Storm is a combo deck built around the storm mechanic, generally aiming at winning with a sufficiently large Empty the Warrens or Tendrils of Agony. The deck generally aims at spending the first few turns setting up by sculpting its own hand with cantrips like Brainstorm, Ponder, and Preordain and picking apart the opponent's hand with discard like Cabal Therapy, Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek, or Thoughtseize. When the deck is ready to go off, which is frequently around the third turn, it plays a series of rituals and other mana acceleration spells - Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Lotus Petal, and Lion's Eye Diamond being the most common, but Rite of Flame, Rain of Filth, Chrome Mox, and Mox Opal are all occasionally used as well - culminating in an Infernal Tutor, Dark Petition, or Burning Wish, holding priority to sacrifice any LED's in response. The tutor generally grabs either Ad Nauseam or Past in Flames. Ad Nauseam draws a significant number of cards, frequently allowing the player to continue to play rituals and cantrips, then a second tutor into Tendrils for the win. Past in Flames instead lets you play the rituals and cantrips already in the graveyard - this is safer as it does not eat into the life total, but requires more setup to get the right colors of mana and enough cantrips to draw into a win condition.
The two primary builds are ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) and TES (The Epic Storm). The former runs more black rituals (Cabal and Rain) and leans more heavily on Ad Nauseam with Tendrils for the win. The latter runs Rite of Flame and Burning Wish with more Past in Flames and generally ends on Empty the Warrens. TES is a little faster, but ANT is a bit more resilient against control decks like Miracles.
ANT, 3rd Place SCG Classic Pittsburgh
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