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LDV is insane. requires some more weird thinking but is very very powerful. kind of don;t mind sacrificing speed to give the flexibility of the card. it ends up costing on average the same or less life than grim. about a turn slower than maxing on cantrips due to how many cards you see faster but sets up for more powerful turns. and maindecking top helps with discard and random hail marys.
I like it but not sure on how good it is. in terms of overall for the deck
The article is here: http://www.starcitygames.com/article...ers-Vault.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
Also, are you saying that the deck should play Swan Song strictly for Show and Tell? Are there any other matches you'd actually try to bring it in for?
No, it would similarly be useful against Miracles, countering anything from RiP/E.Field/CB/Blood Moon/Etc. I'm not sure it's other practical uses as I'm not testing it til a bit into next month.
Going reactive/control against one of the most reactive/control decks in the format?Quote:
Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
The countermagic is simply unplayable, but you can try it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
I'm not sold on even playing Swan Song against Show and Tell in theory due to the whole "It doesn't protect your combo" aspect, but I can see the reasoning for it there because of Leyline making proactive cards less effective. Even if it turns out to be awesome in that matchup though, I could see it still being less than playable in that you wouldn't want to run the card against most other things. I'll admit that I'm not talking from a place that has experience with the card, but I'm not seeing it having any practical uses against any deck that doesn't play cards which turn discard off. All the cards you described from Miracles seem better solved with discard than keeping up blue mana that you could be using to cantrip and subsequently giving your opponent a clock in their basically glacial deck. I'm willing to be wrong about that, but I feel like you want your sideboard cards to be better than your mainboard options in more than one matchup if you want them in your sideboard, and at I think that Swan Song is only as good (if that) to your discard suite most of the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
going reactive against one of the most reactive decks isn't a big deal when you aren't having an actual counter-war with them. I feel that if you Silence, they counter in some fashion not enchantment-based (CB), you Swan Song, they counter, I feel that then you are pretty free to combo, or at least discard spell/Xantid and go off next turn uninhibited. Also, at that point, I don't see the 2/2 flyer as a drawback. It's not going to matter, as at most it's gonna swing once. If it does matter and kills you (however unlikely), you were nowhere near a win and didn't matter. It's an 8-10 turn clock. Seriously, I fail to see how that p.o.s. bird is gonna be the deciding factor other than a single flip to ad nauseam, and it's been determined that Ad Nauseam is the worst storm enabler used these days.
Also, this isn't the first time it's been considered. Countermagic has been played before in storm, and it did fine. Albeit, it was Doomsday builds that used it, but I've seen FoW as a 4-of in Emidln's list more than once. I've seen transitional sb's in the form of Thresh while maintaining a Doomsday-fueled combo win-con. Storm is NOT linear, no matter how much you want it to be. It can be, but generally the best pilots think outside the box in the worst circumstances and in doing so pull off the most outstanding plays and inevitably, wins, I've ever seen. Haven't seen many as of late, though. As to it being "unplayable", I say pshaw.
On an irrelevant note, I still miss Mystical Tutor...
-ABC
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that a hypothetical 1 mana hard counter is about as effective at preventing the hate permanents out of Miracles as a 1 mana discard spell would be (an unconditional counter wouldn't lose out to a topdeck, so it's probably a little better). However, even if such a hypothetical card did exist, as a Storm deck, I don't see why you would want such a card facing any deck that you're still able to effectively cast discard spells against. I acknowledge that the Swan Song appears to have potential against Leyline decks because they turn all your discard spells into dead cards, but when your opponent doesn't have hexproof, I fail to see why you would side Swan Song in. I don't think it's bad, but I don't think it's better than keeping other spells in your deck.
All I do is play Doomsday (I've actually only started participating in this thread because I'm trying to gain more experience with other Storm decks), and the only time I've seen Force of Will in the deck was in some odd Tendrils/Laboratory Maniac Hybrids. Your Mystical Tutor comment implies I just wasn't around when people tried it because I started Legacy post-banning, though. I recall Flusterstorm/Divert in the early Gitaxian Probe lists, but that was quickly abandoned too. I'm sort of surprised you'd bring Doomsday up to support your claims here, because I've tried counterspells in Doomsday myself and I feel that playing counterspells is even worse in Doomsday. Blue disruption ends up lending itself to having you go off without having the whole picture and hoping you have more answers than your opponent has disruption, which is much more precarious when you're playing a win-condition that eats your entire deck and gives you almost no ability to recover from being disrupted mid-combo.
