Dies to Removal

When I goldfished with it, it felt like if I had enabler + 2x ritual or land I couldn't lose.

With Act being printed I wonder if a storm deck with less reliance on the graveyard might be possible. Perhaps get away from Pyromancer Ascension and Past in Flames and play Epic Experiment and Act? That allows you to no longer be soft to Abrupt Decay and postboard hate like Rest in Peace.

Sadly, I don't think Epic Experiment Storm will be viable again unless Seething Song is unbanned or we get another ritual. Even then, you wouldn't want to take out Ascension completely. Being able to Experiment for 4, copy it and then copy all the spells you cast from the Experiment is just bonkers.

I think Storm will always have to rely on the graveyard. Yawgmoth's Will is just too damn powerful.

Also, Pyromancer's Ascension can be a way to beat softer forms of graveyard hate. If you can get it active before the hard hate comes down you can go off without relying on the graveyard at all.

Lastly, I agree with Khaos on EE. We needs moar mana.

Tournament Report:

Played at a weekly Modern tournament my store runs earlier today. I rarely get to play Modern, so I usually scrub out pretty quickly. But every time I play I feel like I get much better at the deck and it's always fun. I played Jon Finkel's 75 from PT BNG.

Round 1 vs Junk: 0-0
Game 1 I got destroyed by discard and things were looking grim. I'm one turn away from dying to attacks, my opponent's tapped out, and I have an Electromancer, Ritual, and a Past in Flames in hand with 4 lands in play. My graveyard is rather full so if my Electromancer lives I might be able to go off. Unfortunately he has Slaughter Pact in response to my ritual so I just die. I board in 3 Blood Moon and 3 Empty, and board out Past, Grapeshot, and 4 Thought Scour.

Game 2 I have a one land hand with 3 rituals, 2 Blood Moons, and a Pyromancer's Ascension. I'm on the play, so I only have
one draw step to draw a land. If I do, then I'm very likely winning this game. I keep and draw the land. Blood Moon is slammed and my opponent is left with one swamp as his only on-color source. My opponent plays a bob and begins losing a race with his own creature. He can't find a forest for his Goyf, instead drawing all his B discard. I don't end up being able to do very much because of it, but it doesn't matter as he dies to his own Bob triggers the turn after I make 6 Goblins.

Game 3 we both mull to 6 and I keep a 3 lander with a cantrip, an electromancer and a ritual. My first draw is land I begin to get a sinking feeling. My next draw is blood moon and my opponent is again stuck on one swamp. I make goblins a bit more quickly and the game quickly ends.
(2-1 Victory)

Round 2 vs UR Twin: 1-0
Game 1 I see nothing from my opponent except lands for the first 3 turns. Desolate Lighthouse tips me off that's Twin. I'm fearing a T4 kill so I decide to try and go
for it on Turn 3; I have an Electromancer in hand so it's possible. He ends up remanding a past in flames which feels bad, but I ensure I live another turn. He passes with 3 mana up again and in my upkeep taps a red source. Without the extra source I don't have enough mana to cast Past in Flames and go off with what's in my yard. He draws the red source he needs and kills me. I board in 3 Empty + Defense Grid + Echoing Truth

Game 2 I have a reasonably Empty hand, but I Probe my opponent and he has the natural combo again. He just needs a fourth land. I make 8 Goblins on Turn 2 and lose to Exarch + Twin.
(0-2 Defeat)

Round 3 vs UR Twin: 1-1
Game 1 my opponent and I lead with the same Tarn into Island into Serum Visions, and my opponent moans, "Ugh, the mirror." Despite the sight of a sulfur falls, I really want it to be a guy playing storm with a budget manabase so I make excuses in my head to go for it on turn 3. He ends up remanding a past in flames
that surely would have won the game. I might have been able to produce enough mana to replay it if I had been smarter. He ends up comboing me on Turn 4. I board the same way as last game.

Game 2 is a nailbiter. I probe my opponent and he has natural combo (really getting sick of it by this point) and I again have an Empty the Warrens hand. I make a bunch of Goblins and pray I draw Echoing Truth. He ends up missing his 4th land drop a couple turns, but it doesn't matter that much. Turns out I played right into the Engineered Explosives I saw with probe. After he wipes my board, he draws his fourth land, but has yet to play combo creature. I get a land tapped in my upkeep, and I end up going off since I got a random Electromancer and Ascension into play earlier in the game. I go off very convincingly and draw almost my entire deck searching for my one-of Grapeshot.

