[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils)

[rnightingale]

Thanks sir :)

So, the pile should look like this ?

Top : Brainstorm or Shelldock
2nd : Brainstorm or Shelldock
3rd : ??????? (Trickbind, CoV, Duress)
4th : Doomsday
Bottom : Emrakul, Aeons Torn

Please bear with me, this is my first time using DD Sideboard. Originally, my sideboard is like this..

4 BOB
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Nighthawk
3 Clique

and i wanna try mr. Lax' build ^^

is it safe to use Dream's Grip/Cloud of Faeries to untap my Shelldock Isle?

[seamonkeyman]

Very interesting sideboard rnightingale. I never thought of trying something like that.
I'm assuming that you would side out, all tutors, LEDs, Ad Nauseaun and IGG, and then some Preordains to reach the full 15.

How did it work for you? We Nighthawks good enough to be competitive in Legacy? Did you just feel like a bad beatdown deck?
I guess since people would miss-board I could see it being good.

[practical joke]

This weekend I ran the following decklist, currently named TNT.

It's actually more like ANT than it is towards TES:

2 islands
1 swamp
1 underground sea
1 volcanic island
1 badlands
4 scalding tarn
4 polluted delta
1 bloodstained mire
2 chrome mox
4 lotus petal
4 lion's eye diamond
4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
4 infernal tutor
3 burning wish
4 duress
3 thoughtseize
3 preordain
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
2 ad nauseam

SB:
1 deathmark
1 ill-gotten gains
1 tendrills of agony
1 tropical island
4 xantid swarm
1 pulverize
1 thoughtseize
3 chain of vapor
1 diminishing returns
1 empty the warrens


and a small report (102 players):

Round 1: bye

Round 2: Dark Horizons (2-1)
Game 1: I win after a duressing his hymn and win shortly after through Ad nauseam from high
Game 2: Dark horizons does it's thing, seize, hymn, verdict, so I cast diminishing returns for a new hand instead of a few tokens, he draws wasteland + seize and goes wasteland, vindicate, seize. next game for me it was.
Game 3: I overpowered the dark horizons deck big time. He stood no chance.

Round 3: Fatty-Fatty-Boom-Boom 1-2 (yes it's named like that, tempo-deck with stiflenought and hex-depths as win-cons)
Game 1: I seize his hand, see FoW + LDV, take out vault make 16 tokens which get there easily
Game 2: Each cantrip goes into dubbel or triple land and after shuffling goes into a new land, I somehow collected a decent hand with burning wish, infernal tutor and LED, so could've done something nice next turn: seize, extirpate wish....riiiiight
Game 3: I take a risky hand, petal for brainstorm for a land...no land he goes T2 dreadnought with FoW back-up and a dispell (wel counters ad nauseam that's for sure)

Round 4: Death and Taxes or something similar 2-0
Game 1: he goes Mother of Ruins, confidant, dies by tendrills. not much happened here
Game 2: he goes mother of ruins, ethersworn canonist. I find 2 chain of vapors pretty fast and eoT bounce, my turn bounce...kill him with ad nauseam from 16, flipping a second one, but easily get there with 6 life left

Round 5: Dredge 2-0
Game 1: we both fail in finding action, but I do so before him and therefore he dies.
Game 2: funny, he goes T3 for ancestor (lifecount 47) and a buttload of zombies, I have 15 life left.
infernal tutor for second LED (3 lands in play), play second infernal tutor, sac LED's discard ad nauseam + burning wish. Get a buttload of cards play some petals+ chrome moxen, get my 4th led with infernal tutor, play led's some brainstorms and then burning wish for ill-gotten gains and finish it from there. 25 storm...pew pew

Round 6: Bant-something 2-0
Game 1: I duress him, he has actually nothing, take him down
Game 2: same thing happened, wasn't even hard

Round 7: Dark horizons (couldn't ID for T8 due to resistance and odd up/downpairs during the day)
Game 1: He goes T2 teeg, I take it out, at that point have LED + infernal tutor. he topdecks hymn like a champ and I lose shortly after.
Game 2: T1 kill
Game 3: I have a good hand, he start with seize for ad nauseam, then I ponder for a new land, he has another seize for burning wish, I still have brainstorms. 4 cantrips further I still have no business and he goes for e. tutor into canonist (no biggy). I end the game 5 turns later with in play 4 lands + petal, on hand, 3 LED, 3 dark ritual 1 infernal tutor (last draw that was). I continuesly shuffled away my mana during brainstorms and all other cantrips. in the end, my cantrips failed on me.

Ah well, you win some you lose some.
I was extremely satisfied with the deck (except that it crapped on me for T8), it has a very high potential for the field since it's versatile but ridiculously resilient to a lot of things.
However your ill-gotten gains do require more mana, but your ad nauseam is extremely good (even with the second ad nauseam)

I wasn't very satisfied with my 5-2 end, but heck..shit happens = )

Possible changes

-1 seize for +1 preordain (depends, in a high combo + CB meta I want the seize)
-1 deathmark for +1 pyroclasm...I never wanted the deathmark ever instead of the pyroclasm, not true I once was happy I could cast the deathmark in my turn instead of waiting a turn with the pyroclasm, but the clasm would've cleared teeg+confidant instead of just 1.
still reconsidering what's best.

[Fossil4182]

Thanks sir :)

So, the pile should look like this ?

Top : Brainstorm or Shelldock
2nd : Brainstorm or Shelldock
3rd : ??????? (Trickbind, CoV, Duress)
4th : Doomsday
Bottom : Emrakul, Aeons Torn

Please bear with me, this is my first time using DD Sideboard. Originally, my sideboard is like this..

4 BOB
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Nighthawk
3 Clique

and i wanna try mr. Lax' build ^^

is it safe to use Dream's Grip/Cloud of Faeries to untap my Shelldock Isle?

I've been looking at a similar sideboard plan for CB decks as post board, UW ThopSword decks are almost unwinnable due to the high degree of threats they bring in against your combo and/or Doomsday. Specifically, the local meta here has Leyline of Sanctity, Runed Halo, Ensnaring Bridge, Needle, Cannonist, plus the usual business. That combination of cards make it next to impossible to win with Tendrils or Doomsday imho. The board I'm currently working with looks like this:

4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Dark Confidant
3 Krosan Grip
1 Tropical Island
2 Thoughtseize
1 Wipeaway

Negator is so good against them postboard. As a clock, he's faster than Tarmogoyf because he starts at five power and Goyf would need seven power to make him a turn faster. He does cost one more, but with all the ritual effects and lotus petal, he's still likely to resolve turn one or two. Plus, even if he resolves on turn three as opposed to turn two, Goyf has to be greater than 4 power on turn three for it to be a faster clock. The odds of them being able to damage him with any consistency are fairly small and ultimately irrelevant. Cannonist is worth sacrificing two permanents to kill and if they get the sword combo online, you're probably dead anyway. Bob is good because its a great to answer their card filtering via Top. Grip and Wipeaway are nice because they remove things like Bridge and Humility if they resolve.

[claudio.r]

With the recent jump on Legacy staples prices i decided i'm going to invest in my dream deck since i started playing the format, and that is probably going to be the last Legacy deck i spend my money on... ANT.

I already have 2 LEDs coming and yet some investment to do. Having said this, i've been lurking the thread for a while now, and i watched a lot of videos, read a lot about it. I want the first incarnation of my deck to be straight UB and without Grim tutor (for the obvious reasons). Should i go the chrome mox way? i really didn't want to play 2 copies of Ad Nauseam, but is it the best choice?

To put it straight, what you guys think is the best UB list without grim?

Another thing i wanted to know is: i understand the deck as 3 ways of "going off", Ad Nauseam, Ill-gotten gains and tutor chains, i clearly understand the first two ones, and even started to explore the IGG loops for some time. What i'm still not seeing is how the tutor chains happen, in what conditions they happen and what are the conditions they need to happen. Can someone "explain" those to me?

Thx in advance, and sorry about my english... not a native ;)

[Diprivan]

To put it straight, what you guys think is the best UB list without grim?

Another thing i wanted to know is: i understand the deck as 3 ways of "going off", Ad Nauseam, Ill-gotten gains and tutor chains, i clearly understand the first two ones, and even started to explore the IGG loops for some time. What i'm still not seeing is how the tutor chains happen, in what conditions they happen and what are the conditions they need to happen. Can someone "explain" those to me?

Tutor chains chain tutors.

For example: turn 3, you have ***** and cantrips yielded a hand of 1 dark ritual, 2 cabal ritual, 1 led, 1 duress, infernal tutor. (oppo plays irrelevant deck, no counters)
With 2 lands, you duress, play your mana (12 total, 1 land, +2 DR, +3+3 cabals, +3 LED) infernal tutor (storm 6, 10 mana), infernal tutor (storm 7, 8 mana), infernal tutor (storm 8, 6 mana), infernal tutor (storm 9, 4 mana), toa (storm 10, 0 mana)

Tutor chains have the benefit of offering a guaranteed win without relying on GY (iggy) or life total (Adn).

For the best UB list of the moment,
I don't play a UB list, so I won't answer that question.
(I prefer the burning wish lists)

[claudio.r]

I might be wrong but chaining tutorsshould happen when you have the time to sculpt your hand for a few turns right? Not a lot of decks give you that opportunity to that. On other side a lot of the people i read seam to use tutor chains as their primary win condition. Are they really that prevalent? Maybe it's the nature of the deck... it's so heavy on mana producers that those hands happen a lot...

[lorddotm]

I might be wrong but chaining tutorsshould happen when you have the time to sculpt your hand for a few turns right? Not a lot of decks give you that opportunity to that. On other side a lot of the people i read seam to use tutor chains as their primary win condition. Are they really that prevalent? Maybe it's the nature of the deck... it's so heavy on mana producers that those hands happen a lot...

Tutor chain is something you do when you have a lot of mana. Its that simple.

[Malakai]

If you haven't played the deck I really recommend against trying to tweak one to fit your budget or playstyle. This is generally a bad decision with any deck, but with storm it's even worse. Go with one of the established lists:

-Ari's straight UB
-My UBr with Burning Wish
-the list that top8'd with Chrome Mox and double Ad Nauseam
-emidln's Doomsday list, which should probably just have its own thread (if it doesn't already).

[Admiral_Arzar]

If you haven't played the deck I really recommend against trying to tweak one to fit your budget or playstyle. This is generally a bad decision with any deck, but with storm it's even worse. Go with one of the established lists:

-Ari's straight UB
-My UBr with Burning Wish
-the list that top8'd with Chrome Mox and double Ad Nauseam
-emidln's Doomsday list, which should probably just have its own thread (if it doesn't already).

Agreed on the not tweaking part. Become familiar with the deck first, these decks are too complicated to be doing tweaking without experience. As for Doomsday, do NOT play that deck as a new storm player. Those lists can be found in the Fetch Tendrils thread.

[claudio.r]

Definitely, i want to start from scratch with a straight simple UB list and go from there until i find wich of the lists suits me best. I've been reading a lot (including trying to get on par with this thread wich is huge) and watching some videos, and hopefully will start goldfishing soon. There were ust some things i wanted to understand first, so, thanks for the help everyone.

[JamieW89]

I played the same event as Practical Joke last Sunday, here’s a small report & my list.

// Main deck: 60
1 Snow-Covered Island (Never had problems with only 1 basic)
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland (Way better than the second Tundra during the day)
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Marsh Flats

4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
2 Chrome Mox

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain

4 Infernal Tutor
2 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Orim’s Chant
3 Silence

// Sideboard: 15
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Tropical Island
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
4 Doomsday
1 Emrakul
1 Shelldock Isle

Report:

Prelude:
I get home at 5.15 AM totally drunk, always a good way to prepare for a large tournament.. I play the deck I’ve been testing lately, ANT with white for chants. As I expected loads of combo and no countertop I packed chants over duress. I debated over the DD package side as the surprise it a bit gone by now but I didn’t want to just roll over to CounterTop so I played it anyways. I played a Scrubland over the second Tundra so I can have UBWW open when I only have 2 lands, which was relevant at least once.
I aim to mulligan properly as I tend to keep way too many hands and to combo off the most efficient and least risky way whenever I can.
Three of my teammates call off for lame reasons (tired, hangover etc.) so I head over to the tournament with three others. One is playing 3c TES, one is playing 4c CounterTop and the other plays a weird homebrew which could surprise people. The TES player drops after going 2-3, the CounterTop player gets close to Top-8 with 4-1-2 with both draws being in his favor. The guy playing the homebrew ends up with 1-5 drop, things didn’t go his way that day.

Round-1: Ture with The Rock 2-0 (1-0)
Game-1 I keep a mediocre hand and my lonely cantrip doesn’t find anything. However his hymn doesn’t hit too much and I topdeck infernal like a pro. I can IGG out on turn-3 or so.
Game-2 I kept a much better hand including a Chain of Vapor and Infernal Tutor. He has a turn-2 canonist but that’s no problem and I cantrip a few times. I eventually play out 2 LED’s, bounce them with chain of vapor, bounce the canonist and tutor chain him out.

Round-2: Jasper with Bant Aggro 2-0 (2-0)
Game-1 I put him on combo before the match but he leads with trop into hierarch. My 2 chants are still pretty awesome in this matchup and I can easily win through IGG.
Game-2 I decide to board in the DD plan as he might be playing CounterTop, and it’s not bad against band without wastelands. I resolve a turn-2 doomsday and win. After the match he tells me he plays KoTR, Wastelands and Stifle. Guess I got lucky there lol.

Round-3: Daniel with Affinity 2-1 (3-0)
Game-1 I keep a 7 I shouldn’t have kept and don’t draw too much action. I can chantwalk him 2 or 3 times though and eventually have a desperate Ad Nauseam attempt from 4 which was fairly hopeless.
Game-2 I take beats for a while while sculpting my hand. His clock is slow, so he must have some disruption. He hits me with cabal therapy which slows me down a fair bit but I recover. On 11 life I combo out with chant protection and see multiple Traps and another Therapy in his hand.
Game-3 I can tutor chain after a few turns with chant protection, thanks to his Ancient Tomb doing some of the work for me. He forgets he can trap the chant after a cantrip and petal, but as he only had 1 trap it wouldn’t have mattered.

Round-4 Sander with Spiral Tide 1-2 (3-1)
Game-1 I’m quite happy to sit at table-1 at this stage in the tournament and with all the combo everywhere I’m happy about my chants as well. I expect a storm mirror but get a high tide matchup. I’m too fast for him in the first game and IGG takes it home.
Game-2 I can’t resolve a Swarm or Chant as he seemed to have a lot of protection (he played 4 FoW, 4 Counterspell and Wish for PoN/Trap). Eventually he goes off after turnabouting me in my endstep.
Game-3 I infernal for a 2nd chant ready to go off the next turn but it was one turn late. I chant him twice when he tries to go off but he has the force and wish for pact. I sac LED in response to Time Spiral and chant him again after that resolves but he has another counter. He kills me with brainfreeze which makes me sad I didn’t board in Emrakul (would invalidate Ad Nauseam).

Round-5 Eric with Fatty Boom Booms 2-0 (4-1)
Game-1 I know what he’s playing and he’s been stomping combo so far today. He has a fast clock with StifleNought/Dark Depths as well as quite a few counters and Null Rod/Extirpate side. He has a turn-2 confidant game-1, not much else in the early turns. I have a chant and when he brainstorms and forces I put him on no extra counters. I kill him with Ad Nauseam.
Game-2 He has double Null Rod, a force for my Xantid Swarm and 2 wastelands leaving me on one island. Then he extirpates my Tropical to keep me off swarm (I only play one trop) and brainstorms to stop me from finding answers. Had he played these extirpates better he’d have problably won. I eventually get there after topdecking a fetchland with him only having 1 card in hand. I tutor chain him out.

Round-6 Andy with Burn 2-0 (5-1)
Game-1 I was surprised to see burn come this far, but he’s a decent player. He gets me to 13 before I IGG him out I think, with bolt and fireblast taking me down to 6 before he dies.
Game-2 I have a pretty funny turn-2 kill along the lines of; LED,LED,Petal,Petal,Chain of Vapor(LED,LED,Petal),LED,LED,Petal,Infernal,Infernal, Tendrils. How lucky! Now I expect to draw in and am pretty happy.

Round-7 Christian (GoboLord on TS) with Goblins 1-2 (5-2)
Game-1 We see that we cannot draw in as only a miracle would get me in so we have to play. I offer him a prizesplit for total prizes to split risks (when it’s either $10 or $200 I’d rather be safe.) but he refuses. I combo out through Ill-Gotten Gains on turn-3.
Game-2 I mull to a 6 full of cantrips and find nothing at all. He also kills me turn-3 which is pretty hard to race anyways.
Game-3 I lead off with a cantrip shaping a decent hand if he doesn’t have hate. He plays a chalice at 0 for his first turn along with a lackey. I then draw a LED and preordain into a 2nd one. Lame. I draw tendrils next turns and he removes AdN/AdN/IGG from my deck with Earwig Squad. I can still tendrils him for 18 (he’s on 19) so I just have to hope he traps something irrelevant as I’m on lethal. He does not and I finish shared 9th. Sad end to a good day.

Overall I had pretty good matchups, although I would have like to play the storm mirror. Shame I couldn't draw in and then lost to goblins of all decks, but it happens I guess.
I definately liked the deck and would probably play it again next tournament, although I'll give the red splash for just Bwish a shot sometime.

[addaro]

Hello,

I just played a small tourney after 4 months break. I played Practicals ANT (4 Tutors 2 AD Nauseam) and I just sailed smoothly through an unprepared field (finished spliting finals). The thing I hate most is that I had only one first turn kill and two second turns, in all other games I just kept digging and digging :/ With this list I was just hoping that the next Ponder will hit some good cards, that the next Brainstorm will change my hand and the next Preordain will allow me to win. Nevertheless I want to thank you Practical for this list (and Ari for the original one that served as the starting point). Hope you guys come up with good TNT list fast :)

PS: I was again able to do over 40 dmg with bunch of rituals, Tendrils and then IGG and Tendrils again. Fun stuff.