Given the above, I would also say that your Silence/Swan Song example doesn't seem better than having Duress/Silence to me because the end result is the same (you take two cards away from your opponent and go off blind); in general though, if I have to play either one of these cards alone, I would rather be playing the card that can both be played anytime and offers me the information of my opponent's hand instead of playing the card that would require me to commit resources and pray my opponent just doesn't have more counters than I do. Note also that you are completely glossing over the very real circumstances where LED is a factor, and Duress on a counterspell gives you the green light but a Swan Song would just do nothing because A) You either won't go off because you don't know what your opponent can do or B) Your opponent holds their counter up and just hits whatever you want to do after you discard your hand.
Is it uncommon for your opponent to have more counters than you have answers? Considering the possibility that your opponent has two counters in hand, Swan Song seems very bad. If you're a cautious player, then you're going to have some number of times when you take yourself out of the game because you won't know if one Swan Song is enough to beat your opponent. If you're a risk-taker, you're going to have some number of times when you're going to get yourself taken out of the game because you went for it with one Swan Song and your opponent had more than one answer. Duress avoids this problem entirely--simply by not playing counters, you don't get into counter wars. Trying to be reactive against the most reactive deck is a losing proposition because Storm decks barely deign to interact with their opponent, so they aren't built to go as long or get as much advantage from doing so. In this way, I would contend that "going reactive" increases the probability of a counter war happening, and the moment when you decide your plan is to have an interactive game of Magic is the moment when things start to fall apart. Of course, all the good decks can interact, but we must remember speed also functions as a level of disruption, and playing counters means that you are consciously giving that up...to play cards that do nothing but make you waste mana if your "Slower than Evolution" Miracles opponent spends their opening turns on something other than trying to windmill slam a hate-enchantment.Quote:
Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
Storm doesn't have to be linear, but I'd say that your business spells being cards like Infernal Tutor and Past in Flames mean LED is the strongest card in your deck and you should give pause when it comes to playing spells that don't interact favorably with having to discard your hand.
I'm not just being obstinate here, I'm not saying the card is unplayable. I'm saying that the card doesn't seem *better* than Duress in enough matchups to make me feel like it'd be worth the sideboard space unless you're telling me that playing Swan Song in my deck will make the Show and Tell matchup into a joke or something. I am asking: in any situation where your opponent is still a legal target, why would you want Swan Song over Duress/Cabal Therapy? If we go by your statement that Swan Song isn't even meant to be protection, you're planning on playing additional disruption, and don't mind taking damage from something like a Bird token anyway, why would you play Swan Song over Thoughtseize? If such a situation exists where Swan Song is better than discard, will that situation come up more than Swan Song having a bad interaction with LED?
I don't expect you to have the answers right now because you said you haven't yet been able to test it, but I think that this is what you need to be thinking about when you do test it. I'm 100% theory here so you certainly have the right to be critical of my opinion, but I feel like in general the card needs a very specific set of circumstances to be good, and those circumstances won't arise more often than the drawbacks of playing this deck will. You can certainly side it in when the "Discard does nothing" matches happen, but I'm not seeing it be good outside of then and I wouldn't put such narrow cards in my sideboard unless they turned a horrible matchup upside-down.
If you had duress instead, you could just cast duress, take their first counter, then cast silence and force them to use their second counter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
No one is saying it's the 2/2 token that's the issue with Swan Song, the issue is that it's not synergistic with what you're trying to accomplish here. A few thoughts -Quote:
Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
1) Discard is synergistic with Past in Flames (which ANT is built for), Swan Song is not.
2) Discard is synergistic with all of your ritual effects, Swan Song is not.
3) When you're ready to combo off but you have Swan Song in hand, you would always rather have that card be a discard spell rather than a counter. IT with no LED but Swan Song in your hand is a nombo.
Sure it's a combo! You get to counter your own tutor and get a 2/2 flier!Quote:
Originally Posted by davelin
Carsten has an article on SCG on the ANT versus OmniShow matchup.
^ This is the point. Swan Song being bad has nothing to do with the 2/2 that it makes.Quote:
Originally Posted by davelin
By the way, why are we talking about Silencing our opponent?
