I have the longest hold times on Brainstorm of any combo player I've met. I just don't cast it unless I have a very good reason to. Randomly drawing three cards on turn 1 is almost never a good reason to.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
so what's your most common first turn play outside of Ponder,.. Duress? Bryant Duresses quite a bit first turn, so i was just wondering the implications it might have. Is Duress best served prior to the combo turn or during the combo turn? I find myself cantripping a lot for mana since I want hellbent asap. I'd like to hear your alternative plays besides casting Brainstorm.Originally Posted by emidln
This is actually an interesting discussion. Given a choice between playing a cantrip or Duress, I ALWAYS play Duress first. The only time I won't is if I have the turn 1 EtW and want to cast a cantrip for potentially more storm. Thats really it. The only time to really not Duress first is against something like Goblins and u think they brought in Mindbreak Trap, just wait till the combo turn or the 1 before to prevent them topdecking the shit.
And maybe its just me, but if I have a choice between Ponder and BS, I always cast Ponder first, everytime, because BS can leave u stranded drawing shit for 2 turns, Ponder always has a relevant effect. I still don't understand why people like Preordain over Ponder, w Ponder u potentially see 4 cards VS 3 w Preordain .... I understand the "draw the good one and put the land on bottom" argument but I will always side with the card that lets me see more potential outs. Plus, if you are keeping the cards from Ponder ur most likely winning that turn or the next anyway so how is Preordain better if you are keeping one ... putting another on the bottom, then drawing a random one next turn?
As far as the mainphase Brainstorm goes, I usually do that unless I am playing against anything with discard or I need to bait a counter/CB reveal. You may cantrip into another, into another, etc. and not all of them are instants, u need to dig through the deck as fast as you can to find the missing pieces. Just use ur judgment, there is no 100% correct play all the time, u just adjust based on what ur opponent is playing and go with the play that is most beneficial to u, because ur deck is better than theirs (unless its a combo mirror) 100% of the time so take the path of least resistance towards comboing off.
"I just shot Marvin in the face!"
"Why the fuck'd you do that??"
This seems like a bad idea when you aren't playing DDFT.
But you're you, so you're probably playing DDFT.
When you have a hand with a Brainstorm and a Duress it's generally going to be hard to tell how soon that hand is going to win. If that's the case, and I know I'm not against a deck I need to Duress before a certain turn (like CB), I think holding the Duress and cantripping first is better. You will generally have the option to play the Duress a turn in advance to save mana anyway, and if you run out the Duress too soon, the opponents gets more chances to draw or Brainstorm into more FoWs. I'm not advocating Brainstorming without fetch or the option to fetch, because that's nearly always bad. If I have a hand that isn't going to win soon with a Brainstorm and a Duress, and I have played a land (like turn 2 post Wasteland or something), I will generally just say go.
Although I completely agree that Ponder is better, it does occasionally happen that you want 1 card from your Ponder and 2 are pretty bad. You generally only keep this when that card is either the last one you need to win, or when the card is a land, or when you have another cantrip. The quality of cards in storm differs so much (LED and Ritual are just so much better) that seeing more cards is almost always a good argument. For that reason it's almost always correct to play Ponder before Brainstorm.
Although maybe not 100%, I'd say that Brainstorm mainphase is in like 95% of the cases the correct play. This deck can find so many things that it can do after a Brainstorm. Duress, Ponder, fetch, winning. If you're not mainphase Brainstorming, you're potentially missing out on mana that could be used to cast one of the above.
"Part of me belives that Barrin taught me meditation simply to shut me up."
-Ertai, wizard adept
http://solidarityprimer.proboards85.com/index.cgi
More than once my hand went from completely shit to godlike in a single mainphase Brainstorm. Even against discard, if you have redundancy like 2 bombs and 2 LEDs the discard might not even hurt you too much. But you have to give it some thought and calculate what cards you need to draw to win that turn.
But on the other hand, whenever I open a hand with 2 lands (one being a fetchland) and a Brainstorm, I prefer to just pass the turn and wait on the BS until I can't fetch away the chaff with the fetchland. But that happens when I have a bad hand and only a fully powered Ancestrall Recall can fix it.
