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

[Megadeus]

Playing the deck for the first time in a couple of months tonight. Hopefully I remember how to do it still!! Old list with IGG I believe.

[Tammit67]

Hello,

I’m a relatively new Storm player from the Philadelphia area (Matt we might have played each other on occasion) who decided to pick up the deck after getting frustrated drawing too much with Miracles. I first played TES competitively at GP Charlotte in a side event (which I won, despite horrid misplays), and have been hooked ever since.

Since I had my best showing ever with TES at Legacy Champs this past weekend (7/2, Top 16), I wanted to share a little bit about my experience and card choices.

For the sideboard, I added Reforge the Soul, Massacre, and Eye of Nowhere, removing DR, IGG, and CT. Despite the higher cost, I’ve found RtS much easier to cast than DR with RoF. I also find it easier not to have to juggle UU.

Eye of Nowhere may not be necessary, but it’s helped otherwise unwinnable games, and Massacre can be cast for free and is great against the usual hate bears (except Gaddock Teeg, but there’s always Grapeshot). Death & Taxes is popular here, and I expect it will be all over DC after Ari Lax’s win.

Overall, I felt the deck was very well-positioned, despite lots of D&T and Miracles. Ad Nauseam is wonderful but not always necessary; I don’t think I played it at all in the first five matches. Goblins are very good. But with Miracles and D&T being so popular, I think three ADs and a Massacre are necessary evils.

Oh, and never, ever, play without Grapeshot.

Based on this thread I’m going to do some testing with Thoughtseize over the next two weeks before DC, but I’m still most concerned about the matchups with Sneak & Show and Reanimator. The third XS sounds like a good start, but I wish there were something more. If anybody (Bryant?) is testing Surgical Extractions, I’d love to hear about your results.

Thanks for all the advice posted here – I’m looking forward to lots of TES in DC!

Welcome to the Source! If we haven't met in person, we surely will soon.

If you are truly in Philly, Redcaps Corner right outside of 30th street station/Drexel university has weekly Legacy every Wednesday night and usually get 30 or so people. If you haven't heard of the Philly legacy Series that Top Deck Games+Redcaps Corner+Alternate Universes runs on a monthly basis, check the thread in tournament announcements.

Massacre is an interesting choice, but I really don't want to ever flip it to Ad Nauseum postboard. For me, the bounce/anti hate package in board has been sufficient to handle the minimal amounts of hate that comes down out of hatebear decks before I can sculpt a winning hand. I'd rather have therapy postboard to hit the bears I can't answer than having to massacre them away later. Massacre is going to look very embarrassing when death and taxes or maverick cast things off karakas/vial/deathrite, and TES is naturally fast enough that I don't feel you need to invest in a sweeper like that.

Xantid swarm has been so good for me particularly at Champs, winning me 4 games and possibly a 5th had I not messed up. If you are having trouble with reanimator (and why wouldn't you, the deck has a lot of disruptive capabilities), test out another swarm over GY hate. Usually you can combo off against other GY decks before they can get you (reducing the need for grave hate in the first place) and other matchups become better with swarm such as merfolk, sneak and show, omni tell, and reanimator (increasing the need for swarm). I don't think GY hate is optimal right now and looking to race in those matchups is where you want to be.

Diminishing returns has been very good for me, specifically because it costs 4. Being able to cast it easily and have mana floating in scenarios where my opponent has been attritioning my hand away has proved invaluable. Costing double UU comes up every so often, but more than anything not having the mana to finish the game off post Dim Ret is what kills me. Adding another mana on to Dim Ret can only increase the fizzling chance due to failure to have initial mana sources after its casting.

Eye to nowhere was a card I used to play with before the printing of abrupt decay. even in the more hectic, less clearly defined meta of a year ago, I found myself wishing for it maybe once a month between playtesting and tournaments. There are simply few things preboard I want to bounce that I cannot grapeshot and even fewer postboard that I cannot chain of vapor/abrupt decay. Wishable bounce hasn't been relevant for me. If you feel you need answers to both trinisphere and nether void preboard, go ahead but it isn't typical from what many of us are seeing at large events

:)

[HerrGevatter]

Welcome to the Source! If we haven't met in person, we surely will soon.

If you are truly in Philly, Redcaps Corner right outside of 30th street station/Drexel university has weekly Legacy every Wednesday night and usually get 30 or so people. If you haven't heard of the Philly legacy Series that Top Deck Games+Redcaps Corner+Alternate Universes runs on a monthly basis, check the thread in tournament announcements.

