Gifts Storm is a combo deck which wins by casting a lot of spells in one turn, followed by Grapeshot or Empty the Warrens. Storm decks across all formats generally work by playing a lot of cheap spells that replace themselves (cantrips) and cards that generate mana for immediate use (rituals). The Storm deck builds “storm count” by playing cantrips to draw into rituals, then using those rituals to generate mana for more cantrips, and so on. When the Storm deck begins to run low on resources, it can cast a “reset spell” - something which draws a lot of cards or allows the player to reuse every card that he’s casted - to renew the loop. After casting enough spells, Storm finishes with a spell with the namesake keyword - Grapeshot, Empty the Warrens, or Tendrils of Agony and Brain Freeze outside of Modern - to end the game.
Gifts Storm plays the powerful tutor Gifts Ungiven, which takes the randomness out of Storm. Normally, when you combo off with Storm, you may end up drawing nothing but lands and losing as a result. Gifts Ungiven’s tutoring abilities bring down your fizzle rate significantly (sometimes eliminating it completely), regardless of how your opponent splits the four cards. Don’t let that fool you into thinking Gifts Storm is totally reliant on Gifts; it’s still very much capable of Storming the old-fashioned way.
History of Storm in Modern
Storm is perhaps the deck with the most colorful history in Modern. Throughout its time, it's seen six (!) bans, some targeted at it, some as splash damage from more problematic decks. It's gone through periods where it was among the most-played decks on MTGO, to times where you were more likely to face an opposing Goblin Elite Infantry than a Goblin Electromancer*. It's been declared dead at least twice, but always finds a way to spike some event. It's T8ed events where nobody expected it to, taking advantage of the lack of hate and/or dodging the bad matchups. It's made pro players waste SB cards on it (ctrl-f: Mindbreak Trap), even though nobody ended up playing it at the event (ctrl-f: Grapeshot). That's how fearsome Storm was.
*this is an exaggeration
Below is a history of Storm in Modern, including non-Gifts builds, covering notable tournament finishes and card pool additions (and removals).
Sep 11: Max Sjoblom T8ed PT Philadelphia with Storm. Several Storm builds were present at the event, but they all shared the time-honored Storm game plan of cantripping into rituals, generating mana for more cantrips, ad Grapeshotium.
Sep 11: Ponder, Preordain and Rite of Flame were banned, the first two due to the large number of combo decks at PT Philadelphia, and Rite due to, of course, Storm. Combo decks (Storm included) moved on to Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand, and the loss of Rite had a minimal effect on Storm.
Sep 11: Innistrad was released. In line with color-shifting rituals from black to red, the red Yawgmoth's Will (Past in Flames) was printed and added to Storm.
Apr 12: Yann Blumer and Jose Luis Velazquez del Pozo T8ed GP Turin with Storm. It is interesting to note that neither of them played Pyromancer Ascension, which would become a staple in Storm decks for a long time. Blumer maxed out on Grapeshot and Velazquez played Gifts Ungiven.
Oct 12: Return to Ravnica was released, adding Goblin Electromancer and Epic Experiment to Storm's arsenal. PT RTR saw the creation of the stock Storm list with 16 lands and Ascension + Electromancer.
Nov 12: Olivier Ruel T8ed GP Lyon with Storm. Epic Experiment started seeing play as an alternative Storm build. With Goblin Electromancer in play, casting a few rituals would result in a huge Experiment, reminiscent of Mind's Desire. This style of playing a few rituals and ending with a single powerful spell would lend itself to Gifts Storm.
Jan 13: Seething Song was banned. Epic Experiment became unplayable as a result, since without Song, not only was it harder to cast a big Experiment, Experiment couldn't flip over an "add 5 mana" card either.
May 13: Jon Finkel T16ed GP Portland with Storm.
Feb 14: Chris Fennell T8ed PT BNG with Storm.
May 14: Journey into Nyx was released. More precisely, Eidolon of the Great Revel was released: a maindeckable Burn card which denied Storm from doing its thing, and cemented Burn as a top-tier deck. Thus began the decline of Storm.
Sep 14: Khans of Tarkir was released, and in it, the most broken card to see print in recent years: Treasure Cruise. We're talking "banned in Modern, Legacy, Pauper, and restricted in Vintage"-levels of brokenness. TC gave Storm a slight boost, but its effect on Storm was overshadowed by its effect on the Jeskai Ascendancy combo deck (which killed faster than Storm on average), Delver (which beat up on combo decks), and even Burn (which splashed for it).
Jan 15: Treasure Cruise was banned.
Mar 16: James Zornes T8ed GP Detroit during Eldrazi Winter, in a field devoid of Burn and full of Eldrazi decks which were light on interaction. Jose Luis Velazquez placed 12th at GP Bologna in the same weekend.
Jan 17: Aether Revolt was released and Gitaxian Probe was banned. While the Probe ban hurt Storm directly, it also hurt Storm's competitors: Infect, Death's Shadow Zoo and UR Kiln Fiend, all of which preyed on combo decks like Storm by goldfishing a turn faster. Aether Revolt also brought about Baral, Chief of Compliance, providing extra Goblin Electromancer effects.
May 17: Martin Muller T8ed GP Copenhagen with Gifts Storm.
These two are the best cantrips in Modern. Pretty much all combo decks play Serum Visions, and if they need more cantrips, they use Sleight of Hand. Gifts Storm is one such deck.
Cantrips let you play lower land counts than most other decks. Whatever it is that you’re missing - a land, Baral, big payoff spell like Gifts or Past - cantrips are going to find it directly, draw into another cantrip to help you find it, or, in the worst-case scenario, push a bunch of irrelevant cards out of the way. Their low mana cost makes them castable when you’re starved on mana, and easily chainable (important for a deck that wants to play many spells in one turn).
SV is better than Sleight, so cut Sleights instead of SV when sideboarding.
These cards provide mana during the combo. Pyretic and Desperate Ritual get you ahead on mana, and Manamorphose generates blue for cantrips.
Pyretic Ritual is strictly worse than Desperate Ritual, but don’t let that put you off using it. You need the redundancy.
These cards unlock the full potential of the deck. They cost 2 mana but easily save you dozens of mana during the combo turn. With them, your rituals become red Dark Rituals, netting 2 mana, and Past in Flames turns into a better Yawgmoth’s Will (and Will is banned in Legacy!). Without them, your rituals are still like Dark Rituals, but with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben on your opponent’s side of the field: miserable.
Baral is generally better, since he has an extra point of toughness, which lets him survive more combat situations and toughness-based removal spells than Electromancer. His loot ability is a nice bonus, but nothing gamebreaking.
Multiple Electromancers or Barals stack, but most of the time you only need 1. The second Mancer pays for itself if you manage to cast two Gifts or Pasts with it.
Past in Flames
Past in Flames grants flashback, which is almost the same as putting those cards back into your hand. If you’ve casted a bunch of spells this turn, Past gives them all back, and every spell that you’ve casted on previous turns on top of all those. That’s a lot of cards.
It serves another crucial function in the deck: giving you access to every card off Gifts, no matter how your opponent splits them. Regardless of where Past ends up, as long as you have enough mana, you can either cast it or flash it back, which then grants flashback to every spell in your graveyard, including those that your opponent chose for Gifts.
Gifts Ungiven
Gifts Ungiven is an expensive, but powerful tutor. It forms a 2-card combo of sorts with Baral or Electromancer: if you land Baral and cast Gifts with 3 mana floating, you pretty much have the win locked up. Details can be found in the Technical Play section.
To an inexperienced player, Gifts Ungiven might seem like a trap. It gives your opponent a choice, similar to “punisher” cards that you might have been warned about, such as Browbeat. In reality, when played properly, Gifts Ungiven gives your opponent the illusion of choice. Two reasons:
1) If you search for 3 copies of the same effect, your opponent is forced to put at least one of them in your hand.
2) You have a spell that lets you cast cards from the graveyard (Past in Flames).
The common game-ending combination of Pyretic Ritual, Desperate Ritual, Manamorphose and Past in Flames satisfies both these points (Manamorphose generates mana with Baral, so it can be considered a ritual).
"You always have a choice. That doesn't mean you always have a good choice."
—Alubri, Guul Draz gatekeeper
These cards win you the game. Two important things to note for new Storm players:
1) Storm counts spells casted by your opponent as well.
2) If your opponent counters a storm spell, you still get the other copies. But if your opponent counters the storm trigger (there aren’t many commonly played cards that do that - Disallow, Trickbind work, but are virtually unplayed), you don’t get the copies.
Grapeshot is the cleanest way of killing your opponent. Just point all the copies at him, bypassing any blockers or removal. Casting Grapeshot early to kill an annoying creature is also a valid play - you can always flash it back during the combo turn.
Empty the Warrens is the backup plan. Unlike Grapeshot, it doesn’t kill immediately, and the tokens can be killed, but it does have a few advantages over Grapeshot:
- Winning with a lower storm count. Empty provides 2 power per storm count. Grapeshot only does 1 damage per storm count. Empty punishes your opponent harder for trying (and failing) to interact on your combo turn.
- More damage, given enough time. Goblin tokens can attack every turn, while Grapeshot is a one-time deal.
- Winning through an opposing Leyline of Sanctity.
- Winning though grave hate. Empty could win where Grapeshot + Past in Flames + flashback Grapeshot would fail from the opponent exiling Grapeshot after the initial cast.
Remand
Remand is a soft counter that cantrips while stopping the targeted spell, but gives its controller a chance to recast it. Due to the nature of Storm, this tradeoff can be exploited to devastating effect. If your opponent taps out for a spell that would hinder your combo ability, you can Remand it and combo off on your turn. Putting the spell back in your oppponent’s hand doesn’t matter if you manage to kill him before he has the chance to cast it again.
Remand can be used on your own spells to cantrip, save them from enemy counterspells, or in the case of Grapeshot, double its damage output. Remanding your spell can be more beneficial than Remanding the enemy’s counterspell.
Peer Through Depths
Peer Through Depths digs 5 cards deep for instants or sorceries. In terms of its impact, it is roughly equivalent to a single cantrip - say you cast a cantrip, it draws into another cantrip, then you cast the drawn cantrip and find the card that you needed. This sequence digs about 3-5 cards deep for 2 mana starting from the single cantrip in hand, which is just about what Peer does.
Unlike a regular cantrip, Peer costs 2 mana by itself, so having multiples can slow you down, and you can't keep a 1-land Peer hand. On the plus side, Peer can be discounted by Baral or Electromancer.
Peer has the Arcane subtype, so you can splice Desperate Ritual onto it. The net effect of doing so is reducing the mana cost by 1 (splicing costs 2 mana and gives you back 3). With a cost reducer, casting Peer spliced with Ritual costs 3 mana and gives you back 3, effectively making it free!
Merchant Scroll
Also known as “the best card from Homelands”. With Baral or Electromancer on the field, it costs U and does everything: it can get Gifts to start the combo, or Remand to finish a Gifts-less storm chain after drawing Grapeshot, or cards like Dispel and Echoing Truth to push through hate.
Thought Scour
Thought Scour cantrips while putting cards into your graveyard for Past in Flames.
Sometimes you might want to target your opponent with it instead:
- If your opponent kept a card on top after a scry effect. That probably means he needs it. Milling him would deny him of that card.
- If your opponent’s deck relies on having certain cards in it. Against decks with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, you can try to mill away their Mountains. Against Ad Nauseam, you can try to mill their Simian Spirit Guides.
- In response to Goryo’s Vengeance against Grixis Reanimator: if you mill Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, it will trigger, shuffling the reanimation target back into his library and causing Goryo’s Vengeance to fizzle.
The last two examples are more last-ditch attempts at staying alive than reliable uses for Thought Scour. Don’t go Thought Scouring Valakut opponents at the start of the game, just keep in mind this particular long-shot play of Thought Scouring them if they’re about to resolve a Scapeshift.
Noxious Revival
Noxious Revival is a 1-of tech card that you can throw into any Gifts pile. If your opponent gives you Revival, you can use it to return one of the cards they binned. This is useful for getting back Baral or Electromancer, as the standard way of getting back cards from the graveyard (Past in Flames) is unable to return those. If you draw it normally, you can use it to get back Grapeshot during the combo turn as long as you have a cantrip to spare.
The main weakness of Noxious Revival is that it does not replace itself with a card, unlike cantrips. Getting a Baral back on top of your library is great and all, but losing one draw to get that Baral into your hand can leave you one ritual short of winning.
Simian Spirit Guide
Simian Spirit Guide is another 1-of tech card. It acts as a 9th ritual and you can put it in a Gifts pile if one of your rituals got hit by Surgical Extraction. It doesn't require any red mana to generate more, unlike the rituals.
Unfortunately, for all the neat uses of SSG, the list of disadvantages is even longer. It doesn't get boosted by Baral or Electromancer, can't be found by Peer Through Depths, isn't affected by Past in Flames, and doesn't count as a spell towards storm count.
Apostle's Blessing
Apostle's Blessing is meant solely to defend your Baral or Electromancer from removal. You can cast it even if you're tapped out if Baral/Electromancer are already on the field since they reduce its cost. It's a very defensive card and I would recommend simply playing more Electromancers - instead of using Blessing to protect your Electromancer, you just play another one. Drawing Blessing by itself is useless, but if the Blessing were an Electromancer instead your position is much better.
This deck is UR. You have a lot more turn 1 plays that require U than R, so play more basic Islands and blue fetches. In addition to Scalding Tarn, play other blue fetches (Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta, Misty Rainforest).
Spirebluff Canal is a pain-free way of producing both colors in the early turns. It’s better than Sulfur Falls, because Sulfur Falls does not ETB untapped if it’s the only land in your hand, or if your hand is Canal + Falls. Play Canals first even if you have the opportunity to play a tapped shock; later in the game, you have the option of paying 2 life to have the shock ETB untapped, but Canal will always ETB tapped.
Shivan Reef costs life, but gives you both blue and red. If you tap Reef for red/blue a total of 3 times or less per game, it’ll cost less life compared to cracking a fetch for an untapped shock. You can save a point of life by using colorless for expensive spells like Past in Flames.
Some people like to play Island + Snow-Covered Island instead of just 2 Island in the unlikely occurrence that they have to Gifts for two basic Islands.
Blood Moon
Blood Moon gives you free wins against 3-color or non-red decks. It’s particularly effective in this deck, since you have rituals to play it on turn 2.
Bolt comes in for aggro matchups and hatebears (especially Eidolon of the Great Revel). Killing the opponent’s turn 1 creature can buy some time for you to combo off. During the combo, you can throw it at your opponent’s face.
Dismember is another creature killer. It costs a lot of life, so you don't want to bring it in against aggro decks, but it is capable of killing things that Bolt would miss, such as Eidolon of Rhetoric. With a cost reducer out, you can cast it for 0 mana.
These cards are catch-all answers to hate permanents. You bounce your opponent’s hate card during his turn (or during your turn, if you have enough mana), then kill him before he gets the chance to recast it. Sometimes you can use bounce to force your opponent to crack his Nihil Spellbomb or Relic of Progenitus, then take advantage of the brief period where he's not protected by grave hate to combo off.
Echoing Truth is the most commonly used of the lot. It can get rid of multiple copies of the same card, like Leyline of the Void (which, if played, is always played in multiples) or creature tokens.
Repeal is great at getting rid of Chalice of the Void, especially if set on 2 - Echoing Truth and Wear // Tear wouldn't be able to touch it. Note that Chalice's CMC is 0 on the battlefield, so just cast Repeal for X=0. You even get to draw a card out of it.
Wipe Away is the Last Word of bounce spells and can hit lands as well. You can sneakily cut an opponent off his counterspell mana if you Wipe Away one of his lands.
These cards destroy artifacts and are brought in mainly for Affinity. Grudge and Wear//Tear require splashes.
Shatterstorm pretty much wipes out Affinity’s chances if it resolves. It gets Etched Champion and bypasses Welding Jar.
Shattering Spree is the most efficient way to kill one artifact. It can be scaled up if you need it to kill more artifacts, and you can pile multiple copies on one artifact to kill it through defensive measures like Welding Jar. It can destroy Chalice of the Void on 1 with a replicated copy - Chalice doesn't trigger on the copy because it isn't casted.
Grudge is a 2-for-1, and can be flashed back if you mill it with Thought Scour.
Wear//Tear is the most efficient way to kill one enchantment, and is a 2-for-1 if you manage to hit an enchantment and an artifact with it. The Wear side is discounted by Baral.
These cards help you beat counterspells.
Pact of Negation is best when you’re going to combo off on the same turn. However, this won’t always be the case - sometimes you’re tight on mana and need to play Baral, have him survive the opponent’s turn, then untap and combo off. In a situation like that, Dispel will defend Baral, but Pact will kill you if you try.
Gigadrowse works by tapping down your opponent’s lands during his turn, ensuring an uninterrupted combo on yours. Your opponent has to counter each copy individually, and he most likely can’t. It isn’t always foolproof though. Example: your opponent has 1UU up with Dispel and Negate in his hand. During his end step, you Gigadrowse all his lands once each. He can tap 1U for Negate, countering the copy targeting his last land, and still have mana up for Dispel on your turn.
Defense Grid pre-emptively Mana Leaks your opponent’s counterspells on your turn. The downside is that it also Mana Leaks your spells on his turn, so you can’t EOT Gifts.