My rule of thumb is that if I need a piece to win this turn, I mainphase brainstorm (even without fetch). If I need two, I don't. It has been working well so far.
Regarding Duress, it depends on whether you know what the opponent is playing or not. Usually at my LGS I know what most of my opp's are playing, so I only Duress when needed (combo turn or the one before). If you don't know against what you're playing, and their 1st turn play doesn't give you a clue, I think that it's not so bad to Duress them on your 2nd turn (assuming you're not comboing off). That helps you plan the matchup.
T1 Duress on the play is my favorite right after Ad Nauseam.
Getting their CB, Fow, Discard spell, or just seeing they hold seven blanks is worth it imo.
Even if they hold like 5 counters you know what you need to do to land Xantid.
If my opponent does not persuade me away from T1 duress, that is my default play. Though if it's crucial in case you are against tempo blue, holding it untill turn 2 would be most of the time correct. Trading duress for daze is just stupid.
Another good discussion is: do you Duress facing an untapped Island or do you Ponder?
If you're playing against CB you probably HAVE to, as it is you best chance of avoiding a CB. But against other decks it might not be so straight up. If the have the BS, they can just hide the FoW on top and the dead card second. If you wait until they tap out if can garantee getting a FoW.
Some rules of thumb I use :
Ponder : Do you have an open mana that you dont nned for anything else? if yes, then ponder. This is true for more than 90% of situations. If you have a descent hand and a ponder, you can use the ponder to bait daze or spell pierce, fun play.
Brainstorm : In most cases, the longer you hold on to your BS the better it is. When your beggigning to be in tune with the deck, when you hold a BS in hand pretty often the game state will change and you will have a ''I need th BS NOW!'' moment, I dont have an hard exemple of this, but it really happen.
Duress : For the t1 duress it mostly come to : do you know what your opponent playing? If not, duress t1 is a great move, the information it get can be decisive betwen a win and a lost. If you know what he's playing, then make a decision acordingly.
Btw, I recently finished 3rd in a 66 players event. (13/11/2010)
My list was a 5c, playing 14 land (bryant +1 city of brass), 2 MD Ad Nauseam, no MD ETW (I was expecting a lot of board control and I was right) and 4 duress 3 chant as MD disruption. Beside that pretty standart list.
For the side :
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroblast
1 Eye of nowhere
2 Chain of vapor
1 Shattering Spree
1 Grapeshop
1 ill-Gotten gain
1 tendrils
1 ETW
1 Diminishing return
1 Thoughtseize
5 hate cards you say? Well, pyroblast is a monster in so many matchup and I still think it's all around better than the Swarm but, Xantid Swarm simply win the merfolk MU by itself and merfolk is pretty common where I play. The solution to this dilemma, play both! And the results where pretty good
Eye of nowhere : Yes i still play this, yes it work. Ramdom solution to random problems, like dark depth combo, not very common, but it happened to me, 3 time, in the past 6 month.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams
I obviously Duress on one on the play, but against most blue decks I don't fire another bullet until I'm going off that turn.
<frogboy> Duress
<opponent> Brainstorm! Witness my cleverness in putting the Force of Will on top of my library, thus countering your Duress!
<frogboy> annnnnnnnnnnd you're dead.
When in doubt, mumble.
When in trouble, delegate.
Anyone ever get that fun opener with Dark Ritual and x3 Duress?
It's won me a game before... Thoughts? :)
The best opener was wth Iggy Pop and you got a turn 1 leyline into turn 1 Iggy.... Fun times.
But yes I have gotten that hand, and yes I have mulled that hand.
I had that hand, and it killed my opponent playing TES ( I was playing ANT)
works like intended.
Thank you, that was informative. I totally agree with you about the differences between the three cantrips. The only reason I draw with Ponder is because the majority of the cards I see are useful or that the one missing piece of the combo is there, otherwise, I simply shuffle it back and see what my 4th card is. Preordain would be much less useful in that respect.
