[Article] Eternal Europe: The Cabal Rises [Archive]

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Mon,Goblin Chief

03-23-2012, 05:56 AM

Continuing with the theme of strong fast linear decks captivating my attention, check out my piece on the Tendrils-storm deck I've been playing lately (and please don't call it ANT - that's definitely not an Ad Nauseam deck).

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/23816_Eternal_Europe_The_Cabal_Rises.html

PS: Forgot to name the decks in the article so they now carry the general "Storm" moniker by default - sorry about that.

menace13

03-23-2012, 05:58 AM

Why Infest over Massacre?

Mon,Goblin Chief

03-23-2012, 06:02 AM

Why Infest over Massacre?

Gaddok Teeg - need I say more?

Final Fortune

03-23-2012, 06:26 AM

lordofthepit

03-23-2012, 06:40 AM

Sloshthedark

03-23-2012, 07:20 AM

It seems terrible to me, why would you play Cabal Therapy when you can't flash it back and why would you play Gitaxian Probe when your deck relies on your life total to win with Ad Nauseam? This combo has never, ever been good in Storm, and I think you should just consider using Inquisition of Kozilek and the full set of Pre-Ordains with maybe 1 or 2 Chrome Mox. Grim Tutor has also always been really sub-par, you're better off with the second Ad Nauseam IMO.

you don't know what you're talking about, the list relies in Pif kill mostly exclusively over Ad Nauseam unless really pressed to do so... you also kill yourself more often (2) grim list especially, T1 B floating is not that good idea as it seems 0 floating = suicide, I'm at the point I hate Ad Nausem in the opening hand the same manner like ToA in straight UB... therapy is much better in slower setup against control strategies, and is beast if you play Confidants/xantid swarm post board

disruption package is solid, however it might be reconsidered due to Maverick G1 problem (some guys play 4 thalia) as you are pressed to win 2 game straight against deck filled with hate - infest might not get you there as you have to pass the turn often

Badlands> Volcanic Island in the second R spot imho, sometime you have non delta fetch and just need the B

about mulligans, I cannot agree, unless total garbage - match-up or in general its better to keep 7 with probe and often is ok to keep no lander with probe on draw

I am the brainwasher

03-23-2012, 07:37 AM

Cabal Threapy is the card I am most afraid of when playing against a good combo player.
I always cross my fingers and hope that my opponent does not draw a single copy of it.
It is relativeley irrelevant that you can not use the flashback, since good players will hit anyway and Probe helps out on top of that.
If you really want to play storm-based combo right now outside of TES (playing ANT, PiF and "slower" combo decks is an uphill-battle right now) I would work on getting better at playing this card.
IMO it is a better call to run 2 card combos (High Tide, S&T) or exremely fast combo-decks (TES, Belcher) in general right now, cause they are somewhat unaffected by problematic cards that non-blue decks pack these days, but if you really want to go the mid-range road, I would highly recommend both Cabal Threapy and Infest in the sideboard.

Final Fortune

03-23-2012, 08:17 AM

you don't know what you're talking about, the list relies in Pif kill mostly exclusively over Ad Nauseam unless really pressed to do so... you also kill yourself more often (2) grim list especially, T1 B floating is not that good idea as it seems 0 floating = suicide, I'm at the point I hate Ad Nausem in the opening hand the same manner like ToA in straight UB... therapy is much better in slower setup against control strategies, and is beast if you play Confidants/xantid swarm post board

disruption package is solid, however it might be reconsidered due to Maverick G1 problem (some guys play 4 thalia) as you are pressed to win 2 game straight against deck filled with hate - infest might not get you there as you have to pass the turn often

Badlands> Volcanic Island in the second R spot imho, sometime you have non delta fetch and just need the B

about mulligans, I cannot agree, unless total garbage - match-up or in general its better to keep 7 with probe and often is ok to keep no lander with probe on draw

Obiously you try to win with Past in Flames as opposed to Ad Nauseam, it's just that you can't always do it vs. aggro compared to Ill Gotten Gains and it's slow vs RUG.

You don't play the 2nd Ad Nauseam and Grim Tutor(s), you play either or.

Gitaxian Probe and Cabal Therapy, or rather Cabal Therapy, is unreliable disruption vs tempo based strategies like RUG. You'll be forced to go off or die where Cabal Therapy missing a counter is GG. Sure it's great when you can assemble the "combo" and discard multiple counter spells, but Stoneblade isn't really the critical match up for Storm Combo and you can beat that match up reasonably with just better cantrips and Thought Seize etc. like ANT.

There's just no Storm deck that can reliably go off with only PiF, you're going to have to still tutor for Ad Nauseam a relevant amount of games and in the situations you do cycling for 2 life or wiffing a Duress effect is pretty horrid. You're just overly reliant on playing a slow, grind em out roll with your Storm deck and caught in an awkward spot when you have to go off T3 vs aggro IMO.

Bryant Cook

03-23-2012, 08:35 AM

I don't think that Therapy + Probe is good either. It's just not very good. I don't think Probe has a place in storm combo at the moment due to Ad Nauseam. It's a peak at the cost of a Lightning Bolt or Shock in a deck that requires it's life total. Therapy is a luck card, yes there's some skill involved, but for the most part it's luck. It's luck that the opponent must have the card you guessed. Yes, there's some synergy with Probe, but at that point it's often a two card combo in order to Duress the opponent. Take the luck element out of the game and just play Duress/Inquisition.

