[Free Article]A closer look at The Perfect Storm

[Marske]

http://www.vintage-sideboard.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11:a-closer-look-at-the-perfect-storm&catid=5:vintage-articles&Itemid=12

Editor's Blurb:

I talked about The Perfect Storm (TPS) before in a article / primer which got plenty of attention on Themanadrain.com: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=38084.msg534946#new

In this thread I took on the challenge posted by “Stormanimagus” to write a article about how to actually pilot TPS, something that has been done before in the past by other pilots namely Stephen Menendian who did a 3 piece primer on the deck along with a tournament report. Now I'm not going to be discussing my current list and why I think this list is optimally suited for my own play style, this is beyond the scope of this article. Although I need to show you guys the list I used during playing so you can understand what I worked with, something which is crucial for TPS pilots.

PS.
I'll be leaving tomorrow for a week long trip and I won't be able to respond to your replies, I'll do so when I get back so don't feel bad when I don't reply or answer any PM's.
Have a good reading!

Marius

[Doomsday]

Awesome, thanks for posting this.

[rilegard]

Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.

[benthetenor]

I think it's a mistake to mention the Bargain play, because it was clear from the article that, for some reason, you believed that the opponent was holding Force, despite the rather obvious fact that he let Yawgmoth's Will resolve. Whether or not Will is fatal, it must be countered in almost any situation, but considering that you had access to Vampiric Tutor and Ponder, along with Lotus and a Ritual, that's almost always enough gas to get you there. So from that fact, I would say that the opponent clearly did not have the Force.

That aside, if you wanted to play more conservatively (the Desire plan), then it would have been 100% the correct play to Vamp and Ponder before your Mind's Desire anyway to maximize your chances of winning, and potentially draw out that counterspell that you were worried about to add to storm.

[Dnine]

While reading the article I played along in my head and at almost every point I choose a different path.  Now I'm not saying that you were wrong, it's just interesting how many different paths there are when playing tps.

First on the very first turn I was surprised you started with duress.  When playing TPS I like to use duress to clear the way for one of my bombs.  I usually don't care what they do first turn unless it's post board becuase I am almost always faster.  With your hand you really have no play turn 2 to protect so my thought was to lead with ponder to help set up my hand better and save the duress for turn 2 as my most likely play is a turn 3 tinker or bargain.  Duress turn 2 gives them one less card you don't know.  Also turn one ponder lets you start with island and save your fetch for turn 2.  That way you can choose to shuffle away the worst card of the three you ponder into.

After you lead with duress I was then surprised not at the card you took but at your logic for taking it.  Clearing the way for a turn 3 tinker while leaving them Hurkyls in hand doens't make much sense unless you were going to tinker for memory jar and break immediately which is just bad with no mana floating.  So I ended up taking the same card, but thought tinker was not a good option anymore.  So you pass the turn and your opponant plays land top mox emerald and activates top.  From this play it is obvious that he drew the mox emerald on his turn.  Something you didn't realize and were playing around an unknown card that didn't exist for the next few turns.

On to turn 2, were you ponder.  I would have stacked them the same way, but I wonder about playing the lotus that turn.  I know why you did and it was probably the right choice, but it just sucked to lose that free storm count.  

Nothing much happens on your end until your turn 4 where you go for it.  I think it was the right plays, the only thing that left me scratching my head was why you didn't ponder before you cast desire for not only an additional storm count, but also the chance to ponder into moxes or rituals for even more storm.  The one black mana floating isn't that helpfull post desire and the extra spells whould have been much more useful.  If you wanted to float mana through your desire then shouldn't you have just not tapped the sea you fetched?  That way you could have played the sol ring and tinkered it out for jar and seen a fresh 7 with 3 black mana still available.  If you sack collossus instead of sol ring then you can even chain sol ring for an additional mana if needed.
  Now that I think of it, with your black mana floating, why didn't you just play bargian off the ritual and sol ring you flipped to desire?  You had 6 mana.  You could even have chained the sol ring and relpayed if for an additional 1 mana that way you can continue to float a colored mana.

Like I said, so many different lines of play.
(mod for spelling)

[Marske]

@benethor, dnine,
Yes I didn't play well but after reading your responses, i see it did set you guys thinking. Now reading about how awesome it was when I killed my opponent on turn 3 without any trouble wouldn't have done that. There indeed are other lines of play. I'll talk more about it all when I return.

[neotrophy]

Very brave, and very informative of you to show a game where you make a number of mistakes.  Thanks for the article.  Definitely a good one to play along at home with.

[Sean Ryan]

Marske,

Have you tried jumping on the Bob band wagon?  I've seen quite a few lists from Europe running Bob successfully and may help to add consistency.

[rilegard]

If Bob were in, then Sensei Divining Top would be a must for the deck?

[saspook]

@benethor, dnine,
Yes I didn't play well but after reading your responses, i see it did set you guys thinking. Now reading about how awesome it was when I killed my opponent on turn 3 without any trouble wouldn't have done that. There indeed are other lines of play. I'll talk more about it all when I return.

Thanks for writing up the article, but next time cast Bargain after the Desire and draw into a Force.

[covetousrat]

Good job Marske on the article. One of the things I would like to highlight regarding TPS, as most of you already realize is, there are so many lines of play involved. Take the ponder and duress, and Bargain for eg. Most of the players will lead with a duress first normally if you have no idea what  your opponent is playing. I have to agree with Dnine, on the play with Ponder first. Good job.

