[Deck] Spanish Inquisition (B/x Storm Combo)

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Originally Posted by SupREME-10

My biggest issue has actually been playtesting my SB as when I hit MWS I do get enough Game 1 wins (in turn 1-2) that a few seconds later I am faced with "Player Lost". Thus my Sideboard stratagey is still very weak to say the least, even though I have over 6 months of running this deck now (no events with it either though - sorry).

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Honestly just try advertising what you are playing, I mean its not like the BUG control player I play against every week doesn't know to mulligan into FoW, discard, etc. So yeah. It can make your games a little bit more realistic too cause I mean its likely that your opponent is going to know what you are playing if you play it at a local. Also, you might always run into control but then you'll finally get to test the board, which is more fun to play than any other experience I've had playing magic.. especially against slow control decks that you can grind like you're pressing their face to a cheese grater. Then again, you might also run into an aggro player or something who actually wants to test against storm combo.

With this method you'll actually get games against people who aren't douche bags that will quit when they see LED.. cause honestly if you hate LED... its a format staple, suck it up.

Then again... if you really want to just go about it the same way then try this. Cut 1 of the Summoner's Pact targets for a single Grizzly Bears. Like... the actual Grizzly Bears. Then when people are like, 'fuck your bullshit storm combo' and get ready to leave.. You can quickly search through your deck and bust out grizzly bears and say 'wow man, can't beat my maindeck grizzly bears? you're fucking pathetic.' I've actually had people so insulted that they STAYED just to try to beat my ass.. only to get killed again. I learned this from one game where I casted turn 1 Dryad Arbor, which my opponent killed and laughed. Then I casted Bayou (2 land opener much) into Odious Trow.... which he laughed about, and killed. Then I cast Young Wolf a turn later, which got killed, but it just came back as a 2/2 and I Tendrils him out via Culling, paying for his Spell Pierce with an ESG I had in hand and a Lotus Petal. When he whined like a little bitch and said he was going to leave, I reminded him that I beat him with Odious Trow and Young Wolf. He stayed. So yeah.. if you can actually win with Grizzly bears. Props. Turn 1 kill with Grizzly Bears in the spell chain is probably the most satisfying way to kill someone. Its like slapping someone with a feather... but its covered in anthrax.

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Originally Posted by Vacrix

Honestly just try advertising what you are playing, I mean its not like the BUG control player I play against every week doesn't know to mulligan into FoW, discard, etc. So yeah. It can make your games a little bit more realistic too cause I mean its likely that your opponent is going to know what you are playing if you play it at a local. Also, you might always run into control but then you'll finally get to test the board, which is more fun to play than any other experience I've had playing magic.. especially against slow control decks that you can grind like you're pressing their face to a cheese grater. Then again, you might also run into an aggro player or something who actually wants to test against storm combo.

With this method you'll actually get games against people who aren't douche bags that will quit when they see LED.. cause honestly if you hate LED... its a format staple, suck it up.

Then again... if you really want to just go about it the same way then try this. Cut 1 of the Summoner's Pact targets for a single Grizzly Bears. Like... the actual Grizzly Bears. Then when people are like, 'fuck your bullshit storm combo' and get ready to leave.. You can quickly search through your deck and bust out grizzly bears and say 'wow man, can't beat my maindeck grizzly bears? you're fucking pathetic.' I've actually had people so insulted that they STAYED just to try to beat my ass.. only to get killed again. I learned this from one game where I casted turn 1 Dryad Arbor, which my opponent killed and laughed. Then I casted Bayou (2 land opener much) into Odious Trow.... which he laughed about, and killed. Then I cast Young Wolf a turn later, which got killed, but it just came back as a 2/2 and I Tendrils him out via Culling, paying for his Spell Pierce with an ESG I had in hand and a Lotus Petal. When he whined like a little bitch and said he was going to leave, I reminded him that I beat him with Odious Trow and Young Wolf. He stayed. So yeah.. if you can actually win with Grizzly bears. Props. Turn 1 kill with Grizzly Bears in the spell chain is probably the most satisfying way to kill someone. Its like slapping someone with a feather... but its covered in anthrax.

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Funny story, and I do appreciate it. I do get a few dudes that stay for Sideboard; but I am running a D7 list that is not that easy to work, and even tougher to SB for. let me show you.


