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

[Holtzi]

Hello everyone,

I recently started playing, well honestly trying to play, TES as I was looking for a fun Deck for my return to Legacy.
A friend of mine is playing a Bant Build which I find hard to overcome.
Preboard the matchup seems ok overall.

Maindeck he has 4 Force of Will and 3 Spell Pierce combined with a clock mainly consisting of 4 Goyfs and 3 Geist of Saint Traft.
But postboard it gets really hard for me. He boards in 2 Flusterstorm, 2 Surgical Extractions , 2 Ethersworn Canonist and a 2nd Clique.
I´m not sure how to board properly against this deck.

Atm I take out 1x Ponder/1Infernal Tutor/1Chromme Mox for 2xChain of Vapor and 1 Thoughtseize.
Not sure whether Xantid Swarms or Silence are better in this matchup.

I hope you can help me with this problem as my winrate is only about 25% in matches

Greetings Holtzi

[Megadeus]

Combination Permanent Based hate like Canonist plus seemingly infinite countermagic is just not easy to deal with. You just dont have the time. Do you guys think just straight boarding in the second empty to hopefully improve the odds of going off for goblins on T1 is a decent idea?

[Asthereal]

Combination Permanent Based hate like Canonist plus seemingly infinite countermagic is just not easy to deal with. You just dont have the time. Do you guys think just straight boarding in the second empty to hopefully improve the odds of going off for goblins on T1 is a decent idea?

Improving one card (boarding in EtW for something less optimal) but worsening four (Wish cannot find EtW anymore) seems bad.
Perhaps you should find room for a second EtW in the sideboard if you really want to board one in.

[Lemnear]

Hello everyone,

I recently started playing, well honestly trying to play, TES as I was looking for a fun Deck for my return to Legacy.
A friend of mine is playing a Bant Build which I find hard to overcome.
Preboard the matchup seems ok overall.

Maindeck he has 4 Force of Will and 3 Spell Pierce combined with a clock mainly consisting of 4 Goyfs and 3 Geist of Saint Traft.
But postboard it gets really hard for me. He boards in 2 Flusterstorm, 2 Surgical Extractions , 2 Ethersworn Canonist and a 2nd Clique.
I´m not sure how to board properly against this deck.

Atm I take out 1x Ponder/1Infernal Tutor/1Chromme Mox for 2xChain of Vapor and 1 Thoughtseize.
Not sure whether Xantid Swarms or Silence are better in this matchup.

I hope you can help me with this problem as my winrate is only about 25% in matches

Greetings Holtzi

7 Counterspells is no resistance tbh. You should overcome that easily and Surgical Extraction is pointless against TES. Boarding out speed-components is wrong as you can't let him establish a hatebear and counters. I would bring in Swarms (as he will boar out StoP) and permament removal for the Silences and a Ponder. You can just sidestep the hate or race it.

Greetings from Berlin

[Asthereal]

Surgical Extraction is pointless against TES.

I must disagree with you on this. If Bant has enough not very useful cards to board out, Extractions should definitely come in. How are you going to win if he counters a Wish and the Extracts all of them? Assuming the Bant player also has SFM->Batterskull, you might not want to have Empty the Warrens as only out...
Another one I faced in testing was when I was setting up a "Brainstorm, Probe-resp. sac two LEDs" kill, and I realised the Extraction made me shuffle away my Ad Nauseam. Fringe case, I give you that, but it happened.

Of course Extractions are not the biggest issue, but they can be a nuisance.

Other than that you are right. Fighting through 9 permission spells post board is fine. The Canonists will be a problem, so perhaps I would board -1 Mox, -1 Infernal, +2 Chain. TES should never board too much. The deck can be a bit scetchy as it is, we shouldn't make it worse.

(Edit: made an error in my last bit.)

[Lemnear]

I must disagree with you on this. If Bant has enough not very useful cards to board out, Extractions should definitely come in. How are you going to win if he counters a Wish and the Extracts all of them? Assuming the Bant player also has SFM->Batterskull, you might not want to have Empty the Warrens as only out...
Another one I faced in testing was when I was setting up a "Brainstorm, Probe-resp. sac two LEDs" kill, and I realised the Extraction made me shuffle away my Ad Nauseam. Fringe case, I give you that, but it happened.

Of course Extractions are not the biggest issue, but they can be a nuisance.

