It's been a few days that I have been testing the different version proposed here (I just really want to broke this card)
I first thought about playing it in a storm shell with ritual and manamorphose because making 3 mana for 2 life is pretty good but it's been too inconsistent to be able to cast Bolas's Citadel et too costly in life mid combo. That was just bad.
Then I tried the Trash for Treasure version but I find it too much similar to grishoalbrand and reanimator. And Trash for Treasure is a brick mid combo, that doesn't help. I would just play the version that can reanimate for 2 mana at instant speed. But maybe there's a thing I didn't understand
So I tested the eggs, Faith's Reward and I have pretty good result goldfishing with it. I tweeked the deck a bit :
The deck is super consistent and replacing Aetherflux Reservoir by Sunbeam Spellbomb is a big addition.
The main focus of the deck is to have Lotus Bloom by turn 4, by starting with it in starting hand or Reshape an egg into it. It's the most important thing. Mulligan every hand that can't get it by turn 4. Then, once you have bloom, it becomes easy to go off with reward or bolas citadel because the eggs help to not brick mid combo and casting a Faith's Reward with some eggs and Sunbeam Spellbomb is just game. The way to finish the opponent is by going infinite with Conjurer's Bauble returning Faith's Reward into an empty deck so you draw it then recast it (but before you activate Bolas's Citadel[/card, allLotus Bloom and Sunbeam Spellbomb), making infinite mana, infinite life and infinite damage without targeting the opponent (sorry Leyline of Sanctity and whirl deck).
There's a nice trick that, when you flip a Faith's Reward on the top with Bolas's Citadel, you can sacrifice all the eggs, lotus, fetch you have, stack the draws/tutor effect, play Faith's Reward on the stack, return everything then resolve one by one the draw/tutor effects (if there is not an another Faith's Reward).
The deck feel like a worst version of KCI because you lose life mid combo, you can go off Turn 3 but less often and the manabase needs to support reshape on turn 2 (not a lot of utilitary lands). But KCI was super broken even when it was the deck to beat and you still have the advantage to be super consistent, not playing any creature and morphing into a Sai, Master Thopterist (maybe even Monastery Mentor) deck post board.
I enjoyed this version quite a lot actually. I included Ghost Quarters, Implement of Improvements and increased the number of Elsewhere Flasks. I think this version is quite strong and indeed seems very consistent.
Some other options worth considering as well are Hierophant's Chalice (can help shortening the clock a bit and generates mana during the combo turn) and Navigator's Compass (helps with getting UU for reshape). Neither cantrips so they are kinda iffy.
Overall, really excited by the deck. Thanks for the list.
Couple of notes regarding your maindeck. I would never run a basic mountain. It seems a bit greedy at first but we are essentially a Dimir deck with a really light red splash so openers with mountain or topdecking a mountain when you needed any other land seems pretty bad. I would also cut the single Looting for the fourth Bauble or a Sleight/Serum. I used to run a split between JVP and Looting but I don't think they work together really well. You end up discarding too many relevant cards over the course of a longer game.
Burn is incredibly fun to play against. Generally, you should fetch for basics and avoid losing too much life. Let them help you, don't help them. It's very easy to notice if a Burn player is experienced or not in this matchup. A good Burn player will be really patient with their spells, looking for an EoT double Bolt/Charm into killing you on their turn. An inexperienced pilot will be really aggressive and you can punish them super hard on the crackback. I do think the matchup improved a bit with them playing Skewer the Critics which forces them to use mana on their turn. A relevant thing to consider is that many Burn players will bring in RiP against us postboard (even if I think it's a mistake to do so) so take this into consideration if you are on the draw and if there is an Angler in your opener.
Dredge is pretty much a race game 1 where you have to hope they don't hit multiple Creeping Chills and eventually Conflag you for lethal. Chill not only provides reach but can put them above TBR range so it's rough. It's winnable tho especially if the Dredge player attacks too often and chip away at your life total instead of preparing some sort of alpha strike with multiple creatures. Postboard things get tricky. Surgical is a hard card to play well in this matchup and requires a lot of practice with it. The spellbomb is a bit easier to utilize. I tend to wait for Chills and Conflags to hit the bin because I generally think that the reach is what makes the matchup hard but you may need to pop it earlier. Don't be hasty but don't be greedy: if you have to use your mana and cannot pay to draw a card, don't be afraid to just exile the graveyard. A relevant interaction in this matchup is that flipping Jace turns on revolt so you can block something with Jace, loot and flip and then cast a Push from your hand to kill an Amalgam. This way you can fog 5-6 damage while flipping Jace on your turn might only save you 2-4 life. Similarly you may keep a fetch and a spellbomb around to crack for revolt. Finally, I think the most important thing to keep in mind in this matchup is to be patient but not too patient as Dredge can and will outgrind you. Don't be afraid to play aggressively if you have the option to do so.
