[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[sawatarix]

My tournament report is up: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?29700-*From-Kyoto-to-Lille-GP-17th-with-ANT*&p=892879#post892879

Check it out ladies and gents !

[Narcind]

Nice reports, both of you! I have a question though nevilshute, why the decision to replace your bobs with more pyromancers for the main event?

[nevilshute]

Nice reports, both of you! I have a question though nevilshute, why the decision to replace your bobs with more pyromancers for the main event?

Ugh that's a tough one as I was not really overly pleased by either. I guess I see it this way: against Miracles Dark Confidant just attempts to make your existing plan A better while Young Pyromancer gives you a plan B. Neither are really overly usable in other matchups with a few exceptions.

At the end of the day I made a judgement call having played against Miracles twice during the trials on Friday and Bob had just bugged me. I hate how we can't really attack with him reasonably into Snapcaster/Clique mana and as such we don't get to put preasure on their life total.

[bjholmes3]

Hey guys, guide author here! I've been gone for quite some time, and I apologize if the guide is no longer relevant. Please let me know what questions, comments, concerns, and suggestions you may have pertaining to it! I'm getting back into MTG, and I want this to be up to date.

[Darkness]

Going into an unknown Meta after a year break from paper Legacy. I'm going to play Kai's list same 75 as he played GP Lille

1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Ritual
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
3 Preordain
1 Rain of Filth
1 Tendrils of Agony

1 Swamp
2 Flooded Strand
1 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island


Sideboard
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Dark Confidant
2 Dread of Night
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Xantid Swarm


I want to fit in 2nd tendrils in the 75 but I'm not sure what to cut out and where. I was considering the Bob's but they have been over performing for me on Mtgo in the Miracles matchup. Any suggestions would be appreciated. The next event I will be playing in will be an SCG IQ, in White Plains NY, which is on the outskirts of NYC. If anyone is familiar with the Meta and knows what to expect advise would be appreciated.

[sawatarix]

Well, I do not play either Flooded Strand nor Bloodstained Mire.

If Bob does a good job for you that's fine.
Normally it should die on the spot against miracles, even post board.

Are you also joining SCG Legacy in DC next month?

[arj]

Why do people play two past in flames?

[Jonathan Alexander]

Why do people play two past in flames?

Do you mean two as in more than one or two as in less than four?

[arj]

As in more than one :?

[Jonathan Alexander]

The card is absurdly busted. It can easily draw you ten cards, has built-in protection, allows for very clean kills, puts no limitations on your deck other than "play good cards" and no real deck has sufficient disruption to shut it down preboard.

[Darkness]

Well, I do not play either Flooded Strand nor Bloodstained Mire.

If Bob does a good job for you that's fine.
Normally it should die on the spot against miracles, even post board.

Are you also joining SCG Legacy in DC next month?

I would love to but have work, I will be attending the SCG NJ non invitational events and the Open in NJ I think in November

[Lemnear]

Slightly off topic, but I still want to leave this here for you to read in your coffee break or at your way to work:

GP Lille Report (http://www.theepicstorm.com/heart-of-the-storm-grand-prix-lille-aftermath/)

Have a nice week!

[OlegtheSuper]

i'm very new to ANT and i need help. Please tell me what do you usualy sb out vs
1)miraclse
2)D&T
3)Delver deck
4)vs non-blue midrange
5)vs MUD

i'm at classic list with 1 ad-pif-toa-sensei-rain

thank you very much!

[Jonathan Alexander]

I know this has been discussed before and I had a little spare time (and a point to prove), so I wrote a short article on cantrip order:
https://theweeklywars.wordpress.com/2015/07/14/cantrip-math/

[deucegg]

has anyone tested 4 preordains? if yes, how did it feel compared to the more 'traditional' 2-3 preordain?
also, are people still playing grim tutor?

[Final Fortune]

has anyone tested 4 preordains? if yes, how did it feel compared to the more 'traditional' 2-3 preordain?
also, are people still playing grim tutor?

Sure, sometimes it's awesome and other times you spend all of your mana cantripping into other cantrips, you can find older lists from 2013 with 12 cantrips and 2 Islands in the thread. I still like those Pre-Ordain lists more than the ones with a 2nd Past in Flames, Rain of Filth etc.

[Lans89]

Jamie played 4 Preordain to 12th place in Lille... He never liked it, but now chose for consistency and it payed out :)!

I don't see Grim Tutor as much as before :O People prefer lists with 4 Preordain or lists with 2 Past in Flames and/or more Tendrills. Now that Dark Petition is out, it might even disappear compeltely.

[Sloshthedark]

My tournament report should be in the forum in +/- 8 hours

sorry it took so long, I had it in that 8 hours but felt like it would be better to be revisited once which took a week

GP Lille 2015 - 10th/1573, Storm - Better Lucky Than Good (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?29715-GP-Lille-2015-10th-1573-Storm)

[Lans89]

sorry it took so long, I had it in that 8 hours but felt like it would be better to be revisited once which took a week

GP Lille 2015 - 10th/1573, Storm - Better Lucky Than Good (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?29715-GP-Lille-2015-10th-1573-Storm)

As your opponent in round 6 I say 'nice title' ;)! Thanks for your report, I was waiting for it!

Show and Tell --> Omniscience: draw, draw, draw, draw, ponder --> probe --> preordain (bottom bottom draw) --> nothing and loose with Cunning Wish on top. It was something like that, 10 cards deep :'( I finished 6-3. Also lost to Merfolk with Omniscience 3 turns in play game 3. Together with the trial final on friday, game 3 Omniscience 4 turns in play, I felt super bad about my unlucky draws ^^ But I could say I only got 'destroyed' one round troughout the weekend :rolleyes:

EDIT: I've read all now :)! Had to do it piece by piece at work, hehe.. Great report! I love it when people can go a little more in detail, and you deliver! Sad to read about round 14 part 3... Spectators were not able to walk everywhere on day 2.. All but the top tables.. That was weird! I know it can distract too much :(! But maybe the Venser thing in the second game will soothe what happend to you a little ;)! I've read some funny stuff! Like the guy who picked up his cards and sided out FoW :cool:. I felt real bad about our game 3, it summed up as a DTT + Preordain that didn't get there :eyebrow:, but you need to have a little luck to come that far in such a big tournament. You deserve it as a dedicated storm player, congratz with the finish :D! Maybe we'll play again at MKM in Prague =)

[Jonathan Alexander]

So opening hands are something that's discussed a lot, and for Storm, I actually find it very useful because unlike most decks, you can go deeper than just keep vs. mulligan. They are often brought up here, but I tend to feel discouraged to discuss them because the information gets lost so quickly. Therefore I want to take a look at a couple hands you guys think are interesting to discuss and post my opinions on my blog. Obviously, I can generate hands myself, but what I find interesting probably differs from what most other people find interesting, so I'm looking for your input. Also, feel free to share your own opinion on those hands.

I would prefer hands from lists using either 1 Ad Nauseam, 1 Past in Flames & 2 Tendrils or 1 Empty the Warrens, 2 Past in Flames, 2 Tendrils because those are the most versatile. Also, I think it might be interesting to feature multiple hands that can generate turn one kills to look at when to go for it and when to wait.

Thanks for your help!

[Tom T]

So opening hands are something that's discussed a lot, and for Storm, I actually find it very useful because unlike most decks, you can go deeper than just keep vs. mulligan. They are often brought up here, but I tend to feel discouraged to discuss them because the information gets lost so quickly. Therefore I want to take a look at a couple hands you guys think are interesting to discuss and post my opinions on my blog. Obviously, I can generate hands myself, but what I find interesting probably differs from what most other people find interesting, so I'm looking for your input. Also, feel free to share your own opinion on those hands.

I would prefer hands from lists using either 1 Ad Nauseam, 1 Past in Flames & 2 Tendrils or 1 Empty the Warrens, 2 Past in Flames, 2 Tendrils because those are the most versatile. Also, I think it might be interesting to feature multiple hands that can generate turn one kills to look at when to go for it and when to wait.

Thanks for your help!

What would be interesting is defining what the probability is you're against a deck containing Force of Will followed by some conditional T1 hands.

I just discussed two opening hands with a friend.
assumptions: storm is on the play; 75% of the decks contain 4x FoW; there's a 40% chance the opponent has one in his opening hand; you play 4 GP, 4 LP and 15 land.

Hand1: GP, DR, DR, IT, LED, AN, ToA

->26,6% of winning T1

Hand2: GP, GP, DR, DR, IT, LED, AN

->42,7% of winning T1

What do you think?

~Tom

[Jonathan Alexander]

I don't think it's a good idea to operate on numbers like that. They're basically only correct in the first round of a tournament without byes where your opponent has zero information about you and no reason to keep or mull hands based on turn zero/one interaction in the dark. Personally I make decisions like that based on the way I judge my opponent and I tend to try and squeeze information out of them pretty hard, at least when I'm playing seriously. Further, right now, the winning metagame is so much more blue heavy than the overall metagame. These numbers change a lot based on current tournament record, previous interactions between players, the metagame your opponent has experienced (in regards to what they're looking for in a hand) and regional metagames in general.
Still, the second hand you provided looks good, care to share the list you're using?

By the way, 15 land is most likely not correct, because you're not looking for land in general but a black source specifically. This means you're usually looking for one out of sixteen cards (12 lands, 4 Petals).

[Tom T]

I don't think it's a good idea to operate on numbers like that. They're basically only correct in the first round of a tournament without byes where your opponent has zero information about you and no reason to keep or mull hands based on turn zero/one interaction in the dark. Personally I make decisions like that based on the way I judge my opponent and I tend to try and squeeze information out of them pretty hard, at least when I'm playing seriously. Further, right now, the winning metagame is so much more blue heavy than the overall metagame. These numbers change a lot based on current tournament record, previous interactions between players, the metagame your opponent has experienced (in regards to what they're looking for in a hand) and regional metagames in general.
Still, the second hand you provided looks good, care to share the list you're using?

By the way, 15 land is most likely not correct, because you're not looking for land in general but a black source specifically. This means you're usually looking for one out of sixteen cards (12 lands, 4 Petals).

My list:

Non-FullHouse stock ANT (55 + 5 flex)
Lands: 4 Delta, 3 Rainforest, 1 Mire, 2 Sea, 1 Volcanic, 1 Tropical, 1 Bayou, 1 Island, 1 Swamp
Accelerants: 4 DR, 3 CR, 1 RoF, 4 LP, 4 LED
Cantrips: 4 BS, 4 Ponder, 4 GP, 2 Preordain, 1 SDT
Discard: 4 CT, 3 Duress
Business: 4 IT, 1 ToA, 1 PiF, 1 AN

(I'm still on the fence about playing double PiF or double ToA)

2nd hand: GP, GP, DR, DR, LED, IT, AN

Outs: (12+4)/51
T1 kill chance: 1-(35/51)*(34/50) = 53%

[ApolloGod]

I just started playing ANT again on MTGO (I took a break from legacy for about a year.) I have some thoughts about SB choices. I currently run 4x Abrupt Decay and 2x Xantid swarm, in addition to some other flex slots (Dread of Night, etc.) I've played dozens of matches in Tournament Practice, and I haven't brought in Xantid swarm in any matches (not once!)

I know that sounds odd, but I've had tremendous success with the discard package and the 4x Abrupt Decay as my form of disruption. My opponents have consisted of the usual: Miracles, D&T, OmniTell, Elves, etc. I don't know too much about paper magic, but the MTGO Meta is filled with Swords to Plowshares, Bolts, bounce, etc. Xantid would never survive to be useful. On the other hand, in every single match (with the exception of maybe 1 or 2 games), I've brought in at least 3 Abrupt Decay, usually 4. The card is an all-star. In combination with the heavy discard package, I'm not having too much trouble against hate.

I noticed in a recent GP Lille tournament report that a storm player ran Pyroblast in the SB. That card is alluring, especially against a blue-heavy meta. Does anybody have any further insight into sideboard choices? The meta (online) doesn't seem to support me running Xantid currently.

[nevilshute]

I just started playing ANT again on MTGO (I took a break from legacy for about a year.) I have some thoughts about SB choices. I currently run 4x Abrupt Decay and 2x Xantid swarm, in addition to some other flex slots (Dread of Night, etc.) I've played dozens of matches in Tournament Practice, and I haven't brought in Xantid swarm in any matches (not once!)

I know that sounds odd, but I've had tremendous success with the discard package and the 4x Abrupt Decay as my form of disruption. My opponents have consisted of the usual: Miracles, D&T, OmniTell, Elves, etc. I don't know too much about paper magic, but the MTGO Meta is filled with Swords to Plowshares, Bolts, bounce, etc. Xantid would never survive to be useful. On the other hand, in every single match (with the exception of maybe 1 or 2 games), I've brought in at least 3 Abrupt Decay, usually 4. The card is an all-star. In combination with the heavy discard package, I'm not having too much trouble against hate.

I noticed in a recent GP Lille tournament report that a storm player ran Pyroblast in the SB. That card is alluring, especially against a blue-heavy meta. Does anybody have any further insight into sideboard choices? The meta (online) doesn't seem to support me running Xantid currently.

You say that you've faced Omnitell but have not once brought in XS? That seems wrong. XS is there, in my opinion, almost exclusively to be brought in against Show and Tell based combo.

XS wrecks Omni. And sure, they could CWish for a bolt but that takes time and ressources that they aren't using to kill you or protect them selves from getting killed. If I expect Show and Tell to be a deck to beat I'm always going to be packing 2-3 swarms.

[OlegtheSuper]

I know this has been discussed before and I had a little spare time (and a point to prove), so I wrote a short article on cantrip order:
https://theweeklywars.wordpress.com/2015/07/14/cantrip-math/

There are mistakes in math

[Jonathan Alexander]

There are mistakes in math

There is one mistake, which I am working on fixing. Basically, it's not true that Preordain digs better than Ponder, but that has no effect on the order you should cast your cantrips in. The revised article should be up in a couple hours.

[OlegtheSuper]

There is one mistake, which I am working on fixing. Basically, it's not true that Preordain digs better than Ponder, but that has no effect on the order you should cast your cantrips in. The revised article should be up in a couple hours.

Great, thank you!

[Jonathan Alexander]

Short update. The order in which cantrips should be used is still fixed for any combination of two cantrips: Preordain should be cast before Ponder, Ponder should be cast before Brainstorm. With the exception of double Brainstorm, fetchlands should be cracked before the first cantrip (because that's the only scenario where shuffling matters). Similarly, Gitaxian Probe should also be cast before Brainstorm and Ponder and it doesn't make a difference whether it's cast before or after Preordain.

The problem is that cantrip power is not fixed. There are three tiers of two-cantrip combinations:

First tier:
Ponder + Ponder & Preordain + Ponder

Second tier:
Ponder + Brainstorm/Preordain & Preordain + Preordain/Ponder

Third tier:
Brainstorm + Brainstorm

These tiers are unaffected by fetchlands, i.e. Brainstorm + Brainstorm is the worst combination with or without a fetchland. I am currently working on spreadsheets that show order within the tiers by calculating all values for 1 ≤ y ≤ 45 and 0 ≤ x ≤ 55. I have also rewritten my article to include a section for each of the combinations of two cantrips, but I have not updated it yet because I would like to include the spreadsheets when I do so.

[SFL-Brainstorm]

Has anyone been testing Dark Petition in the "Grinding Station" style of storm? It seems that this is where it fits best, and was wondering if anyone has had success testing it.

[Miscanthus]

Has anyone been testing Dark Petition in the "Grinding Station" style of storm? It seems that this is where it fits best, and was wondering if anyone has had success testing it.

I have been testing it out a bit. So far it has been quite underwhelming.
As some on this thread have predicted, the five mana to start is a LOT...and tends to leave you much more vulnerable to stuff like Daze and Spell Pierce (which we could often play around with cantrips, Grim Tutor, etc.).

I also found that I greatly missed the ability to use cantrips/Grim Tutor to find a discard spell/last piece of acceleration/key sideboard card I needed prior going off. Again as some on this thread have predicted, Dark Petition is pretty horrible in this role, which in effect makes the deck noticeably less consistent.

In short, as of this writing I don't think Dark Petition has a home in ANT.

[d0nkey]

Short update. The order in which cantrips should be used is still fixed for any combination of two cantrips: Preordain should be cast before Ponder, Ponder should be cast before Brainstorm. With the exception of double Brainstorm, fetchlands should be cracked before the first cantrip (because that's the only scenario where shuffling matters). Similarly, Gitaxian Probe should also be cast before Brainstorm and Ponder and it doesn't make a difference whether it's cast before or after Preordain.

The problem is that cantrip power is not fixed. There are three tiers of two-cantrip combinations:

First tier:
Ponder + Ponder & Preordain + Ponder

Second tier:
Ponder + Brainstorm/Preordain & Preordain + Preordain/Ponder

Third tier:
Brainstorm + Brainstorm

These tiers are unaffected by fetchlands, i.e. Brainstorm + Brainstorm is the worst combination with or without a fetchland. I am currently working on spreadsheets that show order within the tiers by calculating all values for 1 ≤ y ≤ 45 and 0 ≤ x ≤ 55. I have also rewritten my article to include a section for each of the combinations of two cantrips, but I have not updated it yet because I would like to include the spreadsheets when I do so.


I'm not sure I agree with casting Gitaxian Probe before Brainstorm as an absolute. The 'float business + LED and probe into it' line has a lot of value.

[ApolloGod]

You say that you've faced Omnitell but have not once brought in XS? That seems wrong. XS is there, in my opinion, almost exclusively to be brought in against Show and Tell based combo.

XS wrecks Omni. And sure, they could CWish for a bolt but that takes time and ressources that they aren't using to kill you or protect them selves from getting killed. If I expect Show and Tell to be a deck to beat I'm always going to be packing 2-3 swarms.

OmniTell decks online are structured like this: Some of them run bolt/sudden shock main deck. Nearly all of them run some combination of Bolt, Sudden Shock, Pyroclasm in the sideboard. The decks online running all three burn varieties do so in a 2/2/2 split. If I bring in Xantid (to combat countermagic during my combo turn,) they've brought in ample answers to Xantid. I'm just experimenting with other possible sideboard cards. Pyroblast was an interesting idea from GP Lille. I've also considered Autumn's Veil.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I'm not sure I agree with casting Gitaxian Probe before Brainstorm as an absolute. The 'float business + LED and probe into it' line has a lot of value.

The only point of the article is to showcase how to optimise raw digging power, otherwise you are right, yes. I probably should have mentioned that in my post as well.

In other news, I have fixed my article and included the spreadsheet for fetch, Preordain, Ponder vs. fetch, Ponder, Ponder. https://theweeklywars.wordpress.com/2015/07/14/cantrip-math/

[Tom T]

I have been testing it out a bit. So far it has been quite underwhelming.
As some on this thread have predicted, the five mana to start is a LOT...and tends to leave you much more vulnerable to stuff like Daze and Spell Pierce (which we could often play around with cantrips, Grim Tutor, etc.).

I also found that I greatly missed the ability to use cantrips/Grim Tutor to find a discard spell/last piece of acceleration/key sideboard card I needed prior going off. Again as some on this thread have predicted, Dark Petition is pretty horrible in this role, which in effect makes the deck noticeably less consistent.

In short, as of this writing I don't think Dark Petition has a home in ANT.

My friend Jesper and I were discussing Grim Tutor vs. Dark Petition and the conclusion was;
"Grim Tutor is a tutor and Dark Petition is for comboing out."

[Tom T]

OmniTell decks online are structured like this: Some of them run bolt/sudden shock main deck. Nearly all of them run some combination of Bolt, Sudden Shock, Pyroclasm in the sideboard. The decks online running all three burn varieties do so in a 2/2/2 split. If I bring in Xantid (to combat countermagic during my combo turn,) they've brought in ample answers to Xantid. I'm just experimenting with other possible sideboard cards. Pyroblast was an interesting idea from GP Lille. I've also considered Autumn's Veil.

Try Extirpate or Slaughter Pact.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Try Extirpate or Slaughter Pact.

I think you mean Slaughter Games.

[Togores]

Today I played legacy event. With nevilshute deck -1 grim +1 preordain.
Sb:
2 slaughter games to test them. i would have liked flusterstorm much more. Its better vs elves, and dredge.
2 hurkil. Mud and chalice asholes. Im not sure on loam. Because they play also tegg and hatebers.
3 decay
2 masacre
1 ant
1 burning wish
2 xantid. Still like 3 its just an awesome card when its good.
2 chain
R1 loam
G1 he has ozze t1 drs t2 i make him thing im on omni and he activates in his turn. So i can pif loop. But without his missplay was impossible.
G2 he has t2 canonist. i decay it and he gets t4 tegg. I never find and answer and loose.
G3 he has chalice t1 tegg turn 2 and 2 wastelands...

R2 bye

R3 infect.
G1 i gitaxian and im dead in 2 turns. I know he has fow and i force him to make it to a cabal. And then I wil.
G2 i strip his hand and he has pierce. I probe, brainstorm, play xantid and sacrifice for therapy. Then I natural storm him.

R4 dredge I have 2 leds and infernal. But emtpy dosnt get there and pif also not because I have no rituals. i end up dead.
G2 i just brainstorm into a t1 pif loop.
G3 he therapys t2 getting 2 infenral. Then a ritual and them rain of filth. I die. Even to his no clock but im missing mana.

R5 elves.
G1 i miss bussines in front of his deathrite but have 2 lands 2 dark ritual 2 led.
G2 i combo after his mull to 6 therapy his drs t1
G3 i nauseam t3 and pasa turn at 3 life facing his null rod and and a fetch + simbiote. So gg next turn.

Fluster was missed. Not having nauseam g1 sucks.
Emtpy was never good.
May be it depends on my meta. With only team america delver and not lots of blue decks. But lots of decks with chalices and so shitt.
Also only having one green land sucks. i was near to die vs infect because I could not search up bayou.

I will keep testing to see what I play in toulouse mkm next week.

[Tom T]

I think you mean Slaughter Games.

Yes, that's what I meant. My bad.


Today I played legacy event. With nevilshute deck -1 grim +1 preordain.
Sb:
2 slaughter games to test them. i would have liked flusterstorm much more. Its better vs elves, and dredge.
2 hurkil. Mud and chalice asholes. Im not sure on loam. Because they play also tegg and hatebers.
3 decay
2 masacre
1 ant
1 burning wish
2 xantid. Still like 3 its just an awesome card when its good.
2 chain
R1 loam
G1 he has ozze t1 drs t2 i make him thing im on omni and he activates in his turn. So i can pif loop. But without his missplay was impossible.
G2 he has t2 canonist. i decay it and he gets t4 tegg. I never find and answer and loose.
G3 he has chalice t1 tegg turn 2 and 2 wastelands...

R2 bye

R3 infect.
G1 i gitaxian and im dead in 2 turns. I know he has fow and i force him to make it to a cabal. And then I wil.
G2 i strip his hand and he has pierce. I probe, brainstorm, play xantid and sacrifice for therapy. Then I natural storm him.

R4 dredge I have 2 leds and infernal. But emtpy dosnt get there and pif also not because I have no rituals. i end up dead.
G2 i just brainstorm into a t1 pif loop.
G3 he therapys t2 getting 2 infenral. Then a ritual and them rain of filth. I die. Even to his no clock but im missing mana.

R5 elves.
G1 i miss bussines in front of his deathrite but have 2 lands 2 dark ritual 2 led.
G2 i combo after his mull to 6 therapy his drs t1
G3 i nauseam t3 and pasa turn at 3 life facing his null rod and and a fetch + simbiote. So gg next turn.

Fluster was missed. Not having nauseam g1 sucks.
Emtpy was never good.
May be it depends on my meta. With only team america delver and not lots of blue decks. But lots of decks with chalices and so shitt.
Also only having one green land sucks. i was near to die vs infect because I could not search up bayou.

I will keep testing to see what I play in toulouse mkm next week.

I think boarding in Flusterstorms against Elves or Dredge is diluding your deck unnecessarily. It's only situationally better than discard in the former and for the latter I don’t think I would really miss them.

[Togores]

I think on the draw therapy is better than some numer of therapys. Its just a good defense vs oppneners therapys. And also vs elves. Because they overload on disruption. And g2 you choke his mana on glimpse, discard and order. Because its usual that you discard some something and they still have bussines. Today I lead both times eith duress vs elves. And one game he had double glimpse. The other doble glimpse + order. Where a fluster is good and discard bad.

[Izor]

R1 loam
G1 he has ozze t1 drs t2 i make him thing im on omni and he activates in his turn. So i can pif loop. But without his missplay was impossible.

R4 dredge I have 2 leds and infernal. But emtpy dosnt get there and pif also not because I have no rituals. i end up dead.

Not having nauseam g1 sucks.

It really seems that having maindeck AN could have done a lot of work for you there. That's one of the reasons why I still don't like the AN-less lists. It's probably just a question of playstyle, but I kill with AN a lot and I think that a graveyard-independent kill is just a necessity in my local metagame. When my opponent plays a turn 1 DRS or drops a Cage/RiP post board I can just go Plan B instead of trying to fight an uphill battle all game.

