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

[Lemnear]

Top 4'd a small FTV:20 event today. I played the list on the opening post, I feel that it's pretty damn close to where we want it to be. I'm just wondering if the Thoughtseize in the sideboard should be another Chain of Vapor.

I beat:

Merfolk 2-0
Mono-Black Discard 2-0
Sneak Show 2-0 (Had Leylines - Xantid didn't care)
UR Delver 2-0

Lost to:

RUG 0-2

I mulliganed game one into a hand with three lands and when he killed me I still had three lands in my hand. FLOOD.
In the second game he managed to get me too low to reliably Ad Nauseam when I open handed it.

I guess he had the leyline in play and not in his 75, right?

Just for the statistics: how often were you able to a) 1-for-2 with therapy or b) flashback it to seal the deal in recent weeks? I suspect the number to be significant if it even makes you cutting back Silence.

What makes you think, that the SB discard might be replaceable?

[Jay_Gatz]

Its the weakest slot and only having one chain of vapor is risky.

[Bryant Cook]

I guess he had the leyline in play and not in his 75, right?

Just for the statistics: how often were you able to a) 1-for-2 with therapy or b) flashback it to seal the deal in recent weeks? I suspect the number to be significant if it even makes you cutting back Silence.

What makes you think, that the SB discard might be replaceable?

The first part of your sentence isn't making much sense to me. He had it in play, it was a three of in his sideboard (I asked) and he opened with two. He went Island, go holding up Flusterstorm I found out after. My turn was Probe, draw into Xantid, Gemstone Xantid. Close the deal with Goblins after.

2-for-1 with Therapy happened quite a bit, I did it on Lightning Bolts and even True-Names to buy time until I could fight through the counters. As for the numbers? I didn't keep accurate enough notes to tell you anything solid. But I've been happy with the change so far, I certainly don't see the numbers going any lower.

The UR Delver deck was more like Osyp's list from the Champs event and RUG was also packing, I'm still seeing Stifle. I couldn't imagine cutting it completely like some people are mentioning.

It's rarely used and the second Chain may be more valuable. I'm a bit unsure though. If I had to weigh-in right now, I'd probably keep the Thoughtseize?

[Lemnear]

The first part of your sentence isn't making much sense to me. He had it in play, it was a three of in his sideboard (I asked) and he opened with two. He went Island, go holding up Flusterstorm I found out after. My turn was Probe, draw into Xantid, Gemstone Xantid. Close the deal with Goblins after.

2-for-1 with Therapy happened quite a bit, I did it on Lightning Bolts and even True-Names to buy time until I could fight through the counters. As for the numbers? I didn't keep accurate enough notes to tell you anything solid. But I've been happy with the change so far, I certainly don't see the numbers going any lower.

The UR Delver deck was more like Osyp's list from the Champs event and RUG was also packing, I'm still seeing Stifle. I couldn't imagine cutting it completely like some people are mentioning.

It's rarely used and the second Chain may be more valuable. I'm a bit unsure though. If I had to weigh-in right now, I'd probably keep the Thoughtseize?

Sorry, my first sentence was horribly put to simply ask if he only had the Leylines in his SB or indeed opened with at least one in game 2, which wasn't 100% clear to me as I read that post.

It's debatable to switch the SB discard back to Duress, but I have no intention to cut it for now.

[Bryant Cook]

Sorry, my first sentence was horribly put to simply ask if he only had the Leylines in his SB or indeed opened with at least one in game 2, which wasn't 100% clear to me as I read that post.

It's debatable to switch the SB discard back to Duress, but I have no intention to cut it for now.

I wouldn't play Duress because you can't sideboard it in Duress versus Maverick or Death and Taxes.

[Lemnear]

I wouldn't play Duress because you can't sideboard it in Duress versus Maverick or Death and Taxes.

Valid. Should have mentioned that in regards to my current Multi-EtW plan i'm testing against hatebear.dec where I wasn't planning to board in the discard ever but rather drop EtW before the bear comes down

[PartyMonster]

I have been testing this Sideboard configuration

3x swam
2x carpet
2x decay
2x chain
1x therapy
1x returns
1x PIF
1x empty
1x tendrils
1x grape shot

[Lemnear]

I have been testing this Sideboard configuration

3x swam
2x carpet
2x decay
2x chain
1x therapy
1x returns
1x PIF
1x empty
1x tendrils
1x grape shot

There's nothing "wrong" with that. All depends on your metagame.