1 x Bayou
1 x Dryad Arbor

4 x Summoner's Pact
4 x Land Grant

3 x Chrome Mox
4 x Lion's Eye Diamond
4 x Lotus Petal
4 x Cabal Ritual
4 x Culling the Weak
4 x Dark Ritual

4 x Cruel Bargain
4 x Infernal Contract

4 x Infernal Tutor
3 x Burning Wish
1 x Empty the Warrens
1 x Past in Flames
1 x Ill-Gotten Gains
1 x Tendrils of Agony

1 x Slithermuse
4 x Elvish Spirit Guide
1 x Eternal Witness
1 x Skyshroud Cutter
1 x Tinder Wall
1 x Wild Cantor

Sideboard

1 x Duress
1 x Ill-Gotten Gains
1 x Tendrils of Agony
1 x Diminishing Returns
2 x Autumn's Veil
4 x Carpet of Flowers
4 x Xantid Swarm
1 x Grapeshot

Yup, Old School D7 in many many ways. But it has taken me longer than expected to assemble and I am still in "Borrow" mode for 1 LED, and 2 Chrome Mox, 3 Burning Wish -- so don't shoot me.

Your welcome to make suggestions etc on what to sideboard in/out vs various opponents; but I would actually be more interested in the why than the what. And I do have many other cards if you have ideas on a revamp but bear in mind that I do not want this to turn into another Charbelcher deck. It actually does work and T1-T2 storms are very very doable for it.

Anyway, feel free to educate me as you will; but assume that I do actually know what each card does.

On a final note, any thoughts on Reforge the Soul in place of Diminishing Returns, as I do find it a little easier getting/keeing Red mana available over Double Blue mana.

Thanks in advance. And PS, I know what you mean by pretend play test as I also own Sligh, Merfolk, Solidarity, U/W Stoneblade, Counter-Miracle-Top, White Weenie, U/R Delver, which I use often as Gauntlet decks to fish with on the kitchen table, and I have access to several other decks in my playgroup although most of those guys actually don't like to see me packing this thing. I will note that my matches in real life are generally done in about 15-20 minutes though and this does give a lot of time to scout guys out during Thursday Night Legacy where Maverick and RUG Delver are my most common opponents (Maverick is not so tough, RUG Delver is a Control bomb that I struggle with).

Indeed.. Well I personally picked up the D7 list, DireLemmings build originally, after he got 70% turn 1 kills out of 50 games. EtW is pretty cool against control in the post-board, I'd actually run those over Xantid Swarm. There's too many Bolt effects in the format right now for it to be good. Its good in a metagame that only runs UW Control where you get creature's STP'd but on the upside they have to only run 4 for it to be effective. People don't really board out their removal anymore since Belcher became popular so I personally have left it out of my list. My current board is as follows for PSI:

SB
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Duress
2 Autumn's Veil
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Mirri's Guile
1 Taiga
1 Bayou

The extra land actually hasn't inhibited too many Belcher activations. In the case of your build, I'd recommend playing a post-board Taiga and 4 Empty the Warrens because with only 3 Chrome Mox, you have one less perpetual mana source for the grind plan.

Honestly I dropped the D7 list. I'm not comfortable playing less than 4 Chrome Mox and the added speed is cool, especially since its consistently faster than the normal PSI list but actually I'd say I feel more comfortable playing against control decks than I ever have with combo simply because you have such a good grind plan. Also, its not like they usually see it coming so if they can't put on a clock thinking that it will be slow to rebuild like it is in AdN then they will pay dearly for their mistake as they lose a counterspell a turn to an active Carpet of Flowers. Empty the Warrens is strong though, especially with Taiga. In fact, I might try playing more copies in the post-board but Autumn's Veil is competing for those slots so I'm not sure how well it will work. I like playing 6 protection spells. 7 can be a bit too many; sometimes you draw too many protection spells, IMS, and rituals post-board and not enough business when you really need it in topdeck mode + Carpet so I run 6. Mirri's Guile is a psuedo-5th Carpet of Flowers. When I land it turn 1, its sometimes better than Carpet because I can lay down perpetual resources, use Land Grants as more than blanks to find my spare lands whilst shuffling the deck, and find protection spells before I go off. Also, a trick I figured out is if you want to turn on your Carpet, playing an early Veil, even when you cant go off is far too deadly to let resolve. Then your opponent is forced to crack their fetches and tutor up an Island to play Spell Pierce. Thankfully, Daze doesn't see THAT much play these days so they don't have that silver bullet against Carpet to sandbag you on lands.

