all comes at a price, like having dozens of possible opposing decklists in your hand, sandbaggin Discard unless you probed or idenitfied your opponents deck (dangerous against combo) or use the simple spot-on guideline of "name what you fear" (most important if you have the quick kill in hand, but naming the wrong card blind is backbreaking while Duress would just solve the issue 100%).


@Pelikanudo & RUG

Grounding on Bryant's list, I would cut an Infernal, a Mox and a Ponder for the 2 Carpets and the Tropical. For my lastest testing list: -3 Mox, -1 AN, -1 Ponder, +3 Carpet, +2 EtW out of pure gut-feeling

[davelin]

Also we need to keep in mind that all of the anti-TNN measures out there is going to negatively affect our ETW-gameplan. I'm not going to say it's a dark-day to be a storm-player, but I think the margin for storming to victory in the current metagame is getting slimmer.

[Asthereal]

I'm pretty interested in the Duress-part here: Can you elaborate or describe the situation(s)?

That bugs me from all the reports I read is, that we still loose to S&T and Tempo :\
Duress was fine. I actually played 4x Duress, 3x Therapy main.
Having both 4x Probe and 4x Duress meant I almost always knew what my opponent was holding (sometimes minus one or two cards). One time against RUG my opponent responded with a Brainstorm, which sucked, but at least I got to remove a Pierce or so.

The round against Maverick was insane. Game one I was on the draw with a slow hand. He got a Thalia out, I Wished for the Grapeshot and killed it. He had almost no clock at all, so I got to rebuil dmy hand and make some Goblins for attack, and later defense. At some point he misplayed (failed to cast a freshly drawn Thalia, he rather had a faster clock). This allowed me to try to go off with Reforge the Soul (played that over Returns). I whiffed, even though I had a million mana left. The turn after I managed to chain 5 cantrips and then combo to a natural Tendrils. That was like turn 15 of the game or so. We spent about 40 minutes playing this game.
Game 2 on the draw was the exact opposite: I went for a turn one kill with a Brainstorm (put AdN on top), LED, LED, Probe (resp. sac LEDs), cast AdN into an easy kill. Could have Grapeshot him for like 40 but I decided he didn't deserve that after game 1.
This round Duress took an StP. Not very relevant.

One of the TES mirrors I drew badly and he had Silences that I couldn't stop. Yes, having only discard makes the mirror worse. The other mirror my opponent made every play error in the book (having Silence, but not casting Petal to keep W open in my turn!), so I kind of swindled through that one. Duress and Therapy were great here, but I could have lost this round regardless.

The round against SneakShow sucked. Game one I completely had him. He had a land in hand and some in play. I had an army of Goblins. He would just die unless he runner runner topdecked exactly what he needed. And that was exactly what he did. Game two I was an idiot, not counting on Leyline of Sanctity, so I forgot to board in Chain of Vapor. He naturally had one, and I naturally drew 5 discard spells. Sometimes this game just sucks.

The round against OmniHalls could have gone either way. We had two games where we went draw-go for several turns in a row. The only thing was: he actually drew useful stuff. I didn't. Duress did do a lot of work in this round.

The round against Canadian Thresh I won 2-1. Should have been 2-0, but two cantrips couldn't find me a discard spell for his Flusterstorm... It could actually have become a draw, but my opponent and I misplayed in the fifth turn after time was called, and I managed to kill him still. If I hadn't misplayed, I would have won anyway, but he misplayed as well, missing a chance to stop me. Like I said, one Duress was met by a Brainstorm. For the rest, I wish I drew more.

Looking back at that tournament, I should have played regular TES with Swarms and Silences. That would have been stronger against the decks I faced. On the other hand, I noticed that the version I played was very capable of beating all these matchups. I just drew very badly here and there (I played 14 lands, but had to take 5 no-land mulligans!). The 4x Probe & 4x Duress package was really nice, and the extra fetch lands helped improving the cantrips. Considering all the S&T and mirrors in my country though I have returned to normal TES. No Therapies main though. Without a Probe they are strictly worse, and I am the "lord of awkward draws", so I'd rather have the Duress whiff every now and then, than just miss with Therapy all the time.

[Lemnear]

Also we need to keep in mind that all of the anti-TNN measures out there is going to negatively affect our ETW-gameplan. I'm not going to say it's a dark-day to be a storm-player, but I think the margin for storming to victory in the current metagame is getting slimmer.

I'm well aware of that fact, but I'm used to see Explosives, Pyroclasm, Electrickery and other sweepers with the rise of Elves. I dunno if TNN actually makes it even worse in the future. It's not that those sweepers affect our plan A in any kind of way.


@Asthereal
Big Thx for that report. No idea what's up with your iffy draws man :/
Maybe returning to the base-list for the moment will serve you. I'm living in combo-city ... Feel your pain.

Remark: i dunno if Silence is that awesome in the storm-mirror anymore. Once you play storm, you should know about Silence and all players I know take the card into account for the games played. During the last 7 months I have only whitnessed 1 game in which someone played right into a Silence for basically a mindtwist and that was a mate playing storm for the first time in our hotel room at BoM ^^


@JamieW89
Dood, I know that you are peeking into this thread from time to time. ^^
Missed to congratulate to your BoM result as I was standing beside your table at Day 2 (dunno which round, but you had a seat at the table-rows end). Spend the day trading, watching Julian and Coaching my Protegé with TES between rounds.

So: Congratulations! ^^

[Lemnear]

http://imageshack.com/a/img716/3476/lrkh.png


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J6-3l3hCm0

[Jaycounet]

http://imageshack.com/a/img716/3476/lrkh.png


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J6-3l3hCm0

can't wait ^^

[Sinkhole]

can't wait ^^

Me too :smile:

[JamieW89]

@JamieW89
Dood, I know that you are peeking into this thread from time to time. ^^
Missed to congratulate to your BoM result as I was standing beside your table at Day 2 (dunno which round, but you had a seat at the table-rows end). Spend the day trading, watching Julian and Coaching my Protegé with TES between rounds.

So: Congratulations! ^^

Thanks :)
My only match played at table-1 during day-2 was versus Thomas Enevoldsen (feature match vs Julian and ID versus Jezierski aside) and I didn't play at the other end, so it was probably that one. I had to choose between PiF (BB float with CRit,IT & 2 GP) or enough tokens to beat a batterskull in g2. Turns out they updated their list with ratchet bomb. Had the t1 g3 though. I was wondering who you were during the event, for a moment on Friday me & my friend thought you were Julian since you also play Elves, lol.

[Lemnear]

Thanks :)
My only match played at table-1 during day-2 was versus Thomas Enevoldsen (feature match vs Julian and ID versus Jezierski aside) and I didn't play at the other end, so it was probably that one. I had to choose between PiF (BB float with CRit,IT & 2 GP) or enough tokens to beat a batterskull in g2. Turns out they updated their list with ratchet bomb. Had the t1 g3 though. I was wondering who you were during the event, for a moment on Friday me & my friend thought you were Julian since you also play Elves, lol.

Haha. I was the guy with the Dark grey Blazer and the leather satchel orbiting around the first row of tables. Didn't wanted to break your concentration at that phase of the tournament and didn't saw you afterwards. Next time I'll come over and say "hi" .... promised :)

Edit: Should have played the Elves as Julian was never too tired to mention that weekend lol. No, honestly, I felt pretty good with TES, but losing that many dicerolls (won 3 the whole weekend) and getting locked out of the games T1/T2 by Thoughtseize + Cannonist, Thorn + Magus of the Moon or SDT + CB is something the deck can barely fight back. No grief here as every loss was a close 1-2 and I just played rounds 2 & 3 in the first row of tables with game 3 going to turns against Esperblade before i've drown in the depths of the field (best chance you saw me playing round 3 as there were many peeps around the table)

[vercadium]

Bryant, how much value do you place on the 3rd Xantid Swarm? Do you feel it is crucial, or is it "barely making the cut"? Also, did you have any thoughts or insight regarding what I wrote @ http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23361-Deck-T-E-S-The-EPIC-Storm&p=770002&viewfull=1#post770002?

Here are some further considerations I've given since then:

While I stated that I loved the 3rd Chrome Mox, I had never considered whether I love it more than an extra sideboard slot; putting in the Tropical Island over a Chrome Mox would mean (depending on the list) fitting in a 3rd Xantid Swarm or a 2nd Chain of Vapor. Having a basic Island in game 1 isn't that appealing, but nor is it that worrying. I'm sticking with the Chrome Mox for now.

I really like having a wish-able discard spell, so the Thoughtseize is staying for the moment. But it's hard to gauge it's value; saying "I like it" doesn't really conclude anything - I wonder if I would actually miss it were it gone. I should probably start taking note of how many games it actually comes up, as I feel like it's a lot, but is that more or less than the times I would make use of the card I could put in its place?

[Jay_Gatz]

I tried some testing with the trop main over the mox for those exact reasons a few days ago then I died on ad nauseams from 16 and 14 within the span of like 20 games and put the mox back in.

[Bryant Cook]

Bryant, how much value do you place on the 3rd Xantid Swarm? Do you feel it is crucial, or is it "barely making the cut"? Also, did you have any thoughts or insight regarding what I wrote @ http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23361-Deck-T-E-S-The-EPIC-Storm&p=770002&viewfull=1#post770002?

Here are some further considerations I've given since then:

While I stated that I loved the 3rd Chrome Mox, I had never considered whether I love it more than an extra sideboard slot; putting in the Tropical Island over a Chrome Mox would mean (depending on the list) fitting in a 3rd Xantid Swarm or a 2nd Chain of Vapor. Having a basic Island in game 1 isn't that appealing, but nor is it that worrying. I'm sticking with the Chrome Mox for now.

I really like having a wish-able discard spell, so the Thoughtseize is staying for the moment. But it's hard to gauge it's value; saying "I like it" doesn't really conclude anything - I wonder if I would actually miss it were it gone. I should probably start taking note of how many games it actually comes up, as I feel like it's a lot, but is that more or less than the times I would make use of the card I could put in its place?

I read your post and we seem to be on the same page for the most part. I think your suggestion for adding in the second Chain is fine, I may copy you on that. I've been looking for ways to add it back in, it's just that with the rise of Merfolk and Sneak Shows dominance as of late, it makes me cautious of shaving down a card that's crucial in those matchups.

I decided sometime last week to not cut the Thoughtseize, I thought about it for quite some time. But the truth of the matter is it's really needed for combo match-ups.

[Lemnear]

Best start ever in a tournament:

Round 1
Game 1
Turn 2
Ruric Thar

Lost another one to BUG Delver because of his runna-runna topdeck in game 2 and a backbreaking misplay of me game 3.

Running Carpet against decks that operate on basically 1 mana like Tempo was disappointing. Multi-EtW was ok. No conclusion about Discard vs. Silence. Clueless.

Played against Dredge, Elves, a crappy Version of Elves, BUG Delver, bUrg and Pox this evening. Tempo decks with sweeper are still annoying.



Edit: Goblins + Therapy is hilarious against Dredge. "Going to make a lot of Zombie tokens next turn? What about me making 14 Goblins and remove your 2 Bridges from below?"

[Bryant Cook]

Running Carpet against decks that operate on basically 1 mana like Tempo was disappointing. Multi-EtW was ok. No conclusion about Discard vs. Silence. Clueless.


Running Carpet alongside the Empty plan seems awful. They're two different strategies. One requires a turn one hand and the other is fine with a slower game, seems like poor taste to attempt both.

If the tempo player only had one island, this means a few things: they can only cast one Stifle/Flusterstorm/etc because they're holding back lands or are siting on fetchlands not casting any spells. But even if they Daze'd/Wasted themselves etc, you still have a Mox Diamond essentially on the table that didn't cost you a card. That can really only get better.

[Lemnear]

Running Carpet alongside the Empty plan seems awful. They're two different strategies. One requires a turn one hand and the other is fine with a slower game, seems like poor taste to attempt both.

