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

I love karakas but I currently only own 1 so ive been using gilded drake in its place (my wife often misers my/her karakas). Obviously karakas has the advantage against legendary hate bears and being free/uncounterable. Regarding nasty wincons like emrakul, griselbrand and so on though drake is better than I expected. Hatebears aside stealing a wincon is usually just plain better then bouncing one although sometimes its negligible if we can win anyway.

Regarding reanimator, what ive seen is that reanimator players (and SnS, D&T maybe more decks) have started packing pithing needles and their own maindeck karakas', similar to what people were doing with jitte awhile back "i just play jitte to answer other jittes". Hell it seems everyone and their fucking dog is buying these things up lately. I purchased 2 karakas years ago for 5 bucks and gave 1 to a friend and now I really regret it.

Otoh drake Stealing iona and killing them with her while shutting off all their black spells is sick and unexpected for the most part. GD is also good against random decks like MUD when they have just dropped a blightsteel colossus (non hasted) or wurmcoil engine etc. I know this deck isnt all that common but going off through prison effects is pretty hard and ive found GD can instead just steal one of their bombs and beat them down with it. I stole a metalworker the other day to prevent his hand from exploding while I just won.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

No win-condition main is awful. The deck literally loses to counterspell on Burning Wish, Surgical Extraction. Which is in the post popular deck in the format - RUG Delver/Canadian Threshold. Not to mention half of the beauty of Probes is to increase the power of Empty the Warrens which you're no longer even doing.

I still only have the one Karakas but I did do testing with a proxied second against Maverick, it was great. I've yet to do Sneak Show/Reanimator.

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The deck will not loose to counterspell -> B.Which if previously you have casted A.N. OR an effective Protection Spell.

The deck will loose to Surgical on Burning Wish, but only on 2nd Games, and yes, that is the only reason , because you will need to put a 2nd Tendrils in Side, which again is lost slot.

Therefore I can agree.
So 13 lands, 3 gitaxian, 3 moxen ritgh?
regarding the Side, please could you let me know yours?
I really do not see karakas as way to deal with Reaminator or Sneak.... and related to canonists or gaddocks or thalias, karakas is too much specific. I'd say is a meta choice.
A resoved Griselbrand will be always game UNLESS you have Xantid Swarn.

And definately NO 12 lands ritgh?

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Originally Posted by Tombstalker

I love karakas but I currently only own 1 so ive been using gilded drake in its place (my wife often misers my/her karakas). Obviously karakas has the advantage against legendary hate bears and being free/uncounterable. Regarding nasty wincons like emrakul, griselbrand and so on though drake is better than I expected. Hatebears aside stealing a wincon is usually just plain better then bouncing one although sometimes its negligible if we can win anyway.

Regarding reanimator, what ive seen is that reanimator players (and SnS, D&T maybe more decks) have started packing pithing needles and their own maindeck karakas', similar to what people were doing with jitte awhile back "i just play jitte to answer other jittes". Hell it seems everyone and their fucking dog is buying these things up lately. I purchased 2 karakas years ago for 5 bucks and gave 1 to a friend and now I really regret it.

Otoh drake Stealing iona and killing them with her while shutting off all their black spells is sick and unexpected for the most part. GD is also good against random decks like MUD when they have just dropped a blightsteel colossus (non hasted) or wurmcoil engine etc. I know this deck isnt all that common but going off through prison effects is pretty hard and ive found GD can instead just steal one of their bombs and beat them down with it. I stole a metalworker the other day to prevent his hand from exploding while I just won.

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Drake is too narrow, it doesn't deal with what that slot is for and that's hatebears. The chances are if they've resolved Show and Tell they're putting Griselbrand into play against us. Good luck resolving anything crucial now... This is why I'm opting for the double Karakas plan.

Gaining control of a Thalia or Gaddock Teeg would be the last thing I'd ever want. Not that you'd side it in against Maverick anyway. I believe that Maverick's numbers are higher than the big fatty decks and that slot should probably be a Deathmark or Silent Departure if not the second Karakas.

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Originally Posted by Pelikanudo

The deck will not loose to counterspell -> B.Which if previously you have casted A.N. OR an effective Protection Spell.

The deck will loose to Surgical on Burning Wish, but only on 2nd Games, and yes, that is the only reason , because you will need to put a 2nd Tendrils in Side, which again is lost slot.

Therefore I can agree.
So 13 lands, 3 gitaxian, 3 moxen ritgh?
regarding the Side, please could you let me know yours?
I really do not see karakas as way to deal with Reaminator or Sneak.... and related to canonists or gaddocks or thalias, karakas is too much specific. I'd say is a meta choice.
A resoved Griselbrand will be always game UNLESS you have Xantid Swarn.