Other than that you are right. Fighting through 9 permission spells post board is fine. The Canonists will be a problem, so perhaps I would board -1 Mox, -1 Infernal, +2 Chain. TES should never board too much. The deck can be a bit scetchy as it is, we shouldn't make it worse.

(Edit: made an error in my last bit.)

The SFM->Batterskull nonsense is the reason I switched to the 4 Therapies in my 75 to get rid of that shit and keep Goblins as an option alive.

Get a Wish countered and extracted is a worst-case-scenario but you can sure work around that. I see Bant and UWR players keep boarding RIP and Extraction against me and I was never impressed. For your last part, I disagree with that boarding plan, because you want to go for AN asap against limited counters and hatebears. This isn't Tempo that forced you into the midgame

[Asthereal]

So you would side just one Chain and run a greater risk of losing against a resolved Canonist?
Swarms should help though. Perhaps -3 Silence, +2 Swarm, +1 discard spell (Batterskull).

[Mindlash]

So you would side just one Chain and run a greater risk of losing against a resolved Canonist?
Swarms should help though. Perhaps -3 Silence, +2 Swarm, +1 discard spell (Batterskull).

He sides in 2 Chain of Vapor as he said: -4 Silence, -1 Ponder, +3 Xantid Swarm, +2 Chain of Vapor.
I guess 3 Cabal Therapy as discard spells should be enough to handle Batterskull due to the possibility to flashback it through goblins. More discard may be ok, but I do not like the idea of siding to much. Lemnear also plays only one Cabal Therapy in his sideboard to make it wishable if I remember correctly. There is no sideable discard in his board I think.

[Asthereal]

Ah, I misread that.

[Lemnear]

He sides in 2 Chain of Vapor as he said: -4 Silence, -1 Ponder, +3 Xantid Swarm, +2 Chain of Vapor.
I guess 3 Cabal Therapy as discard spells should be enough to handle Batterskull due to the possibility to flashback it through goblins. More discard may be ok, but I do not like the idea of siding to much. Lemnear also plays only one Cabal Therapy in his sideboard to make it wishable if I remember correctly. There is no sideable discard in his board I think.

I'm so proud of you, Chris ;D

Thus as an Alternative, you can think about Decays instead of the chains if you worry about the counterspells, but I always end up flipping the Decays to Ad Nauseam ;P



Edit 1: I'm still trying to fit faces to usernames after the BoM. There were 2 french gentlemen that I had a chat with after the rounds, I'm not able to remember their names. Forgive me :(
Jaycounet is the only frenchman I sure remember :)

Edit 2: Mindlash, It's still outta my mind, that your Friend was able to identify me soly of my dices and appearance :D Greetings to him.

Edit 3: Still thinking about adjustments according to my latest issues about the uprising various hate, which is hard to beat.

Edit 4: thinking about HotS Vol. 6 ... Not sure where to find a variable and balanced metagame to catch some of the more interresting matchups like Patriot, bUrg Delver, Esperblade, etc. rather than the combo- & combo-hate-metagame of Berlin after the downfall of my previous playgroup.

Edit 5: Maybe setting up a stream instead of those reports ... reports are so 2004. Yeah, I'm a dinosaur...

[Machahiko]

Watching stream with commentary would be very interesting, I'd follow and watch for sure. MTGO axed daily events so tournaments are kind of out of picture. Someone from source should set up a tournament in cockatrice AND stream that tournament with commentary. :)

[Mindlash]

Edit 2: Mindlash, It's still outta my mind, that your Friend was able to identify me soly of my dices and appearance :D Greetings to him.

Hehe yeah I showed him the picture of your deck and dices, because I am just not able to get some dices in mana colors that I really like and yours did look good. I still do not get why online shops only sell dices in packs of 50 or the ones who sell them as singles want you to get to 20 € order before shipping -.- It seems I am doomed to write down mana and storm till the end of days even in private games :D

Lars also has rough times here because he plays Jund and our friends are all playing Dredge, ANT, TES or Belcher :D Maybe some evil memories flashed in his mind while seeing your deck and dices at BOM :D

I am still unsure about what to play at the next big tournament in Hanau at the end of the year. After BOM I gave Timo's ANT list a try at a bigger tournament. Starting 4:0 I was pretty confident about the deck only to loose the following two rounds to RUG and Reanimator (the last one due to not finding business in a million cantrips after going off with PiF). Maybe I give Jona's list a try with additional stormspells after boarding and more businessspells in general it might have won me those games :/

