If your deck is stacked poorly it is a lot harder to pull off. I have about an 75-80% success rate for when I needed to go for it. Really you just hope to kill them before they combo, but that doesn't always happen. Also I misspoke in the math above. (Their deck size / 2) / (8 - the number of scours cast) gives you number of ascensions needed +1 since you cast the original spell.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
UBR ANT UBR TES UBR TNT GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
Well, I usually count how many Scour copies I need t ocast and from that number I figure out possible combinations of numbers of Ascensions and Scour (cards) I need. Maybe one thing I didn't account for correctly is the fact, that I can draw the last Scour and Ascension while trying to mill them out.
1) Yes, that loop isn't technically infinite because you are limited with cards. Two noxious revival and two manamorphose is infinite and would be a way to beat infinite life.
2) Empty is the more fragile kill, and there are quite a few times where it isn't very good, but usually you want to pair it with blood moon. Lock them down and present a threat. The other reason we run three goes back to not having a tutor, and similar reasons why we run 3 PiF. Basically the math works out that three you are likely to have one in your hand, but only draw one for the first couple turns. Empty is also there to fight the the discard decks since it requires less resources for a potential kill.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
UBR ANT UBR TES UBR TNT GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
TheChucklingAtom explained everything. I wrote about Remand mostly out of academic interest; most builds don't play it. It's an infinite draw loop, not an infinite mana loop.
4 mana floating, Manamorphose and Remand in hand, 2 PAs active: Cast Manamorphose, then Remand and yield to all triggers.
1) Manamorphose
2) Manamorphose copy
3) Manamorphose copy
4) Remand targeting anything
5) Remand copy targeting Remand 4
6) Remand copy targeting Manamorphose 1
Remand 6 resolves, Manamorphose 1 back to hand, draw. Remand 5 resolves, Remand 4 back to hand, draw. Manamorphose 2 and 3 resolve, generate 4 mana, draw 2. You're back where you started but with 4 extra cards in hand.
If you haven't read Finkel's tournament report from 2 years back, you should do so. You can play his list right now without any changes. This deck hasn't gained a lot of playable cards over the years, other than TC, which was swiftly banned.
Nowadays I don't play this deck any more. Burn is quite common and a very bad matchup, as is Infect. You might be interested in Ad Nauseam (it actually has a good Burn matchup), but it's more of an A+B combo than a cast-20-spells-in-one-turn combo. Elves with Lead the Stampede has that Storm combo feel.
One big difference between TES and Storm i nModern is, that you never have the win in hand. You always try to win by "leap of faith" relying on consistency of the deck.
Bant eldrazi is the exact kind of matchup that empty shines in. Most of the sideboard cards are silver bullets, and in empties case sometimes it is just really nice to have more than one kill condition in the deck. By all means test it for your local meta, not knowing what that is makes it hard to pass judgement.
I really do not like jace's sanctum, mostly because it cuts down on the number of potential turn three kills that we get. The deck really wants to kill on three or four if possible and sanctum really doesn't help with that. I also don't like boseiju since colorless lands have a bad history in this deck and unlike AdNaus in modern we have more than one piece that could get countered and still screw up our line.
I would argue TES never has the win in hand either, they always have to tutor for it. More seriously there are hands that are impossible to lose from, and that is usually what you set up for when comboing on turn four. When I go for the combo now I almost never fizzle. With good mulligans and cantrips combo is basically there because the deck is consistent. The biggest difference in my opinion between the decks is this deck just kinda powers through disruption and just has to slam into it most of the time, while in legacy you get discard spells and that adds a lot to being able to fight hate.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
UBR ANT UBR TES UBR TNT GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
Legacy and modern storm aren't really the same kind of deck. Modern storm's best legacy counterpart is high tide. Which is appropriate because they both suck
Legacy UBx storm decks (Excluding Tin Fins) are a very different style of critical mass deck than high tide, elves or modern storm.
I want to brew some jank. Does anyone have a list with main deck Young Pyromancer and Empty?
