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

[laserstone]

Do any of you folks have a list for sol-land TES?

[Asthereal]

I actually thought of Jund and Pox when you mentioned those 2 cards. Not sure they would make the 75 for me, but that scenario you mention does come up from time to time.
We used to run stuff like Diminishing Returns for situations like that, but it got the axe.

Against Pox I usually end up either managing a late Past in Flames and just easily winning (their clock is quite slow), or I don't find anything and they kill me on turn 15 or so. If Jund manages to get control, it can be a serious nuisance though. Pretty serious clock, card advantage engines and some extra disruption. If they draw well and we have a slow hand, things can get pretty tricky. Perhaps we should just mull the really slow hands, but I never stop thinking about other options. Especially fun ones.

[death]

@TheYoungster, glad to see a MUD player here. I have piloted MUD and Stax, UB Tezz was my pet deck. You overlooked the fact that MUD can cast a first turn CotV@0/1 and 3sphere or Crucible by turn 2 using Mox Opal + artifact land + Sol land and essentially Wastelock you. There are many variations of the deck, this may not happen often but MUD is not a cake walk if the opponent knows what he is doing. Trygon was good in vintage. Why? You have acceleration in the form of Black Lotus, 5 Moxen, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt and Mana Drain. Trygon was effective in legacy years back, in a BANT shell with Noble Hierarch as perma-mana accel and Force of Will protection. If you want to push Trygon in the early game with TES you will have to rely on Lotus Petals. In the end, you have Abrupt Decay on legs (wings?) that is 2 turns slower and a slow clock that is answerable by any means of spot or mass removal.

[Lemnear]

Do any of you folks have a list for sol-land TES?

You can simply replace the Moxen and the Cabal Rituals with Crystal Veins, shave the 3rd Duress for the 4th MB Infernal and you have my testing MB. Of course the SB looks different.

[TheYoungster]

@TheYoungster, glad to see a MUD player here. I have piloted MUD and Stax, UB Tezz was my pet deck. You overlooked the fact that MUD can cast a first turn CotV@0/1 and 3sphere or Crucible by turn 2 using Mox Opal + artifact land + Sol land and essentially Wastelock you. There are many variations of the deck, this may not happen often but MUD is not a cake walk if the opponent knows what he is doing. Trygon was good in vintage. Why? You have acceleration in the form of Black Lotus, 5 Moxen, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt and Mana Drain. Trygon was effective in legacy years back, in a BANT shell with Noble Hierarch as perma-mana accel and Force of Will protection. If you want to push Trygon in the early game with TES you will have to rely on Lotus Petals. In the end, you have Abrupt Decay on legs (wings?) that is 2 turns slower and a slow clock that is answerable by any means of spot or mass removal.

I'm not saying trygon is going to be great, but it does seem worth testing to me. And yes, I did overlook MUDs best starts I didn't have much time to post this morning so I couldn't elaborate more on that. What I do think about trygon is that unless there is a lot of MUD in your meta or something then I don' think preparing that drastically is necessarily the best idea since it is a very small portion of the meta, so unless trygon can be pretty useful in other match ups then it probably doesn't warrant inclusion because of the fact that MUD is a fringe deck.

Even if the opponent doesn't know what he is doing if he is playing MUD he could just derp into a win because of the fact they are playing trinisphere and chalice against a storm deck. MUD is very high variance so I think that it really just comes down to winning the die roll, having a quick kill, and hoping to get a little lucky with their mulligans, if you are not dedicating much hate. Anyway I' going to try to stop talking about MUD unless absolutely necessary considering this is the TES thread.

[d0nkey]

I'm not saying trygon is going to be great, but it does seem worth testing to me. And yes, I did overlook MUDs best starts I didn't have much time to post this morning so I couldn't elaborate more on that. What I do think about trygon is that unless there is a lot of MUD in your meta or something then I don' think preparing that drastically is necessarily the best idea since it is a very small portion of the meta, so unless trygon can be pretty useful in other match ups then it probably doesn't warrant inclusion because of the fact that MUD is a fringe deck.

Even if the opponent doesn't know what he is doing if he is playing MUD he could just derp into a win because of the fact they are playing trinisphere and chalice against a storm deck. MUD is very high variance so I think that it really just comes down to winning the die roll, having a quick kill, and hoping to get a little lucky with their mulligans, if you are not dedicating much hate. Anyway I' going to try to stop talking about MUD unless absolutely necessary considering this is the TES thread.

Trygon destroys the D&T matchup which is a difficult matchup for us. It could also be randomly good against miracles if it sticks.

I don't know if it is good enough to make the cut, but it is worth looking into with real data.

[Lemnear]

Trygon destroys the D&T matchup which is a difficult matchup for us. It could also be randomly good against miracles if it sticks.

I don't know if it is good enough to make the cut, but it is worth looking into with real data.

There a quite some fringe matchups containing Chalice or Resistors like Painter or Lands which you have to consider for your boarding of Decay (which doesn't create cardadvantage) and boarding Xantids against Miracles seems to be fine as well, so I don't see a general Problem (except Pyroblast) of maybe trying to split Decays/Trygons where we used to reserve spots for CoV/Decay/Needle to battle all kinds of problematic permanents and increase the density of Artifact/enchantment removal we Desire especially for SDT/CB. Having an Auto-pilot for longer games against MUD or D&T which can get out of hands if you can't combo T1/2 (less Chance for that w/o MB EtW anyways) is nice. Like with Needle I'm looking for flexible SB slots and with Reanimator/S&T not being THAT popular, I'm willing to look at other card that are helpful against Miracles, but also do some Splash damage against the metagame and want to try out the Trygon rather than stuff like Krosan Grip which was/is a topic in the ANT thread, but share the downside of Decay aka not creating advantage and costing the same amount of mana.

For me the more interresting point than the sheer gambling against Pyroblasts is how the cmc affect AN and how this relates to the potential of lowering the required stormcount for a natural chain. In short: IF a Trygon can stick and help to make stormcounts of 6-7 deadly, we don't rely on a engine to kill.

[Lemnear]

Will visit Family in Bavaria next week and plan to attend the Munich Legacy the upcoming Saturday.

Afaik I have to expect several Miracles players, so this gonna be a Hardcore test

[Bryant Cook]

On a different note: I'm cutting Massacre from my sideboard. Death & Taxes has been driven away due to Treasure Cruise and I'd like something a little more versatile with a similar role, I'm opting for a pair of Pyroclasm as you can bring them in against UWr to kill Delvers/Meddling Mages as well as Elves.

New list is on opening post.

[iGrok]

I'd be a little careful about that. Maverick is still a thing. But pyroclasm is usually just as effective anyways.

[wonderPreaux]

On a different note: I'm cutting Massacre from my sideboard. Death & Taxes has been driven away due to Treasure Cruise and I'd like something a little more versatile with a similar role, I'm opting for a pair of Pyroclasm as you can bring them in against UWr to kill Delvers/Meddling Mages as well as Elves.

New list is on opening post.

Re: New list
How strongly do you feel about having 4 Duress over 4 Therapy, I've had awkward games lately where Duress has showed 2 FoW or other such issues. I think, even without MD goblins, it can be really important to have Cabal Therapy as a way to deal with multiples of a counter, or cards like SCM/Meddling Mage, especially with no Thoughtseize SB.

With Pyroclasm in board, have you considered increasing the number of Gemstone Mines in the deck? The only way to cast both Decay and Pyroclasm off 2 lands is with a black source and a Gemstone Mine. Given that DnT and Burn are the matchups where you'd often bring both, the former constricting your mana and the latter damaging you for playing nonbasics, it could be important to have that flexibility.

Also, what are your thoughts on Pyroblast? Given that Meddling Mage is increasingly popular, and Ascendancy/Counterbalance/SnT are all worth trying to counter, I feel like it's worth trying again.

[sawatarix]

trygon predator reminds me of good old vintage but it could also do a decent job in legacy.
3 mana seems a little bit expensive for a deck like Tes with only 12-13 lands even if we have stuff like chrome mox or rituals to power out trygon predator on turn 2.
Overall it has been a solid utility creature in the past so i would love to see it in the current legacyformat again. #oldschoolwins

Tell me how your testing goes.

cutting massacre in a field full of jeskai delver doesn't appeal to me and to be honest i don't think we need that extra slot in the sideboard.massace + chain of vapours should be enough to deal with problematic permanents.

[Lemnear]

trygon predator reminds me of good old vintage but it could also do a decent job in legacy.
3 mana seems a little bit expensive for a deck like Tes with only 12-13 lands even if we have stuff like chrome mox or rituals to power out trygon predator on turn 2.
Overall it has been a solid utility creature in the past so i would love to see it in the current legacyformat again. #oldschoolwins

Tell me how your testing goes.

cutting massacre in a field full of jeskai delver doesn't appeal to me and to be honest i don't think we need that extra slot in the sideboard.massace + chain of vapours should be enough to deal with problematic permanents.

That's why I considered it in the Sol Land build rather than the one with Moxen and CR. Mana for Decay or Trygon is equally awkward.

IF Predator does it's job also in a real field test, I'm not even sure if we NEED stuff like CoV anymore, as Trygon is a (pricey) out for even several pieces of hate where Decay and CoV can only trade even at best (Revoker+Canonist or Chalice + 3Sphere ... you get the idea). Between Decay and Trygon, I dunno if we need more against permanents. 2/2, 3/2 split? Dunno

I've had Pyroclasm in the board during the BoM 8 Mainevent instead of the Grapeshot. Would have prefered Massacre even back then with all the UW(x) Stoneblades. 1-vs.3-mana makes quite some difference against D&T even if I sure see the point of boarding the Clams compared to Massacre sitting in the board.

Flight to Munich is scheduled at Friday afternoon, so I hope I'm not too drained for the Saturday tournament there, before I head to Ingolstadt visiting my Parents.

@Max
I doubt that you want to bring in Clams + Decay against D&T. W/o Gemstone you need 3 IMS to cast both if drawn

[sawatarix]

the only creatures we care about are white so why not playing the cheapest and most efficient removal (massacre). I like it alot in a burning wish based storm deck because in ANT a massacre or two weakens ad nauseam whereas Tes has not problem at all with that.

Have a great time in bavaria my friend and greetings to Julian and Manipulato, they should be in Munich at the tournament i guess.

PS:you have a private message in your box ;)

[Plague Sliver]

Played the list w/ 2x Cabal Ritual, 2x Chrome Mox, 1x Bayou, 0x Empty maindeck in a 44-man tourney this weekend for a top 16 finish. Sideboard was 2x Xantid Swarm, 2x Needle, 3x Abrupt Decay, everything else the usual.

R1: Elves -- draw. We shuffled way too much with mulligans between both of us, could have killed him in Game 3 with one more turn. Game 2 he gets a quick hardcast Craterhoof to take me to 1 life, I couldn't go for Past in Flames or Natural Spellchain victory.

R2: Tezzeret Stax -- win 2-1. Not too much going on, he doesn't seem too experienced with storm.

R3: Tezzeret Stax -- lose 1-2. I take game 1 by stripping him of all his counter then going for T1 14 goblins. It's the only time I go for goblins the whole tourney and it gets there. Game 2 he gets a god hand, T1 chalice for 0 and 1. Even then I had some outs by casting stuff into chalice to fuel graveyard for eventual cabal ritual shenanigans. Unfortunately for me, he sets up Lodestone golem and trinisphere the turn I can go off and I'm royally screwed. Game 3 he starts with Leyline of the Void. I'm not too worried about it, except that I get a bad Ad Nauseam from 18 and have to abrupt decay his Baleful Strix while I'm at 1 life and pass the turn. I make a punt by not using an extra internal tutor to shuffle my library when I needed to find an LED to storm for 9 (he's at 18) and I find 2 Gixaxian Probes on top. I still almost win because I discard down to 7 for 2 turns and play draw-go while he has no pressure. But I realize my mistake when I'm unable to storm 9, only 8, and I lose. Damn you Leyline!

R4: Elves -- win 2-0. Not much to say, the deck does its thing.

R5: Sneak Show -- win 2-1. I lose game 1 when he has a quick S&T. I take game 1 with Ad Nauseam. Game 3 I get the Swarm down, he can't deal with it but I have no pressure. A turn later, my 2 Probes grant me a lucky Ad Nauseam topdeck the turn before he kills me and I kill him instead.

R6: Miracles -- win 2-0. Game 1 he doesn't set up counterbalance and I kill him. Game 2 I can't find a tutor to save my life, but I keep a hand with Needle AND swarm and it proves to be very good. I start to draw all 3 of my Abrupt Decays while he can't find counterbalance and needle sticks on his top. About 10 turns later (no exaggeration), he Cliques me on my draw step and misplays - sees my hand of Duress, 3 Decays, LED (I didn't play it thinking he might have kept in Council's Judgment), rite of flame and elects to take a Decay! I then draw a replacement card - which is infernal tutor. I duress him, see 2 Counterbalance, Force and a Jace. Take Force and kill him. I tell him afterwards he should have taken the LED, Duress or nothing at all. those would have been better options. But he makes top 16 and goes on to finish 2nd, so what do I know? :)

Top 16 playoff -- we play single elimination rounds w/ full information about opponent's decklist.

R1: Omnitell -- lose 0-2. A combination of bad draws and misplay. Game 1 he keeps a no lander with S&T, 2x Probe, Dig Through Time and some other stuff. I turn 1 Duress him on the play and take Show & Tell. But I can't find a tutor despite having 3 brainstorm/ponder effects with fetches. He eventually gets 2 force of wills, my single cabal therapy can't deal with both as he counters one, and so he holds me off for the win. A little frustrating but close. Game 2 I mull to 5 because I don't have pressure OR discard in my opening 7 or 6 cards. I open with Duress to take show & tell. I get a second discard effect while I know his hand is Omniscence, Cunning Wish, DTT, Brainstorm, lands while he taps out for Ponder. I make the mistake of taking his brainstorm, thinking I don't want him to find the second show & tell. What I didn't see was that he subsequently Cunning Wishes for Noxious Revival and takes back the Show & Tell to win! I was too focused on stopping Show & Tell that I didn't see that the right line was to take Omni or the Cunning Wish to force him to keep digging. It probably didn't matter as I was too far behind, but still bad plays.

So overall I was very happy to play storm, despite a somewhat disappointing finish. The 0x Empty maindeck felt right because I never felt compelled to go for Goblins, and the only annoying thing was Abrupt Decays being 2 CC while flipping over cards (a necessary evil, though). I felt fine vs. Force of Will decks, and would be nice to win more than 1/6 die rolls, but hey that's life. I had been playing other decks this year, so it's good to go back to storm in a big event in a meta that I feel is especially soft to it.

And to all my opponents who said I should have played ANT instead of TES, I will say to them, "No thanks" :laugh: We're talking about a meta right now that has no wastelands, contains plenty of fast combo (Elves can kill on turn 3), and has little hard counters and plenty of Pyroblasts. I prefer to win or lose quickly, thank you very much.

[Bryant Cook]

This will be short because I'm posting from my phone. The advantages of Pyroclasm over Massacre is that you can side them both in against UWr and Elves, keeping one in the side for the D&T matchup. Wish is shut off against UWR, meaning that Massacre isn't actually an option and it's painful off Ad Nauseam to side in. If they don't have Meddling Mage and you're using Massacre you're likely not using your wishes properly.

Not to mention, D&T is nowhere to be found. I'd rather not run narrow sideboard options when I could have more versatile ones.

I prefer 4 duress over 4 therapy because in our most difficult match ups we can beat slower decks with Force but we have issues not knowing with Therapy. On initial turns I see more value stopping an early counterbalance/show and tell/exhume rather than the small percentage of hitting two forces with a forth copy of a card.

[Lemnear]

I prefer 4 duress over 4 therapy because in our most difficult match ups we can beat slower decks with Force but we have issues not knowing with Therapy. On initial turns I see more value stopping an early counterbalance/show and tell/exhume rather than the small percentage of hitting two forces with a forth copy of a card.

The "2 FoW but no Pitch" example is totally misleading. What matter in terms of Therapy vs. Duress is that Therapy can hit Delver/SFM/Thalia/Griselbrand (in case of double-enabler)/Eidolon/Meddling Mage/Canonist/etc. on sight and helps to Ride Goblins to victory.

[Asthereal]

The "2 FoW but no Pitch" example is totally misleading. What matter in terms of Therapy vs. Duress is that Therapy can hit Delver/SFM/Thalia/Griselbrand (in case of double-enabler)/Eidolon/Meddling Mage/Canonist/etc. on sight and helps to Ride Goblins to victory.
True on all accounts, but I'm with Bryant here.

We ride the Goblins rarely with the new Cabal Ritual list, and the thing is: Therapy is only good against all the cards you mention if we actually have a Probe to check what they have. Otherwise Therapy will only take what we fear most, and only if they have it. Are you willing to cantrip into a Probe, running the risk that this takes time, time that they'll use to cast that Canonist/Meddling Mage/Delver (bad example anyway)?

Therapy, as I see it, only has a clear edge against Burn with main deck Eidolon, and against Maverick/Death&Taxes. Bryant mentioned not encountering the latter two very often, and neither do I, so I feel the 4x Duress, 3x Therapy in a list with no Empty the Warrens main makes perfect sense right now.

[Lemnear]

True on all accounts, but I'm with Bryant here.

We ride the Goblins rarely with the new Cabal Ritual list, and the thing is: Therapy is only good against all the cards you mention if we actually have a Probe to check what they have. Otherwise Therapy will only take what we fear most, and only if they have it. Are you willing to cantrip into a Probe, running the risk that this takes time, time that they'll use to cast that Canonist/Meddling Mage/Delver (bad example anyway)?

Therapy, as I see it, only has a clear edge against Burn with main deck Eidolon, and against Maverick/Death&Taxes. Bryant mentioned not encountering the latter two very often, and neither do I, so I feel the 4x Duress, 3x Therapy in a list with no Empty the Warrens main makes perfect sense right now.

The benefit of a T1/2 Discard spell for the reason of disruption rather than your protection only applies to the combo mirror or Lock-decks and in all other instances you want to cast your discard close to your combo turn anyways to protect it, which means you have plenty of options and time to peek into your opponents hand in the meanwhile (see: SB discard) to hit the right card without the call-what-you-fear concept against control.

We have 6-mana playlines for EtW via Wish and via IT for a total of 8 mana and just because we reduced the quantity of T1 Goblin bursts does not mean we should weaken the trait (in general and outside of T1 like against control) by removing the Mindtwist-sideeffect of EtW to ride the Goblins. This is pretty much an unneccessary step leaving you with 4 Duress to replace in hatebear matchups for games 2/3, not to speak about game 1s being a blank.

[Asthereal]

I just mentioned the hatebear matchups don't come up often anymore.
But other than that I have presented my case.

Duress is more reliable.
Therapy has the higher potential power.

In matches where you need that raw power, and in matches where you want to go for Empty, Therapy is the better card. In all other matchups the reliability of Duress will help in the long run. In the current meta, and in the list with no main board Empty, I choose the 4th Duress over the 4th Therapy. But by all means feel free to choose the other way around. :smile:

[Lemnear]

I just mentioned the hatebear matchups don't come up often anymore.
But other than that I have presented my case.

Duress is more reliable.
Therapy has the higher potential power.

In matches where you need that raw power, and in matches where you want to go for Empty, Therapy is the better card. In all other matchups the reliability of Duress will help in the long run. In the current meta, and in the list with no main board Empty, I choose the 4th Duress over the 4th Therapy. But by all means feel free to choose the other way around. :smile:

I'm just interrested as in the ANT thread there is the tendency to run the split in favor of Therapies lately despite them not having the quick EtW (or EtW at all) as a plan.

I'm still waiting for the metagame reaction on Mavericks latest success and until then I'm fine with Therapy as a tool to delay a clock in case of need :)

[Bryant Cook]

The "2 FoW but no Pitch" example is totally misleading. What matter in terms of Therapy vs. Duress is that Therapy can hit Delver/SFM/Thalia/Griselbrand (in case of double-enabler)/Eidolon/Meddling Mage/Canonist/etc. on sight and helps to Ride Goblins to victory.

I fail to see what I said as misleading. Show me evidence that on a fourth copy of a card being more effective against doubles of another card being better than a consistent card that always hits on initial turns in our worst match-ups.

We rarely use Empty nowadays, so the riding the goblins plan is ridiculous.

[vercadium]

I think there's too much emphasis being given to secondary benefits of Cabal Therapy in this discussion. The synergy with Empty the Warrens and the ability to hit multiples is just a bonus and not the main argument against Duress. In my opinion, the main question we should be asking is if it's more important to be able to hit creatures (Vendilion Clique, Meddling Mage, Thalia etc) than to be more consistent in scenarios were we:

+ Don't know what they have due to Gitaxian Probe or other information gathered.
+ Fail to guess the card they have.
+ The failure results in them keeping a relevant card that we also don't want them to have (since we obviously named something we feared in this case). If the revealed card isn't relevant (for example, we confirm they don't have the named Force of Will, but they have a Daze which we can combo through regardless) then missing had no negative impact.

Frankly, that's quite a few hurdles that Cabal Therapy has to trip over before Duress is better.

Am I arguing for Cabal Therapy? No. I'm saying that we need to focus on the most relevant factors when deciding between these cards.

Honestly, while that is a lot of criteria Cabal Therapy has to fail, I think it does occur fairly often when playing against decks like Miracles - their hands often contain some sort of duo/trio of cards that we often can't afford to miss on (e.g. Counterspell + Counterbalance. Flusterstorm + Spell Pierce). Thus, I'm erring towards Duress at the moment.

[Bryant Cook]

I've been thinking, it may be possible to do 1 Pyroclasm/1 Massacre but I'm still on the fence. You could side in Massacre versus UWr Stoneblade along with Pyroclasm and it would be no different from having an Empty in our deck. The downside to this is now we can't side in Massacre versus Elves.

[GoblinZ]

R2: Tezzeret Stax -- win 2-1. Not too much going on, he doesn't seem too experienced with storm.

R3: Tezzeret Stax -- lose 1-2. I take game 1 by stripping him of all his counter then going for T1 14 goblins. It's the only time I go for goblins the whole tourney and it gets there. Game 2 he gets a god hand, T1 chalice for 0 and 1. Even then I had some outs by casting stuff into chalice to fuel graveyard for eventual cabal ritual shenanigans. Unfortunately for me, he sets up Lodestone golem and trinisphere the turn I can go off and I'm royally screwed. Game 3 he starts with Leyline of the Void. I'm not too worried about it, except that I get a bad Ad Nauseam from 18 and have to abrupt decay his Baleful Strix while I'm at 1 life and pass the turn. I make a punt by not using an extra internal tutor to shuffle my library when I needed to find an LED to storm for 9 (he's at 18) and I find 2 Gixaxian Probes on top. I still almost win because I discard down to 7 for 2 turns and play draw-go while he has no pressure. But I realize my mistake when I'm unable to storm 9, only 8, and I lose. Damn you Leyline!



