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

[Rekk]

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.

In your top 8 game (game 2 i believe) you kept what i believe was 3 lands 2 tutors and something ( a very slow hand). if you remember what the hand was could you explain why you kept it. It looked like a do nothing hand to me.

(Nick, round 5 tendrils player)

[jandax]

What do you guys use as goblin tokens? Beta Mons's Goblin Raiders for me.

[egosum]

I think this is better suited in the Pimp/Brag post in the general board (since this one must be to talk about the deck strategy/doubts/developement). But anyway, your Beta Gobbos look sweet! I use simply dices (pretty functional).

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[Endure2004]

In your top 8 game (game 2 i believe) you kept what i believe was 3 lands 2 tutors and something ( a very slow hand). if you remember what the hand was could you explain why you kept it. It looked like a do nothing hand to me.

(Nick, round 5 tendrils player)

Game 2 I kept 3x dark ritual, IT, chrome mox, duress, probe and I killed him on turn 1. Game 1 I mulled to 5 and game 3 I kept a good hand but he had t1 disruption t2 disruption...

Regarding time spiral, you all can make fun of me all you want, I'm going to keep playing it until I think it's worse than DR. I have confidence that I am open minded and can judge my decisions impartially, and I'll be the first to admit if I was wrong on something. I have done a lot of testing and time spiral has been better for me. I believe that a lot of people here are resistant to change just because it is change. I admit that I have made plenty of tweaks to the deck that I now believe to be wrong (dark confidants, playing around with the land count, etc.). I don't believe I am stubborn or ignorant at all, and I truly try to take into account and understand everyone's argument. People are just more interested in taking a side and proving themselves right than actually figuring out what the best decision is. As such, I've given up actually trying to convince anyone, because no one will actually listen and they will immediately jump to point out how bad it is in this situation or that situation.

[thefringthing]

@jandax: I have a stack of 20 Unglued Goblin tokens.

[Megadeus]

Game 2 I kept 3x dark ritual, IT, chrome mox, duress, probe and I killed him on turn 1. Game 1 I mulled to 5 and game 3 I kept a good hand but he had t1 disruption t2 disruption...

Regarding time spiral, you all can make fun of me all you want, I'm going to keep playing it until I think it's worse than DR. I have confidence that I am open minded and can judge my decisions impartially, and I'll be the first to admit if I was wrong on something. I have done a lot of testing and time spiral has been better for me. I believe that a lot of people here are resistant to change just because it is change. I admit that I have made plenty of tweaks to the deck that I now believe to be wrong (dark confidants, playing around with the land count, etc.). I don't believe I am stubborn or ignorant at all, and I truly try to take into account and understand everyone's argument. People are just more interested in taking a side and proving themselves right than actually figuring out what the best decision is. As such, I've given up actually trying to convince anyone, because no one will actually listen and they will immediately jump to point out how bad it is in this situation or that situation.

I could see why Time Spiral is good. I mean it's untap ability is insane. I just feel like 6 mana after a wish is difficult to achieve. Especially since a lot of the time I cast Returns it is to restock for a new hand because the one I had didnt turn out to be good enough. Or couldnt make quite enough mana. Ill give it a spin sometime though. I honestly haven't tested it. Maybe Ill do a few games tonight.

[Bryant Cook]

SCG Edison is coming up, I'm really looking forward to storming again soon.

[maritlage]

going stir crazy waiting for scg edison its in my backyard

[Koby]

SCG Edison is coming up, I'm really looking forward to storming again soon.

FWIW, I've tried my own tweaks to the 75 posted in the OP, and slowly 1 card at a time have returned to the sideboard you posted. There have been too many times I needed BW to save me from certain corner case scenarios. Karakas, while really good vs Maverick & Reanimator, isn't really needed if this metagame keep up it's 3c UG/x shenanigans.

Good luck there. 5c Goblins FTW.

