Escape Brain Freeze

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Originally Posted by Cire

@FTW: Great response. I have fizzled with LB once but not with Grapeshot, important to note that you don't cast it with 20 storm. You cast it with like 9 Storm and then recast it with 10 Storm (so in assuming that cards you exile are (X-1)*3) where X is storm count, instead of needing to exile 57 cards you only really need to exile 27. Additionally, in regarding to your thought process regarding Tendrils, burning wish fulfills the same role with just one extra step (and thus 3 more cards) and will never be junk. At the worst it can search up more protection, search or accel.

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Oh right, I guess Grapeshot is feasible then.

IMHO the clock, number of clicks, and decision fatigue are factors to consider for an event. The more tedious your kill, the more likely you exile the wrong card somewhere (oops Pact isn't open anymore!) or play suboptimally in future rounds. If it's avoidable, it seems better to devote mental energy to interacting with the opponent rather than just going through the sequences for a regular kill. That's why I avoid LB.

Yeah I agree with you that Burning Wish into Tendrils is better than maindeck Tendrils and allows more flexibility to find answers. Both Tendrils and Grapeshot could be in the Wishboard then, along with maybe other tools. At that point, Tendrils could be unnecessary.

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Originally Posted by FTW

Oh right, I guess Grapeshot is feasible then. Just tedious.

IMHO the clock, number of clicks, and decision fatigue are factors to consider for an event. The more tedious your kill, the more likely you exile the wrong card somewhere (oops Pact isn't open anymore!) or play suboptimally in future rounds. If it's avoidable, I'd rather devote mental energy to interacting with the opponent rather than just going through the sequences for a regular kill.

Yeah I agree with you that Burning Wish into Tendrils is better than maindeck Tendrils and allows more flexibility to find answers. Both Tendrils and Grapeshot should be in the Wishboard then, along with maybe other tools.

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Makes Sense, but also running burning wish solves that problem entirely. And in terms of wish tools, I don't think we need a large wish toolbox since we're only (at this point) running 1 wish. The tool box should probably just be 4 cards (1 win con, 1 accel, 1 tome scour, 1 infernal tutor(?)).

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Originally Posted by Cire

Makes Sense, but also running burning wish solves that problem entirely. And in terms of wish tools, I don't think we need a large wish toolbox since we're only (at this point) running 1 wish. The tool box should probably just be 4 cards (1 win con, 1 accel, 1 tome scour, 1 infernal tutor(?)).

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Yeah, the Wishboard doesn't have to be big like Belcher or TES, but if there are some SB tools that could be either Sorceries or other card types, it would tilt towards choosing at least 1-of the sorcery version.

e.g. Duress is wishable, maybe 1-of Void Snare or Fragmentize over an instant equivalent

For slightly more flexibility and use out of the wishboard you can also do -1 ponder +1 wish?

Convince me that Lab Maniac is not the optimal win condition in the main.

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Originally Posted by Wrath of Pie

Convince me that Lab Maniac is not the optimal win condition in the main.

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Burning wish imo is optimal as it can search for your win con and is not chaff if you draw into it.

@FTW: I don’t have a ton of experience with storm type decks but a friend told me that a good test of viability is to goldfish pretending there is an opposing leyline of the void... what do we do then? Seems we fold so far? Game 2 what do we bring in?

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Originally Posted by Cire

Game 2 what do we bring in?

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Seal of Cleansing? Can be searched with Enlightened Tutor.

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Originally Posted by Cire

@FTW: I don’t have a ton of experience with storm type decks but a friend told me that a good test of viability is to goldfish pretending there is an opposing leyline of the void... what do we do then? Seems we fold so far? Game 2 what do we bring in?

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Very rare to see Leyline G1. Postboard bring in standard enchantment/artifact hate.

Not having green hurts (Abrupt Decay, Nature's Claim, Force of Vigor, Reverent Silence are probably the top answers), but white still has a lot and blue has bounce. Any of these cards would work, and some are Wishable:

Fragmentize
Void Snare
Wear // Tear
Echoing Truth
Seal of Cleansing
Serenity


Fragmentize doesn't see much Legacy play but I think it's underrated. 4cmc is just enough to kill Leylines, along with most other problems. It's Wishable and only costs 1 mana, which makes a difference in a deck trying to be fast. The drawback is, like Nature's Claim, it doesn't kill Chalice of the Void @ 1. Leyline is often found in decks running Chalice so we don't want our only answers to be 1 cmc.

Maybe something like 2 Serenity (ETutorable) + 1 Wear // Tear + 1 Fragmentize (wishable) + 1 Echoing Truth

Brainstorm and Ponder help find sideboard cards, so I think keeping Ponder will be important.