And definately NO 12 lands ritgh?

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Burning Wish isn't just a win condition. It's a tool to get around hate as well. You won't always be casting Burning Wish to get something with storm. Sometimes it finds answers to problematic situations. When these situations happen you don't want to be forced to waste a Silence because your deck is built poorly. Just run a main deck win condition, preferably an Empty the Warrens.

Yes, I'm on 13 lands with 3 Gitaxian Probes and 3 Chrome Mox. My decklist is within the last few pages, just dig. Karakas is a great answer to Thalia, Teeg, Emrakul and at times Griselbrand. It won't always be perfect but will certainly be better than straight up losing to it. Getting the card off the table is the first step in winning.

I agree that Karakas is no good versus Sneak n Show.
If Grizzlebrand comes in, the Sneak n Show player will load up on countermagic with their fourteen cards. Karakas will just slow the bleeding. Sneak Attack will eventually come shortly thereafter and Karakas will no longer be of much use. Sure it will stop Emrakul but since when has he been a problem? Affecting the board on turn three at the earliest.

Against Sneak n Show we want to be the combo deck not the control deck. Karakas forces us into the control role.

As for Karakas against Reanimator, I haven't done sufficient testing against that one either to know but on paper Karakas seems more useful here than against Sneak n Show.

While I agree that there should be an EtW mainboard, the fact that you lose to Extraction on Wish is even less relevant than being able to ToA for 20 with the mainboard ToA.

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Drake is too narrow, it doesn't deal with what that slot is for and that's hatebears. The chances are if they've resolved Show and Tell they're putting Griselbrand into play against us. Good luck resolving anything crucial now... This is why I'm opting for the double Karakas plan.

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Your reasoning on griselbrand makes sense and fair enough on the slot being primarily for hatebears because against these its usually golden, especially with IoK vs multiple bears.
As for sneak and show and reanimator, karakas is not that good anymore. both have started packing hate for the other and the mirror in the form of pithing needles and their own pair of karakas main giving 5 ways to stop ours, plus sneak attack with R open negates karakas. In these specific but pretty common instances gilded drake is better, granted though that it must first resolve (not always easy -> sometimes impossible vs. GB) or be dropped in off show and tell. Anyway I like both cards and ill likely run a mix of both from time to time.

Well This is what I'm definately going to test:
I see the numbers as perfect, 12 lands 4 moxen 4 gitaxian no win cond main.

I agree with bahamut, tendrils main is useless, and yes , b.wish can be extirparted, I'll expect someday this happens to me and in 2nd and 3rd games you'll put in some more dures effects, you can put in Empty from side also... but for sure I won't include 2nd tendrils in side, If I was going to put it as a second copy , I would prefer then to go back to Tendrils Main.


4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Silence
3 Duress
1 Ad Nauseam

2 Xantid Swarm
2 Echoing Truth
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
1 Shattering Spree
1 Deathmark
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Past in Flames

@Bryant:

Regarding the 2 Karakas slots, which cards are out?
I can't see 2 karakas subtituting anything in here...
Maybe -1 D.Mark, -1 IGG?

I think you'll find you want the empty the warrens md, being able to win via land, dark ritual, lion's eye diamond, infernal tutor alone is useful, and if you diminishing returns and remove your ad nauseam from the game then you're going to have no target for infernal tutor left.

I play a kind of "budget" version of tes irl, it's more or less your deck with -1 land for +1 empty the warrens and I've had pretty solid results for it vs. everything but reanimator, rug and u/w miracle with counter balance.

I really don't know why all of you guys are allergic to City of Brass, life really isn't an issue fwiw and not having a permanent mana source to play Silence and Swarm off of is a pain in the ass.

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Originally Posted by Final Fortune

I think you'll find you want the empty the warrens md, being able to win via land, dark ritual, lion's eye diamond, infernal tutor alone is useful, and if you diminishing returns and remove your ad nauseam from the game then you're going to have no target for infernal tutor left.

I play a kind of "budget" version of tes irl, it's more or less your deck with -1 land for +1 empty the warrens and I've had pretty solid results for it vs. everything but reanimator, rug and u/w miracle with counter balance.

I really don't know why all of you guys are allergic to City of Brass, life really isn't an issue fwiw and not having a permanent mana source to play Silence and Swarm off of is a pain in the ass.

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I agree with your sentiments on a main deck empty. But the view on lands not so much, it's not a problem with City of Brass. Its wanting lands without drawbacks paired with fetch lands for shuffle effects for Brainstorm.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

I agree with your sentiments on a main deck empty. But the view on lands not so much, it's not a problem with City of Brass. Its wanting lands without drawbacks paired with fetch lands for shuffle effects for Brainstorm.

