Contents
0) What is Storm?
1) History
2) Card Choices
3) Decklists
4) Technical Play, Tips, and Tricks
5) Matchups and Sideboarding Strategy
6) Videos and Articles
7) Variations
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.
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.
The Born of the Gods banlist changes arrived on Feb 13 2014, almost a year after the Seething Song ban, announcing the departure of Deathrite Shaman from the format. The significance of this was huge, as there would be less maindeck grave hate, and one of Storm's worst matchups was bound to fall in popularity. However, Bitterblossom was unbanned at the same time, introducing another bad matchup.
Fortunately, Fae was not to be. Storm broke out yet again at Pro Tour Born of the Gods, with two teams playing the deck for the Modern rounds and being rewarded handsomely for their efforts. Not many players had elected to play Faeries, giving Storm players much more room to combo off. Team TCGPlayer's Chris Fennell and Andrew Shrout went 8-1-1 and 8-2-0 respectively, with Fennell making it to Top 8 only to lose to Melira Pod after fizzling in Game 1. Team CFB Pantheon's Tom Martell and Jon Finkel (!) went 7-2-1 and 7-3-0, with teammates Gaudenis Vidugiris (5-4-1) and Kai Budde (6-3-1, who actually defeated a Faeries deck in one round) attaining less stellar records, but still sneaking into Top 16 on their Draft results.
After a wild ride of two bans, the printing of three archetype enablers and the removal of a major roadblock to its success, Storm has finally reclaimed its rightful spot amongst Modern's best. If you seek a deck which wins with spells instead of creatures; a deck which steals games against opponents who did not construct their sideboards with your deck in mind; a deck where every game is a puzzle, read on and learn how to harness the power of Storm for yourself.
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'est 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. If you're really desperate, you can even mill your opponent out with Thought Scours, multiple Ascensions, and Past in Flames, getting past infinite life combos.
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. You can splice Desperate Ritual onto it, which is very handy as well. 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 1-3.
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.
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 first response to the Seething Song ban. However, he eventually cut them from his list for Thought Scour, citing Goblin Electromancer as the 3rd ritual the deck needed. If you play Increasing Vengeance, it will almost always be as another, more mana-heavy ritual, but it can do other things 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, if you feel the need to run it at all.
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.
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: 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.
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.
Epic Experiment: Back when we still had Seething Song, this sucker helped 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.
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.
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 it's 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.
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. 2-3 seems to be the sweet spot with fetches. If you don't have access to fetches, then run the full 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. 2-3 seems to be the right amount 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. It also has the advantage over Steam Vents on your combo turn if both are in your hand- Shivan Reef will only do 1 damage to you as opposed to 2. Just make sure you let your opponent know what color of mana you're making. If you have fetches, run 2-3. If you don't have fetches, go with a playset.
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 usually used to make RR out of U, but this card can make you lose tempo, since it can't make mana for Turn 1 cantrips on its own. 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. Still, it sees a lot of use because it can come in untapped without dealing damage. I would only run it in fetch-less builds.
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. Hallowed Fountain gives you access to the best sideboard cards, like Stony Silence. Breeding Pool opens up Ancient Grudge. Watery Grave lets you get Thoughtseize. White is probably the best splash color for this deck.
How Many Lands?
Most Storm decks will run only 16 lands, but some players, like Andrew Shrout, have upped the number. In general, Storm never wants less than 16 lands and never more than 18. So that raises the question: how many lands do I want to run?
The majority of Storm lists run only 16 lands because it leaves more room for spells, and the cantrips will help you find lands easily more often than not. However, there will occasionally be the rare game where you just can't find any other lands, no matter how much you dig.
Andrew Shrout's PT Valencia list ran a whopping 18 lands, which helped enable Faithless Looting and increased the likelihood of going off on Turn 3 with 3 lands and an Electromancer. However, the increased land count actually reduces consistency in comboing off, as can been seen in Chris Fennell's Top 8 match of the same Pro Tour, where he ended up drawing lands instead of gas.
A few players have hedged between the two and decided to run 17 lands, but in general, the extra land in non-Looting lists just takes up valuable spell space. In my own experience, I've found myself flooding too often with more than 16 lands, so I stick to the bare minimum.
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 at least one 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?
Swan Song: HONK! Swan Song is a strong counterspell, but giving your opponent a 2/2 flier is a very real drawback. However, you can counter your own spells to give yourself another win condition.
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.
Anger of the Gods: Oh no! My opponent has a lot of 3-Toughness creatures! Whatever shall I do? Anger's a very strong card against Pod, Zoo, and other creature-based aggro lists, though we tend to have the advantage in those matchups anyway. Note that you can ritual into it early.
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 Zoo as well. If Green Aggro decks are a big thing in your meta, this forgotten beauty could make those matchups smoother.
Damping Matrix: Shuts down Twin, Pod, and a good portion of Affinity. It seems that most of the decks that involve activated abilities rely on them pretty hard, so Damping Matrix is a good way of shutting them down. 3 mana is expensive in a deck that wants to win on Turn 4, but you can potentially drop it on Turn 2 with a ritual if you think that it's worth the tempo loss.
Torpor Orb: Shuts down Twin and Pod, and also has splash damage against Snapcaster decks. It's pretty cheap too.
Blood Moon: Punish those greedy mana bases! Blood Moon basically destroys Junk, and Jund to an 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.
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.
3) Decklists -by izzetmage and MachuChang Note: Decklists which contain currently-banned cards have been omitted.
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.
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.
Electromancer finally kicks the bucket, and you now have RRRRRUU in your mana pool. Not bad for an initial 4 lands.
Past in Flames and Desperate Ravings -by Jon Finkel
Quote from Jon Finkel »
It is sometimes correct (especially when you have exactly 8 mana) to respond to the Past in Flames with a Desperate Ravings. This lets you get the Ravings and the card you discard under the Past without the fear of discarding it—this is important because you'd much rather flashback with red mana than blue (plus it's one cheaper). If you happen to draw a ritual or a Manamorphose off the Ravings, you can still cast it while the Past in Flames is on the stack.
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. 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.
For reference, here's the deck we'll be using here:
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.
Turn 3:
-Draw a Misty Rainforest.
-We've got a strong-looking hand now, so we're going to try and go off here.
-Play Misty Rainforest and crack it for an Island. Go to 17 life.
-Goblin Electromancer with Island and Shivan Reef. Go to 16 life.\
Storm 1.
-Play Pyretic Ritual with Steam Vents. Thanks to Electromancer, this ritual only cost us R. Now we have RRR floating.
Storm Count: 2
-Play Manamorphose with R from our mana pool and add UU to our mana pool. Now we've got UURR floating. Manamorphose then draws us a Sleight of Hand.
-Play Sleight of Hand, seeing a Grapeshot and a Scalding Tarn. We'll take the Grapeshot since we need a win condition and bottom the Tarn. URR floating.
