The following decklist and experiment is currently complete. This started as theory, has now been built and extensively play-tested and tuned. This deck is IRL and not on mtgo, so three specific cards (Imperial Seal/Grim Tutor/Lion's Eye Diamond) are not in my current list. If you can afford these, or if you play on mtgo, then those three cards should absolutely be included.
At this time I am going to be setting this deck aside while I peruse another experiment (this time a storm deck w/o blue or black!). I will keep this deck assembled and in my eternal deck library, since it is one of the most enjoyable and exotic decks I own!
What is this!?
This is a zero-blue storm experiment. I'm specifically wanting to see how a black+red storm deck can function without the powerful blue cheap cantrips (gitaxian probe variants), good card selection (ponder variants), and land-untap shenanigans (time spiral/high tide).
The absence of blue will hinder the performance of this deck. Without good cantrips, selection, card-draw, and land-untap shenanigans I foresee this running much slower than expected. It feels clunky.
Here is the reason this silly idea came about;
Around mid-May I was able to borrow cards from a buddies Melek storm deck and merge them with my Chandra burn deck to make a Jori En, Ruin Diver storm+burn deck. It was super fun, but I couldn't keep the borrowed cards and I do prefer my Chandra deck for its bizarrely memorable games, so that little experiment only got to last a few days.
Since then I've been on a bit of a storm binge, constantly pestering my buddy to borrow his Melek, borrowing another buddies Mizzix, even tacking in a random dragonstorm in my Rorix deck to try and satiate the silly need.
I decided I needed my own storm deck to maintain and pilot. I already maintain a fairly optimized (and pimp) Jhoira, Jeleva, and Wydwen deck, so I really didn't want to invest in another set of blue lands. At the time I started this I was sitting on a set of black + red lands from a recently stripped deck, and thought it would be a fun experiment to see how well a storm deck could function without blue.
This thread used to have the {Casual} prefix, but I'm being told by most of my friends that this deck is no longer considered "casual" by any means. While I do not find it consistent enough to be "competitive," this janker may be considered strong at some tables.
Currently the deck tries to win with a few key spells;
~ Ad Nauseam is the classic EOT-draw-death attempt, and is absolutely the easiest route for a quick victory. At this time of deck-editing my list has an average CMC of 2.21, with only 13x cards that cost 4 or more mana (including ad nauseam itself). Assuming I don't get aggro-hated super early ad nauseam should ideally be able to draw me 20(ish) cards. Necrologia and Necropotence works as a back-up here, and draws much much deeper, but requires an infinite-hand size enabler and typically gives the opponents a turn to try and hurt me.
It would be tempting to tutor strait for ad nauseam given a chance, but if the opponent is not likely able to counter a spell, it would be best to tutor for insidious dreams first.
Running insidious dreams in a deck where we can (at end of opponents turn) use it to tutor reforge the soul to the top of the deck so we can untap and miracle it, followed by ad nauseam and whatever remainder high-cmc cards like sphinx-bone wand, would make casting that ad nauseam on the following opponents EOT give us much more life to work with.
~ Mizzix's Mastery! This is sort of a back-up plan if something stops us, but can frequently just end a game quicker than expected. For some unknown reason this card has the all-important word "cast" tacked on, so when you cast the Mastery, you also cast the copy of the spell, thus adding two to your storm count. This also means that if you mizzix's mastery a storm card, you get all of the storm copies. This also means that when it is overloaded, since you get to choose the order of how the spells are all cast on the stack, you can choose to have a storm card go last, thus greatly increasing the number of cast spells before the storm card even checks.
The issue with many storm cards is their mana-cost. We have grapeshot, but this typically needs to be hard-cast twice or complimented by guttersnipe/wand/thermo burn. The big storm cards usually have 4 or higher CMC, and when calculating the mana investment to increase storm count, keeping track of the mana required to cast the ending spell can open up room for mistakes.
Well in this deck a very frequent trend when building up to the mana to overload mizzix's mastery may include some cheap cantrips/filters like faithless looting/wild guess/tormenting voice, or even returning a previously used ritual + tutor with shreds of sanity. These cards all give us an opportunity to discard a storm card into the graveyard. When this deck started this was not even considered, but has become a frequent way to increase storm, fill the graveyard, and reduce the net cost of the storm card.
The current commander for this deck is Rakdos the Defiler. While theory-testing I had also tried Agent of Stromgald extensively (if my opponents didn't care), since she just so happens to be the best creature (that I'm aware of), for this build. Most of the big rituals like inner fire tend to make the current decklist run dry on black mana, and having a 1-cmc commander helps up storm count. She is although an illegitimate commander, and in the final revisions I've chosen to stick with just Rakdos, giving opponents fewer excuses to complain about.
The commander debacle!
So with an absence of blue, and purposefully restricting ourselves to black+red mana only, there is an issue regarding choice in Commander. There just isn't a current legendary that helps this deck function. To date out of the 23x black+red legendary creatures, none of them aid in any sort of spell-slinger/recursion.
Currently this deck pilots Rakdos the Defiler as a possible threat / 3-hit kill, or when my opponents don't care. The deck can generate a disgusting amount of mana very quickly, and seeing a turn-3 Rakdos has won me a few games. He is not all upside although, as swinging with him without a thoughtseize/duress check for removal/bounce is possibly a suicide attempt.
Below is the history of the decks earlier commander(s) and a breakdown of some posstible candidates and reasons why they would be good/bad;
When the deck ran volcanic awakening the possibility of using rakdos the defiler became ideal. The deck already has a thoughtseize and duress to protect the dangerous demon from removal after his declare trigger. But without the land-screw spell relying on rakdos the defiler is even less appealing.
Here are the possible candidates (until a better option becomes known);
Barktooth Warbeard - might as well conceal the impossible-to-guess deck archetype with a blank slate general?
Dragonlord Kolaghan - if young pyromancer and empty the warrens end up back in the list. 6cmc for a 6-power haste beat stick is pretty generic and average, and may be helpful to squeek out just a few more points of damage in some games where I can't build up enough damage via storm/wand/antics.
Exava, Rakdos Bloodwitch - a possible 3/3 first-strike defensive measure. 4-cmc is a lot to ask for to just have a possible blocker.
Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury - well she has "storm" in her name. This is another possible haste-damage from the command zone, but I consider her worse than dragonlord kolaghan for this deck.
Lady Orca - Another blank-slate general to disguise a deck archetype... because everyone will totally guess that black+red = storm colors.
Lyzolda, the Blood Witch - In this deck, she could be a possible 1-time chump-blocker and/or cantrip. Practically speaking just casting her and cantripping off of her (5 mana total, possibly over 2 turns), is the most "value" that any general could offer for this deck. Using her for that seems really...really bad. And I already maintain a worldgorger dragon combo deck with her at the helm.
Malfegor - another command-zone beat stick. This one trades haste for possible creature removal, at the low low cost of my hand. While some effects in the decklist help him (magus of the wheel), once again dragonlord kolaghan or rakdos the defiler make for much more effective threats.
Mogis, God of Slaughter - This was one that I had considered when the deck was still in its infancy, and I do continue to re-aproach. He does what the deck needs - possibly punishing people for playing creatures to slow a potential aggro deck. The issue is that he comes out too slow for the deck, and he doesn't make a meaningful impact unless he sits out for a few turns.
Olivia Voldaren - Another powerful potential general, that also can make opponents not want to play creatures, thus possibly lowering aggressive offenses. Her mana-to-activate although is again a huge sink for something that I should just be instead playing the deck.
Rakdos the Defiler - my lord and savior. When the deck ran volcanic awakening this demon could easily castrate the opponents board completely. I've ran him many many times before in various other 1v1 builds. While the deck does have two cards for hand disruption, it isn't enough to protect him. The deck has no room for boots and double-strike spells like temur battle rage/psychotic fury to really make him impactful. In this deck he would be just a 6cmc flying wall.
Tsabo Tavoc - an interesting possibility that bleeds the chump-blocker situation most of the black+red generals can offer this deck, with a little commander disruption. Her mana-cost to resolve is the major issue.
Tymaret, the Murder King and Grenzo, Dungeon Warden - a 2-drop chump blocker, and possibly just an extra count to my storm when going off? Nothing in the deck works with him. This would be like playing bear cub as a commander. Grenzo has been suggested as a doomsday enabler/tech, but that combo scenario has not been in the decklist for some time.
Since there are no on-theme legends that help the deck, I had considered just playing any on-color creature that did better. This is not actually commander-legal, and entirely up to the playgroup/opponent. The following dudes have been considered;
Agent of Stromgald - Probably the best pick since she helps filter the big mana-ritual spells like inner fire into black for us to use. There is also manaforge cinder, but she has a limited use cap per turn.
Avatar of Discord - A nice body, and the deck does want some specific cards in the graveyard, but utterly unreliable.
Blazing Specter - Hastey discard seems nice, but I can't think of any scenario where I want to spend 4 mana on this.
Cryptborn Horror - A possible aftermath spell from a nice storm, could give a fairly gigantic trampler. Without haste, and since the deck has so few creatures for the opponents to use their removal on, he seems pretty unlikely to ever survive to swing.
Lim-Dûl's Paladin - Alliances only had three legitmiate "legends," but there are many creatures that people speculate may have been intended to e legendary. He is in short either a bad chump-blocker, or a 4-cmc 6/6 trampler. A cute effect, but the speed of combat is the issue.
Mountain Titan - Pretty much on-theme for a black storm deck, but the current density of our spamming spells are more red. Paying to activate is also pretty high, and he has no evasion.
Rakdos Augermage - Really nice for what the deck is wanting to do, assuming we have nothing important in our hand. Pulling cards from the opponent seems good, but if they can just immediately take a clutch part from us, then there is no actual benefit.
Rix Maadi Guildmage - Rixy Trixy is a personal favorite, but is essentially just another bear cub here. Her drain cost is far too high for what else we could be using that mana for.
