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

[Lemnear]

Maybe I misread the Silence+Xantid-question. IF your opponent has Pierce + double FoW + double Pitch aka 5 blue cards in total, your line of play is valid

[Jay_Gatz]

It also greatly depends on board state

[oSeabass]

Maybe I misread the Silence+Xantid-question. IF your opponent has Pierce + double FoW + double Pitch aka 5 blue cards in total, your line of play is valid

Yea, it was Fow x2, Pierce, Mutavault, Lord of Atlantis, Silvergil Adept, Island.

I ended up just running the Swarm out into the open 1st instead, it ended up getting countered. The next turn Silence was met by Fow. The next turn I tried to combo out but had Trop, Volc, Sea in play with some weird cards. Basically I was always 1 mana away in color to do anything. Needed an extra Red for EtW, needed a U instead of X to do Diminishing Returns, etc. I realized after the game the importance of the Swarm, and wished I had played the Silence first to try and force it into play. This way, if I land it, I am golden. If I don't and the next turn I Silence again for the combo turn, if they use the 2nd FoW there I have taken out of their hand with 2 Silence and Swarm: FoW x2, Pierece, Blue card, Blue Card.... which doesn't leave them much. Instead I tried to just play the Swarm which got Forced, and left too many threats in their hand to put a clock on me (2 turns later I needed the mana in a rush to not die to lethal swing the next turn).

I now realize the importance of Swarm in the mono Blue match, as well as the ability to strip 2 cards from their hand by the way of looking like I am starting the combo turn and forcing them into using cards early and slowing the clock.
-----------------------------------------------
Also, related to Fish (Merfolk)... is EtW a viable option? Say they have like 2-3 Fish in play, they are probably going to be at least 3/3's and making like 16 goblins might not get there. Say they play 1 the next turn (when you pass for non haste goblins), they have 4 on board and pass. You are now staring at 4 Merfolk on board, at least 3/3s (12+ damage on the swing back), and you have 16 1/1's. If you can survive the swing with a lot of life, it is still risky because another lord or 2 the net turn (they have mana now), can make the 3/3s 5/5s and really just kill you out of no where. To hedge you gotta hold Goblins back?

So swing with 14, hold 2 back to not hemorrhage life and die to a swing back, they block 4, take 10 and go to 10. You have 2 untapped, and 10 tapped Goblins. If they alpha strike, you block the biggest so you don't die, and can win on the swing back.... but if they drop another fish you can't deal lethal. SO once again you have 10 facing down 1-2 untapped and a board of 5/5s on their end that can end the game if a few get by....

Long question short. Is Goblins a winnable route against a deck like Fish or Goblins (Fish is more scary cus they grow too fast), that can just create a huge board presence very quickly and just threaten a lethal swing? If we wait another turn to try and find a perfect hand, they swing for too much and we lose a bunch and make AN very unlikely. Without Silence, Diminishing Returns is risky. With their clock, AN is bad. What I am trying to say is the Merfolk (FISH) match is very tough since they have a very strong clock that grows insanely quick, as well as multiple counterspells (hard and soft). Is there a good strategy I am just not seeing in the SB cards, or is this matchup really as bad as I think it is? I see it as a 40/60 at best if we get a great hand, 30/70 if we are "slow" or have to mulligan.

[Lemnear]

I never lost a single game to Meerfolk. Either they are completely defensive or try to race you with a single FoW or MBT held back. Both modes are pretty easy to dismember imo.

EtW is a valid option. I'm used to blind-name FoW with Therapy, drop Goblins and flashback for their Lords. Was always enough, but i'm curious about other peeps experience

[oSeabass]

I never lost a single game to Meerfolk. Either they are completely defensive or try to race you with a single FoW or MBT held back. Both modes are pretty easy to dismember imo.

