Jet Storm.. Is it even a real deck?

[TheG]

Hello everyone, long long time i don't write something here and play/brew some magic deck. Recently google's algorithm-overlord of youtube proposed some video by "bosh n roll", so i started to look back (black? pun intended) to the old bad habits of mtg. I got interested into the red storm aka ruby storm and, of a whim, i tried to make an hybrid with my good old favorite, Spanish Inquisition. I quickly understood that BBB draw 4 ain't gonna make it, so i trown a pinch of Fechlands Tendrills here and there.

I began to analyze the structure of ruby storm with the first reference i got and And i tried to replace 1 for 1 with black cards with similar effects:

Manabase
8 Basics - Mountain > Swamp
5 2mana lands - Ancient Tomb + City of Traditors > Same

4 cc0: 1mana [net 1 mana] - Lotus Petals > Same
1 cc0: 1mana [net 1 mana] - Simian Spirit Guide > Mox Opal 1
3 cc1: 2-3mana [net 1-2 mana] - Rite of Flame > Mox Opal 2-4
1 cc2: 3mana [net 1 mana] - Desperate Ritual > Cabal Ritual
4 cc3: 5mana [net 2 mana] - Seething Song > Dark Ritual
4 cc3: 5-7mana [net 2-4 mana] - Jeska's Will > Lion's Eye Diamond

4 cc2: -1mana - Ruby Medallion > Jet Medallion
2 cc3: -1*mana - Birgi > ???

Draw & Tutor
4 cc0*: draw 1 - Manamorphose > Street Wraith
2 cc1: draw 2 discard 1 [net draw 1] / cc3 draw2 see3 [net draw 2] - March of Reckless Joy > Read the Bones 1-2
1 cc2: draw 2 - Reckless Impulse > Night's Whisper
4 cc2: tutor* - Burning Wish > Infernal Tutor
1 cc2*: draw 2 discard 1 [net draw 1] - Pirate's Pillage > Read the Bones 3
1 cc3: tutor* - Wish > Wishclaw Talisman / Grim Tutor
3 cc5: draw 7 - Reforge the Soul > ??? / Search for Blex

Business
1 cc3: draw N - Galvanic Relay > ???
1 cc4: graveyard engine- Past in Flames > Ill-Gotten Gains
4 cc3: doubler engine - Bonus Round > ???

with a bit of rounding and understanding the different gameplan - from massive draw and continuous mana generation mana to tutoring and burst mana - i came up with this list:

// Manabase [38]
6 Swamp
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Mox Opal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Jet Medallion
// Draw & Tutors [
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Wishclaw Talisman
4 Night's Whisper
3 Read the Bones
1 Search for Blex
// Business
2 Ill-Gotten Gains
2 Peer into the Abyss
2 Tendrils of Agony


The list is still very much work in progress but goldfishing seems very solid on turn 3, not super fast but consistent at 90%. The heavy tutor suite is for turning the deck to a very deterministic gameplan, using card draw only to fill the hand turn 1-2 or refill after discard/permission. The 20 artifact allow to use Mox Opal instead of Chrome Mox to avoid card disadvantage. The Jet Medallion works like a charm, even if with all the (free) artifacts the synergy with the rest of the deck isn't profound as the red counterpart; this means that the deck could also play without Medallion in play. Blex and Read the Bones could be swapped for maindeck protection with Thoughtseize, to - once more - don't have any card disadvantage, or Grief / Unmask that are faster.

Without Medallion on the battlefield, the play routes are:

Any 7 mana > Peer > Tendrills
Any 8/9/10 mana > Tutor + Peer > Tendrills
2 Led + Infernal > IGG loop x2 > Tendrills

With Medallion:
Any 6 mana > Peer > Tendrills
Any 7/8 mana > Tutor + Peer > Tendrills
Any 5 Mana (by rituals and/or Led) > IGG loop x2 > Tendrills

opening up t2 kills with a t1 Ancient Tomb > Jet Medallion.

Regarding the sideboard, the most problematic card is IGG, that needs a splash Silence/Orim's Chant/Veil of Summer to work properly, but without splashing Defence Grid works and is synergic with Mox Opal for the artifact count, as Control hate. Obv, the lack of wishes means the need to have wincons maindeck, and the tutoring array works only to search wincon/enabler on the critical turn, so massive sideboarding is needed and the deck have limited ability to sculpt efficiently the hand. A possible side-out with a slower gameplan would be -1 Peer -1 Tendrill -1 Blex -3 Read the Bones -4 Cabal Ritual

What do you think? Some suggestions?
Thanks for reading :D

[FTW]

Looks like a fun concept.

I would cut Blex, Read the Bones and Night's Whisper (weaker draw effects) and go up to a full set of Peer Into The Abyss. Using Jet Medallion to Cabal Ritual into Peer is probably the most broken thing your deck can do. You can use some of the other space for discard spells to interact with the opponent.

If you want to play "tutor FoW to opponent's hand" cards like IGG, then you need Defense Grid and/or Orim's Chant (white splash). Splashing is probably a good idea in general because monoblack doesn't have SB answers to all permanent types and storm hate. White splash gives Prismatic Ending/March of Otherworldly Light, Orim's Chant and Disenchant effects. Green splash gives Abrupt Decay, Veil of Summer... Either splash should really improve postboard games.