If the tempo player only had one island, this means a few things: they can only cast one Stifle/Flusterstorm/etc because they're holding back lands or are siting on fetchlands not casting any spells. But even if they Daze'd/Wasted themselves etc, you still have a Mox Diamond essentially on the table that didn't cost you a card. That can really only get better.

I agree. I used that options just to see, how those affect my game against the various local decks, as I had a few test-games postboard with various configurations against Tempo that night and seeing a Volcanic + 2 Fetches across while getting beaten by Delver is a bad Situation even with Carpet in play. Sure, Carpets are good in blue matchups to replace Moxen, but letting them basically sculpt a hand, while you still have to dig for kill + protection against Flusterstorm, FoW, Snare, Counterspell, Stifle and REB (had that today revealed with a Probe .. sick) gets you nowhere

I'm not sure which trait to follow as atm Spell Snares are more popular than Pierces (yes that is a strong argument FOR Silence), which is however a downer for Wish/Tutor/Carpet. Boarding into basically a Belcher.dec feels more awkward than I expected, even if that move won me a game. Rendering Ad Nauseam useless makes it impossible to do something useful past turn 3, which I hated today.

Manabase worked out well, as the additional discard was nice to help follow-up Therapies aim.

If you'd ask me today, I'll tend to chop the Multi-etw idea immediately, but would test a few more games with the altered manabase and discard.

[Ivan Ferreiro]

I'm pretty interested in the Duress-part here: Can you elaborate or describe the situation(s)?

That bugs me from all the reports I read is, that we still loose to S&T and Tempo :\

I tried the other day this manabase: 3 underground sea + 2 volcanic island + 1 Island + 1 swamp + 6 fetches with 2 Chrome mox. Cutted the silence for 3 Duress + 3 Cabal therapy + 1 Thoughtseize. Went 3-3, not very impressive but kind of like it (basic lands were good and never a problem). What I really missed was Diminishing returns (no silence, no seven)
Won: RUG, Blade, and Bant
Lost: MUD, Maverick and Blade

Next time I want to try (just for the fun of trying) getting out the Gitaxian probes... Doesnt happen to you that you just probe or ponder and just see unnecessary cards?

[Lemnear]

I tried the other day this manabase: 3 underground sea + 2 volcanic island + 1 Island + 1 swamp + 6 fetches with 2 Chrome mox. Cutted the silence for 3 Duress + 3 Cabal therapy + 1 Thoughtseize. Went 3-3, not very impressive but kind of like it (basic lands were good and never a problem). What I really missed was Diminishing returns (no silence, no seven)
Won: RUG, Blade, and Bant
Lost: MUD, Maverick and Maverick

Next time I want to try (just for the fun of trying) getting out the Gitaxian probes... Doesnt happen to you that you just probe or ponder and just see unnecessary cards?

My Friend, this deck is even without Silence a 4-colored one. You can't support spells like Abrupt Decay and Burning wish into Empty the Warrens off basic lands ... at least not in an acceptable timeframe. Could this have been a problem against Maverick?

Don't EVER board out or cut an Gitaxian Probe in ANY Storm deck. The discussion was ongoing in the ANT thread today and I suspect that there's a misconception about that card in the decks:

- It fuels storm for free
- It fuels t.hold for free
- It thins out the deck for free
- It's free carddraw via Past in Flames
- It gives information how to sequence your spells (especially cantrips and disruption against opposing combo- & counter-decks)
- It helps you to land Cabal Therapy

It's completely unrelevant if the Probe doesn't draw desired cards better than, say, Preordain. It has a whole different role in storm and it's barely understandable for me atm that you want to weaken the Goblins plan for no reason :/

[End3r000]

Where is the like button when you need it. Gitaxian Probe is amazing and I do not understand why people keep trying to cut it. There is not a single mu where I would board it out.

[Ivan Ferreiro]

Well. Against Maverick I lost first game because I missplayed and the other was Thalia + Gaddok. I had one decay (casted with a Tropical in the sideboard) but wasnt enough

[Lemnear]

Well. Against Maverick I lost first game because I missplayed and the other was Thalia + Gaddok. I had one decay (casted with a Tropical in the sideboard) but wasnt enough

Duress can't battle Teeg, Thalia, Meddling Mage or Cannonist ... that's the most important reason we cutted it from the deck. My whole durdling with options like the 4 EtW in the 75 aimed at dropping threats beford Thalia and friends can lock us out of the game, ergo doing 2 things: render their hate useless while turning your Hand into a threat asap

[mario91234]

Chain of Vapor

Is this card good anymore? It seems like leyline is at an all time low and in the only matchup which people bring it in, (Show and Tell) I don't even find it good. I'm still on the 4x silence plan. Given this, should I cut the 2x chains of vapor for something like 2x Carpet? Thus, I could now board into decays vs UWR delver.

Thoughts?

[davelin]

Chain of Vapor

Is this card good anymore? It seems like leyline is at an all time low and in the only matchup which people bring it in, (Show and Tell) I don't even find it good. I'm still on the 4x silence plan. Given this, should I cut the 2x chains of vapor for something like 2x Carpet? Thus, I could now board into decays vs UWR delver.

Thoughts?

I wouldn't leave home without them. The casting cost of decay just makes it too awkward to reliably count on them.

[Lemnear]

I wouldn't leave home without them. The casting cost of decay just makes it too awkward to reliably count on them.

Ever tried to remove a Cannonist from an UWR deck with Chain? Pointless...

Decays are much better than chain atm

[Final Fortune]

Ever tried to remove a Cannonist from an UWR deck with Chain? Pointless...

Decays are much better than chain atm

So true, I wouldn't bother with Chain of Vapour unless Thalia was ubiquitous, which is the only hatebear Decay falls short on.

[Bryant Cook]

I was talking with Royce yesterday, we decided to keep three Swarm. Which means I'm likely going to live with one Chain of Vapor, that doesn't mean I wish there wasn't a second.

[Lemnear]

I was talking with Royce yesterday, we decided to keep three Swarm. Which means I'm likely going to live with one Chain of Vapor, that doesn't mean I wish there wasn't a second.

It may depends on how many peeps netdeck the recent successful S&T lists without Leyline in the near future to estimate the value of Xantid/CoV for the upcoming weeks. Local meta shifted to Elves and TNN mirrors, 4 example.

1 CoV is pretty random imo, as I needed to find it within an Ad Nauseam to finish my opponent with Leyline in play. With only a single Chain remaining, I don't see it fullfilling it's duty (to get reliable rid of Leyline) anymore, as it was (only) more valuable than Decay vs. Thalia and Leylines.



Edit: Hope that makes sense; daddy's drunk lol

[Jay_Gatz]

Would a revoke or a hull breach be better than a single chain then?

[Bryant Cook]

It may depends on how many peeps netdeck the recent successful S&T lists without Leyline in the near future to estimate the value of Xantid/CoV for the upcoming weeks. Local meta shifted to Elves and TNN mirrors, 4 example.

1 CoV is pretty random imo, as I needed to find it within an Ad Nauseam to finish my opponent with Leyline in play. With only a single Chain remaining, I don't see it fullfilling it's duty (to get reliable rid of Leyline) anymore, as it was (only) more valuable than Decay vs. Thalia and Leylines.



Edit: Hope that makes sense; daddy's drunk lol

You could always Past in Flames a (Hellbent) Tutor back to find Chain of Vapor and win - I've done this. Although, at that point, Silence may've done this job barring they can't counter Silence on their turn (They could've been covered in Bees or tapped out). I typically look at the Chain of Vapor as the third Decay that can answer Leyline while being worse against Counterbalance, I refuse to be cold to Leyline.


Would a revoke or a hill breach be better than a single chain then?

You cant board that in to hit Thalia.

[vercadium]

Bryant live @ http://www.twitch.tv/talesofadventure

[Bryant Cook]

I took third in a one hundred and eighty-seven person event yesterday. Took home some Tropical Islands and a few Flooded Strands, not a bad day. I played incredibly tight, I feel like I was playing better than I normally do. The list was awesome, I used the Thoughtseize more than I did the Chain of Vapor for what it's worth, leaving me thinking that the list is right. I didn't face many blue-based tempo decks until towards the end, I didn't see Carpet as much as I'd like to. That was a little inconclusive. I may write a report, we'll see how lazy I'm feeling today.

[Lemnear]

Dropping a few lines would be nice for the SB topic. Congratz anyways

[Deviruchi]

Congratulations. It is good that you feel confident again. I missed that feeling in your previous posts. It will be great if you find time to write down your impressions. I think lately about returning to TES. Each well-written piece of text will be invaluable.

[Pelikanudo]

You could always Past in Flames a (Hellbent) Tutor back to find Chain of Vapor and win - I've done this. Although, at that point, Silence may've done this job barring they can't counter Silence on their turn (They could've been covered in Bees or tapped out). I typically look at the Chain of Vapor as the third Decay that can answer Leyline while being worse against Counterbalance, I refuse to be cold to Leyline.
.

I think that with that side vs Thalia Decks it is ok to side in 2 A.DEcay 1T.seize. for 3 silence. Of course if having CoV will let 1 other more space, wich could be? Is it really neccesary?
However vs Combo in the form of Expected Sided Leylines - I just think boarding CoV main gets worse the base, that's why I mainly prefer Revoke Or H.Breach over CoV. Agree?

Will test these 75 on next tournament, depending on advice, now I don't have time to test and just use a guideline, by here I see complete dedicated testers - so thanks.
Please when have time update openning post with Side Instructions. thanks again.

[Lemnear]

I think that with that side vs Thalia Decks it is ok to side in 2 A.DEcay 1T.seize. for 3 silence. Of course if having CoV will let 1 other more space, wich could be? Is it really neccesary?
However vs Combo in the form of Expected Sided Leylines - I just think boarding CoV main gets worse the base, that's why I mainly prefer Revoke Or H.Breach over CoV. Agree?

Will test these 75 on next tournament, depending on advice, now I don't have time to test and just use a guideline, by here I see complete dedicated testers - so thanks.
Please when have time update openning post with Side Instructions. thanks again.

You'll board -4 Therapy, -1 EtW, +1 CoV, +3 Xantid, +1 Trop against Leyline with Bryant's list and Ad Nauseam into CoV or create a PIF loop afterwards to gain access to the CoV without having a shitload of dead cards in your 60

Will test the setup Wednesday and go for a bigger tourney next week (will cover that one in HotS 6, as I had only written about the BoM and the development of the deck during the last 6 Weeks so far, as I have spoilered here)

[davelin]

I took third in a one hundred and eighty-seven person event yesterday. Took home some Tropical Islands and a few Flooded Strands, not a bad day. I played incredibly tight, I feel like I was playing better than I normally do. The list was awesome, I used the Thoughtseize more than I did the Chain of Vapor for what it's worth, leaving me thinking that the list is right. I didn't face many blue-based tempo decks until towards the end, I didn't see Carpet as much as I'd like to. That was a little inconclusive. I may write a report, we'll see how lazy I'm feeling today.

Well done! Would love to hear a report esp with the new changes.

[Bryant Cook]

I've started the report, it'll be up in the next day or so. As for the sideboard guide, it'll be up when I can get around to it.

[5doorfury]

What are peoples thoughts on EtW as a win condition with the surge of TNN hate showing up in people's decks? Golgari Charm and zealous persecution seem like scary cards against us (forcing the Tendrils plan). Thoughts?

(Also, please note that I don't have experience testing against these cards, just thinking about it from a theoretical standpoint.)

[JPoJohnson]

What are peoples thoughts on EtW as a win condition with the surge of TNN hate showing up in people's decks? Golgari Charm and zealous persecution seem like scary cards against us (forcing the Tendrils plan). Thoughts?

(Also, please note that I don't have experience testing against these cards, just thinking about it from a theoretical standpoint.)

Most Elves/TNN hate isn't mainboard typically, so I'm not sure that changes it at all?

[5doorfury]

Sorry, I mistyped. I should have said "sideboards" where I said decks. The charms and persecutions from the SBs are really good against our EtW plans. Has this been an issue for anyone?