Game 3 is finally a game against Twin where they don't have the combo in their opener. I Probe my
opponent on 1 again and see an Engineered Explosives which I fear will make life difficult for the Pyromancer's Ascension I was hoping to lean on. I draw into Empty the Warrens and try to make him play the Explosives on 2 for Pyromancer's Ascension so I can kill him with Empty. He peeks, sees my Empty, and when I play Ascension he puts his Explosives on 2 anyway. He doesn't kill the Ascension immediately, and I get a trigger on it with a cantrip. Next turn I trigger Ascension again with Sleight of Hand, and in response to his Explosives activation (he let the Ascension trigger resolve, which was a stupid mistake), I ritual for 6. This lets me play a defense grid and an empty for 8 goblins. I swing at him and have him dead next turn and he draws a Splinter Twin for the Pestermite he had on board.
(1-2 Defeat)

Overall Record: 1-2 drop

Things I learned about Storm today:
- Blood Moon is nuts
- The twin matchup is a combo race; we YOLO and they try and quell our YOLO until they draw instant-
win
- I make a ton of mistakes with the deck

Round 3 Game 3 I accidentally shuffled away a Probe which would have made my Ascension live and potentially let me play Empty a turn earlier. It was stupid to shuffle that away but there are so many things to keep track of in addition to worrying about your combo sequence it's easy to forget things (like what's in your opponent's hand). I just need practice, practice, practice so the combo becomes thoughtless and I can focus on info about my opponent.

Been playing the UR Storm deck for a while, thought I'd jump in on this forum.

I've seen some discussion on Looting vs Ravings lists, and I am a firm believer that the Ravings lists are strictly better. Randomness might feel bad, but the deck is highly redundant and the graveyard synergies really add up to generate card advantage; something the deck desperately needs ever since all the good cantrips got banned.

Based on my (although limited) testing with both Looting and Ravings, I've concluded the same. Looting might offer some really quick kills, but so does Ravings + Thought Scour. The random discard hardly ever matters, and that extra card (two with Ascension online) you draw often makes all the difference when you try to get off.
I haven't tried Ravings + Looting instead of Ravings + Thought Scour, but I feel that the card draw from Scour makes it the better choice.

Also been seeing a lot of reactive SB cards. I am extremely adverse to boarding in answers with the Storm deck. 4x Lightning Bolt is fine because it can often become a win-con, 3x Shatterstorm is a necessity since Affinity is actually faster than us, but beyond that you really want to have as few reactive cards as possible (i only play one more in Echoing Truth). The power of Storm is the ability to kill your opponent quickly and with a lot of resilience. Every single reactive piece you board in hurts your combo and pushes you closer to a fair deck. We don't want to play fair.

Echoing Truth never worked well for me, but then again I've hardly had any opportunities to see it in action. 3x Shatterstorm I agree on, a turn 2-3 Shatterstorm from rituals is just backbreaking. The card I'd like to try (and currently have in my
sideboard) is 2x Volcanic Fallout, since I've had a hard time against Blue aggro decks (Merfolk and Delver decks) with counterspell backup. It's uncounterable and can be ritualed out if needed, which is why I want it against those decks instead of Echoing Truth. Might work against Twin as well, taking out Pestermites/Kiki-Jiki.

Idk if you guys ever got around to trying Ideas Unbound, but UU is a steep price. It just doesn't work out.

I goldfished with it. It's just nuts with a live Ascension, but only usable the turn you go off. The UU cost is just too awkward.

Lastly, how do people feel about Act on Impulse? I'm considering replacing Ravings with Impulse. I know we lose the ability to "sculpt" our hand with Ravings when we're not going off, and we can't cast it if we mill it with Thought Scour, but Ravings' primary purpose is to enable your nut draw, something Act on Impulse is better at.
Additionally, ever since Seething Song got banned, Storm has been lacking a way to generate mana advantage or card advantage. Playing Act on Impulse really does feel like playing a Seething Song for card advantage. I really just think the raw power of Act on Impulse is so good that the extra utility Ravings provides just looks cute by comparison.

I intend to at least goldfish with it once I get my copies. In place of Ravings of course. I'm a bit skeptical though. You can't really play it early, it's expensive even with Electromancer out. Don't set up the graveyard for either Ascension or Past in Flames. It isn't an Instant like Ravings. It will be nuts when going off and/or with a live Ascension. But then it's a bit similar to Ideas Unbound, albeit with a much nicer casting cost. If the deck wouldn't rely on the graveyard so much, then I'd feel more confident about it.

