DC's list has twelve blue-capable lands, four lotus petals, and one to two chrome mox. Add in that he has three additional lands that can play/activate Sensei's Divining Top (which he plays four of) and he shouldn't be having too many mana issues caused by the basic plains. A third color basic is most useful when you have a full playset of some type of hate (Mountain for Pyroblast or Plains for Orim's Chant) in the maindeck paired with good permanent hate in the board (Ancient Grudge/Shattering Spree in red, Serenity in white).
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
@ Marke
My SB has been experimental for most of the time since my mainlist is pretty unspectacular, but I can't really figure out what would be better then Defense Grid and Spell Snare in the SB without splashing another color which I honestly just can't afford atm.
There is really no use for a basic plains. Ive never found the desire the fetch a basic plains really, as its only useful for chant. Chant is just a 4-of and like 75% of the time played before going off in which case getting it wastelanded doesnt matter at all. Offcourse the deck has enough blue sources generally but there ARE times that the basic plains will screw you over, this is actually a reasonable amount of times as we often want to keep 1 land hands. Therefore it is just crap to play 1 main.
If you are really set on the serenity board plan things get a little different as stax plays wasteland usually but then i strongly feel serenity is inferior to rebuild and recall combination anyway.
As to deirex, Daze, pact of negation and dark confidant are all better then defense grid and spell snare imo. Defense grid and spell snare are both poor protection (grid is expensive and snare is narrow) and don't proactively help the plan that much. Daze and pact are are great extra protection and when you play 4 chant 4 duress the bad synergy with LED is virtually irrelevant. Confidant just generates great card advantage and then chumps.
Basic plains lets you cast your most powerful disruption against your worst matchups (Dreadstill, Thrash, Merfolk, Landstill) that will be trying to disrupt your access to Orim's Chant using Wastelands and Stifles.
Dark Confidant is awful. Aggro control won't take out Daze or Spell Snare and might even have in STP (or worse, Threads of Disloyalty because it's more useful than STP (pitches to FoW) if you don't have a juicy guy postboard) and control definitely doesn't have the slots to board out their targetted removal against you. The red thresh decks don't take out the burn either (it's a faster clock and they don't really have anything better). If Dark Confidant resolves and lives for a full two turns, he'll generate card advantage. Confidant still doesn't solve the problem of counterbalance because the extra cards you draw are worthless (barring your one or two-of Wipe Away) and it probably doesn't deal damage through Goyf, Goose, or Factory.
Spell Snare is actually passable because it helps out a lot against Team America and can deal with Counterbalance (it's worse than REB in this regard, but it's still better than that Cabal Ritual just gets countered by CB if you didn't already run it into enemy Spell Snare or Daze the turn before). If you're running a maindeck strong against soft counters (so Duresses and Chants) you'll need 6ish answers to CB to see one to two consistently with cantrips so that one resolves against an enemy CB if they get it (unless you're planning on conceding the matchup outright or planning on simply drawing turn 1 Duress + win on the play in games 1 and 3). It helps that your answer to CB is also decent if they don't have CB, which is why we tend towards Pyroblast (which can protect chant or deal with Force/CSpell/Stifle when not countering CB) instead of 4 KGrips/Wipe Aways.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
I mostly agree on the points on confidant, as for pyroblast i think its alright but I dont like to run more then B/U/w. I suppose one could go with 4 gemstone mines and run almost 5 color, which would make the krosan grip SB answer more consistent as well. If going 5 color its possibly better to run the japanese version with rite of flame and burning wish. I havent tested this version yet but it has the lowest CMC of all versions as it runs no rushing river, tendrils or IGG main. It does seem harder to go off for me but perhaps the extra cards because of never hitting a tendrils/IGG lets you get more cards. Wishboard doesnt seem that impressive but gives stuff like shattering spree etc i suppose.
For the B/U/w version i prefer daze/PoN over REB, the red mana is a liability i think as you dont want to use petals early and chrome mox on red is near impossible.
