By Force cannot destroy Chalice on 2 because its converted mana cost if X = 1 will be 2. However, you can if you destroy 2 artifacts so X will equal 2 and total cmc will be 3. That is assuming they have another artifact to kill, which Eldrazi Tron sometimes will. I think I would still prefer to play an additional Shattering Spree, but I was not able to find one in time for the event.
Here is the tournament report:
Round 1 vs Eldrazi Tron (2-1)
Lost game 1 because I believe to not finding a second land in time and got run over. Game 2 Chalice was put on 1, and I was easily able to win (opponent likely unfamiliar with storm). Game 3 I had to play around a Relic but luckily I have boarded in Empty the Warrens which the opponent did not see game 2. I make 14 goblins and win because the opponent misplays his Walking Ballista and kills a Baral with it instead of 3 goblin tokens. He also did not bring in Ratchet Bombs and sided out All is Dust so like I said I believe he was unfamiliar with storm decks.
Round 2 vs Breach Titan (2-1)
Game one is just a race and I win after he taps out for Titan. Bring in Swan Songs for the next 2 games. Game 2 counter an eot Summoning Trap but then he untaps and cast Through the Breach on Emrakul. I did not have another Swan Song. Game 3 I grapeshot him down to 6 but then get all of my Grapeshots exiled with a relic, so I proceed to beat down with my mana reducers until he is at 2 facing down a Baral while he is now tapped out. I cast a ritual at the end of his turn then Swan Song it to make the 2/2 Swan which wins the game
Round 3 vs Grixis Control (2-0)
Easy matchup. He taps out for things like Jace, Vryns Prodigy and plays Chandra so I win no problem.
Round 4 vs Death and Taxes (2-1)
Nightmare Matchup due to Thalia and Leonin Arbiter. Win game 1 by killing Thalias with Grapeshot. Lose game 2 when he saves his Thalia with a Restoration Angel. Win game 3 through a Dragon's Claw which meant I had to cast a lot more spells than usual and double grapeshot him. I brought in Echoing Truth, Lighting Bolt, and Dismember this match. Cut 1 Past in Flames and 2 Gifts, Thought Scours, and I think one Grapeshot.
Round 5 ID
Round 6 ID
Top 8
Quarterfinals vs Scapeshift (2-1)
Basically a race all 3 games. I remember winning around Relics by making resilient Gifts piles. I believe one was the standard 3 ritual pile but I swapped Past in Flames for Peer through Depths which found me enough Grapeshots to kill him.
Semi-finals vs Black-red control (2-0)
He was playing a strange deck with Liliana, Blood Moon, Goblin Rabblemaster, Abbot of Keral Keep, Night's Whisper, discard, and removal. Id imagine he was beating all of the Valakut decks with the Blood Moons, but Blood Moon does basically nothing against storm so I win easily. His discard and/or removal was not good enough and I didn't see graveyard hate either.
Finals I did not play out since prizes were the same. I just scooped to my opponent so I could leave (he wanted to play it out). He was playing Grixis Shadow
All semi-finalist splits the prize money and the two finalists both got invites. It's in December while I still have school so I may not be able to go.
Congrats on the finish. How did you find 7 mancers? I really love play the full 8 but I can see the argument for playing 7.
I've been really liking Moon again. It's just a stupidly powerful magic card and we can take advantage of it quite well.
I don't particularly care for the stripped down version you're playing. I find it hurts the grindy matchups too much. Making your third and fourth land drops is too important in some matchups.
I like your sideboarding. I should probably be more willing to cut Sleight of Hand. However I completely disagree with how you board against GDS. I don't like Moon very much (although I should test it more) and I quite like keep in grapeshot. Making land drops 3 and 4 against GDS and then killing then when the go to 8 or 10 life tends to be fairly simple.
How was the lack of bounce spells for you in the sideboard? You seems pretty soft to leylines but that's probably fine since they're not very common righ now.
Just to add my 2 cents for the fetchless manabase that we have seen recently.
