Memorable Storms

Hello everybody... I am very pleased that I was asked to write an article for this site, because at the time I started playing magic it was one of my main sources for learning about decks which are fun to play. This is my very first try to enjoy a Magic player audience and I hope that you will have fun reading and watching what I have created for you. I may sound strange here or there because I am from germany and english is not my natural language. But this is no excuse to not having fun with Magic so lets begin!

Having 1 hour of fun while playing a 10:2 record not using any rares?

The deck I want to present today is an inexpensive mono red storm deck which has high possibilities to win on turn 1-4 and still can be exciting to play even in longer games. Before you continue reading you may want to watch this little video about how the deck may perform:

Larger version (use Save As...) 56 MB / 1280x944 Pixel... for optimal experience!

If you watched the video, you already got an impression on how the deck can perform and you have the complete deck list. I will explain how I made the deck list and why.

This is how it started - The cruel attraction of art!

Building the deck took about 5 minutes, but it is - as most of the decks in Magic - the result of different things I saw and read before. In the next few paragraphs i want to describe that process.

It started some weeks ago as I logged into MTGO and found a shocking picture on the loading screen:




This is the artwork for Ignite Memories. I decided to buy a play set when I saw the card simply because I thought that someday I might use them. When I got my first packs of Time-Spiral as luck would have it I got two Ignite Memories in the packs. Later I purchased the remaining ones from the mtgotraders bot.

After seeing some other player using "Rite of Flame" and "Seething Song" which are pretty obviously contributing to the storm count I was deciding that I want to create my own storm themed deck.

At this time I remembered that Ben Bleiweiss from Wizards: Building on a Budget was doing something with storm too and from there I remembered that "Rift Bold" increases the storm count in the round where it is played. Well that sounds like something I wanna try too.

I was not really aware about Dragonstorm and did not saw a lot of other storm decks. So I had nothing in mind but how to create one deck which does an early high storm count letting me play without being to much affected by what the other player does.

After all I just wanted to try out storm. Nothing else, no backup plan nothing besides the pure force of playing the storm effect. This is for sure nothing to do on a tourney level. But this deck was not going to be played for fame or money but for my own pure fun. It is pretty cheesy and broken by design. That is what I wanted to accomplish and to test it's efficiency while playing casual games.

I feared to end up with a lot of bannings. In the end I made some new buddies and even the offer to write this article! I may try heavy countermagic and land destruction storms next :-)

How to build up a storm - Storm manufacturer equiptment?

First thing which came to my mind are 0 Mana Spells. They contribute to the storm count and may have some good general effect too. A quick search in my collection for 0cc cards found "Ornithoper" (another of those cards which I immediatly bought a playset not knowing how I will use it later) and "Mishra's Bauble" which does something we always like "draw a card". In addition I like to snoop what is next in my library.

Well. there are even more 0cc cards in Standard but I wanted to check first if there isn't something which makes more sense to be included into the deck. I love mana accelerators and was thinking about using "Birds of Paradies". But for some strange reason I wanted to stay with red. After listing all 1 Mana cards with red mana in my collection, there was one card jumping straight into my decklist: "Wild Cantor". He is 1cc red and he can be used twofold: You may play him early to sac him to get the mana or you play him and sac him on the same turn to increase the storm count whithout spending mana as he gives it back to you.

When I have a card which gives me one mana the time it dies I won't waste this mana while using him as blocker. So I decided that "Shock" is a good companion for the cantor. It makes him a 3 damage dealer while blocking or I can get my revenge in other ways too. In addition  a 1cc spell may also contribute to the storm count in some situations or helps to delay the game till I get the cards I need on hand. So shock was in. BTW the first game in the video shows me playing a shock related tactical fault. I was so excited that I forgot to include the Shock for the storm count. Stuff like this may cost a win!

For the Lands I have to use "Terramorphic Expanse" as I opened 6 of them from 10 TSP decks. I took that as a sign! In addition I believe in deck thinning as a good source for card advantage. It slows the deck but then you won't usually have more than one on your opening hand. Even if there are two that will not matter very much for this deck.