Concerning Reforge the Soul, yeah I guess you could play it in the wishboard. Usually, though, if you Burning Wish, getting to RRR is pretty difficult I'd say because then you also need to get to RRRB to play enough acceleration to get to actually play Reforge. Diminishing Returns, on the other hand, as the advantage of being a full mana cheaper, which makes IT/BW + LED hands require only 3 mana to get to a new 7 cards, which honestly isn't that hard.

In general though, I feel like the D7 list is a bit too volatile for me to play, but if I did play it, 4 Empty + post-board Taiga would be the way too go, especially since you don't play Belcher. Hell, given Skyshroud Cutter, I'd say that a mainboard Taiga might even be worth considering. If I recall, someone on the Stormboards did some testing with success.

Thanks, that is a lot to think about.

I like the idea of added lands; but I was not sure where to trim, etc. The EtW in the sideboard is another solid idea and it would give me some added options which is always good.

I will think that through and as I actually own all the cards your suggesting I will try a few playtests to see how it feels. I am notoriously bad for getting back in here; but I will try to let you know what I learn/see from it.

Thanks again.

In terms of trimming in the post-board to fit in whatever you board in, I usually board out the entire Culling the Weak package:
-4 Culling the Weak
-4 Summoner's Pact
-1 Wild Cantor
-1 Odious Trow
-1 Young Wolf
-1 Dryad Arbor

That frees up 12 slots on its own. The problem with leaving any of these things in is that its a fairly fined tuned system when you have all 12 pieces. Otherwise, its not as consistent and Culling the Weak becomes no better than Chrome Mox fodder. Granted, if I want Chrome Mox fodder, I'd rather imprint a Duress I don't need but can potentially use than a Culling the Weak that is rarely going to get cast. Also, post-board, I hate going for Culling the Weak because Land Grant doesn't wind up fetching you a perpetual resource (Bayou/Taiga) which means you aren't contributing to your grind game. Culling/Pact is entirely a speed based system, and yeah, boarding the whole thing out is better than leaving any part of it in.

The other cards I board out (for the full 15) are:
1 Slithermuse (terrible post-board)
1 ToA (don't usually want this)
1 Past in Flames
0-2 Infernal Contract

Sometimes you want the ToA/PIF option off infernal tutor in your yard. I'm thinking about running IGG in the post-board actually. Other times, having the 2D4's is a more consistent choice for the grind plan. It really depends.

In your case, you have less space for stuff to board out. I'd start with the whole Culling Package though and figure things out from there. If you leave stuff in, I'd leave in Tinderwall and Eternal Witness (make sure to board out Slithermuse too).

If I do go with the new SB of:


4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Duress
2 Autumn's Veil
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Mirri's Guile
1 Taiga
1 Bayou


then I think that I will cut the following.


-4 Culling the Weak
-4 Summoner's Pact
-1 Wild Cantor
-1 Dryad Arbor
-1 Slithermuse
-1 Skyshroud Cutter
-1 Tendrils of Agony
-2 Cruel Bargain

I see what your saying about having eternal mana sources and I think that PiF's will still be good post board, especially to help in case I get fewer Crual Bargain/Infernal Contract's.

I will have to playtest that out and see how it runs for the Grind Plan.

Thanks again

Hi, I'm not either a new player or a old wise man playing legacy, but lately I've been founding this archetype very interesting, and after 3 days of reading this thread, I'm about to build and test one of those versions.
The most abusive strategy for me, seems to be PSI or DSI and I'd like to have some enlightment about the following:
Why Duress over Unmask in sideboard?
Since UGr Thresh (sometimes) and Dreadstill are using Stifle, shouldn't Goblin Charbelcher be only in sideboard? This just applies for the GC lovers :p
Now refering only to the list SupREME-10 posted there, and the comments after that, why boarding out PiF when it gives you the possibility to use so many cards even if you discarded them for LED?

Finally I'd like to congratulate you all for this amazing thread! Never seen such a thing :O and it's free!

Welcome in here Zodiark, good to have you onboard, and free is always better.

I think PSI is more consistant overall than DSI but that is just me, like I said though I run D7SI and it is another animal all together. Now to answer your questions.

