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

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

EDIT: Not that any of you care or are wondering, but holy crap! The TES opening post is 32 pages in word.

Too long so here's a haiku:

Ad Nauseam low,
Flash it all back for more storm,
Grapeshot their face off.

[r3dd09]

So, I went to a GPT this weekend with TES. almost the exactly 75 except 2 sideboard cards were different. -1 karakas - hullbreach + 2x junk cards

round 1: I played against a miracle deck. 1-2 bad hand 3rd game. mulled and mulled, nothing good.
round 2: RUG - 1-2 hand issues... again
round 3: High tide against a friends. 0-2 * scooped* we played games for the fun of it as I've never played against high tide. The turn he went off both games, I had a silence in hand and figured he'd wait 1 extra turn before going off... obviously wrong.
round 4: Gobos. Killed him with therapies. * love this card*

Running on 1.5 hours of sleep and being up for 24 hours, Felt like I didn't do many player mistakes.

the people who didn't top 4 started another legacy event.
2-0 against show and tell, beating through a omni. went off turn 2 one game, turn 4 the next.
2-0 against miracle. went off turn 2 both games.
0-2 against the same gobo guy. second game I forgot I had therapy in the graveyard. Cost me the whole round. after he won, we did a rewind back to when I made the mistake, won the next turn. then won the next game. but didn't matter to me. his first day for legacy events, so I gave him the win, even though he insisted on giving it to me. He made multiple player mistakes, so I helped him, yadda yadda.

Notes: love EtW mainboard, and absolutely love therapy in the side. I usually keep one in the side so I can wish for it and wreck a hand. Did it against a miracle deck and got his batterskull.

Maybe I'll do better next time when I have adequate sleep...

[Larzdk]

I spent today rewriting some of the opening post as well as the sideboarding guide, sample hands, links. Pretty much everything. Check it out.

EDIT: Not that any of you care or are wondering, but holy crap! The TES opening post is 32 pages in word.

<3 all the work you're putting into this deck. I'll be getting the last cards to start messing around with it locally when Decemeber comes around. Thanks a bunch, Bryant.

(and Kirby, that's an epic Heiku)

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Finished 5th at a Grand Prix Trial for Denver yesterday, boo. Roommate won, taking home the byes, which is always good!

Played the OP list, really hated Reforge the Soul all day. Wished it were Diminishing Returns every time -- against blue and non-blue decks.

Probably switching back to returns. Even in goldfishing seems I win more with returns than reforge. Have two mana floating versus one or zero matters, I think.

Main deck EtW, but no Tendrils is still amazing.

Sort of questioning the Cabal Therapies in the board at this point. They're good, yes, but certainly not amazing. At some points they feel clunky, but that could be because I haven't used them enough in T.E.S. Haven't played in a while.

Best part of the day was 2-0'ing UWR Miracle Control. Gixtaxian Probe is so good, it's ridiculous. Let me win on turn one in game two.

Last round I killed my Reanimator opponent with Grapeshot... for 30.

[joemauer]

Sort of questioning the Cabal Therapies in the board at this point. They're good, yes, but certainly not amazing. At some points they feel clunky, but that could be because I haven't used them enough in T.E.S. Haven't played in a while.


I have been thinking that maybe it should be some sort or split like two Cabals and one Duress.

When Burning Wishing for protection I sometimes want something more certain like a Duress.

Cabal Therapies were put in to help against decks like Maverick while still being able to hit Force of Will if needed. I think. I am unsure of them too. It is neat flashing it back after casting a big Empty the Warrens though.

[cuthbertthecat]

Finished 5th at a Grand Prix Trial for Denver yesterday, boo. Roommate won, taking home the byes, which is always good!

Played the OP list, really hated Reforge the Soul all day. Wished it were Diminishing Returns every time -- against blue and non-blue decks.

Probably switching back to returns. Even in goldfishing seems I win more with returns than reforge. Have two mana floating versus one or zero matters, I think.

Main deck EtW, but no Tendrils is still amazing.

Sort of questioning the Cabal Therapies in the board at this point. They're good, yes, but certainly not amazing. At some points they feel clunky, but that could be because I haven't used them enough in T.E.S. Haven't played in a while.

Best part of the day was 2-0'ing UWR Miracle Control. Gixtaxian Probe is so good, it's ridiculous. Let me win on turn one in game two.

Last round I killed my Reanimator opponent with Grapeshot... for 30.

More importantly, you're back on this deck and not on RUG.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

More importantly, you're back on this deck and not on RUG.

I'm playing budget TES.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

I'm playing budget TES.

Shit. You should have PM'ed me to let me know you were heading to TEG. I'm on vaca from 12/7 to the new year. Hit me up if you're in the area.

[cuthbertthecat]

I'm playing budget TES.

It's a hard transition to make, but it builds character or something.

[Larzdk]

It's a hard transition to make, but it builds character or something.

Hahah, You don't know :) - I'm still with 3 shocklands instead of Volc/Seas and they hurt so much :cry:

[AriLax]

Split top 4 of a Legacy IQ (for funsies as I already had the invite) going 5-0-2 with TES. Beat BUG Delver, Maverick, GU Eldrazi-Post, Fish, and Bant despite having a terrible last minute sideboard built.

Notes:
-Deathrite Shaman hurts Rite of Flame a little, but it hurts Cabal Ritual even more. Yet another reason for TES over ANT.
-I won 2 games off Dim Ret costing 4 instead of 5, but had one game where I wanted to Reforge off of Rites but couldn't. I don't remember what happened that game, but it's also very possible I made 12 Goblins and won. Leaning towards still playing Dim Ret but not sold either way.
-I won 2 games off IGG not being PiF as it got back LEDs. This keeps happening, I'll keep playing IGG.
-Xantid Swarm was the man.
-The difference between 1 for Chain of Vapor and 2 for Abrupt Decay is huge against Maverick. The 2x Karakas/Chain slot is absolutely necessary.
-MD Tendrils won me multiple games that Empty would not have (one was low life vs Deathrite, other was Batterskull in play with Sword of War and Peace)
-Bant opponent in Top 8 thought he had me both games and promptly lost. First one was an absurd game where I had to Dim Ret, Ponder into LED, IGG, then Ponder into one of my two Burning Wishes to win. Second one he kept Force, Mindbreak, Mindbreak and got turn 1 Duress, Turn 2 Silenced and died.

[Bryant Cook]

Split top 4 of a Legacy IQ (for funsies as I already had the invite) going 5-0-2 with TES. Beat BUG Delver, Maverick, GU Eldrazi-Post, Fish, and Bant despite having a terrible last minute sideboard built.

Notes:
-Deathrite Shaman hurts Rite of Flame a little, but it hurts Cabal Ritual even more. Yet another reason for TES over ANT.
-I won 2 games off Dim Ret costing 4 instead of 5, but had one game where I wanted to Reforge off of Rites but couldn't. I don't remember what happened that game, but it's also very possible I made 12 Goblins and won. Leaning towards still playing Dim Ret but not sold either way.
-I won 2 games off IGG not being PiF as it got back LEDs. This keeps happening, I'll keep playing IGG.
-Xantid Swarm was the man.
-The difference between 1 for Chain of Vapor and 2 for Abrupt Decay is huge against Maverick. The 2x Karakas/Chain slot is absolutely necessary.
-MD Tendrils won me multiple games that Empty would not have (one was low life vs Deathrite, other was Batterskull in play with Sword of War and Peace)
-Bant opponent in Top 8 thought he had me both games and promptly lost. First one was an absurd game where I had to Dim Ret, Ponder into LED, IGG, then Ponder into one of my two Burning Wishes to win. Second one he kept Force, Mindbreak, Mindbreak and got turn 1 Duress, Turn 2 Silenced and died.

Glad to see that you're back.

Ning (Endure2004) , Royce, and myself all piloted TES at Baltimore this weekend. We all did moderately well but not great, there's some changes I want to make after this weekend. Expect to read about it in my article this week everyone!

Also, my last Therapy came in the mail! /Finished.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

...there's some changes I want to make after this weekend. Expect to read about it in my article this week everyone!

Finally main decking Grape Shot?

Deathrite Shaman is awkwardly annoying. I really doubt it, but is this a card we need to worry about?

[Fizzeler]

Working on constructing TES (currently 3 Infernal Tutors and 2 Rites from completing it), question on is Preordain worth including? It is another cantrip and seems great

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Working on constructing TES (currently 3 Infernal Tutors and 2 Rites from completing it), question on is Preordain worth including? It is another cantrip and seems great

4 Brainstorm. 4 Ponder. 4 Gitaxian Probe. 0 Preordain.

We already have 12.

[Bryant Cook]

Working on constructing TES (currently 3 Infernal Tutors and 2 Rites from completing it), question on is Preordain worth including? It is another cantrip and seems great

Too many cantrips actually slows down the deck. You often spend too much time casting cantrips looking for real cards. The fact of the matter is that TES already plays all of the best cantrips it possibly can, adding Preordain would just make the deck worse.

[Fizzeler]

4 Brainstorm. 4 Ponder. 4 Gitaxian Probe. 0 Preordain.

We already have 12.


Too many cantrips actually slows down the deck. You often spend too much time casting cantrips looking for real cards. The fact of the matter is that TES already plays all of the best cantrips it possibly can, adding Preordain would just make the deck worse.

Okay thanks

I should hopefully have the last few pieces before the end of the year (for now I'll proxy what I don't have to goldfish and get used to the deck)

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Has anyone messed around with Epic Experiment yet?

Edit: The amount of discard in this format makes me want to play some junk like Bottled Cloister or something.

[AriLax]

Glad to see that you're back.

Ning (Endure2004) , Royce, and myself all piloted TES at Baltimore this weekend. We all did moderately well but not great, there's some changes I want to make after this weekend. Expect to read about it in my article this week everyone!

Also, my last Therapy came in the mail! /Finished.

If anything, the results of the weekend make TES a much better deck. Less Miracles, more lightly disruptive, mediocre clock blue decks.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

If anything, the results of the weekend make TES a much better deck. Less Miracles, more lightly disruptive, mediocre clock blue decks.

Wouldn't be surprised to see Burn win next week. Non-basics everywhere.

I don't even consider Miracles that hard of a match up anymore. They don't have a quick way of killing you. It's like playing against a Landstill deck that durdles more. So glad Countertop decks don't play Tarmogoyfs anymore.

[Koby]

Wouldn't be surprised to see Burn win next week. Non-basics everywhere.


Exactly what I said when I saw the Top 16 lists. Copy-cat BUG lists and Burn with PoP to win the shindig.

@AriLax
Can you share your list? It sounds substantially (3 cards is enough I guess) from Bryant's in the opening post. I agree with DReturns over Reforge as a "re-buy", especially since you can recycle LED's with the former. Are you running Tendrils main over EtW?

Cheers

[Bryant Cook]

If anything, the results of the weekend make TES a much better deck. Less Miracles, more lightly disruptive, mediocre clock blue decks.

I played in two Legacy side events and X-0'd them both. Destroying Miracles in one of the matches, felt good.

But I agree that TES is in a slightly better position in the metagame, there has been less Thalia as well as Counterbalance. My losses were to Spiral Tide (I wreck his hand and leave him with 0 cards, on my next turn go off, the card he drew was flusterstorm), Esperblade (Discard + Countermagic got there), and UB Tempo (Josh Cho's deck, see: Esperblade).

Thoughtseize paired with Force of Will was tough, but I was never out in either match - I only lost by a slight margin. Both rounds I had a window of 1-3 turns where if I drew a number of cards I won, but it sadly didn't happen.

[AriLax]

@AriLax
Can you share your list? It sounds substantially (3 cards is enough I guess) from Bryant's in the opening post. I agree with DReturns over Reforge as a "re-buy", especially since you can recycle LED's with the former. Are you running Tendrils main over EtW?


MD:
-1 Empty the Warrens
+1 Tendrils of Agony

SB:
-1 Reforge the Soul
-1 Past in Flames
-1 Grapeshot
-1 Cabal Therapy
+1 Ill-gotten Gains
+1 Diminishing Returns
+1 Deathmark
+1 Thoughtseize

I'm also not sold on Therapy vs Inquisition vs Thoughtseize, but I know I want the Wish utility to choose between Seize and Therapy when necessary.

[Gaka]

MD:
-1 Empty the Warrens
+1 Tendrils of Agony

SB:
-1 Reforge the Soul
-1 Past in Flames
-1 Grapeshot
-1 Cabal Therapy
+1 Ill-gotten Gains
+1 Diminishing Returns
+1 Deathmark
+1 Thoughtseize

I'm also not sold on Therapy vs Inquisition vs Thoughtseize, but I know I want the Wish utility to choose between Seize and Therapy when necessary.

I'm running similar. I'm sticking with Tendrils main over ETW for most events almost fully out of personal preference.

I tried Reforge over Diminishing, but found the reshuffle and D7 plus reduced cost gave me a better shot at winning versus an easier to cast (color-wise) but ultimately more expensive D7 without a reshuffle.

Ill-Gotten has done more work for me than Past in Flames as well, I can't actually remember the last time I cast Past in Flames except to showboat, whereas there have been games that wouldn't have been won without IGG.

Agreed with Thoughtseize and Therapy mix. I'm doing the same.

I'm still playing Grapeshot over Deathmark, though.

[Oiolosse]

Reanimtor sucks for me! Just playtested a dozen games or so. We didn't keep numerical count but I won 2-3 of them. I don't own Karakas so my board is 4 xantid for now. The Main is Bryant's.

Iona is the killer here. If he lands entomb -> Iona -> Reanimation spell...I am screwed. Iona on Red...so retarded. Please help!

The ONLY thing I can think to do is mull more aggressively.

Suggestions? Thanks!

[Gaka]

Reanimtor sucks for me! Just playtested a dozen games or so. We didn't keep numerical count but I won 2-3 of them. I don't own Karakas so my board is 4 xantid for now. The Main is Bryant's.

Iona is the killer here. If he lands entomb -> Iona -> Reanimation spell...I am screwed. Iona on Red...so retarded. Please help!

The ONLY thing I can think to do is mull more aggressively.

Suggestions? Thanks!

Getting Karakas is a good solution. So is sliding Tendrils main if he consistently calls red.

[Dark Ritual]

Getting Karakas is a good solution. So is sliding Tendrils main if he consistently calls red.

You could just run chain of vapor or echoing truth over karakas in the board if he keeps naming red, punish him for it. Or run maindeck tendrils of agony as you can then easily win through iona on red as all of our important spells are black mainly with the red cards being 4 rite of flame and 3-4 wish. Another plan against reanimator is to chant walk them after entomb or to discard their hand into oblivion then going off before they do. You should also be thankful that your opponent doesn't go for griselbrand, that guy is a nightmare to win through typically if you lack karakas. Seriously, obtain karakas as fast as possible. The card is insanely powerful in storm combo.

[Lemnear]

Reanimtor sucks for me! Just playtested a dozen games or so. We didn't keep numerical count but I won 2-3 of them. I don't own Karakas so my board is 4 xantid for now. The Main is Bryant's.

Iona is the killer here. If he lands entomb -> Iona -> Reanimation spell...I am screwed. Iona on Red...so retarded. Please help!

The ONLY thing I can think to do is mull more aggressively.

Suggestions? Thanks!

Still like to steal games against Reanimator with a Bribery or Reanimate in the board.

[AriLax]

Reanimtor sucks for me! Just playtested a dozen games or so. We didn't keep numerical count but I won 2-3 of them. I don't own Karakas so my board is 4 xantid for now. The Main is Bryant's.

Iona is the killer here. If he lands entomb -> Iona -> Reanimation spell...I am screwed. Iona on Red...so retarded. Please help!

The ONLY thing I can think to do is mull more aggressively.

Suggestions? Thanks!


Silence aggressively to Time Walk when they have a guy in bin, kill more on turn 2.

[Bryant Cook]

Article (http://jupitergames.info/articles/2012/52432/cooks-kitchen-back-from-baltimore).

I storm.

[cuthbertthecat]

Article (http://jupitergames.info/articles/2012/52432/cooks-kitchen-back-from-baltimore).

I storm.

Partially agree with cutting swarm; on the one hand, it is very good against the BUG decks since they're probably boarding out abrupt decay against us, but on the other hand because deathrite shaman bug decks are becoming so popular reanimator seems like a poor choice which means the swarms would be boarded in less. I think the sideboard cut might be Karakas instead of swarm though if reanimator does just fall off the map, it's not really that good against Show and Tell because they have omniscience and maverick is dying out and we have abrupt decay to deal with hatebears if the game goes that long. Swarm is good against both BUG variants and U/W variants, both of which are harder matchups than maverick.

[r3dd09]

I read your Baltimore article, Cook. I do agree that xantid isn't what it use to be and needs to be switched * even though I love the bug*. Another thought is to run 4 cabals sideboard and only sideboard in 3 so you can wish for one post sideboard. I found this to be effective in the little testing I've done. I'm playing the 4th over 2nd Karakas as I only own 1.

Also, what's your thoughts on the turbo eldrazi deck that's being played? How would you side against it? What would you fear more to be played against you, a Mindbreak trap, or a flusterstorm?

If you could give some light on the matchup, I'd appreciate it.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

What would you fear more to be played against you, a Mindbreak trap, or a flusterstorm?

Silence.

[r3dd09]

Silence.

Too bad the deck doesn't run white. I stated the two cards as that's what is being discussed in the Eldrazi Ramp deck.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Too bad the deck doesn't run white. I stated the two cards as that's what is being discussed in the Eldrazi Ramp deck.

Silence beats both?

You shouldn't be scared of terrible cards.

[Bryant Cook]

I read your Baltimore article, Cook. I do agree that xantid isn't what it use to be and needs to be switched * even though I love the bug*. Another thought is to run 4 cabals sideboard and only sideboard in 3 so you can wish for one post sideboard. I found this to be effective in the little testing I've done. I'm playing the 4th over 2nd Karakas as I only own 1.

Also, what's your thoughts on the turbo eldrazi deck that's being played? How would you side against it? What would you fear more to be played against you, a Mindbreak trap, or a flusterstorm?

If you could give some light on the matchup, I'd appreciate it.

The fourth Cabal has the same problem as the fourth Duress in the sideboard. There just aren't enough cards to sideboard out to bring them all in.

Flusterstorm is probably tougher? I'm not really sure. MBT is only good if the storm player isn't expecting it. Combo players expect counterspells from blue decks.

[r3dd09]

The fourth Cabal has the same problem as the fourth Duress in the sideboard. There just aren't enough cards to sideboard out to bring them all in.

Flusterstorm is probably tougher? I'm not really sure. MBT is only good if the storm player isn't expecting it. Combo players expect counterspells from blue decks.

Thanks for the input. I was thinking the same thing, and if we have the mana to cast silence first, we'd do it anyways 1. storm count 2. it's just to be safe.

When I was running 3 Cabals, I did leave one in the side still to be able to wish for it. I liked having more access to it versus having all of them in post sideboard. But that's just me.

[AriLax]

100% agree on cutting Swarm for major events. I don't think I've seen a Show and Tell list in an SCG top 8 for a long time, meaning the only deck I've seen in those events I want it against is High Tide. Not only is that a good matchup already, but I don't think it's a real metagame factor for most events.


Disclaimer: New England has some obscene Candelabra surplus (last event I played had 5 Turbo-Eldrazi and 3-4 High Tide out of 44 players) and a bunch of Show and Tell fanatics, so I'll likely keep two copies for local events.

[Bryant Cook]

100% agree on cutting Swarm for major events. I don't think I've seen a Show and Tell list in an SCG top 8 for a long time, meaning the only deck I've seen in those events I want it against is High Tide. Not only is that a good matchup already, but I don't think it's a real metagame factor for most events.


Disclaimer: New England has some obscene Candelabra surplus (last event I played had 5 Turbo-Eldrazi and 3-4 High Tide out of 44 players) and a bunch of Show and Tell fanatics, so I'll likely keep two copies for local events.

I wouldn't even want it against High Tide. Silence, Duress, and Therapy provide disruption as well as protect your self. That match-up is all about being faster or crippling them.

I don't see Tide/Turbo Eldrazi at weeklies or even Jupiter events (Maybe two people total, sometimes). I just don't see a good reason to continue playing the bugs.

[rxavage]

Koby has made top 8 of SCG Vegas piloting EPIC storm, I hope he takes down the whole thing.



@ Ari,

lol, yeah, I was there and playing Show and Tell with Omniscience. There were more Candles there than at a GP.


@Bryant,

What happened at SCG Prov? I was watching out for you to get you in a feature but your tie breakers must've kept you low on the list.

[Bryant Cook]

Koby has made top 8 of SCG Vegas piloting EPIC storm, I hope he takes down the whole thing.



@ Ari,

lol, yeah, I was there and playing Show and Tell with Omniscience. There were more Candles there than at a GP.


@Bryant,

What happened at SCG Prov? I was watching out for you to get you in a feature but your tie breakers must've kept you low on the list.

I made top 32, I picked up my second loss round 6 or 7.

EDIT: Go Jacob! (Has he had any on-camera feature matches?)

[Dark Ritual]

I made top 32, I picked up my second loss round 6 or 7.

EDIT: Go Jacob! (Has he had any on-camera feature matches?)

No those SCG people didn't put him under the camera all day, although I bet he got the fake feature matches i.e. off camera ones that don't really matter since he was undefeated the entire day. I hope he has camera feature matches in the top 8 though, that would be great. Better than watching some of these other decks...

I want to see Koby grapeshot some people though all things considered.

[Esper3k]

They just announced Koby beat Bant Maverick in the T8.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

They just announced Koby beat Bant Maverick in the T8.

Here's the list:

13 Land
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Flooded Strand
2 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
1 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Volcanic Island

47 Spells
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Silence
4 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
4 Rite of Flame
3 Chrome Mox
3 Burning Wish
1 Ad Nauseam

15 Sideboard
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Karakas
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

[HoneyT]

That list is wrapped in latex.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Congrats Koby

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Sideboard
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Blood Moon
1 Mindbreak Trap
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Spell Pierce
2 Stifle
2 Through the Breach
1 Wipe Away
1 Shattering Spree

Seriously... the fuck...

