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

[Lemnear]

Not sure which felt worse...punting away a game because I did exactly the opposite of what I had planned as I started the turn or slopping a win later because my opponent didn't remember to activate his DRS to stay alive and probably win.

Anyone at larger events this weekend storming it up?

Waiting for HotS Vol. 6 going live and preparing for the Podcast is enough for my schedule... :)

[KaiSchafroth]

Waiting for HotS Vol. 6 going live and preparing for the Podcast is enough for my schedule... :)

Ha! I can only guess...didn't I read a few pages back that HotS is being picked up on a site/page somewhere?
Either way, always enjoy them - amusing while insightful.

[Lemnear]

Ha! I can only guess...didn't I read a few pages back that HotS is being picked up on a site/page somewhere?
Either way, always enjoy them - amusing while insightful.

Lets say, there are websites that either offer to review (!) your material once they have a lack of articles from their usual writers only, don't even bother to answer at least one of several mails or don't fucking care for you unles you T8 a 200+ players event without ever looking at your material beforehand

Not a big deal; go stick with your Captain obvious set Reviews then.

[Tom T]

Went to fair-land and back. This deck offers the most fun any deck can offer (apart from DDFT, but I honestly think TES's better).

Anyway, I will be storming through GP Paris. Who'll be joining me?

Tom

[Pelikanudo]

Third decay over?
Also know no list of sneak and show play leyline.

I'm not sure you want to leave the 2nd and 3rd games with no Anti Leyline Effect post side...

I've been looking at how good can be the sided lonely CoV in main but the fact is that you can put 50 gobs, grab fo 2 Silence and use them to silence the opponent instead of just putting up the leyline..

So the great question is:
Is really neccessary to use an Anti Leyline effect in side if you suspect Leylines in the meta?

I believe it is not as neccesary because of the scenario above: put tons of gobs and silence walk them twice on the next turn. thats why I've been thinking and directly not to side CoV vs OmniShow

Another different approach is when facing Sneak, in here the way is easy, regardless if the play leylines or not and depending on the scenario you try to handle. but exists a scenario in which you need to CoV the Leyline and next tendrils him and it is when he has played Emrakul and you're at less than 15 lifes..., in here I see CoV a must...

because of all this I see at least 1 CoV in side a must.

Agree Lemnear as I saw your list has no CoV?

[Lemnear]

The reasoning for the sole CoV is pretty easy. You remove your only 4cc Spell in your deck for CoV and can dig much deeper with Ad Nauseam for it or Wish for PIF and get hands on the Chain with a flashback Infernal and proceed to kill your opponent.

On the other side however I've won many S&T matchups by goblins + Silence instead and the last time I ran Chain in my Sideboard, me S&T opponent did not run Leyline at all. It's a catch-all as it has also application against hatebears.

It's a safety-net.

[Holtzi]

Hello Stormtroopers,
It´s time for my first report and at the same time it was also my first tournament with TES.

Roadstory:
Nothing exciting besides me getting nervous as Fabian is late due to the weather but he arrives just in time and we get to the location just 5 minutes early.
I quickly borrow the last cards missing and am ready to go.
Due to everchanging metagame I played the exact 75 from the OP.
We are about 24 players at Gandalph´s in Kiel(Northern-Germany).

M1 G1 againts Kay:
I win the diceroll and will be on the play :D
We both take mulligans to 6.
I fan out a hand capable of 10 Goblins 1st turn and start of with Gitaxian Probe seeing Lands + Valakut,Green Sun´s Zenith and a Thoughtseize.
I´m not sure what I´m playing against but think it´s good enough to drop 10 Goblins.
Two attacks later it´s over and we go to game 2.

