TES Infernal Tutoring #74

Max Carini

Coming into this situation mid-match, it’s difficult to read what the opponent is looking to protect by countering [[Thoughtseize]]. With lethal damage on board, the only winnable games are those where I can combo out and the opponent doesn’t have [[Force of Will]] + Blue card, or any other hard counter, in their two unknown cards. With only five mana at most to cast spells in hand, there’s no way to cast a second spell after getting countered, so I have to play like my opponent doesn’t have a counter, but perhaps has some sort of beatable soft counter or tech card.

My combo attempt is likely going to involve [[Beseech the Mirror]], as the [[Burning Wish]] options are greatly constrained by the opponent representing lethal flying damage. [[Song of Creation]] is likely not the pick as you’re forced into the difficult choice of holding [[Lotus Petal]] for two extra draws, thereby exposing you to [[Daze]], or playing out [[Lotus Petal]] to beat [[Daze]], but losing half your draws to start the [[Song of Creation]] sequence. With [[Song of Creation]] eliminated as an option, the other two choices are to do a chain of [[Beseech the Mirror]] into [[Tendrils of Agony]], or perform a [[Gaea’s Will]] loop.

The sequencing of [[Lotus Petal]], [[Dark Ritual]] and [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] into [[Beseech the Mirror]] gets you into the combo (or the next game in the event of the hard counter mentioned above), but what choice beats the tech card the opponent protected with [[Force of Will]]? With [[Burning Wish]] in my hand, and graveyard via [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], [[Gaea’s Will]] is actually somewhat hard to disrupt with a hypothetical [[Surgical Extraction]], so it seems like the better choice compared to the [[Beseech the Mirror]] chain that would lose to a [[Stifle]] ([[Gaea’s Will]] doesn’t as you could replay [[Thoughtseize]]). [[Stifle]] and [[Surgical Extraction]] are likely tech cards an opponent might want to defend, and aren’t hard counters that can’t be beat. [[Stifle]] is likely to be defended by [[Force of Will]] as it’s a novel and powerful-in-context effect and the opponent being on two [[Island]]s is a tell they may be on a mono-Blue or unusual two-color list that may have offbeat disruption choices like [[Stifle]], so that’s a contextual factor that pushes me to pick the loop option that gives me another use of [[Thoughtseize]].

Jordan Karim

My key concern here is the card (or cards) in our opponent’s hand that they protected with a [[Force of Will]]. The options that spring to mind are: another [[Force of Will]], [[Stifle]], [[Surgical Extraction]], or soft permission like [[Flusterstorm]], [[Daze]], or [[Spell Pierce]]. Some of these things can be beaten, but not all. Luckily, with the known [[Gut Shot]] in hand, there is less likelihood that we are facing multiple pieces of hard interaction.

Starting with clearing the stack, the next choice is to pick a lane. Since there are two action spells in hand along with two primary mana producers, playing around [[Surgical Extraction]] would be easy with a [[Gaea’s Will]] line. Our opponent can’t take a single piece that would take us off of the combo. In fact, if we work with a [[Gaea’s Will]] line, we also have access to the [[Thoughtseize]] to check for [[Stifle]] again. This is looking like a plan!

[[Lotus Petal]], [[Dark Ritual]], [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], and [[Beseech the Mirror]] (Bargain away the [[Chrome Mox]]) can be the next sequence of steps. We don’t have the mana to also play [[Burning Wish]] afterwards, but I don’t think we’ll need to. If our opponent has [[Flusterstorm]], [[Spell Pierce]], or [[Force of Will]] as interaction we lose. But if they’re holding onto a card that interacts in a different way, we can put [[Gaea’s Will]] on the stack, using [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] to make (Storm 8 | floating). If we weren’t worried about [[Stifle]], [[Tendrils of Agony]] would be lethal here notably. But since our graveyard line doesn’t lose to [[Surgical Extraction]], safety is likely the better option. If our opponent does have [[Surgical Extraction]], they can cut us off from a single mana or action spell. But since we have two of both ([[Beseech the Mirror]] + [[Burning Wish]]; [[Dark Ritual]] + [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]]), that plan will leave us with enough mana and action in our graveyard to still win while also being able to [[Thoughtseize]] on the way out. GG!