Tonight was a bad night for storm. I lost to tron and grixis delver because I had to mull to 5 twice and never found a second land before turn 4 in any game. Then I beat up company with Empty and Ad Nauseam by being faster. Then I got paired against burn
Anyways sometimes storm just craps out. It's important to recognize that but it still sucks when it does that. Storm actually mulligans a lot less than many decks but mulligans hit us much harder than some other decks because we're a critical mass deck and we don't have swingy cards to get us back into it. Eg. Company can just rip company and be right back in the game but we don't really have those kind of draws. Basically what I'm saying is that I want seething song unbanned. Please.
Played in a WMCQ and did poorly 3-3-1. My biggest mistake was letting round 1 jund opponent stall for a draw. Some notes:
- Jund is one of the better matchups we have
- some games against Grixis feel so terrible - it just takes lots of time and cards t ogrind through their counters...
- first roudn with Storm is the most important to win, otherwise you will go through the bottom, where burn waits for you (played against three...)
- i finally got to beat burn - twice and even through Eidolon - you only need to have a perfect hand for turn 2 Goblins - easy...
- got humbled by mono blue tron - playing without Accension against Chalice on 2 is no fun and bringing Empty was definitely a mistake
I hope the last wmcq will go better for me...
Seething song is banned in modern. When it was legal a turn 3 kill was very easy, turn 2 was still pretty viable.
I played in the modern challenge after bombing out of legacy.
Round 1 against esper mill. Turn 3 kills with ascension both games. Thanks for filling my yard!
Round 2 against grixis, had what he needed both games to answer what I was doing and I just couldn't draw enough action. I had ancestral visions post board and an active ascension after suspension on visions came off. I was able to copy but cryptic counter and bounce left me at square 1 with a lot of cards in hand and not much action still.
Round 3 8bushWacker
Game 1 and 3 he was very aggressive and I couldn't quite get there, was 1 action spell off in game 3. Game 2 I was able to build a good hand and kill turn 3
Round 4 burn
I died quickly game 1 and game 2 I was able to put a Vampiric link on his turn 2 eidolon, but couldn't really find enough action or an enabler to storm and kill
How are you all finding the splash hate for Dredge? Void, RiP, and Cage seem to be popping up much more frequently. I've been considering adding a second Echoing Truth to the side to deal with Void, but it doesn't really impact RiP or Cage.
Also, the Bant Eldrazi, Dredge, and Nahiri UWR matchups seem great. Eldrazi Taxes seems like a complete nightmare. What do you guys think about Suicide Zoo? I haven't played it but on paper it seems favorable for us.
More graveyard hate: I haven't seen much. A second truth might be good in the flex slot however cage isn't very good against us and it appears to be the most common because of splash hate against company.
Bant Eldrazi: It's like jund but without decay and without discard. This matchup is absolutely amazing. When they have 6 cards total that matter game one we're likely to win especially since they don't have super speed.
Dredge: We're also favored here. Their manabase is truly awful and bloodmoon can easily win the game on the spot. Plus we're faster and if you have Anger of the Gods you can blow them out of the water. On the other hand they can come out fast. We are unlikely to beat their best draws but out average draws are way way faster than theirs. Also we have more interaction.
UWR: Having Defense Grid here makes it a lot easier. Nahiri is awful against us (you can't cast her until turn 6 unless you want to die on the spot) and other than that it's UWR control but with less cards that matter. I haven't loved Moon against them because they aren't trying to cast cryptic so their manabase is a lot better but it still may be worth it. I'm not sure.
Eldrazi and Taxes: Game one sucks. Games two are three come down to us resolving empty/moon by turn 3/4. If we do that then we almost always win. We're favored post board but not by a lot and pre board we're a pretty big dog.
I should know the suicide zoo matchup better since I'm building it but I haven't played against it yet. My inclination is that it's slightly unfavorable but only slightly. Luckily Empty is amazing against them. This matchup has very little interaction though. It's esentially a race to see who can combo faster. They are slightly faster and have some disruption but we don't have to fully combo because they damage themselves so much and empty is so good.
Infect and Suicide zoo are big arguments for playing 3 grape***** and 2 desperate ravings. It's not that hard to to chain together storm 5-10 on turn 4 even through a thoughtseize if we have drawn a grapeshot.
Just wanted t oadd a comment to that Eldrazi Taxes matchup - remember t obring in Bolts post-board for Thalias and Scullers - I used to forget about them.
