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

[Omega87]

With this hand you easily win through one FoW! You have to Combo turn One if possible against miracles on the draw.
I would play like this:
Land, petal, tap land for R, rite RR, crack petal for B, ritual BBBRR, cast LED, play wish BBB in pool:
1. It gets countered because he is afraid of token, then infernal , crack LED for RRR, EtW for 16
2. It resolves, wish for PiF, play infernal crack LED, make Tokens, if infernal gets countered, wait for PiF.
Usualy the opponent plays like option 1, because of fear of our wishboard.

[Togores]

All this infernal into etw scanarios are wrong cause etw gets sided out vs miracles.

And yes, I think I made a mulligan there.

[sawatarix]

I played ant last sunday in magdeburg/germany and won all games against miracles with empty - sometimes 6-10 dudes during turn 1-2 seal the deal,forcing the opponent to find terminus in 1-2 turns which is nearly impossible.
TES plays silence which is also very powerful here as it can be cast in resp to a miracle trigger to actually "counter" it.
So i would leave empty in against miracles for sure.
It shouldn't be the plan a,fact.



- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Asthereal]

With this hand you easily win through one FoW! You have to Combo turn One if possible against miracles on the draw.
I would play like this:
Land, petal, tap land for R, rite RR, crack petal for B, ritual BBBRR, cast LED, play wish BBB in pool:
1. It gets countered because he is afraid of token, then infernal , crack LED for RRR, EtW for 16
2. It resolves, wish for PiF, play infernal crack LED, make Tokens, if infernal gets countered, wait for PiF.
Usualy the opponent plays like option 1, because of fear of our wishboard.
Wish resolves (because you didn't crack the LED). Seriously, no one counters that Wish. You have no mana to cast Empty. If you grab something else, they can still counter that. I fail to see why one would ever counter that Wish in that situation. And like Togores says, even if it does get countered, Infernal cannot find you Empty because you side that stuff out against Terminus.dec. At least, that's what I would do. So the four mana after Infernal doesn't help you continue.

[BrettF]

The bait burning wish would be more convincing if you kept the LED in your hand and had BBR in the pool. If the case is that you sided Tendrils in over Empty, a straight past in flames loop is available. waiting seems bad.

[Asthereal]

Yeah I guess the turn 1 unprotected attempt seems the only way.

The only proactive alternative I see is to go Land (rainbow I hope), Petal, Rite, Wish (from Rite mana) and get a discard spell. Cast that and hope he doesn't have both Force and a hate permanent. This line is probably even more of a suicide attempt than just throwing your hand on the table and ask whether he has the Force. :rolleyes:

[sa3xxx]

the chance of having at least 1 fow in an opening hand is ~40%, considering you won the first game it is a reasonable risk (chances of having fow in the opening hand 2 times in a row is ~16%).

However this is when magic requires poker skills - try to read you opponent :) (this is ofc easier in local events, but anyway...)

[sawatarix]

Kinda similar to belcher i admit.
Sometimes i just ask my opponent: "do you have force of will?" And your opponent will tell you if he has one,just pay attention to his behaviour ;-)
This question is sometimes a 50% gitaxian probe,kind of.




- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[BrettF]

Plus if he forces theres a chance that he is pitching his Counterbalance or Meddling mage to do so. You might have time to rebuild in this match if there is no CB in play. Punish them for filling their deck with awful white cards.

They call it cowboy magic, look them in the eye and make them have it.

[R3D]

Recently im not satisfied with D. Returns. It occured several times i had to combo because otherwise changes to win quickly decrease. In those situations goblins arent an option. It feels like playing russian roulette and the storm engine has not been good to me. I wonder if there exists a likewise engine (reforge the soul?) I must admit that i dont account for situations with a gaurenteed kill by an iggy loop, since i dont play that card in my Sb.

[Lemnear]

Recently im not satisfied with D. Returns. It occured several times i had to combo because otherwise changes to win quickly decrease. In those situations goblins arent an option. It feels like playing russian roulette and the storm engine has not been good to me. I wonder if there exists a likewise engine (reforge the soul?) I must admit that i dont account for situations with a gaurenteed kill by an iggy loop, since i dont play that card in my Sb.

Sounds like using DimRet in the wrong situations. Can I ask for like 3 specific scenarios in which you HAD to play DimRet recently which sculpted your impression?

P.S. I'm planning to write an article about sequencing spells (see/hear too many mistakes) and strategic planning of turns/working towards engines, in the near future.

[sawatarix]

Most of the time dim ret is just a better iggy,if you have enough mana left after dim ret you can just chaining new rites and rituals and wish for the tendrils.cantrips in the new 7 cards can get protection or business as well.
Notice that you can cast dim ret and prepare a kill for the next turn if you need your lands for it.



- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Lemnear]

1) Start Cockatrice
2) Play against a random SFM.dec
3) Cast Burning Wish
4) Reveal Acquire
5) Watch People ragequit
6) laugh

[R3D]

Sounds like using DimRet in the wrong situations. Can I ask for like 3 specific scenarios in which you HAD to play DimRet recently which sculpted your impression?

P.S. I'm planning to write an article about sequencing spells (see/hear too many mistakes) and strategic planning of turns/working towards engines, in the near future.

Vs sneaky show. He was almost ready to combo. Not enough storm for lethal had multiple leds. I silence him and resolve a D returns while floatin 1 or 2 blue 1 black 1 red. Miss on cantrips and tutor.

Vs miracles. Not sure what happened anymore. I found a window while i expect a cb to be casted next turn. Silence got countered and no therapy to protect the goblins from terminus. Flooded not enough mana and D returns Filled his hand with countermagic and clique.

Hmm this will probably not be specific enough.

Thanks in advance

[davelin]

Vs sneaky show. He was almost ready to combo. Not enough storm for lethal had multiple leds. I silence him and resolve a D returns while floatin 1 or 2 blue 1 black 1 red. Miss on cantrips and tutor.

Vs miracles. Not sure what happened anymore. I found a window while i expect a cb to be casted next turn. Silence got countered and no therapy to protect the goblins from terminus. Flooded not enough mana and D returns Filled his hand with countermagic and clique.

Hmm this will probably not be specific enough.

Thanks in advance

Casting DimRet against a non-Silenced Miracles opponent isn't likely to win you on the spot. Was this pre or post-SB? DimRet is usually not the engine of choice against Miracles.

[Lemnear]

Vs sneaky show. He was almost ready to combo. Not enough storm for lethal had multiple leds. I silence him and resolve a D returns while floatin 1 or 2 blue 1 black 1 red. Miss on cantrips and tutor.

Vs miracles. Not sure what happened anymore. I found a window while i expect a cb to be casted next turn. Silence got countered and no therapy to protect the goblins from terminus. Flooded not enough mana and D returns Filled his hand with countermagic and clique.

Hmm this will probably not be specific enough.

Thanks in advance

You give Miracles a fresh grip without Silence and wonder why DimRet don't get you there? Depending on what game/turn it was I would rather made a handful of Goblins without investing all my resources

[sawatarix]

2 Mana floating is likely to fail you,you'll need +4 mana and burning wish for the tendrils,the chance to hit 3 specific cards is not high enough.
I would rather build goblins against miracle and hope not to walk in the terminus trap.

Against sneakshow you can even combo off after he did already,no problemo.
Collect more mana to increase the chances to chain after dimret.



- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[jin]

2 Mana floating is likely to fail you,you'll need +4 mana and burning wish for the tendrils,the chance to hit 3 specific cards is not high enough.
I would rather build goblins against miracle and hope not to walk in the terminus trap.

Against sneakshow you can even combo off after he did already,no problemo.
Collect more mana to increase the chances to chain after dimret.



- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

I think also the type of mana floating is also relevant here. Some choices are just worse than others. I think there has been calculations done on amount of mana available, but that was for an older iteration of the deck. I've found that having UBR floating to be fine in most cases. When in doubt, go with UB though as U gives you chances through cantrips where as BR has much less versatility, although R is probably a necessity at this point. Like sawatarix said, having only two (2) available colours decreases your chances significantly.

Also, note that I say available mana, as lands can count as available mana, while floating mana only implies mana in the mana pool. DR is much stronger when you can play a land.

[R3D]

Thanks for all the replies! Ill think about my d riturns useage a little more :).
About the sneaky show match: i was 4 mana floating. :) maybe that was just bad luck. I should however take in account that i can combo after he combo'ed. I was scared of the cardadvantage griselbrand provides since he would be able to kill me at once with sneak attack.
Vs the miracle m/u i indeed had to build goblins. When i took a peek at his hand i saw cb and terminus (without Bs effect). Shouldve taken the risk of going the goblin route since the opponent then had to invest resources to set up terminus.

[sawatarix]

I personally use dimret more often than other players do.
Against certain decks its important to grind them out,like ant does.i collect a ton of mana,1-2 silences and wish for dimret/or pif if it works.
And chain spells for the win.

Therefor silence and orims chant are really important in my TES build compared to discard spells.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[chainedcurses]

Hello guys! I'm slowly converting over from Belcher and I was wondering if there was a way to lower the overall price of the deck? Mostly I'm talking in the sense of the lands, as I already have 4 LEDs from Belcher. Is there a way to run maybe 1 US instead of 2? I'm not trying to completely budget the deck out, just lower the price. As it stands I still have to get:

4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Silence
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Pyroblast
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Thoughtsieze
1 Diminishing Returns

Any tips would be much appreciated, I'm not looking to need the deck finished until July's Legacy open in Baltimore, so I also have some time to get the more expensive cards. Thanks you guys, and I hope to be changing my method of storming off here soon!

[DarkJester]

Hello guys! I'm slowly converting over from Belcher and I was wondering if there was a way to lower the overall price of the deck? Mostly I'm talking in the sense of the lands, as I already have 4 LEDs from Belcher. Is there a way to run maybe 1 US instead of 2? I'm not trying to completely budget the deck out, just lower the price. As it stands I still have to get:

4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Silence
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Pyroblast
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Thoughtsieze
1 Diminishing Returns

Any tips would be much appreciated, I'm not looking to need the deck finished until July's Legacy open in Baltimore, so I also have some time to get the more expensive cards. Thanks you guys, and I hope to be changing my method of storming off here soon!
First I would try to buy Bloodstained Mire instead of the much more expensive Blue-Modern-Fetchies. This way you should have 1/3-U-Sea...maybe a half ;)

[Lemnear]

First I would try to buy Bloodstained Mire instead of the much more expensive Blue-Modern-Fetchies. This way you should have 1/3-U-Sea...maybe a half ;)

Bloodstained more can't get SB Tropical Island. Don't get non-blue Fetches. Start with the Duals. Next iteration of TES is a whole lot more expensive anyways...

[davelin]

Some sequencing questions for my follow stormtroopers out there. I find myself in these type of situations and not knowing the exact line to take

Scenario A -

Against UWR delver game one, opponent was on the draw and has a freshly-casted delver with a tapped Volcanic in play. On your side in the beginning of your second turn, you have a City of Brass and after your draw for the turn you have -

Infernal, Dark Ritual, Gemstone, RoFx2, Cabal Therapy, LED

This hand represents a probably lethal AdNaus or 14 goblins but only if you cast Dark Rit before Cabal, there isn't a way to use the Therapy for protection this turn without exposing the Ritual first. And typically before your instants, you would want to cast your RoFs in order to be able to pay for any Daze effects. How would you sequence here? Thanks!

[Togores]

Some sequencing questions for my follow stormtroopers out there. I find myself in these type of situations and not knowing the exact line to take

Scenario A -

Against UWR delver game one, opponent was on the draw and has a freshly-casted delver with a tapped Volcanic in play. On your side in the beginning of your second turn, you have a City of Brass and after your draw for the turn you have -

Infernal, Dark Ritual, Gemstone, RoFx2, Cabal Therapy, LED

This hand represents a probably lethal AdNaus or 14 goblins but only if you cast Dark Rit before Cabal, there isn't a way to use the Therapy for protection this turn without exposing the Ritual first. And typically before your instants, you would want to cast your RoFs in order to be able to pay for any Daze effects. How would you sequence here? Thanks!

I would play land.
Then rof
Fow then U can ritual led into empty losing to daze or fow. Or pass turn.
Resolves? Yes the another rof wich is gonna resolve. And led. Wich is most posible gonna resolve.
Now i would look at my sb. To make him think of burning instead of infernal so that we are not black dependent.
Then dr. If he forces. We are fuked. If not cabal on fow and gg.

Other option is if he is gonna force the dr so we comit less.

Land rof
Look at the sb to make him think of bw.
Play dr and win if resolves. Or play rof to make the bw think plan much better. Bur for that playing the 1 st line is better.


Thats my plan.

[Tom T]

I would play land.
Then rof
Fow then U can ritual led into empty losing to daze or fow. Or pass turn.
Resolves? Yes the another rof wich is gonna resolve. And led. Wich is most posible gonna resolve.
Now i would look at my sb. To make him think of burning instead of infernal so that we are not black dependent.
Then dr. If he forces. We are fuked. If not cabal on fow and gg.

Other option is if he is gonna force the dr so we comit less.

Land rof
Look at the sb to make him think of bw.
Play dr and win if resolves. Or play rof to make the bw think plan much better. Bur for that playing the 1 st line is better.


Thats my plan.

Don't cast the second RoF before the Dark Ritual. You can play around Daze with 1 RoF. Follow up with the dark ritual into Therapy. After that you can cast the second RoF. This way, if he FoWs your Ritual you can combo again next turn because you saved the second RoF.

So: land, RoF, ritual, therapy(fow), RoF, led, Infernal(crack led), ad nauseam (BR floating), EDIT: I think creating 16 Goblins is the safer play. This depends on what you saw with therapy, but therapy flashback should take care of their only out: Batterskull.

On a different note, I'm still writing the Day 2 report of GP Paris.

[Lemnear]

Tom gave a hint, but with that much mana you can chain tutors for additional storm, Dave. It's 16 Goblins then, not 14. Important difference against Batterskull

[sawatarix]

Land-rite-ritual-theraphy-rite-led-tutor-ad nauseam-(more rites)-wish-past in flames-(a ton of spells)-wish-grapeshot

Empty cant be the right decision here if you can kill your opponent twice instead.



- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Lemnear]

Land-rite-ritual-theraphy-rite-led-tutor-ad nauseam-(more rites)-wish-past in flames-(a ton of spells)-wish-grapeshot

Empty cant be the right decision here if you can kill your opponent twice instead.



- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

You need to find at least 6 more mana + BW with a LED, a DR, a landdrop and 2 RoF already burned to loop with PIF. Depending on what Therapy revealed, EtW isn't unreasonable if you are unwilling to gamble on revealed cards.

[sawatarix]

You need exactly 4 Mana+ wish for lethal tendrils with an ad nauseam starting with 18 Life !

C'mon that's TES dude.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Lemnear]

You need exactly 4 Mana+ wish for lethal tendrils with an ad nauseam starting with 18 Life !

C'mon that's TES dude.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

I wasn't the one suggesting Grapeshot rather than EtW ;)

[Tom T]

You need exactly 4 Mana+ wish for lethal tendrils with an ad nauseam starting with 18 Life !

C'mon that's TES dude.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

There is one thing that excites me more than Grapeshot for infinite, and that is knowing and carrying out the 'safest' kill there is.

[BrettF]

I jumped the gun at SCGseattle against maverick. made 12 goblins and immediatly flashbacked therapy blind naming stoneforge. Forgot you can ignore your own graveyard until they cast mystic and then flashback naming batterskull after you swing with the team. #playslowerplaysmarter

[jin]

Hello guys! I'm slowly converting over from Belcher and I was wondering if there was a way to lower the overall price of the deck? Mostly I'm talking in the sense of the lands, as I already have 4 LEDs from Belcher. Is there a way to run maybe 1 US instead of 2? I'm not trying to completely budget the deck out, just lower the price. As it stands I still have to get:

4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Silence
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Pyroblast
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Thoughtsieze
1 Diminishing Returns

Any tips would be much appreciated, I'm not looking to need the deck finished until July's Legacy open in Baltimore, so I also have some time to get the more expensive cards. Thanks you guys, and I hope to be changing my method of storming off here soon!

Depends on how competitive you are. If you are just playing with friends, then it doesn't really matter. You can run 2 Volcanic Islands or shock lands. I would also like to point you to the OP where in the older iterations of TES, the deck ran 4x Gemstone Mine, 4x City of Brass, 2x Underground Sea, 1x Volcanic Island, 2x Simian Spirit Guide. Although this may not be optimal now, it is a viable alternative given the casual setting. This could easily win you small local tournaments. The deck is just too powerful. If you were really cheap, with this old land set up, you can easily play pain lands in the space of Underground Sea and Volcanic Island. I would hesitate to play Gitaxian Probe in that list though as that would just be too painful. It's not optimal, but it is cheaper by a lot.

If you are playing more competitively at larger tournaments, then you probably need to get the most optimal lands which include the fetch lands necessary for the deck. I do disagree with Lemnear here though. I think you can easily play Bloodstained Mire without playing the SB Tropical Island. We've survived a long time without it, so I don't see why suddenly it's necessary. It does raise up a good point though. If you have lands in the SB, be careful what your fetchlands are.

[Bahamuth]

You can also easily play -1 Sea +1 City of Brass. Playing Duress over Therapy also isn't that bad.

[Lemnear]

You can also easily play -1 Sea +1 City of Brass. Playing Duress over Therapy also isn't that bad.

Having a second Sea to fetch is more relevant than it appears on first sight. You still want a quality fetchland target even after being hit by a Wasteland. (Edit: remember this line for the list update at the weekend)

The reason for playing 4 Therapy was not good enough displayed in this thread? ;P

[Bahamuth]

Having a second Sea to fetch is more relevant than it appears on first sight. You still want a quality fetchland target even after being hit by a Wasteland. (Edit: remember this line for the list update at the weekend)

The reason for playing 4 Therapy was not good enough displayed in this thread? ;P

I've been playing with a single Sea for a pretty long time. Not saying it's better, but if you don't want to drop that extra (insert whatever ridiculous price Sea is at now), you can do fine with a City/Fetch.

I think that Therapy is better card overall, but Duress is fine depending on the meta or how much you know about what your opponents decks will contain. They also cost 30ish euro's for a set, that's why I mention them.

[Asthereal]

I've been playing with a single Sea for a pretty long time. Not saying it's better, but if you don't want to drop that extra (insert whatever ridiculous price Sea is at now), you can do fine with a City/Fetch.

I think that Therapy is better card overall, but Duress is fine depending on the meta or how much you know about what your opponents decks will contain. They also cost 30ish euro's for a set, that's why I mention them.
+1 to both suggestions.

Team Nijmegen has been playing 1x Sea and 1x Volcanic for a while now, scoring fine results with it.
So it appears to be a possiblity to cut costs. Not saying it's optimal, but it's not terrible either.

The Cabal Therapy also requires a certain amount of play skill to use optimally. Starting TES players might lack that.
Duress is cheaper, and a safer way to go if you are not that familiar with the deck. So indeed also an option to cut costs.

[Lemnear]

I'm perplexed that we start using budget options for 3€ cards now. It's also a bit of a functional difference here and being inexperienced with the deck isn't an adequate reasoning for running sub-optimal cards which will alter the experience the player will have with the deck. The same is true for all budget options like ideas to run shocklands or a manabase with full gold lands.

I had to witness more than enough players, who dropped the deck before it was propper build and learned, calling it a random lucksack pile, just because they ran bad substitutes and/or misplayed the deck all over with bad sequencing (mana/protection during combo, how to cantrip right with only a few fetches, when to cantrip and when to cast disruption, brainstorm for fixing vs. Brainstorm for protection, etc.)

I sweared, I slap everyone in public running shocklands, but complaining that Ad Nauseam doesn't get him/her there

[chainedcurses]

Thanks for the tips, guys. I don't plan on having a SB Trop seeing that the Mires will be my fetch of choice for now. I'm not too worried about the prices of the therapies(as they go for numerous other decks, and they are only about $15 a piece) I'm more worried about spending $1000 for the mana base alone. I mostly play legacy at SCG Opens.

That Simian Spirit Guide plan seems interesting. Do you happen to have a deck list for one of those style decks?


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[Asthereal]

I'm perplexed that we start using budget options for 3€ cards now. It's also a bit of a functional difference here and being inexperienced with the deck isn't an adequate reasoning for running sub-optimal cards which will alter the experience the player will have with the deck. The same is true for all budget options like ideas to run shocklands or a manabase with full gold lands.

I had to witness more than enough players, who dropped the deck before it was propper build and learned, calling it a random lucksack pile, just because they ran bad substitutes and/or misplayed the deck all over with bad sequencing (mana/protection during combo, how to cantrip right with only a few fetches, when to cantrip and when to cast disruption, brainstorm for fixing vs. Brainstorm for protection, etc.)

I sweared, I slap everyone in public running shocklands, but complaining that Ad Nauseam doesn't get him/her there
I know you don't like budget options. :wink:
And don't worry, I won't advise on using shock lands. Ever. I promise.

About Therapy vs. Duress: if your play skill sucks, you could also misplay Therapy and feel the deck is bad because of it. If one mistakes own play errors for a bad deck build, one doesn't deserve to play Storm. We don't need them to either. They'll just fail and whine about it. Duress is still a valid choice in certain metas. In NL we don't see that much Death&Taxes (where Therapies are definitely better), and if you do encounter it, you still have a good chance to beat it regardless of having Duress instead of Therapy. The only match I feel becomes MUCH worse with Duress over Therapy is Patriot. Still winnable though, with tight play and a little luck. :smile:

EDIT: "We" changed to "I", because I saw someone had actually mentioned shock lands. I hadn't seen that yet.

[sawatarix]

If you all don't have money for the cards,borrow them.
Honestly,shocklands are terrible in an ad nauseam deck (drawing 2-3 cards less is crucial) and only 2 duals with 3-4 fetchlands can be also horrible if you have multiple fetchlands but no actual lands to fetch them.

Borrow expensie cards - win tournaments -> buy them !
I would call this the path to victory ;D


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Asthereal]

only 2 duals with 3-4 fetchlands can be also horrible if you have multiple fetchlands but no actual lands to fetch them.
Come on guys! We've heard this argument enough now.

We're talking about budget decisions, and if Team Nijmegen (very experienced Storm players) perform well with 1x Sea, 1x Volcanic and 4x Fetch, even though they have like 20 Seas in their team -so yes they consciously chose to run TES like that- why not mention it to someone who requests advice on budget choices?
If he can borrow the cards, he'll play them. Believe me, he won't ask for budget advice if he can borrow anything he might need.

[chainedcurses]

Unfortunately my main sources of borrowing cards for tournaments also plays Storm (ANT), so I doubt I can borrow much in the way of fetches and duals from him. Shocklands are definitely a no-no for me in this deck. I run a shockland in my Belcher deck, because let's all be honest, if the 2 life in that deck matters, you've got bigger problems to worry about.

I'm probably going to be running a 2 dual 4 fetch build to start out because of money. That is just going to be 1x Sea, 1x Volcanic, and 4x fetch (in my case Mires), right?

Once again, thank you guys very much for all your tips and bareing with "budget" talks. At least I'm not sitting here asking for replacements for the key cards in the deck!