I still like TES very much too...but there where two rough games versus tempo where my mana got raped that hard...I really wanted to bite the table :D But I guess I will take my TES cards with to Hanau for at least a trial or something like that. After going off no strom deck storms harder which is lots of fun to me :D

Greetings Chris

Edit:

Watching stream with commentary would be very interesting, I'd follow and watch for sure. MTGO axed daily events so tournaments are kind of out of picture. Someone from source should set up a tournament in cockatrice AND stream that tournament with commentary. :)

I am not sure if it works. Aren't there some legal issues with Cockatrice and Hasbro? I don't know if sites like twitch and so on are ok with streaming this. Though I must admit the quality of the games would be a lot better in this way :)

[Machahiko]

Well, MTGO tournaments got axed, I guess you could still play the matches in MTGO but it would be a nightmare to have someone to do a commentary on these. MTGO also shuts out a lot of people who don't want to waste their money on a product that doesn't get developed at all and you don't have any security about how long your cards are going to be relevant there. What if MTGO just shuts down or tournaments never come back, your investment that could be over 1000€ would be lost forever.

The legal hassle between Hasbro, Wizards and cockatrice do make this hard and I don't want any troubles to the source due to this.

[deviant]

If you want to do something like this on modo though, I have most of the delver decks built and can play the bad guy for you :)
Or if you want to do the ever-delightful tes mirror I could do that too <3

[Lemnear]

Maybe it was more revealing that I said that I'm from Berlin and know Carsten. Lars only counted 1 + 1 together. Tbh, meeting all the awesome peeps that weekend was by far the best about BoM :)


While ANT has significant advantages against stifles and softcounters due to Cabal Ritual and PIF to flashback the Discard, the hatebear issue favors TES because you are simply faster than those. However, the combination of stuff like hatebears, counters and/or discard across recent archtypes is a problem for both storm-subtypes and with either you'll stumble at some point. I'm still trying to find a solution, regardless of the storm-subtype.

If you want to do something like this on modo though, I have most of the delver decks built and can play the bad guy for you :)
Or if you want to do the ever-delightful tes mirror I could do that too <3

I can play the storm mirror with Carsten Kotter or my Protegé Kai every week ... i'm satisfied ;)

I still don't have a MODO account; not planning to make one tbh

[Mindlash]

While ANT has significant advantages against stifles and softcounters due to Cabal Ritual and PIF to flashback the Discard, the hatebear issue favors TES because you are simply faster than those. However, the combination of stuff like hatebears, counters and/or discard across recent archtypes is a problem for both storm-subtypes and with either you'll stumble at some point. I'm still trying to find a solution, regardless of the storm-subtype.

Outrunning hatebears was my reason to take TES to BOM over ANT. I was exhausted of seeing turn 2 Teegs and Cannonists and go the long road with ANT every time while TES gave me some of those early (free) wins against those hatebear decks :) But it is good to have access to both decks and pick them dependant on my mood :D

Whats with Toxic Deluge? It is the only card to answer all hatebears as far as I know. But for ANT without Burning Wish I hate to reveal them to AN and in TES 3 CMC may be a bit to much for a wish target.

[Lemnear]

Outrunning hatebears was my reason to take TES to BOM over ANT. I was exhausted of seeing turn 2 Teegs and Cannonists and go the long road with ANT every time while TES gave me some of those early (free) wins against those hatebear decks :) But it is good to have access to both decks and pick them dependant on my mood :D

Whats with Toxic Deluge? It is the only card to answer all hatebears as far as I know. But for ANT without Burning Wish I hate to reveal them to AN and in TES 3 CMC may be a bit to much for a wish target.

Yes, the deck did a good work overwhelming D&T round 1 in the Mainevent for me. :)

If a single hatebear would be a problem, Disfigure, Pyroclasm or DoN would do the trick too without killing you off AN flips or preventing AN due to the overall lifeloss as a result of using the card. 3cc is still a lot of mana to have available.

