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

[Asthereal]

I'm not seeing how this deck is better than ANT variants right now. The metagame seems very hostile towards it. At what point does stubbornness kick in as a reason people play this deck over other combo decks? It seems to have a rabid cult following of people who Japanese foil it out and whatnot, and that can't be helpful in being open-minded to changes.

I'm not trying to make anyone angry btw, just trying to start an open and honest discussion.

Actually, for once the ANT lovers may have a point. Maverick has been out of favour for a while, and Death&Taxes is also going down. People seem to play Team America, Patriot, Miracles, Death Blade and Jund as their favourites right now. In a meta like that, a well tuned ANT might be a tad stronger than TES. TES has an edge over ANT because of its speed, which is nice against Hymn and hate bears. But the hate bears seem to have left the building. And Hymn can still hit all the wrong cards. Next to the fact that none of the popular decks right now have a really fast clock unless they manage to flip their turn one Delver, which should be pretty rare with 40% spell count.

Let's not forget that ANT has evolved too. They have an Empty the Warrens now, and they are nowhere near as graveyard dependant as some here make them out to be. The strongest thing about ANT is that it's good at winning with a natural spell chain.

(Side note: I am a fan of TES over ANT any day. I'm just trying to analyse the meta here. )

[HammerAndSickled]

If Hymn is a relevant concern TES will always be stronger, since it can just win before Hymn is active. In any event, with the convergent evolutions of these decks eventually we'll just be calling them variations of one deck instead of distinct archetypes. In the last two years ANT has splashed red for PiF and later green for Decay, both decks are moving more towards Empty, TES is now occasionally playing discard over Chant effects, so the differences become more and more blurred. Now it's really just BW/RoF versus better mana and Cabal Rit, and is that enough to separate archetypes?

[Royce Walter]

If Hymn is a relevant concern TES will always be stronger, since it can just win before Hymn is active.

That's not necessarily the case, as the primary Hymn deck at the moment is more well suited to stopping you from going off in the first two turns than Jund or Shardless ever was.

[Patrunkenphat7]

The metagame is hostile to storm in general and a reason the manabase and protection suit changed. You asked for open-minded changes ... and missed them happening.

I didn't miss anything. You added 1 black land to the main?? It doesn't matter if you add 2 discard spells, the deck still operates like a better Belcher deck which I don't feel like the format is friendly towards right now.

I would also disagree that the format is hostile towards ANT. I continue to put up solid results with it, and I actively enjoy playing against Delver of Secrets.

[davelin]

I didn't miss anything. You added 1 black land to the main?? It doesn't matter if you add 2 discard spells, the deck still operates like a better Belcher deck which I don't feel like the format is friendly towards right now.

I would also disagree that the format is hostile towards ANT. I continue to put up solid results with it, and I actively enjoy playing against Delver of Secrets.

That's your right if you feel that way, folks have been putting up decent results with TES as well. Sometimes just comes down to playstyle and preference.

[Patrunkenphat7]

That's your right if you feel that way, folks have been putting up decent results with TES as well. Sometimes just comes down to playstyle and preference.

Both decks are good in different ways; I think it's more than playstyle and preference. I'd honestly play whichever is better. I just despise playing against Delver of Secrets and Wasteland with TES, whereas you don't really care about those cards with ANT.

[davelin]

Both decks are good in different ways; I think it's more than playstyle and preference. I'd honestly play whichever is better. I just despise playing against Delver of Secrets and Wasteland with TES, whereas you don't really care about those cards with ANT.

Sure and TES doesn't care about RiP or Cage which is seeing a lot more play. In the combo mirror, TES's speed gives a slight edge. At the end we're talking about single-digit percentage points either way in terms of win expectation, an expert in either deck can expect over a long enough sample to have a winning record. Again I think comfortability and preference is going to be the largest factor in deciding which variant to play.

[Final Fortune]

Either deck is fine, but I think TES is better than ANT in a meta where decks will resolve permanent based hate, Death&Taxes aside, Vendilion Clique, Meddling Mage, Counterbalance and Ethersworn Canonist are all more problematic for ANT than they are for TES because ANT can't really race them.

I don't think ANT and TES are converging at all, they have different mana bases and different fundamental turns and that's more than enough of a distinction between tthe two decks. Labeling TES as a better Belcher decks just seems ... well odd, it may be more aggressive than ANT but that hardly makes it an "all in" on T1 combo deck.

