[Official Thread] TEPS

[Kijin]

TEPS is a storm based combo deck birthed on these forums by d.phoenixxx, Aidan, Nom_anor, Caboose, Mr Nightmare and mystic1110 (if I've missed anyone, please PM me). The deck was first popularized by Nim, whose list was copied by Raphael Levy at 2006 Worlds. The deck has had a steady showing on MODO since two days prior to its appearance at Worlds.
Here are some sample competitive decklists:

TEPS by Jelger Wiegersma (5-1 at Worlds 2006)
Lands: 4 Geothermal Crevice 4 Ancient Spring 4 Sulfur Vent 3 Polluted Delta 2 Bloodstained Mire 1 Steam Vents 1 Watery Grave 1 Blood Crypt 1 Swamp Spells: 4 Cabal Ritual 4 Rite of Flame 4 Seething Song 4 Burning Wish 3 Mind's Desire 3 Sins of the Past 3 Duress 1 Tendrils of Agony 4 Sensei's Divining Top 4 Careful Study 1 Chain of Vapor 4 Chromatic Star		Sideboard: 4 Defense Grid 1 Shattering Spree 1 Channel the Suns 1 Empty the Warrens 1 Tendrils of Agony 1 Sins of the Past 1 Mind's Desire 1 Duress 1 Pyroclasm 2 Chain of Vapor 1 Hull Breach

TEPS by Raphael Levy (5-1 at 2006 Worlds)
Land: 4 Sulfur Vent 3 Gemstone Mine 4 Geothermal Crevice 4 Tinder Farm Spells: 2 Channel the Suns 4 Rite of Flame 4 Darkwater Egg 4 Seething Song 4 Cabal Ritual 2 Infernal Tutor 2 Plunge into Darkness 4 Burning Wish 3 Mind's Desire 3 Sins of the Past 1 Tendrils of Agony 4 Lotus Bloom 4 Chrome Mox 4 Chromatic Star		Sideboard: 2 Empty the Warrens 1 Mind's Desire 1 Hull Breach 1 Pyroclasm 2 Tendrils of Agony 1 Channel the Suns 4 Duress 3 Orim's Chant

TEPS by jono mizer (12/18/06 1st place on MODO)
Land: 2 Archaeological Dig 2 Geothermal Crevice 3 Sulfur Vent 2 Tinder Farm Spells: 2 Burning Wish 2 Cabal Ritual 1 Channel the Suns 1 Chromatic Sphere 2 Chromatic Star 2 Chrome Mox 2 Duress (SB?) 2 Infernal Tutor 1 Lotus Bloom 2 Mind's Desire 2 Rite of Flame 2 Seething Song 1 Sins of the Past 1 Tendrils of Agony		Sideboard: 1 Mind's Desire 1 Tendrils of Agony

This thread is for discussion of the deck. All discussion should be backed, as all discussion here is, by data. The strongest data is empyrical in nature, meaning if it has appeared regularly in Competitive tournaments, the data is much more solid than if it appears once at a local event.

[mudvayne313]

Well since someone has to start this I suppose i will, what do you all think? Would you rather go off with the 1st turn Duress and the Sensi under your belt or go all out with the Lotus Bloom / Chrome Mox version?
I prefer the Duress myself, i am planning on running this deck in the upcoming PTQ's and I tested both builds, goldfishing 10 games each, and it seems that the Duress version, even with pertection, is faster.

[Jiaozy]

Originally Posted by mudvayne313

Well since someone has to start this I suppose i will, what do you all think? Would you rather go off with the 1st turn Duress and the Sensi under your belt or go all out with the Lotus Bloom / Chrome Mox version?
I prefer the Duress myself, i am planning on running this deck in the upcoming PTQ's and I tested both builds, goldfishing 10 games each, and it seems that the Duress version, even with pertection, is faster.

This is a neverending argument and in the other thread people that jumped on the bandwagon after worlds claimed they knew everything about the deck when they didn't and made statement on the matter like they knew all but they didn't and started flame wars for this.
Please don't once again

Both versions are playable and competitive, the Top version is a slower because it needs more setup via Top/Fetch but has a bit more resilience to control while the Bloom/Moxen version is a lot faster but lacks the protection and resilience of Top/Duress.