[Malakai]

Please remember at all times that it doesn't matter what turn you win on--it matters whether you do or not.

[addaro]

Allright, let me rephrase that: UB is cool version of ANT but 6 bussiness is too few and 12 cantrips is a lot, I was just cantriping and cantriping looking for bussiness and gave my opponents plenty of time to do the same! Because of that I had to fight through many hatebears and a lot of discard. If some of those cantrips were bussiness I could have won earlier (turn 1 win makes you immune to all their interaction except FoW). But I still understand the strenghts that straight UB with so many cantrips brings. That is why I wanted to thank the deck creators and encourage them to evolve the build with the Burning Wishes (Im nowhere near their player level to develop my own), which I hope will have all the strengths and fewer weakneses.

But nevertheless you are right, winning is important and it doesnt matter at what turn. But you can save yourself a lot of trouble. For example a nearly Standard deck killed me on turn 3 (me on the draw just cantriping) with Kiln Fiend. Affinity did turn 2 Lodestone Golem or discard. Junk did the usual, Thoughtseize, Hymn, then Goyf for short clock.

[addaro]

Allright, let me rephrase that: UB is cool version of ANT but 6 bussiness is too few and 12 cantrips is a lot, I was just cantriping and cantriping looking for bussiness and gave my opponents plenty of time to do the same! Because of that I had to fight through many hatebears and a lot of discard. If some of those cantrips were bussiness I could have won earlier (turn 1 win makes you immune to all their interaction except FoW). But I still understand the strenghts that straight UB with so many cantrips brings. That is why I wanted to thank the deck creators and encourage them to evolve the build with the Burning Wishes (Im nowhere near their player level to develop my own), which I hope will have all the strengths and fewer weakneses.

But nevertheless you are right, winning is important and it doesnt matter at what turn. But you can save yourself a lot of trouble. For example a nearly Standard deck killed me on turn 3 (me on the draw just cantriping) with Kiln Fiend. Affinity did turn 2 Lodestone Golem or discard. Junk did the usual, Thoughtseize, Hymn, then Goyf for short clock.

[mort-]

... encourage them to evolve the build with the Burning Wishes...


Great, that is exactly what I wanted to talk about :D
Basicly, I've been playing ANT for about 1 1/2 years now, starting with a ohmygodsostrange UWRB build, knowing nothing about Legacy at all and still being able to go 6-3 at Germanmagic 1 (what a lucksack I am ;D). After the tourney, reading this thread and learning more about Legacy, I started to play UB, first with Mystical Tutor, then with Preordain in the Mystical slot (list will follow).
Now - I really like the list. You can play very passive with all the cantrips and still be able to be the aggressor, letting your opponents make some mistakes while being to hasty, getting the perfect hand within a few turns and basicly saying fuck you to any deck that hopes to disrupt your mana base with Wastelands.

So currently I'm playing this:

2x Swamp
2x Island
3x Underground Sea
4x Polluted Delta
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Flooded Strand
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
2x Ad Nauseam
4x Brainstorm
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
2x Chrome Mox
1x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Preordain
4x Ponder
4x Infernal Tutor
3x Duress
3x Thoughtseize
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard:

4x Dark Confidant
3x Krosan Grip
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Smother
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Echoing Truth
1x Rebuild
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Tropical Island

Sensei's Divining Top is a filler in this list. I wasn't sure if I wanted to play the Top or a Chain, chosing Top to test in a few tournaments and never going back due to having x millions of black mana and no Tendrils in my hand and being able to still get the Tendrils with a bit of shuffling and Top-action (and one time drawing blind with 4 Mana left, smashing Tendrils on the table ;)).
Still, while being a good option and sometimes a real gamechanger (it also did pull a Force or two), I don't like it too much. Same goes for Ill-Gotten Gains. Don't get me wrong, I do think it's a strong card, but it's also dead too often. And I don't like getting four damage in my Nauseam only for some Chrome Mox fodder.
Long story short: Bazaar of Moxen 5 is right around the corner and I'm not sure if I want to try something not tested (at least not by me), or if I should stay at the list that I'm more familiar with.
So, this is what I'm pondering about right now:

2x Swamp
2x Island
1x Underground Sea
1x Tropical Island
1x Volcanic Island
4x Polluted Delta
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Flooded Strand
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
2x Ad Nauseam
4x Brainstorm
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
2x Chrome Mox
2x Burning Wish
4x Preordain
4x Ponder
4x Infernal Tutor
3x Duress
3x Thoughtseize
1x Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard:

4x Dark Confidant
2x Krosan Grip
1x Reverent Silence
1x Death Mark
1x Smother
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Eye of Nowhere
1x Rebuild
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ill-Gotten Gains

Maindeck:
- 2x Underground Sea
- 1x Sensei's Divining Top
- 1x Ill-Gotten Gains

+ 1x Tropical Island
+ 1x Volcanic Island
+ 2x Burning Wish

Sideboard:
- 1x Krosan Grip
- 1x Slaughter Pact
- 1x Echoing Truth
- 1x Tropical Island

+ 1x Reverent Silence
+ 1x Death Mark
+ 1x Eye of Nowhere
+ 1x Ill-Gotten Gains

First things first: I'm not sure if I like the Tropical Island maindeck, but it seems necessary to play with Reverent Silence and the little sideboardspace I have. That and the fact that I'm basicly showing my Counterbalancing opponent that he has to calculate green in my sideboard is the only thing I don't like about this. Basicly, Wastelands shouldn't matter that much. I don't want to fetch on green in the first game (well.. I'll do if I have to), same goes for red. On the very positive side, with Burning Wishes main, I should be able to always get a Tendrils after Nauseam. Also, Extirpate is not GG anymore.
Having an out against a Counterbalance G1 is also very positive.
Still, I'm not sure about this. It seems really strong on paper, but I have no tournaments to attend until BoM 5, so I won't be able to gain any live experience with the list.
What are your thoughts? I saw some of you experimenting with this kind of build while reading the last few pages before writing this, but they always had a bigger redsplash - and I didn't want to change too much.

Thank you very much.

Florian

[AriLax]

If you want to kill on turn 1/2, play SI.

The current builds of ANT are designed for consistency. You almost always have it on three, usually have the disruption back up (or aggressive disruption to stop faster kills), and if you don't need to kill on three each extra turn things keep improving.

Adding Burning Wish is not going to speed the deck up. Even TES does not hard kill on T1/2 without Ad Naus, a lot of it's T1/2 combos end with 10 Goblins.

If you add more tutors, finding mana becomes just as much of a limiting factor.

In the whole time I've played this deck, I've never lost to T1 combo (Belcher/SI) because they can't beat Duress on 1 + Turn 3/4 kill.

In the whole time I've played this deck, I've never lost to Junk. Sometimes they Hymn and hit your 2 best cards, but more often your cantrips are better at recovering than they are at disrupting. Of the GAMES I've lost or seen others lose to Junk, ~80% are due to Hymn being double Duress or Ad Naus at 13+ missing.

Turn 2 hate bear MD is a problem for this list game 1. If this is an issue play SI and win on 1 or play DD and get Chain kills.

Edit: This post is directed at addaro.

[practical joke]

@ Ari, burning wish adds more solutions to new problems (mainboard Teeg for example)

you hardly change the deck, what I've done is simply remove the high mana costs of crap and replace it with wiht


-1 preordain/thoughtseize
-1 tendrills
-1 iggy

+3 wish

easy as that.

The only thing that you change is a much better ad nauseam, a worse ill-gotten gains (but goblins shouldn't be harder at all), solutions to mainboard hate (which I see a damn lot here in the netherlands since like 25%+ is combo)

The manabase remains the same with some different duals (wasteland my ass) since you only need a red mana when combo-ing off, these mostly come from LED anyways. (sometimes from duals, but rarely)

Sideboard is wishboard + xantids + chains, no more doomsday. Since counterbalance is pretty dead it's no biggy, but with 7 protection spells the MU is still doable.

you can still lsoe vs the Rock since combo can always shit on you, but under normal circumstances you should win this.

[AriLax]

@ Ari, burning wish adds more solutions to new problems (mainboard Teeg for example)

you hardly change the deck, what I've done is simply remove the high mana costs of crap and replace it with wiht


-1 preordain/thoughtseize
-1 tendrills
-1 iggy

+3 wish

easy as that.

The only thing that you change is a much better ad nauseam, a worse ill-gotten gains (but goblins shouldn't be harder at all), solutions to mainboard hate (which I see a damn lot here in the netherlands since like 25%+ is combo)

The manabase remains the same with some different duals (wasteland my ass) since you only need a red mana when combo-ing off, these mostly come from LED anyways. (sometimes from duals, but rarely)

Sideboard is wishboard + xantids + chains, no more doomsday. Since counterbalance is pretty dead it's no biggy, but with 7 protection spells the MU is still doable.

you can still lsoe vs the Rock since combo can always shit on you, but under normal circumstances you should win this.

No, I 100% agree that Wish is a solid choice. My default suggestion to people who can't get Grims for a while has been -1 Island, -1 Infernal, -2 Grim, -1 Preordain, +4 Wish, +1 Volcanic. I've tested with it and prefer the smoother mana on the combo turn of the Grim lists leading to more ability to cantrip/pay for Daze on the combo turn, but I've also lost three game 1's in the past 2 weeks to MD Teegs. I was responding to addaro's desire to speed up the deck by adding it.

[Dia_Bot]

@ Ari, burning wish adds more solutions to new problems (mainboard Teeg for example)

you hardly change the deck, what I've done is simply remove the high mana costs of crap and replace it with wiht


-1 preordain/thoughtseize
-1 tendrills
-1 iggy

+3 wish

easy as that.



Very true.
But I would like to point out that you could also play only one Ad Nauseam and still keep the maindeck ToA.
It has been tested in the past and I found out to many games were lost because you have to cast burning wish to search for ToA to win the game.
Then again I also really like a higher density of AdN but in my personal opinion I don't think its worth it.

[practical joke]

Nevertheless I want to thank you Practical for this list (and Ari for the original one that served as the starting point). Hope you guys come up with good TNT list fast :)


@ Adarro: that's simply what combo nowadays does, cantrip into the perfect hand.
Funny thing is that I got result quite fast after the banning and Ari's grim tutor list came a little later, however, both of these are only small changes due to the mystical tutor ban and it's not that either of us created a whole new list, we both updated the existing one to our liking.

and then,

@ Ari, we got that cleared out. I see mainboard teegs a lot now, thanks to GSZ it's seeing a lot more play. so playing a red list was unavoidable.

@ dia_Bot: the Red mana should rarely be an issue, though it can happen that you lack it, but that's a very low changes, most of the time one of your lands should be getting the red mana (depends on what you play against.)
The double ad nauseam is nearly a must, the ad nauseam without iggy and tendrills is so strong, the small chance to hit the second ad nauseam hardly matters, even if you hit it, you should be able to continue as well and it's damn strong against attrition wars.

I want the second one, just because it's ridiculously strong, without playing a 2nd ad nauseam (teammates calculations) the avg total of life needed to win is 7, with the second one it'll probably be 8 (cuz most of the time you don't flip it or did something else with it)

Currently the sideboard consists out of:
7 wishboard, (deathmark, pulverize, diminishing, iggy, tendrills, seize, Etw)
5 xantid board (4 swarms 1 trop)
3 chains

deathmark is great but nowadays you probably cannot do without pyroclasm (which is very strong in different situations, I prefer to have 2 more slots for a wishboard available, 1 pyroclasm 1 meta-game slot/yet to discover secret tech)

[AriLax]

Been thinking a while about MM against this deck. Figured out it's like a second Force when they have the first one and around as good as Spell Pierce when they don't. So basically marginally obnoxious.

[Rune]

Been thinking a while about MM against this deck. Figured out it's like a second Force when they have the first one and around as good as Spell Pierce when they don't. So basically marginally obnoxious.

Yea, the card is ridiculous against ANT and TES; it's like Spell Pierce on steroids. Not intentionally trying to be overdramatic or anything, but I really fail to see how Tendrils decks are going to consistently overcome blue decks in the future, if MM sees the expected amount of play.

[leegoo]

Yea, the card is ridiculous against ANT and TES; it's like Spell Pierce on steroids. Not intentionally trying to be overdramatic or anything, but I really fail to see how Tendrils decks are going to consistently overcome blue decks in the future, if MM sees the expected amount of play.

i mean... you have to learn how to interact with the card... afterwards it's really no different than playing around other "semi" counters.

[emidln]

This sorta depends on how MM ends up seeing play, but as long as we aren't facing MM + lots of taxing, (e.g. playing vs NO Bant vs play vs Team America), you could reasonably play Abeyance over Chants.

[death]

Looks like going back to old school to beat new tech. Abeyance is actually a neat idea.

[lorddotm]

This sorta depends on how MM ends up seeing play, but as long as we aren't facing MM + lots of taxing, (e.g. playing vs NO Bant vs play vs Team America), you could reasonably play Abeyance over Chants.

One issue with Abeyance is that it doesn't stop Spell Snare, which will probably still be showing up. Maybe just trying to play through it should be enough?

[Rune]

i mean... you have to learn how to interact with the card... afterwards it's really no different than playing around other "semi" counters.

If you're talking about non-blue decks with MM, then I agree, the card doesn't do much. In terms of being Storm hate for a non-blue deck, I think it's a slight upgrade from a random Pyroblast. But if you are talking about blue decks with MM, I think it's a whole different story:

The problem is that it's basically impossible to play around it. Daze and Spell Pierce don't come close to providing the same kind of safety for blue players, since those cards can be played around by just laying out lands/Petals, and they aren't active on turn 0. MM means every blue deck can now protect its FoWs easily. Beforehand, only blue decks (usually tier 2+ ones) with very slow clocks were able to protect their FoWs (Counterspell, Spellstutter, etc). These decks were easily beatable because you had infinite time to set up the perfect combo turn. Now, however, the aggressive blue decks are able to protect their FoWs in the same manner, except they don't even have to keep UU open to do it. This is a huge problem, and the only thing you can do against it is either play protection that's not 1cmc, or you will have to dedicate more turns than normal to look for extra protection. The 2nd option will probably mean you are close to dying when you have finally punched through your opponent's hand of 2x MM + FoW. At that point, Ad Nauseam is no longer an option.

Abeyance could definitely be a solution (it's also cool that the card just cycles, if your bluff fails to meet a FoW), but it will depend a lot on what countersuites people will start to run, and it probably doesn't fit well in an AdN shell. I definitely expect Ad Nauseam to become a lot worse as an engine because of MM, and I think Doomsday will just be superior after NPH comes out, because DDFT is much more capable of punching through counter-walls, and it has no life dependancy. Just my prediction, anyways :o

[AriLax]

Kikoo, I was going to respond, but the fact you are citing getting too low on life to Ad Naus as a reason the card will stop this deck made me realize you have no clue how this works.

DD actually is worse off against the card. Their cantrips are so much more critical.

[Rune]

Kikoo, I was going to respond, but the fact you are citing getting too low on life to Ad Naus as a reason the card will stop this deck made me realize you have no clue how this works.

DD actually is worse off against the card. Their cantrips are so much more critical.

Uhh, well then, feel free to enlighten me and explain why this isn't a moderately-powered kick in the balls to ANT (and other Storm combo) =). I don't think the card will single-handedly kill this deck, but it will things a lot more complicated. I'm aware that winning on low life vs blue is possible because of tutor/cantrip chaining, but that's something DDFT can also do (possibly even better since a blind Meditate often makes funky things happen, and if you have 2 SDTs, you can trade 1 mana for 1 storm count).


All I'm saying is: MM will delay the combo turn for ANT because the card acts as FoW 5-8 when they are holding an actual FoW -> you have to sit and take more damage from the creatures that they are completely free to tap out for (or you can go blindly all in) -> Ad Nauseam is sad. If the average combo turn against aggressive blue gets pushed to turn 4 (I can't tell if it will yet, it's just my suspicion), then you might as well play DD since AdN doesn't have much value left at that point.


MM also gives Merfolk 4 more outs to Xantid Swarm, which is very uncool

edit: added more propaganda

[emidln]

For what it's worth, nobody is going to be playing Doomsday since almost all of the Doomsday players moonlight as Tempo Thresh players and are getting all wide-eyed at the thought of just running out their t2 Confidants.

[amonchakai]

hi people!
what do you think about the card
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/nph/0g2ah347xc_es.jpg
in ANT decks?

[Piceli89]

hi people!
what do you think about the card
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/nph/0g2ah347xc_es.jpg
in ANT decks?

What do we think about the card against ANT decks.

[amonchakai]

i say IN Ant decks stopping:
cursecatcher,spell pierce,spell snare,silence,stifle...

[Piceli89]

i say IN Ant decks stopping:
cursecatcher,spell pierce,spell snare,silence,stifle...

And getting discarded by LEDs, yeah. We would be playing Spell Pierce all day long otherwise. Better test the deck before talking.

[Solar Ice]

Kikoo pretty much sums up my thoughts on MM vs ANT. This card is a major pain in the butt, imho. My heart sank when it was spoiled. The deck just became much weaker against blue based decks, which is like 2/3rds of the format. In non blue, it doesn't really do anything that Duress/Seize can't timely handle but it's a whole different ballgame when it's backed up by FoW and Pierce. Xantid Swarm was such a beating against Merfolk and great vs Blue in general and the fact that MM hits it (and CoV), is absolutely t3h suck. Sad days for Combo :-(

[AriLax]

Uhh, well then, feel free to enlighten me and explain why this isn't a moderately-powered kick in the balls to ANT (and other Storm combo) =). I don't think the card will single-handedly kill this deck, but it will things a lot more complicated. I'm aware that winning on low life vs blue is possible because of tutor/cantrip chaining, but that's something DDFT can also do (possibly even better since a blind Meditate often makes funky things happen, and if you have 2 SDTs, you can trade 1 mana for 1 storm count).