[Final Fortune]

Unless you board in additional ETWs and make it your entire game plan, not really - if the opponent wants to SB in 3 Golgari Charm then I'm going to fist pump when they draw 3 more bricks. Seriously, Stoneforge Mystic is a much bigger problem than Golgari Charm vs the ETW plan because it actually establishes a clock.

[deviant]

Was enough to convince me not to play my full foiled/altered TES at our nationals - even though I have top8'd with it 2 times before. Maybe I overestimated the value of T1/2 goblins but I feel like the credibility of that threat is important for TES.

[5doorfury]

@Deviant and Final Fortune:

- This is the conversation I was trying to start. I feel like having a tempo style deck bring in these types of cards is generally a "fist pump," however, the number of times an early EtW is the best option is much greater than the times that a tendrils win makes sense or is even feasible. It's to the point that I'm not sure how to play the post-board games against these types of decks so that I can feel confident in an EtW line when a golgari charm could be a brainstorm or ponder away.

[Lemnear]

The shift in the protection suit serves the goblin plan better than ever before. Silence doesn't help much against Golgari Charm, Engineered Explosives Stoneforge Mystic or Zealous Persecution ... Cabal Therapy does.

[Royce Walter]

What are peoples thoughts on EtW as a win condition with the surge of TNN hate showing up in people's decks? Golgari Charm and zealous persecution seem like scary cards against us (forcing the Tendrils plan). Thoughts?

(Also, please note that I don't have experience testing against these cards, just thinking about it from a theoretical standpoint.)

Nothing really changes. Just like before, people could go insane to try to beat Empty and then lose to Tendrils. You have Probe and hand disruption to make sure that, if you're going to Empty, you're not losing to anything but their next 2 draw steps. The only difference is that people might be more inclined to over sideboard to beat goblins.

[SScout]

I definitely agree, the more that people side-in hate against EtW the more its doing its job. While its always nice to be able to turn 1-2 a bunch of goblins and put your opponent on a two turn clock, it is the secondary win for the deck and a smart opponent will realize this. If he/she is siding in more cards against your secondary win, you've had the upper hand from the start!

[deviant]

Lolwut?
Oversideboard to beat goblins?
Golgari charm f.e answers carpet, swarm and etw. It is a rather well-positioned card atm. I'd expect people to pack it.
And it is not oversideboarding, it is respectfully sideboarding to deal with the problems at hand.


Going goblins and stating they get "2 draw steps to deal with them I just rape their hand and they need to get lucky to win" is just delusional. People play ponders, brainstorms, shuffle effects. Some people even play well and keep the charm on top of lib to make you WANT to go for goblins. Real gameplay is dirty like that and the goblin plan has gotten worse. In my eyes that takes a a bullet out of TES's six-shooter.

[SScout]

Lolwut?
Oversideboard to beat goblins?
Golgari charm f.e answers carpet, swarm and etw. It is a rather well-positioned card atm. I'd expect people to pack it.
And it is not oversideboarding, it is respectfully sideboarding to deal with the problems at hand.


Going goblins and stating they get "2 draw steps to deal with them I just rape their hand and they need to get lucky to win" is just delusional. People play ponders, brainstorms, shuffle effects. Some people even play well and keep the charm on top of lib to make you WANT to go for goblins. Real gameplay is dirty like that and the goblin plan has gotten worse. In my eyes that takes a a bullet out of TES's six-shooter.

Yes, it is very well positioned but if you're assuming that the person plays BUG colors you're definitely limiting the matchups that we're actually discussing.
I don't disagree that the win potential of EtW has fallen of late due to the extra hate, but at the same time, its still forcing people to deal with it right? To me that's still going a way towards lessening the chances that your opponent has a threat or another answer to put more pressure on you.

[mario91234]

what deck are you bringing in carpet for that has golgari charm? bug delver?

[Royce Walter]

Lolwut?
Oversideboard to beat goblins?
Golgari charm f.e answers carpet, swarm and etw. It is a rather well-positioned card atm. I'd expect people to pack it.
And it is not oversideboarding, it is respectfully sideboarding to deal with the problems at hand.


Going goblins and stating they get "2 draw steps to deal with them I just rape their hand and they need to get lucky to win" is just delusional. People play ponders, brainstorms, shuffle effects. Some people even play well and keep the charm on top of lib to make you WANT to go for goblins. Real gameplay is dirty like that and the goblin plan has gotten worse. In my eyes that takes a a bullet out of TES's six-shooter.

Alright.
If your swarm is going to die, don't sideboard it in. I can't think of a deck with Golgari Charm that I would board it in against to begin with.
If they want to spend 2 mana to kill a Carpet, sure. That's fine. I can only imagine this happening against Team America.
If your opponent Brainstorms/Ponders and keeps and then you're able to go off, maybe goblins aren't for you. Might I suggest Tendrils? It's been clinically proven to be a fine solution to opponents who have a Golgari Charm on top of their library.

[Lemnear]

Lolwut?
Oversideboard to beat goblins?
Golgari charm f.e answers carpet, swarm and etw. It is a rather well-positioned card atm. I'd expect people to pack it.
And it is not oversideboarding, it is respectfully sideboarding to deal with the problems at hand.


Going goblins and stating they get "2 draw steps to deal with them I just rape their hand and they need to get lucky to win" is just delusional. People play ponders, brainstorms, shuffle effects. Some people even play well and keep the charm on top of lib to make you WANT to go for goblins. Real gameplay is dirty like that and the goblin plan has gotten worse. In my eyes that takes a a bullet out of TES's six-shooter.

I don't see a problem if they use Golgari Charm on Xantid or Carpet. That's not only a bad play from a tempo deck, but also reduces the outs against a follow-up EtW.

In most cases they have indeed only the 2 draw steps to find a solution. Flashbacking Cabal Therapy to strip cantrips/sweeper has become a common play for me.

[Bryant Cook]

Report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?27203-Storming-to-Tales-of-Adventure-(12-7-2013)-3rd-Place&p=772623#post772623)

[Lemnear]

Report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?27203-Storming-to-Tales-of-Adventure-(12-7-2013)-3rd-Place&p=772623#post772623)

will give it a read during my subway Ride to work. Just noticed how often you board out the 3rd Mox in favor of SB manasources and the round 1 value-Therapy-flashback.

[Final Fortune]

Lolwut?
Oversideboard to beat goblins?
Golgari charm f.e answers carpet, swarm and etw. It is a rather well-positioned card atm. I'd expect people to pack it.
And it is not oversideboarding, it is respectfully sideboarding to deal with the problems at hand.


Going goblins and stating they get "2 draw steps to deal with them I just rape their hand and they need to get lucky to win" is just delusional. People play ponders, brainstorms, shuffle effects. Some people even play well and keep the charm on top of lib to make you WANT to go for goblins. Real gameplay is dirty like that and the goblin plan has gotten worse. In my eyes that takes a a bullet out of TES's six-shooter.

WTF? I don't SB in a single one of those cards vs BUG ...

[Asthereal]

Versus Team America you might.
The Charm is pretty useful. I'd board some in against TES.
There's plenty to take out anyway.

[deviant]

People. I am not saying that carpet/swarm is correct to sb in against bug delver/shardless/landstill or chub toad midrange. I'm saying people DO that. I saw multiple times in our nats storm players sb in carpets and swarms against bug colored decks. Those sb choices might have worked out better if the presence of TNN didn't make charm a 3-of in the sideboards, but people instead played maybe one like before BoM.
All else being irrelevant people have more answers to goblins now than they did 1 month ago.
Plan accordingly is all I wanted to say.
(Also zealous persecution is seeing more play, as it should)

[Jay_Gatz]

Do you have a decent sideboard suggestion for chub midrange?

[Bryant Cook]

I'm going to hold off on updating the sideboard guide, I don't think my sideboard is likely to stay. I'm considering some changes, mainly a lack of Carpet of Flowers. It was fine, but I want to try to add in a Massacre and something else (Chain of Vapor/Discard spell).

[Zombie]

I'm going to hold off on updating the sideboard guide, I don't think my sideboard is likely to stay. I'm considering some changes, mainly a lack of Carpet of Flowers. It was fine, but I want to try to add in a Massacre and something else (Chain of Vapor/Discard spell).

Grapeshot
Empty the Warrens
Tendrils of Agony
Past in Flames
Diminishing Returns

Thoughtseize
Massacre
Tropical Island
2x Abrupt Decay

3x Xantrid Swarm
2x Chain of Vapor

Seems fine to me?

[Bryant Cook]

I'm not convinced that Chain would be better than a discard spell to side in versus blue decks/creature decks. If a second discard spell is better, what would it be? Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek or Thoughtseize?

[SScout]

I'm not convinced that Chain would be better than a discard spell to side in versus blue decks/creature decks. If a second discard spell is better, what would it be? Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek or Thoughtseize?

I think for the threats TES seems to face Duress does the most work. In saying that, IoK hits things like Thalia and Ethersworn, but misses the main counter to the deck in FoW. I've seen it discussed here before about Thoughtseize's life cost being too much if you're already on a clock and an Ad Nauseum is likely but it really is the only discard that can hit everything.
EDIT: "that can hit everything without prior information (like Cabal)"

That doesn't really give a conclusive answer, but if I had to give one I'd be tempted to say Thoughseize is too good to pass up (even with the 2 life cost).

On a side note, what stops you from playing the 4th silence in the sideboard? Merely food for thought, i have no justification for it as yet :P

[mario91234]

Why are we sb-ing massacre? if its for MM they just name wish anyhow defeating it.

Massacre only seems good vs D&T. This then lets us reduce chain of vapor in the sb. Is this good?

[Bryant Cook]

I think for the threats TES seems to face Duress does the most work. In saying that, IoK hits things like Thalia and Ethersworn, but misses the main counter to the deck in FoW. I've seen it discussed here before about Thoughtseize's life cost being too much if you're already on a clock and an Ad Nauseum is likely but it really is the only discard that can hit everything.
EDIT: "that can hit everything without prior information (like Cabal)"

That doesn't really give a conclusive answer, but if I had to give one I'd be tempted to say Thoughseize is too good to pass up (even with the 2 life cost).

On a side note, what stops you from playing the 4th silence in the sideboard? Merely food for thought, i have no justification for it as yet :P

I had the same thought regarding Silence, but it comes down to only being good against blue decks. I'd like something that I can bring in versus non-blue decks as well.


Why are we sb-ing massacre? if its for MM they just name wish anyhow defeating it.

Massacre only seems good vs D&T. This then lets us reduce chain of vapor in the sb. Is this good?

I've had Meddling Mage not name Burning Wish, I mean, it happens. The decks that play Mage have access to your hand through Probe, Thoughtseize and/or Clique. Sometimes they know you're sitting on Dark Ritual and will name that. It's a higher impact card that I think is worth playing, it also kills Stoneforge Mystic/Delver out of those decks. I think it's worth testing.

[mario91234]

I agree with you. The alternative cards also happen to die to MM on wish. Is massacre better than deathmark becomes the question.

[BrettF]

I played a tournament with both Massacre and Deathmark in the sideboard. Massacre is better to leave in the board for wishing, while i ended up boarding in the deathmark along with the CoVs. (Where it also wasn't much better than a CoV)

[Bryant Cook]

I went deep tonight. I swear this is not a stolen idea from Brian Demar's article this week, although, it would appear to be. I was just texting Royce and I was typing in my phone, "wouldn't it be awesome if we had protection that also killed Meddling Mage?" Light bulb.

I'm going to start playing some very old tech. Pyroblast. Has applications against Vendilion Clique and Counterbalance as well, I really like this. Only downside is that it doesn't protect when we need to use Lion's Eye Diamond.

[SScout]

I went deep tonight. I swear this is not a stolen idea from Brian Demar's article this week, although, it would appear to be. I was just texting Royce and I was typing in my phone, "wouldn't it be awesome if we had protection that also killed Meddling Mage?" Light bulb.

I'm going to start playing some very old tech. Pyroblast. Has applications against Vendilion Clique and Counterbalance as well, I really like this. Only downside is that it doesn't protect when we need to use Lion's Eye Diamond.