Trench Wurm - Sweet ability, but the activation cost requires a tap, and he isn't very "big" for his initial cmc investment. Nice to stall out games if he could come out early although.
Vein Drinker - Another draft favorite that I have a personal love for like Rixy. She costs too damn much although. If she had life link then she would be a consideration to help offset early life loss.
No legitmatly good options. I'm praying that some future legendary can come to existence that helps this deck.
July 12'th - Rakdos the Defiler selected to be the current general. Like Dragonlord he can be a victory-condition after a nice volcanic awakening storm, but is a 3-hit kill that can continue castrating the opponents resources.
July 30'th - Reiterate removed, Thermo-Alchemist included. I love reiterate with a sick passion, but it is mostly a mana-sink, and far too expensive to take advantage of in this deck. Thermo-Alchemist seems like a very bad version of guttersnipe, but guttersnipe is already a nifty inclusion that generates good free damage. Thermo-Alchemist also does damage to all opponents like guttersnipe. He seems like he would make a nice turn-2 play to help fend off some aggro, as this deck is entirely reliant on ad nausem/necropotence/necrologia to draw big.
July 31st - WOOT got another mox diamond! Choosing to (temporarily) remove volcanic awakening and squeeze in mox diamond in its place for some play-testing. Volcanic Awakening is typically a game-ender, but being one of two spells in the entire deck over 5cmc makes it on the chopping block. If I can just improve the card-draw and selection then it shouldn't be necessary. This does lower me to 3x storm cards, but with the above added thermo-alchemist acting as another win-con, we will see how this all plays out.
Without volcanic awakening in keeping Rakdos the Defiler as the general is now even less appealing. If the MLD storm spell ends up being permanently cut, a new general will need to be fitted.
August 8'th - cabal coffers removed due to the deck never searching for it with expedition map. The map almost always gets reliquary tower to enable necropotence/necrologia draw. Spellbook was added in its place. This may switch to a Library of Leng if I can ever get a lion's eye diamond + infernal tutor for the deck. Dropping to 32x lands also may backfire, and will hopefully be adjusted when I get fetch lands. Also Volcanic Awakening is permanently being removed, as the last two days worth of playtesting I never needed it nor wanted to ever see it. Realistically by the time volcanic awakening gets casts, it doesn't "beat" an aggro deck that could easily just kill me. Early volcanic awakening uses too much resources and the deck has such inconsistent draw-recovery that it just isn't good. This means Rakdos the Defiler is also on the chopping block and I'm looking for another black+red filler.
August 11'th - friend gives me permission try try Agent of Stromgald as a commander for tomorrow nights games. Illegal due to the rules of the format, but she is possibly the best general for the deck.
Sept 3rd - Innocent Blood removed for a Cruel Tutor. The deck really needs a better tutor package, and while I can't afford imperial+grim, Cruel Tutor will have to do. Rhystic Tutor was on my radar, and in theory should be a good early-game tutor while opponents are tapped out playing early-stuff, but is not a guarantee. Innocent Blood is amazing, but there are many games where I'm going off and using guttersnipe/thermo-alchemist, and it ends up being a dead card since the +1storm is not worth loosing my creature. It is really good early-game, but falls in to the same argument/issue as rhystic tutor of never being guaranteed useful.
To keep the deck 100% legitimate, and since my lord & savior has actually won me a few games now, Rakdos the Defiler is the current general. Agent of Stromgald is a nice enabler, but I want this deck to be 100% legitimate and give opponents fewer excuses to complain about.
July 1, 2017 - updating this thread to match my current decklist. The deck has had many changes over the past 10x months, including the addition of Aetherflux Reservoir, Cathartic Reunion, Canyon Slough, and general "pimpage" by foiling out more of the deck. I also have a judge promo Imperial Seal coming in for the list too!
Current Considerations
Here are a few cards that I've been thinking about, and have not given a chance yet due to speculative outcome.
While I have essentially completed this experimental deck/theory, I am going to maintain my deck. The deck is very fun to play, and exotic enough to warrant keeping.
As always, I am open to feedback and card ideas! Since I will no longer be actively researching for this deck I may miss some new cards, so feel free to PM me or post here with ideas!
Reserving this post for game-play synopsis. This is more for myself to recall early game mechanics/plays as the deck continues to evolve and change, but can be helpful for others to try and visualize the decks performance/failures.
I think the biggest issue I'm having right now is finding dedicated 1v1 decks/opponents to test this with. Most of my friends play multi-player EDH. The absence of a strict control deck or hyper fast combo deck is most likely limiting my exposure to improve/test this.
This is a month-long synopsis of relevant games that helped me evolve the deck, and I won't be adding more at this time. These are just the games that stood out and gave me something to think about as the deck changed and was tuned, there were easily four times as many games played with this than what is detailed below;
Aug 4'th, the deck's first ever games against liliana, heretical healer, then marchesa, the black rose. Games are full of bad choices and misplays as the idiot monkey tries to pilot the new complicated thing. My first thoughts after these games were;
1.) this is really an entertaining deck to play. I enjoyed every game, and got that lovely puzzle-solving feel.
2.) it is abysmally slow compared to any blue/x(/x) storm deck. With this many rituals and big-draw spells, it seems pretty bad to be going off around turn-7.
3.) it has almost no interaction past duress/thoughtseize/toxic deluge. Two of these use my life. The deck fails super hard to aggro. With such a high reliance on necropotence/necrologia/ad nauseam I may need to work in more interaction to sustain my life. Maybe a black sun's zenith or some other pseudo-cheap mass removal.
So while I'm waiting for the last few cards, I went ahead and proxied up a few temporary holders and gave this a whirl against a friend earlier today. His decks are not exactly tailored for 1v1, but it was a good start to help me see where this deck needs to go.
My opponent now being aware of the scary creature antics kills my early thermo-alchemist after he does a whopping two points of damage. I draw poorly, and even when finding a reliquary tower to go with my necrologia, I'm already near 20 life on turn-5. My only out was to get toxic deluge in the top 5 cards, but I fail and die very quickly. The opponents life was nearing 60 at the time of death, so I didn't see much possibility for a rebound.
game 1 vs Marchesa;
My opponent gets a nice aggro start but I vampiric tutor for a toxic deluge to push back the tide before he can get the dethrone antics online. Around turn-7 I end up drawing a little over 25x cards with necropotence after figuring out just how much damage he could do, untap on turn-8 with two life, resolve an inner fire followed by sphinx-bone wand followed by a silly amount of cantrips/rituals/etc for victory. Even with him dead I continued on resolving spells just to see how many counters I could get on the wand, ending up with 9x.
game2 vs Marchesa;
My opponent is absolutely aware of how important my life total is to me, and tries very hard to aggro me out. I spend most of the game trying to fill my graveyard with cantrips, digging away, and seeing that I wasn't likely to use my life total to draw well. I end up tutoring for magus of the wheel who strangely survives a turn to be activated. I vampiric tutormizzix's mastery to the top of the deck and activate magus of the wheel with duress on the stack, seeing my opponent draw into two different counterspells. Duress eats the cheaper counter, but I know I'm doomed. I play it out, trying to resolve mizzix's mastery (which would have easily built up enough storm and mana to win), but the second counter comes out and I die.
Aug 5'th - after my local LGS fnm edh gameplay I got a buddy to help 1v1 test, against kruphix, god of horizons, then marchesa, the black rose. This guy prefers to use the old partial-paris mulligan rule, so my opening hands seem far better. Giving me the old partial-paris mulligan made the opening hands ridiculous.
Still packing the few temp proxies I took this out with my normal fnm-edh decks. While I didn't use it in the primary games, once the crowd started to settle I had a different friend playtest with me 1v1, out of three games;
game1 vs Kruphix (eldrazi tribal)
While his deck is intended on playing lots of mana-dorks and ramp to cast big scary eldrazi, i see a stupid-luck start and play solitaire. He does get an early turn-3 call to the kindred attached to some eldrazi, which flips him into a turn-4 artisan of kozilek (which ironically had happened earlier that night), before he could attack on turn-5 I went off. An opening hand of mana crypt + sensei's divining top tends to make silly games, but I saw ad nauseam near the top of my deck upon my first top activation. I used the only tutor I saw in the game (insidious dreams) to grab sphinx-bone wand so I could get as much value off ad nauseam as possible. When nauseam went off I drew inner fire among the 20(ish) cards, untapped and displayed the easy win.
I felt bad for my mate here. It was a game I should not have won, but I got stupid lucky. I had to mulligan down to 5. I did see a turn-1 mana crypt + mountain + helm of awakening into thermo-alchemist, leaving me with just a land and tormenting voice in hand. Seemed like a sweet start, but I had absolutely no gas. Over the next few turns I draw enough lands to hardcast the sphinx-bone wand I top-deck, staying hellbent for some time. The opponent gets his general, some graft dude, and a after resolving a stingmoggie out to threaten my wand, I top-deck (without tutoring) a reforge the soul. A legit miracle. I had already taken a few hits in combat and lost two flips to my mana crypt, which luckily had stunted any dethrone effects. The lucky wheel saw enough cards to build up the sphinx-bone wand to take out his board, and with it and thermo-alchemist I was able to whittle him down. It wasn't a fast win, but he couldn't deal with the wand, so even with us both hurting for card advantage, the inevitability got him.
Aug 6'th - played against a buddies maelstrom wanderer for 6x games while watching the pt eldritch moon sydney coverage. Probably not a good idea to get distracted by TV while trying to pilot a storm deck. These games were all decided fairly early since both of our decks had inevitability. Either I would go off before he could attack with Maelstrom, or he would hurt me enough that I couldn't use my life as a resource effectively.
My mates deck doesn't include any infinite combos, but is fairly well tuned. He tends to play it in multi-player, but it is devastating to play against in 1v1 since there are fewer people to answer the early ramp and threats. In short, I knew that if Maelstrom resolved I would loose too much life that even if I survived the first attack, I wouldn't be able to do anything meaningful unless I already had a good setup.
