Stop the presses.

I finally came up with a catchy title! Now I can write about things all the time and be cool like everyone else.

… Yeah…

Okay, to give you an overview of how this is gonna work, I’m going to write about whichever decks seem good to me in various constructed formats. Between March and May, the primary format I will be focusing on is Standard, because it is relevant for City Champs Finals, Regionals, and Pro Tour Hollywood. Then, once summer rolls around, I’ll start into Lorwyn Block Constructed, as I believe it is the format for the next PTQ season this year.

However, since there are a few PTQs and a GP in the Extended format to round out this season, I thought I’d talk about one of the few decks I’m looking at for the last two PTQs I’m attending: The Extended Perfect Storm.

The back story on the deck is that at Worlds in 2006, Raphael Levy got way ahead of the curve by playing a deck that was recommended to him from a friend, which was the original version of TEPS, given life through Lotus Bloom. The deck had been in development at some time on MTGSalvation, and with the coming of Time Spiral, it acquired everything it needed to become tier one. The 2007 Extended Season saw to that, as TEPS was one of the most popular decks in the format, and ended up taking too much hate in the form of Chalice of the Void, Counterbalance, Orims Chant, etc. The deck is named after the vintage deck labeled ‘The Perfect Storm’, or TPS, because they were very similar in strategy and design.

With this current Extended format making drastic changes, TEPS has been allowed back into the scene, and has shaken up the metagame. Most people who want to play a sacland combo deck like this usually lean on Enduring Ideal because it’s a one card combo, and requires less judgmental skill and more patience. TEPS is a deck of variables, and keeping track of colors, amounts, and production of mana. It’s hard to play perfectly, and easy to miscount. The disruption in the format is hard to play around, and Gaddock Teeg is a huge problem for the average combo mage. But fear not; we will prevail. Here’s my list:

TEPS

3 Gemstone Mine
3 Geothermal Crevice
3 Irrigation Ditch
4 Sulfur Vent
2 Tinder Farm

4 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Lotus Bloom

4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
3 Channel the Suns
3 Chrome Mox
3 Infernal Tutor
3 Mind's Desire
2 Duress

2 Sins of the Past
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard

1 Channel the Suns
1 Deathmark
1 Tendrils of Agony

2 Duress

1 Empty the Warrens
1 Hull Breach
1 Mind's Desire
3 Slaughter Pact
4 Tormod’s Crypt

Let’s go over the basic idea of the deck. TEPS is a storm deck. We cast lots of rituals which both accelerate our mana and add to our storm count, then kill the opponent with either Tendrils of Agony or Empty the Warrens. The key components of the deck are Mind’s Desire and Burning Wish, which make the deck what it is. Desire is the basic card you want to cast in any given game, and you want to reach a certain storm count threshold for it to be cast. I’m never comfortable casting a desire for less than 6, because it requires that you hit one of your X outs, where X equals the total number of Desires, Sins of the Past, and Burning Wishes left in your deck. If your hand is empty, the value of Infernal Tutor also becomes considered an out.

For example, I cast a desire for 5 which I burning wished for, and the only card in my hand is a sins of the past. I have used up all the mana in my pool. I have two Sins of the Past, three Desires, and three Burning Wishes left in my deck. That is only eight outs for which I can hit, and Burning Wish requires that I get more ritual effects so that I can cast Tendrils of Agony to actually win. See how bad these odds are? The only time I’d combo off in this way is if my back is against the wall and there is no other option (except to die). The problem is that some people think that you need to ‘go for it’ asap, which is only right when you actually have ‘it’, which is basically enough rituals and generated storm count to combo off. Lots of times, inexperienced players do not.

I watched my friend Christian combo off for a very weak 4 copies of desire at the Des Moines PTQ this past weekend against Adrian Sullivan in the quarterfinals. Adrian only had 2 lands and a Sakura Tribe Elder in play. Christian decided to ‘go for it’ when he clearly could not reach the proper storm count threshold. Seven copies is comfortable, and anything above that is gas. 4 is abysmal. Adrian is not doing anything next turn except maybe playing a Destructive Flow; perhaps a Baloth if he has a land (which is unlikely since Adrian mulliganed and missed his second land drop, but made his third). There’s no rush to take him out and risk losing when Christian had plenty of time to win. There’s no clock to worry about either, so I really didn’t understand why he decided it needed to be done. I would have taken the risk that my opponent has a Flow, in which case I am screwed anyway because my hand is garbage, but if he doesn’t have it, I’m basically home free and can sit on my lands until I’ve drawn a few rituals.

