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

[Bryant Cook]

Hand: Ponder, Underground Sea, Polluted Delta, Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond, Dark Ritual and Rite of Flame.

Would I keep this hand? Yes.

How to play: Your Ponder here would ideally find disruption AND a Tutor effect, but it has all the mana you need. Risk versus reward.

^^For this hand I have a couple questions. If you find just a tutor and two duals, are you just going to go for it? If you find discard and a cantrip I assume you cast discard offensively or defensively based on the second cantrip?

Yes. I would probably hold the discard spell (depending on the match-up) until I found business.

[Lemnear]

Hand: Ponder, Underground Sea, Polluted Delta, Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond, Dark Ritual and Rite of Flame.

Would I keep this hand? Yes.

How to play: Your Ponder here would ideally find disruption AND a Tutor effect, but it has all the mana you need. Risk versus reward.

^^For this hand I have a couple questions. If you find just a tutor and two duals, are you just going to go for it? If you find discard and a cantrip I assume you cast discard offensively or defensively based on the second cantrip?

I strongly disagree with the idea to use Ponder for finding TWO cards and I made this clear in the TES FB group. With this hand you're either pushing all-in by going for a Tutor with a turn 1 Ponder or, if you know that you are playing against a counter in hand (game 2 or 3), you slowroll with your Ponder till you find more business and/or protection naturally so you know what to look for with the Ponder

[Reagens]

It's not, especially against Omnitell. If I had room for 12 discard spells in that match-up, I'd run them all.

Let last night I came up with this sideboard (Bayou is in the MD over the 4th Bloodstained Mire):

3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Dread of Night
2 Thoughtseize
1 Void Snare
1 Pyroclasm
1 Past in Flames
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Dark Petition

Two sweepers felt redundant, Dread is really good against D&T now due to Vryn Wingmare being another X/1. I wanted two Thoughtseize so I could swap them in for match-ups where Duress is bad. I like how this one looks much more.

Since chalice game 1 is a thing I wondered if you considered meltdown in the sideboard. It hits quite a few things apart from chalice (canonist comes to mind) and has the nice variable casting cost/sweeping thing.
My only concern is that it might be too clunky to be really useful.

[Bryant Cook]

Since chalice game 1 is a thing I wondered if you considered meltdown in the sideboard. It hits quite a few things apart from chalice (canonist comes to mind) and has the nice variable casting cost/sweeping thing.
My only concern is that it might be too clunky to be really useful.

It's not really a thing. Cannonist is answered by Void Snare/Pyroclasm/Massacre. If you happpen to see a Chalice on game one, accept your loss or try to make Goblins through it and then shuffle up for game two. It's not something common enough to warrant sideboard space.

[thefringthing]

It's not really a thing.

Maybe the Southern Ontario metagame is just really weird, but I see more game one Chalice decks than Death & Taxes by far.

[Bryant Cook]

Maybe the Southern Ontario metagame is just really weird, but I see more game one Chalice decks than Death & Taxes by far.

I build my lists for large events, not local metagames.

[thefringthing]

I build my lists for large events, not local metagames.

GP Lille T16 + SCG DC T16: 6% Death & Taxes, 6% Aggro Loam (usually plays Chalice main)
SCG DC Day 2: 5% Death & Taxes, 4% MUD (plays Chalice main)
MTGGoldFish has Merfolk (often plays Chalice main nowadays) and MUD listed ahead of Death & Taxes. (Not sure where their stats come from; looks like mostly MTGO plus some smaller events.)

It seems to me that maindeck Chalice is at least neck and neck with Death & Taxes, and plausibly more common anywhere that both MUD and Aggro Loam people show up.

[Lemnear]

GP Lille T16 + SCG DC T16: 6% Death & Taxes, 6% Aggro Loam (usually plays Chalice main)
SCG DC Day 2: 5% Death & Taxes, 4% MUD (plays Chalice main)
MTGGoldFish has Merfolk (often plays Chalice main nowadays) and MUD listed ahead of Death & Taxes. (Not sure where their stats come from; looks like mostly MTGO plus some smaller events.)

It seems to me that maindeck Chalice is at least neck and neck with Death & Taxes, and plausibly more common anywhere that both MUD and Aggro Loam people show up.

This also appeared in my metagame analysis made this week. The upcoming article will adress the matter, but I have some issues at work which delayed it

[Asthereal]

I strongly disagree with the idea to use Ponder for finding TWO cards and I made this clear in the TES FB group. With this hand you're either pushing all-in by going for a Tutor with a turn 1 Ponder or, if you know that you are playing against a counter in hand (game 2 or 3), you slowroll with your Ponder till you find more business and/or protection naturally so you know what to look for with the Ponder

What would you suggest?

T1. Delta, go.
T2. See what you draw, then play Sea into Ponder, proceed from there?

[Bryant Cook]

GP Lille T16 + SCG DC T16: 6% Death & Taxes, 6% Aggro Loam (usually plays Chalice main)
SCG DC Day 2: 5% Death & Taxes, 4% MUD (plays Chalice main)
MTGGoldFish has Merfolk (often plays Chalice main nowadays) and MUD listed ahead of Death & Taxes. (Not sure where their stats come from; looks like mostly MTGO plus some smaller events.)

It seems to me that maindeck Chalice is at least neck and neck with Death & Taxes, and plausibly more common anywhere that both MUD and Aggro Loam people show up.

