80% chance of Storm - Primer

Modern Combo Competitive Storm UR (Izzet)

filledelanuit

Creature (4)

• 4x Goblin Electromancer

Land (16)

• 3x Island
• 1x Mountain
• 3x Polluted Delta
• 4x Scalding Tarn
• 3x Shivan Reef
• 2x Steam Vents

Enchantment (4)

• 4x Pyromancer Ascension

Instant (19)

• 3x Desperate Ravings
• 4x Desperate Ritual
• 4x Manamorphose
• 4x Pyretic Ritual
• 4x Thought Scour

Sorcery (17)

• 4x Gitaxian Probe
• 2x Grapeshot
• 3x Past in Flames
• 4x Serum Visions
• 4x Sleight of Hand

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Sideboard

Enchantment (3)

• 3x Blood Moon

Instant (5)

• 1x Echoing Truth
• 4x Lightning Bolt

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Anger of the Gods
• 3x Empty the Warrens
• 3x Shatterstorm

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What is storm?

What is storm?

UR storm is a critical mass combo deck based around the storm mechanic. The goal of the deck is to cast 19 spells followed by Grapeshot. Storm has three engines to make this possible, Past in Flames, Pyromancer Ascension and Goblin Electromancer. Usually a combination of any two of these will result in a win. Along with these engines storm plays cantrips like Serum Visions and rituals like Desperate Rituall.

Card Choices

Card Choices

• Cantrips
  • Serum Visions - Serum Visions is the best cantrip that is modern legal (#freePreordain). The actually good cantrips like Brainstorm and Ponder are banned or were never legal so we have to make do with our suboptimal cantrips.
  • Sleight of Hand - The second best cantrip in modern. Sleight of Hand is best when going off because it allows us access to 2 cards on the combo turn and doesnt make us wait like Serum Visions.
  • Thought Scour - It fuels our Ascensions and our Past in Flames but is generally the worst cantrip in the deck. Thought Scour is very good at digging for a Past in Flames on the combo turn.
  • Gitaxian Probe - Probe is great in this deck. Being able to play around the right disruption or put a counter on your Ascension without spending any mana is an amazingly powerful effect. Newer players often forget that you can spend mana to cast this if you need to dig. With an active ascension you can dig two cards deep without paying mana and hopefully find what you need to continue with the combo.
  • Desperate Ravings - A very important cantrip despite the disdain that newer player have for it. Do not fear the randomness, youre playing storm for f@%ks sake. The fact that Desperate Ravings costs red mana is one of the reasons it is good. Its also very strong in grindy matchups where we can get card advantage by flashing it back.
• Rituals
  • Pyretic Ritual - Your generic ritual. With Goblin Electromancer out this becomes Dark Ritual. There isnt really anything special about this it just says +1 red mana +1 storm.
  • Desperate Ritual - Desperate Ritual is the best ritual we have. Splicing two together with an active ascension makes obscene amounts of mana.
• Lands
  • Steam Vents - We dont have Volcanic Island so we make do with this. We dont play four because we rarely need more to fetch more than two of these in a game.
  • Shivan Reef - This is a the best third land in the deck. We often dont need to tap it for colored mana but we can if necessary. It also play around Choke and Boil very well.
  • Scalding Tarn and Flooded Strand - They fetch red and blue producing lands. There isnt a lot to say about them.
  • Island - Gives us blue mana without pain and under a Blood Moon.
  • Mountain - Allows us to fetch a red mana source with Scalding Tarn without having to take damage from a shock land.
• Other
  • Grapeshot - Our only mainboard kill condition. Cast 19 spells then this and procede to your victory dance.
  • Manamorphose - One of the most powerful cards in the deck. With an electromancer this generates mana and cantrips at the same time. With an active ascension this becomes ancestral ritual that also color fixes your mana. This is the card that makes the deck tick. Without this most of our cantrip chains wouldnt work because we would run out of blue mana.

Strategy

Strategy

Coming soon

Sideboarding

Sideboarding

Coming soon

Matchups

Matchups

• Burn - This matchup sucks. They goldfish to an about the same turn kill but they can kill our Goblin Electromancers and have Eidolon of the Great Revel. We cannot beat a Eidolon before sideboarding unless you are running maindeck bolts. Post-board the matchup gets a little better as we have bolts for Eidolon but they still kill as fast as us and will often have more disruption in the form of Destructive Revelry.
• Affinity - This matchup is even to slightly in our favor. They have a small advantage game one as they are about half a turn faster but game two we have Lightning Bolts and Shatterstorms. Post board we are a favorite to win although they still can pull it out if we dont find our disruption.
• Infect - Game one is a disaster. The only way we have to interact is with Grapeshot. They are a full turn faster than us. Post board gets even worse. We get 4 bolts but they get access to as much disruption as they want and can easily beat a few bolts.
• UR Twin - This matchup is slightly in their favor but only barely. They can combo us out but we goldfish about half a turn faster than they do. Post board they get more controlling but we have access to Empy the Warrens and Echoing Truth to slow them down.
• Junk - This matchup sucks. This is the nightmare. They have discard, Abrupt Decay and graveyard hate mainboard and post board gets even worse. We do have the absolutely amazing trump that is Blood Moon. We can ritual this out on turn two, usually on the play, and unless they drew or fetched exactly Forest and Swamp they will be unlikely to be casting any spells for the next 4 or 5 turns.
• Grixis Delver - This matchup isnt actually horrendous. They dont actually have a very fast clck or enough counter magic. Often we can overwhelm them with threats and then combo through a Mana Leak or a Spell Snare. Post board we dont get a lot but all they have is 2 or maybe 3 more counterspells.
• Tron - This is our prey. Unlike a lot of decks we can easily beat a Wurmcoil Engine. More often than not if we can Grapeshot for 20 damage we can Grapeshot for 100 damage. Their only real hope is to stick an early Karn Liberated and ride it to victory. Post board we have Blood Moon which is an absolute beating for them and just makes this even easier.
• Bloom Titan - Game one is in their favor as they are about half a turn to a turn faster than us but they do have some problems. Just like with Tron, resolving a Primeval Titan doesnt actuall mean that were dead. It is not uncommon to have Prime Time resolve against us the next turn have we untap and just kill them. After sideboarding we have access to Blood Moon which does a lot of work. We are a favorite after sideboarding and can usually pull it out.
• Scapeshift - This is another deck that we prey on. They are a full two turns slower than us to combo and their disruption isnt very good against us. Post board they get more counterspell but we get Blood Moon which will usually slow them down for at least one turn while we kill them.

Playing Storm on a Budget

Playing Storm on a Budget

Playing Storm on a budget is relatively easy as the most two expensive cards are Scalding Tarn and Blood Moon both of which are not completely necessary and the deck functions alright without them. To make the deck cheaper we just make our mana base cheaper and cut blood moon and we have a relatively cheap but playable modern deck.

• Full deck - ~$450.00
• No Tarns - ~$315.00
• No Tarns or Moons - ~$265.00
• Budget mana base - ~$200.00
• All basics - ~$135.00

No Scalding Tarn:

3 Steam Vents3 Island4 Flooded Strand3 Polluted Delta3 Shivan Reef

Budget Mana base:

4 Steam Vents4 Shivan Reef4 Island2 Mountain2 City of Brass

To replace the Blood Moons in the sideboard we can add more Echoing Truth and some number of either Dispel or Swan Song. Neither are very expensive and are both quite reasonable especially against Twin and UWR control.

Questions, comments and cookies are welcome below, just ask (or give).

Date added	10 years
Last updated	8 years
Legality	This deck is not Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 16 - 4 Rares 15 - 7 Uncommons 22 - 4 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	1.77
Tokens	Goblin 1/1 R
Folders	decks, Other Folk's Cool Decks, Modern Decks