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8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Greetings! Thank you for surfing the web to 8 Ball Storm.
I present to you my vision of the new Storm deck in Legacy. 8 Ball Tendrils - right to the dome! Look out the window right now. It's a little gray, overcast, and, you know, it could just be that a Storm is a brewin'.
As some of you astute Storm player might spot right away, this is a land-light, Tutor-heavy, 2 preordain, 1 Tendrils, PiF iteration of Storm. I think this a perfect starting point for a powerful new Storm combination deck for Legacy.
- Lands
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Verdant Catacombs
Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Petition
4 Dark Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Past in Flames
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Thoughtseize
Sideboard
SB: 2 Xantid Swarm
SB: 2 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 2 Dread of Night
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Tropical Island
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Ad Nauseam
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
There's a lot that goes into theory, and deck building, but here's what we have, and how it helps us kill our opponent dead.
Our business: 1 Tendrils of Agony to kill with and 1 Past in Flames to build our Storm-count. These are 2 of the most broken cards in Legacy. Everyone is trying to abuse Dig Through Time. Cool. We're going to kill you with many, many Drillz before you can ever cast it. Nice creatures - you're dead. That's one fine Ichorid you have there - you're dead. Did you cast a ponder? - you're dead. That's how we do. We play 9 spells and then fire off a big, fat, juicy, lethal Tendrils of Agony. Always remember your Storm trigger, folks!
Our Power : 8 Tutors. This is something new for us in Legacy. With Origins' Dark Petition we now have 2 on-colour Tutor spells. It's true that Infernal Tutor is still our most powerful Tutor because it costs a mere 2 mana to cast, but with a second Tutor we now are more consistent than ever. And consistency is power. From >5 mana we can begin a Past in Flames kill with Dark Petition. It will also net us 6 mana when combined with a single LED from 5 mana, which is good enough to either begin a Past in Flames loop, or simply grab Infernal Tutor for Tendrils of Agony. Simply put, we are not only more consistent and more powerful, but we have more options than before.
It should be not ignored that we get to use Brainstorm and Ponder and to lesser extent Preordain to speed up, re-draw, hide cards, improve our hand, and build storm - all for the low, low cost of just 1 blue mana. We are storm, we have the ability to turn Brainstorm into Ancestral Recall and can just go off from almost nothing. Our Ponders are better than any other Ponders. A Peordain can just win us the game outright. These powerful draw spells or cantrips are the glue that hold our power together, supplementing an elegant array of 4-ofs in our deck.
Our Gasoline : 4 Dark Ritual and 4 Cabal Ritual. Rituals are spells that are temporary mana accelerators, and fuel our deck into overdrive. These are the best 8 fast-mana spells in the format - 8 ball again! They are instants and net us a bunch of mana on the cheap. You will cast some number of these in just about every game. Most importantly, they are all black in colour. No red or green here - just smooth, quick, dark, black mana. Tendrils of Agony is black and Past in Flames is red, so just remember that when fetching, or activating Lion's Eye Diamond and Lotus Petal.
4 Lion's Eye Diamond and 4 Lotus Petal. That's another 8 ball! These seemingly goofy 0 mana artifacts can kick us into high gear, while building storm. Infernal Tutor in concert with Lion's Eye Diamond is Black Lotus and Demonic Tutor (just please remember to retain priority and activate the diamond at mana speed!). Lotus petal is 1 mana and 1 Storm - and that is what is know as a two-for-one. The reason Storm is so brutally fast, hard to stop and resilient has a lot to do with these fast-mana artifacts. They're a lot like our rituals, but they will give us mana of any colour of our choosing. Usually, just 1 mana of a colour that is not black will do the trick. You will be abusing these cards with regularity on our fundamental turns or, in some cases, to play around permission.
4 Polluted Delta and 4 Non-Polluted Delta fetchlands of your choosing. 8 Ball means 8 fetchlands and here's 8 reasons to play an octet of these lands:
1.) to pair with Brainstorm so that we only draw the cards we want
2.) to fix our mana
3.) to pair with Ponder so that we only draw the cards we want
4.) to pair with Preordain so that we only draw the cards we want
5.) to thin the deck, which ups our spells-to-lands ratio by a non-zero amount
6.) to make sure we have access to basic Island
7.) to make sure we have access to basic Swamp
8.) to achieve 7 cards in our graveyard to Threshold for Cabal Ritual
I hope this convinces us that 8 is the magic number - we're 8 Ballin'.
