Anyway the new set brings nice cards, i believe precognition field can take the grindy slots PA and SFA were kind of fighting for
How? This card just seems WAY too slow for us. The issue isn't filtering when it's grindy. It's having the ability to start without them countering/bolting. This does not of that...
I'm genuinely curious, I want to know how to make the deck better.
Speaking of Dominaria: what do people think will happen with Damping Sphere? Should we go up to 2 Shattering Sprees to help combat this card? Or is one Spree + mainboard Repeal and possibly another mainboard bounce effect good enough?
I've got Repeal and Unsub mainboard already. But I have added an Abrade to the sideboard to help versus all the irritating human's running about along with having another option vs Sphere and the like (I also have Shattering Spree, Echoing Truth and EE in my sideboard).
man, im trying precognition field in cockatrice... is busted. i dont know what you mean by slow, we already play many 4 drops. its a continuous source of card advantage and selection that doesnt involve the gy.. exactly what the deck needs, in my eyes
Again: how? It seems like coming down turn 4, and then needing open mana to do anything with it means we're just dead anyway. It keeps you from fizzling, but it seems like it wastes 2 turns unless you're already ready...
How are you using it? Hard cast on turn 4 and start hoping? Wouldn't Azcanta be better there?
man, im trying precognition field in cockatrice... is busted. i dont know what you mean by slow, we already play many 4 drops. its a continuous source of card advantage and selection that doesnt involve the gy.. exactly what the deck needs, in my eyes
Again: how? It seems like coming down turn 4, and then needing open mana to do anything with it means we're just dead anyway. It keeps you from fizzling, but it seems like it wastes 2 turns unless you're already ready...
How are you using it? Hard cast on turn 4 and start hoping? Wouldn't Azcanta be better there?
Im not sold on the idea yet but I believe Precognition Field has the potential to benefit you with multiple extra spells per turn, in conjunction with the serum visions that set up your draws. There are definite misses in the chain of spells, but its a decent idea
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Decks I have in my bag of tricks- Needless to say, someone who wants to play will probably have a deck UB/x Faeries UR Storm XURWB Affinity G Elves UW control
I'm just starting gifts storm. I';m wondering why Gifts lists have 3 grapeshots in the main, I recall the theory in legacy is to go light on win-cons and tutor them when necessary. Similarly, would anyone mainboard a single pyormancer's ascension/
Modern != Legacy. It's all about consistency, since we don't have the speed and tutors that the Legacy version has.
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Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have. - René Descartes
When you're on the Empty plan the only really annoying thing they typically have is Maelstrom Pulse. If it's at all possible, post Warren's I try to have a Bolt in hand and a red mana to use. If you Bolt the Token they're trying to Pulse, the spell will fail.
If you don't hit any Pieces in the early game that will definately be a problem with all the discard. Any game I've been able to stick even a medium Warrens earlyish has been a win. The longer the game drags on, if they're able to consistently attack your hand, bad things happen quickly.
I've been testing 2x precognition field in the SB slots of Pyromancer's ascention. I have to say the card is amazing. It comes in for grindy MUs (blue decks, jund etc). Those decks have a hard time dealing with it.
Whether you cast it on turn 4 and go off on 5 or ritual it out to have some mana left the card provides great card advantage and generally enables a combo turn. Being able to exile the top card helps if you have too much mana and not enough card draw. I feel the card is vastly superior to both Pyromancer's ascension and Azcanta. I haven't had the chance to test with Chandra but Precognition field seems better as a 4 drop to generate CA (instead of just drawing a card ach turn, it generates a lot more).
It seems better in the fetch version, giving you an additional way to change the top card of your library.
I strongly recommand testing the card out to those of you who face a lot of grindy / blue matchups and are playing Pyromancer's ascension or Search for Azcanta in their sideboard
I am still looking for the list from Eli Kassis played at the last GP to top 16 finish. I dont like lists from special mixed events like the SCG Invitational.
