Hi everyone , I believe the Storm deck overall is pretty much the same however what matter is the sideboard...
Sideboard
3 Blood Moon (Pretty much against any 3 color deck but for some weird reason 70% they have basic land even when I cast it on turn 2!)
2 Swan Song (Not sure about this one I feel like dispel work the same way but kind of make sense since will protect you from hand destruction)
2 Echoing Truth (This is amazing so 2 I think is good against token and the creature that I don't remember his/her name that only let you cast 1 spell per turn)
3 Lightning Bolt (I feel like 3 is kind of low since I have been always running 4 ... what you guys think?)
2 Shatterstorm (It was either this or Shattering Spree which make a lot of sense since even against affinity u probably just want to kill 1-2 things)
3 Empty the Warrens (I believe this is good but 3 sometimes feel like is too much)
This is my current sideboard I would like to know some opinion regarding what to side in for the hardcore matches against burn/Token/Jund/etc.
Also feel free to suggest any other kind of sideboard cards
I'm completely new to this deck and I have a question about playing this deck irl (if this has been answered before, just tell me and I'll look around in the topic, because I haven't gone through all the pages): What do you guys find the easiest method to keep track of storm count and mana count? I've been writing, but it's quite hard to write everything down while going off.
I've started using colored flat glass beads to track mana, since I find it's just faster than picking up countdown dice again and again.
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Currently Playing...
Modern: Kiki ChordWBRG
TokensWB
EDH: Kuon, Ogre AscendantBBB
After testing Tormenting Voice by switching it with Thought Scour I haven't looked back. My list is pretty standard as well as the sideboard. I however feel 4 Swan Song is necessary and comes in handy against a lot of the top decks in modern. I won a tournament with the first place prize being a Tarmogoyf beating Affinity in the finals with UR Storm. Here is the list I am currently running.
UR Storm: (60)
Lands: (16)
1 Mountain
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Island
3 Steam Vents
3 Sulfur Falls (I've had no problems with this and feel it's better than Shivan Reef)
4 Scalding Tarn
Creatures: (4)
Goblin Electromancer
Spells: (40)
2 Grapeshot
3 Desperate Ravings
3 Past in Flames
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Manamorphose
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Tormenting Voice
Sideboard: (15)
2 Echoing Truth
2 Empty the Warrens
3 Blood Moon
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Swan Song
WHY do people insist on playing sulfur falls. They are just worse than shivan reef. Lets do some math. About 5% of your hands will have just a sulfur falls for mana. You have to mulligan those hands or lose tempo on turn one. I am, and John Finkel, are of the opinion that it is better to risk losing 1 or 2 life than losing tempo or card advantage.
Affinity is a weird matchup. We are about equal game 1 but with hate in games 2 and 3 we are a heavy favorite. I haven't gotten around to building a sideboard for a meta without affinity but I have some ideas. So what would you do if you had no affinity in you meta?
I understand that if Sulfur Falls is the only land in your hand it can be a problem. It hasn't been a problem for me which is why I use it. It works and I won so I'm definitely not complaining. Also, what does your meta consist mostly of?
Personally I have run into quite a few times that shivan reef was in my hand where it would be unkeepable if it was a sulfur falls. Why do you feel like swan song is so important? What decks is it actually what you want to be casting aside from against twin. Dropping shatterstorm will lose you one or two games against affinity but isn't necessarily needed. Affinity is a raceable matchup, but it takes a bit of luck. If the meta didnt have affinity I would probably use those two-three slots on another echoing truth, and maybe some flame slash's honestly.
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(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
I run sulfur falls because the life loss in my meta is extremely significant since it's filled with aggro and burn. I'd rather lose a turn of tempo than take 2 to 3 if not more from a reef. If my opponent misses killing me from a single bolt I'm good. If I deal 3 damage to myself using a reef to dig then I'm dead. I'm already fetching and shocking myself so I'm personally fine with falls being a tempo loss 1 game out of maybe 20. Honestly in 2 years of running storm I can't think of more than 5 times that having sulfur falls as the 1 land in hand has caused me to really feel the need to mulligan or caused me to lose the game.
He was running gifts and the unburial rights package in the board. I do not know the full list yet but it looked like he just dropped though scours for gifts. He said here that he will post a list when he gets home from balt, and that gifts wasn't much different than anything else. Lost in round 3 on camera to U/G tron by some mediocre draws, and other things
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UBR ANT UBR TES UBR TNT GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
I'll just say I've been a massive advocate of Gifts Ungiven in UR storm for years now, but stopped talking about it after repeatedly getting flamed, and hated out for it on here.