1)It makes complete sense for a combo deck that wishes to dig as much as possible to have more velocity to stop messing with card draws and scry effects. I'm coming from Ad Nauseam mostly and the most widely played iteration of the deck is without fetches : it helps keeping on the bottom what's not needed and optimizes the scrying as well as effects such provided by Sleight of Hand.
2) Having 6-7 fetches to thin the deck is fine, but when you keep on the bottom your scrys, you virtually do the same thing and more. Scrying 2 to the bottom with Serum Visions and keeping them there is better thinning than fetching for 1 land in the deck. Keeping all that has been filtered to the bottom adds consistency, velocity with cards like Peer through Depths. Redundancy with lots of cantrips (12-15) gets us there better I find.
3) Pain from shock lands and painlands shouldn't be a big deal with the point of the deck being to combo on turn 4. You'd probably take 4 dommage to yourself to get there while with fetches, it's probably around 3-3,5. However, for 1 point of damage, filtering for good and keeping what's not needed on the bottom is more valuable.
In all, big innovation that will stick around. I think it's the way to go for the deck. Propos for those out there playing it out.
I think its worth saying that neither of the mana bases are "wrong" per say. It depends on how your deck is constructed. If you're running heavy on Remand and you would like to have Blood Moon as a sideboard threat, the fetches are great. If you run additional Peer Through Depths and/or Peek, the fetchless base is going to show its value. I'm running fetchless with additional cantrips right now and it feels great.
I agree with including Noxious Revival; I was a naysayer of the card in the past, but it actually opens up so many additional lines to kill with that it's indispensable. There will be times where it's a dead draw, but you can say that about many of the cards in the deck.
My feeling is that the distinction between the two builds--the fetchless versions with more cantrips and the 4 Remand 4 Grapeshot version--will eventually take the same shape that ANT and TES do in Legacy in that both decks, while moving towards a similar win condition, take relatively different approaches to get there. This results in two legitimate options that any storm pilot can use.
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Modern UR Storm URB Grixis Delver W Death and Taxes
Basically anything with Scalding Tarn
I think that the fetchless version is worthwhile but the lack of fetches can be a downside admittedly not all that often. The real problem is that you can't play Blood Moon with the fetchless list. I think the marginal gain from Blood Moon is higher than from not shuffling however I can very easily envision a meta in which that is not the case. I'm missing a couple of the cards for the fetchless list but I'll give it a shot when I get the chance. From testing online it feels pretty good. Although I really want to find a way to play 1-2 copies less copies of Shivan Reef.
@pmc18823 I've had a very different experience with GDS sideboards. For me Kozilek's Return, Izzet Static Caster and Anger of the Gods are the most popular sweepers all of which are easily cast under moon.
It's doesn't work when there is a lethal shot on the stack, but Lord of the shadows better said what I was trying to, where generally in a pif loop you do half their life at once, so as long as yours is above that, which it generally is, quicken grapeshots isn't that bad.
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UBR ANT UBR TES UBR TNT GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
My humble take on the fetch vs. fetchless land base (I'll just go on the Pros and skip the Cons) : FETCH:
Deck thinning - lessens the probability of drawing lands late during combo turns. Each fetch land corresponds to 2 dead cards removed from the deck late in the game.
Reshuffle scry'ed cards - Chance to redraw cards you scry'ed to the bottom early (e.g. Past in Flames).
Main deck protection - Most list include Remand, which gives main deck protection from opponent's interactions, especially on the crucial combo turn.
Blood Moon factor - Blood Moon shuts down several matchups.
FETCHLESS:
Perfect information on stock piling - As a Recross the Paths Belcher player, I see the value of stockpiling the bottom of the deck via scry and Peer Through Depths. We sometimes need cards that are seen by Sleight of Hand, but it is also not guaranteed that we will be able to draw into that card after a fetch. In a sense, this gives us a chance to calculate the possibility of expecting what we will draw based on the bottom pile of our deck. Stockpiling reduces the "randomness" variable produced by deck shuffle via fetchlands.
More velocity, more information - Fetchless list packs Peer Through Depths, which gives the deck more digging power and finding pieces the deck needs to combo, potentially for U after a reducer. It also coincides with the stockpiling of graveyard, giving us more vital information of what's remaining on the top part of the deck.
