Welcome to the pre-primer Storm discussion thread. I'm making this due to request and their being a distinct lack of storm threads around here. This thread is for discussing what should go into a storm primer, the viability and playing of storm decks, and the choosing of a primer custodian. I will make it if there is need, but I am in the most busy part of grad school right now so it will take me some time.
What is Storm?
Storm is at its heart a combo mechanic. It repeats itself a number of times equal to the number of spells you have cast before it in a turn, thus comboing out and usually either winning or losing the game on that turn. Storm is seen in all major formats, and Wizards of the Coast has admitted the mechanic was a mistake in the past.
Empty the Warrens, Grapeshot and Temporal Fissure are all game winning cards and together make up the best combo cards in pauper. Temporal Fissure is used in a form of the familiar combo, and is not used in conjunction with the other two cards. It will be ignored in favor of those for now.
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Empty the Warrens[/card] and Grapeshot are amongst the most powerful cards in any level of mtg, and this includes pauper. They are as important for the creation of archetypes as Delver of Secrets. All of the major storm cards were banned early in internet paupers lifetime, but we are paper pauper, the overpowered vintage to MTGO's Legacy.
Why Play Storm?
Storm is the best and in many ways only real combo deck in pauper. Decks like Esper Familiars, Axebane, Defender, Midnight Gond and Watch Rites are two or more card combos which imitate Modern's best combo deck, Splinter Twin. We are playing a single card combo deck that can kill turn 2 and is almost certain to kill by turn 4, while being difficult to properly disrupt. If Empty the Warrens only goes off 6 times it will still beat most control decks with its overwhelming number of tokens, and pauper aggro decks lack the disruption to stop a grapeshot kill.
Why Not Play Storm?
Storm is among the most expensive decks in pauper, with $100 price tags being common and higher being possible. It can also fizzle based on drawing the wrong mana or cards, leaving the player in the situation of losing based on what was empirically luck. Finally Storm requires the player be willing to get punched in the face by infect, eye candy, stompy and other fast aggro decks before it can go off. It can go off before taking blows, but most games they will take a bite out of your life or leave you heavily poisoned before you win.
Storm works by playing as many as twenty cards in a turn, and does so by using a combination of bulk card draw, cantrips, and mana increasing spells. Because the majority of these spells are found in red, black and blue the deck tends to be played in grixis colors. The goal of the deck is to play either Empty the Warrens or Grapeshot at the end of this card chain, with Empty the Warrens providing more inevitability while Grapeshot is easier to get off and more direct.
Whether it is correct to have both in the deck is a matter of debate. I find that the minimal amount of mana to reliably combo out is 5 with grapeshot, while Empty the Warrens requires a much less achievable eight. This means when racing aggro decks Empty the Warrens slows down the deck, but it also can provide large quantities of chump blockers and maybe even mob them to death. It certainly defeats control, which cannot counter all of the copies and will frequently be faced with 10-12 tokens and too few creatures to block them.
The color wheel involved is also somewhat flexible, with the deck traditionally running grixis but some running rakdos or Izzet colors to make mana fixing easier. This loses the advantage of blues bulkier draws and better cantrips, but gains more consistent mana.
Lines of Play:
Storm is a single card, none-interactive combo. The goal of the combo is to cast between 9 and 19 spells before casting a storm spell, thus guaranteeing a win. In order to cast that many spells the deck has to generate mana while drawing more spells to cast, which is why it consists of five types of spells. These are:
Pure Cantrips, which rearrange the top of your deck to pick out the most important spells and then draws a single card.
Bulk Draw: These cards net you multiple cards. You need these because you need mana generation from pure mana generating cards to have enough to combo out, but there are no cards that generate both mana advantage and card advantage.
Cantriping Mana Producers: These do two things; they “fix” your mana by changing the type from one to another and so make plays more possible, and they draw a replacement card afterwards. Extremely important because there is no one color with cantrips, bulk draw, mana production and the storm card itself.
Mana Producers: These are cards that trade card advantage for positive mana production, and as such are needed because most cantrips do not replace their mana cost. If you could make a deck entirely of gitaxian probes and manamorphose you would, but this isn't possible.
The Storm: The card that wins the game.
In order to make Storm work for you, you have to guess which order these are going to come in and play accordingly. This changes from game to game, but there are certain rules you should try to abide by.
1. Never let your mana fall below the value of your storm card when playing against counters. This is extremely important, even if you have a mana producing card in hand. If you drop to 3 mana and your storm card in hand is an Empty the Warrens, for instance, and your pyretic ritual is countered you not only lost this turns going off but the nature of storm using up your hand means you likely lost the game.
2. Try to combo early against aggro, save for control. This means that you will often dig for cards on turns where you cannot combo out against aggro, as we don't have a plan B. We can usually outrace an aggro deck this way, but playing conservatively like you would against control will kill you.
3. Discard is worse for us than counterspells. A storm card's copies have to each be countered individually, but losing the card to discard takes the whole game. It is possible that Brainstorm might be the best card against discard as you can bury your storm cards in your deck if they attempt to duress you.
4. Buy some colored marbles or pogs to use when floating mana. When floating 7 mana in three colors it is easy to lose track of some of it, so make a physical representation. You will be called out less and be more efficient in your plays.
Card Choices:
Cantrips:
In U. Gitaxian Probe: Free Cantrip! Ponder: Deepest Cantrip ever made. Preordain: Possibly the best Cantrip ever made after Brainstorm. Brainstorm: No good to us here. If we find lands we need to get rid of them, not just stick them down to where we are going to draw again. Serum Visions: Bad Preordain, expensive because of Modern's cantrip hunger.
Many others which are not good enough to run. If you are running blue, run these.
In R. Crimson Wisps: Not good enough in blue, but if running Rakdos a shameful requirement. Expedite: Crimson Wisps II, whisper harder. If you are playing this it is because you are avoiding blue, otherwise play those.
In B. Aphotic Wisps,Nighthaze, Cremate, Gravebind. Same as Expedite and Crimson Wisps. Blue does it better.
Bulk Card Draw:
In U. Shared Discovery: Would require you to have creatures, and that is a bad thing. Courier's Capsule: A possibility, since it stores your card draw for the future (IE when you have enough mana to float). Sadly it won't count for storm if you save it a turn or two. Font of Fortunes: See Capsule above. Ideas Unbound: If you are running blue, you are probably running this. 3 cards for 2 mana is great. Perilous Research: Oddly not terrible, as we are probably dead or victorious on the turn we combo out anyway, so losing a land isn't the worst thing. Vision Skeins: A very reasonable card for us, two for two no frills. Sadly outshone by some other choice. Words of Wisdom: Another Vision Skeins. Compulsive Research: Good because we never want to draw lands on the combo turn. Treasure Cruise: It has problems with our mana due to Cabal Ritual, but it worked for moderns ascendancy storm deck and it works here.
In R.
Nope. Use Blue or Black or hope for perfect cantrips.
In B. Sign in Blood: You know and love it. Draw two for two, fringe weakness. Night's Whisper: Added in with Eternal Masters. Better than Sign in Blood due to easier mana rules, either replace that with this or add the two together. Read the Bones: Three mana is a lot for this deck, but it is a smooth draw. Real possibility.
Cantripping Mana Fixing:
Chromatic Sphere: Fix mana, draw cards, raise storm count. Chromatic Star: See above. Manamorphose: The best at what it does. Think of it as the wolverine of cantriping mana fixers. Abundant Growth: In case you want green, there is this thing. Sadly we don't want it, because we run dumb land no one else would touch. Barbed Sextant: This can actually be better than the chromatic ones, for the obvious reason that you will get 2 cards on a turn where you get full mana. It rewards gambling that you will be able to combo out a turn ahead, but it can be good. Terrarion: More mana fixing, but also more to sack. As good as the others.
