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

[Jay_Gatz]

There are discussions about all of these cards and more throughout the thread. The primer in the opening post still has details on a lot of cards decisions although some of it is out of date

[Lemnear]

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.

That is part of the discussion during the last 8 pages my friend. I repeat some of the stuff regarding your questions:

- 4 Therapy, 3 Silence is the better configuration. It puts less pressure on your manabase (white mana) while pushing the Goblins plan via the flashback to a maximum. You'll understand the moment you assemble G.Probe, Cabal Therapy and (infernal or Wish for) EtW for the first time, mindtwisting your opponent out of the game.

- We had Tropical and Carpets in the SB 2 weeks ago. Carpet didn't pull its weight against Tempo decks that opperate on 1 mana or so. It was a manastone for G in a deck with 40% mana total, ergo pointless. Got cut for Pyroblast to battle Delver, Clique, Counterbalance, Show&Tell, etc.

- Bryant and I sure have tested all those possible SB cards, but like IGG those were considered too narrow to fill the wishboard. Limiting the wishboard makes more space available for real sideboard cards. I even left Telemin at home for the last tourney (which barely bite my ass though!)

[cronos]

Thanks for your help, I'll read those pages. Regards.

[Lemnear]

Thanks for your help, I'll read those pages. Regards.

De nada :)

[HerrGevatter]

When I Ad Nauseam, I find I often do it with one mana floating off LED. I've typically chosen black (sometimes red), but I've been thinking: does it make more sense to float blue to give you more outs (Brainstorm/Ponder) if you brick?

Thoughts?

[Togores]

Bryant you could just reedo a sideboarding guide from the in and outs like u did in the jupiter site a fee months ago.
Would be great!

Thanks

[Lemnear]

Bryant you could just reedo a sideboarding guide from the in and outs like u did in the jupiter site a fee months ago.
Would be great!

Thanks

Bryant did update the SB guide in the OP. Should be good enough for now.


When I Ad Nauseam, I find I often do it with one mana floating off LED. I've typically chosen black (sometimes red), but I've been thinking: does it make more sense to float blue to give you more outs (Brainstorm/Ponder) if you brick?

Thoughts?

No, it does not. Your goal is to generate 6+ mana aka needing Red and Black mana to cast rituals/rites post AN either via playable initial mana sources (landdrops!) or previous flooded mana. Floating a blue mana into AN needs you to find 2 more IMS in your Ad Nauseam/cantrip. I could give you a very detailed analysis of various simulated flip scenarios to prove, that floating blue into AN is often a dead end, but for the sake of this thread (and myself), I will not spam several pages of examples rather than just asking you for believing me in regards to that. ;)

The color I float depends on the Rites/rituals/tutors/wishes already cast, but I would prefer to float RED. Why? Because casting a flipped wish is not only the cheapest (aka most likely) but also the option, which does not require you to flip a LED in addition, unlike IT (which you already burned one of to fetch AN in most cases). Food for thought guys :D

[NoizeMe]

Hey folks,
I've been following this thread for quit some time now, but I decided it is finally time to contribute to the discussion now :).

I recently builded the deck and did several hours of testing against my arsenal of test-decks and wondered why there is no dedicated hate against D'n'T as this can be a horrible matchup if they land a Mother with Thalia or Revoker + Thalia or Canonist + Mother, etc...
Wouldn't it be good to play Dread of Night or Massacre in the SB? What are the arguments against it?

@Lemnear: Btw, I'm a German Storm and Elf player, too. If you really wish to meet more of our kind in person maybe we meet each other in Paris?

[Jay_Gatz]

There isn't enough space to put in hate against a deck whose hate you can just race. It can be rough sometimes sure but you can win turn 1/2 they can't play hate until their turn two, play you have silence and therapy.

[Lemnear]

Hey folks,
I've been following this thread for quit some time now, but I decided it is finally time to contribute to the discussion now :).

I recently builded the deck and did several hours of testing against my arsenal of test-decks and wondered why there is no dedicated hate against D'n'T as this can be a horrible matchup if they land a Mother with Thalia or Revoker + Thalia or Canonist + Mother, etc...
Wouldn't it be good to play Dread of Night or Massacre in the SB? What are the arguments against it?

@Lemnear: Btw, I'm a German Storm and Elf player, too. If you really wish to meet more of our kind in person maybe we meet each other in Paris?

Jay pretty much nailed in in regards to D&T. I dare to add that this is a matchup where the decision to keep a mediocre 7 or rather mulling to 6 is essential. Lost not even a single game to D&T this year ... Belcher-Style ;)


Yeah, Storm and Elves are my Bread & Butter (with Miracles at 3rd Position). I doubt I'll participate at the GP in Paris next month. It's dated at Valentines Weekend and Daddy needs fresh, desperate girls ;) Where you are from btw?

[NoizeMe]

There isn't enough space to put in hate against a deck whose hate you can just race. It can be rough sometimes sure but you can win turn 1/2 they can't play hate until their turn two, play you have silence and therapy.

Jay pretty much nailed in in regards to D&T. I dare to add that this is a matchup where the decision to keep a mediocre 7 or rather mulling to 6 is essential. Lost not even a single game to D&T this year ... Belcher-Style ;)

Sounds all valid :).
So this match-up comes down to a race in terms of you are winning turn 1-2 or hope they have no serious hate up from turn 3-n?



Yeah, Storm and Elves are my Bread & Butter (with Miracles at 3rd Position). I doubt I'll participate at the GP in Paris next month. It's dated at Valentines Weekend and Daddy needs fresh, desperate girls ;) Where you are from btw?
I'm from Aachen. To bad, I always like to meet new people at tournaments ;).

[Lemnear]

You can delay hate a bit with Silence and, to a lesser extend, Therapy, in case you can't go off before turn 3. D&T has serious trouble to race T1 Goblins or such even after sideboarding

[Final Fortune]

Another option is replacing Silence with Thoughtseize, between UWR Delver and UW Miracles Vendillion Cliques and Meddling Mages have become much more common than Leyline of Sanctity to worry about having all 7 of your protection cards post-board be immune. I'd rather just Thoughtseize and discard the Counterbalance, Meddling Mage or Vendillion Clique and not have to worry about playing a golden land second or sacrificing a Lotus Petal to cast my disruption. You can make up ground with the full 4 Xantid Swarms and a Tropical Island in the SB vs Show&Tell, you get virtual space in your SB back when you don't have to SB in removal like Abrupt Decay because you're no longer letting them resolve their Counterbalances/Meddling Mages while you hold onto Silence.

I'm running -3 Silence +3 Thoughtseize, -1 Land +1 Chrome Mox and a manabase of 4 City of Brass, 4 Fetchlands, 2 Underground Sea, 1 Volcanic Island and not having serious issues with life loss. I basically came to the conclusion after playing Pyroblast that our protection/removal has to be as general and pro-active as possible, I haven't really needed to board in Pyroblast after MDing Thoughtseize because ideally the bears never resolve.

[Einherjer]

As all my decks were unavailable for yesterdays tournament I just took my Brothers TES (Bryants list from about 6 months ago) and played my very first stormtournament and my very first games with Storm at all. I did end 3-3 but that's not what I am here for. There was one situation where I was under the assumption I did right, but my opponent playing Esper (but normally ANT) meant I misplayed. Ok, here it is:

I start with Duress, take his FoW, see his Hand of Brainstorm, and irrelevant stuff. I pass, he goes Land go, I draw, and pass. He brainstorms, plays Fetchland, gets Underground Sea and passes. Sorry for not knowing my exact hand but here is what I know. I had the pierceproof kill, which would leave me with casting IT, cracking LED and discarding one card - Brainstorm. I went for the kill and he had the FoW. He said I should have cast Brainstorm and waited one more turn, I knew that the top card was a blank and my lands were: Gemstone (2 Counter) and City of Brass.... Should I have cast Brainstorm here or just go for it?

I know the situation isn't very well described, but I'd love to hear your opinions about it.

Greetings

[Lemnear]

Another option is replacing Silence with Thoughtseize, between UWR Delver and UW Miracles Vendillion Cliques and Meddling Mages have become much more common than Leyline of Sanctity to worry about having all 7 of your protection cards post-board be immune. I'd rather just Thoughtseize and discard the Counterbalance, Meddling Mage or Vendillion Clique and not have to worry about playing a golden land second or sacrificing a Lotus Petal to cast my disruption. You can make up ground with the full 4 Xantid Swarms and a Tropical Island in the SB vs Show&Tell, you get virtual space in your SB back when you don't have to SB in removal like Abrupt Decay because you're no longer letting them resolve their Counterbalances/Meddling Mages while you hold onto Silence.

I'm running -3 Silence +3 Thoughtseize, -1 Land +1 Chrome Mox and a manabase of 4 City of Brass, 4 Fetchlands, 2 Underground Sea, 1 Volcanic Island and not having serious issues with life loss. I basically came to the conclusion after playing Pyroblast that our protection/removal has to be as general and pro-active as possible, I haven't really needed to board in Pyroblast after MDing Thoughtseize because ideally the bears never resolve.

I found CoB + Thoughtseize pretty gross against fast damage and Tempo. I had better results with Thoughtseize and an increased number of fetches instead of the CoBs. However, the increased number of Divert, Spell Snare and Flusterstorms in my meta convinced me to stick with Silence for now even with our S&T crowd leaving Leyline at home


Edit:

As all my decks were unavailable for yesterdays tournament I just took my Brothers TES (Bryants list from about 6 months ago) and played my very first stormtournament with my very first games with Storm at all. I did end 3-3 but that's not what I am here for. There was one situation where I was under the assumption I did right, but my opponent playing Esper (but normally ANT) meant I misplayed. Ok, here it is:

I start with Duress, take his FoW, see his Hand of Brainstorm, and irrelevant stuff. I pass, he goes Land go, I draw, and pass. He brainstorms, plays Fetchland, gets Underground Sea and passes. Sorry for not knowing my exact hand but here is what I know. I had the pierceproof kill, which would leave me with casting IT, cracking LED and discarding one card - Brainstorm. I went for the kill and he had the FoW. He said I should have cast Brainstorm and waited one more turn, I knew that the top card was a blank and my lands were: Gemstone (2 Counter) and City of Brass.... Should I have cast Brainstorm here or just go for it?

I know the situation isn't very well described, but I'd love to hear your opinions about it.

Greetings

He did at least saw 5 fresh cards without applying any pressure in the meantime. It's not "wrong" to play Brainstorm here to find protection for your kill. Asuming it was game 1 you gamble against 3 remaining FoW's and I think going for the kill is valid too. Postboard, I'd Brainstorm without a doubt as cards like Flusterstorm will stop you in addition to FoW

[davelin]

As all my decks were unavailable for yesterdays tournament I just took my Brothers TES (Bryants list from about 6 months ago) and played my very first stormtournament and my very first games with Storm at all. I did end 3-3 but that's not what I am here for. There was one situation where I was under the assumption I did right, but my opponent playing Esper (but normally ANT) meant I misplayed. Ok, here it is:

I start with Duress, take his FoW, see his Hand of Brainstorm, and irrelevant stuff. I pass, he goes Land go, I draw, and pass. He brainstorms, plays Fetchland, gets Underground Sea and passes. Sorry for not knowing my exact hand but here is what I know. I had the pierceproof kill, which would leave me with casting IT, cracking LED and discarding one card - Brainstorm. I went for the kill and he had the FoW. He said I should have cast Brainstorm and waited one more turn, I knew that the top card was a blank and my lands were: Gemstone (2 Counter) and City of Brass.... Should I have cast Brainstorm here or just go for it?

I know the situation isn't very well described, but I'd love to hear your opinions about it.

Greetings

He is looking at five chances to find a 3-outer while you are looking at two chances to find one of your 6 other protection spells. I think going for it here isn't unreasonable. Was there another blue card when you originally Duressed him (besides Brainstorm)? If not, I would've gone for it since getting both a FoW and blue card isn't very high.

[Einherjer]

He is looking at five chances to find a 3-outer while you are looking at two chances to find one of your 6 other protection spells. I think going for it here isn't unreasonable. Was there another blue card when you originally Duressed him (besides Brainstorm)? If not, I would've gone for it since getting both a FoW and blue card isn't very high.

I don't think there was - it's just that he insisted on the fact that it was clearly wrong, while I was trying to make a point that there are valid reasons for doing so - which proved not that easy - taking into consideration this was during my third game of Storm or something :D

Thanks

Greetings

[Final Fortune]

Not certain how Flusterstorm is an argument against discard when it counters Silence, but I can't argue against Spell Snare and Divert being cards you'd otherwise blank with Silence. I guess it really comes down to which cards you expect to see more than the other, for me Spell Snare in MDs is a rarity and Divert is obviously a SB card. I just expect to see more hate bears and Counterbalance than I do fringe counters at the moment.

If you have problems with life loss you can always play with a set of Gemstone Mines instead, I think the 4th Chrome Mox does a fairly good job at off setting the life loss tho'.

[davelin]

I don't think there was - it's just that he insisted on the fact that it was clearly wrong, while I was trying to make a point that there are valid reasons for doing so - which proved not that easy - taking into consideration this was during my third game of Storm or something :D

Thanks

Greetings

Your opponent seems very results-oriented.

[Sloshthedark]

I know the situation isn't very well described, but I'd love to hear your opinions about it.

Greetings

G1 - I'd do that every one time with TES, probably with AnT too

[Togores]

A friend of me played my sneak and show deck in GPDC and he played Bryant.
He made a report and I would like to know what you would have made if he just snap slams the swan song to counter silence. If you would have combo out or wait one more turn or so.

My deck played 1 misdirection 3 flsuterstorms 2 swan song and 4 fow as protection, just to lt u know.


Here is his report

Round 6 vs Bryant Cook, ANT
Game 1 I kept a hand that allowed me to Sneak Attack on turn 3 and win on turn 4, and although it was not the strongest hand, it did also have a Swan Song. This game was somewhat uninteractive, with me playing land-go and my opponent just Pondering. My opponent was playing with beta duals and Japanese foil cards, so I respected that he was a strong player in whatever deck he was using - no one invests that much money into a deck without being a master. Because of that respect, on my turn three I decided to leave up mana for Swan Song instead of playing Sneak Attack, so that I could Emrakul + Sneak Attack on turn 4. But my opponent led off with Silence. I was finally able to recognize the deck as ANT, but was unsure of what to do. Should I Swan Song and try to fool my opponent into not comboing out of respect for Force of Will? Or should I let it resolve, and hope my opponent bricks on his combo? I decided to let it resolve, and after a couple cantrips my opponent got enough gas to successfully Tendrils me. I believe I misplayed and played "too honestly". I could have baited my opponent into thinking I had Force of Will by slamming Swan Song - but conversely, he had certainly played out this scenario hundreds of times. How often does he play into Force of Will regardless, in which case I lose anyways? That is only an answer he knows, but I think my error in judgment cost me the chance that my opponent could falsely read me as having Force of Will, then pass the turn and let me win.
Game 2 I kept a hand with no counters, yet, turn two Show and Tell for Emrakul. Again, my inexperience of this match up haunted me - I did not know how fast ANT could kill. Also, was it worth mulliganing into counters or Pyroclasm, despite me winning on turn three? I reasoned that I was beating anything less than a nut draw by my opponent, so after some deliberation, I kept my hand, and my opponent led with turn 1 Xathid Swarm. I got my turn two Emrakul, and my opponent revealed his nut draw, killing me on turn two. As I later found out, Bryant Cook is one of the most accomplished and well respected ANT players, which added another layer of complexity to my game 1 scenario.
4-2



MFG

[civet five]

Or should I let it resolve, and hope my opponent bricks on his combo?

This is pretty much the worst thing you can do and never correct, because Silence means you cannot interact for the rest of the turn, and "praying that they brick" is not a winning strategy.

Force of Will will only stop certain lines of play, so either the Storm player has a line that doesn't care, or has a line that does care and would also likely Duress/Therapy you to ensure the coast is clear. Its still very much possible that the SnS player was dead even if Silence was countered, but at least he would have gone down swinging.

[Lemnear]

A friend of me played my sneak and show deck in GPDC and he played Bryant.
He made a report and I would like to know what you would have made if he just snap slams the swan song to counter silence. If you would have combo out or wait one more turn or so.

My deck played 1 misdirection 3 flsuterstorms 2 swan song and 4 fow as protection, just to lt u know.


Here is his report

Round 6 vs Bryant Cook, ANT
Game 1 I kept a hand that allowed me to Sneak Attack on turn 3 and win on turn 4, and although it was not the strongest hand, it did also have a Swan Song. This game was somewhat uninteractive, with me playing land-go and my opponent just Pondering. My opponent was playing with beta duals and Japanese foil cards, so I respected that he was a strong player in whatever deck he was using - no one invests that much money into a deck without being a master. Because of that respect, on my turn three I decided to leave up mana for Swan Song instead of playing Sneak Attack, so that I could Emrakul + Sneak Attack on turn 4. But my opponent led off with Silence. I was finally able to recognize the deck as ANT, but was unsure of what to do. Should I Swan Song and try to fool my opponent into not comboing out of respect for Force of Will? Or should I let it resolve, and hope my opponent bricks on his combo? I decided to let it resolve, and after a couple cantrips my opponent got enough gas to successfully Tendrils me. I believe I misplayed and played "too honestly". I could have baited my opponent into thinking I had Force of Will by slamming Swan Song - but conversely, he had certainly played out this scenario hundreds of times. How often does he play into Force of Will regardless, in which case I lose anyways? That is only an answer he knows, but I think my error in judgment cost me the chance that my opponent could falsely read me as having Force of Will, then pass the turn and let me win.
Game 2 I kept a hand with no counters, yet, turn two Show and Tell for Emrakul. Again, my inexperience of this match up haunted me - I did not know how fast ANT could kill. Also, was it worth mulliganing into counters or Pyroclasm, despite me winning on turn three? I reasoned that I was beating anything less than a nut draw by my opponent, so after some deliberation, I kept my hand, and my opponent led with turn 1 Xathid Swarm. I got my turn two Emrakul, and my opponent revealed his nut draw, killing me on turn two. As I later found out, Bryant Cook is one of the most accomplished and well respected ANT players, which added another layer of complexity to my game 1 scenario.
4-2



MFG

From what I have read and concerning the developed manabase: go for it. You'll die to S&T/Sneak Attack regardless if you pass the turn and we don't even know if Bryant had a double protection available. The only thing we can tell is that letting Silence resolve is plain wrong.


Not certain how Flusterstorm is an argument against discard when it counters Silence, but I can't argue against Spell Snare and Divert being cards you'd otherwise blank with Silence. I guess it really comes down to which cards you expect to see more than the other, for me Spell Snare in MDs is a rarity and Divert is obviously a SB card. I just expect to see more hate bears and Counterbalance than I do fringe counters at the moment.

If you have problems with life loss you can always play with a set of Gemstone Mines instead, I think the 4th Chrome Mox does a fairly good job at off setting the life loss tho'.

The issue was that today you'll rarely face only one hatecard/counter but a mix of those and Silence can beat a hand with Flusterstorm, REB, Divert and Spell Snare unlike Thoughtseize and a shitload of of tempo decks play Snare over Pierce atm to beat Counterbalance, Infernal and Stoneforge Mystic more reliable. This was my reason to stick with Silence for now.

Hated to have Moxen in my hand too much to add the 4th again

[fogxanic]

Hello,

I played yesterday at GP Trial of 35 players with this list of Bryant's deck http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/62658. Felt like there is something wrong with the sideboard?

G1 vs. mono R burn 2-1

G2 vs. punishing jund 2-1

G3 vs. uwr delver 1-2
First game I won with silence to wish for diminishing returns :smile: Second game I try to combo on turn 2 or 3 but he has double fows and I just discard my whole hand to led. Third game I kept hand with lots of mana but no wish or tutor so he had time to cast meddling mage naming led and a turn later canonist also having some counters in his hand.

G4 vs. manaless dredge 2-0
This was very epic game from me. I was on go and probet his hand saw colossus, balustrate spy, ichorid, stinkweed imp and 3 narcomoeba orcource I had therapy and took his 3 moebas away got like 4 extra turns atleast for him to discard. Second game was also nice I played land ponder. He discarded phantasmagorian. His threw 6 cards to his gy on my end. There were ichorid, bridge, 2 cabal therapy atleast after dredging some guy. He put ichorid on play and attacked but I used this best card of the deck chain of vapor and bounced it to get again few free turns. Later I went of throught his mindbreak trap with lots of mana, burning wish and warrens making 16 goblins.

G5 vs. death and taxes 1-2
First game I lost he was on play and played turn 2 thalia. Second game I won he mulled to 5 and still had nothing. Third game lost he had some permanent hate and I kept slow hand.

G6 vs. bug delver 2-1

I was 8th at swiss with 2 % more owp than 9th player :tongue:

Top 8 match against imperial painter 2-1

First game he put very quickly magus of the moon but later I was able to wish for grapeshot and later playing to shot his guy and same turn cabal therapy for his another magus for win. Second game was hard he mulled to 5 but started with T1 thorn. He got 2 moons later. Third game I really screwd up I saw his hand with probe but didn't remember pyroblast when I had put ad nauseam top of library with 2 lands on play and led I cast probe but same second remember his blast so didn't brake the led soon later he countered my 2 brainstorms with blasts and I counld't do that trick again. Later I cast warrens with 8 goblins and he was still on 1 land (turn 2 he played magus of the moon with mountain and 2 spirit guides I had land open and chain of vapor for returning it back :laugh:). I attacked once but he draw another mountain and pyroclasms my gobbos.

[Jay_Gatz]

My opponent was playing with beta duals and Japanese foil cards, so I respected that he was a strong player in whatever deck he was using - no one invests that much money into a deck without being a master.
Couldn't have been Bryant, he doesn't have beta duals. He refuses to have legible cards.

[NormalGuy]

@fogxanic: It looks like you may have played against forum member Hopo in the Quarter Final's.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25661-Deck-Imperial-Painter&p=778922&viewfull=1#post778922


Hello,

I played yesterday at GP Trial of 35 players with this list of Bryant's deck http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/62658. Felt like there is something wrong with the sideboard?

...

Top 8 match against imperial painter 2-1

First game he put very quickly magus of the moon but later I was able to wish for grapeshot and later playing to shot his guy and same turn cabal therapy for his another magus for win. Second game was hard he mulled to 5 but started with T1 thorn. He got 2 moons later. Third game I really screwd up I saw his hand with probe but didn't remember pyroblast when I had put ad nauseam top of library with 2 lands on play and led I cast probe but same second remember his blast so didn't brake the led soon later he countered my 2 brainstorms with blasts and I counld't do that trick again. Later I cast warrens with 8 goblins and he was still on 1 land (turn 2 he played magus of the moon with mountain and 2 spirit guides I had land open and chain of vapor for returning it back :laugh:). I attacked once but he draw another mountain and pyroclasms my gobbos.

[Lemnear]

Couldn't have been Bryant, he doesn't have beta duals. He refuses to have legible cards.

A guy mistaken TES for ANT without any clue how to play the matchup correctly shall be forgiven to mistake FBB Duals for Betas as well


@fogxanic
Sideboard is a bit outdated. Death & Taxes should be managable with solid keeps without sideboarding. How did you board against UWR? You need to expect Meddling Mage/Cannonist from this deck

[fogxanic]

A guy mistaken TES for ANT without any clue how to play the matchup correctly shall be forgiven to mistake FBB Duals for Betas as well


@fogxanic
Sideboard is a bit outdated. Death & Taxes should be managable with solid keeps without sideboarding. How did you board against UWR? You need to expect Meddling Mage/Cannonist from this deck

I sb in like 8 cards maybe there were some too much including chain and 2 decays. Also xantid swarms and carpets. But third game sided out some xantids because he still had lightning bolts in at second game.

[Togores]

Couldn't have been Bryant, he doesn't have beta duals. He refuses to have legible cards.

My friend its more or less new to legacy. May be he thought FBB lands where beta.
Cause thats the normal black bordered duals in USA.
But was Bryant for sure^^

[Lemnear]

I sb in like 8 cards maybe there were some too much including chain and 2 decays. Also xantid swarms and carpets. But third game sided out some xantids because he still had lightning bolts in at second game.

That's far too much my friend. You don't want Xantid and Carpets here, as the additional mana and Bugs doesn't help against the hatebears. You only want the removal for the bears.

Out of curiosity: what did you board out? Can't imagine that boarding out 8 cards didn't harm the deck tbh

[.Ix]

Just want to thank everyone for the great work on the deck and the thread! I've picked up the deck recently since I love storm from the Long.dec days. Learned a lot from this thread, and I've already gone 4-0 at two 8-mans with it. Going off T1 with this deck is just so satisfying.

[Jay_Gatz]

My friend its more or less new to legacy. May be he thought FBB lands where beta. Cause thats the normal black bordered duals in USA. But was Bryant for sure^^
I was just joking!

[Final Fortune]

From what I have read and concerning the developed manabase: go for it. You'll die to S&T/Sneak Attack regardless if you pass the turn and we don't even know if Bryant had a double protection available. The only thing we can tell is that letting Silence resolve is plain wrong.

The issue was that today you'll rarely face only one hatecard/counter but a mix of those and Silence can beat a hand with Flusterstorm, REB, Divert and Spell Snare unlike Thoughtseize and a shitload of of tempo decks play Snare over Pierce atm to beat Counterbalance, Infernal and Stoneforge Mystic more reliable. This was my reason to stick with Silence for now.

Hated to have Moxen in my hand too much to add the 4th again

Hmm, haven't seen a deck as diverse as 4 different 1cc counters between MD and SB yet, I guess it was only a matter of time until the format caught up with Cabal Therapy.

I always find myself moving between the extremes of 4 and 2 Chrome Mox, mainly because I think the deck has become more of an Empty the Warrens deck than anything else with Cabal Therapy and I really like the 4th fetchland if I plan to see Turns 3+

[Lemnear]

Hmm, haven't seen a deck as diverse as 4 different 1cc counters between MD and SB yet, I guess it was only a matter of time until the format caught up with Cabal Therapy.