Storm Count: 3
-Play Desperate Ritual with R from our mana pool. URRRRis floating.
Storm Count: 4
-Play Past in Flames for RRR. Now we have UR floating.
Storm Count: 5
-Flashback Pyretic Ritual for R. URRR floating.
Storm Count: 6
-Flashback the Manamorphose and make UU. UUURR floating. Draw a Desperate Ravings
Storm Count: 7
-Flashback Serum Visions for U. UURR floating. Draw a Mountain, which is unnecessary. See a Scalding Tarn and an Electromancer. We don't need either, so we'll bottom them.
Storm Count: 8
-Flashback the Desperate Ritual. UURRRR
Storm Count: 9
-Play Grapeshot, dealing 10 damage. UURRR
Storm 10
-We'll flashback Past in Flames to give our Grapeshot Flashback, making sure to leave behind R to cast it.
Storm Count: 11
-Finally, we'll flashback our Grapeshot for 12 damage, dealing a grand total of 22 damage to our opponent, probably winning us the game. Note that if they had more life, we could have kept going by chaining cantrips instead of taking other lines.
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.
5) Matchups and Sideboarding Strategy -by MachuChang
For this discussion of sideboarding, we will be assuming the use of the following decklist:
Birthing Pod
-4 Thought Scour
+4 Lightning Bolt
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 watch your Ascensions. Lightning Bolts are for their hate bears.
Bogles
-1 Desperate Ravings (-3 on the play), -1 Thought Scour
+1 Echoing Truth, (+3 Blood Moon on the play)
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. Echoing Truth can bounce their hate, their scariest enchantments, and Kor Spiritdancer. If you're on the play, Blood Moon will almost always lock them out if you drop it early enough.
Living End
-4 Thought Scour
+1 Echoing Truth, +3 Blood Moon
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. 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 Thought Scour, -1 Pyromancer Ascension
+4 Lightning Bolt, +1 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. 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 we can potentially blow them out that way.
RG Tron
-4 Thought Scour
+1 Echoing Truth, +3 Blood Moon
Echoing Truth is just to handle any problematic permanents like Oblivion Stone or Wurmcoil Engine. It can also bounce their hate cards. Blood Moon will temporarily shut down their Tron and give us more time. Tron in general has a hard time against Grapeshot, so we just want to be faster than them. That isn't too hard.
Scapeshift
-4 Thought Scour, -2 Past in Flames, +1 Grapeshot
+1 Echoing Truth, +3 Empty the Warrens, +3 Blood Moon
Echoing Truth 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. But in general, Scapeshift has trouble handling Storm, especially off of a fast start.
Tokens
-4 Thought Scour
+1 Echoing Truth, +3 Blood Moon
Tokens Game 1 is essentially a bye. They're not very fast, and their disruption is limited to discard, which Past in Flames laughs at. Game 2 becomes a lot harder, but considering how easy Game 1 is, that doesn't mean too much. We put in Echoing Truth 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.
Zoo
-3 Desperate Ravings, -1 Past in Flames, -1 Pyromancer Ascension, -1 Grapeshot, -2 Thought Scour (-4 When bringing in Blood Moon)
+3 Empty the Warrens, +4 Lightning Bolt, +1 Echoing Truth, (+2 Blood Moon on the Play)
Zoo appears the new deck to beat and fortunately for us, it's not that hard. Game 1 will almost always come down to a race. Watch out for hasty guys, burn, and Bloodrushed Ghor-Clan Rampager, all of which can deal a lot of damage from nowhere. Other than that, play conservatively with your life total since the game's essentially a goldfish. Side out Desperate Ravings/extra card draw since it's not as necessary. Empty the Warrens comes in to make a fast clock, chump blockers, and nullify grave-hate. Lightning Bolt can deal with almost all of their creatures. Echoing Truth is for any permanent-based hate.
Even Matchups
Affinity
-4 Gitaxian Probe, -2 Desperate Ravings, -1 Pyromancer Ascension, -1 Past in Flames
+3 Shatterstorm, +4 Lightning Bolt, +1 Empty the Warrens
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. Warrens allows us to race if we get it early and chump if we get it late. Gitaxian Probes come out so we can conserve our life total, and Desperate Ravings can be too slow. They tend to be 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, -2 Past in Flames, -1 Desperate Ravings
+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. However, if you see Volcanic Fallouts, keep the Warrens in the board.
Storm
-1 Desperate Ravings, -1 Past in Flames, -2 Thought Scour
+3 Empty the Warrens, +1 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. Gitaxian 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.
URx Twin
-1 Grapeshot, -1 Past in Flames, -3 Thought Scour
+1 Echoing Truth, +3 Empty the Warrens, +1 Defense Grid
This matchup can go both ways. They have enough maindeck disruption to make our life difficult, 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 hate or their combo, since it can bounce all their creatures or Splinter Twin in response to creature protection. Defense Grid is a nice way to shut down their counters, and it keeps them from flashing in their Deceiver Exarchs on our endstep.
Bad Matchups
Faeries
-4 Thought Scour, -2 Past in Flames, -1 Grapeshot,
+1 Defense Grid, +3 Empty the Warrens, +3 Blood Moon
Faeries are quite an annoying match-up since almost everything they do is disruptive and at instant speed. Watch out for their counterspells and Mistbind Clique, which can shut us out if we're not careful. The main plan against them is to bait out counterspells and keep jamming combo engines until we get through. Sticking an early Ascension is especially conducive to victory, since it all but nullifies their counters. Post-board, we bring out Past in Flames since it's weak to counters. We also cut a Grapeshot, since it's a lot weaker without Past. We side in Defense Grid to mess up their Instant-speed shenanigans, and Empty the Warrens, since it's better against counterspells and Faeries struggle against creature swarms. Blood Moon will completely shut them down if we drop it early enough.
Infect
-4 Thought Scour, -1 Pyromancer Ascension, -1 Past in Flames, -1 Desperate Ravings
+4 Lightning Bolt, +3 Empty the Warrens, +1 Echoing Truth
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. Don't be afraid to use Grapeshots as removal.
Jund/Junk/BGx
-1 Past in Flames, -4 Thought Scour, -1 Grapeshot
+3 Empty the Warrens, +3 Blood Moon
This match is super annoying. The constant discard and efficient creatures make it difficult for us to go off in time. They've got a lot of removal for almost every non-land permanent, and tend to have grave hate, so we need to protect ourselves from a variety of angles without diluting our deck. Fortunately, Blood Moon can do a lot of heavy lifting if we stick one. Empty the Warrens comes in because Jund tends to have trouble against creature swarms, but watch out for Maelstrom Pulse and Anger of the Gods.