Mana creation spells:
Culling the Weak: We usually don't play creatures to fuel this. Infernal Plunge: No, for the same reason as above. Songs of the Damned: There must be some deck that plays this, but it is not us. High Tide: We don't play islands. Dark Ritual: Half the reason you play black, solid gold. Cabal Ritual: The other half. This card effectively resets your mana for you.
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Rite of Flame[/card]: Good, not great. You probably won't see enough for this to be better than a Dark Ritual, but who knows. Desperate Ritual: Someone might play this. Pyretic Ritual: Or this. Soulbright Flamekin: A strangely intriguing option, but opens us up to the use of lightning bolt as a counterspell. Seething Song: Two extra mana means this is only as efficient as dark ritual, and you might draw it when you are down to two mana floating. But still, two extra mana is two extra mana. Inner Fire: Random effects are bad, but we draw enough cards that this could gain us something. Just remember that it takes five cards just to break even, and eight to beat dark ritual and seething song. Simian Spirit Guide: Great, it acts as another petal. lotus petal: Basically extra lands that you can play early or as mana spells during the combo.
Temporal Fissure is a deck which seeks to reset the opponent's game by returning all of their permanents to their hand midgame, and then repeating this process as needed until the games ending. To accomplish this effect Temporal Fissure decks require mana ramp/cost reduction and the ability to recast Temporal Fissure repeatedly.
There are two classic shells for Temporal Fissure. The first of these is Fissure Post, a combination which was involved in the banning of both cards in online pauper. Fissure Post is an 8Post ramp deck which provides the mana for the Temporal Fissure combo.
The second shell is an Esper Familiar style deck which casts Temporal Fissure as a game ending combo rather than rely on capsize and playing lots of small blue creatures.
Both Shells share many of the same cards, and have been effectively on developmental hold since the banning of Temporal Fissure.
Mulldrifter: Draw 2 and leaves a substantial body behind, we run a lot of mana (nearly infinite) and this guy just gets better and better the more you have. Can be bounced by Temporal Fissure and then replayed again and again. Compulsive Research: Draw three, ditch a land card. It provides some great digging potential for cheap. Deep Analysis: A little weak in this deck, since we can put it back into our hand if we want more cards rather than flashing it. Comparative Analysis: Very nice card for us, three mana draw 2 with no drawbacks as an instant. Treasure Cruise: This did not exist back in the day, but Temporal Fissure decks reduce costs for it at both ends, but reducing the required mana and by putting cards in the graveyard. Sea gate Oracle: Cantriping creature! Forsee: With the cost reducers and cloud lands this is pretty cheap to dig through four cards and grab the good ones.
Ghostly Flicker: Flickers two cards on the table, which lets you return multiple spells to your hands using Mnemonic Wall, bounce your faerie to untap two lands or simply untap lands. Snap: Untap two lands and returns either a card to your opponent's hand, or, more likely, one to yours. Cloud of Faeries: The creature version of snap, untapping lands for you to generate infinite mana. Man-o'-war: Creature bounce that can be recurred with Ghostly Flicker. Frantic Search: The king of untapping lands while searching through your deck. Amazing. Temporal Fissure: The name of the deck. Oddly the deck has actually survived online with this being banned in the form of Esper Familiars, but this is stronger.
Mana Production:
Springleaf Drum: Only for none-Post decks. Glimmerpost: Gains you life and works with Cloudpost. For post only. Cloudpost: The easiest ramp card ever made. Run four if running temporal post.
Mana Fixing:
Expedition Map: Temporal Post only, grabs you what you need. Prophetic Prism: Temporal Post only, fixes the mana issues from running brown mana.
How it Works:
This is a really complicated deck, and I don't want to give advice until I know it better. For now my understanding of how to win with it is that you reduce the cost of your flicker cards below the amount of bounce you receive for them.
In essence you generate mana overtime by reflickering Cloud of Faeries, gain more cards by flickering Menemonic Wall and Mulldrifter, and use the additional cards to recast your flicker cards until you can cast Temporal Fissure and return every card on the opponent's side of the field. The next turn you can either punch the now defenseless opponent to death with your army of critters or, if they somehow recover, repeat the process and remove everything again.
The Temporal Post type allows you to bypass control by simply hard casting Ulamog's Crusher after teasing out the opponent's counters, and then beat them to death anyway. So it can be turned into a pure ramp deck if needed.
Awesome post, thanks so much for doing that! A few requests for when you have time:
- More differences of how the color combos play out, i.e. if some are more resilient than others against discard/countermagic, differences in fundamental turn, if they sequence plays differently, etc.
- Maybe ratings for the cards? Some of the other primers here rate on a 1-5 star scale. It doesn't have to be exact, but a general "at a glance" view would be nice. Also, sort by rating/power.
- Tips and tricks for card interactions and sequencing. E.g. I bet you'd tend to play your Dark Rituals before your Cabal Rituals in the hopes that you get Threshold. But how do you use Shred Memory?
Side notes, have you tested the 8 Crimson Wisp build any? I'm wondering how well it runs. How often are the UU and BB costs a problem in the Grixis build? Ideas Unbound looks awesome.
Interesting. Glad this is finally getting some attention. I don't know if individual card ratings are necessary, but ordering cards by their general usefulness might help. Temporal Fissure is one of the main storm cards - it definitely belongs. I see a few cards such as Irrigation Ditch which probably don't need to be mentioned. Others, like High Tide may merit more explanation. That last one in particular seems like a good reason to run islands, for example.
This is awesome! I'm in the process of making a pauper/peasant High Tide primer that, while not based exclusive around Temporal Fissure (or Brain Freeze) still shares a lot of the same build mechanics. Would you like me to send you what I have so far or should we keep the two primers separate?
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Awesome post, thanks so much for doing that! A few requests for when you have time:
- More differences of how the color combos play out, i.e. if some are more resilient than others against discard/countermagic, differences in fundamental turn, if they sequence plays differently, etc.
- Maybe ratings for the cards? Some of the other primers here rate on a 1-5 star scale. It doesn't have to be exact, but a general "at a glance" view would be nice. Also, sort by rating/power.
- Tips and tricks for card interactions and sequencing. E.g. I bet you'd tend to play your Dark Rituals before your Cabal Rituals in the hopes that you get Threshold. But how do you use Shred Memory?
Side notes, have you tested the 8 Crimson Wisp build any? I'm wondering how well it runs. How often are the UU and BB costs a problem in the Grixis build? Ideas Unbound looks awesome.
1. This is going to take more testing on my part, but I will include it into the primer ASAP. The time it takes me is going to be a little stretched, so I apologize in advance.
2. I'm probably going to use color ratings instead of little bars, because it takes up less room and makes it easier to grasp the trends for the reader. It's funny because I play the nerd trifecta (D&D, Warhammer 40K and MTG) and each one has a very different handbook system the community prefers.
3. This section will probably take the longest, as it will require me to go over how every card works in the deck :/
The short answer is, shred memory cost too much mana to be used for anything except cabal coffers as you won't have the mana to keep going after shilling out five.
