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

[Mindlash]

Sorry for causing the confusion by mentioning Grinding Station or giving some the picture of playing the 8-vs.-7-game.

Just to set things straight: i wanted to dump my hand T1/T2 more reliable (as you notice by the return of the 3rd Mox) and pushing into the red Zone while drawing cards per turn to repeat the goblin assault off a second EtW if needed, which was all the reason i refered to Grinding Station which does the same with ToA.

Ah ok yeah this seems to fit the structure of the deck more and might be viable indeed ;)
But I guess it really more like Belcher instead of Grinding Station with 3 EtW and fast Goblins. Might an additional PiF be useful in the maindeck after boarding the EtW plan for going of another time? Or do you think it is enough to push through a Wish with flashbacked Therapies?

[Lemnear]

Ah ok yeah this seems to fit the structure of the deck more and might be viable indeed ;)
But I guess it really more like Belcher instead of Grinding Station with 3 EtW and fast Goblins. Might an additional PiF be useful in the maindeck after boarding the EtW plan for going of another time? Or do you think it is enough to push through a Wish with flashbacked Therapies?

You can still wish for PiF to flashback the EtW in your GY or board the sad Yawgmoth's Will lookalike in the matchups in question. There is no need for additional PiF's

Edit: or did i mistake you talking about a second one in the 75?

[Final Fortune]

I'm strickly against having IMS' in the board, nor do I see the space to add those shenanigans. Our deck already has so many fastmana that I'm sure we can use the SB slots for more value than SSG.

The more important message is, that the expected trend towards UWr and TNN made peeps cut some or completely chop all the Stifles according to the recent US-T16-lists.

That could be a turning point for storm

It really doesn't, I don't know if you were around when "the norm" for TES was 4 Lion's Eye Diamond, 4 Lotus Petal, 4 Chrome Mox, 4 Dark Ritual, 4 Simian Spirit Guide and 4 Rite of Flame pre-Ad Nauseam, when TES use to regularly SB multiple ETW's before it had significantly more acceleration than we do now. I don't think SBing Simian Spirit Guide is any more ridiculous than SBing Carpet of Flowers or Tropical Island and the premium on SB space just depends on what cards you value and how you're SBing;

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Grape Shot
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Past in Flames
1 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Simian Spirit Guide

All you're missing is the little luxuries like Telemin Performance, Xantid Swarms and Revoke Existance, which is all pretty much for the Show&Tell match up. The kind of nice thing about it is that you can stick with 2 Chrome Mox/13 Land MD and then do stuff like cut Mox post-board altogether for roughly equivalent acceleration when Ad Nauseam gets cut for more ETW.

[Lemnear]

Lets just not forget that this was in another age of storm and it's foes. I don't think however that we can afford to drop the Swarms in times of S&T, Griselbrand and the return of Meerfolk

[Bryant Cook]

This is true theory and has no testing to back it up, I thought of it while getting ready this morning. I'm going to test four main deck Cabal Therapy and three Silence with a Thoughtseize in the sideboard. With the lack of Stifle in the current metagame, I think it's perfectly acceptable to shave off a Silence. I'll be testing this in upcoming weeks.

[Lemnear]

This is true theory and has no testing to back it up, I thought of it while getting ready this morning. I'm going to test four main deck Cabal Therapy and three Silence with a Thoughtseize in the sideboard. With the lack of Stifle in the current metagame, I think it's perfectly acceptable to shave off a Silence. I'll be testing this in upcoming weeks.

I'm less concerned about Stifle (as a card) than counter overloads post SB. Testing is valid, but I'm surprised by that idea with our recent chatter about Leyline as it affects the previous SB plan of no-targeted-protection post-SB against Leyline.

[Final Fortune]

I'm less concerned about Stifle (as a card) than counter overloads post SB. Testing is valid, but I'm surprised by that idea with our recent chatter about Leyline as it affects the previous SB plan of no-targeted-protection post-SB against Leyline.

