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defense grid is a bit of a nonbo with helm. so if you have one out they only need to pay 2 per spell. (the hope is if you are drawing multiple helm, just draw a 2nd grid!)
i'm always torn on the ssg/desperate split. generally the SSG are worth it even when they do whiff by flipping on AoI. at least with 2 in the deck it doesn't happen that much.
btw. thanks for that doomsday spreadsheet all those years ago (if that's you). i relied on that for a while so many years ago!
It's me. Glad you enjoyed.Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
I am getting quite annoyed with conventional storm and this deck rised my interest a lot. I hope I will give a much better contribution in a couple of weeks when I will have the chance to play paper magic and not just Cocka (I cashed out front MODO a lot ago).
I haven't had the need to wish for Tendrils so far: Grapeshot seems to be ok by its own.
It is, but I'd recommend having a 2nd Storm kill so you can avoid getting screwed by surgical on burning wish.
editing post to share list w/ someone i ran into on modo running the 5-0 list.
2 ancient tomb
2 city of traitors
10 mountain
2 gamble
4 gitaxian probe
4 rite of flame
4 lotus petal
3 helm of awakening
4 ruby medallion
1 desperate ritual
4 burning wish
4 manamorphose
4 act on impulse
4 seething song
2 simian spirit guide
3 past in flames
3 reforge
1 tendrils of agony
2 abrade
2 scab-clan berserker
3 defense grid
1 tormod's crypt
1 grapeshot
1 cave-in
1 reforge the soul
1 by force
1 empty the warrens
1 tormod's crypt
My experience with this deck is probably the least out of everyone contributing, but there was one time I went for the kill with reforge the soul. Probably a fringe case but it was against dredge. I took a gamble and wheeled, they basically dredged every draw to set themselves up to win if I passed the turn, but it paid off for me so I just wished for/PIFed more wheel effects to deck them. I'm sure this was a fringe case but it can be an unusual wincon to keep in the back pocket (someone mentioned this a while back but I don't remember who). EtW didn't really work against the dredge I played against so its either deck them or grapeshot/tendrils. I find I generally go tendrils just because its easier as when I have the engine going I have no problem with mana either way. It also helps to need fewer copies because then you can leave mana floating for a flusterstorm and still get the kill if its needed.
I do like using overmaster before the wish spell when pulling a storm kill card.
Can confirm that Reforge is a win condition sometimes. Have won to games wheeling a Grixis Delver player and a Miracles player to death after they have surgicaled all my other win conditions out of the my deck post board. Its pretty rare but they are Epic when you can pull them off additionally the amount of rage on the other side is quite funny.Quote:
Originally Posted by ronco
Good advice! I will be paying more attention in those situations. I'm also getting in the habit of looking at my sideboard to remind myself of options. There were a few games where I was trying to figure out how to get my storm count higher to make an in-hand EtW lethal, but I had a light-bulb moment after looking at my sideboard (and noticing I can Manamorphose > Tendrils for lethal.)Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
So I played FNM tonight to an abysmal finish, 0-3. Played against Br Reanimator, Grixis Delver, and BUG Leovold.
Br Reanimator - turn 1 Iona both games. Yay!
Grixis Delver - Reforge feeds him force of wills. Yay!
Bug Leovold - Shuts off Reforge the Soul with Leo in some games, draws way too many lands but I fizzle on the RtS I actually resolve and he still wins. Yay! Oh and he Abrupt Decay-ed my Medallions.
