Well, TES is the reason the field is what it is, most of us prefer T1esq decks in a T1.5 format, after we figured out we could all be prepared against combo and stomp Goblins with them.Originally Posted by outsideangel
Simian Spirit Guide isn't a distortion tho', I find it's better than a single Right of Flame most of the time; you can't fault some one for wanting to use a free on colored mana in a combo deck.
Edit: Another benefit of Simian Spirit Guide over Right of Flame is that Simian Spirit Guide is not affected from Chill, which is becoming a popular SB card in Faerie Stompy, AfFOWnity and Threshold because it deals with Goblins and doubles as another card for combo.
Last edited by BreathWeapon; 04-25-2007 at 03:57 AM.
BreathWeapon, could you please post your deck list? The merits of "winning small" versus "winning large" are hard to determine out of context.
so is there a point when IGG and Returns just turn into win more cards?
i have found myself twice in a tourny losing a game cause i got greedy with IGG and Warrens already in hand, and a Force on the IGG lost me the game. I thinkthey can be helpful but sometimes they are not nessary.
Point being, do we need to run them main AND side? (side over main i would think if one were to be cut)
Edit: Also DDay looks freaking crazy! I have been trying to build a DDay combo deck for over a year, and none are good, it looks like im going to be testing this a long hard time...
Also if anyone is any good at playing TES and is on MWS let me know, i need help learning the deck, as i'm quite the Strom combo noob. i only play card combo (2-3 card combo interactions). AIM: APriestOfGix
Sure,
MD
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Ill Gotten Gains
1 Diminishing Returns
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Plunge into Darkness
4 Brainstorm
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Undiscovered Paradise
SB
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ill Gotten Gains
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Doomsday
1 Earthquake
1 Hull Breach
1 Duress
3/4 Dark Confidant
4/3 (Open Slots, tend to be Shattering Spree or Orim's Chants)
Sometimes I use a Tomb of Urami instead of a second Undiscovered Paradise or 4th Cabal Ritual, and right now I'm testing using a Night Whispers/Sleight of Hand instead of the 4th Cabal Ritual for one of the DDAY stacks that uses LED to cast triple cantrips into a Tendrils (I wouldn't recommend it tho', it doesn't happen all that often).
Explain: Why 3 Empty the Warrens? I want some good quality reasons here!
Night's Whisper has anti-synergy with Plunge into Darkness. Doomsday just ups your vulnerability to Solidarity. Seriously, if you are in a situation where you want Doomsday over either Ill-Gotten Gains or Diminishing Returns, there is a problem, but then again cutting the Rites often lowers your storm count.
dragon: There is one IGG main deck and one IGG wishboard. The wishboard, which occupies slots in the side board, represents cards you tutor for with wish, ensuring a higher chance of finding what you need. The reason they are in two different places with a large number of tutors to find them is so that should you need either one, they are there to help you. If you can cast EtW with Storm at 4 and are sure your opponent doesn't have a sweeper, go for it!
Team Multi-Grain - We're wholesome.
This answers alot of questions. That I have about your deck.
Your deck is more geared to the game one, 3-5 storm ETW first turn.
One of my favorite plays with this deck is Land->Rite #1->Rite #2->(0cc artifact)-> ETW. Or Land->0cc Artifact->Dark Ritual->ETW. I strongly think if you want to do that more often Rite is the correct pick for doing that.
Also did you give up on the Living Wish Plan?
The moderators prohibited discussion on Living Wish, but I did manage third place in a tournament in St.Louis with a Living Wish build, being knocked out of contention thanks to prison and the coin flip. Living Wish wasn't bad, but it didn't do enough after a Diminishing Returns for me, and I live off of that card in this deck.
Right of Flame isn't better than Simian Spirit Guide in a build based around Diminishing Returns and Empty the Warrens; I know it seems counter intuitive, but Right of Flame, Right of Flame is just going to get the second Right of Flame countered, trading 2 for 2 and losing the turn.
With Simian Spirit Guide, the deck can just cast Dark Ritual, and at that point the opponent has to consider countering the Dark Ritual, because Simian Spirit Guide is uncounterable. If there is no counter on Dark Ritual, then the deck can cast a Chrome Mox/Lotus Petal, and at that point the opponent has to consider countering the Chrome Mox/Lotus Petal to prevent the Empty the Warrens again. If the opponent counters the Chrome Mox/Lotus, hoping to hang the Dark Ritual, but then Simian Spirit Guide can be cast and the deck picked up a free storm. If the opponent counters the Dark Ritual, then it's a 2 for 1 instead of a 2 for 2, and if the opponent Dazes the Dark Ritual, then the deck can cast Simian Spirit Guide, pick up a free storm, and then either draw out the Force of Will on the Dark Ritual, 2 for 3 and -1 land drop, or cast a Chrome Mox/Lotus Petal and cast Empty the Warrens.
