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

[mario91234]

You're playing vs hypergenesis/show and tell and its g2. you are on the draw. your seven looks like: 2x DR, 2x LED, 1 IT, Brainstorm, Gprobe.

Keep or mull?

Wish me luck at the invitational as well. gonna need it.

-mario

[paeng4983]

You're playing vs hypergenesis/show and tell and its g2. you are on the draw. your seven looks like: 2x DR, 2x LED, 1 IT, Brainstorm, Gprobe.
Keep or mull?
-mario

A very tempting hand.
You need to consider the way he keeps his hand ad the number of SB cards your opponent used.

Uhmmm, just being responsive, its a no. There's no guarantee that you'll draw into a land or a petal. But if you're that greedy - then on keep it. Pray solemnly to whatever god you believe at for you to draw a land/ petal in your draw step and off the probe.

^_^

[Bryant Cook]

For reference, here's what I'm testing. It seems a couple people have things mixed up:


The EPIC Storm
Decklist as of 10/22/2013

4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand

3 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Silence
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam

3 Xantid Swarm
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Diminishing Returns

[Tammit67]

You're playing vs hypergenesis/show and tell and its g2. you are on the draw. your seven looks like: 2x DR, 2x LED, 1 IT, Brainstorm, Gprobe.

Keep or mull?

Wish me luck at the invitational as well. gonna need it.

-mario

They have to not have force and you have to hit the mana source? Eww.

[<3grim_monolith]

Hey guys, I've been testing the stock list and really enjoy this deck. I am going to order the cards soon and like many am on a budget, I'd really like some advice on lands as this is where I am planning to cheap out until I can afford them ( want the first order to be around 6 or 7 hundred and then drop the other 400 or whatever later). What should I do? Shock lands or basics to replace duals? Play 4 cob, 4 gemstones, 4 orchards? I am worried about all the life loss but the fact remains that I can't afford the good stuff right now and I am prepared to play a weak version of the deck until I can.

[Lemnear]

@Lem
RE: -1 chrome for + 1 city of [br]ass

Having this substitution made my opening-hand-decision-making more easy.
Mathematically speaking, like 75% of the time, having the 3rd brass in the 60 is a good thing. It also effectively freed a slot in my SB replacing the lone Trop for Pyroclasm.

The remaining 25% consist of the situations where you wish it was a mox like flipping it during an ad naus to help you in your mana producing; or wishing it was a mox to increase your goblin storm.

the SB land isn't super-important overall and boarding mana feels awkward to me. I have not enough data to make a shoutout about the mana flexibility of CoB vs. the additional Shuffle-effect of an additional fetch or something fancy as a MB Tropical, but so far, the shuffle came in handy with all the cantrips in the deck.
---

RE: Thoughtseize
4 Silence / 2 Cabal / 1 Thoughtseize is a good ratio in terms of upgrading our main 60 against creature-hate-main-decks.

I think reducing the Cabal by 1 and replacing it with a 3rd AD is another improvement to help us fight against UW Miracle lovers.

by currently testing only a single SB discard, I now have a free SB slot for the 3rd Decay. Switching the discard for certain matchups felt like a waste of SB space. I'm glad we can now have this discussion

^_^

We have our scheduled big legacy event this Sunday. I've been [re]using TES since June of this year and always end up 9th or 10th placer. I just wish things go my way this weekend and hope to make it again on top.

Good luck Cook on the invitational. We're all be waiting for your tournament report.

See you in two weeks, Lem.

we will. The whole crew will play the Friday 9am trial and then we will see how that works out for each of us. Either we head back to the flipchart and try again @ 2pm or go for trading/chatter for the Rest of the afternoon. Maybe setting up the Hurricane vs. Cyclone Clash between Carsten and Me lol. Dunno. Don't want to be too tired for Saturday, so I'll go out for dinner and a show early. Won't test through the night or such. See you there :D

^_^

You're playing vs hypergenesis/show and tell and its g2. you are on the draw. your seven looks like: 2x DR, 2x LED, 1 IT, Brainstorm, Gprobe.

Keep or mull?

Wish me luck at the invitational as well. gonna need it.

-mario

You have 2 draws to find an IMS and the mana fits to right explode into his face while won game 1? I'll keep that one!

[Lemnear]

Hey guys, I've been testing the stock list and really enjoy this deck. I am going to order the cards soon and like many am on a budget, I'd really like some advice on lands as this is where I am planning to cheap out until I can afford them ( want the first order to be around 6 or 7 hundred and then drop the other 400 or whatever later). What should I do? Shock lands or basics to replace duals? Play 4 cob, 4 gemstones, 4 orchards? I am worried about all the life loss but the fact remains that I can't afford the good stuff right now and I am prepared to play a weak version of the deck until I can.

Without trying to depress you: there is no solution. Playing basics (limited color in a 5color deck), Shocklands (damage race vs Aggro and worse Ad Nauseam) or more Gold lands (less shuffle effects, more damage off CoB or Spirit tokens) will all let you suffer to a point there you'll call the deck crap and resell it faster as you can possibly get hands on Fetches and Duals (you wouldn't be the first one who abandons a deck due to bad results quickly). Playing such a complicated and fine tuned machine with substitutes will loose a lot of games on it's own.

