This is an article I been putting off for a very long time because of the shear complexity of the topic. My experience with storm is primarily with ANT in Legacy and UR gifts storm in modern. This will likely require collaboration from the storm community.
Theories from Storm in Constructed:
Similar to other competitive, we should port strategies from their constructed counter parts.
1. Storm decks have multiple lines of winning which can be difficult for non-stax decks to disrupt. The storm deck should be adjust their win based on the amount of disruption.
Storm decks have historically been some of the most powerful combo decks in magic. Their high density of cantrips/ tutors combined with multiple combo lines makes it difficult for a single or even multiple non-stax based disruption to be sufficient at stopping the combo.
Unlike decks like Reanimator which can lose to a single Surgical Extraction, storm decks can pivot to a combo line without using a graveyard engine.
Without going into an extensive explanation, the ANT version of storm is built to maximize Past in Flames while the Epic storm is built to maximize Ad Nauseam. However, the ANT deck can instead chose to Inferno Tutor an Ad Nauseam instead of a Past in Flames in matchups here their graveyard is threatened by grave hate or if their graveyard is insufficient for a win. On the other hand, the Epic storm can opt for the Past in Flames line if their life total is insufficient.
This is referred to as the "Natural Tendrils" which the storm deck does not rely on a massive draw spell, but stockpiles on cheap cantrips over the course of a long game to power through multiple sources of disruption. On the other hand, early Empty the Warrens for storm 4-5 on early turns is sufficient against disruption heavy decks.
2. Storm decks play on a completely different angle and should view the game in terms of disruption + how many turns they have
Storm decks (and combo decks) in general are not designed to interact with the opponent - they should only view the game in terms of how many turns they have to win + how much disruption the opponent has.
Cards like Oko, Thief of Crowns, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath are exceptionally powerful in fair matchups, but they fall apart against storm decks as they do not interact well against the storm combo nor do they present a sufficient clock.
In general, I've storm pilots should be comfortable with seeing a board from the opponent with an overwhelming board while the combo player may have only 3-4 lands in play with 3-4 cards in hand.
There is what I refer to as the "Turn X format", which the environment seeks that consistent wins before turn X is unhealthy for the format as the disruption isn't fast enough to keep up. Translating this to constructed, Modern is referred to as the "Turn 4 Format", Legacy is the "Turn 3 Format" and Pioneer is "Turn 5 Format". etc. (This is debatable but this is what I've noticed).
Based on this spectrum, this is how the decks should roughly be positioned:
1. Aggressive Decks - Minimum disruption, goldfish wins on turns X + 0.5 - 1
2. Midrange Decks/ Aggro Control - decent disruption, wins on turns X + 2
3. Control Decks - heavy disruption, wins slowly.
4. Combo Decks - Wins on turn X, with more disruptive variants winning on turns X+1-2
Despite the fast mana + consistency, I would put Vintage Cube at roughly turn 4 format, although you could argue with the power creep this could be a turn 3.5 format.
3. Storm Engines should both generate additional mana + cards.
The engine in this deck is Time Spiral/ Windfall - they roughly rely on drawing 4-7 additional cards and using the fast mana from the card's drawn to chain additional windfalls/ Time Spirals.
Using a rough estimate, Windfall draws 4-5 cards, Time Spiral is usually cast on turns 3-4 (preferably with Tolarian Academy or a land drop):
- Mana Vault nets +2 mana
- Voltaic Key nets +1 mana with Mana Vault
- Mox Diamond nets +1 mana
- Tolarian Academy can net +4-6 mana
- Lotus Petal nets +1 mana.
Roughly 1/3 of the deck is fast mana, drawing x cards can usually net around X+2-3 mana in the early game but with cards like Mind over Matter/ additional artifacts for Tolarian Academy can almost double this number.
- Dark Ritual nets +2 mana
- Cabal Ritual nets +3 mana (or +1 without threshold)
- Lion's Eye Diamond nets +3 mana
- Lotus Petal nets +1 mana.
Roughly 1/4 of the deck is fast mana. There are also 8-10 cheap cantrips which can often see 3 cards, which can usually net +0.5 for its mana investment.
Drawing 12+ cards of Ad Nauseam can on average net +4 mana with 8-9 spells for storm, while recurring 2 Cabal/ Dark Ritual can recoup the Past in Flames investment while generating 8-9 additional storm count.
