Contents
0) What is Storm?
1) History
2) Card Choices
3) Decklists
4) Technical Play, Tips, and Tricks
5) Matchups
0) What is Storm? -Courtesy of izzetmage
Storm is a UR combo deck which utilizes the storm mechanic to deal extremely high amounts of damage in one turn. The goal of the deck is to cast a lot of spells in one turn to achieve a high storm count, then use a Storm spell (Grapeshot or Empty the Warrens) to finish off the opponent. It combines the card-drawing of blue with the mana-producing instants of red (dubbed “rituals”, after Pyretic Ritual and Desperate Ritual). A typical winning turn consists of drawing cards and casting rituals alternately, turning cards into mana and vice versa, until a lethal storm count is attained and the kill spell is drawn.
What isn’t Storm? There are a few decks which are similar in construction to Storm, but I would not classify as Storm. Some of these are:
Dragonstorm: Once a proudly competitive deck, now reduced to unplayability because of the ritual bans. The goal in Dragonstorm is to reach a modest storm count of 3, and the not-so-modest “mana floating” value of 9 (aided by Lotus Bloom, Pentad Prism, and Calciform Pools). A Dragonstorm cast would tutor three Bogardan Hellkites, plus a fourth Hellkite, or Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund for a “dirtier” kill involving the combat step. While Dragonstorm has the storm mechanic, it could kill on lower storm counts than the Storm deck discussed here, at the cost of filling the deck with dead-draw Dragons (Dragonstorm cannot put a Dragon from hand into play). Alas, Dragonstorm is no longer playable, so we shall not discuss it further.
PA/MM/NR Combo: A deck which wins via the combination of Pyromancer Ascension and two copies each of Manamorphose and Noxious Revival. This generates infinite Storm. The three major differences it has from Storm are:
1) It can deal truly unbounded damage from its combo. Storm, on the other hand, can deal large amounts of damage, ranging from 15 to 100+, but it cannot beat an opponent with, say, one million life.
2) It typically plays zero rituals. PA/MM/NR can generate infinite storm without having to mess with rituals.
3) It literally cannot win without Pyromancer Ascension or a graveyard. With regular Storm, you can play around grave hate, and even win without drawing a PA.
Time Warp Combo: This deck was once playable in Standard. A Modern port has proven unsuccessful, due to the stiffer competition in this format. It wins via the combination of Pyromancer Ascension, Time Warp, and two copies of Call to Mind. This allows one to take as many extra turns as he had cards in his library, killing the defenseless opponent with PA-copied Lightning Bolts (which could be recurred with Call to Mind). The reasons I do not consider it Storm are similar to those for PA/MM/NR.
Counter Burn: A deck with Pyromancer Ascension and cantrips. That’s where the similarities end. While Storm has rituals, Counter Burn has burn spells (Lightning Bolt, Electrolyze) and counterspells (Mana Leak, Cryptic Command). Storm aims to kill by casting a lot of spells in one turn; Counter Burn is content to cast double Lightning Bolts turn after turn to wear you down slowly but surely.
1) History -Courtesy of izzetmage
At the very first Modern Pro Tour, Hall of Famer Jon Finkel demonstrated the amazing power of Storm, creating twenty-four Goblin tokens twice over two games against soon-to-be Hall member Patrick Chapin. In the first game, he did this on the second turn, which goes to show how fast Storm was in those days.
This proved to be too much, so the ban hammer came down, shattering two cantrips (Ponder and Preordain) and one ritual (Rite of Flame). The cantrip bans simply meant that the next two best cantrips (Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand) took their places. The loss of Rite of Flame was offset by the printing of Past in Flames in Innistrad. Storm decks started incorporating the “fixed Yawgmoth’s Will”. Two players, Jose Luis Velazquez and Yann Blumer, managed to make Top 8 of GP Turin with Storm, after which the deck had to retreat into the shadows under the Delver menace. Suffice to say, the extremely popular Delver decks were not a good matchup for Storm.
Pro Tour Return to Ravnica followed, and two important events occurred. First, Delver saw a fall from grace after the printing of the uncounterable Abrupt Decay, allowing the fragile Storm deck to retake its place at the top tables. Second, Goblin Electromancer and Epic Experiment were printed. Mancer’s power was quickly realized, as four members of Team SCGBlack (one of who was Jon Finkel) included that card in their Storm decks for the Constructed rounds, and were duly rewarded with 18+ points.
The very next GP, GP Lyon, had one Storm deck in the Top 8, played by Hall of Famer Olivier Ruel. The 9th place finisher, Kenny Oberg, played a similar list.
It was not until GP Chicago that Epic Experiment made an impact. 2011 Rookie of the Year Matthias Hunt, along with Kyle Stoll, played a Storm deck with Epic Experiment, which they claimed won faster than the Pyromancer Ascension version that SCGBlack, Ruel and Oberg played. This earned the deck a feature article in the coverage. Hunt missed Day 2, while Stoll went on to take 38th place.
Unfortunately, the DCI didn’t take too kindly to Epic Experiment Storm’s turn three win rate. Seething Song was banned. To many, this signified the end of Storm. Functioning on two rituals alone was unthinkable. Storm virtually disappeared from MTGO, and the GP following the ban (San Diego) featured absolutely zero Storm decks in Day 2.
Sometimes, it takes a truly skilled individual to shatter people’s beliefs of the word “impossible”. The Roger Bannister of Storm combo was someone who has already been mentioned twice. He was Jon Finkel. At GP Portland, Finkel played Storm to a Top 16 finish. Through sheer luck, or lack of grave hate, or the drop in the amount of Rule of Law being played in sideboards due to the banning of the Eggs deck, or simply the large number of Melira Pod players (a favorable matchup), he did it. He didn’t win the event, but he brought a glimmer of hope to Storm.
One result was not enough to convince players, though. The next GP (Kansas City) had four Storm decks in Day 2. That was a far cry from the zero of San Diego. While none of the Storm decks finished in Top 16, disillusioned Storm players were rediscovering their old Storm decks on MTGO. Zero Storm decks with 3-1 or 4-0 records slowly turned into one every few days. It was nothing earth-shattering, but still something to show for.
New developments are already on the horizon. M14’s Young Pyromancer was identified as a card which could boost Storm when it was spoiled, before its release. Soon after its release, an MTGO player named “Ztrman” managed to 3-1 a Daily with a Young Pyromancer storm build.
That’s it for the history of Storm. Time to move on to the deck itself.
2) Card Choices -by izzetmage and MachuChang
There are four main components of Storm decks (other than the lands):
a) Card Draw- These are cards which draw you more cards.
b) Rituals- These are (nonland) cards which generate mana.
c) Engines- These are cards that enable and power up our combo
d) Win Conditions- These cards kill our opponent
a) Card Draw
Auto-Includes: Serum Visions: Our premier cantrip. It nabs a card, sets up our future draws, and allows us to keep one-land hands. The Scry is also excellent when digging for win-cons. It's not as good as Preordain, but since that's banned Visions'll have to do. Always run 4.
Sleight of Hand: Cantrip Number Two. Unlike Serum Visions, it digs us two cards deep immediately, which can be relevant during our combo turn. It's a little annoying that you don't have the choice to keep a card on top, but oh well, c'ez la vie. This is our replacement Ponder and it does the job well enough. Always run 4.
Gitaxian Probe: Usually a free spell that replaces itself, Gitaxian Probe also has the benefit of letting us check out our opponent's hand. It's pretty awesome in most Game 1s, and is necessary in Control matchups to keep us from walking into counterspells. The 2 life cost does tend to be relevant against Aggro and Burn though, and it's less than stellar if you have to pay mana for it. Still an awesome and incredibly relevant card. Run 4.
Other Choices: Thought Scour: Feeds your graveyard. You don’t have to target yourself for the mill – e.g. you cast Serum Visions and put a useful spell on top, then cast Thought Scour, milling your opponent and drawing the useful spell.
Peer through Depths: This card is criminally underrated in my opinion. The ability to dig 5 cards deep at Instant-speed and grab an Instant or Sorcery is very, very powerful in this deck. It's not perfect though, since you can't grab permanents with it and you're not always guaranteed to get a card for your trouble. It's very important to note that the more permanents you have, the worse it gets, so if you want to run Young Pyromancer Storm, you might be better off without it. If you choose to run it, you'll probably want 2-3.
Desperate Ravings: Desperate Ravings is one of the only ways this deck can obtain card advantage without an active Ascension, and it has the added bonus of allowing us to dig with red mana while also being at Instant-speed. The random discard clause has been a subject of much controversy on these forums, but the general argument in favor of Desperate Ravings is that the card advantage it provides is well-worth the potential to discard useful cards. That said, if you have cards you really want to cast, you should probably play them first. I suggest playing with it to see if suits your taste. Even if you do like it, you probably only want 2-3 copies.
Faithless Looting: Sort of the alternate universe version of Desperate Ravings. It gives you card disadvantage rather than card advantage, but you get to choose what you discard to it. As such, it is used to increase the card quality of your hand as opposed to the quantity. It's most useful when you're comboing off and have drawn a lot of unnecessary chaff, like lands, extra Electromancers, etc. It's also handy because you can use red mana to dig. It can be a liability if you have an empty hand though. Since it's cheaper than Peer Through Depths and Desperate Ravings, you can probably afford to run more of them.
Gifts Ungiven: This card is absolutely ridiculous. When your graveyard's essentially your hand, tutoring 4 cards for 4 mana is a damn good deal. But even if it is a good deal, 4 mana is still a lot. Gifts shines in more land-heavy Storm builds, but when it works it makes winning all that much easier.
Telling Time: Digs 3 deep, puts a card in your hand, and sets up your next draw. But it costs 2 mana. I would only suggest it if you're running a creature-heavy Storm build and you really hate discarding cards, and even then it's probably not optimal. It is nice that you can choose to grab Bushwhackers or lands with it, though. If you do run it, you'll probably want 2-4.
Ideas Unbound: Whoa! Draw 3 cards! That's pretty cool, right? Yeah, but discarding 3 isn't. Ideas Unbound is really good when you're in the middle of your combo, but not that great at sculpting your hand. The UUmana cost is also pretty brutal.
Muddle the Mixture: Tutors up Grapeshot and most of the protection in our sideboard, while also serving as a counterspell. The transmute cost is pretty steep though, which means that it may just be too slow.
Izzet Charm: Digs, kills hatebears, or counters noncreature spells, all at Instant-speed! Sounds pretty darn handy, right? Yeah, but the mana cost is more restrictive than you might initially expect, and Goblin Electromancer doesn't help it at all. Not only that, but if you're running this primarily as a draw spell, it's pretty inefficient for the cost. Faithless Looting is probably a better choice, especially since it has flashback.
