Currently working on the matchup notes. I have some more games lined up for tomorrow and then i should have sufficient notes for a reasonable writeup. My wife is also currently proof-reading everything here, though i may have to teach her magic in the process Hopefully should have an update early next week.
I ran Rolling Earthquake for a fair while, but I ultimately cut it as i didn't find it overly useful that often. But that is all based on my meta. My LGS is evolving and there are more and more decks springing up, so i may have to test it again.
I have a full explanation in the primer that im writing, but essentially, Kess lets you use old cards, Jeleva lets you see new cards. Plus its fun to get infinite mana, bounce and counter Jeleva until you exile your opponents libraries.
Extirpate is a pet card of mine, its amazing against Gitrog.
Why Grixis? UBR
UBR gives us access to some of the best storm spells available. The three biggest being Tendrils of Agony, Mind's Desire and Grapeshot. On top of this U gives us the access to lots of draw and control power, R gives us access to rituals and powerful wheels, and B gives us access to the best tutors around.
Generally UBx Storm decks have a similar shell of tutors, cantrips, control elements and artifact ramp. With this in mind, let’s have a look at other commanders. Zur is an example of a great UBW commander, as he essentially gives you access to necropotence in the command zone. For me, Zur is the top choice outside of Grixis. His power cannot be denied. Expanding to 4 colours allows brings in Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder. Cascade is one hell of a mechanic and incredibly powerful. For me though, going to 4 colours puts a lot of strain on the mana base, and you also need to start shaving interaction to keep up consistency.
My personal love for Grixis comes from playing Mizzix and Nekusar decks. They were fun but never very competitive. So after much research I merged the two decks into a rough draft of a grixis storm deck. I started to win more and more with it (until one of my friends built Gitrog) and I became addicted.
Why pilot this deck?
Do you like to play an insane number of spells per turn?
Do you like to untap on turn 3 with 12 mana available?
Do you like to play long complex lines?
Do you like puzzles?
Are mana dorks for losers?
Then this deck is for you.
You should play this deck if you enjoy
Generating obscene amounts of mana and spells.
Taking long turns
Being able to adapt to most situations.
Drawing LOTS of cards.
You should avoid this deck if you don’t like:
“Non-fixed” paths to winning. I.e. not having a specific 2 card combo, that ends in a deterministic line. Such as Hermit Druid.
Difficult puzzle solving.
“Beating Face” with creatures
Nekusar has some serious potential. However, it seems to be difficult to capitalize on this power while keeping hold of speed and consistancy.
Inalla, in my eyes, is just a 3 colour Azami, lady of scrolls. She has potential, but I don't think that it will hit tier 1 deck until there area some new tech has been printed.
Jeleva vs. Kess
In 2017, WotC decided to print a new and viable Grixis commander. Kess, Dissident Mage. She is powerful and opens up some new lines but, I decided to stick to Jeleva.
While Kess can allow you to reuse your tutors or combo cards, at a rate of 1 per turn I don’t think that it is powerful enough. Kess allows the reuse of instant and sorceries from your graveyard. Great, but what if you need to use more than one to win? What if your graveyard gets exiled? Theres nothing that she can do to help fix that. Jeleva, may not be able to help that either, but what she can do, is help move your game plan along from the command zone. When she enters the battlefield she opens up new lines of play. She is essentially a gas card in the command zone. She brings new cards to the table as well as potentially hurting your opponents gameplan. The extra cards that you see when casting Jeleva, can mean the difference between winning and loosing. Also, it's a really nice feeling casting a Mind's Desire for free or any spell for that matter.
I am currently working on some budget decks however in the meantime please checkout these decks:
Reversemermaids's I hate all of you
Moxnix's Jeleva's Pile of Broken
Dan from the Lab Maniacs did a budget deck series, in which he created 2 lists based on Reversemermaid's lists. ~$750 ~$1500
Storm is an art form. Storm needs to be practised. Storm is a skill that takes time to develop. You could write an entire novel on the perfect way to play storm and still not cover all of the nuances. At its core, storm is just playing and chaining a large number of spells to get your ‘Storm count’ up and then having an outlet for that number. In modern, that outlet is Empty the Warrens, in legacy and until a few years ago in EDH, it was Tendrils of Agony. Now we have Aetherflux Reservoir. For further reading on Aetherflux vs. Tendrils, Reversemermaid's essay has great reasoning on why to run it in Grixis Storm. Also Suasion did some incredible maths in his Shimmer Zur Primer that really shows of just how efficient Aetherflux is.
With this deck, we look at running a large density of wheels and cantrips to allow us to keep up a critical mass of spells during our storm turn.
Essentially you want to draw a butt-ton of cards and then chain an obscene number of spells into an Aetherflux Reservoir kill. There are a few ways to draw a lot of cards.
Wheel + Notion Thief. This can draw up to 28 cards and while mana intensive (min 4), the cost can be spread over 2 turns. Or Notion Thief can be played in response to someone else’s wheel. Ad Nauseam. This is one of the main reasons we keep our mana curve really low, ideally we want an average of lower than 2.0. Sometimes you can draw up to 30 cards off an Ad Naus, but even when you don’t the power is still incredible. Remember: Life is just another resource. Necropotence is dirty. You can either go for an early ‘pay 30 life and sculpt the perfect hand for your next turn’ or later in the game it can be used to refill your hand in increments.
Expanding on Storm
To begin, We need to look at the cards available to us. Can we make enough mana? Can we draw enough cards? Can we protect ourselves?
Lets break these questions down:
We need spells to cast, so we need cards. As I have spoken about earlier, there are numerous ways to draw a bunch of cards in this deck. Even a lowly Windafall can get us enough cards to go off.
An end-step Naus is probably the best way to draw the cards that you need, but a main phase wheel to refill is also a great way to make sure that you have enough cards. Side note on wheels, while incredibly powerful, they have some drawbacks. Most importantly, they also refill your opponent's hands! Meaning that they will also have access to new cards, including counters. If someone else is playing a Notion Thief then be aware of when someone is holding that mana. Side side note: If two Thiefs are out, then the caster of the draw spell gets to choose which draw is resolved with which thief.
Just like the rest of life, we want to use protection. :LEWD: Having a counter or two can be the make or break of a storm turn. Imagine being sat at the table. Naus, Fishbowl and Dark Ritual in hand. Cast Ritual... and BOOM! Counterspell has stopped you in your tracks. If you had a Pact, a Flusterstorm, ANY counter spell. You probably could have had your ritual, then move into the naus and into the fishbowl. While this deck is very adaptable and a control game-plan can be a necessity at times, our interaction suite is primarily included to protect our own combo turns.
Making sure that you can push through your first spell will make or break your game.
We cant cast spells without mana, so we are going to need to make lots of it. With only 28 lands, we need to look at other ways to produce mana. The first thing to look at is artifact ramp.
We run a full suite of net positive mana rocks. What this means, is that the mana rock produces more mana than it cost to cast. i.e. Sol Ring costs 1 generic mana to cast, but generates 2 colourless mana. We spent 1 to get 2. Casting these rocks also count towards the "Storm Count" (the number of spells that have been cast in a single turn.), which will become relevant further down the line.
"Rituals" are our second way of creating obscene amounts of mana. Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual and High Tide. On the surface, these generate 3,7 and X amounts of mana respectively. However, we can work around this with a few things. Firstly, Bonus Round will make each of these spells really good, suddenly we are looking at 6, 14 and 2X. Throw a Yawgmoth's Will into the equation and suddenly we have all the mana we should need. We can use cards like Candelabra of Tawnos or Izzet Signet to filter some of this into our other colours.
Cost reducers don't technically generate us mana, but they do make our spells much more efficient. Baral and Helm are our two current choices. Helm of Awakening reduces the cost of ALL spells by 1, even your opponents! So be careful when to depolying this tech, as it can work out really badly for you (Flash-Hulk for U). Though the positives of playing Sensei's Divining Top or Sol Ring for free is a beauty to behold. Baral does a similar job, but only hits our instant and sorcery spells. He does however offer us a loot effect for when we need to cast some counters. As a side note, this effect will also trigger when looping Remand and Bonus Round.
As we can see, there are a number of ways that we can generate a large amount of mana, without going infinite.
OK, so now we have the basics down we can begin looking at some of the ways to take advantage of our position.
Building on storm count is essentially chaining spells. Playing one spell into another. Sounds simple, right? Well... yes and no. There are a million and one different ways to play out the hand that you have, but only a handful of ways will lead to victory. Sequencing is key, luck is always a factor and you can always brick a draw or whiff a chain. Some days it will feel like you just can't get past the wall and some days everything will just fall into place.
I'm going to try and explain a few different ways that we can chain spells and how we can use the chain to make some large payouts.
