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

[Lego]

I haven't seen any discussion of Gitaxian Probe.

Gitaxian Probe
[U/p] Sorcery
Look at target player's hand.
Draw a card.
([U/p] may be payed with U or 2 life)

It's pretty similar to Street Wraith (not that you would ever play Street Wraith with Ad Nauseum in the deck)... it shows your opponent's hand and generates additional storm, but it makes Ad Nauseum slightly worse by costing 2 life, and it makes mulligan decisions worse.

Off the bat, it doesn't seem like it does enough, but I suppose you could at least justify testing it.

[GexxX]

I haven't seen any discussion of Gitaxian Probe.

Gitaxian Probe
[U/p] Sorcery
Look at target player's hand.
Draw a card.
([U/p] may be payed with U or 2 life)

It's pretty similar to Street Wraith (not that you would ever play Street Wraith with Ad Nauseum in the deck)... it shows your opponent's hand and generates additional storm, but it makes Ad Nauseum slightly worse by costing 2 life, and it makes mulligan decisions worse.

Off the bat, it doesn't seem like it does enough, but I suppose you could at least justify testing it.

I think we do not have any room to test it. What will you cut to pack one in? I mean I really don't care to often what my opponents hand is. You have to either stop him from countering (silence, chant and duress are in the deck for that purpose) or you have to play some bait for their counters (pretty much any spell that is broken). The information does not really do anything and drawing a card for 2life is not the best plan.

I do admit though. Adding storm for zero mana is strong, I just doubt it's strong enough to make it in TES. I also feel Mental Misstep and Surgial Extraction do more for basically the same mana cost. Drawing a card CAN make a big difference, but that's pretty much gambling and having at least some protection from duress, toughtseize, spell snare, spell pierce OR removing keycards from you opponents Hand/GY/Lib is less of a luck-factor.

Edit:
I think with mystical tutor still unbanned the card would be pretty cool! For ANT...^^

[Kyle Hyde]

How does tutor chaining work?

[lorddotm]

How does tutor chaining work?

If you have lots of mana, you can cast Infernal into Infernal, etc to get more storm before you grab Tendrils of Agony.

[Kyle Hyde]

If you have lots of mana, you can cast Infernal into Infernal, etc to get more storm before you grab Tendrils of Agony.

Ok. I thought that was what it was. I was hoping there was a trick I wasn't seeing.

[TossUsToLions]

Hey everyone, just started playing TES. This is undoubtedly the cockiest thread I have ever seen in my life. I think I'll love it here...

Anyways, I would also like to hear what people think about Mental Misstep? How will it affect us, and is there any merit to testing it against cards like Sensei's Divining Top, Stifle, Spell Pierce, etc.

Honestly, I don't see it being game-breaking against us. It only hits our protection spells, cantrips, and rituals, but none of our bombs. But I think only time will tell how this card fits into legacy.

[Tammit67]

Counterspell + Lion's Eye Diamond = no.

As for fighting it, I think the correct plan is just don't give a fuck and play some disruption, just like how you fight Force of Will.

[ryl417]

Hey everyone, just started playing TES. This is undoubtedly the cockiest thread I have ever seen in my life. I think I'll love it here...

Anyways, I would also like to hear what people think about Mental Misstep? How will it affect us, and is there any merit to testing it against cards like Sensei's Divining Top, Stifle, Spell Pierce, etc.

Honestly, I don't see it being game-breaking against us. It only hits our protection spells, cantrips, and rituals, but none of our bombs. But I think only time will tell how this card fits into legacy.

Humbly, fuck mental misstep. This deck powers through Merfolk if and when played correctly, which packs quite the heavy counter suite. You've got chants / silences, plus what are you going to cut?

[Andy_V]

Humbly, fuck mental misstep. This deck powers through Merfolk if and when played correctly, which packs quite the heavy counter suite. You've got chants / silences, plus what are you going to cut?

