If you play a transformational SB, you have to make sure that you don't lose to the same cards as your mainboard plan. Unfortunately Abrupt Decay is always live against you no matter whether you choose to stick with Storm (hits Mancer, PA) or board into Twin (hits Pestermite/Exarch).
Just managed to build Finkel's original list - I haven't played modern much but winning on turn 4 first game was fun. Would an experienced storm pilot be able to identify what sideboard techniques they'll use against different archetypes? I'm not sure when to board in Empty the Warrens and go for the creature beatdown, or when to best use lightning bolt. I also find knowing which cards to take out is way harder than knowing what to put in - particularly in this kind of a combo-style deck. When do Electromancers come out?
I'm not particularly sold on Young Pyromancer because it requires us to cast it before Comboing out, rather than after. So if we cast it on the turn before we go off, we basically waste a turn if it gets removed, and if we cast it on the turn we go off, we're down two mana and need to get Bushwhacker to win.
As for Sideboarding into it, I agree with Izzetmage. If we did aim for a transformational board, we want to be able to dodge hate, which I don't think Young Pyromancer accomplishes. Empty the Warrens is good enough for the Man Plan. As for Twin, I feel like the deck really succeeds when it has disruption and redundancy, which is hard to accomplish with 15 slots. It can succeed in an unprepared meta, but as Izzetmage said, the presence of Abrupt Decay really puts a damper on its potential. I remember seeing someone attempting to side into UR Delver/Tempo in the old thread, but I'm not sure how successful that was, and Abrupt Decay wrecks Tempo as well.
I don't have any problem with transformational sideboards per se, but the current Meta isn't very friendly to the options I am aware of.
Just managed to build Finkel's original list - I haven't played modern much but winning on turn 4 first game was fun. Would an experienced storm pilot be able to identify what sideboard techniques they'll use against different archetypes? I'm not sure when to board in Empty the Warrens and go for the creature beatdown, or when to best use lightning bolt. I also find knowing which cards to take out is way harder than knowing what to put in - particularly in this kind of a combo-style deck. When do Electromancers come out?
Xion linked to most of the main plans, and there are a few more suggestions for other matchups on Page 7. As for when Electromancers come out, I've never found a situation where I'd want to remove them, since they're basically Ritual effects, which we desperately need.
I'm not particularly sold on Young Pyromancer because it requires us to cast it before Comboing out, rather than after. So if we cast it on the turn before we go off, we basically waste a turn if it gets removed, and if we cast it on the turn we go off, we're down two mana and need to get Bushwhacker to win.
I don't have any problem with transformational sideboards per se, but the current Meta isn't very friendly to the options I am aware of.
Xion linked to most of the main plans, and there are a few more suggestions for other matchups on Page 7. As for when Electromancers come out, I've never found a situation where I'd want to remove them, since they're basically Ritual effects, which we desperately need.
The way I see, playing a Young Pyromancer is about the same as playing the Electromancers in that, if my opponent has a kill spell both will die either way. I play it the turn before I go off, either die, thanks for the mini time walk. If my opponent doesn't have the kill spell, good game because i'm going off and with the way this deck works, i can draw up a Bushwacker no problem.
One of the most underestimated spell in the deck is Gitaxian Probe, i'll peek at your hand before i go off.
As for the transformational sideboard, it's really just a theory until someone puts it to use. I may try at my FNM. Most people already know me as a storm player at my LGS.
The way I see, playing a Young Pyromancer is about the same as playing the Electromancers in that, if my opponent has a kill spell both will die either way. I play it the turn before I go off, either die, thanks for the mini time walk. If my opponent doesn't have the kill spell, good game because i'm going off and with the way this deck works, i can draw up a Bushwacker no problem.
One of the most underestimated spell in the deck is Gitaxian Probe, i'll peek at your hand before i go off.
As for the transformational sideboard, it's really just a theory until someone puts it to use. I may try at my FNM. Most people already know me as a storm player at my LGS.
