Card/Deck Supporting Storm

[VibeBox]

I only recently started supporting Storm as an Archetype in my own Cube, but in that time I've already been asked multiple times about the hows and whys of the Storm package. So I thought I'd start our series of Archetype Primers with this unique topic.

There are three basic components to drafting a Storm deck, and thus three categories the savvy Cube designer must provide the players if he or she wishes to support Storm. We'll start with the finishers.

Finishers


Brain Freeze
Tendrils of Agony
Mind's Desire
Empty the Warrens
Temporal Fissure
Storm Entity
Grapeshot

These are listed in order of power, and the first four on the list I am very certain of. These are the spells that you're building around, and the easiest ways these decks are going to have to finish a game.
Obviously this plan is all about the storm count so that leads us quickly to the enablers and how we're going to play so many spells in one turn.

Enablers

Yawgmoth's Will
Dream Halls
Lotus Petal
Chrome Mox
Mox Diamond
Past in Flames
Time Spiral
Timetwister
Wheel of Fortune
Memory Jar
Reforge the Soul
Magus of the Jar
Frantic Search
Turnabout
Gitaxian Probe
Force of Will
Treachery
Pact of Negation
Gush
Slaughter Pact
Dark Ritual
Cabal Ritual
Seething Song
Manamorphose
Lotus Bloom
Culling the Weak
Infernal Plunge
Cabal Therapy
Desperate Ritual
Pyretic Ritual
Priest of Gix
Priest of Urabrask
Snap
Nightscape Familiar


A combination of free spells, "draw 7s", and rituals are imperative to creating the kind of tempo required on the critical turn to swell your storm count. Some of the spells lower on the list are pretty questionable, but I wanted to include as much as I could for those with larger Cubes.

Supporting Cast

Ancestral Visions
Ideas Unbound
Necropotence
Vampiric Tutor
Mystical Tutor
Personal Tutor
Merchant Scroll
Gamble
Demonic Tutor
Imperial Seal
Grim Tutor
Grim Monolith
Coalition Relic
Gilded Lotus
Basalt Monolith
Thran Dynamo
Mirari's Wake
Worn Powerstone
Palladium Myr
Coldsteel Heart
Preordain
Serum Visions
Future Sight
Sensei's Divining Top
Helm of Awakening
Tidings
Snapcaster Mage


Mana is once again extremely important. While rituals are preferable because they boost the storm count on the turn they are used, but mana artifacts will still help you greatly in casting the critical mass of spells, and must be valued highly. These are only the top notch options, but any kind of mana artifacts available are of use.
Tutors are crucial to this archetype because there are so few finishers. The ability to have two virtual copies of your brain freeze is a huge boon to a storm deck.
Card draw is also important because you'll be burning cards like mad when the time comes and (hopefully) making mana. While best cast off of a Dream Halls to fuel itself, any card draw will do, and the various Ponder-like effects are efficient enough to be worth their storm count and card slot.

Hybrids

Storm decks will often be hybrids of storm and another archetypes. The fixation on mana and explosiveness makes Storm/Ramp an enticing option since their top end spells are often game ending no matter how you get them into play. This is one reason that Coalition Relic and Gilded Lotus are so good. Whether you're casting Elesh Norn or Griselbrand they'll make it happen.
The Show and Tell / Eureka plan is also possible, and both plans value tutors very highly and are equally happy to pick up things like dream halls.
Tinker is still probably the easiest combo to integrate since you'll often have the appropriate artifact count from manafacts, and tutors to enable.

This is just a preliminary version of this primer, and I look forwarder to input from the rest of you about cards and tactics I may have forgotten or not been familiar with.

 

[Dom Harvey]

Cloud of Faeries/Palinchron and Heartbeat of Spring/Mana Flare ought to be there as well. Burning-Tree Emissary in the same vein as the Priests.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Hi Vibe, my main question regarding these sorts of archetypes is "why cards are good storm cards that other decks also want". This is a pretty key element to the design for me. From a design-standpoint, cards like Burning-Tree Emissary (as I see Dom mentioned) are really vital there. Suspend cards also work (i.e. Rift Bolt).

 

[Eric Chan]

Fantastic primer, Vibe. As someone who didn't play Magic during any era where storm was dominant, never knew what went into a storm deck, was too afraid to draft storm in any incarnations of the MTGO cube, and most importantly, has been thoroughly thumped by storm online without realizing what the heck was going on, this primer is extremely useful.

I don't think I'd have room to include storm in my own cube, but at least I'll be able to make heads or tails out of the archetype the next time I draft a cube that supports it.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Hey Vibe, if you have one, I'd love to see a decklist from a recent Storm deck.