I played yesterday twice with Finkel's list mainboard against Eldrazi and Taxes. It was awful game 1 both times, but jammed 4 Bolt, 3 Empty, 2 Blood Moon and 1 Echoing Truth postboard. It felt winnable postboard, but I lost 2-1 and 2-0 in all.
Also, sent 2-1 against Living End and Jund. The later wasn't so bad, so I'm feeling more comfortable with the deck. Thinking really about having 3 Empty mainboard in place of Ravings. I'd put more removal in the side. Will let you know about the testing!
@TomCourtenay Living end is a really interesting matchup. Are sideboard is super awkward against it but we're so favored game 1 and they aren't 100% to get leyline that the matchup is favorable. Jund is and has always been about how many discard spells they draw and how much we mulligan. We lose if they can take 3 cards by their turn 3 so mulliganing hurts a lot.
Taxes is super weird but your experiences feel about right. Game one usually feels awful although sometimes they just keep a hand of a bunch of spells that don't matter and we win. That's one advantage to storm sometimes we get free wins because our opponent kept a hand of double path, double wrath of god and three lands. Against us that hand is truly awful but against something like company that hand is pretty good and they're probably priced into keeping it.
I wouldn't recomend playing Empty main for two reasons. One is that there are a fair number of decks against which is just doesn't matter and where ravings would be infinitely better. Also if you play more removal you will fall into the trap of over boarding. Just be wary of this because it is something that can easily happen.
Also why didn't you bring in 3 moons against taxes? The board plan should be:
-3 Desperate Ravings
-1 Grapeshot
-2 Past in Flames
-4 Thought Scour
-1 Pyromancer Ascension
+3 Blood Moon
+3 Empty the Warrens
+4 Lightning Bolt
+1 Echoing Truth
@lordoftheshadows : I run 2 Blood Moon in the side, but I consider maybe adding a 3rd one to the 75. Empty main is probably not a great idea, I admit it, but it felt so great when I had to use it that I'm still in the edge. Probably 3 Grapeshot and 2 Peer Through Depths would be something I'd tri and would take out 3 Ravings!
Blood Moon is mostly terrible against Dredge IMO. If the game is going well they only want to cast Insolent Neonate, Faithless Looting, Tormenting Voice, Burning Inquiry, Conflagrate, Life from the Loam, suspended Greater Gargadon, and flashbacked Rally the Peasants (which of these they want to cast depends on the build, of course). Unless you're up against a Loam/Conflagrate build you aren't shutting them down at all, and are actually helping them by making it so they don't take damage from Mana Confluence. Best-case scenario for Moon against them is that they kept a hand full of Narcomoebas and Prized Amalgams, but if they did that then they have ways to get the Amalgams into the yard and onto the field. Anger is incredible, though.
EDIT: Actually I guess it keeps them off of Gnaw to the Bone, but that's not enough of an incentive for me to board it in because Gnaw's easy to beat.
Playtested against Affinity and went 1-3 (0-2, 0-2, 2-1, 1-2), playing no post-board. I wanted to see how the deck was for game 1 and I felt behind most of the times. I managed to snap a game with great effort, storming up to 21 and swinging with Goblin Electromancer to beat my opponent. I played Finkel's list, found it smooth last week when I ended up 3-1. I know this would get better postboard because of Shatterstorm, Bolts and Empty, but I'm still a bit disapointed with how it ended. 2-2 would have been nice.
UBR TES
UBR TNT
GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
UBWR Ad nauseam
GW Hatebears
2) Empty is the more fragile kill, and there are quite a few times where it isn't very good, but usually you want to pair it with blood moon. Lock them down and present a threat. The other reason we run three goes back to not having a tutor, and similar reasons why we run 3 PiF. Basically the math works out that three you are likely to have one in your hand, but only draw one for the first couple turns. Empty is also there to fight the the discard decks since it requires less resources for a potential kill.
UBR TES
UBR TNT
GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
UBWR Ad nauseam
GW Hatebears
TheChucklingAtom explained everything. I wrote about Remand mostly out of academic interest; most builds don't play it. It's an infinite draw loop, not an infinite mana loop.
4 mana floating, Manamorphose and Remand in hand, 2 PAs active: Cast Manamorphose, then Remand and yield to all triggers.