Sloshthedark

03-23-2012, 09:26 AM

Obiously you try to win with Past in Flames as opposed to Ad Nauseam, it's just that you can't always do it vs. aggro compared to Ill Gotten Gains and it's slow vs RUG.

You don't play the 2nd Ad Nauseam and Grim Tutor(s), you play either or.

Gitaxian Probe and Cabal Therapy, or rather Cabal Therapy, is unreliable disruption vs tempo based strategies like RUG. You'll be forced to go off or die where Cabal Therapy missing a counter is GG. Sure it's great when you can assemble the "combo" and discard multiple counter spells, but Stoneblade isn't really the critical match up for Storm Combo and you can beat that match up reasonably with just better cantrips and Thought Seize etc. like ANT.

There's just no Storm deck that can reliably go off with only PiF, you're going to have to still tutor for Ad Nauseam a relevant amount of games and in the situations you do cycling for 2 life or wiffing a Duress effect is pretty horrid. You're just overly reliant on playing a slow, grind em out roll with your Storm deck and caught in an awkward spot when you have to go off T3 vs aggro IMO.

WTF? have you ever played ~this deck?

you can, you just don't have traditional safe Iggy loop, still you can 1st turn them just more different combinations, dunno if accumulated probability is much lower... Igg is bad with counter.dec and drawing Igg...

I don't understand your RUG argument...

I only play Ad Nauseam when - I'm unable to generate R; I'm all artifact, not excessive mana, relatively high on life; I have Ad Nauseam in hand potentially enough floating and can't go PiF... // GY hate

so I can't say you don't have to play Ad Nauseam but that the UBr build naturally has other no. 1 plan which you can execute 4/5 time you could go Ad Nauseam; and Ad Nauseam is a card you don't like to see in you initial hand so that suggested changes are non-sensual... I'm even considering moving it to SB in favor of 2nd PiF main (which is great having in hand)

and probe is good due to this no 1. plan as you are less dependent on life you virtually play 56 cards, generates storm/cards from graveyard for free,gives you information how to play, i think you are overestimating the therapy+probe synergy as a major reason to include probe which it is definitely not imho

Mon,Goblin Chief

03-23-2012, 10:25 AM

Wow, lots to talk about!

Brant and Final Fortune: You guys love your Ad Nauseams too much. This is not an Ad Nauseam deck or TES, this is Long.dec. You're a Will (well, Past in Flames) deck, you only run an Ad Nauseam for the same reason Long.dec ran Bargain - it randomly wins games. You have the means to support Ad Nauseam so you obviously run one but you only rarely cast it other than randomly having the ability to go for it turn 1 or 2 or in the rare cases when you were unlucky enough to not be able to set up a PiF kill because you drew a load of LEDs but no Rituals (which generally means Ad Nauseam is fine, btw, because you have so much mana to work with that your slightly higher curve doesn't matter).

Obiously you try to win with Past in Flames as opposed to Ad Nauseam, it's just that you can't always do it vs. aggro compared to Ill Gotten Gains and it's slow vs RUG.
That's why you still have an Ad Nauseam, because sometimes you can't Past in Flames. You also die from 20 due to dumb (bad) luck a lot less often and generally just don't care that they went Bolt you, Bolt you twice on turn one and two in ~80% of your games.

why would you play Gitaxian Probe when your deck relies on your life total to win with Ad Nauseam?

I don't think Probe has a place in storm combo at the moment due to Ad Nauseam. It's a peak at the cost of a Lightning Bolt or Shock in a deck that requires it's life total.
Thing is you generally don't rely on your life total and when you do it's usually much too early for the two life to matter (especially given that you can usually safely pass the turn after turn 1/2 Ad Nauseam.
All that aside, City of Brass and Thoughtseize are clearly extremely bad in storm decks, right? I mean they reduce your life-total for Ad Nauseam...

This combo has never, ever been good in Storm, and I think you should just consider using Inquisition of Kozilek and the full set of Pre-Ordains with maybe 1 or 2 Chrome Mox.
I love the full twelve cantrip package including Preordains more than just about anybody on the planet but in spite of what you believe, Cabal Therapy + Probe has been incredibly good for me, to the point that I'm ready to run fewer Preordains to get access to it. More on Inquisition after the next quote.

Therapy is a luck card, yes there's some skill involved, but for the most part it's luck. It's luck that the opponent must have the card you guessed. Yes, there's some synergy with Probe, but at that point it's often a two card combo in order to Duress the opponent. Take the luck element out of the game and just play Duress/Inquisition.
First, that argument cuts both ways. Ad Nauseam is a strict luck card if I've ever seen one, much more so than Therapy because no amount of skill will ever influence what you flip over with it. Just avoid it and focus on Past in Flames instead.
So is IoK for that matter as them having (luckily) drawn FoW makes it quite bad.

Therapy is somewhat luck-based obviously in that you might totally miss against a hand that has only a Spell Snare or Counterspell, but if you're choosing your calls correctly it usually just doesn't matter if you missed. Blind Therapies should always name those cards that can still stop you. If you hit, brilliant, if you don't, who cares if they don't discard a card? If they don't have what stops you, they die anyway. Dead is dead.
In addition there is also the fact that you have not only Probe but also Duress to get a look at your opponent's hand. If you run IoK instead you need to find a Duress to beat FoW anyway and if you run Thoughtseize you're also down the two life you hold that badly against Probe.