As davelin noted (thanks!) my latest article addresses the OmniShow vs ANT matchup. Given that it was inspired by the discussion here, I probably should provide a link:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article...ombo-Wars.html
Thanks for the inspiration guys, hope that helps those of you struggling against OmniShow :)
Awesome, thanks for writing this!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mon,Goblin Chief
Thanks for writing these Carsten. Your articles are always excellent!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mon,Goblin Chief
Keep storming :wink:.
Sadly the article does not answer the one big question everyone here seems to be worried about: How to win when Omnitell starts with Leyline.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mon,Goblin Chief
He told me: boarding plan as in the Article, try to resolve a swarm and if they Counter go off and if they dint attack and go off. You have to Race them. You Need 3 more mana to find another Tutor (to flashback and get chain After PIF). You have to Race them.
A couple questions... Why are some people choosing to split the discard 4 Duress and 2 Therapy? Most of the time, I'm wishing that my Duress was a Therapy. FoW is the only counter that can't really be played around and them having multiples makes going off extremely difficult.
Next... Why do people play the full set of Gitaxian Probes before they max out on Preordains? Probe is great and all, but Preordain actively helps us win. I've been running a 4/3 split of Preordain/Probes and haven't looked back.
The last isn't really a question, but lately I've been running a single main deck Burning Wish (along with a dumbed down wishboard including another Tendrils and Past in Flames and a few hate cards). I don't have all the clunkiness of 3 Wish builds, but I still have a little extra flexibility. I don't just scoop if my main deck Tendrils gets exiled or if they have out a Leyline of Sanctity (and I hadn't yet known to board in Chain of Vapors), etc. Mostly I'm just wondering if anyone else has tried or had success with something like this?
Slosh.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzra
He played 4 IT, 1 GT, 1 BW build for exactly the reasons you've mentioed. I'd try to fit one LDV into the mix.
Probe helps actively win as well. It makes your Therapies better and lets you know when it may be safe to go off. It is mana-less storm that synergises well with Past in Flames.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzra
Cabal Therapy is a skill-tester. Maybe people aren't confident about their skills.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzra
Preordain is slower. Once you get past like 8-10 cantrips, more cantrips actually just slow you down (although they can make you more consistent). I don't have data on that, but that's how it's always felt. The Probe gives you velocity, storm, and works well with Therapy and knowing whether to go for it.
Maybe people have had success with 1 BW main, but I think that speaks to storm's power, not the soundness of the build. You're throwing away a fifth of your sideboard. If you're going to choose to have Burning Wish, I just cannot understand why you wouldn't at least play 3 to maximize it.
Because three BWs are one too many. Also, I'm not sure if "throwing away a fifth of your sideboard" is true. Slosh played 2nd ToA which he boarded against Thresh, one EtW which he boarded against Thresh some Duress or what, plus Pyroclasm. I wouldn't say that these cards were spoiling his sb and the fact that they were available G1 has little in common with common "wishboards". You would play them no matter the BW, so I'd say that "throwing away a sixtieth of your mainboard" is more accurate. and then we're back in the territory of things that don't matter...Quote:
Originally Posted by phazonmutant
I'm not sure and I hardly ever find the truth, but I think I had most successes with the 2 BW version.
This is not necessarily on topic, but what about "Storm In Flames" as the new list name? Works well in my opinion.
I'm using as my tutor package:
4 Infernal Tutor
2 LDV
1 B Wish
I only run Tendrils and EtW as wish targets, but often enough (along with RIP in several matchups to let me grab my IT back) that's enough. By the way, Double Tendrils is awesome. So awesome.
-ABC
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not cutting ad nauseum. Card is too good
I've just been calling it Past in Flames Tendrils... or PfffffT. lol
Even though I agree with you and won't be removing it anytime soon, this really isn't much of an Ad Nauseam deck. Ad Nauseam is mainly just good as a supplemental and occasionally as a totally alternative engine, but it's never my go-to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barbed Blightning
Why would you quit playing it? Because it's not the namesake of the deck? That's dumb. I've got it sb'ed right now (teaching myself how to play around DRS's; it's kinda hard...), but I would never cut it from my 75. Ever. It's too powerful. It's an urefined power, but the chaff is ignored and the path to victory is usually in the many cards dropped from the life-loss.
