[Deck] T.E.S - The EPIC Storm

[AriLax]

I'm interested to hear how Lim-Dul's Vault is working out for you. I had it in my build for a while but it never really panned out.

[Jander78]

I'm interested to hear how Lim-Dul's Vault is working out for you. I had it in my build for a while but it never really panned out.

I've been testing with it for about a month. It's been great. If played on turn two, it can pretty much guarantee a turn three win.

It edged out Grim Tutor, in my opinion, for a couple of reasons. It's two mana, so it can be a turn faster. It's an instant, so it sets up the win at the end of your opponents turn and doesn't tie up mana on your turn tutoring for something. It's the best Chrome Mox imprint target in the deck (I wouldn't normally consider this a real bonus for a card, but it does come into play often).

They are about on par for a few scenarios. It's generally around the same life commitment as Grim Tutor (can be more at times, can be less). The casting cost is sometimes helpful compared to Grim Tutor. Tutor is better with Dark Ritual, where Lim-Dul's Vault is much better using standard mana sources.

The major con is that it's not as good of a top deck (without a cantrip) as Grim Tutor is.

With Brainstorm / Ponder, you can still setup tricks with Lion's Eye Diamond, albeit a little more convuluted, but still plausable. It helps find sideboard cards (i.e. Wipe Away / Pyroblast), without requiring to be Hellbent. Overall, the extra tutoring really helps the consistency of the deck and will generally ensure a turn 3 win.

[Bahamuth]

Cutting in the amount of land and adding LDV seems counterproductive. I'm also interested to hear how good LDV is. I am anxious to actually play that card at a tournament, because it can make for so many complicated situations (where you can cycle through your deck to add cards from the next/previous 5 to a stack thus seting up for a winning Brainstorm). I suspect the card is not good enough in a TES shell, and you're better off running 2 Preordain or additional rituals.

EDIT: Too slow. Opinion still stands though.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

I like Bryant's 5 colour list, but this is brilliant. It's amazing how it can actually be converted to 3 colours. It kind of makes you wonder if the other 2 colours are really needed now that swarm is cut from the sideboard and IGG is moved to the board making Chant less important as a distinction from discard spells.

Someone please help justify the 5 colour list, as emidln has tempted me to test this 3 colour build. I need major help against fish.

The reason you run a 5c manabase is not just because of cards like chant/grip.

TES is a three color deck with very little land. You want each land to produce all three colors so you don't put yourself in an awkward situation when you don't see a second land. Three color control decks have the luxury of playing much more lands and being able to play the long game. TES wants to combo out ASAP.

Imagine a hand with Duress, Burning wish, Ponder, and a ritual. Ask yourself if you'd rather have a 5c land or a dual land in that situation. I've played with a fetchland configuration, and honestly, it's not an improvement over the 5c manabase.

Running a basic land will not help drastically against wasteland. A competent player will just cut you off of a color while you sit there helpless.

I personally like Bryant's current list. I played it card for card at SCG: Denver, only with a maindeck pyroblast. I'm not entirely sure that's correct. I was anticipating lots of merfolk, but playing against merfolk, I think I would have rather had the 4th chant. Pyroblast is a reactive card. There were situations where I needed to go off with LED and had pyro in hand. Obviously a chant would have been better.

[jin]

The reason you run a 5c manabase is not just because of cards like chant/grip.

TES is a three color deck with very little land. You want each land to produce all three colors so you don't put yourself in an awkward situation when you don't see a second land. Three color control decks have the luxury of playing much more lands and being able to play the long game. TES wants to combo out ASAP.

Imagine a hand with Duress, Burning wish, Ponder, and a ritual. Ask yourself if you'd rather have a 5c land or a dual land in that situation. I've played with a fetchland configuration, and honestly, it's not an improvement over the 5c manabase.

Running a basic land will not help drastically against wasteland. A competent player will just cut you off of a color while you sit there helpless.