Our Interaction : 4 Gitaxian Probe, 3 Cabal Therapy and 3 Thoughtseize. Since New Phyrexia, Gitaxian Probe has been a must-have in Storm. Free spells are good. Card draw is great! And INFORMATION is even better. Now we're playing combo; so why not combo Probe with Cabal Therapy? Normally Cabal Therapy can have a miss rate and a hit rate depending on your experience, but Gitaxian Probe changes all of that. Pants your opponent and then strip them down until they have nothing left. It may sound sexy, and it is. There's a very good reason we're running this suite of sweet cards. Finally, 3 Thoughtseize are here because we are an Ad Nauseam deck no longer! This means we can throw our life total right into the wind. And it's important for us to be able to steal cards and turns and games from our opponent. That's precisely what Thoughtseize is for, and it is a huge upgrade from Duress or Inquisition of Kozilek.
Sideboarding should be crafted with a premeditation (or premonition) of bumps along the road you might encounter during your tournament matches, and as such, you need to have a plan in place so that you can put the petal to the metal. You will always have to fade certain matchups, players and cards. Do not over sideboard. As a general guide-line, board out Preordains first, then some discard spells. If you feel the need to board more than that many cards, you may need to reexamine the match up, the sideboard choices and yourself.
Now go forth! Drop a big fat 8 ball on everyone next time you play Legacy. Tendrils the you-know-what out of everyone! Remember your Storm triggers and don't forget to retain priority with your Infernal Tutor on the stack with Lion's Eye Diamond. You're playing with power! Thanks for reading.
Zachariah Henzel 8/18/15
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
ok so there is nothing new, just substitute all the "tech"/non core cards of Ant builds with Dark Petition = new deck :laugh:
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
So... Why would one run this over TES/ANT? What's the upside of dropping Ad Nauseam?
Why should someone play with your Balls over the regular lists?
I fear for a major Lemnearing in your feature, lol.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Echelon
So... Why would one run this over TES/ANT? What's the upside of dropping Ad Nauseam?
Why should someone play with your Balls over the regular lists?
I fear for a major Lemnearing in your feature, lol.
I feel this is a faster, more consistent Storm deck than ANT for, one thing. Dark Petition gives you some better draws and you don't have to worry about life totals. Past in Flames is a busted, busted card that you should use 100% of the time. This is more consistent than TES, while just about 1 whole turn slower. I have always preferred instant rituals to sorcery speed. When it comes down to it ,Tendrils of Agony is better than Empty the Warrens. I've never wanted to rely on the attack step when I can just win in one turn, but Empty the Warrens is a good utility card to have against RUG and some similarly crafted BUG and Grixis Delver lists that are prevalent. It's easier to get a much higher Storm count when you combo-off on the fundamental turn, which may or may not really matter. So you play this deck because it's a more powerful version of ANT that goes a lot harder and higher and because it is more focused than TES. Both of those decks are fine and certainly have inspired this new Storm deck. 8B is the best of both and if you have Storm, I recommend shelling out a few bones to pick up your set of Dark Petition before it becomes more prohibitively expensive, like Infernal Tutor, Burning Wish and Lion's Eye Diamond before it.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Meh, I'm not a storm pilot. I just like all of the theory behind the decks.
Consistence, sure, but having a Dark Petition countered sucks the big one. That means you're taking a hit in the resilience department.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sloshthedark
ok so there is nothing new, just substitute all the "tech"/non core cards of Ant builds with Dark Petition = new deck :laugh:
I think Dark Petition is a great new piece of technology. It allows for more permutations of both draws and kills and can be better than Infernal Tutor in certain spots when you would have only 4 mana on resolution of your Tutor - you instead generate an additional 2 mana when you resolve the Spell Mastery trigger. It's new and it's weird and it's powerful. I think Dark Petition is an improvement on the resident ANT list, even if ever so slight, and I see no reason Storm decks won't look more like this in the future.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Echelon
Meh, I'm not a storm pilot. I just like all of the theory behind the decks.