The Problem is that boarding solutions to permaments doesn't help with fighting through countermagic, nor is Silence able to overcome Counter + Discard/Hatebear which was a problem at the BoM and is since when

[BrettF]

TES Report
sdematt’s Vancouver Legacy Fall Classic

I started off with Lemnear’s list and considered a few changes:
1- Ari and Bryant both said they regretting not having the 2nd SB discard to board one in.
2- I havent sided in my decays in month’s so im gonna try and metagame with those slots instead.
3- My read on the meta was that nobody plays much delver, theres a ton of combo mirrors, and Matt is for sure on Junk. +1 Telemin, +1 Deathmark.

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
4 Burning Wish
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Silence
1 Ad Nauseam
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
3 Chrome Mox
4 Rite of Flame
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Infernal Tutor
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Deathmark
SB: 1 Telemin Performance
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 Grapeshot
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Diminishing Returns
SB: 1 Past in Flames
SB: 1 Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony

Zach on UWR Delver

R1G1- Zach starts on the play with delver and clocks me hard. I try to diminishing returns with silence on my last turn but i whiff.
SB: -1 Infernal Tutor, -1 ponder//+1 Cabal therapy, +1 Chain of vapor
R1G2- I Probe and see force so i can’t blitz him, but he has no clock. We both develop for a while and i set up a protected past in flames kill before he can clock me out.
R1G3- Probe reveals some sweet counters but no clock again. I hit him with some cabal therapy and he taps out on turn 3 to play a geist. I look down at my notes and am sure he is missing a blue card to pitch to force now, so i ad nauseam and win.

1-0

Chad(Warfordium) on ANT
R2G1- I kept a loose one with ETW, therapy and silence. Chad starts with duress on my cabal therapy. I hold up silence while i brick on draws and chad is stuck on one swamp. Chad duresses my silence and passes. I hail mary and make goblins flashing back therapy on cabal ritual. Double hit! Chad has two turns to draw LED for a PIF loop, he finds it.
SB: -1 Empty//+1 Cabal Therapy
R2G2 - I keep double cantrip, silence, LED, and lands. Ponder and decide draw an LED and leave a ponder on top. Cast LEDx2. Pass. Chad duresses and takes my ponder in hand. I draw the ponder from the top, cast it, shuffle, draw an LED. Cast LED (3 in play now). hold up silence. pass.
Chad cantrips. pass. I draw land, pass. Chad duresses into a silence and passes. He looks ready to combo so this is my last turn to draw buisness. brick. pass the turn. chad kills me.

1-1

Kayda on Merfolk
R3G1 - I’m on the play with a possible turn one hand. I probe seeing daze and tons of fish. Ponder. Pass. Kayda plays Vial, passes. I Make 12 goblins around daze and it gets there in combat.
SB: -1 Infernal, -1 Chrome Mox, - 1 ponder//+2 Xantid swarm, +1 Cabal Therapy
R3G2 - Kayda starts with Cursecatcher, i follow with xantid swarm. She lays a second catcher. I probe and find out my xantid is VS a hand of merfolk and no counters, but Xantid cant do anything about the catchers. I have to get like 4 lands in play to do anything. on the turn before im dead i xantid and then burning wish, she catchers me down from 6 floating to 4 floating. i go for diminishing returns and draw blanks and die.
R3G3 - I turn one on the play Probe and brainstorm into making 16 goblins. Gets there.

2-1

Matt(sdematt) on GBWrock
R4G1 - I’m on the play with a possible blitz but i brick my turn 1 brainstorm. Matt hits me back with some discard into lilliana. I peel an infernal with all my mana on board and go into an adnauseam from 15 and win.
SB: -4 silence, -1 empty//+2 chain of vapor, +1cabal therapy +1 Thoughtseize +1 Deathmark
R4G2 - Matt mulls to 6 and thoughtseizes me. I return fire and my thoughtseize reveals his 5 lands in hand! I rebuild for a turn or two and adnauseam into a win.

3-1

Marcel on UWR delver
R5G1 - We grind for a while and he beats me down. I get to Silence Diminishing Returns with UBR floating but i miss.
SB: -1 Infernal Tutor, -1 Ponder // +1 Cabal Therapy +1 Chain of Vapor
R5G2 - I turn 2 probe seeing Bolt, Bolt, Brainstorm, Brainstorm, Stoneforge, land. I therapy on brainstorms, make 14 goblins, flashback therapy on lightning bolt. Bring him to exactly 0 through batterskull.
R5G3 - We grind but then he gets me with probe seeing my 3 LEDS in hand and then Meddling mage on LED. Damn! Marcel wins.