I didn't change anything in my deck for FNM, but I got some tweaks in after the FNM and jammed some more games against the Leovold guy. New list that I'll be testing:
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Lotus Petal
4x Rite of Flame
4x Seething Song
4x Manamorphose
1x Desperate Ritual
4x Ruby Medallion
3x Past in Flames
3x Empty the Warrens
4x Burning Wish
4x Gitaxian Probe
2x Blood Moon (totally sold on this)
3x Hazoret's Undying Fury
2x Gamble
10x Mountain
4x Crystal Vein
Sideboard
1x Tendrils
1x Past in Flames
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Grapeshot
1x Goblin War Strike
1x Reforge the Soul
1x Pyroclasm
1x By Force
2x Inferno Titan
3x Pyroblast
2x Surgical Extraction
My metagame is just too fair, and Reforge the Soul just isn't good enough. A random draw 7, miracle-d at least 3 times, wasn't good enough. Seriously. I was so disappointed in that card's performance. It has been relegated to 1 copy in the sideboard. Too many decks feed off it as good as I do, or better if I pass the turn because I fizzle on mana. Past in Flames is the linchpin of the deck, I need more copies available, it's absolutely correct to play 3 main, 1 side. Gamble makes up for Reforge the Soul missing because it can facilitate a t1-2 Blood Moon, a Past in Flames when I need it, or a hate card post-board. Surgical is my storm hate of choice ATM instead of Berserker because 1) I don't play against storm very much at all, and 2) Surgical is better at fighting the bad matchups (extracting Forces, Iona, Griselbrand, hosing Deathrite Shaman/Snapcaster mage, etc.)
I boarded in Inferno Titan against Grixis Delver, assuming he would side out removal (which he did, but the only thing he played that hit it was Diabolic Edict.) I had the chance to play it a couple games but had to mulligan the hands because of zero lands.
I had a ton of fun, but lost miserably. I really want to keep on this deck. Act on Impulse seems fantastic in the deck, but Gamble seems even better. And I want to try 3x Hazoret's main, and maybe squeeze one in the board if I continue to see Reforge be dead. Maybe I'm just super unlucky, but Reforge has been a stinker.
With 4x Simian Spirit Guide, 15 lands is too many. I drew way too many lands in all of my games. Fourteen seems right, and I wanted 4 sol lands (Vein didn't bother me with the sacrifice at all. I just wanted more gas!)
Sorry to hear about the bad showing. Sometime that happens with any combo deck when playing vs decks like grixis delver and Leovold.
Reanimator is just unfortunate. They usually don't turn 1 iona.
Reforge has been very good for me, but I think testing a version with hazoret's in those slots could be interesting. Would love to hear feedback on that.
Blood moon is good Vs the 2 decks you mentioned as well as a few others.
Also keep in mind that even though I've had good runs with this deck, I've also had bad ones. It doesn't mean that a particular card is bad.
Has anyone tried guttersnipe as a win condition out of the board?
I don't believe any has tried. What matchup will it improve?
Basically it is a hedge against decks that are highly interactive with you. Assuming that decks take out creature removal it should be good against :d&t, 4c, bug decks but not grixis delver because they keep in bolts. It allows for partial combining or strings of spells. It can kill over several turns which is nice. It also does't matter if they counter stuff. It's something I have been considering trying but wanted to ask firstQuote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
I've tried this, he's very good when the assumptions you make come true or against decks that lack creature removal. Worth the effort Rampart, do it :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Rampart
I think guttersnipe is a great test! The deck that i was working on before turning it into this was a gutter snipe and gas/cantrip deck (manamorphose, needle drop, and some flashback and loads of cheap burn). I picked up PiF for that deck but it didn't seem to provide the oomph it needed, then I stumble over here and see the medallion idea and now here I am lol. Just for ideas I also ran monastery swiftspear and crash through for cantrips and damage and to push trample damage through with prowress. Just in case you wantedto diverge a little bit and try something different.
To comment on the BR Reanimator a bit. I have likely a similar build but run mono-black with excessive amounts of discard/disruption. I find that T1 or T0 chancellors are also very very bad for this (ruby storm) deck, and as you had mentioned earlier the helms are very very bad in this matchup too (1 mana collective brutality + exhume are just bad). Really, any creature that hits (except elesh norn) means game over for this deck so its a crazy race and reforges are absolutely suicidal, all in this turn or lose cards. So I think we can mark this as a tough matchup as well.