Artifacts
Artifacts can be one of the easiest and best ways to go off. As mentioned in the previous section, we have a critical density of mana positive rocks. Having this many means that when we draw a butt-ton of cards, we are almost guaranteed to hit at least a couple of them. And because of this we can use them as the basis of a storm chain. One example would be:
Chaining wheels and cantrips to dig through our deck can also be a profitable line. Once we start this process we start to rely on luck. We are hoping to hit some more cantrips, wheels or mana engines to help propel us deeper into the deck and thus upping our storm count.
This sort of chain is where you need to really think about how you are going to sequence your spells. Lets have a look at another example.
What order do you play your hand to maximize the potential?
(Note: Cards drawn in this example are intentionally bad draws. This so that I can explain the use of the cards we have in hand and how to maximize their potential, with the given information.)
At this point we have a storm count of 5, UUUUBBB in our pool and 6 more cards that we can potentially cast.
This is just one scenario where we can begin storming off and it really shows where sequencing can make a huge difference. This will come with time and practice.
Graveyard
Hitting graveyard recursion mid storm just makes everything groovy (insert Evil Dead meme). Yawgmoth's Will and Past In Flames are out two main recursion spells, with Timetwister being a tertiary way to "effectively" get all our used spells back.
With the Yawgmoth style recursion we get to cast everything in our yard again. This is wonderful for such cards as Lotus Petal and rituals as it allows us to continue generating mana. Small note on Yawg, keep an eye on the number of cards in your yard when storming with this effect. Cards like Dark Petition and Cabal Ritual have additional checks for numbers of cards in your graveyard. Casting a 2 mana spell to only net 1 kinda sucks. PiF is nowhere near as good as YawgWin. It only allows you to cast instant and sorcery spells from your graveyard, but that is still an incredibly potent effect. You can still cast tutors, wheels, counters and that should be more than enough to keep the storm chain going. One added bonus of PiF is that it has it's own pseudo protection. The Flashback element of this card can be used to recast after a counter. One of the more intricate asides of PiF, is that it only effects Instant and Sorceries at the time of resolution. To expand on this, if we were to cast Past, let it resolve and then cast Gitaxian Probe from our hand, it would not have flashback.
Copying Spells
Bonus Round is one of the more recent additions to the deck and WOW is it spicy. For an ongoing effect, it is one of the most powerful. These copies do not count towards storm, but they do serve multiple purposes. They generate card advantage, free mana, pseudo protection, lots of things. For example, post-resolution, Demonic Tutor tutors 2 cards to your hand for 2 mana, Dark Ritual spits out 6 mana for a cost of 1.
Now, what happens when we cast BR then cast Yawgmoth's Will? Firstly, Yawgmoth's Will is copied, but that isn't the best part. It allows you to cast Bonus Round again! And because of the first cast it is copied. Now, we have had 3 copies of Bonus Round resolve, meaning that now, when we cast a spell, it is copied 3 times. That Dark Ritual now generates 12 mana, Demonic Tutor will find 4 cards. This card is insane. Remand and Unsubstantiate can create some interesting loops. Once we have had BR resolve, and we can have the opportunity to get it back, Yawgmoth's Will, PiF, Mission Briefing or cards like Relearn or Flood of Recollection. Once these criteria have been filled, we can cast BR, cast our recursion spell, then we cast BR again and this is where the loop begins.
BR goes onto the stack, and the second copy enters as well.
Holding priority, we cast Remand. The original targets the original BR and the Remand copy targets the original Remand.
This allows for the copy of BR to resolve, and both original spells to be returned to you hand, allowing for them to be cast again and the loop to continue.
While this is a spicy line, it requires a large amount of mana and a lot of R, which can be problematic for us without an infinite source. See the DramaticScepter combos section below for more information on those.
Mind's Desire is one of the best outlets for storm. As it has the potential to double your storm count, get you a butt-ton of free stuff and just generally an awesome card. For 4UU its a hefty cost, but the payout is amazing. The free spells that you cast off of Mind's Desire raise your storm count. Note: Storm as a triggered ability will not be copied by Bonus Round as the copy is put on the stack, not cast.
Payout
After we have built our chain, or most likely halfway through, we need to resolve an Aetherflux Reservoir(Fishbowl). Once we have reservoir in play, the spells that we now cast will begin gaining us life. Depending on where we are in the storm turn and what life we started at, this will vary. So we need a minimum of 151 life to activate Reservoir 3 times, once for each opponent, and survive. If we were to start our storm turn on 1 life, we would need to cast 17 spells to reach a total of 153 life. The first would be Fishbowl, then 16 other spells, gaining 2,3,4,...,15,16 ready to laser. I haven't taken paying life for Gitaxian Probe into account here, but using it more than once will make you require an extra spell. Though, that should not be much of a problem.
That is the basics of storm in this deck, but as I spoke about in the beginning, Storm is an art-form and you can the best way to improve your game is to play and practise. In this guide I have barely scratched the surface of the complexity and depth of plays and lines you can take with this deck or any storm deck for that matter.
Dramatic Scepter Combos
One of the cheapest and most efficient ways to generate infinite mana, is with Dramatic Reversal and Isochron Scepter plus any combination of mana rocks that tap for 3 in total. All for the cheap cost of 4.
Each use of Scepter's ability counts as a cast trigger for Aetherflux Reservoir, allowing for a very compact wincon.
Dramatic Scepter also works with Sensei's Divining Top. Tap the Top, respond by using Scepter to cast dramatic reversal. This untaps Top to be tapped again. Loop this to draw your deck. Note that once the triggers start to resolve, Top will be the 2nd card that you draw. You can then cast Aetherflux Reservoir or Laboratory Maniac + and draw spell.
Another fun way to win with infinite mana, is to cast and bounce/counter Jeleva a large number of times. This will eventually exile your opponent’s libraries, then just pass the turn and let them draw themselves to death.
Doomsday
Probably the most complex and intricate card ever printed in MTG. It is the epitome of a puzzle. Like storm, I could go on for hours about the various different piles and plays to make with this card, but instead I’m going to name the two piles that you should have memorized and then send you over to AlwaysSleepy and Reversemermaid's Doomsday Primer (Yeah… it has its own primer…) as everything written there is relevant to this deck and written in a much better way than I could.
Need Doomsday and cantrip in hand, 4 Islands (any land with a subtype of "Island") in play and more than 8 life.
Aetherflux Reservoir. This is our main storm outlet and one of our main wincons.
Bonus Round. One of the best storm enablement cards. The double R means that it can be quite difficult to cast, but the payoff is huge. Some fun lines are Bonus Round -> Cabal Ritual (w/ Threshold for 10B) -> Yawgmoth's Will -> Bonus Round (Copied by previous cast) -> Cabal Ritual. Now you should have 27B in your pool!
Doomsday. As mentioned earlier, it’s a great wincon for almost any situation.
Thousand-Year Storm. I adore this card. It's a big middle finger to people who hate on storm and combo decks in general. I had to sub this card in during GP London, over Candelabra of Tawnos, and it did some serious work. So much, that I have decided to keep it for a while and see how it performs in my meta.
Isochron Scepter. Really interesting and useful card. The main game-plan is to attach Dramatic Reversal to it and with any mana rocks that generate CCC, we can generate infinite mana and storm. While this is a compact combo and a cEDH staple, there are many other uses for Scepter. Meme-Control is always a fun use, put a Mana Drain underneath and just have fun pissing everyone off.
Laboratory Maniac. It says “…you win the game”, do we need another reason? It acts as an outlet for both Doomsday and the Dramatic Scepter + Top combo.
Mind's Desire. 6 mana is fair for this card. It hurts like hell when you hit it on an Ad Nauseam, but the sheer power of this card is worth it. Play some spells, cast Mind's Desire, play a TON more spells for FREE. Need I say more?
Yawgmoth's Will. Back in the day, WotC liked to make cards. They made good cards, powerful cards. The Urza Block was no exception to this. Someone made this card and thought it was fair. YawgWin during the late game is so heinously powerful, that it should allow you to close out almost any game.
Tutors
Dark Petition. It’s an unconditional tutor that returns mana. Great, but its 5 mana, isn’t that going to suck off of Naus? BBB is a key chunk of mana in this deck. We see it in Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual as well. There are two reasons for this, Necropotence and Doomsday. Both of which cost BBB, and both win us the game. Another side note to this is that Dark Petition costs 3BB which means we actively convert C to B.
Demonic Tutor is one of the top 2 tutors ever printed. Unconditional tutor to hand with no reveal. Essentially perfect.
Gamble, as its name suggests, can be. However, after a large draw its incredible. 1 cmc tutor to hand? Yes please.
Imperial Seal. The rich man’s, poor man’s version of Vampiric Tutor. It’s Vamp at sorcery speed, but still a phenomenal tutor. Printed only twice this one of the few cards where its foil version is cheaper than the standard.
