Five With Flores

Since Luis Scott-Vargas won Grand Prix Los Angeles (and Asher did pretty well on top), Storm has become one of if not the most popular deck in Extended. Following is a two-game match exploring the Storm mirror.

For this video I used Luis Scott-Vargas’s version of Storm, which is:

4 Lotus Bloom

2 Tendrils of Agony

4 Mind’s Desire
4 Peer Through Depths
4 Ponder
4 Remand
2 Sleight of Hand

2 Electrolyze
4 Manamorphose

4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song

3 Cascade Bluffs
4 Dreadship Reef
3 Flooded Strand
2 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Steam Vents

Sideboard
2 Ad Nauseam
3 Brain Freeze
3 Echoing Truth
2 Gigadrowse
3 Pact of Negation
2 Shattering Spree

Here are some things you will notice about this deck…

1. Luis played main deck Electrolyze. This could theoretically have been Magma Jet (which is cheaper but less versatile against the one toughness creatures in Faeries), or nothing at all (as in Asher’s deck); the Grapeshot version can just Grapeshot Gaddock Teeg to death (though not Ethersworn Canonist).
2. Luis killed with Tendrils of Agony. It’s tricky, but you can Remand your own Tendrils and re-play it to create a lethal out of smoke, provided you have enough Lotuses and Manamorphoses to produce sufficient Black to play and re-play the Storm sorcery.
3. The big one is Shattering Spree in the sideboard. One of the cards I was using to beat Storm “back in the day” (at least before the Grand Prix) with the MWC deck was Chalice of the Void. That probably isn’t going to be a solution moving forward. The White deck is probably not fast enough to kill the Storm deck before a solution to Chalice of the Void can be found, especially when the best ineractive card has Replicate.

Storm is a deck that you will want to know; it is very popular (meaning you probably have to know how to beat it at least once or twice to win a PTQ) and an elite deck against Faerie Wizards (another pretty popular deck).

Storm is a powerhouse, and as you can see in the video (if you don’t have a lot of first hand experience with the deck) it is like a bulldozer stapled to a mongoose… nigh-inexorable kryptonite-locked to fast.

The video is pretty funny, especially the Game Three situation where I have double Tendrils, Brain Freeze-Remand-Brain Freeze with the second-to-lethal Tendrils on the stack. It can play tight margin mana with Tendrils and just enough Storm copies, or with sufficient momentum will do a thousand or so damage while decking the other guy the same turn.

Ka-blooey.

LOVE
MIKE

The SWOT analysis moves to the ever popular Zoo deck!

Welcome to our video review of all things Zoo, including Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats, and Kird Apes.

LOVE
MIKE

P.S. For this video, we used Sebastian Thaler’s 6-0 Zoo deck from the 2009 World Championship:

3 Umezawa’s Jitte

4 Dark Confidant
3 Shadow Guildmage

4 Lightning Helix

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl

4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
1 Seal of Fire
1 Tarfire
4 Tribal Flames

3 Oblivion Ring

1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Flooded Strand
1 Godless Shrine
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard
1 Deathmark
4 Thoughtseize
2 Gaddock Teeg
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Sundering Vitae
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ethersworn Canonist

Thaler’s deck does a lot of things differently than you might consider doing them. For starters he has all of his Jittes — three total Jittes — in the main deck. We would not have seen that a year ago.

Secondly, he mixes up his one mana removal spells and creatures. Thaler plays with a full set of Mogg Fanatics, and before any one mana burn spells, he stocks the one with almost the maximum number of Shadow Guildmages (killers who can also carry a Jitte)… Once he got there, Thaler mixed up Seal of Fire and Tarfire (one of each) to maximize the potential boost on Tarmogoyf, part tribal, part aura.

The first video of the new year!

Come watch two matches with All-in Red as well as an in-depth SWOT analysis on the archetype.

LOVE
MIKE

PS I used Petras Ratkevicius’s 6-0 All-in Red deck for this video. If you haven’t seen his list, here it is:

4 Chrome Mox
2 Trinisphere
1 Umezawa’s Jitte

4 Demigod of Revenge
4 Deus of Calamity

3 Blood Moon
4 Desperate Ritual
3 Empty the Warrens
3 Magus of the Moon
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
1 Shattering Spree
4 Simian Spirit Guide

19 Mountain

sideboard:
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Dead // Gone
1 Magus of the Moon
4 Martyr of Ashes
2 Shattering Spree
2 Smash to Smithereens