R5: Sneak Show -- win 2-1. I lose game 1 when he has a quick S&T. I take game 1 with Ad Nauseam. Game 3 I get the Swarm down, he can't deal with it but I have no pressure. A turn later, my 2 Probes grant me a lucky Ad Nauseam topdeck the turn before he kills me and I kill him instead.

R6: Miracles -- win 2-0. Game 1 he doesn't set up counterbalance and I kill him. Game 2 I can't find a tutor to save my life, but I keep a hand with Needle AND swarm and it proves to be very good. I start to draw all 3 of my Abrupt Decays while he can't find counterbalance and needle sticks on his top. About 10 turns later (no exaggeration), he Cliques me on my draw step and misplays - sees my hand of Duress, 3 Decays, LED (I didn't play it thinking he might have kept in Council's Judgment), rite of flame and elects to take a Decay! I then draw a replacement card - which is infernal tutor. I duress him, see 2 Counterbalance, Force and a Jace. Take Force and kill him. I tell him afterwards he should have taken the LED, Duress or nothing at all. those would have been better options. But he makes top 16 and goes on to finish 2nd, so what do I know? :)

Top 16 playoff -- we play single elimination rounds w/ full information about opponent's decklist.

R1: Omnitell -- lose 0-2. A combination of bad draws and misplay. Game 1 he keeps a no lander with S&T, 2x Probe, Dig Through Time and some other stuff. I turn 1 Duress him on the play and take Show & Tell. But I can't find a tutor despite having 3 brainstorm/ponder effects with fetches. He eventually gets 2 force of wills, my single cabal therapy can't deal with both as he counters one, and so he holds me off for the win. A little frustrating but close. Game 2 I mull to 5 because I don't have pressure OR discard in my opening 7 or 6 cards. I open with Duress to take show & tell. I get a second discard effect while I know his hand is Omniscence, Cunning Wish, DTT, Brainstorm, lands while he taps out for Ponder. I make the mistake of taking his brainstorm, thinking I don't want him to find the second show & tell. What I didn't see was that he subsequently Cunning Wishes for Noxious Revival and takes back the Show & Tell to win! I was too focused on stopping Show & Tell that I didn't see that the right line was to take Omni or the Cunning Wish to force him to keep digging. It probably didn't matter as I was too far behind, but still bad plays.
.


got paired with two tezz in a row, really crazy...there are always some random players here choosing this kind of decks,tezz,mud...

beating miracle is good, but there are few skilled miracle players...we all know when to cast clique correctly against storm....

[itrytostorm]

I've been thinking, it may be possible to do 1 Pyroclasm/1 Massacre but I'm still on the fence. You could side in Massacre versus UWr Stoneblade along with Pyroclasm and it would be no different from having an Empty in our deck. The downside to this is now we can't side in Massacre versus Elves.

I am currently using the 1/1 split and really like it. Couldn't say if 2 Pyroclasm is better since I've done no testing with it. I am surprised that I don't miss Pithing Needle that much.

[Bryant Cook]

I am currently using the 1/1 split and really like it. Couldn't say if 2 Pyroclasm is better since I've done no testing with it. I am surprised that I don't miss Pithing Needle that much.

I was talking to Lemnear on Facebook and we concluded that Void Snare is basically just a safety net and have replaced that. I've made it a second Pyroclasm, still with a Massacre in there.

[itrytostorm]

I was talking to Lemnear on Facebook and we concluded that Void Snare is basically just a safety net and have replaced that. I've made it a second Pyroclasm, still with a Massacre in there.

Void Snare feels like the 16th SB card. I think I've wished for it once. 3 wipes seems aggressive, but in this meta with Young P and Elves it might just be right.

[wonderPreaux]

Is there a significant reason to be running Carpet of Flowers? I remember before reading that it hadn't tested particularly well. The reason I ask is that, if you just want more mana sources for control games, why not just sb lands? lands can't get pierced/dazed/torn/etc and if you're going long you have the time to hit land drops. the edge we gain doing that is that we can sb bayou+trop or double bayou over carpets and then open up a slot for something, even if it's just a game-1-optimal land like Underground Sea or Gemstone Mine.

[Bryant Cook]

Is there a significant reason to be running Carpet of Flowers? I remember before reading that it hadn't tested particularly well. The reason I ask is that, if you just want more mana sources for control games, why not just sb lands? lands can't get pierced/dazed/torn/etc and if you're going long you have the time to hit land drops. the edge we gain doing that is that we can sb bayou+trop or double bayou over carpets and then open up a slot for something, even if it's just a game-1-optimal land like Underground Sea or Gemstone Mine.

I haven't said recently that it didn't test well. I cut it when we added Cabal Ritual back in, but with Needle being lack luster with Show and Tell players now opting for Omni over the Sneak version Needle has lost some of it's luster which is why I swapped back. They could be Pyroblasts, but that's likely overkill on the Miracles/Show & Tell hate. I prefer Carpet because it's much higher impact than additional lands and doesn't create issues with becoming hellbent.

[Lemnear]

I haven't said recently that it didn't test well. I cut it when we added Cabal Ritual back in, but with Needle being lack luster with Show and Tell players now opting for Omni over the Sneak version Needle has lost some of it's luster which is why I swapped back. They could be Pyroblasts, but that's likely overkill on the Miracles/Show & Tell hate. I prefer Carpet because it's much higher impact than additional lands and doesn't create issues with becoming hellbent.

Thinking about it, I get the wacky feeling that with todays Penetration of blue decks, we can even mainboard the Carpets instead of the Cabal Rituals and durdle with the mainphases :)

On the other hand, I can barely remember a situation in which it was better than a Dark Rirtual. Left rarely any lasting impression in the Delver Matchups for me months back, so I'm not fond of them returning to my SB

[wonderPreaux]

On the other hand, I can barely remember a situation in which it was better than a Dark Rirtual. Left rarely any lasting impression in the Delver Matchups for me months back, so I'm not fond of them returning to my SB

This is one of those things that keeps coming up for me, it's not as though people don't know to hold fetches as long as possible or strategically use Daze in order to restrict the effectiveness of cards like Carpet or Massacre. I feel like additional initial mana sources, in general, just aren't going to be "high impact". When I was starting out and we just dropped white, I liked just having the Trop in the board for Decay/Swarm as a backup mana source for tempo. You could take it slower and play lands to get past Daze, and the card justified itself by enabling your splash, so it felt like an all-around solid slot. Mana, on it's own for mana's sake, just feels like an unexciting use of a slot. While Carpet does have decent upside potential, it irks me that the only reason I'd get decent amounts of mana, such that it's better than the relative consistency of a land, is that either the opponent has poor mechanics or they found a good reason to expose lands to tap, often one that makes my Carpet much less important (Jace, Meddling Mage, Counterbalance etc.) I played around with sb carpets/lands in ANT and TES, and it was pretty meh all along, just because blue decks bring in more counters, the game goes longer and you have time to just find your lands and do whatever. Moreover, I don't even think the hellbent issue is as big a deal, since a lot of t1/2 hands involve either LED or goblins and our only path to goblins these days doesn't require hellbent. Lands also reduce the number of hands you have to mull due to having no lands, which is also worth considering, in my opinion.

When I stop being sick and so I can stream w/o coughing and running off for tea all through an event, I think I'll try a board like this:
1 Tendrils
1 EtW
1 PiF
1 Tutor
1 Bayou
3 Decay
3 Swarm
2 Pyroclasm
2 Chain of Vapor/Massacre + Therapy/Massacre+Pyroclasm/Pyroclasm + Therapy

The Bayou in the main would likely be replaced by Gemstone Mine, as 7 fetches for 4 Targets seems awkward, though maybe Underground Sea is better, idk.

[Lemnear]

This is one of those things that keeps coming up for me, it's not as though people don't know to hold fetches as long as possible or strategically use Daze in order to restrict the effectiveness of cards like Carpet or Massacre. I feel like additional initial mana sources, in general, just aren't going to be "high impact". When I was starting out and we just dropped white, I liked just having the Trop in the board for Decay/Swarm as a backup mana source for tempo. You could take it slower and play lands to get past Daze, and the card justified itself by enabling your splash, so it felt like an all-around solid slot. Mana, on it's own for mana's sake, just feels like an unexciting use of a slot. While Carpet does have decent upside potential, it irks me that the only reason I'd get decent amounts of mana, such that it's better than the relative consistency of a land, is that either the opponent has poor mechanics or they found a good reason to expose lands to tap, often one that makes my Carpet much less important (Jace, Meddling Mage, Counterbalance etc.) I played around with sb carpets/lands in ANT and TES, and it was pretty meh all along, just because blue decks bring in more counters, the game goes longer and you have time to just find your lands and do whatever. Moreover, I don't even think the hellbent issue is as big a deal, since a lot of t1/2 hands involve either LED or goblins and our only path to goblins these days doesn't require hellbent. Lands also reduce the number of hands you have to mull due to having no lands, which is also worth considering, in my opinion.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-evKaOynXBlw/Uygl9OqNVuI/AAAAAAAAF1k/282qIIzwdc0/s1600/giphy+(1).gif

P.S. I'm pondering about the option to include more copies of ToA in the SB for mini-Tendrils against Burn/UR Delver/Miracles/etc. for a Grinding Station like post-board plan. Do you guys think this might be worth exploring?

[Bryant Cook]

This is one of those things that keeps coming up for me, it's not as though people don't know to hold fetches as long as possible or strategically use Daze in order to restrict the effectiveness of cards like Carpet or Massacre. I feel like additional initial mana sources, in general, just aren't going to be "high impact". When I was starting out and we just dropped white, I liked just having the Trop in the board for Decay/Swarm as a backup mana source for tempo. You could take it slower and play lands to get past Daze, and the card justified itself by enabling your splash, so it felt like an all-around solid slot. Mana, on it's own for mana's sake, just feels like an unexciting use of a slot. While Carpet does have decent upside potential, it irks me that the only reason I'd get decent amounts of mana, such that it's better than the relative consistency of a land, is that either the opponent has poor mechanics or they found a good reason to expose lands to tap, often one that makes my Carpet much less important (Jace, Meddling Mage, Counterbalance etc.) I played around with sb carpets/lands in ANT and TES, and it was pretty meh all along, just because blue decks bring in more counters, the game goes longer and you have time to just find your lands and do whatever. Moreover, I don't even think the hellbent issue is as big a deal, since a lot of t1/2 hands involve either LED or goblins and our only path to goblins these days doesn't require hellbent. Lands also reduce the number of hands you have to mull due to having no lands, which is also worth considering, in my opinion.

You're also talking of days when we played twelve lands in the main. We're up to thirteen already, fourteen is just too many in my opinion (I sometimes even flood out with thirteen). I have very little interest in sideboarding a fourteenth land. If I did, it would be something unique that had functionality like a basic Island/Swamp or Tropical for an additional searchable green source.

Carpet doesn't need to be a Dark Ritual every single turn and I feel that's where players lose focus, I'm fine with it being a colored Sol Ring every turn. At worst, it will function as a way to keep them from being active (casting cantrips to find additional threats/counter spells) or will effectively be a land without the downside of ruining Hellbent which is a real thing. I've beaten ANT players on more than one occasion because they drew a land for turn and then were forced to pass the turn - it's very much a real thing. Brainstorm and Lion's Eye Diamond are not always there to fix the situation.

[Lemnear]

Against many Delver is was simply a Rainbow manastone which required me to fetch the Tropical in the face of Daze. If the game dragged out because of the Delver pilots defense, the Carpet lost a lot of relevance not being a land, also because access to Brainstorm and LED increases with every turn played. It's not that dropping lands is a bad thing if you can use them for a Tutor chain. Between this memories of 2013 and the fact that UR Delver is fine with a Basic Island and a Basic Mountain in play, I don't see Carpet shine unless you face Various Blade variants which will need to control 2-3 Islands to deploy threats and hatebears which you can remove with Decay and pay for it with mana provided by Carpet (which would throw up the question of why not running more mana efficient removal then instead. Different topic ;P). In case of Miracles, I agree with Max' Observation that mana isn't the deciding factor if it's tacked to turns played because of Counterbalance, SDT and Clique. I can see the urge to run a second green Source in the board for matchups like D&T, MUD or against Wasteland, now that we reduced our outs for quick combos but have to deal with quite some shit on a reactive base

[Bryant Cook]

I'd like to note that I don't think Carpet is a staple in the sideboard, but I have very little interest in playing additional lands or Pithing Needle (At the moment) in my sideboard. I just believe that Carpet is likely better than the alternatives, the slot could easily be Chain of Vapor (which I feel like we rarely use) or Pyroblast (It may just be too much hate against the same few decks).

[Lemnear]

I'd like to note that I don't think Carpet is a staple in the sideboard, but I have very little interest in playing additional lands or Pithing Needle (At the moment) in my sideboard. I just believe that Carpet is likely better than the alternatives, the slot could easily be Chain of Vapor (which I feel like we rarely use) or Pyroblast (It may just be too much hate against the same few decks).

I could easily see anti-creature stuff here to delay clocks and save is some precious lifepoints while also dealing with hatebears. Could essentially achieve the same as Carpets: influence the race between opposing threats and our development

[wonderPreaux]

P.S. I'm pondering about the option to include more copies of ToA in the SB for mini-Tendrils against Burn/UR Delver/Miracles/etc. for a Grinding Station like post-board plan. Do you guys think this might be worth exploring?
I tried that once, same kinda logic. Ended up being rarely relevant and it could've been a Grapeshot all the times it would've been useful. There's also the low amount of lands we play, which makes "Grinding Station" worse, though, if you wanna board to 14 lands...


You're also talking of days when we played twelve lands in the main. We're up to thirteen already, fourteen is just too many in my opinion (I sometimes even flood out with thirteen). I have very little interest in sideboarding a fourteenth land. If I did, it would be something unique that had functionality like a basic Island/Swamp or Tropical for an additional searchable green source.
I agree with the functionality point, the Tropical Island in the sb that I mentioned was the green source we used, same kind of idea. Your sideboard land could be a basic, you could main a basic or two and have the Bayou in the side, you could have a 2nd Bayou or Trop, or... idk... a Badlands? IDK why you'd do that... there are probably a few ways to configure it depending on your meta, that's what I'm saying.


Carpet doesn't need to be a Dark Ritual every single turn and I feel that's where players lose focus, I'm fine with it being a colored Sol Ring every turn. At worst, it will function as a way to keep them from being active (casting cantrips to find additional threats/counter spells) or will effectively be a land without the downside of ruining Hellbent which is a real thing. I've beaten ANT players on more than one occasion because they drew a land for turn and then were forced to pass the turn - it's very much a real thing. Brainstorm and Lion's Eye Diamond are not always there to fix the situation.


Against many Delver is was simply a Rainbow manastone which required me to fetch the Tropical in the face of Daze. If the game dragged out because of the Delver pilots defense, the Carpet lost a lot of relevance not being a land, also because access to Brainstorm and LED increases with every turn played.
I think this is the crux of the argument for/against Carpet. If you plan on going off on, say, turn 3 and you opened 2 lands + Carpet, you're relatively safe from bricking due to drawing lands. However, if your waiting until turn 6 because you had to find discard spells, do some contortions with Wish etc it becomes debatable how good the Carpet was because you had all the time to hit land drops at a normal pace and you effectively played a land that was capable of being Pierced, Dazed, Torn etc. I think the disconnect here is how "long" is a long game in the situations we're talking about.


It's not that dropping lands is a bad thing if you can use them for a Tutor chain. Between this memories of 2013 and the fact that UR Delver is fine with a Basic Island and a Basic Mountain in play, I don't see Carpet shine unless you face Various Blade variants which will need to control 2-3 Islands to deploy threats and hatebears which you can remove with Decay and pay for it with mana provided by Carpet (which would throw up the question of why not running more mana efficient removal then instead. Different topic ;P). In case of Miracles, I agree with Max' Observation that mana isn't the deciding factor if it's tacked to turns played because of Counterbalance, SDT and Clique. I can see the urge to run a second green Source in the board for matchups like D&T, MUD or against Wasteland, now that we reduced our outs for quick combos but have to deal with quite some shit on a reactive base
I will give a point in favor of Carpet that I love the idea of siding it in matchups where I'd also be playing Decay. Though, again, when the reason it's a Sol Ring or better is that I'm now looking at a Meddling Mage or Counterbalance, idk that I'd be winning real soon.


I'd like to note that I don't think Carpet is a staple in the sideboard, but I have very little interest in playing additional lands or Pithing Needle (At the moment) in my sideboard. I just believe that Carpet is likely better than the alternatives, the slot could easily be Chain of Vapor (which I feel like we rarely use) or Pyroblast (It may just be too much hate against the same few decks).


I could easily see anti-creature stuff here to delay clocks and save is some precious lifepoints while also dealing with hatebears. Could essentially achieve the same as Carpets: influence the race between opposing threats and our development

FWIW, I like the direction of the sb lately, Pyroclasm does seems great for mowing down tokens and Mages, whereas Decay would just deal with a Mage and leave me eating 6 dmg or w/e, that's pretty nice. I also like the idea of slaughtering Elves and random Infect dudes. IDK how good it would be, but we could just have, like, 4 Clasm in board and swap the Duresses for them in Creature matchups, so the opponent can't stick anything. The only thing I wonder about is how people feel about having no sb discard spell, i keep coming up against scenarios where I'd really like it, the obvious stuff like combo mirrors, or getting a discard out ahead of something like Jace or Batterskull.

[Bryant Cook]

If you dislike Carpet it could easily be Cabal Therapy and Void Snare, which isn't awful, but I think I'd get more milage out of the other slots as I rarely find situations in which the sideboard discard spell is more effective than just fetching for Past in Flames.

[Lemnear]

If you dislike Carpet it could easily be Cabal Therapy and Void Snare, which isn't awful, but I think I'd get more milage out of the other slots as I rarely find situations in which the sideboard discard spell is more effective than just fetching for Past in Flames.

Pretty much occurs in every double-Tutor-scenario which sure happens to me more frequently because of the 8 MB Tutors and the habit of exchanging the 4th Tutor for SB hate in games 2 & 3 rather than the other way round. Like mentioned many times before, I prefer discard-on-demand rather than having discard but needing business.

A matter of taste for game 1 Layouts if you ask me.

@Max in regards to Grinding Station:
I apologize because I did not mention that the idea was for the Sol Land list. We often have two approaches for discussion in this thread and I constantly miss to Highlight the specific list I'm talking about even if I made the same mistake a few days back with Trygon.

[Lemnear]

Just because I remember it (and might have forgotten to write here): Finished my testing of Bayou vs. Tropical a while ago. Bayou is the winner

[Bryant Cook]

Played in a small local tonight. Swapped out the Carpets for a void share and a therapy last second after scoping the mets game. Went 4-1-1 on the night losing to mono-red MUD. Never once did I want those sideboard slots for any of the cards mentioned, I played the combo mirror twice in TES and reanimator. I'm going to keep looking for a better solution for those slots.

[disgustipated]

Played in a small local tonight. Swapped out the Carpets for a void share and a therapy last second after scoping the mets game. Went 4-1-1 on the night losing to mono-red MUD. Never once did I want those sideboard slots for any of the cards mentioned, I played the combo mirror twice in TES and reanimator. I'm going to keep looking for a better solution for those slots.

I had Void Snare out of my board and faced MUD today. I'm running 2 Trygon Predators, so I won both games post board quite easily. But Lodestone Golem is unanswerable without CoV or Snare, which I only realized after probing him T1 and luckily had a Therapy in hand.

wonderPreaux: I've wanted Badlands a few times when trying to cast Burning Wish and Massacre in a turn with only Gemstone Mines, Volcanics, Trop or Petals as my other mana sources. I'd have to shell out for the Scalding Tarns to play one, but it probably isn't worth it anyway as it would make 1-land cantrip openers worse (same problem as Bayou).

This is my current board:
2 Trygon Predator
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroclasm
2 Pithing Needle
1 Massacre
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor

The Predators have been good against the stompy/prison decks with lots of different hate pieces. I have yet to try it against Miracles though.
I had the Needles in for Wasteland heavy decks with other targets, as well as Miracles for Top and Jace. I haven't been bringing it in for a few days, so I may change them to Carpets or something.
I have gotten so many 2 and 3 for 1s with the 3 sweepers. Most people seem eager to flood the board against Storm. It's also nice having the Pyroclasms that don't suffer from Sylvan Safekeeper, Daze, Wasteland, etc. to remove their Plains. I've even seen people Vindicate their own Plains. I suppose Canonist is that important. >.<

Realizing that the Predator is actually somewhat viable, it made me wonder, why not just run Pernicious Deed? Yeah, it's slow, but the decks we would want it against don't have a fast clock as their too busy slamming down hate pieces. We could blow it on their end step before we're ready to go off. Just a thought. Probably not a great one. :P

[Bryant Cook]

Yeah, Deed seems great! Can we try Spiritmonger too?

Badlands is 'bad' because we want to be able to cast our initial cantrips, while Bayou serves an entirely different purpose. Bayou is there to cast Xantid turn one while providing a combo color on turn two, Badlands serves zero function other than the "Hey, I've got tons of colors!" aspect.

MUD isn't a real aspect of the metagame when it comes to building our sideboards.

The only fetches we can run with Sea, Volc, Bayou (and even Badlands) are Delta, Mire and Misty. Scalding Tarn doesn't search for Bayou.

[Lemnear]

Yeah, Deed seems great! Can we try Spiritmonger too?

Let me translate:

"Deed costs at least 4 mana against Thalia and Thorn and you have to shell out additional mana for activation you should better use for getting your combo going."

Trygon is castable BECAUSE of being a creature despite it's manacost and I have to test how the Position of Pyroblast in the current metagame prohibits it's undoubtful potential

P.S. I'm at the Airport leaving for Munich and exactly 75 cards with me plus a mini-trade binder if someone is willing to trade me a FBB german Bayou

[Lemnear]

Damnit! Forgot my Source playmat at home DD:

[Asthereal]

Damnit! Forgot my Source playmat at home DD:

http://i.imgur.com/M4Okpx9.gif

[itrytostorm]

P.S. I'm at the Airport leaving for Munich and exactly 75 cards with me plus a mini-trade binder if someone is willing to trade me a FBB german Bayou

What is that 75? Sol lands with Trygon? Or more like the front page list?