I'm just brainstorming SB's for the futur,e if the recent T8's at mayor events are an indicator for the upcoming S&T, UWR and Esperblade boards

[Pelikanudo]

I'm quite surprised about all the changes intended, I've always thoutgh therapy is the way to go...

Some general thoutghs:
I'm not sure how full set of therapys will result in such a number that you sometimes will fail, in other experience with other decks, backed full set of therapies plus more discard as total 7 watching effects this really makes therapy effective. likely the list of lemear with 3 t.seize main is the way, I would put 3 or 2 duresses/1t.s. instead. the manabase also seems to be the correct. but you dismiss the Silence and even D.Returns, generally believe Silence/Orims is a sacred cow in TES. Always hate to loose to UGR and Reanimator... and vs reanimator i'm not sure therapy how good wil it be, maybe he unique match up... as regards to therapy/silence list

Another thing is about Empty, theyve been always great and now with therapy, I couldn't say whan to take them out.

Please some side instructions about 3silence 4 therpyes list vs decks and, will test and back up results Bryant. Not time enough.

[Lemnear]

I'm quite surprised about all the changes intended, I've always thoutgh therapy is the way to go...

Some general thoutghs:
I'm not sure how full set of therapys will result in such a number that you sometimes will fail, in other experience with other decks, backed full set of therapies plus more discard as total 7 watching effects this really makes therapy effective. likely the list of lemear with 3 t.seize main is the way, I would put 3 or 2 duresses/1t.s. instead. the manabase also seems to be the correct. but you dismiss the Silence and even D.Returns, generally believe Silence/Orims is a sacred cow in TES. Always hate to loose to UGR and Reanimator... and vs reanimator i'm not sure therapy how good wil it be, maybe he unique match up... as regards to therapy/silence list

Another thing is about Empty, theyve been always great and now with therapy, I couldn't say whan to take them out.

Please some side instructions about 3silence 4 therpyes list vs decks and, will test and back up results Bryant. Not time enough.

I played without ANY MB Therapies for barely a year while Silence is that made TES superior in fighting counterspells and to recklessly abuse Diminishing Returns. I didn't even bother to follow Bryant's "preboarded" Therapy in addition to 2 Duress and 4 Silences then, feeling that Therapy was just random to dismantle hate.

It needed a few Hits to my forehead by fellow Sourcers to realize that boarding Duress out in favor of Therapies to hit hatebears is a plain waste of space and Duress is unable to hit Cliques and Thalia which is indeed a problem. I denied the issue first, but thought about the matter later. Btw, that is the reason I would not even pick up Duresses to supplement the MB Therapies like you suggested: it can't hit SFM, Thalia and clique. It took me just 2 tourneys to realize, that Therapy is not only a way to generate cardadvantage in a deck without any real way to do so outside the Ad Nauseam flips, but is devastating in combination with our often #1 victory-Route: EtW. Stripping sweepers, Stoneforge Mystics (or the tutored Batterskull) or cantrips to find those, has proven insane to Ride even a pretty small amount of Goblins to victory and I started to annoy the hell out of the readers here with my talk about the "Triforce" EtW - Gitaxian Probe - Cabal Therapy.

Then I took the 3 MB Therapies to Paris, just to realize, that Silence doesn't do the trick against combined hate anymore and with Bryant now pushing the count to a full 4 of Therapies and seeing the recent US Top 8 Lists without any Leylines in Show&Tell SB's I want to try more "peek"-effects, more active disruption/protection and a more stable manabase without having to have one out of 10 white sources for Silence (ignore Moxen here). That even climaxed in my tests to run 4 EtW's in our 75 to spam the board with Goblins way ahead of any possible hate going online (hatebears, Hymn, various taxing counters in RUG)

Bryant mentioned that he'll update the SB guide once he's satisfied with the new list. He dropped a line somewhere about boarding the 4 CT out for 3 Swarms and a Tropical against S&T.


Edit: several fixes

Edit 2: yes, I reduced the Dim.Ret. to a T1/T2 reset Button without Silence against blue for the testing. No Holy cows

[Technics]

So with a bunch of D&T in my meta, have people have any sucess with Dread of Night? Is it worth cutting Swarms (My meta is almost all Combo, Rug, and D&T). Thoughts?