Game 1 - I mulligan to 5, keeping a mountain + wild guess + a few other cards and pray. I don't see a land and scoop around turn-4.
Game 2 - I make a mistake with my tutoring. Even with a nice ramp of grim monolith + mox opal + gilded lotus all early, I get stuck with floating mana from dark petition that I desperately needed to use with ad nauseam later on my opponents turn, so I instead use the tutor + mana to get necropotence. Not seeing any gas, but also not seeing an infinite hand-size, I make a second mistake of using necropotence too sparingly. I die before doing anything meaningful by a very angry Mealstrom.
Game 3 - Silly early turn-4 Maelstrom into see the unwritten flipping ulamog, the ceaseless hunger + other thing = I die way too fast. I did have an early scroll rack helping me dig but it got beast withined. I was able to block the ulamog with the token, cringed seeing some very necessary cards exiled out of my deck, and take 7. After untapping and accessing all possibilities, I scoop.
Game 5 - My early antics with thermo-alchemist die to an excessively early inferno titan, which then proceeds to beat my face while I draw nothing relevant. Seeing little options I try for a weak wheel+ramp attempt and build up a storm @ 8 to try and ignite memories him out again, but his hand is huge and he keeps revealing the same land and coiling oracle. 8x ignite memories ends up doing less than 20 damage to him.
Game 6 - A game I'm not sure how I could have won. I do my normal early-game jig of cantrips and filtering cards, but as I'm about to set up an EOT ad nauseam the opponent sneaks Maelstrom out a turn earlier than expected due to some morph creature. Not sure how well I can survive we play it out and I drop to 21 after his combat. I still go for the ad nauseam just to see what could happen (since I had already used insidious dreams to tutor reforge the soul + sphinx-bone wand up, meaning I had fewer high-cmc cards left). I'm able to draw 12(ish) cards. I end up being able to cast inner fire and a increasing vengeance'ed dark petition to generate enough mana to resolve sphinx-bone wand and guttersnipe along with enough cheap crap to kill the opponent. Realistically the only reason I was able to do enough damage is because my friend does his normal routine of drawing off sylvan library no mater the cost. Pretty ballsy and bizarre, and I was dangerously close to not finding lethal.
Aug 7'th, Super sneaky late-night/morning games with a buddy after his lady goes to sleep since she doesn't like us playing. Tested vs gisa and geralf, then arcum dagsson, then arjun, the shifting flame, then we swap decks and I play his zurgo helmsmasher against this. I'm begging to see the most common lines to victory the deck takes, and the various possible scenario/set-up's it takes to get there. I'm hoping to continue practicing and make my actual speed of turn-resolution go faster so the deck is less of a pain for my opponents to sit and watch. I'm also seeing a higher-than-expected need for reliquary tower/thought vessel effects to support necrologia and necropotence drawing, so I've fitted in a spellbook over the rarely-used cabal coffers.
Game 1 - I think he picked to play gisa and geralf by my earlier comments about being unsure of how well the storm deck performs, since his gisa and geralf deck isn't super quick. While he is able to resolve an early zombie, by the time he resolves gisa and geralf on turn-4 and attacks with that zombie once, I'm already ready to go off at EOT with ad nauseam. I had ironically top-decked the ad nauseam on my previous turn, and had planned on using that turn to dark petition for it.
Game 2 - He picks up possibly one of his scariest decks with arcum dagsson. The game goes long. I luckily do not see him play any prison/stax stuff to screw up the early game, and toxic delugh and later lightning bolt knocks out Arcum before activation. He fabricates for a platinum emperion and plays a leyline of anticipation with the gross amount of artifact mana he was able to play out, and I see very few options. I use dark petition to get necropotence after playing a reliquary tower and put myself to 10 life after drawing hard. A thoughtseize forces him to play out the emperion, and I go ahead with an inner fire into sphinx-bone wand, followed by enough garbage to shoot down the giant robot and then his face.
Game 3 - The game goes a bit long also. Arjun resolves an early jace's archivist to troll me if I were to draw-big, so I waste a lightning bolt. I fish around for any counter magic and find my opponents counterflux when I try to resolve a scroll rack. I try for an early gamble for necrologia after finding reliquary tower, but the luck-gods hate me and I discard the necrologia, putting me out of gas except for a magus of the wheel I was sitting on and a tendrils of agony in hand w/ zero other cards. I had earlier discarded a mizzix's mastery to a turn-2 wild guess, and most of the game was me fiddling with cantrips and an early reforge the soul. I top-deck a shreds of sanity and see a line for victory. I was able to return the mastery + a ritual after discarding tendrils of agony, and use the ritual to push mizzix's mastery out, activating magus of the wheel with mizzix's mastery on the stack so I could look for possibly another instant spell to up my storm count and make the inner fire in my graveyard not completely irrelevant. Storm count builds up and I find that we have exactly enough to make the final card from mizzix's mastery lethal (the tendrils of agony I discarded at the beginning of the turn). Activating the Magus may have been a mis-play since it gave the opponent an out to find answers, and if I had just done the match I could have won w/o activating the Magus.
Game 4 - My buddy wants me to see how the deck looks as an opponent so I can speculate better inclusions and plays. I pick his zurgo helmsmasher deck to play since it can frequently see a very early zurgo and a follow-up cataclysm tends to just ends games. While I mulligan aggressively looking for ramp, I end up keeping @5 only seeing a 3-drop artifact to get Zurgo out swinging on turn-4, which is the same turn my opponent ad nauseam and wins on the following. He saw a completely dank start of land + mana crypt + jet medallion + mox opal, but was a bit out of gas till he hit the vampiric tutor and grabbed ad nauseam. When he went to cast it he had already taken 7 from combat, lost two flips, and 2 from vampiric tutor, so he was only able to draw about 10 cards before settling at 6 (compensating for possible coin-flip-loss and a sign in blood he drew). At this point he sees many routes, and decides to see just how much mana he could make. He copies inner fire with increasing vengeance, resolves a guttersnipe, uses a demonic tutor something, then uses dark petition to get yawgmoth's will. He resolves the will, seeing the fun interaction of yawmoth's will allowing the 'increasing' cards to double from the yard for their normal mana-cost, and casts 2x more inner fires along with another dark petition and demonic tutor for (iirc) gilded lotus since he seemed to want black mana for something. By the time his hand starts shrinking to just lands guttersnipe had already lowered me to 16 life when I had started the turn at 40, his storm count was 16, he still had 20+ red mana and ~6ish black mana. While I see he could have tutored for a wheel of fotune effect to continue the game, he ends up seeing the blatant over-kill and casts a tendrils of agony, putting me down to 14 before I loose 2x17 life.
Aug 13'th - 2x games against the same maelstrom player from Aug 6'th. The first game was very strange. I saw only a single wild guess as draw, and no tutors in the entire game. It was also the first Rakdos the Defiler victory. The second game the deck performed like a dream, but I'm more than aware of how inconsistent seeing the necessary cards like that will be. I'm really wishing I could afford grim tutor/imperial seal, as these are really the only way to make those excessively early starts happen more frequently.
I hadn't planned on bringing out this deck against my friends again, but I was having some very bad luck piloting my rorix bladewing deck against his maelstrom deck, with him seeing some excessively ridiculous starts. He suggested I swapped out Rorix and this was the other deck I had in the same fat-pack.
Game 1 - We both had opening hands with nice acceleration, but after turn-3 I'm still not seeing any tutors or gas. I end up passing with 7 mana open and nothing to do, realizing that I should have just cast rakdos the defiler (no agent of stromgald at this table). On turn-4 I still see no draw/gas, end up playing another land and casting rakdos the defiler. The opponent untaps on his turn-4 and duplicants the Rakdos. I untap and dark ritual Rakdos back out. The opponent can't kill him again, but does cast a hornet queen. Before I attack on turn-5 I cast a toxic deluge to wipe his creatures, setting him back to 4 lands. He untaps and plays a solemn simulacrum, but sees the writing on the wall and scoops.
Aug 19'th - 1x game against the same eldrazi bro. When it comes to mizzix's mastery wins I'm seeing a reoccurring play of discarding a storm card to shreds of sanity/faithless looting/wild guess/tormenting voice. In earlier games I thought the discarded storm card trick was going to be a unique/rare occurrence, but it is actually a pretty good way to save mana, while filling the graveyard, while building storm.
Well only myself and one mate showed up for our LGS's edh fnm thing, so we just battled casually against each others decks. This deck showed up once out of those games, and I didn't really want to play it against him since he has already been exposed to it, and he doesn't have a 1v1 deck.
The game sees an opening hand of lands + necrologia + gamble. I use the gamble to successfully get thought vessel so I can turn-4 necrologia. My opponent has a Dimensional Infiltrator that beats on me a little and when I cast my necrologia for 28, his turn-4 is Thought-Knot Seer' a dark petition out of my hand so I can't abuse/copy it. I had made the mistake of reminding him of the threats and key cards in my deck while he was resolving the Seer, and when I describe that the "easy win" comes from me tutoring inner fire, I completely forget what dimensional infiltrator does, and when I untap on turn-5 and vampiric tutor it to the top of my deck for draw, he exiles it. A hand of over 30 cards and 4 open mana before playing anything although is more than enough to build up mana and storm for a mizzix's mastery win, tutoring up seething song and discarding ignite memories to shreds of sanity to return the song and tutor to find yet again another ritual. After the mastery resolves I end up with 29x copies of ignite memories on the stack.
Aug 26'th - 2x games at a multi-player (3 opponent) table. A buddy wanted to try the deck out after I told him about how hard it would be to try and win with against multiple opponents. Second game I tried it myself. After the outcome of the second game I am absolutely going to try and fit in rhystic tutor and cruel tutor as budget options over grim tutor/imperial seal.