 

[VibeBox]

my cube lost a couple of players and is basically down for improvements for the time-being then we're going to start recruiting at the columbus shops. so sadly i don't get many results right now, but i'll post some theoretical "average lists" at the end when I revise this.

good question with the "who else would play these cards". i think it's a topic that deserves a section of its own so i'll put that in.
i'll also try to put together a "prerequisites and threshold" section to help people gauge how close they are to support already, and what the minimum/most important inclusions are

thanks for the suggestions to all, i'll implement them soon, but tonight I think i'll probably be working on another primer ; -)

edit: lol, john finkel top 16d the recent Modern GP with Goblin Electromancer storm. I have a feeling he's worth trying in Cube as well.
also, hunting pack, ignite memories, yawgmoth's bargain, ill-gotten gains, Diminishing Returns and bubbling muck

 

[CML]

yeah try electromancer. enablers that work in other decks make me drool.

i share jason's concerns but you knew that already, am excited to see what a list looks like!

 

[Jason Waddell]

Vibe, it may be useful (if you haven't already) to cross-reference with the MTGS thread on the topic. If we're going to publish something on it, we want to be at least as comprehensive as what you could find elsewhere. I also think we want to consider whether this is a complete primer, or more of a "Designer's Toolkit" kind of thing, if the difference is appreciable.

Lastly, do you know if there are any successful draft videos (on a content site, twitch, whatever), as I've never really seen it work out in practice.

Thanks!

 

[VibeBox]

I also think we want to consider whether this is a complete primer, or more of a "Designer's Toolkit" kind of thing, if the difference is appreciable.

it is, and your right. this in its current state is more of a designer checklist than full primer. i still intend to put a lot more work into these before they are what i would consider "done". i mostly just want to get the skeleton and gruntwork of listmaking done to get people talking and contributing.

rest assured though, as painful as it is to do i slum it up on salvation lurking all the time. even a broken clock is right twice a day and i monitor even the fringest of conversations for interesting cards. so no worries on providing an inferior product.

Lastly, do you know if there are any successful draft videos (on a content site, twitch, whatever), as I've never really seen it work out in practice.

that's another great idea for a segment! i'll try to find 3-5 drafts that i think represent a "successful" execution of the archetype and include them in each.
recommendations welcome!

Thanks!

thank you, for the feedback!

edit: i wish we could make an op "universally editable" so people could collaborate more directly

 

[Jason Waddell]

Hmm... so a wiki-style OP. I don't know if that's possible, but I'll look into it.

 

[MoshiMaro]

***Coffin Queening this thread ***

I'm running the Storm Archetype for 3 years now and although it's hard to draft the deck it's been the best of fun when it comes together. I've had many games where the other player's stopped playing and watched in awe as someone was about to be hit by 36 or more goblins in the face by a Goblin Bombardment /Empty the Warrens finishing move.

At the time I started out building my (first) Cube I was also playing a lot of Pauper on MTGO. In those times TPPS (The Pauper Perfect Storm) was by far the scariest deck possible. For those of you who don't know it here is a nice article by Alex Ullman on it.
TPPS inspired me to build my Cube with the Storm Archetype support and it's been in there since the beginning.

If you want to incorporate a Storm Archetype in an existing Cube you have to free up space for the necessary cards which might be difficult.
Below the cards I'm running in my list to make it work. Not all cards are required to make Storm - some are more important than others...

Finishers
Brain Freeze
Empty the Warrens

Alternative finishers
Guttersnipe
Tidespout Tyrant

Draw-a-lots
Time Spiral
Wheel of Fortune
Memory Jar
Yawgmoth's Bargain

Drawing & Filtering
Frantic Search
Gush
Ancestral Vision
Brainstorm
Preordain
Ponder
Impulse
Strategic planning
Izzet Charm
Faithless Looting

Sensei's Divining Top
Scroll Rack

Enclave Cryptologist
Looter il-kor
Sigiled Starfish
Augur of bolas

Tutoring

Vampiric Tutor
Mystical Tutor
Demonic Tutor
Lim-dul's Vault

Mana sources
Lotus Bloom
Lotus Petal
Chrome Mox
Mox Diamond
Grim Monolith
Chromatic Lantern
Gilded Lotus
Basalt Monolith
Worn Powerstone
Palladium Myr
Signets
Karoo's

Dark Ritual
Seething Song

Orcish Lumberjack
Goblin Electromancer
Crypt Ghast
Heartbeat of Spring
Mana Flare

Other
Turnabout
Rude Awakening

Force of Will
Yawgmoth's Will

Fork
Djinn Illuminatus

Goblin Bushwhacker


Alternative Storm Generator
Aluren/Bounce creature
Aluren/Cloudstone Curio


I've ran the following (storm support) cards but took them out of my Cube:

Past in Flames - wasn't good enough in either the storm deck nor as a card by itself
Cabal Therapy - planning to re-add - card stands on its own
Necropotence - have swapped necro with Yawgmoth's bargain in and out of my Cube a few times
Izzet guildmage - has been good from times to times not only in storm- Goblin Electromancer is better though
Palinchron - Didn't do much outside of storm
Grinning Ignus - Didn't do much outside of storm
Blasting Station - wasn't seeing enough play

I'm planning to run these cards very soon:

Tendrils of Agony
Mind's Desire

Epic Experiment
Mirari's Wake
Dualcaster Mage

Especially the two finishers themselves are much needed.
Only when there is a Storm card in the first quarter of the draft it's an avenue worth discovering. Drafting Storm hoping to see a Brainfreeze at the end of the draft and eventually not seeing it makes for pretty crappy decks


That's it for now.
I'd be happy to explain any choices or answer any questions you guys have

 

[MCMcEmcee]

I ran a small storm-y section of cards at one point. Mostly manamorphose, cloud of faeries, burning-tree emissary, frantic search, gitaxian probe. Finishers being empty the warrens and grapeshot.
only had it come together once and it won all its games by casting purphoros then making 10 goblins/elementals (young pyromancer)

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Was past in flames not good enough due to a lack of mana generation? How has your experience with necropotence been?

 

[ahadabans]

If someone gets this working without it being super poisony, I'm totally down. Storm is an awesome deck to pilot.

Without fast mana though, I couldn't get a consistent enough deck list together even if I hand picked cards. Can someone post an ideal deck list? I'd really like to see where I'm going wrong.

 

[Eric Chan]

Are multiple Young Pyromancers a good halfway point between fully supporting the storm archetype and not giving a flying fuck? Seems like sticking a Young Pyro and then 'going off' can get you much of the upside of an Empty the Warrens, with the benefit that you don't have to save up all your spells for one turn, as well as being less poison principle-y overall. Young Pyro + Purphoros is already a thing over here, and I wonder if throwing in some of the storm enablers - without any actual spells that say 'storm' on them - would help the archetype any.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

You also have monastery mentor now as a kill option.

I ended up cutting the actual storm cards in my cube, though I am running familiar storm rather than traditional storm.

 

[Lucre]

frantic search plays well in several archetypes

 

[Lucre]

riftwing cloudskate into temporal fissure is usually a great turn, even better if you have 1 free spell in hand.

 

[MCMcEmcee]

young pyro, mentor and jeskai ascendancy are "reverse storm" cards ie. play them first then cast a bunch of spells.
Frantic search is great. Treachery is technically a storm enabler that plays well in other archetypes...
cheap cantrips obviously help the cause.

The only issue is making it so that people can draft an archetype that isn't entirely reliant on drawing 1 particular card in their deck before casting all their other spells

 

[MCMcEmcee]

Also I currently run double pyro, 1 mentor. Will add ascendancy in my next update.

 

[James Stevenson]

Are a lot of people really enjoying Jeskai Ascendancy?

 

[Diakonov]

Are multiple Young Pyromancers a good halfway point between fully supporting the storm archetype and not giving a flying fuck? Seems like sticking a Young Pyro and then 'going off' can get you much of the upside of an Empty the Warrens, with the benefit that you don't have to save up all your spells for one turn, as well as being less poison principle-y overall. Young Pyro + Purphoros is already a thing over here, and I wonder if throwing in some of the storm enablers - without any actual spells that say 'storm' on them - would help the archetype any.

This has been my approach to "storm-lite." (My Empty the Warrens is a 2-squadron, which does make it easier.) If you get really lucky you could maybe build around it completely, but it's far easier to mix with Purphy, Bombardment, Pyro, alpha Orcish Oriflamme, etc. It's an interesting angle to give to red but still fits neatly into decks that want to attack.

I still like the RG storm concept suggested by Rasmus in the Gruul thread.

Burning-Tree Emissary
Manamorphose
Search for Tomorrow
Rift Bolt
Staggershock
Quirion Dryad
Utopia Sprawl
Orcish Lumberjack

In white, along with Monastery Mentor there's Myth Realized. It would be cool to see storm make some headway in that color down the road.

 

[Lucre]

yeah rg aggro storm bleeds nicely into madness, and UG and UR decks.

 

[CML]

Are a lot of people really enjoying Jeskai Ascendancy?

really just a crisp off the old block

p.s. i found your orca cards!

 

[James Stevenson]

oh good! Maybe you can slug mail them to me. or fax.