EtW is a valid option. I'm used to blind-name FoW with Therapy, drop Goblins and flashback for their Lords. Was always enough, but i'm curious about other peeps experience

With Therapy it seems good, but I had a slower hand which I think is what made it so tough. With a faster hand, being able to just Therapy before they can establish board presence seems elementary. I've had bad luck with the Blue Merfolk decks, and I probably need a lot more practice against decks like it, and RUG delver that have very good clocks as well as nice disruption.

It's the fair deck's I'm not as worried about, but the aggro control matches that seem rough. Goblins was tough with a turn 2 Thalia and then a Ringleader and friends joining the party.

[davelin]

I never lost a single game to Meerfolk. Either they are completely defensive or try to race you with a single FoW or MBT held back. Both modes are pretty easy to dismember imo.

EtW is a valid option. I'm used to blind-name FoW with Therapy, drop Goblins and flashback for their Lords. Was always enough, but i'm curious about other peeps experience

In my only recent matchup against the fish my experience was the same. Went 2-1 and lost the 1 only because I misplayed a mid-game Brainstorm not allowing me to get hellbent for the tutor in my hand. Merfolk doesn't play cantrips so they can't proactively dig/look for answers. Also because of deck construction there is usually less counters to fight through (typically no Stifles or Pierces). Finally, Swarm really shines post-board.

[haganbmj]

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

We were playing a list with 1 Cabal Therapy and 2 Duress main (+ some Therapies in the board).
This past Wednesday, Medadeus played 2 Thoughtseize over the Duresses mainboard, and they were relevant in this matchup where a Duress would have been much less so.
It felt fine to try since we've had a more creature-based meta lately, Teegs, Thalias, Canonists, etc have been showing up more than Force of Wills and Spell Pierces.

[Lemnear]

We were playing a list with 1 Cabal Therapy and 2 Duress main (+ some Therapies in the board).
This past Wednesday, Medadeus played 2 Thoughtseize over the Duresses mainboard, and they were relevant in this matchup where a Duress would have been much less so.
It felt fine to try since we've had a more creature-based meta lately, Teegs, Thalias, Canonists, etc have been showing up more than Force of Wills and Spell Pierces.

I still suggest to run more Therapy than Thoughtseize in your MB. I was used to run 3 Duress in the MB as discard spells until I realized a) how good mindtwisting your opponent after EtW is to reduce their possible outs and b) how important the option to create some cardadvantage can be in this deck.

It was awesome for my mate and me all the weekend at the BoM. I urge anyone to test the 3/1 MB/SB split themselves. You'll love it.

[haganbmj]

I still suggest to run more Therapy than Thoughtseize in your MB. I was used to run 3 Duress in the MB as discard spells until I realized a) how good mindtwisting your opponent after EtW is to reduce their possible outs and b) how important the option to create some cardadvantage can be in this deck.

It was awesome for my mate and me all the weekend at the BoM. I urge anyone to test the 3/1 MB/SB split themselves. You'll love it.

I'll definitely be giving it a shot going forward with the deck. Cabal is a powerful card with relevance at all points in the game.

[phazonmutant]

Had an interesting decision point today with TES. I'll lay out the scenario and hopefully we can get some discussion of it. I'll wait to say how it worked out for a day or so.

So it's game 3 against a relatively inexperienced Reanimator pilot. I had boarded out Empty, Silence, IT, for Swarm x2, Thoughtseize (list is stock except trying Carpet for Trop). (Critiques on boarding are welcome.) Game two I saw him board 7 or 8 cards and that he had boarded into at least some number of Show and Tells.

I have 2 RoF, BW, LED, Silence in hand; Volc, Sea, LP in play. He has LP, 2 Seas (1 untapped), it's several turns in, and he has BS and an unknown in hand. He's at 17.
In my graveyard I have Therapy, 2 GP, Ponder, BS, and some lands; he has a Reanimate (pitched to Study) and no men.

I cast Silence, he cast BS, lets it resolve. As I see them, relevant lines are Empty for 14 and Therapy him (and what do you name?), Diminishing Returns with Sea and R up, or Past in Flames with the same mana up.