It was also said by many that Duress should be a MD card even in the Bloom version and I am playing the Top-less version due to it's speed and cut 1x Infernal Tutor (never thought I needed this bar one time in like 30 games and most of the time its a +2 Storm that changes the coours of your mana..) and 2x Plunge into Darkness from Levy's list to put 3 Duress MD adding a Sins of the Past, Chant and Empty the Warrens in the SB.

I'm still not sure of the 3/1 MD/SB configuration because I'm of the opinion that having 4 Duress MD it's more useful than having 1 to Wish for but I'm still testing it.

[plouften]

Hello all

I test this deck since his revelation at worlds and following all your discussions about it i arrive at 1 point :

We have so few slots to configure it that all of these must be perfect.

I explain :

this deck needs something like 21-23 mana sources which are basically saclands from invasion and mox/bloom in one version, saclands from invasion and fetchs/ravlands for there interaction with top for the other one.

4-8 mana fixers which are chromatic star for sure and eggs or chromatic sphere for the other. I don't know if 8 fixers are really needed cause in my test i never needed eggs to combo out

12 mana accelerators : rite of flames, seething song and cabal ritual. Nothing else to speak about; they make storm and produce needed manas. Bloom versions play Channel the suns to stabilize mana more.

Combo's pieces : 3 Mind's Desire, 3 Sins of the Past, 4 Burning Wish 1-2 ToA are accepted as basement of this deck.

So after all that let us something like 10 slots to configure for extract the best of this deck. Generally, it seems that 4 tutor/draw cards are in the deck : careful study for 1 version, infernal tutor and plunge into darkness for the other. Night's whisper could be played too.

So 6 slots in the deck are free. The top version wanna run 4 tops to make more efficient there fetchs; 1 bounce in person of Chain of Vapor is in the deck too.

In bloom versions, which is more explosive than the other and can less fight in the late game, i think MD disruption is needed. Duress is a great card for it, but u wanna play it the turn u go off so it's 1 mana less to combo out. Black mana is not a problem, but if we combo out very early maybe it could be one. Orim's chant could be a solution too, but it's the same problem than duress we need one more mana to go off. Xantid Swarm is a good solution i think, it makes the same than the others one, but could be played early and don't really cost mana the turn we go. This a creature, which could be principally Fired but why not a combination of it and duress if we find places ?

The main problems for this deck are :

Meddling Mage which seems more and more played by U/W Decks. Without any permanents bounce/destruction MD, and a mage naming Burning Wish, that push us to go in a long game which might be favorable for control player but not for us.

Counters on our mana accelerators : a remand/condescend/counterspell on lotus bloom make us losing 3 turns to go off, or maybe add 1 storm if we don't really need it. Without it, an early counter on one of our accelerators can be very bad for us.

The combo Top/Counterbalance can broke us too.

i don't have any good solutions for you and me ; i test many versions, many things that can handle our control opponents but non of them seem very good and reliable.

Thanks for reading me, and sorry for my poor english.

[d.phoenixxx]

What a nice timing by Kijin!

My list

TEPS

4 Ancient Spring 4 Sulfur Vent 4 Gemstone Mine 3 City of Brass 4 Lotus Bloom 4 Chrome Mox 4 Chromatic Star 4 Rite of Flame 3 Serum Visions 1 Duress 4 Burning Wish 4 Cabal Ritual 3 Infernal Tutor 1 Plunge into Darkness 4 Seething Song 2 Channel the Suns 1 Tendrils of Agony 3 Sins of the Past 3 Mind's Desire SB: 3 Duress 4 Orim's Chant 1 Hull Breach / 1 more empty (meta dependent) 1 Pyroclasm 2 Empty the Warrens 1 Channel the Suns 2 Tendrils of Agony 1 Mind's Desire

There is another thread for discussion at SCG forums as well. Go visit, there are some interesting choices there as well.
http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/...dfb008a#701502

[Nim]

I'll just post the last list I made here...

