I put in 6 games in the 2-mans, and 6ish in the practice room and concluded with this list:
(My cardboard list has two thoughtseize in the MD with two Duress in the board.)
Everything besides Emissary Jund feels winnable. But what the hell do I do with Jund?
(Played against: White/Black Token, Hexproof Battleship, Gifts Unwinnin', Emissary Jund (lost x3), WURrrr Flashin Kiki (Lost match to 6-swamps on top), Melira Pod-people.)
Also, I didn't play against Robots.... but a Robots player was complaining about how good Infest is. I'm just concerned about how bad Wrench Mind is....
Every turn Bob stays alive, you're falling further and further behind. When Jund is going to win the short game (they always will since their deck is so efficient) AND the long game (since they have more cards than you) there's no way you can possibly win that game. Forgot who's the beatdown- Jund becomes the beatdown deck AND the control deck. Killing Bob is priority 1 in the Jund matchup. Your deck can't do that at all...
and more
I ended up back at the drawing board for this reason and many more last night. I think for now I'm going to retire back to a BUG list without Smallpox or Death Cloud for now.
I feel Death Cloud and Smallpox don't play well together, but if you made it work let me know.
What are your "15 other lands?
On the topic of deathcloud + smallpox:
It's definitely tenuous to have both maindeck. My general theory is straightforward: If I'm better built than most people to recover from either, I should inflict it as much as possible.
A complete lack of removal maindeck (apart from Smallpox, Cloud and Lil which kinda count but not really) with only two Infest in the sideboard is just asking for trouble against Affinity. I can't realistically seeing you winning against a Cranial Plating. Even something simple like Deathrite into Bob into Finks from Jund looks like it would cause you no end of problems. I highly recommend Abrupt Decay. Also, Damnation>Infest except against Affinity and GW Hatebears.
spot removal
You just listed 12 cards that kill one or more creatures. It is not a complete lack of removal. I'm going to assume you mean it's not targeted removal.
You're right about the deathrite/bob/finks. I would need to hit a Death Cloud for 3. (Either by poxing/liliana for 1 twice, then clouding for 2, or clouding for 3.) Figuring that our only problem creature in their lineup is Bob...
So what about Bob?
Playing Dismember for 1BB, or worse getting behind on the life-race farther, seems much worse than hobbling by with a liliana that reads "Cruel Edict, prevent the next combat step of damage".
Playing Abrupt Decay sounds pretty good, but then I can't kill an Olivia/Huntsmaster, etc.
At a certain point, I need to accept that my deck will not be good at called shots. With a meta this wide I opted to be weak against swarms in some of the midgame turns on game 1.
Sweepers (in the board)
I'm hard pressed to think of a deck that will drop 3 creatures that Infest + Edict can't deal with... besides robots. There's a lot of decks out there, so please let me know if Affinity isn't my only problem
With regards to planeswalkers, I prefer Elspeth to Sorin for being harder to kill and hitting harder. Elspeth is really good at killing opposing walkers which can be a massive problem for this deck. It's harder to cast though. Garruk at 3 mana would be broken, lol.
It's true, Sorin is pretty bad in this context. I think I should have re-phrased this thought better. It feels like our colors are kind of bad after we do liliana 2.0 and garruk 1.0. Liliana 3.0 could be interesting in this deck, but then I'm moving back into mono-black clouds.
Also, with your sideboard, I can't recommend Krosan Grip. Cost 3 mana is a lot when the matchups you want it in frequently don't have countermagic.
The Grip is good against Control decks that want to keep their Leyline to stop my LFTL/Crime plan. It's also a techy way to stop Splinter Twin... but I think Kiki-Pod is out there more now. Additionally, it stops Relic of Progenitus, and other artifact shenanigans you don't want them to activate.
In general, what do folks play to deal with problem enchantments/artifacts? creeping corrosion?
3cmc dudes
Not enough time to continue the writeup... but I would suggest things like Man-O'-War or things that beat down with huge power for the cost.
(Or you could go with Haste here... if you need to push in for the win.)
4cmc dudes
I would advise against Archaeomancer. But if you really want to play him I think two is the right number in this list.
Spells
I don't quite have the time to do the same treatment of Spells as I did 1cmc and 2cmc dudes.... but here's the highlights I can easily think of:
Lash Out always feels good to dome the opponent and remove a threat
Electrickery Clears out all the little things that stop your guys.
Brainstorm or preordain to replace Gitaxian Probe.... I think you need to find more cards.
Since I'm waiting for code to merge here at work, let me help you:
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="6"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Storm[/COLOR] [COLOR="DarkBlue"]Primer[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT="Arial"][SIZE="3"]by Vic (aka grapplingfarang)[/SIZE][/FONT]
(Edited by redsai)
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="5"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Introduction[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Hi, I am Vic aka grapplingfarang and this is my first article on PureMTGO. I have read this site for many years, but never thought I would write an article. With working a labor intensive job and living in a non-English speaking country my English has been going down the drain to a point where writing anything might not be a good idea. A few things came together and made me think that needed to change and I should try writing an article. One was that I heard more about the player of the year tournament. The top 150 Constructed Players get into one large tournament at the end of the year. I saw that I was sitting around 75th, but knowing that soon I would be commercial fishing, away from internet access, and fall off the top constructed players. My solution to this was that I need to start grinding a whole lot of QP's now while I have the chance, so I turned to the deck I have played the most, Pauper Storm.
One thing that happens when grind many Daily Events is that many people see your deck. With that happening, comes a lot of having questions about the deck and some of my card choices. I am happy to answer questions, but I felt that talking in MTGO chat does not always leave enough detail. I was also asked about what matchups were tough, and while I had a rough idea, I have never actually recorded how I do in each matchup. My solution to this was that I would grind out 25 Daily Events, and keep records of how I do in each individual match. As I started grinding events, my deck appeared in Decks of the Week more, and more people had questions to ask me about my deck. This made me think that I needed to write something about the basics of the deck, and that I should combine it with my results from 25 Daily Events to give you this mess of an article.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="5"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]The Deck[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[spoiler]
I will start with some basics of the deck, before moving onto how I did in 25 events against each other deck in Pauper and my strategies for these matchups.
If you have never used a storm deck in any format, they work by casting as many spells as you can in one turn before playing the spell with Storm to have it copy itself many times and hopefully kill your opponent. The deck breaks down into Lands, Rituals, Fixers, Card Draw, Defense, and Kill Spells.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Maindeck[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Lands[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
All of the lands in the maindeck are from Invasion. The ability to sacrifice for two different color of mana lets the lands basically act as two during the turn that you attempt to combo. This lets you keep your land count low, so that you do not draw them when you need to add spells to your storm.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Rituals[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT] Rite of Flame, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Lotus Petal are the rituals of the deck. To cast a lot of spells, you will need a lot of mana and these will provide both.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Fixing[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT] Manamorphose, Chromatic Star, Chromatic Sphere all fix the mana from the rituals above, and draw one card to keep you getting more spells to cast.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Card Draw[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT] Ideas Unbound, Sign in Blood, [c]Compuslive Research[c/] are all there to draw you more cards. If you ever see your opponent at 2 life, Sign in Blood doubles as a finisher in a dire situation.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Defense[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT] Gitaxian Probe, Duress. One problem with storm is there is a whole lot of hate for it, (we will get more on that later.) With the amount of things that can screw up your storm, you want to be able to know what your opponent is using to try to stop you. Gitaxian Probe allows you to see there hand and draw a card while doing it. Duress is there to make them discard the hate card from their hand.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Kill Spells[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT] Empty The Warrens(+ Goblin Bushwhacker), Grapeshot. Finally we get to actually killing your opponent. This is done in two different ways after casting many spells to increase your storm count. The first is by casting Empty the Warrens and following it with a Goblin Bushwhacker to give all of your tokens +1/+0 and haste for a lethal alpha strike. Killing with Empty the Warrens is the more common way to kill an aggro deck. The second way to kill your opponent is to do them lethal damage with Grapeshot, you may be able to get it in one, but using 2 or even 3 is much more common. This is the common way to kill a control deck.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Sideboard[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
While some guides say what cards exactly you should put in and take out for each matchup, I do not feel like that is a good idea with Pauper. Most of the decks in pauper include a lot of variations, and the pilot of each deck may leave different openings for you that certain cards would help more with. It is very important to pay as much attention as you can to your opponent, to figure out which way you can attack the openings that they will leave. Your sideboard is nothing but tools to help you with this. Try to figure out the tendencies of your opponent and sideboard according to how you think they will be attacking you. For example, when playing against UR Cloudpost I will sideboard differently for a player that will tapout for a turn 3 or 4 land destruction spell as opposed to a player who will always sit with counter mana open.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Contents[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[list]
[*]Duress: Duress is the one card that will go into your maindeck every time during sideboarding. Every single deck you face will have hate for Storm, most have a lot of it. Duress helps you get rid of these cards. The reason that not all three Duress are played in the maindeck is that many people do not play these cards in their maindeck and you do not need to many Duress. After sideboarding, they will have more than enough, and you will always want this extra Duress.
[*]Pyroblast: With Mono Blue Delver and Ux Cloudpost being the two most popular decks, something to fight blue counters is very important. In addition to stopping counters, destroying some creatures
with Pyroblast can swing the matchup far in Storms favor. If you can hit a Cloud of Faeries with Pyroblast in response to Snap against a Familiar Storm deck, you will slow them down very much. If you ever see a Ninja of the Deep Hours attacking you, Pyroblast can save you from the Ninja putting you to far behind on cards. Lastly, while it may seem like a waste to hit the Delver of Secrets with Pyroblast, it will slow down the clock of a Mono Blue deck enough that it will let the storm player assemble a double Grapeshot kill.