Are you suggesting we change our deck for 6% of the metagame? Seems ridiculous. Win the die roll or have the opposite accelerants that Chalice is shutting off before making Goblins, if neither is an option, shuffle up for game two. You can't beat everything game one, for instance, ANT can't beat a MD Gaddock Teeg. Get over it and concentrate on the next two.

[thefringthing]

Are you suggesting we change our deck for 6% of the metagame?

Isn't that exactly what running two Dread of Night in the sideboard is?

[Bryant Cook]

Isn't that exactly what running two Dread of Night in the sideboard is?

Look at top 8 results, do you see Chalice decks in there? Because I don't. If you took pure numbers of Death & Taxes players that enter a room compared to MUD players, I would be shocked if they were even. Death & Taxes is more likely to top 8 an event, which is why I'm more prepared for it. If you would like to run something else there for your metagame, be my guest, but I don't think running Meltdown, Shattering Spree or Pulverize is going to honestly help you there at all.

[Lemnear]

What would you suggest?

T1. Delta, go.
T2. See what you draw, then play Sea into Ponder, proceed from there?

More like: "delta, go" and just see IF you need protection at all (which is not the case if your opponents opens with Forest->NettleSentinel or Plains->Vial) and IF you draw into Protection/Tutor/AN/EtW naturally without exposing yourself to wasteland

[Final Fortune]

Even if you play Meltdown it's incredibly slow, you have to cast it for 2 mana at which point you've passed two turns without the opponent destroying your Volcanic Island. I wouldn't even play Massacre unless it was free, and Void Snare gets boarded in more often than not.

As an aside, I haven't been that impressed by SBing in 2 Thoughtseize, I think the 1 Pyroblast is better just for Meddling Mage.

[LDX]

I share the pain of fighting Calice of the Void and Ethersworn Canonist all the time.

You're not left with many options. I tried Shattering Spree, the card itself doesn't do enough, thought about Echoing Truth to clear the Chalice @1 & @0 lock, against which you simply can't win the game except with a G0 Tendrils, because they will clear your Goblins anyway. Couldn't set my mind on Meltdown.

Some people here had some trouble understanding how it's impossible to win against this hard hate without a non-1cmc card. Void Snare, Chain of Vapor, nothing goes pass Chalice of the Void. I totally understand why you would choose a very slow option that at least gives you an otherwise absent chance at winning. Others will say you should win before Chalice is played, or that the decks you play against are just unfair and ''not real meta decks''. Like we could choose our opening hand to always go by turn 0, or what we play against.

However, after wasting way too much of my time thinking about these artifacts, I ended picking up some wisdom found here and the Facebook page: just accept your loss and move on. Win the other matches. If 100% of the decks you face have Chalice of the Void, play something else.

The sideboard cards won't change that much, really. Your chances will go from 0% to like, at best, 30%, because even without Canonist or Chalice, you still have Thalia, Gaddock, etc. It's a huge boost, but it's not enough. Focus on the other decks you struggle with and turn a 40% win ratio into a 60% one if you can, that is much more worth your time.

P.S. I still have a place for a Shattering Spree singleton, but even then, I wouldn't know if it's really worth.

[Final Fortune]

It's also a question of old vs new, as TES decreases the number of Chrome Mox and changes the storm engines it becomes more vulnerable to prison archetypes, so in small meta games where low entry cost decks are popular you need to look at the older, faster versions of the deck because that speed is what gave TES the edge in those match ups (3 Chrome Mox, Diminishing Returns etc). The other option is to think about how you can change the strategy of your deck thru' SBing, something as simple as SBing in 2 more Empty the Warrens can attack these decks from an angle they're not prepared to deal with.

You don't want to get into the "answer the problem" mentality with Storm, but the "avoid the problem" mentality.

[Lemnear]

It's also a question of old vs new, as TES decreases the number of Chrome Mox and changes the storm engines it becomes more vulnerable to prison archetypes, so in small meta games where low entry cost decks are popular you need to look at the older, faster versions of the deck because that speed is what gave TES the edge in those match ups (3 Chrome Mox, Diminishing Returns etc). The other option is to think about how you can change the strategy of your deck thru' SBing, something as simple as SBing in 2 more Empty the Warrens can attack these decks from an angle they're not prepared to deal with.

You don't want to get into the "answer the problem" mentality with Storm, but the "avoid the problem" mentality.

DimRet is no option if you give your opponent a turn. I really like the additional EtWs though. Pretty solid against Miracles and Tempo for going the low Investment dumb aggro Route

[Bryant Cook]

Live: http://www.theepicstorm.com/twitch-tv/

[Bryant Cook]

TES Mailbox is back: http://www.theepicstorm.com/tes-mailbox-4/

[bjholmes3]

Good read. I can't believe people are so pissy they complain about you seeking help to replace a signed card. That's like if Mozart visited Beethoven and busted his deaf-man's piano up, Beethoven asks for a replacement, Mozart replies "Schadenfreude, sucker!" then prances away, all the while people complaining because Beethoven should be happy with a regular piano.

Just a heads up, just before the fuckwad quote you want its rather than it's.

You really do a great job, I would probably argue that TES has the most accessible and up to date information of any other deck in Legacy.

EDIT: metaphor adjusted because I learned more of what happened