I took ninth in my tcgplayer States tournament missing on breakers. Plan on writing up a report when I get back to my hometown hopefully remembering most of it.
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UBR ANT UBR TES UBR TNT GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
The reason you want Empty against any BGx variant is because it's much harder to get the Grapeshot kill with small numbers of resources; their discard and ability to keep Baral off the table, plus Liliana straining resources permanently, makes the Grapeshot kill rough if that's your only win condition.
You need to bring in all of your Empties against BGx. You can play around the charms or Anger by simply not blowing all your cards on a single Empty. Emptying for 6-8 goblins and keeping some extra cards for later turns is usually good enough.
I also don't bring in Bolt against Jund, hitting Scooze is too narrow, especially considering we should be moving to an Empty plan post board so we can get under the grave hate.
You still should always leave at least 1 Grapeshot in no matter what plan you're moving to. Empty is also really good against Death's Shadow decks because it can buy you a ton of time, which is usually all you need to generate enough resources for a kill
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Modern UR Storm URB Grixis Delver W Death and Taxes
Basically anything with Scalding Tarn
I think 18 is the sweet spot with 8 cantrips. I usually never have to mulligan more than once, though occasionally I will have the nightmare one land - sleight - sleight - t2 no land draw. I wouldn't be too greedy.
I am ok with keeping hands like the above if you are on the draw. We will see 4 to 5 cards in which we need to find a land. I also agree on 18 lands.
Last Thursday I had a hard time beating Breach Valakut with 4 Chalices Main. They can kill your dorks, they can resolve a chalice on 2 rather quickly and finish the turn after. I managed to win game 1, but failed in game 2 and 3 due to chalice on 2 + cage. I was able to resolve a gifts but my piles were not good enough. That made me think about 'anti chalice on 2' piles. I was looking through some Sideboards and noticed that nearly everyone would just scoop to Chalice. Am I missing something here ?
A very good card could be Ingot Chewer because it only costs 1 to destroy the chalice. Another good card is shattering spree because all the copies won't be countered if there is also a chalice on 1. After that it is quite hard to find a good option which does not take your whole next turn. Probably Shatterstorm ? I often find it too slow. If you play gifts + shatterstorm you just timewalked yourself for 2 turns. I played Vandalblast on thursday because it is more flexible than shatterstorm. I just figured out that it can't be flashbacked with the overload option. Is noxious revival an option ? I don't really like it because it takes our next draw. However it is quite good on its own in control and midrange matchups.
My sideboard generally contains 1 each of Shattering Spree, Vandalblast and Smelt (by far the worst of the 3). This means you can gifts for those three (and a fourth thing) and be guaranteed to get one of them, which you can use to break out of a chalice on 2. Chalice on 1 we don't really care about at all, just kill them through it with your 2 and 4 mana spells.
I've had the chance to do some more testing and I've found that sideboarding is more awkward than I would like with the scroll version although that's most likely because I haven't had the chance to play with my sideboard enough. For those of you playing scroll main are you playing a maindeck bounce spell? I've been liking repeal way better than echoing truth main just because it cycles. It's worse against tron but better (pre board) against most other decks. Obviously we still need to run a copy of echoing truth in the sideboard.
I need to do some more sideboard testing but I've found that we can cut a land against fast decks (affinity, zoo, etc) as well as an electromancer against decks that don't run much removal (affinity, storm, etc). Remands are also pretty lackluster against fast decks. Against slower decks do you think we can trim on rituals? Like legacy storm can do against miracles we can slow down against control decks and try to overload their interaction and win that way. Grapeshot + Remand makes this a lot easier.
Any general thoughts on sideboards? I'm trying to make sure I'm not missing something good.
@Shomotooth It's too much mana. If I were to run something I would run Squelch or Trickbind but both of those are too narrow. I'd rather run pithing needle and it's in my box of sideboard cards.
I'd just bounce the thing with the activated ability with an echoing truth. My only real concern is surgical extraction, that card seems tough to play around and remand doesn't do anything against it.
Playing around surgical isn't actually too bad mainly because almost everyone I've played against who uses it is incompetent at using it. There are a few different problems surgical can cause:
Surgical on a cantrip/land/Scroll/Remand: Sure whatever. That doesn't matter at all.
Surgical on a cost reducer: This can be annoying but only if they can actually catch us without access to the other. You can play around this by being for careful about when you deploy your reducers.