I always find myself moving between the extremes of 4 and 2 Chrome Mox, mainly because I think the deck has become more of an Empty the Warrens deck than anything else with Cabal Therapy and I really like the 4th fetchland if I plan to see Turns 3+

I can't really tell if it's a euro-thing to split up SB hate that extreme into a lot of 1-/2-offs, but that shit can get really annoying if you want to push through with discard like Therapy. Kai Thiele, one of the prime bUrg players around and close friend, played FoW, REB, Snare, Pierce, Flusterstorm, Daze, DRS, Thoughtseize and Golgari charm postboard against me. That's serious news if you try to push through with discard that often only trades 1-for-1 with such splitted hate or Sideboards of UWR Delver with Cannonist/Meddling Mage/REB/Flusterstorm/Leyline/Snare ... just sick

[Pelikanudo]

A friend of me played my sneak and show deck in GPDC and he played Bryant.
He made a report and I would like to know what you would have made if he just snap slams the swan song to counter silence. If you would have combo out or wait one more turn or so.

My deck played 1 misdirection 3 flsuterstorms 2 swan song and 4 fow as protection, just to lt u know.


Here is his report

Round 6 vs Bryant Cook, ANT
Game 1 I kept a hand that allowed me to Sneak Attack on turn 3 and win on turn 4, and although it was not the strongest hand, it did also have a Swan Song. This game was somewhat uninteractive, with me playing land-go and my opponent just Pondering. My opponent was playing with beta duals and Japanese foil cards, so I respected that he was a strong player in whatever deck he was using - no one invests that much money into a deck without being a master. Because of that respect, on my turn three I decided to leave up mana for Swan Song instead of playing Sneak Attack, so that I could Emrakul + Sneak Attack on turn 4. But my opponent led off with Silence. I was finally able to recognize the deck as ANT, but was unsure of what to do. Should I Swan Song and try to fool my opponent into not comboing out of respect for Force of Will? Or should I let it resolve, and hope my opponent bricks on his combo? I decided to let it resolve, and after a couple cantrips my opponent got enough gas to successfully Tendrils me. I believe I misplayed and played "too honestly". I could have baited my opponent into thinking I had Force of Will by slamming Swan Song - but conversely, he had certainly played out this scenario hundreds of times. How often does he play into Force of Will regardless, in which case I lose anyways? That is only an answer he knows, but I think my error in judgment cost me the chance that my opponent could falsely read me as having Force of Will, then pass the turn and let me win.
Game 2 I kept a hand with no counters, yet, turn two Show and Tell for Emrakul. Again, my inexperience of this match up haunted me - I did not know how fast ANT could kill. Also, was it worth mulliganing into counters or Pyroclasm, despite me winning on turn three? I reasoned that I was beating anything less than a nut draw by my opponent, so after some deliberation, I kept my hand, and my opponent led with turn 1 Xathid Swarm. I got my turn two Emrakul, and my opponent revealed his nut draw, killing me on turn two. As I later found out, Bryant Cook is one of the most accomplished and well respected ANT players, which added another layer of complexity to my game 1 scenario.
4-2



MFG

I believe that if instead silence the opponent had played Therapy, then that thereapy would have been countered by that Swang Song.
That was the real good play!
Joke.

[Lemnear]

Just want to thank everyone for the great work on the deck and the thread! I've picked up the deck recently since I love storm from the Long.dec days. Learned a lot from this thread, and I've already gone 4-0 at two 8-mans with it. Going off T1 with this deck is just so satisfying.

If it's satisfiying for you to play the deck and it rewards your patience to learn it with top results (and prices) It's worth the time we invested here. No need to thank. :)

[fogxanic]

That's far too much my friend. You don't want Xantid and Carpets here, as the additional mana and Bugs doesn't help against the hatebears. You only want the removal for the bears.

Out of curiosity: what did you board out? Can't imagine that boarding out 8 cards didn't harm the deck tbh


I board out little bit of everything like 2 ponder 1 tutor 1 mox 1 silence etc.

[paeng4983]

Happy new year to all TES people!

We had our monthly big legacy tournament yesterday (5th of January) and here's the link of my brief tournament report.

http://mtglegacy.freeforums.org/post12.html#p12

@fogxanic
If I'll be facing against a URW, I might have this SB plan,

out: 1 ponder, 1 chrome, 1 etw, 1 tutor
in: 1 trops, 2 pyroblast, 1 thoughtseize

If against DT

out: 1 chrome, 1 tutor, 3 silence
in: 1 vapor, 1 thoughtseize, 2 decays, 1 trops

[PartyMonster]

Anyone in the mood to shoot pros and cons at me about running a third decay in the board over chain of vapor?


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[paeng4983]

Anyone in the mood to shoot pros and cons at me about running a third decay in the board over chain of vapor?


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Take into consideration the possible meta that you'll be playing. If you feel that counter-top lovers will be rampant, then including a 3rd decay is justified. But if DTs and the like hatebears are going to be present, having a vapor is much better than paying BGx.

Let me put it in this presentation:
AD
good vs. counterbalance
not that good vs. tax effect manipulation
bad vs. permanents with 4cc and higher

CoV
not that good vs. counterbalance
good vs. taxing effects
good vs. permanents with 4cc and higher
better in some situations wherein you need to chain bounce your moxen to feed your storm count
can remove two hates if opponent decides to bounce something from you.

Personally last Sunday, I was tempted to replace 1 pyroblast with a vapor. But I still went with Cook's list because I was expecting a lot of TNN and delver decks.

[PartyMonster]

Thank you. I appreciate the input. I have a couple more questions In regards to the recent change in the main deck to the 4x therapy 3 x silence rather than the 1x Therapy 2x duress 4x silence split.

Is the idea that most if the time you should wait to cast the therapy as close to the turn of going off as possible to gather info on what to name? Most of the time you will have probe and when you don't have probe you use cues from the opponents manna base to know if you are shooting at Thalia before turn two or fow near going off? Is it a terrible idea to run the thoughtsieze in the main with the fourth therapy in the SB?

Sorry if these are dumb questions, I played The Epic Storm in a few scg opens over the summer but was too busy in the fall to make it out to as many as I would like too. SCG Columbus is just a few weeks away and I just really am trying to get my head inside the current 75 as much as I possibly can.


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[Lemnear]

If against DT

out: 1 chrome, 1 tutor, 3 silence
in: 1 vapor, 1 thoughtseize, 2 decays, 1 trops

I'm strickly against boarding against D&T tbh unless you run several CoV in the side. How do you expect to win before their hatebears stick if you reduce Moxen and Tutors? How do you plan to cast Decay vs Thalia + Port + Wasteland + Flickerwisp? You want win this matchup by sculpting a hand over turns and eot bounce/Decay their Hatebear. Silence Walk their 2nd turn isn't bad either to prevent topdecked Revoker/Thalia



Thank you. I appreciate the input. I have a couple more questions In regards to the recent change in the main deck to the 4x therapy 3 x silence rather than the 1x Therapy 2x duress 4x silence split.

Is the idea that most if the time you should wait to cast the therapy as close to the turn of going off as possible to gather info on what to name? Most of the time you will have probe and when you don't have probe you use cues from the opponents manna base to know if you are shooting at Thalia before turn two or fow near going off? Is it a terrible idea to run the thoughtsieze in the main with the fourth therapy in the SB?

Sorry if these are dumb questions, I played The Epic Storm in a few scg opens over the summer but was too busy in the fall to make it out to as many as I would like too. SCG Columbus is just a few weeks away and I just really am trying to get my head inside the current 75 as much as I possibly can.


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You wait until you either know what to name (Probe/identify the deck over turns) or use the motto "Name what you fear!". If you go for a blind Therapy into a Turn 1/2 kill name FoW or Mindbreak Trap (nonblue matchups). The reason for running the full set of Therapies is the interaction with Probe and Empty the Warrens to Flash it back to strip opponents outs (tutored Batterskull with SFM, Brainstorm, Golgari Charm, Zealous Persecution, Engineered Explosives, etc.), ergo switching out the discard spells doesn't make sense

[PartyMonster]

Alright cool, thanks.


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[paeng4983]

IS THE IDEA THAT MOST IF THE TIME YOU SHOULD WAIT TO CAST THE THERAPY AS CLOSE TO THE TURN OF GOING OFF AS POSSIBLE TO GATHER INFO ON WHAT TO NAME?

Ideally, it should be. Especially if your only defense is a lone CT. BUT remember two scenario:
A.) as close as possible before going off if it is against blue. Always name fow. Daze and pierces can be played around.
B.) if you know that he’s playing main deck thalia, fire you CTs as early as you could.

EXEMPTION:
example: In cases where you know that a show and tell deck will use its ST to bring down his threat (grisel, aeon, or omniscience). You need to fire your CT to halt the bleeding.
Another sample case if your storm opponent is going for the kill in his next turn. Disrupt him of his business spell with your CT.


MOST OF THE TIME YOU WILL HAVE PROBE AND WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE PROBE YOU USE CUES FROM THE OPPONENTS MANNA BASE TO KNOW IF YOU ARE SHOOTING AT THALIA BEFORE TURN TWO OR FOW NEAR GOING OFF?

Here’s a list of cards, in their order of importance, that I usually blind name with CT.

Against blue decks
Non countertop: FOW, stifle
Countertop variants: FOW, counterbalance

Non blue decks
Elves: glimpse, N.O. (you can also name GSZ in games 2 & 3, and their other hates like mindbreak trap, etc)
DT/ hatebears: thalia (decays, vapor can take care of teeg, canonist and other form of permanent hate he has)
with discard effect decks: the disrupt spell which you feel at that very moment he has.

Combo decks:
Storm base: LED, tutor, mana accel.


IS IT A TERRIBLE IDEA TO RUN THE THOUGHTSIEZE IN THE MAIN WITH THE FOURTH THERAPY IN THE SB?

Just like Gitaxian Probe, lossing two life pts is not an issue. BUT replacing the 4th cabal with a thoughtseize, you’re depriving yourself the power of removing cards with the same name with just a single bullet. Sometimes its crucial. Its up to you really. ^_^




SORRY IF THESE ARE DUMB QUESTIONS, I PLAYED THE EPIC STORM IN A FEW SCG OPENS OVER THE SUMMER BUT WAS TOO BUSY IN THE FALL TO MAKE IT OUT TO AS MANY AS I WOULD LIKE TOO. SCG COLUMBUS IS JUST A FEW WEEKS AWAY AND I JUST REALLY AM TRYING TO GET MY HEAD INSIDE THE CURRENT 75 AS MUCH AS I POSSIBLY CAN.

GOOD LUCK! ENJOY! And I hope to see your name on the deck list section! ^_^

[PartyMonster]

Awesome, can't thank you enough for the insight! I am going to be a man and play Cook's list card for card. His list decisions have never failed me in the past so trust his read on the meta. I must admit it seems pretty dope to rock 4 therapy in the d&t match.


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[Lemnear]

Ideally, it should be. Especially if your only defense is a lone CT. BUT remember two scenario:
A.) as close as possible before going off if it is against blue. Always name fow. Daze and pierces can be played around.
B.) if you know that he’s playing main deck thalia, fire you CTs as early as you could.

EXEMPTION:
example: In cases where you know that a show and tell deck will use its ST to bring down his threat (grisel, aeon, or omniscience). You need to fire your CT to halt the bleeding.
Another sample case if your storm opponent is going for the kill in his next turn. Disrupt him of his business spell with your CT.

Sorry that I have to interrupt again, but that part tries to make a general statement where none can exist. While basic plains sure tell you to name Thalia, you cannot say anything about "blue fetch (or Tundra), go". If you advice people to sit on their Therapies once they play against blue they get easily blown out by Show&Tell, High Tide, Counterbalance, Clique and so on. With Spell Snare and Flusterstorms being actual cards present in serious numbers between MB and SB, the plan to "Always name FoW" is flawed unless you go for a turn 1 kill on the play.

You also ignore with this post, that stripping opponents Discard is an underused tool to protect your gas. A Bayou is enought for me to Therapy for Hymn to Tourach asap.

The only two rules I would set is to not Therapy for protection spells unless you go off the same turn (or the following one if mana is a chokepoint) and if your want to blind-therapy against blue (while need to develop your hand for a few turns) for some reasons turn 1 (like having multiple disruption spells in your grip), name Brainstorm


Here’s a list of cards, in their order of importance, that I usually blind name with CT.

Against blue decks
Non countertop: FOW, stifle
Countertop variants: FOW, counterbalance

You should name Counterbalance over FoW against Miracles. You can care for the FoW later, but CB spoils your soup


Just like Gitaxian Probe, lossing two life pts is not an issue. BUT replacing the 4th cabal with a thoughtseize, you’re depriving yourself the power of removing cards with the same name with just a single bullet. Sometimes its crucial. Its up to you really. ^_^

Lifeloss is ALWAYS an issue for this deck. Just because we play Probe and City of Brass doesn't mean we can pile up lifeloss-effects and hope that we manage to do well if we start a game with CoB, G.Probe and Thoughtseize in hand against Tempo. We have not replaced the Duress and Silence for the lulz or a matter of style. Removing multiple spells of the same name is a feature, but the main reason is that Cabal Therapy attaches a free Mindtwist-effect to casting Empty the Warrens!

I can give you an example: I once casted Gitaxian Probe on the draw against UWR Delver, seeing double SFM, Brainstorm and Pierce alongside lands, casted Therapy which he pierced, just for me creating 12 goblins the same turn, stripping the 2 SFMs with the flashback while he was unable to find a solution in time.

How many cards did the Therapy strip here? 3! For 1 mana! It's a goddamn Ancestral Recall-like cardadvantage leaving my opponent without chance (unless he topdecks one of his 2 remaining SFM right the next turn). Thoughtseize however would have not allowed me to take the goblins-route in that game but forced me to go for Ad Nauseam with me having 2 less life and required to find more mana via topdeck. Those are mayor issues guys. "It's up to you really!" isn't an adequate description of the difference, my friend ^^

[PartyMonster]

Cool thanks for the added info. I am sure I'll come up with more questions in regards to cabal therapy but real quick. Is siding in xantid swarm against TNN bant an alright side boarding plan I know they have removal but I picture them pulling Swords for hate anyways? I see a lot of them running meddling Mage, would pyro blasts be in order or some combination of both?


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[Lemnear]

Cool thanks for the added info. I am sure I'll come up with more questions in regards to cabal therapy but real quick. Is siding in xantid swarm against TNN bant an alright side boarding plan I know they have removal but I picture them pulling Swords for hate anyways? I see a lot of them running meddling Mage, would pyro blasts be in order or some combination of both?


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I doubt you need Xantids as their protection suit is pretty weak and I would be more afraid of hatebears than actual counterspells. Board according to that the Pyroblasts (+ Decay) and explode in their face

[PartyMonster]

Dope. Thanks again.


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[sa3xxx]

minireport from yesterday (GPT paris, 13 players)

Mine main deck is the same as Bryant's, in SB I didn't run pyroblast, instead had +1 AD, +IGG (which were futile).

Round 1, monoblack :

Game 1 : mull to 5 (no mana source), kept hand with mox, ponder, LED, LED, tutor. Missed first land drop, turn 2 found blue card, pondered and killed him the turn after (he kept aggresive hand with no discard)

Out : 3 silence, etw; In : 3 AD, 1 tog

Game 2 : Turn 1 darkritual to hymn, turn 2 darkritual to nighthawk. I Ad nauseamed really bad (several wishes, tutor, AD but no rituals/LEDs) and left with 2 hp. I decided to go for gobs in SB, flashback terapy for possible plague, let him hit me for 2 and decay his only creature the turn after. He didn't draw any answer.

1:0

Round 2, hight tide :

Game 1 : I ripped off his hand, then silenced him mid combo and left him with almost bare hands. Then I've managed not to draw any business/blue card in 6 turns, which gave the opponent time to recover (which he did and killed me). This game took aprox 30 minutes.

Out : etw, infernal tutor, cabal therapy, mox, city of brass ; In : 3 xantid, TS, tog (not sure about this one), tropical island.

Game 2 : Turn 1 probe + cabal took two hight tides, turn 2 cabal took two cunning wishes turn 3 AN killed him.

Game 3 : (Judge called last 3 minutes of the round, I said, that it's enough for me), turn 1 swarm let me easily win in extra rounds.

2-0

Round 3, GWbr :

Game 1 : Turn 1 zenith into dryad, turn 2 zenith into gaddock. I wished for grapeshot, cleared the board and AN few turns later.

Out : 3 silence, cabal, mox,; In : 3 AD, TS, tropical

Game 2 : Turn 1 mother, turn 2 gaddock, turn 3 knight. More than enoguht.

Game 3 : I kept very nice hand, easily going off turn 2 (LED, LED, tutor, BS, land, cabal). I wasn't sure whether he runs traps, so decided to play the land and pass the turn. He played TS, I responded with BS, drawing another tutor, ritual and something. I wanted to play turn 2 cabal (for trap) and LED, LED, tutor into AN, so I returned tutor and ritual (hoping he will go for the only business spell). Unfortunately, he also had extraction, so discarded LED and extracted it. Two wastelands in two consequent turns ended the game for me.

2-1;

Game 4 : Esper blade

Games were pretty straightforward, I casted some therapies, silences and AN. SB : Out : Infernal tutor, mox, ponder, In : 2 decays, tropical.

Game 5 : Burn

3 pretty close games, managed to kill him two times with goblins. SB : Out : 3 silences, AN, etw, city; In : Piff, tog, tropical, 3AD

Semifinals :

GWbr (same guy as before)

Game 1 : Turn 1-2-3 mother, gaddock, knight ...

SB as before

Game 2 : AD his cannonist, AN to kill him

Game 3 : Turn 1 blind cabal, he responded with white tutor on cannonist, which he played on the turn 2, I decayed it eot. I pondered and let him go, hi played jitte (and missed the land drop), this is where I made my plan. On my turn : draw, land, go. His turn he played ooze (still no 3rd land, in hand mother, mindscensor and an uknown card). Eor I decayed the ooze, on my turn wished for etw, played 12 gobs, flashback for mother (so he couldn't equip), which was enough.

Finals : split the prizes (I cannot go to Paris).

Summary : the deck performed very nicely, IGG in sb was futile, 3rd decay was great (I've expected very little SnT/miracles (these players weren't preregistered) and a lot of permanent hate, which turned out to be true. Only thinkg I didn't like was close games against the burn (I kept bit slow hands).

[HerrGevatter]

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

I'm a German TES/Miracles player - but I live in the States. But if I ever go play in Europe I'll let you know (Bazaar of Moxen is very much on my to-do list...)

[Lemnear]

minireport from yesterday (GPT paris, 13 players)

Mine main deck is the same as Bryant's, in SB I didn't run pyroblast, instead had +1 AD, +IGG (which were futile).

Round 1, monoblack :

Game 1 : mull to 5 (no mana source), kept hand with mox, ponder, LED, LED, tutor. Missed first land drop, turn 2 found blue card, pondered and killed him the turn after (he kept aggresive hand with no discard)

Out : 3 silence, etw; In : 3 AD, 1 tog

What did you fear to board Decays? What is "tog"?

Game 2 : Turn 1 darkritual to hymn, turn 2 darkritual to nighthawk. I Ad nauseamed really bad (several wishes, tutor, AD but no rituals/LEDs) and left with 2 hp. I decided to go for gobs in SB, flashback terapy for possible plague, let him hit me for 2 and decay his only creature the turn after. He didn't draw any answer.

1:0

Round 2, hight tide :

Game 1 : I ripped off his hand, then silenced him mid combo and left him with almost bare hands. Then I've managed not to draw any business/blue card in 6 turns, which gave the opponent time to recover (which he did and killed me). This game took aprox 30 minutes.

Out : etw, infernal tutor, cabal therapy, mox, city of brass ; In : 3 xantid, TS, tog (not sure about this one), tropical island.

I don't understand why you board out fastmana against opponsing combo decks. Boarding out Therapy does not make sense either as High Tide wants to gather 2+ of the namesake card in their hand, so Therapy is golden (see in your game 2). Boarding it for Thoughtseize 1-for-1 is even worse. Landswitch is nonsense.

Game 2 : Turn 1 probe + cabal took two hight tides, turn 2 cabal took two cunning wishes turn 3 AN killed him.

Game 3 : (Judge called last 3 minutes of the round, I said, that it's enough for me), turn 1 swarm let me easily win in extra rounds.

2-0

Round 3, GWbr :

Game 1 : Turn 1 zenith into dryad, turn 2 zenith into gaddock. I wished for grapeshot, cleared the board and AN few turns later.

Out : 3 silence, cabal, mox,; In : 3 AD, TS, tropical

Silence protects you from discard and hatebears for a turn. Decay is a pain to resolve against Thalia while fastmana helps to win before Thalia and Co. lock you out. Can't get the idea behind slowing down the deck against opponents which are easy to catch with TES' Belcher-mode. See your following match.

Game 2 : Turn 1 mother, turn 2 gaddock, turn 3 knight. More than enoguht.

Game 3 : I kept very nice hand, easily going off turn 2 (LED, LED, tutor, BS, land, cabal). I wasn't sure whether he runs traps, so decided to play the land and pass the turn. He played TS, I responded with BS, drawing another tutor, ritual and something. I wanted to play turn 2 cabal (for trap) and LED, LED, tutor into AN, so I returned tutor and ritual (hoping he will go for the only business spell). Unfortunately, he also had extraction, so discarded LED and extracted it. Two wastelands in two consequent turns ended the game for me.

Drop LED's against decks with Discard .... basic rule, we keep repeating here

2-1;

Game 4 : Esper blade

Games were pretty straightforward, I casted some therapies, silences and AN. SB : Out : Infernal tutor, mox, ponder, In : 2 decays, tropical.

Game 5 : Burn

3 pretty close games, managed to kill him two times with goblins. SB : Out : 3 silences, AN, etw, city; In : Piff, tog, tropical, 3AD

No clue why you board out your fast options to kill in Infernal->EtW and Ad Nauseam. Decays for Pyrostatic Pillar? The deck often kills you before you can reliable cast Decay :/

Semifinals :

GWbr (same guy as before)

Game 1 : Turn 1-2-3 mother, gaddock, knight ...

SB as before

Game 2 : AD his cannonist, AN to kill him

Game 3 : Turn 1 blind cabal, he responded with white tutor on cannonist, which he played on the turn 2, I decayed it eot. I pondered and let him go, hi played jitte (and missed the land drop), this is where I made my plan. On my turn : draw, land, go. His turn he played ooze (still no 3rd land, in hand mother, mindscensor and an uknown card). Eor I decayed the ooze, on my turn wished for etw, played 12 gobs, flashback for mother (so he couldn't equip), which was enough.

Finals : split the prizes (I cannot go to Paris).

Summary : the deck performed very nicely, IGG in sb was futile, 3rd decay was great (I've expected very little SnT/miracles (these players weren't preregistered) and a lot of permanent hate, which turned out to be true. Only thinkg I didn't like was close games against the burn (I kept bit slow hands)

Congrats to your finish!

[Tammit67]

Playing vintage storm makes me want to play with 4 LEDs again. Never have I ever appreciated how good that card is...

[Togores]

Whats the sb plan against uwr tempo with stoneforge and tnn
Last list with only one therapy etw was prety bad cause sfm just outraces us.
But now you guys think with 4 therapy keeping the empty is good?

But whats the side deck plan card by card.

[Lemnear]

Whats the sb plan against uwr tempo with stoneforge and tnn
Last list with only one therapy etw was prety bad cause sfm just outraces us.
But now you guys think with 4 therapy keeping the empty is good?

But whats the side deck plan card by card.

This is a tempo matchup. Their only outs to Goblins are SFMs and you have 4 Therapies to fight those so I keep the EtW in.

You want to go -1 Infernal, -1 Ponder, +2 Pyroblast to fight Delver, Clique and Meddling Mages.

I know that Bryant has a different stance on the following, but I want to mention it anyways: A shitload of UWR Delver play either a mix of Meddling Mages and Ethersworn Cannonists or moved to full Cannonist in the Sideboard in parts of Europe, so I would consider bringing in the Decays as well. Space however is critical at this point. You may want to remove another Ponder and a Chrome Mox for these


Edit:
If you feel unwell with the manabase and want the Tropical in as well (to support Decay) I suggest chopping a Silence

[sa3xxx]

Lemnear, thank you for you comments! Let me briefly reply :

-What did you fear to board Decays? What is "tog"?

Sry TOG should be ToA (tendrils). I feared chalices and/or trinispheres (saw some guys running those). After the game, opp showed me chalices.

-I don't understand why you board out fastmana against opponsing combo decks. Boarding out Therapy does not make sense either as High Tide wants to gather 2+ of the namesake card in their hand, so Therapy is golden (see in your game 2). Boarding it for Thoughtseize 1-for-1 is even worse. Landswitch is nonsense.

Well, against blue decks you don't want to go out without protection (silence or discard), if you opening hand doesn't have it, you need to find it. Therefore almost none of your cards are unimportant. I wanted to have smaller chance of getting 2 moxes in my hand (yes, I know they are fast, but the fact the opponent was blue outweighted the fact, that it was also a combo). I switched TS for CT for the following reason : it is harder to blind cast, than in different matches. For example : against esperblade, you say FoW and after knowing the exact number of spell snares/dazes/stifles you can play around it. If you name FoW and opp shows you flusterstorm, you are gonna have bad time (unless you also have silence). Landswitch for fetchable lands that allow early swarm (but i wasn't sure about this, because of silence).

-Silence protects you from discard and hatebears for a turn. Decay is a pain to resolve against Thalia while fastmana helps to win before Thalia and Co. lock you out. Can't get the idea behind slowing down the deck against opponents which are easy to catch with TES' Belcher-mode. See your following match.

I saw him playing enl tutor during previous round and I saw black mana, so I've expected Cannonists, discard and something (judging by the amount of cards opp was sideboarding, it turned out to be extractions and plagues). With opponent with discard on play I didn't want to rely on super fast kill. On the other hand, his sideboarding slowed him considerably, for example tutor for cannonist, which gets decayed means, that he has done nothing during the first 2 turns (see semifinals, where this is exactly what happened).

-Drop LED's against decks with Discard .... basic rule, we keep repeating here
Yes, that was stupid.

-No clue why you board out your fast options to kill in Infernal->EtW and Ad Nauseam. Decays for Pyrostatic Pillar? The deck often kills you before you can reliable cast Decay :/

I saw him siding 6 cards, so i thought volcanic fallouts and/or pillars and/or traps. Because of a)fallouts b)giving him 2 extra turns to kill me I sb out etw, with him on play, even 10 turn 1 gobs may not do the job (fallout). I sb out Ad nauseam, because : it's 'great' on turn one, it's 'meh, ok' on turn two and it's suicide on turn 3. For example fireblast + 2 bolts = 10dmg. In addition, while I closed the option for playing AN from hand, all hands, which would tutor for AN on early turns were still great, just wait two more turns, shape you hand and turn 3-4, tutor PiF and kill him. So I think i replaced a very risky card with something, what does the same on turn 3-4 (kill the opp, even if it isn't in hand).