I can basically play test vs manaless dredge (horde mode or spy mode), reanimator, and some casual weenie and combo deck I have available. So if anyone wants to see certain cards sided in vs those match ups I'm willing to do so and come back with results.
It was really disappointing to combo several times with Reforge and just *not get there*. I either ran out of mana or I didn't have a win condition available. I had tons of opportunities to win but the deck fizzled. I have some ideas I want to test, but it's hard to justify changes with only goldfishing. Here is my new list that I'm testing, and in goldfishing it was more consistent by a large margin.Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
4x Rite of Flame
3x Desperate Ritual
4x Seething Song
4x Manamorphose
4x Ruby Medallion
4x Lotus Petal
4x Burning Wish
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Reforge the Soul
2x Hazoret's Undying Fury
3x Past in Flames
2x Gamble
2x Blood Moon
4x Faithless Looting
4x Gitaxian Probe
10x Mountain
4x Crystal Vein
Sideboard
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Past in Flames
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Grapeshot
1x Goblin War Strike
1x Overmaster
1x Pyroclasm
1x By Force
2x Inferno Titan
2x Surgical Extraction
3x Pyroblast
Looting is technically card disadvantage, but it smooth's out early draws in a big way. It also feeds Past in Flames HUGE during the combo turn for only R. Gamble is fantastic, again super efficient at only R. The deck will still have nuts draws and turn 1 big goblin hordes, but I feel this list will fight through the blue decks better. Gamble digs out Blood Moon, sideboarded Inferno Titans, even sided in singletons like Overmaster (or I could just burning wish for it every time, either way seems fine. Naturally drawing Overmaster is as good as Pyroblast. I had a big problem resolving a payoff spell against the blue decks, enter the Overmaster sideboard option.
I was frustrated when I said I was cutting Reforge the Soul...I think it's still a great early setup tool, and it's fantastic if revealed with HUF. I think Faithless Looting provides just as much card availability if the plan is PiF. The deck now has 12 cheap ways to dig further into the deck (Probe/Manamorphose/Looting.) Finding the right mix of Rituals/PiF/Burning Wish just got a lot easier.
Regarding Simian Spirit Guide: all it does is add R, doesn't add storm count, and gives false hope of ripping Reforge the Soul into more free mana to continue the spell chain. Reforge is too risky to go all-in on, something my experience has shown anyways. I like the refill, 2 copies main seems plenty (I'd rather squeeze in Looting.) That's also where the extra copies of Desperate Ritual came from, they add storm count and work much better with Looting. Binning them is fine when the goal of almost every game is Past in Flames. It only nets 1 mana like SSG but it can become Dark Ritual with Medallion.
Excited to test this new version. I was drawing multiples of Empty the Warrens, even before Faithless Looting, so 1 in the maindeck is fine. I might even drop it altogether in favor of the 4th Desperate Ritual, but I like an out to Surgical > Burning Wish. Gamble still finds it.:wink:
Getting closer...sad I can't work in Act on Impulse, but Faithless Looting seems to have a ton more potential ATM. No Reforge in the side may be a mistake, but I don't think so. Testing will prove it out.
Did some note taking to help myself get better at the deck. Here is what I currently have:
11 mountain
4 ancient tomb
4 lotus petal
4 ruby medallion
2 helm of awakening
4 burning wish
4 act on impulse
4 gitaxian probe
4 manamorphose
4 rite of flame
3 seething song
3 reforge the soul
3 past in flames
3 simian spirit guide
2 hazoret's undying fury
1 empty the warrens
Sideboard (I'm kind of cheating here, it isn't complete so if there was a card i wanted i just pretended it was in the board the whole time):
1 pyroblast
1 reforge the soul
1 grapeshot
1 empty the warrens
1 goblin war strike
1 past in flames
1 hazoret's undying fury
1 seething song
1 desperate ritual
6 other things (currently 4 pyroblast, 2 abrade)
I goldfished 20 games and came up with the following on the above:
-average kill was 4.2 turns in any way necessary.