[JamieW89]

Top-4 split a local today, without DP's as I don't have 'em yet.
R1: 4c Loam 1-2 (my friend betrayed me and played chalice.dec. t1 chalice on the play beats me g1, goblins beat him g2 by dodging two drawsteps with a lot of outs, goblins don't get there g3*)
R2: Grixis Control 2-1 (I got somewhat lucky because he kept a very shady hand in g3)
R3: BURG Delver 2-1 (I lose g2 by taking too long to finding a land, which, in turn, doesn't allow me to play around a lot. I have to go after my duress gets flustered and he has the force.)
R4: Omnitell 2-1 (Winning through FoW,FoW,Fluster,U,U,SnT,Emrakul by making him counter three things and going off next turn with PiF flashback, wouldn't have worked if he played perfectly though, g3 he kept a risky hand and brainstorm didn't deliver.)
R5: ANT scoop (He scooped me in as I was paired down, but he won 2-1 in the games we did play. He went t1 AdN in the first, fizzled and died to the ritual+tendrils in my hand, but then casually went t2 and t1 postboard).
SF: Grixis Delver Split (I was 1-0 up but probably losing g2 when our friend, who still needed to win for an invitational slot, lost in the other semi so we could go home. I won g1 because he played quite sloppy, and was probably losing g2 with a few lands and LEDs in play versus his 2 shamans, both hellbent after I wasn't able to dodge a blue card in a single drawstep.

*Was an interesting turn-1 ponder on the draw in g3 of the Loam match, I had DR,LED,IT,Land,Land,BS or so with a land on the battlefield and a Ponder on the stack showing Chain, Decay, Ponder. He had opened on land,mox,confidant and as such clearly had no proper hate, but will draw two cards next turn. If I put Chain,Decay,PN and keep I can make 12 goblins and bounce one of his dudes next turn (including a topdecked hatebear), if he draws chalice I can decay it in his next EoT with an answer for a follow-up topdeck in hand. However, if I keep I will be forced to go goblins the majority of the time to which he has at least 3 or 4 outs in his deck plus the ability to stabilize. If I shuffle the ponder I have a decent chance to PiF him out next turn (draw 5 cards from PN,draw & BS) but I do have to dodge his two draws or find another answer. What would you guys do?
a) Make 8 goblins t1 instead of casting Ponder.
b) Keep the Ponder and make 12 goblins next turn if he doesn't have a hatebear/chalice.
c) Keep the Ponder and cantrip more next turn if he doesn't have a hatebear/chalice.
d) Ship the Ponder and try to see as many cards as possible to win with PiF/Tutor Chain next turn.
e) A much better line that I missed.

In other news, everyone I know who's been testing Dark Petition is fairly disappointed with it. I haven't tested a single game with it yet, but it still seems surprising to me since the only real bad spots are connected to its anti-synergy with LED, and we've never considered Ad Nauseam unplayable because of that (and the same LED+cantrip tricks with with DP also).

[Jonathan Alexander]

Do you not have Ad Nauseam in your 75 at all? Seems bad to me to keep in Empty against Loam, with or without Ad Nauseam. I also don't like boarding Chain of Vapor against Chalice decks; did he have Leyline of Sanctity? Either way, I think you're supposed to shuffle the Ponder at that point. Depending on his exact list, Tendrils for twelve might even be better than Empty for six, considering he has Confidant in play.

In other news, for those of you who are too lazy to study my Preordain vs. Ponder spreadsheet, here's a short summary:


for a library of 54 cards or more, leading Preordain is better so long as x – y ≤ 5
for a library of 28-54 cards, leading Preordain is better so long as x – y ≤ 6
for a library of 20-27 cards, leading Preordain is better so long as x – y ≤ 7
for a library of 14-19 cards, leading Preordain is better so long as x – y ≤ 8
for a library of 13 cards, leading Preordain is better so long as x – y ≤ 9
for a library of 12 cards or less, leading Preordain is always better, except for x = 12 and y = 1 (where Preordain and Ponder lead to the same odds)


Further, I'm still interested in opening hands you'd like to see discussed. I already have a couple good ones from on here and facebook, but I wouldn't mind looking at some more.

[JamieW89]

Do you not have Ad Nauseam in your 75 at all? Seems bad to me to keep in Empty against Loam, with or without Ad Nauseam. I also don't like boarding Chain of Vapor against Chalice decks; did he have Leyline of Sanctity? Either way, I think you're supposed to shuffle the Ponder at that point. Depending on his exact list, Tendrils for twelve might even be better than Empty for six, considering he has Confidant in play.


I like Empty because it's the cheapest "kill" and going fast is nice against a deck with a bunch of hateful permanents, it's also insurance against their slaughter games. I board 1-2 chains for the Teeg, Canonists and Leyline of the Voids (and any other random permanents like Choke, Chalice0/2, random beaters sometimes).

I did end up shuffling the ponder. He drew and played chalice@1, I found a second infernal which I used to double LED. He then cast Liliana (having flipped lands twice to bob). I made 12 goblins into that. He dropped Knight and Shaman, traded off bob and then slaughter games'd my Tendrils managing to stabilize on time.

[Pelikanudo]

Had a great weekend, and nice to see so many storm players (Kai, Nevilshute, Slosh) do well.

My matchups in the main event:
Round-1: BUG Delver 2-1 W 1-0
Round-2: RUG Delver 2-0 W 2-0
Round-3: Miracles 2-1 W 3-0
Round-4: Miracles 2-1 W 4-0
Round-5: Grixis Delver 2-0 W 5-0
Round-6: Death & Taxes 2-1 W 6-0
Round-7: Grixis Delver 2-1 W 7-0
Round-8: 4c Loam 1-2 L 7-1
Round-9: 4c Delver 2-0 W 8-1

Round-10: Miracles 2-1 W 9-1
Round-11: BUG Delver 1-2 L 9-2
Round-12: Infect 0-2 L 9-3
Round-13: Miracles 2-0 W 10-3
Round-14: 4c Delver 2-1 W 11-3
Round-15: Burn 2-0 W 12-3

for 12th place due to sick breakers.

I thought about cutting the swarms beforehand, wish I did. Flusterstorm wasn't very useful, but it could have been with loads of omnitell (but omni didn't do that well) as well as some ANT players deep in day-2. Carpet was solid, and a second one might be sweet. Empty was insane against Miracles and Delver postboard, almost played 2-3 SB but opted not to last minute. Top was fine like always. Massacre was underused, but that means it was better than playing 3-4 Dreads. Hurkyl's was a good choice I think with quite a few chalice decks doing well.

I might write a small report later if I feel like it.
@ and Sawatrix
Hi well looking at these results Id like to know how did you side vs miracles and omnitell spefically.
Im aTES player and Im looking for ideas mainly vs miracles... The only thing I still have not tested is +2 K.G. .... The problem again I see is my side space....

I read all of you tournament reports at GP lille and wanted to say all of you you congratulations!!!

[KevinH]

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=87940

The day started off pretty good, my only loss early on was due to me punting (somehow I missed that one of my Infernal Tutors didn't have flashback, cost me the game that I already had 100% locked up). After going 5-1, I played against my buddy Jake Xu in the mirror. He had it, I didn't, then I proceeded to lose the next match to Elves (he drew all his sideboard cards and I had stone cold nothing.

Overall, as has been said before, ETW seems so unnecessary. I did cast it a few times, but they were games in which I would have won with a Tendrils anyways. Anyways, Grinding Station is sweet.

[KevinH]

Also, Surgical Extraction was sweet. Against Omnitell, I flusterstormed his first Show and Tell and extracted it. He ended up having to Cunning Wish for Release the Ants to deal me one damage each turn (I just Thoughtseized it and he had literally no win condition).

[festeringGAB]

what about Caleb Scherer list?
15th Place at SCG Legacy Premier IQ Chicago

it seems that dark petition work well :eek:

Spells (46)
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
3 Duress
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Dark Petition
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
Lands (14)
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Badlands
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Volcanic Island
Sideboard (15)
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Disfigure
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild
1 Tropical Island
75 Cards Total

[Jonathan Alexander]

My article on opening hands is now online: Storm Hands (https://theweeklywars.wordpress.com/2015/07/21/storm-hands/)
Thanks to everyone who suggested opening hands, either here or on facebook.

[Patrunkenphat7]

My article on opening hands is now online: Storm Hands (https://theweeklywars.wordpress.com/2015/07/21/storm-hands/)
Thanks to everyone who suggested opening hands, either here or on facebook.

Thanks for the article! I disagree with not Probing turn 1 with those hands with all the potential turn 1 plays. Building up for natural Tendrils is incredibly slow with those hands, and I think you are better off Brainstorming it away on turn 2 after Probing and likely Pondering on turn 1. The turn 1 Probe first is important because you could be playing against anything from Delver to MUD to Miracles to Death and Taxes, and your matchup definitely determines your turn 1 play. If you are playing against Miracles, for example, and see that your opponent has Brainstorm, Counterbalance, 2 lands, and some other irrelevant cards, you will likely want to snap off the Duress off a fetched Sea on his Counterbalance turn 1. Similarly if you Probe and your opponent has Ancient Tomb and Chalice, you obviously snap off the Duress there too. If your opponent shows Thalia and some Plains, you know that you need to Ponder and find some immediate action to go off turn 2. You would likely lose in all these scenarios if you simply play your land and pass the turn. These are just a few scenarios, and the possibilities in Legacy are almost endless and range anywhere from Turn 1 Dark Rit, Entomb, Exhume to playing 7 mana accelerants on the draw and a turn 1 Charbelcher.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to write this article; it is wrothwhile to have these discussions because this is such a complicated deck to play, and almost every Storm player is going to make some number of different choices over the course of most games which really speaks to the complexity of the deck and the number of choices available to the Storm pilot.

[JamieW89]

My take on the storm hands:
Hand-1,2: I probe here intending to cantrip on turn-1, most likely brainstorm on turn-2 and then re-evaluate. Opponents hand influences what we fetch and whether we Cantrip/Duress or not. Tendrils is probably getting shuffled back in most matchups.
Hand-3: Agreed, really nice hand.
Hand-4: Agreed, and pretty important I think. Hands without business/real cantrips are weak and this also misses black mana and discard.
Hand-5: Agreed, terrible hand.
Hand-6: Keep, and actually attempt to build a natural tendrils in this case.
Hand-7: I keep this every time. If we hit and the coast is clear we win. If the coast is not clear we don't lose since we find out by probing, and we'll still have a game. We do lose if we never hit a land, but that's okay.
Hand-8: I don't like no-landers that aren't going off any time soon. But for these kind of hands it's pretty good and most likely better than a mulligan. So agreed.
Hand-9: I go for the turn-1 AdN, as the hand doesn't have much potential to grow (no discard/cantrips/land drops). Fizzling, passing, and killing next turn is usually fine too. It does have issues with force though, but that's probably not getting better quickly. So agreed.
Hand-10: This is a real interesting hand to me. I definately agree on not going all-in blind here. We can go fetch->swamp->duress, with the intention of going turn-2. We could also fetch Sea (seems better than Island to me since we'd need another IMS with Island as well, and turn-1 waste isn't the worst if it turns off all non-fow counters for another turn. It also casts Duress.) and cast Preordain aiming to win turn-2 with the discard spell being cast then.

The main thing being casting the probes in the first two hands (just like Pat^). This is probably because I play ANT and you usually play Grinding Station.

[CabalTherapy]

My article on opening hands is now online: Storm Hands (https://theweeklywars.wordpress.com/2015/07/21/storm-hands/)
Thanks to everyone who suggested opening hands, either here or on facebook.

Solid stuff but way too many hands with Tendrils but I know that you're playing 300% more Agony than I am.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Solid stuff but way too many hands with Tendrils but I know that you're playing 300% more Agony than I am.

Actually, that's not on me. The only hands that came from me were #6 and #9. #6 is the hand from M4G1 of the daily wonderPreaux and I recorded. #9 is a from a tournament back in 2012.

Also, I think it's pretty interesting how we differ on casting or holding Probe. Everybody I asked who has experience with Grinding Station agrees on holding Probe, so I genuinely wonder if I am overestimating Tendrils or you guys are underestimating it. One thing I think is worth noting is that it's actually not that unlikely hands #1 & #2 produce turn two kills by holding Probe. Probably even more likely than some of the scenarios Pat has listed. Another thing is that I am not afraid of Thalia. I'm fairly sure I have won more games storming through Thalia than I lost to her.
With the way the Legacy metagame currently looks, most decks don't do anything relevant on turn one, even turn two is rare. The relevant stuff usually happens on turn three these days (Show and Tell, Counterbalance actually becomes more than Chalice, Grixis starts chaining Therapies).

[Patrunkenphat7]

So I want to apologize because I completely missed that you were on a Grinding Station list, sorry about that! That said I don't think I have enough experience to say what I would do in that type of list. I definitely stand by my play if I draw that hand with my ANT-ish list though.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Does it matter what list we're on though? I don't think it does for any of those hands, except for #10, which needs Ad Nauseam in the deck. Do you play a hand based on what you draw or based on how you filled the last three slots in your maindeck? Both the 1 Ad Nauseam, 2 Past in Flames, 1 Tendrils that Kai popularised, as well as my 1 Ad Nauseam, 1 Past in Flames, 2 Tendrils lits are only two cards different from the regular Grinding Station setup. The idea behind running multiple Tendrils is to draw it more often so you can plan for playing it from your hand. But if you already have it despite playing only one? You can still reliably play to set it up, because you don't need good odds to find it, as you already have it.

The current core of the deck is pretty much this:

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth / Cabal Ritual

1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou/Badlands
4 Misty Rainforest / Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

4 Cabal Therapy
1 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
2 Preordain / Sensei's Divining Top split
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize / Duress

Then the remaining three slots are filled with combinations of Ad Nauseam, Empty the Warrens, Past in Flames, Tendrils of Agony, Preordain & Grim Tutor. If you draw any of those cards with any of the natural Tendrils hands, it doesn't even matter which one it is. It will either be a dead draw and be one of the cards shuffled back with Brainstorm, or you draw it along a combination which lets you cast it, but that basically means the Tendrils already becomes lethal, or, in the case of Empty, it rewards the same line of play.

[Patrunkenphat7]

I generally understand "Grinding Station" as several Tendrils and several PiF with the intent to draw the Tendrils and PiF some mana to kill. I would consider what you are describing to be very close to ANT, and I would stick to my play of probing turn 1.

I think those hands bring up an interesting question about the list because I really don't feel like tendrils is strong in those openers, and you are running more copies with the intent to draw it more often presumably. I love multiple PiF though, as that is a card that would be nice to have in your opener against a variety of decks if you put that in the place of the tendrils.

[Sloshthedark]

My take on the storm hands:
Hand-1,2: I probe here intending to cantrip on turn-1, most likely brainstorm on turn-2 and then re-evaluate. Opponents hand influences what we fetch and whether we Cantrip/Duress or not. Tendrils is probably getting shuffled back in most matchups.
Hand-3: Agreed, really nice hand.
Hand-4: Agreed, and pretty important I think. Hands without business/real cantrips are weak and this also misses black mana and discard.
Hand-5: Agreed, terrible hand.
Hand-6: Keep, and actually attempt to build a natural tendrils in this case.
Hand-7: I keep this every time. If we hit and the coast is clear we win. If the coast is not clear we don't lose since we find out by probing, and we'll still have a game. We do lose if we never hit a land, but that's okay.
Hand-8: I don't like no-landers that aren't going off any time soon. But for these kind of hands it's pretty good and most likely better than a mulligan. So agreed.
Hand-9: I go for the turn-1 AdN, as the hand doesn't have much potential to grow (no discard/cantrips/land drops). Fizzling, passing, and killing next turn is usually fine too. It does have issues with force though, but that's probably not getting better quickly. So agreed.
Hand-10: This is a real interesting hand to me. I definately agree on not going all-in blind here. We can go fetch->swamp->duress, with the intention of going turn-2. We could also fetch Sea (seems better than Island to me since we'd need another IMS with Island as well, and turn-1 waste isn't the worst if it turns off all non-fow counters for another turn. It also casts Duress.) and cast Preordain aiming to win turn-2 with the discard spell being cast then.

The main thing being casting the probes in the first two hands (just like Pat^). This is probably because I play ANT and you usually play Grinding Station.

1,2,3 Agree with Jamie, there is what I think is different with Grinding Station
4, would not mulligan, cast a GP, play a land, pass if not a cantrip, LP or IT, otherwise GP again if no obstacles revealed
5, don't love it but keep if playing multiple ToA (list relevant for me there)
6, keep, would start with GP as drawing an Island is a significant progress, CT might be good in some situations, IT would be great if playing EtW (list relevant for me there)
7, keep
8, mull, would consider keeping on draw if I knew what I'm up against (would be really interesting if Preordain was a Brainstorm instead)
9, agreed
10, Sea -> Preordain, Sea -> Ritual if playing EtW (list relevant for me there)

[Jonathan Alexander]

8, mull, would consider keeping on draw if I knew what I'm up against (would be really interesting if Preordain was a Brainstorm instead)


I was going to ask if you ever mull any hand, but this suprised me even more than keeping the other hands. What makes you mull this and why is it different with Preordain over Brainstorm?


10, Sea -> Preordain, Sea -> Ritual if playing EtW (list relevant for me there)

You feel like turn one goblins plus discard is better than turn two Past in Flames with discard? Interesting.


Also, I still feel I haven't gotten an explanation why hands #1&2 are dependant on the deck list. I don't see how it matters if I run it with the intent to draw it or not when I have already drawn it. It doesn't matter why it is there, it matters what it does, and in my eyes you are throwing away a win condition in order to look for a win condition, which just doesn't make sense. It's like shuffling away Nimble Mongoose to search for Delver when you already have threshold.

[JamieW89]

Also, I still feel I haven't gotten an explanation why hands #1&2 are dependant on the deck list. I don't see how it matters if I run it with the intent to draw it or not when I have already drawn it. It doesn't matter why it is there, it matters what it does, and in my eyes you are throwing away a win condition in order to look for a win condition, which just doesn't make sense. It's like shuffling away Nimble Mongoose to search for Delver when you already have threshold.

For me the more salient issue is not using a different decklist (you explained it well above, they're quite similar for this hand), but rather our experiences as pilots of different decks. You, more used to natural tendrils approaches, might be more inclined to overvalue a Tendrils in hand. In contrast, most other posters, who often pilot more traditional ANT or hybrid lists, tend to be programmed to see Tendrils as a bad card and try to get rid of it and as such might well undervalue the card and natural lines.

Without the Brainstorm I'd be more interested in keeping the probe and finding a tendrils line though, and in this scenario we might still go for it depending on our turn-1 and 2 cantrips/draws (e.g. if we find a PiF we can keep the tendrils and don't need to find a tutor) and matchup.

[Jonathan Alexander]

While this is the very answer I was hoping not to get, I'll have to thank you for your time. I might do some goldfishing with this hand to figure out which play leads to faster kills, just because.

In other news, this week, LSV's "What's the Play" is a scenario with Storm: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/whats-the-play-legacy-edition/
I'm inclined to think you have no business winning that game, but eh.

[Sloshthedark]

I was going to ask if you ever mull any hand, but this suprised me even more than keeping the other hands. What makes you mull this and why is it different with Preordain over Brainstorm?



You feel like turn one goblins plus discard is better than turn two Past in Flames with discard? Interesting.


Also, I still feel I haven't gotten an explanation why hands #1&2 are dependant on the deck list. I don't see how it matters if I run it with the intent to draw it or not when I have already drawn it. It doesn't matter why it is there, it matters what it does, and in my eyes you are throwing away a win condition in order to look for a win condition, which just doesn't make sense. It's like shuffling away Nimble Mongoose to search for Delver when you already have threshold.


I don't mulligan unless I have to - hand is nonsense in the MU or unresonable nonlander (that's why/how I goldfish keeping every hand as you could see some time back)... Brainstorm - it's different because I'd keep that sometimes - it's a mull 6 with 11 card selection most of which are already great (It probably does not make sense mathematicaly)

True, do you think T2 PiF is more probable to succeed given the number of cards that interact? with EtW there is only FoW, Terminus and combo something - you have discard for that and I'd do that not having the discard too

I think Jamie gave a good explanation, I have a difficulty with Grinding station in the awkward times I have to respect additional ToA and GP/cantrips in hand, that is a mode I enter in certain situations not on T1 as a no.1. plan because of having ToA, it's the same like playing towards Ad Nauseam you have in an opener mindlessly... I think it's better to keep spinning the wheels than holding the Probe majority of time, if not played T1 I'd play it 100% before the T2 Brainstorm, which you might not even play if you just passed, for me those hands suggest T2/3 goldfish, for you a grind =)




In other news, this week, LSV's "What's the Play" is a scenario with Storm: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/whats-the-play-legacy-edition/
I'm inclined to think you have no business winning that game, but eh.


lol at the list, given the info - I'd Sdt Extract Sdt ... not that it matters, it's like predicting what happens in 2035

[CabalTherapy]

lol at the list, given the info - I'd Sdt Extract Sdt ... not that it matters, it's like predicting what happens in 2035

Apart from the SB (uber lol), the deck allows for easy Flooded Strand > Bayou > Ponder lines.

[nevilshute]

In other news, this week, LSV's "What's the Play" is a scenario with Storm: http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...egacy-edition/
I'm inclined to think you have no business winning that game, but eh.

Man I'm too distracted with questions over that sideboard. Why are we running a Blue Blast in the board? I might be missing something obvious but I can't really see a scenario where that's relevant. Blast PiF in the Mirror? Blast a Pyromancer? Blast a Burning Wish? Blast a Pyro/red blast? None of this feels remotely good.

Also, why are we running 3 Tormod's Crypt? There are other things. This feels relevant to me because I'm trying to figure out why we are boarding in Surgical Extraction against Miracles in the first place. I guess it's not strictly a bad place to be, but still...

Okay, so attempting to make the best of it, I think the follwing of the different options (all assuming that we want to use our Surgical Extraction immediately):

-Take Force of Will with Duress and then Extract it. This seems by far the least appealing option as we are letting our opponent make both Top and Counterbalance and we aren't getting any additional cards out of their hands. Verdict: definitely not.

-Take Counterbalance with Duress and Extract it. They can't force the surgical due to no blue card to pitch and we get rid of CB forever. Congratulations, we now have a dead Abrupt Decay in hand and they have a top next turn plus a force. They might still have relevant decay targets such as Meddling Mage or Ethersworn Canonist but it's not a given. I'd say this is a lot better than the previous scenario but it's still not really desirable. Verdict: probably not.

-Take a Top with Duress and then attempt to Extract it. No matter what happens from here, they will begin their first turn with 4 cards in hand. Casting Surgical on their Top will likely cause them to cast Force of Will pitching Counterbalance to protect their other two tops. If they do so then we are leaving with one less of both Force and CB, 2 less cards in hand and we have a decay in case they find another CB. They get to keep two tops (but we can't really stop that in any scenario) and will be able to dig, but will need to assemble both protection in the form of more counter magic, a clock and preferably also a new CB. This will take time, and yeah, we have the decay to answer at least their first CB/Hatebear.

There's also the chance that they let Surgical Extraction resolve. In this case we leave them with a 4 card mulligan of force, CB, 2x land plus they will never resolve a top making their CB quite a bit worse. Also, us having a decay and them not having top to dig with means there's a chance they'll never find CB#2 after we decay the first. Also, with us being on the play they won't be able to resolve their CB before our 2nd turn and we will at least get to cast our Ponder with no CB in play for annoying blind flips. Verdict: acceptable play.

[Jonathan Alexander]

This was my comment to the article:


First off, I think it would be good to know what you boarded out, although I don't think it makes much difference here. Further, I don't think you are winning this game at all plus I don't think you should cast Duress turn one. Anyway, my assessment of the situation:

If you take Top, that achieves nothing if you don't follow up with Surgical.
If you take Counterbalance, that turns off Force, but this way they only need to find a blue card in their next five cards to have it online again by turn two.
If you take Force, they are also without countermagic for two turns at most. Sure, you have Decay, but that costs two mana and you're already low on mana because you have no ritual effects.

The problem with letting them keep Top is that this list can never beat a Flusterstorm that's floated on top, because there's only one Tendrils (which they might or might not suspect, depends on whether they saw Ad Nauseam game one). The only way to cast two Tendrils is to cast a lethal Tendrils, get that Flusterstormed, then cast Past in Flames (likely on the flashback) and cast another Tendrils. By the time that's a possibility, they have probably found all the interaction in the world.
Another way to beat them floating Flusterstorm is by resetting their Library with Surgical in your combo turn, but as other posters have pointed out, this hand is super slow, so it's highly likely your opponent will find additional interaction by the time you get to go off. Also, your opponent has two Tops anyway, so if they cast bost, as they should, they could just draw the Flusterstorm with one Top and then let Surgical resolve.

I think you have to take Top, then cast Surgical, which they are about 100% to Force. (You're losing here anyway, might as well fish for the misplay, which is the most likely way they're going to lose this game). If they don't misplay, you are hoping to race them finding a Flusterstorm, which is still the best you can do here.

[nevilshute]

So, recorded another Daily Event with ANT/Grinding Station / Fullhouse Storm :smile:

My list was my GP list with some changes to the sideboard.

I faced:

Lands, Burning Wish Omni, Mentor Miracles and the mirror.

Hope you enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?action_edit=1&list=PLHk0w4Md8v4CsB3EZCKvRKM0LLnNMQToF

[Tav]

Getting ready for a 1k this weekend and then SCG DC in a few weeks, finding myself super torn on my 75

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Preordain
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
2 Past in Flames
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Tropical Island

SB:
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Massacre
1 Pyroclasm
1 Burning Wish
1 Ad Nauseam


Grim Tutor might have to be something else this weekend (mine is in the mail since I just had it altered), so I will probably try out a Dark Petition in its slot.

