Wet-nurse

[Cuddlecow]

Hello,

I`ve had an idea for a cool storm engine with gifts ungiven and past in flames. This engine allows us to storm out of nowhere, with no rituals in hand whatsoever, into a lethal tendrils. All we need is to cast a gifts ungiven and untap with a couple lands in play.

Get the following pile with Gifts Ungiven end of opponent's turn. Past in Flames, three accelerants. Because Past in Flames has flashback, we can cast it either way, whether it ends up in hand, or in the graveyard. So we cast all accelerants, cast Past in flames, flashback all accelerants, then flashback gifts and get tendrils. We need all the accelerants just one time in the deck to storm this brutally. To make it more exact:

First Gifts Pile:
Past in Flames + Dark Ritual + Cabal Ritual + Seething Song

Untap, play a fifth land, cast all accelerants, cast past in flames. (or flashback it if it's in the GY).
Flashback all accelerants, flashback gifts.
Get the following pile:
Burning Wish + Tendrils of Agony + Noxious Revival +Fireblast

Now we can cast tendrils with stormcount8 (at worst, if the opponent knows exactly which piles are worst for us) and a fireblast. Making Noxious work is easy, we can play with gitaxian probe and flashback one, or another cantrip if we have one more mana, or have a sensei's divining top in play. I have senseis in my deck anyway, so that's fine. It's very easy to make a much higher storm count and without top/probe, but in order to do that, we need more singletons in the deck, playing with 8 singletons and five lands is the minimum I came up with so far for lethal stormcount.
I think gifts is incredible like this, because it's four demonic tutors in one, not to mention that we can cast at least one of our tutored cards twice, plus the flashback from PiF gives the gifts itself a new cast, too. The sweet thing is, in order to storm this brutally, we just need eight one-offs in the deck. Which leaves incredible freedom in building the rest of the deck, for instance for building an almost pure control deck.

So let's build a deck, I call it wet-nurse.

//Lands
21 lands

//Engine
4 gifts ungiven
1 past in flames

//Fuel
1 dark ritual
1 cabal ritual
1 seething song
1 burning wish
1 noxious revival
1 fireblast
1 tendrils of agony

Now we can insta kill any opponent if we make it to turn5 and resolve a gifts. Note that unlike high tide, discarding one combo part and ruin everything is impossible, because this is a one-card combo.
There's a few ways at least to go from here, my newest list is an attempt to play combo-control. Combo-control seems nice to me because though we lose 8 cards main deck for our combo potential, we can brainstorm/cantrip them away and play pure control deck and use gifts as a draw spell if needed.

Let's add cantrips, top seems very nice because we want to make it to turn5 and the second ability enables noxious revival, which means we need less mana in our combo turn and as such, less singletons in our deck.

Next, the protection package, atm we have 15 free slots. We can play with Counterbalance, Terminus, Jace, the mind sculptor, devastation tide, removal, bounce, whatever.

There's a particularly appealing protection card imo, which can be a semi-terminus, and run away with games. I`m talking about monastery mentor on blocking duty, of course.
If an opponent sits on a hand full of surgical extractions etc., or keeps a land unused all day in case he needs to use his death rite shaman and just is very slow, then we play mentor and, instead of gifting into combo, just play a pure control deck and gift into protection/Pump/cantrips trolol.
Let's add vendilions, too, because they can block delvers if need be and are great both at protecting our combo and ruining our opponent's.

Instead of going mentor, I`m considering Lingering souls, as well, it's very nice with gifts, and stoneforge mystic. Is it maybe best to just use a mix of all of these so we can tutor up a nice threat/semiremoval package if needed?

//Lands
21 lands

//Engine
4 gifts ungiven
1 past in flames

//Fuel
1 dark ritual
1 cabal ritual
1 seething song
1 burning wish
1 noxious revival
1 fireblast
1 tendrils of agony

//Cantrips
2 preordain
2 ponder
4 sensei's divining top
4 brainstorm

//Protection package
4 monastery mentor
4 force of will
3 vendilion clique
4 spell pierce

EDIT: Fixed the second playlet forces now, thanks for pointing it out.