I like to hold Electromancers until the turn I go off to maximize their chance of sticking, but that does require at least three lands. But if you do manage to land it early it'll do work. One thing I didn't account for earlier was that Young Pyromancers alongside Electromancers make more must-answer threats and also turn on more removal spells. Currently I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. Either way, the Young Pyromancer build definitely warrants testing. I haven't played it yet, so there could be something I'm missing.
As for Gitaxian Probe, I agree that it's deceptively good. The ability to check your opponent's hand for free is almost always helpful, and I love how you can "cycle" it while increasing your Storm count. I've always found it invaluable in Game 1. That said, I still believe it's one of the best cards to side out in non-Control matchups, since it doesn't let us choose what we draw and it often becomes necessary to react to hate. But I completely agree that it's a great card that is too often underrated.
And yeah, I'm especially interested in the transformational sideboard concept, since my store has at least three Storm players and I'm interested in figuring out any way to catch my Meta off-guard.
Played against the mirror (2-0), Burn (1-2; lost the race with Goblin tokens on game 3), UWR midrange (2-1), Kiki Pod (2-0), BW Tokens (2-1, this one was a nail biter), RUG Scapeshift (0-2; drew dead both game, all my cantrips found lands/rituals, but no real business), UWR Control (1-2; got 3 Ascensions out and he bounced them all game while I scuplted my hand and got 2 of them active on game 1, next two games drew nothing but lands while trying to resolve Electromancer/Ascension), and Splinter Twin (2-1).
The deck felt great, I was originally going to play the Goryo's Vengeance deck, but audibled to Storm at 11pm the night before the event. I played very tight all day and was rewarded for it, and in 2 of the 3 rounds I lost, was to the deck just drawing poorly on top of fighting through counterspells.
There was almost no Jund and Affinity, I saw a lot of Pod Variants, Tron decks, and Splinter Twin decks at the tables nearby, and Storm has a lot of game against those type of decks. Now is the time to play Storm.
I still think the goblin is a bad card. It seems better to me to run both Ascension and Swath like Finkel initially diid and work those as your win cards. Past In Flames isn't really needed then either.
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
I still think the goblin is a bad card. It seems better to me to run both Ascension and Swath like Finkel initially diid and work those as your win cards. Past In Flames isn't really needed then either.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with you about Goblin Electromancer. Getting it removed is annoying, but if you can keep him around he saves you an incredible amount of mana, which vastly increases your Storm count in the long run. He's basically another ritual, and without Seething Song, we need as many rituals as we can get. In my experience, I've found him able to do so much that it's more than worthwhile to run him, despite how fragile he is.
As for Pyromancer's Swath, I ran it in my earliest Storm builds and definitely have some fond memories of it. My biggest problem with Swath, though, is that it has to be cast on the same turn you're comboing off, which makes it a dead card until then. In addition, it only works with Grapeshot (and potentially Lightning Bolt), so it requires you to have another card to be effective. On the other hand, it severely decreases the Storm you need to win, but if you have Past in Flames I've found you can reach the necessary Storm count easily enough. That all said, I see Swath as an extremely potent, if situational card. In a grave hate-heavy meta, Swath would be the perfect maindeck counter.
In a meta filled with Pod, Quasali Pridemage is a common card, and that makes Swath risky, not even factoring the innate card disadvantage it gives if you fail to kill your opponent. I like Swath, but I don't think it is the right time for it.
Electromancer is what pushed this deck over the top in the first place. It sucks getting it removed, but that's one less Lightning Bolt to my face, or one less land in my deck. It also makes less skilled opponents keep in mostly dead removal against us over better hate cards.
As for Transformative sideboards, don't do it. To me, anybody who picks up a deck and wants to run such a sideboard is essentially saying "I don't want to get good with this deck and learn how to fight hate, I want to just attempt to cheese the next game in hopes of a free win." Don't be bad, Storm is a deck that rewards a player for playing well, learn how to play it against hate.