-Congrats to your finish!

[Lemnear]

Lemnear, thank you for you comments! Let me briefly reply :

-What did you fear to board Decays? What is "tog"?

Sry TOG should be ToA (tendrils). I feared chalices and/or trinispheres (saw some guys running those). After the game, opp showed me chalices.

valid point for Decay. ToA should stay in the board to not add up damage to AN flips.

-I don't understand why you board out fastmana against opponsing combo decks. Boarding out Therapy does not make sense either as High Tide wants to gather 2+ of the namesake card in their hand, so Therapy is golden (see in your game 2). Boarding it for Thoughtseize 1-for-1 is even worse. Landswitch is nonsense.

Well, against blue decks you don't want to go out without protection (silence or discard), if you opening hand doesn't have it, you need to find it. Therefore almost none of your cards are unimportant. I wanted to have smaller chance of getting 2 moxes in my hand (yes, I know they are fast, but the fact the opponent was blue outweighted the fact, that it was also a combo). I switched TS for CT for the following reason : it is harder to blind cast, than in different matches. For example : against esperblade, you say FoW and after knowing the exact number of spell snares/dazes/stifles you can play around it. If you name FoW and opp shows you flusterstorm, you are gonna have bad time (unless you also have silence). Landswitch for fetchable lands that allow early swarm (but i wasn't sure about this, because of silence).

bording out Gold lands but keeping Silence in isn't the way to go in general. You can switch your protection to Xantid + Silence and don't care for "what to name" even if the choice for blind Therapy is High Tide here.

-Silence protects you from discard and hatebears for a turn. Decay is a pain to resolve against Thalia while fastmana helps to win before Thalia and Co. lock you out. Can't get the idea behind slowing down the deck against opponents which are easy to catch with TES' Belcher-mode. See your following match.

I saw him playing enl tutor during previous round and I saw black mana, so I've expected Cannonists, discard and something (judging by the amount of cards opp was sideboarding, it turned out to be extractions and plagues). With opponent with discard on play I didn't want to rely on super fast kill. On the other hand, his sideboarding slowed him considerably, for example tutor for cannonist, which gets decayed means, that he has done nothing during the first 2 turns (see semifinals, where this is exactly what happened).

ok, I don't know why Dark Maverick should play Enlightend Tutor, but the facts that they not only have virtual 9+ hatebears, but MoR blanks your removal, turn this into the typical midgame matchup victim for our Belcher-Mode. You are dead in the water to MoR+ hatebear or hatebear + hatebear. Silence can prevent them from entering the field without the need to decide between Thalia, Teeg, Cannonist or GSZ (after turn 1 DRS). Imo you can't go for the long game with 3 Decays. Missed CoV in your boarding

-Drop LED's against decks with Discard .... basic rule, we keep repeating here
Yes, that was stupid.

-No clue why you board out your fast options to kill in Infernal->EtW and Ad Nauseam. Decays for Pyrostatic Pillar? The deck often kills you before you can reliable cast Decay :/

I saw him siding 6 cards, so i thought volcanic fallouts and/or pillars and/or traps. Because of a)fallouts b)giving him 2 extra turns to kill me I sb out etw, with him on play, even 10 turn 1 gobs may not do the job (fallout). I sb out Ad nauseam, because : it's 'great' on turn one, it's 'meh, ok' on turn two and it's suicide on turn 3. For example fireblast + 2 bolts = 10dmg. In addition, while I closed the option for playing AN from hand, all hands, which would tutor for AN on early turns were still great, just wait two more turns, shape you hand and turn 3-4, tutor PiF and kill him. So I think i replaced a very risky card with something, what does the same on turn 3-4 (kill the opp, even if it isn't in hand).

you are missing the point: RoF isn't nearly as good to fuel PIF as Cabal Ritual is in ANT and bording in removal for hate you should usually just race while taking out speed just because your opponent may runs a solution to your Goblins is crazy. You can't argue against turn 1/2 Ad Nauseams by pointing to their damage Output by turn 2, but trying to kill with PIF turn 4 on the draw!

-Congrats to your finish!

[Togores]

I just played vs a bug control deck.
1st game i just empty abd dont know his deck cause he scoops.
2nd game i dont side cause idk what im facing but I saw sensei, fluster, deed, jace, vendilion and duress.
3rd game i side out empty. Mox. Infernal. Ponder. For 2 pyro 2 decay. But I think decay is not so good. Kills liliana. Sensei and deed in play. But been thinking. I would rather side in 2 xantids instead of the decays.
U guys think this is right? Or better just side in the two pyroblast? In case i only side the blast. What are from the 4 package the two i should side out and what the two i should leave?
Mfg

[sa3xxx]

AD doesn't really stop plague/deeds if he play it after gobs hit the board
side xantid only versus decks, which cannot kill them (hightide, SnT, folks,...). Here, opp can easily get rid of it with Lilli.
Side out infernal where it might be needed as a wish target (because nothing is better)
Side out ETW probably

[Lemnear]

I just played vs a bug control deck.
1st game i just empty abd dont know his deck cause he scoops.
2nd game i dont side cause idk what im facing but I saw sensei, fluster, deed, jace, vendilion and duress.
3rd game i side out empty. Mox. Infernal. Ponder. For 2 pyro 2 decay. But I think decay is not so good. Kills liliana. Sensei and deed in play. But been thinking. I would rather side in 2 xantids instead of the decays.
U guys think this is right? Or better just side in the two pyroblast? In case i only side the blast. What are from the 4 package the two i should side out and what the two i should leave?
Mfg

Casting Decay vs Deed or SDT is pointless as Deed will wipe your Goblins/artifacts in response as SDT jump on it's owners deck. You have to value Decay on the use against Liliana and possible SB cards in that color like Counterbalance. I honestly would dismiss that option.

They might bring in Golgari Charm to supplement Deed as well as Flusterstorms and Clique ... Xantid is not an option imo.

I'd board -1 EtW, -1 Mox, -1 Infernal, -1 Ponder, +1 Tropical, +2 Pyroblast, +1 Tendrils of Agony (in case they discard/Extract your Wish)

[Jaycounet]

Casting Decay vs Deed or SDT is pointless as Deed will wipe your Goblins/artifacts in response as SDT jump on it's owners deck. You have to value Decay on the use against Liliana and possible SB cards in that color like Counterbalance. I honestly would dismiss that option.

They might bring in Golgari Charm to supplement Deed as well as Flusterstorms and Clique ... Xantid is not an option imo.

I'd board -1 EtW, -1 Mox, -1 Infernal, -1 Ponder, +1 Tropical, +2 Pyroblast, +1 Tendrils of Agony (in case they discard/Extract your Wish)

I ve just play Vs uwr delver with 4 melding mage / daze pierce fow ... just a mess :/ pyroblast can be counter silence for pyro i have to go off same turn.

i think xantid could be helpfull in this case but finally not because of lighning bolt

i fact i consider the option to add tendrils main because of melding mage always on burning wish

i got lost somewhere :)

[Lemnear]

I ve just play Vs uwr delver with 4 melding mage / daze pierce fow ... just a mess :/ pyroblast can be counter silence for pyro i have to go off same turn.

i think xantid could be helpfull in this case but finally not because of lighning bolt

i fact i consider the option to add tendrils main because of melding mage always on burning wish

i got lost somewhere :)

I've played that matchup with EtW and ToA in the Main after boarding at times. Won many more with EtW ... subjective results. Used to Ad Nauseam into removal and proceed as usual *shrug*

[Pelikanudo]

Casting Decay vs Deed or SDT is pointless as Deed will wipe your Goblins/artifacts in response as SDT jump on it's owners deck. You have to value Decay on the use against Liliana and possible SB cards in that color like Counterbalance. I honestly would dismiss that option.

They might bring in Golgari Charm to supplement Deed as well as Flusterstorms and Clique ... Xantid is not an option imo.

I'd board -1 EtW, -1 Mox, -1 Infernal, -1 Ponder, +1 Tropical, +2 Pyroblast, +1 Tendrils of Agony (in case they discard/Extract your Wish)
+1 Agree

I really do not think he had more than 4 answers vs EtW post side, even their answers vs EtW are slow 3mana only 2 with only 2 mana, so that I would leave EtW instead of Tendrils, also the synergy with therapy is wonderfull.
The pyro seems ok but not as polivalent and depending on the BUG control build.
I'm not sure if putting in the single T.Seize instead of 1 pyro would be ok then leaving the side with no discard options. I would make only these 2 changes but always depending on the build, I know the spanish meta well...
A couple of Examples:
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=12501&iddeck=91633
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=10493&iddeck=76529

But for sure:
- Xantid is nonsense to side in.
- A.Decay is also nonsense unless you see some kind of permanent hate like Chalice. not expected from BUG control and do not consider Lili or Perni a hate.

Togores hola paisano!

[Pelikanudo]

Anyone in the mood to shoot pros and cons at me about running a third decay in the board over chain of vapor?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk (http://tapatalk.com/m?id=1)

Simple, if you side out that single CoV you have no answr vs Enchanments like Leyline, therefore you'll need to have Revoke Existence.

[Final Fortune]

Simple, if you side out that single CoV you have no answr vs Enchanments like Leyline, therefore you'll need to have Revoke Existence.

You could try Simplify, I'm not certain whether or not Show&Tell players are running Leyline of Sanctity or not right now, so game 2 I SB in 4 Xantid Swarm and a Tropical Island in order to have enough green sources of mana and then I can Burning Wish for Simplify for only 1 mana as opposed to 2 at any time in the game if they are playing it instead of SBing in a potentially dead card.

My version of the deck plays 7 discard spells main tho' so I SB against Show&Tell specifically, I also don't think SBing in Xantid Swarm vs UBW is a bad idea game 3 because you should've Cabal Therapied or Gitaxian Probed them enough in order to see whether or not they kept Swords to Plowshares MD game 2 - you guys really need to remember that a match of Magic lasts three rounds -

I'm playing the stock list with -3 Silence, -2 City of Brass for +3 Thoughtseize, +1 Fetchland, +1 Chrome Mox and a SB of 4 Xantid Swarm, 1 Tropical Island, 1 Bribery (or Telemin Performance, but the randomness vs Reanimator isn't necessarily worth the win condition vs Storm) 1 Simplify and 1 Shattering Spree. I'm hoping being faster, having on color disruption and having 7 discard effects will obviate the need for Abrupt Decay or Red Elemental Blast and anything that gets thru' can be taken care of by Burning Wish.

I think Lemnear has a legitimate point about the diversification of SB counters and Silence tho', there's a nice push/pull effect between Silence and Cabal Therapy because if they SB in 1 Spell Snare, 1 Fluster Storm, 1 Divert, 1 Red Elemental Blast as opposed to 4 Fluster Storm for example than Silence gains in strength while Cabal Therapy loses in strength at the same time while Thoughtseize remains constant in 1 for 1 trades. Personally I think having 3 more cards that give me perfect information makes me, and Cabal Therapy, stronger in and of itself - while being faster because you can cast it off of Dark Ritual, more efficient because you can cast it before your combo turn and more stream lined because you can imprint it for black mana on Chrome Mox but the power level of Silence is higher even if it is unwieldly. I just fucking hate dealing with permanent based hate a lot, 4 Meddling Mage and X Vendillion Cliques seem to be in every one's SBs right now.

[Lemnear]

I think Lemnear has a legitimate point about the diversification of SB counters and Silence tho', there's a nice push/pull effect between Silence and Cabal Therapy because if they SB in 1 Spell Snare, 1 Fluster Storm, 1 Divert, 1 Red Elemental Blast as opposed to 4 Fluster Storm for example than Silence gains in strength while Cabal Therapy loses in strength at the same time while Thoughtseize remains constant in 1 for 1 trades. Personally I think having 3 more cards that give me perfect information makes me, and Cabal Therapy, stronger in and of itself - while being faster because you can cast it off of Dark Ritual, more efficient because you can cast it before your combo turn and more stream lined because you can imprint it for black mana on Chrome Mox but the power level of Silence is higher even if it is unwieldly. I just fucking hate dealing with permanent based hate a lot, 4 Meddling Mage and X Vendillion Cliques seem to be in every one's SBs right now.

Push/Pull effect ... like how you call that. :)

I really like the all-discard Layout now that Leyline vanished (-2 CoB, +1 Fetch, +1 dual for me), but Thoughtseize is just ass against Divert. The 1-for-1 trading also bite me at times, especially while being beaten by a Delver and friends. Creating Virtual cardadvantage is essential, and once you peek/probe into a hand that has 2 Spell Snares and an Envelop, Silence remains Badass-protection negating 3 cards for one mana (white Ancestral lulz).

For the Meddling Mages and Cliques we now have Pyroblast ;)

[Final Fortune]

Push/Pull effect ... like how you call that. :)

I really like the all-discard Layout now that Leyline vanished (-2 CoB, +1 Fetch, +1 dual for me), but Thoughtseize is just ass against Divert. The 1-for-1 trading also bite me at times, especially while being beaten by a Delver and friends. Creating Virtual cardadvantage is essential, and once you peek/probe into a hand that has 2 Spell Snares and an Envelop, Silence remains Badass-protection negating 3 cards for one mana (white Ancestral lulz).

For the Meddling Mages and Cliques we now have Pyroblast ;)

Are you MDing a Tundra for Silence? I've been really, really tempted to SB in a Tundra before in the aggro-control match ups over a Chrome Mox because the number of White sources increases virtually by 4, Bryant would probably have a fit over playing 2 lands in the SB but I think it'd be worth it if you wanted to play with 4 Silence again.

The problem with Pyroblast is that unless you're going to hold up mana and trade it aggressively for Brainstorms/Ponders, it's not nearly as good at protecting discard spells as it is at protecting Silence effects from counters because nobody counters Thoughtseize (altho I think they probably should, because it denies giving the opponent information about whether or not they have another counter in their hand and which counter it is for Cabal Therapy).

The other problem is that Pyroblast doesn't behave with Lion's Eye Diamond, and I get into a lot of situations where I have to stop and ask myself whether or not this Pyroblast would've been better off as discard. Discard is usually just better than Pyroblast in any situation where a Counterbalance or Meddling Mage hasn't already resolved. The idea behind playing the discard suite is to never have to play board removal other than Burning Wish, ideally speaking.

Yeah Divert would be rather embarassing vs Thoughtseize, there are down sides no doubt about it.

[Lemnear]

Are you MDing a Tundra for Silence? I've been really, really tempted to SB in a Tundra before in the aggro-control match ups over a Chrome Mox because the number of White sources increases virtually by 4, Bryant would probably have a fit over playing 2 lands in the SB but I think it'd be worth it if you wanted to play with 4 Silence again.

The problem with Pyroblast is that unless you're going to hold up mana and trade it aggressively for Brainstorms/Ponders, it's not nearly as good at protecting discard spells as it is at protecting Silence effects from counters because nobody counters Thoughtseize (altho I think they probably should, because it denies giving the opponent information about whether or not they have another counter in their hand and which counter it is for Cabal Therapy).

The other problem is that Pyroblast doesn't behave with Lion's Eye Diamond, and I get into a lot of situations where I have to stop and ask myself whether or not this Pyroblast would've been better off as discard. Discard is usually just better than Pyroblast in any situation where a Counterbalance or Meddling Mage hasn't already resolved. The idea behind playing the discard suite is to never have to play board removal other than Burning Wish, ideally speaking.

Yeah Divert would be rather embarassing vs Thoughtseize, there are down sides no doubt about it.

No, I run 4 Therapies in both build and stick to the Cities if I run Silences as you need the fexibility in colors to run Silence, Xantid and Pyroblast alongside in some matchups. Tundra is even worse than the Tropical atm with more green cards than white in our 75.

I use Pyroblast very aggressive against Delvers and Brainstorms in response to Therapy. It can catch the upkeep-Clique unlike a discard spell. I never use it to protect my combo tbh (Stifle aside).

I know what your are heading for with the reduced requirement to board removal as it was my idea as well, but streamlining protection is as bad as streamlined hate many opponents of storm learned the hard way with their 16+ non-creature counterspells as we dropped our Xantids to the field alongside Silences. Today players vary their forms of hate against storm for good and discard alone can't cover topdecked hate or a Clique in response to your discard. I don't want to fall into a Trap off all-discard, setup by people running Divert, Leyline or Brainstorm. The biggest upsides of running all -discard is the manabase and additional peek-effects however.

Lets see what future brings

[Togores]

Apart that runing silence helps a lot if your oponent has a sensei in play, cause they can not anymore just hide de counter on top and let your discard be bad.

[Lemnear]

Apart that runing silence helps a lot if your oponent has a sensei in play, cause they can not anymore just hide de counter on top and let your discard be bad.

That is correct. Pyroblast still handles floated cliques

[Final Fortune]

Apart that runing silence helps a lot if your oponent has a sensei in play, cause they can not anymore just hide de counter on top and let your discard be bad.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't considering the only deck that plays Sensei's Divining Top also plays Counterbalance barring an odd copy in S&T

[Togores]

Show and tell plays 1-2 right.
Some ant deck of bom. Also played sensei and 3 flustrrstorm in side. Bug control even without counterbalance plays 1-3 copies of sensei and finaly most versions today of hight tide plays 3-4 sensei in the candelabra version.

[Lemnear]

In regards to the current discussion...


HotS 6 - Sneak Peek:


What future holds...

The following weeks we spent brainstorming about the recent issues on several Facebook-groups, while I was experimenting with options like the full playset of Empty the Warrens in our 75 to force an aggressive gameplan of dumping your hand turn 1 or 2 against tempo-orientated decks or hatebears, which I realized was not a good way to handle the issue, as that gameplan not only neuters Ad Nauseam (which I boarded out because having several 4cc cards in the deck create horrible flips), but also basically leaves you without a chance to win longer running games once you opponent holds countermessures against the quick goblin-army. Another experiment was to replace our protection suit for 3 Thoughtseize + 4 Cabal Therapy in the main with another Thoughtseize in the sideboarded locked as a target for Burning Wish as Bryant Cook started to fell for the playset of Cabal Therapy as well and suggested a solution like 3 Silence + 4 Cabal Therapy (with a Thoughtseize in the SB) which he promptly crowned with a 3rd place in a 187-player-event. The idea behind testing Thoughtseize in place of Silence was to increase the density of effects, that allow, you to see the opponents hand (Cabal Therapy!), while delivering devastating blows against other non-storm combo decks and to dismantle annoying permanents like Thalia, Counterbalance or Thorn of Amethyst before they enter the battlefield, (instead of just being delayed by Silence casted in your opponents upkeep) while being easier to cast off our manabase.

The decrease of Leyline of Sanctity in many sideboards which used to run it before, encouraged me to push the idea of all-discard, but made me question the Xantid Swarms in our sideboard which used to side with the Silences to battle the white Leyline. In fact, decks with Leyline, Griselbrand-powered Reanimator and mono-blue decks like High Tide Combo or Meerfolk where the reason to run the Xantids in the first place. Is Reanimator, High Tide and Meerfolk putting up such numbers that we're still having to have 3 Xantids in the SB? What about Chain of Vapor, which's biggest selling point over Abrupt Decay as a removal in our SB was the ability to handle Leyline of Sanctity? Is Telemin Performance still a candidate in the age of True Name Nemesis warping the meta around it? Does True Name Nemesis affect the metagame in a way that more sweepers (for our goblins) are played or will we see more combo decks? I expect, that the metagame will become even more blue-centric than it was already before the printing of Nemesis, which is making Carpet of Flowers a pretty appealing option to return to our sideboards. The even greener sideboard now required some adjustments to our manabase and I feel that there are several options to achieve that:

Mainboard:

3 Silence
…
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
3 Fetchlands
3 Chrome Mox

Sideboard:

1 Tropical Island

That is the current, favoured configuration to support a sideboard with 3 Xantid Swarms and 2 Carpet of Flowers. However, in most of the matchups these days (aka versus blue decks), a Mox, Ponder and Infernal usually get sided out for the Tropical and 2 Carpets, while against matchups like Reanimator or Show&Tell subtypes which sometimes have Leyline of Sanctity in the Sideboard, the 4 Cabal Therapy are replaced with 3 Xantid Swarms and the Tropical. In both cases you have access to 10 land-based sources of green mana. Still, having a manasource in the SB, you board in near every game feels kind of a waste in terms of space.

As you might remember from the list I'd ran at the BoM, I've already played with a “pre-boarded” 13th land in place of the 3rd Mox. I did this to have a better shot against the masses of tempo-decks I faced in the last months, as a single Wasteland/Stifle was unable to blow me completely out (even after a mulligan). With the numbers of Stifles actually vanishing in regards to True Name Nemesis, the return to 12 lands should be fine. The idea of running Thoughtseize instead of Silence opens new options for the manabase, as there's no need to support a 5th color via City of Brass as this land is painful to run alongside the lifeloss caused by Thoughtseize. Take a look at this manabase:

Mainboard:

3 Thoughtseize
…
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
4 Fetchlands
3 Chrome Mox

That's 9 land-based green sources without having to reserve a sideboard slot for mana, which can be used otherwise (like for a 3rd Carpet of Flowers). Having additional shuffle- and peek-effects come in handy especially with having Ponder, Brainstorm and Cabal Therapy in mind. Sadly, the Tropical is barely a Basic Island in preboarded games and the slightly lower access to green mana leaves me clueless about which configuration to run in the future. The only thing I can say for sure is, that a manabase with 13 lands, 2 Moxen and 3 Carpets create some gamestates in which you are simply flooded. While this was a feature during the days of Daze and Spell Pierce, it appeared pointless after the recent metashift towards Spell Snare to gain an edge in the Equipment-battle across UWx Midrange (Stoneforge Mystic!), against Storm (Infernal, Burning Wish), Counterbalance and Tarmogoyf.

[davelin]

Tease! Does HotS VI include a tourney report as well?

[Lemnear]

Tease! Does HotS VI include a tourney report as well?

- Intoduction and personal stuff (who is the idiot behind this username)
- Bazaar of Moxen review
- Deck development since Oktober
- 7 rounds tournament covered in detail, as you are used to read
(- Bonus sections to the matchups sponsored by friends)
- Verdict
(- Bonus travel advice)

The whole thing just got altered in its style from being a tournament report into a full article

[SScout]

Are you MDing a Tundra for Silence? I've been really, really tempted to SB in a Tundra before in the aggro-control match ups over a Chrome Mox because the number of White sources increases virtually by 4, Bryant would probably have a fit over playing 2 lands in the SB but I think it'd be worth it if you wanted to play with 4 Silence again.

I think playing 2 lands in the board of a deck that already loses 5 sideboard slots to wish targets seems horrible. Because you're playing with -2 CoB i can see how you'd sometimes be wanting for another white source but i don't think the solution is playing a second sideboard land at all, if anything you should think about putting them back in.

The problem with Pyroblast is that unless you're going to hold up mana and trade it aggressively for Brainstorms/Ponders, it's not nearly as good at protecting discard spells as it is at protecting Silence effects from counters because nobody counters Thoughtseize (altho I think they probably should, because it denies giving the opponent information about whether or not they have another counter in their hand and which counter it is for Cabal Therapy).

In your version i do agree with your statement, but the decks that your bringing in Pyroblast against are the blue tempo variants who don't tend to care about your discard anyway, and in this matchup, countering a brainstorm the turn that you're going off can be really nasty, as can forcing them to counter a Pyroblast on a ponder, just because they know you can win next turn if they don't have a Force/Flusterstorm

The other problem is that Pyroblast doesn't behave with Lion's Eye Diamond, and I get into a lot of situations where I have to stop and ask myself whether or not this Pyroblast would've been better off as discard. Discard is usually just better than Pyroblast in any situation where a Counterbalance or Meddling Mage hasn't already resolved. The idea behind playing the discard suite is to never have to play board removal other than Burning Wish, ideally speaking.

This is the case with Bryant's current list as well, the only wish target that isn't a win condition/enabler is the singleton Thoughtseize, allowing you to be better setup in the main (post-board) for the Counter-Top matchup, and any deck running Meddling Mage, Gaddock Teig, Thalia and Ethersworn Cannonist. Also, being able to bring in sideboard cards to deal with your opponents Hatebears allows you to play around certain cards i.e. surgical extraction on your wish.

Yeah Divert would be rather embarassing vs Thoughtseize, there are down sides no doubt about it.

[Final Fortune]

Lemnear, I think we're iterating towards the same idea, the difference being I refuse to have a MD Tropical Island over a 4th Chrome Mox because there are no green cards in the MD and the 4th Chrome Mox increases the speed of the deck, which is in keeping with on color acceleration, and helps off set the life loss from Thoughtseize.

I have also been thinking about Xantid Swarm and Carpet of Flower's place in the SB, regarding the absence of Leyline of Sanctity and the diversification of counter spells in your metagame. And while Xantid Swarm is a more cost efficient disruption card with synergy vs Show&Tell, I think the answer may be to replace Xantid Swarm with Autumn's Veil so that we have 4 cards we can SB in vs a Leyline of Sanctity vs Show&Tell's Leyline of Sanctity and we now have 4 more cards that we can SB in vs RUG/BUG that allow us to disregard the variable number and distribution of Flusterstorms, Spell Snares, Envelopes, Diverts etc. Autumn's Veil is on color with Carpet of Flowers most importantly, so when we only have to worry about instant speed threats instead of permanent based threats as well we can play our "Silence" effect and our Carpet of Flowers off of Tropical Island.

So in short, I'm betting on discard MD as the fastest, most efficient, all purpose disruption vs the metagame and pre-boarding vs UWx deck's hate bears in order to cut SB Pyroblasts entirely, and backing that plan up with Autumn's Veil, Carpet of Flowers and Simplify in the SB vs distributed blue counters, Brainstorm, Sensei's Divining Top and top decks, 8 MD taxing counters and Leyline of Sanctity.

I don't think we need 7 disruption spells that are immune vs Leyline of Sanctity post-board, the villain only has a ~40% chance of opening a Leyline Sanctity and only ~40 of our disruption is discard post-board (4 Autumn's Veil and 3 Thoughtseize, we should cut Cabal Therapy game 3 because people's SB are more variable than their MDs and thus we're at an information disadvantage game 2) while we have Bribery as a more efficient win condition than Inferal Tutor in the SB, the 4th Infernal Tutor in the MD and Simplify in the SB just in case they play Leyline of Sanctity.

