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Thread: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)

  1. #1

    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

  2. #2

    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

  3. #3
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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.

  4. #4

    Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)

    Quote Originally Posted by Echelon View Post
    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.

  5. #5
    The crazy nastyass honey badger

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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.

  6. #6

    Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)

    Quote Originally Posted by Sloshthedark View Post
    ok so there is nothing new, just substitute all the "tech"/non core cards of Ant builds with Dark Petition = new deck
    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.

  7. #7

    Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)

    Quote Originally Posted by Echelon View Post
    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.

  8. #8
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    Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)

    Quote Originally Posted by zachinflames View Post
    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 . 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.

  9. #9

    Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)

    Quote Originally Posted by zachinflames View Post
    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).

  10. #10
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    Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)

    Quote Originally Posted by Echelon View Post
    I fear for a major Lemnearing in your feature, lol.
    Who called my name?

    Quote Originally Posted by davelin View Post
    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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    Quote Originally Posted by Echelon View Post
    Lemnear sounds harsh at times, but he means well. Or to destroy, but that's when he starts rapping.

    Architect by day, rapstar by night. He's pretty much the German Hannah Montana. Sometimes he even comes in like a wrecking ball.

  11. #11

    Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemnear View Post
    Who called my name?



    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
    I think you meant Caleb Scherer.

    Edit: Forgot to mention, substituting flex spots in ANT for Dark Petition doesn't warrant its own thread.

  12. #12
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    Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)

    Quote Originally Posted by Dr_D View Post
    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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    Quote Originally Posted by Echelon View Post
    Lemnear sounds harsh at times, but he means well. Or to destroy, but that's when he starts rapping.

    Architect by day, rapstar by night. He's pretty much the German Hannah Montana. Sometimes he even comes in like a wrecking ball.

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    Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)

    Quote Originally Posted by Dr_D View Post
    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 View Post
    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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    Quote Originally Posted by Echelon View Post
    Lemnear sounds harsh at times, but he means well. Or to destroy, but that's when he starts rapping.

    Architect by day, rapstar by night. He's pretty much the German Hannah Montana. Sometimes he even comes in like a wrecking ball.

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    Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemnear View Post
    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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    Quote Originally Posted by guillemnicolau View Post
    Since the print of dark petition grim tutor hasn't seen play in legacy (not in competitive decks).
    Quote Originally Posted by THerzog41 View Post
    I believe Maverick is still the best deck in the format and definitely the most underrated deck in the format.
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    Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)

    Why not just 4 grim tutor instead?
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  17. #17

    Re: 8 Ball (8 Tutor Tendrils)

    Quote Originally Posted by Weapon X View Post
    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 View Post
    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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    Quote Originally Posted by Echelon View Post
    Lemnear sounds harsh at times, but he means well. Or to destroy, but that's when he starts rapping.

    Architect by day, rapstar by night. He's pretty much the German Hannah Montana. Sometimes he even comes in like a wrecking ball.

  19. #19

    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.

  20. #20

    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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