I would also probably play Shivan Reefs or extra Spirebluffs instead of Sulfur Falls, you really don't want any lands that could come into play turn 1 tapped. 1 landers with a Visions or Sleight can definitely be keepable, but if that one land is a Sulfur Falls you can't really keep
Grixis on the other hand has been easier than I though if you can remand their t2 tasigur they basically have little to no preassure and you 8(or even 9)vs 7 and trip them mana wise. There has also been a lot of Ad naseam lately. When talking to those players they feel very disadvantage in the matchup but I also feel that way so Im not sure which one is right. It is true that you are usually faster but they have some things that are very annoying specially when you go for a quick kill, and the leylanes basically stop our quick kills. We do have Blood Moons which are great against them.
If you do want to run the 3 Blood Moon in the board, I would probably cut either a Spirebluff or the Shivan Reef for an additional Island. Running Moon with only 2 basic island is pretty tough, even with alot of fetches.
For anyone that's been testing, how has the Cathartic Ascension list comparing to Gifts Storm? Both feel viable, although the Cathartic list is definitely slower
No way. Gifts has always been the slower deck. Chuckling Atom's list is pretty much the same speed as the pre ban storm lists. It's weaker to remand and requires more skill to play around stuff but it's not too much worse than the old one. What the ban has done is convince people to try gifts. They're both very viable.
I've felt in testing that the Cathartic version is a half turn slower than the Probe version because you've got one less free method for triggering an ascension. That's just my opinion though
For anyone that's been testing, how has the Cathartic Ascension list comparing to Gifts Storm? Both feel viable, although the Cathartic list is definitely slower
On the plus side, you could definitely see Preordain coming back one day. Now that probe is gone, Infect wouldn't become absolutely crazy nuts with probe and preordain in the same deck. It still probably won't happen, but it's a possibility.
I have a few points to mention after playing through a few Gifts iterations that past couple weeks:
1. I think that it may be correct to play 3 copies of Past In Flames. If you compare this to Finkel storm, you can still pull off a PIF loop kill like you could by cantripping through your deck to your grapeshots. In order to make the frequency of that happening a little higher, 3 PIF like the old version makes sense. It makes you slightly less reliant on Gifts, which I feel opens up more lines to win with
2. If you're playing the extra PIF, Thought Scour still feels good. The mark of a good hand in Finkel storm was the ability to move through a good amount of your deck quickly; while Scour was great at helping Ascension along, it was equally as good at helping load up for or find a PIF. I'm not playing a full playset of scour, but I think it should still be included.
3. 7-8 mancer effects feels correct. We played 8 engines in Finkel storm (4 Goblin Electromancer, 4 Pyromancer Ascension), and that trend needs to continue for consistency's sake. A old common play was to run out a turn two engine piece into some removal to clear the way for a turn 3 engine, and we can continue to do the same here. Redundancy is great
4. Definitely don't need Noxious Revival. Storm has always been a percentage deck, and the percentage for going off after resolving a gifts with the requisite mana is very high, especially if you cantripped with anything the first couple of turns. Revival feels so dead in many situations that it is much better off as another cantrip (Scour or maybe a Peer Through Depths).
5. Peer Through Depths has potential as a 1 or 2 of, I'm just not sure if I prefer it over Scour, the turn 1 cantrips are so important
6. I'm only playing 2 Remand at the moment, I didn't like 4 and I've been bouncing between 2-3. It feels excellent with Baral out, although most of the creature removal that you'd like to be countering with it to protect your mancer costs 1 mana anyways so there's a good chance they can recast it. Remanding a Grapeshot doesn't come up as often as I thought it would
I'm also curious to hear opinions of the green SB splash vs the white SB splash. IMO, you could probably run just a straight UR SB because Echoing Truth can handle a RIP and a Grafdigger's cage. Relic is easy to play around if you run 3 PIF. And the green gifts package for enchantment hate doesn't work with a Leyline of Sanctity in play because you can't actually cast Gifts at that point
Storm was my first real attempt at entering competitive Magic. It gave me years of pleasure, and I am incredibly sad to see it systematically ripped apart by Wizards.
I'm thinking a 3-1 or 2-2 split of Electromancer and Baral is probably correct. I agree that we probably don't need to go up to 7 mancer effects. It might be worthwhile to try a 3-2 split of Electromancer to Baral, that would potentially allow you to run them out turn 2 a little more aggressively since you have a better chance of drawing multiples of the effect.
