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

[Pelikanudo]

You're missing the point. I play 2 Chains in addition to Hull Breach. Chains are strictly for Leylines and other hateful permanents. Hull Breach is the answer for Game 1 problems. I've been perfectly fine using Hull Breach to destroy Counterbalance in Game 1 when the coast is clear.

I would not board anything against Belcher, and especially not Chain of Vapor against them. You're fighting for a marginal sideboard slot at this point and there's not much justification for cutting it. The sideboard as it stands has plenty of wiggle room for Hull Breach.

I assume I will not win through a resolved C.B. via B.Wish -> Hullbreach.
Apart from this problem, what other problems exist in Game 1 that S.S can not solve.?
I've lost match ups to MUD because of not having Spree this is a fact.
I can agree with you about Charbelcher if he sides in the Leylines, this can be in my opinion the only reason to play an Enchantment Destroyer for B.W., but I don't see why you won't side in CoV. if he plays Leyline, any specific reason?

I personally play Revoke Existence and not CoV but this is only because I still do not play CoV (prefer Xantid and Karakas for my meta) or any Enchantmen Bouncer. Otherwise I will play S.S.

[Bryant Cook]

Bryant? Agree?
Lets go back to the question: Bryant, have you faced any Leyline Base?

There's not a single question or conversation that I haven't covered in the recent past. This thread just goes in circles. If you're interested in my thoughts on the subject trying reading the thread from the beginning.

[Pelikanudo]

There's not a single question or conversation that I haven't covered in the recent past. This thread just goes in circles. If you're interested in my thoughts on the subject trying reading the thread from the beginning.

I think you're not ritgh, I even was the one who proposed R. Existence because of the lack of SideBoard Answers to 2nd and 3rd games to Leylines. -> Because of A.Decay inclusion, this proposal was accepted exactly by you.
Reference, and please see the Post below this:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post678152

Well, Having this in mind I can have missed something, but I honestly think that you should change to S.S. if you play 2 SideBoard Answers to Leyline.
I always do my homework.

I'd like to bring other Opinions apart from yours.
@Mainly Bahamut, Koby, F. Fortune: Do you agree with me on this specific subject?

[loveisgreen]

You are suggesting cutting our only out G1 to Counterbalance to be able to beat......Chalice? Trinisphere? A bunch of cards that are not as popular as Counterbalance?

In any case, I think I am going back to Reforge the Soul. I really like it way more in the miracles matchup as they don't get their stuff back, it plays nice with PiF, and costing one more for the more aggressive matchups has not mattered. Also, it makes Infernal for Rite of Flame when you don't have an LED a thing, when PiF is not an option. Like when Deathrite Shaman is in play.

I can't believe this deck existed the whole time I played ANT........ I feel like I'm way behind.

[Endure2004]

Got a short tournament report for you degenerates. Top 8'd the January NELC with:

4 dark ritual
4 rite of flame
4 lion's eye diamond
4 lotus petal
3 chrome mox
4 infernal tutor
4 burning wish
1 ad nauseum
1 empty the warrens
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 gitaxian probe
3 duress
4 silence
2 underground sea
1 volcanic island
2 misty rainforest
1 scalding tarn
4 gemstone mine
2 city of brass

SB
1 past in flames
1 ill gotten gains
1 time spiral
1 tendrils of agony
1 empty the warrens
1 revoke existence
1 grapeshot
3 cabal therapy
3 abrupt decay
2 dark confidant

Matches:
Round 1 Jeremy Tibbets on stoneblade
Game 1: He goes t1 brainstorm, I play a misty. He plays a land, I play land, infernal tutor, it gets spell snared. He plays stoneforge mystic, gets batterskull. I play infernal tutor, get LED. Next turn I play silence, it gets FOW'd. I then play brainstorm, LED, LED, petal, petal, duress, burning wish, tendrils of agony.
Game 2: I keep probe, ponder, misty, city, RoFx2, dark rit. He goes land go. I probe, then city, then ponder, see infernal and burning wish. He plays karakas, go. I play ponder. I duress away a flusterstorm. I burning wish for cabal therapy, I know his hand is snapcaster x 2, force, spell pierce. I pass, then cabal therapy him, he plays snapcaster in response, targets flusterstorm in his yard. I name spell pierce. I then play another cabal therapy I drew, he flusterstorms (play mistake on my part). His turn, he plays sword and swings for two with snappy. My turn I play silence into RoFx2, dark ritual, infernal tutor, ad nauseum from 10 life, I stop at 1 with exactsies enough to kill him.
1-0

