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

[Lemnear]

If you have issues with initial mana sources, there's the option of adding lands.
A guy from Team Nijmegen (team full of Dutch Storm players, most of them very strong players too) played the TES list:
+2 fetch, -1 Chrome Mox, -1 Burning Wish
So his list has 14 lands and 2 Chrome Mox, and 9 business spells instead of 10.
This makes the deck better for casting cantrips and more flexible, but slightly less explosive.

(He also played 4 Duress and 3 Silence as protection package, but I feel that is incorrect in most metas.)

If you want to cut anything for additional lands, the first would be a Mox to sacrifice, but I would step back from cutting a wish.

I never saw a problem with Mox vs. Land per se

[Asthereal]

If you want to cut anything for additional lands, the first would be a Mox to sacrifice, but I would step back from cutting a wish.

I never saw a problem with Mox vs. Land per se

Actually the 10 business spells plus 12 cantrips is pretty heavy.
Hands with two or more business spells can be awkward.
I agree with my fellow Dutchman that cutting one Wish is a serious option.

Your second remark I don't really get.
Do you mean that you feel the Mox isn't strictly worse than an additional land?

[Lemnear]

I don't think that the performance would greatly differ either by playing Mox or a Fetchland in a single slot. At least not in a way that you could make out a difference by playing

[Megadeus]

If I played the deck again, I would try out a land over a mox. Double Chrome Mox is usually just so awful

[Asthereal]

Chrome Mox is usually not my favorite card for the opening hand anyway.
Also, additional fetchlands make your cantrips a lot better.

If your playing style is a bit more risk averse, this modification could work for you.
But something tells me Lemnear is a risk lover, so he'd probably profit more from the explosiveness of the original list.

[Lemnear]

Chrome Mox is usually not my favorite card for the opening hand anyway.
Also, additional fetchlands make your cantrips a lot better.

If your playing style is a bit more risk averse, this modification could work for you.
But something tells me Lemnear is a risk lover, so he'd probably profit more from the explosiveness of the original list.

Considering my low mulligan-rate and overall play (very low T1-Kill rate), I'm like the conservative 72-year-old grampa of players and don't consider myself a "loose Cannon". The only think I consider myself pretty good in, is maximizing the value of cantrips, so I'm doing ok even with sketchy hands. :)

I think, changing a Mox into a Fetchland is something to consider. I'll test that config; maybe even in a Gent's Club tournament ...

[JPoJohnson]

Forgive me if it's been discussed or if it's a foolish suggestion, but I'm curious.

It appears that running something like a singleton Eye of Nowhere would be beneficial in the wishboard for multiple reasons. What am I missing?

[Megadeus]

With Eye of Nowhere you usually need to pass the turn after casting it or something which allows them to replay whatever you bounced. Its just super slow.

[sconnell]

Forgive me if it's been discussed or if it's a foolish suggestion, but I'm curious.

It appears that running something like a singleton Eye of Nowhere would be beneficial in the wishboard for multiple reasons. What am I missing?

There are many cards which would be nice to have in the wishboard, but there's only room for 15. Sure, it would be nice to have access to Eye of Nowhere for the occasional cases where it's useful, the same can be said for Bribery, Time Spiral, Pyroclasm, and various other cards. Hull Breach has been in the board at various points, but was pushed out.

The circumstances where it's actually profitable to Burning Wish into Eye of Nowhere are really quite narrow though. As Megadeus says, it's only a bounce spell so they can just replay their spell. This probably means you have to cast Burning Wish into Eye of Nowhere and go off that turn, which requires 1RUU and then more mana on top of that, plus an additional tutor. Just generating 1RUU in one turn will often require burning a single-shot mana source. Casting Wish one turn and Eye the next takes two turns, leaves you vulnerable to discard, and still gives the opponent the opportunity to replay their card.

There might be some games where the opponent has something that's stopping you killing them with Tendrils (eg Leyline of Sanctity), and an Eye of Nowhere in the board would allow you to draw a bunch of cards with Ad Nauseum, remove the irritating card, and just win. However, in these sort of circumstances where you have drawn a bunch of cards but are prevented from winning with Tendrils, Empty and Silence on their turn is often going to be enough. If the offending card is something like Solitary Confinement, then too bad. If it's game one and enchantress got that card in play, something's gone wrong anyway, and it's not worth giving up a sideboard slot just in case.

The above is not really anything new to the thread. Here's a question, though - in an alternate universe where sideboards are 20 (or more) cards, is TES more or less competitive than with the current 15? Having more sideboard slots would allow us to play some more narrow wishboard targets, or some extra hate/anti-hate cards. It would also give everyone else the option to play more storm hate. My guess is it would be a net negative for us, since a few more wishboard cards would be nice but not actually win us that many more games, while there would be more of the narrower nastier storm hate cards (Chalice of the Void, Mindbreak Trap etc.) around.

[davelin]

The above is not really anything new to the thread. Here's a question, though - in an alternate universe where sideboards are 20 (or more) cards, is TES more or less competitive than with the current 15? Having more sideboard slots would allow us to play some more narrow wishboard targets, or some extra hate/anti-hate cards. It would also give everyone else the option to play more storm hate. My guess is it would be a net negative for us, since a few more wishboard cards would be nice but not actually win us that many more games, while there would be more of the narrower nastier storm hate cards (Chalice of the Void, Mindbreak Trap etc.) around.

I think these effects would essentially cancel each out. TES could have more answers, they could pack more hate, etc.

[Lemnear]

All decks having more Sideboard Space would be bad News for storm.

