I approve of dissenting opinions from other deck foundations on the source, but I would caution against hasty matchup appraisals without testing. All forms of storm are positive matchups. TES does have silence and Swarm, but this makes them more vulnerable to repeal and grindiness due to gemstone mine.
I would strongly suggest testing this matchup before suggesting different/more sideboard cards. Coming in here and blindly fear mongering doesn't help. This matchup has been tested extensively for many years.
Jerry, I just hopped in because I saw a shift towards the overload on counterspells and destroyed our local 12-post player several times now, with him claiming to read this thread, building his SB in regards to that. I was just curious...
I can't share the impression that storm is a positive matchup with the Sideboards (and mainboards) i had to face and read here the last few pages tbh.
I'm not drawing conclusions off thin air, but off actual live games.
www.theepicstorm.com - Your Source for The Epic Storm - Articles, Reports, Decktech and more!
Join us at Facebook!
Hi all
A question about the sideboard. I have seen a lot playing with Venser in SB, but I myself cant seem to get the right value out of it. Against which match ups does he really shine? May be a stupid ass question, but against Combo he's too slow and against Aggro and Control I dont think I want to see him. Is it to remove problematic permanents or...? There we have Ulamog.
Thanks in advance
I've also never been very successful on the venser plan for all the reasons you've mentioned. Right now the combination of Swan Song and Glen Elendra provide the same coverage, and more, for less blue requirement. For me, venser has little to add when comparing to a SB pool of FOW, Fluster, Swan Song and Glen Elendra. Glen Elendra is amazing in the omni and sneak matchups, with needle adding more sneak support. Also at the moment any other MD creature spot goes to Trinket Mage which is better positioned now for MD.
Venser is for Show and Tell combo, but as it's a counterspell, you will bring it in against other combos as well.
It's not the best answer to either S&T or to storm, but it sort of works against both so I dig it more than the fairie wizard at the moment. Casting sorcery speed Glen Elendra Archmage with U or UU up is painful.
Some of my friends sell records,
some of my friends sell drugs.
It is interesting that you mention venser, because I have been testing venserx2 MD in my recent build. Venser is there specifically against omni, where they let you put him in for free. His other role against combo is to let you exhaust all your cheap counters early, and then use venser + karakas to lock out the game.
This is the un-tuned version I've been testing recently:
// Lands
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
1 [WWK] Eye of Ugin
2 [TSP] Vesuva
4 [U] Tropical Island
4 [SOM] Glimmerpost
4 [MR] Cloudpost
3 [ZEN] Island (8)
1 [LG] Karakas
1 [ON] Polluted Delta
// Creatures
4 [M12] Primeval Titan
1 [PRE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 [ROE] Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 [ROE] Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
2 [FUT] Venser, Shaper Savant
2 [FD] Trinket Mage
// Spells
4 [UL] Crop Rotation
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [ZEN] Expedition Map
1 [UL] Snap
2 [US] Show and Tell
4 [GP] Repeal
1 [AQ] Candelabra of Tawnos
// Sideboard
SB: 4 [AL] Force of Will
SB: 4 [CMD] Flusterstorm
SB: 2 [EVE] Glen Elendra Archmage
SB: 3 [THS] Swan Song
SB: 1 [MMA] Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 [IA] Glacial Chasm
I was testing Venser in my main-deck for a little while. It's totally a meta-call, if you deal with a lot of S&T decks he's awesome. Plus, that Venser/Karakas lock is wonderful. I eventually moved away from him and am now actually maining 2xSwan Song instead. I've been pretty excited by how well I can protect my S&T now. I know people have mixed feelings about SS in the maindeck, but I'm enjoying it.
Now for some more controversial opinions:
~Glacial Chasm is a Sidebard Card. I'm glad to see you trying that out. It comes in against a lot of decks, but those decks are already pretty positive matchups in Game 1 (save Elves and MUD). So often it's such a frustrating dead-draw that I had to move it to the board. I've been much happier with that.
~Chalice is our BEST SB card against combo, as well as many other bad matchup decks. I see no reason not to 4x it. I'm also testing 3x Sphere of Resistance right now in the board, and that will probably be coming to Seattle with me for SCG. I like what sphere does against combo, and we're always winning on mana so the two sided nature is usually not an issue.