[Jay_Gatz]

The problem with picking up mires is that they don't have many applications outside of this deck. If you plan to exclusively play TES and never play a trop in it then sure get mires, otherwise is makes more sense to get some of the cheaper blue fetches at the very least.


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[jin]

I'm perplexed that we start using budget options for 3€ cards now. It's also a bit of a functional difference here and being inexperienced with the deck isn't an adequate reasoning for running sub-optimal cards which will alter the experience the player will have with the deck. The same is true for all budget options like ideas to run shocklands or a manabase with full gold lands.

I had to witness more than enough players, who dropped the deck before it was propper build and learned, calling it a random lucksack pile, just because they ran bad substitutes and/or misplayed the deck all over with bad sequencing (mana/protection during combo, how to cantrip right with only a few fetches, when to cantrip and when to cast disruption, brainstorm for fixing vs. Brainstorm for protection, etc.)

I sweared, I slap everyone in public running shocklands, but complaining that Ad Nauseam doesn't get him/her there

'How to cantrip' is by far the most important skill people need to learn to master this deck, so fetchlands into a relevant land is super important here. If the shocklands are here for the sake of cantripping, I won't disapprove them.


the prices of the therapies(as they go for numerous other decks, and they are only about $15 a piece)

A piece?! Legacy is getting really expensive now. I'm still thinking they are in the $0.50 pile.



Once again, thank you guys very much for all your tips and bareing with "budget" talks. At least I'm not sitting here asking for replacements for the key cards in the deck!

The mana base is pretty key. That's why there is so much argument for the 2x Underground Sea and 1x Volcanic Island.

My suggestions were for people that play of a more casual nature. I believe if you intend to play in larger tournaments, the lack of the second Underground Sea will be pivotal in match ups where resources are constricted.


The problem with picking up mires is that they don't have many applications outside of this deck. If you plan to exclusively play TES and never play a trop in it then sure get mires, otherwise is makes more sense to get some of the cheaper blue fetches at the very least.


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This may be true, but all fetchlands hold value. It wouldn't be a big mistake in getting them. Is Team Italia still a thing? I know Jund can use Bloodstained Mire. So can Aggro Loam.

[Lemnear]

I guess "How to cantrip correctly" and "Keep or mulligan a starting grip" are, by far, the most important ones with "Sequencing spells" and "which engine to choose" behind as those are patterns you can learn. Ranking is up to you.

Cabal Therapy is 2,50€ on MCM. I'm confused if we are refering to the foil-vs.-non-foil mistake made by TCG which still affects the US or talk about premium versions (FNM is 8€, Premium Deck Promo 5€). 15$ for an unfoil is a desaster.

For the manabase i can give you an example hand of U.Sea, Fetch, Probe, Therapy, Therapy, Ponder, Infernal. You'll be on the draw, cast probe and see a T2 Hymn or a combo coming, you'll drop the Sea and Therapy. In your turn 2 you may have to strip a second combo Piece or a threat, because your hand lacks explosive mana and now you are fucked without the second U.Sea as you can't cast Ponder first to cherrypick a card, fetch for the Sea #2 and still are able to cast Therapy. No, without the second Sea you have to choose between Therapy/Ponder or have to fetch for Volcanic and cast a Ponder without the chance to shuffle (to still being able to cast Therapy afterwards). *Enter full article about, how important maximum value cantrips are in storm* Now imagine that your opponent topdecks/holds a wasteland for his turn 2 to take out your U.Sea! Suddenly you have an Infernal + Cabal Therapy in hand and a Fetchland which can't get you a fucking black source! Each drawn Fetchland is a 100% dead draw too from now on as you have 2 Fetches but only 1 target left. How bad is that!? There are plenty of scenarios which could explain, why there is a second Sea in the deck, but I stop with the one given.

Guys, have a bit faith in the list and changes. Card quanities are not a result of taste, budget or a shallow numbers game (like relation fetches to duals), but because of testing cornercases over and over.

On the topic of budget: Potentially you can go for a while with only 1 U.Sea without noticing a serious problem, but I guaran-damn-tee the wish for a second Sea will occur within the first 30 compeditive matches

Edit: Just want to share our laughter from yesterday: "With the right sequencing, Lion's Eye Diamond turns Infernal Tutor UNCOUNTERABLE on it's way to the graveyard!"

[Ragdoll]

Hello,

I'm going to play TES now and I want to ask you for a favour :). Can one of you gentleman playing the deck give me a few straight examples of how to side in some most common matchups (BUG, Esper, Jund, D&T, Miracles, Goblins etc.) I've read the first page but it seems in involves cards like tropical island which seems to be missing now. I would be really happy if someone could share sideboarding techinques with me (could be by prive message too if you want it to be a secret of how do you side:P). Thx a lot! :)

[Omega87]

It depends on your sideboard, what cards do you play? If you play the cards like on Page 1 without tropical, then just board like on page 1 without boarding the tropical ;-)

@ Lemnear: your edit is far too good to be true :-D its all about sequencing!

[Ragdoll]

Yes I'm going to play Bryant's list. Are there any other variants?

[Omega87]

Of course there are other variants, its all about your meta-game. If you don't expect reanimator, i would not play surgicals. If there are a lot of miracles player, you better play 3 decays. And so on..
As you play bryants list, stick to his boarding plans!

[Lemnear]

SPOILER: The Tropical is back in the SB. This and the rest of the new list (~5 Maindeck changes) will go live by Saturday/Sunday after the Invitational


@ Lemnear: your edit is far too good to be true :-D its all about sequencing!

It IS true. Bryant hinted me on that interaction ... Lol

Edit: i know people like the -x/+y pattern presented for boarding, but with a changing MB and meta-tuned sideboards this is near impossible to keep updated because it's ridiculously time intensive. The SB section in the primer tries to avoid the Problem of being outdated every 2-4 weeks by giving ideas and strategies you can adapt for your own metagamed SB. Specified boarding plan with the current primer list are within the last 10 pages of this thread and include BUG, Blade, Miracles and other stuff. Look it up

[Ragdoll]

SPOILER: The Tropical is back in the SB. This and the rest of the new list (~5 Maindeck changes) will go live by Saturday/Sunday after the Invitational



It IS true. Bryant hinted me on that interaction ... Lol

Edit: i know people like the -x/+y pattern presented for boarding, but with a changing MB and meta-tuned sideboards this is near impossible to keep updated because it's ridiculously time intensive. The SB section in the primer tries to avoid the Problem of being outdated every 2-4 weeks by giving ideas and strategies you can adapt for your own metagamed SB. Specified boarding plan with the current primer list are within the last 10 pages of this thread and include BUG, Blade, Miracles and other stuff. Look it up

This is exactly what I was looking for as a new player :). The "-x/+y" helps a lot more at the beggining than the general description (that helps more an experienced players) or reading the "x" pages of discussion which you even weren't part of. But if you say it was discussed then I'll read those pages. Thx very much and I really can't wait to see the new maindeck. Regards :)

[Lemnear]

This is exactly what I was looking for as a new player :). The "-x/+y" helps a lot more at the beggining than the general description (that helps more an experienced players) or reading the "x" pages of discussion which you even weren't part of. But if you say it was discussed then I'll read those pages. Thx very much and I really can't wait to see the new maindeck. Regards :)

I remember BUG (Team America), Miracles, Reanimator and SneakShow being recent topics. You may take a look at the reports in my signature (start with Vol.6) or tournament reports listed in the primer for detailed -x/+y boarding plans and explaination

[R3D]

Wow, 5 md changes.
Really curious what those changes could be :D

Maybe 4 md empty-->grinding station style (since empty is very good with therapy flashback)? just speculating..

[Holly]

Probably since nothing is as good as casting Ad Nauseam and flipping 4 Rite of Flame into 3 Empty the Warrens to get your tons of Goblins even after they Stifled the first storm trigger !
Also SSG to power them out.

[R3D]

Probably since nothing is as good as casting Ad Nauseam and flipping 4 Rite of Flame into 3 Empty the Warrens to get your tons of Goblins even after they Stifled the first storm trigger !
Also SSG to power them out.

hahahaha true that:D
can you even imagine how i totally don't have a clue about the proposed changes ?:P
I'm sorry for my horrible post :)

[Holly]

hahahaha true that:D
can you even imagine how i totally don't have a clue about the proposed changes ?:P
I'm sorry for my horrible post :)

I can imagine, they don't make this secretiveness for nothing.
Just wait for it, its going to be... oh fucked the order up..

[Final Fortune]

5 MD changes? -5 Japanese Infernal Tutor and Ad Nauseam for Korean Infernal Tutor and Ad Nauseam perhaps:eek:

[BrettF]

Bryant appears to have went 3-1 in the first legacy portion of SCGinvi.

Get there!

[davelin]

Bryant appears to have went 3-1 in the first legacy portion of SCGinvi.

Get there!

Sounds like the new changes are working!

[JPoJohnson]

Sounds like the new changes are working!

I missed where he spoke about that. 5 MB changes?


Nice work Bryant! Keep it up (:

[BrettF]

Looks like Bryant is 6-2 after day one. Keep fighting!

[davelin]

Looks like Bryant is 6-2 after day one. Keep fighting!

Royce as well!

[BrettF]

Royce as well!

Sweet! I'll assume he's testing the same list as Bryant.

[Lemnear]

I'm curious about the losses. Anybody can help me our here?

@Holly: there is no list update while we're throwing ideas around, "simple as that". The Invitational is the first real field test. Possibly, that there are some more changes over the weekend too. There are no 3 "official" lists per week like in other threads with a bunch of turncoats.

[jin]

I'm curious about the losses. Anybody can help me our here?

@Holly: there is no list update while we're throwing ideas around, "simple as that". The Invitational is the first real field test. Possibly, that there are some more changes over the weekend too. There are no 3 "official" lists per week like in other threads with a bunch of turncoats.

Thank goodness. Consistency is what makes this deck appealing. The only big changes come in the SB. It is interesting how people are willing to jump on board with Bryant's changes. Not many post their versions of the list. I wonder why. I think this is the only deck that operates in this manner on these forums. Is anyone still updating the version of the primer on mtgsalvation? I haven't been there in ages.

Also, can someone update the rest of us by giving us some context. Where are you guys seeing these changes? At this point, I'm just guessing you guys are watching the live stream, but that doesn't tell us much about a new deck list...

[Final Fortune]

Thank goodness. Consistency is what makes this deck appealing. The only big changes come in the SB. It is interesting how people are willing to jump on board with Bryant's changes. Not many post their versions of the list. I wonder why. I think this is the only deck that operates in this manner on these forums. Is anyone still updating the version of the primer on mtgsalvation? I haven't been there in ages.

Also, can someone update the rest of us by giving us some context. Where are you guys seeing these changes? At this point, I'm just guessing you guys are watching the live stream, but that doesn't tell us much about a new deck list...

It's to the mana base, disruption and SB, they didn't mention it specifically but the changes to the SB are actually a result of the changes to the disruption. Those are the only mutable parts of any TES deck, once the event is over I'll post the derivative list Bryant made his list from as we're only off about 2 MD cards and 2 SB cards from each other and those differences are minimal.

6-2 on D1 seems like a successful outing, and depending on UWR's standing in the metagame, which I think is bound to decline in favour of BUG and UWBg, I think it's safe to say this is the new MD and there is a new SB staple.

[Lemnear]

Also, can someone update the rest of us by giving us some context. Where are you guys seeing these changes? At this point, I'm just guessing you guys are watching the live stream, but that doesn't tell us much about a new deck list...

This is because Bryant and I have a lil' Facebook chat for TES ideas, lists, tests etc. and with pure Tempo decks and Leyline of Sanctity gone there was the chance to give the manabase more space to breathe and consistancy and we talked about my post BoM test-list with the alternative disruption which did not work out back then because of the remaining number of tempo decks which were present. Now things changed with everyone an their mom running SFM and no stifles/aggressive Wastelands. We switched my MB Tropical (barely more than an Island in MB) for a Volcanic (see the recent Fetchland/dual topic in this thread) and that's it. We messaged Final Fortune for more Input, tested more, tuned numbers and the result will be present here by tomorrow.

P.S. Twitter user know more ;)

[jin]

It's to the mana base, disruption and SB, they didn't mention it specifically but the changes to the SB are actually a result of the changes to the disruption. Those are the only mutable parts of any TES deck, once the event is over I'll post the derivative list Bryant made his list from as we're only off about 2 MD cards and 2 SB cards from each other and those differences are minimal.

6-2 on D1 seems like a successful outing, and depending on UWR's standing in the metagame, which I think is bound to decline in favour of BUG and UWBg, I think it's safe to say this is the new MD and there is a new SB staple.

Thanks for context!


This is because Bryant and I have a lil' Facebook chat for TES ideas, lists, tests etc. and with pure Tempo decks and Leyline of Sanctity gone there was the chance to give the manabase more space to breathe and consistancy and we talked about my post BoM test-list with the alternative disruption which did not work out back then because of the remaining number of tempo decks which were present. Now things changed with everyone an their mom running SFM and no stifles/aggressive Wastelands. We switched my MB Tropical (barely more than an Island in MB) for a Volcanic (see the recent Fetchland/dual topic in this thread) and that's it. We messaged Final Fortune for more Input, tested more, tuned numbers and the result will be present here by tomorrow.

P.S. Twitter user know more ;)

Send Twitter name! Itching to see what's up!

[Lemnear]

I announced changes there and gave some hints so people don't invest in cards that leave the deck and such

[Bahamuth]

Could you discuss why you like adding a second Volcanic over another fetchland?

[Lemnear]

Could you discuss why you like adding a second Volcanic over another fetchland?

My list had Tropical in the MB and it was plain bad in the Maindeck so Bryant immediately made it a second Volcanic. The reason for this is basically the same as for the 2 U.Seas: being less vulnerable to Wasteland while having always a quality target for your Fetches. During the time with the 4c Maindeck it was impossible to squeeze in without hurting shuffle effects even further or making Silence uncastable.

The biggest upsides is that the protected kill is now 2-colored instead of 3-colored and we have additional quality out against Batterskull, hatebears, Clique, Counterbalance, etc. and having more shuffle effects, with the downside that DimRet is now pretty useless against blue decks

[Lordofthestringz]

My list had Tropical in the MB and it was plain bad in the Maindeck so Bryant immediately made it a second Volcanic. The reason for this is basically the same as for the 2 U.Seas: being less vulnerable to Wasteland while having always a quality target for your Fetches. During the time with the 4c Maindeck it was impossible to squeeze in without hurting shuffle effects even further or making Silence uncastable.

The biggest upsides is that the protected kill is now 2-colored instead of 3-colored and we have additional quality out against Batterskull, hatebears, Clique, Counterbalance, etc. and having more shuffle effects, with the downside that DimRet is now pretty useless against blue decks

So silences came out of the deck and we will be running more discard? I like that aproach, i switch between ANT and TES quite often and i like the ideia of running more discard. It also makes sense to add more fetches and duals in this case since we will not need W.

Looking forward to see the final list :)

[Final Fortune]

I don't think Diminishing Returns is useless vs blue decks but you have to SB out Infernal Tutor more than ever vs blue decks, Diminishing Returns is still an effective win condition vs BUG and UBW because they can only redraw into Force of Will and Daze instead of Spell Snare and Spare Pierce, but you'll have to float more mana, and specifically black mana, in order to kill with it. You'll routinely find yourself using Diminishing Returns and floating black just to be able to recoup the card disadvantage from Chrome Mox, hit your land drop, look at your opponent's new hand, discard his best card and pass the turn. I believe in winning small with Diminishing Returns and never relied on resolving Silence in the first place, so while Diminishing Returns loses efficacy it doesn't lose utility.

I don't think Bryant is on the 2nd Volcanic Island judging from the last PM he sent me and I don't think there's any need for it, the most important aspect of the new TES lists is in the land sequencing. We can play Gemstone Mines before Fetchlands and no longer care if the Gemstone Mine is destroyed, because another land and a Chrome Mox can meet all of the color requirements for the deck. The Cantrip sequencing is stronger now than before when we had to take Silence into account, so which land you lead with isn't as important as whether or not you have a Fetchland to follow it with.

Edit: My bad, I didn't discuss that with him and I discussed that with some one else who PMed me, nevertheless I think 5th Fetchland > 2nd Volcanic Island because you rarely want to draw Volcanic Island.

The deck is less powerful, but faster, more efficient, more versatile, more resilient, more interactive and rewards tighter play; I still think my MD is technically better than Bryant's because I can go off from a lower life total, but I'm more of a poker player than I am a Brainstorm player so I'm willing to write the cards off as functionally equivalent. We approached the same problem from two different solutions, altho' I think his Duress and 2nd Pyroblast are better served as Inquisition of Kozilek in a world where some people only MD 3 Force of Will.

In short, RUG is dead, welcome to 2014.

[BrettF]

Royce and Bryant both at 7-3.

Are there any other TES players that we know of at the event?

EDIT:

Royce is now 9-3
Bryant is now 7-5

[sawatarix]

Gogo Royce,go laser them all !


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Plague Sliver]

So I'm playing Magical Theory Fighter most of the time with this deck, due to being in China. But I played TES at the GP Beijing side event yesterday.

Round 1 was vs...yup...reanimator. G1 he was faster, G2 I Grapeshotted his ass, G3 he gambled with a hand with no protection and raced me by 1 turn.

Tells me afterwards he plays this deck and wanted something less mentally taxing to play, despite having to read what Xantid Swarm does. Umm yeah sure buddy.

I still rocked Xantid Swarm + Telemin in the board, could've really used Surgicals. Wouldve blown him out.

Question: if we are discussing Surgical in the board, could we conceivably run Karakas in its place instead? Karakas is still as unstoppable as ever and we are faster than Dredge.

[davelin]

I've played the newer list for about 5-6 matches. I didn't miss Silences too much and the new manabase felt tighter. There were times though I wished (pun intended) there was a discard spell in the SB to burn a Wish for.

[wonderPreaux]

I find the newer build to be pretty interesting, but I think the loss of Silence is worth more consideration than people are giving it. Discard is a good tool for disruption and protection, but there are some situations it really can't handle. High densities of hate-bears, or opposing discard can be better handled by Silence-walking than your own discard. Discard also doesn't do the job against decks like Miracles,which is fairly popular lately, that can float Counters with Top, you can play around Vendilion Clique with preemptive discard, for instance, but a Flusterstorm/Fow on top of the deck can lurk at any time. The loss of Silence also weakens your combo matchups, since you no longer have the ability to hold-up a full stop to their turn that can also act as a Mind Twist for the greedy or unprepared. I think this is evidenced by mentions of siding Telemin Performance if scouting reveals a lot of combo/reanimator players. There is also the obviously increased vulnerability to Leyline of Sanctity, but it's not as though Omni-Tell or similar decks are particularly popular as of late. While I do appreciate the increased consistency of the manabase, I think both the 5-color Silence and 4-color discard versions are valid depending on the meta. For example, 5-color might be better on MTGO with the release of LEDs, or if Miracles continues to be popular.

[Pelikanudo]

@F.Fortune
@Lem
@Bryant
i'm just curious about that list New...,
maybe Final Fourtune won the discussion and now you all play full discard, joke?
no slience maybe then?
please let me know!

I'm not sure... first we left 4th moxen, next starting to play Gitaxian, next we left Tendrils main and now we are going to leave silence....please no. I recognize in my meta is very difficult to reach top 8 with TES do not mind, its my pet deck and just enjoy- not with ANT. and for sure discard can battle more cosistently Team America as example as Silence can not hit or Hymn or FoW. but Silence no please. anyway I've been always agree with F.F. on Full Dicascard Package but again no.! I and you all enjoy Silence, I think just puting in the cards in the Side as -2 Surgical + 2Duress can be ok an next side in the 2Duress+1T.Seize...

[P-E]

hehe good job with the new list so
damned a second beta volcanic island will cost me an harm ^^

[Final Fortune]

I'll let Bryant post his own list, but I'll post my list and discuss the differences and the reasons.

MD

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

SB
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Grape Shot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Past in Flames
1 Bribery/Telemin's Performance
1 Duress
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Pyroblast
1 Chain of Vapour
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Tropical Island

I keep adjusting one or two of the SB slots based on the competitive and rogue decks I face online, Show&Tell and Reanimator are common match ups so I prefer to have as many Xantid Swarms as possible instead of Abrupt Decays because I believe the best way to beat Miracles is with pro-active disruption instead of re-active removal.

I think the differences between my list and Bryant's list is that he is playing -1 Thoughtseize, +1 Duress and -1 Chrome Mox, +1 Volcanic Island in the MD in order to decrease the average life loss from Thoughtseize and have a more stable mana base but I prefer all of my discard to be able to discard Vendillion Clique G1 and Meddling Mage G2 and I prefer my faster mana base to let me go off with Ad Nauseam at lower life totals.

The SB disruption cards are a matter of preference, Bryant had a Thoughtseize and 2 Pyroblast where I had Thoughtseize, only 1 Pyroblast and a utility slot because I only SB in 1 Pyroblast for 1 Infernal Tutor vs any UW deck to kill Meddling Mage on Burning Wish after an Ad Nauseam. I've split the discard between Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek after having a discussion with a forum lurker over the need to wish for a discard spell that could discard hate bears, he made a good point that if you have to wish for Thoughtseize then they're going to play their hate bear on the following turn anyway so there's no need to take the 2 damage from Thoughtseize. If play Cabal Therapy we usually name Force of Will blind, and if we see Vendillion Clique then we can wish for Inquisition of Kozilek and discard it in time and there's no need to take 2 damage from Thoughtseize. In the situations few and far between where Burning Wish -> Duress is are only protection, we're often better Burning Wish -> Diminishing Returns and trying to win or if they haven't played a hate bear yet chances are they have a counter so we can wish for Duress and there's no need to take the 2 damage from Thoughtseize.

Regarding people's off the shoulder match up analysis, combo match ups do not get worse, they get better when you play Thoughtseize because you can interact with their strategy by discarding their combo pieces. You'll have a higher win% vs Show&Tell and Reanimator and your win% vs Storm mirrors isn't significantly affected, likewise you'll have a higher win% vs Miracles because Sensei's Top is not the problem, Counterbalance is the problem, Meddling Mage is the problem and Vendilion Clique is the problem. If they resolve Top, they have to have the mana to activate it and they have to have the counter to float it which is a lot of haves, if they resolve a Counterbalance you are just fucking dead so it's kind of obvious which card of the two you need to be more concerned with. Furthermore you have a card that can deal with Meddling Mage and Vendillion Clique, and once you play against UBWg True Name Nemesis you'll have a card that can deal with their discard as well.

Silence isn't a bad card, but Silence is a weaker card now that RUG is a dead deck and people are beginning to accept that fact. I said it when True Name Nemesis was spoiled and started playing UBWg and UGW True Name Nemesis decks, and I adjusted my disruption package earlier than any one else did because I was being attacked from multiple angles like; Counters, Discard, Hate Bears and Wasteland instead of from a single angle like Counters and Wasteland or Discard and Wasteland or Hatebears and Wasteland.

I'm not saying Thoughtseize turns Miracles and UBWg into winning match ups, but it improves your win% because you're not blind to any angle of attack like you are with Silence.