M1G2: Boarding:-Ponder+Tropical Island
He starts with Cabal Therapy naming Lion´s Eye Diamond but misses.
So I go for 12 Goblins knowing that he might have outs to it but my hand leaves me no other options as I only have EtW + Infernal in hand so I go:
DR->Infernal for another DR ->DR-> Lotus Petal -> EtW and making 12 goblins.
He drops Veteran Explorer and passes. I attack he blocks one searching for 2 Basics and takes 11 going to 8.
Next Turn he is dead.
After the game he shows me SlaughterGames which he hoped could stop me but I guess TES is to fast for that :D

2/0 1/0

M2G1 againt Tobias Dreger with Goblins.
This Game my notes are not so good. But I won the diceroll.
If I remember correctly he pressures me with Lackey into Warchief.
I see his hand with Gitaxian Probe and take 2 Ringleaders with Cabal Therapy leavin only a Matron and a land i guess.
I decide to make 14 Goblins to race him but throw the game very hard by forgetting to flashback my Therapy to take the Matron which results in a Goblin Sharpshooter taking down my army.
I just lost to my own stupidity .

M2G2 -3Silence-EtW-1Ponder+CoV+TS+Tropical+2ADecays
I start with Gitaxian Probe and suprise he hold a rather slow hand full of Disruption. Swan Song , Izzet Charm, Wasteland, Vial, Rishadan Port and something else.
Great my hand is not super fast so his disruption buys him time and he can establish a clock around three but his wasteland and port do their work and as he fetches the Volcanic Island I see no real way to win through that in Time, I have Burning wish but no Discard left in the SB. He kills me quickly after that.

We know each other for some years and play another round just for fun and I lose again.Goblins seems not as easy as I thought prior to this event.
2/2 1/1

R3G1 againt Jorge with 4ColorLoam and some interesting choices :D
I´m on the play and Probe him: 2Mox Diamonds,1Burning Wish,2Taiga,1CountrysideCrusher and a Fetchland and I hope he doesn´t go BW into Discard as that would dismantle my hand with ease.
He plays The Crusher and I´m ready to go.AdNauseam of 18 life results in a lethal Tendrils for 22.

R3G2 -3 Silence - EtW +Tropical+CoV+2Decay as I expect CotV.
I have to Mull down to 5 and he starts with Sphere of Resistance.
I play Tropical Cast Gitaxian Probe for Life so i can pay the extra Mana for the sphere.
He wastes me and I never find a new mana source and die to Knight of the Reliquary and Dark Confidant.

R3G3
I start with Probe seeing nothing of relevance. He drops just a Fetchland and I go for another Ad Nauseam into Tendrils for 28.

4/3 2/1

R4G1 against Stefan with TeamAmerica
I´m on the draw this game and he start of with just a Bayou into Death Rite Shaman.
I play Probe seeing 3Wastelands Daze Brainstorm . I play Therapy and take the BS.
He wastes my land and starts to pressure me with the DRS which gets accompanied by another one around turn 3.
He wastes another land after I pondered and Decays my Mox and then it´s over quickly.

Between the games he mentioned I would bring in Xantid Swams and Carpet of Flower so he will let his Decays in.
But nevertheless my plan was just to bring in Tropical for a Ponder.

M4G2I keep a strong hand that can combo at turn 3.
As I combo off he is tapped out and Forces my Silence and as I don´t expect another FoW and my spot wouldn´t get better by waiting I decide to pull the trigger.
He chooses to Daze my first LED but I can pay for it all and thanks to his counters I can Wish for Lethal Tendrils for 18.

M4G3. This game my notes are bad again.
At one point i can make 16 Goblins and he has just 2 Goyf and a DRS for defense. I assume he has at least Golgari Charms as out but he has only 2 Drawsteps to find them as I know he has nothing of relevance in hand.
The Goblins bring the Game home. :)

6/4 3/1

R5G1 againts Marco with EsperBlade and he is on the play.
I keep a slow hand but he has a fast Batterskull. I know he has force and he brainstorms in response to Cabal Therapy I assume he put back FoW and Batterskulls and name baleful Strix which is at least a pitchcard to FoW. I think he has put batterskull below FoW and Play another therapy next turn he puts batterskull into play so I name Spell Pierce. He beats me down to one and I cannot go of because he counters my LED with Snapcaster Flashbacking Spellpierce after i Discarded Fow and tried to pull of at least a desperate try with Diminishing Returns but with one life I can´t Fetch or Use city to initiate the combo.