Game 1 - my buddy is familiar with legacy storm decks, and EDH decks in general, but not very familiar with EDH storm. I give him a heads on the key cards to acquire with tutors and their priority, and he mistakenly tutors up the win-conditions before a big-draw spell. The entire table dies to my other buddies Maelstrom deck, and he reveals a hand w/ sphinx-bone wand, inner fire, and ignite memories, but no card draw.
Game 2 - I take over my deck and see an opening hand with disgusting mana, night's whisper and guttersnipe. I choose to keep, thinking that the guttersnipe was pretty important having three opponents. I could have had a turn-1 guttersnipe, but since the only digging I had was a night's whisper, I decided to play it slow. I end up tutoring for an ad nauseam and reforge the soul at end of turn-3 by emptying my hand via insidious dreams, and end of turn-4 I cast the ad nauseam, drawing 24 cards. When I untap on turn-5 I have well over 30 cards in my hand, plenty of ramp, but zero recursion, and zero tutors. I cast as much as I can and try to see what's on top of my deck by casting a wheel of fortune, but there is nothing of relevance. I sign in blood myself and thoughtseize a random opponent, putting myself down to 1-life for the easy picking.
My attempt with the guttersnipe although did lower everyone by quite a bit. My maelstrom buddy wordly tutors Purph to the top of his deck before he untaps, and tooth and nails (not entwined), for a Purphoros+avenger of zendikar win.
Sept 2nd - multiplayer game attempt (with turn-3 victory!)
Game 1 - only game. There are three opponents, but only one opponent was actually playing anything early-game.
There was chatter about how rubbish my storm deck performed in multi-player, so I decided to bring it out. I see an excessive amount of early mana and a memory jar in my opening hand, and start the game off with a land + sol ring + helm of awakening. One opponent does cast a turn-2 ezuri, claw of progress thanks to my helm, but on my turn-2 I toss out a random spell, ruby medallion, and grapeshot the ezuri off the field.
Turn-3 comes and I draw a vampiric tutor, so I tutor mana crypt to the top of my deck, play the memory jar, and crack it. The jar hand gives me an ad nauseam, which I main-phase cast. After building enough mana and finding guttersnipe, I'm able to build up enough storm to trash the table.
The final turn of the game was a gamble. I was dangerously close to sputtering out, and if I had not pulled the mox opal with the jar hand I couldn't have resolved the cabal ritual that gave me the mana for ad nauseam. The only reason I rushed out the ad nauseam that turn was due to two of the opponents plotting to blow up my helm of awakening + sol ring when they untapped.
This deck is not really tuned for multi-player since the average damage potential is somewhere around 60 when storming off. At times with specific enablers like guttersnipe/sphinx-bone wand it can crank out far more damage, but those are not always going to survive when there are more opponents with more spot-removal.
I'm grateful for the nasty turn-3 win, and to help my friend shove his foot deeper up his own arse for talking ***** about my deck.
Sept 3rd - 2x games against maelstrom buddy
- deck playing with a newly included cruel tutor.
Game 1 - Opening hand shows an excessive volume of mana acceleration, with seething song + reforge the soul. We turn-3 the song into soul with a mana open, and draw... mana. Turn-4 we cast Rakdos the Defiler. The opponent can't kill the Rakdos, but does resolve a bane of progress on turn-4 to knock me down to just 4x lands, but I untap and cast toxic deluge and connect with Rakdos, kicking us both down to two lands, and he scoops.
Game 2 - This game happens some time later, and I probably shouldn't have picked up the deck again. I was feeling head-achy and tired and was moody since I had accidentally busted my other mates rear-view mirror off his car when we made a food trip.
Sept 4th - Final Entry
I'm thinking that per my color restriction here, the current list that i'm running (past the 3x expensive cards), is fairly optimal. There are some arguable and whimsical cards like thermo-alchemist and vessel of volatility, but until something strictly better for a black+red storm list is realized I'm just not too worried about it.
This deck was not intended to turn out as quick/effective vs my friends as it has. I honestly anticipated having a more casual mid-to-late game storm deck, and didn't realize how consistently fast it could become. I'm also aware that I am not exposed to enough competitive 1v1 decks to really stress test this.
I'm proud of the experiment, but due to my original goal of wanting a more unusual storm deck, I don't think excluding just blue is enough. I'll be setting this deck aside while I move on to another experiment (a gruul/naya storm list!). This deck will be maintained but I won't be actively researching for it while I focus on other projects. I may miss some new cards, so feel free to PM me or post here with ideas!
this deck may take a turn. She is cheap enough that she doesn't compete with many early-turn options, and acts as a nice source of some extra damage. EOT ad nauseam or miracle reforge the soul equates to a lava axe.
After this years spoiler season is over I'm going to sit down and evaluate the possible use and damage potential that she offers over Rakdos.
I don't know if its something for you, but maybe the Reiterate+Mana Geyser combo could be another wincon. It looks like you're are likly to hit metalcraft, so Molten Psyche could be a way to deal damage while filtering and upping the storm.
I do like the mana-combo that reiterate & geyser offers. The issue although is the cmc on geyser is a bit high when pushing for Ad Nauseam, and since this deck usually attempts to go off around turn-5(ish), geyser won't help very much. The deck did run reiterate for a few weeks, but it was eventually cut due to me never having the mana to abuse it before I was already winning.
I really do like molten psyche, but it sadly pushes cards from my hand back into the deck instead of the 'yard, and it doesn't really generate card advantage. The only time I see this being good is after a large pull off ad nauseam/necropotence/necrologia, where I've played all live cards in hand and need more. I think scroll rack trumps this need, and is pretty much helpful at all times of the game instead of the possible winning turn.
Thanks for the ideas!
The new magus of the will was spoiled today. I'm super hyped about this. The artwork is amazing. I'm going to proxie one up and see how it runs in this deck once I figure out what to take out. I'm thinking vessel of volatility may be sided out for a while since it is a whimsical ritual.
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder was also spoiled today. I will absolutely be maintaining this deck, since it is technically my first owned (its ALL MINE!) storm deck. I've even started pimp'ing this one out. But Yidris is interesting enough that I've started a multi-player storm brew around him as well.
I've also just recently won an eBay auction for a judge imperial seal, which is going right in this deck once it arrives. I'm still wanting two more top-end cards (grim tutor/lion's eye diamond), that may eventually be obtained as well. I'm just in no rush to spend the $ that those cards are currently asking.
This 1v1 deck has been performing pretty well, although it doesn't see as much play as my multiplayer black+red storm list (decklist and salvation). I'm still mostly playing with multi-player opponents with little 1v1 desires, so that deck sees more action.
The following decklist and experiment is currently complete. This started as theory, has now been built and extensively play-tested and tuned. This deck is IRL and not on mtgo, so three specific cards (Imperial Seal/Grim Tutor/Lion's Eye Diamond) are not in my current list. If you can afford these, or if you play on mtgo, then those three cards should absolutely be included.
At this time I am going to be setting this deck aside while I peruse another experiment (this time a storm deck w/o blue or black!). I will keep this deck assembled and in my eternal deck library, since it is one of the most enjoyable and exotic decks I own!
What is this!?
This is a zero-blue storm experiment. I'm specifically wanting to see how a black+red storm deck can function without the powerful blue cheap cantrips (gitaxian probe variants), good card selection (ponder variants), and land-untap shenanigans (time spiral/high tide).
The absence of blue will hinder the performance of this deck. Without good cantrips, selection, card-draw, and land-untap shenanigans I foresee this running much slower than expected. It feels clunky.
Here is the reason this silly idea came about;
Since then I've been on a bit of a storm binge, constantly pestering my buddy to borrow his Melek, borrowing another buddies Mizzix, even tacking in a random dragonstorm in my Rorix deck to try and satiate the silly need.
I decided I needed my own storm deck to maintain and pilot. I already maintain a fairly optimized (and pimp) Jhoira, Jeleva, and Wydwen deck, so I really didn't want to invest in another set of blue lands. At the time I started this I was sitting on a set of black + red lands from a recently stripped deck, and thought it would be a fun experiment to see how well a storm deck could function without blue.
This thread used to have the {Casual} prefix, but I'm being told by most of my friends that this deck is no longer considered "casual" by any means. While I do not find it consistent enough to be "competitive," this janker may be considered strong at some tables.
Here is the current decklist, by card type;
1x Rakdos the Defiler
Creature (3)
1x Guttersnipe
1x Magus of the Wheel
1x Thermo-Alchemist
Instant (12)
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Cabal Ritual
1x Dark Ritual
1x Desperate Ritual
1x Increasing Vengeance
1x Insidious Dreams
1x Lightning Bolt
1x Necrologia
1x Pyretic Ritual
1x Rain of Filth
1x Seething Song
1x Vampiric Tutor
Sorcery (28)
1x Bubbling Muck
1x Cathartic Reunion
1x Cruel Tutor
1x Dark Petition
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Duress
1x Faithless Looting
1x Gamble
1x Grapeshot
1x Ignite Memories
1x Inner Fire
1x Mizzix's Mastery
1x Night's Whisper
1x Overmaster
1x Past in Flames
1x Recoup
1x Reforge the Soul
1x Rite of Flame
1x Shattering Spree
1x Shreds of Sanity
1x Sign in Blood
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Thoughtseize
1x Tormenting Voice
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Wild Guess
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Necropotence
Artifact (23)
1x Aetherflux Reservoir
1x Chrome Mox
1x Everflowing Chalice
1x Expedition Map
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Grim Monolith
1x Helm of Awakening
1x Jet Medallion
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Memory Jar
1x Mox Diamond
1x Mox Opal
1x Rakdos Signet
1x Ruby Medallion
1x Scroll Rack
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Spellbook
1x Sphinx-Bone Wand
1x Talisman of Indulgence
1x Thought Vessel
Land (32)
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Arid Mesa
1x Badlands
1x Blood Crypt
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Canyon Slough
1x Command Tower
1x Graven Cairns
1x Marsh Flats
8x Mountain
1x Polluted Delta
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Smoldering Marsh
8x Swamp
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wooded Foothills
1 cmc = 16
2 cmc = 21
3 cmc = 9
4 cmc = 6
5 cmc = 7
6 cmc = 1 (commander)
7 cmc = 1
If you would like to play-test this click here.