UR Tempo
-2 Thought Scour, -2 Past in Flames, -2-4 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Defense Grid, +3 Empty the Warrens, +2-4 Lightning Bolt
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 tricky 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. Do not be afraid to use Grapeshot on their dudes, because it will spare you a lot of hurt in the long run. Empty the Warrens is an all-star in this match-up as long as you can power out the rituals for it early. Very few Delver decks can handle swarms of creatures. Young Pyromancer can create a lot of blockers for them, though. Defense Grid is a real beating against Delver and can turn a hand full of counters into nothing but dead cards. Lightning Bolt can take out Delvers, Vendilion Cliques, and Young Pyromancers and can also go the face, but that's rarely a good idea. Past in Flames comes out because it is very, very weak to counterspells. Depending on your preferences or the matchup, you may or may not want Gitaxian Probes. On one hand, they let you see your opponent's hand, which is very useful for gauging when to go off, but the UR Tempo decks can also capitalize on the damage you'll be doing to yourself. I personally cut all the Probes for Bolts, but its not necessarily an easy choice.
UWx Control/UWx Midrange
-4 Thought Scour, -2 Past in Flames, -1 Grapeshot
+3 Blood Moon, +1 Defense Grid, +3 Empty the Warrens
Empty the Warrens is really good against counterspell decks, while Grapeshot is not, so this switch is pretty painless. Defense Grid makes the UWx Flash decks play fair, while Blood Moon messes with the Control version. Peer and the new permanents 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.
7) Variations Young Pyromancer Storm
Young Pyromancer Storm is similar to Past in Flames Storm in that both decks aim to sculpt their hands with cantrips, cast multiple rituals in one turn, and then drop a Storm spell that they can ride to victory. The biggest difference is that Young Pyromancer Storm includes (obviously) Young Pyromancer as a way to generate value from multiple spells. This inclusion grants YP Storm multiple win conditions, as opposed the traditional 3 Grapeshots in the PiF Storm build. In order to power-up Young Pyromancer's ability, YP Storm will run Goblin Bushwhacker to turn its Elemental tokens into a Hasty and efficient means of victory. Grapeshots are switched out for Empty the Warrens, which plays better with Bushwhacker, and Pyromancer Ascensions are cut entirely due to their lack of synergy with a creature-focused plan of attack. All of these changes make Young Pyromancer a different beast than its older brother, and the differences in the two equate to a variety of strengths and weaknesses.
Ritual Gifts
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.
Epic Experiment without seething song is not as good as it was.
I'm suprised seeing only 2 copies of Leyline of Sanctity. Without all 4 it's very small chance to see it on the opening hand.
The mainboard of this deck is surprisingly similar to his deck from PTRTR subbing 2 increasing vengeance, 1 peer through depths and 1 pyromancers ascension for the seething songs.
After playtesting a little with this deck last night, I can say it's viable, but harder to play then previous storm variants as your margin of error is much smaller.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
I remember feeling as if Seething Song created downright redundant amounts of mana when I played Pyro Ascension Storm, it doesn't really surprise me that the deck is feasible without it. It's more dependent on Ascension than it was before but since a single Ritual will still give you Past in Flames + Ritual flashback mana once Ascension is active, it doesn't play THAT different without Seething Song, you just really have to find your Ascension.
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Thanks to Gabgabdevo for the awesome sig image!
I'm always looking for foil Madcap Skills and Ghitu Fire-Eater, [trade thread link forthcoming]
You either have to find ascension or electromancer early, and the deck is now a lot less error friendly, but it still can kill turn 4 rarely turn 3 (this requires an ascension active on turn 3 or an Electromancer + Ascension you can get active on turn 3)
Increasing Vengeance is very very good in this deck, just Forking a Manamorphose to streamline mana and cantrip can be insane also with PiF you get a double fork for RR
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Modern:
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget I stream!
I think Echoing Truth might be worth a slot in the board. However to me this is viable. Just not a noob friendly deck. Which in a way makes me like it more. I say we make a Primer and get working on a optimal build.
Edit:So the mainboard is a thing of beauty. Love it! I do agree that we need Bounce for Leyline. Either one is a nightmare. I'm thinking 2-3 with a extra Peer Through the Depths.
In case I didn't tell you, I don't care about your opinion I just want your facts. And not the facts that make you seem smart. I want the ones that are actual facts.
Yeah lets make a primer. I'm fairly new to modern so I never got a chance to play the deck before the banning although I always wanted to. I think this may be my next modern deck. Would it be able to perform at FNM fairly well? I know it will be hard to play but I have been practicing on cockatrice.
Yeah lets make a primer. I'm fairly new to modern so I never got a chance to play the deck before the banning although I always wanted to. I think this may be my next modern deck. Would it be able to perform at FNM fairly well? I know it will be hard to play but I have been practicing on cockatrice.
For now just remember that you're not dead until your dead. For a FNM deck this is a good choice. You're less likely to go up against hate cards. I would hang close to Finkel's list. You want a Electromancer or a Pyro to reliably go off. No reason you can't win even without the fetch lands if needed. They add well over $200 to the deck.
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In case I didn't tell you, I don't care about your opinion I just want your facts. And not the facts that make you seem smart. I want the ones that are actual facts.
I've continued to practice on cockatrice and I've found this deck goldfishes a turn 3 win about 10% of the time and can reliably win on turn 4. I really enjoy playing the deck as well.
How do we feel about Cascade Bluffs? The filter is nice, especially with the :symr::symr: cost in Increasing Vengeance, but if it's the only land in our opener, it's pretty bad since we can't cantrip off of it alone.
So I rebuilt this deck. I had just finished it when they banned Seething Song.
Basically the trick to playing this deck is to every turn, think about what you'll play this turn. Figure out if you can win. Most of my goldfishes are won with just Past In Flames, sometimes with no card draw.
Also, Epic Experiment still works. However, you need either an electromancer or past in flames too. If you're about to lose, you can try to lucksack the correct cards off of X=4 or 5 (which does happen sometimes by the way). Epic Experiment is faster but more unreliable. Example: one of my goldfishes won turn two. I like EE as a sideboard plan against gravyard hate, take out Ascentions, put in Experiments.
Yes the deck is weaker now that Seething Song is gone but it can still put up some results. I would recommend a thread in Established seeing as it is about on par with the other decks in that category and has Finkel's top 16 to its name.
As mentioned, it's basically the same as Finkel's deck with a few changes, the most notable of which is the inclusion of 2 Epic Experiment copies.
+2 Epic Experiment
This thing is amazing. With an Ascension on the field, you are almost guaranteed to combo out if you cast Experiment for anything more than X=4. And that assumes your Ascension isn't even active! If it is in fact active, this card becomes completely bonkers, guaranteeing a win after its resolution. One of the main criticisms of Experiment is that it is "win-more". I disagree. Experiment fixes one of the main problems of Storm decks, which is when you have ritual heavy hands without a lot of card draw. You will often see an Electromancer on the field with 3-4 rituals in hand. What do you do with all that mana? Experiment gives you the best outlet. Experiment also helps you activate Ascensions; just remember how your triggers interact with the stack.