The theory behind this build is not unlike quad-lazer Dredge decks or 4-of descending into 2-of builds of RUG from earlier this year - max out on your business. This build is svelte, smoothe and extremely focused. The 2-ofs and 3-ofs are more packages than simply x number of cards and contributes to the deck design as a whole.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
zachinflames
The theory behind this build is not unlike quad-lazer Dredge decks or 4-of descending into 2-of builds of RUG from earlier this year - max out on your business.
And that's why I like to tinker with my Manaless Dredge :wink:. It all boils down to how much of which business can you pack in the basic 60 and how does that influence things like speed, consistency and resilience. Especially the resilience part is an important one. If speed and consistency were enough, Belcher & buddies would see a lot more play. Resilience is also the one thing people like to trade in for the other two.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
zachinflames
I think Dark Petition is a great new piece of technology. It allows for more permutations of both draws and kills and can be better than Infernal Tutor in certain spots when you would have only 4 mana on resolution of your Tutor - you instead generate an additional 2 mana when you resolve the Spell Mastery trigger. It's new and it's weird and it's powerful. I think Dark Petition is an improvement on the resident ANT list, even if ever so slight, and I see no reason Storm decks won't look more like this in the future.
I think we're being trolled here. From a mana perspective there are no advantages of Dark Petition versus Infernal Tutor (Spell Snare nonewithstanding).
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Echelon
I fear for a major Lemnearing in your feature, lol.
Who called my name?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
davelin
I think we're being trolled here. From a mana perspective there are no advantages of Dark Petition versus Infernal Tutor (Spell Snare nonewithstanding).
no, its just somewho who read Carstens old article on Dark Petition and (maybe) stumbled over Caleb Durwards T16 list and tries to claim the fame now, while every ANT/TES olayer I know is tinkering with Dark Petition since it being spoilered.
its just a pretty bad and ultimately sad attempt to get attention.
edit:
sources: http://www.starcitygames.com/article...-Top-Tier.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/article...istNTutor.html
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lemnear
I think you meant Caleb Scherer.
Edit: Forgot to mention, substituting flex spots in ANT for Dark Petition doesn't warrant its own thread.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dr_D
I think you meant Caleb Scherer.
Edit: Forgot to mention, substituting flex spots in ANT for Dark Petition doesn't warrant its own thread.
duh! Embarassing mistake as I even quoted the article with his list. Sorry!
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dr_D
Edit: Forgot to mention, substituting flex spots in ANT for Dark Petition doesn't warrant its own thread.
If your namesake card is a flex spot, it's probably time for a new thread.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jrsthethird
If your namesake card is a flex spot, it's probably time for a new thread.
It's that way since the printing of PIF. You can ask a Mod to change the threads name if anybody really cares.
No one gives a fuck if you run Preordains, Petitions, SDT, Gifts Ungiven or additional Storm Spells/PIF in the flex slots. It's idiotic to claim having developed a new deck based on filling these flex slots with your favorite stuff and this thread falls into the same category like "Grinding Station" or "Legacy TPS" from what I have seen. None deserves it's own thread.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lemnear
None deserves it's own thread.
That is not quite true. In my opinion, a deck that play its cards differently -even if these cards are the same- is a different deck. For example, Grinding Station cares more about its spell ressources (cantrips, discard), whereas ANT plays them fast and aggressively. This was demonstrated by Jona several times in the ANT thread and in his blog (Storm Hands article shows the diverstiy of plays possible if the deck is Grinding Station or ANT/ also see his choice of Preordain over Ponder because of selecting vs. searching).
On the other hand, it is highly questionable if this deck (8 Balls whatever) deserves it own thread because it is basically ANT.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Why not just 4 grim tutor instead?
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Weapon X
Why not just 4 grim tutor instead?