[r3dd09]

Sideboard
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Blood Moon
1 Mindbreak Trap
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Spell Pierce
2 Stifle
2 Through the Breach
1 Wipe Away
1 Shattering Spree

Seriously... the fuck...
Whose sideboard was this?

[Koby]

Sideboard
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Blood Moon
1 Mindbreak Trap
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Spell Pierce
2 Stifle
2 Through the Breach
1 Wipe Away
1 Shattering Spree

Seriously... the fuck...

There was no way i would have won this match. Point one: Mindbreak Trap. Point two: Flusterstorm. Point thee: Griselbrand lifelink + bargain.

In short, the match was one for the viewers. Karakas is a boss.

Back to my nap at a gas station 100 mi out from Vegas on a street called Ghost Town Rd. Famous last words?

[SaberTooth]

no wincon maindeck? strange

[vercadium]

13 Land
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Flooded Strand
2 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
1 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Volcanic Island

47 Spells
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Silence
4 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
4 Rite of Flame
3 Chrome Mox
3 Burning Wish
1 Ad Nauseam

15 Sideboard
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Karakas
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

A summary of the differences that make this list notable from common lists:

//Main Deck
-1 Empty the Warrens
-1 Burning Wish
+1 Duress
+1 Fetch Land

//Sideboard
-3 Cabal Therapy
+3 Chain of Vapor

--

Even with my limited experience, I'll come right out and say it - no win condition main deck seems like a flaw. I've won quite a few games off the back of a hand that can generate 6 mana, tutoring into an Empty the Warrens.

Also, anything that shuts off Burning Wish kills this list. True that protecting from blow-outs like Surgical Extraction/Meddling Mage/Runed Halo shouldn't be too difficult, particularly as these cards see little play, but there doesn't seem to be much of a reward for this risk. Running less than 4 copies of Burning Wish doesn't help this approach.

I guess my main point is:

I don't think any possible gain that the exclusion of a main deck win-condition offers would outweigh the variety of options that having this single card slot brings. I feel that including one has little detriment to the deck, but provides significant benefits.

--

The exclusion of one Burning Wish is interesting. I doubt it is correct and I'm sure it would have been discussed before - but re-evaluating is rarely a bad thing. I'd be curious to hear other peoples opinions on this matter.

--

I can certainly see a situational merit of having 3 Chain of Vapor over Cabal Therapy. I think they both do a similar job against some decks like Maverick, but I personally feel Therapy is more versatile against a variety of other decks instead of just against permanent based hate. One is proactive rather than reactive which is an important distinction.

Good job on the finish Jacob, I'd love to read a tournament report and hear your thoughts.

[Bahamuth]

I'm against removing the EtW from the mainboard, because it's almost always a good card to draw, and it increases the strenght of Infernal Tutor. I don't really see a reason not to run it. The fact that the list can only win with Burning Wish is practically never an issue. Even if there's a Meddling Mage active, you can still Ad Nauseam and get the bounce/Decay you boarded in.

I have been playing with 3 Burning Wish for a very long time. I don't nearly like Wish as much as most people here. 80% of my Wishes go to EtW if they're not post-AdN. Drawing a second Wish is pretty much always bad, except when you want to go IGG (but then IT is still usually much better). I hate having to do Wish to Returns. I wouldn't cut Wish beyond 3 though, since the versatility of Wishtargets before combo is pretty relevant.

[joemauer]

Guys. Doomsday decks have been going without a maindeck win condition for a while now. It isn't that unheard of. It makes your Ad Nauseum even better too. Not saying it is right or not, but apparently it isn't bad.

[vercadium]

Almost completely missed that the sideboard I spoke about had no artifact removal (Hull Breach/Shattering Spree/Revoke Existence). This allowed an extra slot.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Almost completely missed that the sideboard I spoke about had no artifact removal (Hull Breach/Shattering Spree/Revoke Existence). This allowed an extra slot.

Between Abrupt Decay and Chain of Vapor, you hit the relevant targets.

[Bryant Cook]

A summary of the differences that make this list notable from common lists:

//Main Deck
-1 Empty the Warrens
-1 Burning Wish
+1 Duress
+1 Fetch Land

//Sideboard
-3 Cabal Therapy
+3 Chain of Vapor

--

Even with my limited experience, I'll come right out and say it - no win condition main deck seems like a flaw. I've won quite a few games off the back of a hand that can generate 6 mana, tutoring into an Empty the Warrens.

Also, anything that shuts off Burning Wish kills this list. True that protecting from blow-outs like Surgical Extraction/Meddling Mage/Runed Halo shouldn't be too difficult, particularly as these cards see little play, but there doesn't seem to be much of a reward for this risk. Running less than 4 copies of Burning Wish doesn't help this approach.

I guess my main point is:

I don't think any possible gain that the exclusion of a main deck win-condition offers would outweigh the variety of options that having this single card slot brings. I feel that including one has little detriment to the deck, but provides significant benefits.

--

The exclusion of one Burning Wish is interesting. I doubt it is correct and I'm sure it would have been discussed before - but re-evaluating is rarely a bad thing. I'd be curious to hear other peoples opinions on this matter.

--

I can certainly see a situational merit of having 3 Chain of Vapor over Cabal Therapy. I think they both do a similar job against some decks like Maverick, but I personally feel Therapy is more versatile against a variety of other decks instead of just against permanent based hate. One is proactive rather than reactive which is an important distinction.

Good job on the finish Jacob, I'd love to read a tournament report and hear your thoughts.

First things first, congratulations Jacob/Koby.

I'll have to watch your one feature match that was on camera once it's online.

Now, while I'm ecstatic that you performed as well as you did with T.E.S. (Also, Rueben actually called it The EPIC Storm!), I don't like the deck list. I share a lot of the concerns that vercadium posted. No main deck win condition makes the list really susceptible to hate cards as well as limiting the deck's ability. The deck can no longer combo off on turn one with only four mana floating with Infernal Tutor, it also loses the option of just plowing through counterspells into Empty the Warrens. Which is one of the deck's biggest strength's right now, it's actually why I added a second copy to the sideboard.

Burning Wish is the only business spell in your deck, I can't understand why anyone would run less than four, especially with no main deck win condition. You can't reliably ever use it for utility without running the risk of not finding another. Not to mention, you shouldn't be playing Diminishing Returns with only three Wish and no win condition. The exile ten actually comes relevant. There's no sideboard discard spell to make Burning Wish in multiples better, losing the ability to become a protection spell can hurt. With Chain over Therapy you gain the ability to be better against decks like Maverick but Maverick's numbers are already declining and you lose the option of additional protection against blue decks. The lack of additional protection and Empty really make your RUG/BUG match-ups much more difficult.

I do think one thing about the list is interesting and that's potential bounce spells over Hull Breach. Cutting Breach and Ill-Gotten Gains (This card isn't needed, simply a safety net) from my list for two bounce spells may not be bad. I wouldn't run Chain of Vapor though, in New York there's plenty of Chalice of the Voids - I would be playing Echoing Truth.

I probably missed some things, this post was rushed considering I'm at work. I'll check back in later.

Once again, good job.

[emidln]

Guys. Doomsday decks have been going without a maindeck win condition for a while now. It isn't that unheard of. It makes your Ad Nauseum even better too. Not saying it is right or not, but apparently it isn't bad.

Doomsday also stacks the Burning Wish so you're guaranteed to find it. Ad Nauseam doesn't give you that luxury. When you're paying life to see more cards, extra copies of win conditions are a huge plus.

[Koby]

All credit to the list goes to Kirby. I had nothing to do with the list :D #throwsunderbus

I did get lucky with my pairings yesterday:
R1 dredge
R2 GW Mongos
R3 GW Mongos
R4 Rw Goblins
R5 BUG Still
R6 Belcher
R7 draw
R8 draw
Top 8 Bant with 2 fow main

I lost one game va Goblins to a whiff on DReturns. A second against BUG when I couldnt clear/Silence his hand of 2x Spell Snare. A third in Top 8 when I leaned on Xantid Swarm and my opponent Path'd it (? Previous leveled) ad had Safekeeper with Teeg going against Karakas. Then of course Sneak Show match, which from my testing with the deck comes down to one thing: Griselbrand is game for Storm.

[Bryant Cook]

All credit to the list goes to Kirby. I had nothing to do with the list :D #throwsunderbus

I did get lucky with my pairings yesterday:
R1 dredge
R2 GW Mongos
R3 GW Mongos
R4 Rw Goblins
R5 BUG Still
R6 Belcher
R7 draw
R8 draw
Top 8 Bant with 2 fow main

I lost one game va Goblins to a whiff on DReturns. A second against BUG when I couldnt clear/Silence his hand of 2x Spell Snare. A third in Top 8 when I leaned on Xantid Swarm and my opponent Path'd it (? Previous leveled) ad had Safekeeper with Teeg going against Karakas. Then of course Sneak Show match, which from my testing with the deck comes down to one thing: Griselbrand is game for Storm.

Some questions:

• Did you at any point want Hull Breach, Spree, or anything like that?
• How were the bounce spells next to Decay?
• Did you use Ill-Gotten Gains at all? (I rarely find myself wanting this card, it's only good in already good match-ups. I've gone through nine round events and never played it multiple times.)

I spent a good hour arguing with Kirby over facebook message about the list. Kid is hard to get through to.

[Koby]

Some questions:

• Did you at any point want Hull Breach, Spree, or anything like that?
• How were the bounce spells next to Decay?
• Did you use Ill-Gotten Gains at all? (I rarely find myself wanting this card, it's only good in already good match-ups. I've gone through nine round events and never played it multiple times.)

I spent a good hour arguing with Kirby over facebook message about the list. Kid is hard to get through to.

Based on my matchups: I never wanted or needed artifact removal. abrupt Decay covers that sufficiently.

Bounce was great against Maverick to supplement ADecay against hatebears. One game went like this: Chain your Hierarch. chain your Hierarch. Karakas your Thalia and silence. Make 30 goblins

I used IGG once against Goblins to generate lethal storm from LED x 2 and BWish where PIF wouldnt work. I nevered wished for PIF in the tournament. PiF wouldnt have worked since I also had no Rituals to flashback.

Im def sure i misplayed and/or misboarded vs Sneak Show. I had no clue what to cut for karakas and xantid, was playing Magic for 12 hours at that point, tired, and had already split the Top 4. I want to review the tape to improve what went wrong there.

FWIW, i would have played 1 Tendrils main vs 1 Duress if I had more testing with the deck.

[AriLax]

R2 GW Mongos
R3 GW Mongos


LOL at you calling the deck that.

Also, Bryant, re: Xantid Swarm vs. High Tide, AFAIK most of the lists are playing a large amount of Flusterstorm and I want Xantid as the most profitable way to deal with that. I'm also assuming most Tide players don't play the stupid MD Snap over more real untap effects or immediately board it our vs Storm, and that if I lose to Tide it has to do with them knowing to Merchant Scroll for Force of Will most of the time, which Xantid Swarm gets in under.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

The biggest part for me when it comes to Iggy and PiF is that you can't give LED flashback. Iggy is good against already favorable match ups, but what makes it strong is that your life total becomes nearly irrelevant (i.e. durdle until you can get them for lethal storm).

Going forward -- I'd be more willing to play main deck Tendrils than Empty. It's a good card to have in your opponent against slower blue decks to naturally storm lethal with their counterspells.

In hindsight with the list I shipped Koby, the Iggy-loop is ridiculously mana-intensive. For long tournaments, I'd say main deck Tendrils will get you more mileage when it matters.

I'm still fine with three Burning Wish. I've been happy with the 13th land. Twelve lands with three moxen and four probe makes me somewhat uncomfortable. Had a lot of games where I needed one more mana to get things done.

Koby, in game two against Sneak and Show, I noticed after you payed for Flusterstorm on Infernal Tutor you were tanking between Burning Wish and Ad Nauseam. You had four mana sources in play. Needed one more to cast AdN, and still one more for a lethal Grapeshot. I think you went for wish after thinking about it. I probably would have gone for wish into Grapeshot myself.

[Koby]

@Kirby
Game two the last turn went like this:
DRit, Petal, LED, IT popping LED for RRR. He responds with Fluster for 5 and i have BRRR floating and 3 unused mana sources. I payed for 'storm and only had 2 mana available for my target. The plan was always to Rapeshot Richard since he went down to 4

[Bryant Cook]

It seems like people are happy with Ill-Gotten Gains, I just don't use it nearly as much as I do Past in Flames. The northeast has always been heavily infested with Islands, which may be why I use PIF so often. I'll try using Ill-Gotten Gains for awhile before I make a decision on potentially cutting it for a bounce spell.

[KobeBryan]

Koby...how did your Bant matchup go?

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

I lost one game... A third in Top 8 when I leaned on Xantid Swarm and my opponent Path'd it (? Previous leveled) ad had Safekeeper with Teeg going against Karakas.

[KobeBryan]

What's previous leveled?

[TraxDaMax]

What's previous leveled?

No idea, but I assume it's a cute way of saying he topdecked it.

[AriLax]

What's previous leveled?

Opponent opted to not board out Path and he is attributing it to his opponent not being able to do so or just failing to think about doing so. The corresponding term would be "next leveled" if he thought his opponent assumed he was boarding Swarm and left in removal accordingly.

[Koby]

Opponent opted to not board out Path and he is attributing it to his opponent not being able to do so or just failing to think about doing so. The corresponding term would be "next leveled" if he thought his opponent assumed he was boarding Swarm and left in removal accordingly.

He was right in keeping some removal. But for the wrong reason: "you don't run basics" when StPing the Swarm has no worse of an effect than Path (potential BS shuffle). StP also provides a burst lifegain against lethal Storm. I pretty much lost it when he Path'd the 2nd Xantid Swarm in Game 2 of the Top 8 after keeping a hand with 4 lands, FoW, and Safekeeper.

[vercadium]

Link to Jacobs' Show and Tell match:
http://twitch.tv/scglive/b/346797640?t=2h44m40s

I watched the first game before I went to sleep last night. I'll get to watch the rest on my lunch break.

I love watching the deck in action. Storm is a beautiful part of legacy.

I would not go for Empty the Warrens versus faster combo decks (specifically late in the game). I can't remember the exact situation though, you might not have had a better choice.

--

Cutting the Hull Breach slot for an extra answer is something I can get behind.

I don't like not having the option to blow up enchantments/artifacts; it makes me feel a little vulnerable. However, I must admit it only got used occasionally in comparison to something like Chain of Vapor which we could utilise much more often - gaining more value from our precious sideboard slots.

I'm just thinking aloud here, but the disadvantage of the Hull Breach slot is that it was narrow. The advantage was that it is a wishable answer. Are both of these statements true? On that premise, can a card fulfil both qualities?

Eye of Nowhere has both attributes, but is UU and I assume has been ruled out for a good reason, most likely because bounce is significantly worse at sorcery speed. If we could find a card that is less narrow than Hull Breach, but also that works well at sorcery speed, that would seem excellent.

--

I too have found Past in Flames to be sufficient. I don't really ever find myself wishing (excuse the pun) that I had IGG in the 75; any time I have Lion's Eye Diamond in the graveyard they are usually about to die.

Having said that, versatility is a great boon and it certainly does have its uses. It would be nice to guarantee the kill rather than casting Diminishing Returns in those situations.

Provided the cost of its inclusion was not high, I would like having
the option of IGG. If we have a slot free from removing Hull Breach then justifying keeping it in the list becomes easier.

--

Bryant, I remember you stating that you might replace 2 sideboard cards for "A Tropical Island and an Abrupt Decay". I'm not quoting this to quiz you on that - my question to you is:

If a third Abrupt Decay was ever to be included in the sideboard, do you think a Tropical Island is required to support it given the current manabase?

--

One last point. Everybody seems to love Karakas. Is two copies a given at this point?

--

As always, I look forward to all your thoughts; thank you for reading.

[Koby]

Im not going to write a full report, but I will share tidbits from the tournament. Karakas was highly relevant in four matches over the day. Twice against Maverick, once against Goblins with a splash for Thalia, and then against Sneak Attack. Ive ran three with ANT before and felt confident in that number. I would argue that three is also correct here too, eapecially if your metagame is ripe for it.

In Game 1 of the Top 4 (linked above by verdacium) i had access to cast a 4 mana spell post Wish and only 6 storm after Wish. Silence into Daze was only to build Storm. I knew my opponent had Sneak in play. If I went for Tendrils he would be at two, which prevents Griselbrand from bargaining before attacking, but not after. Goblin hedges against Emrakul. Both were underwhelming given the conditions I was facing. My hand at the beginning of that turn was DRit x2, Silence, Petal, Burning Wish. I would have died the next turn the same way I did.

Chain is nice utility and can buy tons of time. ADecay does a better job against permanent based hate too, but this deck might be too fast for it to be relevant. We must concede that when we board in these cards the deck is slower. Part of it is being forced to board out Gitaxian Probe.

Question to the thread:
How would you board against Show n Tell decks?
I tried +2 Xantid and +2 Karakas and shaved Silence and should have taken out a fetchland to balance the mana in the deck, but I didnt. I wanted to maintain speed and information, but was not lucky against my oponent's incredible Ponders. Im sure i boarded out wrong for the matchup.

[Doomsday]

Im not going to write a full report, but I will share tidbits from the tournament. Karakas was highly relevant in four matches over the day. Twice against Maverick, once against Goblins with a splash for Thalia, and then against Sneak Attack. Ive ran three with ANT before and felt confident in that number. I would argue that three is also correct here too, eapecially if your metagame is ripe for it.

In Game 1 of the Top 4 (linked above by verdacium) i had access to cast a 4 mana spell post Wish and only 6 storm after Wish. Silence into Daze was only to build Storm. I knew my opponent had Sneak in play. If I went for Tendrils he would be at two, which prevents Griselbrand from bargaining before attacking, but not after. Goblin hedges against Emrakul. Both were underwhelming given the conditions I was facing. My hand at the beginning of that turn was DRit x2, Silence, Petal, Burning Wish. I would have died the next turn the same way I did.

Chain is nice utility and can buy tons of time. ADecay does a better job against permanent based hate too, but this deck might be too fast for it to be relevant. We must concede that when we board in these cards the deck is slower. Part of it is being forced to board out Gitaxian Probe.

Question to the thread:
How would you board against Show n Tell decks?
I tried +2 Xantid and +2 Karakas and shaved Silence and should have taken out a fetchland to balance the mana in the deck, but I didnt. I wanted to maintain speed and information, but was not lucky against my oponent's incredible Ponders. Im sure i boarded out wrong for the matchup.

Man, "incredible Ponders" is right. Holy shit. G1 it looked like you had 5 mana after wish but not the colors to do either Reforge the Soul or Diminishing Returns (idk which you had). Like you knew EtW wasn't gonna get it done but the only other option is PiF and have Probe hit a land or a Dark Rit. Something like 12/whatever (46 for 26%?) and no one's gonna hail mary when they can make goblins.

EDIT: Oh you don't have Tendrils main....Probe into Dark Rit or Probe into land - Ponder that hits a Dark Rit. Not good at all lol.

[Bryant Cook]

Link to Jacobs' Show and Tell match:
http://twitch.tv/scglive/b/346797640?t=2h44m40s

I watched the first game before I went to sleep last night. I'll get to watch the rest on my lunch break.

I love watching the deck in action. Storm is a beautiful part of legacy.

I would not go for Empty the Warrens versus faster combo decks (specifically late in the game). I can't remember the exact situation though, you might not have had a better choice.

I plan on watching this over my lunch break, looking forward to it. I'll also be adding this to the opening post.


Cutting the Hull Breach slot for an extra answer is something I can get behind.

I don't like not having the option to blow up enchantments/artifacts; it makes me feel a little vulnerable. However, I must admit it only got used occasionally in comparison to something like Chain of Vapor which we could utilise much more often - gaining more value from our precious sideboard slots.

I'm just thinking aloud here, but the disadvantage of the Hull Breach slot is that it was narrow. The advantage was that it is a wishable answer. Are both of these statements true? On that premise, can a card fulfil both qualities?

Eye of Nowhere has both attributes, but is UU and I assume has been ruled out for a good reason, most likely because bounce is significantly worse at sorcery speed. If we could find a card that is less narrow than Hull Breach, but also that works well at sorcery speed, that would seem excellent.

I too have found Past in Flames to be sufficient. I don't really ever find myself wishing (excuse the pun) that I had IGG in the 75; any time I have Lion's Eye Diamond in the graveyard they are usually about to die.

Having said that, versatility is a great boon and it certainly does have its uses. It would be nice to guarantee the kill rather than casting Diminishing Returns in those situations.

Provided the cost of its inclusion was not high, I would like having
the option of IGG. If we have a slot free from removing Hull Breach then justifying keeping it in the list becomes easier.

I don't see a huge benefit of running a singleton bounce spell. Two copies is the minimum I would run, at this point you need to decide if the bounce spells are better than the ability to run Ill-Gotten Gains and Hull Breach. With Gains in the sideboard I feel that Hull Breach is better for the deck, without Gains, perhaps two bounce spells.

Eye of Nowhere is useless, I played it during my Grand Prix run in Columbus, never cast it once over seventeen rounds besides showboating and bouncing a land post Ad Nauseam.


Bryant, I remember you stating that you might replace 2 sideboard cards for "A Tropical Island and an Abrupt Decay". I'm not quoting this to quiz you on that - my question to you is:

If a third Abrupt Decay was ever to be included in the sideboard, do you think a Tropical Island is required to support it given the current manabase?

I don't think they need to go hand in hand, but at the moment Miracles numbers have been declining. I don't see a reason to raise the number of Decay because of the lack of Counterbalance. Also, without Xantid in the sideboard the Tropical loses a lot of value.


