I just picked this deck up after finally retiring my beloved Storm deck. League record so far is six 4-1, two 3-2, and one losing record. After that I tried the Through the Breach version for a few leagues and hated it. It may be a turn faster, but it's all-in and required more things to go right. The only truly awful matchup I've encountered so far is Death's Shadow (currently 0-3 against it), but otherwise I haven't encountered anything that didn't feel beatable. The most surprising aspect of the deck is its resilience against blue decks and how hard it is for Jund to win the attrition game.
If I may make a suggestion to the thread moderator, can we make a 'budget manabase' section in the initial primer so we can direct all budget discussion there? I'm not sure why the mods aren't infracting/editing the constant budget posts in this thread (unless that rule has changed), but it's very disruptive considering the same question (How do I play this deck without those expensive fetches?) and the same answer (You'll lose percentage points by not having fetches, but there are several workable configurations.) occur at least every other page. I wouldn't mind writing it myself, if it comes to that.
The extra 1 on Echoing Truth is worth the instant speed and ability to take care of multiples, which gives it a wider range of application. With our space for answer cards being so constrained we need every shred of flexibility we can get.
I prefer the permanence of Shatterstorm, personally.
When keeping track of storm count you should always do it on paper. If you're using die to track storm count and your opponent calls a judge to dispute it, there is no way to rewind the game or corroborate your version of events.
ahh the old "you must play with expensive cards or gtfo" argument. look man we understand fetches and serum visions are better, but he prefaced his statement with the fact that he did not wish to pay so much. i know its a shocker, but some of us don't feel like buying 7 fetches for $70 a piece.
and yes serum visions is the best cantrip, but at $28 a set, lower budget players can run alternate cards like peek in order to see the hands their playing against more often.
Nice casual dismissal of a well reasoned argument (where was the "GTFO?"). AcademyRuins and Dolphan are correctly pointing out the fact that the loss of fetches isn't debilitating, but it will cost you a game here and there. There's also the important benefit of being able to shuffle on demand after Sleight of Hand-ing a combo piece to the bottom in favor of a needed land or cantrip, getting rid of a speculative scry based on something new from the opponent, or to move a card away from the bottom after getting Vendilion Clique'd.
Serum Visions, on the other hand, is absolutely essential. This deck needs every piece of cheap manipulation it can get its hands on. If you go back and look at that janky Goblinstorm list I posted a few days ago you'll notice it's missing all of the blue manipulation, and it seriously suffers for it. We tested it in a few dailies and queues and we found that the deck simply doesn't work without the ability to pick and choose which cards we want (as well as shuffle). If you refuse to pick up SV, then I would recommend maxing out Faithless Looting over Quicken or Peek because the manipulation and filtering is far more valuable than a random card. Visions of Beyond is interesting, since there's a nonzero chance it can make a decent Ancestral Recall impersonation while going off, but I wouldn't want to rely on it.
Any ideas on the list that won the PTQ in Ghent Saturday? It was a version of 'storm' with noxious revival, the PA/NR/MM loop build I guess? Any one have an idea on the list of that deck? It was a 223 player Modern event.. pretty decent result I guess.
I'd like to see the list as well. I haven't played the Noxious Revival version, but I've not heard glowing reviews about it in the past.
Edit: I just noticed that Alleyway Jack finally got banned. Hopefully this thread will improve without his constant flaming.
As for the Stormshift deck, I tried the build MachuChang mentioned on modo for a bit. After ten rounds I have to agree with Machu's assessment that having two halves of two very different combo decks does not constitute a winning strategy. Their game plans actively work against each other. One of the combo hybrids I've had middling success with was mixing an Empty the Warrens based Storm deck with a Through the Breach+Emrakul, the Aeons Torn package, but it was mostly just awkward and clunky (Emrakul+Past in Flames is about as 'nonbo' as you can get) with the occasionally hilarious win.
In other news: A friend asked me to help him build a silly and cheap Goblin Storm deck the other day and we started having fun jammimg cards together. What we came up with isn't anywhere near what I'd call 'good', but there are enough requests for budget ideas in this thread that I figured someone might be able to make use of it.
The Pod matchup still feels pretty bad to me, especially now that everyone is jumping over to the LSV special.
RUG Twin decks are pretty easy since they are really vulnerable to Blood Moon, but the combo focused builds are terrible for us.
The new Jund decks are just too slow to really pose a problem anymore, and if they're running Courser of Kruphix it might as well be a bye. However, I disagree with the idea that Scavenging Ooze is easier to be beat that Deathrite Shaman was. I will take DRS over that green monster any day.
