[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[ScottW]

Agreed that the article has a different audience but here it is subject to a different analysis and the responses here seem aimed at readers of this forum with positive intentions.

I was surprised at his list of "core" storm cards.

[Togores]

Amazing how much crap he says. 16 lands and so... I bet he was about to cut Gitaxian for just more discard, because it does the "same".

[Jonathan Alexander]

-snip

I don't want him to tell me something new, I want him to not give wrong information to players who have no choice but to believe him. I didn't say reading his article was a waste of time, I said it would actively do harm.

And I really don't like to be that guy, but this article is very bad in both content and structure.

[Sloshthedark]

I'm so hyped to read it, once I saw the "Defense grid>Xantid swarm" comment I prefered an earlier departure from home > choking on breakfast ...

EDIT: unimpressed and unaffected

[Izor]

To be honest, the list from the article is just about the worst configuration possible against Eldrazi. I also kinda stopped reading after the 16 land thing.


Against BUG decks I generally try to win as fast as possible, often via Ad Nauseam. An active DRS with discard plus counter backup is practically unbeatable in a long game. Even thoug technically not a BUG deck, my friend who I often test against plays Deathblade, which is similar in that it attacks Storm from literally every possible angle (graveyard hate, counters, discard, good clock that makes EtW obsolete, plus Meddling Mage and similar nonsense). Busting out a fast AN after hopefully clearing the way with some discard as been the most reliable way to win that matchup for me.

Lists without Ad Nauseam in the main deck are massively disadvantaged in those DRS+discard+counters matchups imo, and the frequency of those decks in my local meta is the main reason why I'm not playing Grinding Station/Sloshstorm/whatever at the moment.

[rlesko]

I'll start by saying I'm a RUG player. I want to ask you guys, how effective is Tormod's Crypt vs you? I'm trying some different builds to get delirium for invasive surgery.

[Ronald Deuce]

So we all seem to agree that the article linked above doesn't really give any answers for the Eldrazi matchup (or much else). What, then, is the best strategy for the matchup? I'm not looking for a panacea (there doesn't seem to be one); it just seems like the predominant trains of thought in the thread are a) hope your opponent doesn't play Eldrazi or b) use your existing board to try to push through their hate (or c] both).

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert, and I haven't got a ton of experience in the matchup generally (there are now a whole two people who play Eldrazi in my metagame), but there's got to be a better approach. Pessimistically, I'm on the side of choice a, but I feel like we're doing ourselves a disservice not to try to test more things in the matchup. We're devoting 4-6 slots to Miracles, and that's a pretty big chunk of our 'board, but this matchup seems even worse, and I don't see many advocates of a broader plan for fighting the Menace.

The best argument to be made against extensive sideboarding is that, simply, Chalices and Thorns are so devastating against the way our entire deck works that there's nothing to be done without entirely restructuring our deck. But nearly the same is true for CounterTop, yet people have found a (marginally effective) workaround that's become the standard for Storm sideboards. Chalk it up to my lack of experience, but I've still got dead slots in my sideboard.

Another problem is that the staple AnT sideboard cards don't really do much against Eldrazi. The best choice, as Ross pointed out, is Abrupt Decay, but that's pretty poor against multiple threats, esp. multiple copies of Thorn of Amethyst. Echoing Truth is also a contender, but it doesn't help us if the opponent lands multiple threats with different names (or a single Chalice on 2).

I've been running Hurkyl's Recall by default because of the bang-for-buck ratio, but in games in which either it doesn't show up or the opponent lands one Thorn too many, it's a dead card. Rebuild is too expensive, and our 1-cmc cards are also dead if they aren't live on T1 (e.g., discards).

Multiple copies of Empty the Warrens seems to be the other predominant strategy, but that's got a host of problems on its own. It's only better than our usual plan (or a singleton Empty) if we can land it on T1, and running multiple copies leads to saturation rather than quicker solutions in my experience. (As an aside, I've found that playing Empty from our hand is significantly less effective than tutoring for it—to a greater degree than one would expect—producing typically 6-8 Goblins rather than the 10-14 a tutored Empty usually yields. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong.)

Ross is taking a lot of flak for suggesting 16 lands, but he's onto something: 14 lands postboard is too few because we really, really need to hit land drops in case our opponent casts Thorn. That's why I'm boarding in the Tropical, even if I don't intend to run more than one Decay postboard in this matchup. I still think 15 lands is too many for most matchups (and results I've seen for both high-level and league play seem to confirm this by a slight margin), but in this case, it feels like a better setup, especially if we can't make the Magic happen on our first turn.

I've seen suggestions and lists that favor running either quad(?) Young Pyromancer or >1 copies of Chrome Mox. Pyro doesn't feel like a great fit (Smasher can trample over a bunch of tokens), but I won't rule it out yet. Has anyone tried two or more copies of Chrome Mox lately? For people running 15 lands main, anybody tried a Mox Diamond? A few contributors have said that they've managed to break even (or come close) against Eldrazi. What have you all been doing to achieve these results? How much is your performance dependent on the Eldrazi player's decision to (or not to) mull to Chalice/Thorn?

Rlesko, I don't think you need Surgery against us. You've got a toolbox of choices that's already big enough to handle our deck if you 'board in the right things and mulligan well. But to answer your question, Crypt (like RiP, Leyline, et al.) relies on your keeping us under the gun. It doesn't help if we land Ad Nauseam or Empty the Warrens quickly, and both cards are excellent for us in the matchup. So if you're able to keep pressure on a Storm player (knocking out AdN and making Empty riskier than it normally is), I guess Crypt works, but I can't imagine it's an optimal choice. You're only really bringing down Past in Flames, and though you're making Cabal Ritual worse (and making Dark Petition nearly useless), those aren't crucial cards for us either if we're quick to hit Ad Nauseam or Empty, or if we're able to make you break Crypt at an inopportune time (I'll leave determining what those times are to you! :D ). I board out Petition to board in Empty most of the time, and if we're on the Goes-Fast plan, making Cabal Rituals only ("only") net us one mana doesn't do a whole lot of good.

I hope that helps, Frienemy!

[Togores]

Trying to beat eldrazi is nonsense. I hace tried with a lot of aproaches but they have:
A good counter
A good clock
A really good permanent disruption
A hated card named Thought not seer
A soft mana denial plan (but good with the permnent hate)
Sometimes anti graveyard and anti goblin cards


And the card you have to play for it are usualy only good for this.


Miracles is played double as much as eldrazi and its still a better matchup. And the card for it are not as specifip.


Grips are also good vs cloudpost and so
Decay is a cath all
More tendrills is good in a lot of matchups
Extirpate also useful against combo
Pyro also useful in a lot of matchups

And this can be aplied to almost every miracles card.

I want the carda of my sb to be useful against a lot of decks. Not just one. And not one than im not gonna beat anyway.

[Burnplayer]

you need lucky to win Eldrazi, doesn't exist a solution.

In my point of view the best way is play 2 Dark Petitions in main deck, to be more faster in turn 1 or 2.

Hurkil's Recall is a very good card vs lands. Isn't a waste slot. Play 2 seems good.


To become obsessive with the eldrazi matchup is a bad idea.

[CabalTherapy]

Rlesko, I don't think you need Surgery against us. You've got a toolbox of choices that's already big enough to handle our deck if you 'board in the right things and mulligan well. But to answer your question, Crypt (like RiP, Leyline, et al.) relies on your keeping us under the gun. It doesn't help if we land Ad Nauseam or Empty the Warrens quickly, and both cards are excellent for us in the matchup. So if you're able to keep pressure on a Storm player (knocking out AdN and making Empty riskier than it normally is), I guess Crypt works, but I can't imagine it's an optimal choice. You're only really bringing down Past in Flames, and though you're making Cabal Ritual worse (and making Dark Petition nearly useless), those aren't crucial cards for us either if we're quick to hit Ad Nauseam or Empty, or if we're able to make you break Crypt at an inopportune time (I'll leave determining what those times are to you! :D ). I board out Petition to board in Empty most of the time, and if we're on the Goes-Fast plan, making Cabal Rituals only ("only") net us one mana doesn't do a whole lot of good.


I hope you don't leave AdN in against Rug Delver postboard. It becomes very bad quickly because usually you won't to have some time to deal with their hand while Delver/Goose/(Goyf, Clique) go for the beatdown. ToA from hand is the best medicine.

[Izor]

The Eldazi matchup will stay really bad for Storm no matter what we do, but imo it helps to be aware of what counts in the matchup, and it's important to look at play/draw and pre-/postboard separately.

Pre-board:
In general we can't really afford to play any real answers to Thorn/Chalice pre board, because they do nothing for our main gameplan and hurt all of our other matchups. The closest we can get is playing maindeck copies of Burning Wish with Pulverize or Meltdown in the sideboard. I've tested that configuration and every now and then you do end up winning a game 1 because of it, but it's still not very reliable, because one TKS or Wail will usually break it up. I have won against turn 1 Chalice @ 0 + Chalice @ 1 with that tech, so it is certainly something that can work if they kept a threat-light hand. Sometimes when you're lucky you can also randomly win through one lock piece (like with Cabal Ritual heavy hands against a single Chalice@1 or Thorn), but a lot has to go right for you there. If a game is shaping up to come down to this, I sometimes start throwing spells into their Chalice just to get to threshold, then win with Cabal Rituals+Tutors+PiF as soon as I can.

Pre-board otp:
I feel like the best way to improve our matchup preboard otp is playing more discard, and starting with 4 Duress over Therapy. If we play something like 4 Duress/3 CT we have at least as many discard effects as they have lock pieces, and I felt like my otp win percentage was slightly over 50% with that config. Playing lists that have ways of winning asap can also help, because your own turn 1 otp is the only turn in the game where you can guarantee they won't do anything bad to you.

Pre-board otd:
Let's face it, if they have a good hand here, you're dead no matter what you do. The only thing you can do is build your deck in a way that enables as many fast wins as possible (maindeck EtW/Ad Nauseam) and pray they don't do anything turn 1. The Burning Wish tech mentioned above can sometimes help, but as I said it's unreliable and I wouldn't recommend it unless you're an advocate of maindeck Wish anyway. Same goes for winning through a singleton hate piece with Cabal Rituals. Keep your SDT/Preordain count as low as possible, because those are literally the worst cards in your deck against Eldrazi.


Post-board:
The main changes here will be that they now always have 4 Thorns (which means that CT loses even more value, because blind-naming Chalice may not be the right thing to do by default) and that they won't draw any dead Dismembers against you any more. Their deck is literally perfect against you. 25 Lands, 8-10 lock pieces and 25-27 things that kill you. In order to win through resolved lock pieces, apart from baing lucky and winning through them, there are a lot of options and I've seen people come up with very different plans. To name a few:

- Abrupt Decays/KGrips: Every Storm player has access to those and if you have no other specific plans for the matchup, all you can do is board them in and hope for the best. If you do rely on green cards against them you should obviously have 2 green lands in your 75 because of Wasteland.

- Chain of Vapor: Some people run those to complement the Decays and they also work here, but I generally don't like bounce very much in this matchup unless it bounces everything at once. There's not much to be gained from bouncing one hate piece if they have another one out, I'd rather just actually kill them one by one.

- Hurkyl's Recall: It's easy to cast in terms of colors, it can be used EOT and it gets rid of everything at once, so it's definitely a good choice. 2 Recall + 2-3 Decays is better than just 4 Decays, so if you have the room, why not run it. I haven't seen anyone play the full 4 Recalls yet, because noone really has that much room in the board, but if so, you might even get away without relying on Green, which is certainly great.

- Ingot Chewer: Every option from now on would start with 'if you have room for it', so I'll just stop mentioning it every time. Chewer 1-for-1s Chalice and Thorn for just 1 mana and it doesn't require Green either, but in turn you should definitely have 2 red lands in your list. The problem with this is that you'd most likely want the full playset, because unlike Hurkyl's you can't get rid of more than one piece at a time. And if you play only a few Chewers and are forced to board a split of Chewer/Decay, you're running into trouble with your colors.

- Meltdown/Pulverize: Like Chewer these require at least 2 red lands, which makes your color situation sort of awkward if you board Decays alongside them. Their advantage over Chewer is obviously that they can X-for 1 them, but they also come at a higher cost. They're also Sorceries, which means that you can Wish for them if you're doing that kind of thing, but also that Warping Wail stops them.

- Serenity: We're down to the more creative and obscure options now. This gets rid of all their hate pieces at once, it only costs 2 mana and Wail doesn't hit it. I haven't tested it myself yet, but in theory I think that this may be one of the most underrated options we have against Eldrazi. The problem is of course that it basically forces you to drop Decay, because 5 colors is just too ambitious, and once you lose those, you'll struggle more against Miracles and against creature-based hate pieces. I do plan on doing some testing on how much Serenity improves the Eldrazi matchup post-board, but it would have to be a whole lot in order to warrant giving up Decay.

- Teferi's Realm: If this cost 2U instead of 1UU, I may have tried it out already. Even though it's blue, it's cost is very prohibitive, and the fact that it costs 3 mana total might already rule it out. However, if you do manage to land it, the effect is incredibly strong. It gets rid of all their hate artifacts at once, it does so without any mana investment on the turn you want to go off, and it can also cut them off of Wail sometimes. It also works better than Serenity against Miracles, because it's harder to counter with CB and it permanently removes all their CBs during your turn, no matter how many they draw. Therefore I think it would most likely be a replacement for Decay, which would also mean you could drop green. In theory it's also decent against Death and Taxes and other decks that have creature-based hate. It would go with 2 basic Islands most likely. It's probably just too expensive and too gimmick to be actually good, but I really want to test it anyway.

EDIT: I've also seen people go really deep and play a singleton Moat or Ensnaring Bridge to tutor for turn 1, because it's usually a safer win than just going for EtW (and Bridge costs less). Preferable alongside a card that prevents you from ever decking, because your strategy here may be actually decking the Eldrazi deck.

Post-board otp:
Discard is still pretty strong here, so I'd keep all of them in. I start with boarding in an EtW (multiple is an option, but I never felt like I gained much by it and I don't want to waste 3 sb slots on them) and whatever answers to a resolved Calice/Thorn I decided to put in my sideboard. I don't usually max out on the latter, I'd rather try to use discard to clear the way and only have 2-3 actual answers to resolved things in my deck in case something goes wrong. Depending on how many cards I'm boarding in, I start by cutting down on cantrips. All SDT/Preordains first, but I won't hesitate to board out all 4 Ponders as well if I need to make that much room.

Post-board otd:
This is where discard loses a ton of value, because if they just drop their piece turn 1 all of your discard spells become pretty bad. I still wouldn't board out too many of them, because you may still need to clear that Wail out of their hand at some point (and because they're still just good if they happen to pass the turn on turn 1), but I'm happy to go down to 3-5. Ponders gain a little in value again, because they're decent when they lead on Thorn and you're looking for your answer to it, so I'll board a couple of them back in. EtW and all other ways to win as fast as possible stay in of course. As opposed to otp, I'll also boad in the rest of my answers to resolved lock pieces here (4-5 in total), because it's much more likely that they'll resolve them when they're otp.

[ScottW]

Anybody have a link to the Grinding Station thread?

[Jonathan Alexander]

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?22550-Introducing-Grinding-Station

(Still outdated though.)

(Also just realised I was playing six Storm spells and three Past in Flames maindeck. That shit was crazy.)

[CabalTherapy]

Sloshstorm

Term is official now: http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=20447&iddeck=155962

[Togores]

Great!

How does this deck sideboards exaaclty vs miracles? Like in an outs?

[Sloshthedark]

Term is official now: http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=20447&iddeck=155962

:really:, lol


Great! How does this deck sideboards exaaclty vs miracles? Like in an outs?

differently than I do, I'm cutting LP, all you guys cut LED and IT

[Togores]

I would like more -/+ list XD

seems like you cut petals while, I cut 2-2 OIT amnd led and Jona cuts all leds and IT.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I only do that with Grinding Station. When I'm on 2 Petition, I cut all Petals and Mox for Badlands and 4 discard.

[KZhang]

Hi, need some help on playing storm in MTGO.

i cant seem to cast infernal tutor with LED.

When i hold ctrl while casting infernal tutor, it doesn't allow me to crack LED
When i hold ctrl and crack LED, my hand is instantly discarded.

whats the order of casting?

[nevilshute]

Hi, need some help on playing storm in MTGO.

i cant seem to cast infernal tutor with LED.

When i hold ctrl while casting infernal tutor, it doesn't allow me to crack LED
When i hold ctrl and crack LED, my hand is instantly discarded.

whats the order of casting?

They recently changed the casting of spells slightly so that you have to click on your mana to indicate what you're paying (even if you only have access to one color). I basically just hold down ctrl, click on the infernal tutor in my hand, then click on the mana symbols I'm using to cast it with, all the while keeping ctrl pressed. The tutor will then go onto the stack and you will still have priority.

[KZhang]

They recently changed the casting of spells slightly so that you have to click on your mana to indicate what you're paying (even if you only have access to one color). I basically just hold down ctrl, click on the infernal tutor in my hand, then click on the mana symbols I'm using to cast it with, all the while keeping ctrl pressed. The tutor will then go onto the stack and you will still have priority.

Thanks for responding.

My challenge is when you cast infernal tutor, the available mana sources will be highlighted. What happens in my case is that the lotus petals will be highlighted, but not the LEDs.

Currently, do you crack the LEDs first? or cast the infernal tutors first?

[nevilshute]

Thanks for responding.

My challenge is when you cast infernal tutor, the available mana sources will be highlighted. What happens in my case is that the lotus petals will be highlighted, but not the LEDs.

Currently, do you crack the LEDs first? or cast the infernal tutors first?

Tutor first always. Crack LED when Tutor goes onto the stack, only then.

[KZhang]

Tutor first always. Crack LED when Tutor goes onto the stack, only then.

When you cast your infernal tutor, is your LED highlighted? or is it faded out?

can you simply crack the LED when they ask you the pay for the mana cost?

[nevilshute]

When you cast your infernal tutor, is your LED highlighted? or is it faded out?

can you simply crack the LED when they ask you the pay for the mana cost?

Are you trying to pay for the tutor with mana from the LED? Because that won't work :wink:

[CabalTherapy]

I had a enjoyable game against Burg Delver today where he had Thoughtseize for my Tendrils and extracted it on turn1. I won with 16 Goblins on turn 3.
It was a nice match, meffeo. (I know you'll read this. :tongue:)

I only lost to Eldrazi today. He had 2x Chalice (0,1) turn 1 on the play and turn 2 TKS. In the second game: Leyline, turn 1 Chalice 1 followed up with TKS on turn 2 and Thorn on turn 3. Shit happens but I couldn't do anything.

[KZhang]

Are you trying to pay for the tutor with mana from the LED? Because that won't work :wink:

oh. it doesn't? i always thought it did!

[Ronald Deuce]

oh. it doesn't? i always thought it did!

Not sure whether it's quoted in the primer, but this is super-important: you can't use the mana from Lion's Eye Diamond to cast or use the abilities of cards that are in your hand when you sacrifice the Diamond. If you cast Infernal Tutor, for example, you can sacrifice Lion's Eye when the Tutor is on the stack so that you gain the 3 mana before the Tutor resolves, leaving you with three mana of a color of your choosing and the card you tutored to find in your hand. You can't cast anything else from your hand during that time because discarding your hand is part of the cost of Lion's Eye Diamond's ability. [EDIT: So if you sacrifice the LED with Infernal Tutor in your hand, you have to discard the Tutor and you don't get to use it after you've broken the LED. NEVER do that.] If (for whatever reason) you had a Lightning Bolt in your hand and a Mountain untapped when you cast Infernal Tutor, you could respond to the Tutor by casting Lightning Bolt, dealing three damage before the tutor resolves. Add an active LED to the mix: you can cast Bolt with Tutor on the stack before sacrificing the Diamond, but not afterward, because you have to discard Bolt to use the LED's mana ability.

I hope that helps; it's one of the most confusing and important aspects of playing this deck. One other thing to note: Infernal Tutor automatically goes Hellbent if you sacrifice LED with the Tutor on the stack.

[Ronald Deuce]

I only lost to Eldrazi today. He had 2x Chalice (0,1) turn 1 on the play and turn 2 TKS. In the second game: Leyline, turn 1 Chalice 1 followed up with TKS on turn 2 and Thorn on turn 3. Shit happens but I couldn't do anything.

This is starting to feel very much like my experience with Dredge. Only instead of opponents' sideboarding until they hit Leyline of the Void or double-Surgical, they just naturally draw mainboard cards that make it impossible for us to play things.

Not happy about that, but I appreciate everyone's input re: the matchup versus Eldrazi. I'm gonna keep pushing forward, and I'll let you know if my fortunes start to turn for the better. Audentis fortuna iuvat!