-1 Increasing Vengeance
Electromancer is not a big fan of Vengeance, and this card is never good if you are trying to start off a big ritual chain. The best IV scenarios are when you can copy a Desperate Ritual that has a spliced DR on it, but that itself costs 1R+1R+RR up front; it's a corner case that is rarely worth it.
-1 Peer Through Depths
Peer isn't bad, but it currently has an awkward role in the deck. Early on, you'd rather be casting Sleight or Serum to find your Ascension/Electromancer. Deeper in the ritual chain, you'd rather be casting Experiment or PiF to win. Peer is only good if you are just starting your ritual chain and running out of steam. Moreover, as a singleton, it doesn't do Ascension any favors.
-1 Cascade Bluffs
In a deck with 16 lands, this card is terrible. The only time it is good is if you have an Island and a Bluffs and, for some reason, need to create RR and have no other lands in play (or a Mountain and Bluffs and need UU). Otherwise, it is just worse than a Vents or a Reef.
In testing, this version has been both highly challenging and highly rewarding. It is overall very strong, but I do want to spend a little time talking about one matchup: Jund. This deck does not have a fun game 1 against Jund. That deck just has too many threats to deal with preboard:
All of these cards give UR Storm fits. The way that we beat Jund in game 1 is in hoping that the opponent can't get a good clock going. You will see a lot of turn 1 DRS followed by a turn 2 discard spell. And he might have removal and/or discard backup. Here are some percentages for the Jund opening hand scenarios. This assumes a fairly standard Jund build with about 5 discard spells, 8-10 removal spells, and 4 DRS.
52% of games: Discard spell on turn 1
57% of games: Discard spell on turn 2
75% of games: Removal spell in opening hand
40% of games: DRS in opening hand
37% of games: DRS on turn 1 with removal backup on turn 2
26% of games: DRS on turn 1 with discard backup on turn 2
19% of games: DRS, discard, and removal by turn 3
It's a scary, uphill battle against Jund. Electromancer is almost always going to die before he can do much, so the trick becomes using Electromancer as a sorcery on the same turn that you intend on comboing out with instants.
-1 Increasing Vengeance
Electromancer is not a big fan of Vengeance, and this card is never good if you are trying to start off a big ritual chain. The best IV scenarios are when you can copy a Desperate Ritual that has a spliced DR on it, but that itself costs 1R+1R+RR up front; it's a corner case that is rarely worth it.
-1 Peer Through Depths
Peer isn't bad, but it currently has an awkward role in the deck. Early on, you'd rather be casting Sleight or Serum to find your Ascension/Electromancer. Deeper in the ritual chain, you'd rather be casting Experiment or PiF to win. Peer is only good if you are just starting your ritual chain and running out of steam. Moreover, as a singleton, it doesn't do Ascension any favors.
-1 Cascade Bluffs
In a deck with 16 lands, this card is terrible. The only time it is good is if you have an Island and a Bluffs and, for some reason, need to create RR and have no other lands in play (or a Mountain and Bluffs and need UU). Otherwise, it is just worse than a Vents or a Reef.
I totally agree with you on Cascade Bluffs and Increasing Vengeance. While the singleton Increasing Vengeance doesn't help Pyromancer's Ascension all that much, I've never really wanted to see more than one.
As for Peer Through Depths, while it does skip over Electromancers and Ascensions, I still think it has a place in the deck, but not as more than a two or three-of. I like how it can put superfluous lands on the bottom of your library and I've used it to win off of multiple Grapeshots quite frequently. I agree that it's not a perfect fit for the deck, but I've rarely been unhappy with it. Then again, I haven't been playing with Epic Experiment, so I'm not sure how well those too fit together. Either way, it's probably just a matter of personal preference.
What are people's thoughts on playing Pyromancer's Swarth in the sideboard. With 5 mana and a storm count of 7, you can get a win with Swarth + Grapeshot. Kind of a fun sideboard option, but maybe those slots should have something else.
Also, what is recommended in place of fetch lands? I'm working towards getting them, but what should I put in their place until then?
Epic Experiment: In a deck with only 8 rituals, I can't condone running this card. I was never a fan of it pre-ban, and it's only gotten worse since the Seething Song ban. You're not going to be swimming in mana in these lists, so there's no reason to be running a giant mana sink. The card also forces you into a single line of play and doesn't give you any flexibility to adjust to your opponent's play.
Peer Through Depths: I honestly can't believe you guys think this card is bad here. The fact that it can't find Electromancer/Ascension is irrelevant. The entire purpose is to find Grapeshot or Past in Flames. It is the fourth Past in Flames, the fourth Grapeshot, or another Serum Visions/Sleight of Hand. It will rarely be exactly what you want, but it will always be good enough.
Increasing Vengeance: Who cares if it doesn't play nice with Electromancer when it's in your hand? Once again, this card is simply more of whatever you're looking for. It's a ritual or cantrip when you need it. After a PIF, the card gets absolutely insane, and I've even won games by flashing it back at full cost (well, reduced by an Electromancer) to triple-cast a Serum Visions.
Both Peer and Increasing let you go off with very few draw effects and have confidence in finding your win condition.
Finkel's list is very, very tight. He has deliberately avoided big splashy cards and kept cards which are flexible and give the pilot the ability to make decisions rather than building a deck that pilots itself. The more I play with it, the more I like it (other than the Cascade Bluffs, which seems wrong, but maybe there was a good reason for it). That isn't to say that it can't be optimized, but I really don't believe that big splashy cards are correct.
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Contents
0) What is Storm?
1) History
2) Card Choices
3) Decklists
4) Technical Play, Tips, and Tricks
5) Matchups and Sideboarding Strategy
6) Videos and Articles
7) Variations
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.
1 Dreadship Reef
8 Island
4 Mountain
4 Shivan Reef
4 Steam Vents
4 Bogardan Hellkite
2 Hunted Dragon
4 Gigadrowse
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Remand
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Telling Time
1 Calciform Pools
2 Dreadship Reef
3 Ignorant Bliss
3 Pyroclasm
4 Repeal
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Trickbind
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.
1 Mountain
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Watery Grave
1 Gemstone Caverns
4 Pyromancer Ascension
1 Echoing Truth
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Manamorphose
4 Noxious Revival
4 Peer Through Depths
4 Remand
4 Thought Scour
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Grapeshot
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Dark Confidant
2 Echoing Truth
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Pyroclasm
1 Gemstone Caverns
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.