Seriously, I don't know what world one lives in to consider Scavenging Ooze to be a worse card against Storm than the Shaman.
Most control decks are pretty easy because they almost never present a fast clock and most of them just fold to Blood Moon
UR Delver decks are a bit of a coin toss. Their aggro draws are pretty easy to beat, but if they get a draw of two lands, a delver, and 3 counterspells then your day is going to suck. Post board you want bolts since they're pretty thin on actual threats, they also have 0-1 answers for Empty the Warrens in their 75
Infect is the only combo deck that is a genuinely bad matchup
Here's the difference between Shatterstorm and Hurkyl's Recall: You want a permanent answer to their board. You can keep a hand of four lands and a Shatterstorm on a mull to six and win because it is almost impossible for them to recover from that. Hell, I've done that on a mull to five a couple of times.
Other aggro decks are pretty straight forward: bring in bolts, kill anything that moves.
Hatebears is actually not terrible, by the way. Their mana base is pretty vulnerable to Blood Moon (can you tell I like that card?) And they can't beat an early empty followed by Grape-wrath.
There was also some instance where it was correct to Grapeshot and target his own Electromancer with the original spell, I think it was to do a slightly more optimal play against a Leyline of Sanctity. Any ideas of when you might want to do something like this?
That's a new one on me. Storm copies can't get around a Leyline any easier than the original can. The only instance I can think of where I have done anything like this was to kill my Electromancer in order to exile a Bridge from Below while I was Grapeshot-wrathing my opponent's board (although I obviously didn't target it with the original) or when I wanted to get cute with a Chalice of the Void out on 2.
The only reason Pod will run Eidolon is because they can (da da dada) pod into it (Having a great tutor for your sideboard silver bullets is fun, right?).
Three is an easier pod number that 2, and it's bolt-proof. This card feels like it was made for Pod.
When it comes to Desperate Ritual, when spliced, we are talking of a grand total of 4 mana invested and 6 returned right? When do we splice?
If it means giving up access to any blue mana while comboing off, then never splice. Otherwise it's just not a great ROI unless there's an active PA or multiple electromancers out. I always find a way to splice against Tron opponents (hur, I can makes lots of mana too!).
A good response to Eidolon could be Combust, as it has great use elsewhere, mainly against Twin, a MU in which we don't mind having an extra trumph.
I boarded Combust in GP Minn and found that I almost always wanted it to be another Echoing Truth. Prior to the GP I tested splashing white for Wear//Tear and found it wasn't really worth the loss in consistency.
Why flameslash? Isn't the new card Spite of Mogis just better in storm? It's going to be flameslash with scry.
...unless their eidolon is accompanied by a Relic of Progenitus, Rest in Peace, or some other GY sweeper. We have 15 sideboard slots and there's a lot of hate out there, we need to make sure we're as flexible as possible.
I've been trying to figure out the best way to play around the hate turtle, since counting on the exact combination of cards at the right moment is a little risky. I'm hesitant to go the down the Wear//Tear route since the extra color is really bad with Blood Moon, but then that leaves 3+ Echoing Truth in the board. I'm hoping (mostly in vain) that JOU will give us an interesting cantrip to play with.
Hey guys, after PT BNG I started keeping track of my results with the deck. Here are my notes so far:
For the most part my testing has been pretty consistent with what others have claimed about the archetype except for the Melira Pod matchup. I'm 3-5 in matches and unless I have a nut draw the MU feels abysmal, especially against proficient Pod players.
Other poor matchups thus far seem to be BGx and UR Twin decks, with some control decks being more problematic than others.
Tempo decks aren't as bad as you'd expect. Just run them out of counters and keep Young Pyromancer off of the board and you should be fine.
Interestingly, hatebear decks aren't really that bad for us. They lack library manipulation or card draw, and they can only board in so much targeted hate before they water down their own game plan. Even if they do draw their hate, their 3/1's and 2/2's give you plenty of time to draw into an answer or a kill. Just be mindful of Leonin Arbiter, that guy hoses us harder than almost any other creature they can present.
Aggro decks can be a coin toss, but are generally in our favor. The Affinity matchup is hilariously good.
Apart from Infect (another coin toss), other pure combo decks lack the speed and resilience of Storm. Blood Moon is usually all you need, but I don't even board that in unless I'm on the play for most combo matchups.
Except All-in Twin, which is just all-around bad for us.
Many of the more savvy players know that Leyline of Sanctity doesn't do much post-board since we're most likely boarding into the Warrens plan. Pay attention to their mull/keep decisions game 2 and see if they are leaving themselves vulnerable to a turn 3/4 grapeshot kill in game 3.