So in short, I think Autumn's Veil could be the dark horse that we should be betting on, because even tho' it doesn't benefit from Show&Tell the fact that your "Silence" effect and Carpet of Flowers can share the same Tropical Island is a very big deal if we're going to start cutting gold lands for fetch lands and Chrome Moxes.

Edit: I think I'm cutting Shattering Spree from my SB, vs any deck that plays Chalice of the Void as SB hate I think the coin flip and 7 discard spells are enough already to not bother with a SB space for it.

My proposed SB right now is,

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Grape Shot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Past in Flames
1 Thoughtseize

1 Bribery
1 Simplify

1 Tropical Island
4 Autumn's Veil
2 Carpet of Flowers

with 3 MD Thoughtseize, -2 City of Brass for +1 Fetchland and Chrome Mox.

Conceptually, this makes the most sense to me right now.

[SScout]

spin

While i do like the idea of Veil, i think there's a few key points where Silence is better.

- Against Decks running Clique, or Venser. They can still cast them the same turn you go off and strip either a tutor or a win condition from your hand with Veil, but not with Silence. And Venser can still bounce something and force you to tutor badly.
- Xantid is only coming in against decks without removal (or those that would take it out post-board), so the second ability of Veil is somewhat mitigated.
- Again this brings up the miracles match-up, but being able to stop a miracle trigger if you go goblins game 1 (yes a bad strat but if you have no choice...) can be game winning (I've been in this situation before).

[Final Fortune]

While i do like the idea of Veil, i think there's a few key points where Silence is better.

- Against Decks running Clique, or Venser. They can still cast them the same turn you go off and strip either a tutor or a win condition from your hand with Veil, but not with Silence. And Venser can still bounce something and force you to tutor badly.
- Xantid is only coming in against decks without removal (or those that would take it out post-board), so the second ability of Veil is somewhat mitigated.
- Again this brings up the miracles match-up, but being able to stop a miracle trigger if you go goblins game 1 (yes a bad strat but if you have no choice...) can be game winning (I've been in this situation before).

I don't think Silence being better than Autumn's Veil vs Vendilion Clique is relevant, you're playing 7 discard spells MD for any deck that plays significant number of Vendilion Clique.

Yes, Xantid can only come in against decks without removal, the point is Veil can come in against any deck with removal. What would you rather play vs RUG when you have a Tropical Island in your SB, Silence or Autumn's Veil? The mana continuity of all of your MD and SB cards being green is really, really important.

Discard is better than Silence or Autumn's Veil vs Miracles therefore a direct comparison between the two cards is irrelevant there.

[Lemnear]

This isn't heading in the direction I intended. Autums Veil is plain bad and can't replace Xantid or Silence by any means as it doesn't prevent your opponent from Pyroblasting, Lightning Bolting your face during Ad Nauseam/DimRet, Extracting cards during PIF-loops, casting CiP effects with flash (Clique, Venser, etc.), Stifle on storm triggers, Brainstorming, etc.

Veil leaves too many gaps for my taste to seriously consider it. I was trying to get the Tropical out of the Sideboard ... If you still want to run it in the SB, I don't see a reason for now to cut Silence for more discard other than "more-peeks", which is not enough for me.

[SScout]

I don't think Silence being better than Autumn's Veil vs Vendilion Clique is relevant, you're playing 7 discard spells MD for any deck that plays significant number of Vendilion Clique.

How is it irrelevant? Most of the decks that play Clique are playing either FoW and/or Counterbalance/other hard/annoying counters. Just because YOU have 7 main-deck discard doesn't mean everyone does, but regardless, if you're diluting your combo even more with 4 Veil post-board then i don't think the argument is relevant at all, you become more control than a pure combo, which is more like ANT than TES.

Yes, Xantid can only come in against decks without removal, the point is Veil can come in against any deck with removal. What would you rather play vs RUG when you have a Tropical Island in your SB, Silence or Autumn's Veil? The mana continuity of all of your MD and SB cards being green is really, really important.

I don't think RUG is a good example, I wouldn't bring in Veil from my board for them, I'd much rather have a Carpet of Flowers.

Discard is better than Silence or Autumn's Veil vs Miracles therefore a direct comparison between the two cards is irrelevant there.

Post-board sure, but we're back to the list argument here anyway. In any list running Silence it COULD be the difference between winning with goblins or not.

[vercadium]

This isn't heading in the direction I intended. Autums Veil is plain bad and can't replace Xantid or Silence by any means as it doesn't prevent your opponent from Pyroblasting, Lightning Bolting your face during Ad Nauseam/DimRet, Extracting cards during PIF-loops, casting CiP effects with flash (Clique, Venser, etc.), Stifle on storm triggers, Brainstorming, etc.

Veil leaves too many gaps for my taste to seriously consider it. I was trying to get the Tropical out of the Sideboard ... If you still want to run it in the SB, I don't see a reason for now to cut Silence for more discard other than "more-peeks", which is not enough for me.

I don't have time to participate in discussion at the moment, but this is the truth. The gains to running Autumn's Veil over Silence are few. I think the 4 Cabal Therapy/3 Silence package is the best disruption option at the moment.

[Jay_Gatz]

My proposed SB right now is, 1 Tendrils of Agony 1 Grape Shot 1 Empty the Warrens 1 Diminishing Returns 1 Past in Flames 1 Thoughtseize 1 Bribery 1 Simplify 1 Tropical Island 4 Autumn's Veil 2 Carpet of Flowers with 3 MD Thoughtseize, -2 City of Brass for +1 Fetchland and Chrome Mox. Conceptually, this makes the most sense to me right now.
Simplify seems absolutely terrible, what can it do besides kill a leyline for 3 mana?

[Lemnear]

Simplify seems absolutely terrible, what can it do besides kill a leyline for 3 mana?

I'm sure the reason for this card was that it can stay in the board and him still having four outs against Leyline without having to board in permanent-solutions for pure speculation if his opponent is running Leyline or not.

Not an option for me personally. Freedom of choice ^^

[Final Fortune]

This isn't heading in the direction I intended. Autums Veil is plain bad and can't replace Xantid or Silence by any means as it doesn't prevent your opponent from Pyroblasting, Lightning Bolting your face during Ad Nauseam/DimRet, Extracting cards during PIF-loops, casting CiP effects with flash (Clique, Venser, etc.), Stifle on storm triggers, Brainstorming, etc.

Veil leaves too many gaps for my taste to seriously consider it. I was trying to get the Tropical out of the Sideboard ... If you still want to run it in the SB, I don't see a reason for now to cut Silence for more discard other than "more-peeks", which is not enough for me.

Seriously, how many corner cases do you expect to need Silence for as opposed to how many SB cards do you need on color Green mana for? I don't know if you play ANT, but ANT plays an all discard page MD and an all green disruption suite SB (Xantid Swarm and Autumn's Veil) and that deck is a DTB while TES is not. If ANT can be a DTB with a Tropical Island and Autumn's Veil in its SB than I see no reason why TES can't follow suit with the same strategy if we want to play a Silence effect and Carpet of Flowers post-board vs RUG.

As far as those corner cases are concerned

1) Silence doesn't stop Clique either, they should Clique in response to shuffle away your tutor anyway
2) Silence only protects Brainstorm and Ponder on the combo turn, and Brainstorm and Ponder are rarely played before Silence because they're used to assemble the combo prior to the combo turn and thus are vulnerable to Red Elemental Blast regardless
3) You can still play around Lightning Bolt, the only difference is that you can't dig as deep with Ad Nauseam
4) Stifle on Storm triggers is a legitimate problem if you're playing against RUG game 2 and you're planning on using Empty the Warrens, personally I don't plan on using Empty the Warrens because I A) SB out Cabal Therapy game 2 and B) expect Rough/Tumble and thus C) SB out Empty the Warrens
5) I don't see players SB in Surgical Extraction against us very often, U/W decks are playing Rest in Peace first, RUG decks are playing Grafdigger's Cage second, BUG decks are playing Nihil Spellbomb third and if the opponent wants to SB in a card that does practically nothing vs this deck otherwise they must be desperately lacking SB hate vs Storm to replace Swords to Plowshares with in a Snapcaster Mage deck. Even if Past in Flames is a guaraunteed win, having resolved an Autumn's Veil then Diminishing Returns is a probable win if you know they're playing Surgical Extraction against you.

@SScout

I'm suggesting a complete overhaul of the MD disruption suite, MD manabase and SB, if you fail to take any one of those factors into context and just compare Silence to Autumn's Veil in a vacuum then ofcourse Silence is better.

I'm not arguing that Silence isn't better than Autumn's Veil, I'm arguing that if we're Mding Silence and SBing Tropical Island, Xantid Swarms and Carpet of Flowers then we could get greater value out of SBing Autumn's Veil, replacing Silence's role in the MD post-board, boarding in Autumn's Veil in order to offset Cabal Therapy's weakness to distributed hate cards post-board and then gaining EV as a result of Autumn's Veil and Carpet of Flowers sharring the same Dual Land. So yes Autumn's Veil is worse than Xantid Swarm vs Show&Tell, yes Autumn's Veil is worse than Silence vs RUG but is it so significantly worse vs both match ups that it isn't worth 4 additional mana sources that can cast it compared to Silence, being the same color as Carpet of Flowers and having 7 discard effects MD to remove Pyroblast from the SB entirely? Is Leyline of Sanctity so prevalent that we need to have all of our disruption be immune to it, and if all of our disruption is immune to it then should the opponent ever SB it in?

I get people want to play Silence and Xantid Swarms and Pyroblasts as the strongest, individual cards in their roles, but you have to disregard their power level for a moment and think about the restraints that your putting on your manabase when you need white for Silence, green for Carpet of Flowers, red for Pyroblast and black for discard when you could just need only green mana for Autumn's Veil and Carpet of Flowers and black mana for discard. My point in all of this is that individually powerful cards can be undermined by the strains they put on the manabase and disruption that performs multiple roles like Thoughtseize discarding hatebears in order to eliminate the need for Pyroblasts entirely and a card that's only slightly worse than Silence in effect but significantly easier to cast is possibly a better, whole game strategy.

I've given this a lot of thought, if you stop knee jerking long enough to play test it then it'll become pretty clear that -4 Cabal Therapy for +4 Autumn's Veil, -3 Silence + 3 Thoughtseize, - 1 Infernal Tutor and Ponder for +2 Carpet of Flowers and -1 Chrome Mox for +1 Tropical Island is a much better post-board configuration vs RUG than what you guys are playing because you're picking up +4 mana sources for your "Silence"

Think about your mana base, think about the variability of their SB cards, think about Magic as a 3 game match and start playtesting with your deck optimized for games 2 and 3 and then work backwards in order to determine your MD.

[Lemnear]

Stop right here!

1) I do play ANT if the metagame favors it over TES
2) Thoughtseize has still not preplaced Duress In ANT
3) I've never seen Autums Veil in top performing ANT lists and am not even sure if I ever.saw a list with it
4) Your seriously want to argue by refering to this sites DtB section as a proof? You can argue with some noobs who don't know how that status is determined, but trying to prove a point on me with that nonsense is insulting.
5) The DtB status is determined by the frequency the deck is played and tells nothing about it's strenght as we had Burn.dec there for quite a while last year
6) following your argument we should play Cabal Ritual and PIF mainboard as well, just because ANT is listed here as a DtB
7) That DtB bullshit obviously makes me angry
8) I have no clue why you side out the Cabal Therapy + EtW plan completely as RUG usually has only 2-3 out against the goblins or dies miserable
9) being able to dig less deep is an issue if you go for Ad Nauseam against decks with Bolts or Price of Progress, especially as you choose to side out the goblins-plan
10) Having 10 white initial mana sources (not counting chrome mox) is fine for 3 white cards. This also answers the topic of mana restrains
11) Leyline isn't the only reason to run Silence as I outlined in previous posts
12) Thoughtseize is crap against tempo
13) Carpet of flowers is just a green manastone against tempo in a deck with already 40% mana (said this at least 3 times over the last 3 pages)
14) Xantid swarm being a creature is sometimes a feature if you play against specified counter like Flusterstorm, spell Pierces and such
15) What is the significant advantage other than more peek-effects if you still have to run SB Topical and a shitload of protection in the sideboard?

[Jay_Gatz]

I'm sure the reason for this card was that it can stay in the board and him still having four outs against Leyline without having to board in permanent-solutions for pure speculation if his opponent is running Leyline or not. Not an option for me personally. Freedom of choice ^^
It just seems like that is the only card it can fight against which definitely means it isn't worth a slot in a deck this tight

[Final Fortune]

Stop right here!

1) I do play ANT if the metagame favors it over TES
2) Thoughtseize has still not preplaced Duress In ANT
3) I've never seen Autums Veil in top performing ANT lists and am not even sure if I ever.saw a list with it
4) Your seriously want to argue by refering to this sites DtB section as a proof? You can argue with some noobs who don't know how that status is determined, but trying to prove a point on me with that nonsense is insulting.
5) The DtB status is determined by the frequency the deck is played and tells nothing about it's strenght as we had Burn.dec there for quite a while last year
6) following your argument we should play Cabal Ritual and PIF mainboard as well, just because ANT is listed here as a DtB
7) That DtB bullshit obviously makes me angry
8) I have no clue why you side out the Cabal Therapy + EtW plan completely as RUG usually has only 2-3 out against the goblins or dies miserable
9) being able to dig less deep is an issue if you go for Ad Nauseam against decks with Bolts or Price of Progress, especially as you choose to side out the goblins-plan
10) Having 10 white initial mana sources (not counting chrome mox) is fine for 3 white cards. This also answers the topic of mana restrains
11) Leyline isn't the only reason to run Silence as I outlined in previous posts
12) Thoughtseize is crap against tempo
13) Carpet of flowers is just a green manastone against tempo in a deck with already 40% mana (said this at least 3 times over the last 3 pages)
14) Xantid swarm being a creature is sometimes a feature if you play against specified counter like Flusterstorm, spell Pierces and such
15) What is the significant advantage other than more peek-effects if you still have to run SB Topical and a shitload of protection in the sideboard?

1) Ok
2) It's commonly played in lists not using Ad Nauseam in some quantity
3) I don't know about top performing lists but I have seen it in lists in order to address Leyline of Sanctity and replace Cabal Therapy before, I've certainly played with it in ANT myself previously.
4) No, I want to argue based on comparing the disruption suite used in the better performing, more often played version of Storm and hope that TES becomes just as commonly played and successful by assimilating whatever merrits it has.
5) I know
6) Irrelvant, comparing the disruption between two Storm decks isn't the same as comparing the acceleration between two Storm decks, disruption is interchangeable where as acceleration in the case of Cabal Ritual is based on the deck's ability to reach Threshold and lack of red color requirements.
7) You took it out of context
8) If you don't know your opponent's SB then you're at an informational disadvantage with Cabal Therapy game two and therefore the EV of Cabal Therapy decreases that game. If you discover your opponent is SBing a wide range of 1x counters game 2 then the EV of keeping Thoughtseize MD increases for game 3, if you discover your opponent is SBing a narrow range of 4x counters game 2 then the EV of returning Cabal Therapy to the MD increases for game 3. I don't want to rely on the presumption that I know what counters their playing post-board and the variance of whether or not they're playing Rough/Tumble in order to win game 2.
9) It's an issue, but it's a minor issue and I don't have to dig as deep as you do with the 4th Chrome Mox - Since when does RUG play Price of Progress?
10) No it's not and people need to stop pretending that it is, having to cast Silence off of a Lotus Petal is an incredibly commital play that leads you to awkward situations after your opponent counters it and you're forced to try to go off that turn into another potential counter because you've already committed 2 cards to Silence otherwise.
11) I never said it was.
12) You think Thoughtseize is crap against UWR Tempo? I think it's a perfectly serviceable card, I've done everything I can to offset the minor life loss by cutting City of Brass and playing 4 Chrome Mox.
13) And it's frequently two green mana stones vs tempo decks or it restricts their ability to play threats and hold up mana for counter spell(s). 40% mana is irrelevant, more mana pays for their soft counters so more mana may as well equate to more disruption.
14) I said it was worse vs Show&Tell for a reason, however unlike Xantid Swarm it's actually playable vs decks with removal.
15) The advantage is that it's faster because it uses all black disruption spells which can be cast off of Dark Ritual, more efficient because it can disrupt before the combo turn, more reliable because it can be cast off of 10 lands as opposed to 6 lands and it reduces, not increases, the total number of disruption spells I have to play in my SB i.e. I have 4 Autumn's Veil and you have 3 Xantid Swarm and 2 Pyroblast because I can discard Meddling Mage, Vendilion Clique and Counterbalance and it doesn't conflict with Lion's Eye Diamond. And as you said, "More Peeks"

My build is perfectly viable and the mana base and mana requirements are rock solid, what I lose in having a slightly weaker "Silence" vs RUG I make up by being significantly more resilient to Wasteland. What I lose in not having Xantid Swarm post-board vs Show&Tell and Merfolk I can't really make up in anyway regarding disruption or resiliency to disruption, but I'm hoping playing Bribery for the best possible win condition and Simplify in order to not waste MD space on Chain of Vapor helps out.

I'm trying to iterate towards the fastest, most consistent list that doesn't have to SB Pyroblasts and consolidates its manabase as much as possible into the same colors. I think having 10 lands that cast Thoughtseize and 9 lands that cast Autumn's Veil is a much bigger deal than you guys are admitting regarding Silence.

If you've come to other conclusions regarding the SB Tropical Island and the disruption suite that's fine, personally I've found the white, red and black mana requirements for the deck's disruption and the inconsistency of Cabal Therapy games 1 and 2 to be incredibly burdensome. I'm hardly at a loss for SB space myself, I have plenty of SB cards to bring in vs RUG other than Autumn's Veil so I could just as easily play a couple of Swarms again and then I'd have almost all of my disruption running off of Tropical Isand vs Show&Tell. I like Carpet tho', boarding in mana sources and extending the use of Tropical Island is pretty strong in that match.

[Final Fortune]

It just seems like that is the only card it can fight against which definitely means it isn't worth a slot in a deck this tight

As opposed to SBing in a Chain of Vapour and risking a dead draw not knowing whether or not you'll see Leyline of Sanctity at all? There's always Revoke Existence, but considering all I want/need that slot to do is get rid of Leyline of Sanctity it seems more sensible to use the 1cc alternative that I can cast off of Tropical Island.

I guess another way of doing this is playing SB 4 Silence, 1 Tundra and 1 Revoke Existence if you cut Carpet of Flowers, maybe you could replace them with Orim's Chants and just Silence the hell out of them? It kind of functionally works the same vs Show&Tell and RUG I guess.

[Tammit67]

As opposed to SBing in a Chain of Vapour and risking a dead draw not knowing whether or not you'll see Leyline of Sanctity at all? There's always Revoke Existence, but considering all I want/need that slot to do is get rid of Leyline of Sanctity it seems more sensible to use the 1cc alternative that I can cast off of Tropical Island.

I guess another way of doing this is playing SB 4 Silence, 1 Tundra and 1 Revoke Existence if you cut Carpet of Flowers, maybe you could replace them with Orim's Chants and just Silence the hell out of them? It kind of functionally works the same vs Show&Tell and RUG I guess.

On that point, I almost never find chain to be useless. Either I get free storm or it buys me an additional turn. It's singlehandedly one of the more versatile options at our disposal.

[Jay_Gatz]

Chain can also answer more than just one single card in the format reliably

[Lemnear]

First, I want to appologize as my response was very rude, but the "DtB"-argument haunts me for years in this forum and became a soft-spot for me. Back to the topic


1) Ok
2) It's commonly played in lists not using Ad Nauseam in some quantity
Have not seen that so far, but ok
3) I don't know about top performing lists but I have seen it in lists in order to address Leyline of Sanctity and replace Cabal Therapy before, I've certainly played with it in ANT myself previously.
Roger, boss. I'll coment on that later in this post
4) No, I want to argue based on comparing the disruption suite used in the better performing, more often played version of Storm and hope that TES becomes just as commonly played and successful by assimilating whatever merrits it has.
I'm sure the decks can adopt techs from each other like once it was the case with Gitaxian Probe. TES has even outclassed ANT in abusing Probe + Therapy lately. ANT adopted the EtW-tech
5) I know
6) Irrelvant, comparing the disruption between two Storm decks isn't the same as comparing the acceleration between two Storm decks, disruption is interchangeable where as acceleration in the case of Cabal Ritual is based on the deck's ability to reach Threshold and lack of red color requirements.
My douchebaggery ... there was no need to adress this my friend :)
7) You took it out of context
8) If you don't know your opponent's SB then you're at an informational disadvantage with Cabal Therapy game two and therefore the EV of Cabal Therapy decreases that game. If you discover your opponent is SBing a wide range of 1x counters game 2 then the EV of keeping Thoughtseize MD increases for game 3, if you discover your opponent is SBing a narrow range of 4x counters game 2 then the EV of returning Cabal Therapy to the MD increases for game 3. I don't want to rely on the presumption that I know what counters their playing post-board and the variance of whether or not they're playing Rough/Tumble in order to win game 2.
This is the effect you described a few post above with push/pull. I can only speak out of my local context and that the 1-for-2 effect via flashbacking therapies won many games against RUG and friends by stipping their Ponder/Brainstorm, limiting their outs to find Rough/Tumble etc. The quick way to win with goblins also leaves many of their counters like flusterstorm, Envelop and Spell Snare dead in hand if they open with a Delver or start the game on the draw. i prefer sitting in the driver seat here
9) It's an issue, but it's a minor issue and I don't have to dig as deep as you do with the 4th Chrome Mox - Since when does RUG play Price of Progress?
I don't want to pick on the 4th mox in regards to having thise in your opener/draw them as the topic has already a beard. Just a word to the last part: It's the newest innovation from Japan to play Price of Progress in RUG for a whooping 6-10 damage finish and Dead/Gone in the main to have a catch-all for opponents Delver/DRS as well as midgame solutions to Tarmogoyf, Tombstalker and Reanimator-doods
10) No it's not and people need to stop pretending that it is, having to cast Silence off of a Lotus Petal is an incredibly commital play that leads you to awkward situations after your opponent counters it and you're forced to try to go off that turn into another potential counter because you've already committed 2 cards to Silence otherwise.
2-for-1 yourself just to test the water is a bad move, no doubt. If I have your build in mind correctly you have a total of 13 initial green mana sources postboard for 6 green cards. I'm not quite sure the relation is better here then the 10/3-one with silence :/
11) I never said it was.
12) You think Thoughtseize is crap against UWR Tempo? I think it's a perfectly serviceable card, I've done everything I can to offset the minor life loss by cutting City of Brass and playing 4 Chrome Mox.
There is a misconception. When I talk about tempo, I have RUG, bUrg and other builds with Stifle, Daze and Wasteland in mind. The UWR Delver lists I see in US top8 are imo rather midrange decks considering the amount of locked mana with SFM and TNN, their spellsuit and them opting to have 3+ lands in play which also affects the use of Carpet.
13) And it's frequently two green mana stones vs tempo decks or it restricts their ability to play threats and hold up mana for counter spell(s). 40% mana is irrelevant, more mana pays for their soft counters so more mana may as well equate to more disruption.
It's not quite irrelevant as more and more tempo decks run spell snare over Pierce to battle SFM, Goofy, Wish and Infernal on a more reliable base, turning the additional mana off Carpet rather pointless. Sideboard options like Envelope don't care for your flooded mana either. On top of that there are tempo decks with DRS which can easily opperate off one dual ... a miserable experience during december as I tested carpet.
14) I said it was worse vs Show&Tell for a reason, however unlike Xantid Swarm it's actually playable vs decks with removal.
Does it make a real difference if you play Therapy or Veil in those matchups aside the fact that Therapy can also dismantle their threats giving you additional time, something that Veil can not do?
15) The advantage is that it's faster because it uses all black disruption spells which can be cast off of Dark Ritual, more efficient because it can disrupt before the combo turn, more reliable because it can be cast off of 10 lands as opposed to 6 lands and it reduces, not increases, the total number of disruption spells I have to play in my SB i.e. I have 4 Autumn's Veil and you have 3 Xantid Swarm and 2 Pyroblast because I can discard Meddling Mage, Vendilion Clique and Counterbalance and it doesn't conflict with Lion's Eye Diamond. And as you said, "More Peeks"
Please lets not forget that all those cards can be topdecked or hid on top with SDT. Pyroblast does not conflict with hellbent if you don't have the idea of using it for protection abainst counterspells, which isn't the purpose

My build is perfectly viable and the mana base and mana requirements are rock solid, what I lose in having a slightly weaker "Silence" vs RUG I make up by being significantly more resilient to Wasteland. What I lose in not having Xantid Swarm post-board vs Show&Tell and Merfolk I can't really make up in anyway regarding disruption or resiliency to disruption, but I'm hoping playing Bribery for the best possible win condition and Simplify in order to not waste MD space on Chain of Vapor helps out.
you know what? That is all fair and to credit all your work you put into this and the last posts, I'll give the idea a spin this weekend and stop theorycrafting. How sounds that? :D

I'm trying to iterate towards the fastest, most consistent list that doesn't have to SB Pyroblasts and consolidates its manabase as much as possible into the same colors. I think having 10 lands that cast Thoughtseize and 9 lands that cast Autumn's Veil is a much bigger deal than you guys are admitting regarding Silence.

If you've come to other conclusions regarding the SB Tropical Island and the disruption suite that's fine, personally I've found the white, red and black mana requirements for the deck's disruption and the inconsistency of Cabal Therapy games 1 and 2 to be incredibly burdensome. I'm hardly at a loss for SB space myself, I have plenty of SB cards to bring in vs RUG other than Autumn's Veil so I could just as easily play a couple of Swarms again and then I'd have almost all of my disruption running off of Tropical Isand vs Show&Tell. I like Carpet tho', boarding in mana sources and extending the use of Tropical Island is pretty strong in that match.

[Togores]

Today i played tes at night event here.
4-1 getting 2nd losing to dragon stompy who won.
1st game he makes trinisphere turn 1 gg
2nd i burn my hand make 12 goblins he makes city simian bonnefire gg

Full report will follow i took notes ^^

[Togores]

Today I played the friday night local league with Bryants last version of TES and ended 4-1 and second place.

That where my rounds and thoughts and so:

1st round vs bug birthing pot nick fit

I keep a hand of 2 ponder bs mox DR infernal led on the play thinking my opp plays jund. But he swaped. Was ok cause he still played a fair deck and I got not really punished for my hand.
I go mox imprint ponder shuffle draw a blank, next turn I draw ponder, Bs see a land and another mox and gitaxian. And just put pack ant nauseam and with gitaxian I cast it and win while he only has 1 land and a shaman. I saw with gitaxian birthing pod and glen elendra.