After reading the article I didn't even realize leading with Ponder is a better play. The difference between actual testing and tournament, is where in testing you can actually analyze thoroughly every play you made. Most of the time, you realize your mistake after you have already made the play.  What if your opponent is holding an Ancestral Recall or some crazy turn 1 play? I don't think there is right or wrong play here, just the cost and benefits over the next few turns.

[Ufactor]

Marske,

Have you tried jumping on the Bob band wagon?  I've seen quite a few lists from Europe running Bob successfully and may help to add consistency.

If Bob were in, then Sensei Divining Top would be a must for the deck?

Confidant and Top have no place in this deck, IMHO.  GWSx already uses Bob in a storm deck, and behaves like a different animal.

If anything, this deck would benefit more from something immediate and explosive, like Night's Whisper, but that's not quite correct for this deck either

[hitman]

Sleight of Hand people.  It's the card TPS needs to bridge the gap between mana and bombs, recover faster from disruption and make topdeck tutors more powerful.  I've gone into why this card is the best thing for TPS right now a million (exaggerated) times.  It's the cantrip that digs the deepest fastest, it allows you to run an ultra light manabase (like most combo decks want to be doing), and it easily adds to your storm count while making topdeck tutors a Demonic Tutor.  Night's Whisper is terrible in TPS because it usually means you're passing the turn without applying real pressure.  You simply drew cards to apply pressure next turn.  TPS's speed is a real handicap in a format where the combo-control decks are nearly as fast as you.  When Slaver was the best Drain deck, TPS had "infinite" time.  Sleight of Hand is excellent at helping you change gears from a controlling position to an aggressive position.  Without Brainstorm, this card is the best TPS has to fill the role Brainstorm use to fill.

[Ufactor]

Sleight of Hand people.  It's the card TPS needs to bridge the gap between mana and bombs, recover faster from disruption and make topdeck tutors more powerful.  I've gone into why this card is the best thing for TPS right now a million (exaggerated) times.  It's the cantrip that digs the deepest fastest, it allows you to run an ultra light manabase (like most combo decks want to be doing), and it easily adds to your storm count while making topdeck tutors a Demonic Tutor.  Night's Whisper is terrible in TPS because it usually means you're passing the turn without applying real pressure.  You simply drew cards to apply pressure next turn.  TPS's speed is a real handicap in a format where the combo-control decks are nearly as fast as you.  When Slaver was the best Drain deck, TPS had "infinite" time.  Sleight of Hand is excellent at helping you change gears from a controlling position to an aggressive position.  Without Brainstorm, this card is the best TPS has to fill the role Brainstorm use to fill.

Sleight of Hand = 0
Night's Whisper = 0
Dark Confidant = 0
Sensei's Divining Top = 0
Grim Tutor = 0
Fact or Fiction = 0

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=38237.msg532460#msg532460

THIS.

[Purple Hat]

I don't get why you didn't just cast bargain when desire showed you a bunch of mana.  that should have won you the game pretty easily

[Marske]

@Everybody,
Thank you all for your great responses. This article was not intended to start a discussion about how to build TPS (as some posts have implied) I'm not interested in the fact that you think Sleight of hand, Remora or what not is better in TPS (We have http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=38084.0 to talk about that) I wanted to know more about what you would do, sure some have said: Bargain after desire... which was totally right, but what about the starting hand ? Would you keep that ? What about other plays? This article and with it this thread was meant to discuss how to PLAY TPS and not how to BUILD it.

I'll respond a bit more in depth when I get my head cleared up after this week long trip and you guys have posted some more.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

If Bob were in, then Sensei Divining Top would be a must for the deck?

Nah, but you'd have to rethink some bombs. *cough* bargin *cough*

I'd try to play top even w/ out bobs though personaly.

[covetousrat]

I seriously think that adding Time Vault+key into TPS is a major upgrade to TPS sheer power. After some testing, they turns TPS into a different animal. Iv won a lot of my matches by tutoring for Vault/Key. They provides another opps i win combo which only costs 3 mana total. With TPS strong tutors as well as protection, I think the new TPS will be back as a good contender in the meta.

Lets take a look at the results from T1 Darmstadt 23.08.2009 link http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=38683.0 . 3 Long decks manage to T8. However they only place at the bottom half 6-8. To be more precise 2 of them are TPS which the other is Pitch Long. 4 TPS were played at the tourney, with another being placed at 15. This is a really good result as most people are reluctant to even play with this deck. However, we cant judge from only the result of one tourney.

The changes that I made from the original Menendians list are
-1 Misdirection
-1 Cabal Ritual
-1 Rebuild

+1 Time Vault
+1 Voltaic Key
+1 Hurkyls recall

Im a strong advocate of TPS and still believes its a very strong contender.

[Marske]

@Covetousrat.
I agree with the statement that TPS is still a very strong contender in today's meta. However, I do not agree with your assessment regarding Time Vault / Voltaic Key... I've tested it in the past as did Smmenen iirc and the deck doesn't need nor want this combo because it lacks synergy with the rest of the deck except the tutors.

That being said, the cards you cut involved 2 Blue cards and 1 black and you added just 1 blue card and 2 colorless cards taking the total blue count to 17 which isn't a really comfortable level to reliably keep supporting Force of Will.

[covetousrat]

Marske,

Iv switch the Darksteel Collussus into Inkwell. Thus the total blue count is 18 which is comfortable for FOW. I don't have hard evidence for the inclusion of Vault+key. But with people are more confident on picking up TPS, we shall see from the result.