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

[Final Fortune]

Isnt Sudden Demise just a terrible Massacre? More expensive vs Thalia, just as useless vs Teeg, damage can be protected with Mother and in a less stable color?

[zangoasyl]

Isnt Sudden Demise just a terrible Massacre? More expensive vs Thalia, just as useless vs Teeg, damage can be protected with Mother and in a less stable color?

I second that.

But if you're set on an x-cmc sweeper better look for something else as you cannot kill Revoker with sudden demise!

[Ebonclaw]

Oh hey, you're right, I shoulda caught that. Guess Subterranean Tremors is the preferred card.

Here's my logic:

I'm running 4x Therapy, and 3x Duress MB. In G2, in addition to any other swaps, I'll be dropping Duress for Thoughtseize, but I don't want to push Thoughtseize to 3 in the board- takes up too much space- and Duress is obviously not as good as Thoughseize is against D&T. This leaves me with one Duress that can probably be something better. Abrupt Decay does not help, nor does Grapeshot, obviously. I COULD board in the Massacre, but I then lose the ability to preemptively wish for it if I realize I'm going to need it, and it obviously does me no good after prelate resolves, whether it is set to 4 or 2. plus, if I'm able to execute my plan of going off on T1 or 2, Ad Nauseum is probably the engine I'm using and flipping massacre off of it sucks.
However, if I board in tremors, I don't care if I hit it off of Ad Nauseum any more than Duress. I still have access to preemptively wish for Massacre if I want, and I now have a maindeck answer to a resolved Prelate. Putting Massacre into the deck in order to beat Prelate is a bad move, you're putting it in as a maindeck answer to a resolved prelate since it can't be wished for, but in return, you're losing the ability to access it via Wish preemptively. If it's in the wishboard though, you have no out to a resolved prelate, so it does you no good there either. The issue with Massacre is that in G2, it's not an answer to a resolved Prelate if it's in the 75, it's painful if you're actually successful in implementing your gameplan of going off fast, so it's not great in the 60 either.
Which one would I rather have in my opening hand? Massacre. Which one would I rather have somewhere in the other 53? Tremors. Which one would I rather have in the wishboard before Prelate hits? Massacre.
But I still want a maindeck answer to a resolved Prelate, I just don't want to maindeck Massacre to get it.
Remaining options are pretty much Chain of Vapor, maybe mainboard the void snare- less mana intensive, but only temporary solutions, and they can also only solve one problem at a time. Tremors could solve your Prelate problem, you stoneforge problem, and your Revoker problem in one shot, forever. We're presuming you're taking the Thalia effects out with the discard, right?
On Mom and Teeg: Only a mainboard massacre (which has its own problems) or a preemptively wished for Massacre will beat a T1 Mom. Massacre doesn't beat Teeg anyway. Anything you pick is gonna either be 2 mana and not beat prelate, or not beat teeg, or not beat mom. There is no "perfect" answer at this time unless you want to go T1 Rite of flame, Rite of Flame, Aether Flash.

[Lemnear]

Whoa! Are we now cracting scenarios where the number of lands in general and Wasteland/Port in particular don't have any relevance in you casting your 4cmc sorcery speed removal and Mother of Runes giving Prelate pro-red is ruled out per definition? You are hopefully aware that D&T can play around Massacre in several ways?

[Ebonclaw]

Tremors to kill Prelate is 3CMC, no worse than Wipe Away. Sorcery speed sucks, yes, but at least allows Burning Wish to grab it in other cases where you wouldn't grab Massacre (mirror, Elves). A little niche, sure, but not completely implausible. If Prelate has landed on T3, it means that they haven't been wastelanding and they can't Port the same turn they stick it unless Aether Vial is factored in, in which case they'd probably wait for you to start your combo and THEN suddenly vial it in when you're about to cast your tutor/wish and you're boned anyway.
If prelate is landing after T3, and you've been getting wastelanded and ported, you're probably boned anyway and Massacre is probably not enough to save you even if you did happen to draw it- you're certainly not wishing for it, and you haven't gone off yet.

As far as Mom/Prelate goes, Tremors is no worse than the instant speed CoV in this scenario. Unless you mainboarded Massacre (and drew it), you're kind of screwed, and as you mentioned, D&T can play around Massacre anyway. If you're in a position where there's a Mom, a Prelate on 2, and your lands have been getting ported/wastelanded, and D&T has enough resources/heat remaining to play around Massacre, I don't know what to tell you other than to go to the next game, Tremors, CoV, Massacre, or whatever you're packing.