[paeng4983]

We had our year end legacy last Sunday and I brought this deck with me. I I used Cook’s list with a difference of -Massacre +Void Snare in the side board list. We had it five rounds then cut to top 8.

I won against the following:
URW delver 2-1
Reanimator 0-2
Goblins 2-0
Omnitell 2-0
Reanimator ID

Lost to an Omnitell in the quarters.

I think the two Carpets should be a Thoughtseize/ Needle/ Surgical.
Reanimator and Miracle decks will surely be on the horizon (again) if UR cruise lovers will still be rampant after BR announcement.

Happy Holidays to all TES players!
:cool:

[Lemnear]

What is that 75? Sol lands with Trygon? Or more like the front page list?

Had Sol Lands with Trygon with me, but was unable to stay in Munich till Saturday evening ... no tournament for me

@Paeng: any recurring pattern which have you headaches against these S&T archetypes?

[paeng4983]

@Paeng: any recurring pattern which have you headaches against these S&T archetypes?

The first S&T variant was too fast. EOT entomb binning IONA then reanimate it naming B. And in our second game, I didn't draw a land or a petal in time and he was able to to his entomb exhume combo, this time fetching Grisel and securing his hand with 14 refill cards when i tried to go off.

The second S&T variant, probe, cabal and duress did their job. Removing Counters and his combo pieces. If I recall it right, Force of Wills, Show and Tell, and Omniscience were the cards that I took.

The third S&T variant we just ID it.

The last S&T variant, in both games, he kept a hand full of counters. He really knows my playing style and kept me at bay most of the time. And when my hands got depleted, that's the time he did his combo, S&T into Omniscience into Emrakul into Time Walk. Attack, then Cunning Wish, fetching that GW instant that fetches another Emarakul. GG.

[Lemnear]

The first S&T variant was too fast. EOT entomb binning IONA then reanimate it naming B. And in our second game, I didn't draw a land or a petal in time and he was able to to his entomb exhume combo, this time fetching Grisel and securing his hand with 14 refill cards when i tried to go off.

The second S&T variant, probe, cabal and duress did their job. Removing Counters and his combo pieces. If I recall it right, Force of Wills, Show and Tell, and Omniscience were the cards that I took.

The third S&T variant we just ID it.

The last S&T variant, in both games, he kept a hand full of counters. He really knows my playing style and kept me at bay most of the time. And when my hands got depleted, that's the time he did his combo, S&T into Omniscience into Emrakul into Time Walk. Attack, then Cunning Wish, fetching that GW instant that fetches another Emarakul. GG.

Interresting first S&T match considering that you ran Wish->Void Snare to handle Iona in this scenario. :/

Thanks for the reply. I'll take notes about S&T subtypes here

[paeng4983]

Interresting first S&T match considering that you ran Wish->Void Snare to handle Iona in this scenario. :/

Thanks for the reply. I'll take notes about S&T subtypes here

He nabbed my wish with his Thoughseize. After a Few turns I drew Tutor but was too late because Iona on B was already on the table.

I wasn't able to fire my Wish earlier on that game because his Thoughtseize came down in his turn turn two. Then Reanimate Iona.

^_^

[Lemnear]

Infernal Tutors are now 40€+???

[dte]

Infernal Tutors are now 40€+???

you forget the dot.
Infernal Tutors are now 4.0€+

Not sure the now is needed too :)

[Bryant Cook]

Infernal Tutors are now 40€+???

Plenty of auctions on eBay for $12.00

[Lemnear]

Talking about Foils as James asked me to hold out for a german FOIL set, but englisch foils are already hilarious

[Bryant Cook]

Japanese foils are $300

[Lemnear]

Another year has gone past and in 2014 we had to say "goodbye" to some old friends. Let us remember these fallen heroes...

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=205119&type=card
http://www.smileylich.com/mtg/scans/QuarterSizeProxies/Tropical%20Island.jpg
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=370472&type=card
http://cartamagicastore.com/image/cache/data/magic/magic-2015/void-snare-500x500.png
http://www.moxdiamond.com/images/86/1/28850/City-of-Brass.jpg
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=159243&type=card
http://www.cardkingdom.com/media/images/products/standard/12021_1.jpg
http://assets.dacw.co/itemimages/100603.JPG

Have a Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

[d0nkey]

Another year has gone past and in 2014 we had to say "goodbye" to some old friends. Let us remember these fallen heroes...

Have a Merry Christmas and happy holidays!


Bah humbug. You will never take away my storm20 with grapeshot you scrooge

[Nuke is Good]

Bah humbug. You will never take away my storm20 with grapeshot you scrooge

Hell I'm still using Orim's Chant!


Though I'm a terrible pilot of this deck.

[PartyMonster]

Preparing for the iq in Columbus and the open in philly. I noticed that in the last opens top 16 there were three copy's of reanimator. Is Gris on the rise again? If so should I consider sideboard adjustments to be prepared and what would be the ideal configuration if hate were to be added?


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[wonderPreaux]

Preparing for the iq in Columbus and the open in philly. I noticed that in the last opens top 16 there were three copy's of reanimator. Is Gris on the rise again? If so should I consider sideboard adjustments to be prepared and what would be the ideal configuration if hate were to be added?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If you are expecting a lot of Reanimator, you could pivot back to the Pithing Needle + Void Snare config for the sideboard. Something like:

3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Pithing Needle
1 Void Snare
1 Massacre
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor

[Plague Sliver]

Talking about Foils as James asked me to hold out for a german FOIL set, but englisch foils are already hilarious

Yeah, I just really love the guild foiling, so I need to get on the foil train soon. Japanese foils are a bit too pricy for me, so I'm settling for the "Axis of Evil" (German + Japanese combo) configuration...

[itrytostorm]

If you are expecting a lot of Reanimator, you could pivot back to the Pithing Needle + Void Snare config for the sideboard. Something like:

3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Pithing Needle
1 Void Snare
1 Massacre
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor

When using this list just make sure you move a win con main. Iona on red with no CoV is GG.

[PartyMonster]

So, in a reanimator heavy meta, how terrible is the idea is a single bribery in the board?


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[wonderPreaux]

So, in a reanimator heavy meta, how terrible is the idea is a single bribery in the board?


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I've used it before, it's pretty good. But, if we're talking about Reanimator specifically, why not just try Reanimate?

[PartyMonster]

I've used it before, it's pretty good. But, if we're talking about Reanimator specifically, why not just try Reanimate?

I'm not a fan of the idea of expecting them to let there dude sit in the bin for a turn before stealing it. Also, the life loss will make using Gris to combo out more difficult.


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[wonderPreaux]

I'm not a fan of the idea of expecting them to let there dude sit in the bin for a turn before stealing it. Also, the life loss will make using Gris to combo out more difficult.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Given how small the amount of targets to recur they have (5 that matter, usually) depriving them of one they do bin via Study, Entomb etc. can set them back so you can win, whereas Bribery can be good, but doesn't interrupt their normal flow of dumping and reviving. Just taking away the dude they setup can often be back breaking, regardless of whether you can combo off or not (and you can often still attempt it as its not as though Reanimator really touches your life total).

If your meta has other matchups like Sneak and Show or even some MUD/Dredge lists, then Bribery seems like the better choice. However, if Reanimator in particular is irking you, then this seems like a better approach.

[Lemnear]

Reanimate is really not that effective. Bribery is miles better and has also application against MUD or 12-Post. If you have several fatty-decks in your meta, feel free to run a Bribery in your side.

P.S. Iona on Black against Reanimator is kinda funny

[Togores]

Yesterday I played Tes again.
Wanted to TESt the new list. My meta this time was more local. And I knew most of the decks.

I sided instead of pyroclasms void snare and seize.

Played vs:
Reset hight tide 2-0 PELICANUDO
G1 gitaxian probe to se no fow and the. 12 goblins
G2 I gitaxian se fow and cunning and some blue cards. Then ponder and see 2 xantid. Next turn one gets forces the other sticka and t3 i atack with xantis he responds with brainstorm and dig and a natural spellchain kills him.

-2 cabal -1 therapy
+3 xantid

Slivers 5 color 1-2
G1 I surpasa a daze and a spell pierce and kill him.
G2 he lands a t2 thalia thru cavern. And then a spine followed by 2 wastelands after i had wished for void snare.
G3 I mulll to 6 he also. i see his hand and is 5 lands plus a sliver.
I have a t2 infernal into ad nauseam. But he drew a unknown card and played a fetch and searched instantly for turndra. So I expected he drew a soft counter. I wait he drops a spine. And then more hate. After the game he told me he drew spine and then flusterstorm.

-2 cabal
-1 ponder
+3 decay

Uw thopters 2-1
G1 i just destroy him
G2 i play duress discard his fow and have 2 lands and decay. He has a tutor. He searches for back to basics. And i then missplay as pelicanudo said by when i drew land and petal not destroying thre basica ans trying to combo va no pressure.
G3 he just get ad nauseam away t1 or 2. When i went to 3 life without tutor ans just next card was burning.

+3 decay
-1 chrome
-2 cabal

Death and taxes 2-1
G1 he starts he mulls I mull and i have a respectable turn 2 even with a playable burning wish for thalia if he draws it. So he plays a plaing go. i play pondsr instead of the duress in hand missing one mana source for the kill. Find it. And he plays t2 a md thorn WTF? I wish for void snare but then comes thalia and wasteland...
G2 I empty for 12-14 goblins turn 1 and he didnt had his turor or didnt drew his random ratchet bomb.
G3 he played a thalia but i keept a land heavy hand and decay it. Then he plays a canonist and but i wish for masaacre. He has a aven in hand, a revoker and a sfm. Allong with 2 plains and a mishra. He decides to atack me to 6 life. So I can massacre him and play mana sources and infernal for wish for 14 goblins. I end up wining the race.
+3 decay
+1 infernal
+1 seize
-4 duress
-1 ponder

He latter is sad that he attacked with the mishra for nothing and didnt holt into the aven wich was game if my wish was not top 4.
He also said that being half of the local meta combo (2-3 storm) (1 elves) (2 omnitell) (1-2 hight tide) he plays thorn main, with a canonist, and so.

Ended 3-1 but 4th and so without price...

Beating only table based hate is dificult. But the slivers guy with coubters. Hatebears, pressure, vials, and spines is really a nightmare...

So my oppinion on the list.
Everytime i drew the bayou it sucked, but like the trop before. Its a good evil...
Not playing a bouncer in side is not good. I wished 2 times for it. And being cold to leyline also sucks.
Also not havind discard sb is bad. Wished one time for it (and obv my opp had 2 fows)
Also i would have loved to have played more therapys every time I played etw.


Thats all.

[Lemnear]

Had a small clashgroup (locals and US peeps) today. Was fun slinging real cards again. Matt played my deck more than me (lol) so he might can comment on Elves and UR Delver (he had the Cabal list with him and I the one with Sol lands).

The only thing I can say, that UG Infect was a reasonable matchup (4-1 in games). If you guys read this: thanks for the afternoon


Edit: maybe add match notes and pictures later

[satyr]

I 4-0'd two dailies over the last couple of days with TES (as byron1 and CaviustheGreat). With counterbalance dropping out of the meta a little online, and UR so prevalent, MODO legacy queues have turned into a bit of a freeroll with TES.

[CabalTherapy]

pic.twitter.com/eJ2YXJOM5y

Oh, what a pity I was unable to attend the "tournament" or whatever it was.

[Lemnear]

Oh, what a pity I was unable to attend the "tournament" or whatever it was.

It was just chatter, slinging cards, trying other decks (UG Infect for my part) and such.

[PartyMonster]

Reanimate is really not that effective. Bribery is miles better and has also application against MUD or 12-Post. If you have several fatty-decks in your meta, feel free to run a Bribery in your side.

P.S. Iona on Black against Reanimator is kinda funny

Played on line all day, tested bribery in the board. stole three griselbrands over the course of the day. Honestly pretty impressed.

New subject if you don't mind. Tips and tricks against miracles and blue red delver. Thanks!

[redhamjack]

For those of you testing Bribery, I would also recommend Temlin Performance. Not only does it steal their big guy, but against creatureless decks (ANT, TES Mirror) it's a win condition that only costs 4RUU.

It's not currently in my 75 (neither is bribery) but in the past it has won me quite a few games.

[wonderPreaux]

For those of you testing Bribery, I would also recommend Temlin Performance. Not only does it steal their big guy, but against creatureless decks (ANT, TES Mirror) it's a win condition that only costs 4RUU.

It's not currently in my 75 (neither is bribery) but in the past it has won me quite a few games.

I don't like Telemin Performance, there are too many random cases where you just brick. For example, playing against ANT and getting their Bob because you hadn't seen it, hitting the Emrakul off an Omni-Tell player etc. It isn't even stellar against Reanimator, since they might have left in random bad cards, the last Reanimator player I played had a Grave Titan in post-board, for example. You might also hit Sire of Insanity, which seems cool until they top a reanimation spell and every one of their other targets is bigger. Bribery also lets you win in corner cases like taking Blightsteel against MUD players, or taking large Dread Return targets against some Dredge lists.

[PartyMonster]

Tips on playing against UR Delver

[Lemnear]

Tips on playing against UR Delver

Natural Spellchain and EtW work wonders ... and not trying to force Ad Nauseam.

Edit: sry if response is so short

[PartyMonster]

Natural Spellchain and EtW work wonders ... and not trying to force Ad Nauseam.

Edit: sry if response is so short

Thank you, a completely ample reply. Much appreciated. What's the SB plan, if any?


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[itrytostorm]

Natural Spellchain and EtW work wonders ... and not trying to force Ad Nauseam.

Edit: sry if response is so short

EtW has seemed mediocre recently against UR with Electrickery running around in multiples.

[Lemnear]

EtW has seemed mediocre recently against UR with Electrickery running around in multiples.

Yeah, I've seen varying amounts and witnessed them boarding Grafdiggers Cages as well. Still doesn't invalidate the option, even if we don't want to suffer from the MB EtW and cutted it. ;)


Thank you, a completely ample reply. Much appreciated. What's the SB plan, if any

I still toy with the switch between AN and PIF, but other than that, no SB

[PartyMonster]

Is the plan against jeskai ascendancy to land bug and go off?

[Lemnear]

Is the plan against jeskai ascendancy to land bug and go off?

Dunno. Never played against it. Doesn't it run Lightning Bolts and/or Counterbalance? I would rather board Decays if that is true. Maybe you can help me out with a Sample list

[wonderPreaux]

Dunno. Never played against it. Doesn't it run Lightning Bolts and/or Counterbalance? I would rather board Decays if that is true. Maybe you can help me out with a Sample list

Some run the counterbalance sb (look for tops game 1), others play a faster version with wind zendikons or other weird stuff, in either case you'd want to bring Decay to the party.

[satyr]

EtW has seemed mediocre recently against UR with Electrickery running around in multiples.

That's a post board problem, and even then you have ways to rustle it out of their hand or gain information to see if they have it. U/R tends to tap itself down quite aggressively in the first two turns, which is when you're likely to warrens, so you can usually even therapy out of the bin, taking either electrickery or their dig spells. With a warrens for 6, they might see 5-6 cards assuming they have a ponder or a brainstorm left. That's a worthwhile risk, considering the card is usually just a two of, or they may play forked bolt over it.

[Asthereal]

That's a post board problem, and even then you have ways to rustle it out of their hand or gain information to see if they have it. U/R tends to tap itself down quite aggressively in the first two turns, which is when you're likely to warrens, so you can usually even therapy out of the bin, taking either electrickery or their dig spells. With a warrens for 6, they might see 5-6 cards assuming they have a ponder or a brainstorm left. That's a worthwhile risk, considering the card is usually just a two of, or they may play forked bolt over it.
Warrens for just six guys loses to Young Pyro plus a few spells.
I'd recommend turn 2 latest for 12 goblins minimum if you want to try it against UR.
If this isn't an option, it's probably just better to wait for natural Tendrils or Past in Flames.

[PartyMonster]

Warrens for just six guys loses to Young Pyro plus a few spells.
I'd recommend turn 2 latest for 12 goblins minimum if you want to try it against UR.
If this isn't an option, it's probably just better to wait for natural Tendrils or Past in Flames.

Thank you, sincerely. That helps so much.


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[QQQ]

How often do you guys just fail to be able to go off? That is to say, you make a couple land drops, a couple cantrips, maybe a discrd spell, have a generally decent hand. But end up losing being just a mana, tutor, or disruption spell short? I don't mind losing to racing, or Tempo, or CounterTop, but I too often am getting hands that have the right pieces to not mulligan, and cannot put together the win through either disruption or a quick clock in time.

[Lemnear]

How often do you guys just fail to be able to go off? That is to say, you make a couple land drops, a couple cantrips, maybe a discrd spell, have a generally decent hand. But end up losing being just a mana, tutor, or disruption spell short? I don't mind losing to racing, or Tempo, or CounterTop, but I too often am getting hands that have the right pieces to not mulligan, and cannot put together the win through either disruption or a quick clock in time.

If you fear of being a Spell short but have overflowing mana, you can still sandbag cantrips/discard for the sake of storm (unless you play against Lock-decks or combo, I advice to sandbag discard in general). For the discard-shortage, I still play the SB Duress so I have virtual 10 discard spells. Other than that: Practice and Patience. Most issues, like how to react to fast dealt damage without panicing, solve itself over time and yourself getting more used to that situations, including being conservative with Probes (shuffling them away or paying mana at times).

[PartyMonster]

Does anyone know what page the discussion about the inclusion of the pair of Pyroclasms in the board is?


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[Lemnear]

Does anyone know what page the discussion about the inclusion of the pair of Pyroclasms in the board is?


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Tbh, there was no big discussion. Bryant disliked the Needles because of the US metagame composition and replaced them with sweepers against D&T, Elves and Delver/Pyromancer

[Lemnear]

Happy new year, my friends!

[PartyMonster]

Tbh, there was no big discussion. Bryant disliked the Needles because of the US metagame composition and replaced them with sweepers against D&T, Elves and Delver/Pyromancer

fair enough. thanks!

[Bryant Cook]

Happy New Year everyone!

I've been testing a lot having last week and this week off from work. I've made more changes, I noticed how much slower the deck was and how some of my opponents were taking advantage of that keeping hands that they normally wouldnt keep (No action until turn two for example). I'm still testing out this list, but so far so good.

4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire/Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Ad Nauseam

Sideboard
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroblast
2 Pyroclasm
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Treasure Cruise

[wonderPreaux]

Happy New Year everyone!

I've been testing a lot having last week and this week off from work. I've made more changes, I noticed how much slower the deck was and how some of my opponents were taking advantage of that keeping hands that they normally wouldnt keep (No action until turn two for example). I'm still testing out this list, but so far so good.

4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire/Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Ad Nauseam

Sideboard
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroblast
2 Pyroclasm
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Treasure Cruise
Has 4 MD Tutors been strong with no EtW main? Also, what prompted the use of Pyroblast and Cruise?

[Bryant Cook]

Four tutors has been fine, there's been once or twice in my testing over the last few weeks (Lots of games) - where I really missed the Empty maindeck because my options were to:

1.) Ad Nauseam with 0 floating.
2.) Duress/Therapy into Empty.
3.) Duress/Therapy turn 1, Ad Nauseam turn two.

Blast is similar to the Carpet of Flowers slot where it could be Void Snare/Therapy or Chain of Vapors, but I think having 2 Pyroclasms & 2 Pyroblasts to side in versus UR/UWR variants is nice.
Cruise had to happen in order to make the Tutor to the main work. So far, it's been great in grindy match-ups allowing Wish to turn into 3 mana draw 3.

[death]

Finally the last rainbow land had bit the dust, 4 IT main deck. Welcome to TNT!

Treasure Cruise is neat pre- and mid-combo because
1. it replaces itself
2. it's a must-counter
3. gives 2 storm with BW
4. draws into more draw/gas

[wonderPreaux]

Four tutors has been fine, there's been once or twice in my testing over the last few weeks (Lots of games) - where I really missed the Empty maindeck because my options were to:

1.) Ad Nauseam with 0 floating.
2.) Duress/Therapy into Empty.
3.) Duress/Therapy turn 1, Ad Nauseam turn two.

Blast is similar to the Carpet of Flowers slot where it could be Void Snare/Therapy or Chain of Vapors, but I think having 2 Pyroclasms & 2 Pyroblasts to side in versus UR/UWR variants is nice.
Cruise had to happen in order to make the Tutor to the main work. So far, it's been great in grindy match-ups allowing Wish to turn into 3 mana draw 3.

Interesting stuff, I'll give it a whirl this afternoon. One thing I might recommend for people on MTGO is to go to 5 Dual, 6 fetch, 2 Gemstone Mine, because Chalice + Wasteland decks are occasionally appearing (like, 1 every 2 dailies in my experience).

Have you considered Engineered Explosives in the board? While it's not a Wish target, it does interact favorably with hatebears (beats Thalia + Mom), Counterbalance (play it at CMC 3, Sunburst 2), Elves/Tokens, etc. Running 2/3 instead of 2 Pyroclasm + 2 Pyroblast could free up room for other things. It also puts Chalice players in the catch-22 position of having to choose between 0 to stop EE/LED, or 1 to stop cantrips/rituals, all the while we still have Decay. (It's also cute in the Lem's sol land build where you can play it on CMC 2, sunburst 0. It might also steal the TES mirror, lol)

Also, more for the MTGO meta, Reanimator has been pretty popular, so I might try and find room for Flusterstorms or something like that.

[Lemnear]

Interesting stuff, I'll give it a whirl this afternoon. One thing I might recommend for people on MTGO is to go to 5 Dual, 6 fetch, 2 Gemstone Mine, because Chalice + Wasteland decks are occasionally appearing (like, 1 every 2 dailies in my experience).

Have you considered Engineered Explosives in the board? While it's not a Wish target, it does interact favorably with hatebears (beats Thalia + Mom), Counterbalance (play it at CMC 3, Sunburst 2), Elves/Tokens, etc. Running 2/3 instead of 2 Pyroclasm + 2 Pyroblast could free up room for other things. It also puts Chalice players in the catch-22 position of having to choose between 0 to stop EE/LED, or 1 to stop cantrips/rituals, all the while we still have Decay. (It's also cute in the Lem's sol land build where you can play it on CMC 2, sunburst 0. It might also steal the TES mirror, lol)

Also, more for the MTGO meta, Reanimator has been pretty popular, so I might try and find room for Flusterstorms or something like that.