Intuition. Gifts is banned, for good reason. So we have Intuition. This card was a serious power house all the way up until Guilds of Ravnica. Then it done got broke! This and Mission Briefing are a beautiful combination. The most beautiful late game pile has to be Mission Briefing, Yawgmoth's Will and Past in Flames, as it essentially allows us to tutor up and cast either of our graveyard 'recursion' spells and have the other as backup if needed.
Mystical Tutor. Another 1 mana tutor. Although its fairly conditional, at instant speed it can be really useful.
Vampiric Tutor. The other of the two best tutors. Instant speed, 1 mana, unconditional top-deck tutor. Why the hell not?
Praetor's Grasp. Playing against Gitrog? Exile Dakmoor/Kozilek! Playing against Flash/Hulk? Exile Hulk! Playing against another Storm? Exile Aetherflux! This card is amazing. You can exile anything from your opponents libraries and either shut them down or advance your own boardstate. Just a great all-round card.
Lim-Dul's Vault. Probably the worst tutor in our deck. It can cost a lot of life and it doesn't go to your hand. However, it is still better than a few of the other tutors available for the mana and I really like the way that it kinda works like a combination of Vampiric Tutor and Sensei's Divining Top in one swift spell.
Draw
Ad Nauseam. Play, draw cards, draw more cards, stop when you have enough to win, then win. Broken and an auto include. Another really sweet interaction to this is that its not technically a draw, you put the card into your hand. So it will get around cards like Notion Thief or Consecrated Sphinx.
Necropotence. The OTHER broken draw spell… Necro, though, has some nuances that aren't found with Naus. You can use it as a hand refill when you are in control mode, or to just slam and draw 30. The discard to exile sucks (not as bad as as if you were playing Kess though), but you can bounce it to stop this effect. Necro is also not a draw, so it also get around draw taxing effects.
Brainstorm, the legacy staple. Just as good here as it is in legacy. One thing to note is that it says “Draw 3, then put 2 back”. With Doomsday this can be important. As if you have 2 cards in your library and Lab Man out. Cast this and you win before the cards have to be put back.
Gitaxian Probe is a Doomsday staple. Plus you can get a peek at what your opponent is holding, giving you knowledge advantage.
Gush. Where do I begin? There have been entire books written about this card! Yet another Doomsday staple and mid storm it will draw you two cards for free.
Impulse a pretty decent 2 mana, dig 4 spell. Great for finding answers if you don’t have Top out.
Mystic Remora. The Fish that draws cards. This can make a mediocre hand keep-able. In early turns this can be a real powerhouse. I have seen one of these draw upwards of 15 cards in a single turn cycle.
Night's Whisper. Simple draw 2 for 2. Even at sorcery speed this is a decent draw spell.
Notion Thief. At 4 mana, this card needs to perform, and it does just that. Due to it having flash, it becomes a complete powerhouse. It shuts down any opponents large draw spell or even before your turn to set you up for a wheel of your own.
Ponder one of the best cantrips ever printed. Just having essentially scry 3 then draw is a great effect but the choice to shuffle is also awesome.
Preordain. Cantrip with pre draw selection? Seems good to me.
Serum Visions. Cantrip with post draw selection. Still not even close to bad.
Sensei's Divining Top. Card selection on an artifact, that has inbuilt protection? Oh and it combos with Dramatic Scepter? Yes please!
Timetwister. So now we are into the wheels. Twister is the only member of the fabled Power 9 to be legal in commander. While I don't believe that it is worth the amount people are charging for it, it is the best wheel ever printed. The graveyard recursion and that it does not exile on resolution is amazing.
Wheel of Fortune. Another full power wheel to allow us to draw a ton of cards, refill our empty hand and hose over our opponents.
Windfall is a fun card. While slightly less powerful than the other two, its still a great card and ups our density of wheels in the deck.
Ramp
Dark Ritual helps in almost any situation. From turn 1 ramp to get some rocks out, or to a late game boost of B in your pool. Plus it has a really nice synergy with Doomsday and Necropotence as essentially you are casting them for 1 mana.
Cabal Ritual is the other B ritual that we can run. While it is a 2 for 3, it grows later in the game. It also gets insane with Bonus Round and Helm of Awakening, becoming a 10 for 1!!
Lotus Petal Simple and effective, single use ramp.
Mana Crypt. 0 drop and taps for two. Do I need to day more
Chrome Mox is the most basic mox. It only produces 1-2 colours but it is still a 0 drop rock that gets untapped by Dramatic Reversal
Mox Diamond, the staple of cEDH. It fixes colours instantly for a the cost of discarding a land.
Mox Opal, arguably the worst mox in this list. It can be a dead card for a fair while if you can’t reach Metalcraft. That being said, its still a 0 drop artifact that can be bounced with Hurkyl’s Recall to up your storm count.
Sol Ring. All EDH decks consist of 99 cards and a Sol Ring, right?
Mana Vault 1 mana for a boost of 3. Just one of the better ramp cards ever printed.
Candelabra of Tawnos. The easiest, and most powerful way to filter colourless mana into coloured.
Grim Monolith Another fast mana rock. And a slightly weaker Mana Vault, but the fact it nets mana means that it is and auto include.
Fellwar Stone. Mana rocks that make coloured mana are hard to come by, Fellwar Stone is a great rock that should be able to fix most of your colours fairly quickly.
Talisman of Dominance Giving us access to the colours that we most need on the turn that we play it, is never a bad thing.
Izzet Signet allows for slightly more access to R. As we are running Bonus Round, R is becoming more of a requirement.
Abrade is one of my most flexible slots, but this is mostly for artifact hate. The are a few other options; Smelt, which is great in a low creature meta (which is becoming increasingly uncommon) because the 1 less mana for naus is always helpful. The others are Vandalblast or By Force. These are essentially much more powerful versions, but I don’t really have much need for them. I mostly have to deal with a single problem artifact rather than wiping the board, but also because destroying a Null Rod on end step is much better if you don’t have to wait a full turn cycle to see the effects
Baral, Chief of Compliance. While I wouldn’t always call him a “Control” card in this deck, he augments the control aspect with some other major bonuses. Firstly, reducing instant and sorcery spells cost by 1 makes a huge difference when trying to power out your big draw spells. And secondly the looting is awesome. Protecting yourself and also filtering through your deck is such a bonus.
Chain of Vapor. One of the best removal spells in this deck, for two reasons. It can stop someone else at instant speed, but you can also bounce all of your mana rocks, mid storm, once all of your lands have been used up. You can play politics with it as well. Target the 2nd biggest threat, and get its controller to bounce the biggest.
Cyclonic Rift. A quintessential bounce spell. Early game it can be used to remove an opponent’s threat, late game it can remove all of your opponents threats.
Blink of an Eye/Into the Roil. Bounce a problem at instant speed and if you have some mana spare, you can draw a card. Can be used to bounce your own mana rocks as well. Strict upgrade to Disperse
Delay is back. My control package was becoming super tuned to my meta, so much that I was struggling when playing outside of it. I needed another "unconditional" counter rather than a bounce spell, as i have found myself pacting to stop people, rather than protection more often than not.
Extirpate. This is a serious meta call for the deck. I play against Gitrog a LOT. This card shuts it down happily. It does also shut down most graveyard based wincons, such as most of the Protean Hulk piles these days including the new and beefy Shuffle Hulk piles as you can exile a specific card before they can resolve any extra shuffles. Other options for this slot are Duress or Thoughtseize etc, or another 1 mana counterspell.
Flusterstorm. Great in the right situation, but can occasionally be lacking. One of the better one mana, conditional counters available.
Force of Will. 2nd best counterspell ever printed. It’s free-ish, and it can stop your opponents winning. It’s an auto include.
Hurkyl's Recall. Bounce all of your mana rocks and replay them. During your storm turn, it’s a fair ritual that ups your storm count as well. It can also wreck an opponent's boardstate in a pinch.
Mana Drain is just Counterspell that returns mana! Yay! Best counter ever printed, auto include.
Mission Briefing One of our more recent pieces of spice. This card has enabled a few interesting and pretty sweet lines. The surveil mechanic is an interesting one, halfway between scry and mill, it acts as quite an enabler in this deck. At best it adds 2 spells to your yard that you can cast with PiF or Yawg Will. At worst, it removes two excess lands from your library. The second half is such a combo enabler, it almost hurts. As mentioned with Intuition, its part of one of the best late game piles we can create. Secondly it can also rescue a situation where a key spell may have ended up in our yard for some reason i.e. an opponent’s early wheel.
Pact of Negation. Great counter when you are about to combo off, meh at every other time. But its a 0 mana hit off of naus, and that keeps it just above the cut line.
Pongify/Rapid Hybridization. Destroy a powerful creature for 1 mana? I’ll take it. If it can remove a Tymna, Najeela or a GitFrog, then its gotta be decent right?
Remand seems kinda bad in cEDH. Return a spell to hand? Well, what happens if you mix this with Bonus Round? Crazy fun super stormy things! you can use the multiple copies to bounce itself and BR back to your hand to loop.
