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

[Final Fortune]

I'm aware that life loss isn't encouraged in Ad Nauseam Combo, but for the people using the 4 Silence, 2 Duress, 1 Cabal Therapy set up, have you ever tried replacing the 2 Duress with 2 Thought Seize for the Maverick, Death&Taxes and Goblins/w match ups so you can drop the extra copies of Cabal Therapy from your SB?

[Lemnear]

I'm aware that life loss isn't encouraged in Ad Nauseam Combo, but for the people using the 4 Silence, 2 Duress, 1 Cabal Therapy set up, have you ever tried replacing the 2 Duress with 2 Thought Seize for the Maverick, Death&Taxes and Goblins/w match ups so you can drop the extra copies of Cabal Therapy from your SB?

Therapies are able to 1-for-2 or 1-for-3 in certain situations which is an aspect of battling other Ritual-decks and defensive counter strategies. I agree that Thoughtseize is a golden bullet and always hit but between Probes, Fetches and Cities, Thoughtseize is horrible against anything that might add pressure and easily make Ad Nauseam worse once you have to fight though defense (Imagine being forced to strip a Stifle post-AN).

The only possible evolution to the protection-suit in the forseeing future is playing 3 Therapy Main and 1 SB, cutting the Duress' and trying to force your Probes in every Game 1 and next-level your skill to estimate the right calls for blind-Therapies according to the gamestate.

[Final Fortune]

Therapies are able to 1-for-2 or 1-for-3 in certain situations which is an aspect of battling other Ritual-decks and defensive counter strategies. I agree that Thoughtseize is a golden bullet and always hit but between Probes, Fetches and Cities, Thoughtseize is horrible against anything that might add pressure and easily make Ad Nauseam worse once you have to fight though defense (Imagine being forced to strip a Stifle post-AN).

The only possible evolution to the protection-suit in the forseeing future is playing 3 Therapy Main and 1 SB, cutting the Duress' and trying to force your Probes in every Game 1 and next-level your skill to estimate the right calls for blind-Therapies according to the gamestate.

Not certain I agree, Thoughtseize isn't worse than Duress vs aggressive decks because in the event the opponent doesn't have disruption and does have a clock Thoughtseize discards the clock, I've won games where discarding a Goblin Lackey while losing my land to a Wasteland allowed me to recover where a Duress wouldn't etc. and while there is a lot of aggregate damage between Fetchlands, City of Brass, Gitaxian Probe and presumably Thoughtseize, I don't think it will cause as many statistical losses to Ad Nauseam as Duress will cause situational losses to hate bears and Vendillion Clique and the extrac SB Cabal Therapy could be put to better use as something else.

Eh, I don't know about 3 Cabal Therapy MD, the problem with Cabal Therapy in TES compared to ANT is that you don't plan to cantrip chain for your first two turns where not being able to blind discard any spell vs an unknown opponent is of little concern. TES is trying to go off T2 pretty regular, so the first game of a match where you win the coin flip and stare at Cabal Therapy you're pretty much always going to name Force of Will, pass the majority of the time and then possibly get hit with a Thoughtseize that you shouldn't have otherwise. Furthermore, the smarter or more diverse players and their counter suites get, the more you're going to run into statistical unknowns like what their exact distribution of Force of Will, Daze, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, Spell Snare and Stifle is etc.

I think B, discard any non land card is a bit underrated here, mainly for being more mana efficient and more guaranteed than anything else. I'm kind of tempted just to run 3 Thoughtseize, 4 City of Brass and 4 Gitaxian Probe just to see how bad the life loss really is whenever I Ad Nauseam compared to how having a anti hate bear/Clique discard and more stable, long term manabase is. Ad Nauseam is like only about a third of my wins as a whole, so I kind of question the idea that every card has to avoid self inflicting minor amounts of damage when it's strictly worse than the alternatives available.

I think the disruption is really the only place the deck can afford to radically tinker, maybe you're right tho' and we should all just be slow rolling the opponent's with a fist full of Silence and Cabal Therapy. It's probably going to be meta dependant, something to bother testing anyway.