I personally like Bryant's current list. I played it card for card at SCG: Denver, only with a maindeck pyroblast. I'm not entirely sure that's correct. I was anticipating lots of merfolk, but playing against merfolk, I think I would have rather had the 4th chant. Pyroblast is a reactive card. There were situations where I needed to go off with LED and had pyro in hand. Obviously a chant would have been better.

yeah I read your report.. it is evident in it that you believe in your philosophy to win asap. It's almost always ad nauseum and rarely anything else.. too bad it wasn't more detailed about the regular turns. I'd like to hear about how you read the opponent and what was on the board.

[Jander78]

Cutting in the amount of land and adding LDV seems counterproductive. I'm also interested to hear how good LDV is. I am anxious to actually play that card at a tournament, because it can make for so many complicated situations (where you can cycle through your deck to add cards from the next/previous 5 to a stack thus seting up for a winning Brainstorm). I suspect the card is not good enough in a TES shell, and you're better off running 2 Preordain or additional rituals.

Coincidentally, Preordain was one of the three cards I was testing for the slot. While cantripping is always nice in this deck, it didn't have what I was looking for. The original reason I made room for 2x LDV (or a tutor / cantrip slot in general) was due to getting mana flooded quite often without any buisness spells in hand. Chrome Mox is an excellent card, but I rarely want to see more than one before going off. It's too stressing on your hand to ever imprint more than one card for multiples (pre-Ad Nauseam). And after removing white, I felt 3 Thoughtseize to be the right number.

The reason you run a 5c manabase is not just because of cards like chant/grip.

TES is a three color deck with very little land. You want each land to produce all three colors so you don't put yourself in an awkward situation when you don't see a second land. Three color control decks have the luxury of playing much more lands and being able to play the long game. TES wants to combo out ASAP.

Imagine a hand with Duress, Burning wish, Ponder, and a ritual. Ask yourself if you'd rather have a 5c land or a dual land in that situation. I've played with a fetchland configuration, and honestly, it's not an improvement over the 5c manabase.

Running a basic land will not help drastically against wasteland. A competent player will just cut you off of a color while you sit there helpless.

I personally like Bryant's current list. I played it card for card at SCG: Denver, only with a maindeck pyroblast. I'm not entirely sure that's correct. I was anticipating lots of merfolk, but playing against merfolk, I think I would have rather had the 4th chant. Pyroblast is a reactive card. There were situations where I needed to go off with LED and had pyro in hand. Obviously a chant would have been better.

When you can conserve land with basics it saves you time (1 turn) rebuilding your mana base. Against decks using Wasteland to slow you down, having two basics can prevent delays in mana development. Having one basic would be incorrect and can fail to the situation you have outlined, having two out can be quite productive.

I'm not touting this as the correct manabase configuration. It's worked well in testing so far, but that doesn't make it infallible. I do prefer it at the moment with Wasteland so prevelant. Having the option to ignore mana denial can be quite advantageous.

[ZZZ]

@3c vs 5c: I've played both and both have their advantages and disadvantages. In my last tournament with TES, I played Emidln's 3c colour list and although I was really happy with it I'll be playing Bryant's list upcoming Sunday.
It's been said a couple of times that the 3c list is more Wasteland proof because it runs basics but I found this could also be a disadvantage at times. I've had to mull some excellent hands because my 1 land was a swamp. Also against Merfs for instance fetching a basic might just be to slow at times when you need the blue mana for a cantrip but you need black or red to use your ritual on the next turn.

A couple of good points have been made on the discard vs Chant topic. Some of the more obvious ones which haven't been said:
- Using discard on your combo turn against a Top in play you can get blown out by a floating counter; you can't have that with Chant (unless they have 1 counter in hand and 1on top but then your screwed with discard as well).
- Chant is great after EtW; Thoughtseize and Duress aren't bad either but not as good as Chant.
- Discard is better vs. Counterbalance and permanent based hate.
- Discard can be played before the combo turn which frees up a mana on your combo turn but allows for top deck counters.