What do you think about this deck? What would you cut for the counterbalances, would you rather play lots of rituals and just be faster than the opponent, or do you think it's better/necessary to do something entirely different with this engine and what are your thoughts on this?

[filln]

Quick note that you have Force of Will listed twice, one accidentally in the cantrip section.

I like the idea of this deck because Gifts Ungiven is such a powerful card that needs to find a good home. Still thinking through this so no immediate feedback yet... but I gotta ask, why is it called Wet-nurse?

[ntropy]

I like this.

My first thoughts are to add Chrome Moxes or Mox Diamonds to accelerate by a turn.
It seems that it needs fewer cards in hand than a traditional storm list so the card disadvantage is less painful.
My other thought is that it is much more reliant on resolving a critical spell, so it needs to be able to protect that spell really well.
Like Xantid Swarm or Silence or Defense Grid well.
Perhaps it has the space to run hard protection like that though.

I might sketch up a list tonight to goldfish. It looks fun!

[tarmogoat]

What happens when you draw the one ofs meant to be in the piles and the pile structure is different? Sorry if it's a silly question, it's morning here and my brain isn't working properly atm.

[Ronald Deuce]

A few questions, and I'm not asking to be a meanie—this is food for thought: what do you think this deck does better than existing Storm variants? Being able to storm with one enabling spell is cool, but does that increase the deck's redundancy or power?

The two big weaknesses that occur to me are a) your rituals are split between black and red, but your enabling spell and the protection package are blue; b) as described, the plan is slower than existing storm lists, making Wasteland and hatebear-flooding real problems. It's also important to consider that Gifts Ungiven doesn't have a home not because it's a weak card, but because it's a major counter-magnet. Existing Storm lists run plenty of those, too, but most don't cost four mana, and those decks are built to work around (and sometimes play into) countermagic—without running their own maindeck counterspells (N.B.: Force of Will is usually considered a no-no in storm variants, barring High Tide, in part because it costs you cards that you might otherwise cast to gain storm count).


What happens when you draw the one ofs meant to be in the piles and the pile structure is different? Sorry if it's a silly question, it's morning here and my brain isn't working properly atm.

You can make piles with fewer than four cards; the opponent puts two in the 'yard, but the others go to your hand (yes, this is a really weird ruling). Also, nothing's really stopping you from throwing a blank into the Gifts pile; if you draw Past in Flames, you can cast it off a Ritual and your lands; if you draw mana, you can use it to cast Past in Flames wherever it goes.

I would take the approach of running Gifts as an additional enabler on top of the traditional storm mana and business (like Empty the Warrens or Burning Wish/Infernal Tutor). I don't—at present—see any reason to go all-in on Gifts when the mana-and-tutor skeleton is so fast and reliable. Why not try additional ritual effects and Wishes? Those make a fast Empty the Warrens viable. If you're set on playing countermagic, the Wishes seem better than Infernal Tutor because you don't need an empty hand to find what you need.

I'm still no expert with Storm, but I've never liked running creatures in AnT. Not Confidants, not Xantid Swarms. Here I guess the creatures provide a backup plan, but they do it at a cost of adding white to the mana base and gumming up the topdecks. It's also worth mentioning that neither Mentor nor Vendilion Clique can be cast purely off the accelerants. I would run multiple copies of the accelerants/Wishes instead of the creatures. I think more copies of Burning Wish and at least a sideboard singleton Empty the Warrens are really important. They let you fire off your combo quickly, which can be a big boost.

I'd also switch a couple of Tops for [EDIT: Ponders]. Top is great, but it's really slow. I think Daze is probably generally better than Spell Pierce, but I'll defer to other people's judgment on that one.