Thanks all for your input! I really think the Pyro-Bushwacker Variant of the deck has a lot of potential, since every Pyromancer trigger effectively genarates half a storm count and the deck seems able to "get there" even through disruption, which seems imporant.
After some research on the previous pages, here's a tentative draft for a Sideboard:
This basically is MachuChang's exact SB, exept I replaced EtW with Leyline, seen as I'm allready playing 4 in the main. Would such a SB be of any use in this deck? What would one board out to make space in the respective matchups?
After playing with the deck for a little bit, I'm unclear if the Leylines of Sanctity are a good idea or not. They definitely seem to ease our matchup against Burn by a lot, but they weren't as helpful against Jund/Junk as I expected them to be. Still, discard messes us up pretty bad, and we don't have as much potential to capitalize off of it like we do with a more dedicated Past in Flames or Pyromancer Ascension engine. I really don't like not having a way to cast it though, and drawing it mid-combo sucks royally. Still, if I were to run Leyline, I wouldn't run it as less than a four-of.
For sideboarding stuff, I'd stick to the same general advice: take out Gitaxian Probes against everything but combo. I'd also think that you could trade out one or two Desperate Ravings, but I'm a little less sure on that. To be perfectly honest, you may even be able to cut Young Pyromancer, but that seems to run counter to the deck's main plan.
Anyway, I'd probably side in 4 Leylines versus Burn in exchange for the Probes. Maybe cut the Young Pyromancers against Jund/Junk, since they have so much removal? I'm not as familiar with this version, so take this advice with a grain of salt.
I don't think Banefire is that great though. It doesn't particularly get around any of the answers to Storm. You still need to go off and do exactly the same thing, the only difference is one uncounterable spell as opposed to 21 individual spells that would be countered individually. The closest card like Flusterstorm in this format is Mindbreak Trap, and that gets around Banefire. The utility of Banefire isn't really any higher either, since you probably don't use it as a Bolt very often, and it's easy to go like Serum Visions, Sleight of Hand, Grapseshot to work the same way.
Additionally, about the list posted, Goblin Electromancers were cut. I personally think it's the best card in the deck, it's definitely the reason people still play it. I could not fathom cutting it from Storm ever.
If u play correctly with Goblin you wouldn't even lose mana to play it. Just cast electromancer, than something and now opponents can kill him. In resp to removal just play bunch of instants for lower cost and win due to mana advantage.
I was looking for the original storm thread I found it in and couldn't find it... Good thing I saved the deck in Cockatrice because I liked it so much. I was thinking of building it. Is it a good idea or is there a reason why its not as popular?
I've been testing the new Young Pyromancer Storm variant using the list Second_Sunrise posted, and I'm afraid to say I haven't been impressed with the results. I've played several matches against prominent archetypes, and here's what I noticed:
We've got all the weaknesses of regular Storm, but none of its strengths Game 1. Because our plan is more reliant on creatures, we're vulnerable to pretty much every run-of-the-mill Modern deck with removal. Not only that, but because we do nothing but make creatures we can't interact with our opponents without sideboarding. At least Grapeshot could be used to kill opposing creatures like Platinum Angel if we got our Storm high enough.
Almost every kill I got was from Empty the Warrens. Bushwhacker occasionally helped, but wasn't necessary. Young Pyromancer rarely contributed. When he did stick, he managed to make a lot of dudes, but by that point I was usually able to win anyway by drawing Empty the Warrens and Bushwhacker. There were only a couple times where he seemed to pull his own weight.
