[Deck] T.E.S - The EPIC Storm

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Originally Posted by alderon666

With the recent changes I've noticed that the only cards that keeps on the gold lands manabase are the 3 Chants.

I freaking love Chants but is it worth playing a "crummy" manabase just to play them? Let's lay down some good points about the gold lands:
- Makes mana of any color, "no" color screw
- Gemstone doesn't cost any life, ever
- You can play spells of any color including the best protection spell ever

Bad points:
- Gold lands replace fetchlands making Brainstorm(and Ponder, to an extent) worse
- Fetchlands are better at getting theshold, even though we don't play Cabal Ritual
- You can't play a basic land, making 1-lander + 2 cantrip a loser's hand to Wasteland
- City of Brass can cost you a lot of life in a cantrip heavy hand
- You can actually run out of targets for your fetchlands somewhat easily

I've actually been wanting to play Chants in my UBR storm decks, just because it's that good. But I believe this topic at least deserves some attention.

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I was working on a list earlier in the week that ran less Chant. The manabase was...

3 Gemstone
2 City
4 Fetch
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Duals

I haven't tested it at all yet which is why I havent posted it. The fact that it's 3c doesn't make me want to run more fetches, I still want to be able to support UBr quite easily. Then W if need be.

My protection package was looking like...

4 Duress
2 Chant
1 ? (Thoughtseize, Inquistion, something better?)

I'm not a fan of Thoughtseize's lifeloss at all and would like to find something better.

TES

3 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
1 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire

4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Duress
2 Orim’s Chant
1 Thoughtseize
2 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony

3 Defense Grid
2 Echoing Truth
2 Deathmark
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Thoughtseize
1 Meltdown
1 Shattering Spree

Defense Grid seems really solid, if for no other reason it's immune to Mental Misstep and it forces them to play Vendilion Clique pre-emptively on their turn.

As an aside, did somebody do the math to show 3 Ad Nauseam, 3 Infernal Tutor MD wasn't viable?

The problem with more ad nausiums less infernals is it makes the most powerful accel LED worse, more often having to rely on rituals and god forbid chrome mox to play ad nausium. Making hands with multiple LEDs worse. And making us weeker to misstep

While I also don't appreciate the extra life loss from Thougthseize, in a Maverick crowed metagame, it has its a leg up when discarding Aven Mindcensor and Canonist.

Also I would like to get some discussion rolling on why is Rite of Flame stronger than Cabal Ritual. One mana rituals are better against Daze effects and Rite of Flame has a increasing returns in multiples, which pairs well with Infernal Tutor. Plus, it gets us the RR we need to play BW -> Empty the Warrens.

The problem I have with it is that it costs one mana. That means MM counters it.

Having a 2-mana ritual that has its merits on being MM proof. Because the current buid completely fails on getting threshold, the deck would need some changes to support it. Dark Ritual is too powerful to even question, but does Rite of Flame carry its weight?


I probably shouldn't even be posting this here, because all the changes I'm proposing basically turning TES into TNT. But I think it's worth questioning why we use certain cards instead of others, especially when there's such a big metagame shift like the one cause by MM.

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Originally Posted by alderon666

While I also don't appreciate the extra life loss from Thougthseize, in a Maverick crowed metagame, it has its a leg up when discarding Aven Mindcensor and Canonist.

Also I would like to get some discussion rolling on why is Rite of Flame stronger than Cabal Ritual. One mana rituals are better against Daze effects and Rite of Flame has a increasing returns in multiples, which pairs well with Infernal Tutor. Plus, it gets us the RR we need to play BW -> Empty the Warrens.

The problem I have with it is that it costs one mana. That means MM counters it.

Having a 2-mana ritual that has its merits on being MM proof. Because the current buid completely fails on getting threshold, the deck would need some changes to support it. Dark Ritual is too powerful to even question, but does Rite of Flame carry its weight?


I probably shouldn't even be posting this here, because all the changes I'm proposing basically turning TES into TNT. But I think it's worth questioning why we use certain cards instead of others, especially when there's such a big metagame shift like the one cause by MM.

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Where are these Maverick crowded Metagames? I surely haven't seen any. Regardless, we shouldn't be changing our decks for a Wg deck full of Grizzly Bears.

Do people really counter your Rite of Flames with Mental Misstep? I've found they use them on more relevant spells. People still play Daze and Spellpierce which hits Cabal Ritual hard too. Stoneblade plays Spellsnares maindeck, we could argue that against Cabal Ritual.