All I'm saying is: MM will delay the combo turn for ANT because the card acts as FoW 5-8 when they are holding an actual FoW -> you have to sit and take more damage from the creatures that they are completely free to tap out for (or you can go blindly all in) -> Ad Nauseam is sad. If the average combo turn against aggressive blue gets pushed to turn 4 (I can't tell if it will yet, it's just my suspicion), then you might as well play DD since AdN doesn't have much value left at that point.


MM also gives Merfolk 4 more outs to Xantid Swarm, which is very uncool

edit: added more propaganda

You assume DDFT is still killing on 4 against this card.

ANT can still kill straight through this card. DDFT has to be in a position to set up a pile without a 1 in it. Even the Meditate piles require you to recast Top. Please show me the DD pile you have to go through to kill them without playing a 1 on the turn you kill them. All I can think of are some odd pass the turn IGG piles. You could add some 2 mana draw spell, but even then your piles are still really awkward. Even with that, they might just attack your Tops or the start up cantrip and cold you.

The incentive that you actually get to cast all of your cantrips is also still there. Ad Naus also wasn't always the win con in those matchups anyways. Sometimes you got them in a scenario where it was good, but just as often you got to turn 4/5 and started Cabal Ritualling and Infernalling into Infernals.

[Admiral_Arzar]

For what it's worth, nobody is going to be playing Doomsday since almost all of the Doomsday players moonlight as Tempo Thresh players and are getting all wide-eyed at the thought of just running out their t2 Confidants.

I lol'd. This explains my sudden inexplicable desire to play tempo threshold the other day.

Anyways, I have nothing constructive to add to this thread other than that there will probably be less Mental Missteps than people think, and it isn't the end of the world.

[Deviruchi]

In DDFT you can just ignore MM as it was developed before to ignore Chalice of the Void set at 1. Just from the top of my hand:

Doomsday [Street Wraith, LED, LED, Burning Wish/IGG, Burning Wish/Tendrils], Ideas Unbound and win. As a protection vs Always4MMinHand you can use Abeyance.

[Dia_Bot]

You assume DDFT is still killing on 4 against this card.

ANT can still kill straight through this card. DDFT has to be in a position to set up a pile without a 1 in it. Even the Meditate piles require you to recast Top. Please show me the DD pile you have to go through to kill them without playing a 1 on the turn you kill them. All I can think of are some odd pass the turn IGG piles. You could add some 2 mana draw spell, but even then your piles are still really awkward. Even with that, they might just attack your Tops or the start up cantrip and cold you.

The incentive that you actually get to cast all of your cantrips is also still there. Ad Naus also wasn't always the win con in those matchups anyways. Sometimes you got them in a scenario where it was good, but just as often you got to turn 4/5 and started Cabal Ritualling and Infernalling into Infernals.

One way to pull this off was burning Wish (sac. LED) > infernal contract. The pile being something like LED, LED, Burning Wish/infernal tutor, 2 cards (extra mana/tendrils,...). This is however very mana and resource intensive.
It will always need more time/effort to win without casting a CC 1 spell on your combo turn, you can by no means just ignore it and win just as fast as you would with being able to play a CC1 spell.

EDIT: street wraight is a much easier way to do it but is not included in many doomsday lists.

[amonchakai]

i play an Ant deck and OBVIOUSLY don't test Mental because it`snt not publicated yet.
Hmm can you open your mind and be more polite please?

thanks

[Solar Ice]

Anyways, I have nothing constructive to add to this thread other than that there will probably be less Mental Missteps than people think, and it isn't the end of the world.

Of course it isn't the end of the world, but it's made life very, very difficult for combo. I see no reason why a blue based deck would not run this card, if not Main then in the Side. The damned thing stops so many things that would threaten Blue that it's not funny. Vial, Lackey, StP for their Goyf, Duress, Sieze, Top, Brainstorm, Pierce, Stifle, Snare, and the list goes on...

Really, I think that we are going to probably see this blasted thing everywhere. One of the worst things that decks like ANT and TES could have seen printed.

[emidln]

DDFT wins as often as ANT does without its namesake. That is, by chaining ITs and IGG, it puts together lethal storm and plays a Tendrils. DDFT will do this as often as ANT while ignoring 1s. Doomsday piles themselves are really list-specific. Lists with Burning Wish are probably going to be a lot stronger than non-Wish lists because they tend to abuse Ideas Unbound as well as have access to a black draw4 or Ideas Unbound out of the wishboard. They lets you setup situations where you can ignore or play through MM a lot easier such that it happens more naturally.

If anything, DDFT tends to rely on SDT for work more than ANT relies on Preordain, which would result in countered SDTs putting the DDFT player further behind than a countered Preordain. DD's goldfish speed is noticeably faster than ANT when DDFT plays a full acceleration suite and can go for DD, go piles that aim to IGG into Tendrils. That line of play is quite a bit riskier with MM, which probably takes away some of its advantages in the aggro matchup that the better DDFT players abused.

In any event, this seems like it's going to punish variance from mulligans. You're not going to lose to this card + a clock with any storm deck unless you're all in on something like Brainstorm (or another cantrip) because you took a trip to mulltown.

In a high-blue MM metagame you might be inclined to switch bounce spells to Echoing Truth, Rushing River, or play something like Slaughter Pact. The protection spells might mix up to include some number of Abeyances, Daze/FoW for DDFT, and possibly Pact of Negation in certain configurations (mostly DDFT wants to run this as a 1-of in Wish lists to protect replaying a SDT that slid in before a counter was drawn).

[mort-]

Why would this card have such a great impact on storm decks? I really don't get it.
So they counter one of our protection spells.. and then...? Since when is that bad? They still have to actually have the Force. Not to mention the twelve cantrips that you have left to find another protection spell.
So even if every blue deck runs this thing, who cares? You have enough ways to plow right through it, use them.

[emidln]

If people wait for your protection spells unilaterally, you're going to win more often than you'll lose. Blue players who understand what you're doing will counter your first Brainstorm/Ponder if they don't have a force (saving it if they do). People running aggro decks will counter your first 1cc spell.

The problem lies with aggro decks countering your first 1cc spell is that it will severely punish mulligans for you. Some games where you previously cantrip into the good stuff starting a cantrip chain to still kill them on 3 or 4 are delayed a few turns and you lose those games.

[mort-]

That is only a problem if aggro is going to MD them, which I don't think will happen. I also think that they have better stormhate than MM, but if they are going to disrupt me one or two turns, I will do the same after boarding. I think the greater problem in this matter is if they counter your Deathmark / Chain of Vapor on Teeg.

On blue, even if they do counter my first cantrip, I'd rather have that countered than eat a Spell Snare (I guess Spell Snare is, maybe with Daze, the first choice to cut for MM. If they cut anything else they will not have enough pressure, leaving you with more time to win) on Infernal.

So yeah, I didn't think about aggro packing them, but I also don't think that it will matter very much (one of the reasons being that we don't have to mulligan aggressivly). The blue matchup will in my opinion not change.

[AriLax]

DDFT wins as often as ANT does without its namesake. That is, by chaining ITs and IGG, it puts together lethal storm and plays a Tendrils. DDFT will do this as often as ANT while ignoring 1s. Doomsday piles themselves are really list-specific. Lists with Burning Wish are probably going to be a lot stronger than non-Wish lists because they tend to abuse Ideas Unbound as well as have access to a black draw4 or Ideas Unbound out of the wishboard. They lets you setup situations where you can ignore or play through MM a lot easier such that it happens more naturally.

If anything, DDFT tends to rely on SDT for work more than ANT relies on Preordain, which would result in countered SDTs putting the DDFT player further behind than a countered Preordain. DD's goldfish speed is noticeably faster than ANT when DDFT plays a full acceleration suite and can go for DD, go piles that aim to IGG into Tendrils. That line of play is quite a bit riskier with MM, which probably takes away some of its advantages in the aggro matchup that the better DDFT players abused.

In any event, this seems like it's going to punish variance from mulligans. You're not going to lose to this card + a clock with any storm deck unless you're all in on something like Brainstorm (or another cantrip) because you took a trip to mulltown.

In a high-blue MM metagame you might be inclined to switch bounce spells to Echoing Truth, Rushing River, or play something like Slaughter Pact. The protection spells might mix up to include some number of Abeyances, Daze/FoW for DDFT, and possibly Pact of Negation in certain configurations (mostly DDFT wants to run this as a 1-of in Wish lists to protect replaying a SDT that slid in before a counter was drawn).

The amount I agree with is about infinite. The only thing you missed is Defense Grid as a protection spell.

The only other concern I have is MM + Force for Merfolk is going to be obnoxious to deal with if they randomly have both. Other decks you might be able to run them out of blue cards.

[AriLax]

Tested vs. Misstep Fish tonight. The card is not significantly better than Pierce at disrupting Storm. It is also difficult for them to assemble it + Force in any reliable way.

The match up is basically the same.

[egosum]

I suggest you to test your ANT storm build against this:

Mainboard 60

4x Tarmogoyf
4x Tombstalker

4x Brainstorm
4x Preordain
1x Ponder

4x Force of WIll
4x Daze
4x Mental Misstep
3x Spell Snare
4x Stifle

3x Dsimember
2x Go for the Throat

4x Wasteland
4x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
1x Bayou
3x Polluted Delta
3x Misty Rainforest
2x Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard 15

3x Extirpate
3x Pithing Needle
2x Krosan Grip
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Engineered Esplosives
2x Diabolic Edict
1x Darkblast

Guys MM is going to be annoying if played in the right deck, this is for sure. What I mean is taht is not going to make the whole enviroment change, as some say, is not even going to fit in all the decks, but adding it to some given decks will make that more competitors to Storm will appear (now we will not only to concern about CB-Top decks anymore).

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[Arsenal]

Team America already is an iffy-bad matchup for ANT, so the inclusion of an annoying card in an already-annoying deck doesn't speak to the power of MM, imo. In other words, replace MM with Pierce in that decklist and I'd wager that ANT still has a tough time... btw, I completely disagree with the lack of Hymns in your TA build.

[lorddotm]

Team America already is an iffy-bad matchup for ANT, so the inclusion of an annoying card in an already-annoying deck doesn't speak to the power of MM, imo. In other words, replace MM with Pierce in that decklist and I'd wager that ANT still has a tough time... btw, I completely disagree with the lack of Hymns in your TA build.


He's from Europe, they are weird deck builders. No offense. That being said, I pretty much stole one of his lists and tuned it a little bit.

I have been tuning his build of TNT, and I can say that it is a TON better than the Grim Tutor version.

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Preordain
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains

4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island
2 Swamp

SB
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Deathmark
1 Meltdown
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Wipe Away
2 Chain of Vapour
4 Doomsday
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

When MM drops, I will probably change out the Chains for Echoing Truths, and maybe change the Deathmarks for something else, but I don't know what yet, maybe something along the lines of Cannibalize, Disorder, or Vicious Hunger, but those are probably all too cute, and Pyroclasm is probably just better.

These are the relevant Doomsday piles, there are a few more involving Burning Wish in hand, but those are very corner case, keep in mind that these all require BBB+1R on top of the specific ones.



Non Pass the Turn Piles:

Hand Requirements: BS +2
Mana required: UU
Storm Count: 7
DD Pile: BS + 2x LED + Ponder +ToA

Note 1: if the Ponder in the pile (i.e. the fourth card) is replaced with IGG, you have the same requirements for 10 Storm Count.
Note 2: if in addition to the IGG change, you change the ToA for a Burning Wish (--> ToA) you have the same requirements for 11 Storm Count.

Hand Requirements: BS + 2 + any cantrip
Mana required: U
Storm Count: 8
DD Pile: LP + BS + 2x LED + ToA

Note 1: if the BS in the pile (i.e. the fourth card) is replaced with IGG, you have the same requirements for 11 Storm Count.
Note 2: if in addition to the IGG change, you change the ToA for a Burning Wish (--> ToA) you have the same requirements for 12 Storm Count.

Pass the Turn Piles:


Hand Requirements: IT + 1
Mana required: 1UB
Storm Count: 10
DD Pile: BS + 2x LED + IGG +ToA

Note: if the extra card in your hand is PN (i.e. IT + PN) you have the same pile for Storm Count 10 but for only UU as mana requirement.

Hand Requirements: PN + 1
Mana required: UU
Storm Count: 9
DD Pile: BS + 2x LED + IGG +ToA

Note 1: if the extra card you have in hand is PN (i.e. PN + PN) you have exactly the same pile but for Storm Count of 10.
Note 2: if you replace the ToA for a BW (--> ToA). You have the same pile but for Storm Count of 10. Note that with a hand requirement of PN + PN in this case you'll have a Storm Count of 12.

This is an example of how you can make some modifications in the piles by exchangeing the order of some cards.

Modification of the PN + PN pile (interesting to keep in mind):

Hand Requirements: PN + ToA
Mana required: UU
Storm Count: 10
DD Pile: BS + 2x LED + IGG + PN

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

P.S. maybe it's not needed, but here is a Legend:

BS = Brainstorm
PN = Ponder (wherever it says Ponder it can be replaced by Preordain)
BW = Burning Wish
IT = Infernal Tutor
LED = Lion's Eye Diamond
LP = Lotus Petal
IGG = Ill-Gotten Gains
ToA = Tendrils of Agony

The biggest issue is against Merfolk, losing access to an "I win" in the form of Xantid Swarm is kind of a beating.

[egosum]

@Arsenal: TA can be annoying but for sure not as annoying as CB-Top can be, and this is what I meant, with MM this things will change a little, at least is what first drafts of that list told me so. According to HtT, I'm afraid this is not the correct thread to discuss about it but if you want I'll be glad to give me my opinion on that in the Ta Thread or even in a p.m. But the idea is that I don' t think it belongs to TA philosophy, i.e. gameplan.

@Lorddotm: of course no offense, this is just the same that most Europeans think about American's decklists. I'm sure is because we play in a different metagame.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[Tchakanavaka]

I`ve playing ANT and TES for a long time from now, while I think they both are well positioned in the meta, I think they both has they weeknesses. Like when you are unable to find bussiness with ANT, or the frequent times you have to mulligan with TES.Also the times you are in top deck mode and you draw an Tendrils or a Chrome Mox. So I came up with the following list,


// Lands
1 [A] Badlands
2 [A] Underground Sea
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [B] Volcanic Island
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
2 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [UNH] Island

// Spells
1 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [A] Dark Ritual
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [M11] Duress
3 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [M11] Preordain
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [JU] Burning Wish

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 1 [WL] Doomsday
SB: 1 [LRW] Shelldock Isle
SB: 1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 4 [IA] Pyroblast
SB: 2 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 1 [TSP] Grapeshot
SB: 1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens

Few things to note are that you now need 2 red manas to make an IGG Loop, and if you have mana in your pool, this deck has the best Ad Nauseam, as the deck curves on 2cmc. One problem I`ve noticed is that sometimes if I had 1 Infernal Tutor on the wishboard on game 1,I could make 16-18 goblins or even an IGG Loop, instead of just 12-14 goblins. The singleton Doomsday on the SB might seen random, but it is fetched with Burning Wish, so its never maindecked. So tell me what you guys think about this build,

Tchakanavaka

[lorddotm]

@Lorddotm: of course no offense, this is just the same that most Europeans think about American's decklists. I'm sure is because we play in a different metagame.

Don't even get me started on European Vintage lists. Repeal is not an auto 3 of in everything that can cast it. ;)

[egosum]

This is quite offtopci, but I promise this as my last post (about this)...

Don't tell me I'm one of those strange European playing Non-repeal Gush deck :-P

Greetngs,

Iñaki.-

[egosum]

I`ve playing ANT and TES for a long time from now, while I think they both are well positioned in the meta, I think they both has they weeknesses. Like when you are unable to find bussiness with ANT, or the frequent times you have to mulligan with TES.Also the times you are in top deck mode and you draw an Tendrils or a Chrome Mox. So I came up with the following list,


// Lands
1 [A] Badlands
2 [A] Underground Sea
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [B] Volcanic Island
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
2 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [UNH] Island

// Spells
1 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [A] Dark Ritual
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [M11] Duress
3 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [M11] Preordain
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [JU] Burning Wish

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 1 [WL] Doomsday
SB: 1 [LRW] Shelldock Isle
SB: 1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 4 [IA] Pyroblast
SB: 2 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 1 [TSP] Grapeshot
SB: 1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens

Few things to note are that you now need 2 red manas to make an IGG Loop, and if you have mana in your pool, this deck has the best Ad Nauseam, as the deck curves on 2cmc. One problem I`ve noticed is that sometimes if I had 1 Infernal Tutor on the wishboard on game 1,I could make 16-18 goblins or even an IGG Loop, instead of just 12-14 goblins. The singleton Doomsday on the SB might seen random, but it is fetched with Burning Wish, so its never maindecked. So tell me what you guys think about this build,

Tchakanavaka

Your deck seems like lots of ANT list that only work wonders on paper.

Let me explain,

The idea of optimizing the maindeck is OK, but when playing you'll face lots of differents situations where a single ToA in main deck will win you the game (I'm talking because I ' ve also tried this kind of lists).

I also think that the correct ANT list, IMO, is packing 2 Ad Nauseam and 1 ToA main deck, with a couple of Chrome Moxen, and 3 Burning Wish. I say this after having tested Ari's build, Ari's with Burning and regular 2x Ad Nauseam+ Moxen builds. Most of them have weakneses, beig the one for the Non-Moen, single Ad Nauseam, not finding the bussiness on time some times even with Burnings and/or Grims. The problem of the Regular 2x ADN + 4x Infernal + Moxen is being inconsistant. But I agree that with BW you can let the IGG as a side Target (adding it to main if needed). Also I think that having an infernal in the side is important, but it may work with 4 main deck.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[Tchakanavaka]

@egosum: Thanks for the criticism, while I agree that in game one if you have only BW in hands you will be unable to tutor chain, making you go for the goblins route, which are not garanteed to get there, which makes difference in certains matchups. But in game two with 1 Infernal Tutor in the wishboard its the same game play as ANT, with advantage of not have the displeasure to topdeck an ToA, and clean you AdN. I honestly dont see an game where ToA on the MD was that needed.