Goblin Lore: The ability to Flashback Desperate Ravings makes it much, much better than this card. Don't bother.
b) Rituals
Auto-Includes: Desperate Ritual: You won’t splice this too often, but you should keep that option in mind. A copied, spliced Ritual generates 6 mana – along with the original, that’s 12 mana. Just beware of countermagic. Run 4.
Pyretic Ritual: Desperate Ritual's little brother. The lack of Splice makes it strictly worse, but it's still exactly what we need for this deck. Always run 4.
Manamorphose: Necessary mana-filtering that also draws us cards. It helps turn all the red our rituals make into blue mana so we can keep digging. If you manage to stick Electromancer or activate a Pyromancer Ascension, then this card gets silly fast. It's easily one of the best cards in our deck, so make sure you run 4.
Other Choices: Increasing Vengeance: Finkel's response to the Seething Song ban. We'll generally be using Increasing Vengeance as another, more mana-heavy ritual, but it can also draw us cards in a pinch. Past in Flames gives it a flashback cost of RR, and if you cast it for that cost, you still get to copy the spell twice. A very versatile spell, but its cost doesn't play well with Goblin Electromancer. I wouldn't run more than 3 at most, and would suggest 2.
Battle Hymn: If you're running the creature-heavy version of Storm, you can make a helluva lot of mana all at once with this bad boy. Of course, you need at least 3 creatures first to get anything out of it. It's fun, but conditional and therefore inconsistent. If you really want to run it, keep your count low.
Infernal Plunge: You can get a red Dark Ritual! All you have to do is sacrifice a creature! But how often do you have an expendable creature? Even in the Young Pyromancer builds, you won't always have a spare Elemental. Plus, Electromancer makes this card just look silly. I wouldn't bother with it.
Simian Spirit Guide: It can help power out a Turn 1 Ascension, which is pretty nifty, and if you find you need a little extra mana for free, he's got you covered. He's not usually a spell though, which doesn't help our Storm count at all, and since you exile him for his ability you can't recur him like your other rituals. He's not terrible, but I've found that spells that make mana just tend to be better.
Channel the Suns: Whoa! A ritual that makes 5 mana, including Red and Blue! Seems legit right? Sure, it's a G spell, but your deck can make that splash right? Actually, it's a lot harder to make work than you would think, especially since this card has 4 cmc to begin with. The only place I could ever see this working would be in an Epic Experiment list, and even then it likely wouldn't be worth it.
c) Engines
Auto-Includes: Goblin Electromancer: Absolutely essential. You’re not getting anywhere with just 4 Desperate Ritual and 4 Pyretic Ritual. I've referred to this guy as the best ritual in the deck before, and I still stand by that. If you manage to stick him, he will save you an incredible amount of mana and make it all the easier for you to combo off. He will often be our only creature though, which means he will attract all of our opponent's removal. Because of this, sometimes it's best to cast him on the turn you intend to go off, but that does require you to have at least three lands. Some people believe that it's best to forego the Electromancer in order to blank your opponent's removal, but I personally think he's more than worth the risk. I'd always run 4, but you can get away with 3.
Pyromancer Ascension:This card is absolutely insane in this deck, since we run so many 4-of Instants and Sorceries. Needs some work to get going, but once you get it active, it's pretty damn hard to lose. It's also very handy against counterspells. One fun trick you can do with it is cast a spell that's in your graveyard to add a counter, then play Past in Flames and flash one back to activate it out of nowhere. That all said, it can be a pretty awkward topdeck. I'd suggest running between 3-4.
Past in Flames: It basically puts every card in your graveyard back in your hand. If you don't see why that's awesome, I don't know what to tell you. It is pretty expensive though, and you rarely want to draw more than one, so I would highly recommend running this as a 3-of.
Other Choices: Epic Experiment: Back when we still had Seething Song, this sucker was a real force to be reckoned with, helping to power out frequent Turn 3 kills. But the banning of Song all but killed this engine. It may still be worth testing, but I think there's a reason we haven't been seeing much of this lately.
Pyromancer’s Swath: Back in Extended and the early days of Modern, Swathstorm was a real force to be reckoned with. As it turns out, transforming each Grapeshot into a Lightning Bolt is pretty darn ridiculous. But after Ponder and Preordain were banned, the deck lost the consistency that made Swath worth running. If your meta is full of grave hate, this may be worth looking into, but it's still expensive and if you don't win the turn you cast it, you're screwed. Only works with Grapeshot, and potentially Lightning Bolt.
Remand: The ultimate tempo card. If you cast it at the right time, you basically Time Walk your opponent. At the very least, it can stall your opponent and get you a card for your trouble. The reason we're considering it an engine, though, is that there's a neat little trick where you can Remand your own Storm spell, then recast it. Since Storm creates copies on the stack, all the copies will still resolve, meaning that you can basically double your Storm count. On the other hand, Storm, being a combo deck, wants to be very proactive whereas counterspells are more reactive by nature. Ignite Memories: It can be powerful, but it's pretty inconsistent. And if you're playing to win, consistency is your best friend. Against Aggro, it's too slow, and Empty the Warrens is better against Control, leaving Ignite Memories without any real place.
d) Win Conditions
Grapeshot: The standard win-con, You usually need two of these to win, which entails drawing two, or casting one and flashing it back with Past in Flames.
Empty the Warrens: Leyline of Sanctity? Pssh. Grave hate? Bring it on! Counterspells? Please. Empty the Warrens helps to cover all of Grapeshot's weaknesses. It requires a significantly smaller Storm count to work, and thanks to rituals it's not uncommon to make 6+ 1/1 Goblins on Turn 2. Try racing that! Of course, they die to pretty much everything and don't win the game for you immediately, so they're not perfect. Oftentimes you'll want 3 of these guys in your sideboard, but some versions run 1 maindeck for variety in win conditions. The reason its stronger than Grapeshot against counter-heavy decks is because one opposing counterspell translates to merely 1 extra damage from Grapeshot, but two extra Goblins from Warrens.
Goblin Bushwhacker: A pretty brutal win condition in a creature-focused build. Giving all your creatures +1/+0 and Haste can easily steal games. That said, it can be superfluous since you won't always need it, but it is pretty nice to be able to play a card and just win. If maindeck, run 3-4. If sideboard, you probably won't need more than 2.
Young Pyromancer: Playing this shifts the deck in a new direction. Some changes you will have to make, compared to traditional PA Storm:
Play Empty the Warrens instead of Grapeshot as your main kill condition.
Play maindeck Goblin Bushwhacker.
Reduce the Past in Flames count to 2. Past and Empty the Warrens are both pretty expensive mana-wise, and you want to keep your curve lean. Of course, Past is still ridiculous, and therefore worth keeping
Take out Ascension. It's not as good when you don't need a lot of rituals.
e) Lands
Auto-Includes: Island: You're gonna want at least 2-3 of these to keep yourself safe from Blood Moon. If you're a real cool customer, you can run Snow lands instead.
Mountain: You're gonna want a least 1 of these so you don't have to shock/bolt yourself for red mana.
Steam Vents: It's an Island! It's a Mountain! It's an Island AND a Mountain! That means you can fetch it, and all the cool kids fetch shocklands. 3 seems to be the sweet spot, but if your spells are more colored-mana intensive you could up it to 4.
Scalding Tarn: Fixes mana and thins your deck, all for a measly 1 life! Fetchlands are the best! Shame they're so expensive. If you've got 'em, run 4.
Misty Rainforest: Like Scalding Tarn, but can't fetch Mountains. If you run them, try and use them first. 2 seems to be sweet spot here, if you've already got your Tarns.
Shivan Reef: The only other Blue/Red dual land, in my personal opinion. Although it can hurt you sometimes, the fact that it always comes into play untapped is very, very important. Just make sure you let your opponent know what color of mana you're making.
Other Choices: Arid Mesa: Use this in place of Misty Rainforest in more red-heavy builds.
Cascade Bluffs: While the great Jon Finkel ran this in his GP Portland build, I would not suggest it. With only 16 lands, you will be keeping far too many one-landers to afford playing a card that can slow you down. It's nice to make UU out of R, but this card can make you lose tempo, which you simply cannot afford. I would only suggest running if you use Increasing Vengeance, and then as no more than a 1-of.
Sulfur Falls: Like Cascade Bluffs, but even worse, since you need to have another land in play for it to even be untapped. It's fine in Twin, and it's great in UWR, but it sucks in Storm.
Halimar Depths: Rearrange the top 3 cards for the price of an ETB tapped land. Don't do it.
Hallowed Fountain, Breeding Pool, Watery Grave: If you want to splash for another color, a singleton shock that you can grab with any fetchland seems like the way to go.
Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds: These are not a substitute for fetchlands! The fact that they can only fetch basics tapped is far too much of liability. If you're on a budget, just run more basics instead.
The deck's general tried-and-tested land base looks like this:
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Steam Vents
3 Island
1 Mountain
3 Shivan Reef
Sideboard -by MachuChang
Alternate Win Conditions
Empty the Warrens: We've talked about this before, so you know why it's good. If you're running a traditional Storm build, you'll probably want 3 of these in your board.
Goblin Bushwhacker: Sometimes you'll draw Empty the Warrens a turn too late and be dead on board. Bushwhacker gives you an out, giving you the potential to win on the same turn you drop your Warrens.
Deceiver Exarch + Splinter Twin: Back in the day, some Storm lists would run a transformational sideboard plan to catch their opponents off guard and hopefully steal 2 games in row. However, most Storm decks don't run enough lands to consistently execute the combo, and Abrupt Decay destroys not only Exarch, but Pyromancer Ascension in the mainboard as well. As such, this strategy has fallen out of favor. It's worth mentioning for the sake of completeness, though.
Combo Protection
Lightning Bolt: The most efficient burn spell ever printed. Takes care of most hatebears for a minimal investment, and it can go to the face should it get down to brass tacks. Many Storm players have a story or two about how they stole a game off the back of Bolt and active Ascension, and some people even like it enough to maindeck it.
Echoing Truth: My personal favorite sideboard card. It takes care of permanent-based hate cards like Leyline of Sanctity and Rule of Law, and forces your opponents to crack their Relic of Progenitus early. It also takes care of most creatures that Lightning Bolt can't touch, and it can be a major blowout against creature swarms. Just be aware that if affects ALL cards with the same name, including yours.
Defense Grid: Defense Grid makes most counterspells incredibly difficult to cast, and considering how our deck feels about those, it's not a bad choice to stick a couple of these in your board.
