[Deck] TES - The EPIC Storm

TES is probably Belcher's 2nd worst match up, behind UGw Thresh. If they don't win with Belcher then the fact your EtW will readily be larger, your Tendrils kill more easy to access, plus you have Chant handy. It is not pretty for them at all.

On Teeg: He is a versatile answer with LEGS. The legs thing is critical here. It means that, unlike with Trinisphere, Chalice, The Abyss, or any other possible type of hate save Meddling Mage, you are now on a clock. Sure, 10 turns is a fairly slow clock, but if they drop another threat, like Mongoose or Tarmogoyf, you often find yourself stuck with only 3 turns trying to figure out how to combo out and kill Teeg, plus very limited mana due to the fact Cities burn you out and Gemstones can only be tapped so many times.

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Originally Posted by ninjabear

Has anyone considered running Perish as fetchable hate against Threshold? That card sure ruins their day; it's slow and countereable, and does not get rid of Meddling... but gets you rid of Gaddock and most of threshold threats.

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Yes, actually I have been running Perish for some time now.
It comes out and randomly does its thing from time to time.
I keep debating its position, though, it just seems too narrow.



Out where I play, Threshold is the deck to beat on Wednesdays (which TES usually does quite handily)
Out where I play, Ichorid (believe it or not) is the deck to beat on Fridays (which sometimes is too fast for TES)

Honestly, Morningtide is not that terrible of a wish target to have.
Especially if you have graveyard-users in your meta.

Man it is SO good to watch Ichorid players brush off a chant while they are going and going.
Then, on your turn, you simply wish for Morningtide. WHAM, now you have all the time in the world to win.

I've never had a problem with Belcher's ETW. I've always won on top of it. But it's the Belcher itself that I've had problems with. Especially when they are on the play and go off turn one. I've used Chant in response to a Seething Song plenty of times to cut off the Belcher, but without Chant, what do I do?

Ichorid Combo is pretty quick, but gets owned by grave hate(Crypt, Morningtide, Leyline and by Haunted Echoes[ouch!]) Diminishing Returns screws them up a bit if they needed a turn or two to set up and sometimes chumping with Bob makes those Bridges far less scary.

So yeah...Belcher's Belcher hurts without a Chant. What is the rememdy?

Ichorid is an awfully slow combo deck if it doesn't get a god hand. It is very played in my area and I have never lost a match to it. It is just such an easy deck to beat. Other than the fact that you are faster than them naturally you also have chant, which buys time against them.

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Originally Posted by andrew77

Ichorid is an awfully slow combo deck if it doesn't get a god hand. It is very played in my area and I have never lost a match to it. It is just such an easy deck to beat. Other than the fact that you are faster than them naturally you also have chant, which buys time against them.

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I agree wholeheartedly. Ichorid needs an incredible hand to explode.
BUT! Do not forget that Ichorid only really draws two kinds of hands, with a very rare third hand.

Hand ONE - Complete FAIL, you win here because they don't win in the first 3 turns.

Hand TWO - Creature based Turn 2/3 win, this is very similar to TES clock, but TES is more consistent and resilient.
But don't forget, their creatures are far larger than your own, if you are making EtW tokens.

Hand THREE - Turn 1 BLOWOUT, they'll get LED, Coliseum, and Deep A while returning Sage into the win.
You lose, its over, you got nothing to say about it.
If you didn't go first to get your land down to Chant, you croak.


Normally Ichorid is easy to beat but the dude playing it in the finals last Friday was on FIRE with his draws.
He drew so many Turn 2s and Turn 1s, it was disgusting.
(he got smashed consistently by White Stax that night though ... so did I :frown: )

Ichorid is so popular where I play because Ernest Turck (T8 Legacy Ichorid player at GenCon) and Joe George, the guy who built his deck at GenCon, is friends with most of the people around here.

Oddly, he used to come and play a lot, but no one sees him anymore.
Joe is always around wielding Threshold or Breakfast, though :)

I played TES to a 4-2 finish both days of the manaleak open. My loses were to Fish, Breakfast, Dragonstompy and Threshold. I beat 3 Threshold, 2 Landstill, Goblins, some deck with forests, and a zooish deck.