-Tchakanavaka

[mort-]

I really don't like your manabase, but maybe that's just me having a weird fetish for basiclands ;) I always think that the great number of basics is one of ANTs strongest points in a Meta polluted with Wasteland fetching Knights.
I also agree with egosum that you should play one Tendrils main. There are enough situations where you are waiting for business with a dead Tendrils in your hand that suddenly turns live against an opponent with Force and Snare in their hand.
For the Burning Wishes.. I think everyone should pack them like they want. I've been testing with 4 Infernals + 2 Burning Wishes main (mostly against folk) and have been doing great, so naturally, I would say 2 is the right choice for finding the kill in the right moment. But I guess if 3 or 4 suits one more, go for it.
And one last point: don't play Warrens. So many decks are packing Deed, EE, E. Truth or even Engineered Plague atm that the tokens won't get there in time (also I do have to say that I'm happy about every Plague being boarded against me :D).

[Tchakanavaka]

@mort-: EtW is a metacall, as here in Brazil 80/100 decks are aggro, with lots of merfolks, where EtW shines.

[amonchakai]

@lorddotm:
the Deathmark in SB would be a massacre better?(canonist/revoker/meddling mage more than one alone?or pyroclams?

[Koby]

@lorddotm:
the Deathmark in SB would be a massacre better?(canonist/revoker/meddling mage more than one alone?or pyroclams?

Does not answer Gaddock Teeg. Pyroclasm seems like a better approach.

[lorddotm]

Does not answer Gaddock Teeg. Pyroclasm seems like a better approach.

Pyroclasm is probably the best, but gaining two life, thats awesome.

[amonchakai]

hi
with the new collection can be possible to do an aggro SB?
4 Tombstalker
4 Phyrexian negator
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
3 Other aggro creature?

[practical joke]

hi
with the new collection can be possible to do an aggro SB?
4 Tombstalker
4 Phyrexian negator
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
3 Other aggro creature?

to be honest...

NOT AN OPTION!

I alread cried when Matt Nass showed his sideboard with 4 confidant and 3 jace 2.0

So far there isn't a match-up that I cannot win with my current sideboard and skills. (some matches are really pushing both of it, but it's not impossible)

DTT remains the toughest match-up for me, TA only comes second (there are some dead decks, but what you don't see, you don't care about)

[Fossil4182]

Has anyone had problems with the Dredge match up? I have faced this deck a number of times over the past several weeks and find the match up difficult. My match count has been 1-4 against the deck which seems abysmal. I've lost two games due to pilot error and the others due to turn two kills and/or a turn two Iona followed by a turn three kill. I've tried various strategies from adding an additional Ad Nauseum (one main and one in the sideboard), adding various forms of sideboard hate etc. Is the strat to load up on graveyard hate and ride a slow route to victory, speed up the deck and go for a turn one or two kill? My list is similar to Ari's with the exception of minus on Preordain and plus one Echoing Truth in the main deck (DC SCGK Event (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/21206_Live_Coverage_of_StarCityGamescom_Open_Series_Washington_DC.html)). The sideboard has been in flux depending on what the local metagame is.

My initial thought is to up the number of hate cards in the board to five and bring in an additional Ad Nauseum. Any thoughts or suggestions on approaching this matchup would be greatly appreciated.

[JamieW89]

Has anyone had problems with the Dredge match up? I have faced this deck a number of times over the past several weeks and find the match up difficult. My match count has been 1-4 against the deck which seems abysmal. I've lost two games due to pilot error and the others due to turn two kills and/or a turn two Iona followed by a turn three kill. I've tried various strategies from adding an additional Ad Nauseum (one main and one in the sideboard), adding various forms of sideboard hate etc. Is the strat to load up on graveyard hate and ride a slow route to victory, speed up the deck and go for a turn one or two kill? My list is similar to Ari's with the exception of minus on Preordain and plus one Echoing Truth in the main deck (DC SCGK Event (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/21206_Live_Coverage_of_StarCityGamescom_Open_Series_Washington_DC.html)). The sideboard has been in flux depending on what the local metagame is.

My initial thought is to up the number of hate cards in the board to five and bring in an additional Ad Nauseum. Any thoughts or suggestions on approaching this matchup would be greatly appreciated.

I think I beat dredge 80% or so. Actually beat it twice in the premier event on MODO just now (eventually lost semi's to Bant after failing on an AdN from 18 with BBB floating in g3).
Be sure to hide infernal on top with cantrips if possible to protect against Cabal Therapy and bring in Bounce and Slaughter Pacts if you have those (I run 4 Chains irl and 3 Chain/1-2 Pacts on MODO) and board in Chants/Silences if you have white in your board. Chantwalking them is pretty good.
You could run Leylines side or something, but I doubt it's worth it. We need our side to fight hate against us (bounce,swarms etc.) and countertop (and if needed, a slot or 2 for stax).

[Fossil4182]

I think I beat dredge 80% or so. Actually beat it twice in the premier event on MODO just now (eventually lost semi's to Bant after failing on an AdN from 18 with BBB floating in g3).
Be sure to hide infernal on top with cantrips if possible to protect against Cabal Therapy and bring in Bounce and Slaughter Pacts if you have those (I run 4 Chains irl and 3 Chain/1-2 Pacts on MODO) and board in Chants/Silences if you have white in your board. Chantwalking them is pretty good.
You could run Leylines side or something, but I doubt it's worth it. We need our side to fight hate against us (bounce,swarms etc.) and countertop (and if needed, a slot or 2 for stax).

I've been playing playing with one Slaughter Pact in my board, but have opted to keep in there. Mostly because Iona on Black means I have to dig to find the bounce (or already have it) or I just loose. Chant walking does seem pretty good. I'm running Echoing Truth which can be really good if I time it right and can work better than Chanting them in some ways.

Are the scenarios I'm describing the exception to the rule? Dredge can have some explosive draws, but are turn two Iona or two turn kill off Flame-Kin Zealot common for Dredge? I feel like that's pretty fast, even for Dredge. I'll admit that I don't have a lot of experience with Dredge so my analysis and perception of the deck's consistency & clock are only based off what I've played against.

Congrats on the Semi finish.

[JamieW89]

I've been playing playing with one Slaughter Pact in my board, but have opted to keep in there. Mostly because Iona on Black means I have to dig to find the bounce (or already have it) or I just loose. Chant walking does seem pretty good. I'm running Echoing Truth which can be really good if I time it right and can work better than Chanting them in some ways.

Are the scenarios I'm describing the exception to the rule? Dredge can have some explosive draws, but are turn two Iona or two turn kill off Flame-Kin Zealot common for Dredge? I feel like that's pretty fast, even for Dredge. I'll admit that I don't have a lot of experience with Dredge so my analysis and perception of the deck's consistency & clock are only based off what I've played against.

Congrats on the Semi finish.

Thanks. Turn-2 kills seem quite rare from the LEDless version (which is what I've been playing against as LED is about $120 online now), never had it against me. Turn-2 Iona is possible, but I feel they often don't get it until turn-3. Maybe I've just been lucky though (or when they did have it I had the chants to stop them from it).

(Currently 3-0 in another daily; 1x 4-0 and 3x 3-1 so far this week, running good lol)

[rnightingale]

I have a question kind sirs, against what deck should i switch to Doomsday Plan ?

i noticed that most sideboards have two different plans: 1.) Doomsday and 2.) Xantid Swarm..

please enlighten me. Thanks

[practical joke]

I have a question kind sirs, against what deck should i switch to Doomsday Plan ?

i noticed that most sideboards have two different plans: 1.) Doomsday and 2.) Xantid Swarm..

please enlighten me. Thanks

Counterbalance, there are some borderline decks in which you could use it, but mostly it was created to fight CB.

why?

well recount the ammount of cards in that deck that can counter CB 3. ( and with their lacking of a proper clock, they'll die to a resolved Doomsday)


@ Fossil: you know slaughter pact is black....

The whole dredge thing is that they can combo out fast as well, especially with LED version (ledless simply doesn't do it that fast.)

if you are scared of dredge, open with duress/seize take out their whole I-win-on-turn-2-plan.
I don't care about dredge, think I'ven't lost a match against it with combo so far. (games yes, matches not really)

[AriLax]

The Dredge matchup is not a huge concern as they are very weak to Thoughtseize and Duress.

[amonchakai]

@Ari:
New stuff in the new collection?
new build?when can we see you in another Starcity open?

thanks

[Fossil4182]

The Dredge matchup is not a huge concern as they are very weak to Thoughtseize and Duress.

I've ended up with four Thoughtseize, two Duress in the main with two Duress in the board. Against Dredge, Thoughtseize is more powerful since they have thrre major discard outlets in Imp, Tribe and Breakthrough. Statistically speaking, it works to have the option to take whatever is problematic with Thoughtseize. Traditionally, I think four Thoughtseize main deck could be dangerous due to the life loss, but Goblins and Zoo are poorly positioned in the meta game right now making the risk somewhat minimized. Its also helpful against the Green decks using GSZ for for GT which can lock us out of the game rather quickly.

I think you analysis is correct that Dredge can be weak to a turn one discard effect. However, if they're on the play with a turn one discard effect, it becomes difficult from there. I know this is true of most decks in the format, but Storm is at a real disadvantage in that we have no interaction with that deck unless we're on the play and have a discard effect that hits them or they keep a terrible hand on the play with no turn one effect. Our only option is to race them which isn't terrible, but our deck is set up for a 3-4 turn kill, not so much a 1-3 turn kill. Again, I don't know if the answer is to speed the deck up or slow down and play the control game....

[Koby]

Discard against Dredge can be a hit or miss. Duress at least insures that you will only take a card-drawing enabler (Breakthrough, Careful Study), but Thoughtseize may hit a Dredger, which helps them start off. This says nothing about them keeping a terrible hand with only dredgers, but the point remains. The 3 cards that catapult Dredge into quick wins are the card drawers. Removing these (or disabling Coliseum) will buy you sufficient time to go off. In that sense, I'm more interested in discarding their blue spells than their discard outlets.

[amonchakai]

Hi one question:
Noxious Revival
can be a possible main card here?

[Malakai]

Hi one question:
Noxious Revival
can be a possible main card here?

There's no reason to play this card in any deck, ever. The reason is it's card disadvantage, and it's a situational card at that. Regrowth is legal in this format and nobody plays it, and they are correct to do so.

[egosum]

Malakai, your statement seems simply wrong. It is card disadvantage, but it is free, so in a deck oriented to card advantage this card can be quite useful, plus it has a different utility than Regrowth, it can target opponent's graveyard, so you make blank draws for him in given situations, and can be used as a hate card against Reanimator or Counterbalance, for instance, in given moments. It has some nice utilities. Nevertheless I' m afraid ANT is not the home for this card.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[GoboLord]

What do you guys think of Gitaxian Probe?

{p/U}
Sorcery
Look at target player's hand.
Draw a card.

I know that any discardspell or Chant effect is way beter, but there are decks against which we do not necessarily need to pick a card from their hand (as anectodal evidence, yesterday there were two situations in which I Thoughtseized my opponent and then went off, forgetting to pick a card from his hand).

The "Draw a card" makes it some hybrid of Discard and Cantrip to me.

This is how I would place it in the deck:

// Lands [15]
9 Fetches
2 U-Sea
1 Tundra
2 Island
1 Swamp

// Mana [16]
4 Petal
4 LED
4 D. Rit
4 C. Rit

//Cantrip + Protection [22]
4 Duress
3 Silence
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 BS
4 Ponder
4 Preordain

//Business [7]
4 Infernal Tutor
1 IGGY
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrills

Thoughts?

[leegoo]

probe is a fine card. NOT in ANT however. In your list, I can't imagine a time I wouldn't rather just draw thoughtseize / chant / another Ad Nauseam / Grim Tutor / Burning wish / etc.

[Scordata]

Just an FYI - I've been running the list Practical Joke used to win the Dutch nationals through a legacy gauntlet of sorts.
I've modified the sideboard to run Bob's in the place of Doomsday/Emrakul, and added some extra bounce.
Testing against decks old and new, with and without misstep, I've come to the conclusion that this is probably the best combo deck in the format for a large event, such as a GP.

When I say, "best," I am alluding to the best mixture of speed and resiliency. I tried running Chants in the place of TS or Duress, but that cost me a few games due to wasteland. I've decided that hand disruption is ultimatley more powerful against the feild, simply because it allows you to go off a turn faster, without needing protection mana for the combo turn. Duress/TS literally act at a protection battery, barring the 1/40 chance that they rip a FoW off the top of their deck. So many games have gone T1 cantrip, T2 Duress, T3 Kill you, that it is litterally unfathomable for me to argue in support of any other deck at the moment. Case in point: Dredge opponent cabal theapy's twice, then returns an Ancestor's Chosen, bringing him to 39 life. I untap and win.

Merfolk is literally 1-2 turns slower. You have to figure, if the fish player has cards in hand, its counterspells. This is because if he does NOT have permission, he needs to drop his hand as fast as possible to establish a respectable clock. Either way, the taxing effects are meaningless, and this deck has no problems playing around misstep, with Cabal Rituals, LED's and petals. Remember boys and girls: somtimes its worth shooting off a Dark ritual if you know/read that they have a misstep in hand. Chant is a crutch in my opinion. That being said I run Xantid and a Trop in the board. This literally turns merfolk into sligh without burn.

If you see a swamp or other black producing land, save your brainstorms. I know most players here know, but I think is bears repeating: they will pack hand disruption, and brainstorming is response is how to defeat this tactic. Don't be so quick to blow that turn 1 brainstorm against an unkown. Besides, if you wait till your second turn for a mainphase brainstorm, you'll get to see another card.

[JamieW89]

If you can brainstorm into the win you can still brainstorm on your turn and if you find nothing hide what you would hide in advance.
That said, turn-2 brainstorm is usually better anyways.

[lorddotm]

Just 7-0'd my way into a Top 4 split at a San Diego 1K event with TNT. Play it.

[lordofthepit]

Just 7-0'd my way into a Top 4 split at a San Diego 1K event with TNT. Play it.

This is the Cabal Ritual/IGG version of ANT, with the red splash for Burning Wish? That's my favorite storm deck.

Can you post a decklist?

[lorddotm]

This is the Cabal Ritual/IGG version of ANT, with the red splash for Burning Wish? That's my favorite storm deck.

Can you post a decklist?

It is in my article (http://www.gatheringmagic.com/impacting-legacy-with-nph/).

I played against one Mental Misstep deck, and beat it 2-1, close games, none came down to Misstep though. I'm convinced it is worse than Spell Pierce against us.

[Dia_Bot]

One hardly related question: who came up with the name TNT and what does it stand for?

[lorddotm]

One hardly related question: who came up with the name TNT and what does it stand for?

Mash up of the names of ANT and TES, one of us came up with it.

[Dia_Bot]

Mash up of the names of ANT and TES, one of us came up with it.
Ow, ok that makes sense.

[ninja_attack]

Just 7-0'd my way into a Top 4 split at a San Diego 1K event with TNT. Play it.

Nice work, Did you use Doomsday as your engine ever? Also, did you ever side in the doomsday plan?

[lorddotm]

Nice work, Did you use Doomsday as your engine ever? Also, did you ever side in the doomsday plan?

No. I mostly played against Combo and Tempo decks. I don't think anyone was sporting Counterbalance.

[amonchakai]

Hi liam:
have you a Sideboard guide?i use a 75 card`s of your TNT:
http://www.gatheringmagic.com/impacting-legacy-with-nph/

Very apreciatted your help

[lorddotm]

Hi liam:
have you a Sideboard guide?i use a 75 card`s of your TNT:
http://www.gatheringmagic.com/impacting-legacy-with-nph/

Very apreciatted your help

I take out 2-4 discard against decks where I want bounce.

Against CBTop I bring in Doomsday if they don't have Wasteland (which makes me think I might take out this plan all together, haven't figured out what to replace it with yet), I take out Ad Nauseam, Tendrils, Ill-Gotten Gains, 1 Cabal Ritual, and 2 Preordain for 3 Doomsday, 1 Shelldock, 1 Emrakul, and 1 Wipe Away.

[claudio.r]

I've been testing a fairly stock list, 2 Ad Nauseam, 2 Chrome Mox UB build, and with the influx of mental missteps i'm thinking about changing the 3 thoughtseizes for 3 Inquisition of kozilek. The reason i'm going to try this are, i'm seeing less and less forces getting played, the metagame is becoming somewhat slower, and the lifeloss from thoughtseize is actually becoming relevant.
Also to bait missteps inquisition sounds better because it doesn't have the lifeloss attached.

Getting some testing done and will be back with some results. what do you guys think about this ?

[Julian23]

Hm..your post seems to indicate that you don't know you only lose life on Thoughtseize if it actually resolves. If the other person counters Thoughtseize, you don't lose life. Therefor I don't actually see your argument on the TS/Inquisition vs. MM case.

[claudio.r]

Yep, realized how stupid i was being right before reading your post. Wich only means "Reading is tech" !

And just yesterday i was ranting about some guy playing in the 5K that didn't know how to play his brainstorms. Way to go mr bigmouth, ahahahahahah.

[GoboLord]

The reason i'm going to try this are, i'm seeing less and less forces getting played, the metagame is becoming somewhat slower, and the lifeloss from thoughtseize is actually becoming relevant.

No offense intended, but...

Do you know what a Kansas City Shuffle is?
A Kansas City Shuffle means that everybody is looking into one direction while you are looking into the other.
- From 'Lucky Number Slevin'

[claudio.r]

I'm talking about what i see here in my meta, and since i'm not playing 5k's as they are pretty far away from here, it serves my purpose...

[Namida]

I take out 2-4 discard against decks where I want bounce.