Gitaxian Probe and Cabal Therapy, or rather Cabal Therapy, is unreliable disruption vs tempo based strategies like RUG.
Cabal Therapy is actually insane against RUG, much better than having more regular Duress effects. I can't count how many times I've emptied out hands with multiple Snares and/or Stifles thanks to Therapy. Thing is, you need to see their hand anyway to beat FoW (either have a Duress, cast a Probe or have cast an earlier Therapy on FoW), at which point you know exactly which softcounters they have left and can straight get rid of multiples with just one discard effect. This is particularly sweet against Stifles and Snares because you're winning with Past in Flames, meaning you get rid of Snares to go off then Therapy away any remaining Stifles from the yard.

Grim Tutor has also always been really sub-par, you're better off with the second Ad Nauseam IMO.
Ad Nauseam is the least reliable win available in the deck and I avoid casting it whenever I can. Why in heaven would I want to run more of the damn things? Especially given there is a perfectly sweet tutor that let's me chain into Past in Flames? I mean, sure, I'd rather have more Infernal Tutors but they don't let me play five-six of those.

There's just no Storm deck that can reliably go off with only PiF, you're going to have to still tutor for Ad Nauseam a relevant amount of games and in the situations you do cycling for 2 life or wiffing a Duress effect is pretty horrid. You're just overly reliant on playing a slow, grind em out roll with your Storm deck and caught in an awkward spot when you have to go off T3 vs aggro IMO.
This deck is pretty close to consistently being able to go off with Past in Flames. It certainly works in the large majority of my games.

And let me get this straight: missing FoW - still the card most likely to stop you in any blue matchup - because you run IoK is fine but randomly not hitting a spell with Therapy is horrid enough to totally dismiss a concept that top foured a GP and would probably have won it if the player hadn't forgotten to desideboard (given this deck's blue good stuff matchup)?

Also, how many games don't you have either Probe or Duress and don't have two Therapies (to hit Fow, followed by whatever is left in their hand) compared to how many games they don't have Force of Will? I think the 40% FoW games come out ahead by quite a bit.
Same for Ad Nauseam and the Probe lifeloss: in how many games do the two to four life you cycled away matter (as in they actually stop you from winning after resolving Ad Nauseam) compared to the games you'd either lose because IoK can't take FoW or they have doubles on Snare/Pierce/Stifle. Remember to take into account that a more AdN focused deck will also care about life lost to random creatures and burn more often than this does.
Especially given that you can often just pass the turn after Ad Nauseam because you'll easily survive another turn only to win with a full hand into Past in Flames, the lifeloss is rarely relevant when compared to knowing exactly what you need to fight through.

Badlands> Volcanic Island in the second R spot imho, sometime you have non delta fetch and just need the B

about mulligans, I cannot agree, unless total garbage - match-up or in general its better to keep 7 with probe and often is ok to keep no lander with probe on draw
I can see from your comments you actually played with the deck before, different from some other people ;)

I had the Badlands to start with but hated drawing non-blue sources that didn't enable my cantrips. Given that my red mana usually comes from Petals or LEDs anyway, it might be feasible to cut the second Volc for another Sea if you feel the deck is missing black mana.
If you have a non-Delta Fetch and need Black mana, Sea is generally fine (especially given that you need black mana to go off anyway and only need the red during that same turn so being able to Fetch for B/R doesn't really help with your mana needs too much - you still can't go off with PiF if it's your only Black and Red source).

As for Probe + No business hands, they would have to be really good for me to keep them. If you're only missing a colored source, I can see keeping them (19 in the deck), but if you're missing business I never would (at least on seven cards). If you have neither a tutor nor cantrips in hand, relying on Probe to fix that for you seems like a very low percentage play.

Koby

03-23-2012, 11:48 AM

I enjoyed the article and the discussion about the card choices (especially the Sideboard, which I've found to be the most difficult aspect of Storm decks). I'm looking forward to testing this out in my local Gauntlet. Thanks Carsten!

Philipp2293

03-23-2012, 12:37 PM

Thanks for another sweet article Carsten. Do you mind sharing your exact SBing strategies (at least for the most common MUs)? I mean I can probably figure out what comes in for most MUs, but when it comes to boarding out stuff I'm too noobish regarding storm combo.

Sloshthedark

03-23-2012, 12:53 PM

@Karsten
I played the exact list -island -volc +fetch +Badlands +grim tutor 61 cards with some decent success in last 3 months

I understand what is your reasoning behind it, as 2nd swamp can get into your opener, Sometimes I found myself with both seas wasted and scalding tarn left me in awkward position, but dropping 2nd red = the same problem (volc opener); through time I learned to play lands more aggressively when I can so it works for me and is fine in longer games

when I started to play this deck with Grim Tutors (which i haven't had access to earlier) I did some goldfishing on 7,6,5,4 cards 15 each and wrote down which turn, which way it kills, protection used/hand seen before business spell; which left me with average slightly under 3/4/4 kill, 6/10 Pif, 1/10 Tutor chain, 1/10 Ant->ToA, 2/10 Ant->Pif in general... which made me realize that on 6 cards I'm whole turn slower (interesting 6/5 were almost the same, 4 too random), the worse - av. kill is T4 in large majority, opposed to around 80% till T3 in 7 cards, garbage hands included, it's not a conclusive research and doesn't prove anything, but made me trust in deck consistency and think more about mulligans... tournament performance +/- confirmed it (on the other hand - op mull 4 single mishra's factory killed me once, me keeping a 7 no lander ;)

I'm not sure about your sideboard I agree the 3x Goblins tech feels not good, but a Chrome mox seems like a waste of a slot (ok I know faster UB, maybe I'm in PiF too much to appreciate it) and 4 extirpates bit excessive

2 infest - is that enough? Germany should be infested :) with maverick, it could be quite problematic as you often have to pass the turn after playing a sweeper... just asking, used to play 4

Same as people above me I'd also appreciate if you could include your SB strategies

Tammit67

03-23-2012, 01:01 PM

I've always wondered how awkward postboard gets if they bring in gravehate. How bad is that for you?