The sideboard is a mess and has some odd choices imo, mainly the Pyroclasm and the Burning Wish, but I hate the idea of siding in multiple Massacres in a matchup like DnT, it feels so counterproductive to be bringing in multiple 4 cmc spells when the whole reason Ad Nauseam is in the side is because of the 4 cmc cards that I am siding out in that matchup.

[Sloshthedark]

Apart from the SB (uber lol), the deck allows for easy Flooded Strand > Bayou > Ponder lines.

a list complimenting previous LSV storm vids


So, recorded another Daily Event with ANT/Grinding Station / Fullhouse Storm :smile:

My list was my GP list with some changes to the sideboard.

I faced:

Lands, Burning Wish Omni, Mentor Miracles and the mirror.

Hope you enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?action_edit=1&list=PLHk0w4Md8v4CsB3EZCKvRKM0LLnNMQToF

Thanks for the vids, I often do not have enough time to watch them on time/properly comment, but sure it gets appreciated, so thanks again :smile:

one has to love the M4G2...
would have played quite different against Miracles G2

[JDK]

Hope you enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?action_edit=1&list=PLHk0w4Md8v4CsB3EZCKvRKM0LLnNMQToF

I like that you are offering your thought processes (thanks!), but it was tedious sometimes.

M4G1 when he played Ad Nauseam you were already dead when he flipped the Lotus Petal but you say that you are not dead yet and he continues to flip. He had storm 8 with the Ad Nauseam, B in his pool. He flips a Dark Ritual (storm 9, BBB), Tendrils and a Petal (storm 11, BBBX) => dead. Or did I miss something?
M4G2 with two turn 1 kills, lol.

[Lans89]

I've had some fun with storm today! Last time I played the finals with Deathblade and I've made use of some DTT decks lately (love to cast that card). 6-3 no byes with Omnitel at the GP, with that awful game 3 vs stormtrooper Slosh :). But I always try to play something different in the monthly's. JamieW89 and another storm guy were not participating today, so I decided to dust of my Tendrills. I tested some lists with 2 DP first, but wasn't satisfied for now. I then decided to try out a 'grinding station' type of list, very similar to what some of you guys are playing:

Maindeck
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Preordain

2 Past in Flames
2 Tendrills of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens

4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Swamp
1 Island

Sideboard
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Surgical Extracion
2 Flusterstorm
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Massacre
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Abrupt Decay

Round 1: Elves
Game 1: I loose the die roll and mull a no lander to a mediocre 6. One turn before I was able to win I saw 2x No with my Duress, so we had to move to game 2.
+1 Ad nauseam +2 Chain of Vapor +2 Flusterstorm (I know some of you don't like fluster, but I stopped a lot of hate & wincons through time ^^)
-1 Empty -1 PiF -1 Tendrills -1 Rain of Filth -1 Swamp (not sure)
Game 2: There was a turn where I played a land and was able to Ad Nauseam using a petal. Or I could play Duress (1 unknown card), or pass with Petal in play and Ad Nauseam eot or in response to discard. What would you do? I tend to play safe so chose to play Duress, which saw a fetch. He didn't topdeck and I won the turn after.
Game 3: I think I mulled again and had a win with Ad Nauseam from 14, already had LED and floating mana.
2-1 --> 1-0 and happy to switch to normal ANT postboard

Round 2: BUG Delver with Stifle AND Hymn
Game 1: I loose the die roll and mulligan.. The game goes long. He has 5 cards in hand, I Therapy and he Forces pitching Daze. Seeing Delver cast from Sea, I think I should have continued winning.. The turn after I even had a line with a PiF Flashback insurance. But I'm the safe chicken and passed twice, Bayou + Hymn took my Infernal and LED. I was able to make some Goblins, but was too late. Could have been an easy win.
I was not sure how to board, but kept the Grinding Station I believe.
Game 2: My opponent had shitty hands or was scared of the dark stormy cloud and mulled to 3 (yeah, gg). Turn 1 Delver and Turn 2 Deathrite was impressive. But I was able to win with a Top in play and a natural chain after spinning.
I switched my sb plan again. This list is confusing.. How would you side? Different on the play or on the draw?
Game 3: I mulligan again.. Believe it or not, I rly had to all those games. I was durdling a bit and was under preassure. We go to extra time. He can't kill me and we go to extra turns. He then says with 1 drawn card and some info of my hand that I'm not able to win. My Probe sees Mindbreak Trap and gives me just enough for Threshold. So in his turn I cabal Ritual into Ad Nauseam after he casts a Goyf (otherwise he was able to hardcast Trap I believe). I then win in my turn with discard on trap.
2-1 --> 2-0

Round 3: Grixis Delver with Swiftspear
Game 1: I loose the die roll again, and ofc mulligan. I got very close but loose to his aggressive creatures.
In this matchup I felt the main was OK because of the lifeless Grixis takes, and the aggro versions make Ad Nauseam bad. +1 Carpet +1 Top +2 Chain of Vapor -1 Cabal Ritual -2 Preordain -1 something I think (CoV to protect the graveyard and slow them down/extra storm etc) or I did something else with Fluster on the play but not on the draw.
Game 2: Mulligan.. The turn before lethal I just go for it and have a sick Past in Flames cantrip line again.
Game 3: Kinda manascrewed but able to get a turn 2 protected win of petal. Nice to see it going easy one time.
2-1 --> 3-0

Round 4: Omnitell
Game 1: I kept my 7 :D! But guess what, I lost the 4th roll.. He made his second land drop and has Show and Tell + Omniscience and more land in hand. I Brainstorm and then I'm able to make 12 goblins, cracking LED and discarting 2 Therapy's to flashback and destroy his hand. But then noticed I had a PiF line so I put 1 therapy on top. I miscounted the PiF line, so I discard a second infernal and only 1 therapy with my LED crack and was only able to get rid of the Show and Tell.. Fingers crossed :S what a mistake! But I got there in 2 turns anyway.
+2 xantid +2 fluster +1 surgical -1 Tendrills -1 empty -1 pif -1 rain of filth -1 swamp
Game 2: Probe revealed 2 Pierce, I play Xantid Swarm. I have LED, IT and Ad Nauseam too, but found no rituals lol. I do find discard and destroy his hand before i finally found Dark Ritual.
2-0 --> 4-0

Round 5: ID
4-0-1 and 1st place after the swiss. After loosing 4 die rolls I can finally play first in top 8! A lot of mulligans too.. Way more then I'm used to. Was a rough road to get 1st!

Quarters: Deathblade
Game 1: I mulligan and keep an iffy 6. My opponent mulls to 5. Turn 2 I probe and see nothing relevant, but he had to keep because of the mana he did found. I have trouble finding my stuff... So he gets a TNN with Jitte and already 2 counters lol. He could also cast Batterskull next turn. Man, how could he still be in the game! He has 2 swords + X, but tapped out. I felt like I had to go for it.. Now or never.. But this should have been a free win already! I ritual a lot into Past in flames with 1 probe and 1 ponder to find me the win. I got there :$ But had 6 outs & LED's could have helped for more cantrips.
Sideboarding was hard, but I know he has Mages. +3 Decay +2 Massacre +1 Carpet +1 Top -1 tendrils -1 empty -1 pif -1 cabal ritual -2 preordain -1 swamp
Game 2: I keep a weird hand, forgot exactly but multiple Decays, a Carpet and BS + fetch as an excuse. He goes turn 1 Deathrite and I draw my lone Tendrils for the turn. Now I got scared because when I test Deathblade (I love the deck) I often win with discard + extraction, now He could discard and shaman extract my Tendrils :S! Soo I fetch Trop and play Carpet, then get 1 blue mana in my second main phase and cast a terrible turn 1 BS hitting Massacre as additional removal. I put Massacre first and Tendrils second from top. He takes his turn, played a land and cast Thoughtseize. Man, how happy I was being such a scared chicken ;)! He takes a Dark Ritual (1 dr, 3 decay left and X + the cards on top, this is going nowhere...). I draw and make 1 black again to Decay Deathrite. He gets a new Deathrite and I do it again. He makes a Liliana and I used my 3th. He fetches scrubland and such to make carpet only a Decay harpoon. My hand develops and I'm able to make a natural Tendrils if he counters something. He has 2 FoW and 1 Fluster in hand and eats my Therapy and I name Fluster. I know I have Past in Flames on top so don't risk wasting rituals and also feel safe vs 2 FoW. I draw PiF and he Cliques it away... Shit. He has 15 life and I only count to a Tendrils for 14 a couple of times, then noticed that Clique was storm 1. If he countered my Cabal Ritual I could't win that turn, but he didn't and was doomed. I had 1 unknown cards, thats why he did say ok pretty fast, it was the massacre which also made 1 free storm gg.
2-0 --> 5-0-1

Semifinal: Lands. We split top 4, even while I faced Lands. But now 1 guy in the other final could scoop and go home, while my friend would move to the finals, gain ranking points and a secured pay-out :)!
Game 1: I'm able to win with Past in Flames but know he has Crop Rotation, I wasn't sure if he has Bojuka Bog. 'Safe guy keeps passing the turn'. I later try to go off and see the Bojuka Bog in response to Cabal Ritual. I now had to make some weird PiF loop but got there with just enough mana.
+1 ad nauseam +2 chain of vapor +3 Decay -1 empty -1 pif -1 tendrils -1 cabal ritual -2 not sure.
Game 2: I feel comfortable with my Chain of Vapor for his pretty fast Marit Lage and later win with a nice Ad Nauseam. I was able to win with piF instead but kept counting to 9.. Guess I was too tired or the 10 beers from last night finally showed little effect.
2-0 --> 6-0-1

Finals: Grixis Control
Game 1: He has Lethal and I have to go for it. Past in Flames with 9million black mana and only 1 blue mana for ponder and 1 of the 2 probes because I was at 4. I find a fetch land with ponder to fetch for sea and cast another ponder. I see one of my 2 Tendrils for the win.
-1 pif -1 tendrills -1 swamp -1 cabal ritual -2 preordain (not sure) +1 top +2 fluster +ad nauseam +1 chain of vapor +1 carpet or something
Game 2: Grixis is soo painful when it goes wild with therapy's, surgical on infernal, spell bomb and elecktrickery...
Game 3: Same goes for this match. I discard a Pyromancer and Zombiefish to get more time. It felt bad but worked out well. At last I have Carpet in play (+3), 4 lands + infernal, cabal ritual and rain of filth I believe. He just discards my 2 petals with therapy. Reason: he is at 17 life, has a cage in play and elecktrickery, counterspell + snapcaster (for fluster) in hand. I'm at 4 life. So this way I wasn't able to win with PiF, Ad Nauseam, Goblins or natural tendrils.. Or so he thought (we, to be honest :P). I draw a probe and it gets therapy. Therapy for storm 2 (he has 4 mana, if he says 'ok' I loose and if he does something I can continue) he cast Counterspell (3). I get a lot of mana with carpet and my rituals and go into infernal tutor (6 storm) and was shocked that I was able to find 2 more infernal into a lethal Tendrils for 9 :cool:. Well, shouldn't have won that one. But when I watch storm guys playing I always see them winning vs opponents who feel so uncomfortable vs combo that they make such mistakes. And it was 19:00.. The store owners already ordered some food while waiting for us to finish.. time to go home!
2-1 --> 7-0-1

Wauw 7-0-1, nice score to take home! Had a great day and went 22 points up to earn the number 1 spot in the ranking for the end of the year invitational :D. Was a while ago that I played storm at a tournament, but I always test with and against ANT, so I have some experience. But today I noticed that I had no clue how to sb with Grinding Station.. vs some decks it's hard to choose for speed or the original plan, and if so, do we protect pif lines with vapors on cages and stuff or not? When do we overboard? Do we swap between plans if we are on the play or draw, like I did vs BUG Delver and often with Flusters? Grinding Station was a good excuse to play a main Empty, but I swapped to a 'normal' list a lot! When I test 2 DP I also tend to cut them first.. I do believe Grinding Station is awesome vs Miracles, but it isn't played too much here. Hope to learn some more in the coming weeks :)! Quite a long report I notice..

[cheerios]

Storm with RIP maindeck?

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=88267

Cheers

[nevilshute]

Storm with RIP maindeck?

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=88267

Cheers

An error on the part of SCG I'd guess. Guessing it's actually PiF. No white-producing lands and no other white cards to imprint the mox with. PIF in the board too.

Having said that, congrats to Richard Johnson for top-8ing the event. Nice to see a TNT list for once. I wonder if he was expecting a Gaddock Teeg heavy meta or if it was just a matter of experience/preference.

[Togores]

So, back from the MKM series in Toulouse. Was quite ok on results but not as good as I would wish. Ended 4-3 in legacy with ant, 5-2 in modern with ant and 4-2 in vintage with mentor. More or less near the top.
I played The list ok Kai with -1 preordain +4th cabal ritual, I was just missing mana for pif loops.
Also my sb was quite weird. Because as I told in the forums I wanted to cut my sb hate for white decks. The deck almost is not existent. And its just some roge matchup like it is mud or reanimator and we dont side targeted slots for this decks in wich hurkil or surgical effects would be great.
So my sb ended being so:
2 flusterstorm
2 carpet
4 decay
2 grip
3 xantid
2 ECHOING TRUTH
Yes I know its weird but I took out the chains for echoing truth. The thing behing that is that against reanimator its just a bit less good vs iona. But agianst loam wich gave a quite lot of them on friday its better than chain. Befause they usualy have chalice on 1 and tegg. So making eot decay the tegg is quite hard because after that your green land gets wastelanded. And doing it with chain is q no go because of chalice. So you bounce tegg and go for the easy no cmc1 kill. It also has use agaimst chaman because you bounce all and go for pif (and elves in sb take out 3 symbiote usualy is they are good players and usualy they will use symbiote in his turn and then BAM!), also multiple white leylines, multiple spheres or trinispheres from mud and lands and so on...
I was quite happy with the card.


So that where my matchups:
R1 mud 0-2
Why the fuck do I have always to play against the fucking mud decks... i have played it in all but not one Gp I have played and always lost. Its just a so bad matchup...
G1 he starsts cloupost I pray it for bein eldrazi post and t2 trinisphere comes. I resolve a nauseam but in 19 lifes it brings 0 cabal rituals and I loose.
G2 he kuldotha for blighsteel and I echoing it in response to greaves. He resplays it and I decay greaves. So he kuldotha the colosus and his tormonds and field away to Sundering my 2 lands. I have 2 turns to draw tutor because my hand is 4 dark ritual 2 led and a land. Its turn 9 And I havent draw more than 1 cantrip and also not a tutor and die.


R2 miracles 2-9
My opponent drops a t2 balance after I see his hand and and has no for. I play anther gitaxian and he balances a fow. A third gitaxian and I go for a pif loop with quite of mana buy oy 3 gitaxian as outs. But the game is not getting better after he untaps. So i play gitaxian 1st card is infernal and so gg.
G2 he has no top or counterbalance but 2 fluster, pyro and 1 fow. I play 2 ponder, 2 gp and 3 brainstorm and he never used his t1 blast until the last bs in the kill turn. After I grinded him out of his counters and pif did the job.


R3 reanimator 2-1
Also really 3 mud 2 reanimator in over 100 players and i have to play them? Big events joke at me. Its just the 2 matchups I like the less to face.
G1 I play 2 cantrips and she ionas for blue after the mulls to 6 and seizes herself for iona t2 . I have mana but no bussines and die.
G2 i get to fluster his first reanimate on griselbrand and xantid and when she atacks I just swing back and go for the kill.
G3 she echoings my xantid and seizes him going to 6. After the had reanimated iona wich I bounce with echoing. Then she is low on cards but exumes griselbrand I bring back my xantid and go for a tendrills for 5 because she has iona + 1 card (daze) and i have spare mana for it. But I also could atack and make a tendrills for 8.


R4 miracles 1-2
He is on the play and has land ponder.
My keep is:
Petal
Gp
Brainstorm
Bayou
Duress
2 dark ritual
The card for the turn is tendrills.
So i make some thoughts and decide to go for it. Gitaxian sees fow and I draw another petal. The I drop the petal and brainstorm. Thats shows infernal, cabal ritual and tropical. Put tendrills and tropical back.
Storm 3
I bayou into duress for fow.
Then petal into 3 rituals and infernal for tendrills for 10 gg.
G2 I keep a good one lander but i didnt find a land after a ponder until its too late and he is to much up.
G3 he drops t1 top t2 balance t3 balance. I have infernal copy my decay but have to use it on a clike. And then I die due to giving him to much time.


R5 against omnitell 2-0
G1 He wrong pierces my t1 ponder and dies t2.
G2 he keeps a bad ponder and dies to not having fow. Or may be having one and getting discarted.
R6 miracles feature match 0-2
I just could do nothing. He has mull to 6. And island go. I gitaxian and he has 4 lands brainstorm and balance. So i just wait he brainstorms and drops balance t2. I play preordain. He had brainstorm. I play a stone and he plays brianstorm and counters. I play ponder and he fetches and has a cmc1 then he finds top and I die.
G2 i hace a t1 swamp. Get to decay and grip his 2 balance. Then after 2 gp, 4! Ponder and 2 brainstorm I atack (like every other turn) and now he clickes. Gets my infernal and I decay the clike. Then 4 turn later i draw puf atack and he has a second clicke and I decay it again. He takes pif and i juts draw the rest of the game just mana while a mentor kill me.

R7 golddiger 2-0
Its a to slow matchup. Both games a few discards and pif + flashback plus a backbreaking g2 flusterstorm on his dig gives me the game easy.

So the deck worked well and the diference between echoing and chais was not inportant. But also never faced anythingn of the explained before, so ai still thing is a right decision.


Now to storys of the day:
Another guy playing ant vs one on uwr blade.
Blade:
1 island
1 tundra
1 volcanic
Batterskull with no token and sfm with jite and 2 counters.
Nauseam with mana and 2 life.
Nauseam played is dead. He masacres and his opp leta the sfm die.
Next turn ant player plays probe, and opponent tapind his 2 dual lands plays dig so that storm player can see what he gets pretty cool, he shows with 1 mana up fluster and pierce and a lot of shitt. Ant draws brainstorm and finds therapy. The therapies with 2 lands up. Blade player plays fluster now shields down and dies for a tendrills of 40 while having his opp 30 life.
GOOD PLAYED! Yeah!
Hope I play against this oponent all my life again and again in events hahahaha.


So thats it. Thanks guys for reading, see you soon.

[nevilshute]

So, back from the MKM series in Toulouse. Was quite ok on results but not as good as I would wish. Ended 4-3 in legacy with ant, 5-2 in modern with ant and 4-2 in vintage with mentor. More or less near the top.
I played The list ok Kai with -1 preordain +4th cabal ritual, I was just missing mana for pif loops.
Also my sb was quite weird. Because as I told in the forums I wanted to cut my sb hate for white decks. The deck almost is not existent. And its just some roge matchup like it is mud or reanimator and we dont side targeted slots for this decks in wich hurkil or surgical effects would be great.
So my sb ended being so:
2 flusterstorm
2 carpet
4 decay
2 grip
3 xantid
2 ECHOING TRUTH
Yes I know its weird but I took out the chains for echoing truth. The thing behing that is that against reanimator its just a bit less good vs iona. But agianst loam wich gave a quite lot of them on friday its better than chain. Befause they usualy have chalice on 1 and tegg. So making eot decay the tegg is quite hard because after that your green land gets wastelanded. And doing it with chain is q no go because of chalice. So you bounce tegg and go for the easy no cmc1 kill. It also has use agaimst chaman because you bounce all and go for pif (and elves in sb take out 3 symbiote usualy is they are good players and usualy they will use symbiote in his turn and then BAM!), also multiple white leylines, multiple spheres or trinispheres from mud and lands and so on...
I was quite happy with the card.


So that where my matchups:
R1 mud 0-2
Why the fuck do I have always to play against the fucking mud decks... i have played it in all but not one Gp I have played and always lost. Its just a so bad matchup...
G1 he starsts cloupost I pray it for bein eldrazi post and t2 trinisphere comes. I resolve a nauseam but in 19 lifes it brings 0 cabal rituals and I loose.
G2 he kuldotha for blighsteel and I echoing it in response to greaves. He resplays it and I decay greaves. So he kuldotha the colosus and his tormonds and field away to Sundering my 2 lands. I have 2 turns to draw tutor because my hand is 4 dark ritual 2 led and a land. Its turn 9 And I havent draw more than 1 cantrip and also not a tutor and die.


R2 miracles 2-9
My opponent drops a t2 balance after I see his hand and and has no for. I play anther gitaxian and he balances a fow. A third gitaxian and I go for a pif loop with quite of mana buy oy 3 gitaxian as outs. But the game is not getting better after he untaps. So i play gitaxian 1st card is infernal and so gg.
G2 he has no top or counterbalance but 2 fluster, pyro and 1 fow. I play 2 ponder, 2 gp and 3 brainstorm and he never used his t1 blast until the last bs in the kill turn. After I grinded him out of his counters and pif did the job.


R3 reanimator 2-1
Also really 3 mud 2 reanimator in over 100 players and i have to play them? Big events joke at me. Its just the 2 matchups I like the less to face.
G1 I play 2 cantrips and she ionas for blue after the mulls to 6 and seizes herself for iona t2 . I have mana but no bussines and die.
G2 i get to fluster his first reanimate on griselbrand and xantid and when she atacks I just swing back and go for the kill.
G3 she echoings my xantid and seizes him going to 6. After the had reanimated iona wich I bounce with echoing. Then she is low on cards but exumes griselbrand I bring back my xantid and go for a tendrills for 5 because she has iona + 1 card (daze) and i have spare mana for it. But I also could atack and make a tendrills for 8.


R4 miracles 1-2
He is on the play and has land ponder.
My keep is:
Petal
Gp
Brainstorm
Bayou
Duress
2 dark ritual
The card for the turn is tendrills.
So i make some thoughts and decide to go for it. Gitaxian sees fow and I draw another petal. The I drop the petal and brainstorm. Thats shows infernal, cabal ritual and tropical. Put tendrills and tropical back.
Storm 3
I bayou into duress for fow.
Then petal into 3 rituals and infernal for tendrills for 10 gg.
G2 I keep a good one lander but i didnt find a land after a ponder until its too late and he is to much up.
G3 he drops t1 top t2 balance t3 balance. I have infernal copy my decay but have to use it on a clike. And then I die due to giving him to much time.


R5 against omnitell 2-0
G1 He wrong pierces my t1 ponder and dies t2.
G2 he keeps a bad ponder and dies to not having fow. Or may be having one and getting discarted.
R6 miracles feature match 0-2
I just could do nothing. He has mull to 6. And island go. I gitaxian and he has 4 lands brainstorm and balance. So i just wait he brainstorms and drops balance t2. I play preordain. He had brainstorm. I play a stone and he plays brianstorm and counters. I play ponder and he fetches and has a cmc1 then he finds top and I die.
G2 i hace a t1 swamp. Get to decay and grip his 2 balance. Then after 2 gp, 4! Ponder and 2 brainstorm I atack (like every other turn) and now he clickes. Gets my infernal and I decay the clike. Then 4 turn later i draw puf atack and he has a second clicke and I decay it again. He takes pif and i juts draw the rest of the game just mana while a mentor kill me.

R7 golddiger 2-0
Its a to slow matchup. Both games a few discards and pif + flashback plus a backbreaking g2 flusterstorm on his dig gives me the game easy.

So the deck worked well and the diference between echoing and chais was not inportant. But also never faced anythingn of the explained before, so ai still thing is a right decision.


Now to storys of the day:
Another guy playing ant vs one on uwr blade.
Blade:
1 island
1 tundra
1 volcanic
Batterskull with no token and sfm with jite and 2 counters.
Nauseam with mana and 2 life.
Nauseam played is dead. He masacres and his opp leta the sfm die.
Next turn ant player plays probe, and opponent tapind his 2 dual lands plays dig so that storm player can see what he gets pretty cool, he shows with 1 mana up fluster and pierce and a lot of shitt. Ant draws brainstorm and finds therapy. The therapies with 2 lands up. Blade player plays fluster now shields down and dies for a tendrills of 40 while having his opp 30 life.
GOOD PLAYED! Yeah!
Hope I play against this oponent all my life again and again in events hahahaha.


So thats it. Thanks guys for reading, see you soon.

Wow, seems like som rough beats against Miracles in the feature match and yeah, it absolutely sucks having to play against MUD, I fucking hate that deck.

Something has been gnawing at me lately regarding Flusterstorms. Since a little while ago I've been playing 2x Flusterstorm in the sideboard again. Mainly to bring in against Miracles but they are also pretty sweet against the Mirror. However, I've been bringing them in against Omni as well and I've not liked them. I feel like Xantid Swarm is much better and as such still want to bring in the 3 swarms I'm playing in my sideboard. Also needing to bring in 1 Ad Nauseam I'm suddenly finding that removing 6 cards from the main deck feels problematic. Also, the Flusterstorms just feel mediocre in this matchup. I don't think we should even be trying to take a control role here. Not only do I think our progressive game plan is stronger against Omni; going long against them also happens to translate into them having more lands and as such being more likely to just play through a single Flusterstorm. What are people's thoughts here?