Currently the deck tries to win with a few key spells;
~ Ad Nauseam is the classic EOT-draw-death attempt, and is absolutely the easiest route for a quick victory. At this time of deck-editing my list has an average CMC of 2.21, with only 13x cards that cost 4 or more mana (including ad nauseam itself). Assuming I don't get aggro-hated super early ad nauseam should ideally be able to draw me 20(ish) cards. Necrologia and Necropotence works as a back-up here, and draws much much deeper, but requires an infinite-hand size enabler and typically gives the opponents a turn to try and hurt me.
Running insidious dreams in a deck where we can (at end of opponents turn) use it to tutor reforge the soul to the top of the deck so we can untap and miracle it, followed by ad nauseam and whatever remainder high-cmc cards like sphinx-bone wand, would make casting that ad nauseam on the following opponents EOT give us much more life to work with.
The issue with many storm cards is their mana-cost. We have grapeshot, but this typically needs to be hard-cast twice or complimented by guttersnipe/wand/thermo burn. The big storm cards usually have 4 or higher CMC, and when calculating the mana investment to increase storm count, keeping track of the mana required to cast the ending spell can open up room for mistakes.
Well in this deck a very frequent trend when building up to the mana to overload mizzix's mastery may include some cheap cantrips/filters like faithless looting/wild guess/tormenting voice, or even returning a previously used ritual + tutor with shreds of sanity. These cards all give us an opportunity to discard a storm card into the graveyard. When this deck started this was not even considered, but has become a frequent way to increase storm, fill the graveyard, and reduce the net cost of the storm card.
~ Sphinx-Bone Wand, Thermo-Alchemist and Guttersnipe act as the normal damage-outlets by us just casting rituals/draw/filter cards.
The current commander for this deck is Rakdos the Defiler. While theory-testing I had also tried Agent of Stromgald extensively (if my opponents didn't care), since she just so happens to be the best creature (that I'm aware of), for this build. Most of the big rituals like inner fire tend to make the current decklist run dry on black mana, and having a 1-cmc commander helps up storm count. She is although an illegitimate commander, and in the final revisions I've chosen to stick with just Rakdos, giving opponents fewer excuses to complain about.
The commander debacle!
So with an absence of blue, and purposefully restricting ourselves to black+red mana only, there is an issue regarding choice in Commander. There just isn't a current legendary that helps this deck function. To date out of the 23x black+red legendary creatures, none of them aid in any sort of spell-slinger/recursion.
Currently this deck pilots Rakdos the Defiler as a possible threat / 3-hit kill, or when my opponents don't care. The deck can generate a disgusting amount of mana very quickly, and seeing a turn-3 Rakdos has won me a few games. He is not all upside although, as swinging with him without a thoughtseize/duress check for removal/bounce is possibly a suicide attempt.
Below is the history of the decks earlier commander(s) and a breakdown of some posstible candidates and reasons why they would be good/bad;
Originally (as detailed below), this was intended to be piloted by Dragonlord Kolaghan since she gave the tokens from young pyromancer and empty the warrens, as well as magus of the wheel and magus of the coffers all haste. When all of those spells were removed in deck-development, so was dragonlord kolaghan.
When the deck ran volcanic awakening the possibility of using rakdos the defiler became ideal. The deck already has a thoughtseize and duress to protect the dangerous demon from removal after his declare trigger. But without the land-screw spell relying on rakdos the defiler is even less appealing.
Here are the possible candidates (until a better option becomes known);
Dragonlord Kolaghan - if young pyromancer and empty the warrens end up back in the list. 6cmc for a 6-power haste beat stick is pretty generic and average, and may be helpful to squeek out just a few more points of damage in some games where I can't build up enough damage via storm/wand/antics.
Exava, Rakdos Bloodwitch - a possible 3/3 first-strike defensive measure. 4-cmc is a lot to ask for to just have a possible blocker.
Kaervek the Merciless - very powerful, but 7 mana to get this guy in to play is mana that should be spent playing the deck. Like dragonlord kolaghan he could be potential damage to close out a game although. He doesn't require a combat step to make an impact, although from personal experiance, he tends to just gut shot someone when he gets path to exile/swords to plowshares/pongify/rapid hybridization'd.
Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury - well she has "storm" in her name. This is another possible haste-damage from the command zone, but I consider her worse than dragonlord kolaghan for this deck.
Lady Orca - Another blank-slate general to disguise a deck archetype... because everyone will totally guess that black+red = storm colors.
Lyzolda, the Blood Witch - In this deck, she could be a possible 1-time chump-blocker and/or cantrip. Practically speaking just casting her and cantripping off of her (5 mana total, possibly over 2 turns), is the most "value" that any general could offer for this deck. Using her for that seems really...really bad. And I already maintain a worldgorger dragon combo deck with her at the helm.
Malfegor - another command-zone beat stick. This one trades haste for possible creature removal, at the low low cost of my hand. While some effects in the decklist help him (magus of the wheel), once again dragonlord kolaghan or rakdos the defiler make for much more effective threats.
Mogis, God of Slaughter - This was one that I had considered when the deck was still in its infancy, and I do continue to re-aproach. He does what the deck needs - possibly punishing people for playing creatures to slow a potential aggro deck. The issue is that he comes out too slow for the deck, and he doesn't make a meaningful impact unless he sits out for a few turns.
Olivia Voldaren - Another powerful potential general, that also can make opponents not want to play creatures, thus possibly lowering aggressive offenses. Her mana-to-activate although is again a huge sink for something that I should just be instead playing the deck.
Olivia, Mobilized for War - if I needed a flying chump-blocker.
Rakdos the Defiler - my lord and savior. When the deck ran volcanic awakening this demon could easily castrate the opponents board completely. I've ran him many many times before in various other 1v1 builds. While the deck does have two cards for hand disruption, it isn't enough to protect him. The deck has no room for boots and double-strike spells like temur battle rage/psychotic fury to really make him impactful. In this deck he would be just a 6cmc flying wall.
Tsabo Tavoc - an interesting possibility that bleeds the chump-blocker situation most of the black+red generals can offer this deck, with a little commander disruption. Her mana-cost to resolve is the major issue.
Tymaret, the Murder King and Grenzo, Dungeon Warden - a 2-drop chump blocker, and possibly just an extra count to my storm when going off? Nothing in the deck works with him. This would be like playing bear cub as a commander. Grenzo has been suggested as a doomsday enabler/tech, but that combo scenario has not been in the decklist for some time.
Since there are no on-theme legends that help the deck, I had considered just playing any on-color creature that did better. This is not actually commander-legal, and entirely up to the playgroup/opponent. The following dudes have been considered;
Agent of Stromgald - Probably the best pick since she helps filter the big mana-ritual spells like inner fire into black for us to use. There is also manaforge cinder, but she has a limited use cap per turn.
Avatar of Discord - A nice body, and the deck does want some specific cards in the graveyard, but utterly unreliable.
Blazing Specter - Hastey discard seems nice, but I can't think of any scenario where I want to spend 4 mana on this.
Cryptborn Horror - A possible aftermath spell from a nice storm, could give a fairly gigantic trampler. Without haste, and since the deck has so few creatures for the opponents to use their removal on, he seems pretty unlikely to ever survive to swing.
Lim-Dûl's Paladin - Alliances only had three legitmiate "legends," but there are many creatures that people speculate may have been intended to e legendary. He is in short either a bad chump-blocker, or a 4-cmc 6/6 trampler. A cute effect, but the speed of combat is the issue.
Mountain Titan - Pretty much on-theme for a black storm deck, but the current density of our spamming spells are more red. Paying to activate is also pretty high, and he has no evasion.
Nightfire Giant - costs way too much to activate
Rakdos Augermage - Really nice for what the deck is wanting to do, assuming we have nothing important in our hand. Pulling cards from the opponent seems good, but if they can just immediately take a clutch part from us, then there is no actual benefit.
Rix Maadi Guildmage - Rixy Trixy is a personal favorite, but is essentially just another bear cub here. Her drain cost is far too high for what else we could be using that mana for.
Sedge Sliver / Sedge Troll - A nice chump-blocker, probably better than exava, rakdos bloodwitch.
Shivan Emissary - Really expensive removal spell from the command zone that can then chump-block something.
Singe-Mind Ogre - Probably the most on-theme card since the deck runs ignite memories as one of the win-con's.
Trench Wurm - Sweet ability, but the activation cost requires a tap, and he isn't very "big" for his initial cmc investment. Nice to stall out games if he could come out early although.
Vein Drinker - Another draft favorite that I have a personal love for like Rixy. She costs too damn much although. If she had life link then she would be a consideration to help offset early life loss.
No legitmatly good options. I'm praying that some future legendary can come to existence that helps this deck.
Deck Development and Change Log
Early June - Deck theory starts and list started to be assembled. Initial brew full of fun ideas with a deck piloted by dragonlord kolaghan, giving tokens from young pyromancer and empty the warrens, as well as magus of the wheel and magus of the coffers, haste, with the initial goal of haze of rage being the primary storm card for victory.
Over the next few days the deck undergoes massive changes as I thin it down to 99x cards. Reanimation gimmicks to use magus of the wheel and magus of the coffers multiple times are removed. Cabal Coffers tech like grim discovery and dredge are removed. All doomsday packages and dualcaster mage+heat shimmer+twinflame combo removed (the temp clone spells were ideal for making temporary Magus copies).
June 30'th - decklist spammed here.
July 10'th - Dragonlord Kolaghan removed as the general, because young pyromancer and empty the warrens were removed from decklist (unreliable victory-condition requring a combat step). They were replaced with recoup and shreds of sanity (a call to mind outside of blue!!!!).
