Context: I run a <700 powered conspiracy cube. With the release of AER I decided to try supporting storm as I feel there are finally enough open ended support cards to make the archetype viable without being too insular and parasitic.
This week was our first draft and it turned out quite well. The storm player went 2-1 without even getting all the picks in our 6 player pod. Does anyone else have any experience spring storm? How do you do it?
For reference, here's how I have the archetype broken down.
Storm specific: Brain Freeze, Tendrils, LED,
Storm mana: Dark ritual, cabal ritual, manamorphose,
Open support creatures: Baral, guttersnipe, monastery mentor, Managorger hydra, Kiln Fiend, Pslinchron
Draw 7s: Wheel, Time Spiral, Time twister. Memory Jar
I've been messing around a lot with storm in my combo cube. My 2 cents, it's super hard to pull off without a critical mass of effects. I don't like the ritual route personally. I think it's too hard to get a high count. You are better off doing truly broken things. Dream Halls is my favorite way to do it because you can just start chaining draw spells endlessly with it until you get a high storm count. Mind's Desire is another card you should consider. It's much better in multiples obviously, but if you run 3-4 storm cards, you can mind's desire into one and things get crazy.
Worth mentioning... if you run Palinchron, you might also consider High Tide (if heavy blue storm is a thing).
I also highly recommend Dream Halls if you're supporting storm (clearly since I wrote that article--thanks for the link!)--it's the one card that has always felt like the truly broken piece of that deck. You can fight through a lot of different decks with Dream Halls since only blue decks or literal disenchant can truly disrupt you, and if you're packing a lot of draw 7s then you can pretty much always start thoroughly going off once that dream halls lands.
Oh sweet! It's a really good article. Thanks for writing it.
I think drafting storm is really hard. Maybe I struggle more than most, not sure. But until I started to see the power of Dream Halls + draw, I could not get a truly good deck list together. And your article was one of the things that helped me make that connection.
As far as supporting this in cube, I think you either want a combo oriented cube or a powered list. Storm is just too degenerate in a typical midrange focused cube (talking lower powered rare up to some of the higher powered rare lists just short of running P9 and friends).
Thanks for the tip on dream halls. It seems like the perfect card; strong storm support, broken as hell, but not so narrow that other cube decks can't use it.
Ultimately my goal is to support a rock and diverse storm archetype relying on as few narrow cards as possible (like entomb for reanimator strategies). With AER I feel this might be finally attainable (at least in powered cube).
I think the narrow card argument has been a bit overstated. Savannah Lions goes in one deck (aggro). Maybe you can say there's 3 different builds (WW, Boros, Zoo) but it's still exceedingly narrow. Midrange can't play it. Control can't play it. Combo doesn't want it. And how many of those cards are cubes usually running? A hell of a lot more than 1.
Dream halls only goes in one deck too (combo), but it works in show and tell style decks, not just storm. And it's taking up one slot, not 30. Entomb I think is less narrow than lions or dream halls honestly. Combo wants it (reanimator) and some Bx decks want it too (Bloodghast, etc). Cards like Entomb and Dream Halls are also exciting build arounds in much the same way Sulfuric Vortex and Armageddon are for aggro.
I'm not saying Dream Halls is narrow; rather it is the perfect sort of card to support storm while still finding a home in other combo decks. When I refer to a narrow card I'm thinking of a card that only supports the storm archetype but not any others and those are the slots I'd like to minimize. Obviously, to support storm you need some cards with the mechanic (e.g. tendrils and brain freeze) which I'm cool with. My question is how far can you go supporting storm with other, more open, cards while minimizing the storm-only support. I feel the line is somewhere around Seething Song (which I don't run) and Cabal Ritual (which I do).
That's fair. I also dislike Seething Song. I tried it but even in storm it was never all that great for me. And outside storm, taking a 2 for 1 for tempo is pretty conditionally effective. If my 5 drop suite were stronger, I might consider it (song into Thundermaw is probably a reasonable line of play on T3 against a lot of decks - but I don't run Thundermaw presently).
Turnabout is probably where I'd be drawing the line. That is very narrow and only goes in storm, but it's good enough in storm to be a key card you want. It's also going to always wheel to the storm drafter. So IMO, you actually should be trying to slot maybe a half dozen of those types of cards. Storm needs a lot of support. Less than aggro, but it's also more narrow than aggro. So you don't want to get carried away.