It does fit the slot well.. Would you keep it as a 1-of or throw 2 in?

The biggest downside, how are you going to get Japanese foils? :laugh:

[Lemnear]

The last time we tested Massacre as a Wish target in TES we stumbled over the fact, that you need to have one of 2 U.Seas in play. For hatebears i rather recommend the Pyroclasm as sweeper which is even boardable in case of Meddling Mage naming Wish.

REB Sounds nice, but it failed to handle problems in the past. Counterbalance, Clique and Meddling Mage sound spicy as targets, but isn't that why we ran Decays for (obviously, Clique to a lesser extend)? At least I'm used to board in Decays against UWR because of all the Cannonist, Meddling Mages, SFM i've had to handle in the past

[Bryant Cook]

It does fit the slot well.. Would you keep it as a 1-of or throw 2 in?

The biggest downside, how are you going to get Japanese foils? :laugh:


I have two sleeved up in my sideboard over what were the Carpet of Flowers. I still have Japanese fifth edition Pyroblasts! I black bordered them.



The last time we tested Massacre as a Wish target in TES we stumbled over the fact, that you need to have one of 2 U.Seas in play. For hatebears i rather recommend the Pyroclasm as sweeper which is even boardable in case of Meddling Mage naming Wish.

REB Sounds nice, but it failed to handle problems in the past. Counterbalance, Clique and Meddling Mage sound spicy as targets, but isn't that why we ran Decays for (obviously, Clique to a lesser extend)? At least I'm used to board in Decays against UWR because of all the Cannonist, Meddling Mages, SFM i've had to handle in the past

Yeah, I'm over Massacre for now. Even if I did just buy a Japanese foil one on eBay. We effectively have five swamps, which I think is passable. Massacre is free, meaning we don't spend multiple turns Wishing and then casting. Not to mention that Massacre is an answer to Mother of Runes plus Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. It's interesting that you can side in Pyroclasm, I'll have to keep that in mind.

Well, it would be Pyroblast not Red Elemental Blast. Pyroblast you can cast targeting nothing to become Hellbent or to increase the storm count, you can't do these with Red Elemental Blast. And... you're wrong, I quit running Pyroblast after GP: Indianapolis in 2012 because I needed sideboard disruption spells that also answered the massive amounts of Thalia that were everywhere. On the way home from Indy I bought Japanese foil Inquisition of Kozileks and that was the last we heard of Pyroblast, until now. Currently, we have those discard spells in the main deck meaning we have some sideboard space available to cast an old favorite. I don't sideboard in Abrupt Decay versus UWr Delver for what it's worth, seems awful. I really only sideboard in Decay versus blue decks if I have to, it's miserable to draw Naturalize when you're attempting to fight through a handful of Counterspells.

I definitely think this is a move in the right direction, I'm pretty excited.

[mario91234]

This takes me back to when i first picked up the deck. I'm extremely excited. Looking forward to you official sb before vegas.


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[SaberTooth]

what do you think about toxic deluge? seems more like an ANT card, but it could work

[vercadium]

We're deploying a new website in work, so I'm very busy at the moment. Exciting ideas indeed though - expect a comprehensive response/opinion from me within the next few days.

[davelin]

I just recently 5-for-1'ed a Elves player with Pyroclasm. Mysterious "lost connection" two seconds later.

[Lemnear]

Yeah, I'm over Massacre for now. Even if I did just buy a Japanese foil one on eBay. We effectively have five swamps, which I think is passable. Massacre is free, meaning we don't spend multiple turns Wishing and then casting. Not to mention that Massacre is an answer to Mother of Runes plus Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. It's interesting that you can side in Pyroclasm, I'll have to keep that in mind.

Well, it would be Pyroblast not Red Elemental Blast. Pyroblast you can cast targeting nothing to become Hellbent or to increase the storm count, you can't do these with Red Elemental Blast. And... you're wrong, I quit running Pyroblast after GP: Indianapolis in 2012 because I needed sideboard disruption spells that also answered the massive amounts of Thalia that were everywhere. On the way home from Indy I bought Japanese foil Inquisition of Kozileks and that was the last we heard of Pyroblast, until now. Currently, we have those discard spells in the main deck meaning we have some sideboard space available to cast an old favorite. I don't sideboard in Abrupt Decay versus UWr Delver for what it's worth, seems awful. I really only sideboard in Decay versus blue decks if I have to, it's miserable to draw Naturalize when you're attempting to fight through a handful of Counterspells.

I definitely think this is a move in the right direction, I'm pretty excited.

@Massacre
Wouldn't be the first time I see my U.Sea wasted in response to Wish, just saying. For a few weeks, I had 2 Clasm + GS in the side as hatebears and Elves were rampant.


I have the gut feeling, that Pyroblast is strange to be run alongside of Decays. I just have in mind that the Decays binned too many Cannonists/Counterbalance since BoM, that I would streamline my SB unless the argument is: "I focus on killing turn 1 or 2 against decks with Thalia and Cannonist, can handle Meddling Mage/Clique/Counterbalance cheaper but with more risk and have an additional card to board against Show&Tell!"

... otherwise you could run Deathmark or Disfigure as well :wink:


what do you think about toxic deluge? seems more like an ANT card, but it could work

It's a 5 mana solution that costs life in a deck that operates on life. No, this is not a solution if hatebears are a problem for you

[anakyn]

I know I'm dealing with a sacred cow, but maybe it's time to play Massacre in place of Grapeshot, and leaving slots open for more Discard/Chains...

I tried both Massacre and Pyroclasm vs hatebears.decks and I prefer Massacre: it's true sometimes we can't use it because they just wastelanded our Sea, but with Thalia in play Wish + Clasm is going to cost 3+3 mana total, which is too much vs strong mana denial plans like D&T. Also, as Briant already said, Massacre goes over Mom's protection, and that's pretty crucial.
Massacre seems worse than Pyroclasm only vs Gaddock, but Maverick isn't much played nowadays.

[Lemnear]

I know I'm dealing with a sacred cow, but maybe it's time to play Massacre in place of Grapeshot, and leaving slots open for more Discard/Chains...

I tried both Massacre and Pyroclasm vs hatebears.decks and I prefer Massacre: it's true sometimes we can't use it because they just wastelanded our Sea, but with Thalia in play Wish + Clasm is going to cost 3+3 mana total, which is too much vs strong mana denial plans like D&T. Also, as Briant already said, Massacre goes over Mom's protection, and that's pretty crucial.
Massacre seems worse than Pyroclasm only vs Gaddock, but Maverick isn't much played nowadays.

Dunno, I tend to roll over pure hatebear matchups *shrug*. I'm more concered if those are paired with discard or counters like in Esper Deathblade or UWR, where they can just disrupt your plan of pyroblasting their Meddling Mage or laugh at your blast if they run Cannonist instead like most did on the BoM

[Bryant Cook]

I know I'm dealing with a sacred cow, but maybe it's time to play Massacre in place of Grapeshot, and leaving slots open for more Discard/Chains...

I tried both Massacre and Pyroclasm vs hatebears.decks and I prefer Massacre: it's true sometimes we can't use it because they just wastelanded our Sea, but with Thalia in play Wish + Clasm is going to cost 3+3 mana total, which is too much vs strong mana denial plans like D&T. Also, as Briant already said, Massacre goes over Mom's protection, and that's pretty crucial.
Massacre seems worse than Pyroclasm only vs Gaddock, but Maverick isn't much played nowadays.

Well, for starters my name is Bryant. I have it all over the god damn place.

Secondly, Grapeshot does much more than kill creatures. I can think of a few events where I wouldn't have been successful if it wasn't for Grapeshot. SCG: Philly being a recent memory that comes to mind. I was only considering Massacre because I wanted the ability to side in Grapeshot against UWr counting as a main deck win condition to win around Meddling Mage as well as removal. But now that I'm on Pyroblast, I won't be needing Massacre.

Alright, now that the bad ideas are out of the way...


@Massacre
I have the gut feeling, that Pyroblast is strange to be run alongside of Decays. I just have in mind that the Decays binned too many Cannonists/Counterbalance since BoM, that I would streamline my SB unless the argument is: "I focus on killing turn 1 or 2 against decks with Thalia and Cannonist, can handle Meddling Mage/Clique/Counterbalance cheaper but with more risk and have an additional card to board against Show&Tell!"

... otherwise you could run Deathmark or Disfigure as well :wink:


Pyroblast is probably the most versatile card we've had in that slot in awhile, it's an additional card to side in versus Counterbalance matchups, kills Delver/Clique/Meddling Mage, provides additional cards for Show and Tell Matchups as well as being able to be sided in against Tempo decks. I fail to see how it's not streamlining the deck.

[anakyn]

Maybe it's just me being not too much experienced with TES, but I found out D&T to be an harsh matchup: yes we can combo before they can land Thalia or any other hatebear, and we can make them discard their Batterskull with our Therapy / Warren synergy after we already landed our Goblins, but fact is we need a strong hand and/or being on the play, while they can begin their massive hate on turn 2 even with a mediocre hand, and from that point on seems like an uphill battle to me.

Being faster than their hate is the main plan of course, but since it doesn't happen that often I guess we should keep another door open, in which case Massacre seems like the best option right now.

[mario91234]

Quick off subject question. What amount/colors of mana do you need to go for dimin returns over empty the warrens t1 in a g2 vs a deck which has at least 4 ways to interact with goblins. Unknown info in hand but your wish is resolving (so no fow). Additionally, if they do not have an immediate answer, does the decision change?


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[Deviruchi]

I went deep tonight. (...) I'm going to start playing some very old tech. Pyroblast.

I like the idea. I remember when there were 3 Pyroblast in the SB and they where a core of it. I can see them going into CoF slots. I think you can only cut them form the SB, no idea if you plan to fit the 3rd one or not but finding that 3rd slot would be very hard. Also I think that you have too many nice plays with Pyro vs active CB lock to avoid the temptation ;)

[anakyn]

Grapeshot does much more than kill creatures. I can think of a few events where I wouldn't have been successful if it wasn't for Grapeshot.

Well BrYant, of course it does more than that, otherwise it would be unplayable.
And I knew I was touching a sacred cow, it's just I never fully understood why Grapeshot is considered so essential: sometimes it wins you games, but I don't know if that happens often enough to justify it to be unmovable from the sideboard.

My main concern is D&T: against a deck packing 4 Moms, playing with a lone Grapeshot as a game-1 answer to hatebears seems like we can only win in the first 2 turns or we lose horribly.

I'd likely play Grapeshot AND another sweeper, it's just I never find space for both.

Well, maybe it's just me playing too much vs D&T.

[Lemnear]

Pyroblast is probably the most versatile card we've had in that slot in awhile, it's an additional card to side in versus Counterbalance matchups, kills Delver/Clique/Meddling Mage, provides additional cards for Show and Tell Matchups as well as being able to be sided in against Tempo decks. I fail to see how it's not streamlining the deck.

I just do have the feeling that Pyroblast overlaps with Decay in some matchups, therefore I'm questioning if there's space for both in the SB as you already mentioned, that you might want a 3rd Carpet as well (if I'm not mistaken).

Without going into detailed boarding plans, which kind of slots do you think Pyroblast should fill in after boarding? Replacing something in the protection suit, mana or the usual Ponder + Infernal? Could be a bit much to board against Tempo considering that you already want to fit in Carpets and the Tropical.


Well BrYant, of course it does more than that, otherwise it would be unplayable.
And I knew I was touching a sacred cow, it's just I never fully understood why Grapeshot is considered so essential: sometimes it wins you games, but I don't know if that happens often enough to justify it to be unmovable from the sideboard.

My main concern is D&T: against a deck packing 4 Moms, playing with a lone Grapeshot as a game-1 answer to hatebears seems like we can only win in the first 2 turns or we lose horribly.

I'd likely play Grapeshot AND another sweeper, it's just I never find space for both.

Well, maybe it's just me playing too much vs D&T.