[Togores]

Flusterstorm has been great to me.
I side it against:
Elves
Storm
Show and tell
Golddiger
Dredge
Reanimator
Infect

I dont side it against miracles at all.

Pascal sided 2 iona 1 flusterstorm 1 xantid he said more cards are not necesary.

It has seems quite good vs all this matchups. To gain time vs discard and to stop his big and fast wins.
Also omnitell if you give them time they are gonna win you usualy play therapy or so. They dig and you counter the dig.

[Jonathan Alexander]

For whatever it's worth, I don't think Flusterstorms are good without Top. As Martin said, you tend to board out a lot of cards when boarding Flusterstorms, so you need to cut something you don't usually want to cut. Top allows you to cut cantrips while still having access to a cantrip every turn, more or less. I have not liked Flusterstorms since I switched to Preordains.
Further, I also think taking an aggressive approach vs. Omni with 2-3 Swarms is the way to go. It's just super annoying to go long vs. Dig Through Time.

[cheerios]

What's a good sideboard for a meta with lots of reanimator? Should I go for xantid or gy hate like surgical and crypt?

Cheers

[CabalTherapy]

What's a good sideboard for a meta with lots of reanimator? Should I go for xantid or gy hate like surgical and crypt?

Cheers

The best plan is to cross your fingers and hope that you won't get paired against them. On a more serious level: I like 2 Xantids, 2 Flusterstorm and 1 Extirpate. However, I don't like Chain of Vapor here because if they get to reanimate a dude they should be able to win the match (Iona: black, counter your Chain and so on), whereas Chain doesn't do anything beforehand (not mentioning generating storm). Furthermore, I like to go in aggressively because it is better to decide one's own fate than to die to they lucky draw.



@above Flusterstorm discussion: I like it against Tempo too. On Saturday, I was able to puch my combo through against Burg Delver's FoW and Spell Pierce because of Flusterstorm. Something like: Cabal Ritual (2 lands untapped) > resolved > Cabal Ritual > resolved > Past in Flames (ToA on top and SDT in play) > Force > my Flusterstorm > resolved > flashback orgy > win.

[nevilshute]

The best plan is to cross your fingers and hope that you won't get paired against them. On a more serious level: I like 2 Xantids, 2 Flusterstorm and 1 Extirpate. However, I don't like Chain of Vapor here because if they get to reanimate a dude they should be able to win the match (Iona: black, counter your Chain and so on), whereas Chain doesn't do anything beforehand (not mentioning generating storm). Furthermore, I like to go in aggressively because it is better to decide one's own fate than to die to they lucky draw.



@above Flusterstorm discussion: I like it against Tempo too. On Saturday, I was able to puch my combo through against Burg Delver's FoW and Spell Pierce because of Flusterstorm. Something like: Cabal Ritual (2 lands untapped) > resolved > Cabal Ritual > resolved > Past in Flames (ToA on top and SDT in play) > Force > my Flusterstorm > resolved > flashback orgy > win.

I do love me a good flashback orgy :wink:

I do feel like Flusterstorm has a pretty high ceiling when facing decks mainly looking to interact on the stack and if we are playing a a multiple tendrils list.

Regarding the Reanimator question: I'd Echo Robert's initial sentiment and just kinda hope to not face them, and then if you do, hope that they kinda lose to themselves (not completely unreasonable). Be on the lookout for hands that can either kill really fast (like turn 1) or hands that have a lot of disruption (like 2+ discard spells). I'd try and stay away from cantrip heavy do-nothings. I'd bring in some Xantid Swarms and here I actually like bringing in Flusterstorms whereas I like it much less against Omni.

Even then, you are the underdog.

Also as a sidenote I'd be tempted to keep in 2 or more tendrils after board as killing them with a baby-tendrils after they've resolved Reanimate on Griselbrand and activated him is not unheard of but you pretty much need to have a tendrils in hand, or have a high enough chance to hit it on that one cantrip you might get to fire off, for that to really be possible.

[Lemnear]

If thats the upcoming direction of ANT, I wonder if Lotus Petal is even required anymore... (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=87951)

[Darkness]

Currently playing slothinthedarks's list (Grinding Station Variant) and I cut down to 3 lotus petals, I really haven't had a problem with only playing three. They are really only great with Ad Nauseam. I don't miss the 4th one.

[Final Fortune]

If thats the upcoming direction of ANT, I wonder if Lotus Petal is even required anymore... (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=87951)

Depends on your strategy for dealing with graveyard or Empty the Warrens hate, if you cut Lotus Petal MD then you cut Ad Nauseam SB and you've become a more binary Storm deck. Personally, I don't really agree with MD Dark Petition and Empty the Warrens over MD Burning Wish and Ad Nauseam, wishing for Tendrils of Agony and Empty the Warrens gives the deck a lot of MD grinding power while being more flexible to SB out Burning Wish for other threat density. When you start getting Tormod's Crypted and can't rely on Threshold, those Dark Petitions start to get real clunky IMO.

I think the deck needs more instead of less angles of attack.

[Lemnear]

Depends on your strategy for dealing with graveyard or Empty the Warrens hate, if you cut Lotus Petal MD then you cut Ad Nauseam SB and you've become a more binary Storm deck. Personally, I don't really agree with MD Dark Petition and Empty the Warrens over MD Burning Wish and Ad Nauseam, wishing for Tendrils of Agony and Empty the Warrens gives the deck a lot of MD grinding power while being more flexible to SB out Burning Wish for other threat density. When you start getting Tormod's Crypted and can't rely on Threshold, those Dark Petitions start to get real clunky IMO.

I think the deck needs more instead of less angles of attack.

You are down to EtW, natural chains and PIF loops with Petition more or less anyways. Burning Wish is awkward as PIF -> Wish or Wish -> EtW requires double red mana and essentially only gives you an out to extraction effects. Thats why TNT was so a clunky and unsynergetic concept. The biggest plus of Petition is that it gives you all the cheap redundancy of Tutors TES has, but without splitting it over two colors or durdle forever with additional Preordains. Previous issues like Meddling Mage @ Infernal are history. The question atm is only, if the redundancy of access to ToA/PIF/EtW is undoubtfully better than running more storm cards in the first place (which are also clunky at times).

[Final Fortune]

I'm not sure a 5cc card is any less clunky than a 2cc card just becuase it requires red mana, I never had an issue with the red mana for Burning Wish because I didn't expect Burning Wish to be a T2 card like Infernal Tutor all of the time instead of just more threat density. The problem I have with Dark Petition is that as soon as you want Ad Nauseam you have to SB them out compared to Burning Wish.

[Lemnear]

I'm not sure a 5cc card is any less clunky than a 2cc card just becuase it requires red mana, I never had an issue with the red mana for Burning Wish because I didn't expect Burning Wish to be a T2 card like Infernal Tutor all of the time instead of just more threat density. The problem I have with Dark Petition is that as soon as you want Ad Nauseam you have to SB them out compared to Burning Wish.

The difference comes with being able to play cards in the face of Wasteland on demand like cantrips/discard IF you wish to do that which it out of question for TES like we have outlined and discussed in the respective thread and agreed that playing nothing at all is the right approach with TES. ANT has possibly more space to maneuver with the basic lands in the first 1/2/3 turns of the game compared to TES. I'm not convinced losing AN or swapping out the DPs for AN + hate postboard is a general problem.

[TokugawaEdo]

Hi all, first time reporting here. I played at my LGS last night, made top 8 and split. Here is the list I ran with last night:

Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Dark Petition
1 Past in Flames
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

Lands
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard
1 Krosan Grip
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Dread of Night
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Rebuild
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Xantid Swarm

Round 1 vs. MUD
Game 1

I lose the die roll and am on the play. I keep a good hand with tutor, LED, dark rit, ponder, brainstorm, and 2 fetch. He goes turn one tomb, monolith, trinisphere, pass. I play fetch pass. He plays city of traitors and chalice on 1 and I scoop, not much can be done, at least all he saw was a scalding tarn.

I sideboard: +4 Abrupt Decay +2 Chain of Vapor +1 Rebuild +1 Krosan Grip -4 Duress -2 Gitaxian Probe -2 Cabal Therapy
Game 2

I keep a hand similar to the first, tutor, LED, ponder, brainstorm, chain, and 2 fetch. I fetch a sea and ponder, see nothing and shuffle, draw a petal and pass. Opponent goes tomb, monolith, trinisphere, pass. I play fetch and pass. He play city of traitors and chalice on 1 and I had a good laugh with the guy. I find a decay but no third land and I die to Ugin soon after.

Final Thoughts: I think I should have fetched for an island instead of sea because of wasteland but other than that I think I kept solid hands given my information so I was content.

0-1

Round 2 (Bye)

1-1

Round 3 vs. Grinding Station
Game 1

I lose the die roll and keep a hand of ponder, tutor, LED, brainstorm, cabal rit, gemstone mine, delta. This type of hand is part of the reason I still like gemstone mine, if it was a bayou then I can't ponder turn 1 into brainstorm with a fetch up turn 2. It also ended up making threshold for cabal rit on turn 3. The game was simple. He just land passed and when I saw he was on storm with a probed killed him with an Ad Nauseam turn 3.

No boarding
Game 2

Kept a hand with 2 tutor, LED, 2 ponder, and 2 lands. He land passes. I play ponder shuffle into a third tutor, really clunky hand now. He ponders I think but don't remember exactly. I tutored for another LED and pass hoping to Ad Nauseam next turn. He probes and therapys my tutor then makes 14 goblins. I spend the next 2 turns looking for the last tutor or PiF and then die.

Game 3

Simple game. I keep a hand with tutor, LED, dures, dark rit, preordain, sea, and a fetch. I play sea into duress and take his tutor. He draws thoughseize and takes my tutor. I preordain and gain another dark rit and pass. After he ponders and passes I top deck Ad Nauseam and win.

Final Thoughts: Ad Nauseam was amazing and based on the meta, which was storm heavy that night, maybe a surgical in the board for an island would have been nice but by no means needed.

2-1

Round 4 vs. Maverick
Game 1

I lose the die roll and keep a hand of LED, petal, dark rit, ponder, brainstorm, 2 fetch. He plays fetch savannah play noble pass. I fetch sea and ponder into dark rit and tutor, draw the dark rit and pass. He plays land and drops thalia and passes. I draw tutor play land fetch sea and play my petal and LED then pass. He swings with thalia and plays knight then passes. I draw and play a fetch and pass. He swings for like 10 plays stoneforge and gets batterskull and passes. I end of turn brainstorm into LED, cabal rit, land and put the land and LED back so that I draw the LED on my turn. Then with a hand of LED, 2 dark rit, cabal rit, tutor, I go off through thalia with PiF.

I sideboard: +3 Dread of Night +2 Abrupt Decay +2 Chain of Vapor -4 Duress -2 Gitaxian Probe -1 Cabal Therapy
Game 2

I keep a hand with dread, probe and therapy with I think a tutor and lands. He turn one land passes. I probe and see thalia revoker and knight. I then therapy the revoker and pass. He slams thalia down and passes. I play dread of night and pass. he play knight. I kill him that turn with PiF.

Final Thoughts: Dread of Night did its job not much to say about this one.

3-1

Overall Thoughts: Didn't play against any force decks which made the night much easier, usually there are a lot of miracles and omnishow players but almost none this week. The dark petition is strictly worse than grim tutor in theory as well as in practice so I'll be changing that. Will be running a second PiF in that spot. The gemstone mine over the bayou is alright. I'll be sticking with it for now for a couple reasons, mostly availability. Also, like I explained in match 3 game 1. Finally, because the fact that only having 1 fetchable green source doesn't seem that awful. The match ups that you're afraid of wasteland you generally only need the green for one turn to drop something and kill them soon after. I will be playing in SCG DC next weekend and this will probably be what I bring but we'll see. Thanks for reading.

[nevilshute]

Seems like a solid night. I've dabbled with Gemstone mine as land number 16. I think it's not without merit but have not played it for a long time,

[TokugawaEdo]

With SCG DC coming up next week I was also debating whether I want to replace the gemstone mine with a badlands and run 3 sulfur elemental in the board instead of the dread of nights for miracles. Don't know if I should since I haven't run it before but wanted to get someone's opinion on it. Has anyone had a good experience with sulfur elementals in the board.

[nevilshute]

With SCG DC coming up next week I was also debating whether I want to replace the gemstone mine with a badlands and run 3 sulfur elemental in the board instead of the dread of nights for miracles. Don't know if I should since I haven't run it before but wanted to get someone's opinion on it. Has anyone had a good experience with sulfur elementals in the board.

Well that's what I've done. My land setup has for a long time now been:

4x delta
4x tarn
2x sea
1x volc
1x trop
1x badlands
1x swamp
1x island

That's mainly because I run 2x Past in Flames and 1x Empty in the main and as such I wanted the 2nd fetchable red land. In terms of fetches I chose to value my fetchlands all being able to fetch all my duals (tropical island included) over having 5 fetches instead of 4 that fetch the swamp out.

[Sloshthedark]

With SCG DC coming up next week I was also debating whether I want to replace the gemstone mine with a badlands and run 3 sulfur elemental in the board instead of the dread of nights for miracles. Don't know if I should since I haven't run it before but wanted to get someone's opinion on it. Has anyone had a good experience with sulfur elementals in the board.

A, Gemstone mine is something you definitely do not want to be doing
B, Sulfur elemental has nearly no connection to Miracles, if you plan to fight Mentor with it and Miracles Opp gives you the chance you both live in a very strange world and very likely not winning..., on the other hand it's semi-decent yet risky plan for G3 if there is some hatebears included in the mix, G2 or as A plan SB it makes no sense...

[TokugawaEdo]

Well that's what I've done. My land setup has for a long time now been:

4x delta
4x tarn
2x sea
1x volc
1x trop
1x badlands
1x swamp
1x island

That's mainly because I run 2x Past in Flames and 1x Empty in the main and as such I wanted the 2nd fetchable red land. In terms of fetches I chose to value my fetchlands all being able to fetch all my duals (tropical island included) over having 5 fetches instead of 4 that fetch the swamp out.
Do you bring the elementals in for every match up that dread would come in for + miracles or are there some other things that change with elemental compared to dread? Also Im guessing you don't have Ad Nauseam main board, would I side out Ad Nauseam if I'm bringing in elementals. Maybe elementals are better in the grinding station shell. And I agree with the land base, I really dislike not being able to fetch trop with mire.

[TokugawaEdo]

A, Gemstone mine is something you definitely do not want to be doing
B, Sulfur elemental has nearly no connection to Miracles, if you plan to fight Mentor with it and Miracles Opp gives you the chance you both live in a very strange world and very likely not winning..., on the other hand it's semi-decent yet risky plan for G3 if there is some hatebears included in the mix, G2 or as A plan SB it makes no sense...
Working on getting a bayou now to try that but I really haven't had much trouble with the gemstone mine.

[nevilshute]

Do you bring the elementals in for every match up that dread would come in for + miracles or are there some other things that change with elemental compared to dread? Also Im guessing you don't have Ad Nauseam main board, would I side out Ad Nauseam if I'm bringing in elementals. Maybe elementals are better in the grinding station shell. And I agree with the land base, I really dislike not being able to fetch trop with mire.

Sorry if I was unclear, but I've actually never run the Sulfur Elementals so I can't speak from personal experience. 3CMC always seemed slightly suspect to me vs thalia decks as they are always packing wastes and often times ports. It's a creature, of course, so isn't hit by thalia ofc. Meh I don't know. I'd most likely never bring it in vs Miracles even if I were expecting Canonist/MM as I'd need to resolve 2x SE to do some work there. Bringing them in to fight mentors feels like the wrong way to approach this MU imo.

[TokugawaEdo]

Just curious, whats the idea around 3 decays and 2 grips vs. 4 decays and 1 grip?

[iamajellydonut]

Just curious, whats the idea around 3 decays and 2 grips vs. 4 decays and 1 grip?

Here's an exhaustive list of relevant things Abrupt Decay can't hit:
Omniscience


(Grip is also more efficient against Top than Decay)

[Jonathan Alexander]

Krosan Grip also gets around Meddling Mage on Abrupt Decay. Omniscience is irrelevant in my opinion, Top and equipment are more important; although equipment is much less relevant now that UW/x decks run actual hatebears instead of Stoneforge Mystics. It's also beneficial to be able to double up on Grips with Infernal Tutor. Grip can get countered by Counterbalance though (happened to me twice in the last 18 months).
That being said, it doesn't really make a difference which one you actually end up running.

[Sloshthedark]

Here's an exhaustive list of relevant things Abrupt Decay can't hit:
Omniscience


(Grip is also more efficient against Top than Decay)

Inkmoth nexus
Lodestone Golem
Relic of Progenitus and similar


Krosan Grip also gets around Meddling Mage on Abrupt Decay. Omniscience is irrelevant in my opinion, Top and equipment are more important; although equipment is much less relevant now that UW/x decks run actual hatebears instead of Stoneforge Mystics. It's also beneficial to be able to double up on Grips with Infernal Tutor. Grip can get countered by Counterbalance though (happened to me twice in the last 18 months).
That being said, it doesn't really make a difference which one you actually end up running.

This. also there is no MU for me where I want 4 decay specificaly, so the split has more upsides imo

[Togores]

Played today.
Wanted to give it a twist from playing 1 ad 2 pif 1 toa. To 1 pif 2 toa.
I just like ad nauseam vs roge decks. Better than just relating on graveyard.
Also usualy second pif is sided out. With 2 toa you can go grinding station and also your nauseams get better.

1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in flames
2 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal tutor

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian probe
2 Preordain


3 Cabal therapy
3 Duress

1 Rain of filth
4 Dark ritual
4 Cabal ritual
4 Lion's eye diamond
4 Lotus petal

4 Polluted delta
4 Misty rainforest
2 Underground sea
1 Volcanic island
1 Tropical island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp

SIDEBOARD:

4 Abrupt decay
3 Xantid swarm
2 Flusterstorm
2 Krosan grip
2 Carpet of flowers
2 Echoing truth

Round 1 bye

Round 2 tes
G1 mull to 5 loose the turn I can pif him to dead
G2 long game he ends up making 18 goblins and atacking.
I can pif loop but im 1 storm short with 6 black mana. So I have to get with the tutor a led for blue having ponder, preordain and brainstorm. I played 1st ponder then preordain. But IM NOT SURE IF THAT WAS RIGHT AND MY ODS FINDING ANOTHER TUTOR OR THE 1 TOA WAS HIGHER IN THE OTHER WAY.

G3 4c delver 2-1
G1 tutor chain t2.
G2 t1 nauseam with 2 floating and die to a bad nauseam and to bad cantrips the turn after. His delvers kill me.
G3 he therapys surgicals my tutors but i have both toa. So i draw nauseam and find a toa.

R4 zoo
G1 t2 kill
G2 he has tegg and mindbreat. Therapy the trap and let the tegg hit me. I draw enought gas to ritual into echoing the teg into toa for 10.

3-1 3rd.
Second tendrills seems fine. Will test if may be sb a discard or a pif is worth.

Answer please on the cantrip thing.

[Sloshthedark]

Answer please on the cantrip thing.

yes Preordain, Ponder, BS is the best sequencing... why did you play Ponder first?

[Jonathan Alexander]

G2 long game he ends up making 18 goblins and atacking.
I can pif loop but im 1 storm short with 6 black mana. So I have to get with the tutor a led for blue having ponder, preordain and brainstorm. I played 1st ponder then preordain. But IM NOT SURE IF THAT WAS RIGHT AND MY ODS FINDING ANOTHER TUTOR OR THE 1 TOA WAS HIGHER IN THE OTHER WAY.

Answer please on the cantrip thing.

Assuming 3 Tutor 1 Tendrils left in your deck, casting Preordain is better when this is true:

((x-4-4)/(x-4))((x-4-5)/(x-5))-((x-4-1)/(x-1))((x-4-7)/(x-7)) < 0

Which is when there are 24 or more cards in your deck.

[CabalTherapy]

yes Preordain, Ponder, BS is the best sequencing... why did you play Ponder first?


Assuming 3 Tutor 1 Tendrils left in your deck, casting Preordain is better when this is true:

((x-4-4)/(x-4))((x-4-5)/(x-5))-((x-4-1)/(x-1))((x-4-7)/(x-7)) < 0

Which is when there are 24 or more cards in your deck.

Preordain, Ponder and then Brainstorm. Yeah.
Once you free your mind and let the Storm go through you, you don't need formulas.

[Togores]

My thoughts where that after ponder if O shuflle I have 1 less card and my deck is randomized again.
If i ponder and shullfe then brainstorm let me see the 5 first cards of my deck.

[JamieW89]

I played another local, but didn't have the greatest day. Did make top-8 (8/8 in small swiss events this year) but managed to lose in the swiss and quarters to lands. Won both preboard games, lost all 4 postboard:
swissg2: I open a t1 ad nauseam with petals and no lands. He gambles, and plays Chalice@0. I don't find lands.
swissg3: I open on a cantrip and have a good chance to win on t2 after seeing his hand which I don't think can interact except for CR->Bog unless he topdecks a mox. However he opens his turn-1 on land,crop rotate it into a ancient tomb(!) which casts chalice@1. That buys him enough time to beat me.
QFg2: He has chalice@0, chalice@1 and sphere on turn-2. I have a Hurkyl's in hand, but struggle to get the mana. Eventually I have fetch,fetch,dual in play and he wastes me in his 2nd main, I float a mana and he almost casts loam (I'd have bounced his stuff and won on my turn) but reads me and passes priority so I can't bounce. I have to go for it on my own turn a bit later, playing a 3rd land, bouncing his stuff, probing and then brainstorming from a petal needing to hit either LP+DR or a LED (I have LED,CR,IT,Probe in hand, he was low enough for led,led,gp->it->toa to work) but I don't hit. I am 1 mana short of playing through his sphere and chalice@1 (he didn't replay chalice@0) on a later turn.
QFg3: He opens on turn-1 sphere, I duress another sphere, and then decay both the first sphere and a confidant. At this point I have some lands and a hand full of mana. Fastforward about 8 turns and my hand is Hurkyl's Recall and mana. Not a cantrip or business spell found, and he manages to assemble his token.

[Sloshthedark]

Preordain, Ponder and then Brainstorm. Yeah.
Once you free your mind and let the Storm go through you, you don't need formulas.

The formula is actually very interesting, I'd think a lesser number

usualy you play the stuff by heart, but some situations can change the equation like having 5B3U in that situation, would you still start with preordain?


I played another local, but didn't have the greatest day. Did make top-8 (8/8 in small swiss events this year) but managed to lose in the swiss and quarters to lands. Won both preboard games, lost all 4 postboard:
swissg2: I open a t1 ad nauseam with petals and no lands. He gambles, and plays Chalice@0. I don't find lands.
swissg3: I open on a cantrip and have a good chance to win on t2 after seeing his hand which I don't think can interact except for CR->Bog unless he topdecks a mox. However he opens his turn-1 on land,crop rotate it into a ancient tomb(!) which casts chalice@1. That buys him enough time to beat me.
QFg2: He has chalice@0, chalice@1 and sphere on turn-2. I have a Hurkyl's in hand, but struggle to get the mana. Eventually I have fetch,fetch,dual in play and he wastes me in his 2nd main, I float a mana and he almost casts loam (I'd have bounced his stuff and won on my turn) but reads me and passes priority so I can't bounce. I have to go for it on my own turn a bit later, playing a 3rd land, bouncing his stuff, probing and then brainstorming from a petal needing to hit either LP+DR or a LED (I have LED,CR,IT,Probe in hand, he was low enough for led,led,gp->it->toa to work) but I don't hit. I am 1 mana short of playing through his sphere and chalice@1 (he didn't replay chalice@0) on a later turn.
QFg3: He opens on turn-1 sphere, I duress another sphere, and then decay both the first sphere and a confidant. At this point I have some lands and a hand full of mana. Fastforward about 8 turns and my hand is Hurkyl's Recall and mana. Not a cantrip or business spell found, and he manages to assemble his token.

SG3 wow, some tech here!:eek:

[TokugawaEdo]

Anyone have a strong opinion about rain of filth? Thinking of either cutting 7th discard or a CR for one.

[raid]

Overall u can´t deny that it´s a pretty strong card. More often than not it is a defacto 5th dark ritual with neat synergy with cabal ritauls threshold, but of course by itself very all in. If u want to try it, I would recommend to cut a discard spell for it.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Anyone have a strong opinion about rain of filth? Thinking of either cutting 7th discard or a CR for one.

I have not played without Rain since 2011. I played 2 for a while and I'm currently considering cutting the third Cabal Ritual for the second Rain again. Is that a strong enough opinion for you?

[Sloshthedark]

Anyone have a strong opinion about rain of filth? Thinking of either cutting 7th discard or a CR for one.

A lot of people like it here... for me as the upsides start at 4+ lands the card makes no sense replacing CR in mosts lists, as a 9th ritual its unnecessary,so it's a consideration for the 3ToA builds but should stay in the DDFT area imo

[JamieW89]

A lot of people like it here... for me as the upsides start at 4+ lands the card makes no sense replacing CR in mosts lists, as a 9th ritual its unnecessary,so it's a consideration for the 3ToA builds but should stay in the DDFT area imo

I'm inclined to agree with Slosh, it has only ever been great for me in DD lists. However, I did win a game yesterday (I had Rain in the 4th CRit slot to try it out once more) when "B, sac 2 lands: add BB" was exactly what I needed. Another interaction that was useful in thinking, but didn't actually happen, was casting Rain in response to my only black source being ported in my upkeep against lands.