[*]Deep Analysis: Large amounts of discard is one of the biggest problems for Storm. Deep Analysis gives you something that you want them to make you discard, and will let you refill your hand later on in the game.
[*]Flaring Pain: Pretty straightforward, stops any damage prevention. You are sure to see this against Mono White decks, but may see it other places such as Familiar Storm, Stompie, or even Infect.
[*]Echoing Truth: The most obvious use for Echoing Truth is the mirror match. In case your opponent can cast Empty the Warrens before you, you need to play the role of the Storm hater. This is not the only use for Echoing Truth though. You can stop an Infect creature after they have waste all of their pump spells thinking they would kill you. You can also stop a bounce a Storm hating creature such as Benevolent Unicorn or Suture Priest.
[*]Ideas Unbound: This is a replacement spell against Aggro. With high amounts of direct damage in decks such as Burn, Goblins, and Affinity it makes playing Gitaxian Probe and Sign in Blood very risky. Ideas Unbound is here to add more card draw to the deck when you must take some of these cards out to avoid to much life loss.
[*]Sandstone Needle: This is the card that I get asked about the most. Why would lands be in the sideboard? They are here for a couple of reasons. The first is that some slower control decks will sit the whole game with untapped lands, and be able to trade every card in your hand for a counterspell. When they do this you want to be able to play as many lands as possible so even if they counter every other spell you have, you can have four mana available to cast either Empty the Warrens or two Grapeshots. The second use for them is to simply help fix your mana after sideboarding by replacing the lands in deck if you will need more red mana for Pyroblast or Flaring Pain.
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Using[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Removing cards from maindeck during sideboarding: The most common cards I remove from the deck during sideboarding are Chromatic Sphere and one Chromatic Star. Against Aggro decks, I will remove two Gitaxian Probe so I do not lose so much life. Against control decks I will usually remove one Empty the Warrens, as you will have a longer game and only need to draw one of them during in the game. Against green decks I will remove one Goblin Bushwhacker, because I will likely not want to attack with all of my goblins to avoid Sandstorm. Against discard heavy decks, I may remove one or two of the blue draw spells as I will be boarding in Deep Analysis. These are a few reccomendations, but pay as much attention to your opponent's play habits as possible. You can then sideboard according to how you think they will attack you.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Deck Alterations[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
As with any deck in tournament magic, to have the best chances of winning possible you must alter the deck according to what other people are playing. Ten tournaments into the twenty five for the matches I took down, I added the fourth Gitaxian Probe to the deck. I took out a third Cabal Ritual. This was because the amount of decks using burn has become fairly low, and the information provided by Gitaxian Probe is very important with the amount of counterspells in the format now. If burn heavy aggro decks make a comeback, I will have to remove some of the Gitaxian Probes from the deck. There are more deck alterations I have been widely considering. I have been considering replacing one Flaring Pain in the sideboard for one more Deep Analysis. If Mono White continues to be on the decline and decks featuring a lot of discard show up more, I will surely do this. Curfew is another card I have given a lot of thought to putting into the sideboard. If Infect becomes any more popular fitting Curfew into the sideboard could be very helpful. Make sure to stay on top of what people are playing, tune your deck to fight that, and you will have a better chance of winning.
[/spoiler]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="5"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Hate and Coping[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[spoiler]
Storm is not as easy as simply playing a lot of spells and than winning the game. Everyone you play against in a tournament will be packing hate cards to stop you. A lot of your success will be defined in how you deal with this cards.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]The Hate They Bring[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[list]
[*]Echoing Decay - There are instants to kill all of your goblins with just one card such as Echoing Decay, Echoing Truth, Seismic Shudder, Holy Light, and Sandstorm.
[*]Crypt Rats - There are creatures that can sit on the field, avoiding a Duress and ready to kill any goblins that come into play.
[*]Benevolent Unicorn - There are creatures that will make your Storm spells useless.
[*]Hindeing Touch - There are counterspells that will stop you dead in your tracks.
[*]Earth Rift - People will use land destruction to attack your feeble 12 land manabase.
[*]Last Rites - Some people will even make you discard your whole hand.
[/list]
Be familiar with as much Storm hate as possible. People will be coming for you using a lot of it. There are ways to deal with it though.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]You've Activated My Trap Card[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
No, there are no actual trap cards in Storm. Trapping your opponent into make a wrong decisions is one of the most important skills you can have though. A strong opponent playing against Storm will be asking themselves questions such as these.
[list]
[*]Does the Storm player want to kill me using Empty the Warrens or Grapeshot?
[*]Does the Storm player need more mana or do they need to be able to draw more spells to add to storm count?
[*]Will the storm player be able to deal with my hate card?
[/list]
As the Storm player, you need to try to make your opponent answer these questions wrong so that you can trap them. If you are planning to kill with Grapeshots only, play Duress early against a blue player and they will usually counter it to protect the useless Echoing Truth. You can hold Lotus Petals in your hand instead of playing them early so that your opponent may think that countering your ritual will stop your ability to get more mana. Figuring out how to make your opponent read information incorrectly and trapping them into making mistakes will reward a Storm player with a lot of wins.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Forecasting[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
One of the big differences between Pauper Storm and other forms of Storm is that we do not have one super Card to keep us going. Yawgmoth's Will, Mind's Desire, Ad Nauseum, and Past In Flames all give a lot of reach to the deck. Without these cards, figuring out what you will draw next is needed. Try to figure your chances to get what you need in this scenerios.
With enough lands out that mana is not a concern, you have a Grapeshot, Rite of Flame, Ideas Unbound, Chromatic Star, and two Manamorphose. You have 6 lands in play, 0 cards in your graveyard, and 47 cards left in your deck. With the ability to draw six cards, what are the chances that you draw more card draw spells to keep the storm chain alive? What are the chances that in these six cards you draw another Grapeshot so you can deal your opponent lethal damage this turn?
You have played and sacrificed two lands this turn. You have also played Gitaxian Probe, Dark Ritual, Duress, and Chromatic Sphere (which has already been sacrificed.) You have 2 red, 1 black, and 1 blue mana in your pool. You have an Empty the Warrens and Ponder in hand. Your opponent has an Icatian Javeleliners and a Kor Skyfisher in play. He has a Razor Golem and a Plains in hand. If you cast Empty the Warrens, you can make 10 Goblin tokens but your opponent may be able to overcome them. If you cast ponder, you need to be able to draw either a Rite of Flame, Dark Ritual, Cabal, Ritual, or Lotus Petal. If you do not you will not be able to cast any Goblins. With 52 cards left in your deck, what are the chances that you would see be able to get one of these mana sources with Ponder? Would you have a better chance to win if you cast Ponder or just cast Empty the Warrens for 10 tokens?
In turn 3 of game 2 against a Goblin player you have a great hand. Your have an untapped Sulfur Vent and a Lotus Petal and your hand contains Gitaxian Probe, Rite of Flame, Sign in Blood, Dark Ritual, Ponder, Empty the Warrens, Goblin Bushwhacker, and Lotus Petal. You use Gitaxian Probe and your opponent reveals a Seismic Shudder and he has 2 mountains untapped. You draw one more Rite of Flame. If you can draw a Duress this turn, you can remove the seismic shudder. You have can see 6 cards at most if you Ponder, choose to shuffle, and then cast Sign in Blood. With 49 cards left in deck, what are the chances Duress is in those 6 cards so you can win this turn?
Scenarios like these are what you are constantly faced with while playing Pauper Storm. You will end up doing a lot of rough math, and if you do this well it will greatly affect your winning percentage. However, even if you figure out the most likely scenerio all the time, sometimes you just get the bad beats.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Bad Beats[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Part way through my 25 events that I was recording the results for, I ran into some very bad beats. I went four events in a row without earning packs for a single one of them. The only games I was winning was when my opponent would have just as ridiculous of a draw or would make a huge mistake. I could not seem to combo at all before turn 5 or 6. I felt like the deck I had been playing for the past year had been neutered and just wasn't like I thought it was. It was starting to get depressing, and I thought about stopping this recording of the matchups, and taking a long break from Pauper. I took a day off from Pauper, and exercised very hard to help myself get my head on straight. When I played another event my deck was fine, and I saw it was just a lot of variance crammed into two days.
In the last year of playing Pauper Storm I have seen some ridiculous Scenarios. I have drawn all of the 12 lands in the deck in the first 18 cards. I have drawn two thirds of my deck not to see a single one of the eight Storm cards. I have Duress'd a hate card out of my opponents hand and cast Empty the Warrens, only to have them topdeck another copy of the same hate card on their turn and kill all my goblins with it more times than I can count. On occasion this deck will have completely shocking draws.
If you are the kind of person who constantly complains about mana screw or mana flood, you should probably not play this deck. If you get very emotional after your opponent has a lucky win over you, this deck is also probably not for you. If you can handle that, you still may end up frustrated and going on tilt. With a deck like this it is important to especially important to recognize this. If you have a very unlucky loss, you must do your best to put it behind you and not have it affect your decisions in the next round. If you have a bad tournament, try to find something that balances you. For example, I like to lift weights or run sprints. Find what helps you lose the frustration. With Pauper Storm, we are sacrificing consistency for potential power. For this to work out to winning a lot of tournaments and packs in the long run, you must try to look past emotions and bad losses to make clear calculated decisions.