Hope of Ghirapur works like Xantid Swarm in Legacy. You have to connect with it, but when you do, you can sac it to Silence your opponent and combo during the second main phase.
These cards help you beat discard. Pieces of the Puzzle does so by being a 2-for-1, refilling your hand after being hit by discard spells while also putting instants and sorceries in the graveyard for Past in Flames.
Leyline of Sanctity stops discard in a more direct way. If you have hexproof, you can't be targeted by discard. It also stops your opponent from using Liliana of the Veil’s -2.
These cards are alternative wincons. You can try to beat hate by playing wincons which attack from a different angle, instead of playing cards to counter your opponent’s hate.
Gifts Ungiven has a secret “double Entomb” mode where you search for two cards, and your opponent is forced to place them both in your graveyard. You can set up an Iona reanimation this way by searching for Unburial Rites and Iona only.
Madcap Experiment is guaranteed to hit Platinum Emperion if you play no other artifacts in your deck. You don’t take any damage from Experiment as Emperion is on the battlefield before damage is dealt.
Technical Play
S = storm, U = blue mana floating, R = red mana floating, D = Cards drawn
I’ll only mention D when cards are drawn.
X + Y (for Gifts) means the opponent put X and Y into your hand, not graveyard. Gifts says that your opponent chooses the cards to put into your graveyard, but there is a bijection between cards put into graveyard and cards put into hand, so either notation is unambiguous. However, I’ll use the “cards put into hand” notation because it’s easier to follow.
Ritual denotes either Pyretic Ritual or Desperate Ritual.
Baral and Goblin Electromancer are more or less interchangeable.
- Shuffling wastes scry, so crack fetchlands before casting Serum Visions, and cast Sleight of Hand instead of Serum Visions if you’re going to play a Gifts right after.
- If you have extra draws (in the form of draw steps, Manamorphose, or another Serum Visions), Serum Visions is better than Sleight of Hand since you can scry to set up your next draw. For example, if you keep a hand on the play with 1 land, SV, Sleight, and are banking on your cantrips to draw into a second land, SV first followed by Sleight only fails to draw a land by your second turn if there is no land in the top 6 cards. Sleight followed by SV fails if there is no land in the top 4.
- If you’re going to end the turn by casting both Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand, cast Sleight of Hand first. If you cast SV first, leave a very good card on top, and cast Sleight to get it, you’re not getting the most out of Sleight since you just used it to draw a card instead of selecting between the better of two cards.
The following rules assume Baral is on the field.
- When planning your combo turn, it’s more convenient to think of rituals in terms of the net amount of mana that they give you. Rituals are +RR and Manamorphose is +1 mana and some color fixing.
- Cast all the rituals and Manamorphoses in your hand before casting Past in Flames.
- You must have at least one red mana floating at all times for rituals.
- Keep as much blue mana floating as possible (without straying from the red mana rules for Past and rituals) so that you can cast cantrips.
- You need URR to cast Electromancer followed by a ritual. Two basic Islands can’t accomplish that. Baral doesn’t have this problem since you can pay for him with UU.
- Before casting Past in Flames from hand, you need at least 2RR (1 red for Past, 1 red for a flashed-back ritual). If you flashback Past in Flames, you need 3RR.
- All your rituals are instants, so you can cast them in response to a removal spell on Baral to get some mileage out of him before he dies. You’ll need RR up. Cast the first ritual, which should prompt the removal spell, then use the remaining R on another ritual.
- Baral’s discount also applies to flashed-back spells.
- If you resolve Past in Flames when another Past in Flames is in your graveyard, the latter Past in Flames will gain flashback 3R, saving you one mana when you flash it back for this cost instead of the built-in 4R. However, this lasts for one turn only.
- If you’re down to 1 Past in Flames in your library, you might have to Gifts for different cards. If you’re supposed to Gifts for Past + 3 other cards and you have Past in your hand, then there’s no problem; you can just Gifts for the 3 original cards and any other card. If Past is in your graveyard, you can still flash it back, but this will require 1 more mana than casting it (unless it’s been granted flashback 3R with another Past), and leaves you with 1 fewer use out of it (flashback, vs cast + flashback). If there’s no way for you to get a use out of that Past, you’ll have to go for Empty the Warrens.
- Always expect your opponent to put the worst cards into your hand for Gifts. Usually the “worst cards” are those that generate the least mana, i.e. things that are not rituals.
- You can’t use Gifts if your opponent has Leyline of Sanctity, since Gifts targets.
- Remand triggers Baral’s loot ability.
- If you Remand a spell which has been flashed back, it goes to exile, not its owner’s hand. Do it on your opponent’s spells, not yours.
- You can Remand uncounterable spells just to draw a card. Not that you’d want to.
Generally, you win if you have Baral, 3 mana floating, and resolve Gifts. There are several ways this can happen by turn 4:
1) T2 Baral
T3 Gifts
T4 untap and use the cards that you got with Gifts to win
2) T2 Baral
T3 ritual, ritual/Manamorphose, Gifts
3) T3 Baral, ritual, ritual, Manamorphose, Gifts
4) T4 Baral, ritual, ritual, Gifts
Note that the first two require playing Baral on turn 2 and having it survive. Playing Baral on turn 2 enables your fastest wins, but it’s a risky play if you don’t have a backup Baral to replace it in case it gets killed.
Phase 1: Building storm count with Gifts
Suppose you begin this phase with S: 0, U: 2, R: 1. (This is a reasonable assumption to make, since the deck only has 1 basic Mountain and everything else taps for blue.) Gifts is resolving and you revealed Desperate Ritual, Pyretic Ritual, Manamorphose and Past in Flames. No matter what your opponent gives you, you will be able to increase your storm count by 6 and flashback Gifts with no net loss of mana. Most of the time you’ll have other cards in your graveyard which you can flashback as well, so you’ll often end up ahead in mana instead of breaking even.
What you get with the flashbacked Gifts depends on whether you have Past in Flames in your hand/graveyard. You get two rituals and Grapeshot first, then Past if you don’t have it, or Manamorphose if you do.
If you already have Grapeshot in your hand/graveyard, then you can repeat this loop (Gifts for 2 rituals, Manamorphose and Past in Flames again) to build storm count, instead of searching for Grapeshot. Note that if your opponent gives you Ritual + Past or Manamorphose + Past twice, you won’t have any Pasts left to cast or flashback at the end of everything. All is not lost though - you would have generated some mana and drawn some cards from each loop, so you can get a bunch of cantrips or rituals off the last Gifts to build storm count.
Ritual + Ritual
This gives you 7 storm, 2 mana, 1 draw and casts Gifts.
Cast both rituals (S: 2, U: 2, R: 5).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 3, U: 2, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals, Manamorphose for UU (S: 6, U: 4, R: 4, D: 1).
Flashback Gifts Ungiven (S: 7, U: 3, R: 2). Go to phase 2a.
Ritual + Manamorphose
This gives you 7 storm, 1 mana, 2 draws and casts Gifts.
Cast ritual and Manamorphose for RR (S: 2, U: 2, R: 4, D: 1)
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 3, U: 1, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals, Manamorphose for UU (S: 6, U: 3, R: 4, D: 2).
Flashback Gifts Ungiven (S: 7, U: 2, R: 2). Go to phase 2a.
Ritual + Past in Flames
This gives you 6 storm, 1 mana, 1 draw and casts Gifts.
Cast ritual (S: 1, U: 2, R: 3).
Cast Past in Flames (S: 2, R: 1, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals, Manamorphose for UU (S: 5, U: 3, R: 4, D: 1).
Flashback Gifts Ungiven (S: 6, U: 2, R: 2). Go to phase 2b.
Manamorphose + Past in Flames
This gives you 6 storm, 2 draws and casts Gifts.
Cast Manamorphose for RR (S: 1, U: 2, R: 2, D: 1).
Cast Past in Flames (S: 2, U: 0, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals, Manamorphose for UU (S: 5, U: 2, R: 4, D: 2).
Flashback Gifts Ungiven (S: 6, U: 1, R: 2). Go to phase 2b.
Phase 2: Casting Grapeshot or Empty the Warrens
You can replace Grapeshot with Empty the Warrens in all of the cases. You’ll find that a lot of cases leave you with a large surplus of mana. If you don’t have other cards in hand/graveyard to build storm count, it might be better to take the safe route and get Empty the Warrens instead.
Phase 2a: Gifts for 2 rituals, Past in Flames, Grapeshot
Suppose you begin this phase with S: 7, U: 2, R: 2.
Ritual + Ritual
This gives you 6 storm, 3 mana for a minimum 13-damage Grapeshot.
Cast both rituals (S: 9, U: 2, R: 6).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 10, U: 2, R: 2).
Flashback both rituals (S: 12, U: 2, R: 6).
*You now have U: 2 and R: 5 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Flashback Grapeshot (S: 13, U: 2, R: 5) for 13 damage.
Ritual + Past in Flames
This gives you 5 storm, 2 mana for a minimum 12-damage Grapeshot.
Cast ritual (S: 8, U: 2, R: 4).
Cast Past in Flames (S: 9, U: 2, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals (S: 11, U: 2, R: 5).
*You now have U: 2 and R: 4 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Flashback Grapeshot (S: 12, U: 2, R: 4) for 12 damage.
Ritual + Grapeshot
This gives you 6 storm, 1 mana for a minimum 22-damage Grapeshot.
Cast ritual (S: 8, U: 2, R: 4)
Cast Grapeshot (S: 9, U: 2, R: 3) for 9 damage.
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 10, U: 0, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals (S: 12, U: 0, R: 5).
*You now have R: 4 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Flashback Grapeshot (S: 13, U: 0, R: 4) for 13 damage.
Past in Flames + Grapeshot
This gives you 4 storm, 1 mana for a minimum 11-damage Grapeshot.
Cast Past in Flames (S: 8, U: 0, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals (S: 10, U: 0, R: 5).
*You now have R: 4 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Cast Grapeshot (S: 11, U: 0, R: 4) for 12 damage.
If you searched for Empty the Warrens instead of Grapeshot, and your opponent gave you ritual + Empty
This gives you 4 storm, consumes 1 mana for a minimum 22 Goblins.
Cast ritual (S: 8, U: 2, R: 4).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 8, U: 1, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals (S: 10, U: 1, R: 5).
*You now have U: 1 and R: 2 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Cast Empty the Warrens (S: 11, U: 1, R: 2) for 22 Goblins.
Phase 2b: Gifts for 2 rituals, Manamorphose, Grapeshot
Suppose you begin this phase with S: 6, U: 1, R: 2, and Past in Flames in your graveyard.
If you haven’t drawn into a fourth land or extra Manamorphose/ritual, your opponent can put Manamorphose and Grapeshot into your hand. That would cut your combo short at 8 damage off Grapeshot: Manamorphose gets you to 4 mana, and flashing back Past in Flames cost 4, so that route is out. However, you do get at least 3 draws to find the necessary land/ritual (2 from the previous chain, 1 from the current Manamorphose). Worst-case, get Empty the Warrens instead of Grapeshot.
If for some reason you only have 2 mana floating at this point, get 2 rituals, Manamorphose and Empty the Warrens. The worst that can happen is your opponent putting Ritual + Empty or Manamorphose + Empty into your hand. Then cast them both for 16 Goblins.
Ritual + Ritual
This gives you 6 storm, 4 mana, 1 draw for a minimum 13-damage Grapeshot.
Cast both rituals (S: 8, U: 1, R: 6).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 9, U: 1, R: 2).
Flashback both rituals and Manamorphose for UU (S: 12, U: 3, R: 5, D: 1).
*You now have U: 3, R: 4 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Cast Grapeshot (S: 13, U: 3, R: 4) for 13 damage.
Ritual + Manamorphose
This gives you 6 storm, 3 mana, 2 draws for a minimum 13-damage Grapeshot.
Cast ritual and Manamorphose for UU (S: 8, U: 3, R: 3, D: 1).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 9, U: 1, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals and Manamorphose for UU (S: 12, U: 3, R: 4, D: 2).
*You now have U: 3, R: 3 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Cast Grapeshot (S: 13, U: 3, R: 3) for 13 damage.
Ritual + Grapeshot
This gives you 5 storm, 2 mana, 1 draw for a minimum 12-damage Grapeshot.
Cast ritual (S: 7, U: 1, R: 4).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 8, U: 0, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals and Manamorphose for UU (S: 11, U: 2, R: 4, D: 1).
*You now have U: 2, R: 3 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Cast Grapeshot (S: 12, U: 2, R: 3) for 12 damage.
Manamorphose + Grapeshot
This gives you 5 storm, 2 mana, 2 draws for a minimum 12-damage Grapeshot. You need a land, ritual or Manamorphose after casting Manamorphose to continue.
Cast Manamorphose for RR (S: 7, U: 2, R: 2, D: 1).
*Play a land, ritual or Manamorphose to generate mana. Here I’ll assume you played a land for U.
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 8, U: 0, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals and Manamorphose for UU (S: 11, U: 2, R: 4, D: 2).
*You now have U: 2, R: 3 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Cast Grapeshot (S: 12, U: 2, R: 3) for 12 damage.
If you searched for Empty the Warrens instead of Grapeshot, and your opponent gave you Manamorphose + Empty
This ends the combo with 1 draw and 16 Goblins.
Cast Manamorphose for UU (S: 7, U: 3, R: 1, D: 1).
*You now have U: 1 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Cast Empty the Warrens (S: 8, U: 1) for 16 Goblins.
Suppose you have a hand of Baral, 2 rituals, Manamorphose, and Empty the Warrens. Your board is 2 lands. You can get 10 Goblins with the following sequence: Ritual, Manamorphose for UR, Baral, ritual, Empty the Warrens. (After Manamorphose, you have URR, so it also works with Electromancer.) This sequence may not be intuitive at first because you have to cast a ritual and Manamorphose before Baral. However, it “goes off” one turn faster than simply playing Baral and passing (though that could set you up for a Grapeshot kill on turn 3 if you draw Gifts or Past!), and gets 3 more creatures compared to ritual, Manamorphose, ritual, Empty the Warrens. Note that this sequence is susceptible to removal: if Baral is killed, you’re stuck with RRR and Empty in hand.
Suppose your hand is 2 rituals, Manamorphose, and Empty the Warrens. Your board is 2 lands. In this case you already have Empty for 8 Goblins, but with the above example in mind, you should lead with ritual, Manamorphose instead of ritual, ritual. If Manamorphose draws Baral, you continue with Baral, ritual, Empty for an extra 2 Goblins. If you had cast ritual, ritual, Manamorphose drawing Baral instead, you only have enough mana to cast Empty.
Grapeshot, by itself, requires a storm count of 19 to kill an opponent from his starting life total. However, there are a few ways to reduce the storm count needed by more than half. Cantripping into one of these with enough mana and the Grapeshot already in hand is a kill. Once you start comboing, your idea of “not fizzling” should be drawing Grapeshot and one of these cards. (Or drawing into Gifts with 6 mana.)
The following assumes Baral is in play and Grapeshot is in hand.
1) Past in Flames. Once you draw it, leave 2RR open; the rest can be spent on cantrips and rituals, but don’t cast Grapeshot yet. When you’re out of cards to play, cast Past in Flames, then flashback all your rituals, this time leaving 3RRR open. Use that mana for Grapeshot + flashback Past + flashback Grapeshot at the end of your chain. The amount of damage done is 2S+4.
Note that you need at least 5 mana from your rituals after the Past (ritual, ritual, Manamophose suffices). If you don’t have that much, you can leave 2RRR open instead for Grapeshot, Past, flashback Grapeshot (leaving all the other cards in your graveyard un-flashed-back), or Grapeshot, Past, flashback ritual and a few more spells, flashback Grapeshot.
2) Remand. Leave URR open, then cast Grapeshot. Allow the storm trigger to resolve, then cast Remand targeting the original Grapeshot, and let everything resolve. Grapeshot is returned to your hand, you draw a card, and the Grapeshot copies deal damage. Then cast Grapeshot again. The amount of damage done is 2S+3 (the Remanded Grapeshot doesn’t do damage).
3) Another Grapeshot. You just need RR to cast both of them. The amount of damage done is 2S+3. Note that this is not very likely since the deck only plays 2 Grapeshots.
As mentioned in Baral’s section, comboing off without him is miserable. Unfortunately, creatures are the easiest permanents to kill, and the format is brimming with cheap removal: Lightning Bolt, Fatal Push, Dismember and Path to Exile, just to name a few. Nevertheless, it’s possible to power through removal. The key lies in knowing two things:
1) you can cast discounted spells in response to removal on Baral. You need 4 mana to do this: 2 for Baral, 1 for the first ritual, and 1 more for the ritual in response to removal.
2) the mana thresholds needed for a successful combo.
Also, when comboing off without Baral, mana is tight, so don’t forget that you can splice Desperate Ritual onto another copy of it for 1 extra mana.
Past in Flames + Grapeshot
The threshold is 5RRR for Grapeshot, Past, flashback Grapeshot. After casting Grapeshot + Past, you have 1R floating, which you can use to cast a few rituals before flashing back Grapeshot.