Bryant Cook

We can’t afford to pass the turn given the opponent having lethal on board. We must just accept that we lose to another counterspell such as [[Force of Will], but the key is to beat everything that we can — i.e. [[Daze]], [[Surgical Extraction]], [[Hydroblast]], etc. With a Storm count of three already, we should be able to naturally avoid [[Gaea’s Will]] to make our line resistant to [[Surgical Extraction]].

[[Lotus Petal]] (Storm 4), [[Dark Ritual]] (Storm 5), [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] (Storm 6), tap [[Boseiju, Who Endures]] to cast [[Beseech the Mirror]] (Storm 7 — Bargain [[Chrome Mox]]), [[Beseech the Mirror]] (Storm 8 — Bargain [[Lotus Petal]]), and then [[Tendrils of Agony]] (Storm 9). With [Lion’s Eye Diamond]] on the battlefield, we could even beat double [[Daze]]!

Alex McKinley

The opponent still has lethal and there is not a lot of room to maneuver. The opponent has a few reasons to cast their [[Force of Will]] rather than just let the [[Thoughtseize]] resolve. They could just be hiding information, or they could be protecting another piece of interaction. This hand can not beat another counterspell, but it can choose to beat graveyard hat with [[Song of Creation]]. I would cast [[Lotus Petal]], then [[Dark Ritual]], then [[Beseech the Mirror]] for [[Song of Creation]]. [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] gives the first trigger with plenty of cards to cast.

Oliver Everhard

We are dead on board and we need a Storm count of nine to kill with [[Tendrils of Agony]]. Perhaps the simplest path to this — deploying our artifact mana and [[Dark Ritual]] into [[Burning Wish]] for [[Tendrils of Agony]] — beats double [[Daze]] but is one Storm short of a kill.

I like deploying our artifact mana and [[Dark Ritual]], then using [[Beseech the Mirror]] from hand, bargaining the tapped [[Chrome Mox]], getting a second copy and sacrificing the [[Lotus Petal]], then getting [[Tendrils of Agony]] from deck for Storm nine. The uncracked [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] can pay for double [[Daze]] — I don’t think we’re beating the second [[Force of Will]].

Max Carini

With the floating [[Mox Opal]] mana on my side of the board and impending damage facing me down from the opponent’s side, there’s a narrow chance to unlock this board. I would need to sequence [[Boseiju, Who Endures]] first, because using floating mana for [[Consign // Oblivion]] means a “Sol Land” would just replace whatever permanent I targeted, so the game comes down to a precombat [[Boseiju, Who Endures]], end step [[Consign // Oblivion]], and then me (hopefully) hitting a good draw step to enable me to use [[Beseech the Mirror]] to win the game next turn.

With three difficult permanents on the opponent’s board and only two removal effects, this is a puzzle over what permanent I can stand to let the opponent have (at a glance, it’s definitely not the [[Null Rod]]). I need some 3rd Black source for [[Beseech the Mirror]], so the question is whether a [[Beseech the Mirror]] loop is possible through [[Unlicensed Hearse]]. If I can combo through [[Unlicensed Hearse]], I would definitely want to take out [[Chalice of the Void]] instead so that [[Dark Ritual]] is an out to cast [[Beseech the Mirror]] or a [[Burning Wish]] into [[Echo of Eons]] would be more likely to work as I would have access to cantrips and [[Dark Ritual]].

To assess the worst cases for [[Unlicensed Hearse]], you would want to see if a loop is possible with [[Unlicensed Hearse]] targeting both copies of [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] (the greatest mana constraint), or [[Unlicensed Hearse]] targeting [[Burning Wish]] + [[Tendrils of Agony]] (the greatest loop completion constraint). If you can solve for each of those extremes, it’s likely any other permutation wouldn’t be any worse of a roadblock. That said, there doesn’t seem to be a deterministic way to loop through [[Unlicensed Hearse]] targeting [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], so it seems I’m stuck removing [[Unlicensed Hearse]] (using [[Boseiju, Who Endures]] so it can’t be activated before my turn as the [[Null Rod]] would still be active) and [[Null Rod]], and then getting lucky enough to hit a 3rd Black source.

Jordan Karim

This is tough. If our opponent is sandbagging a land, we’re screwed. The [[Boseiju, Who Endures]] play would all but guarantee the ability to activate [[Battle Cry Goblin]] for a lethal combat step if they have another land to play. It still seems like the best option though, as taking two of three problems off the board will allow us to set up for a clutch draw on our next turn. The question is which two permanents need to go??