The argument I'm making is that if you have to answer prelate, your gameplan of going off before the hate hits has failed. It doesn't mean you've rolled over and died, if you did you kept a shitty hand to begin with, but if you didn't keep a combo heavy hand, then we can at least presume you kept a hand with most of the pieces and some disruption, and what you took with that depends on what's happening on the D&T end. If you kept a hand with no disruption, that didn't do anything, why did you keep it to begin with?

It is more likely that your Massacre/CoV/Tremors is in your 53, than it is in your opening 7. If you happen to find it in your opener, or via a brainstorm, great, Massacre is better when you beat the odds and have it in your hand. But when you're not beating the odds the rest of the time, I'd rather be trying to go off with Tremors in my deck and not Massacre. No, sometimes you're not going to beat Prelate/Mom and you might lose where Massacre might have won, but for the games where Massacre was going to matter and Tremors wasn't good enough, I expect you'll find more games where Massacre made Ad Nauseum fail, where you didn't have tremors but you did have a Burning Wish that didn't have a massacre to grab, even though you knew Prelate is coming next turn, where it didn't matter whether you had either, you were just going to lose anyway, or where, as it turns out, Tremors was good enough and did its job.

The only reason I see Wipe Away (in this particular matchup) being good is its instant speed removal. If Prelate is the only threat, and you can go off next turn, great, Wipe Away is good there.
Massacre mainboard hurts too much off of Ad nauseum, and putting it MB removes preemptive access via Burning Wish. Can D&T play around that move? Sure, but at least make them have to do so if you're not going off anyway. Maybe their dance around Massacre will give you enough time to find what you're missing, maybe not, but it's there at least.

CoV again only solves the problem as long as the only problem is Prelate. It's cheap, it does the job, and I'm not saying not to play it in the 15. It's a fine option and it trumps in the scenario where you've been getting wastelanded/ported, and prelate is your only problem. But it's probably not your only problem, and that match is probably a lost cause anyway unless you happened to mainboard Massacre, which leaves you with the problems noted above- when your plan is to go off on t1 or 2 and not play the grind, having excessive 4cc spells in the deck is not a great idea.

We can dream up cases all day long and various scenarios where any given solution is better than another, but in the case of needing to answer a resolved prelate, I think you can make as good a case for Tremors as anything else. The best alternative is CoV, which is more versatile than tremors, but isn't as good when multiple threats need answering. I am perfectly ok with blowing a Petal so I can cast Tremors on T3 and take out a Prelate and a Thalia.

[Lemnear]

I think we are getting off track here. Just let me get down to the core here of why bothering with Tremor, if you can use DreadOfNight or Disfigure in combination with Therapy/Thoughtseize to strip/destroy all their hatebears? If the application against decks like Elves isn't your argument, I don't see why Tremors are any more appealing than opening with Swamp + Dread/Thoughtseize

[Final Fortune]

Any red sweeper is terrible, 3 is a lot of mana to begin with, but what makes it even worse is that your red mana source is vulnerable to Wasteland and/or Rishadan Port where Massacre can always count on Swamp being in play and it doesn't even need to tap it.

Generally you keep Massacre in the SB for D&T and either Grape Shot or Void Snare in the SB for Gaddok Teeg, and I think Grape Shot has lost a lot of value as a card due to Prelate which is why I was looking at Deathmark as a combination answer to Gaddok Teeg and 1cc removal vs Sanctum Prelate. I just think Abrupt Decay is probably enough to deal with random hate like 4 MD Chalice of the Void and 3 SB Thorn of Amethyst, so the bounce can just go back to Chain of Vapour as a catch all or Disfigure as a bear killer.

I still think we have a really good game vs D&T regardless of Sanctum Prelate just because we go off before T3 (ideally) but those situations where you have to get Thalia off the board and then get caught up via Waste/Port on your removal mana is a sure fire way to throw a match. I mean most people wont even consider Meltdown in the SB for Eldrazi just because it's so slow and leaves you open to Wasteland, and a lot of Eldrazi lists don't even play Wasteland so taking that risk vs D&T seems really nuts.

Personally I wont even blink to put like 3 Disfigure in the SB if Prelate catches on in D&T and Maverick just because being able to sit on Swamp is so strong.