Example: your hand is Baral, ritual, ritual, ritual, Past in Flames, Grapeshot. You have 4 lands. You can deal 17 damage through removal:
Cast Baral, then cast a ritual, leaving R open (S: 2, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Opponent plays removal in response to ritual (S: 3, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Cast a ritual in response. Once that resolves, use the mana to cast another ritual. Then let the first ritual and the removal spell resolve. (S: 5, R: 8).
Cast Grapeshot for 6 damage (S: 6, R: 6).
Cast Past in Flames (S: 7, R: 2).
Flashback three rituals (S: 10, R: 5).
*You now have R: 3 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Flashback Grapeshot for 11 damage (S: 11, R: 3).
Past in Flames + Empty the Warrens
The threshold is 4RR for Past, 2 rituals, Empty.
Example: your hand is Baral, ritual, ritual, Past in Flames, Empty the Warrens. You have 4 lands. You can create 16 Goblins through removal:
Cast Baral, then cast a ritual, leaving R open (S: 2, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Opponent plays removal in response to ritual (S: 3, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Cast a ritual in response. Then let the first ritual and the removal spell resolve. (S: 4, R: 6).
Cast Past in Flames (S: 5, R: 2).
Flashback both rituals (S: 7, R: 4).
Cast Empty for 16 Goblins (S: 8, R: 0).
Note that you can Empty for 12 Goblins with just ritual, ritual, Past, Empty and 4 lands (no Baral needed).
Remand + Grapeshot
The threshold is 3URR for Grapeshot, Remand that, Grapeshot.
Example: your hand is Baral, ritual, ritual, Manamorphose, Grapeshot, Remand. You have 4 lands. You can deal 13 damage through removal:
Cast Baral, then cast a ritual, leaving R open (S: 2, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Opponent plays removal in response to ritual (S: 3, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Cast a ritual in response. Once that resolves, use the mana to cast Manamorphose for UU. Then let the first ritual and the removal spell resolve (S: 5, U: 2, R: 5, D: 1).
*You now have U: 1 free to cast a cantrip to boost S.
Cast Grapeshot, allow the storm trigger to resolve, then cast Remand targeting the original Grapeshot. The copies resolve for 5 damage (S: 7, U: 1, R: 2, D: 2).
Cast Grapeshot for 8 damage (S: 8, U: 1).
Empty the Warrens or double Grapeshot
The threshold is 3R (2RR for double Grapeshot).
Example: your hand is Baral, 2 rituals, Empty the Warrens. You have 3 lands. You can make 10 Goblins through removal:
Cast Baral, then cast a ritual (S: 2, R: 0, about to gain 3).
Opponent plays removal in response to ritual. Let it resolve (S: 3, R: 3).
Cast a ritual, then Empty the Warrens (S: 5, R: 0).
Gifts Ungiven
The threshold is 2UR and a ritual on the stack just before you cast Gifts.
Example: your hand is Baral, ritual, ritual, Manamorphose, Gifts. You have 4 lands. You can make at least 14 Goblins through removal:
Cast Baral, then cast a ritual, leaving R open (S: 2, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Opponent plays removal in response to ritual (S: 3, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Cast a ritual in response. Once that resolves, use the mana to cast Manamorphose for UU. (S: 5, U: 2, R: 2, about to gain 3, D: 1).
Cast Gifts for ritual, ritual, Past in Flames, Empty the Warrens (S: 6, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Ritual + Ritual
Cast both rituals (S: 8, R: 5, about to gain 3).
Let the first ritual and removal spell resolve. (S: 8, R: 8)
Flashback Past in Flames, ritual, Manamorphose for UU, then three rituals (S: 14, U: 2, R: 5, D: 2).
*You now have U: 2 and R: 1 free to cast spells to boost S.
Flashback Empty for 30 Goblins (S: 15, U: 2, R: 1).
Ritual + Past
Cast ritual (S: 7, R: 3, about to gain 3).
Let the first ritual and removal spell resolve (S: 7, R: 6).
Cast Past in Flames, two rituals, Manamorphose for UU, then two rituals (S: 13, U: 2, R: 4, D: 2).
*You now have U: 2 free to cast spells to boost S.
Flashback Empty for 28 Goblins (S: 14, U: 2).
Ritual + Empty
Cast ritual (S: 7, R: 3, about to gain 3).
Let the first ritual and removal spell resolve (S: 7, R: 6).
*You now have R: 2 free to cast spells to boost S.
Cast Empty for 16 Goblins (S: 8, R: 2)
Alternatively, you can skip the ritual for just 14 Goblins, if you’d like to save it for a future turn.
Past + Empty
Let the first ritual and removal spell resolve (S: 6, R: 4).
Cast Empty for 14 Goblins (S: 7).
Suppose your hand is ritual, ritual, Gifts. You have 4 lands. You can make at least 12 Goblins on the next turn by casting Gifts for Baral, Electromancer, Past in Flames, Empty the Warrens:
Baral + Electromancer
Cast Baral, ritual, ritual (S: 3, U: 1, R: 5).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 4, U: 1, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals (S: 6, U: 1, R: 5).
*You now have U: 1, R: 2 free to cast spells to boost S.
Flashback Empty for 14 Goblins (S: 7, U: 1, R: 2).
You can cast Electromancer before flashing back Past. It pays for itself after discounting Past and Empty. This gives you 1 more storm, but leaves you with R: 3 instead of U: 1, R: 2.
Baral + Past or Electromancer + Past
Cast Baral, ritual, ritual, Past (S: 3, U: 1, R: 2).
Flashback both rituals (S: 6, U: 1, R: 6).
*You now have U: 1, R: 3 free to cast spells to boost S.
Flashback Empty for 14 Goblins (S: 7, U: 1, R: 3).
Baral + Empty or Electromancer + Empty
Cast Baral, ritual, ritual (S: 3, U: 1, R: 5).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 4, U: 1, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals (S: 6, U: 1, R: 5).
*You now have U: 1, R: 2 free to cast spells to boost S.
Cast Empty for 14 Goblins (S: 7, U: 1, R: 2).
Past + Empty
Cast ritual, ritual, Past (S: 3, R: 2).
Flashback all rituals (S: 5, R: 4).
Cast Empty for 12 Goblins (S: 6, R: 0).
Note that in all scenarios other than Past + Empty, you have enough mana to flash back Gifts before Empty. Go nuts. This also goes to show how ridiculous Baral is.
Also note that any scenario where Past ends up in your hand is capable of casting Empty through removal. The other two scenarios only require 1 extra mana (from a land, ritual or Manamorphose) to win through removal.
We’ve already gone through several Gifts examples under rigid conditions. Unfortunately, this primer can’t possibly cover the optimal combination of cards you should get with Gifts in every single situation. What I can do is offer tips for coming up with Gifts piles on the fly.
Gifts for Value
This refers to Gifts-ing with no expectations that you’ll be able to combo off immediately. Remember, Gifts is card advantage: it replaces itself with two cards.
Generally, you’ll want to ask yourself “what are the 4 best cards in my library right now?” and present those to your opponent. Assuming he plays optimally, he will put the third- and fourth-best cards into your hand.
If you search for Past in Flames, your opponent would want to put that in your hand - if he doesn’t, he’s giving you access to three cards (Past in the graveyard, and the two cards that he put in your hand) instead of two right off the bat.
Gifts for Combo
The first thing you want to figure out is how many pieces you’re missing. If the answer is “3 or more”, you should probably Gifts for value instead.
The next thing to do is to get the pieces that you’re missing, and as many similar copies as there are available in your library. If you’re missing just 1 card, get as many functionally identical copies of that card as possible - if you get 3, your opponent is forced to put at least one in your hand. Past in Flames is a copy of any instant/sorcery card, albeit an expensive one.
A more interesting scenario is if you have 2 cards that you’re missing, and you can choose to split them 2-2 or 3-1. If one of those effects is useless in multiples and you split 2-2, your opponent can choose to put 2 copies of that effect in your hand, basically giving you only 1 card out of Gifts. 3-1 is better - you might still be able to win if your opponent gives you 2 copies out of 3 of the other effect.
Example: Suppose you have 4 lands on the field, and land, Past, Gifts, and a storm spell in hand. Your graveyard has enough rituals that you can win if you resolve Past and flashback a ritual. You cast Gifts at the end of your opponent’s turn, and think about what to get:
- You know that Baral + ritual is game over.
- If you choose Baral, Electromancer, ritual, ritual, your opponent can give you Baral + Electromancer. This way you can’t combo off when you untap: you only have 5 mana, and that’s exactly enough for Baral + Past with no mana remaining to flashback rituals.
- If you choose Baral, ritual, ritual, Manamorphose instead, you’re safe:
Play a land to get to 5 mana first. Baral + Ritual
Cast Baral, ritual, Past (R: 2).
In all cases you have enough mana to flashback a ritual and win.
If you don’t have enough redundant effects to present to your opponent, you have a few choices to fill out the remaining slots. You can get counterspells or removal to buy time, Gifts to try again next turn, or cantrips to dig for the missing effect.
Having read the sections “The basic Gifts combo” and “Winning through removal on Baral”, you should notice a certain tension. Playing Baral on turn 2 leads to the fastest kills, provided it survives. However, holding Baral in hand until you have enough mana to play him with several rituals lets you kill through removal. So when is the best time to play Baral?
In general, the answer is “when he’s safe”. That means when:
- You have a second copy of Baral in your hand.
- You are confident that your opponent has no removal. It helps to know which decks play removal and which don’t, as well as which decks rely on toughness-based removal that miss Baral by 1 point (Collective Brutality, Pyroclasm).
- Your opponent is tapped out, and you have enough mana to play Baral and win on the same turn. Sometimes you can get them when they tap out for something and you counter it.
- You can win through removal on Baral.
Holding Baral hurts you less than you might expect. If your opponent leaves up mana in the fear that you’ll play Baral and combo off on the same turn, that mana is wasted if you play cantrips instead of Baral. The more turns you both spend in this standoff, the more draw steps you get to sculpt a hand that can win through removal. This doesn’t mean that removal is useless against Storm - if your opponent has a decent amount of power on the board, you won’t have as many draws as you’d like.
Sometimes, it happens. You start comboing off and realize that you’re not going to make it. Rather than scoop on the spot, try to make the most of the situation. Play towards your outs.
- To avoid fizzling in the first place, if you’re comboing off without Gifts, review the resources available to you. How much mana do you have? Do you have Manamorphose to generate blue mana for cantrips? Do you have enough mana (i.e. 6) to transition into the Gifts kill if you happen to draw it? How many cantrips do you have? Do you already have Past in Flames in hand? How about Grapeshot or Empty the Warrens? The more vital cards you have locked down (i.e. already in hand), the more confident you can be of not fizzling.
- Use cantrips to scout your draws before committing to playing rituals. If you play rituals first, and the subsequent cantrips yield nothing of use, all that mana is wasted. Also, Serum Visions’ scry sets up Manamorphose’s draw.
- Spend cantrips that have been granted flashback with Past in Flames, instead of casting cantrips from your hand. Flashback only lasts until end of turn, but you can cast those cantrips in your hand any time.
- See if you can use Grapeshot to wipe your opponent’s board. You don’t have to send everything at his face; wiping his board buys you several draw steps and attack phases, which will ease the amount of resources you need for the second combo.
- Try to find Empty the Warrens with your cantrips or Gifts and use that to end the combo. It kills at a lower mana/storm count, and you don’t have to draw Remand or Past in Flames together with it.
- Try to find Past in Flames with your cantrips or Gifts if you have a lot of cards in your graveyard. You can go off next turn by casting Past and effectively putting your graveyard into your hand. Spending a failed combo turn ritualing and cantripping is not the worst thing in the world if you have Past to rebuy all those cards.
If you play Affinity, you might be aware of the 2-turn Inkmoth Nexus kill (sac stuff to Arcbound Ravager, sac Ravager to put at least 4 counters on Nexus, then attack twice with Nexus). Storm can operate similarly (if you have enough mana for Grapeshot, but not Past + ritual), taking out half of your opponent’s life in one turn with the first Grapeshot, then taking out the remaining half on the next turn with Past, flashback entire graveyard, flashback Grapeshot. You don’t have to do the damage all at once!
- Gifts for ritual, ritual, Past in Flames and 1 other card. The Past in Flames gives you a shot at comboing off again, and the rituals help generate mana after Past. Sometimes your opponent will screw up and give you both rituals (especially on MTGO, where they don’t RTFC and realize that the selected cards go into your graveyard, not your hand), and you can take advantage of their blunder to continue comboing off.
Example: This turn, you’re on 3 lands and played Baral, ritual, Manamorphose, Manamorphose, Gifts, leaving UR floating. Your Manamorphose draws bricked, yielding lands instead of spells. You have enough cards in the graveyard that if you manage to cast or flashback Past in Flames with R floating, you should be able to kill your opponent. Your opponent has some creatures on his board. To add to the urgency, let’s say one of them is a Scavenging Ooze and your opponent is currently tapped out, but if you let him untap, that Ooze can eat up your graveyard.
If you cast Gifts and get the usual ritual, ritual, Manamorphose, Past package, your opponent can put Manamorphose and Past in hand and leave you stuck for the turn. Instead, get ritual, ritual, Past, Grapeshot.
S: 5, U: 1, R: 1 Ritual + Ritual
Cast both rituals (S: 7, U: 1, R: 5).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 8, U: 1, R: 1).
Flashback the cards in your graveyard and win.
Ritual + Past
Cast ritual (S: 6, U: 1, R: 3)
Cast Past (S: 7, R: 1).
Flashback the cards in your graveyard and win.
Ritual + Grapeshot
Cast Grapeshot for 6 damage to kill your opponent’s creatures, and end the turn.
Next turn, play a land, cast ritual, flashback Past in Flames and win.
Past + Grapeshot
Cast Grapeshot for 6 damage to kill your opponent’s creatures, and end the turn.
Next turn, play a land, cast Past in Flames and win.
There are four ways to beat hate:
1) Through it. Just jam your combo against their hate. (You have to be sure that you can actually beat their hate this way, though - don’t just play into their hate blindly and 5-for-1 yourself with nothing to show for it!) This works against hate cards that stop only one non-essential card in the combo, like a ritual: if you get a critical mass of cards and enough mana to cast them, you don’t care if they stop one card, because you’ll just play another copy.
2) Around it. Play a different wincon that wins in a way that their hate is ineffective against. A summary of alternative wincons:
- Empty the Warrens. As mentioned in its section in “Card Choices”, it beats a lot of hate that Grapeshot loses to. You’re going to see it being mentioned a lot in the following subsections.
- Blood Moon. It locks out quite a few decks, and you can play it on turn 2 with rituals. It’s especially effective against ramp decks. Note that it may backfire by allowing them to cast Anger of the Gods against your Goblin army.
- Shatterstorm and Shattering Spree (against Affinity). These cards wipe Affinity’s board, and take out a few of their mana sources as well. Again, rituals help with playing them ahead of curve.
- Unburial Rites + Iona, Shield of Emeria or Madcap Experiment + Platinum Emperion. These wincons don’t require you to cast multiple spells in one turn, so they’ll beat things like Eidolon of Rhetoric or Eidolon of the Great Revel. Rites still uses the graveyard though.
3) Under it. Combo off before they get a chance to play their hate card. Empty the Warrens is particularly good at this, since it can create enough tokens to get the job done on turn 2 or 3. The game can swing very quickly if you manage to sneak under hate - if you manage to make a bunch of Goblins before your opponent plays, say, Rule of Law, then all of a sudden that Rule of Law changes from the best card against your deck, to a blank that doesn’t deal with the Goblin army about to kill him.
4) Remove it. Get rid of the offending hate card. Dispel deals with most things that try to stop you on the stack, and Echoing Truth deals with most permanents. Lightning Bolt and the various artifact/enchantment removal spells offer a more lasting solution to specific hate permanents.
Removal
- Yes, Storm has to worry about removal. Your engines are creatures. Refer to the sections “Winning through removal on Baral” and “When to play Baral” for tips on playing against removal.
- Other than stuff killing Baral, the other kind of removal you have to worry about is board wipes killing your Empty the Warrens tokens. If you suspect a board wipe, try not to throw away rituals just for the sake of getting 2 more Goblins if you’re not going to spend the extra mana. Save them so that you have more resources to work with during the second combo.
Counterspells
- Empty the Warrens is a good way of playing through counters. It creates a lethal army at a realistically achievable mana cost through counters, and any counterspell that your opponent plays is 2 more Goblins for you.
- If your opponent counters the first ritual that you play while trying to combo off, it isn’t too bad for you, since your rituals are cheap and you can get a second use out of them with Past in Flames. If he saves his counterspell for Past in Flames, you can punish him by ending your chain with Empty the Warrens instead of Past.
- With Baral, Remand becomes almost useless against rituals, since you can just cast them again and still gain mana.
Discard
- Past in Flames is your main line of defense against discard. Any instant/sorcery that you discard can be recovered with Past, and Past even has built-in flashback if it’s discarded. The thing you have to watch out for is them discarding Baral, or discard + grave hate (e.g. Scavenging Ooze).
- Past in Flames, Gifts Ungiven and Empty the Warrens can’t be taken with Inquisition of Kozilek.
Grave hate
- Your wincons that ignore grave hate are Empty the Warrens and Grapeshot + Remand. Usually Empty is more common as you will board out either Grapeshot or Remand.