Here is the decklist so far:

4 x Rite of Flame
4 x Seething Song
4 x Ornithopter
4 x Mishra's Bauble
4 x Wild Cantor
3 x Shock
3 x Rift Bolt
4 x Ignite Memories
4 x Terramorphic Expanse

These are 34 Cards total. I am going to use 23 Lands (having 4 already) so I am at 53 Cards total. I chose to use only 3 cards of Rift Bolt and Shock because I wanted to keep some space for some alternatives that I will show you later on.

We have some early blockers (Ornithopter, Wild Cantor) some mana acceleration (Rite of Flame, Seething Song, Wild Cantor) and some Storm count increaser (Ornithopter, Wild Cantor, Mishra's Bauble, Rift Bolt). Some direct damage (Shock, Rift Bolt) and the storm card itself Ignite Memories.

Storm in the waterglass - Dry run testing!

Let's check about the storm and mana possibilities on early Turns and perfect opening hands:

1. Turn (first to play):








That is a storm count of 5. This will play "Ignite Memories" 6 times. You win if it does 20 damage which is possible. I felt a bit ashamed as it happened in playtest I made.

If you choose to play second you even may get a storm count of 6 and play Ignite with 7 copies as you draw a card and have 8 cards on hand.

The perfect hand in this case would maybe be:









This would do 7 copies of Ignite Memories and 2 Damage with the shock. So the ignites need 18 total damage.

Shure this will not happen regulary but you get the picture.

More often you get games like this:

Opening Hand (play second):








1. (+Ignite Memories) Terramorphic Expanse (> Mountain)
2. (+Seething Song) Land (tap) > (Suspend) Rift Bolt
3. Play Riftbold > (+Shock) > (tap Land) > Rite > Land (tap) > Song > Cantor (Sac / 1mana) > Shock > Ignite Memories (7 times)

This will do 5 damage with burn and you need the 7 copies of ignite to do 15 damage on opponents hand.

Actually this is the sequence of the 2nd game from the video!


Filling the Spaces - there has to be more than this!

I was really curious how Ignite Memories will perform as you obviously need some luck that the opponents hand has something which kills him. As you usually have some lands on hand in the early game there is a higher chance to play an efficient ignite later in the game. Additional it would be to much of a gamble if not plain stupid to only have 4 real finisher cards total. Considering the other storm cards red has I had two more options: "Grapeshot" and "Empty the Warrens". I thought it may be fun to have an army of Goblins and had already 2 copies of them. So I have chose to add a playset of "Emtpy the Warrens" goes into the deck. It performed well, but just felt a bit misplaced at first. After some time I tried grapeshot and found it weaker in this deck but that may be just me.

So what happens if your storm gets off but is not enough to kill your opponent? It even may last some time until you get your cards together. I decided to add "Blaze" into the deck. First because you can play it with 1 mana to just increase the storm count. Second you may draw a late "Seething Song" and just need to do the remaining 6 damage to your opponent which found some shelter from your big storm earlier in the game. I think "Blaze" makes a good additional storm related card which may even use the mana production in the late game.



And... the final decklist is:

4 x Rite of Flame
4 x Seething Song
4 x Ornithopter
4 x Mishra's Bauble
4 x Wild Cantor
3 x Shock
3 x Rift Bolt
3 x Blaze
4 x Ignite Memories
4 x Empty the Warrens
4 x Terramorphic Expanse
19 x Mountain

You may download or buy the deck here!




You probably be as astonished as me how inexpensive this deck is. There are no rares in it. Some pretty common cards and most of the expensive lands would just hurt the deck in its current state.

I played this deck on the day of creation to a 21:5 record in the casual room. This leaded to the creation of the video about the deck. It does not make your opponents happy and sometimes it really turns on yourself and laughts about trying to be so cheesy. But then... it wins very efficient and has a chance to RIP your opponent on turn 1. You may try to take out some lands and put more Rift Bolts and maybe Coal Stoker in. There are a lot of things for you to experiment with!

So if you did not watch the video earlier in this article you may want to do it now...




Sincerly,
 Hans Raaf (aka Kasom)