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

[Tammit67]

Also, TES vs Deathblade on SCG right now. Bard Narson lost G1 because he wastelanded a USea instead of the gemstone mine, letting silence resolve.

He had to read my Diminishing returns a couple times :)

I punted game two against him. I kept double infernal so I could generate lethal storm instead of a duress that would let me take the fluster. If I had done the math properly, I didn't need the storm. I got game three though.

Lost in top 8 to Chris Pikula on RUG delver.

Grapeshot'd my round 4 opponent after he failed to scope to a clearly lethal Ad nauseum. Will have a report up tomorrow I guess, I got some really good notes.

[sconnell]

Will have a report up tomorrow I guess, I got some really good notes.

Looking forward to it!

[PartyMonster]

Looking forward to it!

Second that

[Bryant Cook]

I top 8'd Jupiter this weekend. My only losses were to the same Deathblade player who over sideboarded for storm. No report to follow. List still feels great.

[TakeYourTime]

Grats to Matt Bevenour at SCG Philly! I've never met Bryant but kudos to him too. It's awesome to see people piloting real combo decks

[Lemnear]

Geeeeez, i'm jealous of you guys 'cause I'm not able to play for quite a while due to an injured hand :(

[Dark Ritual]

I top 8'd Jupiter this weekend. My only losses were to the same Deathblade player who over sideboarded for storm. No report to follow. List still feels great.

Congrats. I know what its like to be over sideboarded against, and it fucking sucks. Seriously, some people completely misconstruct their sideboard for a given event.

Congrats to Tammit/Matt Bevenour on the top 8 too. Pity you had to face the worst matchup in the top 8 in the quarterfinals in Chris Pikula, who isn't a donkey either but rather quite good from what I've seen of his piloting of RUG.

The silence didn't actually matter G1 against Brad Nelson. He had FoW but no blue card to pitch to it and his 7 afterwards was incredibly bad/5 lands, JTMS, jitte. It could have potentially mattered, but it didn't in that situation. I loved how many times he read diminishing returns though, that card is fantastic for getting reads out of it.

[Basaka]

This has been an interesting discussion.

I try to err against mulligans with TES - if I'm not sure then I keep. I figure that if I consistently apply this strategy and find myself losing games from keeping hands that I wasn't sure about, then I need to mulligan more often. If not, I'm probably doing OK. If you don't try keeping less-than-ideal-but-potentially-ok hands like the one we've been discussing, you don't get a chance to see how often they work out. Converting cantrippy sculpty hands into wins is one of the toughest parts of playing TES.

It does work both ways - by keeping a hand I don't get to see what would have happened if I'd gone to 6 - but if I'm generally winning from those keeps I think I can live with that.



I'm not sure if I understand your notation, but it looks like you might have overlooked that LED in the top 4 opens up the sequence of Probe->Ponder ->Probe (response crack LED, draw whatever card you put on top.) For example:
Probe (draw silence)
Chrome Mox (imprint Ponder), tap for Ponder. Draw LED and put Empty on top above some other card.
LED
sea, tap for mana
probe (crack LED for RRR in response), cast Empty.

Multiple LEDs, or LED+DR can open up more lines.

At 2) you have DR+LED+IT into Goblins, but note that you can also access goblins off DR+LED+BW:
Probe (draw DR or LED)
Chrome (imprint Ponder), tap for Ponder. Draw the other of LED/DR and put BW on top above some other card.
sea, DR (BBB floating)
LED
Probe (crack LED for RRR in response), cast BW into Empty.

Granted, having LED in the top 4 is not likely, and having LED + other cards that get you a win less likely. However, if you are overlooking these sorts of lines then you might be undervaluing cantrip hands.

That is one line I didn't really consider, but again that will involve seeing exactly the right combination of cards within the top 4 cards. I've just never had many cantrip-heavy hands to evaluate. the largest local tournament I've been to is ~24 people, and the largest legacy tournament I'v been to had 63 (the annoyance of living in New Zealand!) so I don't get to play nearly as much legacy as I like (I think it was 6 weeks ago when I played with storm last?).

@Tammit67: grats on the run, looking forwards to the result.

[feline]

Grats Matt Bevenour, gotta love that Source playmat in the top 8 pic!