Since there has been A LOT more hate for our deck over the past few months in this anti-dredge metagame, I thought it would be worthwhile to examine the methods for playing around the most popular (and a few uncommon) hate cards. While they can be tricky, we have enough play in our deck that you generally can maneuver around anything.
Rest in Peace: There’s two ways you can approach RIP: 1. Sideboard Empty against every white deck (or at least every one that could possibly bring in RIP). Empty is a pretty clean way to go under a RIP since you don’t need a ton of gas in your hand unlike Grapeshot. 2. You can try to build up a hand of rituals, free cantrips, a PIF, and an Echoing Truth. On your opponents end step, you can bounce the RIP and then try to go off through your graveyard on your turn. Empty is generally easier, but I’ve had a bunch of games where I’ve run through the Echoing Truth line.
Surgical Extraction: The best way to avoid getting extracted is to keep your storm cards in your hand as long as possible, and not to mill yourself with a Thought Scour or to discard with Desperate Ravings. I’ll explain each point there. By keeping your storm cards in your hand, you avoid having them removed at instant speed, which is important because none of the storm cards we play are instants. If you’re going for a Grapeshot kill, build your storm up to 20 and hit them with one huge Grapeshot, not a combo of a 9 point and then an 11 pointer that opens you up to getting blown out. Same thing for Empty; wait until you can make a really big one. On the same lines as that point, you really don’t want to target yourself with Thought Scour in these matchups, and Ravings is really risky. I’ve had games where I milled both a Grapeshot and an Empty with a Scour, and then they double Surgicaled me out of the game. Manage your graveyard wisely and they won’t have an opportunity to hit a business spell.
Relic of Progenitus: Relics are one of the easiest hate pieces to get around. The best way to do it is to try to cast a Past in Flames while your graveyard is relatively small. In general, most players will pop their Relic whenever they see a PiF because of the potential for some crazy stuff to happen, regardless of what’s actually in the graveyard. Even if they don’t pop it with the small PiF, you can still get value from some early cantrips and shape your hand even further. Also, if you’re trying to get an Ascension active with a Relic exiling slowly, save duplicate copies of spells to cast on the same turn so you can mitigate its usefulness. And also remember you can add counters at instant speed in response to this or Extraction if you really need to
Scavenging Ooze: Ooze is super annoying and pretty challenging to deal with, especially game one out of Jund or the like. You basically need to just kill them fast before they can eat all of the business out of your yard. It’s definitely worth using a Grapeshot to kill it if possible, but keep track of how big they can potentially make it and plan spells accordingly. You can generally go under it post-board with a big Empty, so it’s not quite as bad. Shield important cards in your hand if you need to (this is a theme with all the GY hate cards)
Grafdigger’s Cage: You can treat this similarly to RIP (although it’s not nearly as bad). Either Echoing Truth it endstep (being wary of the fact that you cannot cast it if it ends up in your GY) and then combo on your turn, or get an Acension active and just bypass the graveyard altogether. You don’t always need a PiF to win, and so if you start chaining Ascensions and activating them, you can draw your entire deck without needing to flashback anything. That’s why this isn’t nearly as bad as a RIP; the cards still stay in the GY, so you can activate Ascension with them. Also, if you run Shatterstorm in the board, DON’T bring it in specifically for this card, it’s really not worth it. Oh, and you can also kill with Empty if you want.
Chalice of the Void: Let’s look at 2 scenarios. First is Chalice on 1. There’s two main ways to get under it. Method 1 is that you have a hand that consists mostly of 2CMC cards (rituals, Manamorphose, Desperate Ravings) plus Past in Flames. With a Goblin, it’s not too difficult to get through enough of your deck to kill. You can still cast spells with CMC 1 to add to the storm count, they will just all get countered, but if you need a larger storm count, it’s not a bad option. Method 2 for a Chalice on 1 is to get an Ascension active. Again, you can cast CMC 1 stuff to help get counters on the Ascension, even though they’re countered. Once the ascension is up, when you cast something with CMC 1, the original will get countered but the copy will not because it’s placed directly on the stack, so it makes all of your cantrips break even once again, and that’s usually good enough to win.
If you get hit with a Chalice on 2, that’s much worse. I’ve only beaten Chalice on 2 before comboing a couple of times: one was very lucky with Electromancer beatdown, the rest were Echoing Truthing it on the opponent’s endstep while I had an active ascension (so the copy would resolve), and then killing the next turn. Chalice on 2 really hinders your mana explosion, which makes it quite difficult to win through. It’s not impossible though.