What line do you take and why?

[lordofthepit]

Had an interesting decision point today with TES. I'll lay out the scenario and hopefully we can get some discussion of it. I'll wait to say how it worked out for a day or so.

So it's game 3 against a relatively inexperienced Reanimator pilot. I had boarded out Empty, Silence, IT, for Swarm x2, Thoughtseize (list is stock except trying Carpet for Trop). (Critiques on boarding are welcome.) Game two I saw him board 7 or 8 cards and that he had boarded into at least some number of Show and Tells.

I have 2 RoF, BW, LED, Silence in hand; Volc, Sea, LP in play. He has LP, 2 Seas (1 untapped), it's several turns in, and he has BS and an unknown in hand. He's at 17.
In my graveyard I have Therapy, 2 GP, Ponder, BS, and some lands; he has a Reanimate (pitched to Study) and no men.

I cast Silence, he cast BS, lets it resolve. As I see them, relevant lines are Empty for 14 and Therapy him (and what do you name?), Diminishing Returns with Sea and R up, or Past in Flames with the same mana up.

What line do you take and why?

Do you have a land drop for the turn? And he only has two cards after resolving Brainstorm?

I think you have about a 50% chance to win on the spot with Diminishing Returns (I didn't look this up, since I'm assuming I'm in your situation with no access to the primer), but if you whiff, I think you're an underdog (maybe 20% to win since the matchup doesn't seem all that favorable). Since he doesn't have any creatures in the yard, you're not getting any value out of casting Diminishing Returns reshuffling his graveyard. Also, I think you have a better than 60% chance at winning this with Goblins.

Past in Flames with U/B + R up would allow you to see five cards off two Probes and a Ponder, plus a sixth unknown if you choose to shuffle. You don't have any way of generating black mana from your known cards, so this is only better than the Goblins line if (1) you can hit Ritual + Wish/Tendrils (or Tutor with a way to get hellbent) in the three cantrips you get or (2) you can hit Wish to enable more Goblins to represent a one turn clock.

Assuming optimum play from your opponent, which may not be possible, the fact that he did not respond to your Silence tells me that he doesn't have any taxing counters. He probably didn't see a Force of Will off the Brainstorm either, although it's possible that he's gambling on you not being able to kill him this turn and elected to stack his deck in order to go off on his turn. There are some things to consider:
- It's likely he doesn't have Entomb, or he would have cast it in response to your Silence. However, it's possible that he has two different reanimate effects in hand and stacked Entomb on top of his library to ensure that he can go off on his turn with the perfect fatty of choice, winning regardless of what you name with a single blind Therapy. Alternatively, he may be trying to dissuade you from going with Diminishing Returns by representing that he doesn't have anything valuable to be reshuffled in hand/graveyard/top of library, but I wouldn't expect a "relatively inexperienced pilot" to next level you like that.
- It's possible that he could have resolved the Brainstorm as follows: fatty in hand + blank, which Careful Study and Reanimate effect on top of library protected from discard. Empty for 14 outraces any creature they can have besides Elesh Norn, Blazing Archon, or Sphinx of the Steel Wind, but it's highly unlikely they would keep the latter two in against you.

I would assume he did not have a way to bin a creature and reanimate it in his hand pre-Brainstorm, or he would have almost certainly cast it on his previous turn (I think it's entirely worth it to play into a Silence if you don't have Exhume + Entomb). He may have had Entomb but was holding it to wait on the Reanimate effect or to use it to shuffle off Brainstorm, or he may have had Careful Study but didn't have a creature until he cast Brainstorm. However, I don't think the chances that he hit whatever he was missing off Brainstorm is especially high, so I like the Empty plan better than the alternatives.