[Lemnear]

Any red sweeper is terrible, 3 is a lot of mana to begin with, but what makes it even worse is that your red mana source is vulnerable to Wasteland and/or Rishadan Port where Massacre can always count on Swamp being in play and it doesn't even need to tap it.

Generally you keep Massacre in the SB for D&T and either Grape Shot or Void Snare in the SB for Gaddok Teeg, and I think Grape Shot has lost a lot of value as a card due to Prelate which is why I was looking at Deathmark as a combination answer to Gaddok Teeg and 1cc removal vs Sanctum Prelate. I just think Abrupt Decay is probably enough to deal with random hate like 4 MD Chalice of the Void and 3 SB Thorn of Amethyst, so the bounce can just go back to Chain of Vapour as a catch all or Disfigure as a bear killer.

I still think we have a really good game vs D&T regardless of Sanctum Prelate just because we go off before T3 (ideally) but those situations where you have to get Thalia off the board and then get caught up via Waste/Port on your removal mana is a sure fire way to throw a match. I mean most people wont even consider Meltdown in the SB for Eldrazi just because it's so slow and leaves you open to Wasteland, and a lot of Eldrazi lists don't even play Wasteland so taking that risk vs D&T seems really nuts.

Personally I wont even blink to put like 3 Disfigure in the SB if Prelate catches on in D&T and Maverick just because being able to sit on Swamp is so strong.

I think we can expect a generic rise of white hatebears aside the actual numbers of Prelate simply because RecruiterOfTheGuards also joining the Legacy madness. If Prelate is more a secondary option for these decks or a tutor target, I think that (if we SB removal in the first place to begin with) you can get away with dropping Dread and kill everything but Revoker, SFM and Prelate

[Final Fortune]

I have never liked Dread of Night as opposed to Disfigure because not hitting Revoker or Canonist was often a game loss in ANT, and I think with Prelate you can't afford that liability. I'm pretty sure we will see 4x Prelate deck, especially in Maverick with acceleration.

[Lemnear]

I have never liked Dread of Night as opposed to Disfigure because not hitting Revoker or Canonist was often a game loss in ANT, and I think with Prelate you can't afford that liability. I'm pretty sure we will see 4x Prelate deck, especially in Maverick with acceleration.

Sure. The idea is just that trading 1-for-1 is going to be a problem if the number of targets we HAVE to deal with exceeds a certain amount and them topdecking hatebears becomes more and more of a factor. We know that dealing with several hatebears like Thalia+Revoker or Thalia protected by Mother is a real issue to deal with, so to what extend do we want to rely on Decays and Disfigures to deal with all that opposing redundancy? The idea behind DoN is just to get a certain 1-for-X in our favor. I am aware of the inability to kill Revoker or X/2s but Decay or DoN#2 can still do that. Just an idea to throw in if the future D&T are packed with Thalia, Thalia 2.0, Revoker, Prelate and their whole Sideboard nastiness. Worst case scenarios, obviously

[Pelikanudo]

Hi,

@Ebonclaw: regarding the card Dismiss... I beleive Earthquake is better as it handles also Revoker...

I really don't know why you guys are discussing so much Prelate on D&T... it is already a favourable match up and it is a 3mana cost. just a couple of CoV will turn things even better.
Apart, Lemnear, Finally, I'm going to test the approach you say about 4EtW vs miracles... If I tested CoS and didnt work I believe I have to give this a chance.... Please could you expose me the 75 and the HowToSideTo Onthe play and on the Draw? Thanks in advance.

Also I really dont think Prelate will see play on miracles - I launcehd the question in the Miracles thread. so it is nonsense to discuss aprroaches vs this card in miracles.

[Ebonclaw]

I can get behind Dread of Night. I was trying to think of an answer that had other applications- broad strokes- but Dread of Night seems like a good option. Just wish it stopped Revokers.
This is my new favorite suggestion. Probably want to run this as a pair, they're great in multiples if you get lucky enough to find them both, it's pretty much game over.

So something like:

3x Abrupt Decay
1x Massacre
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Past in Flames
1x Dark Petition
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Void Snare
2x Dread of Night
1x Thoughtseize
2x Disfigure
1x Hurkyl's Recall

Sideboarding out 3x Duress, 4x Ponder, for 2x Dread of Night, 2x Disfigure, 1x Thoughtseize, 2x Abrupt Decay?

