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

[Asthereal]

... but I feel like I have to state again that I do not want to troll or make funny of people which was the main charge in my tournament report. Cheers.

You are allowed to rephrase this remark in actual English.

[d0nkey]

Regarding:

2B: On the play // UWR Delver // postboard // mull to 6


LED, LED, Probe, Pyro, Misty, Mine

Keep.
Cast Gitaxian T1. If they have no FOW and i draw a Ponder or Brainstorm, i’m gonna cast the cantrip breaking both LEDs for BBBRRR. (unless their hand is truly bad)


How often does this work out for you? I'm looking at a 10 outer here with 53 cards remaining. Depending on what you see with ponder, I guess your odds of winning if you wait could be worse so maybe you just have to risk it for the biscuit here.

Also regarding:

4A: On the play // DNT // preboard // mull to 6
Wish, Brainstorm, Drit, Drit, Mine, Misty

Keep.
I think leading on misty and then brainstorm on their endstep is the best bet for playing around wasteland. Leading with mine optimizes your turn 2 cantrips but thats not aggressive enough to beat the lock i think. If i can’t make more than 10 goblins i’ll diminishing returns.

Leading with misty is nice here because it disguises our deck for a turn.

Diminishing returns won't work here without a lil help since you will need UU to cast it and 8 goblins is not going to be enough.

I am leaning towards not even brainstorming on endstep and taking one more draw and firing off brainstorm on my next main phase. I think we need to get lucky regardless so I want my brainstorm to count for storm. I might be wrong though.

[Tammit67]

Ari wrote an article on storm this week, it's interesting.

For those of you without premium, the article details why Ari thought storm was such a good choice when he was advocating it heavily (think year = 2010) and how decks nowadays each have had printings/metagame shifts to allow themselves better game against storm.

Ari's experiences have mirrored my own. Decks today rarely are devoid of the problematic cards and i haven't encountered a "bye" round in quite a while. TES's ability over AnT to react to hate and its speed make me feel that if there is a solution to the hate, ti is with the more diversified storm deck.

Bryant, in consideration to the points Ari addressed, do you feel Storm is in an awkward position currently? Particularly in postboard games? Do you and Royce go into events with TES with the expectation of 'having the best deck in the room', or with the expectation of 'having the best deck in the room for yourself'?

[Lemnear]

You have close to 1/3 of your deck as outs to find with Brainstorm.. Dunno if that qualifies as "being lucky". I fully disagree with giving D&T 2 full turns to draw into hatebears and Wastelands.

Edit:

Bryant, in consideration to the points Ari addressed, do you feel Storm is in an awkward position currently? Particularly in postboard games? Do you and Royce go into events with TES with the expectation of 'having the best deck in the room', or with the expectation of 'having the best deck in the room for yourself'?

First of all: Thx for giving a brief summary of the article. :)

[d0nkey]

You have close to 1/3 of your deck as outs to find with Brainstorm.. Dunno if that qualifies as "being lucky". I fully disagree with giving D&T 2 full turns to draw into hatebears and Wastelands.

I can only assume you were replying to me.

As it sits, we are making zero goblins.

We get 5 black, and one red mana.. not sure how we are going to even make goblins with a burning wish at that point without getting lucky and drawing one of 4 petals, 4 leds, 4 rite of flame, or mox + red card.

Am I missing something here?



Edit: I read on the twitter that you're writing an article on storm, where can people read that when you publish it?

[davelin]

I can only assume you were replying to me.

As it sits, we are making zero goblins.

We get 5 black, and one red mana.. not sure how we are going to even make goblins with a burning wish at that point without getting lucky and drawing one of 4 petals, 4 leds, 4 rite of flame, or mox + red card.

Am I missing something here?



Edit: I read on the twitter that you're writing an article on storm, where can people read that when you publish it?

A BS next mainphase has much less outs that the EOT one. Any of the cards you mentioned above is an out for EOT, for mainphase you now need a combination of Petal/Mox+Red card AND Rite of Flame or LED. Not worth it to see one more card and one more storm.

[Lemnear]

I can only assume you were replying to me.

As it sits, we are making zero goblins.

We get 5 black, and one red mana.. not sure how we are going to even make goblins with a burning wish at that point without getting lucky and drawing one of 4 petals, 4 leds, 4 rite of flame, or mox + red card.

Am I missing something here?



Edit: I read on the twitter that you're writing an article on storm, where can people read that when you publish it?

Yes, it was a reply to you :)

you need to hit a single RoF, Petal, LED, Ad Nauseam, EtW or Infernal (depends what you can out back) to potentially combo turn 2. chances to find at least one of those within 3 cards off the Brainstorm isn't that low.

The article in question (called it an "user manual feat. FAQ's") will be offered to the usual websites once finished (haven't written a word for 2 days). I'll keep you guys updated.

[Bryant Cook]

Bryant, in consideration to the points Ari addressed, do you feel Storm is in an awkward position currently? Particularly in postboard games? Do you and Royce go into events with TES with the expectation of 'having the best deck in the room', or with the expectation of 'having the best deck in the room for yourself'?

