[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) Storm Combo

[Togores]

It gives better nauseams and also worser. So many cmc4 cards are not good. Also its not fine in some situations when your not winning. Aka findind rituals.

[ScottW]

I have just won a Karakas in my LGS thanks to a 5-0 with Rodrigo's list.

Congrats! What decks did you face?

[Shaman]

Miracle, Shardless BUG, Goblins and Belcher (G1 won on T2 and G2 won on T1 facing hordes of goblins).
On the paper not difficult MU but Miracle where I blindly called CB with Therapy (missing) and somehow stealed G1 through double fow. Anyway I sided in a second ToA in each game 2 and game 3.

Of course second ToA can be worse then Preordain but I guess everytime we think one card to fit better than another is because we evaluate it over different scenarios with pros and cons. I myself have memories of games gone wrong because of flipped tendrils or additional tendrils drew and not needed at all.

Sensei on the contrary proved really good even if I was really sceptical about it.

[ScottW]

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

@Sloshthedark,
Thanks for the response. Why would them playing DRS make you more inclined to play out LED? Seems like your divesting your hand and playing to the GY more with that line (or AdN, I suppose). Also, the hand was fabricated to draw tutor for a win but why should the fetch be on the table. Are you assuming that the Island and Swamp were in hand and not fetched? Is this implying that I should be fetching non basics?

[Sloshthedark]

Would you consider meddling mage a good reason?
yes, I'd board it in case there is more than 1, if 1 I'd think about it - card out/in, plan and so on


what about sudden shocks over some things like massacre?
I think it got a little bit of play last year, the anti W/bear slot has several choices of different qualities and none is a clear favourite so it is certainly a possibility


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?
not necessary but preferable to have ToA in hand or to cast 2 to bypass counters/CB triggers


@Sloshthedark,
Thanks for the response. Why would them playing DRS make you more inclined to play out LED? Seems like your divesting your hand and playing to the GY more with that line (or AdN, I suppose). Also, the hand was fabricated to draw tutor for a win but why should the fetch be on the table. Are you assuming that the Island and Swamp were in hand and not fetched? Is this implying that I should be fetching non basics?

what hands do they keep? discard or reasonable DRS/Null rod/Extraction etc. ... If they play nothing T1 they have to have Hymn or a not very threatening hand ... If they play DRS they're less likely to have the Hymn, If I do not CT I'm more inclined to play the LED since it's the least replaceable card atm in case they have the Hymn and G2 AD should not be present.. anyway I'd most likely play the CT on Hymn anyway, topdecking a Tutor+them having Fow is less problematic situation imo

I'm assuming it's T2 on play and you had them both in hand since there is no mre details, my point is it's counterintuitive to have the Swamp in play thinking about what to do next... if the T1 play was a Ponder I'd have fetched a Sea, I mean the only scenario I could get into this boardstate is 1lander+Ponder, shuffling it - drawing a land+drawing a land for the turn I think.... If I chose to not play CT I'd have played a Delta then

[Pilhas]

Can anyone help be build a sideboard for the following meta?

2-4 Delvers(1 of each by norm)
1 Miracles
1-2 Elves
1-2 Death and Taxes
2-3 Shardless
1 Infect
1 Burn
1-2 Eldrazi

I was thinking of something along this lines:
Main(Togores GP List -1 Pif +1 DPetition)
SB:
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Empty
2 Tendrils
2 Echoing Truth
5??

On those 5 I was thinking of a couple of disfigures or dread of nights, and maybe a krosan grip.
I wanted to give flusterstorm a go but I don't know if they arrive in time.

[Ronald Deuce]

So I've been turning a couple of dilemmas in my mind for a while now, and I'm trying to figure out how best to address a few things.

The first thing is mana-fixing and my land base. For the first few months after I picked up the deck I went back and forth between running 14 lands in the main (with Tropical in the sideboard) and going up to 15 in the main. It seems like I'm in the minority here, but I pretty much settled on 14. On 15 I kept hitting lands at really awkward times, and I only very rarely felt choked. On 14, I haven't had those problems, and though I have gotten mana-screwed occasionally, I find that it happens less often than getting flooded on 15 did, and I still get flooded occasionally on only 14.

With all that said, lately I've been getting mana-screwed more frequently than I remember before. What's strange to me is that it started happening around the time I began running Chrome Mox in the maindeck, which I've since stopped doing (more on that in a minute). My current ratio looks a bit odd, with only two basics and an extra red source (Badlands), but it's been good for me in the past, and I've since located a Volcanic to fill out the "core" of the dual-base. If I were to replace anything, I think it would be the Badlands for a second Island, but I'm still running the same ratio of blue sources to black sources.

Now maybe I'm just reading into it too much (or letting confirmation bias get the better of me), but I'd like to hear how the two setups have been working for other people in the thread up to this point. Again, my experience has been that a fifteenth (maindeck) land is more clumsy than it is helpful, but I'd like to hear what other people's experiences have been and what their reasoning is behind their choices. Don't get me wrong: there are several situations in which boarding in the Tropical is essential regardless of whether I'm bringing in Decays or Grips. I just don't like having to pass the turn or fold because I had almost everything I needed, but my cantrips found me more land instead of spells. For 15-landers, do you often side out a land? When?

A semi-related thing I've been kicking around is what to use in maindeck slot 60 if I don't go back to 15 lands. I think everyone this side of Detroit knows how I feel about Preordain at this point, but I'm still running one because I like redundant cantrips for Past in Flames. My current "final card" is Sensei's Top. I've not run it in the maindeck in some time, and I'm wondering how people have found it to work for them there. Is it clunky? How often do you wish it were something else (Preordain or otherwise)? How often has it dominated in game 1? Alternatively—and this is getting to the core of my dilemma—I feel like added fast mana might be more useful in the main for the time being. I gave Chrome Mox a try, and I really thought it sounded useful in my head, but I kept finding that I would eschew it more often than I'd get anything out of it. Feeding it spells hurts pretty badly, and we're running 8-9 other artifacts already. I've started to see lists running multiple copies in the sideboard, though. I'm wondering whether that's worth trying.

So I'm not sure what to do at this point, because I've tried the card and found it wanting, but I like what it can do when it works. Earlier someone quipped about running Mox Diamond in a 14-land build, and though I can see why that sounds like a bad idea, I'm wondering whether anyone's tried it lately and how it has gone for them. Like Chrome, Diamond can be cast without losing another card for storm count (we won't get mana from it if we do this), but it doesn't clash with our artifacts. It also doesn't cost us a spell to get mana out of it, and it adds to our graveyard count. On the flip side, we're running 14-15 lands in 60 cards, meaning that we've got a lot fewer "imprint" targets than we'd have with the Chrome Mox. I feel like this topic is semi-related to what I asked before regarding the number of lands to run.

My final questions relate to sideboard flex spots and how people have been maintaining a versatile setup while addressing certain threats, but I can save those questions until I've had the chance to test a couple of things. Thanks a whole lot in advance for any advice you guys have!

[Sloshthedark]

So I've been turning a couple of dilemmas in my mind for a while now, and I'm trying to figure out how best to address a few things.

The first thing is mana-fixing and my land base. For the first few months after I picked up the deck I went back and forth between running 14 lands in the main (with Tropical in the sideboard) and going up to 15 in the main. It seems like I'm in the minority here, but I pretty much settled on 14. On 15 I kept hitting lands at really awkward times, and I only very rarely felt choked. On 14, I haven't had those problems, and though I have gotten mana-screwed occasionally, I find that it happens less often than getting flooded on 15 did, and I still get flooded occasionally on only 14.

With all that said, lately I've been getting mana-screwed more frequently than I remember before. What's strange to me is that it started happening around the time I began running Chrome Mox in the maindeck, which I've since stopped doing (more on that in a minute). My current ratio looks a bit odd, with only two basics and an extra red source (Badlands), but it's been good for me in the past, and I've since located a Volcanic to fill out the "core" of the dual-base. If I were to replace anything, I think it would be the Badlands for a second Island, but I'm still running the same ratio of blue sources to black sources.

Now maybe I'm just reading into it too much (or letting confirmation bias get the better of me), but I'd like to hear how the two setups have been working for other people in the thread up to this point. Again, my experience has been that a fifteenth (maindeck) land is more clumsy than it is helpful, but I'd like to hear what other people's experiences have been and what their reasoning is behind their choices. Don't get me wrong: there are several situations in which boarding in the Tropical is essential regardless of whether I'm bringing in Decays or Grips. I just don't like having to pass the turn or fold because I had almost everything I needed, but my cantrips found me more land instead of spells. For 15-landers, do you often side out a land? When?

A semi-related thing I've been kicking around is what to use in maindeck slot 60 if I don't go back to 15 lands. I think everyone this side of Detroit knows how I feel about Preordain at this point, but I'm still running one because I like redundant cantrips for Past in Flames. My current "final card" is Sensei's Top. I've not run it in the maindeck in some time, and I'm wondering how people have found it to work for them there. Is it clunky? How often do you wish it were something else (Preordain or otherwise)? How often has it dominated in game 1? Alternatively—and this is getting to the core of my dilemma—I feel like added fast mana might be more useful in the main for the time being. I gave Chrome Mox a try, and I really thought it sounded useful in my head, but I kept finding that I would eschew it more often than I'd get anything out of it. Feeding it spells hurts pretty badly, and we're running 8-9 other artifacts already. I've started to see lists running multiple copies in the sideboard, though. I'm wondering whether that's worth trying.

So I'm not sure what to do at this point, because I've tried the card and found it wanting, but I like what it can do when it works. Earlier someone quipped about running Mox Diamond in a 14-land build, and though I can see why that sounds like a bad idea, I'm wondering whether anyone's tried it lately and how it has gone for them. Like Chrome, Diamond can be cast without losing another card for storm count (we won't get mana from it if we do this), but it doesn't clash with our artifacts. It also doesn't cost us a spell to get mana out of it, and it adds to our graveyard count. On the flip side, we're running 14-15 lands in 60 cards, meaning that we've got a lot fewer "imprint" targets than we'd have with the Chrome Mox. I feel like this topic is semi-related to what I asked before regarding the number of lands to run.

My final questions relate to sideboard flex spots and how people have been maintaining a versatile setup while addressing certain threats, but I can save those questions until I've had the chance to test a couple of things. Thanks a whole lot in advance for any advice you guys have!

depends how you came to the 14/15 conclusion - for example last months I felt cursed with no landers at 15 lands, hasn't happened before/later to such extent ... goldfished 14 lands, always lands... I blame... small sample size and human shuffles... are you sure that it's the 15th (tropical) that keeps you "flooded"? isn't that a feeling that once you estabilish some landbase you just do not need more lands anymore (is the Trop really the difference)? try to keep track of it

I think the 14/15 is closer than you think, it is definitely a food for thought and discussion about rafining the setup but nt a major issue overall imo... if you feel 14 is enough, play 14,

2 Islands/Badlands - I'd ask myself whether I need 2 and when... aside of me really hating on 2 Islands there is an interesting realisation I had testing different manabases - I was perplexed to learn how has my game changed going from 2R lands to just a Volc, which generally induces much more basic fetching... also MUs like Miracles you want as much B as possible

I used to SB to 13 in the mirror match, now only to 14 usually Swamp against any combo (obv. not painter), I sb to more lands/or less fetches against Stifle decks and more lands against hard control decks - Standstill, Miracles, Pox, Stax, other - depends on the SB

I love SDT, had some testing with Preordains, it's really close ultimately it comes down to what is your setup and what you really plan to do... but once you get paired up against Miracles the answer is easy, therefore I prefer SDT also my setup strongly benefits from it... times when Preordain would have been better - have to swallow the bitter pill...

One rule I'd follow build the deck - stormcount is not a problem, if is something good for stormcount is not an argument... Chrome mox - if it appeared only in Ad Nausema the card is fantastic... Mox Diamond - even less flexible, not a consideration in "normal" build, that post on 14 lands was a joke obv.

[Pdingo]

Hei Rodrigo

I cant send you a private message because your mailbox is overloaded..but i write it here
Well would like to ask you how do you board against miracles...i basically play a similiar sideboard with more tendrils..yesterday i lost the price in at the bazaar of.moxen and i feelt like i boardet and maybe also played it a little bit wrong. Would be very nice for some advice for sideboarding here:)

Greets

Pascal

[Togores]

Hi!
The best way to understand my way of sb is to go to my twitch and then to past broadcast and look up how I sb agaianst each deck. Usualy I explain why I do everything there.

^^

[Ronald Deuce]

2-0-1 and first place at the local today!

R1: Titan-Post (2-0)
G1: Wasn't under pressure while he ramped, so I loaded up and hit Tendrils for 20.
G2: Opponent landed triple-Glimmerpost before I could get anything going, so I set up and fired Empty for 12. I came really, really close to losing here, but the opponent had boarded out his Tabernacle, forgetting I could 'board in Empty. So it goes; sideboarding mistakes on both sides.

R2: Miracles (1-1-1)
G1: He kept a hand that was light on countermagic but landed a T2 Counterbalance. I managed to bait out a Brainstorm, a Force, and something else to put the Drills to him when he had Terminus stuck on top.
G2: I kept a somewhat questionable hand (I think I mulled to six but didn't want to go to five), but it had a K-Grip and a Decay. Unfortunately, he managed to get Jace up and running with a stacked hand before I could assemble the combo. Fateseal is really agonizing. I conceded when I got double-Flusterstormed with Jace on 13.
G3: We only had about 3 minutes and I didn't quite get where I needed to be. Pretty fun match, and I think we both appreciated the chance to practice. Opponent is new to Legacy and I haven't gotten much practice against Miracles in several months.

R3: Death and Taxes (2-1)
G1: Opponent and I were joking around about which was more annoying: getting T1-ed, or getting taxed out by Thalia and Canonist. We drew up, rolled for play, and I cast Ad Nauseam from 19 life. He conceded.
G2: Reversal of fortune! T1 Vial, T2 Thalia, T3 Canonist and Wingmare. Finally dug up my singleton Massacre, but I didn't have any lands (I think I only found duals and no fetches or basics) and died to a horde of haters.
G3: This game was a bit of a circus. He landed a pretty early Revoker on LED, putting me in a bit of a tight spot and slowing me waaay down. I managed to AdN a few turns later, going down to four and finding a bunch of LEDs, two Infernals, a Petal, a Ritual, and a Massacre. I hard-cast Massacre off a Dark Ritual and something else (Island?) to kill his singular creature (he had a Port and a Wasteland, but was sandbagging two Plains in his hand), then passed turn. He didn't find anything to close it out, and I followed up with triple-LED and Infernal Tutor for Past in Flames at 1 life.

A pretty good day all things considered; it marked the first time I remember that I broke even with Miracles. Still feel like I need to practice the matchup a lot, though. I think I might've made it through G2 if I'd played a bit more meticulously.

Massacre didn't do much of anything that a Disfigure wouldn't have solved. The one time I needed a board-wipe, it didn't end up mattering because I was getting double-taxed and my opponent had blown up all my lands. It also got in the way of an Ad Nauseam in R3, G3: I'd had to 'board out business to keep from messing up my mana(/life) curve, and Massacre's cost prevented me from comboing that turn (N.B.: Disfigure would've allowed me to go for it then and there). I'm game for keeping it around for testing (it's really good against Elves), but today, I wasn't impressed.

Sloshthedark, thanks a lot for your detailed reply! In answer to a couple of things you asked/mentioned:
—I feel like, in most matchups, I get to the stage that I don't need extra lands once I get to 2-3 (4 is nice, but often not essential). I don't think Tropical gets in the way/causes problems, but I like having an extra red source in the maindeck, so I keep Tropical in the side with the other 14 maindeck. If I were to replace one of my maindeck lands, Badlands would be first to go, but I don't feel like I'd rather have Tropical in the main than another basic Island (esp. now that hatebears are up to a quarter of my [small] metagame). The blue-vs.-black ratio hasn't shown itself to be a problem more than once or twice (I was running Badlands instead of Volc until I could procure one, and it wasn't a problem more than once or twice). I've also considered getting ahold of a Bayou and replacing the maindeck Badlands with the Trop, but it doesn't feel like it would make a big difference (I don't run Decays in many matchups). Going back to three basics would get me out of some recent rough spots, so I might try that again. I'll try to do a better job of keeping track of my lands for reporting; I need to do better at taking notes.
—Thanks for the info re: 'boarding out lands! I've not tried going to 13 yet, but I'll give it a shot next time there's another combo matchup. Feels like it'd be worth a try. Agreed about maximizing land-count against heavy control. Would you recommend doing the same against Rishadan Port decks? Seems like a good idea, and it might've saved me in R3, G2 to find a couple more lands.
—Good point about storm count. I forget sometimes that the entire deck is built to maximize storm count :D Interestingly, I left the C-Mox at home today and tried the maindeck Top; I didn't have any trouble without the Mox. Top didn't show up a single time, so more on how that works next time!

I'll get around to my sideboard questions once I've had the chance to digest the day's events and get my thoughts in order.

Happy Gettysburg-and-Vicksburg Day and 4th to all my compatriots!

[ScottW]

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

Enjoyed the videos as always; however, these had a little higher entertainment value - especially toward the end:wink:. Are you a native of Denmark? Your sound like you're from the US Midwest. Like you could be my neighbor. This just dawned on me for the first time while listening the other day.

Also, I often see you streaming various decks and even ANT with different configurations. My starting point for ANT was with your primer and today I'm working with the Sloshstorm variant that CabalTherapy had been doing well with. Basically, 2 PIF, 0 AdN (main), 1 Grim Tutor, 1 SDT, 2 Tendrils (3rd in the board), etc. It's asking a lot but I'd be overjoyed to see you pilot this variant in a league.

As always, thanks for the great content!

[Izor]

Looking at those videos, I noticed that you kinda missed a win in game 1 of your 5th match against Grixis Delver. You realized yourself that you had the win through doube Force if you put the Duress on top instead of Dark Rit, but you actually had an extra mana the turn you went off, so you could have topped Duress back to the top, drawn and cast it, and still cast Tutor with enough floating for an ETW which was basically guaranteed to win 2 turns later. This way you had to get lucky and find the PiF + Dark Rit on top to win.

Good stuff though, I like your vids. Keep it up!

[David L Byer]

I keep losing to U/B Tezzerator. They usually main deck 4 Chalice of the Void and 1 or 2 Trinisphere along with 4 Force of Will and they bring in 3 Lodestone Golem and 2 Mindbreak Trap after sideboarding. Is this a match up I should give up on like Eldrazi or should I keep working at it?

I run run the same main deck list as Togores except -1 PiF +1 DP.

Any suggestions on the match up would be greatly appreciated.

[nevilshute]

I keep losing to U/B Tezzerator. They usually main deck 4 Chalice of the Void and 1 or 2 Trinisphere along with 4 Force of Will and they bring in 3 Lodestone Golem and 2 Mindbreak Trap after sideboarding. Is this a match up I should give up on like Eldrazi or should I keep working at it?

I run run the same main deck list as Togores except -1 PiF +1 DP.

Any suggestions on the match up would be greatly appreciated.

Them bringing in Mindbreak Traps on top of Golem and their main deck chalices suggests this player has decided to not lose matches vs Storm. If people dedicate so much against us they will often be successful. I'd be looking at this as with Eldrazi and just accept to likely lose. It's a narrowly played (and, imo, not very good) deck. If one person is trollinng you with Mindbreak Traps etc... well they'll be losing percentages in other matches. So be it.

[nevilshute]

Enjoyed the videos as always; however, these had a little higher entertainment value - especially toward the end:wink:. Are you a native of Denmark? Your sound like you're from the US Midwest. Like you could be my neighbor. This just dawned on me for the first time while listening the other day.

Also, I often see you streaming various decks and even ANT with different configurations. My starting point for ANT was with your primer and today I'm working with the Sloshstorm variant that CabalTherapy had been doing well with. Basically, 2 PIF, 0 AdN (main), 1 Grim Tutor, 1 SDT, 2 Tendrils (3rd in the board), etc. It's asking a lot but I'd be overjoyed to see you pilot this variant in a league.

As always, thanks for the great content!

Thanks a lot. I am indeed a native of Denmark :smile: The "Sloshstorm" build is very similar to what I was playing at GP-Lille in 2015 - which is not to imply that I fathered it. As far as I remember Slosh (and Patrunkenphat7) were the first to really challenge the doctrine of Ad Nauseam being a sacred part of the main decks of ANT. I decided - in early 2014 - that I wanted to try out a 2nd Past in Flames and have since then not looked back. My reasoning was - quite unreflected - that it was the best card in the deck so why was I only playing one? As we never want to have two in hand at the same time, running more than two didn't seem right. Having had two in the main deck for so long my understanding and appreciation of what this does to your deck's alacrity and resilience vs counterspell decks has deepened.

So, if you browse through my past videos from 2015 most of them will be with Slosh-setup of 2x pif, 1x grim, 2x tendrils, 1x empty in the main.


Looking at those videos, I noticed that you kinda missed a win in game 1 of your 5th match against Grixis Delver. You realized yourself that you had the win through doube Force if you put the Duress on top instead of Dark Rit, but you actually had an extra mana the turn you went off, so you could have topped Duress back to the top, drawn and cast it, and still cast Tutor with enough floating for an ETW which was basically guaranteed to win 2 turns later. This way you had to get lucky and find the PiF + Dark Rit on top to win.

Good stuff though, I like your vids. Keep it up!

Thanks. Yeah, I could definitely have been tighter in that spot. Thanks for watching!

[Zombie]

The main thing I usually think of when I think of Slosh and storm is Bolt.

[Sloshthedark]

The main thing I usually think of when I think of Slosh and storm is Bolt.

Have you lost to it? ;)

[Ronald Deuce]

I keep losing to U/B Tezzerator. They usually main deck 4 Chalice of the Void and 1 or 2 Trinisphere along with 4 Force of Will and they bring in 3 Lodestone Golem and 2 Mindbreak Trap after sideboarding. Is this a match up I should give up on like Eldrazi or should I keep working at it? . . . Any suggestions on the match up would be greatly appreciated.

I'm seconding what Nevilshute said; this seems like a pretty direct storm-hosing decklist. Are you referring to a single person who plays that list, or a group of people?

As someone who played Dredge pretty frequently for a while, I'm used to seeing 'boards geared very heavily toward preventing losses to "That One Deck" and it seems like that's pretty much what your opponent was playing with a list like that. Keep in mind that when people do that, they're making it much harder to address other threats that don't work the same way. One of the things I always thought made Legacy awesome in contrast to Creatures: the Formatting was the fact that there are about ten different (mainstream) ways to approach winning the game/killing the other guy, and each of those strategies is vulnerable to different counter-strategies. Any given deck only has so much room to devote to any number of these strategies, so your Tezzerating friend is going to be throwing other matches if he's boarding in that many cards against you. It also sounds like he's not running the most bulletproof list if he's got so many oddly-priced (and non-synergizing) cards in his 75, not to mention that even successful Tezzerator lists in Legacy sometimes look (LOOK) like bad budget Vintage decks.

So unless you start to see more and more people play decks like that, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

[EDIT: Hurkyl's Recall seems like a good solution; I'm keeping one in my 'board for Eldrazi, but it'd do pretty well in either matchup, I think.]

[David L Byer]

Thanks guys. Ill ignore it and hope I never face it (Only one player plays this deck) in our very small Legacy community. I have beaten Chalice for one many times ...but the Trinispheres and Lodestone Golems are rough.

[Maikhell]

Hey, cheers!

So, last sunday I took the first place in a 126 players legacy tournament! That was the first time playing the deck in a tournament (I've used to play TES before) but the list felt very versatile. Anyway, I need to confess that the 'Pairing God' have smiled to me.

The list:

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

1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Dark Petition
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Preordain
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Rain of Filth

SB: 4 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Culling Scales
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 Massacre

My matchups:
1º Round: Manaless Dredge 2 - 1
2º Round: Merfolk 2 - 1
3º Round: Burn 2 - 0
4º Round: Lands 2 - 1
5º Round: Grixis Delver 2 - 1
6º Round: Lands 2 - 1
7º Round: Eldrazi ID

Top 8:
Quarterfinals: Grixis Delver 2 - 1
Semifinals: Lands 2 - 0
Finals: Elves 2 - 1


Some considerations about the list:

1º - Sensei's Divining Top is the bee's knees! I mean, the card is absurd and I did have won all the games that it resolved.

2º - Only casted Empty the Warrens one time the entire tournament (G1 against Burn). Therefore I'm pondering about move it to the SB.

3º - Fourteen lands mana base felt ok'ish. Worked pretty well against all the decks but the Lands matchup. It's something to think about.


Also, I would like to thank you guys, this thread is really helping me to become a better player!

[Sloshthedark]

Hey, cheers! So, last sunday I took the first place in a 126 players legacy tournament!

2º - Only casted Empty the Warrens one time the entire tournament (G1 against Burn). Therefore I'm pondering about move it to the SB.

Nice one, congrats! any longtime background for the Culling Scales?

how many Ad Nauseam were cast instead?

[Jaytron]

Took the deck for a spin for the first time in an event. Went 1-2. Rough beats, but learned a lot.

R1- Loss vs Maverick (T2 Thalia both games, T3 Teeg g2)
R2- Sneak and Show (He was faster. G2 fetched an island hoping to find another land at some point. Never did.. lesson learned, just get the Usea first)
R3- Boggles? Felt bad for the dude, he was trying Legacy out coming from Modern XD

Here's my list (Dark Petition was a preordain, but I went DP tonight):
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 Dark Petition
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

I usually have no problem figuring out what I want to bring in, but I don't know what to take out. I don't want to dilute the deck too much.

Do you guys have some general guidelines on what cards are first up on the chopping block?

[Maikhell]

Nice one, congrats! any longtime background for the Culling Scales?

how many Ad Nauseam were cast instead?

Thanks! So, In my previous testing I've noticed that Culling Scales plays really well against Aggro Loam, Maverick and is useful against D&T. It have some use against Eldrazi and Lands, but I'm not impressed in these matchups. I did have sided it in against the Lands games, but never have draw it.

About the Ad Nauseum question, the card was casted a great amount of time, therefore it's not in the "maybe cut radar" for the time being for me. I even remember casting it from 7 life against Merfolk and taking the game.

[Sloshthedark]

Thanks! So, In my previous testing I've noticed that Culling Scales plays really well against Aggro Loam, Maverick and is useful against D&T. It have some use against Eldrazi and Lands, but I'm not impressed in these matchups. I did have sided it in against the Lands games, but never have draw it.

About the Ad Nauseum question, the card was casted a great amount of time, therefore it's not in the "maybe cut radar" for the time being for me. I even remember casting it from 7 life against Merfolk and taking the game.

I understand the theory and feel a bit ashamed I did not figure out the card by myself as its awesome with sdt, props for this one, thank you// I mean searched up when ETW would not be sufficient, if it was the case w Merfolk I see the point

[rlesko]

Culling Scales seems awesome. I can't wait to try it.

