[Deck] TES - The EPIC Storm

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Originally Posted by jegger

I don't like so much 2 undiscovered paradise.
In first turns, when I play brainstorm / plunge to arrange my hand, the undiscovered paradise can slow down my start to combo.
I prefer to continue to have in deck the tomb. Sometimes I win some matches that I've lost. Usually against damned STax. Ah, ah, ah. Or pikula. :cool:

My decklist is more similar to old decklists with only 1 EtW and still with 2 cabal ritual. This is because perhaps my meta is different form yours and there are too many response to EtW also maindeck: e.e., tabernacle, sharpshooter, echoing truth, pyroclasm...all cards maindeck :eek:
So sometimes I can also do 8-10 goblins in my first turn, but I prefer to adopt a different strategy if I know my opponent has too many response to EtW.
If my opponent has a weak strategy to contrast EtW I can side in g2/3.
This is because I use only 1 EtW and also for the problem that I want the minimum number of spell at CC4 (I use only a ToA for this reason).

Goblin war strike is so good? I never try it. I think it's only a tech that steals space in the side. How many time do you use war strike?

sorry for my language. :ug:

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Goblin War Strike is much stronger with 3 ETW maindeck, I must admit. However, when comboing out with ETW and playing an LED and not using it is prime for GWS(<- I guess we just found out what GWS stands for). War Strike is almost a timewalk in the essence that you can skip your opponents next turn and kill them before hate comes down. I've won games on turn 2 due to ETW, swing 10, Brainstorm -> Crack LED for RRR. Burning Wish for Warstrike to then have my teammate reveal 3 Pernicious Deed. That's only 1 way to win with Warstrike also, there's plently less complicated ways. 2 lands and a SSG or Petal also works on turn 2.

Also, Cabal Ritual is very bad compared to SSG; I'd atleast test Simian Spirit Guide.

Cabal Ritual isn't awful, I could see using it instead of Right of Flame if TES dropped Plunge into Darkness and 2 Empty the Warrens for Infernal Contract and Cruel Bargain. You can run appr. five Draw 4s on just Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual and add another thanks to Brainstorm and the land count. The opponent can't know the number of Empty the Warrens in the MD or between the MD and SB, so there's a strong chance he will still counter the rituals.

Cabal Ritual just depends on the suite of threats in the deck, the same with Right of Flame.

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

Cabal Ritual isn't awful, I could see using it instead of Right of Flame if TES dropped Plunge into Darkness and 2 Empty the Warrens for Infernal Contract and Cruel Bargain. You can run appr. five Draw 4s on just Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual and add another thanks to Brainstorm and the land count. The opponent can't know the number of Empty the Warrens in the MD or between the MD and SB, so there's a strong chance he will still counter the rituals.

Cabal Ritual just depends on the suite of threats in the deck, the same with Right of Flame.

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Let me rephrase then, Cabal Ritual sucks in decks that aren't SI. There's no need to support BBB when we can easily support 2UU or 1B/R.

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Originally Posted by wastedlife

Let me rephrase then, Cabal Ritual sucks in decks that aren't SI. There's no need to support BBB when we can easily support 2UU or 1B/R.

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Cabal Ritual is actually quite good in Iggy Pop. I think a statement that broad is bound to be wrong. Sure it might not work very well in TES, but that doesn't make it always a bad choice.

There's also Careful Study and Mental Note to think about, for awhile in the Summer I was running Careful Study over Brainstorm in IGGY POP, because Careful Study put 2 cards in the discard pile instead of on top of the deck to facilitate Threshold, Hellbent and fresh draws. Theoretically, you recoup your card advantage once you get Threshold for a Cabal Ritual.

You obviously have to build around Cabal Ritual, but it definitely doesn't suck.

I think that your play style is more similar to CRET Belcher with more opportunity to play EtW in 1° turn. My play style is similar but I use more a component of control in my play style (perhaps I wrong).

Cabal ritual sometimes can be bad because it does only +1 mana for -1 card.
But cabal ritual can be useful in some situations: usually against decks like pikula or decks that use chalice at 0/1. In this case can be useful play tutor showing cabal ritual, do double cabal ritual -> infernal tutor -> iggy -> win.
Cabal ritual is an alternative way to produce more mana.
Perhaps I can wrong but my mana accelerations already contain also 4x simian spirit guide so I prefer to use only 3 chrome mox and 3 plunge for 2 cabal ritual (yes only 2).