1) Manamorphose
2) Manamorphose copy
3) Manamorphose copy
4) Remand targeting anything
5) Remand copy targeting Remand 4
6) Remand copy targeting Manamorphose 1
Remand 6 resolves, Manamorphose 1 back to hand, draw. Remand 5 resolves, Remand 4 back to hand, draw. Manamorphose 2 and 3 resolve, generate 4 mana, draw 2. You're back where you started but with 4 extra cards in hand.
If you haven't read Finkel's tournament report from 2 years back, you should do so. You can play his list right now without any changes. This deck hasn't gained a lot of playable cards over the years, other than TC, which was swiftly banned.
Nowadays I don't play this deck any more. Burn is quite common and a very bad matchup, as is Infect. You might be interested in Ad Nauseam (it actually has a good Burn matchup), but it's more of an A+B combo than a cast-20-spells-in-one-turn combo. Elves with Lead the Stampede has that Storm combo feel.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
I really do not like jace's sanctum, mostly because it cuts down on the number of potential turn three kills that we get. The deck really wants to kill on three or four if possible and sanctum really doesn't help with that. I also don't like boseiju since colorless lands have a bad history in this deck and unlike AdNaus in modern we have more than one piece that could get countered and still screw up our line.
I would argue TES never has the win in hand either, they always have to tutor for it. More seriously there are hands that are impossible to lose from, and that is usually what you set up for when comboing on turn four. When I go for the combo now I almost never fizzle. With good mulligans and cantrips combo is basically there because the deck is consistent. The biggest difference in my opinion between the decks is this deck just kinda powers through disruption and just has to slam into it most of the time, while in legacy you get discard spells and that adds a lot to being able to fight hate.
UBR TES
UBR TNT
GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
UBWR Ad nauseam
GW Hatebears
Legacy UBx storm decks (Excluding Tin Fins) are a very different style of critical mass deck than high tide, elves or modern storm.
I want to brew some jank. Does anyone have a list with main deck Young Pyromancer and Empty?
Tonight was a bad night for storm. I lost to tron and grixis delver because I had to mull to 5 twice and never found a second land before turn 4 in any game. Then I beat up company with Empty and Ad Nauseam by being faster. Then I got paired against burn
Anyways sometimes storm just craps out. It's important to recognize that but it still sucks when it does that. Storm actually mulligans a lot less than many decks but mulligans hit us much harder than some other decks because we're a critical mass deck and we don't have swingy cards to get us back into it. Eg. Company can just rip company and be right back in the game but we don't really have those kind of draws. Basically what I'm saying is that I want seething song unbanned. Please.
1 Island
3 Mountain
3 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
Creatures 5
1 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Young Pyromancer
Spells 39
4 Battle Hymn
1 Blood Moon
4 Desperate Ritual
2 Empty the Warrens
4 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Manamorphose
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Reforge the Soul
4 Serum Visions
3 Blood Moon
1 Echoing Truth
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Goblin Bushwhacker
3 Grapeshot
3 Rending Volley
2 Shatterstorm
Modern UR Storm
Legacy BG Manaless Dredge
EDH:
WUBSen Triplets Control
GPolukranos Super Ramp Monstrosity
RWU Narset Turns
- Jund is one of the better matchups we have
- some games against Grixis feel so terrible - it just takes lots of time and cards t ogrind through their counters...
- first roudn with Storm is the most important to win, otherwise you will go through the bottom, where burn waits for you (played against three...)
- i finally got to beat burn - twice and even through Eidolon - you only need to have a perfect hand for turn 2 Goblins - easy...
- got humbled by mono blue tron - playing without Accension against Chalice on 2 is no fun and bringing Empty was definitely a mistake
I hope the last wmcq will go better for me...
I played in the modern challenge after bombing out of legacy.
Round 1 against esper mill. Turn 3 kills with ascension both games. Thanks for filling my yard!
Round 2 against grixis, had what he needed both games to answer what I was doing and I just couldn't draw enough action. I had ancestral visions post board and an active ascension after suspension on visions came off. I was able to copy but cryptic counter and bounce left me at square 1 with a lot of cards in hand and not much action still.