[davelin]

Not certain I agree, Thoughtseize isn't worse than Duress vs aggressive decks because in the event the opponent doesn't have disruption and does have a clock Thoughtseize discards the clock, I've won games where discarding a Goblin Lackey while losing my land to a Wasteland allowed me to recover where a Duress wouldn't etc. and while there is a lot of aggregate damage between Fetchlands, City of Brass, Gitaxian Probe and presumably Thoughtseize, I don't think it will cause as many statistical losses to Ad Nauseam as Duress will cause situational losses to hate bears and Vendillion Clique and the extrac SB Cabal Therapy could be put to better use as something else.

Eh, I don't know about 3 Cabal Therapy MD, the problem with Cabal Therapy in TES compared to ANT is that you don't plan to cantrip chain for your first two turns where not being able to blind discard any spell vs an unknown opponent is of little concern. TES is trying to go off T2 pretty regular, so the first game of a match where you win the coin flip and stare at Cabal Therapy you're pretty much always going to name Force of Will, pass the majority of the time and then possibly get hit with a Thoughtseize that you shouldn't have otherwise. Furthermore, the smarter or more diverse players and their counter suites get, the more you're going to run into statistical unknowns like what their exact distribution of Force of Will, Daze, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, Spell Snare and Stifle is etc.

I think B, discard any non land card is a bit underrated here, mainly for being more mana efficient and more guaranteed than anything else. I'm kind of tempted just to run 3 Thoughtseize, 4 City of Brass and 4 Gitaxian Probe just to see how bad the life loss really is whenever I Ad Nauseam compared to how having a anti hate bear/Clique discard and more stable, long term manabase is. Ad Nauseam is like only about a third of my wins as a whole, so I kind of question the idea that every card has to avoid self inflicting minor amounts of damage when it's strictly worse than the alternatives available.

I think the disruption is really the only place the deck can afford to radically tinker, maybe you're right tho' and we should all just be slow rolling the opponent's with a fist full of Silence and Cabal Therapy. It's probably going to be meta dependant, something to bother testing anyway.

Yes Thoughtseize is probably better against the aggressive decks but those are the decks we are already beating on a consistent basis. It's not really needed against Goblins, that's already a very strong matchup for us. The extra 2 damage we inflict about ourselves really hurts in MUs such as RUG or UWR delver where they have the reach if we let ourselves get low on life.

T'Seize is probably preferred against decks sporting say 4x Thalias, but what percentage of the metagame do those make? Not very much IMO.

[Lemnear]

It's strange to argue for Thoughtseize via creatures. This deck is made to beat creature decks (and casting a blind-Duress off your only IMP (maybe even over a cantrip) is a wacky play considering the omnipresence of Wasteland), so the Lackey example is a misleading cornercase imo. The only 1,5 decks which run's creatures MB which may bother you are Maverick and Goblins (both Thalia). I don't think the benefit of hitting those G1 outweights all the random damage off Thoughtseize.

[Final Fortune]

It's strange to argue for Thoughtseize via creatures. This deck is made to beat creature decks (and casting a blind-Duress off your only IMP (maybe even over a cantrip) is a wacky play considering the omnipresence of Wasteland), so the Lackey example is a misleading cornercase imo. The only 1,5 decks which run's creatures MB which may bother you are Maverick and Goblins (both Thalia). I don't think the benefit of hitting those G1 outweights all the random damage off Thoughtseize.

It was just one example, my primary concern is Vendillion Clique, especially in Miracles, where Duress is drawing dead.

I tend to blind Duress off my first land drop pretty religiously vs unknown.

[Lemnear]

It was just one example, my primary concern is Vendillion Clique, especially in Miracles, where Duress is drawing dead.

I tend to blind Duress off my first land drop pretty religiously vs unknown.

Hmmm ... heared discarding Counterbalance is still pretty good. It's not like you can't Silence against Clique which is a 3cc spell too (ergo possibly too slow)

I keep my discard spells pretty much till I plan to go off (aside combo matchups, of course) and use my early resources to cantrip into mana and Biz

[Ivan Ferreiro]

I lost the other day against goblins because a blind cabal therapy naming Thalia and opponent having Canonist (it was game three and I knew about the two kind of hate). But still will not change to main Thoughtseize. Two damage is a lot and we need Ad Nauseam to be as high percentage of autowins when cast.

The card I dont really get is Grapeshot. In that game against goblins i had to go burning wish to Grapeshot (no chain of vapor or abrupt decay drawn) and it was too late (too many goblins already). Pyroclasm would have been a win game at that point. I dont know if we need both Tendrils and Grapeshot. When do you actually use Grapeshot?