-mode was 3 turns (average was swayed by an 11, two 6 and one 7 turn kills).
-I never missed on HuF or RtS. Missed 5 times on AoI.
-Average RtS 1 time per game.
-Average AoI 1.75 times per game (1.5 times it hits, .25 times miss)
-Average HuF .7 times per game. Note - i often wished for RtS when I needed to get the engine going from the board. That extra 1 mana and 3 cards makes the difference, even if I have to spend mana to cast the spells for some reason.
-Average PiF 1 time per game, which surprised me. I thought it would be higher, but I could have mis-counted the second casting of this in some games.
-Mulliganed 5 times (25%).
-Average wish 1.4 times per game. in 7 of the 20 games I used it to get the engine going again, either a ritual or an RtS.
-3 games I didn't see/use a wish and killed with goblin tokens (5, 3, 3 turn kills respectively).
-When using wish to get the kill card, 5 times it necessarily was EtW followed by Goblin War Strike. 2 times it was necessarily tendrills. 1 time it was grape shot. 8 times I used tendrills but just as easily could have gone EtW/War Strike or grapeshot. 1 time it was grape shot OR war strike (no tendrills mana that game).
-Storm count averaged 17.2 when casting a storm card. However, in 16 of the 20 games I had the ability to continue going for a larger storm count (3 times were the goblin attack kills, and one time i just ran out and had to attack and then wish for war strike because I was out of gas).
-my 11 turn kill was a terribly unlucky draw. Rituals + 3 cantrips + Pif. Between my natural draws and the 6 cantrips on 1 turn, I drew nothing useful to keep it going and then drew dead something like 7 turns in a row after that. 7 turn kill was 6 lands/mana draws in a row with no HuF, AoI, wish, or RtS. Shit happens.
Conclusions
-I need more data to make any type of conclusion on AoI vs HuF vs RtS. Thankfully with the 8 cantrips in the deck and 3 PIF/4 wish it can almost always dig deep, but as seen sometimes the draws aren't there.
-mulligans don't appear to have a major impact on the turn kill, though more data is needed (5, 2, 3, 4, 3 turn kills with hands that were mulled to 6)
-will probably swamp out SSG for desperate rituals. the fringe use of getting 1 for 0 vs 3 for 2 or 1 is offset by storm count and PiF/AoI useable. I think you guys already came to that conclusion so just consider this additional validation.
-I like having a couple rituals in the board to give wish more options, esp early game.
-i didn't notice much difference between 7 rocks and 6. I think going with 4 ruby and 2 helm is a safer play from other testing i've done with my other decks. the format is generally too fast to give the opponent a turn with 1 less cc on their spells.
-if an extra sideboard slot if needed, i'd probably suggest cutting grape shot. it was seldom required and a win con can be had from other avenues.
other things
-I like the idea of surgical in the board. I like the idea of gamble and overmaster in the main, just don't have them yet but will soon.
I'll keep testing and updating my notes as I go along. I'm sure this is mostly known already to you all but maybe there is a useful nugget or two in here.
thanks for the data. the issue with the three big cards in this deck is that they are all inherently random.
i've been tinkering around with my original brew to give the probeless versions another chance.
10 mtn
4 sol lands (i'm on 2 tomb 2 cot)
4 seething song
4 rite of flame
4 manamorphose
4 lotus petal
4 ruby medallion
3 helm of awakening
4 simian spirit guide
1 desperate ritual
1 gamble
3 reforge the soul
4 act on impulse
3 past in flames
3 hazoret's undying fury
4 burning wish
same sb that i've been running including 1 sb reforge.
Blood Moon is very bad in the main. In the SB sure but this deck need to go off as quickly as possible game 1. If you ruin that this deck is just a worse Belcher. You need your game 1 to be high enough win % to outweigh the fact you will be disadvantaged post board more than likely.