I haven't felt like TES was the best deck in the room since Shardless was at it's peak. TES crushed that deck! Currently, BUG Delver isn't favorable which is kind of an issue with it's popularity - I still think it's an incredibly strong choice. I plan on playing it Saturday in Binghamton, it's what I'm best with even if I haven't been playing it recently (I've been playing a variety of island-based decks in my locals - people started main decking Chalice of the Voids, Cannonists and Meddling Mages).

[Royce Walter]

I find solace in having the best sleeves and hat combo in the room.

In all serious, the decline of Thalia and Leyline of Sanctity, in addition with the rise of BUG Delver, make ANT a really strong choice right now. TES is still a good choice, and it's nice that any time you have a bad matchup, you can always just kill them on turn 1.

[Megadeus]

I always have TES as an option in case of a last minute audible at an SCG. I have confidence in the deck. It's more my own storm skill I'm worried about

[d0nkey]

I find solace in having the best sleeves and hat combo in the room.

In all serious, the decline of Thalia and Leyline of Sanctity, in addition with the rise of BUG Delver, make ANT a really strong choice right now. TES is still a good choice, and it's nice that any time you have a bad matchup, you can always just kill them on turn 1.

I play TES simply because I love how well it combos on turn 1 and 2. Large tournaments are soo much more fun when you get to spend 50 minutes between rounds doing other things besides grinding out matches.

[Tammit67]

I find solace in having the best sleeves and hat combo in the room.

In all serious, the decline of Thalia and Leyline of Sanctity, in addition with the rise of BUG Delver, make ANT a really strong choice right now. TES is still a good choice, and it's nice that any time you have a bad matchup, you can always just kill them on turn 1.

The hat is how I find you. I don't recall the sleeves.

Hope to see you guys Saturday

[Bryant Cook]

#teamstorm will be there. I still think TES is better right now than ANT.

[.Ix]

Re: metagame,

I'll be playing in a small 8-12 man tourney this Sunday, with a meta that has at least one of each of these decks: Burg delver (Eric Rill build), RUG delver, Miracles, Sneak and Show, Esper Blade, Dredge, Pox, and MUD. Is it a good idea to play TES in this meta? I have no matchup experience with MUD, Pox, and Esper Blade, but I know the rest of the decks can be hard matchups.

[Tammit67]

Re: metagame,

I'll be playing in a small 8-12 man tourney this Sunday, with a meta that has at least one of each of these decks: Burg delver (Eric Rill build), RUG delver, Miracles, Sneak and Show, Esper Blade, Dredge, Pox, and MUD. Is it a good idea to play TES in this meta? I have no matchup experience with MUD, Pox, and Esper Blade, but I know the rest of the decks can be hard matchups.

If you want to get better with the deck, you shouldn't avoid hard matchups. The only deck I cringe at there is sneak and show, the rest are whatever.

[tadiou]

#teamstorm will be there. I still think TES is better right now than ANT.

Are there #teamstorm t-shirts? Or commemorative hats?

[.Ix]

It's not that I'm afraid of bad matchups. I just want a good chance at winning because it's been a while since we had any Legacy around here. I've won twice with TES some time ago so it's possible that they'll be expecting it. I have had a hard time with Miracles so far, but I suppose I just need more practice in the matchup.

[wonderPreaux]

Hi again everyone.

I've been playing more and more TES, and I've been having a good time of it. I seem to alternate between 3-1s and 0-2-drops on dailies, so I feel like sometimes things are clicking, and sometimes my lack of knowledge or skill is coinciding with some bad beats and keeping me down. I think I'll just keep grinding away at it to improve, but I'd like to borrow a bit of the thread's experience for some sticking points that have come up for me:

1) BUG decks
I'm not really sure how to approach these matchups. Discard, Deathrite and a smattering of swarm answers and/or taxing counters seem like irksome threats. Moreover, there's such a wide variety of techs and directions for the deck's configuration that the only thing you could really glean is if they're a faster build by seeing delver or not. Even then its a guessing game of whether they have golgari charm, pernicious deed, extraction, clique or even something like null rod. To make matters worse, nothing in the SB from me really stands out. Pyroblast ranges from "meh" to "bad" depending on the speed of the variant, Abrupt Decay/Chain of Vapor feels lackluster against them, xantid swarm is a joke, etc. I'm just wondering how people are handling these sorts of decks.

2) Hatebears/permanents
Last night on stream i ran into a shit-storm (heh) of chalices, teegs, thalias, and the like. Between a lack of sleep and an increasing amount of tilt, I was pretty frustrated by the end of the night. But what really stuck out to me was the lackluster performance of Abrupt Decay. I know I need answers to Chalice, and I know getting hatebears off the table is probably better than hoping my discard would coincide with them having a lone hatebear to start, but it just feels awkward having to board out an extra card to for the Trop, and then having this (relatively) expensive card that i can even get color-screwed off of. I'm thinking against Chalice I can't skip decay, but for midrange hatebear sorts of things just boarding in Chains (I run 2) and a Thoughtseize and just trying to maintain as much speed as possible might be a better line. What's everyone else's experience with Decay?