[iamajellydonut]

Lodestone Golem

While this is brought up in the most recent two pages, what the hell is the actual plan against Lodestone Golem (and kin)? I have limited experience playing against MUD, but Krosan Grip just seems gross and counteractive against Golem seeing as how you would have to burn through mana sources in order to jam it out. Am I just looking at it wrong? I've always just loaded up on Decays and Vapors and hoped I was either faster or able to power through.

[KevinH]

I'm pretty sure the gameplan against MUD is to just dodge it. I side in Decay, Chain, and Empty if I have it. You pretty much just want to go faster. It's not worth having sideboard slots dedicated specifically to MUD since nobody really plays that deck anyways.

[Togores]

In every legacy gp I have played I have always missed my day 2 due to ALWAYS PLAYING against F****ing Mud.

Idk why that 1% of the field is there to just play against me and beat me out of the event...

[Pelikanudo]

Round 2 tes
G1 mull to 5 loose the turn I can pif him to dead
G2 long game he ends up making 18 goblins and atacking.
I can pif loop but im 1 storm short with 6 black mana. So I have to get with the tutor a led for blue having ponder, preordain and brainstorm. I played 1st ponder then preordain. But IM NOT SURE IF THAT WAS RIGHT AND MY ODS FINDING ANOTHER TUTOR OR THE 1 TOA WAS HIGHER IN THE OTHER WAY.

.

Hope this helps... storm mate

I just don't agree about what people in here says...

having BBBB BB and needing to fetch for LED with I.T. you are in the following scenario:
UUUBBBB
thefore the cantrip among Ponder, B.S. and Preordain which gives you the most chances of getting one of the 3 I.T. left in the base with UUBBBB remaining is Ponder, because the next 2 cantrips played lets you with only UBBBB and BBBB being able to cast only the 2 Tendrils and not the 3 I.T.

Evaluating the other case which is playing Preodain first you could:
a) Find LED or C.R. or D.R. to going on casting Ponder and next B.S. in order to beeing able to cast I.T.
b) Find I.T. to win
you wil need to evaluate for case a) which are the chances of finding one of them (have in mind you already played some of them which involve more complicated statistics calculations...) , however you are decreasing the chances of finding the I.T. because you used 1 Cantrip for setting up a spell in case you chose one of these 3 cards.

The only problem I see with playing Ponder first is that once you have suffled, the card you draw can not be D.R. or C.R. or LED however this is solved again by playing Preordain and next B.S.

This is my opinion and I will do this every day of the week, but maybe I'm wrong. I am a programmer but not mathematician

Was nice to win you Storm Mate! ;)

[TokugawaEdo]

Can I get any tips on the miracles match up? I usually try to just sculpt a resilient hand with AD and stuff but they always seem to land like top, 2 counterbalance with force up. Am I giving them TOO much time? I'm currently playing a list with Ad Nauseam and a second PiF with 1 TOA mainboard. I side +4 AD, +1 Grip, +2 Swarm, -4 LP, -1 CR, -1 Ponder, -1 GP. Don't know if this is 100% correct and I'm thinking about if I want another grip in my board and maybe an empty. The list i played against today also was running 2 surgical in the board and would hit my AD when I would use them on counter balance them. Maybe I was just playing them too early and opening myself up to it but idk, how popular is surgical in the boards of miracles?

[wonderPreaux]

Can I get any tips on the miracles match up? I usually try to just sculpt a resilient hand with AD and stuff but they always seem to land like top, 2 counterbalance with force up. Am I giving them TOO much time? I'm currently playing a list with Ad Nauseam and a second PiF with 1 TOA mainboard. I side +4 AD, +1 Grip, +2 Swarm, -4 LP, -1 CR, -1 Ponder, -1 GP. Don't know if this is 100% correct and I'm thinking about if I want another grip in my board and maybe an empty. The list i played against today also was running 2 surgical in the board and would hit my AD when I would use them on counter balance them. Maybe I was just playing them too early and opening myself up to it but idk, how popular is surgical in the boards of miracles?

One of the issues you have to accept is that, without something like a Top of your own, you can't improve your card quality in the face of CB. I've lost a few games where they opponent went SDT > CB > Clique and I could never recover, or when the opponent just flops Top > CB > CB with FoW backup. If the opponent wants to invest more in gimmicks to beat combo, Extractions, Canonist, etc they can definitely just have way too many relevant cards.

One thing you can do is try a 3/2 split of Decay/Grip, instead of 4/1, to reduce the impact of Extraction/Meddling Mage (warning: Ad Nauseam becomes obviously less stellar, but I assume that you're just using it as a draw-7 since you're boarding out all the petals). You can also try cards like Pyroblast or Extirpate to increase your ability to fight CB/Top and other problem cards (I believe Slosh has had some success there).

[Narcind]

Inkmoth nexus
Lodestone Golem
Relic of Progenitus and similar


Is this really relevant though? I personally run 3 decays and 0 grips because I don't think grip is very good at all. It's not coming in vs omnitell or infect since the plan is to just race them, and to have it vs hatecards like relic, nihil spellbomb, tormod's crypt and such seems so cornercase that it's not really worth a sideboard slot, especially since you can kind of do the same thing with chain of vapor by forcing them to crack it.

Then I suppose krosan grip might be pretty good vs MUD, but honestly, if you expect to see a lot of MUD, wouldn't it be better to just not play storm since the matchup is so dreadful, or if you really do want to play storm, sideboard hurkyl's recall/rebuild instead of krosan grips?

That's just what I think anyway, maybe I'm missing something.

[CabalTherapy]

Is this really relevant though? I personally run 3 decays and 0 grips because I don't think grip is very good at all. It's not coming in vs omnitell or infect since the plan is to just race them, and to have it vs hatecards like relic, nihil spellbomb, tormod's crypt and such seems so cornercase that it's not really worth a sideboard slot, especially since you can kind of do the same thing with chain of vapor by forcing them to crack it.

Then I suppose krosan grip might be pretty good vs MUD, but honestly, if you expect to see a lot of MUD, wouldn't it be better to just not play storm since the matchup is so dreadful, or if you really do want to play storm, sideboard hurkyl's recall/rebuild instead of krosan grips?

That's just what I think anyway, maybe I'm missing something.


Yes, you are missing the fact that Slosh enumerated different targets which cannot be hit by Decay or where Grip is simply the better answer. It does not mean that anyone would bring them in against those cards.

[Narcind]

Yes, you are missing the fact that Slosh enumerated different targets which cannot be hit by Decay or where Grip is simply the better answer. It does not mean that anyone would bring them in against those cards.

Well yeah, of course. I probably worded that badly. It was more of a general question to the people who run krosan grip in their sideboard, and why they do it.

[Jonathan Alexander]

i personally run 3 decays and 0 grips because i don't think grip is very good at all.

what?

[Sloshthedark]

While this is brought up in the most recent two pages, what the hell is the actual plan against Lodestone Golem (and kin)? I have limited experience playing against MUD, but Krosan Grip just seems gross and counteractive against Golem seeing as how you would have to burn through mana sources in order to jam it out. Am I just looking at it wrong? I've always just loaded up on Decays and Vapors and hoped I was either faster or able to power through.

I think MUD is very dieroll dependant but ok (if the MU is known its no fun) , due to nature of the deck it craps on itself quite hard and discard sends them to topdeck mode, clearly if they just have it you could insta lose but that happens with our deck too so why complain (their "combo" is more difficult to have)... the deck is too minor for me to care, if you have it localy it might be worth some slots... I think Grip is fine in the MU has some ups and downs like CoV depends on your mix



Is this really relevant though? I personally run 3 decays and 0 grips because I don't think grip is very good at all. It's not coming in vs omnitell or infect since the plan is to just race them, and to have it vs hatecards like relic, nihil spellbomb, tormod's crypt and such seems so cornercase that it's not really worth a sideboard slot, especially since you can kind of do the same thing with chain of vapor by forcing them to crack it.

Then I suppose krosan grip might be pretty good vs MUD, but honestly, if you expect to see a lot of MUD, wouldn't it be better to just not play storm since the matchup is so dreadful, or if you really do want to play storm, sideboard hurkyl's recall/rebuild instead of krosan grips?

That's just what I think anyway, maybe I'm missing something.

It is, obv. you don't board it against those niche cards but sometimes you get something better for that +1 mana, the biggest upside is clearly SDT, but some Miracles pack Relic time to time as well as Merfolk, Golem is valid target, I do board it vs. Infect unlike AD

[Narcind]

what?

what



It is, obv. you don't board it against those niche cards but sometimes you get something better for that +1 mana, the biggest upside is clearly SDT, but some Miracles pack Relic time to time as well as Merfolk, Golem is valid target, I do board it vs. Infect unlike AD

I suppose so, and I agree with not boarding decay vs infect, though I probably wouldn't bring in grip either, though that might be wrong on my part. I suppose it just feels like, to me at least, that decay tends to be a better grip most of the time, though grip clearly does have a few advantages.

[Togores]

I usualy board 2 decay vs infect. There are many scenarior where you just get them with it.

[Dr_D]

So recently I've been trying a sideboard similar to the one Slosh played at Lille, the difference being I'm running 2 chains instead of the green duals (I play mine main) and Dread of Night instead of Sulfur elemental. I really really like pyroblast and extirpate, but I'm just curious how I should board against Shardless BUG. I haven't played the matchup much and I can't really tell which card I should be cutting. I'm running a pretty standard "Full House" main board with 6 discard, 2 PiF, 2 Tendrils, 1 Empty etc. It's basically the same as what nevilshute played at Lille. Any advice would be great.

[nevilshute]

So recently I've been trying a sideboard similar to the one Slosh played at Lille, the difference being I'm running 2 chains instead of the green duals (I play mine main) and Dread of Night instead of Sulfur elemental. I really really like pyroblast and extirpate, but I'm just curious how I should board against Shardless BUG. I haven't played the matchup much and I can't really tell which card I should be cutting. I'm running a pretty standard "Full House" main board with 6 discard, 2 PiF, 2 Tendrils, 1 Empty etc. It's basically the same as what nevilshute played at Lille. Any advice would be great.

I like boarding prette minimally against Shardless. If they are splashing white that might change things and prompt me to want to bring in more removal but at the outset I'd be looking at something ~like:

-1 PiF
-1 Tendrils
+2 chain of vapor


I'll occasionally change things up and bring in Ad Nauseam in place of Empty the Warrens. Especially if I've shown them Empty game one. Shardless is - usually - a slow, discard oriented deathrite deck so Ad Nauseam has some merit.

[Sloshthedark]

I like boarding prette minimally against Shardless. If they are splashing white that might change things and prompt me to want to bring in more removal but at the outset I'd be looking at something ~like:

-1 PiF
-1 Tendrils
+2 chain of vapor


I'll occasionally change things up and bring in Ad Nauseam in place of Empty the Warrens. Especially if I've shown them Empty game one. Shardless is - usually - a slow, discard oriented deathrite deck so Ad Nauseam has some merit.

I won't do this without boarding Ad Nauseam in, why lose Pif for a bouncespell... if you're facing Hymn version AdN might be correct, I don't like EtW much, they have sweepers and can race some situations due to DRS and Agent

I'd expect MM so for me it's in the area of

+3AD +2 Pyroblast, -CR -3LP -GP , lands trade for lands

+3AD +2 Pyro +Adn, -CR -GP -EtW -Pif -ToA -Grim if facing Hymn, on play I'd keep EtW for AD

[rmckeown]

Hi long time lurker finally registered. Trying to tweak my list here and wanted some thoughts.

I have a fairly stock list:

Spells:

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 SDT
4 Gitaxian Probe

3 Cabal Therapy
2 Duress
1 Thoughtseize

4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Infernal Tutor
2 Past in Flames
2 Tendrils of Agony

Lands
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Massacre
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Hurkyl's recall
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Ad Nauseum
1 ETW

Cards I am testing - Dark Petition main , extirpate or surgical in the sideboard. I have been impressed with rain of filth if I am playing long matches vs miracles but in most other matches I have found it mediocre (am I just wrong). I am not sure if that should be moved to the sideboard or just removed all together. If I were to move that to sideboard I would either bring in an extra tendrils, preordain, etw , duress, dark petition. Of these I am leaning towards duress. The reason for possibly adding the sideboard-extirpate or surgical is to possibly help against other ant/grinding station decks since they are becoming more prevalent. But I am generally not a fan of these types of cards so am I trying to battle the mirror incorrectly.

[TokugawaEdo]

Hi long time lurker finally registered. Trying to tweak my list here and wanted some thoughts.

I have a fairly stock list:

Spells:

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 SDT
4 Gitaxian Probe

3 Cabal Therapy
2 Duress
1 Thoughtseize

4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Infernal Tutor
2 Past in Flames
2 Tendrils of Agony

Lands
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Massacre
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Hurkyl's recall
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Ad Nauseum
1 ETW

Cards I am testing - Dark Petition main , extirpate or surgical in the sideboard. I have been impressed with rain of filth if I am playing long matches vs miracles but in most other matches I have found it mediocre (am I just wrong). I am not sure if that should be moved to the sideboard or just removed all together. If I were to move that to sideboard I would either bring in an extra tendrils, preordain, etw , duress, dark petition. Of these I am leaning towards duress. The reason for possibly adding the sideboard-extirpate or surgical is to possibly help against other ant/grinding station decks since they are becoming more prevalent. But I am generally not a fan of these types of cards so am I trying to battle the mirror incorrectly.
Since you have Ad Nauseam in the board your life isn't stressed so you can play another thoughtseize over the second duress or another cabal therapy if you plan on playing with ETW a lot, both are better than the second duress I believe.

[JamieW89]

Played in a 5-round local event without a top-8 yesterday, went 4-1. Played 2 DP, 1 Top, 1 Empty, 1 Rain of Filth. A strangely non-blue meta for a change.

Round-1: Lands 2-1 (lost g1 because I thought he played something else and kept a hand only suited for empty and get raced on t3 by a 20/20. I'd have lost one of the postboard games if he had actually boarded in Bojuka Bog.... )
Round-2: Shardless 2-0 (with a DD-esque line in g2, where I flipped top in my upkeep, cast duress, replayed top, flipped it again, probed into top, replayed top, petal, cabal rit, led, and then flipped the top into the tendrils that was still on top for exactly enough. Had a PiF in hand too but he had Spellbomb + Shaman active.)
Round-3: Death & Taxes 2-0 (Had very fast hands, g2 I had LP,DR,LED,BS,PN,GP,GP, the 3 draws gave me a land, the ponder found a tutor.)
Round-4: Grixis Delver 1-2 (He wins g1 when he probed into probe into a random card which turned out to be another force, therapy would have won as well though. I win g2 because he never finds a black mana, otherwise my hand would have been wrecked by double therapy plus flashbacks. I missplayed horribly g3 and lost because of it, I could either play Cabal Rit from my 2 lands with petal to pay for daze, and if it resolves win through fow+daze or therapy on fow after which he could daze the cabal rit. Getting the Cabal Rit forced would have hurt my hand quite a bit, but he doesn't force too often there and he was more likely to have daze than fow+blue card. He has the daze, I pass the turn and I make tokens as the PiF in hand is no longer very good due to his now active shaman + drawn surgical. I need him to brick his drawstep but a second shaman is exactly lethal on his next turn)
Round-5: Elves 2-0 (Get there game-1. In g2 he has a fast thoughtseize and Gaddock Teeg, but I can bounce it and then go for a cantrip PiF on my turn with the following situation: 10+ black mana a tapped sea and an untapped sea with my landdrop available, GP,GP,GP,BS,PN in my graveyard and 4 IT, 1 DP, 1 ToA (and 1 AdN but life might become low from the probes) as relevant outs. What order do you guys flashback the cantrips here? I got there but only on the 9th card or so.

[n0ct3m89]

For your elves matchup, do you have enough life to go ponder (shuffle + draw is 4 cards) probe probe (6) brainstorm (9). Feel like this is the best line if you ignore ad naus as an out. Or, ponder, flash 3x probe, bs but might not let IT be an out if you draw poorly

[mishima_kazuya]

Underperformed this weekend at SCG:DC and finished 10-5 with 2x DP, 2x PiF and 0 Ad nauseam.
Lost matches to mentor miracles, soldier stompy, burn and 4c delver twice.
Gonna cut the 2nd DP. Will post list when I get home

[Lans89]

Underperformed this weekend at SCG:DC and finished 10-5 with 2x DP, 2x PiF and 0 Ad nauseam.
Lost matches to mentor miracles, soldier stompy, burn and 4c delver twice.
Gonna cut the 2nd DP. Will post list when I get home

Soldier Stompy :eyebrow:?

[dissy]

Soldier Stompy :eyebrow:?

Yup, thats a deck with chalice/trini moat effects and captain of the watch if iam correct..
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/developing-legacy/181882-soldier-stompy

[Lans89]

Yup, thats a deck with chalice/trini moat effects and captain of the watch if iam correct..
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/developing-legacy/181882-soldier-stompy

Thanks for the info =)!

10-5 is still a nice result

[mishima_kazuya]

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

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Preordain
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Dark Petition
2 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard:
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Carpet of Flowers
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Massacre
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Empty the Warrens

After DC, I was going to make the following changes:
-1 Dark Petition (-2 Dark Petition)
-1 Past in Flames
+1 Preordain
+1 Ad Naseam
(+1 Grim Tutor if I cut both DPs')

Decided that my deck with 2 DPs is ok, since my 5 losses were due to me having savage idiot moments

[vcaram]

Hey everyone, I'm a new member here.
Just started to play the deck, here's my list, any thoughts?

4 cabal therapy
2 duress
4 ponder
4 preordain
4 gitaxian probe
4 brainstorm
4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
4 lotus petal
4 lion's eye diamond
4 infernal tutor
1 ad nauseam
1 past in flames
1 tendrils

4 underground sea
2 bloodstained mire
2 underground sea
1 volcanic island
1 badlands
1 tropical island
3 island
1 swamp

Sb
3 chain of vapor
2 abrupt decay
2 flusterstorm
3 dread of night
1 thoughtseize
1 empty the warrens
3 carpet of flowers

[JamieW89]

Your MD outside of the manabase seems fine, it's basicly what I played in GP Lille. Most people are on different lists, but it's very consistent.

Your manabase is a bit of a mess though; 6 fetchlands (assuming the 4 sea are delta's) is not enough, they are awesome to have with all the cantrips! I would prefer to run 10 before I'd run 6. I'd play Bayou over Badlands in such a list, but both are viable options. The 3rd Island is completely overkill, the second is a real option though but it should replace a dual, not a fetch. Your manabase could be something like 4 Delta, 4 Misty, 2 Sea, 1 Volc, 1 Bayou, 2 Island, 1 Swamp.

There are also some things in your sb which I don't like. 3 Chains is a lot, whereas 2 Decay is not enough. I'd switch these around and consider adding at least another decay/grip in another slot somewhere. Carpet is a great card, but 3 is insane, I'd cut at least one of them. I also don't like boarding more discard, since against hate we can board in plenty of permanent answers and we have therapies to keep in if needed vs creatures. So I'd go -1 Chain, -1 Thoughtseize, -1 Carpet and add 2 Abrupt Decay and something else (4th DoN if you see DnT alot, Hurkyl's Recall if you see MUD/Lands/4cLoam, a Top for discard/miracles etc).

[Lemnear]

Hey everyone, I'm a new member here.
Just started to play the deck, here's my list, any thoughts?

4 cabal therapy
2 duress
4 ponder
4 preordain
4 gitaxian probe
4 brainstorm
4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
4 lotus petal
4 lion's eye diamond
4 infernal tutor
1 ad nauseam
1 past in flames
1 tendrils

4 underground sea
2 bloodstained mire
2 underground sea
1 volcanic island
1 badlands
1 tropical island
3 island
1 swamp

Sb
3 chain of vapor
2 abrupt decay
2 flusterstorm
3 dread of night
1 thoughtseize
1 empty the warrens
3 carpet of flowers

1) Horrible landbase
2) Loses hard to Miracles.
3) Obviously lacks tests against the metagame

[hartigan]

Hey everyone, I'm a new member here.
Just started to play the deck, here's my list, any thoughts?

4 cabal therapy
2 duress
4 ponder
4 preordain
4 gitaxian probe
4 brainstorm
4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
4 lotus petal
4 lion's eye diamond
4 infernal tutor
1 ad nauseam
1 past in flames
1 tendrils

4 underground sea
2 bloodstained mire
2 underground sea
1 volcanic island
1 badlands
1 tropical island
3 island
1 swamp

Sb
3 chain of vapor
2 abrupt decay
2 flusterstorm
3 dread of night
1 thoughtseize
1 empty the warrens
3 carpet of flowers

Basically fine, seems like a very standard ANT list.

Manabase is a bit weird I think something more traditional (much like your list) would be:

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

[nevilshute]

@vcaram:

Your mana base - as others have pointed out - is a bit off. If the 4 underground sea are polluted deltas you are still sitting on just 6 fetches. You then have 3 islands, a good 2 more than the industry standard. And only 4 of your 6 fetches can even fetch out island as Bloodstained Mire can't.

The 4 preorain build has its pro- and opponents. I think, as Lemnear points to, that it will leave you vulnerable vs Miracles.

[Lemnear]

@vcaram:

Your mana base - as others have pointed out - is a bit off. If the 4 underground sea are polluted deltas you are still sitting on just 6 fetches. You then have 3 islands, a good 2 more than the industry standard. And only 4 of your 6 fetches can even fetch out island as Bloodstained Mire can't.

The 4 preorain build has its pro- and opponents. I think, as Lemnear points to, that it will leave you vulnerable vs Miracles.

To be a bit more clear here, the comment about Miracles was not because of the 4 Preordains but because of running only 2 Decays and only 4 Fetches which can grab the sole green Dual, which is horrible and imo shows a clear lack of actual testing against this tier 1 metagame deck. The issue is even more obvious if one plays against a Chalice.dec.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Hey everyone, I'm a new member here.
Just started to play the deck, here's my list, any thoughts?


Don't start playing a deck and immediately build your own list. Take someone else's list, play it a bunch, then play another list and play it a bunch. Then you can start tuning your list to suit your expected metagame. This is true for every deck, but especially with Storm, changing just two cards can have a huge impact on the overall performance of your deck because you see so many cards in each game.

[Whitefaces]

Just started to play the deck, here's my list, any thoughts?


which is horrible and imo shows a clear lack of actual testing against this tier 1 metagame deck.

Can you not read?

Rather than jump down someones throat at any opportunity, help them out.

[Lemnear]

Can you not read?

Rather than jump down someones throat at any opportunity, help them out.

Jona, Martin, Jamie and I did, telling that if you don't understand why decks are build a certain way, don't mess with them.

What do you expect how I react to a list with a lot of changes which aren't even justified by any means or explained at all? Why should I take the time to adress the issues in this forum, if there wasn't even time put into handing reasoning or testing?

[Bahamuth]

Jona, Martin, Jamie and I did, telling that if you don't understand why decks are build a certain way, don't mess with them.

What do you expect how I react to a list with a lot of changes which aren't even justified by any means or explained at all? Why should I take the time to adress the issues in this forum, if there wasn't even time put into handing reasoning or testing?

So please don't. You are not required to post.

[d0nkey]

So please don't. You are not required to post.

The OP did ask for any thoughts.

Lem gave a thought.

[Whitefaces]

Jona, Martin, Jamie and I did, telling that if you don't understand why decks are build a certain way, don't mess with them.

What do you expect how I react to a list with a lot of changes which aren't even justified by any means or explained at all? Why should I take the time to address the issues in this forum, if there wasn't even time put into handing reasoning or testing?

He's not 'messing' with the deck. As he said, he's new to it and this is his beginning list and wants advice. How hard is that to understand?

Everyone else offered something positive. You offered zero help, rather, you were needlessly aggressive.

If you have nothing constructive to say, don't say it. Don't take the time to address issues if you don't actually address them in any meaningful way.

[d0nkey]

He's not 'messing' with the deck. As he said, he's new to it and this is his beginning list and wants advice. How hard is that to understand?

Everyone else offered something positive. You offered zero help, rather, you were needlessly aggressive.

If you have nothing constructive to say, don't say it. Don't take the time to address issues if you don't actually address them in any meaningful way.



He's a bit harsh, but he's correct. There are 150+ pages of info on the deck, and if you can't be bothered to even look at the last few pages then too bad.

[davelin]

He's not 'messing' with the deck. As he said, he's new to it and this is his beginning list and wants advice. How hard is that to understand?

Everyone else offered something positive. You offered zero help, rather, you were needlessly aggressive.

If you have nothing constructive to say, don't say it. Don't take the time to address issues if you don't actually address them in any meaningful way.

Lem likes to offer what most would probably characterize as 'tough love' :wink:

[Whitefaces]

Sure, I get it, he's a hardass and plays storm a lot. Big fucking whoop. And I agree, the poster should read the thread to get a better understanding of the deck. Seems like you're the first person to point that out, though.

My point is, Lem added nothing constructed. He then had the audacity to complain about having to spend his time to address such 'issues' when he did quite the contrary.

Anyway, this is quite pointless so I'll break it off here. It's just a really shitty way to welcome someone playing a new archetype.