I dont really knwo the side of this deck so I think its side board its just discard and may be some bad counters like 2 fluster or so.

I side nothing then.

I get a normal hand he goes therapy calling dark ritual and gets there. Then i ponder and have led in play and in my top is burning and a dark ritual.
I draw the ritual and have bruning on top. He misplays from my way going eot to surgical my dark ritual cause i have one less in deck and i should already have riped the good card. then he goes therapy and calls something irrelevant but has keept only one lander.
I ponder again and set up a empty on top with a gitaxian. So I make 6 tokens and see a chaman and a pernicius deed among evelope and swang song and brainstorm. SO I just hope to get there before he rips a land. Obv he draws a fetch and plays chaman, I atack for 5 damage and draw the infernal wich dosnt get me the therapy on time for his pernicius and I die.
Now that I know that he plays plenty of 1cc I side something that might be good. I also know about the deed and the surgial.

- empty - ponder - infernal
+ tendrills +2 pyroblast

I just get a nuts hand and go empty the warrens turn one for 12 goblins via burning wish and win. Cause he dosnt have the shaman, fetch, and the deed at the same time at least.

1-0

2nd vs team america

I just go therapy something then therapy a styfle he get one more draw. I go all in for goblins and he brainstorm but dosnt get the fow and I win.

- ponder - infernal -mox
+ 2 pyroblast + tropical

He makes delver I just go land petal pyroblast it. Then I therapy he brainstorms and I get a hymn . Few turns draw and GO and he still has 2 lands and no pressure and I have a petal, led and volcanic, city, gemstone, and a fetch (cause I know he has styfle). I hold in hand ant nauseam infernal. I wish for seize wich he bs in response when i cast it and see 2 daze and 2 styfle and fow. Fow gets discarted and then next turn I draw another wish now for the ponder. With it I see Ritual and Silence. So next turn I go silence he dazes I ritual in response he stops dazing me and lets my silence resolve. So with the 5 mana I have exactly I go ad nauseam response cracking led for red. If he dazed again I would not been able to make ad nauseam and only infernal fro goblins with 2 therapys. Wich 1st would have called golgary charm for the may be and then 2nd just there for value. Was also a good plan but ant nauseam just wins on spot. So its ok.

2-0

Round 3 Doomsday

I play against a friend with my old version with 4 silence 3 chant and sensei and also ant nauseam main (I was not sure If he still has inside).
I Keep a gitaxian 3 lander and rip a fourth land. On turn 3 I make 10 goblins with the possibility of next turn double burning wish for a seize and and any other card. But he had DR sensei in play and led. Draws ponder, plays it and gets AD nauseman and I die.

The deck HAs important blue cards like ideas unbound and gitaxian or brainstorm at some spot and he dosnt know that i have pyroblast so it’s a good surprise card if i manage to only have ntaped the volcanic and tap my white sources to make him fall in the trap. Therapy is also not so good cause of sensei.

- empty -2 therapy
+1 xantid +2 pyroblast

I start with a cantrip, He plays ponder and I go of infernal, led Ad nauseman turn 2 for game.


In game 3 I have brainstorm, pyro, mine, flooded, and some ritual or so. He plays sensei and pases. I play gemstone and pass. I draw gitaxian, and see 2 silence and 3 other cards. With probe I draw brinasotm so i fetch for volcanic brainstorm with it so I still have white mana. And then find a therapy wich gets his 2 silence. If he top decks one of the three doomsday he can go of due having led in play dr and gitaxian. But he only finds burning wich is casted to search doomsday. I draw gitaxian cast it for lives. And pass. He casts ritual, then doomsday and I spread his deck so I know what pile he has made. His pile is maniac pile so he gitaxians and dostn crack. With his 2 lands plays ideas unbound I pyro and on my turn he is on 7 live. So I just go ritual, led burning fr thendrills and GG.

3-0

4th rounds vs Dragon stompy.

I thought he was playing pox, but donst matter cause my hand was also good vs him. But he goes game one city of traitors and simian into trinispehere and I just play 2 fetchs so that he donst see that i play combo and He plays a golem. When i have to discard I just scoop up.

-3 Silence -2 ponder
+1 Chain of Vapor +2 Abrupt Decay +1 Thoughtseize +1 Tropical
I burn my hand of 2 ritual, 2 mox, led, germstone and burning to make 1st turn 14 goblins and he just city of traitors, simian into bonefire for one O.O. Next turn another simian and triniesphere and the next turn a blood moon for my chain of vapor makes me concede when im facing a lodestone.


3-1

5th round vs Ant

He played tes before and knows the pairing is really hard for him cause im faster and so.

We both mull to six but he draws 7 again and has to go 5. he just plays a land and pases. I start gitaxian seeing 3 petals and infernal and therapy makes fast justice of him. Then He duress me and so and at the end I have 2 rite of flame, 2 dr burning and infernal and I go pif loop and gg.

- empty
+1 pyroblast

last game of the night I keep my seven with led DR silence and Ad naseam and some more. He mulls to 5 again and I bling therapy for led and get one seeing surgial (O.O?), lim duls, and dark ritual. next turn therapy again for dark ritual and then Next turn rip a land and cast ad nauseam at 19 life. crack for black if may be he dosnt surgicals my rituals now. But he thinks and does finaly and then I reveal before getting to 11 live 2 petals, 3 led burning and more stuff and he concedes.



So ended 2nd and liked the deck. In 5 hours I have a trial for GP Paris and Im gonna play it again. So lets see.

Losing vs the dragon stompy is bad But that bonefire and triniesphere 1st turn is really cruel from him :D

[Lemnear]

Boarding Versus ANT and Doomsday may need minor tweaking, my friend. A big congratz!

[Togores]

Why? Can you explain what you mean?

[bennotsi]

I think he's referring to the fact that you hope to resolve Pyroblast against a deck with 7 chants.

[Togores]

The thing is the surprise factor.
My gameplan was to tap on white so that i dont own white source. So they will not fear my silence and chant me. Then i just catch him with the pyro sheningan.
His deck only plays 7 chant 4 gitaxian and usualy playing chantbinnadvance is slow but possible. And gitaxian is holded yo the end combo cause is important in the ddpile usaly if no sensei is there.
Apart from may be geting brainstorm in response to thereapy is huge.

Thats my thoughts^^

[Asthereal]

Why? Can you explain what you mean?
I seem to remember notes from Lem's reports saying: "Sideboard: Nothing! Speed is king!" :smile:
Since I play a different sideboard, I usually have an additional discard to board, but with Bryant's current list I agree with the "side nothing" strategy.

[Togores]

Yes but enpty the warrens is worser than pyroblast. And with the new list vs ant is the correct way.

But i think vs d day if they dont know the plan of pyroblast. Its a win card. And xantids is also nice in 1x
I could also have sided out 1 empty and 1 therapy just for the 2 pyro but thought xantid was beter cause of silence and therapy bad cause of sensei.

[Lemnear]

Doomsday with Silence and SDT is a cornercase to board in Xantid Swarms package + Thoughtseize over the Therapies and EtW.

ANT is a race and I would step back from boarding more than the EtW out for a Thoughtseize

[Final Fortune]

Ok, I got destroyed vs Show&Tell without Xantid Swarms so I think I'm going to go back to the drawing board on how to consolidate the disruption spells and the manabase, discard is good enough against RUG not to have to worry about SBing in Autumn's Veil at all and I honestly think SBing in 2 City of Brass would be better than SBing in 2 Carpet of Flowers because you can actually keep hands with City of Brass. As ridiculous as it sounds, I'm starting to wonder whether or not SBing lands just for the tempo match ups is a real strategy because I'm already about "this far" away from SBing Tundra.

I'm completely happy with discard and the MD tho', maybe I should still be playing Pyroblasts with discard.

[Lemnear]

Totally off topic: Does anybody have the mail-contact of Cedric Phillips? Can't find it on SCG.


I seem to remember notes from Lem's reports saying: "Sideboard: Nothing! Speed is king!" :smile:
Since I play a different sideboard, I usually have an additional discard to board, but with Bryant's current list I agree with the "side nothing" strategy.

Yeah, I did say this. :)

[PartyMonster]

The four cabal main has been running hot for me. Love it, fcking love it. The empty plan has been so much more consistent for me since the switch. Kudos to you T.E.S. thread.


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[Pelikanudo]

Yes but enpty the warrens is worser than pyroblast. And with the new list vs ant is the correct way.

But i think vs d day if they dont know the plan of pyroblast. Its a win card. And xantids is also nice in 1x
I could also have sided out 1 empty and 1 therapy just for the 2 pyro but thought xantid was beter cause of silence and therapy bad cause of sensei.

Read your report well done!

I agree with lem on instead of pyro put the T.Seize in the EtW slot. vs the ANT match up.

Related to the Sideboard plan vs DD, i believe that you made a good use of the factor surprise, however a good DD player would have prevented those pyroblasts from TES, anyway good trap! I believe again that the Lem plans vs DD is good also, the Xantid puts them in a presure so that the DD player is advocated to Silence you, I think if he handles senseis and a Silence or two on the top you're dead. so +3Xantid+1Tropical+1T.Seize -4C.T,-1EtW plan is ok for me also. but I'm not sure... because of below, and just sideboard -1E.T+1Xantid. mainly the difference is that DD plays Senseis + 7 Orims.

The other day we went to that same local and went only 3 boys to play, there wasn't tournament... I played a match vs a known boy playing both TES, he played full silences and me 3 and full therapys, the first game was also critical C.Therapy discarding him 2 silences in a row playing the 3rd in response!, the second game I was in a need for a discard effect as I sided out -1EtW+1Tseize. he won when he reached the second silence... and we talked next about the decks, a fact is that Therapy is a very good card, the more I play it the more I like it, I think he shares this same feeling. I love it. we talked about Siding options in a TES mirror and we think we reach the conclusión -1 EtW +1 Xantid is the ritgh move - even can serve to flashback therapy!, Although T.Seize potentiates the base, sometimes you reach scenarios in which you need to B.W. into a discard effect, sometimes it is a Quick game but sometimes is just an attrition war, disrupting each other. and having 2 B.W. in hand now it is becoming risky in a TES mirror...

[Togores]

vs ant Im sure i want to make -etw +pyro
and vs tes -etw +xantid.

I have come to lots of situations where I can not go of cause of silence fear but have get lots of extra bw so i can just wish for the seize.

so sure never in storm matchups -empty +seize

from my expericence.


btw after diner im going to write the report of the gp trial for parís where I condeced on top 4 to my friend (but won).

[Lemnear]

vs ant Im sure i want to make -etw +pyro
and vs tes -etw +xantid.

I have come to lots of situations where I can not go of cause of silence fear but have get lots of extra bw so i can just wish for the seize.

so sure never in storm matchups -empty +seize

from my expericence.


btw after diner im going to write the report of the gp trial for parís where I condeced on top 4 to my friend (but won).

I don't see that much value in Pyroblast vs ANT compared to Thoughtseize as their whole combo is Black/Red while the matchup being a race. Wishing for Thoughtseize in this matchup is insanly slow and mana intense to do against a deck that kills turn 3 if unmolested. In the TES mirror, I don't see the buzz about Silence. You sling your own Silence or Discard at opponents Silence/Business or use it to interrupt their combo and win. What happens if you drop your Xantid? They say "thank you!" can go for the kill unmolested! Xantid only interacts with 3-4(!) of their cards. Think about it.

[Togores]

So yesterday I played the GPT to Paris here in Madrid. But not being able to go I would just scoop to my friend if we play because he is going. But whatever.

I played the new TES version of Bryant.

1st round vs GW zenith
He has a one lander with zenith, 2 hierarch, forest, wasteland and 2 libraries. I just go off for empty before he is able to cast zenith with empty and he misplays when he draws an extra card with library cause he drew into the second sword having his own thalia on table so he lost 4 lives and was not able to cast both spells having paid 4 lives. So my goblin race won him the game. In this situation he also drew into a stoneforge but a infernal I put on top before going on for therapy was enough to get rid of his batterskull.

-empty -3 silence – ponder
+ thoughseize + tropical +chain of vapor +2 decay

G2 I he had a mother of runes 1st turn and I saw with gitaxian a zenith and a revoker which I therapy away cause I had a led. He had only one more land in hand so may be he was not able to cast zenith and I draw into win. Then I brainstormed and had to decide if I try to draw into an bussines next turn and combo or keep both chain of vapor and decay even one of them gets countered by mother of runes cause I just had 2 permanent mana sources. So I decide to go for the fast path and just get have the chain and next turn let go of. I win Nauseam and win.

2nd round vs Team America
This round I think I lost due a mistake in both games. I go for nauseam on 17 lives after some discard and disruption. I fail to get combo but Im at 4 lives vs his active shaman so that if I lose 2 more lives shaman can just kill me. The revealed cards miss one coloress mana to kill my opponent. There is like 20-30 cards still in my deck and there are exactly 13 cards which are win (Petals, Mox. Led, Dark ritual or Rite of flame) and 5 cards that kill me (infernal and burning) cause I had empty already revealed. I have 2 options: Keep going on the nauseam or brainstorm and try to get the extra mana which can end in this scenarios with nauseam:
- Draw a cost 1 card and stop going for the bs route directly
- Draw a cost 2 card and lose
- Draw a mana source and win
Or if I stop I have the following brainstorm plan:
- Draw into 1/3 leds in 3 cards and win
- Draw into 1/2 dark rituals and win
- Draw into 1/3 rite of flame and win
If this fails but I find one of the following and stopped at 4 and found one of the following 1/3 petals or 1/2 mox and fetch then brainstorm again and try to get one of the +2 mana sources. If all this fails I can just go to try to keep digging and try to get 2 rituals or a led. But this plan is bad.
So the thing is If I continue at 2 lives risking to lose on the spot or start the brainstorm plan.
I decided 5 vs 13 in 25 cards is a fair thing so I keep going. And a burning was revealed and I lost.

-Infernal – ponder
+ 2 pyroblast

G2 I was at 10 lives he had a 3/4 goyf in field and a shaman that he just summoned last turn. I have just brainstorm putting empty under burning wish. My hand is an extra land, 2 led and rite of flame. He has no blue card in hand, no way to draw into a fow or cast it. An envelope was already discarded. So any daze pierces are the only good cards apart from a nut brainstorm. This means I have to combo next turn. With him at 19 and I’m going to be in a so low life range I’m not able to go for infernal into ad nauseam so I will have to go into diminishing return. I think this can be bad cause I don’t have enough storm to kill him after the diminishing and so I don’t drop the leds which is usually a bad idea vs hymn and discard decks.
He rips the hymn to tourarch gets rid of my rite of flame and led and then I have to go for diminishing with just one or zero mana in pool. My diminishing is not so great and I lose.
Should I have played the leds? Or don’t worry about storm count and just have the ton of mana?
BTW this guy ended beating my friend in the finals.

3rd round vs agro loam
On the first game he starts and goes for mox diamond, land and chalice on one. So my half hand goes to the bin : ( and I manage to make a natural empty with 2 lands 2 moxes and a petal but a tarmo, punishing fire and ooze just destroy them before I can kill my opponent.

-3 silence -2 ponder
+tropical +2 decay +thoughseize + chain of vapor

I go for a fast empty the warrens turn 1 or 2 and he just loses somehow.

on the 3rd game he goes for chalice on 0 on the first turn and end of turn 2 I decay it and then on my turn 3 I go nauseam and win.

4th round vs goblins
He starts with lakey and I cabal a matron and get it (I don’t know if I should have called ringleader instead) but see the sharpshooter being my plan to drop empty the warrens turn 3. So my plan fails because It was his only goblin among with piledriver and so was going to drop it anyway after casting the pile. Then I draw a cantrip and see a 3rd dark ritual and the nauseam and go for it going to 1 live while he is tapped. And combo off. After this he shows me that if he had not taped out he could have tarfired me.
I think he does this to show me he has the card wich he is going to side but I knowing that he has it in his hand I can may be slow myself playing around, or may be not.

-3 silence –empty
+2 decay +chain +tropical

I have decent hand but not op. Just a burning and a led and some other good spells like a petal or so and a chain of vapor but low on lands. He goes mountain into lakey. I have no turn one action apart from gitaxing him to see 1 tin street, matron, cavern, and mountain so I just pass. In his turn I time walk myself chain of vaporing his goblin. I topdeck a brainstorm and then fetch to make gitaxian and see a second tin street to keep going I have to play a mox for later mana and so have black to therapy him both tin street. He draws a chieftain plays it and attacks with both goblins dropping the matron so he can search for piledriver to kill me. I draw into decay and now I have 2 options. Or do nothing going to 1 live on next turn if he doesn’t draw any relevant spell. Decay the chieftain losing a gemstone on the way so that I get only a few damages and be able to draw one more card. Or go for diminishing return and after resolving it having URB on pool. So I decide to go for the Russian roulette with a more than 70% chance of winning and so I if I fail I may be get rid of his piledriver if he don’t draw a second. So I draw into burning and led and win.
Time to eat, eggs with potatoes and bacon and back to work.

5th round vs Maveric
They put up the standing and I can draw myself into the top for the top with another guy of my group playing.

Top 8 vs GW Armageddon, suppression field, chalice agro deck.
He keeps a hand of seven thinking I play my usual deck (sneak attack) and then when I go for gitaxian see his shitty hand vs me I wonder and he starts cursing that he knew I was playing storm when he saw the gemstone and making the mistake to think I’m on sneak attack. Then I just go turn 2 nauseam and win on 4 lives.

-3 silence –ponder –warrens (because he sides in ghostly prison and ratchet bomb)
+tropical +2 decay +thoughseize + chain of vapor

I mull to 5 while he keeps his seven starting with land into noble hierarch. I gitaxian him and see 2 revokers, rip, cavern and a master of blades or something like that (2WW battle cry and makes 2 tokens) I therapy his 2 revokers and he starts complains that he has so much diferent hate cards and he just has to draw 2 of the same and also get therapy for both. Then turn 3 or 4 I go ant nauseam but I fail standing at 2 lives but cause he only has a noble so it’s no big problem. I pass the turn with 3 mana up in case he plays something like a quasali or trinisphere I can just bounce it. Then next turn untaping and so I combo in some maner I don’t remember.

Top 4 vs FOWless miracles with stoneforge (not even side board)
I’m going to concede to my friend anyway but before saying to him I want to just scoop I want to play the game out to know if he can beat with his no fow deck a storm. And so he plays in full energy.

He ended 1st on swiss so he starts and mulls to 5 searching for any kind of counterbalance, or spell pierce and so. I just go on and manage to make turn 4 a few goblins after making therapy for his spell pierce and then again to get rid of his hand good cards with the flashback.

-empty -ponder –mox –infernal
+2 decay +2pyroblast

This game he has some counter and makes a turn 3 counterbalance I pyroblast It, he flusters back and then with the mana of a land and a black mox I decay it. Next turn I can’t go of. But keep digging. I see his hand somehow and see a venser. So I have to force it. I manage to do so. But then when he is on top deck he draws counterbalance. I make therapy and he has nothing but the land on top of the counterbalance hinders me on comboing out. Then I wait. I cast a spell and on top of deck is a jace. So I can’t go for my silence plan into diminishing return with a top of artifact mana. He draws the jace brainstorm and from there on he has more counters and always a cost 2 card on top so I just loose.

3rd game I have the nut hand with turn 1 ad nauseam vs a deck without force of will. So I just go and fail on it ending on two lives. I gitaxian him with a mox mana and he has nothing relevant apart from a rest in peace, a counterbalance and a stoneforge. I keep a seven consisting of 1 gemstone, 1 fetch, 2 brainstorms, 1 decay, 1 burning, 1 silence and 1 rite of flame. He plays land and passes then I just go brainstorm, into ponder seeing having drawn the 2nd rite of flame. And I just set up with a ponder for in 2 turns being able to cast therapy, silence, two rite of flames who are waiting on top of my deck so I can make 10 mana with the 4 rites. And pass turn. He plays the counterbalance. And I just pass waiting for decay the balance. He can now cast the rest In peace or the stoneforge while I’m at 1 live. So obv as expected he goes into the stoneforge and I decay the balance. Then on my turn, therapy, silence, rite of flame. Past in flames and win.

Then I just conceded but he lost the finals. I told him that for paris its not a good idea to not play fows and after all today he played fows again XD


Thoughts after playing the deck:

I have still never used the grapeshot, not even in test games, but I would have won some games or do it easier having a pyroclams on the place of it when I used it.

I missed in this 2 days of events the ill gotten in my side deck but I understand not having it. May be changing one xantid for it is a good idea. But I don’t really know 3 xantids are so sexy.

Gitaxian + more therapy’s + goblins is nuts!

I think past in flames is necessary but I use it in too small amount of times (1 only) where I would have wished for ill gotens more. I’m not gonna cut it but thats just my thoughts.

Seeing this creatures matchups as a belcher mode matchups changed my mind completely and it gave me wins thanks to mulligan accordingly.

I failed in far too many Nauseams even at +15 lives at the event. Being able to still manage to win but only a few which where fast win without making some extra drawing cards, it’s just weird.


Deck is awesome love it!

[SScout]

Heya dude, great result! I'm glad you've been enjoying playing TES.

A few comments on your report (mainly touching on some of your questions)
I think in your match vs Team America you were definitely correct to try and keep going with AN, in that situation the maths was definitely on your side and I imagine even had you chosen to brainstorm you still could have bricked fairly easily.

Against decks that like to run a lot of discard (so both Thoughseize AND Hymn together) you should try to drop your rocks early, the exception being when you know he has engineered or deed or the like, then I would drop some but not all (if that makes sense).

Ad Nauseum can be fickle, sometimes you just don't get the cards you need. I did however like how you were happy to pass the turn and win the turn after when you knew they couldn't just kill you. That takes balls, but that's sometimes what playing combo is about!

I too have thought about grapeshot vs other sweepers, and my conclusion has generally been that grapeshot itself is far far less succeptable to counters than a Pyroclasm would be. With both situations your wish is the first counter target, but if they let it resolve, the grapeshot (as long as storm count is good) can't really be hard countered by the likes of daze/Peirce etc (assuming they hoped to stop you because of tight mana).

[Niggurath]

Hi, just wanted to add something about the grapeshot issue. Nothing new.

Grapeshot counts both as a board sweeper (or targeted removal) and win condition, where pyroclasm just have one role. I remember a game making some goblins tokens, attacking, and my opp freshly drawing a maelstrom pulse, and destroying my gobbs. Then I held a brainstorm as much as I could, and when facing lethal (tarmo and vendilion), I just casted brainstorm, drew burning wish, LED, land, and then I just went for the grapeshot kill, doing the exact 6 damage I needed.

Didn't have mana aviable to do anything else, so grapeshot gave me that game. Pyroclasm won't.

[Lemnear]

@Togores

I have a bad gut feeling about your boarding in the Team America matchups. I don't see how Pyroblast is better than the potential quick kill by having more Infernals, especially considering their Hymns. Pyroblast on the draw only gives you outs against their turn 1 Delver, putting you in the control seat you cannot fit in.

PS: drop your mana rocks ;)

[Asthereal]

Hi, just wanted to add something about the grapeshot issue. Nothing new.

Grapeshot counts both as a board sweeper (or targeted removal) and win condition, where pyroclasm just have one role. I remember a game making some goblins tokens, attacking, and my opp freshly drawing a maelstrom pulse, and destroying my gobbs. Then I held a brainstorm as much as I could, and when facing lethal (tarmo and vendilion), I just casted brainstorm, drew burning wish, LED, land, and then I just went for the grapeshot kill, doing the exact 6 damage I needed.

Didn't have mana aviable to do anything else, so grapeshot gave me that game. Pyroclasm won't.
This happens to me every tourney I play TES. Tokens don't get there, but Grapeshot does.
Believe me, after the third time this happens to you, you don't ever consider to drop Grapeshot anymore. :wink:

[PartyMonster]

TES just missed the top 8 yesterday in the scg open. Dude must not follow the thread though. Running the duress cabal silence split with ill-gotten gains the second discard spell and the third decay In the board as well a the second chain of vapor. No trop only two swarm no blasts.


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[PartyMonster]

Oh yeah and it was miss labeled as ANT, typical.


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[Lemnear]

Small update for the ones who care: The Heart of the Storm Series is confirmed to move to a bigger publisher!

[SScout]

Small update for the ones who care: The Heart of the Storm Series is confirmed to move to a bigger publisher!

Great to hear! I must admit I enjoy your little stories and jokes as much as the actual reports, but they definitely come together as an absorbing read each time :)

Out of curiosity, how long have you played TES (I know you've played ANT too), and how long did you play for before you felt like you'd mastered (as much as one can use that term) the deck?

[anakyn]

Small update for the ones who care: The Heart of the Storm Series is confirmed to move to a bigger publisher!


Can I ask where they will be published?

[Asthereal]

TES just missed the top 8 yesterday in the scg open. Dude must not follow the thread though. Running the duress cabal silence split with ill-gotten gains the second discard spell and the third decay In the board as well a the second chain of vapor. No trop only two swarm no blasts.
Not sure. He might just disagree with the innovations. :wink:
The guys from Team Nijmegen in the Netherlands know about the innovations, but still play different stuff. Like 2x Dual, 4x Fetch, and 3x Wish + 2x Ad Nauseam. They also tend to run a different protection package and sideboard.


Small update for the ones who care: The Heart of the Storm Series is confirmed to move to a bigger publisher!
Awesome! Where will you publish now? We wants to know... :wink:

[Lemnear]

Great to hear! I must admit I enjoy your little stories and jokes as much as the actual reports, but they definitely come together as an absorbing read each time :)

Out of curiosity, how long have you played TES (I know you've played ANT too), and how long did you play for before you felt like you'd mastered (as much as one can use that term) the deck?

Oh my! Wouldn't say I'd ever "master" it as brainfarts still occur at times :)

On a more serious note, I play the deck for about 2 years or so now and for newcomers, I expect a timeframe of about 6-9 months for learning, to pilot it on a decent level in tournaments.

I'm happy about every reader enjoying the reports and hope this stays true, even if the format of HotS will change from a pure tournament report to an article.


Awesome! Where will you publish now? We wants to know... :wink:


Cam I ask where they will be published?

There are 2 well-known websites interested in hosting the Series. I hope you understand, that I cannot tell anything till the article launches.

Editing the Report for the websites is annoying as fuck.