4. Not other than goldfishing, my play partner is on MTG revolt right now. The other guy I test with isn't very good at grasping lines of play and isn't aggressive enough, so I win disproportionately to my skills or the decks abilities. I have been looking at changing it to be a little more redundant in a deck I am calling Storm Fiend, which runs Kiln Fiend and then grapeshots the opponent's cards off of the table to swing for lethal. Rakdos Storm hits 10-11 spells very easily turn 3, which is lethal with the fiend.
Interesting. Glad this is finally getting some attention. I don't know if individual card ratings are necessary, but ordering cards by their general usefulness might help. Temporal Fissure is one of the main storm cards - it definitely belongs. I see a few cards such as Irrigation Ditch which probably don't need to be mentioned. Others, like High Tide may merit more explanation. That last one in particular seems like a good reason to run islands, for example.
Okay, Temporal Fissure is going to go in then. Be warned, they have almost no cards in common! Bwhahahahaha!
This is awesome! I'm in the process of making a pauper/peasant High Tide primer that, while not based exclusive around Temporal Fissure (or Brain Freeze) still shares a lot of the same build mechanics. Would you like me to send you what I have so far or should we keep the two primers separate?
I would be happy to add it to the Temporal Fissure part if you want, or you can do it separately, or I could send you the temporal fissure primer parts and you could incorporate that into yours. Up to you, I'm partial to anything that adds diversity to pauper.
Okay, so the Temporal Fissure part is up but now my post seems to be being eaten by the post length gods. Going to go message a moderator and see what can be done.
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Pauper: UB Wight Phantasm RB Burn UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Awesome thread idea! I've been playing a Grapeshot + Empty the Warrens list for a long long time now (mostly against Legacy decks, since the kill cards are banned in sanctioned Pauper tournaments) and here's the list that three and a half years or so of constant tweaking and tuning had brought me to:
My favorite thing about The Pauper Perfect Storm is the redundancy. It's really just half rituals and half draw spells, with some mana fixing thrown in to keep you in good supply of the RBU colors you need. This redundancy allows it to power through one or two countspells with ease, since if any of your spells do get countered along the way there's a very good chance that you'll have another spell in your hand that does exactly the same thing. I have one particularly fond memory of playing this list against a Merfok deck in a Legacy tournament, and powering through Counterspell, Daze, and Force of Will all in the same turn to kill the opponent with a double Grapeshot.
That was a bit of an extraordinary situation, but the point is that with a good draw the deck can shrug off counter magic like nobody's business. Without any tutors and relying simply on sheer draw power through inexpensive draw spells to gather your kill cards it makes it very difficult for even seasoned control players to figure out what exactly they should be countering, and before they know it they're staring down a double Grapeshot; or Empty the Warrens if things don't go quite as planned. There's no key cards to counter, and since every spell other than Empty the Warrens costs 2 CMC or less you'll almost never hit a bottleneck and find yourself short on mana if one of your rituals or draw spells gets countered. Low mana investment = Low risk, which is (IMHO) is the best way to go when you know you'll be facing counter magic or discard; and my list is built to reflect this philosophy. 3 CMC or higher cards like Read the Bones and Seething Song just scream "Counter me!" to any blue player, but when you keep the mana costs down and shun tutors you mitigate your risks and make it much more difficult for the opposing player to figure out when to drop their counterspells.
This Storm build is by far my all time favorite Pauper deck, and I still play it every chance I can get even if I can't run it in sanctioned tournaments. It's treated me very well over the years and I truly adore it.
I really like your version! There are some questions I have about it if you don't mind.
1. Why Ponder over Preordain? I find the ability to get rid of bad cards better than a slight increase in depth.
2. Do you find Deep Analysis better than Treasure Cruise? I find that I fill the graveyard very easily, which makes it seem like a clear winner.
3. What is the function of the Islands? Being able to put down a land during a combo? Do you find them better than Saprazzan Skerry? Are they to deal with Ghost Quarter?
4. Have you tried Words of Wisdom over Sign in Blood?
5. Would you like me to include your deck in the original post? You would be credited of course.
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Pauper: UB Wight Phantasm RB Burn UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
I really like your version! There are some questions I have about it if you don't mind.
1. Why Ponder over Preordain? I find the ability to get rid of bad cards better than a slight increase in depth.
2. Do you find Deep Analysis better than Treasure Cruise? I find that I fill the graveyard very easily, which makes it seem like a clear winner.
3. What is the function of the Islands? Being able to put down a land during a combo? Do you find them better than Saprazzan Skerry? Are they to deal with Ghost Quarter?
4. Have you tried Words of Wisdom over Sign in Blood?
5. Would you like me to include your deck in the original post? You would be credited of course.
Hey there Tvtyrant! I'll be happy to answer your questions.
1. Ponder's ability to dig one card deeper and see the top 3 cards of the deck as opposed to the top 2 with Preordian makes it substantially easier to set up your kill and determine whether or not what is on top of you deck will be enough to get your storm count high enough to net you a win. It's the deepest digging 1 CMC cantrip there is, and while some people do prefer Preordain for pitching lands to the bottom of the deck I really can't even begin to count the number of times that the 1 extra card Ponder lets us see before deciding whether to draw blind or not has gotten me the win. It's something that I discussed at pretty great length in my Sac Land Tendrils primer, which is basically just a Legacy adapted version of TPPS.
2. Deep Analysis serves a very specific function in the sideboard, and that's to help combat Mono Black Control's discard. It's not too great of a draw spell when cast from the hand, but being able to discard it to a Ravenous Rats or Hymn to Tourach while we're setting up then flashing it back later when it's time to combo off allows us to reduce the impact of discard spells on our strategy. I've also (personally) found Treasure Cruise to be a "win more" card. It's great to draw when I already have my storm count high enough for a win and my graveyard full of spells, but it's pretty terrible in the earlier portions of the turn I combo off and ends up just sitting in my hand; especially when I need to fill up my graveyard to get threshold for Cabal Ritual. It's for that reason that I don't play Treasure Cruise. It is a powerful spell, but only situationally effective in TPPS based on my experience.
3. You got it! The two islands provide an extra (and often much needed) mana for the turn we combo off, in the color that the deck tends to have the most difficult time keeping a good supply of. They can also be useful for Pondering in the turns before commboing off, to find that last sac land you need to give you a safe amount of mana to go off with or just to sculpt your hand a little first. They're not too shabby for pulling off an Echoing Truth at the end of your opponent's turn before you go off in post-board games either. And, as you mentioned, they're an out to Ghost Quarter and immune to Wasteland if you end up playing against other non-Pauper format decks.
4. I have! There were two big problems that kept me from playing Words of Wisdom. The biggest was giving my opponent the chance to draw another counterspell and prevent me from winning with it, and since I did a great deal of my play testing against Legacy format Merfok this was a constant occurrence when I tried running Words. The lesson I leaned from that experience was "Never let your opponent draw any cards that you don't have to." The other problem that I encountered was that TPPS produces more black mana than any other color, and with only so much color filtering at our disposal it's important to find a good use for all that black mana. In the Legacy format Sac Land Tendrils version of this deck I do advocate playing Night's Whisper over Sign in Blood, but both make good efficient use of black mana. I've also encountered a few occasions where I actually ended up using Sign in Blood to target the opponent for the last few points of damage I needed to kill them, which is another (albiet infrequently useful) advantage of Sign in Blood.
Thanks for the breakdown! Your deck really is the most consistent one I have seen. I love that you dropped the junk like Faithless Looting which a lot of decks seem to have run back in the day.
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Pauper: UB Wight Phantasm RB Burn UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Thanks for the breakdown! Your deck really is the most consistent one I have seen. I love that you dropped the junk like Faithless Looting which a lot of decks seem to have run back in the day.