[rw1347]

Heya guys, first time posting here. Wanted to get an opinion on whats the better white hate currently, Massacre, or Dread of night. Been trying both can't figure out which I like best.

[nevilshute]

Heya guys, first time posting here. Wanted to get an opinion on whats the better white hate currently, Massacre, or Dread of night. Been trying both can't figure out which I like best.

Unfortunately there is no clear cut answer. Each of the hatebear-answers have strengths and weaknesses. Keep trying them out and make your own experiences

[hartigan]

Heya guys, first time posting here. Wanted to get an opinion on whats the better white hate currently, Massacre, or Dread of night. Been trying both can't figure out which I like best.

I've been playing Dread of Night as there's three D&T players in my local meta and I've just had more success with it compared to Massacre.

Dread of Night also makes it very difficult for a hate-bear style deck to "rebuild" as the effect is permanent whereas Massacre is basically just a one-sided board-wipe.

Both have their upside but I've basically landed on Dread of Night being better for the meta right now.

Still, what nevilshute said stands, try them both and decide for yourself.

The better you know your deck and sideboard options the more optimally you will be able to pilot the match-ups you side in Dread of Night or Massacre!

[Jonathan Alexander]

Heya guys, first time posting here. Wanted to get an opinion on whats the better white hate currently, Massacre, or Dread of night. Been trying both can't figure out which I like best.

https://theweeklywars.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/the-storm-box/

"To sum up, Dread of Night is a sideboard card against Death and Taxes and, to a lesser extent, Maverick. Massacre is a sideboard card against Jeskai Delver and similar decks. Usually, slots on Massacre will be wasted since you already pack Abrupt Decay to bring against Delver."

There is also a more detailed explanation in the article.

[davelin]

Heya guys, first time posting here. Wanted to get an opinion on whats the better white hate currently, Massacre, or Dread of night. Been trying both can't figure out which I like best.

Im a fan of Massacre since in a good number of cases drawing and casting a single DoN wont get the job done while a Massacre right before going off will.

Rules question, I once had someone on Cockatrice say you can Flickerwisp a DoN and stack it such that both the DoN and Wisp are gone. True?

[Lemnear]

He's not 'messing' with the deck. As he said, he's new to it and this is his beginning list and wants advice. How hard is that to understand?

Instead of picking up a list that had some results and testing with it to get a feeling for the deck, he dropped a list with certain random and unexplained changes (aka messing with the deck) and let it to THE THREAD discussing it and finding reasons for/against the changes. Thats lazy at best and I'm not going to reward that.


Everyone else offered something positive. You offered zero help, rather, you were needlessly aggressive.

uhhhh ... I clearly hinted at the problems with Miracles and fetches, which is imo clearly helpful advice, no?


If you have nothing constructive to say, don't say it. Don't take the time to address issues if you don't actually address them in any meaningful way.

I did and I even invested more time into answering then he did into his post.


He's a bit harsh, but he's correct. There are 150+ pages of info on the deck, and if you can't be bothered to even look at the last few pages then too bad.

I can't point at 100+ pages of this thread to find answers, but the last 10 pages and simply googling for recent list should give more than enough info to pick up the deck. Nothing was done.


My point is, Lem added nothing constructed. He then had the audacity to complain about having to spend his time to address such 'issues' when he did quite the contrary.

See above. I did. Your posts solely rant about my posts and add nothing.


Anyway, this is quite pointless so I'll break it off here. It's just a really shitty way to welcome someone playing a new archetype.

then why YOU did not help him out?

[rw1347]

Thanks for the info guys, will keep testing different board configs for the etenal weekend/invitational.

[aegisd]

Rules question, I once had someone on Cockatrice say you can Flickerwisp a DoN and stack it such that both the DoN and Wisp are gone. True?

That doesn't sound right to me, since Flickerwisp's ability isn't divided into two parts like O-Ring is. DoN should come back as normal the beginning of the next end step, but flickerwisp is dead due to SBE once it triggers it's ETB effect.

[hartigan]

That doesn't sound right to me, since Flickerwisp's ability isn't divided into two parts like O-Ring is. DoN should come back as normal the beginning of the next end step, but flickerwisp is dead due to SBE once it triggers it's ETB effect.

Correct.

Flickerwisp's ETB trigger will go on the stack but Flickerwip will already be in the graveyard by the time the ability resolves.

The exiled card (Dread of Night) will return to the battlefield at the beginning of the end step even though Flickerwisp is no longer on the battlefield.

[Miscanthus]

Question for experienced practitioners of the Grinding Station ANT variant:

After having played the “classic” version of ANT for approximately one year, I recently switched over to Grinding Station. Having now played this version for about a months and a half, I can say I am very impressed by the results! During this time I have top 8’ed in two different local tournaments (one of which had 50+ people (July Legacy at channnelfireball center in San Jose)), and overall the deck has seemed noticeably smoother and more powerful/resilient than before.

So my general question to those more experienced with this variant than me is “other than the mirror/other storm combo, when exactly do we side in Ad Nauseam?”

I ask this because I have kept pretty careful notes as I have learned this variant, and noticed that in nearly every instance that I sided in Ad Nauseam when I thought it “correct” to do so I lost that game. Further, in many cases I have reason to believe I would have won had I not sided it in (and by extension, the extra Tendrils of Agony, Past in Flames, etc. out in order to accommodate it).

For example: In one recent match against Death and Taxes (game 2, after having lost game 1 to an early Thalia+Rishadan Port), I was expecting Rest in Peace and/or Grafdigger’s Cage to come in, and therefore sided Ad Nauseam in to play around this. Sure enough, my opponent dropped an early Grafdigger’s Cage, and a Gitaxian Probe on my next turn revealed Thalia, Canonist, Wasteland, and Plains in my opponent’s hand. Based on this information and the contents of my hand, I made the determination that I had to go for it that turn (which in hindsight may or may not have been correct). I had just enough mana to reach Ad Nauseam with Infernal Tutor (no land drop available), did so, and fizzled. Opponent subsequently dropped Canonist, etc, and that was that… Looking at this later, I realized that had I kept Empty the Warrens in instead of siding it out for the Ad Nausean package (and, by extension, not trying to play around my opponents anticipated graveyard hate), I would have been able to make enough goblins to quite likely win.

Further, I read through the tournament reports from Lille by Nevilshute and Sloshthedark, and noticed that neither of them seemed particularly pleased with Ad Nauseams performance/usefulness. Based on this (and noting how well they both did at the event), I am wondering what exactly we use this card for in this variant…

If it really is mostly just for the mirror/other combo decks, perhaps there is another card that could work better here (Telemin Performance maybe)?

Curious for your thoughts…


For reference my maindeck is identical to Nevilshutes Lille list save for -1 Grim Tutor, +1 Preordain.
My sideboard is currently:
4-Abrupt Decay
3-Xantid Swarm
3-Dread of Night
2-Chain of Vapor
1-Grim Tutor
1-Ad Nauseam
1-Duress

[Sloshthedark]

Question for experienced practitioners of the Grinding Station ANT variant:

After having played the “classic” version of ANT for approximately one year, I recently switched over to Grinding Station. Having now played this version for about a months and a half, I can say I am very impressed by the results! During this time I have top 8’ed in two different local tournaments (one of which had 50+ people (July Legacy at channnelfireball center in San Jose)), and overall the deck has seemed noticeably smoother and more powerful/resilient than before.

So my general question to those more experienced with this variant than me is “other than the mirror/other storm combo, when exactly do we side in Ad Nauseam?”

I ask this because I have kept pretty careful notes as I have learned this variant, and noticed that in nearly every instance that I sided in Ad Nauseam when I thought it “correct” to do so I lost that game. Further, in many cases I have reason to believe I would have won had I not sided it in (and by extension, the extra Tendrils of Agony, Past in Flames, etc. out in order to accommodate it).

For example: In one recent match against Death and Taxes (game 2, after having lost game 1 to an early Thalia+Rishadan Port), I was expecting Rest in Peace and/or Grafdigger’s Cage to come in, and therefore sided Ad Nauseam in to play around this. Sure enough, my opponent dropped an early Grafdigger’s Cage, and a Gitaxian Probe on my next turn revealed Thalia, Canonist, Wasteland, and Plains in my opponent’s hand. Based on this information and the contents of my hand, I made the determination that I had to go for it that turn (which in hindsight may or may not have been correct). I had just enough mana to reach Ad Nauseam with Infernal Tutor (no land drop available), did so, and fizzled. Opponent subsequently dropped Canonist, etc, and that was that… Looking at this later, I realized that had I kept Empty the Warrens in instead of siding it out for the Ad Nausean package (and, by extension, not trying to play around my opponents anticipated graveyard hate), I would have been able to make enough goblins to quite likely win.

Further, I read through the tournament reports from Lille by Nevilshute and Sloshthedark, and noticed that neither of them seemed particularly pleased with Ad Nauseams performance/usefulness. Based on this (and noting how well they both did at the event), I am wondering what exactly we use this card for in this variant…

If it really is mostly just for the mirror/other combo decks, perhaps there is another card that could work better here (Telemin Performance maybe)?

Curious for your thoughts…


For reference my maindeck is identical to Nevilshutes Lille list save for -1 Grim Tutor, +1 Preordain.
My sideboard is currently:
4-Abrupt Decay
3-Xantid Swarm
3-Dread of Night
2-Chain of Vapor
1-Grim Tutor
1-Ad Nauseam
1-Duress

if you have EtW it does not make sense to SB Ad Nauseam here for me, I don't buy the more speed argument of AdN, for there is none generaly imo, it's additional mode of combo you add// GT in the SB is a very awkward choice...

to answer the question - I use it for Elves, Mirror, Dredge, Shardless w Hymn and tier 2 discard decks... btw. will probably not run it again in my next large tournament... depending on the metagame AdN is often the necessary evil

[phazonmutant]

The CardKingdom stream featured me playing Grinding Station this week http://www.twitch.tv/cardkingdom/v/11459796?t=03%3A05

I made a huge punt game 1. I could have potentially recovered by cracking LED in response to the second Tutor for Red and cracking LED for Blue before playing Probe, but did neither of those things and lost horribly. Games 2 and 3 were better though.

[Dr_D]

Played my local Legacy last night. 30 people showed up, which was enough for 5 rounds of swiss then a top 8 split. First time running Full House Storm at an actual event and ended up top 8ing. Here’s the 75 I ran:

Mainboard:

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian probe
1 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Empty the Warrens
2 Past in flames
2 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal tutor
1 Dark Petition

4 Cabal therapy
1 Duress
1 Thoughtseize

3 Cabal ritual
4 Dark ritual
4 Lion's eye diamond
4 Lotus petal
1 Rain of Filth

4 Polluted delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground sea
1 Volcanic island
1 Badlands
1 Tropical island
1 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard:

1 Ad Nauseam
2 Extirpate
3 Dread of Night
2 Pyroblast
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Rebuild
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Krosan Grip

Yes, I stole Slosh's sideboard from Lille and it's been amazing imo.


Round 1 vs. R/B Reanimator

Game 1

Won the die roll and kept a slower 7 that had Top, Ponder, LED, and some discard. We spent some turns stripping eachothers’ hands but top was an MVP here and was able to dig me into a turn 5 or 6 PiF loop after we both durdled for the majority of the game

Boarding: -1 PiF -1 Tendrils -1 Empty +1 Ad Nauseam +2 Extirpate

Game 2

Kept a hand that had 2 infernal tutors and the potential to turn 1 Ad Nauseam. Opponent cast Faithless Looting, failed to find a fatty, and unmasked me taking a ritual. Casted a cantrip into the nuts allowing me to turn 2 tutor chain.

1-0

Round 2 vs. Burn

Game 1

Won the die roll, and I know my opponent is on burn. I kept a fast hand, and probed early to see if my opponent had Eidolon. He didn’t have one, so I spent the turn cantripping until I had a hand of Tendrils, Tutor, a few rituals and an LED, planning to turn 3 double Tendrils. He topdecked and tapped out for Eidolon turn 2 and passed. I untapped, played rituals down to 4 life (knew he didn’t have Fireblast), casted Tendrils for 12, played Infernal Tutor cracking LED and casted a second Tendrils for 16.

Boarding: +3 Decay +1 Chain -4 Probe

Game 2

I keep a hand with a fast kill and a Decay. I spend a turn cantripping while he missed his second land drop. On his turn 3, he rips the land and plays Pyrostatic Pillar. I decay the pillar on his end step and kill him with PiF at a healthy life total.

2-0

Round 3 vs. Blue Manaless Dredge

Game 1

He won the roll and chose to be on the draw. I kept a weird hand with 2x probe, a ritual and tendrils. I kept because I know he’s on the blue version and I want to be able to beat force easily. On turn 2, I begin casting probes which draw me into cantrips and more rituals. I hadn’t planned on winning, but I got really lucky and was able to natural tendrils for exactly 20.

Boarding: -1 Tendrils, -1 Empty, -1 Dark Petition, -1 Top, -1 PiF +1 Ad Nauseam +2 Pyroblast (not correct I think) +2 Extirpate

Game 2

I tried to go for a PiF loop on turn 3. Over the course of the turn, I casted probe 6 times, ponder 2 times and brainstorm 1 time (not in that order obviously), failing to find a tutor or tendrils. He had a Disrupting Shoal and Narcomoeba for tutor, but I had a pyroblast with flashback in the yard. I scooped, as I was dead next turn or 2, and checked the top cards of my library. The next 2 cards were 2x Infernal Tutor: oh well! I still think it was right to gamble on the cantrips in my yard getting me there.

Game 3

I choose to draw and keep a hand with extirpate, but missing some pieces for the kill. He draws and discards a Phantasmagorian, but I Extirpate. He informs me that it’s the incorrect play and I should have waited for the dredger, but I figured it was fine to time walk him and take the discard outlet in order to play around him discarding a Grave Troll and Imp, meaning the Extirpate would have been less impactful. Either way, I end up trying to kill him on turn 3, but he forces a dark ritual and I end up only taking him to 3, but I have infernal tutor in my hand. He cycles street wraith on my end step bringing himself to 1 and I think he couldn’t find a dredger. I had 4 lands in play on my turn and Tutored for PiF. He had a Narcomoeba and brought me down to 30 before I found an LED and flashbacked the copy of Tendrils in my yard.

3-0

Round 4 vs. Grixis Control

Game 1

This was a strange build with Thought Scours. I misplay horribly game 1. I won the roll and Probe/Therapy’d a Brainstorm, seeing Thought Scour, dig, and Lightning Bolt. Like an Idiot, I didn’t therapy the dig on my turn 2, and he EOT thought scoured himself into a turn 2 dig. He found a bunch of forces, started chaining digs, buried me card advantage and wrecked me.

Boarding: +2 Pyroblast +1 Decay -1 Lotus Petal -1 Dark Petition -1 Rain of Filth, should have just boarded in decays and left out Pyroblast. I’m bad.

Game 2

I Probe turn 1 and see Young Pyro, 2 Probes and I think a Bolt. I therapy the probes and turn 2 I empty for 6 goblins and flash back Therapy on YP. Over the next few turns, he bolts 2 goblins and I cast an infernal tutor for Pyroblast, hoping to catch a cantrip. He find nothing but lands and I get there with the pitiful Empty.

Game 3

I actually don’t remember this game, but it was over fast thanks to Young Pyromancer and Snapcaster on Flusterstorm.

3-1

Round 5 vs. TES

I.D.

We I.D. since we’re both X-1 and we will almost certainly top 8 if we take the draw here. We play it out anyway just for fun.

Game 1

We discard eachother and I turn 2 brainstorm into a PiF loop for the kill.

Boarding: -1 PiF -1 Empty -1 Tendrils +2 Extirpate +1 Ad Nauseam.

Game 2

We both mull to 5. I therapy him, and he telegraphs that he has brainstorm but he lets therapy resolve. I was planning on naming LED or Dark Ritual, but I name brainstorm and hit, seeing a land and a Chrome Mox. I get super luck and turn 3 Ad Nauseam with nothing floating into the kill.

Ended up in 6th place, which is as good as any spot, as top 8 was splitting regardless. All in all, it was a great time playing the list, this is definitely what I’ll be taking to Eternal Weekend. Having piloted almost every variant of storm, I was pleasantly surprised with how powerful this list is. I’m sad that I boarded badly in some rounds, but I’ll make sure to have defined plans for the common decks when I go to Eternal Weekend. So far, I’ve been in love with Extirpate and Pyroblast. I was very skeptical of Dark Petition when I first tried the card, but so far I’ve had some lines that were won because the card costs a net of 2 mana instead of the 3 that would be Grim Tutor. I know there will also be times when the 5cc is a major problem, but I like the card so far and won’t cut it just yet. Hope this report was helpful/interesting/something.

[Dr Brian Pepper]

Instead of picking up a list that had some results and testing with it to get a feeling for the deck, he dropped a list with certain random and unexplained changes (aka messing with the deck) and let it to THE THREAD discussing it and finding reasons for/against the changes. Thats lazy at best and I'm not going to reward that.



uhhhh ... I clearly hinted at the problems with Miracles and fetches, which is imo clearly helpful advice, no?



I did and I even invested more time into answering then he did into his post.



I can't point at 100+ pages of this thread to find answers, but the last 10 pages and simply googling for recent list should give more than enough info to pick up the deck. Nothing was done.



See above. I did. Your posts solely rant about my posts and add nothing.



then why YOU did not help him out?


lol every thread I see you in you're butthurt..jeez

[TokugawaEdo]

Game 1

Won the die roll, and I know my opponent is on burn. I kept a fast hand, and probed early to see if my opponent had Eidolon. He didn’t have one, so I spent the turn cantripping until I had a hand of Tendrils, Tutor, a few rituals and an LED, planning to turn 3 double Tendrils. He topdecked and tapped out for Eidolon turn 2 and passed. I untapped, played rituals down to 4 life (knew he didn’t have Fireblast), casted Tendrils for 12, played Infernal Tutor cracking LED and casted a second Tendrils for 16.

Boarding: +3 Decay +1 Chain -4 Probe

Game 2

I keep a hand with a fast kill and a Decay. I spend a turn cantripping while he missed his second land drop. On his turn 3, he rips the land and plays Pyrostatic Pillar. I decay the pillar on his end step and kill him with PiF at a healthy life total.

Boarding in a grip for a thoughtseize seems better here. If the thoughtseize misses, it at best saves you a life but the grip deals with all the hate that the have of bring in for you. Idk if you want both grips since it is slower but if seems better than the thoughtseize

[Shaman]

Casting Krosan Grip versus Burn on the play isn't an option most of the time since you risk to be dead already.

[Jonathan Alexander]

The real solution is to not board out all Probes. It's essential to many early natural Tendrils kills and helps you play discard spells at the right times. I would board out Empty first, then Thoughtseize and Duress, and maybe one or two Probes, depending on how I feel about my opponent.

[Dr_D]

The real solution is to not board out all Probes. It's essential to many early natural Tendrils kills and helps you play discard spells at the right times. I would board out Empty first, then Thoughtseize and Duress, and maybe one or two Probes, depending on how I feel about my opponent.

Noted. Thanks for the reply.

[TokugawaEdo]

Played at the Legacy championships at eternal weekend tonight and was 7-2 going into round 10 but lost some really close games and ended 82nd at 7-4 losing to miracles and stone blade. Might write up a report when I find time.

[bhsman]

Played at the Legacy championships at eternal weekend tonight and was 7-2 going into round 10 but lost some really close games and ended 82nd at 7-4 losing to miracles and stone blade. Might write up a report when I find time.

I'd be happy to read it, if that's any encouragement.

[bjholmes3]

OP updated, more love to follow. You guys are awesome, thanks for keeping this deck and this thread alive!

[Dr_D]

OP updated, more love to follow. You guys are awesome, thanks for keeping this deck and this thread alive!

Why would you run Scalding Tarn over Misty in the list you proposed in the op? You don't have a badlands to fetch and your tarns can't get the Bayou.

[bjholmes3]

Why would you run Scalding Tarn over Misty in the list you proposed in the op? You don't have a badlands to fetch and your tarns can't get the Bayou.

Good catch, that's a relic from days past. Didn't bother examining the land base when I fixed up the post.

Working on matchups soon

[bjholmes3]

Added a brief section explaining Grinding Station and kicked off the matchup section with my favorite game of 60 card pickup, Death & Taxes.

Update to update report: Added Miracle Control section as well. Do note, I've been out of MTG for years, so I'm a bit rusty. Please, don't hesitate to give feedback/corrections/hatespeech (Lemnear ;) ). I want the primer to be quality.

Update-within-an-update-within-an-update (UPDATECEPTION): Added OmniTell matchup and touched up the formatting a bit (those underlines were ugly, what was I thinking).

Broken record: Added RUG Delver matchup and took my signature out because I'm a professional like that.

[KevinH]

Added a brief section explaining Grinding Station and kicked off the matchup section with my favorite game of 60 card pickup, Death & Taxes.

Update to update report: Added Miracle Control section as well. Do note, I've been out of MTG for years, so I'm a bit rusty. Please, don't hesitate to give feedback/corrections/hatespeech (Lemnear ;) ). I want the primer to be quality.

Update-within-an-update-within-an-update (UPDATECEPTION): Added OmniTell matchup and touched up the formatting a bit (those underlines were ugly, what was I thinking).

Broken record: Added RUG Delver matchup and took my signature out because I'm a professional like that.

In regards to the Miracles matchup section, I don't think that you want to board out Rain of Filth (I usually don't, but maybe this is wrong?)

Bringing in Surgical/Extirpate vs Miracles certainly seems incorrect though.

Edit: Against RUG Delver, you do not want Abrupt Decay, and you WANT Empty the Warrens (This matchup is the main reason people play the card in the first place)

[bjholmes3]

In regards to the Miracles matchup section, I don't think that you want to board out Rain of Filth (I usually don't, but maybe this is wrong?)

Bringing in Surgical/Extirpate vs Miracles certainly seems incorrect though.

Edit: Against RUG Delver, you do not want Abrupt Decay, and you WANT Empty the Warrens (This matchup is the main reason people play the card in the first place)

Thanks for the feedback. Before I make too many changes I'll wait for further input, but EtW makes sense, as does keeping Rain for Miracles (grindy matchups are half of why it's good, not sure why I took it out).

On the topic of Surgical effects, my thought process was that it improves against decks with limited ways to win or that rely on specific cards, or decks which play slow and let the grave full up, of which miracles is both. I'm open to criticism, of course, since I want good info in the guide. Thoughts?

EDIT: OP adjusted. Added Last Updated note at the very top, it's always something I like to know when I see guides. Made the under construction more visible in the MU section so newer players don't get confused by the WIP notes. Adjusted the RUG Delver matchup, replacing the Decays with EtW. Keep the feedback coming!

[KevinH]

On the topic of Surgical effects, my thought process was that it improves against decks with limited ways to win or that rely on specific cards, or decks which play slow and let the grave full up, of which miracles is both. I'm open to criticism, of course, since I want good info in the guide. Thoughts?

What would you be wanting to extract against Miracles?

[TokugawaEdo]

What would you be wanting to extract against Miracles?Anything really. A lot of situations can pop up with having this card in the match up. Mainly if you discard or decay their counterbalance you can take the rest of them out of the game. Also, if you have drawn into multiple decays and can deal with multiple counterbalances, you can use extirpate to deal with their tops or forces. Also if they have surgical, witch is popular right now, and try to surgical your tutors of something you can extirpate the target in response and fail to find the rest, their surgical will have no target and fizzle.

[bjholmes3]

Not to mention they will, at absolute worst, give you hand information and shuffle the opponent's library.

[KevinH]

Anything really. A lot of situations can pop up with having this card in the match up. Mainly if you discard or decay their counterbalance you can take the rest of them out of the game. Also, if you have drawn into multiple decays and can deal with multiple counterbalances, you can use extirpate to deal with their tops or forces. Also if they have surgical, witch is popular right now, and try to surgical your tutors of something you can extirpate the target in response and fail to find the rest, their surgical will have no target and fizzle.

None of those examples seem particularly strong - the whole point of having targeted discard and Abrupt Decay/Grip is so that you can deal with whatever you need to before you go off. I don't see why you would need to extract all their CBs/Tops/Forces when you only need to deal with what's on the board/in the hand.

As for extracting in response to theirs, I don't even think Surgical is a popular card for Miracles - in fact, I have never ever seen it out of their board. Even if they were packing extraction, that corner case doesn't seem worth it.

[Sloshthedark]

Yes, I stole Slosh's sideboard from Lille and it's been amazing imo.

Round 1 vs. R/B Reanimator

Boarding: -1 PiF -1 Tendrils -1 Empty +1 Ad Nauseam +2 Extirpate

Round 2 vs. Burn

Boarding: +3 Decay +1 Chain -4 Probe

Round 3 vs. Blue Manaless Dredge


Boarding: -1 Tendrils, -1 Empty, -1 Dark Petition, -1 Top, -1 PiF +1 Ad Nauseam +2 Pyroblast (not correct I think) +2 Extirpate

Round 4 vs. Grixis Control

Boarding: +2 Pyroblast +1 Decay -1 Lotus Petal -1 Dark Petition -1 Rain of Filth, should have just boarded in decays and left out Pyroblast. I’m bad.

Round 5 vs. TES

Boarding: -1 PiF -1 Empty -1 Tendrils +2 Extirpate +1 Ad Nauseam.

Hope this report was helpful/interesting/something.