Problems with Storm in Cube:
The primary problem with Storm in Cube is the lack of fast mana - Unlike the previous examples, the traditional storm engines such as Yawgmoth's Bargain, Past in Flames, Wheel of Fortune and even occasionally Mind's Desire / Time Spiral are mana sinks making it difficult to chain additional spells.
The second problem is the various fast mana/ engines often don;t play well with one another - Singletons like High Tide, Grim Monolith require another narrow combo piece to function effectively, Fastbond, Tolarian Academy require deck building constraints the storm deck is often unable to provide etc. This often results in the decks lacking both the fast mana or the storm count for their win con to be effective.
This can make drafting a storm deck on the fly very challenging. However, here is a single heuristic I follow:
- Storm decks are good fairly good at digging into combo pieces with their cantrips/ tutors.
- Storm decks should ideally opt for 2-3 powerful storm engines with 2-3 tutors/ cantrips to dig into them.
Here is a rough list of engines I feel are strong enough to qualify for the list:
* Show and Tell should only be played if there is a minimum of 2 6 CMC or higher that it can cheat into play. Griselbrand would require a higher density of 2+ mana, especially ones that can generate black such as Dark Ritual/ Cabal Ritual/ Culling the Weak etc.
* This isn't storm, but the fatties, especially Palinchron / Griselbrand plays well with other variants and storm shells are strong at digging into them with the tutors/ draw 7s.
- Items 6-14 could be slotted into more traditional control shells that only require 1 powerful storm engine, but items 1-3 should only be played in traditional storm engines.
- Not all variants work well with each other.
- Combination of variants (especially ones with multiple items from 6-12) do not require as much fast mana and could substitute control/ ramp or additional threats to buy more time while this is unwise for variants 1-5.
This list could likely be expanded and powerful cards like Fastbond / Tolarian Academy / Channel could be substituted into various shells, but this is the rough idea.
Storm Win-Cons:
Storm engines by nature are able to generate both insane amounts of mana/ cards and at that point it should be fairly easy to win.
- Tendrils of Agony is the safest storm win con choice, it requires a storm count of 10 and will guarantee a win.
- Brain Freeze wins are fairly easy with a storm count as low 7-8 with a draw 7. Brain Breeze can often be pointed at yourself to fuel Underworld Breach/ Yawgmoth's Will/ reanimation spells etc.
- Grapeshot wins are rare in cube, they will often require recursion or an infinite storm loop such as Palinchron + Sneak attack. However, Grapeshot can be very lethal on earlier turns, such as turn 2 with mox + grapeshot to remove 1-2 of the opponent's pressure
- Ignite Memories has been surprisingly good. Its often needs a draw 7 in the storm deck (which is often a given) to ensure the opponent is not empty handed. It isn't as consistent as Tendrils of Agony, but I would argue its slightly better than Empty the Warrens
2. Non-Traditional Wins:
The idea is the storm deck should be able to draw a lot of cards + generate insane amounts of mana. In formats such as cEDH, Tendrils of Agony isn't sufficient to win the game and players often use traditional storm engines such as Ad Nauseam to draw half their library to assemble a two card combo on the spot. These are often not as good as the traditional storm wins, but they can often get there.
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
This is an article I been putting off for a very long time because of the shear complexity of the topic. My experience with storm is primarily with ANT in Legacy and UR gifts storm in modern. This will likely require collaboration from the storm community.
Theories from Storm in Constructed:
Similar to other competitive, we should port strategies from their constructed counter parts.
1. Storm decks have multiple lines of winning which can be difficult for non-stax decks to disrupt. The storm deck should be adjust their win based on the amount of disruption.
Storm decks have historically been some of the most powerful combo decks in magic. Their high density of cantrips/ tutors combined with multiple combo lines makes it difficult for a single or even multiple non-stax based disruption to be sufficient at stopping the combo.
Unlike decks like Reanimator which can lose to a single Surgical Extraction, storm decks can pivot to a combo line without using a graveyard engine.
Using the ANT deck in legacy - https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-ad-nauseam-tendrils, we can analysis its 4 lines of winning the game:
1. Discard/ Cantrip -> Ritual/ Tutor -> Past in Flames -> Ritual/Tutor -> Tendrils of Agony.
2. Discard/ Cantrip -> Ritual/ Tutor -> Ad Nauseam -> Ritual/Tutor -> Tendrils of Agony.
Without going into an extensive explanation, the ANT version of storm is built to maximize Past in Flames while the Epic storm is built to maximize Ad Nauseam. However, the ANT deck can instead chose to Inferno Tutor an Ad Nauseam instead of a Past in Flames in matchups here their graveyard is threatened by grave hate or if their graveyard is insufficient for a win. On the other hand, the Epic storm can opt for the Past in Flames line if their life total is insufficient.