I believe the argument, from the sources that Lemnear gave, is that Grim Tutor costs 3 and loses you life, whereas Dark Petition most likely costs 2 thanks to getting 3 back, and doesn't lose you life. I believe that was the main reason.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
square_two
I believe the argument, from the sources that Lemnear gave, is that
Grim Tutor costs 3 and loses you life, whereas
Dark Petition most likely costs 2 thanks to getting 3 back, and doesn't lose you life. I believe that was the main reason.
An issue which doubles once you use Grim Tutor for a full PIF loop and cast Grim->PIF->Grim->ToA. That's a full two mana and 6 life difference! Makes one hell of a difference if you play against Burn or Delver ;)
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Hey, so if you guys could actually help me in finding the correct location/forum for which this piece belongs, I would be very thankful. That seems to be the biggest issue here, and as a newer Source member I want to acknowledge this. If this belongs in a completely different area on the forums here, I definitely agree we can move it, as not to upset order of things. I would argue that this is, in fact, a new/developing deck for Legacy.
We could call this 4 Petition ANT, but there's no real Ad Nauseam kill that I like, and frankly, I don't think it belongs in 75 after testing. I think it's a different deck, whose speed is comparable to TES and to ANT but doesn't sacrifice consistency. This deck is focused on the tutor effects that are so powerful in this format; you get play these 8 really powerful sorcery spells Tendrils for around 30-40 life.
I was working on incorporating 3 Cmc's such as Grim Tutor, Death Wish or Rhystic Tutor into the deck, but I don't feel that it needs anymore of these power sorcery spells. As far as I know, I don't think anyone has tried to construct a 4 Grim Tutor, Past in Flames, Tendrils of Agony deck, probably because that 60 is prohibitively expensive, incredibly hard to assemble in real life, and untested and just maybe not that good. I think Dark Petition opens up new lines, new problems and new solutions to things we haven't already seen. Origins is new and I would be suspect of anyone who claims to know that Dark Petition is not a new piece of technology - an innovation of sorts. So I have shelved the more traditional ANT for 8 Ball and I urge any of you storm enthusiasts to give it a go as well. Thanks for reading.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
A few minor changes to the main deck -
4 Cabal Therapy and 2 Thoughtseize has been really nice as opposed to the 3-3 split I initially came up with. For the full effect, 2 Thougtseize can definitely be worth an inclusion into the sideboard. Drawing an early Thoughtseize is very nice in addition to Cabal Therapy.
My Sideboard currently is :
2 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
3 Dread of Night
3 Ashen Rider
1 Echoing Truth
1 Tendrils of Agony
I'm planning on fading Miracles mostly, and crushing SnT, D&T and having the best discard suite I could ask for. That's my plan rn and as always, thank you for reading.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lemnear
An issue which doubles once you use Grim Tutor for a full PIF loop and cast Grim->PIF->Grim->ToA. That's a full two mana and 6 life difference! Makes one hell of a difference if you play against Burn or Delver ;)
The times where you would want 2 Grim Tutor are definitely all-in situations with a high amount of risk. Grim Tutor for Infernal Tutor w/ an LED generates 4 mana and with Dark Petition generates just 3. Ultimately, in big mana situations where >9 mana is in pool you could simply start a Dark Petition loop searching for another copy or Infernal. It all depends on the contents of your hand, if you have one, and your graveyard.
Oddly I've been using the non-Hellbent feature of Infernal Tutor more often than not because Dark Petition doesn't care about your hand-size. You're behooved to have multiple rituals. Spell Mastery should be a condition that is almost always satisfied. I've had to Petition cold just once, which was pretty ugly, but being able to more naturally tutor a piece of sideboard in Echoing Truth or Abrupt Decay, and keep your hand has its benefits.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
zachinflames
Hey, so if you guys could actually help me in finding the correct location/forum for which this piece belongs, I would be very thankful. That seems to be the biggest issue here, and as a newer Source member I want to acknowledge this. If this belongs in a completely different area on the forums here, I definitely agree we can move it, as not to upset order of things. I would argue that this is, in fact, a new/developing deck for Legacy.
We could call this 4 Petition ANT, but there's no real Ad Nauseam kill that I like, and frankly, I don't think it belongs in 75 after testing. I think it's a different deck, whose speed is comparable to TES and to ANT but doesn't sacrifice consistency. This deck is focused on the tutor effects that are so powerful in this format; you get play these 8 really powerful sorcery spells Tendrils for around 30-40 life.