I actually thought ANT was better than TES when RUG was on top, it's kind of strange to me people think it's the other way around now that it isn't.

[Lemnear]

The decks are twins tuned for different metagames, so saying TES gets destroyed by Team America but you are actually ENJOYING to play against Fastclock+Hymn+FoW is strange. I can only speak for myself but I'm not interrested getting hit by the Splash damage ANT gets hit by with Reanimator and Miracles being the prime combo and control decks in the format. Sure, Being faster than Hymn, Hatebear, Counterbalance, SFM at times comes at a price of being less suited in longer games due to AN being worthless after a significant lifeloss and/or because RoF has not the raw Power of Cabal Ritual. While i agree that ANT can ignore fast Delver Attacks I'm not convinced that CR is the hot sauce in times when Hymn and Thoughtseize are more common than Spell Pierces.

Overall, I have a lack of understanding of starting an "open-minded" discussion by calling players a cult of change-unwilling guys which refuse to adapt because they have jap. foiled their decks. I expect bringing up a few points on how the recent metagame favors ANT instead of something I can interpret as an insult. But it's clear that bold statements like "ANT doesn't care for Hymn+FoW" are flashier than saying "guys, I think that not being dependant on life is more important in the current meta with barely a half of the decks being Delver.dec than sometimes losing to a combination of hate like FoW+Meddling Mage or RIP+Counterbalance"

[Bryant Cook]

New city of brass, but better: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/jo...ana-confluence

[Lemnear]

New city of brass, but better: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/jo...ana-confluence

Why can't these things have basic land types...

[workingdude]

New city of brass, but better: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/jo...ana-confluence

Haven't pulled this deck out in more than a year, but this is a nice upgrade. Cant think of any situations where city of brass would be better in this deck because none of the win condition cards are instants. Am I missing anything?

[JPoJohnson]

Why can't these things have basic land types...

Yeah, that wouldn't be a four of in almost every deck ever

I'm liking it. It has only happened a few times, but being ported is rather annoying when you have a City of Brass and playing the long game. Plus I'm going to like having this in against Pox or anything with Urborg.

[Final Fortune]

So Rishadan Port can't ping us any more and we could play an all gold land mana base now, doesn't really seem that exciting for us all things considered but is there any deck in the format that wants 8 City of Brass like a Stax variant or something? At least it's a Legacy playable card out of Nyx, kind of annoyed they just printed a better City of Brass over a variant like a gold land that gave you poison counters instead because that could replace Gemstone Mine but oh well I guess.

Probably a blessing for players who want to run a variant of this deck on a budget.

[Lemnear]

Haven't pulled this deck out in more than a year, but this is a nice upgrade. Cant think of any situations where city of brass would be better in this deck because none of the win condition cards are instants. Am I missing anything?

You may missed that we cutted Cities xP
This is strickly better due to dodging Rishadan Port, Tangle Wire and stuff like frozen aether.

@financial aspect:
I can see this one skyrocketing soon due to the panicing market atm ... slightly better or alternate Version of X = $$$. This is the Chain Lightning of Rainbow Lands

Edit: i'm still dreaming of a fetchable Gemstone mine *sigh*

[HammerAndSickled]

As a lands player I'm going to miss killing people with Rishadan Port...

[Togores]

I was going to post about the city, but Bryant was faster.

Its a better card vs Tangle wire, Rishadan, Fire Ice and City in a bottle (YES city in a bottle when I play vintage dredge a friend uses play City to turn of Bazar and City)

Now City is only better in decks with Bolt where You can kill your opponent in response of the life loss trigger.

[akmalik]

Now City is only better in decks with Bolt where You can kill your opponent in response of the life loss trigger.

City have a triggered ability like Tendrils. But, yeah, I think Rishadan Port is more relevant than casting Tendrils on one life with mana from City.

[bennotsi]

City have a triggered ability like Tendrils. But, yeah, I think Rishadan Port is more relevant than casting Tendrils on one life with mana from City.

You can't cast sorceries if there's still a trigger on the stack.

[Lejay]

You can't cast sorceries if there's still a trigger on the stack.

Unless I miss something you cast the spell(ToA/Grapeshot), give the target, pay costs by tapping city of brass and both triggers (Damage and storm) go on the stack in the order you choose. You just have to be lethal without the original spell.