At the moment im testing natural order+progenitus in a UGw thresh shell though as i find it more promising then ANT but mostly ANT can get boring very often because many games are so short.
Well, that gives a lot of time to eat in between rounds. I love eating.Originally Posted by Marke
...So let me ask. Is REB the better way to deal with Counterbalance than Grip? Or is it best to run both? Grip is way better than REB if the CB/Top Engine is at work, but if REB counters/destroys Counterbalance, that allows me to try to set up earlier with Mysticals/Brainstorms/etc.
The Source: Your Source for "The Source: Your Source for..." cliche.
If all you had to worry about was Counterbalance, Grip would just be made a 4 of. The problem is, as Emidln said, you want to have protection that doubles as Counterbalance hate and countermagic protection since Force of Will + friends still need to be dealt with. Run blasts before Grip, but remember that you usually want at least 1 tutorable split second answer to Counterbalance should it resolve (2 has been working out well for me in the DD builds).Well, that gives a lot of time to eat in between rounds. I love eating.
...So let me ask. Is REB the better way to deal with Counterbalance than Grip? Or is it best to run both? Grip is way better than REB if the CB/Top Engine is at work, but if REB counters/destroys Counterbalance, that allows me to try to set up earlier with Mysticals/Brainstorms/etc.
I also agree with all Emidln's points on Dark Confidant and Spell Snare. My protection package, when using Snare, happens to be something like: 4 Duress, 3 Orim's Chant, 3 Spell Snare.
Wow, Confidant has been underwhelming in testing. Everytime I draw him I'm like god I wish this was a ponder or whatever else I SBed him out for. I tried divert in his spot to increase the number of anti discard/burn/sinkhole tech but that sucked because I often had it sitting in my hand when I wanted to IT.
I think we all agree on some amount of:
Rebuild
Hurkyll's Recall
in the board and most agree on:
Chain of Vapor
Echoing Truth
Slaughter Pact
Wipe away/Krosan Grip
As was already stated, I think that we are really left with things like Annul/Spellsnare to fill the missing slots.
I'd never play H.Recall because I can always play red for Shattering Spree or Red/Green for Ancient Grudge (which I do anyway because I've yet to see a metagame where CB wasn't heavily played).
Slaughter Pact doesn't seem all that worthwhile. Even if you're not playing Doomsday, Chain of Vapor does the same thing while being useful against random aggro (Goblns, Zoo, etc) to bounce Pyro Pillar and other nonsense as well.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
Oh, wow. I never thought of it that way. Chain of Vapor is REB-able though, but its versatility sure does make up for it.
The Source: Your Source for "The Source: Your Source for..." cliche.
Hello again.
I have played this deck as long as it has existed, winning a bit, loosing a bit. You all know the drill.
Yesterday I achieved my best result with it thus far. I played 5 rounds of swiss undefeated, and then continued to win both the quarter, and the semi for a split in the finals.
Ending on a record of: 14-1-1. Quite okay I say.
The reason why I say this is that yesterday I played 2 tops i my main-deck and I intend never to look back. The top is simply amazing, and I owe at least 3 wins to the top!
The synergi between top, mystical tutor, led and so on just wins you games, that you would otherwise lose.
Another thing I tried out where Hurkyll's recalls in the board. I didn't meet any stax-like decks, but I did encounter affinity twice, and of course the recalls are great here to.
Also i played chain of vapor over slaughter pact in the board. That seems indeed like the right decision.
This is such a tight and great deck.
- meanee
I have been playing this deck quite a bit and I have followd the thread for a while. What I can't figure out is why you would play an IGG in a straight tendrils build instead of a second tendrils.
I must be the most unlucky person ever because I resolved AdN so many times tonight without winning on that turn going down very far in life. So what I did was use my first tendrils to do a significant amount of damage to my opponent and then try to set off my second AdN to restock my hand and dig out my second tendrils. I've found that with a single IGG you can't create an IGG loop like in Iggy pop and it also requires a considerable amount of mana (i.e. 6).