Nevilshute, my curiosity's really getting to me: what was the opponent playing in the matchup with the G1 Island, Delta? What did you sideboard, and was it correct?

[nevilshute]

Nevilshute, my curiosity's really getting to me: what was the opponent playing in the matchup with the G1 Island, Delta? What did you sideboard, and was it correct?

Right, sorry I had forgotten about that. Well I had the same thoughts as many of you "probably combo". Boarded in 2x fluster, 1x top, brought out 1x empty, 1x chrome mox, 1x something I'm blanking on and managed to beat my storm opponent :wink:

[KZhang]

Right, sorry I had forgotten about that. Well I had the same thoughts as many of you "probably combo". Boarded in 2x fluster, 1x top, brought out 1x empty, 1x chrome mox, 1x something I'm blanking on and managed to beat my storm opponent :wink:

Where can i find a more detailed sideboarding guide? i've looked through the first post, but there isnt enough information from there.

Thanks!

[Ronald Deuce]

Where can i find a more detailed sideboarding guide? i've looked through the first post, but there isnt enough information from there.

Thanks!

Jonathan Alexander's working on one, I think. As a caveat, I think it's pretty likely that a bunch of very experienced Stormers will give you a bunch of varying answers if you ask them what to sideboard. My board's got a few flex spots, and I'm not an expert (hard as I try to be!), but here are some tips:

—Abrupt Decay is necessary for dealing with Miracles. Always run 4. It's good to some extent in other matchups, but how good it is depends on whom you ask. You might consider Krosan Grip as well.
—You're going to want at least 1 Empty the Warrens to knuckleball our opponents. Don't use it against decks like Jund (removal out the wazoo), Elves or Gobbos (they can race it easily), Lands (Tabernacle is 900 dollars for a reason), Batterskull.dec (eight life per turn is nearly impossible to race if you don't T1 the Empty), or other combo decks like Belcher or Storm (they'll kill faster; note that Belcher is better at Emptying for a boatload of goblins). Empty can get clunky in the maindeck, but it might be necessary in this environment. Good against Eldrazi, Delvers, and other decks that run light on mass removal.
—Chain of Vapor is a superb card for dealing with hatebears, especially Ethersworn Canonist, Thalia, Gaddock Teeg, and Eidolon of the Great Revel. Note that you can dump a handful of free artifacts against Canonist, then tap all your lands for mana, then play Chain on your own artifacts a number of times before bouncing Canonist. This nets you a ton of storm count and gets you closer to threshold for Cabal Ritual. Don't use Chain versus hatebears until you're about to combo off, though. It's also good against Marit Lage (AAAAHAHAHAHAHAAA!) and Batterskull (bounce the Germ token, NOT the Batterskull). Also note that it hits any nonland permanent, not only creatures.
—You're going to want a couple of cards to answer a mob of disruptive white creatures, because that'll definitely knock you out if you're not prepared. Opinion's divided on Dread of Night, Disfigure, and Massacre. I'm going with Disfigure for the time being, but Massacre's also really useful in some other matchups (throwing a Dark Rit and a Massacre to kill ten Elves is totally worth it). Note that it does nothing against Gaddock Teeg. If you run one Dread of Night, run four. This is the least flexible of our anti-D&T cards.
—If you're on 14 lands in the maindeck, 'board a fifteenth. 16 is too many, and I flood on 15 pretty often. But you really need to hit land drops in a few matchups, and I need a green source for Decay.

There are numerous varied philosophies about how to fill out the sideboard, but I'm considering a singleton Pithing Needle (for Sensei's Top, Wasteland, Deathrite, Stoneforge, Jitte, Sneak Attack, and awful MUD nonsense). Running a second Tendrils and Empty (for grinding and Goes-Fast, respectively), a fourth Cabal Therapy (totally experimental), and 2x Hurkyl's Recall (Chalices, Thorns) for the time being.

Flusterstorm looks excellent, but I haven't tested it. Xantid Swarm doesn't feel like it's worth the spot in the 75, but I may be wrong. Dark Confidant is a superb creature, but I don't think it does a lot of good in this deck. It takes its time to get revved up, and it's a useless topdeck if you need to go places quickly. (As an aside, creatures often work this way in our deck. They may be strong when they get going, but they don't help us combo quickly or break opposing countermagic).

I'm still careening through the learning process re: what to cut and when. The only card I cut virtually every time is Preordain. I often board out some number of discards to make room for other disruption, but I think people are testing added discard for a few control-heavy matchups. I'm running both Rain of Filth and Chrome Mox in my maindeck, and when I need to floor it I sometimes take out Rain. Same goes for Dark Petition.

Take out Ad Nauseam against Burn every time. You get drained pretty quickly and the floor collapses under you if they can hip-shoot a Price of Progress and a Fireblast to take you from nine to zero.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Jonathan Alexander's working on one, I think. As a caveat, I think it's pretty likely that a bunch of very experienced Stormers will give you a bunch of varying answers if you ask them what to sideboard.

It will happen at some point and it will be quite extensive, but it's definitely not happening before the Grand Prix. I'm also likely to spend a good amount of time playing EMA limited during the time it is on Magic Online, which, if I remember correctly, is during the three weeks directly after the Grand Prix.

But yeah, everybody has their own list and we all do different things. Every now and then two of us come to similar conclusions or start working together, but we're usually all too stubborn and too invested to listen to anyone else.

[esperr]

15 LANDS
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
36 INSTANTS and SORC.
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
2 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Tendrils of Agony
9 OTHER SPELLS
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Sensei's Divining Top
SIDEBOARD
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hide / Seek
1 Karakas
3 Monastery Mentor
2 Painful Truths
2 Serenity
1 Silence
1 Tropical Island

So I saw this list on mtg top8, noting specifically the white and monastery mentor in the SB and was wondering what you all thought. Pretty much im bad at legacy, my lgs is only four people, theirs no way im going to outplay people at the GP so I need a way to get a "gotcha" edge(also im only going because I have my byes if im being honest). I like the idea of mentor, it plays around some SB hate that we tend to see naturally, they wont be expecting it, and it seems good against some of the trickier matchups(like eldrazi, or D and T). I dont lie the idea of not playing dark petition in the main, and the MB seems slower overall and unable to get consistent turn 2-3-4 kills like normal ANT does, so I feel as though you would lose the oops I win factor G1, but gain a much better long game. I also dont really understand the painful truths in the SB, I have been trying to get a hold of the user who 5-0d the league(his name is ItIsUnfair) but haven't been able to, I am however very interested in this idea for the GP but I wanted advice from the more experienced players.

[ScottW]

Played a GPT today and did so-so.
A couple reflections:
Don't overboard for Eldrazi.
Continue to use a note sheet for tracking storm. (I hate when my opponent starts trying to track my storm with my dice.)

Also, traded into a NM Grim Tutor today. Now time to alter...

[CabalTherapy]

15 LANDS
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
36 INSTANTS and SORC.
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
2 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Tendrils of Agony
9 OTHER SPELLS
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Sensei's Divining Top
SIDEBOARD
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hide / Seek
1 Karakas
3 Monastery Mentor
2 Painful Truths
2 Serenity
1 Silence
1 Tropical Island

So I saw this list on mtg top8, noting specifically the white and monastery mentor in the SB and was wondering what you all thought. Pretty much im bad at legacy, my lgs is only four people, theirs no way im going to outplay people at the GP so I need a way to get a "gotcha" edge(also im only going because I have my byes if im being honest). I like the idea of mentor, it plays around some SB hate that we tend to see naturally, they wont be expecting it, and it seems good against some of the trickier matchups(like eldrazi, or D and T). I dont lie the idea of not playing dark petition in the main, and the MB seems slower overall and unable to get consistent turn 2-3-4 kills like normal ANT does, so I feel as though you would lose the oops I win factor G1, but gain a much better long game. I also dont really understand the painful truths in the SB, I have been trying to get a hold of the user who 5-0d the league(his name is ItIsUnfair) but haven't been able to, I am however very interested in this idea for the GP but I wanted advice from the more experienced players.

First of all, that is a"normal ANT" list and this said "ItIsUnfair" user streams online and I'd like to say it carefully that he rather makes questionable plays/decisions, thus I wouldn't recommend his techs.
In all honesty, (obviously my opinion) Mentors are bad, Truths might be ok against Miracles, Hide and Seek pointless, Serenity (I guess against Eldrazi) = I'd rather play Grips, also this random Silence...

[Sloshthedark]

I have been trying to get a hold of the user who 5-0d the league(his name is ItIsUnfair) but haven't been able to, I am however very interested in this idea for the GP but I wanted advice from the more experienced players.

You can reach him on twitch, or in the FB group is you search Nicklas, btw. a lot of hrs on the list and games against Miracles in last few days so you can see how it plays out... I'd not take it as a educational material, a lot of weird stuff happens on both sides, but you'll get the idea... on the other hand in you consider yourself bad at legacy, I'd play something else than Storm, if you have no other option or do not want to, invest a lot of time to it (the deck) question everything you see, think what you'd do and why... 10 days is a lot of time and you'll win more playing well with a semibad list than plaing poorly with the best list around (which is hard t tell anyway)...

[Cave]

To this guy:

Where can i find a more detailed sideboarding guide? i've looked through the first post, but there isnt enough information from there.

Thanks!

Well, basically, what Ronald Deuce said above is correct.
Fact, the deck has a pretty awesome balance among its components (combo pieces, basic lands, discards, businness, stuff...) and breaking this balance is mostly bad.
So the less you alter this balance, the better.

This is a key concept.
When you sideboard, you don't want to turn your ANT deck into a pile of cards that has the goal to disrupt your opponent, and is occasionally able to storm up to ten.
You still want to be a semi-fast, semi-bursty combo deck that's able to both perform a quick combo and to disrupt your opponent with the right cards.
So you have to keep the balance.

Example: let's say you play against Death 'n Taxes and you pack 3 Dread of Night somewhere in your sideboard.
Well, arguably, Duress is a piece of disruption that's not really good in the matchup, and Dread of Night is a better card to harass Taxes with.
Therefore, the simplest board in/out that you can do is:
-3 Duress, +3 Dread of Night
Out three pieces of inefficient disruption, In three pieces of efficient disruption. And you keep the balance.

caveat: This is a simplified example. Boarding against any deck is way more complicate than that. Following the same example, I also like some (but not all) of my Abrupt Decays to come in against Taxes, but I don't like taking out Cabal Therapies because I can name Thalia and be happy with it. So I break the balance rule.
However, this concept is a good point to start with.

There's a really interesting (although a bit outdated) article about this, but I don't really know if i can link it.

[Togores]

I played an event with Mentor in the sb but they seemed lackluster. Got sworded away, tabernacled, bolted and terminused. Also they are quite slow. Because you dont really want to play them with a petal or ritual. You want to play them with 3 lands. I just didnt liked them. Like I didnt liked any of the good creatures plan I have tried with pyromancer or confidants.


Also if you dont play much legacy just slam belcher, its a fine deck and you need less experice like storm is a deck that really rewards playing it a lot and even the best players mess it up quite a lot of times.

[KZhang]

To this guy:


Well, basically, what Ronald Deuce said above is correct.
Fact, the deck has a pretty awesome balance among its components (combo pieces, basic lands, discards, businness, stuff...) and breaking this balance is mostly bad.
So the less you alter this balance, the better.

This is a key concept.
When you sideboard, you don't want to turn your ANT deck into a pile of cards that has the goal to disrupt your opponent, and is occasionally able to storm up to ten.
You still want to be a semi-fast, semi-bursty combo deck that's able to both perform a quick combo and to disrupt your opponent with the right cards.
So you have to keep the balance.

Example: let's say you play against Death 'n Taxes and you pack 3 Dread of Night somewhere in your sideboard.
Well, arguably, Duress is a piece of disruption that's not really good in the matchup, and Dread of Night is a better card to harass Taxes with.
Therefore, the simplest board in/out that you can do is:
-3 Duress, +3 Dread of Night
Out three pieces of inefficient disruption, In three pieces of efficient disruption. And you keep the balance.

caveat: This is a simplified example. Boarding against any deck is way more complicate than that. Following the same example, I also like some (but not all) of my Abrupt Decays to come in against Taxes, but I don't like taking out Cabal Therapies because I can name Thalia and be happy with it. So I break the balance rule.
However, this concept is a good point to start with.

There's a really interesting (although a bit outdated) article about this, but I don't really know if i can link it.

Thanks! This is really helpful. Still learning the basics of the deck. G1 is always relatively easy. Post board with hate gets hard

[ScottW]

What's the consensus on when to concede to Miracles in G1? Last GPT I played, I was stuck in the draw bracket after losing a long G1 and then winning G2 and not having time to win G3. It was annoying. I did this exactly in my first 2 rounds. Both G1 opponents had countertop assembled but no life pressure or Jace. Both times I had hands with potential if I could get them to flip the Top for an unnecessary spell.

[Jonathan Alexander]

What's the consensus on when to concede to Miracles in G1? Last GPT I played, I was stuck in the draw bracket after losing a long G1 and then winning G2 and not having time to win G3. It was annoying. I did this exactly in my first 2 rounds. Both G1 opponents had countertop assembled but no life pressure or Jace. Both times I had hands with potential if I could get them to flip the Top for an unnecessary spell.

I have never had long preboard games against Miracles. You are heavily favoured with their current setup leading to many short games. You also probably shouldn't count on Top ever leaving the battlefield. Getting the second Top is what I prioritise when I'm playing Miracles against Storm. You can only win through Counterbalance if you draw Tendrils. Tendrils does make it possible, but only if you have a lot of mana / free spells.

But seriously, most of the time you have a "long" game one, slow play is involved somewhere. There's really not much happening in these games and not many decisions should take long because they're easy on both sides.

[esperr]

So what kinds of hands should I keep in the blind? Just fast kills? Im talking in a GP meta, my local meta is literally just miracles and enchantress super warped to beat miracles and storm, so I have no idea what to keep in the dark in a "real" meta. Do you just always go for fast kills g1 and hope?

for instance, your on the play in the dark and have

fetch, fetch, preordain, LED, LED, dark rit, infernal tutor, do you just jam it and go for it?

[rlesko]

So what kinds of hands should I keep in the blind? Just fast kills? Im talking in a GP meta, my local meta is literally just miracles and enchantress super warped to beat miracles and storm, so I have no idea what to keep in the dark in a "real" meta. Do you just always go for fast kills g1 and hope?

for instance, your on the play in the dark and have

fetch, fetch, preordain, LED, LED, dark rit, infernal tutor, do you just jam it and go for it?

I'm not a storm aficionado but I'm pretty sure the common consensus is to jam it in this situation. There is exactly 1 card that can stop you (Force of Will). If you wait you open up the possibility of
a) losing to hateful permanents such as thalia, chalice of the void, TKS, etc.
b) opening up yourself to daze, spell pierce, probe / therapy, etc.

Basically, there isn't much "hope" needed. They probably don't have FoW, statistically speaking

[Jonathan Alexander]

So what kinds of hands should I keep in the blind? Just fast kills? Im talking in a GP meta, my local meta is literally just miracles and enchantress super warped to beat miracles and storm, so I have no idea what to keep in the dark in a "real" meta. Do you just always go for fast kills g1 and hope?

for instance, your on the play in the dark and have

fetch, fetch, preordain, LED, LED, dark rit, infernal tutor, do you just jam it and go for it?


You should go for the kill with that hand, yes. If you have Empty, you can even keep one LED. Would cast discard if I had that instead of Preordain though. Also, here's an article I wrote last year: Storm Hands (https://theweeklywars.wordpress.com/2015/07/21/storm-hands/)

[Ronald Deuce]

So what kinds of hands should I keep in the blind? Just fast kills? Im talking in a GP meta, my local meta is literally just miracles and enchantress super warped to beat miracles and storm, so I have no idea what to keep in the dark in a "real" meta. Do you just always go for fast kills g1 and hope?

for instance, your on the play in the dark and have

fetch, fetch, preordain, LED, LED, dark rit, infernal tutor, do you just jam it and go for it?

I wrote a similar response to someone in the TES thread who seemed a tad gun-shy about jamming it blindly.

Think of it this way: if they have an answer, you might be screwed. If they don't, you win the game. So if you know (or are reasonably sure about) what your opponent is playing, you might want to reconsider barfing cards blindly, but if it's G1 and you don't know, you're giving them time to find an answer if you delay. If you pass the turn, best case, they'll open with Plains, and you'll just blast them, but worst case, they can either stop your combo with the card they've drawn or they can actually lock you out or T1 you themselves.

[EDIT: I just realized I wasn't really answering your question more broadly. Jonathan Alexander's article has a lot of great information. Essentially, in a blind matchup, I usually keep something with cantrips, lands, and at least one piece (preferably more) of your combo.]

[Jonathan Alexander]

If you pass the turn, best case, they'll open with Plains.

This is gold.

Reminds me of talking to Timo between rounds way back in Ghent. "My opponent opened on Forest, Llanowar Elves. That was easy."

[Zombie]

This is gold.

Reminds me of talking to Timo between rounds way back in Ghent. "My opponent opened on Forest, Llanowar Elves. That was easy."

Reminds me of some Vintage tournament report that went like: "I cast Llanowar Elves. He played Ancestral Recall, a slightly stronger card from the same set."

[esperr]

Specifically against miracles(as I end up playing against it a lot), ive found the matchup to be bad because were forced to use discard early to stop them from locking us out, rather then to strip them of there response to the kill. Is it normal to t1 discard over cantrips against them? Or do you just have to always asume they dont "have it" and go for a cantrip turn 1? Miracles seems to be the only deck Im really struggling against, I feel like griding station is way better against them but it feels much worse against other decks. Any general strategy against them would be welcome, the presence of the deck makes me want to play two tendrils main, or play the empty MB just to have a potential 3rd or fourth way to combo off in the same game.

[Sloshthedark]

What's the consensus on when to concede to Miracles in G1? Last GPT I played, I was stuck in the draw bracket after losing a long G1 and then winning G2 and not having time to win G3. It was annoying. I did this exactly in my first 2 rounds. Both G1 opponents had countertop assembled but no life pressure or Jace. Both times I had hands with potential if I could get them to flip the Top for an unnecessary spell.

almost never - there is too much to learn - version, type of player, skills, you can sometimes randomly still win the lategame and the time management of G2/G3 is in your hands

[CabalTherapy]

But seriously, most of the time you have a "long" game one, slow play is involved somewhere.

It's a funny coincidence because I had my longest game 1 against Miracles yesterday. I had a turn 2 Duress on the play: he reveals 2 Counterbalances, I took a BS.
He then went on to play a Balance and never drew a third land or a cantrip. I, on the other hand, had all my lands and SDT in play. We have been playing for 30 minutes until
his hand was cleared from a FoW and the top card was an Island. At this point I had 3 LP, 6 lands in play, IT and CT in hand, and PiF, cantrips and some rituals in the grave.
Eventually, I also won the second game but due to misplays by the Miracles palyer.

[Togores]

Letely I have been wining a lot in games like:
They have nothing just a brainstorm.

I go for it t1-2 they find a force ( like they always do...) Then they land balance, I get pif and win like on turn 5-6 after them making me discard all my hand with led.

[esperr]

So after playing thirty something matches online in league im more wondering what we actually beat more then anything, anything playing blue seems like a terrible matchup, and the "plains" and "forest" decks that we have supposed byes against seem to be non existant....What are our actual good matchups supposed to be out of the decks that are actually played in legacy?

[Ronald Deuce]

So after playing thirty something matches online in league im more wondering what we actually beat more then anything, anything playing blue seems like a terrible matchup, and the "plains" and "forest" decks that we have supposed byes against seem to be non existant....What are our actual good matchups supposed to be out of the decks that are actually played in legacy?

I don't mean to sound harsh or insulting when I say this, but I think you need to practice more. Hell; I do, too. I actually picked up this deck in large part because I'm terribly absent-minded and bad at math, so I felt like taking on the challenge.

Don't be discouraged! It's taken me months and months to get to the "marginally adequate" level with this deck. If you're not interested in throwing a bunch of time at it, I don't blame you, but you're going to need to play both terribly and perfectly to figure out how the deck works.

The best way to test this deck is to take yourself on the Trollercoaster; keep bad hands just to see what you need to do to win and how/how often you can find the cards to do it. This may sound weird to say, but AnT is more competent at Magic than I am. I'm sure it sounds like I'm giving a cop-out answer, but Storm variants all have so many moving parts with so many (often really obscure) synergies that you'll need to play (and, perhaps, lose) a lot of times to figure out what you need to know about the deck. The moment I figured out how powerful this deck is was when I was playing against heavy-control (either Miracles or a strong brew LOADED with countermagic) about six months ago: after I'd tried to combo on 3 consecutive turns and was feeling like I didn't have a hope in any hell ever devised, I topdecked a Swamp and won the game. A basic Swamp.