- Surgical Extraction makes Gifts a lot weaker, since it can take out all copies of one ritual (meaning you can’t Gifts for that ritual), and if you Gifts for a wincon, your opponent can put it in the graveyard and extract it before you get a chance to flash it back with Past in Flames.
- If you have a good read on your opponent, you can bounce his Relic of Progenitus to trick him into blowing it on the spot, even though you don’t have enough resources to combo in hand.
- Blood Moon can cut your opponent off green mana for Scavenging Ooze.
Storm hate
- Cards that pinpoint your wincon but don’t actually stop you from drawing through your library are not that effective. E.g.: Leyline of Sanctity (when you’re comboing without Gifts), Meddling Mage, Runed Halo. As you draw through your library you’ll eventually hit a wincon that isn’t stopped by that card, or an Echoing Truth/removal.
- Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Thorn of Amethyst can be neutralized by playing additional Goblin Electromancers. Baral is legendary, so you can’t have multiples of him on the field.
- Chalice of the Void needs to be on 2 to stop the deck, but that costs 4 mana, so you can go under it.
- Don’t worry too much about dedicated Storm hate like Rule of Law in an open meta. A lot of decks are viable in Modern, and Storm is not so popular that people will play targeted hate for it; instead they’ll play general answers like grave hate because they are applicable in multiple matchups. Those general answers are easier for you to deal with. The one exception is Burn with its maindeck Eidolon of the Great Revel.
Board out:
- Remand against aggro decks. Removal is cheaper, deals with threats permanently, and has a wider window for you to cast it. A good number of aggro decks have Cavern of Souls, Aether Vial, or have their creatures enter the battlefield via abilities, making Remand terrible against them.
- Gifts Ungiven against decks with counters, grave hate, Leyline of Sanctity, or speed.
- Your weaker cantrips (Sleight of Hand/Opt) if you still need space.
Board in:
- Removal against aggro decks, decks with mana dorks, or combo decks that rely on creatures.
- Counters against combo or control decks.
- Pieces of the Puzzle, if you board out Gifts Ungiven.
- Empty the Warrens against most fair decks.
- An out for Damping Sphere (Echoing Truth/Abrade) if you suspect it's coming.
Good Matchups
- Ramp decks (Tron, Valakut)
Ramp decks are slower than you, and don’t have much in the way of interaction. They win by casting giant creatures, which you can ignore by Grapeshotting their face. Remand will catch them when they tap out for their threats (other than Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, which triggers on cast), and you can go off safely on your turn. Post-board, they will side in all their removal and grave hate. You can expect to see board wipes like Pyroclasm and Anger of the Gods; they’re a bit expensive, but they get rid of Electromancer and Baral, and undo Empty the Warrens, so side Empty out. Side in bounce spells to get rid of their hate.
- U control decks (UW, Jeskai, Grixis)
Blue control decks are weak against Empty the Warrens. Their main methods of stopping you (spot removal and counterspells) stack up badly against it, and they don’t have a lot of creatures to block with. If your opponent holds up counter/removal mana to stop you from comboing off and you just play a few cantrips (which he doesn’t counter), you have the advantage since he basically held up that mana for nothing. Post-board, bring in Empty the Warrens, counterspells, and at least one bounce spell for Damping Sphere. Swap Gifts Ungiven for Pieces of the Puzzle.
Even Matchups
- Aggro decks (Affinity, Zoo)
Aggro matchups are a race. They’ll put a clock on you and disrupt your combo with removal, but you can fight through their 4 Bolts with your 7-8 Electromancer effects. Post-board, you can expect to see more removal, maybe some grave hate. Board in removal to kill their turn 1 plays and hatebears. Board out Remand; it’s bad against decks full of cheap (possibly uncounterable) creatures.
- Combo decks (Ad Nauseam, Grishoalbrand)
Combo decks are also a race. You can run out Baral on turn 2 without much fear of it getting killed, but there are combo decks which are capable of racing T2 Baral into T3 kill. Maindeck Remands give you a slight advantage. Post-board, bring in cheap disruption like Dispel, and Lightning Bolt if their combo relies on a Boltable creature. Board out Empty the Warrens, as it doesn’t kill quite fast enough (although you might still want 1 if the opposing deck plays Leyline of Sanctity).
Bad Matchups
- BGx midrange decks (Jund, Abzan)
Black-green midrange decks play all kinds of disruption: discard, removal (including the uncounterable Abrupt Decay), and grave hate (Scavenging Ooze), all maindeck to boot. On the plus side, their disruption can be pretty mana-intensive, so you can go under it with Empty the Warrens, or play Baral, watch them tap out on their turn to kill him, then play another Baral on your turn and combo off. Board in Empty the Warrens, as it doesn’t take too many resources to convert it into a win. Board out Remand; it’s bad against 1-mana disruption spells and uncounterable Decays. Swap Gifts Ungiven for Pieces of the Puzzle.
- Burn
Burn is a special kind of aggro deck. A lot of its spells can be used to kill your creatures. They play Eidolon of the Great Revel maindeck, and you can’t win unless you get rid of it. Pre-board, remember that you can cast a spell followed by Grapeshot to kill Eidolon. Post-board, bring in all the removal you have, and Dispel for countering their removal.
- Humans
Humans, like Burn, is another deck that plays maindeck hatebears and makes your life miserable. Humans has full playsets of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Meddling Mage and Kitesail Freebooter. Post-board, bring in all your removal.
First off, thanks for the new thread, secondly I was having an interesting conversation with some people at my LGS, can we cut a Ravings and a Thought Scour for two Reforge the soul?
Also can you cast your rituals after revealing a miracled Reforge the soul or would it be cast during your draw step and empty out of your pool?
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MODERN GRIXIS FAERIES FISH NAYA BURN STANDARD RABBLE RED E D H OCEAN MASTER LORTHOS Daretti's House of Artifacts AND LAND DESTRUCTION SIDISI VALUE
How do you guys deal with UWR control or draw/go decks? The good players hold onto counters for early rituals and won't hold back waiting for the kill spell or engine. What do you bring in from the board?
Woah, new thread already? Is this where we should post now? I will say the "new" primer looks a bit neater, but what exactly was the point of starting a new thread?
*edit* Don't mean to sound like a jerk, sorry if i came off like it!
First off, thanks for the new thread, secondly I was having an interesting conversation with some people at my LGS, can we cut a Ravings and a Thought Scour for two Reforge the soul?
Also can you cast your rituals after revealing a miracled Reforge the soul or would it be cast during your draw step and empty out of your pool?
Don't do it. If you cut a Ravings and a Thought Scour, it becomes harder for you to get two counters on Ascension because you're playing fewer 4- and 3-ofs. Reforge the Soul is a high-CMC draw spell, so the only thing it should replace is another high-CMC draw spell (i.e. Past in Flames). Honestly though, Past is much better than Reforge.
Not sure what you mean about the second, Reforge the Soul just draws you cards, it doesn't force you to cast your rituals. If you miracle it, both players discard and draw 7. If you want to cast rituals after that you can, but it isn't going to do you any good.
How do you guys deal with UWR control or draw/go decks? The good players hold onto counters for early rituals and won't hold back waiting for the kill spell or engine. What do you bring in from the board?
Blood Moon and Empty the Warrens. Against UWR you have 3 outs:
1) Land Blood Moon and lock them out.
2) Cast an early Empty the Warrens (maybe even through one counterspell) and beat them down.
3) Get two counters on Pyromancer Ascension, which lets you brute-force past their counterspells.
Woah, new thread already? Is this where we should post now? I will say the "new" primer looks a bit neater, but what exactly was the point of starting a new thread?
*edit* Don't mean to sound like a jerk, sorry if i came off like it!
The old OP didn't have as much time to keep it updated, so I took over. We agreed on this via PM. You can trust me, I co-wrote the previous primer with him.
Miracle'd Reforge the Soul is cast during your draw step, assuming you draw your first card of the turn during your draw step. Also, 5 mana is a lot for a wheel effect and unless you're expecting to be facing a lot of lili drawing cards really shouldn't be an issue and will probably result in you getting the worse hand.
Also, from the previous thread Blood Moon, Defense Grid, and potentially Echoing Truth are all good to sideboard in against UWR. They don't really pressure us, so just cantrip and force them to answer you and eventually you'll achieve critical mass and kill them.
The old OP didn't have as much time to keep it updated, so I took over. We agreed on this via PM. You can trust me, I co-wrote the previous primer with him.
Thought Scour increases your chances of hitting an engine in exactly the same way as any cantrip increases your chances of hitting an engine. While the milling out technically does decrease the odds of you not drawing an engine, it only does so in the sense that if you were to draw your entire deck you could theoretically mill away all of your engines. On the scale of drawing 30-40 cards out of your 60 the mill does not affect your chances of drawing an engine, while it does provide a significant increase in the odds of you being able to successfully online an ascension or kill with pif.
So i guess if you mill 2 cards that aren't an engine you "thin your deck" and the percentage of drawing an engine probably does go up. That's a perspective i haven't looked at actually.. I'm still not quite convinced though. You say it sets up Ascension, which i completely agree with, but so does Faithless Looting. And Peer Through Depths can find a card you need to get Ascension turned on, so there's that too.
I still think you get more benefits from running Looting and Peer, than you do from Ravings and Scour. The argument that Looting doesn't grab an engine seems kind of weak to me as you still have a great suite of dig spells to find an engine, and Peer adds so much to the deck that i feel it's worth it to lose those few percentage points in finding an engine, because by running Peer, you gain points elsewhere.
By running Peer you find what you need more often so you can combo more consistently, and when you do combo off you fizzle less because you can find the card you need to keep going. Also, and to me this is big, Peer plays extremely well with Electromancer. How many solo 'Mancer kills are you guys getting? Because in builds without Peer it was rarely viable for me. Peer lets you Solo 'Mancer like a champ. It's so good it has me wanting a 2nd Empty the Warrens maindeck possibly.
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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!
I think a transformational sideboard could be really useful in improving our postboard games. Here are a couple of ideas that I can think of off the top of my head (for the first one you would play two Breeding Pools over two Islands in the main, at least in my list):
Peer vs Scour and Ravings vs Looting is something that should really be decided through actual playtesting. I'm fairly certain that Ravings is superior to Looting because it actually draws cards, but I'd say that Peer vs Scour is much closer; scour can potentially find an engine and gives more raw gas for pif, but peer will rarely if ever whiff. On gut feeling I'd say the lower mana cost of scour gives it the edge, but it's a tough call. I'd test it out, but I have no experience in this sort of stuff and am not confident in the ability to provide good data. If anyone else wants to play the matches I'd be happy to analyze the results though.
Also, if you're running a transformational sideboard plan what matchups do you expect these sideboards to improve? Also, I'd probably cut some of the cards out of the last twin transformation plan (1-2 kiki, 2-3 pestermite) for protection like remand or dispel.
Edit: Also, it looks like the current primer doesn't mention anything about Eidolon of Rhetoric from pod. I think echoing truth is an important card for the matchup so you're not completely dead to eidolon, but how about running a singleton flame slash for extra security? This is my current sideboard:
While it feels right, I'm definitely not saying i'm 100% correct with my configuration of Peer and Looting, but it's really not that simple at all. There are a crazy amount of variables to weigh. Like the fact that Ravings is only card advantage in 2 scenarios; when you have an active Ascension and when it's being flashbacked. The latter is basically the equivalent of paying 5 mana to net 1 card and cast Hymn to Tourach on yourself. That doesn't seem like a good deal when it's completely unnecessary.
Speaking of Ravings and "card advantage"- you don't really need card advantage with this deck. Once you have an active Ascension all your cantrips are more than enough to get the win, and if you're comboing through Electromancer, Peer does a ton of work finding your PIF/ Empty or whatever else you need to keep the combo going. There really isn't a point where you need card advantage, what you really want is to find specific cards, not just a lot of anything.
Here's the thing, there are pros and cons for each choice. Through countless games and matches with this deck, and constant experimentation and testing, i feel like Peer and Looting bring more to the table than Ravings and Scour, but that is just a feeling, and an opinion. Let's try to break down the pros and cons of each choice in an attempt to find a quantifiable way of coming to some sort of conclusion here.
Ok, now there is a few other things we can do with this. Let's look at the similarities between the 2 configurations; the pros and cons that they share.
So again, i'm not saying i'm 100% right, but i like the way that looks, and i like the way it feels. That being said, my lists could potentially be a bit biased i guess.. I guess all i can say is that it feels really damn good playing Looting and Peer, but if anything we can agree to disagree.
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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!
Ravings > Looting. I mean, you say double Ravings is like Hymning yourself, but Looting is double Mind Rot on yourself, lol.
It's hard to see why discard 1 is better than discard 2 even if the discard 1 is random, but consider this: you WILL be playing Ravings/Looting multiple times in the combo turn, either by PA or Past. Imagine any hand, then suppose you draw 8 cards and randomly discard 4. Now go back to the original hand, and suppose you draw 8 and discard 8 of your choice. Which is better?
To give you an idea, the worst-case scenario with Ravings is discarding 4 good cards. Now look at Looting, in order to merely tie with Ravings, at least half the cards (i.e. 4) you discard need to be junk, and by junk I mean something that is totally useless, whether in hand or graveyard. Look at your decklist again; the things you don't want to draw mid-combo are lands, PAs and Electromancers, which make up 24/60 cards. So slightly less than half the cards you draw or already have in hand will be junk.
So, in summary, this is what Ravings and Looting do, approximately:
Ravings, WORST-CASE: Draw 8, discard 4 useful cards.
Looting, AVERAGE: Draw 8, discard 4.8 useful cards and 3.2 lands/PAs/Mancers.
(With Looting you can discard the junk, but it doesn't matter - junk is useless, whether in the hand or graveyard.)
Looting's average scenario is worse than Ravings' worst-case. So, play Ravings.
Another scenario: suppose you spent a bunch of cards to get Ascension active, and are low on cards in hand. We'll take the limiting case: suppose you only have one card in hand, and that card is either Ravings or Looting. Which option is better? With Looting you will just end up Tome Scouring yourself, but with Ravings you can rebuild your hand.
With regards to the supplementary cantrips, Scour + Ravings is the generally accepted option. I think Looting sucks and I already explained why above, so I'm not going to consider it. You say Scour might mill your outs, but if you're so afraid of that, then target your opponent instead, and target yourself only when you're ahead and not afraid to mill anything (e.g. active Ascension with a Past in hand). I mean, if targeting yourself has a chance of milling your outs, then targeting your opponent means milling his outs, right?
That leaves three combinations, once Looting is out:
Ravings + Peer is too many 2CMC cards. This combination is amazing with Electromancer, but not good enough otherwise.
Scour + Peer is OK, I guess.
Scour + Ravings - now, in a vacuum, Peer is probably as good as, or better, than Ravings. The thing is, Ravings' flashback is really good against discard and slow decks (slow decks can't kill you quickly, so you just cast Ravings twice and build your hand). If I expect absolutely no interaction from all my opponents I would play Peer, but that never happens, so instead of Scour + Peer I have Scour + Ravings.
My only thought is that Looting + Peer allows you to more easily turn on Pyromancer's Ascension, and Looting is one cmc less than raving, while also not being random. Card advantage is fine and all, but Storm can be random enough without adding in more randomness from Ravings.
Looting + Peer is cheaper and more controllable, that's the reason why I prefer it anyways.
Looting + Peer costs exactly the same mana as Scour + Ravings and Ravings isn't nearly as unpredictable as it seems. Look at it this way, drawing two cards and discarding one at random is either equivalent to milling yourself for one and drawing a card (and with flashback that is actually a good card that is better than think twice in a deck that uses its graveyard) or it's equivalent to drawing two cards and then discarding a card that you haven't played from your hand. The only cards that we wont cast before ravings are extra copies of engines/lands (which are ideal for discarding) and rituals (sucks, but drawing two cards and pitching a ritual isn't awful) or extra cantrips that we can't play through a rule of law effect. None of those are actually problematic to discard, and while the random can on rare occasions bite us in the ass, overwhelmingly we pitch something non-relevant. In any case though this whole discussion is pretty pointless because storm is a deck of percentage points and nobody is providing information on what the actual change in combo rates are. If you really think that your non-standard choice is superior play 10-20 matches with both sets against tier decks and give us your results.
The random thing would have been valid if Ravings discarded the same number of cards as Looting, but the fact is, Ravings discards one less.
I mean if we're going to use the Hymn comparison, well, just ask yourself, suppose you're building a fair deck, which of these two cards would you rather play?
1) BB sorcery, target player discards two cards at random
2) BB sorcery, target player discards four cards
Obviously you'd choose the discard 4 - it's a lot worse for your opponent to get hit by that than Hymn. In your opponent's POV he'd rather get hit by discard 2 at random than discard 4 of his choice. This isn't any different in Storm, you'd rather discard 2 at random than discard 4 of your choice.
JJ, the OP has suggested sideboarding for each major deck, they're just organized into Good/Even/Bad matchups. The only difference from your board and the one in the examples is one Shatterstorm is a Defense Grid. I've been playing that exact 75 for a couple weeks now and here's my 2 cents.
Echoing Truth almost always comes in. It's the Swiss army knife of our SB. It can deal with virtually any hate that they bring in but you don't main board counter hate because they don't main hate.
Defense Grids come in when you see your opponent doing a lot of things on your turn. IMO this is the weakest card in the board but I get it.