[/spoiler]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="5"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]The Grinding[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[spoiler]
We are now to talking about the 25 Daily Events that I took results in for Storm. I will talk about each different deck that I played against and what I think are good tactics to beat that deck. I will then post my record against the deck during these events, the sideboard cards I like to use against them, and the hate cards for Storm that they may be playing. After this I will post my overall results from these events, the amount of tickets I spent, and the amount of packs I won.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Mono Blue[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 23-19
Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Pyroblast, Sandstone Needle
Hate to be Aware of: Echoing Truth, Hydroblast, Hindering Touch
This is both the deck in the format and the most skill intensive matchup for Pauper Storm. I think of this matchup as one where I have two main paths to victory. If they are sitting on a handful of counters, and not being aggressive, this matchup becomes a lot easier. I will try to play as many lands, chromatics, and lotus petals as I can draw and wait while I get two Grapeshots into my hand. I am then comfortable going off when even if they counter all my rituals and draw spells, I will still have 4 mana left in my pool for the grapeshots. This will turn their counters against them, as they add to my storm count. If they are aggressive with Delvers, Bears, and Ninjas, this matchup becomes much tougher. They key to beating an aggressive blue player is to bait them. Set up situations where they think they need to counter spells that are not as important to you. For example, if you want to kill them with Grapeshot, throw a Duress out early in the combo turn. They will almost always counter that as they will want to protect the echoing truth. If you need to draw cards, try to set up a situation to make it look like you need mana so they will counter your rituals. More than any other archetype, I noticed a huge skill difference in the very top few Mono Blue grinders and the average player. In fact, all but one of my losses against MUC came against three of the top grinders. Most players will leave openings for you, but against the top you work hard to try and create them. Despite my record being close to even, this matchup is favorable for them. They are the player who should win this match, so play like you need to steal the match from them. Do what you can to bait a mistake out of them, and when they make one, do everything you can to exploit it.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]UR Cloudpost[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Out of all the decks in Pauper, this is the one that I want to be matched against the most. They have the ability to beat you, but will not race, and this matchup is one where knowledge of the matchup can win a lot of games. Game 1, be aware of Mystical Teachings into a board sweeper when you cast Empty the Warrens. Also be aware of Capsize, is that means you are stuck with however many land you have at that time. Other than that, they will have a very tough time interacting with you. Game 2 and 3 are much tougher, as they will bring a huge amount of cards in from the sideboard. They may bring in 1 mana counters, 1 damage sweepers to kill goblins, and LD to attack your feeble land base. What all they will bring varies a lot, so you must try to get a good feel of your opponent. If you are assembling an Empty the Warrens kill, try to bait counters out of hand so that you can Duress the board sweeper away. If you are assembling a Grapeshot kill, be very aware of the amount of Cloudposts and Glimmerposts they have, as they can start gaining an absurd amount of life and be out of your damage range. Luckily, if you win the much easier Game 1, you only have to win one of the next two after that. This makes this one of the best matchups for a Storm player.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 27-3
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Pyroblast, Sandstone Needle
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Echoing Truth, Seismic Shudder, Hydroblast, Pyroblast, Stone Rain, Earth Rift
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Empty the Warrens/Grapeshot Storm[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
The Mirror, most people hate mirrors and I am no exception. You want to be the first person to combo out, but if you fail to kill them the turn you combo out it is absolutely brutal. This is because Rite of Flame. Rite of Flame counts the number in all graveyards, not just yours, so if someone is not killed and combos out second they will have a huge supply of red mana to work with. With needing to know when your opponent can combo, this makes Gitaxian Probe and Duress some of the most important cards in this match. After sideboard, you will have Echoing Truth to stop goblins that they bring. Be aware of them also having hate for your Goblins, along with possible counter backup. If the are Izzet storm, they will more heavily rely on Empty the Warrens to kill you, while Grixis Storm will heavily rely on Grapeshot to avoid the goblin hate in this match.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 15-6
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Echoing Truth, Pyroblast
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Echoing Truth, Seismic Shudder, Dispel, Hydroblast, Pyroblast, Duress
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Infect[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
This matchup can be very frustrating. With your lands coming into play tapped, you can be helpless to a turn 2 kill when they go first. These are very frustrating and there is nothing you can do about these games, but you must try to clear your head as if this match goes past the first couple turns it goes heavily into Storms favor. Comboing out fairly early and not killing them that turn is fine, a huge Army of goblins is tough for them to get past. Be aware of Apostles Blessing, it can make it so you can not block a creature and is one of the first things I would Duress. If they are attacking into your large group of Goblins, you will usually want to block with every single one. This makes it tough for them to trample over your creatures. If your goblins die, this is fine. With the card draw in the Storm deck, it has much more reach than Infect, so eliminating trading your early goblins for their Creatures and Pump spells sets up a win later on. In game 2 and 3 be aware of Sandstorm and Fog. These are both not great hate cards, and you will feel stupid if you lose to them. Try to peek in their hand to see if they have them with Duress and Gitaxian Probe. If you can not do that, do not attack with to many goblins at once, hold back most of your army so they must make a choice if they want to try a Sandstorm for 5 or 6 of your Goblins. If they over commit on pump spells while attack you, you can also Echoing Truth the creature back to hand to make them waste the pump spells that they have so few of. You can also use Echoing Truth in another way if you think the have Vines of Vastwood to protect from it. You can block their Rancor'd creature with one or two Goblins. When they use the pump spells in an attempt to kill you, you can use Echoing Truth on Rancor. This makes the creature lose trample for the time being, and the pump spells go to waste.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 19-15
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Echoing Truth, Flaring Pain
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Sandstorm, Fog
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Affinity[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Pauper Affinity is Many things. It is normally an Aggro deck. It can also be a combo deck with Atog/Fling combo. Affinity also has mainboard hate for you in Krak-Clan Shaman. Despite these things, this matchup is still in Storms favor. Luckily, putting all the colors into Affinity makes the deck fairly clunky. This works in Storms advantage for a couple of reasons. The main thing is that it gives you time to assemble enough cards to get a kill. The second reason this is nice is because they have to top out to fix there mana. The most important thing in this matchup is to simply be aware. Keep a constant count of the amount of artifacts that they have out. This is because they can sacrifice artifacts with Krak-Clan Shaman or Disciple of the Vault to bring your life down to 0. They have Galvanic Blasts to burn you even more, so you will want to cut down on your spells that make you lose life after sideboarding. Spark Spray is another card that can surprise them by stopping an Echoing Decay out of their sideboard or killing a very important one toughness creature they have out.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 17-8
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Pyroblast, Ideas Unbound, Spark Spray
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Krak-Clan Shaman, Echoing Decay, Pyroblast, Hydroblast, Duress
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Mono-Green Stompy[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
This matchup is generally a race. They have very few ways to interact with you, and you have very few ways of interacting with them. It is very important that you either kill them the turn you combo off, or play a large enough Warrens to kill them the next turn and make sure they do not have any creatures out that you can not block (Skarrgan Pit-Skulk and Silhana Ledgewalker.) In game 2 and 3 they have the same hate that Infect has in Sandstorm and Fog. Do not get overexcited and attack with every Goblin to put them at -10 only to lose to Sandstorm. There is no need for that. Some builds may also use Thermokrast, which can slow your development down by blowing up a land. Be prepared in case that happens.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 10-3
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Ideas Unbound, Flaring Pain
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Sandstorm, Fog, Thermokrast
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Mono-Black[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
This is the true boogeyman for Storm, and the bad thing about that is that the deck is making a big come back. After only playing it once for a long time, I have played against it many times in the past few days. The three rats and Augur of Skulls, along with a few other cards they have can make you discard. On top of that, they have both Crypt Rats and Echoing Decay to kill all of your goblins with one card. Even worse is that after sideboarding they will bring in Duress for targeted Discard, and may even bring in land destruction to slow you down more. This matchup is as bleak as it sounds. However, it can be won. The two keys against mono black are timing and chromatics. The easiest way to win is if you can time a combo when they are tapped out and charge in for a win. It is not usually that easy. The other way is the Chromatic and Deep Analysis Plan. Playing your Chromatic Spheres and Chromatic Stars lets you sit on future card draw as Mono Black can not destroy Artifacts. If they make you discard a Deep Analysis from your hand, that is two more cards that you can draw, even if they make you discard down to 0. Spark Spray can also be another surprise for them, as you can stop an Echoing Decay by killing your own Goblin.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 7-7
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Deep Analysis, Spark Spray, Sandstone Needle
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Duress, Echoing Decay, Crypt Rats, Last Rites
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Goblins[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Turn 4! Turn 4! Turn 4! Turn 4! Turn 4! Do you understand that turn 4 is important in the Goblin matchup? It is, as a majority of the time Goblins will kill you on turn 4. This means that you need to be prepared to combo out on turn 4 if you are on the play and turn 3 if you are on the draw. Even if you can not kill them when you combo, you must try to get enough Goblins that you can block for enough turns to recover and try to combo again. When you are blocking there goblins with your army of 1/1 goblin tokens, I prefer to block with as many Goblins as possible. This is so that you can kill the attacker even if it is pumped up with Goblin Sledder or Mogg Raider. These creatures also make it so you can never leave a Goblin unblocked as they can sacrifice all of their creatures to pump up an unblocked creature enough for lethal damage. Due to the burn in this deck, you will also want to cut down on some of the spells in your deck that make you lose life during sideboarding. They will sideboard in various cards to kill your Goblin tokens, including Seismic Shudder, Martyr of Ashes, or Bloodfire Dwarf. They may also sideboard in Pyroblast to counter your Ideas Unbound or Ponder.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 7-2