[Yuri8]

I have a little question about gitaxian probe. Little background: I was facing some BW blade (expecting direct discard) and had probe in hand. Didn't thought much about it and used it drawing dark ritual. Opponent used IoK next turn discarding this ritual which should win me this game since I had Ad nauseum already in hand (game was big fiaco with me not being albe to draw another mana source for 5 or 6 turns). So would you use gitaxian probe in first turn in this situation and overall in these matchups where drawing into valuable card could mean it being discarded right away?

[Megadeus]

Ill be storming at SCG ATL Next weekend. It will be my first large event. Lets hope I dont scrub out!

As for Probe, you probably dont need to probe T1 unless you are looking for something for either Therapy to take Post board or you are one card away from just going off.

You dont need to use it to see what your opponent is playing on T1 because their land drop and/or T1 play should be enough to tip you off.

[Asthereal]

Edit: what the hell was my post doing in this thread??? I am absolutely sure I posted it in the thread about bannings in Modern. This forum gets more buggy every second... So to all who read my post: apologies. I'll just leave it at that, because no one knows where it'll end up next if I try to repost it.

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

WotC didn't ban Tendrils of Agony.

Life goes on.

[Megadeus]

WOTC should never ban Tendrils... If they really hate this deck type they would probably go for Ad Nauseum first. The card that draws a thrid of our deck is the real bad one!

[Asthereal]

He responded cynically to my post which should have been in a thread about Modern bannings. No worries.

[jandax]

I know it's not relevant to threat topic, but should Tendrils of Agony get the hammer, I'd bed JTMS would become a 200USD/euro card.

Anyways, on topic:

Does anyone here have experience getting new players to the game interested into Legacy? More precisely, is there a way to explain and or demonstrate the power of this deck without leaving the impression that all combo decks are busted and there's no fun in the format? Let's be fair and say this is one of the hardest decks to play correctly. Should the OP just take over? Just looking for some advice, I'm trying to get a couple friends interested in the format.

[Asthereal]

Tendrils will never get the hammer. Ad Nauseam and Lion's Eye Diamond are the candidates for banning when Wizards feels the power of Storm is getting out of control.

It's hard to make newbies enthousiastic about Legacy without scaring them away. Especially if you use a deck like this. I don't think I have proper advise on that.

[Megadeus]

I used to show them Maverick and tell them that a hate bear deck is good...

[Squirrel]

I know it's not relevant to threat topic, but should Tendrils of Agony get the hammer, I'd bed JTMS would become a 200USD/euro card.

Anyways, on topic:

Does anyone here have experience getting new players to the game interested into Legacy? More precisely, is there a way to explain and or demonstrate the power of this deck without leaving the impression that all combo decks are busted and there's no fun in the format? Let's be fair and say this is one of the hardest decks to play correctly. Should the OP just take over? Just looking for some advice, I'm trying to get a couple friends interested in the format.

I would not start with any specific deck. the best way is probably working through as many decks as possible with them. Dont start with dredge, tes, si and show and tell to impress. start first with nonblue decks, like maverick and burn, mud, then show them control, and at the end show them combo. wenn they say its broken then you can respond remembering them about fow and counterbalance. if you start with combo, the have no idea how to stop it ("you even go off before i have 3 mana for cancel") and you cant tell them the other side. its very hard getting someone into legacy..

[sconnell]

Does anyone here have experience getting new players to the game interested into Legacy? More precisely, is there a way to explain and or demonstrate the power of this deck without leaving the impression that all combo decks are busted and there's no fun in the format? Let's be fair and say this is one of the hardest decks to play correctly. Should the OP just take over? Just looking for some advice, I'm trying to get a couple friends interested in the format.

I'd think about what they do and don't like about magic, and try and think of aspects of Legacy that appeal those likes and dislikes.
If they like constructed but have trouble keeping up with rotations, stress that Legacy is an eternal format.
Being able to make up and hone one deck over a long period of time really appeals to some people. If that doesn't appeal, you can stress the depth of the card pool for Legacy and the number of different viable decks.
One selling point for Legacy for some new players is that you get to play with powerful old cards that would never get printed now. This especially appeals to players who like spells rather than creatures, since Legacy is a much more spell-based format than standard. If they have a favourite deck in standard, you can point them towards a similar Legacy deck - or perhaps just specific cards.