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Not just the Tendo King, the power of the Galactic Leyline surpasses that of the Tempa Emperor, No!, It's magnificent power is even greater than that!
And as I always say I don't feel that it is better than the other options. It is definately not worse, but honestly the more I play this deck the more I feel that the last 3-7 slots can be just about anything and this shell is strong enough to win with those slots adding or subtracting percentage points in different matchups. Also I feel that the different cards fit different playstyles, and if you are comfortable with the configuration you are more likely to win than with a list that you aren't. Personally I could never play with looting because anytime I drew more than one it felt awful. However, some people loved it. Andrew shrout loved it. I can't say you are wrong, because both configuration were putting up results. I do think it is telling that the person who played the deck at Balt was not singing the praises of gifts saying that it was not amazing. I do want to play more with gifts, but I feel like it will never be my main build.
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UBR ANT UBR TES UBR TNT GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
I need to cut 1 card from the main deck for a Echoing Truth. One of the guys at my LGS main decks Leyline of Sanctity and its not worth auto losing game 1 if he has it in hand. Should I just cut a Desperate Ravings?
WHY do people insist on playing sulfur falls. They are just worse than shivan reef. Lets do some math. About 5% of your hands will have just a sulfur falls for mana. You have to mulligan those hands or lose tempo on turn one. I am, and John Finkel, are of the opinion that it is better to risk losing 1 or 2 life than losing tempo or card advantage.
Affinity is a weird matchup. We are about equal game 1 but with hate in games 2 and 3 we are a heavy favorite. I haven't gotten around to building a sideboard for a meta without affinity but I have some ideas. So what would you do if you had no affinity in you meta?
I also have actually cut the lonely mountain for a steam vents. I'd rather not see those hands that consist of a good amount of cantrips but your only land is a mountain. Most of the time I even draw it, i feel its a dead card. There's only very small amount of situations where I'd actually fetch for it. Blue is just too important to have on all your lands to be honest. I know it has at least cost me 1 game before I made the switch. I also once played against the mirror and the guy had 2 sulfur falls in his opening hand. I basically blew him out because of it
I played at the Baltimore Open this weekend and had a pretty good run. I don't have time for a full tournament report, but here are some notes. I'll post my list a little later, but it's basically the stock list with 4 Tormenting Voice over Thought Scour and the following sideboard:
3x Lightning Bolt
3x Empty the Warrens
3x Shatterstorm
3x Blood Moon
1x Defense Grid
1x Echoing Truth
1x Swan Song
I went 8-1 day 1. I beat Twin three times, including in round 8 vs Seth Mansfield - which is better than I would expect in that matchup. All of my sideboard cards for the matchup - Defense Grid, Swan Song, and Echoing Truth - blew them out at least once. They were all close matches, and I got at least reasonably lucky in all of them, but the matchup is definitely winnable. My thought is that you always have to play into their counterspells once they're leaving up 3 mana - make them use it on something other than Pestermite/Exarch or you might just die. But generally there's something in your hand you can afford to get countered, and that can at least threaten a win if they don't.
My other matchups during the day were very diverse. I beat Living End, G/R Tron, a couple of Abzan decks, and Wilt-Leaf Abzan. The Abzan matchup is fine - there's a decent chance they don't have good answers to Empty the Warrens, and Blood Moon is a beating. My only loss Day 1 was to Jeff Hoogland's Temur Moon deck. I won game 1, in part because his mana denial strategy is really weak vs Storm, but lost games 2 and 3 to a plethora of countermagic. The matchup feels like the U/W/R control matchup of old, where you're fighting through lots of permission, but it's winnable with a good early draw.
Day 2 was...a disaster, at 0-6. I made some mistakes, but part of it was also matchups. Note the most significant absence from my day 1 matchups - Burn. Day 2 I played 3 Burn players, all of whom hit me with turn 2 Eidolons. I didn't win a game of that matchup all day. I feel like I need to work on my play against them - figure out when to risk taking damage from a land or Probe to try to go off a turn sooner, and when to slow down to preserve your life total. But it's also just a miserable matchup, and I'm not sure how to make it better.
I lost to B/W tokens, who was able to land an early Rest in Peace in games 2 and 3 and back it up with pressure. Overall I think that matchup is winnable - Rest in Peace isn't unbeatable, and they don't have an incredibly fast clock - but it just didn't go my way this time. In one of those games, he made me discard my one-of sideboarded Echoing Truth, a scenario that made me wish I had a second in the board.
