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

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Originally Posted by Sockosensei

I apologize for my vague write-up. We play 40-minute rounds and I'm still not as comfortable with the deck as the rest of you so my 'notes' were really sparse. Lemnear, I don't think I'll get to your level of thoroughness in my match reports, but I'll work harder at it
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Once I drew the second IT, I actually did try baiting a counter with a non-hellbent IT. He thought about it but didn't bite. In retrospect, I probably needed to do it more confidently, so I'll add that to my list of points to work on.

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What in the hell? 40 minute rounds? If anything, legacy matches tend to go longer because there's true grindy decks and lots of shuffling. I'm probably one of the 10 or 20 most experienced TES pilots in the US and I still go to time more often with TES than with any of the durdly BUG control decks that I love to lose with - twice at SCG Nashville, twice at SCG Atlanta. At the end of the day, TES is hard, there's a lot of decisions, and I've personally noticed that I do win more when I let myself take time to consider all the options.

Lemnear's thoroughness is impressive, but he's noted that his opponents are courteous enough to let him take a while to write notes and the rounds are untimed.

About baiting with tutors - that's super important. I swear, people freak out when they see Burning Wish or Infernal Tutor. I can't even count the number of times when someone has Forced a Wish that was just going to get a Therapy anyway. More experienced players will tend to let them resolve though.

You bring up a good point, attitude is such an important but little-discussed component to winning with Storm. The fact is that storm kills out of nowhere, typically has a grip full of cards, and most people are intimidated by how "hard" it is. Storm is frightening for most players. If you can make the really feel that you are the scary player in this round, they'll tend to play worse. They'll play defensively when they can't afford to or just slump or look dejected when they don't have anything.

I don't know if this is a typical thing but I suspect it is: I play really, really poorly with storm when I feel intimidated by my opponent. Some people just feel alpha and for whatever that social pressure makes me make worse decisions so I will lose even to good matchups. When I'm on my game, that doesn't happen. With most decks you can accidentally win, but not with storm, not usually.

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Originally Posted by phazonmuant

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Lemnear's thoroughness is impressive, but he's noted that his opponents are courteous enough to let him take a while to write notes and the rounds are untimed.

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I don't know if this is a typical thing but I suspect it is: I play really, really poorly with storm when I feel intimidated by my opponent. Some people just feel alpha and for whatever that social pressure makes me make worse decisions so I will lose even to good matchups. When I'm on my game, that doesn't happen. With most decks you can accidentally win, but not with storm, not usually.

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I can agree with most of the stuff snipped. For the quoted, it's maybe teutonic thoroughness lol. It's true that I annoy my fellow playpartners by constant writing some stuff on a sheet, but because I'm able to write in stenography it's not that I drag the match to an hour or such. It's mostly irritating to watch only. We have untimed rounds, that's indeed a fact and based on the relaxed nature of the tournament series.

With storm you have to be the aggressor at the table, not only on the battlefield. Acting confident or maybe even cocky will indeed intimidate a lot of opponents which is a huge advantage playing Combo because it provokes mistakes and snap reactions like countering blank-Infernals as Phazonmutant mentioned



Edit: The change to the legendary-rule is potential a big one for TES and not only for Elves and Jace-wars bacause of Mox Opal. It's now a much better possible replacement for Chrome Mox which deserves another look at

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Edit: The change to the legendary-rule is potential a big one for TES and not only for Elves and Jace-wars bacause of Mox Opal. It's now a much better possible replacement for Chrome Mox which deserves another look at

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This definitely is an interesting development. I'm not very familiar with old builds of TES, is there a place where I can look at them? Was Mox Opal ever discussed in the past?

So one consideration is replacing Rite of Flame with Mox Opal as our +1 ritual. I don't like that because there's a ton of times where Infernal Tutoring for Rite of Flame allows me to win, and it makes Past in Flames weaker. It's possible that it could be a ritual that replaces Chrome Mox, but I'm not so sure how often metalcraft will be active with only 12ish artifacts. It's not out of the question though.

