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

[Koby]

Do you guys really think Past in Flames and Ill Gotten Gains are worth the SB space after removing Tendrils of Agony from the MD and the popularity of Deathrite Shaman?

IGG has good applications when you board it in for some matchups. It's rare that it becomes a Wish-target, since getting it to work requires both a BWish and Infernal Tutor in your hand. That said, when you have both and 2 LEDs, it's an easy win against most decks.

Past in Flames is weaker in TES than it is in ANT due to the weaker rituals used. I have used PIF in conjunction with a large Rite of Flame count to go the distance however.

Deathrite Shaman has never concerned me because it's usually too slow to matter, or you can play around it.

[phazonmutant]

@thread

Do you guys really think Past in Flames and Ill Gotten Gains are worth the SB space after removing Tendrils of Agony from the MD and the popularity of Deathrite Shaman?

Yes. I've killed multiple people with both PiF and IGG, and there's really nothing else I want to make room for in the sideboard. There's not many cards we can take out and the cards we bring in are insanely versatile.

[leegoo]

@thread

Do you guys really think Past in Flames and Ill Gotten Gains are worth the SB space after removing Tendrils of Agony from the MD and the popularity of Deathrite Shaman?

honestly I've never felt that the option of "more" storm engines was bad... I always considered it one of the main reasons to play TES (although I know you are talking more about TNT...burning wish storm then.)

Shaman can be annoying, but not so much as to make me want to cut IGG/PiF.

[Final Fortune]

I just don't feel either of them are necessary, especially when you're SBing an Infernal Tutor game 1 and/or for the rest of the match, and while there's some utility in SBing in Ill Gotten Gains and Tendrils of Agony vs aggro that archetype is the least of our concerns.

I actually find Deathrite Shaman more than fast enough to interfere with Past in Flames and Ill Gotten Gains lines in TES because both of those lines are much more resource intensive than Empty the Warrens, Diminishing Returns or Ad Nauseam and take longer to realize. I've obviously never ran head long into it, but just an untapped Deathrite Shaman writes off those lines of play quite a bit fwiw.

IDK, there just seems like there should be more useful stuff to run in those slots right now, altho' I'm not sure what it would be.

[Megadeus]

I would think about not using PiF but I have had a decent amount of success with IGG. Some times you just need to up the storm count. Also I love playing the card...

[Bryant Cook]

I'm still a pretty big advocate of Silence, it seems like we have this argument every ten pages. Look back if you want to see why I play Silence over more discard.

As for the sideboard options, I could see either Storm engine leaving. The problem is I don't think there's a card worth adding thats better than these two. With Therapy, Decay, and Chain pretty much everything is covered.

[Psyqo]

Acquired the necessary cards for this deck recently and have been goldfish testing to get a feel for which Wish targets to use and when.

Quick rules question with the deck. I understand the interaction between Sorceries like Burning Wish and Infernal Tutor where you can announce them, retain priority, then sac an LED.

My question is.. since Dark Ritual is an instant, is this possible?

1. Announce Wish/Tutor as a spell
2. Retain priority
3. Announce 1 or more Dark Rituals as a spell
4. Sac LED for black, playing the Dark Rituals before paying the cost of the first announced spell

I'm thinking "no" but since Dark Rit is an instant I want to understand more how to use that to my advantage.

[Koby]

You can cast instants when retaining priority. The "trick" when retaining priority is that you don't give an opportunity for your opponent to respond to any string of spells or abilities.

EDIT: (for clarification)
You can't, however, use LED mana to pay for spells being cast. LED has a timing restriction that prevents it from being used as mana payments when resolving spells.

The "trick" is to cast BWish or Tutor using available mana (lands, rituals etc), then retain priority and pop the LEDs for mana. With Infernal Tutor this enables Hellbent.
You can also cast the tutor, then respond with Dark Rituals using remaining floating mana, then pop LED for an additional 3 mana; all without passing priority.

[Megadeus]

I agree that Silence is definitely a solid choice. If nothing else you can use it on your opponents upkeep if they are on maverick or another Thalia deck or trying to Hymn you to buy a turn and attempt to go off the next turn. Also it is awesome in combo mirrors to "get" them. Too many discard spells makes you a bit more vulnerable to the Miracles playing top while floating their force. Silence beats that as well.