My own biggest problem with the deck, and something that Brandon Scheel helped me with, is knowing how to mulligan. Assessing your mulligans with TEPS depends on many factors, including the knowledge of what archetype your opponent is playing and whether you’re on the play or the draw. I tend to keep hands with lots of lands against Previous Level Blue because I just want to play ‘Land, Go’ for the first five or six turns. I always look for Lotus Blooms against aggro, and usually expect at least two rituals. I always mulligan a no lander unless it has multiple lotus blooms and I know that my opponent isn’t a blue deck. I hate not having lands, and Cryptic Command just kind of wrecks my day. Chrome Mox is the worst card in the deck for mulliganing, because it’s basically a blank or puts you at -1 cards, which is a very negative factor in this deck.

The other problem I have is that I play TEPS on autopilot. Scheel told me that after the first few turns, I should have already gotten an idea about what my game plan is for this game, and be thinking ahead and evaluating the critical turn where I choose to go off. I should always have an idea of what I will be using as a kill, because there are often times where we can go off but not have the black black necessary to cast Tendrils, and be forced to take the Empty the Warrens route instead. I’ve spent some time goldfishing it, and I now think I know what he means. Basically, when I keep a hand, I need to identify the role of each card in it. For example:

Burning Wish, Infernal Tutor, Seething Song, Sulfur Vent, Lotus Bloom, Rite of Flame, Geothermal Crevice

I have two cards in my hand that operate in multiple ways: Infernal Tutor and Burning Wish. One of those needs to be saved for getting a Desire, since it’s unlikely that I will just storm my unknown opponent for 10 with Tendrils. Basically, I need to choose between Burning Wish and Infernal Tutor when the time comes to combo off; I’ll set one aside to help generate storm and the other to get my storm card.

A really helpful tool that I learned from my friend Matt is it’s easier to play TEPS if you think about each spell as a + or a – count to your total mana when going off. For example, Seething song is a +count of 2, while Burning Wish is a –count of two (or a –count of one if you are wishing for Channel the Suns). Thinking of it that way makes it easier to know when you can combo, and so the only effort you put into it is fixing your colors correctly so that you can cast your double colored spells like Desire. Here’s a general in game example:

It’s turn 4, Lotus Bloom has just unsuspended, you’ve just drawn Infernal Tutor, and you think you have enough to go off. If you do the basic addition and subtraction in the correct order, you’ll wind up with 7 extra mana floating with a Desire for 8 copies (lets assume the Chromatic Stars draw you sack lands) . Here’s how I did it.

1) Sacrifice Lotus Bloom for UUU, Sulfur Vent, and Tinder Farm. UUUURRW is in our pool. Storm count is 1 (Bloom).

2) Cast Seething Song using RRW. Cast Seething Song 2 using RRR. RRRRRRRUUUU is in our pool. Storm count is 3 (Bloom, Song, Song).

3) Sacrifice both Chromatic Stars and filter red mana into black mana. I draw two irrigation ditches, which are irrelevant now. RRRRRUUUUBB is in our pool.

4) Cast Infernal Tutor using RB, revealing Cabal Ritual. Cast Cabal Ritual, using BR. Cast Cabal Ritual 2, using BB. RRRBBBBBBBBUUUU is in our pool. Storm count is 6 (Bloom, Song, Song, Tutor, Ritual, Ritual)

5) Burning Wish for Mind’s Desire using RR. Mind’s Desire for 8 using UUBBBB. RBBBBUU is in our pool. Storm count is 8 (Bloom, Song, Song, Tutor, Ritual, Ritual, Wish, Desire).

This is actually probably one of the most elementary hands you can get with TEPS. We reach storm count threshold easily without being pressed for mana, and have no problems with color fixing, and we even have mana left over if we’re forced to cast more spells naturally. In many instances, you’ll be forced into situations where you have to combo off for less because a –count spell messes up your math, and keeps you from getting to the storm count you want to be at. That’s just how it goes.

The last thing I’ve recently come to realize is that there is a correct and an incorrect way to play your Chromatic effects. Most of the time, you want them onto the table before your critical turn because they eat one mana to cast, subtracting from your overall mana production. However, if I was to keep a hand with multiple chromatic effects, some lands, and a burning wish, desire, etc, then I’ll hold off on the chromatic effects until I combo because I’m going to have so much mana anyway that I want to reach the storm count threshold.

I hope this article has been helpful. When writing this, I felt that many people would gravitate to this deck thinking it was an Extended version of Dragonstorm. While Dragonstorm does have similar aspects, it doesn’t have the mana fixing layer that this deck requires, since it’s casting spells in 4 colors. Dragonstorm can be played well on autopilot because there is little variance in how your critical turn is played. With TEPS, there are many decisions to be made in the turn you choose to go off. How you make those decisions will affect the outcome of the match, and dictate whether you win or lose.

Happy PTQing.