Rolling Earthquake can kill a large borad of creatures for dirt cheap. It will take out most dorks or Najeela soldiers, without batting an eyelid.
Snap. Untapping lands is king, you can bounce Jeleva, untap some lands and then cast her again during a High Tide turn exiling more cards. Or just net some mana and remove an opponent’s problem creature.
Swan Song Another one mana (conditional) hard counter.
Toxic Deluge 3 mana boardwipe that gets around most evasion. Gotta have it.
1 Swamp & Mountain - For everyone that hates Back to Basics
Flex Slots
Not all cards are always relevant. This is why we have flex slots. Decks need to be adapted for the meta, but also to play-style. I enjoy having fun with my opponents, toying with them, like a cat and a mouse This is why I love cards like Praetor's Grasp and Isochron Scepter, as they allow me to perform some funky shenanigans when I want to. As far as cards go, here are my main slots that I see to be flexible and can be adjusted to your meta and play-style.
Praetor's Grasp - This can be traded for a lot of things. As mentioned previously, I like the option to toy with my opponents if I feel the need, but you can exchange this for any other tutor or more interaction if needed.
Extirpate - This is a big meta call for me. Yes, I know I have mentioned it a fair few times now... It's the same as Praetor's Grasp, can be cut for more interaction, tutors, artifact removal or hand disruption like Thoughtseize or Duress.
Interaction Suite - This should always be tuned to your meta. So most of this is flexible.
Notable Exceptions
Paradox Engine just isn't needed. We can already generate more than enough mana to cast enough spells and with the inclusion of Candelabra of Tawnos and Dramatic Reversal, we have enough untap effects to keep us going. I would recommend running this if this is your first foray into storm. I do not want to call it a 'crutch', but it really helps when learning how to storm properly.
Grapeshot, is great when your single opponent has 20 life. Hitting 20 storm or 10+ "flashback" is fairly reasonable. Grapeshot would only work when you have Dramatic Scepter running, at which point we could use other options that we already have in the deck.
Tendrils of Agony, like Grapeshot, is amazing when your opponent has 20 life, but mediocre when you have 2 opponents at 40. Suasion did the maths on this and included it in his Shimmer Zur Primer, and it just does not match Aetherflux Reservoir in the slightest.
Dack Fayden is the greatest thief in the Multiverse. But he never stole my heart I personally couldn't get on with a planeswalker in this deck. Yeah he's great for ramp, but what else? The loot is alright, but its sorcery speed and can only be used once.
Time Spiral, this is a tough call. When storming, refilling your hand and opening up mana is HUGE. Ultimately, it came down to CMC for Ad Naus. That being said, I own this in paper, but not a Timetwister, so if anyone has issues with proxies I switch to this over twister. It should be the no. 1 budget replacement for twister in this deck.
Grim Tutor. I used to own one back when I was a kid, before I realised how good tutors were... Regrets aside, I run Praetor's Grasp over grim as I is the same cmc and can also stop an opponent for 1 card rather than 2.
Mnemonic Betrayal is essentially a reverse YawgWin. However, unless someone is playing a self mill deck, like Hermit Druid, and fails to win, I don't see this being overly useful. With more and more hulk based decks taking up the meta, there's less and less useful targets for this.
Rebuild. This is one of the cards that I look at every time I look at making revisions to the deck. Having a second copy of Hurkyl's Recall sounds great, but I have only very rarely needed it.
Mental Misstep. Unless it's turn 0 and you need to counter a dork/Vault/Ring, you should always have mana for counterpells. Mental Misstep becomes very dead later into a game.
Copy Artifact. We don't need to copy Scepter for the swan combo and we don't really need any more artifact ramp. So, it's never really made the cut.
Budget Considerations
We don't all have the cash to access the power 9 or OG Dual's. So here's a few ideas for some budget replacements.
Original Duals are hard to beat. Like, really hard as our manabase is incredibly tight. However the Battle Bond Lands are a decent replacement. Fastlands can also work.
Timetwister is another large cost of this deck, but it can be replaced. Time Spiral is a great and very acceptable replacement. As i mentioned previously, the untapping of lands can be HUGE in this deck.
Mana Rocks as a whole are quite tough to replace in this deck. Signets and talismans can be used to fill the gaps, but with this strat I would be heading more towards a Dramatic Scepter wincon rather than full storm.
In this section I am going to analyze 5 possible hands, whether we should keep them and my thought process for the decision. I will be considering each hand for each position at the table, as turn order will maker a difference in whether we keep a hand or not.
Well, first hand is an easy one. This is a straight mulligan. We only have 1 source of mana and its only and single use. That being said, if Pyroblast or Swan Song had been a land, then I would keep. Having access to some interaction, ramp and a combo piece is nothing to be sniffed at. Mission Briefing can help us dig though our deck a little to help find a tutor or another draw spell.
So, this is slightly awkward. Mana isn't great, but we have access to all our colours from turn 1, and a large amount of ramp. Playing 1st or second in the pod, we could dump our entire hand on the first 2 turns and hopefully draw into a draw spell or tutor or really hope someone wheels before we untap on turn 3, but if that does not happen we are pretty screwed. If I was in 3rd or 4th place, I would mulligan this hand due to a lack of interaction, there is nothing here to stop us getting flash-hulk'ed or GitFrogged early.
This hand is really meta/position dependant. If you are early in turn order and are expecting a lot of wheels to be thrown around then keep and cross your fingers, anything else is a straigt mull.
RRRAAAMMMPPP!!! WHERE'S MY RAMP?!?!? Damn, with just a little bit of ramp this hand would have been amazing for a t1 start. We have access to all our colours with the two fetches. Notion Thief + 2 Wheels is awesome, we have a backup if a counter comes down. Bonus Round and Dark Petition are much better later in the game, but are passable here. However, I couldn't keep this hand. With no ramp, we are looking at a turn 5 wheel... With no interaction, we will probably be dead by then .
Now we are getting somewhere. This is an easy and early Doomsday win. We have the mana to cast Top to look for a second land and a little ramp. We can drop Baral to reduce the cost of any of our draw spells or rituals. Swan Song as a great piece of interaction.
Snap Keep.
Wow! Another great opener. 2 tutors, LED and access to all our colours. With this we have out choice of lines to take. We can hopefully draw some rocks, and aim for the Dramatic Scepter Line, or play a little slower and go for the Naus Line. We have Toxic Deluge to hold back creature based decks by nuking their dorks quickly. The only thing lacking here is some form of counter, but we have a turn or two to draw into something that will help us push through with our tutors.
I would only really worry about this hand when sitting behind a heavy stax deck, where we might get a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Sphere of Resistance dropped before we can make a decent play. But that wouldn't stop me keeping this hand.
But Loki, this dosent really help me... theres trillions of different combinations of cards. What do I want? Well, youmng padawan, as most people who play cEDH will tell you; "It depends..." and it does, theres not much I can give you here. We arent playing a 60 card 4of format where we can predict that within 2 muligans and a scry that we will have exactly what we want. In commander the odds of having a single card in your opening 7 is around 7% (7/99) and because of this we run multiples of certain effects. This is why we run 7 tutors, 9 fetch lands, 3 wheels, the list goes on. With 7 tutors, we up our odds of having at least one in our opening hand to 41.15%, thus drasically raising our consistency.
This is one of the reasons that we have a very tight manabase. All bar 1 (at the time of writing, there are some lands that i want to test but may forget to update this section) of our lands "produces" coloured mana, I am including fetches here as all our fetch targets can enter untapped and generate 1 coloured mana. Ancient Tomb is the exceptiomn here as it enters untapped and produces CC (a Sol Land) allowing us acces to psuedo ramp or just being able to drop that talisman/signet on t1.
OK, got a little off topic there, back to the point.
Muliganing and hand selection is not easy. It requires you to know your deck very well and vaguely know what the odds of what cards you may draw are.
Generic list of what to look for:
1-3 Lands - Depending on the ammount of ramp in the hand. If you were to pull 1 land, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Talisman of Dominence and 3 other cards 1 land is fine. But 3 lands and that set of rocks is kinda bad. You have all the mana but no outlet. Unless your last card is a wheel or ad naus... (SEE! COMPLICATED!! )
1-2 Mana Rocks - As mentioned with the previous example lots of rocks can be good and bad. Great acceleration, but without a way to use that mana its useless.
A tutor - Something to push ourselves towards our out.
A Combo Piece - Not a necessity, but it can help guide our lines of play. If we have Isochron Scepeter, 2 rocks and a tutor in hand, then we want to use the tutor for Dramatic Reversal. Obvs, right?
1-2 pieces of interaction. We may need to protect ourselves and/or stop someone else from going off. this becomes more critical the later in the turn order that we are playing. If we are last (4th), then I wouldn't keep a hand unless I had at least 1 piece of interaction.