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Originally Posted by wastedlife

I played TES to a 4-2 finish both days of the manaleak open. My loses were to Fish, Breakfast, Dragonstompy and Threshold. I beat 3 Threshold, 2 Landstill, Goblins, some deck with forests, and a zooish deck.

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Good job on the performance on both days. The one thing I learned about TES is that the matchups against blue control I won. My loses were mainly to decks that packed chalice and sphere of resistance which were a bitch.

Orim's Chant is just so damn good, I won't play another combo deck without main decking 4 of this card.

My one highlight with TES was the EPIC match against Gearheart (Landstill variant, Day 1).

Hey, what's your game plan against Breakfast, anyway? It seems that the deck is better now, obviously. It would be nice to have an answer to it. We could try Extract in the SB again.

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Originally Posted by nickrit2000

The one thing I learned about TES is that the matchups against blue control I won. My loses were mainly to decks that packed chalice and sphere of resistance which were a bitch.

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Yes. A million times yes.
TES will beat just about any blue control/thresh variant. No problems at all.
Stax, Prison Variants w/artifact control, hell even decks that SB Chalice/Thorn/2Sphere can easily put us out.

Both White and Red Stax annihlate our strategies.
It almost comes down to winning turn 1 with Tendrils or losing miserably.

You get those Goblins on the table and they are quick to answer with Ghostly Prison/Magus of the Tabernacle/Pyroclasm/Wildfire/Xinye.

Also, I truly believe White Stax is a loss. Post-board it only gets worse.
Try winning while staring down Rule of Law AND 3Sphere + Prison + Crucible.
Sometimes it will come down to attacking with Confidant.

Those matches are definitely on a lower percentage, but are NOT non-existant.
What can we do? Shattering Spree is great, but sometimes you need more than one.

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Originally Posted by yawg07

Both White and Red Stax annihlate our strategies.
It almost comes down to winning turn 1 with Tendrils or losing miserably.

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The matchup against red stax actually comes down to either Chalice @ 2 quickly, a lack of Rquake/aether flash, or Trinisphere + LD (wastes or smokestack). Rarely, you can kill a TES player who's fishing with Plunge or a draw4 using Rolling Earthquakes/Factorys/Words of War-Wilding, but not often. The matchup isn't more than 50/50 at best for Stax, especially if TES goes turn 1 wish -> shattering spree, go. At that point they can pretty much win at their leisure. I say this from playing with TES against Sun Tower and against TES with Sun Tower a lot.

I firmly believe that you sideboard out Empty the Warrens against Stax for Shattering Spree. Let them keep in irrelevant aggro hate while you keep stuff that generates CA and shattering sprees.

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Originally Posted by emidln

I firmly believe that you sideboard out Empty the Warrens against Stax for Shattering Spree. Let them keep in irrelevant aggro hate while you keep stuff that generates CA and shattering sprees.

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I agree. Post board they are brining in Clasm, and rquake, so EtW is already dead.


You should run 3 Spree in the board, pull 2 EtW (leave 1 in incase you can War strike +EtE for 10+) and bring 2 Spree in, and 1 in the board to wish.

TES amazingly has no auto-lose matchups. Mono blue control can be a backbreaker, but their lack of clock can let you get a confidant on the table (assuming no shackles) and card advantage them to dead!

Ya i agree with you, along with the fact that Pyroblasts are quite handy.

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Originally Posted by emidln

I firmly believe that you sideboard out Empty the Warrens against Stax for Shattering Spree. Let them keep in irrelevant aggro hate while you keep stuff that generates CA and shattering sprees.

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Wow, for whatever stupid reason, I have never done that.
Thank you very much! I'll be exercising that tonight if our Stax players are around :)



Has anyone come up with a competent answer for Counterbalance yet?
I've always loved Krosan Grip/Wipe Away, but Instant is generally bad :(

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Originally Posted by yawg07

Wow, for whatever stupid reason, I have never done that.
Thank you very much! I'll be exercising that tonight if our Stax players are around :)



Has anyone come up with a competent answer for Counterbalance yet?
I've always loved Krosan Grip/Wipe Away, but Instant is generally bad :(

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If you really fear counterbalance or if you run into a lot of decks that run counterbalance, then I would suggest adding Tranquility to the board in order to fight it. I find the board very tight in terms of adding additional utility cards. I do not currently have tranquility in the board, but I've consider if if a lot of Threshold decks with counterbalance are showing up.