I'm sure D&T is a pure matter of speed and taking mulligans according to that. If you have a crappy hand without options to buy you time against Thalia and Wasteland, mull to 6. They can't race a dozen Goblins against Silence and discard

[trollking21]

Well BrYant, of course it does more than that, otherwise it would be unplayable.
And I knew I was touching a sacred cow, it's just I never fully understood why Grapeshot is considered so essential: sometimes it wins you games, but I don't know if that happens often enough to justify it to be unmovable from the sideboard.

My main concern is D&T: against a deck packing 4 Moms, playing with a lone Grapeshot as a game-1 answer to hatebears seems like we can only win in the first 2 turns or we lose horribly.

I'd likely play Grapeshot AND another sweeper, it's just I never find space for both.

Well, maybe it's just me playing too much vs D&T.

That's assuming they have turn 1 mom and turn 2 Thalia. Really just blind naming Thalia off if cabal therapy seems like a fine answer. That's the only card I worry about in the main deck they also play revoker, but revoker on LED doesn't scare me as much. Post board they can also have canonist and that's annoying.

[anakyn]

I'm sure D&T is a pure matter of speed and taking mulligans according to that. If you have a crappy hand without options to buy you time against Thalia and Wasteland, mull to 6. They can't race a dozen Goblins against Silence and discard

Thanks for the advice: if I had to follow this line of thought, then I should probably get rid of Massacre at all.
Following this game plan also allows for a much less stressful matchup: trying to find a way against Thalia / Mom / Revoker / Stoneforge post turn-2 is somewhat painful.



That's assuming they have turn 1 mom and turn 2 Thalia.

Well, I don't know if it's that simple.
Even if they have just Thalia in play, killing her with Wish + Grapeshot is still going to cost 3+3 mana (opposed to the 3+1 mana needed for Massacre) so it's problematic as well.

I admit Therapy is great vs D&T, so playing 4 copies maindeck should improve our game-1 vs them.

[Bryant Cook]

I just do have the feeling that Pyroblast overlaps with Decay in some matchups, therefore I'm questioning if there's space for both in the SB as you already mentioned, that you might want a 3rd Carpet as well (if I'm not mistaken).

Without going into detailed boarding plans, which kind of slots do you think Pyroblast should fill in after boarding? Replacing something in the protection suit, mana or the usual Ponder + Infernal? Could be a bit much to board against Tempo considering that you already want to fit in Carpets and the Tropical.


What match-ups? The only one I can think of is Miracles and we need all the help we can get in that match-up. I don't recall ever saying I wanted a third carpet, I'm playing zero right now - I'm completely fine with this. Against Miracles I would just sideboard as follows, -1 Empty the Warrens, -1 Chrome Mox, -2 Ponder, -1 Infernal Tutor, -1 Silence, +1 Tendrils of Agony, +2 Pyroblast, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Tropical Island.

Empty the Warrens isn't going to cut it, becomes Tendrils.
Chrome Mox becomes a more stable mana source than helps answer our most problematic card - Tropical Island.
Ponders are our flex, we need the other two cantrips more than we need these. This match-up is all about card power level - 2 Abrupt Decay.
Tutor and a Silence are easily swappable for protection that answers cards that are problematic like Counterbalance or Meddling Mage.

I'm still not playing Carpet of Flowers. Against Tempo you could do the same sideboarding as before, -1 Ponder, -1 Infernal, -1 Chrome Mox, +2 Pyroblast, +1 Tropical Island. If you don't want to board in Tropical, keep Chrome Mox. It's really up to you.

[Asthereal]

Grapeshot is actually one of the better cards in the sideboard. Not only does it kill hate bears, it also deals the last three damage you couldn't deal with your army of Goblin tokens. Last tourney I played, I needed both. I hit a Thalia and a Hierarch against Maverick, and against Canadian Thresh it won me the game in turn 5 after time was called, because I needed one more turn to strike with my team, but I of course wouldn't get that turn, so Grapeshot did the last bit of dirty work that my tokens were unable to do.

[Final Fortune]

I also think Pyroblast and Abrupt Decay are redundant, if Pyroblast removes permanents i.e Meddling Mage, counters Counterbalance and Vendillion Clique as well as either protects Silence from counters or "cycles" vs cantrips it seems like it's hitting a wider cross section of decks than Abrupt Decay is currently.

Provided you're ok with taking a small hit vs Miracles, I could see going the Pyro Blast and Carpet of Flowers route now that Therapy keeps Thalia off our ass compared to the whole Duress left. I'd definitely want a Revoke Existance or Shattering Spree in the board tho' to be able to take care of all the odd, irritating shit Abrupt Decay dealt with like Chalice of the Void, Thorn of Amethyst or Canonist to a lesser extent. Abrupt Decay is pretty bad vs Thalia anyway, so no big loss there.

[Pelikanudo]

I read the report, good tournament,

-About the last Deathblade Match up and knowing about M.M. I would have sided as follows:

-1I.T.-1Ponder,-2Slience-2C.M+2CoF,+2A.Decay+1T.Seize+1Tropical.

vs

Sideboarding: -1 Chrome Mox, -1 Ponder, -1 Infernal Tutor, +1 Tropical Island, +2 Carpet of Flowers.

The fact is that we need more polivalent answers ad I think 1 T.Seize is bettter in main than in side.
Also Silence is good vs control but does not combat in both angles - parity with A.Decay and T.Seize.
The C.Mox in this match up I think is not good - you'll mainly need to disrupt the opponent continuosly - he'll do the same, the opponent can have also fluster and pierce plus discard and permanent hateand you're not going to expect to win soon. I've played perfectly a manabase of 14 lands plus 1 mox in ANT and it is quite acceptable, even I took the mox out some of second and 3rd games - with ANT. At least I leave 1.
Regarding A.D., at least the second you can expect or not M.M, but I suppose that should be included for 3rd. The idea is disruptive Spells OR A.Decay OR Win. By the other hand Inquisition is not a bad idea.

I havent really conviced about CoF, really and looking at the tournament (althoutgh you didn't faced any RUG) and looking at my meta I think I could say that -2 CoF +2Inquisition and then complement Therapys (I'd like to include A.D or CoV ) can be acceptable, you can use them lot of things in the meta. vs improves Reanimator, Miracles and with ANT deck I finally played 10 total discsard effects wich were great all the time.. It is simple, the more discard effects you have, the more possibilities you have to take Thalia or C.B, and if you do not draw one of these, the rest of cards should be focused on winning OR react to them.

-About the D&Taxes MAtch up, is really neccesary to side out 1 C.Mox? even with the presence of Revoker, it simply makes you faster.
EDIT: I think that siding out -3 silence +2IoK+1CoV is effective. opinions? Is really neccesary to side in A.D. which will be the path? Even -1C.M-1I.Tutor-1Ponder+2A.Decay+1Tropical? The question is do you prefer to pay 1 for IoK and casually hit thalia or reactively pay 2 for A.D to thalia.?

-About Massacre, I don't think it is good idea, neither T.Deluxe.

-About the Miracles Side Plan:
generally you take out 1 C.Mox, but if you include1 T.Island, then you should take 2 C.Mox, and ltake out 1 ponder only - opinions on here? , instead my place in here would be +2 inquisition. the problema with pyroblast is that they are not good vs reanimator or thalia decks.

[mario91234]

Inquisition of kozilek is terrible. Protection has to beat force.


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[Bryant Cook]

I also think Pyroblast and Abrupt Decay are redundant, if Pyroblast removes permanents i.e Meddling Mage, counters Counterbalance and Vendillion Clique as well as either protects Silence from counters or "cycles" vs cantrips it seems like it's hitting a wider cross section of decks than Abrupt Decay is currently.

Provided you're ok with taking a small hit vs Miracles, I could see going the Pyro Blast and Carpet of Flowers route now that Therapy keeps Thalia off our ass compared to the whole Duress left. I'd definitely want a Revoke Existance or Shattering Spree in the board tho' to be able to take care of all the odd, irritating shit Abrupt Decay dealt with like Chalice of the Void, Thorn of Amethyst or Canonist to a lesser extent. Abrupt Decay is pretty bad vs Thalia anyway, so no big loss there.

You realize you're complaining about how Decay isn't versatile enough, so you want to replace it with Revoke Existence/Shattering Spree to make up for the things Decay would've dealt with? Seems like a great idea. Playing narrow wish targets over something more broad that can be sided in against non-blue decks with hate like Gaddock Teeg or Thalia.

[SScout]

I for one am behind the Pyroblast idea, i think it can do a lot more than Carpet.

- Protects not just the combo and setup, but our own disruption/protection.
- Helps in the Counterbalance match-up and is good against most of the blue/tempo decks (if not all).
- Has a side application of adding storm count if necessary.

I realize I'm just repeating what Bryant has already said, but i feel like the argument that it replaces abrupt decay has no footing. Yes Abrupt's kill things like counterbalance and some of the blue tempo creatures, but they really shine when you need to deal with Thalia, Gaddock Teig and Ethersworn Cannonist. Pyroblast hits none of the latter list, but is far better against the former, while having the other aforementioned applications as well.

If you ask me:
-2 Carpet
+2 Pyroblast

[Final Fortune]

You realize you're complaining about how Decay isn't versatile enough, so you want to replace it with Revoke Existence/Shattering Spree to make up for the things Decay would've dealt with? Seems like a great idea. Playing narrow wish targets over something more broad that can be sided in against non-blue decks with hate like Gaddock Teeg or Thalia.

I haven't seen Gaddock Teeg outside of Elves, and instead of targetting Gaddok Teeg you should be targetting Green Sun's Zenith anyway. Abrupt Decay isn't a good answer to Thalia regardless, costing (1)BG is a serious problem and I prefer to just Silence Walk and Cabal Therapy those match ups if possible. I like Revoke Existance and/or Shattering Spree because I see Leyline of Sanctity and Chalice of the Void in my metagame anyway, I like having a catch all answer to artifacts and enchatments because it's often an odd card that can be SBed in vs any deck playing Canonist/Revoker and unlike Abrupt Decay I can wish for it game 1. I SB 3 Abrupt Decay, so no I'm not complaining about how Abrupt Decay isn't versatile enough, I'm complaining about how Abrupt Decay is too expensive vs the most common hatebear in the format and of no use on the stack. Personaly, I was thinking of either Revoke Existance/Shattering Spree and 2 Pyroblast instead of my 3 Abrupt Decay, which I think should be fine because what I really like about Pyroblast is that I don't have to play a 2nd discard spell in order to have something to SB in vs RUG/BUG so it kind of makes space for itself.

I make my SB decisions for reasons that are relevant to my metagame, and Abrupt Decay is not pulling its weight in these U/w/x True Name Nemesis match ups where you're facing counters, mana denial, hate bears and possibly discard, so you need to calm the fuck down and respect other people's choices for a change because Miracles and Death&Taxes are the least of my concern right now. Basically I want a 1 mana answer to Meddling Mage that isn't worthless otherwise when he doesn't draw it and I want a card that can replace copies of Chrome Mox as a mana source i.e. Pyroblast and Carpet of Flowers.

I don't know what deck plays Ethersworn Canonist other than Death&Taxes, and if I have serious problems with hatebear.dec I'll just cut to the chase and play with copies of Slaughter Pact because it's the only cost efficient answer to Thalia. I'm more worried about the odd Chalice of the Void, Thorn of Amethyst or Phyrexian Revoker from stuff like Goblins, and Shattering Spree does a pretty good job vs that stuff while being wishabe, costing 1 mana and possibly picking up value.

So far, I've been right about cutting back on Silence and playing discard that can target creatures, I'd say my track record for knowing how this deck should progress in a given metagame is pretty solid overall.