3. Discard/ Cantrip -> Ritual/ Tutor -> etc. -> Tendrils of Agony / Empty the Warrens.
This is referred to as the "Natural Tendrils" which the storm deck does not rely on a massive draw spell, but stockpiles on cheap cantrips over the course of a long game to power through multiple sources of disruption. On the other hand, early Empty the Warrens for storm 4-5 on early turns is sufficient against disruption heavy decks.
2. Storm decks play on a completely different angle and should view the game in terms of disruption + how many turns they have
Storm decks (and combo decks) in general are not designed to interact with the opponent - they should only view the game in terms of how many turns they have to win + how much disruption the opponent has.
Cards like Oko, Thief of Crowns, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath are exceptionally powerful in fair matchups, but they fall apart against storm decks as they do not interact well against the storm combo nor do they present a sufficient clock.
In general, I've storm pilots should be comfortable with seeing a board from the opponent with an overwhelming board while the combo player may have only 3-4 lands in play with 3-4 cards in hand.
There is what I refer to as the "Turn X format", which the environment seeks that consistent wins before turn X is unhealthy for the format as the disruption isn't fast enough to keep up. Translating this to constructed, Modern is referred to as the "Turn 4 Format", Legacy is the "Turn 3 Format" and Pioneer is "Turn 5 Format". etc. (This is debatable but this is what I've noticed).
Based on this spectrum, this is how the decks should roughly be positioned:
1. Aggressive Decks - Minimum disruption, goldfish wins on turns X + 0.5 - 1
2. Midrange Decks/ Aggro Control - decent disruption, wins on turns X + 2
3. Control Decks - heavy disruption, wins slowly.
4. Combo Decks - Wins on turn X, with more disruptive variants winning on turns X+1-2
Despite the fast mana + consistency, I would put Vintage Cube at roughly turn 4 format, although you could argue with the power creep this could be a turn 3.5 format.
3. Storm Engines should both generate additional mana + cards.
* These are VERY rough numbers.
Scenario 1 - Tolarian Academy Storm
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/instant-deck-tech-1998-academy-historical-standard
The engine in this deck is Time Spiral/ Windfall - they roughly rely on drawing 4-7 additional cards and using the fast mana from the card's drawn to chain additional windfalls/ Time Spirals.
Using a rough estimate, Windfall draws 4-5 cards, Time Spiral is usually cast on turns 3-4 (preferably with Tolarian Academy or a land drop):
- Mana Vault nets +2 mana
- Voltaic Key nets +1 mana with Mana Vault
- Mox Diamond nets +1 mana
- Tolarian Academy can net +4-6 mana
- Lotus Petal nets +1 mana.
Roughly 1/3 of the deck is fast mana, drawing x cards can usually net around X+2-3 mana in the early game but with cards like Mind over Matter/ additional artifacts for Tolarian Academy can almost double this number.
Scenario 2 - ANT Legacy
The engine of the deck is Ad Nauseam or Past in Flames.
- Dark Ritual nets +2 mana
- Cabal Ritual nets +3 mana (or +1 without threshold)
- Lion's Eye Diamond nets +3 mana
- Lotus Petal nets +1 mana.
Roughly 1/4 of the deck is fast mana. There are also 8-10 cheap cantrips which can often see 3 cards, which can usually net +0.5 for its mana investment.
Drawing 12+ cards of Ad Nauseam can on average net +4 mana with 8-9 spells for storm, while recurring 2 Cabal/ Dark Ritual can recoup the Past in Flames investment while generating 8-9 additional storm count.
Problems with Storm in Cube:
The primary problem with Storm in Cube is the lack of fast mana - Unlike the previous examples, the traditional storm engines such as Yawgmoth's Bargain, Past in Flames, Wheel of Fortune and even occasionally Mind's Desire / Time Spiral are mana sinks making it difficult to chain additional spells.
The second problem is the various fast mana/ engines often don;t play well with one another - Singletons like High Tide, Grim Monolith require another narrow combo piece to function effectively, Fastbond, Tolarian Academy require deck building constraints the storm deck is often unable to provide etc. This often results in the decks lacking both the fast mana or the storm count for their win con to be effective.
This can make drafting a storm deck on the fly very challenging. However, here is a single heuristic I follow:
- Storm decks are good fairly good at digging into combo pieces with their cantrips/ tutors.