I don't see the point of it either, considering a Silence walk is just as good as a Cabal Therapy Flashback in a lot of situations. That said, I don't think "no targeted discard" post-board vs Leyline is a necessary approach vs Leyline of Sanctity, that match up isn't nearly as bad as the aggro-control match up and I question the necessity of dedicating so many SB slots (what, Telemin Performance, 3 Xantid Swarms and Tropical Island?) against it compared to dedicating SB slots vs aggro-control and control.

[Lemnear]

I don't see the point of it either, considering a Silence walk is just as good as a Cabal Therapy Flashback in a lot of situations. That said, I don't think "no targeted discard" post-board vs Leyline is a necessary approach vs Leyline of Sanctity, that match up isn't nearly as bad as the aggro-control match up and I question the necessity of dedicating so many SB slots (what, Telemin Performance, 3 Xantid Swarms and Tropical Island?) against it compared to dedicating SB slots vs aggro-control and control.

Not being feared by Leyline is a reason I still run TP. Estimating the relevance of Leyline as a threat was part of the brainstorming in this thread this week as I opted to cut the CoV and therefore my only out against Leyline to improve the tempo- & hatebear-matchup, which Bryant reminded me about and suggested to have an out in the SB left for that.

I decided to stick to the goblins + Silence-walk in that case as I did this several times before against S&T which I believe is even once covered in a HotS-Report. With Leyline as an annoyance, Bryant kept playing the Tropical over the Telemin in his SB (could talk a whole paragraph about not having the trop in side but more lands in main by having cutted a mox blablabla). There are 4 slots in the SB for that matchup and I don't think those are far too many.

The Carpets in Bryants side cover the aggro-control and control matchups already. Which cards do you want to add for those matchups?


P.S.: I feel that the gameplann to slowly picking appart control suits better for ANT's increased cantrips and stronger Rituals, therefore the idea to take profit from the speed layout of TES and overwhelm those decks with goblins. Still theory

[phazonmutant]

I'm strickly against having IMS' in the board, nor do I see the space to add those shenanigans. Our deck already has so many fastmana that I'm sure we can use the SB slots for more value than SSG.

The more important message is, that the expected trend towards UWr and TNN made peeps cut some or completely chop all the Stifles according to the recent US-T16-lists.

That could be a turning point for storm

FinalFortune already made a very good response, but I'll add to it. If you want to capitalize on tempo decks cutting Stifle, play a deck with 8 fetchlands like...oh, I dunno, ANT.


Some more general thoughts:
People are increasingly realizing that they can't beat combo by trying to interact on one axis. Thresh has always been characterized by their ability to interact with both our mana and the stack - if they don't do both, we will win. Now, we're seeing other decks like Raka Delver exploit this - they board permanents and counterspells.
Previously, we win the hate-permanent battle by being faster. Death and Taxes is historically favorable because they don't interact until turn 2. Now, the hate-permanent decks also play cheap stack interaction (as mentioned in the ANT thread and elsewhere, part of the reason the fair decks can afford the sideboard space is because of True-Name Nemesis).

In my experience, a combo deck needs an above-average draw to beat a deck that packs several forms of interaction. For example, let's look at TinFins. It's one of the most objectively powerful deck in the format, but it hasn't really put up numbers. Why? Almost every deck packs 2 forms of interaction. Jund has discard + permanents. U decks have counterspells + grave hate. Etc. Obviously TinFins can prevail (it has put up some finishes), but on average the opponent's greater threat density will outweigh both explosiveness, especially given that you have to dilute your deck to deal with 2 types of answers.

This lesson applies equally to storm. Think about the games you lose. It's almost always the combination of 2 disruptive elements, right? Any high-tier legacy deck can fight through just one, but the mathematics are just not in favor of 2+ forms of interaction. Let's look at that.

