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…
- 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).
- 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.
- 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
7 comments ↓
How reliable is only having 2 Tendrils in the deck? I know it worked well for LSV and all, but it seems like you could just miss more often than a deck like this should with only TWO.
Something else, probably nitpicky. You can Grapeshot a Canonist the turn a Bloom comes down. 😛
The newly added audio is tight.
What do you think about a deck that uses maralen of the mornsong in combination with stifle and trickbind to lock the opponent out of drawing cards? Main deck stifle and trickbind spells sorrow for the storm player. The rest of the deck would be counterspells and disruption and would function similarly to dreadstill or psychatog.
@The American Nightmare
Two copies of Tendrils seemed fine. You run through so much of your deck on multiple Mind’s Desires you are pretty likely to find a way to win… I never had a problem with that so much as being short on Storm count or Black mana, actually. Plus if you want more ways to win you have these Brain Freezes… Seems like plenty.
As for your Canonist comment – good call. Probably doesn’t come up a whole hell of a lot though 🙂
@Bliss crater
Cool. Can we get a quick head count? Yay or nay? Did you guys mostly like the beats in the back? I have been wanting to play with that, maybe sample some, but I don’t actually know how to control the volume if you can believe that 🙂
I think background noise in general helps quite a bit to add some variety while listening to the video. The videos can tend to get a bit monotonous.
I also don’t know how bad the matchup really is for MWC here. Especially against people who are just straight running LSV’s list, runed halo is unbeatable game 1. If you know what you are playing against (especially for those top8 matches), mulliganing into a halo is broken.
Meanwhile, games two and three they have to bring in sprees to stop chalice, brainfreeze or chain to stop halo (game 2 halos usually name brainfreeze anyway because they might whiff on storm if you gain life off an exalted angel or random martyr) and gigadrowses so they don’t just lose to a gilded light. Plus, you might be bringing in anything from your own Gaddok Teegs, rule of law, exalted angels, disenchants, trinisphere, extirpates or boils. You wind up bringing in your entire sideboard against them while losing no relevant cards from your main deck. And you are probably winning game one to boot.
It’s not the best matchup for MWC, but it’s hardly unwinnable. Sitting down with storm, hitting a random, non-tiered deck is just about the last thing I would want to do.
I have to disagree twice. First, I didn’t much care for the sound effects. I didn’t think they added much.
And I want to say that hitting a random, non-tiered deck with Storm is high on my to-do list, because normally it turns into a bye. Assuming I see no hate game 1 and have no particular read on their sideboard, I would maybe bring in Echoing Truth. That deals with a whole host of problems. The strategy of mulliganing into Runed Halo is pretty good game one though.
[…] SWOT Storm! was a late addition to this article. Originally my intrepid editor Kelly Digges was afeared that I used copyrighted music in the video (a no-no… Can’t run that stuff on the mother ship!). However I contacted him that I used some canned beats that came on my MacBook Pro and Kelly gave the SWOT Storm! ye olde green light on the second printing as it were. […]
I have a question about lands in this deck.
Why use the 6 Fetch lands but only have 2 basic lands in the whole deck?
Can someone enlighten me please?
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