Of course, now I'm soft on artifact hate and my Abrupt Decays are down to a 3x. I feel pretty solid about being able to keep fighting if I didn't go off as quickly as I would have liked, whereas I previously didn't have that ability, and I feel better about this than I did Tremors to be honest. Plus I have answers to decks that continue to favor Meddling Mage for whatever reason.

@Pelik- Earthquake damages players, don't want to take unnecessary damage when playing a deck that is partially reliant on life as a resource. Recommended Subterranean Tremors instead, but this suggestion has been eclipsed by a better proposed solution.

[Lemnear]

Would not play less than 3 DoN if you decide to run those. You want them early and potentially even a second. I also recommend 2 Echoing Truth instead of stuff like Hurkyls Recall to supplement Decays in chalice matchups. The only thing is that this SB is a bit light on Miracles hate unless you want to chop the Massacre, VS, TS or the like for more EtWs

[Pelikanudo]

@Pelik- Earthquake damages players, don't want to take unnecessary damage when playing a deck that is partially reliant on life as a resource. Recommended Subterranean Tremors instead, but this suggestion has been eclipsed by a better proposed solution.

I intended this as a Joke. of course I would not play earthquake and of course neither dismiss and that card you say - Subterranean Tremors neither. well thats my opnion.

Apart, I dont think playing only 2 copies of DoN is good, this is a card is good in redundancy - i also do not think TES is the deck this card fits in - unless there are tons of D&T in your meta. this card is more for the slower ANT decks. for what I mean as example I would play more copies of C.M. or A.N or EtW than this card.

@F.Fortune: regarding grapeshot: sometime ago I didnt play that card - from the begining I played that card. when I read the nostalgic memories from Bryant I put bacl it again - my suggestion is to NOT TO TAKE OUT this card from Sideboard TES. this card has won me games as no other card in TES would have. the role this card accomplishes in TES is too good and polivalent to not to be played. I remember the logic behind from taking out this card and was essentially because of Void Snare - what a great mistake I made...

[LDX]

I also recommend 2 Echoing Truth instead of stuff like Hurkyls Recall to supplement Decays in chalice matchups. The only thing is that this SB is a bit light on Miracles hate unless you want to chop the Massacre, VS, TS or the like for more EtWs

I must have missed something, how is Echoing Truth an improvement over Hurkyl's Recall in Chalice matchups?

I thought Echoing Truth was ''better'' because it was more versatile and could be used in the non-Chalice matchups.

I'm trying to gather the concepts and make them compete against each other. So far, I had Hurkyl's Recall (artifacts) + Abrupt Decay (relatively versatile) or the green cut for Echoing Truth (more versatile than Recall) + 3x/4x Empty the Warrens (Miracles/Delver/specific matchups).

In other words, Decay + Truth were the ''versatile cards'', Recall + Warrens were the dedicated slots. Yet you oppose Truth to Recall, which isn't in line with what I understood so far.

What did I get wrong?

[Ebonclaw]

OK, I think I'm getting where you're coming from now guys. I like the DoN plan.....it was the same reason I liked Tremors, answering D&T on a 1 for 1 basis is a losing proposition, but going for the 1 for X is where it's at. I overvalued the flexibility of Tremors over its CC, and DoN accomplishes what I wanted to do for less mana. If you're finding that Echoing Truth gets the nod over Hurkyl's Recall, then I think this is what I'll be looking at:

3x Abrupt Decay
2x Thoughtseize
3x Dread of Night
2x Echoing Truth
1x Massacre
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Past in Flames
1x Dark Petition
1x Tendrils of Agony


(-3 Duress, -2 Ponder +3 DoN, +2 Thoughtseize)

I lose access to Burning Wish for Void Snare, but that's not a play I make very often, and Echoing Truth can still handle Teeg/Leyline of Sanctity (though I don't see leyline much anymore).
I also lose Grapeshot, which was removed before and quickly replaced; it's a good utility spell for generic removal and its absence will be missed as well.
I also don't get to play Disfigure for a permanent solution to Prelate, but I figure that finding a second DoN is on the same difficulty as finding a single Disfigure, which is the most I've got room for at best.
Lastly, I lose the 4th Decay, but I've seen a few people cut the 4th Decay out, I'm not sure how much I will miss it.