I've made a lot of posts regarding the technical benefits of using discard instead of Silence in the past, being able to cast it before the combo turn, being able to cast it off of more lands, being able to cast it off of Dark Ritual, being able to better sequence your lands for cantrips, playing with perfect information, imprinting for black etc. so you can review those posts. Likewise I've made a lot of posts regarding the necessity of Bribery/Telemin's Performance for Griselbrand.dec and it's true now more than ever after you no longer get to face roll Show&Tell with a resolved Silence and Diminishing Returns.

Discard rewards a higher skill cap with TES, but in today's meta game it's worth it.

[Bryant Cook]

4 Gemstone Mine
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam

Sideboard
1 Tropical Island
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroblast
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Thoughtseize
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Telemin Performance

This is the list I played at the invitational & open. The switch between Silence to discard was tough for me, I honestly thought Silence was better. I was on a tear with the back to back Caffrey events in PA (Almost 200 players at each) and then played in a 40 man where I went 0-3. Losing because Silence wasn't proactive enough versus bears and discard, I needed to adapt. Final Fortune was right to a certain extent, if the metagame shifts back to the way it was I'll likely sleeve up Silences again. But that time isn't right now. With the lack of Silence, City of Brass isn't needed and the extra fetch and dual were added. Royce & I both agreed that the additional fetchland was immediately noticed, the dual was nice too for pretending to be Sneak & Show. I opted for 2 Seize/1 Duress, Royce played 2 Duress/1 Preordain (Which I hate - but he did better than me this weekend. The fuck do I know, right?). Royce says the lifeloss lost him a game, I think it's negated since we no longer have the lifeloss from City of Brass. Either way, I never noticed the life at all.

I decided to try Telemin over the weekend. I should've kept my mouth shut about it, as it didn't work the first time I cast it as my opponent (J.D. Nir) sided in a Xantid, which I promptly sacrificed to a Therapy to make him discard three Cabal Ritual. The second time I hit Emrakul, then had Sneak + Emrakul happen on his turn. The next two times I hit Emrakul and won, then did it against Omni - milled his deck down to 12 cards leaving him with no way to win before taking the creature. The last time was against a weird Tezzerator deck. I never saw any creatures at all, then managed to hit his singleton Vendilion Clique from his sideboard. Ouch. I don't know how I feel about it, I definitely don't want Bribery, if it's cut it will go back to being a Chain of Vapor most likely. I opted to play it because one Surgical seems silly and there's not room for another, I don't think the deck really needs another Chain though. (Royce opts for two as he doesn't play Thoughtseize)

I didn't really cast Past in Flames or Returns much over the weekend. Maybe 2 times for each.

[Pelikanudo]

@Bryant
@Final Fortune

really nothing new, my meta has been always infested from Team America and likes, I think the F.Fortune's one too...

I'd like to ask:

F.Fortune: the list seems perfect, but the Gitaxian Probe does not make you draw C.Moxen in excess? I've been really happy with 3 main. I really hated when I drew 2 but I perfectly understand to keep in more T.Seize because of this. anyway, long time ago I ssume any can loose with TES playing 4moxen at 20 lifes, so playing 3 moxen is waht I'd do.
Both

Both: Did T.Seize affected in any way to the life loss?, My Black TES list has always been like Bryant's except for -1T.Seize+1Duress. but I doubt if there is a need to play 2 or 3 T.Seize main...

if any of you will expose a report or HowToSide guide I'll be ok to put some testing on it as with this TES list I think some of us by here we can win at least 1 tournament... but I'm not sure if in the Torunament list will people misunderstood and put ANT... mainly people see no silence means ANT...

In my experience with other Discard oriented decks is as always... its like F.Fortune says. really thereisn't to play A.Decay because will win before. I think just adding pyros or more discard is ok. you'll let me know your side strategies..
Also the same is applicable for S&T and OmniShow and even Reanimator. I don't think Xantid is key unless you expect Leyline, just add more discard...
have you evaluated to add Doomdsday to the Side?
on average seems better T.Performance tan Bribery... I'll see.

please let us know any report result or like !

[Final Fortune]

I dislike Telemin's Performance for those exact two reasons, you'll lose games vs Show&Tell and Reanimator by getting any creature other than Griselbrand and if you choose Telemin's Performance over Diminishing Returns vs combo or control you'll brick on a Dark Confident or a Vendilion Clique post-board.

I don't think you need a win button in the Storm mirror when you could've just cast Diminishing Returns with a mana floating, because even if you don't win you get to hit your land drop, play your acceleration, discard their win condition, reset their graveyard and pull ahead. Even Empty the Warrens with Cabal Therapy back up can get there pretty reliably vs ANT, so I don't see any reason to take the variance in S&T and Reanimator and roll the dice otherwise g2/g3 vs Storm and what not. Bribery also has some random upsides vs other combo decks like Hermit Druid and Manaless Dredge, so Telemin's Performance isn't even necessarily better vs combo.

You get a free win vs Storm game 1 and that's about it.

Edit: Regarding the 4th Chrome Mox I prefer to use the 4th Chrome Mox to off set the life loss so I can have 3 Thoughtseize to fight against Vendilion Clique, Counterbalance and Meddling Mage and yes I find it absolutely necessary to play Thoughtseize in your worst match ups.

You can think of SB Bribery and the 4th Chrome Mox as the price you have to pay for Thoughtseize, personally I think they're perfectly fine choices by themselves but others disagree. Drawing the 2nd Chrome Mox is annoying but so is not drawing any Chrome Mox off of a Diminishing Returns or killing yourself off of an Ad Nauseam, every card has its trade offs in this deck. Personally, I play this deck for its speed and I have no problem going all in unprotected so I want to maximize my turn 1 wins anyway.

[RogueMTG]

Sorry if this is a bit of a historical question, but I have been out of the Magic world for a while... can someone explain why Tendrils is no longer in the maindeck?

[Lemnear]

Sorry if this is a bit of a historical question, but I have been out of the Magic world for a while... can someone explain why Tendrils is no longer in the maindeck?

Because it is a bad natural draw. This and other stuff is covered in the OP

[Bryant Cook]

I will likely play 74 of the same cards, I'm most likely going to replace Telemin.

With Miracles everywhere I will not cut Decay, as it has applications elsewhere (Death and Taxes & Chalice decks). Pyroblast as great this weekend, my Miracles opponent tapped out with Flusterstorm in hand to slam Counterbalance. I countered and then killed him (I had a turn one with Pyro - had the Ad Nauseam in grip, couldn't counter Fluster).

The lifeloss didn't matter as I mentioned. Reading comprehension.

[wonderPreaux]

I will likely play 74 of the same cards, I'm most likely going to replace Telemin.

With Miracles everywhere I will not cut Decay, as it has applications elsewhere (Death and Taxes & Chalice decks). Pyroblast as great this weekend, my Miracles opponent tapped out with Flusterstorm in hand to slam Counterbalance. I countered and then killed him (I had a turn one with Pyro - had the Ad Nauseam in grip, couldn't counter Fluster).

The lifeloss didn't matter as I mentioned. Reading comprehension.

Regarding a replacement for Telemin: If there isn't space in the board for a comfortable number of Surgical Extractions, would it make more sense to just move up to 3 Xantid Swarms? Sticking a Xantid Swarm means you can combo off in the face of their Griselbrand, active discard or Pyroblast use could help it land, and then you can just move on with your plays.

[Bryant Cook]

Regarding a replacement for Telemin: If there isn't space in the board for a comfortable number of Surgical Extractions, would it make more sense to just move up to 3 Xantid Swarms? Sticking a Xantid Swarm means you can combo off in the face of their Griselbrand, active discard or Pyroblast use could help it land, and then you can just move on with your plays.

You don't side in Pyroblast versus Reanimator. Part of the reason I'm not really interested in this plan is that Xantid isn't everything against them, they have discard as well. It's not nearly as good as it is against Show and Tell decks. It's not a terrible option, it's that I'd rather have something else. If that makes any sense?

[wonderPreaux]

You don't side in Pyroblast versus Reanimator. Part of the reason I'm not really interested in this plan is that Xantid isn't everything against them, they have discard as well. It's not nearly as good as it is against Show and Tell decks. It's not a terrible option, it's that I'd rather have something else. If that makes any sense?

I get what you mean, I suppose I just focus on Xantid because the big flashy problem against Reanimator is Griselbrand drawing them into lots of Counters. the issue i think i have against telemin or bribery is that if i resolved a wish and got this spell and was able to cast it, didn't a whole lot have to be going right for me as it is? i just feel like a sideboard slot like that isnt delivering enough. though, im not sure what that "something else" that can help the fight with counter and discard is.

[HerrGevatter]

This is the list I played at the invitational & open.

I hear you played some games against my buddy Tom at the invitational - unfortunately I've given him a ton of practice playing against TES. I think he has the matchup fairly well figured out.

I haven't played it much myself, recently, due to all the golgari charms and zealous persecutions running around. I think Empty is so important to the deck. So I went back to miracles for a while and missed the changes to the decklist.

Honestly it's hard for me to think of TES without Silence. But it seems like in this metagame the discard may be the way to go. Stupid True-Name Nemesis.

[Final Fortune]

I get what you mean, I suppose I just focus on Xantid because the big flashy problem against Reanimator is Griselbrand drawing them into lots of Counters. the issue i think i have against telemin or bribery is that if i resolved a wish and got this spell and was able to cast it, didn't a whole lot have to be going right for me as it is? i just feel like a sideboard slot like that isnt delivering enough. though, im not sure what that "something else" that can help the fight with counter and discard is.

That's flawed logic IMO, yes a lot has to go right in order for you to get to Burning Wish + 5 mana but you're assuming that Burning Wish for Empty the Warrens or Diminishing Returns are a win condition when they're not, you'll draw either deck into counters or either deck will play Griselbrand and off set your Goblins. It's like picking up a hot girl from the club and remembering that you're all out of condoms by the time you get her home, all of that work for nothing. Bribery closes the deal.

[Lemnear]

I hear you played some games against my buddy Tom at the invitational - unfortunately I've given him a ton of practice playing against TES. I think he has the matchup fairly well figured out.

I haven't played it much myself, recently, due to all the golgari charms and zealous persecutions running around. I think Empty is so important to the deck. So I went back to miracles for a while and missed the changes to the decklist.

Honestly it's hard for me to think of TES without Silence. But it seems like in this metagame the discard may be the way to go. Stupid True-Name Nemesis.

It really depends if you define the subtype by the disruption ran or by the combination of RoF + Burning Wish seeing it as an aggro/combo-deck. The reasons for the changes are tied to the impressions made during november and have further developed to a point, where Silence had more downsides than features against the metagame.

1) the most important first: Dual disruption is the new standard. During the BoM I noticed that people finally started to combine 2 or more angles of attack in Form of counter/discard/hatebears to fight storm. Silence can be used to "timewalk" against parts of it, but leaves the rest unadressed. The question when to cast Silence in their upkeep or in their turn had no correct answer in this world without casting Probe first and even then you might have to look into a grip of FoW+Hymn. Discard lets you at least cherrypick the most annoying card in this situation and prevents bad decisions based on timing your card.

2) SFM still on the rise. One of the most common answers to our goblin ambush these days is SFM into Batterskull. During the BoM I faced the Situation twice to draw a Silence AFTER a SFM entered the battlefield. A discard Spell would have left EtW an upcoming option, but not with Silence and a Wish in hand.

3) discard is faster. The easy fact that discard enables 2-colored protected kills unlike the 3-colored with Silence not only reduces the pressure on the manabase in general and enables us to run more fetches, it also makes a difference against decks running some protection and still being able to pressure your life/combo fast. These include elves (Mindbreak Trap) as well as Show&Tell/Reanimator among others. This also easily voids the damage done by Thoughtseize if you face Delver by giving them a turn less.

4) More information. The fact that we have now 3 additional effects that let us see our opponents hand, makes Therapy as a playset even better than before.

5) Leyline of Sanctity vanished. The trend continued which was a mayor selling point of Silence + Xantid. Without LoS ran as a common SB hate to battle discard, both beforementioned protection spells lose their justification being run in big numbers.

[Togores]

Sad that silence left the deck T_T
Was one of my favourite cards. I will test the new deck and see if I find the discard better. But I think not playing silence we just lose to senseis divining top and this card is in a ton of decks. And discard dont get rid of a taxes hand of doublé hatebear.


Lets see what time says. :wink:

[Lemnear]

Sad that silence left the deck T_T
Was one of my favourite cards. I will test the new deck and see if I find the discard better. But I think not playing silence we just lose to senseis divining top and this card is in a ton of decks. And discard dont get rid of a taxes hand of doublé hatebear.


Lets see what time says. :wink:

It's not what Silence is any good here either. Against D&T you don't really want to see either discard or Silence but gas, gas, more gas and Business.

@Pelikanudo
I tested Doomsday not so long ago in the SB as a singleton with a MB Ideas Unbound in place of a Ponder to have another wishable engine. Too iffy to get going on a reliable base.

[jin]

I think not playing silence we just lose to senseis divining top and this card is in a ton of decks

Quoted for truth. The people I play test with love floating FOW, Flusterstore or Mindbreak Trap on the top 3. This is pretty annoying to play against as they sit there and wait for their Sensei's Top. It's also annoying when they E-Tutor into Canonist..

[Lemnear]

Quoted for truth. The people I play test with love floating FOW, Flusterstore or Mindbreak Trap on the top 3. This is pretty annoying to play against as they sit there and wait for their Sensei's Top. It's also annoying when they E-Tutor into Canonist..

Still a minor Problem than fighting against an opponent with FoW + Counterbalance/Clique/Hymn in hand there you can at least remove the immediate threat instead of delaying it only for a turn and still need to pass the counterspell.

Starting with fetch -> U.Sea -> Ritual -> Thoughtseize presents a much bigger threat to them as Goldland -> Silence in the first cycle of turns.

[Final Fortune]

Quoted for truth. The people I play test with love floating FOW, Flusterstore or Mindbreak Trap on the top 3. This is pretty annoying to play against as they sit there and wait for their Sensei's Top. It's also annoying when they E-Tutor into Canonist..

By a ton of decks do you mean Miracles? I think you're just going to have to accept Miracles is a bad match up for Storm, it kind of goes without saying for any deck that plays Counterbalance. You should be more concerned with UWBg, which is the premier True Name Nemesis deck in the format and the match up you're really trying to salvage.

[Pelikanudo]

Sad that silence left the deck T_T
Was one of my favourite cards. I will test the new deck and see if I find the discard better. But I think not playing silence we just lose to senseis divining top and this card is in a ton of decks. And discard dont get rid of a taxes hand of doublé hatebear.


Lets see what time says. :wink:

Togores:

I've always knew that Silence < Discard in at least our Spanish meta, just keep on playing the silence TES list as a pet deck, I just love the card...

I just ask myself if TES decks will put up their numbers in top 8 from now on...only time will let us know this. I believe so!!!

I'll test the Final Fortune List with 11 lands and 4 moxen with 3 T.Seize, I'm not saying it is his list, as my Black TES list is like Bryant except -1T.Seize + 1 Duress. but I like again the 4moxen approach, maybe i stop playing when I see that moxen are drew in excess, as there is no worse hand in TES that the one which is not able to win in 1st turn and has any number of Moxen in it...

please feel free to email me to agree on Strategies on how to side so that we both have a common testing grid with TES in our so hostile meta, last time I made 5-2!!!

@F.F. I'll email you to see strategies on how to side.... this new list seems the perfect one to handle my so hostile meta....

SP Meta for reference: http://www.elsantuario.es/foro/index.php/topic,15793.0.html (5-2 ou yeah in here!!! will win now with T.Seizes!!)

Related to T.P. vs Bribery, because of results from Bryant seems Telemins better on averge, but not sure, by the moment I've been testing bribery for a while and wasn't bad. I also liek to avoid scenarios like happend to Bryant....

@Lem:
I would not play I.Unbound in the 75, just 1 DD in side, for those cases in which you have to go off at a low total life and dont want to give the oponent his fows back ups... as we talked before, there are scenarios which are perfectly handled by the Brainstorm piles and the unique need is to have any number in cards in hand plus a cantrip. I find now that we don't have silence any engine too win but with no gy dependancy and no IGG effect like D.R.; DD provides us this, but not sure if this is really needed, it doesn't seem a deck like TES need this...

[Final Fortune]

Honestly my SBing plan is -1 Infernal Tutor for +1 Pyroblast for any UW deck and for any other aggro-control deck -1 Infernal Tutor for +1 discard, vs Show&Tell and Reanimator it's -4 discard, -1 Infernal Tutor for +4 Xantid Swarm, +1 Tropical Island.

I don't think BUG is a bad match up, it feels favourable to me because Hymn to Tourach is slower than Thoughtseize.

[Bryant Cook]

I don't think BUG is a bad match up, it feels favourable to me because Hymn to Tourach is slower than Thoughtseize.

The list I've been playing against have both at a 3 Hymn/2 Seize split backed by Force/Daze/Wasteland (paired with Deathrite at times). We're not always on the play, getting Hymn-d happens. It's either that or always have a turn one while they don't have Force of Will.

[Plague Sliver]

Wow. The more things change, the more they stay the same. But it's all good, because the format is cyclical. I'm sure the next TNN will trigger more changes :cool:

More discard makes sense at this point. Maybe we should call everything Storm since they're all variations of each other, whether it's ANT or TES. I mean, ANT decks Empty the Warrens too, right?

I say "stay the same" because 3 years ago I was experimenting around with a 3 color TES build that was suggested on the storm boards. I was playing Swamp and Badlands and upping the Thoughtseize count. Of course, Gitaxian Probe wasn't a thing back then, and I was rocking maindeck Tendrils, but still. Was also playing Pulverize in the board because Decay didn't exist yet. Good times.

Nostalgia aside, it might be time to give this new configuration a spin. I just need to tell some of the locals to stop playing RUG and get with the program.

[Final Fortune]

The list I've been playing against have both at a 3 Hymn/2 Seize split backed by Force/Daze/Wasteland (paired with Deathrite at times). We're not always on the play, getting Hymn-d happens. It's either that or always have a turn one while they don't have Force of Will.

Yeah, I'm not saying that Hymn to Tourach isn't a problem I'm saying Hymn to Tourach gives us more of a chance than Thoughtseize does to either go off or discard their disruption before they can cast it. I think Force of Will, Daze, Thoughtseize is > than Force of Will, Daze, Hymn to Tourach and UBWg is a worse match up than BUG for us because of faster disruption, Batterskull and hate bear., I have a really good record vs BUG, I don't fear any aggro-control deck that doesn't play white at this point.

[sawatarix]

I also pondered about grimtutor in the sideboard like ANT does to get an extra copy of "demonic tutor"(sometimes ant plays burning wish which is horrible in my opinion)

I like the Deck alot,the only thing i really dislike is the weakness of the rituals and rites,it's really hard to win via Past in Flames or Tutor Chaining.
If a game tends to go grindy and our life total goes down we are on a tough spot.
I know TEs is a superbroken deck if it goes ad nauseam from a high life total during turn 1-3 but in the lategame neither ad nauseam nor empty the warrens work.
Is there anything we can change to improve the pif,strategy?
Maybe cutting 1-2 Chrome Moxes for cabal rituals or something like that?


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Final Fortune]

I just think that's the nature of the beast, game 1 is rarely as grindy as games 2/3 in my experience because you have the advantage of expecting blue decks while they have the disadvantage of not knowing whether or not they should mulligan to Force of Will etc. After that you have Infernal Tutor in your SB for the rest of the match so SBing Grim Tutor seems like a waste of space, and the 4th Chrome Mox while annoying reduces your average life total for going off with Ad Nauseam and increases your win% off of Diminishing Returns.

I think a lot of the time it just comes down to D.Rit and pray.

[wonderPreaux]

That's flawed logic IMO, yes a lot has to go right in order for you to get to Burning Wish + 5 mana but you're assuming that Burning Wish for Empty the Warrens or Diminishing Returns are a win condition when they're not, you'll draw either deck into counters or either deck will play Griselbrand and off set your Goblins. It's like picking up a hot girl from the club and remembering that you're all out of condoms by the time you get her home, all of that work for nothing. Bribery closes the deal.

When I say "a lot has to go right" i don't mean it in a "i'm winning already" kind of way, i mean it more like "I must have had some significant tool to get me here". Since I was advocating for Xantid Swarm, which is good at getting me to that point without getting countered. Your build leans very heavily on Xantids as it is, so you get options like Tutoring for Ad Nauseam at similar mana cost to Wishing for Bribery, and you may even be able to land Diminishing Returns. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, the most prominent issue with reanimator seems to be the counters since they can Grisel into them on my turn and they tend to play more counters than discard, though I can't exactly write-off the threat of discard.


I also pondered about grimtutor in the sideboard like ANT does to get an extra copy of "demonic tutor"(sometimes ant plays burning wish which is horrible in my opinion)

I like the Deck alot,the only thing i really dislike is the weakness of the rituals and rites,it's really hard to win via Past in Flames or Tutor Chaining.
If a game tends to go grindy and our life total goes down we are on a tough spot.
I know TEs is a superbroken deck if it goes ad nauseam from a high life total during turn 1-3 but in the lategame neither ad nauseam nor empty the warrens work.
Is there anything we can change to improve the pif,strategy?
Maybe cutting 1-2 Chrome Moxes for cabal rituals or something like that?


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

I feel like that would just slow down the deck and make it like an odd Burning ANT variant. If you envisioned a bell-curve for each decks fundamental turn, ANT's would probably center around 3.5, they rarely get 1st turn kills, and 2nd kills might come up, but Cabal Ritual is a fundamentally slower card, so they are better suited to a protracted game. TES's bell-curve centers at around 2.5-3.0, but to achieve that you play cards like Chrome Mox and Gemstone Mine which gives us a lot of freedom to string a combo together, but ofc a longer game is going to be more difficult. It isn't impossible to win a long game, though, Bryant Cook's tourney reports have some good examples of very long games, but I think this deck is just really poorly-suited to a grindy game.

[Pelikanudo]

@Sawatrix:
do not play Grim Tutor in the 75 in TES, I tested it, it is a s***.
Also ANT-3 B.W. is not a horrible deck, at least in the opinión of 2 of the 3 known storm players from our meta think its the perfect storm deck for this specific meta.

@F.Fortune:
@Bryant
I've played some games with the 4 moxen list. really didnt tested any important macth up, all won (Miracles 1-1 - didn't finish the last one, BG Discard, Gobs, no BUG)

related to BUG Tempo etc. : What I felt is that is sometimes invitable to go to the long game, they play several pieces of disruption, so sometimes the best play for them is to take out a Brainstorm and let you at the top deck mode with that C.Moxen as an scenario example. In my experience you just play Raw power vs Raw power and finally win, and this means no moxen and no RoF = more Lands C.Rit., but this is other list.

So taking in consideration the F.Fortune list I would side: -1C.Mox,-1Gitaxian = +1 Tropical+1Inquisition.
3 C.Moxen in base is enough even if we want to have chances of a winning the game quick, thing I don't expect.
we are replacing 1Gitaxian for 1 Inqusiton it is a Show effect like IoK and is a .5 Land. and at top deck we absolutly want Ponder over Gitaxian.
The thing is that there is a great difference between on the draw or on the play, as it seems you want the most odds of winning on the play, rather than fight fire with fire? I really think that the statistics dictates that on the draw you should also to side like this as you don't want C.Mox and prefer Ponder over gitaxian as you'll need to finally fight fire wit fire.