Right now my deck looks like this:
~Land (26)
4x Cloudpost
4x Glimmerpost
4x Vesuva
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Tropical Island
1x Island
1x Forest
1x Karakas
1x Eye of Ugin
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Bojuka Bog
~Creatures (7)
4x Primeval Titan
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1x Kozilek, butcher of truth
~Spells (27)
4x Crop Rotation
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Brainstorm
3x Repeal
3x Show and Tell
3x Expedition Map
2x Candelabra of Tawnos
2x Pithing Needle
2x Swan Song
~Sideboard (15)
4x Chalice of the Void
3x Flusterstorm
3x Sphere of Resistance
2x Oblivion Stone
2x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Glacial Chasm
This is 99% the build I'm going to bring to Seattle. My only consideration at the moment is to cut the two Pithing Needles for a fourth Show and Tell and a fourth Repeal. I love having needle in against Wasteland and especially Liliana OTV who is often pretty brutal. That said, a SDT can combat Lili pretty well and streamlining the S&T and Repeal tempo portions of the deck seems appealing. Especially with MD SS to protect all those S&Ts.
Anybody else planning on hitting up Seattle? I'll do my best to represent.
Oh SNAP.
Nice man good luck. I agree with the Venser meta call comments. I don't really pay too much mind to the Top Gear Karakas/Venser situation, I mean I know it can happen but that's nothing I will rely on for sure.
I'm interesting in your SB take though, you've got a ton of permanent based hate - which I envy. Can you explain what decks you've tuned this to play against? No T1 counters is a little risky at least in my meta and I'm curious what lines you are playing into for the bad combo matchups.
I like the Glacial in the board idea, but I bet ill face the same conundrum that we already have in the MD lol. But for me as long as that stupid elves deck is alive - I'll pack chasm.
Thanks, I'm really interested to see how this SB works out. What I have done is I've removed my turn 0 protection in favor of more consistent hate. More often than not, I would find myself sitting with a hand of countermagic against combo and watch as they systematically removed all the spells from my hand with Duress and Therapy until they have enough space to go off safely.
I also found that I almost never lose against storm when I lead Chalice on. Follow up with chalice on
and you've got a hell of a lock.
I spent a lot of time playing High Tide this summer, and saw first-hand how brutal Thorn of Amethyst is to play through on the combo end. I like sphere better here because it gives it even more relevance against other decks (Elves is a good example) and doesn't hamstring us too much.
The final piece of the puzzle is the lack of turn 0 protection. That is, losing on the draw because I have no mana sources for Fluster/Swan song. I know lots of ANT players, it's a really popular deck here in Portland. In talking to them, Turn 1 is a dream scenario. It happens sometimes, but often not very safely. If they can ramp into the Ad Nauseam on turn one, they usually have no mana left floating and need to hit some really lucky cards on the flip.
Considering that I'm running Swan Song in the main-deck now, I figure I have better lines of play against Storm game 1, giving me a better chance to steal that game and have at least one more game on the play. This is all a lot of conjecture, but this thought process has freed up a lot of more sideboard slots for cards like Cage and Oblivion Stone.
Part of my inspiration was going back to Tony Murata's deck that won SCG San Diego last January. Look at his sideboard:
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Cursed Totem
2 Elephant Grass
4 Flusterstorm
1 Pithing Needle
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
That's a lot of permanent based hate, and I'm sure that the staying power of permanents helped him get there. Spells are fragile, and tend to be easier to play around. Obviously the meta has changed, so some of the card choices change. Elephant grass isn't quite as relevant anymore, and I don't think Tabernacle does enough work here. Cursed totem is still a great card, but I like Graff better with how much reanimator is running around right now.
Those were my general thoughts. This is definitely a big experiment here, but I feel good about these choices. We'll see what happens, I suppose.
Bravo! These SB's look a lot better now :)
www.theepicstorm.com - Your Source for The Epic Storm - Articles, Reports, Decktech and more!
Join us at Facebook!
J-Funk, your sb looks much better against ANT/TES players, but to me it seems really soft to another deck which almost always top8s in SCG lately.. Omnitell. How do you side against it? I think that if you do well with the deck you may end facing at least one of them. That's the dilemma for me... more permanent hate to face stormy decks, or more counterspells to stand a chance against that brainless mono-u deck?
You can call me mad or noob, but i'm testing in sb one of the narrowest card ever printed... Extract! Why? Because i think it may be really good against both kinds of deck! ANT typically has 1 winning condition main deck (1 tendrils)... what about exiling it turn 1? Feel free to storm for infinite then! TES is another story, but what exiling Ad Nauseam? They'll probably have to go through the graveyard route, and we are much more prepared to face this. And Omnitell? Why not exiling their lonely Emrakul? They'll have to go trough the clash with Enter the Infinite as their last card in deck, but we play eldrazis, and if we are high on life (and it should be so, since they abosolutely do nothing except cantripping before going off), we should have about 20+ chances to reveal Kozilek or Emrakul and stop the combo, leaving them plain dead.