One last point. Everybody seems to love Karakas. Is two copies a given at this point?

I believe so. If Maverick ever comes back in force, I'll be running three.


Question to the thread:
How would you board against Show n Tell decks?
I tried +2 Xantid and +2 Karakas and shaved Silence and should have taken out a fetchland to balance the mana in the deck, but I didnt. I wanted to maintain speed and information, but was not lucky against my oponent's incredible Ponders. Im sure i boarded out wrong for the matchup.

-2 Silence
-1 Infernal Tutor (making it a Wish target)
-1 Empty the Warrens (but in your list - Duress, making it a Wish target)

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Our mana can't really support it, but ever think about playing Grand Abolisher?

[Tammit67]

Our mana can't really support it, but ever think about playing Grand Abolisher?

Just seems like a harder to cast [cards]defense grid[cards] that gets bolted.

If I could get a creature to stick, I'd rather play confidant or swarm

[Machahiko]

Played in Finnish national legacy championship tournament this Saturday, got 32th out of 108 participants. Deck played like a charm and every game that I lost, I felt like I could have won if I had maybe done something differently/better. Here's a quick recap of some of the games:

Round one I lost to Ru goblins because he just happened to naturally draw a spell pierce. I wasn't happy. 1-2

Another game that I lost was against zombardment, G1 I thought that he was playing sneak attack (he opened with badlands, last time I played there he was playing sneak attack) so I decided to try and kill him. He died. I had no idea at all what he was playing because he immediately gave up so that he wouldn't give me any extra information. In game two I was pretty surprised when my xantid swarms were useless.., especially after he T1 Cabal Therapy naming LED hit two and made my hand pretty bad. For third game I wanted to side in additional goblins because I imagined that they would be pretty awesome. They weren't so awesome after I played Ad Nauseam, flipped EtW, EtW, Chrome Mox, EtW...

After I had taken 12 damage from 3 EtW I decided to keep on digging, the deck could still deliver. Short notice here, I had checked his hand earlier and I remember him having two lands and Rakdos Charm. I drew some fixing and not a lot of 0 mana accelerants, but plenty of rites and dark rituals. I was still missing a wish / tutor, after flipping I went to two life and couldn't find burning wish or a tutor. I kind of gave up on trying to find either one and now I still feel bad about it. I don't exactly remember what my hand consisted of, but I had plenty of gitaxian probes. Afterwards I played two EtW's and lost on his turn. My friend came to check the top of my deck, and it was land, chrome mox, burning wish. I still keep on thinking about how stupid I was, I should have kept on finding tutor or wish instead of giving up.

A short question here, would you side in two EtW against zombardment? For now I feel like I should have left one in the sideboard.

My third loss was 0-2 against counterbalance. Game 1 he won due to an awesome brainstorm that just happened to find fow+blue card on top of deck. No other card/combination would have saved him. Game 2 I don't draw any additional lands besides the one I had in my opening hand. Because of that I can't decay counterbalance and fight through his counterspells.

Anyways, the deck worked like a charm, I just wish I could have played a little bit better at some points. Did I do the right thing when I boarded in two EtW against zombardment?

[Bryant Cook]

I'd always keep at least one ETW sideboard, but I would side them in regardless. Fighting creatures with creatures is bad, that isn't where this deck succeeds. I would board in a possible second storm engine first.

EDIT: I finally watched the video. I feel like you definitely over sideboarded. Also, I would've taken the Show and Tell instead of the Blood Moon. It's much easier for T.E.S. to win through Blood Moon than the position your opponent was in with no blue source.

[Koby]

I'd always keep at least one ETW sideboard, but I would side them in regardless. Fighting creatures with creatures is bad, that isn't where this deck succeeds. I would board in a possible second storm engine first.

EDIT: I finally watched the video. I feel like you definitely over sideboarded. Also, I would've taken the Show and Tell instead of the Blood Moon. It's much easier for T.E.S. to win through Blood Moon than the position your opponent was in with no blue source.

I was thinking about it when I watched it again last nite. My thought process in game as that "lets give the viewers a show" and I wanted to just highlight Karakas > Show & Tell. I also think I could have taken Sneak Attack in Game 1. Luckily, no extra prizes were on the line so I'm not stressing too much about how the games turned out.

[Pelikanudo]

Hi all,

I just saw this list in Legacy Open Las Vegas:

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9747&iddeck=71173

I proposed a list to Bahamut with no Empty and No Tendrils in Base With Gitaxian, and this list seems what I was looking For (maybe finally I would succumb to playing gitaxian but not yet...)
The only change I maybe do not agree is -1 burning +1 Disruption, and this will be the change I'll add to the list, as exact the list proposed to Bahamut.

Apart from that the 13th land I see as a Must

Regarding my Non Gitaxian List, I definately took out that shitty Grim Tutor, on opening hand is slow, and in the games I drew it seemed awfull, I needed to test it by myseld, so I recognized my fault at this point.

Regarding to Xantid Swarms, In my meta there is still S&T Decks, so I'll keep them.

Is there by here the pilot of the deck, I'd really like to make hime/her some questions...?

In my Non gitaxian Build I need 1 slot, I definately will set 1 Preordain as seems the less worst. I've tested also 1 Gitaxian 1 Personal Tutor...
The idea is that having 8 disruption spells you do not need to side in too much vs control and likely I'll test +2 gitaxian -1 disruption as it was at first... Still thinking in my Nion Gitaxian Build... But that list opned my eyes as I thoutgh in similar direction... No Tendrils No Empty base, 13 lands 3 moxen.


Opinions are apreciatted.

[Chikenbok]

Is there by here the pilot of the deck, I'd really like to make hime/her some questions...?


Don't turn around... he's hiding right behind you!

[Pelikanudo]

Don't turn around... he's hiding right behind you!

Yeah I didn't read the previous posts and then noticed there are posts around the Top 8 he made, and noticed how easy the match ups were.... So I'm sorry I really do not have many questions...

@Koby

I have the following questions:

1) Will you change to +1 Tendrils in base?, which will be the change if so?

2) How were the 3 Burning wish for you, didn't you prefer 4 instead and -1 Disruption?

3) were you comfortable with 13 lands instead 12?


The other day I made 0-3 DROP loosing to a Joke MUD match up, 1-2 to Canadian (in here I drew in 2 match ups the Grim Tutor and this boy won the tournament) and 1-2 to ANT, he took me the 2 Silences in hand and next he just was quicker than me... Sometimes I just simply win all match ups with TES and sometimes I just loose as a Joke of Destiny... I wanted to make Top 8 with My One Grim Tutor List but this is not going to be possible...

[Koby]

I have the following questions:

1) Will you change to +1 Tendrils in base?, which will be the change if so?

Likely -1 Duress or -1 Fetchland.


2) How were the 3 Burning wish for you, didn't you prefer 4 instead and -1 Disruption?
No, I felt very comfortable with 3 BWish. I don't ever want to see the 2nd since I'm not using BWish for utility -- all the Sorceries in the sideboard are kill spells.


3) were you comfortable with 13 lands instead 12?

I was flooded from time to time. It's hard to really gauge whether 13 or 12 is correct. I would board in Karakas against matchups where I needed both Lands as well as bouncing legends (for instance Maverick).

[egosum]

This is just a thought that came to my mind when thinking about the list from the last SCG, by the way gratz Koby, i.e., the idea/list above is neither well-tested nor tuned, but theoretically speaking it make sense. The main idea is why not running a list with 3x Ad Nauseam in the main deck with 0 other cards with CMC greater than 2. IT will respect the usual 3-bomb skeleton we are used to, I know it would mean swap 2 cards with CMC 4 for 2 cards with CMC 5, but I think it would make very little difference when flipping for the win (as I said I' m not completely sure of what I' m saying, I should do the math to confirm). But as the deck main and most powerful engine is Ad Nauseam, and normally once you resolve one the game will be won even if you start at 14-12 life, sometimes 10 can get you there too, I' d like to test the idea of maximizing this spell in the deck. this will imply relying on Burning Wish to win (and here is where the inspiration on the Koby's SCG came from). Of course this is detrimental for those 6 mana Infernal tutor kills (with LED), but the chances to have Land + Rite/Dark (+ Petal/Chorme) + Infernal + LED seem rather quite low (once again, math are needed to confirm), so it seems that having 3 natural bombs (Ad Nauseam) with 4 "semi"-bombs can provide some consitantcy. Moreover, having this high number of Ad Nauseam in the deck give better match up against any discard deck, and this is specially good in a metagame that is evolving into a BUG-infested meta, and other forms of Deathrite Shaman decks (most of them splashing black disruption).

For those interested I leave a potential list below, I tested just twice online, and won both matches (but this of course means exactly nothing).


4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual

4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

2 Silence
2 Orim's Chant (2/2 split is for surgical resiliance, feel free to add 4 of whichever you feel)
4 Duress

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm

3 Ad Nauseam

4 Infernal Tutor
3 Burning Wish (with this threat density BW should not be needed in multiples anymore, I would keep it to 2 because when you really want it is after resolving Ad Nauseam, but I feel 3 is a good number for keeping the wish-board alive but also to have good chances on flipping it early with Ad Nauseam, some more math are needed to confirm if 2 or 3 is the correct number for a safe Ad Nauseam flip).

2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands (this extra land was added because after I wrote all my thoughts down in form of cards there were 50 slots covered and the last one was naturally the place of the 4th BW, but as stated above I think is not needed, in the other hand an extra 0 CMC cost is never bad in a heavily Ad Nauseam centric deck, plust it gives some space against wasteland decks. It had to chooses between badlands, another fetchland or another city of brass. I finally took the badlands option because 5 fetchland for 3 lands may be bad in some games and we don't take any advantage by generating threshold, and the effect of clearing the deck of a single land off fetchland is irrelevant, about this topic I think there is an interesting article around the net for those interested, city of brass was OK but again the deck is Ad Nauseam centric so it seemed that increasing the number of pain lands was antisinergic, finally badlands has always been the land that finally didn't made the cut in T.E.S. but is a mroe than OK land when you are rushing, and not grinding, hence, since the original manabase remained untouched badlands seemd the best option for a 14th land)
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire


SB: 1 Diminishing Returns
SB: 2 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 3 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Meltdown
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 2 Karakas
SB: 1 Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 2 Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 Thougthseize

Note that IGG is not really a Wish target, I mean with no win con in the main is even more difficult to take profit from it from a wish, but is, in this iteration, just a B-plan to adopt against fully aggro decks. Just side -2x Ad Nauseam +1x IGG, +1x ToA against those decks and you'll have a pretty regular TES.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

P.S. if I can find time for it I'll do all the maths needed.

[Bryant Cook]

I really don't like this list, but with that aside. I think people really misunderstand the amount of mana that is needed for an Ill-Gotten Gains kill with Burning Wish, Infernal Tutor, and Lion's Eye Diamonds. It's exactly the same, after resolving Infernal Tutor finding a second copy of Lion's Eye Diamond into Burning Wish. Ill-Gotten Gains with two mana floating is a guaranteed kill, play the LED's, Infernal, Wish, and Tendrils. It's just as easy as it was before.

Granted, it's slightly tougher with Dark Ritual. Although at this point, that player should probably start to consider Past in Flames anyway.

[r3dd09]

Only played some casual games. There is a player I see at the LGS often, but I've never played against him. He approached me to play legacy. After his turn one with a wild growth, he was playing enchantress. So I was durdling to see what was in his deck, then he played a confinement. I scooped as he also has out Wheel of Sun and Moon and I didn't want to play it out. Again, casual.

The next two games I went off turn one with an Ad N. with no mana floating. The next game was just a stacked hand with me drawing a probe. He didn't want to play another set and left.

Don't want to play any "under the radar" decks for Denver, so I'm taking TES. Lets just hope my next shipment gets here in time so I have a mostly pimped deck.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Did some runs with Iñaki's twist on T.E.S.

Here's where I'm at:
12 Land
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand

48 Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Silence
4 Duress
3 Chrome Mox
3 Ad Nauseam
2 Burning Wish

15 Sideboard
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Karakas
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Past in Flames
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Tendrils of Agony

Opening with Ad Nauseam in nearly every hand is pretty bad ass.

[Koby]

@egosum
If it matter at all, I never fizzled with Ad Nauseum - going so far as to claim "let's count by twos" to my opponents and they always scooped before I had to demonstrate the kill. I often stopped at 8 cards once I found the tutor kill with LED or BWish.

[KevinTrudeau]

Cutting the fourth Burning Wish to allow for a maindeck Tendrils and maindeck Empty the Warrens (with the slightly coinciding philosophy of relying more on cards to board in to deal with perms) seems like a very real option right now; TES continues to be stretched every which way with regards to strategies that trump it, and must react accordingly. I'd like to still run four, but I'm hesitant to cut anything else (although going down to eleven lands could certainly be a possibility, possibly utilizing the manabase Final Fortune suggested that ups the amount of gold lands), and it is true that seeing one copy is probably generally better than seeing two copies per game. This change will not only increase the win percentage versus Tempo Thresh post turn two/three due to making PiF cost less/making the Probe-fueled raw dog option available and allow corner-case Ad Naus to stay in postboard, but allow IGG an easy slot to fill in in the sideboard (it replaces the second copy of ToA that was boarded in versus LED combo/FoW combo/UW/Thresh/Extirpate).

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Binned the 3 Ad Nauseam list. Currently playing a list with 4 Infernal Tutor, 1 Ad Nauseam and 1 Burning Wish. Also playing 2 Mox Opal. (No main deck kill spells.)

Only targets for BW are currently kill spells and storm engines. Rest of the board includes instants and/or other cards that are sided in vs. hate.

Common play with extra wishes in hand is to grab a Duress-effect or something similar and durdle around.

Still testing, but results look promising.

[vercadium]

Binned the 3 Ad Nauseam list. Currently playing a list with 4 Infernal Tutor, 1 Ad Nauseam and 1 Burning Wish. Also playing 2 Mox Opal. (No main deck kill spells.)

Only targets for BW are currently kill spells and storm engines. Rest of the board includes instants and/or other cards that are sided in vs. hate.

Common play with extra wishes in hand is to grab a Duress-effect or something similar and durdle around.

Still testing, but results look promising.

I'm usually more diplomatic than this - but Mox Opal seems, quite simply, horrible. It doesn't matter what way I look at it, it just doesn't make sense.

I can't recommend only 1 Burning Wish either. It's important to be able to find a tutor when you need it; only running 5 decreases the odds of this considerably.

I wouldn't personally run the list with 3 Ad Nauseam, but I can appreciate the logic behind the concept. Increasing the chance of having Ad Nauseam in the opening hand is a valid argument. What made you drop it?

[Bryant Cook]

Storm Hands II (http://jupitergames.info/articles/2012/52489/cooks-kitchen-storm-hands-ii)

This week's article.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

I wouldn't personally run the list with 3 Ad Nauseam, but I can appreciate the logic behind the concept. Increasing the chance of having Ad Nauseam in the opening hand is a valid argument. What made you drop it?

Mostly I was bored and wanted to switch things up.

[Psyqo]

There seems to be a lot of decklist changing in this thread, when Bryant and Koby both demonstrate great results with their builds. Why all the tinkering? Why not just playtest their builds more and sideboard according to your meta?

All the adjustments to proven, efficient decklists seems like a waste of time to me.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

There seems to be a lot of decklist changing in this thread, when Bryant and Koby both demonstrate great results with their builds. Why all the tinkering? Why not just playtest their builds more and sideboard according to your meta?

All the adjustments to proven, efficient decklists seems like a waste of time to me.

Then take your own advice and play the OP list.

[joemauer]

Storm Hands II (http://jupitergames.info/articles/2012/52489/cooks-kitchen-storm-hands-ii)

This week's article.

I throughly enjoyed this article. Better than the last.

I appreciated all the good and creative uses of the more controversial cards: Probe, Iggy, PiF, and Returns. Particularly liked the use of Diminishing Returns; it is not just an 'Oh Shit Button'!

[Koby]

There seems to be a lot of decklist changing in this thread, when Bryant and Koby both demonstrate great results with their builds. Why all the tinkering? Why not just playtest their builds more and sideboard according to your meta?

All the adjustments to proven, efficient decklists seems like a waste of time to me.

Part of the last few pages of discussion is in fact centered on Kirby's unconventional list which I piloted. The central question to the changes: "can this deck play with no maindeck win conditions and streamline the Ad Nauseam flips?"

[Bryant Cook]

Part of the last few pages of discussion is in fact centered on Kirby's unconventional list which I piloted. The central question to the changes: "can this deck play with no maindeck win conditions and streamline the Ad Nauseam flips?"

If the deck lists were to go to no maindeck win conditions in order to streamline I would definitely be playing four Burning Wish. Anything less than that is a mistake in my eyes. At that point there's too much value placed on Wish in order for it to be anything less than four. Now I'm a huge advocate of Empty the Warrens for the time being, so I'll continue to keep it on my maindeck. However, if I was to cut it, I'd probably replace it for a land.

I think the lists and ideas that are being thrown out there at this point are a bit unrealistic in their expectations. I wouldn't advise three Ad Nauseam or Mox Opal, pretty much ever. Being able to stop at four on Ad Nauseam against stopping at Five is huge, it's about three cards! I also believe that the chances of killing yourself are much higher with two additional Ad Nauseam in the deck compared to my current list. They've gone beyond streamlining to the point where they're just narrow effectively shutting off the benefits of Burning Wish by narrowing it down to two copies

I need to get back to work and posting on my phone is obnoxious, but I see these new lists/ideas as steps in the wrong direction. They're being thrown out there for the sake of being something different or "cool" and not functionally equivalent.

[Gaka]

There seems to be a lot of decklist changing in this thread, when Bryant and Koby both demonstrate great results with their builds. Why all the tinkering? Why not just playtest their builds more and sideboard according to your meta?

All the adjustments to proven, efficient decklists seems like a waste of time to me.

While I don't agree with the changes (namely three ad naus, mox opals, or cutting burning wishes) this statement is just asinine. Why do people tinker? To make decks the best they can be. How did the current decks get to the status that they are? By tinkering. If you're not experimenting and striving to improve, you're a damn sheep and will be ripped apart by the wolves. This doesn't mean you should bring experimental lists to tournaments and expect to do well based on theory. Play what's comfortable, but don't ever proclaim a list "perfect" and leave it to wither and die.

[Final Fortune]

Part of the last few pages of discussion is in fact centered on Kirby's unconventional list which I piloted. The central question to the changes: "can this deck play with no maindeck win conditions and streamline the Ad Nauseam flips?"

I don't understand the desire to play without Empty the Warrens MD, it's a business spell in hand and a situational win condition in and of itself that gives the deck the ability to go off an entire turn sooner ... what's not to like?

If we're on the subject of oddball deck changes tho', has anybody tried adding Simian Spirit Guides back into the deck? I've been tinkering with reducing the Chrome Mox slots as far as possible and off setting them with SGS and man does having a red lotus petal instead of a resource intensive card like Chrome Mox make a huge difference on how quickly you can go off. I know the card kind of sucks as far as Ad Nauseam flips go, but it makes a pretty big difference on how reliably you can win on turn 2.

[Pelikanudo]

If we're on the subject of oddball deck changes tho', has anybody tried adding Simian Spirit Guides back into the deck? I've been tinkering with reducing the Chrome Mox slots as far as possible and off setting them with SGS and man does having a red lotus petal instead of a resource intensive card like Chrome Mox make a huge difference on how quickly you can go off. I know the card kind of sucks as far as Ad Nauseam flips go, but it makes a pretty big difference on how reliably you can win on turn 2.

That exactly thing I've been thinking exactly this past weekend and also the same reason...

Pros:
- We play rite of Flame
- Is not as bad as C.Mox
- Is instant speed
- Forgot! You now have +1 Win Con.

Cons:
- 1 or 2 cards of 3 cost vs 1 or 2 cards of 0 cost. We will need to evaluate this, but I don't think this will affect too much... Need opinions in here


Also resuming about Empty and Tendrils Base, I think it is meta dependant and based on sinergy cards on the build, I don't think Empty Base worths but this is a Personal Choice, I prefer simply to play Tendrils Base, Examples: a) its is supposed to get better A.N, b) you can go long game vs Control Based if drawing Same opinions as Emidlins in here, etc, etc. I recognize Gitaxian gets better Empty, but I don't play Gitaxian, also.

So based on my latest build of Non Gitaxian List.

- I'm thinking on the Disruption approach and 3 Silence 2 Orims 3 Duress seems to me perfect to handle Canadian because of +1 Chant Effect and Letting The duress in side however 4 duress 4 silence as Kobys List seems interesting but I have no B.Wish disruption target good enough as Duress.
- The mana Base is 13 lands 7 of them Gold Lands, and can be 2 C.Moxen 2 Simian Spirit Guide. or 3 Moxen 1 Simian Spirit Guide -Need to agree on this with you boys.
- The Slot I Hate is the 1 Personal Tutor OR 1 Totally Discarded Grim Totor OR 2# A.N. OR Changing parity beetween -1Diruption = +2 Gitaxian -Discarded also OR as from now on +1 Preordain

Here it goes:

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

3 Chrome Mox
1 Simian Spirit Guide

OR

2 Chrome Mox
2 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Silence
2 Orims Chant
3 Duress
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Preordain (I hate this slot...)

The Side:
1 Duress
3 Karakas (Great Card I almos always Side In -1 C.Mox +1 Of this if I do not expect Opposite Karakas AND it is a Slow Match Up)
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Empty the Warrens - Thinking in swithcing to 2 as vs MUD I felt I lost significatly when swithch to A.D. instead of E.T. Maybe -1 Karakas I'll see need opinion in here, I think it is the ritgh move.
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Grapeshot
1 Revoke Existence
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns
2 Xantid Swarn (In my meta there is S&T, and this is the best cards vs them. Apart In mirror and In Merfolk and In Reanimator and In Surprising With No Removal Scenarios this cards is Simply Great)

[Pelikanudo]

If the deck lists were to go to no maindeck win conditions in order to streamline I would definitely be playing four Burning Wish. Anything less than that is a mistake in my eyes. At that point there's too much value placed on Wish in order for it to be anything less than four. Now I'm a huge advocate of Empty the Warrens for the time being, so I'll continue to keep it on my maindeck. However, if I was to cut it, I'd probably replace it for a land.