Another card I will try goldfishing with is Telling Time, again instead of
Ravings. Unless someone already tried it and it turned out to be awkward. Again, not feeding the graveyard might be a dealbreaker here.

I think I like Ravings over Act. I base this on no testing, only goldfishing. I tried Telling Time for a time. It's solid. It basically goes in the flex slot that started with Peer Through Depths, then Telling Time, then Looting, and now it's Desperate Ravings.

Ok, I guessed that Telling Time had been tested. Oh well, less work to do then. Looks like Ravings is still the most solid choice. But I will try Act nonetheless.

I recall Jon Finkel saying something about Peer Through Depths/Telling Time. The issue is that since they're 2 cmc you don't want to jam in a full playset, but you want as many playsets of cards as possible due to Pyromancer's Ascension.

Also, on Act on Impulse. I really get where you guys are coming from when you say that it doesn't have the same graveyard synergies as Ravings, but isn't that a good thing? The use of the graveyard to generate synergy seems more like a development to replace the power the deck lost with the repeated bannings than what the deck actually wants to do. If we can just play something more powerful, then I would say fuck synergy. I don't even think Ravings has that much graveyard synergy, since the discard is random and it's just one card; not really the best Ascension enabler. Impulse also draws you cards always and immediately instead of only when you have
Past in Flames. But I can still totally see Ravings being better since it's better outside of the combo turn and it only costs 2 mana (the graveyard synergy certainly helps too).

Echoing Truth never worked well for me, but then again I've hardly had any opportunities to see it in action. 3x Shatterstorm I agree on, a turn 2-3 Shatterstorm from rituals is just backbreaking. The card I'd like to try (and currently have in my sideboard) is 2x Volcanic Fallout, since I've had a hard time against Blue aggro decks (Merfolk and Delver decks) with counterspell backup. It's uncounterable and can be ritualed out if needed, which is why I want it against those decks instead of Echoing Truth. Might work against Twin as well, taking out Pestermites/Kiki-Jiki.

I actually really like Volcanic Fallout.
I too have trouble with Merfolk; I strongly believe the merfolk player is favored in that matchup. However, I'm hesitant to jam them in the SB since it seems narrow and fish isn't a mega popular deck.

A card I will probably be putting in the SB is 1x Combust. It gives us an edge against Twin which can be a very swingy matchup, and it also hits that effing Eidolon of Fuck over the Storm deck. I would probably bring it in against Fish since I find myself boarding in Lightning Bolt against the aggro decks.

Well, I got my Acts today, so I can start trying them. I get what you're saying, less graveyard dependency would be nice to have since it shuts out a few sideboard cards that can be annoying to play around. But I'm not sure if losing the early game usage is worth the gain in the later turns when you plan to go off. Hard to say without testing. And the graveyard will be relevant as long as we're forced to use Ascension and Past in Flames instead of Seething Song + Epic Experiment.

As for Volcanic Fallout...I have Merfolk and Faerie players locally, so I'm prepared to dedicate some SB slots for them. Against a bigger more open field I not sure, depends on how good it is against other decks.

I'm not saying the reduced dependency is good since it "shuts off" sb cards, because it doesn't. Graveyard hate will always be reasonably good against Storm.

I feel like I read a comment that doesn't exist, because I thought someone said one of the reasons Ravings was better than Act is because it had graveyard synergy, and I just don't think that's valid.

Yeah, I'm not sure if someone said that about Ravings vs. Act. The way I see it (before any testing of Act, mind you) is:

Desperate Ravings:

- Can be cast earlier than Act.
- Can be flashbacked on it's own.
- While the card discard is random, often it's not a problem. If cast early, and you discard something other than land then you potentially help get Ascension online or just get more fodder after a Past in Flames. Occationally you discard something vital, but I've found that don't happen often (or I'm lucky).

Act on Impulse:

- Digs one deeper, and gives one more card than Ravings. Although if the discard don't matter, the new cards you get is the same amount for Ravings.
- No risk of losing a key card.
- If you cast it early (before enablers) you lose the cards drawn if you can't cast them.