Dispel: It's a 1 cmc counterspell for counterspells. It can also counter most burn and removal. The fact that it can only touch Instants is a bit restrictive, though.
Spell Pierce: A catch-all counterspell for anything but creatures that suffers in the late game. That said, how often do you expect to make it to the late game? Spell Pierce is cheap and versatile, and it can counter a Turn 2 Liliana when your opponent's on the play.
Pact of Negation: A free counterspell that can handle almost anything, but it's really only good on the turn you're going off. If you hate being interrupted on your combo turn, Pact may be just the counterspell for you. That is, if you don't mind the potential for your own spells to kill you.
Ignorant Bliss: WHERE IS YOUR DISCARD NOW?! A fun card that protects you while replacing itself, but it is reactive instead of proactive.
Leyline of Sanctity: Also protects against discard, as well as burn. We're never going to cast it, though, and it can be a dead card when trying to combo off.
Hate
Pyroclasm: Time to roast some weenies! Pyroclasm is very cheap and very effective against decks that like having a lot of small creatures, like Hatebears and Melira Pod.
Firespout: Oh no! My opponent has a lot of 3-Toughness creatures! Whatever shall I do? Firespout's basically a chunkier Pyroclasm that can't touch fliers unless you splash G. 3 mana is kind of expensive though, especially since you usually want to be setting up for a 4th Turn win by the time you play it.
Shatterstorm: Affinity can be a rough matchup, but they have one glaring weakness: the fact that they almost always have to over-commit to the board. Shatterstorm will destroy their army, Welding Jar or not, and it prevents Arcbound Ravager shenanigans. It's a little expensive, but against Affinity, it's almost always a one-sided wrath.
Shattering Spree: While Shatterstorm is awesome, sometimes you want destroy a few artifacts without ramping into a 4 cmc spell. Shattering Spree comes in handy here because it can take out varying numbers of artifacts, and is live for as long as you have R mana.
Vandalblast: Sometimes you want to blow up your opponent's artifacts but you don't want to blow up yours. Vandalblast comes in handy here, and it's also capable of knocking off lone threatening artifacts early on. It is more expensive than Shatterstorm, though, and it doesn't work against Regeneration.
Hibernation: This card craps all over Bogles, and is pretty handy against Elves and Gruul Zoo as well. If Green Aggro decks are a big thing in your meta, this forgotten beauty could make those matchups smoother.
Blood Moon: Punish those greedy mana bases! Blood Moon basically destroys Junk, and Jund to and extent, and it turns off the Tron lands. Ramping into on Turn 2 is just good game against most decks in the format. However, it's only really good if your opponent doesn't expect it.
Early Frost: Taps 3 lands on your opponent's 3rd Turn. Another great way to clear the way against Control decks. Just watch out for counterspells.
Gigadrowse: This bad boy used to see play in the Epic Experiment builds. Tapping your opponent's U lands is great way to clear the way for your Combo. Just watch out for Mindbreak Trap, Ravenous Trap, and permanent-based hate. And if you run it, you may want to have Calciform Pools or Dreadship Reef in your board as well.
Mindbreak Trap: Screws over your opponent in the Storm mirror at barely any cost. It's also cool since it can technically counter uncounterable spells. It's really expensive if that's what you intend to use it for, though.
Trickbind: Another sneaky hate card for the mirror. When used correctly, you'll basically waste their entire turn. You'll have to keep 1U open for it though, which means not doing anything proactive on your own turn.
Telemin Performance: This used to be the mirror-breaker back in the days before Goblin Electromancer. It's still pretty nutty against RG Tron... not that we need much help against RG Tron. Still, if you're facing any creatureless Combo, Telemin Performance is a hilarious answer.
4) Technical Play, Tips, and Tricks -by izzetmage and MachuChang
Opening Hands and Mulligans
Playing Storm is relatively straightforward, since we are a deck with 5 main parts: Card Draw, Rituals, Engines, Win Cons, and Lands. When evaluating your opening hand, you should generally prioritize the deck's components in this order:
The ideal opening hand will contain at least 1-2 Lands, 2-3 Rituals, 2-3 Card Draw, 1-2 Engines, and 0-2 Win Conditions. You can generally count Manamorphoses as both Card Draw and Rituals.
A good hand might look like this:
, , , , ,
However, you're not always going to get hands this attractive, so you need to know when to mull. Generally speaking:
Hands with 1 land and 1 cantrip are usually keepable.
Hands with 4 or more lands are usually mulligans.
A good hand contains a mix of cantrips, rituals, and engines.
Having all engines (3 or more, including duplicates) is terrible.
Mulliganing will always be up to your own personal discretion and will often be affected by a variety of factors, such as your opponent's deck or hate cards. But in general, following these 4 simple rules will take you a long way.
Lands and Mana
When to Fetch for an Untapped Shock vs a Basic Land:
One question that many players find themselves asking about playing Modern is when they should fetch for an untapped shockland instead of a regular old basic. Generally, you will want to fetch for basic lands in order to conserve your life total. However, if you have a starting hand of only 1 cantrip and 1 land (which is a fetch), the best decision is to bolt yourself for an untapped Steam Vents. The reason you do this is because your second land could be a basic Island, and you don’t want to be stuck with 2 basic Islands and a Mancer/PA/Ravings in hand.
When fetching for lands, you will usually want U on Turn 1 for cantrips and UR by Turn 2 so you can play your engines.
Manamorphose
You will usually only need RR in your mana pool at any given time. Any excess can be converted to U. However, if you run Increasing Vengeances, it is often wise to keep a minimum of RRR in your mana pool so that you can use Vengeance to copy spells while keeping R open for further rituals.
Minimum Mana Requirements
URR for Electromancer + Ritual URR for Cantrip + Increasing Vengeance 2RR for spliced Desperate Ritual 2RR for double Grapeshot 1RRR for a Ritual + Increasing Vengeance 4RR for Past in Flames with the ability to cast a ritual after. 2RR with Electromancer. Keep in mind that you will need more than just 4 mana for the subsequent ritual flashback.
Most of your cantrips need U , so Manamorphose is important. Don't tap U-producing lands until you absolutely need to.
Goblin Electromancer reduces almost everything by 1, including Flashback costs.
Cantrips
Playing a Serum Visions followed by a Sleight of Hand will dig you deeper than Sleight of Hand followed by Serum Visions. This is especially important to note if you are trying to hit your land drops in the early game.
If you don’t have any more draw spells, Sleight of Hand is better than Serum Visions because you get to choose between 2 cards, rather than drawing 1.
Crack your fetches before casting Serum Visions so you don't screw up your Scry.
When going off, it is often a good idea to cast your Manamorphoses early. They might draw you into an engine, and at the very least it can help fix your mana.
Thanks to the magic of the stack, you can cast Instants between a Desperate Ravings and its copy (from PA) as it resolves. Use this trick to make sure you don't discard any vital rituals, like Manamorphose.
Playing the Deck
Whew! We've covered a lot of ground on a variety of subjects so far, and all the different tips, tricks, and lines of play may seem a little intimidating. There's no need to worry. Thanks to its redundancy, Storm is actually a pretty a forgiving deck to play. That's not to say that you can just go around casting your spells all willy-nilly, but sometimes you'll cast your Sleight of Hand before your Serum Visions and the world won't end. Once you get into flow of things, Storm becomes second-nature to play.
So that all said, let's try a Goldfish. We'll use our sample hand from earlier and I'll talk you through it.
Turn 1:
-Play Steam Vents untapped. We go to 18 life.
-Play Serum Visions, drawing another Steam Vents. The Scry shows us another Past in Flames, and a Shivan Reef. Since we don't need 2 Past in Flames, we'll put that one on the bottom. But since we've got a lot of action in our hand, it can't hurt to hold on to the land, so we'll leave that one on top.
Turn 2:
-Draw the Shivan Reef from last turn.
-Play the Shivan Reef.
-Play the Goblin Electromancer, going down to 17 life.
Turn 3:
-Draw another Serum Visions.
-We've got a strong-looking hand now, so we're going to try and go off here.
-Play Serum Visions with Steam Vents, so we conserve life. Draw a Pyretic Ritual.
View the top 2 cards of our library, seeing a Grapeshot and a Misty Rainforest. We need a win condition, and we don't need any more lands, so this an easy choice to make: we'll keep the Grapeshot on top and send the Rainforest to the bottom.
Storm Count: 1
-Play Pyretic Ritual with Shivan Reef, going down to 16 life. Thanks to Electromancer, this ritual only cost us R. Now we have RRR floating.
Storm Count: 2
-Play the other Pyretic Ritual with R from our mana pool. Now we've got RRRRR floating.
Storm Count: 3
-Play Manamorphose with R from our mana pool and add UU to our mana pool. Now we've got UURRRR floating. Manamorphose then draws us the Grapeshot we left on top.
Storm Count: 4
-Play Desperate Ritual with R from our mana pool. UURRRRRR
is floating.
Storm Count: 5
-Play Past in Flames for RRR. Now we have UURRR floating.
Storm Count: 6
-Flashback Pyretic Ritual for R. UURRRRR floating.
Storm Count: 7
-Flashback the other Pyretic Ritual for R. UURRRRRRR floating.
Storm Count: 8
-Flashback Serum Visions for U. URRRRRRR floating.
Draw a Mountain, which unnecessary. See a Scalding Tarn and a Sleight of Hand. We still don't need lands, so we'll ship off the Tarn. We can still make U off of our Manamorphose (in grave) or Steam Vents (in hand), and since Sleight of Hand can help us dig for redundant win conditions just in case, we'll keep it.
Storm Count: 9
-Now we'll flash back the Manamorphose for R and make UU. We now have access to UUURRRRRR in our pool.
Storm Count: 10
-We have adequate Storm to win now, so we'll cast Grapeshot for R, dealing 11 damage (10 Storm + 1 for Grapeshot) to our opponent. We've got UUURRRRR floating.
Storm Count: 11
-We'll flashback Past in Flames to give our Grapeshot Flashback. Our mana pool now has UUUR floating.
Storm Count: 12
-Finally, we'll flashback our Grapeshot for 13 damage, dealing a grand total of 24 damage to our opponent, probably winning us the game. Note that if they had more life, we could have easily kept going.
So that hand ended up working really well for us! But keep in mind that many games won't always play out that way. Sometimes our opening hands will need to be sculpted more, while other times we'll fizzle through no fault of our own. That's just one of the cons of playing an engine combo deck. But in general, if you think about why you're making the plays you're making, you'll do just fine.
A turn 3 win can be achieved with both Pyromancer Ascension and Goblin Electromancer. In both cases, in 99% of your games you will need to cast the enabler on T2 in order to have a t3 kill.