Card draw/selection - this depends on the rest of your hand. If its a slower hand (less ramp, more interaction), then you willl want to look for some more cantrips or something like Top to help dig for a large draw spell. If you have more ramp, then we would want to have a wheel or large draw spell (Necro/Naus) to no only refil our hand, but also to power an early win.
Now, I'm going to re-iterate this. IT DEPENDS ON YOUR META! or what decks you are facing. Sometimes you will need to just aim for a more interactive hand, compared to a fast one.
I have mulled to 3 cards and won (Land, Crypt and Twister fyi) but I have also completely misjudged a hand of 7 before. This will come with time, you will make mistake and you will learn from them.
I will be analysing match-ups with the most common decks in my meta.
One thing to note here is that even though there is a healthy range of decks for a small LGS, the experience and skills of pilots can vary wildly. However, I will be attempting to mitigate this issue as much as possible with my match-up reviews.
There are a few points that I want to take a look at when addressing games and strategies within my meta.
Commander
Playstyle - Grixis Storm can be a very adaptable deck. Knowing when to shift between control and outright combo can increase your winrate drastically and I will try to address it here.
Gameplan - Tactics, lines of play, notable cards in our deck, what to watch out for in theirs.
Praetors Grasp Targets - Fun things to troll your opponent
Conclusion - How do we actually fair against the deck?
Playstyle - Hard Control. The frog needs to be neutered.
Gameplan - This matchup is a race. If the frog lands for more than a turn, its pretty much game over. Always aim for a hard counter first, as it will send the frog back to the command zone. At 6 mana to cast for the first time, adding anything additional to that is almost crippling.
One of the things that really scares me with this deck is its ability to out-race some incredibly potent combo decks. I've seen plenty of T1 gitrogs, as it catches people off guard. They were all too worried about the T1 Druid/Hulk. Extirpate and Praetor's Grasp are some of your best friends here. Extirpate is one of the few cards in our colours that can cut off the combo mid way through. And Praetor's Grasp can remove Dakmor Salvage or a shuffler.
Praetors Grasp Targets - Dakmor Salvage, Eldrazi Titan Suffler. Dark Ritual can also be an effective target, as it can shut off the infinite mana loops.
Conclusion - Gitrog is a reasonable matchup if played smart. in 1v1 situations we usually hit a decent 50/50 winrate.
Gameplan - Like Gitrog, this matchup is a race, but in the opposite direction. You need to land some key pieces before Azami hits the board. Patron Wizard can really make your life a nightmare. Suddenly, the extremely tight mana package we run becomes even tighter. Trying to play the end step ad naus becomes almost impossible.
However, Azami has some weakness' that we can exploit. It's slow to get started. With the artifact package that we run, we should be able to ramp a lot faster and more aggressively. What this means is that we can target our tutors towards combo pieces rather than protection.
With this deck being mono U, there is always going to be a large amount of counter magic that we will have to fight through, but it lacks to-hand tutors. This means that we know what they are tutoring for, and from that we can make an educated guess as to what they are holding.
Lookout for any mana doublers, Patron Wizard and Azami herself.
Conclusion - Pretty decent matchup for us. We have enough hard counters to control the board and fight some basic counter wars. We also have enough ramp and mana resources to out race our opponent in the early game, allowing us to combo out early.
Playstyle - Play to the hand you draw. This is a little weird, but this is essentially a mirror match.
Gameplan - As I just mentioned, this is basically a mirror matchup. Grixis vs Grixis. The the Consultation build is only a hair slower than us. However, in my oppinion, its slightly less resilient. If Labman or Scepter is removed, the deck folds. We have more outs and our commander being one of them is a huge bonus. As with most mirrors, this can get pretty grindy. Setting up a serious card advantage engine is a must. Mystic Remora or Notion Thief are really helpful here.
Conclusion - As long as you can keep uo the tempo and get your rocks out faster than Kess, you should have no problems. But as with any mirror matchup its gonna be a 50/50.
Gameplan - This is a tough matchup for us. Najeela is incredibly fast and resilient. We should be looking at playing control and an almost mana denial style strategy. Target the dorks with removal, tutor up Extirpate to stop the hulk triggers, counter the tutors and keep your fingers crossed that another player in your pod has a backup counterspell.
Creatures can be an issue for us as we only have a couple, each of which have specific roles and are not there to protect us. Deluge and Rolling Earthquake are useful, but only if Najeela whiffs her infinite combats.
Praetors Grasp Targets - This is a tough one. There are too many redundant combo pieces in Najeela to reliably target one. Derevi, Imperial Tactitian is a good choice if the flash hulk plan has been neutered, but there are also the birthing pod lines to contend with.
Conclusion - This is a tough matchup, due to her speed and resilience. However, due to a lack of counters in Najeela, if we can find an opening to go off, we should have the game as they have almost no way to stop us.
Gameplan - Keranos can shut us down pretty hard, if they get a lock early. Back to Basics can cripple any 3+ colour manabase, and some of the stax pieces can break our gameplan.
Keranos is in my meta, but doesn't make an appearance very often. Because of his rarity I chose not to run artifact sweepers, sticking to Abrade or Smelt instead. If artifact stax become more prevalent, then Vandalblast or By Force would be great replacements.
You can also use Red Elemental Blast or Pyroblast to remove the nasty enchantments.
General tactics are just to get the combo going as soon as possible. If not, dig to a sweper, or Rift, save your mana and clean out before you untap.
Praetors Grasp Targets - There's loads of targets for us here. Dramatic Scepter combo, Paradox Engine (for the lolz), Dack, Tutors, Wheels, all the fun things!
Conclusion - Decent matchup for us. We can easily outrace the lock and sweep it if needs be.
There are poeple that have done a lot more work on this deck than I have and this is where I congratulate them on the work that I have taken my inspiration from.
Reversemermaid and Moxnix are, in my opinion, the two main pioneers of the Jeleva Storm list. I'm not completely au fait with the history of grixis storm, but from what I have read, Moxnix laid the groundwork and Rev polished the list. I highly reccomend that you check out both of them. Moxnix can be found on YouTube and MTG Salvation. You can also find his original primer here.
Reversemermaid's list was the first list that I began building. Its current iteration can be found here
So, as we all know, proxies aren't tournament legal. This made me re-think some of my deck, as I dont actually own a Candelabra or Timetwister. Yet...
A Friend allowed me to borrow his ABURs, but I still needed a Mana Drain. I chucked a Counterspell in for the Mana Drain, Time Spiral for Timetwister and Thousand-Year Storm in for Candelabra.
I was horrendously surprised with how much work 1KYS did. Casting [c]Dark Ritual[c] and copying it 17 times for 54xB was pretty fun. After grinding away over the weekend, I think I'm gonna keep it for a while and see how it plays out in my local meta.
One other quirk of the GP was that they allowed WAR cards. Narset's Reversal was an instant pickup. This thing is spice-incarnte. Stealing a Naus on t3 while being mana-screwed (my own fault, kept a super gereedy hand) was just beautiful. And seeing someone use it to counter a Silence on the owners upkeep was the play that completely sealed the deal for me. I am still to test Bolas's Citadel and Lab-Jace. Mostly as I was enjoying 1KYS immensly and did not want to swap it for Citadel, and the latter, I feel is a great addition to a Consultation Kess list, but I need to do some more goldfishing with Doomsday to see if it's worth trading for Laboratory Maniac.
Counters was something I was struggling with over the weekend. After tuning my interaction package to fit around my meta, and to almost perfectly answer anything from the main decks, I need to be able to adapt and fit more into an open meta. This is why I brought back Delay as it acts as a counter for any spell.
Lim-Dul's Vault is out for the moment. Mostly cos its the worst tutor in the deck. Partially because I just want to search for a card, not look at the top 5 over and over again until I find one I like.
Delay is gone. It may be an interesting counter, but I really feel that I need an extra land. Counterspell for Remand. Remand can be discounted by Baral/Helm. You can also do some crazy things with it and Bonus Round. Vapor Snag for Rolling Earthquake. My meta is becoming more creature heavy. Najeela and Yisan being a big part of it. Having a second "kill" boardwipe should be useful.
5/4/19 - Updated the Storming Off section and made the Doomsday section a little easier to read an understand.
I ran Rolling Earthquake for a fair while, but I ultimately cut it as i didn't find it overly useful that often. But that is all based on my meta. My LGS is evolving and there are more and more decks springing up, so i may have to test it again.
Extirpate is a pet card of mine, its amazing against Gitrog.
Jeleva - ...And the Storm Arrived
Why Grixis? UBR
UBR gives us access to some of the best storm spells available. The three biggest being Tendrils of Agony, Mind's Desire and Grapeshot. On top of this U gives us the access to lots of draw and control power, R gives us access to rituals and powerful wheels, and B gives us access to the best tutors around.