My current working sideboard is this

//Wishboard: 5
1 Fragmentize
1 Massacre
1 Grapeshot
1 Tome Scour
1 Echo of Eons

//Other Sideboard: 10
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Serenity
1 Wear // Tear
1 Echoing Truth
1 Pithing Needle
2 Defense Grid


Massacre - pretty standard answer to hatebears & Wishable

Echo of Eons - Hail Mary. If you completely mess up, you can Wish -> LED -> Echo for a new hand.

Defense Grid - stops Islands, as well as their love for Surgicals

Pithing Needle - Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, planeswalkers, etc. Tutorable.

Echoing Truth - catch-all: Leylines, Chalice, tokens, Marit Lage, Revoker, hatebears, etc

Wear//Tear - Can 2-for-1 to answer multiple hate pieces (e.g. Leyline + Chalice/Sphere). May or may not be better than Seal of Cleansing (tutorable).

Silent Gravestone - protect from things like Faerie Macabre, Surgical Extraction, and Scavenging Ooze. Tutorable.

Why not just run something like a surgical in the maindeck? It can be cast multiple times from graveyard and acts as maindeck grave hate. It just doesn't stop Progenitus but that should be okay game 1.

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Originally Posted by mistercakes

Why not just run something like a surgical in the maindeck? It can be cast multiple times from graveyard and acts as maindeck grave hate. It just doesn't stop Progenitus but that should be okay game 1.

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Instead of Burning Wish into an alternate wincon you mean? Not sure Surgical is better. Burning Wish can also find other answers pre-combo.

Freeze Storm:

Maindeck (60)
4 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
4 Gamble
4 Veil of Summer
4 Brain Freeze
1 Grapeshot
4 Echo of Eons
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mox Opal
3 Defense Grid
4 Underworld Breach
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

Sideboard (15)
2 Hope of Ghirapur
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Echoing Truth
2 Crash
2 Reverent Silence
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Silent Gravestone

Looking at the posted list so far i was not really sure about it.
I started to test yesterday and that what i got together so far.
I had follow thoughts in my mind:

How do we make it better than TES/ANT?
What should be the win condition?
Which shell should we use?

The shell for me is pretty clear and took the idea from TES.
Playing more artifact to play them out is great.
I wanna keep the burg manabase that allows us to play cards like decay. It's an important sb card because it takes cage or spellbomb instant speed and uncounterable against delver or other decks. Not sure if this shell needs any basic lands.
Also the manabase allows us to play more tutors like gamble and entomb.
Basically with this tutors we play each card 8 times.
The most common engine is echo of eons. I think this card is broken in this shell and is in a way a own wincondition.
This deck goes off really fast and with an early echo we give the oppenent a random 7 card hand which will mostly be worse than the one they keept if this happens in the early turns.
This deck actually grinds quit good with veil and defense grid.
The most deck have problems to interact early. Sure it happens that they have a double fow but thats rately the case.

Also this deck has a ton of lines to go off. Even in the mid/late game you can play something like artifacts into brainfreeze target yourself into echo.
Gamble is sure random but if the card is looking for something you mostly have a 70-80% chance to keep the searched card.
Also discard an echo does not matter at all.
This deck is really gy based. For now there is not a lot of gy hate but this could change in the future. However an anti gy sb is probably better than an alternate wincon sb. The sb of the deck plays really well around hate even better than dredge with all the tutors
There is still room to improve.
What do you think?

Greets

i think it's pretty hard to rely on finding a breach with only 4 brainstorm and 4 breach, gamble isn't really reliable.

I don't suggest this but you could find Breach with Brainfreeze, Entomb or Gamble if you're playing a Noxious Revival. Also, Hall of Heliod's Generosity

hall is a really good idea, it allows for brain freeze to be a true slow tutor along with enlightened tutor.

Gamble is insane with echo. Also echo is a great engine.
People should give it a try

have another idea. this fits under the glass cannon builds, but it's a lot of fun. summoner's pact + street wraith + manamorphose + land grant is a way to generate more graveyard count. belcher is a more reliable way to find a win condition other than depending entirely on the enchantment.