I think this is what I'd do vs BUG, not sure on the play i'd just play the initial list,but dnt think so. any tests done on this?

@F.Fortune
For what I've seen about the list is that Xantid is still weak vs Reanimator and the new setting for our TNT deck is to play 3 more discard effects in side and surgical, I only think that Xantid is needed vs Leyline but if we don't expect it, Xantid is perfectly questionable, I've been thinking in using some how the pyoblast plus surgical to win the omni+Leyline match up, but really I dont expect too much this, I've been thinking in surgical also to use it vs miracles as an alternate to leave the counter on top.! maybe the mixed set up side from Bryant is the correct...

My points of view to be debated:
a) Xantid is not as good vs reanimator, if we go in the disruption route, why are we make a stansdtill with Xantid instead of use surgical for this or just more discard?
b) Xantid is good vs S&T, I agree because even they have no Leyline, its is slower than Renimator, this will be the unique reason to play Xantid. Again, the conjuntion of pyros plus even more discard will win us the game in a same manner, at least guarrenteed with other Storm Deck versions.
b) Xantid can't be sided in vs Miracles, Surgical will help us on sticking both, full of c.b. discard OR respond to a fetch ability. So discard plus pyros plus Surgical should be enough.


@Lem and Bryant and Royce:
The second Volcanic has been good or prefer a CoBrass instead? When I played versions of TES I finally left the 1CoB as wanted still 10 Green mana sources post board.

[Royce Walter]

The second Volc has been great, I think one time I've had a problem with it not making black mana, but other than that it's all upside. You are really required to play a Trop if you cut Cities though, having 4 fetches + Trop + Gemstones to make a turn 1 Xantid or turn 2 Decay postboard is really important. The Trop is pretty good in general though, boarding out a Mox for a Trop is what you want to be doing in almost every matchup, as the games 2/3 are generally slower.

Also I'm baffled by the idea that Deathblade is a worse matchup than BUG Delver. Hymn makes playing a long game so much harder, and having extra free counters makes it less likely that you're going off before Hymn happens.

[Final Fortune]

The second Volc has been great, I think one time I've had a problem with it not making black mana, but other than that it's all upside. You are really required to play a Trop if you cut Cities though, having 4 fetches + Trop + Gemstones to make a turn 1 Xantid or turn 2 Decay postboard is really important. The Trop is pretty good in general though, boarding out a Mox for a Trop is what you want to be doing in almost every matchup, as the games 2/3 are generally slower.

Also I'm baffled by the idea that Deathblade is a worse matchup than BUG Delver. Hymn makes playing a long game so much harder, and having extra free counters makes it less likely that you're going off before Hymn happens.

Might depend on what version of Deathblade people are playing against you, those decks very much play Daze in my experience.

[ThomasDowd]

I also pondered about grimtutor in the sideboard like ANT does to get an extra copy of "demonic tutor"(sometimes ant plays burning wish which is horrible in my opinion)

I like the Deck alot,the only thing i really dislike is the weakness of the rituals and rites,it's really hard to win via Past in Flames or Tutor Chaining.
If a game tends to go grindy and our life total goes down we are on a tough spot.
I know TEs is a superbroken deck if it goes ad nauseam from a high life total during turn 1-3 but in the lategame neither ad nauseam nor empty the warrens work.
Is there anything we can change to improve the pif,strategy?
Maybe cutting 1-2 Chrome Moxes for cabal rituals or something like that?


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

AN from 8-10 is pretty reasonable and can get you there quite often in my experience. Pif is still reasonable late game, you don;t generate buckets of mana like ANT. sacrifices and timing on engines i guess.
ANT uses PiF better and TES uses AN better, they can use the other but they are not as effective. pick your primary and realize the other will most likely be worse due to time in the game the engines are most effective. there may be a middle ground somewhere but i am not sure what it is.

[Bryant Cook]

AN from 8-10 is pretty reasonable and can get you there quite often in my experience. Pif is still reasonable late game, you don;t generate buckets of mana like ANT. sacrifices and timing on engines i guess.
ANT uses PiF better and TES uses AN better, they can use the other but they are not as effective. pick your primary and realize the other will most likely be worse due to time in the game the engines are most effective. there may be a middle ground somewhere but i am not sure what it is.

I've considered a more Hybrid list with two Cabal Ritual over a Chrome Mox and the Duress in my list. I haven't tested it, mainly due to concept theory in that we're not a turn three deck. Rarely will we have Threshold and the lack of Moxen will smake our Empty/Ad Nauseams worse. I might be worth looking into, but I doubt it will test successfully. I could easily see one over the Duress slot, but we would really like a second for Infernal Tutor possibilities, that's where I find trouble finding a slot to shave.

[sawatarix]

I'm going test TEs with 2 cabal rituals in the main tomorrow in a local event,hope i succeed and then i'll give a dhort report on that.
It's mainly because of PIF
Which is very hard to execute with only a few week rites.
Having a lategame plan whih is not life-total dependent seems good here.

Concerning the manabase,why are still gemstone mines in the deck?
We can arrange a land-base with only duals and fetchlands (-> to improve cantrips.I've seen that marcelo65 replaced a brainstorm with a serum vision because of the lands and the lack of shuffle-effects)
He has to be a genius somehow.

- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Bryant Cook]

I'm going test TEs with 2 cabal rituals in the main tomorrow in a local event,hope i succeed and then i'll give a dhort report on that.
It's mainly because of PIF
Which is very hard to execute with only a few week rites.
Having a lategame plan whih is not life-total dependent seems good here.

Concerning the manabase,why are still gemstone mines in the deck?
We can arrange a land-base with only duals and fetchlands (-> to improve cantrips.I've seen that marcelo65 replaced a brainstorm with a serum vision because of the lands and the lack of shuffle-effects)


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

We still need green mana for cards out of the sideboard, not to mention that Badlands sucks really badly. Not being able to cast your cantrips is awful, this is a twelve land deck. You're going to open hands that are Badlands + 2 blue cantrips.

I recommend against cutting the mox, to be honest, I'd rather see an Infernal pushed to the sideboard (Albiet this lowers consistency for game 1 - it does allow Wish-> Tutor-> Ad Nauseam).

[sawatarix]

I'm not talking about badlands butmore fetchlands and more underground seas,here an example that i can imagine right now:

3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Misty Raunforest
3 Scalding Tarn

An underground sea could be replaced by tropical island in postboard games if decay is needed.




- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Bryant Cook]

I'm not talking about badlands butmore fetchlands and more underground seas,here an example that i can imagine right now:

3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Misty Raunforest
3 Scalding Tarn

An underground sea could be replaced by tropical island in postboard games if decay is needed.




- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -
You can run whatever you'd like, I'm still happy with Gemstones. I'll let you know if that changes.

[HammafistRoob]

I'm not talking about badlands butmore fetchlands and more underground seas,here an example that i can imagine right now:

3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Misty Raunforest
3 Scalding Tarn

An underground sea could be replaced by tropical island in postboard games if decay is needed.
- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -
I actually really like this. I had the same idea a few months back, but never tried it and decided to keep it to myself as to not get flamed for cutting Silence. Maybe you could get away with 2 U. Sea and 1 Trop, freeing up a sideboard slot in the process.

The fact is, having extra fetchlands makes your Brainstorms and Ponders MUCH better with little downside.

[Lemnear]

Amazing how peeps forget that this is a deck with only 12 lands and therfore these lands have to produce various color over several turns. Show me alternatives to being able to produce green for SB cards, enabling cantrips turn 1, demolish opponents hand with discard and being able to feed Rite of Flame without having to control 2 or 3 lands and we can talk about those.

This deck does not always have the pleasure to get 3 out of 12 lands into play without being molested by Wasteland so you can cast all spells. There is sadly no alternative to goldlands for having that color flexibility the deck needs in early turns with limited IMS'

Having to fetch a T1 Tropical is like the worst you can do to this deck and your own following turns

[Asthereal]

I agree with Lemnear here. If you want to go Duals and Fetch only, you should drop green.
But I feel the current meta needs green for Swarms and Decay.

Some time ago, I tried Duals and Fetch only (no green in board), and I was satisfied with how it played out.
But that was in a meta with lots of Canadian Thresh and Jund. Or so I thought. I had to play two mirrors...

[Final Fortune]

What does cutting Green accomplish, you're just making your Show&Tell, Reanimator, Merfolk and assorted aggro-control match ups even worse because you can't SB in Xantid Swarm and they can SB out removal for appr. 2 to 3 fetchlands. What do you do with the SB space, dedicate it to beating Reanimator? Because I don't think Surgical Extraction actually helps considering that even if you stop them from going off then you still have to go off yourself in order to win, at least Xantid Swarm blanks Griselbrand and protects your win condition at the same time and you're leaving yourself cold to Leyline of Sanctity.

I don't think I would play TES without Xantid Swarm, it's what gives it the edge in the combo match ups as well as aggro-control match ups if you consider they have to side out something more relevant than removal just in case you do SB in Xantid Swarm. 6 to 7 fetchlands and 1 Tropical Island to support Xantid Swarm is just awful, you don't want to have to fetch Tropical Island unless it's absolutely necessary.

I like shuffling after a Brainstorm just as much as the next guy, but Gemstone Mine seems pretty necessary to me.

[Asthereal]

Highlighted the most important sentence in my previous post. That was necessary, apparently.

[Final Fortune]

Highlighted the most important sentence in my previous post. That was necessary, apparently.

I wasn't addressing your post.

[Lemnear]

I wasn't addressing your post.

He was just underlining his point. Sometimes highlighting the obvious is required ;)

[vercadium]

So, it's taking me much longer to evaluate all this than I thought - compared to usual debate of -1/+1's these changes are pretty massive and far-reaching; there's a lot to cover. I'd rather post something comprehensive on my thoughts than just a thumbs up.

That said, I'm posting this mainly to quickly say that the 4 Gemstone Mine's are necessary - if you're playing storm in Legacy, you need Abrupt Decay; it's just that simple. The only way to support the card in a 12 land deck alongside U/B/R is with rainbow lands. Gemstone Mine is the best of these (for us).

[EyeOfTheStorm]

I sure tought you to share ideas with lowly Storm scrubs like me. Honestly, though, you should have won that match even after Telemin Performance didn't work out; Storm is a hard deck to play and I got lucky.

P.S. There are no periods in my name. Just JD :smile:

[Asthereal]

I wasn't addressing your post.
Looked like it. Anyway, clarification never hurts a discussion. :smile:

[Bryant Cook]

I tried two Cabal Rituals in my local last night, scrubbed out, but that had nothing to do with Cabal Ritual. The metagame is just very hostile towards storm. The one game where they were relevant was a Past in Flames turn, the additional power from them was recognized immediately. I'm still not sure if they're necessary, but it wouldn't hurt to continue testing.

[sawatarix]

Do you shave 1 mox and 1 duress for them bryant?

I stated that i want to test it yesterday in a local tournament in berlin - well i played RUG finally and succeed.
But i'll try the TES list next week.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Bryant Cook]

Do you shave 1 mox and 1 duress for them bryant?

I stated that i want to test it yesterday in a local tournament in berlin - well i played RUG finally and succeed.
But i'll try the TES list next week.


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

1 Duress and moved an Infernal to the SB over the second Chain of Vapor.

[ThomasDowd]

I tried two Cabal Rituals in my local last night, scrubbed out, but that had nothing to do with Cabal Ritual. The metagame is just very hostile towards storm. The one game where they were relevant was a Past in Flames turn, the additional power from them was recognized immediately. I'm still not sure if they're necessary, but it wouldn't hurt to continue testing.

my concern is that the deck becomes too much mana, but I guess mana is never a bad thing. but have had games with any storm variant where my hand turns into just pure mana and no action.

[Omega87]

I was just pondering about a card i spotted last week in a collector box of a friend of mine. Its called "Balance of Power"
http://deckbox.org/mtg/Balance%20of%20Power
Don't you think that is worth a try if we cut Silence and weaken Diminishing Returns? Usually you draw at least 6 cards, if you discarded your opponent. And you are the only one drawing cards, so your opponent does not refresh his hand and draws some new counters...

[Holly]

You usually draw 6 after discarding him a card? Sure.. if your opponents are on the "Land, go, wait till you're out of cards in your library" plan...
Even Tidings would probably be better.
Note; this is not a suggestion to play Tidings.

[Lemnear]

I was just pondering about a card i spotted last week in a collector box of a friend of mine. Its called "Balance of Power"
http://deckbox.org/mtg/Balance%20of%20Power
Don't you think that is worth a try if we cut Silence and weaken Diminishing Returns? Usually you draw at least 6 cards, if you discarded your opponent. And you are the only one drawing cards, so your opponent does not refresh his hand and draws some new counters...

And I say Recurring Insight would be even better. Regardless, we are talking about mana and fuction first and it's clear that this is another example of not understanding why we play DimRet in general and how it's used against blue decks. I could swear I explain the use of sb engines at least once per 10 pages in this thread. I'll skip this time as Final Fortune even dropped a few words on DimRet post-Silence 1-2 pages back.

[Omega87]

I just wanted to see some thoughts of you guys to this card. But as i can see, this card is actually not accepted ;-)
I definitely agree to the new manabase, without playing Silence. But i still prefer playing 5 Fetchlands over the second volcanic, i played ANT before and loved the way to cantrip with several fetches...

[Lemnear]

I just wanted to see some thoughts of you guys to this card. But as i can see, this card is actually not accepted ;-)
I definitely agree to the new manabase, without playing Silence. But i still prefer playing 5 Fetchlands over the second volcanic, i played ANT before and loved the way to cantrip with several fetches...

It's just because you invest 7 mana and likely 5-7 cards in your hand to draw about 4-5. Claiming to draw "at least 6" aka opp doing nothing without having the idea that your opponent likely has countermeasures if he sits on 6+ cards is alien to me.

@Fetchlands/Duals/cantrips: as mentioned in the wake of the all-discard announcement, TES has to cantrip and fetch a bit different as ANT due to the supported 4 colors. Would you believe me if I say that I can sculpt you some scenarios involving Wastelands in which a second Volcanic can safe your ass (like i did with U.Sea before)? I'm a 100% sure that the scenarios in which you are colorblocked because of running only a single Dual of it's kind outweight the benefits of another shuffle effect. Even ANT runs 2 red, fetchable sources for that purpose

[Omega87]

Ok, from this point of view BoP really seems ridicoulus...

Of course there are several scenarios, where you wish to have another Volcanic, but there are situations you want to shuffle but have no effect to do so, too.
And what is the 2nd red source ANT uses in your opinion? Only BW lists play a badlands, but this is no ANT but a mixture of both Storm decks and so very hostile playing and very less successful.

http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=6997&d=240220&f=LE i do not see a second red source here...

If we would run 13 lands (what we obviously don't), then a second red source is set.

Everything has pros and cons and maybe there are 10 ideas by 6 people what to do best.

[Holly]

As you said.. ANT lists with Burning Wish run 2 red sources.
Do you play Wish in TES?

[Omega87]

Yes i do, that's why i run 4 gemstone mines and another red source = 5, not only 2...

[Lemnear]

Yes i do, that's why i run 4 gemstone mines and another red source = 5, not only 2...

The point is that if you have Burning Wish in hand and your Volcanic wasted you suddenly have about 4 dead draws in your deck aka (every Fetchland) and have only Petals and Gemstones left as red IMS' instead of having up to 5 additional outs.

The point about 1 vs 2 Duals of a kind is between the odds of having up to 5 dead draws (mana-wise; not talking about drawing additional RoF/BW) and having up to 5 more outs of turning your Wish in hand on (drawing 2nd Volc itself or any fetch in the deck). Depending on how much I want to bend the statistic here, this difference of having +/- 5 outs (+ off color draws like mentioned before) can make the difference between losing/winning or, at least, between maxing out your options and making Sub-optimal plays like I mentioned 1 or 2 pages back and is the reason 2 of each Dual are suggested in the OP. That's all

[wonderPreaux]

I have a quick question for you experienced pilots out there about mulliganing. I find I'm having some trouble getting trapped on hands that seem to be on the borderline of really explosive, and then they just sort of flop. I know not every hand can be discard + business + LED or something else great like that, but I'm wondering how you draw the line on when a hand likely won't get there. I think Brainstorm isn't quite the hand-fixer Ponder is, just due to the low number of shuffle effects. I tend to shy away from hands with, say, only chrome mox as initial mana, since even if it plays well, it was still effectively a mulligan. I'm sure a lot of it comes down to how risk-averse you are, but anyone else have some thoughts on how you keep or mulligan?

[Final Fortune]

I have a quick question for you experienced pilots out there about mulliganing. I find I'm having some trouble getting trapped on hands that seem to be on the borderline of really explosive, and then they just sort of flop. I know not every hand can be discard + business + LED or something else great like that, but I'm wondering how you draw the line on when a hand likely won't get there. I think Brainstorm isn't quite the hand-fixer Ponder is, just due to the low number of shuffle effects. I tend to shy away from hands with, say, only chrome mox as initial mana, since even if it plays well, it was still effectively a mulligan. I'm sure a lot of it comes down to how risk-averse you are, but anyone else have some thoughts on how you keep or mulligan?

Could you be more specific and post examples and situations, game 1 and games 2 and 3 are different from one another because of perfect information, mulligans with perfect information and having the initiative or being on the draw.

Post a hand, give a condition and people can offer better feedback than generalities.

[Omega87]

@ Lemnear: I do see your point, but on the other hand you play ponder, but need for example 1 tutor and one mana source and ponder shows you the tutor and 2 discard spells. Of course you want the tutor, but definitely not the discard. How much would you pay to get a shuffle effect there? Or you are looking only for one tutor and have BS in hand. You cast it to go off, because enemy can't do anything now, not having a fetch. BS shows you everything but a shuffle or tutor. Brainstorm Lock for next 2 rounds. That sucks at least as much as your mentioned situations.

[Holly]

And I really want to Terror that Krosan Cloudscraper that's attacking me..
Come on, sure you can create artifical gamestates where a fetchland would be better than a second Volcanic, but do you really believe that comes up more often then the fact that its getting wasted/ported?

[Omega87]

That is just my experience, i was almost never dependent on a red source before. Of course this might happen, but as i said before, there are good reasons to play this cards, too.
And please stay serious and don't try to be kidding me.

[Lemnear]

@ Lemnear: I do see your point, but on the other hand you play ponder, but need for example 1 tutor and one mana source and ponder shows you the tutor and 2 discard spells. Of course you want the tutor, but definitely not the discard. How much would you pay to get a shuffle effect there? Or you are looking only for one tutor and have BS in hand. You cast it to go off, because enemy can't do anything now, not having a fetch. BS shows you everything but a shuffle or tutor. Brainstorm Lock for next 2 rounds. That sucks at least as much as your mentioned situations.

The first question here is what hand you've kept here which needs mana + business but only has a Ponder to fix that. Essentially, if you fight against a goldfish here and really don't want the discard, I would simply shuffle away that pile and prefer a random draw of mana/tutor/Wish/cantrip than bricking for at least 2 turns here. I rather have 3 random draws in a row than guaranteed bricking for at least 2 turns if you refuse to shuffle.

For scenario 2 you have 4 Wish, 4 Tutor, 4 Fetch, 4 Ponder, 4 Probes and 3 more Brainstorms to draw into with your three drawn cards (not to talk about additional Ponder/etc in your hand). That's more than 1/3 of your deck preventing you from "Brainstorm lock for the next 2 turns". This also rises the question if you could afford to wait with BS for a turn and see one extra card if you only need the infernal and outright explode into your opps face. I did "Brainstorm lock myself for 2 turns" a total of 4 times since picking up the deck. In all other scenarios you can avoid that with a bit of planning.

[sawatarix]

Omega, if you just want the additional fetch,put it in your deck.
No one forces you to play the cards like we do.




- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Omega87]

Please do not get me wrong, i do play the manabase this way as you said. I just wanted to show my point of view and another option. It is ok, if you guys play with the second volcanic!
It is just not ok to say that it is absolutely wrong. It is different, that's all about it.
But now a new question:
the 3 new discard spells, royce played 3 duress, bryant 2 TS + 1 duress if i am right?
What do you guys think about it, what is possibly better, what do you prefer and please WHY?

Ps and offtopic: Is there anybody (in Germany) who has i tropical island for sale? Please PM!

[Lemnear]

Please do not get me wrong, i do play the manabase this way as you said. I just wanted to show my point of view and another option. It is ok, if you guys play with the second volcanic!
It is just not ok to say that it is absolutely wrong. It is different, that's all about it.
But now a new question:
the 3 new discard spells, royce played 3 duress, bryant 2 TS + 1 duress if i am right?
What do you guys think about it, what is possibly better, what do you prefer and please WHY?

Ps and offtopic: Is there anybody (in Germany) who has i tropical island for sale? Please PM!

It was just about weighting upsides and downsides and the result was adding the second Volcanic. Royce played 2 Duress and a Preordain because the Thoughtseize damage lost him a game(s) before. I would switch numbers here on the fly in a response to your expected meta. If you don't expect too much Meddling Mages/Thalia/Canonist/Cliques/etc. but a lot of Delver in your meta, playing only with Duress is valid as playing with 3 Thoughtseize in a slower, controlling format


Edit: @Kai & Dennis: don't be so rough ;)

[Final Fortune]

And I really want to Terror that Krosan Cloudscraper that's attacking me..
Come on, sure you can create artifical gamestates where a fetchland would be better than a second Volcanic, but do you really believe that comes up more often then the fact that its getting wasted/ported?

I do, I never want to draw a Volcanic Island, let alone two Volcanic Islands, and would prefer to draw a Fetchland 99% of the time. I don't think you need a redundant Volcanic Island vs Wasteland because you shouldn't fetch Volcanic Island before you're ready to win anyway. Even if you do have a redundant Volcanic Island vs Wasteland, the chances are you don't have another fetchland to find it.

Saying that you can create a scenario where the second Volcanic Island is superior to another Fetchland vs Wasteland is ridiculous. I don't even have to create a scenario where a fetchland is superior to a Volcanic Island, because a fetchland is always superior to a dual land both in terms of its color consistency and cantrip efficiency regardless. Losing to Wasteland happens to every deck in the format, that doesn't mean we play with inferior mana bases to stop it from happening.

You have 4 Lotus Petal, 3 to 4 Chrome Mox and you're no longer playing any White spells, and suddenly you want to claim a 2nd Volcanic Island is an indisputable necessity that we've all been playing without since forever? I think adding the 5th fetchland is far more sensible than the 2nd Volcanic Island until somebody puts forward the burden of proof of why it's a necessity. At least with Underground Sea it's a land you don't mind seeing in your opening hand because it casts 7 more spells than Volcanic Island in the deck, all of which you'd want to cast before the combo turn. The 2nd Underground Sea is concession enough to Wasteland as it is.