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Ideas Unbound
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Seismic Shudder, Bloodfire Dwarf, Martyr of Ashes, Tremor, Pyroblast
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]White Weenie[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
White Weenie can be one of two different matchups depending on the build and attitude of the White Weenie pilot. An aggressive white weenie deck is one of your easiest matchups. They are slower than Stompie, Affinity, or Goblins so you have more time to assemble a big combo. However, a White Weenie pilot who is focused on hate can be one of your toughest matchups. They have creatures that can lock down your ability to combo, such as Suture Priest to damage you on Goblins coming in or Benevolent Unicorn to stop grapeshot damage. They also have Benevolent Bodyguard to protect these creatures from your Grapeshot. To add even more to the hate, they have Prismatic Strands to prevent all your damage for a turn. Game 1 you can generally try to go off on turn 4-5 unless you can sneak a decent amount of Goblins out turn 2 before they can play a Suture Priest. After sideboarding, you have to hope they do not get the nuts draw. You bring in Flaring Pain to stop damage Prevention, and may want to Consider Echoing Truth if the white deck is packing enough hate. Echoing Truth being Blue allows you to have another option if they sacrifice Benevolent Bodyguard to give a hate creature protection from red. This is the worst case scenerio though, and if you prepare for the worst the best will usually happen. Most of the time they will be a great matchup with you, and you must just play around the occassional hate card.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 10-4
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Ideas Unbound, Flaring Pain, Echoing Truth, Sandstone Needle
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Suture Priest, Benevolent Unicorn, Prismatic Strands, Holy Light
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Familiar Storm[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
The old top deck of the format is still around almost a year after Frantic Search got Banned. Luckily, without Frantic search this is a matchup in Grixis Storms favor due to the speed advantage Grixis Storm has. If you can hit them with an early Duress in game 1, that is ideal. If you can not Duress them, you should plan on comboing off no later than turn 3. If you can not kill them, that is ok, but make sure that you get some Goblins out, and hopefully a Grapeshot to kill there Nightscape Familiars and Sunscape Familiars to slow them down from comboing. Even if they do combo out, and Return every permanent you have to your hand, not all hope is lost. If you can get Lotus Petals, you can still eventually combo even without any land. After Sideboarding, I like to focus on Pyroblasts. If you can Pyroblast a Cloud of Faeries as they use Snap, or use the Pyroblast to stop one of their draw spells
you can slow them down a lot. They will bring in Duress and Echoing Decay against you, so you will be slower as well as them. Being explosive is not quite as important in game 2 and 3 do to the amount of hate. You should also be prepared for them to Hydroblast a red spell, or even possibly prevent damage with Prismatic Strands. At least you still have Flaring Pain for that.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 4-1
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Pyroblast, Sandstone Needle, Flaring Pain, Spark Spray
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Echoing Decay, Hydroblast, Duress, Prismatic Strands
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Mono White Rebels[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
This is a deck I only played against twice. It plays out like a slower white weenie deck using Cloudpost Mana and Rebels to gain massive card advantage. The one card that you should specifically worry about is Children of Korlis. They can grab it by tapping one of their Rebels and put it into play. They can then sacrifice it when they are at 1 life with lethal Grapeshot triggers on the stack to bring themselves back to what they started at. Due to this card, you should shoot any untapped Rebels with Grapeshoot before shooting them. Other than that, you should prepare to face it like a White Weenie Deck.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 2-0
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Flaring Pain, Echoing Truth, Sandstone Needle
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Children of Korlis, Benevolent Unicorn, Prismatic Strands, Holy Light
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Slivers[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Slivers: Another deck that I only played once (I played it a few more times after first draft), and it is one that used to be a Pauper favorite. However, one of the main reasons that it is rarely seen anymore is it has a very rough storm matchup. Slivers a tad slower, much like white weenie, but they do not have the hate cards to slow you down. One card to be aware of is Thrill of the Hunt. They may use it to make slivers bigger in response to you trying to kill them with Grapeshot.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 5-1
[*]Sideboard cards to Consider: Duress, Ideas Unbound, Flaring Pain
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Holy Light, Moment's Peace, Sandstorm
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Dimir Aggro[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
The final deck that I faced during these events, and I am sure glad that I only faced it once. This deck is very close to the Mono Black deck that is already a bad matchup. However this one is even
worse, as it features Last Rites alongside Deep Analysis and Think Twice. This allows them to discard their hand to make you discard most of yours, and then recover using the flashback of the draw spells. This match is winnable in ways similar to how you can against Mono Black, but it will be an uphill battle.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 1-1
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Deep Analysis, Spark Spray
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Crypt Rats, Echoing Decay, Last Rites, Duress
[/list]
(Other decks I faced after first draft that I was going to add in later)
[list]
[*]Songs of the Damned 1-0
[*]GW Auras 1-0
[*]UB Cloudpost 2-2
[*]Tortured Existence 2-2
[*]GR Aggro 1-0
[*]Orzhov Aggro 1-0
[*]Wee Fiend 1-0
[*]Burn 1-0
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="DarkRed"]The Decks I did not Face [/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
There are some Pauper decks that I did not end up matched against in these 25 Daily Events. If you take Storm into a tournament, you should atleast know of these decks so you are not shocked in case you face them.
Burn: I was very surprised I did not get matched up against burn even a single time. Even a few months ago it was a very popular deck. This is a tough matchup though. Winning the die roll is very important due to them playing Kiln Fiend. If they go first and play a 2nd turn Kiln Fiend it makes for a very tough game. After sideboarding make sure to take out some of the life loss spells and put in Ideas Unbound.
U/B Cloudpost: Like burn, this deck not being around is good for Storm. This match is tougher than U/R Cloudpost due to them having discard. Focus on Duressing them, and Pyroblasting a counter to clear a way to combo out.
Mono Green Post: This Mono Green Cloudpost deck focuses on Land Destruction. Add extra lands after sideboarding, and the matches should be in Storms favor with the exception of the rare times they go first and draw more LD spells than you draw lands. Like other green decks, don't attack with all your Goblins into a Sandstorm. You will feel very stupid if you lose to that.
Deluxe Red: This deck is a combination of Empty the Warrens Storm along with Kiln Fiend and burn as an alternate kill condition. Going first is huge in this match, and if you can duress them it is a big help.
[/spoiler]
Overall, I was happy with my results from these tournaments. Halfway through, I was very disappointed with how things were going, but they turned around. I feel like the two days where I did not money any events really dragged down my average. That is bound to happen at times with a high variance deck like this though. I think that the deck is becoming even better positioned the metagame as more aggro decks are emerging over the last few days to fight the blue decks. The only concern is the amount of Mono Black decks that are starting to come back out. If Blue decks are out, black decks have a hard time so these two will balance each other out over time. Hopefully this will make for a good enviornment for Storm players to do well in the future.
I hope people enjoyed reading my guide to the basics of playing Pauper Storm, and I hope something was learned. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions about the deck leave a comment on it. If you think I am a horrible writer, don't know what I am talking about, and only wrote this because I want credits feel free to comment on that too.
[/spoiler]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="5"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Final Thoughts[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[spoiler]
[i]
(Note from the time posting this: Looking through it again shows how outdated a lot of this information is. Since this time pure Grapeshot storm has emerged as a popular deck, Electrickery is everywhere to hate on ETW, White Weenie turned into a super aggro deck with Falcons and probably an easier matchup, GW Auras has turned into a strong deck, and UR cloudpost has mostly pushed burn and mono black out of the metagame helping the deck more. For a format that a lot of people say always stays the same, a whole lot has changed in 5 months. Anyways, figured posting really rough outdated information was better than just letting it sit, and hope someone enjoys it.
[/i]
[/spoiler]
i almost feel like any discussion in the "Pauper" area is decks... to bring into light established vs. developing doesn't that move all posts that would usually be in the "Pauper" area into the "Pauper: Developing" area?
A few could, but many shouldn't.
Developing sure feels like the place for decks that can money in DEs once or twice. It's not for people like me durdling around with a sub-par list for fun (U\G Tempo.)
ninja edit: I just saw that [Primer] was changed to [Established]
...and totally unrelated to your request for input -- As a Classic Pauper player, I would suggest a [Standard Pauper] split, if you're looking at additional sub-forums.
(My cardboard list has two thoughtseize in the MD with two Duress in the board.)
Everything besides Emissary Jund feels winnable. But what the hell do I do with Jund?
(Played against: White/Black Token, Hexproof Battleship, Gifts Unwinnin', Emissary Jund (lost x3), WURrrr Flashin Kiki (Lost match to 6-swamps on top), Melira Pod-people.)
Also, I didn't play against Robots.... but a Robots player was complaining about how good Infest is. I'm just concerned about how bad Wrench Mind is....
2 Bojuka Bog
21 Swamp
//16 1cmc
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Duress
2 Raven's Crime
4 Shrieking Affliction
4 The Rack
4 Smallpox
4 Wrench Mind
//13 3cmc
4 Infest
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Vampire Nighthawk
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Disfigure
2 Duress
2 Extirpate
2 Gatekeeper of Malakir
1 Vampire Nighthawk
2 Damnation
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Ensnaring Bridge
No, it's not.
Anything making Spirit tokens is making a lot of them, and quickly.
Spectral Procession
For three mana and a card, they get three tokens. For three mana now, cycling that card, you kill two of them.
Lingering Souls
For three mana and half a card, they get two tokens. For three mana now, cycling your card, you kill two of them.
For two more mana and the other half of a card, they get two tokens. You now have one random card from your deck to deal with that.
You need *sweepers* to deal with token decks.
I think Nezumi is a bad idea, we just want to blank their removal entirely.
Smallpox is the real deal against so many decks right now. I liked it so much I ended up swimming around in GB Rock lately.