The last point is the biggest problem with Act as I see it. With Ravings you get to keep the cards to next
turn, or the one going to the graveyard stays there until Past in Flames can be cast. But, how big a problem it is I don't know before testing, so I won't comment on it any further before I've at least goldfished with it. Could be a playstyle issue as well, someone will feel more comfortable with Ravings, others with Act.

So I played at my LGS and I didn't have a chance to shove in my Acts before the event, but I did try and take note of when I had ravings and when I would rather have had Act.

There are two situations that stick out in my mind.

The first situation was in a game against a Bogles deck and I needed to go off. To do so, my Desperate Ravings needed to find Past in Flames. I had an Ascension out, so I wasn't too worried, but I was thinking in the back of my mind that I wished I had Act on Impulse here. Then my Ravings hit Past in Flames and I realized that Ravings still digs really deep. Tom Martell once said about Desperate Ravings, "It's part of your nut draw since it digs two deep for red mana." I felt like Act on Impulse gave the Storm deck some really strong drawing power that it really needed, but this scenario made me feel like Desperate Ravings might just be strong enough in this regard. When used
as a sculpting tool outside of the combo, drawing two and discarding one doesn't really feel like you're drawing or digging all that much, but when you're digging for Past in Flames, which is what you'll be looking for mid-combo 90% of the time, Desperate Ravings is really a red Divination for two mana.

The second situation was against Tron. Throughout the match, I kept getting absolutely railed by Desperate Ravings random discard. In one game I was staring down lethal and didn't have many resources thanks to a Karn, and I needed a really good Ravings to keep going off. My ravings drew me a godsend in Manamorphose which was promptly discarded. In hindsight however, there was only one card in my hand which I could have discarded and not needed at all to continue going off, so I probably lose that game anyway. I also don't think I would have been able to cast Act without emptying my mana pool. In subsequent games, I continued to discard my best cards in hand, but my hands were strong enough
that it was irrelevant.

The last comment I have on Ravings is that it's absolutely nuts against BGx. I playtested against a friend for a bit and being able to pitch it to Lili activations is really just too strong.

In summary:
- Desperate Ravings is still a very powerful draw effect. Even if it's not as powerful as Act on Impulse it costs less mana, so the comparison isn't clear-cut.
- Ravings discard is pretty much irrelevant (we knew this already but it was still a factor in the comparison)
- The edge it gives us against BGx and other controlling decks actually seems invaluable.

I'll probably be staying on Desperate Ravings for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for these observations. I'll still try Act on my own, but it looks like my initial worries about Act was about right.

You can also flashback Ravings which is significant.

In Storm, we have Thought Scour as Ancestral Recall and Desperate Ravings as a 2 CMC Divination with Flashback. Let's not mess with a good thing.

Playing Thought Scour right before a Past in Flames is actually one of the best feelings in Modern.

Mono Red Storm Aggro. A very different take on Storm, but I thought it might be of interest. I'm missing a few of the cards, but they're so cheap I'm probably getting them just to try it out. Storm Entity in particular is something I've been looking at many times.

[deck]
Creatures
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
2 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Goblin Guide
2 Heartlash Cinder
2 Priest of Urabrask
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Storm Entity
4 Street Wraith

Spells
4 Desperate Ritual
2 Empty the Warrens
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Manamorphose
2 Pyretic Ritual

Land
4 Arid Mesa
6 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn

Sideboard
3 Blood Moon
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Forked Bolt
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Magma Spray
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Shattering Spree
2 Sulfur Elemental
1 Torpor Orb
[/deck]

From: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/
article.asp?ID=12001

The deck is bad, but certainly fun to take for a spin.

The previous version that top 8th at some Modern State Championship looked worse. It's a bit too gimmicky to be taken seriously, but should be fun for a FNM. Could probably take some games due to the surprise factor.

I think the surprise factor is the only reason why it took 8th tbh.

Read about some interesting tech today. Play 1 Hallowed Fountain over an Island in the main to gain access to 2-3 Wear // Tear out of the board. Wear // Tear seems to actually just be an Echoing Truth that kills the targeted hate (although it does only hit one piece of it), as every hate piece I can think of is either an artifact or an enchantment. It also wrecks pod.