And thank you for the nice compliment! I've spent countless hours playtesting all kinds of Pauper storm decks over the last few years (to the point that I'm actually a little surprised that my playtesting friends still want to play with me ) and my list above is definitely the most consistent that I've used. I've tried U/R, U/B, and R/B variants, and while some—such as one of the R/B variants with Faithless Looting—were a turn faster on average, none were quite as consistent and resilient to counter magic and discard. It's been a year or so since I did any formal recorded playtesting, but last I recall the list above had somewhere in the area of a 7-8% fizzle rate, which is the lowest I've ever been able to get any Pauper format Storm deck.
Now that I'm back playing Magic again regularly after a long hiatus I may have to start playtesting more varients again. I do like that more simplified R/B and U/R Storm varients can afford to main deck some protection in the form of Duress and Gitaxian Probe, but I've never found a way to integrate maindeck protection into a three color TPPS list without compromising the consistency of one of the three basic functions of the deck (Make mana, Filter mana, and Draw cards). Two color lists—particularly R/B variants—can afford to maindeck protection due to the lower mana filtering requirements, but those lists have never performed as consistently as my three color list due to their less efficient card drawing spells and mana producing rituals; and their higher average card CMC making them more vulnerable to counter magic.
I haven't tested a R/B list since Read the Bones came out though, and I think that new addition may make it worth testing again; possibly coupled with Culling the Weak, Kobolds, and some other newer spells like Altar's Reap to try out a goofy Pauper take on the classic Legacy format Spanish Inquisition deck. With all the new (albiet somewhat questionable quality) card draw and rituals that red has gotten over the past few years I'm also interested in trying out some mono red lists. At this point I feel like mono red Pauper Storm might just have enough draw and rituals to be capable of blitzkrieging out a lethal quantity of Goblin tokens on turn 1 with a fair degree of consistency. I still like the resiliency and consistency of my three color list best of all, but it does usually have to wait until turn 3 or 4 to go off and it could be fun trying to come up with a new mono red glass cannon variant that just craps out it's hand on turn 1 every game like a Pauper version of Belcher.
My initial (and still untested) theory for Mono Red Storm looks something like this:
It still needs testing and tuning, but the basic idea is to make a deck capable of going off on turn 1 at least 80% of the time, before the opponent has the chance to get enough lands in play for 2 CMC counterspells or discard. With Lotus Petal, Rite of Flame, and (worst case scenario) Simian Spirit Guide to get it started it does look like it could work on paper. The downside of having to discard a card to Tormenting Voice and Wild Guess could be mitigated by discarding lands, Faithless Looting, or extra copies of Goblin Bushwhacker. I wouldn't want to cast Faithless Looting from my hand since it doesn't really cantrip and replace itself unless you discard a land, but flashing it back after discarding it to Tormenting Voice or Wild Guess seems pretty acceptable. With a total of 19 things in the deck that I wouldn't mind discarding to the 2 CMC draw spells they do seem pretty playable here, if I can get the ritual suite tuned properly. Some amount of Pyretic Ritual may be required (possibly even dropping the 4 Faithless Looting for a full set of them), but the deck really only needs to get to Storm 4 with 6 mana floating to cast Empty the Warrens followed up by a Goblin Bushwhacker for lethal damage so it might work just fine as is. I'll do some preliminary testing within the next few days and see if it works as well in real life as it looks like it could on paper.
I think this is a neat deck. I think i am going to give it a try. Please explain your sideboard choices. When would you board the faries and the bolts?
I think this is a neat deck. I think i am going to give it a try. Please explain your sideboard choices. When would you board the faries and the bolts?
Thanks!
Since key cards in this deck are banned in sanctioned Pauper events the sideboard was put together to deal with opposing strategies in other non-Pauper formats like Legacy; and in that format in particular there are some hate bears that could come down on turn 2 and stop the deck in it's tracks if not dealt with. Ethersworn Canonist, Gaddock Teeg, Meddling Mage, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and friends. Usually I'd board Echoing Truth to deal with permanent based hate, but since the deck I'll be testing is mono red I figured Lightning Bolt would do the job fine enough. Firebolt would work just fine too. The Faerie Macabres are for Re-Animator and Dredge strategies from other format decks, since if the deck was on the draw a turn 1 reanimated fattie or a dredge deck exploding and flooding the board with zombie tokens could cause problems. Neither of those sideboard choices are particularly relevant to the Pauper metagame, but if you plan to play against casual and Legacy decks they're nice tools to have.
Thanks again for your interest and let us know what you think of the mono red glass Cannon idea. I still haven't tested it yet so I'm sure it will need some tuning to the ritual and draw suites, but I did think it was a neat idea.
I actually have played these decks quite extensively both online and IRL. I think the biggest downfall of your lists are their mana bases. For Pauper 3 color storm, I run a 13 land manabase,
Why do you feel the additional land is needed? What advantage do you see in a diversified land system when we only use two lands a game and are running them through a lot of mana fixing?
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Pauper: UB Wight Phantasm RB Burn UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Why do you feel the additional land is needed? What advantage do you see in a diversified land system when we only use two lands a game and are running them through a lot of mana fixing?
To be honest Jin15's 3-color deck in post 8 runs 14 land, but I too could use some further analysis of the pressures on a pauper storm manabase and how to optimize for them.
Why do you feel the additional land is needed? What advantage do you see in a diversified land system when we only use two lands a game and are running them through a lot of mana fixing?
To be honest Jin15's 3-color deck in post 8 runs 14 land, but I too could use some further analysis of the pressures on a pauper storm manabase and how to optimize for them.
Yeah, most of the decks run the same amount and kinds of lands with a little wiggle room around ghost quarter. I hope Happy Gilmore comes back and explains his post a little more as right now I'm not sure what the problem is.
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Pauper: UB Wight Phantasm RB Burn UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
As an update to my list above, with the release of Eternal Masters the 4x Sign in Blood in my TTPS list above will immediately become 4x Night's Whisper for greater mana flexibility. Other than that it's business as usual.
As an update to my list above, with the release of Eternal Masters the 4x Sign in Blood in my TTPS list above will immediately become 4x Night's Whisper for greater mana flexibility. Other than that it's business as usual.
Yeah, I had this thought as well. Also the new drake has some amazing applications for high tide storm, I'm still working on the High Tide section so who knows when that will get added
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Pauper: UB Wight Phantasm RB Burn UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
I'm pretty sure Grapeshot, ETW and Temporal Fissure are banned
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Modern: G Stompy G UR Izzet Prowess/Delver UR UWB Spirits UWB UWB Brain Control UWB WUB Esper Reveillark WUB EDH: WUBRG Horde of Notions WUBRG W Nine-and-a-Half TailsW WGUR Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis WGUR
I'm pretty sure Grapeshot, ETW and Temporal Fissure are banned
Oh really? You may be confusing this format with the online format, which is actually sanctioned and has a ban list. We're in the casual forums, where all forms of Pauper are permitted. If TvTyrant plays storm and his playgroup thinks it's fine, that's completely okay with everyone here.
Here's some reading to do. I highly recommend you read the stickied articles by XBM Yosho. We don't really appreciate comments like this. Casual Pauper Peasant Banned Cards
I'm pretty sure Grapeshot, ETW and Temporal Fissure are banned
In official online pauper they are, but table top pauper varies from table to table. Storm decks are hard to build correctly, so I built this for individuals who play without the online ban list or a modified version.