In my eyes Rite of Flame has much more value, we've argued this several other times. It seems like it comes up once a year. The only difference is Mental Misstep. However, people don't counter Rites with Misstep, even if they did you could take Advantage of that. Play out your Rites, Rituals, then your Duress/Chant/Thoughtseize.

TNT isn't a deck, it's 3c TES, we don't need to rename a deck every time 3 cards change. We're working on solving Misstep with Defense Grid, there's not a need to deconstruct the deck due to misstep. Not to mention, Cabal Ritual would only make their job easier paired with Thoughtseize to kill ourselves regularly.

I like Rite of Flame for Pyroblast. Yeah, I've never had my Rite of Flame countered. They always wait for Dark Ritual.

Cabal Ritual also seems like it requires the deck to run too much extra stuff just to cater to it. What a needy card. Rite of Flame never asked for anything!

Anyway, I'm dying on the StoneBlade match up. Any tips?

Instead of a second Ad Nauseam to fight StoneBlade, have any of you considered boarding in the second Tendrils? I think using their counter magic against them is simply more effective than going for a big storm engine. What do you say?

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Originally Posted by metalhead

The problem with more ad nausiums less infernals is it makes the most powerful accel LED worse, more often having to rely on rituals and god forbid chrome mox to play ad nausium. Making hands with multiple LEDs worse. And making us weeker to misstep

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That's not a reason, while decreasing Infernal Tutor decreases the utility of Lion's Eye Diamond, increasing Ad Nauseam increases the utility of all non Lion's Eye Diamond acceleration as well as makes the deck slightly faster overall. Furthermore, I disagree replacing Infernal Tutor with Ad Nauseam even reduces the utility of Lion's Eye Diamond, because the more copies of Ad Nauseam you have the more likely you are to be able to stack Lion's Eye Diamond and cantrips into one off the top of your deck. Really, the only argument I see for not playing +X Ad Nauseam is that each additional Ad Nauseam provides a greater chance of losing the game to damage from a higher average casting cost and/or more frequently drawing into a single copy of Ad Nauseam.

It seems 2x is acceptable, but as far as I know, no one has argued for/against 3x or done the math to support their argument one way or the other. Considering the Ari Lax deck was playing an Ill Gotten Gains, 2 Grim Tutors, 4 Cabal Rituals and Thought Seize for a similar number of 4cc + cards, a higher average cc and more random damage from Grim Tutor and Thought Seize it seems like it should be viable from a glance.

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Originally Posted by jin

Anyway, I'm dying on the StoneBlade match up. Any tips?

Instead of a second Ad Nauseam to fight StoneBlade, have any of you considered boarding in the second Tendrils? I think using their counter magic against them is simply more effective than going for a big storm engine. What do you say?

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I agree, I am having trouble with that matchup and with the team america lists that are similar to Gerry T's list. For reference http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=39910

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Originally Posted by jin

Anyway, I'm dying on the StoneBlade match up. Any tips?

Instead of a second Ad Nauseam to fight StoneBlade, have any of you considered boarding in the second Tendrils? I think using their counter magic against them is simply more effective than going for a big storm engine. What do you say?

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Batterskull >>> Tendrils out of hand because of the lifelink.

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Originally Posted by Diprivan

Batterskull >>> Tendrils out of hand because of the lifelink.

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What I mean is Natural Tendrils is good against decks that pack a lot of countermagic. I must have gotten the ideas mixed up. I didn't want to mean the Natural Tendrils is better against Batterskull. I think Batterskull alone is generally not an issue since its clock is relatively slow.

Played in a local tournament for some duals today, around 40-50 people showed up and i went 4-2 (8-6 in games) and ended up in 9th.......and I only grapeshotted 2 people.

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Originally Posted by ninja_attack

.......and I only grapeshotted 2 people.

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Ooh, poor boy, should I make you some cookies?

(4-2 isn't bad, what did you lose to?)

Went 3-2 yesterday at a 45 man, dropping before the last round since my tie breakers were shit. Losses were to Matt Elias with Reanimator and Merfolk with 2 daze, waste, force, spell pierce and a clock. Beat NO Bant (Why the hell do you board in cannonist when 1/20 people play storm at these things) and 2 non blue decks (Burn and BWR punishing fires).

Despite having defense grid sided in for 5 games, only ever saw it once (against merfolk), and it was forced so I can't really comment on how much of a beating it would have been had it resolved. Two ad naus was the best change all day.

