Love Storm, but no money. Is possible still to play?

[Tanith]

So folks... I love playing storm. I thought I hate it, but after playing Pyromancer Ascension on a modern tournament for the first time some weeks ago, I realize I just love combo... I'm afraid to love it more than control :tongue:
Jokes apart, I was looking for some lists to play without Lion's eye Diamond and Underground sea, both completely necessary to run any storm deck.
Checking TC Decks, i found this:

-"Cheap storm"

Instants [15]
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Manamorphose
4 Seething Song

Sorceries [27]
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Infernal Tutor
3 Faithless Looting
3 Past in Flames
3 Preordain
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Rite of Flame
4 Sign in Blood
4 Tendrils of Agony


Artifacts [6]
2 Chromatic Star
4 Lotus Petal

Lands [12]
1 Irrigation Ditch
1 Island
1 Volcanic Island
2 Gemstone Mine
3 Geothermal Crevice
4 Sulfur Vent

SB:

3 Ancient Grudge
2 Duress
1 Grapeshot
1 Karakas
3 Pyroblast
4 Pyroclasm
1 Repeal

But I've been told this could work also:

-Instants [12]
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual

Sorceries [26]
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
4 Tendrils of Agony


Artifacts [8]
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

Lands [14]
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta

SB:
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Dread of Night
1 Ad Nauseam
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Burning Wish
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infest

But with the following changes:

-4 Lion's eye diamond
-4 Infernal tutor
+4 Brainfreeze
+4 Seething song

Any ideas, thoughts, opinions please?

Note: sorry for the tags, I still dunno how to put deck tags or cards tags, where can I found them?

[Humphrey]

2 Usea and 4 LED is pretty cheap compared to other legacydecks. Budgetversion needs to cut the deltas though

[Tanith]

I have other decks, but now I'm a really difficult position and cannot pay Undeground sea and Lion eye's diamond sadly :( Got some other blue fetches though... and watery graves :D

[HammafistRoob]

Sadly, you NEED all of the expensive cards to play 3 color storm. A cheaper alternative would be Solidarity, which is a good deck but takes tons of practice to master. The only money cards you'd need is FoW, Reset, and at least 6 blue fetches. Or if you just want an awesome, cheap combo deck you can play Elves!

[danyul]

It would have to be a powered down build of Elves. That deck runs G.Cradle$ and duals/fetches too.

[HammafistRoob]

It would have to be a powered down build of Elves. That deck runs G.Cradle$ and duals/fetches too.

/Facepalm/
I somehow managed to forget Cradle is skyrocketing(booze?). The mono green build with a few Crop Rotation is still very fun and very playable.

[Dice_Box]

I am not fan of a "cheap" strom deck. Storm hate is common and if you do not have the explosiveness LED gives you you risk increased exposure to the hate. What I do like is your choice of dual lands. I personally do not play blue but all those cards fit nicely into other decks. LED does not. In short building this is not a bad plan as it decreases the onset of decks you may wish to make in the future.

As for a good Cheap deck, RDW and Burn are good choices if not very resilient ones against combo. The base Elf deck is less than 200 as well but as Dan said, when you start reaching into DRS and GC lists, you jump the price.

[Dark Ritual]

If you want a cheap storm deck, you probably have to look to the perfect pauper storm prebannings with some number of tendrils added for grapeshots/EtW. Be aware that wasteland will actually violate you so hard your anus might never recover though. You could also try familiar storm from pauper as well, although that's also fairly fragile to legacy as well. If you wanted you could go for candleless high tide:

4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
3 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Intuition
4 High Tide
3 Meditate
1 Pact of Negation
4 Turnabout
4 Merchant Scroll
3 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Time Spiral
3 Flooded Strand
12 Island
3 Polluted Delta

Core SB cards:
1 Brain Freeze
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Meditate
1 Pact of Negation
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Snap
1 Surgical Extraction

Credit goes to Flrn for the list as posted in the old Egosum spiral tide thread on the 14th of February in the year 2013. The above list has my gold stamp of approval.