The one that speaks the least threateningly to me is [[Unlicensed Hearse]], we might be able to win through that graveyard disruption. The ability to draw into [[Brainstorm]], [[Ponder]], or [[Dark Ritual]] is too enticing not to remove the [[Chalice of the Void]]. Plus, we simply must remove [[Null Rod]] as it will be the biggest problem to deal with. So let’s bounce the [[Null Rod]] with [[Consign // Oblivion]] with the floating mana. A the end of turn, we can destroy the [[Chalice of the Void]] with [[Consign // Oblivion]]. Of note here, I don’t want to destroy the permanent first because it would give our opponent the ability to replay it if they have any land in hand. We will enter our turn with [[Beseech the Mirror]] in hand, missing one Black source with which to cast it. Any cantrips or rituals will get there, as will an [[Echo of Eons]]. Let’s slap the top of the deck and hope for the best!

Bryant Cook

This is an interesting one! Once again, the question is, “What can we afford to beat?” we have two answers but three cards stopping us from winning. [[Unlicensed Hearse]] is the fairly obvious answer here, we should try to not use the graveyard (it’s worth noting that [[Tendrils of Agony]] is in the graveyard, which means we’ll have to [[Burning Wish]] for the sideboard copy). But sometimes the right answer isn’t always that easy, we might be able to beat [[Chalice of the Void]] as well.

I would use the mana floating and destroy [[Null Rod]] for sure with [[Boseiju, Who Endures]]. Then we need to do some math! We don’t have a third black mana to cast [[Beseech the Mirror]] (looking at the lands in graveyard, it looks like our fetching patterns put is in a bad place). We have 7 lands that we want to draw between [[Misty Rainforest]], [[Bloodstained Mire]], [[Bayou]], and [[Underground Sea]] and then 4 [[Chrome Mox]], 1 [[Mox Opal]], 3 [[Burning Wish]], 3 [[Echo of Eons]], or 2 [[Cabal Ritual]] that could win the game without needing to remove the [[Chalice of the Void]]. That’s 20/45 (44%) outs to hit! Meanwhile, we have 4 [[Ponder]], 3 [[Brainstorm]], and 4 [[Dark Ritual]] that are spells that would make us want to answer the [[Chalice of the Void]].

The thing here to me is that, do we NEED to cast [[Consign // Oblivion]] at this very moment? If we don’t, we keep [[Chrome Mox]] live as an out. If we wait, untap, and do draw a [[Brainstorm]] or [[Ponder]] — then we cast [[Consign // Oblivion]] and hope to spike a [[Dark Ritual]] or [[Cabal Ritual]]. The downside to waiting is that it takes away the ability to play these cantrips into an untapped black land to win the game. I would just take the draw step and then make a decision, I would hold onto [[Consign // Oblivion]]. I don’t like the idea of banking on our cantrips to hit and needing to draw into one of them, that is too many “what ifs” to me.

Alex McKinley

The opponent has lethal on their next turn. Playing to draw a card that casts [[Beseech the Mirror]] or a [[Burning Wish]] is the best way to win this game. I would start by bouncing the [[Unlicensed Hearse]] with the floating mana. On the opponent’s end step, I would bounce the [[Null Rod]]. If the [[Null Rod]] is destroyed in the opponent’s main phase, the extra land and any Artifact mana in their hand could let them apply additional pressure or another lock piece.

Oliver Everhard

I like using the floating mana now to bounce [[Unlicensed Hearse]], crossing my fingers they don’t have a “Sol Land” in hand. We can then take out the [[Null Rod]] on their end step with the [[Boseiju, Who Endures]], denying them the easier path to a pre-combat activation of [[Battle Cry Goblin]].

Assuming they aren’t able to redeploy the [[Unlicensed Hearse]] with a Sol Land in hand, we have a clear path to a [[Gaea’s Will]] kill on our turn using the copies of [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] and [[Beseech the Mirror]].

Max Carini

Having lost [[Beseech the Mirror]] but arrived in the main phase means neither player has a turn-one kill. From here, the options are [[Thoughtseize]] (or [[Thoughtseize]] into [[Galvanic Relay]]) and the other openers would be casting [[Echo of Eons]] or trying to setup a combo (fetching a Surveil land, aggressively casting [[Brainstorm]], or using [[Lotus Petal]] to accelerate the [[Burning Wish]] for [[Echo of Eons]] intended for a future turn). The question that I would think most drives this scenario is: what could my opponent have possibly kept?

With so few cards in the opponent’s hand, I’m not excited about an early [[Echo of Eons]], but would I need to [[Thoughtseize]] the opponent to ensure I’m safe to pass? Looking at my opponent’s opener, I’m inclined to think my opponent has a hanging business spell ([[Echo of Eons]] with no [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], or [[Beseech the Mirror]]), no lands or imprintable spells (else, the opponent wouldn’t have imprinted their only land to a [[Chrome Mox]]) and a need to hit a draw to complete their hand, as they didn’t actually combo off and used [[Cabal Therapy]] as opposed to imprinting it ([[Dark Ritual]] for [[Beseech the Mirror]], [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] for [[Echo of Eons]] or a Metalcraft limitation for [[Mox Opal]]). [[Thoughtseize]] depriving the opponent of a key card would, given the opener, be at least a [[Time Walk]] as the opponent would need two different draws to complete their hand. Also, the opponent’s hand is likely all spells, given the lack of imprint options, there would certainly be other choices to discard if the case of [[Echo of Eons]] or a pair of [[Beseech the Mirror]].

With how likely [[Thoughtseize]] is to buy at least a turn, the other choice would be whether to chain [[Thoughtseize]] into [[Galvanic Relay]], or to play out artifacts and pass. Unfortunately, [[Burning Wish]] for [[Galvanic Relay]] requires playing [[Dark Ritual]] before [[Thoughtseize]], so I can’t use the contents of the opponent’s hand to inform this choice. With my current hand being so close to another [[Beseech the Mirror]] kill via [[Burning Wish]], I would be hard-pressed to get a better hand off [[Galvanic Relay]], so I would likely setup the artifacts, holding up [[Brainstorm]] as needed against discard spells, but mostly hoping to draw the colored mana or an artifact needed to win next turn via [[Beseech the Mirror]] loop.

Jordan Karim

Oh how fun it will be to win with [[Empty the Warrens]] against a Storm pilot! A [[Goblin Token]] army alongside disruption should be able to seal the deal for us, if our [[Thoughtseize]] can effectively stall them long enough. Leading on [[Bloodstained Mire]], finding a Black source, then casting [[Dark Ritual]] and [[Thoughtseize]], we can determine if we absolutely must cast [[Echo of Eons]] or we can [[Empty the Warrens]]. The [[Lotus Petal]], [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], and [[Burning Wish]] are next (Storm 5). The [[Goblin Token]] army would be 12 tokens strong, good enough for a two-turn clock. With their two worst cards in hand, our opponent would have to be very lucky to draw out of that board state. Little green men for the win!

Bryant Cook

IT’S BLACK BELCHER TIME BABY! [[Bloodstained Mire]] into [[Underground Sea]], [[Dark Ritual]], [[Thoughtseize]] and assuming our discard spell prevents them from winning we would then play [[Lotus Petal]], [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], [[Burning Wish]] into [[Empty the Warrens]] for 12 [[Goblin Token]]s. If our discard spell is not good enough. I would [[Echo of Eons]] instead. One of the interesting things about this match-up is they often refill your hand, so the risk of going for [[Empty the Warrens]] here is fairly low.

Alex McKinley

The opponent only has three cards in hand. The [[Thoughtseize]] should be able to fend off their win for enough time to draw another Artifact. The next Artifact or red source gives a deterministic [[Beseech the Mirror]] line out of the sideboard.

Oliver Everhard

We know their hand is all gas — they didn’t make a land drop. Rather than try to aggressively high roll, I’m inclined to just deploy my artifact mana and [[Thoughtseize]] them down to two cards. [[Echo of Eons]] is absolutely not on the table for me — we’re just as likely to wheel them into a win. Separately, we could go all in, [[Thoughtseize]] them and make twelve [[Goblin token]]s for the two turn clock, but especially with [[Brainstorm]] in hand, I think the likelihood of our finding a same-turn kill in the next two turns is high enough that I’d prefer to retain my resources (and potentially bluff [[Veil of Summer]] off of that [[Lotus Petal]] if need be).