Hmmmm ... interresting idea with Explosives even if it doesn't wipe Pyromancer AND the tokens. Most interresting aspect to consider here is killing Chalice/Counterbalance without messing with your AN flips. Next on my schedule after the Trygons :)

[wonderPreaux]

Hmmmm ... interresting idea with Explosives even if it doesn't wipe Pyromancer AND the tokens. Most interresting aspect to consider here is killing Chalice/Counterbalance without messing with your AN flips. Next on my schedule after the Trygons :)

I think it's also definitely important to consider Explosives as a sweeper too. The whole idea of it saving space by serving the role of both Pyroclasm and Pyroblast is what drew me in. Here's the bottom-line for EE:

Downsides:

> Wish: Yeah, this isn't a Wish target, so less g1 help. But if we're just talking about stuff to side-in, I think this isn't that big a deal.

> Mana Invested: To wipe hatebears, this costs 4 mana. That IS a lot, though you do get to invest it over 2 turns, and you don't need specific colors, just 2 of them. IDK how big a deal this is.

Upsides:

> Corner case superiority: You can't Cursecatcher, Envelop or Flusterstorm EE, so in some cases you are just straight-up better off as your spell can actually resolve. If you want to rip up tokens or flipped Delver, you are casting a 0-cmc removal spell, which is pretty hard to Pierce/Daze effectively as well.

> Hits permanents: The same EE that wipes Elves can also take out a Relic in a pinch (note, you do need Void Snare/Grapeshot in your sb to answer Teeg, but you want Void Snare on MTGO these days anyway). Wiping a Counterbalance has the benefit of hitting RIP/SCM too, which takes some other annoyances out. You can also produce 5 colors in this deck, so you can have a make-shift vindicate/deed if you need it badly enough.

> Is, itself, a permanent: I personally think this is a huge deal. First, you can't get discarded if you run it out. Play it down at 1 against Elves, or 2 on Miracles early and force them to work around it while you do cool stuff. More importantly, as a permanent, it increases the resources you can bank in your hand for your combo turn. Take DnT for instance, there are those games where the hatebears come out, you need to take hits, sweep, then win. If you have Pyroclasm, then you need 2 (often 3) mana, then you need to go off with at most 7 other cards (assuming you drew to 8) and what remains of your mana after the 'Clasm, or you need to be ready for another hatebear on the next turn. With EE, you can draw to 7, pass, wipe in their END STEP, then draw to a full 8, with all your mana available to crush the opponent with a spell chain or w/e.

> X: Yes, it's 0 off Ad Nauseam. It's worse against Teeg, but, w/e. Zero off Ad Nauseam.

edit: read EE's supertype re: Null Rod

[Lemnear]

Minor nickpic: EE does nothing against NullRod ;P

[wonderPreaux]

Minor nickpic: EE does nothing against NullRod ;P

True.

[redhamjack]

Went 3-1 tonight at legacy FNM. Im still on the empty main plan, as I think it's much better in my current, week to week meta). Otherwise my 75 is pretty much the same except I run thoughtsieze over 2 duress (again local meta call). I beat UG infect 2-0, beat UR 2-0, and beat Miracles 2-0 (12 goblins get there game 1. Xantid Swarm won G2.) My only loss was to lands :( there's just something about that matchup that I hate, and for whatever reason I play some of my worst magic against lands and discard decks in general. Let me face blue mages any day!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to storming this weekend in the 5k in Columbus, will likely be a game time decision on the Empty in my main.



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[PartyMonster]

Went 3-1 tonight at legacy FNM. Im still on the empty main plan, as I think it's much better in my current, week to week meta). Otherwise my 75 is pretty much the same except I run thoughtsieze over 2 duress (again local meta call). I beat UG infect 2-0, beat UR 2-0, and beat Miracles 2-0 (12 goblins get there game 1. Xantid Swarm won G2.) My only loss was to lands :( there's just something about that matchup that I hate, and for whatever reason I play some of my worst magic against lands and discard decks in general. Let me face blue mages any day!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to storming this weekend in the 5k in Columbus, will likely be a game time decision on the Empty in my main.



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See you in Columbus


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[wonderPreaux]

Went 3-1 tonight at legacy FNM. Im still on the empty main plan, as I think it's much better in my current, week to week meta). Otherwise my 75 is pretty much the same except I run thoughtsieze over 2 duress (again local meta call). I beat UG infect 2-0, beat UR 2-0, and beat Miracles 2-0 (12 goblins get there game 1. Xantid Swarm won G2.) My only loss was to lands :( there's just something about that matchup that I hate, and for whatever reason I play some of my worst magic against lands and discard decks in general. Let me face blue mages any day!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to storming this weekend in the 5k in Columbus, will likely be a game time decision on the Empty in my main.



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I think EE might be good for your meta if it has hatebears enough to make you consider Thoughtseize, as well as Counterbalance/Chalice and tokens/delver. and ofc, good luck to all the stormers out at the 5ks

[Lemnear]

Went 3-1 tonight at legacy FNM. Im still on the empty main plan, as I think it's much better in my current, week to week meta). Otherwise my 75 is pretty much the same except I run thoughtsieze over 2 duress (again local meta call). I beat UG infect 2-0, beat UR 2-0, and beat Miracles 2-0 (12 goblins get there game 1. Xantid Swarm won G2.) My only loss was to lands :( there's just something about that matchup that I hate, and for whatever reason I play some of my worst magic against lands and discard decks in general. Let me face blue mages any day!

Aggressive decks like UR Delver are the reason I consider Thoughtseize unplayable atm. I'm interrested, why you opt to run Seize in your metagame :)

Just for statistical reasons: are you able to tell which Miracles build you played against? Goblins have a horrible statistic success rate against Ponder builds in my books. Thanks for the roundup

[PopyMartins]

Sideboard
3Abrupt Decay
3Xantid Swarm
2Pyroblast
2Pyroclasm
1Massacre
1Tendrils of Agony
1Empty the Warrens
1Past in Flames
1Treasure Cruise

When exactly do you side in pyroblast? Meddling Mage/Show and Tell/Izzet or Jeskai delver/stone?

And why/when Cruise is that good?

Don't you miss Cabal Ritual MD? It was always so good for me. Do you consider keeping it in instead for a single Mox?

[Asthereal]

Happy New Year everyone!

Sideboard
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroblast
2 Pyroclasm
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Treasure Cruise

Happy new year to you too! :smile:

Question about this list: since there's no Infernal Tutor in the side, don't you feel Diminishing Returns should return to the Wish board? Right now a single Wish can only be used for Empty, natural Tendrils or Treasure Cruise. For Past in Flames lines we need an additional Tutor or Wish, and if we don't have that, our options for Wish would be pretty limited. I know Returns isn't the best, but I think in this setup we might need an additional combo Wish target. How did this work in your testing?

[Lemnear]

Happy new year to you too! :smile:

Question about this list: since there's no Infernal Tutor in the side, don't you feel Diminishing Returns should return to the Wish board? Right now a single Wish can only be used for Empty, natural Tendrils or Treasure Cruise. For Past in Flames lines we need an additional Tutor or Wish, and if we don't have that, our options for Wish would be pretty limited. I know Returns isn't the best, but I think in this setup we might need an additional combo Wish target. How did this work in your testing?

Dim.Ret. is still the same junk it was once we cutted the Silences and the metagame developed into 65% blue decks. I don't know why you want an additional combo engine if you have all freedom to finish with EtW, setup a loop with PIF or, in case your 'yard is junk, draw 3 and get closer to your Infernal Tutor. You can run a SB Duress, if you wish in addition, but I consider it a step forward that we were able to reduce the Wish-board to a minimum and open up space for actual SB cards which was totally different in 2011/2012.


And why/when Cruise is that good?

Don't you miss Cabal Ritual MD? It was always so good for me. Do you consider keeping it in instead for a single Mox?

I talked about Cruise here right after it being spoilered. Forgive me if I can't remember the page(s). It's pretty good in grindy games (trading discard spells for example), making up for cards spend to overcome defense and for a cardboost to support the natural chain. It is a nice way to profit from weak graveyards (mainly Lands & cantrips).

The CR is slow in nature and the manaboost mainly relevant for the SB Infernal playline which was cut for the moment. Despite CR also fueling PIF, the playline isn't that much of a selling point if you want to improve the Belcher-route, which Bryant is obviously trying because of his opponents tending to keep slow hands.

[PopyMartins]

Mainly Cruise is there for grinding games where PiF is not an option?

Let's say you're almost comboing (you need only 1 fast mana) and have BWish. Is it right to get Cruise? Or wait for the last card?
Or should we use BWish+Cruise when we have multiples tutor and manas to get 3 new cards and 2 storm count?

[Lemnear]

Mainly Cruise is there for grinding games where PiF is not an option?

Let's say you're almost comboing (you need only 1 fast mana) and have BWish. Is it right to get Cruise? Or wait for the last card?
Or should we use BWish+Cruise when we have multiples tutor and manas to get 3 new cards and 2 storm count?

If you need a +1 manasource, you should wait. If you need a +2, I would cruise. You can sure convert additional Wishes into draw3's. You only have to decide if you want to fire off the cruise immediately or wait until you have 7-8 cards in hand to boost your handsize up to 10 for a natural chain, with Infernal->Wish->ToA being already 3 storm on it's own

[itrytostorm]

Someone talk me out of running City of Solitude.

[wonderPreaux]

Someone talk me out of running City of Solitude.

You're trying to run a 3 cmc card in a deck where you have 13 lands.

[itrytostorm]

You're trying to run a 3 cmc card in a deck where you have 13 lands.

Not good enough.

[Bryant Cook]

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=78228

[redhamjack]

Aggressive decks like UR Delver are the reason I consider Thoughtseize unplayable atm. I'm interrested, why you opt to run Seize in your metagame :)

Just for statistical reasons: are you able to tell which Miracles build you played against? Goblins have a horrible statistic success rate against Ponder builds in my books. Thanks for the roundup


The miracles was a build with ponder, UWr.

@ Thoughtsieze I actually love thoughtsieze against the counterspell light UR builds that have been floating around lately. Taking their delver/young pyro when they don't have relevant action against you is well worth it. Also Thoughtsieze can be pretty good against burn which shows up in decent numbers (I WANT YOUR EDIOLON!) at the very worse against burn it gains you 1 life. It's also good vs elves, dnt, and UWR. Frankly, I haven't found the 2 life detrimental yet. The decks I played this past week were not wholly representative of my meta. There are always a ton of randoms. 2 weeks ago I played Painter, Miracles, TEZZ, and a UR burn deck, so I like the flexibility.


http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=78228

I don't know why they show me getting 1st place. [EDIT: Has been fixed in the link] I actually got 9th at 6-1-1 (yes, I drew myself into 9th, I obviously need to improve my tie breaker wizardry).

I'll include a quick rundown for those who are interested. I took no notes, so some of the details might be a bit fuzzy. SCG's new parings thingy is nice, without it I'd only have remembered 2 or 3 names.

R1 2-0 Feline with High Tide. T1'd her game 2.

R2 1-2 Erik Stone with Dredge. I had to go goblins g3, had rebuilt for storm kill next turn and the luckiest dredges later, I lose. This matchup is tough but rare enough I don't mind the coinflip w/0 sideboard cards.

R3 2-0 Ryan Reed with Miracles (UWR with ponders). Game 1 he keeps a sketch hand that a thoughtsieze strips of a force. I combo. G2 Xantid and Discard get there!

R4 2-0 Bret Colbert with Grinding Station (basically TES Mirror I guess) G1 I draw AdNaus before he can go off. G2 he miscounts mana and stumbles. I capitalize.

R5 2-1 Eric Hammel with Pox Lands. G1 he uses riftstone portal to mess up my math about when he would make a 20/20. I don't make that mistake again.

R6 2-0 Jackson Smith with Burn. End of his turn 1 Adnaus game 1. G2 he gets super unlucky and sees no lands till a mull to 4, mulls took longer than the match.

R7 - 2-1 Hayden Brass with Lands. G1 he makes a 20/20 in my endstep T2 (I was on the play, his hand was nutty). I didn't have enough to get there, and hadn't given away what I was on, (only played thoughtsieze, his quote "oh, you're not on storm") so I scooped to game two. He didn't see my t1 AdNaus coming. Game 3 he never draws any storm hate.

R8 - ID with Ben Ball (storm? ANT?) Shouldn't have done it. I knew it was possible, but I didn't think it was likely. Might have cost me at least $100. He made top 8, so maybe my math wasn't 100% off.

Cards I never Wished for:
Massacre - Still want to keep it.
Shattering Spree - More of a card for my local meta, should have likely been something else, maybe 3rd Abrupt Decay, I'm not sure on this slot.

I like my mixup of 2 decays, 2 swarm, 2 needle, 2 chain of vapor. It gives me a lot of flexibility, especially against unknown hate. All 8 were brought in at some point over the day.

I don't mind the land in my board. I rarely want to side more than 4 or 5 cards anyway as I feel this deck can get diluted very quickly. Using a SB slot on a Bayou doesn't cost me much in opportunity cost for that SB slot. Plus, I still only like 12 lands main. I almost lost g2 to dredge because I topped decked a land with an IT in hand, turned out irrelevant, but I still don't like running 13 in the main. I hate seeing 3+ lands in a game.

My same argument applies to discard. Drawing more than 2 is the worst so I've gone down to 6 in the main. Chrome mox is really good for going off early so I've kept in 3, as well as 2 cabal rituals for extra acceleration. I won the only game I saw all 3 moxes naturally drawn, for what it's worth.

Overall, the deck preformed very well. I'm still liking MD Empty as it gives the deck such t1 explosiveness. I don't think anyone is ready for 12 goblins before they draw their first card. On the day, I won maybe 40% of my games off it. I often side it out G2 if I need my AdNauses to be stronger, and if they've already seen goblins G1 (most decks have X/1 hate in spades).

Let me know if you have any more questions. I've been very impressed with the deck. After 8-1 D1 of the Grand Prix, T8ing a local legacy IQ, a strong showing today, and some good weekly results in my local meta I feel better than ever playing TES. I'm enjoying it more and more each week, and I learn something new each tournament. The deck is very rewarding to play with. Keep up the good work and keep storming, and let me know if you have any questions.

Obligatory Props:

Everyone who came from Pittsburgh to Columbus for a tourney, good times were had.
A quickly run tourney from SCG. Most time I saw between rounds was 11 or 12 minutes.
On street parking right in front of the venue.

Slops:

Tiebreakers
Trucks stopping for no reason on I70
Dredge

[Lemnear]

Someone talk me out of running City of Solitude.

It's a Xantid attached to a Pithning Needle for 2G and easy Daze/Pierce victim. As the card is not even fast enough for S&T matchups, we're basically down to Miracles as the only deck you want and can affors running this.

Sidenote: Kinda Sad that WotC isn't printing more cards like Dosan, Xantid and City for green. A hexproof Xantid would be awesome ;)


The miracles was a build with ponder, UWr.

The chances to win with EtW against a ponder build and a pilot knowing what he's doing against TES are horrible. Most pilots bring in stuff like Explosives plus flusterstorms and EtW isn't going to get better if you have to dismember defense first (usually Games 2 & 3). That's why EtW was ever considered the very first boarding slot against Miracles


@ Thoughtsieze I actually love thoughtsieze against the counterspell light UR builds that have been floating around lately. Taking their delver/young pyro when they don't have relevant action against you is well worth it. Also Thoughtsieze can be pretty good against burn which shows up in decent numbers (I WANT YOUR EDIOLON!) at the very worse against burn it gains you 1 life. It's also good vs elves, dnt, and UWR. Frankly, I haven't found the 2 life detrimental yet. The decks I played this past week were not wholly representative of my meta. There are always a ton of randoms. 2 weeks ago I played Painter, Miracles, TEZZ, and a UR burn deck, so I like the flexibility.

Actually, I'm more concerned about the SB games against UR which involve several Blasts and Flusterstorms plus Electrickery, rather than trading cards for their redundant threats and burning myself for two. I prefer sitting on the Duress until the critical turn to boost the stormcount and shatter their shields. I disagree with the Burn matchup. I'm not willing to shock myself just to see no Eidolon in my opponents hand and basically trade a card to prevent 1 damage, but give my opponent the advantage of not having to tap a mana for the shock at all. I commented on stuff like D&T or Elves and why I consider Thoughtseize a bad move here compared to casting Ponder or Wish. It's pretty clear why the two life didn't affect you much if you run 3 moxen and 2 cabals, but I consider the manabase too fragile against tempo-elements or if games drag out aka playing against Miracles, D&T or Blade variants a significant amount of times during a tournament, which was the reason to tinker with a more conservative manabase from the start.


I'll include a quick rundown for those who are interested. I took no notes, so some of the details might be a bit fuzzy. SCG's new parings thingy is nice, without it I'd only have remembered 2 or 3 names.

R1 2-0 Feline with High Tide. T1'd her game 2.

R2 1-2 Erik Stone with Dredge. I had to go goblins g3, had rebuilt for storm kill next turn and the luckiest dredges later, I lose. This matchup is tough but rare enough I don't mind the coinflip w/0 sideboard cards.

R3 2-0 Ryan Reed with Miracles (UWR with ponders). Game 1 he keeps a sketch hand that a thoughtsieze strips of a force. I combo. G2 Xantid and Discard get there!

R4 2-0 Bret Colbert with Grinding Station (basically TES Mirror I guess) G1 I draw AdNaus before he can go off. G2 he miscounts mana and stumbles. I capitalize.

R5 2-1 Eric Hammel with Pox Lands. G1 he uses riftstone portal to mess up my math about when he would make a 20/20. I don't make that mistake again.

R6 2-0 Jackson Smith with Burn. End of his turn 1 Adnaus game 1. G2 he gets super unlucky and sees no lands till a mull to 4, mulls took longer than the match.

R7 - 2-1 Hayden Brass with Lands. G1 he makes a 20/20 in my endstep T2 (I was on the play, his hand was nutty). I didn't have enough to get there, and hadn't given away what I was on, (only played thoughtsieze, his quote "oh, you're not on storm") so I scooped to game two. He didn't see my t1 AdNaus coming. Game 3 he never draws any storm hate.

R8 - ID with Ben Ball (storm? ANT?) Shouldn't have done it. I knew it was possible, but I didn't think it was likely. Might have cost me at least $100. He made top 8, so maybe my math wasn't 100% off.

Wow R5/6/7 against Lands/Burn/Lands? Too easy lol


My same argument applies to discard. Drawing more than 2 is the worst so I've gone down to 6 in the main. Chrome mox is really good for going off early so I've kept in 3, as well as 2 cabal rituals for extra acceleration. I won the only game I saw all 3 moxes naturally drawn, for what it's worth.

Shouldn't be unusual to need two or three pieces of disruption against defensive decks and without a discard spell in the board you have to dig out 2 out of 6 discard spells in your deck out of 60 cards, which I consider tricky. If you draw the Moxen in a slow matchup or one with minimum interaction like lands, it isn't THAT backbreaking. The problem occurs if games last longer than turn 3 and you have to play around Daze, Pierce, Wasteland, Thalia, Flusterstorm or can't cast Ad Nauseam safely anymore, where you have to invest two cards for a mere mana. (Editors note: which is the exact opposite of what Sol lands do: 1 card - 2 mana)


Overall, the deck preformed very well. I'm still liking MD Empty as it gives the deck such t1 explosiveness. I don't think anyone is ready for 12 goblins before they draw their first card. On the day, I won maybe 40% of my games off it. I often side it out G2 if I need my AdNauses to be stronger, and if they've already seen goblins G1 (most decks have X/1 hate in spades).

That is correct, but if you don't hit your 17% (own lifetime statistic) T1 combo possibility or your opponent keeps FoW (especially game 2 & 3), the value of EtW falls rapidly because of Explosives, Electrickery, Golgari Charm, Zealous Persecution, Daze, Flusterstorm, Terminus, etc.


Let me know if you have any more questions. I've been very impressed with the deck. After 8-1 D1 of the Grand Prix, T8ing a local legacy IQ, a strong showing today, and some good weekly results in my local meta I feel better than ever playing TES. I'm enjoying it more and more each week, and I learn something new each tournament. The deck is very rewarding to play with.

Congratulations, non the less! Love to hear more stories in the future

[Pelikanudo]

Hey!
Happy new year to all of you too stormers!

[Lemnear]

Hey!
Happy new year to all of you too stormers!

5.1.? I let that count ... happy new year to you too! ;P

[sawatarix]

congratulation redhamjack.

I guess you boardet out empty the warrens against dredge?
I always see this deck as an aggro deck with discard.

What i really like about having Tutor in the sideboard is that we are now able to actually tutor chain if we have a lot of mana. (10 mana-> wish-tutor-wish-tendrils)
I'm also asking myself: what about running a rain of filth in the main for extra mana boost if we execute a tutor chain combo ?
It's powerlevel is close to cabal ritual but instead of having ******** we need 2+ lands in play to profit from it.

[Pelikanudo]

@redhamjack:
Questions:

- Do you think having Dim. Ret. in side could have won you the match up somehow?
- How did you side vs Miracles with your build?
- Could you expose how the 2nd game vs Miracles was developed?


Edit: Related the Dredge Match up:
Well EtW is an option to make Dredge a bit slower as you can avoid bridges with Therapy, I would bring in cards from my side that gets faster the match up, I don't think bringing in a land for example makes the deck faster. For my taste I don't think I will remove EtW main vs this archetype.

Thanks.

[Lemnear]

Why is Dim.Ret. popping up every few posts?

[redhamjack]

congratulation redhamjack.

I guess you boarded out empty the warrens against dredge?
I always see this deck as an aggro deck with discard.

What i really like about having Tutor in the sideboard is that we are now able to actually tutor chain if we have a lot of mana. (10 mana-> wish-tutor-wish-tendrils)
I'm also asking myself: what about running a rain of filth in the main for extra mana boost if we execute a tutor chain combo ?
It's powerlevel is close to cabal ritual but instead of having ******** we need 2+ lands in play to profit from it.

I did take out empty, but wound up short of adnaus, decided he was mana screwed enough to run goblins out of the board, and I paid full price for my mistake. Thinking of it as an aggro deck with discard is a bit misleading. I tend to think of it as more "belcher-esque" in that it can win out of nowhere, and requires specific hate to address. Honestly I feel like the matchup should be 60/40 in our favor, I just need to sit down with a dredge player and play 100+ matches to get a better handle on this matchup.