[Lemnear]

You just can't run Tendrils of Agony in Legacy without LED and Infernal Tutor like you can't play control without FoW or Duals (Taking Shocklands as substitude and die to the excessive extra damage)

If you still want to play "Storm" try Belcher without LED's but that still leaves you with the need for Burning Wish which I expect is also out of reach for you. :/

In the end I feel you're asking for an impossible task like competing in Vintage without Power, Duals or Bazaar of Baghdad...

[Tanith]

Thank you guys for the answer, seems impossible to run Storm without LED. Nice idea about playing Hide Tide, @Dark Ritual. Hope those Candelabra of Tawnos not to be 100% necessary.
Maybe one idea could be trying Hide Tide and with time, build a proper Storm deck. We will see. :)
Again, thank you guys for the help :)

[Dice_Box]

If you can't get Candles, grab Deserted Temple.

[Mr Miagi]

Just cash out for those 200-300$ (or whatever the price is in us) and buy some LEds and u'r done. Or sell some other staples you have (EDH or legacy staples or whatever crap you have and dont play).

Or.. you know get a part time job or any small job you can get, work for few days/week and .. BUY the LEDs (or duals) you need.

[Final Fortune]

I think Belcher sans Burning Wish and Lion's Eye Diamond for the Miracle Draw 7 and whatever addittional acceleration like Chancellor of the Tangle or Grim Monolith could work, maybe Serum Powder works in order to avoid the draw them into a counter spell problem.

Hypothetically,

4 Serum Powder
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Rite of Flame
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Land Grant
1 Stomping Ground
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal

That gives about 7 spaces to fill with chaff like Gitaxian Probe, Street Wraith, Grim Monolith, Seething Song, Manamorphose, Wild Cantor, Chancellor of the Annex, Leyline of Anticipation, Guttural Blast, Autumn's Veil, Pyroblast or whatever you feel is appropriate.

[Zombie]

The sane plans are, IMHO, to build a monogreen budget Combo Elves list - the deck budgetizes really well, and can be upgraded with all the goodness gradually. Candleless Spiral Tide or just straight Solidarity are also solid options and most importantly interesting decks to play.

Of course it's possible to build Burn or all manner of glass cannon combo decks, but I at least just don't like them. If you intend to play Mulligan: The Goldfishing, why even play Magic in the first place? Dredge is also an option, Manaless is cheap and you can gradually acquire pieces for LED Dredge.

[Megadeus]

id go with high.tide. it is a resilient deck that is powerful, and minus candles it is pretty cheap and still powerful. plus the only huge money cards in candleless list is force of will and blue fetches whichare format staples

[Lemnear]

How did a thread aimed for advice for running STORM on a budget turn into "Play Burn or Mono Green Priest/Archdruid Elves"?

[mini1337s]

I think Belcher sans Burning Wish and Lion's Eye Diamond for the Miracle Draw 7 and whatever addittional acceleration like Chancellor of the Tangle or Grim Monolith could work, maybe Serum Powder works in order to avoid the draw them into a counter spell problem.

Hypothetically,

4 Serum Powder
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Rite of Flame
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Land Grant
1 Stomping Ground
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal

That gives about 7 spaces to fill with chaff like Gitaxian Probe, Street Wraith, Grim Monolith, Seething Song, Manamorphose, Wild Cantor, Chancellor of the Annex, Leyline of Anticipation, Guttural Blast, Autumn's Veil, Pyroblast or whatever you feel is appropriate.
Agreed, aside from High Tide, this is about as close to storm as you can get without LED. The biggest problem is that storm relies on casting Infernal Tutor or Burning Wish, cracking LED in response, and using that mana for a win-con.

I've played against Budgety High Tide decks that ran Snapcaster Mage, Cloud of Faeries, and Snap, but I find that that deck "feels" different than ANT or TES.