Generally UBx Storm decks have a similar shell of tutors, cantrips, control elements and artifact ramp. With this in mind, let’s have a look at other commanders. Zur is an example of a great UBW commander, as he essentially gives you access to necropotence in the command zone. For me, Zur is the top choice outside of Grixis. His power cannot be denied. Expanding to 4 colours allows brings in Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder. Cascade is one hell of a mechanic and incredibly powerful. For me though, going to 4 colours puts a lot of strain on the mana base, and you also need to start shaving interaction to keep up consistency.
My personal love for Grixis comes from playing Mizzix and Nekusar decks. They were fun but never very competitive. So after much research I merged the two decks into a rough draft of a grixis storm deck. I started to win more and more with it (until one of my friends built Gitrog) and I became addicted.
Why pilot this deck?
Do you like to play an insane number of spells per turn?
Do you like to untap on turn 3 with 12 mana available?
Do you like to play long complex lines?
Do you like puzzles?
Are mana dorks for losers?
Then this deck is for you.
You should play this deck if you enjoy
Generating obscene amounts of mana and spells.
Taking long turns
Being able to adapt to most situations.
Drawing LOTS of cards.
You should avoid this deck if you don’t like:
“Non-fixed” paths to winning. I.e. not having a specific 2 card combo, that ends in a deterministic line. Such as Hermit Druid.
Difficult puzzle solving.
“Beating Face” with creatures
Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge
In grixis we have a few choices for a commander, however we only have a couple that a really cEDH viable. The most notable of the choices are Nekusar, the Mindrazer, Kess, Dissident Mage and Inalla, Archmage Ritualist.
- Nekusar has some serious potential. However, it seems to be difficult to capitalize on this power while keeping hold of speed and consistancy.
- Inalla, in my eyes, is just a 3 colour Azami, lady of scrolls. She has potential, but I don't think that it will hit tier 1 deck until there area some new tech has been printed.
- Kess, I shall discuss below.
Jeleva vs. KessIn 2017, WotC decided to print a new and viable Grixis commander. Kess, Dissident Mage. She is powerful and opens up some new lines but, I decided to stick to Jeleva.
While Kess can allow you to reuse your tutors or combo cards, at a rate of 1 per turn I don’t think that it is powerful enough. Kess allows the reuse of instant and sorceries from your graveyard. Great, but what if you need to use more than one to win? What if your graveyard gets exiled? Theres nothing that she can do to help fix that.
Jeleva, may not be able to help that either, but what she can do, is help move your game plan along from the command zone. When she enters the battlefield she opens up new lines of play. She is essentially a gas card in the command zone. She brings new cards to the table as well as potentially hurting your opponents gameplan. The extra cards that you see when casting Jeleva, can mean the difference between winning and loosing. Also, it's a really nice feeling casting a Mind's Desire for free or any spell for that matter.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Great colours for our storm gameplan
- Gas card in the command zone
- Possibility of exiling our opponents wincons
- Can block a Tymna
- Can be a WinCon in the command zone
Cons1x Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge
Land
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Arid Mesa
1x Badlands
1x Blood Crypt
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x City of Brass
1x Command Tower
1x Flooded Strand
6x Island
1x Mana Confluence
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Morphic Pool
1x Mountain
1x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Steam Vents
1x Swamp
1x Underground Sea
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Volcanic Island
1x Watery Grave
1x Wooded Foothills
WinCon
1x Aetherflux Reservoir
1x Bonus Round
1x Doomsday
1x Dramatic Reversal
1x Isochron Scepter
1x Laboratory Maniac
1x Mind's Desire
1x Past in Flames
1x Thousand-Year Storm
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Abrade
1x Baral, Chief of Compliance
1x Blink of an Eye
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Delay
1x Extirpate
1x Flusterstorm
1x Force of Will
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Mana Drain
1x Mission Briefing
1x Narset's Reversal
1x Pact of Negation
1x Pongify
1x Praetor's Grasp
1x Pyroblast
1x Remand
1x Snap
1x Swan Song
1x Toxic Deluge
Ramp
1x Cabal Ritual
1x Candelabra of Tawnos
1x Chrome Mox
1x Dark Ritual
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Grim Monolith
1x Helm of Awakening
1x High Tide
1x Izzet Signet
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Mox Diamond
1x Mox Opal
1x Sol Ring
1x Talisman of Dominance
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Brainstorm
1x Frantic Search
1x Gitaxian Probe
1x Gush
1x Impulse
1x Mystic Remora
1x Necropotence
1x Night's Whisper
1x Notion Thief
1x Ponder
1x Preordain
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Serum Visions
1x Timetwister
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Windfall
Tutor
1x Dark Petition
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Gamble
1x Imperial Seal
1x Intuition
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
I am currently working on some budget decks however in the meantime please checkout these decks:
Reversemermaids's I hate all of you
Moxnix's Jeleva's Pile of Broken
Dan from the Lab Maniacs did a budget deck series, in which he created 2 lists based on Reversemermaid's lists.
~$750
~$1500
Storming Off
Storm is an art form. Storm needs to be practised. Storm is a skill that takes time to develop. You could write an entire novel on the perfect way to play storm and still not cover all of the nuances. At its core, storm is just playing and chaining a large number of spells to get your ‘Storm count’ up and then having an outlet for that number. In modern, that outlet is Empty the Warrens, in legacy and until a few years ago in EDH, it was Tendrils of Agony. Now we have Aetherflux Reservoir. For further reading on Aetherflux vs. Tendrils, Reversemermaid's essay has great reasoning on why to run it in Grixis Storm. Also Suasion did some incredible maths in his Shimmer Zur Primer that really shows of just how efficient Aetherflux is.
With this deck, we look at running a large density of wheels and cantrips to allow us to keep up a critical mass of spells during our storm turn.
Essentially you want to draw a butt-ton of cards and then chain an obscene number of spells into an Aetherflux Reservoir kill. There are a few ways to draw a lot of cards.
Wheel + Notion Thief. This can draw up to 28 cards and while mana intensive (min 4), the cost can be spread over 2 turns. Or Notion Thief can be played in response to someone else’s wheel.
Ad Nauseam. This is one of the main reasons we keep our mana curve really low, ideally we want an average of lower than 2.0. Sometimes you can draw up to 30 cards off an Ad Naus, but even when you don’t the power is still incredible. Remember: Life is just another resource.
Necropotence is dirty. You can either go for an early ‘pay 30 life and sculpt the perfect hand for your next turn’ or later in the game it can be used to refill your hand in increments.
Expanding on Storm
To begin, We need to look at the cards available to us. Can we make enough mana? Can we draw enough cards? Can we protect ourselves?
Lets break these questions down:
We need spells to cast, so we need cards. As I have spoken about earlier, there are numerous ways to draw a bunch of cards in this deck. Even a lowly Windafall can get us enough cards to go off.
An end-step Naus is probably the best way to draw the cards that you need, but a main phase wheel to refill is also a great way to make sure that you have enough cards. Side note on wheels, while incredibly powerful, they have some drawbacks. Most importantly, they also refill your opponent's hands! Meaning that they will also have access to new cards, including counters. If someone else is playing a Notion Thief then be aware of when someone is holding that mana. Side side note: If two Thiefs are out, then the caster of the draw spell gets to choose which draw is resolved with which thief.
Just like the rest of life, we want to use protection. :LEWD: Having a counter or two can be the make or break of a storm turn. Imagine being sat at the table. Naus, Fishbowl and Dark Ritual in hand. Cast Ritual... and BOOM! Counterspell has stopped you in your tracks. If you had a Pact, a Flusterstorm, ANY counter spell. You probably could have had your ritual, then move into the naus and into the fishbowl. While this deck is very adaptable and a control game-plan can be a necessity at times, our interaction suite is primarily included to protect our own combo turns.
Making sure that you can push through your first spell will make or break your game.
We cant cast spells without mana, so we are going to need to make lots of it. With only 28 lands, we need to look at other ways to produce mana. The first thing to look at is artifact ramp.
We run a full suite of net positive mana rocks. What this means, is that the mana rock produces more mana than it cost to cast. i.e. Sol Ring costs 1 generic mana to cast, but generates 2 colourless mana. We spent 1 to get 2. Casting these rocks also count towards the "Storm Count" (the number of spells that have been cast in a single turn.), which will become relevant further down the line.
"Rituals" are our second way of creating obscene amounts of mana. Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual and High Tide. On the surface, these generate 3,7 and X amounts of mana respectively. However, we can work around this with a few things. Firstly, Bonus Round will make each of these spells really good, suddenly we are looking at 6, 14 and 2X. Throw a Yawgmoth's Will into the equation and suddenly we have all the mana we should need. We can use cards like Candelabra of Tawnos or Izzet Signet to filter some of this into our other colours.