Massacre is an interesting choice, but I really don't want to ever flip it to Ad Nauseum postboard. For me, the bounce/anti hate package in board has been sufficient to handle the minimal amounts of hate that comes down out of hatebear decks before I can sculpt a winning hand. I'd rather have therapy postboard to hit the bears I can't answer than having to massacre them away later. Massacre is going to look very embarrassing when death and taxes or maverick cast things off karakas/vial/deathrite, and TES is naturally fast enough that I don't feel you need to invest in a sweeper like that.

Xantid swarm has been so good for me particularly at Champs, winning me 4 games and possibly a 5th had I not messed up. If you are having trouble with reanimator (and why wouldn't you, the deck has a lot of disruptive capabilities), test out another swarm over GY hate. Usually you can combo off against other GY decks before they can get you (reducing the need for grave hate in the first place) and other matchups become better with swarm such as merfolk, sneak and show, omni tell, and reanimator (increasing the need for swarm). I don't think GY hate is optimal right now and looking to race in those matchups is where you want to be.

Diminishing returns has been very good for me, specifically because it costs 4. Being able to cast it easily and have mana floating in scenarios where my opponent has been attritioning my hand away has proved invaluable. Costing double UU comes up every so often, but more than anything not having the mana to finish the game off post Dim Ret is what kills me. Adding another mana on to Dim Ret can only increase the fizzling chance due to failure to have initial mana sources after its casting.

Eye to nowhere was a card I used to play with before the printing of abrupt decay. even in the more hectic, less clearly defined meta of a year ago, I found myself wishing for it maybe once a month between playtesting and tournaments. There are simply few things preboard I want to bounce that I cannot grapeshot and even fewer postboard that I cannot chain of vapor/abrupt decay. Wishable bounce hasn't been relevant for me. If you feel you need answers to both trinisphere and nether void preboard, go ahead but it isn't typical from what many of us are seeing at large events

:)

I'm pretty positive we've met at Redcaps or Top Deck; I haven't made it out to AU too often. I'll try to introduce myself.

Massacre is in there strictly as a wish target; I'd never board it in. What I like is that it's free once you get it so you have a better chance of going off that turn. I should note it was a last-minute inclusion and I only wished for it once. Testing has been pretty limited.

I see your point about DS vs RtS; I guess I need to try it in more situations. But for right now, 3RR is easier to wrap my head around than 2UU.

I'll also try out another Xantid Swarm; it seems like a good idea.

[HerrGevatter]

I forgot to add that I don't use Eye a ton, but it's helped me win vs Chalice on zero or one and similar nonsense in game 1s. I'm not totally convinced it deserves the slot, but it's an effect I like having access to.

[Megadeus]

Lol just punted vs jund. Quad silence walk 4 turns in a row into an ad nauseam, died to surgical because I went for IGG instead of Pif. Yuck

[oSeabass]

First of all, are you really playing against Painter with CotV? That counters so many cards in their deck...They must really hate storm. Secondly, you should try Serenity instead of Hurkyl's. I think the occasional downside of not having W mana is more than made up by the ability to hit stuff like Leyline, Arcane Lab, Counterbalance, or whatever other crap you run into.

Pulverize seems loose, given that it only works against Painter and Dragon Stompy, and is completely uncastable if they don't have a Blood Moon down.

They are very loose, but I was just trying to get the ball rolling and the thoughts flowing on sideboard cards outside of "the norm". I still really like having the Topical Island in the board for Wasteland, and Port decks. I may go back to running a split on Abrupt Decay and one Hull Breach so I can tutor for it game one with a Chalice on 1 (slow play Wish into Hull Breach). It is still easy-ish to cast like ADecay, because Red is one of the colors from RoF and Volcanics. The green is still the issue, but having the Tropical Isl. in the board really helps sure that up to cast Decay and Hull Breach. Hull Breach being counterable is bad, but you can try and mind game the Countertop player into stacking a 1 on top with no mana left, or run an LED out to get countered just to be able to hit the Hull Breach. It is an expensive 2:1 on your side, but if a quick counterbalance comes downs on 2, running a 0 mana spell out to check the top of their deck is going to be very helpful.

[Final Fortune]

Regarding recent posts,

There's nothing wrong with discarding Silence for Duress, Cabal Therapy and Thoughtseize provided the metagame consists of other combo decks or prison decks that Silence can't disrupt, you're increasing the number of black cards in your deck for Chrome Mox, you're increasing the number of lands that can cast disruption and you can now cast your disruption off of Dark Rituals. The down side is that you're making your Diminishing Returns and Ill Gotten Gains weaker and their Leyline of Sanctity stronger, but that may very well be addressed by SBing an Infernal Tutor at any stage of the match or SBing a set of Xantid Swarms.