Against CBTop I bring in Doomsday if they don't have Wasteland (which makes me think I might take out this plan all together, haven't figured out what to replace it with yet), I take out Ad Nauseam, Tendrils, Ill-Gotten Gains, 1 Cabal Ritual, and 2 Preordain for 3 Doomsday, 1 Shelldock, 1 Emrakul, and 1 Wipe Away.

I'm confused. What was your sideboard?

In the article you show a list of changes to an ANT sideboard for Burning Wish, including IGG and Tendrils, but the sideboard on the decklist you show is not only entirely different, but is missing two cards (One of which I assume was Tendrils).

[amonchakai]

The sideboard is:
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Wipe Away
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Deathmark
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Meltdown
4 Doomsday
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Tendrils of agony
1 Illgoten gains


On the other side deathmark>pyroclasm???

[Hammunition]

You said you wanted to take out the 1cc answers, but left in Chain and Deathmark?

You mentioned Echoing Truth. But what about Deathmark? Smother? Vendetta?

[gamergc]

Is it common for the decks you want Chain and Deathmark against to have MMS? These cards are primarily to fight Chalice and Gaddock Teeg types.

[lorddotm]

The sideboard is:
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Wipe Away
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Deathmark
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Meltdown
4 Doomsday
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Tendrils of agony
1 Illgoten gains


On the other side deathmark>pyroclasm???

My current list dropped Chains and Mark for Truths and Clasms

The reason for the switch, is that some people have added Misstep, and I don't want to lose to aggro sporting Misstep.

[amonchakai]

with the Mental missteep everywhere i test vs merfolks and are soo hard.
How can u sideboard?

[Domel]

I played Grim Tutor list with 2 Chrome Moxes (15 lands) at Bazar of Moxen and won against 2 Merfolks with MM.

My sideboarding was: in 4x Xantid and Tropical out 1x Flooded Strand, 1x Cabal Ritual, 3x Preordain and it was perfectly ok. Since Merfolks had only one plan to stop you (via counterspells) it is rather easy machup and nothing to be afraid of - post board u have 7x Discard and 4x Xantid.

I also run DD pack in SB but it was useless. Right now I cut it off for 4x Confidant, 1x Tendrils and 1x H. Recall.

[lorddotm]

I played Grim Tutor list with 2 Chrome Moxes (15 lands) at Bazar of Moxen and won against 2 Merfolks with MM.

My sideboarding was: in 4x Xantid and Tropical out 1x Flooded Strand, 1x Cabal Ritual, 3x Preordain and it was perfectly ok. Since Merfolks had only one plan to stop you (via counterspells) it is rather easy machup and nothing to be afraid of - post board u have 7x Discard and 4x Xantid.

I also run DD pack in SB but it was useless. Right now I cut it off for 4x Confidant, 1x Tendrils and 1x H. Recall.

I've always hated the Bob plan, makes Ad Nauseam so terrible. But it might be good with Burning Wishes.

[AriLax]

I'm going to test some with Bob against Team America, but I really am not sure if the card is even good outside of the mirror. It's not actually super impressive against Junk as they have incidental removal like Vindicate, and I'm not sure it's actually good vs control.

You definitely want the second Tendrils for this GP though. Possibly a 3rd. Teach these Landstill players a lesson or two about how the old 8 vs 7 fight works.

[amonchakai]

I'm going to test some with Bob against Team America, but I really am not sure if the card is even good outside of the mirror. It's not actually super impressive against Junk as they have incidental removal like Vindicate, and I'm not sure it's actually good vs control.

You definitely want the second Tendrils for this GP though. Possibly a 3rd. Teach these Landstill players a lesson or two about how the old 8 vs 7 fight works.
i dont understand it, Ari.
Why 1+2 tendrils in sideboard?mini storms maybe?
An exampler decklist?

greetings

[Tammit67]

i dont understand it, Ari.
Why 1+2 tendrils in sideboard?mini storms maybe?
An exampler decklist?

greetings

You want to start the turn with 8 cards in hand, one of which is tendrils, probably one of which is protection, and a bunch of mana and some cantrips. Basically make them respond once or twice depending on life total, then Tendrils them for lethal. The additional tendrils is to ensure you can find one in time.

[lorddotm]

I'm going to test some with Bob against Team America, but I really am not sure if the card is even good outside of the mirror. It's not actually super impressive against Junk as they have incidental removal like Vindicate, and I'm not sure it's actually good vs control.

You definitely want the second Tendrils for this GP though. Possibly a 3rd. Teach these Landstill players a lesson or two about how the old 8 vs 7 fight works.

I've actually been considering siding up to 3 Tendrils against them, it is only 2 slots, and definitely seems worth the trouble. Hopefully they don't anticipate Storm being an issue.

[amonchakai]

Do you think can be possible to see an ANT/TES in the PT this weekend?
with any tech?

[JamieW89]

It's definately still viable, but I'm not quite sure if it's still the best deck in the format. Landstill remains favourable, especially if they don't really board hate against us. Team America is a pain and Merfolk gets a little harder, but there should be a bit more aggro with those decks running around.
I suppose people will try out Abeyance and the like, not sure what I'd run.

[Rune]

Pact of Negation is pretty good at fighting the Misstep eejits, so I expect to see that.

[Dark Ritual]

Pact of negation is pretty weaksauce with lion's eye diamond.

On the more than one tendrils plan. I like it for Providence; I would be packing 2 in the SB, one MD if I were to play at the GP. Going protection spell protection spell both getting countered obviously then just chaining cantrips together into rituals into tendrils seems like a good plan to win.

On the doomsday SB plan. I see no reason for it; people have caught on to the tech and adapted. That and counterbalance is not THE deck to beat anymore. It's more Uw landstill, team america, and merfolk now with some other decks on the side.

[Rune]

Pact of negation is pretty weaksauce with lion's eye diamond.

If used as your only protection spell, this is true. But its role is to push through Chant or Duress, and so it's the best choice when you need 10 or more protection spells in your deck because it doesn't tie up mana on your combo turn. It's especially strong in lists with more than 1 Ad Nauseam.

[amonchakai]

wow Ari have 24 points in the green bracket and goes to day 2 at GP.
Did he use his grim list or any innovation?
Somebody knows anything?

[Dia_Bot]

wow Ari have 24 points in the green bracket and goes to day 2 at GP.
Did he use his grim list or any innovation?
Somebody knows anything?

I hope he's playing TNT.

[amonchakai]

in his tweeter he says not to like so much the burning...maybe yes but i think no

[amonchakai]

Finally Ari and Brian aren't in top 8...
good for people thinking:combo is out of radar,or worse for can't see his decklist?

Maybe they will post it here?

[Domel]

Great finish Ari! Please share your sb if you find time to post:)

[AriLax]

Main deck was 60/60 the same as last year, sideboard was 10/15. It is currently

2 Tendrils (Landstill and CB)
1 Ad Naus (for mirrors + BUG)
3 Bob (see above, not for Junk)
2 Rebuild (obv)
3 Chain (obv)
2 Thoughtseize (obv)
2 Echoing Truth (bounce vs Misstep, nice vs Chalice + other hate, 2x for Infernal)

Beat Zoo, Junk, Affinity, Gearhart's 4C CB-Top Brew (was counter light), Sneak and Show, Team Italia, and 2x Fish. Lost to BUG (bad match up, he had 4x Brainstorm G1 and I mulled to 4 G@), Bant deck that won (both games I win if I know he doesn't have Force and end up hitting the marginal percentage I sacrificed to play around it), Fish (can't win them all), and RUG Bloodbraid Elf thing (G1 he Brainstormed into the second Force when I went off after hitting the first, G2 I mulled into a mediocre hand and died).

[Solar Ice]

In the world of Mental Misstep, 8-4 (assuming from your post) is not a bad finish. At least someone is keeping the ANT flag flying. :) What was your overall position?

[OurSerratedDust]

Great work, Ari!

[NesretepNoj]

In the world of Mental Misstep, 8-4 (assuming from your post) is not a bad finish. At least someone is keeping the ANT flag flying. :) What was your overall position?

#35 (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gppro11/standfin)

[AriLax]

Yeah, 35th. Mark Tocco also went x-4 and came in around the same position without Grim Tutors.

Oh, BTW, Grim was insane for me. There was a lot more Ad Nausing from 19 than usual, as which point Grim is often better to flip than Infernal.

Definitely would have gone x-2 had I run a bit better and not lost the either the Bant or RUG deck, both of which were very surprised to have beat me. Tested against the Batterskull Landstill decks and was dismantling them.

[addaro]

Congratulations Ari and all ANT players in the GP. Is there any chance that Mark Tocco can share his list? (is it the Practicals list without Grim?) Thank you.

[practical joke]

Great work Ari..

It's always a shame that you lose good match-ups, still 35th is a good performance especially when you can say that under normal circumstances you could've beat 2 more.

Also curious about that other list.

[AriLax]

Congratulations Ari and all ANT players in the GP. Is there any chance that Mark Tocco can share his list? (is it the Practicals list without Grim?) Thank you.

I know he only had 1 Ad Naus main, 1 Mox + 16 lands, and no IGG just 2 Tendrils (IGG in the board).

[Domel]

It's always a shame that you lose good match-ups.

Well I guess this is something like a curse of combo players - I placed 71st at BoM 3 because I lost against Dredge and Sneak Show - both very good match-ups.

[Tinefol]

That's a nature of combo, I guess, sometimes you just lose to itself. Anyways, I must express my concern for these pesky Landstill decks. The other day I've assembled a combo hand with 3 pieces of protection, only for it play out like this:

Me: Chant, Him: Misstep
Me: Silence, Him: Misstep
Me: Duress, Him: Counterspell
And then he of course Snares my tutor (and holds a FOW as well). And a few more games went in a similar fashion, he nearly always had more hard counters than I had pieces of protection.

I'm not even sure there's a reliable way to fight that. I wish I had a Tendrils in hand at that point, since that 'counterwar' generates a ton of storm. I see that Ari thought the same way and runs 2 Tendrils in the S/B. I guess this is better plan than Xantids or additional Discard/Chant effects. I almost think that 3 Tendrils in the S/B isn't that bad of the idea, if your meta justifies it, or is it? Does it work against Landstill?

[Soggy_oggy]

I've been running Practical Joke's list for a while and love the mainboard, the sideboard I have been thinking about switching up a little bit though. At first I didn't really like the idea of 2 tendrils in the sideboard but then after thinking about it and test playing it I love it. With control being as heavily played and dominate as it is I've finally given in and had to switch up the board.

What does everyone think of Xantid swarm in the board still? I am still on the fence with them, I haven't been able to playtest against fish because for some reason it isn't as popular in my local meta. Right now my sideboard is:

1 Emrakul
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Tropical Island
2 Chain of vapor
2 Echoing Truth
4 Doomsday
4 Xantid Swarm

I plan on switching it to:

1 Tropical Island
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Tendrils of Agony
2 Echoing Truth
4 Dark Confidant
4 Xantid Swarm

Any thoughts or opinions?

[Domel]

I am not sure if 4 Tendrils post side is that good - 3 should work and you still have 3/4 confidants to out draw them. The list I'm going to try this week in local store:

1x Ad Nauseum
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Tendrils of Agony
2x Grim Tutor
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Dark Ritual
3x Cabal Ritual
4x Lotus Petal
2x Chrome Mox (It really helps going off with ad nauseum and I don't like running more than 15 lands)
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Ponder
4x Preordain
4x Brainstorm
4x Duress
3x Thoughtsieze
2x Island
1x Swamp
2x Underground Sea
4x Polluted Delta
1x Verdant Catacombs
3x Misty Rainforest
2x Flooded Strand

Side:
2x Chain of Vapor
2x Echoing Truth
2x Wipe Away (we have some CB in local meta)
1x Rebuild
4x Dark Confidant
1x Thoughtsieze
2x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ad Nauseum

[amonchakai]

@domel:
good luck and wait for your result

[GexxX]

I like the offspring called TNT quite a bit. It's allways been nice to have wishable answers for pretty much every thread your opponent plays. I've been trying to focus on ANT featuring Grim Tutor during the last 2 or three weeks of testing and I finally came to the conclusion that it's good in about 50% of the matches i draw it and in some cases ~10-15% of all games it enables some really broken turns including the fight through trinishpere + chalice0 and chalice1.
Then again thinking about all the situations Grim was golden Burning Wish does similar and works very well with Ad Nauseam.
Thanks for sharing the lists. TNT will be my deck in Cockatrice for some time now =)

[egosum]

That's a nature of combo, I guess, sometimes you just lose to itself.

This is not true. Every deck "fizzles", if we understand "fizzle" as not responding as it is supposed to do, for instance, when playing a Bant deck there are times when it seems that you can't draw the correct card in the correct moment, or just seems you are drawing the answers a turn late. All that happens is that when playing combo it happens all at once so it seems more normal, or "its nature". What I mean is that with a non combo decks there are always (in a big tournament) games when you lose due to "bad luck" along the developement of the game, and this is also kind of "fizzzle", while in combo is more viusual because we play higher density of spells in the early stages and have a very defined game plan.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[AriLax]

This is not true. Every deck "fizzles", if we understand "fizzle" as not responding as it is supposed to do, for instance, when playing a Bant deck there are times when it seems that you can't draw the correct card in the correct moment, or just seems you are drawing the answers a turn late. All that happens is that when playing combo it happens all at once so it seems more normal, or "its nature". What I mean is that with a non combo decks there are always (in a big tournament) games when you lose due to "bad luck" along the developement of the game, and this is also kind of "fizzzle", while in combo is more viusual because we play higher density of spells in the early stages and have a very defined game plan.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

If anything, ANT fizzles less as it is so redundant and has more card filtering than any other deck.

[GexxX]

It just looks like ANT fizzles more often than other Decks, because the line of play usually ends up in either a lethal ToA or anything comparable. Different Decks have more win conditions. That does not make them better or worse, but just different.
To fizzle means (at least to me) that you are in a situation where there is no option on winning. I believe ANT does not have many of those situations if piloted correctly.

[JohnBaltimore]

I am not sure if 4 Tendrils post side is that good - 3 should work and you still have 3/4 confidants to out draw them. The list I'm going to try this week in local store:

(deck)



I think cutting lands, and cutting a cabal ritual is bad in this list. In my testing, Chrome Mox is only good when going off with Ad Nauseum, and not at a high life total.

[CranialX]

Can anyone please help me, How the library arrangement of Shelldock Isle and Emrakul looks like?

[GexxX]

Can anyone please help me, How the library arrangement of Shelldock Isle and Emrakul looks like?

you play doomsday.
1st card: Shelldock isle
2nd -4th card: something useful (this depends on the board situation, but I often arrange the stack to have the one emrakul attack and immediately after kill him with ToA)
5th Card: Emrakul

You have to ajust the pile to whatever situation you are finding yourself in. For example an opponoents jace can be dealt with by putting Brainstorm on top, shelldock on second slot of the library and then use the rest for a lethal tendrils. If he puts your brainstorm on the bottom that's fine since you already have the shelldock on the second place, if he doesnt you just brainstorm in the SDI.
Another really useful card is Wipe Away, since it deals with a lot of bad stuff, like Ensnaring Bridge, Counterbalance(not that it usually matters, but it sometimes does) Meekstone, or any other stuff that's on the board and annoys you.

A sample pile:

Shelldock Isle, Tendrils of Agony, Emrakul, Wipe Away, Echoing Truth or Chain of Vapor

You have the ooption to re-arrange the pile after the Hide Away trigger from Shelldock, you the positioning after it usually does not matter when you cast doomday. The chain is usually pretty nice since it adds storm by bouncing LED's and Petals you haven't used. It's not a must, but sometimes comes in quite handy.
I hope I was some help

Regards

[tangram]

Can anyone please help me, How the library arrangement of Shelldock Isle and Emrakul looks like?

There are literally tons of piles you can use. It all depends on what you have in your deck, hand and available mana.

Playing DD without passing the turn
Example 1
Requirements: 2 cards in hand, SDT in play, COF in deck, UU
Pile: BS, SI, LED, COF, EMR

Example 2
Requirements: BS in hand, 2 cards in hand, COF in deck, 1U
Pile: SDT, SI, LED, COF, EMR

These two piles would allow you to drop SI, untap it with COF, cast EMR, take extra turn and swing for 15.

BS - Brainstorm
SI - Shelldock Isle
EMR - Emrakul
COF - Cloud of Vapor
SDT - Sensei's Divining Top
DD - Doomsday

[CranialX]

Thank you for the help, here is the deck list


4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Preordain
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Lions Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
2 Inquisition of Kozilek

Sideboard:
3 Chain of Vapor
4 Doomsday
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Emrakul Aeons of Torn
1 Dreams Grip
1 Shelldock Isle
2 Tropical Island

[Sims]

This is going to seem very off topic and has nothing to do with strategy or development of the deck, but can someone please explain to me why ANT decks have suddenly started to be called TNT on various forums and websites?

Did they unban Survival and Workshop and suddenly you guys decided it'd be fun to transition into welder survival shenanegins with Triskellions and Onulets?

[amonchakai]

Because it's the mix with ANT+TPS=TNT

It's the same ANT list with burning wish and no grim tutor

[GexxX]

This is going to seem very off topic and has nothing to do with strategy or development of the deck, but can someone please explain to me why ANT decks have suddenly started to be called TNT on various forums and websites?

Did they unban Survival and Workshop and suddenly you guys decided it'd be fun to transition into welder survival shenanegins with Triskellions and Onulets?

it's a "hybrid" of TES and ANT.

basically it's ANT + Red for a Wishboard and 4 Burning wish main.
The cool thing about it is that you have more business, and you don't have to have LED+IT to tutor for something broken. Instead of Grim TUtor it's burning wish pretty much. ;)

[Sims]

Gotcha. I'm going to have trouble getting used to that one, I think. It's always going to conjure memories of workshops decks from years ago.

Okay, sorry for the interruption, carry on.