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I guess it's an apples and oranges trade off, making Brainstorm better means making Silence and Xantid Swarm worse. I guess I'd just rather have a more consistent manabase than a few shuffle effects personally, it doesn't seem to make a big difference for Brainstorm unless you're playing an 8+ fetchland manabase fwiw.

I suppose it's up to the end user.

@Final Fortune: Could you post your current mana base here, please?

I'm new to this deck, but without the shuffle effects, Brainstorm isn't just a bad cantrip?
Sure it works against discard, but that's pretty much what it does. With 4 fetch lands you have a reasonable chance to make it a Ancestral Recall.

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Originally Posted by Mojeh

@Final Fortune: Could you post your current mana base here, please?

I'm new to this deck, but without the shuffle effects, Brainstorm isn't just a bad cantrip?
Sure it works against discard, but that's pretty much what it does. With 4 fetch lands you have a reasonable chance to make it a Ancestral Recall.

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Brainstorm doesn't work the same way in Storm as it does in aggro-control, because you're not Brainstorming for card quality, i.e. trading lands for business, you're Brainstorming for access to 3 more cards in order to increase your chances of having the right combination of cards to immediately win the game on turn 2. Even without any Fetchlands, you wouldn't replace Brainstorm for Pre-Ordian because Brainstorm is a "worse cantrip," because Brainstorm gives you acces to 3 new cards right now and Ponder and Pre-Ordain only give you access to 1 of 4 (or 3) new cards right now.

This is more or less the list I'm using,

4 Silence
3 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flames
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Underground Sea

SB

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Past in Flames
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Death Mark
1 Shattering Spree
4 Dread of Night
4 Xantid Swarm

Unfortunately I don't own Karakas, so Dread of Night is more or less the next best option vs. Thalia. I may go back to 4 Chain of Vapor and 3 Inquisition of Kozilek depending on how the metagame shapes up, but right now Fish is really popular where I'm at.

Are lists are somewhat the same for the maindeck minus the lands, I have one more and you have a fourth Chrome Mox instead.

Our sideboards are pretty different though. Mainly because I think Dread of Night is terrible.

For those of you who are interested, my list is on the opening post.

@Bryant and Final Fortune: How the deck behaves with 13/12 lands and 3/4 moxen?
Don't you suffer too much against Tempo package?

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

Are lists are somewhat the same for the maindeck minus the lands, I have one more and you have a fourth Chrome Mox instead.

Our sideboards are pretty different though. Mainly because I think Dread of Night is terrible.

For those of you who are interested, my list is on the opening post.

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This deck gets cheaper and cheaper to build. Very nice.

Dread of Night does what it does extremely well, kill MoM and Thalia simultaneously while leaving a pre-emtive answer to any other MoMs and Thalias that'd enter play afterwards, altho' I agree it's extremely narrow. I'd probably play Karakas if I owned any, just because Karakas deals with Thalia and Gaddock Teeg with the added benefit of producing mana if and when needed.

Whatever the answer to Thalia is, I just feel as tho' it has to be as mana efficient as possible in order to be effective (Karakas wins hands down) or cheap enough to offset the gains in versatility (Chain of Vapor). I really feel Echoing Truth is horrible, because besides Burning Wish for Shattering Spree I just think we're going to see so many more hate bears than Chalices at 1 in any tournament that paying 1(1U) to remova Thalia is just going to lose us games vs Maverick.

I'm not particularly stuck on the Xantid or Dread of Night SB slots by any means, there's definitely more than one way to address the same problem.

My storm is not so epic yet, but I'm working on it! Meanwhile I'm just running a U/R storm. I only mention it here to you guys as there isn't a particular thread for it I see, and I think you might find it interesting I won a small 14 person tourney with it this weekend beating the dreaded U/W Miracle Countertop, as well as as a U/W stoneblade with a lot of counters also, but I fought through them all with a bit of fortunate topdecking on my part and skillful use of anti-blue counters, which they were incredulous I maindecked. But in this meta, who can blame me? And it worked. And when I sided in the other Pyroblasts, they were on their heels. I have some Forked Bolts and another Grapeshot on the side for Maverick, as I have trouble with Thalia and Teeg and need to shoot mom too so she can't protect them. I take my chances with with Reanimate and Sneak and Show (at least I reduce them to Sneak only and can counter their counters). I do realize that I have 62 cards main, but that is because I need all of the sideboard cards I have and need to have 6 good things to put back in main if I'm not playing blue when I side out the blue hate. My philosophy is I can have a few dead cards in a non-blue first match I can brainstorm out of my hand for somethig else, in a matchup that I am probably favored in anyway, than automatically lose the first matchup against heavy blue counterspell of my storms, and have the pressure of winning the last two. Anyway looking forward to being able to build the real Epic Storm sometime soon.