The manabase is more flexible than people seem to think, I've experimented with combinations of gold lands and prefer four City of Brass because life, frankly, is not as relevant of a resource as land drops and TES rarely wins before turn 3 unchallenged.

Playing with Thoughtseize allows you to cut a discard spell from the SB, however arguing that cutting a discard spell from the SB eliminates your ability to wish for a discard spell is a pretty daft statement because you don't have to SB a discard spell in at all vs any match up. Even something as odd as Tropical Island reads "counter target Daze" or "counter target one half of a Spell Pierce" while actually having the decency to cast your spells as well.

3rd Chrome Mox slot is debateable, I've seen people cut it, I've seen people substitute it for Mox Diamond but I think the choice a lot of people have over looked is that Simian Spirit Guide is still a really fucking good accelerant in this deck regardless of the marginal increase in average casting cost.

For people who get irritated at Silence requiring a Gemstone Mine, there's no reason to go to an extreme and cut Silence entirely from the deck, you can play 3, 2 or 1 just as easily as you can play 4 or 0, and you can SB X copies of Silence just as easily as you can SB X copies of Xantid Swarm.

I really think people follow Bryant's list a little too closesly instead of thinking for themselves, a lot of the disruption and acceleration slots are pretty amalgamous and people should be encouraged to differentiate if for no other reason it makes Cabal Therapy a hell of a lot worse vs us if X% of TES players are playing 3 Silence, 2 Thoughtseize, 2 Cabal Therapy instead of 4 Silence, 3 Cabal Therapy

[Bryant Cook]

Ran the deck in a decent sized local tonight going 6-0-1 on the night. To be fair, I only played against one Force of Will deck. But the deck ran incredibly smoothly, Thoughtseize was insane versus Manaless Dredge.

[Sinkhole]

Congratulations on your finishing Bryant! Facing only one FoW Deck in the whole tourney is really lucky .
Had you played against some Midrange Decks like Maverick, Rock or something else, too? I ask because,
i think tha tare the matchups were Thoughtseize would be better than all other discard, for picking out
hatebears, before they entering the board. Had you played one TS main and one in the sideboard, or two maindeck?

[Lemnear]

Congratulations on your finishing Bryant! Facing only one FoW Deck in the whole tourney is really lucky .
Had you played against some Midrange Decks like Maverick, Rock or something else, too? I ask because,
i think tha tare the matchups were Thoughtseize would be better than all other discard, for picking out
hatebears, before they entering the board. Had you played one TS main and one in the sideboard, or two maindeck?

The list is in the OP dood ^^

[Sinkhole]

The list is in the OP dood ^^

Yes of course! Just haven`t mentioned it, so I apologize for my scattiness.

[Megadeus]

Ran the deck in a decent sized local tonight going 6-0-1 on the night. To be fair, I only played against one Force of Will deck. But the deck ran incredibly smoothly, Thoughtseize was insane versus Manaless Dredge.

Thought seize was very solid for me as well Wednesday despite my 0-2 finish. Got to probe, see an unbeatable Teeg, then brainstorm for a petal into TS. I mean therapy would've been fine as well in that situation, but blind a maverick deck can have one of a million hate bears

[Lemnear]

Thought seize was very solid for me as well Wednesday despite my 0-2 finish. Got to probe, see an unbeatable Teeg, then brainstorm for a petal into TS. I mean therapy would've been fine as well in that situation, but blind a maverick deck can have one of a million hate bears

Blind-Name Thalia should be fine. It pretty unreal how good it is to follow up with EtW after disrupting your opponent with Therapy, just to mindtwist them after the Goblins hit the field. Won several games on the BoM with that interaction

[Jaycounet]

Blind-Name Thalia should be fine. It pretty unreal how good it is to follow up with EtW after disrupting your opponent with Therapy, just to mindtwist them after the Goblins hit the field. Won several games on the BoM with that interaction

blind cabal thalia he has gadock in hand and hoppefully you can cast ETW the same turn otherwise that would be another story

[Lemnear]

blind cabal thalia he has gadock in hand and hoppefully you can cast ETW the same turn otherwise that would be another story

Thalia is a 3-/4-off, Teeg a one-off. You can Grapeshot Teeg easily unlike Thalia. I'll gamble on that all day of the week :)

[Megadeus]

I agree that thalia is the proper name blind. I'm just saying

[oSeabass]

3 questions that came up in a recent Legacy night at my LGS.