[ScottW]

I played an Eldrazi list including this in the sideboard. My opponent, who destroyed me with his 4 Thorn / 4 Chalice list was puzzled what he should board and showed me his sideboard after our match. I think he had a few Dismember to take out and included Surgical Extraction.
I won the play and had a hand of Duress, CT, LED, DR, LP, and lands. I Duress and saw Thorn, 2 Chalice and lands so I blew my LP and then CT. After this I just drew more discard, which does little to nothing after T1.

[Manroe]

Hi everyone, I was hoping someone with much more experience than I could touch on City of Solitude. What are the other applications for this in match ups other than miracles?

[nevilshute]

Hi everyone, I was hoping someone with much more experience than I could touch on City of Solitude. What are the other applications for this in match ups other than miracles?

Hey there. The short answer, unfortunately, is not many - if any - other applications. But that shouldn't discourage you completely. Miracles is still top dog of the format and you should do well to aim for it which also means its fine to consider sideboard stuff that only comes in there even if it preferable to have cards that cover multiple decks.

If we were to set up a framework for CoS it would be: it should be brought in against decks that a) are only or at least primarily aiming to interact with you on the stack. Where b) you get enough time, so they can't really be running you down with a fast clock (or a quick combo). And that c) don't screw with your mana because :2::g: is a tall order when you're being Wastelanded and Stifled etc.

Of the tier one decks that pretty much means Miracles and nothing else. You're never resolving a 3CMC enchantment against delver as they will be dazing, piercing or forcing it but that won't matter because you won't reliably be able to get to three lands against them anyway. Also, they have a reasonably fast clock which just makes it an all around no-go.

Against Show and Tell it almost gets to be relevant but I'd say that all things considered it ends up being a day late and a dollar short as there is simply too high a risk of them either killing you before you can power it out or on the subsequent turn as you will almost certainly have to pass after casting this.

You don't want it against BUG decks as their discard will make this be way less impactful which is the same reason I'm not bringing in Xantid Swarm against any BUG deck.

It is a strong card against Miracles, though, and I'd urge you to try it for yourself. I'm not currently running it but wouldn't completely rule out doing so again in the future.

Semi on topic: I've recorded a "sideboarding strategy" video (well, 2 videos - I ended up going a bit long). Am uploading them as I type. Should be done tonight. Will post a link :smile:

[nevilshute]

Links to new videos. Sideboarding strategy this time. Primarily for players new'ish to the deck, I'd say, but hope there's a bit of something for everyone :smile:

Part One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YA7RWG1VP4

Part Two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ90ysGFSZY

[TokugawaEdo]

2º - Only casted Empty the Warrens one time the entire tournament (G1 against Burn). Therefore I'm pondering about move it to the SB.

I've tried having EtW and Ad Nauseam in the main together and wasn't a fan. Right now I have EtW main and Ad Nauseam in the sb and if I bring in the Ad Nauseam i usually bring out the EtW. Not sure how correct that is but I have had sucess with it.

[Manroe]

Hey there. The short answer, unfortunately, is not many - if any - other applications. But that shouldn't discourage you completely. Miracles is still top dog of the format and you should do well to aim for it which also means its fine to consider sideboard stuff that only comes in there even if it preferable to have cards that cover multiple decks.

If we were to set up a framework for CoS it would be: it should be brought in against decks that a) are only or at least primarily aiming to interact with you on the stack. Where b) you get enough time, so they can't really be running you down with a fast clock (or a quick combo). And that c) don't screw with your mana because :2::g: is a tall order when you're being Wastelanded and Stifled etc.

Of the tier one decks that pretty much means Miracles and nothing else. You're never resolving a 3CMC enchantment against delver as they will be dazing, piercing or forcing it but that won't matter because you won't reliably be able to get to three lands against them anyway. Also, they have a reasonably fast clock which just makes it an all around no-go.

Against Show and Tell it almost gets to be relevant but I'd say that all things considered it ends up being a day late and a dollar short as there is simply too high a risk of them either killing you before you can power it out or on the subsequent turn as you will almost certainly have to pass after casting this.

You don't want it against BUG decks as their discard will make this be way less impactful which is the same reason I'm not bringing in Xantid Swarm against any BUG deck.

It is a strong card against Miracles, though, and I'd urge you to try it for yourself. I'm not currently running it but wouldn't completely rule out doing so again in the future.

Semi on topic: I've recorded a "sideboarding strategy" video (well, 2 videos - I ended up going a bit long). Am uploading them as I type. Should be done tonight. Will post a link :smile:

Going to watch the videos now! Thank you for the detailed answer!! Been getting better, 3-1'd local legacy FNM tonight!

[Jonathan Alexander]

Slosh messaged me about it on facebook, so short recap on my Legacy Challenge experience on Saturday.

I played this list (http://deckstats.net/decks/65431/527159-storm-09-07-2016/en), finshing 5-2 for 14th place.

2-1 Manaless Dredge (won the roll, lost G1)
0-2 Shardless Sultai (died off Ad Nauseam G1 I believe and never drew business G2 if I remember correctly)
2-0 Ad Nauseam Tendrils
2-0 Tezzerator? (I don't know, my opponent didn't get the chance to do much, won G2 T1)
2-0 Death & Taxes
1-2 Grixis Delver (won G1, drew no business G2, no mana G3)
2-1 Grixis Delver

Most games were uneventful, I don't think there were any interesting decisions. It might be worth noting that I only won two rolls - rounds one and four. And I won every game one except rounds one and two.

A few notes on the list:
1) I don't like the Empty plan against Grixis anymore.
2) Eight rituals might not be enough, maybe it's time for Carpet to come back.
3) Daze is great.
4) Not only do I like ten discard, I very much like always having the right discard.
5) I'm currently back to 2 Past in Flames maindeck.
6) Sudden Shock was only in the deck because I didn't want anything else.
7) One Tendrils is not enough.
8) I do not miss Abrupt Decay, even against Miracles.

[Maikhell]

Jonathan, could you elaborate on the sideboard Dazes, please? I'm very interested in the matchs and aplications you saw. Thanks.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Daze is there for all the decks that rely on permanent hate to beat us. Ad Nauseam Storm (which is what you are after boarding against those decks) is a Turn 2.5 deck. Their hate comes down on turn two (most of the time, sometimes they cheat on mana). So between the games you win on turn two and those where you Daze their 2-drop, you are extremely favoured to win on the play. It's not as strong on the draw, but still pretty good. It also solves the discard vs. cantrip dilemma against decks that can cheat on mana turn one - you can simply cantrip and Daze rather than being dead if you go with the wrong option with no way of know beforehand. It's also pretty neat if your opponent has different options available.

[Shaman]

Daze seems really odd but I see it is getting some value both on the play and sometimes even on the draw.
I am curious about carpet of flowers, since you say you would like to bring them back: are you going to run tropical or bayou only for them? How do you reshape your maindeck after the inclusion of second pif?

[Jonathan Alexander]

Same maindeck -1 Petition -1 Ad Nauseam -1 Mox +1 Tendrils +1 Past in Flames +1 Badlands. Moved the cards I cut to the sideboard replacing 2 Empty and the Badlands. Cut Sudden Shock for the third Tendrils for no reason.

Wow, that's a messy sentence. Sorry, too lazy to fix.

Carpet is more or less the only green card I'm interested in. Might try Decay over Truth while I'm at it though. I would probably cut the second Island for a Tropical.

[Ronald Deuce]

Well, I got crushed at Worcester this past weekend; 3-5-drop in the main event, 1-3 in a Legacy side event. Think I took 450-ish out of [EDIT] 770-ish. If anyone else was there, I was John, the disheveled, Van Buren-looking guy with glasses in the metal t-shirt and the ratty hoodie.

Not so good all around; it was the longest tournament I've played and fatigue was definitely a factor, but it felt like, for much of the day, the deck wasn't doing what I'm used to its doing. In one round, against Grixis, I found two lands (total) and one got Wasted; in another (BUG Delver), the only business card I found in either game (after cantrips) was one Tendrils. Mulliganed to four once, and to a suboptimal five two or three times. I also cast Ad Nauseam three times in two matches and turned up nothing but Probes, Good Cantrips, and 4cmc stuff. Weird, because I'm used to seeing that (at most) once every three rounds.

So things were pretty yucky, but three of the four matches I won were against decks I didn't expect to beat. I went 2-0 against Maverick and 2-1 against Punishing Chalices on day 1 (broke through two Chalices about eight turns after Emptying into a Maelstrom Pulse), and I took my first victory ever against Miracles (2-1) in the side event on day 2.

Lessons learned:
—Cantripping is hard but crucial. It takes a long time to learn how to do it best, so practice a lot, and I don't mean goldfishing.
—I need to practice against Miracles. The only strategies that seem to work are incredibly counterintuitive to the point that I think the matchup deserves a primer of its own. I lost two matches against Miracles, but I managed to avoid the draw bracket. (A friend on Berserk Poison timed out against Miracles TWICE, so it was Miracles all the way down. That deck is annoying.) I saw LOTS of Mentors in the three rounds I went against the deck, so their clocking us is becoming a concern.
—In Chalice matchups, the Chalice isn't the problem; it's what follows. So if there's no clock coming down, draw-go is a possible strategy, though it feels really bad and it's probably suboptimal if there's more one can do. I was dead within two turns at most in game three against Punishing Stuff, but he didn't find anything to close the game.
—(Disclaimer: I'm pretty new to Sensei's Top, so take this with a grain of salt) SDT was great against Miracles but mediocre or poor in everything else. I only faced heavy discard from one player (Elves), and I don't think SDT is good in the matchup because of their speed.
—Reanimator is really agonizing. T1 Griselbrand, then T2-3 Sire of Insanity followed by Iona prompted a concession. SExtraction is probably worth a 'board slot.
—I need to practice more, especially against stuff that's not in my (admittedly small) metagame environment.
—Izzet Delver can be a pretty scary matchup because it can run at almost the speed of Burn, but with countermagic; in one game I had to triple-fetch (and intentionally fail to find on one of them!) simply to avoid dying to Price of Progress.
—Permanent hate is important, but I don't think it's worth boarding in more than three cards against anything but hatebears or Miracles. I lost round two of the side event against Burn with a hand of four Rituals, an Infernal Tutor, a Disfigure, and a Chain. I'd expected Eidolons (he'd won G1 with double-Eidolon), but he had no nonland permanents, so I couldn't cast anything. I Brainstormed three times to try to shed the sideboard cards, but all I found instead were extra lands I couldn't throw down. The next topdeck would've been an LED :(
—Ad Nauseam failed me bigtime thrice, but it also won me a few games. It's high-variance and it can fail hard, but it's a blowout just as often. I'm not interested in cutting it from the main.
—I need to practice more.
—Land-screw or no, I can't imagine going to 15 lands in the main. I saw way too many lands in several matches (excluding obv. That One against Grix and the round against Punishing Junk).
—I felt no need for Echoing Truth (which I brought as a 'board singleton) or Massacre (which I didn't bring). K-Grip never showed, but I really wanted it to. I'm going to make space for a second one.
—I really need to practice more.

I may post some more in the coming days if anyone cares. Wish more of the losses were "I got outskilled" losses, but it really didn't feel like that's what happened much/most of the time. What can you do? It was weird; I normally punt hard in the first match, then find my feet for what follows. But this time around, I won rounds one and two in the first day and round one in the side event against decks I didn't expect to beat, then I lost (almost) every other match.

[Ronald Deuce]

I played this list (http://deckstats.net/decks/65431/527159-storm-09-07-2016/en), finshing 5-2 for 14th place.
. . .
A few notes on the list:
1) I don't like the Empty plan against Grixis anymore.
2) Eight rituals might not be enough, maybe it's time for Carpet to come back.
3) Daze is great.
4) Not only do I like ten discard, I very much like always having the right discard.
5) I'm currently back to 2 Past in Flames maindeck.
6) Sudden Shock was only in the deck because I didn't want anything else.
7) One Tendrils is not enough.
8) I do not miss Abrupt Decay, even against Miracles.

Hello, Jonathan Alexander!

After my weekend tanning, I'm rethinking my sideboard quite a bit. I've got a few questions/comments:

—Agreed regarding Empty. I only cast it once all weekend (against Punishing... I don't even know what it's called anymore), and it didn't end well (see my previous post). I saw a lot of mainboard token-hate in a number of decks, from Engineered Explosives in Miracles to Maelstrom Pulse in the aforementioned. Wouldn't be surprised if Echoing Truth was lurking in mainboards as well.
—Daze sounds SWEET. I also like the idea of running multiple extra discards, though I found Decay to be pretty useful this weekend and I have a feeling Counterbalance might cause problems with lots of 1cmc discards. A few questions: what do you usually take out to fit in Daze and/or the discards? Do you ever run them together? Without a large number of spot-removal/bounce cards, do you feel like you can bank on finding a Daze in time to stop a lockout? Preliminarily, Aether Vial looks like it might be an issue with Daze going forward, but maybe Vial is too slow.
—I think you might be right to run zero Tops. I don't know for sure, but it's a pretty clunky card that didn't get me out of tight spots as much as I'd hoped. (N.B.: I could've gotten better use out of it in at least one game, but it didn't end up mattering because I won anyway.) I'm definitely taking it out of my mainboard (probs for a Mox).
—What's your opinion of Echoing Truth? I haven't found a good use for it, but I'm curious what more experienced players think.
—When you said you felt the need for more Tendrils, did you mean mainboard, sideboard, or in either place? I acquired a third (2 in the 'board), and I think it saved me in the match I won against [EDIT: Miracles. Whoops!].
—How do you feel about Rain of Filth and Chrome Mox? Filth was super over the weekend, and I realized I could've used it to dig out of a hole in one game I lost. I'm a fan.
—Would you ever consider going down to a singleton Preordain? Would you ever consider replacing it (or the second one) with a different dig card like Peer through Depths or Impulse? Gives us options against Chalice and they dig better than anything else we've got, so I'm kicking around the idea.

All are welcome to reply if they've got other opinions, and thanks in advance, Jonathan!

[nevilshute]

Heya Ronald, sorry to hear you had what sounds like some very rough beats at W00sta. Too many points to really respond to. Just think you need to keep at it. Like you said, "more practice".

Fwiw I think Izzit Delver as it currently is build with stormchaser mages is a quite good matchup for us. At least in my experience. They can race us sometimes but we goldfish faster imo. And they only have force and daze and - importantly - no wastelands, making daze much weaker.

I'm in a good place in terms of the miracles matchup. PM me if you wanna delve into that particular matchup.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Hello, Jonathan Alexander!

After my weekend tanning, I'm rethinking my sideboard quite a bit. I've got a few questions/comments:

—Agreed regarding Empty. I only cast it once all weekend (against Punishing... I don't even know what it's called anymore), and it didn't end well (see my previous post). I saw a lot of mainboard token-hate in a number of decks, from Engineered Explosives in Miracles to Maelstrom Pulse in the aforementioned. Wouldn't be surprised if Echoing Truth was lurking in mainboards as well.

I actually lost with Empty for ten turn one on the play today against Dragon Stompy; I got raced haha
But it has also won me a couple games. I think the card has its merits, but it's just not as strong against Grixis anymore, which was the main reason I had multiple copies. I still like having access to one copy against them though. It is currently in the sideboard (updated decklist at the end of this post).



—Daze sounds SWEET. I also like the idea of running multiple extra discards, though I found Decay to be pretty useful this weekend and I have a feeling Counterbalance might cause problems with lots of 1cmc discards. A few questions: what do you usually take out to fit in Daze and/or the discards? Do you ever run them together? Without a large number of spot-removal/bounce cards, do you feel like you can bank on finding a Daze in time to stop a lockout? Preliminarily, Aether Vial looks like it might be an issue with Daze going forward, but maybe Vial is too slow.

Daze is indeed very nice. If I bring Daze, I board out discard spells. Usually, I take out all discard and bring Daze + Truth. If I bring the full ten discard spells, I board out Lotus Petals. I think Daze and discard spells are pretty much mutually exclusive, although I might want to keep one or two discard spells against Eldrazi. Daze is good enough if they don't have everything though. Daze is really only there to prevent T1/2 shenanigans from happening. The goal is to win before Vial becomes relevant.



—I think you might be right to run zero Tops. I don't know for sure, but it's a pretty clunky card that didn't get me out of tight spots as much as I'd hoped. (N.B.: I could've gotten better use out of it in at least one game, but it didn't end up mattering because I won anyway.) I'm definitely taking it out of my mainboard (probs for a Mox).

I hated myself for running Top at GP SeaTac, so there's that. I like what Preordain does in the slot, but I dislike how heavily we're in blue. Sometimes you have no choice but to fetch the second Island, but the second Island mostly sucks. Maybe I should just run more business / mana instead. It's nice to have that many cantrips against non-Wasteland decks though.



—What's your opinion of Echoing Truth? I haven't found a good use for it, but I'm curious what more experienced players think.

It mostly does what Chain does, only it hits Chalice at one as well. Maybe Chain is better; I'm not convinced either way. It's not impossible that those should be Decays either.



—When you said you felt the need for more Tendrils, did you mean mainboard, sideboard, or in either place? I acquired a third (2 in the 'board), and I think it saved me in the match I won against Tendrils.

I almost always want to have two copies in my deck, at least against decks with graveyard hate. Also against Miracles, you want to be able to double Tendrils them, especially with my current setup.



—How do you feel about Rain of Filth and Chrome Mox? Filth was super over the weekend, and I realized I could've used it to dig out of a hole in one game I lost. I'm a fan.

I had Rain in place of the fourth Cabal Ritual today and didn't like it all that much. Basically, when I had CRit I lost because it wasn't Rain and when I had Rain I lost because it wasn't CRit. Unfortunate. I haven't made up my mind regarding that, but I like Mox. It's pretty good with Ad Nauseam.



—Would you ever consider going down to a singleton Preordain? Would you ever consider replacing it (or the second one) with a different dig card like Peer through Depths or Impulse? Gives us options against Chalice and they dig better than anything else we've got, so I'm kicking around the idea.

As mentioned before, I might try cutting them for extra business/mana. Maybe 2/2/2 between Petition/Tendrils/Past and nine rituals is the way to go. I plan on trying out stuff more regularly again.



All are welcome to reply if they've got other opinions, and thanks in advance, Jonathan!

No problem. I like rambling and feeling important! haha


Edit: Forgot the decklist (http://deckstats.net/decks/65431/528729-storm-10-07-2016/en).

[Plague Sliver]

Rodrigo Togores is in the house! I talk to the Grand Prix Prague champion about winning the biggest event of his life, the dark art of storm, past mastery in other card games, and lots more.

https://soundcloud.com/humansofmagic/episode-008-rodrigo-togores

[ScottW]

Rodrigo Togores is in the house! I talk to the Grand Prix Prague champion about winning the biggest event of his life, the dark art of storm, past mastery in other card games, and lots more.

https://soundcloud.com/humansofmagic/episode-008-rodrigo-togores

Great! This immediately has priority despite my growing list of podcasts I have not yet listened to.

[.Ix]

Went out with the UBR Daze list today, but didn't face any decks I wanted to Daze!

1-2 UB Reanimator
2-0 RUG Delver
2-0 Elves
2-1 UR Delver

3-1 and first place off really weird breakers. Lost to a ridiculous turn 1 Griselbrand with FOW for my Surgical Extraction in game 3. Got to T1 on the draw off a Probe and Brainstorm against Elves though.

[naswari]

Hello everybody,

Would this be a good place to post my list for opinion/critique?

Thanks in advance.

[Lemnear]

Hello everybody,

Would this be a good place to post my list for opinion/critique?

Thanks in advance.

Its a good place to read the last 20 pages to see what lists and (more important) why people run them. You will also see some of your questions answered on the way

[naswari]

Its a good place to read the last 20 pages to see what lists and (more important) why people run them. You will also see some of your questions answered on the way

Thanks for the reply!

I have been reading up for some time.

I will just go ahead and post the list.

http://deckstats.net/decks/69541/533077-storm/en

I've been playing storm exclusively in paper and modo for some time now and this build is largely affected by my paper meta (~50% chalice decks, so maybe storm not a good meta choice lol)

Basically it is a pretty stock ANT list, but I've opted to move into a 5th color for Serenity.

Current SB is:
2 Flusterstorm
2 Serenity
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Krosan Grip
2 Dark Confidant
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 City of Solitude
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Scrubland

I've found that a lot of my poorer matches involve Chalice or Thorn in some way and chalice is not usually cast on 2, but instead of opting for hurkyl's or echoing truth, Serenity permanently takes care of the problem. A lot of the bigger problem has come up when chalice and thorn are in play. Especially when your plan is to hurkyls or abrupt decay or echoing truth at their EoT and you only have enough mana for 1 in a turn and your opponent casts another of the problem cards that would prevent the effectiveness of the aforementioned cards in some way.

What serenity on your turn can then do is effectively act as a silence for the problem artifacts until your turn that you go off (if you wait to cast it until the turn before the storm turn).

This has been my experience so far. It also can be okay against miracles, although I still need more testing for this.

What are your thoughts, anybody else has experimented with this?

[Lemnear]

So you board Serenity and Abrupt Decays against Chalice and need access to UWRBG postboard with Duals against Wastelands. For real? I can't imagine this was properly tested.

P.S.: Dark Confidant isn't up to date

[naswari]

Thanks for replying.

As for proper testing, it is certainly still in the testing phase.

The manabase is a stretch but I fetch what I need based on what I draw, not hoping to cast both abrupt decay and serenity all the time. If I fetch for serenity, often I don't need abrupt decay. Usually it goes something like:

Either wait to fetch unless I know the wasteland coast is clear for now, then:

For Serenity:
First fetch Island to cantrip, then scrubland

Abrupt Decay:
can be Island, swamp, trop or some combination, duals if I feel lucky or know the way is clear for now

Both can be obtained with Scrubland and Trop but too risky usually

Also I'm curious as to why popular opinion is no Dark Confidant, can be very good in certain situations I've found. It's certainly a flex spot for me but I'm not sure what I'd like more. Maybe D&T answers like massacre and dread of night?

[Jonathan Alexander]

New Decklist (http://deckstats.net/decks/65431/533090-storm-16-07-2016/en)

A few build notes:

I'm playing this deck online exclusively. It's not the best deck, but games only last about half as long as with Miracles, so I get to play more matches. Profit.

I'm unsure about Empty/Petition; I keep swapping them. It rarely matters which one I have and when I go for Empty, I usually go off with Past in Flames one or two turns later. I defnitely want one each in the 75, but either can be in the maindeck.

Preordain is not impressive, but it does some work. Since I have Carpets again, I kinda want Top though.

Carpet is very good right now, I like it a lot. In the past, it wasn't great against Delver, but Grixis needs way more lands than other versions, which makes Carpet much better.

Daze is great - until you lose to Cavern of Souls and Simian Spirit Guide. But seriously, Daze wins a lot of games and I'm going to keep playing them. If the non-blue slot was more defined, I would probably play something like Dread of Night instead.

Echoing Truth is not really worse than Abrupt Decay as long as you don't face Counterbalance - in fact, I have won because of how much easier it is to cast and because it hits Leylines. I think I have lost one game because I couldn't actually kill my opponents hatebear (a Canonist when my opponent had Vial on two, but you also have to draw badly for that to happen in the first place).

Badlands is neat but not needed without the heavy red. Could be pretty much any other land as well.

10 discard can be very tilt-inducing. Postboard games with this setup can be super high variance where you are definitely a big favourite, at least on the play, but your opponents can wreck you with topdecks. I do like the flexibility though. Sometimes you want Decay or Flusterstorm instead, depending on matchups.

I do not miss the second Island. You never want to fetch that thing anyway.

Because I haven't addressed this before: Since I'm playing online, I'm not playing 4 Therapy maindeck. It's much harder to use them online.

I want to find out if Petition or Chrome Mox makes for better Ad Nauseams. That takes sooo much time though.


Feel free to ask questions I haven't answered before.

[TokugawaEdo]

[URL="http://deckstats.net/decks/65431/533090-storm-16-07-2016/en"]Carpet is very good right now, I like it a lot. In the past, it wasn't great against Delver, but Grixis needs way more lands than other versions, which makes Carpet much better.

Would you bring carpet in against any other decks besides delver variants?

[ScottW]

Also I'm curious as to why popular opinion is no Dark Confidant

I see lists on TC Decks including Dark Confidant. I don't include it but screw popular opinion. I prefer decks that aren't tuned to 74 or 75 cards and allow you to play to your strengths. If something is working for you, then seems good.

[naswari]

I see lists on TC Decks including Dark Confidant. I don't include it but screw popular opinion. I prefer decks that aren't tuned to 74 or 75 cards and allow you to play to your strengths. If something is working for you, then seems good.

I feel the same way. I have heard many players disagree with Dark Confidant and granted creatures aren't what storm is really trying to do but if you board it against a deck with no removal drawing 2 cards a turn with an ANT deck can be absurdly good.

[Lemnear]

I feel the same way. I have heard many players disagree with Dark Confidant and granted creatures aren't what storm is really trying to do but if you board it against a deck with no removal drawing 2 cards a turn with an ANT deck can be absurdly good.

You are missing that Dark Confidant costs 1B, cantrips the turn after and two turns later it nets you the first card. Thats three turns the 2/1 has to survive before doing something valuable in a deck which opts to kill by turn 3. Its not that Confidant sticks around for 5+ turns against control decks either.

If you want to play a creature to gain cardadvantage, I'd rather pick Snapcaster Mage as Thiago at least can get you foreard by flashbacking Decays, Ponder, Discard and works with Cabal Therapy for even more value.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Would you bring carpet in against any other decks besides delver variants?

I also bring them against Show & Tell variants and Miracles.

Edit:


how good has been etw g1 vs miracles?.

The one time I had it against Miracles, it was a situation where Empty, Tendrils and Petition all would have won (Grapeshot as well, I think, for whatever it's worth). It's probably good to be able to make 10+ Goblins turn one, but usually I'd rather kill my opponents. I think Empty is what people make Tendrils out to be in that you basically never want to draw it but want to be able to Tutor for it.



You miss another green land?

Having just the one Trop has not been an issue so far. I think unless you start to board Decays against Wastelands, the fifteenth land can be Badlands, Flooded Strand, Bloodstained Mire; whatever. I play against Grixis a lot, which is the main reason I run Carpet and I have not had problems casting them, although I do have to say that I never need to cast more than one (and after the first, mana is usually a non-issue anyway). They're also notgreat at countering Carpet.


Really you think carpet is the way to go?

I noticed fairly early on that eight rituals was on the low end for the current metagame. Mostly against Grixis and Miracles, I want to have access to a lot of mana, and those are the most common decks. I had Rain in the sideboard for a bit to brnig additional mana against non-blue, but it's not as important there (because your rituals don't get countered), so I randomly thought maybe Carpet is good in this list. I was sceptical before I tried, but the card quickly convinced me.