Torpor Orb is straight up better than Defense Grid in a lot of matchups. Classic control decks are pretty rare in the format, but nearly every 'fair' deck in the format relies of some sort of ETB effect, which we can easily exploit.
Never, ever keep 1-Mountain hands. I don't care how good the rest of the hand looks.
Blood Moon is easily the best card in our deck after board. It handles all of our worst matchups outside of mono-white and Izzet strategies, and it is actually pretty backbreaking against RUG Twin (AKA TarmoTwin, the worst named deck in Modern)
When keeping track of storm count you should always do it on paper. If you're using die to track storm count and your opponent calls a judge to dispute it, there is no way to rewind the game or corroborate your version of events.
Nice casual dismissal of a well reasoned argument (where was the "GTFO?"). AcademyRuins and Dolphan are correctly pointing out the fact that the loss of fetches isn't debilitating, but it will cost you a game here and there. There's also the important benefit of being able to shuffle on demand after Sleight of Hand-ing a combo piece to the bottom in favor of a needed land or cantrip, getting rid of a speculative scry based on something new from the opponent, or to move a card away from the bottom after getting Vendilion Clique'd.
Serum Visions, on the other hand, is absolutely essential. This deck needs every piece of cheap manipulation it can get its hands on. If you go back and look at that janky Goblinstorm list I posted a few days ago you'll notice it's missing all of the blue manipulation, and it seriously suffers for it. We tested it in a few dailies and queues and we found that the deck simply doesn't work without the ability to pick and choose which cards we want (as well as shuffle). If you refuse to pick up SV, then I would recommend maxing out Faithless Looting over Quicken or Peek because the manipulation and filtering is far more valuable than a random card. Visions of Beyond is interesting, since there's a nonzero chance it can make a decent Ancestral Recall impersonation while going off, but I wouldn't want to rely on it.
I'd like to see the list as well. I haven't played the Noxious Revival version, but I've not heard glowing reviews about it in the past.
Edit: I just noticed that Alleyway Jack finally got banned. Hopefully this thread will improve without his constant flaming.
If this is your response to deathbringer82's question, then I suggest you never mention Ritual Gifts in this thread again.
Exactly.
As for the Stormshift deck, I tried the build MachuChang mentioned on modo for a bit. After ten rounds I have to agree with Machu's assessment that having two halves of two very different combo decks does not constitute a winning strategy. Their game plans actively work against each other. One of the combo hybrids I've had middling success with was mixing an Empty the Warrens based Storm deck with a Through the Breach+Emrakul, the Aeons Torn package, but it was mostly just awkward and clunky (Emrakul+Past in Flames is about as 'nonbo' as you can get) with the occasionally hilarious win.
In other news: A friend asked me to help him build a silly and cheap Goblin Storm deck the other day and we started having fun jammimg cards together. What we came up with isn't anywhere near what I'd call 'good', but there are enough requests for budget ideas in this thread that I figured someone might be able to make use of it.
2 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Wild Guess
4 Manamorphose
3 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Past in Flames
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Pyromancer Ascension
3 Shatterstorm
2 Grapeshot
4 Spellskite
4 Blood Moon
2 Relic of Progenitus
That's a new one on me. Storm copies can't get around a Leyline any easier than the original can. The only instance I can think of where I have done anything like this was to kill my Electromancer in order to exile a Bridge from Below while I was Grapeshot-wrathing my opponent's board (although I obviously didn't target it with the original) or when I wanted to get cute with a Chalice of the Void out on 2.
Three is an easier pod number that 2, and it's bolt-proof. This card feels like it was made for Pod.
Yup, I play at Mayhem DSM
If it means giving up access to any blue mana while comboing off, then never splice. Otherwise it's just not a great ROI unless there's an active PA or multiple electromancers out. I always find a way to splice against Tron opponents (hur, I can makes lots of mana too!).
I boarded Combust in GP Minn and found that I almost always wanted it to be another Echoing Truth. Prior to the GP I tested splashing white for Wear//Tear and found it wasn't really worth the loss in consistency.
That said, if you want to try the white splash I highly recommend Andrew Shrout's latest build
Just be mindful of pain from your lands. Storm has a knack for killing its pilot if you're not paying attention to life totals.
...unless their eidolon is accompanied by a Relic of Progenitus, Rest in Peace, or some other GY sweeper. We have 15 sideboard slots and there's a lot of hate out there, we need to make sure we're as flexible as possible.