[Lemnear]

had to facepalm myself reading the T16 listing ... for SCG is every deck containing LED's and Infernal Tutors ANT right? Maybe we should consider EVERY deck with FoW + Brainstorm being called "Draw-go" in the future

[Zombie]

had to facepalm myself reading the T16 listing ... for SCG is every deck containing LED's and Infernal Tutors ANT right? Maybe we should consider EVERY deck with FoW + Brainstorm being called "Draw-go" in the future

It's not like it's difficult to identify them either ;___;

[Bryant Cook]

When the videos go live, can someone post them here with a link? I'd like to add them to the OP.

[TakeYourTime]

Grapeshot'd my round 4 opponent after he failed to scope to a clearly lethal Ad nauseum. Will have a report up tomorrow I guess, I got some really good notes.

Why was I not called to the table to see this?!?

I think all grapeshot kills should be taped and saved to a YouTube channel. It was so funny when Bryant did a grapeshot kill on scg live.

[Tammit67]

Report up: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?26290-5th-at-Star-City-Philadelphia-with-T-E-S&p=733195#post733195

On camera feature match which at the time of this writing can be found here:
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/420833875
at time 4:51:00
Haven't watched it yet, I'm sure there are a lot of mistakes.

[Megadeus]

I thought I recognized the name when I saw the top 8. Congrats man.

Also watching the game, god I hate listening to them attempt to figure out what is going on

[Tammit67]

I thought I recognized the name when I saw the top 8. Congrats man.

Also watching the game, god I hate listening to them attempt to figure out what is going on

They did see the missed duress line of play game 2 although they didn't see the duress line was lethal. They didn't see that I boarded in the Tendrils or so. I think they did a reasonable job, at least on this match, noticing lines missed and taken.

Remember they haven't played these decks, how accurate would you be for just watching a format?

[Megadeus]

They did see the missed duress line of play game 2 although they didn't see the duress line was lethal. They didn't see that I boarded in the Tendrils or so. I think they did a reasonable job, at least on this match, noticing lines missed and taken.

Remember they haven't played these decks, how accurate would you be for just watching a format?

I mean these dudes watch this format every weekend... I feel like they should know what the decks are doing... Or not try to tell the viewers whats going to happen. If they don't understand the deck, they shouldnt predict plays.

[Tammit67]

I mean these dudes watch this format every weekend... I feel like they should know what the decks are doing... Or not try to tell the viewers whats going to happen. If they don't understand the deck, they shouldnt predict plays.

That's fair. I've absolutely seen the commentators do a worse job than they did here though

[sconnell]

Top 8 Chris Pikula on RUG (Dammit)

Thanks to being the higher seed, I am on the play and keep the following hand:
G1: 2 lotus petal, LED, Infernal tutor, ponder, brainstorm, gemstone. This is easily turn 1 for 10 goblins and a win, or it’s a probable turn 1 win if we hit certain cards off brainstorm, or it is an unprotected turn x win. I keep. I can hear Chas (from earlier in the story) whispering “You didn’t go for it? …bitch”. The line I took was wrong.
I go for the 10 goblins plan because I am not a bitch :( Chris had the force then wastelanded my only land and won simply from there.
I think in hindsight should have cast a cantrip, and I think in particular the brainstorm is the correct cantrip. I was up against a RUG opponent who knows what I am on and kept his 7 with little thought, he probably has what he wants against me. My line of play avoids the headache playing through stifle/daze/waste/pierce and there is merit in that, but being at good odds to get to brainstorm into a mana source I can play this turn to even just increase storm count is enough to convince me I played the hand wrong.

Tough. Going for 10 goblins turns the game into "Do you have Force of Will?" I'm not familiar with the RUG side of the matchup, but I imagine there are keepable hands without FoW, but I'm not sure what the chance is of a RUG player having FoW given that they have kept. It does look like playing brainstorm there keeps your options open.

[Lemnear]

Tough. Going for 10 goblins turns the game into "Do you have Force of Will?" I'm not familiar with the RUG side of the matchup, but I imagine there are keepable hands without FoW, but I'm not sure what the chance is of a RUG player having FoW given that they have kept. It does look like playing brainstorm there keeps your options open.

The point is that the hand offered a lot of lines to play other than throwing the game away if the opponent has FoW ... and that all for "only" 10 goblins. The options to wage are that your opponent does know your decklist in T8 (afaik), it's game 1, your opponent has a ~40% Chance of having FoW, your opponent is unable to interact with such a mass of goblins. The poker player in me, tells that the move for 10 goblins wasn't unreasonable and after hours of play understandable. Wouldn't bother too much about that one from Matt's side.

I'm more confused about the whispering here. I've seen people got DQ'd for such "outside assistance".