[UseLess]

New Decklist (http://deckstats.net/decks/65431/533090-storm-16-07-2016/en)
I want to find out if Petition or Chrome Mox makes for better Ad Nauseams. That takes sooo much time though.


I love the Daze tech, definitely going to try that out. For what it's worth, I can say with fair confidence that a single chrome mox does make AdN better. I have tested it now for some time and I found a clear improvement when I went for AdN (several times I would have fizzled if not for the chrome mox). That said, I opt to go more often than other ANT players for AdN, so if you only use it a limited amount of time the chrome mox may not be worth its slot.

[naswari]

You are missing that Dark Confidant costs 1B, cantrips the turn after and two turns later it nets you the first card. Thats three turns the 2/1 has to survive before doing something valuable in a deck which opts to kill by turn 3. Its not that Confidant sticks around for 5+ turns against control decks either.

If you want to play a creature to gain cardadvantage, I'd rather pick Snapcaster Mage as Thiago at least can get you foreard by flashbacking Decays, Ponder, Discard and works with Cabal Therapy for even more value.

In matches where dark confidant is good, removal isn't common or non existent so sticking around isn't a big deal. Matches with a lot discard he's great. Especially when you consider that ant isn't going off before turn 3 in those matches every game. Sure turn 3 is optimal, but if you're facing an opening with heavy discard and you need to rebuild drawing 2 cards a turn is great.

Granted if you get greedy and cast him t1 of a lotus petal and he gets killed you get 2 for oned but hey greatness at any cost right? Probably shouldn't have brought him in in that match anyway.

Snapcaster Mage will get you one (choice) card but snap + ponder is 3 mana, snap + abrupt decay is 4 so by that time dark confidant could have already drawn you at least a card, not sure I see the advantage there.

Snapcaster is interesting though. Maybe snap + tendrils finisher for the rub ins? 😆

[Lemnear]

In matches where dark confidant is good, removal isn't common or non existent so sticking around isn't a big deal. Matches with a lot discard he's great. Especially when you consider that ant isn't going off before turn 3 in those matches every game. Sure turn 3 is optimal, but if you're facing an opening with heavy discard and you need to rebuild drawing 2 cards a turn is great.

I am curious what matchups you have in mind, because Miracles has creatures and still some Plows and the rest plays Decays. You seem to have the idea that you can lean back after your hand gets stripped and not get slapped by a Tarmogoyf or the like who follows the discard mentioned. Confidant isn't good, because the post 2012 metagame does not give you the time to rebuild with Confidant.


Granted if you get greedy and cast him t1 of a lotus petal and he gets killed you get 2 for oned but hey greatness at any cost right? Probably shouldn't have brought him in in that match anyway.

Are we seriously discussing the matter or do you favor quoting flavortexts instead? The point is that given you don't have the time to slowroll/rebuild with Confidant anyways (just watch the metagame structure) and that your two mana play gets killed by ond mana answers (aka horrible tempo play), you turn on removal which is otherwise dead in your opponents hand.


Snapcaster Mage will get you one (choice) card but snap + ponder is 3 mana, snap + abrupt decay is 4 so by that time dark confidant could have already drawn you at least a card, not sure I see the advantage there.

You don't see the advantage of IMMEDIATELY getting additional copies of Decay at instant speed at end of turn against Counterbalance or the option to flachback Ponder + sac SCM for Cabal Therapy for IMMEDIATE cardadvantage compared to a two mana Creature which cantrips A TURN LATER into an unknown card IF IT SURVIVES A FULL TURN?

Bob is worse than a Preordain if you opt to win before turn 4 and ONLY better IF it sticks for at least two turns.


Snapcaster is interesting though. Maybe snap + tendrils finisher for the rub ins? 😆

I think the threads Grinding Station pilots have a better idea of if this is an alternative

[naswari]

I am curious what matchups you have in mind, because Miracles has creatures and still some Plows and the rest plays Decays. You seem to have the idea that you can lean back after your hand gets stripped and not get slapped by a Tarmogoyf or the like who follows the discard mentioned. Confidant isn't good, because the post 2012 metagame does not give you the time to rebuild with Confidant.



Are we seriously discussing the matter or do you favor quoting flavortexts instead? The point is that given you don't have the time to slowroll/rebuild with Confidant anyways (just watch the metagame structure) and that your two mana play gets killed by ond mana answers (aka horrible tempo play), you turn on removal which is otherwise dead in your opponents hand.



You don't see the advantage of IMMEDIATELY getting additional copies of Decay at instant speed at end of turn against Counterbalance or the option to flachback Ponder + sac SCM for Cabal Therapy for IMMEDIATE cardadvantage compared to a two mana Creature which cantrips A TURN LATER into an unknown card IF IT SURVIVES A FULL TURN?

Bob is worse than a Preordain if you opt to win before turn 4 and ONLY better IF it sticks for at least two turns.



I think the threads Grinding Station pilots have a better idea of if this is an alternative

One thing I have noticed about playing storm, ant specifically is that I often need to wait and be patient to combo off. Many keepable hands and subsequent cantrips dictate that the combo turn may not be turn 3 or 4. I personally like dark confidant in these situations, and it is in these situations that I would be glad I played a dark confidant turn 2 instead of a preordain.

Sometimes your opponents deck also does not perform the way it was laid out on paper. Dark confidant takes advantage of those stumbles over time greater than a single cantrip could.

Consider also that 2 mana investment is not followed by doing nothing. You're still cantriping or spinning top getting even more value when combined with bob.

I typically bring in DC in the mirror, and sultai decks. Sultai decks usually board out abrupt decay against us and their clock isn't always fast enough because they heavily value hand disruption after you turn 1 them game 1. 😉

Personal preference, I don't think it's nearly as black and white as your describing. But hey that's your preference.

[TokugawaEdo]

Daze is great
Without the decays how do you respond to a turn 1 chalice? Do you just wait for the echoing truth to pop up? The dazes seem great on the play but how do you fair on the draw? Do you change them out for something else?

[Lemnear]

One thing I have noticed about playing storm, ant specifically is that I often need to wait and be patient to combo off. Many keepable hands and subsequent cantrips dictate that the combo turn may not be turn 3 or 4. I personally like dark confidant in these situations, and it is in these situations that I would be glad I played a dark confidant turn 2 instead of a preordain.

So you wanna tell me that Dark confidant is better fixing draws or finding replacement for discarded combo pieces than cantrips?


Sometimes your opponents deck also does not perform the way it was laid out on paper. Dark confidant takes advantage of those stumbles over time greater than a single cantrip could.

Thats bullshit, sorry. Making an argument out of your opponent being unable to play/build their deck correctly, isn't a base for discussing cards.


Consider also that 2 mana investment is not followed by doing nothing. You're still cantriping or spinning top getting even more value when combined with bob.

You are missing the point: Your opponent isn't a goldfish, sitting around and doing nothing for turns. If you want to argue with the interaction with SDT to grind yout advantage, you might want play SB Counterbalance


I typically bring in DC in the mirror, and sultai decks. Sultai decks usually board out abrupt decay against us and their clock isn't always fast enough because they heavily value hand disruption after you turn 1 them game 1. 😉

You bring in Confidant in the combo mirror? WUT?

[CabalTherapy]

You bring in Confidant in the combo mirror? WUT?

It'd be great if we could keep up a decent atmosphere in here. It's generally a thread where people, who know each other in rl, discuss this wonderful deck in calm fashion.
But since I am on Mr. Raab's ignore list (for sure) he won't read it.
On the other hand, I am still wondering on which basis certain people appoint themselves authorities on a matter; postcount does not equal stormcount.

Ontopic: Confidant is a useful creature against BGx strategies and even if I don't play him I respect opinions to play him there. Lukas Blohon brought it against me in an ANT mirror some time ago and
he knows what he is doing (most of the time I'd say). Ok, he still lost but Confi was nice nonetheless.

[Lemnear]

But since I am on Mr. Raab's ignore list (for sure) he won't read it.

Neither of your accounts in on my ignore list ;)

[naswari]

It'd be great if we could keep up a decent atmosphere in here. It's generally a thread where people, who know each other in rl, discuss this wonderful deck in calm fashion.
But since I am on Mr. Raab's ignore list (for sure) he won't read it.
On the other hand, I am still wondering on which basis certain people appoint themselves authorities on a matter; postcount does not equal stormcount.

Ontopic: Confidant is a useful creature against BGx strategies and even if I don't play him I respect opinions to play him there. Lukas Blohon brought it against me in an ANT mirror some time ago and
he knows what he is doing (most of the time I'd say). Ok, he still lost but Confi was nice nonetheless.

Huh, interesting. Lukas Blohon must know a good plan when he sees it. :wink: I would tend to agree with all of your points here, although I must admit I've been enjoying the apparent flabbergasted indignant responses of our friend "Mr. Raab" here. :eyebrow:

Setting aside Bob, have you ever experimented with Serenity? I have to say it's a great feeling wrathing a chalice or a thorn of amethyst or 2 before you tendril someone out. lol

[naswari]

So you wanna tell me that Dark confidant is better fixing draws or finding replacement for discarded combo pieces than cantrips?



Thats bullshit, sorry. Making an argument out of your opponent being unable to play/build their deck correctly, isn't a base for discussing cards.



You are missing the point: Your opponent isn't a goldfish, sitting around and doing nothing for turns. If you want to argue with the interaction with SDT to grind yout advantage, you might want play SB Counterbalance



You bring in Confidant in the combo mirror? WUT?



First, no, I didn't say Bob was strictly better than a cantrip at fixing draws or replacing discarded combo pieces. If you didn't understand what I said, let me clear it up. I said that if for some reason or another, I wasn't able to combo early then the more permanent, lasting card advantage engine of dark confidant would make me glad I cast it early instead of say cantripping the turn I cast dark confidant.

Second, I pretty much knew you would say this. In a way you are right that it's somewhat of a fallacy to base the value of a card on your opponent's deck not functioning at 100% efficiency. But then if your opponent's deck ran at 100% efficiency 100% of the time it would also be a mute point because they would probably have won, regardless of whether you drew a Dark Confidant (being the horrible choice for storm that it so obviously is) or some other card. But that's not really how MTG works is it? You have to take advantage of the stumbles your opponents make whether they be misplays (the less common occurrence), or just not seeing the right cards when they need them.

Third, good one. Clearly what I meant by that was that I'm relying solely on the valuable interaction between Top and Bob to win me games. Got me. Next question.

4th, Yes! Dark Confidant in the mirror can be great, it's one of my favorite tools in the mirror. But I guess here again I should assume my opponent is going to operate at 100% efficiency of the deck and just kill me turn one no matter what I draw? We both know how often that happens (okay not too infrequently lol). But barring that if I can disrupt my storm opponent enough and we're left without the pieces and I have a dark confidant and he doesn't, let the value train just keep on chugging.

[bigbobbobber]

On the other hand, I am still wondering on which basis certain people appoint themselves authorities on a matter; postcount does not equal stormcount.


This line is awesome, but it's starting to look like the TES thread here...

[Lemnear]

This line is awesome, but it's starting to look like the TES thread here...

Indeed. People try justifying to still run 5 colors ;)


First, no, I didn't say Bob was strictly better than a cantrip at fixing draws or replacing discarded combo pieces. If you didn't understand what I said, let me clear it up. I said that if for some reason or another, I wasn't able to combo early then the more permanent, lasting card advantage engine of dark confidant would make me glad I cast it early instead of say cantripping the turn I cast dark confidant.

And why is that so? Its important to clearly frame the situation in which you think Confidant was the better play in the context of what you faced, because for me it reads like "Opponent had no clock, no counter, no removal, no gas".


Second, I pretty much knew you would say this. In a way you are right that it's somewhat of a fallacy to base the value of a card on your opponent's deck not functioning at 100% efficiency. But then if your opponent's deck ran at 100% efficiency 100% of the time it would also be a mute point because they would probably have won, regardless of whether you drew a Dark Confidant (being the horrible choice for storm that it so obviously is) or some other card. But that's not really how MTG works is it? You have to take advantage of the stumbles your opponents make whether they be misplays (the less common occurrence), or just not seeing the right cards when they need them.

No one says, mistakes don't happen or players don't stumble over their decks variance or such, but that reserving SB space for situations in which your opponent has no way to pressure you nor an answer to Confidant, is a decision, I can't understand


4th, Yes! Dark Confidant in the mirror can be great, it's one of my favorite tools in the mirror. But I guess here again I should assume my opponent is going to operate at 100% efficiency of the deck and just kill me turn one no matter what I draw? We both know how often that happens (okay not too infrequently lol). But barring that if I can disrupt my storm opponent enough and we're left without the pieces and I have a dark confidant and he doesn't, let the value train just keep on chugging.

It can be great given you manage to slow down your opponent long enough so you can actually profit from Confidant which requires you to shred their hand first, agree? The question to ask here is, if cards like Flusterstorm or Surgical extraction are not better/faster/reliable options to keep your opponent at bay during a game, than trying to grind them down with Confidant, given these cards bave also more application in other matchups

[meffeo]

postcount does not equal stormcount.

This made my day.

Thanks man.

[B88]

Hi guys, here my little report about a tournament i did yesterday, my list has: 2pif, 1nausea, 1petition, 14lands and the SB was: 2carpet 1trop 1toa 1etw 1truth 1hurkyl 4decay 2fluster 2massacre.

T1 - Reanimator 1-2 (g1 he topdecked exhume, g2 won with fast nauseam, g3 i mulled to 5)
T2 - Miracle 2-1 (g1 under balance lock, g2 i couldn't find the second decay, g3 won with Toa from hand with fluster backup for his fluster)
T3 - bug Pod 2-0 (easy MU)
T4 - Team America 2-1 (g1 won with nausea, g2 lost by his Rod, g3 won by natural chain)

some thoughts:
1- fluster works really well against miracle, combo and tempo decks (against Team america i won a game with it because i CT him for double fow and he play one of them and my fluster fish him and let resolves the CT)
2- i usualy play D.Confindant, but as Martin Nielsen said if you he got a removal is a problem because you trade a good card for a card that it usually dead.
3 - carpet seems fine i just use it one time and worked well, but i need more test

[Morden]

sorry for the silly question, but why everyone play a lot of high CMC spells in a deck that runs Ad Nauseam??
I know I know, nausea is a side plan and your main goal is to go by PiF. But is it possible to swap Petition/Pif with Burning Wish?
Just ad nauseam and tendrils MD, 2-3 wishes and fix a little the manabase (maybe a badland in place of swamp). 1 petition and 1 Pif in sideboard of course.

[Ronald Deuce]

Whew! Sorry I've been remiss in responding to some people in the thread. Travelling until early next week.

Dark Confidant has a serious problem that hasn't been addressed: it's an atrocious topdeck at virtually every stage of the game. I've considered running it a few times, but I find myself asking whether it's worth it over any number of other cards, and I keep finding that the answer is no. It doesn't stop us from getting locked out; it doesn't net us the card advantage of Ad Nauseam, and it doesn't let us filter cards like cantrips do; and it actually hurts us to lose life to it in a number of matchups in which drawing cards is useful.

Morden, Burning Wish absolutely has crossed my mind, especially since Worcester. Not exaggerating; I had the worst set of AdNs at that tournament that I've ever had, and among the worst I've ever seen.

With that having been said, I think it's going to require a lot of restructuring to make Burning Wish work in this deck. It requires initial red sources; it pulls us much more strongly toward Empty the Warrens, which itself necessitates an LED or further initial red sources; we can't loop it with Past in Flames; and building an effective wishboard so that we get the best use out of the card is really important, so we're going to have to totally reconfigure our sideboard to accommodate it.

Through the Worcester open, I was running 2x PiF, 1x AdN, Petition, Tendrils, and I'd only seen Ad Nauseam fail me (at most) once per three rounds, usually less. I'm not sure whether it's worth it to tinker with this balance, because it's worked well for me in the past. I think I won a game in round 2 off of AdN, as well, so it still did some good at Worcester. Again, though, playing the card three times in two rounds and totally folding every time feels really bad, even if AdN is too important to cut.

[TokugawaEdo]

sorry for the silly question, but why everyone play a lot of high CMC spells in a deck that runs Ad Nauseam??
I know I know, nausea is a side plan and your main goal is to go by PiF. But is it possible to swap Petition/Pif with Burning Wish?
Just ad nauseam and tendrils MD, 2-3 wishes and fix a little the manabase (maybe a badland in place of swamp). 1 petition and 1 Pif in sideboard of course.
My two biggest problem with wish are A) it strains your mana base more since having red is much more important. Match ups like DnT and Rug Delver, possible more, get much harder. I've always liked that without the decays, the deck feels like a 2 color deck, but the wishes push it into 3 color territory. B) You cant use wish in your PiF loops meaning you still need another tutor card. Although the AdNs would be stronger it weakens the PiF line. AdN is great and is a good way of going off early but I believe PiF is the core game plan of the deck and weakening it doesn't seem correct. This is my opinion on it and hopefully some people agree but some of the more seasoned players on here might have different takes on it.

[Morden]

You both are right, using wishes require to change a little the deck.
I'm not worried so much for the mana, I'd add only 2 BW, red mana can be paid with led or petal, it is the final piece of the combo, I don't require it to start storming (I'd keep cabal ritual, not rite of flames).
About the Pif loop you are right, the deck will become more Nauseam dependent.
Unfortunally I have very little free time now, so I cannot test so much, but I'll do as soon as possible

[naswari]

You both are right, using wishes require to change a little the deck.
I'm not worried so much for the mana, I'd add only 2 BW, red mana can be paid with led or petal, it is the final piece of the combo, I don't require it to start storming (I'd keep cabal ritual, not rite of flames).
About the Pif loop you are right, the deck will become more Nauseam dependent.
Unfortunally I have very little free time now, so I cannot test so much, but I'll do as soon as possible

Aside from tes, I've experimented with the core ant deck and 2 burning wishes, pif in the main and the sb, tendrils in the main and the sb, and no dark petitions. I then experimented with the same setup but cut 10th cantrip and sensei's divining top with 2 chrome mox.

I found that it didn't significantly improve ad naus to warrant the change enough, and as was mentioned before didn't combo well with pif. I did have some games that worked like you would think with ad naus, but the deck overall felt clunkier.

That was my experience but I didn't run it for more than 20 games.

[naswari]

Indeed. People try justifying to still run 5 colors ;)



And why is that so? Its important to clearly frame the situation in which you think Confidant was the better play in the context of what you faced, because for me it reads like "Opponent had no clock, no counter, no removal, no gas".



No one says, mistakes don't happen or players don't stumble over their decks variance or such, but that reserving SB space for situations in which your opponent has no way to pressure you nor an answer to Confidant, is a decision, I can't understand



It can be great given you manage to slow down your opponent long enough so you can actually profit from Confidant which requires you to shred their hand first, agree? The question to ask here is, if cards like Flusterstorm or Surgical extraction are not better/faster/reliable options to keep your opponent at bay during a game, than trying to grind them down with Confidant, given these cards bave also more application in other matchups

First, if I cast DC I would expect my opponent to have no removal. I wouldn't be unhappy if they countered it either despite the value it can generate. I would accept that trade. DC resolving is among the same priority for resolving as a cantrip for me. As for gas and a clock, I simply believe that dark confidant can help give you enough of both. However, you yourself can't be goldfishing either. You also have to be able to disrupt your opponent and not expect dark confidant to do all the work manipulating your deck obviously.

Second, that is not why Dark Confidant is in the board. I've beat this to death already I think.

I agree with your third statement. I have 2 flusterstorms in my board also, don't want 4. I do like surgical extraction as well and it is around the same flexibility in my sb as dc is. For sure DC may come out, but for now, I'm enjoying the games I have him in play and he's done some good work for me. As has surgical. In fact I boarded out my surgicals for serenity, the card I'm currently experimenting with and would like to hear more opinions on.

Kind of tired of talking about dark confidant to be honest I'm just surprised someone would seem to be so vehemently against the idea of running him in storm.

[Idionym]

Hello everyone.

I'm just about to buy ANT on MTGO and I have a couple of questions before I buy the deck.

I've been looking over lists and I think I'm going to go with Caleb Scherer's most recent list, as he is very experienced with storm and I assume he knows what he's doing. The list is pretty stock so if I need to change anything it'd just be the sideboard.

My question is: what do I sideboard for what matchups? Here's the sideboard for reference:

1 Bayou
3 Chrome Mox
1 Tropical Island
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Echoing Truth
2 City of Solitude
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Tendrils of Agony

Some seem pretty obvious. For example, I assume the moxs are for matchups where you need speed. Decays for miracles. Solitude for blue matchups with counters. Other than that, though, I'm not sure when to put in the lands (unless you're just putting them in for abrupt decay), or the echoing truth, or the extra storm cards.

Help on sideboarding in general would be appreciated. I'm not married to this list, obviously, so if anyone would be willing to help me out with a sideboard/list and a general sideboarding guide that'd be awesome!

Thanks!

[Ronald Deuce]

First, if I cast DC I would expect my opponent to have no removal. I wouldn't be unhappy if they countered it either despite the value it can generate. I would accept that trade. DC resolving is among the same priority for resolving as a cantrip for me. As for gas and a clock, I simply believe that dark confidant can help give you enough of both. However, you yourself can't be goldfishing either. You also have to be able to disrupt your opponent and not expect dark confidant to do all the work manipulating your deck obviously . . . .
Kind of tired of talking about dark confidant to be honest I'm just surprised someone would seem to be so vehemently against the idea of running him in storm.

Not to flog a dead horse, but I still think Confidant is counterproductive. Don't get me wrong; I like trying out new sideboard tech, especially for matchups in which we don't have established answers, but I feel like there are a number of problems with Confidant that make it worse than running cantrips/AdN/other things. Lemnear's right that there's a problem with the idea that we can run out a creature and expect it not to get sniped before it nets us cards, but there's a bigger underlying problem: sure, there's a chance your opponent will let the Confidant stick for enough turns to net you cards, but there's at least as big a chance that the game will be decided too quickly for Confidant to matter. They don't need to Plow your Dark Confidant if their Monastery Mentor can hulk out or their Vendilion Clique can yank your business. The added problem, which I mentioned before, is that pretty much any card in the deck except redundant lands is a better card to draw. We're not trying to spend a turn making a dude; we're trying to spend a turn either filtering cards for what we need to go off or just going off.

Quick thing I feel like I should mention, then I'll leave it alone: if you resolve a cantrip (or, for that matter, an Ad Nauseam), it can give you everything you need to win. Confidant doesn't do that.

Hope I'm not piling on, and again, I'm eager to hear ideas that may seem off the wall. I just think Confidant looks better than it is because it's got a similar effect to Ad Nauseam, but it lacks the explosivity or the speed.

[Sloshthedark]

You don't see the advantage of IMMEDIATELY getting additional copies of Decay at instant speed at end of turn against Counterbalance or the option to flachback Ponder + sac SCM for Cabal Therapy for IMMEDIATE cardadvantage compared to a two mana Creature which cantrips A TURN LATER into an unknown card IF IT SURVIVES A FULL TURN?

Bob is worse than a Preordain if you opt to win before turn 4 and ONLY better IF it sticks for at least two turns.

I think the threads Grinding Station pilots have a better idea of if this is an alternative

Snapcaster isn't really impressive as there aren't many instants you want to flashback +is mana-hungry, rarely does profitable things in your comboturn outside of sacing to Therapy so a AD is the best you can hope for postboard... and it's U btw. ... cool trick though...


Huh, interesting. Lukas Blohon must know a good plan when he sees it. :wink: I would tend to agree with all of your points here, although I must admit I've been enjoying the apparent flabbergasted indignant responses of our friend "Mr. Raab" here. :eyebrow:

Setting aside Bob, have you ever experimented with Serenity? I have to say it's a great feeling wrathing a chalice or a thorn of amethyst or 2 before you tendril someone out. lol

Blohon doesn't have nickname "God" for nothing =D... I don't really like Confidant in the mirrormatch, it's decent if you have nothing else for it... the card is destilled greatness is fun (who'd say flipping cards is so much fun) and can quickly run away with games, but feels better than is... in the mirrormatch you have to play it early+survive early... Italians used to play it as a Miracles plan in the end of 2015, which is very risky imo it works best in G2 against wide range of decks if you build your SB plan around it... which then suffers from your reliance on Confidant in awkward G3 plan, generally the problem of creatures in Storm... I think at 2 it's not even a plan it's inconsistent and cute

if you do...

Serenity - haven't really played it, I haven't really been around Storm during Mystical tutor, I don't think it's worth 3 cards and definitely not worth a splash



sorry for the silly question, but why everyone play a lot of high CMC spells in a deck that runs Ad Nauseam??
I know I know, nausea is a side plan and your main goal is to go by PiF. But is it possible to swap Petition/Pif with Burning Wish?
Just ad nauseam and tendrils MD, 2-3 wishes and fix a little the manabase (maybe a badland in place of swamp). 1 petition and 1 Pif in sideboard of course.

you answered it yourself - you do not cast AN unless you have to... for more BW please follow here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23361-Deck-T-E-S-The-EPIC-Storm)
the R requirement along preferably not casting AN at is enough to not play it, I als have my reservations about DP as the card is bad imo but whatever....


Hello everyone.

I'm just about to buy ANT on MTGO and I have a couple of questions before I buy the deck.

I've been looking over lists and I think I'm going to go with Caleb Scherer's most recent list, as he is very experienced with storm and I assume he knows what he's doing. The list is pretty stock so if I need to change anything it'd just be the sideboard.

My question is: what do I sideboard for what matchups?

You should really ask him (FB I guess?)

Btw. doesn't he do Modo too? - what's his nick?

[ScottW]

Hello everyone.

I'm just about to buy ANT on MTGO and I have a couple of questions before I buy the deck.

I've been looking over lists and I think I'm going to go with Caleb Scherer's most recent list, as he is very experienced with storm and I assume he knows what he's doing. The list is pretty stock so if I need to change anything it'd just be the sideboard.

Seems pretty funny to ask this question here if you've read back a number of pages. I'd consider that before buying your deck. Jonathan Alexander proposed a starting list a few pages back with Dark Petition, etc.

[Idionym]

You should really ask him (FB I guess?)

Btw. doesn't he do Modo too? - what's his nick?

I could probably find his MTGO nick, but I kinda doubt that he'd just respond to some random player and help him.

[Ronald Deuce]

Help on sideboarding in general would be appreciated. I'm not married to this list, obviously, so if anyone would be willing to help me out with a sideboard/list and a general sideboarding guide that'd be awesome! Thanks!

