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

1.) Molten Psyche or whateverthecardthatsterribleiscalled, is bad. Don't play cards that are only good after Ad Nauseam, ever. You've already won.

2.) Read the opening post people. Cards and topics are in there, it's organized and will stop repetitive questions.

3.) Xantid vs. Chant, they both get the job done.

4.) I don't post because I'm too busy in my last semester, It'll pick up after graduation. Slightly too because I've argued against dumb ideas for too long. If people want to stray away from my winning list, let 'em.

5.) Stop ruining my thread people.

How was everyone's Spring Break?

Mine involved the following: Legalizing myself to smoke weed. Waking up in an unknown part of town. Staying up till 4am with women. Smoking weed.

Also, I think everyone is aware that cards that are only good after Ad Nauseam are bad (well, most of the world...).

Bryant, do you still play? I haven't been seeing you in any Top 8s, I personally always enjoy your reports, so get back to winning. Also, put my report for SCG LA n the opening post. Maybe even my primer.

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Originally Posted by lorddotm

Bryant, do you still play? I haven't been seeing you in any Top 8s, I personally always enjoy your reports, so get back to winning. Also, put my report for SCG LA n the opening post. Maybe even my primer.

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Not really when school is in session. I've played in three events since last summer, two top 16's and a scrub.

Your stuff was already in the opening post. READ THE OPENING POST!

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

Not really when school is in session. I've played in three events since last summer, two top 16's and a scrub.

Your stuff was already in the opening post. READ THE OPENING POST!

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Are you going to Providence?

And I failed. My bad.

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Originally Posted by Dia_Bot

I'm actually convinced that at this point there is very little left to talk about.
Everything that should be discussed has already been discussed and thoroughly tested and all the info is already available.
This thread has really helped me out when I started playing TES a long time ago and I can only advice newer players to:
1) read this thread instead of just asking everything over and over and over again...
2) (and pay attention because this one is crucial) Actually playtest to figure things out for yourself!

/end rant

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Truth, this is actually a pretty good thread for the first 50 pages or so (until it ended up in Decks to Beat, from what I gather). Tons of info; reading it all + playtesting = you will actually know the reason behind card choices and won't make horrible suggestions! There really isn't much left to say at this point though... list is very tight with some meta flex in the sideboard.

People have been helpful in answering my situation specific questions at least :)

I'm bringing TES to a GPT on Sunday - in for disaster. I'll make sure to take notes so I can ask good questions and have it pointed out where I went wrong. Maybe I'll get to play against Zoo all day!


PS: late nights and weed = a good spring break

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Originally Posted by Bryant Cook

4.) I don't post because I'm too busy in my last semester, It'll pick up after graduation. Slightly too because I've argued against dumb ideas for too long. If people want to stray away from my winning list, let 'em.

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Eh, not finding the pyroblasts as necessary these days. Swarms are back in vogue.

Best tourney ever.

I stepped in a pile of dog shit walking to the site - pretty much an omen for the rest of the day. Only 8 people showed up = cut to top 8. I lost round 1. Fun times.

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Originally Posted by TUMBLES

I'm bringing TES to a GPT on Sunday - in for disaster. I'll make sure to take notes so I can ask good questions and have it pointed out where I went wrong.

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Originally Posted by TUMBLES

Best tourney ever.

I stepped in a pile of dog shit walking to the site - pretty much an omen for the rest of the day. Only 8 people showed up = cut to top 8. I lost round 1. Fun times.

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Good notes :/

Don't hate bro :-/



In seriousness, was a lot harder to take notes than I thought. Got distracted with playing and stayed up all night before to finish a paper, was all I could do to focus on the game.

Pretty much looked like:

Game 1: Duress ---> take relevant counter magic since I plan to go off next turn ---> he drew a Force and appropriately counters my mana, I don't recover before I die.

Game 2: Swarm on board, Ad Naus from 20 + land drop in hand, in response to attack trigger he Cliques ---> grabs my Ad Nauseam (Was not Rit/Rit, so I couldn't cast it with the bugger on the stack) ---> I draw dead until I die to Clique beatdown.

Hey guys,

I went to a 23-man GP Trial yesterday and decided to play this deck last second when I saw that the metagame was awful for my Lands deck. It was 5 rounds with a cut to top 8. I didn't drop a single game, and I now have 3 byes! My only difference between this and the stock list is that I run 4 Xantid Swarm instead of 4 Pyroblast in the SB. I really feel like this tilts the Fish matchup to being relatively favorable while sacrificing a lot vs. Countertop, which I feel is on a significant decline in competitive tournaments.

