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

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Originally Posted by akabidu

But i really dont know about the probe instead of ad nauseam. It's crazy to double your chances to begin with ad nauseam, but in the other side.....probe is pretty insane 2.

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I'm personally on the side of having 2x Ad Naus. I want as many T1/T2 kills as possible in the current metagame, and one of the best ways to have this happen is draw Ad Naus in your opening 7.

Two notes on this:
1. I've set up a lot of Brainstorm -> Ponder in response crack LED and draw the Ad Naus I hid kills. Be aware this is a thing.
2. I may run much better than expectations on Ad Naus, but even with 2 in the deck I think I maybe have died to it a most three or four times in ~30-40 rounds of play, including a few sub-ten life wins. This is pretty absurd considering A) I win at least 75% of my games with the card (+15% Dim Ret, +5% EtW and IGG each) and B) I win a lot of my matches. It probably comes out to about 95+% to win post-Ad Naus.

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Originally Posted by akabidu

Made me a TES istead of a ANT, and what motivated me was: its harder to play and underated! This deck is fire.!

But i really dont know about the probe instead of ad nauseam. It's crazy to double your chances to begin with ad nauseam, but in the other side.....probe is pretty insane 2.

You guys that are testing it....what moment is ad nauseam better than the probe(surely is a moment) ?


Flipping a ad nauseam its the worst feeling ever......youre like: " ok im winning", and then : " ok, maybe Ill lose"

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I agree with Ari here. I'm still using 2 Ad Nauseam. A lot of my turn one wins are because I have Ad Nauseam in hand. And while having only one makes Ad Nauseam better since you won't ever lose 5 life from it, it puts a lot of pressure on that one Ad Nauseam. I'd be more reluctant to cast a turn 1 Ad Nauseam in fear if it got countered I couldn't come back. It makes me it much riskier to keep a hand with it because you lose a huge engine if it gets discarded as well. There's also the disadvantage of casting Probe and seeing multiple counters and just having to pass. This is just what i prefer though because I'm comfortable with the style of play that comes with 2 Ad Nauseam. The Probes seem to be working for Bryant who is a much better pilot of this deck than I am.

@Ari Lax
The only time the Reanimate situation would come up is if they cast Exhume first and respond with Entomb. I know Reanimator players know this trick if they have Entomb in hand and the creature they wanted gets removed with Surgical Extraction or Faerie Macabre but I'm not sure how often they would cast Exhume without anything in the GY in fear of losing 2 cards if something went wrong.

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Originally Posted by AriLax

I'm personally on the side of having 2x Ad Naus. I want as many T1/T2 kills as possible in the current metagame, and one of the best ways to have this happen is draw Ad Naus in your opening 7.

Two notes on this:
1. I've set up a lot of Brainstorm -> Ponder in response crack LED and draw the Ad Naus I hid kills. Be aware this is a thing.
2. I may run much better than expectations on Ad Naus, but even with 2 in the deck I think I maybe have died to it a most three or four times in ~30-40 rounds of play, including a few sub-ten life wins. This is pretty absurd considering A) I win at least 75% of my games with the card (+15% Dim Ret, +5% EtW and IGG each) and B) I win a lot of my matches. It probably comes out to about 95+% to win post-Ad Naus.

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this. the deck is about abuse ad nauseam, that's why tes runs 2. it's our best engine, and even when i kill myself (for example being at19 life turn 2 and PUM, dead) i love the card. if i play against burn or affinity, for exaple, i'll cut the 2nd nauseam for game 2. i think that our main problem is the sideboard.

sry 4 my english

I also like the 2nd AdN.

There are some situations where I have AdN, IT, and LED in hand, and crack LED discardnig AdN for the second copy as I need the mana from LED.

I resisted the second Ad Nauseam for a long time, eventually adopted it and played it at GP Indianapolis. I don't really feel too strongly one way or the other about it. I suppose I have a slight preference for Bryant's current maindeck. (Though I am on Ari's sideboard from Detroit for now.)