8 Island
7 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Burst Lightning
2 Call to Mind
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mana Leak
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 See Beyond
4 Time Warp
4 Treasure Hunt
2 Flashfreeze
2 Jace Beleren
4 Kiln Fiend
3 Negate
4 Spreading Seas
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.
6 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Cryptic Command
4 Electrolyze
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mana Leak
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Deceiver Exarch
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Pestermite
2 Pyroclasm
1 Spellskite
4 Splinter Twin
2 Surgical Extraction
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.
The Born of the Gods banlist changes arrived on Feb 13 2014, almost a year after the Seething Song ban, announcing the departure of Deathrite Shaman from the format. The significance of this was huge, as there would be less maindeck grave hate, and one of Storm's worst matchups was bound to fall in popularity. However, Bitterblossom was unbanned at the same time, introducing another bad matchup.
Fortunately, Fae was not to be. Storm broke out yet again at Pro Tour Born of the Gods, with two teams playing the deck for the Modern rounds and being rewarded handsomely for their efforts. Not many players had elected to play Faeries, giving Storm players much more room to combo off. Team TCGPlayer's Chris Fennell and Andrew Shrout went 8-1-1 and 8-2-0 respectively, with Fennell making it to Top 8 only to lose to Melira Pod after fizzling in Game 1. Team CFB Pantheon's Tom Martell and Jon Finkel (!) went 7-2-1 and 7-3-0, with teammates Gaudenis Vidugiris (5-4-1) and Kai Budde (6-3-1, who actually defeated a Faeries deck in one round) attaining less stellar records, but still sneaking into Top 16 on their Draft results.
After a wild ride of two bans, the printing of three archetype enablers and the removal of a major roadblock to its success, Storm has finally reclaimed its rightful spot amongst Modern's best. If you seek a deck which wins with spells instead of creatures; a deck which steals games against opponents who did not construct their sideboards with your deck in mind; a deck where every game is a puzzle, read on and learn how to harness the power of Storm for yourself.
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'est 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. If you're really desperate, you can even mill your opponent out with Thought Scours, multiple Ascensions, and Past in Flames, getting past infinite life combos.
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. You can splice Desperate Ritual onto it, which is very handy as well. 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 1-3.
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.
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 first response to the Seething Song ban. However, he eventually cut them from his list for Thought Scour, citing Goblin Electromancer as the 3rd ritual the deck needed. If you play Increasing Vengeance, it will almost always be as another, more mana-heavy ritual, but it can do other things 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, if you feel the need to run it at all.
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.
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:
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.
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.
Epic Experiment: Back when we still had Seething Song, this sucker helped 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.
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.
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 it's 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.
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. 2-3 seems to be the sweet spot with fetches. If you don't have access to fetches, then run the full 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. 2-3 seems to be the right amount 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. It also has the advantage over Steam Vents on your combo turn if both are in your hand- Shivan Reef will only do 1 damage to you as opposed to 2. Just make sure you let your opponent know what color of mana you're making. If you have fetches, run 2-3. If you don't have fetches, go with a playset.
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 usually used to make RR out of U, but this card can make you lose tempo, since it can't make mana for Turn 1 cantrips on its own. 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. Still, it sees a lot of use because it can come in untapped without dealing damage. I would only run it in fetch-less builds.
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. Hallowed Fountain gives you access to the best sideboard cards, like Stony Silence. Breeding Pool opens up Ancient Grudge. Watery Grave lets you get Thoughtseize. White is probably the best splash color for this deck.
How Many Lands?
Most Storm decks will run only 16 lands, but some players, like Andrew Shrout, have upped the number. In general, Storm never wants less than 16 lands and never more than 18. So that raises the question: how many lands do I want to run?
The majority of Storm lists run only 16 lands because it leaves more room for spells, and the cantrips will help you find lands easily more often than not. However, there will occasionally be the rare game where you just can't find any other lands, no matter how much you dig.
Andrew Shrout's PT Valencia list ran a whopping 18 lands, which helped enable Faithless Looting and increased the likelihood of going off on Turn 3 with 3 lands and an Electromancer. However, the increased land count actually reduces consistency in comboing off, as can been seen in Chris Fennell's Top 8 match of the same Pro Tour, where he ended up drawing lands instead of gas.
A few players have hedged between the two and decided to run 17 lands, but in general, the extra land in non-Looting lists just takes up valuable spell space. In my own experience, I've found myself flooding too often with more than 16 lands, so I stick to the bare minimum.
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
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 at least one 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?
Swan Song: HONK! Swan Song is a strong counterspell, but giving your opponent a 2/2 flier is a very real drawback. However, you can counter your own spells to give yourself another win condition.
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
Anger of the Gods: Oh no! My opponent has a lot of 3-Toughness creatures! Whatever shall I do? Anger's a very strong card against Pod, Zoo, and other creature-based aggro lists, though we tend to have the advantage in those matchups anyway. Note that you can ritual into it early.
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 Zoo as well. If Green Aggro decks are a big thing in your meta, this forgotten beauty could make those matchups smoother.
Damping Matrix: Shuts down Twin, Pod, and a good portion of Affinity. It seems that most of the decks that involve activated abilities rely on them pretty hard, so Damping Matrix is a good way of shutting them down. 3 mana is expensive in a deck that wants to win on Turn 4, but you can potentially drop it on Turn 2 with a ritual if you think that it's worth the tempo loss.
Torpor Orb: Shuts down Twin and Pod, and also has splash damage against Snapcaster decks. It's pretty cheap too.
Blood Moon: Punish those greedy mana bases! Blood Moon basically destroys Junk, and Jund to an 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.
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.
3) Decklists -by izzetmage and MachuChang
Note: Decklists which contain currently-banned cards have been omitted.
2 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Steam Vents
1 Sulfur Falls
4 Goblin Electromancer
4 Pyromancer Ascension
2 Desperate Ravings
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 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
2 Blood Moon
2 Defense Grid
2 Echoing Truth
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Vandalblast
Chris Fennell, Pro Tour Valencia Top 8
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Shivan Reef
3 Steam Vents
3 Goblin Electromancer
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Desperate Ritual
3 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Grapeshot
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Manamorphose
3 Past in Flames
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
2 Anger of the Gods
3 Defense Grid
1 Echoing Truth
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Lightning Bolt
3 Swan Song
2 Torpor Orb
Gaudenis Vidugiris (12th) and Kai Budde (14th), Top 16 Pro Tour Valencia
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Shivan Reef
2 Steam Vents
4 Goblin Electromancer
4 Pyromancer Ascension
3 Desperate Ravings
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Grapeshot
4 Manamorphose
3 Past in Flames
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Thought Scour
3 Blood Moon
1 Defense Grid
1 Echoing Truth
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Shatterstorm
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:
Serum Visions, Pyretic Ritual, Steam Vents, Goblin Electromancer, Past in Flames, Manamorphose, Desperate Ritual
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.