[<3grim_monolith]

Without trying to depress you: there is no solution. Playing basics (limited color in a 5color deck), Shocklands (damage race vs Aggro and worse Ad Nauseam) or more Gold lands (less shuffle effects, more damage off CoB or Spirit tokens) will all let you suffer to a point there you'll call the deck crap and resell it faster as you can possibly get hands on Fetches and Duals (you wouldn't be the first one who abandons a deck due to bad results quickly). Playing such a complicated and fine tuned machine with substitutes will loose a lot of games on it's own.

Thanks for the reply. Would you go so far as to say I'd be better off building belcher, dredge or some other budget legacy deck than an incomplete TES? I tested a few "affordable" decks but didn't enjoy any of them anywhere near as much as TES.

Yeah I figured as much, I've been testing online with 4 cob, 4 gsm, 2 orchard and 2 glimmervoid - I've won most of my games but I have lost a good number purely on getting screwed by the lands. I am getting into magic again after quite a while (played delver and wrr when isd block came out but before then it was all the way back to affinity) so I just want to get back into it and into legacy for the longevity of cards life span as well as nostalgia factor. I don't plan on entering seriously competitive tourneys with the deck until I complete the land package. The itch to play is here; I'm sure I'll find myself at a table somewhere raging over not being able to shuffle after a useless brainstorm (if there is such a thing) but hey, at least I'll be playing. That's how I'm thinking atm.

Must say that I am yet to use diminishing returns effectively, when have you found it to be best?

[Lemnear]

Thanks for the reply. Would you go so far as to say I'd be better off building belcher, dredge or some other budget legacy deck than an incomplete TES? I tested a few "affordable" decks but didn't enjoy any of them anywhere near as much as TES.

Yeah I figured as much, I've been testing online with 4 cob, 4 gsm, 2 orchard and 2 glimmervoid - I've won most of my games but I have lost a good number purely on getting screwed by the lands. I am getting into magic again after quite a while (played delver and wrr when isd block came out but before then it was all the way back to affinity) so I just want to get back into it and into legacy for the longevity of cards life span as well as nostalgia factor. I don't plan on entering seriously competitive tourneys with the deck until I complete the land package. The itch to play is here; I'm sure I'll find myself at a table somewhere raging over not being able to shuffle after a useless brainstorm (if there is such a thing) but hey, at least I'll be playing. That's how I'm thinking atm.

Must say that I am yet to use diminishing returns effectively, when have you found it to be best?

Reading this I might consider Spanish Inquisition a funny way to bridge into TES for now :)

Diminishing Returns is best cast early to a) negate Mulligan-/Chrome Mox-carddisadvantage, b) to screw your opponents keeps with a T1 DR or c) whenever neither PiF (too less Rituals in the GY) or EtW (playing against combo, stormcount too low, opponent has sweepers) are not an option.

[davelin]

Must say that I am yet to use diminishing returns effectively, when have you found it to be best?

Lem is spot on about when to DimRet. I find myself using DimRet quite often as of late. Frequently after the course of the first few turns, my hand will be somewhat whittled away because of discard (ours and theirs), with just a Wish for business and the ability to just create 6-8 goblin tokens (ew!) so DimRet is a good place here to quick fill up our hand. One strategic component I just read but hadn't considered is intentionally not dropping a land before casting DimRet but waiting until afterwards to achieve hellbent. Not sure why this didn't occur to me before.

[Vacrix]

Reading this I might consider Spanish Inquisition a funny way to bridge into TES for now :)

Or play SITES and then convert it to TES later. SITES is mostly just a shell though. You can play Therapies and Probes, Burning Wishes and ITs, or if you prefer Empty the Warrens in your metagame play those, or play a faster version with SSGs.

[Lemnear]

Lem is spot on about when to DimRet. I find myself using DimRet quite often as of late. Frequently after the course of the first few turns, my hand will be somewhat whittled away because of discard (ours and theirs), with just a Wish for business and the ability to just create 6-8 goblin tokens (ew!) so DimRet is a good place here to quick fill up our hand. One strategic component I just read but hadn't considered is intentionally not dropping a land before casting DimRet but waiting until afterwards to achieve hellbent. Not sure why this didn't occur to me before.

Evaluating this depends on your lands in play (possibility of drawing one off DR) and if a drawn land isn't better to fight though your opponents new hand or if you plan to play on after DR (often requires some mana float).

Those however are the lil thinks you only realize with experience and can't ever be adressed in articles and such.

[oSeabass]

Evaluating this depends on your lands in play (possibility of drawing one off DR) and if a drawn land isn't better to fight though your opponents new hand or if you plan to play on after DR (often requires some mana float).

Those however are the lil thinks you only realize with experience and can't ever be adressed in articles and such.