Shatterstorm comes in against pretty much only Affinity. However, Affinity is boned so hard by it and is usually prevalent in all metas, it's worth it. 2 is enough unless your meta is pretty much all Affinity.
Bloodmoon comes in against virtually any 3 color deck or any 2 color deck not playing red. Turn 2 ritual into Blood Moon will almost always win the game. You get an extensive amount of turns to set up. It doesn't always win though, I've lost to Tron by dropping it turn 2 but only drawing lands and rituals. Wurmcoil is still strong on turn 6. Bloodmoon is amazing though.
Lightning Bolt is Echoing Truth 2.0. Deals with almost every creature hate that could come in and gives you some interaction. Also gotten a game or two by getting active Ascension and then Bolt Bolt for 12 to the face. Pay attention to the toughnesses of your opponents creatures before bringing these in though.
Empty the Warrens are for when you don't know what hate they're bringing in or can't deal with what they'll bring in. Turn 2 ritual ritual warrens is not awful in most cases. They also chump block well.
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What is Gifts Storm?
Gifts Storm plays the powerful tutor Gifts Ungiven, which takes the randomness out of Storm. Normally, when you combo off with Storm, you may end up drawing nothing but lands and losing as a result. Gifts Ungiven’s tutoring abilities bring down your fizzle rate significantly (sometimes eliminating it completely), regardless of how your opponent splits the four cards. Don’t let that fool you into thinking Gifts Storm is totally reliant on Gifts; it’s still very much capable of Storming the old-fashioned way.
*this is an exaggeration
Below is a history of Storm in Modern, including non-Gifts builds, covering notable tournament finishes and card pool additions (and removals).
Sep 11: Max Sjoblom T8ed PT Philadelphia with Storm. Several Storm builds were present at the event, but they all shared the time-honored Storm game plan of cantripping into rituals, generating mana for more cantrips, ad Grapeshotium.
Sep 11: Ponder, Preordain and Rite of Flame were banned, the first two due to the large number of combo decks at PT Philadelphia, and Rite due to, of course, Storm. Combo decks (Storm included) moved on to Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand, and the loss of Rite had a minimal effect on Storm.
Sep 11: Innistrad was released. In line with color-shifting rituals from black to red, the red Yawgmoth's Will (Past in Flames) was printed and added to Storm.
Apr 12: Yann Blumer and Jose Luis Velazquez del Pozo T8ed GP Turin with Storm. It is interesting to note that neither of them played Pyromancer Ascension, which would become a staple in Storm decks for a long time. Blumer maxed out on Grapeshot and Velazquez played Gifts Ungiven.
Oct 12: Return to Ravnica was released, adding Goblin Electromancer and Epic Experiment to Storm's arsenal. PT RTR saw the creation of the stock Storm list with 16 lands and Ascension + Electromancer.
Nov 12: Olivier Ruel T8ed GP Lyon with Storm. Epic Experiment started seeing play as an alternative Storm build. With Goblin Electromancer in play, casting a few rituals would result in a huge Experiment, reminiscent of Mind's Desire. This style of playing a few rituals and ending with a single powerful spell would lend itself to Gifts Storm.
Jan 13: Seething Song was banned. Epic Experiment became unplayable as a result, since without Song, not only was it harder to cast a big Experiment, Experiment couldn't flip over an "add 5 mana" card either.
May 13: Jon Finkel T16ed GP Portland with Storm.
Feb 14: Chris Fennell T8ed PT BNG with Storm.
May 14: Journey into Nyx was released. More precisely, Eidolon of the Great Revel was released: a maindeckable Burn card which denied Storm from doing its thing, and cemented Burn as a top-tier deck. Thus began the decline of Storm.
Sep 14: Khans of Tarkir was released, and in it, the most broken card to see print in recent years: Treasure Cruise. We're talking "banned in Modern, Legacy, Pauper, and restricted in Vintage"-levels of brokenness. TC gave Storm a slight boost, but its effect on Storm was overshadowed by its effect on the Jeskai Ascendancy combo deck (which killed faster than Storm on average), Delver (which beat up on combo decks), and even Burn (which splashed for it).
Jan 15: Treasure Cruise was banned.
Mar 16: James Zornes T8ed GP Detroit during Eldrazi Winter, in a field devoid of Burn and full of Eldrazi decks which were light on interaction. Jose Luis Velazquez placed 12th at GP Bologna in the same weekend.
Jan 17: Aether Revolt was released and Gitaxian Probe was banned. While the Probe ban hurt Storm directly, it also hurt Storm's competitors: Infect, Death's Shadow Zoo and UR Kiln Fiend, all of which preyed on combo decks like Storm by goldfishing a turn faster. Aether Revolt also brought about Baral, Chief of Compliance, providing extra Goblin Electromancer effects.
May 17: Martin Muller T8ed GP Copenhagen with Gifts Storm.
- Serum Visions
- Sleight of Hand
These two are the best cantrips in Modern. Pretty much all combo decks play Serum Visions, and if they need more cantrips, they use Sleight of Hand. Gifts Storm is one such deck.Cantrips let you play lower land counts than most other decks. Whatever it is that you’re missing - a land, Baral, big payoff spell like Gifts or Past - cantrips are going to find it directly, draw into another cantrip to help you find it, or, in the worst-case scenario, push a bunch of irrelevant cards out of the way. Their low mana cost makes them castable when you’re starved on mana, and easily chainable (important for a deck that wants to play many spells in one turn).
SV is better than Sleight, so cut Sleights instead of SV when sideboarding.
- Pyretic Ritual
- Desperate Ritual
- Manamorphose
These cards provide mana during the combo. Pyretic and Desperate Ritual get you ahead on mana, and Manamorphose generates blue for cantrips.Pyretic Ritual is strictly worse than Desperate Ritual, but don’t let that put you off using it. You need the redundancy.
- Baral, Chief of Compliance
- Goblin Electromancer
These cards unlock the full potential of the deck. They cost 2 mana but easily save you dozens of mana during the combo turn. With them, your rituals become red Dark Rituals, netting 2 mana, and Past in Flames turns into a better Yawgmoth’s Will (and Will is banned in Legacy!). Without them, your rituals are still like Dark Rituals, but with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben on your opponent’s side of the field: miserable.Baral is generally better, since he has an extra point of toughness, which lets him survive more combat situations and toughness-based removal spells than Electromancer. His loot ability is a nice bonus, but nothing gamebreaking.
Multiple Electromancers or Barals stack, but most of the time you only need 1. The second Mancer pays for itself if you manage to cast two Gifts or Pasts with it.
Past in Flames grants flashback, which is almost the same as putting those cards back into your hand. If you’ve casted a bunch of spells this turn, Past gives them all back, and every spell that you’ve casted on previous turns on top of all those. That’s a lot of cards.
It serves another crucial function in the deck: giving you access to every card off Gifts, no matter how your opponent splits them. Regardless of where Past ends up, as long as you have enough mana, you can either cast it or flash it back, which then grants flashback to every spell in your graveyard, including those that your opponent chose for Gifts.
Gifts Ungiven is an expensive, but powerful tutor. It forms a 2-card combo of sorts with Baral or Electromancer: if you land Baral and cast Gifts with 3 mana floating, you pretty much have the win locked up. Details can be found in the Technical Play section.
To an inexperienced player, Gifts Ungiven might seem like a trap. It gives your opponent a choice, similar to “punisher” cards that you might have been warned about, such as Browbeat. In reality, when played properly, Gifts Ungiven gives your opponent the illusion of choice. Two reasons:
1) If you search for 3 copies of the same effect, your opponent is forced to put at least one of them in your hand.
2) You have a spell that lets you cast cards from the graveyard (Past in Flames).
The common game-ending combination of Pyretic Ritual, Desperate Ritual, Manamorphose and Past in Flames satisfies both these points (Manamorphose generates mana with Baral, so it can be considered a ritual).
"You always have a choice. That doesn't mean you always have a good choice."
—Alubri, Guul Draz gatekeeper
- Grapeshot
- Empty the Warrens
These cards win you the game. Two important things to note for new Storm players:1) Storm counts spells casted by your opponent as well.
2) If your opponent counters a storm spell, you still get the other copies. But if your opponent counters the storm trigger (there aren’t many commonly played cards that do that - Disallow, Trickbind work, but are virtually unplayed), you don’t get the copies.
Grapeshot is the cleanest way of killing your opponent. Just point all the copies at him, bypassing any blockers or removal. Casting Grapeshot early to kill an annoying creature is also a valid play - you can always flash it back during the combo turn.
Empty the Warrens is the backup plan. Unlike Grapeshot, it doesn’t kill immediately, and the tokens can be killed, but it does have a few advantages over Grapeshot:
- Winning with a lower storm count. Empty provides 2 power per storm count. Grapeshot only does 1 damage per storm count. Empty punishes your opponent harder for trying (and failing) to interact on your combo turn.
- More damage, given enough time. Goblin tokens can attack every turn, while Grapeshot is a one-time deal.
- Winning through an opposing Leyline of Sanctity.
- Winning though grave hate. Empty could win where Grapeshot + Past in Flames + flashback Grapeshot would fail from the opponent exiling Grapeshot after the initial cast.
Remand is a soft counter that cantrips while stopping the targeted spell, but gives its controller a chance to recast it. Due to the nature of Storm, this tradeoff can be exploited to devastating effect. If your opponent taps out for a spell that would hinder your combo ability, you can Remand it and combo off on your turn. Putting the spell back in your oppponent’s hand doesn’t matter if you manage to kill him before he has the chance to cast it again.
Remand can be used on your own spells to cantrip, save them from enemy counterspells, or in the case of Grapeshot, double its damage output. Remanding your spell can be more beneficial than Remanding the enemy’s counterspell.
Peer Through Depths
Peer Through Depths digs 5 cards deep for instants or sorceries. In terms of its impact, it is roughly equivalent to a single cantrip - say you cast a cantrip, it draws into another cantrip, then you cast the drawn cantrip and find the card that you needed. This sequence digs about 3-5 cards deep for 2 mana starting from the single cantrip in hand, which is just about what Peer does.
Unlike a regular cantrip, Peer costs 2 mana by itself, so having multiples can slow you down, and you can't keep a 1-land Peer hand. On the plus side, Peer can be discounted by Baral or Electromancer.
Peer has the Arcane subtype, so you can splice Desperate Ritual onto it. The net effect of doing so is reducing the mana cost by 1 (splicing costs 2 mana and gives you back 3). With a cost reducer, casting Peer spliced with Ritual costs 3 mana and gives you back 3, effectively making it free!
Merchant Scroll
Also known as “the best card from Homelands”. With Baral or Electromancer on the field, it costs U and does everything: it can get Gifts to start the combo, or Remand to finish a Gifts-less storm chain after drawing Grapeshot, or cards like Dispel and Echoing Truth to push through hate.
Thought Scour
Thought Scour cantrips while putting cards into your graveyard for Past in Flames.
Sometimes you might want to target your opponent with it instead:
- If your opponent kept a card on top after a scry effect. That probably means he needs it. Milling him would deny him of that card.
- If your opponent’s deck relies on having certain cards in it. Against decks with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, you can try to mill away their Mountains. Against Ad Nauseam, you can try to mill their Simian Spirit Guides.
- In response to Goryo’s Vengeance against Grixis Reanimator: if you mill Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, it will trigger, shuffling the reanimation target back into his library and causing Goryo’s Vengeance to fizzle.
The last two examples are more last-ditch attempts at staying alive than reliable uses for Thought Scour. Don’t go Thought Scouring Valakut opponents at the start of the game, just keep in mind this particular long-shot play of Thought Scouring them if they’re about to resolve a Scapeshift.
Noxious Revival
Noxious Revival is a 1-of tech card that you can throw into any Gifts pile. If your opponent gives you Revival, you can use it to return one of the cards they binned. This is useful for getting back Baral or Electromancer, as the standard way of getting back cards from the graveyard (Past in Flames) is unable to return those. If you draw it normally, you can use it to get back Grapeshot during the combo turn as long as you have a cantrip to spare.
The main weakness of Noxious Revival is that it does not replace itself with a card, unlike cantrips. Getting a Baral back on top of your library is great and all, but losing one draw to get that Baral into your hand can leave you one ritual short of winning.
Simian Spirit Guide
Simian Spirit Guide is another 1-of tech card. It acts as a 9th ritual and you can put it in a Gifts pile if one of your rituals got hit by Surgical Extraction. It doesn't require any red mana to generate more, unlike the rituals.
Unfortunately, for all the neat uses of SSG, the list of disadvantages is even longer. It doesn't get boosted by Baral or Electromancer, can't be found by Peer Through Depths, isn't affected by Past in Flames, and doesn't count as a spell towards storm count.
Apostle's Blessing
Apostle's Blessing is meant solely to defend your Baral or Electromancer from removal. You can cast it even if you're tapped out if Baral/Electromancer are already on the field since they reduce its cost. It's a very defensive card and I would recommend simply playing more Electromancers - instead of using Blessing to protect your Electromancer, you just play another one. Drawing Blessing by itself is useless, but if the Blessing were an Electromancer instead your position is much better.
- Scalding Tarn
- Steam Vents
- Island
- Mountain
- Spirebluff Canal
- Shivan Reef
This deck is UR. You have a lot more turn 1 plays that require U than R, so play more basic Islands and blue fetches. In addition to Scalding Tarn, play other blue fetches (Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta, Misty Rainforest).Spirebluff Canal is a pain-free way of producing both colors in the early turns. It’s better than Sulfur Falls, because Sulfur Falls does not ETB untapped if it’s the only land in your hand, or if your hand is Canal + Falls. Play Canals first even if you have the opportunity to play a tapped shock; later in the game, you have the option of paying 2 life to have the shock ETB untapped, but Canal will always ETB tapped.
Shivan Reef costs life, but gives you both blue and red. If you tap Reef for red/blue a total of 3 times or less per game, it’ll cost less life compared to cracking a fetch for an untapped shock. You can save a point of life by using colorless for expensive spells like Past in Flames.
Some people like to play Island + Snow-Covered Island instead of just 2 Island in the unlikely occurrence that they have to Gifts for two basic Islands.
Blood Moon gives you free wins against 3-color or non-red decks. It’s particularly effective in this deck, since you have rituals to play it on turn 2.
- Lightning Bolt
- Dismember
Bolt comes in for aggro matchups and hatebears (especially Eidolon of the Great Revel). Killing the opponent’s turn 1 creature can buy some time for you to combo off. During the combo, you can throw it at your opponent’s face.Dismember is another creature killer. It costs a lot of life, so you don't want to bring it in against aggro decks, but it is capable of killing things that Bolt would miss, such as Eidolon of Rhetoric. With a cost reducer out, you can cast it for 0 mana.
- Echoing Truth
- Repeal
- Wipe Away
These cards are catch-all answers to hate permanents. You bounce your opponent’s hate card during his turn (or during your turn, if you have enough mana), then kill him before he gets the chance to recast it. Sometimes you can use bounce to force your opponent to crack his Nihil Spellbomb or Relic of Progenitus, then take advantage of the brief period where he's not protected by grave hate to combo off.Echoing Truth is the most commonly used of the lot. It can get rid of multiple copies of the same card, like Leyline of the Void (which, if played, is always played in multiples) or creature tokens.
Repeal is great at getting rid of Chalice of the Void, especially if set on 2 - Echoing Truth and Wear // Tear wouldn't be able to touch it. Note that Chalice's CMC is 0 on the battlefield, so just cast Repeal for X=0. You even get to draw a card out of it.
Wipe Away is the Last Word of bounce spells and can hit lands as well. You can sneakily cut an opponent off his counterspell mana if you Wipe Away one of his lands.
- Shatterstorm
- Shattering Spree
- Ancient Grudge
- Wear // Tear
These cards destroy artifacts and are brought in mainly for Affinity. Grudge and Wear//Tear require splashes.Shatterstorm pretty much wipes out Affinity’s chances if it resolves. It gets Etched Champion and bypasses Welding Jar.
Shattering Spree is the most efficient way to kill one artifact. It can be scaled up if you need it to kill more artifacts, and you can pile multiple copies on one artifact to kill it through defensive measures like Welding Jar. It can destroy Chalice of the Void on 1 with a replicated copy - Chalice doesn't trigger on the copy because it isn't casted.
Grudge is a 2-for-1, and can be flashed back if you mill it with Thought Scour.
Wear//Tear is the most efficient way to kill one enchantment, and is a 2-for-1 if you manage to hit an enchantment and an artifact with it. The Wear side is discounted by Baral.
- Dispel
- Swan Song
- Negate
- Pact of Negation
- Gigadrowse
- Defense Grid
- Hope of Ghirapur
These cards help you beat counterspells.Pact of Negation is best when you’re going to combo off on the same turn. However, this won’t always be the case - sometimes you’re tight on mana and need to play Baral, have him survive the opponent’s turn, then untap and combo off. In a situation like that, Dispel will defend Baral, but Pact will kill you if you try.
Gigadrowse works by tapping down your opponent’s lands during his turn, ensuring an uninterrupted combo on yours. Your opponent has to counter each copy individually, and he most likely can’t. It isn’t always foolproof though. Example: your opponent has 1UU up with Dispel and Negate in his hand. During his end step, you Gigadrowse all his lands once each. He can tap 1U for Negate, countering the copy targeting his last land, and still have mana up for Dispel on your turn.
