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

Hey guys, I still don't have a TES deck, but I'm thinking of building one. Just wanna make some considerations about somethings that were brought up here.

I think UWr Delver is better in the new scenario than UR Delver. Before the last SCG open, I played in a tournament and watched both playing with the new TC decklists. UWr delver seems much better, as it has access to StP and SFM. IMO the new Pyromancer UR list is a good deck, I'm not denying it. I just think it was the first good decklist with TC that got into the spotlights. I wouldn't make all the considerations as if it was the deck to beat. But maybe I'm wrong.

I've been trying S&T with DTT and it seems reeeeeally poor in that deck. I don't think people will be playing it for more than once (until they realize it's not good there).

Just wanted to point that out. Anyways, I'm looking forward to proxying a TES list and to see how I do with this kind of deck. Definitely this thread has helped me a lot with the discussion to get an idea how to play this deck and it looks amazing. Also, the play of the TES player on the last SCG caught on camera "blind BSing" with LED mana and no cards in hand being able to find the pieces and combo out. That was amazing!

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Originally Posted by ThiefSlayer

Hey guys, I still don't have a TES deck, but I'm thinking of building one. Just wanna make some considerations about somethings that were brought up here.

I think UWr Delver is better in the new scenario than UR Delver. Before the last SCG open, I played in a tournament and watched both playing with the new TC decklists. UWr delver seems much better, as it has access to StP and SFM. IMO the new Pyromancer UR list is a good deck, I'm not denying it. I just think it was the first good decklist with TC that got into the spotlights. I wouldn't make all the considerations as if it was the deck to beat. But maybe I'm wrong.

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It's the same problem why Miracles is a bad deck to run TC or DTT: These deck have far too much permanents and reactive cards to support DTT/TC. Too many people don't get that having cards like FoW, Daze, Plowshares, Councils Judgements, etc. sitting in hand or cards like SDT, SFM and Batterskull on the field do nothing to support Treasure Cruise unless your gameplan is that all your threats and permanents get countered anyways.

The best decks to support TC are those which burn through their cards as fast as possible without sitting on a pile of Plowshares against combo while Lightning Bolt could accelerate the clock and fuel TCs. The concept of aggressive cards to burn for value and to fill your graveyard quick is only found in Red or Black to supplement the blue cantrip core. Its a decision between running Bolts and Swiftspears for a blitz-aggro gameplan or Discard + DRS to battle combo/control while breaking the symmetry of the TC-race with DRS eating up your opponents grave and providing mana to fuel your cantrip-chains and TCs.

White Delver variants have only Plowshares, SFM and Hatebears as arguments, with neither of these cards supporting TC and SFM being an easy victim to the 6+ burn-spells of the UR variants.

Expect the value and presence of Tarmogoyf and SFM to vanish over the next months

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Originally Posted by ThiefSlayer

Just wanted to point that out. Anyways, I'm looking forward to proxying a TES list and to see how I do with this kind of deck. Definitely this thread has helped me a lot with the discussion to get an idea how to play this deck and it looks amazing. Also, the play of the TES player on the last SCG caught on camera "blind BSing" with LED mana and no cards in hand being able to find the pieces and combo out. That was amazing!

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Would it be possible to post me a link and a timestamp to watch this? I don't have the time nor the interrest (Delver mirrors for hours) to watch these streams as a whole, but would want to review such particular matches.

Thx

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

It's the same problem why Miracles is a bad deck to run TC or DTT: These deck have far too much permanents and reactive cards to support DTT/TC. Too many people don't get that having cards like FoW, Daze, Plowshares, Councils Judgements, etc. sitting in hand or cards like SDT, SFM and Batterskull on the field do nothing to support Treasure Cruise unless your gameplan is that all your threats and permanents get countered anyways.

The best decks to support TC are those which burn through their cards as fast as possible without sitting on a pile of Plowshares against combo while Lightning Bolt could accelerate the clock and fuel TCs. The concept of aggressive cards to burn for value and to fill your graveyard quick is only found in Red or Black to supplement the blue cantrip core. Its a decision between running Bolts and Swiftspears for a blitz-aggro gameplan or Discard + DRS to battle combo/control while breaking the symmetry of the TC-race with DRS eating up your opponents grave and providing mana to fuel your cantrip-chains and TCs.

White Delver variants have only Plowshares, SFM and Hatebears as arguments, with neither of these cards supporting TC and SFM being an easy victim to the 6+ burn-spells of the UR variants.