[Bryant Cook]

I haven't seen Gaddock Teeg outside of Elves, and instead of targetting Gaddok Teeg you should be targetting Green Sun's Zenith anyway. Abrupt Decay isn't a good answer to Thalia regardless, costing (1)BG is a serious problem and I prefer to just Silence Walk and Cabal Therapy those match ups if possible. I like Revoke Existance and/or Shattering Spree because I see Leyline of Sanctity and Chalice of the Void in my metagame anyway, I like having a catch all answer to artifacts and enchatments because it's often an odd card that can be SBed in vs any deck playing Canonist/Revoker and unlike Abrupt Decay I can wish for it game 1. I SB 3 Abrupt Decay, so no I'm not complaining about how Abrupt Decay isn't versatile enough, I'm complaining about how Abrupt Decay is too expensive vs the most common hatebear in the format and of no use on the stack. Personaly, I was thinking of either Revoke Existance/Shattering Spree and 2 Pyroblast instead of my 3 Abrupt Decay, which I think should be fine because what I really like about Pyroblast is that I don't have to play a 2nd discard spell in order to have something to SB in vs RUG/BUG so it kind of makes space for itself.

I make my SB decisions for reasons that are relevant to my metagame, and Abrupt Decay is not pulling its weight in these U/w/x True Name Nemesis match ups where you're facing counters, mana denial, hate bears and possibly discard, so you need to calm the fuck down and respect other people's choices for a change because Miracles and Death&Taxes are the least of my concern right now. Basically I want a 1 mana answer to Meddling Mage that isn't worthless otherwise when he doesn't draw it and I want a card that can replace copies of Chrome Mox as a mana source i.e. Pyroblast and Carpet of Flowers.

I don't know what deck plays Ethersworn Canonist other than Death&Taxes, and if I have serious problems with hatebear.dec I'll just cut to the chase and play with copies of Slaughter Pact because it's the only cost efficient answer to Thalia. I'm more worried about the odd Chalice of the Void, Thorn of Amethyst or Phyrexian Revoker from stuff like Goblins, and Shattering Spree does a pretty good job vs that stuff while being wishabe, costing 1 mana and possibly picking up value.

So far, I've been right about cutting back on Silence and playing discard that can target creatures, I'd say my track record for knowing how this deck should progress in a given metagame is pretty solid overall.


Ah yes, I'm clearly the one that needs to "Calm the fuck down."

The main reason to still play Abrupt Decay is answers to resolved threats, of course we obviously attack Green Sun's Zenith with discard. But we're not always on the play or have a turn one discard spell. In all of this angst of yours you've failed to mention how many Chain of Vapor you're playing, Im guessing zero because you found room for the third Decay (I'm not sure why - I'll agree that it's one of the weaker sideboard cards at this point, but I believe it's necessary). It's crucial to have something that answers Teeg/Thalia (1BG isn't as difficult as it seems, especially when we side in another land) and Counterbalance. While Pyroblast potentially answers Counterbalance, it's difficult. I'm not arguing against Pyroblast, I'm all for it and I've been preaching to not sideboard in Decay against these UWx True-Name decks because it's almost a dead card.

Play your wishable targets and tally each time that they're most useful than a time that you could've sided in Abrupt Decay. I would be shocked to find out that you would've used Abrupt Decay less, it's much more versatile than either option mentioned. Which is why the deck tended to move away from those wishable options awhile back.

[Luklinda]

I haven't seen Gaddock Teeg outside of Elves, and instead of targetting Gaddok Teeg you should be targetting Green Sun's Zenith anyway. Abrupt Decay isn't a good answer to Thalia regardless, costing (1)BG is a serious problem and I prefer to just Silence Walk and Cabal Therapy those match ups if possible. I like Revoke Existance and/or Shattering Spree because I see Leyline of Sanctity and Chalice of the Void in my metagame anyway, I like having a catch all answer to artifacts and enchatments because it's often an odd card that can be SBed in vs any deck playing Canonist/Revoker and unlike Abrupt Decay I can wish for it game 1. I SB 3 Abrupt Decay, so no I'm not complaining about how Abrupt Decay isn't versatile enough, I'm complaining about how Abrupt Decay is too expensive vs the most common hatebear in the format and of no use on the stack. Personaly, I was thinking of either Revoke Existance/Shattering Spree and 2 Pyroblast instead of my 3 Abrupt Decay, which I think should be fine because what I really like about Pyroblast is that I don't have to play a 2nd discard spell in order to have something to SB in vs RUG/BUG so it kind of makes space for itself.

I make my SB decisions for reasons that are relevant to my metagame, and Abrupt Decay is not pulling its weight in these U/w/x True Name Nemesis match ups where you're facing counters, mana denial, hate bears and possibly discard, so you need to calm the fuck down and respect other people's choices for a change because Miracles and Death&Taxes are the least of my concern right now. Basically I want a 1 mana answer to Meddling Mage that isn't worthless otherwise when he doesn't draw it and I want a card that can replace copies of Chrome Mox as a mana source i.e. Pyroblast and Carpet of Flowers.

I don't know what deck plays Ethersworn Canonist other than Death&Taxes, and if I have serious problems with hatebear.dec I'll just cut to the chase and play with copies of Slaughter Pact because it's the only cost efficient answer to Thalia. I'm more worried about the odd Chalice of the Void, Thorn of Amethyst or Phyrexian Revoker from stuff like Goblins, and Shattering Spree does a pretty good job vs that stuff while being wishabe, costing 1 mana and possibly picking up value.

So far, I've been right about cutting back on Silence and playing discard that can target creatures, I'd say my track record for knowing how this deck should progress in a given metagame is pretty solid overall.

Because chain of vapor doesn't answer all of those things, while being instant speed and still hitting hate-bears (with the bonus of re-casting your artifact mana)? Shattering spree is horrible, I tried it in my list years ago and it always under preformed. If you're playing in a meta that's artifact heavy then pull serenity; which just so happens to be a better card than revoke existence. Just because it's wishable doesn't mean it's the best option - or else everyone would be playing eye of nowhere (which just isn't efficient).

[sa3xxx]

Hi! I'm new to this forum, I hope this isn't a repost, but have you considered Swan song over Pyroblast? My sb is little bit different, adjusted to my local meta, but I could imagine having 2*decay, 2* swan song in sb.

What pyroblast can, but swan song cannot : Kill/counter MM (this is huge), maybe destroy CB, kill delver (or some merfolks, but not THAT one) (some other blue permanent i forgot about?)

What swan song can, but pyroblast cannot : Counter sneak attack, counter zenith/NO, counter discard spells, counter reanimation spells (some other non-blue ench/sorc/inst?).

They both can counter CB and blue spells (counters, BS, SnT, ...) and CB.

(note : at the moment my sb contains 0 songs, but I used them once or twice when I expected lots of elves and SnT and they performed nicely. But as of now, MM probably make Pyroblast superior to swan songs).


PS : As to grapeshot, in addition to its other uses, it won me some games by killing blockers/doing last 3-4 dmg when I had only a small bunch of goblins.

[Jay_Gatz]

You can't cast swan song without a target when you need to get hellbent

[phazonmutant]

What match-ups? The only one I can think of is Miracles and we need all the help we can get in that match-up. I don't recall ever saying I wanted a third carpet, I'm playing zero right now - I'm completely fine with this. Against Miracles I would just sideboard as follows, -1 Empty the Warrens, -1 Chrome Mox, -2 Ponder, -1 Infernal Tutor, -1 Silence, +1 Tendrils of Agony, +2 Pyroblast, +2 Abrupt Decay, +1 Tropical Island.

Empty the Warrens isn't going to cut it, becomes Tendrils.
Chrome Mox becomes a more stable mana source than helps answer our most problematic card - Tropical Island.
Ponders are our flex, we need the other two cantrips more than we need these. This match-up is all about card power level - 2 Abrupt Decay.
Tutor and a Silence are easily swappable for protection that answers cards that are problematic like Counterbalance or Meddling Mage.

I'm still not playing Carpet of Flowers. Against Tempo you could do the same sideboarding as before, -1 Ponder, -1 Infernal, -1 Chrome Mox, +2 Pyroblast, +1 Tropical Island. If you don't want to board in Tropical, keep Chrome Mox. It's really up to you.

Interesting board plan. I don't think I've ever brought in the Tendrils (or Grapeshot, or PiF, or IGG...). In what scenarios do you board in the various Wish targets? Typically I had just been cutting 1 IT, 1 ETW, 1 CM for Trop, 2 AD. If I have them in the board, I'll bring in CoV and/or the extra discard for a Ponder and then Silences.

Against the other main Meddling Mage decks, UWx Stoneblade / Delver, I've been cutting the same cards for the extra discard and CoV.

Are those plans not sufficient?

[Bryant Cook]

Interesting board plan. I don't think I've ever brought in the Tendrils (or Grapeshot, or PiF, or IGG...). In what scenarios do you board in the various Wish targets? Typically I had just been cutting 1 IT, 1 ETW, 1 CM for Trop, 2 AD. If I have them in the board, I'll bring in CoV and/or the extra discard for a Ponder and then Silences.

Against the other main Meddling Mage decks, UWx Stoneblade / Delver, I've been cutting the same cards for the extra discard and CoV.

Are those plans not sufficient?

I don't know if you've read the last page or so of the thread, but why not just run Pyroblast? I usually side in various wish targets based on the matchup, ETW is bad against miracles - swap it out. Ad Nauseam isnt great against burn, swap out ETW for PIF (I dont always do this, just sometimes).

[Asthereal]

I don't know if you've read the last page or so of the thread, but why not just run Pyroblast? I usually side in various wish targets based on the matchup, ETW is bad against miracles - swap it out. Ad Nauseam isnt great against burn, swap out ETW for PIF (I dont always do this, just sometimes).
Wait, what? Ad Nauseam isn't great, so you swap ETW?
Hasty post? :wink:

[tride]

Wait, what? Ad Nauseam isn't great, so you swap ETW?
Hasty post? :wink:

Ad Nauseam isn't great so you side in another storm engine in place of ETW, so PiF doesn't make Ad Nauseam even worst. I used to do this when IGG was around.

[mario91234]

Im running a single pyroblast for the invitational and the deal breaker was having an out to MM. Being able to ad naus on mm on wish, natural tendrils on tutor or play around it otherwise makes me want the utility. Additionally, we lack a solid answer to v.clique. Unfortunately, this is the worst card vs flusterstorm.


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[Bryant Cook]

Wait, what? Ad Nauseam isn't great, so you swap ETW?
Hasty post? :wink:

I meant what I said.


Im running a single pyroblast for the invitational and the deal breaker was having an out to MM. Being able to ad naus on mm on wish, natural tendrils on tutor or play around it otherwise makes me want the utility. Additionally, we lack a solid answer to v.clique. Unfortunately, this is the worst card vs flusterstorm.

Why only the one? Couldn't find another? Lack of fourty-six cents (51 after tax)?

[phazonmutant]

I don't know if you've read the last page or so of the thread, but why not just run Pyroblast? I usually side in various wish targets based on the matchup, ETW is bad against miracles - swap it out. Ad Nauseam isnt great against burn, swap out ETW for PIF (I dont always do this, just sometimes).

I have, Pyroblast sounds like a good card to test. I'm definitely curious to see how it performs.

Isn't it a problem swapping in the Tendrils if there's only one in the 75? Same with PiF, I would think.

[mario91234]

I have 2 Bryant, thanks though. Reasoning for only 1 is that it is: A last minute change, B; haven't played with the card in years, C; we barely played with the card back when flusterstorm was the bees knees. It's also the 5th card vs Counterbalance and adding more cards to the sb that come in have diminishing returns on our deck at that point.

[Bryant Cook]

I highly recommend two, but if you don't want five cards for the Counterbalance match-up, I would cut an Abrupt Decay first.

[mario91234]

I'm playing more silences than you are now so my sb is occupied by a second discard spell. I would likely play the first copy of carpet over the 2nd pyroblast in that slot, however i do not have enough practice to get off the silence/thoughtseize crutch. I do distinctly remember having pyroblast in hand at times wishing it was simply any other protection spell from the past additionally. Can't really expect that much miracles anyhow.