This deck is NOT a 15 round deck but I do think is possible to top 8 a local like 60 person event and I think it could with some consistency 4-0 any local or 5-0 a MTGO( I hit winning streaks of 4+ and losing sometimes). If your local rooms are super full of Delvers/Leos and Combo Decks then this won't be overly great IMO so know that and play it only if you want to have fun and that outweighs the losing. I would look to change the deck a bit at that point to be a little more like TES in that kind of room(see below).
This deck is dependent on variance so yes you will go to reforge/HUF and whiff. This happens in ANT and TES a lot when just going for it. Sometimes you just brick and it sucks but you also hit more often than you brick. Plus dat miracle cost is a real thing and has taken back from the brink of death many time.
This is what I have been trying which is more or less a bridge between Belcher and TES. I think this minor black splash for 4 Discard Spells/4 probe allow you sculpt/gain enough knowledge to not just always feel like I have to always just yolo. I also cut the HUFs which I am sad about but it might be correct IDK and the discard spells have won games then they have and its really not close.
4 Ancient Tomb
5 Mountain
2 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Burning Wish
3 Reforge the Soul
3 Past in Flames
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Ruby Medallion
2 Helm of Awakening
4 Lotus Petal
3 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Seething Song
4 Manamorphose
4 Rite of Flame
1 Desperate Ritual
2 Scab-Clan Berserker
2 Pyroblast
2 Thoughtseize
2 Rending Volley
1 Meltdown
1 Cave-in
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Past in Flames
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrills of Agony
In case you missed it, Ruby Storm was mentioned on MTGGoldfish.com's This Week in Legacy: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles...-2017-spoilers
:)
It was just a matter of time, lol. Sweet!Quote:
Originally Posted by vieko
Sometimes 'going off' is GitProbe > Rituals > Blood Moon > Win. I think Blood Moon is a very good maindeck card. Probably not a 4-of, but I've been testing 2 (instead of Defense Grid) and it has been good every time. It's doing the same thing as your Thoughtseize splash, but potentially better. In my metagame Thoughtseize would be ok; Blood Moon is the nuts.Quote:
Originally Posted by BR3N7
I also think that with your build so strongly focused on Emtpy the Warrens (something I also have tried) Desperate Ritual's stock goes way up over SSG's.
@Everyone: I highly suggest testing Faithless Looting and Gamble. Yes it makes us a little more susceptible to Chalice @1, but it also allows for a much greater level of consistency. Past in Flames + Faithless Looting = BFF. Gamble is also nuts good with Past in Flames, no different than the way Lands uses it for Loam/Punishing Fire. Faithless looting took all of 2 games to convince me it was worth its 4 slots, and I don't think I will ever play Act on Impulse again. It's just better.
Also, in case anyone hasn't read this: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/f..._Easy_Way.html
Article from Carston Kotter about slot-based deck building, which is really helping me get a handle on this deck's building process. The article even has a RU Past in Flames deck it uses as an example (Brain Freeze as the enabler.)
Example, when comparing to ANT:
Faithless Looting = Brainstorm
Manamorphose = Ponder
Gitaxian Probe = Gitaxian Probe
Ruby Medallion = Lion's Eye Diamond
(Note: the converted mana costs are different, but they play the same roles. Medallion adds a minimum of 3 mana on the combo turn after paying for itself, so it functions the same as free + 3.)
Those are the substitutions, but the slots and their role in the deck are the same. You can carry this over to other parts of the deck (Rite of Flame = Dark Ritual, Seething Song = Cabal Ritual, Burning Wish = Infernal Tutor, Gamble = Dark Petition.) I may be way off the mark, and this mono-red storm deck is a different animal, but I don't think so. I think going after it slot-based makes a ton of sense. What we are doing is trying for a more robust mana base and using new, cool cards like Hazoret's Undying Fury.