In addition, I see lists with fecthes, and the one from Caleb does not have fetches. What is the reason behind this? Save life?
Fetchless makes your deck more consistent because when you are putting cards on the bottom of your library with Serum Visions and other cantrips, they dont get shuffled when you fetch. Your life total is better, Shattering Spree is better and you rather play that over By Force because you will have much more red sources. The drawback is you can't play Blood Moon, and opponent's Blood Moon can screw you. Those are just off the top of my head.
I personally started with the fetchless and changed back to fetch version. While there are a lot of pros for fetchless, I think that Blood Moon is just too important in certain matchup, though, is that its not good on the draw, I don't even bring it on on the draw against most decks. However, against Eldrazi and Taxes its our only way to change the matchup %.
While the life total will be less, its is only slightly less because we usually are fetching for Islands almost every time. Matchups where life really matters, like Burn and Affinity, I'd rather give up the small %. We are pretty good vs Affinity, and against burn its one of the worst matchups but the matchup is so bad anyways I dont really care . Plus the fact that Burn is actually not that common anymore, I'd rather have more game vs the other decks where Blood Moon can help; Against Eldrasi Taxes, its our saving grace, and sometimes a turn 2 or 3 Blood Moon can just win the game vs a ton of decks for us outright.
As for the more consistency, the main part that fetchless helps is getting to Pieces of the Puzzle or Empty the Warrens post board, and that's by far the biggest reason to run it. By turn 3 you have close to 100% chance to draw it if you used 1 or 2 cantrips the turns before. However, Fetches do slim the deck of lands, so you still are gaining small consistency there at least.
I had a question about fetchless vs fetches. I had stepped away from UR Gifts about 7-8 months ago, wanted to start it up again and noticed favor going to fetchless. I asked what that was about before finding this 10 pages or so ago.
Is there any other thoughts to this? It seems that not being able to run or combat Bloodmoon is one of the primary issues?
I am still looking for the list from Eli Kassis played at the last GP to top 16 finish. I dont like lists from special mixed events like the SCG Invitational.
In addition, I see lists with fecthes, and the one from Caleb does not have fetches. What is the reason behind this? Save life?
Fetchless makes your deck more consistent because when you are putting cards on the bottom of your library with Serum Visions and other cantrips, they dont get shuffled when you fetch. Your life total is better, Shattering Spree is better and you rather play that over By Force because you will have much more red sources. The drawback is you can't play Blood Moon, and opponent's Blood Moon can screw you. Those are just off the top of my head.
I personally started with the fetchless and changed back to fetch version. While there are a lot of pros for fetchless, I think that Blood Moon is just too important in certain matchup, though, is that its not good on the draw, I don't even bring it on on the draw against most decks. However, against Eldrazi and Taxes its our only way to change the matchup %.
While the life total will be less, its is only slightly less because we usually are fetching for Islands almost every time. Matchups where life really matters, like Burn and Affinity, I'd rather give up the small %. We are pretty good vs Affinity, and against burn its one of the worst matchups but the matchup is so bad anyways I dont really care . Plus the fact that Burn is actually not that common anymore, I'd rather have more game vs the other decks where Blood Moon can help; Against Eldrasi Taxes, its our saving grace, and sometimes a turn 2 or 3 Blood Moon can just win the game vs a ton of decks for us outright.
As for the more consistency, the main part that fetchless helps is getting to Pieces of the Puzzle or Empty the Warrens post board, and that's by far the biggest reason to run it. By turn 3 you have close to 100% chance to draw it if you used 1 or 2 cantrips the turns before. However, Fetches do slim the deck of lands, so you still are gaining small consistency there at least.
I had a question about fetchless vs fetches. I had stepped away from UR Gifts about 7-8 months ago, wanted to start it up again and noticed favor going to fetchless. I asked what that was about before finding this 10 pages or so ago.
Is there any other thoughts to this? It seems that not being able to run or combat Bloodmoon is one of the primary issues?