1. Against a deck running white (Plateau in Goblins, Maverick, D&T, Nic Fit with White, etc.), game one a blind Cabal Therapy obviously names Thalia. Games 2 and 3 are where I get tripped up. Is it best to still name Thalia, when Ethersworn Canonist could be the plan? What if you are in game 3 and you Probed and saw a Canonist game 2 in their hand? Blind are you naming Thalia, or Canonist.....

I went with Canonist, because I felt like I could play around Thalia, it would just take more time to sculpt a hand with more mana as well as on turns before the combo I can use a land or two to play Lotus Petal and Chrome Mox pre-combo turn. Canonist seems the better name when we have spell mana (Dark Rit, RoF), and Thalia seems better when we have Artifact mana (Lotus, Mox, LED). Canonist isn't a pain when we have all artifact mana, since we can play it all still, and then find a spell to use next turn... where Thalia makes all the artifacts slower. Canonist is a pain when we have all ritual effects and can't chain them together.

Discuss!

2. Game 2 against Nic Fit, do you keep this hand on the draw?
Thoughtseize, Chrome Mox, Rof, RoF, Dark Rit, Petal, Brainstorm.

I ended up shipping it back. If it had a land (fetch, gold, UB) I think I keep this hand with the turn 1 Thoughtseize and then depending on the 2 draws (this turn, next turn)... save the Brainstorm for the end of their turn 3, before our turn 3. If we brick and are not crazy lucky going off turn 2 with what we draw turns 1/2 the Brainstorm is held to be defensive against Cabal Therapy/flashback. The question there would be, do we Brainstorm turn 2 main phase, and hope to draw into an infernal tutor for the IT->AN, or do we wait and save the Brainstorm for safety of 2 rituals against Therapy? I don't know if with that hand it is better to be aggro and dig, or to wait another turn against a non blue opponent with no real clock yet.

Also, is it worth it to drop the Mox turn 1 (say we keep it), using Thoughtseize to have us a black mana source on board? That way we are getting rid of 2 cards to get closer to IT Hellbent, as well as having less cards in hand for them to Hymn/Therapy out.

Discuss more :)

3. Against a deck like Fish with no real "hard" removal, only counters, you bring in the Xatid Swarms and a Trop in. You Probe early and see 3 counters (FoW x2, Spell Pierce). You have a City of Brass and a Trop in play and a hand with 2 Silence, 1 Swarm. Since we can assume Swarm will stay on the field once it resolves, is it worth spending earlier turns trying to Silence (1) and then cast Swarm to get it to resolve? If they Spell P. the Silence we then run Swarm into FoW (1). The next turn if we are good to go we can Silence (2) again to pull out the 3rd counter, and then hope they haven't drawn extra counters? Or do we just hold the Silences for a super combo turn? We can't durdle against Fish since they can get a strong clock very quickly and make AN very risky.

Discuss again again.


I went 2-2 last night with the deck, and it proved I was a bit rusty with it after playing other decks while trying to figure out what I want from the GP. I punted a game against Fish where I went for the combo, made a crap ton of black mana with Dark Rit after probing and seeing a no counterspell hand, got Storm up to about 6 and hit Burning Wish to the board with.... 4B floating. In that situation I missed having IGG, but if I was smart, I would have waited until I could make a R and been able to get EtW from board and put a decent clock down. Is it worth it (when the mistake is too late to stop) and just get and cast Tendrils to deal a chunk of damage and then try and rebuild and Burning Wish into Grapeshot for the last 6 or so damage? This seems like the right idea, but I was dumb and instead got Cabal Therapy to take 2 Ethersworn Canonist from their hand and just passed back. I considered getting Past in Flames so that on a later turn I could replay all my ritual effects and try and combo out again for exact/more. Which is the correct play against an aggressive clock deck like Fish, that has counters (and you already dun goofed)?

Get Past in Flames to recast it later and try and recombo off? Get Tendrils and hit them for 16/gain 16, and try and Grapeshot them out in later turns?



Thanks everyone.

[Jay_Gatz]

I'd almost always name Thalia, you can still play magic with canonists in play, most of the time with Thalia you have to burn too many resources to sculpt, kill her and then try to go off.

Against fish swarm is king so burning a silence to try to put it in play is fine but even if they force you are still probably fine. The average fish hand won't be good at both interacting and attacking at the same time and they have no way of building card advantage back up so making them burn 3 cards for 2 of yours is usually fine.

[Lemnear]

3 questions that came up in a recent Legacy night at my LGS.