Here's my current SB:
[deck]
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Blood Moon
3 Empty the Warrens
3 Shatterstorm
1 Echoing Truth
1 Combust
[/deck]

Here are the current possible plans I have in mind for adding W//T:

• -1 Echoing Truth, -1 Combust, +2 Wear//Tear
• -1 Echoing Truth, -1 Combust, -1 Shatterstorm, +3 Wear//Tear
• -1 Echoing Truth, -1 Combust, -1 Lightning Bolt, +3 Wear//Tear

There's three huge questions that loom in my mind about W//
T:

• 1. Is W//T close enough to a functional equivalent of Echoing Truth?
  2. In what capacity do I want W//T besides it's mimicry of Echoing Truth? The card has applications against Pod, Affinity, Twin, Tron, and Bogles (off the top of my head). Which of these decks is it worth SB'ing W//T against for reasons besides dealing with hate?
  3. How real is the cost of playing one Hallowed Fountain/how Castable is W//T?

Here's my best attempt to answer these questions as of now:

1. I think Wear//Tear is pretty much Echoing Truth that only deals with one piece of hate but deals with it permanently. I can't think of any cards that Echoing Truth hits and Wear//Tear does not. The huge difference here is that you can run a one-of Echoing Truth, and it can be enough to make sure you can go off. If your opponent has multiple pieces of hate locking you out, you can dig for the Truth and bounce all the hate pieces (since SB's usually run multiple copies of the same
hate card if any). With W//T you have to board in more than one reactive card (which sucks) to deal with multiple pieces of hate, and then you still have to find enough copies of W//T. Overall, W//T has to have a reasonable amount of utility outside of just dealing with hate pieces to be better than Echoing Truth. But it is a close enough equivalent that if it has extra utility it could be pretty good.

2. Against Pod I think W//T is amaze-balls. Nuking Pod is already pretty great, but nuking pod and Eidolon of Rhetoric? That's pretty clutch. Against Bogles W//T is obviously good. Against Twin I think I play it because I would play Echoing Truth anyway, and it basically does the same thing: keep them from combo-killing you. It also lets you hit Engineered Explosives, which usually doesn't go off the turn it's played and they will sometimes not leave up mana for. Against Tron the card probably doesn't come in because Killing O-Stone is cute, but there's not really any hate you want to hit.
Imo the big wild card in this category is Affinity. 2 Mana removal is probably too expensive in this matchup, and unless they're playing a one-of rule of law there's no prime targets. That said, it's a hedge against hate and it will never be dead.

3. Splashing for a fountain gives us 8 white sources (with my manabase with 7 fetches). There's also a plethora of cantrips, so playing 1 fountain doesn't seem like a huge cost.

Quick follow-up:

Wear // Tear may be a meta-call. It seems better in Pod and Bogles-heavy metas (the matchups with the most upside for W//T) and metas that aren't expecting to play against Storm. If a room is full of players without Storm hate, then it's better to have the card with more applications than beating non-existent hate.

Some Storm players have started using Tormenting Voice instead of Thought Scour:

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/265564#paper

Any thoughts on that? I haven't tried it myself yet.

Haven't tried it, no. But I really love Thoughtscour and its ability to be played for one mana.

Yes, without testing I prefer Thought Scour for the same reason. But it's sometimes easier to get red mana when you get off, so that might be the reason they use it.

They both do the same thing - "draw 3" with a minor drawback. Voice means you can pitch an extra land or something at the cost of 2 mana (w/out an Electromancer on the field), and Thoughtscour can accidently mill a card you would want to draw, like the Goblin or Ascension.

i need to try it for sure anyway. Might be one of those preference things again.

Anyway, what's your thoughts on Storm in the current metagame? Last time I played it I thought blue-based aggro (UR Delver, Merfolk, Faeries) were the worst match-ups, but those seems to be nowhere right now. I must say that after today's lousy 2-3 with Burn I'm not feeling too confident with it, so I'm feeling a bit drawn to Storm again.

Every time I think it's safe to bring Storm out, I realize that Burn is running rampant with 4 main deck Eidolons. And then I go back to Burn or Goblins.

I wanna know about your 2-3 foray into Burn. Post in the Burn thread and share! Maybe we can come up with something to help.

Every time I think it's safe to bring Storm out, I realize that Burn is running rampant with 4 main deck Eidolons. And then I go back to Burn or Goblins.

Yeah, that's why I didn't go with Storm yesterday. But since everyone is preparing for Burn right now, I'm wondering if they will be hated out in a month's time, when our big Modern Tournament is being held. Storm might be the better choice then.

I wanna know about your 2-3 foray into Burn. Post in the Burn thread and share! Maybe we can come up with something to help.

Posted up what little I could remember, together with some thoughts on what went wrong.