.

I agree, in DD Builds you can opt to not to play Main Win Con but these are decks that their only draw back is that you loose only some piles while the Usual Piles are still strong and mana efficent, For TES I think having Tendrils Main reduce the chance of Not Winning Post A.N as equal to Empty Main , but the position when you draw until 13 or 15 is irrelevant as you have 8 ways to kill with Tendrils regardless having them or not, and the Draw back is that for these 50Percent -4 you need extra 2 mana, as opposite to 9 (4 B.W , 4 I.T , 1 Tendrils Base).

I can agree that if siwthcing to Gitaxian Build I'd make also these change +1 Land, however as previous post now I'm considering in adding Simian Spirit Guide to reduce those C.Moxen.




I think the lists and ideas that are being thrown out there at this point are a bit unrealistic in their expectations. I wouldn't advise three Ad Nauseam or Mox Opal, pretty much ever. Being able to stop at four on Ad Nauseam against stopping at Five is huge, it's about three cards! I also believe that the chances of killing yourself are much higher with two additional Ad Nauseam in the deck compared to my current list. They've gone beyond streamlining to the point where they're just narrow effectively shutting off the benefits of Burning Wish by narrowing it down to two copies
.
No More than 2 A.N, I personally Will play 1 Until There is a better Draw Engine than A.N.
No Opal, I tryed Builds with this playing Senseis, Even Artifact Lands and simply doen's adapt to TES.
Burning Wish Is the Card that defines TES in my Opinion, even this card , I won't say it is better than I.T. but Again, defines the Concept of TES. Please no less than 4.




I need to get back to work and posting on my phone is obnoxious, but I see these new lists/ideas as steps in the wrong direction. They're being thrown out there for the sake of being something different or "cool" and not functionally equivalent.

I agree apart from Non Gitaxian Or Empty/Tendrils Main.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

dkafljs;lfdjkal;fk

I just love how in every post you reiterate, "Oh, you play probe. I don't. Maybe I'll play probe? Nevermind."

[Bahamuth]

I just love how in every post you reiterate, "Oh, you play probe. I don't. Maybe I'll play probe? Nevermind."

And how you keep adding bad cards instead of Probe.

[Pelikanudo]

I just love how in every post you reiterate, "Oh, you play probe. I don't. Maybe I'll play probe? Nevermind."

I, J, and Ks can re-iterate in a While Loop, unless I, J and Ks are equal to 1 in that case the I, J and Ks will only iterate, I don't see myself as a I, J and Ks iterating or re-iterating in a While Loop.

I hope this helps!


@Bahamut:
I don't see Gitaxian > Preordain At Least In TES Build. I recognize Grim Tutor was an Error.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Preordain doesn't reveal your opponent's hand. Seems bad.

[Pelikanudo]

Preordain doesn't reveal your opponent's hand. Seems bad.

I play only 1 Preordain in that hatable Slot so this is not much relevant, apart and going on the discussion:

Preordain
- serves as 8th Suffle Effect to make Brainstorm Better
- It is better at Deepening into the deck
- Doesn't make you to loose 2 lifes
- I don't need to see hands to win with TES

If you find a better slot for that single Preordain I'd like to know,

I can see the list for Gitaxian as:

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

3 Chrome Mox - Maybe -1 = +1 SSG.
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Silence
3 Duress
1 Ad Nauseam

So as Bryant Post List For reference Except - 1 Win Con Main = +1 Gold Land.

But As said, applying the parity Concept I prefer, as opposite as Bryant Post List For reference :

a) -1 Empty = +1 Tendrils Main
b) -1 Gitaxian = + 1 Disruption
c) -1 Gitaxian = + 13th Land
d) -1 Gitaxian = + 4th C. Moxen - The idea in here is to test SSG as, yes its cost 3 but it is much better than C.M. as a 1 or 2 Of, Again For me Exploting A.N. is the important thing. so keeping 8 Free Mana Efffects is important for me also.
e) -1 Gitaxian = +1 Preordain.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

I play only 1 Preordain in that hatable Slot so this is not much relevant, apart and going on the discussion:

Preordain
- serves as 8th Suffle Effect to make Brainstorm Better
- It is better at Deepening into the deck
- Doesn't make you to loose 2 lifes
- I don't need to see hands to win with TES

If you find a better slot for that single Preordain I'd like to know,

I can see the list for Gitaxian as:

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

3 Chrome Mox - Maybe -1 = +1 SSG.
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Silence
3 Duress
1 Ad Nauseam

So as Bryant Post List For reference Except - 1 Win Con Main = +1 Gold Land.

But As said, applying the parity Concept I prefer, as opposite as Bryant Post List For reference :

a) -1 Empty = +1 Tendrils Main
b) -1 Gitaxian = + 1 Disruption
c) -1 Gitaxian = + 13th Land
d) -1 Gitaxian = + 4th C. Moxen - The idea in here is to test SSG as, yes its cost 3 but it is much better than C.M. as a 1 or 2 Of, Again For me Exploting A.N. is the important thing. so keeping 8 Free Mana Efffects is important for me also.
e) -1 Gitaxian = +1 Preordain.

Don't play SSG.

[thefringthing]

Don't quote fifty lines of text to add one.

I can't take these Simian Spirit Guides and stuff seriously.

I like the list Koby played -1 Duress +1 Tendrils or Empty the Warrens. Not sure about whether I'd want a different bounce split; depends on how likely you think you are to play against Chalices.

Recently started picking up cards for the deck on MTGO. Soon I'll be able to beg people to lend me LEDs so I can sit in DEs that don't fire!

Drew Levin tweeted about playing "5c Storm" in the SCG Invitational. Is his list available?

[Koby]

Don't quote fifty lines of text to add one.

I can't take these Simian Spirit Guides and stuff seriously.

I like the list Koby played -1 Duress +1 Tendrils or Empty the Warrens. Not sure about whether I'd want a different bounce split; depends on how likely you think you are to play against Chalices.

Recently started picking up cards for the deck on MTGO. Soon I'll be able to beg people to lend me LEDs so I can sit in DEs that don't fire!

Drew Levin tweeted about playing "5c Storm" in the SCG Invitational. Is his list available?

He is playing Bryants list but Tendrils instead of EtW. 12 land, 3 Duress, 4 Bwish, sb infinite sorceries no Chain of Vapor.

[Bryant Cook]

Took first place at Jupiter with the list from the opening post.

Read all of the suggestions from the last day or so on my phone... /facepalm

Edit: Ning top 8'd with TES too.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Just T4ed a GPT with TES after months of non-play.

The deck is fucking savage, as I ripped through a room filled with RUG. Empty MD will never be questioned again by me. That card is the fucking nut sauce, and gives the deck a way to win at low life without Ad Naus. I'll write a tourney report soon.

[Deviruchi]

Took first place at Jupiter with the list from the opening post.

Read all of the suggestions from the last day or so on my phone... /facepalm

Edit: Ning top 8'd with TES too.

Nice results for the deck. Next report should be interesting. I was watching a little bit of Jupiter twitch and TES was strong in action. That game vs Eli :D He may be switching to FoW deck again ;)

[phazonmutant]

Long-time ANT player, took TES to a small local tournament for the first time today, got 2nd. Punted away g3 to not playing out LEDs against that Goblin Bombardment zombie deck when he played 5 disruption spells in the first 4 turns. Sweet deck, seems like to flows much better than ANT nowadays.

Bryant, why do you play 4 Gemstone Mine instead of like a 3-3 split with City of Brass? I had some issues with it as my only mana source in my opener and it going away against control decks. Also, I'm surprised there's no Badlands. Otherwise the list seems tight. Loved the Diminishing Returns!

[Final Fortune]

There's an issue with this thread being selectively critical, if a player wants to play the 9th cantrip or split acceleration into 2xChrome Mox and 1xSimian Spirit Guide it's not going to have any where near the same impact as cutting Burning Wish(es) from the deck or playing 3 Ad Nauseams, 2 additional 5c spells, and playing with no win conditions MD. I realize Pelikunado is kind of annoying, but I don't see where you guys can get away with suggesting massive structural changes to the deck and then chastize other players for making small structural changes to the deck for the purposes of decreasing the odds of double Chrome Mox hands/draws or increasing the odds of opening with a cantrip or chaining cantrips and not come off as complete hypocrites.

I mean seriously, you guys are cutting win conditions, cutting kill conditions, adding 2 Ad Nauseams to the deck and then just scoffing at 2xChrome Mox and 1xSimian Spirit Guide configurations or an extra 1x Pre-Ordian without any actual counter arguments?

As far as not running Gitaxian Probe for 4 more cards, it's not like TES without Gitaxian Probe isn't viable, and I could definitely follow the logic if somebody wanted to make a more stable TES deck that wasn't running the absolute bare number of lands. I definitely like Gitaxian Probe myself, but there may be some underlying problems with the deck's ability to consistently reveal a land off a Brainstorm or Pre-Ordain with only 12 lands compared to 14 or the ability to open a land off a mulligan to 6 that could need to be addressed. There needs to be less ego based bull shitting and more math done in a few areas of the deck.

[Bahamuth]

There's an issue with this thread being selectively critical, if a player wants to play the 9th cantrip or split acceleration into 2xChrome Mox and 1xSimian Spirit Guide it's not going to have any where near the same impact as cutting Burning Wish(es) from the deck or playing 3 Ad Nauseams, 2 additional 5c spells, and playing with no win conditions MD. I realize Pelikunado is kind of annoying, but I don't see where you guys can get away with suggesting massive structural changes to the deck and then chastize other players for making small structural changes to the deck for the purposes of decreasing the odds of double Chrome Mox hands/draws or increasing the odds of opening with a cantrip or chaining cantrips and not come off as complete hypocrites.

I mean seriously, you guys are cutting win conditions, cutting kill conditions, adding 2 Ad Nauseams to the deck and then just scoffing at 2xChrome Mox and 1xSimian Spirit Guide configurations or an extra 1x Pre-Ordian without any actual counter arguments?

As far as not running Gitaxian Probe for 4 more cards, it's not like TES without Gitaxian Probe isn't viable, and I could definitely follow the logic if somebody wanted to make a more stable TES deck that wasn't running the absolute bare number of lands. I definitely like Gitaxian Probe myself, but there may be some underlying problems with the deck's ability to consistently reveal a land off a Brainstorm or Pre-Ordain with only 12 lands compared to 14 or the ability to open a land off a mulligan to 6 that could need to be addressed. There needs to be less ego based bull shitting and more math done in a few areas of the deck.

All I'm criticizing is that he's not running Gitaxian Probes. There is in my mind absolutely no reason not to run Probe. I don't even know what you mean with 'TES without Probe is viable'. You can probably say Solidarity is viable, or pre Ad Nauseam TES is viable. I'm sure you can win game with it. It's just worse than other decks. Additionally, I think it's easy to see that Simian Spirit Guide is just not a good card at all. I have had the same list for a long time now, and I still think it's the best.

You say you think math should be done. The truth is that there's next to no math possible in MtG. The only thing you can realistically do is calculate probabilities of drawing combinations of cards, and that's not going to get you anywhere, since the only possible conclusion would be 'if I add more of these cards, I'll draw them more often'.

[Final Fortune]

All I'm criticizing is that he's not running Gitaxian Probes. There is in my mind absolutely no reason not to run Probe. I don't even know what you mean with 'TES without Probe is viable'. You can probably say Solidarity is viable, or pre Ad Nauseam TES is viable. I'm sure you can win game with it. It's just worse than other decks. Additionally, I think it's easy to see that Simian Spirit Guide is just not a good card at all. I have had the same list for a long time now, and I still think it's the best.

You say you think math should be done. The truth is that there's next to no math possible in MtG. The only thing you can realistically do is calculate probabilities of drawing combinations of cards, and that's not going to get you anywhere, since the only possible conclusion would be 'if I add more of these cards, I'll draw them more often'.

So a card that produces an on color mana without the cost of imprinting a card is "easy to see that it's not good" despite being played in the deck before both pre and post Ad Nauseam from 4 to 2 copies and mathematics doesn't apply to a deck of 60 cards beyond basic probability? This translates into you making arbitrary judgement calls regarding card choices and having no understanding of applied math, which is exactly the kind of crap I'm talking about in this thread. It's all ego and no substance based on speculation instead of mathematics or design objectives, even if it's something as simple as the utility of reducing the odds that you draw a second Chrome Mox compared to bolting yourself with Ad Nauseam flips, you just give a one liner without any substance instead of providing any arguments that contain an ounce of actual merrit.

There are definitely reasons not to run Probe, the "Street Wraith" effect being one of them, but the overall land count despite the deck thinning effect is a bit unreliable if you want to be able to mulligan and open up with a land without having to accept the variance from Probe. And honestly if that is an issue, what other card would you cut before Probe in order to increase the land count? Burning Wish? Please.

[Bahamuth]

So a card that produces an on color mana without the cost of imprinting a card is "easy to see that it's not good" despite being played in the deck before both pre and post Ad Nauseam from 4 to 2 copies

The fact that others used to run SSG is no argument at all. I don't know why you would be wanting to take 3 damage for a card that probably has less value after resolving Ad Nauseam. The fact that it doesn't count for storm is a huge deal too.


and mathematics doesn't apply to a deck of 60 cards beyond basic probability? This translates into you making arbitrary judgement calls regarding card choices and having no understanding of applied math, which is exactly the kind of crap I'm talking about in this thread.

Oh please, go ahead and lecture me on math. You can't mathematically determine if running a SSG over a Chrome Mox is better.


It's all ego and no substance based on speculation instead of mathematics or design objectives, even if it's something as simple as the utility of reducing the odds that you draw a second Chrome Mox compared to bolting yourself with Ad Nauseam flips, you just give a one liner without any substance instead of providing any arguments that contain an ounce of actual merrit.

You just confirmed my statement. You can use math to calculate the odds of seeing 2 Chrome Mox and the odds of Bolting yourself with Ad Nauseam flips. Now what? You're going to make the same arbitrary call on what odds you like better? On what authority are you stating that a certain combination of odds is better for the deck then another? There's no way to tell.


There are definitely reasons not to run Probe, the "Street Wraith" effect being one of them, but the overall land count despite the deck thinning effect is a bit unreliable if you want to be able to mulligan and open up with a land without having to accept the variance from Probe. And honestly if that is an issue, what other card would you cut before Probe in order to increase the land count? Burning Wish? Please.

Yes, I am aware of the fact that running Probe has this extremely obvious consequence. You know, there's reasons not to run LED too actually. Yeah, if you draw LED + Ad Nauseam, the LED is pretty often pretty much dead. Also, you have to discard your hand when you sac it. That's really bad you know. The fact that there are reasons not to run a card is by no means an argument not to run it.

And yes, I would cut Wish down to 2 before cutting the 4th Probe. The value of seeing my opponents hand is way too high to cut it.

[Final Fortune]

The fact that others used to run SSG is no argument at all. I don't know why you would be wanting to take 3 damage for a card that probably has less value after resolving Ad Nauseam. The fact that it doesn't count for storm is a huge deal too.



Oh please, go ahead and lecture me on math. You can't mathematically determine if running a SSG over a Chrome Mox is better.



You just confirmed my statement. You can use math to calculate the odds of seeing 2 Chrome Mox and the odds of Bolting yourself with Ad Nauseam flips. Now what? You're going to make the same arbitrary call on what odds you like better? On what authority are you stating that a certain combination of odds is better for the deck then another? There's no way to tell.



Yes, I am aware of the fact that running Probe has this extremely obvious consequence. You know, there's reasons not to run LED too actually. Yeah, if you draw LED + Ad Nauseam, the LED is pretty often pretty much dead. Also, you have to discard your hand when you sac it. That's really bad you know. The fact that there are reasons not to run a card is by no means an argument not to run it.

And yes, I would cut Wish down to 2 before cutting the 4th Probe. The value of seeing my opponents hand is way too high to cut it.

Fuck it, I can't take some one who just advocated cutting two of their win conditions before cutting a free Peek seriously after going on a tirade about how math should and should not be applied to this deck.

Yeah, I can't "prove" SSG is better than Chrome Mox based on a mathematical argument, however I can calculate the increase in the average amount of life lost while flipping after an Ad Nauseam and I can calculate the decrease in the average amount of times I draw 2xChrome Mox and make a value judgement based on an actual metric as opposed to saying such brilliant one liners as "cards that produce on color mana for free in Storm are clearly bad" or "seeing my opponent's hand is more important than drawing the cards that can actually win the game in a timely manner" based on nothing at all but a biased opinion. Go ahead, cut 2 Burning Wish from the deck and then wonder why your turn 1 and 2 win percentages plummet, math is totally overrated right?

Edit: Obviously SSG is worse after an Ad Nauseam, it's also significantly better than Chrome Mox before it.

[Bahamuth]

Fuck it, I can't take some one who just advocated cutting two of their win conditions before cutting a free Peek seriously after going on a tirade about how math should and should not be applied to this deck.

I'm not advocating cutting Wish down to 2. Don't put words in my mouth. I run 3 Wish 4 Probe.


Yeah, I can't "prove" SSG is better than Chrome Mox based on a mathematical argument, however I can calculate the increase in the average amount of life lost while flipping after an Ad Nauseam and I can calculate the decrease in the average amount of times I draw 2xChrome Mox and make a value judgement based on an actual metric

You know what, I think I'll go do this for you to show you there's no point. Give me some time. The amount of Chrome Mox you see is pretty easy, but getting to a quantification of how bad a SSG is may be a bit more difficult. I think it's probably easier to simulate it.


as opposed to saying such brilliant one liners as "cards that produce on color mana for free in Storm are clearly bad" or "seeing my opponent's hand is more important than drawing the cards that can actually win the game in a timely manner" based on nothing at all but a biased opinion.

No one here is saying things that are not biased opinions. Your opinion is that math can tell you what the best configuration is. I also never said any of these things. I can go ahead and exaggerate what you're saying too if you like. 'We should go ahead and base everything on math, instead of actually relying on playing the deck'. Yeah, that's not what you said either.


Go ahead, cut 2 Burning Wish from the deck and then wonder why your turn 1 and 2 win percentages plummet, math is totally overrated right?

I think I value math more than you do. I use math on a daily basis in my life.


Edit: Obviously SSG is worse after an Ad Nauseam, it's also significantly better than Chrome Mox before it.

It is definitely not significantly better, because not producing storm is a huge deal.

[Vandalize]

Chrome Mox is miles ahead of Simian Spirit Guide. Chrome Mox might be worse in multiples, but so does Protection in General (Multiple Silences is really awkward).

Chrome Mox is better post-Ad Nauseam, of course. But it also does help to get Hellbent for Infernal Tutor by imprinting useless cards in that gamestate, or even not imprinting anything at all just to add Storm. Moreover, Chrome mox can be imprinted to add every color you might need, when SSG can just cast Rite of Flame and Burning Wish.

Another argument is that when facing Discard, you might want to play your artifact mana as soon as possible. Simian Spirit Guide would just be discarded without pulling its weight.

The only counter argument for Chrome Mox is that they suck in multiple, but so does Burning Wish and Silence. Chrome Mox is maybe the worst card in the deck, but until they print another kind of Lotus Petal, it's just the best we have avaliable.

[Bahamuth]

Okay mr. Final Fortune, here is the information you need. I hope to read your 'value judgement based on an actual metric' based on this information. If you need anything else, please let me know. I am dying to learn from your incredible analysis skills if adding a SSG to the deck is a good idea.

I wrote a program that simulates resolving an Ad Nauseam. It makes the following assumptions:
-We start at 16 life
-We stop flipping at 4 life
-The content of the deck is all other 59 cards. This is equivalent to assuming we've drawn a random collection of cards so far

The program runs 1 million instances of resolving an Ad Nauseam with the list from the first post, and the same list with a SSG instead of a Chrome Mox. The results are:

No SSG: Average of 15.19 cards drawn
With SSG: Average of 14.34 cards drawn

I wrote the program in Python with Numpy, because that's what I'm comfortable with. If you want to check these results, the script is here: http://codepad.org/UuyuMx4A

(That is for the SSG-less deck. If you want to add a SSG, just add Deck[0] = 3 before the big for-loop)

Secondly, here is a plot of the probability of drawing two Chrome Mox in your opening hand as a function of the amount of Chrome Mox you have in your deck.

http://i.imgur.com/2ePRL.png

You might wonder why a probability even exists for x which are not integer. That is because the factorial function is generalized to the Gamma function in Maple, which is what I used to make this plot.

I look forward to your value judgement, and hope that you don't randomly accuse people of not having a clue about math next time.

[Pelikanudo]

C:\A\This Is Magic.png

I have recently played a game and this was the second game, please believe me it was real, I think this is a signal O God! Thanks God For iluminating us in recommending to play SSG!

Joke.

Edit: I just wanted to show a Game in whic I killed an oponent with SSG and in conjuntion with letal tendrils of 14. This software doenst seem to allo to insert images unless their from URL, I think I'll need to create an Images Repository in IIS...

[Pelikanudo]

Shitty post mine before...

I really like to see how you are debating in favour or not about SSG, I even learn good english so thanks.

Regarding the Gitaxian List I can agree on:

I'd play the exact list as Post except in Base +1 Land = -1Empty OR as Bahamut except +1 Burning = -1 Empty.
I think No Tendrils Main and 8 threats has proven to be good enough to unnecessary play both.
3 C.Moxen I think is neccesary, playing 2 and 1 SSG, I'm really eskeptical at least in Gitaxian Builds, In Non Gitaxian you need to play 4 C.M. so playing 3 -1 1 Split is ok I think.
I will not play never ever less than 4 b.wish. in TES.