- Storm decks should ideally opt for 2-3 powerful storm engines with 2-3 tutors/ cantrips to dig into them.
Here is a rough list of engines I feel are strong enough to qualify for the list:
1. Mind's Desire + minimum of 7 pieces of fast mana/ Eldrazi Titans or fatties.
2. Yawgmoth's Will + minimum of 6 Ritual Mana (Lion's eye Diamond, Dark Ritual etc.)
3. Underworld Breach + Brain Freeze/ Wheel of Fortune/ Gifts Ungiven + minimum of 6 ritual mana.
4. Gifts Ungiven + Past in Flames + minimum of 6 Ritual Mana.
* The ritual mana requirement should be more or less a given but its worth pointing out.
5. Any Draw 7 that can be mana positive based on the calculations from above.
6. Time Spiral or Palinchron or Frantic Search or Turnabout pr Treachery + High Tide or HeartBeat or Mana Flare.
* Either Palinchron/ Time Spiral + any mana doubler or any combination of 4 from this package.
7. Tinker + Bolas Citadel
8. Fastbond + any draw 7
9. HullBreacher/ Notion Thief + any Draw 7
* Drawing 14 off Notion Thief should be sufficient for even the least optimal storm decks
10. Minimum of 3-4 Net 2+ mana - Basalt Monolith, Dark Ritual, Black Lotus, Mana Vault, Show and Tell + Thousand-Year Storm/ Bolas Citadel/ [card]Griselbrand[/card
* Show and Tell should only be played if there is a minimum of 2 6 CMC or higher that it can cheat into play. Griselbrand would require a higher density of 2+ mana, especially ones that can generate black such as Dark Ritual/ Cabal Ritual/ Culling the Weak etc.
11. Griselbrand + Oath of Druid/ Shallow Grave or any combination of 2 cheat into play effects.
12. Selvala's Stampede / Incarnation Technique / Channel + minimum of 3 fatties.
13. Hullbreacher Horror + 2 Mana Positive Artifacts + mana neutral artifacts (LED/ Overflowing Chalice etc.).
14. Demonic Consultation / Tainted Pact + Thassa's Oracle / Jace, Welder of Mysteries
* This isn't storm, but the fatties, especially Palinchron / Griselbrand plays well with other variants and storm shells are strong at digging into them with the tutors/ draw 7s.
- Items 6-14 could be slotted into more traditional control shells that only require 1 powerful storm engine, but items 1-3 should only be played in traditional storm engines.
- Not all variants work well with each other.
- Combination of variants (especially ones with multiple items from 6-12) do not require as much fast mana and could substitute control/ ramp or additional threats to buy more time while this is unwise for variants 1-5.
This list could likely be expanded and powerful cards like Fastbond / Tolarian Academy / Channel could be substituted into various shells, but this is the rough idea.
Storm Win-Cons:
Storm engines by nature are able to generate both insane amounts of mana/ cards and at that point it should be fairly easy to win.
1. Traditional Win:
Tendrils of Agony, Brain Freeze, Ignite Memories, Grapeshot, Thousand-Year Storm
- Tendrils of Agony is the safest storm win con choice, it requires a storm count of 10 and will guarantee a win.
- Brain Freeze wins are fairly easy with a storm count as low 7-8 with a draw 7. Brain Breeze can often be pointed at yourself to fuel Underworld Breach/ Yawgmoth's Will/ reanimation spells etc.
- Grapeshot wins are rare in cube, they will often require recursion or an infinite storm loop such as Palinchron + Sneak attack. However, Grapeshot can be very lethal on earlier turns, such as turn 2 with mox + grapeshot to remove 1-2 of the opponent's pressure
- Ignite Memories has been surprisingly good. Its often needs a draw 7 in the storm deck (which is often a given) to ensure the opponent is not empty handed. It isn't as consistent as Tendrils of Agony, but I would argue its slightly better than Empty the Warrens
2. Non-Traditional Wins:
The idea is the storm deck should be able to draw a lot of cards + generate insane amounts of mana. In formats such as cEDH, Tendrils of Agony isn't sufficient to win the game and players often use traditional storm engines such as Ad Nauseam to draw half their library to assemble a two card combo on the spot. These are often not as good as the traditional storm wins, but they can often get there.
- Time Vault + Manifold Key - This is extra good when Manifold key can double as a Mana rock with Mana Vault/ Basalt Monolith
- Thassa's Oracle + Tainted Pact / Demonic Consultation
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i