Well said... frankly, i'd prefer them to cut Spell Snare for MM and stop leaving mana untapped trying to bait me to forget about MM. It's just another fuckin counterspell (dazing a petal could be bad for us). Either they cut other/better counters for it (wash) or or they cut pressure (++). Storm tends to have inevitability, if not locked out (chalice/crucible+waste/3sphere) and few decks can really lock you out.

Yes, it's good against storm if the storm player doesn't put you on it and doesn't try to play around it, but paying phyrexian for it means I have to get to 9, not 10.

If I played folk and had to win against goblins, i'd play it, but I don't have to worry about either deck, because I play TES.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I agree. The Merfolk matchup might become sligthly harder since you can't just go for Xantid Swarm and win anymore if they pack Mental Misstep, but if people are cutting Spell Snare from their decks for this. Well, thanks. Also, I'm pretty sure most people won't use Mental Misstep to counter the right spells anyway. I'm not afraid of it at all, at least not when playing TES.

[GexxX]

MM will affect us way less than other Decks. (DD and ANT for instance) since we basically rely on different cards(edit: what I am trying to say is that we play less cantrips and more tutors). Decks that Pack MM in addition to their usual counters are less likely to put us on a fast clock. That means we have time to find a way to beat them to pieces regardless what they counter. In case they switch their counterpack and exchange I predict our chances of winning are even higher. Spell Snare hits all of our tutors I'd love them to not play it.
Merfolk can pack MM to fight Xantid, but I doubt that it's going to be more played than Daze. And for those worried about them countering silence/chant/duress -> we often play some counterbait. so what exactly is the difference? They make the storm +1 and in most cases even lower it by 1 for paying two life(theoretically) ...

Personally I am not convinced the card will be such a beast, but time will tell ;)

[ninja_attack]

Hey everyone, just started playing TES. This is undoubtedly the cockiest thread I have ever seen in my life. I think I'll love it here...

Anyways, I would also like to hear what people think about Mental Misstep? How will it affect us, and is there any merit to testing it against cards like Sensei's Divining Top, Stifle, Spell Pierce, etc.

Honestly, I don't see it being game-breaking against us. It only hits our protection spells, cantrips, and rituals, but none of our bombs. But I think only time will tell how this card fits into legacy.

There are ways to win around mental misstep, It also depends on the way they evaluate their hand, almost the same way they evaluate their hand based on force, most of the decks our team has been testing with misstep have been advocating cutting Daze, so that means we only have to worry about force and misstep.

Like I was saying, we can win through misstep with hands like LED, LED, Land, Mox, Card to inprint, Tutor.

[kilukru]

This is what I wrote in the MM thread :

A curious thing about MM is that one of the archetype it will affect the less is actully combo. Control deck that will play MM will either remove daze, spell pierce of spell snare for it, so the disruption density remain the same and that disruption density is the main thing you worry about when playing combo.

For non-blue deck non black deck, if the play 4 MM, fine, thats really thin protection against combo, if they run nothing else against it (Teg, etc...) it wont matter

For black deck, chance are that black deck that will run MM will cut some kind of hand disruption for it, so once again, the disruption density remain the same. If they do run the fulll suit of hand disruption and MM, then the rest of the deck will be real thin, so a slow clock, unless they get that Tombstalker real fast!

So I dont beleive we need to worry about this card

[leegoo]

I almost want to switch decks from DDFT to TES, not for any rational reason, but just because this is the only combo thread on the source that isn't preaching doom and gloom since the spoiling of MM.

[LostButSeeking]

I almost want to switch decks from DDFT to TES, not for any rational reason, but just because this is the only combo thread on the source that isn't preaching doom and gloom since the spoiling of MM.

At least part of that is the nature of the deck. Most of the other storm decks (and I've only played Rev314, but I think this is applicable to other versions as well) run more cantrips (Brainstorm+Ponder+Sensei's Top+Preordain) and fewer actual tutors, so they have to dig harder. Since we run both infernal tutor and burning wish, we're less vulnerable to that sort of disruption (although it does affect us to some extent).