A question on 2 cards:
what do you think of three wishes?
can be useful now death wish? I know that we discuss it time ago but perhaps we can reconsider it with the new build and a new side.

Death Wish costs BBB. That means one should only play it if running Black acceleration. But since now the standard builds have switched to running more Red...

It costs 1BB actually. And there's really nothing un-sorcery that you'd really want to Wish for.

Grim Tutor is almost always going to be better to you than Death Wish. It costs less life on average, doesn't require you to dilute your deck's accelerant or business, and can find anything in your deck. Unfortunately, Grim Tutor would require 4x Cabal Rit, and I'm not entirely convinced that Grim Tutor is even on par with Plunge into Darkness at finding LED, especially considering that you're always going to be burning a ritual to do it.

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Originally Posted by kicks_422

It costs 1BB actually. And there's really nothing un-sorcery that you'd really want to Wish for.

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Hunting Pack, it's an alternate win condition that generates lethal damage for 5 storm, 1 turn and can't be removed by Empty the Warrens hate (it's not an awful MD consideration either against U/g/r and its ilk). Tombstalker, it's an alternate win condition that's going to be cost efficient thanks to LED and Delve

I don't see a problem with adding Death Wish, it's just another "combo version" of Burning Wish that can be used to suppliment/diversify the threats. I wouldn't add a few, but you could add a couple.

On another tangent, Xantid Swarm seems awful right now, U/g/r Gro is getting popular and 8 MD removal cards are just too much for Xantid Swarm to be reliable. People seem to be gravitating to U/g/r because MD Pyroclasm is superior against MD Meddling Mage against combo and aggro, and you'll get some number of Pyrite Spellbomb, Seal of Fire, Magma Jet, Fire/Ice, Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning along with it. Orim's Chant or Duress both look safer, it's probably time to adapt to the environment, considering the environment has adapted to us.

@BreathWeapon: I think your right, Swarm is amazing, but too much removal to rely on it hitting...

I'm thinking of finding room for chants in the main again, they did really well when they were there, and now i need to fix them back in.

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

Hunting Pack, it's an alternate win condition that generates lethal damage for 5 storm, 1 turn and can't be removed by Empty the Warrens hate (it's not an awful MD consideration either against U/g/r and its ilk). Tombstalker, it's an alternate win condition that's going to be cost efficient thanks to LED and Delve

I don't see a problem with adding Death Wish, it's just another "combo version" of Burning Wish that can be used to suppliment/diversify the threats. I wouldn't add a few, but you could add a couple.

On another tangent, Xantid Swarm seems awful right now, U/g/r Gro is getting popular and 8 MD removal cards are just too much for Xantid Swarm to be reliable. People seem to be gravitating to U/g/r because MD Pyroclasm is superior against MD Meddling Mage against combo and aggro, and you'll get some number of Pyrite Spellbomb, Seal of Fire, Magma Jet, Fire/Ice, Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning along with it. Orim's Chant or Duress both look safer, it's probably time to adapt to the environment, considering the environment has adapted to us.

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Are you suggesting cutting Xantid all together or add more protection along with it? I've had Chant not be in my maindeck for 2 days then I missed it and put it back in. All-together I run 4 Swarm MD 2 Orim's Chant MD, 2 Orim's Chant SB and 3 Duress SB (I cut REBs' a few days ago after some advice from "Di".)(Although, I only side in 2 Duress and leave one as a Wish target), I believe I've been adapting, I don't know about you. Xantid Swarm is fine to me, even with UGr gro becoming more popular. If they kill it, thats not a Sb slot that would've wrecked me. If they don't kill it you win the game.

If I use Death Wish I build a deck that help the play of this card. So I use sure 4 cabal ritual and it's interesting the BreathWeapon's proposal of Tombstalker.
Then others target can be orim's chant, storm entity, chain of vapor,...
The problem is that death wish can't search an useful mana source like plunge can do with LED. I think that we can use death wish only in a deck with more black acceleration: culling of the weak, song of damned and many more; but in a deck like this with 4 simian, 4 rite I think that we can't use it optimally.

About xantid swarm, yeah there is the problem of creature removals.
with xantid we can transform an useless card like fire/ice in a good card; so my opponent if we play xantid can bolt it and keeps fow for an other target.
So now I'm using 4 chant in maindeck and 0 xantid.
And I'm thing to replace some cards in side with the old defense grid (2x) that can't be removed so easy. Dgrids are more slow but they allow to play more freedom wihout the worry of fow, stifle, orim if we use iggy or diminishing.