[mort-]

Well, I always knew that WotC don't like combo, but I didn't know they hate it that much :/

Flusterstorm U
Instant - Rare
Counter target instant or sorcery spell unless it's controller pays 1.
Storm

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=329831

[amonchakai]

Real or fake?
It can't be possible...

[Dia_Bot]

Man, they really do print combo hate in every single set they bring out...
The funny thing is...why are we still standing? :P

[lorddotm]

Well, I always knew that WotC don't like combo, but I didn't know they hate it that much :/

Flusterstorm U
Instant - Rare
Counter target instant or sorcery spell unless it's controller pays 1.
Storm

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=329831

Yeah.... This is insane. Fuck you WotC.

[Koby]

Yeah.... This is insane. Fuck you WotC.

@ lorddotm - Remember that time Wizards printed Flutterstorm and completely invalidated your storm deck? That was hilarious.

XD

[GoboLord]

Am I the only one thinking that this thing is not really backbreacking? I'm mean: if they cast it at a buisness spell we are done for, but we still have protection spells to get rid of it. Against U decks we usually go off protected anyways. This means that they either have to cast it @ Duress or see it getting ripped from their hand. Thus, its just something in between Mindbreak Trap and Spell Pierce.

[lorddotm]

Am I the only one thinking that this thing is not really backbreacking? I'm mean: if they cast it at a buisness spell we are done for, but we still have protection spells to get rid of it. Against U decks we usually go off protected anyways. This means that they either have to cast it @ Duress or see it getting ripped from their hand. Thus, its just something in between Mindbreak Trap and Spell Pierce.

Going off protected has become almost impossible at this point. MM tags all the protection spells, and this one helps with that too. On top of that, they still have Force as always. They have reached a critical mass of back breaking cards against Storm, and U will be just about impossible to beat.

[Bryant Cook]

I could see Storm players using this card against blue. I'm going to give it a shot.

[Arew]

I could see Storm players using this card against blue. I'm going to give it a shot.

Thta's about the only way I can see us having a shot tbh.

[Rune]

Nothing to worry about, imo. Blue decks are already very tight on slots. The card is too narrow to be maindecked, and Spell Pierce is still the best option for a SB counter because its application is much broader. Seeing a new card with the Storm mechanic is pretty exciting, though

[GGoober]

Curious rules question: Assume you are a storm player playing with this new card (Cook's suggestion). You storm a bunch and they FoW, you cast Flutterstorm on FoW. They choose to let it get countered. Now you have a bunch of Flutterstorm on the stack, can you target every Flutterstorm on the stack against each other in such a way you won't end up having to end up countering your own spells you played prior to Flutterstorm on the stack?

I believe the answer is yes, but just wanted some clarification.

[ScatmanX]

Using this card to protect against itself won't do much good if the opponent has some spare mana imo.
Say, you cast some spells, and then your opponent Flusterstorms one of them. With his copies on the stack, you cast your own, targeting each copy of his at least once. Then, he pays for 3 or 4 of his copy's to resolve. Can you still combo out trough that Mana Leak? Or am I thinking something wrong here?

[Gui]

Curious rules question: Assume you are a storm player playing with this new card (Cook's suggestion). You storm a bunch and they FoW, you cast Flutterstorm on FoW. They choose to let it get countered. Now you have a bunch of Flutterstorm on the stack, can you target every Flutterstorm on the stack against each other in such a way you won't end up having to end up countering your own spells you played prior to Flutterstorm on the stack?

I believe the answer is yes, but just wanted some clarification.

You actually point all them to FoW

[Arew]

Curious rules question: Assume you are a storm player playing with this new card (Cook's suggestion). You storm a bunch and they FoW, you cast Flutterstorm on FoW. They choose to let it get countered. Now you have a bunch of Flutterstorm on the stack, can you target every Flutterstorm on the stack against each other in such a way you won't end up having to end up countering your own spells you played prior to Flutterstorm on the stack?

I believe the answer is yes, but just wanted some clarification.

You could just target each of them at the FoW and then they fizzle after it's countered correct?

[GoboLord]

Yes, the copies can even target the other copies on the stack if you want to.


Going off protected has become almost impossible at this point. MM tags all the protection spells, and this one helps with that too. On top of that, they still have Force as always. They have reached a critical mass of back breaking cards against Storm, and U will be just about impossible to beat.
If it really comes down to: "U= loss, non-U= probably not" then we could just as well switch to Belcher since its better in beating non-U decks.

[lorddotm]

I could see Storm players using this card against blue. I'm going to give it a shot.

There won't be a Jap Foil version. I am doing this as well. Although it makes going Hellbent for Infernal extremely hard.

[GGoober]

You could just target each of them at the FoW and then they fizzle after it's countered correct?

That works. I was thinking what happens if you only say assign 2 copies to FoW (enough to counter FoW) and carelessly had copies floating around, can you annihliate the copies like matter+anti-matter annihilation?

[GoboLord]

You need to announce a target for every copy when it goes on the stack. No carelessly floating around here...

//EDIT
@ Gui: Say you have 6 copies on stack.
Copy 1: targets Force of Will
Copy 2: targets Force of Will
Copy 3: targets Force of Will
Copy 4: targets Copy 3
Copy 5: targets Copy 4
Copy 6: targets Copy 5

[Gui]

You need to announce a target when the copies go on the stack. No carelessly floating around here...

Yup, you can't wait with unannounced targets.
But I believe you got to choose the target after the copy is put into the stack, can't you target the other copy, then? This is some awesome question, cuz it will never be the case. xD

[Bryant Cook]

NO! Will it at least come in Japanese?

[lorddotm]

NO! Will it at least come in Japanese?

Not for a cold fuckin' minute. It took more than a year for JvC to be in Japanese.

Disclaimer:

I would not be complaining about this card at all if Mental Misstep didn't exist.

[Arew]

NO! Will it at least come in Japanese?

There will be Japanese versions, because I think my shop ordered some foreign displays.

[Namida]

It'll be out in Japan, yeah. One of the Wizards Articles showed all the versions of some legendary card in the set, and Japanese was definitely one of them.

[Scordata]

That card is absolute garbage. Mindbreak trap is way better, and that card is crap as well.
What blue deck needs to put this in their maindeck, or sideboard for that matter? Maybe solidarity?

Is it safe to unban frantic search and mtutor yet?

[iPhael]

I wouldn't go as far as to call it garbage, but I'll agree that it's not maindeck material for blue.dec. Spell Pierce sees plenty of play in boards and this card is STRICTLY better. I'd fully expect any deck running pierce in the side to switch to this once it's printed.

[Koby]

Curious rules question: Assume you are a storm player playing with this new card (Cook's suggestion). You storm a bunch and they FoW, you cast Flutterstorm on FoW. They choose to let it get countered. Now you have a bunch of Flutterstorm on the stack, can you target every Flutterstorm on the stack against each other in such a way you won't end up having to end up countering your own spells you played prior to Flutterstorm on the stack?

I believe the answer is yes, but just wanted some clarification.

There is a possible scenario in which Flutterstorm could hurt you marginally. It requires FoW to be cast in response to the Storm trigger, targeting Flutterstorm. Then all copies of Flutterstorm would need to target your own spells; but as GoboLord demonstrated, you could counter Flutterstorm copies with Flutterstorm copies ad infinitum. Misplaying this would be pretty bad (both bad play, and bad for the game).

[CranialX]

any tricks of the trade for the shelldock isle and emrakul?
with the deck build that i got.

[mort-]

I wouldn't go as far as to call it garbage, but I'll agree that it's not maindeck material for blue.dec. Spell Pierce sees plenty of play in boards and this card is STRICTLY better. I'd fully expect any deck running pierce in the side to switch to this once it's printed.

And there is the problem. Most blue matches are a gamble nowadays, because your protection spell is most likely to be countered. So you either go off blind or wait for another protection spell. Both can (and most of the time will) work. But if this card will greet you out of the sideboard.. I don't see you winning any blue matches anymore. That's four Forcen plus eight hardcounter for the relevant half of ANT.
Guess it's time to start the little BobTendrils test I wanted to do :)

[Namida]

any tricks of the trade for the shelldock isle and emrakul?
with the deck build that i got.

I don't understand what you're looking for since you asked a question like this already today, and you already acknowledged that you had that question answered about twenty minutes after you asked it. Could you elaborate on what you want?

[Dia_Bot]

Guess it's time to start the little BobTendrils test I wanted to do :)
Just thinking the same thing. :P

[menace13]

I don't understand what you're looking for since you asked a question like this already today, and you already acknowledged that you had that question answered about twenty minutes after you asked it. Could you elaborate on what you want?
Pretty sure that is trolling. Or, he could be asking for super secret tricks with Shelldock, you know, like, tapping it when a deck has less than 20 cards left!11!1eleven!

[Soggy_oggy]

I'm not sure why WOTC hates combo so much, it isn't like we're absolutely dominating Legacy. The only good thing I can see is that between fluterstorm, MM and spell pierce only 2 of the 3 will be used with such limited space in control decks. Storm isn't exactly on everyone's radar when going to a major legacy tournament which I feel is a good thing and it might make people decide to not use this card in the board. In my local meta I know people will want to pack 4 of these in each sideboard though, I'm almost tempted to put back my xantid swarm's in the sideboard just to help against this card.

I feel as if they just want legacy to be control decks VS control decks, they need to throw a bone to aggro and combo decks because at this point I feel they have printed everything possible for control. Veldakin shackles against aggro, almost every type of counter spell possible at this point to help against combo and the rest of the decks in the format. /end rant

[Noman Peopled]

Maybe that's a dumb question but what does Flusterstorm actually do that's so much better than the pre-existing counter-suite? It certainly is a good card but how is it significantly more backbreaking?

[Soggy_oggy]

Maybe that's a dumb question but what does Flusterstorm actually do that's so much better than the pre-existing counter-suite? It certainly is a good card but how is it significantly more backbreaking?

Because against us its always going to be atleast a spell pierce, usually it will be a "counter target instant or sorcery unless its controller pays 5/6". Worst case scenario it counters all or a good chunk of our 10 tendrils of agony when we go off if we don't know they have the card or are forced to go off earlier than we want to and are unable to duress them for some reason. It isn't that this card alone is so great against us since most ANT decks run 6-8 discard effects, its that control has gotten nearly everything it has ever needed to beat combo and this might be the last card that they needed.

[iPhael]

Maybe that's a dumb question but what does Flusterstorm actually do that's so much better than the pre-existing counter-suite? It certainly is a good card but how is it significantly more backbreaking?

Basically Flutterstorm is a double Force Spike that gets better as they play more spells. Consider this:

They play a spell, you counter with FS. The storm count is 2 at that point, and thus they'd have to pay :2:

Now consider if you get into one of these scenarios:
You dark ritual, they MM, you ritual again in response, they Daze it, you respond with Flutterstorm at storm 5, pointing the copies at each of their counters, allowing you to go off with both rituals in tact.

It's just a much more flexible Spell Pierce. Weather it helps combo more then hurts it is up in the air at this point, but it is probably the end of ANT/TES as we know it.

[Soggy_oggy]

Depending on how popular this card becomes I think the xantid swarm sideboard tech might have to make a comeback in my sideboard, the only up side to this card is that combo isn't on to many peoples radar when going to a big event so between MM, spell pierce and flutterstorm I think 95% of players will decide to leave out flutterstorm unless combo is big going into the event since the other 2 counter spells are better against the rest of the meta.

It is possible we end up using it as sideboard tech to use in defense but playing infernal tutor with this card in hand makes it impossible to use as intended since we will have to pitch to LED anyways then watch out infernal get countered.

Im not sure this will be the nail in the coffin we all fear but it certainly brings is very close, I think WOTC is running out of cards to print that will kill combo.

[Noman Peopled]

Ah, got it. The card's the same non-issue as other options when we do have disruption, but if we don't, it's harder to play around.
Still, not sure it's maindeckable, and if already counter-heavy decks want to play it sb remains to be seen. Of course I fully expect to get killed by it at least once once I get off my lazy ass and get same to a tournament again.

[emidln]

This card is pretty abysmal in non-combo decks that want to deal with Zoo, Merfolk, and Stoneforge Mystic (the three top decks right now). This card will only see fringe play in non-combo decks, much the way that Mindbreak Trap currently does. It's not going to replace Spell Pierce (which is seeing less and less play already) as long as Stoneforge-Batterskull, Zoo, and Merfolk are the top contenders.

[mort-]

Maybe I don't get it, but why would you want Pierce in the three matchups you named instead of Flusterstorm?

[menace13]

Maybe I don't get it, but why would you want Pierce in the three matchups you named instead of Flusterstorm?
He doesn't. That is why it is seeing less and less play, But compared to Pierce, Fluster comes up short against Standstill, Vial, Equips, and Jace. Also to add on to that, 2 out of 3 decks named, barely if ever play more than 2 spells if they have to protect their spell to resolve.

[mort-]

K, misread that one :D

[NesretepNoj]

Just wanna add, that I tried two Tendrils in the sideboard in a small tournament yesterday. I played against an UW Control-deck, and it was awesome. Started game two with a Tendrils in hand, and it felt like I couldn't lose. I used an Infernal Tutor on the second turn to tutor up a second Duress and raw stormed him out on turn three with eight cards in hand.

My two loses were both Merfolks. I had not done any testing against them after Mental Misstep, but I still thing it's an okay matchup, if you just practise it enough (the second one I faced, boarded in Mindbreak Trap, which seriously f***** me).

[practical joke]

Also don't worry about flutterstorm.

1. blue has a lot of better counters against combo to board: exampls: MBT,stifle, spell pierce (not forgetting the usual MM, force and spell snares sets)
2. it costs blue...so anything that doesn't play blue has no use for it, and when playing blue, see reason 1.

I don't think it'll see play at all except in some trollbuilds or experimental builds, but it shouldn't be worth trying it out at all unless they go full-out vs combo (in that case even chants and silences are better)

I wouldn't worry about it now that combo has gotten a lot less attention in the new meta.

[GoboLord]

Different topic:

I have had trouble with my protection spells being countered by MMs. Thus, I wanted to have protectionspells with cc2.
There are two cards that come into mind:

1. Abeyance
2. Defense Grid

Has anyone have experience with the one and/or the other card? So far I've only tested Defense Grid and I really love it. The sweetest thing is that you can (try to) land it before your combo turn so you have more mana left when you go off. Against counter-heavy decks (where you need more than 1 protection-spell to go off) you divide those 2 protections spells you need among two turns.
I didn't test Abeyance so far.

[Fossil4182]

Different topic:

I have had trouble with my protection spells being countered by MMs. Thus, I wanted to have protectionspells with cc2.
There are two cards that come into mind:

1. Abeyance
2. Defense Grid

Has anyone have experience with the one and/or the other card? So far I've only tested Defense Grid and I really love it. The sweetest thing is that you can (try to) land it before your combo turn so you have more mana left when you go off. Against counter-heavy decks (where you need more than 1 protection-spell to go off) you divide those 2 protections spells you need among two turns.
I didn't test Abeyance so far.

Defense Grid seems powerful, but slow to me. Its no doubt good against control, but I'd almost rather be casting cantrips instead of trying to tap out for Defense Grid. Abeyance seems to be an interesting choice. It has the added benefit of being able to shut off Top which is nice bonus. My only comment to these is that the Landstill/MUC decks that run Mental Misstep will also run Spell Snare making these cards somewhat worse since they have a dedicated hard counter for them. The benefit we can take from this is that the metagame shift has largely ignored combo while changing recently and Spell Pierce is more likely to appear as a sideboard card then a maindeck card now. This can work to our advantage as Storm players since we can approach control decks running situational counters.

Instead of trying to find ways to avoid playing around Mental Misstep, I've opted to play through it. Post board (my list is below), I typically run 4 Duress, 4 Thoughtseize and 4 Xantid Swarm against control decks. Between the disruption cards, all of the cantrips, and Dark Ritual, I'm typically able to run them out of counters, resolve a Xantid Swarm through them or hit them with enough discard spells to win. Its another reason why I believe Grim Tutor and Ad Nauseam are good choices right now since most of dedicated control decks (Landstill Variants, MUC control) have no clock (making the life loss negligible) and will only have 7 counterspells that can target either of those spells (3 Counterspell and 4 Force of Will). Additional copies of Tendrils could be alright, but it seems like it gives them the opportunity to stabilize unless you cast both of them in the same turn for the kill.

Just won a local Legacy event with LaxStorm. The list is below with a few notes.

Lands (17)
3 Island
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs

Business Spells (43)
3 Preordain
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Echoing Truth (may turn into a Chain of Vapor)
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Grim Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Rebuild
1 Wipeaway
2 Thoughtseize
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Tropical Island
4 Xantid Swarm

I played against mostly BUG and UW Stoneforge decks. I went 3-0-1 in the swiss and won out. My only game loss was due to pilot error.

Xantid Swarm was by far the MVP of the day for me. It made the decks with counterspells in them a race instead of a grind. I know the possibility of adding more Tendrils has been discussed, but I only found myself resolving two Tendrils once. Comparatively, I resolved Xantid Swarm and won because of it every game I saw it.

Against the Team America match, I won by resolving Ad Nauseam both times. In one match, I won game one despite being hit with two Hymn to Tourach and playing through Force of Will. I've found that if they're disrupting you, they're not killing you. So while discard can be annoying and make you feel like you're behind, its only a problem when they have a quick clock following it up. Digging up Ad Nauseam and resolving it seems like much stronger move than boarding in additional Tendrils. This could also double against Mono Blue or Landstill where their counter base is much more conditional now with Mental Misstep and Spell Snare making up a majority of the counterbase; Counterspell/FoW not withstanding. Not to mention that those decks have zero clock so you're life total will usually be high allowing you to dig deeper with Ad Nauseam.

[Pulp_Fiction]

@gobolord: Defense Grid is really good, but honestly I prefer some combination of 4x Duress then 3-5 Thoughtseize/Swarm in the main or board. This has worked quite well over the past few weeks against all kinds of random shit. Grid is very solid and NOT too slow. Against the decks you want it against, you usually have ample time to set up the win, and against Merfolk you just run Swarm.