Pyrostorm

3x Empty The Warrens
3x Past in Flames
4x Burning Wish

4x Pyretic Ritual
4x Rite of Flame
4x Seething Song

4x Brainstorm
4x Preordain
4x Gitixian Probe
4x Peer Through Depths

4x Red Elemental Blast
2x Pyroblast

18 lands
4x Volcanic Island
4x Scalding tarn
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Mountain
2x Island

Side
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Past in Flames
2x Grapeshot
1x Ponder
2x Pyroblast
4x Forked Bolt
4x Tormad's Crypt

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Originally Posted by Mojeh

@Bryant and Final Fortune: How the deck behaves with 13/12 lands and 3/4 moxen?
Don't you suffer too much against Tempo package?

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My lists have ran 13 lands the past couple of years, but when I originally built the deck contained seven lands. Obviously this was a mistake, the numbers gradually increased over time, but for a period of time the deck ran ten lands with four Simian Spirit Guides. While Gitaxian Probe isn't exactly exile a card from your hand to create a mana it certainly performs a similar enough role - drawing into theoretical mana (Lands/Moxen/Rituals). When the deck stopped aiming for Empty the Warrens is around the same time the thirteenth land was added. The EPIC Storm became much more of an Ad Nauseam deck during that time period. Right now, it's still an "Ad Nauseam" deck by definition but it's plan B is back and costs less. Due to Empty the Warrens costing less than Ad Nauseam, the deck has sped up and doesn't need to consistently hit as many land drops as it previously did without a main deck plan B. TES is currently faster than it has been in past years, while in my opinion, it's most optimal form in ages. Probe is such a huge addition in the blue match-ups it's ridiculous. It certainly takes away a lot of the fear of, "What if he has Force of Will?"

In the tempo match-ups, you ideally won't miss the land drops because the deck should be aiming for the four mana option instead of the five mana choice. Empty the Warrens is terrific against RUG and is easily castable on turn one against them. It doesn't hurt that they don't have an out to it either.

As for the fourth Chrome Mox being gone, it was really only in the deck for game one and then was sided out. It was there for explosiveness, the deck has regained that from Probe.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

My lists have ran 13 lands the past couple of years, but when I originally built the deck contained seven lands. Obviously this was a mistake, the numbers gradually increased over time, but for a period of time the deck ran ten lands with four Simian Spirit Guides. While Gitaxian Probe isn't exactly exile a card from your hand to create a mana it certainly performs a similar enough role - drawing into theoretical mana (Lands/Moxen/Rituals). When the deck stopped aiming for Empty the Warrens is around the same time the thirteenth land was added. The EPIC Storm became much more of an Ad Nauseam deck during that time period. Right now, it's still an "Ad Nauseam" deck by definition but it's plan B is back and costs less. Due to Empty the Warrens costing less than Ad Nauseam, the deck has sped up and doesn't need to consistently hit as many land drops as it previously did without a main deck plan B. TES is currently faster than it has been in past years, while in my opinion, it's most optimal form in ages. Probe is such a huge addition in the blue match-ups it's ridiculous. It certainly takes away a lot of the fear of, "What if he has Force of Will?"

In the tempo match-ups, you ideally won't miss the land drops because the deck should be aiming for the four mana option instead of the five mana choice. Empty the Warrens is terrific against RUG and is easily castable on turn one against them. It doesn't hurt that they don't have an out to it either.

As for the fourth Chrome Mox being gone, it was really only in the deck for game one's and then was sided out. It was there for explosiveness, the deck has regained that from Probe.

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I got it, thank you very much for your explanation.
I noticed the sideboard is pretty tight, is there any flex slots for a 'meta call' ?
I like being prepared for everything, but sometimes you have to dedicate a few more slots to a specific matchup. I play on small stores, so usually I am aware of what's expecting me.

Well Bryant,

so definately 12 lands, finally same conclusion. Good job.
Regarding Empty, I can say now in the meta can be more effective but could prefer tendrils, anyway, as Ive been DDFT player also, so I'll still test the No Tendrils configuration, including the 4th moxen.

the only change will be -1 Tendrils +1 C.Moxen
But again the moxen now repeats too much with the gitaxian...

100% sure about the changes?
they seem a bit risky.
Testing enough?