I was working on incorporating 3 Cmc's such as Grim Tutor, Death Wish or Rhystic Tutor into the deck, but I don't feel that it needs anymore of these power sorcery spells. As far as I know, I don't think anyone has tried to construct a 4 Grim Tutor, Past in Flames, Tendrils of Agony deck, probably because that 60 is prohibitively expensive, incredibly hard to assemble in real life, and untested and just maybe not that good. I think Dark Petition opens up new lines, new problems and new solutions to things we haven't already seen. Origins is new and I would be suspect of anyone who claims to know that Dark Petition is not a new piece of technology - an innovation of sorts. So I have shelved the more traditional ANT for 8 Ball and I urge any of you storm enthusiasts to give it a go as well. Thanks for reading.
We're lucky to have such a polite new member. Welcome! I'm fine with the deck having a thread here, since I don't think the ANT or TES threads want a 4 Dark Petition list discussed without results to back it up. I'm pretty sure there's already another deck or two in this section named 8 Ball or something similar to it, so I wasn't thrilled with the name. I think Dark Petition Tendrils would be a more accurate and descriptive name and would key people into what you're doing right up front instead of having to read through the list and find out it's just ANT plus Dark Petitions. I encourage you to keep testing your list and reporting your findings here. The bar is always high for new cards in this format, so the default position is usually not to test things as much as we should. Ultimately, results speak the loudest, so if your list is good, people will pay attention.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
zachinflames
Hey, so if you guys could actually help me in finding the correct location/forum for which this piece belongs, I would be very thankful. That seems to be the biggest issue here, and as a newer Source member I want to acknowledge this. If this belongs in a completely different area on the forums here, I definitely agree we can move it, as not to upset order of things. I would argue that this is, in fact, a new/developing deck for Legacy.
We could call this 4 Petition ANT, but there's no real Ad Nauseam kill that I like, and frankly, I don't think it belongs in 75 after testing. I think it's a different deck, whose speed is comparable to TES and to ANT but doesn't sacrifice consistency. This deck is focused on the tutor effects that are so powerful in this format; you get play these 8 really powerful sorcery spells Tendrils for around 30-40 life.
I was working on incorporating 3 Cmc's such as Grim Tutor, Death Wish or Rhystic Tutor into the deck, but I don't feel that it needs anymore of these power sorcery spells. As far as I know, I don't think anyone has tried to construct a 4 Grim Tutor, Past in Flames, Tendrils of Agony deck, probably because that 60 is prohibitively expensive, incredibly hard to assemble in real life, and untested and just maybe not that good. I think Dark Petition opens up new lines, new problems and new solutions to things we haven't already seen. Origins is new and I would be suspect of anyone who claims to know that Dark Petition is not a new piece of technology - an innovation of sorts. So I have shelved the more traditional ANT for 8 Ball and I urge any of you storm enthusiasts to give it a go as well. Thanks for reading.
the correct location is in the ANT thread as this is just another mere variant of ANT like the 16 cantrip one or Grinding Station. They have the same fundament, the same core and essentially the same speed (which is tied to t.holded Cabal Rituals).
Speed is ergo not compareable to TES which is a turn 2 deck while all ANT variants aim reach t.hold at turn 3 unless the hand is totally nuts in the first place and if you play 4 Preordains or 4 Dark Petition or whatever else in these flex-slors doesn't affect that at all. There is seriously no reason to go over the outdated name of "ANT" which isn't accurate since the printing of PIF in the first place and therefore even SCG moved away from the term but calls all decks simply "Storm" which is the smartest thing you can do to evade all the dumb naming of subtypes like ANT, TNT, TES, TRS, Grinding Station, etc.. Mind that the deck we know as "Doomsday" is still discussed on this board in the thread named "Fetchland Tendrils" and its maybe an admins duty to change the thread name for these at a given time, but there is no point in starting a new thread just because of the name and replace a thread with a full primer and a lot of compiled knowledge. Its a Cabal Ritual deck and shoukd be discussed in the respecrive thread.