I do get powerful tools against D&T, as well as Maverick, though Maverick can actually do something about them with Pridemage, whereas D&T has.....council's judgement I guess, which they will have probably boarded out. Otherwise, they will be reliant on Revokers, which discard spells will be looking for. I feel more proactive about the matchup here.
I also get a pair of Thoughtseizes. Having access to one in the wishboard is never a bad thing, and while I don't have 4 Abrupt Decays anymore, I feel like against Miracles, I bring in one of the Thoughtseizes in place of the 4th Decay, and go to a full suite of 8 discard spells, with one in the wishboard. So it's not a total loss, and might be good to swap out Duress for Thoughtseize against Sneak and Show anyway.

Will miss VS and Grapeshot though, particularly Grapeshot.

[Lemnear]

I must have missed something, how is Echoing Truth an improvement over Hurkyl's Recall in Chalice matchups?

I thought Echoing Truth was ''better'' because it was more versatile and could be used in the non-Chalice matchups.

I'm trying to gather the concepts and make them compete against each other. So far, I had Hurkyl's Recall (artifacts) + Abrupt Decay (relatively versatile) or the green cut for Echoing Truth (more versatile than Recall) + 3x/4x Empty the Warrens (Miracles/Delver/specific matchups).

In other words, Decay + Truth were the ''versatile cards'', Recall + Warrens were the dedicated slots. Yet you oppose Truth to Recall, which isn't in line with what I understood so far.

What did I get wrong?

I expressed myself wrong here. You are obviously correct about versatility

Edit:

@Ebonclaw
If you now move the thoughtseize into the main or cut them and add a 4th decay/DoN, it looks rad. Of course this is just one alternative. The multi-EtW instead of DoNs are still up to discussion and probably more appealing after all given their application against a lot of decks

[Ebonclaw]

I could split the difference and move one Thoughtseize main, leave the other in the wishboard for utility (and side it in against D&T and such accordingly), and then either get back my 4th Decay or get my Grapeshot back (probably the Decay). It's nice to have a discard spell of some nature accessible via the board in some matchups and I don't want to go overboard on firing off Thoughtseizes, so I think moving one MD is the right call and taking back my Abrupt Decay, and testing with the 3x DoN.

I'm guessing you're not playing a significantly altered list to accommodate the additional ETWs, and presume you're pushing 3 MD and leaving one in board?

[Lemnear]

I'm guessing you're not playing a significantly altered list to accommodate the additional ETWs, and presume you're pushing 3 MD and leaving one in board?

Both assumptions are more or less correct. My manabase slightly differs from the stocklist on the website

[Final Fortune]

I tested Dread of Night online, and I think it's a bad card for a number of reasons. The most important reason is that it doesn't kill Sanctum Prelate, which is the most important card for it to be able to kill if you're going to differentiate the mana he cost of your removal. The second reason is the card doesn't have the same value per copy as other cards if you have to play multiples to kill Sanctum Prelate, so you're forced to play at least 3, if not 4 copies if you expect to deal with your biggest problem. The third problem is that it's a Sorcery speed card, where you spend your two mana to react to a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and then get locked out of the game by a Sanctum Prelate instead of spending your mana at the end of their turn and then going of on your turn. Combine all of that with not dealing with Phyrxian Revoker, and Disfigure is clearly the better card because all you want that slot to do is kill 2cc hate bears as efficiently/securely as possible and insure you vs a Sanctum Prelate. I don't think Ethersworn Canonist is going to remain in the SB now that Sanctum Prelate is here, which means you're going to be dealing with some where up to 11 hate bears post board. Between Disfigure, discard and Burning Wish into Massacre I don't think it's that difficult to manage trading 1 for 1 until you either go off or clear the board. So where space is an issue, and with dedicated removal for creatures I think it is, you want more return per card than something you can't play less than 3 of to play at all.

I'm ok with MDing Thoughtseize but I'm not ok with cutting all of the discard from the SB, you still want the utility for Burning Wish and the additional discard for Combo and Miracles so I would at least play 1 Thoughtseize in the SB unless you're playing meta strategies like the 4 Empty the Warrens or 3 Tendrils of Agony plan. I'm not sure if MDing Thoughtseize is necessary tho', as it's worse than Duress vs Island.dec and post-board you have so much removal to SB in.

I think the SB Grape Shot is kind of at the danger of cool things and Void Snare probably gets the nod for the anti-Teeg SB slot that you can shuffle into the MD for Sanctum Prelate - dealing with Leyline of Sanctity is just a bonus.

I've been doing ok vs Eldrazi with just Abrupty Decay, I actually don't think they have the hate density to reliably take the match but they are going to take a game off of you. It kind of makes me want to re-evaluate playing Chain of Vapour.