The deck forgoes Lion's Eye Diamond, which makes sense with the countermagic suite, but which will decrease speed and mana output. It also makes flashing back cantrips a much less viable path to victory. Anyone have thoughts on this?

Anyone have ideas for a wishboard for this thing?

One last thing: a second copy of Past in Flames is excellent in AnT. Provides a ton of resilience in the face of countermagic and, to a lesser extent, Deathrite Shaman. Also enables lethal Storming off of recast cantrips.

I hope I'm not coming across as a hypercritical naysayer. I genuinely want to see where this goes, because I like Storm, and I'd like to see what can be done with the mechanic to shake things up. I really like the idea of running control cards in a Storm deck, too. Let us know what you think!

[Cuddlecow]

Hello,

thanks everyone for answering! Regarding wet-nurse - in fact I wanted to call it wetnurse, the - in between the words was a mistake because english isn't my native language. My decks always need to sound cuddly or funny and there's another reason for wet-nurse which I want to keep secret lol.

OK. Ronald Deuce you are not being a nay-sayer at all don't worry. In order to make this deck as powerful as we can, we need to honestly review what it can do and what it can't, because it's fun and also, ignorance to what it can't do means, we won't find the shell that this engine naturally wants. And what you gave is very constructive criticism, just like everyone else who answered here and in my german forum, where I posted this and everyone was friendly and I got advice that went into the same direction as yours.

If we just add rituals, like several people suggested by now, we have three less do-nothing cards in the deck, because now we can cast rituals pre-gifts. (if we cast one in the last list, we can't combo anymore).
Also, if we cast gifts with a dark ritual T3, we have one more ritual in the GY and can go off T4 with four lands in play. So that's very sweet.


EDIT: Yes I like wishes a lot more than tutors, too. Another great thing about them is, if you make a tendrils pile and can't get it out of the GY, you still can tutor for a new tendrils from the sideboard, while a normal tutor just misses now. The reason I went with normale tutors was, that in my extensive pile-testing I found getting the red mana for wish was hard sometimes. I`ll test it again, would love to use wish, too.
I tested lion's eye diamond, and maybe I`m totally wrong - but the problem with it is, that a dark rit + a flashback dark rit for instance provides both more stormcount and more mana than a LED. If there's a major "Cuddlecow is missing something here" LMK.

[bigbobbobber]

I wanted to go full control with a combo finish, similar to Phazonmutant's "Miracle of Science Deck"

Here's what I've been testing:

4 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Monastery Mentor

4 Counterbalance

4 Brainstorm
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Dark Ritual
1 Seething Song
1 Fireblast
1 Noxious Revival
4 Force of Will
4 Gifts Ungiven

1 Burning Wish
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Terminus

Sideboard is still in flux.

I find that once you get the soft lock of Top and CB going, your win condition doesn't matter all that much, but I like the idea of being able to win out of nowhere. So far in my testing Mentor has been a beast, no surprises there. Not really sure where to go from here; more testing is required.

[AndyTron]

Back when Dark Petition was first spoiled I came up with a similar list aiming to abuse Gifts Ungiven as a storm engine, but ended up going in the complete opposite direction. Instead of a control deck with a combo finish, my list was a fast combo deck that ran Force of Will. It might not be what you're looking for, but here it is for reference.

3 Lotus Petal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mox Diamond
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
4 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Dark Petition
1 Grim Tutor
1 Past in Flames
2 Tendrils of Agony
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Swamp

The two copies of Tendrils are so you can grab Tendrils/Grim/Petition off of the flashbacked Gifts and still have a second Tendrils to tutor for. Since I'm not using Burning Wish I wanted a third black ritual and while Rain of Filth doesn't do anything when cast twice (other then add to storm count) it's +1 B when you have two lands out and gets better the longer the game goes on. The 3/1/1 Petal/LED/Mox split is to help ease the B/U/R color requirements you need to combo off and the one duress is so you can Gifts for two counters and two discard if you want to.