G2 -Infernal-Ponder-Etw+2Pyroblast+Tropical
I probe him and see Lilliana,BS,Snapcaster,Meddling Mage,Strix and a Fetch.The I pass the turn.
I drop another Land and play Brainstorm into ponder and set up for next turn AdNauseam. He play Extraction on Brainstorm and drops MeddlingMage naming Burning Wish.
The next turn I go for it and play Ad Nauseam from 18 life. I go down to 1 life revealing the 3 remaining Wishes(4th was in my Hand) and neither Pyroblast nor a single LED (within roughly 25 cards) who would have been outs to Meddling Mage.Ponder of Lotus Petal->brick->shuffle->brick->Probe of Petal->brick -> GG

6/6 3/2

I end up being 7th Place with 9 Points and just one point short for prizes.

Pros:
Overall I was pretty content with the deck
Met a lot of new and nice people
got the missing Useas via trading

Cons:
Losing to my own stupidity

Greetings
Holtzi

[Lemnear]

Boarding against Goblins was very off :/

[Holtzi]

Boarding against Goblins was very off :/

How would you board againt Goblins ?

[Lemnear]

How would you board againt Goblins ?

I would have kept EtW as unlike Elves, Goblins can't handle T1/2 EtW. Decays are too painful against Port and Wastelands and pretty unnecessary, so boarding out Silences ON THE DRAW for Seize/Trop/CoV is enough. ON THE PLAY you might board Silences back in

[Plague Sliver]

TES turned out to be a cruel mistress yesterday. Scrubbed at a local event with it, with a modified list - 4x Silence, 3x Cabal Therapy, and a maindeck Tropical Island instead of the 3rd Chrome Mox. That way I could squeeze in 1x Massacre in the board

I only have one question about my play:

Round 3 vs. Shardless BUG

Game 1 - I didn't know he was running Shardless in Game 1, nothing except for a turn 3 DRS I think. T1 Thoughtseize slowed me down. He kept a greedy hand, though, so all I saw was cantrips. I went for Goblins to take the game.

Game 2 - T1 DRS, T2 Thoughtseize, then beat me down quick with 2 Goyfs and 2 DRS.

After Game 2 he talks to his friend about bad luck and how in that game he didn't draw his Hymns or Flusterstorms. And then we're on to...

Game 3 - EPIC PUNT BY ME - I THINK??. After mulliganing to 6, I'm on the play with:

Tropical Island
Gemstone Mine
Underground Sea
Dark Ritual
Silence
Brainstorm

He had a fairly confident keep; I want to see if I can win fast. I end step Brainstorm after he plays T1 DRS.

I see the top 3 cards are

Ad Nauseam
Ponder
<<some other blank, but not a mana source>>

But his comments got to my head. I am thinking about how I can win with Ad Nauseam, but I don't have enough mana to Silence AND Ad Nauseam same turn until I draw into another land. And that will take time.

So instead of being patient, I Silence on his turn and then go for Ritual-Ad Nauseam. Naturally, he had the Force, pitching Flusterstorm.

I was counting on him to have discard rather than countermagic - if he has Hymn I get wrecked, but I went for it and got punished. Ended up drawing because his deck was slow as hell, but the question stands:

Question (to confirm I punted): should I always wait in that situation, to draw another land to Silence-Ad Nauseam same turn? Or is there a case to be made for the bone-headed play I made?

[SScout]

TES turned out to be a cruel mistress yesterday. Scrubbed at a local event with it, with a modified list - 4x Silence, 3x Cabal Therapy, and a maindeck Tropical Island instead of the 3rd Chrome Mox. That way I could squeeze in 1x Massacre in the board

I only have one question about my play:

Round 3 vs. Shardless BUG

Game 1 - I didn't know he was running Shardless in Game 1, nothing except for a turn 3 DRS I think. T1 Thoughtseize slowed me down. He kept a greedy hand, though, so all I saw was cantrips. I went for Goblins to take the game.

Game 2 - T1 DRS, T2 Thoughtseize, then beat me down quick with 2 Goyfs and 2 DRS.

After Game 2 he talks to his friend about bad luck and how in that game he didn't draw his Hymns or Flusterstorms. And then we're on to...

Game 3 - EPIC PUNT BY ME - I THINK??. After mulliganing to 6, I'm on the play with:

Tropical Island
Gemstone Mine
Underground Sea
Dark Ritual
Silence
Brainstorm

He had a fairly confident keep; I want to see if I can win fast. I end step Brainstorm after he plays T1 DRS.

