Storm – Mana Tutors

Edit: Before going through this I would like to add that this was written right before Modern Horizons became legal and the meta has become a little less hostile and less focused around WAR haymakers since then. This article was written with a meta of spring 2019 in mind and a few points may be less impactful as of this article’s release in July 2019. That being said, this is still a very comprehensive guide on one of the many options we have in the Dark Ritual world and well worth discovering. Also I would like to credit Kai Sawatari and Jonathan Alexander for originating this plan. Enjoy.

In a format driven by velocity, mana efficiency is at a premium. Almost every viable deck tries to take advantage of card costs in some way, whether it’s through delve, Phyrexian mana, graveyard recursion, or an alternative cost. Following Force of Will and Surgical Extraction, we see Daze as a premier “free” spell in the format. Probably the greatest tempo spell ever printed, the card has proven its strength along side quick clocks and mana denial strategies. Recently banned in Pauper, this powerhouse can and has allowed combo decks with too low of a blue count for Force of Will to interact on an axis they normally cannot. Having a short shelf life however, Daze comes at a cost. War of the Spark has given legacy quite a shake-up, introducing many new problematic cards for combo strategies including Karn, the Great Creator , Narset, Parter of Veils , and Dreadhorde Arcanist , as well as a resurgence in old staples like Chalice of the Void and Counterbalance .

I think our friend from Nemesis may be the answer

What does daze offer to Storm?

Although you can try to play the counter war game, that’s likely not going to earn a slot in the storm box. Much more often than not, storm has no issue dealing with a pile of counter-magic since it is a completely reactive form of interaction and is not really something we need to care about until we want to win. This is something that becomes more and more apparent the more games you play vs blue mages and how sequencing your spells correctly can bait or encourage your opponent to spew their counters where they should not.

Similar to Abrupt Decay , Daze allows storm to play answers to permanent based hate that are generic enough to have text in most matchups. Being a Counterspell, the card has at least a little value across the board. Where Daze shines however is the fact that this is a Zero Mana answer to Chalice of the Void, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben , Counterbalance and others. One of the issues that Abrupt Decay has against taxing permanents is that you normally need to spend a turn or more off to answer it and by this time, there’s a good chance that you’ve lost the window that Decay was supposed to create; They may have played another permanent or two to slow you down or possibly turned off your Ad Nauseam line. If this card still seems out of place to you, let’s look at how Daze lines up against the metagame.

But first, the list:

Sawatari Daze Strom(SDS): By Kai Sawatari

First off, I just want to say that nothing about this list plays out the way you think it does in your head (or at least it did for me). Everything about this list that I wanted to change upon initial glance demonstrated its purpose when I played with it. Many of the concerns that I had ended up not being as big of a deal as I thought they were once I learned how the machine works. As you can see, there are a lot of changes made from the stock list to incorporate the Daze plan. This may seem a little extreme or unnecessary but the gameplan of this list will become more apparent as we look at how this lines up against the field. I am going to group the field into three groups: Combo, Fair-Blue, and Prison. The 2019 meta is much more diverse than this but most decks tend to take the role of one of these three when against ritual-based combo decks.

Daze Storm Vs. The World

How Storm battles Prison Decks and the “No Fear Pivot”

Well normally we don’t, but here’s how we think we do. Game 1 generally is a lot of crossing our fingers, prioritizing discard over cantripping, and playing around as little as possible after the first lock piece comes down. This varies a lot by matchup but generally we are in goldfish mode and make more aggressive decisions with our cantrips. We also lean on poor Ad Nauseam lines over waiting for a deterministic line because passing the turn is more often incorrect when you have the option to not do so.

Postboard games with a stock list are much slower as you board in 6 to 7 bounce or removal spells, diluting your deck on almost every axis. Ad Nauseam gets worse because you have more non-goldfish cards to flip. Past in Flames is more often off the table since most decks in this category run hard graveyard hate like Tormod’s Crypt or Leyline of the Void . Postboard hands missing a Lion’s Eye Diamond can be especially clunky as well. In addition to cutting cantrips, many games can be lost by having a redundant removal spell or simply the inability to punish your prison opponent when they mulligan into the ground and miss.

Introducing the “No Fear Pivot”

The Daze list takes a lot more of a “No Fear” approach against prison. Our game plan here is to cut all discard for Decays, an additional Daze, and extra goldfish cards like Dark Petition or an extra Tendrils of Agony, both of which make our Ad Nauseams much smoother by not requiring a flip of Lion’s Eye Diamond to win that turn. This configuration is surprisingly good at goldfishing on turn 2 or 3 while answering a permanent based piece of hate and avoids most of the issues a stock list runs into postboard. Keeping in all 12 cantrips and boarding up in “business” spells as opposed to down lets us do this much more often than it appears on paper. It’s worth noting that this deck is worse than stock at fighting through an excessive, above average amount of hate. A traditional list having access to Echoing Truth , Chain of Vapor , and Hurkyl’s Recall will provide more resilience, however I have found this plan to be favorable against the vast majority of Ancient Tomb decks since most of the time you face a large pile of taxing artifacts you aren’t winning regardless of what your plan is.