July 12'th - Rakdos the Defiler selected to be the current general. Like Dragonlord he can be a victory-condition after a nice volcanic awakening storm, but is a 3-hit kill that can continue castrating the opponents resources.
July 14'th - Vandalblast, Chain Lightning, and Voltaic Key removed for Thoughtseize, Duress, and Mox Opal. Still considering space for pyroblast and red elemental blast
July 21st - Dark Deal removed, replaced with Necrologia. Another dangerous big-draw card that, like necropotence, requires something like reliquary tower or thought vessel to be really good.
July 30'th - Reiterate removed, Thermo-Alchemist included. I love reiterate with a sick passion, but it is mostly a mana-sink, and far too expensive to take advantage of in this deck. Thermo-Alchemist seems like a very bad version of guttersnipe, but guttersnipe is already a nifty inclusion that generates good free damage. Thermo-Alchemist also does damage to all opponents like guttersnipe. He seems like he would make a nice turn-2 play to help fend off some aggro, as this deck is entirely reliant on ad nausem/necropotence/necrologia to draw big.
July 31st - WOOT got another mox diamond! Choosing to (temporarily) remove volcanic awakening and squeeze in mox diamond in its place for some play-testing. Volcanic Awakening is typically a game-ender, but being one of two spells in the entire deck over 5cmc makes it on the chopping block. If I can just improve the card-draw and selection then it shouldn't be necessary. This does lower me to 3x storm cards, but with the above added thermo-alchemist acting as another win-con, we will see how this all plays out.
Without volcanic awakening in keeping Rakdos the Defiler as the general is now even less appealing. If the MLD storm spell ends up being permanently cut, a new general will need to be fitted.
August 4'th - deserted temple and temple of malice removed for reflecting pool and rocky tar pit. A bubbling muck deck needs more swamps, and the untapped reflecting pool seems better. Deserted Temple is only good with cabal coffers, but since playtesting the cabal+urborg setup is already pretty rare. Still trying to sort out trade-funds for better fetch lands.
August 8'th - cabal coffers removed due to the deck never searching for it with expedition map. The map almost always gets reliquary tower to enable necropotence/necrologia draw. Spellbook was added in its place. This may switch to a Library of Leng if I can ever get a lion's eye diamond + infernal tutor for the deck. Dropping to 32x lands also may backfire, and will hopefully be adjusted when I get fetch lands. Also Volcanic Awakening is permanently being removed, as the last two days worth of playtesting I never needed it nor wanted to ever see it. Realistically by the time volcanic awakening gets casts, it doesn't "beat" an aggro deck that could easily just kill me. Early volcanic awakening uses too much resources and the deck has such inconsistent draw-recovery that it just isn't good. This means Rakdos the Defiler is also on the chopping block and I'm looking for another black+red filler.
August 11'th - friend gives me permission try try Agent of Stromgald as a commander for tomorrow nights games. Illegal due to the rules of the format, but she is possibly the best general for the deck.
Aug 15'th - Fetch land package finished! Evolving Wilds/Myriad Landscape/Rocky Tar Pit/Shadowblood Ridge/Tainted Peak/Terramorphic Expanse all removed for scalding tarn/arid mesa/wooded foothills/marsh flats/polluted delta/verdant catacombs. I've been considering adding a cruel tutor and rhystic tutor since I know I won't likely be able to afford a grim tutor and imperial seal, but am stewing over what to remove.
Sept 3rd - Innocent Blood removed for a Cruel Tutor. The deck really needs a better tutor package, and while I can't afford imperial+grim, Cruel Tutor will have to do. Rhystic Tutor was on my radar, and in theory should be a good early-game tutor while opponents are tapped out playing early-stuff, but is not a guarantee. Innocent Blood is amazing, but there are many games where I'm going off and using guttersnipe/thermo-alchemist, and it ends up being a dead card since the +1storm is not worth loosing my creature. It is really good early-game, but falls in to the same argument/issue as rhystic tutor of never being guaranteed useful.
To keep the deck 100% legitimate, and since my lord & savior has actually won me a few games now, Rakdos the Defiler is the current general. Agent of Stromgald is a nice enabler, but I want this deck to be 100% legitimate and give opponents fewer excuses to complain about.
July 1, 2017 - updating this thread to match my current decklist. The deck has had many changes over the past 10x months, including the addition of Aetherflux Reservoir, Cathartic Reunion, Canyon Slough, and general "pimpage" by foiling out more of the deck. I also have a judge promo Imperial Seal coming in for the list too!
Current Considerations
Here are a few cards that I've been thinking about, and have not given a chance yet due to speculative outcome.
1x Entomb
1x Innocent Blood (recent cut, but really good early-game)
1x Infernal Tutor (again if I could get a LED)
1x Doomsday (re-re-reconsidering again)
1x Rhystic Tutor (budget placeholder over grim tutor)
Here are a few cards that I want but can not afford;
1x Grim Tutor
While I have essentially completed this experimental deck/theory, I am going to maintain my deck. The deck is very fun to play, and exotic enough to warrant keeping.
As always, I am open to feedback and card ideas! Since I will no longer be actively researching for this deck I may miss some new cards, so feel free to PM me or post here with ideas!
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
I think the biggest issue I'm having right now is finding dedicated 1v1 decks/opponents to test this with. Most of my friends play multi-player EDH. The absence of a strict control deck or hyper fast combo deck is most likely limiting my exposure to improve/test this.
This is a month-long synopsis of relevant games that helped me evolve the deck, and I won't be adding more at this time. These are just the games that stood out and gave me something to think about as the deck changed and was tuned, there were easily four times as many games played with this than what is detailed below;
Aug 4'th, the deck's first ever games against liliana, heretical healer, then marchesa, the black rose. Games are full of bad choices and misplays as the idiot monkey tries to pilot the new complicated thing. My first thoughts after these games were;
1.) this is really an entertaining deck to play. I enjoyed every game, and got that lovely puzzle-solving feel.
2.) it is abysmally slow compared to any blue/x(/x) storm deck. With this many rituals and big-draw spells, it seems pretty bad to be going off around turn-7.
3.) it has almost no interaction past duress/thoughtseize/toxic deluge. Two of these use my life. The deck fails super hard to aggro. With such a high reliance on necropotence/necrologia/ad nauseam I may need to work in more interaction to sustain my life. Maybe a black sun's zenith or some other pseudo-cheap mass removal.
He tried two of his decks against mine, two games each (liliana, heretical healer semi-aggro & marchesa, the black rose combo/aggro/attrition/thing).
Without keeping up with precise in-game turns and plays, the games went as follows;
game 1 vs Lili;
Everything goes according to plan. Neither of us seeing much acceleration. I get out an early guttersnipe, and even with my friend attacking me with Lili + grave crawler + liliana's reaver, they have no way to interact with my deck. End of turn-4 I insidious dreams a reforge the soul + ad nauseam + sphinx-bone wand to the top of deck, untap and go after ad nauseam on the end of turn-5. I didn't end up needing the wand, as the torrent of damage guttersnipe gave me was a bit overkill as I built up my storm count for a grapeshot + recoup + grapeshot win.
game 2 vs Lili;
My opponent now being aware of the scary creature antics kills my early thermo-alchemist after he does a whopping two points of damage. I draw poorly, and even when finding a reliquary tower to go with my necrologia, I'm already near 20 life on turn-5. My only out was to get toxic deluge in the top 5 cards, but I fail and die very quickly. The opponents life was nearing 60 at the time of death, so I didn't see much possibility for a rebound.
game 1 vs Marchesa;
My opponent gets a nice aggro start but I vampiric tutor for a toxic deluge to push back the tide before he can get the dethrone antics online. Around turn-7 I end up drawing a little over 25x cards with necropotence after figuring out just how much damage he could do, untap on turn-8 with two life, resolve an inner fire followed by sphinx-bone wand followed by a silly amount of cantrips/rituals/etc for victory. Even with him dead I continued on resolving spells just to see how many counters I could get on the wand, ending up with 9x.
game2 vs Marchesa;
My opponent is absolutely aware of how important my life total is to me, and tries very hard to aggro me out. I spend most of the game trying to fill my graveyard with cantrips, digging away, and seeing that I wasn't likely to use my life total to draw well. I end up tutoring for magus of the wheel who strangely survives a turn to be activated. I vampiric tutor mizzix's mastery to the top of the deck and activate magus of the wheel with duress on the stack, seeing my opponent draw into two different counterspells. Duress eats the cheaper counter, but I know I'm doomed. I play it out, trying to resolve mizzix's mastery (which would have easily built up enough storm and mana to win), but the second counter comes out and I die.
Aug 5'th - after my local LGS fnm edh gameplay I got a buddy to help 1v1 test, against kruphix, god of horizons, then marchesa, the black rose. This guy prefers to use the old partial-paris mulligan rule, so my opening hands seem far better. Giving me the old partial-paris mulligan made the opening hands ridiculous.
game1 vs Kruphix (eldrazi tribal)
While his deck is intended on playing lots of mana-dorks and ramp to cast big scary eldrazi, i see a stupid-luck start and play solitaire. He does get an early turn-3 call to the kindred attached to some eldrazi, which flips him into a turn-4 artisan of kozilek (which ironically had happened earlier that night), before he could attack on turn-5 I went off. An opening hand of mana crypt + sensei's divining top tends to make silly games, but I saw ad nauseam near the top of my deck upon my first top activation. I used the only tutor I saw in the game (insidious dreams) to grab sphinx-bone wand so I could get as much value off ad nauseam as possible. When nauseam went off I drew inner fire among the 20(ish) cards, untapped and displayed the easy win.
game2 vs Marchesa (dethrone value)
While I didn't see any of my big-draw spells, I did see an early turn-2 magus of the wheel, turn-3 cast wheel of fortune, and turn-4 tutored for yawmoth's will to top with a vampiric tutor and pushed it down with a sensi's top, setting up my turn-5. After a few rituals and playing a reforge the soul, dumping a few more cards and activating magus of the wheel with yawmoth's will on the stack, allowed me to rebuy the rituals and the original wheel of fortune.
game3 vs Marchesa (dethrone value)
I felt bad for my mate here. It was a game I should not have won, but I got stupid lucky. I had to mulligan down to 5. I did see a turn-1 mana crypt + mountain + helm of awakening into thermo-alchemist, leaving me with just a land and tormenting voice in hand. Seemed like a sweet start, but I had absolutely no gas. Over the next few turns I draw enough lands to hardcast the sphinx-bone wand I top-deck, staying hellbent for some time. The opponent gets his general, some graft dude, and a after resolving a stingmoggie out to threaten my wand, I top-deck (without tutoring) a reforge the soul. A legit miracle. I had already taken a few hits in combat and lost two flips to my mana crypt, which luckily had stunted any dethrone effects. The lucky wheel saw enough cards to build up the sphinx-bone wand to take out his board, and with it and thermo-alchemist I was able to whittle him down. It wasn't a fast win, but he couldn't deal with the wand, so even with us both hurting for card advantage, the inevitability got him.