I've actually tested a singleton Rain of Filth before. Its not been good for me. Cabal ritual is always +1, Rain of Filth is only +1 after turn 2 and scales pretty badly, whereas Cabal Ritual jumps to +3 pretty quick.


@redhamjack:
Questions:

- Do you think having Dim. Ret. in side could have won you the match up somehow?
- How did you side vs Miracles with your build?
- Could you expose how the 2nd game vs Miracles was developed?


Edit: Related the Dredge Match up:
Well EtW is an option to make Dredge a bit slower as you can avoid bridges with Therapy, I would bring in cards from my side that gets faster the match up, I don't think bringing in a land for example makes the deck faster. For my taste I don't think I will remove EtW main vs this archetype.

Thanks.

No. I don't think Dim. Ret. would have won me the match. Game 3 he was mana screwed, and I was mana light, when I went for goblins t2. I wouldn't have gone for Dim. Ret anyway because I didn't want to let him out of his screw. I haven't played with this card for a while, and I think it's generally not very good. When I had it in the board I never wished for it. I think our matchup against dredge should be better naturally, and perhaps I'm just bad playing against dredge.

Against Miracles I sided 2 Xantid, 2 Abrupt Decay, 1 Bayou for 1 Chrome Mox, 1 Empty, 2 Ponder, 1 Gitaxian Probe. I like to keep in Cabal Ritual as the 2 cmc is useful in dodging Counterbalance. After extensive testing against this matchup with one of my playtest partners whose pet deck is miracles I can say that needle isn't as good as I want it to be in this matchup. Turning off top is good, but not quite good enough, especially on the draw.

G2 my hand is something like Thoughtsieze, Xantid, Cabal Therapy, Fetch, Bayou, Dark Ritual, Ad Nausum. I draw a chrome mox and I play t1 bayou into Xantid. He EoT fetches into volcanic for electrickery, killing swarm. He plays a fetch t2 and passes. I draw and play a Probe, seeing a hand of something like Counterbalance, Force, Jace, Brainstorm, and 2 cards I don't remember. I play Thoughtsieze, he Brainstorms in response, putting CB and Jace on Top, showing be Force, Entreat, and infinite lands (how lucky!) I take Force, and I play a ponder, setting up my kill with another discard protection next turn. He doesn't play counterbalance for some reason (didn't want to fetch away Jace I assume, or maybe the order was reversed). Anyway I win the next turn, showboating a little with multiple burning wishes.


The chances to win with EtW against a ponder build and a pilot knowing what he's doing against TES are horrible. Most pilots bring in stuff like Explosives plus flusterstorms and EtW isn't going to get better if you have to dismember defense first (usually Games 2 & 3). That's why EtW was ever considered the very first boarding slot against Miracles

I agree. I don't enjoy going for goblins g1 against Miracles, and I know the odds aren't entirely with us, but if I can land goblins and strip a terminus on a therapy flashback, I'll go for it. Ill then always side it out.


Wow R5/6/7 against Lands/Burn/Lands? Too easy lol

Lots of fair decks floating around :) Somehow I lost a game in both the lands matchups.


Actually, I'm more concerned about the SB games against UR which involve several Blasts and Flusterstorms plus Electrickery, rather than trading cards for their redundant threats and burning myself for two. I prefer sitting on the Duress until the critical turn to boost the stormcount and shatter their shields. I disagree with the Burn matchup. I'm not willing to shock myself just to see no Eidolon in my opponents hand and basically trade a card to prevent 1 damage, but give my opponent the advantage of not having to tap a mana for the shock at all. I commented on stuff like D&T or Elves and why I consider Thoughtseize a bad move here compared to casting Ponder or Wish. It's pretty clear why the two life didn't affect you much if you run 3 moxen and 2 cabals, but I consider the manabase too fragile against tempo-elements or if games drag out aka playing against Miracles, D&T or Blade variants a significant amount of times during a tournament, which was the reason to tinker with a more conservative manabase from the start.

We can go back and forth on this. I respect duress, and I think it is a solid card for a lot of folks to use. However, with my play style, and how I've built my list, I don't feel bad running thoughtsieze at all.


Shouldn't be unusual to need two or three pieces of disruption against defensive decks and without a discard spell in the board you have to dig out 2 out of 6 discard spells in your deck out of 60 cards, which I consider tricky.

I have noticed this from time to time. Coming up sort on disruption can hurt. I think I might add in a sideboard discard spell and see how that works for me with a virtual 10.

[paeng4983]

Late post.

GP Manila took place last 2-4 January 2015. There was a legacy side event in each day, although I only managed to play once (January 2).

I brought with me the same 73 cards out of my 75 cards that I used last December’s year end. The only changes were: -2 Carpet of Flowers for +1 Surgical Extraction and Pithing Needle. We only had it five round swiss. No top 8 play-offs. And my MUs were:

Boros 2-0
Reanimator 1-1
Jund 2-1
UG Infect 2-0
BUG 2-0

I failed to participate in the 4 January 2015 legacy side event because I was late.

Happy New Year everyone!

:laugh:

Uhhhmmmm and just my two cents on the discussion on Dim. Ret., with UR and URW decks getting rampant, we are all aware that they’ll be bringing in their additional counters off the sideboards. So with that, it increases the chances of drawing counters. And if you happened to decide to take that Dim. Ret. route without the aid of Silence and/ or Xantid Swarm – then good luck.

On the discussion ETW, I think it is worth enough to bring it back in the 60. UR and URW and BUG and UW blades and even burn decks does not have mass removals for our ETW plan. I’d say -1 Tutor + 1 ETW.

:cool:

[Lemnear]

On the discussion ETW, I think it is worth enough to bring it back in the 60. UR and URW and BUG and UW blades and even burn decks does not have mass removals for our ETW plan. I’d say -1 Tutor + 1 ETW.

Congratz once more!

You sure are talking about MB mass removal, because there is still plenty in sideboards, especially with Young Pyromancer being the formats enemy #1. Electrickery, Explosives, verdicts, Golgari Charms and even awesome stuff like Bonfire of the damned (I pondered countless times about that card for our sideboard in place of Pyroclasm xD).

[sawatarix]

go crack some lotus petals for a bonfire x=2 :D
Would be a nice troll move 2015.

I would rather build a completely troll storm deck with hunting pack as the only storm spell.

[G_g]

Hi storm folks,

I have been pondering on moving away from Modern into Legacy since the printing of Treasure Cruise. It has warped the format, and it his dreadful to face someone who has no hand and then finds the boat into snapcaster bolt pyromancer or some crazy shenanigans and there goes a game that was on the bag.
It seems like the old affinity, where you were either playing it or designing your deck to beat it.

I played when Mind's desire was standard legal, and it was a fun card to resolve. Therefore, I am going into storm. Apart from blue duals which I will eventually get, I can build ANT, TES or Doomsday. I understand their pros and cons, and while I love the idea of getting to play doomsday, which seems skill intensive, but is it competitive enough? From my goldfishing and watching videos and tournament reports from both ant, tes and doomsday, it seems going on before the hate becomes turned on is a major advantage. I'd rather churnout 14 goblins before thalia is online than grind it out, resolve a doomsday to find an answer for her. It is not like TES is a glass cannon anyway.

I have a question for more seasoned players. Why moving away from empty maindeck? I know it makes for worse ad nauseum, but isn't the extra speed a bonus? I have often been 1 mana short of tutoring for ad nauseum and even then, ad nauseum with 0 mana floating is risky.

Also, why the treasure cruise in the board? For the grindy matchups? Wouldn't sylvan library be better? Also, wouldn't 1-2 cabal rituals be a good thing for past in flames chains? I am basing this comments in the last list posted by Briant Cook (awesome work and super pimp deck)

[Bryant Cook]

I have a question for more seasoned players. Why moving away from empty maindeck? I know it makes for worse ad nauseum, but isn't the extra speed a bonus? I have often been 1 mana short of tutoring for ad nauseum and even then, ad nauseum with 0 mana floating is risky.

Also, why the treasure cruise in the board? For the grindy matchups? Wouldn't sylvan library be better? Also, wouldn't 1-2 cabal rituals be a good thing for past in flames chains? I am basing this comments in the last list posted by Briant Cook (awesome work and super pimp deck)

Empty just isn't great in the metagame due to the rise in Young Pyromancer. There's an extreme amount of hate for 1/1 creatures making Empty the Warrens a less than stellar option. The speed bonus is nice and I've missed it every once in awhile, but it's not worth being consistently worse in other match-ups.

Treasure Cruise in the sideboard fills the same role as Cabal Ritual actually – to make us more powerful in the mid-to-late game. They're both slower options, I didn't like how much slower the deck was with Cabal Ritual in the main over the third Chrome Mox and the Empty/(4th) Infernal Tutor slot. I feel as if we're not sacrificing any of the mid-to-late game anymore by having a Cruise in the sideboard. I would never understand why Sylvan Library would be better.

[G_g]

Empty just isn't great in the metagame due to the rise in Young Pyromancer.

Treasure Cruise in the sideboard fills the same role as Cabal Ritual actually – to make us more powerful in the mid-to-late game. They're both slower options, I didn't like how much slower the deck was with Cabal Ritual in the main over the third Chrome Mox and the Empty/(4th) Infernal Tutor slot. I feel as if we're not sacrificing any of the mid-to-late game anymore by having a Cruise in the sideboard. I would never understand why Sylvan Library would be better.


Got it on empty.

Library is a must counter for grind games. If it isn't countered, the card advantage is likely to be too much

[Lemnear]

Got it on empty.

Library is a must counter for grind games. If it isn't countered, the card advantage is likely to be too much

Erm ... unless you pay a Minimum of 8 life, Library does not create cardadvantage. If you look for a card-quality tool, there is SDT; if you look for a cardadvantage tool, there is Dark Confidant, but both cards are slow & durdly, ergo not fitting for a deck which needs to win fast

[G_g]

Do we care about the 8 life loss against control? Top requires mana every turn, that was more my concern. I would use the library to manipulate my draw, and if needed draw the extra card. I was thinking about it more like a Mirri's Guile with upside. With enough shuffle effects, it would avoid us drawing unwanted stuff, costing nothing to do so

[Bryant Cook]

The card is real bad here. If I wanted that effect I'd play Dark Confidant which I also think has the same problem as Library of being too slow.

[Lemnear]

Do we care about the 8 life loss against control? Top requires mana every turn, that was more my concern. I would use the library to manipulate my draw, and if needed draw the extra card. I was thinking about it more like a Mirri's Guile with upside. With enough shuffle effects, it would avoid us drawing unwanted stuff, costing nothing to do so

I know what Library does. It's just that it's not fitting (too slow) and not needed (we already run blue Library Manipulation). Libraries upside is to draw cards if your lifepoints don't matter much. Not caring about 8 means not caring about Ad Nauseam against control and planing to slow down the game in the face of CounterTop, Clique, Flusterstorm, Jace, etc.?

[ThiefSlayer]

Treasure cruise fits this deck as it is on the wish board, and it will not always be good. There will be some matches against some grindy decks where it won't be useful at all, and some matches it will be bananas (usually if you have spare BW). So the fact that you can only tutor it from the sideboard is a big upside here, as it wouldn't be a dead card against fast hands and could also be tutorable in slow games with BW. This deck can't handle dead draws against hard matches.

About the decks, doomsday seems kinda slow for the atual meta, and even though TES is very fast it doesn't seem as resilient as ANT. I've started playing TES since 2 months ago and I've been following this thread since then, so please correct me if I'm saying garbage.

[Lemnear]

Treasure cruise fits this deck as it is on the wish board, and it will not always be good. There will be some matches against some grindy decks where it won't be useful at all, and some matches it will be bananas (usually if you have spare BW). So the fact that you can only tutor it from the sideboard is a big upside here, as it wouldn't be a dead card against fast hands and could also be tutorable in slow games with BW. This deck can't handle dead draws against hard matches.

About the decks, doomsday seems kinda slow for the atual meta, and even though TES is very fast it doesn't seem as resilient as ANT. I've started playing TES since 2 months ago and I've been following this thread since then, so please correct me if I'm saying garbage.

"Resilient" needs to be set in context. If we talk about the ability to make up for "lost cards" for the combo (aka cards your opponent discarded from your hand or discard spells you have to spend to slice through defense), ANT has the edge with the raw power of Cabal Ritual. Normally it also profits from a stable manabase compared to TES in face of Dazes and Wastelands thanks to Basics and more lands overall, but this isn't a selling point in the current meta. On the other side however, you suffer from being slower which is iffy against other combo decks, Counterbalance and hatebears so you have to plan for the longer run and occasonally play the "control role" and suffer from a high dependency on your graveyard for Cabal Rituals and Past in Flames, forcing you to fight over graveyard hate unlike TES. My personal work on this deck aims at creating a "resiliency through redundancy". 8 Tutors, 8 real cantrips (I don't consider Probe a cantrip rather than disruption), 10 (actual and virtual) discard spells, 8 +2 mana sources, etc.

Unrelated question: Is it just me or are Reanimator, SneakShow and OmniTell on the rise again?

[Togores]

They are bro, they are...
An elfs is going down.

[Lemnear]

They are bro, they are...
An elfs is going down.

At times I struggle to keep up with all the data, so I'm thankful for every flagwaving concerning metagame shifts. Looks like combo in general is indeed gaining steam as options to overpower the greedy & defenseless Treasure Cruise circlejerk. Maybe you want to aid me keeping an eye on that development for the next 4-6 weeks.

[Bryant Cook]

I'm traveling to Philly this weekend to jam some storm cards in the first SCG 15 round Legacy event. Should be fun!

[Lemnear]

I'm traveling to Philly this weekend to jam some storm cards in the first SCG 15 round Legacy event. Should be fun!

Enjoy your trip! Some last minute board changes floating in your head?

[Bryant Cook]

Enjoy your trip! Some last minute board changes floating in your head?

I actually really like my current SB of:

3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroblast
2 Pyroclasm
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Treasure Cruise

The only thing I'm questioning is if Pyroclasm number two is actually better than a Grapeshot. The reason being, let's say we bring in two 'Clasms and two Blasts against UWr for their Meddling Mages. Except, instead they have Surgicals and nail one of our Wishes. Pyroclasm isn't a win-condition where Grapeshot is, is this ridiculous? Absolutely. But are there any real downsides of playing the Grapeshot over the second Pyroclasm? Not being able to kill Cannonist & Thalia if they're both in play? Both are corner cases. But these are the sort of things I think about...

[Lemnear]

I actually really like my current SB of:

3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroblast
2 Pyroclasm
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Treasure Cruise

The only thing I'm questioning is if Pyroclasm number two is actually better than a Grapeshot. The reason being, let's say we bring in two 'Clasms and two Blasts against UWr for their Meddling Mages. Except, instead they have Surgicals and nail one of our Wishes. Pyroclasm isn't a win-condition where Grapeshot is, is this ridiculous? Absolutely. But are there any real downsides of playing the Grapeshot over the second Pyroclasm? Not being able to kill Cannonist & Thalia if they're both in play? Both are corner cases. But these are the sort of things I think about...

How do you plan to loop 20 spells for a Grapeshot kill if your opponent removed your only way to grab PIF? Elves, Pyromancer and every combination of creatures with a combined toughness of 4 or more (on top of Cannonist and jumping though hoops for Thalia), make Grapeshot an uneconomic sweeper in terms of investment and commitment. I guess we can ignore the random blowout of seeing Wish discarded/countered and extracted as we do Leyline of Sanctity these days.

If combo and Miracles are on the rise in the US, I would think about the SB Cruise and it's value compared to being a Discard spell

[Bryant Cook]

How do you plan to loop 20 spells for a Grapeshot kill if your opponent removed your only way to grab PIF? Elves, Pyromancer and every combination of creatures with a combined toughness of 4 or more (on top of Cannonist and jumping though hoops for Thalia), make Grapeshot an uneconomic sweeper in terms of investment and commitment. I guess we can ignore the random blowout of seeing Wish discarded/countered and extracted as we do Leyline of Sanctity these days.

If combo and Miracles are on the rise in the US, I would think about the SB Cruise and it's value compared to being a Discard spell

Even in combo heavy metagames, I never found myself wishing for the sideboard discard spell. I think it's a wasted slot and I would prefer Cruise in the Miracles match-up due to it's casting cost.

You've never played 20 spells after resolving Ad Nauseam? I certainly have, it's very easy.

[Lemnear]

Even in combo heavy metagames, I never found myself wishing for the sideboard discard spell. I think it's a wasted slot and I would prefer Cruise in the Miracles match-up due to it's casting cost.

You've never played 20 spells after resolving Ad Nauseam? I certainly have, it's very easy.

It's not easy to do if you have to calculate with a certain lifeloss or mediocre flips. For me it's a cornercase I'm not incorporating with all the problems Grapeshot suffers if the scenario with Surgical does not come up.

Against Miracles we side out an Infernal anyways, so the Value of the SB TC is minimal in Games 2 and 3. Mind, that I cutted the TC myself for that exact reason. In game 1 you can't afford to go for turn 3+ anyways aka the timeframe TC is castable. TC shines against Discard (which vanished with BUG thanks to Cruise) and defensive matchups. Against the later, I strictly prefer the turn 2 Wish for clearing the path for the turn 3 combo (which funnily is the critical turn for Sol lands to start shining - hidden promotion lol).

[Bryant Cook]

It's not easy to do if you have to calculate with a certain lifeloss or mediocre flips. For me it's a cornercase I'm not incorporating with all the problems Grapeshot suffers if the scenario with Surgical does not come up.

Against Miracles we side out an Infernal anyways, so the Value of the SB TC is minimal in Games 2 and 3. Mind, that I cutted the TC myself for that exact reason. In game 1 you can't afford to go for turn 3+ anyways aka the timeframe TC is castable. TC shines against Discard (which vanished with BUG thanks to Cruise) and defensive matchups. Against the later, I strictly prefer the turn 2 Wish for clearing the path for the turn 3 combo (which funnily is the critical turn for Sol lands to start shining - hidden promotion lol).

I'm not really interested in a turn three deck.

The way I've been using cruise is a draw 3 for 1RU when my discard has left them defenseless and my hand still needs some has. Against Miracles if they have a CB on 1, Wish for Cruise will resolve getting you closer to your Abrupt Decays.

[Lemnear]

I'm not really interested in a turn three deck.

The way I've been using cruise is a draw 3 for 1RU when my discard has left them defenseless and my hand still needs some has. Against Miracles if they have a CB on 1, Wish for Cruise will resolve getting you closer to your Abrupt Decays.

I fear, going to turn three and beyond is inevitable against defensive opponents otherwise I wouldn't bother myself with the SB Discars either.

One simple question in regards to miracles: why would they even allow you to resolve Wish in the first place if you can get Infernal, PIF, EtW or whatever they might fear to play around their counterbalance or grab/recycle Decay?

[Bryant Cook]

I fear, going to turn three and beyond is inevitable against defensive opponents otherwise I wouldn't bother myself with the SB Discars either.

One simple question in regards to miracles: why would they even allow you to resolve Wish in the first place if you can get Infernal, PIF, EtW or whatever they might fear to play around their counterbalance or grab/recycle Decay?

We run plenty of Discard for their countermagic, paired with a Counterbalance at one (As I mentioned) – Wish for Cruise is a very realistic situation to help dig deeper for Decays.

[Togores]

And instead the SB grapeshot sideboarding a second tendrills? you can board it int vs burn or vs decks with surgical or meddling mage. Also agaianst ur or any gitaxian and pyromancer deck having the natural storm is quite easy and surprisefull.
In ant I side the second tendrills and vs burn or ur I win 80% of the games just natural because they are at like 14 lifes or so. Its not so good vs taxes but you have already 4 infernal into nauseam or directly nauseam and 4 wishes for empty g2 that makes 9 cards of belcher mode.

[Lemnear]

And instead the SB grapeshot sideboarding a second tendrills? you can board it int vs burn or vs decks with surgical or meddling mage. Also agaianst ur or any gitaxian and pyromancer deck having the natural storm is quite easy and surprisefull.
In ant I side the second tendrills and vs burn or ur I win 80% of the games just natural because they are at like 14 lifes or so. Its not so good vs taxes but you have already 4 infernal into nauseam or directly nauseam and 4 wishes for empty g2 that makes 9 cards of belcher mode.

I feel that increasing the chance for the natural ToA in hand is a redundancy option in ANT, which TES may does not require thanks to the higher density of tutors from the start to either go for Goblins (especially game 1 against UR Delver) or slowroll into the natural chain which is most likely deadly if you hit 8 storm against UR Delver and their aggressive Fetches/Probes. With the 2 ToA in ANT you have a total of 6 outs to kill/stall your opponent without an engine. TES in it's current iteration has 8 ways to kill. I don't think it's that bad even if the pure use of ToA as a stalling tool is nothing I recommend to do in TES. I'm unsure if a second ToA is worth the slot given the existing redundancy and option to go for EtW instead of setting up a Grinding Station gameplan.

Related topic because of Meddling Mage blocking Wish: I'm not a big fan of the MB ToA in general (without one in the side postboard), because unless you directly flip it for AN, you are required to flip IT + LED instead to have access which is a pain in the ass if you used 1-2 LEDs to cast Infernal (aka only 3 left in the deck) into Ad Nauseam in the first place. This is the reason ANT is such a mediocre Ad Nauseam deck if you ask me. If you keep ToA in the side, you can fetch it with 6 random mana and a Wish in addition to the IT + LED scenario and I rather run options to deal with a Meddling Mage than limiting the outs I have to either setup a successful Ad Nauseam combo or a natural chain.

These days I'm pretty used to work with the natural chain thanks to people burning through their Gitaxian Probes and dealing fast damage. Playing "land, cantrip, go" for 2 turns and blow them out with a natural chain is just too easy to execute for TES. I had a good laughter in last weeks testing during a game in the draw which started with double Probe on both sides of the table; my opponent finished his/her turn with Delver, I did with a natural chain ToA xD

[grmpytopdecker]

I was watching the SCG stream and saw Bryant win his "win-and-in" to get to Day 2. Impressive and inspiring to watch him play around Meddling Mage and Force of Will to win the third game.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[wonderPreaux]

I was watching the SCG stream and saw Bryant win his "win-and-in" to get to Day 2. Impressive and inspiring to watch him play around Meddling Mage and Force of Will to win the third game.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Great day for storm overall, 4 features in 9 rounds. 2 of which were Bryant, showing both a slower (rd 2) and faster (rd 9) way to approach matches. To be fair, though, his opponent likely handed him g3 by not naming Infernal Tutor. Worst case scenario, Bryant does Wish for Massacre, you Force pitching Ponder if he immediately plays it, then you can follow up with Clique (if Bryant holds it to use Duress first, Clique works there too).