As for what to name, if he has Elesh Norn + another fatty in hand, stacking Careful Study and a reanimate effect on top, you lose on the spot, so it's not worth playing around that. You also lose to two reanimate effects in hand with Entomb on top, so don't play around that. He cannot stack Entomb and Reanimate on top, waiting to draw both without a cantrip, since a single swing would inactivate Reanimate. It is conceivable he could do this with Exhume, so he's more likely to hide an Exhume than a Reanimate. Therefore, I'd name Reanimate with Cabal Therapy. (It is also possible he found another cantrip, possibly with land in hand, and can play Entomb + Reanimate on his next turn as well, so it may be appropriate to name a cantrip, but I think it gets pretty weak here.)

[Final Fortune]

I think it's important not to get polarized on disruption, 4 Silence, 4 Cabal Therapy has an informational disadvantage game one 50% of the time despite being strong there after, where 4 Silence, 2 Cabal Therapy, 2 Thoughtseize can keep 1 Cabal Therapy in the MD, 1 Cabal Therapy in the SB and then swap out the 1 Cabal Therapy in the SB for a Thoughtseize if need be and you don't have to worry about being on the wrong side of a coin flip.

I may end up going for 3 Silence, 2 Cabal Therapy, 2 Thoughtseize with a SB Cabal Therapy and Xantid Swarms tho'.

[Lemnear]

I think it's important not to get polarized on disruption, 4 Silence, 4 Cabal Therapy has an informational disadvantage game one 50% of the time despite being strong there after, where 4 Silence, 2 Cabal Therapy, 2 Thoughtseize can keep 1 Cabal Therapy in the MD, 1 Cabal Therapy in the SB and then swap out the 1 Cabal Therapy in the SB for a Thoughtseize if need be and you don't have to worry about being on the wrong side of a coin flip.

I may end up going for 3 Silence, 2 Cabal Therapy, 2 Thoughtseize with a SB Cabal Therapy and Xantid Swarms tho'.

Boarding discard for discard is a waste of SB space atm as I'm curious how you fit in 8 protection spells in your MB. If I have to fire Therapy blind for a T1/T2 kill I gladly name FoW (or MBT against non-blue) which are likely the only cards that matter here. The longer game 1 goes because you've lost the dice or the opponent building a counterwall, the better Therapy gets. This is moreover a painful fact once you face the later paired with a clock like Delver..

Had an interesting decision point today with TES. I'll lay out the scenario and hopefully we can get some discussion of it. I'll wait to say how it worked out for a day or so.

So it's game 3 against a relatively inexperienced Reanimator pilot. I had boarded out Empty, Silence, IT, for Swarm x2, Thoughtseize (list is stock except trying Carpet for Trop). (Critiques on boarding are welcome.) Game two I saw him board 7 or 8 cards and that he had boarded into at least some number of Show and Tells.

I have 2 RoF, BW, LED, Silence in hand; Volc, Sea, LP in play. He has LP, 2 Seas (1 untapped), it's several turns in, and he has BS and an unknown in hand. He's at 17.
In my graveyard I have Therapy, 2 GP, Ponder, BS, and some lands; he has a Reanimate (pitched to Study) and no men.

I cast Silence, he cast BS, lets it resolve. As I see them, relevant lines are Empty for 14 and Therapy him (and what do you name?), Diminishing Returns with Sea and R up, or Past in Flames with the same mana up.

What line do you take and why?

Fetch Telemin Performance and see your opponent rage-quit as you take his Griselbrand to kill him or lock him out with Iona, Jin-Gitaxias or other nonsense

I once added the Telemin for the reason to not being forced to spin the Dim.Returns-Roulette against combo

[Asthereal]

Lemnear's remnark that he didn't like Silence as much as he used to pushed me to try my own three colour hybrid TES list at the tournament yesterday. Let me write a very brief report and my fiundings on the list. The tourney was attended by 36 people, but the prize support was great, so it did attract quite a few strong local players.