Would board (in your list)
R1 +1 Ad Nauseam +2 Extirpate -ToA -RoF -swamp (I have no idea what RB is exactly)
R2 +3AD +1Grip +CoV -RoF -LP -GP -Ponder -land
R3 +Adn +2Pyro +2Extirpate -Swamp -ToA -RoF -DP -PIF
R4 +2Pyro +2Extirpate -CR -2LP -GP
R5 +2Extirpate +Ad Nauseam -Toa -Swamp - EtW


I’ve been in love with Extirpate and Pyroblast.
hmmm...


What would you be wanting to extract against Miracles?

did not want to answer this but lets start Extirpating instead of Extracting, just reading the former, the card is quite selfexplanatory, use your imagination...

SE in Miracles is some recent awful tech...

[bjholmes3]

At any rate, what would your recommended sideboard plan be for such a matchup? Criticism is good, but if you think my recommendations are subpar you should back it up with your own.

[Dr_D]

None of those examples seem particularly strong - the whole point of having targeted discard and Abrupt Decay/Grip is so that you can deal with whatever you need to before you go off. I don't see why you would need to extract all their CBs/Tops/Forces when you only need to deal with what's on the board/in the hand.

As for extracting in response to theirs, I don't even think Surgical is a popular card for Miracles - in fact, I have never ever seen it out of their board. Even if they were packing extraction, that corner case doesn't seem worth it.

It's still hard to go off by just decaying/discarding 1 counterspell or counterbalance. They can float all sorts of nonsense with top and often can get multiple balances on the field. Extirpate makes sure they'll never have another balance. Note I'm playing the full house version, so my strategy against Miracles is to try to grind them out, not decay one counterbalance then pray there's nothing on top to stop me from going off.

In response to miracles not playing surgical, just go to mtgtop 8 and look how many miracles decks are running it. It's pretty common in the ponder versions with snapcasters, as you don't want things like RIP because you essentially turn off your snaps and digs.




hmmm...



Can you elaborate what you mean by this?

[KevinH]

At any rate, what would your recommended sideboard plan be for such a matchup? Criticism is good, but if you think my recommendations are subpar you should back it up with your own.

I'm just picking what I think is bad - everything else I agree with.

When I play vs. Miracles, I board as follows - This is with Grinding Station, 2 Tendrils, 1 EtW, 2 PiF maindeck:

-1 Preordain
-1 Cabal Ritual
-1 EtW
-2 Therapy
-1 PiF (if expecting Rest in Peace)

+3 Abrupt Decay
+2-3 Xantid Swarm

That's about all you really need against Miracles. The reason for boarding out some discard is that it's redundant with Abrupt Decay/Xantid Swarm.

[bjholmes3]

Oh, that reminds me. Has Grinding Station been addressed gracefully enough in this guide, or should I do more on that note.

[Sloshthedark]

Can you elaborate what you mean by this?

Looks like me too... just presented 8 Extripates and 4 Pyros in my boarding...


I'm just picking what I think is bad - everything else I agree with.

When I play vs. Miracles, I board as follows - This is with Grinding Station, 2 Tendrils, 1 EtW, 2 PiF maindeck:

-1 Preordain
-1 Cabal Ritual
-1 EtW
-2 Therapy
-1 PiF (if expecting Rest in Peace)

+3 Abrupt Decay
+2-3 Xantid Swarm

That's about all you really need against Miracles. The reason for boarding out some discard is that it's redundant with Abrupt Decay/Xantid Swarm.

not great imo, EtW is awesome, your answer to +3Flusterstorm +3Clique is -2Therapy (I know, there is Xantid Swarm), is Rip a plan in Miracles with 2 DiG 3 Snapcaster? (unless found out or AdN boarded in I don't think it's worth dropping)

for last 6+months everyone and their Senseis are expecting XS and Pyromancer and keep STPs in, once 1 is found XS is not a plan, by boarding out 2 CT you give up even the mode 2

[Jonathan Alexander]

not great imo, EtW is awesome, your answer to +3Flusterstorm +3Clique is -2Therapy (I know, there is Xantid Swarm), is Rip a plan in Miracles with 2 DiG 3 Snapcaster? (unless found out or AdN boarded in I don't think it's worth dropping)

for last 6+months everyone and their Senseis are expecting XS and Pyromancer and keep STPs in, once 1 is found XS is not a plan, by boarding out 2 CT you give up even the mode 2

Yes, Rest in Piece is quite common.

Further, I heavily disagree with the sideboard guide for RUG. Grinding Station is literally built to beat Canadian. The only card you want to board out is Top, the only card you want to bring in is Swamp. Currently, neither is in the list, so no sideboarding. If they decide to keep their Stifles for your Storm triggers, that usually leads to them dying to Past in Flames.
Against Omni, don't board out Rain (because it's a ritual) and don't bring Grip & Extraction effects (because you're not the control deck).
Also, on a general note, you want to keep two copies of Tendrils with Ad Nauseam whenever possible, it makes Ad Nauseam better and allows for more in-hand Tendrils & double Tendrils kills.
Other than that, I'm too lazy to read through the entire primer right now.

[bjholmes3]

Yes, Rest in Piece is quite common.

Further, I heavily disagree with the sideboard guide for RUG. Grinding Station is literally built to beat Canadian. The only card you want to board out is Top, the only card you want to bring in is Swamp. Currently, neither is in the list, so no sideboarding. If they decide to keep their Stifles for your Storm triggers, that usually leads to them dying to Past in Flames.
Against Omni, don't board out Rain (because it's a ritual) and don't bring Grip & Extraction effects (because you're not the control deck).
Also, on a general note, you want to keep two copies of Tendrils with Ad Nauseam whenever possible, it makes Ad Nauseam better and allows for more in-hand Tendrils & double Tendrils kills.
Other than that, I'm too lazy to read through the entire primer right now.

Tbh some of these suggestions make no sense.

[Sloshthedark]

Yes, Rest in Piece is quite common.

I know, but does it make sense? (will/should it be played...)


Tbh some of these suggestions make no sense.

I believe they do, on the other hand i like to be able to "control" Omnitell (but grip is definitely not the optimal tool to do so)

[nevilshute]

Tbh some of these suggestions make no sense.

Can you be specific? To me it mostly makes sense.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I know, but does it make sense? (will/should it be played...)


I've been testing the matchup from the other side recently and I believe it is correct to bring Rest in Peace if you have it. The old plan of grinding out games isn't working anymore because you are often forced to trade more aggressively to set up kills against current lists. This means you need some kind of engine to enable kills and quite often, that's Past in Flames.
That being said, Rest in Peace is only better than the maindeck white cards, and I wouldn't board it over Ethersworn Canonist or Meddling Mage.

[bjholmes3]

Grinding Station is a new philosophy to me, so keeping AN with several cmc 4 cards seemed sketchy. I suppose having substantial life gain helps with this though. Most of my confusion stems from this philosophy actually, I'll need to spend more time with the build. In the old days I was a 16 cantrip purist, so clearly I have some catching up to do.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Keeping the second Tendrils doesn't really have to do with the lines that are more common to Grinding Station, it simply makes you a better Ad Nauseam deck.

[bjholmes3]

So, for the RUG matchup in the guide, I should recommend bringing in all the business and Carpet of Flowers, or otherwise? Also, clearly my philosophy on the mu is wrong, could y'all steer me in the right direction?

[JamieW89]

So, for the RUG matchup in the guide, I should recommend bringing in all the business and Carpet of Flowers, or otherwise? Also, clearly my philosophy on the mu is wrong, could y'all steer me in the right direction?

Carpets are great, empties are great, there isn't much else to board. Ad Nauseam is weak. I would not board out (the first) top myself, combined with a single basic it's a good way to build up a stable mana-base. The matchup plays in three phases; (1) build up a mana-base (basics & carpet are vital), (2) clear the way and setup, (3) kill them. Alternatively plan-B consisting of a quick empty usually gets there as well. Most matches I lose against them either involve a super aggresive Delver hand with some burn or when I never get any mana whatsoever. Strangely enough some people consider it a tough matchup (mainly commentators and people who don't play storm) but I think it's the single matchup where I score the highest win% among real decks.

[Jonathan Alexander]

So, for the RUG matchup in the guide, I should recommend bringing in all the business and Carpet of Flowers, or otherwise? Also, clearly my philosophy on the mu is wrong, could y'all steer me in the right direction?

I think before you do this, you should decide which of these questions you want to answer in the primer:

1) Which cards should I have in my 75?

2) Which of the cards in my 75 should I have in my deck after sideboarding?

The answers to both questions are quite complex, as there are a lot of variables. The first question is harder for most people, because you need to look at the big picture. It can be hard to get correct information, and coming to the right conclusions isn't trivial either. Reading metagames is very hard, but with Storm, it's essential.
The second question is easier to answer, but only when you already have the data. Boarding plans might change between playing or drawing first or in reaction to an opponent's configuration or plays in a previous game. It's also important to line out the purpose of each card you are discussing; sometimes Card A is only brought in if you also have Card B, sometimes Card C is simply meant to act as an upgrade to Card D. Other times, Card E is only boarded in if your opponent has seen Card F.

How deep you want to go in answering these questions is also relevant. It's very easy to do well with Storm simply because it's a powerful deck, but playing it really well takes a lot of practice and barely pays off. What do you think people reading the primer expect?


Also Jamie is right, Canadian vs. Storm clearly favours Storm, but it's also one of the few matchups that still let you leverage playskill, so you can get to absurd percentages.

[nevilshute]

It's very easy to do well with Storm simply because it's a powerful deck, but playing it really well takes a lot of practice and barely pays off.

I'd love to read more on this Jonathan. I've felt similarly in that it is easier to reach a relatively high level of performance with the deck if one plays enough with it, but it feels really hard to truly reach the highest peaks.

Edit: easier than with some other decks.

[TokugawaEdo]

If they decide to keep their Stifles for your Storm triggers, that usually leads to them dying to Past in Flames.
Against Omni, don't board out Rain (because it's a ritual) and don't bring Grip & Extraction effects (because you're not the control deck).
Agreed, keeping stifle for storm triggers is not a good idea for them. Played against it at eternal weekend and saw a hand with 2 stifle and a flusterstorm. He had the chance to stifle a fetch and didnt. Just killed him with PiF and flasted back some duresses to take stifle.

In the omni match up, grip is definitely a no but doesn't extirpate have some merit. If you duress a show and tell and extirpate it is the game not just over. I'm not saying to rely on this as a game plan but it can happen and you can always just take something else like omniscience leaving them with show and tell emurkul which usually doesn't win it for them.

[nevilshute]

Agreed, keeping in stifle is not a good idea for them. Played against it at eternal weekend and saw a hand with 2 stifle and a flusterstorm. Just killed him with PiF and flasted back some duresses to take stifle.

In the omni match up, grip is definitely a no but doesn't extirpate have some merit. If you duress a show and tell and extirpate it is the game not just over. I'm not saying to rely on this as a game plan but it can happen and you can always just take something else like omniscience leaving them with show and tell emurkul which usually doesn't win it for them.

I think Jonathan meant keeping Stifle as in saving them for a storm trigger instead of using them on your fetchlands. I don't think they should be cutting stifles unless they have an inordinate amount of cards to board in.

Stifle your fetch is a valid thing to be doing vs Storm

[TokugawaEdo]

I think Jonathan meant keeping Stifle as in saving them for a storm trigger instead of using them on your fetchlands. I don't think they should be cutting stifles unless they have an inordinate amount of cards to board in.

Stifle your fetch is a valid thing to be doing vs StormYeah my bad. Tried to shorthand it. Meant keeping them in for just the storm triggers is a bad idea. Will edit now

[bjholmes3]

RUG and OmniTell updated

[Izor]

Thanks for the updates in the opening post. Very helpful!

I'm still having issues with the Grinding Station approach. I've been playing everything between full-TES to classic ANT, but I just can't get good results with PiF + natural Storm as my only win condition.

Yesterday I played another test match against a friend of mine who's on Esper blade. I went with Grinding Station for G1 and got totally destroyed by his turn 1 DRS neutering my PiF and his multiple Thoughtseizes (naturally drawn plus recast with Snapcaster) taking every business spell out of my hand.
I boarded back into my usual list with AN, won game 2 due to him taking two mulligans.
Game 3 I opened the following hand on 6: Petal, Petal, Tutor, LED, LED, Probe. This hand is a mulligan with Grinding Station (with 3 ToA, 0 EtW), but a turn 1 kill with AN in my deck. Needless to say I turn 1'd him after Probing him and seeing that he had no Force with a comfortable Ad Nauseam with 1 floating and an open land drop.

Every time I test Grinding Station I get into situations like those. I'm probably either missing something, or it's just not my playstyle,... or it's just chance, I don't know.

I know Grinding Station is supposed to help in matchups against fair blue decks, but as soon as those decks run black as well, I feel like going without AN is a mistake. So my question is, what matchups does Grinding Station really improve after all? I know Miracles is one of them, and Jeskai Stoneblade might be another likely one. But what else? And if it's just against a few decks that it's really better while it forces you to sacrifice a substantial amount of game against other decks in the format (which at this point I am 100% sure it does), wouldn't it be better to have AN main and board into Grinding Station for G2 instead of doing it the other way around? All I'm seeing are people playing Grinding Station with AN in the side and boarding into it in the majority of their matches. Keeps me thinking 'could've had it G1 already' every time.

Thanks for your replies.

[Miscanthus]

Thanks for the updates in the opening post. Very helpful!

I'm still having issues with the Grinding Station approach. I've been playing everything between full-TES to classic ANT, but I just can't get good results with PiF + natural Storm as my only win condition.

Yesterday I played another test match against a friend of mine who's on Esper blade. I went with Grinding Station for G1 and got totally destroyed by his turn 1 DRS neutering my PiF and his multiple Thoughtseizes (naturally drawn plus recast with Snapcaster) taking every business spell out of my hand.
I boarded back into my usual list with AN, won game 2 due to him taking two mulligans.
Game 3 I opened the following hand on 6: Petal, Petal, Tutor, LED, LED, Probe. This hand is a mulligan with Grinding Station (with 3 ToA, 0 EtW), but a turn 1 kill with AN in my deck. Needless to say I turn 1'd him after Probing him and seeing that he had no Force with a comfortable Ad Nauseam with 1 floating and an open land drop.

Every time I test Grinding Station I get into situations like those. I'm probably either missing something, or it's just not my playstyle,... or it's just chance, I don't know.

I know Grinding Station is supposed to help in matchups against fair blue decks, but as soon as those decks run black as well, I feel like going without AN is a mistake. So my question is, what matchups does Grinding Station really improve after all? I know Miracles is one of them, and Jeskai Stoneblade might be another likely one. But what else? And if it's just against a few decks that it's really better while it forces you to sacrifice a substantial amount of game against other decks in the format (which at this point I am 100% sure it does), wouldn't it be better to have AN main and board into Grinding Station for G2 instead of doing it the other way around? All I'm seeing are people playing Grinding Station with AN in the side and boarding into it in the majority of their matches. Keeps me thinking 'could've had it G1 already' every time.

Thanks for your replies.

A lot of the successful Grinding Station build use a 2 Tendrils of Agony, 1 Empty the Wardens split rather than only Tendrils (for much the same reasons as you have experienced). With this change your hand is actually pretty decent:
-Gitaxian Probe (storm 1) (coast is clear)
-Lotus Petal (storm 2)
-Lotus Petal (storm 3)
-Lions Eye Diamond (storm 4)
-Lions Eye Diamond (storm 5)
-Sacrifice both Lotus Petals to cast Infernal Tutor, sacrificing both Lions Eye Diamonds in response for red and black (storm 6) (BBBRRR available). Tutor for another Infernal Tutor.
-Infernal Tutor (storm 7) (BBRR available). Tutor for Empty the Warrens.
-Cast Empty the Warrens for 16 goblins on turn 1. This is usually enough to win the game against most decks (some combo decks being the exception).

[Izor]

I am aware of that, but even disregarding the fact that my opponent did happen to have a Zealous Persecution in his hand, my question was less about finding a way to win with Grinding Station with that hand but to know what matchups except Miracles it is even advantaged over ANT. And why many people consider it correct to main Grinding Station and side into Ad Nauseam instead of doing it the other way around. My testing has shown that Ad Nauseam is needed in much more matchups than multiple storm spells, i.e. MUD, Show and Tell, Death and Taxes, Storm Mirror, Reanimator, Dredge, Infect, Esper blade, BUG Delver, Jund and more. The only matchups where Grinding Station performed better on average was non-black Delver, Miracles and UWR Blade, but those can obviously not be the only decks, or else there would be no reason to play Grinding Station at all.

[wonderPreaux]

The only matchups where Grinding Station performed better on average was non-black Delver, Miracles and UWR Blade, but those can obviously not be the only decks, or else there would be no reason to play Grinding Station at all.

That's the whole point, actually. Winning those matchups is the incentive to playing that deck; I picked it up when Miracles + Jeskai Blade was 30+% of the meta alongside Delver on MTGO, for instance.

Here, this is my opinion on matchups for Grinding Station, compared to ANT (note that I don't play EtW main, so I'm probably facing even more uphill matchups, in theory, since I can't yolo EtW against black decks).

Improved matchups:
UWR Aggro/Control
RUG
Miracles
Burn (Probably, I haven't exactly tested it a ton)
Merfolk (Who cares)

Neutral/Close Matchups
Elves (Yes, they can get a bunch of DRS on the board or w/e, but that often disables AdN and the lack of g1 discard means you can just natural storm them out. I actually streamed against Elves and took game 1 against Scooze and DRS just by natural storm a couple weeks ago, for instance.)
MUD (Racing is... dubious, even with AdN main. The access to ToA naturally is surprisingly good because the Tombs and such can often bring about natural ToA kills just by running a bunch of stuff into Chalice and then resolving a Cabal Rit into ToA. Overall, the win% you lose by not having t1/t2 AdN is probably balanced by the increased ability to actually win game 1 after Chalice resolves. I still think the matchup is bad for both decks, though, just like, equally bad or w/e)
Lands (Game 1 they often dont have spheres or Chalice, so you can just build to natural storm if you cant play around Rotation into Bojuka. You can also snipe Rotations with discard off Basic Swamp, then if they go to Port your Swamp you can Rain of Filth and laugh all the way to the bank. Postboard, like Elves, you get AdN, so w/e)
Storm (Yeah, people can AdN you game 1, but having an extra Yawg Will to flop in discard fights is pretty neat. I think the matchup looks bad on paper, but is only actually bad when you open on ToA and they open on an AdN line. So, maybe its not truly "neutral", but, I dont think its a significant detraction.)
DnT (They don't main RiP, and if you do get some kinda odd all LED/Tutor draw then you can angle a cantrip line and pick up some %s there. Its even less awkward if you main EtW, obv. This one's likely the same as Storm where it seems bad, isnt as bad as it seems, but is some nebulously minor sort of worse)

Detracted Matchups
Grixis (Ehhhh, this is an odd one. If they don't know how to Thoughtseize you correctly then it's no big deal because you lose a storm but they lose 2 life. Case in point, I have a game co-commentated w/ Jona, iirc, where we get Thoughtseized/Cabal'd, the opponents looks at our hand of Petal, Rits and ToA... and then takes our LED. We end up winning that game. The scary Pyromancer + Therapy wombo combo doesn't turn up until t3, so you have ample chances to try to combo out or at least Therapy their Pyromancer. The fact they pressure you to use cards and depend on them to misplay is why this is a detracted matchup)
BUG (BUG Delver is already an awful matchup for ANT, so, ok, a bad matchup gets worse. BUG control/shardless can win off the back of Hymn against ANT just as easily, its just that Grinding Station has even lower chance to bounce back since you can't flop an AdN. Shardless still feels easy though.)
Big Creature Combo (These matchups are likely just worse. You cant race as much, so, okie doke, you got me here.)

So, there you go. Look at the matchups in your meta and pick accordingly.

[Sloshthedark]

MUD, Show and Tell, Death and Taxes, Storm Mirror, Reanimator, Dredge, Infect, Esper blade, BUG Delver, Jund and more.

Thats for others to answer, from perspective of 2ToA/1EtW (you may call it whatever but is not grinding station in terms of gameplay lets acknowledge that):

no, no, no, complementary, no, complementary (yes if leyline or manaless), no, ?? (depends on build), no, yes ... more - list more

in other words 1-3/10 MUs where I board out 2nd PiF / would like AdN G2, G1 0-1 ... maybe the start for you is not playing 3ToA

[Jonathan Alexander]

Detracted Matchups
Grixis (Ehhhh, this is an odd one. If they don't know how to Thoughtseize you correctly then it's no big deal because you lose a storm but they lose 2 life. Case in point, I have a game co-commentated w/ Jona, iirc, where we get Thoughtseized/Cabal'd, the opponents looks at our hand of Petal, Rits and ToA... and then takes our LED. We end up winning that game. The scary Pyromancer + Therapy wombo combo doesn't turn up until t3, so you have ample chances to try to combo out or at least Therapy their Pyromancer. The fact they pressure you to use cards and depend on them to misplay is why this is a detracted matchup)
BUG (BUG Delver is already an awful matchup for ANT, so, ok, a bad matchup gets worse. BUG control/shardless can win off the back of Hymn against ANT just as easily, its just that Grinding Station has even lower chance to bounce back since you can't flop an AdN. Shardless still feels easy though.)

Actually, I think both of these matchups are better with Grinding Station preboard. In the case of Grixis, most lists don't run any discard preboard, and blue decks without combo or discard are what Grinding Station preys on.
BUG is actually pretty good as well before sideboarding. They have a couple dead removal spells and not that much discard. It's not that hard to play through a single Deathrite Shaman either. It's only after sideboarding, when they get additional discard spells and stuff like Null Rod, that this really gets bad.
That being said, blue decks with discard make for all of my losses in Grand Prix, and only one of them didn't have Deathrite Shaman.


Big Creature Combo (These matchups are likely just worse. You cant race as much, so, okie doke, you got me here.)

This is also not entirely true. Grinding Station is better against Reanimator, but I'm quite sure you'd rather be Ad Nauseam against Show and Tell strategies.

Apart from that, Grinding Station is slightly worse against all the decks against all the decks wonderPreaux listed as neutral/close. But it's really only very slight. Grinding Station is worse at racing those decks, but it's also better at playing through something. Overall, there are a lot of matchups where you give up a little bit, but what you gain in others is huge.

I would also like to add that just because you swap Card A for Card B every time after sideboarding, it's not automatically correct to start Card B. Or less extreme, it can be correct to have a card in your sideboard that you always board in. And I actually think Storm is a very good example for that, because Past in Flames is just absurdly strong, but after sideboarding, people will be more prepared, so you will want some alternatives (Empty, Ad Nauseam, or both).

[Izor]

Thanks for the replies, guys. They gave me some insights into the reasoning behind going Grinding Station, though I still prefer the other approach.

Also I respect everyone's opinions, but it is unnecessary and not helpful at all to deny the fact that Ad Nauseam can speed up your deck in a considerable amount of situations (like Dark Rit, LED, Tutor or 2 LEDs plus Tutor), which will especially help win combo matchups and matchups like DnT/MUD in which you may have to win before they drop their hate permanents. (mostly addressing Sloshthedark here).


What do you do if you Probe them and see something that either kills you or locks you out of the game if they untap, but all you have to work with are two lands, a Dark Rit, an LED and an Infernal? The answer is nothing if you don't have Ad Nauseam in the deck. When I know the coast is clear, I want to kill them. Not wait until they draw something that destroys me. I'm willing to sacrifice some of my game against UWR.dec and non-black Delver in order to have a better chance to race things game 1 in my meta, because said UWR.decs and non-B Delver are basically absent. Miracles is a thing, but I'm beating them well enough with AN in my deck, considering they put zero pressure on my life points and I often have to win before Countertop goes online.

I think it's much more a matter of preference and playstyle. I don't like getting into such situations, have my opponent ask me why I didn't kill them when I had the chance, and I tell them: Well, I don't have Ad Nauseam in my deck...

[CabalTherapy]

What do you do if you Probe them and see something that either kills you or locks you out of the game if they untap, but all you have to work with are two lands, a Dark Rit, an LED and an Infernal? The answer is nothing if you don't have Ad Nauseam in the deck.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfcwq44q-vA


http://hextcg.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Goblin.jpg

[nevilshute]

Thanks for the replies, guys. They gave me some insights into the reasoning behind going Grinding Station, though I still prefer the other approach.

Also I respect everyone's opinions, but it is unnecessary and not helpful at all to deny the fact that Ad Nauseam can speed up your deck in a considerable amount of situations (like Dark Rit, LED, Tutor or 2 LEDs plus Tutor), which will especially help win combo matchups and matchups like DnT/MUD in which you may have to win before they drop their hate permanents. (mostly addressing Sloshthedark here).


What do you do if you Probe them and see something that either kills you or locks you out of the game if they untap, but all you have to work with are two lands, a Dark Rit, an LED and an Infernal? The answer is nothing if you don't have Ad Nauseam in the deck. When I know the coast is clear, I want to kill them. Not wait until they draw something that destroys me. I'm willing to sacrifice some of my game against UWR.dec and non-black Delver in order to have a better chance to race things game 1 in my meta, because said UWR.decs and non-B Delver are basically absent. Miracles is a thing, but I'm beating them well enough with AN in my deck, considering they put zero pressure on my life points and I often have to win before Countertop goes online.