Also have to say Xantid is MVP.

[Lemnear]

I lost the other day against goblins because a blind cabal therapy naming Thalia and opponent having Canonist (it was game three and I knew about the two kind of hate). But still will not change to main Thoughtseize. Two damage is a lot and we need Ad Nauseam to be as high percentage of autowins when cast.

The card I dont really get is Grapeshot. In that game against goblins i had to go burning wish to Grapeshot (no chain of vapor or abrupt decay drawn) and it was too late (too many goblins already). Pyroclasm would have been a win game at that point. I dont know if we need both Tendrils and Grapeshot. When do you actually use Grapeshot?

Also have to say Xantid is MVP.

The way you do. It's to wipe boards and kill even bigger creatures than Pyroclasm could. If grapseshot can't wipe the board anymore, you'll have to pick DR in most cases instead. Pyroclasm was in my board for Cannonist and Thalia because GS can get very ugly with those out, but it's ugly to have 2 sweepers in your board. If however this problem occur more often for you and still dislike GS, may test with Clasm in that spot instead.

[Megadeus]

Ive killed many players after I hit them down to like 4 with empty tokens before they stabilized with grapeshot to finish the game. I would never cut it.

[Sinkhole]

It's a matchup where you have to continually think of what could the opponent be holding and what are your options. Say he taps out for a first turn Delver or Ponder, you have to think he either has a Daze and/or FoW, does your hand beat that if they do? If you wait until then untap, then they could hold up for a Pierce or a Stifle, do you have options in that case?

So you mean in this matchup it`s our best bet to going off, as soon as possible instead of waiting, even you only can create Storm 5 - 6 for goblins, for example? I think that was one of my biggest mistakes I had made, waiting too long for sunnier times, instead of go into the combo for tokens.

On Thoughtseize: I wouldn`t run it main, because it`s only makes matchups better, which are already positive and weakens us against RUG, URG Delver and other variants, where every lifepoint is needed.

[davelin]

So you mean in this matchup it`s our best bet to going off, as soon as possible instead of waiting, even you only can create Storm 5 - 6 for goblins, for example? I think that was one of my biggest mistakes I had made, waiting too long for sunnier times, instead of go into the combo for tokens.

On Thoughtseize: I wouldn`t run it main, because it`s only makes matchups better, which are already positive and weakens us against RUG, URG Delver and other variants, where every lifepoint is needed.

An early 10-12 goblins is perfectly fine in this matchup (as well as others).

[Lemnear]

Ive killed many players after I hit them down to like 4 with empty tokens before they stabilized with grapeshot to finish the game. I would never cut it.

I did this a lot, but in all honest, you can leach those remaining life with Tendrils in most cases too. I remind: IGG was once a holy cow and now it's gone. If the creatures you may want to wipe with Grapeshot are now pretty much immune to storm as a mechanic, it's not unheared off to discuss the slot.

[Bryant Cook]

I did this a lot, but in all honest, you can leach those remaining life with Tendrils in most cases too. I remind: IGG was once a holy cow and now it's gone. If the creatures you may want to wipe with Grapeshot are now pretty much immune to storm as a mechanic, it's not unheared off to discuss the slot.

I win with Grapeshot more than people think. Especially because of awkward Past in Flames shenanigans where you have the storm but not the perfect mana - it actually happened on Thursday for me. It won't be leaving my sideboard anytime soon. Last weekend at Jupiter, I used Grapeshot to kill an entire Elves players board minus his only land (a Cradle) one of the creatures was a Craterhoof.

I won't lie, I've considered playing 2 Thoughtseize/1 Therapy main deck over Duress. It's an idea that I've been toying with, haven't tested it in a long time though.

[Lemnear]

I win with Grapeshot more than people think. Especially because of awkward Past in Flames shenanigans where you have the storm but not the perfect mana - it actually happened on Thursday for me. It won't be leaving my sideboard anytime soon. Last weekend at Jupiter, I used Grapeshot to kill an entire Elves players board minus his only land (a Cradle) one of the creatures was a Craterhoof.

I won't lie, I've considered playing 2 Thoughtseize/1 Therapy main deck over Duress. It's an idea that I've been toying with, haven't tested it in a long time though.

Yep, Grapeshot does nasty things even agains 3+ thoughness creatures, but if Thalia, Cannonist and hexproof critter are a regular annoyance, I can see the application of Clasm over GS. Metagaming...