[Lemnear]

So with a bunch of D&T in my meta, have people have any sucess with Dread of Night? Is it worth cutting Swarms (My meta is almost all Combo, Rug, and D&T). Thoughts?

Dread of night is barely a solution if most of the hatebears you'll face are either Meddling Mage or Ethersworn Cannonist. Assembling 2 DoN is a pain with less cantrips and less lands to cast those. Your best Shot against D&T is either to combo off T1/T2 or board in spot-removal like Chains or Decays.

If there are no Leylines in the combo decks you face week for week, you'll may want to run more CoV instead of the Decays and, depending on the other combo decks, reduce the number of Swarms for a third Carpet against RUG or improve the combo-matchup itself with Telemin

[Final Fortune]

I don't think removing Silence for discard justifies removing Gold Lands for Fetch Lands, because our manabase still needs to consistently support 3 colors compared to ANT's 2 colors. If anything, we can play Gold Lands more aggressively than Fetchlands by playing them first in order to Cabal Therapy and save our Fetchlands for the Brainstorm and shuffle effect on turn 2 instead of the other way around if we were holding Silence.

[Lemnear]

I don't think removing Silence for discard justifies removing Gold Lands for Fetch Lands, because our manabase still needs to consistently support 3 colors compared to ANT's 2 colors. If anything, we can play Gold Lands more aggressively than Fetchlands by playing them first in order to Cabal Therapy and save our Fetchlands for the Brainstorm and shuffle effect on turn 2 instead of the other way around if we were holding Silence.

The idea was to get more access to green mana and shufflung effects as the matches you want the green Source for Carpet and Decay are usually the more grindier ones and Carpet still fixes colors so the 3-color-issue shouldn't be a big one unless you get wasted to hell. Just an idea I wanted to test

[Final Fortune]

The idea was to get more access to green mana and shufflung effects as the matches you want the green Source for Carpet and Decay are usually the more grindier ones and Carpet still fixes colors so the 3-color-issue shouldn't be a big one unless you get wasted to hell. Just an idea I wanted to test

I've tested it again and again and again, adding basics never works out, adding fetchlands instead of gold lands decreases access to the third color and green mana can be supported by Tropical Island (that's like 10 permanent green sources)

I really hate Carpet of Flowers, the ETW plans seems so much better than that IMO. I'm strongly considering going back to the 4th Mox at this point.

[Jay_Gatz]

When you get to the point of cutting gold lands for fetches and duals you might as well just switch over to ANT because the deck won't function like TES anymore

[Lemnear]

When you get to the point of cutting gold lands for fetches and duals you might as well just switch over to ANT because the deck won't function like TES anymore

TES is a 5-color-deck at heart, but white and green always had ups and downs and it's not unheared of to possibly alter the manabase according to it.

The moment we shave the speed components like RoF, 0cc Mana stones like Chrome Moxen, Wishes or our general goal to resolve AN/EtW asap but instead opt to create a layout for longer, grindier games which includes slower but stonger acceleration like Cabal Ritual, you are right. This however isn't what I am doing. If I want to test Thoughtseize replacing Silences, we need a lot less rainbow mana in the MB and I thought, this is a chance to move the SB Tropical into the maindeck as I was able to increase the shuffle effects and avoiding City of Brass + Thoughtseize which is disgusting

[JPoJohnson]

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?

discard -> Brainstorm

[Holly]

discard -> Brainstorm

Although he doesn't board in Brainstorm (and he's talking about the constellation of his sideboard and which angles of attack he covers) :p

[Asthereal]

When you get to the point of cutting gold lands for fetches and duals you might as well just switch over to ANT because the deck won't function like TES anymore

I tried a hybrid last month, and I was pretty satisfied with it.
It was a three colour Storm with 6x dual, 8x fetch as lands, 3x Wish, 2x Mox and 4x Rite of Flame (no Cabal Rits).
I won three rounds (RUG, TES and Maverick) and lost three (TES, Sneak&Show, OmniHalls). Losses were because I am an idiot, because Silence is better than Duress and because some people just draw better cards than me. The list was absolutely fine. I'm sure Bryant would hate it, but I'm also absolutely sure he is able to win a tourney with it.

Seriously, basics are not necessary, and Rites are better than CRits in so many cases. For the rest the decks are almost the same anyway.