[lochlan]

Quick rules question with the deck. I understand the interaction between Sorceries like Burning Wish and Infernal Tutor where you can announce them, retain priority, then sac an LED.

This is not quite correct, you don't just announce them--you cast them, retain priority (so that they are unresolved, but on the stack) and then break LED in response, thus giving you mana you can use to cast your tutor target. If you could break LED before paying the cost of a spell then you could use LED to play a card in your hand, but that is not allowed under the current rules.

My question is.. since Dark Ritual is an instant, is this possible?

1. Announce Wish/Tutor as a spell
2. Retain priority
3. Announce 1 or more Dark Rituals as a spell
4. Sac LED for black, playing the Dark Rituals before paying the cost of the first announced spell

No, this is not possible. After you announce a spell you have to choose targets, pay costs, etc. before regaining priority. You would have to pay the cost of the wish/tutor before you can respond to it with Dark Ritual.

[Psyqo]

Thanks lochlan and Koby. It makes more sense now.

I guess I had the initial interaction wrong then.. I thought you could use LED to pay the cost of a spell that you announce. Guess that isn't the case either. Better to learn here than by getting a game loss in a tourney.

[phazonmutant]

lochlan is correct. A quick refresher on how to cast spells (it's a lot more complicated than people think):

1. Announce the spell and move it from the zone it was in to the stack.
2. Choose modes, alternative costs, additional costs, any X's
3. Choose targets
4. Divide or distribute (e.g. how to distribute Bounty of the Hunt counters)
5. "Lock in" costs
6. Activate mana abilities
7. Pay the total cost (in any order)

Only then is a spell considered "cast". Once a spell is cast, the Comp Rules say that priority goes back to the active player after casting a spell, activating an ability, or placing a triggered ability on the stack. However one of the shortcuts in the Magic Tournament Rules is that a player implicitely passes priority after one of the above unless explicitly stated.

The reason why LED is awkward is because it is a mana ability, and normally you can use mana abilities like Lotus Petal's ability as part of casting a spell. LED, however, has a timing restriction to only be used as an instant. Similarly, Dark Ritual has to be cast and resolve before you can use the mana it produces to cast something like Infernal Tutor.

[Final Fortune]

I agree that Silence is definitely a solid choice. If nothing else you can use it on your opponents upkeep if they are on maverick or another Thalia deck or trying to Hymn you to buy a turn and attempt to go off the next turn. Also it is awesome in combo mirrors to "get" them. Too many discard spells makes you a bit more vulnerable to the Miracles playing top while floating their force. Silence beats that as well.

There's a lot to be said for diversifying your disruption and Silence is a value card earlier than Cabal Therapy is, I don't think it's a question of whether or not Cabal Therapy is better than Silence as a disruption spell (it may incidentally gain utility from the metagame shifting towards discard and permanent based hate) but what structural changes having 4 additional black disruption cards allows you to make to your manabase.

That's why I wouldn't straight swap Silence for Cabal Therapy, because it's just as much about playing 8 fetchlands.

[Pelikanudo]

@Final Frtune

TES is not designed to take full advantage of Fetchlands, 4-5 is enough, if you try to use more fetches you will need to use Cabal ritual as for its purpose you will take more advantage of it, and again you will return to ANT - B.W builds
You need to think that you will need tha same land to play (D.Ritual OR Rite of Flame OR Braintorm) and the best land for it is Fetchland -> Volcanic OR Underground Sea, but again and returnning to the A.Decay problem, you just can use the current TES Manabase configuration (With gemstone and CoB to allow other colors apart from before metioned), also, if you do not play chant effects in base, you can miss Xantid from side, that is again another reason to play Gemnstone as a 4 Of. Badlands does not produce blue, I will not play that land in TES ever. at least with 13 lands 3 C.Moxen configuration.

Apart, I absolutly agree with you on not playing IGG or PiF in side if you do not play Tendrils main. I play Tendrils main.