Round 2 Nicholas Herbs on burn
Game 1: he goes arid mesa into goblin guide. I probe into ponder on my turn. He attacks for two. I draw, go land, mox (ponder), petal, LED, wish, ETW. He suspends two rift bolts. I draw silence...on his upkeep I silence his rift bolts. yum.
Game 2: he goes goblin guide, attack. I ponder, then play mox (duress), duress. He casts lava spike. I infernal tutor for a lotus petal. He plays another goblin guide. I play LED into infernal tutor into Ad nauseum from 10, no mana floating, no land drop. Doesn't get there.
Game 3: I probe, his hand is fireblast, lava spike, and lands. I duress a lava spike away, next turn go infernal tutor for RoF, lotus petal, RoFx2, LED, ETW. It wins.
2-0

Round 3 Damon Whitby on dredge
Game 1: I go ponder, go. He plays a putrid imp. I have a turn 2 ad nauseum through a dark rit and a rite of flame.
Game 2: He mulls to 4, my hand is a turn 3 ad nauseum (2x rite of flames, lands, and ad nauseum). Unfortunately, he kills me on turn 2. Insane. His 4 carder was land, dredger, LED, something, and he drew a draw spell.
Game 3: I go t1 ponder, drop 2 LED's. He mulls to 5, but then explodes on turn 1 with LED and faithless looting and a dredger. He dredges infinite cards but doesnt hit a narc so he cant cast therapies. On my turn I play land, chrome mox, dark rit, burning wish, crack 2 LED's into time spiral, untap two lands, LED, LED, ponder, hit the tutor, lotus petal, rite of flame, infernal tutor, burning wish, tendrils.
3-0

Round 4 Jeremiah Rudolph on 12 post from here on out my notes suck cuz I lost motivation
Game 1: I time spiral, but I draw the ETW. I Empty for a lot, and upkeep silence him, but he cracks expedition map, gets glacial chasm, then has all the time in the world. Would've won if it had been a tendrils main, but what can you do.
Game 2: He taps out on turn 1, I duress on turn 1 see blue blast, brainstorm, he brainstorms in response, i see nothing of import so I ad nauseum. It gets there.
Game 3: He plays something turn 1, I probe and then ad nauseum turn 1 to get there.
4-0

Round 5 Nick on Ad nauseum tendrils
Game 1: He has a bunch of rituals but no disruption or tutor. I have an early ad nauseum.
Game 2: He plays turn 1 dark ritual, cabal therapy (miss), dark confidant. He draws a million disruption spells, then past in flames me for the kill. At the last turn, He cast cabal therapy and I could've silenced in response, which I should have (wasn't expecting to die on the spot), and he named silence. Still learning with this deck!
Game 3: We both have early bobs, but I have a silence that prevents him from going off. Bob draws me a lot of cards. We attack each other with bobs, but I don't trade because I can't find a tutor. I get low on life, but I finally find a tutor at 8 life. I cast dark ritual, dark ritual, dark ritual, rite of flame, burning wish, past in flames, recast rituals, infernal tutor, burning wish, tendrils.
5-0

Round 6 ID

Round 7 against Blayne Gibbons on hypergenesis
Game 1: He gives me infinite time, doesn't do anything. His hand has all hypergenesis cascaders, no fatties. He forces an infernal tutor, then I ad nauseum and kill him next turn.
Game 2: I keep a slow hand, duress away a show and tell. He draws another, puts emrakul into play. I don't have it the next turn.
Game 3: He starts with a leyline in play. He then show and tells griselbrand into play. I go off, he draws 14 cards, but can't find a force of will. My ad naseum isn't enough to both cast revoke existence and grapeshot him. I lose. Would've appreciated those chain of vapors I skimped on here.
5-1-1

Round 1 of top 8 against James Rynk on Jund
Game 1: I mull to 5, he rips my hand apart.
Game 2: My hand is probe, mox, duress, dark ritual x3, infernal tutor. I probe into a lotus petal, and ad nauseum into a win.
Game 3: He rips my hand apart. I was one short of casting burning wish into time spiral at one point, and it would've translated into a diminishing returns with one floating (20%ish win percentage). Diminishing returns would've been marginally better here, but I don't think casting it and passing the turn and hoping he didn't have a discard spell (3 duress, 4 thoughtseize, 4 hymn) would've won.