This is totally off topic but I decided to try Cunning Wish in ANT again and I'm really starting to like it. I can post the list but its pretty untested so I am not sure if its final yet, but I slowly began to realize that nearly my entire SB can be wish targets and it won't effect my normal game plan 1 bit. I only need 3-4 dedicated wish slots and the rest of the board can be wished for at will. Since I am only playing 2 Wishes I am positive that I am running these: AdN and Cabal Rit in the dedicated slots but I am racking my brain trying to figure out if Brainfreeze or Hunting Pack is the better kill card or if BOTH are necessary?

Yes, Freeze is heavily reliant on AdN resolving and Hunting Pack is just terrible but ... diversification of wins cons is really important. Do you think both are necessary? Can anyone think of some other random instants that I should consider? For now its basically just some combination of bounce, kill, and the 4th Swarm. Most likely to mirror:

AdN
CRit
blank
blank

2x H Recall
1x Rebuild
1x Swarm
2x Wipe Away
1x Grip
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Tendrils
1x Mindbreak Trap

Or something along those lines. This is just off the top of my head but I know I will play 3x slots for Stax/Stompy and 3x for CB since people foolishly still play it in my meta and keep losing. Thoughts on this and perhaps any suggestions on overlooked instants?

[Scopeye]

@pulp_fiction Ravenous trap. Not sure if necessary since we should be faster than dredge
Rain of filth can be good late game and costs only 1 compared to cabal.
FoW? I know it creates alot of card disadvantage but it might be worth it as a 1 of.
Pact of Negation
Misdirection
Submerge
Tranquil Domain. Straight bounce is probably better
Surgical extraction.
Orim's chant
Ancient grudge or crash if you can splash
Tangle to buy turns if necessary
Beast Within. Permanent answer to problematic cards

These are all I could come up with hope it helps

[lorddotm]

There is a possible scenario in which Flutterstorm could hurt you marginally. It requires FoW to be cast in response to the Storm trigger, targeting Flutterstorm. Then all copies of Flutterstorm would need to target your own spells; but as GoboLord demonstrated, you could counter Flutterstorm copies with Flutterstorm copies ad infinitum. Misplaying this would be pretty bad (both bad play, and bad for the game).

I'm confused as to why you couldn't just target the same thing every time and just have them fizzle.

[Fossil4182]

The only other thing that worries me about Defense Grid in the board is that if they resolve something like a Chalice, Null Rod or Trinisphere (or any problematic permanent), it becomes much more difficult to bounce it since you'll probably have to bounce it on your turn.

[TUMBLES]

Exactly which deck with Chalice/Trini/Null would you be boarding Defense Grid in against?

[thefringthing]

Two ANT decks in the Top 16 of the Denver SCG Legacy Open: one (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=38951) with Gitaxian Probe, one (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=38942) without.

[Namida]

Is Gitaxian Probe really that good?

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Bob Yu here. Look for a report soon, but the deck was savage. I lost to Nick Spagnolo and a battle of wits deck, because I savagely punted and fizzled with Ad Naus at 13 life. Scotty is a very close friend, and we've both been developing the deck for the past 2 weeks. Scott is probably the strongest combo player I've met, due to his Vintage experience with TPS.

Ad Naus is the real deal.

[OurSerratedDust]

Bob Yu here. Look for a report soon, but the deck was savage. I lost to Nick Spagnolo and a battle of wits deck, because I savagely punted and fizzled with Ad Naus at 13 life. Scotty is a very close friend, and we've both been developing the deck for the past 2 weeks. Scott is probably the strongest combo player I've met, due to his Vintage experience with TPS.

Ad Naus is the real deal.

Hey man, great work! I was just wondering, how has IGG been working out for you guys? I was beginning to think that perhaps there is too much blue in the meta for it to be maindecked, but I could be wrong. How often did you guys use it? Thanks!

[thefringthing]

Looking forward to that report!

[Fossil4182]

Exactly which deck with Chalice/Trini/Null would you be boarding Defense Grid in against?

Since you asked, here are some decks from recent top 16 that have permanents that we'd want to bounce end of their turn before we go off and having Defense Grid out would be troublesome.


Legacy Orlando
Show and Tell - Leyline of Sanctity (Thomas Ma)
Merfolk - Phyrexian Revoker & Null Rod (Jacob Boschee)
Show and Tell - Leyline of Sanctity (Hans Feng)

Bazar of Moxen
Reanimator - Iona, Shield of Emeria (Oliver Salten)
NOPro Zenith Bant - Ethersworn Canonist, Null Rod (Alexeia Isupov)
Sneak and Show - Trinisphere (Rodrigo Togores)
Landstill Bant - Meddling Mage (Selim Creiche)
Sneak and Show - Trinisphere (Johannes Gutbrod)
Show and Tell - Iona, Shield of Emeria (Michael Kammer)

GP
No Force Bant - Gaddock Teeg (James Rynkiewicz)
Hive Mind - Leyline of Sanctity (Bryan Eleyet)
U/W Stoneblade - Meddling Mage (Owen Turtenwald)

Even if several of those decks don't run Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere or Null Rod in them, there are enough control decks that run permanent based combo disruption to warrant the exclusion of Defense Grid. I'm also not counting the Graveyard hate or Blood Moon in boards as "must" bounce spells. Both are troublesome and while not being "must" bounce cards, our life is certainty easier without them on the board when we try to go off. This is especially true since Blood Moon shuts down all but five lands in our deck and Graveyard hate nerfs Cabal Ritual and takes away Ill-Gotten Gains as a route to victory.

Has it also been mentioned that Defense Grid is terrible when flipping with Ad Nauseam?


Two ANT decks in the Top 16 of the Denver SCG Legacy Open: one (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=38951) with Gitaxian Probe, one (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=38942) without.

I'd be interested in reading a report or at least comments on deck construction from Scott Limoges who piloted the Probe list. Interestingly enough, it only ran 14 lands and no Chrome Mox which seems really light. I guess Probe does allow the deck to functionally run 56 cards, but it also would seem that resolving one for free prior to casting an Ad Nauseam seems disadvantageous since statistically one could flip two more cards from Ad Nauseam.

[Namida]

Holy crap. So the deck ran 14 lands and 5 business spells? I've definitely got to hear about the reasons behind some of these choices.

[lorddotm]

Bob Yu here. Look for a report soon, but the deck was savage. I lost to Nick Spagnolo and a battle of wits deck, because I savagely punted and fizzled with Ad Naus at 13 life. Scotty is a very close friend, and we've both been developing the deck for the past 2 weeks. Scott is probably the strongest combo player I've met, due to his Vintage experience with TPS.

Ad Naus is the real deal.

I'm not going to lie, but his list looks loosey goosey, and I wouldn't play it without having found a pot o' gold at the end of a rainbow.

Also, he made some pretty bad mistakes under the lights. Maybe Denver is riddled with soft players, I don't know.

I realize I sound like a douche in this post, but lets be honest here, you two just Top 16'd a 100+ man even with a deck a lot of people think doesn't exist. Mad props.

BONUS:

Here is my current TNT list:

Main Deck
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Burning Wish
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Preordain
4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island
2 Swamp

Sideboard
1 Thoughtseize
2 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Wipe Away
3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-gotten Gains
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Meltdown
1 Pyroclasm
3 Dark Confidant

So far it has been decent, still not sold on the Bobs.

Just hit post number 1,000. NBD.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

The deck is loose for sure. But in Scotty's defense, this was his first tournament in 2+ years. We are mainly Vintage players who basically play casually (like once every 2-3 months). He is very familiar with storm combo, and thought ANT would be the best call.

With that being said, his reasoning for running probe is that basically ANT has two matchups: Blue and Non-blue. Probe gives you info on what the matchup is, and how to play accordingly. Going forward, if more control decks pop up, I would definitely run a couple maindeck Gitaxian probes. They won't counter it, it adds to storm, replaces itself, and most importantly is FREE. The card helps a bunch with the "draw up to 8 and naturally tendrils you out" plan.

[hyc8028]

@gobolord: Defense Grid is really good, but honestly I prefer some combination of 4x Duress then 3-5 Thoughtseize/Swarm in the main or board. This has worked quite well over the past few weeks against all kinds of random shit. Grid is very solid and NOT too slow. Against the decks you want it against, you usually have ample time to set up the win, and against Merfolk you just run Swarm.

This is totally off topic but I decided to try Cunning Wish in ANT again and I'm really starting to like it. I can post the list but its pretty untested so I am not sure if its final yet, but I slowly began to realize that nearly my entire SB can be wish targets and it won't effect my normal game plan 1 bit. I only need 3-4 dedicated wish slots and the rest of the board can be wished for at will. Since I am only playing 2 Wishes I am positive that I am running these: AdN and Cabal Rit in the dedicated slots but I am racking my brain trying to figure out if Brainfreeze or Hunting Pack is the better kill card or if BOTH are necessary?

Yes, Freeze is heavily reliant on AdN resolving and Hunting Pack is just terrible but ... diversification of wins cons is really important. Do you think both are necessary? Can anyone think of some other random instants that I should consider? For now its basically just some combination of bounce, kill, and the 4th Swarm. Most likely to mirror:

AdN
CRit
blank
blank

2x H Recall
1x Rebuild
1x Swarm
2x Wipe Away
1x Grip
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Tendrils
1x Mindbreak Trap

Or something along those lines. This is just off the top of my head but I know I will play 3x slots for Stax/Stompy and 3x for CB since people foolishly still play it in my meta and keep losing. Thoughts on this and perhaps any suggestions on overlooked instants?

I am looking to play some sort of ANT for this month legacy local event and putting some list together. I also feel like Cunning Wish could be a acceptable substitute to Grim Tutor. I haven't done much testing yet, but here is a sample list:

Spell: 43
4x Dark Ritual
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Duress
4x Thoughtseize
3x Cabal Ritual
3x Preordain
2x Cunning Wish
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ad Nauseam

Land: 17
4x Polluted Delta
3x Misty Rainforest
2x Verdant Catacomb
2x Swamp
2x Island
2x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island

SB: 15
4x Xanid Swarm
2x Wipe Away
1x Echoing truth
1x Krosan Grip
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Pact of Negation
1x Cabal Ritual
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Hurkyl's Recall

Also, if we would run Cunning Wish, would Autumn's Veil be ok in the side?



BONUS:

Here is my current TNT list:

Main Deck
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Burning Wish
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Preordain
4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Ill-gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island
2 Swamp

Sideboard
1 Thoughtseize
2 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Wipe Away
3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-gotten Gains
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Meltdown
1 Pyroclasm
3 Dark Confidant

So far it has been decent, still not sold on the Bobs.

Just hit post number 1,000. NBD.

Any reason why you don't leave a Doomsday for wish target?

[GoboLord]

I know Grim Tutor isn't available to everone, but how could Cunning Wish possibly substitute G. Tutor? They do totally different things. Cunning Wish basically tutors you protection-spells while G.Tutor most ofetn fetches you winconditions.
Sure, you can argue that C. Wish fetches you AdN, but that's the wincondition you should be looking for when the Iggy and Tutorchain don't work for some reason. Plus, it's unlikely that you will be able to spend 8 mana on C. Wish + AdN and still have mana floating.

That being said: I think C. Wish is very interesting and should absolutely be considered - not as a replacement for a tutor or a wincondition though.

[lorddotm]

Any reason why you don't leave a Doomsday for wish target?

Because I don't need one. Any reason you think I do need one?

[lordofthepit]

Because I don't need one. Any reason you think I do need one?

I don't think that list needs one.

On the other hand, having the standard cantrips (Brainstorm, Ponder, and Preordain) plus a free cantrip in Gitaxian Probe means Doomsday can go off more easily than before. But that's probably a discussion for another thread.

[JohnBaltimore]

Anyone not willing to shell out $150+ for Grim Tutors should just play lorddotm's 'TNT' list. It's extremely consistent, and has a good manabase against Wasteland, especially for being 3 colors.

[Fossil4182]

I am looking to play some sort of ANT for this month legacy local event and putting some list together. I also feel like Cunning Wish could be a acceptable substitute to Grim Tutor. I haven't done much testing yet, but here is a sample list:

Spell: 43
4x Dark Ritual
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Duress
4x Thoughtseize
3x Cabal Ritual
3x Preordain
2x Cunning Wish
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ad Nauseam

Land: 17
4x Polluted Delta
3x Misty Rainforest
2x Verdant Catacomb
2x Swamp
2x Island
2x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island

SB: 15
4x Xanid Swarm
2x Wipe Away
1x Echoing truth
1x Krosan Grip
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Pact of Negation
1x Cabal Ritual
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Hurkyl's Recall

Also, if we would run Cunning Wish, would Autumn's Veil be ok in the side?



Any reason why you don't leave a Doomsday for wish target?

I believe lorddotm & GoboLord are spot on with their analysis. Something else that seems to be a weakness of this particular list is that you're running two Tropical Island in the maindeck. While I understand the benefits of this strategy having access to some strong sideboard cards, do you feel like or have you experienced mana issues as a result of not having access to black mana? It would appear to me that going into a third color in the main deck for which you don't even have spells you can cast unless you have access to Cunning Wish makes you unnecessarily vulnerable to Wasteland and potentially color screw. You're list is already running 4 Duress and 4 Thoughtseize. Why not edit the slots Cunning Wish currently occupies with some combination of bounce spells? Wipeaway seems like a good answer since it can bounce almost anything and probably serves the same purpose as Krosan Grip does in the board in terms of answering problematic permanents.

[Pulp_Fiction]

Autumn's Veil is interesting but when running only 2 Wish I think you should keep wish targets to a bare minimum.

@scopeye: Good call, totally forgot about Rain of Filth, gonna test that out.

I'm not trying to find a substitute for Grim Tutors, I just simply despise the Lax list and don't like how it plays, that simple. In general I don't like ANT since it gets stranded on occassion and I much prefer the threat density of TES or DD variants, but I am trying to see if I can find a list I like. I have sleeved up the Lax list numerous times and usually take it apart after 15 mins, I just don't like it. Trying to see if Cunning Wish is any good at all. For what its worth, this is what I am playing:

Spell: 44
4x Dark Ritual
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Duress
3x Swarm
3x Cabal Ritual
3x Chrome Mox
2x Top
2x Cunning Wish
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ad Nauseam

Land: 16
4x Polluted Delta
3x Mire
2x Tarn
1x Strand
1x Swamp
1x Island
2x Underground Sea
1x Tropical Island
1x Bayou

And the wish targets are basically Adn, RFilth/CRit, Brainfreeze, and Hunting Pack. I am still testing everything out seeing what I like. So far I want to just sleeve up TES but I am going to work on it a little more till I arrive at a list I would take to a tournament.

[Tammit67]

With that being said, his reasoning for running probe is that basically ANT has two matchups: Blue and Non-blue. Probe gives you info on what the matchup is, and how to play accordingly. Going forward, if more control decks pop up, I would definitely run a couple maindeck Gitaxian probes.

Someone more experienced with legacy can start crossing off a list of decks his opponent is playing by the end of the first turn, usually narrowing it down to a couple options. With 6-8 discard spells, you can usually get the info you want one way or another. Aren't most of the play desicions made on mulliganing anyway?

[egosum]

White spalash seems superior in the Cunning Wish build, you can consider: Orim's Chant/Silence, but also Angel's Grace.

Other nice White Wish targets are:

-Path to Exile (better than swrods to plowshares)
-Abeyance (also stops spinning the Top)

Thesea re the ones that came suddenly when I though of it, maybe with deeper research you can find somethig else useful.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[lorddotm]

I built Cunning Wish ANT. I started with Ari's list, just replacing Grims with Cunning Wish, I ended up here:

AdNgel's Grace

4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox

3 Ad Nauseam
3 Angel's Grace
4 Cunning Wish

4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top

3 Mental Misstep
4 Force of Will
2 Pact of Negation

1 Tendrils of Agony

3 Crystal Vein
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Scrubland
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains

1 Ad Nauseam
1 Angel's Grace
1 Cabal Ritual
2 Pact of Negation
1 Mental Misstep
1 Ravenous Trap
3 Wipe Away
2 Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild
1 Brainfreeze
1 Orim's Chant

It defintely looks a lot looser than it actually is.

[jjflipped]

Thats one crazy list liam... have you tested it much?

[Azdraël]

Seeing this list and its ccm, you are just obliged to go with angel grace + nauseam. Doesnt seem that good.

[lorddotm]

Thats one crazy list liam... have you tested it much?

Yes, so far it beats everything I want it to beat, just need to shore up the Merfolk match up.


Seeing this list and its ccm, you are just obliged to go with angel grace + nauseam. Doesnt seem that good.

We've got an Einstein here! It is a two card combo where one of your cards is uncounterable, and the other is harder to counter. It really does look like a pile of shit, however, it has been winning for me in testing, so I'm not going to complain.

[Tammit67]

What is the average turn you go off with this? How effective is is cabal ritual with 4 cantrips? Force with 17 cantrips? Looks cool.

[lordofthepit]

Yes, so far it beats everything I want it to beat, just need to shore up the Merfolk match up.

We've got an Einstein here! It is a two card combo where one of your cards is uncounterable, and the other is harder to counter. It really does look like a pile of shit, however, it has been winning for me in testing, so I'm not going to complain.

Brain Freeze looks a little awkward.

One weakness of normal ANT is that its only copy of Tendrils can be discarded away, and you're down to Ill-Gotten Gains to get it back.