On the one hand, having only one Ad Nauseam in the deck improves your Ad Nauseam flips a bit. On the other, you sometimes encounter situations where you can't go off because the Ad Nauseam you want to get with an Infernal Tutor is stuck in your hand, or was exiled by Diminishing Returns, had to go under a Chrome Mox, etc.

In my limited testing I have done with the new list I like it.

A resolved Ad Nauseam is much better in the new list, much more predictable. Less of a crapshoot.

The Probes have been amazing! Information without card disadvantage or mana disadvantage is huge. It builds your storm count for essentially free. I wish I could squeeze in a third. Not sure how though.

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Originally Posted by joemauer

The Probes have been amazing! Information without card disadvantage or mana disadvantage is huge. It builds your storm count for essentially free. I wish I could squeeze in a third. Not sure how though.

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If you want to add 1 or 2 more probes most people will cut a tendrils/ buring wish/ and protection spell maindeck... I was running the 4 probe version for a while and all I can say is for the most part, you will hate running 4, and then there will be the random turn 1 kill chaining 3 probes together and you'll swear it's the best card in the deck. For the most part, 4 probes are bad as you lose the tendrils/1 wish maindeck and that will make you lose some matches. Bryants list is as far as I would go with probes as it gives you the information you need without muddling your deck. With TES consistency is key and you don't want to make your list so tight that you have to start cutting key spells like wishes and tendrils.

And to be honest bryants list is probably the best probe list I've seen. Most people don't cut the 2nd ad nauseam (or empty) for a probe, but that seems to be the most logical thing to cut since it makes your ad nauseams very, very consistent.

Is there any reason you can't cut Lands for Probes, the deck use to run on 11 anyway?

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Originally Posted by Final Fortune

Is there any reason you can't cut Lands for Probes, the deck use to run on 11 anyway?

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I personally wouldn't cut down lands at all. RUG Delver is pretty much everywhere and beating them has been about drawing multiple lands, at least for me. We have a really low amount of lands and getting enough lands to stick (after stifles, wastelands) is problematic for most of the time. With careful planning of landbase during play I've been able to win more than 50% of my games against RUG though. I would say that all my losses have been due to low land count or just tastelessly good draws from the RUG player while I draw crap.

j_rb's reasoning behind amount of probes sounds really good to me and pretty much sums up my feelings about Gitaxian Probe.

I've also been thinking a lot about the 2nd Ad Nauseam, but in my metagame I feel like there's a really high count of decks with fow/other counters so I don't usually go for the turn 1/2 kill - unless I know for sure what they're playing. On the other hand, I miss having "lots of" turn 1/2 kills against the fair decks which I would have to kill asap. At the same time I enjoy how strong the only Ad Nauseam becomes when running only one.

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Originally Posted by Final Fortune

Is there any reason you can't cut Lands for Probes, the deck use to run on 11 anyway?

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I like being able to keep on seven once every couple of months.

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Originally Posted by Final Fortune

Is there any reason you can't cut Lands for Probes, the deck use to run on 11 anyway?

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Machahiko actually sums it up perfectly on why cutting on lands would be horrific.

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Originally Posted by Machahiko

I personally wouldn't cut down lands at all. RUG Delver is pretty much everywhere and beating them has been about drawing multiple lands, at least for me. We have a really low amount of lands and getting enough lands to stick (after stifles, wastelands) is problematic for most of the time. With careful planning of landbase during play I've been able to win more than 50% of my games against RUG though. I would say that all my losses have been due to low land count or just tastelessly good draws from the RUG player while I draw crap.

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You need as many mana sources as you can get against RUG or they just lock you out of playing magic. With enough lands in your opener and enough planning the MU is actually not that bad for TES and since RUG is runnin all around making people not play magic, you have to have as many advantages against them as possible.

Cutting 1 Tendrils from the maindeck might be worth a 3rd probe. If you're comfortable enough with the deck and play carefully, having no win cons main can actually work. But sometimes I love having the in hand tendrils for the straight up counter my stuff and die to tendrils kill. They never see that one coming.

MD Tendrils makes Dim Ret significantly better.