1. Against a deck running white (Plateau in Goblins, Maverick, D&T, Nic Fit with White, etc.), game one a blind Cabal Therapy obviously names Thalia. Games 2 and 3 are where I get tripped up. Is it best to still name Thalia, when Ethersworn Canonist could be the plan? What if you are in game 3 and you Probed and saw a Canonist game 2 in their hand? Blind are you naming Thalia, or Canonist.....

I went with Canonist, because I felt like I could play around Thalia, it would just take more time to sculpt a hand with more mana as well as on turns before the combo I can use a land or two to play Lotus Petal and Chrome Mox pre-combo turn. Canonist seems the better name when we have spell mana (Dark Rit, RoF), and Thalia seems better when we have Artifact mana (Lotus, Mox, LED). Canonist isn't a pain when we have all artifact mana, since we can play it all still, and then find a spell to use next turn... where Thalia makes all the artifacts slower. Canonist is a pain when we have all ritual effects and can't chain them together.

depends in the opponents deck. Some decks are pretty blocked by Thalia and rather run Cannonist out of the board, creature centric ones obviously prefer Thalia. Moreover Thalia is MB material. I would make my decision accordingly.

2. Game 2 against Nic Fit, do you keep this hand on the draw?
Thoughtseize, Chrome Mox, Rof, RoF, Dark Rit, Petal, Brainstorm.

I ended up shipping it back. If it had a land (fetch, gold, UB) I think I keep this hand with the turn 1 Thoughtseize and then depending on the 2 draws (this turn, next turn)... save the Brainstorm for the end of their turn 3, before our turn 3. If we brick and are not crazy lucky going off turn 2 with what we draw turns 1/2 the Brainstorm is held to be defensive against Cabal Therapy/flashback. The question there would be, do we Brainstorm turn 2 main phase, and hope to draw into an infernal tutor for the IT->AN, or do we wait and save the Brainstorm for safety of 2 rituals against Therapy? I don't know if with that hand it is better to be aggro and dig, or to wait another turn against a non blue opponent with no real clock yet.

Also, is it worth it to drop the Mox turn 1 (say we keep it), using Thoughtseize to have us a black mana source on board? That way we are getting rid of 2 cards to get closer to IT Hellbent, as well as having less cards in hand for them to Hymn/Therapy out.

If you want to keep that hand, which should be ok, sit on the Brainstorm as long a possible

3. Against a deck like Fish with no real "hard" removal, only counters, you bring in the Xatid Swarms and a Trop in. You Probe early and see 3 counters (FoW x2, Spell Pierce). You have a City of Brass and a Trop in play and a hand with 2 Silence, 1 Swarm. Since we can assume Swarm will stay on the field once it resolves, is it worth spending earlier turns trying to Silence (1) and then cast Swarm to get it to resolve? If they Spell P. the Silence we then run Swarm into FoW (1). The next turn if we are good to go we can Silence (2) again to pull out the 3rd counter, and then hope they haven't drawn extra counters? Or do we just hold the Silences for a super combo turn? We can't durdle against Fish since they can get a strong clock very quickly and make AN very risky.

is Fish = Meervolk? I still wouldn't waste 2 cards, just for the Xantid :/

I went 2-2 last night with the deck, and it proved I was a bit rusty with it after playing other decks while trying to figure out what I want from the GP. I punted a game against Fish where I went for the combo, made a crap ton of black mana with Dark Rit after probing and seeing a no counterspell hand, got Storm up to about 6 and hit Burning Wish to the board with.... 4B floating. In that situation I missed having IGG, but if I was smart, I would have waited until I could make a R and been able to get EtW from board and put a decent clock down. Is it worth it (when the mistake is too late to stop) and just get and cast Tendrils to deal a chunk of damage and then try and rebuild and Burning Wish into Grapeshot for the last 6 or so damage? This seems like the right idea, but I was dumb and instead got Cabal Therapy to take 2 Ethersworn Canonist from their hand and just passed back. I considered getting Past in Flames so that on a later turn I could replay all my ritual effects and try and combo out again for exact/more. Which is the correct play against an aggressive clock deck like Fish, that has counters (and you already dun goofed)?

Get Past in Flames to recast it later and try and recombo off? Get Tendrils and hit them for 16/gain 16, and try and Grapeshot them out in later turns?



Thanks everyone.

[oSeabass]

Lemnear: Fish = Merfolk, yes.

I think I was too aggressive shipping the hand back. I def. want to play the Petal turn 1 if I don't get a Blue land so I can Brainstorm in response to Therapy. I am super scared to keep the Petal/Brainstorm/no land hand. I am still learning that a mediocre 7, is probably better then a meh 6, and way better then any 5 (unless it is godly 5 which isn't going to happen).

Thanks