Modern Storm!

Hello everyone!

This past Monday, I heard that we were having weekly modern tournaments at Toys for the past couple months. I don’t know anything about modern besides what cards are legal and what cards are banned. Thankfully though John, who is the guy who has been coordinating the events, said he had multiple decks and could lend me one. Given the choice between RUG Delver and UR Storm, I made the obvious choice and went with storm!

4x Sleight of Hand

4x Serum Visions

4x Gitaxian Probe

4x Thought Scour

1x Peer Through Depths

4x Pyretic Ritual

4x Desperate Ritual

4x Seething Song

4x Manamorphose

3x Past in Flames

4x Grapeshot

4x Pyromancer’s Ascension

2x Steam Vents

3x Sulfur Falls

4x Island

1x Mountain

2x Misty Rainforest

4x Scalding Tarn

Sideboard:

3x Defense Grid

3x Combust

3x Echoing Truth

2x Empty the Warrens

3x Pyroclasm

1x Volcanic Fallout

We wound up having 9 people, which was 4 rounds. Round 1 I got the bye, so I used the time to actually try out the deck for the first time against a guy’s standard delver deck. I wasn’t planning on playing against him, but I sat down across from him and he was game to playtest anyways. To say the least, the games were insanely 1-sided with me being able to combo off turn 3 or 4 while he was still trying to deploy threats, although obviously holding mana leak was probably the better play… Regardless I got practice in comboing off with Pyromancer’s Ascension in play (stupidly easy) and without (a lot trickier, but not impossible) which was the most important thing for me so I knew what to get on my Sleight of Hands and Serum Visions.

Round 2: Bobby – Splinter Twin

I won the die roll, and was able to turn a t2 Pyromancer’s Ascension into a turn 3 kill, so it was pretty easy. The amazing thing I learned about Ascension is that when it is active, it completely nullifies any kind of counterspells your opponent tries to throw at you. Bobby went for Dispells and Spell Pierces during the early parts of the combo, and I just let my stuff get countered because I was still netting mana off the copies of the rituals! Going into games 2 and 3 I brought in 3 Combusts and 3 Echoing Truths to prevent him from winning via the combo. Game 2 he was on the play and curved perfectly into the turn 4 kill. I combusted his Exarch, but he had the Mutagenic Growth to save it and kill me. Game 3 I feel was one of my best played games of all time. I had a Pyromancer’s Ascension in play with 0 counters and a couple spells in the graveyard from Cantrips and Thought Scour. By turn 8 I was stuck on 4 lands though, and Bobby was hitting almost every land drop such that he had 6 lands. I had 1 Combust and 2 Echoing Truth in my hand along with a Manamorphose and a Pyretic Ritual, both of which were in the graveyard. We were playing on the other’s End Step to play around tricks and whatnot. Eventually, by playing the Ritual and Manamorphose on his end step combined with cantrips, I was soon able to gain enough card advantage to go for the kill while never giving him a window to counter-combo me out of the game.

2-1

2-0

Round 3: ADB – Infect

In the least interactive matchup possible, ADB was about a turn faster than me, so despite doing things like Grapeshotting his creatures and bringing in Pyroclasm, he has just enough protection and barely edged me out.

0-2

2-1

Round 4: Charlotte – Elves

Another non-interactive matchup, but this time she didn’t have a very fast clock at all. Bringing in pyroclasm also does a fantasic job of being a wit’s end when they plays out her whole hand affinity style turn 2 and I kill everything.

2-0

3-1

I didn’t play much interactive magic aside from Round 2 Game 3, but that was probably a good thing. With a deck as complicated as storm, you really need to practice it a ton, get used to the math and shortcuts before you can add in the complexity that is an opponent.

While there are obvious similarities to the Legacy storm deck, which is black based and uses Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, and Ad Nauseum, there are some major differences. The first one is that there is no real interaction. Legacy Storm uses Duress, Cabal Therapy, and other such cards to clear out a path for the combo pieces. Modern Storm does that via Pyromancer’s Ascension. One card I am terrified to face is Cryptic Command as countering my spell and bouncing my Pyromancer’s Ascension is simply doom for me.

Another way the decks differ is how they get up to lethal storm. Legacy Storm gains card advantage primarily through Ad Nauseum, although Past In Flames can also work in a pinch. Modern Storm also tends to kill with 10 spells because you cast 2 Grapeshots, and it’s only way to gain card advantage is through Past In Flames. Without it you can probably get 7 or 8 storm if you have good use of Manamorphose and other cantrips, but that’s not enough to kill.

I really like this deck, and would absolutely recommend it! Oh by the way, it’s insanely cheap to build! Here’s the rares:

Pyromancer’s Ascension – 2 (8)

Past in Flames – 4 (12)

Steam Vents – 25 (50)

Sulfur Falls – 4 (16)

Misty Rainforest – 14 (28)

Scalding Tarn – 14 (56)

Total: 170

I found that the second Steam Vents was completely unnecessary, so you can save yourself a Jackson there (also remember that Izzet is in RTR, so there will probably be a reprint!). The only card that’s really of note are the 6 fetchlands. However, fetchlands are a staple of both Modern and Legacy, so they are worth investing in regardless because you will never run out of uses for them! After that, it’s less than $40 worth of cards, with most of it still standard legal!

That’s all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie

Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com

@ThingsILack