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Felipe Musco
Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 12:48 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
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Standard’s finest combo deck!
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MAIN DECK
1 Dreadship Reef
1 Calciform Pools
8 Island
4 Steam Vents
4 Mountain
4 Shivan Reef
4 Bogardan Hellkite
2 Hunted Dragon
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Dragonstorm
4 Telling Time
4 Seething Song
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Rite of Flame
4 Gigadrowse
4 Remand

SIDEBOARD
1 Trickbind
3 Pyroclasm
1 Calciform Pools
2 Dreadship Reef
3 Ignorant Bliss
4 Repeal
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

The goal of this deck is pretty simple: ramping up the mana curve through the red mana rituals, and play a Dragonstorm with a storm count of at least 3, fetching 4 Bogardan Hellkites and ending the game quickly. The fact that there’s a mathematical possibility of achieving this on turn one makes it that much scarier (Mountain, triple Rite of Flame, Seething Song, Dragonstorm). In case you draw a Hellkite, or the opponent has gained life, Hunted Dragon can also do the job, since they have haste and beat for 6 (who cares giving away tokens when you’re winning anyway,right?). Most cards in the deck are dedicated to either stall early beats, or to dig through the deck as juch and as quickly as possible. Gigadrowse plays a major role, too, be it by tapping out an army of attackers to buy a turn, be it tapping out the mana base to stave off a potentially game-breaking spell, or tapping out your opponent’s lands eot so they can’t counter one of your spells during the combo, or activate something like Circle of Protection: Red.

Brewing Cost: U$ 242.40

Adding Future Sight to the Mix:
Future Sight does not offer a great load of potential help, since the deck’s core is kind of tight. It has the potential Tarox Bladewing (which is not entirely dead if you draw one or more copies of him), and the less-than-optimal-but-still-a-dragon Scourge of Kher Ridges (you’re better off with Pyroclasm, believe me). With a whole bunch of mana available, and not that many decks sporting cheap fliers, Pyroclasm might be replaced for Rough//Tumble, which is more versatile and can take care of Skeletal Vampires, Angels of Despair, red Akromas and even opposing Bogardan Hellkites, in case you can’t kill them fast enough. The greates asset Future Sight offers is, perhaps, Pact of Negation. More protection for the combo (remember, Gigadrowse will rotate out soon), while adding more spells to the storm count, and it’s as we discussed: you’re playing a combo deck, so you either go off or die trying, who cares WHAT killed you in the end, right?


How to stop it:
Stoping a combo deck such as D-Storm is not as easy as it may seem, due to the lack of effective disruption for the early game (good ol’ Duress...), and the fact that not every color has a good enough way to deal with it, since Gigadrowse makes it that much harder! Let’s see what each color can offer you to try and stop this monstrosity.

White: Angel’s Grace (although, that still leaves you with 1 life and facing a whole bunch of angry dragons...); Luminesce (I like it better than Angel’s Grace, as you may even get to use it in other match-ups to better results); Pull from Eternity (not exactly a solution, but if you can Pull a suspended Lotus Bloom before it hits play, you may be able to outrace them); Intervention Pact (if all you need is a little more time, this might be a suitable answer); Voidstone Gargoyle (if you can play it fast enough, either by ramping up the mana curve or reanimating it with something like Resurrection, and name Dragonstorm, they’ll have a hard time going off quickly enough); Aven Mindcensor (they won’t be able to search through the whole deck, but mind that this is a very dangerous solution, because each storm copy resolves separately, and if there IS a Hellkite in the top four cards, he’ll just use it to kill the Mindcensor and keep resolving the others normally); Circle of Protection: Red (already discussed); Martyr of Sands may also provide the much needed timeto wrap things up, should the need arise; Honorable Passage can try and seal the deal if you race fast enough early on.

Black: Brain Pry (if you can hit Dragonstorm early enough, you might outright win the game); Extirpate (not directly, but a play of Brain Pry hitting D-Storm followed by Extirpate on it is pretty much gg); Haunting Hymn (if you can cast it fast enough, it’ll probably take out their entire hand anyway); Persecute (naming red is pretty much gg, too, unless they can play Ignorant Bliss in response); Nightmare Void (repetition of a chose-and-take discard effect is painful to any combo deck, and this is no exception); Delirium Skeins (when each piece is important to the combo, losing three at once can cripple them for good); Coercion (if you can nail the correct spell to slow them down).

Blue: Pretty much any hard counter will do if you can stop the Dragonstrom, except maybe Spell Burst (but you CAN use it to stop one or more of the rituals); Trickbind (you can "counter" the storm ability of D-Storm, although you’ll still be facing one big, angry dragon afterwards unless you can counter the original spell as well); Nix (can help you counter the copies, in case you don’t have a trickbind, and is cheap enough to cast).

Green: Green has it pretty rough going on, since it’s not exactly the color of answers. Most of green’s answers would be fog-like effects like Chameleon Blur, and let’s face it, it’s not that good of an answer.

Red: Red faces the same problem as green, with a just few exceptions. Although red has no "real" answers to the combo, Wheel of Fate, if it resolves, can seriously cripple the D-Storm player, since his hand will be clogged (perhaps even with unwanted Dragons) and the rituals will be gone. Also, if you can cast it and attack for damage, Barbed Shocker has the same effect. Then, if you can race quickly enough, you can also try and cast Parallectric Feedback in response to Dragonstorm to deal 9 to the head, sealing the deal.

Golden: Golden cards pretty much follow the rule for the basic colors, although some more powerful cards become available. For instance, in the realm of counterspells, you can grab Overrule to push the life total over the edge. On life-gaining, more aggressive decks can also make full use of Lightning Helix, which gives you a little cushion to try and wrap things up. In the realm of crippling the combo, some of the best choices are Castigate and Seek (from Hide//Seek), since Seek on D-Storm or Hellkite might be well enough to keep you alive the rest of the game.
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