More kill conditions - 4 Grapeshots gives the deck more chance of naturally drawing into a kill combo. As someone pointed out, two consecutive Grapeshot cast on the same turn after a few cantrips and ramp kills people (given the usual life threshold in Modern is 17 life).
Budget considerations - The most overlooked part of it all. The fetchless manabase is a good start for new players going into Modern that is interested in trying Storm. After the comfort zone is established, then that player may try to invest in fetches and Blood Moons for the deck.
You might notice that more explanation is needed for the fetchless manabase. It is because the consensus is that fetching is much better. That's why we have to establish more logical reasons in going the fetchless route. I come to these explanations because (a) I have used Peer Through Depths before, during the time when the kill con is Pyromancer's Swath into Grapeshot; and (b) as a Modern and Legacy Belcher player that tried to abuse Recross the Paths and take advantage of deck piling. I'll be trying the fetchless list in the next couple of days and compare it with my experience with the fetch list.
And this is coming from someone who owns a playset of Tarns in paper
I just finished buying a playset of Tarns over the last couple of months. The pain is real, but if the deck is more consistent w/the non-fetch plan, awesome. Caleb has a good writeup of the deck that he posted on the 11th, only change between article and the Open was swapping Cascade Bluffs for a 3rd Island. Still has the Snow Covered Island in both builds for the "Gifts for lands" edge. He got 12th with this tho:
I did finally pick up my 3rd Spree last week tho and snagged a set of old school Peek's yesterday. May be running it tomorrow night at FNM, we will see.
First of all I would like to thank all the "repliers" of this forum for helping me understand better the deck and his strategies, especially DTG_UR, Elfkid, Charm_Master3125 and Scapeshift84.
I've made a 10th place finish in GP Birmingham (13-2 with no byes...it's not bragging it's just showing the consistence of my list that I want to share with you).
Gratz on the finish! Why did you choose to play Swan Song over Dispel? For the Scapeshift match-up?
Hello storm players. I've recently been play testing new, janky cards for flex slots. My inspiration being, noxious revival. This is a card that is only good in gift piles where you need an extra ritual or an extra creature. Then I thought, why not play a litter all card that represents an extra creature and extra mana. I started with simian spirit guide and claim to fame. Simian spirit guide didn't work well, I found that it was just such a rare gifts target that it wasn't worth it. Claim to fame was insane, often a 1 mana electromancer, but the black splash was bad because the only real other cards you got with it was hand disruption which isn't great in this deck. Then I thought about a different card: Postmortem Lunge
It is actually good and it single handidly won me two FNM matchs.
Downsides:
-It's 2 mana, claim to fame is 1, this turned out to be close to irrelevant because you are usually revealing it with gifts and they aren't actually giving it to you.
-2 life, this can be super bad against burn or affinity
-mainboard gravehate, ex scooze, relic, this card can lose you the game if you draw it against one of those cards game one, but truth be told if your opponent has a turn 2 scooze or relic things aren't looking goood anyways
Upsides:
- a new fantastic gifts split, if your looking at a hand of rituals you reveal: baral, electromancer, PIF, and Postmortem Lunge. This split won me many games
-you can flash it back. I won a game against death shadow when they had an early nihil spellbb and then killed multiple creatures, went ritual postmortem lunge, PIF, got the second creature with flash back, swung and then Grapeshot the face. Haste is a thing
I hope this was helpful and you give this card a try, it will probably come down too meda, I see so many fatal push decks that it usually is a decent draw anyways.
I usually play 8 reducers, 4 remand, and 1 peer, but with this build I do 7 reducer, 3 remand, 2 peer, and 1 postmortem lunge. Sometimes being able to get a creature by finding lunge with a peer felt good.
0-2 drop last night losing to grixis shadow (again, its still popular here) and U Tron. That puts me at 0-8 going back my last three events. I'm starting to think the deck is not for me.
Hey guys!
Come back to my favorite deck ever after some months playing faeries and tezzerator lol
Would like to ask you how to make my list great again. My list is with 7 reducers, 3 remand, 2 apostles.