I've had a lot of trouble with countermagic-heavy decks in the past, and I've come to realize a few things that are important to keep in mind:

—You'll encounter people who mulligan into unbeatable hands. This is an especially large problem with Stoneblade, Delver, and Miracles because, if they get a good hand, they can just sandbag a hideous amount of countermagic. Note that oftentimes people who do this will mulligan into oblivion just so they can have "Force, Force, blue card, blue card," which is to say—somewhat counterintuitively—that they're throwing the game. If they've got the goods, shrug it off; there are plenty of people who can't stop us when we jam a T1 Ad Nauseam from 19 life, so it's only fair.
—Pertinent to what I said above, you don't have to combo immediately unless you're against someone who combos/locks you out immediately. You can pace yourself and bait out countermagic by attempting to combo multiple times, and people are likely to take at least a portion of the bait because there's the real chance that we'll just blow up everything if they don't counter a crucial spell. Often, this means that they won't be able to answer your final combo chain with the tools they have left after blocking a T1 Tutor, a T4 Brainstorm with mana floating, and a T5 Past in Flames. I've played numerous games in which I've made two to four attempts to combo—each attempt meeting countermagic on my tutor or a crucial piece of fast mana or something—and then I've won because my opponent has run out of cards to stop me and I've topdecked something useful.
—Past in Flames is your friend. I didn't come around to the 2x PiF builds until pretty recently, but I've found that such configurations are extremely useful for beating countermagic without sacrificing the searching power of the 6-tutor builds. Double-PiF, 5-tutor builds look worse than 6-tutor builds on paper (and in goldfishing), but one of the important things to learn with the deck is how to hit your combo without access to a tutor and how to combo with a PiF AND a tutor in your hand. The former situation is tough, and it requires a lot of practice and a bit of luck. In the latter situation, you skewer the opponent because if they counter the tutor, you can flash back PiF and cast it again, but if they hold off, you can search up discard to burn out their countermagic (N.B.: you can also find other things, but this post is a reader's trainwreck already). Also, PiF-and-cantrips is a better spell-chain than it looks prima facie. Test it as much as you can, and I think it'll surprise you.

Best of luck!

[CabalTherapy]

So after playing thirty something matches online in league im more wondering what we actually beat more then anything, anything playing blue seems like a terrible matchup, and the "plains" and "forest" decks that we have supposed byes against seem to be non existant....What are our actual good matchups supposed to be out of the decks that are actually played in legacy?

Good guy Ronald chose the long one, I choose the short answer: If your statement would be true then Storm would be a Tier 4 crap pile/Belcher deck. Thirty something matches is nothing if you don't question your plays, think about possible lines that could have won against certain constelations of cards in opp's hand and so on. Ah, and by the way, I'd rather play against "blue" than against these "plains" and "forest" decks.

[Jonathan Alexander]

So after playing thirty something matches online in league im more wondering what we actually beat more then anything, anything playing blue seems like a terrible matchup, and the "plains" and "forest" decks that we have supposed byes against seem to be non existant....What are our actual good matchups supposed to be out of the decks that are actually played in legacy?


Thirty something matches is nothing.

What this guy says.

You can tune Storm be beat pretty much any deck. Some decks take more effort, but those are usually the ones that are very small parts of the metagame (Chalice decks before OGW were not worth gunning for, for example).

Decks that can reasonably be good matchups:
-Miracles
-any form of Delver
-Elves
-Show and Tell strategies
-Death & Taxes
-Lands
-Shardless
-Aggro Loam
-stuff like Maverick and Nic Fit

Decks that will take an unreasonable amount of effort to beat:
-Dredge
-Eldrazi (I have less experience in this matchup than the other guys, I'm inclined to believe it has gotten much better for Storm since they cut down on Wastelands, Revokers and Thorns)
-Belcher

[Togores]

Blue decks are usualy the easiest to play against. They are predicatable and slow. The only real cards from them are: shaman, balance + top and heavy discard. All other options is quite easy to beat.

And yes we can loose to white decks. And also we can just destroy them because theu are a t1 do nothing deck. They are not a lot of the metagame. Thats the reason I dont play lately any anti white hate card in sb. But they usualy are at least 50-50 matchups.

Also you can look up my stream: https://www.twitch.tv/togorestcg/profile there are a few past broadcasts where you can see how I usualy destroy blue decks, including miracles and then get smashed by eldrazi >.<

But there is a mindset in how to beat them. In what momento you play your discard against each deck is really crucial and makes you win or loose. And thats really a skill intesive thing.

[esperr]

Thats what I need is streams, I also want to try out double PiF builds, but I never see them do well in paper events, Im now 15-16 with the deck as of this morning online, grixis delver feels impossible, i also lost a few games against dredge to some extrememly improbably ad nauseums, im not saying the deck is bad, but it definatly feels like the online meta is very very hostile to the deck right now.

edit:also miracles, I hate the matchup because they force you to use discard early, which I dont want to do, and any of the blue put in a big dude decks, they always seem to have like double counter backup with combo in hand.
Im also running a 15 land build which I never really see, should I just go down to 14?

speaking of which, i found against miracles im bringing in 3 decay, 2 grip, 2 tendrils and the empty and taking out 4 infernal tutor and 4 LED, is this correct? I felt like a lot of my post board losses to them were to just bad beats, guys bringing in like ten cards against me.

[Togores]

Miracles g1 is like a deck with a few counters and hate. And so you have to play them g1. Race his balance and combo asap.

Grixis is like a more or less bad matchup.
If they dont get DRS its like 40-60 for us. The same with therapy. If they hit one its like 45-55 for them. If they hit both we are more or less in bad shape. But the rest of his deck does not much.

[nevilshute]

Feel free to check out my YouTube channel: https://m.youtube.com/results?q=nevilshute%20ant&sm=3

I'm mostly playing 2x PiF lists

[Ronald Deuce]

I also want to try out double PiF builds, but I never see them do well in paper events

I only get the chance to play in 3-4-round tournaments at the local because I live in the middle of nowhere (there's an actual place called Podunk about two miles from my house). I also have never played Magic Online. But I switched over to double-PiF from double-Petition and I've seen a huge difference in my success rate against blue decks, incl. ones with better pilots than I am. Petitions are more consistently fast than PiF, but you really do have a lot of instances in which you've got no backup plan and your opponent doesn't need more than one spell to stop you. I started off on two-Petition, and I still run one maindeck. I'm still considering slotting the second one into one of my flex-spots in the sideboard. It's really good, and it puts up lots of results, but it's less resilient against countermagic and the speed difference isn't as big as I once thought it was.


i also lost a few games against dredge to some extrememly improbably ad nauseums, im not saying the deck is bad, but it definatly feels like the online meta is very very hostile to the deck right now.

I don't mean to be smarmy, but I think your performance is producing confirmation bias in that statement. It's not that Dredge is good against you; it's that Ad Nauseam did what it sometimes does. Granted, Dredge games are usually nailbiters for us because they often come down to "he's got lethal on the board and I've got lethal-minus-one-card in my hand. Time to untap."

As an aside, I wouldn't be surprised if you could've cut off the AdNs earlier at least a couple of times. When I was picking up the deck I regularly would bleed myself out in goldfishing, only to realize that I could've won with several fewer cards than the fatal AdN had revealed. Keep trying; it's a long road, but a fun one if you don't mind losing games to yourself as well as your opponent. The more you practice, the more you'll get used to finding the right combinations to pull off wins.

You're right about Grix, though; next to Chalice and countertop, I actually think targeted discard is really deadly against us. Double PiF serves to mitigate that to a large degree, but a lot of decks can extract or Deathrite all our useful cards if we don't get the show on the road quickly.


Im also running a 15 land build which I never really see, should I just go down to 14?

Long answer: depends on whom you ask, but definitely keep a fifteenth in your sideboard.

Short answer: yes. :D

Check out Nevilshute's videos. He's really good at discussing why he does what he does. Togores is a great player who also streams, though I've had a devil of a time getting his stream to work. Internet's patchy out here, and Twitch has never been friendly to me. Those are two good streamers I know of, but there may be more I just haven't run into yet. I'd also like to hear if there are other streamers in the thread.

[Togores]

Ronald, you can always see my streams in pact broadcast. The are saved there like 15 days or so after I do them.

Also most of things you said are right. I usualy
Never kill me with nauseam. Only if there is impossible qays to do it.
Pasa the turn or just 2 cantrips are usualy enought to kill.

[rlesko]

Rodrigo I've been watching some of your videos. I wanted to know your train of thought behind a duress that you made-

http://i.imgur.com/pIMkIS7.png

You take thorn here- why not take chalice? we can still function under the thorn- cast brainstorm at least, dig for a card to remove the chalice, and set up the empty the warrens. By taking the thorn and letting chalice resolve, what sequence of draws are you hoping for to win the game? Also, for what its worth, he is unable to cast future thorns or chalices for 1 with the first thorn in play (without drawing more lands, obviously).

[Togores]

Also while your right. My plan there was like to hit petal and cabal ritual. Or 2 lands. Or petal and land.
Infernal for led. And just make 8-10 goblins while he is stuck there. Its not the best. But was a plan. May be just brainstorming was enought. But I was alreado low on card to brainstorm.

[thefringthing]

Any thoughts on City of Solitude over Xantid Swarm? I see it's been showing showing up in North American style lists (1 PIF, 1 Ad Naus, 1 Tendrils, 1-2 Petition maindeck). Seems better against Miracles and worse against Show and Tell/Reanimator.

[Lemnear]

Gonna be in London from Mo-Thu. Any places to sling cards for an afternoon meeting stormers?

[ScottW]

I played a GPT yesterday to a crap finish and despite myriad bad decisions, I had a few interesting plays. 2 Tendrils is nuts and nobody expects you to play a Tendrils for 5 and the then another 6. At least not in my meta, and these are guys grinding for the GP at a 40+ person event. Rodrigo suggested playing 3 against burn and I followed this versus UR Delver and won. Not sure if it's correct. I also, played a Jund deck and won G1 with 10 Goblins T1 on the play. Post side board he opened with a Thougtseize and then I played CT naming Hymn, he reveals Deathrite, Goyf, and Eidolon! Is this on anyone else's radar versus Jund? I don't have much experience with the deck.

[CabalTherapy]

Any thoughts on City of Solitude over Xantid Swarm? I see it's been showing showing up in North American style lists (1 PIF, 1 Ad Naus, 1 Tendrils, 1-2 Petition maindeck). Seems better against Miracles and worse against Show and Tell/Reanimator.

I picked it up over one year ago after Martin Nielsen mentioned it or played it online. I had some decent results with it but and yes it is better against Miracles and worse against SnT decks and pretty much useless against Infect due to its cc. Why the US guys love to violate the deck will remain a secret for me: 14 lands with Top, Petitions, only one PiF, and cc3 permanent silence sounds incoherent; especially since they run Tutor-storm or Ad Nauseam-storm, whereas City is cleary at its best in Sloshystorm because it's more stable as a stormdeck and remains its power in the lategame.
All in all, not needed in the meta right now; neither Swarm nor City.


I played a GPT yesterday to a crap finish and despite myriad bad decisions, I had a few interesting plays. 2 Tendrils is nuts and nobody expects you to play a Tendrils for 5 and the then another 6. At least not in my meta, and these are guys grinding for the GP at a 40+ person event. Rodrigo suggested playing 3 against burn and I followed this versus UR Delver and won. Not sure if it's correct. I also, played a Jund deck and won G1 with 10 Goblins T1 on the play. Post side board he opened with a Thougtseize and then I played CT naming Hymn, he reveals Deathrite, Goyf, and Eidolon! Is this on anyone else's radar versus Jund? I don't have much experience with the deck.

Not a jund expert but I think they play Eidolon frequently or at least it's an option for them. I already saw RUG Delver/ UR lists with Eidolon in their side. It's definitely a card that sees not enough play based on its value against certain decks. Hopefully, the guys will leave them at home in the future as well.

[surface33]

Hey guys, new to the deck. Can anyone give me some advice in the mana base? My main concerns are; when to run 2 islands, when to to run bayou vs tropical, when o run bayou/tropical in the main and finally what fetches are optimal a part from the 4 polluted delta.
My idea was to run :
4 polluted
2-3 misty
2 bloodstained mire
1-2 islands
2 under
1 volcanic
1 tropical

Also, about grim tutor, are 3 life more relevant than the ability to be able to cast it without getting to 5 mana?
thanks

[CabalTherapy]

Hey guys, new to the deck. Can anyone give me some advice in the mana base? My main concerns are; when to run 2 islands, when to to run bayou vs tropical, when o run bayou/tropical in the main and finally what fetches are optimal a part from the 4 polluted delta.
My idea was to run :
4 polluted
2-3 misty
2 bloodstained mire
1-2 islands
2 under
1 volcanic
1 tropical

Also, about grim tutor, are 3 life more relevant than the ability to be able to cast it without getting to 5 mana?
thanks

Manabase depends on your main configuration. Take one, test it, and adjust afterwards. Your current base looks ok.

For me, (in short) the difference between Grim and Petition is the cc cost, I don't care about the life loss. It'll only be relevant when you're at 3 or higher with bolt range or 6 before a Pif loop and so on.
Petition still needs 5 mana, that'll be a Demonic afterwards doesn't matter (my approach) because it belongs to the cards's effect. You have to pay 5 to play it, no matter what, whereas Grim supports Etw better
and can be played in lines where you have DRit, Crit, LED, one starting mana, and Pif in hand. Petition might also work here in certain situations when you crack your LED in response to the Crit for threshold and flashback Pif...
...no further elaboration. Guys will get annoyed by my opinions. :rolleyes:

[ScottW]

Why the US guys love to violate the deck will remain a secret for me: 14 lands with Top, Petitions, only one PiF, and cc3 permanent silence sounds incoherent

Hey, I'm from the US and played this 75 at my last event:wink::
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=20447&iddeck=155962

[Dr_D]

Why the US guys love to violate the deck will remain a secret for me: 14 lands with Top, Petitions, only one PiF, and cc3 permanent silence sounds incoherent
All in all, not needed in the meta right now; neither Swarm nor City.



I can't understand it either, I imagine it's due to everyone's gigantic hard-on for Scherer's lists.

[Ronald Deuce]

Hey guys, new to the deck. Can anyone give me some advice in the mana base? My main concerns are; when to run 2 islands, when to to run bayou vs tropical, when o run bayou/tropical in the main and finally what fetches are optimal a part from the 4 polluted delta.
My idea was to run :
4 polluted
2-3 misty
2 bloodstained mire
1-2 islands
2 under
1 volcanic
1 tropical

Also, about grim tutor, are 3 life more relevant than the ability to be able to cast it without getting to 5 mana?
thanks

I would stick to 14 lands in your maindeck. This deck is capable of winning off of a landless hand (don't try it, but it can be done), and—confirmation bias though this might be—I both keep seeing people flood on 15 lands and keep flooding on 15 lands myself.

Regarding Grim Tutor, CabalTherapy's correct in his analysis. However, I prefer Petition for a number of reasons (less life-intensive after Ad Nauseam, rarely a slow card, smaller net-loss of mana in PiF chains, etc.); the big one is that, faster though Grim is to dig out Empty the Warrens, it works poorly with Ad Nauseam, and it's worse than any of our other tutors in Tendrils chains, which are this deck's primary route to victory.

Also note that Tutor-plus-Empty requires the same amount of mana invested as Petition-plus-AdN (if you have spell mastery), so if you're running Ad Nauseam, you're not actually saving mana; you're just lowering the threshold of the initial investment. Grim-plus-Ad Nauseam just hurts for all kinds of reasons.

The two "other tutors" (Grim and Petition) are both a bit awkward in a number of ways, so it comes down to an extent on your build and your style of play. I don't think I have ever been in a situation in which a Grim would've helped and a Petition didn't do the job, but I have been in a number of situations in which I would've prefered either Past in Flames or Ad Nauseam to either one of them. That's not an argument for running more than one AdN or more than two PiF, but I think both Grim and Petition are essentially the patchworking cards we run because there's no fifth Infernal to be had. It's pretty devastating when Petition gets countered, but I would be surprised if people felt differently about Grim; I don't really see either card as superior against countermagic.

So personally, I wouldn't run Grim unless I had decided to forego Ad Nauseam in my maindeck, which I haven't done. The two synergize poorly or not at all, and they also seem to fill a similar role of a T1-T2 hip-shooter spell. If I were to cut Ad Nauseam, I think Grim Tutor would probably be a necessary inclusion, but I haven't cut it, so I'm keeping Grim out. I run Petition because the mana threshold is often less of a problem than it looks to be at first glance and because it fits better into Ad Nauseam chains and PiF-Tutor chains, but if I were more all-in on gobbos, I think Grim might be a better option.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I can't understand it either, I imagine it's due to everyone's gigantic hard-on for Scherer's lists.

Having actually played Grand Prix in both Europe and the US, I firmly believe 2 Petition is the way to go in the US, while it's closer in Europe. Some of the details still don't make sense though (Top, for example, is just terrible).

[the_ob3lisk]

Having actually played Grand Prix in both Europe and the US, I firmly believe 2 Petition is the way to go in the US, while it's closer in Europe. Some of the details still don't make sense though (Top, for example, is just terrible).

Jonathan,

I was thinking of taking a list very similar to this to GP Columbus.

Testing will be done at a weekly legacy event and playing it with friends has seemed solid.

Any insight?

I was thinking of including -1 DP +1 Empty main for all the Eldrazi running around.

http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=19657&iddeck=149626

//NAME:
1 Bloodstained Mire
3 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Dark Petition
4 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Rain of Filth
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

[Dr_D]

Having actually played Grand Prix in both Europe and the US, I firmly believe 2 Petition is the way to go in the US, while it's closer in Europe. Some of the details still don't make sense though (Top, for example, is just terrible).

I was mostly referring to the land base, because I still can't get behind the 14 land, 2 island configuration.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I was mostly referring to the land base, because I still can't get behind the 14 land, 2 island configuration.

I'm also on 14 land 2 Island main, but that's because I don't run any green. Further, my 15th land (sideboard) is a Badlands. 2 Island + 1 Tropical (sideboard) is one of the details I mentioned earlier that just don't make sense. For that matter, I also heavily dislike running only one green source when you're boarding Decays against Wastelands and would move the Trop to the maindeck, replacing an Island and put a Bayou in the sideboard.


Jonathan,

I was thinking of taking a list very similar to this to GP Columbus.

Testing will be done at a weekly legacy event and playing it with friends has seemed solid.

Any insight?

I was thinking of including -1 DP +1 Empty main for all the Eldrazi running around.

http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=19657&iddeck=149626



I don't really like non-blue fetches here. I might be wrong, especially when there's two basic Islands already. I should probably do a short writeup on Storm mana. I listed some things in a facebook conversation a few weeks ago, I'll look that up later.

I'm not entirely sure what the sideboard is supposed to do. I don't mean any offense by this and I might be completely off, but it kinda looks like someone looked at decklists and noticed multiple lists running more than one Tendrils, running Disfigures etc. They then registered this and won regardless of these changes.

For example, I would never run Disfigure. I also see Chain of Vapor as a card almost specifically for Death & Taxes, but if you want something for Death & Taxes, just run Dread of Night. I don't see what Rebuild over Hurkyl's Recall is supposed to do either. Aside from Rebuild and Disfigure, all these cards are reasonable in their own right, but the composition doesn't make much sense to me.

As for Empty over Petition because of Eldrazi, I can't say much about this. I basically stopped playing Storm as soon as that deck became a thing (will probably be playing a few games of Storm on Friday in Prague, so hit me up!). What I can say, however, is that in my experience with the 2 Petition list, early kills tend to use Ad Nauseam rather than Past in Flames mainly because of the lack of red mana, not because of the amount of mana I have available in total. Empty is not going to solve that problem, although it does occasionally open up the Ritual, LED, Tutor kill (which sometimes isn't enough though).

[Dr_D]

I'm also on 14 land 2 Island main, but that's because I don't run any green. Further, my 15th land (sideboard) is a Badlands. 2 Island + 1 Tropical (sideboard) is one of the details I mentioned earlier that just don't make sense. For that matter, I also heavily dislike running only one green source when you're boarding Decays against Wastelands and would move the Trop to the maindeck, replacing an Island and put a Bayou in the sideboard.



I agree with needing multiple green sources vs wasteland decks. I've been on DDFT lately, but if I were to run ANT, I'd run 15 lands main with both bayou and trop, as many other have in the past.

[Jonathan Alexander]

As I mentioned before, I talked to a friend recently about mana bases. It's not a proper write-up, but people have been asking about this a lot, so let me just share it here:



The 1 Swamp, 2 Usea, 8 Fetch, 4 blue lands manabase has been around for ages, and it has always been wrong.