That more than anything else is what steers me away from a PiF plan as the preferred route

Bryant Cook

03-23-2012, 01:05 PM

Mon,Goblin Chief

03-23-2012, 02:16 PM

Thanks to everybody for the props. As far as SBing is concerned, I'm not totally convinced what I've been doing during sideboarding is actually correct, which is why I didn't include the SBing plans in the article.
I mean I've come back to playing Storm (I really just feel like it roughly every six months and than play it for a month or two before going back to other things) for something like two and a half/three weeks now and I'm using a list that is quite different from earlier incarnations (meaning boarding plans don't work the same as in what I used before), even if it looks similar on the surface, so I'm still trying out different approaches. This is what I've been doing so far:

Reanimator
+2 CoV
+4 Extirpate
-4 Probe
-1 Therapy
-1 Lotus Petal

Dredge
-3 Therapy
-3 Probe
+1 CMox
+1 Grim
+4 Extirpate

Maverick
-4 Duress
-3 Therapy
-1 Probe
+4 Bounce
+2 Infest
+1 Grim
+1 CMox

RUG/StoneBlade
+1 EtW
+1 Therapy
-1 Preordain
-1 Petal

As I said, take these with a grain of salt as they're still experimental.

I've always wondered how awkward postboard gets if they bring in gravehate. How bad is that for you?

That more than anything else is what steers me away from a PiF plan as the preferred route
As for opponents bringing in graveyard hate, they've spent at least one card from their hand to make you tutor-chain them or win with Ad Nauseam. If we're talking Extraction, you also simply get to treat it like another counterspell and hit it with discard (you can also create yards that are largely impervious to Extraction if you have different Rituals by going Infernal->Grim->PiF). Probe is again extremely valuable here so that you don't run headfirst into instant-speed hate (permanent-based hate is obviously already visible in play so that you can adjust your plans).

I'm at work, I can't spend too much time replying to this.

Dude, it's an ANT deck. Don't kid yourself by saying this is a "Will" deck - the black kettle is black. A lot of ANT lists run Past in Flames too, it's not new technology. Plenty of them run Probe too, that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Too early for two life to matter? I'm beginning to think you haven't put a whole lot of effort into this deck other than writing about it. Every life point matters with these types of decks, it doesn't matter if the deck has Past in Flames or not. City of Brass isn't the greatest option, which is why I only run two. It's a necessary evil when running a 4.5 color deck. I've always argued against Thoughtsieze for the same reason I argue against Probe.

I wasn't debating Ad Nauseam vs. Therapy. I'm debating better protection (Duress/Inquisition) against Therapy. Don't change the topic.

So casting Ad Nauseam about one game in five (maybe four if I'm overestimating my reliance on the Will-plan) makes this an Ad Nauseam deck? That's like saying vintage GrimLong was a Necro-deck because you default to either tutor for Necro or have it already in hand about a fifth of your matches. GrimLong was/is a Yawgmoth's Will deck. It just happens to also run Necro because Necro is broken. Same for Ad Nauseam here. It is not even close to being the center-piece of the deck and the deck would still work fine if Ad Nauseam was banned.

The information-advantage you gain through Probes that lets you optimize your cantripping, fetching and timing of going off (not to mention other benefits mentioned by Sloshthedark above) easily makes up any win percentage you lose because your Ad Nauseams (that again come up comparatively rarely and usually win anyway) are slightly weaker. The number of games I lost because of Probe lifeloss has been negligible, especially compared to the number of games I won because I knew exactly what my opponents had available.
This isn't TES. You actually legitimately plan to play 4-5 turns against blue decks because that's when you've usually reduced their hand to shambles and "Will" them out.

As for "better" protection vs Therapy, I already have four Duress and I totally disagree that IoK is actually better in this deck than Therapy. Being able to strip multiple answers with a single card has simply been utterly amazing, much more so than casting Inquisition and mutely staring at that FoW or double Snare in their hand would have been. It's been so good in fact that I think I would actually not run only Duresses even if I could play seven. It works a lot like black's Orim's Chant - Chant is still significantly better but it makes you run shitty lands, which in turn significantly weakens your "long" game against anything with Wastelands.
The reason to run Storm combo instead of something like Reanimator is, to me, that while it's insanely fast it can still hang in there with the blue decks after turn four - something that becomes much harder if they can always Wasteland you and you can't consistently shuffle your Brainstorms/Ponders.

Tammit67

03-23-2012, 02:58 PM

As for opponents bringing in graveyard hate, they've spent at least one card from their hand to make you tutor-chain them or win with Ad Nauseam. If we're talking Extraction, you also simply get to treat it like another counterspell and hit it with discard (you can also create yards that are largely impervious to Extraction if you have different Rituals by going Infernal->Grim->PiF). Probe is again extremely valuable here so that you don't run headfirst into instant-speed hate (permanent-based hate is obviously already visible in play so that you can adjust your plans).