Caleb spoke about this on his blog and his explanation is pretty succinct:
The major reasoning for this is that on average we will be taking the same about of damage from our lands but without shuffling we also get to maintain complete information from what is put to the bottom with our cantrips. Another free upside to this is also we will be insulated from fetchland hate, such as Leonin Arbiter. There are some downsides to this base though. One being that now we are weaker to Blood Moon and Fulminator Mage, as well as losing the slight gains from the deck thinning fetchlands provide. This lack of thinning with the increased cantrips (which I mention below) lead me to also shave the 18th land. One last thing is that there is a Snow-Covered Island over a normal one for Gifts Ungiven.
Hey all, I've been out of Magic for a bit and I'm trying to get back into Modern. I'm happy that Storm is still a viable and powerful deck!
Since I last played Gifts Storm, there have been some changes to decklists I'm seeing, and I'm curious about these changes. If someone could explain the inclusion of the following cards that'd be great! Thanks!
Unsubstantiate and Repeal in the main: Are we putting these in because decks like Humans have mainboard Thalias and we need mainboard responses? Also, do you think this makes sideboard Echoing Truth irrelevant?
What is the idea behind Gigadrowse in the sideboard? Tapping down the opponent's lands on their end step to make sure they can't interact with us on our combo turn? If so, what sort of matchups would we want this against? Control?
Yes, Repeal and Unsub are there for annoying permaments and give us a main board option. Unsub also gives you the cute trick of building up the storm count and bouncing Grapeshot back to your hand so you can go again (Remand also lets you do it). No, I don't believe it makes Echoing Truth something that can go. There's a lot of irritating cards out there where bouncing is the easiest way for us to deal with them.
Gigadrowse is for control and quasi-control like any kind of Death Shadow deck. Cutting them off from all or even part of there resources for a turn is massive.
Wipe Away is important due to the Split Second clause. It lets you get around things like Valakut triggers or bounce a lethal Death Shadow when you know you're opponent is holding a Stubborn Denail. It's also an alternative mana cost should you run into Chalice.
Pieces is for any game where you know your opponent is going to have graveyard hate. Suspect Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace, Relic of Progenitus etc? Straight up swap Gifts for Pieces. You can also add in Pieces alongside Gifts in matchups where you want extra cards as fast as possible. This is typically against other combo decks. A good example right now would be UR Breach. You want as many cards as fast as you can so you'd keep 2 Gifts in but also stack in all 4 Pieces. IMO Pieces is the main can't touch spot of the sideboard. Going under 4 is straight up whack-a-doodles IMO.
Search for Azcanta and Chandra are cards people have been trying out for the grindy matchups. Same with Pyromancer's Ascension. Pyro's isn't bad, but it's another card that doesn't like all the graveyard hate floating about so tends to be the lesser played option right now.
Both Search and Chandra function as extra card draw when you have to grind, and cards are our most precious resource. People have also tried out things like Treasure Map there. The latest that's being tried out is Precognition Field which is showing favorable results. But it's not sideboarded in that much at the moment as it's for the control games and things are so heavily slanted towards Aggro right now.
Hello! New guy to Storm here but saw a guy selling most of a Storm deck for a decent price and couldn't pass it up as I am trying to build up an assortment for Modern. I know it's supposed to be a fetchless and I have the Cliffs/Canals for it but am unsure what else it needs.
I believe these 60 are an exact copy of Caleb's (here is his blog, must read for Storm players).
The flex slots is from where most of the customization is made. I would argue that you want at least 2 Remand-like effects, 2 cantrip effects, and maybe a catch-it-all. Some people run the full suite of Remand, a singleton Empty the Warrens, Lightning Bolt, even Blood Moon.
You don't have to have snow-covered lands, you can do just fine with basics.
The post above yours explains greatly why some sideboard cards are being used currently.