I still don't think I fully understand all the uses for DR in the board. It makes sense to use it as a reset button to get a fresh 7 from Discard and mulligans tearing the hand apart. How often is it used as an all in tool where you just go for it (hopefully under Silence), and just win the same turn. I know BC has %s in the opening post about floating mana and DR, but I am not sure I fully get if that is a shove all in storm engine similar to AN, or is it more like a safety net and a reset/panic button against very disruptive decks. In theory, a disruptive deck would be slower and not have as many threats pressuring you (if they are destroying your hand), so just DR and passing the turn seems like it could be good to start over... but then you are giving your opponent another opportunity to make you discard more (shuffle in their spells), and draw cards back off the DR to use against you to screw you again.

[Tom T]

I still don't think I fully understand all the uses for DR in the board. It makes sense to use it as a reset button to get a fresh 7 from Discard and mulligans tearing the hand apart. How often is it used as an all in tool where you just go for it (hopefully under Silence), and just win the same turn. I know BC has %s in the opening post about floating mana and DR, but I am not sure I fully get if that is a shove all in storm engine similar to AN, or is it more like a safety net and a reset/panic button against very disruptive decks. In theory, a disruptive deck would be slower and not have as many threats pressuring you (if they are destroying your hand), so just DR and passing the turn seems like it could be good to start over... but then you are giving your opponent another opportunity to make you discard more (shuffle in their spells), and draw cards back off the DR to use against you to screw you again.

Things like Diminishing Returns have some standard easy-to-figure-out uses, but there are also a lot of weird situations where you'll have to use it because of other things. You'll have to play the deck to come across those situations. In game pondering on different Burning Wish targets is needed to get better, not some how-to-guide which explains ALL different situations. Doing this will get you better at deciding if it's a good idea to use it as an all-in-strategy, because it's dependent on the complete board state, your removed cards, life totals, if you had a landdrop or not and the deck your opponent's playing.

[oSeabass]

Things like Diminishing Returns have some standard easy-to-figure-out uses, but there are also a lot of weird situations where you'll have to use it because of other things. You'll have to play the deck to come across those situations. In game pondering on different Burning Wish targets is needed to get better, not some how-to-guide which explains ALL different situations.

I've started rereading through Lemnear's Heart of the Storm reports to see and make note of where he is using DR in certain situations. I figured I wouldn't have it easy as USE X WHEN Y, because this is Legacy and if it was that, I don't think I would enjoy it.

I know I've used it before and hit wins off of it, but I feel like a DR is almost always going to result in me passing the turn and re-waiting for a spot. PiF is only good when you have lots of rituals in bin (or they discarded a bunch of your stuff you can recast).

[davelin]

I still don't think I fully understand all the uses for DR in the board. It makes sense to use it as a reset button to get a fresh 7 from Discard and mulligans tearing the hand apart. How often is it used as an all in tool where you just go for it (hopefully under Silence), and just win the same turn. I know BC has %s in the opening post about floating mana and DR, but I am not sure I fully get if that is a shove all in storm engine similar to AN, or is it more like a safety net and a reset/panic button against very disruptive decks. In theory, a disruptive deck would be slower and not have as many threats pressuring you (if they are destroying your hand), so just DR and passing the turn seems like it could be good to start over... but then you are giving your opponent another opportunity to make you discard more (shuffle in their spells), and draw cards back off the DR to use against you to screw you again.

DimRet becomes a go-to storm engine card when EtW isn't sufficient to win and your life total is too low to safely Ad Nauseum (or you need to go off immediately without access to AN) and your graveyard isn't sufficient to Wish for Past in Flames or IGG (which isn't difficult to imagine with DRS prevalent).

[oSeabass]

DimRet becomes a go-to storm engine card when EtW isn't sufficient to win and your life total is too low to safely Ad Nauseum (or you need to go off immediately without access to AN) and your graveyard isn't sufficient to Wish for Past in Flames or IGG (which isn't difficult to imagine with DRS prevalent).

I am seeing this trend in Lemnear's reports. The engine part seems like drawing 7 means a potential 7 extra Storm. I have def. been in situations where I was low on life and couldn't AN safely, and they had enough stuff on board to block/win EtW... I will have to try DR in those situations in testing to see the flow of that card. It does make a lot more sense with that explanation though.

Thanks.

[Lemnear]

I am seeing this trend in Lemnear's reports. The engine part seems like drawing 7 means a potential 7 extra Storm. I have def. been in situations where I was low on life and couldn't AN safely, and they had enough stuff on board to block/win EtW... I will have to try DR in those situations in testing to see the flow of that card. It does make a lot more sense with that explanation though.

Thanks.

You may look at it as kinda super-Ill-Gotten-Gains that gives you 7 cards rather than 3 to create additional storm once your life is low and the other cards are not an option like I pointed out a few posts back. Of course, against decks with various counters (especially postboard), DR is an undesireable option without the protection of Silence or Xantid

[Jaycounet]

you never consider to side out 1 IT ? i know it decrease our possibilities to kill quickly and reduce our change to draw a tutor. but sometimes you can draw a BW and you can't cast PIF or you allready know that empty won't be enough (don't talk about gambling on DimRet) go to get an IT with BW and next turn Adnauseam would be interessing in some games no ?

you've surely allready talk about this but i was thinking of this in some games that i would be in this situation.

[Luklinda]

The most frequent use I've had for DR is as a reset against dredge once you've played out a few lands and/or artifact mana.