[Lemnear]

I do, I never want to draw a Volcanic Island, let alone two Volcanic Islands, and would prefer to draw a Fetchland 99% of the time. I don't think you need a redundant Volcanic Island vs Wasteland because you shouldn't fetch Volcanic Island before you're ready to win anyway. Even if you do have a redundant Volcanic Island vs Wasteland, the chances are you don't have another fetchland to find it.

Saying that you can create a scenario where the second Volcanic Island is superior to another Fetchland vs Wasteland is ridiculous. I don't even have to create a scenario where a fetchland is superior to a Volcanic Island, because a fetchland is always superior to a dual land both in terms of its color consistency and cantrip efficiency regardless. Losing to Wasteland happens to every deck in the format, that doesn't mean we play with inferior mana bases to stop it from happening.

You have 4 Lotus Petal, 3 to 4 Chrome Mox and you're no longer playing any White spells, and suddenly you want to claim a 2nd Volcanic Island is an indisputable necessity that we've all been playing without since forever? I think adding the 5th fetchland is far more sensible than the 2nd Volcanic Island until somebody puts forward the burden of proof of why it's a necessity. At least with Underground Sea it's a land you don't mind seeing in your opening hand because it casts 7 more spells than Volcanic Island in the deck, all of which you'd want to cast before the combo turn. The 2nd Underground Sea is concession enough to Wasteland as it is.

I said, that overall I think that having a second volcanic now that we don't have to run CoB anymore has more advantages than the 5th fetch. There was no talk about necessity, but about scenarios like having double wish in hand and using one of them to fetch the SB discard spell without exposing your second wish and upcoming fetchlands to Wasteland etc. I'm convinced that the 5th fetchland can not make up for awkward moments where you can't fetch for a specific mana color. If I keep a hand which requires me to cantrip 1-2 times I prefer doing this by opening with Misty Rainforest/Flooded Strand -> Volcanic rather than fetching U.Sea and delivering a clear signal that I'm playing combo. You can mark this personal taste

I dislike the simple idea that Fetches are ALWAYS more important than targets (or running out of those) and for me this is a branch of the 2 Dual/6 fetches discussion

[Holly]

I often enough want to play a Burning Wish before going of to find protection.
And sure in a perfect world you would fetch your one and only Volcanic the very turn you're going off - that's not allways possible. I rarely have the luxury of keeping my fetchlands around if I instead have to cantrip & cast discard in the same turn.

And while I agree its the worst possible land to draw it can even be a benefit to lead with Volcanic to lure their Wasteland, allthough thats certanly a corner case. Nevertheless, while as you said, most deck do lose to Wasteland I'm confidant that's no reason to not improve it if we have the chance to do so.

[Bryant Cook]

You guys must only think in theory and not ever practice. Drawing all of your fetchland targets with only three happened a lot more than you'd think, yet alone with those ridiculous German lists with two. I'm extremely happy with four and then siding into a fifth.

[Lemnear]

You guys must only think in theory and not ever practice. Drawing all of your fetchland targets with only three happened a lot more than you'd think, yet alone with those ridiculous German lists with two. I'm extremely happy with four and then siding into a fifth.

Germany is not the Netherlands ;)

[wonderPreaux]

Could you be more specific and post examples and situations, game 1 and games 2 and 3 are different from one another because of perfect information, mulligans with perfect information and having the initiative or being on the draw.

Post a hand, give a condition and people can offer better feedback than generalities.

In a way, I sort of am looking for the basic generalities, as I'm admittedly a bit inexperienced with the deck, but I do have a few examples that came up recently:

Game 1, On the Play
http://puu.sh/7Yj79.jpg
This hand has loads of mana, a Ponder to dig for business, and a discard spell... but no initial land. This probably most exemplifies that sort of "I could keep and this could go off insanely" kind of thing that makes it hard to decide whether to keep or pass. What sticks in my mind is that I'd likely use the Chome or Petal, thus it feels like I'm playing at a mulligan, but I don't really want to mulligan, since I couldn't expect that density of mana and a discard spell, this feels better than the average 6, so I think I'd keep here.

Game 1, On the Play
http://puu.sh/7YjiW.jpg
This is another hand with a "missing piece", discard, and a hiccup in colors as the business spell doesn't match the land. On the turn you go off, the Petal can power the Ritual though, and that Brainstorm can probably find the discard spell. If I knew the deck wasn't Blue, I would keep for the fast combo potential, but using the same sort of "this seems better than the average 6" logic, I think I keep blind too.

Game 2, On the Draw against Miracles (I boarded out Warrens, Ponder, Tutor, Chrome Mox, for 2 Decay, 1 Pyroblast, 1 Tropical Island)
http://puu.sh/7YjFB.jpg
This hand seems way too clunky to keep. The Chrome Mox isn't looking too hot, the Infernal Tutors could be used to bait counters and assemble Rituals, but that seems poor off of either Chrome Mox or Gemstone Mine as the 2nd mana. I also have no interaction with what could be a looming Counterbalance. I ended up mulling here.

http://puu.sh/7YjHH.jpg
This hand is a bit risky with no initial land, but I do have 3 shots to draw one. Moreover, this hand is full of disruption which gives me a fighting chance to assemble a combo. I ended up keeping here, mostly due to the allure of the Cabal Therapies versus the risk of hitting a 10-outter for black sources in 3 draws.

Game 2, On the Play against Reanimator (I boarded out Warrens, Ponder, Tutor for 2 Xantid Swarm and 1 Tropical Island)
http://puu.sh/7YjNv.jpg
This hand is anemic in terms of mana, but it has business and land. What drove me to keep was the interesting little pincer of disruption: Gitaxian Probe lets me get a nice Cabal Therapy off, or Thoughtseize if a value play isn't there, or it lets me know if I can safely Ponder to dig for mana. The trade-off here is that I have none of my Swarms and likely no access to them in the foreseeable future, based on that line of play.

Game 2, On the Draw against Patriot Delver (I boarded out Ponder, Tutor for 2 Pyroblast)
http://puu.sh/7YjRY.jpg
I value sideboard cards pretty highly in this deck, since we bring in so few and they tend to be so high-impact, and here I am with the Pyroblast and sources to back it. The dangerous aspect here is the possibility of getting Brainstorm-locked when I'm looking for both mana and business. Being on the draw makes it a bit worse too, as they could drop a threat and then I'm stuck with a slow hand or possibly locked one negating whatever time or edge I could produce with Pyroblast. I think this hand just comes down to betting the game on Brainstorm, and idk if that's the way to play, I'm probably most curious about this hand. I ended up mulling though.

http://puu.sh/7YjTv.jpg
This hand is a bit land-heavier than I'd like it to be at a glance, but it also has some resiliency to Wasteland for that reason. The mana accel is a bit awkward, but it works due to Gemstone and Petal, it just seems like there's a bit too little of it. Overall, this hand just seemed to be missing too much. I mulled and kept 5, I didn't screen it since I don't really think you should mull below that as it becomes really difficult to play any sort of line at all at 4 or less cards.

[Lemnear]

In a way, I sort of am looking for the basic generalities, as I'm admittedly a bit inexperienced with the deck, but I do have a few examples that came up recently:

Game 1, On the Play
http://puu.sh/7Yj79.jpg
This hand has loads of mana, a Ponder to dig for business, and a discard spell... but no initial land. This probably most exemplifies that sort of "I could keep and this could go off insanely" kind of thing that makes it hard to decide whether to keep or pass. What sticks in my mind is that I'd likely use the Chome or Petal, thus it feels like I'm playing at a mulligan, but I don't really want to mulligan, since I couldn't expect that density of mana and a discard spell, this feels better than the average 6, so I think I'd keep here.

You can call me crazy, but this looks like a classic example of a Belcher-hand rather than one you want to try riding by opening with Petal -> Ponder and see if you can sculpt something in the next 3 turns. Petal, Mox (imprint Therapy), DR, DR, LED, Ponder, break LED for RRR and look to hit a 10-outer. YOLO

Game 1, On the Play
http://puu.sh/7YjiW.jpg
This is another hand with a "missing piece", discard, and a hiccup in colors as the business spell doesn't match the land. On the turn you go off, the Petal can power the Ritual though, and that Brainstorm can probably find the discard spell. If I knew the deck wasn't Blue, I would keep for the fast combo potential, but using the same sort of "this seems better than the average 6" logic, I think I keep blind too.

Volcanic, go. BS for protection or to fire off EoT

Game 2, On the Draw against Miracles (I boarded out Warrens, Ponder, Tutor, Chrome Mox, for 2 Decay, 1 Pyroblast, 1 Tropical Island)
http://puu.sh/7YjFB.jpg
This hand seems way too clunky to keep. The Chrome Mox isn't looking too hot, the Infernal Tutors could be used to bait counters and assemble Rituals, but that seems poor off of either Chrome Mox or Gemstone Mine as the 2nd mana. I also have no interaction with what could be a looming Counterbalance. I ended up mulling here.

Mox (BW), Gemstone, Infernal for DR #2. Turn 2, Tropical, DR, DR, Infernal, AN ... all before Counterbalance or Clique

Edit: missed being on the draw. You can still gamble against CB or be more conservative, imprinting IT and Wish for Thoughtseize instead

http://puu.sh/7YjHH.jpg
This hand is a bit risky with no initial land, but I do have 3 shots to draw one. Moreover, this hand is full of disruption which gives me a fighting chance to assemble a combo. I ended up keeping here, mostly due to the allure of the Cabal Therapies versus the risk of hitting a 10-outter for black sources in 3 draws.

total junk. No IMS, no fastmana. Still better than mulling to 5

Game 2, On the Play against Reanimator (I boarded out Warrens, Ponder, Tutor for 2 Xantid Swarm and 1 Tropical Island)
http://puu.sh/7YjNv.jpg
This hand is anemic in terms of mana, but it has business and land. What drove me to keep was the interesting little pincer of disruption: Gitaxian Probe lets me get a nice Cabal Therapy off, or Thoughtseize if a value play isn't there, or it lets me know if I can safely Ponder to dig for mana. The trade-off here is that I have none of my Swarms and likely no access to them in the foreseeable future, based on that line of play.

there is a line to consider: Probe, Petal, Ponder, Fetchland -> U.Sea. You trade here the Petal for a shuffle effect. Against Reanimator on the play I would ponder first regardless

Game 2, On the Draw against Patriot Delver (I boarded out Ponder, Tutor for 2 Pyroblast)
http://puu.sh/7YjRY.jpg
I value sideboard cards pretty highly in this deck, since we bring in so few and they tend to be so high-impact, and here I am with the Pyroblast and sources to back it. The dangerous aspect here is the possibility of getting Brainstorm-locked when I'm looking for both mana and business. Being on the draw makes it a bit worse too, as they could drop a threat and then I'm stuck with a slow hand or possibly locked one negating whatever time or edge I could produce with Pyroblast. I think this hand just comes down to betting the game on Brainstorm, and idk if that's the way to play, I'm probably most curious about this hand. I ended up mulling though.

clear keeper with "Volcanic, go" once more. You have stable mana, sit on your cantrips and handle Delver, Meddling Mage, SFM and TNN. What more to ask for?

http://puu.sh/7YjTv.jpg
This hand is a bit land-heavier than I'd like it to be at a glance, but it also has some resiliency to Wasteland for that reason. The mana accel is a bit awkward, but it works due to Gemstone and Petal, it just seems like there's a bit too little of it. Overall, this hand just seemed to be missing too much. I mulled and kept 5, I didn't screen it since I don't really think you should mull below that as it becomes really difficult to play any sort of line at all at 4 or less cards.

also a keeper for a 6-card hand

Edit: if requested i can give more detailed reasonings (esp. hand 1)

[wonderPreaux]

Edit: if requested i can give more detailed reasonings (esp. hand 1)

I think hand 1 and the hands against Patriot Delver and Miracles I could use some input on. For hand 1, the Ponder line seemed like quite a gamble, especially blind. Against Delver, I thought the hand to be too slow, and for Miracles, I thought that hand would have time to develop. Since you seem to have the opposite sort of view, I would appreciate a more detailed examination.

[davelin]

Finished 6-3 in todays open, will post a report when I can.

[Lemnear]

I think hand 1 and the hands against Patriot Delver and Miracles I could use some input on. For hand 1, the Ponder line seemed like quite a gamble, especially blind. Against Delver, I thought the hand to be too slow, and for Miracles, I thought that hand would have time to develop. Since you seem to have the opposite sort of view, I would appreciate a more detailed examination.

@ Hand #1

First, I'm pretty sure here that this hand simply loses to a well-timed Daze, Pierce and FoW. By going all-in you can eliminate the first 2 cards.

If you start with Petal into Ponder you have a total of 5 outs to combo this turn. Each drawn EtW or Wish is a dead draw and not drawing a new IMS or IT is likely an immediate loss regardless. If you plan to go for a protected kill here, you need to find more mana AND an Infernal with a single Ponder. Odds are not that good in that case and that opens you up to the beforementioned cards and discard.

For me, sculpting a protected kill with that fragile mana and a Virtual mulligan thanks to Mox is a complicated task and likely puts you into a losing Position even if you get the Therapy going (still have to guess what to name, duh!), because setting up that blind-therapy would take at least a full turn. Calculating the odds here you have the most value gambling 60-40 against FoW (IF he plays blue) and/or 4 free shots to hit Infernal, AN and by breaking LED in response also each Wish and EtW.

You have a ~19% Chance to hit a life-card with each of the 4 cards Ponder gives you aka a ~75% Chance (Edit: Brainfart, its only ~57%) to hit your 10-outer (numbers from the top of my head). If your opponent does not know you are on storm nor plays blue those are fucking amazing odds. The only problem is that if that risky play (but imo best) gets you there, you'll be called a lucker no matter the odds ;)

@ Hand against Delver

Yes, this hand is slow as it is, but can immediately become nutty if you can hit some value with the 2 Brainstorms especially if you can get hands on a shuffle effect. You have stable mana to play around Daze from the starts and also have the disruption in your hand to negate all his threats for the turns you need to turn the Brainstorms into value.

This hand is a classic example of how to switch gameplans on the fly with Brainstorm. You have the control-hand here atm but with a single shuffle effect you can switch out the whole hand for a combo turn. This hand can easily go off protected by turn 3/4. I repeat: What more to ask for?

@ Miracles Hand

This one is tricky being on the draw (which I missed first) and being game 2 so you can expect either FoW and/or CB coming. Unfortunately I can not see a line which prevents you from both and mulling into a single discard Spell is pointless with him likely being able to stall the game into the next CB/Clique. You have 2 options here (with the stable mana being the Main reason not to mull this hand): first you can slowroll and hope to find a Pyroblast/Decay to get rid of a possible CB and go off after removing it and therefore use Wish to get Thoughtseize to handle at least FoW/Clique/other annoyance in his hand or you can try gambling against CB blindflips AND FoW with the play i suggested as I missed being on the draw and I thought about CB not being fast enough therefore.

Mind that in both cases CB is an issue; case a) requires more mana to topdeck and case b) requires to find protection, with the primer being more likely and therefore preferable. Essentially, mulling into a turn 1 discard does not solve the Problem you have here at all as even if you can snatch a Balance there is the next FoW/Pierce/Flusterstorm/Clique/CB available soon but you gave up a card and on top of that your stable mana your grip of 7 contains which can dig you out of a resolved T2 Counterbalance and is awesome if your opponent does not hold the 2cc enchantment but a mix of FoW and/or Clique

[akmalik]

@ Hand #1

You have a ~19% Chance to hit a life-card with each of the 4 cards Ponder gives you aka a ~75% Chance to hit your 10-outer (numbers from the top of my head). If your opponent does not know you are on storm nor plays blue those are fucking amazing odds. The only problem is that if that risky play (but imo best) gets you there, you'll be called a lucker no matter the odds ;)


114% after 6 draws? Something like 58% (4 draws, no Ponder shuffle cause I'm lazy) sounds better than 75%. Still a keep?

[Lemnear]

114% after 6 draws? Something like 58% (4 draws, no Ponder shuffle cause I'm lazy) sounds better than 75%. Still a keep?

1-((43*42*41/53*52*51)*43/53)=57% (including Ponder shuffle and the chance to redraw a card)

You are right ... stupid brainfart and twisted numbers at 7:30am. Thanks for pointing out my nonsense. To the question: mull into a likely slower hand in a meta with plenty of softcounters, discard and hatebears or go for a coinflip instead ... tough. I can't really blame anyone mulling here. I, personally would go for the coinflip (Ace+King vs. Bottom Pair)

[Machahiko]

Having visual opening hands like this being dissected is really interesting and fun to watch. I personally find it much easier to recognize the hand with a picture, with opening hands in the primer I've always had to take my cards out and lay the opening hands in front of me to really get hold of what's going on. :) I would not have kept the first hand in wonderPreaux's example, but after Lemnear doing all the work I would definitely have kept that hand.

I really liked the old version with two Ad Nauseams and I feel like it could really be good in this metagame with all the discard going on. I would love to have a discussion about possibility of adding another AdN to the MD or is it just completely useless at the moment?

[Royce Walter]

In a way, I sort of am looking for the basic generalities, as I'm admittedly a bit inexperienced with the deck, but I do have a few examples that came up recently:

Game 1, On the Play
http://puu.sh/7Yj79.jpg
This hand has loads of mana, a Ponder to dig for business, and a discard spell... but no initial land. This probably most exemplifies that sort of "I could keep and this could go off insanely" kind of thing that makes it hard to decide whether to keep or pass. What sticks in my mind is that I'd likely use the Chome or Petal, thus it feels like I'm playing at a mulligan, but I don't really want to mulligan, since I couldn't expect that density of mana and a discard spell, this feels better than the average 6, so I think I'd keep here.

Game 1, On the Play
http://puu.sh/7YjiW.jpg
This is another hand with a "missing piece", discard, and a hiccup in colors as the business spell doesn't match the land. On the turn you go off, the Petal can power the Ritual though, and that Brainstorm can probably find the discard spell. If I knew the deck wasn't Blue, I would keep for the fast combo potential, but using the same sort of "this seems better than the average 6" logic, I think I keep blind too.

Game 2, On the Draw against Miracles (I boarded out Warrens, Ponder, Tutor, Chrome Mox, for 2 Decay, 1 Pyroblast, 1 Tropical Island)
http://puu.sh/7YjFB.jpg
This hand seems way too clunky to keep. The Chrome Mox isn't looking too hot, the Infernal Tutors could be used to bait counters and assemble Rituals, but that seems poor off of either Chrome Mox or Gemstone Mine as the 2nd mana. I also have no interaction with what could be a looming Counterbalance. I ended up mulling here.

http://puu.sh/7YjHH.jpg
This hand is a bit risky with no initial land, but I do have 3 shots to draw one. Moreover, this hand is full of disruption which gives me a fighting chance to assemble a combo. I ended up keeping here, mostly due to the allure of the Cabal Therapies versus the risk of hitting a 10-outter for black sources in 3 draws.

Game 2, On the Play against Reanimator (I boarded out Warrens, Ponder, Tutor for 2 Xantid Swarm and 1 Tropical Island)
http://puu.sh/7YjNv.jpg
This hand is anemic in terms of mana, but it has business and land. What drove me to keep was the interesting little pincer of disruption: Gitaxian Probe lets me get a nice Cabal Therapy off, or Thoughtseize if a value play isn't there, or it lets me know if I can safely Ponder to dig for mana. The trade-off here is that I have none of my Swarms and likely no access to them in the foreseeable future, based on that line of play.

Game 2, On the Draw against Patriot Delver (I boarded out Ponder, Tutor for 2 Pyroblast)
http://puu.sh/7YjRY.jpg
I value sideboard cards pretty highly in this deck, since we bring in so few and they tend to be so high-impact, and here I am with the Pyroblast and sources to back it. The dangerous aspect here is the possibility of getting Brainstorm-locked when I'm looking for both mana and business. Being on the draw makes it a bit worse too, as they could drop a threat and then I'm stuck with a slow hand or possibly locked one negating whatever time or edge I could produce with Pyroblast. I think this hand just comes down to betting the game on Brainstorm, and idk if that's the way to play, I'm probably most curious about this hand. I ended up mulling though.

http://puu.sh/7YjTv.jpg
This hand is a bit land-heavier than I'd like it to be at a glance, but it also has some resiliency to Wasteland for that reason. The mana accel is a bit awkward, but it works due to Gemstone and Petal, it just seems like there's a bit too little of it. Overall, this hand just seemed to be missing too much. I mulled and kept 5, I didn't screen it since I don't really think you should mull below that as it becomes really difficult to play any sort of line at all at 4 or less cards.

Hand 1:
On the play this hand is pretty bad, if I had another blue card to imprint so I can ponder and keep a mana source I'd probably keep it though. That said, on the draw you basically only have LED and Mox as bad draws, and you have a high chance of going off t1/t2 with protection on the draw.

Hand 2:
Always keep this. Probably just Brainstorm on their end step.

Hand 3:
I'm pretty inclined to keep a lot of hands against miracles, as the game is bound to go long. This hand kind of sucks, but I'd rather have it than a 6 card hand I think. Unless you know they're doing something that demands a fast response (basically Meddling Mage or Canonist) you're not really under any pressure to disrupt their plan in the immediate future.

Hand 4:
Even if you hit a black source, you aren't doing anything productive. Ship it.

Hand 5:
Keep it. Probe to see if you need to therapy/seize, ponder if you don't.

Hand 6:
I don't see any reason to mulligan here. It's certainly not great, but it's fine.

Hand 7: I'd keep this unless I know I'm under a huge amount of pressure to go off turn 1 (Chalice decks, Belcher), but even then the chance of drawing an LED/Brainstorm are probably better than having the nut five.

[Bryant Cook]

http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=65917

JD Nir pointed this out to me.

[davelin]

From yesterday's open (377 total participants - who says Legacy is dead?), forgive me for my spotty notes and memory. I went with the full-discard protection package with 2 Duress and 1 Thoughtseize (and one more in the SB).

Round 1 - Corey on Bant
G1 - First turn Hierarch, I Probe only seeing Daze as interaction. Second turn he taps out for Mystic playing a land he just drew. I cast 16 goblins on my turn, flashback Therapy on Batterskull
G2 and 3 - Between these two games I mull three times. Between counters on on my cantrips and quick creatures, I am unable to get back into the game

0-1

Round 2 - Eric on monoblack Pox
G1 - 12 goblins on turn 2 does the job
G2 - A Sinkhole and Wasteland slows me down somewhat but I'm still ready to Ad Nauseum soon. However he topdecks Hymn and Liliana to keep me hellbent. A Rack does it's best Delver impression early on.
G3 - 16 goblins on turn 2 with natural EtW in hand. I made a mistake and used my land drop before cantripping without any red source. However Brainstorm finds Petal to save me.

1-1

Round 3 - Anthony on U/R Painter
G1 - I have no lands but three cantrips and a Chrome Mox. I hate mulliganing so I imprint one to try to find some lands. Unfortunately maindeck REBs make that impossible and a Painter followed by an Intuition into Grindstone ends the game
G2 - I probe and see he has three Grindstones, Therapy in my hand does best Ancestral imitation. He topdecks Welder and drops LED. I Abrupt Decay it the first chance I get. I Ad Nauseum and have to go all the way down to 1, risking bolts but I didn't think he played them (he didn't). I still needed to cast some cantrips in order to find the 0-cast artifacts to win. Whew!
G3 - He has an early Painter. I cast Therapy planning on naming Grindstone and he FoWs my spell, and drops Grindstone right after that.