Duress vs Unmask
Duress B ($1.00)
Type: Sorcery
Text: Target opponent reveals his or her hand. Choose a noncreature, nonland card from it. That player discards that card.

Unmask 3B ($5.00)
Type: Sorcery
Text: You may remove a black card in your hand from the game instead of paying Unmask's mana cost.
Look at target player's hand and choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card.

So both are Sorcery. Your not overly worries about their creatures straight out, so that is not overly important when Duress misses that aspect. CMC is easy on Duress while giving up a card or using that much mana is not always a good thing if using Unmask. Oh and there is a $4.00 difference in cost. That is how I see the comparison, and I have 4x Duress already, so the choice was easy for me.

Oh and in regard to PiF, I don't side it out as I do like it in the deck and it is the only card I have brought into the deck from any of the new sets. No it does not break opponents that often; but it works ownders when you do get it working and can virtually double your storm - win -con.

Thanks for asking.

Ok, I have some Duress too, and your arguments are convicing :p we have 3 chrome mox with imprint and sometimes it's hard to decide what card to Imprint, so having 7 cards with a remove from the hand drawback will be a hell of a decision most of the times.

About PiF I didn't saw it playing that often, but it's nice to have an almost Yawgmoth's Will effect in legacy!

Finally I have a suggestion for a card I didn't saw anyone mentioning (ok I didn't read al the 607 comments lol):

Spoils of the Vault :b:
Instant

Name a card. Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal the named card, then put that card into your hand. Exile all other cards revealed this way, and you lose 1 life for each of the exiled cards.


So it gives you a tutor for whatever card you'd need, for a random amount of life.
Unfortunately it doesn't put the revealed cards on your grave, but it only costs :b:
and it's an instant!

I'd like to see your appreciations :)

Glad to read your comments and hope I can help soon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zodiark

Ok, I have some Duress too, and your arguments are convicing :p we have 3 chrome mox with imprint and sometimes it's hard to decide what card to Imprint, so having 7 cards with a remove from the hand drawback will be a hell of a decision most of the times.

About PiF I didn't saw it playing that often, but it's nice to have an almost Yawgmoth's Will effect in legacy!

Finally I have a suggestion for a card I didn't saw anyone mentioning (ok I didn't read al the 607 comments lol):

Spoils of the Vault :b:
Instant

Name a card. Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal the named card, then put that card into your hand. Exile all other cards revealed this way, and you lose 1 life for each of the exiled cards.


So it gives you a tutor for whatever card you'd need, for a random amount of life.
Unfortunately it doesn't put the revealed cards on your grave, but it only costs :b:
and it's an instant!

I'd like to see your appreciations :)

Glad to read your comments and hope I can help soon

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Spoils will kill you all the time. It isn't worth it. The next best tutors available are probably Diabolic Intent and Grim Tutor for the walker lists and other lists respectively.

Yeah Spoils isn't ever going to be good because it lacks synergy with Draw 4s. If you play a D4 first, then you will likely get killed by the Spoils. Its been tried, and it doesn't work.

Duress vs. Unmask. I think Kusumoto plays Unmasks in his board with success. Its pretty good as a protection spell. Personally, 4 Carpet, 4 Duress, 2 Veil is pretty much going to be standard in my sideboard. The other 5 slots are competing. I'm seriously debating testing 4 EtW, 1 Taiga today. EtW has been quite good as a surprise to board in against aggro decks as well, that bring in their random hate. I've been running into everything from Pithing Needle post-board, to post-board 4 Leyline of Sancity, 3 Serum Powder. So, EtW has been pretty cool.

I'm kinda over Past in Flames though. As cool as its been, it requires rituals, which doesn't always work out for you because you need Threshold and 1B to start a Cabal Ritual, a creature to start Culling the Weak, etc. So I'm either going to go..
-1 PiF
-1 Young Wolf
+1 Tendrils
+1 IGG

Or
-1 Young Wolf
+1 IGG

Haven't decided yet. PiF has randomly allowed for some pretty sick plays. But I just like how IT/LED is an auto-win and you don't always get that with PiF. PiF > IGG just makes the deck harder to play. I've just had too many games where IGG would have straight up won the game. Granted, those are games I might have won anyway with a different line of play, but I still feel much safer playing with IGG in the deck. And its not a particularly bad topdeck either. It really depends. If you play D4 with LED's floating BBB its actually better than PiF cause you probably don't have the red source to play PiF off a blind D4 if you already broke your LED.