So those are the easy replacements. Maybe the correct solution is a split of Chrome Mox and Mox Opal, although I feel like if Mox Opal is good, then we should be playing 3-4. The biggest problem is that there's just aren't too many slots to play with unless we cut Probe, which just seems dead wrong.

My attention is splitted between TES, ANT (with Tops, Opal Moxen) and Elves (4 Cradle, 3 Crop Rotation) atm.

I don't know how deep Opal ever dive into the TES cardpool. Maybe Bryant can recap some of his thoughts back then. I'm not sure if Mox Opal is good enough to rebuild parts of the deck to make it tick

I guess Mox Opal only competes for the Chrome Mox slot, which is the only manasource that's clunky sometimes. So this week, when you guys draw a Chrome Mox you can ask yourself if you'd rather have Mox Opal or not.

Next to that, greetings fellow Storm Troopers. I've been goldfishing this deck for a year and played two tournaments with it. I love the deck!

Tom

I don't think TES can activate mox opal consistently enough with its artifact count. If we could use the ABU moxes, that might be a different question...

Just drew a few random hands (of 6) and imagined the 7th was a chrome mox / mox opal. Except the nutty hands which pretty much gets you a t1 kill you rather have chrome over opal. This is mainly because most of our artifacts are single use so you can only pretty much tap opal once before it does nothing. Also you're not guaranteed to always get 3 artifacts, and I guess double opal hands without other artifacts are just as bad, if not worse than double chrome mox hands.

The problem with Opal is the Metalcraft, we actually don't play too many artifacts (11).

On a different note, with the rules change (correct me if I'm wrong), with the new sideboard rules. You sloppy players who forget to put Past in Flames or Tendrils back in your sideboard after casting Burning Wish for it in a previous game will no longer receive game losses. Those cards would now be considered sided in.

About the Legendary Rule,

I'm quite impressed by the Opal iteration.

I'm not sure if playing full of Opal moxen in conjuntion to senseis and maybe artifact mana will increase the deck's speed enough to start leaving playing TES instead of a Mono Black Storm Deck...

I don't hope so...

In TES I would not play Opal, as we'll need to change lot of things...

But maybe we recoup DD - ANT!

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Originally Posted by Sockosensei

My opener was something like Dark Rit x2, LED, IT, Gemstone, Gemstone, Ponder on the play. Keep.
Opponent snap keeps looking smug. I figure there's no way he keeps like that on the draw unless he's holding Force, so I don't risk the T1 all-in play. Perhaps he was tricking me, but I don't think he's the type to risk it.

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For the purposes of learning the deck, you might want to try just going for it with hands like this more often. You're on the play, and as soon as your opponent gets a turn that opens up Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm and so on. Your opponent might have snap-kept a hand with spell pierce and other good stuff but not FoW, which would be really good as long as you don't have a turn 1 kill (and, as far as your opponent knows, you probably don't have a turn 1 kill.) If you do go for it with that hand, you most likely win if the opponent has FoW and most likely lose if they don't. But, if you don't go for it and they do have FoW, they get several more turns to set up more disruption on top of the FoW.

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Originally Posted by Pelikanudo

About the Legendary Rule,

I'm quite impressed by the Opal iteration.

I'm not sure if playing full of Opal moxen in conjuntion to senseis and maybe artifact mana will increase the deck's speed enough to start leaving playing TES instead of a Mono Black Storm Deck...

I don't hope so...

In TES I would not play Opal, as we'll need to change lot of things...

But maybe we recoup DD - ANT!

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It's quite simple to use Mox Opal in SI with 8 artifact creatures and Vault of Whispers, it's likely terrible in anything else resembling Storm combo.