1-2

Round 4 - Mike on Oops All Spells
G1 - He turn 1's me
G2 and 3 - In both of these games I have an early discard to set him back. By the time he has Probed and Wraithed himself low to try to find what he needs, I can naturally spell-chain him with Tendrils.

2-2

Round 5 - Phi on Elves
G1 - Turn 2 Ad Nauseum
G2 - Turn 3 Ad Nauseum after my opponent mulls. He says he plays with and against Storm a lot. I ask how he on Elves does against Storm. Answer, "The opposite of undefeated"

3-2

Round 6 - Matt on RUG Delver
G1 - He Dazes something on turn one and because of an early Probe and his sequencing I know he has no additional interaction. T2 Ad Nauseum
G2 - Because of 3 Probes, I have to go off around 13 life with no mana floating. He has a Volcanic untapped and I know he has Stifle and 2 Bolts in hand. I stop at 5 life because I don’t want to get bolted but I only have a Petal for black mana. I discard his Stifle and summon 20 goblins. I flashback Therapy, he bolts in response putting me on 2, and I discard his last one. I need to avoid Delver flipping two turns in a row, I ask him to flip his top card and it’s a Daze
G3 – I probe him and see Scalding, Wasteland, Volcanic, Surgical, 2 Pierces and Brainstorm. Seems pretty good, except I drop 12 goblins T1.

4-2

Round 7 – David on Team America
G1 – I Therapy away two Hymns early, I drop 12 goblins on turn 2, flashback Therapy on Brainstorm just in case he can find some sort of answer, miss but it doesn’t matter.
G2 – Notes are spotty but I know I get hit by Hymn and a 4/5 Goyf takes out my life in 20% increments
G3 – I probe and see Delver, Clique, Pierce, Goyf and 3 lands. He draws and taps out for DRS on his T1. On my T2 I have plenty of mana and this is my chance but no business. Ponder, brick, shuffle, draw another Ponder, cast it and find an Infernal! At that point I naturally spell chain into Tendrils

5-2

Round 8 – Nick on Death and Taxes
G1 – I haven’t punted all day so might as well now. I’m ready to go off around T3 and lay down a Petal which he then Vials in a Revoker naming Petal which makes the second in my hand dead and unable to continue. No problem, I ponder see Ad Nauseum and grab it quickly to go along with Dark Ritual in hand and pass the turn. During my next upkeep he Ports my only live red source (Volcanic) and I have two other Underground Seas. I forget that Ad Nauseum is an INSTANT and can be cast in response to Port. By the time I realized my mistake my life is too low to matter
G2 – Keep a slower hand and hoping to hit the right hatebear with Therapy. Cast it calling Thalia and miss seeing Spirit which hits the table soon. Makes my top-decked Brainstorm bad. By the time I get rid of the Spirit with the Pyroclasm in my board, it doesn’t matter.

5-3

Round 9 – Nick on Sneak and Show
G1 – I probe and see Emrakrul x2, Show and tell, Top, Sneak attack among lands. I Therapy away Show and tell. On his turn he casts Top on his turn. I go for it knowing I can get past Pierce and a topdecked Force would be useless without another blue spell. He spins Top, I resolve Ad Nauseum and go from there.
G2 – Nick goes heavy control mode Spell Piercing my first two or three cantrips. I only have Burning Wish eventually in hand so I go for DimRet path which seems like a bad idea to refill his hand but I don’t have much choice. Even with UUU floating thanks to LED I have to pass after drawing new 7. A turn later he casts Sneak Attack but doesn’t have a second R to put a creature in play. On my turn I can opt to go for it and take a chance he has no counters or cast my Swarm, pass the turn and hope he doesn’t have a fatty to sneak in. I go for Swarm route, pass turn, and a Griselbrand enters the play on his turn.
G3 – He still goes full control mode, Piercing an early cantrip and Forcing a Swarm. I try to resolve a Burning Wish, he Pierces, I Ritual in response, he Forces the Ritual. I still have mana in hand but no business. He only has 1-2 cards in hand but only an Island and Tomb for lands and pitched two Show and Tell’s for the Forces. We topdeck for a couple of turns and I pick up an Infernal Tutor. I go for it against his three unknown cards and he opts to Swan Song my ritual instead of waiting for my business spell instead which was a mistake. Ad Nauseum finishes off here.

6-3 (finished 53rd out of 377)

Quick Props: Wife for taking care of kids all day and buddy Jon for lending cards and making ride up with me
Quick Slops: Sloppy play on my part including a couple of warnings

[Kirika]

Why do most lists not run a main deck Tendrils? I been wanting a main deck Tendrils sometimes when Wish is turned off by Meddling Mage or just can't get enough mana to Wish for Tendrils.

[Togores]

Davelin

When ur opp put sneak in play you should have gone 100000000% for the combo.
He has only 4 fows but 8 creatures plus cantrips in his turn and tops. So he will have/find the guy 99%.

If you go for it and he does have fow and dont draw the 1% guy u may be can recover. But waiting is sure a mistake.

[Deviruchi]

Why do most lists not run a main deck Tendrils? I been wanting a main deck Tendrils sometimes when Wish is turned off by Meddling Mage or just can't get enough mana to Wish for Tendrils.
Please read 1st post.

[Lemnear]

Why do most lists not run a main deck Tendrils? I been wanting a main deck Tendrils sometimes when Wish is turned off by Meddling Mage or just can't get enough mana to Wish for Tendrils.

More than 95% of TES these days run EtW main and ToA in the side because the later is a terrible topdeck unlike EtW and it opens up the possibility of dropping turn 1 goblins with 6 mana and infernal tutor. A MB ToA would leave you without action here which is relevant facing discard or hatebears. It is all explained in the OP, dood

The stock list has 6 discard spells, 1-2 CoV and 2 pyroblasts to remove/prevent Meddling Mage. I have no clue what your problem is here.

You don't have 6 mana for Wish into ToA? How would a MB ToA help then? Are you talking about Infernal -> Wish -> ToA here? Makes no sense for me


http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=65917

JD Nir pointed this out to me.

Cutting Infernals but running PIF maindeck looks like crap

[Asthereal]

Why do most lists not run a main deck Tendrils? I been wanting a main deck Tendrils sometimes when Wish is turned off by Meddling Mage or just can't get enough mana to Wish for Tendrils.
Because it's usually a terrible card to have in your hand.
Natural Tendrils is a pretty long shot in this deck. Note that we don't run Cabal Ritual for near infinite mana.
The Empty the Warrens we play main instead is actually an awesome card to have in your hand.
So not playing Tendrils main means the only "bad" cards we play are the Chrome Moxen.

Edit: Ninjas. Ninjas everywhere! :tongue:

[Lemnear]

Because it's usually a terrible card to have in your hand.
Natural Tendrils is a pretty long shot in this deck. Note that we don't run Cabal Ritual for near infinite mana.
The Empty the Warrens we play main instead is actually an awesome card to have in your hand.
So not playing Tendrils main means the only "bad" cards we play are the Chrome Moxen.

Edit: Ninjas. Ninjas everywhere! :tongue:

24min ninja xD

[Asthereal]

24min ninja xD
Yeah I had like two phone calls and half a cooking session in between of starting and finishing my post. :rolleyes:

[wonderPreaux]

@ Hand #1

First, I'm pretty sure here that this hand simply loses to a well-timed Daze, Pierce and FoW. By going all-in you can eliminate the first 2 cards.

If you start with Petal into Ponder you have a total of 5 outs to combo this turn. Each drawn EtW or Wish is a dead draw and not drawing a new IMS or IT is likely an immediate loss regardless. If you plan to go for a protected kill here, you need to find more mana AND an Infernal with a single Ponder. Odds are not that good in that case and that opens you up to the beforementioned cards and discard.

For me, sculpting a protected kill with that fragile mana and a Virtual mulligan thanks to Mox is a complicated task and likely puts you into a losing Position even if you get the Therapy going (still have to guess what to name, duh!), because setting up that blind-therapy would take at least a full turn. Calculating the odds here you have the most value gambling 60-40 against FoW (IF he plays blue) and/or 4 free shots to hit Infernal, AN and by breaking LED in response also each Wish and EtW.

You have a ~19% Chance to hit a life-card with each of the 4 cards Ponder gives you aka a ~75% Chance (Edit: Brainfart, its only ~57%) to hit your 10-outer (numbers from the top of my head). If your opponent does not know you are on storm nor plays blue those are fucking amazing odds. The only problem is that if that risky play (but imo best) gets you there, you'll be called a lucker no matter the odds ;)

@ Hand against Delver

Yes, this hand is slow as it is, but can immediately become nutty if you can hit some value with the 2 Brainstorms especially if you can get hands on a shuffle effect. You have stable mana to play around Daze from the starts and also have the disruption in your hand to negate all his threats for the turns you need to turn the Brainstorms into value.

This hand is a classic example of how to switch gameplans on the fly with Brainstorm. You have the control-hand here atm but with a single shuffle effect you can switch out the whole hand for a combo turn. This hand can easily go off protected by turn 3/4. I repeat: What more to ask for?

@ Miracles Hand

This one is tricky being on the draw (which I missed first) and being game 2 so you can expect either FoW and/or CB coming. Unfortunately I can not see a line which prevents you from both and mulling into a single discard Spell is pointless with him likely being able to stall the game into the next CB/Clique. You have 2 options here (with the stable mana being the Main reason not to mull this hand): first you can slowroll and hope to find a Pyroblast/Decay to get rid of a possible CB and go off after removing it and therefore use Wish to get Thoughtseize to handle at least FoW/Clique/other annoyance in his hand or you can try gambling against CB blindflips AND FoW with the play i suggested as I missed being on the draw and I thought about CB not being fast enough therefore.

Mind that in both cases CB is an issue; case a) requires more mana to topdeck and case b) requires to find protection, with the primer being more likely and therefore preferable. Essentially, mulling into a turn 1 discard does not solve the Problem you have here at all as even if you can snatch a Balance there is the next FoW/Pierce/Flusterstorm/Clique/CB available soon but you gave up a card and on top of that your stable mana your grip of 7 contains which can dig you out of a resolved T2 Counterbalance and is awesome if your opponent does not hold the 2cc enchantment but a mix of FoW and/or Clique

Re: Hand #1
Looking at the numbers, you have 57% chance of going off, and in half those cases you're getting goblins. I'd think the ability to win some matchup right then with goblins, and play around Daze/Pierce more than balances the odds that you might be playing against a blue opponent with FoW. So it leads me to ask: how averse is this deck to a mulligan when chancing a whole game on 57% odds is a comparable option to mulling to 6? I'm sure knowing what you're playing against in g2/g3 would add more clarity to the choice, but do you often find these sorts of hands where you shoot it off "Belcher Style"?

Re: Delver hand:
I think I see more of the appeal of this hand now. In these counter-heavy matches, can you often make a hand with above average levels of stable mana and disruption work, despite the slowness? Or is this more of a case of Pyroblast affording you the opportunity?

Re: Miracles hand:
This is more of the same line of reasoning as above, how viable is it to sort of "hunker down" on these slower matchups wen you have stable lands? I agree with using the Wish to look for Seize while using the stable mana to hold out for an answer to Counterbalance, since the deck can find a lot of fast mana to go off. Is that often what you try to angle towards when you can't sneak a combo though Clique/CB?

Also, I really appreciate the positive response I've seen from everyone else too. If no one minds the image-heavy posts, I'll likely end up posting some more of these as time goes on. I'm really enjoying the cross-examination and learning a bit more about weighing these different angles.

[Lemnear]

Re: Hand #1
Looking at the numbers, you have 57% chance of going off, and in half those cases you're getting goblins. I'd think the ability to win some matchup right then with goblins, and play around Daze/Pierce more than balances the odds that you might be playing against a blue opponent with FoW. So it leads me to ask: how averse is this deck to a mulligan when chancing a whole game on 57% odds is a comparable option to mulling to 6? I'm sure knowing what you're playing against in g2/g3 would add more clarity to the choice, but do you often find these sorts of hands where you shoot it off "Belcher Style"?

as mentioned, I'm not sure if a 57% Chance to combo turn 1 is better/worse than a mulligan to 6 on the play (you'll play 6 against 8 cards once you pass the turn which is terrible). If your opponent plays blue or discard your chance of winning after passing the turn goes likely down the drain and i doubt a grip of 6 will combo faster and more reliable than the one in question. The appeal is that odds are in your favor and a mulligan with the resulting carddisadvantage of 2 cards here will likely burry you then. On the play against an unknown opponent, I like to go all-in, especially ify hand offers no alternatives

Re: Delver hand:
I think I see more of the appeal of this hand now. In these counter-heavy matches, can you often make a hand with above average levels of stable mana and disruption work, despite the slowness? Or is this more of a case of Pyroblast affording you the opportunity?

the point is the combination of their taxing counters and your stable mana to Dodge those which is so appealing here. On top of that you can regain speed on the fly with Brainstorm with Blast/Therapy giving you the option to slow roll and Profit from your manaadvantage and enabling your cards to be untouchable for Daze/Pierce

Re: Miracles hand:
This is more of the same line of reasoning as above, how viable is it to sort of "hunker down" on these slower matchups wen you have stable lands? I agree with using the Wish to look for Seize while using the stable mana to hold out for an answer to Counterbalance, since the deck can find a lot of fast mana to go off. Is that often what you try to angle towards when you can't sneak a combo though Clique/CB?

for me it is. I had the pleasure to play against Yohan Dudognon and his UWR Miracles during the BoM an those where damn long games. I was able to break a Clique + Karakas lock with CB on the table on the back of stable mana in one game. If you can't go for gold fast, preparing for a grindfest is a good advice

Also, I really appreciate the positive response I've seen from everyone else too. If no one minds the image-heavy posts, I'll likely end up posting some more of these as time goes on. I'm really enjoying the cross-examination and learning a bit more about weighing these different angles.

i guess a lot of MTG players are visual driven so seeing the cards gives most people a better idea how to play those. I welcome picture based discussion and if you are looking for more Input, let us know

[ThomasDowd]

Cutting Infernals but running PIF maindeck looks like crap

Would swap the tendrils main for empty. possibly leave tutor config. but the extra slot no idea. would probably in reality just be best as a tutor( leading right back to the original config) but could be something else to leave the BW> IT line open. don't know how good that is these days. haven't played in months so take everything i say lightly. I do know that used to be a thing though (IT in the board for a BW target). I'll dig and read and find out why its bad. i know its somewhere in this thread. something about density of business.

[davelin]

Davelin

When ur opp put sneak in play you should have gone 100000000% for the combo.
He has only 4 fows but 8 creatures plus cantrips in his turn and tops. So he will have/find the guy 99%.

If you go for it and he does have fow and dont draw the 1% guy u may be can recover. But waiting is sure a mistake.

Hindsight is 20/20. Not saying not going for it was correct but there was more than 4 FoWs to worry about.

[d0nkey]

Hindsight is 20/20. Not saying not going for it was correct but there was more than 4 FoWs to worry about.

Foresight should have been 20/20 on that one too. You were literally hoping he didn't have a creature to sneak attack into play.

Overall sounds like you did pretty well with the full discard package besides getting unlucky a few times. Did you end up keeping the land base the same with City of Brass, Gemstone mines and 3/3 fetch/duals?

[davelin]

Foresight should have been 20/20 on that one too. You were literally hoping he didn't have a creature to sneak attack into play.

Overall sounds like you did pretty well with the full discard package besides getting unlucky a few times. Did you end up keeping the land base the same with City of Brass, Gemstone mines and 3/3 fetch/duals?

Went with the 4/4/4 split between Gemstones, fetches and duals and performed great. Didnt miss Silence all day.

[Pelikanudo]

The other day tested the F.Fortune List posted fewpages ago, wasvery good, I faced a Miracles match up which I won...
I really think like F.F. that is not needed A.Decay vs Miracles if you play the Full Discard Package, the only change I made regarding this list was -1 Xantid + 1 Pyro so having then +1Duress +2Pyros was enough to handle the Miracles Match up. but still keeping the 4 moxen. Now you can play a No Silence TES List and still name the deck TES!! Yeah!
Another issue:
i was able to won a Match up with vs a Death and Taxes with a Thalia in play AND I didnt even had the need to put up the bear, sure nobody got this ;)!
If any is interested I can say how this Match up was...

@Royce, Bryant, F.F. , Bahamut and Lem:
Ok I agree that 5 fetches can be excessive, but I think that 3U.Sea - 1 Volcanic vs 2U.Sea-2V.Island makes more sense to me. what do you think about this?
I think scenarios in which you have a Discard effect and a V.Island can occur more than others in which you have no Access to the Red sorce. but all this is theory...

[thefringthing]

I stop paying attention for a couple months and all of a sudden people aren't playing Silence? What's next, cats marrying dogs!?

[Lemnear]

I stop paying attention for a couple months and all of a sudden people aren't playing Silence? What's next, cats marrying dogs!?

Jesse, is it so suprising that metas and decks changes over time and new printings?


Edit:

The other day tested the F.Fortune List posted fewpages ago, wasvery good, I faced a Miracles match up which I won...
I really think like F.F. that is not needed A.Decay vs Miracles if you play the Full Discard Package, the only change I made regarding this list was -1 Xantid + 1 Pyro so having then +1Duress +2Pyros was enough to handle the Miracles Match up. but still keeping the 4 moxen. Now you can play a No Silence TES List and still name the deck TES!! Yeah!
Another issue:
i was able to won a Match up with vs a Death and Taxes with a Thalia in play AND I didnt even had the need to put up the bear, sure nobody got this ;)!
If any is interested I can say how this Match up was...

@Royce, Bryant, F.F. , Bahamut and Lem:
Ok I agree that 5 fetches can be excessive, but I think that 3U.Sea - 1 Volcanic vs 2U.Sea-2V.Island makes more sense to me. what do you think about this?
I think scenarios in which you have a Discard effect and a V.Island can occur more than others in which you have no Access to the Red sorce. but all this is theory...

I hate not having lands but Chrome Moxen in my starting grip too much to switch a land for a Mox.

Your suggested split does not adress the issue which is having Volcanic wasted and being unable to get a new one if you have that Volcanic in your starting grip (and need it to play cantrips or casting Wish for protection). We can however debate the impact of having a natural Volcanic vs U.Sea in hand for the average game development under the premise that we run more black cards than red and weight that against scenarios in which you are dead due to colorscrew

[Bahamuth]

The other day tested the F.Fortune List posted fewpages ago, wasvery good, I faced a Miracles match up which I won...
I really think like F.F. that is not needed A.Decay vs Miracles if you play the Full Discard Package, the only change I made regarding this list was -1 Xantid + 1 Pyro so having then +1Duress +2Pyros was enough to handle the Miracles Match up. but still keeping the 4 moxen. Now you can play a No Silence TES List and still name the deck TES!! Yeah!
Another issue:
i was able to won a Match up with vs a Death and Taxes with a Thalia in play AND I didnt even had the need to put up the bear, sure nobody got this ;)!
If any is interested I can say how this Match up was...

@Royce, Bryant, F.F. , Bahamut and Lem:
Ok I agree that 5 fetches can be excessive, but I think that 3U.Sea - 1 Volcanic vs 2U.Sea-2V.Island makes more sense to me. what do you think about this?
I think scenarios in which you have a Discard effect and a V.Island can occur more than others in which you have no Access to the Red sorce. but all this is theory...

I just want to run as many fetchland as I can get away with. I would run 2 Sea 1 Volcanic in the lists we are seeing now, but I am not sure I would play Gemstone Mines at all. If you also cut the Gemstones, I would run 2 Volc 2 Sea and the rest fetchland.

I don't really think the discussion on the duals vs. fetch question can go much further than people stating their preferences though. I have been running 1 Sea 1 Volc in a Silence list for a long time, but others experience too much problems with that, so they go with 3 duals.

[Pelikanudo]

I hate not having lands but Chrome Moxen in my starting grip too much to switch a land for a Mox.



Then make use of mulligan!, anyway, I agree and that's why I'm trying to make use of the 13th land. but the logic behind is to play full T.Seize with full moxen so that the Life loss is less relevant as F.F said - I agree on this. but want to make the next tests with 3 moxen and maybe 2 duress 1 T.Seize main. anyway I suggest to at least test the 4 Moxen, 3 T.seize base, is great!




Your suggested split does not adress the issue which is having Volcanic wasted and being unable to get a new one if you have that Volcanic in your starting grip (and need it to play cantrips or casting Wish for protection). We can however debate the impact of having a natural Volcanic vs U.Sea in hand for the average game development under the premise that we run more black cards than red and weight that against scenarios in which you are dead due to colorscrew

- The thing is that you want a 1st turn Underground Sea much more times than a V.Island and this scenario will happens the most. (obviously...) so that the U.Sea will be then the first land to be destroyed by a Wasteland.
- Other scenario involves a played B.Wish for X card, if this card is grapeshot and you need to play G.S in the next turn and the Volcanic is destroyed then you're in troubles, for the rest of scenarios in which you Wish for something diff tan G.S. this will be a Discard Effect or PiF or other thing different than a Red Source. - nonproblem in here then.
- If you play for example RoF you're supposed to go off and the odds to be destroyed your V.Island I think are not so hoigh as this should occur in the first turns.

Anyway, as I've been a very conservative TES player, in my Black TES build I used to play CoB in that slot, but I want to agree with you on this. I just played once this build as his was not considered a TES deck...

These are my points.

@TheFrighning.
Yeah, I think some of us by here were waiting for this change to happen so long time ago (F.Fortune among them I think...).... but Bryant dictates the Deck Base for his US Meta... but in my experience Silence is not an option at least in my meta, still I played it as I just enjoyed playing TES on that old era, if wanted to win a Tournament I just played a Different Storm deck (DDFT, ANT, TNT or 'TES with Black') , the good side is that you can NOW play a Full discard package and still call the deck TES! thats why I'm so happy because my Top8 with TES will increment!

[Tom T]

I just want to run as many fetchland as I can get away with. I would run 2 Sea 1 Volcanic in the lists we are seeing now, but I am not sure I would play Gemstone Mines at all. If you also cut the Gemstones, I would run 2 Volc 2 Sea and the rest fetchland.

I don't really think the discussion on the duals vs. fetch question can go much further than people stating their preferences though. I have been running 1 Sea 1 Volc in a Silence list for a long time, but others experience too much problems with that, so they go with 3 duals.

I'm with you on this one, however I wouldn't cut Gemstone Mine entirely (I think 2/3 is correct). I think playing 3 duals has been great in the past and I think having the extra shuffle-effects of fetchlands is better than the occasional waste on the Volcanic Island. If your Volcanic Island eats a Wasteland you still have Lotus Petal, Chrome Mox and Gemstone Mine. Also, you only need red mana for a combo-turn or sometimes a turn in which you Burning Wish for a discard spell. Brainstorm-locking yourself is way more devastating.

[Bryant Cook]

You guys must be a lot better than me at not drawing all of your fetchland targets, especially when you have five fetchlands. It appears that you're making decisions based on availability rather than the correct numbers.