Pyromancer Ascension:
Option 1: Rituals
In this option, you get ascension active on t3 by having a hand full of rituals, saving your draw spells (primarily Manamorphose) until after you get the ascension active.
Option 2: Cantrips
In this option, you need to strategically use your cantrips to set up an active ascension. Usually this involves Gitaxian Probe + Serum Visions (most of the time in that order) on t1, then again (in reverse order if you dont have your third land) on t3, followed by a chain of rituals into morphose until your opponent dies. Or you can use a t1 cantrip, then cast a second copy before casting 2 copies of the same ritual.
Goblin Electromancer:
Option 1: The nuts
This is the option izzetmage mentioned above. You have an insane draw with all the gas you need and a way to kill them. The more blue mana you can save the better, as you generally do need to cast a couple cantrips or dig spells to get there.
Option 2: Dig Kill
This option is very similar to the other option, but differs in that it doesnt actually require you to have a wincon in hand prior to going off, and in some situations doesnt require you to have PiF either. You need to have a ton of mana, and then use that mana to power your dig spells until you hit your win con. Unless you are playing Gifts Ungiven, which both sets up and tutors for the kill all at once, I do not recommend you go for this kill unless you are 100% sure you will not have a better opportunity to win the game.
Hybrid:
There are occasional games where you will be trying to go off via Electromancer, only to draw an ascension mid-combo and switch plans. These combos usually also require PiF to get ascension online, as you often find yourself unable to get ascension active without recasting your already used rituals. Be sure that you carefully figure out the math before you commit to a line of play. This line can be tricky to pull off at times, so tread carefully.
Now about turn 2 kills. I have identified 2 lines of play that can hypothetically lead to a T2 kill with the deck, but after many many attempts have only successfully pulled it off once, and that was while goldfishing.
Line 1:
Necessary Hand: 2 Lands, 2 Desperate Ritual, 2 Pyretic Ritual, 1 Ascension. You need to draw a Manamorphose as well.
Cast 1 of each ritual, giving you 4 mana. Cast Ascension, then cast the other 2 rituals. This gives you an active ascension and 4 floating red. Cast Manamorphose, add 4 blue to the pool. Draw perfectly, chain together cantrips into more rituals and cantrips until your opponent loses.
Line 2:
Ive stumbled upon this potential kill a couple times in goldfish, but have never actually gotten there with it. The idea behind it is to get Electromancer into play on t2 with a red mana floating, and then try to combo off from there. I find this option intriguing, but you absolutely have to have 100% perfect draws. Every time ive tried goldfishing starting with what i feel is an ideal hand, if come up well short. It might work with Empty the Warrens, but it appears that going for a grapeshot kill this way is almost impossible.
Like with the Dig Kill i mentioned above, I do not recommend going for a turn 2 kill unless you are 100% sure you will not get a better opportunity to go for it.
Young Pyromancer Storm
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
5) Matchups and Sideboarding Strategy -by MachuChang
Even: Hatebears, Twin, Scapeshift,
Good Matchups
Birthing Pod
-4 Pyromancer Ascension, -3 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Shattering Spree, +4 Lightning Bolt, +2 Echoing Truth
Pod is a very favorable matchup for us, since they have trouble interacting with our Combo and we are much, much faster than them. However, there are some things you have to watch out for: Melira Pod can gain infinite life by the 3rd Turn, and Kiki-Pod can answer our spells with Glen Elendra Archmage. Don't be afraid to use Grapeshot on their Combo pieces, but in general, Pod is a no-stress matchup. Just don't durdle and you'll do fine. Both Pod decks almost always have artifact/enchantment hate, so I like to take out the Ascensions here. Lightning Bolts are for their hate bears. Echoing Truth takes care of the Kiki combo or Voice of Resurgence tokens. Shattering Spree can take care of Birthing Pod, and potentially artifacts that hate on our combo.
Bogles
-4 Gitaxian Probe, -1 Grapeshot, -1 Past in Flames
+3 Empty the Warrens, +2 Echoing Truth, +1 Spell Pierce
This matchup can be rough if they get off to a good start. They're fast and very difficult for our colors to interact with, but they don't have any way to interact with us Game 1 outside of creature removal. Our best hands will always beat their best hands, but anything less and it becomes a very close game. They're fast and efficient enough that they can really capitalize on our misplays, and they have enough Lifelink enchantments to make the battle an uphill one. Don't fetch for untapped shocklands unless you have no other options. After sideboarding though, Bogles becomes a breeze. Take out the Gitaxian Probes to spare our life total, since every point counts. Empty the Warrens comes in because it gives us significantly more pressure when it counts and tour Gobbos can chump block when necessary. Echoing Truth can bounce their hate, their scariest enchantments, and Kor Spiritdancer. The miser's Spell Pierce may not be necessary, but since it's almost always a hard counter for 45% of their deck, I feel it's worth running.
Living End
-3 Gitaxian Probe
+2 Echoing Truth, +1 Spell Pierce
This matchup is easy-peasy as long as they don't blow up your lands. We goldfish much faster than they do, and the only interaction they have with our combo pieces is Beast Within. Spell Pierce is to stall them if we need another turn, and Echoing Truth keeps us from being blown out by random hate cards. You can basically play this game like a goldfish, just don't over-commit to the board and you'll do fine.
Martyr Proc/Soul Sisters
-4 Gitaxian Probe, -1 Pyromancer Ascension, -1 Past in Flames
+4 Lightning Bolt, +2 Echoing Truth
White lifegain decks are basically an auto win. We goldfish faster than they do and we can almost always do more damage than they can gain life. Probes come out to preserve our life total, and they'll probably be showing us their hand with Martyr of Sands anyway. Lightning Bolts will take care of hatebears, baby Pridemates, and the life-gaining ladies. Side in Echoing Truth if you expect permanent-based hate cards, and since they run a lot of duplicates so we can potentially blow them out that way.
RG Tron
-2 Gitaxian Probe,
+2 Echoing Truth
Echoing Truth is just to handle any problematic permanents like Karn Liberated or Wurmcoil Engine. It can also bounce their hate cards. Tron in general has a hard time against Grapeshot, so we just want to be faster than them, which isn't too hard.
Tokens
-2 Gitaxian Probe
+2 Echoing Truth
Tokens Game 1 is essentially a bye. They're not very fast, and their disruption is limited to discard, which Past in Flame laughs at. Game 2 becomes a lot harder, but considering how easy Game 1 is, that doesn't mean too much. We put in 2 Echoing Truths to deal with any hate cards, like Relic of Progenitus or Leyline of Sanctity. Truth also has the added benefit of hosing token swarms, so long as they have the same name.
Even Matchups
Affinity
-4 Gitaxian Probe, -2 Peer Through Depths
+2 Shatterstorm, +1 Shattering Spree, +3 Lightning Bolt
Affinity can be a rough matchup. You want to board in all your artifact hate to slow them down, and bring Lightning Bolts to handle early threats and their manlands. Gitaxian Probes come out so we can conserve our life total, and Peer Through Depths can be too slow. They tend to faster than us, especially once they drop an Inkmoth Nexus, so we need to take a more reactive role in this matchup.
Burn
-4 Gitaxian Probe, -3 Past in Flames
+4 Lightning Bolt, +3 Empty the Warrens
This match is pretty noninteractive. The main plan is just to go over the top and run them over. Try not to hurt yourself with your lands, since they can really capitalize on that. Lightning Bolts take care of their dudes and can go to the dome in a pinch, and Empty the Warrens allows to race very, very quickly.
Scapeshift
-2 Gitaxian Probe, -3 Past in Flames
+2 Echoing Truth, +3 Empty the Warrens
This is mainly to deal with random hate cards or creatures that can run away with the game when they land. Valakut is slow, so the main trick here is to play around their countermagic. Fortunately, Empty the Warrens can handle counterspells just fine. Most versions run sweepers though, so keep your eye out for those.
Storm
-4 Gitaxian Probe, -1 Past in Flames
+3 Empty the Warrens, +2 Echoing Truth
Ah, the mirror matchup. It may seem like a coinflip, but it can actually be pretty interactive and skill-intensive. Of course, sometimes they just combo off on the 3rd turn, but sometimes you do instead. Gitaxians Probes come out since they're the weakest cantrip, and hands change so often in a Storm deck that it doesn't make much sense to see them. It doesn't hurt to conserve our life totals either. Echoing Truth will take care of their Ascensions, Electromancers, goblin hordes, and hate. Just be aware that it will affect your copies too. If you're up against the creature-focused Storm builds, it may be better to switch Probes for Lightning Bolts instead.
UR Twin
-2
+2 Echoing Truth, +2
This matchup can go both ways. They have enough maindeck disruption to make our life difficult, and maindeck Boomerang will really throw our tempo off, but we're faster than they are and don't need 4 lands to win. The main trick here is to bait out their counterspells, then catch them off-guard. That said, they do have a lot of counterspells. It is important to keep in mind that when facing Twin, they are the Control deck, so we need to stay as lean as possible in order to keep our combo consistent. We side Echoing Truth in as a way to deal with their combo
Zoo
-4 Gitaxian Probe
+4 Lightning Bolt
Zoo is really big, but they're not quite as fast as Bogles and are much easier to interact with. Still, this isn't the easiest matchup. It's very winnable, but you need to play tight and keep an eye out for their burn and pump spells.
Bad Matchups
Infect
-4 Gitaxian Probe, -4 Pyromancer Ascension
+4 Lightning Bolt, +3 Empty the Warrens, +1 Spell Pierce
Spell Pierce takes care of their buffs and Apostle's Blessing. Lightning bolts are to take out their dudes as quickly as possible. Empty the Warrens allows us to overrun the Infect player through sheer board position, and we have the option to keep a goblin or two back to block. Distortion Strike is a card though, unfortunately. Why take out the Ascensions here? In my experience, they've been too slow. Also, don't be afraid to use Grapeshots as removal.
Jund/Junk
-1 Pyromancer Ascension, -1 Past in Flames, -4 Gitaxian Probe
+4 Lightning Bolt, +2 Echoing Truth
This match is super annoying. The constant discard, efficient creatures, and Deathrite Shaman are the worst. They've got a lot of removal for almost every non-land permanent, and pretty powerful grave hate, so we need to protect ourselves from a variety of angles without diluting our deck. Not as easy as it sounds. The Lightning Bolts are to take out the Deathrite Shamans, but sometimes we can win by going to the face with an active Ascension. Echoing Truth is for combo protection and can temporarily take care of Liliana or Goyf.