Say your opponent starts out with 10/60 interactive cards maindeck - whether that be discard, counterspells, or both. Then they board in an additional 5 things that interact, often on a different axis.
That means you're fighting them drawing about a quarter of the cards in their deck vs you drawing a kill or a specific answer. To win that fight, you either need to be much faster or your answers need to be very versatile. TES qualifies much more than ANT on the first metric - trying to out-control the now-proactive control deck seems to be a losing battle - but on the second metric it falls flat. That's why I'm now thinking that TES is a contender, but an underdog.

To fix this problem, either people need to stop boarding cards that interact with storm on a second axis, storm has to be faster, or storm has to find more general answers. I doubt the first will happen since the quality of hate has gone up so much, the second seems unlikely given how long people have tried to optimize on that, and the last depends on either new printings or radical innovation.

So for that reason, I think the many-Empty plan (among others) is interesting. But otherwise, I think I'm going to take a break from my favorite deck to explore fair-land.

[Lemnear]

This analysis is correct, but we are all chopping into the same notch to fix that issue. I doubt that the situation, with a lot of the format focusing on the midrange threat of SFM + TNN and tempo facing tremendous troubles therefore, is that bad for storm.

In a world without Stifle, I rather drop T1 goblins than fetching and cantripping till my opponent drops hatebears and draws into counter/discard

[Bryant Cook]

I'm less concerned about Stifle (as a card) than counter overloads post SB. Testing is valid, but I'm surprised by that idea with our recent chatter about Leyline as it affects the previous SB plan of no-targeted-protection post-SB against Leyline.

I don't see the point of it either, considering a Silence walk is just as good as a Cabal Therapy Flashback in a lot of situations. That said, I don't think "no targeted discard" post-board vs Leyline is a necessary approach vs Leyline of Sanctity, that match up isn't nearly as bad as the aggro-control match up and I question the necessity of dedicating so many SB slots (what, Telemin Performance, 3 Xantid Swarms and Tropical Island?) against it compared to dedicating SB slots vs aggro-control and control.

Why does it effect that plan? You can still very easily board out all four Cabal Therapy for the three Xantid and a Tropical Island. Of course you're less worried about Stifle as there's less of it in the metagame, which is why I recommend that we shave a Silence (for now). Having the additional Cabal Therapy allows us to be slightly faster with the fact that we're more likely to go off turns one or two protected without needing the third color, it also allows us to disrupt on all the axis' (like Phazonmutant mentioned) that we're being attacked through. Silence doesn't do as great of an impersonation against hate bears as Cabal Therapy, it can slow them down, but it's not always enough. That said, I wouldn't go below three Silence as I think we still need to consider RUG.

Which brings me to my next point, Final Fortune claims we're not doing enough for control and aggro control. We're doing more than we have in the past with the Tropical Island and the pair of Carpet of Flowers, I don't know if he's played the Reanimator/Sneakshow match-up. But it's pretty miserable, much worse than tempo/aggro-control which isn't as bad as some make it seem. Albeit, these newer UWr lists with hate bears in the side are tougher than the former RUG.

[Royce Walter]

I don't see the point of it either, considering a Silence walk is just as good as a Cabal Therapy Flashback in a lot of situations.

First, most of the time goblins give them 2 turns, and Silence can only take away one of them. Second, it's a lot easier to get a Cabal Therapy in your graveyard in a deck with a bunch of black mana and LED than it is to have a Silence in your hand after you Empty.

[Final Fortune]

I suppose there's nothing wrong with 3 Silence, 4 Cabal Therapy MD as far as disruption configurations go, my main problem is that it forces you to SB another discard spell and potentially the 4th Silence. Yeah, I realize Show&Tell and Reanimator aren't good match ups for Storm, it's one of the reasons I advocated Bribery. However, I don't think Show&Tell and Reanimator are anywhere near as common place as aggro-control and its ilk. I guess we just have to pick what are one bad match up is going to be regarding dedicated SB space and move on, maybe we dump the Abrupt Decays and bite the bullet vs Miracles for a better aggro-control and show&tell match up?