Also, I've been breaking LED's blind lately when the situation calls for it. If you have a spare Pact floating around before you break your LED, get the Dryad Arbor just in case you draw Culling. That happened to me twice yesterday in the local.

So the hell with Spoils of the Vault xD, I mean you saved me some testing time (which I lack, thanks to this country where I leave almost extinguished Legacy tournaments -.-)

Vacrix your choice on Young Wolf is curious to me, have you tried Skyshroud Cutter? It gives you a free creature, even if it lacks the Undying, you can LG + SP and you won't spent mana to play it. On the other hand you'll need 3 more spells to win with ToA, but that 1 mana can be crucial. (Saying this after testing Skyshroud Cutter but never tried Young Wolf).

About IGG > PiF, agreed! As you said you need rituals in grave and it's harder to play thanks to be a red card, and if you can't win the game when you play it at least you took a lot of cards from your opponent hand!

I might try to play Skyshroud Cutter. I have one sitting around but I never got around to testing it extensively. It didn't particularly impress me in the limited testing I had with it. I must say though, I would be willing to pick up Kusumoto's list and test it, though dropping the Charbelcher and possibly something else for some more maindeck Bayous that way you are ensured a forest.

Also, post-board lands much? That is if you want to play an alternative sideboard plan. Perhaps..

SB:
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Duress
3 Autumn's Veil
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Bayou
1 Taiga

I wonder, given 2 maindeck Bayous, how post-board access to 3 Bayou 1 Taiga will affect the grind plan. It gives you more perpetual resources to get to 3 black mana to start grinding with D4's. Granted, theres no Charbelcher for the easy kill, but you still have access to IT chains with LED into PiF/IGG. Also, you don't run into the problem I do occasionally of a Belcher misfire because of additional lands.. though against slower control decks like UW variants and BUG, I tend to have another turn to get the kill with Belcher. In this case, the entire Culling package must come out if you are to have enough space. Also, it seems like a better use of space. Boarding IN Belchers to have a grind plan just takes up too much sideboard space. Perhaps for the Tendrils heavy lists we should experiment with an alternative type of grind plan, namely, post-board lands since you forgo Belcher completely.

Long time Solidarity player here, who eventually shelved the deck after GP Amsterdam for something more "serious". I supposed I realised that if I'm going to fly to another country to play Magic, I really ought to bring a deck that could actually win. So for the past six months or so I've been playing ANT.

Now, ANT is cool and all, and yeah, I win more (and more easily), but I don't really feel I ever bonded with the deck. Couldn't tell you why - it's a good deck - but my games just never felt terribly exciting. This actually led me to stop playing tournament magic for several months (despite doing well at the tournaments I did go to).

This was particularly driven home to me when I picked up Solidarity again to test a new Snapcaster build. Damn, it's a fun deck. But I still think it's too slow to race the kind of hate that shut me down at Amsterdam.

I know Spanish Tunnel King from our local shop, and he used to play Spanish Inquisiton fairly heavily a year or two ago. Looked as fun as all get-out. I even put together a proxy QSI list to playtest, but I think QSI must be very different from other SI lists, because I found it pretty dull.

All this is a roundabout way of asking two questions, really. First, are either LGSI or PSI decks that can reasonably be expected to go the distance in a large tournament if piloted well? Let's call making day two of a GP the benchmark. I'm not looking for another fun-but-futile deck; I've already got one of those. :laugh:

My second question would be whether the playstyle of either of those lists is closer to Solidarity or ANT. I seem to recognize some of the posters here from the Solidarity thread, so I thought they might be able to help me identify that elusive "something" that makes Solidarity so much more additive than other decks, and tell me whether SI has it too.

Yeah ANT is no fun to play. TES is a little better, especially when you can do cool stuff with Burning Wish and perpetual resources (unlike Belcher which only rarely actually uses Burning Wish effectively to get rid of bears/permahate/etc). But I guess most of the storm players I know who have played ANT have taken it apart simply because auto-pilot storm is barely a step up from Belcher. The most thinking you do is with your cantrips, and most of your choices should be obvious anyway.

Solidarity is my other deck actually. I play it when the metagame gets too blue infested.