I end up with more Bayous. I think the dark confidant experiment is over and I am going back to chain of vapors. I did more testing against discard heavy matchups (jund), and concluded that leaving in silences is better than boarding in therapies. Trading discard spells with them always results in me losing, as they operate much better on low resources, where as using silence to stall and get extra setup turns ends up with a higher win percentage. This is out of maybe 6 or so games. Going to be doing a lot more testing this week on whether or not keeping silence in is right in these matchups.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

1 time spiral

Fetish?

[Koby]

1 time spiral
-
Fetish?

I've actually considered it, after bricking on D-Returns thanks to it exiling 3 tutors last nite. Untapping some lands makes up for the extra mana. It's a loose one tho.

[Final Fortune]

I've actually considered it, after bricking on D-Returns thanks to it exiling 3 tutors last nite. Untapping some lands makes up for the extra mana. It's a loose one tho.

It's not an awful choice, I use to play it in addition to Diminishing Returns just so I had the option of untapping a City of Brass or Gemstone Mine and having white mana available for Silence after you Draw 7, the color fixing is relevant IMO because you usually tap your lands to cast rituals, use your rituals to cast Burning Wish and then sacrifice your artifact mana in response to either the Burning Wish, in the case of LED, or the target, in case of Petal, so you usually end up with either R, U or B floating and have to rely on a land drop or a Petal to cast Silencee where if you cast Time Spiral and untap two lands, the equivalent of casting Diminishing Returns with 2 of R, U or B mana floating, your ability to cast Silence is much higher because you're untapping gold lands instead of floating R, U or B from the rituals and LED.

In short, odds of casting Silence after Time Spiral are higher than after casting Diminishing Returns so if you have 2 lands in play you may as well cast it over Diminishing Returns, whether or not that warrants a SB slot IDK.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Goblin Electromancer. Cough. Not really. Helm of Awakening. For value.

[Megadeus]

This isnt Modern. We arent Barbarians playing bad Goblins!! Though using Mana Morphose to go +1 mana and +1 card is sweet!

I have debated it as well (Time Spiral), but Sometimes it is very difficult to get to 6 mana after a B Wish.

[Koby]

Goblin Electromancer. Cough. Not really. Helm of Awakening. For value.

In the right deck, perhaps those make sense. If you're being halfway serious, then definitely not. All our rituals costs a singular colored mana. It only improves Tutor chains, and you would need to cast at least 3 spells with the reduction to make the payback on the initial cost (2) worth it at all.

Look for Nausea (archetype) for this application.

[Bryant Cook]

I've been trying to get Ning to stop playing Spiral for months. It's only good if you have three lands and that they aren't Gemstone Mine or City of Brass - those lands just don't work well with Spiral. Not to mention, it's eight mana to break even with Returns at six mana, this is crucial in a format full of Daze, Flusterstorm and Spell Pierce. In situations against discard decks where you're in top deck mode, it's more likely that you would be able to cast Returns off of a top decked Infernal after sitting on artifact mana than Spiral too.

[Megadeus]

What was the reason for cutting the SB empty the warrens?

[kwis]

What was the reason for cutting the SB empty the warrens?

He explained it in a tournament report but the tl;dr was it wasn't worth the extra damage on AN.

[Megadeus]

I rwmember reading it somewhere. Why not keep it as a wish target?

[Tammit67]

I rwmember reading it somewhere. Why not keep it as a wish target?

Why do you need 2 as a wish target?

[Megadeus]

Man im bad. For some reason I thought you only played one main one side.... I apologize for being bad

Edit: Didnt want to double post, but I played a 5 round plus a top 8 game then split top 4 tonight with the list in the OP.

Round 1: Scape Fit

I know what he is on, but he thinks I am on Stoneblade. I Tendrils Him T1 off of an awesome hand.

G2 he Whiffs on a blind Therapy, but then he gets my only Tutor on the flashback off of an explorer. I never draw anything and just die.

G3 I again have a fast start after his Mull to 5. Kill him on T2 after an IGG loop gets me there.

1-0 (2-1)

Round 2: Junk and Taxes

Again, guy who rode up with me I knew he was on a non blue deck. He opens on T1 with a Hierarch, and has GSZ for Teeg, but dies on T1.