Tranquility in the board seems bad if your wish gets Counterbalanced. Something more proactive might be necessary here.
-Slay

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Originally Posted by Slay

Tranquility in the board seems bad if your wish gets Counterbalanced. Something more proactive might be necessary here.
-Slay

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I agree its not the best choice, but if your going to board another card thats probably an instant, then you must have multiple copies taking up more board slots that you don't have. I'm not sure what the right answer should be. Krosan Grip & Wipe Away are both good, but you need to run more than just 1 if you want to find it during a game.

Iggy Pop had mystical tutor in order to find its bounce/kill spells. Maybe something like that has to be considered. I don't like running mystical tutor in TES, but testing it wouldn't be a bad idea.

I'm having a bit of trouble Sbing for the Thresh match, whats the general stuff to take out assuming i'm using the following list
// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [8E] City of Brass
2 [VI] Undiscovered Paradise
4 [TSB] Gemstone Mine

// Creatures
4 [PLC] Simian Spirit Guide
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant

// Spells
1 [6E] Diminishing Returns
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
4 [MM] Dark Ritual
2 [WL] Abeyance

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [6E] Diminishing Returns
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 1 [7E] Duress
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 3 [5E] Pyroblast
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 1 [PT] Cruel Bargain
SB: 1 [R] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [PT] Pyroclasm


Thanks

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Originally Posted by nickrit2000

I agree its not the best choice, but if your going to board another card thats probably an instant, then you must have multiple copies taking up more board slots that you don't have. I'm not sure what the right answer should be. Krosan Grip & Wipe Away are both good, but you need to run more than just 1 if you want to find it during a game.

Iggy Pop had mystical tutor in order to find its bounce/kill spells. Maybe something like that has to be considered. I don't like running mystical tutor in TES, but testing it wouldn't be a bad idea.

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All you can really do is run Pyroblast in the SB and leave mana open/SSG to counter it or remove it before Top hits the board. Determined isn't a bad idea either, that card is shit loads better than Abeyance, if for no other reason it can deal with Counterbalance, if you're lucky, and it imprints for blue.

I think Pyroblast is your best option, or hope they're stupid enough to Daze your Lion's Eye Diamond/Orim's Chant and give you another turn to win with out worrying about it. Counterbalance is the bane of tendrils based storm combo, you can't really deal with it effectively, altho' you can try, so you just have to hope that aggro or control forces them to cut it/SB it at some point.
Generally speaking, if Counterbalance is popular, it's a good time to consider an audible to Belcher or SI. You need to either be faster than Counterbalance or have MD pre-emptive disruption, both of which Belcher and SI have in terms of goldfish, Blasts and Therapy.

A point or two on the Determined/Abeyance argument:

1. Abeyance is easier to cast due to having a colorless in its cost.

2. Abeyance stops Stifle. This is of course a metagame call.
In my area, lots of people run Stifle, like 40% +
Counterbalance has actually fallen out of favor.


Other random points:

I'm afraid Counter-Top may come back if I keep on winning lol
Lately TES has been performing extremely well.
It punches blue-based decks in the face, and against MBA/MBC, you just use chant as time walk on their turns.
If you buy one/two turns away from hymn, you win. Easy as pie.


What are everyone's thoughts on MD Duress/Thoughtseize.
I run it as 2x with Ponder in the other 2x, most people seem to have confidant as 4x here.
I just dislike MD creatures way too much.

3. Abeyance stops Crypt. Not like it really matters, but I just wanna point that out.

As for Dark Confidant, I actually think he's awesome. He let's you slowroll the opponent and stuff... sadly, it's a creature. But in an argument of Tempo, he's supposed to speed you up as long as he remains in play. It's all about how lucky you are basically (or usually).

But if I were to replace the 4 slots, I'd probably throw in 3 Ponders and 1 Abeyance in it's place.