Once you're playing Grid/Chant effects, and you already have LED, you might as well play Echo of Eons. It's such a busted draw engine.

[Ronald Deuce]

Lake of the Dead should definitely be in there.

You might consider multiple Ad Nauseas instead of Peer into the Abyss. The only mana-intensive cards are Ill-Gotten Gains and Tendrils, so there's no reason to tack extra mana onto your card-barfers.

I'd consider a Rain of Filth, because that card is severely underplayed and is the strongest ritual in the long game. Bubbling Muck (?) and Urborg work very well together, too.

I continue to think Wishclaw Talisman and Mox Opal are trap cards and that Infernal Tutor and LED should be quads in any storm deck playing black, but I'll catch a truckload of shit for that.

You might escalate to quad Tendrils and run some number of Spoils of the Vault.

[FTW]

Ad Nauseam has anti-synergy running multiple copies, while Peer has no downside to running 4-of. That's the big difference. Without Ad Nauseam you don't have to care about life total or CMC as much. ANT wants maybe 2-3 cards above 2 cmc, so it's doesn't fit well with the Jet Medallion + Ancient Tomb strategy.

I tested a few games of this. It goldfished smoothly on T2-T3 with protection.


//Lands: 14
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Marsh Flats
3 Scrubland
3 Swamp

//Artifacts: 22
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Mox Opal
4 Wishclaw Talisman
3 Jet Medallion
3 Defense Grid

//Spells: 24
4 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Echo of Eons
4 Peer Into The Abyss


Haven't thought about the SB yet.

[Reeplcheep]

With 4 opal and 0 lake of the dead should we be playing Vault of Whispers?

The heavy splash makes me want to play silences main, but maybe at that point you end up drifting into TES.

[FTW]

Auto-scooping to Null Rod and Karn, the Great Creator seems bad, and those cards are already bad enough for Wishclaw+LED storm. Basic Swamp is a good Magic card. You need stable mana to cast answers to hate.

You could try Silence main instead of Thoughtseize. That's why I started with heavy white splash. In practice, I found it was too mana-intensive. Peer is so expensive. It's easier to resolve if you can cast protection the turn before. Grid curves out well.

Green splash is worth considering instead of white. You get Veil of Summer (not as flexible as Silence but still strong), Carpet of Flowers (helps ramp to Peer and beat Daze), and Abrupt Decay/Assassin's Trophy. There's also City of Solitude or Xantid Swarm to add to Silence effects you can cast the turn before, making IGG and Echo less risky.

[TheG]

Had some time to test, actually working with this list:

4 Ancient Tomb
4 Swamp
2 Lake of the Dead
4 Verdant Catacombs

4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Mox Opal
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Jet Medallion

4 Wishclaw Talisman
4 Infernal Tutor

3 Peer into the Abyss
2 Ill-Gotten Gains
2 Tendrils of Agony

3 Defense Grid
4 Thoughtseize


Vault proved itself totally unreliable.

Lake of the dead is a +3 ritual on turn 3 and if going off on turn 2 is the same ad swamp. Lake on t2, swamp t3 is =dr but dangerous.

The real issue is the protection package. Maindeck i'm going back and forth between 4grid/3thought and the opposite. The first option supports Igg better, the other is more versatile. Another option is -1jet +1thought and have 8 protections md.

Postboard 4 Hope of Ghirapur is good and in color for blue decks with grid. But is an artifact and a creature, very vulnerable.
Against taxes x4 Dread of night ?
But the real problem is dealing with permanents in play and particullary artifacts. Obligatory green splash?

-2 lake +1bayou +1forest -4grid +4a.trophy?

Another weakness i found is low resilience: the deck is consistent enough to go off single protected most of the time t3. However due the mumber of cards needed to go off it's rare to have double protection. After losing the first attempt to iniaite the combo it's very difficult to recharge and start again, but maybe it's just me not being a good player haha.

[FTW]

Yeah, green splash offers good SB options.

I recommend trying 3 Jet Medallion instead of 4. The 1st copy is amazing. Cabal Rit for 1. IT -> Peer/IGG for 2 less, which makes tutoring into Peer an actual line. But the 2nd copy does almost nothing. If you don't want multiples, 3-of is better than 4-of. Redundant copies become dead cards in hand when you already need a lot of resources to go off.

Another weakness i found is low resilience: the deck is consistent enough to go off single protected most of the time t3. However due the mumber of cards needed to go off it's rare to have double protection. After losing the first attempt to iniaite the combo it's very difficult to recharge and start again, but maybe it's just me not being a good player haha.

Without blue cantrips to sculpt it will have less resilence than ANT or TES. That's a structural issue for monoblack without an easy fix. IMO the best solution is to use proactive disruption and not try to go off until you KNOW the coast is clear. In other words, you cast a discard spell and see their hand has nothing left, you have Grid and they don't have 3 mana, or you resolved a Silence effect. If you try to go off without knowing the coast is clear and get disrupted after spending 5 cards, there's no drawing out of it, the topdecks are just too bad.

[mistercakes]

I had tried this a few years ago without much success. Maybe with the newer cards it can have legs. I've always liked that it can have better transformational sb than mono red and supports a lot of good discard spells.

I'd also try to squeeze in the echo the eons entomb package. You can also get away with a reanimate spell or two if you want to be extra greedy.

My main approach was trying to get the most use out of dark petition. (that might also date the deck, and my ideas a bit)