[davelin]

Small update for the ones who care: The Heart of the Storm Series is confirmed to move to a bigger publisher!

When? When?!?! WHEN!!!!????

[anakyn]

I expect a timeframe of about 6-9 months for learning, to pilot it on a decent level in tournaments.


Agreed: that's by far the most challenging deck I ever tried to play, and probably the most entertaining too.
The only decks I know that could require the same amount of skill and experience are High Tide and Lands. The other decks compared to these are a walk in the park imho, ANT included.

I have to admit I switched back to ANT recently, because I think in the present meta the Tendrils plan is stronger than the Warrens plan, but I have no doubt TES is the stronger storm deck in the right hands.
The fact ANT collects more top8 finishes is, in my opinion, just because is by far the easier one to play, so most players prefers it to TES.




There are 2 well-known websites interested in hosting the Series. I hope you understand, that I cannot tell anything till the article launches.


No problem, just please tell us where they are when they will be published.

[PartyMonster]

Opponent on show and tell with leyline in play, I resolve an ad nauseam. Dig for chain of vapor but no luck. Make 24 goblins off wish pass turn silence on upkeep opponent responds with echoing truth I respond with pyroblast. GG.


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[Lemnear]

Opponent on show and tell with leyline in play, I resolve an ad nauseam. Dig for chain of vapor but no luck. Make 24 goblins off wish pass turn silence on upkeep opponent responds with echoing truth I respond with pyroblast. GG.


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As an Alternative (depending in your played cards obviously) you may Wish for PIF, flashback Rites/Rituals and Cantrips/Infernal to get hands on CoV and Wish for ToA afterwards. ;)



Edit: Testing my new potential SB-engine tonight!

[Togores]

This deck toped and event, its like a weird TES deck with too many cc4 in main. But just to show.

http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=12562&iddeck=92104

[Lemnear]

This deck toped and event, its like a weird TES deck with too many cc4 in main. But just to show.

http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=12562&iddeck=92104

13 player online event with a list, that doesn't make the slightest sense (2x PIF in the 75, Pyroclams+Deathmark+Deluge) and I hate several Thoughtseize plus 4 City of Brass

Don't even bother about that, peeps

[HerrGevatter]

Oh yeah and it was miss labeled as ANT, typical.


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Thanks - I totally missed that due to mislabeling! That's exciting.

I do see he's running the old list, but that doesn't mean it's bad. While we argue back and forth here a lot, it's really about making specific, MINOR changes to adapt to an evolving metagame. The core is still the same powerful engine, and any version can have success on any given day.

I, for one, don't think I'll ever give up playing four Silence main; it's just too good in most of my matchups to give up.

[Asthereal]

You can top a 13-peeps tourney with virtually any deck.
Going back to 6 protection spells seems VERY bad with all the blue decks around...

[Jaycounet]

Edit: Testing my new potential SB-engine tonight!

how it goes ?

[Lemnear]

how it goes ?

Turning it on is too costly in the end. For BBBUU(U) I rather go another route ... Ill-Gotten-Gains-Syndrome much :/

[bennotsi]

Turning it on is too costly in the end. For BBBUU(U) I rather go another route ... Ill-Gotten-Gains-Syndrome much :/

Doomsday?

[Pelikanudo]

Doomsday?

Looking at the UBR TES build, this is a long time ago consideration I had to run it on side TES as an alternative win cond. sure it is beeing negated by not having senseis and Ideas Unbound OR Meditate main, but exist several Piles wihouth Senseis or I.Unbound with some -not much mana requirements. The main dependancy to make any pile is to have a cantrip already and we have 12, I could add for sure I.Unbound to side even. but not sure, Im not planning to play UBR TESritgh now, for first time in long time I'm absolutlly happy with the list as it is - therapys+Empty+Gitaxian. Althoutgh for me D.R still is a must regardless having Silence or not in side.

I would play exact the same list as post but-3silence +3 duress OR +2suress +1T.Seize, exact same mana base (I'll try -1 City + 1 Fetch as much) , as in side will try to fit xantid, tropical and more things.


EDIT Example of Pile having ponder


Hand: 1 DD, (1 Ponder OR 1 B.S OR 1G.P), C.Mox, D.Ritual, Therapy,



a) Play D.R. -> D.D (B;+2St)

Pile: B.S., LED, LED, (B.S OR Ponder OR Preordain)., B.W.

a) Play ponder (BU,+3St) ;take B.S., Leave B.S. > LED > LED > B.W.
c) Play B.S. (BUU,+4St),; take LED, LED, B.S.; Leave 2X Cards From Hand> B.W.
d) Play 2 LED (BUU,+6St).
e) Play B.S. Leave 2X Cards From Hand;In resp Pop both LEDs ;Play B.W. to Tendrils (BUUU,+9St)

Variables:
you see you need to adtional cards in hand plus ponder.
So needing 2xcards plus BUUU in adition to mana for D.D. to generate 9 storm is not bad - you also have no need of G.Y. Dependancy.

EDIT17: Costed to express it.... Hope to be understood. it is just an example...

[bennotsi]

...

No need to explain Doomsday to me, I'm quite familiar with the card ;-) I was merely inquiring whether that was the SB-engine Lemnear tested. I couldn't think of anything else requiring BBB and a varying amount of blue. I asked because if Doomsday were the card he tested, I wanted to point out that you rarely actually need double blue to pull it off. In most situations you'd use a cantrip and a LED or just 2 cantrips.

But I don't want to hijack this thread by discussing Doomsday too much, I don't think it's at its strongest in TES nor do I think that TES needs it right now. The only upside is that a single Burning Wish becomes more of a true business spell. It might become something to pursue in TES if, for example, the metagame shifts such that Empty the Warrens is no longer a reliable plan.

[Lemnear]

Yes, it was Doomsday. I'm so proud of all the smart wiz' in this thread :). However, depending on Wishing for DD and passing the turn or going for Gold in a single turn, the combo is quite expensive. A special lackluster is, that you can't use LED to pay for DD but need a damn Dark Ritual to cast it without having half your permanent manasources on the table already. I don't think a deck with Rite of Flame is suited for Doomsday.

Took 3rd place today. Losses to bUrg Tempo (drawing 3 Wishes + Silence in 4 turns while a single RoF or IMS would have killed him; game 2 I punted hard missing to remind me of floated mana via dices and fizzled ... Fail!) and to UWR Delver (Game 1: FoW, Daze, Pierce, Ponder, SFM, Fetch, waste ... Draws Pierce and Wasteland in 3 turns; game 2: I mull to 5(!!), Probe and see: FoW, 2x Pierce, waste, fetch, Delver, Brainstorm ... Can't beat that.)



Edit: Decided to aquire 50 FOIL Modern Masters Grapeshots and ~160 Goblin tokens just for visual showboating (see my new signature) :D

[PartyMonster]

Just got a Japanese lorwyn thoughtsieze in the mail. Can't wait for scg Columbus this Sunday.


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[Togores]

Ended today 3-2 with tes
I lost vs reanimator and show and tell
I side -4 therapy - ponder -empty -infernal for +3 xantid +tropical +2 pyro +chain

But im not sure if he plays no leyline what to side.
I think -ponder -empty -infernal -therapy +3 xantid +tropical

That can be right i think. May be its silence for therapy or pyroblast are better than tehrapys.

I dont know sure.


Some help?
Thanks

[PartyMonster]

Ended today 3-2 with tes
I lost vs reanimator and show and tell
I side -4 therapy - ponder -empty -infernal for +3 xantid +tropical +2 pyro +chain

But im not sure if he plays no leyline what to side.
I think -ponder -empty -infernal -therapy +3 xantid +tropical

That can be right i think. May be its silence for therapy or pyroblast are better than tehrapys.

I dont know sure.


Some help?
Thanks
I'm not positive it's right to bring in pyro blast in against reanimator. The cards you care about in that match up aren't blue. Also reanimator typically doesn't run leyline. For show and tell though that side boarding configuration seems solid for show and tell.


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[Togores]

Im speaking vs sneak and show. Not reanimator.

[Lemnear]

Ended today 3-2 with tes
I lost vs reanimator and show and tell
I side -4 therapy - ponder -empty -infernal for +3 xantid +tropical +2 pyro +chain

But im not sure if he plays no leyline what to side.
I think -ponder -empty -infernal -therapy +3 xantid +tropical

That can be right i think. May be its silence for therapy or pyroblast are better than tehrapys.

I dont know sure.


Some help?
Thanks

The first is a solid boarding plan. Do not alter it because of Leyline: Blasting S&T/Cantrips is good against them and you cannot be sure if he just didn't draw a Leyline in Game 2 but starts game 3 with it.

[Togores]

But if im 120% sure he dont play leyeline?

[Lemnear]

But if im 120% sure he dont play leyeline?

He still does play S&T (which is a much faster threat costing 3 mana than the 4+1 mana Sneak Attack) and has to cantrip into his 2-card-combo or the Sneak Attack mana, no? ;D

[Lemnear]

Fellas, I dig up some Podcast with Cabal Therapy as the topic with quite some talk about it's use in storm (among NicFit and Dredge). You might have missed it so far like I did :) (http://legacybreakfast.wordpress.com/2014/01/09/episode-15-legacy-staple-cabal-therapy-2/)


Edit:
Episode 5 is all about TES! (http://legacybreakfast.wordpress.com/podcasts/)

Edit 2:
Ok, there a quite a lot points I disagree with in the TES podcast. Still a nice one for newcomers especially considering that it's 3 months old

[sa3xxx]

Hi!

Small report, czech legacy/vintage series, 39 players.

Mine MD was same as is listed here. My sb :
1 TS
1 Tropical island
3 Swarm
3 Decay
2 Chain of vapor
1 EtW, ToA, DR, PiF, Grapeshot

(friends told me that there should be only a small number of blue decks, so I didn't place pyroblasts into the sb. Out of 7 games, 6 were against blue decks...)

Round 1 (Shardless BUG) : Both games were fast, siding was light. Therapies + silence did the job.

Round 2 (UB reanimator) : First game opponent burried Griselbrand on turn 1, reanimated on turn 2. SB out : Cabal, etw, Und. Sea, ponder; In : Tropical, 3*Xantid. Turn 1 xantid allowed turn 3 kill. Game 3 was bit sad. He burried griselbrand on turn 1. On my turn 1 I blind-cabaled his reanimation leaving him with notning in hand (we both mulliganed to 5). Unfortunately, he top decked another reanimation spell right after.

Round 3 (UW miracles) : Game 1 I stripped his hand on first 2 turns, but failed to find any acceleration in like 10 draws, so ho recovered and set up counterbalance+sensei. I don't remember exact SB, but etw + some usual cards out, in tropical + 3 decay. He kept FoWless hand with turn 1 sensei + turn 2 CB. I decayed the CB and killed him with AN + Tendrils. Game 3 was the most interesting game of the tournament for me. He open with Island and said 'go'. I opened with probe (having cabal in hand, but no chance to kill on turn 1 and little chance on turn 2), he shows me : sensei, BS, CB, Jace, ... . I cabaled him, getting rid of some blue card (he put CB + Sensei on top of library), I passed the turn. He played CB and passed. I draw ritual, so my hand had : BS, DR, AN. I played land and passed the turn. He cast sensei, I resp with BS (after resolving the sensei I couldn't get around the CB), his CB revealed land and BS draw dark ritual and something, so still with sensei on stack I played 2* dark ritual -> AN (with the second land) and draw something like 20 cards (unfortunately without decay), sensei resolved and he passed the turn. We knew, that his top card was land, so I played BS. If he put sensei on top, I would play petals, moxes, ... and kill him. He looked at top 3 cards with sensei but found no 1cc card, so my BS resolved and finally found a decay, which destroys the CB and clear way for the kill. I was a bit lucky, but the game was fun and enjoyable for audience as well (opponent was nice guy, so I didn't finish him with grapeshot, even though I could :) )

Round 4 (Punishing jund) : Two easy games, he SB 10 cards, I didn't SB anything. First game killed by gobs, second by AN+tendrils.

Round 5 (mono blue standstill) : He won the dice roll, began with Island. I saw him playing before, so blind-casted cabal naming standstill leaving him almost empty handed. SB in : swarms. Game 2 : Probed hand with no fow, played some gobs and won the game.

Round 6 (intentional draw)

Top 8 (Nic-fit) : Turn 1 probe + cabal got rid of his two Strixes. I saw some finks + phantasmal image, so I didn't want to play gobs (I did the math), so I've decided to go for PiF kill. Infernal tutored Dark ritual. Opponent knew my hand and said, that only therapy on top of his deck would save him ... and it was right there.

Game 2 : I stripped his hand, leaving him with only BS with hand. I played ritual, ritual, LED, tutor. He responded with BS and found both FoW and a blue card...


Final standings : 7th out of 39 players.

Conclusion : Deck performed very nicely, my lost games were similar : I got into a really good shape (or my opponent into a really bad shape), then either opponents top decked or I began to draw badly, but that's part of game (I was also lucky, for example against miracles).

[paeng4983]

We had our legacy tournament again yesterday, this time its in Resorts World Manila, Pasay City.
We had it 5 rounds and here's my MUs:

D&T 2-0
D&T 2-1
Gobs 2-1
Elves ID
Junk ID
T8:
Gobs 1-2

T8: Goblins 1-2
G3: I had a bunch of cantrips in my opening hand. he dropped his chalice for zero in his 1st turn. I used all my cantrips and they always give me LED, petals. No dark rituals or rite of flames. I lose to his battalion after a few turns.


here's the link to my brief report
http://mtglegacy.freeforums.org/post17.html#p17

[Lemnear]

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=151341&d=1390194288

Mother of God!

[Togores]

wtf?

Thats a really op anti combo and control card...


Im sad now...

[Lemnear]

wtf?

Thats a really op anti combo and control card...


Im sad now...

Draw-Combo and hard-control are pretty dead, so this is a downer for Show&Tell, ANT, High Tide and Miracles.

Going to replace Decays with Golgari Charms or Dread of Night and call it a day! Congratz! TES is the only viable combo deck that can really ignore that hatebear by our Belcher-Mode

[Final Fortune]

Draw-Combo and hard-control are pretty dead, so this is a downer for Show&Tell, ANT, High Tide and Miracles.

Going to replace Decays with Golgari Charms or Dread of Night and call it a day! Congratz! TES is the only viable combo deck that can really ignore that hatebear by our Belcher-Mode

Be calm, it's just another hate bear, and while it may increase the total number of viable MD hate bears beyond Thalia, Guardian of Thraiban and Green Sun's Zenith -> Gaddok Teeg in a deck like Death&Taxes or Maverick it also increases the utility of Golgari Charm and Dread of Night while doing absolutely nothing vs Tutor -> Empty the Warrens. It doesn't even come down fast enough to stop you from playing your first or second cantrip in Storm and only restricts you to specific tutor targets when it does come down. Not to mention unlike Meddling Mage, which can actually blank cards you're likely to have in hand and need to go off by the time it comes down, no aggro-control deck is going to us this ergo they'll never have counter back up or the ability to name Burning Wish to eliminate Grape Shot.

At best, this gets played in WW.dec or in some kind of Rock deck that can find a way to break the assymetry of draw effects with Dark Confidents or Sylvan Library and they already have 9 virtual hate bears ... so like WW.dec gets a boost in the arm? Meh, the whole of combo is probably fine.

[Asthereal]

Seriously, we worry about that?

Ad Nauseam doesn't draw cards. So that guy only stops cantrips and Returns.
So we cantrip turn 1-2, and go off via Ad Nauseam, Past in Flames, Empty the Warrens, you name it.
ANT also laughs about that dude: see how it dies to Dread of Night? And that's a 3/4-of in ANT already.

[Lemnear]

Be calm, it's just another hate bear, and while it may increase the total number of viable MD hate bears beyond Thalia, Guardian of Thraiban and Green Sun's Zenith -> Gaddok Teeg in a deck like Death&Taxes or Maverick it also increases the utility of Golgari Charm and Dread of Night while doing absolutely nothing vs Tutor -> Empty the Warrens. It doesn't even come down fast enough to stop you from playing your first or second cantrip in Storm and only restricts you to specific tutor targets when it does come down. Not to mention unlike Meddling Mage, which can actually blank cards you're likely to have in hand and need to go off by the time it comes down, no aggro-control deck is going to us this ergo they'll never have counter back up or the ability to name Burning Wish to eliminate Grape Shot.

At best, this gets played in WW.dec or in some kind of Rock deck that can find a way to break the assymetry of draw effects with Dark Confidents or Sylvan Library and they already have 9 virtual hate bears ... so like WW.dec gets a boost in the arm? Meh, the whole of combo is probably fine.

I'm talking long-term effects. If decks like Team America and Esperblade have to add up numbers of Golgari Charms/Zealous Persecution, their SB space is also well used against our Goblins. Sure it does nothing against our T1/2 combo and that's why I highlighted that. I still expect a rise of Junk/Rock/Maverick/Jund and lots of Charms/Dread of Night/Persecution in Sideboards in the near future, so do I see a drop in Miracles, therefore opting to chop the Decays for more variable hate

[Final Fortune]

I'm talking long-term effects. If decks like Team America and Esperblade have to add up numbers of Golgari Charms/Zealous Persecution, their SB space is also well used against our Goblins. Sure it does nothing against our T1/2 combo and that's why I highlighted that. I still expect a rise of Junk/Rock/Maverick/Jund and lots of Charms/Dread of Night/Persecution in Sideboards in the near future, so do I see a drop in Miracles, therefore opting to chop the Decays for more variable hate

I dropped Abrupt Decay for Pyroblast awhile ago, I don't think a single deck playing Counterbalance is any where near as bad as every deck playing Counterbalance like it was years back; I'm not paying more than 1 mana for removal or a dead card when there's nothing worth removing ever.

Yeah, I can see Esper Blade increasing the number of Zealous Persecutions in their SB and BUG playing the full set of Golgari Charm as a consequence of this, the price of Sylvan Library and Dark Confidant is already sky rocketing so I assume there are a lot of people speculating on Junk becoming more viable.

So definitely Goblins get a little worse, maybe Thoughtseize over Silence gets more credible.

The big issue tho' is what happens to the Sneak Attack decks, because if the Sneak Attack decks have to start using Daze instead of Spell Pierce and Flusterstorm in order to address this hatebear game 1 then they are going to start losing ground in the battle vs Storm game 1 relatively as the efficacy of their disruption decreases against us significantly. That deck may have become a complete joke over night because it's no where near as resilient as Reanimator vs this particular hate bear ... that's just good news for us.

[Lemnear]

Yeah, I can see Esper Blade increasing the number of Zealous Persecutions in their SB and BUG playing the full set of Golgari Charm as a consequence of this, the price of Sylvan Library and Dark Confidant is already sky rocketing so I assume there are a lot of people speculating on Junk becoming more viable.

So definitely Goblins get a little worse, maybe Thoughtseize over Silence gets more credible.

The big issue tho' is what happens to the Sneak Attack decks, because if the Sneak Attack decks have to start using Daze instead of Spell Pierce and Flusterstorm in order to address this hatebear game 1 then they are going to start losing ground in the battle vs Storm game 1 relatively as the efficacy of their disruption decreases against us significantly. That deck may have become a complete joke over night because it's no where near as resilient as Reanimator vs this particular hate bear ... that's just good news for us.

Hmmm ... I'm not that sure if Sylvan Library + SoL is smart. Doesn't it cause 8 damage per turn? Stupid question, but playing storm over years makes me forgetting about basic rules ;D

[sawatarix]

Lemnear if you have library and spirit in play you draw just 1 card and don't loose life.
Simply said,library doesn't do anything.

Dark confidant on the other side is amazing,but i did not test him in my TES Sb and i don't believe that it's gonna be great.

Gents,just ignore spirit it does not affect our gameplan.
It only negates our draw-7 card in the sb.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Togores]

Sylvans librarys effect draws card if you use it.
So with this hate bear.
U draw 1 card and pay 8 life.
So not a good deal.

[sawatarix]

It says: "You may"
So you just don't use it to prevent unnecessary damage.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Togores]

I say "if" cause u may use it. And IF you do. This happens.

The good plan is not to use it.

;-)

[Final Fortune]

My mistake, in that case it's pretty much just a decent MD hatebear to go along with the versions of Junk that want to play with discard over Thalia for disruption and need a more all purpose MD hate bear with assymetry. Maverick probably has to take a pass on it if it conflicts with Sylvan Library.

[Lemnear]

Missed the "may" in the Oracle Text. Thx guys.

Dark Confidant is crap. Tested it Mainboard; Tested it Sideboard; turned out a 2-mana cantrip at best

[sawatarix]

Confidant was awesome in Grinding Station or generally in Ant when Jund was Tier1 after GP Denver last year.
But these are different decks.

Well,it's not our plan to go into the grindy game so let's quit discussing about bob,it's not worth it.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Togores]

If someone has not noticed it.
While being an enchantment it can be searched by enlightned tutor

[Lemnear]

If someone has not noticed it.
While being an enchantment it can be searched by enlightned tutor

Same as Cannonist. Did not miss it. The Death & Taxes matchup does not really change unlike they start to run MBT, Thalia, Cannonist and SoL in their 75. Before that, the sky's not falling

[Togores]

I think this card is better in the before combo turns tan canonist.

with a canonist in play we can play poder on our turn and a bs on his turn to dig for answer. and then just get rid of it and combo.

with this guy we have to combo out and can not dig for missing pieces or anything.

I know the plan is to combo turn 2. But on the draw its not so easy and we have to consider this.

[Lemnear]

I think this card is better in the before combo turns tan canonist.

with a canonist in play we can play poder on our turn and a bs on his turn to dig for answer. and then just get rid of it and combo.

with this guy we have to combo out and can not dig for missing pieces or anything.

I know the plan is to combo turn 2. But on the draw its not so easy and we have to consider this.

The only issue is game 2 or 3 on the draw if you have 1 turn to explode. Probe + Therapy is not a solution due to their density of hatebears to topdeck. Mulligan-decisions are vital

[Jaycounet]

good and bad news at the same time

maybe we will see less combo but we will have to fight with more and more d&t deck

kill our probe brain ponder part but still useless with adn :)

[Lemnear]

good and bad news at the same time

maybe we will see less combo but we will have to fight with more and more d&t deck

kill our probe brain ponder part but still useless with adn :)

My favorite solution to SoL is Infernal->AN

SoL does nothing on your T1/2 cantrips. The only problem that i CAN see is, if that card has a real impact on the metagame, other draw-combo decks like High Tide and S&T variants are pushed out, allowing/requiring decks to have more specific storm hate and Charms/Persecution in their Sideboards.

If that's the case, countermeasures are easy to add

[sa3xxx]

Yes, I agree with Lemnear, this card isn't really a direct threat to TES, but the way it might shape the metagame is a bit annoying.

On the other hand, LoS might lower the overall number of blue decks being played. Non blue decks are SBing hate, but a)1st game is ours, b)non-instant hate is slow. If some SnT/miracles player swap his deck for something without blue, I think it's ok for us :)

[PartyMonster]

The only issue is game 2 or 3 on the draw if you have 1 turn to explode. Probe + Therapy is not a solution due to their density of hatebears to topdeck. Mulligan-decisions are vital

Leave in silence when boarding and cut some brainstorms?


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[Lemnear]

Leave in silence when boarding and cut some brainstorms?


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Hard to answer here without throwing my tablet out of the window :)

No, you never board out Brainstorms. If you want to trim cantrips, lay hands on 1-2 Ponder for matchups which force you to go off T1/2.

[trollking21]

What do you guys think about death mark in the side now? Game 1 it's wish able, but mostly it answers meddling Mage teeg, Thalia, canonist or other hate bears I'm probably currently forgetting.

[Lemnear]

What do you guys think about death mark in the side now? Game 1 it's wish able, but mostly it answers meddling Mage teeg, Thalia, canonist or other hate bears I'm probably currently forgetting.

The wishable game 1 answers are an old topic. Several questions to ask yourself in regards to those:

A) if I can Wish for removal, can't I Wish for EtW/DimRet instead, if the mana isn't a chokepoint?
B) if I can Wish for removal, does Grapeshot not do the trick as well? (All but Cannonist)?
C) can I even pay the mana to Wish for a solution against a resolved Thalia?
D) Why should your opponent name anything other than Wish with Meddling Mage?
E) can I afford to blow a Wish for such Medium impact if my opponent can topdeck right the next hatebear?

[Jin Gitaxias]

After playing exclusively ANT since 2011 I have decided to try TES, just to get a feel for the differences between the decks. Wich wyould you say, are the biggest differences in playing the deck?
What i mean is differents sorts of plays, mulligan decisions, diffferent strategies in matchups et cetera that would be correct in ANT but wrong with TES and vice versa.

Thanks!

[Lemnear]

After playing exclusively ANT since 2011 I have decided to try TES, just to get a feel for the differences between the decks. Wich wyould you say, are the biggest differences in playing the deck?
What i mean is differents sorts of plays, mulligan decisions, diffferent strategies in matchups et cetera that would be correct in ANT but wrong with TES and vice versa.

Thanks!


Answering that question and subparts in an adequate way, would completely burst my timeframe. Instead, I add the link to Carsten's article that compared both decks. Even if the article misses a bunch of vital differences as the interaction between Rite of Flame and Burning Wish to float a red mana for SB Grapeshot/Empty the Warrens/Past in Flames, it will give you an idea. For detailed questions, please come back here :)
(http://www.starcitygames.com/article/26624_Comparative-Storming.html)

[Final Fortune]

After playing exclusively ANT since 2011 I have decided to try TES, just to get a feel for the differences between the decks. Wich wyould you say, are the biggest differences in playing the deck?
What i mean is differents sorts of plays, mulligan decisions, diffferent strategies in matchups et cetera that would be correct in ANT but wrong with TES and vice versa.

Thanks!

Biggest differences are in the time ANT uses to cantrip, build a mana base and establish threshold at the cost of life compared to the time TES uses to go off before the opponent can establish a board or sculpt a hand, by playing less cantrips and more business spells, less lands and more accelerants and Rite of Flame instead of Cabal Ritual TES is capable of more fundamental turn one and turn two wins where you've won before Counterbalance, Meddling Mage or Vendillion Clique ever became an issue. The downside is the deck tends to play into counter spells and Wastelands much more aggresively than ANT, so you'll be taking more mulligans and making more coinflips than you may normally be comfortable with. You'll also have to get used to using a variety of volatile win conditions and kill conditions that aren't as simple as an Infernal Tutor -> Past in Flames loop, you'll be attacking the opponent with Goblins, drawing cards with Ad Nauseam and giving everyone a new hand with Diminishing Returns quite often so you'll have to learn how to evaluate more lines of play.