My weapon of choice:

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Burning Wish
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam /21

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame /18

4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy /7

3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
3 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire /14

Side:
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Empy the Warrens
1 Past in Flames.
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Burning Wish
1 Grapeshot.
1 Shattering Spree
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
4 Chain of Vapor /15

Idea of the list: more fetch improves cantrips, more land reduces no-land mulligans. So the list aims to be able to go off more or less at TES speed, but with slightly improved redundancy, at the cost of the splash colours, so my sideboard is worse and I have no access to Silence. Discard will have to do.

Round 1 against Sneak&Show: lost 0-2. Game 1 he topdecked like a maniac from a totally lost position. Game 2 I drew 5 discard spells against his Leyline of Sanctity. One of the games I had to mull because I couldn't find a land. Not a very awesome round.

Round 2 against Canadian Thresh: won 2-1. Game 1 I fought through a FoW and a large amount of soft counters, but I managed to get there with EtW. Game 2 I couldn't find a discard spell for his Flusterstorm, and his guys got there. Game 3 he had no real clock, but a hand full of blue cards. I fought through all of them to get 8 goblins from an in hand EtW, but I couldn't kill him with them because time in the round was called a turn too soon. But... in turn 5 I cantripped into the nuts and Grapeshot his last life away. Luck to compensate for last round.

Round 3 against OmniHalls: lost 1-2. Game 1 is rather long: I disrupt his combo, create Goblins, dsrupt further, while he Wishes for Echoingv Truth to get rid of the army, but afterwards I just go off against his empty hand. Game 2 and 3 are equally awkward with me trying to fight through his permission, making goblins that get Echoing Thruthed, but not finding enough stuff to either go off myself through his newly drawn permission, or to stop him. One of the games contained a frustrating four turns of draw-go which ended when he Brainstormed into a protected combo kill. Very awkward round, perhaps with some mistakes on my side.

Round 4 against TES (TomT): lost 0-2. Both games I draw very awkward hands. He is on the play game 1 and has a Silence. When I Duress, he manages to hide his good stuff, and he just goes off turn 2. Game 2 I end up with all Probes and both Moxen, which I have to try to get rid of. I fail to cantrip into anything, and my only option is to create 14 goblins with a very crafty turn full of casting rediculously bad cards. The next turn he goes off with Ad Nauseam, and when I see he has me, I start to help him and we end up with 148 goblins on his side to match my 14, and a Grapeshot of 49 on my head.

Round 5 against TES again: won 2-0. Game one I am on the play and I Duress his Infernal away. He has Silence and a Petal still, but if I took Silence he would just have gone off turn one, so I had no choice. His turn consisted of land->Ponder, go. Major mistake to not play the Petal, because now he had no way to interact with my turn. I punished the mistake by going off. Game 2 I wreck his hand. At some point I miscalculate one mana, and pass the turn when I could have gone off. He punishes it by drawing a Wish and go off via Past in Flames. At some point he notices he needs to get hellbent for his flashback Infernal, but he has just Pondered into a Silence he cannot cast. Turned out this was his first time ever playing Legacy, or TES for that matter. He is happy with the lessons learned, and afterwards we talk a bit about important parts of playing Storm.

Round 6 against Maverick: won 2-0. Game 1 is rediculous. He is on the play and starts Forest->Hierarch. I have a slow hand and start land->Ponder. He topdecks Thalia and casts it, but stumbles on mana. I play many lands, Wish for Grapeshot and destroy both the Hierarch and the Thalia on turn 4, while he gets SFM and a Jitte in play. I bruned many resources and have to settle for 8 goblins. He at some point finds a new mana guy, but no lands. The turn after casting his new mana guy he decides to equip Jitte instead of casting a new Thalia. This mistake is punished by me Therapying Thalia away. He proceeds to kill most of my guys and build a board with his freshly drawn land, and when I am on 6 life I find the means to go off with Infernal. At this point I have all six lands on the table, but no life from Ad Nauseam, and no rituals for PiF or Gains. Natural spell chain also isn't an option because of his Jitte counters (4 more life). I have to settle for Reforge the Soul and brick (Infernal but no way to go hellbent). I pass, he hits me to 3 life and I have to kill him now or I just die. I proceed to cantrip 5 times, and the very last Ponder, after shuffling, finds me the LED I need to win. I cast my rituals and LED, infernal for my last Wish for Tendrils in a 12 Storm natural spell chain on turn 20 or so. YEAH! Game 2 he mulls to six and starts Forest, Zenith for Arbor. I start Petal into Brainstorm. I put AdN on top, cast 2x LED, Probe-respons sac both LEDs, cast AdN into a nice kill. That's more like it.