And there are good reasons to allow Temporal Fissure. Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens are only really balanced in a world where Invigorate isn't banned, and so racing turn 2 infect is often a thing. Temporal Fissure.dec is actually weaker then the newer Peregrine Control deck is, being somewhat faster but devoting the entire deck to the combo instead of being able to play straight U-control with a combo inside.
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Pauper: UB Wight Phantasm RB Burn UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Thanks for the primer, good reads here, one thing I disagree with is your thoughts on brainstorm.
More often than not I have more cantrips that let me shuffle/scry them away and I use it to hide combo pieces.
Which version would you say is the more reliable GS/ETW variant?
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Welcome to the pre-primer Storm discussion thread. I'm making this due to request and their being a distinct lack of storm threads around here. This thread is for discussing what should go into a storm primer, the viability and playing of storm decks, and the choosing of a primer custodian. I will make it if there is need, but I am in the most busy part of grad school right now so it will take me some time.
Storm is at its heart a combo mechanic. It repeats itself a number of times equal to the number of spells you have cast before it in a turn, thus comboing out and usually either winning or losing the game on that turn. Storm is seen in all major formats, and Wizards of the Coast has admitted the mechanic was a mistake in the past.
In Pauper there are several storm cards available, with three major ones. The complete list is Astral Steel, Empty the Warrens, Grapeshot, Ground Rift, Hindering Touch, Reaping the Graves, Scattershot,Sprouting Vines, and Temporal Fissure. Most of these cards are potent in the right circumstances, but only three are used commonly.
Empty the Warrens, Grapeshot and Temporal Fissure are all game winning cards and together make up the best combo cards in pauper. Temporal Fissure is used in a form of the familiar combo, and is not used in conjunction with the other two cards. It will be ignored in favor of those for now.
[card]
Empty the Warrens[/card] and Grapeshot are amongst the most powerful cards in any level of mtg, and this includes pauper. They are as important for the creation of archetypes as Delver of Secrets. All of the major storm cards were banned early in internet paupers lifetime, but we are paper pauper, the overpowered vintage to MTGO's Legacy.
Storm is the best and in many ways only real combo deck in pauper. Decks like Esper Familiars, Axebane, Defender, Midnight Gond and Watch Rites are two or more card combos which imitate Modern's best combo deck, Splinter Twin. We are playing a single card combo deck that can kill turn 2 and is almost certain to kill by turn 4, while being difficult to properly disrupt. If Empty the Warrens only goes off 6 times it will still beat most control decks with its overwhelming number of tokens, and pauper aggro decks lack the disruption to stop a grapeshot kill.
Why Not Play Storm?
Also your friends probably won't like you much.
Storm works by playing as many as twenty cards in a turn, and does so by using a combination of bulk card draw, cantrips, and mana increasing spells. Because the majority of these spells are found in red, black and blue the deck tends to be played in grixis colors. The goal of the deck is to play either Empty the Warrens or Grapeshot at the end of this card chain, with Empty the Warrens providing more inevitability while Grapeshot is easier to get off and more direct.
Whether it is correct to have both in the deck is a matter of debate. I find that the minimal amount of mana to reliably combo out is 5 with grapeshot, while Empty the Warrens requires a much less achievable eight. This means when racing aggro decks Empty the Warrens slows down the deck, but it also can provide large quantities of chump blockers and maybe even mob them to death. It certainly defeats control, which cannot counter all of the copies and will frequently be faced with 10-12 tokens and too few creatures to block them.
The color wheel involved is also somewhat flexible, with the deck traditionally running grixis but some running rakdos or Izzet colors to make mana fixing easier. This loses the advantage of blues bulkier draws and better cantrips, but gains more consistent mana.
Lines of Play:
Storm is a single card, none-interactive combo. The goal of the combo is to cast between 9 and 19 spells before casting a storm spell, thus guaranteeing a win. In order to cast that many spells the deck has to generate mana while drawing more spells to cast, which is why it consists of five types of spells. These are:
Pure Cantrips, which rearrange the top of your deck to pick out the most important spells and then draws a single card.
Bulk Draw: These cards net you multiple cards. You need these because you need mana generation from pure mana generating cards to have enough to combo out, but there are no cards that generate both mana advantage and card advantage.
Cantriping Mana Producers: These do two things; they “fix” your mana by changing the type from one to another and so make plays more possible, and they draw a replacement card afterwards. Extremely important because there is no one color with cantrips, bulk draw, mana production and the storm card itself.
Mana Producers: These are cards that trade card advantage for positive mana production, and as such are needed because most cantrips do not replace their mana cost. If you could make a deck entirely of gitaxian probes and manamorphose you would, but this isn't possible.
The Storm: The card that wins the game.
In order to make Storm work for you, you have to guess which order these are going to come in and play accordingly. This changes from game to game, but there are certain rules you should try to abide by.
1. Never let your mana fall below the value of your storm card when playing against counters. This is extremely important, even if you have a mana producing card in hand. If you drop to 3 mana and your storm card in hand is an Empty the Warrens, for instance, and your pyretic ritual is countered you not only lost this turns going off but the nature of storm using up your hand means you likely lost the game.
2. Try to combo early against aggro, save for control. This means that you will often dig for cards on turns where you cannot combo out against aggro, as we don't have a plan B. We can usually outrace an aggro deck this way, but playing conservatively like you would against control will kill you.
3. Discard is worse for us than counterspells. A storm card's copies have to each be countered individually, but losing the card to discard takes the whole game. It is possible that Brainstorm might be the best card against discard as you can bury your storm cards in your deck if they attempt to duress you.
4. Buy some colored marbles or pogs to use when floating mana. When floating 7 mana in three colors it is easy to lose track of some of it, so make a physical representation. You will be called out less and be more efficient in your plays.
Card Choices:
Cantrips:
In U.
Bulk Card Draw:
In U.
Cantripping Mana Fixing:
Chromatic Sphere: Fix mana, draw cards, raise storm count.
Mana creation spells:
Culling the Weak: We usually don't play creatures to fuel this.
Gitaxian Probe: Free Cantrip!
Ponder: Deepest Cantrip ever made.
Preordain: Possibly the best Cantrip ever made after Brainstorm.
Brainstorm: No good to us here. If we find lands we need to get rid of them, not just stick them down to where we are going to draw again.
Serum Visions: Bad Preordain, expensive because of Modern's cantrip hunger.
Many others which are not good enough to run. If you are running blue, run these.
In R.
Crimson Wisps: Not good enough in blue, but if running Rakdos a shameful requirement.
Expedite: Crimson Wisps II, whisper harder. If you are playing this it is because you are avoiding blue, otherwise play those.
In B.
Aphotic Wisps,Nighthaze, Cremate, Gravebind. Same as Expedite and Crimson Wisps. Blue does it better.
Shared Discovery: Would require you to have creatures, and that is a bad thing.
Courier's Capsule: A possibility, since it stores your card draw for the future (IE when you have enough mana to float). Sadly it won't count for storm if you save it a turn or two.
Font of Fortunes: See Capsule above.
Ideas Unbound: If you are running blue, you are probably running this. 3 cards for 2 mana is great.
Perilous Research: Oddly not terrible, as we are probably dead or victorious on the turn we combo out anyway, so losing a land isn't the worst thing.
Vision Skeins: A very reasonable card for us, two for two no frills. Sadly outshone by some other choice.
Words of Wisdom: Another Vision Skeins.
Compulsive Research: Good because we never want to draw lands on the combo turn.
Treasure Cruise: It has problems with our mana due to Cabal Ritual, but it worked for moderns ascendancy storm deck and it works here.