// 60 Maindeck
// 20 Artifact
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Mox Opal
4 Goblin Charbelcher

// 11 Creature
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Street Wraith
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Wild Cantor

// 4 Enchantment
4 Underworld Breach

// 14 Instant
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Brain Freeze
4 Manamorphose
2 Seething Song

// 3 Land
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island

// 8 Sorcery
4 Land Grant
4 Rite of Flame


btw i like your build with the 4 gamble tes stuff. i goldfished a few hands and it's very powerful. (albeit i did get lucky with gamble a few times)

We need to dedicate 1 sideboard slot for Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. This is a sideboard solution against Leyline of Sanctity. This is better than lab maniac because it survives bolt, fatal push, terminus and plowshares

At least for the builds with protection (like FTW's), I don't think Eons makes sense. This isn't really a storm deck that needs a critical amount of accel and draw to go off, this deck needs to get a specific amount of cards in hand/yard. If you are using Eon that means you have cracked a LED which means either that you already have UB in play to go off or you are hoping to draw into UB AND have the mana to cast it. If the former, you already have two combo pieces are are hoping to draw into BF. Instead of hoping to draw into BF you might as well run Tome scours as BF 5-8. If the latter, you are using EON to find UB and at that point you might as well just run Infernal Tutor which guarantees you get UB.

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Originally Posted by FTW

Not having green hurts

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Crazy idea - running some green land in SB to provide access to Green G2? Or something dumb like -1 Underground Sea, -1 Badlands, +1 Tropical Island, +1 Taiga (in the mana base from Post 54)

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Originally Posted by Pdingo

Gamble is insane with echo. Also echo is a great engine.
People should give it a try

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Interesting build. The artifact mana and MD Defense Grid look strong. Have you tested it much?

I like Veil of Summer, it's been strong in TES, and having green cards post-SB seems a lot better.

The list I posted earlier started off with 4 Gamble and 4 Entomb (and 4 Enlightened Tutor). 1-mana tutors are the perfect spot for this deck to curve out smoothly.

After testing > 30 games with that build, I found Gamble backfired a lot. It's not just the risk of discarding the card you tutored. That doesn't happen often. But you could discard something else useful. You need at least 5 specific cards to go off: 2 mana sources, a way to find Breach, a way to find LED, and a way to find Brain Freeze. Often you need protection too. That's a lot of important cards to keep. Sometimes Gamble makes you discard your 2nd mana source and then have no way to find a certain color of mana, or you discard your other tutor to find the other combo piece, or your protection spell, or LED (without enough cards in the GY to Escape both LED and Brain Freeze to start the chain). If you play out those other cards first, you increase the probability of discarding the card you tutored. Catch 22. The problem is you discard after tutoring, so you don't know what you're going to lose before you have to decide what to get. When that happens, I would pass the turn 4+ times topdecking bricks hoping to find that missing piece to go off. In Legacy, that's just a loss. Especially after mulligans, > 70% of cards in hand are ones I don't want to discard.

So when you tested with Gamble, did you have any consistency problems? How often did it fizzle or slow you down a bunch of turns? I'd love to have that card in the deck if it actually works.

Enlightened Tutor was by far the best tutor for me. All 3 (E Tutor, Gamble, Entomb) are card disadvantage, but ETutor both gets the card to hand and guarantees you don't lose anything you need or open you up to gravehate before you're ready to go off. Unfortunately it's a different color.

The other questionable card is Chrome Mox. I started with that too. But with 4 different colors of cards plus artifacts and lands and so many cards you want to keep, how often does Chrome Mox produce the color you want? Does it end up tapping for "colorless" (i.e. an irrelevant color), and if so, would another mana source be better? Also exiling the card is a drawback. You need 5 cards to go off. Mox reduces your hand size by 1, and neither card goes to the GY, reducing your initial fuel to start Escaping. Those are issues I encountered. How is it in your build?

TES is a different deck. It's much less linear about the cards it needs to keep, so I could see Chrome Mox (and even Gamble) having less downside. New TES builds also dodge graveyard vulnerability. This is an A+B+C combo deck that needs protection against stormhate and gravehate, so there are just a lot of specific cards you need to keep, and that's where things were getting awkward for me.

How is Echo as an engine? When do you use it? Do you often have to cast it and pass the turn or cast it without Defense Grid in play? There's a risk of giving the opponent a full grip of disruption.

FTW is right- this is not really a storm deck so it should not be treated like one. Storm decks generally play by assembling a critical mass of [draw/search] and [acceleration] in hand and then going off. This deck needs specific cards in hand or in the yard. Generally you need the following:

• 2 Manasources (lands or accel) in hand
• 1 LED or Enlightened Tutor or Entomb in hand or graveyard (if in grave then 3 other cards in grave)
• 1 Brainfreeze or Tome Scour or Burning Wish in hand or graveyard or Entomb in hand or graveyard (if in grave then 3 other cards in grave)
• 1 Underworld Breach in hand or Enlightened Tutor in hand [or if LED is in hand a Burning Wish (to search up Infernal Tutor) in hand]
• 1 [Preferably] Protection