To me, the added vulnerability to gravehate (however small) isn't worth the risk of buying myself an extra turn or two by worrying about my life total less. The clock in this format for combo has changed drastically since snapcaster appeared. No long do you worry about having the kill before zoo kills you, you worry about having the kill and adequate protection to beat snapcaster/counterspells or hatebears/wasteland.

You surely have a decent matchup with cabal therapy against blue. What actually concerns me are the lost percentage points from Maverick. Heck, any deck with permanent based tutorable answers to you main. A resolved ooze with mana available might be difficult for you, or teeg, or thalia. Does this deck let you still have a good matchup against these opponents despite the lack of Ad nauseum or chant to lean them out of the game?

You've slowed yourself down a turn or two while the fundamental turn of the format has actually increased to the point where players like Ari Lax have switched to TES over the UB AnT list for that extra speed and sweet protection package.

menace13

03-25-2012, 02:56 AM

Gaddok Teeg - need I say more?
Makes sense, but are you playing Infest over Virtue's Ruin for the added bonus of clearing Nobles and Dryad Arbor despite that it falls short if they have a sword equipped or Jitte + counter on Teeg/Canonist/Thalia?

Mon,Goblin Chief

03-25-2012, 09:18 AM

@tammit: Resilience comes at the price of some speed, obviously, though it's much less than you seem to think. The deck still consistently goldfishes turn 2 to 3 with the occasional turn 1 thrown in. Just because you decide to win "late" against blue doesn't mean you can't be faster if there is no countermagic to worry about.

The things you said matter right now:
blue and countermagic
This is actually better at getting to the point where you just punch through the blue decks for good (because you don't have to worry about the Delver hits and hurry; you also find more disruption due to the extra drawspells and Therapy is just great) than just about any other combo-deck I've played.

Wasteland
As far as Wasteland is concerned, who cares about that card when your manabase is mainly basics and fetches? Honestly, in most games I couldn't care less about Wasteland.

Hatebears
Teeg: yep, you're dead. Game one you still have discard in, though, so there is a decent chance you can hit the Zenith before it finds Teeg.
Ooze: Ooze doesn't really shut off PiF most of the time. Maverick doesn't have countermagic so generally you go off turn three at the latest, meaning they either didn't play anything on their turn three to keep Ooze open (at which point you should easily be able to set up a tutor-chain or AdN win) or probably don't have enough mana open to remove everything they need to from your yard. Postboard having consistent mana makes dealing with their hatebears and win actually doable (significantly) more often than not.

Thalia: How often have you successfully beaten Thalia game 1 with TES? Because with that manabase I don't see BWish into something to kill her while having enough life left to safely win with Ad Nauseam actually work very often against a deck with Knights and Wastelands. On the other hand while I can't kill her, I've won through on-board Thalia more than once against Maverick. Not getting Wastelanded, Cabal Ritual and the ability to win on low life easily are some good.

Makes sense, but are you playing Infest over Virtue's Ruin for the added bonus of clearing Nobles and Dryad Arbor despite that it falls short if they have a sword equipped or Jitte + counter on Teeg/Canonist/Thalia?

I actually think both cards are pretty much equal in power level here, but each has situational advantages (Infest gets their mana-guys and, most importantly, Ooze to enable PiF, Ruin gets through the situation you described). Someone suggested in the article comments on SCG to run 1-1 for those situations where you Grim Tutor and the difference is relevant. That seems like a better set up than the double-Infest I've been using considering that most of the time both are essentially the same, I just never thought about it.

aaronm678

03-25-2012, 05:21 PM

To me, the added vulnerability to gravehate (however small) isn't worth the risk of buying myself an extra turn or two by worrying about my life total less. The clock in this format for combo has changed drastically since snapcaster appeared. No long do you worry about having the kill before zoo kills you, you worry about having the kill and adequate protection to beat snapcaster/counterspells or hatebears/wasteland.

Nobody runs decent grave hate main (the only piece people ever run main is Ooze, and that's mana intensive enough it's not really a problem). Post board, yes, sometimes people will bring in Extirpates/Surgicals/Tormods/etc against you...if that's the case, then you don't play past in flames, it's not really that hard -- 99% of the time, PiF is played off of a tutor...which means you probably shouldn't tutor it up if your opponent has Tormods on the board or you don't know their hand.

Postboard, it's often you'll either do a tutor chain or Ad Nauseam -- Ad Naus is typically a little better if they're bringing in graveyard hate, as they won't have as much of a clock (and, typically Gitaxian Probe is one of the first cards to go Maindeck, since it's far less useful after you know what your opponent is playing).

A lot of lists also run Dark Confidant in their sideboard, which works pretty well if their sideboard plan is to bring in Graveyard hate (since it's pretty easy to get a 14-16 damage tutor chain without PiF).

You surely have a decent matchup with cabal therapy against blue. What actually concerns me are the lost percentage points from Maverick. Heck, any deck with permanent based tutorable answers to you main. A resolved ooze with mana available might be difficult for you, or teeg, or thalia. Does this deck let you still have a good matchup against these opponents despite the lack of Ad nauseum or chant to lean them out of the game?

You've slowed yourself down a turn or two while the fundamental turn of the format has actually increased to the point where players like Ari Lax have switched to TES over the UB AnT list for that extra speed and sweet protection package.