Defense Grid pre-emptively Mana Leaks your opponent’s counterspells on your turn. The downside is that it also Mana Leaks your spells on his turn, so you can’t EOT Gifts.
Hope of Ghirapur works like Xantid Swarm in Legacy. You have to connect with it, but when you do, you can sac it to Silence your opponent and combo during the second main phase.
- Pieces of the Puzzle
- Leyline of Sanctity
These cards help you beat discard. Pieces of the Puzzle does so by being a 2-for-1, refilling your hand after being hit by discard spells while also putting instants and sorceries in the graveyard for Past in Flames.Leyline of Sanctity stops discard in a more direct way. If you have hexproof, you can't be targeted by discard. It also stops your opponent from using Liliana of the Veil’s -2.
- Unburial Rites
- Iona, Shield of Emeria
- Madcap Experiment
- Platinum Emperion
These cards are alternative wincons. You can try to beat hate by playing wincons which attack from a different angle, instead of playing cards to counter your opponent’s hate.Gifts Ungiven has a secret “double Entomb” mode where you search for two cards, and your opponent is forced to place them both in your graveyard. You can set up an Iona reanimation this way by searching for Unburial Rites and Iona only.
Madcap Experiment is guaranteed to hit Platinum Emperion if you play no other artifacts in your deck. You don’t take any damage from Experiment as Emperion is on the battlefield before damage is dealt.
I’ll only mention D when cards are drawn.
X + Y (for Gifts) means the opponent put X and Y into your hand, not graveyard. Gifts says that your opponent chooses the cards to put into your graveyard, but there is a bijection between cards put into graveyard and cards put into hand, so either notation is unambiguous. However, I’ll use the “cards put into hand” notation because it’s easier to follow.
Ritual denotes either Pyretic Ritual or Desperate Ritual.
Baral and Goblin Electromancer are more or less interchangeable.
- If you have extra draws (in the form of draw steps, Manamorphose, or another Serum Visions), Serum Visions is better than Sleight of Hand since you can scry to set up your next draw. For example, if you keep a hand on the play with 1 land, SV, Sleight, and are banking on your cantrips to draw into a second land, SV first followed by Sleight only fails to draw a land by your second turn if there is no land in the top 6 cards. Sleight followed by SV fails if there is no land in the top 4.
- If you’re going to end the turn by casting both Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand, cast Sleight of Hand first. If you cast SV first, leave a very good card on top, and cast Sleight to get it, you’re not getting the most out of Sleight since you just used it to draw a card instead of selecting between the better of two cards.
- When planning your combo turn, it’s more convenient to think of rituals in terms of the net amount of mana that they give you. Rituals are +RR and Manamorphose is +1 mana and some color fixing.
- Cast all the rituals and Manamorphoses in your hand before casting Past in Flames.
- You must have at least one red mana floating at all times for rituals.
- Keep as much blue mana floating as possible (without straying from the red mana rules for Past and rituals) so that you can cast cantrips.
- You need URR to cast Electromancer followed by a ritual. Two basic Islands can’t accomplish that. Baral doesn’t have this problem since you can pay for him with UU.
- Before casting Past in Flames from hand, you need at least 2RR (1 red for Past, 1 red for a flashed-back ritual). If you flashback Past in Flames, you need 3RR.
- All your rituals are instants, so you can cast them in response to a removal spell on Baral to get some mileage out of him before he dies. You’ll need RR up. Cast the first ritual, which should prompt the removal spell, then use the remaining R on another ritual.
- If you resolve Past in Flames when another Past in Flames is in your graveyard, the latter Past in Flames will gain flashback 3R, saving you one mana when you flash it back for this cost instead of the built-in 4R. However, this lasts for one turn only.
- If you’re down to 1 Past in Flames in your library, you might have to Gifts for different cards. If you’re supposed to Gifts for Past + 3 other cards and you have Past in your hand, then there’s no problem; you can just Gifts for the 3 original cards and any other card. If Past is in your graveyard, you can still flash it back, but this will require 1 more mana than casting it (unless it’s been granted flashback 3R with another Past), and leaves you with 1 fewer use out of it (flashback, vs cast + flashback). If there’s no way for you to get a use out of that Past, you’ll have to go for Empty the Warrens.
- You can’t use Gifts if your opponent has Leyline of Sanctity, since Gifts targets.
- If you Remand a spell which has been flashed back, it goes to exile, not its owner’s hand. Do it on your opponent’s spells, not yours.
- You can Remand uncounterable spells just to draw a card. Not that you’d want to.
1) T2 Baral
T3 Gifts
T4 untap and use the cards that you got with Gifts to win
2) T2 Baral
T3 ritual, ritual/Manamorphose, Gifts
3) T3 Baral, ritual, ritual, Manamorphose, Gifts
4) T4 Baral, ritual, ritual, Gifts
Note that the first two require playing Baral on turn 2 and having it survive. Playing Baral on turn 2 enables your fastest wins, but it’s a risky play if you don’t have a backup Baral to replace it in case it gets killed.
Phase 1: Building storm count with Gifts
Suppose you begin this phase with S: 0, U: 2, R: 1. (This is a reasonable assumption to make, since the deck only has 1 basic Mountain and everything else taps for blue.) Gifts is resolving and you revealed Desperate Ritual, Pyretic Ritual, Manamorphose and Past in Flames. No matter what your opponent gives you, you will be able to increase your storm count by 6 and flashback Gifts with no net loss of mana. Most of the time you’ll have other cards in your graveyard which you can flashback as well, so you’ll often end up ahead in mana instead of breaking even.
What you get with the flashbacked Gifts depends on whether you have Past in Flames in your hand/graveyard. You get two rituals and Grapeshot first, then Past if you don’t have it, or Manamorphose if you do.
If you already have Grapeshot in your hand/graveyard, then you can repeat this loop (Gifts for 2 rituals, Manamorphose and Past in Flames again) to build storm count, instead of searching for Grapeshot. Note that if your opponent gives you Ritual + Past or Manamorphose + Past twice, you won’t have any Pasts left to cast or flashback at the end of everything. All is not lost though - you would have generated some mana and drawn some cards from each loop, so you can get a bunch of cantrips or rituals off the last Gifts to build storm count.
This gives you 7 storm, 2 mana, 1 draw and casts Gifts.
Cast both rituals (S: 2, U: 2, R: 5).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 3, U: 2, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals, Manamorphose for UU (S: 6, U: 4, R: 4, D: 1).
Flashback Gifts Ungiven (S: 7, U: 3, R: 2). Go to phase 2a.
Ritual + Manamorphose
This gives you 7 storm, 1 mana, 2 draws and casts Gifts.
Cast ritual and Manamorphose for RR (S: 2, U: 2, R: 4, D: 1)
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 3, U: 1, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals, Manamorphose for UU (S: 6, U: 3, R: 4, D: 2).
Flashback Gifts Ungiven (S: 7, U: 2, R: 2). Go to phase 2a.
Ritual + Past in Flames
This gives you 6 storm, 1 mana, 1 draw and casts Gifts.
Cast ritual (S: 1, U: 2, R: 3).
Cast Past in Flames (S: 2, R: 1, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals, Manamorphose for UU (S: 5, U: 3, R: 4, D: 1).
Flashback Gifts Ungiven (S: 6, U: 2, R: 2). Go to phase 2b.
Manamorphose + Past in Flames
This gives you 6 storm, 2 draws and casts Gifts.
Cast Manamorphose for RR (S: 1, U: 2, R: 2, D: 1).
Cast Past in Flames (S: 2, U: 0, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals, Manamorphose for UU (S: 5, U: 2, R: 4, D: 2).
Flashback Gifts Ungiven (S: 6, U: 1, R: 2). Go to phase 2b.
You can replace Grapeshot with Empty the Warrens in all of the cases. You’ll find that a lot of cases leave you with a large surplus of mana. If you don’t have other cards in hand/graveyard to build storm count, it might be better to take the safe route and get Empty the Warrens instead.
Phase 2a: Gifts for 2 rituals, Past in Flames, Grapeshot
Suppose you begin this phase with S: 7, U: 2, R: 2.
This gives you 6 storm, 3 mana for a minimum 13-damage Grapeshot.
Cast both rituals (S: 9, U: 2, R: 6).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 10, U: 2, R: 2).
Flashback both rituals (S: 12, U: 2, R: 6).
*You now have U: 2 and R: 5 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Flashback Grapeshot (S: 13, U: 2, R: 5) for 13 damage.
Ritual + Past in Flames
This gives you 5 storm, 2 mana for a minimum 12-damage Grapeshot.
Cast ritual (S: 8, U: 2, R: 4).
Cast Past in Flames (S: 9, U: 2, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals (S: 11, U: 2, R: 5).
*You now have U: 2 and R: 4 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Flashback Grapeshot (S: 12, U: 2, R: 4) for 12 damage.
Ritual + Grapeshot
This gives you 6 storm, 1 mana for a minimum 22-damage Grapeshot.
Cast ritual (S: 8, U: 2, R: 4)
Cast Grapeshot (S: 9, U: 2, R: 3) for 9 damage.
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 10, U: 0, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals (S: 12, U: 0, R: 5).
*You now have R: 4 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Flashback Grapeshot (S: 13, U: 0, R: 4) for 13 damage.
Past in Flames + Grapeshot
This gives you 4 storm, 1 mana for a minimum 11-damage Grapeshot.
Cast Past in Flames (S: 8, U: 0, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals (S: 10, U: 0, R: 5).
*You now have R: 4 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Cast Grapeshot (S: 11, U: 0, R: 4) for 12 damage.
If you searched for Empty the Warrens instead of Grapeshot, and your opponent gave you ritual + Empty
This gives you 4 storm, consumes 1 mana for a minimum 22 Goblins.
Cast ritual (S: 8, U: 2, R: 4).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 8, U: 1, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals (S: 10, U: 1, R: 5).
*You now have U: 1 and R: 2 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Cast Empty the Warrens (S: 11, U: 1, R: 2) for 22 Goblins.
Suppose you begin this phase with S: 6, U: 1, R: 2, and Past in Flames in your graveyard.
If you haven’t drawn into a fourth land or extra Manamorphose/ritual, your opponent can put Manamorphose and Grapeshot into your hand. That would cut your combo short at 8 damage off Grapeshot: Manamorphose gets you to 4 mana, and flashing back Past in Flames cost 4, so that route is out. However, you do get at least 3 draws to find the necessary land/ritual (2 from the previous chain, 1 from the current Manamorphose). Worst-case, get Empty the Warrens instead of Grapeshot.
If for some reason you only have 2 mana floating at this point, get 2 rituals, Manamorphose and Empty the Warrens. The worst that can happen is your opponent putting Ritual + Empty or Manamorphose + Empty into your hand. Then cast them both for 16 Goblins.
This gives you 6 storm, 4 mana, 1 draw for a minimum 13-damage Grapeshot.
Cast both rituals (S: 8, U: 1, R: 6).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 9, U: 1, R: 2).
Flashback both rituals and Manamorphose for UU (S: 12, U: 3, R: 5, D: 1).
*You now have U: 3, R: 4 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Cast Grapeshot (S: 13, U: 3, R: 4) for 13 damage.
Ritual + Manamorphose
This gives you 6 storm, 3 mana, 2 draws for a minimum 13-damage Grapeshot.
Cast ritual and Manamorphose for UU (S: 8, U: 3, R: 3, D: 1).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 9, U: 1, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals and Manamorphose for UU (S: 12, U: 3, R: 4, D: 2).
*You now have U: 3, R: 3 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Cast Grapeshot (S: 13, U: 3, R: 3) for 13 damage.
Ritual + Grapeshot
This gives you 5 storm, 2 mana, 1 draw for a minimum 12-damage Grapeshot.
Cast ritual (S: 7, U: 1, R: 4).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 8, U: 0, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals and Manamorphose for UU (S: 11, U: 2, R: 4, D: 1).
*You now have U: 2, R: 3 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Cast Grapeshot (S: 12, U: 2, R: 3) for 12 damage.
Manamorphose + Grapeshot
This gives you 5 storm, 2 mana, 2 draws for a minimum 12-damage Grapeshot. You need a land, ritual or Manamorphose after casting Manamorphose to continue.
Cast Manamorphose for RR (S: 7, U: 2, R: 2, D: 1).
*Play a land, ritual or Manamorphose to generate mana. Here I’ll assume you played a land for U.
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 8, U: 0, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals and Manamorphose for UU (S: 11, U: 2, R: 4, D: 2).
*You now have U: 2, R: 3 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Cast Grapeshot (S: 12, U: 2, R: 3) for 12 damage.
If you searched for Empty the Warrens instead of Grapeshot, and your opponent gave you Manamorphose + Empty
This ends the combo with 1 draw and 16 Goblins.
Cast Manamorphose for UU (S: 7, U: 3, R: 1, D: 1).
*You now have U: 1 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Cast Empty the Warrens (S: 8, U: 1) for 16 Goblins.
Suppose your hand is 2 rituals, Manamorphose, and Empty the Warrens. Your board is 2 lands. In this case you already have Empty for 8 Goblins, but with the above example in mind, you should lead with ritual, Manamorphose instead of ritual, ritual. If Manamorphose draws Baral, you continue with Baral, ritual, Empty for an extra 2 Goblins. If you had cast ritual, ritual, Manamorphose drawing Baral instead, you only have enough mana to cast Empty.
The following assumes Baral is in play and Grapeshot is in hand.
1) Past in Flames. Once you draw it, leave 2RR open; the rest can be spent on cantrips and rituals, but don’t cast Grapeshot yet. When you’re out of cards to play, cast Past in Flames, then flashback all your rituals, this time leaving 3RRR open. Use that mana for Grapeshot + flashback Past + flashback Grapeshot at the end of your chain. The amount of damage done is 2S+4.
Note that you need at least 5 mana from your rituals after the Past (ritual, ritual, Manamophose suffices). If you don’t have that much, you can leave 2RRR open instead for Grapeshot, Past, flashback Grapeshot (leaving all the other cards in your graveyard un-flashed-back), or Grapeshot, Past, flashback ritual and a few more spells, flashback Grapeshot.
2) Remand. Leave URR open, then cast Grapeshot. Allow the storm trigger to resolve, then cast Remand targeting the original Grapeshot, and let everything resolve. Grapeshot is returned to your hand, you draw a card, and the Grapeshot copies deal damage. Then cast Grapeshot again. The amount of damage done is 2S+3 (the Remanded Grapeshot doesn’t do damage).
3) Another Grapeshot. You just need RR to cast both of them. The amount of damage done is 2S+3. Note that this is not very likely since the deck only plays 2 Grapeshots.
1) you can cast discounted spells in response to removal on Baral. You need 4 mana to do this: 2 for Baral, 1 for the first ritual, and 1 more for the ritual in response to removal.
2) the mana thresholds needed for a successful combo.
Also, when comboing off without Baral, mana is tight, so don’t forget that you can splice Desperate Ritual onto another copy of it for 1 extra mana.
Past in Flames + Grapeshot
The threshold is 5RRR for Grapeshot, Past, flashback Grapeshot. After casting Grapeshot + Past, you have 1R floating, which you can use to cast a few rituals before flashing back Grapeshot.
Example: your hand is Baral, ritual, ritual, ritual, Past in Flames, Grapeshot. You have 4 lands. You can deal 17 damage through removal:
Cast Baral, then cast a ritual, leaving R open (S: 2, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Opponent plays removal in response to ritual (S: 3, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Cast a ritual in response. Once that resolves, use the mana to cast another ritual. Then let the first ritual and the removal spell resolve. (S: 5, R: 8).
Cast Grapeshot for 6 damage (S: 6, R: 6).
Cast Past in Flames (S: 7, R: 2).
Flashback three rituals (S: 10, R: 5).
*You now have R: 3 free to cast other spells to boost S.
Flashback Grapeshot for 11 damage (S: 11, R: 3).
Past in Flames + Empty the Warrens
The threshold is 4RR for Past, 2 rituals, Empty.
Example: your hand is Baral, ritual, ritual, Past in Flames, Empty the Warrens. You have 4 lands. You can create 16 Goblins through removal:
Cast Baral, then cast a ritual, leaving R open (S: 2, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Opponent plays removal in response to ritual (S: 3, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Cast a ritual in response. Then let the first ritual and the removal spell resolve. (S: 4, R: 6).
Cast Past in Flames (S: 5, R: 2).
Flashback both rituals (S: 7, R: 4).
Cast Empty for 16 Goblins (S: 8, R: 0).
Note that you can Empty for 12 Goblins with just ritual, ritual, Past, Empty and 4 lands (no Baral needed).
Remand + Grapeshot
The threshold is 3URR for Grapeshot, Remand that, Grapeshot.
Example: your hand is Baral, ritual, ritual, Manamorphose, Grapeshot, Remand. You have 4 lands. You can deal 13 damage through removal:
Cast Baral, then cast a ritual, leaving R open (S: 2, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Opponent plays removal in response to ritual (S: 3, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Cast a ritual in response. Once that resolves, use the mana to cast Manamorphose for UU. Then let the first ritual and the removal spell resolve (S: 5, U: 2, R: 5, D: 1).
*You now have U: 1 free to cast a cantrip to boost S.