[Zombie]

How did a thread aimed for advice for running STORM on a budget turn into "Play Burn or Mono Green Priest/Archdruid Elves"?

Slot a single Tendrils in there somewhere, and Elves is a Storm deck. :P

You play rituals, cantrips and some huge draw spells and then tutor up a win condition that counts previously played stuff to determine the quantity of murder visited on the opponent.

Seriously, though. He wanted storm on a budget. Storm without LEDs is just bad. Budget Tide and Elves have a similar fundamental style of play, don't suck horribly despite being suboptimal and scale up nicely with extra card availability.

Of course only proxy testing will tell - I love engine combo decks, but infinitely prefer ANT and Elves to TES despite the similar basic functionality. It's entirely possible he won't like Elves or Tide, so he'd have to grab the LEDs.

[Tanith]

Ja, despite all the ideas of combo elves, high tide or belcher are really good, and a good way to introduce myself to combo in Legacy, think my aim is to run ANT. So definitely need those LEDs. I guess I will keep playing Miracles and try to win tournaments to put my hands on those sweet LEDS :)

Note: the idea of tendrils with elves is awesome too, never think on that :)

[Zombie]

Lol, please don't do it. Natural Order => Craterhoof is much superior in Elves :P
LSV's winning list from way back in PT Berlin did win with Grapeshot, though.

Good luck with the ANT project. Selling some of the Miracles stuff might be a good idea to help with the LED budget? Similarily, trade your white duals for black ones. In the end ANT doesn't have that many expensive cards in it apart from the mana.

EDIT: I'd also proxy up some lists for ANT/TES/Elves/SpiralTide/Solidarity, just to be sure. This game costs astronomical amounts of money, and misinvestment can leave you playing something you don't like. I went through that process with TES and Nic Fit - loved how the lists looked, but when I tried playing them they just weren't the decks for me.

[lordofthepit]

Give us your budget, and it may be more helpful. "No money" and "$200" allow for very different options.

[Tanith]

I used to play with 3 tundras the miracle list, but i trade 1 'cause i always fetch to basic unless its extremely necessary fetch for dual, so that trade and some money I've got from some other prices, could be 200-240 €, between 240-314 USD I think...

But I still want to keep Miracles for playing, I simply love that deck *.*, so trading more white duals won't be a good idea IMO.

[lyracian]

The budget storm list you posted is Sac Land Tendrils, which developed out of the Pauper Perfect Storm deck.
You can read more about it here - http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=330251

[Tanith]

Wow, thats really sweet thread! I still have to read it but, does it work? :P

[Lemnear]

In the end -Deck of Choice- doesn't have that many expensive cards in it apart from the mana.

This is almost always true for any deck in any format.

The argument just hits hilarity if you think about Vintage (Duals, Workshops, Mono Artifacts) or some Legacy decks with 7+ Duals to run on 3 or 4 colors. Even former budget Decks like Elves or Goblins suffer with Cradle and Rishadan Port/Wasteland

[JanoschEausH]

If you really want to get BANG for your BUCK in terms of Combo, i can recommend you this Mono G Elves list. The best thing: it doesn't even need any cradles!

Budget Elves!
Creatures:
2 Birchlore Rangers
3 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
1 Joraga Warcaller
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Quirion Ranger
1 Regal Force
4 Wirewood Symbiote

Instant:
4 Summoner's Pact

Land:
6 Forest
7 Green Fetchlands (you can also play without these)

Sorcery:
4 Glimpse of Nature
2 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Living Wish

Sideboard:
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Joraga Warcaller
1 Regal Force
1 Vexing Shusher
2 Viridian Shaman
2 Krosan Grip
3 Steely Resolve

Instead of Steely Resolve you can also splash for one Savannah and play 3 Absolute Law.

[lyracian]

Sideboard:
3 Steely Resolve

Instead of Steely Resolve you can also splash for one Savannah and play 3 Absolute Law.
3 /Steely Resolves is about $10, so why would you want to spend nearly $100 on a Savanna to play an Enchantment that does nothing against path/plow or any of black Terror effects?