I see the top 3 cards are

Ad Nauseam
Ponder
<<some other blank, but not a mana source>>

But his comments got to my head. I am thinking about how I can win with Ad Nauseam, but I don't have enough mana to Silence AND Ad Nauseam same turn until I draw into another land. And that will take time.

So instead of being patient, I Silence on his turn and then go for Ritual-Ad Nauseam. Naturally, he had the Force, pitching Flusterstorm.

I was counting on him to have discard rather than countermagic - if he has Hymn I get wrecked, but I went for it and got punished. Ended up drawing because his deck was slow as hell, but the question stands:

Question (to confirm I punted): should I always wait in that situation, to draw another land to Silence-Ad Nauseam same turn? Or is there a case to be made for the bone-headed play I made?

Being that you had the Ponder i probably would have waited. Its definitely risky both ways, but a silence-protected Ad Nauseum from what I'm assuming would have been 17~ life? Probably a sure win.

Both of your avenues were risky, as like you said a hymn or Thoughtseize would probably have ended you, but given that you knew he boarded at least Flusterstorms against you i'd have banked on him having at least 1 counter; given that he didn't T1 Thoughtseize.

The deck has 16 "free" (in your situation i count rituals as free because you had plenty of mana to cast them) mana sources, and the 2 moxes plus land make it 30-odd cards you could have seen/drawn with that ponder that mean you win with a protected combo, pretty good odds against the likelihood of him having a counter.

I'd say this is a pretty good learning experience, one of the things i find with the deck is that almost every situation has more than one option, and often choosing the right one at the wrong time can still lose you the game. Be that as it may, its still the most fun I've had playing magic, and i won't be giving it up any time soon!

[Lemnear]

TES turned out to be a cruel mistress yesterday. Scrubbed at a local event with it, with a modified list - 4x Silence, 3x Cabal Therapy, and a maindeck Tropical Island instead of the 3rd Chrome Mox. That way I could squeeze in 1x Massacre in the board

I only have one question about my play:

Round 3 vs. Shardless BUG

Game 1 - I didn't know he was running Shardless in Game 1, nothing except for a turn 3 DRS I think. T1 Thoughtseize slowed me down. He kept a greedy hand, though, so all I saw was cantrips. I went for Goblins to take the game.

Game 2 - T1 DRS, T2 Thoughtseize, then beat me down quick with 2 Goyfs and 2 DRS.

After Game 2 he talks to his friend about bad luck and how in that game he didn't draw his Hymns or Flusterstorms. And then we're on to...

Game 3 - EPIC PUNT BY ME - I THINK??. After mulliganing to 6, I'm on the play with:

Tropical Island
Gemstone Mine
Underground Sea
Dark Ritual
Silence
Brainstorm

He had a fairly confident keep; I want to see if I can win fast. I end step Brainstorm after he plays T1 DRS.

I see the top 3 cards are

Ad Nauseam
Ponder
<<some other blank, but not a mana source>>

But his comments got to my head. I am thinking about how I can win with Ad Nauseam, but I don't have enough mana to Silence AND Ad Nauseam same turn until I draw into another land. And that will take time.

So instead of being patient, I Silence on his turn and then go for Ritual-Ad Nauseam. Naturally, he had the Force, pitching Flusterstorm.

I was counting on him to have discard rather than countermagic - if he has Hymn I get wrecked, but I went for it and got punished. Ended up drawing because his deck was slow as hell, but the question stands:

Question (to confirm I punted): should I always wait in that situation, to draw another land to Silence-Ad Nauseam same turn? Or is there a case to be made for the bone-headed play I made?

Hey James,

thx for moving the topic from Twitter here in the board as I think such topics are worth reading for all TES pilots. This hand is awesome for a 6 against Shardless BUG. I'm sure the Problem here was playing the Brainstorm so early. I would have kept dropping lands and ship back the turns, using Brainstorm to protect your hand and draws from Hymn instead of trying to race Hymn but being cold to any FoW and Flusterstorm. 2 rounds of "draw, land, go" would have resulted in seeing 6-7 additional cards (Ponder looking at the 1 blank plus 2 fresh in addition to the shuffle 'n draw + 3 off Brainstorm all during your turn 3/4 + maybe a draw during turn 4). I'm sure that additional cards would have given you a way to play around 2 counterspells as well as doing a decent job protecting your kill.