This deck is still capable of Turn 3 wins, but as a whole it feels slower than regular Storm. Young Pyromancer actually seems to slow the deck down. If you cast him, you have to wait at least one turn to get anything out of his ability (Gitaxian Probes not withstanding), and even if you Storm out, if you don't get Bushwhacker, you're dead on board for one more turn. I found that if I had to choose between casting Young Pyromancer or chaining a couple rituals into an Empty the Warrens on Turn 2, I'd rather do the latter in almost every situation, since I could at least apply pressure that way. In addition, almost every Turn 3 win was because of Electromancer, not Young Pyromancer.
Young Pyromancer can create an absurd amount of tokens very quickly in this deck, but getting to that point doesn't seem worth it to me. I'm curious who else has tested the deck, and how well it worked for them. I'll admit there may have been some nuances that I've missed.
I was looking for the original storm thread I found it in and couldn't find it... Good thing I saved the deck in Cockatrice because I liked it so much. I was thinking of building it. Is it a good idea or is there a reason why its not as popular?
The deck you're thinking of is Modern Cheeri0s. It can win on Turn 2, but it isn't generally consistent or resilient enough to put up big numbers in a larger sort of event. The link is here.
Thats exactly what I was looking for, thank you very much. Yeah, I can see its inconsistency's, but if all go wells your pretty much dominating within two turns.
I put together Finkel's build (minus the non-basic lands, running 9 mountains and 7 Islands) played against a mill deck won game one, game two got beat cause he used a one black extraction spell and took out my grapeshot from my graveyard/deck and proceeded to mill me out and I took game three (I think one win was turn 4 and one turn 5 or 6)
Anywho, my question was about Increasing Vengeance. In order for me to use it to copy something it has to be a spell on the stack correct? (Cast one of the rituals, then immediately cast IV copying it). Just making sure, after my first go around with it, I think I know how to play it much better than I did before lol.
I put together Finkel's build (minus the non-basic lands, running 9 mountains and 7 Islands) played against a mill deck won game one, game two got beat cause he used a one black extraction spell and took out my grapeshot from my graveyard/deck and proceeded to mill me out and I took game three (I think one win was turn 4 and one turn 5 or 6)
Anywho, my question was about Increasing Vengeance. In order for me to use it to copy something it has to be a spell on the stack correct? (Cast one of the rituals, then immediately cast IV copying it). Just making sure, after my first go around with it, I think I know how to play it much better than I did before lol.
Yup that's right.
I really like this card with Past in Flames because it only costs 2 to flashback it and copy something twice.
Has anyone been testing battle hymn yet? If used at the right time it can generate much more mana than even seething song could, especially when combined with the young pyromancer.
Sometimes i have so much mana i dont even know what to do with it
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| Ad Nauseam
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Big Johnny.
As for Sideboarding into it, I agree with Izzetmage. If we did aim for a transformational board, we want to be able to dodge hate, which I don't think Young Pyromancer accomplishes. Empty the Warrens is good enough for the Man Plan. As for Twin, I feel like the deck really succeeds when it has disruption and redundancy, which is hard to accomplish with 15 slots. It can succeed in an unprepared meta, but as Izzetmage said, the presence of Abrupt Decay really puts a damper on its potential. I remember seeing someone attempting to side into UR Delver/Tempo in the old thread, but I'm not sure how successful that was, and Abrupt Decay wrecks Tempo as well.
I don't have any problem with transformational sideboards per se, but the current Meta isn't very friendly to the options I am aware of.
Xion linked to most of the main plans, and there are a few more suggestions for other matchups on Page 7. As for when Electromancers come out, I've never found a situation where I'd want to remove them, since they're basically Ritual effects, which we desperately need.
The way I see, playing a Young Pyromancer is about the same as playing the Electromancers in that, if my opponent has a kill spell both will die either way. I play it the turn before I go off, either die, thanks for the mini time walk. If my opponent doesn't have the kill spell, good game because i'm going off and with the way this deck works, i can draw up a Bushwacker no problem.
One of the most underestimated spell in the deck is Gitaxian Probe, i'll peek at your hand before i go off.
As for the transformational sideboard, it's really just a theory until someone puts it to use. I may try at my FNM. Most people already know me as a storm player at my LGS.