Basically, the issue is that people think blue mana is more important because you're casting cantrips a lot and early, but black mana is more important because you don't want to get timewalked every time an opponent counters a ritual.
Basic Island is more important to get early, but Basic Swamp is way more important late. Early 2014, Pascal and I actually played a second Swamp in the sideboard to help with Wasteland matchups.

We were testing vs. Jeskai Delver at the time and I suggested we try the second Swamp; it won the first three games we played with it in the deck. Having that Wasteland-proof black source is super strong.

Likewise, against non-Wasteland decks you just want a higher density of black sources.

Plus sometimes you need to get your off colour dual (red/green) earlier in the game. If you have it next to Basic Island, there's a big chance it's gonna end up being dead in the combo turn because you have no use for the extra blue, whereas black is always live in the combo turn.

This is part of the reason I want to run Badlands right now, because it allows you to fetch a red source when you use discard before your combo turn.

The ideal mana base is this:

1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Badlands
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
+1 extra blue source
(+1 Swamp if you have space, it helps a lot in some matchups)

The fifteenth land can be another dual, but it can also be another fetch. I have tried Island, Flooded Strand and Bloodstained Mire in this slot already and haven't really come to a conclusion.

If you're running four colours, you have to tweak this a bit. If you want green against Wasteland decks, Badlands should likely be a Bayou and the extra blue source should be Tropical.

The extra black dual should always be in your 75, but Chrome Mox can sub in for that if the Mox makes sense for your configuration (basically, that means you're running it alongside Ad Nauseam).


Hope this helps.

[surface33]

Thanks for the help guys, I think I will go with my first list. @JonathanAlexander I can see you point, but it seems difficult to argue against results, while both lists are played(14 and 15 land lists) in bigger tournaments i have observed that 14 lists make tops more often. Of course this can be because they are played more but thats also important. What is the reason behind running 14 lands then? a heavy wasteland meta? dark petition? I would agree with your points on swamps over islands, but can you explain why you suggest running blue fetches when you can get anything with bloodstained mire except for the island?

[Ronald Deuce]

I've been running singletons Island and Swamp with an added Badlands ever since I acquired a Volcanic Island. Still on 14 lands. I haven't noticed the balance between 2 Islands and 1 Swamp to be deficient, nor have I had problems since switching out the second Island with a Volcanic (/Badlands). Worth pointing out that in both configurations I still had an "extra" black source, and I think it was better on balance than having a third basic.

15 lands in the main is almost definitely too many for the maindeck, and I've been able to win through Wasteland on only 14. I like having a second red source with double PiF in the maindeck and an Empty in the side, and the extra source for black mana is great generally. I still don't bring in Abrupt Decay very often, and I only use a singleton against non-Miracles decks because there's better specialized hate for hatebears (Chain) and a swarm (Chain and Disfigure). I've got a Tropical in the sideboard, but I only bring it in with Decays or when I feel like a fifteenth land is necessary or helpful (versus Eldrazi, Rishadan Port, and maybe other hate-intensive decks).

Regarding the 14-land, 2-Petition setup and why people run it, it's very flexible and fast. I started on that build because Petitions had just hit the shelves, but I can still see plenty of reasons to run a second Petition. I think double-Past in Flames, 1x-Petition is more resilient, and the PiF-Cantrip chains are just as good at finding the combo, but I think double-PiF sacrifices a little speed. Petition is excellent at finding us additional cards on our combo-turn, it doesn't detract much from Ad Nauseam, and spell mastery is very easy to attain. I'd rather have a Petition in the main than a second storm spell because it's so much more versatile, but (burn matchups notwithstanding) it's the first piece of business I replace.

At this point, I think a 14-land, double-PiF, 1x Petition, Ad Nauseam, Preordain, Chrome Mox, Rain of Filth build is fast and resilient, and I haven't been missing the second Preordain or feeling like the deck's sluggish without added tutoring. I run an Empty and a second Tendrils in my sideboard for matchups in which they seem necessary, and I usually slot one of those in instead of the Petition if I feel like I need one. The Mox is probably the most finnicky card I'm running, and Rain of Filth occasionally doesn't do much, but they're both great options to have around and they really help with Ad Nauseam and Cabal Ritual (respectively). I sometimes cut one (usually Rain) but I like their performance so far.

[EDIT: Flexibility is different from resilience. Having a sixth tutor is excellent for flexibility because it can find whatever you need, but Past in Flames is so useful even/especially with a tutor in hand that I think it's a better choice to run as a double. It provides so much resistance against countermagic—in spite of relying on the graveyard and on already-cast cantrips—that it feels like a better duplicate, but if I were to play in a fast matchup against someone without interaction for our combo, I think I'd prefer a second Petition.]

[esperr]

So I has no idea how to SB against the various delver decks, like I always take out ad nauseum and bring in more tendrils and empty, but after that im at a loss. Theyre fast, so i want to be fast, but they have counters, so i need to play a slower game, basically giving up on beating grixis delver. U/R delver seems easy enough to beat, but RUG and Sultai always throw me for a loop, what do I cut? Do I bother with decays and how many? This is the only matchup left that I seem to still be just sort of whatevering.

Also infect, I havnt lost to it yet, but im still not sure how exactly to SB, the infect deck just seems bad honestly.

[Izor]

I've been running 1 Swamp, 1 Island, 2 Usea, 1 Volc, 1 Badlands + 8 Fetches ever since I picked up the deck.

In my opinion people are way too conditioned in Legacy and think that every blue deck with cantrips should play as many Islands as possible, because that's what the fair blue decks have always done for good reason. Storm doesn't work like that. This deck literally splashes blue for cantrips. I'm fetching Badlands more frequently than Volcanic, and I always fetched Bayou more often than Trop back when I ran both (now down to only Bayou). I also fetch basic Swamp about as often as basic Island, which is why I personally don't agree with 4 Scalding Tarns as my Fetches #5-8. I'd run a split of fetches depending on your configuration of green lands.

If you run no green at all you need Tarn + Mire. Probably 2 each, maybe 3 Tarn + 1 Mire, I just personally think that 4 Tarn isn't optimal here based on the importance of basic Swamp.

If you run Bayou as your only green dual you need Mire + Misty. I run 2 each, which works fine, although I sometimes wish I had more fetches that get Badlands.

If you run Tropical as your only green dual you need Tarn + Catacombs. I don't like that option very much in general. Not only because it forces you to run the suboptimal Catacombs (doesn't get Volc) if you want more than 4 black Fetches, but also because Trop has always felt pretty bad to me because it doesn't produce black.

All of those obviously assume that Badlands + Volc are in the main deck, which for me is currently a given. People who don't run Badlands obviously can't use Catacombs at all, for instance.

I still fail to see why 2 Islands are so common nowadays, especially with many people going down to 14 Lands main. For the reasons Jonathan mentioned above, basic Island leaves you color screwed way too often. For two Islands to make sense, people would have to actively want 2 Islands in play a lot of the time. But even in the face of Wasteland, 2 Island + 1 Swamp is not really a functional mana base. I'd rather have 1 Island, 1 Swamp and an open Fetch at 3 lands. It's not like you can expect to have 4 Lands in play and have perfect mana even with 3 basics against a deck like Eldrazi a lot of the time.

[Ronald Deuce]

So I has no idea how to SB against the various delver decks, like I always take out ad nauseum and bring in more tendrils and empty, but after that im at a loss. Theyre fast, so i want to be fast, but they have counters, so i need to play a slower game, basically giving up on beating grixis delver. U/R delver seems easy enough to beat, but RUG and Sultai always throw me for a loop, what do I cut? Do I bother with decays and how many? This is the only matchup left that I seem to still be just sort of whatevering.

Also infect, I havnt lost to it yet, but im still not sure how exactly to SB, the infect deck just seems bad honestly.

Here's the board I'm running right now:
4x Abrupt Decay
2x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Chain of Vapor
2x Disfigure
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Pithing Needle
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Tropical Island
1x Pulverize (?????)

(quick caveats: Pithing Needle is still in testing. Hasn't done much for me, but it hasn't come up enough for me to have a good idea of how useful it is. Once or twice it's been pretty useful. Other candidates for the slot are a second Empty, a fourth Cabal Therapy, or Echoing Truth, Surgical Extraction, or KGrip. Pulverize is left-field tech versus Chalices, and it requires running both Volc and Badlands. Might just switch it for a third Hurkyl's, but I was looking for a way around Thorn of Amethyst.)

For Delver, a lot depends on what set of colors they're running. No reason I can think of to take out Ad Nauseam against BUG, but I would definitely take it out versus Izzet and Grixis (too much burn). I'm not sure about RUG.

The difficult thing about fighting delvers is that they (like Stoneblade) can mulligan into a hand with four or more pieces of hate without much trouble. So I don't think it's a good idea to side out much of our discard; they may just get a nutso hand with which they can just topdeck and leave mana open, but they're less likely to have an unbeatable hand than we are to have the discards to break through one or two pieces of countermagic. The creatures they play will chip away at us for sure, but I haven't run into many hatebears from Delver lists. The good news about the matchup is that it tends to hit us with countermagic first and foremost, so our discards are very useful. Lists with black also run hand-disruption, though, which can be nasty if we don't run out our mana artifacts or have a handful of cantrips.

I actually feel like Delver is a matchup in which we shouldn't board all that much. I tend to replace a discard and the Preordain with Chains, and I often run Empty instead of Dark Petition. Not so great if they've anticipated that plan, but I haven't seen them board in a lot of hate for tokens. It's a gamble that they'll fail to find an answer, but having Cabal Therapy in this matchup is really helpful from what I've seen. I've tried Pithing Needle against Deathrites; seems ok, but not sure if it really does as much as we need it to do to make it worth the slot.

Infect is a weird one. It 2-0'd me once, but I think the guy had two turn-2 hands in a row (like, Glistener, Invigorate, Invigorate, Berserk, Forest, Other Cards). It's a bit luck-dependent from what I've seen, but I haven't had trouble with the matchup by just boarding in Chains, Empty, and a Disfigure. Their countermagic is a threat, but they run lighter on it than Delvers do in my experience. I'd still keep discard around (hitting multiple Invigorates with a Therapy is always good), but I don't know if we need all six.

[rlesko]

Am I crazy, but why don't people play an Echoing Truth main? Feels like nowadays between Gaddock Teeg, Thalia, Chalice, Eidolon, Counterbalance, etc. there seems to be an abundance of hateful permanents that are very difficult to win through. I've seen people begin to include a CoV main but that fails miserably against chalice(s).

[nevilshute]

Teaser inc. Played against Miracles in a MTGO league the other day. Probed into this hand, won the same turn. Video coming after Prague :wink:

http://i.imgur.com/RM94hLC.jpg

[the_ob3lisk]

So after completing a weekly last night I am now contemplating make changes right before the GP. (see my primer list a few posts up)

Oddly enough I was either getting land screwed or mana flooded on 14 lands (unlucky,very bizarre)

Additionally I found myself needing a discard spell desperately multiple times and not being able to find one , thinking about bumping it up to 7 main

Double PiF would of come in handy last night, if I run that for that GP that would be cutting down to just x4 tutors

Anyone else willing to share their lists before Columbus? :laugh:

Thoughts?

[rlesko]

Teaser inc. Played against Miracles in a MTGO league the other day. Probed into this hand, won the same turn. Video coming after Prague :wink:
What do you know is on the top of your library and what did you probe into?

[Zombie]

Teaser inc. Played against Miracles in a MTGO league the other day. Probed into this hand, won the same turn. Video coming after Prague :wink:

http://i.imgur.com/RM94hLC.jpg

Let me guess: He didn't see the in-hand Tendrils coming, you just started going off and giggled at yourself for the counters upping Storm count. Then ToA=>GG?

[rlesko]

Let me guess: He didn't see the in-hand Tendrils coming, you just started going off and giggled at yourself for the counters upping Storm count. Then ToA=>GG?

Well, the opponent has a flusterstrom and a mindbreak trap, so he would have needed to bait some counters at some point. We don't have completed information here as we don't know what the probe is going to draw or the top of the library from SDT.

[Ronald Deuce]

Am I crazy, but why don't people play an Echoing Truth main? Feels like nowadays between Gaddock Teeg, Thalia, Chalice, Eidolon, Counterbalance, etc. there seems to be an abundance of hateful permanents that are very difficult to win through. I've seen people begin to include a CoV main but that fails miserably against chalice(s).

If I were to run any piece of permanent-hate in the main, it would probably be Chain of Vapor (N.B.: I tried that a while ago and I wasn't impressed). Spot removal really doesn't help much against Eldrazi, and Chain and Echoing Truth are both pretty ugly in the matchup (Chain gets Chaliced and Truth gets prohibitively expensive against Thorn). Because we don't have space for mass removal in the maindeck, I don't think we should consider the Eldrazi to be a matchup we can answer with anti-hate preboard.

Discard is probably our best answer to hate permanents on the play. It's one reason I've toyed with a seventh Therapy, though I'm not sure it's worth it to run in the 'board (more on that in a bit). The other pieces of hate you mentioned (barring Counterbalance, for which we've packed our 'board) are all creatures, and spot removal is fine against those.

With that said, the problem with running permanent-hate in our mainboard is that we won't be getting as much mileage out of it as we get from discards. My only pseudo-flex spot in my maindeck is a Preordain, and much as I'd like to get rid of it, I think having an extra cantrip has been better on balance than having a seventh piece of discard or a singleton piece of removal in the maindeck. An extra cantrip is universally useful (unless we cantrip into cantrips into cantrips, which can happen), but spot removal often avails us little.

Think of it like this: if we're against Burn, we've got at least one turn to hit their Eidolon with discards. We can't even use our removal if it costs more than 1 until the Eidolon's already hit the board. The same is true for, e.g., Maverick. We can snipe GSZ or Thalia before they get the chance to use it. But if they land Thalia, our removal gets worse.

Discard's also generally better against control decks; if we need to point-kill a Delver, we're already in bad shape.


So after completing a weekly last night I am now contemplating make changes right before the GP. (see my primer list a few posts up)

Oddly enough I was either getting land screwed or mana flooded on 14 lands (unlucky,very bizarre)

Additionally I found myself needing a discard spell desperately multiple times and not being able to find one , thinking about bumping it up to 7 main

Double PiF would of come in handy last night, if I run that for that GP that would be cutting down to just x4 tutors

What are you running in place of a fifth Tutor? I'm on 1 AdN, 1 Petition, 1 Tendrils, 2 PiF.

I've had a similar rollercoaster on 14 lands, and I blame myself for cheating against myself (i.e., shuffling poorly). Chrome Mox is useful for that, so I'd give it a go if you haven't already.

With seven discards, I often hit way more discards than I need and not enough cantrips/mana/business. I don't find a discard much more often on seven than I do on six, as well. Granted, I'm running light on cantrips, so that might be a factor, but I don't feel like a seventh discard in the main will give us much of a return on the card invested.

Best of luck, everybody! Wish I could join you all at The Big Time. Storm 'em out.

[wsurugby10]

I need help with my sideboard for Grand Prix Columbus. Here is what I have so far but it doesn't feel right.

2x Xanthid Swarm
4x Abrupt Decay
2x Echoing Truth
1x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Dread of Night
1x Massacre
1x Disfigure
1X Chain of Vapor (w/ 1 MB)
1x Empty the Warrens

Should I have another tendrils of agony in there? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Ronald Deuce]

I need help with my sideboard for Grand Prix Columbus. Here is what I have so far but it doesn't feel right.

2x Xanthid Swarm
4x Abrupt Decay
2x Echoing Truth
1x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Dread of Night
1x Massacre
1x Disfigure
1X Chain of Vapor (w/ 1 MB)
1x Empty the Warrens

Should I have another tendrils of agony in there? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'd cut Xantids and Dreads. I'd add +2 Hurkyl's Recall, +1 Disfigure, +1 Tendrils. If you're running fewer than six discards mainboard, I'd add a sixth in the side. Echoing Truth just feels out of place to me, but I'm not sure what would be better. Looks like you're running 15 lands maindeck, so no reason to worry about adding lands in the 'board. Massacre is your flex spot: it doesn't stop Gaddock Teeg; it'll cost you at least one ritual to stop fast combos from Dredge, Elves, etc.; and it gets significantly worse against Sphere/Thorn effects. Personally, I'd recommend putting the maindeck Chain in your sideboard, but that's just me.

Stay strong!

[ScottW]

Any Day1 results from Prague?

[Togores]

I ended up undefeated!!!!!!

[ScottW]

I ended up undefeated!!!!!!

No shit!!! Way to go! All I caught was Miracles and BUG on the stream. Did you get a feature match?

[Togores]

I got one. But finishd before the main game was over.

[surface33]

I got one. But finishd before the main game was over.

Congratulations man, when you have the time can you post the list you took this weekend? Good luck tomorrow, hope we can see you on camera

[ScottW]

http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gppra16/9-0-decks-after-day-1-grand-prix-prague-2016-2016-06-12

I guess Rodrigo left his LEDs and Petals at home:wink:

Pretty silly typo.

More seriously, awesome job Rodrigo! Waiting to see if you make top 8.

[ScottW]

Togores top 8 GP! Congratulations!

[Sockosensei]

Incredible work, Togores. Congratulations!
I hope we get to see you count to 10 on camera.

[Narcind]

Just tuned in to the stream to see Togores in the top 8, congrats man, well deserved!

[Izor]

Did that coverage team seriously just switch to turn 1 of a Delver Mirror when Togores was in the middle of going off and depending on his Top to find the kill in the top 3 cards?

[ScottW]

Did that coverage team seriously just switch to turn 1 of a Delver Mirror when Togores was in the middle of going off and depending on his Top to find the kill in the top 3 cards?

Yes, I can't wait to hear how he won. Top 4!

[Narcind]

1-1 in semis and having a very easy combo turn, congrats on grand finals!

[Narcind]

YES! Masterful play Togores, congratulations!

[prgmctan]

That was a masterclass in playing storm.

[Grand Superior]

That was the most amazing game of ANT that I've ever seen.

Congrats Togores!

[nevilshute]

TOGOREEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!!!!!!

Monster!!!!

[MTGeezy]

That was unbelievable. Togores, you are truly a idol to us all. Amazing play and work man.

[Vicar in a tutu]

Congrats man! That was incredible to watch :)

[maraxusofkelds]

That was some next level plays you made. Holy shit you deserved that win.

[lamasa81]

Always read you, and never play much, but saw that last game...and man! It's the best I've seen! Keep enjoying the deck. And congrats!!!

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

[ScottW]

Hopefully now 15 lands will be the gold standard. I also heard the commentator mention Dark Petition when Togores was in an AdN. I see zero copies in his list, as expected. Also, 2 PIF, and 3 Tendrils in the 75.

[Togores]

Thanks guys!
I got really lucky to face 0 eldrazi while for example my opp in the finals played against 5.

Sometimes your blessed :3

[FZA]

Thanks guys!
I got really lucky to face 0 eldrazi while for example my opp in the finals played against 5.

Sometimes your blessed :3

Dear Rodrigo,

First of all, congratulations on your victory! I think I can say that that was not just the best I've ever seen somebody play Storm but one the best games of Magic I've ever seen anybody play, period. Very impressive!

I was wondering if by any chance you could give some details about your sideboard, it's unlike any I have seen. I would really appreciate this as I struggle mightily with sideboarding for ANT and have been for years, and I'm sure others would appreciate it as well. I noticed you are playing a LOT of permanent hate (4 Decay, 2 Truth, 2 K-Grip). How do you find room to bring in so many of these? I'm also intrigued by the 2 extra copies of Tendrils in your sideboard. What do you bring these in against?

If you could give a brief overview of your sideboarding plan vs. Miracles, Eldrazi, and Grixis Delver, that would be much appreciated as well :). You're probably exhausted of course so no worries if you don't have time to answer my questions!

Congrats once again :)

-FZA

[surface33]

Thanks guys!
I got really lucky to face 0 eldrazi while for example my opp in the finals played against 5.

Sometimes your blessed :3

Congratulations man, that last game was the best game i have ever watched. What are the reasons behind not running dark petition? Hope to play against you (again) in Madrid soon.

[Togores]

Just follow me on twitch @togorestcg and there You can get the answers to all this questions in the stream or past streams.

[Fox]

Congrats on the win, an epic game 3. Doing some quick math on the turn before you went off, I'm not sure you could have beaten Surgical-Snap-Surgical on both rituals...but even then I think you still perhaps had a shot (facing SDT floating Fluster) if you found a second LED at some point on the last turn. For the pilot and those who've watched the replay, is there an argument to be made for trying to resolve IT (reveal LED) in the second to last turn's main phase? It's hard to see if he had IT in hand or ever saw one off of the Brainstorm/Ponder, but in the hypothetical, would that have been the correct line going into the last turn with Tendrils in hand vs opponent with 10 life and known Fluster?