Perhaps I wrong because Dgrids often obbligate to play 1 turn slow.

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Originally Posted by jegger

About xantid swarm, yeah there is the problem of creature removals.
with xantid we can transform an useless card like fire/ice in a good card; so my opponent if we play xantid can bolt it and keeps fow for an other target.
So now I'm using 4 chant in maindeck and 0 xantid.
And I'm thing to replace some cards in side with the old defense grid (2x) that can't be removed so easy. Dgrids are more slow but they allow to play more freedom wihout the worry of fow, stifle, orim if we use iggy or diminishing.

Perhaps I wrong because Dgrids often obbligate to play 1 turn slow.

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I wouldn't cut Xantid, If anything you run both, not one or the other. More protection > less Protection. Defense Grid is slow, clunky, and doesn't remove to Chrome Mox (I've lost games because of this). This can be troublesome, if you are set on running Defense Grid I'd think about SSG again it makes turn one Grid alot more possible.

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Originally Posted by wastedlife

Are you suggesting cutting Xantid all together or add more protection along with it? I've had Chant not be in my maindeck for 2 days then I missed it and put it back in. All-together I run 4 Swarm MD 2 Orim's Chant MD, 2 Orim's Chant SB and 3 Duress SB (I cut REBs' a few days ago after some advice from "Di".)(Although, I only side in 2 Duress and leave one as a Wish target), I believe I've been adapting, I don't know about you. Xantid Swarm is fine to me, even with UGr gro becoming more popular. If they kill it, thats not a Sb slot that would've wrecked me. If they don't kill it you win the game.

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Right now Xantid Swarm is in the SB and Orim's Chant/Duress is in the MD, the issue isn't using Xantid Swarm to get them to keep their burn in for game 2, it's losing game 1 to that burn. I'm not certain the opponent's have a card to even SB out for Seal, because 'Clasm and Stifle are in the MD as it is.

If the opponent counters Xantid Swarm then TES is in good shape, if the opponent burns Xantid Swarm then TES is in bad shape, if the opponent doesn't counter or burn Xantid Swarm then the game was won regardless of the disruption. It's impossible to determine whether or not the burn was keeping a SB card out of the deck, not to mention irrelevant game one, so I don't think that's a justification for using Xantid Swarm in the face of 8+ burn spells.

Not to mention that using Xantid Swarm is conceding ground against combo, prison and discard. I just don't see a reason to treat Xantid Swarm as a sacred cow when it's the worst possible MD disruption against the most popular (at least here) aggro-control deck and a random field.

Swarm is GREAT main deck, if i don't need him, Mox eats him, and i'm good, if i do, then i'm happy to see him, i ALMOST NEVER don't like drawing one, the ONLY time i dislike seeing him, is when i already have on down and it's staying put (and no Mox) or i draw one off D. Returns (and still don't have a mox), thats it, i even like seeing him against gobs, as he blocks Lacky/Piledriver, and buys me a turn.

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If the opponent counters Xantid Swarm then TES is in good shape, if the opponent burns Xantid Swarm then TES is in bad shape, if the opponent doesn't counter or burn Xantid Swarm then the game was won regardless of the disruption. It's impossible to determine whether or not the burn was keeping a SB card out of the deck, not to mention irrelevant game one, so I don't think that's a justification for using Xantid Swarm in the face of 8+ burn spells.

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This is the fundamental issue.
Xantid Swarm countered? ok, it's a 2x1 and if my oppponent isn't so lucky with double FoW in hand I can win.
Xantid Swarm burned? This is a problem, my opponent can have in hand a counter and we've lost time to play xantid. In this case what do you prefer to have in your initial hand? A must counter Orim or a burning Xantid?
Xantid Swarm remains alive? Well or my opponent haven't in hand a bolt/fow and we win anyway or my opponent is playing another deck that doesn't worry of xantid using disruption at sorcery speed like duress, chalice,...and we waste time to play xantid.