Expect the value and presence of Tarmogoyf and SFM to vanish over the next months



Would it be possible to post me a link and a timestamp to watch this? I don't have the time nor the interrest (Delver mirrors for hours) to watch these streams as a whole, but would want to review such particular matches.

Thx

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Sorry man, don't know how to find the matchup :/
but it was close to the top8, I guess around the 7 to 9th round

About the SFM deck with TC, I guess it's still good because UWr delver is more controlish than UR Delver, so it doesn't care too much that the game goes longer. Therefore, he gets some gas on the mid-late game with TC, which according to my friend was absolutely amazing! And also, he still plays a lot of cantrips, counters and removal so the graveyard doesn't take that long to get filled enough for a 6-7 delve. It runs less fetchlands, but it also runs wasteland so I guess it compensates.

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Originally Posted by ThiefSlayer

Sorry man, don't know how to find the matchup :/
but it was close to the top8, I guess around the 7 to 9th round

About the SFM deck with TC, I guess it's still good because UWr delver is more controlish than UR Delver, so it doesn't care too much that the game goes longer. Therefore, he gets some gas on the mid-late game with TC, which according to my friend was absolutely amazing! And also, he still plays a lot of cantrips, counters and removal so the graveyard doesn't take that long to get filled enough for a 6-7 delve. It runs less fetchlands, but it also runs wasteland so I guess it compensates.

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The deck isn't build to fill it's graveyard fast enough to fire off Treasure Cruise before turn 4 and builds up much less pressure on your life total than UR. Think about both points. I don't say that the deck is bad against storm, but I have my doubts about the decks Position in the metagame overall and in the Delver/TC-mirror

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Would it be possible to post me a link and a timestamp to watch this? I don't have the time nor the interrest (Delver mirrors for hours) to watch these streams as a whole, but would want to review such particular matches.

Thx

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http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/581695802

The play is somewhere around the 30:08:00 mark.

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Originally Posted by bob636

http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/581695802

The play is somewhere around the 30:08:00 mark.

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That was Edward Song I think was his name and he was playing ANT not TES. The play was very risky but it paid off in the end.

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Originally Posted by ThiefSlayer

Sorry man, don't know how to find the matchup :/
but it was close to the top8, I guess around the 7 to 9th round

About the SFM deck with TC, I guess it's still good because UWr delver is more controlish than UR Delver, so it doesn't care too much that the game goes longer. Therefore, he gets some gas on the mid-late game with TC, which according to my friend was absolutely amazing! And also, he still plays a lot of cantrips, counters and removal so the graveyard doesn't take that long to get filled enough for a 6-7 delve. It runs less fetchlands, but it also runs wasteland so I guess it compensates.

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My apologies I quoted the wrong one.

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Originally Posted by culby218

That was Edward Song I think was his name and he was playing ANT not TES. The play was very risky but it paid off in the end.

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Yeah you're right, he's on ANT. He ends up hitting a burning wish off of the brainstorm, so it's not exactly a stock ANT list either.

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Originally Posted by bob636

Yeah you're right, he's on ANT. He ends up hitting a burning wish off of the brainstorm, so it's not exactly a stock ANT list either.

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I like that he put a spin on the deck. I just cringe everytime I see him on camera the way he alters his cards. He is a very very good player I got a chance to see him play live at GP Cincy.

That's actually a TNT variant (Cabal Ritual + Wish) and going off here was more than fine as he had dozens of outs to hit with the Brainstorm. It was less spectacular in fact than it appeared on camera.

Could someone explain how to approach the UR delver matchup? I'm having some trouble with their super fast clock + mild disruption. Ad Naus usually becomes difficult after two turns, and goblins aren't great against Pyro and Swiftspear.

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Originally Posted by laserstone

Could someone explain how to approach the UR delver matchup? I'm having some trouble with their super fast clock + mild disruption. Ad Naus usually becomes difficult after two turns, and goblins aren't great against Pyro and Swiftspear.

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If they get you down fast enough to the point ad naus is not effective and you are unable to race with EtW you will need to set up a past in flames win.

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Originally Posted by culby218

If they get you down fast enough to the point ad naus is not effective and you are unable to race with EtW you will need to set up a past in flames win.

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Natural Spellchain does the job better in most cases. The UR Swiftspear + TC lists are light on disruption anyways, so sandbaggin spells and sculpting your hand for 2-3 turns and then blowing them out works out fine if they are on an aggressive start.

I'm putting the final touches on testing and deck list for scg columbus. I'm really thinking it's going to be like last time and be elves miracles and SnT. Lately there have been a lot of bug decks in my local meta. I have been flip flopping a lot.