Maverick is still a fine matchup -- it may not be 75% or whatever TES gets, but it's still easily a 60%+ matchup. Pre-board, your plan is to outrace their hatebears, which really isn't that hard, as many of them are cutting the MD Gaddock Teeg, which means they're typically looking for one of their 2x Thalias, which they can't dig or tutor for...and this is still a 75% turn 3 deck.

Postboard, it's FAR favorable to the storm player, as it takes them way too long to kill you when all of their creatures are 2/2s, and they don't really interact with your gameplan all that much (i.e. you can still Cantrip away all you want, you just have to make sure you board wipe before you win).

Anyway -- it sounds like you should actually try playtesting this deck. I've run a similar list for quite a while, and BUG style decks are pretty close to 50/50 (PiF helped a ton here), RUG decks are pretty much 50/50, and it has great matchups against a lot of the popular decks (U/W, G/W, Burn, etc)...not to mention that Wasteland is pretty much irrelevant against it.

Tammit67

03-25-2012, 08:27 PM

Nobody runs decent grave hate main (the only piece people ever run main is Ooze, and that's mana intensive enough it's not really a problem). Post board, yes, sometimes people will bring in Extirpates/Surgicals/Tormods/etc against you...if that's the case, then you don't play past in flames, it's not really that hard -- 99% of the time, PiF is played off of a tutor...which means you probably shouldn't tutor it up if your opponent has Tormods on the board or you don't know their hand.

Postboard, it's often you'll either do a tutor chain or Ad Nauseam -- Ad Naus is typically a little better if they're bringing in graveyard hate, as they won't have as much of a clock (and, typically Gitaxian Probe is one of the first cards to go Maindeck, since it's far less useful after you know what your opponent is playing).

A lot of lists also run Dark Confidant in their sideboard, which works pretty well if their sideboard plan is to bring in Graveyard hate (since it's pretty easy to get a 14-16 damage tutor chain without PiF).

Maverick is still a fine matchup -- it may not be 75% or whatever TES gets, but it's still easily a 60%+ matchup. Pre-board, your plan is to outrace their hatebears, which really isn't that hard, as many of them are cutting the MD Gaddock Teeg, which means they're typically looking for one of their 2x Thalias, which they can't dig or tutor for...and this is still a 75% turn 3 deck.

Postboard, it's FAR favorable to the storm player, as it takes them way too long to kill you when all of their creatures are 2/2s, and they don't really interact with your gameplan all that much (i.e. you can still Cantrip away all you want, you just have to make sure you board wipe before you win).

Anyway -- it sounds like you should actually try playtesting this deck. I've run a similar list for quite a while, and BUG style decks are pretty close to 50/50 (PiF helped a ton here), RUG decks are pretty much 50/50, and it has great matchups against a lot of the popular decks (U/W, G/W, Burn, etc)...not to mention that Wasteland is pretty much irrelevant against it.
Tutor chain becomes harder when you don't have threshold and/or thalia is in play. As for people cutting Teeg, who are these people? The only person I have seen who has cut it has been Kibler, and he is running the 3rd thalia instead.

I just see no reason to play this over TES. I find silence to be better, I find not letting my non blue opponents to interact with me to be better. I dont have to worry about ooze, or active knight of the reliquary, or Sensei's divining top (with a force near the top).

Mon,Goblin Chief

03-25-2012, 09:38 PM

Tutor chain becomes harder when you don't have threshold and/or thalia is in play. As for people cutting Teeg, who are these people? The only person I have seen who has cut it has been Kibler, and he is running the 3rd thalia instead.

I just see no reason to play this over TES. I find silence to be better, I find not letting my non blue opponents to interact with me to be better. I dont have to worry about ooze, or active knight of the reliquary, or Sensei's divining top (with a force near the top).

I agree that the assumption that people cut Teeg seems misguided.

As for no reason to play this over TES, other than dieing to variance less often, play against Thalia and Wasteland (TES is the Tendrils deck that lets non-blue opponents interact by far the most actually - aka oh damn you drew two Wastelands) with both decks and you'll see reasons for why you'd want more cantrips, Fetchlands, Basics and Cabal Rituals instead of a manabase/acceleration-base where everything dies to Wasteland and you regularly need two different colors before you crack LED. Also see my other answer to your first post.

Koby

03-25-2012, 09:41 PM

I think that Cabal Therapy has more merit than Inquisition of Kozilek that's being espoused by the TES thread. I played a 59/60 version of the deck in a LGS and was very pleased with its performance.

Tammit67

03-25-2012, 11:26 PM

I agree that the assumption that people cut Teeg seems misguided.

As for no reason to play this over TES, other than dieing to variance less often, play against Thalia and Wasteland (TES is the Tendrils deck that lets non-blue opponents interact by far the most actually - aka oh damn you drew two Wastelands) with both decks and you'll see reasons for why you'd want more cantrips, Fetchlands, Basics and Cabal Rituals instead of a manabase/acceleration-base where everything dies to Wasteland and you regularly need two different colors before you crack LED. Also see my other answer to your first post.
The TES manabase is stable; Five colors isn't the arduous process people seem to think it is. 4 petal, 4 chrome mox, 13 lands, 8 cantrips lets you cast things on time in 90% of cases.
Sorry to seem like I'm heckling at this point, that isn't my intention. I'll test the list myself Tuesday, perhaps it will give me a better understanding where you are coming from. It does have a lot of the things I want, but my brief experience watching it being played has inclined me against it.