Cost reducers don't technically generate us mana, but they do make our spells much more efficient. Baral and Helm are our two current choices. Helm of Awakening reduces the cost of ALL spells by 1, even your opponents! So be careful when to depolying this tech, as it can work out really badly for you (Flash-Hulk for U). Though the positives of playing Sensei's Divining Top or Sol Ring for free is a beauty to behold. Baral does a similar job, but only hits our instant and sorcery spells. He does however offer us a loot effect for when we need to cast some counters. As a side note, this effect will also trigger when looping Remand and Bonus Round.
As we can see, there are a number of ways that we can generate a large amount of mana, without going infinite.
OK, so now we have the basics down we can begin looking at some of the ways to take advantage of our position.
Building on storm count is essentially chaining spells. Playing one spell into another. Sounds simple, right? Well... yes and no. There are a million and one different ways to play out the hand that you have, but only a handful of ways will lead to victory. Sequencing is key, luck is always a factor and you can always brick a draw or whiff a chain. Some days it will feel like you just can't get past the wall and some days everything will just fall into place.
I'm going to try and explain a few different ways that we can chain spells and how we can use the chain to make some large payouts.
Artifacts
Artifacts can be one of the easiest and best ways to go off. As mentioned in the previous section, we have a critical density of mana positive rocks. Having this many means that when we draw a butt-ton of cards, we are almost guaranteed to hit at least a couple of them. And because of this we can use them as the basis of a storm chain. One example would be:
Mana Crypt -> Sol Ring and Mana Vault -> Grim Monolith and Talisman of Dominance = 5 Storm and 3(U/B). We can use this mana to then cast Hurkyl's Recall, targeting ourselves, to bounce all those artifacts to our hand and start the loop again. This should give us a total of 11 Storm and 5(U/B).
Instants and Sorceries
Chaining wheels and cantrips to dig through our deck can also be a profitable line. Once we start this process we start to rely on luck. We are hoping to hit some more cantrips, wheels or mana engines to help propel us deeper into the deck and thus upping our storm count.
This sort of chain is where you need to really think about how you are going to sequence your spells. Lets have a look at another example.
Hand: High Tide, Night's Whisper, Windfall, Gush, Cabal Ritual and Frantic Search
Boardstate: Underground Sea, Island, Badlands.Untapped Grim Monolith and Fellwar Stone
Graveyard: Flooded Strand, Mana Drain, Hurkyl's Recall, Brainstorm and Verdant Catacombs.
We have played our land for turn.
What order do you play your hand to maximize the potential?
(Note: Cards drawn in this example are intentionally bad draws. This so that I can explain the use of the cards we have in hand and how to maximize their potential, with the given information.)
1. Tap Fellwar Stone for U to cast High Tide
2. Tap Grim Monolith and lands for 3UUUBB
3. Use 2U to cast Frantic Search. Drawing and discarding Pongify and Sensei's Divining Top, this will also trigger Threshold for Cabal Ritual. Then untap your 3 lands. We still have 1UUBB floating.
4. Use 1B to cast Cabal Ritual. We now have UUBBBBBB floating.
5. Use BB to cast Night's Whisper. Drawing Force and City of Brass. Floating UUBBBB
6. Tap Underground Sea and the Island for BUUU, then cast Gush by returning these two lands to your hand. UUUUUBBBBB in our pool. Draw Watery Grave and Island.
7. Use UBB to cast windfall and draw at least 6 new cards.
At this point we have a storm count of 5, UUUUBBB in our pool and 6 more cards that we can potentially cast.
This is just one scenario where we can begin storming off and it really shows where sequencing can make a huge difference. This will come with time and practice.
Graveyard
Hitting graveyard recursion mid storm just makes everything groovy (insert Evil Dead meme). Yawgmoth's Will and Past In Flames are out two main recursion spells, with Timetwister being a tertiary way to "effectively" get all our used spells back.
With the Yawgmoth style recursion we get to cast everything in our yard again. This is wonderful for such cards as Lotus Petal and rituals as it allows us to continue generating mana. Small note on Yawg, keep an eye on the number of cards in your yard when storming with this effect. Cards like Dark Petition and Cabal Ritual have additional checks for numbers of cards in your graveyard. Casting a 2 mana spell to only net 1 kinda sucks.
PiF is nowhere near as good as YawgWin. It only allows you to cast instant and sorcery spells from your graveyard, but that is still an incredibly potent effect. You can still cast tutors, wheels, counters and that should be more than enough to keep the storm chain going. One added bonus of PiF is that it has it's own pseudo protection. The Flashback element of this card can be used to recast after a counter. One of the more intricate asides of PiF, is that it only effects Instant and Sorceries at the time of resolution. To expand on this, if we were to cast Past, let it resolve and then cast Gitaxian Probe from our hand, it would not have flashback.
Copying Spells
Bonus Round is one of the more recent additions to the deck and WOW is it spicy. For an ongoing effect, it is one of the most powerful. These copies do not count towards storm, but they do serve multiple purposes. They generate card advantage, free mana, pseudo protection, lots of things. For example, post-resolution, Demonic Tutor tutors 2 cards to your hand for 2 mana, Dark Ritual spits out 6 mana for a cost of 1.
Now, what happens when we cast BR then cast Yawgmoth's Will? Firstly, Yawgmoth's Will is copied, but that isn't the best part. It allows you to cast Bonus Round again! And because of the first cast it is copied. Now, we have had 3 copies of Bonus Round resolve, meaning that now, when we cast a spell, it is copied 3 times. That Dark Ritual now generates 12 mana, Demonic Tutor will find 4 cards. This card is insane.
Remand and Unsubstantiate can create some interesting loops. Once we have had BR resolve, and we can have the opportunity to get it back, Yawgmoth's Will, PiF, Mission Briefing or cards like Relearn or Flood of Recollection. Once these criteria have been filled, we can cast BR, cast our recursion spell, then we cast BR again and this is where the loop begins.
- BR goes onto the stack, and the second copy enters as well.
- Holding priority, we cast Remand. The original targets the original BR and the Remand copy targets the original Remand.
- This allows for the copy of BR to resolve, and both original spells to be returned to you hand, allowing for them to be cast again and the loop to continue.
While this is a spicy line, it requires a large amount of mana and a lot of R, which can be problematic for us without an infinite source. See the Dramatic Scepter combos section below for more information on those.Mind's Desire is one of the best outlets for storm. As it has the potential to double your storm count, get you a butt-ton of free stuff and just generally an awesome card. For 4UU its a hefty cost, but the payout is amazing. The free spells that you cast off of Mind's Desire raise your storm count. Note: Storm as a triggered ability will not be copied by Bonus Round as the copy is put on the stack, not cast.
Payout
After we have built our chain, or most likely halfway through, we need to resolve an Aetherflux Reservoir(Fishbowl). Once we have reservoir in play, the spells that we now cast will begin gaining us life. Depending on where we are in the storm turn and what life we started at, this will vary. So we need a minimum of 151 life to activate Reservoir 3 times, once for each opponent, and survive. If we were to start our storm turn on 1 life, we would need to cast 17 spells to reach a total of 153 life. The first would be Fishbowl, then 16 other spells, gaining 2,3,4,...,15,16 ready to laser. I haven't taken paying life for Gitaxian Probe into account here, but using it more than once will make you require an extra spell. Though, that should not be much of a problem.
That is the basics of storm in this deck, but as I spoke about in the beginning, Storm is an art-form and you can the best way to improve your game is to play and practise. In this guide I have barely scratched the surface of the complexity and depth of plays and lines you can take with this deck or any storm deck for that matter.
Dramatic Scepter Combos
One of the cheapest and most efficient ways to generate infinite mana, is with Dramatic Reversal and Isochron Scepter plus any combination of mana rocks that tap for 3 in total. All for the cheap cost of 4.
Each use of Scepter's ability counts as a cast trigger for Aetherflux Reservoir, allowing for a very compact wincon.
Dramatic Scepter also works with Sensei's Divining Top. Tap the Top, respond by using Scepter to cast dramatic reversal. This untaps Top to be tapped again. Loop this to draw your deck. Note that once the triggers start to resolve, Top will be the 2nd card that you draw. You can then cast Aetherflux Reservoir or Laboratory Maniac + and draw spell.
Another fun way to win with infinite mana, is to cast and bounce/counter Jeleva a large number of times. This will eventually exile your opponent’s libraries, then just pass the turn and let them draw themselves to death.
Doomsday
Need Doomsday and cantrip in hand, 4 Islands (any land with a subtype of "Island") in play and more than 8 life.
The Pile
The Play
You will need to have Doomsday, Gitaxian Probe, Dark Ritual, LED and a land that taps for black in hand.
The Pile
The Play
WinCons
Not all cards are always relevant. This is why we have flex slots. Decks need to be adapted for the meta, but also to play-style. I enjoy having fun with my opponents, toying with them, like a cat and a mouse
We don't all have the cash to access the power 9 or OG Dual's. So here's a few ideas for some budget replacements.