EDIT: normal meta elves miracles SnT but it's the couple bug decks that have been winning the tournaments.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Natural Spellchain does the job better in most cases. The UR Swiftspear + TC lists are light on disruption anyways, so sandbaggin spells and sculpting your hand for 2-3 turns and then blowing them out works out fine if they are on an aggressive start.

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Izzet Delver usually damages itself with probes and fetch, which makes the natural chain very accesible. I played 2 matches against it past tournament and beat them 3 times with a natural chain and once with Ad Nauseam.

Hi,

I'm Eddie Song, the guy who white borders his decks and occasionally yolo's it on camera. I noticed I was mentioned here so I figured I'd finally make a Source account and post my list. Here it is:

15 lands

2 underground sea
1 volcanic island
1 badlands
1 tropical island
1 island
1 swamp
4 scalding tarn
4 polluted delta

45 Spells

4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 gitaxian probe
2 preordain

4 infernal tutor
2 burning wish
1 tendrils of agony
1 past in flames
1 ad nauseam

3 duress
3 cabal therapy

4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
4 lotus petal
4 lion's eye diamond

15 Sideboard

1 past in flames
1 tendrils of agony
1 empty the warrens
1 pyroclasm
1 massacre
1 void snare
1 duress
2 xantid swarm
3 abrupt decay
1 chain of vapor
2 dread of night

As you can see, it's definitely closer to an ANT list. My friend actually designed the 2 burning wishes. Basically, my thought process is that by turn 3, you want to have seen exactly 1 tutor, 1-2 duress effects, 1-2 cantrips, 2-3 lands, and 3-4 fast mana (rituals, LED's). In order to have the necessary density of infernal tutors (one in every 10 cards), I'm basically playing 6.

Also, I personally believe all the sb cards are garbage besides 3 abrupt decay, 1 chain of vapor, 2-3 xantid swarm. I don't like extra chains (gotta have one though for ad nauseam), carpet of flowers sucks, dread of night doesn't stop ethersworn canonist, bob and young pyromancer are only situationally sweet (and only if they aren't prepared/don't play bolt), so why not add some burning wishes. That card also makes ad nauseam way better and gives you maindeck outs to random cards like gaddock teeg or leyline of sanctity.

For those who are interested in the math with my YOLO camera game 3, I was 31% to hit a tutor and win on the spot (to get EtW) and 31% to hit a ponder or a brainstorm, which gives me more outs. I think combined, I'm around 50% to win on the spot? Of course, none of that was going through my head. Basically, the judge said "You need to make decisions faster," which started the yolo-train.

It seems like Silence is getting better in the meta again. TES has always been good against the blue decks with conditional stack interaction as their primary form of disruption.

So my questions to the thread:

1. Is Silence good again?
2. If so, is it still correct to play 4 Therapy before 4 Silence?
3. Is Pyroblast sideboard still the correct call?

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Originally Posted by phazonmutant

It seems like Silence is getting better in the meta again. TES has always been good against the blue decks with conditional stack interaction as their primary form of disruption.

So my questions to the thread:

1. Is Silence good again?
2. If so, is it still correct to play 4 Therapy before 4 Silence?
3. Is Pyroblast sideboard still the correct call?

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We had the topic lately (page 295-298 if I'm not mistaken). I don't see conditional counters like Sifle, Spell Snare, Envelop, etc in the metagame atm, but the opposite with UR Delvers rise and them dropping stuff like Stifle/Wasteland/Pierce. White and Black Delver variants are as annoying as before if you try to battle them with Silence, Greg.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Natural Spellchain does the job better in most cases. The UR Swiftspear + TC lists are light on disruption anyways, so sandbaggin spells and sculpting your hand for 2-3 turns and then blowing them out works out fine if they are on an aggressive start.

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If a natural spell chain is a more common path to victory, is the Wish-ANT list the most viable currently? Being able to win with main deck PiF is a pleasure.

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Originally Posted by itrytostorm

If a natural spell chain is a more common path to victory, is the Wish-ANT list the most viable currently? Being able to win with main deck PiF is a pleasure.

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No, generating 7/8 storm midgame, isn't that hard. Choosing between TNT and TES is still a matter of preference I guess.

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Originally Posted by itrytostorm

If a natural spell chain is a more common path to victory, is the Wish-ANT list the most viable currently? Being able to win with main deck PiF is a pleasure.