I'm pretty sure it will make things (at least a little) uglier. If, say, a zoo player (if zoo decides to run it), plays a first turn Wild Nactl followed by a misstep on our ponder it will be irksome as hell. I'm also anticipating the merfolk matchup getting worse because they have a (free) answer to our protection spells, Silence, Chant and Duress. Ugh. However, realize that doing that (while not costing them mana) does cost them a card. This is super relevent in the zoo matchup, as they rely on being pretty balls to the walls with the burn spells and the hate bears to get to us before we combo off. Even one fewer burn spell could be the difference between victory and defeat for them, and they have to cut something to fit in the missteps. . .

Still, the deck is pretty silly, and we've all seen the deck fight through hate before, or we wouldn't be here. Is anyone excited about comboing off for 9 storm and doing 18 damage, looking at their faces when they realize their misstep killed them? Because I am.

[x8eikdls]

Mental Misstep won't do much to this deck.

First off, what does it counter?

Ponder? I have 3 other Ponders and 4 Brainstorms.
Duress? I have 3 other Duress and 4 Chants.
Dark Ritual? I have 3 other Dark Ritual, 4 Rite of Flames, 4 Lotus Petal, 4 LED, and 4 Chrome Mox.

What doesn't it counter?

Infernal Tutor. Burning Wish. Ad Nauseam.

Basically, everything Misstep counters is a redundant spell. The reason this card completely rapes High Tide is because it counters the actual card High Tide, and there is no other card in that deck that does what High Tide does. However, anything MM can counter in TES is in the deck in at least 8 copies.

The biggest impact MM will have is post-board, when Xantid Swarm is brought in. Control decks now have 8 cards that can counter a turn 1 Xantid Swarm when they are on the draw. That's huge. And that is the only real negative impact MM will have on this deck.

Second, what cards are being cut for MM? Most decks are cutting Daze, Spell Pierce, or Spell Snare. They aren't adding 4 MM to their deck while keeping their disruption/counters consistent, so opposing decks will still have roughly the same number of interactive cards. Here's the upside, though: Spell Pierce and Spell Snare are both better than MM vs TES. Spell Pierce can hit everything MM can (minus Swarm), in addition to the non-replaceable cards like Ad Nauseam and Burning Wish. Dropping Spell Snare is a HUGE upside. Spell Snare counters the most important cards in the deck (IT and BW) for 1 mana. Furthermore, a Spell Snare countering a Burning Wish or Infernal Tutor is generally going to be more harmful because you're more "all-in" at the point you cast those spells. Rituals are generally cast at that point, not to mention LEDs being cracked in response, so countering your spell at that point is going to be more impactfull than countering the Dark Ritual at the start of the turn.

Third, people are talking about adding MM to every deck. Literally, every deck. Zoo, Goblins, Dredge, everything. That's awful. If you're playing an aggro deck and the only way you feel you can compete is to play MM to counter their MM, you should probably be looking for a new deck. If those decks do add MM to their decks, or even the sideboard, I feel they will cut anti-Storm cards to fit them. I feel like they would replace Mindbreak Traps and Thorn of Amethyst with MM, under the impression that MM will fight Storm just as well. And well, that's a huge, huge bonus for TES.

On Gataxian Probe: it's trash. Don't play it in this deck. It isn't free, as the 2 life you pay means 2 less cards you can draw off Ad Nauseam. The info you gain is awesome, but if you really want another card to look at their hand, add Thoughtseize before Probe. Now you get to look at their hand AND take that Force of Will.

On Surgical Extraction: Why is this even being mentioned? If this deck doesn't even want Extirpate, why would you consider adding a worse Extirpate to the deck?

[ninja_attack]

Mental Misstep won't do much to this deck.

First off, what does it counter?

Ponder? I have 3 other Ponders and 4 Brainstorms.
Duress? I have 3 other Duress and 4 Chants.
Dark Ritual? I have 3 other Dark Ritual, 4 Rite of Flames, 4 Lotus Petal, 4 LED, and 4 Chrome Mox.

What doesn't it counter?