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[Jay_Gatz]

Wait, what? Ad Nauseam isn't great, so you swap ETW? Hasty post? :wink:
Past turn like 2-3 as nauseam is uncastable against a bolt/fireblast deck

[Asthereal]

On the draw past turn 1 actually. So I thought perhaps we should swap Ad Nauseam for another storm enige. But Bryant probably meant to keep it anyway, and since EtW also isn't brilliant past turn 2-3, he wants Ad Nauseam for the fast kill and Past in Flames for the slow kill. I didn't get that when I posted last night. Anyway, this would advocate for keeping Ill-Gotten Gains, so we still have a graveyard engine to Wish for. But I guess that depends on how much sideboard space you have left. I encounter Burn very often, so I would be willing to sacrifice a slot I would otherwise use for Miracles.

[Pelikanudo]

I highly recommend two, but if you don't want five cards for the Counterbalance match-up, I would cut an Abrupt Decay first.

Ok, i will test those pyroblast for next tournament, they really convinced me for at least miracles and batle M.M., not by the moment IoK.

I'd like to know:

How would you side vs Sneak and Show, OmniShow(with and withouth leylines), BUG and Reanimator, with the updated list, the one with 2 pyro.
Also, I didn't notice how bad A.D is vs all those UWR Decks...

Thanks
Bests REgards

[Jay_Gatz]

Split the finals of a 6 round tournament today with Bryant's new list with 2 blasts. I only brought then in for one match so I didn't get to play much with them but I do like them better than carpets

[davelin]

Split the finals of a 6 round tournament today with Bryant's new list with 2 blasts. I only brought then in for one match so I didn't get to play much with them but I do like them better than carpets

Congrats! Remember what you played against?

[Lemnear]

Still lack testing ... atm I tend to just give the basic list a spin for the upcoming covered tourney. Think about giving live-feat here begween rounds...

[Jay_Gatz]

Congrats! Remember what you played against? In no particular order junk, elves x2, URW x2 (ID then top8) Team America x2 (James Peyton in Swiss and Bob Huang in top4) and Jund. Split the finals with esperblade.

[Kowitz]

So what's the new sideboard looking like? The 1st post still has carpets in the board, I'm curious what people are boarding the blasts in against

[Lemnear]

So what's the new sideboard looking like? The 1st post still has carpets in the board, I'm curious what people are boarding the blasts in against

Blasts took the spot of the Carpets. Boarding the Blasts is no rocket science ... they come in against Meddling Mages, Counterbalance, Delver, Show&Tell, Meerfolk, High Tide, etc.

[Kowitz]

And with this new testing, are you guys running the tropical in the board still as well? I have a tournament this weekend, and I'm going with TES, because it's the deck I have the most playtime with and am most comfortable with. I have just been away from the game for a few months, so I'm trying to catch up on the small changes.

[Lemnear]

And with this new testing, are you guys running the tropical in the board still as well? I have a tournament this weekend, and I'm going with TES, because it's the deck I have the most playtime with and am most comfortable with. I have just been away from the game for a few months, so I'm trying to catch up on the small changes.

The remaining SB stayed the same as the Tropical Supports you with basically 4 additional sources for green (Trop + 3 Fetches) to cast Xantid and Decay as well as presenting an additional manasource against Stifle/Wasteland.

I'm not sure how long you've been away, but noticable changes include the cutting of IGG as well as the altered disruption suit focusing on Cabal Therapy and it's interaction with EtW to Limit/strip your opponents outs for the Goblins in the wake of a changing metagame thanks to TNN and countermeasures which also affect our aggro plan (Golgari charm, zealous Persecution, etc.). Especially the Therapies need a decent Knowledge of the current format; dunno if I would consider it a small change...

[Kowitz]

Thank you for the input! I will have about 2 days to do some play testing with the new sideboard, along with a small tournament at my local shop, before going to a larger event this sunday(I think they are expecting 60+ people, as the prizes are dual lands and fetches)

[apocolyps6]

Not to restart a discussion I'm sure has been thoroughly discussed in some part of this threat or elsewhere, but is it completely incorrect to have IGG now? I think it is pretty decent in my local meta (lack of the elements I assume pushed it out) but I'm by no means proficient at this deck.

[SScout]

Not to restart a discussion I'm sure has been thoroughly discussed in some part of this threat or elsewhere, but is it completely incorrect to have IGG now? I think it is pretty decent in my local meta (lack of the elements I assume pushed it out) but I'm by no means proficient at this deck.

Like every sideboard decision, this is one you should make based on your own local meta. If you find yourself reaching for IGG over DR 9/10 then its definitely a good card to have, Bryant's deck is merely his take on what should/shouldn't be played, its not gospel (although its pretty close at times!).

In saying that, I personally feel like DR is just a better card in most situations (but that's just my 2c).

[Lemnear]

Not to restart a discussion I'm sure has been thoroughly discussed in some part of this threat or elsewhere, but is it completely incorrect to have IGG now? I think it is pretty decent in my local meta (lack of the elements I assume pushed it out) but I'm by no means proficient at this deck.

Rest in Piece, Surgical Extraction and Deathrite Shaman are everywhere. It's pointless to play 2 graveyard-engines in the Sideboard just for the double-LED-scenarios, in which you can simply spin the Dim.Ret. Roulette for a similar effect instead.

[PartyMonster]

Just wanted to say I have been testing the Pyroblasts in the board and I am stoked on them. Thanks once again for the inovation, Bryant.

[Blitzkreuz]

Hey guys, i want to give TES a try, but i actually have no idea oh what to look at my starting seven etc. I have pondered about those starting hand samples in the primer, but i really dont get the clue. Sometimes it is of course easy, with a tutor in hand and enough rituals to get gobbos if i dont make it to 9 or 10 storm. but often there are hands of which i have no idea in which direction i should play.

Are there any explanations out there ( I once read an article, i think about ANT, in which there was written sth like that: reach x black mana with infernal in hand to kill, or x black and x red with burning wish for past in flames kill etc), that could help me get an idea, or do i just have to goldfish over and over again until i get it?

[Lemnear]

Hey guys, i want to give TES a try, but i actually have no idea oh what to look at my starting seven etc. I have pondered about those starting hand samples in the primer, but i really dont get the clue. Sometimes it is of course easy, with a tutor in hand and enough rituals to get gobbos if i dont make it to 9 or 10 storm. but often there are hands of which i have no idea in which direction i should play.

Are there any explanations out there ( I once read an article, i think about ANT, in which there was written sth like that: reach x black mana with infernal in hand to kill, or x black and x red with burning wish for past in flames kill etc), that could help me get an idea, or do i just have to goldfish over and over again until i get it?

May dip your nose into my reports to get a clue (That's why I wrote them for). They are all in my signature (start from Vol.5 and go back). A key skill to develop is reading the gameplan your hand dictates

Greetings from Berlin

[Blitzkreuz]

Thx, those reports are actually really well written and understandable, so let's see if i can manage to understand TES with those a bit better :)

[Lemnear]

Thx, those reports are actually really well written and understandable, so let's see if i can manage to understand TES with those a bit better :)

You are welcome to ask questions about particular plays and choices in those threads if something is unclear. I'll do my best to explain/clarify

[BrettF]

I have a sequencing question:

Opening 7, on the play blind matchup.

ponder
ponder
gitaxian probe
dark ritual
gemstone mine
city of brass
misty rainforest

Whats the gameplan with this hand? (I'd only mull this against TinFins/dredge/belcher/Oops. you?)

Most hands I lead with Gitaxian probe, but drawing a land blind at this point could be suicide so i would ponder first.

Other situations where you don't probe first on turn one:
If your hand has brainstorm and AdNauseam, hoping to brainstorm into an LED to set up Gitaxian breaking LED -> Adnauseam.

Thoughts? Is there a definitive number of situations where you don't lead with probe on turn 1?

[Final Fortune]

I have a sequencing question:

Opening 7, on the play blind matchup.

ponder
ponder
gitaxian probe
dark ritual
gemstone mine
city of brass
misty rainforest

Whats the gameplan with this hand? (I'd only mull this against TinFins/dredge/belcher/Oops. you?)

Most hands I lead with Gitaxian probe, but drawing a land blind at this point could be suicide so i would ponder first.

Other situations where you don't probe first on turn one:
If your hand has brainstorm and AdNauseam, hoping to brainstorm into an LED to set up Gitaxian breaking LED -> Adnauseam.

Thoughts? Is there a definitive number of situations where you don't lead with probe on turn 1?

I'd City of Brass, Ponder and keep the fetchland and Probe back to dig as deep as possible while waiting to collect as much information as possible. People are way too aggressive with Probe when they don't need to be, if you can't go off immediately it pays to wait.

[apocolyps6]

What is the correct way to handle a situation like this:

We start win the roll and see Probe, Rite, Rite, fetch, BW, Gemstone Mine, LED

We probe and see no turn 0 interaction but after that it’ll be harder to go off. We also see an answer to goblins so thats best avoided. (for example EE, flusterstorm)

Is it generally correct to wait and play through whatever hate there may be or go for diminishing returns?
If the fetch was a cantrip, does the answer change?

Perhaps I'm just unsure the role that diminishing returns serves. How okay should I be using it sub-optimally?

I’ve also been a bit confused on what to do with silence against non blue control/hatebear decks. Do I leave them in to chantwalk so that I don’t have to deal with thalia etc leaving them wasteland or either vial, or do I board in CoVs and Abrupt Decays to deal with whatever they manage to stick?

[trollking21]

What is the correct way to handle a situation like this:

We start win the roll and see Probe, Rite, Rite, fetch, BW, Gemstone Mine, LED

We probe and see no turn 0 interaction but after that it’ll be harder to go off. We also see an answer to goblins so thats best avoided. (for example EE, flusterstorm)

Is it generally correct to wait and play through whatever hate there may be or go for diminishing returns?
If the fetch was a cantrip, does the answer change?

Perhaps I'm just unsure the role that diminishing returns serves. How okay should I be using it sub-optimally?


What did you draw off probe? If you draw a blank then there is no problem spinning d-returns as you will have a land drop a new 7 card hand and a blue floating. This is pretty much the exact time you use d-returns (lemnear or Bryant correct me if I'm wrong) well this and Hail Mary's- though Hail Mary's are to be avoided if you can.

[Lemnear]

What is the correct way to handle a situation like this:

We start win the roll and see Probe, Rite, Rite, fetch, BW, Gemstone Mine, LED

We probe and see no turn 0 interaction but after that it’ll be harder to go off. We also see an answer to goblins so thats best avoided. (for example EE, flusterstorm)

Is it generally correct to wait and play through whatever hate there may be or go for diminishing returns?
If the fetch was a cantrip, does the answer change?

Perhaps I'm just unsure the role that diminishing returns serves. How okay should I be using it sub-optimally?

I’ve also been a bit confused on what to do with silence against non blue control/hatebear decks. Do I leave them in to chantwalk so that I don’t have to deal with thalia etc leaving them wasteland or either vial, or do I board in CoVs and Abrupt Decays to deal with whatever they manage to stick?

The Path you need to choose here depends on the hand of your opponent and the card drawn off G.Probe here. If your opponent holds a solution to the SB EtW (G.Charm, EE, SFM, Zealous Persecution, etc.) you obviously spin the Dim.Ret. Roulette here (or fetch Telemin if you can identify ANT and Co. And you run the 5cc Sorcery). Otherwise you have 12 Goblins guaranteed. Dim.Ret. is best used turn 1/2 to make up for the carddisadvantage via Chrome Mox/Mulligan, as a life-Independent storm engine against non-blue decks, to float mana into a new grip of 7 and to mess with your opponents hand turn 1. It's the worst card possible past turn 3 against blue/black decks without the help of Silence, therefore using Dim.Ret. as a panic button to refill your hand is a losing play.

Decay is uncastable against Thalia in most cases, therefore using Silence to "timewalk" against shit like SFM and Thalia is a thing, as disrupting opposing storm pilots is. If you board Permanent Removal or keep the Silences in for preventing the landing of their permanents is IMO a question of playstyle unless you play against something that contains hatebears + counter ... in that case I board in the Decays. Preference.


I have a sequencing question:

Opening 7, on the play blind matchup.

ponder
ponder
gitaxian probe
dark ritual
gemstone mine
city of brass
misty rainforest

Whats the gameplan with this hand? (I'd only mull this against TinFins/dredge/belcher/Oops. you?)