Regarding the SSG Discussion:
14 to 15 cards is not much difference,

The problem with 2nd A.N is that if the idea is to win with A.N in whatever scenario, statistics say the increment of a 5 cost is not too much in the average but the problem is when you are at 15 and reveals that exact 5 cost, this is not applicable to a 3 cost, I understand that this fact is more annoying than anything but for sure this is only a small part inside of a Great Scenario which englobes a Equilibrate Statistic, I hope I'm understood in someway.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Well, guess you don't auto lose to Telemin Performance.

[Dark Ritual]

Long-time ANT player, took TES to a small local tournament for the first time today, got 2nd. Punted away g3 to not playing out LEDs against that Goblin Bombardment zombie deck when he played 5 disruption spells in the first 4 turns. Sweet deck, seems like to flows much better than ANT nowadays.

Bryant, why do you play 4 Gemstone Mine instead of like a 3-3 split with City of Brass? I had some issues with it as my only mana source in my opener and it going away against control decks. Also, I'm surprised there's no Badlands. Otherwise the list seems tight. Loved the Diminishing Returns!

Badlands doesn't tap for blue and that's a huge problem. Imagine opening up this hand:

Badlands, Ponder, Brainstorm, LED, LED, Duress, Wish.

Such a hand would be stacked if the opponent lacked wasteland and you had a blue source instead of a badlands.

Gemstone mine is only bad when the game goes long. TES doesn't want games to go long as that's when it loses typically. The 1 damage with ad nauseam definitely matters.


SSG is a pile of shit. Don't run the card. You draw less cards with ad nauseam and how often do you draw 2 chrome mox with 3 in the maindeck? The fact is that you often don't draw multiple of a specific card when you run only 3 copies of said card.

Also, getting hellbent via chrome mox is definitely a thing. And being able to tap mox to potentially play silence effects or blue cards is of paramount importance. Chrome mox is also the only real basic land we have in the deck as opponents can't often destroy chrome mox. Sure the card is sometimes the stone worst draw but chrome mox is a necessary evil unless WotC prints something better for the slot (unlikely.)

The only reason to run SSG is to not lose to telemin performance like Kirby said. But that shouldn't be our concern when we have discard and chant effects to stop telemin performance from happening (if the opponent is even running that card.)

[Endure2004]

sup all, as noted there was a double T.E.S. top 8 at Jupiter with Bryant and me, I'll be writing a tournament report soon for you goons. My swiss went:
zombies 2-0
12post eldrazi 2-1
counterbalance RIP combo 2-1
counterbalance RIP combo 2-1
esper stoneblade 2-0
ID
ID
first round top 8 lost 0-2 to nic fit scapeshift burning wish

also, there's only one guy arguing about probe right? everyone else is just playing four? anyways, stop not playing four...

and simian spirit guide is absurd, stop suggesting it....chrome mox = 0 off ad naus, and also +1 storm for ETW....plus it can stay in play and tap for mana in a pinch...SSG is so bad in this list

[Oiolosse]

@Bahamuth -- thank you for being analytical here. I am too lazy to do such things but I think the practice would be good (applying for graduate applied math next fall).

Can you explain, "The content of the deck is all other 59 cards. This is equivalent to assuming we've drawn a random collection of cards so far"

I think I intuitively see what you are doing here but the statement seems loaded. Or rather, the proof behind it seems like it's more rigorous than the passing mentioning you give it? If it's explainable via here then please enlighten.

Thanks!

btw, why do you use math everyday and what type?

[akmalik]

also, there's only one guy arguing about probe right? everyone else is just playing four? anyways, stop not playing four...


I think that Gitaxian Probe is a nice card but not essential for TES. With 2 AdN and Tendrils main (without Probe) still playing on the upper tables. Also I really enjoy playing with Probe and EtW main. Just acceptable alternatives.

Don't like the idiotic aggressiv posts about that the last pages...

[Bryant Cook]

Pimp Legacy Decks - TES (12/16/2012) (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?4607-DO-NOT-TRY-TO-SELL-IN-HERE-Pimp-Legacy-Decks&p=691810&viewfull=1#post691810)

Images of my finished TES.

EDIT: I also recommend that everyone reads this:
The Cutting Room Floor: Group Therapy by Mike Keller (Hollywood) (http://jupitergames.info/articles/2012/52501/the-cutting-room-floor-group-therapy)

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Pimp Legacy Decks - TES (12/16/2012) (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?4607-DO-NOT-TRY-TO-SELL-IN-HERE-Pimp-Legacy-Decks&p=691810&viewfull=1#post691810)

Images of my finished TES.

EDIT: I also recommend that everyone reads this:
The Cutting Room Floor: Group Therapy by Mike Keller (Hollywood) (http://jupitergames.info/articles/2012/52501/the-cutting-room-floor-group-therapy)

I know you mention this in the Pimp thread, but Dan Scott's sig really sucks. Apparently he hates signing the card.

[Bahamuth]

@Bahamuth -- thank you for being analytical here. I am too lazy to do such things but I think the practice would be good (applying for graduate applied math next fall).

Can you explain, "The content of the deck is all other 59 cards. This is equivalent to assuming we've drawn a random collection of cards so far"

I think I intuitively see what you are doing here but the statement seems loaded. Or rather, the proof behind it seems like it's more rigorous than the passing mentioning you give it? If it's explainable via here then please enlighten.

Thanks!

btw, why do you use math everyday and what type?

Okay, in a normal situation, you will have drawn a part of your deck before you resolve the AdN, which means there are less cards in your deck left to flip. I assume that all other cards are still in my deck. That's not true of course, but if I assume that the cards that I draw before resolving the AdN are basically random, then this approach is basically the same. It's a decent approximation I think, you're usually drawing some cantrips, some land, some protecton, some mana and 1 or 2 win conditions, which is a pretty general piece of the deck.

I use math every day because I study theoretical particle physics. Can't really get around it.

[bennotsi]

I just wanted to add the numbers to bahamuth's plot, since I didn't find it very clear.

Assuming 60 card deck, 7 card opening hand. The chances of drawing 2 (or more) in the opening hand are:
2-off: 1.18%
3-off: 3.36%
4-off: 6.33%
(obtained from a simulation of 1 million openinghands)

I think we can all agree upon what we already knew, that decreasing the chances of having 2 or more Chrome Mox in the opening hand by 2.18% is not worth drawing a 1 card less off Ad Nauseam in general. But hopefully now it's clear for everyone.

Thanks for the link to that Cabal Therapy article, I enjoyed reading it.

[Bahamuth]

I think we can all agree upon what we already knew, that decreasing the chances of having 2 or more Chrome Mox in the opening hand by 2.18% is not worth drawing a 1 card less off Ad Nauseam in general. But hopefully now it's clear for everyone.



It's 0.85 card, that's not quite 1. And no we cannot agree on that based on this data. That's what I've been trying to say. You cannot compare these statistics in any definitive way, and you're not even taking into account other differences between cards.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Played the OP list to a 4-0 finish at my LGS tonight.

Nic Fit 2-0
Game one win with a turn one Iggy-loop. Win game two with Ad Nauseam.

MUD 2-1
Game one EtW gets there. Game two forced to cast EtW before getting locked out. Lose a close race to Batterskull. Win game two with an Iggy-loop on turn one.

Elves 2-0
Game one I cast an early Ad Nauseam. Game two I cast tendrils for 42. Beat Mindbreak Trap and a double Wellwisher activation.

BUG Delver 2-1
Lose game one to a hand of Stifle, Stifle, Daze and FoW. Bob drew him too much gas. Win game two with eight goblin tokens on turn one. Game three my hand of Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, DR, DR, Burning Wish, Duress, Ad Nauseam beats his hand of FoW, Stifle, Deathrite Shaman, Daze.

[Endure2004]

http://jupitergames.info/articles/2012/52564/my-past-in-frames-memories-of-the-december-nelc-by-si-ning-li

report ^^

[phazonmutant]

Badlands doesn't tap for blue and that's a huge problem. Imagine opening up this hand:

Badlands, Ponder, Brainstorm, LED, LED, Duress, Wish.

Such a hand would be stacked if the opponent lacked wasteland and you had a blue source instead of a badlands.

Gemstone mine is only bad when the game goes long. TES doesn't want games to go long as that's when it loses typically. The 1 damage with ad nauseam definitely matters

Makes sense. Tested some more after that tournament, and Gemstone Mine has proven itself.

I looked back over the past few pages and the primer, seems like there's no consensus on Xantid Swarm, Tendrils vs Empty main, and whether it should be Iggy or PiF in the board. That accurate?
So far Iggy has been much more relevant than PiF (3-1), the rituals just suck more in TES than ANT.

Trying to decide between this and some BUG deck for GP Denver. I'm a bit nervous about all the Hymns in the format. Sure, a lot of people are boarding Force, but now the postboard is Force backed by 5ish discard spells for like 10% of the expected meta. Adoption of Engineered Plague doesn't help with our reliance on quick Empties to beat discard. How has that matchup been for you guys?

[Bryant Cook]

Makes sense. Tested some more after that tournament, and Gemstone Mine has proven itself.

I looked back over the past few pages and the primer, seems like there's no consensus on Xantid Swarm, Tendrils vs Empty main, and whether it should be Iggy or PiF in the board. That accurate?
So far Iggy has been much more relevant than PiF (3-1), the rituals just suck more in TES than ANT.

Trying to decide between this and some BUG deck for GP Denver. I'm a bit nervous about all the Hymns in the format. Sure, a lot of people are boarding Force, but now the postboard is Force backed by 5ish discard spells for like 10% of the expected meta. Adoption of Engineered Plague doesn't help with our reliance on quick Empties to beat discard. How has that matchup been for you guys?

Those slots are all preference and metagames. By looking at my list on the opening post you can clearly tell what I've chosen.

Xantid Swarm - Reanimator has died out completely due to Deathrite Shaman, meaning that this Bee is only sided in against Show and Tell combo pretty much. But it's not even that great against them.

Tendrils vs. Empty - Anyone who prefers Tendrils as the moment hasn't accurately tested this deck, the card is bonkers right now in the overall metagame.

Ill-Gotten Gains vs. Past in Flames - They serve two different roles. One is better against non-blue while the other is great against blue.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

With the OP list against BUG, I sided like this:
-1 Infernal Tutor
-1 Silence
-1 Gitaxian Probe
+2 Cabal Therapy
+1 Empty the Warrens

The OP has
+1 Cabal Therapy
-1 Infernal tutor

Am I taking out too much?

[Bryant Cook]

With the OP list against BUG, I sided like this:
-1 Infernal Tutor
-1 Silence
-1 Gitaxian Probe
+2 Cabal Therapy
+1 Empty the Warrens

The OP has
+1 Cabal Therapy
-1 Infernal tutor

Am I taking out too much?

I'd say so.

You're basically siding out a silence for a Therapy which I think is wrong and I don't play the second Warrens in the side anymore. I found at Jupiter this past weekend that I didn't want the second warrens as much as I thought I did and it really weakened Ad Nauseam.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

What made you decide on the third Abrupt Decay?

[Bryant Cook]

What made you decide on the third Abrupt Decay?

You'll find out in my report come Friday.

[phazonmutant]

Those slots are all preference and metagames. By looking at my list on the opening post you can clearly tell what I've chosen.

Xantid Swarm - Reanimator has died out completely due to Deathrite Shaman, meaning that this Bee is only sided in against Show and Tell combo pretty much. But it's not even that great against them.

Tendrils vs. Empty - Anyone who prefers Tendrils as the moment hasn't accurately tested this deck, the card is bonkers right now in the overall metagame.

Ill-Gotten Gains vs. Past in Flames - They serve two different roles. One is better against non-blue while the other is great against blue.

Fair. Honestly, this is by far the best-tuned deck I've every picked up from a primer on the source. Most of the primers are garbage.

Empty has been great in the main so far, I understand where you're coming from there. Looks like you updated the decklist on the primer to have a third Abrupt Decay. Is that really better than the first Xantid Swarm? Seems like hedging against the pretty decent chance of playing High Tide or Show and Tell over a 15-round tournament would be better. AD is awesome in this deck though.

EDIT - guess I'll wait for the report on Friday.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

You'll find out in my report come Friday.

I'll read it Thursday night.

[Bahamuth]

I found at Jupiter this past weekend that I didn't want the second warrens as much as I thought I did and it really weakened Ad Nauseam.

I just went ahead and tested this, since I wrote the script for it anyway. If you replace a Wish/Tutor with an EtW, you're drawing 3.7% less cards on average. This, of course, doesn't really mean anything, but it's pretty cool to know I guess.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Yes. (http://www.twitch.tv/jupitergames/c/1783317)

It's at 2:20. All of the TESticles.

[phazonmutant]

Played TES to a top 8 at the local store, 30ish people in the tournament this time. Played the list on the primer.

Round 1 - Merfolk : game 1 he had a lot of soft permission but didn't have a fast clock. Played the slow game Infernal'ing for mana, killed him t5 or 6 with Ad Nauseam. Game 2 he had double Force, but no pressure. I was clogged with tutors though, used IF as a hymn, then I punted and almost lost by playing double Dark Rit and then not having R for my Burning Wish. Didn't matter, killed him the next turn at 1 life with Wish for PiF.

Round 2 - Belcher : he mulled to 5 and I kept a disruptive hand. Stripped him of a bunch of cards but had no action. Shuffled away some cards with Ponder that would allow a win because it took 2 turns to draw them, definite mistake. He gets me with Belcher in a few turns. Game 2 I kept on 7 a no-lander that wasn't even likely to win if I got there with an IMS. He goblins'd on turn 1, I DRet on my turn 3, whiffed. Pretty much threw this match away.

Round 3 - Jund Scapeshift : game 1 he kept a land-heavy hand and I stripped his only action in Green Sun Zenith. My turn 3 had the option of waiting, making some goblins (but I know he plays Bonfire and Deed), or going for Diminishing Returns. Obviously go for DRet and get there. Game 2 he didn't sideboard, I board in some Therapies. He plays Top, I strip him of Therapy, leaving him no relevant plays. He rips Explorer but whiffs on Therapy, I win with Ad Naus on my turn 2.

Round 4 - Merfolk : Opponent mulls to 4 game 1 looking for lands. Killed him at my leisure. Not a real game. Game 2 I stripped a Force, leaving him Echoing Truth and Pierce, with a Cursecatcher on board and no lords. Turn 3ish I have enough lands and moxen to play a Burning Wish for PiF and pay the tax for 3. Next turn kill him with PiF.

Round 5 - UW Stoneblade : Game 1 the guy has Engineered Explosives as well as double Force, Jace. Infernal'd for Duress and sculpted some with cantrips. He got Jace down, but it didn't matter, stripped the last Force and went off with Ad Naus. Game 2 he again had EE but was light on lands. I played out a Mox and a Petal to play around Pierce and Infernal'd for Dark Rit, even got him to burn a Pierce. Next turn he Mana Leaked my Duress, I just cast Dark Rit and paid, took his Force. Won with Ad Naus next turn.

Top 8 - Death and Taxes : Game 1 I lost because he wasted my Volcanic, couldn't fetch another red source to cast the 3 Rites in my hand (had a Chrome Mox on B), then locked myself out of relevant draw steps with a Ponder that didn't find a red souce (good play). Game 2 I won very easily on turn 3 with an Ad Naus I floated with Ponder after he wasted a land turn 1. Saw he had glowriders. Game 3, he kept up a W for the first two turns. I thought out loud whether he had silence, but decided to call his bluff because surely any deck with Glowrider and Thalia wouldn't play Silence. Besides, D&T plays Canonist. Well. Turns out he just threw the board together and had 1 Silence. Wished for PiF but couldn't find resources to cast it before he Wasted and Mangara'd me out. This was surely a mistake on my part, could have kept a Dark Rit in reserve before going for BWish so I'd at least be able to cast PiF next turn if he did have Silence.

I'd have to say I played cantrips fairly poorly in this event, losing due to Ponders twice. Despite that, the deck functioned beautifully. Every game against blue decks felt like a fucking joke, they either had protection or pressure, never both. I need to work on my keeps when I'm playing against combo, need to figure out how to prioritize speed vs. disruption and an ok hand vs. mulliganning. It was a blast to play! Ad Nauseam is just so much filthier in TES than in ANT. Almost certainly playing TES in Denver.

[Bryant Cook]

Yes. (http://www.twitch.tv/jupitergames/c/1783317)

It's at 2:20. All of the TESticles.

All of the videos were added to the opening post. Was hoping to keep them a secret until tomorrow when my article goes live. But thanks, jerk.

[jrp]

This is all from my (usually awful) memory, so I hope it's mostly correct...I was playing Bryant’s maindeck (excpet for the 2/2 split on the white protection spells) and very close to his sideboard (2Empty, 2 Decay, 3 Storm Engines, 1 CoV over the second Karakas due to card availability). The tournament (at a local store) had 34 players, which meant 6 rounds of Swiss cutting to a top 8.

Round 1: Jund (2-0)
I lose the die roll, my opponent starts with fetch -> basic Swamp -> Thoughtseize. He sees a mediocre hand which I believe was land, land, Chrome Mox, Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor, Burning Wish, Ponder. He decided to take the Burning Wish. I draw a land, play Ponder (shuffle, draw a land). Next turn he plays Forest -> Dark Confidant. Next turn I draw, then play nothing, as infernal tutor is my only gas.
I don't remember the exact sequence of the rest of the game, but he was on 12 life from a Confidant flip (Maelstrom Pulse), a Fetchland activation, and a 2 Thoughtseizes (the second one grabbed my Infernal Tutor). I drew a Gitaxian probe (into Burning Wish) and was able to kill him with Probe (1), Rit (2), Rite (3), Mox no imprint (4), Duress (5), Burning Wish (6), Tendrils (7).
Had he taken the dark ritual (which was likely correct), I was probably going to Wish into Diminishing Returns on Turn 2, with hopes of casting it the turn after, obviously depending on what my next draw steps yielded.

Game 2, I keep a really loose, no-land hand on the draw (don’t judge me!!): Probe, Ponder, Dark Ritual, Rite of Flame, Infernal Tutor, Duress, Ad Nauseam.
He Thoughtseizes me on turn 1, which made me very sad, well at least until he took my Ponder instead of my probe or ritual :) I proceed to draw a Chrome Mox, Probe into a Lotus Petal, and then play a Turn 1 Ad Nauseam. My first flip is Empty the Warrens, which is then followed by a number of lands, Probes, Brainstorms, Ponders, and 3 Rite of Flame. I stop ADN, when I'm at 4 life and simply play a land then 3 Rites into Empty for either 22 or 24 Goblins. My opponent draws, plays a land, then scoops.

Round 2: Spiral Tide (2-1), Anwar
Game 1, I'm on the draw, he plays Island -> Cantrip, and I play a turn 1 Duress seeing a good hand: Force, Merchant Scroll, High Tide, Time Spiral, Island, Island - I take the Force. Anwar therefore feels the need to Scroll for Force on Turn 2 so that he doesn't die. I can't kill him through a force, so I decide to use my Infernal Tutor to set up a protected kill on my turn 3, instead of Duressing him. Turns out his last 2 draws were Tide, Untap effect, so on his Turn 3, he plays his 3rd Island, Tide, Tide, Untap effect, Time Spiral. I scoop with he casts Blue Sun's Zenith for 9 with 6 mana still available to him (and another Spiral in hand already).

Game 2, He keeps a land heavy (4) hand, I duress away his protection (Force). He Merchant Scrolls for more (Force or maybe a Flusterstorm). However, his brainstorm is unkind to him, and I protected kill him on my turn 3 via Ad Nauseam.

Game 3, Not sure what happened, but he definitely received a lethal dose of Tendrils.

Round 3: U/W Counterbalance (1-1-1), Chris
Game 1, I'm on the draw, he plays Tundra, go. My hand is strong, and can play a protection spell (Duress) on turn 1, and kill on turn 2, or turn 3 with a Silence if I draw any mana source in my first 2 draw steps. However his hand is strong as well, as my Duress reveals the following hand: Fetchland, Spell Pierce, Counterspell, Sensei's Divining Top, Enlightened Tutor. I wasn't thinking properly, and chose to take Spell Pierce (so that he can't play Top and hold up Countermagic next turn or on any subsequent turn until he draws a land). My idiocy is revealed when he plays E. Tutor -> Counterbalance, and taps out for it on turn 2, sigh...
My next turn is spent playing Burning Wish (resolves, as a Fetchland was his top card) -> Hull Breach. He plays Land and Top, I play Hull Breach, which after a fetch and blind counterbalance miss meets Counterspell. At this point his hand is almost completely depleted, so I play Burning Wish -> Past in Flames to set up for a long game (my hand at this point was almost all rituals, so no real chance for a quick kill b/c of his top).
He keeps spinning top, playing lands, etc while play land, go or draw, go. The game goes on for many turns (10+) with him not doing much of anything until he plays a Jace. I finally decide to go for it and play a number of rituals and rites (and a Silence), which all resolve after he checks his top. So now I'm thinking OK, he must have a 4-drop, a 2-drop, and something random (the third card down) on the top of his library, so I play Past in Flames, he reveals Jace. I then play Ad Nauseam, he spins top and reveals Force of Will, I didn't have a Tutor or Wish in hand, so I pack them up. The plan was going to be to find the MD empty…

Game 2, I duress away a Spell Pierce on Turn 1, then Cabal Therapy away 2x Counterbalance on Turn 2. I'm all set up to win, however, my deck then decides to be a huge jerk and give me some really shitty Ponders (all shuffled). My opponent eventually Cliques me, making me bottom my Abrupt Decay. I'm able to find another Decay for the Counterbalance he played shortly after, though I still can't find any business. I FINALLY draw Ad Nauseam, and play it from 8 life (my 6th spell for the turn after protection/rituals) with a Chrome Mox still in my hand. I reveal Ponder, Gitaxian Probe, Chrome Mox, Land, Infernal Tutor - I stop here which puts me to 4 life.
I currently have 3 lands untapped, can still make a land drop for the turn, have BBR floating, and Storm = 5.
My opponent has 18 life, 4 untapped lands plus a fetchland, Thopter Foundry, Sword of the Meek, and EE = 0 in play.
I play Chrome Mox, and with the imprint trigger on the stack, my opponent pops his EE. I choose to remove the Probe when the imprint trigger resolves even though my Mox is no longer in play. I play another Mox, imprint my Ponder, play my land, and then tap everything to get to a total of 8 mana. Play Infernal Tutor (hellbent) for Burning Wish, for exact Tendrils (if he used foundry twice), gg.
If he didn't blow the EE (and therefore could have activated Foundry 4 times), I would have played Mox imprint Probe, cast Ponder, find any ritual or colored card for imprint on the second mox, and win from there (I have one more storm this way).