UR Tempo
Ugh. Tempo decks have historically been our deck's undoing, and it seems that that tradition is still going strong. Delver and kin's ability to drop fast, efficient threats and protect them is very, very hard for us to deal with, and their ability to switch between aggressor and defender on a moment's notice makes it trick for us to do whatever it is we want to do. When facing UR Tempo decks, Pyromancer Ascension is your best friend. It will allow you to fight through their counterspells and overwhelm them with value, so prioritize its activation.
UWx Control/UWx Midrange
-2 Peer Through Depths, -3 Past in Flames, -2 Grapeshot
+2 Defense Grid, +3 Empty the Warrens, +1 Dispel, +1 Echoing Truth
Empty the Warrens is really good against counterspell decks, while Grapeshot is not, so this switch is pretty painless. Peer and Defense Grid don't get along. Make sure to keep Gitaxian Probes here because they let you see your opponent's hand and figure out whether or not it's safe to go off.
Please note that these aren't hard and fast rules, but general suggestions. In general, the sideboarding plan boils down to removing the cards you think are going to get hated on. If grave hate, get rid of Past in Flames. If enchantment hate, get rid of Pyromancer Ascension. Permanent-based hate, get Echoing Truth.
Ritual Gifts is a Combo/Control deck that utilizes Gifts Ungiven to create massive Storm count before killing with Grapeshot. It finishes similarly, but the process is much different. http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=384937
Contents
0) What is Storm?
1) History
2) Card Choices
3) Decklists
4) Technical Play, Tips, and Tricks
5) Matchups
0) What is Storm? -Courtesy of izzetmage
Storm is a UR combo deck which utilizes the storm mechanic to deal extremely high amounts of damage in one turn. The goal of the deck is to cast a lot of spells in one turn to achieve a high storm count, then use a Storm spell (Grapeshot or Empty the Warrens) to finish off the opponent. It combines the card-drawing of blue with the mana-producing instants of red (dubbed “rituals”, after Pyretic Ritual and Desperate Ritual). A typical winning turn consists of drawing cards and casting rituals alternately, turning cards into mana and vice versa, until a lethal storm count is attained and the kill spell is drawn.
What isn’t Storm? There are a few decks which are similar in construction to Storm, but I would not classify as Storm. Some of these are:
Dragonstorm: Once a proudly competitive deck, now reduced to unplayability because of the ritual bans. The goal in Dragonstorm is to reach a modest storm count of 3, and the not-so-modest “mana floating” value of 9 (aided by Lotus Bloom, Pentad Prism, and Calciform Pools). A Dragonstorm cast would tutor three Bogardan Hellkites, plus a fourth Hellkite, or Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund for a “dirtier” kill involving the combat step. While Dragonstorm has the storm mechanic, it could kill on lower storm counts than the Storm deck discussed here, at the cost of filling the deck with dead-draw Dragons (Dragonstorm cannot put a Dragon from hand into play). Alas, Dragonstorm is no longer playable, so we shall not discuss it further.
PA/MM/NR Combo: A deck which wins via the combination of Pyromancer Ascension and two copies each of Manamorphose and Noxious Revival. This generates infinite Storm. The three major differences it has from Storm are:
1) It can deal truly unbounded damage from its combo. Storm, on the other hand, can deal large amounts of damage, ranging from 15 to 100+, but it cannot beat an opponent with, say, one million life.
2) It typically plays zero rituals. PA/MM/NR can generate infinite storm without having to mess with rituals.
3) It literally cannot win without Pyromancer Ascension or a graveyard. With regular Storm, you can play around grave hate, and even win without drawing a PA.
Time Warp Combo: This deck was once playable in Standard. A Modern port has proven unsuccessful, due to the stiffer competition in this format. It wins via the combination of Pyromancer Ascension, Time Warp, and two copies of Call to Mind. This allows one to take as many extra turns as he had cards in his library, killing the defenseless opponent with PA-copied Lightning Bolts (which could be recurred with Call to Mind). The reasons I do not consider it Storm are similar to those for PA/MM/NR.
Counter Burn: A deck with Pyromancer Ascension and cantrips. That’s where the similarities end. While Storm has rituals, Counter Burn has burn spells (Lightning Bolt, Electrolyze) and counterspells (Mana Leak, Cryptic Command). Storm aims to kill by casting a lot of spells in one turn; Counter Burn is content to cast double Lightning Bolts turn after turn to wear you down slowly but surely.
1) History -Courtesy of izzetmage
At the very first Modern Pro Tour, Hall of Famer Jon Finkel demonstrated the amazing power of Storm, creating twenty-four Goblin tokens twice over two games against soon-to-be Hall member Patrick Chapin. In the first game, he did this on the second turn, which goes to show how fast Storm was in those days.
This proved to be too much, so the ban hammer came down, shattering two cantrips (Ponder and Preordain) and one ritual (Rite of Flame). The cantrip bans simply meant that the next two best cantrips (Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand) took their places. The loss of Rite of Flame was offset by the printing of Past in Flames in Innistrad. Storm decks started incorporating the “fixed Yawgmoth’s Will”. Two players, Jose Luis Velazquez and Yann Blumer, managed to make Top 8 of GP Turin with Storm, after which the deck had to retreat into the shadows under the Delver menace. Suffice to say, the extremely popular Delver decks were not a good matchup for Storm.
Pro Tour Return to Ravnica followed, and two important events occurred. First, Delver saw a fall from grace after the printing of the uncounterable Abrupt Decay, allowing the fragile Storm deck to retake its place at the top tables. Second, Goblin Electromancer and Epic Experiment were printed. Mancer’s power was quickly realized, as four members of Team SCGBlack (one of who was Jon Finkel) included that card in their Storm decks for the Constructed rounds, and were duly rewarded with 18+ points.
The very next GP, GP Lyon, had one Storm deck in the Top 8, played by Hall of Famer Olivier Ruel. The 9th place finisher, Kenny Oberg, played a similar list.
It was not until GP Chicago that Epic Experiment made an impact. 2011 Rookie of the Year Matthias Hunt, along with Kyle Stoll, played a Storm deck with Epic Experiment, which they claimed won faster than the Pyromancer Ascension version that SCGBlack, Ruel and Oberg played. This earned the deck a feature article in the coverage. Hunt missed Day 2, while Stoll went on to take 38th place.
Unfortunately, the DCI didn’t take too kindly to Epic Experiment Storm’s turn three win rate. Seething Song was banned. To many, this signified the end of Storm. Functioning on two rituals alone was unthinkable. Storm virtually disappeared from MTGO, and the GP following the ban (San Diego) featured absolutely zero Storm decks in Day 2.
Sometimes, it takes a truly skilled individual to shatter people’s beliefs of the word “impossible”. The Roger Bannister of Storm combo was someone who has already been mentioned twice. He was Jon Finkel. At GP Portland, Finkel played Storm to a Top 16 finish. Through sheer luck, or lack of grave hate, or the drop in the amount of Rule of Law being played in sideboards due to the banning of the Eggs deck, or simply the large number of Melira Pod players (a favorable matchup), he did it. He didn’t win the event, but he brought a glimmer of hope to Storm.
One result was not enough to convince players, though. The next GP (Kansas City) had four Storm decks in Day 2. That was a far cry from the zero of San Diego. While none of the Storm decks finished in Top 16, disillusioned Storm players were rediscovering their old Storm decks on MTGO. Zero Storm decks with 3-1 or 4-0 records slowly turned into one every few days. It was nothing earth-shattering, but still something to show for.
New developments are already on the horizon. M14’s Young Pyromancer was identified as a card which could boost Storm when it was spoiled, before its release. Soon after its release, an MTGO player named “Ztrman” managed to 3-1 a Daily with a Young Pyromancer storm build.
That’s it for the history of Storm. Time to move on to the deck itself.
2) Card Choices -by izzetmage and MachuChang
There are four main components of Storm decks (other than the lands):
a) Card Draw- These are cards which draw you more cards.
b) Rituals- These are (nonland) cards which generate mana.
c) Engines- These are cards that enable and power up our combo
d) Win Conditions- These cards kill our opponent
a) Card Draw
Serum Visions: Our premier cantrip. It nabs a card, sets up our future draws, and allows us to keep one-land hands. The Scry is also excellent when digging for win-cons. It's not as good as Preordain, but since that's banned Visions'll have to do. Always run 4.
Sleight of Hand: Cantrip Number Two. Unlike Serum Visions, it digs us two cards deep immediately, which can be relevant during our combo turn. It's a little annoying that you don't have the choice to keep a card on top, but oh well, c'ez la vie. This is our replacement Ponder and it does the job well enough. Always run 4.
Gitaxian Probe: Usually a free spell that replaces itself, Gitaxian Probe also has the benefit of letting us check out our opponent's hand. It's pretty awesome in most Game 1s, and is necessary in Control matchups to keep us from walking into counterspells. The 2 life cost does tend to be relevant against Aggro and Burn though, and it's less than stellar if you have to pay mana for it. Still an awesome and incredibly relevant card. Run 4.
Other Choices:
Thought Scour: Feeds your graveyard. You don’t have to target yourself for the mill – e.g. you cast Serum Visions and put a useful spell on top, then cast Thought Scour, milling your opponent and drawing the useful spell.
Peer through Depths: This card is criminally underrated in my opinion. The ability to dig 5 cards deep at Instant-speed and grab an Instant or Sorcery is very, very powerful in this deck. It's not perfect though, since you can't grab permanents with it and you're not always guaranteed to get a card for your trouble. It's very important to note that the more permanents you have, the worse it gets, so if you want to run Young Pyromancer Storm, you might be better off without it. If you choose to run it, you'll probably want 2-3.
Desperate Ravings: Desperate Ravings is one of the only ways this deck can obtain card advantage without an active Ascension, and it has the added bonus of allowing us to dig with red mana while also being at Instant-speed. The random discard clause has been a subject of much controversy on these forums, but the general argument in favor of Desperate Ravings is that the card advantage it provides is well-worth the potential to discard useful cards. That said, if you have cards you really want to cast, you should probably play them first. I suggest playing with it to see if suits your taste. Even if you do like it, you probably only want 2-3 copies.
Faithless Looting: Sort of the alternate universe version of Desperate Ravings. It gives you card disadvantage rather than card advantage, but you get to choose what you discard to it. As such, it is used to increase the card quality of your hand as opposed to the quantity. It's most useful when you're comboing off and have drawn a lot of unnecessary chaff, like lands, extra Electromancers, etc. It's also handy because you can use red mana to dig. It can be a liability if you have an empty hand though. Since it's cheaper than Peer Through Depths and Desperate Ravings, you can probably afford to run more of them.