I'm not a Pro, but here are the basics:

—You're going to need 15 (maybe 16) lands in your 75. Bring in the sideboard land(s) against Miracles (to use green cards like Abrupt Decay, City of Solitude, or Krosan Grip) and against people who either tax our spells heavily or pull shenanigans on our lands (Chalice.dec, D&T, Maverick, Eldrazi, etc.?).
—Sensei's Divining Top and green cards like Xantid Swarm and Carpet of Flowers are topics of debate, but they have various uses against a few control matchups.
—Other control cards like Flusterstorm appear to be primarily for Miracles, but I don't have the experience to comment further.
—Empty is for matchups in which a horde can race the opponent a reasonable portion of the time (non-Grixis Delvers, D&T, Mav). Really bad against other combo decks. Multi-Tendrils is mostly for Miracles and Burn.
—Removal like Echoing Truth, Chain of Vapor, Disfigure, Hurkyl's Recall, and Massacre is for hate-permanents (Chalice of the Void, Deathrite Shaman, Leyline of Sanctity, Trinisphere, Thorn of Amethyst, Ethersworn Canonist, Thalia, Gaddock Teeg, Eidolon of the Great Revel), but not usually for beaters because they'll clock us too quickly for it to matter. Note that each of these choices has other applications that are worth understanding (e.g., Chain of Vapor plus mana-artifacts equals free storm count but clashes with Rain of Filth; Massacre's great against Elves, Goblins, and fast-tokens decks; Hurkyl's is great against MUD).
—Chrome Mox is for speed, though I don't think it's a good idea to run more than one or two in a deck that's already got eight artifacts. Daze, added discards, and cards like Culling Scales have been discussed recently, but I haven't tested them and I don't know enough to give input on them.

I'm sure I've missed things or left them out. By all means, everyone, add further info if it's helpful!

[Lemnear]

I'm not a Pro, but here are the basics:

—You're going to need 15 (maybe 16) lands in your 75. Bring in the sideboard land(s) against Miracles (to use green cards like Abrupt Decay, City of Solitude, or Krosan Grip) and against people who either tax our spells heavily or pull shenanigans on our lands (Chalice.dec, D&T, Maverick, Eldrazi, etc.?).

There a successful lists with 14 lands only. Its a matter of the reamining 75 how many one needs. With 3cc SB cards and with the grinding station layout, more lands are required. With several Preordains and without stuff like DP, additional PIF/ToA and the like, 14 lands are fine


—Other control cards like Flusterstorm appear to be primarily for Miracles, but I don't have the experience to comment further.

Its primary to fight other, faster combo decks like Belcher or the Mirror

[Togores]

Today won a big legacy event in spain (111 players) ended up winning YUHU!

Same list as the GP -1 krossan +1 city of solitude.

Bye? My opp didnt apeared
Infect 2-0
Grixis delver 2-1
Infect 2-0
Lands 2-0
Draw
Draw
Top 8
Lands 2-0
Taxes 2-1
Eldrazi 2-1
G1 I discard his hate. He makes cavern go. I go of. He drew his 1off simian so he could play wraping waill to my combo.
G2 I just win
G3 he mulls to 4
T1 chalice on 0
T2 thorn
T3 I decay the thorn and win on my t4 even having 3 mana stones in hand.


Yuhu
Deck ran smooth and made some cool plays!

[TokugawaEdo]

Same list as the GP -1 krossan +1 city of solitude.
How did you like the city over the grip? Did you resolve it that often?

[Togores]

I only sb it vs grixis delver over the random preprdain I usualy have g2.

Wanted to test it but never drew it.

Also never faced other mathups where it was needed >.<

[cheerios]

Hi storm brothers

I made top 4 in a 6 round tourney using the 2 pif and 1 top build.

rd 1 Miracles: 2-0
rd 2 Elves: 2-1
rd 3 UB Omnitell: 1-2
rd 4 Infect: 2-1
rd 5 Grixis Delver: 2-1
rd 6 Dark Maverick: ID

quarters Miracles: 2-1
g1: died to CB Top lock with mentor
g2: Double tendrilsed him. The first tendrils had him down to 2, I could have stormed for 10, but opted not to cause he can force the last ritual which will not allow me to cast my lethal tendrils. Top decked a tendrils and flusterstormed his counter for it after a few turns.
g3: Double tendrils again. Almost same scenario as g2, but I had around 4 storm for the 2nd tendrils rendering most of his counterspells useless.

semis: Aggro Loam: 0-2
g1: chalice on 1 plus dark confidant killed me.
g2: my tokens got tabernacled.

My sb is
2 flusterstorn
4 abrupt decay
1 krosan grip
1 cabal therapy
1 Karakas
2 tendrils
1 empty the warrens
2 echoing truth
1 top

I tried Karakas here for the lulz just in case I face reanimator or omniscience. I got to use it against omniscience but my opponent show and telled into omniscience putting emrakul into play, so Karakas was useless. I used it against elves too, but the card had only minimal impact in the match up. I might just switch it for a surgical or some random D&T hate. Aggro loam really feels like a super bad matchup.

Let's keep making it rain!

Cheers

[Ronald Deuce]

I tried Karakas here for the lulz just in case I face reanimator or omniscience. I got to use it against omniscience but my opponent show and telled into omniscience putting emrakul into play, so Karakas was useless. I used it against elves too, but the card had only minimal impact in the match up. I might just switch it for a surgical or some random D&T hate. Aggro loam really feels like a super bad matchup.

Let's keep making it rain!

Hi, Cheerios!

Thanks a lot for the tournament report! I have a quick question about your build: how many lands and Preordains/Tops were you running in the maindeck? Any additional accelerants on top of Dark Rit and Cab Rit?

Regarding Karakas, when you said you used it against Elves, were you referring to their lock creatures like Gaddock and Ruric Thar, or something else?

I think Aggro Loam was the deck I faced in round 2 at Worcester (Punishing Fire and Chalice and Tarmo, oh my!). It was a tough matchup that I only won by the skin of my teeth. Damnable Chalices are as suffocating as September in Texas.

One thing that appeared to work in my favor, though, was that the deck doesn't present as fast a clock as Eldrazi does, and it's possible for them to whiff on finding "closers." Game 1 I think I just comboed really quickly (didn't know what to 'board for round 2 because I thought he was on Mav); game 2 he landed a Confidant, a Tarmo, and something else (Deathrite?) and swung for the fences; in game 3, I Emptied into Maelstrom Pulse and he started Loaming hard and landed Chalices on 0 and 1, but he couldn't find a closer in spite of a large number of Barren Moor recursions. He milled out Gaddock at one point, and that might be the thing that ended up saving me. I eventually found a basic land and a Decay, and those pulled me through, but it was pretty close. I'm starting to think Daze might be the go-to card for dealing with Chalices.

Anybody faced that Moggcatcher monstrosity that's been making the rounds? I'm not too enthusiastic about the matchup.

Lemnear, thanks for the tip re: Flusterstorms! Do you run the card in your 'board? How essential a role does it play?

I'm hoping to start testing Daze and/or Culling Scales this weekend. I'm still working on my sideboard, and I've got some questions I'll try to post in the next day or so.

Nevilshute, thanks for the offer re: discussing Miracles! I'm definitely interested in your advice. I'll send you a message soon, but the past fortnight's been a (super-fun) rollercoaster. Finally back at home, so I'll get to it.

[cheerios]

Hi, Cheerios!

Thanks a lot for the tournament report! I have a quick question about your build: how many lands and Preordains/Tops were you running in the maindeck? Any additional accelerants on top of Dark Rit and Cab Rit?

Regarding Karakas, when you said you used it against Elves, were you referring to their lock creatures like Gaddock and Ruric Thar, or something else?

I think Aggro Loam was the deck I faced in round 2 at Worcester (Punishing Fire and Chalice and Tarmo, oh my!). It was a tough matchup that I only won by the skin of my teeth. Damnable Chalices are as suffocating as September in Texas.
.

I was playing Rodrigo's MD list with 1 Top, 1 Preordain, and 9 rituals.

Regarding Karakas, I played it just in case they have Teeg or Ruric, but I think those aren't really played much anymore. So it might not be worth boarding in. I think it's better to just hope and pray to get a fast kill against chalice decks, rather than answer all their hate.

Cheers

[Togores]

Here is the top 8, 4 and finals of this weekend event I won.

Enjoy!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl5j7HLQ-Ck

[Togores]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nvKdGydUQU

[Togores]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGX5nx2875M

[Morden]

Thanks Rodrigo, your list is very inspiring and also your gameplay.
two fast questions:
1) do you feel safe with only one tendrils mainboard?
2) no petition, it's good, i like to have few high cmc cards in a deck that runs ad nauseam. But why not 1 petition/1 pif over 2 pif?

[Lemnear]

Whoa, so many misplays with Rishadan Port in play!

[Togores]

Thanks Rodrigo, your list is very inspiring and also your gameplay.
two fast questions:
1) do you feel safe with only one tendrils mainboard?
2) no petition, it's good, i like to have few high cmc cards in a deck that runs ad nauseam. But why not 1 petition/1 pif over 2 pif?

1) Yeah, g1 you usualy only need one Tendrills.
2) I dont like petition, I have been asked 10 thousand times (I should put it in my sig XD). The card is bad vs graveyard hate, bad vs soft counters and hard counters, makes you depend more from cabal ritual (and more from the graveyard) and its bad with LED. Also its a cmc5 wich makes you nauseam a bit worser (also better in other way).


Whoa, so many misplays with Rishadan Port in play!

I think there was only one turn where he didnt tapped where he wanted to go for the combo. And another turn he went to tap me after draw (dont know why).

[Lemnear]

I think there was only one turn where he didnt tapped where he wanted to go for the combo. And another turn he went to tap me after draw (dont know why).

He missed all the game announcing the Port from shat it lokked like, but imo more disturbingly, he didnt bother to tap your Island for turns to cut you off from your Cantrips. Dare I ask, what he named with the Pithing Needle?

[Togores]

Almost every brainstorm I casted was in response to his port and he named polluted delta (Was a better sb card as pubishing or maze)

[Lemnear]

Almost every brainstorm I casted was in response to his port and he named polluted delta (Was a better sb card as pubishing or maze)

I refer to situations like the one at 3:16min, 7:00min (what was that? Did YOU remind him of Port?), 8:37min (Post-drawstep Port). At least no Needle @ LED lol

[Togores]

I refer to situations like the one at 3:16min, 7:00min (what was that? Did YOU remind him of Port?), 8:37min (Post-drawstep Port). At least no Needle @ LED lol

3:16 he wanted to go for the combo instead of porting. There was a chat about, me being able to haveanother mana + combo, or just not having combo. He decided to try to win. (here you take a decision, it might be right or wrong, but its taken by himself)

7:00 he wanted to port, and said like tap your land, I asked him wich and he said anyone, so I asked him again to make a target.

8:37 He wanted to do post draw step, I dont uderstand why but he had that in mind all the time >.< (this if for me the only weird one)

[Morden]

2) I dont like petition, I have been asked 10 thousand times (I should put it in my sig XD). The card is bad vs graveyard hate, bad vs soft counters and hard counters, makes you depend more from cabal ritual (and more from the graveyard) and its bad with LED. Also its a cmc5 wich makes you nauseam a bit worser (also better in other way).

yeah, sorry I could imagine how many times you answered this question, I was searching back into the thread but the search function here is very bad :\ . Great idea a link in your signature with "Rodrigo answering FAQ" :D!

[Togores]

yeah, sorry I could imagine how many times you answered this question, I was searching back into the thread but the search function here is very bad :\ . Great idea a link in your signature with "Rodrigo answering FAQ" :D!


Was not bad meaning from me. Just usualy I get this question a lot XD

[Ronald Deuce]

I'm a proponent of Dark Petition, but I'll concede that (next to Preordain) it's likely the worst card in the deck—not a bad card, but worse than our Great Cards. I run Petition because I really don't like rocking up to a tournament with only four tutors, especially given that they can get Extracted or Surgeried because they're quads. Several pages back there was a debate over Grim Tutor versus Dark Petition, and though I can see the case for Grim, I really don't like it because it's rather inefficient. (N.B.: if you're not running Ad Nauseam and/or you're running Empty in your maindeck, Grim gets better, but I think Petition works better in AdN/Emty-less mainboards.)

I think Togores's business-light plan is a bit too ballsy for me, but I've been considering cutting back on high-costed cards after Worcester. Petition would be the first to go.

Has anybody been running Personal Tutor lately? I didn't get the chance to test it much, but I'm starting to look at it again as a low-cost alternative to Petition. I've also been considering Impulse and Peer through Depths, perhaps as substitutes for Preordain. Anyone tried those out lately/ever?

[Togores]

Personal tutor and all the other cards are really bad.
Personal is -1 card and is a sorvery that only searches sorcerys. I rather play petition. And while you mention non petition decks being bad vs surgical (wich I think is a cornercase, more latter). Personal is much worse.
Peers not finding land, or led is also not good. Also costs to much mana and they will daze it every day (still better than lim duls, wich is also a -1). And impulse is ok. But paying 2 mana to see 1 more card than preordain or top while both of this cards are much more mana eficient is the worst. All t1 where you dont cast a spell are a waste. And with impulse much more. You really dont have to waste time in testing this cards :D


Also I have played for years 4 tutors only and when you squeeze the most out of your cantrips you never have a problem finding them. You play a total of 7+1 bussines (+1 being toa) and thats more than enought.

Also if you mention the problem vs surgical. How big are the options of getting into a scenatio where they discard your tutor, surgical it and you find your 1off petition in time wile not beein really lucky? Also you say you have trouble finding a 4x infernal so a 1x should be like a hell of a try.

On grim, while its better with emtpy and also g2 to search anti hate cards. I never liked the card. Not for the price but just because its WHITE BORDERED, and that sucks :D. And also the double lifeloss with pif hurts a lot. And there are to many games we end up winning at 3-4 life vs a DRS.

I cant blame anyone for running more tutors. Its fine, but I like to be able to play long games and I almost never need them. There are cornercase scenarios. But playing a card because its good in 1/10 (number totally radom) games dosnt seem right to me. I want to do every game the same and in the more straightforward way. We are a combo deck. So just rinse and repeat.

[David L Byer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGX5nx2875M

This brought a tear to my eyes. So beautiful watching a Storm player play through hate. Just beautiful.

[Ronald Deuce]

Personal tutor and all the other cards are really bad. . . .

Thanks a lot for the input!

I agree that mathematically we're getting less of an advantage with Impulse and Peer. The two things that attracted me to them were that a) they don't get Chaliced straight out of the gate and b) they're instants, but I haven't playtested them in large part for the reasons you mentioned.

I had some trouble with Personal Tutor because we need another cantrip to actually make the card we've tutored "live," and that's why I'm not running Personal right now, either. Still interested to hear if there are conflicting opinions.


Also I have played for years 4 tutors only and when you squeeze the most out of your cantrips you never have a problem finding them. You play a total of 7+1 bussines (+1 being toa) and thats more than enought.

Also if you mention the problem vs surgical. How big are the options of getting into a scenatio where they discard your tutor, surgical it and you find your 1off petition in time wile not beein really lucky? Also you say you have trouble finding a 4x infernal so a 1x should be like a hell of a try.

You're right; I phrased it a bit too strongly re: Surgical. Thanks for keeping me honest.

I've had a lot of trouble with cantrips, though—not because I don't know what I'm doing (though I'm sure I could improve), but because I keep finding them at inopportune times when I'm looking for something to close the game. Often, this happens when I've cast a Ponder or Brainstorm-fetch, and all I find are more cantrips, even after shuffling.

Are you running singletons Preordain and Top? I've been trying and trying to find something to fill one of those slots with more "bang for our buck," but I haven't settled on anything yet. I'm reeeeaaaally fishing here, but what about Scroll Rack?


On grim, while its better with emtpy and also g2 to search anti hate cards. I never liked the card. Not for the price but just because its WHITE BORDERED, and that sucks :D. And also the double lifeloss with pif hurts a lot. And there are to many games we end up winning at 3-4 life vs a DRS.

Agreed on all counts. I really don't like using tutors to find anything but business or mana because, even if we're taking out a hatebear or a Flusterstorm or something, we're often throwing away a turn. The same point was made in the TES thread: tutoring (or wishing) for anti-hate needs to give us a blowout, or it isn't worth the mana. Also (I've said it before, but I think it's worth repeating for readers) hitting Grim off of AdN is worse than hitting anything else in the deck except a second copy of PiF. There's also the price D:


I cant blame anyone for running more tutors. Its fine, but I like to be able to play long games and I almost never need them. There are cornercase scenarios. But playing a card because its good in 1/10 (number totally radom) games dosnt seem right to me. I want to do every game the same and in the more straightforward way.

That's a good point regarding long games. I guess I've always been a "jam it" kind of guy, even in games that go past turn seven, and oftentimes (every 3-4 rounds?) I find that having a tutor that doesn't require LED to go Demonic is a useful thing, especially if I've got an Infernal in hand as well (this is rarer than having no tutors, like you said, but it happens enough to mention). I prefer a fifth tutor over a second Tendrils in my maindeck, but I usually side out Petition against counter-heavy decks and burn. It's really good against non-blue decks.

I've had a little trouble finding business over time, and it was really bad at Worcester for me (that round when I found 1x Tendrils and nothing else). I'll admit that I need to practice more, but I keep feeling like I find no tutors/PiF/Tendrils more often than I find multiples.

I'm not trying to challenge your credentials (which are really impressive), but have you playtested Petition at all, or did you just reject the card when you first saw it? I'd be interested to hear how/why you thought it made the deck worse if you've tried it out in tournaments, not just the way it looks like it would work, if that makes sense. Again, I'm not trying to be snide or to call you out; I like hearing everyone's opinions, even if they're gut reactions. I totally understand if you looked at the card and said "nah" right away.

Incidentally, I just realized I'm really verbose in my posts. If I'm being annoying and/or an idiot, by all means let me know.

I appreciate your input a lot! Keep crushing it.

[Togores]

1) personal tutor needint another cantrip is not so cool. Best card here is top. But if we are cantrip dependant why not just play doomsday (wich I have been playing at the last local events)? Also personal is not mistical. I remeber that when mistical was a card my sb was amazing. Just a lot of 1 off instant a sorcerys to fight every situation with 3 sdt in the deck. Also t1 top, t2 mistical into nauseam with ritual or led was like the best. But personal not being able to tutor nauseam is quite bad.

2a) thats the problem with cantrip deck, they give you lot of ways to decide your future but also happens a lot that you just cantrip into cantrip and thats a waste of time and mana. But thats also the way to compresa your deck with just good cards and not situational cards.

2b) I run a 1-1 split of top and preordain. I like 2 tops, but they are slow and this split is just there because from sideboarding reasons I sometimes like to taje out one or the other depending on the matchup. Also my sb is build like perfectly with exact bad cards that come out vs good cards in every matchup. Thats also the reason I need lot of time everytime I change my deck because every card I change makes me change all my sb plans and thats a work of lots of time to make everything fix perfectly.

3) I tested the grim fron time to time. Was good finding some cards. Also was good finding decay for balance. But never really liked it. Has almost the same problem as petition. It dosnt work really well with Led or multiple leds.

4a) Sometimes Its not your day and you cantrip a lot and never find a card. Thats just variance and also has happen to me a lot of times. Then other days you just play an event and kill everyone t1 like there is no tomorrow. Just keep playing.

4b) Im not the kind of slam it guy. I play really safe and never want to loose a game I could win if I wait. Just look up the finale of the gp where me waiting out was the key to this game. Even gor him to discard a counter just by not giving him a target before.

4c) I was really excites when pettition came out. Tested it when it was spoiler. Then in 1x and 2x. I just got floodes in bussines. Cryed everytime I had ritual + led + petition, cryed everytime my opp started with shaman (shaman hurts a lot, but with petition much more) and cryed everytime I drew petition and no cabal ritual (its the card you want) and that got worser facing a shaman. I ended up sidding it a lot. Its a good card to go fast. But it being your plan and just get desteroyed by rip. Wich is a fine card but if I would have a preordain to find an infernal instead of that 5cmc tutor. Eveything would be better.

4d) your fine at speaking. Im not good at english and sometime say thing in a manner it could seems cocky or so, but Im just trying to explain myself as good as possible.

[Morden]

Was not bad meaning from me. Just usualy I get this question a lot XD

ahahahah I saw your videos on twitch, it's easier to handle the storm count rather than the dark petition questions ahahahahaha

[Lemnear]

Also I have played for years 4 tutors only and when you squeeze the most out of your cantrips you never have a problem finding them. You play a total of 7+1 bussines (+1 being toa) and thats more than enought.

To me it appears, that most people who struggle to find one of the ITs in a reasonable time, don't use their cantrips to find that particular card, but settle for DR/CR/LED in the first turns instead.

From a mathematical POV, its nonsense to cantrip for one of the 12 manaaccelerators, if you NEED to find a 4-off to combo. Over time, your hand will fill with mana naturally due to the decks mana/business distribution

[Fatal]

Yea but there are also matchups where you don't want business on hand on draw. It's sad loosing to single turn 1 discard. Heavy cantrip hands are best then.

[Morden]

Yea but there are also matchups where you don't want business on hand on draw. It's sad loosing to single turn 1 discard. Heavy cantrip hands are best then.

you're right, but against discard decks just keep the tutor/finisher floating on the top of your library thanks to sensei/ponder, and draw it when you are ready to go.

Can anyone explain me the meaning of 2 pif maindeck? I don't want to naturally draw it (unless I have a lot of rituals and the tutor), it's a card that usually I tutor for. Don't you think Empty deserves a place in the main instead of 1 pif?
like 1 nauseam, 1 tendrils, 1 pif, 1 empty. Also if pif is countered, you can cast if from the graveyard.......

[Lemnear]

you're right, but against discard decks just keep the tutor/finisher floating on the top of your library thanks to sensei/ponder, and draw it when you are ready to go.

Can anyone explain me the meaning of 2 pif maindeck? I don't want to naturally draw it (unless I have a lot of rituals and the tutor), it's a card that usually I tutor for. Don't you think Empty deserves a place in the main instead of 1 pif?
like 1 nauseam, 1 tendrils, 1 pif, 1 empty. Also if pif is countered, you can cast if from the graveyard.......

You partly answered your own question. Unlike Dark Petition, PIF is "counter-proof" and creates cardadvantage midgame if you can flashback some discard, cantrips and stuff and it remains in the yard to combo off later. You can also just chain cantrips from your graveyard to grab the ToA/IT with just Rituals and PIF in hand

[Ronald Deuce]

you're right, but against discard decks just keep the tutor/finisher floating on the top of your library thanks to sensei/ponder, and draw it when you are ready to go.

Can anyone explain me the meaning of 2 pif maindeck? I don't want to naturally draw it (unless I have a lot of rituals and the tutor), it's a card that usually I tutor for. Don't you think Empty deserves a place in the main instead of 1 pif?
like 1 nauseam, 1 tendrils, 1 pif, 1 empty. Also if pif is countered, you can cast if from the graveyard.......

For a long time I underestimated the power of PiF-plus-cantrips. It's more hit-or-miss than a second Petition, but it finds business far more often than it fizzles. Also, if you draw into a hand of PiF, Tutor, and mana, you can weather at least one piece of countermagic, sometimes more if you've also got LED. Playing Tutor, breaking LED, and discarding Past in Flames often forks the opponent by presenting them with two "must-counter" cards at the same time. If they counter the Tutor, you just flashback PiF, mana, and the Tutor; if they don't counter the Tutor, often you'll have enough mana to tutor a discard spell to knock out their countermagic before flashing back PiF, mana, and Tutor for Tendrils.

I don't like Empty in the maindeck. It makes the deck a bit faster but noticeably less consistent, and tutoring for Ad Nauseam is usually a better choice, even if it costs 1 more. I used to use Empty a lot more than I do now; these days, I only bring it in against decks that don't run many threats and few (if any) boardwipes, like Eldrazi, Mav/D&T, and occasionally Delvers. It's also a much more vulnerable win-condition than Tendrils is.

Played back-to-back 3-rounders yesterday, going 3-0 and 1-2. Played Maverick, Show and Tell, and Shardless, then Dredge, Shardless, and Show and Tell. Lost to Shardless and S&T in the second tournament. Not a whole lot to report, but I tried out Chrome Mox in the main again, and it worked ok. Preferred it to a second Preordain, but also had to cast it once or twice with no imprint. I also brought in two Dazes in the sideboard, but they didn't show against Mav and my opponents built up mana to pay it off in the matches against Shardless and S&T. Perhaps not ideal matches to use it, but I wanted to get a feel for the thing, and I haven't really 'boarded much (if anything) against S&T and Shardless in some time.

[EDIT: Hymn to Tourach is really yucky. I got shredded by it in two games against Shardless. Another reason 2-PiF is my preferred build is that it's great against discard-heavy decks.]

[EDIT again: Ad Nauseam worked great in a game or two, but it came really close to failing for me in game 2 against Dredge. I went down to 3, finding rituals, Past in Flames, and LED, but I needed another initial mana source or LED to make red mana to flashback a tutor from my 'yard. Had to pass at three life on turn 1. It didn't end up being a problem because I had the business for the following turn, but if my opponent had gotten a luckier dredge or had been on Burn or Delver or something, things would've gone poorly.]

Fingers crossed we can get more double-tourneys at the Local in the future, or maybe x-proxy Vintage! (P9, Imperial Seal, and [maybe] Library notwithstanding, I've almost put together TPS! I'd love to talk strategy via PM if anyone's interested.)

[taconaut]

I played the local Legacy FNM last week to 3-0, defeating Aggro Loam (despite an actually awful punt in G1 and his maindeck teegs/chalices), Shardless BUG, and Cloudpost.

@Morden, I don't do two Past in Flames in the main, but I have another in the board, and it really does help in matchups where the opponent has countermagic and we need to be more threat-dense; in one of my games against Shardless, I was able to win with Past in Flames through a Deathrite Shaman because I didn't have to tutor for the Past in Flames, and instead naturally drew it, freeing up the tutors I had for other business. Empty, by contrast, is good in very specific scenarios, but I think they're narrower than the natural-drawn Past in Flames scenarios, and I think most of the times that I'd want an Empty, especially game one, I'd sooner just Ad Nauseam (the main exception being six mana available versus seven on turn one or two).

I also like Dark Petition for many of the reasons mentioned by others, especially the increase in tutor density. I agree that it's not always perfect (sometimes it's too expensive up front, rarely we can miss on spell mastery, can't keep going from five life on an ad nauseam), but overall I have found that it's worth the slot. I play it and a Chrome Mox over a second preordain and top; I don't like the Preordain but do want a 13th cantrip, and top is awesome but feels slow sometimes (plus there's a ton of Eldrazi where I play; if there were more miracles or something maybe I'd switch back).

Also, everyone here already knows this, but the extra Tendrils in the board are great; it's surprising how few people expect you to have an extra one or two post-board. I was able to beat Cloudpost when he was floating a Flusterstorm on top with SDT because he saved it for my Tendrils rather than attacking one of my tutors. I cast the ToA, he flipped to Fluster because he'd die if he didn't, and then I tutored for the second ToA and got him, which he didn't expect.