On the bright side tho' you don't have to worry about Deathrite Shaman at all because you don't really care about your graveyard as much as ANT does, and contrary to what other players may be playing right now your disruption suite is as linear or as a versatile as you'd like it to be.

[sa3xxx]

What do you guys think about death mark in the side now? Game 1 it's wish able, but mostly it answers meddling Mage teeg, Thalia, canonist or other hate bears I'm probably currently forgetting.

You usually don't need to answer hate bears during the first game. And as Lemnear said, deathmark rarely does something, what grapeshot does not (maybe killing cannonist with no petal/mox/led in hand?).

With T.E.S. you can fight turn 2 hatebears with you speed. If the speed isn't enought, then I would prefer Massacre over Deathmark, since it ignores Mother of runes and can kill multiple targets at once (Thalia+Canonist for example).

[Final Fortune]

You usually don't need to answer hate bears during the first game. And as Lemnear said, deathmark rarely does something, what grapeshot does not (maybe killing cannonist with no petal/mox/led in hand?).

With T.E.S. you can fight turn 2 hatebears with you speed. If the speed isn't enought, then I would prefer Massacre over Deathmark, since it ignores Mother of runes and can kill multiple targets at once (Thalia+Canonist for example).

It's also important to note that TES just doesn't care as much about hate bears as ANT, naming Burning Wish vs TES still lets you kill them with Infernal Tutor, where ANT is really fucked by naming Infernal Tutor. We're inherently more resilient vs the most common hatebear in the format at the moment.

[Tom T]

After playing exclusively ANT since 2011 I have decided to try TES, just to get a feel for the differences between the decks. Wich wyould you say, are the biggest differences in playing the deck?
What i mean is differents sorts of plays, mulligan decisions, diffferent strategies in matchups et cetera that would be correct in ANT but wrong with TES and vice versa.

Thanks!

Another difference is the reduced amount of sideboard space compared to ANT. And that casting spells like Abrupt Decay, Massacre, Golgari Charm etc is way harder to execute with TES for its manabase is more "greedy". Wasteland is better against TES than it is against ANT. Also winning with Ad Nauseam from 9 life has the same feel as ANTs Ad Nauseam from 16 life.

Welcome to the club!

[Pelikanudo]

I'm talking long-term effects. If decks like Team America and Esperblade have to add up numbers of Golgari Charms/Zealous Persecution, their SB space is also well used against our Goblins. Sure it does nothing against our T1/2 combo and that's why I highlighted that. I still expect a rise of Junk/Rock/Maverick/Jund and lots of Charms/Dread of Night/Persecution in Sideboards in the near future, so do I see a drop in Miracles, therefore opting to chop the Decays for more variable hate

That's the thing I've lived the other day in a tournament...Lot of time I didn't play the deck so bad results, too tired and dazed... It was a F**** Yeah night magic touunamen starting at 21:00 wit 4 roundst!!

a) was a known boy and althouth I won 1st game, I thoutgh he was playing other kind of decks and lost because of decisions and bad siding...

b) I didn't noticed how few counters Omnishow play!!, after torunament I looked at severals Omnishows in the web... I should have played more agressively, playing Threpys sooner...I made also the 1CoV Tech putting up its Leyline! but the 3rd game was absolutly unwinable... maybe the first game but I thouthgit was TimeSpral...
Sided: +3Xantid,+1Tropical,+2Pyroblast+1CoV = -4C.T.-1EtW-1Ponder-1 C.Mox

c) VS Team america, I won game 1 also dropping goblins, in 2nd and 3rd games he top decked a Anti-EtW effect - he played 4. , I should have won any of these 2last games, because of one bad decisión... it is interesting how games resolves depending on the decisions you make with TES.... so much interesting....
Sided: -1Ponder+1Tropical

d) Drop, tired , need to go to bed. In Delivery Projects Era...

Question:If Team America gets up its Anti Gobs Effects to 4-6 should you take out EtW.?
(Core set of T.A = 4daze OR Pierce, 4 hymn OR T.seize , 4 FoW)

I really don't think so, as in one of these gamesvs T.A. I should have opted by another way...

Althoutgh the result was not ok, but I'm happy with the deck. - really not bad idea Telemins...
Question:how much is effective vs Omnishow if you play the turn before the OmniShow player can go off? I think at this point seems useless as you'll need to discard full set of C.W., the idea is to not to side out I.T. I believe ritgh?

Question: Siding vs OmniShow I didn't want to take out the C.Mox if suspected it was so quick, 2nd turn on 3rd game with FoW back up, I think I would have sided ou the 2nd ponder.... but for sure I.T. doesn't seem to be an option, maybe take out the 2nd Ponder instead of the C.M?

[Lemnear]

Answers:
1) keep EtW in
2) I'm not sure, if I understand the question :\
3) Yes, siding out the Ponder here is right I guess. You can't afford to lose speed by cutting Moxen here or durdling with cantrips

Strong boarding overall. Like



Edit: Felt forced to create a twitter account as a result of moving HotS and direct feedback @ValeLemnear

[Pelikanudo]

Answers:

2) I'm not sure, if I understand the question :\

Strong boarding overall. Like

Edit: Felt forced to create a twitter account as a result of moving HotS and direct feedback @ValeLemnear

Related to :
Althoutgh the result was not ok, but I'm happy with the deck. - really not bad idea Telemins...
Question:how much is effective vs Omnishow if you play the turn before the OmniShow player can go off? I think at this point seems useless as you'll need to discard full set of CunningWishes., the idea is to not to side out I.T. I believe ritgh?

I meant:

if you play Telemins in the turn before the OmniShow player is going off, you will take Emrakul, fine, but on next turn he will be able to play S&T -> Omniscience and win anyway, So unless the next turn after playing T.P. the Omnishow player is not going to combo, seems effective. but otherwise it is not.

So how good is T.P vs Omnishow?

[Lemnear]

Related to :
Althoutgh the result was not ok, but I'm happy with the deck. - really not bad idea Telemins...
Question:how much is effective vs Omnishow if you play the turn before the OmniShow player can go off? I think at this point seems useless as you'll need to discard full set of CunningWishes., the idea is to not to side out I.T. I believe ritgh?

I meant:

if you play Telemins in the turn before the OmniShow player is going off, you will take Emrakul, fine, but on next turn he will be able to play S&T -> Omniscience and win anyway, So unless the next turn after playing T.P. the Omnishow player is not going to combo, seems effective. but otherwise it is not.

So how good is T.P vs Omnishow?

Ah, ok. First, not all OmniShow run Emrakul even if they should; second, you still have milled quite a part of their deck. Impact varies as they are running a 3-card-combo between S&T/Halls + Omniscience + EtI (+ Cunning Wish). If you hit one of their sets, they are dead, if not they have pretty much a turn to kill you. Dunno if you want to fire off TP if the opponent has the kill already in hand ...

Did never lose to S&T supertypes after a resolved TP. Chance to fail is there and concens valid

[Togores]

Usualy a good omnitell player should side out the emrakul. But lots of ppl just dont do it.
I think the chance of milling all his pieces of combo is to low.
And they can combo on the next turn.

Vs reanimator or sneak if u get a griselbrand is a gg but if not. You could loose. But most cases you will win.
I like telemin a lot vs storm or lands. Where u just get to deck them out. But i think its not auto gg if your opp can combo con the mext turn. And also there is no space for it. I think briberynis better at least vs reanimator or show and tell. But vs other decks if you can resolve a telemin u usualy can also combo out. And you can also fail cause they sided some creature like xantid for silence or lab maniac. Or even im reanimator the 1/1 draw discard guy.

[HerrGevatter]

Anyone else playing in the SCG Open in Baltimore this Sunday? I want to play TES but am worried there'll be too many Zealous Persecutions and Golgari Charms running after True Names for the Goblin plan to be effective.

[paeng4983]

Anyone else playing in the SCG Open in Baltimore this Sunday? I want to play TES but am worried there'll be too many Zealous Persecutions and Golgari Charms running after True Names for the Goblin plan to be effective.

Don't worry about those. You still have TOA and grapeshot for the win.
^_^
Good luck TES players!
^_^

[sawatarix]

Against Lands i would recommend to not(!) use TP in game 2 (there won't be a game 3 against lands)
I saw guys playing hatebears postboard such as gaddock teeg or canonist and i'm pretty sure you don't really want to have one of them in play under your control .




- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Final Fortune]

Against Lands i would recommend to not(!) use TP in game 2 (there won't be a game 3 against lands)
I saw guys playing hatebears postboard such as gaddock teeg or canonist and i'm pretty sure you don't really want to have one of them in play under your control .




- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

I just think Bribery is more consistent than Telemin's Performance overall because you're guaranteed to always hit Griselbrand and a lot of the combo decks that Telemin's Performance is suppose to auto-win against can show up with unexpected surprises like Xantid Swarm, Dark Confident, Cloud of Faeries etc. post-board. It's a hell of a gamble to Telemin's Performance vs ANT instead of Diminishing Returns with a mana floating when all they have to do is SB in 1 Dark Confident to fuck you completely for your "nice win condition, bro."

[Sockosensei]

Looking for suggestions on playing and sideboarding vs Monoblack Pox.

The build in question runs in the main 2x Tabernacle, Crucible-Wastelock, Dark Ritual+Nether Void (2 main, I believe, 1 more in the SB), and of course the usual discard, Lilianas, Sinkhole, and Smallpox. Very very slow clock.
Board includes Engineered Plague, Ratchet Bomb, and Chains of Meph.

[Lemnear]

Looking for suggestions on playing and sideboarding vs Monoblack Pox.

The build in question runs in the main 2x Tabernacle, Crucible-Wastelock, Dark Ritual+Nether Void (2 main, I believe, 1 more in the SB), and of course the usual discard, Lilianas, Sinkhole, and Smallpox. Very very slow clock.
Board includes Engineered Plague, Ratchet Bomb, and Chains of Meph.

-1 Ponder, +1 Tropical Island -> Belcher Mode. Don't be too afraid of (topdecked) sweepers.

[sa3xxx]

-1 Ponder, +1 Tropical Island -> Belcher Mode. Don't be too afraid of (topdecked) sweepers.


Same discussion as before : is silencewalking better than playing decays? vs Jund I believe so (since their hate is mainly discard), vs Mono black i'm not so sure, especially if you are on draw, since he can play turn 1 discard+chalice, or turn 1 trinisphere or whatever.


about Telemin Performance : is it that great, if you consider, that after SB SnT/omni will probably side in Leylines? I like the card and haven't tried it so far, but I'm curious.

[Lemnear]

Same discussion as before : is silencewalking better than playing decays? vs Jund I believe so (since their hate is mainly discard), vs Mono black i'm not so sure, especially if you are on draw, since he can play turn 1 discard+chalice, or turn 1 trinisphere or whatever.


about Telemin Performance : is it that great, if you consider, that after SB SnT/omni will probably side in Leylines? I like the card and haven't tried it so far, but I'm curious.

Decay is pointless if he Thoughtseize/Hymn/Liliana/Smallpox you into oblivion. Sure he can drop Chalice, Thorn, Trinisphere on the play, but it's not that you can ever really recover from a T1 3Sphere anyways.

The days of Leyline are counted. I haven't seen Leyline since I raised the topic of all-discard in this thread for the first time. Even if your opponent mulligans into a Leyline, you have only wasted 1 SB slot. The main job of TP is catching opponents in surprise as rarely anyone expects that card. It's still totally nuts to steal a game 1 from another combo deck. You'll never ever win 2 games in a match with TP anyways as your opponent will board at least one creature once they saw TP in game 1 or 2

[sa3xxx]

Decay is pointless if he Thoughtseize/Hymn/Liliana/Smallpox you into oblivion. Sure he can drop Chalice, Thorn, Trinisphere on the play, but it's not that you can ever really recover from a T1 3Sphere anyways.

The days of Leyline are counted. I haven't seen Leyline since I raised the topic of all-discard in this thread for the first time. Even if your opponent mulligans into a Leyline, you have only wasted 1 SB slot. The main job of TP is catching opponents in surprise as rarely anyone expects that card. It's still totally nuts to steal a game 1 from another combo deck. You'll never ever win 2 games in a match with TP anyways as your opponent will board at least one creature once they saw TP in game 1 or 2

I he playes trinisphere turn 1 it means, that he is not playing anything for a while as well, so getting 3 lands in play isn't really unimaginable.

If he TS+hymn turn 1 it really doesn't matter if you have silence or decay in hand, does it?

If you are on draw I think decays are equal or better then silences.

On play, silences might be better.


Agree with the part about TP (too bad some combodecks play small creatures, like belcher/oops all spells. However, resolving wish with 5 manas floating angainst them should be enough for a kill anyway)

[Lemnear]

I he playes trinisphere turn 1 it means, that he is not playing anything for a while as well, so getting 3 lands in play isn't really unimaginable.

If he TS+hymn turn 1 it really doesn't matter if you have silence or decay in hand, does it?

If you are on draw I think decays are equal or better then silences.

On play, silences might be better.


Agree with the part about TP (too bad some combodecks play small creatures, like belcher/oops all spells. However, resolving wish with 5 manas floating angainst them should be enough for a kill anyway)

I've turn 2/3 killed people after they thoughtseized me on the play and keep doing so. If they don't start with a hilarious 3-for-3 trade with Ritual + Seize + Hymn or 3sphere you are still in a pretty good shape. I doubt you can dig you out of a Sphere or Void of your opponent has at least 50% more lands in his deck than you plus Wastelands. It's not that you can seriously rely on dropping fetches and wait for more to eot fetch for lands and Decay.

The only realistic target for Decay is Chalice and even then you will face Wastelands and Discard. I rather try delaying Hymn/Chalice@1/shit with Silence if there is the chance.

[Sockosensei]

-1 Ponder, +1 Tropical Island -> Belcher Mode. Don't be too afraid of (topdecked) sweepers.

I appreciate the speedy response, Lemnear. In fact, I put it to immediate use when I faced that exact deck in round 3 tonight.
Lost game one to turn 1 Swamp, Ritual, Ritual, Nether Void, when I had a turn two hand.
Then won both games post-board via Belcher Mode.

[Lemnear]

I appreciate the speedy response, Lemnear. In fact, I put it to immediate use when I faced that exact deck in round 3 tonight.
Lost game one to turn 1 Swamp, Ritual, Ritual, Nether Void, when I had a turn two hand.
Then won both games post-board via Belcher Mode.

http://www.myiconart.com/1030-large/a-team-t-shirt-hannibal-a-plan-comes-together.jpg

Ya owe me an Beppu-Onsen trip ;)

[Sockosensei]

Ya owe me an Beppu-Onsen trip ;)

Make it Koya-san and you've got it:cool:

Actually, we've got local players picking up Elves who could use your expertise.

Very much looking forward to the next installment of Heart of the Storm, with the updated deck list.

[Lemnear]

Make it Koya-san and you've got it:cool:

Actually, we've got local players picking up Elves who could use your expertise.

Very much looking forward to the next installment of Heart of the Storm, with the updated deck list.

They are welcome to PM me, write a mail, twitter, etc. or you send them over to the Elves thread here on TheSource, right into Julian's ... erm ... Gaea's Cradle ;D

[gibbousm]

As someone who has just begun to build TES, what pieces would you recommend acquiring first?
I have a monthly budget of about $45-60 to build the list and its going to take me a while to complete as I'm starting out with very few of the cards for it. Right now I only have a few of the cantrips and rituals (no full sets), an Empty, and the City of Brasses. I've been working on getting trades, but the quality of my binder is relatively low as I lack many staples because I am primarily a casual player. I'm hoping to pick up some pieces at GP Richmond if I manage to make it there.

[Lemnear]

As someone who has just begun to build TES, what pieces would you recommend acquiring first?
I have a monthly budget of about $45-60 to build the list and its going to take me a while to complete as I'm starting out with very few of the cards for it. Right now I only have a few of the cantrips and rituals (no full sets), an Empty, and the City of Brasses. I've been working on getting trades, but the quality of my binder is relatively low as I lack many staples because I am primarily a casual player. I'm hoping to pick up some pieces at GP Richmond if I manage to make it there.

As usual I advice getting the Duals, Fetches and Diamonds asap. Everything after those few cards is cheap, easy and fast to aquire. You can use 3 Bloodstained Mire as cheaper solutions to the blue ones.

Duals and Diamonds are a bitter pill to swallow but those can't be substituted.

[Jay_Gatz]

You can use 3 Bloodstained Mire as cheaper solutions to the blue ones.
Unless you play the trop out of the board

[Lemnear]

Unless you play the trop out of the board

Touché. However, for someone with a limited budget, I possibly would pass on that SB land for the moment.:/

[NoizeMe]

He could still play a Bayou instead of a Trop ;).


Gesendet von meinem iPad mit Tapatalk

[Lemnear]

He could still play a Bayou instead of a Trop ;).


Gesendet von meinem iPad mit Tapatalk

My topic was preventing him from investing in a damn expensive SB card that might become obsolete again at some point in the future.

[Asthereal]

Team Nijmegen plays only 1x Sea, 1x Volcanic and 4x fetch. And they seem to really like it.
So you could perhaps delay the purchase of the second Sea for some time.
I personally disagree with Team Nijmegen here, but it's a $60 saving, so worth mentioning. :wink:

Other than that Lem's right. Duals, fetches and Diamonds are a priority.
Duals and fetch because they are useful in everything you want to play.
Diamonds because this deck just sucks without them. :cool:

[Lemnear]

Team Nijmegen plays only 1x Sea, 1x Volcanic and 4x fetch. And they seem to really like it.
So you could perhaps delay the purchase of the second Sea for some time.
I personally disagree with Team Nijmegen here, but it's a $60 saving, so worth mentioning. :wink:

Other than that Lem's right. Duals, fetches and Diamonds are a priority.
Duals and fetch because they are useful in everything you want to play.
Diamonds because this deck just sucks without them. :cool:

I have also tested that idea, but hated it versus anything playing Wastelands. Not being able to use drawn Fetchlands is miserable and happened too often for my taste.

[Asthereal]

I have also tested that idea, but hated it versus anything playing Wastelands. Not being able to use drawn Fetchlands is miserable and happened too often for my taste.
Same here. But TN seem to score fine with 1x Sea lists, so I guess it's a valid option if you want to slowly build this deck.

[KaiSchafroth]

As someone who has just begun to build TES, what pieces would you recommend acquiring first?
I have a monthly budget of about $45-60 to build the list and its going to take me a while to complete as I'm starting out with very few of the cards for it. Right now I only have a few of the cantrips and rituals (no full sets), an Empty, and the City of Brasses. I've been working on getting trades, but the quality of my binder is relatively low as I lack many staples because I am primarily a casual player. I'm hoping to pick up some pieces at GP Richmond if I manage to make it there.

LEDs, fetches and duals. The other items you can either just pick up cheap or even (perhaps) get ppl to toss into trades since some of the pieces are pretty low $ value. If you're really budgeting it out while you build up; the duals can more easily be replaced with shocks or something to stand in. While clearly not optimal it lets you at least pilot the deck to some degree; not really feasible to do this w/o the LEDs. Fetches, we fortunately don't play that many so you can find something that suits your budget but I'd personally say shoot for the blue fetches. When building up TES myself (not all that long ago) it made more sense to just save a bit longer to buy the fetches or duals I wanted instead of subbing something else and feeling like I wasted money/time trading.

Also realizing this is the first post I've actually made here on Source...cripes :really: ...greetings fellow storm troopers

[Lemnear]

Same here. But TN seem to score fine with 1x Sea lists, so I guess it's a valid option if you want to slowly build this deck.

Possibly.

Edit: I wonder where the tres.hold for substitution is in TES before budget limitations really influence your overall experience with the deck. I have seen many people building storm with various Substitute-cards (like Shocklands) leading to bad performances and rage quitting/selling the deck without having it ever completed

Edit 2:

LEDs, fetches and duals. The other items you can either just pick up cheap or even (perhaps) get ppl to toss into trades since some of the pieces are pretty low $ value. If you're really budgeting it out while you build up; the duals can more easily be replaced with shocks or something to stand in. While clearly not optimal it lets you at least pilot the deck to some degree; not really feasible to do this w/o the LEDs. Fetches, we fortunately don't play that many so you can find something that suits your budget but I'd personally say shoot for the blue fetches. When building up TES myself (not all that long ago) it made more sense to just save a bit longer to buy the fetches or duals I wanted instead of subbing something else and feeling like I wasted money/time trading.

Also realizing this is the first post I've actually made here on Source...cripes :really: ...greetings fellow storm troopers

I strongly disagree. Shocklands are the worst to build TES on a budget. I'd rather play Gold-lands only than lightning Bolt myself with every Fetchland and wonder afterwards why my Ad Nauseams suck

[KaiSchafroth]

Possibly.

Edit: I wonder where the tres.hold for substitution is in TES before budget limitations really influence your overall experience with the deck. I have seen many people building storm with various Substitute-cards (like Shocklands) leading to bad performances and rage quitting/selling the deck without having it ever completed

I think the most major part is the mindset going into building a more budget friendly list. One or two friends that started on budget builds (storm or otherwise) and were ready to rip cardboard apart because they couldn't get over how they had to approach turns differently. Every change to the deck requires a different sequencing because you're not playing the same game plan. I think too many people just can't get past that; feeling out paced by the rest of what's happening.
The first legacy deck I built and piloted was the super budget sac-land tendrils deck so I was more than prepped for the limitations of building up real storm.

Edit:


Edit 2:

I strongly disagree. Shocklands are the worst to build TES on a budget. I'd rather play Gold-lands only than lightning Bolt myself with every Fetchland and wonder afterwards why my Ad Nauseams suck

Lemnear - I seriously meant the "or something" part. My only point was that the duals are important (top 3 list IMO to focus on acquiring first) but you have options if the price tag isn't feasible; be that shocks or gold lands, etc. while you wait.

[Lemnear]

I think the most major part is the mindset going into building a more budget friendly list. One or two friends that started on budget builds (storm or otherwise) and were ready to rip cardboard apart because they couldn't get over how they had to approach turns differently. Every change to the deck requires a different sequencing because you're not playing the same game plan. I think too many people just can't get past that; feeling out paced by the rest of what's happening.
The first legacy deck I built and piloted was the super budget sac-land tendrils deck so I was more than prepped for the limitations of building up real storm.

I salute to your inner peace. Sadly the majority of players want immediate payback for building and playing such a High Risk/High Reward deck and end up disappointed as a result of Self-inflicted limitations (money/availability) or refusing to give themselves the time to learn, how the deck CAN perform in Situation X & Y.

"Turn 1/2, 7 mana, Infernal -> Ad Nauseam" is often a very limited perception of the deck. :/

[hellhound]

Hi stormtroopers! I've started playing and testing TES since last september. Planning to bring to next GP.

Is anybody comin to GP Paris next Feb? What meta do you expect?

cya :smile:

[Lemnear]

Hi stormtroopers! I've started playing and testing TES since last september. Planning to bring to next GP.

Is anybody comin to GP Paris next Feb? What meta do you expect?

cya :smile:

Not going to Paris in Feb as i'm in Milan during that time for work.

I expect shitloads of Life from the Loam control decks, TNN + SFM without end, Elves, D&T as well as quite some Team America and the usual suspects playing ANT

[sawatarix]

I'll attend Gp Paris and give my TES a whirl !(lemnear and me having nearly the exact 75 at Bom 2013)

One fixed slot in my Sideboard is Massacre for sure to get rid of annoying Meddling Mages,Canonists etc.
I'm personally expecting a lot of UWx Decks (Tempo and Midrange).
There are also a lot of people who just ignore TNN and switch to combodecks,like us.
In the Combomirror the faster one will win,thats also one reason to play TES over ANT.The faster the better Gents,The Metagame is good for us in my opinion.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Lemnear]

I'll attend Gp Paris and give my TES a whirl !(lemnear and me having nearly the exact 75 at Bom 2013)

One fixed slot in my Sideboard is Massacre for sure to get rid of annoying Meddling Mages,Canonists etc.
I'm personally expecting a lot of UWx Decks (Tempo and Midrange).
There are also a lot of people who just ignore TNN and switch to combodecks,like us.
In the Combomirror the faster one will win,thats also one reason to play TES over ANT.The faster the better Gents,The Metagame is good for us in my opinion.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

You are aware that there are only virtual 5 permaments in the deck what turn on Massacre and D&T plays a shitload of non-plains white mana sources? That shit bite me at times

[sawatarix]

D&T plays
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
4 Rishardan Port
12-14 Plains !
Massacre would always cost 0.
If the D&T Player plays around Massacre, he will start with a Wasteland into a slow vial,which is fine because we have infinite time to combo out.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Lemnear]

D&T plays
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
4 Rishardan Port
12-14 Plains !
Massacre would always cost 0.
If the D&T Player plays around Massacre, he will start with a Wasteland into a slow vial,which is fine because we have infinite time to combo out.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

You forgot a playset of Karakas and some Eiganjo. A pal of mine plays the following manabase:

7 Plains
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
2 Eiganjo Castle
4 Karakas

[hellhound]

Actually I've a slightly different SB from Lemnear's one:
1 Grapeshot
1 ETW
1 DR
1 Tendrils
1 Seize
2 Carpet
2 Decay
2 Xantid
1 PiF
2 Surgical*
1 Telemin*

*due to metacall since mine's full of reanimator ANT and S&T

Maindeck with 3 mox, 12 lands, 4 therapies and 3 silence

I've never been totally sold on the tropical in SB. Never won because of it, never felt the needing of having it (maybe I'm just very lucky! :wink:)

I'm tempted to change the surgicals with 2 dread of the night because of the lots of D&T I've seen around lately...

what you think? is it absurd? did u tested them already?

[anakyn]

I'm tempted to change the surgicals with 2 dread of the night because of the lots of D&T I've seen around lately...

what you think? is it absurd? did u tested them already?


I don't think Dread of night belongs to TES.

It's great in ANT 'cause that deck is slower and cantrip-heavier, so it needs something to stop Thalia and such (from now on also Spirit of the labyrinth) from ruining not only the combo itself, but the cantrips too.
And it usually plays 3-4 of them (right now I'm playing the full set) because it's vital to find it as soon as possible.