Would like to know more about peer and the lists with 3 or even 4 grapeshot
I've since cut Apostle's Blessing in favor of Noxious Revival. I'm currently playing 2 Remand / 2 Peer / 1 Noxious as well as 8 reducers. I suppose I could also do 7 reducers and 3 Remand.
Hey guys!
Come back to my favorite deck ever after some months playing faeries and tezzerator lol
Would like to ask you how to make my list great again. My list is with 7 reducers, 3 remand, 2 apostles.
Would like to know more about peer and the lists with 3 or even 4 grapeshot
I've since cut Apostle's Blessing in favor of Noxious Revival. I'm currently playing 2 Remand / 2 Peer / 1 Noxious as well as 8 reducers. I suppose I could also do 7 reducers and 3 Remand.
Was wondering if you or other storm players could play test Postmortem Lunge, it had performed insanely well for me in the slot of noxious revival but I'd like to here how it works in wider medas. It's the first change I've made to my deck on my own in a long time that actually has performed significantly better than the card it's replacing. Let me know!
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UBR TES
UBR TNT
GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
UBWR Ad nauseam
GW Hatebears
Decklist:
4 Baral, Chief of Compliance
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Manamorphose
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Grapeshot
3 Peer through Depths
2 Past in Flames
2 Thought Scour
4 Spirebluff Canal
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Polluted Delta
2 Steam Vents
2 Shivan Reef
3 Island
1 Mountain
2 Dismember
2 Empty the Warrens
2 Pieces of the Puzzle
2 Echoing Truth
2 Swan Song
1 Shattering Spree
1 By Force
I can give a tournament report if you guys like
Just bought into the deck and would enjoy to read a report.
Actually the missing cards are 4 Gifts Ungiven. I chose not to play Remand, preferring Peer through Depths instead.
I felt like Apostle's Blessing wasn't too necessary since I play 8 reducers. I think I will soon try the Noxious Revival though
By Force cannot destroy Chalice on 2 because its converted mana cost if X = 1 will be 2. However, you can if you destroy 2 artifacts so X will equal 2 and total cmc will be 3. That is assuming they have another artifact to kill, which Eldrazi Tron sometimes will. I think I would still prefer to play an additional Shattering Spree, but I was not able to find one in time for the event.
Here is the tournament report:
Round 1 vs Eldrazi Tron (2-1)
Lost game 1 because I believe to not finding a second land in time and got run over. Game 2 Chalice was put on 1, and I was easily able to win (opponent likely unfamiliar with storm). Game 3 I had to play around a Relic but luckily I have boarded in Empty the Warrens which the opponent did not see game 2. I make 14 goblins and win because the opponent misplays his Walking Ballista and kills a Baral with it instead of 3 goblin tokens. He also did not bring in Ratchet Bombs and sided out All is Dust so like I said I believe he was unfamiliar with storm decks.
Round 2 vs Breach Titan (2-1)
Game one is just a race and I win after he taps out for Titan. Bring in Swan Songs for the next 2 games. Game 2 counter an eot Summoning Trap but then he untaps and cast Through the Breach on Emrakul. I did not have another Swan Song. Game 3 I grapeshot him down to 6 but then get all of my Grapeshots exiled with a relic, so I proceed to beat down with my mana reducers until he is at 2 facing down a Baral while he is now tapped out. I cast a ritual at the end of his turn then Swan Song it to make the 2/2 Swan which wins the game
Round 3 vs Grixis Control (2-0)
Easy matchup. He taps out for things like Jace, Vryns Prodigy and plays Chandra so I win no problem.
Round 4 vs Death and Taxes (2-1)
Nightmare Matchup due to Thalia and Leonin Arbiter. Win game 1 by killing Thalias with Grapeshot. Lose game 2 when he saves his Thalia with a Restoration Angel. Win game 3 through a Dragon's Claw which meant I had to cast a lot more spells than usual and double grapeshot him. I brought in Echoing Truth, Lighting Bolt, and Dismember this match. Cut 1 Past in Flames and 2 Gifts, Thought Scours, and I think one Grapeshot.