Engines
Past in Flames and Desperate Ravings -by Jon Finkel
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.
For reference, here's the deck we'll be using here:
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Shivan Reef
1 Steam Vents
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Grapeshot
4 Manamorphose
3 Past in Flames
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Thought Scour
3 Desperate Ravings
Opening Hand: Serum Visions, 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.
Turn 3:
-Draw a Misty Rainforest.
-We've got a strong-looking hand now, so we're going to try and go off here.
-Play Misty Rainforest and crack it for an Island. Go to 17 life.
-Goblin Electromancer with Island and Shivan Reef. Go to 16 life.\
Storm 1.
-Play Pyretic Ritual with Steam Vents. Thanks to Electromancer, this ritual only cost us R. Now we have RRR floating.
Storm Count: 2
-Play Manamorphose with R from our mana pool and add UU to our mana pool. Now we've got UURR floating. Manamorphose then draws us a Sleight of Hand.
-Play Sleight of Hand, seeing a Grapeshot and a Scalding Tarn. We'll take the Grapeshot since we need a win condition and bottom the Tarn. URR floating.
Storm Count: 3
-Play Desperate Ritual with R from our mana pool. URRRRis floating.
Storm Count: 4
-Play Past in Flames for RRR. Now we have UR floating.
Storm Count: 5
-Flashback Pyretic Ritual for R. URRR floating.
Storm Count: 6
-Flashback the Manamorphose and make UU. UUURR floating. Draw a Desperate Ravings
Storm Count: 7
-Flashback Serum Visions for U. UURR floating. Draw a Mountain, which is unnecessary. See a Scalding Tarn and an Electromancer. We don't need either, so we'll bottom them.
Storm Count: 8
-Flashback the Desperate Ritual. UURRRR
Storm Count: 9
-Play Grapeshot, dealing 10 damage. UURRR
Storm 10
-We'll flashback Past in Flames to give our Grapeshot Flashback, making sure to leave behind R to cast it.
Storm Count: 11
-Finally, we'll flashback our Grapeshot for 12 damage, dealing a grand total of 22 damage to our opponent, probably winning us the game. Note that if they had more life, we could have kept going by chaining cantrips instead of taking other lines.
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
5) Matchups and Sideboarding Strategy -by MachuChang
For this discussion of sideboarding, we will be assuming the use of the following decklist:
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Shivan Reef
2 Steam Vents
4 Goblin Electromancer
4 Pyromancer Ascension
3 Desperate Ravings
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Grapeshot
4 Manamorphose
3 Past in Flames
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Thoughtscour
3 Blood Moon
1 Defense Grid
1 Echoing Truth
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Shatterstorm
Good Matchups
-4 Thought Scour
+4 Lightning Bolt
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 watch your Ascensions. Lightning Bolts are for their hate bears.
Bogles
-1 Desperate Ravings (-3 on the play), -1 Thought Scour
+1 Echoing Truth, (+3 Blood Moon on the play)
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. Echoing Truth can bounce their hate, their scariest enchantments, and Kor Spiritdancer. If you're on the play, Blood Moon will almost always lock them out if you drop it early enough.
Living End
-4 Thought Scour
+1 Echoing Truth, +3 Blood Moon
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. 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 Thought Scour, -1 Pyromancer Ascension
+4 Lightning Bolt, +1 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. 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 we can potentially blow them out that way.
RG Tron
-4 Thought Scour
+1 Echoing Truth, +3 Blood Moon
Echoing Truth is just to handle any problematic permanents like Oblivion Stone or Wurmcoil Engine. It can also bounce their hate cards. Blood Moon will temporarily shut down their Tron and give us more time. Tron in general has a hard time against Grapeshot, so we just want to be faster than them. That isn't too hard.
Scapeshift
-4 Thought Scour, -2 Past in Flames, +1 Grapeshot
+1 Echoing Truth, +3 Empty the Warrens, +3 Blood Moon
Echoing Truth 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. But in general, Scapeshift has trouble handling Storm, especially off of a fast start.
Tokens
-4 Thought Scour
+1 Echoing Truth, +3 Blood Moon
Tokens Game 1 is essentially a bye. They're not very fast, and their disruption is limited to discard, which Past in Flames laughs at. Game 2 becomes a lot harder, but considering how easy Game 1 is, that doesn't mean too much. We put in Echoing Truth 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.
Zoo
-3 Desperate Ravings, -1 Past in Flames, -1 Pyromancer Ascension, -1 Grapeshot, -2 Thought Scour (-4 When bringing in Blood Moon)
+3 Empty the Warrens, +4 Lightning Bolt, +1 Echoing Truth, (+2 Blood Moon on the Play)
Zoo appears the new deck to beat and fortunately for us, it's not that hard. Game 1 will almost always come down to a race. Watch out for hasty guys, burn, and Bloodrushed Ghor-Clan Rampager, all of which can deal a lot of damage from nowhere. Other than that, play conservatively with your life total since the game's essentially a goldfish. Side out Desperate Ravings/extra card draw since it's not as necessary. Empty the Warrens comes in to make a fast clock, chump blockers, and nullify grave-hate. Lightning Bolt can deal with almost all of their creatures. Echoing Truth is for any permanent-based hate.
Even Matchups
-4 Gitaxian Probe, -2 Desperate Ravings, -1 Pyromancer Ascension, -1 Past in Flames
+3 Shatterstorm, +4 Lightning Bolt, +1 Empty the Warrens
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. Warrens allows us to race if we get it early and chump if we get it late. Gitaxian Probes come out so we can conserve our life total, and Desperate Ravings can be too slow. They tend to be 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, -2 Past in Flames, -1 Desperate Ravings
+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. However, if you see Volcanic Fallouts, keep the Warrens in the board.
Storm
-1 Desperate Ravings, -1 Past in Flames, -2 Thought Scour
+3 Empty the Warrens, +1 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. Gitaxian 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.
URx Twin
-1 Grapeshot, -1 Past in Flames, -3 Thought Scour
+1 Echoing Truth, +3 Empty the Warrens, +1 Defense Grid
This matchup can go both ways. They have enough maindeck disruption to make our life difficult, 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 hate or their combo, since it can bounce all their creatures or Splinter Twin in response to creature protection. Defense Grid is a nice way to shut down their counters, and it keeps them from flashing in their Deceiver Exarchs on our endstep.
Bad Matchups
-4 Thought Scour, -2 Past in Flames, -1 Grapeshot,
+1 Defense Grid, +3 Empty the Warrens, +3 Blood Moon
Faeries are quite an annoying match-up since almost everything they do is disruptive and at instant speed. Watch out for their counterspells and Mistbind Clique, which can shut us out if we're not careful. The main plan against them is to bait out counterspells and keep jamming combo engines until we get through. Sticking an early Ascension is especially conducive to victory, since it all but nullifies their counters. Post-board, we bring out Past in Flames since it's weak to counters. We also cut a Grapeshot, since it's a lot weaker without Past. We side in Defense Grid to mess up their Instant-speed shenanigans, and Empty the Warrens, since it's better against counterspells and Faeries struggle against creature swarms. Blood Moon will completely shut them down if we drop it early enough.