Honestly, QSI is currently outdated tech. It was basically the pre-ANT version of ANT, playing Underground Seas and Brainstorm/Ponder to get a little more of an advantage against blue. I wouldn't play it unless it gets something really cool to augment the cards it already runs but I cannot even think of what the deck needs to find a niche as a storm combo deck. Carpet of Flowers would be pretty fucking cool in its post-board, along with the grind plan it already had with Confidants and Duress effects, especially given that it runs a lot of maindeck lands and forgoes Belcher.

If you want something comparable to TES.. Look at SITES. I still think its a fantastic list that nobody plays. It can support 4 EtW post-board extremely well to bypass post-board hate of all sorts and ghost aggro decks. I might pick it up myself if I can get my hands on some Badlands. SITES is much faster than TES, can similarly utilize BW to bypass bears and hate, plays maindeck protection, and requires fewer cards to go off. It also mulligans better, can run Carpet of Flowers to a greater effect (more business spells), and having 4 EtW in the post-board makes it pretty dangerous against Tempo.

In terms of playing it in a long event, I'd say it is viable. Most of the people I run into at locals know exactly what I'm playing and are familiar with my sideboard plans. Most players you'll run into at a huge event (like GP, SCGs, 50+ events) aren't going to know your sideboard plan, at the least, and might be vaguely familiar with SI at best. Even so, most players aren't familiar with how best to play against it, forget to sandbag Islands against Carpet of Flowers, will occasionally pick the wrong cards with their Discard effects, and most notably, mulligan aggressively into Force of Will. I had a player last local event, who knew what I was playing, mulligan down to 3 for his Force of Will. I resolve first turn Belcher, he doesn't have a blue card for the FoW until next turn when he Forces a topdecked LED. It almost never get there, gives you an immense amount of time to rebuild if they do FoW given that sometimes you only invest 3 cards into your combo chain attempt. If you get Chrome Mox (a hand I try to keep against control) then you have a perpetual resource you can't lose to Wasteland that keeps your spell chains flowing. Granted, I haven't played at many large events lately in a while due to drug addiction but I'm back now and look forward to playing at the bigger events in the future. Kusumoto recently got 26th place at an SCG, barely missing out on top8 (if I recall). He lost the last round he needed to qualify to UR Delver, which is quite winnable unless they get the nuts.

The playstyle of this deck is kinda like a weird cross between Solidarity and ANT. You play D4 chains, kinda like Meditates in Solidarity, but you forgo lands like in ANT and have to deal with your life total a lot more.


I feel like the best reason to play this deck is that its a faster version of Belcher in game 1, and it has a boss post-board game against control decks, especially when they are unfamiliar with the plan (which is often the case at larger events). It has a great matchup against slow control decks, especially Counterbalance variants. You'd think.. doesn't Counterbalance rape combo? Especially Glasshouses? Well.. yes.. but not when your business spells do all the work for you. You just lay down some perpetual resources like Carpet of Flowers, Lands and Chrome Mox in the early game, go for a few attempts. They drop Counterbalance, and then you sneak a Belcher through their Countermagic for the kill since they are slow to kill. I play against BUG control ALL THE TIME, which should be a pretty shitty matchup right? They have Force of Will, Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, and Counterspell as a maindeck protection suite, and top that off with Inquisition of Kozliek as a 4'of as additional disruption to deal with. Then, they have Maelstrom Pulse and Deed as options to actually get rid of your post-board perpetual resources, something that UW Countertop variants lack completely. Then, it also has Counterbalance in the post-board, maindeck Tops, Vendillion Clique... Flusterstorm... God its a nightmare sometimes. Still, I've played somewhere around 200 or 300 games in the past few months, usually about 6 or 7 preboard games and then 6-8 post-board games a day, and we meet up like 3 or 4 times a week. Hell, maybe more than 300 games. I have about a 50/50 matchup (going 3-3) against in game 1. Sometimes I just get there with the first attempt, and he doesn't have the FoW, other times I have to try to grind it out with any perps that I have. Game 2-3 before he played Counterbalance it was a whopping 4-2 or 5-1 post-board. Fucking amazing right? Then Counterbalance came in and it dropped to like 50/50 again (usually 3-3 or 3-4/4-3).

Seriously, try playing the sideboard plan in PSI against control once you learn how to play the maindeck. Its the most fun you'll have playing magic I guarentee you. You get to dance around Counterspells, play early Veils to get them to think you are going off so they crack their fetches and stop sandbagging your Carpet of Flowers, then you start grinding with D4's and Duress's until you can land Belcher and get the kill, or just go off with a D4 and overwhelm them with resources.

In terms of the deck's practicality, I think its harder to play than Solidarity, but easier than Doomsday. So thats like where its at, but honestly it falls right under Doomsday. Doomsday just requires a lot of thinking. This deck requires a lot of experience. You have to get comfortable putting your balls on the table and cracking a LED into a blind D4 sometimes. And then sometimes you have a Summoner's Pact. Do you get Dryad Arbor anticipating Culling the Weak? Do you get ESG? These are important choices you'll figure out through A LOT of goldfishing. I'd recommend reading through the primer a few times, that way you get to explore the applications of all the different cards. Start with PSI, as its the most forgiving to go off with, given that you have Summoner's Pacts and ESG's as additional mana sources or tallmen if you need them instead of getting stuck with a bunch of Tallmen after your D4s. Granted, its easier to kill yourself because of Pact, but you don't always have to play it when you go off, sometimes you want to wait and use it when you simply must continue or ought to continue.

Also, its worth noting that I actually look forward to playing against control decks. I'm extremely confident in my post-board plan and it becomes a fun match for both players.



EDIT:
Also, I just want to be honest with you; if you want to play the most practical storm deck, its TES.

SI has its own niche in storm combo in being consistently the fastest deck with the best mulligans, also needing the fewest amount of cards to go off (which means FoW sometimes just trades 2 cards for 3 cards). PSI has Daze protection maindeck via the Pact/ESG augmentation. I can often play around Daze, sometimes Spell Pierce. Both is a little harder and I honestly haven't done that in a while on the first turn but its possible and I've done it before. Hell, sometimes you play right through Force with the nuts hand of Petal x2, Dark Ritual x2, D4 x2. The post-board plan has allowed me to play through shit like Liliana, Jace, and Counterbalance in play, and then Force so you have a good to even matchup against the slower control decks. Against Tempo, I'd also say its good to even. They need to put a fast clock on you, draw enough countermagic, sandbag your Carpet of Flowers, and usually they can't answer Empty the Warrens. You straight up race bears especially with post-board EtW plans. I'm still trying to develop a board that plays against control well but I don't have enough people testing with me so its just me and a handful of other people that even play this deck.

Vacrix, I'm not 100% sure of which version you're talking about to apply that sideboard, but in the case of PSI and if you don't use PiF, I wouldn't risk 1 SB spot for a Taiga since we can generate red mana via Manamorphose, LED, LP and sometimes even Mox and you can build your storm safely without using it meanwhile (most of the times)!

I found that although being one of the hardest decks to play in legacy (in my opinion) it gives you the easiest Imprint possible, as you have 8x D4 cards on 1º game unlike ANT for example which spents much more mana for the draw engine and as we saw last year it can kill you (with our friendly D4 engines we couldn't die on our own xD).

I'm saying all those things but I need to play much much more, as I don't feel very confortable against Control.

Silent Requiem you're the 2º person I met that plays Solidarity and after Amesterdan decided to "bin" the deck!

Thanks for the very detailed feedback, Vacrix. I've messed about with TES and it was alright, but I think I dislike Ad Nauseam as an engine in general (Resolve Ad Nauseam and cross your fingers? Um, sounds fun.) which is a pretty integral part of playing TES.

I'll definitely put together a proxy version of SI for some serious playtesting. It sounds like SITES or PSI are the builds to start with, depending on which cards I feel like playing with more. I have Burning Wish, etc, but Pacting for something like Odious Trow seems hilarious. Food for thought.

Of course, if anyone has any good reason to play one of those builds over another, I'd be happy to hear it before I pick up the requisite dual lands (all my existing duals are blue for Solidarity splashes. :P ).

@Zodiark: Amsterdam was absolutely brutal on High Tide decks in general. Contrary to what you might have expected, Mental Misstep was GREAT for High Tide, because it took care of most of the spells actually giving us trouble (we're a little slow, so early discard or tough 1-drops were a big deal). Amsterdam was the first major event after the MM banning, so people were basically sideboarding two (and only two) kinds of hate: Storm and Dredge/Reanimator hate. It was not uncommon for people to bring in a double digit number of sideboard cards against me.