3-2

*TOP8*
We had 17 players so even though i was 3-2 i made it to the top8 in 8th place.

Trenton on Shardless BUG (was 5-0 in swiss so hes on the play)
R6G1 - He mulls to 6 and doesnt have a discard spell for me. I gamble on his FoW and clear with 14 goblins that he cant answer.
SB: -1 infernal, -1 Chrome mox, -1 Poder//+2 Xantid Swarm +1 Cabal Therapy
R6G2 - He mulls to 6 again and lacks a spell again. I probe him seeing FOW but no blue card. I draw into a blitz for 16 goblins. He tries to draw golgari charm for 2 turns but cant find it.

4-2

Marcel on UWR delver (same from the swiss)
R7G1 - I’m on the draw and keep a good hand for grinding. I spend all game fighting his hand while he beats me down. I even bluff a couple silences to bait his counters out. I end up playing my 6th land and casting adnauseam from 9 but it doesnt get there.
SB: -1 Infernal tutor -1 Ponder // +1 Chain of Vapor +1 Cabal Therapy
R7G2 - I probe turn one and see Marcel kept a no land hand with live FOW. His hand is so good that if he draws a land i don’t think i can win though. I try to assemble a protected kill but he has a land by that time. We continue to grind for many many turns but since hes on the back foot from not getting an early clock. I end up protecting a huge past in flames and he scoops.
R7G3 - I probe and see no FOW, make 14 goblins and he cant answer it.

5-2

Finals VS Matt (sdematt)

R8G1 - I’m on the draw and it takes me a couple turns to find a kill through thoughtseize wasteland and lilliana. I end up burning wishing for diminishing returns, and casting it the next turn with R floating and a free land drop. It gets there into lethal tendrils.
SB: -4 silence, -1 empty//+2 chain of vapor, +1cabal therapy +1 Thoughtseize +1 Deathmark
R8G2 - Matt mulls to 6 and thoughtseizes me. I don’t have a good play and he follows with Teeg, Thalia, Tarmogoyf, Double Cabal therapy. I scoop.
R8G3 - I Cabal therapy Matt’s thalia. He Thoughtseizes me. I set up for an Adnauseam floating 6 on my next turn. He runs a thalia off the top! Damn! I cast my two LEDs, make a land drop, pass. He’s got two deathrites now, passes. If i draw a land or a burning wish i can either adnauseam with 6 floating even with thalia in play, or burning wish into massacre kill all his dudes. But i miss. He beats me down. I miss again. I’m dead!

5-3 (which somehow made me second place!) I win a SP Volcanic Island.

Hindsight:
-The deathmark might as well have been a karakas, then i could bring it in against rug for extra daze protection at least.
-I didn't draw burning wish against chad but i think it was the right call having Telemin SB.
-2 xantid swarms SB is enough
-2 discard spells SB is important, i wished for thoughtseize a lot while grinding VS tempo.
-Massacre didn't get cast but it's nice knowing your burning wishes are secret pyroclasms.
-No regrets cutting Abrupt Decays.
-Boarding up to 4 cabal therapy main while still rocking the goblins plan is sweet. Name FOW, Goblins, Flashback naming stoneforge/golgari charm/pernicious deed/pyroclasm/electrickery/engineered explosives ETC. Thanks Lemnear.

If anyone would have boarded differently let me know how and why, i am a humble learner of storm. Thank you!

[Lemnear]

Was a bit confused as you refered to me for the list, as I run the 4th fetch over the 3rd Mox as you know until I realized that you talked about the Therapies and the Telemin. :)

I'm investigating the options to replace the Chains (as Leyline left my Metagame and I rarely saw it at the BoM) to boost the Tempo-matchup. Having 1-2 additional copies of EtW in the SB to board in those in a deck with 4 CT in the 75 is something I have to take a closer look at to mimic the gameplan of Grinding Station.

Don't you think it's time to let IGG go? ;)

Small remark: in your second game against UWR you need to take the SFM with the flashback as you might have realized ... That's what CT is for: prevent your opponent from finding a solution to the Goblins



Congratz!
Give your Volcanic a good-night-Kiss ;D

[BrettF]

@Lemnear
Not ready to cut IGG. if i opened IT,BW,LED in my hand id be sad to not have that line available.

And yea i misjudged on that game deffinitly. He was better off not having to draw another stoneforge.