Infect
-4 Thought Scour, -1 Pyromancer Ascension, -1 Past in Flames, -1 Desperate Ravings
+4 Lightning Bolt, +3 Empty the Warrens, +1 Echoing Truth
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. Don't be afraid to use Grapeshots as removal.
Jund/Junk/BGx
-1 Past in Flames, -4 Thought Scour, -1 Grapeshot
+3 Empty the Warrens, +3 Blood Moon
This match is super annoying. The constant discard and efficient creatures make it difficult for us to go off in time. They've got a lot of removal for almost every non-land permanent, and tend to have grave hate, so we need to protect ourselves from a variety of angles without diluting our deck. Fortunately, Blood Moon can do a lot of heavy lifting if we stick one. Empty the Warrens comes in because Jund tends to have trouble against creature swarms, but watch out for Maelstrom Pulse and Anger of the Gods.
UR Tempo
-2 Thought Scour, -2 Past in Flames, -2-4 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Defense Grid, +3 Empty the Warrens, +2-4 Lightning Bolt
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 tricky 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. Do not be afraid to use Grapeshot on their dudes, because it will spare you a lot of hurt in the long run. Empty the Warrens is an all-star in this match-up as long as you can power out the rituals for it early. Very few Delver decks can handle swarms of creatures. Young Pyromancer can create a lot of blockers for them, though. Defense Grid is a real beating against Delver and can turn a hand full of counters into nothing but dead cards. Lightning Bolt can take out Delvers, Vendilion Cliques, and Young Pyromancers and can also go the face, but that's rarely a good idea. Past in Flames comes out because it is very, very weak to counterspells. Depending on your preferences or the matchup, you may or may not want Gitaxian Probes. On one hand, they let you see your opponent's hand, which is very useful for gauging when to go off, but the UR Tempo decks can also capitalize on the damage you'll be doing to yourself. I personally cut all the Probes for Bolts, but its not necessarily an easy choice.
UWx Control/UWx Midrange
-4 Thought Scour, -2 Past in Flames, -1 Grapeshot
+3 Blood Moon, +1 Defense Grid, +3 Empty the Warrens
Empty the Warrens is really good against counterspell decks, while Grapeshot is not, so this switch is pretty painless. Defense Grid makes the UWx Flash decks play fair, while Blood Moon messes with the Control version. Peer and the new permanents 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.
6) Videos and Articles
Tom Martell Plays a Daily
Owen Turtenwald Testing Storm (Pre-Deathrite Ban): 1 and 2
Jon Finkel on Storm at PT Valencia
Jon Finkel on Playing Storm
Andrew Shrout on Storm at PT Valencia
Kai Budde on Storm at PT Valencia
Gaudenis Vidugiris on Storm at PT Valencia
7) Variations
Young Pyromancer Storm
Young Pyromancer Storm is similar to Past in Flames Storm in that both decks aim to sculpt their hands with cantrips, cast multiple rituals in one turn, and then drop a Storm spell that they can ride to victory. The biggest difference is that Young Pyromancer Storm includes (obviously) Young Pyromancer as a way to generate value from multiple spells. This inclusion grants YP Storm multiple win conditions, as opposed the traditional 3 Grapeshots in the PiF Storm build. In order to power-up Young Pyromancer's ability, YP Storm will run Goblin Bushwhacker to turn its Elemental tokens into a Hasty and efficient means of victory. Grapeshots are switched out for Empty the Warrens, which plays better with Bushwhacker, and Pyromancer Ascensions are cut entirely due to their lack of synergy with a creature-focused plan of attack. All of these changes make Young Pyromancer a different beast than its older brother, and the differences in the two equate to a variety of strengths and weaknesses.
Ritual Gifts
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.
Old Decklists
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
3 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Shivan Reef
3 Steam Vents
1 Sulfur Falls
4 Goblin Electromancer
3 Desperate Ravings
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Grapeshot
4 Manamorphose
3 Past in Flames
2 Peer Through Depths
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
2 Blood Moon
2 Defense Grid
1 Echoing Truth
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Kataki, War's Wage
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Pyroclasm
2 Shatterstorm
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
2 Blood Moon
3 Defense Grid
2 Empty the Warrens
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Shatterstorm
2 Torpor Orb
3 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Shivan Reef
3 Steam Vents
1 Sulfur Falls
4 Goblin Electromancer
3 Desperate Ravings
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Grapeshot
4 Manamorphose
3 Past in Flames
2 Peer Through Depths
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
2 Blood Moon
2 Defense Grid
1 Echoing Truth
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Kataki, War's Wage
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Pyroclasm
2 Shatterstorm
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Shivan Reef
2 Steam Vents
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Goblin Electromancer
3 Desperate Ravings
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Grapeshot
1 Lightning Bolt
4 Manamorphose
3 Past in Flames
1 Peer Through Depths
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Empty the Warrens
2 Goblin Bushwhacker
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Remand
2 Shatterstorm
3 Spell Pierce
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Steam Vents
4 Goblin Electromancer
2 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Desperate Ritual
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Grapeshot
2 Increasing Vengeance
4 Manamorphose
3 Past in Flames
4 Pyretic Ritual
3 Pyromancer Ascension
3 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Blood Moon
3 Defense Grid
3 Echoing Truth
1 Goblin Bushwhacker
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Shattering Spree
Jan Blumer's GPT-Winner at GP Prague
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
4 Goblin Electromancer
4 Desperate Ritual
2 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
4 Thought Scour
1 Boomerang
1 Echoing Truth
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Gifts Ungiven
3 Gigadrowse
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
4 Goblin Electromancer
1 Pyromancer's Swath
4 Desperate Ritual
1 Gifts Ungiven
2 Gigadrowse
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Grapeshot
2 Increasing Vengeance
4 Manamorphose
3 Past in Flames
3 Peer Through Depths
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
1 Calciform Pools
2 Combust
1 Dreadship Reef
2 Echoing Truth
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Gigadrowse
3 Ignorant Bliss
2 Pyroclasm
2 Shatterstorm
I'm suprised seeing only 2 copies of Leyline of Sanctity. Without all 4 it's very small chance to see it on the opening hand.
Or even more importantly, against Leyline of the Void. That card just WRECKS this deck, as you could see from G2 of the Storm - Living End match.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
After playtesting a little with this deck last night, I can say it's viable, but harder to play then previous storm variants as your margin of error is much smaller.
Thanks to Gabgabdevo for the awesome sig image!