How Storm Beats Other Combo Decks

This is obviously quite a sliding scale but most combo decks in legacy can be grouped into the ones that play Force of Will and the ones that don’t.

Force of Will Combo decks tend to rely on cantrips and blue permission to protect their combo and ensure they live to tell their tale. This category includes decks like Sneak and Show, High Tide, and Infect. Discard has historically beaten countermagic in combo mirrors and that still holds up in 2019. These all tend to favor storm because discard tends to be harder to fight through as a combo deck than countermagic since blue permission is a completely reactive form of interaction and has a much larger mana tax to play it. These matchups tend to involve lots of calculated risk-taking because passing the turn could mean death. That being said, even if they are aware of us playing daze, they probably cannot afford to play around it if it changes their clock. Having both forms of interaction, especially in a game 1, is very strong and will win you games from the inability to play around it. 8 Discard is nice in game 1s here but so is beating your opponent. For these matchups we have the best of both worlds, having up to 6 counterspells and 8 discard spells postboard if we choose so. Speed is almost always the name of the game and playing around cards game 1 although situational is more often incorrect in the blind because of how proactive these decks are.

Non-Force Combo decks in legacy either rely on either efficient discard, a powerful backup plan, a plan that is hard to interact with, or raw speed. This encapsules the Reanimator and Dredge variants, Marit Leige variants, Elves, Storm variants, and others. These matchups tend to have interesting decisions, mostly on how to use your interaction. A common one in discard mirrors, both fair and unfair, is if you spend your interaction on disrupting them or to stop their disruption. Daze tends to not be very useful in these matchups as mana is rarely a bottleneck when players are shredding each others’ hands and players can normally afford the tempo to play around it. The main exception to this is the “raw speed” combo decks, mainly Black Red reanimator. This is an atrocious matchup for storm since they are a turn faster on average and have pregame interaction via Chancellor of the Annex . Daze is an amazing card for this matchup since they are a turn 1 combo deck with little resilience that really does not want to pass the turn.

How Storm Beats Fair-Blue and the “Blue Pivots”

Fair-Blue decks are the largest subgroup of legacy and, in my opinion, the biggest reason to play ANT. On paper, most of these decks look like they crush storm but play out differently when the stars don’t align. Daze is far from an all-star here but we have quite a maniacal plan accounting this. Once again, there is a lot of deviation in these strategies but from the view of a storm pilot, Fair-Blue mostly breaks down into Aggro-Blue, UBx “Strix-Pile” Blue, and “Tundra Blue”.

UBx Blue decks like Grixis Control and Czech Pile tend to be the easiest of these three despite looking like the hardest on paper. I am categorizing this group as “strix-pile” decks from their use of Baleful Strix as a glue. these decks use countermagic, Snapcaster Mage[c] , powerful discard like [c]Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach , and a strong Xerox package, which are all powerful, proactive forms of disruption against us. However, the high amount of dead cards and lack of a clock make game 1 a heavy favorite due to the strength of Past in Flames and Ad Nauseam undoing all discard. The fact that most of these decks more often rely on Surgical Extraction over other hate like Nihil Spellbomb both means this is often true postboard. Replacing the Daze package with more action and discard makes this matchup feel quite lopsided even post-board. Although we are not playing it, Empty the Warrens is also an insanely effective card that demands them to find a 2 or 3 of in short time. Often times 6 goblins will either be enough to cross the finish, or put a serious constraint on their cantrips and planeswalkers.

Aggro Blue, which is basically only Delver of Secrets decks in 2019, is a little rougher than the strix blue matchup but has consistently been a good match up throughout history and remains so today. Our gameplan is usually to establish stable mana, play around everything possible, and go off at the last possible second. Absolutely nothing about this is what Daze is trying to do.

Introducing the Semi-Pivot

In this matchup we transform into a Grinding Station-esque list, cutting all the cards with a shelf life for multiple copies of Tendrils, an extra Past in Flames, as well as Carpet of Flowers and more discard. The goal with this is to ignore all soft disruption by invalidating it and win by naturally drawing a copy of tendrils, if not two. That being said, Carpet of Flowers is important too and very much worth fetching into wasteland to play. Without Deathrite Shaman in the format, most Delver decks can’t afford to play at least 2 lands into it. When it’s time to go off, keep in mind that a ritual or discard spell normally provokes a reaction with cards like Spell Pierce and Daze, adding to the storm count. Cantrips can also be saved for storm count on the combo turn once mana is no longer a bottleneck. This plan relies pretty heavily on the fact that these decks do not play discard and have no way to punish you for stockpiling your hand until the last second. That being said, when the plan works, their hand is basically irrelevant. Since you always have inevitability in the match up, it is often worthwhile to take a threat with a turn one Thoughtseize to extend the game.