The last time I tested with the Thoughtseize, it was outright horrible (5 months back tbh) to fight against Aggro and Tempo unless you snatch their single threat while keeping a slow hand. Paying 2 life for a 1-for-1 trade is harsh. I'd love to test a few configurations before BoM in 2 weeks, but won't make it to more than 1 tourney in the meantime. Bryant, if your final test session before the invitational wields any new impressions that might change the 75, I would be very thankful if you might share these. Enjoy your weekend, pal.

[Bryant Cook]

Yep, Grapeshot does nasty things even agains 3+ thoughness creatures, but if Thalia, Cannonist and hexproof critter are a regular annoyance, I can see the application of Clasm over GS. Metagaming...


The last time I tested with the Thoughtseize, it was outright horrible (5 months back tbh) to fight against Aggro and Tempo unless you snatch their single threat while keeping a slow hand. Paying 2 life for a 1-for-1 trade is harsh. I'd love to test a few configurations before BoM in 2 weeks, but won't make it to more than 1 tourney in the meantime. Bryant, if your final test session before the invitational wields any new impressions that might change the 75, I would be very thankful if you might share these. Enjoy your weekend, pal.

First off, name a single hexproof creature that we care about. Poor excuse man.

Secondly, if the opponent has Cannonist & Thalia there's a very strong chance that you're already so far behind that Pyroclasm won't save you. Not to mention, it would only three storm to kill those creatures with Grapsehot - all it would require is playing some artifacts and then Grapeshot. That plan may be slightly worse considering that you cut a Chrome Mox though (Which also makes Empty & Returns worse).

My list is currently the list on the opening post. I haven't changed it at all, although I may test Thoughtseize before the invitational. It would require being a little more conservative with Probes and not being as care-free about playing life.

[Final Fortune]

Hmmm ... heared discarding Counterbalance is still pretty good. It's not like you can't Silence against Clique which is a 3cc spell too (ergo possibly too slow)

I keep my discard spells pretty much till I plan to go off (aside combo matchups, of course) and use my early resources to cantrip into mana and Biz

Silence is an awful answer to Vendillion Clique, the opponent removes your win condition, establishes a clock and gains card advantage where Thought Seize removes whatever remaining permission the opponent has in his hand while you search for another win condition or avoids the problem entirely by discarding Vendillion Clique before turn 3.

I'm liking +2 Thought Seize MD, -1 Cabal Therapy SB quite a bit, I think you're seriously under estimating just how hard the Miracles deck with 4 MD Vendillion Clique and SB Meddling Mage is with Duress coughing up air.

[Lemnear]

Silence is an awful answer to Vendillion Clique, the opponent removes your win condition, establishes a clock and gains card advantage where Thought Seize removes whatever remaining permission the opponent has in his hand while you search for another win condition or avoids the problem entirely by discarding Vendillion Clique before turn 3.

I'm liking +2 Thought Seize MD, -1 Cabal Therapy SB quite a bit, I think you're seriously under estimating just how hard the Miracles deck with 4 MD Vendillion Clique and SB Meddling Mage is with Duress coughing up air.

Never saw 4 MB Cliques and you can switch Duress vs. Therapy in postboard games so the last sentence is strange. Clique isn't cardadvantage and in my experience too slow to do anything meaningful and if they run 4 Cliques and severL Meddling Mages as hate postboard I doubt that Terminus are still in the deck too. They can't have sweepers, counters and hatebears in one deck available. Would be a strange plan.

[kiwi]

When you play thoughtseize you lose 2 lifes, if you play 4 gitaxian probe and 2 thoughtseize Ad Nauseam will be worse. I dont like to play thoughtseize in MD now.

[Bryant Cook]

When you play thoughtseize you lose 2 lifes, if you play 4 gitaxian probe and 2 thoughtseize Ad Nauseam will be worse. I dont like to play thoughtseize in MD now.

Now that useless and obvious posts are out of the way, let's get to some real discussion!

It's pretty obvious that Thoughtseize makes us lose life and that Gitaxian Probe can as well, but it's a matter of how you play these cards and the benefits of Thoughtseize over Duress. It'll require some serious playtesting against tempo decks to see if Thoughtseize can stand in those match-ups, but it'll certainly help out in every single non-blue match-up including Thalia decks.

I'm not saying that I'm making the switch, but it's worth testing.