[datanaga]

Congratulation, really well played.
Did I see correctly, that miracle pilot forgot to attack with snapcaster once in G3?

[cheerios]

congrats Rodrigo! You should start an academy for aspiring storm players.

Cheers

[acidhead]

Congrats to the win togores! It was awesome two watch both top decks of legacy in the finals.


Congratulation, really well played.
Did I see correctly, that miracle pilot forgot to attack with snapcaster once in G3?

He did, and I also think that he waited too long to play his second snapcaster to increase the pressure. But I didn't blame him for that. Anybody who came so far earned my sincere respect.

[CabalTherapy]

Congratulations, Rodrigo. Awesome results.
I was on Sloshstorm this weekend but had some hard time facing some difficult MUs and eventually lost too many rounds. I don't want to recall the bad beats whatever stories but instead carry on.
The only thing that bothered me (and still bothers) is that I played decently enough to reach day2 but that's mtg/Legacy.

Rd1 bye
Rd2 bye
Rd3 Sneakshow 2-1
Rd4 Grixis Delver 1-2
Rd5 Canadian 2-1
Rd6 TA 2-1
Rd7 Aggro Loam 0-2
Rd8 SneakShow 0-2
Rd9 Shardless BUG 1-2

I was already on tilt before the last two rounds. See you next time.

[Sloshthedark]

Congrats Rodrigo! finals make an interesting study material


I was on Sloshstorm this weekend

very mediocre report this time...

R1 2-0 Imperial Painter ... T1 kill/natural ToA under moon
R2 2-1 Punnishing Maverick .... G2 Leyline + Mindbreak trap
R3 1-2 Shardless - .... G1 mull 5 still T2 EtW ended up B screwed with DR+TOA adn SDT in play with him on 6, G3 - we are going to time I take a risky line because I'm mana screwed and it's unlikely he can kill me in extras, turns out he has Fow and actually attack for exatsies in the last turn... I pushed my luck too far, went for stupid AdN instead of waiting it out, tilted a bit, you can't d such things and expect to finish good, things go south this point on...
R4 1-2 Infect .... G1 mull5 somehow still win, G2+G3 lot of infectors, lot of permision vs. unexciting hands = no game = max tilt
R5 0-2 UW Affinity .... G1 mull5 ironically lose because he forgot a CotV trigger on SDT, so I'm 1 card short for a CR, G2 occupied getting rid of CotVs, he topdecks Plating.. very nice opponent, apologizes for missing the triggers as he hates to lose to bad players... I can relate... which brings us to another round:
R6 2-1 BURG (Manipulato) .... I'm absolutely burned out and question my presence in the room.. trying to focus and motivate myself actually results into the worst Mtg match I have palyed for years... G1 misplay into win = more tilt, G2 actually scoop out of shame even though I can play on and very likely win, G3 bad hand into lucky win... a point where I question whether the Mtg makes some sense at all, I was one of the idiots who just jam cards and win no matter how well you played this time a loss would be merciful to me..
R7 0-2 Burn .... local guy, always excited to deal 3... G1 medium mull6 on draw vs. T12 Eidolon, G2 unexciting 6 vs well, burn...
results into liberating drop


sidevent - I question whether to watch D2 friends or burn more money (likely in my mental state after D1), but ultimately gather myself and present the same deck once again
R1 2-0 MOST .... great guy on a pseudo survival special
R2 2-0 Jund .... Jund
R3 0-2 D+T .... a lady.. G1 BS locked on 1 island, when I topdeck land no.2 I'm facing lethal and 1 mana short to kill though Thalia, G2 a lot of mana, no bussiness, BSK does it
R4 2-0 Ant .... attrition war, G1 my opp doesnt go for Pif+cantrips, G2 I control the game with 2x Extripate+Fluster
R5 2-1 BURG .... 2x ToA > Stifle, thought he was on Grixis G2
R6 ID Aggroloam .... ID with a friend into getting back the costs of the weekend

not making D2 is embarassing an unacceptable on every level, MUs were ok, the Shardless decision cost me, also my czech friends did not do well D2, getting the "fun" for free is a small patch on overall dissapointment on a GP in my very hometown...

[Ronald Deuce]

Congrats, Togores! Stormed 'em out.

Got crushed 0-3 in the Bush League yesterday after punting really hard, so commiserations, gents. Low-lights include going for T1 AdN from 20 against Miracles (he used the Force) and just forgetting how AdN works in round 3. I managed to win a game, and if I'd not stopped my AdN too early in another.... Concentration's never been my strong suit, and I guess it's just been a weird weekend. Lots of random drama/nonsense to deal with in the Real World and not a lot of time to practice.

Couple of things people have said/demonstrated that I've been kicking around in my head, and I've got a couple of questions:

—Someone earlier mentioned that he/she thought 15 lands should be the new standard. Much as it aggravates me to get stuck on a zero-lander and have to keep with 14 mainboard, I feel like that happens a lot less often than the opposite does when I'm on 15 (Ponder into lands, shuffle, topdeck a land, fetch, topdeck a second land next turn). Having not yet seen the crazy match for Togores yet, I don't have context for people's saying that. What's the reasoning behind 15 over 14? Does it slow you guys down often?
—I'm less enthused about maindeck Chrome Mox than I was before. I find that it's often the least useful card I'm running because it clashes with our other fast mana and stunts our hand, and (perhaps somewhat ironically) I'm considering going back to 2x Preordain to facilitate cantrip-PiF chains. Anyone else been running the Mox alongside Rain of Filth? I remember Nevilshute said he was trying it out for a bit. One reason I ask is that the Mox seemed like a possible stopgap between running 14 lands and getting shafted and running 15 and getting flooded.
—Is anybody running Pithing Needle against Miracles? Also, how many cards should we switch out in the matchup? Got crushed in my first Miracles matchup in about 3 months yesterday, and I have a feeling I boarded too heavily. Brought in Pithing Needle, 4x Decay instead of a couple of Petals and a couple of things I don't remember (probs Preordain, a discard, and something I don't remember), and switched an Island and a Petition for a Tropical and Tendrils #2. Do we keep all our cantrips in this matchup? Last time I played against it before yesterday, I remember getting locked so quickly that the cantrips did nothing. Yesterday, in G2, it felt like the opposite happened: I couldn't assemble anything quickly enough to combo before he'd ended up with a hand like Force, Force, Fluster, Jace, Brainstorm.

Hope I'm not retreading too much with these questions, but if anyone's got some reading material on how to deal with Miracles, I'd appreciate the tip.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Congrats to Togores! I think this displays the high ceiling of Storm and how the deck truly rewards players for mastering the deck. Togores has put so much time into this deck, and it is so awesome to see when hard work pays off like this.

[acidhead]

Hope I'm not retreading too much with these questions, but if anyone's got some reading material on how to deal with Miracles, I'd appreciate the tip.

I can't say much about the ANT side of this matchup because I played almost exclusively miracles in the last years, but I can tell you what are the worst things you can do against us in this matchup from the miracles perspective:


Resolve your SDT
Krosan grip our SDT
Resolve xantid swarm (be aware that good players have 2 copies of EE or EE+Terminus in after side)
Lure us into playing spells in your combo turn and kill us with natural tendrils


Maybe this helps a bit, but I don't know if it's the best you can do from the ant perspective.

[Darkness]

Though I haven't played Storm in quite sometime, it is always a deck I will love. Congrats to Togores for his victory with ANT, fellow stormtroopers around the world are very proud.

[JamieW89]

Slightly dissapointing GP for me, although it was great to see Togores win it all. Well deserved.

My GP:

Friday side event: 3-1
R1: DnT 2-0 1-0
R2: Eldrazi 2-1 2-0
R3: Miracles 0-2 2-1 (pretty weak play)
R4: Infect 2-0 3-1

Saturday Day-1 Main Event: 6-3
R1: *BYE*
R2: *BYE*
R3: Jund 2-0 3-0
R4: Infect 2-1 4-0
R5: Miracles 2-1 5-0
R6: 4c Loam 1-2 5-1
R7: Grixis Delver 1-2 5-2 (a strangely timed surgical won it for him)
R8: DnT 0-2 5-3 :( (same guy as Friday, mulled to a bad 5 g1 and massacre vs no plains g2)
R9: Hypergenesis 2-0 6-3

Sunday Day-2 Main Event: 10-4-1
R10: Lands 2-0 7-3
R11: 4c Loam 2-0 8-3
R12: 4c Loam 2-1 9-3
R13: Burn 2-0 10-3
R14: UR Delver 1-2 10-4 :(
R15: BUG Delver, split the top-64 and scooped as he needed pro points

Played with 6 discard, 15 lands, 1 DP, 1 top, 2 Preordain, 1 pif, empty main. SB was:
4 Decay
1 Grip
1 Top
1 Chain
2 Hurkyl's
2 Massacre
1 Carpet
1 Swarm
1 Tendrils
1 Ad Nauseam

And I upgraded some of my goblins! (didn't manage to get everyone, but it's a start - better picture http://www.4gp.me/ba3s/1465853448452.jpg )
http://www.4gp.me/ea3s/1465853448452.jpg

[Jonathan Alexander]

Still impressed with Kai's. Made me feel so useless haha

[Meekrab]

https://www.twitch.tv/magic is replaying the epic 3rd game right now if you happen to be browsing.

[Togores]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SPitPk-qiaA&feature=youtu.be


Its also now on you tube. Where you can see in g2 where I misscount and decay one time I dont need to (I thought I would got so and extra turn).

And g3 after he snap surgicals. I have the kill just casting tendrills and paying for 5 flusters but I was into the plan of finding a led, rain of filth, decay, grip, fluster or second tendrills and even I had him at 10 life in my notepad I just missed it and went for all this cantrip line where I could have missed the win (had a lot of outs, but sometimes luck is not there always) and loose.

But still a nice game of beating 2 fluster, 2 fow, surgical and caster.

Thanks to everyone for beeing cheering for me!

[Jonathan Alexander]

So did I read correctly that all Storm players dodged Eldrazi this GP?

(Also, it's interesting how this is reverse-Lille - everyone made day two there, nobody did in Prague.)

[MD.Ghost]

So did I read correctly that all Storm players dodged Eldrazi this GP?

(Also, it's interesting how this is reverse-Lille - everyone made day two there, nobody did in Prague.)

It is because you guys said: "Eldrazi? Let us hope, we can simply dodge this deck!" :wink:

My friend Lukas (missed Top8 at his last Game) ran into 1 Eldrazi deck (and beat it) Day 1. But yeah i guess Togores (Congrats!) simply lead the field and all Eldrazi (15 at top100) only saw his back and were unable to catch the Master of Storm.

[Jonathan Alexander]

The Eldrazi count between the six players in my travelling group was 3, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0. Completely ridiculous. (I didn't play Storm, but I faced Eldrazi three times.)

[Togores]

Playing 0 eldrazi was really lucky. Expected to play 2 or so. Was surrounded by them. But like always to win a big event you have to be really lucky in a lot of spots. Also I saw most decks really prepared for eldrazi and not for storm. Like 3 sb cards only or so. Also from round 11 or so. There was just one or may be two eldrazis on the ~10 first tables. Just players hated a lot against and that payed of for me when I got to the top.

Better lucky than good :D

[Jonathan Alexander]

Playing 0 eldrazi was really lucky. Expected to play 2 or so. Was surrounded by them. But like always to win a big event you have to be really lucky in a lot of spots. Also I saw most decks really prepared for eldrazi and not for storm. Like 3 sb cards only or so. Also from round 11 or so. There was just one or may be two eldrazis on the ~10 first tables. Just players hated a lot against and that payed of for me when I got to the top.

Better lucky than good :D

As I said on facebook: You got lucky and made the best of it, really happy for you. I remember being surrounded by Miracles day two, was your experience similar?

[Fergblaster]

Congratulations, Rodrigo. Awesome results.
I was on Sloshstorm this weekend but had some hard time facing some difficult MUs and eventually lost too many rounds. I don't want to recall the bad beats whatever stories but instead carry on.
The only thing that bothered me (and still bothers) is that I played decently enough to reach day2 but that's mtg/Legacy.

Rd1 bye
Rd2 bye
Rd3 Sneakshow 2-1
Rd4 Grixis Delver 1-2
Rd5 Canadian 2-1
Rd6 TA 2-1
Rd7 Aggro Loam 0-2
Rd8 SneakShow 0-2
Rd9 Shardless BUG 1-2

I was already on tilt before the last two rounds. See you next time.

I think I might have been your round 7 opponent. If so, we didn't really have much of a match. :( I hope I didn't do anything to put you on tilt.

[CabalTherapy]

I think I might have been your round 7 opponent. If so, we didn't really have much of a match. :( I hope I didn't do anything to put you on tilt.

I think it was a Scot. No, the match was fine. I mean I had no play in game 1 and then mulliganed into oblivion in the second. That's how it goes.

[ScottW]

Better lucky than good :D

You're too humble Togores. I'm sure we could compile a long list of actions you took throughout the course of the tournament and the days, weeks, months, and years prior that put you in a position to do very well. Luck also plays a role but you'd never be in the position to get so lucky without those preparations.

I'm curious, when, if ever, storm has taken the top prize at a GP.

[Jin Gitaxias]

Storm took the first place at GP Ghent wich was about 5 years ago

[Bed Decks Palyer]

... a point where I question whether the Mtg makes some sense at all, ...dissapointment on a GP in my very hometown...
Wanna read my report?

[vercadium]

Rodrigo, I just wanted to add that I'm very pleased that a storm player with your attitude won. It's great to see an individual in your position still acknowledging where they could improve and being humble - I hope it continues to serve you well in your life. Many of the other consistent performing storm players people look up to in our community serve as poor role models to other players due to their arrogance and poor integrity with the rules of the game.

Also, I switched from TES to ANT about 8 months ago, after having played TES for 4.5 years. You were a strong influence in that decision and I haven't looked back.

Congratulations on an excellent performance.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Many of the other consistent performing storm players people look up to in our community serve as poor role models to other players due to their arrogance and poor integrity with the rules of the game.

I definitely see Storm players being arrogant (myself included) but integrity with the rules of the game? That's a very bold statement that you have to elaborate on.

[Fergblaster]

I think it was a Scot. No, the match was fine. I mean I had no play in game 1 and then mulliganed into oblivion in the second. That's how it goes.

Yeah that was me. Unlucky man. I had similar problems on Day 2; mulliganed lots against Shardless and Burn and got beat up by Floch on Miracles. Pity there aren't more Legacy GPs to redeem ourselves!

[CabalTherapy]

I definitely see Storm players being arrogant (myself included) but integrity with the rules of the game? That's a very bold statement that you have to elaborate on.

I think he means that Wizards doesn't want palyers to cast so many spells in one round: "Go and play, DnT, guys, ah and SCG says you should splash for Nahiri!" That's the only senseful interpretation of his statement.
In a way, Storm demands a certain type of player who might be regarded as "arrogant" but well...


Yeah that was me. Unlucky man. I had similar problems on Day 2; mulliganed lots against Shardless and Burn and got beat up by Floch on Miracles. Pity there aren't more Legacy GPs to redeem ourselves!

It was nice to meet you; crap you didn't do better the next day. Well well, next year or the other eternal events. You know, the luck...

All in all, I have to say that I was kind of surprised by the amount of Shardless I saw and Show and Tell based decks being everywhere as well (at least day1). I wasn't really testing these two MUs and expected to face Eldrazi/Elves(or other non-U junk)/Delver/Miracles but dodged 3 of them, which wasn't great in
the case of Miracles and Elves(read turn 2 otp fishing deck) since I was well prepared for Miracles.

[thefringthing]

Shout out to my mirror match opponent at GP Columbus who fucked up his go-off turn and shamefully passed the turn, watched me walk into* a Flusterstorm, then got me on the next turn anyway.

* I could have played around it slightly by going for Past in Flames instead of Tendrils, but it turned out that it wouldn't have mattered.

[Sloshthedark]

Wanna read my report?

I guess I've heard it already...


I definitely see Storm players being arrogant (myself included) but integrity with the rules of the game? That's a very bold statement that you have to elaborate on.

my reaction exactly, can't really find CT's interpretation in it...

[Bryant Cook]

I definitely see Storm players being arrogant (myself included) but integrity with the rules of the game? That's a very bold statement that you have to elaborate on.

I think that it's some sort of a dig at me. Not that I'm denying that I'm a bit arrogant.

[andy]

Congrats on the win, Togores. I'm curious, at 1:00:35 in the video (when Past in Flames resolves after the second Surgical Extraction), you have 2 mana floating, 4 untapped lands, and Lion's Eye Diamond and Tendrils of Agony in hand. Tholance has only 10 life at that point, and the storm count is 5. Why not just tap two lands and play Tendrils right then? Tholance will have to use his Top to draw Flusterstorm and counter. Then, you can play LED, tap another land, and flash Tendrils back again. I suppose you don't know for sure that Tholance has Flusterstorm on top of his deck, but I can't imagine what he could have that would disrupt playing Tendrils twice in a row.

[rlesko]

Congrats on the win, Togores. I'm curious, at 1:00:35 in the video (when Past in Flames resolves after the second Surgical Extraction), you have 2 mana floating, 4 untapped lands, and Lion's Eye Diamond and Tendrils of Agony in hand. Tholance has only 10 life at that point, and the storm count is 5. Why not just tap two lands and play Tendrils right then? Tholance will have to use his Top to draw Flusterstorm and counter. Then, you can play LED, tap another land, and flash Tendrils back again. I suppose you don't know for sure that Tholance has Flusterstorm on top of his deck, but I can't imagine what he could have that would disrupt playing Tendrils twice in a row.

Because Tendrils cast after PiF can't be flashed back (unless you flashback PiF first)? I haven't gone back and watched this sequence exactly but from what you are describing thats what you are attempting to do.

[Jonathan Alexander]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SPitPk-qiaA&feature=youtu.be


Its also now on you tube. Where you can see in g2 where I misscount and decay one time I dont need to (I thought I would got so and extra turn).

And g3 after he snap surgicals. I have the kill just casting tendrills and paying for 5 flusters but I was into the plan of finding a led, rain of filth, decay, grip, fluster or second tendrills and even I had him at 10 life in my notepad I just missed it and went for all this cantrip line where I could have missed the win (had a lot of outs, but sometimes luck is not there always) and loose.

But still a nice game of beating 2 fluster, 2 fow, surgical and caster.

Thanks to everyone for beeing cheering for me!


Congrats on the win, Togores. I'm curious, at 1:00:35 in the video (when Past in Flames resolves after the second Surgical Extraction), you have 2 mana floating, 4 untapped lands, and Lion's Eye Diamond and Tendrils of Agony in hand. Tholance has only 10 life at that point, and the storm count is 5. Why not just tap two lands and play Tendrils right then? Tholance will have to use his Top to draw Flusterstorm and counter. Then, you can play LED, tap another land, and flash Tendrils back again. I suppose you don't know for sure that Tholance has Flusterstorm on top of his deck, but I can't imagine what he could have that would disrupt playing Tendrils twice in a row.


Literally on the same page of the thread.

[andy]

Because Tendrils cast after PiF can't be flashed back (unless you flashback PiF first)? I haven't gone back and watched this sequence exactly but from what you are describing thats what you are attempting to do.
Yeah, for some reason the sequencing seemed to work out in my head at the time, but of course you're right. This play doesn't work.


Literally on the same page of the thread.
The play Togores was pointing out (cast Tendrils and pay the Flusterstorm tax for 5 of the copies) is not the same play as what I was suggesting (play Tendrils twice).

[rlesko]

I definitely see Storm players being arrogant (myself included)


Literally on the same page of the thread.

:really:


Yeah, for some reason the sequencing seemed to work out in my head at the time, but of course you're right. This play doesn't work.

No worries, I do the same thing sometimes. The mistake I'm most guilty of making when watching coverage is forgetting you need a way to get hellbent when casting infernal tutor :eek:

[Jonathan Alexander]

The play Togores was pointing out (cast Tendrils and pay the Flusterstorm tax for 5 of the copies) is not the same play as what I was suggesting (play Tendrils twice).

I should've quoted only the relevant parts; I was referring to "Why not just tap two lands and play Tendrils right then?", because that's exactly what Rodrigo should've done and the play ends there already, no need to flash back Tendrils.

[B88]

Congrats again to Rodrigo again! :cool:

i have 2 questions:
1- how was Flusterstorm? IMHO in this meta is really strong

2- would you make some changes on your list?

:smile:

[Togores]

I would make 0 changes.