I've discussed Simian Spirit Guide's role in protecting Xantid Swarm from Daze and generating free mana off of Diminishing Returns, so I will leave it at that.
@Cait Sith
Simple math, 4 Burning Wish + 3 Empty the Warrens increases the odds of drawing an Empty the Warrens in the opening hand, off of a Plunge into Darkness or off of a Diminishing Returns, and 2 Tendrils of Agony increases the deck's mulligans.
No, Night Whispers doesn't have disynergy; it draws 2 cards for 2 life, if neither of those cards were what we needed, the we removed 2 cards from the deck in order to increase the odds of drawing what we need off of Plunge into Darkness or decrease the amount of life used on a Plunge of Darkness for the same odds (I don't want to get into an argument about this, I use 1 Night Whispers in the deck instead of a Cabal Ritual for one specific reason, testing purposes involving DDAY stacks and LED)
Stating a card in the SB decreases the win percentages against High Tide is just an atrocious argument, and I'm not using the card because Simian Spirit Guide is in the deck.
Right now, I'm winning more games with DDAY than I am with Ill Gotten Gains past turn 3 at this point; being able to circumvent all of their hate with it is just insane. Just casting the DDAY and passing the turn into a stack of Brainstorm, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Ill Gotten Gains, Tendrils of Agony or Brainstorm, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Brainstorm, Tendrils of Agony is solid, and Xantid Swarm, Brainstorm, Right of Flame, Right of Flame, Empty the Warrens or Xantid Swarm, Brainstorm, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Tendrils of Agony avoid most of the hate.
Why are you exchanging flexibility for being able to use Empty the Warrens more often? I've only ever used in once in all my uses of TES.
They are anti-synergistic. I'll explain. You don't gain anything for the same amount of life except for a single card for 1B. It may be more useful to you in a Doomsday pile, but Doomsday itself it sub par in this deck.
"The card?" Also, I was talking about its trouble with Solidarity, not High Tide decks in general, but I am sure Spring Tide would be happy for a chance to kill you right off. The problem with Doomsday is that it can easily result in your randomly losing the game. Taking your win percentage down against Solidarity even further by cutting your options anyway, misreading your opponent, or just plain creating an opportunity for error is not good. A card like Doomsday is nightmarishly bad against a random meta simply because you will randomly run into Mill decks, various weird Chalice decks, MUC, and other such nonsense for Doomsday.
Enjoy.
Team Multi-Grain - We're wholesome.
None of that made sense,
Adding ETW increases the deck's options, it doesn't diminishing them, because it has higher odds of drawing an ETW and lower odds of mulliganing with a Tendrils.
I used 4 Night Whispers and 4 Plunge into Darkness in the MD before Dark Confidant was printed, and there was never a problem with it.
I love how people call cards sub-par with out ever having tested them; no one is tutoring for DDAY against an unknown opponent, that's an argument against a deck with 4 DDAY MD and not 1 DDAY SB.
Won't it be more useful to run 4 Rite of Flame instead of Cabal Ritual in your current build?
Is there any specific reason to run Cabals over Rites?
And, in my opinion, running 1 ToA MD is really dangerous. It can be easily removed with Plunge or Diminishing, and if they are able to counter your Burning Wish...Ok, you can still win with ETW, but it seems very risky.
What do you think?
Btw, I really like the idea of Doomsday, another way to win avoiding hate is always interesting.
The problem with Black Rituals and Red Rituals in the same deck is that the rituals can't chain off of each other, so splitting the rituals causes the mana to bottle neck and I can't cast Diminishing Returns as well.
One Tendrils isn't a big deal, I'm comfortable with passing the turn with 20+ Goblins with this deck.
But you won't be able to win always with ETW:
E.Truth, E.Plague, Pyroclasm, E.Explosives, etcetera.
Sometimes I'm worried when going for the ETW plan. I use it as a win small (so I recover easily, but often they are kill) but it still hurts if the opponent has a card listed before.
That's why I add the second ToA, to have a second kill option online, that is 100% safe.
Off of a Diminishing Returns the opponent has to draw the removal card in order to prevent the win next turn, and just casting the ETW for 6 on the first turn is going to do 6 to 12 points of damage before the opponent can answer it and bait removal for Xantid Swarm and Dark Confidant. If removal is a serious threat, just "low ball" the Warrens and keep another 5 cards or so in hand. Even if the opponent removes the Goblins, he lost a card and his turn, so TES has 5 cards, a draw, another land drop and a free turn to do something against.