Infernal Tutor. Burning Wish. Ad Nauseam.

Basically, everything Misstep counters is a redundant spell. The reason this card completely rapes High Tide is because it counters the actual card High Tide, and there is no other card in that deck that does what High Tide does. However, anything MM can counter in TES is in the deck in at least 8 copies.

The biggest impact MM will have is post-board, when Xantid Swarm is brought in. Control decks now have 8 cards that can counter a turn 1 Xantid Swarm when they are on the draw. That's huge. And that is the only real negative impact MM will have on this deck.

Second, what cards are being cut for MM? Most decks are cutting Daze, Spell Pierce, or Spell Snare. They aren't adding 4 MM to their deck while keeping their disruption/counters consistent, so opposing decks will still have roughly the same number of interactive cards. Here's the upside, though: Spell Pierce and Spell Snare are both better than MM vs TES. Spell Pierce can hit everything MM can (minus Swarm), in addition to the non-replaceable cards like Ad Nauseam and Burning Wish. Dropping Spell Snare is a HUGE upside. Spell Snare counters the most important cards in the deck (IT and BW) for 1 mana. Furthermore, a Spell Snare countering a Burning Wish or Infernal Tutor is generally going to be more harmful because you're more "all-in" at the point you cast those spells. Rituals are generally cast at that point, not to mention LEDs being cracked in response, so countering your spell at that point is going to be more impactfull than countering the Dark Ritual at the start of the turn.

Third, people are talking about adding MM to every deck. Literally, every deck. Zoo, Goblins, Dredge, everything. That's awful. If you're playing an aggro deck and the only way you feel you can compete is to play MM to counter their MM, you should probably be looking for a new deck. If those decks do add MM to their decks, or even the sideboard, I feel they will cut anti-Storm cards to fit them. I feel like they would replace Mindbreak Traps and Thorn of Amethyst with MM, under the impression that MM will fight Storm just as well. And well, that's a huge, huge bonus for TES.

On Gataxian Probe: it's trash. Don't play it in this deck. It isn't free, as the 2 life you pay means 2 less cards you can draw off Ad Nauseam. The info you gain is awesome, but if you really want another card to look at their hand, add Thoughtseize before Probe. Now you get to look at their hand AND take that Force of Will.

Well said sir.

[lorddotm]

What do you guys think of Last Chance? It is probably terrible, but part of me wants to try it. Then again, I am not really in a mental state to be evaluating cards.

[Diprivan]

What do you guys think of Last Chance? It is probably terrible, but part of me wants to try it. Then again, I am not really in a mental state to be evaluating cards.

Honestly, I think it's terrible.

RR is not allways easily castable and it gives us:
- 1 extra draw (brainstorm and ponder both do this much better)
- untap (not really relevant, unless it allows us to drop another land)
- random etw race wins. (etw shouldn't be played when opponent has a reasonable chance of racing it + etw usually requires LED, so your hoping that one of your next 2 draws is a burning wish -> last chance + mana to cast it)

Though I don't really care about the lose the game part (when you go for your big turn, you win now or lose now most of the time), I don't believe this card merits a spot in an already really tight wishboard.

[lorddotm]

Honestly, I think it's terrible.

RR is not allways easily castable and it gives us:
- 1 extra draw (brainstorm and ponder both do this much better)
- untap (not really relevant, unless it allows us to drop another land)
- random etw race wins. (etw shouldn't be played when opponent has a reasonable chance of racing it + etw usually requires LED, so your hoping that one of your next 2 draws is a burning wish -> last chance + mana to cast it)

Though I don't really care about the lose the game part (when you go for your big turn, you win now or lose now most of the time), I don't believe this card merits a spot in an already really tight wishboard.

Your Wishboard is tight? I have a flexslot right now occupied by Hurkyl's Recall, and there have definitely been time where I think an extra turn would be exactly what I need, that being said, RR is a harsh cost to pay.

Once again, a disclaimer, I don't have class tomorrow, so I am not in a position to be seriously making any sort of suggestions.