Are you really sure about Raven's Crime as a 4-of?
A favorite card in my madness/discard decks is Delerium Skeins.
Also, have you considered Lingering Souls of your own? They would nicely plog up the board while you're setting up. (Or Augur of Skulls.)
I ended up back at the drawing board for this reason and many more last night. I think for now I'm going to retire back to a BUG list without Smallpox or Death Cloud for now.
On the topic of deathcloud + smallpox:
It's definitely tenuous to have both maindeck. My general theory is straightforward: If I'm better built than most people to recover from either, I should inflict it as much as possible.
Smallpox is a very dense card to evaluate. It's a Death Cloud for one, with a deep discount... It's 2cmc BB. That puts it next to many famous BB cards... Sinkhole, Cruel Edict, Geth's Verdict, etc.
When I see a list with 4 of each, I think "I must be doing many small death clouds." thus the list name Small Clouds.
15 other lands are something like this:
- 4 Overgrown Tomb
- 3 Twilight Mire
- 4 Verdant Catacombs
- 2 Marsh Flats
- 1 Misty Rainforest
(Not quite sure if the 15th is another fetch, or another mire.)@Chess_76: I'll try to address your comments in sections, but let me know if I'm not breaking them up right:
spot removal
You just listed 12 cards that kill one or more creatures. It is not a complete lack of removal. I'm going to assume you mean it's not targeted removal.
You're right about the deathrite/bob/finks. I would need to hit a Death Cloud for 3. (Either by poxing/liliana for 1 twice, then clouding for 2, or clouding for 3.) Figuring that our only problem creature in their lineup is Bob...
So what about Bob?
Playing Dismember for 1BB, or worse getting behind on the life-race farther, seems much worse than hobbling by with a liliana that reads "Cruel Edict, prevent the next combat step of damage".
Playing Abrupt Decay sounds pretty good, but then I can't kill an Olivia/Huntsmaster, etc.
At a certain point, I need to accept that my deck will not be good at called shots. With a meta this wide I opted to be weak against swarms in some of the midgame turns on game 1.
Sweepers (in the board)
I'm hard pressed to think of a deck that will drop 3 creatures that Infest + Edict can't deal with... besides robots. There's a lot of decks out there, so please let me know if Affinity isn't my only problem
It's true, Sorin is pretty bad in this context. I think I should have re-phrased this thought better. It feels like our colors are kind of bad after we do liliana 2.0 and garruk 1.0. Liliana 3.0 could be interesting in this deck, but then I'm moving back into mono-black clouds.
The Grip is good against Control decks that want to keep their Leyline to stop my LFTL/Crime plan. It's also a techy way to stop Splinter Twin... but I think Kiki-Pod is out there more now. Additionally, it stops Relic of Progenitus, and other artifact shenanigans you don't want them to activate.
In general, what do folks play to deal with problem enchantments/artifacts? creeping corrosion?
I'll be using it at a local Modern tournament on Wednesday. (SIDEBOARD SUGGESTIONS WELCOMED AND ENCOURAGED!)
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Smallpox
4 Bloodghast
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Death Cloud
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Swamp
2 Forest
15 other lands
3 Life From the Loam
3 Raven's Crime
3 Krosan Grip
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Infest
Cards I want to play more of:
Kitchen Finks
Smallpox
Infest - Something about swarm decks scare my pox/cloud thoughts... Suggestions welcome.
Cards I wish weren't so expensive
Garruk Wildspeaker
Cards I wanted to play:
Lingering Souls - Feels so good to sac tokens to the cloud, also really good for recovery.
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad - Probably the next best planeswalker option we get.
Call to the Netherworld - This card is really sick with all the discard. But better with Geralf's Messenger and/or Fleshbag Marauder
Delerium Skeins - Amazing in casual Madness decks... but I didn't have a good chance to test it here.
Tombstalker - Seems really good post-cloud.
2 Forest
3 Marsh Flats
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
3 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
creatures
1 Eternal Witness
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Abrupt Decay
4 Death Cloud
3 Dismember
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Liliana of the Veil
3 Thoughtseize
4 Utopia Sprawl
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Damnation
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Night of Souls' Betrayal
3 Obstinate Baloth
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Seal of Primordium
2 Shadow of Doubt
So... this thing just 3-1'ed a daily.
Thoughts?
How often do you go off with an early ETW/Grapeshot to clear the board and buy time?
Also, what do you think of the reduced CMC creature variants with goblin electromancer and nightscape familiar ?
Cut these 22 cadrs from the Kiln Dragonauts:
Move these cards to the sideboard:
Electrostatic Bolt
Base Deck
That leaves us with:
4x Brainstorm
2x Gush
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Ponder
6x Island
9x Mountain
2x Terramorphic Expanse
2x Electrostatic Bolt
Totally spitballing, here's the curve ratio I would look at. (it's very fast.)
Creatures
Search I used: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?sort=cmc+&action=advanced&power=%20%3E[1]&cmc=%20%3C=[3]%20%3E[0]&color=|[U]|[R]&type=%20[%22Creature%22]&rarity=|[C]
Not so bad, only 300 results to think about.
1cmc dudes I would consider
(Why not Mogg Conscripts or it's ilk? I like keeping mana open when I attack.)
2cmc dudes I would consider
3cmc dudes
Not enough time to continue the writeup... but I would suggest things like Man-O'-War or things that beat down with huge power for the cost.
(Or you could go with Haste here... if you need to push in for the win.)
4cmc dudes
I would advise against Archaeomancer. But if you really want to play him I think two is the right number in this list.
Spells
I don't quite have the time to do the same treatment of Spells as I did 1cmc and 2cmc dudes.... but here's the highlights I can easily think of:
Lash Out always feels good to dome the opponent and remove a threat
Electrickery Clears out all the little things that stop your guys.
Brainstorm or preordain to replace Gitaxian Probe.... I think you need to find more cards.
Snap It keeps you on-tempo and pushes
Daze It's free (kind of) and mostly unexpected.
Since I'm waiting for code to merge here at work, let me help you:
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="6"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Storm[/COLOR] [COLOR="DarkBlue"]Primer[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT="Arial"][SIZE="3"]by Vic (aka grapplingfarang)[/SIZE][/FONT]
(Edited by redsai)
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="5"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Introduction[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Hi, I am Vic aka grapplingfarang and this is my first article on PureMTGO. I have read this site for many years, but never thought I would write an article. With working a labor intensive job and living in a non-English speaking country my English has been going down the drain to a point where writing anything might not be a good idea. A few things came together and made me think that needed to change and I should try writing an article. One was that I heard more about the player of the year tournament. The top 150 Constructed Players get into one large tournament at the end of the year. I saw that I was sitting around 75th, but knowing that soon I would be commercial fishing, away from internet access, and fall off the top constructed players. My solution to this was that I need to start grinding a whole lot of QP's now while I have the chance, so I turned to the deck I have played the most, Pauper Storm.
One thing that happens when grind many Daily Events is that many people see your deck. With that happening, comes a lot of having questions about the deck and some of my card choices. I am happy to answer questions, but I felt that talking in MTGO chat does not always leave enough detail. I was also asked about what matchups were tough, and while I had a rough idea, I have never actually recorded how I do in each matchup. My solution to this was that I would grind out 25 Daily Events, and keep records of how I do in each individual match. As I started grinding events, my deck appeared in Decks of the Week more, and more people had questions to ask me about my deck. This made me think that I needed to write something about the basics of the deck, and that I should combine it with my results from 25 Daily Events to give you this mess of an article.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="5"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]The Deck[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[spoiler]
I will start with some basics of the deck, before moving onto how I did in 25 events against each other deck in Pauper and my strategies for these matchups.
If you have never used a storm deck in any format, they work by casting as many spells as you can in one turn before playing the spell with Storm to have it copy itself many times and hopefully kill your opponent. The deck breaks down into Lands, Rituals, Fixers, Card Draw, Defense, and Kill Spells.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Maindeck[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Lands[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
All of the lands in the maindeck are from Invasion. The ability to sacrifice for two different color of mana lets the lands basically act as two during the turn that you attempt to combo. This lets you keep your land count low, so that you do not draw them when you need to add spells to your storm.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Rituals[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Rite of Flame, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Lotus Petal are the rituals of the deck. To cast a lot of spells, you will need a lot of mana and these will provide both.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Fixing[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Manamorphose, Chromatic Star, Chromatic Sphere all fix the mana from the rituals above, and draw one card to keep you getting more spells to cast.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Card Draw[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Ideas Unbound, Sign in Blood, [c]Compuslive Research[c/] are all there to draw you more cards. If you ever see your opponent at 2 life, Sign in Blood doubles as a finisher in a dire situation.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Defense[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Gitaxian Probe, Duress. One problem with storm is there is a whole lot of hate for it, (we will get more on that later.) With the amount of things that can screw up your storm, you want to be able to know what your opponent is using to try to stop you. Gitaxian Probe allows you to see there hand and draw a card while doing it. Duress is there to make them discard the hate card from their hand.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Kill Spells[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Empty The Warrens(+ Goblin Bushwhacker), Grapeshot. Finally we get to actually killing your opponent. This is done in two different ways after casting many spells to increase your storm count. The first is by casting Empty the Warrens and following it with a Goblin Bushwhacker to give all of your tokens +1/+0 and haste for a lethal alpha strike. Killing with Empty the Warrens is the more common way to kill an aggro deck. The second way to kill your opponent is to do them lethal damage with Grapeshot, you may be able to get it in one, but using 2 or even 3 is much more common. This is the common way to kill a control deck.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Sideboard[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
While some guides say what cards exactly you should put in and take out for each matchup, I do not feel like that is a good idea with Pauper. Most of the decks in pauper include a lot of variations, and the pilot of each deck may leave different openings for you that certain cards would help more with. It is very important to pay as much attention as you can to your opponent, to figure out which way you can attack the openings that they will leave. Your sideboard is nothing but tools to help you with this. Try to figure out the tendencies of your opponent and sideboard according to how you think they will be attacking you. For example, when playing against UR Cloudpost I will sideboard differently for a player that will tapout for a turn 3 or 4 land destruction spell as opposed to a player who will always sit with counter mana open.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Contents[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[list]
[*]Duress: Duress is the one card that will go into your maindeck every time during sideboarding. Every single deck you face will have hate for Storm, most have a lot of it. Duress helps you get rid of these cards. The reason that not all three Duress are played in the maindeck is that many people do not play these cards in their maindeck and you do not need to many Duress. After sideboarding, they will have more than enough, and you will always want this extra Duress.