Findings:
1. I really missed Swarm and Silence!
2. Other than the issue mentioned in 1, the deck plays out really nicely.
3. My draw skills are terrible. I draw way too many awkward hands.

Over all I would recommend we stick to rainbow lands, Silences and Swarms. There are just too many mirror matches and Show and Tell decks around to drop the five colour build. Also, I cantrip into crap anyway, so why bother improving cantrips with more fetch anyway?

[Lemnear]

I start feeling there was a misunderstanding: I do love Silence. I just don't like drawing it against various hate (hatebears+Counter+discard) after losing the dice all day which happend in the BoM Mainevent over and over again

[Asthereal]

Well, I wanted to try this list for some time now, and I reconed this was a good moment. It turned out it wasn't.
Anyway, losing dice rolls is part of the game. This touney I lost 4 and won only 2, though I feel it often didn't matter that much.

[Lemnear]

Well, I wanted to try this list for some time now, and I reconed this was a good moment. It turned out it wasn't.
Anyway, losing dice rolls is part of the game. This touney I lost 4 and won only 2, though I feel it often didn't matter that much.

Better than winning 3 out of 14 dicerolls like I did on BoM ;)

[Asthereal]

Better than winning 3 out of 14 dicerolls like I did on BoM ;)

True.

Anyway, I had a fierce discussion with the four Probes in my deck, and decided one should go. As awesome as it is to review my notes and almost always know what my opponents are holding, drawing multiple Probes just messes up my planning, because I never know what I'll draw off them, which makes mulligan decisions virtually impossible to optimize. And since my poker skills are absolutely terrible, I feel the need to optimize my ability to calculate odds.

My list is now the OP, except for -1 Probe, +1 fetch, and 4x Silence, 3x Duress as main deck protection package.
The sideboard holds a third Swarm, a Tropical Island, 2x Chain, 2x Decay and a Duress to Wish for. I decided to hold on to Gains, simply because I used it more often than Past in Flames in last testing round.

[Megadeus]

I was on the fence about IGG but I got burned by my own stupidity by it so I'd cut it.

What do you guys think of a singleton Karakas in the board? My meta is full of bears with hate, and I've tested it in ANT where it is very good.

[Lemnear]

I was on the fence about IGG but I got burned by my own stupidity by it so I'd cut it.

What do you guys think of a singleton Karakas in the board? My meta is full of bears with hate, and I've tested it in ANT where it is very good.

Before BoM the topic crossed our mind, but the slots it competes with are likely the Chains, which are more useful overall as Bryant was kind to outline in a PM

@Asthereal:
You should go to therapy with the Probes and fix your relationship (Pun intended). The worse your poker skills are, the better Probe is imo.

I however can't argue against the 3 MB Duress per sé as I once ran those myself, but the changing metagame with more hatebears and very tight play made the shift necessary to a) hit creatures, b) create cardadvantage in grindy matchups (especially while playing 8-vs.-7-cards) and c) to manover less goblins to a victory by stripping your opponents outs/cantrips.

As long as Goblins are the most common Route to victory (like in the current metagame with lots of UWR Delver, RUG Delver, Esperblade, Deathblade), Therapy is pure cardadvantage and completely negates SFM->Batterskull which was a common backbreaker for our aggro-routine.

Once you rode the Macho Madness with Probe +Therapy + EtW going, you'll never wanna go back, bother! Uhhhh yeeeeeeah! ;D