Flusterstorm is a good card, only sided in top 8 and g3 on finals (just 1). Also against both infect deck I played. Drew only once against infect and had another plan and brainstormed it away.

Its good against show and tell and nauseam. But I didnt played any...

[Noctalor]

I would make 0 changes.

Flusterstorm is a good card, only sided in top 8 and g3 on finals (just 1). Also against both infect deck I played. Drew only once against infect and had another plan and brainstormed it away.

Its good against show and tell and nauseam. But I didnt played any...

Do you agree that your list is rather weak against eldrazi?
Do you think you could have won against multiple eldrazis making no changes?

Your list looks like one of the best I ever saw for the Miracles MU, I just dont see it winning against most lock decks, do you think decays are enought or you just hoped to dodge as many taxes and eldrazis as possible?

[B88]

Does exist a good SB against eldrazi??? :tongue:

he focused on beat all others decks wich has sense imho

[rlesko]

Do you agree that your list is rather weak against eldrazi?
Do you think you could have won against multiple eldrazis making no changes?

Your list looks like one of the best I ever saw for the Miracles MU, I just dont see it winning against most lock decks, do you think decays are enought or you just hoped to dodge as many taxes and eldrazis as possible?

He beat D&T in top 8

[cheerios]

@Rodrigo

What would you play if you didn't have the flusterstorms?

[Noctalor]

He beat D&T in top 8

Getting extremely lucky, to be fair

[ScottW]

Luck? He made a meta call and was rewarded. Look back through this thread and you'll see many players advocating to forgo warping your deck to beat a match-up that will likely never be that winnable (Eldrazi). DnT, well I wonder how many times Togores has played that match up. Likely more than he'd like to admit. I'm sure he knows what he needs to do to avoid a T2 Thalia, etc.

[Noctalor]

Luck? He made a meta call and was rewarded. Look back through this thread and you'll see many players advocating to forgo warping your deck to beat a match-up that will likely never be that winnable (Eldrazi). DnT, well I wonder how many times Togores has played that match up. Likely more than he'd like to admit. I'm sure he knows what he needs to do to avoid a T2 Thalia, etc.

He didnt got lucky against death and taxes.

Lost G1

Gets a turn 1 in G2

G3 keeps a probe + teraphy hand, his opponens has a single threat and he gets a turn 2 win though wasteland


Thats not standard. thats lucky, and by no means im saying that in an offensive way.

Also, as a meta call, predicting no eldrazi was extremely wrong since the deck was the most played in day2, so if it was a meta call he was wrong and got lucky getting none of them (as he admitted), Im missing your point :confused:

[ScottW]

Yes, luck is part of this as always but ANT is capable of winning T1 (it is a combo deck...) and BTW Gitaxian Probe into Therapy is pretty good. My point with Eldrazi is that he'd have likely lost either way and since he didn't dilute his SB he had plenty of room other match ups.

[Togores]

I got really lucky. Thats true. Taxes is almost not represent.
I had 6 cards sb vs them. 3 decay, 2 echoing and 1 empty.

Not a lot but not nothing.

Bye
Bye
Merfolk 2-0
Infect 2-1 win on mull to 5
Burn 2-0
Bug delver 2-1
Sharldess 2-0
Grixis 2-0
Grixis control 2-0
---
Rug 0-2
Grixis 0-2
Merfolk 2-1
Lands 2-1
Bug delver 2-0
Infect 2-1 (beats me with his mull5)
Top
Shardless 2-1
Taxes 2-1
Miracles 2-1



That where my matchups. 0 eldrazi, that was the plan. Didnt faced any. That was better as expected. I thought I would face 2 and end like 1-1 against them.

[rlesko]

If you expected DnT would you play dread of night or massacre or both?

[nevilshute]

You don't need to get "extremely lucky" to beat D&T with no hosers. Nor was Togores "extremely lucky" in the semi finals. I think, all things being equal, the matchup favors us if not by a lot, and having ~4 spot removal spells (bounce, decays, disfigure etc) will often be enough. That doesn't mean we can't lose, obviously. Sometimes you are on the draw, in the blind, and mulligan to a six card hand of 3x cantrips, land, ritual, LED. In those spots we are very, very likely to lose if they found Thalia in their 8-9 top cards. Even a wasteland/port draw can sometimes be good enough in a spot like that.

But I'm going to be candid here, and perhaps come off as arrogant, but it feels to me that newer storm players have a tendency to get to a point where they feel like D&T is a worse matchup than it actually is. I won't guess as to why.

That's not to say I think we are massive favorites, but I do believe we are favored. Force me to put percentages on it and I'd say something like 55/45 in our favor.

If I was heading into a tournament execting D&T to make up a large portion of the decks on the top tables (think Miracles, currently) I'd for sure be packing 2x massacre or something similar to suppliment my chains of vapor because it will skew the match enough in our favor that we can usually avoid losing those games where we stumble and can't get in under their lock pieces. But with the deck being somewhat few and far between I don't think it's unreasonable to go into a tournament with no hosers in your board.

[phazonmutant]

Huge congrats to Togores! A bit belated, I know, but I haven't been on the source in a while. I just watched that final, what a masterful match! I'm glad that such a powerful moment is recorded.

[ScottW]

Wow, that was quick. Back in DTB.

[Tvox]

How should I play/sequence in order to beat grixis Delver? A friend of mine recently built it and I'm currently 2-X against it after a couple of hours of playtesting. I've also had trouble against it before he built it, but now I'm able to play test more. If it's of any relevance he's also a storm player (focusing more on high tide than ANT, but varying between the two).

Should I mulligan more aggressively? Towards what? How do you approach the matchup?

[jrsthethird]

Wow, that was quick. Back in DTB.

Quick question; since the DTB stats can be a little misleading (see: Grixis Tempo as "Grixis Pyromancer" and Team America as "BUG Control"). Also, posted here since DTB thread is locked:

I don't see TES results on the DTB chart at all. Is that getting lumped in with this deck under the umbrella of "Ad Nauseum Tendrils"?

[Ronald Deuce]

Quick question; since the DTB stats can be a little misleading (see: Grixis Tempo as "Grixis Pyromancer" and Team America as "BUG Control"). Also, posted here since DTB thread is locked:

I don't see TES results on the DTB chart at all. Is that getting lumped in with this deck under the umbrella of "Ad Nauseum Tendrils"?

Hello!

TES has its own thread: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23361-Deck-T-E-S-The-EPIC-Storm

The two archetypes are different enough that they really should be discussed separately. We know; the name AnT is becoming more and more a misnomer as time goes by...

[PirateKing]

Quick question; since the DTB stats can be a little misleading (see: Grixis Tempo as "Grixis Pyromancer" and Team America as "BUG Control"). Also, posted here since DTB thread is locked:

I don't see TES results on the DTB chart at all. Is that getting lumped in with this deck under the umbrella of "Ad Nauseum Tendrils"?

TES has it's own page on TC Decks
http://www.tcdecks.net/archetype.php?archetype=The%20Epic%20Storm&format=Legacy
TES does show up in their tier deck charts, but hasn't made it since January with 3 Tops then February with 1
http://www.tcdecks.net/metagame.php?format=Legacy&fecha=2016-1

[jrsthethird]

Ronald, I am aware of the differences, but PirateKing addressed my question. I thought TES missing from the DTB stats was suspicious, but it was just due to underperformance. Thanks!

[CabalTherapy]

Ronald, I am aware of the differences, but PirateKing addressed my question. I thought TES missing from the DTB stats was suspicious, but it was just due to underperformance. Thanks!

Nonetheless, there are some recent TES results in the ANT section over at tc decks.

[Mat]

Hello Guys, I've been playing legacy for years now, and finaly I think I'm ready to pick up ANT, anyone has some good articles links that can share? The basics of the deck I've already learned, also, I've checked the articles in the main post of this tread, they are a little old ~2013. Anyone have something new?
Thank you for your time, sorry if I didn'd saw the links somewhere.

[thefringthing]

Unfortunately, there hasn't been a very good primer or guide written about ANT in quite a while.

[davelin]

Unfortunately, there hasn't been a very good primer or guide written about ANT in quite a while.

Speaking of which, anyone know why Carsten doesn't write on SCG anymore?

[Sloshthedark]

Unfortunately, there hasn't been a very good primer or guide written about ANT in quite a while.

is it really needed? The basic stuff, the true "primer material" (hold priority with IT+LED, LED can' be needled, storm copies not countered by CB) hasn't changed

the tactics, mindprocess, deckchoices and finess is to be explored and found by the player - by providing easy answers to complex problems the reader is robbed of the context and the most precious - finding the answer for himself... needless to say most top 8 are made with netdecks anyway, maybe an advice to play the deck and think about it instead of using it might be appropriate

Something I really like though is done by our TES counterparts - The Infernal Tutoring articles

Carsten doesn't write anymore, Phillip Schonegger hasn't even attended the GP - sometimes people have different priorities than Mtg like RL I guess

[Spam]

is it really needed? The basic stuff, the true "primer material" (hold priority with IT+LED, LED can' be needled, storm copies not countered by CB) hasn't changed

the tactics, mindprocess, deckchoices and finess is to be explored and found by the player - by providing easy answers to complex problems the reader is robbed of the context and the most precious - finding the answer for himself... needless to say most top 8 are made with netdecks anyway, maybe an advice to play the deck and think about it instead of using it might be appropriate

Something I really like though is done by your TES counterparts - The Infernal Tutoring articles

Carsten doesn't write anymore, Phillip Schonnegger hasn't even attended the GP - sometimes people have different priorities than Mtg like RL I guess
Pff. Who needs real life when you can storm people's face off!

[Lemnear]

Speaking of which, anyone know why Carsten doesn't write on SCG anymore?

He graduated university :)

[surface33]

Hey guys, i am currently playing with 1 pif and 1 dark petition in the main and 1 pif in the board, was wondering when should I bring the second pif in. Also when should i bring the second tendrils main? I have encountered the situation when I draw tendrils instead of tutoring it and it has been difficult to go off(discard, not enough mana etc).

[ScottW]

Why would you play the second PIF in the side board? Is this to improve your AdN? Honestly curious... I often side out my 2ND copy for side board games.

On a separate note, looks like 3 copies of ANT in the last SCG classic top 16 and a few players including 3 Tendrils in their 75.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Why would you play the second PIF in the side board? Is this to improve your AdN? Honestly curious... I often side out my 2ND copy for side board games.

On a separate note, looks like 3 copies of ANT in the last SCG classic top 16 and a few players including 3 Tendrils in their 75.

Yeah, and the only one who managed to run 4 Misty Rainforest was also the only one not to play Bayou...

[acidhead]

Speaking of which, anyone know why Carsten doesn't write on SCG anymore?

Family matters. But last week he told some people that he plans to write again in the near future.

[surface33]

Why would you play the second PIF in the side board? Is this to improve your AdN? Honestly curious... I often side out my 2ND copy for side board games.

On a separate note, looks like 3 copies of ANT in the last SCG classic top 16 and a few players including 3 Tendrils in their 75.

I started testing with two pif main but I often had problems finding the kill condition so I tried 1 dark petition. The reason why I run 1 pif side because I usually see successful lists that run 15 lands running 2 in the 75(look for example at jacob Baugh in the SCG, thats pretty similar to the list I play). Also I am new to the deck and I still dont have the intuition to see when each card is better. In your opinion when is pif best, and when do you prefer to have two main over the dark petition?

[Ronald Deuce]

I started testing with two pif main but I often had problems finding the kill condition so I tried 1 dark petition. The reason why I run 1 pif side because I usually see successful lists that run 15 lands running 2 in the 75(look for example at jacob Baugh in the SCG, thats pretty similar to the list I play). Also I am new to the deck and I still dont have the intuition to see when each card is better. In your opinion when is pif best, and when do you prefer to have two main over the dark petition?

What does the rest of your business package look like? Sounds like you're running a bit lighter on business than I would do.

I'm running both 2x Past in Flames and 1x Dark Petition (singles AdN, Tendrils), and I've found the number of business spells to be about right. I'm also on 14 lands, and I'm still curious as to the reasoning behind 15 lands in the maindeck. I lost two games yesterday to topdecked lands.

In answer to your question re: Past in Flames, I've found that it provides significantly greater resilience against countermagic than Dark Petition does. Playing Infernal Tutor and sacrificing LED for red mana is extremely powerful if you've got a Past in Flames in your hand and a mana surplus.

There's the added fact that Past in Flames doubles the mileage we get out of our cantrips, reducing the need for tutors in the deck a little bit. For a while I thought I'd been getting supremely lucky when I would flip business off of a chain of cantrips from the graveyard, but the more times it happens, the more I'm convinced it's not just luck.

I still think we need a fifth tutor (or additional business) in the maindeck, but I'm running double-PiF because it's so good when it comes up with either a tutor or multiple cantrips. Or both! I guess I'd advocate for double-PiF in the maindeck alongside either a Petition or a second Storm card. It's great at beating control matchups, and it's got nearly the flexibility and speed of the double-Petition builds.

[ScottW]

Yeah, and the only one who managed to run 4 Misty Rainforest was also the only one not to play Bayou...

Sure, maybe card availability is a thing. Misty Rainforest is not cheap. If this is the case, then congrats to them for doing so well on a budget.

[Sloshthedark]

Sure, maybe card availability is a thing. Misty Rainforest is not cheap. If this is the case, then congrats to them for doing so well on a budget.
!
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=104198

[ScottW]

!
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=104198

Okay, okay, okay... I did not mean all of them. More specifically, the list by Jacob Baugh seems like it could have substituted the Strands for Mistys and that maybe this could have been a factor.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=104202

[skyout]

I've noticed a trend of people including an extra Tendrils of Agony or two in the board, when do you bring these in and what is the purpose? Also I've also noticed people going back to City of Solitude, any reason?

[Zombie]

I've noticed a trend of people including an extra Tendrils of Agony or two in the board, when do you bring these in and what is the purpose? Also I've also noticed people going back to City of Solitude, any reason?

They're good against Miracles and the like - basically slow decks that rely on countermagic to stop you. A single counterspell that isn't Flusterstorm or Mindbreak Trap can't do much against a natural Tendrils (and you can buy time with a combo twice style approach because of their slow clock).

[rlesko]

Was Karakas played in certain SB's primarily for big fatties like Grisel or annoying little guys like Thalia/Teeg? Or the versatility of the card is only what made it remotely playable in the first place?

[Ronald Deuce]

Was Karakas played in certain SB's primarily for big fatties like Grisel or annoying little guys like Thalia/Teeg? Or the versatility of the card is only what made it remotely playable in the first place?

I only picked up Storm after Karakas appears to have stopped finding its way into sideboards, but as I understand it, it was for both the things you mentioned (primarily the first one, because Aether Vial makes bouncing Thalia a bad call. It's worth pointing out that Karakas is excellent against Ruric Thar).

My understanding was also that it served as a white mana source when Silence was still a part of the AnT board-plan.

The lack of Silence in newer lists and the flexibility of cards like Chain of Vapor seem to have obsoleted the Karakas plan, but there might be more to it than that. Anybody else have any input?

[Sloshthedark]

Hey guys, i am currently playing with 1 pif and 1 dark petition in the main and 1 pif in the board, was wondering when should I bring the second pif in. Also when should i bring the second tendrils main? I have encountered the situation when I draw tendrils instead of tutoring it and it has been difficult to go off(discard, not enough mana etc).

If you are wondering, why are you playing the 2nd Pif in the first place? .. reading the question multiple times I understand you copied some list...
advice 1 - play the list where you do not need to ask yourself whether to bring A or B because you have no idea why you have it in your list and play cards you know have a purpose in MUs/situations instead
advice 2 - ask yourself whether the fx and situation in the games you actually play would be different (better) if card X was Y or card Z would help you in solving some problems...

...then you'd learn that of course in some situations ToA totaly screw you, on the other hand it's not 2010, in many more situation, you can win just and only because of it's presence if you play to it, making the loop cheaper or ignoring counterspells, the additional difficulties should be made up by the upsides, if not, simple, play 1 proceed to advice 2...


Okay, okay, okay... I did not mean all of them. More specifically, the list by Jacob Baugh seems like it could have substituted the Strands for Mistys and that maybe this could have been a factor.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=104202

I had the need to point out money should not be an issue with these guys, also highly unlikely but possible you could not access 4x misty from friends if you made a last minute decision, on the other hand do you make such change then...?


I've noticed a trend of people including an extra Tendrils of Agony or two in the board, when do you bring these in and what is the purpose? Also I've also noticed people going back to City of Solitude, any reason?

Miracles, tempo MUs - abusing uninteractivity of storm mechanic... also possible against taxing permanents to lower mana requirements

can't see the trend, all I know people tried it a year or so ago, also lately Caleb and therefore Cheon had it in some list, for what I can tell City of Solitude is more of a myth looking good on paper than an actual plan (what it probably is at 3 copies), I also tried it for a brief period of time in 2 copies but it never hit play or got destroyed instantly... I can't even recall seeing it hitting play more than once in my life but maybe someone else has more history with it...


Was Karakas played in certain SB's primarily for big fatties like Grisel or annoying little guys like Thalia/Teeg? Or the versatility of the card is only what made it remotely playable in the first place?

historically was mainly addressing Thalia... some people hate it, I like it a lot and play it till today in some of the setups - against Teeg, Thalia, Iona, Ruric (isn't really played anymore), in that respect, S+T use is really accidental but makes sense if playing Needle ... it can be tutored for with PiF in hand often, bypasses counters and protections well... it's still better than CoV in my book

[Dark Ritual]

I only picked up Storm after Karakas appears to have stopped finding its way into sideboards, but as I understand it, it was for both the things you mentioned (primarily the first one, because Aether Vial makes bouncing Thalia a bad call. It's worth pointing out that Karakas is excellent against Ruric Thar).

My understanding was also that it served as a white mana source when Silence was still a part of the AnT board-plan.

The lack of Silence in newer lists and the flexibility of cards like Chain of Vapor seem to have obsoleted the Karakas plan, but there might be more to it than that. Anybody else have any input?

I can't remember the last time ANT had a chant/silence plan. Abrupt decay was printed way back in 2012 and pretty much invalidated white as a splash in ANT since we can cover all our bases with 4 colors. Karakas was/is used because it bounces all these annoying legendaries like Iona, griselbrand, thalia, and teeg. May not be best against griselbrand, but rather they have to draw immediately then so we can raw tendrils them or make them discard their countermagic then tendrils them. Also stalls the clocking. It also makes reanimator not a completely miserable matchup when you have karakas as a 2 or 3 of and draw it there. Bouncing thalia when vial is at 2 may suck, but there's still potential for you to combo off through thalia with the right pieces like say LED, dark rit, CRit, tutor allows you to combo off through a thalia that's attempting to get vialed in via going LED, they vial, you double or triple ritual, sure you can have that thalia, we'll just tutor for past in flames and kill you anyways since we had to pay extra for just 6-7 spells instead of 10 spells.

TL;DR: DnT and fatties for less than cost decks is really why karakas is/was played. Fatties for less than cost decks includes elves because they practically cheat at generating mana as much as we do and natural order for ruric thar is +1/+2 mana anyways.

[Sloshthedark]

I can't remember the last time ANT had a chant/silence plan. Abrupt decay was printed way back in 2012 and pretty much invalidated white as a splash in ANT since we can cover all our bases with 4 colors. Karakas was/is used because it bounces all these annoying legendaries like Iona, griselbrand, thalia, and teeg. May not be best against griselbrand, but rather they have to draw immediately then so we can raw tendrils them or make them discard their countermagic then tendrils them. Also stalls the clocking. It also makes reanimator not a completely miserable matchup when you have karakas as a 2 or 3 of and draw it there. Bouncing thalia when vial is at 2 may suck, but there's still potential for you to combo off through thalia with the right pieces like say LED, dark rit, CRit, tutor allows you to combo off through a thalia that's attempting to get vialed in via going LED, they vial, you double or triple ritual, sure you can have that thalia, we'll just tutor for past in flames and kill you anyways since we had to pay extra for just 6-7 spells instead of 10 spells.

TL;DR: DnT and fatties for less than cost decks is really why karakas is/was played. Fatties for less than cost decks includes elves because they practically cheat at generating mana as much as we do and natural order for ruric thar is +1/+2 mana anyways.

It is a mystery to me though why it wasn't adopted as a plan in the Mystical Tutor era when the literal worst MU was Reanimator, it's best creature was Iona which often even had to name U

[surface33]

If you are wondering, why are you playing the 2nd Pif in the first place? .. reading the question multiple times I understand you copied some list...
advice 1 - play the list where you do not need to ask yourself whether to bring A or B because you have no idea why you have it in your list and play cards you know have a purpose in MUs/situations instead
advice 2 - ask yourself whether the fx and situation in the games you actually play would be different (better) if card X was Y or card Z would help you in solving some problems...