Why is the IGG played in a straight list instead of a second tendrils?
I play Ill-gotten gains because I think that more often than not, it creates surplus mana. Sure it costs 5-6 mana, but it also enables a quite certain win.
I can't count how many times I have won because of gains. Games I wouldn't have won with a tendrils in it's place.
Yesterday I used the tendrils to simply create enough mana to kill my oppo. Playing mystical putting tendrils on the top (with a top i play), and then simply creating a lot of storm count with the ill-gotten gains.
Also, even though you might not be able to loop like an old-fashioned iggy-pop pro, I find it very rare that you can't win by casting the gains. You have to have a storm-count of 5 before you cast it, to win. Or you have to have a lot of rituals/leds to simply make an abundance of mana, så you can just it into it a couple of times to make enough storm...
- meanee
@Jazzykat: IGG gives you a way to combo out if you get to low life before casting AdN. Many people play Doomsday as an alternate engine in a hybrid build which makes IGG even more attractive due to the stacks it enables. Also, per your scenario, with IGG and only one tendrils md you can still cast a mini-tendrils, you just need to get it back using IGG after a second AdN.
Because you can play 2-3 spells before your first infernal tutor with hellbent (say a protection spell, brainstorm, or ponder and a couple pieces of acceleration) and the infernal tutor into ill-gotten gains into accel + infernal tutor into infernal tutor into Tendrils in most builds. This is a very easy alternate win when you are down in the life total column and particularly effective against burn-packing aggro.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
I look at the hybrid builds and while it doesn't take many cards to package it up, I still don't get why you do this. Is it because everyone is so afraid of being low on life? Isn't that what you have IGG for?
I would honestly like to see a short pro/con of playing the hybrid list if someone is willing to put it up because I can't put my finger on why so many people like it.
I've found that attacking Threshold and Dreadstill in the early game is a horrible idea. They have all of their disruption except counterbalance online from their first land drop and the clock from hell in CB can be online as early as turn 2. To beat them, I have to go into the mid game, which is where attacks with Factory, Goyf, or Mongoose can make me try to win with an Ad Nauseam at 13-15 life before I can safely play through Daze/Spell Snare in addition to hard counters like Force. I've found that Ad Nauseams at this life total weren't good for my win percentage, and even more, I couldn't even always go off this early (especially against black thresh) if they happened to draw more than one force. To deal with this, i went back to what I know works against control, Doomsday.
As a nice bonus, Doomsday lets you mostly ignore burn from red decks, teeg from green/white aggro, and can often play through extremely convoluted mixtures of hate cards. It's the same mana cost as winning with Ad Nauseam in most instances at the additional cost of a card draw with a guaranteed win (you never accidentally kill yourself with Doomsday) which is very reassuring. That Doomsday can generate large storm amounts practically by itself without much acceleration while you are low on life to let you steal games is just a perk granted to those who have the skills to abuse it or the patience to learn.
I've largely given up on ANT and the Hybrid because my metagame is infested with blue decks. I'm playing a straight Doomsday maindeck with a transformational sideboard into an ANT Hybrid for when I'm facing aggro and my blue hate cards are dead.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
@emidln: Thanks, my meta is so un-blue and the blue players are normally lower tier that I was REALLY confused. Now I can see why I didn't think it was worth it.
I know you love combo, but in your meta I would be running something different as I switched to combo to avoid all the blue hate aimed directly at me and my dreadnoughts.
There's no reason to. Dreadstill, Landstill, and Merfolk are virtual byes for me. Playskill, experience, and proper deck design have let me warp my archetype to fit my metagame. The Storm archetype is just as flexible as Blue-based aggro-control, it's just not as well understood by the majority of legacy players.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
What are you gonna do when you face at least 4 counterbalance decks at the GP though?
This isn't a challenge or anything, I'm just wondering Hhow all the die hard storm players are getting ready to handle so many rounds in a row of those shenanigans. My brain would melt.
Team Unicorn: We're horny...get it?
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