Like most other storm players, I tested with DP in ANT already since the spoilers and this thread gave zero new impulses, but stating the obvious. What it however lacks is a critical analysis of how clunky the deck gets with 8 Tutors, ToA and PIF as natural draws as these cards are basically doing nothing for the first ~3 turns unlike Preordains which would at least feed t.hold and offer the option to dig for lands/rituals/tutors aka creating a wider term of redundancy than DP does. According to my personal testing even three DP is too much and I would rather play 4 Preordains and 2 DP than the other way round for what its worth (Which is funny as 14 lands, 4 Preordains, 2 DP is my current list)
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
If you're going to cut Ad Nauseam, at least brew something cool with Force of Will in it.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
thefringthing
If you're going to cut Ad Nauseam, at least brew something cool with Force of Will in it.
This is still a deck running Infernal Tutor. FoW isn't offering much here anyways.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
I'm going to work on addressing a number of the above mentioned items.
Often times you see the only Counterspell in decks with Dark Ritual is Flusterstorm. I don't really think this is correct; theoretically it's a very hard, aggressive counter and a piece of next-leveling to Flusterstorm another player's Flustestorm. It's much too narrow for my liking. Force of Will interacts extremely poorly in a deck whose only blue spells are pure power and manipulation, and whose aim is to LED the hand size to zero. Swan Songs, Pact of Negation and Daze could be suitable pieces of permission, but really impose a lot of deck building constraints and ultimately affect how you have to build the storm count and our fundamental turn. I would argue to you that Daze is the best and free-est of the free counters and can be used creatively to build storm and even ritual up. But we're not trying to operate a lot quicker than sorcery speed most of the time (the huge exception being Brainstorm).
We are a better discard deck because of the presence of Thoughtseize. It really helps when making decisions to just have perfect information and maximum flexibility. Ultimately, I'm interested not in finding the cool new piece of Counterspell technology but instead achieving the most powerful, consistent and reliable Storm deck. I think the power of consistency is where we win against permission, along with considerate sideboarding.
[As an aside: Necrologia, Quicken and Tendrils-based Storm decks exist, and should you really want to play Force of Will and/or Pact of Negation along side a powerful Storm engine, that would probably more suited to your tastes.]
I think the nomenclature issue needs to be addressed. We're not even playing Ad Nauseam. If we were I could see calling this Ad Nauseam, Ad NauseamX or ANTx. This deck would be a very poor Ad Nauseam deck because of the Dark Petitions. We're at a point where we don't need them and where the name doesn't serve it's purpose. 8 Tutor-Mono Black-Past in Flames, Quadlazer-Storm, Rice Crispy-Total-Chex Storm - I just kind of like the way 8 Ball sounds, so come off of it.
I think we can all agree this is far more powerful and consistent than anything with Grinding Station in it. That particular deck is a labor of love that has little to do with what we're talking about so I'd like to leave it there, ostensibly in the hands of a Greg Hatch or Conley Woods.
Infernal Tutor, in this particular 60 card deck, is as powerful when searching for a duplicate card in hand as it when we're abusing Lion's Eye Diamond. I would argue that this is an even better Infernal Tutor deck because of this. So if you choose to look a little deeper into what's going on here, I think you might find that we're taking a spiral staircase down into our storm kill - as opposed to the ladder approach of ANT or jumping out of the window like TES.
I think there's room for improvement, but I am certain I like the feel of it. This deck has some really amazing, unique and puzzling draws so far. I can tell you that the RUG matchup is better because of the hand disruption spells and because they can't counter all of the Tutors before they run out of cards. If a Dark Petition gets blown up, you have a hand still. In all my testing this has been pretty huge. RUG's best draws are hard to beat anyway, but that match up hasn't given me trouble since switching to this build.
More updates to come soon. Ty for reading.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
zachinflames
I think we can all agree this is far more powerful and consistent than anything with Grinding Station in it. That particular deck is a labor of love that has little to do with what we're talking about so I'd like to leave it there, ostensibly in the hands of a Greg Hatch or Conley Woods.
Sarcasm?