Round 4: RUG Delver (2-0)
Game 1, My opponent played a Delver on turn 1, and flipped it on turn 2. I don't remember how the game played out exactly, but he decided to use a stifle on my fetch (instead of holding up a second piece of countermagic) and am able to make lots of Goblins through a Force of Will. My opponent had to hit Red Source and Lightning Bolt on a Brainstorm on his last turn to get me for exacts. He hits the Bolt, but I fade the Red Source and win.

Game 2, My opponent taps out on turn 2 for a Tarmogoyf and dies with Spell Pierce and Fluterstorm in hand. Probe let me know that the coast was clear.

Round 5: Mono-Red Chalice Aggro (2-1), Kopac
Game 1, Probe (Seeing a lot of nasties like Magus of the Moon, Chrome Mox, Gathan Raiders, Phyrexian Revoker, etc), City of Brass, Ponder, go. He plays Mox (Imprint Raiders), Phyrexian Revoker naming Lion's Eye Diamond. My turn 2 I play Land, Chrome Mox (Imprint Ponder?), Burning Wish for Diminishing Returns, and then Chant my opponent in his upkeep. Next turn I play a Land, pass, then Silence him in his upkeep. The next turn I play Chrome Mox (Imprint Duress?) then Diminishing Returns, play a Land, pass, then chant him in his upkeep. Next turn, I'm able to Ad Nauseam into the win from 12 life or so.

Game 2, Not sure on details, but he played some nasty stuff and I died very quickly.

Game 3, Very interesting (to me anyway) game. My hand after probing was Land, Land, Duress, Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond, Chrome Mox, Ponder.
His hand is: City of Traitors, City of Traitors, Chalice of the Void, Chalice of the Void, Phyrexian Revoker, Mountain, ?
I Duress him and take one of his Chalice of the Void b/c Chalice on 1 + 0 straight up beats my hand. I also played a Lotus Petal before passing the turn. To try to convince him off of playing Revoker and Chalice = 0.
He plays a turn 1 Chalice on 1. I draw Burning Wish. I run out Land, LED, Mox imprint Ponder, Burning Wish into Empty for 8 Goblins. Suprisingly, they get there unassisted.
Round 6: Intentional Draw with Jarvis (Shardless BUG)

Top 8: RUG Delver (2-0) very quick games
Game 1, My opponent wins the die roll and plays Delver of Secrets, go. I play land, Ponder, go. He triggers Delver in his upkeep, revealing Force - Ouch, that's like the best possible opening for them! He then died on my third turn...
I played Duress on Turn 2 revealing Force of Will, Force of Will, Stifle, Tarmogoyf, Land, Land - obviously taking one of the Forces.
On his third turn, he plays a land, then Goyf, leaving a Tropical Island untapped. I play a Brainstorm in his end step, and it's damn near perfect - mana, business (Wish), and something, while I have a white protection spell in my hand.
On my third turn I play Land, Silence, and he responds by tapping out to cast Brainstorm (the card he drew last turn). He then Forces the Silence removing Stifle. Because of his two spells, I believe my line was: Tutor for 2nd LED and play it (4+5), LED (6), Tutor (7), Wish (8), Tendrils (9) with him having used a Force and at least one Fetchland. If he had not Brainstormed, and instead held up Stifle, I would have had to use Ad Nauseam with one black floating from 13ish life.

Game 2, He had to mulligan to 5. He was crushed by a protected turn 2 Empty for 14 goblins.

Top 4: High Tide (0-2), Anwar
Game 1, He wins the die roll, and has a decent hand (Force, Merchant Scroll, Tide, Lands, and another blue card). Additionally, Anwar is extremely familiar with the matchup and knows that he should usually be Merchant Scrolling for countermagic, and take the control role in the matchup. I believe I misplayed pretty badly with a Brainstorm (played it one turn early), resulting in me being "Brainstorm locked" and dying miserably. Of course, my deck could have just given me the nuts off of the Brainstorm instead of 3 blanks and I would have won, but it was not to be.

Game 2, I think I played decently despite it being a loss - I wish I remembered more of the details. I do remember two key turns in the game:
First, it is my turn (4?) and I know Anwar's hand contains 2 Flusterstorms amongst other cards. He has an Island tapped (used to play Preordain), an Island untapped, and a Flooded Strand. I see my oppurtunity and play Silence, leaving me a total of 5 mana available and an Ad Nauseam in hand. Predictably, Anwar uses Flusterstorm to attempt to counter Silence, which resolves and I choose not to pay. If he cracked his fetch at EOT, I would have been able to play Ad Nauseam in response, but he didn't...
On the following turn he plays a land and passes. On my turn I play LED and pass. He plays Cunning Wish in my end step, and I respond with Ad Nauseam. He plays Flusterstorm (4 total), and I pay, resolving Ad Nauseam. I draw approximately a million cards, while Anwar finishes resolving his Cunning Wish for Intuition. Unfortunately for me Anwar untaps, draws Ponder, ponders into Tide, plays Candelabra, and has Time Spiral in hand as the last card other than Intuition, and the only card I didn't know due to the nubmer of Duresses/Probes I had played this game (exact mana to play it, too). He draws a good Spiral hand, and I scoop them up.

I finished in 3rd/4th place, good for $120 in Store credit. I picked up some Innistrad "Dual Lands" (3 Harbor, 3 Falls), a Sphinx's Revelation, a Huntmaster of the Fells, and an Angel of Serenity. Deck felt good, seems fairly well positioned, and I think I'm back to playing it decently. I used each of the sideboarded storm engines at least once during the tournament, though I’m not certain if the Ill-Gotten Gains is needed. Also, I know Bryant is moving away from the second Empty in the sideboard, but I’m sticking with it for now.

[Megadeus]

The only card I realistically cant obtain are the karakas. Is it still okay to play this without them?

[Bryant Cook]

The only card I realistically cant obtain are the karakas. Is it still okay to play this without them?

I recommend Chain of Vapor/Deathmark if that's the case. These will do. Although they're not the most optimal choice. They just slow you down against Maverick that's all.

Jrp, glad you're back! Also congrats on the finish.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

All of the videos were added to the opening post. Was hoping to keep them a secret until tomorrow when my article goes live. But thanks, jerk.

So I'm not allowed to ask questions till Friday, huh?

This is like waiting for Santa on Hanukkah.

It's about the triple Ponder hand with Ad Nauseam.

[Bryant Cook]

So I'm not allowed to ask questions till Friday, huh?

This is like waiting for Santa on Hanukkah.

It's about the triple Ponder hand with Ad Nauseam.

I don't know what you're talking about, maybe I will tomorrow.

[alekill]

I don't know what you're talking about, maybe I will tomorrow.

We have to use our last day on earth to learn the ways of TES?

[Koby]

We have to use our last day on earth to learn the ways of TES?

Sounds like we should all learn Doomsday instead for tomorrow.

[alekill]

Sounds like we should all learn Doomsday instead for tomorrow.

I wonder what type of pile you would need to end the world? I guess it would be best to ask lejay.

[Tammit67]

Sounds like we should all learn Doomsday instead for tomorrow.

I've actually been considering trying Bryant's list +1 land, +1 Ideas unbound, and cutting something from the board for a wishable doomsday.

Rite, BW, rit, DD, led, probe, IU, led, led probe, BW, Tendrils sounds great to me. Any wishable deterministic kill should have merit.

[Koby]

I've actually been considering trying Bryant's list +1 land, +1 Ideas unbound, and cutting something from the board for a wishable doomsday.

Rite, BW, rit, DD, led, probe, IU, led, led probe, BW, Tendrils sounds great to me. Any wishable deterministic kill should have merit.

Not an entirely bad idea. I've ran DD/sb plans with Storm before. Typically against "fair" decks where Emrakul is just better than Storming. It probably fits better in Fetchland Tendrils than EPIC Storm, so let's move that discussion there. Mainly because SDT is sort of required to make the plays easier.

[Gaka]

I've actually been considering trying Bryant's list +1 land, +1 Ideas unbound, and cutting something from the board for a wishable doomsday.

Rite, BW, rit, DD, led, probe, IU, led, led probe, BW, Tendrils sounds great to me. Any wishable deterministic kill should have merit.

I've also been doing something like this, only replacing the ETW with a Meditate.

This is likely a bad idea, but it's pretty fun.

Basically allows you to win on the spot with at least 6 life (if you have probe in hand) and a starting mana pile of 1RBBB and then U or 2 life, depending on if you have probe or a ponder/brainstorm.

[emidln]

I like Doomsday way too much for my own good, but these suggestions sound awful. If you have RoF, DR, LED, (B)(R) and a Wish, you should just get DR or ETW.

Just realized I used DR to refer to Dark Ritual and Diminishing Returns. Most of you probably understood anyway.

[Bryant Cook]

I like Doomsday way too much for my own good, but these suggestions sound awful. If you have RoF, DR, LED, (B)(R) and a Wish, you should just get DR or ETW.

At least someone is making sense.

[Gaka]

I like Doomsday way too much for my own good, but these suggestions sound awful. If you have RoF, DR, LED, (B)(R) and a Wish, you should just get DR or ETW.

Yeah, but how else are you going to fill the time in other than making pointless but entertaining doomsday piles?

DR is superior simply because it doesn't require another card (d3 or d4) in order to make the piles work, but it's still fun to break open doomsdays for 8-man tournaments. I'd never do it for something bigger, but why not.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

So no main deck win condition in the finals against mono red Sneak Attack?

Trying something new?

[joemauer]

So no main deck win condition in the finals against mono red Sneak Attack?

Trying something new?

I guess if it worked for Koby....

[Pelikanudo]

At least someone is making sense.

+1
I love doomsday also , you can try in ANT with senseis build but this will be therefore DDFT.

[Asthereal]

I wonder what type of pile you would need to end the world? I guess it would be best to ask lejay.
(Pile: top-bottom)
Meditate
LED
LED
Petal
Burning Wish

(Play sequence:)
Tap two lands for B and one random mana
Cast Dark Ritual
Cast LED
Cast Doomsday (Storm 3, one random mana in pool)
Create pile above mentioned
Sac LED for UUU
Spin Top to draw Meditate
Cast Meditate
Draw Top, LED, LED, Petal
Cast Petal
Cast LED
Cast LED (Storm 7, still one random mana in pool)
Sac Petal for random colour of mana (two mana of random colour in pool)
Cast Top (Storm 8, one mana of random colour in pool)
Sac both LEDs for RRR RRR (7 mana in pool)
Spin Top to draw Burning Wish
Cast Burning Wish (Storm 9, RRRRR left)
Take Apocalypse from your sideboard, reveal it and put it in your hand
Cast Apocalypse (Storm 10)

:tongue:

[paeng4983]

Sorry for missing the discussion, did anyone tried epic experiment with TES? How did it went? Thanks ^_^
Happy holidays to you all people btw! Cheers!

[Asthereal]

Epic Experiment takes about 8-9 mana to sometimes work.
I'd rather Burning Wish for Infernal Tutor into Ad Nauseam, which has a higher chance of winning on the spot.

[Bryant Cook]

My first place report (http://jupitergames.info/articles/2012/52589/cooks-kitchen-storming-to-jupiter-pt-vii-nelc-12152012)

Videos and the two TES reports from this past weekend were added to the opening post.

Kirby, If you look at past reports or even the sideboarding guide I recommended siding out Warrens before yours/Kobys list did well. It doesn't mean that it's optimal all the time.

[seamonkeyman]

Congrats on the finish and a well written report. I can't wait to watch the videos of your matches.

One general question: In game 1 of your top 8 match you cast Ad Nauseam with no mana floating and then crack LED in response. What color do you get with LED? Black for rituals? Blue for cantrips? Most times it won't matter since you should just draw into the win, but I just wanted to know what your thought process is and what gives the best odds.

[Bryant Cook]

Congrats on the finish and a well written report. I can't wait to watch the videos of your matches.

One general question: In game 1 of your top 8 match you cast Ad Nauseam with no mana floating and then crack LED in response. What color do you get with LED? Black for rituals? Blue for cantrips? Most times it won't matter since you should just draw into the win, but I just wanted to know what your thought process is and what gives the best odds.

Depends on my life total and the number of tutors/wishes used. If I've used more Infernals than Wishes I'll leave red mana floating or vice versa. If I'm high on life total I'll normally do red/black. If I'm low and depending on the circumstances I may leave blue floating to cast Brainstorm or Ponder.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

My first place report (http://jupitergames.info/articles/2012/52589/cooks-kitchen-storming-to-jupiter-pt-vii-nelc-12152012)

Videos and the two TES reports from this past weekend were added to the opening post.

Kirby, If you look at past reports or even the sideboarding guide I recommended siding out Warrens before yours/Kobys list did well. It doesn't mean that it's optimal all the time.

In one match I noticed you went -3 Duress, +3 Cabal Therapy. Why was this?

[Bryant Cook]

In one match I noticed you went -3 Duress, +3 Cabal Therapy. Why was this?

In what match? Junk? Because Cabal Therapy discards creatures?

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Saw the notes from the report. Question was from memory. Didn't hit me that you sided in 7 cards.

[r3dd09]

Love the article, Cook.

[Zombie]

My first place report (http://jupitergames.info/articles/2012/52589/cooks-kitchen-storming-to-jupiter-pt-vii-nelc-12152012)

Videos and the two TES reports from this past weekend were added to the opening post.

Kirby, If you look at past reports or even the sideboarding guide I recommended siding out Warrens before yours/Kobys list did well. It doesn't mean that it's optimal all the time.

Bryant, for situations like Enchantress game three where you kill your brain, caffeine doesn't help (at least according to a study I read don't remember where). Caffeine helps with routine tasks, while willpower and decisionmaking ability is restored by sleep and sugar.

[Bryant Cook]

Bryant, for situations like Enchantress game three where you kill your brain, caffeine doesn't help (at least according to a study I read don't remember where). Caffeine helps with routine tasks, while willpower and decisionmaking ability is restored by sleep and sugar.

Figures that a Zombie would know about brains...

[Vandalize]

Figures that a Zombie would know about brains...

Bryant, what's your highest Grapeshot showboating in tournaments?

Moreover, how's Hull Breach going? I thought that with 3 Abrupt Decays in the sideboard, Shattering Spree could take back his spot in the wishboard. I've never wished for Breach to destroy Counterbalance since I've picked your list, that's why the question.

[Bryant Cook]

Bryant, what's your highest Grapeshot showboating in tournaments?

Moreover, how's Hull Breach going? I thought that with 3 Abrupt Decays in the sideboard, Shattering Spree could take back his spot in the wishboard. I've never wished for Breach to destroy Counterbalance since I've picked your list, that's why the question.

I'm not sure of the exact number but I know that it's in the low sixties. I haven't tried to Grapeshot anyone for a large number in awhile. People usually scoop first.

Hull Breach has been fine. It's not there for Counterbalance, although, that would be nice. Breach is there to kill Leyline of sanctity.

[r3dd09]

I've been enjoying Hull Breach personally.

[Megadeus]

At first I thought the Shattering Spree would be very good, but hull breach does make a lot of sense.

[Gaka]

Bryant, for situations like Enchantress game three where you kill your brain, caffeine doesn't help (at least according to a study I read don't remember where). Caffeine helps with routine tasks, while willpower and decisionmaking ability is restored by sleep and sugar.

This. Chocolate is the best thing for tournaments, in my opinion.

On Hull Breach - It's awesome right now, while the triple chain board is an option, a sided breach ensures that you'll always have the answer at the right time, and hitting leyline and/or chalice/cannonist/ect is huge.

[loveisgreen]

I am having a great deal of trouble beating the BUG delver deck consistently. Between Hymn, Inquis, Daze, Force, wasteland and a fast clock, I feel like I'm always a turn behind. Do I need to mulligan more aggressively? I feel like I have to go off turns 1 or 2 and that generally means foregoing protection (silence at least), and it rarely pays off.

I also have mixed feelings about Gitaxian Probe in this matchup. While it does provide much needed information, I find myself keeping hands that LOOK great but end up falling prey to the decks tendency to rip your hand apart (something like Gemstone Mine, LED, Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor, Burning Wish, Gitaxian Probe, Silence, draw land/tutor/wish/silence/cantrip). I feel like this is not a hand I should be shipping, and if I play out the LED I turn on decays and am just as susceptible to discard as I would have been before, making it a lose/lose if the BUG deck has any action at all.

That aside, I am excited to be playing this deck at the GP, still on the fence about Returns/ Reforge and PiF/IGG (have a hard time believing one is not better than the other, but can't actually figure it out) but am otherwise confident about the decks position in the current metagame. Can't wait to crash the Deathrite orgy party with a bunch of unruly red bastards.

[Lemnear]

...something like Gemstone Mine, LED, Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor, Burning Wish, Gitaxian Probe, Silence, draw land/tutor/wish/silence/cantrip...

Why you don't just probe, make 10 (or more, Depending on the drawn Card) Goblins and turn all their drawn discard, decays etc into pure blanks?

[loveisgreen]

If they keep a hand with zero counterspells and are not going first, that is obviously great, unfortunately if you see force/ daze with this hand, none of the above are an option. I suppose what I'm trying to ask is how good does your hand have to be to not mulligan because Gitaxian Probe is a random card? Without ponder/ brainstorm in the opener it's almost as if you have to pretend it doesn't exist in terms of how close you are to your game plan.

[Bryant Cook]

I am having a great deal of trouble beating the BUG delver deck consistently. Between Hymn, Inquis, Daze, Force, wasteland and a fast clock, I feel like I'm always a turn behind. Do I need to mulligan more aggressively? I feel like I have to go off turns 1 or 2 and that generally means foregoing protection (silence at least), and it rarely pays off.

I also have mixed feelings about Gitaxian Probe in this matchup. While it does provide much needed information, I find myself keeping hands that LOOK great but end up falling prey to the decks tendency to rip your hand apart (something like Gemstone Mine, LED, Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor, Burning Wish, Gitaxian Probe, Silence, draw land/tutor/wish/silence/cantrip). I feel like this is not a hand I should be shipping, and if I play out the LED I turn on decays and am just as susceptible to discard as I would have been before, making it a lose/lose if the BUG deck has any action at all.

That aside, I am excited to be playing this deck at the GP, still on the fence about Returns/ Reforge and PiF/IGG (have a hard time believing one is not better than the other, but can't actually figure it out) but am otherwise confident about the decks position in the current metagame. Can't wait to crash the Deathrite orgy party with a bunch of unruly red bastards.

You really just need to practice the match-up more. Not to mention, the cards you mentioned, not every list runs all of them. Perhaps, your friends list is a bit biased against your deck. They don't often run both Hymn and Inquisition main deck and some lists don't even play Force of Will main deck. If you can manage to beat your friend you should be well off for everyone else.

Empty the Warrens is your greatest tool against them. Most BUG lists have absolutely zero way of being able to answer this card, aim to Empty not to Ad Nauseam.

If you're worried about Discard become better at planning for future turns with Ponder and Brainstorm. There's not much else that can be said.

Gitaxian Probe is one of the best cards in the deck, if you're losing, it's not Probe's fault.

Returns and both IGG/PIF.

[Lemnear]

If they keep a hand with zero counterspells and are not going first, that is obviously great, unfortunately if you see force/ daze with this hand, none of the above are an option. I suppose what I'm trying to ask is how good does your hand have to be to not mulligan because Gitaxian Probe is a random card? Without ponder/ brainstorm in the opener it's almost as if you have to pretend it doesn't exist in terms of how close you are to your game plan.

Potential plays differ hard depending on draw/Play with this example hand. I can imagine upkeep silence to gain an additional draw or infernal for Double LED on the play. However, as bryant stated and I mentioned: Quickly empty your Hand and Warrens against this kind of discard and use Brainstorm/Ponder to setup your upcoming turns

[Asthereal]

Bryant is right.
On the other hand, we should not forget that BUG Delver is our worst matchup, especially postboard.
They have lots of almost everything that stops our deck from working: fast clock, many counters, discard and grave hate.
Playskill and matchup knowledge are going to increase your odds dramatically, but don't expect this to ever become better than 45/55 for them.

Btw, I'm having great difficulty cutting the last card from my list. I have serious issues with going back to 12 lands, that increases my mulligan count to far above where I want it to be. But shaving a Ponder also seems bad...

Business + Cantrips:
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Empty the Warrens /22

Protection:
4 Silence
3 Duress /7

Accelleration:
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame /19

Lands:
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand /13 //61

What would you cut, if the 13th land were considered mandatory?

And if you guys want, you may also shoot at my sideboard. :wink:
Suggestions for my open slot are also welcome. Right now I have Ill-Gotten Gains there, but I never use it.

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns.
1 Hull Breach
1 Grapeshot
3 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Karakas
(1 Open slot) /15

[Lemnear]

Cut a mox.

You'll want them or Petals post Nauseam. Aside from enabling hellbent I hate every mox I see before the Super-confidant

P.S. Don't run Thoughtseize ...