TES on the other hand:
- can combo before Thalia/Canonist hits the battlefield
- probably can't afford to reserve so many sideboard slots for Dread. Sideboard is already very tight, and a single Massacre seems better, although very risky as Lemnear also noted. All in all, Massacre too fits better in ANT than TES: if nothing else, they can't waste your Swamp.

I think trying "belcher-mode" against DnT, mulliganing aggressively, is the right choice. Unlike ANT which is more resilient, if you can't win before they land some hatebear and start messing with your mana, you're likely gonna lose.

From my experience it's not that easy to go belcher-style consistently, and that's one of the reasons why I prefer playing ANT at the moment.
I would be really glad if DnT disappeared from the meta (I hate that deck) but it's not happening soon... it just received more love from the recent expension, so it's probably gonna step up further (argh).

[Togores]

Tomorrow I will play big event. Im hard thinking on the deck.
Also I will play the usual suspect list.
The meta will be hard flooded with:
Counterbalance
Canadian
Bug control and team america.

So Its better to maintain 4 therapy 3 silence or 4 silence 3 therapy?
they are quite flexible slots there^^


thanks

[Lemnear]

Tomorrow I will play big event. Im hard thinking on the deck.
Also I will play the usual suspect list.
The meta will be hard flooded with:
Counterbalance
Canadian
Bug control and team america.

So Its better to maintain 4 therapy 3 silence or 4 silence 3 therapy?
they are quite flexible slots there^^


thanks

You may play a third Decay in your SB then. Therapy x4 all over

[Togores]

Third decay over?
Also know no list of sneak and show play leyline.

[Lemnear]

Third decay over?
Also know no list of sneak and show play leyline.

Gut feeling post Leyline: CoV

[KaiSchafroth]

Not sure which felt worse...punting away a game because I did exactly the opposite of what I had planned as I started the turn or slopping a win later because my opponent didn't remember to activate his DRS to stay alive and probably win.

Anyone at larger events this weekend storming it up?

[Lemnear]

Not sure which felt worse...punting away a game because I did exactly the opposite of what I had planned as I started the turn or slopping a win later because my opponent didn't remember to activate his DRS to stay alive and probably win.

Anyone at larger events this weekend storming it up?

Waiting for HotS Vol. 6 going live and preparing for the Podcast is enough for my schedule... :)

[KaiSchafroth]

Waiting for HotS Vol. 6 going live and preparing for the Podcast is enough for my schedule... :)

Ha! I can only guess...didn't I read a few pages back that HotS is being picked up on a site/page somewhere?
Either way, always enjoy them - amusing while insightful.

[Lemnear]

Ha! I can only guess...didn't I read a few pages back that HotS is being picked up on a site/page somewhere?
Either way, always enjoy them - amusing while insightful.

Lets say, there are websites that either offer to review (!) your material once they have a lack of articles from their usual writers only, don't even bother to answer at least one of several mails or don't fucking care for you unles you T8 a 200+ players event without ever looking at your material beforehand

Not a big deal; go stick with your Captain obvious set Reviews then.

[Tom T]

Went to fair-land and back. This deck offers the most fun any deck can offer (apart from DDFT, but I honestly think TES's better).

Anyway, I will be storming through GP Paris. Who'll be joining me?

Tom

[Pelikanudo]

Third decay over?
Also know no list of sneak and show play leyline.

I'm not sure you want to leave the 2nd and 3rd games with no Anti Leyline Effect post side...

I've been looking at how good can be the sided lonely CoV in main but the fact is that you can put 50 gobs, grab fo 2 Silence and use them to silence the opponent instead of just putting up the leyline..

So the great question is:
Is really neccessary to use an Anti Leyline effect in side if you suspect Leylines in the meta?

I believe it is not as neccesary because of the scenario above: put tons of gobs and silence walk them twice on the next turn. thats why I've been thinking and directly not to side CoV vs OmniShow

Another different approach is when facing Sneak, in here the way is easy, regardless if the play leylines or not and depending on the scenario you try to handle. but exists a scenario in which you need to CoV the Leyline and next tendrils him and it is when he has played Emrakul and you're at less than 15 lifes..., in here I see CoV a must...

because of all this I see at least 1 CoV in side a must.

Agree Lemnear as I saw your list has no CoV?

[Lemnear]

The reasoning for the sole CoV is pretty easy. You remove your only 4cc Spell in your deck for CoV and can dig much deeper with Ad Nauseam for it or Wish for PIF and get hands on the Chain with a flashback Infernal and proceed to kill your opponent.

On the other side however I've won many S&T matchups by goblins + Silence instead and the last time I ran Chain in my Sideboard, me S&T opponent did not run Leyline at all. It's a catch-all as it has also application against hatebears.

It's a safety-net.

[Holtzi]

Hello Stormtroopers,
It´s time for my first report and at the same time it was also my first tournament with TES.

Roadstory:
Nothing exciting besides me getting nervous as Fabian is late due to the weather but he arrives just in time and we get to the location just 5 minutes early.
I quickly borrow the last cards missing and am ready to go.
Due to everchanging metagame I played the exact 75 from the OP.
We are about 24 players at Gandalph´s in Kiel(Northern-Germany).

M1 G1 againts Kay:
I win the diceroll and will be on the play :D
We both take mulligans to 6.
I fan out a hand capable of 10 Goblins 1st turn and start of with Gitaxian Probe seeing Lands + Valakut,Green Sun´s Zenith and a Thoughtseize.
I´m not sure what I´m playing against but think it´s good enough to drop 10 Goblins.
Two attacks later it´s over and we go to game 2.

M1G2: Boarding:-Ponder+Tropical Island
He starts with Cabal Therapy naming Lion´s Eye Diamond but misses.
So I go for 12 Goblins knowing that he might have outs to it but my hand leaves me no other options as I only have EtW + Infernal in hand so I go:
DR->Infernal for another DR ->DR-> Lotus Petal -> EtW and making 12 goblins.
He drops Veteran Explorer and passes. I attack he blocks one searching for 2 Basics and takes 11 going to 8.
Next Turn he is dead.
After the game he shows me SlaughterGames which he hoped could stop me but I guess TES is to fast for that :D

2/0 1/0

M2G1 againt Tobias Dreger with Goblins.
This Game my notes are not so good. But I won the diceroll.
If I remember correctly he pressures me with Lackey into Warchief.
I see his hand with Gitaxian Probe and take 2 Ringleaders with Cabal Therapy leavin only a Matron and a land i guess.
I decide to make 14 Goblins to race him but throw the game very hard by forgetting to flashback my Therapy to take the Matron which results in a Goblin Sharpshooter taking down my army.
I just lost to my own stupidity :mad: .

M2G2 -3Silence-EtW-1Ponder+CoV+TS+Tropical+2ADecays
I start with Gitaxian Probe and suprise he hold a rather slow hand full of Disruption. Swan Song , Izzet Charm, Wasteland, Vial, Rishadan Port and something else.
Great my hand is not super fast so his disruption buys him time and he can establish a clock around three but his wasteland and port do their work and as he fetches the Volcanic Island I see no real way to win through that in Time, I have Burning wish but no Discard left in the SB. He kills me quickly after that.

We know each other for some years and play another round just for fun and I lose again.Goblins seems not as easy as I thought prior to this event.
2/2 1/1

R3G1 againt Jorge with 4ColorLoam and some interesting choices :D
I´m on the play and Probe him: 2Mox Diamonds,1Burning Wish,2Taiga,1CountrysideCrusher and a Fetchland and I hope he doesn´t go BW into Discard as that would dismantle my hand with ease.
He plays The Crusher and I´m ready to go.AdNauseam of 18 life results in a lethal Tendrils for 22.

R3G2 -3 Silence - EtW +Tropical+CoV+2Decay as I expect CotV.
I have to Mull down to 5 and he starts with Sphere of Resistance.
I play Tropical Cast Gitaxian Probe for Life so i can pay the extra Mana for the sphere.
He wastes me and I never find a new mana source and die to Knight of the Reliquary and Dark Confidant.

R3G3
I start with Probe seeing nothing of relevance. He drops just a Fetchland and I go for another Ad Nauseam into Tendrils for 28.

4/3 2/1

R4G1 against Stefan with TeamAmerica
I´m on the draw this game and he start of with just a Bayou into Death Rite Shaman.
I play Probe seeing 3Wastelands Daze Brainstorm . I play Therapy and take the BS.
He wastes my land and starts to pressure me with the DRS which gets accompanied by another one around turn 3.
He wastes another land after I pondered and Decays my Mox and then it´s over quickly.

Between the games he mentioned I would bring in Xantid Swams and Carpet of Flower so he will let his Decays in.
But nevertheless my plan was just to bring in Tropical for a Ponder.

M4G2I keep a strong hand that can combo at turn 3.
As I combo off he is tapped out and Forces my Silence and as I don´t expect another FoW and my spot wouldn´t get better by waiting I decide to pull the trigger.
He chooses to Daze my first LED but I can pay for it all and thanks to his counters I can Wish for Lethal Tendrils for 18.

M4G3. This game my notes are bad again.
At one point i can make 16 Goblins and he has just 2 Goyf and a DRS for defense. I assume he has at least Golgari Charms as out but he has only 2 Drawsteps to find them as I know he has nothing of relevance in hand.
The Goblins bring the Game home. :)

6/4 3/1

R5G1 againts Marco with EsperBlade and he is on the play.
I keep a slow hand but he has a fast Batterskull. I know he has force and he brainstorms in response to Cabal Therapy I assume he put back FoW and Batterskulls and name baleful Strix which is at least a pitchcard to FoW. I think he has put batterskull below FoW and Play another therapy next turn he puts batterskull into play so I name Spell Pierce. He beats me down to one and I cannot go of because he counters my LED with Snapcaster Flashbacking Spellpierce after i Discarded Fow and tried to pull of at least a desperate try with Diminishing Returns but with one life I can´t Fetch or Use city to initiate the combo.

G2 -Infernal-Ponder-Etw+2Pyroblast+Tropical
I probe him and see Lilliana,BS,Snapcaster,Meddling Mage,Strix and a Fetch.The I pass the turn.
I drop another Land and play Brainstorm into ponder and set up for next turn AdNauseam. He play Extraction on Brainstorm and drops MeddlingMage naming Burning Wish.
The next turn I go for it and play Ad Nauseam from 18 life. I go down to 1 life revealing the 3 remaining Wishes(4th was in my Hand) and neither Pyroblast nor a single LED (within roughly 25 cards) who would have been outs to Meddling Mage.Ponder of Lotus Petal->brick->shuffle->brick->Probe of Petal->brick -> GG

6/6 3/2

I end up being 7th Place with 9 Points and just one point short for prizes.

Pros:
Overall I was pretty content with the deck
Met a lot of new and nice people
got the missing Useas via trading

Cons:
Losing to my own stupidity

Greetings
Holtzi :smile:

[Lemnear]

Boarding against Goblins was very off :/

[Holtzi]

Boarding against Goblins was very off :/

How would you board againt Goblins ?

[Lemnear]

How would you board againt Goblins ?

I would have kept EtW as unlike Elves, Goblins can't handle T1/2 EtW. Decays are too painful against Port and Wastelands and pretty unnecessary, so boarding out Silences ON THE DRAW for Seize/Trop/CoV is enough. ON THE PLAY you might board Silences back in

[Plague Sliver]

TES turned out to be a cruel mistress yesterday. Scrubbed at a local event with it, with a modified list - 4x Silence, 3x Cabal Therapy, and a maindeck Tropical Island instead of the 3rd Chrome Mox. That way I could squeeze in 1x Massacre in the board :cool:

I only have one question about my play:

Round 3 vs. Shardless BUG

Game 1 - I didn't know he was running Shardless in Game 1, nothing except for a turn 3 DRS I think. T1 Thoughtseize slowed me down. He kept a greedy hand, though, so all I saw was cantrips. I went for Goblins to take the game.

Game 2 - T1 DRS, T2 Thoughtseize, then beat me down quick with 2 Goyfs and 2 DRS.

After Game 2 he talks to his friend about bad luck and how in that game he didn't draw his Hymns or Flusterstorms. And then we're on to...

Game 3 - EPIC PUNT BY ME - I THINK??. After mulliganing to 6, I'm on the play with:

Tropical Island
Gemstone Mine
Underground Sea
Dark Ritual
Silence
Brainstorm

He had a fairly confident keep; I want to see if I can win fast. I end step Brainstorm after he plays T1 DRS.

I see the top 3 cards are

Ad Nauseam
Ponder
<<some other blank, but not a mana source>>

But his comments got to my head. I am thinking about how I can win with Ad Nauseam, but I don't have enough mana to Silence AND Ad Nauseam same turn until I draw into another land. And that will take time.

So instead of being patient, I Silence on his turn and then go for Ritual-Ad Nauseam. Naturally, he had the Force, pitching Flusterstorm.

I was counting on him to have discard rather than countermagic - if he has Hymn I get wrecked, but I went for it and got punished. Ended up drawing because his deck was slow as hell, but the question stands:

Question (to confirm I punted): should I always wait in that situation, to draw another land to Silence-Ad Nauseam same turn? Or is there a case to be made for the bone-headed play I made?

[SScout]

TES turned out to be a cruel mistress yesterday. Scrubbed at a local event with it, with a modified list - 4x Silence, 3x Cabal Therapy, and a maindeck Tropical Island instead of the 3rd Chrome Mox. That way I could squeeze in 1x Massacre in the board :cool:

I only have one question about my play:

Round 3 vs. Shardless BUG

Game 1 - I didn't know he was running Shardless in Game 1, nothing except for a turn 3 DRS I think. T1 Thoughtseize slowed me down. He kept a greedy hand, though, so all I saw was cantrips. I went for Goblins to take the game.

Game 2 - T1 DRS, T2 Thoughtseize, then beat me down quick with 2 Goyfs and 2 DRS.

After Game 2 he talks to his friend about bad luck and how in that game he didn't draw his Hymns or Flusterstorms. And then we're on to...

Game 3 - EPIC PUNT BY ME - I THINK??. After mulliganing to 6, I'm on the play with:

Tropical Island
Gemstone Mine
Underground Sea
Dark Ritual
Silence
Brainstorm

He had a fairly confident keep; I want to see if I can win fast. I end step Brainstorm after he plays T1 DRS.

I see the top 3 cards are

Ad Nauseam
Ponder
<<some other blank, but not a mana source>>

But his comments got to my head. I am thinking about how I can win with Ad Nauseam, but I don't have enough mana to Silence AND Ad Nauseam same turn until I draw into another land. And that will take time.

So instead of being patient, I Silence on his turn and then go for Ritual-Ad Nauseam. Naturally, he had the Force, pitching Flusterstorm.

I was counting on him to have discard rather than countermagic - if he has Hymn I get wrecked, but I went for it and got punished. Ended up drawing because his deck was slow as hell, but the question stands:

Question (to confirm I punted): should I always wait in that situation, to draw another land to Silence-Ad Nauseam same turn? Or is there a case to be made for the bone-headed play I made?

Being that you had the Ponder i probably would have waited. Its definitely risky both ways, but a silence-protected Ad Nauseum from what I'm assuming would have been 17~ life? Probably a sure win.

Both of your avenues were risky, as like you said a hymn or Thoughtseize would probably have ended you, but given that you knew he boarded at least Flusterstorms against you i'd have banked on him having at least 1 counter; given that he didn't T1 Thoughtseize.

The deck has 16 "free" (in your situation i count rituals as free because you had plenty of mana to cast them) mana sources, and the 2 moxes plus land make it 30-odd cards you could have seen/drawn with that ponder that mean you win with a protected combo, pretty good odds against the likelihood of him having a counter.

I'd say this is a pretty good learning experience, one of the things i find with the deck is that almost every situation has more than one option, and often choosing the right one at the wrong time can still lose you the game. Be that as it may, its still the most fun I've had playing magic, and i won't be giving it up any time soon!

[Lemnear]

TES turned out to be a cruel mistress yesterday. Scrubbed at a local event with it, with a modified list - 4x Silence, 3x Cabal Therapy, and a maindeck Tropical Island instead of the 3rd Chrome Mox. That way I could squeeze in 1x Massacre in the board :cool:

I only have one question about my play:

Round 3 vs. Shardless BUG

Game 1 - I didn't know he was running Shardless in Game 1, nothing except for a turn 3 DRS I think. T1 Thoughtseize slowed me down. He kept a greedy hand, though, so all I saw was cantrips. I went for Goblins to take the game.

Game 2 - T1 DRS, T2 Thoughtseize, then beat me down quick with 2 Goyfs and 2 DRS.

After Game 2 he talks to his friend about bad luck and how in that game he didn't draw his Hymns or Flusterstorms. And then we're on to...

Game 3 - EPIC PUNT BY ME - I THINK??. After mulliganing to 6, I'm on the play with:

Tropical Island
Gemstone Mine
Underground Sea
Dark Ritual
Silence
Brainstorm

He had a fairly confident keep; I want to see if I can win fast. I end step Brainstorm after he plays T1 DRS.

I see the top 3 cards are

Ad Nauseam
Ponder
<<some other blank, but not a mana source>>

But his comments got to my head. I am thinking about how I can win with Ad Nauseam, but I don't have enough mana to Silence AND Ad Nauseam same turn until I draw into another land. And that will take time.

So instead of being patient, I Silence on his turn and then go for Ritual-Ad Nauseam. Naturally, he had the Force, pitching Flusterstorm.

I was counting on him to have discard rather than countermagic - if he has Hymn I get wrecked, but I went for it and got punished. Ended up drawing because his deck was slow as hell, but the question stands:

Question (to confirm I punted): should I always wait in that situation, to draw another land to Silence-Ad Nauseam same turn? Or is there a case to be made for the bone-headed play I made?

Hey James,

thx for moving the topic from Twitter here in the board as I think such topics are worth reading for all TES pilots. This hand is awesome for a 6 against Shardless BUG. I'm sure the Problem here was playing the Brainstorm so early. I would have kept dropping lands and ship back the turns, using Brainstorm to protect your hand and draws from Hymn instead of trying to race Hymn but being cold to any FoW and Flusterstorm. 2 rounds of "draw, land, go" would have resulted in seeing 6-7 additional cards (Ponder looking at the 1 blank plus 2 fresh in addition to the shuffle 'n draw + 3 off Brainstorm all during your turn 3/4 + maybe a draw during turn 4). I'm sure that additional cards would have given you a way to play around 2 counterspells as well as doing a decent job protecting your kill.

Worst thing about your early cantrip could have been Brainstorm-locking yourself with him drawing Hymn hitting either the Ritual and/or the Silence

Thanks for bringing up the topic, my friend :)

[Bryant Cook]

Updated the opening post with my current deck list to reflect the recent resurgence of Reanimator (An awful match-up for us).

Note: this does not mean that I updated the entire opening post.

[Final Fortune]

Updated the opening post with my current deck list to reflect the recent resurgence of Reanimator (An awful match-up for us).

Note: this does not mean that I updated the entire opening post.

If you're playing dedicated hate vs Reanimator isn't Faerie Macabre just better than Surgical Extraction, or are you worried about the Ad Nauseam flips? Would something more multi-purpose like more Xanitd Swarms, Karakas or Bribery not work out better?

[Bryant Cook]

If you're playing dedicated hate vs Reanimator isn't Faerie Macabre just better than Surgical Extraction, or are you worried about the Ad Nauseam flips? Would something more multi-purpose like more Xanitd Swarms, Karakas or Bribery not work out better?

Why would Faerie Macbre be better? It's also not necessarily dedicated hate, in the match-up you could use it as protection to remove Force of Will after discarding one. Making a potential future Griselbrand much less effective, you're able to use to see if the coast is clear - a pseudo Gitaxian Probe. It's also multi-purpose and can come in for more match-ups such as Dredge (Where we have very little control), TES and ANT.

Karakas doesn't actually do anything against Reanimator and good luck resolving Bribery. If you could've cast Bribery and get it to resolve, you should've won anyway. The problem is getting to the point where you can cast large spells. Sure, Xantid does this, but it's sometimes too slow or not effective enough. You would still side in two bugs and now you'll also side in two Extraction. I found that siding in five cards (3 Xantid/2 Pyroblast) was difficult against Sneak and Show anyway. Reduced numbers to hit a wider range of decks. I'm fine with metagaming against Reanimator, it's one of our few problem match-ups.

[Final Fortune]

Why would Faerie Macbre be better? It's also not necessarily dedicated hate, in the match-up you could use it as protection to remove Force of Will after discarding one. Making a potential future Griselbrand much less effective, you're able to use to see if the coast is clear - a pseudo Gitaxian Probe. It's also multi-purpose and can come in for more match-ups such as Dredge (Where we have very little control), TES and ANT.

Karakas doesn't actually do anything against Reanimator and good luck resolving Bribery. If you could've cast Bribery and get it to resolve, you should've won anyway. The problem is getting to the point where you can cast large spells. Sure, Xantid does this, but it's sometimes too slow or not effective enough. You would still side in two bugs and now you'll also side in two Extraction. I found that siding in five cards (3 Xantid/2 Pyroblast) was difficult against Sneak and Show anyway. Reduced numbers to hit a wider range of decks. I'm fine with metagaming against Reanimator, it's one of our few problem match-ups.

Presumably because they can't counter it, in my experience it's probably the most effective hate card vs Reanimator at stopping them from going off. I'm sure Extraction has a couple of corner cases where it's more utilitarian, but I don't know whether or not that really makes up for being uncounterable.

[Jay_Gatz]

Bad beat for Royce on Sunday. Lost his win and in to a top decked sol land from Jack to give him the turn two painter kill and then missed top16

[Bryant Cook]

Presumably because they can't counter it, in my experience it's probably the most effective hate card vs Reanimator at stopping them from going off. I'm sure Extraction has a couple of corner cases where it's more utilitarian, but I don't know whether or not that really makes up for being uncounterable.

Aha, sure. It's uncounterable, it has one thing that Surgical doesn't have. Surgical is better in every single other way, but those are just corner cases. Surgical is extremely flexible and doesn't Lightning Bolt you off of Ad Nauseam.

[Lemnear]

Sent out final version of HotS Vol. 6 today ...

[Pelikanudo]

Aha, sure. It's uncounterable, it has one thing that Surgical doesn't have. Surgical is better in every single other way, but those are just corner cases. Surgical is extremely flexible and doesn't Lightning Bolt you off of Ad Nauseam.

There is one more reason to play F.Macabre over Surgical vs Reanimator:
vs Exhume is just better than Surgical, unless in gy exists 2 Griselbrand.

Apart, I've always felt Reanimator a bad mutch up..., but not sure if 2x anti grave effects will be ok... to improve the match up substantially.., lately people in my meta do not play often reanimator so good luck for me!, playig other storm decks with full package in base of discard and adding more even from side - just Timo B.W. ANT list, has been a great strategy to beat those reanimator in conjuntion with G.Cage! TES needs a different approach maybe...

Although, for example looking at these deck:
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=12755&iddeck=93551 or http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=12694&iddeck=93081
seems that grafdigger seems ok becasue of only 1 E.Truth , however T.Seize can disrupt that lonely Surgical scenario I just do not like the possibility, even most of decks finally run+2 from side, also I understand the kind of plays like: Reanimate to entomb-> Silence in resp -> surgical. - why just don't play Extirpate then?

[kiwi]

Another idea its to play 1 reanimate in our sideboard, of course I think the best option is to play surgical extractions or crypts, but reanimating their monster can be funny.

[SScout]

Sent out final version of HotS Vol. 6 today ...

I'm really excited for this man, I've been keeping an eye out for it for weeks :P

[Lemnear]

I'm really excited for this man, I've been keeping an eye out for it for weeks :P

I apologize. The Article is basically finished for 6 weeks, but the Quest to find a hoster was more hilarious than I expected (some websites didn't even bother to respond to 3 eMails over 3 weeks or asked me which SCG I top8'ed and that they can't sell random Articles from a random guy who did not. I have dozen of stupid stories gathered since mid-december lol). Decided to move the Series to the only website which welcomed me with open arms from the start.

P.S. polished the article during that time and turned it from a tournament report into an article ... 22 pages of writing, guys!

[trollking21]

So which website is hosting HOTS?

[SScout]

I apologize. The Article is basically finished for 6 weeks, but the Quest to find a hoster was more hilarious than I expected (some websites didn't even bother to respond to 3 eMails over 3 weeks or asked me which SCG I top8'ed and that they can't sell random Articles from a random guy who did not. I have dozen of stupid stories gathered since mid-december lol). Decided to move the Series to the only website which welcomed me with open arms from the start.

P.S. polished the article during that time and turned it from a tournament report into an article ... 22 pages of writing, guys!

22 pages! Sounds like its 100% worth the wait ^_^

[Lemnear]

So which website is hosting HOTS?

Eternal Central. JACO has the report in his hands now, creating Banner and shit for the launch. Bug him for progress lol.

Possible double-feature realease with me also starring in one if the next Everyday Eternal Podcasts (also on EC)

Cat's out of the sack.

[sawatarix]

@reanimator:
The mu feels kinda similar to team america,but instead of tarmogoyfs and delver we have to face griselbrand.
Our team america mu is not the best at all and the countermagic and handdisruption package looks nearly the same in both decks.
surgical extraction seems like the path we have to go to combat reanimator.
Currently i'm not sure about the number of extractions in our limited sideboard.
3 would be great after testings,they improve the 40:60 mu to 50:50.
worth it?



- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Bryant Cook]

@reanimator:
The mu feels kinda similar to team america,but instead of tarmogoyfs and delver we have to face griselbrand.
Our team america mu is not the best at all and the countermagic and handdisruption package looks nearly the same in both decks.
surgical extraction seems like the path we have to go to combat reanimator.
Currently i'm not sure about the number of extractions in our limited sideboard.
3 would be great after testings,they improve the 40:60 mu to 50:50.
worth it?



- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

The problem is finding space, there just isn't any. Xantid Swarm is still incredibly valuable and comes in for other difficult match-ups such as Sneak & Show. Pyroblast is a must have right now in my eyes to deal with Meddling Mages and that leaves Abrupt Decay. I'm not comfortable leaving myself cold to Chalice of the Void/Counterbalance.

[sawatarix]

Bryant i would cut pyroblast.seriously,we can't swap our deck into a wannabe-controldeck,every pyroblast,extraction,decay etc weakens our mainplan: Grapeshot for infinite.

Meddling mage for instance can be handled with massacre (strong slot,gaddock teeg disappeared since november)
And if Meddling Mage names burning wish we can still combo out with ad nauseam into one billion goblins (empty should stay in the main)

I would not cut swarms or decays in the sb,at least play 2 copies of each of them,they are to important.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -