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

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Originally Posted by QQQ

How often do you guys just fail to be able to go off? That is to say, you make a couple land drops, a couple cantrips, maybe a discrd spell, have a generally decent hand. But end up losing being just a mana, tutor, or disruption spell short? I don't mind losing to racing, or Tempo, or CounterTop, but I too often am getting hands that have the right pieces to not mulligan, and cannot put together the win through either disruption or a quick clock in time.

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If you fear of being a Spell short but have overflowing mana, you can still sandbag cantrips/discard for the sake of storm (unless you play against Lock-decks or combo, I advice to sandbag discard in general). For the discard-shortage, I still play the SB Duress so I have virtual 10 discard spells. Other than that: Practice and Patience. Most issues, like how to react to fast dealt damage without panicing, solve itself over time and yourself getting more used to that situations, including being conservative with Probes (shuffling them away or paying mana at times).

Does anyone know what page the discussion about the inclusion of the pair of Pyroclasms in the board is?


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Originally Posted by PartyMonster

Does anyone know what page the discussion about the inclusion of the pair of Pyroclasms in the board is?


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Tbh, there was no big discussion. Bryant disliked the Needles because of the US metagame composition and replaced them with sweepers against D&T, Elves and Delver/Pyromancer

Happy new year, my friends!

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Tbh, there was no big discussion. Bryant disliked the Needles because of the US metagame composition and replaced them with sweepers against D&T, Elves and Delver/Pyromancer

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fair enough. thanks!

Happy New Year everyone!

I've been testing a lot having last week and this week off from work. I've made more changes, I noticed how much slower the deck was and how some of my opponents were taking advantage of that keeping hands that they normally wouldnt keep (No action until turn two for example). I'm still testing out this list, but so far so good.

4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire/Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Ad Nauseam

Sideboard
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroblast
2 Pyroclasm
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Treasure Cruise

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

Happy New Year everyone!

I've been testing a lot having last week and this week off from work. I've made more changes, I noticed how much slower the deck was and how some of my opponents were taking advantage of that keeping hands that they normally wouldnt keep (No action until turn two for example). I'm still testing out this list, but so far so good.

4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire/Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Bayou

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Ad Nauseam

Sideboard
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroblast
2 Pyroclasm
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Treasure Cruise

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Has 4 MD Tutors been strong with no EtW main? Also, what prompted the use of Pyroblast and Cruise?

Four tutors has been fine, there's been once or twice in my testing over the last few weeks (Lots of games) - where I really missed the Empty maindeck because my options were to:

1.) Ad Nauseam with 0 floating.
2.) Duress/Therapy into Empty.
3.) Duress/Therapy turn 1, Ad Nauseam turn two.

Blast is similar to the Carpet of Flowers slot where it could be Void Snare/Therapy or Chain of Vapors, but I think having 2 Pyroclasms & 2 Pyroblasts to side in versus UR/UWR variants is nice.
Cruise had to happen in order to make the Tutor to the main work. So far, it's been great in grindy match-ups allowing Wish to turn into 3 mana draw 3.

Finally the last rainbow land had bit the dust, 4 IT main deck. Welcome to TNT!

Treasure Cruise is neat pre- and mid-combo because
1. it replaces itself
2. it's a must-counter
3. gives 2 storm with BW
4. draws into more draw/gas

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

Four tutors has been fine, there's been once or twice in my testing over the last few weeks (Lots of games) - where I really missed the Empty maindeck because my options were to:

1.) Ad Nauseam with 0 floating.
2.) Duress/Therapy into Empty.
3.) Duress/Therapy turn 1, Ad Nauseam turn two.

Blast is similar to the Carpet of Flowers slot where it could be Void Snare/Therapy or Chain of Vapors, but I think having 2 Pyroclasms & 2 Pyroblasts to side in versus UR/UWR variants is nice.
Cruise had to happen in order to make the Tutor to the main work. So far, it's been great in grindy match-ups allowing Wish to turn into 3 mana draw 3.

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Interesting stuff, I'll give it a whirl this afternoon. One thing I might recommend for people on MTGO is to go to 5 Dual, 6 fetch, 2 Gemstone Mine, because Chalice + Wasteland decks are occasionally appearing (like, 1 every 2 dailies in my experience).

Have you considered Engineered Explosives in the board? While it's not a Wish target, it does interact favorably with hatebears (beats Thalia + Mom), Counterbalance (play it at CMC 3, Sunburst 2), Elves/Tokens, etc. Running 2/3 instead of 2 Pyroclasm + 2 Pyroblast could free up room for other things. It also puts Chalice players in the catch-22 position of having to choose between 0 to stop EE/LED, or 1 to stop cantrips/rituals, all the while we still have Decay. (It's also cute in the Lem's sol land build where you can play it on CMC 2, sunburst 0. It might also steal the TES mirror, lol)

Also, more for the MTGO meta, Reanimator has been pretty popular, so I might try and find room for Flusterstorms or something like that.

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Originally Posted by wonderPreaux

Interesting stuff, I'll give it a whirl this afternoon. One thing I might recommend for people on MTGO is to go to 5 Dual, 6 fetch, 2 Gemstone Mine, because Chalice + Wasteland decks are occasionally appearing (like, 1 every 2 dailies in my experience).

Have you considered Engineered Explosives in the board? While it's not a Wish target, it does interact favorably with hatebears (beats Thalia + Mom), Counterbalance (play it at CMC 3, Sunburst 2), Elves/Tokens, etc. Running 2/3 instead of 2 Pyroclasm + 2 Pyroblast could free up room for other things. It also puts Chalice players in the catch-22 position of having to choose between 0 to stop EE/LED, or 1 to stop cantrips/rituals, all the while we still have Decay. (It's also cute in the Lem's sol land build where you can play it on CMC 2, sunburst 0. It might also steal the TES mirror, lol)

Also, more for the MTGO meta, Reanimator has been pretty popular, so I might try and find room for Flusterstorms or something like that.

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Hmmmm ... interresting idea with Explosives even if it doesn't wipe Pyromancer AND the tokens. Most interresting aspect to consider here is killing Chalice/Counterbalance without messing with your AN flips. Next on my schedule after the Trygons :)

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Hmmmm ... interresting idea with Explosives even if it doesn't wipe Pyromancer AND the tokens. Most interresting aspect to consider here is killing Chalice/Counterbalance without messing with your AN flips. Next on my schedule after the Trygons :)

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I think it's also definitely important to consider Explosives as a sweeper too. The whole idea of it saving space by serving the role of both Pyroclasm and Pyroblast is what drew me in. Here's the bottom-line for EE:

Downsides:

> Wish: Yeah, this isn't a Wish target, so less g1 help. But if we're just talking about stuff to side-in, I think this isn't that big a deal.

> Mana Invested: To wipe hatebears, this costs 4 mana. That IS a lot, though you do get to invest it over 2 turns, and you don't need specific colors, just 2 of them. IDK how big a deal this is.

Upsides:

> Corner case superiority: You can't Cursecatcher, Envelop or Flusterstorm EE, so in some cases you are just straight-up better off as your spell can actually resolve. If you want to rip up tokens or flipped Delver, you are casting a 0-cmc removal spell, which is pretty hard to Pierce/Daze effectively as well.

> Hits permanents: The same EE that wipes Elves can also take out a Relic in a pinch (note, you do need Void Snare/Grapeshot in your sb to answer Teeg, but you want Void Snare on MTGO these days anyway). Wiping a Counterbalance has the benefit of hitting RIP/SCM too, which takes some other annoyances out. You can also produce 5 colors in this deck, so you can have a make-shift vindicate/deed if you need it badly enough.

> Is, itself, a permanent: I personally think this is a huge deal. First, you can't get discarded if you run it out. Play it down at 1 against Elves, or 2 on Miracles early and force them to work around it while you do cool stuff. More importantly, as a permanent, it increases the resources you can bank in your hand for your combo turn. Take DnT for instance, there are those games where the hatebears come out, you need to take hits, sweep, then win. If you have Pyroclasm, then you need 2 (often 3) mana, then you need to go off with at most 7 other cards (assuming you drew to 8) and what remains of your mana after the 'Clasm, or you need to be ready for another hatebear on the next turn. With EE, you can draw to 7, pass, wipe in their END STEP, then draw to a full 8, with all your mana available to crush the opponent with a spell chain or w/e.

> X: Yes, it's 0 off Ad Nauseam. It's worse against Teeg, but, w/e. Zero off Ad Nauseam.

edit: read EE's supertype re: Null Rod

Minor nickpic: EE does nothing against NullRod ;P

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Minor nickpic: EE does nothing against NullRod ;P

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True.

Went 3-1 tonight at legacy FNM. Im still on the empty main plan, as I think it's much better in my current, week to week meta). Otherwise my 75 is pretty much the same except I run thoughtsieze over 2 duress (again local meta call). I beat UG infect 2-0, beat UR 2-0, and beat Miracles 2-0 (12 goblins get there game 1. Xantid Swarm won G2.) My only loss was to lands :( there's just something about that matchup that I hate, and for whatever reason I play some of my worst magic against lands and discard decks in general. Let me face blue mages any day!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to storming this weekend in the 5k in Columbus, will likely be a game time decision on the Empty in my main.



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Originally Posted by redhamjack

Went 3-1 tonight at legacy FNM. Im still on the empty main plan, as I think it's much better in my current, week to week meta). Otherwise my 75 is pretty much the same except I run thoughtsieze over 2 duress (again local meta call). I beat UG infect 2-0, beat UR 2-0, and beat Miracles 2-0 (12 goblins get there game 1. Xantid Swarm won G2.) My only loss was to lands :( there's just something about that matchup that I hate, and for whatever reason I play some of my worst magic against lands and discard decks in general. Let me face blue mages any day!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to storming this weekend in the 5k in Columbus, will likely be a game time decision on the Empty in my main.



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See you in Columbus


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Originally Posted by redhamjack

Went 3-1 tonight at legacy FNM. Im still on the empty main plan, as I think it's much better in my current, week to week meta). Otherwise my 75 is pretty much the same except I run thoughtsieze over 2 duress (again local meta call). I beat UG infect 2-0, beat UR 2-0, and beat Miracles 2-0 (12 goblins get there game 1. Xantid Swarm won G2.) My only loss was to lands :( there's just something about that matchup that I hate, and for whatever reason I play some of my worst magic against lands and discard decks in general. Let me face blue mages any day!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to storming this weekend in the 5k in Columbus, will likely be a game time decision on the Empty in my main.



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I think EE might be good for your meta if it has hatebears enough to make you consider Thoughtseize, as well as Counterbalance/Chalice and tokens/delver. and ofc, good luck to all the stormers out at the 5ks

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Originally Posted by redhamjack

Went 3-1 tonight at legacy FNM. Im still on the empty main plan, as I think it's much better in my current, week to week meta). Otherwise my 75 is pretty much the same except I run thoughtsieze over 2 duress (again local meta call). I beat UG infect 2-0, beat UR 2-0, and beat Miracles 2-0 (12 goblins get there game 1. Xantid Swarm won G2.) My only loss was to lands :( there's just something about that matchup that I hate, and for whatever reason I play some of my worst magic against lands and discard decks in general. Let me face blue mages any day!

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Aggressive decks like UR Delver are the reason I consider Thoughtseize unplayable atm. I'm interrested, why you opt to run Seize in your metagame :)

Just for statistical reasons: are you able to tell which Miracles build you played against? Goblins have a horrible statistic success rate against Ponder builds in my books. Thanks for the roundup

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

Sideboard
3Abrupt Decay
3Xantid Swarm
2Pyroblast
2Pyroclasm
1Massacre
1Tendrils of Agony
1Empty the Warrens
1Past in Flames
1Treasure Cruise

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When exactly do you side in pyroblast? Meddling Mage/Show and Tell/Izzet or Jeskai delver/stone?

And why/when Cruise is that good?

Don't you miss Cabal Ritual MD? It was always so good for me. Do you consider keeping it in instead for a single Mox?

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

Happy New Year everyone!

Sideboard
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroblast
2 Pyroclasm
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
1 Treasure Cruise

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Happy new year to you too! :smile:

Question about this list: since there's no Infernal Tutor in the side, don't you feel Diminishing Returns should return to the Wish board? Right now a single Wish can only be used for Empty, natural Tendrils or Treasure Cruise. For Past in Flames lines we need an additional Tutor or Wish, and if we don't have that, our options for Wish would be pretty limited. I know Returns isn't the best, but I think in this setup we might need an additional combo Wish target. How did this work in your testing?