Surgical on a Ritual: You just need more mana to combo off. It makes gifts piles harder to build but it's not that bad. Usually this won't be a big problem.
Surgical on Manamorphose: This is a huge problem. You need to actually makes more land drops (4-5 unless you have a good hand) and this makes it much more difficult to kill with a gifts loop because you're way to constrained on blue mana. Drawing grapeshot/PiF naturally is necessary.
Surgical on Grapeshot: This is annoying but very easy to play around by just not casting it until as late as possible. Grapeshot + Remand also makes this easier.
Surgical on Gifts: Not actually that good unless you are super constrained on card draw. If you have a reasonably sized graveyard this is easy to play through provided you know how to execute the natural combo.
The most dangerous surgical is the one you aren't prepared for. So when planning your combo turns (post board) think about what happens if your opponent has a surgical. Average opponents tend to go after a ritual or Gifts but manamorphose is the one you have to worry about the most. Try playing some practice games against surgical and see what you can do. As with pretty much everything in storm you're not going to learn the deck by anything but practice and more practice.
I forgot about that but it's very very difficult to surgical past in flames unless you're low on mana. If you're worried about surgical on PiF then you just need 5 mana after casting gifts to be able to immediatly cast PiF after gifts and since all of the rituals are instants you respond to the PiF with the rituals and surgical can't hurt you much. If they do surgical PiF then you just need to chain cantrips to find Grapeshot which isn't too difficult. If they don't surgical PiF (because you flashed it back) then you still have to chain cantrips but you have access to a second PiF and can use that to recycle more cantrips. Basically playing around surgical means becoming good at the natural combo without relying on gifts. It's a skill you should know either way because it's what makes the deck powerful. Gifts is overkill in a lot of situations and there are often times when you should have tried to combo a turn earlier rather than waiting on the guaranteed kill with gifts.
Hey does anyone has some experience playing against Ad Nauseam?
I faced one adnaus player yesterday and got 2 turn 3 kill (turn 2 goblin turn 3 ritual+ gifts) but I'm pretty sure I would have had difficulty beating a timely Angel's grace.
Any tips on playing around it? Or do we just go for a quick kill hoping they dont have it? Set up for a second kill the next turn (like not trying to flashback both grapeshots?)
Would you bring in empty the warrens? It seems bad but at least angels grace just buys them one turn against an army of goblins...
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MTGO Username: Tajicyolo
Currently Playing:
Modern Grixis Shadow, Storm Legacy: Grixis Delver, Sneak and Show Duel Commander:Kess High Tide Vintage Big blue(MTGO)
Yeah that's also my feeling, my main concern was about angel's grace, which can totally blank our kill.
I guess its not that hard to play around by making sure you also set up a kill the following turn when going off (like keeping a grapeshot in hand). so maybe its not really a problem
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MTGO Username: Tajicyolo
Currently Playing:
Modern Grixis Shadow, Storm Legacy: Grixis Delver, Sneak and Show Duel Commander:Kess High Tide Vintage Big blue(MTGO)
Yeah that's also my feeling, my main concern was about angel's grace, which can totally blank our kill.
I guess its not that hard to play around by making sure you also set up a kill the following turn when going off (like keeping a grapeshot in hand). so maybe its not really a problem
In my experience, it hasn't been a big problem. The Gifts package means you can almost set up consecutive kill turns (extra Gifts, extra Grapeshots, Past in Flames, Remand, etc.). And they have to pitch a combo piece to hold out for just one turn.
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Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
Against ad-naus I try to leave a land untapped and finish the combo with a remand in hand (or more if possible) while leaving resources to kill again the next turn. Empty the warrens I find to be very good in that matchup.
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Anything blue combo or control.
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UBR TES
UBR TNT
GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
UBWR Ad nauseam
GW Hatebears
You need to bring in all of your Empties against BGx. You can play around the charms or Anger by simply not blowing all your cards on a single Empty. Emptying for 6-8 goblins and keeping some extra cards for later turns is usually good enough.
I also don't bring in Bolt against Jund, hitting Scooze is too narrow, especially considering we should be moving to an Empty plan post board so we can get under the grave hate.
You still should always leave at least 1 Grapeshot in no matter what plan you're moving to. Empty is also really good against Death's Shadow decks because it can buy you a ton of time, which is usually all you need to generate enough resources for a kill
UR Storm
URB Grixis Delver
W Death and Taxes
Basically anything with Scalding Tarn
And guys, what is your sideboard strategy against Naya Burn and Infect, what are u saiding\unsaiding?