Edit: I also have that "cantrip into more cantrips and lands" experience from time to time, but I just try to remind myself that most of the time, we get a good mix, and that Ponder finds the LED or Tutor you need to go off, and sometimes you Brainstorm your hand of Land, Ponder, Ponder, Preordain, Dark Ritual into LED, IT, Ponder, Dark Ritual, Land, and then fetch into the Ponder finding another Dark Ritual and just ranch them. It's harder to notice the times the Ponders get you that clutch business in a pinch because it just feels like "working as intended" rather than full of despair, but I think they tend to wash out in our favor. Part of what brought it home for me was trying to brew a twelve tutor list with a ton of rituals when DP came out, thinking "oh I'll just always tutor for what I need," but that deck was clunky as hell because you'd get hands with all tutors and no rituals or all rituals and no tutors, and just no way to fix it if you didn't have one of the brainstorms, not to mention managing to get the right number of lands in play.

[Morden]

thanks guys for the suggestions, I will test over and over!

[Burnplayer]

Hi. I'm Manuel Gomez. I post few times in the source. In my point of view the best list is with 2 past in flames and without dark petition in main deck. The two best performances (Kay Sawatari top4 tokio and togores top1 in prague) played this configuration.

In my last big tournament my performance was 11/4 with the Caleb decklist (2 petition main) I won 4 Eldrazis but I lost vs 2 grixis delver, 1 lands and one mirror in the final round. Petition is good to go fast, but not optimal vs the blue tiers.

[Exodus]

Hi, I am currently playing Rodrigo's list but, while I am now very confident vs Miracles with this set up, I really suffer Grixis Delver to the point of literally not knowing how the hell I can win this match up without an incredible starting hand.

They play so many cantrips that our attempt to destroy their hand are ridicolus, their creatures put so much pressure with such low mana investment required and their mana denial is incredible difficult to deal with without drawing multiple lands. Let alone when they have cabal therapy and a creature on board, in which case only flusterstorm can save the game basically. What is the right gameplan? Obviously, Ad Nasueam is not that good in this match up, but Pif is also sub optimal considering their side and drs.

I tried a single Carpet of Flower in side but the game vs Grixis are too fast to find it consistently and I am thinking of putting a second copy in replacement of the third Tendrils

Currently my side is +1 Carpet Flower +2 Flusterstorm +1 Empty the Warrens -1 Rain of Filth -1 Sensei -1 Ponder - 1 Cabal Ritual

[Sloshthedark]

I tried a single Carpet of Flower in side but the game vs Grixis are too fast to find it consistently and I am thinking of putting a second copy in replacement of the third Tendrils

Currently my side is +1 Carpet Flower +2 Flusterstorm +1 Empty the Warrens -1 Rain of Filth -1 Sensei -1 Ponder - 1 Cabal Ritual

while I'm not playing this particular list and my area isn't dense on the MU... but Carpet of Flowers is notoriously weak against DRS+Daze, Flusterstorm - what does it do really? it's passive and rather ineffective vs. CT which I suppose you're aiming at... I prefer just few AD if I'm not mistaken Rodrigo used to do similar thing ... I also keep 2 ToA, SDT and EtW but that's a different story

[Exodus]

while I'm not playing this particular list and my area isn't dense on the MU... but Carpet of Flowers is notoriously weak against DRS+Daze, Flusterstorm - what does it do really? it's passive and rather ineffective vs. CT which I suppose you're aiming at... I prefer just few AD if I'm not mistaken Rodrigo used to do similar thing ... I also keep 2 ToA, SDT and EtW but that's a different story

Can you please share your side? How many AD do you exactly side in? Thank you in advice (anyway do you have 2 ToA main or do you add 1 ToA from side?)

Anyway yes, I side in Flusterstorm mainly to deal with CT but also because I find it good in general in this match up since it evades daze/pierce. Why do you find it bad in this match up? I mean it still our only answer to Probe+Cabal besides Brainstorm.
Carpet comes in as a simply upgrade of Rain which is imo really bad in this match up considering his land denial and his pressure. I think it's always been considered good vs grixis and I've seen many people using it in this match up. I don't agree with you on this point.
I don't keep SDT because I consider it too slow in this match up but I'll try to keep it and side in some decays.

[Lemnear]

Can you please share your side? How many AD do you exactly side in? Thank you in advice (anyway do you have 2 ToA main or do you add 1 ToA from side?)

Anyway yes, I side in Flusterstorm mainly to deal with CT but also because I find it good in general in this match up since it evades daze/pierce. Why do you find it bad in this match up? I mean it still our only answer to Probe+Cabal besides Brainstorm.
Carpet comes in as a simply upgrade of Rain which is imo really bad in this match up considering his land denial and his pressure. I think it's always been considered good vs grixis and I've seen many people using it in this match up. I don't agree with you on this point.
I don't keep SDT because I consider it too slow in this match up but I'll try to keep it and side in some decays.

You side in Flusterstorm just for the CT which they can flashback anyways? Doesn't sound like a plan. Carpet is crap. Not only can your opponent work with two lands only, but can manipulate their landcount with Daze. Moreover your deck is already 40% mana and you wanna sideboard in even more mana?

[Exodus]

I don't get it honestly. Yes, they can flashback CT but I still prefer not being double discarded over being single discarded. Considering their first CT can be blind, countering it makes the flashback much less consistent. I don't find other better plans to be honest vs cabal therapy, what's yours? And honestly I am still skeptical about your opinions on Carpet. It's always been considered good vs delver decks and I find it the most consistent card to pay daze and pierce vs a land denial deck that plays only islands, considering also that we add mana before they play their dazes (at least if they don't throw their dazes on our cantrips), and the most difficult part is starting the storm, not having enough mana at the end of the count.

[Lemnear]

I don't get it honestly. Yes, they can flashback CT but I still prefer not being double discarded over being single discarded. Considering their first CT can be blind, countering it makes the flashback much less consistent. I don't find other better plans to be honest vs cabal therapy, what's yours? And honestly I am still skeptical about your opinions on Carpet. It's always been considered good vs delver decks and I find it the most consistent card to pay daze and pierce vs a land denial deck that plays only islands, considering also that we add mana before they play their dazes (at least if they don't throw their dazes on our cantrips), and the most difficult part is starting the storm, not having enough mana at the end of the count.

Just look at it from the following POV: if you counter the first CT, you are down a card anyways. An experienced caster of CT, will hit something most of the time even blind as they can read the gamestate and the related cards in hand of their opponent like the classic turn 2 brainstorm into a fetchland, so aiming blind, early therapies at Brainstorms often pay off. In general, you play against CT just like you do against Hymn: try to minimize the impact and let them discard unimportant, redundant stuff at best, which you can flashback later or don't care for and keep the important stuff floated on top of the deck.

Free yourself from that "always besn considered good" hivemind stuff. We had that lately with Dark Confidant as well. Don't point to Capet paying for Daze/Pierce, if you have to rely on it resolving against those cards and you having to fetch a green dual early against a deck with Wasteland. Don't just ignore the tradeoffs made. The most reliable way to pay for tempo counter and get around manadenial in general is dropping lands. A preordain finding a land has more value in the context of manadenial than Tropical into Carpet and hoping your opponent is stupid enough to play right into it the following turns. Carpet is a manastone most of the time which you have to expose your first land for.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Carpet is crap. Not only can your opponent work with two lands only, but can manipulate their landcount with Daze. Moreover your deck is already 40% mana and you wanna sideboard in even more mana?

Are seriously telling us here that Sol Ring for coloured mana is bad?

I like Carpets against Grixis. I'm currently on 2 Past in Flames, 2 Tendrils , 1 Empty and board out two Preordains for two Carpets. Quite happy with the plan.

[Lemnear]

Are seriously telling us here that Sol Ring for coloured mana is bad?

I like Carpets against Grixis. I'm currently on 2 Past in Flames, 2 Tendrils , 1 Empty and board out two Preordains for two Carpets. Quite happy with the plan.

I did not. I think it deserves more context like the mentioned required green mana, it being conditional from your opponents play, it being redundant with all the mana in the deck, it not adressing the CabalTherapy shredding of hands, etc.

"Colored Mana SolRing" is blunt and not accurate, pretty much like naming Dark Confidant "Two mana Ad Nauseam"

[Narcind]

Personally, I don't really think carpet is bad, but I don't think it's that great either, to the point where it's not currently in my sideboard. The main problem I have with carpet is that it's so inconsistent and unreliable, sometimes it's absolutely amazing and sometimes it does absolutely nothing, which makes me prefer just having preordain or cabal ritual instead (which are the first cards I'd side out for carpet vs delver decks), as those cards are much more consistent in how they play out, so it's easier to plan around.

[Exodus]

Lemnar, you made really good points on flusterstorm, thank you for your analysis. Although I don't agree on everything (fluster countering hymn let you down one less card, so it is a positive trade off, and discarding cabal with a duress/cabal is as well one less card in your hand, so it is not about card advantage but more about protecting our card quality, if not we shouldn't ever target an opponent thoughtseize or a cabal with our discard card) so in this perspective flusterstorm can simple be considered an added "duress" reactive instead of proactive, I think you are right anyway when you said that the best plan is tryng to maintain our important stuff on top.

For Carpet, I still consider it AT WORST an unwastable City of Brass that costs 1 but can be played the same turn of a land. And still, forcing the opponent to play with just 1 land (thus slowing him down) or to daze unimportant spells just to bounce their lands, it's an advantage itself. I agree anyway that the mono copy is not consistent enough and that fetching for a tropical exposes us to wasteland, but then I don't understand the inclusion of abrupt decay neither.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I did not. I think it deserves more context like the mentioned required green mana, it being conditional from your opponents play, it being redundant with all the mana in the deck, it not adressing the CabalTherapy shredding of hands, etc.

"Colored Mana SolRing" is blunt and not accurate, pretty much like naming Dark Confidant "Two mana Ad Nauseam"

Your literal first statement after labelling Carpet as crap was that Grixis can operate off two lands. In that situation, Carpet produces two mana, same as Sol Ring. Costing G is not an issue, I'm playing Carpet with one land that taps for green currently. Further, Carpet actually does something against Cabal Therapy, it lets you store mana on the battlefield. That is very relevant.

[Lemnear]

Lemnar, you made really good points on flusterstorm, thank you for your analysis. Although I don't agree on everything (fluster countering hymn let you down one less card, so it is a positive trade off, and discarding cabal with a duress/cabal is as well one less card in your hand, so it is not about card advantage but more about protecting our card quality, if not we shouldn't ever target an opponent thoughtseize or a cabal with our discard card) so in this perspective flusterstorm can simple be considered an added "duress" reactive instead of proactive, I think you are right anyway when you said that the best plan is tryng to maintain our important stuff on top.

For Carpet, I still consider it AT WORST an unwastable City of Brass that costs 1 but can be played the same turn of a land. And still, forcing the opponent to play with just 1 land (thus slowing him down) or to daze unimportant spells just to bounce their lands, it's an advantage itself. I agree anyway that the mono copy is not consistent enough and that fetching for a tropical exposes us to wasteland, but then I don't understand the inclusion of abrupt decay neither.

There is no need to agree on anything; just take away what you consider relevant for you :)

I just mentioned hymn as another common option to strip two cards from your hand just like Therapy (+flashback). Sure you target Hymn with your discard against the respective decks, but discard itself is not quite the threat we sideboard for usually. Even if Flusterstorm might snatch a Hymn for value here and there possibly, it remains a sideboard-card for the combo mirror.

I don't doubt that Carpet is able to produce 1-2 rainbow mana (given you get it past Daze & Co.) but if its countered and your tropical island gets hit by wasteland in return, it makes you tear your copies immediately *laugh*. For the sake of stabilizing your mana against decks with tempo-counters and wastelands, cantripping into lands off a basic island is not only less risky in terms of wasteland, but also takes no sideboard slots. The difference to Decay is simply that the instant can't be dazed/pierced/etc and you usually cast it end of turn (which means your opponent needs to have an untapped Wasteland available or you get to untap with your green dual). Evading the described early game scenario and using it as a lategame ritual against yardhate is fine, but often unnecessary given Dark Ritual and LEDs give a fuck about hardhate anyways


Your literal first statement after labelling Carpet as crap was that Grixis can operate off two lands. In that situation, Carpet produces two mana, same as Sol Ring. Costing G is not an issue, I'm playing Carpet with one land that taps for green currently. Further, Carpet actually does something against Cabal Therapy, it lets you store mana on the battlefield. That is very relevant.

Ok, lets ignore the whole aspect of sideboard space and what to remove from the maindeck postboard for a second and just look at Carpet in a vacuum. LEDs, Petals, Lands also store mana on the field against discard, so why add additional cards with the same angle from the sideboard to switch manaproducers between MB and SB?

[Jonathan Alexander]

Ok, lets ignore the whole aspect of sideboard space and what to remove from the maindeck postboard for a second and just look at Carpet in a vacuum. LEDs, Petals, Lands also store mana on the field against discard, so why add additional cards with the same angle from the sideboard to switch manaproducers between MB and SB?

That makes literal zero sense. By that logic, let's just run one each of Underground Sea, Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual and LED, because additional copies don't offer anything new.

[Ronald Deuce]

At the risk of jumping into the middle of a flamewar, I've got some questions about sideboarding, and it seems like this might be the best opportunity to bring them up. First of all, my main's got 14 lands, 2 PiF, and singletons AdN, Petition, Tendrils, Chrome Mox, Rain of Filth, Preordain. Here's my 'board:

4x Abrupt Decay (Miracles, Loam; potential singleton against other Chalice decks, Mav, or D&T, but I've only got one green land in the 75)
2x Chain of Vapor (Mav, D&T, Stoneblade, Burn, maybe Dredge)
2x Tendrils (Miracles, 1x versus Burn)
1x Krosan Grip (Miracles)
1x Hurkyl's Recall (Eldrazi, MUD, Loam and assorted Chalice decks)
1x Sensei's Divining Top (Miracles)
1x Empty the Warrens (BUG, D&T, Mav)
1x Daze (formerly Disfigure #2; tried it against Mav, Shardless, S&T)
1x Disfigure (Mav, D&T, Burn)
1x Tropical Island (Miracles, Eldrazi, D&T, Loam)

I'm wondering about whether I've got an appropriate setup for dealing with a variety of matchups; this list is tuned a bit for my metagame, which isn't a big one and lacks a number of difficult matchups (Grixis, Loam, Reanimator; not much fast combo, either, because I was the fast-combo guy until I got Storm together). Hurkyl's and Daze are experimental/hedging.

Is this a balanced setup? The lion's share of the slots go to fighting Miracles, but I'm wondering whether I've been planning too much for just Miracles and hatebears, or whether the cards have enough crossover value to cover my other bases.

[EDIT: There are also matchups against which I'm not sure what, if anything, can or should be done to improve our odds, especially Eldrazi, Dredge, Belcher/All Spells, Tribal Shenanigans, and Reanimator.]

I'm going light on green cards for a number of reasons, and I tested Carpet and Swarm for a bit and wasn't happy with them. Doesn't mean they're bad cards; I just didn't feel like they were performing as well as I would've liked. One thing to note about [EDIT: AAAAH! Carpet of Flowers] is that it's not entirely true that it's "Wasteland-proof" mana; you still need to run out a dual or a mana rock to play it, meaning that if the land gets wasted, you're still throwing away a permanent source to get a (better?) permanent source. Getting 1-for-1-ed is worse than getting "0-for-0-ed" in this deck. So what does the Carpet solve broadly? Seems like a theoretical upgrade to Cab Rit against graveyard hate, and I can imagine its turning really nuts if the game goes on for long, but I don't understand its appeal over, say, more anti-permanent cards like Disfigure or K-Grip.

The cards I've had my eye on including are Flusterstorm; City of Solitude; Chrome Mox (a second one for goes-fast); Daze (in greater numbers); and maybe Echoing Truth, SExtraction, or Massacre. So I guess I'm wondering what people think those cards would solve that my current board doesn't address, if anything.

Daze seems interesting, but I feel like it's not going to solve as many problems as it looks like it might. We'd have to be all in on speed to make it work, and having to bounce a land can slow down the combo if we don't have access to LED. I'm also a bit reluctant to run countermagic more generally because it works at cross-purposes with LED.

Any and all advice and criticism is welcome!

[Lemnear]

That makes literal zero sense. By that logic, let's just run one each of Underground Sea, Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual and LED, because additional copies don't offer anything new.

Its a matter of diminishing returns at some point, just like the number of Tutors in the deck. Its not like you run 4 Dark Petition because "more is more".


At the risk of jumping into the middle of a flamewar

I am not interrested in anyrhing like that :)


I'm wondering about whether I've got an appropriate setup for dealing with a variety of matchups; this list is tuned a bit for my metagame, which isn't a big one and lacks a number of difficult matchups (Grixis, Loam, Reanimator; not much fast combo, either, because I was the fast-combo guy until I got Storm together). Hurkyl's and Daze are experimental/hedging.

Considered Echoing Truth to deal with Hatebears as well as Chalice & Friends to have more overlap in slots rather than splitting CoV & H.Recall to deal with the stuff seperately?

[Ronald Deuce]

Considered Echoing Truth to deal with Hatebears as well as Chalice & Friends to have more overlap in slots rather than splitting CoV & H.Recall to deal with the stuff seperately?

Heya! Thanks for the quick response!

I had considered that for a while. I used to run an Echoing Truth and 2x Hurkyl's right after Oath hit the scene. I felt like Truth wasn't as strong in the Eldrazi matchup (esp. against varied hate, like 1 Chalice 1 Thorn) as Hurk was, and I've essentially been using Chains for a different purpose, which is practical spot removal for cmc1. I might change my setup to incorporate Truth instead of one or the other at some point, but I feel like each of those cards is optimal in a different set of matchups, and at least a bit better than Truth in either. What's been your experience with Truth? Do you ever wish you could put something else in the 'board instead? I'm glad you focused on the card, because I've had trouble wrapping my head around the situations in which it's optimal.

I also like Chain as an occasional means to speed up our combo without having to incorporate added awkward cards like multiple Chrome Moxes; over the weekend, I remember that having a Chain, a Petal, a Tendrils, and rituals was enough to get me to Tendrils for 20 (18? Lethal, in any case) without PiF, tutors, or LED. I know it's got its weaknesses, but it's done a lot of work for me. I'd definitely keep at least 1 in the 'board.

[Lemnear]

Heya! Thanks for the quick response!

I had considered that for a while. I used to run an Echoing Truth and 2x Hurkyl's right after Oath hit the scene. I felt like Truth wasn't as strong in the Eldrazi matchup (esp. against varied hate, like 1 Chalice 1 Thorn) as Hurk was, and I've essentially been using Chains for a different purpose, which is practical spot removal for cmc1. I might change my setup to incorporate Truth instead of one or the other at some point, but I feel like each of those cards is optimal in a different set of matchups, and at least a bit better than Truth in either. What's been your experience with Truth? Do you ever wish you could put something else in the 'board instead? I'm glad you focused on the card, because I've had trouble wrapping my head around the situations in which it's optimal.

I also like Chain as an occasional means to speed up our combo without having to incorporate added awkward cards like multiple Chrome Moxes; over the weekend, I remember that having a Chain, a Petal, a Tendrils, and rituals was enough to get me to Tendrils for 20 (18? Lethal, in any case) without PiF, tutors, or LED. I know it's got its weaknesses, but it's done a lot of work for me. I'd definitely keep at least 1 in the 'board.

I have not had the chance to test E.Truth myself so far, but can only express my disappointment with H.Recall outside of matchups with pure artifact hate. I saw that Truth does a good job for other storm pilots in its versatility to be a tool against hatebears and enchantments and not just versus Eldrazi, freeing additional sideboard slots for Miracles, so i mentioned it. For me versatility is more important than having optimal solutions.

I am familiar with the CoV as a storm engine from my days in vintage, but in legacy we can do a lot of similar shenanigans of natural stormcount by chaining chantrips.

[Ronald Deuce]

I have not had the chance to test E.Truth myself so far, but can only express my disappointment with H.Recall outside of matchups with pure artifact hate. I saw that Truth does a good job for other storm pilots in its versatility to be a tool against hatebears and enchantments and not just versus Eldrazi, freeing additional sideboard slots for Miracles, so i mentioned it. For me versatility is more important than having optimal solutions.

I am familiar with the CoV as a storm engine from my days in vintage, but in legacy we can do a lot of similar shenanigans of natural stormcount by chaining chantrips.

Thanks again for getting back to me so soon!

Agreed regarding Hurkyl's; I cut back to a singleton because I wasn't getting any crossover value out of it in my meta, but at Worcester I did face a Chalice deck and wish I'd seen it. I do like the idea of running at least one Echoing Truth a lot, and the other thing I'd considered was replacing Disfigure with it (that might mess up the U/B balance in the deck a bit, but I don't think one more blue card would make that much of a difference). The main reason I still haven't brought it in against hatebears is that I just felt like having a cmc1 spell to deal with them was better than a cmc2, especially given that the chief offenders are legendary anyway so we wouldn't get to "echo" anything. Getting around Chalice is pretty huge, though.

I do agree that there's a lot to be said for versatility over raw strength, and that's one reason I've been hemming and hawing so much over whether my 'board's built well.

Another thing I've been wondering is whether it's worth it to try to get some extra use out of my Abrupt Decays. I'm reluctant to board them in because I've only got one green source, and if I can get my hands on a Bayou sometime this century, I'll probably start to use them more. What's everyone's feeling about the crossover value of Decay? Would be great to cut Disfigures entirely. At this point, unless I'm fighting Miracles, I only 'board in one Decay at most.

I realize it would've been impossible for me to hit storm 18 with the Chain and the cards I listed; as I think about it, I think the opponent had also Thoughtseized in the game I managed to nat-Tendrils him, so I think I only hit storm 8 (incl. Tendrils). I'll try to be more meticulous about not letting my Chain of Vapor fanboyism take over my analyses in the future.

[Lemnear]

Thanks again for getting back to me so soon!

Agreed regarding Hurkyl's; I cut back to a singleton because I wasn't getting any crossover value out of it in my meta, but at Worcester I did face a Chalice deck and wish I'd seen it. I do like the idea of running at least one Echoing Truth a lot, and the other thing I'd considered was replacing Disfigure with it (that might mess up the U/B balance in the deck a bit, but I don't think one more blue card would make that much of a difference). The main reason I still haven't brought it in against hatebears is that I just felt like having a cmc1 spell to deal with them was better than a cmc2, especially given that the chief offenders are legendary anyway so we wouldn't get to "echo" anything. Getting around Chalice is pretty huge, though.

From a theoretical point of view, the 15-lands-standard should be enough to build a board against Thalia/Teeg/etc. so you should be able to cut the disfigue here, if thats your worry.


Another thing I've been wondering is whether it's worth it to try to get some extra use out of my Abrupt Decays. I'm reluctant to board them in because I've only got one green source, and if I can get my hands on a Bayou sometime this century, I'll probably start to use them more. What's everyone's feeling about the crossover value of Decay? Would be great to cut Disfigures entirely. At this point, unless I'm fighting Miracles, I only 'board in one Decay at most.

Decay is good if you expect stuff like Meddling Mage or annoying stuff in general which gets paired with countermagic. Due to the fall of Stoneblade, there is not too much overlap of annoying permanents and counterspells recently. I'd board them against decks like Lands too to have more outs to Chalice


I realize it would've been impossible for me to hit storm 18 with the Chain and the cards I listed; as I think about it, I think the opponent had also Thoughtseized in the game I managed to nat-Tendrils him, so I think I only hit storm 8 (incl. Tendrils). I'll try to be more meticulous about not letting my Chain of Vapor fanboyism take over my analyses in the future.

I don't dare to comment on that particular match. Its just a more general approach, once I realize that yardhate and serious damage are about to hit me. Playing against Elves might be an example if Symbiote + DRS + Nettle start dropping your life quick

[Ronald Deuce]

From a theoretical point of view, the 15-lands-standard should be enough to build a board against Thalia/Teeg/etc. so you should be able to cut the disfigue here, if thats your worry.

Ok! I'll give Echoing Truth a go in its stead. I like having 1-cmc cards over 2s, but switching one slot shouldn't be a big deal. I also like having something to answer token-barfing decks like Belcher and Dredge, so that seems like a good slot for it. I might try switching the Badlands back to basic Island if I do this, but I'm not sure if that's what I really want at this point.


Decay is good if you expect stuff like Meddling Mage or annoying stuff in general which gets paired with countermagic. Due to the fall of Stoneblade, there is not too much overlap of annoying permanents and counterspells recently. I'd board them against decks like Lands too to have more outs to Chalice

I've noticed a similar phenomenon re: Stoneblade.

Incidentally, as regards a previous discussion about business configurations, Stoneblade was a matchup I felt like I couldn't win when I was running 2x Petition, but when I switched one to a second PiF, it cleared right up. The Stoneblade player's definitely better at Magic than I am, too.


I don't dare to comment on that particular match. Its just a more general approach, once I realize that yardhate and serious damage are about to hit me. Playing against Elves might be an example if Symbiote + DRS + Nettle start dropping your life quick

It's interesting you bring up Elves. For some reason I've been having a rough time against it recently; preboard, it's not usually that difficult to beat (and we're a tad faster), but once they bring in Thoughtseize, Therapy, and Gaddock/Ruric Thar, it gets a lot tougher. I lost to it at Worcester (as I recall, Natural Order for Ruric Thar sealed the deal), and one of my buddies who plays Elves a lot clotheslined me the other day when we were sparring. Some of that was poor draws on my part, but he just kept pumping creatures to the point that I couldn't find any fast outs. Disfigure also didn't do much because he built up his board so quickly. I remember Massacre to have been really useful in the matchup, but I'm wondering whether there's something we can use that's a bit cheaper because I don't like throwing away rituals. How have you and other people been siding against Elves?

[Lemnear]

It's interesting you bring up Elves. For some reason I've been having a rough time against it recently; preboard, it's not usually that difficult to beat (and we're a tad faster), but once they bring in Thoughtseize, Therapy, and Gaddock/Ruric Thar, it gets a lot tougher. I lost to it at Worcester (as I recall, Natural Order for Ruric Thar sealed the deal), and one of my buddies who plays Elves a lot clotheslined me the other day when we were sparring. Some of that was poor draws on my part, but he just kept pumping creatures to the point that I couldn't find any fast outs. Disfigure also didn't do much because he built up his board so quickly. I remember Massacre to have been really useful in the matchup, but I'm wondering whether there's something we can use that's a bit cheaper because I don't like throwing away rituals. How have you and other people been siding against Elves?

The combination of Discard and DRS postboard look a lot like Shardless on paper and occasionally you get also slapped by Hatebears (Teeg/Thalia instead of Shardless' Meddling Mages) or Nullrods, so giving clear advice is as hard as beating the combo of discard/yardhate/hatebears in general. Some generic removal (Decay/Bounce) sure isn't bad to deal with Ruric/Teeg/Thalia/Nullrod/DRS/etc. I suspect most storm players managed to lose to Elves here and there either due to Teeg, Ruric, tun two glimpse combo or due to their sideboard

[Ronald Deuce]

Some generic removal (Decay/Bounce) sure isn't bad to deal with Ruric/Teeg/Thalia/Nullrod/DRS/etc. I suspect most storm players managed to lose to Elves here and there either due to Teeg, Ruric, tun two glimpse combo or due to their sideboard

Yeah, that sounds right to me. I've gotten raced off of slow hands or lost to their sideboard cards most of the time. Feels a bit coin-flippy to me, though I think we're generally favored there because we can go nuts on turn 1.