Most hands I lead with Gitaxian probe, but drawing a land blind at this point could be suicide so i would ponder first.

Other situations where you don't probe first on turn one:
If your hand has brainstorm and AdNauseam, hoping to brainstorm into an LED to set up Gitaxian breaking LED -> Adnauseam.

Thoughts? Is there a definitive number of situations where you don't lead with probe on turn 1?

That mana will reveal what you are playing regardless of your sequencing unless you really want to slow roll with Misty -> Volcanic -> Ponder which plain sucks in case you find a Brainstorm with a Ponder, natural draw or if you wish to shuffle after a Ponder. I would lead with the Gemstone as the most fragile land after Probing, just to see what you are against and one more card off your library, as drawing a land isn't that likely. You are looking for either a Brainstorm or a nut draw like Tutor + LED with your cantrips here.

One of the few situations I'd keep the Probe back is defenitiv the one I can setup a Tutor/Wish/EtW/AN with a Brainstorm, having a shitload of mana already in hand (LEDs) to setup something with Probe and LED or to keep me disguised as a RUG Delver etc with a Ponder off a Volcanic + Fetch

[gibbousm]

As someone just starting to play storm do you more seasoned pilots have any advise. I've read through the primer a few times as well as the tournament reports all of which were very helpful.

I'm mostly confused about sideboarding with this deck. Knowing what to bring in isn't that difficult, its knowing what to take out thats hard.
Also with Wishing for a storm engine how do you decide which one to grab, Diminishing Returns, Ill-Gotten Gains, or Past in Flames?

[Lemnear]

As someone just starting to play storm do you more seasoned pilots have any advise. I've read through the primer a few times as well as the tournament reports all of which were very helpful.

I'm mostly confused about sideboarding with this deck. Knowing what to bring in isn't that difficult, its knowing what to take out thats hard.
Also with Wishing for a storm engine how do you decide which one to grab, Diminishing Returns, Ill-Gotten Gains, or Past in Flames?

Welcome to this thread! Advice in best given according to specific questions and scenarios due to the decks dozen of lines to play in different situations.

Wishing for a SB Engine is an often asked question. I thought there's a part about that in the primer. Hmmmmmm. However, IGG was cut a while ago because the only situation it is good is the double Tutor, double LED scenario and essentially Dim.Ret. does similar and more even on a more random base than IGG. DR serves as an Life Independent Storm engine like PIF against decks that deal a lot of damage early, but PIF serves an unique purpose against discard-decks being immune to that mind of disruption thanks to flashback. An additional use is to fuel storm post AD in case that is needed. I already wrote about Dim.Ret. in the previous post. It serves a purpose to be the #1 choice if. EtW isn't an option in case of opposing sweepers or combo decks which EtW is simply too slow

[BrettF]

How much can you gain playing "Gitaxian, Misty for Volc, ponder, go." Posing as rugdelver VS playing correctly and saving the misty for a mid ponder shuffle on turn two?


Regarding my opening hand quandry a couple posts ago.

[Zombie]

How much can you gain playing "Gitaxian, Misty for Volc, ponder, go." Posing as rugdelver VS playing correctly and saving the misty for a mid ponder shuffle on turn two?


Regarding my opening hand quandry a couple posts ago.

To me a start like that reads like Storm, not RUG. I don't know why, but that's what my gut tells me.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Gitaxian probe puts you on combo, either SnT or storm. I wouldn't put you on rug after seeing a probe.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

[Lemnear]

You misread there. Misty, Volcanic, Ponder indicates RUG. I would save the Probe to fake being RUG in certain situations like having a second fetch or double LED etc. In the Situation named, leading with Misty is wrong, therefore the whole topic of keeping the Probe is pretty pointless. You can't fake RUG here without fucking yourself all over. Like I said: I'd lead with Probe into Gemstone into Ponder digging for a BS or Wish/Tutor + LED/DR

[Bryant Cook]

Updated the sideboarding guide (It's really not much different) and added a few links.

Merry Christmas everyone.

[Lemnear]

Indeed. Merry Christmas to you all and loved ones. Going to remove all the "wrap" from my Christmas present ;DD

[davelin]

Updated the sideboarding guide (It's really not much different) and added a few links.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Thanks for your continuous updating of the primer. Just FYI the protection section still refers to Duress maindeck.

[Bryant Cook]

Thanks for your continuous updating of the primer. Just FYI the protection section still refers to Duress maindeck.

Believe it or not, I have a pretty busy life outside of Magic: the Gathering. I said I updated the sideboarding guide, not the entire opening post. When I find time, perhaps I'll update it.

[davelin]

Believe it or not, I have a pretty busy life outside of Magic: the Gathering. I said I updated the sideboarding guide, not the entire opening post. When I find time, perhaps I'll update it.

Didnt mean to insinuate otherwise, it wasn't an indictment of any kind.

[Bryant Cook]

Didnt mean to insinuate otherwise, it wasn't an indictment of any kind.

My apologizes, that was slightly rude of me. But when I find time, I'll finish doing the entire way. I made a couple edits to a few sections of the main post, there's still a few more to take care of.

[davelin]

My apologizes, that was slightly rude of me. But when I find time, I'll finish doing the entire way. I made a couple edits to a few sections of the main post, there's still a few more to take care of.

No worries at all, your primer, articles and reports are a real boon for wannabe storm pros like myself. We truly appreciate all of the hard work put in!

[Lemnear]

Thx for preventing my HotS Reports from vanishing in the subforum nirvana. Honorable mention in the articles-section folks

[Jay_Gatz]

My apologizes, that was slightly rude of me. But when I find time, I'll finish doing the entire way. I made a couple edits to a few sections of the main post, there's still a few more to take care of. Bryant being rude?! That's unpossible.
Also Merry Christmas!

[halfie44]

Hey Guys

First time posting but have been following and back reading this thread for about 2 weeks now (when i started playing TES).

Just posting to say a big thanks to everyone in this thread and especially to Bryant (for the kick arse deck and primer) and Lemnear (your 5 tournament write ups have been a huge help) as after only playing legacy (goldfish and proxy) for 2 weeks I went to my first event today (20 man event) and even with a 13 card sideboard (damn xmas post) I managed to top 4 which I'm over the moon about.

Hoping to be able to contribute more towards the development of this deck in the future and to become a member of the source community.

Hope this wasn't too cheesy haha

[Lemnear]

Hey Guys

First time posting but have been following and back reading this thread for about 2 weeks now (when i started playing TES).

Just posting to say a big thanks to everyone in this thread and especially to Bryant (for the kick arse deck and primer) and Lemnear (your 5 tournament write ups have been a huge help) as after only playing legacy (goldfish and proxy) for 2 weeks I went to my first event today (20 man event) and even with a 13 card sideboard (damn xmas post) I managed to top 4 which I'm over the moon about.

Hoping to be able to contribute more towards the development of this deck in the future and to become a member of the source community.

Hope this wasn't too cheesy haha

I'm thankful for every reader who finds something valuable for their own game in those reports. No need to thank; It's a pleasure :)

[Final Fortune]

Have other people tried cutting Chrome Mox altogether for the 13th land and 2 Simian Spirit Guides? It leads to less consistent Diminishing Returns and Ad Nuaseams compared to Chrome Mox but makes much better oppening hands in general. Given Lemnear's success with 2 Chrome Mox lists and the SBing guides pention for SBing out the 3rd Chrome Mox I think it's worth looking into.

[Jay_Gatz]

Makes ad nauseam which is our go to engine and one of our major backup engines (returns) so much worse. Like unbelievably worse..

[Lemnear]

Hot News: TES made it to the Finals of the PlanetMTG.de End-of-Year event in Hanau, beating the reinging Bazaar of Moxen Champion Julian Knab in the Semis!


@Chrome Mox:
With a lot of pretty fair decks in the metagame, playing only 2 Moxen in the main and swamping such as the the SB Tropical in should work without serious problems too. I did this however in a metagame with lots of tempo-decks where losing a land to Wasteland or Stifle can be backbreaking if you want to sculpt a protected kill with Silence. With the traditional RUG Delver vanishing and so a large part of the Stifle in Legacy, I doubt that the 13th land is better than the 3rd Mox MB to overwhelm the opponent game 1. In Sideboard games you can still switch a Mox for the Land if you are paired against the matchups in question even if it feels like a waste of space to have a land in the board like it was to run Discard spells in the side to switch for the Duress a while ago. Still looking for a solution.

[davelin]

Hot News: TES made it to the Finals of the PlanetMTG.de End-of-Year event in Hanau, beating the reinging Bazaar of Moxen Champion Julian Knab in the Semis!


@Chrome Mox:
With a lot of pretty fair decks in the metagame, playing only 2 Moxen in the main and swamping such as the the SB Tropical in should work without serious problems too. I did this however in a metagame with lots of tempo-decks where losing a land to Wasteland or Stifle can be backbreaking if you want to sculpt a protected kill with Silence. With the traditional RUG Delver vanishing and so a large part of the Stifle in Legacy, I doubt that the 13th land is better than the 3rd Mox MB to overwhelm the opponent game 1. In Sideboard games you can still switch a Mox for the Land if you are paired against the matchups in question even if it feels like a waste of space to have a land in the board like it was to run Discard spells in the side to switch for the Duress a while ago. Still looking for a solution.

Nice, was Julian still on Elves?

[Lemnear]

Nice, was Julian still on Elves?

He was according to his short report in the elves thread. Sounded like he splashed blue for Swan Songs

[davelin]

He was according to his short report in the elves thread. Sounded like he splashed blue for Swan Songs

Interesting, was the TES player on the new list?

[Lemnear]

Interesting, was the TES player on the new list?

No, Frank was not

http://www.planetmtg.de/articles/artikel.html?id=6604




Edit: No HotS Vol.6 in 2013 as you might have noticed my friends. There's something bigger in the making though.... stay tuned.

[akmalik]

No, Frank was not

http://www.planetmtg.de/articles/artikel.html?id=6604


Just the list from friday I played in two single elimination trials and ended 6-0. The trial on sunday was won by another tes-player (without decays? :>). Today (monday) I played with -1 Xantid, +1 Pyroblast cause I didn't expected many SneakShow/merfolk/reanimatorplayers and lost in the quarterfinals against uw Miracle.

[Lemnear]

Just the list from friday I played in two single elimination trials and ended 6-0. The trial on sunday was won by another tes-player (without decays? :>). Today (monday) I played with -1 Xantid, +1 Pyroblast cause I didn't expected many SneakShow/merfolk/reanimatorplayers and lost in the quarterfinals against uw Miracle.

Fantastic result non the less. Congratz!

It makes me sad, that I'm unable to see many of the german TES/Elves in person and the ones I met never realized who they are talking with :) (which is pretty funny at times as you can imagine). Looking forward meeting more of you guys in 2014

[cronos]

Hi!

I'd like to start playing this combo deck. I've been testing the last three days with the same list as Bryant Cook, but I wanted to change some sideboard's cards...

4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand

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

4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Silence
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam

Side (At the moment it has 14 cards):
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Duress / Thoughtseize
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns

So far, I've been testing with that list. I've gotten the following results playing with my friends:
vs. NO Bant: 2-0
vs. Pox: 2-0
vs. Jund: 2-1/2-0/2-0
vs. Patriot: 1-2
vs. Miracle Control: 0-2
vs. Dark Depths: 2-1
vs. Dark Maverick: 0-2
vs. Team America: 2-0
vs. Imperial Painter: 2-0
vs. Reanimator: 0-2
vs. Faestalker: 1-2

I've many doubts xD:
- Do you prefer playing with 4 Silence/2 Duress/1 Cabal Therapy to playing with 4 Cabal Therapy/3 Silence?
- What do you think about to include Carpet of Flowers and Tropical Island in sideboard? It seems an interesting idea.
- I've seen some player running Massacre, Infest, Deathmark, Hull Breach, etc. Has anyone played with them?

Thanks so much. Regards.