[danyul]

LOL you guys are so gross with some of these suggestions. Let the kid play storm.

A better suggestion than any of these weird Frankenstein lists or alternate deck is simply this - go make some damn friends. Then borrow all their shit! There is always a guy with a huge collection who will sometimes lend out decks. Be his BFF. Borrow cards. Win stuff.

That is the most cost effective and fastest way to get into Legacy. And probably Golf too.

[Tanith]

Hahaha, ja, actually i will make proxies of Pauper Storm deck above suggested and will try to make it. Also, maybe with those USD i but the LEDs and with a couple of watery graves... well, i guess i have to be careful with AN... :)
But the idea of Elves with Tendrils is really cool! haha
Jokes apart, all of them have been awesome suggestions.
I read Elves and High Tide previews... and are awesome. Both of them. But I find quite vulnerable Elves without Cradle and High Tide without Candelabras. I guess I'm wrong, but anyway... Will make proxies of them and test them.

Ha, wanted to ask you fellows, with that cash what would you make?

[Zombie]

Budget Elves are more vulnerable than non-budget ones in many ways, and in some ways a completely different deck (Multiple Priests/Archdruids). They do have access to some tricks full price Elves have difficulty including, like Pendelhaven. But that's why you don't run them for the rest of your life - it's an intermediary step, nothing more.

[alderon666]

You could play TES with a crappy manabase and a split 2x Brainstorms/2x Preeordain intead of the full set of BSs.

But you can't do it without LED.

Save up some money lunch to get them, your deck is going to suck without them.


Here's a rough list:

Artifact
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
2x Chrome Mox
Instant
1x Ad Nauseam
2x Brainstorm
4x Rite of Flame
4x Dark Ritual
Land
4x Gemstone Mine
4x City of Brass
4x Darkslick Shores
3x ???????
Sorcery
2x Cabal Therapy
4x Duress
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Infernal Tutor
1x Empty the Warrens
4x Ponder
2x Preordain
4x Burning Wish
1x Tendrils Of Agony

[ESG]

I guess I will keep playing Miracles and try to win tournaments to put my hands on those sweet LEDS :)

Ironic?


Edit: Joking aside ... Tanith, if you want to play Storm, ship your Miracles cards and build the deck.

[nedleeds]

It is possible to play any legal Legacy deck. If you have less money you'll have less options. You can play a non-legal deck but likely won't advance past the first round. /eot

[Lemnear]

Artifact
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
2x Chrome Mox
Instant
1x Ad Nauseam
2x Brainstorm
4x Rite of Flame
4x Dark Ritual
Land
4x Gemstone Mine
4x City of Brass
4x Darkslick Shores
3x ???????
Sorcery
2x Cabal Therapy
4x Duress
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Infernal Tutor
1x Empty the Warrens
4x Ponder
2x Preordain
4x Burning Wish
1x Tendrils Of Agony

That's a horrible TES List if you only lack the 3 duals. Brainstorm is so much better than Preordain Even without the 3 fetchlands of the stocklist, Tendrils Mainboard is not needed and passing on the best card in the whole 60 aka Silence is a mistake^2. 15 Lands are too much and will block your infernal at times without LED

[Tammit67]

That's a horrible TES List if you only lack the 3 duals. Brainstorm is so much better than Preordain Even without the 3 fetchlands of the stocklist, Tendrils Mainboard is not needed and passing on the best card in the whole 60 aka Silence is a mistake^2. 15 Lands are too much and will block your infernal at times without LED

While I agree with your points, the idea that the duals can be proxied with scar's lands in a budget version is reasonable enough yeah?

When you say storm, i assume you mean tendrils combo in particular?

[Tanith]

Yup.
While the LED's have to be played, and since I haven't enough money, maybe I could play Watery Grave instead of U-Sea until got enough cash to pick them.