Alright, i feel the need to post the list i have been maeesing around with, this had been the mad nuts in testing:
4x Burning Wish
4x Brainstorm
4x Rite of Flame
4x LED
4x Petal
4x Dark Ritual
4x Ponder
3x Xantid Swarm
4x Chrome Mox
3x Infernal Tutor
3x Duress
1x IGG
2x AdN
1x Tendrils
4x City of Brass
4x Gemstone Mine
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Polluted Delta
1x Flooded Strand
1x Scalded Tarn
1x Volcanic Island
2x Underground Sea
Sideboard
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Krosan Grip/Echoing Truth
1x Wipe Away
1x Duress/Thoughtseize
1x Xantid Swarm
1x Slaughter Pact
Wish Targets
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Infernal Tutor
1x Tendrils
1x Diminishing Returns
1x IGG
1x Mettdown/SS
1x Oust/Deathmark
Even with 15 lands D Returns will get u there when setup proplery. the 2x Adn are good and I have had nothing put positive results with this. now i havent tested the CB matchup (which currentl blows against DDFT) but this list absolutely decimates Vengevine shit and mosdsst ot the format. this list is the most consistent list of tes, which i usually hate, and had been ridiculous against msot matchups i have played. sorry to post yet another list cause i hate when people post their lists but this has beeen totall ty sick in testing,.
@jin: No problem man, after a while plays that i make or other people who play combo regularly make that i assume are common may be taken for granted. But when it comes to playing combo there are a lot of plays that i assume are "there" may not be. the best advice i have is just goldfish the deck everyday and know every in and out of the deck so when u have an opponent in front of u doing stuff, u know exactly which route to victory to take but even then it may not be enough. But when u obsessively goldfish the deck and ur opponent drops some unforseen hate, u are able to win VIA some random means because u know the deck in and out and overcome whatever they brought in. Like just the other day I kept a skeptical DDFT hand which had a turn 3 win and my opponent mulled down to 5 and opened with the white leyline .... on turn 2 i made 8 goblins and they got there. Just make sure u anticipate the hate cards and never go all-in on any one source unless u have Duressed/Chanted tham and know its safe.
"I just shot Marvin in the face!"
"Why the fuck'd you do that??"
Doesn't Xantid MD turn on opponent's otherwise dead removals? Why not chant, at the cost of having the same manabase?
Pulp sometimes is really informative. Sometimes he's wasted. He is wasted.
Hi,
I'm new on this forum, good to be here.
I'd like to point out that I think original decklist has too little white mana sources.
There have been numerous times when I was unable to play Orim's Chant due to lack of white mana.
Is this happening just to me or does anyone else think that the deck is really inconsistent when it comes to W mana?
Is it happening to you, too?
Thanks for the answers.
Regards,
Dom
Interesting list, the extra lands will help a lot against disruption (namely fish for me)! I have a question though: how come you kept IGG in there? Bryant advocates EtW over IGG because it is generally a better plan against blue (plus no one is ever sad to see it). I guess you built this deck with Survival in mind. I just wanted to hear your reasons for playing IGG over EtW in the main. For awhile I thought that Bryant's meta had too much blue for him to play IGG, and that's why he cut it, but recently I found out that even if I don't have enough storm, EtW can save me where as IGG just screws me. I think if anything is the "oh shit button" it's not DR, it's EtW.
Oh yes, I totally know what you mean about the goldfishing thing. I've been playing this deck for a year and a bit now and today I missed a very obvious play. I feel like I still have so much to learn about this deck! I'll keep trying! I have another question though about going all in. How can you not fully commit to one path of victory if LED requires you to empty your hand? Do you draw Dark Rituals and Rite of Flames when given a choice with LED?
I assume that Xantid Swarm can be recycled which allows him more room to play those extra lands. Also, it's been done before and it seemed fine then. I think a viable strategy would be to tell people you are playing combo, so they don't cantrip into removal.. LOL.
By original list are you talking about the 2010 one or the 2006 one?
For the 2010 one, since it is the only relevant one:
4x Lotus Petal
4x Gemstone Mine
2x City of Brass
Xx Chrome Mox
That's quite a bit of ways to get one W. There really isn't much trouble in getting that W. Consider saving a rainbowland or a petal for a Chant instead of using them to make B/R/U.
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