In R.
Nope. Use Blue or Black or hope for perfect cantrips.
In B.
Sign in Blood: You know and love it. Draw two for two, fringe weakness.
Night's Whisper: Added in with Eternal Masters. Better than Sign in Blood due to easier mana rules, either replace that with this or add the two together.
Read the Bones: Three mana is a lot for this deck, but it is a smooth draw. Real possibility.
Chromatic Star: See above.
Manamorphose: The best at what it does. Think of it as the wolverine of cantriping mana fixers.
Abundant Growth: In case you want green, there is this thing. Sadly we don't want it, because we run dumb land no one else would touch.
Barbed Sextant: This can actually be better than the chromatic ones, for the obvious reason that you will get 2 cards on a turn where you get full mana. It rewards gambling that you will be able to combo out a turn ahead, but it can be good.
Terrarion: More mana fixing, but also more to sack. As good as the others.
Infernal Plunge: No, for the same reason as above.
Songs of the Damned: There must be some deck that plays this, but it is not us.
High Tide: We don't play islands.
Dark Ritual: Half the reason you play black, solid gold.
Cabal Ritual: The other half. This card effectively resets your mana for you.
[card]
Rite of Flame[/card]: Good, not great. You probably won't see enough for this to be better than a Dark Ritual, but who knows.
Desperate Ritual: Someone might play this.
Pyretic Ritual: Or this.
Soulbright Flamekin: A strangely intriguing option, but opens us up to the use of lightning bolt as a counterspell.
Seething Song: Two extra mana means this is only as efficient as dark ritual, and you might draw it when you are down to two mana floating. But still, two extra mana is two extra mana.
Inner Fire: Random effects are bad, but we draw enough cards that this could gain us something. Just remember that it takes five cards just to break even, and eight to beat dark ritual and seething song.
Simian Spirit Guide: Great, it acts as another petal.
lotus petal: Basically extra lands that you can play early or as mana spells during the combo.
Lands:
Ancient Spring: 1 mana on earlier turns, two for comboing out on.
Geothermal Crevice: See above.
Irrigation Ditch: Ibid., but in all wrong colors.
Sulfur Vent: As above, but in all the right colors.
Tinder Farm: Bad colors.
Peat Bog: Only for two color decks, but can be used twice.
Sandstone Needle: As Peat Bog, but for red.
Saprazzan Skerry: As Peat Bog, but for Blue.
Example decks:
Grixis Storm
4 Irrigation Ditch
4 Sulfur Vent
Spells (48)
2 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Lotus Petal
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Manamorphose
2 Shred Memory
2 Compulsive Research
2 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Grapeshot
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Rite of Flame
4 Sign in Blood
1 Echoing Truth
1 Flaring Pain
1 Seething Song
4 Deep Analysis
4 Empty the Warrens
1 Shrivel
2 Peat Bog
Izzet Storm
4x Gitaxian Probe
2x Grapeshot
4x Ponder
4x Preordain
4x Serum Visions
4x Chromatic Star
4x Desperate Ritual
4x Manamorphose
4x Pyretic Ritual
4x Seething Song
2x Evolving Wilds
9x Island
5x Mountain
2x Essence Scatter
2x Grapeshot
3x Into the Roil
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Mana Leak
1x Negate
Rakdos Storm
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Ancient Spring
4 Chromatic Star
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Crimson Wisps
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Grapeshot
4 Sign in Blood
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Manamorphose
4 Expedite
4 Lotus Petal
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
[23 Cantrips/Draw]
4 Chromatic Star
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Ponder
4 Manamorphose
4 Sign in Blood
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Grapeshot
3 Empty the Warrens
[14 Lands]
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Geothermal Crevice
4 Ancient Spring
2 Island
4 Duress
3 Pyroblast
3 Echoing Truth
2 Flaring Pain
3 Deep Analysis
Temporal Fissure
Temporal Fissure is a deck which seeks to reset the opponent's game by returning all of their permanents to their hand midgame, and then repeating this process as needed until the games ending. To accomplish this effect Temporal Fissure decks require mana ramp/cost reduction and the ability to recast Temporal Fissure repeatedly.
There are two classic shells for Temporal Fissure. The first of these is Fissure Post, a combination which was involved in the banning of both cards in online pauper. Fissure Post is an 8Post ramp deck which provides the mana for the Temporal Fissure combo.
The second shell is an Esper Familiar style deck which casts Temporal Fissure as a game ending combo rather than rely on capsize and playing lots of small blue creatures.
Both Shells share many of the same cards, and have been effectively on developmental hold since the banning of Temporal Fissure.
The Cards:
Cantrips:
Compulsive Research: Draw three, ditch a land card. It provides some great digging potential for cheap.
Deep Analysis: A little weak in this deck, since we can put it back into our hand if we want more cards rather than flashing it.
Comparative Analysis: Very nice card for us, three mana draw 2 with no drawbacks as an instant.
Treasure Cruise: This did not exist back in the day, but Temporal Fissure decks reduce costs for it at both ends, but reducing the required mana and by putting cards in the graveyard.
Sea gate Oracle: Cantriping creature!
Forsee: With the cost reducers and cloud lands this is pretty cheap to dig through four cards and grab the good ones.
Cost Reducers:
Sunscape Familiar: Same as above.
Snap: Untap two lands and returns either a card to your opponent's hand, or, more likely, one to yours.
Cloud of Faeries: The creature version of snap, untapping lands for you to generate infinite mana.
Man-o'-war: Creature bounce that can be recurred with Ghostly Flicker.
Frantic Search: The king of untapping lands while searching through your deck. Amazing.
Temporal Fissure: The name of the deck. Oddly the deck has actually survived online with this being banned in the form of Esper Familiars, but this is stronger.
Glimmerpost: Gains you life and works with Cloudpost. For post only.
Cloudpost: The easiest ramp card ever made. Run four if running temporal post.
Mana Fixing:
Prophetic Prism: Temporal Post only, fixes the mana issues from running brown mana.
How it Works: This is a really complicated deck, and I don't want to give advice until I know it better. For now my understanding of how to win with it is that you reduce the cost of your flicker cards below the amount of bounce you receive for them.
In essence you generate mana overtime by reflickering Cloud of Faeries, gain more cards by flickering Menemonic Wall and Mulldrifter, and use the additional cards to recast your flicker cards until you can cast Temporal Fissure and return every card on the opponent's side of the field. The next turn you can either punch the now defenseless opponent to death with your army of critters or, if they somehow recover, repeat the process and remove everything again.
The Temporal Post type allows you to bypass control by simply hard casting Ulamog's Crusher after teasing out the opponent's counters, and then beat them to death anyway. So it can be turned into a pure ramp deck if needed.
Decks Lists:
Jbest Temporal Post
4x Cloud of Faeries
3x Mnemonic Wall
4x Mulldrifter
3x Sea Gate Oracle
1x Ulamog's Crusher
4x Preordain
3x Temporal Fissure
3x Ghostly Flicker
4x Snap
4x Glimmerpost
13x Island
4x Expedition Map
4x Prophetic Prism
The_Raging_Flump Esper Fissure
4 Cloud of Faeries
1 Man-O'-War
1 Mnemonic Wall
4 mulldrifter
3 nightscape familiar
3 sea gate oracle
4 sunscape familiar
3 Azorius Chancery
3 Dimir Aqueduct
3 Evolving Wilds
6 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
3 Terramorphic Expanse
3 Ghostly Flicker
4 Preordain
4 Snap
2 Springleaf Drum
3 Temporal Fissure
4 Dead Weight
2 Hydroblast
4 Lone Missionary
3 Prismatic Strands
1 Reaping the Graves
1 Serrated Arrows
1/11/2016: added lines of play section, moved section titles to page center. Added Changelog section.
