RUG Storm

[Final Fortune]

I wanted to put down TES and pick up this pile in order to experiment with slaughtering a couple of sacred cows in Storm. With LED being able to cast Echo of Eons from your hand and Faithless Looting being able to set up your Storm engine for 1 mana for a turn 2 Wheel of Fate, I figure this synergy has to be pretty broken from a goldfish perspective. While a lot of people dismissed this strategy based on utilizing the graveyard and giving your opponent cards (just Reanimate Griselbrand 4head) I think Veil of Summer shored up those weaknesses and lets the LED/EOE synergy be hyper efficient. Echo of Eons is a resilient card in and of itself, your opponent can't do anything to discard it and if you play it by hand then you can throw bomb after bomb into their counter wall while never having to rely on your life total for anything. If you're short on mana at the start of the game, then you can draw to 8 and discard it for an easy turn 2 draw 7. If you have to take one too many mulligans, then a single 2 card combo can put you into a winning position.

TES and its cousins have really slowed down as of late to have a better midgame. Their main tutor costs 3 now, and even if it can be broken up into multiple turns the nature of Wishclaw Talisman takes away cheap mana lines like the ol' 6 mana for Empty the Warrens and replaces it with a 6 mana draw 7 that has to be protected by a Veil of Summer. I say to hell with that, why pay 6 mana to go off when you can pay 3 or 4 with LED and Faithless Looting? Also have you seen those gag worthy 4 color manabases they are running now? Why bother with Black for a 3 mana tutor and Dark Ritual when you can play with Faithless Looting and Grim Monolith anyway? That's right, Grim Monolith is busted, you get to use it as either a colorless Cabal Ritual or a set up for your following turn to hard cast an Echo of Eons or Wish for Peer into the Abyss along with a Lion's Eye Diamond. Want a deck that can go absolutely balls to the walls with the cheapest threats in the game, but still have a midgame that gives control decks a real fit? Pay 3 to untap that Grim Monolith and pass, let them truly feel the inadequacy of that Daze in their hand as you mana ramp for bomb after bomb while better leveraging your life total as a buffer. Faithless Looting gives the deck card draw and mana acceleration at the same time, with discarding Echo of Eons retaining card parody and setting up for an easy turn 2 win. Should anything go wrong, you can flash back Faithless Looting and set up for your fourth turn win.

What I really like about the deck is that it manages to use the graveyard as a resource without committing to it, a lot of black graveyard removal outright doesn't work vs Veil of Summer, and the rest of the graveyard removal gets dealt with by either super efficient removal spells or circumventing it altogether by mana ramping into hard casting bombs or Lion's Eye Diamond for Peer Into the Abyss. The mana efficiency is so absurd here, that it really feels like you're playing a better version of Long's Burning Desire Vintage deck. There are a lot of cute pressure plays as well, the Fetchlands tend to head fake Daze and just Tropical Island into a Veil demands a counter or LED and Echo can come straight down.

I won't say this deck is straight up better than other Storm variants, it is obviously subject to more angles of hate by being a deck that leans heavily on the graveyard and D7s. But that reliance on the graveyard comes with more speed and stability, as you can either go for broke with LED or try to win incrementally by discarding your win conditions with Faithless Looting for Timetwisters or hard casting your win conditions with Grim Monolith. TES and ANT are stuck in a really weird spot where they have to slow down significantly with Wishclaw Talisman for resiliency, but I think this deck can go off faster than their Infernal Tutor versions while not really having to sacrifice anything for an expanded midgame.

3 Echo of Eons
4 Burning Wish
4 Faithless Looting
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Veil of Summer
4 Autumn's Veil
4 Grim Monolith
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Mox Opal
4 Flooded Strand
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island

1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Empty the Warrens
1 Grape Shot
1 Peer Into The Abyss
1 Echo of Eons
1 Pulverize
1 Reverent Silence
1 Void Snare
4 Hurkyl's Recall


I am sure the deck has been built before, but I think it's time someone championed it. The singletons in the SB are more or less fixed, but I am sure there are a lot of removal options that can be used like Slaughter Pact, Abrase, Rending Volley, Crash or Krosen Grip etc. RUG Storm is a bit of a place holder at the moment, if anyone has name suggestions then leave them below.