Tundra Blue breaks down mostly into the Miracles and Stoneblade variants of legacy. Although they function very differently, both play similar forms of interaction and have anemic clocks, so we will group them together. Notably Daze can save us from losing to a Counterbalance on the spot or losing control to an early Jace, the Mind Sculptor , but the card is much worse postboard when both players are constantly passing the turn with mana up. These decks try to hide behind a wall of Snapcaster Mages and Flusterstorms until either a Jace or mediocre creature beats takes the game. Outside of troubling permanents like Counterbalance and Search for Azcanta , the Snap-Fluster interaction can be very hard for a discard-based combo deck to beat if they do not come prepared to face it.

Now is time to introduce the Full Pivot

(Prepare Yourself)

In these matchups we board out dazes as well as the Infernal Tutor-Lion’s Eye Diamond package entirely and bring in basically our entire sideboard. Thirteen cards, all but the 4th Daze and 2nd Dark Petition come in and we are a different deck entirely. This configuration will basically never be able to go off in the first few turns but if the game goes as planned our engine will run almost without a choke point. Going on manual mode means that our discard can basically ignore all spells that aren’t Snapcaster Mage, Surgical Extraction , and Flusterstorm. Sometimes we can even pay for Flusterstorm or fight over them with our own! Abrupt Decay is our greatest utility spell in the match up and a necessity to answer permanents Tundra Mages play like Counterbalance. Keep in mind not to spew these, even when you have multiples; A surgical on Decay into counterbalance is the best line our opponent can take against our plan. Cabal Therapy outperforms other discard spells since it is normally a must-counter, meaning it generates multiple storm; The 3 3 2 split also provides incidental insulation from a proactive Surgical Extraction. Carpet of Flowers either functions as a ritual by changing phases the turn you cast it or gives you the velocity to sculpt your hand while holding up interaction. All in all, we take the control role in the matchup and take advantage of the opponent respecting our explosiveness from game 1. One could think of this as a pump-fake: You keep them waiting on their countermagic for a Tutor or Past in Flames and then you cast 2 Tendrils off 8 mana with a Flusterstorm to fight back.

Why is There No Empty the Warrens?

Empty the Warrens has been the secondary win condition of Storm decks since the card was printed. Serving as a second angle of attack, Empty the Warrens fills a different role in each matchup. As we go through the matchups, keep in mind how our deck pivots postboard in each case.

Against prison decks, Empty serves as a speed option, normally a calculated risk. Most prison decks have an answer to a wide board; Death and Taxes has Batterskull , Eldrazi has Ratchet Bomb, Moon Stompy has Fiery Confluence ; The list goes on and on . When we empty in these matchups, it’s generally in fear of something we cannot or do not want to play through, serving as an alternative of passing the turn. Our “No Fear” pivot is shockingly consistent at casting Ad Nauseam or Past in Flames on turn 2 or 3 through a piece of hate. It is very rare with this configuration that you could tutor for Empty the Warrens and not simply win. In the wise words of Cedric Phillips, “This is the classic plan of Ponder, kill you.”

Against Fair-Blue, Empty the Warrens serves as either a low-resource alternative that plays well through blue interaction or a “gotcha” or “cheese” play when you happen to naturally draw it. Our configuration here, with the exception of the “strix blue” decks, is really set up to play a much more patient game. Since we never really have a lack of resources, we generally don’t need to take on the risks associated with this plan.

Empty the Warrens is still a great storm card. Having the option to go all in with as few as 8 goblins (or less!) when you know the coast is clear is very strong. If there was a 16th slot, Empty the Warrens would be fine to add…but we don’t have that privilege. Empty would just be a little too low impact with this gameplan to warrant a slot. The main appeal that I view from Empty the Warrens is the ability to board into a Blue Pivot vs the Discard “UBx” decks. As the list is, there is too much risk of a discard spell followed with a surgical taking your Tendrils of Agony when you have a full 3 in your deck against any UBx deck. If you were inclined to run one, I would recommend playing it over a Tendrils rather than the Dark Petition since it is not good in combo mirrors.

Conclusion & Sideboard Guide

I cannot stress enough how different this list plays out than one would think it does. A lot of choices may seem suspect, but this is a very well-tuned machine that executes better than theory may suggest. I would highly recommend trying the list card for card before making any changes and having faith in the board plan. Make sure to Join the Ad Nauseam Tendrils Facebook group if you found this interesting and would like to read more on this.

Keep Storming,

Michael Clifford