Once again, great articles! I autolike them without even reading them at this point.

aaronm678

03-26-2012, 12:44 AM

Tutor chain becomes harder when you don't have threshold and/or thalia is in play. As for people cutting Teeg, who are these people? The only person I have seen who has cut it has been Kibler, and he is running the 3rd thalia instead.

I just see no reason to play this over TES. I find silence to be better, I find not letting my non blue opponents to interact with me to be better. I dont have to worry about ooze, or active knight of the reliquary, or Sensei's divining top (with a force near the top).

Maybe I just put to much weight on the talk in the maverick threads and what not, but it seems teeg is far from guaranteed main now, at the very least. Even upping the THalia count isn't a huge deal, as they can't tutor her with gsz

Either way...the reason to play this over TES is because it's much, much better against RUG (and the card daze in general) and it doesn't sacrifice much in it's other matches. Also, it tends to be a bit more consistent, as it mulligans less looking for lands and whatnot.

Jfont

04-23-2012, 12:24 AM

I've been playing with a similar build these past few weeks and I must admit probes and cabal therapy is awesome. with or without probe in hand therapy clears out any cards preventing you from winning (called spell snare and opponent reveals a bunch of creatures? that's ok, I'll just win instead). Also with the addition of probes, this deck now has 10-11 cards that allow you to see your opponents hand. even blue sometimes has draws that have a suboptimal counter hand, the number of cards just bluff the combo player into thinking they're packing. Plus going first with a monster hand and probing to find out your opponent is non blue is just golden.

I play in a meta that's crawling with reanimator, RUG, Stoneblade and Maverick. While Maverick has been relatively easy, RUG is a 50/50 matchup, I seem to keep getting owned by reanimator. In the last 3 tournaments I participated in, my only losses were to reanimator, and I only made top spots if I didn't need top go against 2 or more reanimated Iona's or Jin's.

I've seen the SB strategy, is there a specific playing strategy for winning game one? what opening hands do we want to have? Do we target counters, entomb spells, draw, or reanimation spells with our discard. I've lost so many games to reanimator (even janky builds with suboptimal shocklands) it's no longer funny.

thefringthing

04-23-2012, 02:47 AM

I'm not currently sold on any storm deck not involving Orim's Chant and Silence currently. If Spell Snare gets banned, someone send me a PM and I'll take another look.

Antonius

04-23-2012, 01:44 PM

@OP: In your article, you mentioned running snapcaster b/c of its synergy with cabal therapy. I've been running two in a UB ANT list with 3 therapy and it's been really good. Snapcster generates three storm with dark rit, storm an +1 mana with cabal rit and puts himself in the infernal tutor chain while conveniently giving you +1 storm from a cabal therapy in your yard. I did reasonably well at SCG Phoenix (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23605-I-m-Bad-at-Storm.-And-it-s-funny.-(SCG-Phoenix-20th-Place)) despite being terrible at playing storm.

I played 4 dread of night in my sideboard at a tournament yesterday and was very very happy with it. Getting one out kills thalia and mom, thus turning on your bounce against any other hate bear. Getting two out pretty much stops maverick from doing anything meaningful while you scuplt a game winning hand. You can also play chain of vapor tricks to generate storm on the combo turn.
I also ran cursecatcher in the sideboard on Liam Kane's reccomendation. It's been interesting and a turn 1 cursecatcher slows down thresh a lot. Obviously, it's also relevant against reanimator and dredge, though I haven't tested that yet.

ThomasDowd

04-23-2012, 04:19 PM

I also ran cursecatcher in the sideboard on Liam Kane's reccomendation. It's been interesting and a turn 1 cursecatcher slows down thresh a lot.

LOL WUT.

My mind just exploded. I'm not knocking it, since I haven't tried it, but man, that's some next level. I was almost putting mental misstep in UB storm right before it got banned but never got to try it out. Didn't know where to make room for it. But cursecatcher is something else.

Bob and Tiago I can see. Tiago doesn't really interact too well with cabal ritual and past in flames but I can understand the idea.

Sloshthedark

04-23-2012, 04:53 PM

LOL WUT.

My mind just exploded. I'm not knocking it, since I haven't tried it, but man, that's some next level. I was almost putting mental misstep in UB storm right before it got banned but never got to try it out. Didn't know where to make room for it. But cursecatcher is something else.

Bob and Tiago I can see. Tiago doesn't really interact too well with cabal ritual and past in flames but I can understand the idea.

I saw a local guy using that idea in sensei-top combo some time ago, I don't think its good enough for storm
I see how Snapcaster is great in UB, tried it in UBr and its not that good as you have more effective way to flashback ritual and it slows you down in general, on the other hand it's great with therapy and enables some surprising plays postboard, paired with bob red zone+mini tendrils plan is viable.. but still haven't convinced me to have place in UBr, definitely not main

Antonius

04-23-2012, 05:54 PM

I saw a local guy using that idea in sensei-top combo some time ago, I don't think its good enough for storm
I see how Snapcaster is great in UB, tried it in UBr and its not that good as you have more effective way to flashback ritual and it slows you down in general, on the other hand it's great with therapy and enables some surprising plays postboard, paired with bob red zone+mini tendrils plan is viable.. but still haven't convinced me to have place in UBr, definitely not main

I've won more games than I should have with snapcaster beatdown. its silly.

ThomasDowd

04-23-2012, 06:15 PM

I've won more games than I should have with snapcaster beatdown. its silly.

have definitely beat down a landstill player with bob to the point where i then cracked his standstill he went up to nine cards. won that game.