Some of the good plays I noticed myself making were:
-Not being afraid to mulligan and not being afraid to use Diminishing Returns when needed. I went off easily on a critical turn 2 on a mull to 5 against combo Elves.
-Adding mana for no reason off of Gemstone Mines so I could bust them in response to a timely Price of Progress. I had 10 gobbos in play already against Burn, and it was a good play considering the situation.
-Not boarding out Empty the Warrens against Cephalid Breakfast even though he was convinced I should have. He named Ad Nauseum with a turn 2 Meddling Mage (which I thought should have been Infernal Tutor), and I simply destroyed him with Goblins while using Chants proactively to keep him from possibly laying down his combo dudes (no Vial in play obv.). I thought it was strange that he thought I should have boarded it out, as he essentially tries to play as the control player post-SB, and 12+ Goblins early is essentially game.

I'm sure I made some questionable decisions as well, but it is not easy to notice what they were when I wasn't punished for them.

I have never played this deck before in a tournament, but I playtest it a lot. I have a couple questions for experienced players, so please only answer if you are quite certain in your response.

The situations:
When going for Ad Nauseum off of Infernal, let's say I have one additional mana of my choice for Ad Nauseum. Let's also assume that I have already made a land drop.

1) I have not seen Burning Wish, Dark Ritual, or Rite of Flame.
2) I have not seen Burning Wish, Rite of Flame, but I have seen a Dark Ritual.
3) I have not seen Burning Wish, Dark Ritual, but I have seen a Rite of Flame.
4) I have not seen Dark Ritual, Rite of Flame, but I have seen a Burning Wish.

To simplify, here is what is left in my deck when I am planning to Ad Nauseum:

1) 3 Infernals, 4 Wishes, 4 Dark Rits, 4 Rite of Flames
2) 3 Infernals, 4 Wishes, 3 Dark Rits, 4 Rite of Flames
3) 3 Infernals, 4 Wishes, 4 Dark Rits, 3 Rite of Flames
4) 3 Infernals, 3 Wishes, 4 Dark Rits, 4 Rite of Flames

Obviously the numbers will often be skewed even more than here, but this is a good place to start. Would you float a black or a red mana in these situations? Would the number of Lotus Petals or Lion's Eye Diamonds affect your decision? Would the deck you are playing against (and hence the effectiveness of Empty the Warrens as a possible win) affect your decision?

There are so many things to consider here. The fact that there are more black sources in the deck for Chrome Mox is even something to consider. These are very basic situations that I really need to make confident plans for before I bring this to the next tournament.

Thanks in advance. If anyone could answer this with a level of confidence and reasoning behind it, I would be grateful.

@patrunkenphat : Good report with cool plays, thanks for posting. I don't have enough experience with the deck to answer your questions (you could possibly use the float % for Diminishing Returns in the OP as guideline though) but have some of my own.

For people playing Xantid Swarm in the SB, I have noticed some run a Tropical Island and some don't.. If you don't run it, would you side it in for a Volcanic Island or a Chrome Mox (or else?) if you had it, but prefer to have more space in the SB? Or do you not run it as you don't think it is useful? Does it depend on the number of decks you intend to side in Swarm against? Would you side it in against anything with Force of Will, or Force+Daze, Force+Spell Pierce, etc? For reference, the usual lists have 10 ways to make G in the maindeck (4 gemstone, 4 petal, 2 city), and with a Trop it goes up to 15. I'm not counting LED for GGG and Chrome Mox imprinting Swarm or Krosan Grip here...

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Originally Posted by Patrunkenphat7

Obviously the numbers will often be skewed even more than here, but this is a good place to start. Would you float a black or a red mana in these situations? Would the number of Lotus Petals or Lion's Eye Diamonds affect your decision? Would the deck you are playing against (and hence the effectiveness of Empty the Warrens as a possible win) affect your decision?

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I prefer to keep red mana floating for burning wish, especially if you have seen 2 LED's already. The point is that Infernal Tutor requires hellbent, which after Ad Nauseam usually means that you need to also find a LED.
When you keep red mana floating, you only need to find one initial mana source to generate a lot of black mana of your dark rituals.

It's situational off course, but I would certainly take the number of LED's you've seen into the equation.