Dream Halls + draw is the most consistent storm engine I've found. For win conditions, I enjoy the silliness of mind's desire into more storm cards, but it's inconsistent. So that's a matter of taste I feel. The second engine I enjoy trying to setup is high tide / heartbeat / turnabount / palinchron - so basically stupid mana combos because you can storm or you can just X-spell or Eldrazi or something. So it makes storm a bit less narrow and it can bleed into other combo decks. There is also overlap I feel with show and tell for both engines (dream halls and infiite mana - the latter being a bit less obvious). Consequently, I'm now running Omniscience to reinforce that overlap.
I don't mind the narrow cards. It hurts drafts with fewer players, so it's a matter of whether that works for your playgroup.
Played 1 cube draft after implementing storm (w/o Dream Halls). 6 players, one parson actively drafted it, another took ~6 picks. Storm drafter went 2-1, deck was very good. Baral + Counters + Burn + Tendrils.
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This week was our first draft and it turned out quite well. The storm player went 2-1 without even getting all the picks in our 6 player pod. Does anyone else have any experience spring storm? How do you do it?
For reference, here's how I have the archetype broken down.
Storm specific: Brain Freeze, Tendrils, LED,
Storm mana: Dark ritual, cabal ritual, manamorphose,
Open support creatures: Baral, guttersnipe, monastery mentor, Managorger hydra, Kiln Fiend, Pslinchron
Draw 7s: Wheel, Time Spiral, Time twister. Memory Jar
Cantrips: Git probe, brainstorm, ponder, preordain
Artifact mana: all
Open ended support: Paradox engine, isochron scepter, empty the warrens, Yawgmoth's Will, Heartbeat of spring
Draw: frantic search, compulsive research, thirst for knowledge, necro, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Jace
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/193583-storm-combo-support
Good article on supporting storm:
http://turnonemagic.com/a-basic-guide-to-storm-combo-in-cube/
I've been messing around a lot with storm in my combo cube. My 2 cents, it's super hard to pull off without a critical mass of effects. I don't like the ritual route personally. I think it's too hard to get a high count. You are better off doing truly broken things. Dream Halls is my favorite way to do it because you can just start chaining draw spells endlessly with it until you get a high storm count. Mind's Desire is another card you should consider. It's much better in multiples obviously, but if you run 3-4 storm cards, you can mind's desire into one and things get crazy.
Worth mentioning... if you run Palinchron, you might also consider High Tide (if heavy blue storm is a thing).
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
I think drafting storm is really hard. Maybe I struggle more than most, not sure. But until I started to see the power of Dream Halls + draw, I could not get a truly good deck list together. And your article was one of the things that helped me make that connection.
As far as supporting this in cube, I think you either want a combo oriented cube or a powered list. Storm is just too degenerate in a typical midrange focused cube (talking lower powered rare up to some of the higher powered rare lists just short of running P9 and friends).
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Ultimately my goal is to support a rock and diverse storm archetype relying on as few narrow cards as possible (like entomb for reanimator strategies). With AER I feel this might be finally attainable (at least in powered cube).
Dream halls only goes in one deck too (combo), but it works in show and tell style decks, not just storm. And it's taking up one slot, not 30. Entomb I think is less narrow than lions or dream halls honestly. Combo wants it (reanimator) and some Bx decks want it too (Bloodghast, etc). Cards like Entomb and Dream Halls are also exciting build arounds in much the same way Sulfuric Vortex and Armageddon are for aggro.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Turnabout is probably where I'd be drawing the line. That is very narrow and only goes in storm, but it's good enough in storm to be a key card you want. It's also going to always wheel to the storm drafter. So IMO, you actually should be trying to slot maybe a half dozen of those types of cards. Storm needs a lot of support. Less than aggro, but it's also more narrow than aggro. So you don't want to get carried away.
Dream Halls + draw is the most consistent storm engine I've found. For win conditions, I enjoy the silliness of mind's desire into more storm cards, but it's inconsistent. So that's a matter of taste I feel. The second engine I enjoy trying to setup is high tide / heartbeat / turnabount / palinchron - so basically stupid mana combos because you can storm or you can just X-spell or Eldrazi or something. So it makes storm a bit less narrow and it can bleed into other combo decks. There is also overlap I feel with show and tell for both engines (dream halls and infiite mana - the latter being a bit less obvious). Consequently, I'm now running Omniscience to reinforce that overlap.
I don't mind the narrow cards. It hurts drafts with fewer players, so it's a matter of whether that works for your playgroup.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/