TES doesn't subscribe a name out of a card, and honestly I don't know why the deck quit using the name Fetchland Tendrils. That has always been a key element of the strategy of the deck. Fetches create pseudo-tutoring effects that is highly capitalized on in this deck, especially 12-16 cantrip builds. Fetches allow for library thinning, creating virtual card advantage by way of upping your threat density. These are all important, and just a few of the many aspects of the deck that wouldn't be possible without fetches, and the deck would not be what it is today.
FTIF (Fetchland Tendrils in Flames)
-ABC
Agreed. I get that you have a theory about how to win through leyline and all, but even in your testing that you chose to use for the article, it didn't work. They just won.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kobal
You're trying to find a 3-of (swarm) AND a 2-of (chain), they're trying to find a 4-of (leyline), they don't have to cast theirs, you do, their deck can easily be just as fast as you (if not faster), and their protection can blank half of your deck.
Let's say you win game one. They're on the play game 2, they open with a 7 card hand and start with leyline in play. Then they play an island, ponder, pass the turn. Now they have 5 cards in hand (and they've pondered, so they've had some access to card selection).
You draw for the turn, and have the following hand.
Polluted Delta
Lotus Petal
Lion's Eye Diamond
Dark Ritual
Dark Ritual
Duress
Infernal Tutor
Brainstorm
This hand casts Ad Nauseam on turn 1 quite easily, but you have to crack the LED to do it, and if they have a counterspell, you probably just lose the game becuase you have a land and a lotus petal in play and they have 3 cards left and a leyline.
Do you just make them have it? Or do you start brainstorming looking for one of 5 cards (3 Swarms and 2 Chains) to try and hope you can get a better chance? If you don't go off this turn, sure you might find something with the Brainstorm, but they could easily play a land and a cantrip and hold up 1 mana for Flusterstorm next turn (which they definitely have in the deck).
Maybe it's just anecdotal, but I feel like this is the situation I run into almost every match I play with S&T. I can just go for it and make them have it, or I can give us both time to develop, which benefits them immensely because they can either find protection or they can just go off, and I have to find a limited number of specific answers.
No, because Ad Nauseum is just so-so in this deck. ANT is a slower storm deck so it gets life-pressured more. It also has a lower business count and higher average CMC than say TES, making the chance for a successful series of flips less likely.Quote:
Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
Did they shuffle with Ponder? I'm likely to brainstorm now, adjust game plan depending on what you find.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff
With the 1 or 2 Burning Wish plan, is Past in Flames the best sideboard option for an engine? It doesn't seem like a great option since you need to have another tutor either in hand or gy, and at least 2 Red to do this. I don't have experience with ANT and Burning Wish, is that not hard to accomplish?
I like the sound of Ill Gotten Gains since it turns on the double LED draw (with less rituals) you might have, but you would still need a nother tutor for this option.
Not sure if Diminishing Returns is playable out of the sb in this deck.
Thoughts?
Well, let's start by looking at historic BW ANT decks: https://www.wizards.com/magic/magazi...nt12/welcome#1Quote:
Originally Posted by personalbackfire
So IGG is definitely reasonable, but DimRet probably isn't. It's pretty bad when you don't run Silence or a bunch of IMSs.
Thanks for link and response.Quote:
Originally Posted by phazonmutant
I dare to add, that both a pretty miserable without Silence or additional IMP's but IGG suffers under the riss of DRS and RIPQuote:
Originally Posted by phazonmutant
I love IGG as it shines in the area where PiF really lacks: Artifact use. Having to hit rituals and then dumping my hand using mana/brainstorm lands back into my library instead of being able to reuse my LED so I can IT for Tendrils has been a challenge for me (this is obviously when I Ad Nauseam in tandem with PiF). It takes a dimension of the deck away that I never really had to worry about before. Losing the ability to make myself discard my hand to tutor for the win has become an annoyance that I want fixed. I don't know how, but I am gonna figure a way out. Enough is enough.
Putting AN in your board for the matchups it shines in. Otherwise it's going to be available as a bad option that you will be tempted to use when it will more likely just kill you for them.