...then you'd learn that of course in some situations ToA totaly screw you, on the other hand it's not 2010, in many more situation, you can win just and only because of it's presence if you play to it, making the loop cheaper or ignoring counterspells, the additional difficulties should be made up by the upsides, if not, simple, play 1 proceed to advice 2...



Ofcourse I copied a list, as i pointed out i just build up the deck. Did you create the list you are playing from scratch? I guess you have to start with something.
Let me explain you better my situation, which applys to anyone that plays a decl with an unusual playstyle for the first time, I looked up some decks and decided making a brew of the most popular ones, lists that are made by people with much more experience than me. Then I go to a tournament and find the second pif underwhelming. Instead of thinking that its not as good and changing it for another card I come here and ask whats the correct way to play it(in each players opinion) because I might be playing it incorrectly or not taking full advantage of it. once I have played a couple hundred games i will be able to say: ok, i like the second pif or not. But now I am wondering, whats more correct, playing as business spells 1 Ad na. ,2 pif, 1 dark petition, 4 infernal tutor and 1ToA or following togores route and play 1 less business spell and play a sdt. If the answer is the second I wonder if it should be 1 pif-1DP or 2 pif. I am not looking for a definitive answer but for arguments on both sides. And thanks guys

[stokpile]

A store close-ish to me has finally started to run regular legacy events so I actually have the chance to play some again. The issue I'm having trouble solving is that out of an average 25 players at least 5 of them are on burn, sometimes 6 or even 7. Each time I play against them they get eidolon in play G1 or they get stormed out and in G2/3 they have eidolon next to a set of mindbreak traps and I'm unsure what cards are worth siding against them. With this much burn in the room do you think it's worth running an echoing truth main in place of an ad nauseum just to avoid scooping to an eidolon G1 when you're almost certain to play against it at least twice in a night? In addition to that, would chill actually be worth it in the side? The meta is mostly burn, DnT, various delver decks, and fish with chalice in the side. Here's my default list for a reference, it's worth noting that I haven't played this storm list in this meta before.

//Artifact (9)
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Sensei's Divining Top

//Instant (13)
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual

//Sorcery (23)
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Dark Petition
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Tendrils of Agony

//Land (15)
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

SB: 4 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 2 City of Solitude
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 3 Massacre
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Tropical Island

[TheHeff]

A store close-ish to me has finally started to run regular legacy events so I actually have the chance to play some again. The issue I'm having trouble solving is that out of an average 25 players at least 5 of them are on burn, sometimes 6 or even 7. Each time I play against them they get eidolon in play G1 or they get stormed out and in G2/3 they have eidolon next to a set of mindbreak traps and I'm unsure what cards are worth siding against them. With this much burn in the room do you think it's worth running an echoing truth main in place of an ad nauseum just to avoid scooping to an eidolon G1 when you're almost certain to play against it at least twice in a night? In addition to that, would chill actually be worth it in the side? The meta is mostly burn, DnT, various delver decks, and fish with chalice in the side. Here's my default list for a reference, it's worth noting that I haven't played this storm list in this meta before.


I would definitely not sideboard chill in any deck, it's just too narrow of an answer. If your meta is that heavy in burn, the easiest fix would be to play 2 maindeck Tendrils and 1 more sideboard. It'll help your miracles matchup as well! If you're so worried about Mindbreak Trap from Burn, just blind name it on your combo turn before you go off or just check with Probe. Blind Therapy'ing Eidolon T2 (play) or T1 (draw) isnt a bad idea, either. Beware some Burn decks keep a Pyrostatic Pillar in the SB against Storm, so make sure you have at least one answer for it (Decay, Chain of Vapor, Echoing Truth, K-grip).

[.Ix]

Has anyone tested the Chrome Mox SB? I wonder how well it works. I assume it's brought in against decks with hate permanents and/or combo. Could be why Caleb has next to nothing against Death and Taxes. Edit: Unless he brings in Decay, which doesn't seem very good against Death and Taxes anyway.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I ran a 2 Chrome 1 Ad Nauseam sideboard back in the original Grinding Station. Makes Ad Nauseam better, allows you to go off earlier. Mox is massively underrated and even the first Mox makes a world of difference with Ad Nauseam. Not sure I'd like 3 copies as those guys had at some points, but 2 is definitely feasible. That being said, I have a new thing that I want to record some videos with within the next few weeks that I think does a very similar job better.

[Sloshthedark]

Ofcourse I copied a list, as i pointed out i just build up the deck. Did you create the list you are playing from scratch? I guess you have to start with something.
Let me explain you better my situation, which applys to anyone that plays a decl with an unusual playstyle for the first time, I looked up some decks and decided making a brew of the most popular ones, lists that are made by people with much more experience than me. Then I go to a tournament and find the second pif underwhelming. Instead of thinking that its not as good and changing it for another card I come here and ask whats the correct way to play it(in each players opinion) because I might be playing it incorrectly or not taking full advantage of it. once I have played a couple hundred games i will be able to say: ok, i like the second pif or not. But now I am wondering, whats more correct, playing as business spells 1 Ad na. ,2 pif, 1 dark petition, 4 infernal tutor and 1ToA or following togores route and play 1 less business spell and play a sdt. If the answer is the second I wonder if it should be 1 pif-1DP or 2 pif. I am not looking for a definitive answer but for arguments on both sides. And thanks guys

in fact I kind of did... // yet my answer will be the same... there is nothing like more correct build, you'll find proponents of very different ideas in the forum, it's up to you what you like and expect ot face... the only way around it is to try out yourself different configs, mark the cards - see the difference... atm what seems to be the standard range is Scherer list on one side (xDP, 14lands, 2 islands, 1 Pif), Togores list on the other, most of the people playing something in between (1DP/EtW) anyway and minority branching out into other setups

in your example the argument are the cards themselves... by switching card you improve aspects of the deck to some extent... PIF - more resiliency towards discard, countermagic, cheaper loops, painful Ad Nauseam, drawing 2 might not be ideal, DP - better goldfish and T2 rate, terrible against taxing counters, painful Ad Nauseam, SDT - better longer games - 9 card hand, good against discard and counters, difficult to play... Preordain - higher velocity, great T1 play, low impact t3+...

I'm unexcited by DP, like SDT and play 2 Pif for years so I'd rather play the later...



A store close-ish to me has finally started to run regular legacy events so I actually have the chance to play some again. The issue I'm having trouble solving is that out of an average 25 players at least 5 of them are on burn, sometimes 6 or even 7. Each time I play against them they get eidolon in play G1 or they get stormed out and in G2/3 they have eidolon next to a set of mindbreak traps and I'm unsure what cards are worth siding against them. With this much burn in the room do you think it's worth running an echoing truth main in place of an ad nauseum just to avoid scooping to an eidolon G1 when you're almost certain to play against it at least twice in a night? In addition to that, would chill actually be worth it in the side? The meta is mostly burn, DnT, various delver decks, and fish with chalice in the side. Here's my default list for a reference, it's worth noting that I haven't played this storm list in this meta before.


if you expect such extreme no shame tuning the deck to it (which you probably should for a lgs if your goal is to win), I'd start replacing Duress with something that does discards Eidolon like 4th Therapy, replace Ad Nauseam with EtW and replace City of Solitude with something more impactful, depending what else you have there so the numbers are appropriate... I'd play a Hydroblast before any Chill


Has anyone tested the Chrome Mox SB? I wonder how well it works. I assume it's brought in against decks with hate permanents and/or combo. Could be why Caleb has next to nothing against Death and Taxes. Edit: Unless he brings in Decay, which doesn't seem very good against Death and Taxes anyway.

Calebs plan looks very weak to me, looks like too much TES exposure ;) ... Chrome Mox is the worst mana generator I can imagine in storm next to Land Grant so I'm definitely one of the under rating people... looking forward to Jonathan breaking my skepticism

[CabalTherapy]

Chrome Mox is the worst mana generator I can imagine in storm next to Land Grant so I'm definitely one of the under rating people... looking forward to Jonathan breaking my skepticism

...and Land Grant does not belog to his favourite cards, oh no.

I announce: It's going to be Mox Diamond, 14 lands. :laugh:

[Jonathan Alexander]

in fact I kind of did... // yet my answer will be the same... there is nothing like more correct build, you'll find proponents of very different ideas in the forum, it's up to you what you like and expect ot face...

This can not be stressed enough. One of the most important things about Storm to realise is that even those of us who have been playing the deck forever tend to disagree on very basic things like business setups. (At least Slosh and I have been playing Storm since INN came out, Jamie has been playing it even longer I think, same for Pascal, not sure about nevilshute and Rodrigo. Only Kai and Caleb have picked it up more recently.

When I will finally get around to updating The Storm Box, I will talk about this in more detail, but the number one thing about the different lists is that they all resolve around the different business setups. 4 Infernal Tutor, 1 Tendrils of Agony, 1 Past in Flames are set in stone, but the other 2-3 slots can be anything out of extra Tendrils, extra Past in Flames, Ad Nauseam, Dark Petition, Empty the Warrens and in very rare cases even a Burning Wish.

And in fact, I think what Slosh said here is true: We all arrived at our builds indepently. And I also think we all play the deck differently, at least to some degree. I have watched most of the other games play and for most of them, I have seen games I would have lost for taking different lines and games I would have won for taking different lines. Same goes for them watching me play.

You should really just straight up copy a list from someone who has a long history with Storm, play that deck a lot (like half a year or so), then you can start making changes to your liking.


Calebs plan looks very weak to me, looks like too much TES exposure ;) ... Chrome Mox is the worst mana generator I can imagine in storm next to Land Grant so I'm definitely one of the under rating people... looking forward to Jonathan breaking my skepticism

I think the 2 Petition list is something completely different from what we're used to playing. It's a metagame consideration and it makes perfect sense in the US. It's also fairly one-dimensional, so it's much easier to pick up. Chrome Mox only makes sense with Ad Nauseam, it's usually very weak without it. It can randomly help with natural Storm chains, but that doesn't happen a lot (I think it happened once for me in ~3 years of playing with Mox).

[JBentley]

I have tried to run chrome mox specifically against D&T. When it works it's great. You know they will run 4 waste and 4 ports. So mana denial is big for them so when mox drops its great. But it can, and has been, be clunky. It's free to add to storm count but if you don't have the right card to imprint then it's a major draw back. But I agree that it's almost too much like TES.

[Togores]

Also If you want to play against so much burn there are quite a few things that u can do (playing hydrobast seems great but only reasonable at a 40% burn metagame).


Also to beat burn I would build a deck like:

4 therapy
2 pif
2 toa
1 etw
x Dp petition
x preordain (with dark petition you always have to play 2 at least and always over sdt)
0 sdt
15 lands or 14 but post sb 14 for sure. I usualy side in decay and side out island so my setup is like trop + swamp to caste everything and dont fall into price of progress.

sb
1 toa
1 nauseam (not for burn)
3-4 decay
2 chain of vapor (over echoing)
And if you fear trap just let like 2-3 duress in the deck after sb

more or less you should be able to win with this.

Some players have played thoughseize over duress here in the past. Idk if its good in the burn matchup But I think is better thasn duress, takes eidolon and at least saves you from 1 damage.

@Jonathan
I have played vintage TPS from 2004-2008 then I stopped playing until 2010, where I took storm as my deck. But they banned mistical tutor (3 months) and changed to belcher (4 months) and then sneak attack until like 1st half of 2014 where I started playing storm again and learing a lot of things that are important to have succes with the deck like when to play discard in each matchup (wich I think is like the most dificult matter when playing this deck).

[Ronald Deuce]

I announce: It's going to be Mox Diamond, 14 lands. :laugh:

I'd actually be very interested to hear how that goes. The thought, "I wish that Mox were a Diamond" went through my head a number of times when I was testing Chrome Mox on 14 lands.

Regarding whether to run a Chrome Mox in the main/sideboard, I'm not that enthusiastic because we have to lose spells to get mileage out of it. Most of the times I cast it when I was testing it, I didn't imprint anything. I'm wondering whether the Diamond will fill the same role of powering out early combos and easing our AdNs. Every land in our hand requires a turn to hit the field, but the Diamond can put them to use early, and we won't need to sacrifice storm count to get mana out of it.

It's worth mentioning that both these artifacts can be played for free without discarding or imprinting anything.

[CabalTherapy]

I'd actually be very interested to hear how that goes. The thought, "I wish that Mox were a Diamond" went through my head a number of times when I was testing Chrome Mox on 14 lands.

Regarding whether to run a Chrome Mox in the main/sideboard, I'm not that enthusiastic because we have to lose spells to get mileage out of it. Most of the times I cast it when I was testing it, I didn't imprint anything. I'm wondering whether the Diamond will fill the same role of powering out early combos and easing our AdNs. Every land in our hand requires a turn to hit the field, but the Diamond can put them to use early, and we won't need to sacrifice storm count to get mana out of it.

It's worth mentioning that both these artifacts can be played for free without discarding or imprinting anything.

Obviously I was just joking but it has seen some play in TinFins and I had some decent results with it in locals. (TinFins with 1 Mox Diamond)

[Izor]

So I guess with the new Thalia we'll likely see a spike in DnT after Moon comes out. Whether that lasts or not I'm not sure, but being careful and not holding any fetches in hand once they reach 3 mana may be the way to go in the near future if your opponent leads on Turn 1 Plains.

[Togores]

This card does nothing against us...

Its worser than the other hatebears, play massacre and race them. Thats the plan ^^

[Izor]

I don't think it does literally nothing, but you're right in that it doesn't hurt us as much as all the 2 drop hatebears they have. Having our nonbasics etb tapped is pretty annoying though, and being aware of the card doesn't hurt, that's all I'm saying. Say you have a fetch and a basic in your hand and they're about to hit 3 mana. Usually you'd be fine playing the basic first and keep the fetch for later, but in this case it would be safer to play out the fetch and keep the basic in hand.

[Jaytron]

Hey storm dudes.

I'm looking to piece together an ANT deck to play for fun as a second deck.

There seems to be quite a bit of variance between the lists. Can anyone point me to a good stock 75 for a person new to the deck?

[Lemnear]

Hey storm dudes.

I'm looking to piece together an ANT deck to play for fun as a second deck.

There seems to be quite a bit of variance between the lists. Can anyone point me to a good stock 75 for a person new to the deck?

Take any. Most lists vary about 3-4 cards essentially, with the pilot choosing Dark Petitions, SDTs, Preordains, additional PIF or storm spells in the respective slots

[stokpile]

Thanks for all the replies on the burn match, I wasn't expecting so much detail. I know the match isn't especially complicated, but when there's THAT MUCH in the room (7 of 30ish people I was told later) I figured it was worth looking for more specifics. Luckily this week more of the regular legacy players showed up and there was a much greater variety of decks and I only played 'next' to burn.

I've been such a huge fan of DP and SDT which is likely because of how I play the deck. I've been a control player for years and so I have a tendency to wait until I have all of my bases covered before I go off so I tend to end up with time to build up to them. Granted I'm still making minor tweaks here and there to find what I'm most comfortable with like going down a land, trying out city of solitude again, etc., while working to improve my game when I can. My biggest short coming that I'm trying to work on is knowing when it's correct to just cross my fingers and shove. The control player in me keeps screaming not to go in blind so this is rather difficult to get used to again, even after so much time playing similar combo decks in extended and what used to be called type 1.

[Ronald Deuce]

Hey storm dudes.

I'm looking to piece together an ANT deck to play for fun as a second deck.

There seems to be quite a bit of variance between the lists. Can anyone point me to a good stock 75 for a person new to the deck?

Hello, Jaytron!

Lemnear's right; the core of AnT's main- and sideboard comprise almost an entire 75. Things that vary a bit are land count, number/configuration of business spells, and sideboard answers for non-Miracles hate.

Double-Petition builds are easy to learn but they're a bit less resilient than double-PiF or multi-Tendrils builds. I hope that helps!

[Jaytron]

Take any. Most lists vary about 3-4 cards essentially, with the pilot choosing Dark Petitions, SDTs, Preordains, additional PIF or storm spells in the respective slots


Hello, Jaytron!

Lemnear's right; the core of AnT's main- and sideboard comprise almost an entire 75. Things that vary a bit are land count, number/configuration of business spells, and sideboard answers for non-Miracles hate.

Double-Petition builds are easy to learn but they're a bit less resilient than double-PiF or multi-Tendrils builds. I hope that helps!

Thanks guys! I'll dig around.

I've found that Togores seems to run a high amount of hate in decay and grip. He also runs flusterstorm in the board, which seems a but uncommon.

I'll try and hunt around for more stock looking lists. If Double Petition is better to start with, I may give that a try.

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/433140#online Caleb's 60 looks like a good place to start, but it seems that the 3x Moxes in the board are more of a spicy try.

I think finding a 60 I want looks pretty easy, but everyone's SB seems to be all over the place!

[JamieW89]

Thanks guys! I'll dig around.

I've found that Togores seems to run a high amount of hate in decay and grip. He also runs flusterstorm in the board, which seems a but uncommon.

I'll try and hunt around for more stock looking lists. If Double Petition is better to start with, I may give that a try.

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/433140#online Caleb's 60 looks like a good place to start, but it seems that the 3x Moxes in the board are more of a spicy try.

I think finding a 60 I want looks pretty easy, but everyone's SB seems to be all over the place!

I'll repeat a point made by Jona earlier in this topic: Start with a double PiF list. You'll learn better habits that way, even if they're harder to play.

[Jaytron]

I'll repeat a point made by Jona earlier in this topic: Start with a double PiF list. You'll learn better habits that way, even if they're harder to play.

Something like this? http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/430215#online

Can the Flusterstorm be swapped for say a second Xantid Swarm?

[Jonathan Alexander]

I recommend this: http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=17541&iddeck=132001 (Old list but easy to find for me.)

[Jaytron]

I recommend this: http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=17541&iddeck=132001 (Old list but easy to find for me.)

Thanks! Wow THREE dread of nights. LOL.

Is that a bit excessive?

Why is Ad Naus in the board instead of the main here?

[Togores]

Also 3 dread are a minimum. Or 3-4 dread or 1-2 massacre. Other numbers are not worth. Depends how much u wanna invest on killing white creatures. Going down to 2 dread is not worth because you usualy need 2 to kill a canonist.

Also I dont like the pif and no nauseam list because they have a too much dificult life when opp starts with shaman and that games are just uphill all time.

[Togores]

This kind of deck should be fine for beginers.

http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=16210&iddeck=121083


Just slam an empty the warrens into the sb and may be change the 2nd top for a preordain.

[Jaytron]

This kind of deck should be fine for beginers.

http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=16210&iddeck=121083


Just slam an empty the warrens into the sb and may be change the 2nd top for a preordain.

Thank you!

Beautiful win in Prague btw :D

[.Ix]

I ran a 2 Chrome 1 Ad Nauseam sideboard back in the original Grinding Station. Makes Ad Nauseam better, allows you to go off earlier. Mox is massively underrated and even the first Mox makes a world of difference with Ad Nauseam. Not sure I'd like 3 copies as those guys had at some points, but 2 is definitely feasible. That being said, I have a new thing that I want to record some videos with within the next few weeks that I think does a very similar job better.

Yeah I'm considering trying a Mox maindeck. I like going faster here because of the combo meta. Do you think 1 Mox + 2 PIF main is faster than 2 Dark Petition?


Went 4-0 in a local on Thursday, by the way. I played Togores' list.

2-0 Elves - went off blind both games not knowing what hate he had. He brought in Mindbreak Trap but didn't draw it.
2-1 Omnitell - T2 Kill on the play against his Turn 2 RIP in hand Game 2.
2-1 Grixis Delver - Turn 1 PIF loop on the draw against T1 DRS and his hand of 2 Wasteland, 1 Probe, 1 Therapy.
2-0 Merfolk - His mana was awful game 1, and I stormed him out G2. He didn't draw his Chalices.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Also I dont like the pif and no nauseam list because they have a too much dificult life when opp starts with shaman and that games are just uphill all time.

It's not about which list is best for doing well, it's about which list is best for learning. 2/3 has massive advantages there for reasons Jamie pointed out.


Yeah I'm considering trying a Mox maindeck. I like going faster here because of the combo meta. Do you think 1 Mox + 2 PIF main is faster than 2 Dark Petition?

Don't have all my data anymore, but 2 Petition 1 Ad Nauseam is the fastest version by far. Not sure if this was with Mox or Rain, but without the need to cast discard spells, the deck wins by turn two 40-45% of the time. It also has better Ad Nauseams than everything but 1 Ad Nauseam 1 Past in Flames 2 Tendrils 1 Mox.