Tammit67

04-25-2012, 12:24 PM

I agree that the assumption that people cut Teeg seems misguided.

As for no reason to play this over TES, other than dieing to variance less often, play against Thalia and Wasteland (TES is the Tendrils deck that lets non-blue opponents interact by far the most actually - aka oh damn you drew two Wastelands) with both decks and you'll see reasons for why you'd want more cantrips, Fetchlands, Basics and Cabal Rituals instead of a manabase/acceleration-base where everything dies to Wasteland and you regularly need two different colors before you crack LED. Also see my other answer to your first post.

Did some light testing with the version that Elias had in his dredge article, Carsten (as I can easily find burning wishes and not so much grim tutor). Holy balls batman. Out of 8 games, I tutor chained them all, sometimes from 4 life, sometimes from 16, only twice with past in flames. My opponent was running a UR delver list with FoW, Daze, Pierce, but the added land drops and not relying so heavily on ad nauseam made that pretty easy.

The speed was certainly a tad slower, and rarely did cabal ritual itself matter. I'm still not sold on therapy, but it was certainly better than I thought it would be. I can absolutely see myself playing this version of storm at an event soon.

Mon,Goblin Chief

04-28-2012, 04:30 PM

@Antonius: Interesting reports, seems like Snapcaster is actually quite decent in the deck. Cursecatcher also seems like an excellent creature to board if one decides to go that way. Random creatures + Therapy looks like an excellent postboard plan by now (flashing back a cantrip and a Therapy seems sweet, as does Flashback Duress and Probe before re-therapying). I'll have to try and find room.

@Tammit: Happy to see you positively surprised after the early skepticism.

For me the deck has been insane in a lot of matchups (Reanimator is really tough, Dredge is very die-roll dependent and so are storm-mirrors. Everything else has been somewhere from equal to blow out).
I'm still using the Grim Tutor version as I dislike the additional red-commitment of the Wishes after having tested them. They make you even better against Maverick, though, simply because you can answer hatebears game 1.
I'm surprised CRit hasn't impressed you yet, getting it thresholded has been very powerful and instrumental in a large number of wins for me.

aaronm678

04-28-2012, 07:49 PM

I actually top 64ed Indy with a similar list.

If you're not expecting much reanimator, you can cut extirpate from the sb for thoughtseize-I really like boarding out gitaxian probe for more discard against RUG, as they often have counterbalance, and the deck is essentially cold to that card. Also, against creature decks, it's nice to swap therapy for thoughtseize if they're not super aggressive, as you really want to hit their guys turn 1, and probe + therapy is much harder to set up.

For infest-I am actually trying out pyroclasms in that slot. 3 mana is an awful lot against them when Thalia is out-it's obviously worse against Mother, but phenomenally better without-I haven't had enough test games to decide I'd it's worth it, but worth keeping in mind.

Tammit67

04-28-2012, 08:16 PM

@Tammit: Happy to see you positively surprised after the early skepticism.

For me the deck has been insane in a lot of matchups (Reanimator is really tough, Dredge is very die-roll dependent and so are storm-mirrors. Everything else has been somewhere from equal to blow out).
I'm still using the Grim Tutor version as I dislike the additional red-commitment of the Wishes after having tested them. They make you even better against Maverick, though, simply because you can answer hatebears game 1.
I'm surprised CRit hasn't impressed you yet, getting it thresholded has been very powerful and instrumental in a large number of wins for me.

Don't misunderstand, I am very happy to see CRit every time I see it. It just happened that I did not have it powered up, mostly since I was able to go off without filling my GY so much and was testing against UR delver mostly (so going off reasonably quick was nice).

EDIT: Infest seems fine here (or a three mana answer regardless) with the added lands, especially in burning wish builds
Often I had his hand known and was able to just combo off with 5-6 cards in the GY. Anything else is just gravy. I'd be interested to see how it handles RUG, since the addition of spell snare might make my cabal therapy decisions harder.

KevinTrudeau

04-28-2012, 10:04 PM

leegoo

04-30-2012, 11:23 AM

Mon,Goblin Chief

05-04-2012, 10:21 AM

I've never (never is pretty hyperbolic, but meh) understood why anyone would play UB ANT and derivatives over UBwx Doomsday once you consider they're just about equivalent speed-wise, especially post-Gitaxian Probe.

You're one of the best got dang writers on that got dang website, Carsten.

Thanks a lot :D

As for Doomsday vs ANT-derivatives, there are a few reasons I'd prefer to be on Past in Flames:
a) the playskill-issue leegoo referred to is definitely a major point. Getting good with Doomsday just takes so much time...
b) Doomsday, at least the common variants, needs to have more different colors of mana online and plays more non-basics (not to mention has to fetch them more often), making Waste + Stifle more of an issue.
c) I still feel that DDay is a little slower than the deck in the article, which is especially relevant as you often end up putting yourself into burn range against disruption when you Doomsday. You can't always actually go off hidden behind a Chant-effect.
d) I hate having to slow-roll my cantrips. One of the strongest points about Storm-based decks is that you get to sculpt such ridiculous hands very rapidly due to cantrip chaining. DDay is insane whenever you have a Top but forces you into awkward choices as far as your digging is concerned whenever you don't.

All of these obviously might have to do with my level of experience with DDay, which isn't anywhere close to a point I'd feel comfortable running the deck in a tournament.