I lost a winnable match to Twin, using my mana badly during a convoluted attempt to go off that fizzled. And then I lost to a very unusual Doran/hatebears deck that had Ethersworn Canonist and Eidolon of Rhetoric in the maindeck. That was gross.
Even though day 2 went badly, I was still happy with how the deck performed. The Burn matchup is a problem though, which I think needs to be improved somehow, as Burn is going to be here to stay. I'm still a big fan of Tormenting Voice - it definitely made some of my sketchier combo attempts work where they otherwise would have failed. And I was happy with my sideboard, though may try to find room for a second Echoing Truth over something (maybe Swan Song?) as a catch-all answer.
I played at the Baltimore Open this weekend and had a pretty good run. I don't have time for a full tournament report, but here are some notes. I'll post my list a little later, but it's basically the stock list with 4 Tormenting Voice over Thought Scour and the following sideboard:
3x Lightning Bolt
3x Empty the Warrens
3x Shatterstorm
3x Blood Moon
1x Defense Grid
1x Echoing Truth
1x Swan Song
I went 8-1 day 1. I beat Twin three times, including in round 8 vs Seth Mansfield - which is better than I would expect in that matchup. All of my sideboard cards for the matchup - Defense Grid, Swan Song, and Echoing Truth - blew them out at least once. They were all close matches, and I got at least reasonably lucky in all of them, but the matchup is definitely winnable. My thought is that you always have to play into their counterspells once they're leaving up 3 mana - make them use it on something other than Pestermite/Exarch or you might just die. But generally there's something in your hand you can afford to get countered, and that can at least threaten a win if they don't.
My other matchups during the day were very diverse. I beat Living End, G/R Tron, a couple of Abzan decks, and Wilt-Leaf Abzan. The Abzan matchup is fine - there's a decent chance they don't have good answers to Empty the Warrens, and Blood Moon is a beating. My only loss Day 1 was to Jeff Hoogland's Temur Moon deck. I won game 1, in part because his mana denial strategy is really weak vs Storm, but lost games 2 and 3 to a plethora of countermagic. The matchup feels like the U/W/R control matchup of old, where you're fighting through lots of permission, but it's winnable with a good early draw.
Day 2 was...a disaster, at 0-6. I made some mistakes, but part of it was also matchups. Note the most significant absence from my day 1 matchups - Burn. Day 2 I played 3 Burn players, all of whom hit me with turn 2 Eidolons. I didn't win a game of that matchup all day. I feel like I need to work on my play against them - figure out when to risk taking damage from a land or Probe to try to go off a turn sooner, and when to slow down to preserve your life total. But it's also just a miserable matchup, and I'm not sure how to make it better.
I lost to B/W tokens, who was able to land an early Rest in Peace in games 2 and 3 and back it up with pressure. Overall I think that matchup is winnable - Rest in Peace isn't unbeatable, and they don't have an incredibly fast clock - but it just didn't go my way this time. In one of those games, he made me discard my one-of sideboarded Echoing Truth, a scenario that made me wish I had a second in the board.
I lost a winnable match to Twin, using my mana badly during a convoluted attempt to go off that fizzled. And then I lost to a very unusual Doran/hatebears deck that had Ethersworn Canonist and Eidolon of Rhetoric in the maindeck. That was gross.
Even though day 2 went badly, I was still happy with how the deck performed. The Burn matchup is a problem though, which I think needs to be improved somehow, as Burn is going to be here to stay. I'm still a big fan of Tormenting Voice - it definitely made some of my sketchier combo attempts work where they otherwise would have failed. And I was happy with my sideboard, though may try to find room for a second Echoing Truth over something (maybe Swan Song?) as a catch-all answer.
So my meta is filled with twin. I was recently running the same SB as you except 2 Defense Grids instead of the swan song. Do you thing the Swan Song is better?
I like the mountain, its nice to be able to fetch for it or only fetch for islands/vents. But that is the only non blue land I will run.
Nice job, I am glad you are liking tormenting voice. Now for the burn matchup I can see maybe cutting on a shatter storm or two for bolts or flame slash. That would give us more interaction with their creatures.
I agree that tokens is winnable, but sometimes you don't draw well or you draw the wrong half of your deck. I will generally board empty against them depending on their config just because I can make tokens more efficiently than they can. If I see a lot of color requirements I will bring in blood moon.