I like to hold Electromancers until the turn I go off to maximize their chance of sticking, but that does require at least three lands. But if you do manage to land it early it'll do work. One thing I didn't account for earlier was that Young Pyromancers alongside Electromancers make more must-answer threats and also turn on more removal spells. Currently I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. Either way, the Young Pyromancer build definitely warrants testing. I haven't played it yet, so there could be something I'm missing.
As for Gitaxian Probe, I agree that it's deceptively good. The ability to check your opponent's hand for free is almost always helpful, and I love how you can "cycle" it while increasing your Storm count. I've always found it invaluable in Game 1. That said, I still believe it's one of the best cards to side out in non-Control matchups, since it doesn't let us choose what we draw and it often becomes necessary to react to hate. But I completely agree that it's a great card that is too often underrated.
And yeah, I'm especially interested in the transformational sideboard concept, since my store has at least three Storm players and I'm interested in figuring out any way to catch my Meta off-guard.
Of course, I also have a lot of Jund/Junk...
4x Desperate Ritual
2x Increasing Vengeance
4x Manamorphose
1x Peer Through Depths
4x Pyretic Ritual
4x Gitaxian Probe
3x Grapeshot
3x Past in Flames
4x Serum Visions
4x Sleight of Hand
1x Cascade Bluffs
2x Island
1x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Shivan Reef
4x Steam Vents
4x Pyromancer Ascension
4x Goblin Electromancer
2x Defense Grid
1x Dispel
2x Echoing Truth
3x Empty the Warrens
4x Lightning Bolt
1x Pyroclasm
1x Shattering Spree
1x Shatterstorm
Played against the mirror (2-0), Burn (1-2; lost the race with Goblin tokens on game 3), UWR midrange (2-1), Kiki Pod (2-0), BW Tokens (2-1, this one was a nail biter), RUG Scapeshift (0-2; drew dead both game, all my cantrips found lands/rituals, but no real business), UWR Control (1-2; got 3 Ascensions out and he bounced them all game while I scuplted my hand and got 2 of them active on game 1, next two games drew nothing but lands while trying to resolve Electromancer/Ascension), and Splinter Twin (2-1).
The deck felt great, I was originally going to play the Goryo's Vengeance deck, but audibled to Storm at 11pm the night before the event. I played very tight all day and was rewarded for it, and in 2 of the 3 rounds I lost, was to the deck just drawing poorly on top of fighting through counterspells.
There was almost no Jund and Affinity, I saw a lot of Pod Variants, Tron decks, and Splinter Twin decks at the tables nearby, and Storm has a lot of game against those type of decks. Now is the time to play Storm.
DDFT UBWR
Tinfins
Back to back turn 1 kills at SCG St. Louis:
http://blip.tv/scglive/scgstl-leg-rd-8-logan-creen-vs-joe-skirmont-6602155
I'm afraid I have to disagree with you about Goblin Electromancer. Getting it removed is annoying, but if you can keep him around he saves you an incredible amount of mana, which vastly increases your Storm count in the long run. He's basically another ritual, and without Seething Song, we need as many rituals as we can get. In my experience, I've found him able to do so much that it's more than worthwhile to run him, despite how fragile he is.
As for Pyromancer's Swath, I ran it in my earliest Storm builds and definitely have some fond memories of it. My biggest problem with Swath, though, is that it has to be cast on the same turn you're comboing off, which makes it a dead card until then. In addition, it only works with Grapeshot (and potentially Lightning Bolt), so it requires you to have another card to be effective. On the other hand, it severely decreases the Storm you need to win, but if you have Past in Flames I've found you can reach the necessary Storm count easily enough. That all said, I see Swath as an extremely potent, if situational card. In a grave hate-heavy meta, Swath would be the perfect maindeck counter.