Post board is all about Dark Confidant and "small ball" against aggro-control and control, just don't go all in on ETW unless you absolutely have to. ETW is safer than Tendrils, if you are losing the game after your opponent casts removal, you're probably being too aggressive with it.
Unfortunately, DDay is a flubbed plan. I've tested around 100 games with it and I RARELY find a time where I'd prefer to tutor for it over IGG. Not to mention, of the approximately 5 times I did get it, I lost to a random Glimpse the Unthinkable. I'm just not that excited about the card after having tried it myself. I'd much rather have more utility in the board to wish for.
The deck lost all 5 times it tutored for DDAY against a Glimpse the Unthinkable? WTF were you playing against? And if you lost once to Glimpse the Unthinkable, why didn't you just wish for something else the other four times?
DDAY isn't the easiest card to use, but it's going to win games where other engine cards and answers can't a lot. I've used it to ignore Null Rod and Chalice of the Void out of aggro quite a bit, via just passing the turn and drawing the Brainstorm off the top of the stack.
No, it lost once to a random person playing Glimpses in his deck. But that's neither here nor there, as I think you're missing the point...
Out of 100 games, I went for DDay a total of 6 times. Out of those 6 times I lost to a random GtU once and only won 4 of the other 5 times. There just weren't enough times where I'd have rather went for DDay than one of the other engines, therefore not warranting a spot in my sideboard. If you choose to play it, more power to you. It's not my cup of tea as I'd rather have other answers to pesky hate than a card that has been less than amazing.
I tested against Loam, Goblins, Thresh, a few random decks and the mirror. Half the games were played pre-board and half post-board. The DDay never really made a difference and the times that it potentially could have (permanent hate) I'd have much rather grabbed Shattering Spree or Hull Breech. DDay just isn't spectacular like I'd hoped.
I apologize, I missread that; the thing about DDAY is that it turns hands that can't win with Tendrils into hands that can win with Tendrils, and it turns acceleration light hands into a win. Instead of answering the opponent's hate, it can just win thru' it, and saving 5 percent of the deck's mulligans and turning the game around in the face of insurmountable hate is worth cutting a superflous SB card.
Someone mentioned pact of negation in page 8 and I felt like it didn`t really get any serious discussion or anything. To me pact of negation has to be compared to xantid swarm in much the same way duress was compared to xantid swarm. As I remember the pro`s and con`s went like this for duress vs. swarm:
Swarm
Pros:
1.gets around multiple disruption spells
2.doesnt cost mana the turn you go off
Cons:
1.easily killable
2.has to wait a turn to be used
3.doesnt add storm
Duress
Pros:
1.adds storm
2.works as soon as you cast it
3.is not vulnerable to creature kill
Cons:
1.has to be used the turn you combo off
2.costs B before you attempt to combo on the turn you intend to combo
3.only stops one threat
Pact of negation works much the same way duress does except for one key difference. It doesnt cost mana to play. To me the biggest drawback of duress was that you had to pay for it before you went off but now that is not an issue anymore. On top of being free it also allows you to cut green. To me pact is even better than swarm because it means that you never have to spend mana on protection whether if you need or not. I would love to hear some more discussion on pact of negation vs. swarm
I also wanted to bring up the other pacts. The green one seems like a great idea in combination with ESG or tinder wall while adding free storm. The black one seems like an excellent sideboard card for troublesome meddling mages but I don`t know about it yet. It would be nice to hear some discussion on those as well.
To not thirst for power is to be at the mercy of those that do
Pact is bad in TES. REAL bad. If you don't understand why, read my prior post about it.
1) It doesn't help you when you go off because going off usually means cracking a LED which also means discarding your hand which means no Pact in hand to use.
2) It can't be used with Empty the Warrens. Period.
3) On the off chance that you do go off without popping a LED, It still loses to an opponent holding multiple disruption. Double Stifle, Multiple counterspells, Orim's Chant (oh wouldn't that be fun.... ) etc..
4) What would you cut for it? And for god's sake, do not say Xantid Swarm or I will not even take your response seriously.
Pact of Negation isn't a bad idea, Tendrils just has to be redesigned in order to use Pact of Negation to its advantage.
Just for testing purposes, use the list I posted, replacing Xantid Swarm with Pact of Negation, 2 Empty the Warrens with 2 Tendrils of Agony and Plunge into Darkness with Spoils of the Vault and concentrate on using Burning Wish to tutor for Diminishing Returns and hard cast it against aggro-control.
That's going to fail, because that's where I started with it, but it should segway you into building another combo deck using Pact of Negation.
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