-ABC
Alright, sorry for being absent for a bit, here's how I see the Leyline issue: Concerning the game in the article, yes they just won - because I mulled into a risky hand and missed. Essentially what happened is that I fizzled, Leyline or no Leyline (though the Duress would obviously have helped without the Leyline). Had I hit business at any point before dieing (and hitting cantrips kind of counts as all I needed was a Tutor), that game would have been an easy, utterly non-interactive win. All Leyline does is force you to play more aggressively than you otherwise would (as you have to race their likely turn 3-4 kill, their turn 2 potential is actually rather negligible as it relies on four specific cards in S&T, Sol land, Omni/Halls plus Enter/Wish/Intu. I haven't calculated the exact odds but that comes up probably below 5% of the time, especially if you also figure in the likelihood of having a Leyline to protect it all).Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff
With the hand you suggest, I'd probably just straight go for it, though I'd be tempted to Brainstorm first and see if I can't unearth a Swarm/Chain given that I have access to nine mana, enough to cast the Brainstorm as well as Tutor into AdN. A sticking point there is blue mana (to cast the Chain which you'll need at some point if you're going for it this turn), which is a reason to rather want to keep the Petal around. The first thing I'd do is to try to get a read if they have Force. If I feel they have it, I'd cast Brainstorm and see where that leads. If Brainstorm misses I'd go for it anyway. If I get the impression they're vulnerable, I'd ignore the Brainstorm and try to just kill them. I know it feels bad and goes against everything the deck is built to do in usual games but if they have Leyline you just want to get the game over with ASAP and have to take higher risks accordingly.
I definitely would end up going for it this turn if I don't find Swarm/Chain because, as you mentioned, letting them untap allows them to cast more cantrips (to find the counter they're rather unlikely to have right now) and keep up mana for additional disruption they might have (like the mentioned Flusterstorm). Note, by the way, that they're looking for even more specific cards than you're looking for with your five Chains/Swarms. What they're looking for against that hand is exactly Force of Will.
What it all boils down to is this:
They have four Leylines and four Forces to interact with you. That gives them roughly a 16% chance to open a hand with both at the same time (or so I believe, as opening any single card is roughly 40%). So if they have a Leyline and you have neither Swarm nor Chain (which you're more likely to have than them hitting Leyline in the first place) but can kill them, that gives you a 84% chance to just win right now. Even if the Ponder adds another 10% chance for them hitting the Force (I expect it's lower than that), that leaves you with a 75% win rate. Sounds decent to me.
Between five ways to threaten Leyline/the countermagic it might be protecting, the ability to goldfish significantly faster than they do and the fact that both of your engines will usually allow you to answer Leyline while creating the necessary Storm and mana for the win, Leyline is an annoyance but far from game over. Add a very positive matchup in any normal game in which they don't Leyline up, and you have a matchup I'm not only not afraid of but happy to sit down against.
I like Past in Flames fine as a SB option. I've tried IGG before, but found that I'd rarely grab it over PiF. You need a second Tutor for either one and PiF is generally just better. Double LED hands are nice for IGG, but if you have double LED as well as an Infernal Tutor then you're probably set either way.Quote:
Originally Posted by personalbackfire
Diminishing Returns is pretty risky. I've tried Time Spiral before since it's not uncommon to have several lands out. It can be nice against discard, non-Blue decks, but I've since dropped it because I just didn't need it often enough.
I appreciate the full response, but I read it twice, and as near as I can tell the answer is "Try to find a swarm or chain, but if you don't, hope they don't have Force of Will." I guess maybe that's the strategy you need to have, but the entire reason I play ANT and not TES is because I don't like the "man, I hope this works" element of the deck, I much prefer working with perfect information and sculpting the right response before just winning. Maybe I should just go back to High Tide ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Mon,Goblin Chief
It just distresses me that Leyline + Force of will is pretty much game over, and they know it. I know you're saying it's only a 16% chance for them to have it, but they're mulliganing to it, obviously. I just have trouble seeing it as a positive matchup when all they need is a two card combo to just beat me.
At this point, if they mulliganed to Leyline AND Force, you should have enough time to durdle, while cantripping and searching for your answers or additional copies of them. If they start with Leyline AND Force, while still winning on turn 3 or so, then, yeah, you lost against the nuts. That happens and it's okay I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff
May try this perspective: Running TES, you can bait the FoW with Silence/Swarm and then cast Infernal for Ad Nauseam into Chain of Vapor ... more of "man, this DID work!"Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff
;D