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
zachinflames
I think the nomenclature issue needs to be addressed. We're not even playing Ad Nauseam. If we were I could see calling this Ad Nauseam, Ad NauseamX or ANTx. This deck would be a very poor Ad Nauseam deck because of the Dark Petitions. We're at a point where we don't need them and where the name doesn't serve it's purpose. 8 Tutor-Mono Black-Past in Flames, Quadlazer-Storm, Rice Crispy-Total-Chex Storm - I just kind of like the way 8 Ball sounds, so come off of it.
I think we can all agree this is far more powerful and consistent than anything with Grinding Station in it. That particular deck is a labor of love that has little to do with what we're talking about so I'd like to leave it there, ostensibly in the hands of a Greg Hatch or Conley Woods.
You're running ad nauseam in the side, the same can be said for the storm variants running 2x PiF, 2x Tendrils, 1x Empty. You're not doing anything special and innovative by jamming 4 dark petitions in a storm list. The ANT thread should just be renamed Cabal Ritual Storm or something so people can stop trying to take credit for discovering "dark petition storm" or whatever everyone thinks they're doing.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Slight differences in storm builds does mean that the decks will play differently and value different cards (cantrips, key spells, etc.), because storm decks tend to be really tight in construction those differences relatively speaking are pretty large to storm players. That being said, this isn't the stormboards. No one really gives that much of a damn about the fine details of marginally different storm builds.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
dzhu4500
Slight differences in storm builds does mean that the decks will play differently and value different cards (cantrips, key spells, etc.), because storm decks tend to be really tight in construction those differences relatively speaking are pretty large to storm players. That being said, this isn't the stormboards. No one really gives that much of a damn about the fine details of marginally different storm builds.
While all storm decks are marginally different in terms of card choices because the core for a storm deck is as follows:
4 Dark Ritual
4 LED
4 Infernal
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 G Probe
6-7 Discard Spells
1+ Lotus Petal, 4 in everything outside doomsday
12-14 Lands always including 4 delta and 2 sea's among others
Leaves very little customization. But decks play quite differently. TES is aggressive. ANT is not. This is somewhere inbetween the two since drawing naturally winning hands is a lot easier and you don't necessarily have to burn cantrips looking for a tutor like ANT typically does.
Having a tutor countered is a blowout? Thanks for that revelation. We're a storm deck attempting to resolve demonic tutor with zero cards in hand or little more than that. The entire goal of storm as an archetype is to discard opponents relevant cards so they can't interact with the tutor that you're going to use to win the game whether that tutor is doomsday, wish, infernal, or dark petition. Only other cards you want to resolve other than those are ad nauseam in decks that run it and empty, which is pretty easy to resolve due to it having storm if you draw it naturally otherwise you're tutoring for it deliberately. There are numerous differences between this deck and normal ANT. 4 DP is a big one. Is it right? Only testing and time will tell what number is right but 'normal' ANT runs 1-2 DP at most from what I've seen.
You don't run 4 grim tutor because grim costs more life, mana, and money. Grim tutor has never been that good at all in legacy and is even worse now that clocks are faster than ever/that 3 life is a big deal especially in conjunction with the past in flames you're likely grabbing with it.
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
If you're playing four each of Infernal Tutor, Dark Petition, and Cabal Ritual, maybe Helm of Awakening is good enough?
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
thefringthing
If you're playing four each of Infernal Tutor, Dark Petition, and Cabal Ritual, maybe Helm of Awakening is good enough?
Helm of Awakening as an enabler is an idea I like and one that got lost way down here on the thread. I would want to play copies of Sensei's Top maybe because that would be pretty valuable. It certainly makes Cabal Ritual even better, the problem is finding space for this, and also I'm not sure if 8 Tutors is the most efficient way to abuse the helm. I think this was what Storm used when Priest of Gix was a card it played. Maybe just a straight Red-Black list could take full advantage of this?
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Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)
You may be overtaxing brainstorm's ability to correct lopsided hands with 4x Dark Petitions in the main, possibly to the point of needing effects like Rain of Filth, Bubbling Muck, Lake of the Dead, Eladamri's Vineyard, or Carpet of Flowers in the main. Given the loss of speed inherent in running so many petitions, tutor 6-8 slots may better serve you as Personal Tutor.