I'm always looking for foil Madcap Skills and Ghitu Fire-Eater, [trade thread link forthcoming]
Increasing Vengeance is very very good in this deck, just Forking a Manamorphose to streamline mana and cantrip can be insane also with PiF you get a double fork for RR
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget
I stream!
Hermit Druid Combo:
Edit:So the mainboard is a thing of beauty. Love it! I do agree that we need Bounce for Leyline. Either one is a nightmare. I'm thinking 2-3 with a extra Peer Through the Depths.
Cockatrice username: Blackcat77
MODERN :symu::symw: UW Tron :symu::symw:
For now just remember that you're not dead until your dead. For a FNM deck this is a good choice. You're less likely to go up against hate cards. I would hang close to Finkel's list. You want a Electromancer or a Pyro to reliably go off. No reason you can't win even without the fetch lands if needed. They add well over $200 to the deck.
Cockatrice username: Blackcat77
MODERN :symu::symw: UW Tron :symu::symw:
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget
I stream!
Hermit Druid Combo:
Less spells which don't make combo - more consistent turn 4.
Basically the trick to playing this deck is to every turn, think about what you'll play this turn. Figure out if you can win. Most of my goldfishes are won with just Past In Flames, sometimes with no card draw.
Also, Epic Experiment still works. However, you need either an electromancer or past in flames too. If you're about to lose, you can try to lucksack the correct cards off of X=4 or 5 (which does happen sometimes by the way). Epic Experiment is faster but more unreliable. Example: one of my goldfishes won turn two. I like EE as a sideboard plan against gravyard hate, take out Ascentions, put in Experiments.
Yes the deck is weaker now that Seething Song is gone but it can still put up some results. I would recommend a thread in Established seeing as it is about on par with the other decks in that category and has Finkel's top 16 to its name.
Also this deck is super fun.
[THS|SOM|5TH] Devotion to Black
3 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Shivan Reef
3 Steam Vents
4 Goblin Electromancer
Spells
3 Desperate Ravings
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Grapeshot
1 Increasing Vengeance
4 Manamorphose
3 Past in Flames
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
2 Epic Experiment
As mentioned, it's basically the same as Finkel's deck with a few changes, the most notable of which is the inclusion of 2 Epic Experiment copies.
+2 Epic Experiment
This thing is amazing. With an Ascension on the field, you are almost guaranteed to combo out if you cast Experiment for anything more than X=4. And that assumes your Ascension isn't even active! If it is in fact active, this card becomes completely bonkers, guaranteeing a win after its resolution. One of the main criticisms of Experiment is that it is "win-more". I disagree. Experiment fixes one of the main problems of Storm decks, which is when you have ritual heavy hands without a lot of card draw. You will often see an Electromancer on the field with 3-4 rituals in hand. What do you do with all that mana? Experiment gives you the best outlet. Experiment also helps you activate Ascensions; just remember how your triggers interact with the stack.
-1 Increasing Vengeance
Electromancer is not a big fan of Vengeance, and this card is never good if you are trying to start off a big ritual chain. The best IV scenarios are when you can copy a Desperate Ritual that has a spliced DR on it, but that itself costs 1R+1R+RR up front; it's a corner case that is rarely worth it.
-1 Peer Through Depths
Peer isn't bad, but it currently has an awkward role in the deck. Early on, you'd rather be casting Sleight or Serum to find your Ascension/Electromancer. Deeper in the ritual chain, you'd rather be casting Experiment or PiF to win. Peer is only good if you are just starting your ritual chain and running out of steam. Moreover, as a singleton, it doesn't do Ascension any favors.
-1 Cascade Bluffs
In a deck with 16 lands, this card is terrible. The only time it is good is if you have an Island and a Bluffs and, for some reason, need to create RR and have no other lands in play (or a Mountain and Bluffs and need UU). Otherwise, it is just worse than a Vents or a Reef.
In testing, this version has been both highly challenging and highly rewarding. It is overall very strong, but I do want to spend a little time talking about one matchup: Jund. This deck does not have a fun game 1 against Jund. That deck just has too many threats to deal with preboard:
All of these cards give UR Storm fits. The way that we beat Jund in game 1 is in hoping that the opponent can't get a good clock going. You will see a lot of turn 1 DRS followed by a turn 2 discard spell. And he might have removal and/or discard backup. Here are some percentages for the Jund opening hand scenarios. This assumes a fairly standard Jund build with about 5 discard spells, 8-10 removal spells, and 4 DRS.
52% of games: Discard spell on turn 1
57% of games: Discard spell on turn 2
75% of games: Removal spell in opening hand
40% of games: DRS in opening hand
37% of games: DRS on turn 1 with removal backup on turn 2
26% of games: DRS on turn 1 with discard backup on turn 2
19% of games: DRS, discard, and removal by turn 3
It's a scary, uphill battle against Jund. Electromancer is almost always going to die before he can do much, so the trick becomes using Electromancer as a sorcery on the same turn that you intend on comboing out with instants.
I totally agree with you on Cascade Bluffs and Increasing Vengeance. While the singleton Increasing Vengeance doesn't help Pyromancer's Ascension all that much, I've never really wanted to see more than one.
As for Peer Through Depths, while it does skip over Electromancers and Ascensions, I still think it has a place in the deck, but not as more than a two or three-of. I like how it can put superfluous lands on the bottom of your library and I've used it to win off of multiple Grapeshots quite frequently. I agree that it's not a perfect fit for the deck, but I've rarely been unhappy with it. Then again, I haven't been playing with Epic Experiment, so I'm not sure how well those too fit together. Either way, it's probably just a matter of personal preference.
Also, what is recommended in place of fetch lands? I'm working towards getting them, but what should I put in their place until then?
Peer Through Depths: I honestly can't believe you guys think this card is bad here. The fact that it can't find Electromancer/Ascension is irrelevant. The entire purpose is to find Grapeshot or Past in Flames. It is the fourth Past in Flames, the fourth Grapeshot, or another Serum Visions/Sleight of Hand. It will rarely be exactly what you want, but it will always be good enough.
Increasing Vengeance: Who cares if it doesn't play nice with Electromancer when it's in your hand? Once again, this card is simply more of whatever you're looking for. It's a ritual or cantrip when you need it. After a PIF, the card gets absolutely insane, and I've even won games by flashing it back at full cost (well, reduced by an Electromancer) to triple-cast a Serum Visions.
Both Peer and Increasing let you go off with very few draw effects and have confidence in finding your win condition.
Finkel's list is very, very tight. He has deliberately avoided big splashy cards and kept cards which are flexible and give the pilot the ability to make decisions rather than building a deck that pilots itself. The more I play with it, the more I like it (other than the Cascade Bluffs, which seems wrong, but maybe there was a good reason for it). That isn't to say that it can't be optimized, but I really don't believe that big splashy cards are correct.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.