You can't board in a dozen of cards, reactive to their hate and expect your deck still working properly. On the other side, Maverick, Goblins, Elves and even UW Control won't mind running Thorn of Amethyst, Thalia, Cannonist or Meddling Mage as a playset if they had Space.

An improved wishboard wouldn't help either here.

[Tammit67]

There might be some games where the opponent has something that's stopping you killing them with Tendrils (eg Leyline of Sanctity), and an Eye of Nowhere in the board would allow you to draw a bunch of cards with Ad Nauseum, remove the irritating card, and just win. However, in these sort of circumstances where you have drawn a bunch of cards but are prevented from winning with Tendrils, Empty and Silence on their turn is often going to be enough. If the offending card is something like Solitary Confinement, then too bad. If it's game one and enchantress got that card in play, something's gone wrong anyway, and it's not worth giving up a sideboard slot just in case.

Maindeck confinement has an easy solution that admittedly takes a bit of setup (but they aren't really clocking you anyway)

(Thanks to Ari Lax for pointing this out originally)
Step 1: Make a lethal amount of goblins
Step 2: Cast IGG and get 3 silence effects
Step 3: Cast silence 3 times on each of the following turns (upkeep!) until the opponent runs out of cards to save the confinement
Step 4: Attack for the win

This is best fueled by an Ad Nauseam to get the necessary amount of cards/goblins and Infernal Tutor to get additional copies of silence.

Edit: Hope to meet more people at SCG Baltimore and SCG Philly in the coming month

[Endure2004]

ANT is for n00bs.

[HammafistRoob]

Really? What makes you say that? I actually think it's quite a bit stronger than TES myself.

[Endure2004]

Cuz the only real decisions you make are in the cantrips.

[Lemnear]

ANT is for n00bs.

That's rude and disrespectful towards other storm pilots. Both decks develop towards each other since years, see the Probe, Therapy, Wishes, MB EtW, etc.

ANT is a stonger deck vs. Mana denial and Wasteland while TES has a much better standing in a midrange-meta full of sorcery speed spells/hate (like the current one) due to it's speed and flexibility, so both have a different focus and playstyle.

If you reduce the difference only to the cantrips or lands, you've missed the point

[sconnell]

ANT typically has fewer main lines of play than TES (Ad Nauseum into Tendrils, rituals/Tutor chain into Tendrils, PiF into Tendrils - although Empty main is becoming a thing) compared to TES (which has lines involving some combination of Ad Nauseum, IGG, PiF, Diminishing Returns into three different storm cards), but the idea that that this makes ANT "for noobs" is absurd.

ANT has more cantrips than TES, and properly playing out cantrips to set up for a win is sometimes more complex than playing out the mana into Tutor/Wish into Empty type hands that TES is capable of getting. In addition, ANT often plays more Cabal Therapy than TES, a card which is quite hard to play optimally.

[Wave]

Actually I forgot, I cast it twice. Once it got stifled and I lost. Either way, most of the decks I played against it wasn't that great against (goblins, elves, show and tell, affinity, TES, ANT). The other times I could afford to tendrils.

Maybe it's just me trolling the Goblin players in the past but I have won the last 5 - 6 matches on using Empty the Warrens against goblins. There is no way they can race a turn 1/2 (depends on play or draw) Empty on storm higher than 5. However since you are not in a hurry against them it might not be the preferred way but it always works.

[Chatto]

Maybe it's just me trolling the Goblin players in the past but I have won the last 5 - 6 matches on using Empty the Warrens against goblins. There is no way they can race a turn 1/2 (depends on play or draw) Empty on storm higher than 5. However since you are not in a hurry against them it might not be the preferred way but it always works.

Hello, longtime lurker and Goblin player. Storm-based combo decks have always been a difficult game in the past and still ask for skill, experience and tight play. That is a reason I read tis primer and a lot of other primers in general: to learn how to play a particular deck.

Sooo, TES: it's still a nightmare to play against. However, with the printing of Thalia (along with the other SB-hate) this match-up has been softened up a little bit: it gave us a little more time (which is basically all we need). Still, skill, experience and tight play are key. Against EtW I play extra aggressive, backed-up with an online Sharpshooter, Thalia and (hopefully) one or two Piledrivers. Even then, you just hope for the best (No Silence or other nonsense you guys can throw at us ) My point being: or they were extremely unlucky or you were too fast (turn two is quiet fast indeed), but a couple of blocking 1/1's isn't that big of a problem.

[Lemnear]

Hello, longtime lurker and Goblin player. Storm-based combo decks have always been a difficult game in the past and still ask for skill, experience and tight play. That is a reason I read tis primer and a lot of other primers in general: to learn how to play a particular deck.

Sooo, TES: it's still a nightmare to play against. However, with the printing of Thalia (along with the other SB-hate) this match-up has been softened up a little bit: it gave us a little more time (which is basically all we need). Still, skill, experience and tight play are key. Against EtW I play extra aggressive, backed-up with an online Sharpshooter, Thalia and (hopefully) one or two Piledrivers. Even then, you just hope for the best (No Silence or other nonsense you guys can throw at us ) My point being: or they were extremely unlucky or you were too fast (turn two is quiet fast indeed), but a couple of blocking 1/1's isn't that big of a problem.

Goblins.dec need at least 3 turns to develop a presence. You have simply no chance to interact with a turn 1-2 EtW, nor with getting your board wiped by Grapeshot. It's not that a TES player will ever use an EtW for Defensive aspects like blocking. The matchup is a near unsolvable task for a RW Goblin player.