Here is an interesting article by Michael Rapp on the Dredge matchup if you haven't read it yet. Can't really comment on Whir Prison since I don't have many reps against it and I still don't know what to think about the matchup yet.
Hi, I have very little experience piloting a GDS, but have an odd question. My deck started as U/B control which began to morph from various experiments. Essentially I ended up with 'Dimir' Death's Shadow, mainly due to not picking up any of the R/B fetches. By far the biggest obstacle in my testing was that losing out on Temur Battle Rage. In my mind GDS plays like a combo deck. I wanted to ask if a strictly 'Dimir" shell is at all worth, with the replacement of Battle Rage coming in the form of Tainted Strike. Finding a replacement to Temur Battle Rage was basically Tainted Strike or bust in terms of straight up trying to win from the one swing. This of course requires Death's Shadow to be at LEAST 9 power for the kill and of course not be chumped. Going this infect route for win con opens up Phyrexian Crusader as a choice for midrange grinding though I may just have a soft spot for that card.
On a side note, the other card I wanted to ask about was a single copy of Postmortem Lunge. Yes its a sorcery, but can facilitate in bring down life total if required. Sadly it would mostly be for recovering a DShadow that may have been lost to graveyard dumping/removal, but arguably less of a dead topdeck than Battlerage/tainted strike.
I know that running strictly 'Dimir" locks out of artifact hate + battle rage. But like I said piloting GDS is pretty foreign to me but would like to hear some thoughts on these tweak options.
When I was toying with Dimir, I decided to run Echoing Truth maindeck and go for a grindier gameplan. It's certainly no TBR but has its uses (answers maindeck chalice on 1, bridge, huge blowout potential vs phoenix and dredge). Alternative combat tricks simply don't pack the same punch so I gave up on them. I personally don't like cards like Lunge or Claim // Fame but they do work as a one-of to catch opponents offguard. I can understand why one would argue that TBR is more of a dead draw but the card is an allstar: allows you to go over blocks, shortens the clock by a lot, punishes greedy attacks by your opponents, people tend to play around it frequently so they sometimes avoid attacking you or they will double/triple block a Shadow just in case.
Of course, it all depends on what info you have on your opponent. In the blind, I would go looking for gifts instead of sandbagging an extra bear, since the odds of a race are just much higher at the moment. Further, consider that you can gifts for a bear, but a second bear cannot bring you gifts.
This is a good point and one I hadn't considered. I think you're right to bottom Electro in this kind of scenario. Thanks.
I decided to top Electromancer in that situation because the extra bear makes me more willing to slam one turn 2 or 3 and hope to untap. I think it's more likely that they have an answer to a bear than not. Drawing a third one would be bad, but I felt that I had enough card selection to avoid it for a few turns, at least. I'd certainly not bottom Electromancer and blindly play Baral turn 2 unless I knew it was a race for t3. I didn't feel it was the correct play to morphose into a bear, just a possibility I considered and discarded.
Decided to pick up Storm again for the PPTQ season and during practice I came across an interesting situation. I would like your input as to the correct line.
Suppose you keep a one lander that has Baral, 2 cantrips (Serum + Sleight, for concreteness' sake), Manamorphose, Rit and Grapeshot.
Turn 1 you cast Serum, draw another cantrip and scry a land and Goblin Electromancer. Would you rather:
a) Keep both on top, play land, cycle Manamorphose and play a bear;
b) Keep both on top, play land and a bear (no cycle) in the hopes of a untap and t3 kill;
c) Keep both on top, play land, cycle Manamorphose and double cantrip;
d) Keep both on top, play land and double cantrip;
e) Some other line that I haven't considered?