I would definitely suggest goldfishing with a Chalice on 1 or 2 on your own with no opponent. It gives you a really good idea of the types of lines you can take to get there and is great practice.
Eidolon of the Great Revel: This single handedly makes Burn our worst matchup. Game 1 all you can do is try to Grapeshot it and then pray you get another turn to win. Post SB you can Bolt it (this is why you really need to be playing 3-4 Bolts SB), or you can Echoing Truth it endstep. It’s pretty tough otherwise
Eidolon of Rhetoric: You’ll generally see this out of Chord of Calling decks, and it’s quite good if they ramp into it. There’s two main lines to deal with it: Echoing Truth endstep (see how great that card is!!), or Bolt it with an active ascension to deal it 6. Notably, you need to have the Echoing Truth in your hand for this to work because you can’t cast both PiF and Truth, so avoid Thought Scouring yourself and be wary of Desperate Ravings. If you run into the similar Rule of Law, which is very seldom played anymore, your only option is to endstep Truth it.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben: If you can get a Goblin down, your spells return to parity which is nice. It’s worth using Grapeshot on to get rid of it. You can always just get an ascension active and go over the top of it as well (the copies don’t cost extra because they’re put right on the stack). Post board bring in your Bolts and zap it.
Leyline of Sanctity: This is actually very easy to beat. You can kill with Empty, or even easier you can just combo off like normal, draw most of your deck, and then Echoing Truth the Leyline before you Grapeshot them. Just make sure to target yourself with all of your Probes and Thought Scours.
Counterflux and Mindbreak Trap: These cards look very scary to storm players at first, but after you realize how many resources you generally have when you storm off, they’re really not that bad. Counterflux only really matters if you’re running an extremely tight combo, or if it’s combined with a graveyard hoser. Mindbreak Trap exiles which is pretty obnoxious, and can also really disrupt the thin margin combos. The best way to beat both is to make sure you have a lot of resources after you cast what would be a lethal Grapeshot (18+). If they Counterflux it, you just PiF and then Grapeshot them again. If it’s Mindbreak Trap, just find your second Grapeshot (making sure to protect it from your graveyard during the combo in case of some random GY effect). 2 Mindbreak Traps in one hand is really tough if they know what they’re doing, but who ever has 2 Mindbreak Traps?
Squelch: You’ll see this out of Mono Blue Tron decks occasionally. Again, this only really affects tight combos, because you can just PiF for your storm card again or cast another. A situation you’ll see against Mono U Tron is needing to cast an Empty and seeing this in their hand from a Probe. The best plan of attack here is to conserve resources and make a small but impactful Empty (for like 6 or 8 goblins). They will most likely Squelch it, and then you should have enough resources in your hand to get back on your feet pretty quickly. If they don’t, you have some pressure
General Enchantment Hate: There’s a ton of cards that fall into this category: Nature's Claim, Reclamation Sage, Disenchant, etc. They all only hit your Ascension. The best way around it is to either save your ascension until the turn you go off (if you really need it), or to just play right into it. It’s especially relevant if they destroy it on their turn because that’s mana that they could be using to generate more threats to kill you faster. Then all you need is to get a Goblin and go off through that pathway. Enchantment hate can be very dead against Goblin lines in this deck, so try to point your efforts that way.
Trinisphere: You’ll see this card very rarely from GR Ponza or other ramp decks. However, it’s helpful to know how to play against it if you do run into it. You can always go the Echoing Truth endstep plan, but it can also be beaten with an active Ascension. If you have one up and running, each of your Rituals will net you 3 mana (costs 3 to play, will generate 6). Manamorphoses will net you 1 mana (costs 3, generates 4). Your other cantrips become pretty terrible, so you need to try your best to find as many mana producing cards and Goblin Electromancers as possible, and then you can Grapeshot with a PiF loop. I wouldn’t suggest going on the Empty plan against those types of decks, because there’s a good chance they’ll still have some number of Anger of the Gods post board.
Iona, Shield of Emeria: If they put it on red, dig as fast as you can for your Echoing Truth and bounce it endstep. If they put it on blue, you can go off either through a Goblin or Ascension with Manamorphose and Desperate Ravings acting as your cantrips.