I think 18 is the sweet spot with 8 cantrips. I usually never have to mulligan more than once, though occasionally I will have the nightmare one land - sleight - sleight - t2 no land draw. I wouldn't be too greedy.
Last Thursday I had a hard time beating Breach Valakut with 4 Chalices Main. They can kill your dorks, they can resolve a chalice on 2 rather quickly and finish the turn after. I managed to win game 1, but failed in game 2 and 3 due to chalice on 2 + cage. I was able to resolve a gifts but my piles were not good enough. That made me think about 'anti chalice on 2' piles. I was looking through some Sideboards and noticed that nearly everyone would just scoop to Chalice. Am I missing something here ?
A very good card could be Ingot Chewer because it only costs 1 to destroy the chalice. Another good card is shattering spree because all the copies won't be countered if there is also a chalice on 1. After that it is quite hard to find a good option which does not take your whole next turn. Probably Shatterstorm ? I often find it too slow. If you play gifts + shatterstorm you just timewalked yourself for 2 turns. I played Vandalblast on thursday because it is more flexible than shatterstorm. I just figured out that it can't be flashbacked with the overload option. Is noxious revival an option ? I don't really like it because it takes our next draw. However it is quite good on its own in control and midrange matchups.
I need to do some more sideboard testing but I've found that we can cut a land against fast decks (affinity, zoo, etc) as well as an electromancer against decks that don't run much removal (affinity, storm, etc). Remands are also pretty lackluster against fast decks. Against slower decks do you think we can trim on rituals? Like legacy storm can do against miracles we can slow down against control decks and try to overload their interaction and win that way. Grapeshot + Remand makes this a lot easier.
Any general thoughts on sideboards? I'm trying to make sure I'm not missing something good.
Surgical on a cantrip/land/Scroll/Remand: Sure whatever. That doesn't matter at all.
Surgical on a cost reducer: This can be annoying but only if they can actually catch us without access to the other. You can play around this by being for careful about when you deploy your reducers.
Surgical on a Ritual: You just need more mana to combo off. It makes gifts piles harder to build but it's not that bad. Usually this won't be a big problem.
Surgical on Manamorphose: This is a huge problem. You need to actually makes more land drops (4-5 unless you have a good hand) and this makes it much more difficult to kill with a gifts loop because you're way to constrained on blue mana. Drawing grapeshot/PiF naturally is necessary.
Surgical on Grapeshot: This is annoying but very easy to play around by just not casting it until as late as possible. Grapeshot + Remand also makes this easier.
Surgical on Gifts: Not actually that good unless you are super constrained on card draw. If you have a reasonably sized graveyard this is easy to play through provided you know how to execute the natural combo.
The most dangerous surgical is the one you aren't prepared for. So when planning your combo turns (post board) think about what happens if your opponent has a surgical. Average opponents tend to go after a ritual or Gifts but manamorphose is the one you have to worry about the most. Try playing some practice games against surgical and see what you can do. As with pretty much everything in storm you're not going to learn the deck by anything but practice and more practice.
I faced one adnaus player yesterday and got 2 turn 3 kill (turn 2 goblin turn 3 ritual+ gifts) but I'm pretty sure I would have had difficulty beating a timely Angel's grace.
Any tips on playing around it? Or do we just go for a quick kill hoping they dont have it? Set up for a second kill the next turn (like not trying to flashback both grapeshots?)
Would you bring in empty the warrens? It seems bad but at least angels grace just buys them one turn against an army of goblins...
Currently Playing:
Modern Grixis Shadow, Storm
Legacy: Grixis Delver, Sneak and Show
Duel Commander: Kess High Tide
Vintage Big blue(MTGO)
I guess its not that hard to play around by making sure you also set up a kill the following turn when going off (like keeping a grapeshot in hand). so maybe its not really a problem
Currently Playing:
Modern Grixis Shadow, Storm
Legacy: Grixis Delver, Sneak and Show
Duel Commander: Kess High Tide
Vintage Big blue(MTGO)
In my experience, it hasn't been a big problem. The Gifts package means you can almost set up consecutive kill turns (extra Gifts, extra Grapeshots, Past in Flames, Remand, etc.). And they have to pitch a combo piece to hold out for just one turn.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon