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

[oSeabass]

Newish (few months now) Storm player, went 3-1 at my LGS Legacy night with TES running Bryant's suggested 3 Swarm 1 Tropical Island board changes. I played against 2 Show & Tell based decks, 1 on the Sneak Attack secondary plan, and 1 mono blue Ant kill. Both matches the Swarm made the wins feel like super easy mode. Casting them turn 1 instead of the combo turn (in case of Silence) allows the chance to catch them with no mana to Brainstorm into hate. Once the Swarm resolved it felt good.

One of the games I forgot to bring in Chain of Vapor for the Leylines (didn't know the matchup well), and the only out was to EtW for a bunch of goblins to survive past an Emrakul swing. The first Swarm attack into Emrakul to clear the path for the combo, and during the Goblin combo I found a second Swarm to block Emrakul on the next turn when I pass with a critical number of Goblins. The fact that Swarm can block Emrakul in bad situations makes it even stronger and I was only able to win that game because of it (1st real Swarm got countered so I needed all 3).

Having the Trop. fetchable to help cast Abrupt Decay is very nice against decks running things like Thorn, Trinisphere, etc. other permanent based hatred. Not having to use a Petal or Mox to help make the Green (or the unavailability of a 5 color land) is a huge gain I think. That being said I think IGG was useful in the day, but I agree that the times where I wanted to IGG loop, I just needed to think a little more and was able to PiF instead.

I'll be sticking with the deck for a while as it is very fun to play. I'm planning on running it at the Grand Prix in DC coming up in November. Something about just drawing into a turn one kill with a Probe, after seeing they have no hate and just "yolo"ing it up feels so good. Feels better against Delver or another deck that is rough to beat if the game goes to turn 2.

[thefringthing]

Sleeved TES up again after playing Prosak-style ANT for a couple of months. Went 3-1 at my smallish local weekly Legacy tournament defeating Merfolk (opponent made a bad error game one, won game two with Xantid Swarm), a mono-green storm deck based on Enchantress effects, and Elves. My loss was in three games to RUG Delver (Hain's list from Strassbourg). I like the sideboard currently listed on the first page, with the caveat that I might want a Shattering Spree to wish for since people play Chalice decks at my store occasionally. Having been playing ANT for a while, I was reminded that TES is a) much harder to play, b) significantly faster, c) very vulnerable to Wasteland, d) mulligans a lot more, and e) less vulnerable to Extirpate effects and other graveyard hate. I was also reminded how much I love casting Silence in Legacy.

[oSeabass]

I was also reminded how much I love casting Silence in Legacy.

Used turn 1 Silence against a known Pox deck to stop a turn one Thorn coming down. Turn 2 in response to his Dark Ritual, I Brainstormed into another Silence which stopped a turn 2 Liliana. Silence is so fun even game one as a Time Walk. I am learning to do this more aggressively to get extra turns to draw into what you need. Feels so good when it works out.

[Lemnear]

TES doesn't mulligan a lot; greedy and inexperienced players do.

[Asthereal]

TES doesn't mulligan a lot; greedy and inexperienced players do.

TES does require more mulligans than 16 cantrip ANT though.

[thefringthing]

I definitely used to mulligan a lot more with TES than I do now. A lot of opening hands that look sketchy at first glance are actually fine (or at least not worse than the average six). 16 cantrip ANT with three basics and lots of land can keep basically any seven with blue mana though (this is obviously an overstatement, but you get the point), which is definitely not how things work with TES.

[phazonmutant]

It's probably because you're running thirteen lands and four of the same fetchland.

As for your other point, I've had my lands Pithing Needle'd and Surgicaled more than once. I've also seen Gerrard Fabiano do it to Royce Walter's Misty to only find the one in his graveyard.

Haha, that must be it. Match one was against a really weird UWr Miracles deck. I misboarded by bringing in ADs and taking out a couple Silence. Turns out he wasn't playing Counterbalance, only a pile of soft counters. In that matchup it's usually correct to take out a Chrome Mox, so another land was probably better than a Mox. Second round was against Thresh and I didn't make it to a second land ever. My keep game 2 was possibly sketchy (no lander with GP, Ponder, LP, and a couple rituals and IT on the draw), but I think my keep game 1 was correct. In both those games I would have actively preferred a land.
Also, only one of my Deltas isn't signed so I'm keeping track of whether I'd prefer to have that instead of a Mox when I draw it. So far it hasn't really made much of an impact either way.

Well, I guess I'll hope to dodge the mana-screw misers then. Or really I'll just hope to dodge Fabiano all the time ever.

Why would you drop in a local tourney? It's not like you just failed to win 500$ over the course of 12 rounds of hard work.
Whether you win 25$ worth of store credit or not doesn't really matter. One plays local tourneys because they are fun, right?
At least, that's how I look at it.

Dropping to do an 8-man with my cube is definitely correct vs. playing more matches in the scrub bracket with a deck I know decently well.

[Tammit67]

Dropping to do an 8-man with my cube is definitely correct vs. playing more matches in the scrub bracket with a deck I know decently well.

As a friend of mine says "No way am I staying in; there are too many Wurmcoils down there"

[Lemnear]

I definitely used to mulligan a lot more with TES than I do now. A lot of opening hands that look sketchy at first glance are actually fine (or at least not worse than the average six). 16 cantrip ANT with three basics and lots of land can keep basically any seven with blue mana though (this is obviously an overstatement, but you get the point), which is definitely not how things work with TES.

TES does require more mulligans than 16 cantrip ANT though.

There's no point in comparing 16-cantrip-ANT with TES or Belcher with OmniTell in regards to mulligan. Obviously you "mull more" with TES or Belcher ... the price for being a more explosive deck.

But that wasn't the point I was going to make. The claim is, that this deck does not "mulligan a lot" compared to the average Legacy deck or in terms of being an inconsistent pile. Dear user thefringthing mentioned something that I preach in my reports as well: don't mull sketchy hands for that reason alone, gambling for a miraculous 6! That's a fucking behaviour I see a lot when peeps pick up the deck and watch them mulling into oblivion (4-5 cards) and losing, just to hear them whine and rant (IRL as well as forums) how bad the deck is, blahblah.

Balanced keeps and mulligan decisions based on your opponent ("Is my opponent playing combo and I need either speed or protection?") are a crucial but underdeveloped skill-trait in a world full of Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, SDT, Jace and 8+ Fetches in almost every deck.

[davelin]

To prepare for an upcoming SCG Legacy Open, I've been goldfishing the deck in my spare time. After about 200 games, I find myself mulling around 1 in 8 hands. This is obviously independent of opponent, pre or post-sb, etc. This level frequency sound about right?

[Lemnear]

To prepare for an upcoming SCG Legacy Open, I've been goldfishing the deck in my spare time. After about 200 games, I find myself mulling around 1 in 8 hands. This is obviously independent of opponent, pre or post-sb, etc. This level frequency sound about right?

Unless you feel pressured to mull into a faster hand/disruption against other combo decks, a mulligan-rate up to 20% is acceptable and imo not that different to the average Legacy deck.

Sounds about my level tbh. You're doing good

[davelin]

Unless you feel pressured to mull into a faster hand/disruption against other combo decks, a mulligan-rate up to 20% is acceptable and imo not that different to the average Legacy deck.

Sounds about my level tbh. You're doing good

Thanks Lem, it's nice to have another benchmark for comparison purposes. My problem is probably not mulling enough, instead of too often, and I'm depending on my draw and/or a single cantrip to get me there.

[Lemnear]

Thanks Lem, it's nice to have another benchmark for comparison purposes. My problem is probably not mulling enough, instead of too often, and I'm depending on my draw and/or a single cantrip to get me there.

A minor remark to the "depending on a single cantrip" topic:

This week we had a Team session in Cockatrice (2 playing, 2 watching) while chatting in Skype and I had to advice my dood playing TES NOT to fire off his lone cantrip in hand (+ Rituals) in the face of pressure for 2 turns, which was totally counterintuitive for him to willingly take damage in this deck.

Long Story short: The delayed brainstorm not only found him the Biz he needed but the 2 additional draws also gave him the protection required to play his grip of 8(!) cards into PIF finishing with a 50+ Grapeshot

[davelin]

A minor remark to the "depending on a single cantrip" topic:

This week we had a Team session in Cockatrice (2 playing, 2 watching) while chatting in Skype and I had to advice my dood playing TES NOT to fire off his lone cantrip in hand (+ Rituals) in the face of pressure for 2 turns, which was totally counterintuitive for him to willingly take damage in this deck.

Long Story short: The delayed brainstorm not only found him the Biz he needed but the 2 additional draws also gave him the protection required to play his grip of 8(!) cards into PIF finishing with a 50+ Grapeshot

What deck was he playing against?

[Lemnear]

What deck was he playing against?

If I remember correctly it was a RUG Delver or such ... too many decks/games in recent testing. Sry :(

[Pelikanudo]

I'll expose my opinion about the changes in the side, to whom may interest

a) Ill Gotten Gains is for me the unique reason why having 2 B.Wish in hand is good, IGG also allows you to maximize a hand with LED and sometimes is even quicker than A.N. For me at least will be in side. So many times IGG has won me games where D.R OR PiF couldn't vs Decks like Goblins or Fast Agro.
b) I've been testing Bribery in side and its being good, its natural replacement is the 3rd A.Decay - having a pseudo A.N in side vs Reanimator and S&T is not bad. Just meta dependant.
c) Still I prefer having 3 duress in main, but not yet convinced
c.1) The idea behind vs S&T is to use full of duress so that misdirection has no targets AND not to side out I.T because of Bribery AND still using 2 X.Swarm. Simple.