1/16/2016: added Temporal Fissure section.
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
- More differences of how the color combos play out, i.e. if some are more resilient than others against discard/countermagic, differences in fundamental turn, if they sequence plays differently, etc.
- Maybe ratings for the cards? Some of the other primers here rate on a 1-5 star scale. It doesn't have to be exact, but a general "at a glance" view would be nice. Also, sort by rating/power.
- Tips and tricks for card interactions and sequencing. E.g. I bet you'd tend to play your Dark Rituals before your Cabal Rituals in the hopes that you get Threshold. But how do you use Shred Memory?
Side notes, have you tested the 8 Crimson Wisp build any? I'm wondering how well it runs. How often are the UU and BB costs a problem in the Grixis build? Ideas Unbound looks awesome.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
1. This is going to take more testing on my part, but I will include it into the primer ASAP. The time it takes me is going to be a little stretched, so I apologize in advance.
2. I'm probably going to use color ratings instead of little bars, because it takes up less room and makes it easier to grasp the trends for the reader. It's funny because I play the nerd trifecta (D&D, Warhammer 40K and MTG) and each one has a very different handbook system the community prefers.
3. This section will probably take the longest, as it will require me to go over how every card works in the deck :/
The short answer is, shred memory cost too much mana to be used for anything except cabal coffers as you won't have the mana to keep going after shilling out five.
4. Not other than goldfishing, my play partner is on MTG revolt right now. The other guy I test with isn't very good at grasping lines of play and isn't aggressive enough, so I win disproportionately to my skills or the decks abilities. I have been looking at changing it to be a little more redundant in a deck I am calling Storm Fiend, which runs Kiln Fiend and then grapeshots the opponent's cards off of the table to swing for lethal. Rakdos Storm hits 10-11 spells very easily turn 3, which is lethal with the fiend.
Okay, Temporal Fissure is going to go in then. Be warned, they have almost no cards in common! Bwhahahahaha!
I would be happy to add it to the Temporal Fissure part if you want, or you can do it separately, or I could send you the temporal fissure primer parts and you could incorporate that into yours. Up to you, I'm partial to anything that adds diversity to pauper.
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
QFT. Thanks so much, everyone!
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
4 Lotus Petal
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
[23 Cantrips/Draw]
4 Chromatic Star
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Ponder
4 Manamorphose
4 Sign in Blood
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Grapeshot
3 Empty the Warrens
[14 Lands]
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Geothermal Crevice
4 Ancient Spring
2 Island
4 Duress
3 Pyroblast
3 Echoing Truth
2 Flaring Pain
3 Deep Analysis
My favorite thing about The Pauper Perfect Storm is the redundancy. It's really just half rituals and half draw spells, with some mana fixing thrown in to keep you in good supply of the RBU colors you need. This redundancy allows it to power through one or two countspells with ease, since if any of your spells do get countered along the way there's a very good chance that you'll have another spell in your hand that does exactly the same thing. I have one particularly fond memory of playing this list against a Merfok deck in a Legacy tournament, and powering through Counterspell, Daze, and Force of Will all in the same turn to kill the opponent with a double Grapeshot.
That was a bit of an extraordinary situation, but the point is that with a good draw the deck can shrug off counter magic like nobody's business. Without any tutors and relying simply on sheer draw power through inexpensive draw spells to gather your kill cards it makes it very difficult for even seasoned control players to figure out what exactly they should be countering, and before they know it they're staring down a double Grapeshot; or Empty the Warrens if things don't go quite as planned. There's no key cards to counter, and since every spell other than Empty the Warrens costs 2 CMC or less you'll almost never hit a bottleneck and find yourself short on mana if one of your rituals or draw spells gets countered. Low mana investment = Low risk, which is (IMHO) is the best way to go when you know you'll be facing counter magic or discard; and my list is built to reflect this philosophy. 3 CMC or higher cards like Read the Bones and Seething Song just scream "Counter me!" to any blue player, but when you keep the mana costs down and shun tutors you mitigate your risks and make it much more difficult for the opposing player to figure out when to drop their counterspells.
This Storm build is by far my all time favorite Pauper deck, and I still play it every chance I can get even if I can't run it in sanctioned tournaments. It's treated me very well over the years and I truly adore it.
1. Why Ponder over Preordain? I find the ability to get rid of bad cards better than a slight increase in depth.
2. Do you find Deep Analysis better than Treasure Cruise? I find that I fill the graveyard very easily, which makes it seem like a clear winner.
3. What is the function of the Islands? Being able to put down a land during a combo? Do you find them better than Saprazzan Skerry? Are they to deal with Ghost Quarter?
4. Have you tried Words of Wisdom over Sign in Blood?
5. Would you like me to include your deck in the original post? You would be credited of course.
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
Hey there Tvtyrant! I'll be happy to answer your questions.
1. Ponder's ability to dig one card deeper and see the top 3 cards of the deck as opposed to the top 2 with Preordian makes it substantially easier to set up your kill and determine whether or not what is on top of you deck will be enough to get your storm count high enough to net you a win. It's the deepest digging 1 CMC cantrip there is, and while some people do prefer Preordain for pitching lands to the bottom of the deck I really can't even begin to count the number of times that the 1 extra card Ponder lets us see before deciding whether to draw blind or not has gotten me the win. It's something that I discussed at pretty great length in my Sac Land Tendrils primer, which is basically just a Legacy adapted version of TPPS.
2. Deep Analysis serves a very specific function in the sideboard, and that's to help combat Mono Black Control's discard. It's not too great of a draw spell when cast from the hand, but being able to discard it to a Ravenous Rats or Hymn to Tourach while we're setting up then flashing it back later when it's time to combo off allows us to reduce the impact of discard spells on our strategy. I've also (personally) found Treasure Cruise to be a "win more" card. It's great to draw when I already have my storm count high enough for a win and my graveyard full of spells, but it's pretty terrible in the earlier portions of the turn I combo off and ends up just sitting in my hand; especially when I need to fill up my graveyard to get threshold for Cabal Ritual. It's for that reason that I don't play Treasure Cruise. It is a powerful spell, but only situationally effective in TPPS based on my experience.
3. You got it! The two islands provide an extra (and often much needed) mana for the turn we combo off, in the color that the deck tends to have the most difficult time keeping a good supply of. They can also be useful for Pondering in the turns before commboing off, to find that last sac land you need to give you a safe amount of mana to go off with or just to sculpt your hand a little first. They're not too shabby for pulling off an Echoing Truth at the end of your opponent's turn before you go off in post-board games either. And, as you mentioned, they're an out to Ghost Quarter and immune to Wasteland if you end up playing against other non-Pauper format decks.
4. I have! There were two big problems that kept me from playing Words of Wisdom. The biggest was giving my opponent the chance to draw another counterspell and prevent me from winning with it, and since I did a great deal of my play testing against Legacy format Merfok this was a constant occurrence when I tried running Words. The lesson I leaned from that experience was "Never let your opponent draw any cards that you don't have to." The other problem that I encountered was that TPPS produces more black mana than any other color, and with only so much color filtering at our disposal it's important to find a good use for all that black mana. In the Legacy format Sac Land Tendrils version of this deck I do advocate playing Night's Whisper over Sign in Blood, but both make good efficient use of black mana. I've also encountered a few occasions where I actually ended up using Sign in Blood to target the opponent for the last few points of damage I needed to kill them, which is another (albiet infrequently useful) advantage of Sign in Blood.