[Lemnear]

While I agree with your points, the idea that the duals can be proxied with scar's lands in a budget version is reasonable enough yeah?

When you say storm, i assume you mean tendrils combo in particular?

I guess with the increased count of rainbow lands, the scars-lands are acceptable even if you have to consider their lack to produce red mana.

Then I talk about "Storm" i normally mean TES, ANT and Mix-forms like TNT. I used the term "storm" in this thread before to hint towards alternative archetypes that focus on EtW like Belcher.



Yup.
While the LED's have to be played, and since I haven't enough money, maybe I could play Watery Grave instead of U-Sea until got enough cash to pick them.

The combination of fetchlands and Shocklands is davastating. Being unable to drop/play lands without 1-3 damage is not acceptable. You won't need many Games of goldfishing against Burn (T1 3 damage, T2 6 damage, etc.) to realize that by using Schocks you'll loose a turn earlier in average against Aggro-archtypes while "drawing" 2-3 cards less off Ad Nauseam per Shockland which IS backbreaking

[alderon666]

That's a horrible TES List if you only lack the 3 duals. Brainstorm is so much better than Preordain Even without the 3 fetchlands of the stocklist, Tendrils Mainboard is not needed and passing on the best card in the whole 60 aka Silence is a mistake^2. 15 Lands are too much and will block your infernal at times without LED

You clearly haven't played with BS without fetches. While BS allows you to do crazy shit like T1 Brainstorm into win, sometimes it just loses you the game. When you need a land, you Brainstorm and hit a bunch of crap, now you have to wait 3 turns to draw into a random card.

Preordain is a much less powerful cantrip, but it always does it job: dig into the cards you want.

I just hate silence! But that's personal taste. With 8 gold lands you could easily play Silences.

[Lemnear]

You clearly haven't played with BS without fetches. While BS allows you to do crazy shit like T1 Brainstorm into win, sometimes it just loses you the game. When you need a land, you Brainstorm and hit a bunch of crap, now you have to wait 3 turns to draw into a random card.

Preordain is a much less powerful cantrip, but it always does it job: dig into the cards you want.

I just hate silence! But that's personal taste. With 8 gold lands you could easily play Silences.

BS replaces the worst 2 cards in your hand with better ones in the turn it matters. You have 4 Infernals in addition for shuffle effects. Brainstorm into Ponder + x often does the trick too. T1 Brainstorm is wrong in Storm 95% of the time. If you keep a hand which relies completely on finding a Land with the Brainstorm you have to consider punting the game already with the keep.

As mentioned, Silence is the reason for 5c manabases It's a must-counter-or-die also acting as a 1cc timewalk in many situations for making landdrops, command goblins into your Opponents face or prevent perm. hate to enter the battlefield. A personal bias is no reason to give questionable advice.

[Tanith]

Well, this is now decks I have:

-Canadian
-UW (miracles/ RIP with helm/ and with Stoneforge mystic, as they share lot of cards, its only a tweek between 10 cards or so)

I thought of keeping one of this decks and try to build the ANT properly, since as commented before, I have in MKM like 240 euro more or less (thats at least Lion´s eye diamond playset). So I could sell Miracles/RIP/Blade important stuff (Jace and Tundra) and keep Canadian or I can sell Canadian Lands and buy with those 1 volcanic and 2 tropical (since ANT needs 2 volcanic and 1 tropical) 2 U. Sea and keep Miracles. But what will be the best choice, since I found quite difficult to guess the meta with the future rules-change.
Any ideas?

Thank you all for the helps and decks suggestion guys :)

Edit: one of the good things of keeping Canadian, I could play ANT, Canadian and UR delver :tongue:, even RUG Countertop but not playing Jace :(
And even selling the karakas would be awesome. Ißve seen ANT lists running 1 in the sideboard, but without any ways of searching it doesn´t seem probably playing it against Omni-Show/Reanimator/Show and tell decks.