On another note, I wanted to bring up an issue re: Void Snare. While it's removal stemmed from being less relevant against Leyline than something like Xantid Swarm, I'm wondering how you go about beating Omni-Tell, since Goblins aren't really good when they can true-cast Emrakul instead of just showing it in or they can Release the Ants. I think the ability to kill on the combo turn is important, since Swarm means they are likely holding their counters, such that leaning on something like Pyroblast wouldn't be sufficient.

[Lemnear]

I was watching the SCG stream and saw Bryant win his "win-and-in" to get to Day 2. Impressive and inspiring to watch him play around Meddling Mage and Force of Will to win the third game.

There is some Executive excellence to be seen. For me pretty interresting in particular is the sheer number of turns and controlled lands in some of those matches.


On another note, I wanted to bring up an issue re: Void Snare. While it's removal stemmed from being less relevant against Leyline than something like Xantid Swarm, I'm wondering how you go about beating Omni-Tell, since Goblins aren't really good when they can true-cast Emrakul instead of just showing it in or they can Release the Ants. I think the ability to kill on the combo turn is important, since Swarm means they are likely holding their counters, such that leaning on something like Pyroblast wouldn't be sufficient.

I'm not sure what your point is here in regards to Snare ?:/

[wonderPreaux]

I'm not sure what your point is here in regards to Snare ?:/

Snare lets you remove Leyline and kill with Tendrils the turn you combo, as opposed to making a lethal amount of Goblins and potentially getting blown out by hardcast Emrakul or Release the Ants from Omnitell

[itrytostorm]

Snare lets you remove Leyline and kill with Tendrils the turn you combo, as opposed to making a lethal amount of Goblins and potentially getting blown out by hardcast Emrakul or Release the Ants from Omnitell

I was at SCG running TES and discussed that with Bryant. Leyline isn't very prominent, so losing to that one card may happen. Our way to win is essentially making a lethal amount of Goblins and hoping the can't kill us the next turn. At least we have Pyroblast to somewhat interact.

[wonderPreaux]

I was at SCG running TES and discussed that with Bryant. Leyline isn't very prominent, so losing to that one card may happen. Our way to win is essentially making a lethal amount of Goblins and hoping the can't kill us the next turn. At least we have Pyroblast to somewhat interact.

Omni-Tell is more capable of actually winning on their combo turn, since you more rarely have flubs of just Showing in Emrakul or w/e, and decently likely to be playing Leyline. Moreover, if your Swarms are holding pack their counters, then they will be sitting in their hand, so your Pyroblast will often be less-than-effectual. Given that Omni-Tell has gotten relatively better in the wake of Containment Priest and the use of Dig Through Time, even standard Sneak and Show can have tech Omnisciences, I think it might be necessary to respect that configuration with some sort of bounce.

[Sloshthedark]

Great day for storm overall, 4 features in 9 rounds. 2 of which were Bryant, showing both a slower (rd 2) and faster (rd 9) way to approach matches. To be fair, though, his opponent likely handed him g3 by not naming Infernal Tutor.

his Opp made the mistake of not waiting for a fetchland crack with Clique (and MM accordingly next turn) instead of playing the MM imo ... but I enjoyed both rounds (nice to see even Mr Cook slow hands sometimes), more Storm feature matches were a pleasant surprise this weekend

[Lemnear]

Omni-Tell is more capable of actually winning on their combo turn, since you more rarely have flubs of just Showing in Emrakul or w/e, and decently likely to be playing Leyline. Moreover, if your Swarms are holding pack their counters, then they will be sitting in their hand, so your Pyroblast will often be less-than-effectual. Given that Omni-Tell has gotten relatively better in the wake of Containment Priest and the use of Dig Through Time, even standard Sneak and Show can have tech Omnisciences, I think it might be necessary to respect that configuration with some sort of bounce.

I'm not afraid of Leyline atm especially if the card has to be paired up with a 3-card combo of S&T + Omniscience + x. I can live with such a blowout and we talked about that on FB. We ended up agreeing that the slot VS took was actually wasted for the time being as Leyline only saw fringe play. If the card returns in the wake of Storm and Burn, we need to reconsider countermeasures, but for the moment I can justify that blind spot of not being able to Wish for VS to get rid of Leyline post-AN. It's not that VS helps at all against Omniscience plus x

I'm not sure the topic of Leyline, Swarm and Pyroblast is even related. Pyroblast was never meant to help you winning, but rather preventing you from loosing to S&T or EtI.

[wonderPreaux]

I'm not sure the topic of Leyline, Swarm and Pyroblast is even related. Pyroblast was never meant to help you winning, but rather preventing you from loosing to S&T or EtI.

The Swarm/Pyroblast thing centers around the opposing Flusterstorms or post-Swarm FoWs being blanks once I have Swarm in play. So when I blast their SnT, they would naturally just crush my Pyroblast with their counters, since such cards would be blank at any other time.

I'll give the 2 Clasm/2 Blast list a go, see how it works out. If I keep running into Leyline like I have been, I'll have to reconsider, it's a bit annoying figuring out what to remove for Snare as it is anyway.

[Lemnear]

The Swarm/Pyroblast thing centers around the opposing Flusterstorms or post-Swarm FoWs being blanks once I have Swarm in play. So when I blast their SnT, they would naturally just crush my Pyroblast with their counters, since such cards would be blank at any other time.

I'll give the 2 Clasm/2 Blast list a go, see how it works out. If I keep running into Leyline like I have been, I'll have to reconsider, it's a bit annoying figuring out what to remove for Snare as it is anyway.

It's basically the same issue like if you have Xantid and your opponent plays Sneak Attack past your Pyroblast and attacks with a hasty Emrakul killing your Xantid in the process.

That still does not render Pyroblast a bad card which has it's spot in the (Extended) Sideboard because of it's flexibility and not neccessary because of being super good against x

:)

[Bryant Cook]

I crashed hard today going 2-4. I had some really rough beats along with a horrendous misplay.

Some thoughts:

1.) I really missed the Empty the Warrens in the main against the field of blue decks, being able to Duress (seeing that you have a small window) and then Ritual, LED, Tutor into Empty would've been nice multiple times.
2.) Massacre was useless once again, I'm cutting it - I never want that card, it's been multiple events since I've wanted it too.
3.) Cruise was really good.
4.) Cruise was almost too tempting as I think I may've misplayed a few rounds because of it, where I probably should've gotten Past in Flames and then been patient until I drew another Ritual.
5.) I won a match through Leylines.
6.) I never once wanted a sideboard discard spell.

With these thoughts in mind, I'm going to start testing the list below:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam

Sideboard
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroblast
2 Pyroclasm
1 Void Snare
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Treasure Cruise

Two feature matches added to the opening post.

[Lemnear]

When please play the 4 Therapies again. I know the temptation to cast Cruise, but removing Therapies and Rituals feels just wrong.

Edit: I'm not sure returning EtW to the MB is a lasting move. Everyone is either running a massive amount of Sweepers for the Pyromancers or running combo themselves. Even Lands.dec has Tabernacles to tutor for :/

[Bryant Cook]

There were times I was bottle necked on mana and not able to use Ad Nauseam as a resource because my life was too low, but 16 Goblins would've been fine. Not to mention that the tokens would've been helpful multiple times, I'm going back to Empty for the foreseeable future. Duress being a guaranteed hit has been awesome, especially in a diversified disruption metagame. I'm likely staying 3/3 on my protection for now and not 4/2 unless Thalia strategies become super relevant again.

Ah, yes, Lands! A huge portion of the metagame! In all seriousness, just don't use the card against them.

As for Cruise, I was casting it wisely, but I look back at two games that I lost and I wonder if I had gotten PIF instead would I have won. The answer is I likely would've, it's a learning curve to a new card.

[Togores]

Gj Brayant.
Good games. T1 and a grindy (may be too much grind) I thought the g3 of r9 you was going to loose dur his strongg hand. I think that if he would have drawn a fetch or untaped after the mage you would have lost 90%.

Its sad that u dont let us usualy see the card you draw would be great at thinking allong you.

[Lemnear]

I will test the Cruise in the spot I used to run the SB Duress. They are both likely to draw out a counter, I guess ;)

[Final Fortune]

I will test the Cruise in the spot I used to run the SB Duress. They are both likely to draw out a counter, I guess ;)

That's more or less been my experience, you'd rather Wish for a must counter than for discard because if they don't have it you win on the spot.

I don't think Cabal Therapy has anything to do with Treasure Cruise, because if you ever Flashback Cabal Therapy then you're all-in on Empty the Warrens any way. That said I don't think you need Cabal Therapy to make Empty the Warrens good, lately I've been playing with 4 Duress, 2 Thoughtseize, 4 Infernal Tutor, 1 Empty the Warrens and haven't really had any problems with getting the tokens removed pre-board. I really don't like cutting Empty the Warrens, there are just too many situations where you get to Probe and go for it on 6 mana.

[Bryant Cook]

Gj Brayant.
Good games. T1 and a grindy (may be too much grind) I thought the g3 of r9 you was going to loose dur his strongg hand. I think that if he would have drawn a fetch or untaped after the mage you would have lost 90%.

Its sad that u dont let us usualy see the card you draw would be great at thinking allong you.

That's the beauty of Wish for Cruise, we can now win much longer games in a similar way that Cabal Ritual provides a better long game. We gain the same edge in a different manner now while being more explosive without it.

When I play, on camera or not, I'm very aware of where my hand is and to now show cards in my hand. I have opponents who aren't as great as this...

[Pelikanudo]

@You Stormers:

mmm, I think I'm going to also test my 2nd Discard Slot as a T.Cruise, What I have clear is that T.Cruise has different roles tan PiF and D.Ret (yes I still play this)
I also think having 4 C.Therapy main is great and I think if you play EtW main is just a must...
Well Lem, what Bryant propose is basically the list long time ago you proposed... I still prefer Gemstones , 12 lands and 7th discard main.

it is nice to see that somehow we are in the same directions...

One thing I have to note:
I've played several games vs Miracles - No Ponder archetype, and seems quite frustating the match up... I really don't find any key to win this match up... no matter if I play 4 Decays and 2 nedles.... The opponent usually reaches the key cards vs us... I really made lot of testing and seems that in order to win this match up:
a) The opponet needs to play not very well - sometimes they dont play well
b) you need to play just perfectly

thoughs?

[Bryant Cook]

I've been playing a bunch the last few nights on Cockatrice (Seriously, how did I just start using this?), I played 4 matches against D&T tonight. Didn't lose one, even without Massacre.
I did some testing against UR Delver, split 2-2. My losses were to above average draws in one of the matches and the other match was a mixture between just losing and a bad mulligan.

New list feels strong, I'm going to be bummed if Cruise gets the axe now.

[Xami]

I've been playing a bunch the last few nights on Cockatrice (Seriously, how did I just start using this?), I played 4 matches against D&T tonight. Didn't lose one, even without Massacre.
I did some testing against UR Delver, split 2-2. My losses were to above average draws in one of the matches and the other match was a mixture between just losing and a bad mulligan.

New list feels strong, I'm going to be bummed if Cruise gets the axe now.

You may be doing this or similar but I'd like to offer up that Cockatrice is a great way to rapidly test on skype (or skype analog) with friend(s). All the speed of physically saying what you're doing combined with speed of auto shuffles.

[ThiefSlayer]

Hey guys, I'd like to test it myself, but there's been some time since I've gone to a nice level tournament. What is your oppinion about Goblin War Strike as a wish target? I mean, there are still many games where you have to go for the goblin route, I wonder if wouldn't make viable to empty for 8 or 10 sometimes, as there are some situations where you just can't storm for more than it and you just have to take that low chance of still winning the game.

I think this gameplan would be better in games against fast aggro decks, when you may have not enough life to safely ad nauseam, not enough rituals on the GY to PiF and not many cards to make a spell chain to a letal Tendrils. 10 goblins racing against flying insects may not handle it, while Goblin War Strike may give you the fuel you need to make it a good move.

The problem about this situation is that when you empty the warrens you also have to empty your hand, and will depend on the 7 tutors (probably 6, if you emptied) and cantrips to topdeck your way to Goblin War Strike, I think it would have about 20% chance of topdecking (after casting the cantrips). I think I'm just answering myself as it is a not sure move, that may be useful (not necessarily efficient) in just a low percentage of the time, in a situation where you are really bad already.

I noticed that there were more lists (still not that many) before that ran this card and nowadays there aren't so many. Anyways, I'd appreciate some insights about the pros, cons and your oppinion about meta where it may perform better.

[Lemnear]

Hey guys, I'd like to test it myself, but there's been some time since I've gone to a nice level tournament. What is your oppinion about Goblin War Strike as a wish target? I mean, there are still many games where you have to go for the goblin route, I wonder if wouldn't make viable to empty for 8 or 10 sometimes, as there are some situations where you just can't storm for more than it and you just have to take that low chance of still winning the game.

I think this gameplan would be better in games against fast aggro decks, when you may have not enough life to safely ad nauseam, not enough rituals on the GY to PiF and not many cards to make a spell chain to a letal Tendrils. 10 goblins racing against flying insects may not handle it, while Goblin War Strike may give you the fuel you need to make it a good move.

The problem about this situation is that when you empty the warrens you also have to empty your hand, and will depend on the 7 tutors (probably 6, if you emptied) and cantrips to topdeck your way to Goblin War Strike, I think it would have about 20% chance of topdecking (after casting the cantrips). I think I'm just answering myself as it is a not sure move, that may be useful (not necessarily efficient) in just a low percentage of the time, in a situation where you are really bad already.

I noticed that there were more lists (still not that many) before that ran this card and nowadays there aren't so many. Anyways, I'd appreciate some insights about the pros, cons and your oppinion about meta where it may perform better.

You pretty much answered the,question yourself: If you go for EtW (in most cases you wished for it), your hand is pretty likely empty. Running a card in your SB, which MAYBE is useful, IF you have two mana sources AND another Wish AFTER you cast EtW and your opponent isn't already dead or your goblins killed, is complete nonsense

[wonderPreaux]

Hey guys, I'd like to test it myself, but there's been some time since I've gone to a nice level tournament. What is your oppinion about Goblin War Strike as a wish target? I mean, there are still many games where you have to go for the goblin route, I wonder if wouldn't make viable to empty for 8 or 10 sometimes, as there are some situations where you just can't storm for more than it and you just have to take that low chance of still winning the game.
So, what is your hand looking like where you have this thought process? Wish x2/Wish + EtW and then what one would assume to be some amount of mana, yes? So, if you're in that kind of scenario, why not just Wish for PiF, then go in a turn later, using PiF to build a respectable force of goblins or reach lethal with Tendrils. Even in corner cases where your Goblins are getting ground out by dudes, you're likely better off with Grapeshot in the board instead, as your Goblins can pivot to serving as blockers while you put together a lethal Grapeshot, or you can actually kill blockers with Grapeshot.


I think this gameplan would be better in games against fast aggro decks, when you may have not enough life to safely ad nauseam, not enough rituals on the GY to PiF and not many cards to make a spell chain to a letal Tendrils. 10 goblins racing against flying insects may not handle it, while Goblin War Strike may give you the fuel you need to make it a good move.
Again, I'm pretty sure Grapeshot shooting their dudes or face is better utility. Bryant even mentioned a page back that one copy of Pyroclasm in the board could likely be a Grapeshot.


The problem about this situation is that when you empty the warrens you also have to empty your hand, and will depend on the 7 tutors (probably 6, if you emptied) and cantrips to topdeck your way to Goblin War Strike, I think it would have about 20% chance of topdecking (after casting the cantrips). I think I'm just answering myself as it is a not sure move, that may be useful (not necessarily efficient) in just a low percentage of the time, in a situation where you are really bad already.
This, again, underscores the relevance of Grapeshot vs. War Strike, you're talking about corner cases of utility. If we're trying to have a decent card that also solves small problems, I think Grapeshot is the better option. Also, Grapeshot is useful independently of Goblins, which means, as I stated, you can block and trade with Goblins to optimally buy time while you wait around for Grapeshot.


I noticed that there were more lists (still not that many) before that ran this card and nowadays there aren't so many. Anyways, I'd appreciate some insights about the pros, cons and your oppinion about meta where it may perform better.
I'm pretty sure no one runs War Strike because it's a fundamentally underwhelming card. I think you should just play Grapeshot.

[Lemnear]

If it's for "reach" after a single, successful attack with the horde in the face of a sweeper, you can simply wish for ToA and win as intended ... in most cases for 3-4 stormcount only, which is far less than Grapeshot takes in terms of cards and turns (considering you have no cards left after EtW). No need for an extra card in any case

[wonderPreaux]

If it's for "reach" after a single, successful attack with the horde in the face of a sweeper, you can simply wish for ToA and win as intended ... in most cases for 3-4 stormcount only, which is far less than Grapeshot takes in terms of cards and turns (considering you have no cards left after EtW). No need for an extra card in any case

It wouldn't be an extra card, it'd be a replacement for a card that has slightly hedged utility (1 Pyroclasm over 1 Grapeshot). Also, Grapeshot can kill creatures, which is pretty relevant because that effectively gains you life (no crack-back next turn, no DRS drain etc) and lowers their life (no longer a blocker). Moreover, the life benefit of the Grapeshot is amortized over several turns, as opposed to a longer term lump sum, which can be relevant if you arent going to live to see that lump sum.

[Lemnear]

It wouldn't be an extra card, it'd be a replacement for a card that has slightly hedged utility (1 Pyroclasm over 1 Grapeshot). Also, Grapeshot can kill creatures, which is pretty relevant because that effectively gains you life (no crack-back next turn, no DRS drain etc) and lowers their life (no longer a blocker). Moreover, the life benefit of the Grapeshot is amortized over several turns, as opposed to a longer term lump sum, which can be relevant if you arent going to live to see that lump sum.

I wouldn't want to waste a Wish, stormcount and 4 mana to just kill a creature. Grapeshot for sweeping was horribly inefficient the last time I was forced to do so against Deathblade. I lost because I sweeped instead of tanking and going for the ToA

[Bryant Cook]

I wouldn't want to waste a Wish, stormcount and 4 mana to just kill a creature. Grapeshot for sweeping was horribly inefficient the last time I was forced to do so against Deathblade. I lost because I sweeped instead of tanking and going for the ToA

There's a few things wrong with this. Wish, stormcount and 4 mana to kill a creature is required of Pyroclasm anyway - the stormcount would've been lethal to the creature at two.
The second thing that concerning is it sounds like you made a misplay and are blaming Grapeshot for your decision.

[wonderPreaux]

I wouldn't want to waste a Wish, stormcount and 4 mana to just kill a creature. Grapeshot for sweeping was horribly inefficient the last time I was forced to do so against Deathblade. I lost because I sweeped instead of tanking and going for the ToA

Sounds similar to Bryant's situation where he Wished for a Cruise and would've been better served waiting to draw a ritual for PiF. There are some situations where one Wish target is superior to the other, but that situation doesn't invalidate the usefulness of the other card. For example, a long while ago in the pre-Eidolon days for burn, I saved a game by Grapeshotting a Keldon Marauder, where waiting for another ritual/land for Tendrils would mean losing points of damage and life as the Marauder blocks and/or forces me to block. There's also the issue of me just dying as I wait for mana. My Burn example doesn't counter your Deathblade example, it just shows that you have to evaluate the gamestate, if we had infinite knowledge, we wouldn't ever debate the 75 in the first place.

I think a 1/1 split of Pyroclasm and Grapeshot is entirely defensible, there are disproportionately effective creatures (flipped Delver, initially deployed Pyromancer, Meddling Mage) that might demand a timely answer such that Pyroclasm hitting the rest of the board is incidental, there are also situations where sweeping the board would be great (Elves, standing Pyromancer, random clocks) and the ability to serve as a backup kill is unimportant. Game 1, you can just Wish for whichever one is better, postboard against UWR their both great, the only place youd really lose value is something like Elves or Burn, and in the case of heavy Burn and Elves and the lose being significant, you could just run Grapeshot over Void Snare or not run it at all.

[Lemnear]

Sounds similar to Bryant's situation where he Wished for a Cruise and would've been better served waiting to draw a ritual for PiF. There are some situations where one Wish target is superior to the other, but that situation doesn't invalidate the usefulness of the other card. For example, a long while ago in the pre-Eidolon days for burn, I saved a game by Grapeshotting a Keldon Marauder, where waiting for another ritual/land for Tendrils would mean losing points of damage and life as the Marauder blocks and/or forces me to block. There's also the issue of me just dying as I wait for mana. My Burn example doesn't counter your Deathblade example, it just shows that you have to evaluate the gamestate, if we had infinite knowledge, we wouldn't ever debate the 75 in the first place.

I think a 1/1 split of Pyroclasm and Grapeshot is entirely defensible, there are disproportionately effective creatures (flipped Delver, initially deployed Pyromancer, Meddling Mage) that might demand a timely answer such that Pyroclasm hitting the rest of the board is incidental, there are also situations where sweeping the board would be great (Elves, standing Pyromancer, random clocks) and the ability to serve as a backup kill is unimportant. Game 1, you can just Wish for whichever one is better, postboard against UWR their both great, the only place youd really lose value is something like Elves or Burn, and in the case of heavy Burn and Elves and the lose being significant, you could just run Grapeshot over Void Snare or not run it at all.

Valid points. It's possible that I misplay der back when. I just think to remember Delver + SFM in that situation and me wasting at least a RoF for sweeping to not enter Bolt-range/a sneaked in Batterskull or the like. I drew the required Ritual in the second draw step which would have handed me the win as he did not draw a Bolt, but instead I died to another Delver shortly after.

[wonderPreaux]

Valid points. It's possible that I misplay der back when. I just think to remember Delver + SFM in that situation and me wasting at least a RoF for sweeping to not enter Bolt-range/a sneaked in Batterskull or the like. I drew the required Ritual in the second draw step which would have handed me the win as he did not draw a Bolt, but instead I died to another Delver shortly after.

Compared to my example, fearing burn from a burn deck, theres indeed a lot more complexity there. As I said, it seems to with Grapeshot and Pyroclasm you trade a little bit of raw efficiency for a bit of flexible utility, and given that Grapeshot and Pyroclasm accomplish the same broader goal, it could be a worthwhile inclusion. It might even be a meta call for heavy Meddling Mage/Stoneblade decks, whereas double Pyroclasm would suit a field of elves/DnT/burn more.