Mind’s Bloom
Extended//Non-Budget

Deck
Spells: 4x Cabal Ritual 4x Rite of Flame 3x Infernal Tutor 4x Burning Wish 3x Mind’s Desire 4x Seething Song 3x Sins of the Past 3x Channel the Suns 1x Tendrils of Agony Artifacts: 4x Lotus Bloom 4x Chrome Mox 4x Chromatic Star 4x Chromatic Sphere	Lands: 4x Sulfur Vent 3x Irrigation Ditch 4x Gemstone Mine 4x Geothermal Crevice	Sideboard: 4x Duress 3x Orim’s Chant 1x Mind’s Desire 1x Cabal Therapy 1x Infernal Tutor 1x Sins of the Past 1x Infernal Contract 1x Channel the Suns 1x Tendrils of Agony 1x Empty the Warrens

I was always pretty happy with it...

Anyhow...
~Nim

PS. And wow did my post count take a hit there...

[mystic1110]

ill post my current list as well at other stuff

Spoiler:

Deck
4 Geothermal crevice 3 Sulfur vent 3 irragation ditch 4 Gemstone mine 1 Tinder farm 3 Xantid swarm 4 Ornithopter 4 Lotus bloom 4 Crome mox 4 Burning wish 4 Rite of flame 4 Seething song 4 Cabal ritual 3 Minds desire 3 sins of the past 3 Channel the suns 3 Infernal tutor 1 Cromatic Star 1 Tedrils of agony		Sb 4 Cabal therapy 4 Seal of fire 2 Empty the warrens 1 Simplify 1 minds desire 1 Tedrils of agony 1 Channel the suns 1 pyroclasm

the decks intersting choices are as follows:

Md
xantid swarm- helps against the countless number of stiffels now flying around

ornithopter- another 0 mana artifact that helps up the storm count and helps provide cabal therapy fodder

1 chromatic star- this is just my attempt to keep the amount of mana fixing around 12 (channel the suns, lotus, mox, and 1 star).....this spot is debatable...

SB-
Cabal therapy - WOW...just in every way better than duress if you run creatures....this plus ornithopter is hand rapage + 3 storm count for only B....

Seal of fire...- just to deal with troublesome meddling mages....this is replaceable with chain of vapor (but youll have to tweak the mana base) and its also interchangeable with pyrite spellbomb

------------------

so far here are the games i player vs some decks

Spoiler:

BDW..

i won 6 out of 8 games played against it....the creatures were abel to soak up some damage before i took my time to combo out on turn 5 (three times) other times i comboed out around turn 4.....the three games i lost were due to the dreaded pillar ....gah hate that card like a .....ummm.....hated card

TRon...

after winning 2 games straight with xantid swarm....i stoped testing this matchup....nah just kidding...i played 7 games and won 5.....the two i lost were again due to enchantments this time under the name of rule of law and arcane lab

Rock...(not flow rock)

my creatures really suprised him...other than that pre sb ...its a ussual game...won one game turn 2 with my ornithopter just upping storm count out of nowhere...but the real diffrence (btw i went 4-3) was the double therapies.....

Flow rock ( lost 2-6)

therapy helped...but i just suck at this matchup....flow is yet another ENCHANTMENT (god hate the card type) that ruins the day for me.....

solution....

won!!..6-4

cabal therapies and xantid swarms are MVPS........+ seal of fire was a nasty suprise for medddling mage...

anyway im curious to here any opinions on my deck.... and also any ideas of how to deal with the numerous enchantments that ruin our day

hopefully this thread will live, who knows third times the charm and BTW happy holydays

Edit:

plouften welcome to the forum and that was a great anaylisis of the deck..thanks for taking the time to write it up.

Edit 2:

also a mono black controll deck is popping up here that along with the full suir of duress and cabal therapies runs ghost quarter + smallpoxas well....what should our plan be against this?

[Nom_Anor]

This is what, the third spawn of the thread. I know its been a while, but hello again. Anyway, I find the number of people testing this on MWS to be astronomical. It gets kind of boring playing against them though, because goldfishing isn't all that interesting.