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treat Xantid Swarm as a sacred cow

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perhaps sacred mosquito? :laugh:

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Swarm is GREAT main deck, if i don't need him, Mox eats him, and i'm good, if i do, then i'm happy to see him, i ALMOST NEVER don't like drawing one, the ONLY time i dislike seeing him, is when i already have on down and it's staying put (and no Mox) or i draw one off D. Returns (and still don't have a mox), thats it, i even like seeing him against gobs, as he blocks Lacky/Piledriver, and buys me a turn.

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Boh I've lost a match at a tournament where I imprint mox with green...
If we must measure the card's force for the imprinting, all cards are strong and baron sengir >> xantid swarm because mox gives black mana. This isn't a real advantage.
Many times I don't like to see in my initial hand a xantid swarm and usually when I have double xantid I mulligan if I know my opponent doesn't play blue. All matches I know my opponent doesn't play blue xantid << any other card in the deck.

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I wouldn't cut Xantid, If anything you run both, not one or the other. More protection > less Protection. Defense Grid is slow, clunky, and doesn't remove to Chrome Mox (I've lost games because of this). This can be troublesome, if you are set on running Defense Grid I'd think about SSG again it makes turn one Grid alot more possible.

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I return to play Dgrid because it's a surprise card now and my opponent doesn't put artifact destruction against TES. Sure, Solidarity isn't so played and Dgrid is only a win more, but in many matchup I prefer to slow down a turn to build more defense.
And sure...I play 4 simian...:cool: that with Dgrid are cool.

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

Right now Xantid Swarm is in the SB and Orim's Chant/Duress is in the MD, the issue isn't using Xantid Swarm to get them to keep their burn in for game 2, it's losing game 1 to that burn. I'm not certain the opponent's have a card to even SB out for Seal, because 'Clasm and Stifle are in the MD as it is.

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Xantid Swarm comes down on turn 1, if it's on the play it dodges both Stifle and Pyroclasm. Making both cards dead weight against TES. How are we going to lose to 4 MD Lightning Bolt and maybe 2-3 other burn spells? It's not dramatically different than 4x Swords to Plowshares.

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

If the opponent counters Xantid Swarm then TES is in good shape, if the opponent burns Xantid Swarm then TES is in bad shape, if the opponent doesn't counter or burn Xantid Swarm then the game was won regardless of the disruption. It's impossible to determine whether or not the burn was keeping a SB card out of the deck, not to mention irrelevant game one, so I don't think that's a justification for using Xantid Swarm in the face of 8+ burn spells.

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I agree that if a control player forces Xantid TES is in good shape, however, if they burn it it's still 1 for 1. There's no real lose for losing a Xantid Swarm to burn, yeah you don't have a 0/1 flying beater, but that isn't going to be the end of the game. Most Threshold/Gro lists don't even play 8+ burn spells, making Xantid Swarm better than you seem to make it look.

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

Not to mention that using Xantid Swarm is conceding ground against combo, prison and discard. I just don't see a reason to treat Xantid Swarm as a sacred cow when it's the worst possible MD disruption against the most popular (at least here) aggro-control deck and a random field.

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Oh well, Xantid Swarm gets boarded out game two vs. all of them. It's not a big deal it's 4 MD slots that are interchangable. It's not a 'sacred cow' as you make it seem, it's good in the metagame. Combo, prison and discard aren't even a fourth of the metagame so I see no reason to weaken the deck for such a small percentage.

Also, Xantid Swarm comes online on turn 1 a great portion of time shutting down cards like Stifle, Daze, Counterspell, Spell Snare, (forces them to Brainstorm in responce) which can make a significant differance, and many others. Just because it doesn't always stop Force of Will on turn 1 or lightning bolt doesn't mean it should be cut from the deck. Duress is much weaker vs. opening hands on turn one than Xantid Swarm is. Duress leaves hands with counterspells and stifle galore. I agree with you on Orim's Chant being good which is why I've been running 4 in between my MD and Sb for awhile now.

EDIT: I've been getting PM's and IM's from people wanting an updated list and primer on the opening post, since I do not control Nightmare's initial post I did the next best thing. My first post of the thread (2nd post) is now an updated primer including a new decklist.

I play Duress in MB, and the Swarm only SB. In Germany many red players flooded the Metagame. And they always board Pyrostatic Pillar or play it 2x in MB.
Also he totally destroys opponent Combo.
Sure Swarm is strong but not in all Matchups, especially in my Meta the swarm sucks.

if you know your meta swarm might not be the best, but in a un-known meta, or a random spread, (SCG Dual for Duals) you should run 4 main.