Played yesterday at a 30+ man and finished 3-3, 6 rounds.I beat Merfolks(with Mindbreak Trap SB) 2-0(grapeshot both times), Burn(2-0, iggy both times) , RG(I don't know what the hell he was playing).
Lost to BGW(win g1 but mulled to 5 at games 2 and 3 and drew only petals when rituals/led would give me the win), Mirror(cast Adn at 19 with land drop and did not find a petal/land/mox at g1, g2 I mull to 6 play land pass and he has duress taking my LED(which would have killed him on my t2 with iggy loop) then topdeck the mana source to Adn no t2 and killed me, he also was playing 2 Adn and liked it all day).My only "fair" lose was to NO RUG where I killed him fast in g1 after protec but then lose g2/g3 cause could not find a second bussiness or silence to force him using his Clique(which I knew has in his hand all time and he slow rolled it).

So my SB was 1 Pyro and 3 Xantid.. now I'm really thinking about a 2/2 split back because Pyro can deal with Cliques.Also I would like if Defense Grid is beeing good for anyone cause it also solves clique problems.

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Originally Posted by Shimi

So my SB was 1 Pyro and 3 Xantid.. now I'm really thinking about a 2/2 split back because Pyro can deal with Cliques.Also I would like if Defense Grid is beeing good for anyone cause it also solves clique problems.

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Against the 3 blue decks I boarded it in against, it would have won me the game had i drawn it/resolved it. I like it way more than swarm right now.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

TNT isn't a deck, it's 3c TES, we don't need to rename a deck every time 3 cards change.

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I laughed, and agreed.

For the people dying to Batterskull: Duress it away before they play it. They go from having a fast clock to needing to draw Clique.

Defense Grid was meh in UB and UBr. It just ends up forcing them to play their counter on the correct spell rather than messing up. Perhaps TES can leverage it better, but I imagine the results will be the same. I'm going to try replacing 2 Thoughtseize with 2 Flusterstorm, but that plan has diminishing returns the more hate-bears your meta has.

I've been messing around with Flusterstorm as well. Being able to hit their Hymn's and Thoughtseizes seems pretty good, in addition to protecting your combo.

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Originally Posted by Shimi

So my SB was 1 Pyro and 3 Xantid.. now I'm really thinking about a 2/2 split back because Pyro can deal with Cliques.Also I would like if Defense Grid is beeing good for anyone cause it also solves clique problems.

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Was running it to and from for months in my meta up until Time Spiral was unbanned to fight two Solidarity and one Faerie player and it was always a beast against those decks and all other counter based decks. Tested it again a couple weeks ago although in a slightly different build than Bryant's and they are as much a beating as usual. The board plan was 7 Chant/Discard effects Main and 3 extra Defence Grids post board upping the disruption count to 10.

When the card resolve it acts as a tempo card, since the opponent knows Ad Nauseam based combo can go off from turn two. If they tap out, then you have a free combo turn, this way it can act as a timewalk against some players. However I can't recommend playing it against Hive Mind decks as protection but you should be able to beat that deck anyway.

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Originally Posted by Malakai

Defense Grid was meh in UB and UBr. It just ends up forcing them to play their counter on the correct spell rather than messing up. Perhaps TES can leverage it better, but I imagine the results will be the same. I'm going to try replacing 2 Thoughtseize with 2 Flusterstorm, but that plan has diminishing returns the more hate-bears your meta has.

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The difference is Chant and Diminishing Returns and to a lesser degree Ill-Gotten Gains, Either of the last two is a house with Defence Grid

I like the Defense Grip replacement of Xantid Swarm because:

a) NO RUG, StoneBlade & BUG are tier 1 decks now and X.Swarm often suck vs them
b) Merfolks are almost dead (?) and even Alex Bertoncini switched to NO RUG
c) Defense Grid curiously fight Vendilion Clique which is a huge threat and because of MMS, Pyroblast is not enough.

I miss X.Swarm and Pyroblast a little bit vs Reanimator, Merfolk and S&T decks but these decks are a little less common and common on top tables than those three I mentioned earlier. I have a positive feeling about D.Grid but from DDFT perspective (discard + chants / chants and d.grid + 1 PoN / Flusterstorm in SB). I tried it mostly because I wanted a more stable manabase and D.Grid is huge especially in heavy chant version. I'm curious if it stick to TES.

@Batterskull: Yes, I agree that discard is good vs. that card. Resolved gives you ton of time to sculpt perfect hand and win when you can / have to without AdN. I wouldn't side in second Tendrils. This strategy is mostly for UB ANT, here having ToA in SB is important. I would rather play 2 ToA in SB in Landstil-Caw Blade metagame and side in 1, than siding in the only 1 ToA from SB for game 2&3.

Merfolk still makes up 10-15% of the metagame in most tournaments. I wouldn't call that dead.