[Lemnear]

Still don't get it. You have to take into considersation

1) Hatebears -> Decay, CoV
2) softcounter -> Carpet
3) Leyline -> CoV, Xantid
4) discard -> nothing
5) Counterbalance -> Decay

What you suggest is either folding to Miracles (and hatebears) or to the whole S&T-crowd by the changes suggested, or am I mistaken? I have no clue how you want to squeeze more dedicated anti-Aggro-control-cards in the MB after sideboarding without making the deck a bricking mess. I asked before, but what would you add to your SB for those matchups and how would you plan to board?

[Final Fortune]

Still don't get it. You have to take into considersation

1) Hatebears -> Decay, CoV
2) softcounter -> Carpet
3) Leyline -> CoV, Xantid
4) discard -> nothing
5) Counterbalance -> Decay

What you suggest is either folding to Miracles (and hatebears) or to the whole S&T-crowd by the changes suggested, or am I mistaken? I have no clue how you want to squeeze more dedicated anti-Aggro-control-cards in the MB after sideboarding without making the deck a bricking mess. I asked before, but what would you add to your SB for those matchups and how would you plan to board?

My working assumption is the best way to beat anything played on T2 is speed, and if you have the full package of 4 Infernal Tutor, 4 Burning Wish, 3 Empty the Warrens, 4 Lion's Eye Diamond, 4 Lotus Petal, 4 Chrome Mox, 4 Simian Spirit Guide, 4 Dark Ritual, 4 Rite of Flame and 4 Cabal Therapy plus a 50% to 100% chance of going first depending on the coin flip or a game loss then the match up could potentially play out like Belcher with aggressive mulliganing into Goblins.

The more linear you make the deck the faster it is, whether or not that's a good enough strategy I have no idea - but I prefer to push the deck towards the extreme of "going off" as much as possible before I fall back on reactionary answers to T2 cards.

It's how the deck use to play vs Counterbalance back in the day when every deck played Counterbalance and before Abrupt Decay was printed.

[Lemnear]

Ok, I wasn't sure if pushing the deck towards beating aggro equals the SSG idea. All clear now

[Asthereal]

@FF: You do realise that cantrips don't fit into that strategy very well?
But the thing with cutting, say, Ponder, is that our consistency goes down quite a bit.
Let's face it, this deck just doesn't always go off turn one.

[Final Fortune]

@FF: You do realise that cantrips don't fit into that strategy very well?
But the thing with cutting, say, Ponder, is that our consistency goes down quite a bit.
Let's face it, this deck just doesn't always go off turn one.

I'm aware, my SBing plan pretty much revolves around cutting Ad Nauseam, Ponder and X Silence for Empty the Warrens and Simian Spirit Guides vs aggro-control. Cutting Ponder doesn't necessarily mean your consistency decreases, if you're playing 3 Empty the Warrens and 4 Simian Spirit Guides it actually increases as the deck becomes more linear.

Ofcourse it doesn't always go off turn 1, but considering you're trying to race a T2 lock piece it doesn't have to always go off turn 1. Sometimes they'll be on the draw, other times you'll have a Cabal Therapy etc.

[Asthereal]

I'm aware, my SBing plan pretty much revolves around cutting Ad Nauseam, Ponder and X Silence for Empty the Warrens and Simian Spirit Guides vs aggro-control. Cutting Ponder doesn't necessarily mean your consistency decreases, if you're playing 3 Empty the Warrens and 4 Simian Spirit Guides it actually increases as the deck becomes more linear.

Ofcourse it doesn't always go off turn 1, but considering you're trying to race a T2 lock piece it doesn't have to always go off turn 1. Sometimes they'll be on the draw, other times you'll have a Cabal Therapy etc.

You could cut one Infernal as well. If you cut Ad Nauseam, Infernal becomes way weaker than Wish anyway.

[Lemnear]

You could cut one Infernal as well. If you cut Ad Nauseam, Infernal becomes way weaker than Wish anyway.

Would be pointless to reduce Tutors if you goal is to drop EtW T1/T2


Edit: Tests delayed ... work, work, work :/