Aug 6'th - played against a buddies maelstrom wanderer for 6x games while watching the pt eldritch moon sydney coverage. Probably not a good idea to get distracted by TV while trying to pilot a storm deck. These games were all decided fairly early since both of our decks had inevitability. Either I would go off before he could attack with Maelstrom, or he would hurt me enough that I couldn't use my life as a resource effectively.
My mates deck doesn't include any infinite combos, but is fairly well tuned. He tends to play it in multi-player, but it is devastating to play against in 1v1 since there are fewer people to answer the early ramp and threats. In short, I knew that if Maelstrom resolved I would loose too much life that even if I survived the first attack, I wouldn't be able to do anything meaningful unless I already had a good setup.
Game 1 - I mulligan to 5, keeping a mountain + wild guess + a few other cards and pray. I don't see a land and scoop around turn-4.
Game 2 - I make a mistake with my tutoring. Even with a nice ramp of grim monolith + mox opal + gilded lotus all early, I get stuck with floating mana from dark petition that I desperately needed to use with ad nauseam later on my opponents turn, so I instead use the tutor + mana to get necropotence. Not seeing any gas, but also not seeing an infinite hand-size, I make a second mistake of using necropotence too sparingly. I die before doing anything meaningful by a very angry Mealstrom.
Game 3 - Silly early turn-4 Maelstrom into see the unwritten flipping ulamog, the ceaseless hunger + other thing = I die way too fast. I did have an early scroll rack helping me dig but it got beast withined. I was able to block the ulamog with the token, cringed seeing some very necessary cards exiled out of my deck, and take 7. After untapping and accessing all possibilities, I scoop.
Game 4 - I see a busted start, seeing a mana vault, expedition map, necrologia, and enough lands in my opening hand. I open with the map, turn-2 pop it for reliquary tower, turn-3 play the tower and mana vault and @ eot necrologia for 35, making an easy win on turn-4 with enough ignite memories revealed scary beef his deck runs.
Game 5 - My early antics with thermo-alchemist die to an excessively early inferno titan, which then proceeds to beat my face while I draw nothing relevant. Seeing little options I try for a weak wheel+ramp attempt and build up a storm @ 8 to try and ignite memories him out again, but his hand is huge and he keeps revealing the same land and coiling oracle. 8x ignite memories ends up doing less than 20 damage to him.
Game 6 - A game I'm not sure how I could have won. I do my normal early-game jig of cantrips and filtering cards, but as I'm about to set up an EOT ad nauseam the opponent sneaks Maelstrom out a turn earlier than expected due to some morph creature. Not sure how well I can survive we play it out and I drop to 21 after his combat. I still go for the ad nauseam just to see what could happen (since I had already used insidious dreams to tutor reforge the soul + sphinx-bone wand up, meaning I had fewer high-cmc cards left). I'm able to draw 12(ish) cards. I end up being able to cast inner fire and a increasing vengeance'ed dark petition to generate enough mana to resolve sphinx-bone wand and guttersnipe along with enough cheap crap to kill the opponent. Realistically the only reason I was able to do enough damage is because my friend does his normal routine of drawing off sylvan library no mater the cost. Pretty ballsy and bizarre, and I was dangerously close to not finding lethal.
Aug 7'th, Super sneaky late-night/morning games with a buddy after his lady goes to sleep since she doesn't like us playing. Tested vs gisa and geralf, then arcum dagsson, then arjun, the shifting flame, then we swap decks and I play his zurgo helmsmasher against this. I'm begging to see the most common lines to victory the deck takes, and the various possible scenario/set-up's it takes to get there. I'm hoping to continue practicing and make my actual speed of turn-resolution go faster so the deck is less of a pain for my opponents to sit and watch. I'm also seeing a higher-than-expected need for reliquary tower/thought vessel effects to support necrologia and necropotence drawing, so I've fitted in a spellbook over the rarely-used cabal coffers.
Game 1 - I think he picked to play gisa and geralf by my earlier comments about being unsure of how well the storm deck performs, since his gisa and geralf deck isn't super quick. While he is able to resolve an early zombie, by the time he resolves gisa and geralf on turn-4 and attacks with that zombie once, I'm already ready to go off at EOT with ad nauseam. I had ironically top-decked the ad nauseam on my previous turn, and had planned on using that turn to dark petition for it.
Game 2 - He picks up possibly one of his scariest decks with arcum dagsson. The game goes long. I luckily do not see him play any prison/stax stuff to screw up the early game, and toxic delugh and later lightning bolt knocks out Arcum before activation. He fabricates for a platinum emperion and plays a leyline of anticipation with the gross amount of artifact mana he was able to play out, and I see very few options. I use dark petition to get necropotence after playing a reliquary tower and put myself to 10 life after drawing hard. A thoughtseize forces him to play out the emperion, and I go ahead with an inner fire into sphinx-bone wand, followed by enough garbage to shoot down the giant robot and then his face.
Game 3 - The game goes a bit long also. Arjun resolves an early jace's archivist to troll me if I were to draw-big, so I waste a lightning bolt. I fish around for any counter magic and find my opponents counterflux when I try to resolve a scroll rack. I try for an early gamble for necrologia after finding reliquary tower, but the luck-gods hate me and I discard the necrologia, putting me out of gas except for a magus of the wheel I was sitting on and a tendrils of agony in hand w/ zero other cards. I had earlier discarded a mizzix's mastery to a turn-2 wild guess, and most of the game was me fiddling with cantrips and an early reforge the soul. I top-deck a shreds of sanity and see a line for victory. I was able to return the mastery + a ritual after discarding tendrils of agony, and use the ritual to push mizzix's mastery out, activating magus of the wheel with mizzix's mastery on the stack so I could look for possibly another instant spell to up my storm count and make the inner fire in my graveyard not completely irrelevant. Storm count builds up and I find that we have exactly enough to make the final card from mizzix's mastery lethal (the tendrils of agony I discarded at the beginning of the turn). Activating the Magus may have been a mis-play since it gave the opponent an out to find answers, and if I had just done the match I could have won w/o activating the Magus.
Game 4 - My buddy wants me to see how the deck looks as an opponent so I can speculate better inclusions and plays. I pick his zurgo helmsmasher deck to play since it can frequently see a very early zurgo and a follow-up cataclysm tends to just ends games. While I mulligan aggressively looking for ramp, I end up keeping @5 only seeing a 3-drop artifact to get Zurgo out swinging on turn-4, which is the same turn my opponent ad nauseam and wins on the following. He saw a completely dank start of land + mana crypt + jet medallion + mox opal, but was a bit out of gas till he hit the vampiric tutor and grabbed ad nauseam. When he went to cast it he had already taken 7 from combat, lost two flips, and 2 from vampiric tutor, so he was only able to draw about 10 cards before settling at 6 (compensating for possible coin-flip-loss and a sign in blood he drew). At this point he sees many routes, and decides to see just how much mana he could make. He copies inner fire with increasing vengeance, resolves a guttersnipe, uses a demonic tutor something, then uses dark petition to get yawgmoth's will. He resolves the will, seeing the fun interaction of yawmoth's will allowing the 'increasing' cards to double from the yard for their normal mana-cost, and casts 2x more inner fires along with another dark petition and demonic tutor for (iirc) gilded lotus since he seemed to want black mana for something. By the time his hand starts shrinking to just lands guttersnipe had already lowered me to 16 life when I had started the turn at 40, his storm count was 16, he still had 20+ red mana and ~6ish black mana. While I see he could have tutored for a wheel of fotune effect to continue the game, he ends up seeing the blatant over-kill and casts a tendrils of agony, putting me down to 14 before I loose 2x17 life.
Aug 13'th - 2x games against the same maelstrom player from Aug 6'th. The first game was very strange. I saw only a single wild guess as draw, and no tutors in the entire game. It was also the first Rakdos the Defiler victory. The second game the deck performed like a dream, but I'm more than aware of how inconsistent seeing the necessary cards like that will be. I'm really wishing I could afford grim tutor/imperial seal, as these are really the only way to make those excessively early starts happen more frequently.
I hadn't planned on bringing out this deck against my friends again, but I was having some very bad luck piloting my rorix bladewing deck against his maelstrom deck, with him seeing some excessively ridiculous starts. He suggested I swapped out Rorix and this was the other deck I had in the same fat-pack.
Game 1 - We both had opening hands with nice acceleration, but after turn-3 I'm still not seeing any tutors or gas. I end up passing with 7 mana open and nothing to do, realizing that I should have just cast rakdos the defiler (no agent of stromgald at this table). On turn-4 I still see no draw/gas, end up playing another land and casting rakdos the defiler. The opponent untaps on his turn-4 and duplicants the Rakdos. I untap and dark ritual Rakdos back out. The opponent can't kill him again, but does cast a hornet queen. Before I attack on turn-5 I cast a toxic deluge to wipe his creatures, setting him back to 4 lands. He untaps and plays a solemn simulacrum, but sees the writing on the wall and scoops.