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Originally Posted by sconnell

For the purposes of learning the deck, you might want to try just going for it with hands like this more often. You're on the play, and as soon as your opponent gets a turn that opens up Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm and so on. Your opponent might have snap-kept a hand with spell pierce and other good stuff but not FoW, which would be really good as long as you don't have a turn 1 kill (and, as far as your opponent knows, you probably don't have a turn 1 kill.) If you do go for it with that hand, you most likely win if the opponent has FoW and most likely lose if they don't. But, if you don't go for it and they do have FoW, they get several more turns to set up more disruption on top of the FoW.

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I agree here. This deck requires the balls to throw a game right into a Force of Will, shrug and try again next game

If your hand allows it and you dont have protection or ways to get protection you go all in and hope your opponent didnt draw it. Thats my plan most of the time anyway.

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Originally Posted by Final Fortune

It's quite simple to use Mox Opal in SI with 8 artifact creatures and Vault of Whispers, it's likely terrible in anything else resembling Storm combo.

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Exactly.
SI loves this change, but to make Opal work consistently in T.E.S. would require enough other changes that you'd end up with a different deck--and probably not a better one.

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...40-minute rounds...

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I struggle with it but you'd be amazed how few of the Japanese players go to time, and hardly any play aggro!
Anyway, I'm just happy the shops now offer weeknight Legacy twice each week. Until this January we were lucky if there were two legacy events a month in the entire city!

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...playing aggressively...

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I'm more used to playing SI, where we've got less game 1 protection than T.E.S. and NEED to be the aggressor.
Having just rewatched Bryant's win in the DC finals where he won vs a stacked blue hand, I kept reminding myself that it's sometimes okay to be more patient with T.E.S.
Still, perhaps I gave my opponent too much credit in that game you're referring to.

The 'attitude' will come with experience.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I agree here. This deck requires the balls to throw a game right into a Force of Will, shrug and try again next game

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You're right, but as much as TES rewards aggression, there is a limit. Like. If I have a strong read for Force, usually I'm right. Your mileage may vary. That's by far the hardest skill for storm combo - when is the right time to go for it?

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Originally Posted by Sockosensei

I'm more used to playing SI, where we've got less game 1 protection than T.E.S. and NEED to be the aggressor.
Having just rewatched Bryant's win in the DC finals where he won vs a stacked blue hand, I kept reminding myself that it's sometimes okay to be more patient with T.E.S.
Still, perhaps I gave my opponent too much credit in that game you're referring to.

The 'attitude' will come with experience.

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Good point. There's no reason to just give up hope, and it's certainly realistic to win a long game. Happens all the time.
You're right about the attitude. It's taken me years and I'm very positive that more success at these tournaments is strongly correlated to developing my mental game.

You have to be a jackass playing this deck successful and win the all-deciding mental game behind all physical interaction, period.

You can't be "everybody's darling" at the table while grapeshooting faces in 7-minute show-offs.

I am currently making a list of the deck Im debating playing at GP Washington in November.

T.E.S. is on top of the list.Im aware that the deck might/will change in the meantime, but, the core should stay the same.

Im still learning the deck, since there is so many different lines of play. It's been now almost 2 months since I've put the deck together and Im still not as confidant as I should be playing it. Like Lemnear said, the deck needs to be the aggressor in the matches. Hopefully, with the help of m1n1l337, I'll be able to master that wonderful stack of card and aim for a Day 2 or more at the GP.

Anybody else plans to travel to the GP and pilot TES?

With all due respect, if you can master TES before November, you should be hitting the poker/blackjack tables instead.

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Originally Posted by Kayradis

Anybody else plans to travel to the GP and pilot TES?

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I'm hoping to be able to make it to the GP, but my schedule is somewhat up in the air. TES is a strong consideration, but I might be playing lejay's Infinite Cunning deck. Testing will tell.

How crazy am I for cutting 1 silence and adding a second Cabal therapy? I have been liking it in my testing as of late.

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Originally Posted by Madmankevinx

How crazy am I for cutting 1 silence and adding a second Cabal therapy? I have been liking it in my testing as of late.

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I did cut 2 Duress for 2 Therapies, liking it so far.