I also run Solidarity (Snapcaster / Snap version at presnt).

I like the D7SI but as mentioned by Vacrix; I think that SITES is probably the most viable SI version at present for the meta.

I live in Canada (Eastcoast) so our local scene is not nearly as large other areas; but I find that many guys are running whatever deck is the top tier so although their cards are spot on, sometimes their experience with the deck is what lets me gain a win. I have been working on my Sideboard plans the most lately and as Vacrix mentioned, if you can work around their hate, they are often pooched. I had a guy Mull to 3 trying for a FoW, when he still didn't det it he scooped on the spot - funny part was that I sat quitely while he went on tilt, and I actually would have Mulled as well if he wasn't in such a hurry to tell me how horrid his hand was and that he simply needed Fow to beat me. His loss.

I play again this Thursday but I am torn being running Solidarity or D7SI as my Solidarity is 100% and I am still running 6 (borrow/proxie) cards in my SI... Wish me luck either way, as U/R Delver is becoming more abundant, along with Canadian. But as mentioned U/R Delver is beatable (I own that deck too, and it has flaws).

Thanks guys for all the discussion -- I so want to kcik some arse with D7SI.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Silent Requiem

Thanks for the very detailed feedback, Vacrix. I've messed about with TES and it was alright, but I think I dislike Ad Nauseam as an engine in general (Resolve Ad Nauseam and cross your fingers? Um, sounds fun.) which is a pretty integral part of playing TES.

I'll definitely put together a proxy version of SI for some serious playtesting. It sounds like SITES or PSI are the builds to start with, depending on which cards I feel like playing with more. I have Burning Wish, etc, but Pacting for something like Odious Trow seems hilarious. Food for thought.

Of course, if anyone has any good reason to play one of those builds over another, I'd be happy to hear it before I pick up the requisite dual lands (all my existing duals are blue for Solidarity splashes. :P ).

@Zodiark: Amsterdam was absolutely brutal on High Tide decks in general. Contrary to what you might have expected, Mental Misstep was GREAT for High Tide, because it took care of most of the spells actually giving us trouble (we're a little slow, so early discard or tough 1-drops were a big deal). Amsterdam was the first major event after the MM banning, so people were basically sideboarding two (and only two) kinds of hate: Storm and Dredge/Reanimator hate. It was not uncommon for people to bring in a double digit number of sideboard cards against me.

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Sooooo welcome to the dark side, Silent ^^.

Just a quick one in defence of TES - If you play it like ANT, it becomes as boring as ANT. The deck has a lot of depth and versatility (not to mention susceptibility to wasteland ^^), and the decision tree is fascinating (to me...). But learning/setting up non-AdN kills takes time and dedication to see how they all can play out. And its much more fun than spamming AdNs at someone :). I would say only 50% of my TES kills are with AdN (if that).

BACK ON TOPIC:

I'd always start with the old skool LG list to get a feel for the draw4s. I got quite disillusioned when I started to play the pacts, because the deck behaves a lot differently, and is a lot less forgiving (I find). Also - the LG list gives you the kobald taskmaster "hilarious" transformative side ;). Solidarity vs SI is some of the most fun magic for sure. It'd be nice to reverse roles ^^. Man all this talk of draw4s is making me itchy to bust the bargains out again...

BACK OFF TOPIC:

I listed to some of your music Vacrix. Good job man, that stuffs pretty dark :D.

The Spanish Tunnel King

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Spanish Tunnel King

Sooooo welcome to the dark side, Silent ^^.

Just a quick one in defence of TES - If you play it like ANT, it becomes as boring as ANT. The deck has a lot of depth and versatility (not to mention susceptibility to wasteland ^^), and the decision tree is fascinating (to me...). But learning/setting up non-AdN kills takes time and dedication to see how they all can play out. And its much more fun than spamming AdNs at someone :). I would say only 50% of my TES kills are with AdN (if that).

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To continue the off-topic mumbling; ANT goes for Ad Nauseam less than TES does despite the name. I decided to keep track of it during GP Amsterdam (made 37th) and in 51 games (including the grinders and also including losses) I only cast Ad Nauseam 5 times. All other kills were made through IGG, tutor chains or Tendrils from hand. 10% is lower than it usually is, but it's not quite 50%. ANT would be a terribad deck if it only went for Ad Nauseam, as it's less good at casting it compared to TES.