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Originally Posted by AriLax

MD Tendrils makes Dim Ret significantly better.

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Hence why I wouldn't cut anything for a 3rd probe because it makes your deck worse.
Anything you cut for the 3rd probe will make the deck worse.

And that's also why I like the 2 ad nauseam list. Because it makes Dim ret better.

I had a few questions that have come up after playtesting:

- If you are casting Ad Nauseam and can have any color floating, what color do you choose? Assume that you have cast either zero rituals or an equal number.

- How do you sideboard against decks that have both permanent and spell-based hate? I assume that I would bring in discard and bounce and still take out the chants, but I wasn't sure if a mix of the effects wouldn't be the best option.

- When combo'ing out do you lead with sorcery speed mana first (artifacts, Rite of Flame) and then follow with Dark Ritual to play around taxing counters?

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Originally Posted by apistat_commander

I had a few questions that have come up after playtesting:

- If you are casting Ad Nauseam and can have any color floating, what color do you choose? Assume that you have cast either zero rituals or an equal number.

- How do you sideboard against decks that have both permanent and spell-based hate? I assume that I would bring in discard and bounce and still take out the chants, but I wasn't sure if a mix of the effects wouldn't be the best option.

- When combo'ing out do you lead with sorcery speed mana first (artifacts, Rite of Flame) and then follow with Dark Ritual to play around taxing counters?

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1. Usually Black. It's fairly marginal on B vs R, but if you hit the MD Tendrils having a B already makes things easier.

2. Depends on what kind. Usually I end up at 7 "normal" disruption and 2-3 bounce. If the card in question is Counterbalance, I just stick to killing them early.

3. If taxing counters are a concern, yes.

if i'm on ad nauseam at low life, sometimes keep blue in the pool, because i can use cantrips instead of losing

If you can choose a mana to float post AdN it all depends on what is left in your deck i.e. how many rite of flames and dark ritual's there are left, as that is what you want to be casting post AdN unless you flip over enough artifact mana to go wish into tendrils or infernal into tendrils at which point you didn't need floating mana usually. Keeping a blue mana floating is pretty decent, but if you're relying on cantrips post nauseam to continue to combo out the deck can fizzle if you don't find what you need.

I'd always lead with rite of flame before dark ritual, getting dark rit dazed and then not being able to play rite of flame can be a nightmare while dark ritual in response to daze is one of my favorite plays in storm typically as the opponent is usually blown out by that dark ritual paying for the daze and still leaving BB and RR floating gives you a lot of options.

I wouldn't go with no win cons in the maindeck in TES, you're bound to lose games due to not having 4BBBR to go infernal -> wish -> tendrils. And I really like to raw storm people out sometimes it just gets them hard and they are amazed when you just play tendrils from hand for 10 due to them using countermagic. Almost always great to not have to rely on a storm engine, at least I think so.

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Originally Posted by SaberTooth

if i'm on ad nauseam at low life, sometimes keep blue in the pool, because i can use cantrips instead of losing

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I'll leave a B and pray hard that I'll get some dark rits/ LED/ tutors for me to go lethal TOA.

Haven't commented on here in a few... but I'll be at the SCG STL tourney this weekend. I'll probably be running Bryant's main list (-1 probe, +1 Ad Naus.) with a pretty basic side. Something like 3 CoV, 3 IoK, Thoughtseize, Deathmark, Shattering Spree, Grapeshot, EtW, PiF, DR, IGG, and of course, Tendrils of Agony: similar to Ari's side @ Detroit, minus the whole Bribery/Reanimate shenanigans. Hope to see some of you people there. :really:

-Matt

Unfortunately I'm not going to make SCG St. Louis this weekend. But no bribery shenanigans? J/k, I'm not a fan of bribery. If I expected a lot of storm/creatureless decks I might run telemin performance though as it is basically a 3UU wishable I win button against those decks. Reanimate is also far too conditional for my tastes, maybe if TES ran more chant effects as it stands it is highly conditional on them not having countermagic and if that's the case, why aren't we winning again?