Electromancer is what pushed this deck over the top in the first place. It sucks getting it removed, but that's one less Lightning Bolt to my face, or one less land in my deck. It also makes less skilled opponents keep in mostly dead removal against us over better hate cards.
As for Transformative sideboards, don't do it. To me, anybody who picks up a deck and wants to run such a sideboard is essentially saying "I don't want to get good with this deck and learn how to fight hate, I want to just attempt to cheese the next game in hopes of a free win." Don't be bad, Storm is a deck that rewards a player for playing well, learn how to play it against hate.
DDFT UBWR
Tinfins
Back to back turn 1 kills at SCG St. Louis:
http://blip.tv/scglive/scgstl-leg-rd-8-logan-creen-vs-joe-skirmont-6602155
After playing with the deck for a little bit, I'm unclear if the Leylines of Sanctity are a good idea or not. They definitely seem to ease our matchup against Burn by a lot, but they weren't as helpful against Jund/Junk as I expected them to be. Still, discard messes us up pretty bad, and we don't have as much potential to capitalize off of it like we do with a more dedicated Past in Flames or Pyromancer Ascension engine. I really don't like not having a way to cast it though, and drawing it mid-combo sucks royally. Still, if I were to run Leyline, I wouldn't run it as less than a four-of.
For sideboarding stuff, I'd stick to the same general advice: take out Gitaxian Probes against everything but combo. I'd also think that you could trade out one or two Desperate Ravings, but I'm a little less sure on that. To be perfectly honest, you may even be able to cut Young Pyromancer, but that seems to run counter to the deck's main plan.
Anyway, I'd probably side in 4 Leylines versus Burn in exchange for the Probes. Maybe cut the Young Pyromancers against Jund/Junk, since they have so much removal? I'm not as familiar with this version, so take this advice with a grain of salt.
Needs 11 mana**
There is, you know, Pyromancer's Ascension. And that's assuming they haven't taken any damage from Grapeshots and Fetch/Shocks.
Although I agree it's suboptimal, it's not as impossible to be useful as you make it out to be.
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
Additionally, about the list posted, Goblin Electromancers were cut. I personally think it's the best card in the deck, it's definitely the reason people still play it. I could not fathom cutting it from Storm ever.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
4 Retract
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Grapeshot
1 Salvage Titan
4 Paradise Mantle
4 Bone Saw
4 Sigil of Distinction
4 Kite Shield
4 Spidersilk Net
4 Accorder's Shield
4 Mox Opal
4 Glimmervoid
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Cavern of Souls
1 City of Brass
1 Plains
4 Puresteel Paladin
I was looking for the original storm thread I found it in and couldn't find it... Good thing I saved the deck in Cockatrice because I liked it so much. I was thinking of building it. Is it a good idea or is there a reason why its not as popular?
Melira Pod - Modern
Young Pyromancer can create an absurd amount of tokens very quickly in this deck, but getting to that point doesn't seem worth it to me. I'm curious who else has tested the deck, and how well it worked for them. I'll admit there may have been some nuances that I've missed.
The deck you're thinking of is Modern Cheeri0s. It can win on Turn 2, but it isn't generally consistent or resilient enough to put up big numbers in a larger sort of event. The link is here.
Melira Pod - Modern
I put together Finkel's build (minus the non-basic lands, running 9 mountains and 7 Islands) played against a mill deck won game one, game two got beat cause he used a one black extraction spell and took out my grapeshot from my graveyard/deck and proceeded to mill me out and I took game three (I think one win was turn 4 and one turn 5 or 6)
Anywho, my question was about Increasing Vengeance. In order for me to use it to copy something it has to be a spell on the stack correct? (Cast one of the rituals, then immediately cast IV copying it). Just making sure, after my first go around with it, I think I know how to play it much better than I did before lol.
Yup that's right.
I really like this card with Past in Flames because it only costs 2 to flashback it and copy something twice.
Sometimes i have so much mana i dont even know what to do with it