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Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have. - René Descartes
I don't like that Faithless Looting puts us down a card, despite the explosiveness. It worked a lot better back in Pyromancer Ascension Storm because you wanted to fill the grave (also why you ran Thought Scour), but in Gifts Storm filling the graveyard isn't super great anymore. I guess it's PiF fuel. Still, it is definitely worth testing as it may improve consistency in some areas.
The manabase would also have to be slightly adjusted if you are planning on running a full playset since that T1 red mana can be quite the ordeal. I believe that the ratio in a Frank Analysis article said you have to have 14 untapped sources of a color to ensure (mostly) that you draw into it in your opening hand. Since we're only running 13 untapped red sources (if we're using Caleb's list; if you're running fetches, then you shouldn't have to tweak it), it might be prudent to drop an Island (probably a snow-covered one, since, playing those T1 tends to tip the opponent off to what you're playing) and replace it with a Mountain, leaving you with 14 untapped sources of red and blue mana, somewhat ensuring that you don't get colored screwed. Especially since you're dropping Opt for it, you shouldn't feel the loss of an Island very hampering.
Yes, people have tried Faithless Looting in Storm and abandoned it. Desperate Ravings was superior (and now even that's been replaced). When you cast and flashback Looting, you lose 5 cards (including the Looting itself) and draw 4. When you cast and flashback Ravings, you lose 3 cards and draw 4. The randomness matters much less than the additional loss of two whole cards.
If you understand why Pieces of the Puzzle is a good SB card, you'll understand why Faithless Looting is not (neither in the main nor side).
Faithless looting might not be the worst possible card, but its certainly worse than a lot of other options. I dont understand why the inclusion of opt and the inclusion of faithless looting into other decks sparkes a new discussion about it. It was tried when it was first printed, when storm was relying solely on pyromancer ascension and past in flames. In that version looting was much much better than it is in the current version and even there it was not good enough compared to thought scour and desperate ravings. I dont see any reason why it should now be better than any of the two or opt.
A quick tip for everybody playing with chandra in the sideboard: If you have an emblem you have to use it whenever you play a spell. So if your opponent has a leyline and no other targets you have to deal 5 to yourself for every cantrip you want to play
How? This card just seems WAY too slow for us. The issue isn't filtering when it's grindy. It's having the ability to start without them countering/bolting. This does not of that...
I'm genuinely curious, I want to know how to make the deck better.
Affinity
GR Eggs GR
UR Storm UR
BR Hollow One BR
WUR Cheerios WUR
G Mono-Green Control G
I've got Repeal and Unsub mainboard already. But I have added an Abrade to the sideboard to help versus all the irritating human's running about along with having another option vs Sphere and the like (I also have Shattering Spree, Echoing Truth and EE in my sideboard).
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
Again: how? It seems like coming down turn 4, and then needing open mana to do anything with it means we're just dead anyway. It keeps you from fizzling, but it seems like it wastes 2 turns unless you're already ready...
How are you using it? Hard cast on turn 4 and start hoping? Wouldn't Azcanta be better there?
Affinity
GR Eggs GR
UR Storm UR
BR Hollow One BR
WUR Cheerios WUR
G Mono-Green Control G
Im not sold on the idea yet but I believe Precognition Field has the potential to benefit you with multiple extra spells per turn, in conjunction with the serum visions that set up your draws. There are definite misses in the chain of spells, but its a decent idea
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
Plunked a pre-order down on one today since it was only $1.50.
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
When you're on the Empty plan the only really annoying thing they typically have is Maelstrom Pulse. If it's at all possible, post Warren's I try to have a Bolt in hand and a red mana to use. If you Bolt the Token they're trying to Pulse, the spell will fail.
If you don't hit any Pieces in the early game that will definately be a problem with all the discard. Any game I've been able to stick even a medium Warrens earlyish has been a win. The longer the game drags on, if they're able to consistently attack your hand, bad things happen quickly.