d) About taking out Grapeshot - Never, this single card even serves to 2 different roles.
e) Also putting a land in side for me is nonsense in a deck like TES.
e.1) The deck can handle 3 Xantid with no needs of a land -- > If you substitute a A.D by a X.Swarn, still you have 7 green producers.
e.2) If you feel you need more mana, just add it to the M.base and save side space. Not sure but for example I think Bahamut plays 13 lands 1 empty 3 b.wish.
e.3) If you really feel you need more mana for some specific matches just put Carpet of flowers in side.
e.4) Would you put C.Mox in side? I don't think so. In the worst case, isn't better to put C.Brass?

[Lemnear]

We had the discussion about Bribery today again in my team. I'm known for shenanigans like Bribery or Reanimate in TES sideboards, so I'm free to give you my first hand experience: You don't need Bribery.

If you side out Infernal Tutor you achieve the effect of having a wishable Ad Nauseam for 2 extra mana (but without being required to cast Wish and Infernal in a single turn for mana issues). Bribery is nothing more than a waste of space to Showboat against Reanimator or SneakShow.

Having the 2/1 split between Duress and Therapy in the Maindeck is essentially for the sideboarding against decks with permament hate, so you can shift around the 2 Duress spots (and 4 Silence) for Decays, Chains and 2 more Therapies. That however doesn't mean that i'm a big Fan of preboard Therapy ...

For IGG I want you to remind that the loop almost "requires" double LED and it's a waste to keep an engine which is not only that limited, but also scoops to DRS and RIP. 2 Engines that depend on the grave are too much these days.

For the SB land and Carpet I just wanna mention that you are first required to find a green manasource against manadenial to cast it ... that CAN become a problem while Tropical is a land. The issue is more meta depending and with a lot of tempo in my meta I choose to run a 13. Land myself, rather than trying to adress a common matchup with the SB.

[Sinkhole]

I`m a new T.E.S player too and can`t understand, where all the "needs of mulligan so often" are comming from! I mean our deck consists of 3 - 4 main card types Buisness (and Cantrips), Speed and Protection. I think if you hold 2 of these card types with enough lands in hands, you should be allright, because, it doesn`t takes a long time to draw the 3rd needed one. Also I think it`s nothing wrong with holding a hand with 2 - 3 disruption spells and maybe one cantrip, against blue opponents you need the disruption and have too slow down a little bit automatically. I top deck like a lucky fellow so often with T.E.S and I think that isn`t only luck

On cutting IGG: When I would be more experienced, i would do so, because you use it pretty much never, but under the consideration that I am green as hell with T.E.S I keep it in the board (sometimes, really sometimes it`s the easiest way for going of).

[Barbed Blightning]

I`m a new T.E.S player too and can`t understand, where all the "needs of mulligan so often" are comming from! I mean our deck consists of 3 - 4 main card types Buisness (and Cantrips), Speed and Protection. I think if you hold 2 of these card types with enough lands in hands, you should be allright, because, it doesn`t takes a long time to draw the 3rd needed one. Also I think it`s nothing wrong with holding a hand with 2 - 3 disruption spells and maybe one cantrip, against blue opponents you need the disruption and have too slow down a little bit automatically. I top deck like a lucky fellow so often with T.E.S and I think that isn`t only luck

On cutting IGG: When I would be more experienced, i would do so, because you use it pretty much never, but under the consideration that I am green as hell with T.E.S I keep it in the board (sometimes, really sometimes it`s the easiest way for going of).

Also looking into the deck (I want an unfair deck and T.E.S. has the most interesting lines of play) and I agree: mulligans are rare if you can understand your branches of play. That's the learning curve with the deck.

Branching off the Iggy discussion: has anyone considered Time Spiral? I know Ning ran it for a while over Diminishing Returns. Is there some discussion within this thread?

[Lemnear]

Also looking into the deck (I want an unfair deck and T.E.S. has the most interesting lines of play) and I agree: mulligans are rare if you can understand your branches of play. That's the learning curve with the deck.

Branching off the Iggy discussion: has anyone considered Time Spiral? I know Ning ran it for a while over Diminishing Returns. Is there some discussion within this thread?

Ning never thought it was good himself. It's junk and the topic appears every 10 pages. It requires more initial mana and is only "better" than DR if you have 3 lands to untap (Gemstone Mine counters!). In essence, you can't cast the card early for value which perverts the concept of draw7's.



"Dear storm-padawans,
don't act like the fact that this deck contains a limited number of concept-cards (mana, biz, protection) equals easy mulligans. It's not that LED and Chrome Mox have the same value in a starting grip or you have infinite time to sculpt your hand. Discard, counter(balance) and hatebears will Dismember you easily with your attitude.

Greetings"