I think I covered most of the important cards, I’m curious to see if others have the same ideas as I do. One common theme is just how valuable Echoing Truth is in the board, and why there are very few matchups you would skip bringing it in against. Let me know what you think!
General rule of thumb is to take out Ravings against aggro because they're too slow, and Thought Scour against control because Ravings is better there. I'll usually cut an Ascension if I take out Scour because they are slightly worse without the Scours and you're already hedging on there being graveyard hate. Gitaxian Probe can also come out against damage based aggro (Burn, Affinity) because you want to conserve your life total as best you can in those matchups. However, be aware that if you want to bring in Empty, not having Probes in the deck can make them slightly worse. If you were bringing in 4 Madcap and 2 Emperion, a reasonable SB would be -3 Ravings, -3 Gitaxian Probe. And then you could cut the last Probe and maybe a Scour and an Ascension for Blood moons if you wanted. Again, that's just one example, there's alot of ways you could justify doing it.
The best advice that I could give for fighting control is to hit your land drops. If I know I'm playing against a control player, I try to cantrip into every land drop possible until they present a clock, and then get into a position for one big turn. The thing with control is they generally will not have more than 2-3 counters in their hand at once. When you have an upwards of 6 or 7 mana available before you even start casting anything, that makes it incredibly hard for them to decide what to counter, as well as helping mitigate Mana Leak's efficiency. All of those extra land drops makes for more lines that you can take through several counterspells and win. A very patient and deliberate storm player actually has some serious game against control.
And hold your last Electromancer until you combo. We've said it alot on here, but think of it like a ritual and not a creature and you'll do much better!
Burn is the major matchup that Emperion can help us, although I'm still a bit wary of it because of Destructive Revelry. But basically bring it in against any aggro matchup, it's good against Affinity, Death's Shadow Zoo, and Merfolk if you can ritual it out, especially considering they will most likely board out creature removal. It doesn't help at all against Infect though, so keep that in mind
Don't bring it in against any midrange stuff, it's way too easy to kill from Jund, Abzan, Grixis, and Death and Taxes types of decks, even if they board out a majority of their removal. Also would not bring it in against control or any Primeval Titan/Scapeshift deck, it's fairly easy for them to just kill the Emperion with Valakut triggers before hitting you
I was previously trying Platinum Angel in order to give some game against Infect, but it dies too easily in other matchups, so I'm probably going to move back to Emperion.
In my opinion, any Madcap plan would need to be brought in against decks that are super light on removal. Even though a majority of decks will board out much of their creature removal against us, they generally can't get rid of all of it, so there's always a worry.
Looking at those types of matchups, the decks that scream no removal to me are Affinity, Infect, and to an extent Burn. Emperion seems excellent against Affinity, pretty good against burn(I've been told by other burn players that they generally wouldn't bring in Destructive Revelry against us because they'd rather be more proactive in killing us), but it doesn't do anything against infect. I've been toying around with using Platinum Angel instead of the Emperion for this in order to impact the Infect matchup, because I do feel like that matchup is getting tougher and tougher, even after board.
This is my current experiment for sideboard. Since Angel seems equally as good against Affinty (so long as there's no Galvanic Blast), I figured the Shatterstorms could come out of the board.
With this build, we still have the Empty plan, the Blood Moon plan, Echoing Truth as a catch-all, and bolts for interaction. Additionally, we have the Madcap plan for any hyperagressive deck, namely Affinity, Burn, Death's Shadow Aggro, Infect, etc. I still don't know which of the two artifact creatures is better, I'm interested in everyone's suggestions.
I'm trying the white splash soon, got to figure out the manabase properly but I love the new fragmentize as the hate card to side in against most decks. Half of the cards that ruin our day are dealt with by that card.
As far as the normal list, what are you guys taking out for cathartic reunion, those of you trying it?
I've been playing the Finkel list and replacing Desperate Ravings for Reunion. Still trying to decide what's better though, Reunion is gas with either of the engines, but it's not as good at recovery mode like Ravings is. Still, I'm digging it for sure
If you do want to run the 3 Blood Moon in the board, I would probably cut either a Spirebluff or the Shivan Reef for an additional Island. Running Moon with only 2 basic island is pretty tough, even with alot of fetches.