Cast Grapeshot, allow the storm trigger to resolve, then cast Remand targeting the original Grapeshot. The copies resolve for 5 damage (S: 7, U: 1, R: 2, D: 2).
Cast Grapeshot for 8 damage (S: 8, U: 1).
Empty the Warrens or double Grapeshot
The threshold is 3R (2RR for double Grapeshot).
Example: your hand is Baral, 2 rituals, Empty the Warrens. You have 3 lands. You can make 10 Goblins through removal:
Cast Baral, then cast a ritual (S: 2, R: 0, about to gain 3).
Opponent plays removal in response to ritual. Let it resolve (S: 3, R: 3).
Cast a ritual, then Empty the Warrens (S: 5, R: 0).
Gifts Ungiven
The threshold is 2UR and a ritual on the stack just before you cast Gifts.
Example: your hand is Baral, ritual, ritual, Manamorphose, Gifts. You have 4 lands. You can make at least 14 Goblins through removal:
Cast Baral, then cast a ritual, leaving R open (S: 2, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Opponent plays removal in response to ritual (S: 3, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Cast a ritual in response. Once that resolves, use the mana to cast Manamorphose for UU. (S: 5, U: 2, R: 2, about to gain 3, D: 1).
Cast Gifts for ritual, ritual, Past in Flames, Empty the Warrens (S: 6, R: 1, about to gain 3).
Cast both rituals (S: 8, R: 5, about to gain 3).
Let the first ritual and removal spell resolve. (S: 8, R: 8)
Flashback Past in Flames, ritual, Manamorphose for UU, then three rituals (S: 14, U: 2, R: 5, D: 2).
*You now have U: 2 and R: 1 free to cast spells to boost S.
Flashback Empty for 30 Goblins (S: 15, U: 2, R: 1).
Ritual + Past
Cast ritual (S: 7, R: 3, about to gain 3).
Let the first ritual and removal spell resolve (S: 7, R: 6).
Cast Past in Flames, two rituals, Manamorphose for UU, then two rituals (S: 13, U: 2, R: 4, D: 2).
*You now have U: 2 free to cast spells to boost S.
Flashback Empty for 28 Goblins (S: 14, U: 2).
Ritual + Empty
Cast ritual (S: 7, R: 3, about to gain 3).
Let the first ritual and removal spell resolve (S: 7, R: 6).
*You now have R: 2 free to cast spells to boost S.
Cast Empty for 16 Goblins (S: 8, R: 2)
Alternatively, you can skip the ritual for just 14 Goblins, if you’d like to save it for a future turn.
Past + Empty
Let the first ritual and removal spell resolve (S: 6, R: 4).
Cast Empty for 14 Goblins (S: 7).
Cast Baral, ritual, ritual (S: 3, U: 1, R: 5).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 4, U: 1, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals (S: 6, U: 1, R: 5).
*You now have U: 1, R: 2 free to cast spells to boost S.
Flashback Empty for 14 Goblins (S: 7, U: 1, R: 2).
You can cast Electromancer before flashing back Past. It pays for itself after discounting Past and Empty. This gives you 1 more storm, but leaves you with R: 3 instead of U: 1, R: 2.
Baral + Past or Electromancer + Past
Cast Baral, ritual, ritual, Past (S: 3, U: 1, R: 2).
Flashback both rituals (S: 6, U: 1, R: 6).
*You now have U: 1, R: 3 free to cast spells to boost S.
Flashback Empty for 14 Goblins (S: 7, U: 1, R: 3).
Baral + Empty or Electromancer + Empty
Cast Baral, ritual, ritual (S: 3, U: 1, R: 5).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 4, U: 1, R: 1).
Flashback both rituals (S: 6, U: 1, R: 5).
*You now have U: 1, R: 2 free to cast spells to boost S.
Cast Empty for 14 Goblins (S: 7, U: 1, R: 2).
Past + Empty
Cast ritual, ritual, Past (S: 3, R: 2).
Flashback all rituals (S: 5, R: 4).
Cast Empty for 12 Goblins (S: 6, R: 0).
Note that in all scenarios other than Past + Empty, you have enough mana to flash back Gifts before Empty. Go nuts. This also goes to show how ridiculous Baral is.
Also note that any scenario where Past ends up in your hand is capable of casting Empty through removal. The other two scenarios only require 1 extra mana (from a land, ritual or Manamorphose) to win through removal.
Gifts for Value
This refers to Gifts-ing with no expectations that you’ll be able to combo off immediately. Remember, Gifts is card advantage: it replaces itself with two cards.
Generally, you’ll want to ask yourself “what are the 4 best cards in my library right now?” and present those to your opponent. Assuming he plays optimally, he will put the third- and fourth-best cards into your hand.
If you search for Past in Flames, your opponent would want to put that in your hand - if he doesn’t, he’s giving you access to three cards (Past in the graveyard, and the two cards that he put in your hand) instead of two right off the bat.
Gifts for Combo
The first thing you want to figure out is how many pieces you’re missing. If the answer is “3 or more”, you should probably Gifts for value instead.
The next thing to do is to get the pieces that you’re missing, and as many similar copies as there are available in your library. If you’re missing just 1 card, get as many functionally identical copies of that card as possible - if you get 3, your opponent is forced to put at least one in your hand. Past in Flames is a copy of any instant/sorcery card, albeit an expensive one.
A more interesting scenario is if you have 2 cards that you’re missing, and you can choose to split them 2-2 or 3-1. If one of those effects is useless in multiples and you split 2-2, your opponent can choose to put 2 copies of that effect in your hand, basically giving you only 1 card out of Gifts. 3-1 is better - you might still be able to win if your opponent gives you 2 copies out of 3 of the other effect.
Example: Suppose you have 4 lands on the field, and land, Past, Gifts, and a storm spell in hand. Your graveyard has enough rituals that you can win if you resolve Past and flashback a ritual. You cast Gifts at the end of your opponent’s turn, and think about what to get:
- You know that Baral + ritual is game over.
- If you choose Baral, Electromancer, ritual, ritual, your opponent can give you Baral + Electromancer. This way you can’t combo off when you untap: you only have 5 mana, and that’s exactly enough for Baral + Past with no mana remaining to flashback rituals.
- If you choose Baral, ritual, ritual, Manamorphose instead, you’re safe:
Baral + Ritual
Cast Baral, ritual, Past (R: 2).
Baral + Manamorphose
Cast Baral, Manamorphose, Past (R: 1, D: 1).
Ritual + Ritual
Cast both rituals, Past (R: 3).
Ritual + Manamorphose
Cast Manamorphose, ritual, Past (R: 2, D: 1).
In all cases you have enough mana to flashback a ritual and win.
In general, the answer is “when he’s safe”. That means when:
- You have a second copy of Baral in your hand.
- You are confident that your opponent has no removal. It helps to know which decks play removal and which don’t, as well as which decks rely on toughness-based removal that miss Baral by 1 point (Collective Brutality, Pyroclasm).
- Your opponent is tapped out, and you have enough mana to play Baral and win on the same turn. Sometimes you can get them when they tap out for something and you counter it.
- You can win through removal on Baral.
Holding Baral hurts you less than you might expect. If your opponent leaves up mana in the fear that you’ll play Baral and combo off on the same turn, that mana is wasted if you play cantrips instead of Baral. The more turns you both spend in this standoff, the more draw steps you get to sculpt a hand that can win through removal. This doesn’t mean that removal is useless against Storm - if your opponent has a decent amount of power on the board, you won’t have as many draws as you’d like.
- To avoid fizzling in the first place, if you’re comboing off without Gifts, review the resources available to you. How much mana do you have? Do you have Manamorphose to generate blue mana for cantrips? Do you have enough mana (i.e. 6) to transition into the Gifts kill if you happen to draw it? How many cantrips do you have? Do you already have Past in Flames in hand? How about Grapeshot or Empty the Warrens? The more vital cards you have locked down (i.e. already in hand), the more confident you can be of not fizzling.
- Use cantrips to scout your draws before committing to playing rituals. If you play rituals first, and the subsequent cantrips yield nothing of use, all that mana is wasted. Also, Serum Visions’ scry sets up Manamorphose’s draw.
- Spend cantrips that have been granted flashback with Past in Flames, instead of casting cantrips from your hand. Flashback only lasts until end of turn, but you can cast those cantrips in your hand any time.
- See if you can use Grapeshot to wipe your opponent’s board. You don’t have to send everything at his face; wiping his board buys you several draw steps and attack phases, which will ease the amount of resources you need for the second combo.
- Try to find Empty the Warrens with your cantrips or Gifts and use that to end the combo. It kills at a lower mana/storm count, and you don’t have to draw Remand or Past in Flames together with it.
- Try to find Past in Flames with your cantrips or Gifts if you have a lot of cards in your graveyard. You can go off next turn by casting Past and effectively putting your graveyard into your hand. Spending a failed combo turn ritualing and cantripping is not the worst thing in the world if you have Past to rebuy all those cards.
If you play Affinity, you might be aware of the 2-turn Inkmoth Nexus kill (sac stuff to Arcbound Ravager, sac Ravager to put at least 4 counters on Nexus, then attack twice with Nexus). Storm can operate similarly (if you have enough mana for Grapeshot, but not Past + ritual), taking out half of your opponent’s life in one turn with the first Grapeshot, then taking out the remaining half on the next turn with Past, flashback entire graveyard, flashback Grapeshot. You don’t have to do the damage all at once!
- Gifts for ritual, ritual, Past in Flames and 1 other card. The Past in Flames gives you a shot at comboing off again, and the rituals help generate mana after Past. Sometimes your opponent will screw up and give you both rituals (especially on MTGO, where they don’t RTFC and realize that the selected cards go into your graveyard, not your hand), and you can take advantage of their blunder to continue comboing off.
Example: This turn, you’re on 3 lands and played Baral, ritual, Manamorphose, Manamorphose, Gifts, leaving UR floating. Your Manamorphose draws bricked, yielding lands instead of spells. You have enough cards in the graveyard that if you manage to cast or flashback Past in Flames with R floating, you should be able to kill your opponent. Your opponent has some creatures on his board. To add to the urgency, let’s say one of them is a Scavenging Ooze and your opponent is currently tapped out, but if you let him untap, that Ooze can eat up your graveyard.
If you cast Gifts and get the usual ritual, ritual, Manamorphose, Past package, your opponent can put Manamorphose and Past in hand and leave you stuck for the turn. Instead, get ritual, ritual, Past, Grapeshot.
Ritual + Ritual
Cast both rituals (S: 7, U: 1, R: 5).
Flashback Past in Flames (S: 8, U: 1, R: 1).
Flashback the cards in your graveyard and win.
Ritual + Past
Cast ritual (S: 6, U: 1, R: 3)
Cast Past (S: 7, R: 1).
Flashback the cards in your graveyard and win.
Ritual + Grapeshot
Cast Grapeshot for 6 damage to kill your opponent’s creatures, and end the turn.
Next turn, play a land, cast ritual, flashback Past in Flames and win.
Past + Grapeshot
Cast Grapeshot for 6 damage to kill your opponent’s creatures, and end the turn.
Next turn, play a land, cast Past in Flames and win.
1) Through it. Just jam your combo against their hate. (You have to be sure that you can actually beat their hate this way, though - don’t just play into their hate blindly and 5-for-1 yourself with nothing to show for it!) This works against hate cards that stop only one non-essential card in the combo, like a ritual: if you get a critical mass of cards and enough mana to cast them, you don’t care if they stop one card, because you’ll just play another copy.
2) Around it. Play a different wincon that wins in a way that their hate is ineffective against. A summary of alternative wincons:
- Empty the Warrens. As mentioned in its section in “Card Choices”, it beats a lot of hate that Grapeshot loses to. You’re going to see it being mentioned a lot in the following subsections.
- Blood Moon. It locks out quite a few decks, and you can play it on turn 2 with rituals. It’s especially effective against ramp decks. Note that it may backfire by allowing them to cast Anger of the Gods against your Goblin army.
- Shatterstorm and Shattering Spree (against Affinity). These cards wipe Affinity’s board, and take out a few of their mana sources as well. Again, rituals help with playing them ahead of curve.
- Unburial Rites + Iona, Shield of Emeria or Madcap Experiment + Platinum Emperion. These wincons don’t require you to cast multiple spells in one turn, so they’ll beat things like Eidolon of Rhetoric or Eidolon of the Great Revel. Rites still uses the graveyard though.
3) Under it. Combo off before they get a chance to play their hate card. Empty the Warrens is particularly good at this, since it can create enough tokens to get the job done on turn 2 or 3. The game can swing very quickly if you manage to sneak under hate - if you manage to make a bunch of Goblins before your opponent plays, say, Rule of Law, then all of a sudden that Rule of Law changes from the best card against your deck, to a blank that doesn’t deal with the Goblin army about to kill him.
4) Remove it. Get rid of the offending hate card. Dispel deals with most things that try to stop you on the stack, and Echoing Truth deals with most permanents. Lightning Bolt and the various artifact/enchantment removal spells offer a more lasting solution to specific hate permanents.
Removal
- Yes, Storm has to worry about removal. Your engines are creatures. Refer to the sections “Winning through removal on Baral” and “When to play Baral” for tips on playing against removal.
- Other than stuff killing Baral, the other kind of removal you have to worry about is board wipes killing your Empty the Warrens tokens. If you suspect a board wipe, try not to throw away rituals just for the sake of getting 2 more Goblins if you’re not going to spend the extra mana. Save them so that you have more resources to work with during the second combo.
Counterspells
- Empty the Warrens is a good way of playing through counters. It creates a lethal army at a realistically achievable mana cost through counters, and any counterspell that your opponent plays is 2 more Goblins for you.
- If your opponent counters the first ritual that you play while trying to combo off, it isn’t too bad for you, since your rituals are cheap and you can get a second use out of them with Past in Flames. If he saves his counterspell for Past in Flames, you can punish him by ending your chain with Empty the Warrens instead of Past.
- With Baral, Remand becomes almost useless against rituals, since you can just cast them again and still gain mana.
Discard
- Past in Flames is your main line of defense against discard. Any instant/sorcery that you discard can be recovered with Past, and Past even has built-in flashback if it’s discarded. The thing you have to watch out for is them discarding Baral, or discard + grave hate (e.g. Scavenging Ooze).
- Past in Flames, Gifts Ungiven and Empty the Warrens can’t be taken with Inquisition of Kozilek.
Grave hate
- Your wincons that ignore grave hate are Empty the Warrens and Grapeshot + Remand. Usually Empty is more common as you will board out either Grapeshot or Remand.
- Surgical Extraction makes Gifts a lot weaker, since it can take out all copies of one ritual (meaning you can’t Gifts for that ritual), and if you Gifts for a wincon, your opponent can put it in the graveyard and extract it before you get a chance to flash it back with Past in Flames.
- If you have a good read on your opponent, you can bounce his Relic of Progenitus to trick him into blowing it on the spot, even though you don’t have enough resources to combo in hand.
- Blood Moon can cut your opponent off green mana for Scavenging Ooze.
Storm hate
- Cards that pinpoint your wincon but don’t actually stop you from drawing through your library are not that effective. E.g.: Leyline of Sanctity (when you’re comboing without Gifts), Meddling Mage, Runed Halo. As you draw through your library you’ll eventually hit a wincon that isn’t stopped by that card, or an Echoing Truth/removal.
- Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Thorn of Amethyst can be neutralized by playing additional Goblin Electromancers. Baral is legendary, so you can’t have multiples of him on the field.
- Chalice of the Void needs to be on 2 to stop the deck, but that costs 4 mana, so you can go under it.
- Don’t worry too much about dedicated Storm hate like Rule of Law in an open meta. A lot of decks are viable in Modern, and Storm is not so popular that people will play targeted hate for it; instead they’ll play general answers like grave hate because they are applicable in multiple matchups. Those general answers are easier for you to deal with. The one exception is Burn with its maindeck Eidolon of the Great Revel.
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Big Johnny.
- Remand against aggro decks. Removal is cheaper, deals with threats permanently, and has a wider window for you to cast it. A good number of aggro decks have Cavern of Souls, Aether Vial, or have their creatures enter the battlefield via abilities, making Remand terrible against them.
- Gifts Ungiven against decks with counters, grave hate, Leyline of Sanctity, or speed.
- Your weaker cantrips (Sleight of Hand/Opt) if you still need space.
Board in:
- Removal against aggro decks, decks with mana dorks, or combo decks that rely on creatures.
- Counters against combo or control decks.
- Pieces of the Puzzle, if you board out Gifts Ungiven.
- Empty the Warrens against most fair decks.
- An out for Damping Sphere (Echoing Truth/Abrade) if you suspect it's coming.
Good Matchups
- Ramp decks (Tron, Valakut)
Ramp decks are slower than you, and don’t have much in the way of interaction. They win by casting giant creatures, which you can ignore by Grapeshotting their face. Remand will catch them when they tap out for their threats (other than Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, which triggers on cast), and you can go off safely on your turn. Post-board, they will side in all their removal and grave hate. You can expect to see board wipes like Pyroclasm and Anger of the Gods; they’re a bit expensive, but they get rid of Electromancer and Baral, and undo Empty the Warrens, so side Empty out. Side in bounce spells to get rid of their hate.