Round 3 8bushWacker
Game 1 and 3 he was very aggressive and I couldn't quite get there, was 1 action spell off in game 3. Game 2 I was able to build a good hand and kill turn 3
Round 4 burn
I died quickly game 1 and game 2 I was able to put a Vampiric link on his turn 2 eidolon, but couldn't really find enough action or an enabler to storm and kill
How are you all finding the splash hate for Dredge? Void, RiP, and Cage seem to be popping up much more frequently. I've been considering adding a second Echoing Truth to the side to deal with Void, but it doesn't really impact RiP or Cage.
Also, the Bant Eldrazi, Dredge, and Nahiri UWR matchups seem great. Eldrazi Taxes seems like a complete nightmare. What do you guys think about Suicide Zoo? I haven't played it but on paper it seems favorable for us.
| Omnath | Zada | Alesha | Scion |
| Mazirek | Animar |
Modern
UR Storm RU
UBRG Dredge GRBU
Standard
UR Thermo-Thing RU
More graveyard hate: I haven't seen much. A second truth might be good in the flex slot however cage isn't very good against us and it appears to be the most common because of splash hate against company.
Bant Eldrazi: It's like jund but without decay and without discard. This matchup is absolutely amazing. When they have 6 cards total that matter game one we're likely to win especially since they don't have super speed.
Dredge: We're also favored here. Their manabase is truly awful and bloodmoon can easily win the game on the spot. Plus we're faster and if you have Anger of the Gods you can blow them out of the water. On the other hand they can come out fast. We are unlikely to beat their best draws but out average draws are way way faster than theirs. Also we have more interaction.
UWR: Having Defense Grid here makes it a lot easier. Nahiri is awful against us (you can't cast her until turn 6 unless you want to die on the spot) and other than that it's UWR control but with less cards that matter. I haven't loved Moon against them because they aren't trying to cast cryptic so their manabase is a lot better but it still may be worth it. I'm not sure.
Eldrazi and Taxes: Game one sucks. Games two are three come down to us resolving empty/moon by turn 3/4. If we do that then we almost always win. We're favored post board but not by a lot and pre board we're a pretty big dog.
I should know the suicide zoo matchup better since I'm building it but I haven't played against it yet. My inclination is that it's slightly unfavorable but only slightly. Luckily Empty is amazing against them. This matchup has very little interaction though. It's esentially a race to see who can combo faster. They are slightly faster and have some disruption but we don't have to fully combo because they damage themselves so much and empty is so good.
Infect and Suicide zoo are big arguments for playing 3 grape***** and 2 desperate ravings. It's not that hard to to chain together storm 5-10 on turn 4 even through a thoughtseize if we have drawn a grapeshot.
Also, sent 2-1 against Living End and Jund. The later wasn't so bad, so I'm feeling more comfortable with the deck. Thinking really about having 3 Empty mainboard in place of Ravings. I'd put more removal in the side. Will let you know about the testing!
Cheers!
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
Taxes is super weird but your experiences feel about right. Game one usually feels awful although sometimes they just keep a hand of a bunch of spells that don't matter and we win. That's one advantage to storm sometimes we get free wins because our opponent kept a hand of double path, double wrath of god and three lands. Against us that hand is truly awful but against something like company that hand is pretty good and they're probably priced into keeping it.
I wouldn't recomend playing Empty main for two reasons. One is that there are a fair number of decks against which is just doesn't matter and where ravings would be infinitely better. Also if you play more removal you will fall into the trap of over boarding. Just be wary of this because it is something that can easily happen.
Also why didn't you bring in 3 moons against taxes? The board plan should be:
-3 Desperate Ravings
-1 Grapeshot
-2 Past in Flames
-4 Thought Scour
-1 Pyromancer Ascension
+3 Blood Moon
+3 Empty the Warrens
+4 Lightning Bolt
+1 Echoing Truth
Cheers!
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
EDIT: Actually I guess it keeps them off of Gnaw to the Bone, but that's not enough of an incentive for me to board it in because Gnaw's easy to beat.
| Omnath | Zada | Alesha | Scion |
| Mazirek | Animar |
Modern
UR Storm RU
UBRG Dredge GRBU
Standard
UR Thermo-Thing RU
More playing to come!
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R