~$250 competitive Kess Storm

Commander / EDH

spempy

Lands (28)

• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Darkwater Catacombs
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 12x Island
• 1x Mountain
• 1x River of Tears
• 1x Shadowblood Ridge
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Underground River

Removal (9)

• 1x Blink of an Eye
• 1x By Force
• 1x Earthquake
• 1x Into the Roil
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Snap
• 1x Terminate
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Massive card draw (3)

• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Pull from Tomorrow

Ritual effects (3)

• 1x Cabal Ritual
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x High Tide

Labman combo pieces (2)

• 1x Demonic Consultation
• 1x Laboratory Maniac

Mana rocks (14)

• 1x Astral Cornucopia
• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Prismatic Lens
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence

Counterspells (10)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Ertai's Meddling
• 1x Memory Lapse
• 1x Negate
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Unsubstantiate

Storm combo pieces (5)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Mind's Desire
• 1x Paradox Engine

Graveyard recursion (2)

• 1x Mission Briefing
• 1x Past in Flames

Wheel effects package (2)

• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Windfall

Commander (1)

Card-draw/selection (12)

• 1x Anticipate
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Careful Study
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Opt
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Serum Visions

Tutors (9)

• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Spellseeker

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Maybeboard

Upgrades (8)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Delay
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sleight of Hand
• 1x Sulfur Falls

More creature removal (5)

• 1x Black Sun's Zenith
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Fire Covenant
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Terminate

Alternative commander (1)

• 1x Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge

Other (1)

• 1x Mastermind's Acquisition

Cheaper mana rocks (3)

• 1x Coldsteel Heart
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Worn Powerstone

Graveyard hate (3)

• 1x Faerie Macabre
• 1x Shred Memory
• 1x Tormod's Crypt

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Competitive Grixis Storm built on a lean budget accessible to a casual Commander player.

You can put a combo/storm win together usually on about Turn 5-7.

The price of Demonic Tutor has dropped with the release of Ultimate Masters - consider getting a copy now while it's still at a semi-reasonable price 16/12/18

Win-conditions - overview

There are 2 main win - conditions:

1. Storm win: - draw lots of cards - string together a bunch of spells and improvise a "storm" win either you're working towards a payoff card that rewards you for casting a lot of spells and wins the game like Aetherflux Reservoir or Mind's Desire, or you're trying to generate enough mana and draw enough cards that you can assemble a game-winning combo consisting of 2-3 cards (see below).

2. Combo win - The main combo is to use Demonic Consultation to find Laboratory Maniac, then cast Demonic Consultation again from your graveyard (enabled by Kess's ability) to exile the rest of your library so you can win by casting any of your many cheap cantrips. There is also the Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal combo that generates infinite mana, and Isochron Scepter + Paradox Engine to get infinite casts of any suitable instant - eg: Opt imprinted on Isochron Scepter will draw your entire library.

Advantages of using Kess as commander

Kess opens up new lines of play - her ability to recycle a single spell from the graveyard is often the difference between finding a winning line on your storm turn or running out of mana/cards and fizzling.

If you bounce or remove Kess and replay her, then she counts as a "new" Kess and can therefore play another spell from your graveyard.

She enables a key win-condition - the Demonic Consultation/Laboratory Maniac combo - this combo can be executed with only Demonic Consultation and a cantrip in hand due to the ability to cast Demonic Consultation twice.

Kess is a mid-to-late-game value engine - use all your cantrips to dig for resources, then play Kess and re-use those cantrips to keep digging for combo pieces. Or recycle a removal spell or counterspell to protect a spell on your turn.

Her 3/4 Flying body is relevant - discourages attacking by small creatures, she is out of the range of Lightning Bolt.

Begin storming off

There are a few ways to get started storming off. The main thing to understand is that Storm is fuelled by mana and cards.

1. Ad Nauseam - draw lots of cards Be really greedy, go down to about 5 life - it's safest to cast Ad Naus in your opponent's end step so you can then begin your turn with all your lands and mana rocks untapped. The deck has trouble generating enough mana to successfully storm-off with a main-phase Ad Naus unless it's late game and you have a lot of lands/mana rocks out already.

2. Paradox Engine + a way of getting lots of cards such as Pull From Tomorrow, Windfall, or Past in Flames. Paradox Engine requires setup = the aim is not to cast Paradox Engine until you have enough cards available to win that turn - if you have to pass the turn with a Paradox Engine on your board, competent opponents will try to remove it or take you out of the game first.

3. Notion Thief + Windfall or an opponent's "Wheel" effect - this combo forces your opponents to discard their hands so they can't interact with you and you get to draw every card they would have drawn - brutal! The way to set it up is usually to flash in Notion Thief on the end step of your opponent to your right, then untap and cast Windfall. If you're playing against Nekusar or Edric it's even easier to achieve a blowout with Notion Thief.

Storm tools

The aim is to get as much mana and as many cards as you can - you're constantly trying to find a line of play that gives you more gas in the tank until you reach a critical mass where storming starts to become a self-perpetuating process.

1. Paradox Engine: this card is not good in full price lists because it's unnecessary and the high CMC hurts too much when drawn with Ad Naus. However, since the budget deck is starved for mana-positive spells like Mana Crypt, Chrome Mox, etc, we need a way to convert all our spells so that we're not constantly losing mana whenever we cast them - Paradox Engine is our most reliable way of doing that.

2. Rituals - Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, High Tide, Dramatic Reversal - kick start the storm turn/combo turn with extra mana. High Tide is particularly effective with Frantic Search and Snap. Rituals can be re-used by Kess, Past in Flames, Mission Briefing.

3. Massive card draw - Windfall, Ad Nauseam, Pull from Tomorrow

4. Graveyard recursion - get access to more cards to find a winning line - Past in Flames, Mission Briefing, Kess

Winning with Storm

There are 2 main ways of doing this:

1. Aetherflux Reservoir - sequence together a large number of spells (usually with the help of Paradox Engine) until you've cast enough to zap each opponent with 50 damage. You should almost always be able to take them all out this way in a single turn. However, if you can't quite get there, then you should be able to gain at least 50 life before passing the turn. Being able to instantly zap your opponents out of the game with your Reservoir puts you in a strong bargaining position - they will be reluctant to try to win or mess with your board-state.

2. Mind's Desire - sequence together enough spells to cast Mind's Desire with a storm count of 8-10 - the free spells you get to cast off the top of your deck will allow you to piece together a game-winning combo, or give you more gas to keep storming off until you find a win-condition.

Combo wins

1. Demonic Consultation + Laboratory Maniac. Requires Kess in play and a cheap cantrip (eg: Gitaxian Probe) in hand. Cast Demonic Consultation naming Laboratory Maniac, find Lab Man and cast him, cast Demonic Consultation naming a random card that isn't in your deck to exile your library, cast your cantrip to attempt to draw a card from an empty library with LabMan in play, thus winning the game. This is the most slot-efficient combo in the deck (only requires 1 combo card - Demonic Consultation) and it's the combo to prioritise if you have the resources to set it up. There is a small chance you will reveal LabMan in your top 6 cards and automatically lose, but that's what card games are all about - taking calculated risks. Mission Briefing lets you re-use Demonic Consultation if Kess's ability isn't available.

2. Isochron Scepter with Dramatic Reversal imprinted. Requires mana rocks in play that tap to produce a total of 3 mana or more and some way of using the infinite mana and storm-count created by the combo. This combo isn't as good as it is in decks where your commander is an infinite mana/storm count sink (Thrasios, Oona, Tasigur, Locust God, Niv Mizzet, etc) but it's still pretty damn good - Kess has a habit of revealing a new line of play to find an infinite mana sink, eg: recycle a tutor from your graveyard to find Aetherflux Reservoir, or re-use your Pull From Tomorrow to draw your whole deck.

3. Isochron Scepter + a repeatable instant imprinted + mana rocks + Paradox Engine - cast the imprinted spell an infinite number of times. This can do a variety of things - draw your entire library (Opt/Brainstorm/Impulse/kicked Into the Roil/Blink of an Eye), remove your opponents' libraries from the game (Reality Shift), create infinite 2/2 Bird tokens (Swan Song), etc. This also creates infinite storm count for Aetherflux Reservoir.

Putting the win together

Tutors are what makes the deck function - without them you would hardly ever find your combo pieces. You're trying to use your card-draw spells to aggressively dig for tutors to find your combo pieces and the resources you need to pay for your combo spells and protect them from interference from opponents.

Interacting with opponents

This is not a control deck. You're trying to use as few resources as possible keeping yourself in the game so that you can put together a combo/storm win as soon as possible.

Don't counter a spell unless it would cause you to lose the game, or takes out enough of your mana rocks to set you back a very long way.

Don't bounce or remove creatures unless you absolutely cannot afford the lose of life when they hit you. Board-wipes are in the deck to protect your life-total or remove mana-generating creatures. Kess lets you re-use your board-wipes.

Should I keep or mulligan?

The deck is very light on lands and has a lot of cheap draw spells - one-land opening hands are common and are keepable if you have a cantrip like Preordain to find your next land-drop.

You ideally want 1 tutor in your opening hand, but if not it's ok to keep if you have a couple of cantrips to start digging or Windfall to just dump your mana rocks and then refill your hand with more action.

Try not to mulligan down to 5. A mediocre 6 card hand is usually better than starting the game with only 5 cards, even if those cards are good - you'll run out of gas quickly.

Opening hands that have a lot of mana-rocks but no tutors or draw spells are to be avoided - you'll ramp into nothing.

Modifying the deck to suit your budget

To save about $30, remove Mana Vault and Lotus Petal and replace with Worn Powerstone and Coldsteel Heart.

On the other hand, if you are able to spend a little more money to make the deck better, I recommend the following changes:

out: Anticipate, in: Sleight of Hand

out: Ertai's Meddling, in: Delay

out: Coldsteel Heart, in: Cyclonic Rift

out: Negate, in: Pact of Negation

out: Careful Study, in: Sensei's Divining Top

out: Crumbling Necropolis, in: Sulfur Falls

out: Diabolic Tutor, in: Demonic Tutor

Date added	6 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 29 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 27 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.07
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Manifest 2/2 C, Spirit 1/1 C
Folders	decks i like, My budget cEDH decks, Copy Deck, Fav Decks, EDH Good stuff, KESS, Favorites, general, kess, Decks to make