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I don't see a reason you want to meddle with your manabase for wishes then. If I would play ANT these days (and I usually meddle without deck the same way I do with TES) I would look at MB Lightning Bolts or Multi-ToA rather than Wishes.

Due to UR Delvers lack of disruption, I see no Problem for TES in blitzing them with EtW or AN as well as chaining GPs and IT -> BW -> ToA.

Possibly TES can use these or other options as well if the matchup is a real problem. In addition to that: No one stops you from siding in the SB infernal + PIF for games 2 & 3 to mimic ANTs gameplan.

My biggest problem with playing other storm variants is the damage from AN. I just miss the low curve as I'm getting hit with all the >1CMC spells. I think I'll stick with TES for the GP with everyone gearing for fair decks.

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Originally Posted by itrytostorm

My biggest problem with playing other storm variants is the damage from AN. I just miss the low curve as I'm getting hit with all the >1CMC spells. I think I'll stick with TES for the GP with everyone gearing for fair decks.

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TES is the only storm deck where Ad Nauseam usually means winning the game the same turn. In ANT it's more of a Necropotence a la drawing 7 fresh cards and win once you untap. Being too greedy with AN in ANT is a sin

Today is the day I am less than 3 hours away from batteling at SCG Columbus. I settled in Bryant's list with bayou in the main. It's been doing well in testing with very little wastelands to deal with. I am going with a 3/1 swarm chain split in the board because columbus has a high number of sneak decks. My name is Dustin Culbertson if you want to follow my progress.

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Originally Posted by culby218

Today is the day I am less than 3 hours away from batteling at SCG Columbus. I settled in Bryant's list with bayou in the main. It's been doing well in testing with very little wastelands to deal with. I am going with a 3/1 swarm chain split in the board because columbus has a high number of sneak decks. My name is Dustin Culbertson if you want to follow my progress.

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Good luck, sir!

Well not my weekend round 1 vs a weird maverick brew and over 2 games he was 10 for 10 on cabal therapy. Round 2 vs d&t get wasteland t1 and played 2nd one but got ported with Thalia never saw another land. G2 therapy hit gat teag. Rips Thalia wand wastelands my only other land after a mull to 5. Love the deck will play again just hoping for more luck next time.

I'm very jealous of everyone going to the GP. This is a great metagame for storm and I'm pretty upset that I can't punish UR Delver players all day.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

I'm very jealous of everyone going to the GP. This is a great metagame for storm and I'm pretty upset that I can't punish UR Delver players all day.

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What have you found to be the best SB strategy for that match? I am currenty taking out 2 Ponder for Tendrils and IT.

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Originally Posted by itrytostorm

What have you found to be the best SB strategy for that match? I am currenty taking out 2 Ponder for Tendrils and IT.

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Not that. I rarely side in Tendrils, when I do it's generally against Miracles. I don't think you sideboard at all.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

I'm very jealous of everyone going to the GP. This is a great metagame for storm and I'm pretty upset that I can't punish UR Delver players all day.

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Dang. Was hoping to watch that shiny deck on camera multiple times over the weekend.

Can't wait to face all the Stompy decks now that it's getting some attention. Turn 1 chalice and turn 2 3-ball are not super. And Rabble is a actually a quick clock.

So the past few weeks me and my friend played TES in a couple of tournaments.

He tested the Silence build and I tested the discard build. The first tournament the meta was pretty scattered. My friend made a meta analysis and in 30 decks the most played decks were MUD and Izzet Delver (3x each).
Our lists for reference:

My build:
Main:
4 Burning Wish
3 Infernal Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou

Sideboard:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Void Snare
1 Massacre
1 Grapeshot
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Abrupt Decay

His build:
Main:
3 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Ad Nauseam
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Duress
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Silence
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Mana Confluence


Sideboard:
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Void Snare
1 Massacre
1 Grapeshot
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Xantid Swarm
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Bayou



The first tournament I went 4-2 missing top8 and he went 5-1 loosing to Instant High Tide (Solidarity?) in the quarters.
I played against ANT, Infect, 2x UR Delver, BUG Delver, Pros Bloom and lost against ANT and Infect.
He played against Goblins, D&T, Elves, Infect, UW Control, High Tide and lost against Elves. I lost two games because the Bayou should be a Tropical Island and I really liked the sideboard Infernal, but I missed the 10th business spell more. He played a second Ad Nauseam instead of the fourth Burning Wish and he lost at least one because of it. The upside was hard to say.