[owerbart]

hey why did people threw away gemstone mine? don't you guys like silence in the board?

[Togores]

Brayant. Why you play bloodstaines mire?
Misty rainforest does the same.
As a strategic thing so that your opp dosnt think your are on tes? Or just because yoi have them foil japanese <3 and you dont have misty rainforest in foil japanese (Im too lazy to search the pimp post for ur deck now).

[Bryant Cook]

I own Japanese foil Mistys, I've had opponents not respect Mire to only have them die. Misty tells them you're doing blue things so they don't tap out as much. I'm more inclined to play Misty because it's worth more and I like bragging about what my deck is worth!

[owerbart]

I own Japanese foil Mistys, I've had opponents not respect Mire to only have them die. Misty tells them you're doing blue things so they don't tap out as much. I'm more inclined to play Misty because it's worth more and I like bragging about what my deck is worth!

what about gemstone mine? has silence proved unnefective to you?

[Asthereal]

what about gemstone mine? has silence proved unnefective to you?
With less conditional counters in the meta (like Stifle, Spell Snare), Silence has lost value.

The knowledge of what your opponent is up to, is very strong. Also, the prevalence of hate bears in the current meta (Death&taxes, Eidolon from Burn, Meddling Mages/Canonists from UWx decks) asks for discard that hits those types of cards. That's why we typically run 4x Cabal Therapy, 3x Duress.

Gemstone Mine is still playable (I run two still). It helps to get green mana for Swarms and Decays from the sideboard. But since we don't run white or green cards main deck, Mines have become less of a necessity.

Hope this answers your questions. :cool:

[Togores]

I own Japanese foil Mistys, I've had opponents not respect Mire to only have them die. Misty tells them you're doing blue things so they don't tap out as much. I'm more inclined to play Misty because it's worth more and I like bragging about what my deck is worth!

I will have to go with mistys because I dont own bloodstained (and they are foil :3 ) here in my local meta everyone knows im on combo so making the switch for small events its not worth. Of I go play a +50 ppl event I will get bloodstained to headshot them by surprise.

And also against what decks you sidenin the 2 pyroclasm. For patriot and their mages suere, for elves also.
But Ur? Goblins? Taxes? Gw zenith? Bug delver? And vs each of them you side 1 and let 1 in the board or you side both in?

Thanks

[Bryant Cook]

I will have to go with mistys because I dont own bloodstained (and they are foil :3 ) here in my local meta everyone knows im on combo so making the switch for small events its not worth. Of I go play a +50 ppl event I will get bloodstained to headshot them by surprise.

And also against what decks you sidenin the 2 pyroclasm. For patriot and their mages suere, for elves also.
But Ur? Goblins? Taxes? Gw zenith? Bug delver? And vs each of them you side 1 and let 1 in the board or you side both in?

Thanks

Right now, I'm trying out 1 Grapeshot & 1 Pyroclasm.

Against UW(r) - I would side in both.
Elves - Side in Grapeshot, leave 'Clasm to Burning Wish for.
UR - Neither.
Goblins - Both?
D&T - Pyroclasm.
GW - Pyroclasm.
BUG Delver - Neither?

You really only want to side them both in during matches where Wish gets shut off. I prefer to side in Grapeshot as it can serve as a back-up win condition. Pyroclasm is really only better in match-ups that have Thalia.

EDIT: I expect my Sideboard to change over the next day or so, I plan on writing down most of my SB strategies and analyzing what I'm taking out/putting in into one of my google docs. Twice over the weekend I found myself over sideboarding, wondering if Pyroblast really belongs or if it would be better served as another sweeper effect plus a sideboard Cabal Therapy. A sideboard Therapy could work in a similar fashion, albeit it doesn't destroy Meddling Mage.

[Pelikanudo]

Right now, I'm trying out 1 Grapeshot & 1 Pyroclasm.

Against UW(r) - I would side in both.
Elves - Side in Grapeshot, leave 'Clasm to Burning Wish for.
UR - Neither.
Goblins - Both?
D&T - Pyroclasm.
GW - Pyroclasm.
BUG Delver - Neither?

You really only want to side them both in during matches where Wish gets shut off. I prefer to side in Grapeshot as it can serve as a back-up win condition. Pyroclasm is really only better in match-ups that have Thalia.

EDIT: I expect my Sideboard to change over the next day or so, I plan on writing down most of my SB strategies and analyzing what I'm taking out/putting in into one of my google docs. Twice over the weekend I found myself over sideboarding, wondering if Pyroblast really belongs or if it would be better served as another sweeper effect plus a sideboard Cabal Therapy. A sideboard Therapy could work in a similar fashion, albeit it doesn't destroy Meddling Mage.


Well, please share with me that Side Strategies done in your Google Docs.

Apart, as I have a personal battle vs Miracles Archetype I'm looking at different angles to win this match up.
The last thing I'm trying is 3 Extirpate in my Side along with 4 or 3 A.Decay, after some testing, Nedle only is usefull vs senseis and I feel that I should play more than 2 copies...
What surprise me from Extirpate is that hits a discarded c.b. or multiple FoWs AND it is wonderfull for Senseis Tricks.

@Lem and F.Fortune:
Please do you have any Solid strategy against Miracles? I need a Solution for this match up!.... I'm tired to uniquely loose vs this....

[Lemnear]

Gimme your list and SB plan and I help you out

[Togores]

@pelicanudo
Why you loose vs miracles?
Last time I have played tes vs ballesting and duke I have defeat them. With ant is diferent but tes is too fast. And the are the best miracles players in our events.
So just headshot them in the face (:


Better Lem?

[Lemnear]

@pelicanudo
Why you loose vs miracles?
Last time I have played tes vs ballesting and duke I have defeat them. With ant is diferent but tes is too fast. And the are the best miracles players in our events.
So just cumshot them in the face (:

Stay classy, Rodrigo.

[sawatarix]

@Togores: Better, i visualized it how you would do that on your opponent :cool:
Stormplayers are always badass.


Back to topic, I agree that Tes has the luxury to go off before our miracle opponent has even found a counterspell.
If the Deck get's also better in grindy games (and we are already on a good way inculding the cabal rituals) i could imagine that this deck has a real high potential to be better than Ant. But i don't want to start this discussion again - we had it infinite times already.

[Bryant Cook]

@Togores: Better, i visualized it how you would do that on your opponent :cool:
Stormplayers are always badass.


Back to topic, I agree that Tes has the luxury to go off before our miracle opponent has even found a counterspell.
If the Deck get's also better in grindy games (and we are already on a good way inculding the cabal rituals) i could imagine that this deck has a real high potential to be better than Ant. But i don't want to start this discussion again - we had it infinite times already.

The problem with Cabal Ritual is that it doesn't play well with Chrome Mox and slows us down, I've been having a ton of turn 1-2 kills/combo-ing off (ETW) which is where we want to be in my opinion. With Cabal's it's a little slower at 2-3. That extra half turn has cost me more in the two months I was playing it than it's worth.

Not to mention, with the luxury of Treasure Cruise as a 'Wish target we recovered a lot of what was lost from dropping Cabal Ritual again.

[Lemnear]

Well, please share with me that Side Strategies done in your Google Docs.

Apart, as I have a personal battle vs Miracles Archetype I'm looking at different angles to win this match up.
The last thing I'm trying is 3 Extirpate in my Side along with 4 or 3 A.Decay, after some testing, Nedle only is usefull vs senseis and I feel that I should play more than 2 copies...
What surprise me from Extirpate is that hits a discarded c.b. or multiple FoWs AND it is wonderfull for Senseis Tricks.

@Lem and F.Fortune:
Please do you have any Solid strategy against Miracles? I need a Solution for this match up!.... I'm tired to uniquely loose vs this....

I doubt you can afford the carddisadvantage of Extirpate especially if you are required to get a CB or FoW in the graveyard first.

If you stick with the OP list you remove the Moxen, a Ponder, the EtW and an Infernal to free 6 slots for Xantids/ Decay/ Pyroblast (depending on your SB). If you have more disruption in your SB, cut more Ponders accordingly

[Togores]

Im having a hard time. Because I wanna play Tes this weekend but from the list posted a few daya ago I really miss the 7th discard.
When I have played 6 they always seemed not a lot vs control deck.
Would like to shave something for it.

[wonderPreaux]

Re: Miracles - I think it can be worthwhile to keep 1 Chrome Mox in postboard against Miracles, the acceleration can make the difference for winning before Clique or something like that.

Re: Sideboard talk. If maindeck EtW is something people are really interested in, I feel liek you should be maxxed out on Therapy, as the mind twist synergy can be critical against what seems to be a rising number of combo matchups.

I personally think this could be really good:

8 Fetches
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress

4 Burning Wish
3 Infernal Tutor
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam

3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroclasm
1 Void Snare
1 Grapeshot
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Infernal Tutor

Nothing fancy, nothing special, just good efficient cards that provide general utility. 7 Discard/3 Tutor maindeck reduces the amount of digging you have to do for protection, and optimizes your ability to efficiently use mana for fast Goblin lines. If you really want effective speed, this is probably the ideal as you still have 9 business spells, and flexibility on any mana inflection of 6+ probably outweighs the marginal value of the 10th business spell.

Boarding likely looks like this:

Miracles
-2 Chrome Mox
-1 Empty the Warrens
-1 Cabal Therapy
-2 Ponder
+3 Abrupt Decay
+3 Xantid Swarm
Just throw the threats at them and hope something sticks, I guess??? There might be a case for siding in Tendrils/Grapeshot depending on what you see.

UWR Stoneblade
-1 Chrome Mox
-1 Empty the Warrens
-1 Ponder
+2 Pyroclasm
+1 Grapeshot
Pyroclasm and Grapeshot covers the odd Canonist and makes calls on Meddling Mage difficult. Grapeshot kills are a possibility with so many Probes and Fetches that UWR does. For UWR Delver, you can cut a Ponder instead of EtW, for Esper Stoneblade you could side out a Chrome Mox or Ponder for Tendrils as necessary.

High Tide/Sneak and Show/Reanimator
-1 Chrome Mox
-1 Empty the Warrens
-1 Cabal Therapy
+3 Xantid Swarm
For Reanimator, you likely want t cut a Ponder/Chrome Mox for a Tendrils.

Storm
-1 EtW
+1 Infernal Tutor
If you see Extraction, side Tendrils.

Hatebears
-3 Duress
+1 Infernal Tutor
+2 Pyroclasm
If you are on the draw, you can just side Ponders out for Decays or w/e. For Elves, just side in removal instead of the Tutor.

Seems good?

[Bryant Cook]

You don't have to follow our instructions, but Chrome Mox against Miracles is pretty bad as the games are naturally slower due to countermagic backed by Top & Counterbalance. I am all for siding them all out, against Stoneblade I keep one in.

There just isn't need to have Infernal Tutor in the sideboard with Past in Flames, ETW and Treasure Cruise. It's a wasted slot, if you're desperately trying to get a 7th one main (Which I don't see the appeal in - you have sideboard options and Empty is naturally good versus blue decks) I would recommend shoving the Bayou to the sideboard.

It's worth noting that I'm against +/- charts as it doesn't teach people to think for themselves and they'll never truly become better because there isn't logic behind it, what if the opponents' deck isn't a standard list of that archtype?

3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Void Snare
2 Pyroclasm
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Treasure Cruise

I'm writing down strategies for this sideboard to see if it's more fluid than the Pyroblast list as I felt like we had too many slots for a couple of match-ups.

[wonderPreaux]

You don't have to follow our instructions, but Chrome Mox against Miracles is pretty bad as the games are naturally slower due to countermagic backed by Top & Counterbalance. I al all for siding them all out, against Stoneblade I keep one in.

There just isn't need to have Infernal Tutor in the sideboard with Past in Flames, ETW and Treasure Cruise. It's a wasted slot, if you're desperately trying to get a 7th one main (Which I don't see the appeal in - you have sideboard options and Empty is naturally good versus blue decks) I would recommend shoving the Bayou to the sideboard.

It's worth noting that I'm against +/- charts as it doesn't teach people to think for themselves and they'll never truly become better because there isn't logic behind it, what if the opponents' deck isn't a standard list of that archtype?

3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Void Snare
2 Pyroclasm
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Treasure Cruise

I'm writing down strategies for this sideboard to see if it's more fluid than the Pyroblast list as I felt like we had too many slots for a couple of match-ups.

I usually float back and forth on keeping one Mox in against Miracles just because I don't want Ad Nauseam to fail as they have so many punishing draws if I have to give them the turn.

How are you determining what is a wasted slot here? You mentioned earlier that sideboard discard was also a wasted slot, but now Tutor is not worth the trouble? I'm curious what caused the change of opinion.

I didn't mean for the +/- to be a set-in-stone thing, it was just a quick way of conveying general ideas for a first draft. Considering we listed pretty much the same 75, with 1 card from each board swapped, there are probably more nuanced discussions to be had, though

[Bryant Cook]

I usually float back and forth on keeping one Mox in against Miracles just because I don't want Ad Nauseam to fail as they have so many punishing draws if I have to give them the turn.

How are you determining what is a wasted slot here? You mentioned earlier that sideboard discard was also a wasted slot, but now Tutor is not worth the trouble? I'm curious what caused the change of opinion.

I didn't mean for the +/- to be a set-in-stone thing, it was just a quick way of conveying general ideas for a first draft. Considering we listed pretty much the same 75, with 1 card from each board swapped, there are probably more nuanced discussions to be had, though

If you resolve Ad Nauseam and are forced to pass (You usually are able to float mana post-board since games are slower and you're able to build up permanent mana sources), your hand will be stacked with Discard/Decays and more fuel, it should be fine.

I was talking about the discard slot with Lemnear on facebook earlier, I'm now looking as it as a card you would side in rather than a wish target. Unlike Pyroblast it has the upside of being able to be wished for. Do you honestly see yourself ever wishing for Infernal Tutor while having the other three options in your sideboard? If so, how often in comparison to the other three? Now compare this to the statistic likelihood of how often it would be more useful in the main deck. Playing decks like these, all you're ever trying to do is maximize your odds.

[wonderPreaux]

If you resolve Ad Nauseam and are forced to pass (You usually are able to float mana post-board since games are slower and you're able to build up permanent mana sources), your hand will be stacked with Discard/Decays and more fuel, it should be fine.
I guess maybe I just have had some bad beats enough times that I don't quite see it the same. Usually, in my experience there was a topdecked RiP or Clique that made things pretty treacherous. But I will note this for the future, its not as though Chrome Mox is exciting or amazing in this matchup.


I was talking about the discard slot with Lemnear on facebook earlier, I'm now looking as it as a card you would side in rather than a wish target. Unlike Pyroblast it has the upside of being able to be wished for. Do you honestly see yourself ever wishing for Infernal Tutor while having the other three options in your sideboard? If so, how often in comparison to the other three? Now compare this to the statistic likelihood of how often it would be more useful in the main deck. Playing decks like these, all you're ever trying to do is maximize your odds.
So instead of "preboarding" the Tutor for blue matchups (iirc, this was the description you or Lem used for it last year), you are instead just shifting the focus to Tutor density? I think I can get behind that, with the caveat of Pyromancer making EtW a lot dicier against blue decks.

[Bryant Cook]

So instead of "preboarding" the Tutor for blue matchups (iirc, this was the description you or Lem used for it last year), you are instead just shifting the focus to Tutor density? I think I can get behind that, with the caveat of Pyromancer making EtW a lot dicier against blue decks.

I havent been siding out Infernal in the Stoneblade match-ups, with Cruise in the side I've been siding Infernal out less. But in the Miracles match-up you need the room.

[wonderPreaux]

I havent been siding out Infernal in the Stoneblade match-ups, with Cruise in the side I've been siding Infernal out less. But in the Miracles match-up you need the room.
Thats a pretty interesting thing to note, I would figure that the presence of things like Relic or RiP would make leaning on Cruise a less attractive option against Stoneblade. I'll keep that in mind, though.

[Lemnear]

I guess maybe I just have had some bad beats enough times that I don't quite see it the same. Usually, in my experience there was a topdecked RiP or Clique that made things pretty treacherous. But I will note this for the future, its not as though Chrome Mox is exciting or amazing in this matchup.


So instead of "preboarding" the Tutor for blue matchups (iirc, this was the description you or Lem used for it last year), you are instead just shifting the focus to Tutor density? I think I can get behind that, with the caveat of Pyromancer making EtW a lot dicier against blue decks.

I used the term to describe the MB/SB switch between the 4th infernal and the 3rd Duress which differed in our lists because of different game 1 expectations and tools for this game 1s.

[Pelikanudo]

@pelicanudo
Why you loose vs miracles?
Last time I have played tes vs ballesting and duke I have defeat them. With ant is diferent but tes is too fast. And the are the best miracles players in our events.
So just headshot them in the face (:

Better Lem?

Togores, first of all - my brain is bigger than yours. - Joke.

Maybe I'm using a bad side strategy, maybe I have bad luck, however I don't think it is one of these reasons.
Ballestin can be a very good Miracles player but I can say he even misplays when playing vs TES, I remember the last time I played vs him and won 1st game and lost the rest, even the 1st game I won, a C.B. was in play...
I can state the following:
- IF C.B. lands the table and you don't draw A.D. you just loose (except that strange 1st game...)- that was the reason I usually loose 2nd and 3rd games vs Ballestin and others.
- Miracles player usually have the key cards vs me as he has Senseis, so reaching the Late Game vs this archetype is supposed to be the goal, well therefore if playing Decays and no C.Moxes how are supposed to win???
- I usually win more 1st games as opposite to 2nd and 3rd games as you say because we are fast.
Which is your side Strategy?

@Lem:

My Base:

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

4 Gemstone Mine
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn

sideboard
1 Tropical Island
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Void Snare
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
1 Massacre
2 P.Nedle
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames

My Side strategy vs Miracles:
-1EtW, -1I.Tutor,-3C.Mox,-2G.Probe,-2C.Therapy = +4A.Decay, +2Nedle, +1T.Island,+1Duress,+1T.Seize, both on the Draw and on the Play, but I'm not sure if on the Play I should be more agresive...

I've been playing several On The Draw Games vs Miracles Archetype Me and Myself, it was the archetype With No Ponders and I sided in 4 REB, 2 Pierces, 2 Fluster (2 Counterspell, 4 FoWs, 3 Snaps, 0 Vendilion)
- After some games, I decided that Nedle was not good enough vs this, unless I play 4, thats why I'm thinking in Extirpate, the last testing games Extirpate was not very bad as can steal several FoWs or do Senseis tricks - this last is not usual as you need to usually do Infernal to A.N. with 0 cards in hand, it is usefull also vs Snaps, so I'm thinking in other approaches...
- What I have clear is that 4 Decays is the correct number and after some testing with Extirpate and Nedle I'm thinking in including 2 Krosan Grip...

A thing I noticed is that the tendency is to side in Xantid, sure it avoids senseis and if it is not blocked can win me the game but, Miracles also plays removal...
I really didn't notice that the Gemstones are bad in here... even If I reach the late game...
The reason I prefer to keep Ponders over Gitaxian is that Ponder helps me much more to find my needed A.D. than G.P.

Please help Lem and Bryant!, anyway now I have time for testing me and myself to see diff approaches... maybe siding Xantid is the key, don't know... I'll test this after Krosans...

[Lemnear]

-snip-

- IF C.B. lands the table and you don't draw A.D. you just loose (except that strange 1st game...)- that was the reason I usually loose 2nd and 3rd games vs Ballestin and others.

This is the first point I want to step in. We know that getting rid of CB either via discard or Decays is key and that you should maximize the access to the later, right? I come back at this point later in this post, because I don't feel it's the case.


- Miracles player usually have the key cards vs me as he has Senseis, so reaching the Late Game vs this archetype is supposed to be the goal, well therefore if playing Decays and no C.Moxes how are supposed to win???
- I usually win more 1st games as opposite to 2nd and 3rd games as you say because we are fast.
Which is your side Strategy?

Grind them out. No, seriously. You can watch Kai's Final Match against Miracles while piloting ANT and see, that at some point Miracles, which runs plenty of lands while having to balance counterspells, threats and removal, simply runs out of defense. You fling discard/needles/xantids until they lack an according answer and win, while controlling the Balance with the Decays. You have two components to balance against them, while they have to be prepared for Xantid, Goblins, graveyard-engines and more at the same time. It's far from impossible.


@Lem:

My Base:

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

4 Gemstone Mine
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn

sideboard
1 Tropical Island
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Void Snare
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
1 Massacre
2 P.Nedle
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames

Aside from the sideboard-building which totally lacks tools to combat S&T or the like, I see a Problem in running these Gemstones dor the sheer reason that those do not help you to maximize your cantrips to find ... remember the topic of before ... the fucking Decays or thinning the deck out for a statistical minimal increased chance to find them.


My Side strategy vs Miracles:
-1EtW, -1I.Tutor,-3C.Mox,-2G.Probe,-2C.Therapy = +4A.Decay, +2Nedle, +1T.Island,+1Duress,+1T.Seize, both on the Draw and on the Play, but I'm not sure if on the Play I should be more agresive...

9 cards! That's fucking overboarding aside from the fact that boarding discard for discard is a blatant waste of SB space. Boarding out Probes is a No-Go and I said it a thousand times. Information about opposing Cliques & Co. while thinning your deck for zero mana is too good. Maybe a bit radical, but think about keeping the infernal in the 60 for doubling Decays or increased outs for speedy ANs especially if your opponent has a sideboard like you mentioned below. Set yourself a limit for boarding slots per matchup. I suggest not boarding more than 6 cards total.


I've been playing several On The Draw Games vs Miracles Archetype Me and Myself, it was the archetype With No Ponders and I sided in 4 REB, 2 Pierces, 2 Fluster (2 Counterspell, 4 FoWs, 3 Snaps, 0 Vendilion)

That layout dies SOOOOOO HARD to a resolved Xantid! It's the wet dream of everyone boarding Xantids in this matchup.


- After some games, I decided that Nedle was not good enough vs this, unless I play 4, thats why I'm thinking in Extirpate, the last testing games Extirpate was not very bad as can steal several FoWs or do Senseis tricks - this last is not usual as you need to usually do Infernal to A.N. with 0 cards in hand, it is usefull also vs Snaps, so I'm thinking in other approaches...

Why should a resolved Needle EVER be bad in this matchup? Extirpate is carddisadvantage in most cases. Only ok against Reanimator or Storm


- What I have clear is that 4 Decays is the correct number and after some testing with Extirpate and Nedle I'm thinking in including 2 Krosan Grip...