[Lemnear]

Then make use of mulligan!, anyway, I agree and that's why I'm trying to make use of the 13th land. but the logic behind is to play full T.Seize with full moxen so that the Life loss is less relevant as F.F said - I agree on this. but want to make the next tests with 3 moxen and maybe 2 duress 1 T.Seize main. anyway I suggest to at least test the 4 Moxen, 3 T.seize base, is great!



- The thing is that you want a 1st turn Underground Sea much more times than a V.Island and this scenario will happens the most. (obviously...) so that the U.Sea will be then the first land to be destroyed by a Wasteland.
- Other scenario involves a played B.Wish for X card, if this card is grapeshot and you need to play G.S in the next turn and the Volcanic is destroyed then you're in troubles, for the rest of scenarios in which you Wish for something diff tan G.S. this will be a Discard Effect or PiF or other thing different than a Red Source. - nonproblem in here then.
- If you play for example RoF you're supposed to go off and the odds to be destroyed your V.Island I think are not so hoigh as this should occur in the first turns.

Anyway, as I've been a very conservative TES player, in my Black TES build I used to play CoB in that slot, but I want to agree with you on this. I just played once this build as his was not considered a TES deck...

These are my points.

@TheFrighning.
Yeah, I think some of us by here were waiting for this change to happen so long time ago (F.Fortune among them I think...).... but Bryant dictates the Deck Base for his US Meta... but in my experience Silence is not an option at least in my meta, still I played it as I just enjoyed playing TES on that old era, if wanted to win a Tournament I just played a Different Storm deck (DDFT, ANT, TNT or 'TES with Black') , the good side is that you can NOW play a Full discard package and still call the deck TES! thats why I'm so happy because my Top8 with TES will increment!

Don't you think I didn't message F.F. more than 3 weeks ago to get his list for my own testing after he picked up the topic of all-discard after I annoyed this thread with that idea already in november? I tested it for a half a day and had some serious bad hands without land(s) but moxen and even twice the infamous double-moxen opener. I used the rest of my testing timeframe to calculate the influence of +1 mox to AN flips under the premise of having cast a Thoughtseize prior to it and the result appeared so marginal compared to the partly shitty starters that I dismissed the idea. Moxen are still best IN the deck and not in hand unless after an AN.

The Wasteland-topic was directed on having Volcanic in your hand as your starting mana for Ponder, but ok, let's say your opponent wastes your U.Sea (you used to Ponder into LED or Wish) instead and your still have a fetch, a discard spell, RoF, RoF, LED and Wish in hand, you are cut off from casting the Discard spell to protect your combo while a GM would work perfect. Now expect iffy scenarios with infernal, Decay and Pyroblast against Miracles *shudder*

Discussions over decknames are stupid. TES is defined by faster, cheaper rituals (RoF), a 5-color supporting manabase and Wish, not over disruption


I just want to run as many fetchland as I can get away with. I would run 2 Sea 1 Volcanic in the lists we are seeing now, but I am not sure I would play Gemstone Mines at all. If you also cut the Gemstones, I would run 2 Volc 2 Sea and the rest fetchland.

I don't really think the discussion on the duals vs. fetch question can go much further than people stating their preferences though. I have been running 1 Sea 1 Volc in a Silence list for a long time, but others experience too much problems with that, so they go with 3 duals.


I'm with you on this one, however I wouldn't cut Gemstone Mine entirely (I think 2/3 is correct). I think playing 3 duals has been great in the past and I think having the extra shuffle-effects of fetchlands is better than the occasional waste on the Volcanic Island. If your Volcanic Island eats a Wasteland you still have Lotus Petal, Chrome Mox and Gemstone Mine. Also, you only need red mana for a combo-turn or sometimes a turn in which you Burning Wish for a discard spell. Brainstorm-locking yourself is way more devastating.

I have slight problems to understand how people expect to fix a 4-color manabase with only 12 lands without at least a certain base of rainbow-IMS. How do you think of supporting Xantid and Pyroblast against S&T or Pyroblast and Decay if you keep reducing the decks options to fix colors? If there's no more the need for green or we define the new TES standard by having always 2 lands or land+petal for cantrips plus the 2 Ritual colors for our combo turn, I'll revisit the idea to run without goldlands.

I'm amazed that now, after increasing the number of fetches, the topic of brainstorm-locking is hotter than ever.

[Bahamuth]

You guys must be a lot better than me at not drawing all of your fetchland targets, especially when you have five fetchlands. It appears that you're making decisions based on availability rather than the correct numbers.

I wouldn't be suggesting cutting Gemstone Mines for more fetches and duals if this were the case.



I have slight problems to understand how people expect to fix a 4-color manabase with only 12 lands without at least a certain base of rainbow-IMS. How do you think of supporting Xantid and Pyroblast against S&T or Pyroblast and Decay if you keep reducing the decks options to fix colors? If there's no more the need for green or we define the new TES standard by having always 2 lands or land+petal for cantrips plus the 2 Ritual colors for our combo turn, I'll revisit the idea to run without goldlands.

I don't run a 12 land 4c mana base. I either run a 12 land 3c, 13 lnd 4c manabase, or a 13 land 3c, 14 land 4c manabase. I remember that I ran a very similar base when Mystical Tutor was still around. The deck was ubw, running 2 Sea 2 Tundra and an island (which certainly doesn't help you fix colours) with a sideboard Trop for Swarms and occasonally Caarpet of Flowers. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one running these kinds of lists back then.

I'm not saying it's correct to cut Mines, just that it might be better.

[big_ticket]

hi guys..im new here :smile:

BTW where can i see the latest list of deck?thanks

[Final Fortune]

@Lemnear

Do you have a mathematical proof of the 4th Chrome Mox being marginal after an Ad Nauseam, and a Diminishing Returns for that matter, or do you just have your play testing and sample size to back up that statement? Because if the 4th Chrome Mox is as marginal as you say it is then I'm ready to cut it for the 12th land, I just thought intuitively that the 4th Chrome Mox meant markedly lower life totals for Ad Nauseam, higher win % for Diminishing Returns and higher win% for T1 and thought it would be more significant than you're implying it is.

I honestly don't know, I started playing TES when 11 lands and 4 Chrome Mox was still the norm and don't really mind playing it that way again because I was already used to it. Barring some mathematical proof tho', I think we're all just biased to our own variance with the deck; 4th Mox, 5th Fetchland, 2nd Volcanic Island or whatever they're functional equivalents.

I think my list is pretty solid, the only thing I debate is 1 SB slot and that's the Duress slot; it feels like I change it every week. I think I'm going to go back to Ill Gotten Gains just so I don't have to risk any variance vs pure aggro strategies, I can't find anything else that really makes any difference as a wish target and I don't like Abrupt Decay at all.

[Lemnear]

@Bahamut

Atm I feel we still can not allow to go 3c. I've tested this in the weeks before the SCG Invi as we chatter about the all-discard list on FB, but was not satisfied by the results. The point about the all-fetch+Duals-manabase is similar to the case with Silence was: it': still not the time for making that switch. It's also possible that Silence makes a comeback if Tempo returns to the metagame. The deck keeps updating to stay viable, so I don't understand the nostalgia about "No silence, no TES". That's why you are here. That's why I am here. That's why I honor each thought-through idea brought up here and test it.

@big_ticket

Wisdom of the List - 0cc - sorcery
choose 1: look at List in this thread like 2 pages back or mind it's available on my Twitter.
0cc - entwine

[Bahamuth]

@Bahamut

Atm I feel we still can not allow to go 3c. I've tested this in the weeks before the SCG Invi as we chatter about the all-discard list on FB, but was not satisfied by the results. The point about the all-fetch+Duals-manabase is similar to the case with Silence was: it': still not the time for making that switch. It's also possible that Silence makes a comeback if Tempo returns to the metagame. The deck keeps updating to stay viable, so I don't understand the nostalgia about "No silence, no TES". That's why you are here. That's why I am here. That's why I honor each thought-through idea brought up here and test it.


Wait what? We have been talking about 3c lists for a whille now right? I am trying to say that the deck is 3c, with a very minor splash to a 4th in the sideboard at which point we also bring in an extra land.

I'm not saying the 'no Silence no TES' thing anywhere. I am illustrating my point about playing an all-dual manabase by an example that included a lists with Chants from a couple of years back.

[Lemnear]

Wait what? We have been talking about 3c lists for a whille now right? I am trying to say that the deck is 3c, with a very minor splash to a 4th in the sideboard at which point we also bring in an extra land.

I'm not saying the 'no Silence no TES' thing anywhere. I am illustrating my point about playing an all-dual manabase by an example that included a lists with Chants from a couple of years back.

I get your point here and your intention I share. My sole Problem with the idea is that atm a pure fetch/Dual manabase would put us into positions in which we have to cut us off from certain colors (and cards in hand) at times as even with a Premium hand of 2 fetches you are unable to produce all 4 colors unlike any hand which contains a single GM. I think the idea to get 3 IMS into play to support every line of play with a dual/fetch manabase is a bit farfetched in a deck with 12-13 lands which opts to go lethal in the first 3 turns and is less suited to develop such a stable manabase on the board before comboing compared to ANT which's mainplan feasts on fetchlands + x in their graveyard and whichs prime engine is independent to previous lifeloss because of them taking 3-4 turns to develop that said manabase. I have to operate off a single land + Petal far too often as i'd be willing to colorscrew me in such situations. It's ok if you near never have those problems. This is just the reason why GM is still in (at least) my list.

The part about Silence wasn't directed at you obviously.

[Bryant Cook]

I wouldn't be suggesting cutting Gemstone Mines for more fetches and duals if this were the case.

I don't run a 12 land 4c mana base. I either run a 12 land 3c, 13 lnd 4c manabase, or a 13 land 3c, 14 land 4c manabase. I remember that I ran a very similar base when Mystical Tutor was still around. The deck was ubw, running 2 Sea 2 Tundra and an island (which certainly doesn't help you fix colours) with a sideboard Trop for Swarms and occasonally Caarpet of Flowers. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one running these kinds of lists back then.

I'm not saying it's correct to cut Mines, just that it might be better.

Advocating only two duals with too many fetchlands was the issue I was addressing.

That's not even my quote you referenced. Regardless, I'd slapbet you that I've never played a Tundra in TES, I believe you're talking about ANT - not TES.

[Bahamuth]

Advocating only two duals with too many fetchlands was the issue I was addressing.

And I am refuting it by bringing up a manabase I'm suggesting that is even more expensive.


That's not even my quote you referenced. Regardless, I'd slapbet you that I've never played a Tundra in TES, I believe you're talking about ANT - not TES.

Yeah sorry, I copypasted carelessly. I wasn't trying to claim having ran ubw TES, I'm just illustrating that running a 3c manabase with a Trop in the board and 13 land isn't completely wild.

[Bryant Cook]

And I am refuting it by bringing up a manabase I'm suggesting that is even more expensive.

How are we still talking about the same thing then? The point I was addressing didn't pertain to what you're talking about.


Yeah sorry, I copypasted carelessly. I wasn't trying to claim having ran ubw TES, I'm just illustrating that running a 3c manabase with a Trop in the board and 13 land isn't completely wild.

Sure, it's not completely wild but in my opinion it's certainly worse for the reasons Lemnear has pointed out. We're a fast deck that operates on 1-2 lands, we need them to tap for 3-4 colors within the initial few turns of the game. Running more duals/fetches not only makes us a tiny bit slower, it could effect Ad Nauseam (Probes, Seize, fetchlands).

[Pelikanudo]

Don't you think I didn't message F.F. more than 3 weeks ago to get his list for my own testing after he picked up the topic of all-discard after I annoyed this thread with that idea already in november? I tested it for a half a day and had some serious bad hands without land(s) but moxen and even twice the infamous double-moxen opener. I used the rest of my testing timeframe to calculate the influence of +1 mox to AN flips under the premise of having cast a Thoughtseize prior to it and the result appeared so marginal compared to the partly shitty starters that I dismissed the idea. Moxen are still best IN the deck and not in hand unless after an AN.


Ok, I agree, I did not make any testing yet with 3 moxen 13 land and that's the same feeling I have: don't want to draw so many moxen... I'm trying to use a 13 lands 3 moxen Base.



The Wasteland-topic was directed on having Volcanic in your hand as your starting mana for Ponder, but ok, let's say your opponent wastes your U.Sea (you used to Ponder into LED or Wish) instead and your still have a fetch, a discard spell, RoF, RoF, LED and Wish in hand, you are cut off from casting the Discard spell to protect your combo while a GM would work perfect. Now expect iffy scenarios with infernal, Decay and Pyroblast against Miracles *shudder*


mmm, so if the testing scenario is to have a V.Island in hand as the unique land and this land is destroyed by Wanstelad then I need to agree, but is this specific scenario worth to have 2 V.I and 2 U.Sea? instead of 1-3? if testing demonstrates somehow that this will happen more times than the need to use a Black source to cast discard then I would play the 2-2 Configuration.

I'm evaluating to play the U.Paradise in the 2nd Volcanic Slot. but maybe this is a nonsense thing, because I just want to add as many T.Seize as I can and I'm getting paranoid about Life loss...



Discussions over decknames are stupid. TES is defined by faster, cheaper rituals (RoF), a 5-color supporting manabase and Wish, not over disruption

I just exposed my opinión, didnt intend to start a discussion about this.





I have slight problems to understand how people expect to fix a 4-color manabase with only 12 lands without at least a certain base of rainbow-IMS. How do you think of supporting Xantid and Pyroblast against S&T or Pyroblast and Decay if you keep reducing the decks options to fix colors? If there's no more the need for green or we define the new TES standard by having always 2 lands or land+petal for cantrips plus the 2 Ritual colors for our combo turn, I'll revisit the idea to run without goldlands.


agree, For me in TES 4 Gemsntone is a must... is the unique land that can be used to play B.S, RoF, Dark ritual and even this land does not cause life loss, the best one of all lands we have IMHO.
I agree with you and Bryant that 5 fetches - 3 Dual is not supportable. by experience, at some time in a 4 Fetches 3 dual Mana base I found some scenarios in which you just Fetch for nothing. but these scenarios are few, very few. and will increment if you add +1 Fetch



I'm amazed that now, after increasing the number of fetches, the topic of brainstorm-locking is hotter than ever.

me too, the use of B.S. in here has nothing to do with the use of B.S. in ANT as example.

Apart:
So, If any can try to test the 3 U.Sea - 1 Volcanic Mana base or any has tested this with good results please share.

[Lemnear]

Ok, I agree, I did not make any testing yet with 3 moxen 13 land and that's the same feeling I have: don't want to draw so many moxen... I'm trying to use a 13 lands 3 moxen Base.

that's fine if you want more mana maindeck. Just ask yourself how you want to handle the SB tropical then. Switching land for land for going to 14 lands + 2 moxen? Dunno. :)

mmm, so if the testing scenario is to have a V.Island in hand as the unique land and this land is destroyed by Wanstelad then I need to agree, but is this specific scenario worth to have 2 V.I and 2 U.Sea? instead of 1-3? if testing demonstrates somehow that this will happen more times than the need to use a Black source to cast discard then I would play the 2-2 Configuration.

I'm evaluating to play the U.Paradise in the 2nd Volcanic Slot. but maybe this is a nonsense thing, because I just want to add as many T.Seize as I can and I'm getting paranoid about Life loss...

don't play paradise. Having to play a cantrip off a paradise is the worst I can imagine you can to to develop a manabase to pass Daze/pierce. The best I found out to handle TS's lifeloss is to not throw around Probes and TS because you have them but opt to sit on them or shuffle those away in some situations.

I'm testing worst-case-scenarios first for changing lists and the Volcanic one was indeed part of it, second to the one where you have to expose volcanic for Wish->Thoughtseize/DimRet. The more relevant question is how often the T1 combo is prevented by Volcanic if you have a mix of DR, LED and Infernal in your hand but no cantrip to find a black mana source. Count the numbers of you casting T1 cantrips vs. T1 discard and you'll notice that unless you play against a combo deck yourself having a grip of Volc, probe, therapy and Ponder is rarely worse than U.Sea, probe, therapy and Ponder. You'll usually cast discard close to your own combo turn (exception: combo mirror)

agree, For me in TES 4 Gemsntone is a must... is the unique land that can be used to play B.S, RoF, Dark ritual and even this land does not cause life loss, the best one of all lands we have IMHO.
I agree with you and Bryant that 5 fetches - 3 Dual is not supportable. by experience, at some time in a 4 Fetches 3 dual Mana base I found some scenarios in which you just Fetch for nothing. but these scenarios are few, very few. and will increment if you add +1 Fetch

Having either no or not the optimal target for your fetchland is the reason we raged about the idea to run only 2 duals but 6 fetches. A 3/5 split might be justifyable if the other issues we discussed in this thread wouldn't cause problems as well. At some point I'm kinda reliefed that no one came up with 5 fetches, 1 Sea, 1, Volcanic, 1 Badland so far ;)

Apart:
So, If any can try to test the 3 U.Sea - 1 Volcanic Mana base or any has tested this with good results please share.

[Pelikanudo]

Related to:

don't play paradise. Having to play a cantrip off a paradise is the worst I can imagine you can to to develop a manabase to pass Daze/pierce. The best I found out to handle TS's lifeloss is to not throw around Probes and TS because you have them but opt to sit on them or shuffle those away in some situations.

I'm testing worst-case-scenarios first for changing lists and the Volcanic one was indeed part of it, second to the one where you have to expose volcanic for Wish->Thoughtseize/DimRet. The more relevant question is how often the T1 combo is prevented by Volcanic if you have a mix of DR, LED and Infernal in your hand but no cantrip to find a black mana source. Count the numbers of you casting T1 cantrips vs. T1 discard and you'll notice that unless you play against a combo deck yourself having a grip of Volc, probe, therapy and Ponder is rarely worse than U.Sea, probe, therapy and Ponder. You'll usually cast discard close to your own combo turn (exception: combo mirror)

Also: T1 T.seize to discard Hatebear or C.B. or avoid B.S. into Hide Opp. FoWs or Hymn. or T1 Discard to avoid Reanimate, etc etc.
You just sometimes even pondering into Black Source will not occur also, but this scenarios sure are few.

So, then there is already a consensus about 2-2 Split or still in processing of a final Mana Base.

Im sure 2-2 Split is not the perfect setting, but 3-1 is worse or less worse?

[Lemnear]

Also: T1 T.seize to discard Hatebear or C.B. or avoid B.S. into Hide Opp. FoWs or Hymn. or T1 Discard to avoid Reanimate, etc etc.
You just sometimes even pondering into Black Source will not occur also, but this scenarios sure are few.

So, then there is already a consensus about 2-2 Split or still in processing of a final Mana Base.

Im sure 2-2 Split is not the perfect setting, but 3-1 is worse or less worse?

And there our points of view differ:

1) I don't value T1 discard against D&T too high because of their hatebear density. I prefer to mull into a T 1/2 Combo instead
2) If I cast discard and they hide FoW, I'm free to combo, no?
3) against Hymn, I prefer dropping my mana and float biz on the top of my deck with BS/Ponder which are perfectly fine being cast off volcanic
4) pondering into a black source can fail, but that rises the question if a hand with volcanic + ponder + black cards was a keeper from the start. Sure, shit happens.
5) i already mentioned combo decks as exceptions
6) while discarding counterbalance is fine, pyroblasting it off a volcanic does basically the same game 2 and you won't waste a thoughtseize t1 in game 1 just to see your opponents hand only

[Lemnear]

Yeah ... even more anti-storm hatebears!

[d0nkey]

Yeah ... even more anti-storm hatebears!

At least costs RR....

Maybe I'll try out that pyromancer's acension list so I can play bolts main to better fight off hatebears.

[sawatarix]

Bolts+pyromancer ascension main in TES ?
I must be in the wrong thread i guess


- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Pelikanudo]

And there our points of view differ:

1) I don't value T1 discard against D&T too high because of their hatebear density. I prefer to mull into a T 1/2 Combo instead

Maybe, but if you dont have a T1 or T2 win you'll die and on 1st games they do not have so high hatebear density, for me at least a T1 discard has been the unique way to win sometimes these match ups, even C.Therapy is high value in here. it is just to get more chances to win this match up.

2) If I cast discard and they hide FoW, I'm free to combo, no?

Sure, but not if you start and on 1st turn.

3) against Hymn, I prefer dropping my mana and float biz on the top of my deck with BS/Ponder which are perfectly fine being cast off volcanic

Ok I prefer hit his potential Hymn or FoW, I referred to Team America variants minly

4) pondering into a black source can fail, but that rises the question if a hand with volcanic + ponder + black cards was a keeper from the start. Sure, shit happens.
Yeah! shit happens

5) i already mentioned combo decks as exceptions
No, you mentioned Combo mirror, I'll prefer to handle: Reanimator and S&T variants., that why 1st turn U.Sea into discard seems so important.

6) while discarding counterbalance is fine, pyroblasting it off a volcanic does basically the same game 2 and you won't waste a thoughtseize t1 in game 1 just to see your opponents hand only

7-8 discard effects vs 2 pyrosblast from Side does not worth it I think, even this scenario will occur in 2nd and 3rd match ups, I want to handle 1st games also. Also Miracles does not play Wasteland

mmm, definately I think I'll try the 3-1 Split for a while... playing 2 duress 1 T.Seize main and 1 IoK, 1T.Seize side instead of the 1 Duress side... although I'm quite satisfied with t he 4 moxen configuration.... and Of course NO A.Decay main


EDIT: I meant 12 lands 3 C.Moxen. :)


Apart:
a T1 Discard is great to know how to develop your game plan, unless there is no more mana available because of your unique land beeing destroyed...

Apart_2:
@Royce, Bahamut:
3-1 Split or 2-2 Split?

[Moxnix]

Hi Bryant I tested this deck for the first time on mtgo the past 2 days I love it. I play the list in your op with a trop in the SB over a xantid swarm was this a ok cut? If I wanted to play a 4th silence out if my SB what would you cut or better from your op what SB slots are open to being changed.

[Bryant Cook]

Hi Bryant I tested this deck for the first time on mtgo the past 2 days I love it. I play the list in your op with a trop in the SB over a xantid swarm was this a ok cut? If I wanted to play a 4th silence out if my SB what would you cut or better from your op what SB slots are open to being changed.

I'm no longer on that list. I'll update it right now.

[Moxnix]

Thank you so much. If you don't mind would you update your SB strategy section when you get a chance as if now im alt tabbing on mtgo reading it and sbing. Also is this a meta change could you explain why you like seize and duress over silence I think I can guess but i would much rather know what you think.

[Bryant Cook]

Thank you so much. If you don't mind would you update your SB strategy section when you get a chance as if now im alt tabbing on mtgo reading it and sbing. Also is this a meta change could you explain why you like seize and duress over silence I think I can guess but i would much rather know what you think.

The last 20 pages of the thread are all about it the change.

I don't have time right now to update (Maybe in a few weeks), it's all really the same concepts. This deck isn't very difficult to SB with.

[Moxnix]

Ok thank you I will check it out I had mostly just read your OP

[Royce Walter]

Apart:
a T1 Discard is great to know how to develop your game plan, unless there is no more mana available because of your unique land beeing destroyed...

Apart_2:
@Royce, Bahamut:
3-1 Split or 2-2 Split?