Jeez that hatebear deck. That sounds awful. It reminds me when I had to fight eidolon and trinisphere after a couple thoughtseizes. Those games are absolutely miserable. Overall thanks for the report and congrats on day twoing.
I think personally I would like a swan song over a second defense grid because it can be used to counter a cryptic they tap out for, or a splinter twin if they get greedy.
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UBR ANT UBR TES UBR TNT GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
In general, I like having a variety of answers to decks like Twin to make it harder for them to play around your open mana. That said, for that specific matchup I think Defense Grid is better, unless you are on the draw and suspect they might just cast their flash creature in response and combo off. Swan Song was in there more for Scapeshift, but now that Dig is gone, we don't need quite as much help in that matchup. However, I'd consider a second Echoing Truth before the second Defense Grid, as that card is nice against Twin as well as in a lot of other matchups.
An interesting Defense Grid vs Twin interaction to keep in mind. During one of my games, I suspected he was going to combo me out this turn. I didn't have a kill in my hand, but I had a couple of rituals, Defense Grid, and Grapeshot. I ritualed and cast Defense Grid with some mana floating, he responded with his Exarch (he wouldn't have had enough mana to play it after the Grid landed), and I was able to Grapeshot it to death. Sure enough, he was holding the Twin. So keep in mind that Grid can allow you to remove their creatures on your turn in some cases.
ChucklingAtom I could see cutting a Shatterstorm for one more answer to Eidolon. I also wish there was a good lifegain card we could run - I know some people have experimented with Dragon's Claw, any thoughts on that?
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UBR TES
UBR TNT
GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
UBWR Ad nauseam
GW Hatebears
Something like
It's pretty easy to keep track of and is pretty fool proof. You can even trace backwards in any sort of disagreement.
Sideboard
3 Blood Moon (Pretty much against any 3 color deck but for some weird reason 70% they have basic land even when I cast it on turn 2!)
2 Swan Song (Not sure about this one I feel like dispel work the same way but kind of make sense since will protect you from hand destruction)
2 Echoing Truth (This is amazing so 2 I think is good against token and the creature that I don't remember his/her name that only let you cast 1 spell per turn)
3 Lightning Bolt (I feel like 3 is kind of low since I have been always running 4 ... what you guys think?)
2 Shatterstorm (It was either this or Shattering Spree which make a lot of sense since even against affinity u probably just want to kill 1-2 things)
3 Empty the Warrens (I believe this is good but 3 sometimes feel like is too much)
This is my current sideboard I would like to know some opinion regarding what to side in for the hardcore matches against burn/Token/Jund/etc.
Also feel free to suggest any other kind of sideboard cards
Thanks so much in advance
UBR TES
UBR TNT
GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
UBWR Ad nauseam
GW Hatebears
I've started using colored flat glass beads to track mana, since I find it's just faster than picking up countdown dice again and again.
Modern: Kiki ChordWBRG
TokensWB
EDH: Kuon, Ogre AscendantBBB
#FreeContractfromBelow
UR Storm: (60)
Lands: (16)
1 Mountain
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Island
3 Steam Vents
3 Sulfur Falls (I've had no problems with this and feel it's better than Shivan Reef)
4 Scalding Tarn
Creatures: (4)
Goblin Electromancer
Spells: (40)
2 Grapeshot
3 Desperate Ravings
3 Past in Flames
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Manamorphose
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Tormenting Voice
Sideboard: (15)
2 Echoing Truth
2 Empty the Warrens
3 Blood Moon
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Swan Song
Affinity is a weird matchup. We are about equal game 1 but with hate in games 2 and 3 we are a heavy favorite. I haven't gotten around to building a sideboard for a meta without affinity but I have some ideas. So what would you do if you had no affinity in you meta?
UBR TES
UBR TNT
GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
UBWR Ad nauseam
GW Hatebears
UBR TES
UBR TNT
GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
UBWR Ad nauseam
GW Hatebears
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
UBR TES
UBR TNT
GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
UBWR Ad nauseam
GW Hatebears
I also have actually cut the lonely mountain for a steam vents. I'd rather not see those hands that consist of a good amount of cantrips but your only land is a mountain. Most of the time I even draw it, i feel its a dead card. There's only very small amount of situations where I'd actually fetch for it. Blue is just too important to have on all your lands to be honest. I know it has at least cost me 1 game before I made the switch. I also once played against the mirror and the guy had 2 sulfur falls in his opening hand. I basically blew him out because of it
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
3x Lightning Bolt
3x Empty the Warrens
3x Shatterstorm
3x Blood Moon
1x Defense Grid
1x Echoing Truth
1x Swan Song
I went 8-1 day 1. I beat Twin three times, including in round 8 vs Seth Mansfield - which is better than I would expect in that matchup. All of my sideboard cards for the matchup - Defense Grid, Swan Song, and Echoing Truth - blew them out at least once. They were all close matches, and I got at least reasonably lucky in all of them, but the matchup is definitely winnable. My thought is that you always have to play into their counterspells once they're leaving up 3 mana - make them use it on something other than Pestermite/Exarch or you might just die. But generally there's something in your hand you can afford to get countered, and that can at least threaten a win if they don't.