Just a couple of notes for people contemplating the 2 builds.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

yeah I read your report.. it is evident in it that you believe in your philosophy to win asap. It's almost always ad nauseum and rarely anything else.. too bad it wasn't more detailed about the regular turns. I'd like to hear about how you read the opponent and what was on the board.

Ad Naus is just the cleanest, simplest kill. The majority of my matchups were non-interactive, so I just went for the sure thing. I did win a nontrivial amount of games with Diminishing Returns and Ill-Gotten Gains. It's just that those engines either are more random (DRet) or require more setup (IGG). In my match in T8, I won game 2 off a desperate Returns.

When you can conserve land with basics it saves you time (1 turn) rebuilding your mana base. Against decks using Wasteland to slow you down, having two basics can prevent delays in mana development. Having one basic would be incorrect and can fail to the situation you have outlined, having two out can be quite productive.

I'm not touting this as the correct manabase configuration. It's worked well in testing so far, but that doesn't make it infallible. I do prefer it at the moment with Wasteland so prevelant. Having the option to ignore mana denial can be quite advantageous.

In my experience with the deck, you usually won't have time to find the two basics before it's too late. I agree that having a wasteland proof manabase is strong, but only against a deck that isn't putting you on a clock. Part of the reason Merfolk is a tough matchup is because they can disrupt you with wasteland AND crap out monsters. In a deck that wants to win fast, I want my lands to produce all three colors that I'm playing. I'm not saying running basics in a combo deck is wrong. I'm saying that it may not be optimal in a list like Bryant's.

[Jander78]

In my experience with the deck, you usually won't have time to find the two basics before it's too late. I agree that having a wasteland proof manabase is strong, but only against a deck that isn't putting you on a clock. Part of the reason Merfolk is a tough matchup is because they can disrupt you with wasteland AND crap out monsters. In a deck that wants to win fast, I want my lands to produce all three colors that I'm playing. I'm not saying running basics in a combo deck is wrong. I'm saying that it may not be optimal in a list like Bryant's.

Merfolk is one of the matchups where this configuration can work towards your advantage. Not allowing their mana denial strategy to take full effect will help you keep up with them. As far as time is concerned, it's not usually too hard to get the Swamp and Island between the first two turns. It allows you to saftely cast a cantrip / discard spell turn 1 without worrying about losing your land on the opponents turn. I'm not disagreeing with you as I agree that it may not be optimal, but so far I have found it too my liking. The current accepted mana base (Bryant's) can have the same discrepancies. If a 5 color land gets Wasted and you only have a dual or fetchland in hand, you fall to the same issues.

[ScatmanX]

While playing against Goblins, what is the SB card that you guys most fear coming from it?
I have tested Chalice and Thorn (and ReB). Think asking wouldn't hurt...

[AriLax]

While playing against Goblins, what is the SB card that you guys most fear coming from it?
I have tested Chalice and Thorn (and ReB). Think asking wouldn't hurt...

No single card actually scares me that much. Possibly Chalice as my knee jerk reaction would be boarding a couple Chain of Vapors. I'm more afraid of them hitting a critical mass of hate that still lets their deck function. If they had White Leyline, Thorn/Chalice, and an Earwig Squad I would be afraid.

[Rico Suave]

This deck cannot afford to run basic lands. If your goal is to run a Wasteland proof mana base, 3 colors in a combo deck will never, ever work. You just have to accept that Wastelands will frequently ruin you and that Merfolk is a poor match because of it.

Now, playing a 2 color deck will let it fight Wastelands. But then it no longer has Burning Wish and it gets worse against everything else.

[Azdraël]

It is not that problem, we run a great amount of fetchs, and swamp/island. Just get the red mana when you need it to combo off. Sure Wasteland can slow you down, but it is not the greatest threat.