[Final Fortune]

@Final Frtune

TES is not designed to take full advantage of Fetchlands, 4-5 is enough, if you try to use more fetches you will need to use Cabal ritual as for its purpose you will take more advantage of it, and again you will return to ANT - B.W builds
You need to think that you will need tha same land to play (D.Ritual OR Rite of Flame OR Braintorm) and the best land for it is Fetchland -> Volcanic OR Underground Sea, but again and returnning to the A.Decay problem, you just can use the current TES Manabase configuration (With gemstone and CoB to allow other colors apart from before metioned), also, if you do not play chant effects in base, you can miss Xantid from side, that is again another reason to play Gemnstone as a 4 Of. Badlands does not produce blue, I will not play that land in TES ever. at least with 13 lands 3 C.Moxen configuration.

Apart, I absolutly agree with you on not playing IGG or PiF in side if you do not play Tendrils main. I play Tendrils main.

What do you mean TES isn't "designed" to take advantage of fetchlands, because that doesn't mean TES wont benefit from additional fetchlands? Personally I'll take every last shuffle effect I can get after I cast a Brainstorm or a Ponder. I mean if you really feel the way you do about fetchlands, then why would you play any fetchlands before you'd play a full set of City of Brass ... obviously because shuffle effects are added value.

A single land doesn't have to support blue, black and red mana, you have 4 Lotus Petal, 3 Chrome Mox, 4 less white cards and 3 more black cards in order to smoothe your manabase requirements.

Xantid Swarm is a bad SB card in a metagame full of hand disruption, it's not a consideration IMO. Abrupt Decay is the only green card I want to cast, and I've already conceded Abrupt Decay is worse here than it is in TES (like I said, trade offs are trade offs).

The number of fetchlands you play has nothing to do with the presence of Cabal Ritual in your 60, Cabal Ritual is for a Storm deck with a fundamental turn of 3+, Rite of Flame is for a Storm deck with a fundamental turn of 1+. I realize the manabase looks like ANT, but as I've said before, the distinction between ANT and TES isn't the land configuration it's the choice of using Rite of Flame and 3+ Chrome Moxes as opposed to Cabal Ritual and 1-2 Chrome Moxes.

I don't really care whether or not you'd never play Badlands, it's a functionally necessary card for your manabase.

[Megadeus]

I think the current set up of silences and gemstones is fine. Especially since as has been said, getting abrupt decay out of the board is awesome. Also I still am on Hull Breach out of the board to wish for. Silence is just an awesome way to protect the combo turn.

[Asthereal]

I tried an 'almost' three colour list with discard as only protection.
My testing mana bases were: 3-4x Gemstone, 2x Sea 1-2x Volcanic, 6x Fetch.
Worked okayish, but I wasn't sold on it. I like the normal 'Silence' list better.

[Koby]

Played in a MTGO Daily Event last nite, going undefeated (4-0) against Junk, Manaless Dredge, and two Jund decks.
Turns out, when people are playing Modern decks in Legacy, we get to free wins. In my last match, my opponent got to play one turn.

I used both IGG and PIF in various positions.
One case - (IGG) I had no cards in hand with 2 LEDs in play (discard - Junk), topdecked Infernal Tutor, start a chain IT -> BW -> IGG -> BW -> DReturns -> fizzle (no rituals, 2 Silence, 2 lands)
Another case -(PIF) against active DRS & Liliana, IT -> RoF (third) and discard to Lily, untap RoF x2, BW -> PIF -> RoF + DR -> IT -> BW -> Tendrils.

Both these cards are highly relevant to generating storm against heavy discard strategies. I wouldn't cut them for anything less impactful.

[Tammit67]

Another case -(PIF) against active DRS & Liliana, IT -> RoF (third) and discard to Lily, untap RoF x2, BW -> PIF -> RoF + DR -> IT -> BW -> Tendrils.

I guess it is safe to assume you had a second IT in the yard, one your active DRS opponent didn't remove? Seems loose.

[Koby]

I guess it is safe to assume you had a second IT in the yard, one your active DRS opponent didn't remove? Seems loose.

I don't remember precisely what was in the yard, but he used his mainphase to eat the first RoF after making me discard with Lily, so I just combo'd off instead. Otherwise, I would have had an incredible amount of mana off RoF into BW.