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
Whether you cast it on turn 4 and go off on 5 or ritual it out to have some mana left the card provides great card advantage and generally enables a combo turn. Being able to exile the top card helps if you have too much mana and not enough card draw. I feel the card is vastly superior to both Pyromancer's ascension and Azcanta. I haven't had the chance to test with Chandra but Precognition field seems better as a 4 drop to generate CA (instead of just drawing a card ach turn, it generates a lot more).
It seems better in the fetch version, giving you an additional way to change the top card of your library.
I strongly recommand testing the card out to those of you who face a lot of grindy / blue matchups and are playing Pyromancer's ascension or Search for Azcanta in their sideboard
My list is linked in the post
Currently Playing:
Modern Grixis Shadow, Storm
Legacy: Grixis Delver, Sneak and Show
Duel Commander: Kess High Tide
Vintage Big blue(MTGO)
I had a question about fetchless vs fetches. I had stepped away from UR Gifts about 7-8 months ago, wanted to start it up again and noticed favor going to fetchless. I asked what that was about before finding this 10 pages or so ago.
Is there any other thoughts to this? It seems that not being able to run or combat Bloodmoon is one of the primary issues?
UBR ANT
R Burn
GB/GR/GW/G Karn Tron
GW Aura
RW Burn
BWR Kaalia of the Vast
UWR Narset, Enlightened Master
GWR Uril, the Miststalker
Caleb spoke about this on his blog and his explanation is pretty succinct:
The major reasoning for this is that on average we will be taking the same about of damage from our lands but without shuffling we also get to maintain complete information from what is put to the bottom with our cantrips. Another free upside to this is also we will be insulated from fetchland hate, such as Leonin Arbiter. There are some downsides to this base though. One being that now we are weaker to Blood Moon and Fulminator Mage, as well as losing the slight gains from the deck thinning fetchlands provide. This lack of thinning with the increased cantrips (which I mention below) lead me to also shave the 18th land. One last thing is that there is a Snow-Covered Island over a normal one for Gifts Ungiven.
Since I last played Gifts Storm, there have been some changes to decklists I'm seeing, and I'm curious about these changes. If someone could explain the inclusion of the following cards that'd be great! Thanks!
Unsubstantiate and Repeal in the main: Are we putting these in because decks like Humans have mainboard Thalias and we need mainboard responses? Also, do you think this makes sideboard Echoing Truth irrelevant?
What is the idea behind Gigadrowse in the sideboard? Tapping down the opponent's lands on their end step to make sure they can't interact with us on our combo turn? If so, what sort of matchups would we want this against? Control?
Why would we play Wipe Away in the sideboard over a cheaper option like Echoing Truth? And what purposes do Pieces of the Puzzle, Search for Azcanta, and Chandra, Torch of Defiance serve?
Why am I seeing Pyromancer Ascension in sideboards? Don't get me wrong, I love the card, but I thought after Gitaxian Probe got banned the Gifts Ungiven plan was just better.
Thanks so much in advance for your help!
Standard:
GRUW Temurai Aggro
Modern:
UR Storm
EDH:
UWR Zedruu the Greathearted
R Heartless Hidetsugu
W Hixus, Prison Warden
RB Lyzolda, the Blood Witch
Yes, Repeal and Unsub are there for annoying permaments and give us a main board option. Unsub also gives you the cute trick of building up the storm count and bouncing Grapeshot back to your hand so you can go again (Remand also lets you do it). No, I don't believe it makes Echoing Truth something that can go. There's a lot of irritating cards out there where bouncing is the easiest way for us to deal with them.
Gigadrowse is for control and quasi-control like any kind of Death Shadow deck. Cutting them off from all or even part of there resources for a turn is massive.
Wipe Away is important due to the Split Second clause. It lets you get around things like Valakut triggers or bounce a lethal Death Shadow when you know you're opponent is holding a Stubborn Denail. It's also an alternative mana cost should you run into Chalice.