I've felt in testing that the Cathartic version is a half turn slower than the Probe version because you've got one less free method for triggering an ascension. That's just my opinion though
1. I think that it may be correct to play 3 copies of Past In Flames. If you compare this to Finkel storm, you can still pull off a PIF loop kill like you could by cantripping through your deck to your grapeshots. In order to make the frequency of that happening a little higher, 3 PIF like the old version makes sense. It makes you slightly less reliant on Gifts, which I feel opens up more lines to win with
2. If you're playing the extra PIF, Thought Scour still feels good. The mark of a good hand in Finkel storm was the ability to move through a good amount of your deck quickly; while Scour was great at helping Ascension along, it was equally as good at helping load up for or find a PIF. I'm not playing a full playset of scour, but I think it should still be included.
3. 7-8 mancer effects feels correct. We played 8 engines in Finkel storm (4 Goblin Electromancer, 4 Pyromancer Ascension), and that trend needs to continue for consistency's sake. A old common play was to run out a turn two engine piece into some removal to clear the way for a turn 3 engine, and we can continue to do the same here. Redundancy is great
4. Definitely don't need Noxious Revival. Storm has always been a percentage deck, and the percentage for going off after resolving a gifts with the requisite mana is very high, especially if you cantripped with anything the first couple of turns. Revival feels so dead in many situations that it is much better off as another cantrip (Scour or maybe a Peer Through Depths).
5. Peer Through Depths has potential as a 1 or 2 of, I'm just not sure if I prefer it over Scour, the turn 1 cantrips are so important
6. I'm only playing 2 Remand at the moment, I didn't like 4 and I've been bouncing between 2-3. It feels excellent with Baral out, although most of the creature removal that you'd like to be countering with it to protect your mancer costs 1 mana anyways so there's a good chance they can recast it. Remanding a Grapeshot doesn't come up as often as I thought it would
I'm also curious to hear opinions of the green SB splash vs the white SB splash. IMO, you could probably run just a straight UR SB because Echoing Truth can handle a RIP and a Grafdigger's cage. Relic is easy to play around if you run 3 PIF. And the green gifts package for enchantment hate doesn't work with a Leyline of Sanctity in play because you can't actually cast Gifts at that point
Pour one out for Probe
Rest in Peace: There’s two ways you can approach RIP: 1. Sideboard Empty against every white deck (or at least every one that could possibly bring in RIP). Empty is a pretty clean way to go under a RIP since you don’t need a ton of gas in your hand unlike Grapeshot. 2. You can try to build up a hand of rituals, free cantrips, a PIF, and an Echoing Truth. On your opponents end step, you can bounce the RIP and then try to go off through your graveyard on your turn. Empty is generally easier, but I’ve had a bunch of games where I’ve run through the Echoing Truth line.
Leyline of the Void: Basically the same as Rest in Peace
Surgical Extraction: The best way to avoid getting extracted is to keep your storm cards in your hand as long as possible, and not to mill yourself with a Thought Scour or to discard with Desperate Ravings. I’ll explain each point there. By keeping your storm cards in your hand, you avoid having them removed at instant speed, which is important because none of the storm cards we play are instants. If you’re going for a Grapeshot kill, build your storm up to 20 and hit them with one huge Grapeshot, not a combo of a 9 point and then an 11 pointer that opens you up to getting blown out. Same thing for Empty; wait until you can make a really big one. On the same lines as that point, you really don’t want to target yourself with Thought Scour in these matchups, and Ravings is really risky. I’ve had games where I milled both a Grapeshot and an Empty with a Scour, and then they double Surgicaled me out of the game. Manage your graveyard wisely and they won’t have an opportunity to hit a business spell.
Relic of Progenitus: Relics are one of the easiest hate pieces to get around. The best way to do it is to try to cast a Past in Flames while your graveyard is relatively small. In general, most players will pop their Relic whenever they see a PiF because of the potential for some crazy stuff to happen, regardless of what’s actually in the graveyard. Even if they don’t pop it with the small PiF, you can still get value from some early cantrips and shape your hand even further. Also, if you’re trying to get an Ascension active with a Relic exiling slowly, save duplicate copies of spells to cast on the same turn so you can mitigate its usefulness. And also remember you can add counters at instant speed in response to this or Extraction if you really need to
Nihil Spellbomb: See Relic of Progenitus
Scavenging Ooze: Ooze is super annoying and pretty challenging to deal with, especially game one out of Jund or the like. You basically need to just kill them fast before they can eat all of the business out of your yard. It’s definitely worth using a Grapeshot to kill it if possible, but keep track of how big they can potentially make it and plan spells accordingly. You can generally go under it post-board with a big Empty, so it’s not quite as bad. Shield important cards in your hand if you need to (this is a theme with all the GY hate cards)
Grafdigger’s Cage: You can treat this similarly to RIP (although it’s not nearly as bad). Either Echoing Truth it endstep (being wary of the fact that you cannot cast it if it ends up in your GY) and then combo on your turn, or get an Acension active and just bypass the graveyard altogether. You don’t always need a PiF to win, and so if you start chaining Ascensions and activating them, you can draw your entire deck without needing to flashback anything. That’s why this isn’t nearly as bad as a RIP; the cards still stay in the GY, so you can activate Ascension with them. Also, if you run Shatterstorm in the board, DON’T bring it in specifically for this card, it’s really not worth it. Oh, and you can also kill with Empty if you want.