2-2. Any hand that has 2+ cantrips you want to fetch a turn 1 Volc, cantrip with the mana, cantrip again t2, then use a second land for discard (ideally). If they waste your Volc, you want another one. Basically the difference is that before we'd almost always fetch a t1 USea, now it's much better to fetch a Volc and getting cut off red is much less of an issue.

[Pelikanudo]

2-2. Any hand that has 2+ cantrips you want to fetch a turn 1 Volc, cantrip with the mana, cantrip again t2, then use a second land for discard (ideally). If they waste your Volc, you want another one. Basically the difference is that before we'd almost always fetch a t1 USea, now it's much better to fetch a Volc and getting cut off red is much less of an issue.

maybe I miss something, but for this scenario, why do you prefer to fetch for volcanic instead U.Sea?

[Holly]

If you want turn 2 to chain cantrip into discard you need Volc & Sea or Sea & Sea.. which do you prefer in case you want to combo of turn 3 with no other land?

[Asthereal]

If you want turn 2 to chain cantrip into discard you need Volc & Sea or Sea & Sea.. which do you prefer in case you want to combo of turn 3 with no other land?
And the question whether Pelikanudo was missing something has been answered. :cool:

[Lemnear]

I could swear, I talked about fetching Volcanic first, to NOT flagwaving signalize your opponent that you're playing combo, on the last page.

Why else do you think we are playing Misty Rainforest and Scalding Tarn other than faking to be a Tempo deck? Why should anyone tap out for SFM and crap if they see Polluted Delta into U.Sea?

[Patrunkenphat7]

I'm not seeing how this deck is better than ANT variants right now. The metagame seems very hostile towards it. At what point does stubbornness kick in as a reason people play this deck over other combo decks? It seems to have a rabid cult following of people who Japanese foil it out and whatnot, and that can't be helpful in being open-minded to changes.

I'm not trying to make anyone angry btw, just trying to start an open and honest discussion.

[wonderPreaux]

I'm not seeing how this deck is better than ANT variants right now. The metagame seems very hostile towards it. At what point does stubbornness kick in as a reason people play this deck over other combo decks? It seems to have a rabid cult following of people who Japanese foil it out and whatnot, and that can't be helpful in being open-minded to changes.

I'm not trying to make anyone angry btw, just trying to start an open and honest discussion.

This deck's speed and versatility makes it a comparable choice to ANT. ANT, being the slower and more linear deck, is more vulnerable to hate because an opponent has more time to go ahead and play it and ANT has fewer lines to approach victory. I'd say the metagame is simply hostile to Storm in general right now, not TES in particular.

[davelin]

I'm not seeing how this deck is better than ANT variants right now. The metagame seems very hostile towards it. At what point does stubbornness kick in as a reason people play this deck over other combo decks? It seems to have a rabid cult following of people who Japanese foil it out and whatnot, and that can't be helpful in being open-minded to changes.

I'm not trying to make anyone angry btw, just trying to start an open and honest discussion.

It's easier to hate out the main storm engine of ANT versus TES, but in general the metagame isn't very favorable to either. TES's speed is also a big advantage over it's combo-sibling.

[Bryant Cook]

I'm not seeing how this deck is better than ANT variants right now. The metagame seems very hostile towards it. At what point does stubbornness kick in as a reason people play this deck over other combo decks? It seems to have a rabid cult following of people who Japanese foil it out and whatnot, and that can't be helpful in being open-minded to changes.

I'm not trying to make anyone angry btw, just trying to start an open and honest discussion.

Aha, how was that not a shot at me? Clearly, you haven't seen my collection - I don't base anything off of card availability. It's alright kid, live off your top 8 high, but ANT isn't in any better of a position than TES. But in the mean time, enjoy that full turn extra you need to combo against Death and Taxes.

[Patrunkenphat7]

It's easier to hate out the main storm engine of ANT versus TES, but in general the metagame isn't very favorable to either. TES's speed is also a big advantage over it's combo-sibling.

I feel like maindeckable cards such as Thoughtseize, Hymn to Tourach, and Wasteland are all much better against TES than ANT. The only plus I'd give TES in this metagame is that SB RIPs don't really do anything against it. ANT is much better against Delver decks which seem to be at the top tables. I've played both decks quite a bit, and I really think basic lands + lots of discard are where you want to be.

[wonderPreaux]

I feel like maindeckable cards such as Thoughtseize, Hymn to Tourach, and Wasteland are all much better against TES than ANT. The only plus I'd give TES in this metagame is that SB RIPs don't really do anything against it. ANT is much better against Delver decks which seem to be at the top tables. I've played both decks quite a bit, and I really think basic lands + lots of discard are where you want to be.

its ironic you say that players here are resistant to change, and then you recommend lots of discard... which this deck has switched to recently. I'd ask if you read the thread lately, but its even reflected in the OP, at least the new decklist, that is.

[Lemnear]

I'm not seeing how this deck is better than ANT variants right now. The metagame seems very hostile towards it. At what point does stubbornness kick in as a reason people play this deck over other combo decks? It seems to have a rabid cult following of people who Japanese foil it out and whatnot, and that can't be helpful in being open-minded to changes.

I'm not trying to make anyone angry btw, just trying to start an open and honest discussion.

The metagame is hostile to storm in general and a reason the manabase and protection suit changed. You asked for open-minded changes ... and missed them happening.

The advantages of ANT to overpower tempo- & taxing-counters with Cabal Ritual are still the same as the problems of that deck to get a kill going once the graveyard is hated out or other countermeasures kick in because ANT is pretty much limited to a playline involving thresholded Cabal Rituals and only 4 Tutors while being at least a turn slower than TES because of that.

What about questioning the worth of Cabal Ritual now that people rather play discard like Thoughtseize or Hymn than Pierce, which CR was able to overpower in the past or noticing that Grafdiggers Cage, Surgical Extraction and RIP are everywhere? TES can be too fast for Hymn and hatebears while shitting on graveyard-hate (and now even more on SFM). I don't see why this meta is any more hostile to TES than ANT.

[Asthereal]

I'm not seeing how this deck is better than ANT variants right now. The metagame seems very hostile towards it. At what point does stubbornness kick in as a reason people play this deck over other combo decks? It seems to have a rabid cult following of people who Japanese foil it out and whatnot, and that can't be helpful in being open-minded to changes.

I'm not trying to make anyone angry btw, just trying to start an open and honest discussion.
Actually, for once the ANT lovers may have a point. Maverick has been out of favour for a while, and Death&Taxes is also going down. People seem to play Team America, Patriot, Miracles, Death Blade and Jund as their favourites right now. In a meta like that, a well tuned ANT might be a tad stronger than TES. TES has an edge over ANT because of its speed, which is nice against Hymn and hate bears. But the hate bears seem to have left the building. And Hymn can still hit all the wrong cards. Next to the fact that none of the popular decks right now have a really fast clock unless they manage to flip their turn one Delver, which should be pretty rare with 40% spell count.

Let's not forget that ANT has evolved too. They have an Empty the Warrens now, and they are nowhere near as graveyard dependant as some here make them out to be. The strongest thing about ANT is that it's good at winning with a natural spell chain.

(Side note: I am a fan of TES over ANT any day. I'm just trying to analyse the meta here. :wink:)

[HammerAndSickled]

If Hymn is a relevant concern TES will always be stronger, since it can just win before Hymn is active. In any event, with the convergent evolutions of these decks eventually we'll just be calling them variations of one deck instead of distinct archetypes. In the last two years ANT has splashed red for PiF and later green for Decay, both decks are moving more towards Empty, TES is now occasionally playing discard over Chant effects, so the differences become more and more blurred. Now it's really just BW/RoF versus better mana and Cabal Rit, and is that enough to separate archetypes?

[Royce Walter]

If Hymn is a relevant concern TES will always be stronger, since it can just win before Hymn is active.

That's not necessarily the case, as the primary Hymn deck at the moment is more well suited to stopping you from going off in the first two turns than Jund or Shardless ever was.

[Patrunkenphat7]

The metagame is hostile to storm in general and a reason the manabase and protection suit changed. You asked for open-minded changes ... and missed them happening.


I didn't miss anything. You added 1 black land to the main?? It doesn't matter if you add 2 discard spells, the deck still operates like a better Belcher deck which I don't feel like the format is friendly towards right now.

I would also disagree that the format is hostile towards ANT. I continue to put up solid results with it, and I actively enjoy playing against Delver of Secrets.

[davelin]

I didn't miss anything. You added 1 black land to the main?? It doesn't matter if you add 2 discard spells, the deck still operates like a better Belcher deck which I don't feel like the format is friendly towards right now.

I would also disagree that the format is hostile towards ANT. I continue to put up solid results with it, and I actively enjoy playing against Delver of Secrets.

That's your right if you feel that way, folks have been putting up decent results with TES as well. Sometimes just comes down to playstyle and preference.

[Patrunkenphat7]

That's your right if you feel that way, folks have been putting up decent results with TES as well. Sometimes just comes down to playstyle and preference.

Both decks are good in different ways; I think it's more than playstyle and preference. I'd honestly play whichever is better. I just despise playing against Delver of Secrets and Wasteland with TES, whereas you don't really care about those cards with ANT.

[davelin]

Both decks are good in different ways; I think it's more than playstyle and preference. I'd honestly play whichever is better. I just despise playing against Delver of Secrets and Wasteland with TES, whereas you don't really care about those cards with ANT.

Sure and TES doesn't care about RiP or Cage which is seeing a lot more play. In the combo mirror, TES's speed gives a slight edge. At the end we're talking about single-digit percentage points either way in terms of win expectation, an expert in either deck can expect over a long enough sample to have a winning record. Again I think comfortability and preference is going to be the largest factor in deciding which variant to play.

[Final Fortune]

Either deck is fine, but I think TES is better than ANT in a meta where decks will resolve permanent based hate, Death&Taxes aside, Vendilion Clique, Meddling Mage, Counterbalance and Ethersworn Canonist are all more problematic for ANT than they are for TES because ANT can't really race them.

I don't think ANT and TES are converging at all, they have different mana bases and different fundamental turns and that's more than enough of a distinction between tthe two decks. Labeling TES as a better Belcher decks just seems ... well odd, it may be more aggressive than ANT but that hardly makes it an "all in" on T1 combo deck.

I actually thought ANT was better than TES when RUG was on top, it's kind of strange to me people think it's the other way around now that it isn't.

[Lemnear]

The decks are twins tuned for different metagames, so saying TES gets destroyed by Team America but you are actually ENJOYING to play against Fastclock+Hymn+FoW is strange. I can only speak for myself but I'm not interrested getting hit by the Splash damage ANT gets hit by with Reanimator and Miracles being the prime combo and control decks in the format. Sure, Being faster than Hymn, Hatebear, Counterbalance, SFM at times comes at a price of being less suited in longer games due to AN being worthless after a significant lifeloss and/or because RoF has not the raw Power of Cabal Ritual. While i agree that ANT can ignore fast Delver Attacks I'm not convinced that CR is the hot sauce in times when Hymn and Thoughtseize are more common than Spell Pierces.

Overall, I have a lack of understanding of starting an "open-minded" discussion by calling players a cult of change-unwilling guys which refuse to adapt because they have jap. foiled their decks. I expect bringing up a few points on how the recent metagame favors ANT instead of something I can interpret as an insult. But it's clear that bold statements like "ANT doesn't care for Hymn+FoW" are flashier than saying "guys, I think that not being dependant on life is more important in the current meta with barely a half of the decks being Delver.dec than sometimes losing to a combination of hate like FoW+Meddling Mage or RIP+Counterbalance"

[Bryant Cook]

New city of brass, but better: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/journey-into-nyx/22350-mana-confluence

[Lemnear]

New city of brass, but better: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/journey-into-nyx/22350-mana-confluence

Why can't these things have basic land types...

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/jou/aasd7y23m34co/E9QU2r9nIn_EN.jpg

[workingdude]

New city of brass, but better: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/journey-into-nyx/22350-mana-confluence

Haven't pulled this deck out in more than a year, but this is a nice upgrade. Cant think of any situations where city of brass would be better in this deck because none of the win condition cards are instants. Am I missing anything?

[JPoJohnson]

Why can't these things have basic land types...

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/jou/aasd7y23m34co/E9QU2r9nIn_EN.jpg

Yeah, that wouldn't be a four of in almost every deck ever:tongue:

I'm liking it. It has only happened a few times, but being ported is rather annoying when you have a City of Brass and playing the long game. Plus I'm going to like having this in against Pox or anything with Urborg.

[Final Fortune]

So Rishadan Port can't ping us any more and we could play an all gold land mana base now, doesn't really seem that exciting for us all things considered but is there any deck in the format that wants 8 City of Brass like a Stax variant or something? At least it's a Legacy playable card out of Nyx, kind of annoyed they just printed a better City of Brass over a variant like a gold land that gave you poison counters instead because that could replace Gemstone Mine but oh well I guess.

Probably a blessing for players who want to run a variant of this deck on a budget.

[Lemnear]

Haven't pulled this deck out in more than a year, but this is a nice upgrade. Cant think of any situations where city of brass would be better in this deck because none of the win condition cards are instants. Am I missing anything?

You may missed that we cutted Cities xP
This is strickly better due to dodging Rishadan Port, Tangle Wire and stuff like frozen aether.

@financial aspect:
I can see this one skyrocketing soon due to the panicing market atm ... slightly better or alternate Version of X = $$$. This is the Chain Lightning of Rainbow Lands

Edit: i'm still dreaming of a fetchable Gemstone mine *sigh*

[HammerAndSickled]

As a lands player I'm going to miss killing people with Rishadan Port...

[Togores]

I was going to post about the city, but Bryant was faster.

Its a better card vs Tangle wire, Rishadan, Fire Ice and City in a bottle (YES city in a bottle when I play vintage dredge a friend uses play City to turn of Bazar and City)

Now City is only better in decks with Bolt where You can kill your opponent in response of the life loss trigger.

[akmalik]

Now City is only better in decks with Bolt where You can kill your opponent in response of the life loss trigger.

City have a triggered ability like Tendrils. But, yeah, I think Rishadan Port is more relevant than casting Tendrils on one life with mana from City.

[bennotsi]

City have a triggered ability like Tendrils. But, yeah, I think Rishadan Port is more relevant than casting Tendrils on one life with mana from City.

You can't cast sorceries if there's still a trigger on the stack.

[Lejay]

You can't cast sorceries if there's still a trigger on the stack.

Unless I miss something you cast the spell(ToA/Grapeshot), give the target, pay costs by tapping city of brass and both triggers (Damage and storm) go on the stack in the order you choose. You just have to be lethal without the original spell.

[akmalik]

You just have to be lethal without the original spell.

Sure? Tendrils with storm 9 (TOA, Citytrigger, Stormtrigger) on 1 life: 18 lifeloss for opponent, 18 life for you(back to 19 life); 1 damage from City; TOA for the last 2 lifeloss and you are on 20 life.

Edit: ok, grapeshot...

[bennotsi]

Unless I miss something you cast the spell(ToA/Grapeshot), give the target, pay costs by tapping city of brass and both triggers (Damage and storm) go on the stack in the order you choose. You just have to be lethal without the original spell.

Haha, very nice! I dismissed that line of play forgetting that the storm trigger resolves before the damage trigger from ancient tomb. You nitpicked my nitpicking :-D

[Pelikanudo]

@Royce mainly
@Holly:
If you want turn 2 to chain cantrip into discard you need Volc & Sea or Sea & Sea.. which do you prefer in case you want to combo of turn 3 with no other land?
@ Asthereal
If you want turn 2 to chain cantrip into discard you need Volc & Sea or Sea & Sea.. which do you prefer in case you want to combo of turn 3 with no other land?
And the question whether Pelikanudo was missing something has been answered.

Answer: Sure U.Sea and V.Island and In This Order regardless I pretend to be a RUG or Patriot player.

Well, you can fetch for V.Island into cantripping and do not find an U.Sea and just lose as you play 12 lands only. I would prefer to fetch first for U.Sea OR play U.Sea and make sure next turn I'll play a Discard effect OR Win (we have more win percentages with Black mana that with Red mana), as said, You maybe will not get Black source on next turn... that's why this sounds rare to me...

Also, you can fetch for U.Sea and next fetch for Volcanic....,the difference is just 1 land... 3-1 Split vs 2-2 Split, why do you prefer to fetch 1st for Volcanic apart from pretending to be RUG or Patriot?

Talking also with Lem seems to be that the unique reason to play 2nd Volcanic is pretending to be RUG or Patriot apart to not beeing destroyed your unique V.Island, I'm more a Chess player than a Poker player...

Is this then the conclusion?

Bahamut, F.Fortune what do you think about this?

[Lemnear]

No, dood. If you have Volcanic + fetch in your turn 2 you can cast your cantrip off the Volcanic, fetch dead cards away and still cast discard. The other was round you'll lose the shuffle.

[Megadeus]

Aha, how was that not a shot at me? Clearly, you haven't seen my collection - I don't base anything off of card availability. It's alright kid, live off your top 8 high, but ANT isn't in any better of a position than TES. But in the mean time, enjoy that full turn extra you need to combo against Death and Taxes.

Just was flipping through and saw this. I thought the same thing of ANT going into Nashville, then realized that that extra turn meant a lot of losses to non blue decks with hatebears. Not to say I did particularly well there, but all but one of my losses can be blamed on my own mis plays.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Aha, how was that not a shot at me? Clearly, you haven't seen my collection - I don't base anything off of card availability. It's alright kid, live off your top 8 high, but ANT isn't in any better of a position than TES. But in the mean time, enjoy that full turn extra you need to combo against Death and Taxes.

Haha I didn't even see this. Honestly my comment had nothing to do with you... There is a huge sub-culture of people who "pimp out" TES at the expense of their other Magic resources, and I think it's important to address. My friend and I were talking for hours about the viability of ANT vs TES, and I have played both decks competitively. You really come across as a jerk sometimes.... :/ I have played on the Pro Tour and was ranked in the top 50 eternal players in the world when DCI rating existed. Please don't try to be condescending about my SCG Invitational top 8.

[Asthereal]

Haha I didn't even see this. Honestly my comment had nothing to do with you... There is a huge sub-culture of people who "pimp out" TES at the expense of their other Magic resources, and I think it's important to address. My friend and I were talking for hours about the viability of ANT vs TES, and I have played both decks competitively. You really come across as a jerk sometimes.... :/ I have played on the Pro Tour and was ranked in the top 50 eternal players in the world when DCI rating existed. Please don't try to be condescending about my SCG Invitational top 8.
Come on guys, let's stop the personal vendettas.
@Pat: I too thought your remark about the subculture of TES devotees was a bit too much. I'm not surprised Bryant took it the way he did.
@Bryant: Let's forget about the sidenotes and try to make a good meta analysis.

I think the most important decks in the meta right now are the ones below.
1's are decks we see a lot, 2's are also popular, but slightly less.
I'm probably forgetting about a few decks right now, so be sure to complete my list.

1- Team America
1- Miracles
1- Patriot
1- Death Blade
1- Jund
1- Sneak & Show
2- Canadian Thresh
2- Death & Taxes
2- ANT
2- TES
2- Reanimator
2- Imperial Painter

How do these matchups play out for TES compared to ANT? I have a feeling that ANT has a better matchup against most of the 1's compared to TES.

[Lemnear]

Come on guys, let's stop the personal vendettas.
@Pat: I too thought your remark about the subculture of TES devotees was a bit too much. I'm not surprised Bryant took it the way he did.
@Bryant: Let's forget about the sidenotes and try to make a good meta analysis.

I think the most important decks in the meta right now are the ones below.
1's are decks we see a lot, 2's are also popular, but slightly less.
I'm probably forgetting about a few decks right now, so be sure to complete my list.

1- Team America
1- Miracles
1- Patriot
1- Death Blade
1- Jund
1- Sneak & Show
2- Canadian Thresh
2- Death & Taxes
2- ANT
2- TES
2- Reanimator
2- Imperial Painter

How do these matchups play out for TES compared to ANT? I have a feeling that ANT has a better matchup against most of the 1's compared to TES.

I guess this depends a lot on personal experience and on the specific builds you face. If you are confronted with a lot of discard and hatebears out of Jund, Deathblade (especially those without MB FoW), Team America, Reanimator, Miracles (CB+Clique), Painter (Thorn and Magus of the Moon) and D&T and see pure speed as an angle to attack, then you might have an opposite point of view. If however, you feel you are more battling against, taxing counter (SB flusterstorms) and fast damage within the same archetypes via Delver or Tarmogoyf, ANT is the superior choice as long as potential blowouts by turn 1 Magus of the Moon, RiP+Clique out of Miracles, Meddling Mage/Canonist/Thalia, Hymn aren't your weekly issues.

Mind that quite a few of the named decks are able to support both perceptions and therefore I dislike all black/white scenarios here

It's a fact that the combined hate within the current, defining metagame (Deathblade+Team America+Reanimator with Discard+Counter or Patriot with Hatebears+counter) is a problem for all storm subtypes

[Royce Walter]

It seems to have a rabid cult following of people who Japanese foil it out and whatnot, and that can't be helpful in being open-minded to changes.


There is a huge sub-culture of people who "pimp out" TES at the expense of their other Magic resources, and I think it's important to address.

Hyperbole (and accuracy) aside, so what? The storm variants have enough similar cards that it's pretty easy to switch between the two of them, even for the cult members such as myself who decided to forgo our rabies treatment in favor of buying foil Rite of Flames.

[Asthereal]

I guess this depends a lot on personal experience and on the specific builds you face. If you are confronted with a lot of discard and hatebears out of Jund, Deathblade (especially those without MB FoW), Team America, Reanimator, Miracles (CB+Clique), Painter (Thorn and Magus of the Moon) and D&T and see pure speed as an angle to attack, then you might have an opposite point of view. If however, you feel you are more battling against, taxing counter (SB flusterstorms) and fast damage within the same archetypes via Delver or Tarmogoyf, ANT is the superior choice as long as potential blowouts by turn 1 Magus of the Moon, RiP+Clique out of Miracles, Meddling Mage/Canonist/Thalia, Hymn aren't your weekly issues.

Mind that quite a few of the named decks are able to support both perceptions and therefore I dislike all black/white scenarios here

It's a fact that the combined hate within the current, defining metagame (Deathblade+Team America+Reanimator with Discard+Counter or Patriot with Hatebears+counter) is a problem for all storm subtypes
The thing with using speed to battle certain types of hate is that you always have to make sure you don't lose to Force of Will or whatever counterspell they maye have ready when you go off. If you go off the turn before they can cast Meddling Mage, Counterbalance or Hymn, you still have to be sure to check whether you're not losing to the usual stuff.

So against Jund I would say speed is definitely an option, but against the blue stuff it seems a big risk to use speed as your main weapon. Let's not forget there are numerous games when you don't draw the nuts, and have to cantrip a few times anyway, opening you up to the mentioned hate regardless. I don't feel that against Patriot, Team A. and Miracles going all in on turn 1-2 is a very promising strategy. And ANT does have a better game when we take our time, while also being better at recovering from Hymn.

The differences might be marginal, but when I look at my own playing style, and the meta we have right now, ANT does seem to have a slight edge.