G2 I have a slower hand but it can get there. He plays a T2 Ethersworn Canonist. Slows me down a bit, but I probed on T1 and saw it so I dumped my LED and 2 Lotus Petals on T1. He then gets down KOTR. Then plays Jitte, equips to Canonist, I decay the canonist after attacks. On my turn I Decay the KOTR. His turn he dumps 2 mana dorks and Stoneforge for batterskull. I play a couple of rituals, then play Infernal to get the IGG I boarded in (probably a wrong decision) to loop and get the kill for exactsies.

2-0 (4-1)

Round 3: Jund Zombie Vine

Again I know my meta pretty well and know what he is on so mull to 6 hoping for a quick hand but turns out my 7 was better :/
I then Die on T4 to him playing Lotleth Troll, discarding VVine and Anger. Replays his Crawler in the Yard, gets back VVine and swings for a bunch and I cant recover.

G2 I kill him on T1 with Ad Nauseam.

G3 I see a mull to 5 and smell blood. I probe and see Anger, Lotleth Troll and Entomb. I Therapy and he entombs Therapy in response. I take Troll and him just drawing too many do nothing spells gives me time to shape a winning hand.

3-0 (6-2)

Round 4: Aluren

G1 I turn 1 Empty for 10 dudes. He cant get his living wish for Tabernacle in time.

G2 He Probes me. My hand is 3 Land, 2 LED, 1 IT, ! Chrome Mox. He plays Therapy naming LED. Next turn I draw Abrupt Decay. Then he plays Baleful Strix and flashes back therapy taking IT. I feel like Im in big trouble. Luckily the deck bails me out and I draw an IT and an LED in my next 2 Draw Steps to get there, but then realize after drawing a bunch of cards that I dont have any tutors from Ad Nauseum. So I can trip and cantrip until eventually drawing a BW... Whew. Man I suck at this deck!

4-0 (8-2)

Round 5: Sneak and Show

ID with top breakers.

4-0-1 (8-2)

Top 8

I play the other person in my car who is on Stoneblade.

G1 I dont find a hand with disruption and he has the FoW when after getting a BSkull I just attempt to go for it.

G2 I Durress seeing 2x SFM a snapcaster, Jace and Lands. I could go off and make about 14 Gobs but I wasnt sure if the BSkull he could get would race me or not. Next turn I go off and he doesnt draw the FoW.

G3 I keep a good hand, but no disruption. He mulls to 6 and kind of looks disappointed in his hand. He has 2 fetches on board and I have Ad Nauseum and 2 LED's in hand with a silence. I suspect he has V Clique so I BS putting Nauseum on top, but fail to realize my mistake. I play my 2 LEDs so that in response to the V Clique Trigger I can crack them and go crazy. (I know this doesnt work now). Anyway on my next upkeep he puts his fetches in the GY and says Ill play VClique after you draw. I say in response to the fetches I silence. He thinks I cheated because he announced the VClique already. I just tell him that I can respond to a fetch trigger. Luckily we split the measly prize either way and we dont care too much about it. Anyway I double Dark Ritual and go off. I realized as we were driving back that inresponse to the VClique I couldve just Played Ad Nauseum anyway (derp its an instant) and it makes him feel a little better about the situation.

Anyway all in all as we all know, the deck is pretty awesome. I apologize about the details. My lifepads get thrown away after each round and half the time I dont even track things very well anyway. The board was pretty awesome all night.

The one question that I have is do you ever SB in IGG? Im not sure if it is right, but I SB it in vs the non blue decks a few times and it was solid.

[DarkJester]

He plays a T2 Ethersworn Canonist. Slows me down a bit, but I probed on T1 and saw it so I dumped my LED and 2 Lotus Petals on T1.

Why did you do this? You may cast your Artifact Mana through a Canonist.

But Congratz anyway.

[Lemnear]

Round 1 Jeremy Tibbets on stoneblade
Game 1: He goes t1 brainstorm...

So basically a Bye...

Round 4 Jeremiah Rudolph on 12 post from here on out my notes suck cuz I lost motivation
Game 2: He taps out on turn 1, I duress on turn 1 see blue blast, brainstorm, he brainstorms in response...

Agree, notes got fishy from ... manaless BS

Gz to your finish

[Megadeus]

Why did you do this? You may cast your Artifact Mana through a Canonist.

But Congratz anyway.

HA! So I can... Ive trained myself to do it with Thalia, and I guess my initial thought was, Hatebear, play the artifact mana... lol.