[*]Pyroblast: With Mono Blue Delver and Ux Cloudpost being the two most popular decks, something to fight blue counters is very important. In addition to stopping counters, destroying some creatures
with Pyroblast can swing the matchup far in Storms favor. If you can hit a Cloud of Faeries with Pyroblast in response to Snap against a Familiar Storm deck, you will slow them down very much. If you ever see a Ninja of the Deep Hours attacking you, Pyroblast can save you from the Ninja putting you to far behind on cards. Lastly, while it may seem like a waste to hit the Delver of Secrets with Pyroblast, it will slow down the clock of a Mono Blue deck enough that it will let the storm player assemble a double Grapeshot kill.
[*]Deep Analysis: Large amounts of discard is one of the biggest problems for Storm. Deep Analysis gives you something that you want them to make you discard, and will let you refill your hand later on in the game.
[*]Flaring Pain: Pretty straightforward, stops any damage prevention. You are sure to see this against Mono White decks, but may see it other places such as Familiar Storm, Stompie, or even Infect.
[*]Echoing Truth: The most obvious use for Echoing Truth is the mirror match. In case your opponent can cast Empty the Warrens before you, you need to play the role of the Storm hater. This is not the only use for Echoing Truth though. You can stop an Infect creature after they have waste all of their pump spells thinking they would kill you. You can also stop a bounce a Storm hating creature such as Benevolent Unicorn or Suture Priest.
[*]Ideas Unbound: This is a replacement spell against Aggro. With high amounts of direct damage in decks such as Burn, Goblins, and Affinity it makes playing Gitaxian Probe and Sign in Blood very risky. Ideas Unbound is here to add more card draw to the deck when you must take some of these cards out to avoid to much life loss.
[*]Sandstone Needle: This is the card that I get asked about the most. Why would lands be in the sideboard? They are here for a couple of reasons. The first is that some slower control decks will sit the whole game with untapped lands, and be able to trade every card in your hand for a counterspell. When they do this you want to be able to play as many lands as possible so even if they counter every other spell you have, you can have four mana available to cast either Empty the Warrens or two Grapeshots. The second use for them is to simply help fix your mana after sideboarding by replacing the lands in deck if you will need more red mana for Pyroblast or Flaring Pain.
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Using[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Removing cards from maindeck during sideboarding: The most common cards I remove from the deck during sideboarding are Chromatic Sphere and one Chromatic Star. Against Aggro decks, I will remove two Gitaxian Probe so I do not lose so much life. Against control decks I will usually remove one Empty the Warrens, as you will have a longer game and only need to draw one of them during in the game. Against green decks I will remove one Goblin Bushwhacker, because I will likely not want to attack with all of my goblins to avoid Sandstorm. Against discard heavy decks, I may remove one or two of the blue draw spells as I will be boarding in Deep Analysis. These are a few reccomendations, but pay as much attention to your opponent's play habits as possible. You can then sideboard according to how you think they will attack you.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Deck Alterations[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
As with any deck in tournament magic, to have the best chances of winning possible you must alter the deck according to what other people are playing. Ten tournaments into the twenty five for the matches I took down, I added the fourth Gitaxian Probe to the deck. I took out a third Cabal Ritual. This was because the amount of decks using burn has become fairly low, and the information provided by Gitaxian Probe is very important with the amount of counterspells in the format now. If burn heavy aggro decks make a comeback, I will have to remove some of the Gitaxian Probes from the deck. There are more deck alterations I have been widely considering. I have been considering replacing one Flaring Pain in the sideboard for one more Deep Analysis. If Mono White continues to be on the decline and decks featuring a lot of discard show up more, I will surely do this. Curfew is another card I have given a lot of thought to putting into the sideboard. If Infect becomes any more popular fitting Curfew into the sideboard could be very helpful. Make sure to stay on top of what people are playing, tune your deck to fight that, and you will have a better chance of winning.
[/spoiler]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="5"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Hate and Coping[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[spoiler]
Storm is not as easy as simply playing a lot of spells and than winning the game. Everyone you play against in a tournament will be packing hate cards to stop you. A lot of your success will be defined in how you deal with this cards.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]The Hate They Bring[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[list]
[*]Echoing Decay - There are instants to kill all of your goblins with just one card such as Echoing Decay, Echoing Truth, Seismic Shudder, Holy Light, and Sandstorm.
[*]Crypt Rats - There are creatures that can sit on the field, avoiding a Duress and ready to kill any goblins that come into play.
[*]Benevolent Unicorn - There are creatures that will make your Storm spells useless.
[*]Hindeing Touch - There are counterspells that will stop you dead in your tracks.
[*]Earth Rift - People will use land destruction to attack your feeble 12 land manabase.
[*]Last Rites - Some people will even make you discard your whole hand.
[/list]
Be familiar with as much Storm hate as possible. People will be coming for you using a lot of it. There are ways to deal with it though.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]You've Activated My Trap Card[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
No, there are no actual trap cards in Storm. Trapping your opponent into make a wrong decisions is one of the most important skills you can have though. A strong opponent playing against Storm will be asking themselves questions such as these.
[list]
[*]Does the Storm player want to kill me using Empty the Warrens or Grapeshot?
[*]Does the Storm player need more mana or do they need to be able to draw more spells to add to storm count?
[*]Will the storm player be able to deal with my hate card?
[/list]
As the Storm player, you need to try to make your opponent answer these questions wrong so that you can trap them. If you are planning to kill with Grapeshots only, play Duress early against a blue player and they will usually counter it to protect the useless Echoing Truth. You can hold Lotus Petals in your hand instead of playing them early so that your opponent may think that countering your ritual will stop your ability to get more mana. Figuring out how to make your opponent read information incorrectly and trapping them into making mistakes will reward a Storm player with a lot of wins.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Forecasting[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
One of the big differences between Pauper Storm and other forms of Storm is that we do not have one super Card to keep us going. Yawgmoth's Will, Mind's Desire, Ad Nauseum, and Past In Flames all give a lot of reach to the deck. Without these cards, figuring out what you will draw next is needed. Try to figure your chances to get what you need in this scenerios.
With enough lands out that mana is not a concern, you have a Grapeshot, Rite of Flame, Ideas Unbound, Chromatic Star, and two Manamorphose. You have 6 lands in play, 0 cards in your graveyard, and 47 cards left in your deck. With the ability to draw six cards, what are the chances that you draw more card draw spells to keep the storm chain alive? What are the chances that in these six cards you draw another Grapeshot so you can deal your opponent lethal damage this turn?
You have played and sacrificed two lands this turn. You have also played Gitaxian Probe, Dark Ritual, Duress, and Chromatic Sphere (which has already been sacrificed.) You have 2 red, 1 black, and 1 blue mana in your pool. You have an Empty the Warrens and Ponder in hand. Your opponent has an Icatian Javeleliners and a Kor Skyfisher in play. He has a Razor Golem and a Plains in hand. If you cast Empty the Warrens, you can make 10 Goblin tokens but your opponent may be able to overcome them. If you cast ponder, you need to be able to draw either a Rite of Flame, Dark Ritual, Cabal, Ritual, or Lotus Petal. If you do not you will not be able to cast any Goblins. With 52 cards left in your deck, what are the chances that you would see be able to get one of these mana sources with Ponder? Would you have a better chance to win if you cast Ponder or just cast Empty the Warrens for 10 tokens?
In turn 3 of game 2 against a Goblin player you have a great hand. Your have an untapped Sulfur Vent and a Lotus Petal and your hand contains Gitaxian Probe, Rite of Flame, Sign in Blood, Dark Ritual, Ponder, Empty the Warrens, Goblin Bushwhacker, and Lotus Petal. You use Gitaxian Probe and your opponent reveals a Seismic Shudder and he has 2 mountains untapped. You draw one more Rite of Flame. If you can draw a Duress this turn, you can remove the seismic shudder. You have can see 6 cards at most if you Ponder, choose to shuffle, and then cast Sign in Blood. With 49 cards left in deck, what are the chances Duress is in those 6 cards so you can win this turn?
Scenarios like these are what you are constantly faced with while playing Pauper Storm. You will end up doing a lot of rough math, and if you do this well it will greatly affect your winning percentage. However, even if you figure out the most likely scenerio all the time, sometimes you just get the bad beats.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Bad Beats[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Part way through my 25 events that I was recording the results for, I ran into some very bad beats. I went four events in a row without earning packs for a single one of them. The only games I was winning was when my opponent would have just as ridiculous of a draw or would make a huge mistake. I could not seem to combo at all before turn 5 or 6. I felt like the deck I had been playing for the past year had been neutered and just wasn't like I thought it was. It was starting to get depressing, and I thought about stopping this recording of the matchups, and taking a long break from Pauper. I took a day off from Pauper, and exercised very hard to help myself get my head on straight. When I played another event my deck was fine, and I saw it was just a lot of variance crammed into two days.