Gifts Ungiven: This card is absolutely ridiculous. When your graveyard's essentially your hand, tutoring 4 cards for 4 mana is a damn good deal. But even if it is a good deal, 4 mana is still a lot. Gifts shines in more land-heavy Storm builds, but when it works it makes winning all that much easier.
Telling Time: Digs 3 deep, puts a card in your hand, and sets up your next draw. But it costs 2 mana. I would only suggest it if you're running a creature-heavy Storm build and you really hate discarding cards, and even then it's probably not optimal. It is nice that you can choose to grab Bushwhackers or lands with it, though. If you do run it, you'll probably want 2-4.
Ideas Unbound: Whoa! Draw 3 cards! That's pretty cool, right? Yeah, but discarding 3 isn't. Ideas Unbound is really good when you're in the middle of your combo, but not that great at sculpting your hand. The UUmana cost is also pretty brutal.
Muddle the Mixture: Tutors up Grapeshot and most of the protection in our sideboard, while also serving as a counterspell. The transmute cost is pretty steep though, which means that it may just be too slow.
Izzet Charm: Digs, kills hatebears, or counters noncreature spells, all at Instant-speed! Sounds pretty darn handy, right? Yeah, but the mana cost is more restrictive than you might initially expect, and Goblin Electromancer doesn't help it at all. Not only that, but if you're running this primarily as a draw spell, it's pretty inefficient for the cost. Faithless Looting is probably a better choice, especially since it has flashback.
Goblin Lore: The ability to Flashback Desperate Ravings makes it much, much better than this card. Don't bother.
b) Rituals
Desperate Ritual: You won’t splice this too often, but you should keep that option in mind. A copied, spliced Ritual generates 6 mana – along with the original, that’s 12 mana. Just beware of countermagic. Run 4.
Pyretic Ritual: Desperate Ritual's little brother. The lack of Splice makes it strictly worse, but it's still exactly what we need for this deck. Always run 4.
Manamorphose: Necessary mana-filtering that also draws us cards. It helps turn all the red our rituals make into blue mana so we can keep digging. If you manage to stick Electromancer or activate a Pyromancer Ascension, then this card gets silly fast. It's easily one of the best cards in our deck, so make sure you run 4.
Other Choices:
Increasing Vengeance: Finkel's response to the Seething Song ban. We'll generally be using Increasing Vengeance as another, more mana-heavy ritual, but it can also draw us cards in a pinch. Past in Flames gives it a flashback cost of RR, and if you cast it for that cost, you still get to copy the spell twice. A very versatile spell, but its cost doesn't play well with Goblin Electromancer. I wouldn't run more than 3 at most, and would suggest 2.
Battle Hymn: If you're running the creature-heavy version of Storm, you can make a helluva lot of mana all at once with this bad boy. Of course, you need at least 3 creatures first to get anything out of it. It's fun, but conditional and therefore inconsistent. If you really want to run it, keep your count low.
Infernal Plunge: You can get a red Dark Ritual! All you have to do is sacrifice a creature! But how often do you have an expendable creature? Even in the Young Pyromancer builds, you won't always have a spare Elemental. Plus, Electromancer makes this card just look silly. I wouldn't bother with it.
Simian Spirit Guide: It can help power out a Turn 1 Ascension, which is pretty nifty, and if you find you need a little extra mana for free, he's got you covered. He's not usually a spell though, which doesn't help our Storm count at all, and since you exile him for his ability you can't recur him like your other rituals. He's not terrible, but I've found that spells that make mana just tend to be better.
Channel the Suns: Whoa! A ritual that makes 5 mana, including Red and Blue! Seems legit right? Sure, it's a G spell, but your deck can make that splash right? Actually, it's a lot harder to make work than you would think, especially since this card has 4 cmc to begin with. The only place I could ever see this working would be in an Epic Experiment list, and even then it likely wouldn't be worth it.
c) Engines
Goblin Electromancer: Absolutely essential. You’re not getting anywhere with just 4 Desperate Ritual and 4 Pyretic Ritual. I've referred to this guy as the best ritual in the deck before, and I still stand by that. If you manage to stick him, he will save you an incredible amount of mana and make it all the easier for you to combo off. He will often be our only creature though, which means he will attract all of our opponent's removal. Because of this, sometimes it's best to cast him on the turn you intend to go off, but that does require you to have at least three lands. Some people believe that it's best to forego the Electromancer in order to blank your opponent's removal, but I personally think he's more than worth the risk. I'd always run 4, but you can get away with 3.
Pyromancer Ascension:This card is absolutely insane in this deck, since we run so many 4-of Instants and Sorceries. Needs some work to get going, but once you get it active, it's pretty damn hard to lose. It's also very handy against counterspells. One fun trick you can do with it is cast a spell that's in your graveyard to add a counter, then play Past in Flames and flash one back to activate it out of nowhere. That all said, it can be a pretty awkward topdeck. I'd suggest running between 3-4.
Past in Flames: It basically puts every card in your graveyard back in your hand. If you don't see why that's awesome, I don't know what to tell you. It is pretty expensive though, and you rarely want to draw more than one, so I would highly recommend running this as a 3-of.
Other Choices:
Epic Experiment: Back when we still had Seething Song, this sucker was a real force to be reckoned with, helping to power out frequent Turn 3 kills. But the banning of Song all but killed this engine. It may still be worth testing, but I think there's a reason we haven't been seeing much of this lately.
Pyromancer’s Swath: Back in Extended and the early days of Modern, Swathstorm was a real force to be reckoned with. As it turns out, transforming each Grapeshot into a Lightning Bolt is pretty darn ridiculous. But after Ponder and Preordain were banned, the deck lost the consistency that made Swath worth running. If your meta is full of grave hate, this may be worth looking into, but it's still expensive and if you don't win the turn you cast it, you're screwed. Only works with Grapeshot, and potentially Lightning Bolt.
Remand: The ultimate tempo card. If you cast it at the right time, you basically Time Walk your opponent. At the very least, it can stall your opponent and get you a card for your trouble. The reason we're considering it an engine, though, is that there's a neat little trick where you can Remand your own Storm spell, then recast it. Since Storm creates copies on the stack, all the copies will still resolve, meaning that you can basically double your Storm count. On the other hand, Storm, being a combo deck, wants to be very proactive whereas counterspells are more reactive by nature.
Ignite Memories: It can be powerful, but it's pretty inconsistent. And if you're playing to win, consistency is your best friend. Against Aggro, it's too slow, and Empty the Warrens is better against Control, leaving Ignite Memories without any real place.
d) Win Conditions
Empty the Warrens: Leyline of Sanctity? Pssh. Grave hate? Bring it on! Counterspells? Please. Empty the Warrens helps to cover all of Grapeshot's weaknesses. It requires a significantly smaller Storm count to work, and thanks to rituals it's not uncommon to make 6+ 1/1 Goblins on Turn 2. Try racing that! Of course, they die to pretty much everything and don't win the game for you immediately, so they're not perfect. Oftentimes you'll want 3 of these guys in your sideboard, but some versions run 1 maindeck for variety in win conditions. The reason its stronger than Grapeshot against counter-heavy decks is because one opposing counterspell translates to merely 1 extra damage from Grapeshot, but two extra Goblins from Warrens.
Goblin Bushwhacker: A pretty brutal win condition in a creature-focused build. Giving all your creatures +1/+0 and Haste can easily steal games. That said, it can be superfluous since you won't always need it, but it is pretty nice to be able to play a card and just win. If maindeck, run 3-4. If sideboard, you probably won't need more than 2.
Young Pyromancer: Playing this shifts the deck in a new direction. Some changes you will have to make, compared to traditional PA Storm:
Play Empty the Warrens instead of Grapeshot as your main kill condition.
Play maindeck Goblin Bushwhacker.
Reduce the Past in Flames count to 2. Past and Empty the Warrens are both pretty expensive mana-wise, and you want to keep your curve lean. Of course, Past is still ridiculous, and therefore worth keeping
Take out Ascension. It's not as good when you don't need a lot of rituals.
e) Lands
Auto-Includes:
Island: You're gonna want at least 2-3 of these to keep yourself safe from Blood Moon. If you're a real cool customer, you can run Snow lands instead.
Mountain: You're gonna want a least 1 of these so you don't have to shock/bolt yourself for red mana.
Steam Vents: It's an Island! It's a Mountain! It's an Island AND a Mountain! That means you can fetch it, and all the cool kids fetch shocklands. 3 seems to be the sweet spot, but if your spells are more colored-mana intensive you could up it to 4.
Scalding Tarn: Fixes mana and thins your deck, all for a measly 1 life! Fetchlands are the best! Shame they're so expensive. If you've got 'em, run 4.
Misty Rainforest: Like Scalding Tarn, but can't fetch Mountains. If you run them, try and use them first. 2 seems to be sweet spot here, if you've already got your Tarns.
Shivan Reef: The only other Blue/Red dual land, in my personal opinion. Although it can hurt you sometimes, the fact that it always comes into play untapped is very, very important. Just make sure you let your opponent know what color of mana you're making.
Other Choices:
Arid Mesa: Use this in place of Misty Rainforest in more red-heavy builds.
Cascade Bluffs: While the great Jon Finkel ran this in his GP Portland build, I would not suggest it. With only 16 lands, you will be keeping far too many one-landers to afford playing a card that can slow you down. It's nice to make UU out of R, but this card can make you lose tempo, which you simply cannot afford. I would only suggest running if you use Increasing Vengeance, and then as no more than a 1-of.
Sulfur Falls: Like Cascade Bluffs, but even worse, since you need to have another land in play for it to even be untapped. It's fine in Twin, and it's great in UWR, but it sucks in Storm.
Halimar Depths: Rearrange the top 3 cards for the price of an ETB tapped land. Don't do it.
Hallowed Fountain, Breeding Pool, Watery Grave: If you want to splash for another color, a singleton shock that you can grab with any fetchland seems like the way to go.
Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds: These are not a substitute for fetchlands! The fact that they can only fetch basics tapped is far too much of liability. If you're on a budget, just run more basics instead.
The deck's general tried-and-tested land base looks like this:
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Steam Vents
3 Island
1 Mountain
3 Shivan Reef
Alternate Win Conditions
Goblin Bushwhacker: Sometimes you'll draw Empty the Warrens a turn too late and be dead on board. Bushwhacker gives you an out, giving you the potential to win on the same turn you drop your Warrens.
Deceiver Exarch + Splinter Twin: Back in the day, some Storm lists would run a transformational sideboard plan to catch their opponents off guard and hopefully steal 2 games in row. However, most Storm decks don't run enough lands to consistently execute the combo, and Abrupt Decay destroys not only Exarch, but Pyromancer Ascension in the mainboard as well. As such, this strategy has fallen out of favor. It's worth mentioning for the sake of completeness, though.