I think it's much more a matter of preference and playstyle. I don't like getting into such situations, have my opponent ask me why I didn't kill them when I had the chance, and I tell them: Well, I don't have Ad Nauseam in my deck...

I don't think anyone is denying that AdN has its benefits but you should analyze all aspects of the card and not just focus on cherry picked scenarios where it would be preferable. Also I think you are overlooking that Empty the Warrens can achieve the same results in a lot of situations including the example you gave where you probe with only LED, DR and tutor in hand and see them sitting on some hate piece coming down next turn.

Both EtW and AdN come with uncertainty as neither guarantee a win upon resolution, each have strengths and weaknesses when compared to the other. I happen to be of the opinion that EtW is better as it:

-costs one mana less
-opens up design space in our deck in terms of CMC

AdN is usually better vs other combo decks and so it remains in my sideboard.

I think that both cards have the potential to win you the game from an early position and with non-trivial risks involved. You might empty into a board sweeper or a SFM -> Batterskull or the likes. Or you might cast AdN from 18 life and fizzle.

I'd also like to remark, and don't take this as being aimed at you as I don't know you, but I have noticed a kind of "training-wheels" bias among new storm players for AdN. Not deliberately trying to sound condescending but merely what I believe to be true. And I think it can cloud the issue for some.

[Sloshthedark]

lol @ CT


(mostly addressing Sloshthedark here)

I think Nevishute nailed it perfectly. EtW is sufficient for me in depicted situations.

I don't think Ad Nauseam speeds up your deck just by Pif->AdN switch, unless you build around it more like there was the 2AdN +chrome mox plan in Grinding station you have just a different route to victory available.

I'm not defending 3ToA concept because I don't play it, In the 2ToA/EtW there is no change in general playstyle compared to AdN build, you can play even more aggresively (and you can shift into grinding mode if the appropriate situation/cards show up, but not as plan A), the deck gets just better in general construction and sacrifices some routes to victory in favor of other... if you don't like it there is no obligation to play this or that list, just sleeve up what plays out the best for you

[Izor]

I'd also like to remark, and don't take this as being aimed at you as I don't know you, but I have noticed a kind of "training-wheels" bias among new storm players for AdN. Not deliberately trying to sound condecsending but merely what I believe to be true. And I think it can cloud the issue for some.

This is a totally fair point and I think you're right about new Storm players in general, though even though I only picked up the deck less than a year ago, I wouldn't put myself into that category. See, I have never copied lists online or simply listened to people and believed what they said about card choices without questioning them. I always build my own versions of decks that fit my own playstyle most and that I expect to have the best results with. And it's been working perfectly fine for me, in fact I have yet to finish outside of prizes with Storm.

When I built the deck I tested each and every card I could think of that was remotedly playable. I didn't copy any AN-based lists from a year ago and can't let go of AN due to bias (which it may look like, I imagine). But I also won't copy Grinding Station lists without questioning them just because people say it's better.

Fact is, I always keep track of how I kill my opponents during tournaments and I have been killing people with Ad Nauseam left and right, about as often as with PiF loops in total, and that is even considering that I do of course always go for the safe PiF kill when I can. This only goes to show that I find myself in situations in which I simply need AN to win pretty often in my local metagame, which is infected with fast decks, discard and graveyard hate. An easy example would be the 5th and last round of the local event I attended yesterday, when I was at 9 life game 3 with 4 cards left in my hand, opponent had 10 Islandwalking power on board and a Relic in play. Going for AN in that situation isn't what you want to be doing of course, but every other line is 100% shut off. I went for it, stopped at 5 and killed my opponent. Yes, my chance to win this was slim anyway. But with AN I had one. A 25-33% chance (which I estimated my chance to be in that spot) is better than a 0% chance in my books. I should also mention that I have practically never fizzled an AN when I chose to go for it over EtW. The only instances when I killed myself were in situations like the one above, where every other route is turned off and AN is my only shot, despite a very small chance to succeed.

EDIT: Actually, I think I confused g3 with g2, in which my opponent did have Relics. In game 3 there were no Relics, but I drew into AN naturally and killed him in the way I described above. There was no gy hate on his side, but a PiF instead of AN would not have won me the game because I had no tutors and only 1 Probe in the bin as my only business. AN was the only one-card win I could possibly have in that scenario. Winning that match put me in top 8 and the prizes again.

Another good point made earlier was that even if you board in a certain card all the time, that does not mean it has to be played in the main deck. While I agree with this to some extent, I still personally want/need AN in game 1 already too often. My winning percentage against the BUG and Esper players in my playgroup are currently well over 50% and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be as high if it wasn't for the fact that I can kill them out of nowhere from low resources in game 1 already.


tl;dr: Thanks for your inputs on the matter, very helpful. But I'll probably stick with AN maindeck.


EDIT: @ Sloshthedark: Thanks for clarifying, what you are saying makes more sense to me now. I also figured that the EtW variation of the Grinding Station list would probably suit me much better than the 3 ToA one, but I have to admit that EtW isn't really my favorite win condition outside of exactly turn 1, because too much can happen in legacy that will beat a bunch of 1/1s in play after turn 2-3. When I can get to exactly 5 mana post-Tutor, I'd rather go for a blank AN than an EtW in the dark (that is, without multiple Therapies to follow it up with). As the game progresses past turn 1-2, fizzling an AN from a high life total seems less likely to me than my opponent beating a bunch of Goblins in play, at least in my testing so far.

[nevilshute]

EDIT: @ Sloshthedark: Thanks for clarifying, what you are saying makes more sense to me now. I also figured that the EtW variation of the Grinding Station list would probably suit me much better than the 3 ToA one, but I have to admit that EtW isn't really my favorite win condition outside of exactly turn 1, because too much can happen in legacy that will beat a bunch of 1/1s in play after turn 2-3. When I can get to exactly 5 mana post-Tutor, I'd rather go for a blank AN than an EtW in the dark (that is, without multiple Therapies to follow it up with). As the game progresses past turn 1-2, fizzling an AN from a high life total seems less likely to me than my opponent beating a bunch of Goblins in play, at least in my testing so far.

I'm not trying to persuade you to play EtW over AdN. Both things can work out fine and to each his own. But I'd like to point out that it seems to me like you are judging EtW on surface values and hearsay and that you are ignoring relevant detractions to AdN.

To start with my last point first, it's like when you say that "as the game progresses past turn 1-2, fizzling an AN from high life total seems less likely". Well if we are further into the game you are likely to have more than one land so sure I can buy that premise. But here you aren't taking into account one of the major problems with AdN which is your life total. You describe a situation where we are several turns into the game and you have a high life total. That can certainly happen but it will often not. And I'd argue that most of the times when this happens it will be against either combo or miracles. Against combo I will happily concede that AdN is preferable to EtW. Vs Miracles is another issue that we can debate at another tmie.

Also, if you aren't running AdN you can actively leverage your life total to your advantage, running cards like Thoughtseize and Grim Tutor and just more high CMC cards like several past in flames for instance and be less worried about your life total.

My second point is - and if you had tested EtW in the main deck for a prolonged period I would imagine you would have reached similar experiences - that it's a big fallacy that EtW becomes a non-card after turn 1-2. Yes it is often best on early turns (like AdN) but against delver decks it can very realistically be a trumph on later turns. I've churned out EtW wins as late as turns 6, 7 (and even rarely beyond that) vs delver decks where we dance around and they fail to apply enough pressure. A single delver that flips on turn 3, say, still needs 5+ turns to kill you on its own - and that's not counting that you can maybe baby-tendrils them to prolong the game further. My point is, that unless delver has enough creatures to race you they can basically never beat 10-14, be that on turn 1 or turn 4. With AdN you might be at 11 life on turn 4 and then AdN just becomes much riskier, whereas 12 goblins versus a single threat with you at 11 life is very likely a win. Edit: In fact vs delver, a lot of the time they will present you with one threat and try to load up their hand with counter magic. In that scenario I'd argue that EtW is often leagues ahead of AdN. Not only is your life total under enough pressure to make AdN suscpect but not enough to make them capable of beating an EtW for 10-12. No, further more, resolving a non-storm business spell is much more difficult than resolving a storm spell. This harkens back to why the "grinding station" a.k.a. multiple storm card approach, is so strong vs blue decks, and delver decks in particular.

Sure, the same can be said for AdN - that it CAN win later in the game - but it too usually becomes worse as the game goes on (except it's actually probably a better turn 2 than turn 1 play in ANT as our deck is not really built to maximize AdN with Chrome Moxes etc) as your life total is put under pressure.

[Jonathan Alexander]

This is a totally fair point and I think you're right about new Storm players in general, though even though I only picked up the deck less than a year ago, I wouldn't put myself into that category. See, I have never copied lists online or simply listened to people and believed what they said about card choices without questioning them. I always build my own versions of decks that fit my own playstyle most and that I expect to have the best results with. And it's been working perfectly fine for me, in fact I have yet to finish outside of prizes with Storm.

When I built the deck I tested each and every card I could think of that was remotedly playable. I didn't copy any AN-based lists from a year ago and can't let go of AN due to bias (which it may look like, I imagine). But I also won't copy Grinding Station lists without questioning them just because people say it's better.

This is a huge mistake. There is nothing worse than looking at a list and immediately changing something based on a first impression. If you copy a list, copy it. Play with it. See what works and what doesn't. Try to talk to the person that built or piloted the list to find out why they made the changes they made. See if those decisions still don't make sense.

Also, please don't talk about playstyle. There is no such thing as playstyle. There are correct plays and there are wrong plays. Playstyle is nothing more than a bias you should get rid off.

When you are learning to play Storm, I honestly believe starting with 2 Past in Flames 3 Tendrils is the best way to do so. Learn to use just these win-conditions. Then learn playing with additional engines. Martin talked about Ad Nauseam as training wheels, but I think it's more like off-road wheels that you shouldn't start using until you are already comfortable with your regular bicycle.

[bjholmes3]

Just a plug in favor of EtW, it gets a lot more hate than it deserves. The fact is, it allows you to combo off in many more situations than without it, and while unimpressive in a goldfish, the recurring discard is actually ridiculous.

AdN and EtW are both unreliable, but in different ways.

[TokugawaEdo]

How important is the badlands in the 2 Toa/1 ETW version. Can you play the bayou and mistys land base mainboard to open up slots in the sideboard?

[KevinH]

Having played the 2 ToA, 2 PiF, 1 EtW build for the last 3 months, I think that the Badlands is a lot better than a Bayou. I'm also playing a Pyroclasm in my sideboard, but I think that when you want the green mana (Decay, Xantid Swarm) your mana often isn't under pressure (Miracles, Griselbrand decks).

[Alix444]

Ok guys I have a little problem I'd like to hear people's opinions on. You are on the play, game 1, opponent unknown who mulled to 6, we are on a 3 ToA 2 PiF build and our opening hand is: Probe, Probe, Ponder, Dark Ritual, PiF, Delta, LED.

First off I believe it is a pretty solid keep but would like to hear opinions on that.

I lead with delta -> ponder I see: Volcanic, Probe, Misty. I rearrange incorrectly (and perhaps keep incorrectly.) And draw volcanic leaving probe to draw next.

Opponent goes plains -> Mother of Runes.

I draw my third probe, and fire one off to see if they have thalia. Probe reveals Plains, Stoneforge, Revoker, Port, Thalia. We draw Misty.

What is our play? And if any of my plays were incorrect please say so but also advise on the point I got to.

[Shaman]

I guess you should have shuffled with ponder, assuming you fired a probe first (you had 2 in your starting hand ).

[CabalTherapy]

Ok guys I have a little problem I'd like to hear people's opinions on. You are on the play, game 1, opponent unknown who mulled to 6, we are on a 3 ToA 2 PiF build and our opening hand is: Probe, Probe, Ponder, Dark Ritual, PiF, Delta, LED.

First off I believe it is a pretty solid keep but would like to hear opinions on that.

I lead with delta -> ponder I see: Volcanic, Probe, Misty. I rearrange incorrectly (and perhaps keep incorrectly.) And draw volcanic leaving probe to draw next.

Opponent goes plains -> Mother of Runes.

I draw my third probe, and fire one off to see if they have thalia. Probe reveals Plains, Stoneforge, Revoker, Port, Thalia. We draw Misty.

What is our play? And if any of my plays were incorrect please say so but also advise on the point I got to.

Yes, taking the fetchland over Volcanic basically is a free draw that you skipped leaving Volcanic on top. Here is my solution:

I would have played one Probe before playing Ponder but since I don't play this list my answer might be not optimal. Nonetheless, I would see Death and Taxes and know that I have to win on my second turn. Already with LED, Dark Ritual and Past in Flames in Hand I would then play Delta and depending on the Probe-draw (if land/if Infernal=win/if anything else) fetch for Underground Sea > Ponder to find Infernal Tutor or a combination of Tendrils and another Ritual. Shouldn't be too difficult since one Probe is still in hand and even if the Ponder shows shit I would still have my normal 2nd turn draw + Probe to draw any kind of gamewinning spells.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Delta, go on turn one and then kill them turn two if you find Infernal Tutor or Dark Ritual + Tendrils. Pretty easy.

[bjholmes3]

We DTB again boys :)

[CabalTherapy]

We DTB again boys :)

Unfortunately, that's nothing to be happy about.

[nevilshute]

Unfortunately, that's nothing to be happy about.

I guess who cares? At no point is storm not on the radar. It can be slumming it for a year out of the DTB-limelight and people are still packing 4-8 pieces of hate to combat it. Partly because no one likes losing to storm, partly because the hate vs other combo decks overlaps. So really, who cares. People are now more, what, "aware"? Does that make them better at playing against it? I don't think it does. I frown at the emo "don't you see, it's better to not be a DTB" sentiment. The DTB-concept and the concept of tiers is a contruction anyway and doesn't reflect the truth :wink:

Let's not be so dramatic.

[CabalTherapy]

I guess who cares? At no point is storm not on the radar. It can be slumming it for a year out of the DTB-limelight and people are still packing 4-8 pieces of hate to combat it. Partly because no one likes losing to storm, partly because the hate vs other combo decks overlaps. So really, who cares. People are now more, what, "aware"? Does that make them better at playing against it? I don't think it does. I frown at the emo "don't you see, it's better to not be a DTB" sentiment. The DTB-concept and the concept of tiers is a contruction anyway and doesn't reflect the truth :wink:

Let's not be so dramatic.

You're right.
In addition, I always wonder why Delverdecks are DTB. :rolleyes:

[Jonathan Alexander]

I guess who cares? At no point is storm not on the radar. It can be slumming it for a year out of the DTB-limelight and people are still packing 4-8 pieces of hate to combat it. Partly because no one likes losing to storm, partly because the hate vs other combo decks overlaps. So really, who cares. People are now more, what, "aware"? Does that make them better at playing against it? I don't think it does. I frown at the emo "don't you see, it's better to not be a DTB" sentiment. The DTB-concept and the concept of tiers is a contruction anyway and doesn't reflect the truth :wink:

Let's not be so dramatic.

It's worse for the deck if bad players are aware than if good players are aware.
Also, have you seen decklists from Eternal Weekend? The metagame was so so soft to Storm.

[rw1347]

It's worse for the deck if bad players are aware than if good players are aware.
Also, have you seen decklists from Eternal Weekend? The metagame was so so soft to Storm.

The top 8 was weak to storm, but there was a massive amount of death and taxes, which I feel is one of the hardest match ups.

[bjholmes3]

I don't know who thought Wingmare would be a fun addition to Magic...

[nevilshute]

The top 8 was weak to storm, but there was a massive amount of death and taxes, which I feel is one of the hardest match ups.

Wait what? D&T wants to basically avoid storm if possible

[iatee]

D+T vs storm often feels like a coin flip (to extent that the actual die roll can determine many matches.) As a D+T player it's not pleasant because you know that a certain % of matches will be entirely out of your control. But it's still not a bad matchup compared to some other combo decks, and a decent D+T hand on the play will generally crush a slow (i.e. not t1/t2) storm hand. ANT is also easier to deal w/ than TES.

[rw1347]

I feel like while death and taxes doesn't enjoy playing storm, it is still a tough match up and is a massive coin flip game. Multiple horse Thalia's aren't any fun.

[Jonathan Alexander]

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=4658&type=card

[rw1347]

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=4658&type=card

This is true. Sadly just had to draw them haha.

[bjholmes3]

Play all the three so you can go "DoN DoN DooooooooooooN!"

[davelin]

Looks like a pretty good Storm pilot was able to top 8 recently using a list with 2 Dark Petitions. Anyone else having success with DP?

[bjholmes3]

Looks like a pretty good Storm pilot was able to top 8 recently using a list with 2 Dark Petitions. Anyone else having success with DP?

Pros:

- Reasonable secondary condition
- More flexible than Infernal Tutor
- Net cost of only 2 mana
- Kinda synergizes with LED if you have dead spells in hand
- Safe to resolve, doesn't threaten your life total or throw away your hand

Cons:

- Adds to already existing vulnerability to DRS and other grave hate
- 5 mana is a lot.

I'm not a fan, but it's fine for people who enjoy more tutors. I feel like this replaces Grim for the people who used to enjoy that, but meh.

[Dr_D]

Looks like a pretty good Storm pilot was able to top 8 recently using a list with 2 Dark Petitions. Anyone else having success with DP?

I'm running one, you can look at my list in my report a few pages back. I've liked it so far in my build.

[davelin]

I'm running one, you can look at my list in my report a few pages back. I've liked it so far in my build.

How did it perform over Eternal Weekend?

[Dr_D]

How did it perform over Eternal Weekend?

I ended up going 6-5, but I'd attribute that to me rather than the list as it was my first big event. Dark petition was good whenever I drew it and actually allowed me a kill where I was tight on mana and grim tutor wouldn't have gotten me there. I have still yet to be screwed by the high initial mana cost. Only thing I'm changing in the list is adding a second chain in place of the rebuild.

[Jonathan Alexander]

This is probably an unpopular opinion in this thread, but I think Storm is not the greatest choice for most tournaments right now. I'm lining out some of the problems I see in this article, let me now what you think:

https://theweeklywars.wordpress.com/2015/09/01/the-eye-of-the-storm/

That being said, it's certainly regionally dependant how good Storm is, and I would be much more likely to play Storm in the U.S. than in Europe.

[Togores]

Good article Alexander.
I also feel lately so. The grixis delver with drs is a nightmare g2 because of therapy + shaman.

New miracles decks also.

And the f***ing dig is a card that should be banned allong withay be chalice and balance. Just gets the fun out of the game.

That was the reason I played omnitell at the gp just because dig is so powerfull but the deck is boring.

Lets see if something happens now that omni and dig delver decks are wining to much.

[Reagens]

Funny thing. I felt that the European metagame is favouring Storm more then before GP Lille.
The miracles decks are struggling and the delver match-ups are doable. Certainly because they solely rely on spells and not on spells + permanents for disruption (I'm not counting DRS as it is a rather soft disruption piece). What I also think though is that grinding station has become to slow and you should play the fastest possible version at this point in time.
For myself I am playing a hybrid list very akin to TES (for the speed + burning wish board) but with the possibility to go grinding station post-board.

[Izor]

What I also think though is that grinding station has become to slow and you should play the fastest possible version at this point in time.
For myself I am playing a hybrid list very akin to TES (for the speed + burning wish board) but with the possibility to go grinding station post-board.

This.

This was one of the reasons why I brought it up on the last page. Grixis Delver, which is quickly becoming the number 1 deck in the format, totally rips Grinding Station apart, because you have no way to natural-storm through multiple Therapies. Add in a DRS to shut off PiF and you're done. Winning the game via Ad Nauseam before they get the chance to cast Therapy with Pyromancer in play is the best way to win that matchup consistently.

It's just a general trend at this point. DRS and discard spells are on a resurgence, and those are the number one enemies of Grinding Station in the format. DnT being a little more popular since they can play 8 Thalias doesn't help either. There are so many reasons to be winning the game as fast as possible right now. The metagame isn't 40% UR Delver and UWR.dec any more. That was the metagame that made Grinding Station strong.

[Jonathan Alexander]

2 Past in Fames / 3 Storm spells is not that much slower than lists with Ad Nauseam. The difference is less than a full turn in general and both decks have the opponent dead by turn three roughly the same amount of time, only that Grinding Station is a little more resilient in that. It is true, however, that Deathrite + discard + counters is exactly the thing you don't want to face with Grinding Station (in fact, these are the only kind of decks I have lost to in all the Grand Prix I played Storm in). But Grixis Delver is not one of these decks. They usually don't have any discard before sideboarding, so that's exactly the kind of deck you want to play against. After sideboarding, things get rough, but I like boarding a couple copies of Empty the Warrens against them, which really stretches what they need to do.

Switching to the fastest version possible is exactly the point I was making in my article - you are not trying to win by playing better, you are looking for deck advantage by shutting off interaction. At that point, it becomes mostly a game of chance who will win and I just don't think the deck is well-positioned enough in most metagames.

[Reagens]

Switching to the fastest version possible is exactly the point I was making in my article - you are not trying to win by playing better, you are looking for deck advantage by shutting off interaction. At that point, it becomes mostly a game of chance who will win and I just don't think the deck is well-positioned enough in most metagames.

Deck choice and deck building is just as much part of magic as getting your cantrips right.
Is Bryant Cook very lucky when he consistently puts up results with his iteration of storm? You seem to think he lacks the skill to play the 'more difficult' version. You also come over as pretty condescending when you say only long(er) games count as a test for playskills and the part where you say permanent hate requires no skill whatsoever doesn't make that much better (counterbalance is a pretty skill intensive card, as is top). And yes, variance (or luck as you call it) is part of the game. But you know what? Decks with a plethora of cantrips have variance as well. But when storm topdeck a missing piece it's more clear cut then a delver deck always flipping them on the first try (because normally you go and win the same turn you draw that particular piece and delver needs to connect a few times).
Of all the decks I played in legacy there is not one I think was easy or which I played flawlessly. Some decks however show your mistakes more clearly then others (and thus allow for a slightly faster learning curve at the start) . Don't get both mixed up because you'll deny yourself the opportunity to become a better player.
From what I get from your article you should probably set aside storm for a while and play something else. But please don't blame it on the metagame or whatever. If your mindgames are no longer working it might be that people are on to you or have adapted to your playstyle. The deck is DTB and putting up consistent results in very different versions.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Sorry for not being clear. Yes, choosing the correct list is a skill. Likewise, if two players are just goldfishing each other, that will favour the player who makes better decisions in-game. I'm not saying there is no skill involved in doing these things correctly. I'm not even saying one is easier than the other. But once you get the basics of optimising your draws, improving further will barely pay off. Have you looked at the spreadsheet from my cantrip article? That's hours of work internalising these numbers just to get 5-10% more to find a card in some corner-case scenario.
The point is, when two players interact directly, that will favour the one who makes the better decision in that situation much more than slightly improving cantrip odds. The more frequently this comes up, the more the better in-game player will be favoured.

By the way, Top and Counterbalance don't really qualify as permanent hate. While they are permanents via their card types, they don't have permanent effects. Does not forgetting a Trinisphere or Meddling Mage or Null Rod on the board really require skill? Chalice of the Void is somewhere in between, but once you go to Magic Online, there is no way to mess up Chalice triggers either.
Also, at no point did I use the word "luck". I am talking about variance, yes. But I am not complaining about it. (Note how I refer to the Storm vs. D&T matchup.) I am saying that maybe there's a way to play to your strengths and thereby improving your win rate.

As you said yourself, some decks allow you to improve pretty fast soon after you start playing them. Other decks only start rewarding skill once a certain threshold is reached, but the payoff will be huge then. I can go more in depth with this, but this thread is certainly not the place to do so. Either way, Storm certainly belongs in the first group.

One last thing, the DTB section of this forum is one month behind. Storm was quite big in July, but it's already been waning in August. Also, don't mistake popularity for power. Back when Innistrad came out, people played Snapcaster Mage over Nimble Mongoose in Canadian Threshold. Later, they dropped Stifle in favour of cards like Gitaxian Probe. Over time, both Mongoose and Stifle found their ways back into the deck, but when they weren't played as much, the other lists obviously had more top finishes.

[davelin]

As you said yourself, some decks allow you to improve pretty fast soon after you start playing them. Other decks only start rewarding skill once a certain threshold is reached, but the payoff will be huge then. I can go more in depth with this, but this thread is certainly not the place to do so. Either way, Storm certainly belongs in the first group.

Interesting, you sure you didn't mean to say Storm belongs in the second group?

[Jonathan Alexander]

Yes.

[Bryant Cook]

The confusion here is that you in your article addressed storm as an archetype rather than your specific deck, Grinding Station.

[firstshot]

Honestly I'm not sure at this point why the TES and ANT thread aren't just combined. Yes they aren't the exact same deck but they are both ritual based tendril's decks. Heck at this point Ad Nauseam isn't even the main focus of most decks in this thread.

[Bryant Cook]

Honestly I'm not sure at this point why the TES and ANT thread aren't just combined. Yes they aren't the exact same deck but they are both ritual based tendril's decks. Heck at this point Ad Nauseam isn't even the main focus of most decks in this thread.

Sure, they're both ritual based storm decks. But they actually function differently, Natural Storm & PIF vs ETW & Ad Nauseam. I think that justifies separate threads.

[bjholmes3]

Not to mention TES runs Wish and we do not. The million Delver decks are kept separate for a reason, likewise for Storm.