Game 2 - He sees an absolutely bonkers start of exploration + birds of paradise turn-1 followed by kodama's reach + sylvan library turn-2. But my start was pretty good too, seeing ad nauseam and vampiric tutor + lands in my opening hand. Seeing a very tight clock coming my way I end up using the vampiric tutor to grab dark ritual and use the ritual to cast ad nauseam on the end of his turn-3, letting me untap on my turn-4 and go off with an eventual stormcount @ 26 into 27x ignite memories.
Aug 19'th - 1x game against the same eldrazi bro. When it comes to mizzix's mastery wins I'm seeing a reoccurring play of discarding a storm card to shreds of sanity/faithless looting/wild guess/tormenting voice. In earlier games I thought the discarded storm card trick was going to be a unique/rare occurrence, but it is actually a pretty good way to save mana, while filling the graveyard, while building storm.
Well only myself and one mate showed up for our LGS's edh fnm thing, so we just battled casually against each others decks. This deck showed up once out of those games, and I didn't really want to play it against him since he has already been exposed to it, and he doesn't have a 1v1 deck.
The game sees an opening hand of lands + necrologia + gamble. I use the gamble to successfully get thought vessel so I can turn-4 necrologia. My opponent has a Dimensional Infiltrator that beats on me a little and when I cast my necrologia for 28, his turn-4 is Thought-Knot Seer' a dark petition out of my hand so I can't abuse/copy it. I had made the mistake of reminding him of the threats and key cards in my deck while he was resolving the Seer, and when I describe that the "easy win" comes from me tutoring inner fire, I completely forget what dimensional infiltrator does, and when I untap on turn-5 and vampiric tutor it to the top of my deck for draw, he exiles it. A hand of over 30 cards and 4 open mana before playing anything although is more than enough to build up mana and storm for a mizzix's mastery win, tutoring up seething song and discarding ignite memories to shreds of sanity to return the song and tutor to find yet again another ritual. After the mastery resolves I end up with 29x copies of ignite memories on the stack.
Aug 26'th - 2x games at a multi-player (3 opponent) table. A buddy wanted to try the deck out after I told him about how hard it would be to try and win with against multiple opponents. Second game I tried it myself. After the outcome of the second game I am absolutely going to try and fit in rhystic tutor and cruel tutor as budget options over grim tutor/imperial seal.
Game 1 - my buddy is familiar with legacy storm decks, and EDH decks in general, but not very familiar with EDH storm. I give him a heads on the key cards to acquire with tutors and their priority, and he mistakenly tutors up the win-conditions before a big-draw spell. The entire table dies to my other buddies Maelstrom deck, and he reveals a hand w/ sphinx-bone wand, inner fire, and ignite memories, but no card draw.
Game 2 - I take over my deck and see an opening hand with disgusting mana, night's whisper and guttersnipe. I choose to keep, thinking that the guttersnipe was pretty important having three opponents. I could have had a turn-1 guttersnipe, but since the only digging I had was a night's whisper, I decided to play it slow. I end up tutoring for an ad nauseam and reforge the soul at end of turn-3 by emptying my hand via insidious dreams, and end of turn-4 I cast the ad nauseam, drawing 24 cards. When I untap on turn-5 I have well over 30 cards in my hand, plenty of ramp, but zero recursion, and zero tutors. I cast as much as I can and try to see what's on top of my deck by casting a wheel of fortune, but there is nothing of relevance. I sign in blood myself and thoughtseize a random opponent, putting myself down to 1-life for the easy picking.
My attempt with the guttersnipe although did lower everyone by quite a bit. My maelstrom buddy wordly tutors Purph to the top of his deck before he untaps, and tooth and nails (not entwined), for a Purphoros+avenger of zendikar win.
Sept 2nd - multiplayer game attempt (with turn-3 victory!)
Game 1 - only game. There are three opponents, but only one opponent was actually playing anything early-game.
There was chatter about how rubbish my storm deck performed in multi-player, so I decided to bring it out. I see an excessive amount of early mana and a memory jar in my opening hand, and start the game off with a land + sol ring + helm of awakening. One opponent does cast a turn-2 ezuri, claw of progress thanks to my helm, but on my turn-2 I toss out a random spell, ruby medallion, and grapeshot the ezuri off the field.
Turn-3 comes and I draw a vampiric tutor, so I tutor mana crypt to the top of my deck, play the memory jar, and crack it. The jar hand gives me an ad nauseam, which I main-phase cast. After building enough mana and finding guttersnipe, I'm able to build up enough storm to trash the table.
The final turn of the game was a gamble. I was dangerously close to sputtering out, and if I had not pulled the mox opal with the jar hand I couldn't have resolved the cabal ritual that gave me the mana for ad nauseam. The only reason I rushed out the ad nauseam that turn was due to two of the opponents plotting to blow up my helm of awakening + sol ring when they untapped.
This deck is not really tuned for multi-player since the average damage potential is somewhere around 60 when storming off. At times with specific enablers like guttersnipe/sphinx-bone wand it can crank out far more damage, but those are not always going to survive when there are more opponents with more spot-removal.
I'm grateful for the nasty turn-3 win, and to help my friend shove his foot deeper up his own arse for talking ***** about my deck.
Sept 3rd - 2x games against maelstrom buddy
- deck playing with a newly included cruel tutor.
Game 1 - Opening hand shows an excessive volume of mana acceleration, with seething song + reforge the soul. We turn-3 the song into soul with a mana open, and draw... mana. Turn-4 we cast Rakdos the Defiler. The opponent can't kill the Rakdos, but does resolve a bane of progress on turn-4 to knock me down to just 4x lands, but I untap and cast toxic deluge and connect with Rakdos, kicking us both down to two lands, and he scoops.
Game 2 - This game happens some time later, and I probably shouldn't have picked up the deck again. I was feeling head-achy and tired and was moody since I had accidentally busted my other mates rear-view mirror off his car when we made a food trip.
Both of us are hurting for land-falls for most of the game. My early talisman of indulgence and rakdos signet get eaten up by a trygon predator, while I sit back on thermo-alchemist staring down a coiling oracle. I mis-judge my possible mana-production when vampiric tutoring, thinking I had enough to ad nauseam on the following turn, but when I double check my hand I realize I didn't have enough mana, and by putting ad nauseam on top I would be skipping a necessary land-fall, so I instead put reforge the soul on top. My hand although was pretty good, having magus of the wheel, seething song, and mizzix's mastery already in hand. After resolving the reforge the soul I'm regretting the play. I do draw into another tutor + lands + mana-rock, so after doing some math I tutor up shreds of sanity to recover the seething song + mizzix's mastery, which I then overload. After durdling around with my deck for some time the game ends @ 16x storm, with a sphinx-bone wand at 5 counters and a thermo-alchemist pinging away.
Sept 4th - Final Entry
I'm thinking that per my color restriction here, the current list that i'm running (past the 3x expensive cards), is fairly optimal. There are some arguable and whimsical cards like thermo-alchemist and vessel of volatility, but until something strictly better for a black+red storm list is realized I'm just not too worried about it.
This deck was not intended to turn out as quick/effective vs my friends as it has. I honestly anticipated having a more casual mid-to-late game storm deck, and didn't realize how consistently fast it could become. I'm also aware that I am not exposed to enough competitive 1v1 decks to really stress test this.
I'm proud of the experiment, but due to my original goal of wanting a more unusual storm deck, I don't think excluding just blue is enough. I'll be setting this deck aside while I move on to another experiment (a gruul/naya storm list!). This deck will be maintained but I won't be actively researching for it while I focus on other projects. I may miss some new cards, so feel free to PM me or post here with ideas!
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
But, with the recently spoiled Vial Smasher the Fierce;
this deck may take a turn. She is cheap enough that she doesn't compete with many early-turn options, and acts as a nice source of some extra damage. EOT ad nauseam or miracle reforge the soul equates to a lava axe.
After this years spoiler season is over I'm going to sit down and evaluate the possible use and damage potential that she offers over Rakdos.
I've still been considering a secondary rakdos storm list with my original dragonlor kolaghan + empty the warrens/young pyromancer/haze of rage approach. That brew would have a higher average cmc since it is more creature/combat based, and in theory would go off on later turns. Vial Smasher the Fierce may be a better general for that over the haste-enabling Dragonlord Kolaghan.
Time will tell, either this post will have further updates, or I will have a new decklist/post coming.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
I really do like molten psyche, but it sadly pushes cards from my hand back into the deck instead of the 'yard, and it doesn't really generate card advantage. The only time I see this being good is after a large pull off ad nauseam/necropotence/necrologia, where I've played all live cards in hand and need more. I think scroll rack trumps this need, and is pretty much helpful at all times of the game instead of the possible winning turn.
Thanks for the ideas!
The new magus of the will was spoiled today. I'm super hyped about this. The artwork is amazing. I'm going to proxie one up and see how it runs in this deck once I figure out what to take out. I'm thinking vessel of volatility may be sided out for a while since it is a whimsical ritual.
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder was also spoiled today. I will absolutely be maintaining this deck, since it is technically my first owned (its ALL MINE!) storm deck. I've even started pimp'ing this one out. But Yidris is interesting enough that I've started a multi-player storm brew around him as well.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
I've also just recently won an eBay auction for a judge imperial seal, which is going right in this deck once it arrives. I'm still wanting two more top-end cards (grim tutor/lion's eye diamond), that may eventually be obtained as well. I'm just in no rush to spend the $ that those cards are currently asking.
This 1v1 deck has been performing pretty well, although it doesn't see as much play as my multiplayer black+red storm list (decklist and salvation). I'm still mostly playing with multi-player opponents with little 1v1 desires, so that deck sees more action.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!