[beardstorm]

I played the following list a couple of weeks ago in a four round tournament.
It went horribly, but it did yield some valuable insight into how the deck plays. :D

Cantrips (12):
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top

Protection (15):
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Terminus
4 Force of Will
3 Flusterstorm

Combo (12):
4 Gifts Ungiven
2 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual
1 Seething Song
1 Rain of Filth
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

Lands (21):
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp


Sideboard (15):
3 Counterbalance
3 Monastery Mentor
2 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extractions
1 Unburial Rites
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle


The most obvious learning I would say is to not go for the kill unless you really have to. The deck plays much more like Infect or ANT rather than TES or Oops, All Spells. We play a very good control game with a lot of creature removal and should really take the time to sculpt a hand (and landbase) which allows us to force through the combo.

I also realized a deck construction error halfway through the first match. Having only one Past in Flames in the list makes for a very awkward situation if your opponent choose to put it into your graveyard. If you don't have a second Gifts Ungiven in your hand, flashing back the Past in Flames to get Tendrils of Agony with your first Gifts allows the opponent to just put the Tendrils in the graveyard, and you have no way of flashing that back as well. So it feels like a necessity to play a second Past on Flames in the list, or other ways to play the Tendrils from the graveyard, with cards such as Snapcaster Mage, Noxious Revival or Recoup. This never occurred in the tournament, but it's something that is worth considering.

Seething Song is a horrible card. Converting two otherwise blue or black mana into red put a lot of mana requirements to your kill. In general I found that I could not really win until I had around 6-7 mana available before the first ritual. Untapping after playing Gifts on turn four and having the fifth land did definitely not cut it if you also wanted to leave up Flusterstorm. Having threshold on turn five was not a given either, so we definitely become a slower list because of this.

I really like the brewing value of this deck. Obviously it plays a lot like a weak Miracles list, but it certainly makes up for it by being a tens of times more fun. :)

[Cuddlecow]

Hi,
thanks for testing beardstorm, and thanks AndyTron for your list ! :)
I may be missing the point here @beardstorm - but with this list, if you flashback the gifts, and you have no further PiF, and the opponent puts tendrils in the yard - you must have either Noxious Revival in hand, which puts it straight back into your hand with sensei's, or you must have burning wish in hand, which lets you fetch one from the SB.

But guys I had another idea, I`m not confident whether it has any value though.
First off, I`m thinking the whole project is doomed of playing this as combo control. I`m thinking of the gifts + unburial rites in legacy as referance. (fetch unburial and griselbrand, fail to find the other two cards. Unburial and grisel go to gy = reanimation once you untap). Very few people that combo, and it just requires two cards, and whether we tendrils the opponent or resurrect a griselbrand in an almost pure control deck should make little difference in terms of how likely we will win afterwards. I`m thinking that combo is better than my complicated gifts-chain, and very few even play the unburial combo in legacy.
EDIT: And I just found this exact PiF+Gifts engine is being played in modern, with baral, chief of compliance, and I didn't know people had this exact idea ages ago.

But I want to ask, whether you believe that baral has a future here, before I give up playing combo control and try faster lists.

Consider this pile, for instance, with an active baral:
seething song + manamorphose + past in flames + hunting pack

We cast gifts with five lands in play, untap, it puts four 4/4 Beasts into play.
The advantage over the tendrils pile is, if we can make baral very valuable on his own, then we now have just three slots dedicated to our combo, (manamorphose cycles after all), rather than 8, making combo control way better. Also, if any cards for this combo already are in the graveyard, that's OK.
But lol, I would still much rather just get a griselbrand, and with less hassle! I think my engine isn't working!
Still - can you find a way to make baral good enough on his own, so he is not part of a combo anymore, by creating natural synergies with powerful cards that we could include anyway?

[beardstorm]

Baral will sadly never be good enough, likely because of the same reasons Jace, Vryn's Prodigy will never see enough play. The reason is Karakas.