In the last year of playing Pauper Storm I have seen some ridiculous Scenarios. I have drawn all of the 12 lands in the deck in the first 18 cards. I have drawn two thirds of my deck not to see a single one of the eight Storm cards. I have Duress'd a hate card out of my opponents hand and cast Empty the Warrens, only to have them topdeck another copy of the same hate card on their turn and kill all my goblins with it more times than I can count. On occasion this deck will have completely shocking draws.
If you are the kind of person who constantly complains about mana screw or mana flood, you should probably not play this deck. If you get very emotional after your opponent has a lucky win over you, this deck is also probably not for you. If you can handle that, you still may end up frustrated and going on tilt. With a deck like this it is important to especially important to recognize this. If you have a very unlucky loss, you must do your best to put it behind you and not have it affect your decisions in the next round. If you have a bad tournament, try to find something that balances you. For example, I like to lift weights or run sprints. Find what helps you lose the frustration. With Pauper Storm, we are sacrificing consistency for potential power. For this to work out to winning a lot of tournaments and packs in the long run, you must try to look past emotions and bad losses to make clear calculated decisions.
[/spoiler]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="5"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]The Grinding[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[spoiler]
We are now to talking about the 25 Daily Events that I took results in for Storm. I will talk about each different deck that I played against and what I think are good tactics to beat that deck. I will then post my record against the deck during these events, the sideboard cards I like to use against them, and the hate cards for Storm that they may be playing. After this I will post my overall results from these events, the amount of tickets I spent, and the amount of packs I won.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Mono Blue[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 23-19
Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Pyroblast, Sandstone Needle
Hate to be Aware of: Echoing Truth, Hydroblast, Hindering Touch
This is both the deck in the format and the most skill intensive matchup for Pauper Storm. I think of this matchup as one where I have two main paths to victory. If they are sitting on a handful of counters, and not being aggressive, this matchup becomes a lot easier. I will try to play as many lands, chromatics, and lotus petals as I can draw and wait while I get two Grapeshots into my hand. I am then comfortable going off when even if they counter all my rituals and draw spells, I will still have 4 mana left in my pool for the grapeshots. This will turn their counters against them, as they add to my storm count. If they are aggressive with Delvers, Bears, and Ninjas, this matchup becomes much tougher. They key to beating an aggressive blue player is to bait them. Set up situations where they think they need to counter spells that are not as important to you. For example, if you want to kill them with Grapeshot, throw a Duress out early in the combo turn. They will almost always counter that as they will want to protect the echoing truth. If you need to draw cards, try to set up a situation to make it look like you need mana so they will counter your rituals. More than any other archetype, I noticed a huge skill difference in the very top few Mono Blue grinders and the average player. In fact, all but one of my losses against MUC came against three of the top grinders. Most players will leave openings for you, but against the top you work hard to try and create them. Despite my record being close to even, this matchup is favorable for them. They are the player who should win this match, so play like you need to steal the match from them. Do what you can to bait a mistake out of them, and when they make one, do everything you can to exploit it.
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]UR Cloudpost[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Out of all the decks in Pauper, this is the one that I want to be matched against the most. They have the ability to beat you, but will not race, and this matchup is one where knowledge of the matchup can win a lot of games. Game 1, be aware of Mystical Teachings into a board sweeper when you cast Empty the Warrens. Also be aware of Capsize, is that means you are stuck with however many land you have at that time. Other than that, they will have a very tough time interacting with you. Game 2 and 3 are much tougher, as they will bring a huge amount of cards in from the sideboard. They may bring in 1 mana counters, 1 damage sweepers to kill goblins, and LD to attack your feeble land base. What all they will bring varies a lot, so you must try to get a good feel of your opponent. If you are assembling an Empty the Warrens kill, try to bait counters out of hand so that you can Duress the board sweeper away. If you are assembling a Grapeshot kill, be very aware of the amount of Cloudposts and Glimmerposts they have, as they can start gaining an absurd amount of life and be out of your damage range. Luckily, if you win the much easier Game 1, you only have to win one of the next two after that. This makes this one of the best matchups for a Storm player.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 27-3
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Pyroblast, Sandstone Needle
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Echoing Truth, Seismic Shudder, Hydroblast, Pyroblast, Stone Rain, Earth Rift
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Empty the Warrens/Grapeshot Storm[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
The Mirror, most people hate mirrors and I am no exception. You want to be the first person to combo out, but if you fail to kill them the turn you combo out it is absolutely brutal. This is because Rite of Flame. Rite of Flame counts the number in all graveyards, not just yours, so if someone is not killed and combos out second they will have a huge supply of red mana to work with. With needing to know when your opponent can combo, this makes Gitaxian Probe and Duress some of the most important cards in this match. After sideboard, you will have Echoing Truth to stop goblins that they bring. Be aware of them also having hate for your Goblins, along with possible counter backup. If the are Izzet storm, they will more heavily rely on Empty the Warrens to kill you, while Grixis Storm will heavily rely on Grapeshot to avoid the goblin hate in this match.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 15-6
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Echoing Truth, Pyroblast
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Echoing Truth, Seismic Shudder, Dispel, Hydroblast, Pyroblast, Duress
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Infect[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
This matchup can be very frustrating. With your lands coming into play tapped, you can be helpless to a turn 2 kill when they go first. These are very frustrating and there is nothing you can do about these games, but you must try to clear your head as if this match goes past the first couple turns it goes heavily into Storms favor. Comboing out fairly early and not killing them that turn is fine, a huge Army of goblins is tough for them to get past. Be aware of Apostles Blessing, it can make it so you can not block a creature and is one of the first things I would Duress. If they are attacking into your large group of Goblins, you will usually want to block with every single one. This makes it tough for them to trample over your creatures. If your goblins die, this is fine. With the card draw in the Storm deck, it has much more reach than Infect, so eliminating trading your early goblins for their Creatures and Pump spells sets up a win later on. In game 2 and 3 be aware of Sandstorm and Fog. These are both not great hate cards, and you will feel stupid if you lose to them. Try to peek in their hand to see if they have them with Duress and Gitaxian Probe. If you can not do that, do not attack with to many goblins at once, hold back most of your army so they must make a choice if they want to try a Sandstorm for 5 or 6 of your Goblins. If they over commit on pump spells while attack you, you can also Echoing Truth the creature back to hand to make them waste the pump spells that they have so few of. You can also use Echoing Truth in another way if you think the have Vines of Vastwood to protect from it. You can block their Rancor'd creature with one or two Goblins. When they use the pump spells in an attempt to kill you, you can use Echoing Truth on Rancor. This makes the creature lose trample for the time being, and the pump spells go to waste.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 19-15
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Echoing Truth, Flaring Pain
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Sandstorm, Fog
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Affinity[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Pauper Affinity is Many things. It is normally an Aggro deck. It can also be a combo deck with Atog/Fling combo. Affinity also has mainboard hate for you in Krak-Clan Shaman. Despite these things, this matchup is still in Storms favor. Luckily, putting all the colors into Affinity makes the deck fairly clunky. This works in Storms advantage for a couple of reasons. The main thing is that it gives you time to assemble enough cards to get a kill. The second reason this is nice is because they have to top out to fix there mana. The most important thing in this matchup is to simply be aware. Keep a constant count of the amount of artifacts that they have out. This is because they can sacrifice artifacts with Krak-Clan Shaman or Disciple of the Vault to bring your life down to 0. They have Galvanic Blasts to burn you even more, so you will want to cut down on your spells that make you lose life after sideboarding. Spark Spray is another card that can surprise them by stopping an Echoing Decay out of their sideboard or killing a very important one toughness creature they have out.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 17-8
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Pyroblast, Ideas Unbound, Spark Spray
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Krak-Clan Shaman, Echoing Decay, Pyroblast, Hydroblast, Duress
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Mono-Green Stompy[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
This matchup is generally a race. They have very few ways to interact with you, and you have very few ways of interacting with them. It is very important that you either kill them the turn you combo off, or play a large enough Warrens to kill them the next turn and make sure they do not have any creatures out that you can not block (Skarrgan Pit-Skulk and Silhana Ledgewalker.) In game 2 and 3 they have the same hate that Infect has in Sandstorm and Fog. Do not get overexcited and attack with every Goblin to put them at -10 only to lose to Sandstorm. There is no need for that. Some builds may also use Thermokrast, which can slow your development down by blowing up a land. Be prepared in case that happens.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 10-3
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Ideas Unbound, Flaring Pain
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Sandstorm, Fog, Thermokrast
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Mono-Black[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
This is the true boogeyman for Storm, and the bad thing about that is that the deck is making a big come back. After only playing it once for a long time, I have played against it many times in the past few days. The three rats and Augur of Skulls, along with a few other cards they have can make you discard. On top of that, they have both Crypt Rats and Echoing Decay to kill all of your goblins with one card. Even worse is that after sideboarding they will bring in Duress for targeted Discard, and may even bring in land destruction to slow you down more. This matchup is as bleak as it sounds. However, it can be won. The two keys against mono black are timing and chromatics. The easiest way to win is if you can time a combo when they are tapped out and charge in for a win. It is not usually that easy. The other way is the Chromatic and Deep Analysis Plan. Playing your Chromatic Spheres and Chromatic Stars lets you sit on future card draw as Mono Black can not destroy Artifacts. If they make you discard a Deep Analysis from your hand, that is two more cards that you can draw, even if they make you discard down to 0. Spark Spray can also be another surprise for them, as you can stop an Echoing Decay by killing your own Goblin.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 7-7