Chalice of the Void: Let’s look at 2 scenarios. First is Chalice on 1. There’s two main ways to get under it. Method 1 is that you have a hand that consists mostly of 2CMC cards (rituals, Manamorphose, Desperate Ravings) plus Past in Flames. With a Goblin, it’s not too difficult to get through enough of your deck to kill. You can still cast spells with CMC 1 to add to the storm count, they will just all get countered, but if you need a larger storm count, it’s not a bad option. Method 2 for a Chalice on 1 is to get an Ascension active. Again, you can cast CMC 1 stuff to help get counters on the Ascension, even though they’re countered. Once the ascension is up, when you cast something with CMC 1, the original will get countered but the copy will not because it’s placed directly on the stack, so it makes all of your cantrips break even once again, and that’s usually good enough to win.
If you get hit with a Chalice on 2, that’s much worse. I’ve only beaten Chalice on 2 before comboing a couple of times: one was very lucky with Electromancer beatdown, the rest were Echoing Truthing it on the opponent’s endstep while I had an active ascension (so the copy would resolve), and then killing the next turn. Chalice on 2 really hinders your mana explosion, which makes it quite difficult to win through. It’s not impossible though.
I would definitely suggest goldfishing with a Chalice on 1 or 2 on your own with no opponent. It gives you a really good idea of the types of lines you can take to get there and is great practice.
Eidolon of the Great Revel: This single handedly makes Burn our worst matchup. Game 1 all you can do is try to Grapeshot it and then pray you get another turn to win. Post SB you can Bolt it (this is why you really need to be playing 3-4 Bolts SB), or you can Echoing Truth it endstep. It’s pretty tough otherwise
Eidolon of Rhetoric: You’ll generally see this out of Chord of Calling decks, and it’s quite good if they ramp into it. There’s two main lines to deal with it: Echoing Truth endstep (see how great that card is!!), or Bolt it with an active ascension to deal it 6. Notably, you need to have the Echoing Truth in your hand for this to work because you can’t cast both PiF and Truth, so avoid Thought Scouring yourself and be wary of Desperate Ravings. If you run into the similar Rule of Law, which is very seldom played anymore, your only option is to endstep Truth it.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben: If you can get a Goblin down, your spells return to parity which is nice. It’s worth using Grapeshot on to get rid of it. You can always just get an ascension active and go over the top of it as well (the copies don’t cost extra because they’re put right on the stack). Post board bring in your Bolts and zap it.
Leyline of Sanctity: This is actually very easy to beat. You can kill with Empty, or even easier you can just combo off like normal, draw most of your deck, and then Echoing Truth the Leyline before you Grapeshot them. Just make sure to target yourself with all of your Probes and Thought Scours.
Counterflux and Mindbreak Trap: These cards look very scary to storm players at first, but after you realize how many resources you generally have when you storm off, they’re really not that bad. Counterflux only really matters if you’re running an extremely tight combo, or if it’s combined with a graveyard hoser. Mindbreak Trap exiles which is pretty obnoxious, and can also really disrupt the thin margin combos. The best way to beat both is to make sure you have a lot of resources after you cast what would be a lethal Grapeshot (18+). If they Counterflux it, you just PiF and then Grapeshot them again. If it’s Mindbreak Trap, just find your second Grapeshot (making sure to protect it from your graveyard during the combo in case of some random GY effect). 2 Mindbreak Traps in one hand is really tough if they know what they’re doing, but who ever has 2 Mindbreak Traps?