Has anyone tested multiple Chrome Moxes to boost speed? I've got one in my mainboard, but I feel like it's a risky card to have in multiples. Just wondering whether there's anything we can do to up our speed for counter-less matchups without losing too much consistency.

On a different note, I noticed I have a habit of writing a lot about a card on this thread, but I type the wrong card-name (see above regarding Carpet). To reiterate, the problem with considering Carpet to be Waste-proof is that we need to throw down a Dual or a mana rock to cast it, so we're still open to Wasteland or dumping a permanent to get another permanent. Maybe a better one, but we're often still expending a card to get a card.

[Lemnear]

Yeah, that sounds right to me. I've gotten raced off of slow hands or lost to their sideboard cards most of the time. Feels a bit coin-flippy to me, though I think we're generally favored there because we can go nuts on turn 1.

Has anyone tested multiple Chrome Moxes to boost speed? I've got one in my mainboard, but I feel like it's a risky card to have in multiples. Just wondering whether there's anything we can do to up our speed for counter-less matchups without losing too much consistency.

On a different note, I noticed I have a habit of writing a lot about a card on this thread, but I type the wrong card-name (see above regarding Carpet). To reiterate, the problem with considering Carpet to be Waste-proof is that we need to throw down a Dual or a mana rock to cast it, so we're still open to Wasteland or dumping a permanent to get another permanent. Maybe a better one, but we're often still expending a card to get a card.

Chrome Mox won't save you here as its just 0,5 mana and doesn't help if your opponent can attack your actual acceleration or business (counting cantrips here too). I don't think this matchup is an actual "race" like Burn.dec is, but rather a matter of if they are able to combine X + Y fast enough (discard + damage, DRS + Teeg, 4 mana + NO, etc. ... You get the idea).

@Carpet: Thats one of the issues I talked about. Its not that Daze (which is a natural pair with Wasteland) makes the Turn-1-Carpet any more appealing as an opener. Just my personal opinion

[.Ix]

Whoa check out this spicy stuff. Daze maindeck! He took 3rd place in a 286-player tournament. Pretty sure it kind of works somehow. I can't wrap my head around the sideboard. Sylvan Library and TITI?

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=13168&d=277127&f=LE

14 LANDS
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

38 INSTANTS and SORC.
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
3 Daze
4 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony

8 OTHER SPELLS
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

SIDEBOARD
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Extirpate
1 Sylvan Library
4 Thing in the Ice
2 Xantid Swarm

[Plague Sliver]

This week on the "Humans of Magic" podcast -- Jonathan Alexander, creator of Grinding Station:

https://soundcloud.com/humansofmagic/episode-013-jonathan-alexander-part-1

What started as an innocent discussion about Magic turned into an epic podcast of sorts. Probably the most fun I’ve had so far recording for this show. At one point we asked each other, 2 hours in, if we wanted to stop or keep going. The answer was an encouraging KEEP GOING. And so we did.

There are 3 parts to this talk, that’s how crazy it was. Unfortunately (fortunately?), our hour-long discussion on hip-hop didn’t make the final cut. Jonathan and I probably need to create our own podcast show at some point.

Jonathan’s web site: http://theweeklywars.wordpress.com/

Time stamps — Part 1:

[03:21] Intro / the metric system
[06:54] Jonathan's own intro
[08:17] Family background and brief personal history
[12:42] There and back again: university in Berlin
[16:04] Homework? What's that?
[18:09] Memorable teenage moments
[23:06] Amsterdam
[26:37] "It's all upside to not drink, in my eyes."
[30:25] Happiness
[31:13] Earliest gaming experiences
[32:31] Playing Magic for the first time, and getting competitive
[36:32] First Legacy deck
[39:09] Local German Legacy scene
[43:26] Initial breakthroughs in competitive Magic, and Mental Misstep
[46:33] All time favorite decks
[47:58] An ode to Canadian Threshold
[51:44] The art of quoting stuff out of context / trolls
[53:08] Good stuff deck vs. tempo deck / why he doesn't play Grixis delver
[56:16] Incredible run at Bazaar of Moxen with Canadian Threshold
[1:05:04] “Don’t be afraid to use your cards as Lightning Bolts.”
[1:07:17] Starting to play Storm and the beginnings of Grinding Station

[Sloshthedark]

Can you please share your side? How many AD do you exactly side in? Thank you in advice (anyway do you have 2 ToA main or do you add 1 ToA from side?)

Anyway yes, I side in Flusterstorm mainly to deal with CT but also because I find it good in general in this match up since it evades daze/pierce. Why do you find it bad in this match up? I mean it still our only answer to Probe+Cabal besides Brainstorm.
Carpet comes in as a simply upgrade of Rain which is imo really bad in this match up considering his land denial and his pressure. I think it's always been considered good vs grixis and I've seen many people using it in this match up. I don't agree with you on this point.
I don't keep SDT because I consider it too slow in this match up but I'll try to keep it and side in some decays.

List (SB varies, MD is the same for 2 years except -Tarn +Trop recently - used to play 2G in the SB)

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

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Lotus Petal
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
1 Duress

4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder

4 Infernal Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
2 Sensei's Divining Top

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


61

SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
2 Krosan Grip
2 Extirpate
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Karakas
1 Bayou
1 Flusterstorm
2 Pyroclasm
1 Ancient Grudge

2-3 AD, also experimented with Extirpate - left me undecided if it's good or not

I used to play this plan even before the Dig was banned, as I know that Cabal Therapy also plays Flusterstorm against Grixis so I had a testing session about 20 games before the last GP to test it, the Flusterstorm was exactly as I expected it to be so got back to my original plan

just few statements/arguments/observations:
- Flusterstorm is passive - you need to keep it up thus you are inefficient playing the deck/using time - that's exactly what you do to your opponents by threatening them to die if they tap out, so if you keep up U T1 you don't cantrip lets say opponent plays DRS = you're losing unless you Opponent does exactly what you need...
- The Silence illusion - I used to be told you're disadvantaged if your opponent plays silence in a Storm pseudo-mirror match, in fact the opposite was true, you wont be CTed for protection but you'll end up with Silence/Flusterstorm in hand for lategame
- let's say Opp played the DRS = He can pay the Flusterstorm T2, it also can be played around lategame this way as well as ignore flusterstorm with cast+flashback
- 1st CT isn't usually that dangerous
- and you have to have it likely having 2 against their 4(8)... +it's a terrible topdeck unless you can make ToA in hand work but you build up against discard and without SDT (but with their lifeloss), or need to maneuver Opponent into some poor plays

-so I don't plan to answer GP+CT (except I do with the Extripate), unless paired with SE it's not that bad... if they have the perfect hand they win, and I win if I do... it's nothing that makes the MU fantactic but I like AD as a plan against Delver MUs because it lets you face their best hand while being good against medium hands buying you time or getting rid of Null rod/DRS like permanents... you risk them keeping a desperate aggro hand but it's less likely...
-I keep 2 ToA because to my surprise I found out I've won this way a lot in the MU, the GP and SE costs a some life and can capitalize on that SDT... GP+CT+SE->ToA hasnt happened relevant number of times and I was still able to win with EtW because the CT did not slow me down
- Extripate - kind of mixed feelings - in theory it's not good as it suffers similar problems like Flusterstorm except was real good sometimes though but I'd advice against plaing it in the end... just the AD
-since facing a discard deck I prefer to have all the cantrips and SDTs

Carpet
- first lets say I also do not think RoF is not good enough to be 8th ritual and is too luxurious to have it as 9th so no upgrades for me
- if you have seen people play X in MU Y means nothing unless you know why they do it... because majority of people does not know what they are doing since their initial argument was the same as yours - people play it
- I did not pass for me in Canadian Threshold MU while I'd not do that I can understand some would bring it in - could it be better against a deck with similar tempo suite + discard and DRS? - no if even 1 was true
- why? because only the mana is not worth the investment - I have to say, yes, the Sol ring is sometimes bad, early game it gets countered or is played around (very well with DRS) lategame I'd prefer actual cards (ritual is better because it does storm)

of course this is not a universal experience - sometimes Carpet would be great, sometimes Flusterstorm would be great, but in the long run I think (= I have seen on myself playing it/watching others play) it slows you down more than not having it at all


Whoa check out this spicy stuff. Daze maindeck! He took 3rd place in a 286-player tournament. Pretty sure it kind of works somehow. I can't wrap my head around the sideboard. Sylvan Library and TITI?

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=13168&d=277127&f=LE


Haha I love these crazy japanese guys... I've tested Titi a lot - it kind of works but the "creatures in Storm" dilemma, the Library is just terrible imo, btw. I think XS is a wasted slot Titi has it covered to some extent

[Ricca84]

@Carpet
The reality is that this is a good card only in certain MU, and it's a meta-choise. Maybe it's worth in a delver.deck metagame with a lot of tax counter/snare. For sure vs DRS is not optimal and could not be considered an Upgrade of other mana in the deck. Right now Grixis is the only delver deck in the metagame and I tend to consider this as a good MU.
So right now the only application that I can see for the Carpet is an upgrade of a CR in miracles MU. Here our little green ench can really help to double tendril them, or to give you free mana under CB lock for your tricks.
But we don't have infinite slots in our sideboard, and maybe is better to fill our slot with other cards.

I feel that Togores sideboard is quite equilibrated (maybe the xantid is only the flex slot that seems to me a paranoid slot) and if I have to make some change, before the Carpet, probably I would consider a couple of DoD.

[westcoasthorus]

So I took Storm for its first outing (Togores list) after gold fishing a ton of the 2 Dark Petition lists and at the last minute audibled to a 2PiF/3Tendrils version. I loved it. Got to crush Miracles pre and post sideboard. But I think I need some help side boarding against specifically permanent based hate and I want to ask theory questions; I didn't have to play against D&T but did play against WR Painter which crushed me both sideboarded games because of Thorns of Amethyst.

Based on the Togores list (using this one http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=13135&d=276897&f=LE), how do you approach matchups where you have permanent-based hate coming for you? How do you decide which disruption to trim on? So in WR Painter, I knew he would (most likely) not be running Chalice nor Null Rod because of Grindstone, but I anticipated Thorns of Amethyst. So, Echoing Truth out of the sideboard, Empty the Warrens, trim a PiF? Abrupt Decay seems good and bad because they will have permanent based hate but also Blood Moon, so my ability to pop off an Abrupt Decay to free up my lands seems weak, plus it gets choked by Thorns. I guess I'm also curious how you approach side boarding with this list versus D&T since Echoing Truth seems terrible when they could just vial in whatever you bounced to their hand. Cabal Therapy seems kinda weak here because they have multiple ways to attack me, whereas Duress is pinpointed to a hate card, and Duress can hit Pyroblasts once a Painter's Servant is on the battlefield. So like, -3 Cabal Therapy, +2 Echoing Truth, +1 Top? since I need to find the right action and cantrips get choked by Thorns, +1 Empty the Warrens, -1 PiF.

It was frustrating became game 2 he curved Thorns into Thorns and game 3 he also had Turn 1 Thorns WITH a Tormod's Crypt. If I had an Echoing Truth I could've bounced both and I had a Rain of Filth to get him to blow the Crypt then reload the graveyard. I think it was just my opponent getting really good draws of sideboard hate because I got beaten down by creatures and never got combo-ed.

I guess overall I'm just asking, outside of Miracles matchups, when do you decide things like Abrupt Decay are important to bring in to deal with permanent-based disruption?

Also, I sideboarded like so for Miracles, dunno if this was right or wrong, so feedback is welcome:
-3 Duress
-3 Cabal Therapy
-4 Git Probe
-1 Ad Naus (figured that it would be difficult to Ritual into an Ad Naus for an explosive kill, and it seems like we need to be prepared to do multiple Tendrils/storm to finish our opponent off)

+2 Flusterstorm
+4 Abrupt Decay
+2 Tendrils
+1 City of Solitude
+1 Top
+1 Krosan Grip

[Dr_D]

Also, I sideboarded like so for Miracles, dunno if this was right or wrong, so feedback is welcome:
-3 Duress
-3 Cabal Therapy
-4 Git Probe
-1 Ad Naus (figured that it would be difficult to Ritual into an Ad Naus for an explosive kill, and it seems like we need to be prepared to do multiple Tendrils/storm to finish our opponent off)

+2 Flusterstorm
+4 Abrupt Decay
+2 Tendrils
+1 City of Solitude
+1 Top
+1 Krosan Grip

I personally wouldn't board this way. When I play vs. Miracles I cut LEDs and some number of infernal tutors. It makes more sense when you're on the natural tendrils plan imo.

[Lemnear]

Someone care to elaborate the reason to board out discard, cantrips and Ad Nauseam, but keep in Petals/LEDs?

[Ricca84]

I personally wouldn't board this way. When I play vs. Miracles I cut LEDs and some number of infernal tutors. It makes more sense when you're on the natural tendrils plan imo.

+1

You can side in multiple way vs miracle, but cutting all the discards are not good at all in this MU.
Gitaxian Proble will NEVER be sided out. They are free-storm + discover opponent hand + threshold enabler ecc..
You side IN correctly, but you will sideout something like:

-2 LED (Natural tendrils plan is better)
-2 IT (Natural tendrils plan is better)
-1 PIF (Rest in peace hurts)
-3 mana between LP and CR (Mana is good, but in log game you will naturally draw it, so you will prefer solution (Abrupt Decay) over speed)
-1 Preordain (Top is an upgrade)
-2 Duress/Cabal therapy (Flusterstorm here is an upgrade)


You can consider to cut AN, but could be an interesting Eot Bomb/ drawers for you natural tendril.
Basically if you side in this way, you become a grinding station deck and you plan is simply to drop lands and grind them out in a long game, filling your hand destroy their lock and with 8 cards in hand storm them naturally.

Hoping this helps to beat miracle :)

[Ronald Deuce]

I didn't have to play against D&T but did play against WR Painter which crushed me both sideboarded games because of Thorns of Amethyst.

Based on the Togores list (using this one http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=13135&d=276897&f=LE), how do you approach matchups where you have permanent-based hate coming for you? How do you decide which disruption to trim on? So in WR Painter, I knew he would (most likely) not be running Chalice nor Null Rod because of Grindstone, but I anticipated Thorns of Amethyst. So, Echoing Truth out of the sideboard, Empty the Warrens, trim a PiF? Abrupt Decay seems good and bad because they will have permanent based hate but also Blood Moon, so my ability to pop off an Abrupt Decay to free up my lands seems weak, plus it gets choked by Thorns. I guess I'm also curious how you approach side boarding with this list versus D&T since Echoing Truth seems terrible when they could just vial in whatever you bounced to their hand. Cabal Therapy seems kinda weak here because they have multiple ways to attack me, whereas Duress is pinpointed to a hate card, and Duress can hit Pyroblasts once a Painter's Servant is on the battlefield. So like, -3 Cabal Therapy, +2 Echoing Truth, +1 Top? since I need to find the right action and cantrips get choked by Thorns, +1 Empty the Warrens, -1 PiF.

Glad to hear you had fun playing the deck!

Thorn is one of the nastiest cards for our deck to face. Personally I find it can be worse than Chalice postboard because it taxes our lands and dodges a lot of the hate we can bring in for comparable effects like Thalia's.

Seems to me like the best way to deal with Painter is to bring in bounce spells and (maybe) Abrupt Decay.

As a rule I think the best hate for hate-artifacts is Hurkyl's Recall, but its inflexibility is the reason I'm only running one in my sideboard. Barring Hurk, Abrupt Decay is probably your best option, land-hate or no. I'd use it in the matchup against Painter because it dodges Pyroblast, but I don't have much experience in the matchup.

In my experience, a big portion of our ability to beat decks like Painter and D&T is based on our speed. That's why Elrazi and Loam are bigger problems than the other decks; they're consistently fast to put down both hate and a clock, but D&T, Mav, and others can usually manage only one or the other or a subpar combination of the two. Sometimes they'll just hit everything they need and we won't be able to break through, but other times we only need to stay alive until we draw a Decay, Chain of Vapor, Echoing Truth, or Disfigure.

In addition to providing D&T an out to bounce spells, Vial is a theoretical blowout for them if they've got a backup 2-cmc in hand. From what I've seen, though, they usually max out their Vials to try to flood the board because if they don't, we often can't be stopped. Again, the best way to beat a card like Mother of Runes or Vial is to shoot out their hatebears with spot removal/bounce and go for the redzone as quickly as possible. Sometimes they'll just land T1 Vial, T2 Thalia and Mom, T3 Canonist or something, and we won't be able to break through. Most of the time, that doesn't happen. And Massacre's a bit of a false friend: if you're getting taxed down, you often won't be able to cast it in the first place, even if you're in free-cast mode.

Hatebear decks can be tough because they tend to have a high threat density, but we're usually faster than they are. Boardwipes are the theoretical best thing we can use, but I think spot removal and a quick combo tend to work best.

[westcoasthorus]

Someone care to elaborate the reason to board out discard, cantrips and Ad Nauseam, but keep in Petals/LEDs?

Because it was the first time I played against the deck in a tournament. I have incredibly little experience with it, hence my coming to the thread and looking for input and guidance. Most of what I've done so far has been gold fishing off Caleb Scherer lists (which I've found I don't like, now) and reading articles on it that are general in terms of side boarding (i.e., the Carsten Kotter breakdown of the portions of the deck and how you don't want to mess with those as your deck is an engine). Based on that, I was reasoning that I wanted to keep much of the engine intact while adjusting the disruption that I had to be anti-Counter/Top.

[Togores]

Hello!

Also with my deck I sb like so usualy:

Miracles:
-2 led
-2 infernal
-2 cabal ritual
-1 preordian
-1 pif
-1 nauseam

+4 decay
+1 grip
+1 city/grip
+2 toa
+1 sensei.


Thats the 1st boarding. Would make it like so 80% of the time.
Also cards I put in sometimes:
1 empty
1-2 fluster
1 xantid

Xantid seems a flex slot its not. You have to play it to keep your opponents honest on it. If not they just sb out all removal for him. The perfect number is 2-3. But in the meta now its not worth. Also its like the 7th^2 discard against a lot of decks. Its needed.

Against taxes:
-1 preordain
-1 sdt
-3 duress
-1 pif

+1 etw
+3 decay
+2 echoing


If you have echoing and they have vial +hate than its nice to loose. Bad beats happen.


Against painter I would side like so:
-1 top
-1 pif
-1 preordain
-3 therapy

+2 echoing
+3 decay
+1 depending on how you feel

Could be goblins
Could be another decay
Could be letting a top or preordain in the deck.



Also they are some cards you never ever ever sb out in this deck.

GITAXIAN
BRAINSTORM
DARK RITUAL

This 12 cards are impossible to sb out. If you do it in a situation you are doing it 101% wrong ^^

[Sloshthedark]

Against painter I would side like so:
-1 top
-1 pif
-1 preordain
-3 therapy

+2 echoing
+3 decay
+1 depending on how you feel

Could be goblins
Could be another decay
Could be letting a top or preordain in the deck.



Also they are some cards you never ever ever sb out in this deck.

GITAXIAN
BRAINSTORM
DARK RITUAL

This 12 cards are impossible to sb out. If you do it in a situation you are doing it 101% wrong ^^

I don't agree on this one, well I have also different Miracles plan but it's not the point... against Painter SDT and ETW is the MVP, as they keep all the Moons and play control postboard, I also prefer to stay on 2 ToA+2Pif for the same reasons (Pif+LEDs beat Moon easily)... AD is painful but needed (I've double LED SDTed->AD in the past), hard to tell whether KG or Echoing truth is the 4-5 antihate piece... anyway I'd always stay at least on 6 discard on play, 4-5 on draw which can also take the place reason being their manipulation is nearly non existant and they further screw themselves with Moon

not entirely true (like the 60 card rule), it's all about ratios... I board out 1GP time to time and I've boarded out DR in the past and it was a good decision (boarding out LED used to be similar paradigm and you all do that)... Brainstorm.. yeah boarding out Brainstorm is a mortal sin =D

[Togores]

The painter boarding is soso. Just did and idea. Havent played enought to know really whats better. May be 3 times lifetime. Wanted just to give him my thoughts with a plan on the fly. Empty can be god or bad. I have see them playing explosives or ratchet allong erthquake efects. Was just to put some hinsight.

Removing leds get sense when you go into grinding style. I have remove 1-2 leds since I started playing 3 tendrills a few years back. But I dont really get a scenario or matchup where I would remove ritual or probe. Even against burn its a good card when you pack more tendrills in.

[Ricca84]

The painter boarding is soso. Just did and idea. Havent played enought to know really whats better. May be 3 times lifetime. Wanted just to give him my thoughts with a plan on the fly. Empty can be god or bad. I have see them playing explosives or ratchet allong erthquake efects. Was just to put some hinsight.

Removing leds get sense when you go into grinding style. I have remove 1-2 leds since I started playing 3 tendrills a few years back. But I dont really get a scenario or matchup where I would remove ritual or probe. Even against burn its a good card when you pack more tendrills in.

+1

Our shield is composed by similar cards that could be divived in this 4 types: mana, cantrips, protection, business.
Not considering lands, worst mana cards are: Lotus Petal and Cabal Ritual
Worst Cantrips are: Preordain (or SdT in certain MU) and Ponder
Worst Protection are very MU depending ( if you need to discard selective or if the threat are creatures)
Worst business are very MU depending, so you can cut AN, PiF#2, ETW ecc based on MU and your plan.

Cut Dark Ritual is never worth ( Mental Misstep is not a problem anymore).
Cut Gitaxian Probe is never worth. Ponder and Preordain are bad compared to, so if you are going to cut one GP, this means that you have already cutted all Preordain/SdT/Ponder, and this obv will hurt the balancing between the 4 groups.
Cut Brainstorm is senseless for the same reason.

Before the Grind station plan, also cut LED and IT was very bad, but now make it sense because you are totally change the plan, and LED become the worst mana card in this scenario.
Paradoxally in my opinion, is better to cut all the LED vs miracle (grinding station plan) than cut a GP or a Dark Ritual for any reason in any MU.

[Sloshthedark]

The painter boarding is soso. Just did and idea. Havent played enought to know really whats better. May be 3 times lifetime. Wanted just to give him my thoughts with a plan on the fly. Empty can be god or bad. I have see them playing explosives or ratchet allong erthquake efects. Was just to put some hinsight.

Removing leds get sense when you go into grinding style. I have remove 1-2 leds since I started playing 3 tendrills a few years back. But I dont really get a scenario or matchup where I would remove ritual or probe. Even against burn its a good card when you pack more tendrills in.

NP, I played 3 on the GP weekend, won all of them in that fashion, just different idea

yes and no, I have semi-similar plan and keep then in expense of LP ... btw. "few years back" Granding Station was mostly ignored

GP when you need to keep ratios and can't cut anything else - like cutting Ponder or GP in different MUs those have different value - like...btw. we are arguing over SBing 1, not SBing all of them...

DR - this could be more controversial, but CR being more effective in the no LEDs plan is a plain fact especially with SE instead of Rip and you do not plan to use the early mana efficiency anyway , it's harder to counter by CB (especially pre-Predict) so I used to alter the ritual I SB out depending on the play/draw or hate I know about (in the Rip era)



+1

Our shield is composed by similar cards that could be divived in this 4 types: mana, cantrips, protection, business.
Not considering lands, worst mana cards are: Lotus Petal and Cabal Ritual
Worst Cantrips are: Preordain (or SdT in certain MU) and Ponder
Worst Protection are very MU depending ( if you need to discard selective or if the threat are creatures)
Worst business are very MU depending, so you can cut AN, PiF#2, ETW ecc based on MU and your plan.

Cut Dark Ritual is never worth ( Mental Misstep is not a problem anymore).
Cut Gitaxian Probe is never worth. Ponder and Preordain are bad compared to, so if you are going to cut one GP, this means that you have already cutted all Preordain/SdT/Ponder, and this obv will hurt the balancing between the 4 groups.
Cut Brainstorm is senseless for the same reason.

Before the Grind station plan, also cut LED and IT was very bad, but now make it sense because you are totally change the plan, and LED become the worst mana card in this scenario.
Paradoxally in my opinion, is better to cut all the LED vs miracle (grinding station plan) than cut a GP or a Dark Ritual for any reason in any MU.

not true - most of the things are MU depending, better said depending on what are you trying to do... "never..." is just a bold statement applicable only to BS (and in standard cases ToA)

[Togores]

Thats 2014. Where I won my 1st event with ant and second with storm (them played it always like crazy)

http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=13841&iddeck=101727

There I already won the finals vs uwr blade with the 2 tendrills plan. And if I recal right my sb plan was like -2 petal -1 led -1 infernal -1 cabal -1 land for the tendrills and decays or so.

Its not really old but there in lond matchup the extra leds where not sooo good.

[Sloshthedark]

Thats 2014. Where I won my 1st event with ant and second with storm (them played it always like crazy)

http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=13841&iddeck=101727

There I already won the finals vs uwr blade with the 2 tendrills plan. And if I recal right my sb plan was like -2 petal -1 led -1 infernal -1 cabal -1 land for the tendrills and decays or so.

Its not really old but there in lond matchup the extra leds where not sooo good.

I did not mean to be offensive if you felt so I apologize... I certainly don't remember you as a long-time proponent of the tech (and tbh I think tripple ToA wasn't used as a SB tech until lately (and Jonathans constructions) of which your link proves me wrong) and have you associated with TES in the first half of 2014

[Togores]

No ofense (:
Im not the type of guy who likes to battle wich **** is bigger. Just gave some proof ^^

The guy who I started asking advice about storm gave me this option when I picked the deck again and I found it good.
I also keept ad nauseam md still. Was just like a 2nd plan.

^^

[Plague Sliver]

Part 2 of my audio interview with our very own Jonathan Alexander continues.

https://soundcloud.com/humansofmagic/episode-014-jonathan-alexander-part-2

Part 2 is all about the evolution of Grinding Station, the beauty of Canadian Threshold, Magic player name-drops, and bromancing. That’s right, folks — it’s everything you ever wanted in a player interview podcast, and then some.