In this section I am going to analyze 5 possible hands, whether we should keep them and my thought process for the decision. I will be considering each hand for each position at the table, as turn order will maker a difference in whether we keep a hand or not.
Hand 1
Well, first hand is an easy one. This is a straight mulligan. We only have 1 source of mana and its only and single use. That being said, if Pyroblast or Swan Song had been a land, then I would keep. Having access to some interaction, ramp and a combo piece is nothing to be sniffed at. Mission Briefing can help us dig though our deck a little to help find a tutor or another draw spell.
Hand 2
So, this is slightly awkward. Mana isn't great, but we have access to all our colours from turn 1, and a large amount of ramp. Playing 1st or second in the pod, we could dump our entire hand on the first 2 turns and hopefully draw into a draw spell or tutor or really hope someone wheels before we untap on turn 3, but if that does not happen we are pretty screwed. If I was in 3rd or 4th place, I would mulligan this hand due to a lack of interaction, there is nothing here to stop us getting flash-hulk'ed or GitFrogged early.
This hand is really meta/position dependant. If you are early in turn order and are expecting a lot of wheels to be thrown around then keep and cross your fingers, anything else is a straigt mull.
Hand 3
RRRAAAMMMPPP!!! WHERE'S MY RAMP?!?!? Damn, with just a little bit of ramp this hand would have been amazing for a t1 start. We have access to all our colours with the two fetches. Notion Thief + 2 Wheels is awesome, we have a backup if a counter comes down. Bonus Round and Dark Petition are much better later in the game, but are passable here. However, I couldn't keep this hand. With no ramp, we are looking at a turn 5 wheel... With no interaction, we will probably be dead by then .
Hand 4
Now we are getting somewhere. This is an easy and early Doomsday win. We have the mana to cast Top to look for a second land and a little ramp. We can drop Baral to reduce the cost of any of our draw spells or rituals. Swan Song as a great piece of interaction.
Snap Keep.
Hand 5
Wow! Another great opener. 2 tutors, LED and access to all our colours. With this we have out choice of lines to take. We can hopefully draw some rocks, and aim for the Dramatic Scepter Line, or play a little slower and go for the Naus Line. We have Toxic Deluge to hold back creature based decks by nuking their dorks quickly. The only thing lacking here is some form of counter, but we have a turn or two to draw into something that will help us push through with our tutors.
I would only really worry about this hand when sitting behind a heavy stax deck, where we might get a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Sphere of Resistance dropped before we can make a decent play. But that wouldn't stop me keeping this hand.
But Loki, this dosent really help me... theres trillions of different combinations of cards. What do I want? Well, youmng padawan, as most people who play cEDH will tell you; "It depends..." and it does, theres not much I can give you here. We arent playing a 60 card 4of format where we can predict that within 2 muligans and a scry that we will have exactly what we want. In commander the odds of having a single card in your opening 7 is around 7% (7/99) and because of this we run multiples of certain effects. This is why we run 7 tutors, 9 fetch lands, 3 wheels, the list goes on. With 7 tutors, we up our odds of having at least one in our opening hand to 41.15%, thus drasically raising our consistency.
This is one of the reasons that we have a very tight manabase. All bar 1 (at the time of writing, there are some lands that i want to test but may forget to update this section) of our lands "produces" coloured mana, I am including fetches here as all our fetch targets can enter untapped and generate 1 coloured mana. Ancient Tomb is the exceptiomn here as it enters untapped and produces CC (a Sol Land) allowing us acces to psuedo ramp or just being able to drop that talisman/signet on t1.
OK, got a little off topic there, back to the point.
Muliganing and hand selection is not easy. It requires you to know your deck very well and vaguely know what the odds of what cards you may draw are.
Generic list of what to look for:
Now, I'm going to re-iterate this. IT DEPENDS ON YOUR META! or what decks you are facing. Sometimes you will need to just aim for a more interactive hand, compared to a fast one.
I have mulled to 3 cards and won (Land, Crypt and Twister fyi) but I have also completely misjudged a hand of 7 before. This will come with time, you will make mistake and you will learn from them.
I will be analysing match-ups with the most common decks in my meta.
One thing to note here is that even though there is a healthy range of decks for a small LGS, the experience and skills of pilots can vary wildly. However, I will be attempting to mitigate this issue as much as possible with my match-up reviews.
There are a few points that I want to take a look at when addressing games and strategies within my meta.
Extirpate and Praetor's Grasp are some of your best friends here. Extirpate is one of the few cards in our colours that can cut off the combo mid way through. And Praetor's Grasp can remove Dakmor Salvage or a shuffler.
With this deck being mono U, there is always going to be a large amount of counter magic that we will have to fight through, but it lacks to-hand tutors. This means that we know what they are tutoring for, and from that we can make an educated guess as to what they are holding.
Lookout for any mana doublers, Patron Wizard and Azami herself.
You can also use Red Elemental Blast or Pyroblast to remove the nasty enchantments.
General tactics are just to get the combo going as soon as possible. If not, dig to a sweper, or Rift, save your mana and clean out before you untap.
More coming soon
There are poeple that have done a lot more work on this deck than I have and this is where I congratulate them on the work that I have taken my inspiration from.
Reversemermaid and Moxnix are, in my opinion, the two main pioneers of the Jeleva Storm list. I'm not completely au fait with the history of grixis storm, but from what I have read, Moxnix laid the groundwork and Rev polished the list. I highly reccomend that you check out both of them. Moxnix can be found on YouTube and MTG Salvation. You can also find his original primer here.
Reversemermaid's list was the first list that I began building. Its current iteration can be found here
27/4/19 - GP London/War of the Spark Updates
Out: Candelabra of Tawnos
Rolling Earthquake
Lim-Dul's Vault
In: Delay
Narset's Reversal
Thousand-Year Storm
So, as we all know, proxies aren't tournament legal. This made me re-think some of my deck, as I dont actually own a Candelabra or Timetwister. Yet...
A Friend allowed me to borrow his ABURs, but I still needed a Mana Drain. I chucked a Counterspell in for the Mana Drain, Time Spiral for Timetwister and Thousand-Year Storm in for Candelabra.
I was horrendously surprised with how much work 1KYS did. Casting [c]Dark Ritual[c] and copying it 17 times for 54xB was pretty fun. After grinding away over the weekend, I think I'm gonna keep it for a while and see how it plays out in my local meta.
One other quirk of the GP was that they allowed WAR cards. Narset's Reversal was an instant pickup. This thing is spice-incarnte. Stealing a Naus on t3 while being mana-screwed (my own fault, kept a super gereedy hand) was just beautiful. And seeing someone use it to counter a Silence on the owners upkeep was the play that completely sealed the deal for me. I am still to test Bolas's Citadel and Lab-Jace. Mostly as I was enjoying 1KYS immensly and did not want to swap it for Citadel, and the latter, I feel is a great addition to a Consultation Kess list, but I need to do some more goldfishing with Doomsday to see if it's worth trading for Laboratory Maniac.
Counters was something I was struggling with over the weekend. After tuning my interaction package to fit around my meta, and to almost perfectly answer anything from the main decks, I need to be able to adapt and fit more into an open meta. This is why I brought back Delay as it acts as a counter for any spell.
Lim-Dul's Vault is out for the moment. Mostly cos its the worst tutor in the deck. Partially because I just want to search for a card, not look at the top 5 over and over again until I find one I like.
15/3/19 - Out: Delay, Vapor Snag and Counterspell
In: Morphic Pool, Rolling Earthquake and Remand
Delay is gone. It may be an interesting counter, but I really feel that I need an extra land.
Counterspell for Remand. Remand can be discounted by Baral/Helm. You can also do some crazy things with it and Bonus Round.
Vapor Snag for Rolling Earthquake. My meta is becoming more creature heavy. Najeela and Yisan being a big part of it. Having a second "kill" boardwipe should be useful.
5/4/19 - Updated the Storming Off section and made the Doomsday section a little easier to read an understand.
Missed the your own creatures bit
But Disperse becomes a cheap boardwipe
How does Blood Moon affect lands in graveyards?
Such as Blood Moon is on the field and an opponent has Dakmor Salvage in the yard. Can they still use the dredge ability?
Thanks in advance
But then again, i would be looking at stuff like Enter the infinite for a major out.
Yidris, Maelstrom Wanderer would be a good addition if you are looking at a cascade subtheme.
But i think Breya would still be the best choice for this
Designed for draft...
Designed for draft...
Designed for draft...
This s just hilarious.
This may also confirm that Proshh deck is out for commander anthology 2. Leaving room for Jeleva (and a true name nemesis reprint)
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - "Oh, thats a nice 12/12 creature you've got there. It'd be a shame if my 1/1 DEATHTOUCH snake blocked it."
Avacyn, Angel of Hope - Avy + Worldslayer or any MLD/Boardwipe