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Originally Posted by bennotsi

I prefer to keep red mana floating for burning wish, especially if you have seen 2 LED's already. The point is that Infernal Tutor requires hellbent, which after Ad Nauseam usually means that you need to also find a LED.
When you keep red mana floating, you only need to find one initial mana source to generate a lot of black mana of your dark rituals.

It's situational off course, but I would certainly take the number of LED's you've seen into the equation.

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It is true that you will likely be casting Burning Wish if you have seen a couple LED's, however you would only need one initial red mana source as well for the Burning Wish, and you still need 2 black for the Tendrils, leading me to believe that the number of Rituals and Rites would be important at that point. If you assuming that you are not going to find LED, the next step is deciding what accel is more likely to pop up based off what you have already seen. The only real benefit to floating red over black in that situation would be the possibility of imprinting Duress onto Chrome Mox, which I suppose is legitimate; however, you must also take into account the possibility of flipping a Tendrils. Also depending on the number of Rites you have seen, future Rites have the possibility of producing less, more, or equal many than Ritual.

This is very complicated, and I am trying to find a concrete method for determining what mana should be floating. People might have a 'feeling', just like me, but I am wondering if anyone knows for certain which is better.

It depends on whether you have made a land drop prior to casting ad nauseam, along with how many chrome mox and petal's are left in the deck. I find that after I resolve ad nauseam at a safe life total which is 14 or more typically I find everything I need to combo off because this deck is so well equipped to win after resolving AdN at a safe life total. If I had to choose between a black or red mana floating though it's situational depending on how many LED's are left and how many infernal tutors and burning wishes are left to be revealed. If I only have 2 LEDs left in deck I would float red for burning wish since it doesn't rely on you being hellbent. This is especially true if only 1 LED if left in deck. If 0 are left in deck, I think you should straight win probably lol.

Not that TES needs more ways to win, but does Phyrexian Unlife (or whatever that card will be called in English) deserve a spot?

It essentially reads, play Ad Nauseam and draw your whole deck without consequence, for 2 extra mana (as the two life initial investment will be inconsequential).

That said, it also works against Tendrils, requiring a Tendrils for 20 and a Grapeshot kicker (sorry UB ANT).

This should also get around 3-sphere as the phyrexian mana should count for CMC.

Additionally, it will buy you 8 extra life (-2 initial life +10 poison) against aggro decks that can't deal with it. This could be beneficial against something like Pyrostatic Pillar.

Just a thought...

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Originally Posted by Andy_V

This should also get around 3-sphere as the phyrexian mana should count for CMC.
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I don't believe Phyrexian Unlife uses Phyrexian Mana in its casting cost.

However, even if it did, you would still have to pay 3 total mana for it under a Trinisphere. Trinisphere only cares about how much mana was paid to cast a spell, not the spell's cmc (thus, FoW still costs minimally 3 mana even if you use its alternate cost).

Oh, sorry for that... got too excited for a minute. It doesn't use phyrexian mana (at least based on the JP pictures), so now is a much less interesting choice. Lame.

There will likely not be anything for TES then out of NPH... Guess we'll just have to keep winning the "old-fashioned" way.

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Originally Posted by Zamussels

For people playing Xantid Swarm in the SB, I have noticed some run a Tropical Island and some don't.. If you don't run it, would you side it in for a Volcanic Island or a Chrome Mox (or else?) if you had it, but prefer to have more space in the SB? Or do you not run it as you don't think it is useful?

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I actually tried a singleton Tropical Island strategy and boarded it in against decks like Merfolk, where I wanted both the extra land to help fight against Wasteland and the green mana to cast Xantid Swarm. Unfortunately, I was seeing the Trop in opening hands without Xantid Swarm or I was seeing Xantid Swarms in hands full of rainbow mana (so the Trop was still unnecessary). It wasn't that it was bad most of the time; it was that it just wasn't needed. So I cut it for a relevant sideboard card but am still running Xantid Swarms. With Lotus Petals and rainbow lands, I haven't had an issue casting it when I need to.

What do you players think about the new Mental Misstep card in TES/ against TES? We essentially get to use Duress but see it countered for 2 life now and let them have Spell Peirce mana open on a on the draw situation. This card is busted nuts against most of our answers though. Is it wise to use a card that cost us 2 life when we run Ad Nauseam? Only City of Brass does this and it is a 2-of in Kobe Bryant's list. Aside from our fetches anyway.

I think this card is good and deserves discussion on how it will effect TES's line of plays.

Counterspell + Lion's Eye Diamond = no.

As for fighting it, I think the correct plan is just don't give a fuck and play some disruption, just like how you fight Force of Will.