Time stamps — Part 2:

[02:32] Grinding Station origins
[04:35] The perfect storm (of a metagame)
[09:23] Putting it to the test with 200+ players
[12:36] The natural Tendrils revelation
[14:38] Card evaluation tendencies
[16:31] “That was only because it was the card I wanted.”
[20:04] The complexity in the game // learning through observation
[21:42] Thoughts on Team America
[24:39] Having a point of view
[26:06] Why Jonathan didn’t play Storm in Prague
[28:59] Shout out to Rodrigo Togores, GP Prague winner
[30:08] Best high-level tournament finishes
[32:02] Prague preparations and changing decks
[34:15] “With Canadian, you’re not playing the matchup lottery that hard.”
[36:35] Minimizing variance / Why Miracles is so good
[38:48] Deck selection and having the right goals
[40:37] “The hard part about Magic is getting X, Y, AND Z right.”
[42:31] The joy of blind Cabal Therapy
[45:41] Pascal Wagner, the fastest Storm pilot ever
[47:38] “Can you tell me about your relationship with Kai Sawatari?”
[52:46] The bromance triangle in Seattle / a debt of gratitude
[54:35] No regrets
[55:35] Going back to Storm
[56:59] Playing Magic Online for the first time / dabbling in the Standard format
[1:00:11] Goals

-----

By the way, this makes it the 3rd Legacy storm player I've interviewed. Previous guests:

* Bryant Cook -- https://soundcloud.com/humansofmagic/episode-010-bryant-cook

* Rodrigo Togores -- https://soundcloud.com/humansofmagic/episode-008-rodrigo-togores

Stay tuned because more Storm players will be making an appearance...(and counting to ten.)

[Ronald Deuce]

Hello, all!

Tournament didn't fire on Sunday ( :( ) so no news or matchup reports to give.

I've got a couple of questions about sideboarding (again), as I'm trying to get ready for this weekend's Leg(acy) Day. I made a couple of mainboard changes; I finally said goodbye to the Badlands because I didn't feel like I really needed it, and I replaced it with a second Island. Might switch things up again at some point, but I feel like those extra blue sources will accomodate my much bluer sideboard (2x Truth, 2x Chain, 1x Hurk; might change the second Truth out for something else) and I'm now running a ratio of blue to black that's the same as most orthodox 14-land builds. I also cut Chrome Mox. I agonized over that one for some time because I've been whiffing on Ad Nauseas lately, but I kept finding that it would ruin my topdecks and that even during an Ad Nauseam it often would fail to show up. If anyone's running it, I'd really appreciate any input as to how you've found it to be both in the maindeck and the sideboard. Very begrudgingly, I'm back to 2x Preordain.

So I've got three main questions; some of them have been answered, but I'm interested in hearing from as wide a variety of players as I can.

—I'm currently running 3 Tendrils in the 75. I often bring in the second in place of Dark Petition against countermagic-heavy decks (and it replaces AdN against Burn), but the only times I've been tempted to bring in the third and get grindin' have been against Miracles. Are there other matchups in which 'boarding to three Tendrils is a good idea? I feel like theoretically Burn-Delver matchups could benefit (countermagic and a fast clock), but I'm not sure whether an Empty the Warrens would be a better inclusion than Tendrils #3.

—I'm starting to like the idea of running one or two Decays against permanent-based hate, but I'm still gun-shy about running it against decks with Wasteland. I still haven't gotten my hands on a Bayou, and I'm wondering whether the consensus is that it's beneficial or too risky. (Thanks to Lemnear for his advice on this one!) A related question: would you guys 'board up to 15 lands if you were to do this, or would you 'board out the second Island for Tropical?

—How's testing with Daze been going? It's still a card I'm considering for the sideboard (perhaps as a 2x), but I'm apprehensive about whether it will perform as well as removal/bounce. I've done a lot of thinking on it, and I'd be happy to elaborate if anyone cares what I think.

[fangzie]

I always bring in the 3rd tendrils against UR delver, replacing 1 PiF and Ad Nauseam. It seems like it's a good idea against burn as well, but I have't really had to try this as there's not really any burn in my meta. I feel it's necessary, they can clock you fairly quickly and a small Tendrils helps keep you in the game for long enough put together the win, since it undoes a lot of their good work, since they're a little out of gas after that point. I've also brought in Empty against them, on top of these, and felt it did some good when I do play it. This should be pretty easy to sub straight in you you're on a petition list. Mostly I do this as I'm not bringing in much else against them. Maybe a couple of decays, and that's about it.

If you're super-worried about wasteland, I'd play the 15-land mana base. Otherwise, just fetch up trop the turn you actually need it, if you're only bring in 1-2 decays, you'll probably only be banking on it needing to connect once. I personally will leave out a petal if I'm super-concerned about needing to resolve a second one.

[Togores]

I usualy like having 2 pif + 3 tendrills vs ur and canandian.

Its quite good to natural storm or pass his counters.

[Ronald Deuce]

Togores and Fangzie, I appreciate the input! A related question: what about Empty in those situations? I've stopped using it nearly as much as I used to, but I still think it's worth keeping in the 'board for a number of matchups. I was of the impression that it was good against those kinds of decks, but I don't have a ton of experience with which to form that opinion.

Lately I've been having further problems with Ad Nauseam. It's weird; I never used to have much trouble with it (even when I was running 2x Petition), but over the past month or two it doesn't seem to do what I'm used to its doing, and I haven't made big changes to my maindeck since it started failing hard. I guess variance is variance and the world is a goofy place, but I'm wondering whether I'm just approaching the card the wrong way entirely. For some time I was draining down to (depending on the matchup) three or less without difficulty in finding a line, but lately I've been totally flubbing almost every time I cast it. I'm starting to wonder whether there's something I'm missing. How big a problem is it to pass the turn with, e.g., 6-8 life after AdN? Is there a good link with info on the best way to optimize it?

[Togores]

Also I really hate empty. Not killing you opp 100% is prety bad. But there are matchups where its needed. I like it against deck that I have yo be fast and dont have answerst to it.
Grixis
Eldrazi
Mud
Taxes
Maverik

And sometimes against:
Loam pubishing
Miracles
Canadian
Bug delver
Shardless


Also while playing nauseam I almost never kill myself. I prefer to stop at 8 life and pass the turn surviving an attack with a perfect grip then to kill myself.
Ususualy the problem with nauseam is you didnt got petal or led or tutor. If its the 2 first untaping + discarting solves it. If its the last one just untaping and casting a lot of cantrips also helps.

Also before killing myself I prefer to use a ponder or brainstorm. Because just going 3-4 cards deep for a tutor or led at 4 life is a big chance of winning.

Sometimes you have no mana floating and just a petal and gonna get killed next turn and you have to just keep going because just a brainstorm into led + petal wins. So you have to risk.

[Lemnear]

Lately I've been having further problems with Ad Nauseam. It's weird; I never used to have much trouble with it (even when I was running 2x Petition), but over the past month or two it doesn't seem to do what I'm used to its doing, and I haven't made big changes to my maindeck since it started failing hard. I guess variance is variance and the world is a goofy place, but I'm wondering whether I'm just approaching the card the wrong way entirely. For some time I was draining down to (depending on the matchup) three or less without difficulty in finding a line, but lately I've been totally flubbing almost every time I cast it. I'm starting to wonder whether there's something I'm missing. How big a problem is it to pass the turn with, e.g., 6-8 life after AdN? Is there a good link with info on the best way to optimize it?

The variance in ANT is quite high in general, so I stopped being too greedy with AN if I don't have mana float and/or a landdrop to make post-AN and rather use the AN to refill the hand for the next turn. This is even more true if you run Dark Petition as a high cmc flip(s). Personally, I stopped running Petition completely for quite a while. I got too annoyed by seeing several tutors in my starting grip, it being a horrible card in the first two turns and its shitty interaction with tempo-counters, yardhate and LED.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Also before killing myself I prefer to use a ponder or brainstorm. Because just going 3-4 cards deep for a tutor or led at 4 life is a big chance of winning.


If you have to win the turn you're casting Ad Nauseam, this is wrong. Ad Nauseam vs. cantrips is increndibly complex because of how many variables there are (the cantrips you have access to, cards in your library total, cards in your library that win, cards in your library that kill you), but you basically never want to stop before you hit 1 life in these scenarios. Stopping at 3 or 4 is wrong barring some very extreme circumstances (being able to cast 5 cantrips or so), stopping at 2 is correct with small libraries and 3+ cantrips. I might go back and see if I still have my spreadsheets on this. If that is the case, I'm going to publish them within the next couple days.

[Togores]

I dont like to kill myself >.<

Every nauseam is unique. But I just gave sone hinsight in a situation that comes up often and ppl kill themselves a lot when not having to.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Yeah, people definitely don't pass the turn as often as they should (myself included), but people also don't go low enough when they don't get to pass the turn. Thing is, if you overestimate your digging power from cantrips, you also kill yourself.

[fangzie]

Is there any advice people can give me on the infect matchup? I don't have any in my local meta, so I don't really have any experience against it, but I've started playing on MTGO, and have lost to it every time I've seen it. They always seem to have a hand that's something like pierce, pierce, force, daze, blue card, pump spell, and close the game out well before I can do anything about the counterspells.

[Lemnear]

Is there any advice people can give me on the infect matchup? I don't have any in my local meta, so I don't really have any experience against it, but I've started playing on MTGO, and have lost to it every time I've seen it. They always seem to have a hand that's something like pierce, pierce, force, daze, blue card, pump spell, and close the game out well before I can do anything about the counterspells.

Xantid Swarm?

[TokugawaEdo]

Is there any advice people can give me on the infect matchup? I don't have any in my local meta, so I don't really have any experience against it, but I've started playing on MTGO, and have lost to it every time I've seen it. They always seem to have a hand that's something like pierce, pierce, force, daze, blue card, pump spell, and close the game out well before I can do anything about the counterspells.
I usually just bring in some number of decays for this MU. This type of hand wont see that many threats so if you can kill one it gives you a lot of time to sculpt and pick away at their hand. I know decay doesnt hit inkmoth and gets blocked by vines but it feels better than keeping top in.

[CabalTherapy]

Is there any advice people can give me on the infect matchup? I don't have any in my local meta, so I don't really have any experience against it, but I've started playing on MTGO, and have lost to it every time I've seen it. They always seem to have a hand that's something like pierce, pierce, force, daze, blue card, pump spell, and close the game out well before I can do anything about the counterspells.

I played several times against Infect in the past few weeks and won all matches. It feels like a goldfish because their are light on permission and follow an inferior strategy. This particular hand (pierce, pierce, force, daze, blue card, pump spell) is far from average where sometimes they have 0 to almost no interaction. Xantid is a natural inclusion but no needed in my opinion because since the MU is more of a combo race, you don't develop your board using Xantid. I'd rather go with all discard spells + 2 Decays + Flusterstorm. Decay is a timewalk when played well (usually end of their turn or main phase).

[Ronald Deuce]

Thanks for the advice and discussion about Ad Nauseam! Sounds like I've got the hang of it generally, but like I just need to put more thought and time into using it.

One thing I've noticed that doesn't stick out at first glance (but that's really important) is that the ritual/mana-rock investment in the AdN is a big factor in how/whether it will work. So if we need to expend one or two Petals to make it happen, that's probably going to yield a poor result because we won't have as many left in the deck to power out the cards we draw (the same is true for Dark Ritual). I'm beginning to think I would've had different results on a number of occasions if I'd realized that earlier.

Went 1-2 last Sunday, beating 12-Post and losing to S&T and Dredge (lol, the guy borrowed my Dredge deck—with proxies for the crossover cards with Storm—and beat me with it). Kept some mediocre hands (I'm out of practice), but the Dredge matchup came down to who was going first (we discarded each other into oblivion in all three games) and S&T clocked me in game 1 and had a double-Force-double-Other Blue Card hand (in game 2) of the kind that's been wrecking me for a while. Blood Moon didn't help.

Fangzie, regarding the Berserk-Poison matchup, I feel like it's the same problem I had against S&T. Redundant countermagic is a tough hill to climb, and I don't know that there's much we can do against hands with multiple hard counters. The good news about Berserk is that all the creatures in the deck except animated Inkmoths are vulnerable to spot removal.

Whether stacked hands are a persistent problem when facing the deck is a difficult question because I've had a pretty coin-flippy matchup against it. Postboard it gets a lot harder, but I don't think it's inordinately difficult when compared with most other blue control decks; it seems like they run roughly the same number of counterspells we'd face against Delvers or S&T, though other people with experience playing those decks are better people to confirm/deny that. Sometimes/often they get crazy hands postboard, but other times they don't. Sounds like a cop-out answer, but I've had the same problem with varying frequency against other decks, too.

Personally, I'm not a fan of countermagic or Xantid in this deck, but I can see the use for both of them. I agree with CabalTherapy that we need to race them, and sometimes they'll just have One of Those Hands. But then, the same is true for us.

[ScottW]

Anyone know Christoph Benkstein? I'm curious what card is missing from his main deck?

http://www.tcdecks.net/results.php?nombre=Christoph%20Benkstein

[Dark Ritual]

Anyone know Christoph Benkstein? I'm curious what card is missing from his main deck?

http://www.tcdecks.net/results.php?nombre=Christoph%20Benkstein

Just a shot in the dark but dark petition isn't present in the list, so probably that as he seems solidly on the past in flames loop of course and petition does help out empty the warrens a little bit.

[Togores]

Could be preordain, rain of filth, petition or grim tutor^^

[Ronald Deuce]

Could be preordain, rain of filth, petition or grim tutor^^

My guess was Preordain, but with Empty main and Ad Nauseam in the board, Grim seems a popular choice.

[Morden]

speaking about preordain:
I know, it's the worst cantrip in legacy (also if for me most of the time ponder equals "shuffle and draw a card you saw with ponder" :laugh: ) but I tried Rodrigo's list with 1 preordain instead of rain of filth. Well, test was good: there are some situations were rain is COMPLETELY useless, preordain is NEVER a waste card (well, I repeat, maybe not the best, but can always search for business). Twice I had rain of filth in hand, but I won also without using it.
Probably rain of filth is better for grinding game I guess. But having an opening hand with preordain over rain makes me more confident of the game.

[Sloshthedark]

Anyone know Christoph Benkstein? I'm curious what card is missing from his main deck?

http://www.tcdecks.net/results.php?nombre=Christoph%20Benkstein

judging by Flooded Strands definitely not a GT

[fangzie]

But having an opening hand with preordain over rain makes me more confident of the game.

I rarely want rain in my opener, but I find it useful often enough that I'd never consider cutting it, especially not for another preordain. Rain is just a little utility card. Sometimes it's great, sometimes not, but it can lead to some strange wins out of nowhere

[ScottW]

Here's a link to my post in the pimp thread of my ANT deck. Yes, my camera is terrible. The Grim Tutor alter is by Eric Klug.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?4607-DO-NOT-TRY-TO-SELL-IN-HERE-Pimp-Legacy-Decks&p=965490&viewfull=1#post965490

[Ronald Deuce]

Looks like White's getting a Recruiter in Conspiracy. How worried should we be?

I'll be bringing back Disfigure, and maybe Massacre as well. Not excited for what's to come.

[Contract Killer]

Looks like White's getting a Recruiter in Conspiracy. How worried should we be?

I'll be bringing back Disfigure, and maybe Massacre as well. Not excited for what's to come.

It just matters if the games go long against them since it increases their hate bear density. I really don't think it concerns us. Delver decks on the other hand are in a world of hurt with more flicker wisps to fight through.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[CabalTherapy]

It just matters if the games go long against them since it increases their hate bear density. I really don't think it concerns us. Delver decks on the other hand are in a world of hurt with more flicker wisps to fight through.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

The Pralate is problematic but there is still Dread of Night waiting to make a comeback.

[Morden]

the prelate is a serious problem.....because:

1) probably they are gonna play it MD, it's very powerful. And game 1 if the call "4" it's over, no tendrils, no empty, no party.
2) It's 2/2, so you need TWO dread of night. Better a massacre at this point, but if they call 4 you cannot play it :frown: . So, 4 dread of night SB? I don't know......

My only hope is that they are slow cards, cmc3 gives us the time to win before hate comes down.

[Ronald Deuce]

the prelate is a serious problem.....because:

1) probably they are gonna play it MD, it's very powerful. And game 1 if the call "4" it's over, no tendrils, no empty, no party.
2) It's 2/2, so you need TWO dread of night. Better a massacre at this point, but if they call 4 you cannot play it :frown: . So, 4 dread of night SB? I don't know......

My only hope is that they are slow cards, cmc3 gives us the time to win before hate comes down.

I think with Decay, Chain, Disfigure, and Massacre we should be ok against the Prelate. Too many costs for them to name. It'll be annoying, but I don't think it'll take slots already reserved for Canonist or Thalia. Also, still not as good as Gaddock Teeg in Mav or similar. With all that said, there's always a chance they'll stack up and lock us out, but that feels too slow to worry about unless we open with a real stinker of a hand.

Anybody seen any cards spoiled that look good for us? Glad to see Burning Wish again, even if it's not exactly up our alley.

[Togores]

Also this is worser than any other hatebear.

Its turn 3 and also dont stop us from doing other things, cantrips, nauseam, tutor.

They call 4 we just go ad nauseam and win.

[coveredinbees]

Also this is worser than any other hatebear.

Its turn 3 and also dont stop us from doing other things, cantrips, nauseam, tutor.

They call 4 we just go ad nauseam and win.

What will Ad Nauseam do if they have a chalice on 4? I guess we can close the game out for the opponent, but we're not going to win.

Between this and the new recruiter, it's going to be a struggle to win past turn 3 against DnT. We might want to go with less anti-hate and more speed post-board, and just hope for quick kills. I don't think we have the sideboard space to adequately fight miracles, delver, eldrazi stompy, and the new D&T.

[Morden]

They call 4 we just go ad nauseam and win.

g2/3 ok, we can decay it or bounce it, but g1? :confused:

[Contract Killer]

The Pralate is problematic but there is still Dread of Night waiting to make a comeback.
Yeah that guy will be a problem.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[Togores]

Thats the same as g1 thalia. Its usualy not easy to beat (doable but not real).

And this comes one turn latter.

Its like tegg. And we dont worry (also tegg comes faster and is tutoreable with gsz and played with mana dorks).

We dont play cards for this.
G1 we have 3 options vs tegg:

Discard it
Win faster
Hope they dont have it.

We dont play md aswers for it. And this is even slower.


G2 whatever they call we blunce or destroy it. After or before drawing our deck or going off and win. Like always.

[Ronald Deuce]

I don't know if this experience is representative, but I find that I have a lot of trouble beating D&T in game 1 if I can't combo by the end of my third turn as it is. Thalia still hits on turn 2, so we're already in a tight spot regardless of the Prelate.

I feel like the best way to think about Prelate on 4 is as a slower, un-Zenith-able Gaddock Teeg. Teeg shuts out Massacre (one reason I haven't run it in a while) and is automatic GG in game 1, but we should build answers to Teeg into our sideboards. The same answers will work against the slower Prelate. Prelate can also hit 1 or 2 to stop us from playing our utility cards or acceleration, but they'd need to hit 1, 2, and 4 to deal with all our likely sideboard tech (Chain, Disfigure, Truth, Decay, Massacre), and D&T doesn't run Probe effects [EDIT: Obviously there are other ways for them to build a prison using other prison creatures, but they can do that just as easily, if not even more easily, with zero Prelates as they can with multiple Prelates]. And even with the new Prelate, Canonist is still a better sideboard option for them. Vryn Wingmare is another taxing white creature with the same cmc as the Prelate, but it doesn't get played much for the same reason I don't think Prelate will see much action—it's a turn too slow and is just as vulnerable as anything else if they can't land Mother of Runes.

[Ronald Deuce]

I am actually a bit worried about the new Butt Recruiter, though. Not because it's fast, but because it's going to give D&T even more redundancy. Sure, we still need to race them—and we're capable of doing that pretty often—but I think our chances are slim and none of beating D&T if they can survive past turn 4, and if they start Recruiting out multiple Canonists, I'm worried Slim will leave town.

[Morden]

I don't agree with you guys comparing tegg to the new chalice-with-legs. Yes, your arguments are valid, but let's be practice: how much is tegg spread in the current meta? MD only maverick and aggro loam use it. Tegg is a very big problem g1, but I'm not worried about it because honestly I rarely faced it g1.
This new guy will be used A LOT, and this worries me.

[Togores]

Its still worser than a chalice t2 or a thalia t2.

[fangzie]

Also not convinced this will make a real difference. It doesn't look as good as canonist, as far as I can tell, and is slow (turn 3 if they don't wasteland you at any point). I'll reserve final judgement, but I'm thinking this will be less of a problem then it looks. My prediction is that the place it will see the most play will be in a toolbox variant of D&T with the new recruiter card, which will make it even slower. D&T lists are already fairly tight, and I'm not convinced there are many, if any, cards they'll want to cut to make room for this. We'll see though, as predictions are often way off the mark.


I don't know if this experience is representative, but I find that I have a lot of trouble beating D&T in game 1 if I can't combo by the end of my third turn as it is. Thalia still hits on turn 2, so we're already in a tight spot regardless of the Prelate.

I feel like the best way to think about Prelate on 4 is as a slower, un-Zenith-able Gaddock Teeg. Teeg shuts out Massacre (one reason I haven't run it in a while) and is automatic GG in game 1, but we should build answers to Teeg into our sideboards. The same answers will work against the slower Prelate. Prelate can also hit 1 or 2 to stop us from playing our utility cards or acceleration, but they'd need to hit 1, 2, and 4 to deal with all our likely sideboard tech (Chain, Disfigure, Truth, Decay, Massacre)

I have a lot of D&T in my local meta, and I have the same experience. You either need to therapy Thalia out of their hand before they make their second land drop, or it's very likely you'll lose G1. No stress, though, we have very diverse hate options against them, as you mentioned, and are able to hit a variety of cmc's. I feel like dread of night is a little underrated here, as you only really need one to switch off both Thalia and Mom, which leaves everything else exposed to disfigure/decay/any other hate you like, and unlike massacre, it can't be played around.

[Ronald Deuce]

I may be alone on this one, but I actually find Maverick to be a much worse matchup than D&T. The inevitability they've got with Deathrite, GSZ, Gaddock, Canonist, and Thalia is just crazy. And a lot of those creatures are slotted into the main. D&T's only got Thalia preboard, and postboard they only get Canonist.

It's worth pointing out that Mav can't clock us nearly as quickly as D&T can, but they can toolbox out a whole lot of cards against us on T3 that we have to remove or we're dead. D&T can savage us pretty heavily on/by turn 3, but they don't have the same density of lock pieces.

This Prelate might boost D&T's odds of hitting lock cards, but they'll be losing speed to do it, and even if they run Butt Recruiters, they still won't be as consistent as Mav—and they'll end up being slower.

[David L Byer]

Its still worser than a chalice t2 or a thalia t2.

In the face of these new creatures for the hate bear deck will you ignore them or are you going to make some changes to your 75? If plan on making any changes, what do you have in mind? What will your sideboard look like in a few weeks?

BTW I really enjoy your streams. Wish you would do more.

[Final Fortune]

In D&T it's just another, slower bear, but in Miracles or Blade I think it's a bit worry some to have a Meddling Mage that can protect itself vs Abrupt Decay or Massacre.

[Sloshthedark]

In D&T it's just another, slower bear, but in Miracles or Blade I think it's a bit worry some to have a Meddling Mage that can protect itself vs Abrupt Decay or Massacre.

this, also Leovold will be a problem

[Jin Gitaxias]

this, also Leovold will be a problem

Care to explain your opinion? I don't see how this card will be a problem. The draw restriction makes me think this card won't be played in decks that run either brainstorm+ponder (BUG delver) or ancestral vision (shardless bug).

As for the second ability, I have some experience vs delver decks that have boarded in mystic remora and have not had any trouble beating those.
I know this is only anecdotal data, but imo that is better than nothing.

In short I don't understand why this card would be more worrying than the 2 spoiled white cards.

[Togores]

In the face of these new creatures for the hate bear deck will you ignore them or are you going to make some changes to your 75? If plan on making any changes, what do you have in mind? What will your sideboard look like in a few weeks?

BTW I really enjoy your streams. Wish you would do more.

Also my sb is build to beat the decks I expect the most. I have played masaacre the last months in some events where I expected a lot of taxes. Its just you have to adapt yourself.


Also the problem of my stream is that I dont have time always to do it. Gf, job, friends, family and so.

But thanks!

[Lemnear]

Care to explain your opinion? I don't see how this card will be a problem. The draw restriction makes me think this card won't be played in decks that run either brainstorm+ponder (BUG delver) or ancestral vision (shardless bug).

As for the second ability, I have some experience vs delver decks that have boarded in mystic remora and have not had any trouble beating those.
I know this is only anecdotal data, but imo that is better than nothing.

In short I don't understand why this card would be more worrying than the 2 spoiled white cards.

With a lethal ToA on the stack you opponent gets to draw 10+ cards right into Mindbreak Trap/Flusterstorm

[Sloshthedark]

Care to explain your opinion? I don't see how this card will be a problem. The draw restriction makes me think this card won't be played in decks that run either brainstorm+ponder (BUG delver) or ancestral vision (shardless bug).

As for the second ability, I have some experience vs delver decks that have boarded in mystic remora and have not had any trouble beating those.
I know this is only anecdotal data, but imo that is better than nothing.

In short I don't understand why this card would be more worrying than the 2 spoiled white cards.

the 1st fx is onesided+what lemnear said, it's MDckable hatebear in odd colors, the card has huge potential imo

I'm not worried about the CotV dude until it sees play outside of D+T which it probably will, there is not much to do about it things just get worse most time new relevant cards see print

[dte]

Care to explain your opinion? I don't see how this card will be a problem. The draw restriction makes me think this card won't be played in decks that run either brainstorm+ponder (BUG delver) or ancestral vision (shardless bug).


There is no draw restriction, "Each opponent can't draw more than one card each turn"


With a lethal ToA on the stack you opponent gets to draw 10+ cards right into Mindbreak Trap/Flusterstorm

Exactly. But even hitting 1-2 Spierce, FoW, daze if your are low on storm count.
This could push to try to have high storm count, and make the tutor chain that much worse, and leovold would never be played in decks that are not also playing DRS.

Having leovold in play, it is also possible to hide FS on top with Ponder-BS to protect it from discard.

[Lemnear]

Having leovold in play, it is also possible to hide FS on top with Ponder-BS to protect it from discard.

Leovold is freaking stupid good in Shardless if paired with MBT. Usually they are light on counterspells so if you discard their FoW and are not shredded by Hymn+DRS beforehand, the match is in your favor, but a dropped Leovold not only messes with your Brainstorms/Ponders/Preordains just like SpiritOfTheLabyrinth does, but also draws them right into their counterspells in a situation where you cannot react to with discard at all. He is hate on two different angles which can come down by turn 2. This is a non-white hatebear on crack which fucks over opposing discard and cantrips

[Ronald Deuce]

Leovold does look pretty nasty, but is it really something that'll cause inordinate trouble for us? I feel like if they've Hymned and Seized us, we're in really bad shape anyway, pretty much banking on finding Past in Flames or just dying.

It also has a couple of flaws I think are worth pointing out.
—Vulnerable to Abrupt Decay
—Legendary
—Doesn't go well with Cascade

Is Leo something we can't solve with Abrupt Decay or Empty the Warrens? Don't get me wrong; I actually think it's a really cool card, and it essentially turns off Tendrils. But is it really something over which we should be quaking in our boots?