The second tournament was a complete failure for me. My friend put his 4th Wish back instead of the second Ad Nauseam. I replaced the Bayou with the Tropical Island.
There were 9 players. The first I lost against MUD, followed by a bye. The third round I lost against UR Delver, the fourth I won against UR Delver and the 5th my friend scooped to me because he would be top4 nonetheless. I missed top 4 by 3 percent.
He won against 3 UR Delver decks and Merfolk before scooping to me. He lost against MUD in the semi's.

After this I'm considering swapping the main deck Tropical Island with the sideboard Infernal Tutor. Also, there are a lot of Chalices running around in Merfolk and MUD. So we swapped the Grapeshot with a Shattering Spree / Meltdown. Which is the best of the two still isn't clear.

Nationals is coming up this weekend. So we will be storming again. He swears by the Silences and I am loving the 7/8 fetches. But we'll see.

~Tom

Thanks for the breakdown, Tom. I dunno why you guys dislike the 4 Therapies :tongue:

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I dunno why you guys dislike the 4 Therapies :tongue:

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Duress requires less play skill?
Therapy is the best card as Wish target?

For a Silence list it also makes sense not to play a full set if you often get into trouble with the fact that Probe is the only peek effect you have apart from burning your first Therapy. That was for me the main reason not to run 4x Therapy in my old Silence list.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

TES is the only storm deck where Ad Nauseam usually means winning the game the same turn. In ANT it's more of a Necropotence a la drawing 7 fresh cards and win once you untap. Being too greedy with AN in ANT is a sin

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"In ANT it's more of a Necropotence a la drawing 7 fresh cards and win once you untap." I had to read this several times... and...
concerning ANT this assumption is not true. TES has a straighter line of play once AdN resolves, whereas ANT demands some cantripping > LED > Tendrils moves (see what happened during the SCG 2 weeks ago, also covered in Carsten's excellent article). "Being too greedy with AN in ANT is a sin" True BUT you just have to stop when you see the kill line or there is simply no way of winning this turn. So, it is not about greed but stupidity. I would not leave home without my AdN in my Storm deck because the percentage of winning during the same turn are very high and if mana is floating somewhere, it usually predicts a certain kill. Life should be above 13 or something in this spectrum to win without problems.

Edit: Good luck to all the stormy players @ GPNJ. Also to the TES group.

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Originally Posted by CabalTherapy

"In ANT it's more of a Necropotence a la drawing 7 fresh cards and win once you untap." I had to read this several times... and...
concerning ANT this assumption is not true.

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I'm not quite sure how what you said is different than what Lem said.

My issue with the all fetch manabase is that Decay isn't nearly reliable enough. With a pair of Gemstones, it's castable without a Petal theoretically in Chalice match-ups.

I don't know why you are cutting the Gemstones now that Wasteland is on it's minimum.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Thanks for the breakdown, Tom. I dunno why you guys dislike the 4 Therapies :tongue:

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I love it! But I hate the Thoughtseize, so I've put the Cabal Therapy as a wish target.

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Originally Posted by Mastikor

I don't know why you are cutting the Gemstones now that Wasteland is on it's minimum.

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I'm not cutting Gemstone Mines because they're Gemstone Mines, but more because they're not fetch land.

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Originally Posted by Tom T

I love it! But I hate the Thoughtseize, so I've put the Cabal Therapy as a wish target.

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I will never understand this. Cabal Therapy is our best discard spell, especially when we're an ETW deck. We're reducing naturally drawing our best discard spell to be able to Burning Wish for a copy with the additional mana requirement, when half the time we would rather get a different spell. Which is why I ultimately decided to cut the discard spell, it's very low impact and often a wasted slot in the sideboard.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

I will never understand this. Cabal Therapy is our best discard spell, especially when we're an ETW deck. We're reducing naturally drawing our best discard spell to be able to Burning Wish for a copy with the additional mana requirement, when half the time we would rather get a different spell. Which is why I ultimately decided to cut the discard spell, it's very low impact and often a wasted slot in the sideboard.

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Bryant, I've been wondering, how do you handle storm combo mirrors with no Thoughtseize in board? Given how bad EtW is, I tended to swap it for Tendrils or PiF, but with no discard spell to Wish for, I think the only viable card to side in would be Tendrils. It's just too awkward having nothing really impactful to Wish for if you side the PiF in and have no Seize. As I've tested more, I've founded boarding in Tutor to be hit-or-miss, but Tendrils seems just ok as well.

Also, for you or anyone else using the more current list, does anyone else side out a discard spell against control, to open it up as a Wish target? I've enjoyed it, especially in games where I'm waiting on Decay or bringing Swarm in anyway.