Round 5 ID
Round 6 ID
Top 8
Quarterfinals vs Scapeshift (2-1)
Basically a race all 3 games. I remember winning around Relics by making resilient Gifts piles. I believe one was the standard 3 ritual pile but I swapped Past in Flames for Peer through Depths which found me enough Grapeshots to kill him.
Semi-finals vs Black-red control (2-0)
He was playing a strange deck with Liliana, Blood Moon, Goblin Rabblemaster, Abbot of Keral Keep, Night's Whisper, discard, and removal. Id imagine he was beating all of the Valakut decks with the Blood Moons, but Blood Moon does basically nothing against storm so I win easily. His discard and/or removal was not good enough and I didn't see graveyard hate either.
Finals I did not play out since prizes were the same. I just scooped to my opponent so I could leave (he wanted to play it out). He was playing Grixis Shadow
All semi-finalist splits the prize money and the two finalists both got invites. It's in December while I still have school so I may not be able to go.
4 Baral, Chief of Compliance
3 Goblin Electromancer
Spells (36)
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Manamorphose
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
3 Grapeshot
3 Peer through Depths
3 Peek
2 Past in Flames
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Steam Vents
4 Shivan Reef
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Cascade Bluff
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Dismember
3 Empty the Warrens
2 Pieces of the Puzzle
2 Echoing Truth
2 Swan Song
3 Shattering Spree
Cheers!
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
I've been really liking Moon again. It's just a stupidly powerful magic card and we can take advantage of it quite well.
I don't particularly care for the stripped down version you're playing. I find it hurts the grindy matchups too much. Making your third and fourth land drops is too important in some matchups.
I like your sideboarding. I should probably be more willing to cut Sleight of Hand. However I completely disagree with how you board against GDS. I don't like Moon very much (although I should test it more) and I quite like keep in grapeshot. Making land drops 3 and 4 against GDS and then killing then when the go to 8 or 10 life tends to be fairly simple.
How was the lack of bounce spells for you in the sideboard? You seems pretty soft to leylines but that's probably fine since they're not very common righ now.
Again, congratulations on your great finish!
1)It makes complete sense for a combo deck that wishes to dig as much as possible to have more velocity to stop messing with card draws and scry effects. I'm coming from Ad Nauseam mostly and the most widely played iteration of the deck is without fetches : it helps keeping on the bottom what's not needed and optimizes the scrying as well as effects such provided by Sleight of Hand.
2) Having 6-7 fetches to thin the deck is fine, but when you keep on the bottom your scrys, you virtually do the same thing and more. Scrying 2 to the bottom with Serum Visions and keeping them there is better thinning than fetching for 1 land in the deck. Keeping all that has been filtered to the bottom adds consistency, velocity with cards like Peer through Depths. Redundancy with lots of cantrips (12-15) gets us there better I find.
3) Pain from shock lands and painlands shouldn't be a big deal with the point of the deck being to combo on turn 4. You'd probably take 4 dommage to yourself to get there while with fetches, it's probably around 3-3,5. However, for 1 point of damage, filtering for good and keeping what's not needed on the bottom is more valuable.
In all, big innovation that will stick around. I think it's the way to go for the deck. Propos for those out there playing it out.
Cheers!
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
I agree with including Noxious Revival; I was a naysayer of the card in the past, but it actually opens up so many additional lines to kill with that it's indispensable. There will be times where it's a dead draw, but you can say that about many of the cards in the deck.
My feeling is that the distinction between the two builds--the fetchless versions with more cantrips and the 4 Remand 4 Grapeshot version--will eventually take the same shape that ANT and TES do in Legacy in that both decks, while moving towards a similar win condition, take relatively different approaches to get there. This results in two legitimate options that any storm pilot can use.
UR Storm
URB Grixis Delver
W Death and Taxes
Basically anything with Scalding Tarn
@pmc18823 I've had a very different experience with GDS sideboards. For me Kozilek's Return, Izzet Static Caster and Anger of the Gods are the most popular sweepers all of which are easily cast under moon.