A related question: it's looking like we're going to be facing down an increasingly quick clock on redundant hate in the coming months, and in decks that formerly didn't have it. Has anyone tried running seven discards again? Mainboard or sideboard? With double-PiF, double-Petition, or something else? Final related thought: I'm starting to think sideboard Daze looks more appealing than it had before, so I'm interested to hear any testing info people have to offer.

[Togores]

With leovold they draw one card for each tendrills copy? If yes then my decays against shardless are much better. But they also have to play fluster or trap for him being good.
Just slam all 4 decays vs shardless.

[Douif]

Yes, they will draw one card for each copy.

[Morden]

Leovold does look pretty nasty, but is it really something that'll cause inordinate trouble for us? I feel like if they've Hymned and Seized us, we're in really bad shape anyway, pretty much banking on finding Past in Flames or just dying.

It also has a couple of flaws I think are worth pointing out.
—Vulnerable to Abrupt Decay
—Legendary
—Doesn't go well with Cascade

Is Leo something we can't solve with Abrupt Decay or Empty the Warrens? Don't get me wrong; I actually think it's a really cool card, and it essentially turns off Tendrils. But is it really something over which we should be quaking in our boots?

A related question: it's looking like we're going to be facing down an increasingly quick clock on redundant hate in the coming months, and in decks that formerly didn't have it. Has anyone tried running seven discards again? Mainboard or sideboard? With double-PiF, double-Petition, or something else? Final related thought: I'm starting to think sideboard Daze looks more appealing than it had before, so I'm interested to hear any testing info people have to offer.

Agree. Leo is good, but I don't think BUG players will add it to their sideboard. Null rod is faster and protects against a lot of decks, Leo hits hard only us.
I'm thinking me too to change something, probably in the sideboard. The first thing that comes into my mind is cutting a decay for a thoughtseize: our discard plan is strong, I think we should feed this plan that is good against everyone. We are fast, we win because opponents don't have time to drop hate or because we discarded them. This plan is weak the more the game goes on I know, my idea is that I want to increase the odds to have a discard on opening hand; on turn 5-6-7 I hope to get a bouncer/decay/krosan to handle their hate on the battlefield. I think we can also cut a flusterstorm for a thoughtseize, maybe it's also better than cutting the decay, I'm just brainstorming without editing :laugh:

I'd REALLY like to play cards like massacre, disfigure, dread of night......but you need to run multiple copies of them if you want to see them early, but I don't think we have too much room in the sideboard

[Lemnear]

Agree. Leo is good, but I don't think BUG players will add it to their sideboard. Null rod is faster and protects against a lot of decks, Leo hits hard only us.

Eh? Is Storm the only Legacy deck playing cantrips, or what?

[ScottW]

How does Notion Thief interact with this card and isn't Notion Thief at least in the same category? It doesn't see much play.

[Togores]

Notion usualy is better. Because in the shardless mirror its insane. It cant be destroyed by decay. And its not played. Because its to narrow.

[Morden]

Eh? Is Storm the only Legacy deck playing cantrips, or what?

Other decks run wasteland, it's not easy to reach BGU under mana denial and without deathrite. Leo can be killed by decay, bolt, StP. It can be bounced by Karakas and you can play only one of them. Leo's second ability is devastating only against us; it's annoying in general, but why shardless players should run this over notion thief (that is still not used)? Just because it's better with ANT? I don't think (and I hope) it's worth it.

[Ronald Deuce]

Other decks run wasteland, it's not easy to reach BGU under mana denial and without deathrite. Leo can be killed by decay, bolt, StP. It can be bounced by Karakas and you can play only one of them. Leo's second ability is devastating only against us; it's annoying in general, but why shardless players should run this over notion thief (that is still not used)? Just because it's better with ANT? I don't think (and I hope) it's worth it.

Speaking of Wasteland, it cuts both ways: Leo clashes with colorless sources. Might still see play, but the more I think about it, the more it looks like a really busted card that doesn't quite fit into an existing framework.

[nevilshute]

Played a League. Didn't do too well but had some good and interesting games. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHk0w4Md8v4BdGFEZ9IV_E1rcoop_tEE3

Also. Been a while. Hope you all are well :smile:

[Morden]

Played a League. Didn't do too well but had some good and interesting games. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHk0w4Md8v4BdGFEZ9IV_E1rcoop_tEE3

Also. Been a while. Hope you all are well :smile:

thanks for sharing!

[Patrunkenphat7]

Played a League. Didn't do too well but had some good and interesting games. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHk0w4Md8v4BdGFEZ9IV_E1rcoop_tEE3

Also. Been a while. Hope you all are well :smile:

Let the Iggy flow through you...

[TokugawaEdo]

Does anyone have a good suggestions for a SB card to replace a flusterstorm? Was playing extirpates but I'm not sure I want them for a larger tournement like the scg tomorrow. Any suggestions?

[ScottW]

Does anyone have a good suggestions for a SB card to replace a flusterstorm? Was playing extirpates but I'm not sure I want them for a larger tournement like the scg tomorrow. Any suggestions?

Maybe additional discard. Flusterstorm can help in a variety of match ups but seems strongest against other combo decks.

[Morden]

I'd say the same, thoughtseize could be an option, useful also against D&T and in general vs combo.

[Ronald Deuce]

Does anyone have a good suggestions for a SB card to replace a flusterstorm? Was playing extirpates but I'm not sure I want them for a larger tournement like the scg tomorrow. Any suggestions?

I've never been a fan of countermagic, but I can see the use for it in certain matchups. If you're running it to fight fast combo, why not try Surgical Extraction or Pithing Needle? Each has plenty of crossover value, too, though I've only ever run them as singletons, so I don't know how much good they'd do in multiples.

I'm testing a fourth Cabal Therapy in the 'board at the moment, but I didn't have any matchups in which I'd have wanted it today. For the record, I went 2-1, beating Dredge and Elves and losing to Miracles (that matchup I still need a load of practice to fight, but I haven't had much opportunity).

I was considering a seventh discard in the sideboard against fast combo and dedicated control matchups (e.g., Show and Tell, Stoneblade, or maybe Delver) in which point-kills or bounce wouldn't be likely to get me very far. I still bring in Chain of Vapor against some control decks, but I only replace Preordain if that's what I'm doing. I also usually switch out Petition for a second Tendrils in such matchups.

The obvious problem with combo is the likelihood that they'll be on the play. There, discard is pretty much useless. Doesn't mean it isn't useful [EDIT: for being on the play or against other matchups], just that it's no good if they can pull off a T1 when we haven't had the chance to play lands yet. What's everyone else think?

On a different note, has anybody tried anything like the maindeck Daze plan?

[Jonathan Alexander]

I updated The Storm Box (https://theweeklywars.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/the-storm-box/)!

Relevant changes from previous version:

Infernal Tutor - Dark Petition

(Rewrote Infernal Tutor bit, Petition wasn't mentioned before.)

Burning Wish - Grim Tutor

Just slightly updated.

Chain of Vapor - Echoing Truth

Section on Chain rewritten, Truth wasn't mentioned before.

Daze

Wasn't mentioned before.

Carpet of Flowers

Somehow wasn't mentioned before.


I also rewrote most of the other sections and included guidelines for how many copies to run of the core cards.

[L10]

Thanks for the update, Jonathan.


On a different note, has anybody tried anything like the maindeck Daze plan?
Nope, but it did well at the Big Magic Open: http://www.hareruyamtg.com/en/k/kD12967S/

[TokugawaEdo]

Daze

Has the fact that you start turn 2 with one land been relevant. I've only just started messing around with daze but like it so far. Have you changedyour list much since you last posted it?

[Jonathan Alexander]

The only game I can remember where the cost of returning a land had any real impact was a game I didn't draw a single ritual and had Ad Nauseam in hand. Not sure which list you are referring to, but I have made some changes since the last on I posted on twitter / the pimp thread: http://deckstats.net/decks/65431/554361-storm-15-08-2016

Yes, I am now running more countermagic than discard spells.

[Ronald Deuce]

Great update, Jonathan Alexander!

I'm starting to feel like Daze might have a place, but I didn't really get far when I was testing it a couple of weeks back. It wasn't that it would be a poor choice on turn 2; it was that, if I didn't have it on that turn, the opponents outpaced it. With that having been said, I wasn't facing hatebears that week and I wasn't running a quad of Dazes (2-3, as I recall). How have you found it to perform in the later game? Have you found Daze to stress your LEDs, given that having a land in hand can cause problems with Infernal Tutor?

I saw another card spoiled in Conspiracy that I'm interested to try out, but I was wondering what you all think. Anybody given thought to Subterranean Tremors?

[Lemnear]

Great update, Jonathan Alexander!

I'm starting to feel like Daze might have a place, but I didn't really get far when I was testing it a couple of weeks back. It wasn't that it would be a poor choice on turn 2; it was that, if I didn't have it on that turn, the opponents outpaced it. With that having been said, I wasn't facing hatebears that week and I wasn't running a quad of Dazes (2-3, as I recall). How have you found it to perform in the later game? Have you found Daze to stress your LEDs, given that having a land in hand can cause problems with Infernal Tutor?

I saw another card spoiled in Conspiracy that I'm interested to try out, but I was wondering what you all think. Anybody given thought to Subterranean Tremors?

Daze isn't there to support/protect the LED+IT interaction, but to mess with the opponents turn 1/2 plays like Hymn/Counterbalance/Thalia/DRS/etc. to catch them off-guard, potentially even without any downside if you lack a third land by turn 3 anyways (in terms of landdrops) which can equal to a two-mana-temposwing if your opponent invests two mana plus a card and you deny it for zero mana plus daze. Its function in theory is similar to Flusterstorm, but you don't have to keep mana open and it can hit Counterbalance, Chalice, Thalia unlike the Storm-counterspell.

[Ronald Deuce]

Daze isn't there to support/protect the LED+IT interaction, but to mess with the opponents turn 1/2 plays like Hymn/Counterbalance/Thalia/DRS/etc. to catch them off-guard, potentially even without any downside if you lack a third land by turn 3 anyways (in terms of landdrops) which can equal to a two-mana-temposwing if your opponent invests two mana plus a card and you deny it for zero mana plus daze. Its function in theory is similar to Flusterstorm, but you don't have to keep mana open and it can hit Counterbalance, Chalice, Thalia unlike the Storm-counterspell.

Oh, don't get me wrong; I get that it's not really supposed to back up the combo. I was more asking about how well it works at a suboptimal time (sounds strange, I know).

What I was getting at was that countermagic, for all its versatility, has a major flaw: we can't use it against anything that's off the stack. So we need to have Daze open at precisely the right time to remove a threat, but we can use Chain, Decay, etc. anytime after we draw it. We don't need it in hand when they play their bears; we just need to find it before they clock us. So I was wondering whether people found Daze to get in the way or to function well in other situations than the optimal "Daze your Chalice" situations. E.g., when we topdeck it late in the game or when we're trying to go off and we don't have an LED.

[.Ix]

Took down a small local with Rodrigo's list modified to play Daze. - 1 PIF - 1 Bayou - 1 Top +3 Daze. Sb is - 2 fluster +2 Surgical.

2-0 burn. T2 Ad Nauseam from 20. DR, DR, IT revealing DR, DR, DR, IT Hellbent, Ad Nauseam. Haha. G2 t3 Natural Tendrils.

2-0 kuldotha red 8 whack brew (actually just as fast as burn, maybe faster). T3 PIF loop after blind therapy on Goblin Bushwhacker, then T2 natural tendrils.

2-0 elves. G1 He bricks after an insane T2 Glimpse, I kill him on my turn. G2 he mulls to 4 and I have NOTHING after 3 cantrips. I have the PIF kill but I have LED + Tendrils against his active DRS. I rip a Brainstorm like a champ, return my Tendrils to the top, then IT, IT, PIF to play around his DRS.

2-1 RIP miracles(heavily metagamed). With CB Top in play, Tendrils in hand, I Ponder. He triggers on the stack, spins, fetches, I Brainstorm with fetch on the stack. He taps Top to counter Brainstorm, fetches his top away, then blind flips a Brainstorm. I lose to his RIP Helm. G2 I board in 13 cards and play the long game. Natural Tendrils. G3 goes the same way.

I never got to Daze anything relevant except a Jace, and I lost that game. I also Dazed my own Duress vs Burn just to up my Storm count, but I could have done that with any other card. Daze was never bad, though, and would have been great had I actually had any spells to Daze. My opponents just didn't present anything, so I always Brainstormed them away on the combo turn. Will definitely play this list again.

[Ronald Deuce]

Took down a small local with Rodrigo's list modified to play Daze. - 1 PIF - 1 Bayou - 1 Top +3 Daze.

Good show and well done! I have a few questions:

—It looks like you've cut back on business further than Togores has. That means you were running with two fewer business spells than I usually do, so I'm wondering whether you ever felt like you needed more. I'm on 2x PiF, 1x AdN, Tendrils, Petition and I still feel like I can't find what I need sometimes. Was your business setup singletons AdN, Tendrils, PiF?
—How did you hold up with only one PiF against countermagic? The reason I ask is that I noticed that I was doing significantly better against counter-heavy decks after I switched Petition #2 to PiF #2. As an example, I lost every match to Stoneblade before the switch, and I won every match against it afterward.
—Did having Daze help you slow the game down enough that finding business wasn't a problem? Did you feel like you had too much control and not enough Get There with six(?) discards and three Dazes?

Thanks for the report!

[.Ix]

I also had 1 ETW in the maindeck for the Preordain, so it's - 1 land - 2 cantrip - 1 PIF for +3 Daze +1 ETW. Sorry about that. I had ETW in hand once and was going to take a Goblins line against burn but Brainstorm showed me the kill.

Re: countermagic, I wish I could say more about this, but as you can see, my matchups were pretty light on counters. In games 2 and 3 of the miracles matchup, the goal becomes casting Tendrils several times from hand after sculpting a hand, and my opponent was even maindecking RIP. PIF would have been pretty bad against him.

Daze didn't slow me down because I only got to cast it once! My sample size and matches were really bad for actually testing Daze, but at least I know the deck can still go off while having dead Dazes in hand.

[Ronald Deuce]

I also had 1 ETW in the maindeck for the Preordain, so it's - 1 land - 2 cantrip - 1 PIF for +3 Daze +1 ETW. Sorry about that.

No worries! I probably should've inferred that you'd have one somewhere in there; just didn't put two and two together. I've had a lot of similar experiences with Empty myself. I'm keeping it in the 75 because when it works, it works, but it's strange to think that oftentimes hitting storm 6 isn't that much less of a hurdle than hitting storm 10.


Re: countermagic, I wish I could say more about this, but as you can see, my matchups were pretty light on counters. In games 2 and 3 of the miracles matchup, the goal becomes casting Tendrils several times from hand after sculpting a hand, and my opponent was even maindecking RIP. PIF would have been pretty bad against him. . . . Daze didn't slow me down because I only got to cast it once! My sample size and matches were really bad for actually testing Daze, but at least I know the deck can still go off while having dead Dazes in hand.

Yeah, I jumped the gun with those questions. Just figured I'd ask to see whether you'd seen anything or recalled any instances in which those two build decisions had noteworthy results. I'd be interested to hear more if you get more testing in!

That Miracles build seems interesting/strange, and you're definitely right that PiF doesn't do anything if they land Rest in Peace. I haven't seen a lot of RiPs lately, though that doesn't mean they aren't floating around. I've started to see some Enlightened Tutors in main decks or sideboards (not sure which), and I think RiP is often the payload. Of course, my main difficulty with Miracles at the moment is that Monastery Mentor puts us under the gun pretty quickly.

What I was getting at with my questions re: PiF and Daze was that I was wondering whether the increased number of disruptive spells in your build made for greater resilience against countermagic or made finding PiF less important for your combo's resilience. I was skeptical about the second PiF for a long time (I was on six-tutor until a few months ago), but I've found it to be really useful. If you learn anything in further testing, I'm all ears!

[B88]

hi guys! after some games here my results :

Win/Loss and Win-rate

miracle 43-32 57%
infect 2-2 50%
ta 14-10 58%
grixis pyro 20-16 55%
aggro loam 9-5 64%
det 25-15 62%
show 13-11 54%
shard 11-3 78%
junk/jund 6-5 54%
ur 13-8 61%
ant 7-3 70%
eldrazi 11-11 50%
reanimator 8-7 54%
painter 3-3 50%
canadian 8-1 88%
elf 6-5 54%
random 22-15 59%

my list was almost this:

4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Past in Flames
2 Tendrils of Agony
2 Preordain
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Volcanic Island
4 Misty Rainforest

SB: 4 Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Empty the Warrens
SB: 2 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Bayou
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Carpet of Flowers

if someone is intrested to speak about something i'll be happy to answer :smile:

[Morden]

ciao claudio!
how was the tournament Sunday? 119 players, isn'it? did you meet any sanctum prelate, in miracle or D&T?

[B88]

ciao claudio!
how was the tournament Sunday? 119 players, isn'it? did you meet any sanctum prelate, in miracle or D&T?

Hi man, yes i played that tournament but the night before i had a party, a good one near Milano, so i was destroyed (i say only that: i've slept in a bench in the park in front of the tournament centre) :tongue:

but:
T1 reanimator 2-0
T2 Miracle 1-1
T3 Elf 2-1
T4 Ant 2-0
T5 miracle 2-0
T6 Deathblade 1-2 (lost by one my mistake)
T7 Elf 1-2 (he topdeck both time the 1x of Thalia but i did a mistake so it's fine)

if the tournament wasn't organized by 2 friends of mine i would not play it :rolleyes:

[LanciatoreDiBanane]

T7 Elf 1-2 (he topdeck both time the 1x of Thalia but i did a mistake so it's fine)


I had three Thalia in my side both times we played together, I respect Storm a lot :)
Nevertheless, I was exceptionally lucky and you never had the turn 1-2 kill.

In game 2 you had the opportunity to blind name thalia with cabal on turn 1, and I was thinking about discarding it. I played greedly.

[B88]

I had three Thalia in my side both times we played together, I respect Storm a lot :)
Nevertheless, I was exceptionally lucky and you never had the turn 1-2 kill.

In game 2 you had the opportunity to blind name thalia with cabal on turn 1, and I was thinking about discarding it. I played greedly.

now has sense! :tongue: i thought you run just one thalia. anyway i lost by one my mistake so no excuse!

[Ronald Deuce]

if someone is intrested to speak about something i'll be happy to answer :smile:

Wow! Great info, and well done in that tournament!

I've got a couple of questions/queries about your list and the stats you posted.
—The Elves, Junk/Jund, and Painter win-ratios are lower than I would've expected, but the Eldrazi, Reanimator, and Canadian/RUG Delver ratios are a lot higher (Shardless and Canadian are total blowouts, which is sweet). I'm interested to learn more about why you think this might be. I've not had much experience against Reanimator, but it's clotheslined me every time, and usually by turn 2. Similar problem against Eldrazi.
—How have you liked running double-Preordain and Sensei's Top together in the main? I'm keeping Top in my sideboard for the time being, and I've got Rain of Filth in the maindeck. Main reason I ask is that I still get flooded on cantrips sometimes, though I'm beginning to settle for the double-Preordain at long last and against my preference.
—Why Bayou instead of Tropical Island? Any specific reason? I guess extra black mana is better against Miracles, and I've not had a lot of problems finding the right colors (usually if I have mana problems it's that I just don't find lands), but I'm wondering what you think.
—How much work is Flusterstorm doing? I'm getting more and more to the point that I feel like testing it, but I still feel weird running countermagic in the deck.
—Why two Empty the Warrens? I'm not used to seeing it as a double; usually I see singletons or triples.
—How's the speed on your build? Does double-Tendrils get you many free wins, or does it ever get in the way?

Thanks in advance, and again, well done!

[B88]

Wow! Great info, and well done in that tournament!

I've got a couple of questions/queries about your list and the stats you posted.
—The Elves, Junk/Jund, and Painter win-ratios are lower than I would've expected, but the Eldrazi, Reanimator, and Canadian/RUG Delver ratios are a lot higher (Shardless and Canadian are total blowouts, which is sweet). I'm interested to learn more about why you think this might be. I've not had much experience against Reanimator, but it's clotheslined me every time, and usually by turn 2. Similar problem against Eldrazi.
—How have you liked running double-Preordain and Sensei's Top together in the main? I'm keeping Top in my sideboard for the time being, and I've got Rain of Filth in the maindeck. Main reason I ask is that I still get flooded on cantrips sometimes, though I'm beginning to settle for the double-Preordain at long last and against my preference.
—Why Bayou instead of Tropical Island? Any specific reason? I guess extra black mana is better against Miracles, and I've not had a lot of problems finding the right colors (usually if I have mana problems it's that I just don't find lands), but I'm wondering what you think.
—How much work is Flusterstorm doing? I'm getting more and more to the point that I feel like testing it, but I still feel weird running countermagic in the deck.
—Why two Empty the Warrens? I'm not used to seeing it as a double; usually I see singletons or triples.
—How's the speed on your build? Does double-Tendrils get you many free wins, or does it ever get in the way?


thx dude! i'll try to answer:

1- about elf,junk and painter i think that might depends about the number of games i did, probably not enough to be rapresentative. about canadian is because i played that deck for years so i know quite well how to fight it. reanimator still a bad mu even if my data say something different, but fluster help. eldrazi MU is like reanimator still bad but EtW is there for this reason :tongue:
2- that split is fine since i don't want the 7th discard and a high quantity of cantrips is cool when you run 2ToA (Sensei is amazing, you should run it in the main)
3- yeah bayou is there for that reason
4- fluster is the only card i wouldn't never change in my sb. when you run 2/3 toa fluster is the best card to protect your toa and still great when you fight combo and control
5- well sometime is bad sometime is good, depends but still the best win con.

[ConnerSabin]

hi guys! after some games here my results :

Win/Loss and Win-rate

miracle 43-32 57%
infect 2-2 50%
ta 14-10 58%
grixis pyro 20-16 55%
aggro loam 9-5 64%
det 25-15 62%
show 13-11 54%
shard 11-3 78%
junk/jund 6-5 54%
ur 13-8 61%
ant 7-3 70%
eldrazi 11-11 50%
reanimator 8-7 54%
painter 3-3 50%
canadian 8-1 88%
elf 6-5 54%
random 22-15 59%

my list was almost this:

4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Past in Flames
2 Tendrils of Agony
2 Preordain
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Volcanic Island
4 Misty Rainforest

SB: 4 Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Empty the Warrens
SB: 2 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Bayou
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Carpet of Flowers

if someone is intrested to speak about something i'll be happy to answer [emoji2]
Hi Claudio!

I was wondering how you have like 2x ToA 2x PiF and Ad Nauseam all in the main. I guess it's probably comparable and a little less of a hit to your life than a 2x Petition list, but when you AN do you find this to be cumbersome at all? I would imagine in this list you probably Ad Nauseam for value more than for just the win, but I'd like to hear your thoughts. Additionally, I would assume you board out a PiF and a ToA when you bring in the Empty the Warrens, but does Nauseam also come out?

Thanks!

[B88]

Hi Claudio!

I was wondering how you have like 2x ToA 2x PiF and Ad Nauseam all in the main. I guess it's probably comparable and a little less of a hit to your life than a 2x Petition list, but when you AN do you find this to be cumbersome at all? I would imagine in this list you probably Ad Nauseam for value more than for just the win, but I'd like to hear your thoughts. Additionally, I would assume you board out a PiF and a ToA when you bring in the Empty the Warrens, but does Nauseam also come out?

Thanks!

hi there! :smile:

well no, actually those Adn are more for kill than value since often you don't need to find the Led for the hellbet, you just need rituals for cast your Toa :tongue:
when i board Etw i usually board out 1Pif and 1Toa

[Shaman]

Additional tendrils make better ad nauseams, not worse.

[Jonathan Alexander]

It's been a while since I posted something resembling a more traditional primer, is anyone interested in a short primer with boarding plans on my current MTGO Storm list?

[UseLess]

Isn't the answer overly obvious to that question? If it's the version with 4x Daze I'm especially interested :).

[Shaman]

I am interested too. BTW I am scared to play 2x SDT against D&T that seems to be quite popular ATM.

[.Ix]

Definitely interested!

[Zombie]

One more vote for primer!

[Ronald Deuce]

A primer sounds great! Thanks, Jonathan!

[Sloshthedark]

I am interested too. BTW I am scared to play 2x SDT against D&T that seems to be quite popular ATM.

why? works very well under taxing and your LED aint disabled at worst... Id sb out a Ponder before SDT

[Shaman]

why? works very well under taxing and your LED aint disabled at worst... Id sb out a Ponder before SDT

Against decks that can "virtually" win on their second turn (I am thinking of Thalia for D&T) I prefer to start my turn with land-ponder than land-sdt. Maybe I am wrong here! But I feell sdt, while being overall really powerful, slows you down in the very first turns.

[Ronald Deuce]

I am interested too. BTW I am scared to play 2x SDT against D&T that seems to be quite popular ATM.

Sensei's Top is a great card, but it's really slow. In my (small) meta, I've got a Dredge/D&T player, an S&T player, an Eldrazi player, and a Maverick player. There's also an occasional Berserker, an occasional Elves-player, and Delvers here and there. Only one guy plays Miracles regularly. So even a singleton maindeck Top doesn't do me any good because I need to get the ball rolling immediately, which Top doesn't do unless you either expend fast mana or play it on/after turn 2. I bring it in against Miracles, but—strong as the card is—Top doesn't seem to have done me much good anywhere else. I will concede up-front that Top feels perfectly reasonable for a larger tournament with oodles of Miracles decks floating around, but when half the people at a tournament are playing decks that aren't much slower than ours, I don't think we can waste time spinning.

Personally I don't think double-Top is good in any matchup but Miracles or maybe something like Pox or Punishing Stuff; if you're running one or more, you're starting to sacrifice speed substantially. I'm noticing the comparative slowness of double-PiF (compared with double-Petition) in a few matchups already, and especially in my meta, I can't imagine doing anything to slow down my main plan further (adding SDT or more maindeck lands). Multiple Tops starts to push us closer to Doomsday territory, and awesome as that deck is, I've seen it fold very often because it has trouble assembling a win quickly.

If other people have further input, I'll defer to their judgment, but many of the decks I'm facing are almost as fast as Storm is (my fast-combo decks, which I lend out occasionally, are faster). Top's no good in those situations.

[EDIT: One thing that occurs to me is that Top has the same problem Dark Confidant does: we're spending a turn to make a permanent, not to manipulate the deck or go off.]

I've got a semi-related question: is anyone running zero Tops in the 75? If so, what's your assessment of the risks, and what's your strategy against Miracles?

[David L Byer]

It's been a while since I posted something resembling a more traditional primer, is anyone interested in a short primer with boarding plans on my current MTGO Storm list?

You got my vote.