Pieces is for any game where you know your opponent is going to have graveyard hate. Suspect Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace, Relic of Progenitus etc? Straight up swap Gifts for Pieces. You can also add in Pieces alongside Gifts in matchups where you want extra cards as fast as possible. This is typically against other combo decks. A good example right now would be UR Breach. You want as many cards as fast as you can so you'd keep 2 Gifts in but also stack in all 4 Pieces. IMO Pieces is the main can't touch spot of the sideboard. Going under 4 is straight up whack-a-doodles IMO.
Search for Azcanta and Chandra are cards people have been trying out for the grindy matchups. Same with Pyromancer's Ascension. Pyro's isn't bad, but it's another card that doesn't like all the graveyard hate floating about so tends to be the lesser played option right now.
Both Search and Chandra function as extra card draw when you have to grind, and cards are our most precious resource. People have also tried out things like Treasure Map there. The latest that's being tried out is Precognition Field which is showing favorable results. But it's not sideboarded in that much at the moment as it's for the control games and things are so heavily slanted towards Aggro right now.
Hope that helps a bit!
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
4 manamorphose
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 opt
3 goblin electromancer
3 Baral, chief of compliance
4 sleight of hand
4 shivan reef
1 noxious revival
4 serum visions
4 desperate ritual
4 pyretic ritual
2 past in flames
3 grapeshot
2 empty the warrens
1 echoing truth
1 wipe away
2 dismember
4 pieces of the puzzle
2 dispel
2 shatterimg spree
Not sure what the lands should be besides the 4 fast and the 4 checks for the basics. Any help so I can just finish this would be appreciated.
Standard
WBGWBGABZAN AGGROWBGWBG
mathStorm! Here is my main deck just for reference:4 Shivan Reef
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Steam Vents
2 Island
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Mountain
Creatures:
4 Baral, Chief of Compliance
2 Goblin Electromancer
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Manamorphose
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
2 Past in Flames
3 Grapeshot
1 Noxious Revival
3 Opt
2 Remand
1 Repeal
1 Unsubstantiate
The flex slots is from where most of the customization is made. I would argue that you want at least 2 Remand-like effects, 2 cantrip effects, and maybe a catch-it-all. Some people run the full suite of Remand, a singleton Empty the Warrens, Lightning Bolt, even Blood Moon.
You don't have to have snow-covered lands, you can do just fine with basics.
The post above yours explains greatly why some sideboard cards are being used currently.
The manabase would also have to be slightly adjusted if you are planning on running a full playset since that T1 red mana can be quite the ordeal. I believe that the ratio in a Frank Analysis article said you have to have 14 untapped sources of a color to ensure (mostly) that you draw into it in your opening hand. Since we're only running 13 untapped red sources (if we're using Caleb's list; if you're running fetches, then you shouldn't have to tweak it), it might be prudent to drop an Island (probably a snow-covered one, since, playing those T1 tends to tip the opponent off to what you're playing) and replace it with a Mountain, leaving you with 14 untapped sources of red and blue mana, somewhat ensuring that you don't get colored screwed. Especially since you're dropping Opt for it, you shouldn't feel the loss of an Island very hampering.
Yes, people have tried Faithless Looting in Storm and abandoned it. Desperate Ravings was superior (and now even that's been replaced). When you cast and flashback Looting, you lose 5 cards (including the Looting itself) and draw 4. When you cast and flashback Ravings, you lose 3 cards and draw 4. The randomness matters much less than the additional loss of two whole cards.
If you understand why Pieces of the Puzzle is a good SB card, you'll understand why Faithless Looting is not (neither in the main nor side).
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
A quick tip for everybody playing with chandra in the sideboard: If you have an emblem you have to use it whenever you play a spell. So if your opponent has a leyline and no other targets you have to deal 5 to yourself for every cantrip you want to play
Caleb and Paul both won their SCG Regional events.
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1131596#paper
Affinity
GR Eggs GR
UR Storm UR
BR Hollow One BR
WUR Cheerios WUR
G Mono-Green Control G