Let me know what you think
If I may. His SB is not that "weak" to omnitell.
Chalice at 1 breaks cantrip. Chalice at 3 will put them on the dream hall plan.
Sphere delays cantrip & combo.
Flusterstorm also helps in this MU (and O-stone to a lesser extend and you have to keep a lot of mana)
About the "extract" thing. The idea is cute. But you will have to make at least room for 3 of it in the SB to challenge the odds of having it in your opening hands...
Is it what we need ?
I think you're really too optimistic, i think you're around 30/70 in favor of the omnitell player with that side. Chalice at 1 also kills all your manipulation. Suddenly, all your Tops, Crops, Swan Songs, Brainstorms, Maps, Candelabras and even Flusterstorms (even if just a bit) are crippled, making your deck able to just land-go, while our opponent still has strong tutors like Intuition and Cunning Wish. I think this is not the way.
About Chalice at 3, you can realistically hope to reach 6 mana not before turn 4, so even if it doesn't get countered your opponent will have about 4 lands in play. From there, playing 1-2 more mana sources to go through Dream Halls doesn't seem impossible.
Sphere and O-stone inmho do nothing here. Even if you drop sphere in resp to show and tell and lock the combo you've just delayed it by 1 turn. This is a working startegy for decks that apply a lot of early pressure, but we are not that kind of. He'll probably have 3 or so lands in play, so he'll payfor Enter the Infinite,
for Cunning Wish,
for a random bounce spell and win from there. O-stone is even worse, you need your opponent to be brain-pudded to lose from that. Lets say you show it while he plays Omniscience, he retains priority and casts Enter the infinite, while in resp you sac the stone. He now has the entire deck in his hands, so he will probably go something like triple Petal/double petal + land -> Show and Tell again with a new Omniscience and win. That's why i think that sb is weak
You are the one playing Chalice. You should play around your own hand/ and made the appropriate changes with your SB.
12 cantrips - 19/20 lands in Omni. An unanswered chalice at 1 will put him back and no he won't likely have 4 lands on turn 4... (maybe 2 + 1 sol land)
Thereafter, you resolve chalice @ 3. You have likely won. No bounce MD and they have to reach 5 mana for dream hall.
It is just a speed test here. the first to combo wins. But we have to reach at least 13 mana + ugin (and more if sphere) for Emrakul.
Lotus petal in Omni ? Did you ever play it/ against it ?
The MU is bad and will remain bad except if you devote half of your SB into it.
Forget about omni and hope you can dodge it.
I like this SB. Improve Storm MU and elves, does what it can against omni.
Now we could try to work on sideboard tables.
Omni/sneak definitely deserves half of the side board IMO. The choices made to combat these two should also be relevant against storm and others. Rock Lees last sideboard post is probably the best example of this. Early powerful counters - fluster, force, and swan song - which bring him to the later game kill card - glen elendra, venser Karakas, to lock out omni, glacial or elves and aggro, and trinket to chalice for storm. This amounts to a massive amount of defense adaptable for each match up. Plus this board still can fight chalice, moon, and loam. Could even use a cage with the same logic as the chalice tutor.
Going into an scg planning to dodge the easiest, cheapest, most borrowable combo deck is a terrible plan.
Couldn't agree more. Keep in mind that the shift in sideboard that jfunk and others are doing now, and then being lauded for is by an individual anecdotal case. Tim and I have each tested against both ANT and TES for over a year with various builds and concepts, and we both agree that the aforementioned counterspell overload simply beats them. Perhaps if Lemnear did some actual testing rather than give nebulous iterations of beating one local Turbo Eldrazi player, someone piloting the most difficult competitive deck in any format to play, then I would give his thoughts more credit than mere hearsay.
For my own testing, I've been all over the place recently. MD'ing fow, md'ing swan song, going back to bonfire. We will see what I decide for come tomorrow at Feinstein's event, which I am almost certainly going to.
Lemnear is very good as is rock. Good players beat bad players. What's so surprising about that? The two of you should play over mws or cockatrice to figure out who is right :)
www.theepicstorm.com - Your Source for The Epic Storm - Articles, Reports, Decktech and more!
Join us at Facebook!
I think you are confused. I do not attest any wins or losses to the deck's sideboard strategy's validity. I attribute my own extensive two-fisted testing with both ANT and TES against the deck.
I approach deck building in a scientific method approach, not an anecdotal one. When you put actual testing behind the deck with skill in both decks being established, then we can discuss the failings of other approaches equally.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)