A Burning Wish build (TES, TNT, etc.) is more resilient to this because you can play more virtual copies of Tendrils if necessary. However, with Cunning Wish, you're stuck trying to Ad Nauseam into a Brain Freeze, which requires a much higher storm total. Combined with your higher mana curve, you're often going to need to also use Angel's Grace to draw your deck. So you have three options:
1) Go off (with or without Angel's Grace) during your main phase so that you can make use of any artifact mana and any Tops that you draw to build storm. But you still cannot afford to go to 0 life from Ad Nauseam because your opponent doesn't die until his draw phase.
2) Cast Angel's Grace + Ad Nauseam on your opponent's upkeep and kill with Brain Freeze. But you will already have sunk 6 mana into this turn, and whatever is left of the 7 Rituals are the only further mana accelerants you'll be able to cast. Moreover, you're going to need to use those Rituals in conjunction with the remaining Brainstorms, Angel's Graces, and counterspells to put together about 15 storm. Maybe it will work, but I'm not certain.

How good has Brain Freeze been for you as a Wish target? And more importantly, what matchups do you think you improve over TNT?

[lorddotm]

What is the average turn you go off with this? How effective is is cabal ritual with 4 cantrips? Force with 17 cantrips? Looks cool.

It goes off about turn 4 or 5 every time, this is more of a fun deck. Cunning Wish is a lot worse than Burning Wish, but this does a lot better against blue decks that want to go long.



Brain Freeze looks a little awkward.

One weakness of normal ANT is that its only copy of Tendrils can be discarded away, and you're down to Ill-Gotten Gains to get it back.

A Burning Wish build (TES, TNT, etc.) is more resilient to this because you can play more virtual copies of Tendrils if necessary. However, with Cunning Wish, you're stuck trying to Ad Nauseam into a Brain Freeze, which requires a much higher storm total. Combined with your higher mana curve, you're often going to need to also use Angel's Grace to draw your deck. So you have three options:
1) Go off (with or without Angel's Grace) during your main phase so that you can make use of any artifact mana and any Tops that you draw to build storm. But you still cannot afford to go to 0 life from Ad Nauseam because your opponent doesn't die until his draw phase.
2) Cast Angel's Grace + Ad Nauseam on your opponent's upkeep and kill with Brain Freeze. But you will already have sunk 6 mana into this turn, and whatever is left of the 7 Rituals are the only further mana accelerants you'll be able to cast. Moreover, you're going to need to use those Rituals in conjunction with the remaining Brainstorms, Angel's Graces, and counterspells to put together about 15 storm. Maybe it will work, but I'm not certain.

How good has Brain Freeze been for you as a Wish target? And more importantly, what matchups do you think you improve over TNT?

The Brain Freeze has never come up. I'm going to replace it.

This isn't necessarily better than TNT, it is just something I use to dick around. You always need Angel's Grace to go off, don't try and kid yourself that you won't. It is powerful though (at what I want it to do, beat slow blue decks).

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

@lorddotm: I tried something similar to your list before. Ancient Spring was surprisingly good in that version, providing U before the combo-turn and a mana-boost and both colors needed to go off when you're ready. Having a tapland was surprisingly easy to play around.

[lorddotm]

@lorddotm: I tried something similar to your list before. Ancient Spring was surprisingly good in that version, providing U before the combo-turn and a mana-boost and both colors needed to go off when you're ready. Having a tapland was surprisingly easy to play around.

Might be worth looking into, but having it Wasted is kind of a beating. And I don't know about you crazy cats over in Europe, but here in LA, it is probably the single most played card.

[Azdraël]

We've got an Einstein here! It is a two card combo where one of your cards is uncounterable, and the other is harder to counter. It really does look like a pile of shit, however, it has been winning for me in testing, so I'm not going to complain.

lol you did not really get my point. It's not like Angel's grace has been never played a lot in the good old times, and then people had to give it up. For some reasons. I'll let you guess which. ANT player's speaking.

[darnovo]

how many times have you lost by casting pact and then fizzling... lol ;)

[lorddotm]

lol you did not really get my point. It's not like Angel's grace has been never played a lot in the good old times, and then people had to give it up. For some reasons. I'll let you guess which. ANT player's speaking.

Because nothing changes in Legacy, and old ideas never become viable again....

Haven't died to Pact yet.

Guys this is more of a fun list, as I said, Cunning Wish is just straight up worse than Burning Wish, but if you want something different that can steal games, this works well enough.

[Pelikanudo]

Hi,

I just wanted to share with you my thinkings about ANT.

I've been trying seeral builds of ANT , however I find M.Tutor neccessary as from now on you only have a chance of winning post A.Nauseam and its having an I.Tutor and LED, if you do not get this goal you simply will loose, as there is no other tutor that gets you the Tendrils.

Because of that I started to create an hybrid of ANT and Doomsday, but mainly I wanted to exploit the A.Nauseam card, which is still very good.
The only thing I need now is to get mana to cast a DoomsDay, in such a way that I only need black mana. and thats all.
From now on the chance of comboing post A.NAuseam are reduced to only getting DoomDay.

Has anyone tryed a kind of DDANT hybrid?

[egosum]

I used to play DD ANT, but this was when Mystical tutor was legal, though I know some players had some success with kind of Hybrid deck, for instance an Italian Players called Angelo Cadei made top with this list: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=5291&iddeck=38133.

Personally I don't think is very viable due to the crappy CC the deck has. If you want the doomsday appraoch, just go with a DD list (this is supported by Infernal Tutor + IGG, or Personal Tutorm being stornger the former because grants you a solid alternate game plan). Note that Gitaxian Probe has made this deck a lot better and fast.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

[Kich867]

Speaking of Personal Tutor, why doesn't this deck run it? Understandably it doesn't go directly into your hand, but with the number of cantrips I don't see that being an issue.

[lorddotm]

Speaking of Personal Tutor, why doesn't this deck run it? Understandably it doesn't go directly into your hand, but with the number of cantrips I don't see that being an issue.

Because its bad. It only gets Duress or Infernal, and is really bad against Jace.

[Kich867]

I was thinking more along the lines of getting Tendrils since it's a sorcery. I don't really see how Jace would come into play here, like yeah he can fateseal it, but that's under the assumption that you either play it with a Jace on the table or play it either knowing they have a Jace in hand / are capable of playing a Jace the next turn / rip a Jace from the top and play it that turn.. With 8 discard effects it seems likely you'd know whether Jace is something to be afraid of or play around, and it seems incredibly unlikely that you would not be able to tutor Tendrils and draw it the turn you go off.

Playing poorly with a card isn't really an argument against it.

[gamergc]

I think the point is that you can't cast it if they have a Jace in play.

[Kich867]

I think the point is that you can't cast it if they have a Jace in play.

But that's making an assumption (a rather large one) that shouldn't ever happen. The assumption being, "I can only play Personal Tutor the turn before I go off or turns prior to going off." To an extent it's somewhat like saying that you can't Infernal Tutor for Tendrils because next turn they will just Duress it out of your hand. They're both sorcery speed forms of getting rid of the card after tutoring and both equally unlikely since you intend to win when you're tutoring for it.

Why is this the only point of view being looked at. I mean I'm 100% open to being wrong on this, but is it literally, in any way shape or form, impossible to draw a card after playing Ad Nauseam?

What I'm getting at is, why are you assuming you can't play Personal Tutor if they have Jace in play if you play Personal Tutor on the turn you go off--Jace's ability is not an instant and would never have the opportunity to occur.

Ad Nauseam > Draw a bunch > if you didn't get Tendrils, Personal Tutor for Tendrils > Play one of the cantrips you pulled while AdN'ing, draw Tendrils > Kill them.

[lorddotm]

But that's making an assumption (a rather large one) that shouldn't ever happen. The assumption being, "I can only play Personal Tutor the turn before I go off or turns prior to going off." To an extent it's somewhat like saying that you can't Infernal Tutor for Tendrils because next turn they will just Duress it out of your hand. They're both sorcery speed forms of getting rid of the card after tutoring and both equally unlikely since you intend to win when you're tutoring for it.

Why is this the only point of view being looked at. I mean I'm 100% open to being wrong on this, but is it literally, in any way shape or form, impossible to draw a card after playing Ad Nauseam?

What I'm getting at is, why are you assuming you can't play Personal Tutor if they have Jace in play if you play Personal Tutor on the turn you go off--Jace's ability is not an instant and would never have the opportunity to occur.

Ad Nauseam > Draw a bunch > if you didn't get Tendrils, Personal Tutor for Tendrils > Play one of the cantrips you pulled while AdN'ing, draw Tendrils > Kill them.

Why not play Burning Wish or Grim Tutor, neither one is card disadvantage, and both are playable without having to hold all your cantrips, something this deck does not enjoy doing.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

If you generally only want to draw a certain card after you've resolved Ad Nauseam, that's generally a sign the card is pretty bad. In most situations you will win after AdN in the current lists already. Making your game pre ADN worse just to be slightly better afterwards is already questionable with Chrome Mox (which does at least replace only a land and works as accel pre AdN) but cards you'd rather never have in your hand before you've already won (which is almost always what occurs once you've resolved AdN) make the deck weaker at actually getting to the point where you can AdN.
If Dark Ritual were a sorcery, I think a case could be made for Personal Tutor because it would fetch whatever you're missing pre-combo (protection, accel, business) but without that ability, it's just too limited.

[Kich867]

Why not play Burning Wish or Grim Tutor, neither one is card disadvantage, and both are playable without having to hold all your cantrips, something this deck does not enjoy doing.

Burning Wish is a different card, so, that's irrelevant (they serve two different functions).

Grim Tutor is 3 mana, so hitting it on AdN would effectively deal 6 damage to yourself as opposed to 1, and you wouldn't have to hold all your cantrips. That again falls into the idea that for some reason you can't play a cantrip after you Ad Nauseam and I'm just not really understanding why that's implied.

I would see there not being enough room in the deck for it as a better argument before anything else really. It doesn't seem necessary between it and Infernal Tutor, but Infernal Tutor is rather limited without LED.


If you generally only want to draw a certain card after you've resolved Ad Nauseam, that's generally a sign the card is pretty bad. In most situations you will win after AdN in the current lists already. Making your game pre ADN worse just to be slightly better afterwards is already questionable with Chrome Mox (which does at least replace only a land and works as accel pre AdN) but cards you'd rather never have in your hand before you've already won (which is almost always what occurs once you've resolved AdN) make the deck weaker at actually getting to the point where you can AdN.
If Dark Ritual were a sorcery, I think a case could be made for Personal Tutor because it would fetch whatever you're missing pre-combo (protection, accel, business) but without that ability, it's just too limited.

Gotcha, that makes more sense.

[lorddotm]

Burning Wish is a different card, so, that's irrelevant (they serve two different functions).

Grim Tutor is 3 mana, so hitting it on AdN would effectively deal 6 damage to yourself as opposed to 1, and you wouldn't have to hold all your cantrips. That again falls into the idea that for some reason you can't play a cantrip after you Ad Nauseam and I'm just not really understanding why that's implied.

I would see there not being enough room in the deck for it as a better argument before anything else really. It doesn't seem necessary between it and Infernal Tutor, but Infernal Tutor is rather limited without LED.

So wait, your Personal Tutors are not used to find business spells? Weird. How are PT and BW different in the grand scheme of things?

[Kich867]

So wait, your Personal Tutors are not used to find business spells? Weird. How are PT and BW different in the grand scheme of things?

Right, but most of the modern lists run both tutors and wishes from what I saw, so I was ignoring them as the assumption would be that it's there in some number. But for arguments sake, Burning wish hits you for 2 off an AdN and only creates 1 storm count where a PT and a cantrip together accomplish the same thing at the same cost but for 2 storm count.

I'm making an assumption myself, in that you would have both a PT and a cantrip in your hand after an AdN, except I don't feel that assumption is entirely off base when lists are running 12 cantrips.

However, Mon summed it up well for me, just exploring a potential alternative.

[lorddotm]

Right, but most of the modern lists run both tutors and wishes from what I saw, so I was ignoring them as the assumption would be that it's there in some number. But for arguments sake, Burning wish hits you for 2 off an AdN and only creates 1 storm count where a PT and a cantrip together accomplish the same thing at the same cost but for 2 storm count.

I'm making an assumption myself, in that you would have both a PT and a cantrip in your hand after an AdN, except I don't feel that assumption is entirely off base when lists are running 12 cantrips.

However, Mon summed it up well for me, just exploring a potential alternative.

Another thing is 1R is a lot easier to make than UU, not to mention Mental Misstep. I assumed that everyone knew that cards that are better post Ad Nauseam aren't needed.

[Kich867]

Another thing is 1R is a lot easier to make than UU, not to mention Mental Misstep. I assumed that everyone knew that cards that are better post Ad Nauseam aren't needed.

Ah gotcha, I wasn't exactly sure on that since you never really eluded to that being the case (you threw me off a little with the Jace thing, but again, the UU requirement and MM certainly do pose issues). Mon made it rather clear though.

I'm just breaking into combo decks so I'm still figuring all of this out.

[lorddotm]

Ah gotcha, I wasn't exactly sure on that since you never really eluded to that being the case (you threw me off a little with the Jace thing, but again, the UU requirement and MM certainly do pose issues). Mon made it rather clear though.

I'm just breaking into combo decks so I'm still figuring all of this out.

No worries, sorry to beat a dead horse, but I just wanted to make sure you got where I was coming from.

Welcome to combo, this is probably the toughest time there has been for Ritual casters in a long time (if not ever), if you can stick it out through this, you will become an immensely better combo player.

[Noman Peopled]

Getting Tendrils once going off isn't that much of a problem, though.
Having to get rid of Jace in addition to other hate is, though. Decks playing Jace do have means to get to t4+ against us, and we don't always rip the right amount of discard. We have disruption but so does everybody playing Jace. It's not a huge issue, but not irrelevant. It's not a cas of playing poorly, it's a case of creating a problem, albeit small, where none existed.
Plus, showing the opponent what we want next turn gives them valuable information. "Hm, Doomsday? Guess I won't go for Zenith/Teeg just yet but cantrip into counters instead." IT and BWish can also be chained for a secondary win con, with or without IGG.
Also, blue has Misstep now, which allows decks to get away with 1:1 countering much easier. Cda for a tempo gain is much less appealing then it used to be.

Personal does too little to be worth the slot - it doesn't even get the most explosive card, the namesake of the deck. Mystical was so good because it was much more flexible - it could basically get anything and allowed us to wait for a full turn's worth of information more.

[lorddotm]

Getting Tendrils once going off isn't that much of a problem, though.
Having to get rid of Jace in addition to other hate is, though. Decks playing Jace do have means to get to t4+ against us, and we don't always rip the right amount of discard. We have disruption but so does everybody playing Jace. It's not a huge issue, but not irrelevant. It's not a cas of playing poorly, it's a case of creating a problem, albeit small, where none existed.
Plus, showing the opponent what we want next turn gives them valuable information. "Hm, Doomsday? Guess I won't go for Zenith/Teeg just yet but cantrip into counters instead." IT and BWish can also be chained for a secondary win con, with or without IGG.
Also, blue has Misstep now, which allows decks to get away with 1:1 countering much easier. Cda for a tempo gain is much less appealing then it used to be.

Personal does too little to be worth the slot - it doesn't even get the most explosive card, the namesake of the deck. Mystical was so good because it was much more flexible - it could basically get anything and allowed us to wait for a full turn's worth of information more.

No offense, but this was a little useless, we have determined that Personal Tutor is dogshit. Next topic.

[mooN_MTG]

I play Legacy for a long time ago, but I never play with Ad Nauseam Tendrils, I'm thinking star play with that deck, but I don't no if is a good idea because a lot of people at this moment play blue decks!!

[Tammit67]

I play Legacy for a long time ago, but I never play with Ad Nauseam Tendrils, I'm thinking star play with that deck, but I don't no if is a good idea because a lot of people at this moment play blue decks!!

I know, you might actually have to learn the deck :D

[Diprivan]

I play Legacy for a long time ago, but I never play with Ad Nauseam Tendrils, I'm thinking star play with that deck, but I don't no if is a good idea because a lot of people at this moment play blue decks!!

I rather play against Ux decks instead of aggro. I have at least twice as much fun when winning through multiple counters than just goldfishing against aggro. Learn how to play combo properly and you'll see that good players still have awesome game against the field.

[Namida]

I rather play against Ux decks instead of aggro. I have at least twice as much fun when winning through multiple counters than just goldfishing against aggro. Learn how to play combo properly and you'll see that good players still have awesome game against the field.

I agree with you, but the issue is becoming a good player, haha.

[lorddotm]

I rather play against Ux decks instead of aggro. I have at least twice as much fun when winning through multiple counters than just goldfishing against aggro. Learn how to play combo properly and you'll see that good players still have awesome game against the field.

You are definitely wrong, much more fun to kill people when they are defenseless.

[Soggy_oggy]

You are definitely wrong, much more fun to kill people when they are defenseless.

I agree, every time I've had a "win and you're in top 8" scenario I always get paired against a X/U deck and never an aggro deck. Call me an asshole but for once I would rather win using less of my brain power and save myself the headache before top 8.

[Namida]

So a list similar to the one that was in the Top 8 of SCG Open Denver 4-0'ed a Daily Event yesterday. The maindeck was identical, card for card, with 14 lands, and 4 Gitaxian Probes. The only difference was -1 Island, +1 Tropical Island for Xantid Swarms in the sideboard.

Are there any merits to exploring a list like this any further? I don't understand the appeal here because cheating on both lands and business spells seems like a recipe for disaster--yet people are doing well with this kind of configuration.

[Final Ritual]

This is the list I've been testing. Probes have been very good to me in the Landstill and Merfolk matchups. The information you gain is worth the price of two life IMO. In most of my games I found that I would achieve threshold much faster when I was able to cast Probe on turn 1. Also you are able to make a better decisions on what to ship with the cantrip spells, such as holding onto or shipping the protection.

-4 Ponder
-4 Brainstorm
-3 Preordain
-3 Gitaxian Probe
-4 Durress
-3 Thoughtseize
-4 Dark Ritual
-4 Cabal Ritual
-4 Infernal Tutor
-1 Ad Nauseum
-1 Ill-Gotten Gains
-1 Tendrils of Agony

-4 Lions Eye Diamond
-4 Lotus Petal
-2 Chrome Mox