[Jim Higginbottom]

Since when did merfolk become a matchup that we need to ruin our mana base and weaken the deck to play against? I've played against the deck a lot in recent tournaments so I went back and looked at the results and I've won them 6 out of my most 10 recent matches. Play tighter..people who have been playing this deck for a while have positive merfolk matchups.

[Jander78]

Since when did merfolk become a matchup that we need to ruin our mana base and weaken the deck to play against? I've played against the deck a lot in recent tournaments so I went back and looked at the results and I've won them 6 out of my most 10 recent matches. Play tighter..people who have been playing this deck for a while have positive merfolk matchups.

I don't agree with Merfolk being a positive matchup for this deck. Regardless of your recent personal tournament performances, which is pretty close to the projected matchup percentage in the opening post (albeit 60% compared to 50%), the matchups that this deck has close win/loss percentages with is mainly due to mana denial, with Wasteland being the key culprit (sub prison). Discounting this as a "play tighter" scenario is facetious. This is not being claimed as a solution, just a suggestion in different environments where you may run into many Wastelands.

[Rune]

Since when did merfolk become a matchup that we need to ruin our mana base and weaken the deck to play against? I've played against the deck a lot in recent tournaments so I went back and looked at the results and I've won them 6 out of my most 10 recent matches. Play tighter..people who have been playing this deck for a while have positive merfolk matchups.

Well, I guess it's important to distinguish between the Merfolk builds. Are you talking about Saito's build with maindeck Spell Pierce, or something like the 16 lords, Standstill-less nonsense? I don't think anyone is really worried about the latter. All of the older builds are very much beatable, so I would only be impressed by a positive record against Saitofolk.

[Jim Higginbottom]

7 of them were Ub merfolk...saito's build. I won 4 of those. Also I think it's important to mention that in the 4 matches I lost all of them went to game 3 and all were very close. One of the losses was to Alex Bertoncini playing mono blue who won game 3 by drawing 3 forces and a couple wastelands...this matchup isn't bad.

[emidln]

If you mulled a hand with only basic swamp in my list you'd mull that exact same hand with Bryant's list 100% of the time. The swamp is the 14th land that I play over Bryant's 8th protection spell. In Bryant's list, you'd have a Silence there and you'd quickly mull your almost good opener because of lack of mana.

As far as not being wasteland proof, this deck is extremely good vs wasteland.

The basics chosen were for a very specific reason. You rarely cast red spells outside of your combo turn (the occasional wish->ts aside). This lets an uncracked fetch, petal, or mox function as your red source while your Swamp/Island are used during your critical setup turns. I thought this was obvious but I was probably giving this thread too much credit.

For every game you win because you go turn 1 BS/Ponder, turn 2 play a second land make RB in a 5c list you're going to lose at least one game to enemy going turn 1 Waste your land. When it comes down it, casting spells is extremely important and you don't get to do this as often without basics.

FWIW, I play an extra land (Bayou) in my sideboard and bring in 4 Xantid Swarm with this manabase:

4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp

My sideboard has 1 Bayou in it.

If anyone's curious, I'd play extra lands in Bryant's build over the same protection spell too. I don't feel like 13 lands is enough in a metagame with this many Wastelands. If you're playing a matchup without LD, go ahead and side out 1-2 lands.

[Pulp_Fiction]

I have also been liking the 14th land. It actually doesn't set DReturns off that bad. I still have a 70-85% success rate with it depending on how much mana is floating. And I also agree on 7 protection spells. Now I am not sure exactly what u run but I play 4x Duress and 3x Thoughtseize and really like it.

[Shimi]

I'm 3-2 against Merfolks in my last 3 tournaments with TES with the Bryant list and ofcourse waste ruined my day in one match but Iggy + Silence own me another match where Adn or EtW would not get there , against a CB deck with Top in the table silence is much more valuable than duress cause they can flip Top and draw Fow from the top to stop you after they show you their "counterless hand".
I didn't tested 3c list but for me it is very clear that silence/chant > duress/seize and that multiple wastelands just happen less than being manascrewed by basic lands.