My other matchups during the day were very diverse. I beat Living End, G/R Tron, a couple of Abzan decks, and Wilt-Leaf Abzan. The Abzan matchup is fine - there's a decent chance they don't have good answers to Empty the Warrens, and Blood Moon is a beating. My only loss Day 1 was to Jeff Hoogland's Temur Moon deck. I won game 1, in part because his mana denial strategy is really weak vs Storm, but lost games 2 and 3 to a plethora of countermagic. The matchup feels like the U/W/R control matchup of old, where you're fighting through lots of permission, but it's winnable with a good early draw.
Day 2 was...a disaster, at 0-6. I made some mistakes, but part of it was also matchups. Note the most significant absence from my day 1 matchups - Burn. Day 2 I played 3 Burn players, all of whom hit me with turn 2 Eidolons. I didn't win a game of that matchup all day. I feel like I need to work on my play against them - figure out when to risk taking damage from a land or Probe to try to go off a turn sooner, and when to slow down to preserve your life total. But it's also just a miserable matchup, and I'm not sure how to make it better.
I lost to B/W tokens, who was able to land an early Rest in Peace in games 2 and 3 and back it up with pressure. Overall I think that matchup is winnable - Rest in Peace isn't unbeatable, and they don't have an incredibly fast clock - but it just didn't go my way this time. In one of those games, he made me discard my one-of sideboarded Echoing Truth, a scenario that made me wish I had a second in the board.
I lost a winnable match to Twin, using my mana badly during a convoluted attempt to go off that fizzled. And then I lost to a very unusual Doran/hatebears deck that had Ethersworn Canonist and Eidolon of Rhetoric in the maindeck. That was gross.
Even though day 2 went badly, I was still happy with how the deck performed. The Burn matchup is a problem though, which I think needs to be improved somehow, as Burn is going to be here to stay. I'm still a big fan of Tormenting Voice - it definitely made some of my sketchier combo attempts work where they otherwise would have failed. And I was happy with my sideboard, though may try to find room for a second Echoing Truth over something (maybe Swan Song?) as a catch-all answer.
So my meta is filled with twin. I was recently running the same SB as you except 2 Defense Grids instead of the swan song. Do you thing the Swan Song is better?
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Nice job, I am glad you are liking tormenting voice. Now for the burn matchup I can see maybe cutting on a shatter storm or two for bolts or flame slash. That would give us more interaction with their creatures.
I agree that tokens is winnable, but sometimes you don't draw well or you draw the wrong half of your deck. I will generally board empty against them depending on their config just because I can make tokens more efficiently than they can. If I see a lot of color requirements I will bring in blood moon.
Jeez that hatebear deck. That sounds awful. It reminds me when I had to fight eidolon and trinisphere after a couple thoughtseizes. Those games are absolutely miserable. Overall thanks for the report and congrats on day twoing.
I think personally I would like a swan song over a second defense grid because it can be used to counter a cryptic they tap out for, or a splinter twin if they get greedy.
UBR TES
UBR TNT
GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
UBWR Ad nauseam
GW Hatebears
An interesting Defense Grid vs Twin interaction to keep in mind. During one of my games, I suspected he was going to combo me out this turn. I didn't have a kill in my hand, but I had a couple of rituals, Defense Grid, and Grapeshot. I ritualed and cast Defense Grid with some mana floating, he responded with his Exarch (he wouldn't have had enough mana to play it after the Grid landed), and I was able to Grapeshot it to death. Sure enough, he was holding the Twin. So keep in mind that Grid can allow you to remove their creatures on your turn in some cases.
ChucklingAtom I could see cutting a Shatterstorm for one more answer to Eidolon. I also wish there was a good lifegain card we could run - I know some people have experimented with Dragon's Claw, any thoughts on that?