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Deep Analysis, Spark Spray, Sandstone Needle
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Duress, Echoing Decay, Crypt Rats, Last Rites
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Goblins[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Turn 4! Turn 4! Turn 4! Turn 4! Turn 4! Do you understand that turn 4 is important in the Goblin matchup? It is, as a majority of the time Goblins will kill you on turn 4. This means that you need to be prepared to combo out on turn 4 if you are on the play and turn 3 if you are on the draw. Even if you can not kill them when you combo, you must try to get enough Goblins that you can block for enough turns to recover and try to combo again. When you are blocking there goblins with your army of 1/1 goblin tokens, I prefer to block with as many Goblins as possible. This is so that you can kill the attacker even if it is pumped up with Goblin Sledder or Mogg Raider. These creatures also make it so you can never leave a Goblin unblocked as they can sacrifice all of their creatures to pump up an unblocked creature enough for lethal damage. Due to the burn in this deck, you will also want to cut down on some of the spells in your deck that make you lose life during sideboarding. They will sideboard in various cards to kill your Goblin tokens, including Seismic Shudder, Martyr of Ashes, or Bloodfire Dwarf. They may also sideboard in Pyroblast to counter your Ideas Unbound or Ponder.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 7-2
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Ideas Unbound
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Seismic Shudder, Bloodfire Dwarf, Martyr of Ashes, Tremor, Pyroblast
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]White Weenie[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
White Weenie can be one of two different matchups depending on the build and attitude of the White Weenie pilot. An aggressive white weenie deck is one of your easiest matchups. They are slower than Stompie, Affinity, or Goblins so you have more time to assemble a big combo. However, a White Weenie pilot who is focused on hate can be one of your toughest matchups. They have creatures that can lock down your ability to combo, such as Suture Priest to damage you on Goblins coming in or Benevolent Unicorn to stop grapeshot damage. They also have Benevolent Bodyguard to protect these creatures from your Grapeshot. To add even more to the hate, they have Prismatic Strands to prevent all your damage for a turn. Game 1 you can generally try to go off on turn 4-5 unless you can sneak a decent amount of Goblins out turn 2 before they can play a Suture Priest. After sideboarding, you have to hope they do not get the nuts draw. You bring in Flaring Pain to stop damage Prevention, and may want to Consider Echoing Truth if the white deck is packing enough hate. Echoing Truth being Blue allows you to have another option if they sacrifice Benevolent Bodyguard to give a hate creature protection from red. This is the worst case scenerio though, and if you prepare for the worst the best will usually happen. Most of the time they will be a great matchup with you, and you must just play around the occassional hate card.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 10-4
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Ideas Unbound, Flaring Pain, Echoing Truth, Sandstone Needle
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Suture Priest, Benevolent Unicorn, Prismatic Strands, Holy Light
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Familiar Storm[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
The old top deck of the format is still around almost a year after Frantic Search got Banned. Luckily, without Frantic search this is a matchup in Grixis Storms favor due to the speed advantage Grixis Storm has. If you can hit them with an early Duress in game 1, that is ideal. If you can not Duress them, you should plan on comboing off no later than turn 3. If you can not kill them, that is ok, but make sure that you get some Goblins out, and hopefully a Grapeshot to kill there Nightscape Familiars and Sunscape Familiars to slow them down from comboing. Even if they do combo out, and Return every permanent you have to your hand, not all hope is lost. If you can get Lotus Petals, you can still eventually combo even without any land. After Sideboarding, I like to focus on Pyroblasts. If you can Pyroblast a Cloud of Faeries as they use Snap, or use the Pyroblast to stop one of their draw spells
you can slow them down a lot. They will bring in Duress and Echoing Decay against you, so you will be slower as well as them. Being explosive is not quite as important in game 2 and 3 do to the amount of hate. You should also be prepared for them to Hydroblast a red spell, or even possibly prevent damage with Prismatic Strands. At least you still have Flaring Pain for that.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 4-1
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Pyroblast, Sandstone Needle, Flaring Pain, Spark Spray
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Echoing Decay, Hydroblast, Duress, Prismatic Strands
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Mono White Rebels[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
This is a deck I only played against twice. It plays out like a slower white weenie deck using Cloudpost Mana and Rebels to gain massive card advantage. The one card that you should specifically worry about is Children of Korlis. They can grab it by tapping one of their Rebels and put it into play. They can then sacrifice it when they are at 1 life with lethal Grapeshot triggers on the stack to bring themselves back to what they started at. Due to this card, you should shoot any untapped Rebels with Grapeshoot before shooting them. Other than that, you should prepare to face it like a White Weenie Deck.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 2-0
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Flaring Pain, Echoing Truth, Sandstone Needle
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Children of Korlis, Benevolent Unicorn, Prismatic Strands, Holy Light
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Slivers[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
Slivers: Another deck that I only played once (I played it a few more times after first draft), and it is one that used to be a Pauper favorite. However, one of the main reasons that it is rarely seen anymore is it has a very rough storm matchup. Slivers a tad slower, much like white weenie, but they do not have the hate cards to slow you down. One card to be aware of is Thrill of the Hunt. They may use it to make slivers bigger in response to you trying to kill them with Grapeshot.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 5-1
[*]Sideboard cards to Consider: Duress, Ideas Unbound, Flaring Pain
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Holy Light, Moment's Peace, Sandstorm
[/list]
[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="2"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Dimir Aggro[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
The final deck that I faced during these events, and I am sure glad that I only faced it once. This deck is very close to the Mono Black deck that is already a bad matchup. However this one is even
worse, as it features Last Rites alongside Deep Analysis and Think Twice. This allows them to discard their hand to make you discard most of yours, and then recover using the flashback of the draw spells. This match is winnable in ways similar to how you can against Mono Black, but it will be an uphill battle.
[list]
[*]My Record Against: 1-1
[*]Sideboard Cards to Consider: Duress, Deep Analysis, Spark Spray
[*]Hate to be Aware of: Crypt Rats, Echoing Decay, Last Rites, Duress
[/list]
(Other decks I faced after first draft that I was going to add in later)
[list]
[*]Songs of the Damned 1-0
[*]GW Auras 1-0
[*]UB Cloudpost 2-2
[*]Tortured Existence 2-2
[*]GR Aggro 1-0
[*]Orzhov Aggro 1-0
[*]Wee Fiend 1-0
[*]Burn 1-0
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[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="DarkRed"]The Decks I did not Face [/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
There are some Pauper decks that I did not end up matched against in these 25 Daily Events. If you take Storm into a tournament, you should atleast know of these decks so you are not shocked in case you face them.
Burn: I was very surprised I did not get matched up against burn even a single time. Even a few months ago it was a very popular deck. This is a tough matchup though. Winning the die roll is very important due to them playing Kiln Fiend. If they go first and play a 2nd turn Kiln Fiend it makes for a very tough game. After sideboarding make sure to take out some of the life loss spells and put in Ideas Unbound.
U/B Cloudpost: Like burn, this deck not being around is good for Storm. This match is tougher than U/R Cloudpost due to them having discard. Focus on Duressing them, and Pyroblasting a counter to clear a way to combo out.
Mono Green Post: This Mono Green Cloudpost deck focuses on Land Destruction. Add extra lands after sideboarding, and the matches should be in Storms favor with the exception of the rare times they go first and draw more LD spells than you draw lands. Like other green decks, don't attack with all your Goblins into a Sandstorm. You will feel very stupid if you lose to that.
Deluxe Red: This deck is a combination of Empty the Warrens Storm along with Kiln Fiend and burn as an alternate kill condition. Going first is huge in this match, and if you can duress them it is a big help.
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[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="5"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Overall[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
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Overall, I was happy with my results from these tournaments. Halfway through, I was very disappointed with how things were going, but they turned around. I feel like the two days where I did not money any events really dragged down my average. That is bound to happen at times with a high variance deck like this though. I think that the deck is becoming even better positioned the metagame as more aggro decks are emerging over the last few days to fight the blue decks. The only concern is the amount of Mono Black decks that are starting to come back out. If Blue decks are out, black decks have a hard time so these two will balance each other out over time. Hopefully this will make for a good enviornment for Storm players to do well in the future.
Overall Results
[list]
[*]4-Round Events: 60
[*]10x 4-0
[*]2x 3-0 split
[*]24x 3-1
[*]6x 2-1 split
[*]19x No Money
[*]289 Packs Win
[/list]
Overall: 159-74
I hope people enjoyed reading my guide to the basics of playing Pauper Storm, and I hope something was learned. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions about the deck leave a comment on it. If you think I am a horrible writer, don't know what I am talking about, and only wrote this because I want credits feel free to comment on that too.
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[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="5"][COLOR="DarkBlue"]Final Thoughts[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
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[i]
(Note from the time posting this: Looking through it again shows how outdated a lot of this information is. Since this time pure Grapeshot storm has emerged as a popular deck, Electrickery is everywhere to hate on ETW, White Weenie turned into a super aggro deck with Falcons and probably an easier matchup, GW Auras has turned into a strong deck, and UR cloudpost has mostly pushed burn and mono black out of the metagame helping the deck more. For a format that a lot of people say always stays the same, a whole lot has changed in 5 months. Anyways, figured posting really rough outdated information was better than just letting it sit, and hope someone enjoys it.
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List tags are malformed.
A few could, but many shouldn't.
Developing sure feels like the place for decks that can money in DEs once or twice. It's not for people like me durdling around with a sub-par list for fun (U\G Tempo.)
...and totally unrelated to your request for input