- U control decks (UW, Jeskai, Grixis)
Blue control decks are weak against Empty the Warrens. Their main methods of stopping you (spot removal and counterspells) stack up badly against it, and they don’t have a lot of creatures to block with. If your opponent holds up counter/removal mana to stop you from comboing off and you just play a few cantrips (which he doesn’t counter), you have the advantage since he basically held up that mana for nothing. Post-board, bring in Empty the Warrens, counterspells, and at least one bounce spell for Damping Sphere. Swap Gifts Ungiven for Pieces of the Puzzle.
Even Matchups
- Aggro decks (Affinity, Zoo)
Aggro matchups are a race. They’ll put a clock on you and disrupt your combo with removal, but you can fight through their 4 Bolts with your 7-8 Electromancer effects. Post-board, you can expect to see more removal, maybe some grave hate. Board in removal to kill their turn 1 plays and hatebears. Board out Remand; it’s bad against decks full of cheap (possibly uncounterable) creatures.
- Combo decks (Ad Nauseam, Grishoalbrand)
Combo decks are also a race. You can run out Baral on turn 2 without much fear of it getting killed, but there are combo decks which are capable of racing T2 Baral into T3 kill. Maindeck Remands give you a slight advantage. Post-board, bring in cheap disruption like Dispel, and Lightning Bolt if their combo relies on a Boltable creature. Board out Empty the Warrens, as it doesn’t kill quite fast enough (although you might still want 1 if the opposing deck plays Leyline of Sanctity).
Bad Matchups
- BGx midrange decks (Jund, Abzan)
Black-green midrange decks play all kinds of disruption: discard, removal (including the uncounterable Abrupt Decay), and grave hate (Scavenging Ooze), all maindeck to boot. On the plus side, their disruption can be pretty mana-intensive, so you can go under it with Empty the Warrens, or play Baral, watch them tap out on their turn to kill him, then play another Baral on your turn and combo off. Board in Empty the Warrens, as it doesn’t take too many resources to convert it into a win. Board out Remand; it’s bad against 1-mana disruption spells and uncounterable Decays. Swap Gifts Ungiven for Pieces of the Puzzle.
- Burn
Burn is a special kind of aggro deck. A lot of its spells can be used to kill your creatures. They play Eidolon of the Great Revel maindeck, and you can’t win unless you get rid of it. Pre-board, remember that you can cast a spell followed by Grapeshot to kill Eidolon. Post-board, bring in all the removal you have, and Dispel for countering their removal.
- Humans
Humans, like Burn, is another deck that plays maindeck hatebears and makes your life miserable. Humans has full playsets of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Meddling Mage and Kitesail Freebooter. Post-board, bring in all your removal.
1 Mountain
3 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Spirebluff Canal
3 Steam Vents
4 Baral, Chief of Compliance
4 Goblin Electromancer
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
2 Peer Through Depths
2 Remand
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Pyretic Ritual
1 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Manamorphose
2 Past in Flames
2 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
3 Empty the Warrens
2 Dismember
2 Dispel
1 Lightning Bolt
2 Pieces of the Puzzle
2 Pyroclasm
2 Shattering Spree
1 Swan Song
1 Mountain
4 Shivan Reef
2 Snow-Covered Island
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Steam Vents
4 Baral, Chief of Compliance
2 Goblin Electromancer
4 Serum Visions
2 Sleight of Hand
4 Opt
2 Remand
1 Repeal
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Manamorphose
2 Past in Flames
3 Grapeshot
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Noxious Revival
1 Lightning Bolt
2 Abrade
1 Echoing Truth
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Gigadrowse
1 Negate
4 Pieces of the Puzzle
2 Thing in the Ice
1 Wipe Away
4 Shivan Reef
4 Steam Vents
3 Island
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Mountain
4 Baral, Chief of Compliance
3 Goblin Electromancer
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Opt
1 Remand
1 Repeal
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Manamorphose
2 Past in Flames
2 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Unsubstantiate
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Abrade
1 Flame Slash
1 Dismember
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
1 Gigadrowse
1 Spell Pierce
2 Empty the Warrens
3 Pieces of the Puzzle
Caleb Scherer's Storm page: https://adventuringgear.wordpress.com/ Highly recommended as he plays Storm regularly
mrfrenchy: https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/5qv1yk/mrfrenchys_gifts_storm_guide/
mrfrenchy (11-4 at GP Vancouver): https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/5v9l06/tournament_report_11_4_at_gpvan_with_gifts_storm/
Emma Handy: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/35800_Mastering-UR-Gifts-Storm-In-Modern.html
Videos
mrfrenchy's channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeotm69sLDctyoqAwYCck_g
SaffronOlive: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/much-abrew-baral-storm-modern
Ari Lax: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/34818_Video-GR-Gifts-Storm-In-Modern.html
Seth Manfield: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLxg8UAfS2YJYgGAteOeMV9ZxPfWmWI4ba&v=0W0HSR6MSds
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Big Johnny.
Also can you cast your rituals after revealing a miracled Reforge the soul or would it be cast during your draw step and empty out of your pool?
MODERN
STANDARD
E D H
*edit* Don't mean to sound like a jerk, sorry if i came off like it!
Don't do it. If you cut a Ravings and a Thought Scour, it becomes harder for you to get two counters on Ascension because you're playing fewer 4- and 3-ofs. Reforge the Soul is a high-CMC draw spell, so the only thing it should replace is another high-CMC draw spell (i.e. Past in Flames). Honestly though, Past is much better than Reforge.
Not sure what you mean about the second, Reforge the Soul just draws you cards, it doesn't force you to cast your rituals. If you miracle it, both players discard and draw 7. If you want to cast rituals after that you can, but it isn't going to do you any good.
Blood Moon and Empty the Warrens. Against UWR you have 3 outs:
1) Land Blood Moon and lock them out.
2) Cast an early Empty the Warrens (maybe even through one counterspell) and beat them down.
3) Get two counters on Pyromancer Ascension, which lets you brute-force past their counterspells.
The old OP didn't have as much time to keep it updated, so I took over. We agreed on this via PM. You can trust me, I co-wrote the previous primer with him.
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Big Johnny.
Also, from the previous thread Blood Moon, Defense Grid, and potentially Echoing Truth are all good to sideboard in against UWR. They don't really pressure us, so just cantrip and force them to answer you and eventually you'll achieve critical mass and kill them.
Ah i see. Well cool, thanks for the effort!
So i guess if you mill 2 cards that aren't an engine you "thin your deck" and the percentage of drawing an engine probably does go up. That's a perspective i haven't looked at actually.. I'm still not quite convinced though. You say it sets up Ascension, which i completely agree with, but so does Faithless Looting. And Peer Through Depths can find a card you need to get Ascension turned on, so there's that too.
I still think you get more benefits from running Looting and Peer, than you do from Ravings and Scour. The argument that Looting doesn't grab an engine seems kind of weak to me as you still have a great suite of dig spells to find an engine, and Peer adds so much to the deck that i feel it's worth it to lose those few percentage points in finding an engine, because by running Peer, you gain points elsewhere.
By running Peer you find what you need more often so you can combo more consistently, and when you do combo off you fizzle less because you can find the card you need to keep going. Also, and to me this is big, Peer plays extremely well with Electromancer. How many solo 'Mancer kills are you guys getting? Because in builds without Peer it was rarely viable for me. Peer lets you Solo 'Mancer like a champ. It's so good it has me wanting a 2nd Empty the Warrens maindeck possibly.
As for Peer through Depths vs. Thought Scour, the fact that Peer through Depths can't help you dig for an engine hurts its case. Thought Scour also fills up the graveyard, which is nice.
I think a transformational sideboard could be really useful in improving our postboard games. Here are a couple of ideas that I can think of off the top of my head (for the first one you would play two Breeding Pools over two Islands in the main, at least in my list):
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Remand
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vedalken Shackles
3 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4 Pestermite
4 Splinter Twin
Thoughts?
Also, if you're running a transformational sideboard plan what matchups do you expect these sideboards to improve? Also, I'd probably cut some of the cards out of the last twin transformation plan (1-2 kiki, 2-3 pestermite) for protection like remand or dispel.
Edit: Also, it looks like the current primer doesn't mention anything about Eidolon of Rhetoric from pod. I think echoing truth is an important card for the matchup so you're not completely dead to eidolon, but how about running a singleton flame slash for extra security? This is my current sideboard:
2 Echoing Truth
2 Empty the Warrens
3 Shatterstorm
1 Flame Slash
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Blood Moon
While it feels right, I'm definitely not saying i'm 100% correct with my configuration of Peer and Looting, but it's really not that simple at all. There are a crazy amount of variables to weigh. Like the fact that Ravings is only card advantage in 2 scenarios; when you have an active Ascension and when it's being flashbacked. The latter is basically the equivalent of paying 5 mana to net 1 card and cast Hymn to Tourach on yourself. That doesn't seem like a good deal when it's completely unnecessary.
Speaking of Ravings and "card advantage"- you don't really need card advantage with this deck. Once you have an active Ascension all your cantrips are more than enough to get the win, and if you're comboing through Electromancer, Peer does a ton of work finding your PIF/ Empty or whatever else you need to keep the combo going. There really isn't a point where you need card advantage, what you really want is to find specific cards, not just a lot of anything.
Here's the thing, there are pros and cons for each choice. Through countless games and matches with this deck, and constant experimentation and testing, i feel like Peer and Looting bring more to the table than Ravings and Scour, but that is just a feeling, and an opinion. Let's try to break down the pros and cons of each choice in an attempt to find a quantifiable way of coming to some sort of conclusion here.
Thought Scour
- Finds engine/ land
- Fills up yard/sets up Ascension
- 1 mana
- "thins" deck
-Cons-
- Only draws 1
- Can mill an out
- Blue cmc
-Pros-
Desperate Ravings
- Finds engine/ land
- Sometimes provides CA
- Red cmc
- Refills during combo
-Cons-
- Random discard
- 2 mana
- Blue flashback
_________________________-Pros-
Faithless Looting
- Finds an engine/ land
- Digs 2 on t1
- Cycles dead cards pre/during combo
- Fills up yard/ sets up Ascension
- Red cmc + Red flashback
- 1 mana
-Cons-
- Card disadvantage
Peer Through Depths
- Digs 5 deep
- Helps turn on Ascension/ set up combo turn
- Finds what you need to combo/ Makes combo fizzle less
- Plays great with Electromancer
-Cons-
- Doesn't find an engine/ land
- 2 mana
- Blue cmc
-Pros-
-Pros-
_________________________|
Ok, so now just to see what it would look like, lets take the pros and cons of each package together and list them out.
Thought Scour - Desperate Ravings
-Pros-
- Finds engine/ land - Finds engine/ land
- Fills up yard/sets up Ascension
- "thins" deck
- Sometimes provides CA
- Refills during combo
- Red cmc
- 1 mana
-Cons-
- Only draws 1
- Can mill an out
- Random discard
- Blue cmc
- 2 mana
- Blue flashback
_________________________Faithless Looting - Peer Through Depths
- Finds an engine/ land
- Digs 2 on t1
- Digs 5 deep
- Cycles dead cards pre/during combo
- Fills up yard/ sets up Ascension
- Helps turn on Ascension/ set up combo turn
- Finds what you need to combo/ Makes combo fizzle less
- Plays great with Electromancer
- Red cmc + Red flashback
- 1 mana
-Cons-
- Doesn't find an engine/ land
- Card disadvantage
- 2 mana
- Blue cmc
-Pros-
_________________________|
Ok, now there is a few other things we can do with this. Let's look at the similarities between the 2 configurations; the pros and cons that they share.
- Both -
- Finds engine/ land
- Fills up yard/sets up Ascension
- Red cmc
- 1 mana
-Cons-
- Blue cmc
- 2 mana
-Pros-
_________________________|
Now we can see what each set brings to the table individually.
Thought Scour - Desperate Ravings
-Pros-
- Finds engine/ land
- "thins" deck
- Sometimes provides CA
- Refills during combo
-Cons-
- Only draws 1
- Can mill an out
- Random discard
- Blue flashback
_________________________Faithless Looting - Peer Through Depths
- Digs 2 on t1
- Digs 5 deep
- Cycles dead cards pre/during combo
- Helps turn on Ascension/ set up combo turn
- Finds what you need to combo/ Makes combo fizzle less
- Plays great with Electromancer
- Red flashback
-Cons-
- Doesn't find an engine/ land
- Card disadvantage
-Pros-
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So again, i'm not saying i'm 100% right, but i like the way that looks, and i like the way it feels. That being said, my lists could potentially be a bit biased i guess.. I guess all i can say is that it feels really damn good playing Looting and Peer, but if anything we can agree to disagree.
It's hard to see why discard 1 is better than discard 2 even if the discard 1 is random, but consider this: you WILL be playing Ravings/Looting multiple times in the combo turn, either by PA or Past. Imagine any hand, then suppose you draw 8 cards and randomly discard 4. Now go back to the original hand, and suppose you draw 8 and discard 8 of your choice. Which is better?
To give you an idea, the worst-case scenario with Ravings is discarding 4 good cards. Now look at Looting, in order to merely tie with Ravings, at least half the cards (i.e. 4) you discard need to be junk, and by junk I mean something that is totally useless, whether in hand or graveyard. Look at your decklist again; the things you don't want to draw mid-combo are lands, PAs and Electromancers, which make up 24/60 cards. So slightly less than half the cards you draw or already have in hand will be junk.
So, in summary, this is what Ravings and Looting do, approximately:
Ravings, WORST-CASE: Draw 8, discard 4 useful cards.
Looting, AVERAGE: Draw 8, discard 4.8 useful cards and 3.2 lands/PAs/Mancers.
(With Looting you can discard the junk, but it doesn't matter - junk is useless, whether in the hand or graveyard.)
Looting's average scenario is worse than Ravings' worst-case. So, play Ravings.
Another scenario: suppose you spent a bunch of cards to get Ascension active, and are low on cards in hand. We'll take the limiting case: suppose you only have one card in hand, and that card is either Ravings or Looting. Which option is better? With Looting you will just end up Tome Scouring yourself, but with Ravings you can rebuild your hand.
With regards to the supplementary cantrips, Scour + Ravings is the generally accepted option. I think Looting sucks and I already explained why above, so I'm not going to consider it. You say Scour might mill your outs, but if you're so afraid of that, then target your opponent instead, and target yourself only when you're ahead and not afraid to mill anything (e.g. active Ascension with a Past in hand). I mean, if targeting yourself has a chance of milling your outs, then targeting your opponent means milling his outs, right?
That leaves three combinations, once Looting is out:
Ravings + Peer is too many 2CMC cards. This combination is amazing with Electromancer, but not good enough otherwise.
Scour + Peer is OK, I guess.
Scour + Ravings - now, in a vacuum, Peer is probably as good as, or better, than Ravings. The thing is, Ravings' flashback is really good against discard and slow decks (slow decks can't kill you quickly, so you just cast Ravings twice and build your hand). If I expect absolutely no interaction from all my opponents I would play Peer, but that never happens, so instead of Scour + Peer I have Scour + Ravings.
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Big Johnny.
edit: lol
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Big Johnny.
Looting + Peer is cheaper and more controllable, that's the reason why I prefer it anyways.
URStorm
URBDelver
RWNorin Sisters
BWTokens
I mean if we're going to use the Hymn comparison, well, just ask yourself, suppose you're building a fair deck, which of these two cards would you rather play?
1) BB sorcery, target player discards two cards at random
2) BB sorcery, target player discards four cards
Obviously you'd choose the discard 4 - it's a lot worse for your opponent to get hit by that than Hymn. In your opponent's POV he'd rather get hit by discard 2 at random than discard 4 of his choice. This isn't any different in Storm, you'd rather discard 2 at random than discard 4 of your choice.
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Big Johnny.
Here is my sideboard :
Defense Grid x1
Echoing Truth x1
Shatterstrom x 3
Bloodmoon x3
Lighthing bold x4
Empty the Warrens x3
Base on that sideboard I have no idea how to sideboard against Pod , Scapeshift , Affinity and Reanimation..
Last week I went 0-4 in my local store event..
Echoing Truth almost always comes in. It's the Swiss army knife of our SB. It can deal with virtually any hate that they bring in but you don't main board counter hate because they don't main hate.
Defense Grids come in when you see your opponent doing a lot of things on your turn. IMO this is the weakest card in the board but I get it.
Shatterstorm comes in against pretty much only Affinity. However, Affinity is boned so hard by it and is usually prevalent in all metas, it's worth it. 2 is enough unless your meta is pretty much all Affinity.
Bloodmoon comes in against virtually any 3 color deck or any 2 color deck not playing red. Turn 2 ritual into Blood Moon will almost always win the game. You get an extensive amount of turns to set up. It doesn't always win though, I've lost to Tron by dropping it turn 2 but only drawing lands and rituals. Wurmcoil is still strong on turn 6. Bloodmoon is amazing though.
Lightning Bolt is Echoing Truth 2.0. Deals with almost every creature hate that could come in and gives you some interaction. Also gotten a game or two by getting active Ascension and then Bolt Bolt for 12 to the face. Pay attention to the toughnesses of your opponents creatures before bringing these in though.
Empty the Warrens are for when you don't know what hate they're bringing in or can't deal with what they'll bring in. Turn 2 ritual ritual warrens is not awful in most cases. They also chump block well.