5. Sure! I'd be honored to have my list included!
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
And thank you for the nice compliment! I've spent countless hours playtesting all kinds of Pauper storm decks over the last few years (to the point that I'm actually a little surprised that my playtesting friends still want to play with me ) and my list above is definitely the most consistent that I've used. I've tried U/R, U/B, and R/B variants, and while some—such as one of the R/B variants with Faithless Looting—were a turn faster on average, none were quite as consistent and resilient to counter magic and discard. It's been a year or so since I did any formal recorded playtesting, but last I recall the list above had somewhere in the area of a 7-8% fizzle rate, which is the lowest I've ever been able to get any Pauper format Storm deck.
Now that I'm back playing Magic again regularly after a long hiatus I may have to start playtesting more varients again. I do like that more simplified R/B and U/R Storm varients can afford to main deck some protection in the form of Duress and Gitaxian Probe, but I've never found a way to integrate maindeck protection into a three color TPPS list without compromising the consistency of one of the three basic functions of the deck (Make mana, Filter mana, and Draw cards). Two color lists—particularly R/B variants—can afford to maindeck protection due to the lower mana filtering requirements, but those lists have never performed as consistently as my three color list due to their less efficient card drawing spells and mana producing rituals; and their higher average card CMC making them more vulnerable to counter magic.
I haven't tested a R/B list since Read the Bones came out though, and I think that new addition may make it worth testing again; possibly coupled with Culling the Weak, Kobolds, and some other newer spells like Altar's Reap to try out a goofy Pauper take on the classic Legacy format Spanish Inquisition deck. With all the new (albiet somewhat questionable quality) card draw and rituals that red has gotten over the past few years I'm also interested in trying out some mono red lists. At this point I feel like mono red Pauper Storm might just have enough draw and rituals to be capable of blitzkrieging out a lethal quantity of Goblin tokens on turn 1 with a fair degree of consistency. I still like the resiliency and consistency of my three color list best of all, but it does usually have to wait until turn 3 or 4 to go off and it could be fun trying to come up with a new mono red glass cannon variant that just craps out it's hand on turn 1 every game like a Pauper version of Belcher.
My initial (and still untested) theory for Mono Red Storm looks something like this:
4 Lotus Petal
4 Rite of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Simian Spirit Guide
[20 Cantrips/Draw]
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Faithless Looting
4 Manamorphose
4 Tormenting Voice
4 Wild Guess
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Goblin Bushwhacker
[12 Lands]
12 Mountain
4 Pyroblast
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Electrickery
2 Flaring Pain
3 Faerie Macabre
It still needs testing and tuning, but the basic idea is to make a deck capable of going off on turn 1 at least 80% of the time, before the opponent has the chance to get enough lands in play for 2 CMC counterspells or discard. With Lotus Petal, Rite of Flame, and (worst case scenario) Simian Spirit Guide to get it started it does look like it could work on paper. The downside of having to discard a card to Tormenting Voice and Wild Guess could be mitigated by discarding lands, Faithless Looting, or extra copies of Goblin Bushwhacker. I wouldn't want to cast Faithless Looting from my hand since it doesn't really cantrip and replace itself unless you discard a land, but flashing it back after discarding it to Tormenting Voice or Wild Guess seems pretty acceptable. With a total of 19 things in the deck that I wouldn't mind discarding to the 2 CMC draw spells they do seem pretty playable here, if I can get the ritual suite tuned properly. Some amount of Pyretic Ritual may be required (possibly even dropping the 4 Faithless Looting for a full set of them), but the deck really only needs to get to Storm 4 with 6 mana floating to cast Empty the Warrens followed up by a Goblin Bushwhacker for lethal damage so it might work just fine as is. I'll do some preliminary testing within the next few days and see if it works as well in real life as it looks like it could on paper.
Thanks!
Since key cards in this deck are banned in sanctioned Pauper events the sideboard was put together to deal with opposing strategies in other non-Pauper formats like Legacy; and in that format in particular there are some hate bears that could come down on turn 2 and stop the deck in it's tracks if not dealt with. Ethersworn Canonist, Gaddock Teeg, Meddling Mage, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and friends. Usually I'd board Echoing Truth to deal with permanent based hate, but since the deck I'll be testing is mono red I figured Lightning Bolt would do the job fine enough. Firebolt would work just fine too. The Faerie Macabres are for Re-Animator and Dredge strategies from other format decks, since if the deck was on the draw a turn 1 reanimated fattie or a dredge deck exploding and flooding the board with zombie tokens could cause problems. Neither of those sideboard choices are particularly relevant to the Pauper metagame, but if you plan to play against casual and Legacy decks they're nice tools to have.
Thanks again for your interest and let us know what you think of the mono red glass Cannon idea. I still haven't tested it yet so I'm sure it will need some tuning to the ritual and draw suites, but I did think it was a neat idea.
2 Geothermal Crevice
4 Peat Bog
2 Saprazzan Skerry
1 Sandstone Needle
4 Grapeshot
2 Shred Memory
4 Sign in Blood
3 Ideas unbound
1 Treasure Cruise
4 Chromatic Star
4 Manamorphose
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Cabal Ritual
In the Sb is where you play Empty the Warrens along with duress.
Shred Memory is very important since it can get both Ideas unbound, and grapeshot, also it gets Flaring Pain in the case of damage prevention.
http://hgcube.blogspot.com/ (help me Make my Custom CUBE!)
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=382498
The "Make a Proxy Thread
Redit Proxy Article "current gallery"
MY LEGACY ALTERS
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
To be honest Jin15's 3-color deck in post 8 runs 14 land, but I too could use some further analysis of the pressures on a pauper storm manabase and how to optimize for them.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
Thanks! Fixed that line in the opening.
Yeah, most of the decks run the same amount and kinds of lands with a little wiggle room around ghost quarter. I hope Happy Gilmore comes back and explains his post a little more as right now I'm not sure what the problem is.
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
Thanks! I learned a lot making this primer.
Yeah, I had this thought as well. Also the new drake has some amazing applications for high tide storm, I'm still working on the High Tide section so who knows when that will get added
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
G Stompy G
UR Izzet Prowess/Delver UR
UWB Spirits UWB
UWB Brain Control UWBWUB Esper Reveillark WUB
EDH:
WUBRG Horde of Notions WUBRG
W Nine-and-a-Half TailsW
WGUR Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis WGUR
Oh really? You may be confusing this format with the online format, which is actually sanctioned and has a ban list. We're in the casual forums, where all forms of Pauper are permitted. If TvTyrant plays storm and his playgroup thinks it's fine, that's completely okay with everyone here.
Here's some reading to do. I highly recommend you read the stickied articles by XBM Yosho. We don't really appreciate comments like this. Casual Pauper Peasant Banned Cards
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
In official online pauper they are, but table top pauper varies from table to table. Storm decks are hard to build correctly, so I built this for individuals who play without the online ban list or a modified version.
And there are good reasons to allow Temporal Fissure. Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens are only really balanced in a world where Invigorate isn't banned, and so racing turn 2 infect is often a thing. Temporal Fissure.dec is actually weaker then the newer Peregrine Control deck is, being somewhat faster but devoting the entire deck to the combo instead of being able to play straight U-control with a combo inside.
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
More often than not I have more cantrips that let me shuffle/scry them away and I use it to hide combo pieces.
Which version would you say is the more reliable GS/ETW variant?