[Yuri8]

Bryant is right.
On the other hand, we should not forget that BUG Delver is our worst matchup, especially postboard.
They have lots of almost everything that stops our deck from working: fast clock, many counters, discard and grave hate.
Playskill and matchup knowledge are going to increase your odds dramatically, but don't expect this to ever become better than 45/55 for them.

Btw, I'm having great difficulty cutting the last card from my list. I have serious issues with going back to 12 lands, that increases my mulligan count to far above where I want it to be. But shaving a Ponder also seems bad...

*decklist*

Since you play thoughtseize in place of cabal therapy I would cut probe. I really don't like that card so much and I'm playing only two at the moment(meta-call, when I'm going on tournament I know most people and know what they're playing).

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Bryant is right.
On the other hand, we should not forget that BUG Delver is our worst matchup, especially postboard.
They have lots of almost everything that stops our deck from working: fast clock, many counters, discard and grave hate.
Playskill and matchup knowledge are going to increase your odds dramatically, but don't expect this to ever become better than 45/55 for them.

Btw, I'm having great difficulty cutting the last card from my list. I have serious issues with going back to 12 lands, that increases my mulligan count to far above where I want it to be. But shaving a Ponder also seems bad...

Business + Cantrips:
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Empty the Warrens /22

Protection:
4 Silence
3 Duress /7

Accelleration:
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame /19

Lands:
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand /13 //61

What would you cut, if the 13th land were considered mandatory?

And if you guys want, you may also shoot at my sideboard. :wink:
Suggestions for my open slot are also welcome. Right now I have Ill-Gotten Gains there, but I never use it.

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns.
1 Hull Breach
1 Grapeshot
3 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Karakas
(1 Open slot) /15


Seriously, it's okay to play 12 lands. I was in the "play more lands" camp, until I started testing 4 probe. Think of it this way: You lose 1 land, but gain 4 cantrips. Also, Chrome Mox counts as a land. That card is so unbelievably amazing vs. wasteland decks. I've won countless games with 0 lands against RUG/BUG delver off the strength of chrome mox and lotus petal.

Please don't play less than 4 probe. The information you get from seeing their hand is invaluable. That it adds to storm for free is just gravy.

[Bryant Cook]

Since you play thoughtseize in place of cabal therapy I would cut probe. I really don't like that card so much and I'm playing only two at the moment(meta-call, when I'm going on tournament I know most people and know what they're playing).

Playing less than four Probe isn't a "meta-call" it's just plain wrong.

@Asthereal - 12 land is fine, I agree with what Clownoftresserhorn said. Also, Thoughtseize is bad because of the lifeloss especially paired with Probe. It makes Ad Nauseam terrible.

Ps. Don't listen to whoever said to cut Chrome Mox. This deck is speed based, it's not ANT. You actually want Chrome mox.

[Asthereal]

I rarely have issues with Ad Nauseam even with Thoughtseizes. This deck has a very low curve. Personally I'm not the biggest fan of Cabal Therapy, because it sucks if I have to cast it blind. The Seizes are there for Maverick (-1 Probe there) and I side in two versus controllish decks, where my life total matters less. The fact that Seize always works drives me towards it, rather than to gamble with Therapy.

Bryant, you would definitely vote against cutting a Mox or a Probe. If you were to keep the land in, what else would you cut? Probably you'd ignore my remark and cut the land anyway because you believe in it, but please help me out here. :wink:

[Lemnear]

@Asthereal
If you cast Therapy "blind" without a Probe/duress first I'm sure you are handling the spell wrong

@Bryant
You once cut the 4th mox yourself. I think reducing the number to 2 is ok if he wants more stability via an additional land. However 12 ARE enough.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

If you can't hit with a blind Cabal Therapy, you actually just suck at this game. I do it all the time. Play more Dredge or something.

And you'll lose more games when land #13 is not mox because you'll never get hellbent.

[Gaka]

@Asthereal
If you cast Therapy "blind" without a Probe/duress first I'm sure you are handling the spell wrong

@Bryant
You once cut the 4th mox yourself. I think reducing the number to 2 is ok if he wants more stability via an additional land. However 12 ARE enough.

1. Hey, this guy has been holding up UU the whole game. I bet he has counterspell.

2. Cutting the 4th mox is not basis for cutting the rest. It's kind of like playing Scapeshift and going from 4 Valakuts to 2 (which is correct) and then down to 1 (which isn't) ... throwing in extra lands will increase the overall stability, but will slow you down. TES is not a slow deck. Don't cut a mox.

[Asthereal]

Situation: you play against RUG Delver, as many of you wrongly call the deck these days. You have no cantrips in hand. You have Cabal Therapy, plus plenty of accelleration and a Burning Wish. It's your turn one, after he started by playing Volcanic-go.
Now we have many options. I'd rather not sit and wait until I luckily draw a cantrip or a Duress.
Here, I'd like to go land, ritual, Seize that bitch, take the best spell, petal, ritual2, rite, LED, Wish-resp sac that LED, and make a million Goblins. Your scenario is that you have to guess what he has. We guess FoW obviously, since that's the most likely card that could stop our turn one awesomeness, and oops - he has Stifle instead.

Guys, seriously. Don't tell me your mindfucks always work. They don't. And if you play against proper players, you'll soon enough notice their mindfucks are just as dangerous as yours.

About the lands: if you think 13 lands in the deck will stop you from getting hellbent, then it's you who is playing the deck wrongly. Seriously, you rarely get more than two lands in hand, even with the staggering amount of 13. If 13 lands would be a guarantee for having at least 2 in my opening hand, I would consider 13 lands optimal for my Doomsday list. The ONLY thing I want to do, is optimize my number of hands with 1 or 2 lands in them. those are the hands we are looking for. Turn 1 Ponder, turn 2 Brainstorm, fetch, go off is a very nice sequence. Turn 1 Duress, turn 2 go off also. Of course we prefer going for it on turn 1, but hands without LED are usually slightly slower anyway. What I notice in testing is that I have to mulligan about 95% of my hands with no lands (mostly because they just suck, sometimes because of the matchup). With 12 lands, I feel I get too many hands with no lands. Therefor I go for the 13 lands option. When you are finally ready to accept that, please help me cut another card.

[Yuri8]

Playing less than four Probe isn't a "meta-call" it's just plain wrong.



I agree that probe is strong but as I said in my previous post - it's about my preferences. It is too random for me. Probe is about providing you information about your oppnent's hand but keeping hand with probe feels like not knowing all information about your own hand(evaluating hand with 2 probes seems like a pain in ass) and when your metagame consist mostly of maverick, BW blade, elfball, then (in my opinion) information for 2 life is expensive/not needed.

[Megadeus]

That is what you play duress for. Also is Siding in Therapy vs RUG even correct anyway? Wouldnt Silence be better?

[Asthereal]

You side in +2 additional protection, going to 9 main deck protection spells.
You need that many, otherwise you just lose to their counterspells.

You could also put Chants on side, but they suck against Maverick.
That's why most play some additional discard on side that can also hit creatures.

[Tammit67]

Situation: you play against RUG Delver, as many of you wrongly call the deck these days. You have no cantrips in hand. You have Cabal Therapy, plus plenty of accelleration and a Burning Wish. It's your turn one, after he started by playing Volcanic-go.
Now we have many options. I'd rather not sit and wait until I luckily draw a cantrip or a Duress.
Here, I'd like to go land, ritual, Seize that bitch, take the best spell, petal, ritual2, rite, LED, Wish-resp sac that LED, and make a million Goblins. Your scenario is that you have to guess what he has. We guess FoW obviously, since that's the most likely card that could stop our turn one awesomeness, and oops - he has Stifle instead.

Guys, seriously. Don't tell me your mindfucks always work. They don't. And if you play against proper players, you'll soon enough notice their mindfucks are just as dangerous as yours.

About the lands: if you think 13 lands in the deck will stop you from getting hellbent, then it's you who is playing the deck wrongly. Seriously, you rarely get more than two lands in hand, even with the staggering amount of 13. If 13 lands would be a guarantee for having at least 2 in my opening hand, I would consider 13 lands optimal for my Doomsday list. The ONLY thing I want to do, is optimize my number of hands with 1 or 2 lands in them. those are the hands we are looking for. Turn 1 Ponder, turn 2 Brainstorm, fetch, go off is a very nice sequence. Turn 1 Duress, turn 2 go off also. Of course we prefer going for it on turn 1, but hands without LED are usually slightly slower anyway. What I notice in testing is that I have to mulligan about 95% of my hands with no lands (mostly because they just suck, sometimes because of the matchup). With 12 lands, I feel I get too many hands with no lands. Therefor I go for the 13 lands option. When you are finally ready to accept that, please help me cut another card.

I just find it strange you are unwilling to take the advice on thoughtseize but seek advice elsewhere. If you miss with therapy and he has stifle, just cast diminishing returns with a bunch of mana floating, seems fine.

12 lands has been perfect for me, even after weeks of playing AnT and telling my screen during this time that 12 lands in TES has got to be a mistake. The deck runs even more smoothly than before, I don't feel pressure from wasteland. If you do not feel the same, tweak it as you will, but don't expect us to necessarily agree.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Situation: you play against RUG Delver, as many of you wrongly call the deck these days.
I call it RUG Delver.


You have no cantrips in hand. You have Cabal Therapy, plus plenty of accelleration and a Burning Wish. It's your turn one, after he started by playing Volcanic-go. Now we have many options. I'd rather not sit and wait until I luckily draw a cantrip or a Duress.
Sounds like you kept a bad hand.


...and make a million Goblins. Your scenario is that you have to guess what he has. We guess FoW obviously, since that's the most likely card that could stop our turn one awesomeness, and oops - he has Stifle instead.
If our plan is Empty the Warrens, you don't name Force of Will. How is this a fucking question? Force doesn't beat Empty.


Guys, seriously. Don't tell me your mindfucks always work. They don't. And if you play against proper players, you'll soon enough notice their mindfucks are just as dangerous as yours.
You should learn how to fuck minds better.


About the lands: if you think 13 lands in the deck will stop you from getting hellbent, then it's you who is playing the deck wrongly.
Thirteen lands can and will stop you from getting hellbent. I've lost more games with 13 lands than I have with 12. Apparently, you haven't played the deck enough.


Seriously, you rarely get more than two lands in hand, even with the staggering amount of 13. If 13 lands would be a guarantee for having at least 2 in my opening hand, I would consider 13 lands optimal for my Doomsday list.
I keep a lot of zero land openers, and I win plenty of games with them. Thirteen lands in Doomsday is so wrong. That deck wants 17 to 18, but wrong thread, man.


The ONLY thing I want to do, is optimize my number of hands with 1 or 2 lands in them. those are the hands we are looking for.
It's called a mulligan.


Of course we prefer going for it on turn 1, but hands without LED are usually slightly slower anyway.
Are hands with Dark Ritual equally as slow?


With 12 lands, I feel I get too many hands with no lands. Therefor I go for the 13 lands option. When you are finally ready to accept that, please help me cut another card.
See above.

[Bahamuth]

Sounds like you kept a bad hand.

Do you call a hand that does turn 1 protection and make Tokens a bad hand? What the hell?



If our plan is Empty the Warrens, you don't name Force of Will. How is this a fucking question? Force doesn't beat Empty.

Maybe you should read what he's actually writing before blurting out random shit. If you're going to win through Wish, then how exactly doesn't Force beat that again?



You should learn how to fuck minds better.

Your mindfucks are pretty much a myth. You very occasionally can find out what he might be holding due to his lands, but after that it's a complete stretch. Most players aren't good enough to make sense anyway.



Thirteen lands can and will stop you from getting hellbent. I've lost more games with 13 lands than I have with 12. Apparently, you haven't played the deck enough.

This is just an arbitrary statement. I could also say that I have lost more games with 12 land than I have with 13. Saying someone just hasn't played the deck enough is just a pathetic ad hominem.



I keep a lot of zero land openers, and I win plenty of games with them.

No you don't. No land hands are almost always a mulligan. The only hands you would keep are those that are the nuts already.

Asthereal, the probability of drawing either 1 or 2 lands is 67% with both 12 and 13 land. These are the percentages:

12 Land:
0: 0.19
1: 0.38
2: 0.29
3+ 0.14

13 land:
0: 0.16
1: 0.36
2: 0.31
3+: 0.17

Of course, this again doesn't help you at all, since you would have to judge if you value getting less 1-land hands more than having having less 0-land hands. If you want to run 13 land (which I do as well), I would cut a Wish. I'm probably the only one doing that though.

[Asthereal]

Thanks for helping me out with that post. :smile:
The hairs in my neck went up as I read it, and I was thinking of neat comments to post, but you saved me the trouble.

Asthereal, the probability of drawing either 1 or 2 lands is 67% with both 12 and 13 land. These are the percentages:

12 Land:
0: 0.19
1: 0.38
2: 0.29
3+ 0.14

13 land:
0: 0.16
1: 0.36
2: 0.31
3+: 0.17

Of course, this again doesn't help you at all, since you would have to judge if you value getting less 1-land hands more than having having less 0-land hands. If you want to run 13 land (which I do as well), I would cut a Wish. I'm probably the only one doing that though.
It does help, for a small part. I just really dislike no-landers, and Probe does make mulligan decisions harder, since it's a mystery card in hand. That's the main reason for me sticking to 13 lands.
Funny you should mention cutting a Wish. I was actually thinking of cutting an Infernal, moving it to the sideboard. It allows for a tutor chain finish from both Wish and Infernal. And I really like the tutor chain finish. It's nice and solid. More of an ANT style finish though. Perhaps I am tuning the wrong deck. :wink:

[Lemnear]

Why in the world you want to cut an Infernal Tutor from TES MD?? Reducing the ability to find Ad Nauseam for some ugly, mana intense Tutor chains or turning Wish into a bad Diabolic Tutor?

[Megadeus]

I think that the reason that it is such a difficult decision to make on what to cut is because it is just not the right one.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Perhaps I am tuning the wrong deck. :wink:

Guess what? You're right.

[Bahamuth]

Guess what? You're right.

More arbitrary statements without any actual content. Why are you not responding to anything else? Why are you even posting?

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

More arbitrary statements without any actual content. Why are you not responding to anything else? Why are you even posting?

People keep asking questions that have already been discussed.

Ask a question on one page? It gets an answer.

Then someone else asks it again.

Repeat.

[cuthbertthecat]

I have an idea. Rather than come to the TES thread to discuss ideas that will likely be dismissed, test them first. If they work for you, talk about why they worked for you. If they didn't, don't bring them up. This idea will solve a lot of problems such as the entire last page of this thread.

[Koby]

I have an idea. Rather than come to the TES thread to discuss ideas that will likely be dismissed, test them first. If they work for you, talk about why they worked for you. If they didn't, don't bring them up. This idea will solve a lot of problems such as the entire last page of this thread.

Or don't test them and just play in a tournament, then come and discuss why you think it worked anyway :D

[cuthbertthecat]

Or don't test them and just play in a tournament, then come and discuss why you think it worked anyway :D

High stakes playtesting, I like it.

[Bryant Cook]

Situation: you play against RUG Delver, as many of you wrongly call the deck these days. You have no cantrips in hand. You have Cabal Therapy, plus plenty of accelleration and a Burning Wish. It's your turn one, after he started by playing Volcanic-go.
Now we have many options. I'd rather not sit and wait until I luckily draw a cantrip or a Duress.
Here, I'd like to go land, ritual, Seize that bitch, take the best spell, petal, ritual2, rite, LED, Wish-resp sac that LED, and make a million Goblins. Your scenario is that you have to guess what he has. We guess FoW obviously, since that's the most likely card that could stop our turn one awesomeness, and oops - he has Stifle instead.

Guys, seriously. Don't tell me your mindfucks always work. They don't. And if you play against proper players, you'll soon enough notice their mindfucks are just as dangerous as yours.

About the lands: if you think 13 lands in the deck will stop you from getting hellbent, then it's you who is playing the deck wrongly. Seriously, you rarely get more than two lands in hand, even with the staggering amount of 13. If 13 lands would be a guarantee for having at least 2 in my opening hand, I would consider 13 lands optimal for my Doomsday list. The ONLY thing I want to do, is optimize my number of hands with 1 or 2 lands in them. those are the hands we are looking for. Turn 1 Ponder, turn 2 Brainstorm, fetch, go off is a very nice sequence. Turn 1 Duress, turn 2 go off also. Of course we prefer going for it on turn 1, but hands without LED are usually slightly slower anyway. What I notice in testing is that I have to mulligan about 95% of my hands with no lands (mostly because they just suck, sometimes because of the matchup). With 12 lands, I feel I get too many hands with no lands. Therefor I go for the 13 lands option. When you are finally ready to accept that, please help me cut another card.


Thanks for helping me out with that post. :smile:
The hairs in my neck went up as I read it, and I was thinking of neat comments to post, but you saved me the trouble.

It does help, for a small part. I just really dislike no-landers, and Probe does make mulligan decisions harder, since it's a mystery card in hand. That's the main reason for me sticking to 13 lands.
Funny you should mention cutting a Wish. I was actually thinking of cutting an Infernal, moving it to the sideboard. It allows for a tutor chain finish from both Wish and Infernal. And I really like the tutor chain finish. It's nice and solid. More of an ANT style finish though. Perhaps I am tuning the wrong deck. :wink:

Is it really that big of a deal that I call the deck RUG Delver? You knew instantly what deck I would be talking about. Anyway, that scenario, if you have “Tons” of acceleration, you’re not worried about Daze or Spell Pierce. Meaning that there are two cards you could possibly care about from RUG Delver – Stifle and Force of Will. Not every RUG list plays Stifle, while every list plays Force of Will. It’s all process of elimination and naming things that you actually care about. Cabal Therapy is a skill card, rather than play a suboptimal card, increase your skill. It’s all about analyzing situations. If the opponent had Stifle, guess what? There’s always the option of Diminishing Returns.

My mind fucks work more than one would think, have you ever read any of my reports? It’s all about reads on players and mannerisms during matches.

Thirteen lands is fine, the problem is finding what to cut. By adding four Gitaxian Probe to the deck you’ve increased the number of potential lands drops. I cut a land to add a probe but I view Probe as .5 of a land, my math is probably off, Bahamat could probably actually do it. By having twelve cantrips in the deck we’ve increased consistency as well as land drops, by playing Probe on turn one you receive information as well as one card deeper for your Ponder or Brainstorm. These additional cards seen are where I really value Probes over the potential thirteenth land. The difference between twelve and thirteen lands is barely noticeable. Turn the thirteenth land upside down in your sleeve and pay attention to when you draw it. Most of the time it’s better off as anything else.

You want to cut an Infernal Tutor or Burning Wish? Weren’t you the one complaining about BUG Delver/Team America? Something along those lines about it being a miserable match-up? You want to cut actual business spells in a format where black has recently come back to power and has discard spells? Do you see how ridiculous that looks?

It seems when people start to play a new deck they feel the need to make changes to add their own “contribution.” This is not the deck to do that. TES is a fine tuned machine and it’s incredibly tight on space right now. Making small changes is only going to hurt your winning percentages. However, if you do make suboptimal changes and it isn’t performing well, I just don’t want read about them.

[Asthereal]

Some guys here are pretty sad. I ask a simple question:
What would you cut from list X if the 13th land were mandatory?
Answers I get are:
- Cut the land anyway
- Chrome Mox
- You are an idiot
- Test more
and finally from a fellow Dutchman: - Burning Wish
I respond to the latter by commenting I was contemplating cutting an Infernal instead, because in the sideboard it serves a purpuse, and suddenly everyone start ranting again. Why is cutting an Infernal so out of limits? Burning Wish at least serves multiple purposes: getting us a kill spell, and getting answers to stuff that's preventing us from going off. Infernal gets Ad Nauseam, yes, but does that make it sacred? Not in my book. It's an idea. If you dislike ideas so much, please go somewhere else.

Edit@Bryant: you didn't call it that. You called it Canadian Threshold. And you've been around long enough to know its real name. :wink:

Edit2: All right, I need to explain more, it seems.

About sutting a business spell:
I haven't tested it. Bahamuth mentioned it, and I responded with the idea of cutting the other tutor. I have reasons for it, yet I don't know whether my reasons are sound. At least I thionk, if one were to cut a business spell, it'd be worth looking into which one. Both have their upsides and downsides.

About wanting to make changes:
I have bad experience with 12 lands. That makes me an at least slightly experienced player with TES. It was my first deck when coming back into MtG in 2008. I'm not new to it by any means. I have played every Storm variant ever since, apart from Team Nijmegen Tendrils, which didn't appeal to me for some reason. Right now I play Doomsday because I cannot seem to find a TES list that I like, and I cannot afford Grim Tutor.

About BUG being a bad matchup:
Yes I was the one mentioning it. Not complaining, mentioning, as a response to someone who wanted advise on the matchup. He got his advise, but no-one had yet mentioned that whatever the advise, your chances are still slim. So I did mention it. He'd probably feel a lot worse if he would playtest and tune for a month only to find out he still loses more than half of the time. Testing and tuning for that matchup helps, but only to some extent. Hey, not every matchup can be favourable.

If I add everything up, so far I must conclude that I should either cut a Ponder or a Probe. My pokerskills are terrible, I just cannot read people, so Cabal Therapy seems to be still bad for me. From that point of view, it seems best to cut a Probe, since Thoughtseize will stay in there, and I don't need the info to make Therapies work.

Last edit: Oh and Bryant, of course I read your reports. A friend of mine actually has a foil Tendrils signed my you. :cool:

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Ready Hollywood's article about casting Cabal Therapy. It'll help. Intimidate knowledge of the format and planning X turns ahead get you more mileage out of therapy.

[Lemnear]

Dude, you are about to cut a biz-spell from a deck light on biz. You discuss cutting a Demonic Tutor in a combo Deck. Just think about that.