3) Burning Wish, the Sideboard and Tendrils
This is a little something I could use some insight on. I know the sideboarding guide suggests boarding out Infernal Tutor and Ponder, which makes them Burning Wish targets. For Tutor though, would I be correct in only doing that in control matchups, to open the Wish > Tutor > Ad Nauseam line, and then keeping the Tutor in the main for midrange/tempo to increase the probability of comboing off ASAP? I'm not really sure as the common theme seems to just be boarding out Tutor against Blue decks regardless of speed. The other dimension of sideboard is the Tendrils coming into the main to replace EtW in control, and to ward against Extraction on wish. I'm unsure how wary of Extraction I should be, and if there are any other reason to have "natural" Tendrils in (the guide recommends it against Miracles, for instance), does anyone have any insights on this for various matchups?

[sawatarix]

Well the article does not mean that storm is a weak deck or anything like that currently.

It's still super-broken and one of the most powerful decks in the entire format but now there are way more ways to deal with storm (compared to 2010)



- Team RUG-STAR Berlin -

[Lemnear]

Hi again everyone.

I've been playing more and more TES, and I've been having a good time of it. I seem to alternate between 3-1s and 0-2-drops on dailies, so I feel like sometimes things are clicking, and sometimes my lack of knowledge or skill is coinciding with some bad beats and keeping me down. I think I'll just keep grinding away at it to improve, but I'd like to borrow a bit of the thread's experience for some sticking points that have come up for me:

1) BUG decks
I'm not really sure how to approach these matchups. Discard, Deathrite and a smattering of swarm answers and/or taxing counters seem like irksome threats. Moreover, there's such a wide variety of techs and directions for the deck's configuration that the only thing you could really glean is if they're a faster build by seeing delver or not. Even then its a guessing game of whether they have golgari charm, pernicious deed, extraction, clique or even something like null rod. To make matters worse, nothing in the SB from me really stands out. Pyroblast ranges from "meh" to "bad" depending on the speed of the variant, Abrupt Decay/Chain of Vapor feels lackluster against them, xantid swarm is a joke, etc. I'm just wondering how people are handling these sorts of decks.

this is not a matchup where you want to be reactive. Mind that there are FoW, Daze and Hymn in the Tempo variants (control variants should not be a big Problem overall) with additional discard might coming from the side. Hymn is your biggest Problem here, so you want to board out "slow" cards like Ponder for the Tropical (and possibly the SB discard) to gain stability. Key is to lessen the impact of discard by dropping your mana on the field and floating Business on top of your library. BS in response to discard can save you. Though matchup regardless

2) Hatebears/permanents
Last night on stream i ran into a shit-storm (heh) of chalices, teegs, thalias, and the like. Between a lack of sleep and an increasing amount of tilt, I was pretty frustrated by the end of the night. But what really stuck out to me was the lackluster performance of Abrupt Decay. I know I need answers to Chalice, and I know getting hatebears off the table is probably better than hoping my discard would coincide with them having a lone hatebear to start, but it just feels awkward having to board out an extra card to for the Trop, and then having this (relatively) expensive card that i can even get color-screwed off of. I'm thinking against Chalice I can't skip decay, but for midrange hatebear sorts of things just boarding in Chains (I run 2) and a Thoughtseize and just trying to maintain as much speed as possible might be a better line. What's everyone else's experience with Decay?

Boarding Decays against decks like D&T with all their Thalia, Wastelands and Ports is doomed to fail and I highlighted that dozens of times through the thread after I did the same mistake more than a year ago and got slapped. It's fine to board in Tropical and CoV against hatebears, but the Key to win is to combo before they drop a hatebear. We even had this headlined in the "how to play these hands" on the previous pages. Just take a 7 (or a 6) that can get some Goblins or Ad Nauseam going before their turn 2 and you're fine.

3) Burning Wish, the Sideboard and Tendrils
This is a little something I could use some insight on. I know the sideboarding guide suggests boarding out Infernal Tutor and Ponder, which makes them Burning Wish targets. For Tutor though, would I be correct in only doing that in control matchups, to open the Wish > Tutor > Ad Nauseam line, and then keeping the Tutor in the main for midrange/tempo to increase the probability of comboing off ASAP? I'm not really sure as the common theme seems to just be boarding out Tutor against Blue decks regardless of speed. The other dimension of sideboard is the Tendrils coming into the main to replace EtW in control, and to ward against Extraction on wish. I'm unsure how wary of Extraction I should be, and if there are any other reason to have "natural" Tendrils in (the guide recommends it against Miracles, for instance), does anyone have any insights on this for various matchups?

Infernals are usually a redundant card in matchups which will last longer like against control or against decks which will you cut off from effective Ad Nauseams (aka early turns + enough life) like some forms of tempo. It's perfectly fine to keep the Infernals in for midrange blue decks if you ask me unless you desperately look for boarding slots.

Boarding the ToA for EtW usually comes in hand with the boarding of Infernal against control decks which are able to clear the board from Goblins like BUG control with Deed. You want a MB wincon in case Wish gets extracted and if they Extract your Infernal you can still use a Wish to chain into Infernal (SB) for the MD ToA.