Burning Desire
4 Sulfur Vent 4 Geothermal Crevice 4 Irrigation Ditch 2 Gemstone Mine 3 Mind's Desire 3 Infernal Tutor 4 Burning Wish 4 Sins of the Past 1 Death Wish	4 Chrome Mox 4 Pentad Prism 4 Chromatic Star 4 Mishra's Bauble 3 Channel the Suns 4 Rite of Flame 4 Seething Song 4 Cabal Ritual

[mudvayne313]

Originally Posted by mystic1110

ill post my current list as well at other stuff

Spoiler:

the decks intersting choices are as follows:

Md
xantid swarm- helps against the countless number of stiffels now flying around

ornithopter- another 0 mana artifact that helps up the storm count and helps provide cabal therapy fodder

1 chromatic star- this is just my attempt to keep the amount of mana fixing around 12 (channel the suns, lotus, mox, and 1 star).....this spot is debatable...

SB-
Cabal therapy - WOW...just in every way better than duress if you run creatures....this plus ornithopter is hand rapage + 3 storm count for only B....

Seal of fire...- just to deal with troublesome meddling mages....this is replaceable with chain of vapor (but youll have to tweak the mana base) and its also interchangeable with pyrite spellbomb

------------------

so far here are the games i player vs some decks

Spoiler:

cabal therapies and xantid swarms are MVPS........+ seal of fire was a nasty suprise for medddling mage...

anyway im curious to here any opinions on my deck.... and also any ideas of how to deal with the numerous enchantments that ruin our day

We do not run creatures in the deck, so running Cabal is not the best, Duress if for the control decks, all we need to do is hit their counters and they are done. Seal of Fire while effective deosnt really have a place in the deck. When I combo off it is ion average around turn 3-4, Xandid Swarm is not needed if you MD Duress IMO, in this deck I dont believe that creatures are needed at all. Otho is also not needed, it is a space filler, and going to a PTQ you do not need a space filler at all, it takes up a slot that could go to other things

[BTape]

Here's my build, which is a successful mix of Lotus and Duress.

TEPS
3 Mind's Desire 3 Sins of the Past 4 Burning Wish 2 Tendrils of Agony 3 Infernal Tutor 1 Chain of Vapor 4 Duress 4 Cabal Ritual 4 Seething Song 4 Rite of Flame 4 Chromatic Star 4 Chrome Mox 4 Lotus Bloom 4 Sulfur Vent 4 Geothermal Crevice 4 Ancient Spring 4 Gemstone Mine		Sideboard: 1 Mind's Desire 1 Sins of the Past 1 Infernal Tutor 1 Channel the suns 1 Persecute 1 Cranial Extraction 1 Cabal Therapy 1 Pyroclasm 2 Tendrils of Agony 2 Empty the Warrens 1 Firebolt 2 Chain of Vapor

[christianmc]

I think that duress is a MVP in the deck, i play it and the results are optimal.
BTape, why u run ancient spring?? i see that builds that carry serum vissions run it but i dont really understand it in ur deck :S is it for the chain of vapor only??

[Miscalcul8edRisk]

sorry i don't have much to contribute to the thread, but i was wondering, what does a typical game look like with this deck? i have seen the thread before but never paid much attention to it. i am assuming that you just produce a ton of mana asap to play a mind's desire with a moderately high storm via all the mana producing spells, producing more mana with the "free spells" via desire, then using sins of the past to essentially flashback mind's desire until you eventually have enough spells to play a tendrils to kill the opponent, or using the burning wish to fetch whatever you need including the kill condition. is this about right or am i missing something?

[mudvayne313]

Originally Posted by Miscalcul8edRisk

sorry i don't have much to contribute to the thread, but i was wondering, what does a typical game look like with this deck? i have seen the thread before but never paid much attention to it. i am assuming that you just produce a ton of mana asap to play a mind's desire with a moderately high storm via all the mana producing spells, producing more mana with the "free spells" via desire, then using sins of the past to essentially flashback mind's desire until you eventually have enough spells to play a tendrils to kill the opponent, or using the burning wish to fetch whatever you need including the kill condition. is this about right or am i missing something?

Basically depending on what build you are using, many people seem to favor, myself included, in Duress for protection, but the Sins doesnt always fetch the Desire back..i use it mostly to get Burning for tendrils or anything else i would need in the SB like the desire, you only need 10 then tendrils to win

[Miscalcul8edRisk]

what does the clock generally look like?

[Nom_Anor]

At least turn 4 about 80%
At least turn 3 about 30%
At least turn 2 about 3%
(I am speaking with my build with me piloting. Cannot really say for others.)