[CabalTherapy]

I had a spicy game against Miracles today: Game 3, I boarded into the heavy grind build with 3 Toa and 2 Pif as the only business spells left in the deck. I was on the play with this hand: fetch, fetch, Probe, BS, CRitual, Petal, Petal. I started with fetch > go. My opponent plays Tundra > go. I drew ToA and fetched for Tropical > Brainstorm in my main phase of my second turn: Probe, Duress, Fluster. Fluster and Fetch on top > GP (storm 2): he showed me BS, Flusterstorm among some crap. I drew the fetch, played it > USea. GP (storm 3) > drew Critual > Duress (storm 4), my opponent used his BS in response (storm 5) and revealed air, so, Petal, Petal (storm 6,7), Critual, Critual (storm 8,9) >>> Toa for 20. That was a rather unusual outcome but after I drew ToA for the turn, I thought about natural storm but I admit that I was lucky that it actually worked that great.

[Jaytron]

I recommend this: http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=17541&iddeck=132001 (Old list but easy to find for me.)


This kind of deck should be fine for beginers.

http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=16210&iddeck=121083


Just slam an empty the warrens into the sb and may be change the 2nd top for a preordain.


It's not about which list is best for doing well, it's about which list is best for learning. 2/3 has massive advantages there for reasons Jamie pointed out.

Can either of you go over the pros/cons of the lists?

Why is 2x PiF better for learning? 2/3 I assume means 2 PiF 3 Tendrils.

Why is the second list better for doing well as a beginner?

Also.. I'm waiting for admittance to the storm boards.. is that forum still alive?

[Lemnear]

Can either of you go over the pros/cons of the lists?

Why is 2x PiF better for learning? 2/3 I assume means 2 PiF 3 Tendrils.

Why is the second list better for doing well as a beginner?

Also.. I'm waiting for admittance to the storm boards.. is that forum still alive?

Jonathans list is geared for the long and grindy games like against Miracles where you can simply win by casting Storm spells like the 3 EtW and 3 ToA without being worried about FoW and Counterbalance as they can't handle 4cc spells or storm triggers (Flusterstoem aside). The second list is more a generic one with only 1 ToA/PIF in favor of more filtering (faster t.hold) for an unknown metagame which can contain D&T, combo and the like rather than plenty of slow, blue controldecks.

2x PIF has nothing to do with being beginner friendly, but with the number of business you need in the deck due to statistics. You can run Ad Nauseam, SDT, Dark Petition, etc instead, depending on the metagame, your build and such. Point is that 4 IT + 1 PIF only is often not enough to be found with your cantrips in a reasonable time, so pilots add additional business spells to increase the redundancy

[.Ix]

Don't have all my data anymore, but 2 Petition 1 Ad Nauseam is the fastest version by far. Not sure if this was with Mox or Rain, but without the need to cast discard spells, the deck wins by turn two 40-45% of the time. It also has better Ad Nauseams than everything but 1 Ad Nauseam 1 Past in Flames 2 Tendrils 1 Mox.

Thank you for this, Jona. I have been on Rodrigo's lists for a while now but I will try the 2 Dark Petition build again. I might just try the Chrome Mox SB as well just to see how well it works.

[Jaytron]

Jonathans list is geared for the long and grindy games like against Miracles where you can simply win by casting Storm spells like the 3 EtW and 3 ToA without being worried about FoW and Counterbalance as they can't handle 4cc spells or storm triggers (Flusterstoem aside). The second list is more a generic one with only 1 ToA/PIF in favor of more filtering (faster t.hold) for an unknown metagame which can contain D&T, combo and the like rather than plenty of slow, blue controldecks.

2x PIF has nothing to do with being beginner friendly, but with the number of business you need in the deck due to statistics. You can run Ad Nauseam, SDT, Dark Petition, etc instead, depending on the metagame, your build and such. Point is that 4 IT + 1 PIF only is often not enough to be found with your cantrips in a reasonable time, so pilots add additional business spells to increase the redundancy

Cool, thank you for the breakdown.

My local meta is pretty all over the place. Delver has been pretty pushed out.. maybe 2 pilots left on grixis.. Maybe 2~3 Miracles players (me being one of them, so one less if I play storm) this is in a room of 25+ There does seem to be a good amount of DnT any night..(3ish)

Here's the local meta from last week:
Lands
Enchantress X 3
Death & Taxes X 3
Infect X 3
Thought Lash
Tezzerator
Manaless Dredge
Miracles X 3
Eldrazi
Jund
Burn X 2
No Rug
Shardless Bug X 2
Ant
TinFins
Sneak & Show
Storm
Shardless Sultai
Grixis Delver X 2
NicFit
12 Post

So maybe the second list would be best for me here?

[Ronald Deuce]

Cool, thank you for the breakdown.

My local meta is pretty all over the place. Delver has been pretty pushed out.. maybe 2 pilots left on grixis.. Maybe 2~3 Miracles players (me being one of them, so one less if I play storm) this is in a room of 25+ There does seem to be a good amount of DnT any night..(3ish)

Here's the local meta from last week:
Lands
Enchantress X 3
Death & Taxes X 3
Infect X 3
Thought Lash
Tezzerator
Manaless Dredge
Miracles X 3
Eldrazi
Jund
Burn X 2
No Rug
Shardless Bug X 2
Ant
TinFins
Sneak & Show
Storm
Shardless Sultai
Grixis Delver X 2
NicFit
12 Post

So maybe the second list would be best for me here?

I don't think I would approach the question of which list to play based on the matchups in your meta as much as I would approach it based on what you're most worried about facing. For a lot of those matchups, there's not an appreciable difference in the playability of 2 PiF versus 2 Petition.

I switched from double-Petition, 1 PiF to double-PiF, 1 Petition because I found that I was having a terrible time against countermagic. There's no shortage of blue in the metagame you described, so if I were in your position I would probably run 2x PiF. The increased resilience is significant in a 2PiF list, but I don't think the average speed difference between 2PiF and 2Petition is all that big. I went 2-1 yesterday (lost to Mav after playing against it for the first time in ages), and in almost every game I won, I comboed on turn 2-3. Some of these were Empty the Warrens-based victories, and I think running an Empty for matchups in which it's good speeds up the 2PiF substantially. I recall getting diminishing returns (not the card) after a while when I ran Empty with double-Petition because the mana threshold is pretty high to Petition into Empty. It's not that it didn't help; it's that it didn't help as much as I would've liked or as much as I feel like it's helped in double-PiF. (N.B.: neither Petition nor PiF—nor Ad Nauseam, for what it's worth—goes all that well with Empty. So regardless of which configuration you run, Empty is always going to clash a bit with the rest of the business package. That's why I stopped maindecking it.)

In summary (hard as it is to phrase this concisely), it felt like though 2PiF is a bit slower than 2Petition, Empty speeds things along quite a bit after sideboarding, and I feel like Empty makes a bigger difference for the speed of a double-PiF list than it does for a double-Petition list against opponents who can't start the Batterskull Bro-Down or flood the board themselves.

Ad Nauseam also is excellent for speed regardless of the rest of your business configuration. Maybe sub-par in multi-Tendrils builds, but excellent in other setups.

For a while I was running a second Petition in my sideboard because I thought it would be useful to speed things along. I haven't run the second Petition in a while now, but I'm not too eager to bring it back. I think Tendrils is better in that slot, but you might give a second Petition in the 'board a try.

[rlesko]

If you had access to massacre in your SB, would you bring them in vs miracles? I feel like I want them but don't know what to cut. My current SB:

1 Xantid Swarm
1 Krosan Grip
4 Abrupt decay
2 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Flusterstorm
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Sensei's Divining Top

This is really a multi part question- First being, if you can't go all out grinding station vs miracles, is it worth it at all? As you can see I only have 1 tendrils in my SB. Is going to two tendrils worth it, since usually grinding station is running 3-4? I'm wondering if I should just give up on that plan, and run more Xantid swarms instead. Additionally, I have 1 less grip than typical grinding station SBs (which further hinders my ability to grind miracles out).

Second question is, should you bring in the massacres vs Miracles? I ended up dying too fast to clique / snapcaster beats. Meddling mage is a concern of mine anyways, so I think massacre may be justifiable. I really loathe playing vs D&T, so I insist on having access to the 2 massacres :tongue:

[ScottW]

I feel like I keep misplaying the Shardless BUG match-up and get too behind in G2&3. I'm wondering if I'm trying to grind too much. I know to expect to be discarded and need to play lands; and lean on Top and AdN, but I cannot seem to turn the corner. I'm wondering about my opening hands. I was keeping a number of cantrip dense hands and fetching basics to sculpt but maybe I should have been aiming for more business. However, since I bring in AdN for this match-up, I've been taking out a PIF andTendrils. Also, I've used my discard a number of times to takes their Hymn or other discard but maybe this is a mistake as well. Rather, I should hold discard until my combo turn even if there's a chance it will get discarded since it keeps other cards in hand.

[Jaytron]

I don't think I would approach the question of which list to play based on the matchups in your meta as much as I would approach it based on what you're most worried about facing. For a lot of those matchups, there's not an appreciable difference in the playability of 2 PiF versus 2 Petition.

I switched from double-Petition, 1 PiF to double-PiF, 1 Petition because I found that I was having a terrible time against countermagic. There's no shortage of blue in the metagame you described, so if I were in your position I would probably run 2x PiF. The increased resilience is significant in a 2PiF list, but I don't think the average speed difference between 2PiF and 2Petition is all that big. I went 2-1 yesterday (lost to Mav after playing against it for the first time in ages), and in almost every game I won, I comboed on turn 2-3. Some of these were Empty the Warrens-based victories, and I think running an Empty for matchups in which it's good speeds up the 2PiF substantially. I recall getting diminishing returns (not the card) after a while when I ran Empty with double-Petition because the mana threshold is pretty high to Petition into Empty. It's not that it didn't help; it's that it didn't help as much as I would've liked or as much as I feel like it's helped in double-PiF. (N.B.: neither Petition nor PiF—nor Ad Nauseam, for what it's worth—goes all that well with Empty. So regardless of which configuration you run, Empty is always going to clash a bit with the rest of the business package. That's why I stopped maindecking it.)

In summary (hard as it is to phrase this concisely), it felt like though 2PiF is a bit slower than 2Petition, Empty speeds things along quite a bit after sideboarding, and I feel like Empty makes a bigger difference for the speed of a double-PiF list than it does for a double-Petition list against opponents who can't start the Batterskull Bro-Down or flood the board themselves.

Ad Nauseam also is excellent for speed regardless of the rest of your business configuration. Maybe sub-par in multi-Tendrils builds, but excellent in other setups.

For a while I was running a second Petition in my sideboard because I thought it would be useful to speed things along. I haven't run the second Petition in a while now, but I'm not too eager to bring it back. I think Tendrils is better in that slot, but you might give a second Petition in the 'board a try.

Thank you for the input!

[Jonathan Alexander]

I feel like I keep misplaying the Shardless BUG match-up and get too behind in G2&3. I'm wondering if I'm trying to grind too much. I know to expect to be discarded and need to play lands; and lean on Top and AdN, but I cannot seem to turn the corner. I'm wondering about my opening hands. I was keeping a number of cantrip dense hands and fetching basics to sculpt but maybe I should have been aiming for more business. However, since I bring in AdN for this match-up, I've been taking out a PIF andTendrils. Also, I've used my discard a number of times to takes their Hymn or other discard but maybe this is a mistake as well. Rather, I should hold discard until my combo turn even if there's a chance it will get discarded since it keeps other cards in hand.

Stop treating them like a blue deck and just kill them. They're criminally low on countermagic.

[Togores]

Shardless is like a jund deck with 4 mindbreak trap ^^

[Jonathan Alexander]

Shardless is like a jund deck with 4 mindbreak trap ^^

I literally wrote that in one of my old articles, like 2013 or so (=

[ScottW]

Yes, I'm familiar with the composition of the deck. What about my questions: what to look for in opening hands, what to target with discard, etc. I can't remember ever losing game 1 so sideboard assumed.

Ex. I have 2 DR, LED, fetch, LP, and CT in hand and Island, Swamp in play. Should I discard them naming Hymn or FOW, or not in hopes of discarding them if I draw business next turn. Also, should I play out the LED?

[Togores]

I would not play the therapy, there is no 100% chance they play hymn. Also drs hurts more than hymn, you can recover from Hym. I would discard it if I see it for sure. Also I would wait to discard fow latter.

[Ronald Deuce]

This is really a multi part question- First being, if you can't go all out grinding station vs miracles, is it worth it at all? As you can see I only have 1 tendrils in my SB. Is going to two tendrils worth it, since usually grinding station is running 3-4? I'm wondering if I should just give up on that plan, and run more Xantid swarms instead. Additionally, I have 1 less grip than typical grinding station SBs (which further hinders my ability to grind miracles out).

I'm also interested in hearing input on this. People who run 2xPetition, what do you do against Miracles, and how (and how well) does it work? I'm closer to that type of list than I am to a 2-3 list, and I'm interested to know what strategy you all use.

Nevilshute, I really enjoyed your video on how to ride out Miracles, but the approach you demonstrated feels really counterintuitive. That's not a criticism; I'm just a bit reluctant to try such a drastically different plan, and I don't have a lot of opportunities to practice against the deck. Is there more you can say about the matchup and how to approach it? People on similar configurations, what do you think? If you weren't to board in so many cards against Miracles, what would be the first sideboard cards you'd exclude and why?

For other players running either more or fewer than 3 Tendrils in the 75, what approaches do you all take to fighting Miracles, and how well have the approaches worked?


Second question is, should you bring in the massacres vs Miracles? I ended up dying too fast to clique / snapcaster beats. Meddling mage is a concern of mine anyways, so I think massacre may be justifiable. I really loathe playing vs D&T, so I insist on having access to the 2 massacres :tongue:

The problem with Miracles is the fact that they shut us out so thoroughly with CounterTop and [insert every sanctioned, useful blue card here], not the fact that they play creatures. I don't have a definitive answer to your question because I lack experience against Miracles, but I would ask myself whether running Massacre to kill their threats really solves the problem. Are you dying to their creatures, or are you dying to the opponent's preventing you from doing what you're trying to do?

Another way to think about it is this: Delver of Secrets and Tarmogoyf are the strongest attackers in the format. But are they the cards that worry you when you're playing Storm?

[Sloshthedark]

If you had access to massacre in your SB, would you bring them in vs miracles? I feel like I want them but don't know what to cut. My current SB:

1 Xantid Swarm
1 Krosan Grip
4 Abrupt decay
2 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Flusterstorm
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Sensei's Divining Top

This is really a multi part question- First being, if you can't go all out grinding station vs miracles, is it worth it at all? As you can see I only have 1 tendrils in my SB. Is going to two tendrils worth it, since usually grinding station is running 3-4? I'm wondering if I should just give up on that plan, and run more Xantid swarms instead. Additionally, I have 1 less grip than typical grinding station SBs (which further hinders my ability to grind miracles out).

Second question is, should you bring in the massacres vs Miracles? I ended up dying too fast to clique / snapcaster beats. Meddling mage is a concern of mine anyways, so I think massacre may be justifiable. I really loathe playing vs D&T, so I insist on having access to the 2 massacres :tongue:

5G, 2 ToA, SDT, EtW - you have enough, XS is unplayable but 1 might actually be worth it especially G3

Massacre - no, unless you have a good reason to, Mentor is not a good reason (unless you spot heavy yolo habits of the opponent)


Yes, I'm familiar with the composition of the deck. What about my questions: what to look for in opening hands, what to target with discard, etc. I can't remember ever losing game 1 so sideboard assumed.

Ex. I have 2 DR, LED, fetch, LP, and CT in hand and Island, Swamp in play. Should I discard them naming Hymn or FOW, or not in hopes of discarding them if I draw business next turn. Also, should I play out the LED?


never Fow ... Hymn - depends on their T1 play - if DRS less inclined to play CT and more on playing out LED, but I'd go for Hymn majority of the time I think ... btw. I assume the fetch was freshly drawn otherwise it should be on the table/Swamp in hand

[nevilshute]

Batch of videos. Didn't run so hot but some good games nontheless. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHk0w4Md8v4DCM9nHG1p2l7yXFXdHXyWJ

[rlesko]

The problem with Miracles is the fact that they shut us out so thoroughly with CounterTop and [insert every sanctioned, useful blue card here], not the fact that they play creatures. I don't have a definitive answer to your question because I lack experience against Miracles, but I would ask myself whether running Massacre to kill their threats really solves the problem. Are you dying to their creatures, or are you dying to the opponent's preventing you from doing what you're trying to do?

Another way to think about it is this: Delver of Secrets and Tarmogoyf are the strongest attackers in the format. But are they the cards that worry you when you're playing Storm?

Well, fortunately there are not many 4's in miracles, so your massacre should resolve (do they even leave Jace in post board?). I understand what you're trying to say, but also consider they can run hate bears like meddling mage which could ruin our day. I get the feeling our decays are very strained post board.


5G, 2 ToA, SDT, EtW - you have enough, XS is unplayable but 1 might actually be worth it especially G3

Massacre - no, unless you have a good reason to, Mentor is not a good reason (unless you spot heavy yolo habits of the opponent)

Would you consider meddling mage a good reason?

[JBentley]

As a relatively new ANT player, a friend just brought up a thought that I had a bad answer for. With people now trying krosan grips in sides what about sudden shocks over some things like massacre? Only neg I found right off was its a 2 drop. It takes out revoker and works against infect, which I feel is a bad match. Might just be me and how I play at times. Thoughts?

[rlesko]

As a relatively new ANT player, a friend just brought up a thought that I had a bad answer for. With people now trying krosan grips in sides what about sudden shocks over some things like massacre? Only neg I found right off was its a 2 drop. It takes out revoker and works against infect, which I feel is a bad match. Might just be me and how I play at times. Thoughts?

Well, it costs 2 mana vs being free. With a thalia out, thats 3 mana you need instead of 1. Also, it deals with only 1 of the problematic creatures. Multiple hate bears post board are quite common, against taxes canonist / thalia / revoker is a common line up you have to beat.

[Ronald Deuce]

Well, fortunately there are not many 4's in miracles, so your massacre should resolve (do they even leave Jace in post board?). I understand what you're trying to say, but also consider they can run hate bears like meddling mage which could ruin our day. I get the feeling our decays are very strained post board.

When I was running Massacre, I never felt like it would do much against Miracles primarily because they weren't fielding enough creatures at a time to make it worth my while over spot removal. Have you tried running Disfigure or Chain of Vapor in the matchup? I feel like the principal strength of Massacre is that it gets around Mother of Runes and protection-based shenanigans; the fact that it's a total massacre (:D) is largely not that important for most matchups/games in my experience, and that (combined with the existence of Gaddock Teeg) is the reason I'd rotated it out of my 'board. Very bad with Ad Nauseam and Empty the Warrens, too. It's a bit tough to CounterTop, but not to a degree that I think it makes the card better than other things in the matchup against Miracles.

One thing I will say in Massacre's favor is that it's entirely possible to end up staring down something disgusting like 2x Canonist, 1x Thalia, and it's the best/only answer to a lock like that. I had a similar problem last week against Mav or D&T (I don't remember), so I'm considering slotting one back into the 'board.


As a relatively new ANT player, a friend just brought up a thought that I had a bad answer for. With people now trying krosan grips in sides what about sudden shocks over some things like massacre? Only neg I found right off was its a 2 drop. It takes out revoker and works against infect, which I feel is a bad match. Might just be me and how I play at times. Thoughts?

I had the same idea several months ago. It's a really powerful card, but I feel like it's a bit slow and cumbersome at cmc2. That's not actually all that expensive, but a lot of the strategies against which Sudden Shock is useful have Thalia around to make it unplayable. The red mana in the cost is icky, too: I often find that I'm comboing off of disposable red sources—especially in matchups like D&T—and those are important to conserve. By all means give it a try, though! I really like the card a lot, and one of the things that attracted me to it in the first place is that, if you don't have other relevant targets, you can shoot the opponent with it to effectively get +2 Storm. It completely wrecks Karakas tricks, too. It also can't be countered feasibly by anything but a lucky Counterbalance.

[Serch]

I'm new with this deck and I have a few doubts :frown:

I read that actually is good to have more than one tendrils for the miracles match up, but i don't understand why is necessary to cast a second tendrils in that match..

I believe I'm missing something.. can anyone give me a hand?

Thanks in advance

[Jaytron]

This is what I'm looking at for my 75, as I'm just starting out.

Any suggestions would be helpful

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

1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 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
1 Preordain
1 Rain of Filth
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard:

4 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Krosan Grip
2 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Xantid Swarm

[Shaman]

I have just won a Karakas in my LGS thanks to a 5-0 with Rodrigo's list. But the more I play with it the more I wish Preordain to be a second ToA. It gives better ad nauseams and more outs in grindy G1.