Combo Protection
Echoing Truth: My personal favorite sideboard card. It takes care of permanent-based hate cards like Leyline of Sanctity and Rule of Law, and forces your opponents to crack their Relic of Progenitus early. It also takes care of most creatures that Lightning Bolt can't touch, and it can be a major blowout against creature swarms. Just be aware that if affects ALL cards with the same name, including yours.
Defense Grid: Defense Grid makes most counterspells incredibly difficult to cast, and considering how our deck feels about those, it's not a bad choice to stick a couple of these in your board.
Dispel: It's a 1 cmc counterspell for counterspells. It can also counter most burn and removal. The fact that it can only touch Instants is a bit restrictive, though.
Spell Pierce: A catch-all counterspell for anything but creatures that suffers in the late game. That said, how often do you expect to make it to the late game? Spell Pierce is cheap and versatile, and it can counter a Turn 2 Liliana when your opponent's on the play.
Pact of Negation: A free counterspell that can handle almost anything, but it's really only good on the turn you're going off. If you hate being interrupted on your combo turn, Pact may be just the counterspell for you. That is, if you don't mind the potential for your own spells to kill you.
Ignorant Bliss: WHERE IS YOUR DISCARD NOW?! A fun card that protects you while replacing itself, but it is reactive instead of proactive.
Leyline of Sanctity: Also protects against discard, as well as burn. We're never going to cast it, though, and it can be a dead card when trying to combo off.
Hate
Firespout: Oh no! My opponent has a lot of 3-Toughness creatures! Whatever shall I do? Firespout's basically a chunkier Pyroclasm that can't touch fliers unless you splash G. 3 mana is kind of expensive though, especially since you usually want to be setting up for a 4th Turn win by the time you play it.
Shatterstorm: Affinity can be a rough matchup, but they have one glaring weakness: the fact that they almost always have to over-commit to the board. Shatterstorm will destroy their army, Welding Jar or not, and it prevents Arcbound Ravager shenanigans. It's a little expensive, but against Affinity, it's almost always a one-sided wrath.
Shattering Spree: While Shatterstorm is awesome, sometimes you want destroy a few artifacts without ramping into a 4 cmc spell. Shattering Spree comes in handy here because it can take out varying numbers of artifacts, and is live for as long as you have R mana.
Vandalblast: Sometimes you want to blow up your opponent's artifacts but you don't want to blow up yours. Vandalblast comes in handy here, and it's also capable of knocking off lone threatening artifacts early on. It is more expensive than Shatterstorm, though, and it doesn't work against Regeneration.
Hibernation: This card craps all over Bogles, and is pretty handy against Elves and Gruul Zoo as well. If Green Aggro decks are a big thing in your meta, this forgotten beauty could make those matchups smoother.
Blood Moon: Punish those greedy mana bases! Blood Moon basically destroys Junk, and Jund to and extent, and it turns off the Tron lands. Ramping into on Turn 2 is just good game against most decks in the format. However, it's only really good if your opponent doesn't expect it.
Early Frost: Taps 3 lands on your opponent's 3rd Turn. Another great way to clear the way against Control decks. Just watch out for counterspells.
Gigadrowse: This bad boy used to see play in the Epic Experiment builds. Tapping your opponent's U lands is great way to clear the way for your Combo. Just watch out for Mindbreak Trap, Ravenous Trap, and permanent-based hate. And if you run it, you may want to have Calciform Pools or Dreadship Reef in your board as well.
Mindbreak Trap: Screws over your opponent in the Storm mirror at barely any cost. It's also cool since it can technically counter uncounterable spells. It's really expensive if that's what you intend to use it for, though.
Trickbind: Another sneaky hate card for the mirror. When used correctly, you'll basically waste their entire turn. You'll have to keep 1U open for it though, which means not doing anything proactive on your own turn.
Telemin Performance: This used to be the mirror-breaker back in the days before Goblin Electromancer. It's still pretty nutty against RG Tron... not that we need much help against RG Tron. Still, if you're facing any creatureless Combo, Telemin Performance is a hilarious answer.
Sample Sideboard
2 Echoing Truth
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Spell Pierce
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Shattering Spree
2 Shatterstorm
3) Decklists -by izzetmage and MachuChang
Note: Decklists which contain currently-banned cards have been omitted.
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Steam Vents
3 Island
1 Mountain
3 Shivan Reef
1 Cascade Bluffs
4 Goblin Electromancer
4 Pyromancer Ascension
3 Grapeshot
3 Past in Flames
2 Increasing Vengeance
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Manamorphose
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Desperate Ravings
1 Peer Through Depths
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Shatterstorm
3 Empty the Warrens
2 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Defense Grid
1 Dispel
JohnnyHotSauce MTGO Premier Winner 8/5/13
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Shivan Reef
4 Steam Vents
4 Goblin Electromancer
4 Desperate Ritual
1 Empty the Warrens
3 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Grapeshot
4 Manamorphose
3 Past in Flames
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Blood Moon
3 Defense Grid
1 Empty the Warrens
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Shatterstorm
2 Torpor Orb
Ztrman's Young Pyromancer Storm, 3-1 Modern Daily (8/6/13)
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Steam Vents
3 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Goblin Electromancer
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Manamorphose
2 Past in Flames
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
2 Combust
2 Defense Grid
2 Dispel
2 Echoing Truth
2 Grapeshot
3 Pyromancer Ascension
2 Shattering Spree
SPC Gifts Storm
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Shivan Reef
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Steam Vents
3 Goblin Electromancer
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Desperate Ritual
2 Gifts Ungiven
4 Manamorphose
4 Peer Through Depths
4 Pyretic Ritual
1 Empty the Warrens
3 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Grapeshot
2 Past in Flames
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Echoing Truth
1 Empty the Warrens
3 Ignorant Bliss
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Pact of Negation
2 Shattering Spree
4) Technical Play, Tips, and Tricks -by izzetmage and MachuChang
Opening Hands and Mulligans
1. Land
2. Rituals
3. Card Draw
4. Engines
5. Win Conditions.
The ideal opening hand will contain at least 1-2 Lands, 2-3 Rituals, 2-3 Card Draw, 1-2 Engines, and 0-2 Win Conditions. You can generally count Manamorphoses as both Card Draw and Rituals.
A good hand might look like this:
However, you're not always going to get hands this attractive, so you need to know when to mull. Generally speaking:
Hands with 1 land and 1 cantrip are usually keepable.
Hands with 4 or more lands are usually mulligans.
A good hand contains a mix of cantrips, rituals, and engines.
Having all engines (3 or more, including duplicates) is terrible.
Mulliganing will always be up to your own personal discretion and will often be affected by a variety of factors, such as your opponent's deck or hate cards. But in general, following these 4 simple rules will take you a long way.
Lands and Mana
One question that many players find themselves asking about playing Modern is when they should fetch for an untapped shockland instead of a regular old basic. Generally, you will want to fetch for basic lands in order to conserve your life total. However, if you have a starting hand of only 1 cantrip and 1 land (which is a fetch), the best decision is to bolt yourself for an untapped Steam Vents. The reason you do this is because your second land could be a basic Island, and you don’t want to be stuck with 2 basic Islands and a Mancer/PA/Ravings in hand.
When fetching for lands, you will usually want U on Turn 1 for cantrips and UR by Turn 2 so you can play your engines.
Manamorphose
You will usually only need RR in your mana pool at any given time. Any excess can be converted to U. However, if you run Increasing Vengeances, it is often wise to keep a minimum of RRR in your mana pool so that you can use Vengeance to copy spells while keeping R open for further rituals.
Minimum Mana Requirements
URR for Electromancer + Ritual
URR for Cantrip + Increasing Vengeance
2RR for spliced Desperate Ritual
2RR for double Grapeshot
1RRR for a Ritual + Increasing Vengeance
4RR for Past in Flames with the ability to cast a ritual after. 2RR with Electromancer. Keep in mind that you will need more than just 4 mana for the subsequent ritual flashback.
Most of your cantrips need U , so Manamorphose is important. Don't tap U-producing lands until you absolutely need to.
Goblin Electromancer reduces almost everything by 1, including Flashback costs.
Cantrips
Playing a Serum Visions followed by a Sleight of Hand will dig you deeper than Sleight of Hand followed by Serum Visions. This is especially important to note if you are trying to hit your land drops in the early game.
If you don’t have any more draw spells, Sleight of Hand is better than Serum Visions because you get to choose between 2 cards, rather than drawing 1.
Crack your fetches before casting Serum Visions so you don't screw up your Scry.
When going off, it is often a good idea to cast your Manamorphoses early. They might draw you into an engine, and at the very least it can help fix your mana.
Thanks to the magic of the stack, you can cast Instants between a Desperate Ravings and its copy (from PA) as it resolves. Use this trick to make sure you don't discard any vital rituals, like Manamorphose.
Playing the Deck
So that all said, let's try a Goldfish. We'll use our sample hand from earlier and I'll talk you through it.
Opening Hand: Serum Visions/c], Pyretic Ritual, Steam Vents, Goblin Electromancer, Past in Flames, Manamorphose, Desperate Ritual
Turn 1:
-Play Steam Vents untapped. We go to 18 life.
-Play Serum Visions, drawing another Steam Vents. The Scry shows us another Past in Flames, and a Shivan Reef. Since we don't need 2 Past in Flames, we'll put that one on the bottom. But since we've got a lot of action in our hand, it can't hurt to hold on to the land, so we'll leave that one on top.
Turn 2:
-Draw the Shivan Reef from last turn.
-Play the Shivan Reef.
-Play the Goblin Electromancer, going down to 17 life.
Turn 3:
-Draw another Serum Visions.
-We've got a strong-looking hand now, so we're going to try and go off here.
-Play Serum Visions with Steam Vents, so we conserve life. Draw a Pyretic Ritual.
View the top 2 cards of our library, seeing a Grapeshot and a Misty Rainforest. We need a win condition, and we don't need any more lands, so this an easy choice to make: we'll keep the Grapeshot on top and send the Rainforest to the bottom.
Storm Count: 1
-Play Pyretic Ritual with Shivan Reef, going down to 16 life. Thanks to Electromancer, this ritual only cost us R. Now we have RRR floating.
Storm Count: 2
-Play the other Pyretic Ritual with R from our mana pool. Now we've got RRRRR floating.
Storm Count: 3
-Play Manamorphose with R from our mana pool and add UU to our mana pool. Now we've got UURRRR floating. Manamorphose then draws us the Grapeshot we left on top.
Storm Count: 4
-Play Desperate Ritual with R from our mana pool. UURRRRRR
is floating.