Squelch: You’ll see this out of Mono Blue Tron decks occasionally. Again, this only really affects tight combos, because you can just PiF for your storm card again or cast another. A situation you’ll see against Mono U Tron is needing to cast an Empty and seeing this in their hand from a Probe. The best plan of attack here is to conserve resources and make a small but impactful Empty (for like 6 or 8 goblins). They will most likely Squelch it, and then you should have enough resources in your hand to get back on your feet pretty quickly. If they don’t, you have some pressure
General Enchantment Hate: There’s a ton of cards that fall into this category: Nature's Claim, Reclamation Sage, Disenchant, etc. They all only hit your Ascension. The best way around it is to either save your ascension until the turn you go off (if you really need it), or to just play right into it. It’s especially relevant if they destroy it on their turn because that’s mana that they could be using to generate more threats to kill you faster. Then all you need is to get a Goblin and go off through that pathway. Enchantment hate can be very dead against Goblin lines in this deck, so try to point your efforts that way.
Trinisphere: You’ll see this card very rarely from GR Ponza or other ramp decks. However, it’s helpful to know how to play against it if you do run into it. You can always go the Echoing Truth endstep plan, but it can also be beaten with an active Ascension. If you have one up and running, each of your Rituals will net you 3 mana (costs 3 to play, will generate 6). Manamorphoses will net you 1 mana (costs 3, generates 4). Your other cantrips become pretty terrible, so you need to try your best to find as many mana producing cards and Goblin Electromancers as possible, and then you can Grapeshot with a PiF loop. I wouldn’t suggest going on the Empty plan against those types of decks, because there’s a good chance they’ll still have some number of Anger of the Gods post board.
Iona, Shield of Emeria: If they put it on red, dig as fast as you can for your Echoing Truth and bounce it endstep. If they put it on blue, you can go off either through a Goblin or Ascension with Manamorphose and Desperate Ravings acting as your cantrips.
I think I covered most of the important cards, I’m curious to see if others have the same ideas as I do. One common theme is just how valuable Echoing Truth is in the board, and why there are very few matchups you would skip bringing it in against. Let me know what you think!
The best advice that I could give for fighting control is to hit your land drops. If I know I'm playing against a control player, I try to cantrip into every land drop possible until they present a clock, and then get into a position for one big turn. The thing with control is they generally will not have more than 2-3 counters in their hand at once. When you have an upwards of 6 or 7 mana available before you even start casting anything, that makes it incredibly hard for them to decide what to counter, as well as helping mitigate Mana Leak's efficiency. All of those extra land drops makes for more lines that you can take through several counterspells and win. A very patient and deliberate storm player actually has some serious game against control.
And hold your last Electromancer until you combo. We've said it alot on here, but think of it like a ritual and not a creature and you'll do much better!
Don't bring it in against any midrange stuff, it's way too easy to kill from Jund, Abzan, Grixis, and Death and Taxes types of decks, even if they board out a majority of their removal. Also would not bring it in against control or any Primeval Titan/Scapeshift deck, it's fairly easy for them to just kill the Emperion with Valakut triggers before hitting you
I was previously trying Platinum Angel in order to give some game against Infect, but it dies too easily in other matchups, so I'm probably going to move back to Emperion.
Looking at those types of matchups, the decks that scream no removal to me are Affinity, Infect, and to an extent Burn. Emperion seems excellent against Affinity, pretty good against burn(I've been told by other burn players that they generally wouldn't bring in Destructive Revelry against us because they'd rather be more proactive in killing us), but it doesn't do anything against infect. I've been toying around with using Platinum Angel instead of the Emperion for this in order to impact the Infect matchup, because I do feel like that matchup is getting tougher and tougher, even after board.
This is my current experiment for sideboard. Since Angel seems equally as good against Affinty (so long as there's no Galvanic Blast), I figured the Shatterstorms could come out of the board.
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Empty the Warrens
3 Blood Moon
1 Echoing Truth
3 Madcap Experiment
2 Platinum Angel
With this build, we still have the Empty plan, the Blood Moon plan, Echoing Truth as a catch-all, and bolts for interaction. Additionally, we have the Madcap plan for any hyperagressive deck, namely Affinity, Burn, Death's Shadow Aggro, Infect, etc. I still don't know which of the two artifact creatures is better, I'm interested in everyone's suggestions.
I've been playing the Finkel list and replacing Desperate Ravings for Reunion. Still trying to decide what's better though, Reunion is gas with either of the engines, but it's not as good at recovery mode like Ravings is. Still, I'm digging it for sure