4 Decays, 2 Grips, 0 Moxen ... you don't plan to use AN?


A thing I noticed is that the tendency is to side in Xantid, sure it avoids senseis and if it is not blocked can win me the game but, Miracles also plays removal...
I really didn't notice that the Gemstones are bad in here... even If I reach the late game...
The reason I prefer to keep Ponders over Gitaxian is that Ponder helps me much more to find my needed A.D. than G.P.

Please help Lem and Bryant!, anyway now I have time for testing me and myself to see diff approaches... maybe siding Xantid is the key, don't know... I'll test this after Krosans...

Running Probes and Fetches instead of Gemstones and boarded out Probes creates a certain redundancy you want if you hope to draw into Decays, especially if you consider your potential to cantrip being limited pretty quickly via Balance.

[Bryant Cook]

I dislike +/- lists as they don't teach players how to think for themselves and to understand functions/concepts of the deck, but I've updated the opening post to include them to prevent redundant questions in the thread.

[Togores]

Da boss le Cook!

Sb therapy better than seize?
I like this sb list more than the 2 pyroblast one. Will test it on friday.
Have you ever thought of sb out a land? Like a volcanic against decks with no pressure on your lands? Like sneak and show instead of the mox that alows fast combos?

[Bryant Cook]

The problem with that is that you're messing with your consistency. SB Games are usually slower due to increased amounts of disruption making 'Mox weaker.

[Togores]

And why the therapy vs seize? Usualy vs decks where u want more discard this kimd of effect is better. Not?

[Bryant Cook]

And why the therapy vs seize? Usualy vs decks where u want more discard this kimd of effect is better. Not?

Please try to use proper grammar and spelling.

Thoughtseize's life loss is a liability in an Ad Nauseam deck. Especially in the Lightning Bolt format we're currently living in.

[Pelikanudo]

@Lem:


Well,
the initial list you proposed some months ago is the following:

What happened to me is that I was skeptical about the availability of colors in this list, but I'll give it a chance, this was the list:
The issue about the 13rd land was:
you have exact the same chances when fetching if you have 13 lands than if you play a Gemstone having 12 lands, so the problem for me was to find room for the 13rd land, logically the 7th disruption effect is the one to go out...


After some testing with me and myself, Xantid has demonstrated to be not as bad as it seemed, it is even good for C.Therapy Tricks!... so I'll give it a try too.

the redundancy about having so many discard spells even in my side was because vs Renimator and S&T archetpyes I found myself not needing Xantids and just incrementing the number of Discard was fine to handle these match ups... The unique match up were I find Xantid key is vs Omnishow but I really don't encounter usually this match up..., that was the main reason, now it seems to be key vs Miracles...

Base Lem proposed some months ago:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Duress
1 Ad Nauseam

My proposed Sideboard:
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Void Snare
1 Duress
1 D.Returns
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Massacre


Notes:
- I'll finally try your list - 4 Therapy seems to me the correct number in base, the more I play this card the more I like it.....
- Massacre is now even better having more Access to Swamps as I substitued the Gemstones.
- As you commented some months ago, I wasn't aware of T. Cruise power now I play full fetches, now I am, but my mistake was also to compare D.R. and T.Cruise...
- I still prefer to play D.R. as there are some Pox decks by here in which it is key, I lost a match up because of it, it also has other uses vs S&T or Omnishow as Xantid will keep the Opp. from Playing the counters.

I'm not sure how having 6 Disruption base will affect my Blue match ups, I also will need to put more value a drawn Discard effect much more than before, maybe I need to infernal tutor for it if I expect too much hate, or likes...

With this in mind I have the following Testing scenario vs Miracles:
a) I will use both on the Draw and On The play the same strategies:

+4 Abrupt Decay
+3 Xantid Swarm
+1 Duress
=
-3 Chrome Mox
-1 Infernal Tutor
-1 Empty the Warrens
-3 Ponder

Thoughts:
- I prefer to side in my lonely Discard effect instead of having it in my Side as usually I tend to use B.W. for PiF or I.T. or T.C. this last choice is less common due to REB from Miracles archtype part
- I've been evaluating to leave 4 I.T. in the main and took out that lonely Ponder instead, following your idea: I.T. also adds redundancy to the main, having the option to Infernal for Discard or Decay, however sometimes I miss the I.T. as an option for B.W.

What do you think guys?

EDIT:
Shit, I saw that T.C. Banning....
I think I'll likely keep the 4th Infernal Tutor Main, as always it is been.
I'm doubting if going back to Full Gemnstone and use that Empty Slot for another land, keep the 7th discard spell in main and add another to the side...

[PartyMonster]

@bryant. The new board configuration makes sense. I think that the MD on the OP is at 59 cards instead of 60. I think you just might be missing the singleton Empty. I also might have miscounted (story of my life). Anyways, thought I would bring it to your attention. Have a good one.

[Bryant Cook]

@bryant. The new board configuration makes sense. I think that the MD on the OP is at 59 cards instead of 60. I think you just might be missing the singleton Empty. I also might have miscounted (story of my life). Anyways, thought I would bring it to your attention. Have a good one.

Fixed.

[Bryant Cook]

Whelp.

Cruise is gone, I'll likely shove Infernal back into the sideboard now. Moving the Cabal Therapy the maindeck. Surgical Extraction may be worth playing now for the Storm Mirror/Reanimator/Dragon.

4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

3 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam

Sideboard
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Void Snare
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Pyroclasm
1 Grapeshot / Massacre (Depends on how the metagame breaks down)
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames

[paeng4983]

I was just like in the process of liking TC in the sb until wotc announced their BR.

Dragons. Good thing Cook is faster than lightning in updating our page. Thanks captain!

By the way, will it be ok to bring back silence? I mean reanimator and other uber control blue decks will be around again.

[whataboutcats]

Whelp.


I just want to say I really appreciate you keeping updates on here (and quickly considering the banlist is only a few hours old). I'm looking into playing this deck in Indianapolis since a buddy of mine offered to lend me the cards I need for it. I've been playing around with it online and trying to learn as much as I can. It's insane how much you can do with this deck - having access to Burning Wish makes sideboarding a completely different game.

I have some random questions if you've got any time to discuss. What do you think of Reanimate? I can understand that it may be unnecessary if our other game plans are successful enough against Griselbrand decks. Maybe Surgical is better, but I really like the idea of stealing a Griselbrand to end the game on the spot. I also liked the 2nd Pyroclasm (maybe I'm just heavily biased since it's been such a powerhouse when playing Sneak and Show) and I'm curious what the merits of keeping the second one over something like Grapeshot.

[Lemnear]

How do you want to steal a Griselbrand against EoT Entombs?

[whataboutcats]

How do you want to steal a Griselbrand against EoT Entombs?

Discard spells? I'm looking for a discussion, not a question phrased to make me seem like an idiot. I understand that it's not going to magically work every time - that's why it's a wish target. I'm more concerned with seeing how it is valued as an approach that can net you a gain while denying your opponent of his combo.

[Lemnear]

I was just like in the process of liking TC in the sb until wotc announced their BR.



- I'll finally try your list - 4 Therapy seems to me the correct number in base, the more I play this card the more I like it.....
- Massacre is now even better having more Access to Swamps as I substitued the Gemstones.
- As you commented some months ago, I wasn't aware of T. Cruise power now I play full fetches, now I am, but my mistake was also to compare D.R. and T.Cruise...

I swear, I mentioned the interaction of sandbagging a Fetchland against stuff like D&T to sweep on demand, not to talk about the improved cantripping.

PS: kinda funny that you guys start durdling with Cruise right before it's banned ^__^


Edit:

Discard spells? I'm looking for a discussion, not a question phrased to make me seem like an idiot. I understand that it's not going to magically work every time - that's why it's a wish target. I'm more concerned with seeing how it is valued as an approach that can net you a gain while denying your opponent of his combo.

The Problem is that Duress can't hit a Griselbrand and unless your opponent has the Griselbrand in hand, you'll likely target the enabler and the Reanimate is a totally dead card in your SB. The use is also pretty limited to Reanimator while the other known option to snatch Griselbrand, Bribery, also does Splash damage to SneakShow, 12-Post and MUD. There are too many question marks behind Reanimate to actually considering it over Bribery of you really look for a wishable bomb against those decks.

[Togores]

Bribery is your card.

But also to mana intensive.

[PartyMonster]

Bribery is amazing against reanimator. It may be mana intensive but it's no more expensive then as nauseam. If you are worried about reanimator I highly recommend it. Have to mention though that if you check Bryant's most recent draft of the SB it includes 2 surgical. Pealing their fows of of their deck makes Gris a lot less imposing.


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[Lemnear]

Bribery is amazing against reanimator. It may be mana intensive but it's no more expensive then as nauseam. If you are worried about reanimator I highly recommend it. Have to mention though that if you check Bryant's most recent draft of the SB it includes 2 surgical. Pealing their fows of of their deck makes Gris a lot less imposing.


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For me it's flawed logic if you expect your opponent to draw into FoW with Griselbrand before you present a critical Spell and even if you can strip a FoW early and they land Griselbrand, they can simply draw into Flusterstorm while you 2-for-1 yourself just to get rid of potential FoWs.

[Bryant Cook]

I know it won't be popular, but in the next few weeks if Wasteland sees a big spike - I'll likely add in two basics shoving the Bayou to the sideboard.

[Lemnear]

I would wait a bit and see if Hymn or Stifle+Wasteland returns or if people keep playing the S&T variants they recently assembled according to the step increase of this archetypes in the last 3 weeks.

I suggest to prepare for UWR Patriot, Elves, Burn, D&T, Deathblade, BUG Delver and S&T in the next two weeks from now.

[PartyMonster]

What card are you thinking about cutting for the second basic? Playing dc this weekend and I don't want to be blindsided by the meta shift


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[Lemnear]

What card are you thinking about cutting for the second basic? Playing dc this weekend and I don't want to be blindsided by the meta shift


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I expect it to be a fetch and doubt that Wasteland will return to the big stage within days

[Pelikanudo]

I swear, I mentioned the interaction of sandbagging a Fetchland against stuff like D&T to sweep on demand, not to talk about the improved cantripping.

PS: kinda funny that you guys start durdling with Cruise right before it's banned ^__^



Well I supported also T.C. when appeared, as commented below I by mistake discarded it as in one match up I lost to Pox due to not having D.R. instead, this will never happen again,
I just again evaluated to switch to full fetch plus 13rd land build because
a) I wanted to include Xantid again
b) I wanted to free space for D.R and cruise and Xantid
c) wanted to get better massacre and T.Cruise,
but I found the build more compressed and stable playing 12 lands and Gemstone between them instead of 13.
As example and as Bahamut said I also encountered scenarios in which I fetched for U.Sea-having Bayou and not being able to play RoF, with Gemstone this will not occur as just 2 lands is all what we need.
finally I play Bayou instead of tropical because I also play Xantid which is a 1st turn need sometimes.

I just switched to Xantid to see how this improves my Miracles match ups. I'll let you know how this works..., sure when playing me and myself, myself is an incredible Miracles player! but somehow I overall feel that 2nd and 3rd games are not bad.

Well I think I have a solid build vs Miracles and stuff finally...

EDIT: Thank you a lot for the Xantid Approach vs miracles... I couldn't imagine that this card was in deed good vs miracles, hell at it worst is good for flashbacking! I feel so good with my entire build now... I've been really evluating that green card that makes moreless the same effect than silence... don't remember the name, then its supposed miracles will get even be better!

[Lemnear]

Has the promising idea of SB Engineered Explosives seen further testing? I think the potential to wipe Counterbalance and Hatebears with a single SB Slot is pretty interresting in theory. Had no time to do it myself so far

[Asthereal]

Has the promising idea of SB Engineered Explosives seen further testing? I think the potential to wipe Counterbalance and Hatebears with a single SB Slot is pretty interresting in theory. Had no time to do it myself so far
I've seen wonderPreaux board it in a daily, but he never got to use it.
I do like the fact that it costs no life for Ad Nauseam, but other than that it seems weak.

[j1nakamura]

EDIT: Thank you a lot for the Xantid Approach vs miracles... I couldn't imagine that this card was in deed good vs miracles, hell at it worst is good for flashbacking! I feel so good with my entire build now... I've been really evluating that green card that makes moreless the same effect than silence... don't remember the name, then its supposed miracles will get even be better!

You mean Autumn's Veil?

[Lemnear]

You mean Autumn's Veil?

He is talking about Xantid Swarm as the "green Silence", which also reads "G - Sorcery - Flashback target Cabal Therapy in your Graveyard".

@Asthereal

Maybe Max can enlight me later today. What appears weak to you in regards to Explosives? I see it as a Pyroclasm which ignores Mother of Runes and is boardable against Spheres/Counterbalance in addition to the Decays. The Zero damage is a creamtopping.

[Pelikanudo]

He is talking about Xantid Swarm as the "green Silence", which also reads "G - Sorcery - Flashback target Cabal Therapy in your Graveyard".

@Asthereal

Maybe Max can enlight me later today. What appears weak to you in regards to Explosives? I see it as a Pyroclasm which ignores Mother of Runes and is boardable against Spheres/Counterbalance in addition to the Decays. The Zero damage is a creamtopping.

Well, I was referring exactly to Autums Veil, in theory seems better vs Miracles than Xantid, but Xantid is better vs Sneak, I maybe test this card vs miracles to see if the match up gets better than with Xantid.
but yeah that Flashback ability is great also in the miracles match up!

[wonderPreaux]

I think Engineered Explosives is pretty cool, the only issue I had with it was when I kept drawing it with my Gemstone Mines, but the real problem there was Gemstone Mine. EE is nice because you can preemptively drop it and no Counterbalances can come down, or RIP which can be mildly relevant. With no basics in the 75, idk how much better than Pyroclasm it is, because you still have to dodge Wasteland to some extent, but it is amazing against Thalia. I haven't had enough time to test it with full fetch/dual manabase, but I think it'll obviously be stronger there. If the meta starts to look like it did last summer with Burn, TA and Miracles, EE could be worth a look but I think it might just be better in ANT if it's any good at all.

[hovercraft]

Are there any TES builds that are just B/R or B/R/g? I have a lot of pieces for it (LED, BW, Cabal therapy,) but I have 0 blue duals and don't really want to buy any. I know blue is always better for smoothing your draws and such but can it be played without it?


Does Autumn's Veil even stop counterbalance? it's an ability not a spell

[Lemnear]

Are there any TES builds that are just B/R or B/R/g? I have a lot of pieces for it (LED, BW, Cabal therapy,) but I have 0 blue duals and don't really want to buy any. I know blue is always better for smoothing your draws and such but can it be played without it?


Does Autumn's Veil even stop counterbalance? it's an ability not a spell

Veil is crap because it can't even Dodge Clique or Burn if you go down your Lifepoints for Ad Nauseam. It's worse than Silence and Silence isn't any good these days.

For your question: No, the only blue-less storm variants are Spanish Inquisition or Belcher which work w/o cantrips. I can't even recommend trying to run with 12 Rainbow Lands (and Preordain instead of Brainstorm) which is the only Bargain i can think of if you don't want to acquire Duals. Storm is a fragile construct and I fear what you end up with a horrible gaming experience, no matter if you substitute Duals with rainbows or Shocklands.

[hovercraft]

Veil is crap because it can't even Dodge Clique or Burn if you go down your Lifepoints for Ad Nauseam. It's worse than Silence and Silence isn't any good these days.

For your question: No, the only blue-less storm variants are Spanish Inquisition or Belcher which work w/o cantrips. I can't even recommend trying to run with 12 Rainbow Lands (and Preordain instead of Brainstorm) which is the only Bargain i can think of if you don't want to acquire Duals. Storm is a fragile construct and I fear what you end up with a horrible gaming experience, no matter if you substitute Duals with rainbows or Shocklands.

Thanks for the info. I've been playing Burning Reanimator storm which is B/R so I thought storm might be viable in those colours. Maybe I'll brew something up for fun anyway. I'll check out the Spanish inq thread too

[Asthereal]

Does Autumn's Veil even stop counterbalance? it's an ability not a spell
It doesn't. Veil is pretty bad, actually.



Are there any TES builds that are just B/R or B/R/g? I have a lot of pieces for it (LED, BW, Cabal therapy,) but I have 0 blue duals and don't really want to buy any. I know blue is always better for smoothing your draws and such but can it be played without it?
I have seen a list do okayish that used only Gitaxian Probe and Faithless Looting as cantrips. You can try it, but don't be surprised if it turns out to be terrible. The best cantrips are Brainstorm and Ponder. You really want to have those in a combo deck.

[Bryant Cook]

I'm really looking forward to Sunday's results as I keep bouncing back and forth between a few different sideboards based on what I'm expecting.

(Basics Maindeck)
1 Bayou
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroclasm
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames

(Basics Maindeck)
1 Bayou
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroclasm
1 Void Snare
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames

(Bayou Maindeck/Nobasics)
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroclasm
1 Void Snare
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames

[vercadium]

I'm really looking forward to Sunday's results as I keep bouncing back and forth between a few different sideboards based on what I'm expecting.

(Basics Maindeck)
1 Bayou
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroclasm
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames

(Basics Maindeck)
1 Bayou
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroclasm
1 Void Snare
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames

(Bayou Maindeck/Nobasics)
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroclasm
1 Void Snare
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames

Me too; It will be interesting to see how the dust settles and I'm curious to see how quickly Wasteland returns to the format. Even here in Europe, the large American tournaments still have a notable affect on the metagame as they're so well promoted/covered. I've been very busy since December, so I didn't even get to play with Treasure Cruise in the SB! :(

I like the direction you're taking with those sideboards - I could get behind each of them but, like you say, it depends on what one is expecting to see. If I were going in blind on Sunday to a large tournament, the 1st or 3rd is probably safest depending on how one wants to approach Wasteland.

Peter, how has Trygon Predator fared for you while I've been absent? While I've been following the thread, I haven't seen further discussion around it.

[Togores]

I'm really looking forward to Sunday's results as I keep bouncing back and forth between a few different sideboards based on what I'm expecting.

(Basics Maindeck)
1 Bayou
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroclasm
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames

(Basics Maindeck)
1 Bayou
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroclasm
1 Void Snare
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames

(Bayou Maindeck/Nobasics)
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroclasm
1 Void Snare
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames

In the options with basics how would the mana base be? How many and wich fetchs?

thanks

[Bryant Cook]

4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Swamp

[PartyMonster]

I feel stupid asking this but is surgical in the drafts of the sideboard in anticipation of reanimator and various combo on the rise or is it because of it's flexibility? Is it foolish to think one might be able to extract a set of waste lands out if the opponents deck? Thanks for putting up with me being an idiot. Just trying to have my head warped around the most viable tech. I will be storming dc and there are only a few days left for testing.


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[Bryant Cook]

It's for the rise of Dragon decks in the upcoming weeks, reanimator (traditionally an awful match-up) and the storm mirror. I'd like to not play it, but it depends on how the metagame breaks down.

[Asthereal]

4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
Looks good. It's my Wish ANT / TNT mana base minus two.
I run these 13, +1 fetch, +1 Bayou, with a Trop on side.
But that's a slightly different deck of course.

[Lemnear]

Peter, how has Trygon Predator fared for you while I've been absent? While I've been following the thread, I haven't seen further discussion around it.

You can conclude from that fact that I was not totally sold on that bugger in the previous metagame, Adam ;)

Get me right, the card (in combination with the Sol Lands) destroys whole decks on it's own and the 3 toughness were very handy for blocks (Thalia) or in a field with Forked Bolts, but it was somewhat unsatifying that you still need Clasm or Massacre to overcome Thalia. At some point during the testing I also had to ask myself if the density of Artifact/enchantment removal is really in a relation to the quantity of annoying permanents in the format, especially under the aspect that Decay serves for creature removal as well. The ability of Engineered Explosives to deal with several permanents and hitting creatures as well as stuff like Counterbalance is why I'm interrested in the card and testing process atm, in case you wonder about my recent question in this thread. It also did not help that everyone and their mom ran Pyroblasts including Miracles. Seeing a Trygon pyroblasted with an opposing Cannonist on the field (UWR Blade) or the Drake facing the same fate once more after Xantid already ate a Plowshare (Miracles) was a bit too much for may taste to make him stay. I will reconsider the option when the time is right as he can easily run away without game if opponents board out removal for hate permanents. It suffers from the Position of Lightning Bolt and Pyroblast in the meta and the Bolts remaining in decks postboard unlike Plows and the like.

[bigbobbobber]

Brand new to The Source and first time posting here. I have been a long time lurker and follower of this thread, and finally decided to actually try to contribute something. One thought I've been having is using Overmaster in place of Duress. Duress is almost always there to grab a countetspell, bu I think that Overmaster can act like Silence while also staying on color and drawing a card. I haven't done much testing with this yet, but I'm interested in the thoughts of others here.

[Pelikanudo]

An opinion by which someone will blame me:
I find 0 sense playing basics in a TES build.

I'm not sure if Lem agrees, but playing 2 basics in a build with 13 lands is beeing very optimistic.
To compress the deck you need to play polivalent lands.

Just my opinion.

EDIT: Overmaster is shit. it only makes uncounterable 1 spell, I lastly proposed Autums Veil in a context. - very specific context - but I prefer to keep playing Xantids as in practice have been very good in my miracles match ups!

[Bryant Cook]

Brand new to The Source and first time posting here. I have been a long time lurker and follower of this thread, and finally decided to actually try to contribute something. One thought I've been having is using Overmaster in place of Duress. Duress is almost always there to grab a countetspell, bu I think that Overmaster can act like Silence while also staying on color and drawing a card. I haven't done much testing with this yet, but I'm interested in the thoughts of others here.

The problems with Overmaster are these:

1.) Doesn't work with Infernal Tutor because, you'll have to get rid of the card drawn off of Overmaster which then would also require Lion's Eye Diamond.
2.) If you cast the card draw, Infernal/Wish isn't counterable (What's the point?)
3.) Infernal Tutor/Burning Wish resolves, now I'll counter whatever you get.

[bigbobbobber]

My idea with Overmaster was the situation of having LED, cast Overmaster, cast Tutor and crack LED. In that situation the only downside would be if the card you draw is Empty

[Bryant Cook]

My idea with Overmaster was the situation of having LED, cast Overmaster, cast Tutor and crack LED. In that situation the only downside would be if the card you draw is Empty

In this situation its no better than Duress as you can't take advantage off the draw off Overmaster and the other downsides outweigh the positives.