Storm Count: 5
-Play Past in Flames for RRR. Now we have UURRR floating.
Storm Count: 6
-Flashback Pyretic Ritual for R. UURRRRR floating.
Storm Count: 7
-Flashback the other Pyretic Ritual for R. UURRRRRRR floating.
Storm Count: 8
-Flashback Serum Visions for U. URRRRRRR floating.
Draw a Mountain, which unnecessary. See a Scalding Tarn and a Sleight of Hand. We still don't need lands, so we'll ship off the Tarn. We can still make U off of our Manamorphose (in grave) or Steam Vents (in hand), and since Sleight of Hand can help us dig for redundant win conditions just in case, we'll keep it.
Storm Count: 9
-Now we'll flash back the Manamorphose for R and make UU. We now have access to UUURRRRRR in our pool.
Storm Count: 10
-We have adequate Storm to win now, so we'll cast Grapeshot for R, dealing 11 damage (10 Storm + 1 for Grapeshot) to our opponent. We've got
UUURRRRR floating.
Storm Count: 11
-We'll flashback Past in Flames to give our Grapeshot Flashback. Our mana pool now has UUUR floating.
Storm Count: 12
-Finally, we'll flashback our Grapeshot for 13 damage, dealing a grand total of 24 damage to our opponent, probably winning us the game. Note that if they had more life, we could have easily kept going.
So that hand ended up working really well for us! But keep in mind that many games won't always play out that way. Sometimes our opening hands will need to be sculpted more, while other times we'll fizzle through no fault of our own. That's just one of the cons of playing an engine combo deck. But in general, if you think about why you're making the plays you're making, you'll do just fine.
On Turn 3 Wins -by SPC
Young Pyromancer Storm
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
5) Matchups and Sideboarding Strategy -by MachuChang
Even: Hatebears, Twin, Scapeshift,
Good Matchups
Birthing Pod
-4 Pyromancer Ascension, -3 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Shattering Spree, +4 Lightning Bolt, +2 Echoing Truth
Pod is a very favorable matchup for us, since they have trouble interacting with our Combo and we are much, much faster than them. However, there are some things you have to watch out for: Melira Pod can gain infinite life by the 3rd Turn, and Kiki-Pod can answer our spells with Glen Elendra Archmage. Don't be afraid to use Grapeshot on their Combo pieces, but in general, Pod is a no-stress matchup. Just don't durdle and you'll do fine. Both Pod decks almost always have artifact/enchantment hate, so I like to take out the Ascensions here. Lightning Bolts are for their hate bears. Echoing Truth takes care of the Kiki combo or Voice of Resurgence tokens. Shattering Spree can take care of Birthing Pod, and potentially artifacts that hate on our combo.
Bogles
-4 Gitaxian Probe, -1 Grapeshot, -1 Past in Flames
+3 Empty the Warrens, +2 Echoing Truth, +1 Spell Pierce
This matchup can be rough if they get off to a good start. They're fast and very difficult for our colors to interact with, but they don't have any way to interact with us Game 1 outside of creature removal. Our best hands will always beat their best hands, but anything less and it becomes a very close game. They're fast and efficient enough that they can really capitalize on our misplays, and they have enough Lifelink enchantments to make the battle an uphill one. Don't fetch for untapped shocklands unless you have no other options. After sideboarding though, Bogles becomes a breeze. Take out the Gitaxian Probes to spare our life total, since every point counts. Empty the Warrens comes in because it gives us significantly more pressure when it counts and tour Gobbos can chump block when necessary. Echoing Truth can bounce their hate, their scariest enchantments, and Kor Spiritdancer. The miser's Spell Pierce may not be necessary, but since it's almost always a hard counter for 45% of their deck, I feel it's worth running.
Living End
-3 Gitaxian Probe
+2 Echoing Truth, +1 Spell Pierce
This matchup is easy-peasy as long as they don't blow up your lands. We goldfish much faster than they do, and the only interaction they have with our combo pieces is Beast Within. Spell Pierce is to stall them if we need another turn, and Echoing Truth keeps us from being blown out by random hate cards. You can basically play this game like a goldfish, just don't over-commit to the board and you'll do fine.
Martyr Proc/Soul Sisters
-4 Gitaxian Probe, -1 Pyromancer Ascension, -1 Past in Flames
+4 Lightning Bolt, +2 Echoing Truth
White lifegain decks are basically an auto win. We goldfish faster than they do and we can almost always do more damage than they can gain life. Probes come out to preserve our life total, and they'll probably be showing us their hand with Martyr of Sands anyway. Lightning Bolts will take care of hatebears, baby Pridemates, and the life-gaining ladies. Side in Echoing Truth if you expect permanent-based hate cards, and since they run a lot of duplicates so we can potentially blow them out that way.
RG Tron
-2 Gitaxian Probe,
+2 Echoing Truth
Echoing Truth is just to handle any problematic permanents like Karn Liberated or Wurmcoil Engine. It can also bounce their hate cards. Tron in general has a hard time against Grapeshot, so we just want to be faster than them, which isn't too hard.
Tokens
-2 Gitaxian Probe
+2 Echoing Truth
Tokens Game 1 is essentially a bye. They're not very fast, and their disruption is limited to discard, which Past in Flame laughs at. Game 2 becomes a lot harder, but considering how easy Game 1 is, that doesn't mean too much. We put in 2 Echoing Truths to deal with any hate cards, like Relic of Progenitus or Leyline of Sanctity. Truth also has the added benefit of hosing token swarms, so long as they have the same name.
Even Matchups
-4 Gitaxian Probe, -2 Peer Through Depths
+2 Shatterstorm, +1 Shattering Spree, +3 Lightning Bolt
Affinity can be a rough matchup. You want to board in all your artifact hate to slow them down, and bring Lightning Bolts to handle early threats and their manlands. Gitaxian Probes come out so we can conserve our life total, and Peer Through Depths can be too slow. They tend to faster than us, especially once they drop an Inkmoth Nexus, so we need to take a more reactive role in this matchup.
Burn
-4 Gitaxian Probe, -3 Past in Flames
+4 Lightning Bolt, +3 Empty the Warrens
This match is pretty noninteractive. The main plan is just to go over the top and run them over. Try not to hurt yourself with your lands, since they can really capitalize on that. Lightning Bolts take care of their dudes and can go to the dome in a pinch, and Empty the Warrens allows to race very, very quickly.
Scapeshift
-2 Gitaxian Probe, -3 Past in Flames
+2 Echoing Truth, +3 Empty the Warrens
This is mainly to deal with random hate cards or creatures that can run away with the game when they land. Valakut is slow, so the main trick here is to play around their countermagic. Fortunately, Empty the Warrens can handle counterspells just fine. Most versions run sweepers though, so keep your eye out for those.
Storm
-4 Gitaxian Probe, -1 Past in Flames
+3 Empty the Warrens, +2 Echoing Truth
Ah, the mirror matchup. It may seem like a coinflip, but it can actually be pretty interactive and skill-intensive. Of course, sometimes they just combo off on the 3rd turn, but sometimes you do instead. Gitaxians Probes come out since they're the weakest cantrip, and hands change so often in a Storm deck that it doesn't make much sense to see them. It doesn't hurt to conserve our life totals either. Echoing Truth will take care of their Ascensions, Electromancers, goblin hordes, and hate. Just be aware that it will affect your copies too. If you're up against the creature-focused Storm builds, it may be better to switch Probes for Lightning Bolts instead.
UR Twin
-2
+2 Echoing Truth, +2
This matchup can go both ways. They have enough maindeck disruption to make our life difficult, and maindeck Boomerang will really throw our tempo off, but we're faster than they are and don't need 4 lands to win. The main trick here is to bait out their counterspells, then catch them off-guard. That said, they do have a lot of counterspells. It is important to keep in mind that when facing Twin, they are the Control deck, so we need to stay as lean as possible in order to keep our combo consistent. We side Echoing Truth in as a way to deal with their combo
Zoo
-4 Gitaxian Probe
+4 Lightning Bolt
Zoo is really big, but they're not quite as fast as Bogles and are much easier to interact with. Still, this isn't the easiest matchup. It's very winnable, but you need to play tight and keep an eye out for their burn and pump spells.
Bad Matchups
-4 Gitaxian Probe, -4 Pyromancer Ascension
+4 Lightning Bolt, +3 Empty the Warrens, +1 Spell Pierce
Spell Pierce takes care of their buffs and Apostle's Blessing. Lightning bolts are to take out their dudes as quickly as possible. Empty the Warrens allows us to overrun the Infect player through sheer board position, and we have the option to keep a goblin or two back to block. Distortion Strike is a card though, unfortunately. Why take out the Ascensions here? In my experience, they've been too slow. Also, don't be afraid to use Grapeshots as removal.
Jund/Junk
-1 Pyromancer Ascension, -1 Past in Flames, -4 Gitaxian Probe
+4 Lightning Bolt, +2 Echoing Truth
This match is super annoying. The constant discard, efficient creatures, and Deathrite Shaman are the worst. They've got a lot of removal for almost every non-land permanent, and pretty powerful grave hate, so we need to protect ourselves from a variety of angles without diluting our deck. Not as easy as it sounds. The Lightning Bolts are to take out the Deathrite Shamans, but sometimes we can win by going to the face with an active Ascension. Echoing Truth is for combo protection and can temporarily take care of Liliana or Goyf.
UR Tempo
Ugh. Tempo decks have historically been our deck's undoing, and it seems that that tradition is still going strong. Delver and kin's ability to drop fast, efficient threats and protect them is very, very hard for us to deal with, and their ability to switch between aggressor and defender on a moment's notice makes it trick for us to do whatever it is we want to do. When facing UR Tempo decks, Pyromancer Ascension is your best friend. It will allow you to fight through their counterspells and overwhelm them with value, so prioritize its activation.
UWx Control/UWx Midrange
-2 Peer Through Depths, -3 Past in Flames, -2 Grapeshot
+2 Defense Grid, +3 Empty the Warrens, +1 Dispel, +1 Echoing Truth
Empty the Warrens is really good against counterspell decks, while Grapeshot is not, so this switch is pretty painless. Peer and Defense Grid don't get along. Make sure to keep Gitaxian Probes here because they let you see your opponent's hand and figure out whether or not it's safe to go off.
Please note that these aren't hard and fast rules, but general suggestions. In general, the sideboarding plan boils down to removing the cards you think are going to get hated on. If grave hate, get rid of Past in Flames. If enchantment hate, get rid of Pyromancer Ascension. Permanent-based hate, get Echoing Truth.
Videos
http://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-owen-modern-storm-1/
Variations
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=384937
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