If this thread would not have more than 50 pages of input and results we can discuss cutting Single moxen, Lands, Rite of Flame etc. (which are topics of the OP) if you want to make some meta adjustments (due to Staxx or crazy shit) but questioning LED + Infernal in any way is off.

Bahamut even gave evidence for his stance about 12 lands

[Asthereal]

Dude, you are about to cut a biz-spell from a deck light on biz. You discuss cutting a Demonic Tutor in a combo Deck. Just think about that. If this thread would not have more than 50 pages of input and results we can discuss cutting Single moxen, Lands, Rite of Flame etc. (which are topics of the OP) if you want to make some meta adjustments (due to Staxx or crazy shit) but questioning LED + Infernal in any way is off.
I'm not about to do anything. Bahamuth suggested I could try -1 Wish. I responded by saying we could try -1 Infernal instead, adding it to the sideboard. Just an idea. And no card is ever sacred in discussion. If you think Infernal is sacred, don;t join the discussion. I've heard enough people wine about how bad an idea it is to cut it, without daring to really try it.

Bahamut even gave evidence for his stance about 12 lands
He didn't, really. He said 'I could say...'. And he agrees with me about the 13 lands.

Anyway, once you have finally learned how to read, you might notice I just decided on cutting either a Ponder or a Probe.

[Ad-Nauseam]

I'm not a great TES player but I like to listen and learn form the forum. I would like to add something to all the people trying to tweak the deck. Whether it be adding or cutting a land etc.The creator of the deck has spent hours and years playing the deck. HE probably know the deck better than anybody else. As far as what works for the deck he knows best. Like someone earlier said if you want to spend equal amount of time with an idea about the deck than post your opinion on what you found. Otherwise these back and forth posts will just continue.

[Asthereal]

If we were to always follow Bryant, there would be no discussion at all. just pages of Bryant referring to reports and lists, and followers thanking him for it. Not that I don't value his remarks - I too think he is usually the one to listen to if it comes to TES - but a forum is meant for discussions, not just for being a broadcast tool for one expert.

Let me put in a new question: am I really the only one who tunes his decks to his own abilities?

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

If we were to always follow Bryant, there would be no discussion at all. just pages of Bryant referring to reports and lists, and followers thanking him for it. A forum is meant to for discussions, not just for being a broadcast tool.

Let me put in a new question: am I really the only one who tunes his decks to his own abilities?


There's lots of ways to tune TES. You'll notice many players who are successful with the deck have much different sideboards. The maindeck though, feels pretty much optimal. It's okay to disagree and tune the deck to your liking. Just don't expect people to agree with you without sound reasoning.

[joemauer]

If we were to always follow Bryant, there would be no discussion at all. just pages of Bryant referring to reports and lists, and followers thanking him for it. Not that I don't value his remarks - I too think he is usually the one to listen to if it comes to TES - but a forum is meant for discussions, not just for being a broadcast tool for one expert.

Let me put in a new question: am I really the only one who tunes his decks to his own abilities?

Batting new ideas around is how TES keeps evolving, albeit some ideas are over top ridiculous. People here( mtgthesource) don't seem to like new stuff much. There is a Spike player mindset for most people on these forums that want to use the most proven(or successful) formula. Don't expect people here to be receptive of your new ideas ever.

All that being said, I feel like 12 lands is the correct number at the moment. It has been working for me. I could see perhaps a Tropical Island in the sideboard.

Like Clown of Tresserhorn alluded at, the maindeck seems great at the moment;however the sideboard still seems to be in need of tweaking.

[Megadeus]

Tested earlier against BUG Delver. Man this is a tough MU. Of course this was also my first time playing the deck live against an opponent. G2 I think I messed up a bit only storming for 10 Gobbos on T2 when I think I couldve made 14. I wouldve won if I had playied it right. I think I lost the first 5 in a row, then I learned what hands are good and bad. I then Won on T1 and 2 respectively the final 2 games we played. I think my big issue is that I was playing it more of how ANT should be played out. Once I realized that it is okay to just shit out Goblins early and win off of them I got a lot better at my lines. I look forward to my first tourney soon. The only thing I have found is that It gets awkward sometimes with Chrome Mox. Sometimes I dont want to exile a red or black card and end up exiling a Silence or Ponder or something. Does this happen a lot to you guys or am I doing something wrong?

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Tested earlier against BUG Delver. Man this is a tough MU. Of course this was also my first time playing the deck live against an opponent. G2 I think I messed up a bit only storming for 10 Gobbos on T2 when I think I couldve made 14. I wouldve won if I had playied it right. I think I lost the first 5 in a row, then I learned what hands are good and bad. I then Won on T1 and 2 respectively the final 2 games we played. I think my big issue is that I was playing it more of how ANT should be played out. Once I realized that it is okay to just shit out Goblins early and win off of them I got a lot better at my lines. I look forward to my first tourney soon. The only thing I have found is that It gets awkward sometimes with Chrome Mox. Sometimes I dont want to exile a red or black card and end up exiling a Silence or Ponder or something. Does this happen a lot to you guys or am I doing something wrong?

Against BUG Delver, you have to use your cantrips correctly. Basically it involves planning ahead.

[Megadeus]

I tried. I was a bit too worried about his counters. Also Is it right to bait counters? I played Silence on T2 against my opponent after I probed him and Saw Force + Daze just to bait a counter to go off next turn, but he didnt counter it and I got super confused. He Jedi Mind tricked me!

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Sometimes you have to make them have it. I rarely bait counters. Generally it's synonymous for trying to get hellbent. If my hand's clogged with chant effects or extra tutors, then sure I'll run them out. If they resolve, cool. If not, oh well.

[Lemnear]

I'm not about to do anything. Bahamuth suggested I could try -1 Wish. I responded by saying we could try -1 Infernal instead, adding it to the sideboard. Just an idea. And no card is ever sacred in discussion. If you think Infernal is sacred, don;t join the discussion. I've heard enough people wine about how bad an idea it is to cut it, without daring to really try it.

He didn't, really. He said 'I could say...'. And he agrees with me about the 13 lands.

Anyway, once you have finally learned how to read, you might notice I just decided on cutting either a Ponder or a Probe.

You've thrown Infernal, Probe and Ponder into the ring. People responded with their thoughts while most of those topics are already handled in the wake of the last 60 pages. Some cards ARE sacred. Would you join a Vintage Discussion and bring up the topic to cut Black Lotus from decks and really expect serious responses to that? Your only argument for cutting an Infernal was the possibility of Wish into Infernal into Ad Nauseam which is hilarious expensive at first compared with wishing for Diminishing Returns and second, removes biz from your maindeck. I once tested a grim in SB long ago and it was a complete waste. Imo there is no need to repeat a lackluster idea once more.

Bahamut DID gave evidence, unless you question reason via calculation.

And after I have to realize that you are NOT looking for suggestions but for agreement and flaming I'll let you continue to throw around cards for cut. Why not "dare to try" to cut LED's and Dark Rituals next if there are no holy cow's? ;)

[Bahamuth]

Bahamut DID gave evidence, unless you question reason via calculation.


You misquote me. I never gave evidence to back up playing 13 land. My point has been for a while that, while doing math might give certain insights, it will not help you to decide on configurations. I'll explain myself in the 12 vs 13 land debate.


Let's look at the percentages again:
12 Land:
0: 0.19
1: 0.38
2: 0.29
3+ 0.14

13 land:
0: 0.16
1: 0.36
2: 0.31
3+: 0.17

I think we can agree that hands with either 1 or 2 lands are preferrable. We can see that 12 and 13 land have the same added probability of drawing either 1 or 2 land. The differences lie elsewere. They are:
- 3% difference in drawing 0 land
- 3% difference in drawing 3+ land
- Different distribution along 1 or 2 land

So now, if we based ourselves on this math, we would still have to make a judgement which of the 2 sets of percentages we like more. In fact, based on the 3 points I just made, we have to make a decision. The problem here, is that it is unclear which of these differences is the most/least important. Do we want to take a 3% probability of drawing 3+ land and a slightly different distribution of 1vs2 lands, to reduce the probability of 0 land by 3%? I don't know. There are hands that are fine with 0 land. There are also hands that are fine with 3+ land. And I wouldn't even know if the deck wants 1 or 2 land hands more, and I've played it quite a lot. You can't judge based on math.

I choose to run 13 land because it feels like it's more stable. I have no actual arguments to back that up, but then again, no one here has.

I disagree with cutting IT before Wish (obviously). I think IT is way superior, and I don't even think I would run an IT SB if I could.

[Asthereal]

Your only argument for cutting an Infernal was the possibility of Wish into Infernal into Ad Nauseam
The reasons I gave were:
- the option of tutor-chaining from Wish.
- the fact that Wish serves more purposes than Infernal.
And I never said it was correct. Just that, if one were to cut a business spell anyway, it was worth looking in to.

My comment, though rather bluntly put, still stands: please start to read posts before responding to them.

[Pelikanudo]

You misquote me. I never gave evidence to back up playing 13 land. My point has been for a while that, while doing math might give certain insights, it will not help you to decide on configurations. I'll explain myself in the 12 vs 13 land debate.


Let's look at the percentages again:
12 Land:
0: 0.19
1: 0.38
2: 0.29
3+ 0.14

13 land:
0: 0.16
1: 0.36
2: 0.31
3+: 0.17

I think we can agree that hands with either 1 or 2 lands are preferrable. We can see that 12 and 13 land have the same added probability of drawing either 1 or 2 land. The differences lie elsewere. They are:
- 3% difference in drawing 0 land
- 3% difference in drawing 3+ land
- Different distribution along 1 or 2 land

So now, if we based ourselves on this math, we would still have to make a judgement which of the 2 sets of percentages we like more. In fact, based on the 3 points I just made, we have to make a decision. The problem here, is that it is unclear which of these differences is the most/least important. Do we want to take a 3% probability of drawing 3+ land and a slightly different distribution of 1vs2 lands, to reduce the probability of 0 land by 3%? I don't know. There are hands that are fine with 0 land. There are also hands that are fine with 3+ land. And I wouldn't even know if the deck wants 1 or 2 land hands more, and I've played it quite a lot. You can't judge based on math.

I choose to run 13 land because it feels like it's more stable. I have no actual arguments to back that up, but then again, no one here has.

I disagree with cutting IT before Wish (obviously). I think IT is way superior, and I don't even think I would run an IT SB if I could.

I think cutting Empty the warrens and No Main WinCon is the way, instead of 4th B.Wish. AND letting 2 E.Warrens in Side. (for the 3rd land)

I just think as Emidlin regarding Empty Base and I cannot change my mind regarding this, it is a meta call!

Also and having in mind that you can win with NO Tendrils Base, you can win also with NO Empty Base, if the goal is to support a WinInATurn A.N.

What do you think?

[Koby]

What do you think?

How do you win if you can only produce 6 mana before you cast a tutor?

[Asthereal]

Team Nijmegen Tendrils worked under the same principle, I believe.
Cut all the bad cards, and just Wish for the winners. I think it could work.

If you have 6 mana before an Infernal, you cannot win with that list.
That's a disadvantage, but then again every choice you make has pro's and con's.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

About having no main deck win:

Sure it's cool, and I love it to death, but it's too cute. The games you win with Empty outweigh the benefit of having the sickest Ad Naueams ever.

[Megadeus]

Just was watching one of the Twitch streamed games. Heard this exchange after the match that always somewhat frustrates me:

TES player: "Good Games"
Stoneblade: "Not really bud"

Ugh why do people have to be so salty? Have you guys found that this happens a lot? I understand the frustration of losing to combo, but they weren't horrible games... Its not like TES guy went off on T1 both games. Game 2 they had a decent exchange.

Also saw that the stoneblade guy surgical extracted the TES players Rite of Flames when could have opted for LED. I doubt that was the correct choice.

Also to Bryant: This Primer is pretty amazing. And the fact that it is kept up to date so well is impressive. I have probably read every single link so far that are recent and they have been great help to learning this deck. thanks man!

[Bryant Cook]

Where is this video? Link?

[Megadeus]

Si Ning Li vs Hank Mead

http://www.twitch.tv/jupitergames/c/1783283

It's one of the Jupiter Games.

Edit: The sound was pretty terrible in that it kept cutting out, but Im pretty sure I heard the exchange correctly.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

TES player: "Good Games"
Stoneblade: "Not really bud"

Good storm players like buffalo chicken, baseball and have huge egos.

Therefore, I'm not that great.

[HoneyT]

Good storm players like buffalo chicken, baseball and have huge egos.

Therefore, I'm not that great.

Ain't that the truth!

[thefringthing]

Aww man. I like red meat, can't stand watching sports, and decided sometime after high school that having a big ego to feed is lame. Guess I'll have to shuffle up some basic Forests or something.

That table of probabilities on the 12 vs 13 land question is pretty interesting, if inconclusive. My intuitive feeling is that you lose more manascrewed games than manaflooded games, so I'm inclined to stick with the fourth fetchland. Part of that might be my reluctance to cast Brainstorm without a shuffle effect handy. I've noticed that Bryant is pretty willing to just raw dog turn one mainphase Brainstorms with no shuffle, which I don't really have the stomach for. Missing on that LED or fetchland or whatever it was you needed and letting your opponent take two extra turns is pretty rough. Maybe I'm just a coward, though.

[Pelikanudo]

How do you win if you can only produce 6 mana before you cast a tutor?

Well,

assuming you do not play Tendrils Main, you are in the same position as you will need to pass the turn as you will generate a Letal Empty Token but they do not have haste, so the important issue is that you do not play Tendrils Main therefore you will need always more than 6 mana to win with a letal Tendrils unless you draw B.Wish
This is the first point.

You need therefore 8 mana to win with Tendrils If you do not draw Burning Wish, If you Do draw B.Wish you only need 6 Mana.
This is the second Point.

So we are assuming we'll draw a good amount of cards and among these cards you will be able to cast Burning (6 mana) Or I. tutor (8 mana) For this second scenario you Need LED and this assumes that you need to take out your hand as you'll need a great amount of cards to win the game, But at this point (the problematic), I believe, and in here I'll need Bahamuts Opinions, that the statistics once you draw I.T. AND LED are very favourable so I can assume that you will draw enough cards to generate 8 mana.

Anyways, as I said playing No Tendrils Main and Playing Empty instead you 're in a position in which with only 6 mana you need to draw B.Wish to win in the same turn ou cast A.N.

And again, anyways I play TEndrils Main instead Empty to exactly avoid these , Small I think , scenarios to win with only 6 mana regardless you draw I.T OR B.W.

Bahamut?

[Endure2004]

That was me in the video against hank. He didn't really mean anything by it, he wasn't being unfriendly or anything and he indeed drew rather poorly. I found him pretty friendly, in fact. He admitted that he hadn't played the matchup all that much and extracted the rites because he thought it would take out a past in flames kill. Fortunately, it allowed me to just tutor chain him. If he had aimed it at LED he would've stripped one from my hand, which would've been crippling, but I was so used to saving LEDs for last because of disenchant effects that I usually hold them until right before the tutor. In regards to him drawing poorly though, most people do, when half their decks are irrelevant.

Also, I am in favor for ETW main instead of the 13th land. I haven't lost to wasteland in a long time, you just have to make sure not to board out cantrips against stifle / waste decks. ETW is so solid against a lot of decks, and it's the main kill condition against blue tempo decks. Drawing the one copy naturally almost always = GG against RUG delver. Being a turn faster when you have infernal in hand matters when decks are trying to stick Thalia or hymn to beat you. ETW and 4x probe are far too good to cut. The ad nauseum percentage changes are very, very small and nothing to cry about. Learn how to use all of your different storm engines and know when to empty! This will help you win more games then changing back to tendrils main.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Yeah, so I guess Misdirection is a thing now from Miracles. Boo.

[phazonmutant]

Yeah, so I guess Misdirection is a thing now from Miracles. Boo.

More reason to play Silence over Chant, but otherwise so what? Duress is opponent, we only bring in 1-2 Therapy.

I was testing against BUG Delver, that mu seems very tough. Won like 2/10 pre and post. I kept a few 3 landers with a bunch of cantrips, should I aggressively mulligan those for faster hands? In general, do you mulligan cantrip-heavy hands to find faster ones? I know in ANT, it was my experience that lots of cantrips were good, but that deck plays very differently.

Next question: most decks have answers to goblins. Thresh has 0-2 Rough // Tumble, BUG has 0, 3, or 4 Engineered Plague. In your experience , do people bring those in? When I've been testing against my roommate, we talk about what to bring in and so far have agreed that there's far worse cards to bring out. Obviously they're beatable (don't have it, too fast, duress exists), but have you seen those cards in tournaments?

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

More reason to play Silence over Chant, but otherwise so what? Duress is opponent, we only bring in 1-2 Therapy.

I was testing against BUG Delver, that mu seems very tough. Won like 2/10 pre and post. I kept a few 3 landers with a bunch of cantrips, should I aggressively mulligan those for faster hands? In general, do you mulligan cantrip-heavy hands to find faster ones? I know in ANT, it was my experience that lots of cantrips were good, but that deck plays very differently.

Targeting therapy doesn't actually do anything. I hear misdirecting an Abrupt Decay is pretty good.

I'm haven't dropped a match to BUG Delver. I mulligan most if not every cantrip heavy hand. This deck isn't ANT. You don't durdle until you cast PiF. You win now.

[Bahamuth]

I'm pretty sure you already know what I'm running Pelikanudo. I run mainboard EtW and no ToA, 13 land and 3 Wish.

[Pelikanudo]

I'm pretty sure you already know what I'm running Pelikanudo. I run mainboard EtW and no ToA, 13 land and 3 Wish.
Absolutly,

And my proposal was to not to play Empty and +1 Burning. I would be able to play that list.

I know .NET platform (I wil need to make an .EXE file and ritght now I have no rosurces for this) but I'm not familiarized with Pithon, so I'd like you to help me to find the odds of winning at 4 lifes with that configuration.

Parameters:

Need to draw B.Wish OR I.Tutor
For B.Wish You need 6 Mana
For I.T. you need 8 Mana, 1 of them Red and you also Need to draw at least 1 LED (I assume I'll need to draw lot of cards so that the need of drawing LED)
I think we'll need to consider the 4 cost substituited for a 0 Cost.
We play 4 I.T and 4 B.W
We stop revealing at 4 lifes (im not sure if needed)
We play A.N with no Mana Floating and 1 I.T. in GY and 1 D.R in GY and 1 LED in GY and 2 lands in play,
We already played a land.

I don't think there are more parameters.

Please let me know.

EDIT: Merry chirstmast to everybody

[Bahamuth]

Absolutly,

And my proposal was to not to play Empty and +1 Burning. I would be able to play that list.

I know .NET platform (I wil need to make an .EXE file and ritght now I have no rosurces for this) but I'm not familiarized with Pithon, so I'd like you to help me to find the odds of winning at 4 lifes with that configuration.

Parameters:

Need to draw B.Wish OR I.Tutor
For B.Wish You need 6 Mana
For I.T. you need 8 Mana, 1 of them Red and you also Need to draw at least 1 LED (I assume I'll need to draw lot of cards so that the need of drawing LED)
I think we'll need to consider the 4 cost substituited for a 0 Cost.
We play 4 I.T and 4 B.W
We stop revealing at 4 lifes (im not sure if needed)
We play A.N with no Mana Floating and 1 I.T. in GY and 1 D.R in GY and 2 lands in play,
We already played a land.

I don't think there are more parameters.

Please let me know.

EDIT: Merry chirstmast to everybody

This will take me way too much time, and it will still be a very poor approximation. Furthermore, you will get some numbers out, and, as I've been arguing, they will not help you. To me, it makes no sense to play a Wish over an EtW, since drawing the EtW is almost always better, and it gives you the possibility of doing IT->EtW.

[Megadeus]

More reason to play Silence over Chant, but otherwise so what? Duress is opponent, we only bring in 1-2 Therapy.

I was testing against BUG Delver, that mu seems very tough. Won like 2/10 pre and post. I kept a few 3 landers with a bunch of cantrips, should I aggressively mulligan those for faster hands? In general, do you mulligan cantrip-heavy hands to find faster ones? I know in ANT, it was my experience that lots of cantrips were good, but that deck plays very differently.

Next question: most decks have answers to goblins. Thresh has 0-2 Rough // Tumble, BUG has 0, 3, or 4 Engineered Plague. In your experience , do people bring those in? When I've been testing against my roommate, we talk about what to bring in and so far have agreed that there's far worse cards to bring out. Obviously they're beatable (don't have it, too fast, duress exists), but have you seen those cards in tournaments?

BUG has been a very tough MU for me too. I only was able to win if I was able to go off on Turns 1-2. If it went past that it turned his wastelands on and Hymn to Tourach beat in my face. The issue was I basically really wanted a Probe in my opener to make sure the coast was clear otherwise I was trying to go off with no idea if he had it or not.


I think the issue with miracles running misdirection vs us is that if they land an early CB against us and we abrupt decay it, misdirection more than likely doesnt do too much because there is a decent chance that it is the only legal target on board for Decay. Late game we may be SOL, but late game was going to be tough either way for us.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

...misdirection more than likely doesnt do too much because there is a decent chance that it is the only legal target on board for Decay.

Rest in Peace. Sensei's Divining Top.

[Megadeus]

Rest in Peace. Sensei's Divining Top.

Ill give you Top, but RIP? Is that even that great against us? A lot of the time we dont need to use PiF/IGG we can just go off. I guess it does shut down a small piece of our engine. Alot of the time they are trying to slam CB down as early as possible though to avoid our discard. If they dont have a top down on t1 that leaves CB exposed for a turn at least.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Ill give you Top, but RIP? Is that even that great against us? A lot of the time we dont need to use PiF/IGG we can just go off. I guess it does shut down a small piece of our engine. Alot of the time they are trying to slam CB down as early as possible though to avoid our discard. If they dont have a top down on t1 that leaves CB exposed for a turn at least.

It's their win condition. They're probably not boarding it out. Try casting Rite of Flame with RIP out. It's a bitch.