Also, would your opinion change if you knew the cantrip drawn from Serum was another Serum? Personally, I am more inclined to d) since the drawn cantrip is Serum, to maximize the cantrip value while keeping a ritual for the combo turn. If it wasn't Serum, I'd be more inclined to c) to try to find a payoff spell and lands asap.
I am not keeping up with the meta currently so I will assume Jund, Burn, Company, Fish, Tron and stuff like that.
I would try to grab at least another copy of Shatterstorm and I dislike Remand in Storm.
I'd SB something like this
If you can't find another copy of Shatterstorm I'd recommend either a second Swan Song (probably my choice) or Anger of the Gods as a third Pyro. Rending Volley as a one-of is also quite good.
I find BGx match-up to be even or favored. Because they can't pressure you and deal with your threats at the same time. It's only really hard when they hit something like kozilek, into kozilek, into liliana. It's one of my favorite match-ups because it's skill intensive and balanced (IMO).
This has been my experience with BGx as well. Jund is a bit trickier but Junk is actually surprisingly fine. Sometimes they have a nut draw like you said but most of the time, they won't have a good clock + heavy disruption. Also even if it's old tech, Blood Moon still hurts them pretty badly if you can stick it turn 2.
UR Storm randomly going to the finals of an IQ. That's pretty sweet. Is storm better positioned in the current meta?
With Zoo and GBx decks increasing their share of the meta, I think Storm is fine. From my personal experience, the only really bad matchup is Burn but you can dodge it (and have good chances of beating them if they don't have turn2-3 Eidolon). Every other matchup is fairly close to even (or at least they depend heavily on player skill) that an experienced Storm player such as Shrout can place pretty well.
Juicy cards, Atom I personally prefer old border foils but those look sweet. One day I will buy some GURU lands to really pimp my Storm, one day
Edit: Since people asked about "UnStorm", did you guys play with Waste Not Storm? I'm considering picking the required cards up and testing but I'm not super sold on the lists I've seen.
There are infects with more greedy manabase (BUG for instance) so we can shut them down nicely with Blood Moon. Even if they don't have a greedy manabase, boarding in BM is okay to shut down their manlands. Personally I do -1 PA -4 Scour +1 Echoing Truth +4 Bolts against UG and will make room for BM if they are BUG. If you are having many issues with Infect, I'd sugest maybe boarding in Wipe Away. Could work.
Flashbacking bolts is fairly common, especially when I mainboarded bolts. The most satisfying non-Storm wins I had was when I thought scour'd people to death after they combo infinite life. They didn't understand why I wasn't conceding . I also used Lab Man for fun in a FNM once. Good times.
That's a shame. Zoo is really popular in my area so I guess I will face one eventually. Not that I look forward to that, I find Zoo the most boring matchup by far. Without the toolbox of Pod, I agree that we should probably be faster than them.
Against Fish I'd probably side in Echoing Truth to bounce Spreading Seas or Aether Vials. I am not sure on the EtW. They won't have access to a graveyard hoser like Leyline of the Void and we can play around Relic of Progenitus and generic graveyard hate. It seems a pretty good matchup to have 2 Echoing Truths on the SB.
Gratz on the positive finish! This is a deck that is like a puzzle, there are always small decisions to take and mistakes to make but it's quite rewarding when you can combo and not fizzle through hate
I enjoyed this version quite a lot actually. I included Ghost Quarters, Implement of Improvements and increased the number of Elsewhere Flasks. I think this version is quite strong and indeed seems very consistent.
Some other options worth considering as well are Hierophant's Chalice (can help shortening the clock a bit and generates mana during the combo turn) and Navigator's Compass (helps with getting UU for reshape). Neither cantrips so they are kinda iffy.
Overall, really excited by the deck. Thanks for the list.
Burn is incredibly fun to play against. Generally, you should fetch for basics and avoid losing too much life. Let them help you, don't help them. It's very easy to notice if a Burn player is experienced or not in this matchup. A good Burn player will be really patient with their spells, looking for an EoT double Bolt/Charm into killing you on their turn. An inexperienced pilot will be really aggressive and you can punish them super hard on the crackback. I do think the matchup improved a bit with them playing Skewer the Critics which forces them to use mana on their turn. A relevant thing to consider is that many Burn players will bring in RiP against us postboard (even if I think it's a mistake to do so) so take this into consideration if you are on the draw and if there is an Angler in your opener.