Worst thing about your early cantrip could have been Brainstorm-locking yourself with him drawing Hymn hitting either the Ritual and/or the Silence

Thanks for bringing up the topic, my friend :)

[Bryant Cook]

Updated the opening post with my current deck list to reflect the recent resurgence of Reanimator (An awful match-up for us).

Note: this does not mean that I updated the entire opening post.

[Final Fortune]

Updated the opening post with my current deck list to reflect the recent resurgence of Reanimator (An awful match-up for us).

Note: this does not mean that I updated the entire opening post.

If you're playing dedicated hate vs Reanimator isn't Faerie Macabre just better than Surgical Extraction, or are you worried about the Ad Nauseam flips? Would something more multi-purpose like more Xanitd Swarms, Karakas or Bribery not work out better?

[Bryant Cook]

If you're playing dedicated hate vs Reanimator isn't Faerie Macabre just better than Surgical Extraction, or are you worried about the Ad Nauseam flips? Would something more multi-purpose like more Xanitd Swarms, Karakas or Bribery not work out better?

Why would Faerie Macbre be better? It's also not necessarily dedicated hate, in the match-up you could use it as protection to remove Force of Will after discarding one. Making a potential future Griselbrand much less effective, you're able to use to see if the coast is clear - a pseudo Gitaxian Probe. It's also multi-purpose and can come in for more match-ups such as Dredge (Where we have very little control), TES and ANT.

Karakas doesn't actually do anything against Reanimator and good luck resolving Bribery. If you could've cast Bribery and get it to resolve, you should've won anyway. The problem is getting to the point where you can cast large spells. Sure, Xantid does this, but it's sometimes too slow or not effective enough. You would still side in two bugs and now you'll also side in two Extraction. I found that siding in five cards (3 Xantid/2 Pyroblast) was difficult against Sneak and Show anyway. Reduced numbers to hit a wider range of decks. I'm fine with metagaming against Reanimator, it's one of our few problem match-ups.

[Final Fortune]

Why would Faerie Macbre be better? It's also not necessarily dedicated hate, in the match-up you could use it as protection to remove Force of Will after discarding one. Making a potential future Griselbrand much less effective, you're able to use to see if the coast is clear - a pseudo Gitaxian Probe. It's also multi-purpose and can come in for more match-ups such as Dredge (Where we have very little control), TES and ANT.

Karakas doesn't actually do anything against Reanimator and good luck resolving Bribery. If you could've cast Bribery and get it to resolve, you should've won anyway. The problem is getting to the point where you can cast large spells. Sure, Xantid does this, but it's sometimes too slow or not effective enough. You would still side in two bugs and now you'll also side in two Extraction. I found that siding in five cards (3 Xantid/2 Pyroblast) was difficult against Sneak and Show anyway. Reduced numbers to hit a wider range of decks. I'm fine with metagaming against Reanimator, it's one of our few problem match-ups.

Presumably because they can't counter it, in my experience it's probably the most effective hate card vs Reanimator at stopping them from going off. I'm sure Extraction has a couple of corner cases where it's more utilitarian, but I don't know whether or not that really makes up for being uncounterable.

[Jay_Gatz]

Bad beat for Royce on Sunday. Lost his win and in to a top decked sol land from Jack to give him the turn two painter kill and then missed top16

[Bryant Cook]

Presumably because they can't counter it, in my experience it's probably the most effective hate card vs Reanimator at stopping them from going off. I'm sure Extraction has a couple of corner cases where it's more utilitarian, but I don't know whether or not that really makes up for being uncounterable.

Aha, sure. It's uncounterable, it has one thing that Surgical doesn't have. Surgical is better in every single other way, but those are just corner cases. Surgical is extremely flexible and doesn't Lightning Bolt you off of Ad Nauseam.

[Lemnear]

Sent out final version of HotS Vol. 6 today ...