Can you explain this? I can't figure out how you win with a lethal grapeshot coming at you on the stack.
UBR TES
UBR TNT
GB Dredge
(does it have led? then I probably have played it.)
UBWR Ad nauseam
GW Hatebears
FETCH:
- Deck thinning - lessens the probability of drawing lands late during combo turns. Each fetch land corresponds to 2 dead cards removed from the deck late in the game.
- Reshuffle scry'ed cards - Chance to redraw cards you scry'ed to the bottom early (e.g. Past in Flames).
- Main deck protection - Most list include Remand, which gives main deck protection from opponent's interactions, especially on the crucial combo turn.
- Blood Moon factor - Blood Moon shuts down several matchups.
FETCHLESS:You might notice that more explanation is needed for the fetchless manabase. It is because the consensus is that fetching is much better. That's why we have to establish more logical reasons in going the fetchless route. I come to these explanations because (a) I have used Peer Through Depths before, during the time when the kill con is Pyromancer's Swath into Grapeshot; and (b) as a Modern and Legacy Belcher player that tried to abuse Recross the Paths and take advantage of deck piling. I'll be trying the fetchless list in the next couple of days and compare it with my experience with the fetch list.
RGForest BelcherRG
WUBRGBring to BalanceWUBRG
Commander Decks:
WUBSharuum the HegemonWUB
WUBRGScion of the Ur-DragonWUBRG
UBDralnu, Lich LordUB
UBRNekusar, the MindrazerUBR
I just finished buying a playset of Tarns over the last couple of months. The pain is real, but if the deck is more consistent w/the non-fetch plan, awesome. Caleb has a good writeup of the deck that he posted on the 11th, only change between article and the Open was swapping Cascade Bluffs for a 3rd Island. Still has the Snow Covered Island in both builds for the "Gifts for lands" edge. He got 12th with this tho:
3 Goblin Electromancer
4 Baral, Chief of Compliance
Lands: 17
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Island
4 Shivan Reef
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Steam Vents
Spells: 36
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Manamorphose
1 Noxious Revival
3 Peek
3 Peer Through Depths
4 Pyretic Ritual
3 Grapeshot
2 Past in Flames
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
2 Dismember
1 Echoing Truth
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Swan Song
3 Empty the Warrens
2 Pieces of the Puzzle
3 Shattering Spree
https://adventuringgear.wordpress.com/
I did finally pick up my 3rd Spree last week tho and snagged a set of old school Peek's yesterday. May be running it tomorrow night at FNM, we will see.
Gratz on the finish! Why did you choose to play Swan Song over Dispel? For the Scapeshift match-up?
It is actually good and it single handidly won me two FNM matchs.
Downsides:
-It's 2 mana, claim to fame is 1, this turned out to be close to irrelevant because you are usually revealing it with gifts and they aren't actually giving it to you.
-2 life, this can be super bad against burn or affinity
-mainboard gravehate, ex scooze, relic, this card can lose you the game if you draw it against one of those cards game one, but truth be told if your opponent has a turn 2 scooze or relic things aren't looking goood anyways
Upsides:
- a new fantastic gifts split, if your looking at a hand of rituals you reveal: baral, electromancer, PIF, and Postmortem Lunge. This split won me many games
-you can flash it back. I won a game against death shadow when they had an early nihil spellbb and then killed multiple creatures, went ritual postmortem lunge, PIF, got the second creature with flash back, swung and then Grapeshot the face. Haste is a thing
I hope this was helpful and you give this card a try, it will probably come down too meda, I see so many fatal push decks that it usually is a decent draw anyways.
I've since cut Apostle's Blessing in favor of Noxious Revival. I'm currently playing 2 Remand / 2 Peer / 1 Noxious as well as 8 reducers. I suppose I could also do 7 reducers and 3 Remand.
Was wondering if you or other storm players could play test Postmortem Lunge, it had performed insanely well for me in the slot of noxious revival but I'd like to here how it works in wider medas. It's the first change I've made to my deck on my own in a long time that actually has performed significantly better than the card it's replacing. Let me know!