Dredge is pretty much a race game 1 where you have to hope they don't hit multiple Creeping Chills and eventually Conflag you for lethal. Chill not only provides reach but can put them above TBR range so it's rough. It's winnable tho especially if the Dredge player attacks too often and chip away at your life total instead of preparing some sort of alpha strike with multiple creatures. Postboard things get tricky. Surgical is a hard card to play well in this matchup and requires a lot of practice with it. The spellbomb is a bit easier to utilize. I tend to wait for Chills and Conflags to hit the bin because I generally think that the reach is what makes the matchup hard but you may need to pop it earlier. Don't be hasty but don't be greedy: if you have to use your mana and cannot pay to draw a card, don't be afraid to just exile the graveyard. A relevant interaction in this matchup is that flipping Jace turns on revolt so you can block something with Jace, loot and flip and then cast a Push from your hand to kill an Amalgam. This way you can fog 5-6 damage while flipping Jace on your turn might only save you 2-4 life. Similarly you may keep a fetch and a spellbomb around to crack for revolt. Finally, I think the most important thing to keep in mind in this matchup is to be patient but not too patient as Dredge can and will outgrind you. Don't be afraid to play aggressively if you have the option to do so.
Here is an interesting article by Michael Rapp on the Dredge matchup if you haven't read it yet. Can't really comment on Whir Prison since I don't have many reps against it and I still don't know what to think about the matchup yet.
When I was toying with Dimir, I decided to run Echoing Truth maindeck and go for a grindier gameplan. It's certainly no TBR but has its uses (answers maindeck chalice on 1, bridge, huge blowout potential vs phoenix and dredge). Alternative combat tricks simply don't pack the same punch so I gave up on them. I personally don't like cards like Lunge or Claim // Fame but they do work as a one-of to catch opponents offguard. I can understand why one would argue that TBR is more of a dead draw but the card is an allstar: allows you to go over blocks, shortens the clock by a lot, punishes greedy attacks by your opponents, people tend to play around it frequently so they sometimes avoid attacking you or they will double/triple block a Shadow just in case.
This is a good point and one I hadn't considered. I think you're right to bottom Electro in this kind of scenario. Thanks.
Suppose you keep a one lander that has Baral, 2 cantrips (Serum + Sleight, for concreteness' sake), Manamorphose, Rit and Grapeshot.
Turn 1 you cast Serum, draw another cantrip and scry a land and Goblin Electromancer. Would you rather:
a) Keep both on top, play land, cycle Manamorphose and play a bear;
b) Keep both on top, play land and a bear (no cycle) in the hopes of a untap and t3 kill;
c) Keep both on top, play land, cycle Manamorphose and double cantrip;
d) Keep both on top, play land and double cantrip;
e) Some other line that I haven't considered?
Also, would your opinion change if you knew the cantrip drawn from Serum was another Serum? Personally, I am more inclined to d) since the drawn cantrip is Serum, to maximize the cantrip value while keeping a ritual for the combo turn. If it wasn't Serum, I'd be more inclined to c) to try to find a payoff spell and lands asap.
I would try to grab at least another copy of Shatterstorm and I dislike Remand in Storm.
I'd SB something like this
If you can't find another copy of Shatterstorm I'd recommend either a second Swan Song (probably my choice) or Anger of the Gods as a third Pyro. Rending Volley as a one-of is also quite good.
This has been my experience with BGx as well. Jund is a bit trickier but Junk is actually surprisingly fine. Sometimes they have a nut draw like you said but most of the time, they won't have a good clock + heavy disruption. Also even if it's old tech, Blood Moon still hurts them pretty badly if you can stick it turn 2.
With Zoo and GBx decks increasing their share of the meta, I think Storm is fine. From my personal experience, the only really bad matchup is Burn but you can dodge it (and have good chances of beating them if they don't have turn2-3 Eidolon). Every other matchup is fairly close to even (or at least they depend heavily on player skill) that an experienced Storm player such as Shrout can place pretty well.
Edit: Since people asked about "UnStorm", did you guys play with Waste Not Storm? I'm considering picking the required cards up and testing but I'm not super sold on the lists I've seen.
Gratz on the positive finish! This is a deck that is like a puzzle, there are always small decisions to take and mistakes to make but it's quite rewarding when you can combo and not fizzle through hate